Miyuki followed her at a calmer pace. "Kasumi, those might be..."
"I know, I know, they could be tended. I'm looking."
She was right to check. A family of Furret, sleeker and longer than their Sentret relatives, with cream-and-brown banding that rippled as they moved, had emerged from the undergrowth and were watching her with expressions that combined curiosity with the distinct possessiveness of creatures who considered these bushes theirs.
Kasumi froze. Then, slowly, she released Gardevoir.
The Embrace Pokémon materialized with her usual grace, tall, elegant, her red horn gleaming in the dappled light. She regarded the Furret family and then turned to Kasumi with a slight inclination of her head that communicated something complex in the language that Psychic-types and their trainers develop over long partnership.
"Tell them I'd like to collect some samples," Kasumi said softly. "Seeds and a few berries. I'll leave most of the grove untouched. And I have Oran Berries in the RV I can trade."
Gardevoir closed her eyes. The Furret watched, their dark eyes reflecting Gardevoir's psychic aura, a pale pink shimmer that carried not words but intent, emotion, the feeling of a request made with respect rather than demand.
The largest Furret considered this for several seconds. Then it turned to its family, chattered something in the rapid vocalizations of its species, and turned back. It stepped aside.
"Thank you," Kasumi whispered, and meant it absolutely. She spent the next fifteen minutes collecting with the careful precision of someone who understood that taking from nature required asking first and taking less than you were offered. Seeds separated from fruit, sealed in labeled containers. Three Iapapa Berries and two Aguav, leaving the majority of each bush untouched. Soil samples gathered from the root zone, stored in vials she produced from her crossbody bag with the ease of someone who carried field equipment everywhere.
She left a pile of Oran Berries at the grove's edge. The Furret family descended on them with evident satisfaction.
"Johto berries," Kasumi said as she climbed back into the RV, her eyes bright with the particular joy of discovery. "Different varieties, different soil requirements, different cultivation traditions. This changes everything I thought I knew about berry genetics."
"You said the same thing about the berry farms in Celadon," Miyuki observed.
"I say it every time because it keeps being true."
The Mareep appeared twenty minutes later, standing in a patch of roadside grass with one flank pressed against a fence post, its wool blackened and still faintly smoking.
Miyuki saw it first. She always saw the injured ones first, some instinct, some frequency she was tuned to that the others weren't, that made hurt Pokémon visible to her the way a light in a dark room draws every eye.
"Sasuke, pull over."
He did, without asking why, because Miyuki's medical voice was as unmistakable as Kasumi's berry voice and carried the same implicit authority.
She was kneeling beside the Mareep before the others had unbuckled. The Electric-type sheep flinched at her touch, bleated weakly, and then held still, animals in pain knew healers, even across species lines, even across languages. Its wool was scorched along the left shoulder and flank, the normally fluffy cream material charred to a dull gray-black. Minor burns were visible on the skin beneath, pink and raw, and the Mareep's natural electrical charge was flickering erratically, a sign of stress and disrupted equilibrium.
"Burns," Miyuki said, her hands already moving. "Secondary degree, superficial. Not life-threatening, but painful. The electrical instability is a pain response, Mareep's charge fluctuates when they're injured, which can actually slow healing if it's not stabilized."
From her satchel, the same bag she'd carried across all of Kanto, the one that smelled of her mother Hanako's garden regardless of how many times it was washed, she produced a sequence of items with the practiced efficiency of a surgeon at a familiar table. Burn salve. a compound she'd developed during their Kanto journey, blending traditional Rawst Berry extract with a synthetic coolant she'd learned to formulate at the Saffron Pokémon Center. Shearing scissors. small, precise, for trimming damaged wool without disturbing the healthy growth beneath. A liquid solution in a small spray bottle. Rawst Berry concentrate mixed with Oran Berry enzymes, an accelerant for natural healing.
The Mareep bleated once, sharply, as Miyuki trimmed the charred wool away from the burned area. Then it went quiet, its black eyes watching her hands with an expression that slowly, visibly, transitioned from fear to trust.
"What happened to you?" Miyuki murmured as she worked. "Territorial dispute? A wild Growlithe, maybe, or..."
"It was a Growlithe."
The voice came from behind them. A young woman stumbled out of the forest, scratched and out of breath, with leaves in her dark hair and dirt on her jeans. She was their age, nineteen, maybe twenty, with the wide eyes and slightly overwhelmed expression of someone who was very new to all of this.
"My Mareep, is she okay? We were passing through and a wild Growlithe came out of nowhere and just... breathed fire at her. I didn't know what to do. I tried using the Potion from my kit but it didn't seem like enough and the nearest Pokémon Center is..."
"She's going to be fine," Miyuki said without looking up. She applied the burn salve in smooth, even strokes, and the Mareep's wool began to regain its natural static charge almost immediately, the electrical stabilization that came with pain relief. "The burns are superficial. I'm applying a compound that will accelerate cell regeneration. She'll need to rest for a few hours, and I'd recommend a proper checkup at the Cherrygrove Center, but there's no lasting damage."
The young woman, Chinatsu, she introduced herself, still catching her breath, sank to her knees beside her Mareep and stroked the unburned side of its face with trembling fingers. The Mareep leaned into the touch, and the electrical flicker in its wool steadied further, responding to the proximity of its trainer's familiar presence.
"You're not a Nurse Joy, are you?" Chinatsu asked, watching Miyuki work with an expression that mixed relief with something close to awe.