Chapter 22 – Before He Goes
Three days before he left, Rowan called him in.
Not unusual Ryan had been coming to the lab most days since the smuggler incident, sometimes for a real conversation, sometimes just to sit in the side room while Rowan worked and think through things that needed thinking through. But this time Rowan was standing when Ryan came in, which was different, and there was something on the desk that hadn't been there before.
A Pokedex.
Ryan looked at it. Then at Rowan.
"Sit down," Rowan said.
Ryan sat. Rowan sat across from him and picked up the Pokedex and turned it over once before setting it in front of Ryan.
"Six weeks," Rowan said. "You came here with nothing and in six weeks you have three Pokemon, a trainer license, and a record at the Pokemon Center that Joy speaks about unprompted which I can tell you she does not do for everyone." He paused. "The spring season starts in nine days. I've registered you."
Ryan looked at the Pokedex on the table.
"You're not going to say anything?" Rowan said.
"I'm processing."
"Take your time."
Ryan picked up the Pokedex. Lighter than he expected. He turned it over in his hands.
"It logs Pokemon you encounter, records battle data, connects to the regional trainer network. Every gym leader will see your record once you start competing. It also logs your location when you're in active season which means if something happens on a route there's a record." Rowan looked at him steadily. "Given recent events I thought that was worth mentioning."
Ryan looked up. "The men on Route 204."
"Still no activity in this area. That's either good news or they're being careful." Rowan folded his hands. "Probably both. When you're on the road you'll be visible in a way you haven't been here registered trainer, active season, your name in the system. Anyone who's looking will be able to find you."
"I know."
"I need you to actually know that. Not just say it."
Ryan held his gaze. "I know."
Rowan looked at him for a moment longer and then nodded. "The first gym is Oreburgh. Rock type, leader named Roark. Two days on foot at a steady pace." He paused. "You have a Water type, a Dragon type, and a Rock type going into a Rock gym. Think about that."
"Piplup handles it. Rhyhorn I won't use that's an obvious disadvantage and Roark will expect it. Deino can take hits if I need a switch." Ryan set the Pokedex down. "I've been thinking about it for weeks."
Something moved in Rowan's expression. Not quite a smile but close. "I know you have." He stood. "Come back tomorrow. I want one more training session before you go."
Ryan stood too. He looked at the Pokedex on the table and then at Rowan and said what he'd been meaning to say for a while.
"You didn't have to do any of this," Ryan said. "The money on my ID, the lab access, the inquiries about the smugglers. You didn't know anything about me when I walked in here."
"No," Rowan said. "I didn't."
"So why?"
Rowan considered that properly, the way he considered everything. "Because Deino walked through my door and sat beside you and I've been doing this long enough to know that doesn't happen by accident." He picked up his pen. "And because you answered my downwind question and nobody who reads the standard material answers that question correctly." He looked at Ryan over his glasses. "I invest in things worth investing in. Come back with eight badges and we'll call it even."
---
The last training session was the best one they'd had.
Rowan stood at the edge of the field with his hands behind his back and watched without saying anything for most of it and Ryan tried to ignore him and mostly succeeded.
Deino was fully himself. Not the careful checking version from the weeks after the route but the real one the one that made his own decisions, hit things harder than called for because he'd decided that was the right amount. Dragon Breath clean and fast, Dragon Rage leaving scorch marks three times the size of the first session in the forest.
Rhyhorn had figured out Ryan's rhythm. Slower to transition than Piplup, every move a full body commitment, but when it connected it hit like something much larger than it was. Horn Attack on the reinforced post left a crack that wasn't going to fix itself.
Piplup ran the combination sequences faster than Ryan called them, making decisions in the gaps that were right more often than not, BubbleBeam precise and hard and nothing like the scattered thing it had been six weeks ago.
At the end Ryan called them all back.
They stood in a line Deino on the left, Piplup in the middle, Rhyhorn on the right. Ryan stood in front of them and looked at what six weeks had built.
Rowan walked over slowly. He looked at the three of them for a long moment without speaking and Ryan waited.
"Rhyhorn's Stomp," Rowan said finally. "Half a beat late on the transition sometimes."
"I know. Still working on it."
"Deino holds back on Dragon Rage. Less than before but still."
"He'll find it again when he needs it."
Rowan looked at Ryan. "The sequencing between Piplup's moves has improved significantly. That's your reading, not just Piplup's speed."
Ryan hadn't expected that. "Thanks."
"It's an observation, not a compliment." But Rowan's eyes said something different. He looked at the three Pokemon again. "You're ready."
"Getting there," Ryan said.
Rowan looked at him. "No. You're ready. Learn the difference."
---
His last shift at the Pokemon Center started like every other one early, first checks of the day, the particular quiet of the building before the morning rush. Joy came in twenty minutes after Ryan and found him already halfway through the intake log and stopped in the doorway for a second.
"You know you don't have to do that," she said. "You're not on the clock yet."
"I know."
She came behind the desk and looked at what he'd done and then looked at him sideways. "Are you nervous about leaving?"
Ryan considered lying. "A little."
"Good," Joy said. "Trainers who aren't nervous about their first gym make bad decisions." She pulled up the morning schedule. "I put in a word with the Pokemon Centers along your route. They'll know your name when you arrive."
Ryan looked at her. "You didn't have to do that."
"The Center in Oreburgh has a good healing setup for Rock type injuries specifically Roark's challengers come in pretty regularly after tough losses. They'll take good care of your Pokemon if it comes to that." She said it practically, no sentiment, just information. "How is Deino?"
"Himself again. Fully."
"Good." She paused. "He's a special one Ryan. Whatever happened to him before you he chose to move past it. That's not nothing."
Ryan looked at the intake log. "I know."
They worked in silence for a while. The morning rush came and went a Budew with a respiratory infection, two Starly that had fought each other on someone's roof, a trainer from the route with a badly bruised Bibarel. Normal Sandgem morning.
Theo came in for the afternoon shift and they worked together for the last time the way they always had efficiently, without much conversation. Near the end Theo leaned against the counter and looked at Ryan with the expression of someone who had been deciding whether to say something for a while.
"Roark's Cranidos," Theo said. "It hits harder than it looks like it should. And he leads with it almost every time so you're going to see it first."
"Good to know."
"Your Piplup can handle it type wise but Cranidos is fast. Don't let it get inside BubbleBeam range." Theo paused. "I lost to Roark twice before I beat him. Second time I had Grotle at full health and Cranidos knocked it out in three hits." He looked at Ryan steadily. "Just so you know what you're walking into."
Ryan looked at him. In six weeks Theo had never said more than he needed to. "Thanks. Really."
"Don't lose in the first round," Theo said. "It would reflect badly on the Center." He pushed off the counter and went back to work.
Ryan almost smiled.
---
Mara was outside when his shift ended.
Not waiting or at least it looked like that. She was near the bench with a small device in her hand, coat on against the spring evening chill, apparently absorbed in whatever she was reading.
She looked up when he came out with the particular timing of someone who had been watching the door. "Last shift?"
"Yeah."
"How does it feel?"
Ryan stopped beside her. Considered that. "Strange. Good strange." He looked at the bench the one where Piplup and Deino had sat on that first day, where Piplup had stepped off onto the pavement and decided to be present without being asked. "Six weeks ago I was sitting there trying to figure out how to afford dinner."
Mara smiled. "And now?"
"Three Pokemon and a Pokedex." He paused. "Still trying to figure things out but different things."
"That's progress." She put her device away and looked at him properly. "How is Deino? Really."
"Really good. Better than before the route in some ways. Like he came out the other side of something."
"And Rhyhorn?"
"Starting to understand how I work. Slow but when it gets there it gets there properly."
Mara nodded. She was quiet for a moment in a way that felt like she was deciding something. "Be careful on the route," she said. "Spring brings out the wilder Pokemon after a long winter. And" She paused. "Just be careful. In general."
"In general," Ryan repeated.
She met his eyes. "You've done well here Ryan. Better than most people would have in your situation." She said it simply, like she meant it. Maybe she did. "Good luck at Oreburgh."
"Thanks Mara."
He walked back toward the lodge and didn't look back.
He didn't think about the fact that she'd known exactly when his last shift was without him ever telling her. He just filed it away somewhere quiet the way he'd been filing things away for six weeks and kept walking.
Some things you noticed and didn't say out loud. That was fine. That was how you stayed ahead of things.
He was learning that too.
---
That night he sat on the floor of his room with his Pokemon around him.
Deino beside him, chin on his knee, the low warm rumble that meant content. Piplup on the windowsill watching the last of the spring evening light disappear over the rooftops. Rhyhorn's ball on the floor in front of him too big for the room but Ryan had opened it for a moment earlier and Rhyhorn had looked at him with the flat patient eyes of something that was ready when Ryan was.
Six weeks ago he'd woken up in a forest with nothing.
He didn't know why he was here. Probably never would. But he had three Pokemon and a Pokedex and a name that Joy had put in a good word for and eight gyms ahead of him and somewhere behind all of that a world that was bigger and stranger and more dangerous than any game had ever told him.
"Pip," Piplup said from the windowsill. Quiet. Looking at the darkening sky.
"I know," Ryan said.
Deino's rumble shifted slightly. A question in it.
"Yeah," Ryan said. "We're ready."
He started packing.