Chapter 21 – Three
Rhyhorn was heavy.
Not just physically though that too, the ball felt different on his belt, like it had more weight to it than the others. Ryan stood in the field behind Rowan's lab with it in his hand for a moment longer than necessary.
New Pokemon. New personality. No idea what he was getting.
He released it.
Rhyhorn appeared and immediately the scale of it hit differently outside of a fight. Broad, low to the ground, the horn catching the grey morning light. It stood exactly where it had appeared and looked at Ryan with the flat assessment of something that had lost and knew it.
Not angry. Not scared. Just waiting.
Ryan looked back at it.
Piplup was to his left, sitting straight, watching Rhyhorn with careful professional interest. Deino was to his right, gone still the way he went still around new things, head slightly raised, nostrils working.
Ryan crouched down to get closer to its eye level. He didn't say anything for a moment. Just looked at Rhyhorn and let Rhyhorn look at him.
"You hit hard," Ryan said finally. "Harder than anything we've trained against. I felt it through my boots when you charged." He paused. "But you're not even close to what you're going to be."
Rhyhorn's ear moved. Just slightly.
"I know what's at the end of this," Ryan said. Quiet, not a speech, just a fact. "Nobody else in Sinnoh does. Just me." He held Rhyhorn's gaze. "That's worth something. If you want it to be."
Rhyhorn looked at him for a long moment.
Then it made a sound low, from deep in its chest. Not aggressive. Not a warning. Something that sat between a question and a decision.
Ryan stood up. "We start tomorrow."
He didn't make it into more than that. Rhyhorn didn't need more than that.
---
Deino approached first.
One careful step, then another, head tilted, nostrils working. Rhyhorn turned toward him not threatening, just tracking and held still while Deino got close enough to smell him properly.
They stood like that for a moment. Deino processing whatever he was processing, Rhyhorn waiting with the patience of something that had nowhere else to be.
Deino made a low sound.
Rhyhorn made the chest sound again.
Ryan watched from a few steps back and didn't say anything. Piplup was beside him, also watching, also quiet.
"Pip," Piplup said eventually. Low, almost to itself.
Ryan wasn't sure if that was approval or just acknowledgement. With Piplup sometimes it was hard to tell.
Either way nobody had tried to fight anyone. For a first meeting that was good enough.
---
That night Mara sat at the small desk in her room at the Sandgem research lodge and opened her communicator.
The hologram took a few seconds to resolve. When it did the figure was indistinct backlit, deliberately, the voice coming through the filter low and altered enough that it could have belonged to anyone.
"Report."
Mara folded her hands on the desk. "The situation in Sandgem has developed in an interesting direction. There's a new trainer arrived about a month ago, no prior record, no family connections to any known trainer lineage. Rowan has taken an interest in him which by itself means something."
"What kind of interest."
"Investment interest. Financial, practical. Rowan doesn't do that without reason." She paused. "The trainer Ryan arrived with nothing. No ID, no Pokemon, no explanation for how he got here that I've been able to verify. He was found on Route 201 at night, which alone is unusual."
A pause from the figure. "And now?"
"Three Pokemon in under two months. One of them is a Deino."
Silence.
"A Deino," the voice said. "In Sinnoh."
"Walked out of the forest and chose him," Mara said. "I watched it happen. Rowan registered it without making it an official incident which tells you where Rowan's priorities are." She paused. "There was a situation with smugglers on Route 204 recently the Deino was injured, the trainer ran back to Sandgem. He collapsed at the Pokemon Center."
"Compromised?"
"No. He recovered. The Deino is recovering." She looked at her notes. "If anything it seems to have settled something in him. He's been training harder since. More focused."
"And your assessment of him?"
Mara considered this for a moment. She thought about Ryan at the lodge that first night, quiet and uncertain, the way he'd looked at Sandgem like he was trying to memorise it. The way he was with people careful, closed, better with Pokemon than with anyone who could talk back.
"He's a mystery," she said. "Origin unknown, knowledge base inconsistent sometimes he knows things he shouldn't, sometimes he misses things that seem obvious. Rowan noticed it too." She paused. "Socially he's closed. Doesn't trust easily, doesn't open up. The people he has contact with are Rowan, the Pokemon Center staff, one coworker." She set down her pen. "For our purposes he's useful. Rowan trusts him which gives us a line we didn't have before. And he's not the type to ask questions about things that don't directly affect him." A small pause. "He's manageable."
The figure was quiet for a moment.
"Keep watching," it said finally. "If Rowan is investing in him there's a reason. Find out what it is."
"Understood."
The hologram dissolved.
Mara sat at the desk for a moment in the dark looking at her notes. Ryan's name at the top of the page, a few lines underneath, question marks next to things she hadn't been able to explain yet.
She picked up her pen and added one more line.
Then she closed the notebook and went to bed.