Chapter 23 – The Route
Sandgem disappeared behind the first bend and Ryan didn't look back.
Spring. Actually spring the air lighter and higher than anything he'd breathed in six weeks of winter, carrying things winter hadn't. Budew opening along the path edges, Starly moving through the trees in loose groups, the ground soft under his boots instead of frozen solid. The route looked like a different place entirely.
Ryan walked alone.
All four balls on his belt, quiet. The weight of them familiar now in a way it hadn't been six weeks ago when he'd had one and wasn't sure what to do with it. He'd thought about letting Deino out Deino almost always walked beside him on the field, knew his pace, knew how to move with him. But the route was a public road and Deino was a Pokemon nobody in Sinnoh had ever seen and the last thing Ryan needed on his first day out of Sandgem was questions he couldn't answer.
So he walked alone and that was fine.
The morning passed quietly. Same river to the right, same rises and dips, the familiar shape of the route he'd trained on for six weeks. But going north felt different than going east had heavier somehow, more deliberate. This wasn't a delivery run or a training session. This was the start of something.
He stopped at a flat rock near the river around midday and sat down and let them all out.
Deino appeared and immediately his head came up nostrils working, ears forward, processing whatever the spring air was carrying that winter hadn't. "Dei," he said. Low, curious.
"Yeah," Ryan said. "A lot of new smells. Take your time."
Deino made a sound that was somewhere between acknowledgement and complaint and started investigating the riverbank with the focused energy of something that had six weeks of winter information to update.
Piplup appeared on the rock beside Ryan and looked around at the route with the expression of something conducting a serious assessment. "Pip." Decisive. Like it had already formed an opinion.
"We've been on this route before," Ryan said. "Jubilife, remember?"
"Pip pip." The tone of something that remembered perfectly and didn't need reminding.
Rhyhorn appeared last and the scale of the open route hit it differently than the field behind Rowan's lab Ryan could see it in the way Rhyhorn stood, taking up more space than usual, head moving slowly across the landscape. "Rhy," it said. Deep, from the chest.
"Bigger than the field," Ryan said. "I know."
"Rhy." More settled this time. Acceptable.
Ryan leaned back on his hands and looked at the river. Deino was at the water's edge now, one foot in, apparently fascinated by the current. Piplup had moved to the edge of the rock and was watching Deino with the expression of something that had opinions about getting feet wet. Rhyhorn had found a boulder and was standing beside it like it felt better with solid rock nearby.
"Oreburgh is tomorrow if we keep pace," Ryan said to no one in particular. "Rock gym. Roark."
"Pip," Piplup said. Serious.
"Yeah. You're going to do most of the work."
Piplup stood a little straighter. "Pip pip." Not smug ready.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. Roark's Cranidos is faster than it looks."
Piplup looked at him with the expression of something filing that information away without comment.
Deino had pulled his foot out of the river and was shaking it with great dignity. "Dei," he said, in the tone of something that had made a decision it was mildly unhappy about.
"Cold?" Ryan said.
"Dei dei." Obviously.
"Spring doesn't mean warm yet."
Deino made a sound that was clearly Ryan's fault somehow and came back to sit beside him on the rock.
Ryan looked at the four of them Deino damp and dignified beside him, Piplup standing straight at the rock's edge, Rhyhorn solid and still beside its boulder and felt something he hadn't felt much since arriving in Sinnoh.
Like things were going the right way.
He didn't say it out loud. Some things you kept.
"Okay," he said after a while. "Back in the balls. We've got ground to cover."
---
Two hours past the lunch stop the route narrowed between two rock formations and Ryan saw the Grunts.
Two of them. Blue uniforms, the Galactic logo clear even at distance. One talking, one watching. Ryan slowed without stopping kept his pace steady, kept his eyes on them, waited to see what he was actually looking at.
Not his problem. Not necessarily.
Then the path curved and he saw around the rock and saw the rest of it.
Two Pokemon suspended off the ground in energy ropes from a Zubat a Buizel and a Starly, neither able to move. And against the rock wall a trainer about his age sitting on the ground with his hands up while one of the Grunts stood over him saying something Ryan couldn't hear but didn't need to.
Ryan stopped.
Not my problem, he thought.
The Buizel made a sound. Small and strained, the energy rope too tight around it.
He stood there for a second.
Then he reached for his belt.
Rhyhorn first. Then Piplup.
"Okay," he said quietly to Rhyhorn. "You see those two."
Rhyhorn looked at the Grunts. "Rhy." Flat. Already decided.
"Stomp. Between them. Hard as you can."
Rhyhorn looked at Ryan once. Then lowered its head and moved.
---
The ground shook before the Grunts heard it coming.
Rhyhorn hit the narrow gap between them with a Stomp that cracked the rock surface and sent both stumbling sideways. The energy ropes broke. Buizel and Starly dropped to the path.
Ryan already had Piplup out. "BubbleBeam left Grunt, now!"
Piplup fired. Clean, fast, hit the left Grunt square in the chest and sent him back into the rock wall hard enough that he slid down it.
One down. One to go.
The right Grunt was already moving Pokeball out, a Stunky appearing low between them, and a second ball in his other hand that Ryan hadn't seen. A Glameow landed on the rock above them, looking down.
Two Pokemon. Ryan had Piplup and Rhyhorn. That was fine. That was manageable.
"Rhyhorn Horn Attack, Stunky, keep it away from Piplup!"
Rhyhorn drove forward. Stunky was fast dropped low, ducked under the horn, and sprayed. The poison cloud caught Rhyhorn on the side and Rhyhorn flinched, stamped, kept its ground but its movement was heavier than it had been a second ago.
"PIPLUP Glameow above you"
Too late. Glameow dropped from the rock and hit Piplup from above Scratch landing across Piplup's back and sending it forward onto the path.
Piplup was back up immediately. Angry. That particular energy that had been building for weeks radiating off it in a way Ryan could feel from where he stood.
"BubbleBeam Glameow, full speed!"
Piplup turned and fired but Glameow was already moving fast, agile, the BubbleBeam catching its shoulder but not stopping it. It circled wide, looking for another angle.
The left Grunt had recovered. Back on his feet, Zubat out now from a third ball, three Pokemon between them and one Ryan hadn't accounted for.
Three against two.
"Rhyhorn Scary Face, both of them buy Piplup space!"
Rhyhorn turned toward the Stunky and Glameow and did the thing with its face and its horn and the sound that came from somewhere deep in its chest. The Stunky backed up a step. The Glameow's ears went flat.
Half a second. That was all it bought.
"PIPLUP Growl into BubbleBeam, Zubat, now!"
Piplup planted. The Growl came rolling out low and heavy across the narrow route and the Zubat hesitated in the air just half a beat and Piplup was already firing, BubbleBeam catching the Zubat hard and sending it spinning.
Zubat hit the rock wall and didn't come back.
But Glameow had found its angle. It came in fast from the left and Piplup turned too slow and the Scratch caught it across the shoulder same shoulder as before and Piplup went down.
Ryan's stomach dropped.
"Piplup"
Piplup hit the path.
Didn't move.
One second. Two.
Then it pushed itself up. One foot, then the other, slow and deliberate, and Ryan could see it from where he stood the way Piplup held itself when it came back up was different. Something that had been at the edge of something for weeks had finally gone over.
The light started without warning.
Ryan had seen evolution in games a hundred times. Numbers going up, a white shape changing, a new sprite appearing. This was nothing like that. This was Piplup on the path in front of him going still as the light took it not frozen, just present, like it was the most natural thing in the world and it had been waiting for exactly this moment and when the light cleared Prinplup was standing where Piplup had been.
Taller. Broader. The blue deeper. Settled in a way that was hard to name but impossible to miss.
Glameow had stopped moving.
Stunky had stopped moving.
Even the Grunts had stopped.
Prinplup looked at Glameow. Slowly. The way it used to look at training targets when it had already decided what it was going to do and was giving them the chance to reconsider.
Glameow took a step back.
"BubbleBeam," Ryan said. Quiet. "Both of them. Full power. Go."
Prinplup fired once at Glameow, pivoted without pause, once at Stunky and both Pokemon were off the path before Ryan had finished exhaling.
The right Grunt looked at Rhyhorn. At Prinplup. At Ryan.
"We're done," the left Grunt said.
They recalled everything and walked away without looking back.
Ryan watched them until they were gone. Let his breath out slowly.
Then he walked over to Prinplup and crouched down in front of it.
Prinplup looked back at him. Still processing. Still figuring out what its own body felt like from the inside now.
"Hey," Ryan said. "You okay?"
"Prin." Lower than pip had ever been. More weight to it.
"Good." Ryan looked at it for a moment. "That's what I've been seeing in you since the river."
Prinplup looked away. Sat with it.
Then it looked back and gave one deliberate nod.
Ryan stood up.
---
The trainer against the rock wall had gotten to his feet. Buizel pressed against his leg, Starly on his shoulder, both shaken but okay. He looked at Ryan, at Rhyhorn, at Prinplup, and then back at Ryan like he was still processing the order of events.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. That was" He stopped. Laughed once, short, the kind that comes out when adrenaline has nowhere else to go. "Thanks. Seriously. I had Bolt and Arc out and then that Zubat just and then there were three of them and I couldn't" He pushed his hair out of his face. "Sorry. Lucas. I'm Lucas."
"Ryan."
"Ryan." Lucas looked at Prinplup. Then at Rhyhorn. Then back at Prinplup. "Did that just was that an evolution? Just now? In the middle of the fight?"
"Yeah."
"That's " He shook his head like he was resetting. "Sorry, I'm still yeah. Okay." He looked at his Buizel Bolt who was looking up at Rhyhorn with enormous eyes and very flat ears. "Bolt it's fine."
"Buizel," Bolt said. Deeply unconvinced.
"He's not going to do anything."
"Bui bui." The tone of something that had opinions about that and was keeping them ready just in case.
Lucas looked at Ryan. "Where are you heading?"
"Oreburgh."
His face opened up completely. "Me too! First gym?"
"Yeah."
"Same." He fell into step beside Ryan without really asking, which Ryan noted but didn't object to. "I know this route pretty well there's a shortcut past the second ridge that cuts about forty minutes off and there's a shelter trainers use that's actually decent, not one of those ones where the roof is mostly gone." He glanced at Ryan sideways. "If you don't mind the company. I can also just not talk. I've been told I talk a lot."
"You do," Ryan said.
Lucas opened his mouth. Closed it. "Was that a yes or"
"It was fine."
Lucas processed that for a second. Then he grinned. "Okay. Great. Arc" He looked up at his Starly on his shoulder. "We're going with them."
Arc looked at Ryan. Looked at Prinplup. Looked at Rhyhorn. "Star," it said, in the tone of something that had done a rapid assessment and reached a cautious conclusion.
"Exactly," Lucas said, like that had meant something specific.
They walked in silence for about thirty seconds.
"So," Lucas said. "Prinplup, right? That's what it's called after it evolves?"
Ryan looked at him.
"Sorry I just I've never seen one before. We don't get a lot of Water starters around here." He glanced at Prinplup walking beside Ryan. "It looks different than before. Like more settled? Is that weird to say?"
"No," Ryan said. "That's exactly what it is."
Prinplup glanced up at him briefly. "Prin." The quiet one. The one that meant it had heard that and it was fine with it.
Lucas watched the exchange with the expression of someone filing things away. "You two have been together a while."
"Six weeks."
"Huh." He looked at Rhyhorn. "And the Rhyhorn?"
"Three weeks."
"And it already fights like that?"
Ryan didn't answer that one. Rhyhorn glanced at Lucas with the flat patient eyes of something that had no particular feelings about being discussed.
"Rhy," Rhyhorn said. Matter of fact.
"Right," Lucas said. "Yeah. Okay." He looked ahead at the route. "So. Oreburgh. You got a plan for Roark?"
"Working on it."
"Because his Cranidos is genuinely terrifying. I watched someone challenge him last month full team, two badges already and Cranidos knocked out their lead in about four seconds." He paused. "Just so you know what you're going into."
Ryan looked at him sideways. "You've been to Oreburgh already?"
"Passing through." Lucas said it easily. Too easily maybe but then he was already talking again, something about the shortcut past the second ridge, and Ryan filed it and kept walking.
Team Galactic on a normal route. A trainer who knew the area well. A shelter that was supposedly decent.
He didn't think too hard about any of it.
Oreburgh was a day away and Prinplup was walking beside him with something new in its stride and that was enough for now.