Miranda
Winter had finally arrived in Sinnoh, with the silent crash of a foot and a half of snow. Beni and I were ensconced in a disused ski lodge, watching the flakes swirl down, drinking hot chocolate... well, I was, anyway. Her lack of hands made the holding of cups difficult, and she wasn't especially fond of chocolate, anyway. Venus and Cammy were playing a game of shogi, though neither was especially good at it. They were tied, this week, with precisely five games each, and their current game showed a complete disregard for casualties which would have made a veteran commander blanch. Lorelei was still inside her pokeball, having shown a marked disinclination to come out during the winter.
I heard a rattling noise and a loud thud, and sighed. Apparently, the score was now 6-5, and judging from the sound of things, Cammy had won.
"Break it up, you two," I called over my shoulder, still watching the snow. The routine was well-established by this point; they'd squabble until I'd interrupt, and then whoever had lost would demand a rematch. They'd been doing this for three weeks, ever since we'd first gotten stuck here, and they'd found the old board in a closet in one of the closed rooms.
I suppose, instead of giving you drips of the backstory, I ought to be a responsible narrator and let you have it all at once.
My name is Zachary Winton-Kincaid. Zach, to my friends. My partner, an Arcanine named Beni, and I used to be Pokemon Rangers, until a certain event convinced me I lacked the flair for it. Instead, we, with my teammates Cammy the Lucario, Venus the Mawile, and Lorelei the Milotic, are competing to make ourselves famous as the best Coordinator/Pokemon team in the world. Or rather, we were, until about eight months ago. That was when a Gardevoir came to warn me about impending doom to our world, and I ignored her. Because of that, the entire town of Celestic was completely wiped from the face of the earth. Heck of a way to get a guy's attention.
So I assure you, I was fully paying attention when, about a week after that, Arceus, creator of all Pokemon existence, recruited me as his direct representative. See, it turned out that Arceus had an enemy, and that enemy was the one who'd destroyed Celestic. There are two types of pokémon in the world: immortals, and normals. Normals are the sort we see all the time. Immortals are the ones we only hear about in legend. They'd been having a sort of off-again on-again war amongst themselves for a couple of centuries, and the end of it was drawing close. Darkrai led a faction that wanted to destroy all of humanity and the pokémon allied with them so that pokémon could begin anew, free from the "corrupting" influences of mankind. Arceus disagreed, and wished to let us grow up together and come to an understanding by working together. Neither one of them could beat the other: Arceus was more powerful, but Darkrai's supporters were more numerous. Both started trying to recruit the more neutral Immortals, and a majority of those finally agreed to support whichever side could present the most compelling case. There are enough of them that whichever side they supported was guaranteed to win, and so Darkrai and Arceus began to collect representatives to make their case, since the one condition of the Immortals was that humans be amply represented in the "trial" as well.
That's the story, folks, and I'm sticking to it. Yours truly is one of humanity's last hopes. So you might ask why I'm sitting drinking hot chocolate in the middle of a blizzard, two months away from the big day. I asked myself that several times over the course of the last three weeks, and never really figured it out. All I knew was, I had the sudden feeling that I had to be here, and so here I was. We got to the shelter of the lodge just as the snow began to fall really heavily, and by some strange fortune, though nobody seemed to live here anymore, the place was well-supplied and had been unlocked. Ever since, we'd been waiting out the storm, which seemed to have no inclination to stop. I felt as though something were about to happen, and that feeling grew stronger daily.
This morning-at least, the clock claimed it was morning, though we hadn't seen the sun in weeks-that feeling was so strong I had been unable to even eat from the tension. The others had noticed, and were being fairly restrained; even Cammy and Venus's squabble a few moments ago had been fairly muted compared to their usual.
*Zach?* Beni broke into my thoughts tentatively. I turned and raised an eyebrow at her. *You've been quiet for a while. And your mug's empty,* she added as I raised it to take a sip.
"Oh." I sighed. "It's the waiting, Beni. While we're stuck here, we're not doing anything really useful."
*We've trained for months,* Beni pointed out. *A short break won't kill us.*
"This is going beyond just a short break," I riposted. I sighed again. "I just wish I knew why I wanted to be here in the first place."
As if in answer to my words, the snow suddenly stopped falling. Just for an instant, but long enough to see a figure sprawled on the snow not fifteen yards from the window.
Without words, Beni brought me my coat from the bedroom, barking instructions at Cammy and Venus to get some hot blankets ready, while I pulled on my boots, gloves, and a warm hat. In total, the process took less than a minute, a testament to the expertise of my teachers at the Ranger Academy.
I had marked the location of the person, and it took only a short time to find him, despite the wind and snow. I lifted his body onto my shoulders, and was about to walk away, when a muffled voice brought my attention back to the ground. A Happiny, frozen nearly blue, was looking tearfully up at me. With one hand, I reached down and snagged the cold and tiny pokémon. Beni led the way back into the cabin where an anxious-looking Cammy held a blanket out to me. I laid my burdens down on the sofa.
"Venus, take the Happiny and get it into a warm bath," I ordered as the Mawile entered the room. She nodded briskly and picked up the poor thing with both arms. It clearly took effort, but she managed to stagger out of the room with it, and I heard water running from the sink as she filled it. I turned my attention back to the human on the sofa. With Venus's help, we stripped the outer clothes from our patient and wrapped him up in a warm blanket next to the fire, rubbing his hands and feet briskly to keep frostbite from setting in.
It was only after we'd finished that I realized that "he" was actually a "she."
* * *
Her name, it turned out, was Miranda. That was the first thing we found, working our way through the scattered belongings a search of her coat and bag had revealed. A small, neatly typed card gave her name, a list of medications she was allergic to, and proclaimed her a student of the Pokemon Career Academy, enrolled in the medical department. A Pokemon nurse-in-training, essentially. Rangers frequently worked with the Academy in general and the nursing program in specific, giving them real field data and scenarios to use in their classes to help prepare their students as much as possible. Still, I'd never heard of a student who wasn't named Joy. More, too, she didn't even look like a Nurse Joy. Her hair was mousey brown, she had light brown skin, and she wore glasses.
She woke up only an hour after we brought her inside. Happiny had thawed nicely and was happily dancing on the bedside table waiting for her-Venus claimed that Happiny was female, and I felt no urge to check-trainer to awaken. When she did so, her first, nearly unconscious movement was to sweep Happiny into her arms and hug her close. Happiny's face was classic; I didn't know a pokémon could simultaneously look so happy and so frustrated at the same time. Her second movement, almost equally automatic, was to grope in front of her. Recognizing the motions, I reached out and handed her glasses to her.
"Thank you," her soft voice murmured. Then she sat up, rather suddenly, and looked around. "Where am I?" she asked in a rather different voice.
"Safe, warm, and amongst friends-or at least not enemies," I assured her. "As to the specifics, you're currently sitting on a sofa in front of a fire, inside a small lodge, just off Route 119, in the Sinnoh Region." I raised an eyebrow. "Would you like the planet, solar system, and galactic region as well, or does that nail it down sufficiently for you?"
*Give her a break, Zach,* Beni chided. *We rescued you from outside,* she explained to the startled Miranda.
"Did that... Arcanine... just speak?" she asked. Her eyes rolled up and she fell back onto the sofa. Happiny narrowly avoided being smothered, and resumed dancing cheerfully on the table.
"Well," I said, giving Beni a wicked grin, "I'm so glad I let you handle that."
Beni looked somewhat abashed, and I hugged her close to reassure her. Then I looked down at our unconscious patient. "I suppose," I said with a frown, "I best get started on dinner. It looks like we'll have guests for a while."
Cammy watched over Miranda and her Happiny while I pulled out a couple large cans of soup. Fortunately for my distinctly lacking culinary skills, they had easy instructions and required nothing more sophisticated than warming in a pot.
"That smells good," someone observed from behind me. Of course, these simple things are easier when deities don't drop in to visit.
"Morning, Arceus," I sighed. He'd started popping in from time to time to see how I was doing, and lately, those visits had become increasingly frequent. Cammy had nearly gone airborne when he appeared in front of her for the first time. Now, though, my team was fairly used to his appearances. Beni didn't even look up from the magazine she and Venus were reading, though Venus stared at him for a moment.
"Good morning, Zach," the white-haired boy responded. "Mind if I stay for lunch?"
"Would it matter?"
"Not particularly, no," Arceus admitted.
"In that case, help yourself."
He sat down at the kitchen table, the mundane surroundings contrasting with his unearthly appearance. Arceus was the only pokémon I'd ever met who was able to take a human form. In fact, I didn't know what his real form looked like; I just assumed he had one.
"I do," Arceus confirmed.
"Would you stop that?" I growled, dipping a ladle into the soup and pouring it into a bowl. Arceus reached out his hands and I shook my head. "This is for the girl in the next room, the half-frozen one," I informed him. "Smart-mouthed, unexpected, god-like guests can get their own."
Arceus made a moue of distaste. "If I must," he said with a world-weary sigh.
Miranda gulped down the food without really waking up. After watching her for a moment to make sure she was truly still asleep, I left her to the care of Cammy and returned to the kitchen to serve the rest of us. Arceus was still apparently waiting patiently, not a bowl in sight, but I handed him a napkin as I walked past.
"You missed some," I said, tapping my cheek. He hurried dabbed at the spot I'd indicated, and then paused.
"That's not fair," he muttered.
After serving Cammy and the Happiny in the other room, and after making sure Beni and Venus had been offered soup, I sat down with my own bowl and examined my patron carefully. Coupled with his convenient timing, a few things about my unexpected guest lying asleep on the sofa started falling into place.
"So, now that I've rescued the girl you wanted me here to rescue," I began with a carefully neutral tone, "What do you want me to do now?"
Arceus pulled out a stopwatch and clicked it. "Five minutes, forty three seconds," he declared triumphantly. "Celebi owes me ten dollars."
"Cute." I grimaced.
"And in answer to your question..." Arceus shrugged. "Nothing, in particular, that you haven't done already. She may turn out to be useful, and she may not, but in either case, it seemed foolish to let her die for no reason."
"Fair enough." I began to eat, and silence reigned for several minutes, until I finished my lunch.
"I came to tell you something," Arceus said when I was done. His face was unusually serious. "The place for the meeting has been chosen. It is not normally a place humans can reach, but if you are at Sky Pillar, in the Hoenn region, on January 3, when the sun sets, you will be transported to the meeting site."
I pulled out a notebook and jotted the instructions down. "Got it," I said, and suddenly realized that Arceus was giving me a strange look. "What?"
"You just... accepted that? Didn't even ask or make some sarcastic comment?"
"Well," I admitted, "The thought crossed my mind, but..." I grinned. "Figured if it was important enough for you to come tell me in person, it was important enough for me just to accept on faith."
"Thanks," Arceus said with a sigh of relief. "In that case... this is the last time you'll see me until then, Zach. Do you have any last questions before I leave?"
"Just one," I replied. "Do I get a per diem for this meeting or am I paid a flat rate?"
"There's the Zach we know and love," Arceus laughed. "I'll see you in two months." And with that, he was gone. No smoke, no lights, no fanfare... just, vanished. I shrugged and stood to get another bowl of soup.
"Better be a per diem," I muttered to the empty room.
* * *
Miranda grew stronger as the week progressed. On the second day after I'd rescued her, she'd recovered enough to insist upon a shower, shrugging aside Cammy's offer-innocent, for the dirty minded amongst you-of assistance. Her Happiny, who delighted in the name Francisca, was thrilled, as she was with everything, at her trainer's recovery. We finally sat down to dinner together at the table about five days after she had first come fully awake.
"Now that you're feeling better," I told her as we finished, "Why don't you tell us what brings you to this godforsaken place?"
"I'm training," Miranda explained, indicating Happiny. Our confusion must have shown on our faces, because she elaborated. "Most nurses have only one pokémon, a Chansey, right?" She waited for our nods before continuing. "Well, I'm not training to become a nurse at a Pokemon Center. I want to travel around and help pokémon everywhere, not just in one spot. To do that, I need to have a team of pokémon to help me..." She looked down at her plate, a little depressed. "I haven't caught any, yet, besides Happiny," she admitted quietly.
"No problem!" Cammy declared. "You can come with us!"
*Cammy!* Beni rebuked her.
"What?" Cammy asked in an injured tone. "She needs help, right? And we're not doing anything special..."
*Have you forgotten about Arceus already?* Beni asked on a private mental channel. She had drawn me into the conversation as well, I expect just so that I could keep up with the conversation.
"Oh. Right." Cammy looked down at her plate as well, and I knew she was hiding an embarrassed blush. I shrugged, and picked up my fork again.
"It's not a problem," I admitted. "We've got business in Hoenn in two months, but if you want to tag along until then..." I shrugged, and smiled at my embarrassed Lucario, "We're really not doing anything special until we leave for Hoenn."
"Really?" Miranda asked, looking suddenly curious. "What are you supposed to do in Hoenn?"
"Well, I can't really say..." I began, and then I shrugged. "Not like it matters, though. I'm going to the Sky Pillar."
"The Sky Pillar? Isn't that sort of dangerous?"
I exchanged glances with Beni, and we burst out laughing at the exact same moment.
"Just a bit," I admitted, "but we can handle it. Coordinator pokémon are tough, didn't you know?" Actually, on a one-for-one scale, the average Coordinator is easily more expert than a trainer, and his pokémon usually reflect that expertise. There are always exceptions, of course, and being a Coordinator doesn't guarantee that you'll be a good trainer, but it's far more likely than not. And, modesty aside, I'm an expert Coordinator, and Beni was no slouch as a pokémon. "You're welcome to come along, if you like," I added, prompted by some strange impulse. Though, I thought to myself darkly, I suspected that Someone was attempting to make a point. It wasn't an offer I'd have made in my right mind.
Miranda actually seemed to consider it for several minutes. I had known her just long enough to realize that she rarely spoke without considering all aspects of what she planned to say.
"That would be great," she said. "I seem to be getting into trouble left and right, trying to find the right pokémon. It looked so easy, back at school..."
"Lots of things do." I frowned as I looked outside. "Assuming the weather clears up by then, we'll leave at the end of the week."
"I'm looking forward to it," Miranda promised.
[To Be Continued.]
Author's Note:
Yes, this is a really short chapter, with not overmuch in it. I just wanted to get myself back to writing Coordination before I lost my motivation entirely. The next chapter will be larger, more exciting, and more significant, I promise. In the meantime, however, be satisfied with the fact that I actually WILL write more chapters; it was even odds a month ago.
I heard a rattling noise and a loud thud, and sighed. Apparently, the score was now 6-5, and judging from the sound of things, Cammy had won.
"Break it up, you two," I called over my shoulder, still watching the snow. The routine was well-established by this point; they'd squabble until I'd interrupt, and then whoever had lost would demand a rematch. They'd been doing this for three weeks, ever since we'd first gotten stuck here, and they'd found the old board in a closet in one of the closed rooms.
I suppose, instead of giving you drips of the backstory, I ought to be a responsible narrator and let you have it all at once.
My name is Zachary Winton-Kincaid. Zach, to my friends. My partner, an Arcanine named Beni, and I used to be Pokemon Rangers, until a certain event convinced me I lacked the flair for it. Instead, we, with my teammates Cammy the Lucario, Venus the Mawile, and Lorelei the Milotic, are competing to make ourselves famous as the best Coordinator/Pokemon team in the world. Or rather, we were, until about eight months ago. That was when a Gardevoir came to warn me about impending doom to our world, and I ignored her. Because of that, the entire town of Celestic was completely wiped from the face of the earth. Heck of a way to get a guy's attention.
So I assure you, I was fully paying attention when, about a week after that, Arceus, creator of all Pokemon existence, recruited me as his direct representative. See, it turned out that Arceus had an enemy, and that enemy was the one who'd destroyed Celestic. There are two types of pokémon in the world: immortals, and normals. Normals are the sort we see all the time. Immortals are the ones we only hear about in legend. They'd been having a sort of off-again on-again war amongst themselves for a couple of centuries, and the end of it was drawing close. Darkrai led a faction that wanted to destroy all of humanity and the pokémon allied with them so that pokémon could begin anew, free from the "corrupting" influences of mankind. Arceus disagreed, and wished to let us grow up together and come to an understanding by working together. Neither one of them could beat the other: Arceus was more powerful, but Darkrai's supporters were more numerous. Both started trying to recruit the more neutral Immortals, and a majority of those finally agreed to support whichever side could present the most compelling case. There are enough of them that whichever side they supported was guaranteed to win, and so Darkrai and Arceus began to collect representatives to make their case, since the one condition of the Immortals was that humans be amply represented in the "trial" as well.
That's the story, folks, and I'm sticking to it. Yours truly is one of humanity's last hopes. So you might ask why I'm sitting drinking hot chocolate in the middle of a blizzard, two months away from the big day. I asked myself that several times over the course of the last three weeks, and never really figured it out. All I knew was, I had the sudden feeling that I had to be here, and so here I was. We got to the shelter of the lodge just as the snow began to fall really heavily, and by some strange fortune, though nobody seemed to live here anymore, the place was well-supplied and had been unlocked. Ever since, we'd been waiting out the storm, which seemed to have no inclination to stop. I felt as though something were about to happen, and that feeling grew stronger daily.
This morning-at least, the clock claimed it was morning, though we hadn't seen the sun in weeks-that feeling was so strong I had been unable to even eat from the tension. The others had noticed, and were being fairly restrained; even Cammy and Venus's squabble a few moments ago had been fairly muted compared to their usual.
*Zach?* Beni broke into my thoughts tentatively. I turned and raised an eyebrow at her. *You've been quiet for a while. And your mug's empty,* she added as I raised it to take a sip.
"Oh." I sighed. "It's the waiting, Beni. While we're stuck here, we're not doing anything really useful."
*We've trained for months,* Beni pointed out. *A short break won't kill us.*
"This is going beyond just a short break," I riposted. I sighed again. "I just wish I knew why I wanted to be here in the first place."
As if in answer to my words, the snow suddenly stopped falling. Just for an instant, but long enough to see a figure sprawled on the snow not fifteen yards from the window.
Without words, Beni brought me my coat from the bedroom, barking instructions at Cammy and Venus to get some hot blankets ready, while I pulled on my boots, gloves, and a warm hat. In total, the process took less than a minute, a testament to the expertise of my teachers at the Ranger Academy.
I had marked the location of the person, and it took only a short time to find him, despite the wind and snow. I lifted his body onto my shoulders, and was about to walk away, when a muffled voice brought my attention back to the ground. A Happiny, frozen nearly blue, was looking tearfully up at me. With one hand, I reached down and snagged the cold and tiny pokémon. Beni led the way back into the cabin where an anxious-looking Cammy held a blanket out to me. I laid my burdens down on the sofa.
"Venus, take the Happiny and get it into a warm bath," I ordered as the Mawile entered the room. She nodded briskly and picked up the poor thing with both arms. It clearly took effort, but she managed to stagger out of the room with it, and I heard water running from the sink as she filled it. I turned my attention back to the human on the sofa. With Venus's help, we stripped the outer clothes from our patient and wrapped him up in a warm blanket next to the fire, rubbing his hands and feet briskly to keep frostbite from setting in.
It was only after we'd finished that I realized that "he" was actually a "she."
* * *
Her name, it turned out, was Miranda. That was the first thing we found, working our way through the scattered belongings a search of her coat and bag had revealed. A small, neatly typed card gave her name, a list of medications she was allergic to, and proclaimed her a student of the Pokemon Career Academy, enrolled in the medical department. A Pokemon nurse-in-training, essentially. Rangers frequently worked with the Academy in general and the nursing program in specific, giving them real field data and scenarios to use in their classes to help prepare their students as much as possible. Still, I'd never heard of a student who wasn't named Joy. More, too, she didn't even look like a Nurse Joy. Her hair was mousey brown, she had light brown skin, and she wore glasses.
She woke up only an hour after we brought her inside. Happiny had thawed nicely and was happily dancing on the bedside table waiting for her-Venus claimed that Happiny was female, and I felt no urge to check-trainer to awaken. When she did so, her first, nearly unconscious movement was to sweep Happiny into her arms and hug her close. Happiny's face was classic; I didn't know a pokémon could simultaneously look so happy and so frustrated at the same time. Her second movement, almost equally automatic, was to grope in front of her. Recognizing the motions, I reached out and handed her glasses to her.
"Thank you," her soft voice murmured. Then she sat up, rather suddenly, and looked around. "Where am I?" she asked in a rather different voice.
"Safe, warm, and amongst friends-or at least not enemies," I assured her. "As to the specifics, you're currently sitting on a sofa in front of a fire, inside a small lodge, just off Route 119, in the Sinnoh Region." I raised an eyebrow. "Would you like the planet, solar system, and galactic region as well, or does that nail it down sufficiently for you?"
*Give her a break, Zach,* Beni chided. *We rescued you from outside,* she explained to the startled Miranda.
"Did that... Arcanine... just speak?" she asked. Her eyes rolled up and she fell back onto the sofa. Happiny narrowly avoided being smothered, and resumed dancing cheerfully on the table.
"Well," I said, giving Beni a wicked grin, "I'm so glad I let you handle that."
Beni looked somewhat abashed, and I hugged her close to reassure her. Then I looked down at our unconscious patient. "I suppose," I said with a frown, "I best get started on dinner. It looks like we'll have guests for a while."
Cammy watched over Miranda and her Happiny while I pulled out a couple large cans of soup. Fortunately for my distinctly lacking culinary skills, they had easy instructions and required nothing more sophisticated than warming in a pot.
"That smells good," someone observed from behind me. Of course, these simple things are easier when deities don't drop in to visit.
"Morning, Arceus," I sighed. He'd started popping in from time to time to see how I was doing, and lately, those visits had become increasingly frequent. Cammy had nearly gone airborne when he appeared in front of her for the first time. Now, though, my team was fairly used to his appearances. Beni didn't even look up from the magazine she and Venus were reading, though Venus stared at him for a moment.
"Good morning, Zach," the white-haired boy responded. "Mind if I stay for lunch?"
"Would it matter?"
"Not particularly, no," Arceus admitted.
"In that case, help yourself."
He sat down at the kitchen table, the mundane surroundings contrasting with his unearthly appearance. Arceus was the only pokémon I'd ever met who was able to take a human form. In fact, I didn't know what his real form looked like; I just assumed he had one.
"I do," Arceus confirmed.
"Would you stop that?" I growled, dipping a ladle into the soup and pouring it into a bowl. Arceus reached out his hands and I shook my head. "This is for the girl in the next room, the half-frozen one," I informed him. "Smart-mouthed, unexpected, god-like guests can get their own."
Arceus made a moue of distaste. "If I must," he said with a world-weary sigh.
Miranda gulped down the food without really waking up. After watching her for a moment to make sure she was truly still asleep, I left her to the care of Cammy and returned to the kitchen to serve the rest of us. Arceus was still apparently waiting patiently, not a bowl in sight, but I handed him a napkin as I walked past.
"You missed some," I said, tapping my cheek. He hurried dabbed at the spot I'd indicated, and then paused.
"That's not fair," he muttered.
After serving Cammy and the Happiny in the other room, and after making sure Beni and Venus had been offered soup, I sat down with my own bowl and examined my patron carefully. Coupled with his convenient timing, a few things about my unexpected guest lying asleep on the sofa started falling into place.
"So, now that I've rescued the girl you wanted me here to rescue," I began with a carefully neutral tone, "What do you want me to do now?"
Arceus pulled out a stopwatch and clicked it. "Five minutes, forty three seconds," he declared triumphantly. "Celebi owes me ten dollars."
"Cute." I grimaced.
"And in answer to your question..." Arceus shrugged. "Nothing, in particular, that you haven't done already. She may turn out to be useful, and she may not, but in either case, it seemed foolish to let her die for no reason."
"Fair enough." I began to eat, and silence reigned for several minutes, until I finished my lunch.
"I came to tell you something," Arceus said when I was done. His face was unusually serious. "The place for the meeting has been chosen. It is not normally a place humans can reach, but if you are at Sky Pillar, in the Hoenn region, on January 3, when the sun sets, you will be transported to the meeting site."
I pulled out a notebook and jotted the instructions down. "Got it," I said, and suddenly realized that Arceus was giving me a strange look. "What?"
"You just... accepted that? Didn't even ask or make some sarcastic comment?"
"Well," I admitted, "The thought crossed my mind, but..." I grinned. "Figured if it was important enough for you to come tell me in person, it was important enough for me just to accept on faith."
"Thanks," Arceus said with a sigh of relief. "In that case... this is the last time you'll see me until then, Zach. Do you have any last questions before I leave?"
"Just one," I replied. "Do I get a per diem for this meeting or am I paid a flat rate?"
"There's the Zach we know and love," Arceus laughed. "I'll see you in two months." And with that, he was gone. No smoke, no lights, no fanfare... just, vanished. I shrugged and stood to get another bowl of soup.
"Better be a per diem," I muttered to the empty room.
* * *
Miranda grew stronger as the week progressed. On the second day after I'd rescued her, she'd recovered enough to insist upon a shower, shrugging aside Cammy's offer-innocent, for the dirty minded amongst you-of assistance. Her Happiny, who delighted in the name Francisca, was thrilled, as she was with everything, at her trainer's recovery. We finally sat down to dinner together at the table about five days after she had first come fully awake.
"Now that you're feeling better," I told her as we finished, "Why don't you tell us what brings you to this godforsaken place?"
"I'm training," Miranda explained, indicating Happiny. Our confusion must have shown on our faces, because she elaborated. "Most nurses have only one pokémon, a Chansey, right?" She waited for our nods before continuing. "Well, I'm not training to become a nurse at a Pokemon Center. I want to travel around and help pokémon everywhere, not just in one spot. To do that, I need to have a team of pokémon to help me..." She looked down at her plate, a little depressed. "I haven't caught any, yet, besides Happiny," she admitted quietly.
"No problem!" Cammy declared. "You can come with us!"
*Cammy!* Beni rebuked her.
"What?" Cammy asked in an injured tone. "She needs help, right? And we're not doing anything special..."
*Have you forgotten about Arceus already?* Beni asked on a private mental channel. She had drawn me into the conversation as well, I expect just so that I could keep up with the conversation.
"Oh. Right." Cammy looked down at her plate as well, and I knew she was hiding an embarrassed blush. I shrugged, and picked up my fork again.
"It's not a problem," I admitted. "We've got business in Hoenn in two months, but if you want to tag along until then..." I shrugged, and smiled at my embarrassed Lucario, "We're really not doing anything special until we leave for Hoenn."
"Really?" Miranda asked, looking suddenly curious. "What are you supposed to do in Hoenn?"
"Well, I can't really say..." I began, and then I shrugged. "Not like it matters, though. I'm going to the Sky Pillar."
"The Sky Pillar? Isn't that sort of dangerous?"
I exchanged glances with Beni, and we burst out laughing at the exact same moment.
"Just a bit," I admitted, "but we can handle it. Coordinator pokémon are tough, didn't you know?" Actually, on a one-for-one scale, the average Coordinator is easily more expert than a trainer, and his pokémon usually reflect that expertise. There are always exceptions, of course, and being a Coordinator doesn't guarantee that you'll be a good trainer, but it's far more likely than not. And, modesty aside, I'm an expert Coordinator, and Beni was no slouch as a pokémon. "You're welcome to come along, if you like," I added, prompted by some strange impulse. Though, I thought to myself darkly, I suspected that Someone was attempting to make a point. It wasn't an offer I'd have made in my right mind.
Miranda actually seemed to consider it for several minutes. I had known her just long enough to realize that she rarely spoke without considering all aspects of what she planned to say.
"That would be great," she said. "I seem to be getting into trouble left and right, trying to find the right pokémon. It looked so easy, back at school..."
"Lots of things do." I frowned as I looked outside. "Assuming the weather clears up by then, we'll leave at the end of the week."
"I'm looking forward to it," Miranda promised.
[To Be Continued.]
Author's Note:
Yes, this is a really short chapter, with not overmuch in it. I just wanted to get myself back to writing Coordination before I lost my motivation entirely. The next chapter will be larger, more exciting, and more significant, I promise. In the meantime, however, be satisfied with the fact that I actually WILL write more chapters; it was even odds a month ago.