Plum, the Corvisquire

The skies were clear, not a single cloud in sight. It was days like these that made me appreciate the usual calmness this job gave me. Being a forager usually didn’t involve any action, and I liked that. It was just me and my two best friends.

The three of us flew over the plains, briefly inspecting the patches of trees from above. All we had to do was find resources, and gather them up. Really the only bad part about it is that we usually had to fly pretty far away, around half an hour of travel. The reason? We needed places that didn’t have any other civilizations around. We may need to gather, but we’re not taking from others.

“I think I see a pretty full one.” Sasha said, a bit louder than usual due to the winds going against us. “Do we have room for another batch?”

“Yep! We sure do!” Lucy said as she dove down, letting Sasha lead while I followed them.

Sure enough, we landed next to a moderately dense section of the plains. The trees were full of… Pecha. We already had more Pecha than usual, but considering how difficult it was being to find another profitable patch, we quietly decided to use this as the last batch of the day.

Lucy let the enormous sack drop on the ground, untying it from her neck. She always was in charge of the sack, and proudly so. She was also the strongest of the three, even for a Noivern, but according to her, that just meant she was ‘made to carry the goods’. I didn’t exactly agree, but hey, if she was happy doing that part, who was I to counter that?

Of course, now it was our turn. Me and Sasha grabbed the baskets with our talons, and we started taking the fruit. The trees were tall, but we were able to fly near them and pluck the Pecha with our beaks. It was tiring, other Pokémon don’t realize sometimes how difficult it is to fly in place, without any kind of momentum or air current to push you anywhere. But it didn’t matter how tiring it was, it paid well, and it was relaxing.

“Hey, Plum.” Sasha asked as she let the full basket down and leaned against the tree to take a break. “I wanted to ask, did your parents end up visiting last week?”

“Yeah, they did. It went… okay, I guess.” I said, resting for a second while Lucy threw the contents of our baskets into the sack.

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good.” The Staraptor said, smirking, and yet concerned. “Go on.”

“You know how my parents are, telling me over and over about how I should evolve already and how I’m being a bad example to my younger brother.” I replied. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them that I’m happy like this, they will never listen.”

“Girl, I don’t know why you keep allowing them to be like that.” Lucy chimed in. “If I was in your place, I was out of their sight. They don’t accept me like I am, I’m not accepting them either.”

I sighed. “I know… But they’re still my family, you know? I’m not really doing it for them, anyways. I just let them visit because I want to see my brother. He’s grown up a lot.”

“How old is he already?” Sasha asked while jumping to fly again, her basket now empty.

“Twelve. And he’s still the biggest sweetheart.” I smiled, thinking about all the things we’ve done together. “I thought me becoming an adult would make him distance himself from me, but nope! If anything that made him open up more to me since I understand him better than my parents do. Two years later and he has just told me about his first crush.”

“Awww, that’s cute. Who is the lucky one?.” Sasha chuckled.

“Some Pachirisu, I can’t really remember her name. But I doubt it will get too far, you know how kids are with the whole romance thing.” I smirked, taking flight to fill my basket again.

“Hey, let the kid dream.” Lucy said. “I bet you had a lot of crushes when you were little.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

The three of us laughed and continued with our thing. It was nice to talk about these things, we knew each other’s lives very well. These were my friends, and I was glad to have them.

“HEY!” A sudden voice yelled before a wave of electric current hit all three of us. We were easily knocked to the ground, mostly because of the surprise element. “What are you doing stealing from my territory, huh?!”

I looked up to see a pretty angry Ampharos stomping his way to us. I tried to regain my footing as best as I could, but it was hard. “Sir, there is no village or settlement in our records. You legally do not live here. This isn’t your territory.”

“And now you call me a liar?! Oh, you lot have no idea what’s coming…” He whistled, and in mere moments, we were surrounded by Flaaffy. They were all probably with him. Such a fast reaction meant only one thing, this was planned, and there was only one kind of Pokémon that planned things like these: bandits.

Lucy and Sasha stood up with me, we weren’t going down without a fight. I briefly held my scarf. Fiery red, with a checkerboard pattern. The pattern symbolized that, even if not part of a guild, we were more than qualified to defend ourselves and collaborate with them if needed. It was like a permit to kick ass, basically.

“So girls, how do we do this?” I asked. “They have us beat in numbers and type advantage. Any ideas?”

“Let me at the Ampharos.” Lucy said, smirking. “Part dragon, won’t hurt as much.”

“You and me against the horde, then?”

“You know it, Plum. Let’s do this!”

As soon as those words came out, the battle started. Lucy launched herself forwards to the Ampharos, tackling him to the ground immediately. Meanwhile, me and Sasha were dealing with the weaker Flaaffy around us. It seemed to go well enough. We weren’t doing much damage, but we were tiring them out. Lucy, on the other hand, was having trouble. The Ampharos was a lot better at dodging than what any of them expected.

“ENOUGH!” The Ampharos shouted. He leaned back and landed an Ice Punch to Lucy, launching her against a tree.

“Lucy!” Sasha ran but she got hit with a Zap Cannon from the same guy.

My friends were out, so I had to do something by myself. For now, I knew I couldn’t do much while surrounded. If I tried to fly, that would make me an easy target for their projectiles, but it also was the only way I could see to break their formation. So, hesitantly, I jumped into the air.

I just needed to get past the barrier of Flaaffy, that way I could lure them in a way that could benefit me one-on-one. However, that thought didn’t last long. As I feared, an attack hit me. More specifically, a Charge Beam from the leader himself. It injured my wing, making me fall to the ground.

I was surrounded… again. I took too long to stand up, and by the time I was ready, the Ampharos was already in front of me.

“Just what the hell do you want from us?!” I yelled, holding my wing.

“I want you to leave this place alone! It’s mine! I planted all of these!”

“And how were we supposed to know that? Nobody knows about you!”

“Oh, I’ll make sure you know me, lady…” He approached me rapidly, I was too exhausted from the injury to dodge.

Another Ice Punch. Not only did it launch me back, but the ice shards cut through my feathers and my skin, leaving a pretty deep wound. I was bleeding, and pretty badly too.

“Heh. Leave her be, I think she learned her lesson.” The Ampharos smirked and led the Flaaffy away with him.

I couldn’t move, my limb was pretty much out of commission. There was no way for me to fly, and any attempt at standing up hurt too much for it to work. I was just… there. Hoping that one of my friends saved me.

Except instead, what I saw was a distinct silhouette of two figures flying through the sky, away from the place. One of them distinctly carrying something big. It was them, Lucy and Sasha, running away.

‘I-It’s okay… They probably went back to town to ask for help…’

Two hours. Two hours by myself, and nothing happened yet. The sun was starting to set, and it was more and more difficult to stay awake. The blood loss from the wound wasn’t deadly enough to take me out in minutes, but it was just the right amount of bad to be lethal if unattended.

It didn’t make sense. Lucy and Sasha were excellent flyers, it took us half an hour to get here, they probably would have made it faster with the urgency.

And yet, there was no one near me. I was abandoned, for reasons that I couldn’t begin to understand. My consciousness was fading away, I knew what that meant. I lost.

Betrayed by my two dearest friends, pushed away by my own family… This was just the final straw. The world was laughing at me, and meanwhile, all I could do was think about what would happen to my brother.

‘Leon… Your sister isn’t coming back from this… Be strong, I beg you…’

That was my last thought before fully passing out.