Someone Poisoned my Friend!

They called it the Water Continent, and there was water, and aquatic stuff, but mostly grass, mountainous areas, sediment, and so on, so whoever named it must have been looking out towards the ocean instead of the ground supporting their own two feet.

What went on there? Above all else, there was the boundless, yet ant-like scurrying of Pokemon seeking their fortune. Adventurers trolled the tapestry, one random destination to the next, searching for their next finger sandwich within the so-called Picnic Basket of the North. After the war against Dark Matter all but turned the Water Continent into the Void Continent, this scurrying acquired a new rage, hunting not to enjoy, but to survive the weathering peacetime questions of purpose and meaning. Everyone was worried, and doing anything was hard.

Grin sympathized with the idiot who named the Water Continent. Surrounded by the vast sea of others’ aspirations, the Floragato struggled to comprehend his own place in the setting. In the worst of times, he felt uniquely distant, like a cat on his own special island, watching what everyone else got up to-and wishing he might participate someday.

Luckily, the canoe to the mainland was in his paws, illuminated by his campfire’s easing light. His thorny story would begin its newest chapter with a letter penned in plain handwriting.

Grin,

I must commend you again on an excellent interview. I have never felt myself so quickly attached to another. Your bit about the Water Continent’s name, pure genius. This letter has some contents remaining, but allow this kernel to root in your mind as you read on: the Tall Grass will have you, and I would like to see your potential explode. You, and your freakishly powerful traveling companion, are with us now.

There is a movement in the East that requires my attention. Meanwhile, my daughter, Pate, will be leading her first incisor squad South, to a small town named Castle. Place is in dire need of protection from bandits, it seems. My orders cannot be simpler. Join my daughter’s squad, and through your sound advice, see her break ground in the famously stubborn Orchidia Region. I have hand-picked knights to join her new squad. They should prove effective.

Incisor squads reflect our brightest and strongest, and our most discretionary. I think you possess a unique intelligence, and will definitely, certainly, most undoubtedly not screw this up. But if you do, that’s alright. Things do happen, after all. So, if you are ever in a situation where things seem off, just do the first thing that comes to your beautiful, enriched mind. I am sure you will do the right thing.

If there are any important updates, Pate has a communication orb linked directly to headquarters. Only use it if someone is dead for more than twelve hours. Briefing materials have been sent to your post. Good luck.

To All Our Random Encounters,

– Atlas, Groupmaster of the Tall Grass

“I still can’t believe it,” Grin said, “I almost refuse to.” He kept his voice low, as to avoid bothering his comrades. The only Boltund who cared to listen, anyway, laid on the other side of the fire, nose-deep in some dinner gruel. “Nope. I cannot buy it. Bear. Some Legendary trapped us in a dream. We need to break out.”

Bear nodded hurriedly. The food posed trouble in his throat, making swallowing a two, three gulp ordeal. He snorted out its unseasoned smell. “That would make for such a cool story! We set out on an adventure, yeah, with the Tall Grass-coolest Void Knights anywhere. But, um, it all turns out to be in our heads. Like, like, we dreamed up the whole thing. We oughta write this before someone else does.”

Grin couldn’t capture how impressed he was with anything besides a breathy “whoa.” He reclined against the roots of his tree, folding up the acceptance letter. “We can’t right now. We’re living one out, after all! Unlike the war, when we win, we get a stake in the prize. Land, money, notoriety!”

The word stake instinctively made Bear’s throat tighten with sorrow. He looked down at his food. “Hope food’s a prize, too. Grin, why are the rations gray? What makes it this way?”

No matter how hard the pair looked at the plate, neither could identify the strange lump of sustenance. It was just, simply, gruel. And it would always continue to be Gruel, proudly indeterminate. Did it contain animal meat? Was there seasoning tucked away in its gelatinous body? The only distinction was an admittedly-strange clump of dark purple, conjoined to the rest of the body as if it were a tumor.

“Think of it like a canvas,” was Grin’s advice. “You can paint it to be anything you want. Like pizza! Or applesauce! Or glue! You used to snack on paste all the time.”

The Boltund, despite laying down, swayed as if he sailed a dingy out into Gyrados territory. “Um… m-maybe it’s… butternut squash…” he proceeded to vomit ‘butternut squash’ into the grass.

Grin leaped away, averting his eyes. “Oh no!” Why are you doing that?”

They had both eaten gruel for breakfast and dinner the last two weeks without issue. The last time Bear puked, it was from excitement–a Brionne performer was juggling three balls, which looked like the maximum any sane juggler could handle, when suddenly she tossed in a fourth ball, and it was a whole thing. It was crazy. One had to be there to understand, however the point in present times presented itself crystalline: something was seriously, suddenly wrong with his best friend.

“I don’t, don’t,” Bear said between pants, “goodness, it’s starting to become really hot. Is there a forest fire on my back?”

Grin, still covering his eyes, pointed awkwardly towards their campfire. “M-Maybe you’re too close? Scoot away–”

Thud. His best and only friend disobeyed and crumpled into the grass, his belabored rasps quickly becoming the loudest thing in the night. A curious murmur shot through their camp–all the knights wondering who was on nature’s chopping block.

The Floragato forced himself to look upon the scene, drinking in the sour contents. Trying not to think about how the gruel looked the same coming back up, he inched closer. “Buddy, say something.”

The Boltund gasped for breath. “The siege on Weepeg. That Wurmple… poison-needled my flank, remember? That, much worse.”

Grin giggled. “You can just admit it was your butt. Got needled in your butt–oh Arceus, you’re venomed.” The Floragato broke into a frantic pace, paws shoving back his ears. “Where and when and how? The last dungeon was days ago. It must be a late doomer variety.”

Bear curled in on himself. “It’s no fun, for sure.”

The Floragato shuddered. His rear crashed back into the ground, and he lost all sight from his dejected eyes. They were a duo, like the historic heroes of old, or eld, whichever one sounded cooler. Didn’t matter; their ambition to become the reigning cat and dog was floundering upon the dirt in its own vomit, a landed Magikarp, and the sight of it exploded Grin’s heart.

“I don’t feel good either…”

“Not you too,” his partner wheezed. “They can’t take my awesome friend from this world…”

“We weren’t ready for this mission. You still don’t have control over your powerful puppy-dog eyes.” Grin attempted to stand up, his paw slipping against the bark. The friction should have been there, but his sympathetic venom had already sped through his system, which made it even worse than Bear’s real, slow kind. “We need to see the medic.”

“Anyone but him. Take me… commander…”

The two looked at one another, both rather against the idea of moving. In the war, they often exchanged glances like this: at the cusp of utter exhaustion, light behind their eyes pale, wondering whose responsibility it was to hazard that first step back into the waking world. The answer tended to be Bear, unless he really, really can’t or doesn’t want to, so the responsibility fell on the advisor to act.

Grin found purchase against the tree behind him, his other claw grasping in the dark for his blanket. He managed to throw the itchy fabric over Bear’s head–and those sad, hurt eyes, more importantly.

“The world’s going dark,” the Boltund complained. “It’s my time. Remember… the story’s idea is that the main character…” Bear coughed violently. “Is in a coma the whole time. Make me into cream when I pass.”

“That’s the blanket on your head, and we’ve been over this. That’s not what cremation is,” Grin said. A gasp of cool air brought new life to him. Appearing now as a limp bundle of budget cloth, Bear’s situation appeared way less tragic. Grin could proceed without feeling an iota of empathy. “I’ll drag you by your hind legs. One… two… pull!”

The dirt scraped underneath Bear, leaving a corpse-like impression as they went through the main body of camp. The yanks and tugs and whines soon broke the thin veil of privacy hanging over them before.

Several other knights turned from their dinner to watch the unfolding drama. These rubber necks belonged to rather large customers, veteran knights working beneath the one and only commander Pate. The opportunity to serve groupmaster Atlas’s daughter colored their gruel and converted full-day marches into pleasant hikes. The last two weeks had been chock-full of playful teasing.

Tonight, they stewed in appreciation, their stoic scowls a powerful disguise for the happy Butterfree fluttering in their flavorless bellies.

“Arceus,” one Empoleon grunted. He threw his plate into the dirt and quit slouching. A straight spine added three feet to his height. “You advise your friend to die, kitty cat?”

“Nope.” Grin grunted, tugging Bear another foot. “He was stricken with a dangerous late-acting venom, back during our disastrous dungeon shortcut. Can you help me drag him to Pate?”

“The ‘disastrous dungeon shortcut’ you advised us to take?”

“Wait,” the kitty-cat mewled. “Hold on, there. I remember everyone saying, whoa, The Thistlestab Depths of Permanent Sleep? Can we, oh, can we please? There was–” he stooped down and yanked Bear’s head over a rock in the way–”a lot of fans of the idea. So I thought I’d be legit and let us go. An advisor’s job is to tell everybody what they want to hear.”

“Yikes.” The Empoleon shook off his disappointment. “What sorta venom is late acting, anyhow? Whole point is to win the fight then and there, not to give your enemy a stomach-ache days later.”

Another knight, a Wartortle, piped up from within her shell, the words tinny and laced with derision. “It usually takes precocious Bearet a couple days to feel or understand anything. Pretty slow on the uptake, that fella. Fighting’s all he is good for.”

“He’s also really hard to take up. Can you help me lift him?” Grin asked.

The two’s spiteful mirth waned into sheer spite. “On whose orders?”

“I… advise you to help me?”

“How about you fetch the commander, and she can yap at us. Otherwise, leave us to enjoy our evening. Your pet will live.”

Grin sighed. “Please help?! This is Bearet’s life hanging in the balance. Wee lil’ Beary! You, you,” he stammered, pointing at the Empoleon. “Remember when he beat you in a mock battle, and you were angry, and then he provided some precious advice?”

The Empoleon glared. “Yup, sure. He said, let’s see… that my blood tastes bad, and that I should move ‘less stupid.'”

“Have you worked on either of those things?” Bear rasped.

The two knights retreated into an impenetrable silence. A coping mechanism, surely, against the sight of their new comrade in dire straits. Just days ago, Grin overheard the veterans chatting about how Bear ‘was going to steal all the glory‘ and ‘take leadership with power before he’s earned it with service.’ Seeing their fresh rival on death’s door surely left them feeling angry with the world–now he would never take their jobs or glory. Who, in that situation, could properly express their grief? They rejected too hard, and became useless to prevent the fate they feared.

Grin tugged Bear the rest of the way to Pate by himself.

---

Crucial minutes (and several sharp, jagged rocks, and a smoldering fiire pit) passed before he managed to reach her grand tent’s flaps. The Tall Grass’s signature charcoal black and dark green tarp rested in the windless night.

Inside, the Houndour was in the middle of her nightly muse. A muse, in the world of leadership, was to be mired in deep contemplation. A leader would stare at an object, such as a puddle or a fallen leaf, and think of neat metaphors to use in pre-battle speeches. Right now, Pate focused her musing hours on a lit candle. Her skull helmet gleamed with important thought.

“Our life’s fire is upon a candle’s wick,” she mused, “and only we may bear our own… no. That doesn’t work. Candle… can… dole…” the flapping of her tent’s entrance jolted her. She recovered fast, teeth bared at the intruder. “Advisor? How dare you intrude on my musing time? Make me an inspiring quote about candles, now, or I will whip you.”

This was the usual vein of advice prompted from Grin. Things like, what rhymes with ‘eternal glory?’ or can you go around the knights and ask which ones are open to being whipped as motivation? Or also if you whip me in front of everyone, will it make it fair when I whip them? And what rhymes with ‘self flagellation?’

Grin looked down at Bear and shuffled nervously. “Bearet is–”

“Advisor, quit the objections!” Pate spun, teeth bared. “We arrive at our mission site in two days. Those fighters out there are starving for inspiration. There is nothing they need more, right now, than an inspiring candle metaphor. Yes. A metaphor will make them love me.” She dove into her favorite method of command: shouting requests one after the other.

“Top five candle metaphors ever made! What are candles made from! Do they make candles that are not hot! Why did eating an apple-scented candle not taste like apples and it also made me sick!”

The Floragato raced through the orders. “Don’t be a Litwick sucking the life out of the party! Wax can’t hold firm against the passionate fire of the Tall Grass! A candle’s fire does not exist until it is first lit! Scented candles are half off today! Wax! In Xanadu they have a lot of electric lamps and bulbs! Don’t eat them they’re not food!” He hurriedly kicked Bear’s covered, motionless body. “Bearet is perishing from a venom, and I’m hoping you might have spare medicine.”

“What? My frontliner is dying?” The Houndour stepped away from the candle, stalking closer to the duo. She looked them over. The frightened advisor and his devastated best friend. A rattled break escaped her, maw agape in the face of this truly horrific turn of events.

“Hold on, that was only four metaphors…”

“Pate! He needs you. Stay focused.”

“Fine. Bear is suffering, and I am the cure. It’s not candle related, but I like it. Let’s brainstorm it a little.”

It was definitely a cool line of thought for an inspiring speech. Pate could open up about the venoms of the modern Pokemon life, the multiple eroding bites on sense and heart, done upon them by the fangs of temptations and sorrows in their post-war world, and how the only true panacea was firm leadership, driven towards a goal everyone in the Tall Grass could believe in.

“I’ll write you a thousand speeches,” Grin promised, “a million, even. But if Bearet dies, I will cry forever and ever and cry all over the pages, smudging them so they’re illegible!”

“Don’t you dare!” Pate snapped. She drew back, her intensity fizzling. By the time she spoke again, the tent felt a shade darker. “No one is going to cry. Or die. It’s just, just… are you aware this is my first time leading an actual mission? My father watches closely. The weight–ha, the damnable pressure of his eyes, suffocating me, invisibly, as life throws its relentless punches at my blinkered skull. Punched and strangled at the same time. Can you reckon with it? Do either of you understand what it’s like, to have something foul and unseen coursing through your body, causing irreparable damage the longer it goes unaddressed?”

Bear wheezed. “No, dear leader… how awful…”

“I didn’t think so! I want so much to hide from this lame reality. But, no longer can I let my fearful delusions hold me back from action. No. I’ve had my chance to breathe inward, and now, I must exhale words belonging to an indomitable leader. Bearet is succumbing to venom. We must amputate.”

Amputation. The removal of a limb from the body. This sort of medical procedure was strictly forbidden in the war. Too many creatures had lost an arm or a leg in hopeless attempts to escape onset paralysis-the dragging of one’s being to the Badlands, the Permanent Battle, a place of great suffering and death. Even after sacrificing their wounded limb, the victim’s flesh would continue to warp into stone, and their last thoughts before entering the void were of the permanent alteration that did nothing to prevent their doom. It also made the medics feel really stupid, afterward, so they agreed to stop doing it.

“Is it really the only way?” Grin mewled.

“I’m sorry,” Pate said, tail wagging. “Not only must we… we have no way of knowing the entry point. It could be any limb. Each leg has a twenty-five percent chance. Advisor. Think deeply. How many of Bearet’s legs should I cut off?”

Numbers flew across the inside of Grin’s eyelids. Probability was a control freak’s way of fighting back against ambiguity. A true thinker acknowledged the truth: the thing that was probably going to happen was the most likely to surprise them when it did not happen. He needed to weigh the factors, looking only at the absolutes in this turbulent case of venom and friendship. For Bear’s sake, he had to deduce the perfect ratio between survival and permanent dismemberment.

“Well, the symptoms aren’t too severe. Bear seems to be lucid. We don’t really have a tool for doing this kind of surgery, and the knights outside claimed he would live. Based on this risk assessment…” he closed his eyes one more time, confirming the math. “Two legs. That gives us a fifty percent chance, and he might survive even if we’re wrong. So, win-win.”

Bear let out a long whine. “Two?! Do I win something, too?”

“Buddy! B-Buddy… we’ll do your two hind legs. Then, you’ll win a super cute puppy wheelchair. It’ll be green. And you’ll never regret your decision. We’ll keep your flesh legs as a reminder to ourselves to always be careful and check for bites after playing in dungeons. Now look at the pretty forest. Just, just keep looking at the trees and imagining yourself racing past them in the puppy scooter–”

Pate coughed loudly, and backed away. “Er, you know what? Let’s table the amputation thing for a second. Let’s consult… what was his name? My medic, Pawn.”

“That rabbit’s awful!” Bear yowled. “He’s mean! Cut my legs off, cut my tail off, too. I want a purple puppy cart, not a green one.”

“But, but, I’m green,” Grin said, sniffling.

“Enough!” Pate barked. “Advisor, transport Bear to our medic.”

---

Once again, Grin found himself dragging Bear. The medic’s tent was deliberately on the opposite side of the clearing. With Pate in tow, it was as if a heat wave had passed over their humble campsite. Eyes seemed to glimmer with emotion, and hearts beat just slightly out of rhythm.

“Commander,” the Empoleon said in a grunt.

“You! And you! All of you!” The Houndour snapped at her troop. “Were you all just sitting around watching these two struggle? The laziness is abhorrent. Oh. Advisor, watch out for that rock.”

(“Got it.” Grin ran around to Bear’s head, and moved it out of the way of a sharp stone. He did so quietly-it felt like a good idea to be quiet.)

“Commander.” The grand penguin’s voice was toxic enough to be a culprit in Bear’s condition. “Why would they need our help? In fact, really, we look up to you three upstarts.”

Pate stopped guiding Grin, paws planted, head tilted. “Wait, really?”

The Wartortle poked her head out of her shell, just enough to make her frown known. “Some of us have been in different incisor squads for years. Always imagined ourselves as the cream of the crop.”

(“They’re dead!?” Bear whispered. Grin patted his covered head.)

“Yet look at you all,” the Empoleon continued. “A leader, an advisor, and a frontliner, all put ahead of us mere knights. You all must be pretty amazing, to earn such lauded roles out of nowhere.”

“That’s so cute,” Grin whispered to Pate. “They’re finishing each other’s thoughts. Let’s leave them to it.”

Pate had a different idea. She stamped the ground and flashed teeth. “I deserve my station over you! Just moments ago, I almost cut off Bear’s legs!” She paused, waiting to see if the admission would lighten her knights’ faces. It didn’t. “I would have, I swear!” Another pause. “I don’t understand the problem. I have, I have everything-I have the determination of my father, the cleverness of Kolaxi the mystic fox, the resolve of Herk the Pangoro and, just so much more.”

The knights went back behind their usual shield of silence.

“According to my father, Grin is a born genius-and has really good observational humor, too. Bearet defeated several of you in his examination. And I…”

The statuesque troop broke free of their stone, slowly shambling forward to join their friends in starting down the commander.

“So, yeah, what about you?” A Herdier said in a snarl. “The whole squad’s eager to learn how a non-Docile–”

“Don’t run your mouth,” Pate said, snarling. She lowered her helmet, angling it at them. Fire swelled in the skull’s open cavities, spilling out in embers.

“Non. Docile. You didn’t come from a Mystery Dungeon. By the Tall Grass’s own charter, you are not supposed to lead shit.”

“My father is a docile, and he raised me.”

“Your father raised a nice little pet. Wanted to make your life easier than his. Wound up raising a mushy peach. Happens.“

Eyes stayed wide open and careful, some lit by the scant light of dying fires, others purposefully hidden away in the many shadows engulfing the clearing. Bear pushed away the blanket over his head, watching the situation carefully.

A cough shattered the tension. A Raboot, satchel in tow, had come around to Grin’s side. Despite being unkempt, his bag was in perfect condition, adorned with a ‘fairy sigil:’ the marking of a healer.

Grin smiled wide. “Hey, Pawn!”

“Twenty fucking minutes,” the medic said. “You’ve been dragging your friend around. And all this.” He swept a paw out to the others. “Are you insane?”

“Have you been watching us? You could have said something sooner, silly.”

He swooped down and picked up the Boltund by the shoulders. “I’m allowed to hope. Get his legs. If you or the commander say anything else, I’ll drop him. In a silly way.”

The knights found that funny, somehow, rumbling with low laughs as the quartet made their escape. “Now Pawn,” the Empoleon called, “there’s someone who knows how things work, what needs to be done. Don’t you, bunny?”

The knights’ heckling pricked at their backs as they walked away.

---

Pawn’s medic tent was quite remarkable. The Raboot only pitched it hours ago, and yet it looked as if it had always been in this particular forest, on this specific patch of dirt. It was as if the tent poles traveled deep into the earth, forming permanent foundations. It all seemed so ancient and untouched: the books resting on a foldable nightstand, the haystack ‘gurney…’ the centerpiece was a prominently-placed placard featuring a graduation certificate from Xanadu’s Future Vision Academy, in the areas of medicine and occult typology, cleaner than clean.

And, without fail, Pawn always had his tent packed into a duffle half his size before anyone else had managed to blink awake. Besides his own fur, he was outright surgical with everything else.

To Bear, though, this place might as well have been the Badlands. He whined loudly, squirming and kicking apart Pawn’s hay bedding.

“His infernal paws want to brand my body,” Bear said. “Doctors are evil.”

Grin sat down and patted his friend’s head. “I know you hate doctors, but Pawn is different. He’s a medic, first of all. And he’ll be sweet. Won’t you, Pawn?”

The Raboot stood there silently.

“Are you going to say something?” Bear asked.

“Why am I wordless?” Pawn shot back. “One day sooner than you think possible, you will die. And every word I want to say to your mutt face, right now, would be a clue to your friend that I’m the one who defiled the sad pile of rocks you’ve claimed as your grave.”

Grin clapped. “Wow! A good caper will take my mind off the grief. Thanks.”

“Grin?!” Bear looked up, desperate. “Did you not hear that? Help–”

Pawn gripped the Boltund’s snout, pinching his nose hard to force the mouth open. He inspected the tongue, the teeth, the nose. A subtle look of concern was hidden deep, deep down, several miles underneath the Raboot’s frown of disgust… contained in a metal bulkhead, with state of the art security… defended by two massive Ekans and booby-trapped with explosive seeds… presumably… there was concern somewhere.

“The dope’s been poisoned, I see. Must have eaten a rather bad surprise. Or his immune system is finally seeing his own, puny brain as a virus.”

The Floragato’s jaw dropped. “It’s not venom?”

The Raboot shook his head. “Do you see any cuts or bites? Idiots. I cannot believe you were going to amputate. You would have felt so stupid. You know, there’s a policy to never do it because it’s so stupid. Commander, please tell me I’m going to wake up and find out this was all a bad dream.”

“Grin, he knows!” Bear cried. “Commander, that’s our story idea.”

The commander, however, was lost in thought. Not musing, though: she pressed her claws into the fabric, teeth gritted inside her tightened chops. Her eyes stared at something only visible to her. Her eyes paled with overwrought anger.

She snapped back into action, stepping towards Pawn.

“Silence!” Pate barked. “You will not suggest I am an idiot. I am as capable as the Fanged Three in their prime. Tell me: what flavor of candle did he eat?”

“I… wonder what goes on in all of your heads. The symptoms are nausea, fatigue, soreness in the throat and… green, bioluminescent flecks in the sclera. Which is extremely weird, but likely irrelevant.” The Raboot tilted his head, leaning in for a closer inspection of Bear’s face. How anyone could stand to be so close to those sad eyes was beyond Grin. Eventually, Pawn retreated to grab a breath of sorrow-free air. “I am willing to say this is oren berry poisoning. Before you idiots run off on another tangent, that’s oren spelled with an e. Be happy it isn’t the y variant. That can get bloody.”

A flash went off in the Floragato’s head. Their dinner of monotone gruel, colorless and unaccompanied. His wits leapt to blame this all on an accident, that someone plucked an oren berry without asking how it spelled its name, then crushed it up into the serving tankard as a flavor aid. And yet, not another soul was poisoned. And yet… there had been a clump of dark, nigh-monotonous purple among the gray chunks on Bear’s plate.

He raised a paw over his mouth. “Someone deliberately poisoned his dinner.”

Pate winced, as if struck in the head by an invisible fist. “Grin, there is no one along this route but our own squad. Are you crying mutiny?”

“I certainly would,” Pawn said, cutting in. “Classic trick in incisor squads. If someone new’s not fun to travel with, you tamper with their food. Get them horribly sick. They earn no glory, receive no pay. Atlas furiously demotes them… and the medic meanwhile…” the Raboot tugged his hood up, covering his face. “Minds his own business.”

Bear melted into the dirt. “Someone wants me gone? What did I do wrong?”

“What have you ever done right, you freak?” The Raboot snapped. “You were probably just annoying. Push them a bit, and these old knights will consider every method of ridding themselves of you. Trust me.”

“Enough,” Pate said. “We can discuss the suspect later. Is this at least curable?”

Pawn’s gaze broke away, becoming a thousand-yard stare down towards the campsite. Many of the veterans were side-eyeing the situation through the tent’s open flap, having given up on sleep to watch what was happening. Over ten onlookers, technically over ten suspects, waited like a panel reviewing the Raboot’s medical practice.

Pawn delivered a pretty hard kick to Bear’s backside. “I wish it wasn’t. You brought him before the worst symptoms arrived. A pecha berry will reverse the effects. Still… um…” the medic fidgeted, eyes darting about the tent. “We also need to treat his codependency issues. Those. Very severe.”

The advisor and commander sighed with momentary relief, then dove right into this next problem. “Really,” Grin breathed. “I had no idea.”

“Yup. Bear, what do you do when Pate gives an order?”

The Boltund answered straightaway. “I follow it!”

“Wow. So you just do what others say? I bet it’s easier to live that way. Do you have any friends in camp?”

“Grin! He’s my bestest. I love him so much. We fought in the war together, you might have heard of the whole war thing–”

“Together. Interesting choice of words. In order to make you more independent, I will be administering a unique method of treatment.” Pawn ducked down, pulling a pink berry from his medicine bag. “This poisoning is an opportunity to cure the real disease: relying on others. I will throw the pecha berry into the woods, and you will need to find it by yourself. Doing this will be your first step towards self-actualization. Don’t worry about returning to camp tonight. Just catch up with us when you’re all sorted. And,” he added, peeking outside the tent, “if any of those knights out there find you, run in the opposite direction. To avoid depending on them.”

“Oh…” Bear trembled as he put his legs beneath himself and stood up. “Okay. Sorry for relying on you guys so much.”

The night had gone so awry. With only a couple days of travel between their squad and the mission, disasters like these lingered as a foul, unlucky stink. And the stink arose from their own camp.

Grin gave his friend a brave smile. “Bear, I love you tons, and I forgive you for being so codependent. If you have to quit, I will be right there with you. We promised to do our first big mission together, and I can’t imagine doing literally anything without you by my side. I would rather burst into a stormcloud of tears and flood the continent than be apart from my buddy for too long. Arceus, Beary, I need you. Don’t you get it? I need you!“

The Boltund wiped tears from his green-speckled eyes. “Oh, awesome friend–”

“Fetch!”

The soft plop of a berry hitting the ground came from the darkness outside camp. Pawn dusted his paws off, pleased with himself. He stepped away from the tent’s exit, gesturing to the Boltund. “Go get it. Fetch.”

And so Bear hobbled off, into the woods. His unsure footsteps eventually tapered off into silence.

“That should keep him safe,” Pawn muttered. “Tomorrow morning, he will need another checkup. His eyes are all weird. You two, out of my tent. I am about to read some books about things, and I don’t feel like explaining any of those concepts to you.”

The commander and her advisor departed, into the chilly night.

---

With all fires put out, a rotted darkness made its claim of the humble clearing. It had looked like such a nice spot just that evening.

Grin wished Pawn was right: that he didn’t know how to read. The words of his acceptance letter burned in his mind, leaving a smoldering hole where the frontal cortex goes. Mutiny. Poisoning. Codependency issues.

And yet, he was hardly the one suffering most. Pate was frozen solid, once again caught in one of her mental endeavors. Not musing, but another kind of thoughtfulness. It made her eyes mist again. An unseen pressure planted her in the grass, her feet unwilling to trudge on.

“We’re in danger,” she said quietly. “I can’t command their respect. Tonight, I showed my teeth to them. Advisor… the night is still very young.”

The implication rang loud and clear. He joined her side, a comforting paw patting her head.

“It’s only a bit of hazing,” he explained. “It happens in militant families like ours. Back in the day, I got hazed the heck up. Someone took the brick mortar for the wall fortifications and smeared the back of my head in it while I slept. Bear licked it all out, though. He got a snack, and I was a part of the cool crowd!”

“I have to lick mortar out of your fur?” Pate said, disparate. “Advisor, we need to return to headquarters before they attack us. Or run into the forest. Maybe we can kill Pawn so there’s a reason to call my father–damn it, that will take twelve hours! I don’t know what to do!”

Grin paused. Then, he stooped down, eye to eye with his commander. “Well, I myself gave away all of my up a long time ago. Can I…” he licked his chops pensively. “Freestyle a little bit? Follow my gut and act without needing to consult you? I can take care of this,” he promised.

Pate looked into him. In the dark, it was hard to see much past the Floragato’s violet eyes, positively shimmering with excitement. She saw his readiness–for far too long, Grin had stood apart, and now was the time for him to realize his skills. And she noted his intent–Grin was seeing a way forward, a way out, as real as the leaves their paws crunched into the earth.

“Fine,” she said. “Advisor, you can act with abandon until we reach our mission site. Fix this… please.”

The Floragato leapt for joy. “Yay! Things look bad now, but that’s only because you haven’t seen what can come after. Hang in there, commander! I’ll show you.”