Chapter 2 – Worms and the boy

Silkie yawned as the sunlight struck her face, blinking, the Wurmple pulled herself off of her pillow and slowly made her way over to her closed window, brushing the brown curtain open to let more rays stream in. The Wurmple reached for a wooden cup filled with tree sap – she wasn’t much of a morning ‘mon. In one fluid motion, Silkie chugged the cup’s worth of fluids down, shuddering in relief as she felt the syrup-like substance move down her throat.

Silkie turned to her fire, or what remained of it. She had remembered to put it out last night, but she could still witness miniscule embers glittering vaguely under the cover of the blackened wood.

Ah well, as long as it wasn’t going to burn her house down to cinders and soot, she’d live with it. Besides, the diminutive embers might even be useful to start more fires later on.

The lithe Wurmple gazed out of her window, which was more or less just a slab of glass encrusted into the mud walls which made up her house, shaking off the remnants of sleep inertia. Something important was coming up today, a hazy memory surfaced within her brain, but her mind’s clarity felt as clear as mud. She tipped the last drop of tree sap from her cup and into her mouth, setting it onto a desk, she moved, almost totteringly, to her back door – the drowsiness from sleep unwaveringly stubborn in stumbling her steps. She fumbled with the handle, her fingerless hand repeatedly fluttering over the block of wood uselessly.

The swirling thoughts regarding her plan for the day were abruptly interrupted as she snapped back to attention with the realisation she would be receiving a little visitor today.

Right, that Caterpie kid was coming later, she would have to set some of her training devices up for him.

Snapping from her stupor, her door opened easily, though a rusted hinge caused it to get jammed at an angle. The Wurmple sent the door back into its position with an aggravated slam, pushing it back into the frame.

She was greeted with the lovely smell of the daybreak’s air. It was cold, but delightful; she enjoyed the nature of early mornings. Silkie scuttled over the dawn’s dewdrops, providing a cooling tickle to her underbelly as she traversed through the grass for her bucket. Unfortunately, when she reached it, there presented another problem. Silkie grunted as she dragged the wooden container, struggling to hoist the now-full pail back onto the branch that held it.

Her strength failed; finding it too strenuous to return the wooden bucket. She crawled up its side and dipped her head partially inside and had her fill – she had needed something to wash down all that sap, anyway.

Once she had finished connecting the rope back to the pail, she moved onto her actual goal: fixing up her training devices for the kid.

The Wurmple contemplated – there’s no way he could learn anything she wanted to teach him without some form of visual example. Could she serve as a sparring partner? No, there was no way she could fully control herself not to injure the poor child in the process…

Looking at the sticks around her and the dozens piled up in a corner behind the verandah where she stored her firewood gave her an idea.

Not the most brilliant, but given her time constraints – why not?

Using her silk, she managed to stitch together a few training dummies vaguely resembling some kind of target. Their heads were made of nothing but a clump of hay with eyes scribbled on. Actually, scratch that – the empty, dull, soulless spots of black looked about as friendly as an Arbok’s glare. Eugh, she wiped the eyes out immediately.

Silkie then attached a stick through the head, applying a bit of her adhesive string, and attached another stick horizontally using her silk as a binding tool. Planting the barely humanoid object she had just created into the ground, she marvelled at her poorly-made handiwork for just a moment before moving onto creating a few more similar dummies. She was glad that each of them turned out looking as deformed as each other, she wasn’t about to put too much effort in something she knew was probably only going to last a few days. And that was being generous.

She pushed against one of them, the pole that was pressed into the ground held firm. Excellent, most of the time her attacks would completely tear the poor straw models apart. Turning them into nothing but shredded bits of dust. Which was only one of the many, many reasons why Silkie preferred to fight against living enemies instead, they provided a much better target for her to sharpen her poisonous spikes against.

But against the miniscule Caterpie who was barely into his third year at school? She had no doubt they’d suffice – she just hoped she didn’t underestimate the kid’s power…

The other parts of her training regime involved a nice, leisurely jog along the bottom of Snowfell’s mountain and the enactment of brutal violence against any that opposed her presence, or annoyed her enough to warrant a beatdown. Every single day, she’d be minding her own business crawling along the rough terrain before some stupid, idiotic, bird-brained… bird Pokémon would swoop down in a pathetic attempt to make her into its meal.

All because she looked like a ‘weak’ little Wurmple.

Their relations as predator and prey didn’t help, either… But the self-appointed explorer chose to believe in the former rather than the latter.

Silkie hated the stereotype, she despised how Bug types were perceived in general – Often known as ‘disgusting creepy crawlies’ that a lot of Pokémon avoided. She heard a few awful names being thrown around at times, and while there were such words for every type – even something as cute and cuddly as the Fairy types included. She thought Bug types really received the brunt of it. Maybe Ghost and Dark types did too, but she couldn’t care less for them if she tried! They weren’t known for much more than their prolific breeding – but that really wasn’t a title to be very proud of.

Silkie stabbed another dummy into the ground with more force than she anticipated, she unravelled a closed fist. Now wasn’t the time to think about this – the kid still needed as many targets up as possible by the time he arrived.

Now that everything had been set up, most of the morning had waned, the golden orb now rested at the tip of the sky’s edge. Silkie only had to wait for a brief period of time until the Caterpie showed up. Surprisingly on time, well, she didn’t keep a clock. Her tiny house (if it could even be called that) just didn’t have the space for such a technologically advanced machine, the general store and school had one, but they were the only ones filling the list of Pokémon Silkie knew had a clock. Of course, the grinding of gears, ticking and whatnot drove her mad with aggravation. Like a ghoulish Ghost type syphoning her life energy, she just couldn’t get its wretched sound out of her system. Besides, why spend all of her hard-earned cash when she could just stick her head outside a window and look at the position of the sun? Ludicrous, really. What some Pokémon spend their money on these days…

---

“I’ll be picking him back up during the afternoon, is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” She said with a noncommittal shrug. “Wait, no. Actually, we’ll meet you down by the village plaza, since we might go picking berries in the forest nearby. It’ll probably be late into the afternoon, depending on how quickly our session goes.”

“Of course. Promise to be good, alright?” The Butterfree landed, with the Caterpie on her back dismounting and darting away, inviting himself into Silkie’s abode.

“Mum, I’m hardly a kid now, you don’t have to talk to me like that!” The Caterpie complained, pouting angrily.

“If he gives you any trouble, Silkie, just pull him along by his tail.” She patted the tiny caterpillar’s antenna, much to his chagrin, and politely took her exit.

Soon enough, Silkie stared at the Caterpie in front of her, who seemed quite eager.

In fact, probably a little too eager, seeing as he was nearly bouncing off of the walls of her house with uncontrollable excitement the moment his mother left the two alone.

“C-calm down already!” Silkie yelled as the Caterpie’s hyperactive energy bounded him all over her room. “I didn’t sign up to be a daycare, jeez…”

“A-ah, sorry.” The Caterpie, having finally slowed down a little in his ‘rampage’, gave her an apologetic look and shuffled towards her.

“Hmph, that’s better,” She huffed in exasperation. “Come on, let’s go outside. I’ve got a bit of equipment set up. I want to see how well you can do, have a go at them, will you?”

Silkie parted her door for the Caterpie who gazed at the straw dummies she had built in a matter of minutes. “Did you make these? Oh, oh! Are they, uh… training targets? What are they made out of? When did you make them?”

Silkie sighed, she was bad with adults enough as it is, but now she thought she was having a hard time conversing with children as well. His insistent nagging was likely going to drive her off the deep end. “Yes, those are dummies, targets, whatever you want to call ‘em. Try hitting them, ram it with your Tackle or something… And I guess we can work from there.”

“Yes sir, I-I meant ma’am!”

SIlkie rolled her eyes in amusement, her unamused expression only flickering slightly. “Just Silkie will do. No need for you to be formal. I wouldn’t be educated enough to tell, anyways.”

And with that, the Caterpie swiftly found himself at work knocking down Silkie’s target with Tackle.

Using a running start, the Caterpie leveraged himself with the momentum of his legs and flung his tiny body directly into the straw dolls.

A soft rustle followed, small bits of hay dropped out. While the dummy’s chest had a dent, it otherwise remained in perfect condition.

“Not enough force, attack with a running start!” Silkie pointed to a while further away, the Caterpie obediently crawled over, and began his attack once more.

“Yes ma’am, here I go!” The green caterpillar rushed at the practice dummy once again. A similar result ensued – the dummy received very minimal damage, leading to Silkie barking for another attempt.

“Again!”

The Caterpie sprinted for nearly half a minute, running as quick as his stubby little legs could take him, and bashed the entirety of his body into the dummy, which finally toppled, spraying its golden insides all over the ground.

“H-how was that?” The Caterpie asked expectantly, panting slowly.

“Hmmm… It was passable enough. Let’s keep training, I really think we could perfect it some more – especially without all that running, you won’t have that much space for that in a Mystery Dungeon.”

“Seriously? Okay…” The Caterpie muttered, a disheartened sound died in his throat. Upset at how Silkie had brushed his hardest attempt off so quickly.

“Attack it from a different angle!”

“Ram into it with your full body!”

“Use your weight, Tackle is a physical attack!”

“Come on, put more force into that hit!”

“That’s not enough ! Do better than that !”

The Caterpie huffed and puffed, lying against a rock, his eyelids drooped at his exhaustion, bundles of messy hay sat all around him, along with several sticks, most were bent or snapped apart. Silkie surveyed the damage, letting out a somewhat pleased hum after her examination.

Getting him into shape was going to be more challenging than she anticipated.

She turned to the wheezing, panting Caterpie. “Your performance today was… acceptable. You broke one training dummy and severely damaged the other. It could be worse. Especially since it is your first day of training, after all.” She sat down next to the Caterpie, and handed him a Pecha Berry. “Frankly, if I was being honest. You were a little better than I thought. So, here you go, eat up!” The Caterpie salivated, tearing into the berry ferociously like his life depended on it, maybe it did – with how hard she was working him. But he wanted this upon himself, anyway. She reasoned to herself, did he expect training as an explorer, especially training as an explorer with her , would be easy?

---

“Okay, now let’s start trying your String Shot.”

“A-are we starting again already?!”

The Caterpie could not hide his distraught groan this time.

Silkie stopped to chuckle, beckoning him over with her stubby limbs, the Caterpie gave in, not letting go of the berry but wordlessly following her with an obviously displeasured frown on his face.

“ Tired already?” Silkie began, punctuating her words into a morph of sarcasm and contempt, which the kid didn’t seem to pick up. “We’ve only just begun!” She added, revelling at how her words made the caterpillar squirm.

“Yes, I’m tired, can we rest now, please, Silkie?”

“ No , and I don’t want to repeat it again,” She pointed to red target boards haphazardly strewn atop several forest branches, the scarlet paint making them especially visible against the dark brown background. “These targets, try and hit them with String Shot. You won’t even have to move for this exercise.” She stated simply, taking a large branch and swiped at the dirt, etching a horizontal line that spanned about double the Caterpie’s width, “Start here when you’re ready.” She tossed the stick aside.

“Oh, alright.” He mumbled, forming a glob of string from his mouth, he blasted the attack, which came out more akin to a fizzled-out Blast Seed than anything remotely similar to Silkie’s String Shot. The silk barely flew half a metre from where they stood, let alone enough to even hit one of the targets.

“Guess we’re gonna need a lot more practice…” The Wurmple murmured. “I’ll give you a demo,” She said, firing several String Shot attacks with pinpoint accuracy, each nailing the bullseye on the targets.

The Caterpie made a disappointed, melancholic sound.

“Uhm… There’s a first time for everything.” Silkie reminded him, “Make sure your mandibles aren’t in the way before you fire the string, shift them slightly to the side,” She began.

The boy’s mouth twitched, was he doing what she asked? It was hard to tell, the Caterpie was already leagues more expressive than she ever was, but even Silkie had a hard time reading his features.

“Now try relaxing your lower jaw,” She offered, when his massive eyes returned with a glazed over look of confusion, she spoke a second time as clarification, “You have a… I think it’s called a spinneret?” She crossed her stubby arms, the thoughts swirling her head forcing her to concentrate to make her sentence sound coherent, “Ahem, your mandibles are connected to your lower jaws, where your, um… spinneret is located. So by relaxing your jaws and loosening your mandibles you can make your silk go further. That’s what I’ve found, does that make any sense?” She tilted her head.

The blank look her student delivered back made her sigh internally. The impatient part within her yelling at her to just call the whole thing off, though given the mess her heated brain was in, she discarded the intrusive thoughts and continued, “It’s a bit like your lower lip,” She stuttered, the Wurmple’s miniscule knowledge of her own biology jumbling her thought patterns, “Okay, attempt to curl it into…” She paused for a moment, “An ‘O’ shape.” She gestured, parting her own rounded mandibles awkwardly. Unfortunately, her lack of flexible muscles around her mouth failed her. As such, the expression she pulled looked rather peculiar and was more of a source of amusement for the boy than any form of learning.

The Pokémon she was striving to teach burst out into laughter, the giggles and hiccups carrying out into the forest as he rolled on the ground, aching with joy, covering over the sound of her facepalm. “We can try again later, then.” Silkie deadpanned. “Let’s stop for real this time, can’t have me overwork you to death, right?” She chuckled at her own joke, but the kid looked at her, eyes wide. “Relax,” She jested, “Want a berry?”

---

The Caterpie wordlessly dug into the food she offered, taking large bites out of the berry, turning it into a few seeds in only a moment’s notice. “My, my, you’re quite the hungry caterpillar. Good thing I won’t be running out of food anytime soon, so feel free to have some more.” She hauled a basket of berries over, placing it onto the stump the two currently sat on.

“Hehe… I tend to… eat a lot, mum says it’s because I need all of the energy to grow and evolve!” He said, reaching for another berry.

“Ah, yes, your evolution turns you into… a cocoon, I believe?”

“Not just any old cocoon, I’ll evolve into a Metapod! After that, and several weeks of ‘metamorphising’…” He paused, “Wait, no. I think it’s called ‘metamorphosis’ – soon I’ll be an awesome Butterfree!”

“Hmm, how interesting…” The Wurmple mumbled, though she was only half-listening.

“What about you, Silkie? Don’t you evolve into a cocoon Pokémon as well?”

“Huh? Yeah, I think I do.” She answered vaguely, the Caterpie looked at her with interest, almost expecting more to her answer than her previous statement.

“I-is that it? If you know you can evolve, then why don’t you?”

Despite having lived an apparent portion of her life in solitude, Silkie needed only to register the question briefly in her brain before she racked up an answer. Her face flashed with something unspeakable for only a short second, she returned to reality and stared at the Caterpie, with her raised voice being the only indication that her emotions had changed.

“I’d rather not become a defenceless, helpless, pathetic cocoon who would have to rely on the protection of others, so… that’s why I’m going to prevent myself from evolving. Who’d even stop to take care of me, huh?”

“… You’re not going to evolve? But evolving would make you stronger and faster, you could gain wings! I mean, how cool would that be. I’ve always wanted to fly, so I won’t have to crawl so slowly on the ground anymore! I mean, I could ask mum and she might even be able to look after you when you’re in the process of meta-”

Silkie hissed, her eyes narrowing.

“I think I’m already strong enough as it is, okay?! I don’t need wings to prove myself against anything that comes my way!” She snapped, a bit louder than she intended, the Caterpie didn’t look angry, though. He just stared at her with an inquisitive expression, opening his mouth to speak, but Silkie’s outburst effectively silenced him. Maybe it would be nice for the Butterfree to watch over her even while she maintained herself as a motionless shell… Silkie ached, she’d be a burden to them, “You finished eating? Good, let’s get going, we’re going to be looking for berries.”

Silkie took the now-empty basket in her hands, the Caterpie  The two paced quietly and leisurely along the tall shrubbery and vegetation that reigned supreme across the forest floor. Evergreen pines dominated the area, their winding needles layered with speckles of whitened frost. In spite of this, their astringent smell was no less prevalent, being carried across the whole forest. Silkie carried the basket in her hands, while the Caterpie busied himself with picking berries. This was a regular route Silkie had gone down often; she’d walk to a circular clearing in the middle of the forest, then turn right down several Pecha berry trees, passing by a singular Leppa tree in the process. Silkie wasn’t sure of how the Leppa tree came to be in a horde of Pecha berries, but she didn’t mind, she loved the taste of Leppa berries, which was why she went down this route the most often, as it was the only one in the forest where she knew where to find Leppa berries. While the heart of the forest itself was a Mystery Dungeon, she was certain they were sticking well-enough to the outer edges so as to not be accidentally transported into its boundaries. 

“So, do you live all by yourself out here, Silkie?” The lively Caterpie queried, climbing up a Pecha berry tree to pluck a few of the pink fruits from its branches.

“Yes, now let’s work on your accuracy, throw those berries towards me!” She exclaimed, brushing off the question in one sentence.

The Caterpie chucked the berry as hard as he could, the fruit sailed past Silkie’s basket and fell to the ground with a thundering, ‘thud’.

Silkie let go of the woven basket’s handles and instead gripped its sides, nestling her feet against the hardened earth, stabilising herself, she held the basket high above (as high as her tiny hands allowed for, anyway). “Does this make it easier for you to throw?”

The Caterpie nodded, retrieving another berry, as he came back, the question Silkie brushed off earlier returned to him. Wanting a bit more dialogue than just training, the worm Pokémon made an effort to strike up a conversation. “I attend school back in the village, so I always have to learn about how stupid TMs work or what berry has what effect… It’s annoying, especially because I’ll just forget it immediately after.” He threw the berry, it landed by the edge of the basket, teetering precariously; eventually rolling off. He punched the bark in irritation, but lightened up quickly, “But having friends makes the boredom so much more tolerable!”

“Good for you, kiddo.” Silkie murmured.

“Doesn’t it get lonely out here, all alone, without any friends?” The Caterpie asked sympathetically, giving her a look that conveyed pity with his shining eyes.

The Wurmple did naught but groan silently and roll her eyes in abject protest, “No, of course not. Silly, in fact, I like it this way. No Pokémon here to annoy me or ask me stupid questions. It’s why I live outside of town.” Silkie replied nonchalantly, as if her lack of social interactions was just an everyday, routine part of her life. It probably was, the Caterpie guessed, considering the Wurmple’s usual grumpiness and inability to talk to anyone in an approachable manner, he thought that she probably possessed very little social life. “Now, any more incessant questions that unnecessarily intrude upon my private life?” She glared at the Caterpie from under the basket, who swiftly broke their gaze and dashed back into the canopy for another berry, “And actually throw it in this time, okay?” He heard her call.

“Don’t you have any relatives to live with?” He flung a berry into the basket, it successfully landed with a dull ‘bonk’, but Silkie didn’t even notice his success and additional weight between her hands.

“I don’t have any relatives, not that I know of, and honestly, why would they want anything to do with a dinghy village like Snowfell?”

“Hey, don’t diss Snowfell. I live in it!” The Caterpie flailed his stubby arms in protest, Silkie let out a snicker of amusement at his actions.

“I do too, just around the outskirts of the village.”

“Hmph! What about your family?”

“None that I know of, I never even got to meet my parents.” Silkie snapped, rolling her eyes under the basket.

“Then how did you hatch? Pokémon Eggs require heat, I think…” He trailed off. “Wait, do they? I think I’ve already forgotten the stuff they wanted me to learn during my last class…”

Silkie grumbled. “You know, I’m hearing a lot of yapping from you but not a lot of training. This basket’s not even half-filled!” She yelled, deflecting the Caterpie back to his training regimen.

The Caterpie puffed in frustration, before a mischievous thought flashed into his head, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Silkie stuttered, the unexpected nerve of the kid flustering her momentarily, “T-that’s none of your business, okay? Wh-what have they been teaching you in school?! I just told you I have no family, now go and buzz off with your invasive questions and throw the berries ! Otherwise I’ll get up there and throw you down myself!” She hissed aggressively. Up in the tree, the Caterpie kept his quiet snickers to himself up and obediently retreated back for more Pecha berries, tossing a second in.

“When’s your mum coming to pick you up? I can barely stand you anymore.” She whispered the latter half of her statement under her breath.

“Uhm, in a bit, I think. Training was fun, but I can’t wait to get back home.”

“I’m not surprised,” Silkie responded in a bland tone, “With all of my bossiness, I doubted that you’d want to stick around any longer than for one day.”

“Really? You’ve been fun to hang out with! I mean, minus all the times you yelled at me. It made me a bit sad.”

The Wurmple snickered, but kept relatively quiet, aside from the smug smirk she shot at the Caterpie, “I guess having some company to shake things up a bit isn’t too bad, either.” She admitted. Another berry dropped into the basket, she gazed around, there were three Pecha berries rolling about the basket, while two were scattered around her, “Alright, I think this is enough, you got three out of five, which is… well, it’s passable. You can come down.” She placed the basket down, and wriggled over to grab the other two. The Caterpie slid down the bark and dropped to the floor. Silkie put the other two Pecha berries (one of them more bruised than the rest) away and lifted the basket, “Let’s head home, we can go to the plaza and meet your mum there.”

However, before the two Bug types could so much as turn to walk, a brief shout was the only thing the duo of bugs heard before something akin to a blue blur crashed into them in a fit of dirt and sticks. “Aah!” The trio were sent tumbling over and falling down. A soft groan followed, the blue Pokémon atop the pile of bugs slowly came to themselves. “Ouch… that smarts.”

“You’re dam-, darn right it does, get off of us!” Silkie grumbled and shifted herself, causing the blue creature to fall off of her and the Caterpie. Causing the Pokémon to trip with a shocked ‘oof!’ as the duo beneath finally got a better look at the creature that had fallen onto them.

“Who are you? I’ve never seen a Pokémon like you before!” The Caterpie exclaimed, squeezing out from under the blue creature.

“I-I’m, woah!” The creature was suddenly tipped over as Silkie pushed its spindly blue legs off and righted herself. “Excuse you!”

As Silkie adjusted her belongings, the duo finally got to see the Pokémon for what it was. It had long, and exceedingly slender legs that looked thinner than twigs. It was a miracle how its body weight hadn’t crushed its legs yet. The four legs connected to a spherical and equally blue body. Shining black eyes were embedded in the creature’s face, along with tiny… mandibles? The Caterpie wasn’t sure what those white, pointy things were. The head of the Pokémon was yellow, and had a short point jutting out, sort of like an antenna, Silkie surmised. Overall, the creature’s peculiar centre of balance, weight distribution and general size made it difficult to imagine how it was even standing in the first place. With how unbalanced its nearly skeletal legs seemed, it was quite unbelievable that it didn’t fall over on the spot. They reached for a sun hat covered with dewdrops, which had a small hole in it, they inserted it over their yellow antenna, the sun hat comfortably resting on their head, a yellow flower perched in the cloth that made up the hat. Oddly enough, Silkie noted that they were clean, pristine against the dulled and muddied canvas of the forest, their smooth skin as if indicating that the stranger had barely ever worked a day in their life.

“Who are you?” The Caterpie questioned, “A-actually, what species even are you?”

“Ahem, before I was rudely interrupted,” The strange Pokémon straightened her hat, at least, Silkie thought it was a ‘her’, though her spry, jovial voice sounded a bit too high-pitched and forced for Silkie’s ears (not that she had any – her method of hearing came from the hairs on her feet).

The best analogy Silkie could compare her to was like a delicate, fragile music box that was wound up too tightly. Or maybe she felt a bit inadequate standing next to her, especially when her own voice was a lot less feminine and rather more comparable to that of crushed gravel instead. “I’m a Surskit! Angel the Surskit, uh…” The Pokémon looked troubled for a brief moment, as if wondering what to say. “Nice to meet you!” She let out a slender leg, the Caterpie shook it, but Silkie refused.

“Okay, cool. You’re a Surskit, next time, mind checking where you’re walking first?”

The Surskit, Angel, scratched her head sheepishly. “Sheesh, sorry. I got caught up with a scary Flying type… Jeez, are all the birds unfriendly, or is it just the ones in this forest?”

“Ooh, ooh! What sort of Flying type was it?” The Caterpie queried, scuttling up to Angel the Surskit, eyeing her intently. “The teacher taught us about the Pokémon that live in the forest, I wonder if I can guess what species it is!”

“Well, it had these brown feathers, for starters. But they were fairly half-grown, maybe some got cut off a while ago.” Angel shrugged, “The Pokémon screeched at me, though. And tried to peck me, that hurt!”

“Probably a Starly, then? Yeah, I have a bad time with Flying types too… Luckily, Silkie’s here to protect me, so I’m safe under her care!”

Angel looked at Silkie, “Oh, you’re a… Wurmple, right? Are you his caretaker, or guardian, or are you biologically related?”

Silkie let out an unamused expression as Angel pondered her question. “Come on, we’re going.” She said to the Caterpie.

“Awwww, but Angel’s so cool, I’ve never seen a… a Surs…” The Caterpie trailed off.

“Surskit.” Angel reminded the Caterpie.

“Right, a Surskit, can’t we stay and talk to her?” He looked at Silkie with pleading eyes.

“What? No, we’re going home, uhm…” With how adorable his magnificent, glimmering eyes were, Silkie’s normally stern facade cracked under the might of the boy’s cuteness. “We won’t have enough time to get through the rest of the fores-”

A squawk split the sky, a Starly dashed from the forest, twitching its head around, it seemed to be looking for something. Its head locked onto the trio of Bug types, the Caterpie froze up in fear, Angel gasped and fidgeted her legs, which the Caterpie now thought of more as a combination of hands and legs, given how she was able to hold objects despite the stalk-like limbs acting more similar to legs. Silkie, however, looked with an unreadable, almost bored expression.

“H-hey, that’s the… uh, Flying type that attacked me before!” Angel exclaimed, pointing a slender limb at the Starly accusingly.

The Starly’s surprise morphed into one of great exhilaration, possibly because it spied three Pokémon that were likely much weaker than it. The Flying type spread its wings, that’s when Silkie saw the holes in the normally groomed down of the Starly’s wings. Some of the feathers had been plucked out, and Silkie could only guess who did it. Her annoyed glance changed into one that was reminiscent of a smirk. She knew this one – he was a repeat customer.

The starling’s eyes sparkled at its next meal, letting out a shrill cry, before its speckled eyes settled on Silkie. “ You .”

“Back for seconds?” Silkie gave an evil grin, “I could always use a second pillow.”

“”Oh, you little… gck… bitch…!” The Starly hissed, steadying himself in the air with some difficulty owing to the missing plumage courtesy of Silkie. “You’ll pay for what you did to my beautiful feathers, you abomination, I-I swear you will…!”

String blasted from her mouth, the Starly just barely avoided the attack by flying upwards, the sticky strand landed on a tree, Silkie quickly severed the attack, not wanting to waste her strength pulling a slab of bark. “You know, I’d be taking you a lot more seriously if your voice wasn’t quivering. Anyways, let’s get on with it, then.” Silkie declared nonchalantly.

Folding his wings, the Starly closed the distance with a Peck, his aerodynamic body allowed him to dodge several incoming String Shot attacks, slipping through the gap towards the Wurmple, whom his eyes donned a spiteful gleam. He must have perceived her as the most dangerous, considering their… ahem, ‘shared’ history.

Seeing how her String Shot attacks had all failed, the Wurmple’s hind spikes glowed a hazy hue of purple. She had better time this right, otherwise the stupid bird might just end up beating her this time.

Silkie concentrated, as the Starly approached, she raised the spikes located near her behind, too early! The attack missed. The Starly having dodged out of the way just in the nick of time, the venomous spikes scraped their feathers, but otherwise left them unaffected, as the ugly bird reared around for another blow. Silkie struggled to twist herself into a position to prevent the counterattack. By the time she finally managed to get herself facing in the correct direction, she figured it was too late. The Starly’s Peck came in at full power, Silkie knew she’d need an Oran berry or two after this, if she was lucky. She may even need to waste one of her precious Tiny Reviver Seeds if the fates were so cruelly aligned. Damn it, her smart-talk gave the stupid bastard more time to react.

That was, until a sweet aroma filled the air. And the Starly halted considerably, it was obvious that the scent had confused him a great amount. Silkie took the opportunity and used String Shot, sticky white strands of silk bound the Starly into the poisonous spikes of the Wurmple. With a wretched cry that seemed to echo across the forest, the Starly fell silent.

“Looks like that’s two nil for the bugs.”

Caterpie first glanced at the Starly’s collapsed form, then pointed to a fallen Oran berry next to Silkie and gestured at the fainted Starly.

“What, you wanna heal ‘em?” Silkie raised an eyebrow, the kid nodded, the Wurmple gave an annoyed groan that he didn’t hold back his earnesty in the slightest. After a second of deliberation, she figured if the Starly hadn’t fainted and healed off of the berry she could always just beat his ass into the dirt a third time. “That thing was trying to eat us… But fine , whatever you say, kid.”

Nevertheless, she passed the berry to him, he placed the treat aside the Starly, ready for the bird when they woke up from their injuries.

Seeing now that everything was finished, Silkie looked for any dropped items. A couple of berries fell out of her basket, but that was it.

“Haha, we did it!” Angel called out, voice triumphant over her defeated foe, she rushed over to Silkie, her legs sliding across the floor smoothly with both grace and speed despite the uneven terrain, “We make an excellent team!” She raised a spindly leg to the Wurmple, who still refused to acknowledge its presence.

“Sorry, correct me if I’m wrong, but did you even accomplish anything at all during that fleeting battle?” Silkie’s grumpy voice cut through her happiness like a steel knife through butter.

Angel twiddled her appendages in mock annoyance, “Well, I mean, I distracted ‘em with Sweet Scent, didn’t I? The Starly would’ve pecked you if it wasn’t for me!” She exclaimed.

“Gee, thanks for saving me from having to use one of my Reviver Seeds, I guess.” The Wurmple’s sarcastic reply came back, Angel blew a raspberry as she turned her back.

“Blow-hard…”

“So, Angel, was it?” The Caterpie, having come out from the safety of the nearby canopy, made his way over to the Surskit, whose excitable eyes lit up now that his attention was back on her.

“Yes?”

“How can you move so easily on land?” He asked, his tiny feet rapidly scurrying across the forest floor, he paused to flex his prolegs, “See, it’s hard to get anywhere fast, even with so many legs…” He mumbled, “How come you move so quickly with only four?”

“Ah, it’s ‘cause my legs emit strands of oil that keep my feet slippery all the time, so I can glide across the floor easily!” She held up one of her legs to examine, though it was so unbelievably thin it was impossible to see anything on it at all. “I’m actually much slower on land, since our legs are built for walking on water instead.”

“Really, you can walk on… water?!” The Caterpie asked, wide-eyed. “Can I see, can I see, can I see ?” He circled around her, staring intently at her skeletal legs.

“Sure, there’s actually a pond that connects to a waterfall nearby, wanna come with?” She gestured, pointing to a split path behind where she came from, “If we follow this path we can find the pond in no time flat!”

Silkie realised she was referring to Snowfell Falls, with a rather diminutive waterfall that flowed from the snowy mountain enclosing one side of the village. It would certainly be off the beaten path, and a sure fire route straight into Snowfell’s only Mystery Dungeon.

“Silkie, can we watch Angel water skate, please ?” The Caterpie grabbed onto his annoyed caretaker, who only just finished packing up her dropped berries, only for one to be knocked out of her hands and tumble into the undergrowth.

“No! And, shouldn’t you be getting back soon, your mother’s probably worried about you.” She replied in an aggravated tone, the Caterpie huffed.

“You know, you could come with us, and there won’t be any problems at all regarding your friend’s safety,” Angel’s voice piped up, “You’re a local around these parts, right? So you must know the wild Pokémon here. With your battling skills we won’t have any issues related to security to worry about!” She chirped.

“I’m not going to let my neighbour’s kid run off to-” Silkie’s deadpan answer came ushered in as always, but before she could finish, the Caterpie already started sprinting. “For the love of Palkia, what now?!”

“I’m gonna go watch Angel, of course, and if you wanna make sure I’m safe, please come with me, Miss Silkie!”

The way Silkie’s eyes widened in abject disdain and horror elicited a hearty chuckle from the Surskit next to her, despite not having a visible mouth to laugh with. Silkie had half a mind to grab the kid by the tail, but he dashed away, a speck of green fading into the forest.

Silkie cursed.

Moments later, both the Wurmple and the Surskit were off, following the runaway Caterpie to Snowfell Falls, one of them grumbling incessantly all the while.