Chapter 29
*(Ryan POV)*
The morning was quieter than usual.
Not because nothing was happening Oreburgh was the same as every other morning, miners on the early shift, a Machop hauling something across the main road, the smell of coal sitting in the cold air the way it always did. But Lucas hadn't said anything yet since we'd sat down for breakfast and that was unusual enough that I kept noticing it.
He was eating. Just eating, looking at the table, Bolt sitting beside him with his tail doing slow, lazy rotations.
I watched Bolt for a second. Two days ago he'd walked onto that field and taken down Geodude and Onix back to back without hesitating once. Now he was stealing pieces of toast and it would have been easy to think nothing had happened. But I'd been in that arena. I'd watched him get back up after every hit.
"You're staring at Bolt," Lucas said, without looking up.
"I know."
"It's a little weird."
"Probably." I picked up my coffee. "How long are you staying?"
Lucas leaned back and looked at the ceiling for a moment like the answer might be up there. "Until I can beat Roark." He brought his chair back down. "So however long that takes. Could be a week. Could be longer. I don't really know yet."
"You'll figure it out faster than you think."
"Maybe." He pushed some egg around his plate. "The problem isn't Bolt, he can handle it. The problem is I keep using him for everything because he's the one I trust most and then he has nothing left when it actually matters." He said it simply, the way you said something you'd been turning over long enough that it stopped feeling personal. "I need to actually use my whole team. Not just you know. Pretend I have a full team while really just using Bolt with backup and hoping nobody notices."
"I noticed," I said.
Lucas looked up at me. "Thanks, Ryan. Really helpful."
"I mean it seriously. You noticed too, that's why you're saying it."
He made a face, but it wasn't disagreement. He went back to his egg. "Yeah, well. Doesn't make it easier to fix."
I thought about Deino. About all the weeks in Sandgem where I'd trained him in secret because I didn't trust anything else, where I'd told myself it was strategy and not just that I was scared something would happen to him if I let my attention split. "No," I said. "It doesn't. But you already know what the problem is, and most people spend a long time not knowing that."
Lucas was quiet for a second. "Is that what happened with you and Deino?"
I drank my coffee. "Sort of."
"Sort of like yes or sort of like you don't want to answer?"
"Sort of like it's complicated and I don't feel like explaining it over breakfast."
He accepted that with a shrug, which was one of the things I'd figured out about Lucas over the 6 days he pushed on some things and let others go, and it wasn't random, he just had a sense for which was which. I didn't fully understand how he did it.
Bolt stole a piece of toast. This time Lucas didn't even look at him, just moved the plate two inches closer so Bolt wouldn't have to stretch as far.
That was new. Two days ago he would have at least said something about it.
We ate without talking for a while and I looked out the window at Oreburgh going about its morning and thought about the road north. I'd looked at the map last night after Lucas had gone to sleep. Route 207 to Route 206, through Mt. Coronet's southern pass, then Route 211 into Eterna. Long road. Open terrain between here and there with no towns in between.
I'd done longer alone. Technically. But that had been before I knew what alone felt like with someone walking next to me.
"You leave today?" Lucas asked.
"Yeah. This morning."
"Right." He nodded. Looked at his plate. Then "You should check your supplies before you go. The shop near the east gate is cheaper than the one by the Pokémon Center, they charge extra over there because of the foot traffic. Like, a lot extra, it's kind of ridiculous actually, I asked the guy about it and he just said location costs and I wanted to tell him that's not how — anyway. East gate shop."
"I know, I went yesterday."
"Oh." He blinked. "Good. Okay." He ate a piece of egg. "Make sure Rhyhorn has enough food too. She eats more than you think and the next town is far."
"I know."
"I'm just saying."
"Lucas." I looked at him. "I know."
"Okay, okay." He held up his hands. "I'm not I know you know. I just — you know."
I did know. I didn't say it.
He looked out the window for a second. Then back at his plate. Then "The road north is fine. I talked to one of the miners yesterday, he does the route for supply runs. He said the terrain is rough but nothing dangerous if you stay on the main path."
"I won't stay on the main path."
Lucas put his fork down. Slowly. "Ryan."
"I'm not going to walk into something I can't handle."
"That is not okay, see, the thing is, I know you believe that, and I also know that you saying that and it actually being true are two different things." He picked his fork back up, pointed it at me. "You have Rhyhorn and Deino and Prinplup, you are going to be fine, just please please do not go looking for trouble on a mountain pass."
"I'm not looking for trouble."
"You literally just said you're not staying on the path."
"I said I won't stay on the *main* path. There's a difference."
"Is there."
"Yes."
"Explain it to me."
"The main path is the safest route because it avoids the terrain where Pokémon actually live. The areas off the main path are where you find things."
Lucas stared at me. "That is the most Ryan sentence you have ever said to me."
"You asked."
"I did." He looked at Bolt. Bolt looked back at him with the expression of someone who had no opinion on mountain paths. Lucas looked back at me. "Fine. Fine. But you're checking in at the Pokémon Center when you get to Eterna."
"Obviously."
"I mean it, Ryan. You message me when you get there."
"I don't have your contact."
Lucas stared at me. A long pause. "We have been traveling together for 6 days ."
"I know."
"6 days , Ryan. 6 days. "
Lucas shaking his head
"You never gave it to me."
"I thought you know what, it doesn't matter what I thought." He picked up his phone. Slid it across the table. "Add yourself. Right now. And don't put something boring."
I added myself. Slid it back.
He looked at the contact name and made a face. "You put Ryan."
"That's my name."
"I said don't put something boring."
"You said that after I'd already typed it."
"You could change it."
"To what."
He thought about it. Genuinely thought about it, for longer than the question deserved. "I don't know. Anything. *Ryan (Pokémon Nerd).* Ryan with a little dragon emoji. Something."
"I'm not putting a dragon emoji in my contact name."
"Why not."
"Because I'm not twelve."
"I have a Pikachu emoji in mine."
"I know, Lucas, I can see it right there."
He looked at his phone. Then at me. "That's different."
"How."
"Because I'm self-aware about it." He put the phone away without changing it. "Fine. Ryan it is. Very boring. Very on-brand."
I picked up my coffee. Outside, a Graveler went past the window with a cart, same route as every morning. Oreburgh doing what Oreburgh always did.
I put my cup down. "I should go."
Lucas nodded. Looked at his plate. "Yeah."
Neither of us moved for a second.
"You're going to beat him," I said. "Roark. It's not going to take as long as you think."
Lucas looked up. That easy expression, the one that didn't show anything, but under it was something else. "You don't know that."
"I know Bolt walked off that field under his own power after two full fights. That's not nothing." I stood up and pushed the chair in. "And you already know what went wrong, which means you're halfway to fixing it."
He was quiet for a moment. Then "You're better at this than you think you are."
"At what."
"Talking to people. Saying the thing." He waved his fork vaguely. "You know. The thing."
I thought about six weeks in Sandgem not talking to anyone except Rowan and Joy and Mara and Deino. About the first day on the route when Lucas had appeared out of nowhere talking about Team Galactic and I'd barely said five words back.
"I've had practice," I said.
Lucas smiled at that. Not his usual grin something smaller and more real. "Yeah, I guess you have."
---
I packed in about twenty minutes. Deino sat on the bed and watched me with the particular attention he gave to things he wasn't sure about ears forward, head tilting slightly whenever I picked something up and put it somewhere. He'd been quieter since yesterday.
"We're leaving," I told him. "Not Oreburgh forever, just moving again. New city. It's fine."
Deino made a sound. Low, questioning.
"I know you liked it here." I folded the spare shirt and put it in the bag. "The mine smell, the Machop on the street, whatever else you've been cataloguing. I know."
He made another sound. Different this time, something shorter.
"Yeah, me too."
I didn't say it out loud but he knew anyway, the way he always seemed to tail flicking once, then settling. I'd stopped being surprised by that somewhere around week three.
I checked the team. Prinplup's ball on the left, Rhyhorn's on the right, Deino beside me. I looked around the room once — small, simple, the window facing east toward the mine entrance. The bed made before breakfast, same as every morning since before this world.
Nothing left behind.
I picked up the bag and went downstairs.
---
Lucas was waiting outside.
He had Bolt on his shoulder and his hands in his pockets and he was looking at the street when I came out. He'd changed since breakfast jacket on, hair done, like he'd decided a proper send-off required some effort. Knowing Lucas, he'd probably decided that sometime in the thirty seconds between finishing his eggs and coming out here.
Deino went to him immediately. He'd done it since the first time they'd met on the route walked right up to Lucas like he'd already made a decision and wasn't interested in reconsidering it. Lucas crouched down and let Deino sniff his hand and said something quietly that I didn't try to hear.
Deino rumbled back. Something long.
Lucas stood up. "He said to tell you to be careful."
"He didn't say that."
"He said a lot of things, Ryan. I'm summarising."
"You don't speak Deino."
"I speak *enough* Deino." He looked at me. "He's worried about the mountain pass."
"He doesn't know about the mountain pass."
"He figured it out. He's smart." Lucas tilted his head. "Smarter than you think, probably. No offense."
"None taken." I shifted the bag on my shoulder. "So. Eterna City."
"Eterna City." Lucas nodded. "Second gym. Gardenia, right? Grass type."
"Yeah."
"Rhyhorn is going to have a field day."
"Probably." I looked down the street toward the north road. "You'll have caught up before I get to the third."
"Oh, I'll have caught up before you get to the *second.*" That old confidence, easy and certain, like yesterday had already been filed away. "I just need a week. Maybe less. Watch by the time you're done with Gardenia I'll already be in Hearthome."
"That's ambitious."
"That's realistic." He grinned. "I know what I need to do now. I just need to do it."
I believed him, actually. That was the thing about Lucas the confidence wasn't performance, it was just how he processed things. He'd lost, he'd spent one quiet morning thinking about it, and now he was done being upset and ready to fix it. I didn't know if that was easier or harder than the way I did it.
He held out his hand.
I looked at it for a second. Shook it. It felt too formal, and he must have thought the same thing because he pulled me into a brief one-armed thing that wasn't quite a hug and wasn't quite not one either — the kind where neither person fully commits and both of you know it and neither of you says anything about it. Then he stepped back and pointed at me.
"Eterna City. Message me when you get there."
"I will."
"I mean it."
"Lucas. I said I will."
"I know, I know." He dropped his hand. "I'm just you know. Saying it."
"I know."
He looked at me for one more second. That expression again easy on the surface, something else underneath that he wasn't going to name and I wasn't going to ask about. Then he nodded and stepped back and put his hands in his pockets.
I turned and started walking north.
After about twenty steps "Ryan!"
I stopped. Looked back.
He was still standing in front of the inn, Bolt on his shoulder, morning light between the stone buildings. One hand up.
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he said.
I thought about everything Lucas had done since the route outside Sandgem. Charging into Team Galactic grunts. Talking to every stranger we passed. Walking into that gym yesterday with zero plan B and a smile on his face.
"That doesn't rule out much," I said.
He grinned. The real one. "Exactly."
I turned back around and kept walking.
Deino fell into step beside me, close but not pressed, and the city moved around us, and the road north was right there at the end of the main street, and behind me Oreburgh was already going about its morning like nothing had changed.
First badge. Second city. Nobody next to me.
I put my hand in my pocket and kept going.