We wake up in the morning on opposite sides of the tree. I know she's there at once because I can hear her, and as I push the willow leaves aside she bounds ahead, her gait more confident this morning. She looks back with a hint of some pity I don't need or want, and I try to straighten myself up so I look half as confident as she does.

"Foraging?" she asks. We don't need many words, but now there's no want for the flowery extras either.

"I'll handle it."

"What about plans?"

"Food first."

"Sounds about right. What do you need me to do?"

She speaks like I spoke to Ashley, the way Shruikan spoke to me when we were managing grinding for the day. I've been given my reins after all. I had only imagined we'd be holding them together.

My fire is still cold in my stomach. "Start with some diagnostics. Ask everyone what they're capable of, find somewhere you can practice without burning the forest down. For the sake of avoiding criticals, finding some other target would be nice, but I don't want to upset the locals either, so..."
"Non-living targets. Got it." She walks one way and I walk another, towards the generally herbivorous and consistently disappointed looking denizens of the tree slightly to the right of the main one. Dusty, Shell, Shika, Millie, Chompers, and Ferro are playing some game with a variety of sticks with engraved lines.

As I approach, Shika smirks and takes a Sitrus berry from Ferro's pile, which has become the gambling pot at the center of their game. "Told you so," she says.

"You asked for it. Now, do you want to forage or not?" I ask, and the circle opens up into a semicircle or some sort of interpretive ellipse. Regardless, they're in agreement, so we'd best be going.

I point at Dusty, Shell, and Shika, and declare, "I'll come with you three and head one way," and then gesture to the rest, "and you can take the other. Fair?"

"Fair enough. Let's get going, team." Ferro says. "We've got what, fifteen Pokemon to feed?"

"Fourteen." Shika says, her tone bitter as an Enigma berry.

"I feel like I've counted fifteen," I reply, but as I tally up the number in my head, I stop at fourteen and can't think of who I'd be missing.

"You counted wrong," she replies, but another furious glance lets me know who I nearly left out of the count.

Peckers is still out with Ashley.

"Right," I say, and we head into the forest together. Despite how incredible the situation is, we once again find ourselves feeling slightly annoyed rather than ecstatic as we walk in circles through the foliage.

I look up, noticing several nuts overhead on some nearby trees. Lifting a paw but finding I'm a little too short, I look to my teammates for back up. "Shell... Can I still call you Shell?" I ask.

We're still working on new names, Shell mentions, shuffling his wings against his side. It reminds me faintly of Pich, but the comparison makes me feel guilty and I know he can tell.

"I respect that." I say, pointing to the tree. "Do you think you could fly up and get some of those?"

Shell's eyes glow a bright pink and the nuts, now encased in energy, fall to the ground before us. He hasn't budged an inch.

Telekinesis. Right.

I walk to a nearby tree and run my claws straight through the bark, ignoring the bits of wood that have found themselves lodged deep into my pawpads. I end up with a sizeable shaft of wood, which I place the nuts on. "I'll carry this," I tell them.

"If we forage, what's everyone else doing?" asks Shika as we continue. She's more inquisitive than I remember, and she holds herself with confidence despite how hard her transition back must be. Although my memories of the early journey are blurry by now, I'm near definite these last few years have changed her.

"Lilly's taking them out to see what everyone's capable of. We need to know where we stand power-wise before we move forwards."

"Move forwards where?"

I open my mouth to improvise and am struck by an idea like a Pidgey out of the sky. "Ecruteak. We don't know where or when Ashley is, but Morty's nigh guaranteed to be around and he'll be able to understand us."

Shika nods, her gaze shrewd, and I exhale, relieved.

A prickling sensation runs through my fur as a psychic presence enters my mind. We'd better move fast. We can't keep this up forever, Shell adds. I look to the others, but no one seems to have heard him.

A private message.

"I know," I whisper back, and he just nods. I try to remember if Shell ever talked outside of making baby Togepi noises before his death, but those memories are even foggier than those of Shika. The death, of course, is still vivid, but aren't they always?

We gather nuts and berries for hours, though I long for meat or even honey. The chances of finding Beedrill is high in Ilex Forest, but the encounter of coming out of the encounter with honey instead of a swathe of stings is less so. Despite that, the pile on my wood plank looks plenty appetizing and I'd be happy to just eat that for the time being. My stomach growls in agreement but my conscience tells me the others are going to need it more. I signal the others with a nod and they help carry back their own shares. Dusty and Shell's is located in Dusty's huge claws, on his wood shaft, and Shika's is wobbling on her back.

Regardless, we make it home without incidents to find Rage sitting far from the others while everyone else sits in a circle, new bruises dappling their flanks. They're arguing about something, most likely plans, but I need to deal with the outsider first. Divisions in the team could fester into something dangerous. I drop my berries with the others and walk to Rage, who doesn't notice my approach. He's staring off into the distance and looking miserable, his terrible fangs bared into a grimace.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Resisting." Rage grumbles. His fins contract and fold like Dill's, but he moves them like he's angling them to listen for prey. His pupils slide so that the dark lines bore into my soul, watching my every movement, and I can taste the unease in the air. He and I are both dangerous but I have the privilege of falling in the team's good graces. I'm not a killer yet.

I think of my team in Kalos and feel sick, the lines blurred, and Rage's expression contorts into a human expression his new face can't hope to recreate.

"Good luck," I reply, and go to sit down across the circle from Lilly. She's sitting at a diagonal from Rage's head, so his eyes don't meet hers but he's not staring down her back either.

"So," she says, and it rests on the air like a lone cloud in a blue sky.

"So, here's us." I press my stick into the ground, "In the Ilex forest." I sketch in a square around us, the stick thrusting away dirt and trembling before finally collapsing in on itself and snapping in two. I draw the rest out with a claw, leaning into the circle and sketching out the next route, a square for Goldenrod, and then the curve that leads to Ecruteak. I draw a huge circle around it, spanning all the way out to the feet of the assembled Pokemon.

"This is Johto." I tell them.

"Nice," Ferro says.

I flatten my ears but continue. "Ashley doesn't have a dot because we have no idea what she's doing. She could be anywhere."

"We could go back to New Bark and follow her," Dusty suggests.

"That's a great way to ensure we never find her." Shika says, thin legs crossed. She peers over the map as if I'd constructed something far more professional.

Sky asks, "So are we just going forwards until we find her? The Olivine split alone would take us months and we run a huge risk of being caught."

"We don't need to get that far." I declare, moving out dot across Goldenrod to Ecruteak. "Morty's here. If we can get there, we're out of the woods figuratively and metaphorically."

"So how do you plan to get around Goldenrod?" asks Lilly, as if I've figured this out already.

"Do we need to get around it?" I ask, feigning innocence.

"People." retorts Shika. "Not happening."

"We could cut around...?" suggests Dusty.

"Huge metropolitan area." Khrys shakes his head.
"Come again?"

"People." Shika confirms.

"Bill?" Dill asks.

"Can't understand us." Toxis sighs, patting Dill on the head.

"We could ask Celebi for help?" Shika says.

"Not going to work, but sure." Lilly sighs.

"You hear something?" Dill asks, fins perked. He shuffles and turns around, sniffing the air. "You smell something?"

"I can smell everything. It's very disorienting." Dusty says, but he's lifted his head as well. "Embers."

"That's Bronze," Lilly says, brushing it aside. "Can we get back on topic?"

"We weren't going anywhere." I say, stretching out a paw and taking a berry from the center of the pile. I toss it into my mouth and savor every bit of the flavor. Human food never tasted this good.

"Where's the other foraging squad?" Lilly asks.

"They haven't come back yet." I shrug.
"Maybe they just found a lot of berries." Dusty adds.
"With our luck?" Lilly snorts. "As if. Bronze, go sweep the forest."

I love you too, I think, but she's right. Toxis gets up besides me, volunteering wordlessly, and the two of us are nearly out of the clearing when I hear a grumbling voice behind us.

"I'm coming too." Rage tells me. "If anything has happened, you'll need back up."
The forest is quiet around us, and I'm just tasting the air for scent. There have been other Pokemon here- big ones, though I don't know what breed or how many. I'm going to get the hang of it if it kills me, though, because otherwise it might kill the rest of us.

"Nice weather we're having." Rage says, interrupting my thoughts.

"'Back up'." I repeat.

"I had to leave." Rage doesn't even bother to look guilty. "I hate being there, but I can't think of a bigger target than a shiny Gyarados. If I go off on my own, I'm going to be caught in a heartbeat."

"I see. It must have taken a lot of strength to come back. Thank you." Toxis says, parroting my sentiments from earlier.

"Not really. No one liked me there either." Rage admits. "I've been thinking about my name. Do you like Crimson?"
I nod, but another sniff sends me reeling. I know where we are.

"This is the clearing from yesterday."

"What?" they both ask, and I put a claw to my mouth.

"Shhh."

In the clearing up ahead, I see everything I expected and worse.

Ferro, Millie, and Chompers are cornered by Houndoom, and their berries have spilled across the grassy terrain. Chompers has his hands up in surrender but not one of them shows signs of physical injury. Still, the Houndoom look anything but friendly.

My mind races as I assess our odds, my fists igniting with fire. These must be the Houndoom that attacked the party yesterday.

"Those are our teammates you have cornered. You want to go?" I ask.

"Don't." The lead Houndoom says, and we stand still and silent. He knows well enough that he's outnumbered, and though there's a devious glint in his ruby red eyes, no amount of cunning could save a pack of four Houndoom from a Gyarados and a Nidoking, let alone the rest of our number. His teeth are sharp and well used, the bones on his back are not all his own. Still, to some extent, he holds himself with dignity. Dark type or not, he's a pack leader, and I have a feeling I'm going to have to learn to give respect where it's due. "We're not gonna hurt ye yet."

"You attacked first. The other day, one of our own was injured."

"Just a warning, but given numbers... t'was a poor idea, clearly. I suppose ye'll be wanting us off our own land, won't ye? If it need come to a territory war, I have no qualms with fighting to my last." Both sides grit teeth, the scent of burned things and an approaching storm filling the air. The tension is acrid, but no one dares act on it. With an authoritative nod to his own, the lead Houndoom calms down his own. I extend my arm, but no one's particularly intent on listening to me. The Houndoom continues, "There's a much better way to settle this, if ye'll take it. See, a few friends of mine might have something you need."

"Go on." I say, stepping forwards.

"Aye... did you say you were looking to get through Goldenrod?"

(ahaha five days im so sorry rip)