Dormund and Luvia bobbed up and down with the tide. The echofield scanner had been set, floating on the surface of the water with a flat dish that extended from it with the press of a button.
It had a bright blue LED on its submerged tip that blinked every second as it scanned.
The shore was a minute or two's surf away, but the fast kind of surf, not the cruising one.
She stood on Dormund’s shoulders, latched onto his white mane with eyes peeled and glancing here and there. Every slight swell in the water made her turn and picture a not-so-happy pokémon breaching the surface to complain about the thingy she had placed in their waters.
Wailord and wailmer normally swam far away from the coast, and deep when they were hunting, but where Luvia was now seemed like prime enough territory for an encounter.
She held onto Dormund like a child to her father’s leg, reassured by the calmness that emanated from him.
…
“Yeah, there’re a few dustox looking at me funny,” a voice came over comms. It was one of the young adults, the one with the Pidgeot if Luvia guessed correctly. He must have flown to some wooded area by the sounds of it. Dustox weren’t something you came across every day either – they tended to shun people and normally came out in the darker hours.
One of the other survey supervisors answered him. “It should be fine. Only engage in battle if they attack first.”
“Roger that.”
Luvia let out a sigh. Maybe being out here in the sea wasn’t so bad… or so she thought until she heard the splash of water behind her. She whirled her head to it with neck-straining speed.
…
It was only a magikarp, fins slapping against the surface, bobbing up and down erratically. It did look quite annoyed, but Luvia relaxed.
When it darted toward their scanner, giving it a glancing knock, Luvia yelled at it. “Hey!”
The magikarp came back for seconds, but a growl rumbled deep within Dormund as he lazily swung his flipper sideways at it. An invisible under-current knocked into the magikarp and dragged it away, out of view.
The girl was about to announce it over the headset, but she stopped herself. Magikarp were harmless, and she didn’t want to give anybody the impression that she couldn’t handle herself.
Yes. She’d only bring it up if asked, and only as a passing statement.
The minutes crawled by with two more wild pokémon alerts from the team. One of them about a circling flurry of zubat, and the other – one of the girls who had come with Nolan – about a pair of masquerain trying to intimidate her and her Mantine from afar.
Everyone but Luvia had an evolved pokémon partner, and wild pokémon had sharp enough instincts to know when a fight was worth the risk or not.
No one got attacked.
Robert was monitoring the scan data on the go and was satisfied this first packet.
“Alright people, first scan is done. Switch off your scanners and we'll move to the next spot.”
Not wanting to get wet, Luvia clutched some of Dormund’s mane and leaned out as far as she could, but she still didn’t come anywhere close to reaching the thing.
Dormund seemed to realize this and positioned his flipper flat above the surface of the water.
“Is that for me?” Luvia asked, but the giant didn’t reply. Based on how conveniently it was placed, she assumed that it was. She slowly climbed down, still clutching a handful of mane, and smiled when the flipper held taut under her weight. With a careful couple of wet steps, she edged as close to the tip as she dared, stretched her arm out, and plucked the device from the water.
She switched it off immediately, right there on the flipper.
The teams carried on westwards, scanning circular chunks of the island’s northern sector.
Since not everyone had a flying-type nor were they at sea like Luvia, most of the waiting came as a result of the inland teams having to trek to their new positions.
And so it went for another two hours, until the survey team began their fourth scan – almost halfway done for the day.
Luvia was at ease now. This wasn’t as bad as she feared. She had gotten used to the way Dormund floated in the water. The rhythm of his movements, and the firm bounciness of his thick hide. She could stretch her arms out to balance herself and walk back and forth atop his back from shoulder to tail.
No other sea dweller had disturbed them, though a quintet of wingull did look like they were entertaining the idea.
So, Luvia began daydreaming about what she’d tell her mother, her grandmother, father – Neela! Andrea!
Andrea would have loved this! The girl had been training her Hoppip and Aron almost as diligently as she had Mida. Though, whereas Luvia liked to talk more about the not so high-and-octane topics of pokémon, Andrea was almost entirely focused on the battling side of things.
It had rubbed off on Luvia too during the last month, especially after knowing that testing battle aptitude was one of the pillars of the trainer exam, though it was a wonder Andrea hadn’t brought up much about the League, or the Elite 4, or even the Conference for that matter.
Now, they’d have plenty to talk about in that regard.
…
“Guys, is this normal?” It was Nolan.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Luvia glanced eastwards where she knew the boy was stationed, but she could not see him at all upon the shimmering horizon.
Several people answered asking what he meant.
“There’s a bunch of magikarp coming up to the surface and flopping around. The scanner is fine, but it’s quite annoying.” His words were accompanied by a chorus of squawking wingull.
Luvia mashed the button on her headset. “I saw one too! But that was earlier…”
No one responded for a moment, leaving her cringing at herself.
One of the supervisors, a man called Mark, pressed Nolan. “Describe what’s so weird about it.” His team was the one next to theirs on Nolan’s side.
“Uhh, I don’t know, there’s just lots of them… like…” He paused. “Like twenty? Thirty?”
“Oh, gee…” Robert sounded like he had just found out a skitty had pooped his bed.
“Oh dear,” echoed Glacia, and that made Luvia’s gut tighten.
“And you’ve got a bunch of wingull there too, by the sounds of it,” Robert said with no trace of joy.
“Yeah, but they’re not attacking me, they just seem angry with the magikarp.”
“Nolan, my dear,” Glacia cut in quickly. “Grab the scanner, please, and make your way towards Luvia. And do keep it on.”
“What’s going on?” someone blabbered over the line. That’s what Luvia wanted to know, but it went by unanswered.
“Luvia, do you hear me?” Glacia seemed focused as a needle.
“Yes!” Luvia anxiously held Dormund’s mane just a little tighter.
“Good. Start surfing towards me, alright? And don’t worry.”
That last part made Luvia worry more.
***
They weren’t at all common, but they did happen. She had seen a few of them in person, and she had helped stop a couple of them too.
Before a gyarados went on a rampage, there was always fish-sign.
Bird-sign too if any flocks were around.
Now there was both.
Glacia flew, sat on her icy seat atop her magnificent Kara. She pulled down the sleeves of her jacket over her hands and took slow, shallow breaths, glancing at the horizon every so often.
Kara would be enough, but she’d use Dormund too to make it quick. She just had to get the girl out of the water beforehand.
She could see Dormund now, a dot of lazuli-blue iced with the white of his mane, surfing toward her on the day’s glum sea. The sky had barely cleared since morning. Perhaps that was for the better. Less eyes would see. Less questions. Less of a headache for her and the League both.
The news of her mysterious disappearance was already making rounds on different channels. How she had left her villa back at Ever Grande without notifying anyone, and with the annual trainer conference right around the corner too.
Of course, the League knew why. She had been around the table when they came together to discuss it.
She was glad for it. The two years she had been part of Hoenn’s Elite 4, not a single challenger had given her the thrashing befitting of a champion. Some had entertained her, made her have to think hard before calling out a move, but few had bested her. She might count them on one hand. And a total of zero went on to defeat Steven Stone after her.
The League challenge, from the challenged side of the field, could get, quite frankly put, tedious. It really could.
A good nine-and-a-half out of ten challengers would have been better off taking another year or two to prepare. In fact, some of them would have been better off taking a gardening or teaching course instead.
Not to take away from those who collected badges, but the disparity among the trainer ranks very often dumbfounded her.
She had met some C-rankers with far more oomph to their game than A-rankers, and she had often seen A-rankers making other A-rankers look like they had only just left Poké School.
Somehow though, the system seemed to work. There was a steady pipeline of young trainers who made it to the conference, and in some ways, the annual Ever Grande event had become more about celebrating the competition of challengers versus challengers, than challengers versus the League.
But ranks and badges and titles meant less in actual battle. Battles without rules.
There it is…
Beyond Dormund and Luvia, Glacia could see the other junior of her unit and the white of his Pelipper, and behind them, the pokémon she’d have to take out.
“OH SHIT!” Nolan swore across the line, "GUYS! - - -"
Glacia put a hand to her headset. “Keep flying, Nolan, I have eyes on you.” The wind blew past her as Kara sped through the air toward the children.
A slew of questions from the rest of the survey team hammered against her ear.
“Everyone please, no talking now unless your name is Luvia or Nolan,” she said grimly.
- - - - - - There was a wonderful silence over comms before Nolan activated his microphone again.
“Wha'do'I'do?!" he yelled. "Should I drop this thing?!” There was a terrible noise of crashing water close to him. It sounded like he was getting chased by a waterfall.
“Lead it to Dormund!” Glacia snapped. What a silly question. Couldn’t exactly blame the boy though.
It would be far better for everyone if this was dealt with right this moment. It always saved you losses to nip an issue in the bud. Do not delay and certainly do not leave it to happenstance. It would always come back to bite you later.
Much to her pleasure, the girl called Luvia didn’t complain, or if she did, she hadn’t done it over comms.
“Kara, extra speed, please!”
The Glalie hummed a rising hum as Glacia got to one knee and grabbed onto the edge of her icy seat with both hands inside the sleeves of her jacket. The wind whistled in her ears…
The chaotic cacophony surrounding the enraged sea serpent was a sight to behold. In the air, wingull screamed at it, pelting it with meek and harmless water gun attacks that the gyarados ignored.
In the water, schools of magikarp leapt and thrashed out of the sea like dumb little minions that were bound to get caught in the crossfire.
“Oh my…”
It was a sizeable gyarados and plenty enraged, judging by the way the water frothed and sprayed every time it breached and dove back into the sea.
“Low now, Kara…”
Kara sped onward, descending to only a few yards above the open sea. Once Dormund and Luvia were within shouting distance, Glacia ordered Kara to freeze a large patch of sea, and the Glalie froze it good.
She pressed the button on her headset. “Luvia, get yourself onto the ice floor.” She pointed at said floor like an air traffic officer as Dormund came in on his rolling wave.
Despite her light tan, the girl looked pale and her eyes were wide with the kind of fear that innocence welcomes. She was holding it down though, credit to her.
Glacia smiled as the girl dismounted and landed on the floating ice.
“When the boy gets here, you will get on the bird and fly to the coast… Are you alright, my dear?”
“I am,” Luvia said quickly, but she looked understandably preoccupied with the monstrous sea serpent rushing straight at them.
With a grunt, Glacia ordered Kara onward. Dormund let out a groan, beat his tail once, and cruised through the sea after them.
“Nolan, you can drop the scanner now,” she snapped into her microphone. “There is a large pad of ice for you to land on. Pick Luvia up and head back ashore.”
Nolan didn’t answer, but Glacia watched the glint of the scanner drop back down into the sea, and the Pelipper swoop low, right over the surface of the water.
They flew past each other, one toward safety, the other toward a raging gyarados and the circus of fish and birds around it.
How obnoxiously loud. The gyarados itself wasn’t screaming yet, but that flock of birds would have to be dismissed immediately. Not only did the noise irk Glacia to no end, but they’d also make it harder for her pokémon to hear her.
“Rise, Kara,” she said standing atop her icy seat above the sea. The glalie lifted upward effortlessly, taking them both several dozen feet above the water. Cupping her hands toward Dormund, she called, “Dormund! – Roar!”
Dormund beat his tail once again, impelling himself faster toward the incoming cacophony, and thundered the air with an ear-tickling roar.
The enraged gyarados finally had something to say and shrieked back with the shrillest cry. The birds flapped, flailed and scattered. The fish shrunk beneath the waves as if they were suddenly made of lead. Smart of them.
Glacia, holding her ears shut, quickly glanced backward and felt a heavenly satisfaction when she saw the pair of kids on the Pelipper, already airborne and bound for the coast.
Open air and open seas… No chance for collateral damage.
In terms of pure entertainment alone, she’d pick this over whatever hot new prospect had squirmed their way through the conference to challenge her.
This is a holiday, after all! Look at me, having fun!
Glacia decided she’d make a spectacle.
Quick to be sure, but a spectacle.
Should Luvia have another pokemon *before* going to the mainland? (poll results do not determine the story, but they might influence it)
