Directions

Jubilee City shrunk behind us. I heard Chii pursued the same gym not long after we left, and I imagine she must have won given the Badge Trainer’s apparent disinterest in battling. Nyaro was witty, as far as Capmon went, and she’d see through the trick with the smoky decoy. Once the parasitic vines were eliminated, Twiglo would be unassailable.

Zane needed something like a Twiglo or a Ruckstall, some animate tedium that tried something other than breaking through with brute force. I’d always enjoyed overwhelming, elemental strength and unmatchable speed. When I was a trainer, my team had always been designed to claim a domineering initiative through balance and pacing. Stronger trainers wouldn’t let us just walk over them. Anyone who’d gone through the trouble of getting two badges was already quite serious about this, and the Badge Trainers meant to test rising competitors were much less of pushovers than Pebble and Bartholomew.

I remained perched on Zane’s shoulder, my eyes lingering somewhere in the sky as my paw pressed under the fur on my chin. There was something to this. Already, Tenor could play a supporting role, pivoting in and out of a fight to just cause an annoyance for an enemy team. I could outpace large brutes, but not always bring them down. Squirm would be fast, slippery, and capable of flight once he finally evolved again. James also flew. If I sprouted a pair of wings, Zane could almost be a Badge Trainer himself.

Then…Whatever, some Badge Trainer was below me. There was no point in thinking in that direction. If I was going to take him anywhere, I’d take him to a championship whether or not he deserved it. I deserved it. He poked me in the cheek, “Hey, Bianca… You’ve been staring off into space a bit.”

“Huh?” My tail flicked behind me. “Right.” We were a couple days south of Red Bridge, but that wasn’t our next destination. The next real gym was far, far south in the grand Angel City. I hadn’t been there in some months, but I’d taken one of my greatest tournament wins in the Rose Crest Arena. Fire scratched the back of his head, calmly walked over and shook my hand. He didn’t yell or fall over or cry. He lost the finals of one of the Big Three tournaments, then calmly moved on. That was always how he reacted when he lost a tournament battle against me. And then, when he challenged me to become a champion, he suddenly won. I was never as gracious as he was.

“This pamphlet says we can take the Crestline Train south.”

“That’s nice.”

He held the little, folded paper up to me, “See, there’s all these cool pictures of the train tracks by the ocean!”

“Uh-huh.” The last time I saw Fire, I was hallucinating. Before that, he was watching me battle… like this. At least, I won. He was coaching Chii, now, or so she said. SolveCorp knew what happened to me, maybe he did too. Maybe, he came to that battle against Pebble to gloat, and he only didn’t since I actually won. He started teaching Chii as some other challenge. That was just like that big-eating, half-grinning, cheesy, emotional-except-when-I-wanted-him-to-be brat who hated drinking tea.

Fire was bound to lose. It was only right. Zane scanned over the pictures more, “See here! It says they serve food on the train. It’s a dining car! Doesn’t that look good!”

“Oh. Steak?” My fur rolled behind me, “Yeah, sure…” A luxurious filet like that, a tender medium rare with a soft glaze. I looked away from it.

“Right, you can’t eat meat!” He scratched the back of his head, “I bet they have something else. It says here they have wine, too! Even I’m not allowed to drink wine,” he said triumphantly.

“Good. Seeing you drunk would just be sad.”

“Hey, come on!” He stopped, “We won this morning, why are you all… Droopy? We’ve done basically nothing but win after the tournament. Besides, I got a medal, anyway.”

“What point is there in me saying anything? I never even know if you actually understand me.”

He shrugged, “Fine, be moody then. It’s not like I care.”

Chii caught up to us at the train station, running out from the ticket booth to sit beside us on the little bench. There wasn’t just a station in Jubilee City, but there was this little, wooden stop just outside of town. The corners of the wood were black and brown, some lazily covered with a half-fresh layer of paint. The seats creaked, and there was an old man sleeping across one of the only other benches.

She held up her second badge, beaming. Nyaro’s ears perked up as she saw me, “Ya got bigger.”

“Not that much.”

She brushed through her fur with the back of her paw, “Don’t worry, you’re still cute like this.”

Chii flicked her hair to the side, “So, I had to keep swapping in and out because of those annoying seeds, and I finally decided to just have Birtsie go all out. Didn’t think it would be enough for her to evolve, but now she’s a big Owloss.”

“Bianca just zapped it,” Zane scratched the back of his head.

“Oh!” Chii looked me over, “And she evolved, too.”

“That was before,” Zane winked, “we beat a master-level trainer turned criminal and snagged a super rare Capmon that she’d stolen. She basically used her whole team at its strongest, so I beat a master using only Bianca.” Chii rolled her eyes. Zane grabbed James’ Capture Ball, “I’m serious! Wanna see!”

“I bet it’s nothing special,” Chii snapped her fingers, “I got a new Capmon, too. But, I’m not showing you.”

“I bet you didn’t even get anything,” Zane let James out. He looked around, his pupils dilating as he looked around for something. Not spotting any opponent, he raced toward Zane’s shoes and began pecking them furiously. “Stop! Stop!” Zane recalled him.

Chii shrugged, “Here’s what I got,” she let out an Eldoll, like the one Pebble had, “I remembered one giving you a lot of trouble, so when I saw one, I just had to capture it.” Its body whirled around as she talked, its pointed, mechanical beak snapping open and closed rhythmically.

“Hah!” Zane looked at it, “I beat one of those easily to get my first badge.” It flattened half of our team.

“Besides, Fire said its regenerative properties work extremely well alongside Twiglo.” Almost a truism. One of Twiglo’s greatest strengths was its ability to come in and out of battle safely. The more Chii swapped her Capmon out, the more Eldoll would be able to heal itself. It still left her vulnerable to tactics like I’d used against her by creating hazards, but Eldoll could also try to mitigate that. One of its attacks could destroy traps like the one I’d set, although it would need to be able to safely make such a move. “Did Cyan teach you anything about teambuilding?”

“W-well… A lot actually!” Zane yelped, “She said… I mean, she mentioned something about… It’s a secret, I can’t just tell you my strategy!”

“Fire predicted that she’s probably not telling you all that much. He said it’s just like her,” Chii yawned, “she’s probably watching you from somewhere, but keeping her distance. Fire says she does that a lot.”

Zane looked around, “And, I’m sure Fire is right here with you, right?”

“He’s buying some snacks from the vending machine by the ticket booth,” Chii pointed toward the inside of the station, “he’ll be taking the train along with me. Well, he bought a room for us to share, but I’m sure he’d let you join us if you asked nicely enough!” She laughed malevolently. I let out a low growl at her comment.

Zane smiled, “Share a room with a champion! Of course!” I tugged on his ear with my paws. He shook his head, “It’ll be fine.” Maybe it was better for Zane to do something stupid like this. I could keep an eye on Chii.

Fire lumbered out of the station. Nyandeux, a one-of-a-kind, legendary Capmon described in ancient myths levitated behind him. Its arms were full of little plastic bags of snacks and soda bottles. Nyandeux was almost three times Fire’s height. A long, swishing tail hung under its bipedal, catlike body. In the history of the world, less than a hand’s count of trainers had caught walking legends like this one. It followed us onto the train calmly, bending its head down to sit within our room.