A Winkle in Reality

[Ahzura Twilight]

Hopefully he deals with both sol and behemoth sooner than later. They're both problematic ash especially the Shelgon, can't be having a dragon type that doesn't listen to you especially one that has people gunning to kill you

 

[The Radiance's Follower]

I wonder. Is Peri shooting for champion position ? There is a big chance he could become one.

 

[HankPankylol]

Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoy. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.

---

"No."

"Mr. Periwinkle-"

"No."

"Please, let me-"

"No."

"I-!"

"No."

"STOP IT!"

"How about you stop following me!?"

"This is not what I paid for!" Clair Blackthorn whirled on Bill, her long legs easily letting her keep pace with me as I hurried through Saffron, ducking through alleyways and side streets to try and lose the two adults trailing me without breaking into a sprint.

"Peri, mate-" Bill huffed, red in the face as he tried to keep pace.

Spinning on my heel, I shoved my finger in his face. "Shut up! You dumb, pushy-grrr!" I bit off the rest of the sentence with a growl before I said something I'd regret at a later date. In that exact moment, I felt like he deserved all the insults. "In fact!" I ripped the sponsor jacket off and threw it at him. "Here, take that shit back! I don't want it, I don't need it, screw you!"

Bill seemed taken aback by the genuine vitriol. "Come now, no need to-"

"There's every need, you greedy bitch! You're lucky I don't cut you off and find someone less dickish!"

A glint appeared in Clair's sharp eyes. "If you're looking for a different sponsor, the Blackthorn Clan-"

Bill didn't take kindly to the attempted poaching. "Oi, do not-!"

"Both of you shut the fuck up!" I snapped. "Fucking vultures!" I tried to calm myself with a deep breath, but ended up snorting it out in agitation. "Bill, just… go away."

"Come on, lad," he tried, but I think the defeat in my tone finally got through to him, "it is not that-"

"No, you cross-!" I reset at a lower volume. "You crossed a line. Th-the jacket, the reporters, yeah, okay, fine. I don't like it, but it's part of our deal. I have to do some actual advertising, I get that."

"Then why-!?" He threw his arms out, but I kept cutting him off, not allowing him to get a word in.

"Because this isn't about me working for you as a Trainer!" I shouted, pointing a finger at the lurking Clair. "You sold out my private information to this pushy hag-!"

"Hey!"

"-and profited from my private life! Not your company, not me as your sponsored Trainer, but me outside of you! You don't decide what I do with my Pokémon, and you don't get to decide who I meet with regarding my Pokémon! There's a fucking line, Bill, and setting up meetings with potential buyers, when I've made it perfectly clear that it's not an option, crosses that line! My team is not your fucking product!"

"..." For the first time, I had the opportunity to see Bill Masaki, inventor and businessman extraordinaire, lost for words, his jaw opening silently, lips moving to form words without sound.

It wasn't a flattering look.

"...alright. I-uh, I suppose that is fair." He scratched at the back of his head awkwardly. "Guess it is a little much, innit? Bollocksed it up, is what I did."

"If you don't get out of here, I'm gonna scream at you," I warned him in all seriousness. Good for him that he seemed to realize that I wasn't just going to let him off the hook. I was still pissed, though. "Seriously, I'm not in a place where you want to have this conversation."

He nodded in a forced casual manner. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. Let tempers settle, emotions calm, all that good shite. You, uh, you have my number for when you want that chin wag." He gave a grimaced smile and turned around to head back towards the Gym, probably to deal with the squad of reporters he'd paid for to be there and then just ran out on.

Leaving me behind with Clair Blackthorn.

"Excellent!" She sniffed. "Now that the distractions are out of the way-!"

"I don't know, you're still here!" I snarked, and then realized how that could sound. "I meant that in a derogatory way, not that-whatever."

"I'm gonna do you a favor and move past that," Clair granted. Straightening her back, she took a deep breath and tried again. "Mr. Periwinkle. As I've said, my name is-"

"Not for sale."

"Motherfuc-!" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Listen to me-!"

"Not for sale."

"I DON'T WANT TO BUY YOUR STUPID BALL!" The people of Saffron looked over, Clair's scream cutting through the clamor of the busy street. "What!?" She snapped at them, making them avert their eyes from her glare and hurry along. "That's what I thought!" She snorted before closing her eyes and breathing deeply through her nose, holding it and then exhaling heavily.

"Can we take this somewhere else? You hungry? I'll pay." She tried, and I would give her that. She sure was trying.

"No."

"Fuckin-!" She mumbled under her breath while shoving her hands in the large side pockets of her durable, somewhat baggy pants. With a pissed 'Ah!' she found what she was looking for and threw it in my face. Literally, the flexible, yet stiff thing hit me between the eyes, and I had to catch it before it fell to the ground. Inspecting it, I saw that it was a bundle of folded bills. "How about that, huh!? Is fucking payment good enough, or are you so stubborn you won't even take that for a 10-minute conversation!?"

… shit. As much as it galled me to admit, she had me there. Cash wasn't an issue since I signed up with Bill, but we were on somewhat shaky ground professionally, and it wasn't in my nature to be completely beholden to someone.

Money meant food and health items for the team, and I'd do worse for them than having a brief talk with someone related to a different person I didn't like.

Sounded petty as shit when I put it like that.

"Apologize for calling Betty a stupid ball," I demanded.

"I'm sorry that her Trainer's shitty personality ended up affecting your Shelgon."

I narrowed my eyes, but gave it up. I genuinely just wanted to get it over with.

And so, we quickly found ourselves seated across from one another at a small diner that reminded me of Delia's, back in Pallet. Clair had sniffed disdainfully at the quaint and kind of cheap interior, but hadn't complained overly.

"Say your shit so we can get this over with," I practically demanded, dividing my plate up into portions for me, Espeon, and Zorua in my pocket. "You're paying, by the way."

The rest of the team would have to wait until a Nurse Joy had looked them over. Nobody was particularly hurt – other than maybe Siren after her encounter with the wall – but better safe than sorry.

Betty would also need to be far away from anything I didn't mind seeing smashed to smithereens. I doubted she'd take her loss to the Hypno graciously.

"Please!" Clair scoffed and waved me off, nothing in front of her but a glass of Cheri berry juice. She'd scowled at the menu as if it had personally offended her. "I doubt this whole food cart is more than 10.000, knock yourself out. The less of this… food that exists, the better for the rest of us!"

Again, the place was a 4.5/10. Slightly grimy but perfectly serviceable.

"Your 10 minutes are running," I warned her, Espeon smearing a piece of food along the underside of my lip before getting it in my mouth as she tried to feed me with her telekinesis. I didn't protest; one, it was cute. Two, it was decent practice at Psychic fine control.

"I saw the battle. You fought well, but your Shelgon – Betty, I believe you called her?" I grunted at her barely hidden disbelief.

"Short for Behemoth."

"Better," she nodded, like I needed her permission. "Anyway, Behemoth clearly has some obedience problems-"

"It was a one-time thing-" I tried to cut her off, but she continued.

"-and temper problems in general. To be fair, it's not necessarily your fault. Shelgon are some of the more grumpy and stubborn dragons. Not as aggressive as something like a Deino or Zweilous – or even as quick to anger as a Bagon, to be honest – but they are ornery bastards. A Bagon's greatest dream is to fly, and being wrapped in a big, heavy cocoon is the opposite of that, so they're having a perpetually bad day, and that's a normal-sized one."

"I noticed," I admitted. Despite my remaining annoyance with the situation, I couldn't help but notice the constant underlying anger and smugness in Clair's tone vanishing when she talked about Dragon-Types. "I figured she would calm down a little as she got used to it, but we're coming up on a month now, and if anything, she's getting worse. And it's not-like you said, she's less likely to try and bite everything near her, but it's more because she's not in the mood to be curious than because she's nicer."

"The Salamence line was a bad choice for your first Dragon-Type," she held up her hands at my instantly suspicious glare. "For fuc-I'm not trying to buy her! I'm just saying, it's the third or fourth hardest dragon to handle. Salamence has nearly as bad a reputation as Gyarados, and the only reason they're not as bad or even worse is that there are so few of them. Proper habits and behavior must be ingrained before her final evolution; she will kill you." I wanted to believe she was exaggerating for effect, but I knew better. Betty had been close when she evolved into a Shelgon, and that would be a picnic compared to the notorious rage machine that was Salamence. "Even in the Clan, Trainers can be rejected by their dragons, and we're literally the experts on the subject." Completely of her own volition, she rolled her eyes and preempted a correction I wasn't intending to make. "Yeah, yeah, the Draconids are better with Salamence, blah, blah, blah – look, if you want to get shanked and fed to wild Pokémon, be my guest. You think Blackthorns are bad, you don't want to meet the Draconids, cave-dwelling lunatics that they are. No, if you want to train Behemoth properly, Blackthorn is your best bet."

"And why would you help me with that, hmm? The goodness of your heart?" I mocked. Oh yeah, I'd just pop over to Blackthorn for a bit, the hometown of the guy that tried to blackmail me for my Pokémon, and get some free training from their Gym Leader. "What do you want?"

"One," she started slowly, looking around to see if anyone was overhearing us. Despite not seeing anyone, she still leaned in closer and lowered her voice. "One, as I understand it, you have a… certain recording of my dear, beloved cousin." The way she talked about Lance felt loaded, but I didn't know the context.

"I already made a deal with Bruno not to release it," I admitted. Probably smarter to double dip and make a second deal, but I liked Bruno more than I disliked Clair.

"I know." She said to my surprise. "He told me as much."

"You guys friends?"

She sucked air in through her teeth. "Friends… is a strong word. I know him, of course, me being related to the Champion, and him following Lance around like a shadow. He's in Blackthorn nearly as much as my cousin is. That being said, our conversations have mostly revolved around him trying to recruit me for his little alliance."

"Shit, you too?" I questioned. "I figured Lance himself would be enough of you guys."

"Not that simple." Again, she didn't elaborate, but internal Clan issues fit with what Koga had told me, "no matter how much the muscle moron tries to say otherwise."

"He's a good guy." My voice was a little overly defensive.

"Look, Bruno is a nice guy, I'm not saying he's not," she reassured, sensing she was on shaky ground, "and I admire what he's got going on – genuinely one of the hardest working people in Indigo. The sacrifices he's made, the amount of times he has to fix Lance's shit: I could never, I'm woman enough to admit that. It's just…" she hesitated, but surged on. "Bruno sees the world in a very black and white way."

I said nothing, having to concede the point, but not wanting to.

She went on with the rest of her reasoning, smart enough to take the win and move on.

"Beyond that, however, I want your breeding rights." I blinked at her slowly, watching her words catch up with her. "By which I meant that I wanna breed your Shelgon-you know what I mean, whatever!"

"You gave me one earlier, so I'll return the favor and ignore that," I magnanimously allowed. So that was what it looked like from the other side. "That being said, Betty's much too young for that sort of thing." I'd say that I'd kill any suitors that came for my baby, but she'd do that herself.

"Thanks," she snorted. "And yeah, I didn't mean now. Obviously." I clearly wasn't meant to hear the last part.

Yet I did.

"It's really a moot point for a while," she hurried to explain before I could take offense. "Shelgon can't mate. I mean, technically, they have genitalia and impregnating can occur, but not only is the… act itself difficult," she tried to stay tactful for some reason – she obviously meant that being big bone balls made boning ironically hard. "Plus, Shelgon don't molt, or shed their shell. They can heal it to some extent, produce more to fix cracks, but they're not going to grow until their evolution, stockpiling all that energy until then. So, the shell is kind of a set size for a set sized Shelgon. If it's suddenly pregnant and starts expanding in there…"

"What the fuck," I breathed, horrified. "They just get crushed?"

Clair nodded solemnly, both of us dropping our usual nonsense. "The mother is often okay after the… leftovers have been discarded, but the offspring doesn't make it. It's part of the reason there are so few Salamence in the wild. Even if they survive being practically abandoned after hatching, they need to either get to a decade old before they can reproduce as Bagon, or manage to evolve fully, which most often takes longer."

"No boinking as a Shelgon, got it." I stared firmly, the words coming from the depths of my soul. Absolutely not.

Nope.

"I wouldn't recommend it, no. Therefore, this is more about the future than right now. I just want to get in before anyone else. The Titan gene isn't inherited, but there's decent evidence that it does increase overall size and may make it more likely to develop the Alpha gene. Lance's main Dragonite is a descendant of a Titan."

That… was more digestible than trying to buy her. "Why do you want to pay for me not to release the recording if Bruno's already done so?" I didn't get an answer for that.

"Blackmail so I can become Clan Head." She stated bluntly and with zero fucks given.

I choked on a vegetable, Espeon psychically hitting him on the back as he coughed. "What the hell!?" I gasped into my own glass of Oran juice. "Aren't you already the Clan Head?" I frowned. "I mean, you're the Gym Leader. I know it was different for Brock, but everyone else seems to follow the 'Gym Leader = Clan Head' principle. People dislike the Sisters, but even they are Clan Heads."

"Misogynistic assholes!" Clair snorted, shaking her head in annoyance, wild blue mop haloing her face like a mane before she brushed it back. "You don't hear half as much bitching about Surge or Falkner as you do about the girls and Erika!" In all fairness, Surge at least fought his challengers, I admitted in the privacy of my mind. He was probably worse than Erika – at least Sleeping Beauty didn't traumatize kids as often – and the Sisters should be allowed to go for a more Contest-focused thing, but they did deserve criticism.

Like a balloon deflating, Clair slumped in on herself. "But you'd think so, wouldn't you? That I'd be the Clan Head as well if I were the Gym Leader. You know why I'm not?" I shook my head. "Because Lance is."

I frowned. Beyond the scary thought of that guy being in charge of a major Clan – arguably THE Clan, based on the way everyone talked about them – that also just sounded like a bad idea. "That's allowed? It's not a conflict of interest?"

"Sure it is," she shrugged, looking a little confused. "The Clan Head is almost always top five in strength, and they often end up with additional titles. I don't understand your question."

She wouldn't. The concept of 'conflict of interest' probably didn't mean much in a Might Makes Right type of society. "Then, why is it a problem that he's the Clan Head? Other than by being Lance, and that sucking for everyone."

"Because if he's the Clan Head, then I can't be!" She proclaimed, deadly serious.

I waited for elaboration.

It didn't come.

"That's it!?" I questioned, incredulously. She frowned, face taking on a more grave expression as she opened her mouth, but she stopped herself. A grimace flashed across her features, as if she just caught herself before she overshared.

"W-well, something like that. Do I need more reasons!? This is how it is, the strongest stand at the top, and the weaker try to reach them! It's the natural order of things!" I hated how much that extremely simple reasoning made sense. It was the exact type of thing I'd expect from the dragon-brains, and it stirred my snoozing Aura in my chest. "Besides, I figured you'd be pleased with the idea, being all buddy-buddy with Bruno! The higher ranked that I am, the better I can help with the whole 'not warring' thing." The quotation marks around 'not warring' weren't reassuring, but I got the point.

I tilted my head back and forth, mulling over her words. Damn her if she didn't make a reasonable argument. It didn't even sound like the tips and training for Betty were bound to the breeding thing or the video. I really didn't stand to lose anything.

But it was suspicious, and I didn't want to.

Eventually, my musings just kept going in circles, and I did something I should honestly do more often.

Get a second opinion.

I ignored the notification that Bill had wired a hefty sum and found the number I wanted. Sorry, dickhead, but money doesn't solve everything – not that amount of money, anyway.

"This is Bruno's number. You are talking to Bruno." The monotone voice cracked through the speakers. He didn't turn on the camera, but I still found myself smiling. I'd missed the brute.

"Hey, Bruno, this is Peri. I'm here with Clair Blackthorn, Gym Leader of Blackthorn. She says-"

"I'm aware of her offer." Bruno cut me off. "You should take it. She's a better Trainer than you, and it would help further integrate the two of you into my plans, making it more likely that you'll help me."

"... don't say the quiet parts out loud, dude." I rubbed my forehead.

"Is there anything else?"

"I guess not, but you didn't really say anything-!"

BEEP!

I stared at the PokéDex as it turned off after the call ended. "... hold on."

That deserved a redo.

"Hi-!"

"-Peri-!"

"-good to hear from you!"

"Hey girls," I greeted. It was actually getting wild that I hadn't ever caught any of them alone. Even then, both Daisy and Lily were on screen, with only Violet missing. "Quick question: you guys know Clair Blackthorn?"

"Oh, Clair?" Lily lit up at the name.

"Yeah, we know Clair!" Daisy agreed.

"Great Trainer-"

"-massive bitch-"

-DAISY!"

"I meant it as a compliment! Peri's an asshole, he gets it!"

Clair herself folded her arms with an unimpressed expression that spoke of an impending second video call once we'd parted ways.

Daisy also wasn't done.

"Terrible taste in men, too! You know she used to have a crush on Bugsy!? You know, the rollercoaster Bug guy!?"

"Bugsy is a perfectly nice guy-!" Lily came to the Johto Gym Leader's defense.

"Hate to interrupt," I cut in before they could get lost in the sauce. Also, Clair was clearly on the verge of letting them know she was there, and I wasn't sitting through that mess, "but what you're saying is that it's safe to go to Blackthorn with her?"

Silence.

"Uh, no!?" Both Daisy and Lily sounded extremely unimpressed for some reason.

"What do you want with that old hag-!?" I could see the Blackthorn's face get increasingly red, her hands trembling where they were clasped around her berry juice, threatening to spill the red liquid. I opened my mouth to try and save their friendship – or whatever – before anything that couldn't be taken back was said.

"She's way too old for you!"

My jaw stayed open, the words lost. "Wha-?"

"You're supposed to marry Misty!"

"Yeah, we finally found someone for the runt-!"

"-and you want to run off and get molested by a geriatric witch!? That cradle-robbing slut!" Daisy seemed furious at her own idea that I was pursuing a romantic relationship with Clair.

"I really thought better of her." Lily, on the other hand, seemed genuinely disturbed and sad at the thought

"Alrightgirls, thankyou, Ihavetogo!" I rushed out and hung up before Clair could get any redder and explode.

Another silence. Unlike the brief early one, it hung over us like a weighted blanket, a nearly physical thing between us.

"… putting that aside," Clair forced out through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring and pupils the thinnest of slits. Something vibrated in her pocket, and she reached in to turn it off without looking at who it was, interlocking her fingers afterward so hard the knuckles turned white. "That's two character witnesses who vouched for me. Is that enough?"

I took in the fury she was constraining with admirable effort. She was really trying.

"Look," apparently, she took me not responding instantly as further reluctance and leaned forwards again, spreading her hands wide, "I get it. I do. Lance is… a lot."

I snorted. "You can say that again."

"Lance is a lot." It was her turn to smirk at my glare. "He's… he's the best and worst of us. He's the one whom everyone wants to be. The children run around, taking turns being 'Champion Lance', laying waste to scores of challengers. When they get their Dratini, the first words out of their mouths are about how they're going to beat Lance and his Dragonite. He's the one who, after decades, reminded the whole world of our power. Just because we lost and signed the treaty doesn't mean we're any weaker or have been left behind by technology. The Blackthorn Clan stands at the top of the world, as firmly now as ever, and he is the shining symbol of that."

Her voice was thick with emotions, too many for me to count or make out, but it was clear that her relationship with Lance was anything but simple.

"But?" I prompted.

"But," she agreed, "He's also everything we're warned about. You know that Blackthorn kids start emotional training at seven?" I shook my head. "Well, we do. Stuff like, how not to punch everybody who annoys you, that there's more to life than fighting, how to concentrate on something non-violent for more than five minutes." Sounded like something I could've used. "As far as I know, they're the only lessons Lance ever failed. More dragon than man, the Elders whisper, like the legends of old. The type of person who would carve a kingdom out of nothing or rule the ashes left in his wake, up there with Laionus, Victoria, The Crimson Wing, fucking Blackfang himself. Power and violence incarnate, someone who takes what he wants and kills anyone who gets in his way until he burns out, taking as many as possible with him on the way down. A king. An emperor. A man a thousand years too late, shackled to a desk and asked to play nice."

We sat there, her words lingering as she swirled her drink around, lost in thought, while I gazed out of the window.

"... I'll go with you to Blackthorn for now," I relented. I wasn't going to pretend her speech didn't have an impact, but at the end of the day, it was the potential benefits to my team that decided it. "The… breeding thing," I shuddered at the thought, "and the video… we'll see."

She sighed, a massive amount of tension leaking out of her. "I'll take it for now."

"You'd better, since it's all you're gonna get," I grumbled, somewhat annoyed with myself for giving in. "We can leave in the morning, after my team has been looked over. Meet you by the Gym, I guess."

"7 AM, sharp!" I rolled my eyes and ignored her, leaving the diner behind.

I took my time, walking through the bustling streets of Saffron for the last time – for a while, anyway. I didn't know how long I'd be spending in Blackthorn, but I didn't intend to swing by Kanto's largest city on the way back.

Walking into the PokéCenter, I had to wait in line for a while, but it was nothing terribly inconvenient. After seeing Nurse Joy pale a little and brace herself when she saw me depositing Betty, I decided to hang around a while – just in case. I'd relied on Potions for most of the few scratches she'd picked up over the two weeks in Saffron, so it was the first time the Nurse had to deal with the Titan.

In the end, we decided it was probably best for everyone involved to keep her asleep while she was quickly checked over. She hadn't taken any damage anyway; it was just a good habit to have. You never knew when something small could become a problem.

Plus, it was 'free' anyway. Hell, it was paid for with a percentage of the prize pool of official battles, like Gyms or the Battle Courts, and with the work I'd been putting into the latter over my time in Saffron, I'd earned it.

It would also be my first time in Johto, I realized while checking out of The Milotic. That was kind of exciting, though I doubted it would be that different since it was still part of the same landmass as Kanto.

Opening the door to my room, I was instantly on guard, Espeon standing up on my shoulders, Zorua going invisible with a squeak, and the tired Honedge – who had refused his ball in favor of my shadow – coming up to hover in front of me.

Someone had been in my room.

I spotted the package on the bed, a note on top of it, and relaxed a bit. Unlikely to be an ambush, unless it was sneaky as shit.

Soothing my Pokémon, I walked over and picked up the piece of paper, noticing that the package itself was a TM disk and a 'Data Drive' or, as I called it, 'more universal USB stick'.

The handwriting was neat and straight, almost machine-like, and I had a feeling I knew who it was from before even reading it.

And I was right.

'Have fun in Blackthorn. I don't like it. The people are illogical and emotional.

Moon-Soother is annoyed that you interrupted her new attack. She wants a rematch.

I don't like Bill.

Regards, Sabrina.'
​

Chuckling to myself, I confirmed the TM was the Teleport I'd asked for, and – a quick insertion later – that the data was about Espeon. And not just widely available stuff you'd find on the PokéNet, I noticed while skimming over a section on 'inherent use of Detect', but real training tips.

Unironically in my top three Gym Leaders, and it was only partially because most of the others sucked.

---

"You ready?" I nodded at Clair's question, smirking at her droopy eyes. She'd thought 7 AM would screw me over, but jokes on her, I'd been awake for over two hours by that point.

"Sure am. Are you?" She sniffed and mumbled something under her breath while rubbing her eye, cutting herself off with a yawn. Instead of trying again, she grabbed a PokéBall and released an Alakazam.

I was a little disappointed, I'd admit. I'd been curious what kind of Dragon-Type she'd taught Teleport.

"Normally, I'd-Haaahhh!" She yawned again. "Shit! Stupid Daisy, keeping me up all night with her stupid words. Anyway, normally I'd fly, but it's a bit long for your first time. Unless you've ridden a Dragonair before?"

"Nope." I agreed.

"Cool. Grab on and let's go." I did as instructed, and despite my hopes of something different, there was nothing to scoff at about Alakazam's Teleporting skills.

One minute, we were in one place, the next, somewhere else, with only the slightest tugging sensations and swirling colors.

What was on the other side, however, was cold.

"Brrrrrrr!" I complained, swinging my backpack off and setting it on the rock beneath us. It wasn't freezing, and as I looked around while putting on my jacket, there wasn't that much snow to be found either, though there was some. "No thanks for the warning!"

But it was a hell of a lot colder than Saffron's reflecting buildings of glass.

"Ahhhh!" Clair, on the other hand, seemed invigorated by the low temperatures, taking in a deep breath. "That'll wake you up! Welcome to Blackthorn! Kind of."

"Yeah," I agreed, taking in the scenery. "Kind of. Where are we?"

We'd materialized on a wide, flat shelf of rock jutting out from the mountainside like a natural platform, worn smooth by what had to be centuries of use, judging by the grooves worn into the stone where feet had stood and landed. Below us, the mountain dropped away in a series of staggered cliff faces, each one darker than the last as the rock changed composition going down, from the pale grey-brown of the upper-altitude stuff to something almost black further below, shot through with veins of reddish mineral that caught the early-morning light.

The mountains themselves were enormous. Not in the way that Mt. Moon was enormous, all tunneled through and tame, full of Clefairy and fossil hunters. These were the real thing, the kind of mountains that didn't care that humans existed, jagged and ancient, covered in a thin skin of snow that stopped partway down and became spotty. The peaks above us disappeared into low clouds – black dots too far away to make out swarming around the tips like bees, and the wind coming off them carried an actual bite, the kind that found the gaps in your jacket like a knife with a personal grudge.

Between the summits, the valleys were deep and dark, filled with pine so dense the canopy looked solid from up high. Now and then, something large shifted in the treeline far below, the canopies shaking with far-off roars.

"Home sweet home," Clair said, with the tone of someone who meant it completely and was slightly daring you to say something about it.

I didn't.

Blackthorn city was visible in the valley below us and off to the east, maybe a twenty-minute walk if the path down was straightforward – which it very visibly wasn't. From our perch, it looked small, built along the valley floor with the mountains rising on three sides like walls that hadn't decided to stop. The few features I could make out were dark-roofed and sturdy-looking, built to take weather rather than to look good in it, with none of Saffron's glass and steel or Celadon's manicured prettiness. A river caught the morning light somewhere near the town center like a band of diamonds, snaking down the left mountain and bringing fresh water to the dragon Trainers. Smoke was already rising from a few chimneys, and indistinct shapes moved among the buildings despite the shadow of the mountains casting their homes in shade.

To be fair, with the height of the peaks, Blackthorn would only get a few hours of sun a day.

It looked like the kind of place that had been exactly where it was for a very long time and intended to stay there. "You can see the Gym from here," Clair pointed, though I could only tell what she was pointing at because it was larger than the surrounding buildings and set back from what looked like the main road.

That wasn't the nearest source of interest, however.

Behind us, partially built into the mountain itself and partially carved out of it, was a cave.

A big one.

Wide and low-mouthed, the entrance was hewn into the rock face with excessive force, the edges worn and blackened along deep claw marks, slag and molten stone cooled mid-drip and ground by centuries. Two pillars framed it, carved directly from the mountain rather than set in place, and intricately carved. Whatever had been etched into them had been worn down to mere suggestion by time and weather, the surface nearly smooth with age. That being said, the repeated patterns of a humanoid shape and another four-limbed, large and bulky shape with something on its back pointed towards the origins. The darkness beyond was complete, the kind that didn't resolve into shapes no matter how long you looked at it, and the air coming out was significantly warmer than the mountain air.

A scent tickled my nose. Fire, ozone. Reptilian.

And a lot of it.

"Dragon's Den," Clair said, looking into the darkness with me, the words carrying a certain amount of weight to them, a hint of reverence. "Your home for the upcoming bit."

"Right," I said.

She rolled her shoulders and turned toward the entrance, the cold morning air ruffling her blue hair.

"Grab your bag, Periwinkle. We're not tourists."

"I go by Peri," I said, for approximately the fortieth time to approximately the fortieth person. She walked into the dark without answering, and a second later, a deep, bone-rattling vibration rolled from the Den's depths, somewhere between a purr and a warning. Then it was amplified by something else joining in, and before I knew it, it was a symphony of rumbling, almost clicking growls that shook the ground beneath us.

I picked up my bag and followed Clair into the black.

---

IT'S HOT AF, DUDE, SAVE ME, I CAN'T WRITE LIKE THIS!

Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you REALLY liked it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.

 

[Ahzura Twilight]

IT'S HOT AF, DUDE, SAVE ME, I CAN'T WRITE LIKE THIS!

Click to shrink...

It fills me with joy seeing someone else suffering as much as I am, the sun is too freaking zealous damn it

 

[The Radiance's Follower]

Crashing out on Bill is pretty unwise even if it's justified. He's your only sponsor that won't take a lot from you and will support your big team that eats a LOT.

IT'S HOT AF, DUDE, SAVE ME, I CAN'T WRITE LIKE THIS!

Click to shrink...

Get a fan buddy. It's unlivable without one. Even a small one that only shoot at your face.

 

[SynergeticVoices]

Crashing out on Bill is pretty unwise even if it's justified. He's your only sponsor that won't take a lot from you and will support your big team that eats a LOT.

Click to shrink...

Definitely unwise, but it is also kinda important to establish boundaries with Bill, cause he'd just keep pushing otherwise.

But Peri also has zero control over his temper, and minimal control over his impulsive thoughts so was inevitable it had to be a blow up.

 

[HankPankylol]

Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoy. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.

---

The sudden change in lighting had me blinking rapidly as we stepped past the Dragon's Den threshold, effectively blinding me. But that didn't really matter, not as much as it should.

I doubted I'd been able to take anything in anyway.

It was like a wall had hit me in the chest, a wall of power and energy. The air was thick with it, laden with it like moisture content, and it crawled down my throat with every breath. More than oxygen spreading from my lungs, heat filling my body in a very familiar, yet new, way, my Aura stirring like a dog that heard a bark in the distance.

And then the smell, like a forge in a thunderstorm.

Not unpleasantly so – or at least, not once you got used to it. In the first thirty seconds, the hot, mineral-heavy air hit the back of my throat like I'd swallowed a mouthful of scorched sand, ozone stinging in my nostrils.

Oh yeah, that was the stuff! I should've come to the Dragon's Den earlier! Screw Clair, I had it from there! Give me a month, and I'd be stronger than her, stronger than Lance! I'd fucking beat up Betty with my bare hands, show her who's boss-!

SLAP!

"Aww!" I complained, holding my stinging cheek.

"I'm not doing this with you!" She stuck her finger in my face. "You'll keep your shit together, alright!? I'm not dealing with both you and your Shelgon lost in the draconic energy!"

"...right. I'm good." I mumbled, embarrassed. The energy was thick and had caught me off guard. The slap had knocked the worst out of me, yet I could feel it creeping back in, twisting my thoughts and emotions.

That was where Clair wanted to work on Betty's behavior? I was starting to doubt the wisdom.

The cavern was the size of a monstrous cathedral and lit like one – not by windows, but by thick patches of luminescent fungi that clung to the walls and ceiling in irregular clusters, throwing everything in shifting blue-green light that made shadows move even when nothing did. Normal torches helped, but they were mostly along prearranged paths to indicate where to walk. The floor was covered in grooves and claw marks, dry except for a dark river running down the left wall and across the space, narrow enough to step over in most places. It continued towards the right, where the cave dipped, vanishing into another part dotted with more naturally occurring light-emitting fungi.

Stalactites hung overhead in formations that might have been natural and might have been shaped. It was hard to tell with the light. Several of them had been broken off at the base, leaving raw, pale stumps that contrasted with the dark ceiling, and I decided not to think about what had broken them.

Not that it was a major mystery. The cave was far from empty, after all.

A group of orange-tan Pokémon looked over at us, beady black eyes set over a ridiculously large pair of jaws with a jagged mouth. It had been a minute since I'd seen one – back in Orre, where it almost ate me – but I recognized the Trapinch easily enough. That gave me enough clues to identify the three unknown Pokémon – long, almost insectoid tan bodies with hexagonal emerald wings, like a mix of a stick bug and a dragonfly – as Vibrava. Seeing my attention on them, the evolved ones buzzed their wings in a painfully high-pitched tone as a warning, while the Trapinch swiftly buried underground, leaving nothing but a pool of sand behind.

And suddenly, I feared walking.

The Ant Pit Pokémon was the most common one, nearly a dozen within eyesight – without counting the Vibrava. A fair amount of elongated, blue snouts shaped like cannons stuck up from the river, Horsey and an ornery-looking Seadra that pushed the others behind it protectively, puffing out its chest covered in spikey plates.

But it was the small school of long, white and blue serpent-like Pokémon that slipped into the water that interested me, small wing-ears poking out from the surface alongside large, oval noses.

It made sense that the Blackthorn – the Clan known for Dragonite – had Dratini running around, but it was my first time seeing one in the wild.

"Welcome to the Dragon's Den!" Clair spread her arms wide to encapsulate the massive cave system. "Or, welcome to the part that we call the Human Den, anyway. This is essentially the part that we humans rule. There's no fighting here – not among the inhabitants, anyway; we can still train – to give the kids a safe place. And by kids, I mean both humans and Pokémon, as you can see. Not something you'd see in the wild, but it works for introducing Clan kids to potential starters, and gives the more skittish species somewhere to hide out until they're strong enough to head deeper. Which is that way," she pointed towards the side where the cave dipped and deepened, "where we'll go down later on. It's basically just the stronger end of this 'reception area,' but you will not go down there without me!" There was not a single iota of hesitation in her face. "We're taking a risk even bringing a Titan Dragon-Type this far in, but the dragons don't consider this their territory alone, so we should be fine. Down there, it's a free-for-all for just about everything that's not fully evolved. And even then, there are exceptions. I know you're not going to listen, but seriously, down there is dangerous."

"What about that way?" I pointed towards the back. The tunnel was hardly inconspicuous, and more than large enough for Betty to waddle through without touching the sides. Additionally, while the entrance to the Dragon's Den had obviously been made by both humans and Pokémon, the new tunnel was rough. Large chunks had been torn out to make room, and whole sections melted, pooling on the floor alongside deep claw marks and footprints stomped into the solid stone.

I found it hard to tear my eyes away from the blackness of the entrance. The whole Dragon's Den radiated draconic energy. I could smell it, feel it, taste it.

But that tunnel bled power.

"For you? Death, swift and painful." I looked at her to find her staring back. It wasn't a joke. "Seriously, don't. That's their part, and even we rarely go in there without a good reason. Lesson one on Dragon-Type training and maintenance!" She puffed up her chest, looking awfully smug. "A dragon's territory is sacred! Well, not actually sacred, but you know what I mean! You step into a Goodra's home with a dragon, never mind a Titan, and they will make you leave."

"Right." I agreed. Sounded like good general advice for Pokémon. "How many live here?"

"In the Den proper?" Clair ducked under a low jut of rock with the ease of long practice. I walked into it. "Between 50 and 60 younglings, depending on the season. The older and stronger ones migrate through the open mountains further in. We don't track them the same way."

"And they're all…" I tried to find the right word.

"Wild? Yeah." She said flatly. "The Clan allows them to train with us, the ones that choose to stay up here in the Human Den. The ones that go further down, or into the Den proper, choose not to be trained. That's their right. The treaty with the Den predates the Indigo League by four hundred years."

"You have a treaty with your own cave."

"We have a treaty with the Dragon-Types who live in our cave, yes." She looked at me over her shoulder. "We also have a treaty with the ones who live in the Holy Land. And the ones who occasionally come down from the peaks in winter. They're not our Pokémon, Periwinkle. They're our neighbors."

"And the difference is?"

"Neighbors can tell you to go to hell."

I considered that for a moment. "So the difference is they could also kill you, and you couldn't really complain about it."

"Now you're getting it. We'll make a dragon out of you yet."

I decided I might come to like the Dragon's Den.

---

We were given a room in what Clair called the Trainers' Quarters – a cluster of carved chambers near the upper section of the Den where the air was slightly cooler and the lighting slightly less eldritch. The room was spartan: a stone sleeping platform with a thick bedroll, a chest that had been bolted to the wall sometime in the last century and showed the dents to prove that several Dragon-Types had tested the attachments since, a lamp that ran on something that smelled like rendered fat, and a low ceiling that forced me to duck when I stood near the center beam. There wasn't even a door, just a large semi-circle missing in one of the walls.

It was like a medieval prison cell, and it was only the fact that less than a month ago, I'd been sleeping on less in that damn cave with Bruno that made it somewhat bearable.

That was what I told myself, at least. It was somewhat worrying that a part of me was happy to be back out in the wilderness.

I should probably spend less time in caves.

I released my team inside and was immediately reminded why standard rooms didn't accommodate eight Pokémon.

Not my eight, anyway.

Sol pressed himself against the far wall and tried to look small, which was not something his physique lent itself to, sniffing furiously with peeled-back lips from the stench of dragons. Hercules stood there, assessed the available square footage, and immediately went outside to start doing push-ups.

Siren levitated to the center of the room, turned in a slow circle, located the one moisture-damp patch of wall, and went to hover next to it with the air of a person who has found the one good chair at a bad party.

Espeon leapt up to my shoulders briefly before dropping down again, lofting and flexing her paws like she could feel the grime. Eyeing the Fire-Type critically, I could see her weigh her options before she walked across Sol's back, stood on his head to gain height, looked around the room critically, and then lay down on the Arcanine's massive cranium. Sol, knowing better than to try her when she finally acknowledged his existence, didn't move other than his wildly swinging tail. At the same time, mysterious indentations across his fur told me that Zorua had followed Espeon.

Still needed names for those two. And Honedge, but I wasn't holding my breath for that one, feeling more than seeing the sword slip into my shadow.

I hesitated with the last PokéBall, wondering if I should wait for Clair, but shook my head. It was my Pokémon, Mew damnit.

Betty materialized with a deep rumble that vibrated the whole chamber, spinning around to check out her surroundings and crashing against the stone 'bed', breaking a corner off of it. Snorting in agitation at finding herself in such a small room, I could tell she was about to flop onto the ground, damn the consequences, when she suddenly froze.

Her pupils dilated. Her nostrils flared. The low growl intensified.

"I know," I said, walking to stay in front of her as she shuffled around, trying to find the source of the massive amount of dragon smell and energy. I could see her eyes start to gain the smallest hint of green-blue, like she did when using Dragon Dance.

Uh-oh.

"Now, Betty-!" I tried to get ahead of her, but it was too late.

"SHEEEOOOOO!"

I clamped my hands over my ears against her cry of challenge as it echoed and amplified off the walls. Sol whined, Espeon fell off his back with a hiss, and general chaos and pain ensued.

"Don't do that, you moron!" I shouted back, the latent, ambient energy upping my temper as I shoved her in annoyance.

The act, more than the force as there was absolutely no way I could move her, sent Betty stumbling into the wall and cot again, shattering whatever remained of the bench, and Zorua fled into my arms in a blur of grey fur and reproach.

I stared at the pile of rubble and peeked out the door. Clair had said she needed to check on the actual nests themselves – alone, which was understandable – and to just pick a room.

"... it was like this when we got here," I decided and started repacking my stuff.

It took about twenty minutes to arrange the new room, so it wasn't an immediate threat to everyone's well-being. It was times like that I appreciated most of the team sleeping in a giant pile. We might be able to squeeze in.

Betty was still growling.

"It smells like Dragon, I get it!" I snapped. "Get over it, you giant baby!"

Betty did not appreciate my tone, and she turned her angry eyes on me.

"Oh, that made you mad, huh!? Well, I'm mad at you too!" I stood up and got in her face. It wasn't just the Dragon's Den, either. I was genuinely pissed. The Shelgon seemed surprised at my tone, but refused to back down. "What was that shit back in the Gym!? With that Hypno, huh!?"

My words brought her up short for a moment, but she was too far gone to want to talk, so she simply snorted and bumped me like I had done her earlier.

The only difference was that when I did it to her, she only moved because she allowed it. When she did it to me, I was lifted off my feet and into the wall with a thud!

"You stay out of it!" I demanded of the others as they started to get up, letting out various protests and warnings. I picked myself up from where I'd slid down to the ground, nursing the back of my head. Betty let out a strangled noise that might've been concern, but when I looked, she had gone back to ignoring me.

"Oh, I get it," acid and hurt dripped from my words, "you think you're a big girl now, huh? Think you have it all figured out? Here I went and got you a teacher, someone who can help make you stronger and calm you down. Guess I shouldn't have bothered, then." I sat down on the stone slab, yanking Vulpix into my lap and petting the cold fox with a heavy hand. "Just use this time for the rest of the team. Leave your whining, violent, bitchy ass behind."

Betty snorted at me dismissively. Slowly, ever so slowly, she shuffled around in a circle until her back was to me and threw her legs out dramatically, letting herself fall to the ground with a massive crash!

"Off to a great start," I mumbled sarcastically.

---

Clair returned after what felt like an hour of silence, which it might have been. I'd lost track somewhere between Betty's fourth attempt to get comfortable in a room she'd already decided she hated and my third time opening my mouth to apologize, only to get angry that it felt like I had to be the one to apologize once again, which led me to close my mouth again and say nothing.

It was the quietest we'd been with each other in months, if not years. Not the comfortable quiet of two people who understood each other, but the specific silence of an argument that had been started, abandoned, and was sitting between us waiting for someone to pick it back up.

Betty had her back to me, staring at the wall. I busied myself with Espeon and Vulpix, grooming the two demanding Pokémon. I even managed to get Zorua to make a brief appearance for her own brushing. Sol had his eyes on both of us with the anxious attention of someone watching two people at a dinner party who weren't speaking to each other.

"Let's go," Clair said from the doorway.

I got up, recalling everyone except Betty, and followed her out. Betty got up after me and shuffled along, which I would have found more encouraging if it hadn't clearly been motivated by finally getting a chance to go out and confront the source of the smell, rather than any change of heart.

The training area was deeper into the Human Den than I'd gone yet, past two junctions and down a short incline that brought the ceiling lower and the walls closer. Contrary to normal expediency, it only got hotter and hotter the deeper we went, and the ambient Dragon energy thickened considerably to the point my head felt vaguely fuzzy, like Grant had snuck me another cup of his booze.

The path opened into a wide, roughly circular space where the floor had been worked flat – not perfectly, not the way a man-made arena was flat, but flat enough that nothing would trip over it unexpectedly. A ring of torches surrounded it and lent the arena a ritualistic air, even if I could see that the torches were little more than a week old. The walls on two sides were scorched in overlapping patterns to smooth their surfaces; the layers built up over decades, like geological strata. The third wall had an almost balcony-esque overhang, over which I could see some more Vibrava and a small blue head with a grey crown. The young Bagon – even younger than Betty – bared its teeth at me, only to duck down behind the ledge when Betty glanced its way.

I could feel the Dragon energy differently there – not the background saturation of the first chamber but something with more direction to it, the concentrated residue of a lot of fights in a small space over a long time. My Aura flared and sizzled before I managed to force it down, running through the breathing patterns Bruno had shown me – well, that I'd copied from Bruno, as the man had barely shown me shit.

"Better! That was almost as good as our ten-year-olds manage!" Clair 'praised'. I flipped her off in response, not trusting my words. The blue-haired woman seemed as at ease swimming in the thick energy as she'd done back in Saffron – shit, more so than in the diner – and I refused to admit I was envious of her for that.

Betty looked around the space with the first genuine interest she'd shown since we arrived, pupils thin lines surrounded by blue with a green tint.

"Here," Clair said.

I stopped. "Here?"

"You said she won't listen." She crossed her arms. "Show me."

I looked at Betty, who was examining a section of the scorched wall with the expression of someone reading reviews.

"Betty," I said, voice already impatient and fed up with her shit before she even did anything.

She kept examining the wall.

"Betty."

She turned, slowly, with the maximum amount of theatrical reluctance a creature without a visible neck could generate.

"We're training."

Her expression said she'd consider it.

I looked at Clair. "See?"

"Tell me about the Gym. What happened with the Hypno?"

"You saw the footage."

"Do you want the training or not!?"

I exhaled through my nose but went with it. "Sabrina switched to Hypno after Betty took out Kadabra. Betty was already burning through the Dragon Dance buff faster than I wanted because she'd used a good amount for the Dragon Breath. Then, she ignored me like an idiot and got herself caught in the Hypnosis." I paused, staring at the Shelgon as she ignored me. "I recalled her when it was clear she wasn't going to break free fast enough."

"Mm." Clair looked at Betty, who did not seem super impressed with the way we were talking about her, but was also too stubborn to insert herself into the conversation when she'd already opted to act like she was ignoring it. "And you've addressed that with her, I gather. The two of you were not this antagonistic in Saffron."

"Back in the room," I said. "She didn't want to hear it."

"How'd that go? Other than 'not good', which I've gathered myself."

I turned to Betty. She looked back at me with the readiness of someone who already knew where this was going. "I tried to talk to her about the Hypno. About the fact that she ran at it without waiting, even when I told her to stop, just as she ran at the Kadabra, and it cost her the battle because the situation was different, which is why I call out the moves and she does them. Some… words were said." I looked at Betty, crossing my arms petulantly. "And she turned her back on me."

Betty confirmed it by slowly turning her back to me again.

"Why didn't it work?" Clair asked. I didn't know where she got her psychology degree, but it was clearly a scam, and she should get her money back.

"Is there a point to this!?" I decided to voice my thoughts, though they came out with more heat than intended. "Did you bring me here to play shitty therapist, because I can find that online-"

"Why didn't it work?" It was wild that she was somehow calmer in the Dragon's Den than outside. Familiarity, perhaps?

"Because she doesn't-" I growled and stopped. Started again. "Because she was embarrassed about fucking it up and losing her first Gym battle, and she didn't want to have the conversation because she's a giant baby!"

"Okay, step one," Clair declared while Betty growled at my words, "you have got to stop taking pot shots like that. That's not going to get you anywhere. Either insult her to her face, or don't do it at all. After she turned away and ignored you, you let that be the end of it? Just let her have her way and decide when the conversation was over?"

I felt the familiar tightening in my jaw and murder in my chest.

"She wasn't going to listen."

"So you bitched out."

"I didn't bitch out, I just-!" The words turned into a breathy exhale, and I looked away, pacing a little while flexing my fingers to try and settle my nerves.

Clair was quiet for a moment, studying me with a superior glint in her eye. I'd had her on the back foot earlier, since she wanted something from me, but the shoe was on the other foot in the Dragon's Den, and she was clearly relishing holding whatever fortune-cookie wisdom she had over my head and waiting for me to catch up.

"She's a Dragon," Clair said, ignoring my sardonic 'WHAT!? Really!?'. "Not a stubborn child you're waiting out. Not a Growlithe who needs a firm voice and a minute to settle after pissing on your shoes. She is a Dragon, and you have spent – from what I can observe – the majority of your time together trying to manage the gap between what she is and what you're comfortable with her being." She looked at me steadily. "I told you back in Saffron that you treat her like a child. You told me I was wrong. I'm telling you again."

"I don't-"

"You literally just called her a baby while I was watching."

I opened my mouth.

I closed my mouth.

"That's not necessarily wrong. Neither is insulting her," she said. "Because that's how you talk to something you're frustrated with, and it is, at the end of the day, your honest opinion." She tilted her head slightly. "Does she see you as an authority?"

"Yeah," I said, with less certainty than I intended.

I thought about Betty turning her back on me in the room, the theatrical crash to the floor, the dismissive snort. I thought about Bruno telling me in Fuchsia that she was made for combat. I thought about Primeape beating her bloody and her getting back up again, and again, and again, and finally evolving not because I'd guided her there but because she'd found the wall she needed to break through herself.

I thought about the look on her face in the Saffron Gym when the Hypno put her down, that moment of dazed confusion that was less about pain and more about something she hadn't expected being possible, and the fact that the first thing she'd looked for was me.

"She trusts me," I said slowly. "But I don't think that's the same thing."

"No," Clair agreed, and something in her voice shifted very slightly. "It's not." She reached for her belt. "She follows you. She fights alongside you. She looks to you when she doesn't understand something, which means she values your assessment of the world." She held my gaze. "But she makes the calls she makes because she believes she knows better than you in the moment, and most of the time, you let her, because you're afraid of what happens if you push back hard enough that she decides you're wrong. You oscillate between treating her like an infant and like an Exploding Electrode."

The silence in the training space had a weight to it.

"Talk to her."

"I… don't know how to treat you after evolution," I said lowly, feeling embarrassed. Betty half-turned so she could look at me from the corner of her eye. "As a Bagon, whatever… issues you had, they were manageable. You were just eager and competitive. Now…" I drifted off, not knowing how to say it, or wanting to.

Ever since her evolution, I'd been cautious around her. Somewhat nervous.

A little afraid. Not for me, even at her worst, but for everything else around her. Even knowing the Battle Courts of Saffron, my hand had been on her PokéBall at all times.

Betty was quiet for a moment. Then she made a sound that I still didn't have a name for, a higher-pitched keening noise, like an old-school kettle boiling. It was a frustrated, angry sound.

A sad sound.

"Yeah," I said. "Same."

Clair clapped loudly to get our attention. "Okay, good!" She declared, and I very much disagreed. "That's a good first step, getting it out in the open. Subtext and double meanings aren't going to get you very far with a dragon. Now step back."

I stepped back. Betty's gaze followed me, then shifted to Clair before locking into the arcing PokéBall she'd thrown high.

"Come forth, Saya!"

Saya dropped from where she'd materialized, dropping to the floor before catching herself just above it and settling gracefully. The nearly twenty feet of massive Dragonair settled with a precision that was less performance than habit, the deep blue, almost indigo scales catching the ambient light and scattering it in slow patterns across the scorched walls. The crystal at the base of the elegant throat was large, deflecting the bioluminescent light back like a disco ball, and well polished, like her scales. Even the white wing-like ears looked carefully maintained, the horn in the middle of her forehead glinting despite the deep scratches.

Betty's eyes lit up at the sight of the large dragon, instantly losing interest in talking and mending bonds. Sure, she couldn't match Betty for mass, but Saya the Dragonair was quite a bit longer.

"SHEEOOOOO!" Betty's cry of challenge echoed off the walls and magnified until it was the only thing audible. The young dragons – and a couple of Rock-Types, I noticed, seeing a Sandshrew bury itself alongside the Trapinch – that had been hanging around above us, observing, scattered with admirable speed, almost like they'd done so before. The last echoes of the roar were still reverberating when they were all gone, retreating away from the big, angry dragon trying to stake a claim to the Dragon's Den.

Silence. Full, oppressive silence. The complete lack of noise, even from the deeper, more competitive part of the Den, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

And then the sound returned.

"DRAAAAAA!"

"GIIIIIIIIIII!"

"BAAAAAAA!"

Pebbles bounced on the ground, dust falling from the ceiling at the symphony of offended Pokémon who took Betty's cry of challenge as a… well, a challenge. A rumble began in the deep parts of the cave, the sounds of hundreds of feet running as one. A brief flash of green-blue illumination, then an orange and red one, lit just enough to hint at a mass of writhing shadows down in the pit, clawing at the incline and furiously flapping their wings to come meet the challenger.

Uh-oh.

"Saya, if you would, darling," Saya the Dragonair twisted to curl around her Trainer briefly and then turned to the oncoming horde and opened her mouth.

A low, beautiful note left the serpentine dragon, a morose, gentle song so at odds with the cacophony of screaming and stomping.

And yet, everything stopped. The oncoming rush of angry dragons slowed, and suddenly I couldn't hear their pounding feet. There were some faint grumbles, but they quickly faded as everything settled down, and the dragons retreated.

"You see that!?" Clair's eyes were shining, and if she puffed up her chest any more, she'd explode. "You see that!? That's what I'm talking about! That's authority! We don't even need to yell at them anymore; they know who we are! They know I'm Queen Bitch in this place!" She pointed at Betty dramatically. "Does she!?... well, know that you're the Que-King-whatever! Let's fight! No orders, Pokémon only! Saya, get them!"

I opened my mouth to protest, but it would've fallen a little flat as it wasn't Saya the Dragonair who made the first move.

Betty charged.

No setup, no Dragon Dance or Dragon Breath as a smoke screen – she simply charged, because she was a Titan Shelgon in the Dragon's Den thick with draconic energy. She'd been looking for something to hit since we arrived, and still wasn't quite pissed enough to choose me, so Saya was the next best option.

Or she would've been. Unfortunately for Betty, Saya moved.

It was the first time I saw what a truly high-level Dragon-Type looked like in motion, and the contrast with Betty couldn't be starker. Where Betty was force incarnate, Saya was speed – one moment, she was where Betty's charge was going to hit, waiting patiently as the much heavier dragon built up speed and momentum. Next, she was behind her, long serpent tail raised and wound back. My eyes widened as the ambient draconic energy swirled and drew in towards Saya, thin tendrils of condensed green-blue becoming visible to the naked eye, gathering around the crystal-like balls at the end of the appendage as she swung the Dragon Tail like a club.

CRACK!

A crack split the outer layer of Betty's shell, long and deep enough to incapacitate a normal Shelgon, but she was built of sterner stuff and merely let out a surprised cry of pain. A bellow that stretched out as Betty's feet lifted off the floor, and for the first time since she'd evolved, Behemoth was airborne.

BOOM!

Betty hit the floor, the impact sending a crack through the stone beneath her that spread five feet in every direction as she tumbled across the stone, still roaring in anger and pain. Coming to a stop against the wall with another crash! she was struggling to get back up before the dust even cleared, fury driving her.

Not that it helped when the lightning bolt in the shape of a Dragonair had already slithered across the ground so fast I barely saw her and hit Betty straight above the opening for her head, bone splintering as she was driven back into the wall.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

My gaze alternated between the dust cloud that spread from the point of impact as Saya gracefully slid back to curl up in front of Clair, and the ceiling, watching a chunk being knocked loose and shattering against the floor.

Clair wouldn't be throwing around that kind of force if the Den couldn't handle it, right?

I looked at the fierce grin on her face, hair seeming alive in the flickering blue-orange light.

Yeeeeah.

The dust settled, revealing Betty once more, though I had to blink for a moment to recognize her.

Betty wiggled uselessly, front legs unable to reach the ground from where half her enormous body had been driven into the wall, sticking out like a demented wall ornament. The front-facing part of her shell was bent inwards, the bone having snapped and tipped down to press against the top of her head. With another strained roar, she managed to rip herself from the wall in a shower of debris, landing with a stumble. She blinked furiously, trying to find her opponent, but the bent shell prevented her from looking upwards far enough. With a snarl, she curled her neck deeper into her dome before snapping it forward in a Headbutt.

Thud!

Thud!

Thu-cr-chunk!

With a snapping sound, several cubic feet of bone crashed to the ground. The splintered leftovers made it hard to see deep into the shell, but I could see more of her grey skin than I'd ever had before, and to be honest, more than I wanted to ever again.

Something about seeing past a Shelgon's shell was just wrong, like de-cocooning a Metapod.

It also let me see the glazed-over eyes as they rolled around trying to find a steady image of Saya to focus on, a large and deep gash on her forehead leaking blood down over her face as she panted long and slow.

Wait a minute. That was not just panting.

"Honedge!" I called out as Betty's breathing got deeper and heavier, the yellow fading from her irises as she filled her body to the brim with draconic energy.

The sword shot up in front of me, sheath held out and projecting a Protect, just in time for Betty to suck in her biggest breath yet – so deep I could've sworn her shell bulged a little.

And she let it out.

WHOOOOOSH!

Behemoth's normal Dragon Breath could fill the majority of Saffron's Gym arena with stone-wrenching force, like a tidal wave.

If that was a tidal wave, the one she unleashed towards Saya the Dragonair was a tsunami.

Thick, rolling flames of pure power poured from her mouth with such force that she slid backwards, carving thin grooves in the ground. The destructive sea was a match for Sol's viscous flames, dense in a whole new way, helped along by the surrounding energy. In fact, I could see the very air itself ignite before the Dragon Breath reached that far, the technique somehow resonating with the environment and bathing the whole cavern in light.

And on the receiving end, the Dragonair sat in front of its Trainer, neither bothering to act in the face of an attack that would decimate a building.

Nor did they need to.

As the inferno approached, Saya pulled herself up to her full height, and I had just enough time to see her familiar green-blue – though a more solid blue than usual– cloak the Dragonair from top to bottom before she was hidden.

I waited, breath baited. What if Clair had underestimated her own strength and was dead? How was I supposed to get out of the Den without-

The sea churned.

The flames that should've passed without issue slowed and curved on either side of where Saya and Clair should've been, shooting back up towards Betty before being caught in 'current' again and forced backwards to repeat the process as more and more of the Dragon Breath did the same, swirling around them faster and faster while rising higher up as well. Soon, the ocean had become a tornado, its very top brushing the cavern ceiling and sending sprays of crushed rock flying like a sprinkler. The Twister's rotations increased as it narrowed and brightened, the green fading until it was a nearly solid indigo.

And then it spun vertically as well.

Smaller and smaller, Betty's stolen Dragon Breath decreased to the size of a house. Then a boulder, a human, and finally, a blinding ball of shining purple hung suspended before Saya, the Dragonair still glowing with power herself. The ball emitted a whine like a jet engine as it spun, dust picking up under it and blowing across the 'arena'.

Abruptly, the sphere destabilized, and hell was unleashed.

A beam of light, as wide as my torso, tore through the air with a boom! of the sound barrier shattering. It hit Betty in a blink and ripped her off her feet, driving her backwards into the wall again – and then through it.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

"BETTY!" The yell came involuntarily as the sheer rock face came tumbling down to bury my Pokémon. The whole Den shook like a giant had kicked it, and for a moment, I genuinely feared for my life as rocks rained down on my head. Espeon deflected the largest with blasts of psychic energy, and Honedge cut through the rest with Steel Claw, but I still took a chunk to the shoulder that left it sore and with a bloody rift down it.

Eventually, everything stilled enough for me to look over the tons and tons of rubble that hid the Shelgon from view. Nothing seemed to move, with the exception of smaller rocks still settling and pebbles falling.

My heart skipped a beat.

Then a section exploded outwards as something massive forced itself free with a weak, stuttering roar. Unsteadily, the huge round shape forced itself through the wreckage and into the light.

My breath of relief caught in my throat.

Scorch marks had burnt Betty's shell black, cracks and dents covering the enormous dome, several layers peeled off along the natural segmentation. Blood poured in streams down her chin and to the floor, pooling in thick puddles. One of her eyes was squeezed closed, and the other was bright red with blood as she limped forwards, left hind leg bruised at best – broken at worst.

If she'd been lightly concussed before, she'd graduated to cranial fracture or worse.

"Okay, I think that's eno-!" Clair held up her hand to silence me, making me bite my tongue despite my displeasure. She was the expert.

"Do you give up?" I opened my mouth again, but it wasn't directed at me.

It was directed at Betty.

Predictably, Behemoth did not, in fact, give up. Instead, she gave her best roar of defiance – having to stop to cough out a mouthful of blood – and sucked in another lungful of air, apparently thinking it would go better the second time.

She never got to find out. In half the time it took Betty to get ready, Saya had already formed another sphere of draconic energy in front of her and sent it shooting off. Instead of whatever bastardized Dragon-Type Hyper Beam she'd used earlier, I recognized the second ball as a Dragon Pulse, which was something.

It was still enough to tear through the beginnings of the Dragon Breath and slam into Betty, expanding in a blast of green-blue not-flames. Betty rocked back on her ass and all the way onto her back, and still had enough leftover momentum to just barely roll around again and land on her front.

By the time I saw her closed eyes, I was already halfway to her, but I got interrupted once more.

"Wait."

"The fuck do you mean 'wait'! She's unconscious!" I protested, but my words only proved true for a moment longer as Clair pulled out a golden trapezoid and snapped it in half, pouring the Revive into Betty's mouth. The powerful combination of Potions and stimulants – smelling salts, adrenaline, etc. – dissolved swiftly, and Betty's good eyelid fluttered before opening to find Clair right in her face, Saya looming over the woman, shadowed against the bioluminescence that had survived the destruction.

"How about now? Do you give?"

Betty gave a moan that I think was supposed to be another bellow and scrambled her stubby legs to try and get up, looking like a beached turtle.

In response, Clair nodded and stood up, retreating behind her Dragonair.

"If you insist. Saya."

Betty's eyes flicked upwards just in time to see the Dragon Tail coming crashing down on her skull.

BOOM!

Betty groaned, but tried to get up anyway.

The tail came down again.

BOOM!

BOOM!

"ALRIGHT, SHE GIVES!" I shouted, but went ignored again.

BOOM!

BOOM!

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Honedge's hilt fit my hand as naturally as always, and I was nearly on top of Clair with no real plan before Saya stopped me dead in my tracks with a look. Even while beating Betty like a drum, the Dragonair had been calm and collected, but there was something dark in those glossy, purple eyes.

Clair, on the other hand, hadn't stopped staring at Betty as I approached her with a deadly weapon.

"Do you submit?"

"I fucking told you, yeah, she does-!"

"I'm not talking to you!" Clair snapped back, never taking her eyes off Betty. "I'm talking to her." Rather than crouching, the Dragon Trainer put her hands on her knees and leaned down, staying taller than Betty's eye level. "You're in my house. You'll respect me in my house, or I'll kick you the fuck out. Do. You. Understand?"

And then something occurred that I'd honestly thought wouldn't happen after her evolution.

Betty averted her eyes, looking down with a high-pitched noise the likes of which I hadn't heard since she was a Bagon.

Clair wasn't satisfied, though.

"Look at me." Betty rolled her eyes up, keeping her head – shell, really – on the ground. "Do you understand?"

Betty made the same noise again, and Clair finally straightened up.

"Good!" She declared, cape flapping behind her dramatically as she spun to me. "In that case, good luck! I'm out."

She had already strode past me by the time her words sank in.

"WHAT!?" I demanded, storming after her. "What the fuck do you mean you're out!?"

"I mean that I've got shit to do!" She said, not bothering to stop. "I'll be back in a bit, let you settle in. She'll not be up for training for a bit, anyway." She nodded her head back towards the barely conscious Betty. "Besides, it's your Pokémon. I can beat her ass as much as I want, but that's not going to make her respect you. She's vulnerable right now; make the most of it."

"How!?" I stopped and threw out my arms. "If I knew how, I wouldn't be here!"

"You're smart enough to get at least started!" She waved over her shoulder, Saya curling around to coo my way gently. "See you. Since I know you won't listen to me, be careful in the Pit and, seriously, don't go through the tunnel – only actual rule, because explaining your corpse wouldn't be easy. At least the ones in the Pit probably won't kill you. I'm sure you've got enough food; you're a traveler. Bye."

She hopped on her Dragonair before I could say anything further and was gone in a flash.

Leaving me behind in a decimated room full of rubble, with a pulverized Shelgon, and more and more young dragons starting to peek in to see if it was safe to spectate again.

"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!" It had been a while since I screamed in rage, and I panted, glaring at a tiny Dratini who looked at me weirdly from closer than the rest dared get, the little scamp slithering between debris.

Hated Blackthorns, nothing good came of them.

"Alright, you stubborn brat!" I hissed while stomping over to Betty and starting to pull out my best healing items. "I don't know how long we're allowed to stay in this cave, nor do I care! We're not fucking leaving until we figure this shit out! You hear me!?" Betty growled lowly as I forced the needle past her thick hide – I'd had to get a slightly more expensive version that had a screwable needle that got bigger the longer it was extended – but didn't answer me. Nostrils flaring, I took a page out of Clair's book. "Look at me!"

Reluctantly, the huge orbs darted up to me before looking away again. In that brief moment, I saw the shame and rage, but I couldn't acknowledge it yet. Not until I got my answer. "Before we leave, you and I are going to have our shit figured out, or I'm gonna kill myself doing it! Alright!?"

She lifted her chin slightly before letting it drop again with a low moan.

I'd take it.

"Good! Now lie still; you need a hundred more injections."

---

I don't like this chapter. Not sure why, but I tried to fix it with lots of words, and I don't think it worked.

Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you REALLY liked it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.

 

[Ahzura Twilight]

Having another dragon beat yours into submission just feels wrong to me, you're out here establishing a pecking order that you're not the head of it's just weird. Not that I'm saying the power of friendship is peri has been on would work but it'd prolly have been better if he kicked in behemoths teeth with his own pokemon

 

[The Radiance's Follower]

Having another dragon beat yours into submission just feels wrong to me

Click to shrink...

I think it's just the thing Betty needs. In nature, animals learn behaviors from families or friends of the same species. Betty needs to learn that she doesn't know better when batteling. Pokemon in general can't know better and that's why they have trainers. Betty is learning that listening to a trainer is great and lead to a best case situation.

"She's a Dragon," Clair said, ignoring my sardonic 'WHAT!? Really!?'. "Not a stubborn child you're waiting out. Not a Growlithe who needs a firm voice and a minute to settle after pissing on your shoes. She is a Dragon, and you have spent – from what I can observe – the majority of your time together trying to manage the gap between what she is and what you're comfortable with her being." She looked at me steadily. "I told you back in Saffron that you treat her like a child. You told me I was wrong. I'm telling you again."

Click to shrink...

This is what a lot of people forget. Pokemon are not humans. They are as smart as humans but they are not ones. Pokemon eats other Pokemon in the wild. And their instincts and behaviors are their own. You can't treat a Pokemon as a human and expect good results. You need to let a pokemon be a pokemon and do pokemon things even tho you think it's stupid or unsightly.

I always found it weird to wrap my head around personally. Pokemon are animals with human level intelect.