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Eternally Vernal, Chapter 5: Basal Basin.

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Gates stood in his kitchen and examined the devastation that surrounded him. What few items had populated the refrigerator were now gone. The dogs' feeder, activated until empty. With a growl against a window pane, Seth reported acquisition of his target and stood aside to let his lordship confirm: Warden had figured out how to open the door and ultimately go down to the building's rear yard and eat fruit from the landlord's tree. Unsatisfied with death-by-manager as the cause of Warden's demise after his pulling through a triple explosion in a plasma-like state, Gates opened his door and ordered Seth to bring the sawsbuck back inside. Hearing his trainer's device's alert tone and assuming it to be Carlos sending a warning of his imminent arrival, Anthony quickly shod himself and staged a small kit. Rolling up Warden's medical report and about to stuff it into a pocket of his pack, he instead brought it across Warden's snout upon his re-entering the apartment behind Seth. “Bad buck! You know better: no stealing each other's food, no leaving without permission, and no getting anywhere near the landlord's landscaping. He probably counts those fruit. You might wind up stuffed, yet."

“I want food, Mentor" replied Warden, without any hint of remorse.

“So do I. So does Cyrus and Seth, but Somebody cleaned us out."

Warden angled his antlers toward the kitchen. “Then, I needed food. Now, I want food."

A familiar horn blast sounded outside. “I'll twist Vel's arm to buy us breakfast, and next time… hey! look at me, next time you ask, and you appreciate what you're allowed; got me?"

“I didn't want to ruin your sleep. I got up carefully so—"

“Do you understand?"

Warden's ears lowered, as did his gaze. “Yes, Mentor."

The horn sounded again. “Alright, let's roll." Gates recalled Cyrus into his ball, then Seth into his own. Third, Gates activated Warden's ball. Its scanning beam flashed, flickered, and scanned again. Then, it emitted a buzz and its button cap, which sprang forward and bounced off of Warden's nose. Turning the ball to look at it accusingly, “—the hell?" Gates asked rhetorically before re-clipping it. “You'll ride in the back." Warden backed up into the hallway and permitted his mentor's exit.

They came into view of the vehicle just as Velasquez hopped out of it, intending to beat on a door and speak in elevated tones. “About time. You had all morn—is that the little pink cutlet you brought home from the Allylidenes?"

Shimmering with a spell's effect, Warden crossed the lawn like a flash and bounded into the truck's bed, rocking it sharply as its left wall caught the sawsbuck and all of his momentum. The truck's suspension only barely passed the test.

Beneath morning sunlight, with eyes rubbed clear Gates noticed that the places where Warden was wounded in the cave before treatment were now clearly marked by pink fur patches amongst a field of sawsbuck brown. “It's what I made of him, sorta. By the way, my services aren't cheap. You owe us breakfast for the short notice."

Carlos turned his truck's key. It immediately roared to life. “Yeah, it figures, you being you."

“You calling me a bum?"

“I'm calling you irresponsible. This ain't the first time you've skipped a step."

Gates glanced to the right at the passing buildings. “What are we hunting?"

“Dunno. The want ad was text only. No name or address until after I agreed to the job with some sort of agent, either, so our employer is dodging publicity. I was promised a photo this morning, but it hasn't showed up on my T.D. yet."

“Now who's skipping steps?"

“It doesn't matter when I'm taking the job no matter what it is."

Gates forced a sarcastic laugh. “Careful. Keep talking like that and I'll get suspicious that I'm not the only poacher in this truck with cash flow troubles."

“Name me a poacher who doesn't," retorted Carlos.

Anthony did have to think about it for a moment. “Hunter Hague. He's been bagging legendary species samples for Old Man Well for what, fifteen years now? Something like that. If he ever retires, he's probably going to buy one of those little bite-size islands north-east of Hollingsmoth and stock it with a private menagerie of leftover legendaries that had the wrong natures and chase them around for fun."

Carlos shook his head. “Knowing how rough he is in trapping them, they would be chasing him around to get revenge. Nah, he's poor like us, too, except it's because he can't resist Tartaroyal's Ivory Avenue."

“Really? Compulsive risk-taker, in the wilds and in the casinos?"

“So I've heard."

Warden stood tall in the bed, drawing a few glances from morning exercisers. Feeling the wind blow through his flowered antlers, he thirsted to go faster. Alas, the vehicle slowed for a traffic signal.

---

With hair a tint of powder blue and horns the color of a soon to set sun, a young ralts stood upon a platform formed of four gray talons while another set fussed in an effort to tie a knot in a small scarf. “I have cold feet," he projected to the articuno that lay on her back beneath him.

She folded one wing across her front to bring a small electronic device clipped to said wing near her beak. “That's to be expected. Today's your big day!" A moment later, the device emitted a synthetic voice, crude and masculine: “You're normally expecting. This daytime is huge!" Ivana grumbled a complaint that the device neither detected nor attempted to translate.

“I don't know what that means," the ralts replied, hopping from one foot on one talon to the other on another. “You're making my feet cold."

Realizing that her self-control was slipping against her frustration with the accessory, she squawked, apologized, and with a kick of her leg, flipped the ralts in the air to land on her belly feathers. Like a small snowbank, they made for a soft but chilly landing. After she trapped him against her under her right wing and recovered a standing stance, he realized this would be the last time that he would experience this, and that it would be missed. Ivana deposited him on her large cushion of a nest and drew near a blanket. “It's a good thing you can't handle my cold. I might try to keep you under my wing forever."

He found the blanket to be more comfortable but less comforting. “I think that would be okay if I can't go home."

“You are going home, my little snowball." The translator struggled: “Let's journey to discover family with our tiny accumulation of frozen water." Ivana grumbled again.

“No," the ralts complained, “what you imagined as where I'm going isn't home."

Ivana squatted down and fluffed her feathers. “It will be." Ivana prepared a grumble, but the translator got that one right.

Unable to compose what he meant as a telepathic message, the ralts transmitted a moving picture that was worth more than one thousand words. Once he let her clear her mind, Ivana cooed gently and lifted his hung head with an encouraging touch of an extended feather tip. “I don't need to be a Psychic-type to know what they were thinking, your mother especially. It wasn't your fault that you couldn't connect with her mind; she shut you out because she didn't want you to get to know her and get to miss her too much when you changed hands." His head faced downward again, letting the feather press against his face and align with his ventral horn. She repeated the under-chin gesture until he looked up at her again. “She maybe wouldn't have needed to be so distant if your colors were typical, but that's not your fault, either. What matters is that she's counting on you to be brave and to create a happy life with your master and family."

He tugged at his scarf. Ivana's failing attempt at creating a knot instantly unraveled. “I don't know who they are."

“I do!" Unwilling to fully rise, she waddled onto the padding and came to rest beside him. “Master's employee should have told you about them. Okay, the family is very well-off and politically important. They came to Master asking about a ralts because they've been threatened a few times and wanted a pokemon that they could trust to defend the family, their daughter in particular, and a male would let them choose to specialize your abilities for combat if needed. I've met them personally a dozen times—fancy dinners and fundraisers and stuff—and they're good people. You'll like them. And, you'll forg—" She cut herself off, but he sensed where she was going.

“I won't forget my real family!" He tried to squirm away, but entangled in the blanket, he stumbled in place. Instinctively preparing to teleport, he figuratively froze when she dropped her right wing across him.

“You won't forget them. But, you'll forget to worry about them. I'm going to get into trouble for telling you this, but… be glad I'm untouchable; Master told them that you were the best fit he has even though you're not, because of your color, because it makes you valuable, because he's giving the whole cheque to your mother's family. They bred their gardevoir because she has a decent pedigree and they're in bad financial shape; you were something of a lucky jackpot."

“Financial? Jackpot?" he asked, clumsily mimicking a couple of the words she had spoken, not understanding but a fraction of what she had been saying to him. Even in their common tongue, as the translator's garbled and confused efforts in the background suggested, concepts invented by humans were far too complicated for yet-untrained pokemon to interpret.

“You'll understand later. For now, know that they traded you away so they wouldn't lose their home, and know that once you go to your new home, your mother and her family won't be worried about losing their home or having no food for a long time. And you'll be alright, too. And, hopefully that will be enough."

He burrowed into her feathers, coldness be damned. “What if it's not?"

Using her beak, Ivana draped the scarf around his neck again. “Your bird mother will have to fly down, pick you up, and see if we can't do something about it."

A door intended for maintenance access opened. Simon Well stepped through, carrying a luxury ball in his left hand and a completely customized master ball in his right. He fought his way through Ivana's artificial mountain-forest habitat till he found her roosting space. “It's time for him to go."

Ivana whipped her head around to face him and chattered for her translation device. “Please, tie his scarf on for me," she begged; “I beseech, entangle his throat with my fabric vine," grumbled the device.

He tied it with one smooth motion, extracted the ralts and stood it beside the cushion, and trapped him within the luxury ball. His articuno whined with a high-pitched trill, to which he reminded her, “I told you that doing this would only hurt you."

She made another noise. “He needed me," said the machine.

“No. He would've been fine. You, too."

She rose and walked to him, rubbing her left side against his chest, bringing her head beneath his chin, warbling. “I'm still fine. I needed to be hurt a little," spake her device.

He ran his fingers through her feathers. “Is that translation accurate?"

“Yes. If I talk small, it's good. If I talk big, it's bad," replied the device for her.

Simon stepped back and brandished Ivana's ball. “We'll do another quality test tomorrow, accept its remaining flaws, and get the next revision made up."

“Pretty girl voice?" asked the synthetic male voice.

His thumb hovered over her ball's button. “The one you chose."

Ivana stepped back and hopped with glee as the ball's scanning beam detected her, converted her into an energy pattern, and encapsulated her within a sphere of machined gold and embedded shaped jewels. Simon held the ball near to his mouth. “I was watching you on the security feed. You did good with him. If you want to try again, I'll indulge you. I'll regret it, knowing you, but I'll indulge you." In his palm, the ball shook with a brief excitement.

---

Nearly sated as he finished his extra order, Warden picked up his last hash brown patty in his mouth and shoved his face through the slid-open gap of Velasquez's truck's rear window. Gates took it with a plain word of gratuity and ate a quarter of it.

Carlos's face crumpled a little. “You don't even care where that just was?"

Gates chuckled. “He's licked square inches of my face I didn't know I had, and under different circumstances I'd throw that tongue on the barbecue. Ain't worried about cooties. An ursaring might kill me someday, that asshole Francois might kill me someday, but germs from a sawsbuck? Not a chance."

A chime from Velasquez's trainer's device indicated a message. Glancing away from the roadway, he noticed upon it an image and a pokedex entry. “A Psychic-type?"

“Ha!" Gates guffawed as their vehicle passed an orange sign, “Packing two 'dooms? Not a chance in hell, unless I forget my tin-foil hat."

Carlos passed his T.D. across the bench seat to Anthony. Warden peeked inside for a look of his own, grunting when his antlers limited his intrusion. Anthony examined an image on its screen. “I dunno. Doesn't look like much. Import?"

“Probably. I wonder if that sets an upper limit on the bounty. We'll have to see how attached this client is. Hey, Venison, wanna clear the mirror?"

After a moment to catch Carlos's drift, Warden withdrew and settled down in the bed, letting the driver see directly behind himself again. Gates shifted in his uncomfortable seat, took a moment to try to find a nap-friendly position, and—failing that—withdrew Warden's report from his gear bag. Most of the information seemed technical beyond his education, but a few details stood out. One, that Warden's pattern was apparently still corrupt despite being “consistent." Another, that the ball's reconstruction process relied partially on replicating data to replace missing data; explaining pink fur where wounds previously were, and—“Additional teeth?" Gates muttered. “Hey, Warden. Let me see your mouth right quick."

Carlos smirked, “Cooties check?"

Anthony inspected his sawsbuck's dentition. “Yeah, four more than normal."

“That's a lot when it's cooties, and they'll be laying eggs, soon," Carlos added.

Gates signaled Warden to lay himself down again. “No cooties, but he's sure getting use out of those extra teeth."

“About that: Should I assume you'll be bumming meals off of me for the whole mission?"

“I dunno," Gates admitted. “That depends on whether or not I see something worth dressing. If I can lasso it, you'll eat for free."

“How charitable," Carlos sarcastically closed as his attention became focused on the road ahead. Something had happened beyond a nearing blockade.

An officer directed the truck to stop and pull aside. “I can't let you ahead; P–G Bridge Seven is out. There's a gyarados in that pond and it went on a rampage last night. It damaged the supports and collapsed the foot path. You'll have to go back and take the sea-side route detour while it's still low tide."

“Gary-does?" asked Warden having shoved his face through the sliding window again.

Carlos glanced in his rear-view mirror. “Big fish things with big bad attitudes."

The officer supplemented, “There are a few breeding populations of pikachu out here that can surf; usually they keep the gyarados in-line. But, it's tourist season so they all went south to the resort area to be cute, get free meals, and for some, choose trainers. Combine that with recent cuts to the ranger service, and now we have to somehow fund bridge repairs. Politics."

Warden withdrew himself and looked out to a nearby body of water. “Big fish. Old mentor taught me to hunt fish when berries were gone. I found a better way than his way." He leapt free of the truck, ignored the officer's warning of potential danger, and trotted to the shoreline. Pausing only to take a few deep breaths, he marched into and beneath its waters. Twitching slightly at the shock of cool water enveloping him, Warden tested his footing. Less buoyant than he remembered himself to be, the basin's slope gently descended, carpeted in green, a combination of salt- and fresh-water tolerant grass life and other bits of organic matter. Aside from nature's litter, the water itself was quite clear; not long ahead at the pond's deepest point lay the Gary-does. Rearing and kicking himself upward, he easily reached the surface, snorted a bit of the lake from his nose, and took another deep breath. A few fish, pokemon and otherwise, darted about as they noticed his approach, but none stopped to alert the beast at the bottom. Unable to vocalize his challenge, Warden instead nipped the meaty part of the Gary-does' tail fin. As it grumbled and quickly turned about with an expression of just-woke-up rage, Warden assumed that his challenge was accepted.

“You know, some local trappers tried to bring that thing in. Two wound up on the mend," cautioned the officer. “You might not—"

The surface of the water swirled. Gates leaned a bit in the passenger seat for a better look. “If you want to arrest me for not having control over my pokemon, go ahead. All I know is I can't keep him out of a fight he wants to fight, and if he hasn't learned not to bite off more than he can chew yet, he never will."

Sixteen fish-like pokemon burst from the pond in unison. Two seconds after, a gyarados breached its surface and cast an aimless hyper-beam downward. Behind the long wall of steam that attack created, it launched itself out of the pond and thrashed through the trees and bushes nearby, following up-stream the path of a small creek that fed into the pond.

Anthony chuckled upon noticing Carlos' and the officer's expressions. “I guess the gyarados didn't keep a pistol under his pillow. If you don't mind, I ought to go out there and see if my fawn survived."

The officer gave Gates a nod. “I'm curious, too."

At the shoreline, a pair of pink columns tore through the surface of the water, dragging a staggering buck behind them. Warden collapsed, exhausted, halfway out of the water, coughing first and gasping for air second. He tried to stand when he saw his mentor approaching, but failed to rise, bleating a complaint directed at himself.

“Need a hand?" Gates asked.

Warden groaned but assented. Gates knelt and grappled Warden, one arm around his neck and shoulders, the other beneath his rib-cage, and pulled upward to help his sawsbuck get his hooves beneath himself again.

“Forgive me, Mentor," Warden solemnly besought, “It fled before I could defeat it."

Gates patted Warden's right cheek with his left palm. “I think that'll be good enough."

The sawsbuck began walking forward, rather unsteadily with slow, deep, deliberate breaths. “But what will—" Warden stopped and glared at the truck's owner.

“Carlos," he self-identified.

“—eat for free?"

The officer scratched his head. “I'm not sure what I'm putting in the report for this, but I'm sure the residents of Palmitoy District appreciate your heroics, today."

Anthony lowered the truck's tailgate to help Warden climb in. “Half are tourists and half are blue bloods. I'm sure they couldn't care less."

Noticing another car that failed to notice the detour sign, the officer flagged it to stop and commented before approaching it. “West Palmitoy Beach, you're right, but I said District. Some folk actually live here every day of the year."

Carlos started his truck and brought it around to find his way back to the detour road. Gates sifted through the heap of gear beneath his legs and found a small purple potion. “Warden, window!" The sawsbuck snaked his snout inside. “Open up again. This stuff tastes terrible, but it's what we've got." With Warden's compliance, Gates removed the spray nozzle from the bottle he held, tilted Warden's head at as upward an angle as could be managed through the window, and poured its contents down his throat. Once its after-taste kicked in, Warden kicked out, withdrew from the window, and sneezed through it.

A purple-tinted mist coated the outside of the fixed portion of Carlos's rear window and portions of the windscreen and rear-view mirror.

“Thank you so much for not keeping all of your pokemon in their balls where they belong," Carlos chided while fishing for a napkin from the fast-food breakfast refuse to wipe down muddied surfaces. He created opaque streaks, and complained in a language that his grandmother understood.

Gates gathered the remaining napkins and tried to blot drier the patch of his shirt that got wet while dragging up Warden. “I guess I'll wear the change for the meeting and make this shirt my back-up. Warden, get plenty of air back there so you dry off. We're gonna save smelling like mud and algae for later."

---

“West Palmitoy Beach WELCOMES you!" read a huge sign standing proudly beside Route P–G Scenic. The truck's roof sounded like a timpani when Warden reared up and placed his hooves upon it for a better view of the shoreline to his right and at his left, an endless fence of hotels, resort businesses, tourist traps, and variety attractions. Soaking up summer sunlight as the truck dragged him through the sea-breeze, he bellowed with a primal delight. A couple of women walking along the route's sandy shoulder holla'd back, one blowing him a kiss. Turning left at one of the major intersections along the strip, a few miles and a bridge crossing brought them to the wealthy residential area. Following winding streets designed to confuse and mislead tourists seeking the homes of the stars, eventually Carlos parked, checked his map, and assumed that, “This must be the place."

Approaching a mechanically-operated gate and pressing a call button, Carlos waited for a response while Anthony examined Warden, whose antlers—now flush with green leaves—clashed with his oversize pink-furred patches. The gate opened some time after Carlos identified himself to a kricketune on the communication panel screen. They paced up the lawn and the door opened to welcome them as they neared the landing. Glancing inside to see a shining floor, glittering chandeliers, gaudy statuettes, and sweeping staircases, the poachers felt like they were stepping onto a movie set. Warden made no such connection but did appreciate the higher ceilings—a reprieve from his forced habit of always minding the tips of his antlers in Mentor's apartment.

---

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Warden's hooves clattered across marble tile; down a long hallway men walked single-file.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Tasteful in artwork, admit no denial; texturing walls that seemed straight for a mile.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

A carpeted path to a parlor so fine; a nearby window gave to Warden sunshine.

Swish-slosh. Swish-slosh. Swish-slosh. Swish-slosh.

Making her entrance, the Madame of the house; half-lidded gazes seeing each like a louse.

Snifter of brandy singing songs of crushed ice: typical breakfast to please Mistress Œufweiß.

“Hoping to impress by parading your beast?" she said to insult a buck lit from the east.

“If finding your cat means us searching at night," Gates hoped to assure, “he ensures we have sight."

“Lighting our way bright, since he's able to flash, he wrecks gyarados like they know only splash."

In his excuses, her interest was lacking; “I'll pay for tracking, not sending fish packing!"

“Now, put him away, and come hear what I know; I need Tizzy back, and in time for her show!"

Falling in her couch, it a well-practiced flop: Œufweiß's goblet spilt not even a drop—

She thrashed her left arm, her face livid with rage; “It's the neighbor's fault; that damn swine needs a cage!"

Attitude cocksure and libido quite big, no good would she say about Next-door's grumpig.

“Hearing his sorting, it makes my blood boil; flirting with Tizzy to slip her his coil!"

Red with emotion and by it distracted, she clarified quick; her comment, redacted.

“I'm sure that's his aim: if I only had proof. What else could be planned by a creature uncouth?"

Unwilling to talk about animal need, or guessing at how sundry pokemon breed,

False-clearing his throat, Carlos made her pay heed; “Is that all you've got working as our first lead?"

“If Tizzy's not there, then it's all up to you; to bring her back home, as that IS what you do."

She called her butler, and said, “Take them away; inside my parlour, they are earning no pay."

Straight to the foyer the two trackers were sent; alone as it were, “—wonder where Warden went."

From a hid bathroom, they then heard a great sneeze; so mighty it was, they expected a breeze.

Warden rejoined them, with his antlers leaf-free; where gone green accents none were hoping to see.

Mistaking the scent first for fresh potpourri, Madame discovered when the booze bade her pee.

---

A tune familiar but unable to be placed heralded the arrival of a customized golf cart being driven by a grumpig up to the gate of the mansion beside that of Madame Œufweiß. Parking his ride, the pokemon removed his sunglasses and grunted at his guests to indicate that they had his rapt attention for exactly one moment.

“The lush next door lost her cat and thinks you're involved." Apparently Gates left his tact somewhere beneath the cushions of his couch. “Know anything about it? If you can't speak to us, my buck can translate." Warden tensed a little and took a prideful step forward.

The grumpig leaned back against the thin pillows that made comfortable his cart's seat, replaced his sunglasses, and evaluated his guests. Giving each a glance and a snort, he settled his gaze upon Warden and said something. Warden listened intently, replied with a short comment, listened again, and reported to his master. “He said that he noticed her being gone and now he is worried. He has been ordered not to leave home or admit humans. He wants to show me something, inside."

Velasquez interrupted immediately. “Not alone. Will he show you and our three houndooms?"

The swine snorted and scoffed and drove away.

Gates swung his head to his right. “Good negotiating, Carlos. Sending one 'doom would've been enough protection. Three, you make it sound like we're planning to feed our pokemon half their own weight in bacon each."

Warden sniffed at the ground near the gate, a little to the north, the south, and then he stepped back and examined the gate and wall before himself.

Carlos shook his head. “Grumpigs are good at mind games. After what you said about Warden kicking your dogs' asses, how do you know that porker can't get in his head, have him take out one 'doom, and then what? Maybe he's got a dungeon in there; maybe his master's a black market pirate. You don't get the kind of dinero you need to live in this neighborhood by being a good guy. Add to that…" He trailed off, distracted by seeing Warden charge at and leap over the fence. Gates turned in time to watch Warden's tail bounding across the lawn.

“So much for sending him with a security detail." Gates released his dogs. “Run your noses around this property. You're looking for anything suggesting a spoiled cat-like pokemon. The lady said she's always doing shows so if you hit on anything for dressing up, like perfume, that's probably a lead. Got it?"

Cyrus and Seth barked their affirmations and each took a different direction along the property's perimeter. With little to do while awaiting their reports or Warden's return, Gates and Velasquez returned to the truck and took an early siesta, much to the former's delight and the latter's annoyance. Awakened by Cyrus barking, their siesta ended a good two hours after it began. This surprised Velasquez as he expected neither such a long delay nor to doze for so long. This disappointed Gates, whose mind was thinking only in terms of recovering a sleep debt. The dogs had returned some time prior and simply lounged in the shadows upon the sidewalk near the truck upon Seth's insistence. Cyrus wanted to report dutifully as always, but Seth felt that Warden's linguistic enhancement was worth exploiting, or at least, exploring. Thus, it was Warden's bounding leap from within to without the neighbor's property that led to all members of the team joining for conference. The dogs reported to the buck their findings, the buck reported to the men their findings, the men reported to their pokemon their complaints.

Gates asked of his sawsbuck, “What the hell were you doing in there all this time, Warden?" having just noticed in serial the shift of shadows and the clock on the truck's dashboard.

“Grumpig showed me things. His television is bigger and more interesting than yours."

“That's it? You watched T.V. for two hours?"

“Not all the time. He taught me some techniques."

“Like what?"

“They're not for you unless you ask."

“And what does that mean?"

Carlos interjected. “Hey, the time is spent. Since the dogs said they only found days-old traces here but got something suspicious a few blocks down, let's go find a cat and get paid, okay? There's plenty of ride back home for arguing."

With a sharp gesture of his chin, Gates commanded Warden to leap into the truck bed and recalled his dogs. Ready to ride, the vehicle roared to life—with an enthusiasm that made Gates feel a pang of jealousy, remembering his dead sled—and reversing direction, down the block they coasted to find a good place to loose their tracking hounds once more and learn which way the path would lead.

---

Kit tossed her little cap with a checkerboard pattern and slots cut out for her ears into a barrel that contained a lively fire.

“How does it feel?" asked a mienshao sitting on the rusted hood of a car that had sat there, abandoned, for a good ten years.

“Liberating. Terrible." An urge to reach in and save it gripped her, but so did a desire not to be burned by natural fire. Anth—as she had no master to spray her wound, to wrap it, to make it feel better. As the flames consumed the hat, instinct reminded her of other options that should have been plain and first to mind. Resisting them, she distracted herself and turned her back against her recent past. “Now, what's the next step?"

“Connect your mind with mine, cover your right eye, and look at the sun."

Kit complied, briefly, before recoiling and losing their connection. Stumbling a bit, she complained telepathically, “Okay, what was that for, other than making me blind in my left eye for a little while?" Turning again toward Magdalene, she saw with her right that her drinking partner still sat, but now with her mouth agape, her left eye sparkling in the sunlight with a hint of extra moisture.

When the weasel recovered from her moment, she said, “The next step is, you decide what you want to do. I decided to live here with the other outcasts. It hurts less, but it hurts more."

Kit teleported near the car and leaned against it. “I thought we were going to travel the world."

The mienshao turned her face completely to her left. “I thought we were drunk enough not to remember that part," she muttered as though ashamed.

“I'm committed," Kit asserted, “I let him go and my job just went up in flames for the sake of your plan."

“Okay. I guess I could go. Just remember, we never set foot in Carthamus."

Kit stepped away from the ruin and Magdalene slipped off of its hood. “Are you sure? I've heard it's a great place for a single pokemon to find a trainer that won't—"

---

Warden snorted when Carlos asked as a question a reiteration of the sawsbuck's statement, “Two paths." He lifted his left fore-hoof, “One," and nodded toward one bank of the river; then he turned and lifted his right fore-hoof, “Two," and nodded the other way. Seth, distantly, barked and snarled something. “Three," Warden said as errata to his previous statement.

Anthony rubbed his face. “Three paths, all about the same condition, too, right?" He glanced at Cyrus, who barked in affirmation. “And we're supposed to be in a hurry. Okay, we split up. I'll take Seth one way; Carlos, you take Cyrus the other direction; and we'll send Warden and Ruby along the third since it's all weeds and bushes—natural habitat for him and she can burn whatever gets in her way."

Carlos complained, “Slow down, why are you sticking me with your dog?"

“This way, each pair has somebody who can talk if we run into anybody, each group has a 'doom, and having seen my three together I can't be sure any given pair of them will come back both alive—there's too much attitude in 'em."

Warden raised his head and gave his antlers a rapid shake. “Too much?" He bleated dismissively. “I can defeat them both and come back them alive no matter how hard they try to come back otherwise."

Gates shot Velasquez a glance above a smirk. “See what I mean?"

“Fine," Carlos consented and removed his ball belt to clasp it loosely around Warden's neck. “Guard her with your life, or Gates is going to be supplying my venison for the rest of the season; ¿comprendes?"

Warden scoffed. “I will help him supply your venison for all seasons." He said something to Ruby and together they pursued a path.

Carlos waited until they vanished into foliage to add, “Your deer's completely loco—and, you know this."

“All too well. That's gotta be why he picked me. Alright, check in on the hours; do you want upstream or down?" Velasquez made his choice, and then defended it by winning a game of rock-paper-scissors. The men took their dogs and their separate paths. After both had gone away for a reasonable distance, Warden poked his neck out of the bushes into which he had led Ruby a few minutes before and took note of which man went which way.

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