RE: Winds of Time - PokéBeach CYOA - Chapter 7
You and Piplup leave the vicinity of Rowan's lab at a brisk walk, grateful for the mild temperatures and lack of snow. You take a moment to get your bearings, then follow a small, wooded track that goes deeper into the forest to the west. The trees and mountainous regions of the Coronet Range are more comfortable and familiar to you, and you’d rather not take your chances in new territory, at least not yet.
Around noon, you stop for lunch, finally tearing open the package Molly had packed for you before you left the town. Inside are several strips of jerky, a couple rolls of slightly-stale bread, and a thick, sugary berry mash. You tear open the rolls and spread some of the berry mixture inside to mask the staleness, then hand one over to Piplup. You eat the other yourself, followed by the jerky. It’s stringy and salty, but it’s the last meat you’ll likely be eating in some time, and you savor it, licking the last bits of flavour off of your fingers.
The package also contained one non-edible item, a small leather pouch holding a few small metal coins stamped with a ₽. You figure this must be money, though having lived in a barter system all of your previous life, you had never had an occasion to see any before now. It must be similarly worthless in the northern village where the townsfolk all provided for themselves. That could certainly explain the gift; Rex probably figured you could use the little coins more than he or his wife could.
You pack the coins and the remnants of the berry mash back in your bag as Piplup settles down for a midday nap. You figure you’ll let him rest for a bit--after all, you’re in no hurry to get anywhere--and to kill time for yourself, you pull out the Pokédex and scan him with it. “Piplup, the Penguin Pokémon,” the device chirps at you. “Because it is very proud, it hates accepting food from people. Its thick down guards it from cold.”
You chuckle at the description as you look over at Piplup’s sleeping form, berry juice staining the feathers around his beak. Just goes to show that not all Pokémon have the same personalities, through you can’t help but wonder if he would have been much different if he’d been born and raised in the wild.
You flip through the contents of the Dex, looking up other information about Piplup. As you’d already suspected, it’s a Water-type Pokémon, and you take care to try and remember its type strengths and weaknesses, as well as some of the other moves it can learn.
Over the next few days, you trek up the mountains with Piplup, eventually leaving the path and beginning to hike through the trees. Through your prepared food from both Molly and Rowan goes by quickly, the forest is thick and full of gathering opportunities. You find berries, honey, and some edible plants and fungi, though you take no chances on eating anything you don’t recognize. Surprisingly, you see very little Pokémon. You would have thought that you’d be seeing more and more of the little creatures the further you got from the inhospitable northern areas, but instead the exact opposite seems to be the case.
Instead, you and Piplup train as you did before you match with Bullet, working on drills. With the aid of the Pokédex, you try teaching Piplup some new moves, and refining those he already knows, and he eagerly enjoys the practice. The Pokédex has become something of another companion for you, though with only having recorded two Pokémon, the information it reveals to you is slight. Still, any help is better than none, and you don’t feel as blind and ignorant as you did before the match against Bullet.
Eventually, the trees even out and you find yourself on another dirt path. You and Piplup follow the path gratefully, glad to take a break from the constant hiking and fighting for every meter of advance. As afternoon turns into early evening, the path winds out of the trees and into a small, pleasant valley with a village in the center.
However, you barely even see the village at first, your eyes immediately drawn to the spectacle in front of your eyes dead to the south. The peak of Mt. Coronet, the main mountain in the range, was glowing with a white so bright and dazzling you could hardly look straight at it. You squint at it carefully, but you can’t make out any details, even after your eyes have adjusted to the brightness. Piplup, too, seems enthralled at the spectacle and the two of you spend a few moments ogling the spectacle before you shake your head and decide to make a move on towards the village.
This town certainly seems more prosperous than the tiny place you saw up north. It even has a name, Sandalstraw Town, that you see carved into a wooden sign near the town limits when you enter. None of the buildings are particularly large and prosperous, except for a wide building with a tall tower towards the west side of town, but they were well-kept and clean, and there were plenty of people bustling about, especially in a large market area.
At the sight of the market, you catch the scent of roasted sweet potatoes on the wind and your stomach rumbles, reminding you that cold meals of berries and mushrooms will keep you alive and healthy, but not warm and full. You decide to treat Piplup and yourself to a small, warm meal and you head over towards the market, a skip in your step. Your nose leads you right to the sweet potato vendor stand and you part with a few of the small metal coins for a couple roasted potatoes on sticks, still steaming from the fire.
Piplup bites into his immediately then drops the stick on the ground and flaps his wings anxiously, trying in vain to cool his mouth down from the hot explosion of potato. The vendor chuckles and hands a waterskin to Piplup to help it cool down. She smiles at you as Piplup takes a long swallow and shakes its head vigorously. “That’s a nice Pokémon you have there, and well-behaved, if not quite the brightest. You don’t see too many like that, not anymore.”
You take a break from blowing on your own potato to smile back at the woman. “Thanks. I’ve had him since he was an egg, so we’re very close.”
She cocks an eyebrow at you. “A wild egg, eh? You must not be from around these parts. Anyone here would just as soon eat the thing as hatch it. Most of the Pokémon we see are a nuisance at best.”
“You’re right, I’m from up north. Even still, I almost ate him at first, too, but I’m glad I didn’t. He’s been a good friend.” Finally cool enough to eat, you tear open the potato pouch and take a large bite, the warmth of it sliding down your throat and heating you up from the inside.
“They say Pokémon and people used to be good friends but,” the vendor shook her head sadly, “you don’t see that much anymore. The few we see around here are either killing each other, or trying to kill you. The Black Rings have a few tamed ones among them, but like yon penguin there, that’s the exception more than the rule.”
You finish your bite of potato and swallow loudly, looking at the woman. “The Black Rings?”
“Oh, they haven’t made it up where you’re at?” She waves a hand. “They’re our local gang. They keep us safe from the others provided that we give them a tithe from our earnings. A small price to pay, and less violence than you have to put up with some of the more destructive gangs. Really, we’re lucky they’re around.”
You feel your heart clench at the thought of another gang running around this town. The vendor’s words sounded pleasant on the surface but ring hollow to you, the words of someone willing to accept the lesser of two evils. You’re not quite sure what to say, so you gulp down the rest of your potato in silence while the woman sells a few more to a passing family.
However, just as you’re about to go find a place to stay the night, a question enters your memory and you turn back to the vendor before you leave. “If You don’t mind my asking, ma’am, what is that thing that’s glowing so much at the top of Mt. Coronet?”
She looks taken aback. “You don’t know? No, I suppose you wouldn’t if you don’t live up here since the shine doesn’t get all the way down beneath the mountains. That’s the Shining White City up there. The walls are made of bright crystal that reflect the sunlight. In the midday during winter, the light refracts and it turns all kind of pretty colours, but mostly it’s just bright at white. Take a look there tomorrow around noon if you want a pretty show.”
You thank the woman and head off on your way. The Shining White City, a place you only heard of in legends and stories as a kid. Was it truly real, with the White Lord himself inside? You wrack your brain, trying to think of any pertinent details about the place, but you can’t really recall many. You know that it’s filled with a bunch of rich, fancy people, and that they have something to do with the lack of Pokémon in the wild, but that’s all. The top of a mountain seems like a pretty weird place to have a fancy city, but maybe rich people simply think differently than the rest of us.
You spend another few of your precious coins at a local tavern to buy a place to sleep for the night. They don’t offer private rooms, but you manage to secure a pallet next to the hearth for you and Piplup. Thoughts of the City and its rich, beautiful inhabitants swirl through your mind as you doze off.
The next morning, you hit the market again. The potato vendor is nowhere to be found, but you manage to grab some travel bread and a couple waterskins with a couple more coins. Your money supply is beginning to dwindle, however, so you decide to pocket the rest and save it in case of an emergency. You’re beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable among the large presses of people in the village, and you’re glad to find yourself back on the road, heading back into the familiar, quiet forest.
The path you’re following dead-ends at a small pond and you stop to fill up your waterskins before beginning your hike. You’ve gone a good distance and are preparing to call a break and practice some more drills with Piplup soon when you hear a strange, high-pitched chirping scream. Piplup immediately turns towards the source of the sound and dashes off between the trees, leaving you to rush after him.
You emerge, chest heaving, into a small clearing before a rugged cave. The cries must have come from inside, because you see Piplup waddling into it, feathers on edge. “Piplup, wait!” You call out, but he’s already disappeared into the cave.
You grit your teeth and sprint towards the cave entrance, eyes widening as you get close enough to see what’s going on. Two scrawny men in black uniforms are inside, one clutching his head as if paralyzed by a horrific headache, the other armed with a long length of rope he was brandishing in preparation to tie up a small creature. At first you think it’s a human child, but upon closer inspection, and based on Piplup’s reactions, you realize the small being is a Pokémon.
You hardly have enough time to connect these thoughts before Piplup puts its recent training into action, giving the man with the rope a solid Pound right in the kneecap. “What the-” The man growls, turning his attention away from his other target and towards the small penguin Pokémon. “If you’re so feisty, maybe you’d like to come with me instead, huh, buddy?” He grabs the rope, stretching it between his hands as you finally make it to the cave, bursting in.
“You can’t take him, he’s mine!” You shout. “And you leave that other Pokémon alone, too,” you add, wishing you’d had the time to pull out your Pokédex and check it so you’d at least sound more knowledgeable. “You don’t tie Pokémon up with ropes if you want to train them.”
“Huh, Lenny, check it out.” The man with the rope chuckled deep in his throat. “Leggy bitch with a Piplup. This must be the one we’d heard about!”
Lenny, apparently recovering from his headache as the small white Pokémon dashed past him into the cave, turned towards you, mouth agape. “You mean the girl that took out Bullet and that dragon of his? Here? You really think that’s her, Roger?”
“Who else would it be, dolt? Just how many blue-haired girls with Piplups do you think are running around Sinnoh.”
“Yes, that was me,” you assert, staring coldly at both of them. “Now get out of here before I freeze your asses and string you up in the trees.”
Roger and Lenny look at each other and shrug. “Scrawny li’l thing wasn’t worth capturing anyway,” Roger mumbles. “But I bet the boss will want to know Mia’s around here, and that knowledge is probably more valuable. Let’s go.”
You watch them both leave the cave and head into the trees and purse your lips, wishing you could think of some kind of catchy comeback to shout after them. You’d gotten them to leave the Pokémon alone, and without any damage to yourself or Piplup, but the knowledge that your actions, appearance, and name had traveled this quickly, and that your location might be of interest to the leader of a gang sent chills up your spine.
You turned back towards the cave but fall to your knees suddenly as you become crippled by a blinding headache. You raise your hands to your head reflexively as if to block out a sound, but the power of the headache is coming from your mind, not your ears. The pain ends as quickly as it came when Piplup flies through the air and tackles the white Pokémon you manages to save from the poachers. Had it caused the headache for the other guy, too? If so, the Pokémon didn’t think any better of you than it did of him, and it seemed to like Piplup even less, based on the gleam in its eyes.
You had a feeling a serious Pokémon battle was going to start soon if you didn’t stop it, and you weren’t quite sure you like where that’s going. You quickly fumble out the Pokédex and point it at the strange creature.
“Ralts, the Feeling Pokémon,” the device announces, showing you a rather happier-looking version of the small Pokémon in front of you. “It is highly attuned to the emotions of people and Pokémon. It hides if its senses hostility.”
“Well, that explains why you ran off earlier, but not why you’re back picking a fight now,” you grumble. As a Psychic- and Fairy-type Pokémon, it didn’t have any particularly strengths or weakness against Piplup, but those Psychic-type moves could be painful, as you yourself already learned. As if to prove your thoughts, Ralts’s eyes begin to glow a bright purple as he turns his attention towards Piplup and the small Penguin Pokémon doubles up in pain.
You don’t know if this is a battle you can win. You bite your lip as you think. Should you go grab Piplup and make a run for it? Either way, you’ll need to make your choice quickly.
A) Grab Piplup and run like hell
B) Stay and fight
C) Try to reason with the Ralts
Thankfully for you all, you don’t need to make your choice quick as quickly as Mia does. You still have the standard 3 days to vote, so please make sure to get your final votes in before Tuesday, October 21.
Chapter 8
You and Piplup leave the vicinity of Rowan's lab at a brisk walk, grateful for the mild temperatures and lack of snow. You take a moment to get your bearings, then follow a small, wooded track that goes deeper into the forest to the west. The trees and mountainous regions of the Coronet Range are more comfortable and familiar to you, and you’d rather not take your chances in new territory, at least not yet.
Around noon, you stop for lunch, finally tearing open the package Molly had packed for you before you left the town. Inside are several strips of jerky, a couple rolls of slightly-stale bread, and a thick, sugary berry mash. You tear open the rolls and spread some of the berry mixture inside to mask the staleness, then hand one over to Piplup. You eat the other yourself, followed by the jerky. It’s stringy and salty, but it’s the last meat you’ll likely be eating in some time, and you savor it, licking the last bits of flavour off of your fingers.
The package also contained one non-edible item, a small leather pouch holding a few small metal coins stamped with a ₽. You figure this must be money, though having lived in a barter system all of your previous life, you had never had an occasion to see any before now. It must be similarly worthless in the northern village where the townsfolk all provided for themselves. That could certainly explain the gift; Rex probably figured you could use the little coins more than he or his wife could.
You pack the coins and the remnants of the berry mash back in your bag as Piplup settles down for a midday nap. You figure you’ll let him rest for a bit--after all, you’re in no hurry to get anywhere--and to kill time for yourself, you pull out the Pokédex and scan him with it. “Piplup, the Penguin Pokémon,” the device chirps at you. “Because it is very proud, it hates accepting food from people. Its thick down guards it from cold.”
You chuckle at the description as you look over at Piplup’s sleeping form, berry juice staining the feathers around his beak. Just goes to show that not all Pokémon have the same personalities, through you can’t help but wonder if he would have been much different if he’d been born and raised in the wild.
You flip through the contents of the Dex, looking up other information about Piplup. As you’d already suspected, it’s a Water-type Pokémon, and you take care to try and remember its type strengths and weaknesses, as well as some of the other moves it can learn.
Over the next few days, you trek up the mountains with Piplup, eventually leaving the path and beginning to hike through the trees. Through your prepared food from both Molly and Rowan goes by quickly, the forest is thick and full of gathering opportunities. You find berries, honey, and some edible plants and fungi, though you take no chances on eating anything you don’t recognize. Surprisingly, you see very little Pokémon. You would have thought that you’d be seeing more and more of the little creatures the further you got from the inhospitable northern areas, but instead the exact opposite seems to be the case.
Instead, you and Piplup train as you did before you match with Bullet, working on drills. With the aid of the Pokédex, you try teaching Piplup some new moves, and refining those he already knows, and he eagerly enjoys the practice. The Pokédex has become something of another companion for you, though with only having recorded two Pokémon, the information it reveals to you is slight. Still, any help is better than none, and you don’t feel as blind and ignorant as you did before the match against Bullet.
Eventually, the trees even out and you find yourself on another dirt path. You and Piplup follow the path gratefully, glad to take a break from the constant hiking and fighting for every meter of advance. As afternoon turns into early evening, the path winds out of the trees and into a small, pleasant valley with a village in the center.
However, you barely even see the village at first, your eyes immediately drawn to the spectacle in front of your eyes dead to the south. The peak of Mt. Coronet, the main mountain in the range, was glowing with a white so bright and dazzling you could hardly look straight at it. You squint at it carefully, but you can’t make out any details, even after your eyes have adjusted to the brightness. Piplup, too, seems enthralled at the spectacle and the two of you spend a few moments ogling the spectacle before you shake your head and decide to make a move on towards the village.
This town certainly seems more prosperous than the tiny place you saw up north. It even has a name, Sandalstraw Town, that you see carved into a wooden sign near the town limits when you enter. None of the buildings are particularly large and prosperous, except for a wide building with a tall tower towards the west side of town, but they were well-kept and clean, and there were plenty of people bustling about, especially in a large market area.
At the sight of the market, you catch the scent of roasted sweet potatoes on the wind and your stomach rumbles, reminding you that cold meals of berries and mushrooms will keep you alive and healthy, but not warm and full. You decide to treat Piplup and yourself to a small, warm meal and you head over towards the market, a skip in your step. Your nose leads you right to the sweet potato vendor stand and you part with a few of the small metal coins for a couple roasted potatoes on sticks, still steaming from the fire.
Piplup bites into his immediately then drops the stick on the ground and flaps his wings anxiously, trying in vain to cool his mouth down from the hot explosion of potato. The vendor chuckles and hands a waterskin to Piplup to help it cool down. She smiles at you as Piplup takes a long swallow and shakes its head vigorously. “That’s a nice Pokémon you have there, and well-behaved, if not quite the brightest. You don’t see too many like that, not anymore.”
You take a break from blowing on your own potato to smile back at the woman. “Thanks. I’ve had him since he was an egg, so we’re very close.”
She cocks an eyebrow at you. “A wild egg, eh? You must not be from around these parts. Anyone here would just as soon eat the thing as hatch it. Most of the Pokémon we see are a nuisance at best.”
“You’re right, I’m from up north. Even still, I almost ate him at first, too, but I’m glad I didn’t. He’s been a good friend.” Finally cool enough to eat, you tear open the potato pouch and take a large bite, the warmth of it sliding down your throat and heating you up from the inside.
“They say Pokémon and people used to be good friends but,” the vendor shook her head sadly, “you don’t see that much anymore. The few we see around here are either killing each other, or trying to kill you. The Black Rings have a few tamed ones among them, but like yon penguin there, that’s the exception more than the rule.”
You finish your bite of potato and swallow loudly, looking at the woman. “The Black Rings?”
“Oh, they haven’t made it up where you’re at?” She waves a hand. “They’re our local gang. They keep us safe from the others provided that we give them a tithe from our earnings. A small price to pay, and less violence than you have to put up with some of the more destructive gangs. Really, we’re lucky they’re around.”
You feel your heart clench at the thought of another gang running around this town. The vendor’s words sounded pleasant on the surface but ring hollow to you, the words of someone willing to accept the lesser of two evils. You’re not quite sure what to say, so you gulp down the rest of your potato in silence while the woman sells a few more to a passing family.
However, just as you’re about to go find a place to stay the night, a question enters your memory and you turn back to the vendor before you leave. “If You don’t mind my asking, ma’am, what is that thing that’s glowing so much at the top of Mt. Coronet?”
She looks taken aback. “You don’t know? No, I suppose you wouldn’t if you don’t live up here since the shine doesn’t get all the way down beneath the mountains. That’s the Shining White City up there. The walls are made of bright crystal that reflect the sunlight. In the midday during winter, the light refracts and it turns all kind of pretty colours, but mostly it’s just bright at white. Take a look there tomorrow around noon if you want a pretty show.”
You thank the woman and head off on your way. The Shining White City, a place you only heard of in legends and stories as a kid. Was it truly real, with the White Lord himself inside? You wrack your brain, trying to think of any pertinent details about the place, but you can’t really recall many. You know that it’s filled with a bunch of rich, fancy people, and that they have something to do with the lack of Pokémon in the wild, but that’s all. The top of a mountain seems like a pretty weird place to have a fancy city, but maybe rich people simply think differently than the rest of us.
You spend another few of your precious coins at a local tavern to buy a place to sleep for the night. They don’t offer private rooms, but you manage to secure a pallet next to the hearth for you and Piplup. Thoughts of the City and its rich, beautiful inhabitants swirl through your mind as you doze off.
The next morning, you hit the market again. The potato vendor is nowhere to be found, but you manage to grab some travel bread and a couple waterskins with a couple more coins. Your money supply is beginning to dwindle, however, so you decide to pocket the rest and save it in case of an emergency. You’re beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable among the large presses of people in the village, and you’re glad to find yourself back on the road, heading back into the familiar, quiet forest.
The path you’re following dead-ends at a small pond and you stop to fill up your waterskins before beginning your hike. You’ve gone a good distance and are preparing to call a break and practice some more drills with Piplup soon when you hear a strange, high-pitched chirping scream. Piplup immediately turns towards the source of the sound and dashes off between the trees, leaving you to rush after him.
You emerge, chest heaving, into a small clearing before a rugged cave. The cries must have come from inside, because you see Piplup waddling into it, feathers on edge. “Piplup, wait!” You call out, but he’s already disappeared into the cave.
You grit your teeth and sprint towards the cave entrance, eyes widening as you get close enough to see what’s going on. Two scrawny men in black uniforms are inside, one clutching his head as if paralyzed by a horrific headache, the other armed with a long length of rope he was brandishing in preparation to tie up a small creature. At first you think it’s a human child, but upon closer inspection, and based on Piplup’s reactions, you realize the small being is a Pokémon.
You hardly have enough time to connect these thoughts before Piplup puts its recent training into action, giving the man with the rope a solid Pound right in the kneecap. “What the-” The man growls, turning his attention away from his other target and towards the small penguin Pokémon. “If you’re so feisty, maybe you’d like to come with me instead, huh, buddy?” He grabs the rope, stretching it between his hands as you finally make it to the cave, bursting in.
“You can’t take him, he’s mine!” You shout. “And you leave that other Pokémon alone, too,” you add, wishing you’d had the time to pull out your Pokédex and check it so you’d at least sound more knowledgeable. “You don’t tie Pokémon up with ropes if you want to train them.”
“Huh, Lenny, check it out.” The man with the rope chuckled deep in his throat. “Leggy bitch with a Piplup. This must be the one we’d heard about!”
Lenny, apparently recovering from his headache as the small white Pokémon dashed past him into the cave, turned towards you, mouth agape. “You mean the girl that took out Bullet and that dragon of his? Here? You really think that’s her, Roger?”
“Who else would it be, dolt? Just how many blue-haired girls with Piplups do you think are running around Sinnoh.”
“Yes, that was me,” you assert, staring coldly at both of them. “Now get out of here before I freeze your asses and string you up in the trees.”
Roger and Lenny look at each other and shrug. “Scrawny li’l thing wasn’t worth capturing anyway,” Roger mumbles. “But I bet the boss will want to know Mia’s around here, and that knowledge is probably more valuable. Let’s go.”
You watch them both leave the cave and head into the trees and purse your lips, wishing you could think of some kind of catchy comeback to shout after them. You’d gotten them to leave the Pokémon alone, and without any damage to yourself or Piplup, but the knowledge that your actions, appearance, and name had traveled this quickly, and that your location might be of interest to the leader of a gang sent chills up your spine.
You turned back towards the cave but fall to your knees suddenly as you become crippled by a blinding headache. You raise your hands to your head reflexively as if to block out a sound, but the power of the headache is coming from your mind, not your ears. The pain ends as quickly as it came when Piplup flies through the air and tackles the white Pokémon you manages to save from the poachers. Had it caused the headache for the other guy, too? If so, the Pokémon didn’t think any better of you than it did of him, and it seemed to like Piplup even less, based on the gleam in its eyes.
You had a feeling a serious Pokémon battle was going to start soon if you didn’t stop it, and you weren’t quite sure you like where that’s going. You quickly fumble out the Pokédex and point it at the strange creature.
“Ralts, the Feeling Pokémon,” the device announces, showing you a rather happier-looking version of the small Pokémon in front of you. “It is highly attuned to the emotions of people and Pokémon. It hides if its senses hostility.”
“Well, that explains why you ran off earlier, but not why you’re back picking a fight now,” you grumble. As a Psychic- and Fairy-type Pokémon, it didn’t have any particularly strengths or weakness against Piplup, but those Psychic-type moves could be painful, as you yourself already learned. As if to prove your thoughts, Ralts’s eyes begin to glow a bright purple as he turns his attention towards Piplup and the small Penguin Pokémon doubles up in pain.
You don’t know if this is a battle you can win. You bite your lip as you think. Should you go grab Piplup and make a run for it? Either way, you’ll need to make your choice quickly.
A) Grab Piplup and run like hell
B) Stay and fight
C) Try to reason with the Ralts
Thankfully for you all, you don’t need to make your choice quick as quickly as Mia does. You still have the standard 3 days to vote, so please make sure to get your final votes in before Tuesday, October 21.
