My boots were well worn farmers boots. That is to say, they had thick soles and hard tips, suitable for stomping around all day in stony or mucky terrain. They also made for fairly decent blunt weapons and were super-effective against shins. By this I mean that when my boot connected with the girl's leg it was a learning experience for the both of us. She learned that miniskirts and stockings were no defence against the harsher realities of the outside world, and I learned that Comfey’s soothing aroma wasn’t nearly as powerful when she was asleep.

  I’d like to explain. The girl I was learning life-lessons with was tall, brunette, and plasticky in the sense that were she on TV, Mum would have pointed her out and remarked that she didn’t have a clue how to apply make-up. She had an attitude that screamed high school menace and was accompanied by a couple of friends of similar disposition. An Eevee, Cutifly, and Spritzee hovered around the three.

  The first thing Brunette had said was that it was nice to see Sunny had finally made it out of her room. Her doll-like sycophant Number One complimented Sunny on making it this far, and Number Two said she was so, so glad Sunny was hanging out with someone the same level of cognitive maturity as her. By this time, Hector, who had been wrapped up in Sunny’s left arm, began to squirm, threatening to blast the trio with a Water Gun. This snapped Sunny out of her stupor, as she stopped him from executing justified violence. It meant that she had to release me, however, and when Brunette asked how Sunny’s mother was getting along, my boot decided to pay a visit to her leg area all on its own.

  The plastic stooges erupted into a cacophony of words Daddy told me I shouldn’t repeat, and Sunny burst into laughter. Tall Brunette started to fight back and the Eevee looked ready to bite, but at that moment another character entered the stage.

  “What the hell are you doing, Clair? Are you fighting children now?”

  The newcomer was clearly the fourth member of the clique. The same height as Brunette, she had blonde hair coming down in waves beneath a baseball cap. She wore more sporty clothing than the others, though still from expensive-looking brands. A Pokémon that looked sort of like a black Chimchar with massive ears clung to her shoulders, glaring at everyone menacingly.

  “She started it,” said Brunette, clutching her leg. Blondie continued on to berate Brunette until she finally saw Sunny standing a couple of metres away.

  “Oh,” she said. “I see.”

  “Yeah,” said Brunette, happy she was catching up. “It’s Sunny Sunshine. Bet you didn’t expect to find her here.”

  “Just, let’s go back to the tent Clair,” said Blondie.

  “What? Aren’t you going to say hello?”

  Blondie looked intensely uncomfortable. She muttered a small “hi Sunny,” and much more assuredly pushed her group away. She lingered a moment after the other had left.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for, before. I don’t know if it means anything but... I’ll just go.”

  I watched them leave then turned to Sunny who avoided meeting my eyes. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing, but I did stand a little closer to her. For some reason, she took this as permission to throw her arms around me laughing lightly. I didn’t fight too hard to shake her off though Comfey was startled awake and squealed in indignation at having her perch invaded.

  “Life’s tough, isn’t it?” I asked my personal bouquet.

  Fortunately, Darren appeared before things got even more awkward.

  “There wasn’t a whole lot,” he said. “But I got enough to keep us going. Also, here’s your pokeball. Congrats on your soon to be new teammate.”

  He tossed me the ball and looked at us quizzically.

  “Did something happen?”

  “Nope. Nothing at all,” said Sunny. “Things are great. Let’s go set up camp. And Calla was saying she wanted to go face the sea demon thing. Can you talk her out of it?”

  “Actually, I was going to suggest the same thing. I want to catch it.”

  “What? Calla I expected. Since when were you such a risk taker,” said Sunny.

  “More importantly,” I said. “Do you know what it is?”

  “I’ve a suspicion. Could be wrong though. Either way, it’s almost certainly an extremely powerful Pokémon. Why wouldn’t I want it on my team if I can convince it to join.”

  “And how do you plan on doing that?” said Sunny.

  “By being my usual charming self.”

  We made our way back to the area we met Joey and found a place to set up. We had fresh vegetables for dinner and Darren did, in fact, assist me in chopping them. We made plans to scout out Meloetta’s Bridge the next morning and Sunny turned in early complaining about having to sleep on the ground again. Darren went off to find a place to train with Auri, so I found myself alone with Mareep and Comfey as the sky darkened. I palmed the pokeball Darren had bought for me. I’d tried to pay him back as soon as we got settled, but he’d refused to take payment, calling it a present. It was annoying. Now I had to buy something for him to even out the debt.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  I still hadn’t caught Comfey, and I still wasn’t absolutely sure I wanted her. With the time I spent with the Pokémon, I was very sure she had no interest whatsoever in battling. As a support, however, she excelled, both for my Pokémon and myself. Her healing was leaps ahead of what I initially expected from her. I wasn’t sure I could tell her no anyway. There had to be a way to get a Pokémon to stop following you, they couldn’t just cling on to you and they were your responsibility all of a sudden. Did I need to call Ducky?

  “Hey, Comfey,” I said. “See this? This is a pokeball. If you want to come with me, I’ll have to catch you with this. Okay?”

  I tapped Comfey with it and she disappeared into it. It shook for a moment and burst open.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling strangely disappointed. Comfey twirled with a giggle, then she bonked herself against the pokeball and was reabsorbed. She escaped and did it all over again.

  “You’re going to break it if you keep doing that,” I said. “And then I’ll have to apologise to Darren.”

  I let her play a bit more and eventually she wore herself down and got sealed inside. It was still shaking after, so I let her out and she made herself into my necklace again.

  “Good enough, I guess,” I said.

  Mareep served as a very comfortable cushion as I doodle in my notebook by the firelight late into the night. At around the time quiet fell on the campsite save for one loud group a few tents away having fun with badly sung songs and alcohol, I heard Joey’s voice seemingly talking to himself.

  “Alright, alright. You don’t have to keep on about it,” he was saying. I squinted into the darkness, trying to see if he was on his phone. I could only make out his silhouette. He had both his hands by his temples and I didn’t get the impression he held anything in either of them. There was nobody else around except for his Espurr sitting hollow-eyed on the roof of his tent.

  “But I still don’t see the point, yes, yes, you’ve said to make myself known. I got that much. What the hell do you want out of it? Just that? There are easier ways, fine, fine, I said I’d do it.”

  I probably shouldn’t have, but the scene struck a particular chord in me and I was in an artistic mood. I sketched a darker, more surrealist picture of the two than my usual hyperrealist Pokémon portraits. I may have gone overboard on Espurr’s ominous aura. I was putting on the finishing touches when Joey’s shadow fell over the page.

  “Why are you drawing me? Did I give you permission to draw me?” he said, standing over me.

  “I can draw whatever I want,” I replied. “But if you have that much of an issue with it I can give it to you. You can do whatever you like with it.”

  “I don’t want a picture by you.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t want a picture of you in my notebook. It’s not very good anyway.”

  I tore the page out and offered it up to him. As I expected, he didn’t accept it. What I didn’t expect was for it to be tugged out of my hand by and invisible force. The page floated in front of Espurr. She looked at it, then folded it carefully and tucked it into Joey’s pocket without touching it.

  “She likes it,” I said.

  Joey clenched his teeth in anger. I also saw him wince.

  “Does she speak to you?” I asked. “Does it hurt?”

  “Shut up, that’s none of your business,” he said and stormed off.

  The next morning, after a quick breakfast, we pushed our way through town to Meloetta’s Bridge. The structure, crossing a vast distance of almost two kilometres, was hailed as the oldest feat of human and Pokémon engineering in Silín. The first section was a flat road made of Conkeldurr concrete and stone. It was supported by a series of small arches that rose out of the water. This part was barely over a metre higher than the sea level at the highest tide, but the lack of any form of guardrails made it far scarier than it should have been. Approaching the halfway point, a pair of towers on each side of the bridge soared above the crossing. The road, which began gradually ascending as it neared them, steepened into a pointed, sixty-metre-high arch spanning a couple of hundred meters.

  While Conkeldurr usually got most of the credit for helping to construct this superhuman monstrosity, the tour guide pamphlet I’d picked up enthusiastically explained how it would have been impossible without a variety of species of different types such as Swampert’s and Alakazam’s. It also said that it would be an impossible task to build it nowadays since the only time there was the level of necessary cooperation between humans and Pokémon was during the time of the Hero of Silín who initiated its construction. Hence why it was named after his partner, Meloetta. At least according to the stories.

  I had a lot of time to think about all this, as well as read the pamphlet multiple times, because we weren’t the only ones facing the demon. In fact, there was a queue. It was almost amusing seeing the fed-up ranger attempting to marshal all the would-be heroes into a line to challenge the Demon of the Crossing, which was, apparently, its official title now. Individually, or sometimes in small groups, they would walk out onto the bridge. Their steps made bell-like echoes, that stone really shouldn’t make, reverberate through the bridge. It was the other feature which made it famous, apart from its ridiculous size, and according to the pamphlet, the phenomenon was explained by: Hero, Meloetta, I don’t know, it was probably something they did. About a minute from the first echoes, a surge of water would rise up and wash the trainers clean off the bridge. Lifeguards were present, ready to save anyone who fell. There had been no serious injuries so far.

  Things were more interesting when the trainers managed to fend off the initial wave. Joey was one of the first people I’d seen to face the challenge. He had Espurr, a Staryu, and a Hattrem by his side. When the wave came, Espurr repelled it with a Lightscreen. Staryu spun into the water ready to battle under the surface. Five seconds later, it was thrown out and a roar thundered across the shore. Hattrem fended off another, larger wave with a Protect. Then a dark shape that must have been at least ten metres long emerged, though with its sea-blue colour and ambiguous outline I was still unable to make out what it was. It opened a dark maw and a torrent of water broke through all of the barriers, flinging both Joey and his Pokémon off the bridge. The demon disappeared, dissolving into the sea without a trace. Joey was one of the ones that lasted the longest.

  I stared impatiently as the next in line made his way onto the bridge. I’d picked up from surrounding conversations that the first day, they had let everyone on at the same time. It had been a disaster, the inexperienced trainers getting in each other’s ways, causing more injuries than the demon ever did. They had enforced a queue after that. It was incredibly slow moving, and there were only so many times I could watch someone be washed away before it stopped being amusing. In fact, I was losing interest in the whole endeavour. There was no integrity to the whole thing. No sense of purpose, of needing to help, or of trying to find a solution besides throwing idiots off of bridges. It was clear the few authorities overlooking this didn’t expect anything to happen. It was just a game while they waited for real help to come.

  The final nail in the coffin of my enthusiasm came when the four women who had been annoying Sunny stepped up. Despite the four of them going up together, they only lasted until the second wave, not even getting as far as Joey. At least Sunny got a good laugh out of that.