Ross Meets Santa (AKA Smoke Break 2)
Above loomed the infinitely deep abyss of space, bejeweled by countless stars sprinkling light down to the circular pools of dark green that formed from the tops of the houses of Capim Town. It was a clear night, cloudless and calm, albeit darker than the lone observer preferred. A coating of snow would reflect your starlight beautifully, she thought as she pulled in a lungful of smoke from the large brown blunt.
The effects weren't quite immediate, but a blanket of calm washed over Debby as the narcotic entered her system. The Delibird kept her beak open and allowed the smoke to slowly waft out into the air. It rose slowly towards the town, pulled and pushed by the gentle winds above the skyline where it split the night sky like a monochrome aurora borealis. Debby blinked at it was gone, yet another wistful memory of home coming to the surface.
She would be out flying right now, but the low winds made it more effort than it was worth. Debby flew around plenty during work and she didn't want to exercise before bed on top of that. Good winds meant good weather for gliding, and right now she could barely feel the wind on her feathers. Regardless, the calm melody of the orchestra of the open skies was stunning to her, especially on a night like this, and she sat back on the slope to enjoy its entirety.
The corridors of wood surrounded him again, and Ross wasn't sure if this time was real or just a really bad dream. It was pitch black, and only a sliver of the glimmering firmament above peeked through the thick canopy above. At least there was sky above this time, he thought to himself. He kept walking, occasionally glancing back to make sure his tail was still making a clear neon green trail behind him. The oppressive shadows in the forests around the path unnerved him, and he half expected to be jumped by the purple ghost again looking for revenge beyond the... double grave?
The memory sent a shiver down Ross's spine, even giving his tail a small flick at the end, splattering paint on the ground haphazardly. He looked down at the mess miserably, at least there weren't any people around to witness that embarrassing sight. Some solace in this nightmare...?
Returning his gaze to the path ahead, his eyes filled with hope. A break in the thick underbrush and forest ahead shone starlight onto the dirt path. He could probably see where he was finally. Waking up in the middle of a dark forest wasn't very helpful as your only point of navigation.
Ross took into a jog towards the portal to enlightenment, a glimmer of hope sparking off energy he didn't know he had. Every step filled him with more excitement, until an unexpected sight brought him to a stop.
An open vista of Capim Town below and sea beyond beneath the starry sky almost took his breath away. It was like looking at a painting in an open air gallery... Whatever that felt like, he'd never been to such a fancy place.
It wasn't the remarkable sight before his eyes that made him stop, nor the certainly fatal tumble if he slipped on the steep hill separating him from his new home. No, it was the red and white penguin Santa Claus sitting on that hill with a thick joint in its beak. It was leaning against a sack that was attached to her like a tail, and her white face extended below into a beard-like shape and two brows... Horns? Brows, feathery brows.
"Santa?"
"Hoot?"
The Santa penguin looked directly at him, having turned its head around like an owl to face him. A dream, he decided. He knew some pokemon could look weird, but this was too much. "H-hoot?" He couldn't force any other retort past his surprise. The Santa bird took the toke out of its beak with a flipper and cocked her eyebrow.
"Y'all good, hon? Santa's my pops, if y'all want me to pass a message along. Ain't y'all a little too old to be writin' to him for presents? Y'all need a job or somethin'?" Evidently a her, she spoke with an almost melodic voice, accentuated with a deep and rich southern tang. Ross wondered when his dreams had gotten to the point he'd get a one way ticket to the fun house if he were to recount them.
"What? No, that's not... I wouldn't make a very good little helper." Ross answered before realizing. Little Miss Santa seemed amused though, that was good, unless she was amused at him.
"I'm just messin' with y'all hon. Y'all feel free to write the old coot every year, that part weren't a joke. Come on and sit down, y'all look a little lost, and I ain't mean that in just one way. Name's Debby, by the way." She patted the spot on the grass next to her and Ross was about to oblige, but something stopped him from moving. This time it was the acrid reek flowing out into the wind along with the smoke from the roll in Debby's wing.
"Is that weed?" Fixated, Ross pointed at the blunt and Debby joined in peer pressuring the kush to confess its identity with her own stare.
"Sure, I suppose. It's a kinda weed in a way. Folks usually call it Life Herb, but a buncha y'all new guildies got a gift for weird gab." Debby took a drag and blew a smoke ring above the town. Ross shrugged, he wasn't into this stuff but since it was a dream, it wouldn't matter. Besides, he'd take sitting here with a weed smoking Santa bird any day over nightmare forests. Joining the odd manifestation of his subconsciousness properly, Ross sat down besides Debby on the tip of the hill and huddled his knees in.
The view really was almost otherworldly, but that wasn't technically wrong objectively speaking either. His aimless eyes eventually settled on the stars above, darting between flickering flecks of light as his brain attempted to draw patterns. Something about what she'd just said was odd. New guildies seemed like she meant-
A needling mix of herb stench and smoke broke his reverie, it strong enough that he had to wrinkle his nose and lean away a little. Turning to the source of the offending stench, Ross saw Debby holding the reefer to him with a sympathetic look on her face.
"Y'all want some? It'll help y'all relax a bit, just a couple drags I'd say."
"Why not? It's not like it'll hurt." Ross gingerly took the joint and looked at it uncertainly. He took a tiny experimental drag, squinting his eyes closed instinctively as if it were to burst into flames and singe his eyebrows. It went down like velvet, completely contradicting the sharp smell that didn't feel like such a bother anymore. The previously overbearing forest slipped from his mind as the view of Capim Town at night became his sole focus. This stuff hit hard and Ross thought it best to cut it there, handing the joint back to Debby with a nod.
"Sure, if y'all don't form a habit. Gotta be careful with that sorta stuff. Tonight's a special night though!" Debby chuckled.
"What do you mean special night?" Ross looked to Debby, half interested and half passing time until he'd wake up.
"I met y'all, didn't I?"
"Oh shit, I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I? I'm Ross." He extended his arm wondering why he was going through these motions for a dream, distractedly going for a fist bump. Catching the slip quickly he tried to readjust-
Thud.
Debby connected the fist bump without taking her eyes away from the stars. "Pleased to meet y'all, Ross. Once again, name's Debby." Without knowing what to say in response, Ross simply lowered his arm.
"Wait, didn't you say Santa was your dad?"
"Hoot! Sure did hon! Santa Claus, my pops. My full names' Debby Claus, but I don't like advertisin' that. Anyhoot, he lives up on the north pole, brings gifts, big jolly fella. Y'all mean that Santa, right?"
"Who else? Does that mean Santa was always a red and white bird or something?" Ross chuckled at the idea.
Debby shrugged and took a puff, blowing out a wavey borealis of smoke. "Pops always has been, unless my folks lied and I'm adopted. Pretty sure he ain't an ex-human either if that's what y'all meant. Too proud."
"Oh." Ross wasn't sure how to react to this new information. He had never expected to have his perception of Santa Claus shifted so radically. "What do you mean too proud?"
"He ain't big on anyone but our family runnin' the operation. Real traditional type."
Combined with Debby's accent, Ross started to form an image of this new Santa Claus in his head. It wasn't much beyond a bigger Debby with a straw hat and overalls... Why was Santa a redneck?
Ross spoke up again after a few minutes of silence. "What's with the accent?"
"Hoot?"
"The southern accent. You're supposed to be from the north pole, right? Why do you talk like you're from Texas or something?"
"Oh, that. Picked it up from momma, though she ain't from Texas." Debby shrugged. "She never told me where she was from, actually. Somewhere south, naturally, can't go much norther than the pole, hoot!" The Delibird took a drag off her joint, pulling the embers to touch her beak. "Shoot!" She jolted from the unexpected burn and the joint fell down to the ground where it was immediately stomped on by Debby's foot and extinguished.
"You good?"
"I'm fine, hon."
"So is your mom..." The question died on Ross's tongue when he realized he was about to spill the beans. It's not like it would matter, this was a dream after all and she'd just talked about humans too.
Before Ross could resume his question, Debby answered like she knew exactly what he was about to ask. "She ain't human either."
The pair sat in silence for a while longer, eyes entranced by the starlit heavens and minds befuddled by the weed. Something about Debby was rubbing him the wrong way too. She felt too real in a sense. This entire scenario felt so surreal that he wasn't sure whether to cry or laugh.
"Hngk!"
"Y'all good, hon?"
Debby mirrored his previous question, a fact that didn't go unnoticed as Ross beat himself up mentally for unintentionally letting slip that strangled mix of laughter and crying. To hell with pride, this was a dream after all, Ross thought as he wiped his face. "No, not really. I'm just... Overwhelmed by all this."
Debby raised an eyebrow as she glanced over to Ross. "Y'all wanna talk about it?"
Once he started, he couldn't stop. Ross told Debby everything he'd been through since arriving in this world. From his disaster of a first meeting with KFC to hurting Booker with the powers he didn't fully understand. A glimmer of recognition flashed on Debby's face when he recounted his embarrassing shopping trip, though she didn't comment. She pushed him along with nods and a few hoots when something particularly outrageous occurred in his less than charitable recollections of his own misadventures. He wasn't sure how long it took him, nor exactly what he said, as it felt like the night had come to a standstill.
Ross felt good after getting his concerns out there to someone, even if it wasn't someone real. He let out a sigh and buried his face in his arms. "I just want to go home..." The statement hung in the air as silence descended on the pair.
"It ain't always easy bein' where y'all don't think y'all belong. Ain't like y'all can just go back though..." Debby contemplated what to say next. She hadn't expected Ross to explain his whole story like that. Not that she minded being opened up to, but this had been a little unexpected. Kaz was in a similar situation, but he seemed happy as can be to be in this world unlike the human next to her. Going against all instincts to offer Ross a job, Debby spoke up again. "Ain't much y'all can do but make the best of it."
"How am I supposed to do that when I can't even do basic tasks right? Or even do the most basic thing for a pokemon and use a move?"
"Practice, hon! I didn't learn to fly on the first try and had to keep pickin' myself off the ground no matter how much it hurt. Y'all are going to be a splendid explorer someday Ross, y'all just don't know how to." Debby stood up suddenly, causing Ross to jolt in surprise before he saw her dig into her bag... tail... Bagtail-thing.
"How do you manage with that? The tail, I mean. I got a fanny pack so I wouldn't have to carry my tail in my hand all the time." He patted the little container on his waist.
Debby looked up to Ross from her search. "Just carryin' it in my wing while walkin' or beak when flyin'. That's a real smart idea though! Maybe I oughta get some sort of string to tie my bag up. Sounds handy, y'all are real smart!" She pulled out a neatly wrapped Christmas present from the bag and showed it to Ross.
"It wasn't actually my idea." Ross mumbled lamely before speaking up normally. "What's that? Christmas come early?"
Debby chuckled as she set the box down and answered matter-of-factly. "It's a Present, hon." As if that answered all his questions.
"For who?" Ross couldn't imagine Debby would give him a present out of the blue like this.
"For y'all, hon! To practice usin' Sketch on the Present."
Ross instinctively took his tail brush in his hand, a faint feeling down in his gut practically screamed him to do so when the capitalization in the two words clicked. He looked between the brush and Present, both white and red, but this was as far as his instincts took him and he was now lost again. "I don't know how to draw." A tinge of heat formed in his core as anger began to flare at the admission.
"That ain't no issue, hon. Y'all will get the hang of it eventually." Debby took Ross' brush suddenly and began to move it around in the air. The feeling, the urge to Sketch grew stronger as the Delibird painted the very air between them with swift strokes. A near identical box sat next to Debby's Present, the imperfect angles of the doppelganger being the only indication it wasn't the real deal. "See? Easy as can be!"
Ross sat dumbfounded. She had just used his move. A mix of wonder at seeing it in action and anger that she had done so without permission fought for control, leaving his face with a look of shock that Debby seemed to find amusing. She placed his brush back in his hand, snapping him out of his thoughts. "How did you do that?"
The Delibird shrugged and opened the lids of the Presents. A stream of snow, stars and an echo of jingle bells shot into the sky out of both. "I just drew, hon. Y'all did the real work, even if y'all don't know it. It's all instincts, ain't it? Y'all felt somethin' within while I was drawin', right?"
Ross had to tear himself away from the light show and returned his attention to Debby "Yeah. I don't know how to explain it though..." He rolled his tail brush in his hands nervously, the color already returned to the usual neon green he was familiar with.
"Hoot! Y'all don't need to, so long as y'all know what it is yourself. Can't imagine it'd help anyway, Sketch is a move like no other, hon. Y'all got real potential if y'all can figure it out! I promise!"
The unhesitant praise made Ross blush and fidget with his tail, some part of his subconsciousness thinking that if he pretended not to hear the compliment, it would retroactively disappear and stop him from feeling embarrassed.
It was a little while before Debby spoke up again. "Y'all know what I miss from home?"
Ross was smart enough to realize she was trying to sympathize with him, and that realization made him smile a little. "What's that?"
"Aurora Borealis. We used to get a lot of them back home on nights like these. Was actually thinkin' of it before y'all arrived."
Ross gazed up at the void of space above. Black and white dots, certainly beautiful in it's own right, but he had to agree the sky could use more color. "Must've been really pretty."
"It was, hon. They got sometimes used as messages too! Hoot! That's where lil' Debby got her start." Debby chuckled as she recalled her childhood.
"How does that even work?" Ross laughed too, thinking she must've been joking. The northern lights weren't something you just wrote on like a banner flown by a plane.
"We got a move called Aurora Beam. It ain't much special, but if y'all have the know-how, y'all can send out an aurora in the sky that can contain a message. Readin' it is all about the colors and wavelength patterns." Debby explained with gestures of her wings.
Unfortunately the gesticulation didn't unravel the secrets of Santa Aurora Magic to Ross, but he nodded as one does to a crackhead on the street whose unwanted attention they had just been on the receiving end of. "That sounds pretty cool. You know how to do all that?" He thought about asking her to show him, but he didn't want to risk calling out her lie.
"Sure can, hon! But y'all need two to do it. Real hard by yourself when y'all gotta focus on writin' the message."
"That's a shame."
"Y'all can help out though!"
Ross looked at Debby nervously. She'd convinced him to help out with her move, saying it would be good practice for him. The pair stood at the top of the slope, tail brush and tail bag in hands and wings pointing above the town. The brush had an iridescent glow of blueish purple that flowed like oil on water, and he felt the potential energy within. If only he knew how to release it.
"Alright, looks like y'all are good to go. Start sendin' it out after me, and keep it up. Y'all are the one makin' most of the aurora borealis, I gotta focus on the writin' part." Debby nodded to Ross encouragingly. "Y'all got this, hon."
What followed was something Ross struggled to describe afterwards. When he would find the words eventually, he'd describe feeling a chilly energy form inside Debby's bag that latched onto his tail that made the hypnotic paint light up brightly and bathed them both in its glacial glow. Then, it began to push out from the depths of her bag and rushed out of the opening, pulling the energy out along with it like being caught by the wind tunnel of a car, it flung more power into the sky.
A brilliant wall of light cut Capim Town in half far above the roofs, and Ross caught onto the feeling of using Aurora Beam. It was like an open fire hose now, shooting out on its own with the only will he could impose on it being to cut it off completely. He looked to Debby as he felt a change in the energy. She held her eyes closed and mumbled something under her breath, struggling to remember the old codes. As a result, the aurora shifted, pulling in on itself at parts and straightening out on others as the wave pattern was reorganized to spell out something only Debby could read.
Soon enough the power cut off with Debby bringing the move to a close. She puffed out her chest proudly and slapped Ross on the back. "Real good work for a first timer! Y'all got a knack for this!"
"What does it say?"
"Hello world!"
Ross felt ecstatic and laughed, he'd just used a move, and this time he hadn't hurt anyone while doing it! Who knew moves had uses like this? The unnaturally patterned aurora shined down on Capim Town, reflecting off the roofs like sunlight touching the bottom of the sea. The firmaments too were transformed by the new atmospheric interference, fading from bright purple into a bright pink at the horizon where the sun was beginning its ascension for the day. He felt tired suddenly, drained by the move and a long night. Slowly the view faded into pitch black nothingness.
Kaiji, Chespin and Wooper stared at the box in Clover Guild Hall with some trepidation. A large Christmas present had appeared in the common area overnight, and the three had been the first to arrive and notice the mysterious container.
"Who's it for?" Chespin looked all around the box for any leads to it's origin as if he expected to find "Made in China" written somewhere on the wrapping. Wooper was mimicking his motions with decidedly less searching for clues.
Kaiji flipped over the card attached to the bow on top of the box "Doesn't say, but it says it's something we lost apparently."
Wooper jumped up and down "Maybe it's Lliam's spare cloak!"
"It wouldn't need a box this big. Let's open it up!" Chespin declared only after he'd already started to unwrap the box. When he got to open it up and peered inside, his excitement was replaced with confusion. "Hello?"
"Good morning?" Ross's groggy voice escaped the box.