Chapter Text
Reflexively, Arven was lunging for her before he’d even comprehended the cliff edge that lay before them. He grabbed her by the collar of her academy shirt, snatching her back from the empty air of a forty foot drop. As her tiny frame now tripped forward to safety, he caught her in his arms.
For a moment, neither of them spoke as they caught their breath. The fingers of his right hand still clutched her shirt for dear life as he held her, smudging it with red dirt. Juliana’s face was less than a foot from his own, staring up at him with wide brown eyes and cheeks dusted pink.
They had set out from Mesagoza together just after lunchtime. They were hot on the trail of the Stony Cliff Titan, zigzagging northeast on the rocky canyon path toward Artazon.
Juliana was skipping around ahead of him. Apparently unsatisfied with his cagey answers to her questions about his personal life, his new travel companion’s idea of a road trip game was to try to get a rise out of him via relentless teasing.
She had turned around to face him, walking backwards. Pitching her soprano voice down, she spoke with a stuffy, mocking tone. “My name is Arven! I talk big shit even though my only Pokémon is a level 5 Skwovet!” She laughed, enjoying the growing annoyance in his face.
He had actually brought a level 16 Shellder to this fight, thank you very much, but didn’t correct her, afraid to hand her more ammunition.
She covered her left eye with her hand, now imitating not only his voice, but also his hairstyle. “I hold my Pokéball upside down!”
The honey-golden afternoon light caught her own hair, bringing out a fiery reddish undertone beneath the chestnut color. Her uncovered brown eye sparkled with amusement. He glared at her.
Being made fun of by her, while also standing directly in the path of her Zap Cannon-like smile, was making him feel…funny. A little too warm? Almost…itchy? Maybe he was allergic to her presence.
“I’m a big, bad trainer who’s gonna fight the big, bad Stony Cliff—“
“STOP!”
Thank Arceus, he had seen the steep dropoff behind her just before she walked right into the canyon below.
Still holding her close, he shattered the stunned silence, shouting at her. “What were you thinking?! You’re gonna get us both killed, walking right off a cliff like that!”
She flinched, her look of awe twisting into irritation. “Psh! I would’ve been fine! My Rotom-Phone would’ve caught me if you hadn’t.”
He released her, fuming. Still a little unsteady on her feet, she dusted herself off.
“Well…what if you hadn’t had your phone on you?!” he sputtered. “You have to be more careful! How irresponsible can you be, trying to walk backwards in a place like this?!” He stomped ahead, knotting his hands in his hair. Really, why was she so reckless?
“Jeez, thanks Dad, will you give it a rest? I can handle myself just fine,” was her retort, spitting dirt out of her mouth.
Oh, she did NOT just—
Blood boiling, he spun around to face her.
“At least you have a dad!” he snarled. “Must be nice!”
Before she could reply, he turned on his heel and kept walking. His shaky breathing gradually evened out. After a moment, he heard her light footsteps crunching in the dirt behind him. Things were otherwise silent between them for several minutes.
He began to wonder if he’d overreacted. The Rotom-Phones were reliable for stopping a fall, after all—people would never let their unsupervised kids run wild around Paldea’s mountainous trails if they weren’t.
Well, maybe his own parents would’ve. But not anyone who actually…cared about their kids.
If anything, he had probably put her in more danger by yanking her away from the edge. He felt a twinge of guilt for verbally biting her head off about it. And he was keenly aware that he still very much needed her help. Maybe he should apologize…
“Listen, Juliana, I—“
“Who says I do?” she cut him off, voice low. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, her expression blank.
He rewound their earlier conversation in his mind, trying to fit her reply into it.
“…Huh?”
She stopped walking. Crossing her arms and adopting a wide stance, she now met his gaze with narrowed eyes. “I said, who says I have a dad?”
Arven froze. “Oh! You…um. I’m…I wasn’t…I didn’t know,” he stammered. Now he really felt guilty. “I’m…sorry.”
Apparently satisfied with this, she shrugged. “S’fine. Not like I really remember him anyway.” Tossing a small rock at a signpost on the path ahead of them, her expression softened a degree or two. “What about you, Captain Daddy Issues? Did the great Professor Turo forget to come to your piano recital or something?”
Pushing down the urge to snap at her again, he chose his words carefully. “He’s…never been around much. Haven’t heard from him in years, actually.”
She seemed to chew on this new information for a moment. He waited, expecting her to pity him like everyone else who knew the situation (really, just Director Clavell). But, to his relief, she just picked up another pebble and pitched it down into the canyon.
“Well, that sucks. Sorry to hear it.” They began to walk again, side-by-side this time. After a moment, she added: “His loss, really.”
His cheeks warmed at that, though he didn’t know why.
“So, do you…at least have your mom around, then?”
He said nothing, letting his silence serve as an answer. In his peripheral vision, he could feel her studying him. He was grateful when she changed the subject.
“So…why are you after this yerba mysteria stuff, anyway?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s called Herba Mystica, bud. And like I told you before, it’s supposed to be really good for healing up Pokémon.”
“Yeah, I remember, but…why not just use a Revive? Or visit a Pokémon Center? This seems…pretty dangerous by comparison.” His jaw tensed. She was perceptive, it seemed. That steel trap of a mind could be a problem for him.
“It’s for…a research project.”
To him, this new student was a means to an end.
No one else at school—well, no one that he could stand—would have been crazy enough to join in what he was planning. Certainly not with him, of all people.
Arven had always been a social outcast. You’d have to forgive him for finding it hard to relate to kids with two parents and zero giant metal lizard monsters for siblings. In any case, he didn’t need friends. He had Mabosstiff, and that was enough.
Until he had almost gotten Mabosstiff killed.
After years of his attempts to contact his father had gone unanswered, he and his faithful Pokémon had ventured down into Area Zero together to search for him. And thanks to Arven’s idiotic risk-taking, they had not found him, not returned in one piece, and very nearly not made it back at all.
The injuries his loyal companion sustained, at the hands of some nightmarish, Pokémon-shaped automaton, were too severe for the usual medicines. Too critical even for the Pokémon Center’s nurses, who had sat him down with grim faces and told him it would be kindest to “let him go.”
But Mabosstiff was all he had. All he'd ever had.
He could live with never having known his mother. He could tolerate never having had any human friends. He could even bear his father’s unexplained abandonment of him.
He could not survive losing Mabosstiff, having lost so much else.
So he threw himself into research, and eventually, into the Violet Book. It was one of the earliest—and only—things he could remember his father reading to him. What he had once regarded as fairytales, he had realized, could hold the key to healing his best friend.
Except for one problem: He now had no Pokémon that could fight a Titan. He had no Pokémon that could fight, period.
It’s not like he’d ever bothered to catch others before—he and Mabosstiff were perfectly content with each other. He was a one-dog guy. But now, with only his wits, what was he supposed to do? He managed to catch a single, weak little Swovet after an entire afternoon of baiting it with berries and trying to clock it with a Pokéball from behind, and was feeling pretty good about himself…until the new girl had shown up with the battle-crazed class president and his long-lost freaky lizard sibling in tow, and he’d immediately lost to her in battle.
That had given him an idea, though…here was someone who A) didn’t know he was a weird loner (at least, not yet), B) was competent in battle, and C) considering her affinity for Miraidon, clearly didn’t shy away from close encounters with powerful, terrifying Pokémon.
All he had to do was…use her, icky as that sounded. Strong-arm Charm Bribe Convince her to help him. For Mabosstiff’s sake, he needed her.
She snorted. “Research project? I didn’t take you for the extra credit type, Mr. ‘I-Normally-Wouldn’t-Bother-Coming-To-Class’,” she said, side-eyeing him.
Still lost in his thoughts, he didn’t elaborate.
“Well, whatever. I get the sense you haven’t told me everything,” she said, mischief dancing in her face as her eyes narrowed.
“But I’m in! You had me at ‘big, dangerous Pokémon.’”
She ran out ahead of him, her singsong voice belying the seriousness of the words. “Let’s go get this Titaaaaan!”