Chapter 2 – Simple

DAY 2

As the first rays of sunlight filter into his room, Kai blinks awake again. He looks around warily, sighing in contempt at the discovery that it’s the same room he’d fallen asleep in, straws of hay scattered around the area.

He frowns. ‘Not like I wanted to be here, but like… did I really move around that much?’

He stares at his surroundings for a moment before twitching into action, grabbing the straws in clumps and throwing them back onto the hay bed. It doesn’t take him more than 15 seconds, but he doesn’t really have a reason to put much more into it.

‘It’s not like they’re gonna tell much of a difference anyways. Just rather… look more emotionally put-together, is all…’

Regardless of the time, he knows he wasn’t really in a great headspace the previous day.

Deciding to be more aware of his surroundings – now that things seem at least slightly more permanent – he peeks his head out of the room.

Waiting outside, he immediately notices, is the same purple creature from the nursery area. ‘Deino’, the species name re-registers in his head. He doesn’t remember her name, though.

Said ‘deino’ is slightly hunched over, in what seems to be a sleeping position…?

‘Was she waiting for me to wake up to talk…?’

Kai stands in the doorway.

‘Should I… get the… azumarill? I don’t want to go out of my way to wake my so-called ‘caretaker’ up, but like… I’ve barely spoken to this creature either.’

He shuffles back a bit.

‘I guess though… there’s no harm in seeing if I can better ground myself in this place…?’

Takes a step forward.

‘…Yeah. Though I do mainly want to stick with Zoo, it’d be good to give myself at least a few more connections… and this one’s asleep right in front of my room.’

Fully leaving the room now, Kai nervously walks over, though he refrains from reaching out to shake her awake. He stands there awkwardly for a moment before whispering “…Hey, you… you there…?”

She doesn’t respond. He speaks slightly louder. “Deino. Uh… don’t remember your name… are you there?”

A shift, and a groan. She slowly lifts her head to signal that she is in fact awake, before turning to where she assumes Kai’s voice came from which is… not the right direction, admittedly. She shakes her head.

“Is this… Oh. The invisible-to-me creature. I did come to your room for a reason, didn’t I.”

Quickly adjusting into a standing position, she continues, “I want to fight you.”

‘…?’ Kai blanks out for a moment.

“Did you leave already?”

He shakes himself, but still looks at her confused, “N-no… W-what do you mean by ‘fight’, though?”

She fully faces him, “What do you mean ‘what do you mean’? It’s a fight. A brawl, a duel, a battle, whatever other word you could use. I want to test my abilities against you.”

“So like… physically fighting each other…?”

“I don’t really know why this is confusing you of all things, but-“

“-Isn’t… isn’t fighting considered a bad thing?? From what I remember-“

“No? Where’d you learn that?”

“-…Well… I don’t have any memories of my past other than my name and species, but-“

“Then you have nothing to base your doubt on. It’s a way for us to get stronger, and I only want to train against you.”

Kai takes a step back, “But I wasn’t planning on-“

The deino takes a step forward, grinning. “Too bad! This is too good of an opportunity to waste, so you’re training with me as soon as we get to the battlefield, whether I have to drag you there or not.”

“What- why?”

“Because I can’t sense you. If I could, I wouldn’t have bothered going to your room as early as I did. I can sense everyone else in the guild, but I can’t sense you. I don’t know nor care why I can’t sense you, but that factor alone makes you an excellent training partner for me.”

“But… I don’t even know how to use my body! Let alone fight…”

“Then it’ll be a learning experience for the both of us! You seem to be handling yourself just fine, anyways. Now- come with me. We’re going to the training grounds. And-…

“…You know what, how about this. We won’t fight immediately, but I still have something I can do with you, at least while I come up with other ideas. I can teach you how to use your body and how to fight, whatever, and you can help me with my tracking abilities. I’m just fine to work on my own stuff for a bit – you wouldn’t even have to do anything of note at first.”

“Uhm. Okay… Is that why you sent me away?”

She chuckles. “Why wouldn’t I? …Nevermind, I could guess why I wouldn’t, but in general your presence gave me a lot to think about. When I thought about it, I came to the realization that regardless of how you got this way, you would make an awesome training partner for me in particular.”

“…And why the possibility for physical stuff in the future?”

She sits down for a moment again. “…Look. I don’t know where you got your ‘fighting equals bad’ mentality from, nor do I really care, but it won’t hold too well here. You will come across the occasional feral, and you are going to need to learn how to fight to deal with it. Plus, I may or may not force you to join the guild with me and my partner. Might get that mudkip involved as well, but not sure about the other two. I’d say this offer to train with me is a good deal.”

“Um… okay…? I guess…? Shouldn’t we tell Zoo about this, though?”

She just shrugs. “As long as you don’t freak out too much, I think we should be fine.”

“…What about-“

“Stop. Too many questions. If you have anymore, just let ‘em sit in the back of your head. Or ask Zoo. Or the guildmaster, or that damn annoying riolu. Don’t care. It’s fucking… the sun’s not even up yet. I’m not in the mood for questions.”

“W… Okay. One more question, then. What’s your name?”

She stands up, and starts to walk. “Myzi. I’m bored, and we’re going now. Also, did Zoo not tell you my name? Surprised she didn’t.”

Kai stumbles into motion, “N-no, she did… I just… wasn’t really in the right headspace yesterday…? You were the first individual I saw today, you brought up something I wasn’t prepared for, so you got hammered with all those questions.”

“Didn’t need the full explanation. I’ll probably forget what you just told me in, like, less than a minute probably. Your name’s Kai?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. No more questions, and keep up.” Her pace quickens, and Kai manages to barely keep pace – staying silent, though. He debates with himself whether or not he should make some sort of noise to let the deino know that he is in fact following, though concedes that the faint pitter-patter of his footsteps alone is just fine.

---

“So… what are we-“

“You’ll figure it out pretty quickly,” Myzi interrupts with a growl as they arrive at the field.

Or, less so a field, and more just an open clearing. Not a very big one, either. He does see a few dents and knicks lining the trees and the sandy ground. Kai can identify an attempt to patch some of it up, but it looks to have been from a while ago, and absolutely in vain.

“Okay. Now, go… somewhere. In the clearing. Do it quietly too, so that I can’t hear you. Okay?”

He nods, “Um. Okay.”

“Good. I’m giving you 10 seconds, startiiiiing… now.”

She then promptly sticks her head into a small hole in the sand.

Grimacing, Kai takes a few steps to the deino’s right before looking back at her.

Not a moment later, and she takes her head back out of the sandy mini-pit. She turns herself around in a circle, not stopping as her head swings by. Once she does a full loop, she scowls. “To my… left? Is that where you are?”

“Right side.”

“Damn. Okay. Gonna do the same thing again, but can you tell me how far you are away from me?”

Kai stares, “How should I… say how far away I am from you?”

“Just like… measure by how long I am. Front paws to back paws is fine.”

“Okay. Um. Was about three away that time, I guess?”

She nods. “Good. That’s the exercise. I stick my head in the ground for ten seconds, you go somewhere random with light steps while keeping quiet, and I try to guess where you are. Considering I’m a terrible guesser, it kind of led to me learning how to sense ‘aura’ or whatever when I did it with Sumac. Hoping something similar’ll work with you, though this method’s probably gonna be a bit slow. If it doesn’t start working after a few tries though, I think I might just battle you regardless.”

Kai does not process what she says at all, though the last part sticks in his mind.

“…Oh. Can we uh… I’ve known you for less than 10 minutes in any sort of personal way, so could we just… not battle this soon? Sure, maybe later – even today, maybe! – but I’m still just trying to get my thoughts in order, get used to all-.”

“Nope. I already have plans here, and your weird thoughts or ideologies or whatever aren’t getting in the way of them. We can do it later-… Just came up with a far better method, actually- wait here.”

She dashes off with surprising speed, and Kai just stares after her, mind blank. He sits down, and lets himself space out.

‘…I have no idea what she’s going to do with or to me. That’s… a bit frightening. Um… should I…’

He looks around the clearing he’s in.

‘Should I… leave? Well… no, that’d be stupid. Um. More like… should I hide? I want… I want to keep my thoughts in order for now, but this is probably just going to give me more to think about. I don’t quite want to fill my head with more stuff right now, honestly. …’

He mumbles parts of it aloud to himself, not that he cares to notice.

“…Don’t wanna get hurt… don’t wanna get looked down on… dream…” He doesn’t notice the deino come back with two others, distracted by his own mumbling, until she unceremoniously half-tackles half-walks into him, knocking him over.

“’Kai’, we’re going.”

He blinks, before looking at the two with Myzi. The first is the goomy he’d seen earlier with her, and the other is some blue and orange thing standing just a tad bit shorter than the deino.

“Um…-?”

The goomy interrupts him, asking what he was thinking, “Myzi, where are we going…? Also, why’d we bring Mudkip out here anyways?”

The deino smirks, “Training, of course! Actually, a special kind of training. I want to see how strong Kai-” She motions vaguely towards where Kai’s laying on the ground, only a little off this time,”-here is. Best way I can think of doing that is by going through one of the dungeons nearby!”

“…You didn’t answer my question about Mudkip.”

“I have my reasons.”

“…”

Kai lets his gaze drift to the now-named ‘Mudkip’, who seems to be doing their best to avoid attention. He grimaces.

“They don’t look like… they really want to be here…?”

Myzi redirects her attention to him, “Damn it… Mudkip’s always like that. Very antisocial. Has a routine he follows, but I frequently drag him out of it to spar. Considering my annoyingly one-sided win-to-loss ratio against him, I wouldn’t be averse to calling him the strongest of us five.”

‘Mudkip’ wilts slightly under the group’s looks. Kai speaks up.

“By the way, can I ask what species he is?”

“…Mudkip.”

Kai tilts his head. “…He’s a mudkip named Mudkip?”

Sumac speaks up, “Yeah. Technically he does have a name, but there are quite a few Pokémon who just go by their species’ name. From what little he’s told us, he doesn’t know where his name comes from, nor does he really like it that much. So, we just call him ‘Mudkip’.”

“…How does naming-“

Myzi steps forward, “Questions for later, exploration time now~!”

Kai winces, “…Are you sure we won’t get in trouble?”

“Not my problem. I’ve gotten in trouble before, and the punishments weren’t notable enough for me to care. Besides, this is far more important to me. So, let’s go!”

She then proceeds to bite in Kai’s direction, likely in an attempt to grab him, but Kai is able to easily dodge her attempt.

“…Damn. Forgot I didn’t know where you were exactly. You three ready?”

“Sure.” “No…?” “…”

“Great! Let’s head out then.”

“…What dungeon…?” Kai hears a faint voice speak up. He looks towards the mudkip, who is… back to cowering. The deino does hear him though.

“What dung… Oh! You’ll find out when we get there.”

The mudkip lets out a quiet, pained groan.

Kai starts, “What even is a-…”

He casts a careful glance to the frowning deino, sighing.

“…Can I ask if this is at least safe?”

The goomy nods as best she can, “Well, Myzi hasn’t gotten me or Mudkip into a situation we haven’t been able to get out of before. Though she might do some outlandish things sometimes, she does know her limits, so I trust her enough to not do anything too dangerous. Or self-sacrificing.”

Mudkip gives the goomy a stink eye as Kai just stares. Myzi laughs.

“Heh, yeah. What she said, sure. Now, c’mon. We’ve been talking for long enough without moving – let’s head out. I wanna do stuff, not just sit around talking about doing stuff.”

“Mmm.”

Sumac quickly leaps onto Myzi’s back (Kai has absolutely no idea how she does it) and they walk off, leaving Kai and Mudkip to stare, before they both scramble to catch up. The goomy says something else that Kai doesn’t hear, giggling. Myzi responds with something that sounds vaguely sarcastic.

With a small glance, he sees that the mudkip doesn’t seem to have caught it either.

Or whatever was said made him confused.

‘Why do I overthink things so damn often aghhhhhhhhhhh-…’

The group, including mudkip now, manages to double their distance from him, none caring to look back. He frowns, returning to a walk, but remaining back a bit.

He does make sure to keep it at a speedy walk, though.

The path they’re treading down, he notices, feels less like an actual path, and more like the result of something massive raging and stampeding through the specific part of the forest.

The sheer number of downed trees along and on the path tells him as much.

A lot of the still upright trees have some measure of damage to them too. Dents in the trees and ground are far more prominent here too, and Kai realizes how much of a struggle it is to simply avoid tripping. There’s stuff on the ground everywhere. He’s very soon forced to go from regular walking to hopping between stable-looking ‘platforms’ of ground and trees as they travel further. There’re even some water hazards that make the group go off-roading a bit.

They don’t seem to look at it any differently though (from what he sees, at least), so Kai just goes along with it.

Luckily for him, the walk to the dungeon doesn’t take more than an hour. Or, at least, the walk to the dungeon entrance.

“Alright! We’re here, at Mt. Bristle!” Myzi cheers. As Kai comes back up to the group, he sees the mudkip’s angry glare at the deino.

She turns around and shows off a grin, and he can absolutely tell it’s at the mudkip’s expense.

“Now! Because I’m feeling nice, I’ll explain why I brought us here today. I’ll go through each of you individually.”

She nudges the goomy off her back, to which Sumac reacts with a frown. “Sumac! I mainly brought you here to assist me in this test. You aren’t too involved personally, as I already know what you’re capable of, but you’ll better understand why you’re here when I explain why the other two – specifically Mudkip – are here.”

The goomy nods. Smiling, the deino turns somewhat towards the quilava. It’s better than the last attempt. “Kai!” The goomy nudges her closer to facing him.

Her smile falters, but she doesn’t let it stop her, “You’re here because I want to see what you’re capable of. You probably know this already. Though I could battle you if I wanted, I’m more interested in seeing how you do with Mudkip for now. Speaking of…”

She turns towards the final member of the group, “Mudkip! You’re here specifically because I personally believe that you and Kai would be amazing rivals for me and my partner! If this little outing goes well enough, which I’m pretty sure it will, I don’t see any reasons why we wouldn’t be able to join the guilds. I could form a team with Sumac, and you two could form one together.”

Kai takes a quiet step back, gulping. “U-uhm… I don’t think I’m ready-?”

“You’ll be fine. Honestly, Mudkip alone is probably strong enough to take on a Class-IV dungeon alone with how much he’s trained up his water gun. Plus, we’re all four going into the dungeon together, so I don’t really see any reason why we’d do badly.”

Myzi winces at something Kai can’t see, and the mudkip’s glare remains. “…N-none of us have been in a dungeon before, Myzi.”

Kai emphasizes his fears, “And I’ve only been awake for like… not even a full day total. Can we just… do this another day?”

The mudkip stares at Kai, very confused, and turns back to say something to Myzi, but is interrupted by the deino herself. “Considering how you seem to be holding yourself just fine, I don’t see that as too much of a problem. Regardless, both of you have some level of amnesia. You could probably feel some brotherhood with that, right?”

“No.” The mudkip’s gaze briefly flips to Kai.

The deino tilts her head, Mudkip having spoken this time. “…No? You don’t wanna be friends with-”

“Do you… do you expect me to abandon the life I’ve been living for the past… p-probably 6 or 7 years now, o-out of the blue?”

“Yes.”

She then quickly dashes up to the mudkip, latching onto his shoulder with a bite. Turning around and, with a bit of effort, bucking him up onto her back (eliciting a yelp in the process), she uses her newfound leverage and still intact grip to quite literally throw him over her shoulder, into and through the… teleporter? Cave entrance? Whatever it is, the inky black substance that covers it wobbles and wavers like a disturbed block of gelatin as the mudkip passes through.

Kai takes a step back out of both fear and awe, too distracted to realize that he’d remembered what gelatin is (of all things), and manages to step on a twig. Myzi’s grin shifts to feral as she turns to face him directly. He freezes.

“Nope. You’re in on this too, Kai. If I can’t find you with aura, I’ll just have to rely on sound.”

Quicker than he can react, the deino manages to bite onto his foot, and just drags him. The goomy helpfully supports his head a moment later, and the three enter the dungeon together as one.