Chapter 34: A Pokémon with Heart.
Kai took the next flight of stairs slowly, one hand on the wall.
The pillar was thinner up here. He could feel it through the wood — the slow, breathing sway that had been a curiosity on the first floor and a presence on the second was something else again now, halfway up the third. Each step shifted under him by the breadth of a knuckle, settled, shifted again. Sandshrew was still on his shoulder, claws hooked carefully in the seam of his jacket, riding the movement without comment.
Kai came up onto the floor and stopped.
It was lighter up here. One whole side opened out onto a balcony — a wide rectangle of bright daylight that cut across the boards and threw the central pillar into stark relief. He could see Violet City laid out beyond it. Slate roofs, the green of the parks, the white of the gym, a tower in its own right. A breeze came through the opening, smelling of wood and something faintly green that Kai couldn't quite place. The bells on the lower roofs were close enough up here that you could hear the clappers' wood as well as the bronze.
But it was the Pokémon that Kai noticed more than anything else.
There were more of them on this floor. A pair of Hoothoot on a high beam, watching him steadily and making no move to leave. A Rattata sitting on its haunches by the partition, a half-chewed acorn between its paws, eyes flat. Two Bellsprout half-tucked into the shadow of a strut, leaves angled toward him like leaning weather vanes. None of them ran. Several of them, in fact, looked like they were settling in for a show.
Kai's hand went to his belt without him asking it to.
"Looks like this lot's not going to run," he murmured.
Sandshrew made a small, low sound in his ear, agreement and warning at the same time, dropping its weight slightly forward against his collarbone like it was already crouching for a jump.
Then something moved across the floor.
A Sentret came out from behind one of the support struts, fast and low, stopping square in the middle of the open space about three metres in front of him. It was bigger than any Sentret Kai had seen so far.
Kai had seen many Sentret in his journey so far, sunbathing, scouting, and scattering were their main habits or reactions. However, this one was different. It had a small healed-over notch in its right ear, and one of its forepaws had a pale stripe of old scar across the knuckle. It planted itself up on its tail, as tall as it could go, and stared at him with a ferocious look.
Then it chittered, sharp and short, at Sandshrew, seeming to issue a challenge.
Sandshrew chittered back, lower in the chest. Kai didn't know what either of them had said. He didn't need to.
This little fellow's not asking, he thought. It's telling.
Kai nodded, knowing there was only one way. "Alright, Sandshrew, hit it with a scratch attack!"
Sandshrew was off his shoulder and on the boards in one motion, claws extending as it ran. The distance closed in under a second, as it brought its right paw across in a clean diagonal swipe — at empty air.
The Sentret had pushed itself off its tail straight upward at the last possible breath and gone over the top of the strike, its long brown body twisting in midair.
Sandshrew's claws scored the boards instead, raising a spray of splinters. But the Sentret was already coming down on it from above with both forepaws working.
"Get back!" Kai yelled out as a warning.
Sandshrew rolled clear — barely. The Fury Swipes raked across the side of its head and shoulder before it could break, three bright lines opening up across the grey plates of its hide, dust flying.
Sandshrew came up snarling, low — the small sound at the back of its throat that Kai had only heard a few times. The one that meant it was properly pissed now, going for another attack on its own.
Sentret pivoted on one foot and slapped its tail across Sandshrew's flank like a cricket bat, knocking it skidding three feet across the boards on its side.
"What the hell," Kai said, half a laugh in it despite himself.
"That little guy has got some serious moves," Kai said, impressed by its fighting ability despite it not having a trainer.
The two Hoothoot on the beam shifted their weight at the same time and out of the corner of his eye, Kai caught movement on the far side of the pillar — two figures in ochre, stepping out from behind a screen, watching. Monks. Of course.
Sandshrew was already on its feet, getting ready for another attack, claws splayed, weight pitched forward, indignation radiating from it in waves. Kai could sense the next move forming in his mind. Getting ready for a Dig, or worse, a Magnitude attack.
Not in here. Not in this tower, made of wood. After all, Kai didn't want to bring down the tower before he had even gotten to the top.
He breathed out.
"Sandshrew. Sit this one out." Kai suddenly said, knowing he was fighting at half his strength without any ground-type attacks.
Sandshrew turned its head halfway to look at him without taking its eyes off the Sentret. It didn't argue. But it didn't like it, and Kai could tell.
"I know. I know. I owe you one. Now come here."
Sandshrew came back to him, tail switching, and bumped against his shin once, hard, on the way past — making its feelings clear.
The Sentret didn't pursue. It just dropped back down to all fours and waited, eyes flicking between Kai and Sandshrew, paws working at the boards in little nervous adjustments. Game for whatever came next.
Kai took a Poké Ball from his belt and felt for the right one without looking.
"Snubbull. Let's go."
The Ball cracked open, and the small bulldog Pokémon hit the floor in a four-square crouch, head low, eyes already locking onto the Sentret. Snubbull's Intimidate was a thing Kai had stopped thinking about in words a long time ago — he could see it land, in that small visible wobble that went through whatever was opposite, the way hostile tension dropped a notch. The Hoothoot up on the beams felt it, even — Kai saw one of them shuffle backwards along the wood by half an inch.
The Sentret felt it too.
But the Sentret didn't drop.
Something that had surprised him about this world so far, compared to the game, was that abilities and moves still worked in much the same way; however, unlike the game, where it was all numbers and math, the real world of Pokémon battling made things work in a whole new way. Something Kai was still figuring out as he went.
Sentret shook itself hard and held its ground. Eyes narrowed. Lip pulling back from a small, clean white line of teeth.
"Snubbull, use scary face!" Kai yelled.
Snubbull did just that, pulling a face at the Sentret, who was now charging in for an attack. Kai could see the effect of the scary face take hold, dropping the Sentret's speed as it tried hitting Sunbbull with a tackle attack.
However, Snubbull avoided the attack, acting on Kai's command that had already come.
"Now, Headbutt!" Snubbull lowered its head and rammed into the side of Sentret's body, forcing it to curl its large tail in on itself, trying to defend against Snubbull's headbutt at the last second.
"Nice... It used a defence curl just before the hit to soften the blow." Kai said, impressed.
The hit still landed, but the Sentret rolled with it, taking a third of the force out of the contact and going skidding back across the floor on its bunched-up tail rather than going flat.
"Snubbull, hit it with another Headbutt!" Kai said, not letting up or giving the Sentret time to recover.
Snubbull was already moving.
The Sentret tried to push back up off its tail, but its legs had gone gluey from the speed drop and the first headbutt.
Snubbull lunged at Sentret once more, slamming into the weary Pokémon with its head. This time, Sentret's tail couldn't shield it from the impact, sending it flying across the floor.
This time it didn't get up.
Not unconscious, Kai could see — eyes still moving, sides going up and down in fast little breaths. Just done.
He had a free Poke Ball in his hand before he'd properly decided to.
"Go, Poké Ball," Kai yelled, throwing it through the air toward the Sentret, hitting it on the head before it sucked the Pokémon inside.
The Ball hit the floor with a wooden tap. Rocked once, hard, to the right. Rocked back. A pause. A second pause. And then the little metallic ping of the closing mechanism.
Caught...
Kai let out a breath he hadn't quite known he was holding.
Snubbull trotted back to him, looking smug in a quiet way, and Kai bent down and put his hand flat on the top of its head for a second.
"Good job."
The Pokédex in his jacket made a noise.
Not the standard data-entry chirp it gave when registering a new species. Something different — a softer, two-note bell, like a notification. He pulled it out, frowning.
The Sentret's data scrolled up in the usual way first. Length, weight, type, the paragraph about always sleeping on its tail to keep its ears off the ground.
Then the screen blinked, and the text changed.
[League advisory... Active roster limit reached.]
[Trainers may carry no more than six Pokémon on their belt at any one time during sanctioned battles. Additional Pokémon may be transferred to a registered storage box via any Pokémon Centre PC. Your seventh Pokémon's Ball will be locked in League-monitored battles until you reduce your active roster.]
[Confirm transfer to storage?]
Kai read it twice.
Then read it a third time, slower.
He'd known about the limit — he'd grown up with it, in the way you grew up knowing the rules of a sport you played without ever needing to be told them. But the wording on the screen had shifted something for him. The Ball was locked in League battles. Not in his life. Not in training. Not on the road.
I can carry more than six round with me, he thought. I just can't put more than six on a card at a referee.
Which meant — for cycling Pokémon between training, for letting one ride out the next stretch on his shoulder, for the seventh thing being someone he could keep close until he'd worked out who they actually were — that was fine.
He hovered his thumb over the screen for half a second.
"No," he said aloud. "Keep it."
The screen blinked. Acknowledged. The Pokédex went dark.
Kai bent and picked the Ball up off the boards. He turned it over in his hand once. Light, as Balls always were, but in his head, it was not. Seventh Pokémon. He held it for another second, then clipped it onto his belt next to the others.
"Welcome aboard, Sentret."