Family Matters
Adrian watched his team searching for him from the bushes. They’d followed him this far, and they were angry. Vileplume especially.
“You think you’re tough?!” He yelled.
Enny called him out too. “What, are you scared or something? Too scared to step up to me?”
Even Bellossom joined them. “You’re acting stupid, Addy. You know the longer we gotta look for you, the worse it’ll be!”
He’d heard it all before. It wasn’t going to stop him, though. He’d hide for as long as he could. If Adrian never saw him again, he’d die happy.
But that’s when he heard that familiar, authoritative voice behind him.
“Found you.”
Familiar Faces
Adrian’s eyes snapped open, and he jolted up. The woods were lit by the midday sun. He looked around his makeshift camp for any intruders, but there was nobody in sight. He was still alone.
The one decent thing about leaving his bag behind was that he didn’t have to worry about packing up his supplies. All that was left behind were the remains of a campfire.
It was hard to figure out where he was. He knew he had gone east, probably crossed the Open Plains. He must’ve veered south as well, as the day prior he passed through the mountains. There weren’t any roads nearby because he thought his team might look for him on those. He didn’t find any signs that they were, which meant he had either done a decent job at covering his tracks, or they’d given up looking entirely.
How many days had passed, he couldn’t tell. It was anywhere from two weeks to a month most likely. His sleep schedule fell apart the night he disappeared. Sometimes he was awake for days at a time and then slept from sunrise to sunset. Sometimes he’d just wake up after an hour and think he’d slept, only to crash after walking for a few hours.
He didn’t see any snowfall until he got to the mountains, so spring must’ve been coming up. Winter didn’t last that long in the Grass Continent this year. Last year, this was the time when he’d gotten really busy with work. People excited for the warmer weather after being snowed in didn’t make the best travel plans. Adrian expected he’d stumble into someone by now.
He got a strange sense of deja vu with the area he was in. The trees were large, and relatively short. Some of them had been chopped down. There was also the smell of an orchard in the air. It was very familiar.
His train of thought was interrupted by a rustling in the bushes nearby. Something was hiding- no. Someone was running through them. And as soon as he realized that, a brown-furred creature leapt out of the bushes and slammed into him.
Adrian steadied himself from the blow and got ready for a fight. The Pokémon that hit him had fallen on the ground in front of him. It looked small and pretty weak. He recognized it.
That goddamn eevee kid.
Eevee rubbed his head and his eyes locked with Adrian’s. He stumbled back and yelped. “I’m sorry mister! I didn’t mean to hit you I was just- “
“What the hell are you running from this time?”
Eevee seemed confused. “Do I know you? I’ve never seen a flareon, but you seem familiar.”
Adrian sighed. Of course, the kid knew him as an umbreon. Why would he recognize him as a flareon?
Adrian’s eyes caught something moving behind Eevee. Something was flying through the trees. Two spearow locked right in on the little wannabe explorer.
Acting on instinct, he pushed Eevee out of the way and leapt at one of the spearow, surrounding himself with fire. He tackled his target out of the air, incinerating both himself and the bird with his flames.
The two landed on the ground, the spearow motionless. Adrian slowly stood back up. He heard the distinct screech of the other spearow before feeling its beak dig into his side.
The spearow clutched onto Adrian’s body, embedding its beak and talon deeper into his flesh. The flareon tried to shake it off, knocking one of its wings off his body which Adrian grabbed with his teeth. Fire shot through his fangs, causing the bird to finally let go.
The spearow awkwardly tried flying off with its scorched wing back through the woods it came from. Hopefully it had learned its lesson.
When Adrian turned back around, he saw Eevee’s eyes beaming at him. “It’s you! The Umbreon rescuer. I don’t believe it. You’re a fla-!”
Adrian cut off his rambling and interrogated him. “Why were those spearow chasing you, Eevee?”
“They started it!” Eevee said. “They stole my lunar ribbon yesterday, so I stole it back.”
“What did you do to piss them off? The only dungeon around here is Landslide Cave, so they’re not dungeon ferals.”
Eevee shook his head. “I dunno. Wild Pokémon are just getting more aggressive around here. Something’s set them off, and it wasn’t me!”
Adrian groaned. The kid had a talent for pissing off random Pokémon. Almost as easily as he pissed off his parents, who he’d definitely be seeing soon.
Adrian walked over and casually picked up Eevee by his scruff (ignoring the protests that he did nothing wrong), and began walking towards the kid’s house. He didn’t remember the exact location, but there was plenty of farmland outside of it. He’d spot it eventually.
And sure enough, the flareon found himself back on that homestead in no time. He cut through the orchards, dropped the kid in front of the house, and yanked on the rope beside it. As the bell rang from inside the house, the voice of the leafeon assured him she’d be there momentarily. The sound of metal clanking for a bit was recognizable.
Eventually, the leafeon’s head poked through the door. She immediately locked onto her child. “Eevee! You were out all night, where were you?"
The kid stuttered and sputtered, trying to come up with an explanation before Adrian stepped in. “He was out in the woods getting chased by Pokémon. Again.”
It didn’t take as long for Leafeon to recognize him. “You saved him again?”
Adrian nodded.
Leafeon shook her head. “Somethin’ must be sending you to us every time he’s in danger.”
“There are a lot of strange coincidences in my life right now,” Adrian said.
“Well, it don’t matter who or what brought you here this time. We still owe you. We had a good harvest last year so we can actually pay you this time.”
“Are you making lunch right now?”
“Supper actually.”
“I’ll take my usual payment, then.”
Leafeon seemed a little surprised, but she held the door open for Adrian and Eevee. When Adrian stepped inside however, she stopped him.
“You’re bleeding!” She yelled.
Adrian had suppressed his pain long enough that he’d somewhat forgotten. The open wounds in his side didn’t magically disappear though. Leafeon quickly fetched an oran berry for him which closed them up for the time being.
Eevee scurried upstairs while Adrian followed Leafeon into the kitchen. She’d only just started getting stuff out of the cupboards, so it would be a while until she was finished. She had a lot of berries, vegetables, and mushrooms set out on the table.
She formed some vines with sharp tips and started dicing onions. She was very precise and quick, cutting up two whole onions in less than a minute. Vileplume was never that skilled with his knives whenever they cooked in the field.
She poured the onions into the pot with a mix of other spices. As she lit the fire underneath the cooking pot, she noticed Adrian watching. “They don’t make good food at your guild?”
Adrian shook the thoughts out of his head. “They were actually fine. Hired a fancy chef and everything… Did I ever actually mention I was in a guild?”
“No, but you’re wearing a guild badge,” she pointed out. “They don’t give custom badges to rescue teams. Especially not solo freelancers. Speakin’ of what happened to that sylveon?”
“That was a temporary teammate. Forced to work with him.”
Leafeon pulled out half a dozen carrots next, cutting them into thin slices. “How long were you working with him?”
“Up until a couple weeks ago,” Adrian answered.
Leafeon tilted her head curiously. “So you were with him over a year? Cause you came here before the last two year’s harvest.”
“I was forced into that team,” Adrian repeated. “Speaking of, how’d you recognize me so quick? It’s been a long time since I was last here and I’m not an umbreon anymore.”
Well a couple things. First, the scarf and badge tied to your leg now. Also, Eevee hasn’t let us forget anything about you.”
“Really?”
“He’s taken a liking to you,” Leafeon explained as she pulled out the mushrooms. “After you rescued him that second time, he started mimicking a lot of your behavior. The way you throw yourself into fights, how you talk. He even found that lunar ribbon a while back.”
“I’m the last person he should be modeling his life after,” Adrian said.
“You’re tellin’ me,” Leafeon sighed before realizing how that sounded. “No offense or nothing. It’s just… we’ve had to send five different rescue teams after him. He ain’t cut out for fighting.”
“I get what that’s like,” Adrian responded with a hint of sympathy. “I ran off on a lot of my own adventures as a kid. Was the problem child of my family.”
Leafeon laughed as she started on the celery. “Well maybe you two are kindred spirits.”
Adrian didn’t find it too funny himself. Because of his unprofessional way of working, he’d made this kid into a burden.
Leafeon sensed his guilt. She dumped the freshly chopped vegetables in the pot and tried to raise his spirits. “He’s always been like this. I think he gets it from me, honestly. I ran off as a young girl myself.”
Adrian’s ears perked up. “What made you do that?”
“I hated my family,” Leafeon said, leaning on the table. “They didn’t like Vaporeon and his family. Said they were dirty people.”
“Why’d they say that?”
“Well they all had bounties, for one.”
The flareon‘s eyes widened. He didn’t know what to say.
Leafeon just laughed again. “He’s a good man and he made up for what he did cause of me.”
Another voice added, “I tracked down my whole family to get us this life.”
Adrian jumped back as the vaporeon in question entered the kitchen. The man walked past him and went to his wife, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
Leafeon smiled back at him. “Stew’ll be ready in an hour. The umbreon… flareon rescuer’s gonna stay for supper.”
Vaporeon eyed Adrian for a bit with a skeptical look but seemed to come to the same conclusion as Leafeon had. “Alright. I’ll bring the kids inside then. Is that boy upstairs?”
Leafeon nodded. “Think he was running from you.”
Vaporeon breathed a sigh of relief as he started to leave the kitchen before looking at Adrian. “Don’t worry, I don’t have an issue with rescue teams. You’re the ones who got me out of that life, and you’ve kept my family safe.”