Chapter Text
The desert at night is a quiet and peaceful place. Sure, the absence of the blazing sun means it is more alive than the morning could ever wish to be, with nocturnal Pokémon emerging into the chilling cold of night to scavenge or hunt, but the darkness demands a certain quiet. Under the gaze of the watchful moon, nightly activities play out in a respectable and gentle silence. It is common, it is routine.
Thus, it is fitting when the normalcy of that silence is shattered on the night of the crash.
Jagged edges with dimly glowing purple accents create an ominous silhouette in the familiar landscape of rocks and cliffs. It isn’t a large ship, perhaps two buses long and wide, but a lot of dust has been kicked up by the ship’s landing that has yet to settle. Most of the Pokémon in the area have long since scurried away or burrowed deep into the sand to avoid the collision. Aside from the settling dust, the area is mostly still.
Keith presses closer to the rock he’s hiding behind when a distant rumbling grows louder and louder. He arrived a couple minutes ago, ready to leave his cabin when he did only because he had been prepared for this day. The scowl on his face deepens when three familiar Garrison vehicles pull up to a stop right next to the crashed ship. For the Garrison to dispatch people to the site within minutes could only suggest that they had been expecting something as well. His fingers hover near the Poké Balls at his belt but he doesn’t move yet, slate-grey eyes attentive and watching every detail he can from the shadows.
Two figures step out of each truck and he stays quiet as four of them spread out around the ship with devices in their hands. Green beams of light project outwards from their handhelds, scanning the ship for what Keith assumes to be life; it’s protocol after all. A few seconds later, all six of them converge at what might have been the entrance to the ship. The piece of metal has been crumped from the crash landing, and with a few tools from the truck, the officers are able to pry it open enough for two of them to slip through.
One officer stands ground at the entrance while the remaining three return to the truck. Within minutes, they’ve procured and set up a stark white tent around the entrance to the ship. The four officers go back to the truck once more and each unload a hovering cart of monitors and supplies, as well as full face masks and an examining table. The officers disappear into the tent again.
Keith’s fingers twitch around the second Poké Ball on his belt but he holds back. Patience yields focus, he thinks to himself, and waits a minute longer to make sure no one comes back outside before finally snatching the Poké Ball and tossing it into the air.
Absol emerges in a quick flash of red energy and stands before him, staring up at him expectantly. Keith glances at the tent again before crouching down next to her.
“Future Sight on the other side of the ship. Twice,” he mutters. Absol closes her eyes in response and Keith steps back, gaze darting between her and the tent. He counts ten seconds before a loud explosion is heard.
Before long, three of the Garrison officers have rushed out of the tent. When no one else runs out, Keith frowns. He pulls out a bandana to wrap around the lower half of his face and tugs nervously on the ponytail at the base of his neck. A nudge against his leg has him looking down into Absol’s eyes. Keith places a hand appreciatively atop her head before withdrawing her back into her Poké Ball. Without wasting any more time, he sprints towards the tent.
His entrance is a lot less dramatic than he expects it to be, mostly because the “door” is no more than a piece of tarp covering an otherwise gaping entryway. All the same, the three officers inside are shocked still by his sudden presence.
It takes only a second for them to recover and to reach towards their Poké Balls but it’s a second too long. Keith quickly incapacitates two of them before they can call anyone out. As he’s righting himself from his last punch, he hears a familiar voice shout out behind him.
“Graveler!”
Keith whirls around as the rock type Pokémon appears before him. A flash of hot panic runs through him at the prospect of being charged at by a giant boulder; no one would genuinely order a Tackle or something by a Graveler on a person, right? To his temporary relief, his fear is minutely appeased by the order that follows.
“Mud Sport!”
Perhaps he goes through several stages of grief (or something) here, shock of being attacked by a Graveler giving way to relief of it being only a Mud Sport and then back to shock, again, because he is still being attacked by a Graveler. It doesn’t really help that the following few seconds seem to slow down to a dramatic crawl while all these emotions are flashing through Keith’s head.
The only thing for certain is that Keith is frozen to his spot, mind blanking on what to do in the face of a possible crushing death. He vaguely notices the nudging of the fifth Poké Ball on his belt before it breaks open and suddenly, Pangoro appears in front of him, a pulsing, icy-blue ball of energy already forming between her hands. Her mouth opens in a loud cry that gets lost in the white noise filling Keith’s head, and Pangoro hurls the Focus Blast before Graveler has time to release its own move. Time slips back into place the second that the attack hits its target, slamming the Graveler back against its trainer and knocking them both against one of the metal poles keeping up the tent around them.
It’s a few seconds before Keith returns to his senses and several more before he’s able to steady his racing heartbeat. When the Graveler and Garrison official fail to stand up, he concludes them both to be unconscious and finally relaxes. The shuddering of the last Poké Ball on his belt startles him from his jumbled thoughts and in a flash of light, Mightyena appears, already running directly towards the metal examination table that the officers had been crowded around earlier. Pangoro is also hunched over next to it, blocking Keith’s view.
Without a Graveler staring him down, he finally registers the fact that it’s these two Pokémon in particular who have appeared without being called. The blood in his veins seem to freeze and he is vaguely aware of how clammy his hands have become.
Perhaps he should explain. In short, neither Pokémon are his. No, he did not steal them – he kind of has a bad reputation but not because of that – they belong (yes, present tense because he is very much still alive!) to Shiro, Keith’s mentor from when he was still in the Garrison. Shiro, the legendary pilot of their generation, the role model for countless pilots-in-training. These two Pokémon are Shiro’s, and Keith has simply been…babysitting them…while Shiro has been…absent.
He has taken care of them for the past year. They help him in technical situations, but he doesn’t rely on them in battles; it feels wrong, considering he isn’t their trainer and thus, they are hardly obligated to respond to him. But even so, it isn’t like them to leave their Poké Balls on their own, especially Mightyena.
Keith steels his nerves. There’s a spark of hope inside his chest that he thought was long gone but as he walks closer, more of the figure laying on the table becomes visible. He has the right stature, although metal glints where his right arm should be, and he has the right face shape, although a scar is slashed across it. A few more steps and Keith now stands next to the table; his bandana has slipped from his face and he doesn’t know what kind of look he has on right now, whether it’s of pain or relief or just plain shock, but he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in an attempt to slow down the rush of blood in his ears.
He opens his eyes. His lips twist into a rueful smile.
“Shiro,” he breathes.
He takes another breath to shake himself from his shock. Now is not the time to be freezing up, not when the other Garrison officials that left can return in seconds. Pangoro has already slashed the bindings apart with her claws but Mightyena is still sprawled over Shiro’s unmoving form, whimpering.
A stab of pity hits him at the sight; Shiro’s meeting with Mightyena is a story he’d told him time several times before. Mightyena, a Poochyena back then, had angered a couple of Spearows and was scurrying away from the bird Pokémon when Shiro, age seven, stepped in to intervene (see: quickly run away with Poochyena). It was a silly first meeting, but the event was the catalyst for a bond that proved to only grow stronger with age. Shiro and the dark-type had grown old together, and Keith remembers the devastation he personally felt reflected in Mightyena’s eyes when Shiro disappeared a year ago. For a solid month after that, Mightyena wouldn’t return to his Poké Ball, either laying outside on the porch or curled up in an exhaustion nap in Shiro’s jacket.
Carefully, Keith rests his hand atop the dark type’s head. When Mightyena doesn’t bite at him, Keith takes it as a good sign and crouches closer to his face. He allows a rare smile to surface.
“Come on. We have to get going so let’s let Pangoro carry Shiro okay?”
For a few seconds, Keith worries that Mightyena will choose this moment to finally begin his rebel streak – the Pokémon has always been very obedient despite Keith not being his trainer – but then Mightyena climbs off the table. Keith sighs in relief and detaches the last Poké Ball from his belt, calling Mightyena back in a flash of light.
He turns back to Pangoro, who is already carrying Shiro. The permanent scowl on her face seems to have softened some, a minute change that holds a magnitude of meaning. Keith steps forward and gestures towards to the tent’s entrance.
“Let’s go,” he says, and Pangoro looks about ready to nod when she bristles, eyes snapping behind him.
“Nope.”
Keith whirls around in surprise.
“No no no no no,” a guy is saying, walking towards Pangoro with a Poké Ball in his hand. He’s got curly brown hair styled with an undercut and he wears a long green jacket that looks to have been thrown on in a haste. He stops in front of Pangoro and releases a Ditto before jerking a thumb at his chest. “I’m saving Shiro.”
Keith stares at him, looking back and forth between the Ditto, the guy, and the two other people (who may be the guy’s friends?) peering in through the entrance from outside. One wears a headband tied around his forehead; the other is super short with giant glasses.
The three teenagers don’t seem dangerous – if anything, the two in the back look like they don’t even want to be there – but Keith can’t help the way his fingers twitch towards his belt. It’s nothing really, purely reflex. He’s mostly trying to sort through the myriad of questions flashing through his mind instead but apparently, it’s too much because all he manages to sputter is:
“Do… Do I know you?”
At his question, the Ditto trainer finally looks at him, whirling on him with such an offended look he might as well have slapped him. Now that they’re facing each other, Keith is struck by the deep blue of his eyes, eyes that send him several years back to when he first enrolled in the Garrison. For a split second, he’s thrown into a memory of the same blue eyes, glaring angrily at another student who was smirking down at him. Keith remembers this as the first time he’d see him, and it had been the first time he’d seen those eyes rage like a sea during a storm. At the time, he’d been walking past with Shiro, but he had caught sight of the Popplio sheltered in the boy’s arms before he and Shiro turned the corner.
The memory leaves as quickly as it arrives and he catches the end of the other boy’s response, whom he fully remembers now.
“…know. Lance and Keith,” he’s saying. “Neck in neck.”
Keith frowns.
“Hm…yeah. Yeah I remember you now,” he says. “You were a cargo pilot.”
“Fighter class now,” is the response. Lance raises an eyebrow. “Thanks to you washing out.”
Keith holds his gaze for a second longer before looking over at Pangoro, who is scowling irritably at the Ditto at her feet. He sighs and gestures at the Pokémon and, consequently, at Shiro.
“Well, congratulations,” he says. He refrains from scrunching his nose at how dry his tone is; his words are genuine, but he can’t help that he’s in a rush. “But we’re not really supposed to be here right now so let’s save the celebration and our reunion for after we get out of here.”
Lance frowns but his eyes soften when he looks over at Shiro and Pangoro. He nods stiffly and gestures for Keith to lead the way. Keith looks at Pangoro once then heads for the entrance to the tent, nodding to the two who have been hovering outside the tent the whole time. He pushes past the tarp and hesitates, scanning the area. There’s a very faint rumbling sound again, the sign of more Garrison trucks, and he frowns in annoyance. They’ll need to be quick.
He breaks into a sprint, heading back for the giant rock outcropping he had hidden behind earlier. Halfway there, he sees a tiny pinprick of light from the corner of his eye.
Garrison trucks.
Cursing under his breath, he picks up speed and pulls his first Poké Ball from his belt. He tosses it the second he gets to the rock.
Arcanine is shaking out his fur when the others catch up to the rock. Keith turns to look at them, words tumbling over each other as panic starts to rise inside him.
“Alright alright. Here’s the deal. Arcanine can usually carry two…” his eyes drift to the short kid with the glasses before he looks away again, “…maybe three people. Pangoro can probably carry Shiro the whole way, no problem, but we’ll still be left with a couple of us without a ride so—”
“Dude,” Lance says, stepping forward. Keith clamps his mouth shut, and if Lance notices his wince upon realizing he was rambling, well, Lance doesn’t mention it. Instead, he waves a Poké Ball in his hand. “You’re forgetting this little guy here.”
Keith scowls, confused.
“Um,” the guy with the headband says, speaking up. “Lance, I know you recognize your Pokémon according to Poké Ball but I hardly think Keith would. No offence.”
He directs the last part at Keith but Keith just shrugs. None taken.
“Ah ah ah Hunk,” Lance says, turning to the headband guy. He smirks and holds up the Poké Ball again, looking back towards Keith. There’s a giddy light in his eye and he stands up very straight as if instructing a class. “If he was paying attention earlier he would have remembered that the Pokémon I called out inside the tent was—”
He tosses the Poké Ball forward and a joyful cry follows the emergence of the Ditto from before. Lance crouches down next to it, squishing its…cheeks? Honestly you can’t really tell with that amorphously-shaped Pokémon. Nonetheless, Ditto lets out a happy noise and Lance grins. He releases his hold on the Pokémon and leans back.
“Transform, Ditto,” he says, pointing at Arcanine.
A second later, two Arcanines stand before them. Keith is impressed but he stifles his reaction, focusing instead on their current task. He walks towards his own Arcanine and looks towards Pangoro.
“Okay. I guess Pangoro can take a rest then…?” He phrases it as a question; Pangoro may be friendly with him but she’s literally holding her long-missing trainer in her arms and she may not be too willing to let him go so soon and if he does I by force, well, Pangoro could probably snap Keith in half. And so, he holds his breath and waits.
As expected, she hesitates, the bamboo twirling back and forth in her mouth. It’s a tick that probably isn’t that helpful in non-physical situations, but she does it anyway, if for comfort or maybe it does work on a mental level…?
Keith is pulled from his pondering when she steps forward and carefully drapes Shiro against Arcanine’s neck. She grunts and Keith nods before returning her to her Poké Ball. He breathes out and looks back to the other three, who have already climbed onto the Ditto-Arcanine’s back and are staring at him with curiosity.
“Well that was…tense,” Hunk mumbles.
The rest of them look like they have questions too but the sudden slamming of car doors startle Keith from responding. He quickly jumps onto Arcanine’s back, mindful of Shiro laying in front of him. There’s shouting from behind them and Keith glances back; they’re sure to be spotted once they run out from behind the rock. He pulls up a map of where he has to go in his mind’s eye.
“Lance,” he calls out and blue eyes peek at him from behind soft peach-coloured fur. Keith grins. “Don’t get lost.”
Lance scowls. “Hey—”
His words are cut off from a loud explosion behind them, followed by confused shouting. Keith smirks and brushes a finger against Absol’s Poké Ball.
“Extreme Speed!” he shouts, and they’re off.