“Huh?! Natu wants to be caught?!” Valerie was entirely surprised by the notion, but both Larry and Natu nodded back resolutely.

  Maxie laughed behind her, as she patted her on her good shoulder, “Haha! Well, I guess you’re getting your second team member pretty quickly, right, Valerie?” The Ranger dug through her futuristic backpack, sticking her entire arm up the tiny thing until she pulled out another camoed Pokeball, planting it in Valerie's hand, “Here, since I know you for sure didn’t buy any Pokeballs yet.

  Still stunned for words, Valerie looked down at the Pokeball in her hand, “I-I don’t know… You really wanna be with me, Natu?”

  The little bird Pokemon nodded its whole body once again, before hopping forward and pecking the button of the ball once and disappearing into the ball in a flash of red light. The ball didn’t even budge, simply clicking once with a satisfying SNAP!

  She immediately released her Pokemon again and picked it up into a deep hug, “Thank you, Natu. I won’t disappoint.”

  “Naat!” It answered back confidently, muffled deep from within Valerie's coverall, “I know!”

  ‘Guess I’ll have someone to compete with now,’ Larry thought to himself, ‘I’m gonna need to keep up my game!’

  …

  Arin once again reminded them of their mission and the gravely injured Tyranitar on his belt, and they quickly set off into the sky. They had taken around seven to eight hours up until now to get back to the outside, coupled with the fact that their flight here had taken around five hours. They should be back to the center in around twelve hours if everything went correctly.

  As they prepared for take-off, Natu was recalled, but Larry, for some reason, wasn’t. Larry realized that he wouldn’t be inside his Pokeball as they flew. Maybe Valerie had simply forgotten to recall him, or the eight-hour-long trek through Mt. Silver had been wearing on the trainers. At the end of the day, he was hoisted on top of the Flying-Type and then made himself comfortable in Valerie's lap once again, with Valerie herself sitting in Maxine's lap. The girl looked to be preoccupied, as she was stuck in deep thought.

  “Alright, Fearow. We’re going straight back to the Pokecenter.” Maxine instructed, “Follow Arin and Pidgeot, and we’ll be there in no time.”

  “CAW!” Fearow answered in confirmation.

  ‘W-Woah!’ As Fearow shifted into flight, Larry felt his balance wobble and shift as the ground beneath them slowly fell away. The view from his Pokeball was already pretty gut-churning, but being outside of it and sitting around made for a far scarier scene, ‘T-T-This is goddamn terrifiying!’

  Even though Valerie was keeping a steady grip on him, the amount of Vertigo from the experience almost made him throw up in his mouth. Larry had never been on a plane before, so he couldn’t be sure if this was a fear of heights from his previous life coming back to haunt him or simply the instincts of a Rock/Ground-Type coming out to haunt him, ‘Oh this sucks…’

  Not even a minute or so after their ascent, they were already cruising along in a V-formation below the cloudly morning sky. Various other formations of birds could be seen flying above the morning sky. They were hard to make out in the distance, but Larry once again opted to keep his eyes either on Fearow or the sky above them, ‘...I’m pretty sure I’d hurl if I looked down right about now…’

  …

  “So,” Maxie opened, “the second Pokemon, huh?”

  Valerie looked to be deep in thought as she held Larry tightly to herself. Once again, Maxie tried to make the girl talk, “How do you feel about it?”

  It took a while, but she responded in a measured tone, “I…Don’t know…”

  “You don’t?”

  “I just don’t.” Valerie shook her head, “It’s been, what? Four or so full days I’ve had Larvitar, and suddenly I got my second Pokemon?” She tightened her grip on Larry, “It's- It’s just a lot.”

  “Yeah, normally you don’t see Pokemon just walk up to trainers to get themselves caught.” Maxie laughed at the situation.

  A quiet descended on their flight, but before Maxie could try and make more conversation, Valerie spoke up, “I don’t know if I should tell you, but something weird also happened back in Mt. Silver…”

  “What happened?”

  “You remember when I ran into the sandstorm to go and find Larvitar?”

  “Yeah,” Maxie nodded seriously, “By the way, don’t ever do something stupid like that again. You could’ve gotten yourself seriously hurt or killed.”

  “I won’t,” Valerie agreed readily, “But back when I was in there…I don’t know what happened…But something happened…”

  ‘Oh? What happened?’ Larry wasn’t privy to the details either, so he listened in.

  “Hm?”

  “I could feel Larvitar through the sandstorm.” She confessed, “I-It was like I had some weird connection to him and could sense him, even when I couldn’t see him. That’s why I found him so quickly.”

  ‘Huh? She did?’ Larry asked himself, he hadn’t felt anything back then.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Wow, that sounds serious,” Maxie commented, unsure of how to even talk about the topic.

  “Yeah, when I found him and tried to console him, I could feel his emotions.” She looked down at her Pokemon, “I felt his grief and sadness. For a second, I thought Drew had died before the emotions subsided. It was weird.”

  “It’s how I managed to calm Larvitar down so quickly, I could feel exactly what he was feeling.”

  ‘Woah, so that's why she knew exactly what to say to calm me down. Freaky…’ Larry realized.

  She caressed his head for a second, “Sorry, Larvitar. I don’t know why it happened, but I kind of looked into your emotions by accident. I hope you can forgive me.”

  He gave her back a pat on the leg and smiled back up at her, “All ok!” Larry didn’t mind particularly since he had already sworn to work together with Valerie, ‘Accidents do happen and this certainly isn't the weirdest thing that's happened yet.’

  That is not to say it didn’t interest him, though, how she could feel his emotions, ‘In a world of magical pocket monsters and futuristic inventions, this isn’t the craziest thing, somehow. Though it would be nice to find out why it happened.’

  Maxie caressed her chin thoughtfully, “I might have heard of a similar thing before, but only very, very rarely.”

  Both of them turned to the ranger curiously, “What do you know?”

  “Well…Not much,” Maxie admitted, “Firstly, there are psychics who can do something similar.” She looked at the pair knowingly, “But I think we can count that one out here.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, for starters, your Dad isn’t from some secret family of Psychics, is he?” Maxie questioned, to which Valerie simply nodded, “See?”

  “The other one I’ve heard about is that Pokemon who’ve stayed with their trainers for a significant amount of time and formed a strong bond with each other can do something similar.” She explained, “It’s just, I’m talking about like twenty-five or more years here, and you’ve had Larvitar for not even a week yet. So that one also seems iffy at best to me.”

  She let her eyes linger on the skyline they were flying towards, “I’ve heard that some of the best trainers out there, the Ace-Trainers, Gym Trainers, Elite Four, Champions, and so on, all have those kinds of connections to their Pokemon.”

  “Woah,” Valerie was in awe at the implications of that, but also sceptical as well, “So they can feel their Pokemon at all times?”

  Maxie scratched at the back of her neck, “Ah, well. I couldn’t tell you. That's about the extent of what I know about it. I just watched a program about Top-Level Trainers some time ago, and that was one of the short talking points…”

  ‘I don’t remember a game mechanic like that…Is this something else entirely?’ Larry mused to himself. This wasn’t some mechanic from the games, so was this some part of the anime or some other Pokemon media? ‘There was that Trust Mechanic they introduced in X&Y, is this something like that?’

  “I am just some lowly ranger though,” Maxie confessed, “you’ll probably find out more about it as you go on your journey.”

  Valerie smiled at the idea, “Yeah.”

  …

  Other than the idle chit-chat of Valerie and Maxie, their flight was quiet and uneventful. They kept to their strict V-Formation, and pretty much all other birds simply made way for their troupe, opting to steer clear of the three large birds.

  That was the case until a large, silvery bird made its presence known with an ear-splittlingly shrill, metallic shriek, “Krreah!”

  Fearow dodged the silvery bullet, which almost pierced through them, expertly dodging to the side with skill.

  Once the silver bullet stopped and Larry fought back the next oncoming bout of sick traveling up his esophagus, he could finally see what had disturbed their peaceful flight.

  “Ah, damn.” Maxie cursed with a stern expression, “What is that thing doing this far out?”

  A Skarmory flapped its red and silvery metallic wings in front of the trio of birds, ready for a challenge. It looked to be quite heavily bruised, with its wings and metallic coat of feathers having long lost their luster.

  Valerie quietly scanned the Pokemon, her smartphone spitting out a verbal dump of info she quickly quieted, “A Skarmory?”

  “SKAAAH!” The Steel-Type released another cry of challenge before lunging towards them. It shot right between Pidgeot and Fearow in a high-speed dive, far quicker than any real-life bird Larry had ever seen back in his last life.

  “It's coming back!” Arin cried out from a distance, from on top of his Pidgeot.

  “Tsk!” Maxie clicked her tongue before instructing Fearow, “Dodge! We can’t fight here!”

  “Row!” The Flying-Type shot to the side as it slowly let itself descend, everyone on top held on tight at the violent G-forces the Pokemon managed as it fiercely dodged every lunge of the Steel-Type. As Fearow dodged, both Pidgeot and Noctowl made their best attempts and shot Flying-Type attacks at the Skarmory, but the attacks didn’t have the desired effect, only angering the Pokemon more as it lunged for them once again.

  “Why isn’t it attacking Arin and Nick?!” Valerie cried in a panic from her tight embrace by Maxie.

  “They’re birds of prey, they want a challenge! And Fearow with us on top is the biggest one here! It thinks we're the Alpha!”

  ‘T-This…This really isn’t good…’ Larry complained as he tightened his grip on Valerie.

  “Ugh!” Maxie complained, “I can’t bring out Arcanine up here, but I think we could need him right about now!”

  ‘...I think I’m gonna barf…’ Larry was already at his limit just taking off, and all the violent jostling due to the fight had really put him too far over the edge. Fearow had made good headway, and they were making their way back to ground, with Nick and Arin jumping in between to pull away the Skarmory's attention at times.

  Before he could release the content of his stomach, though, Skarmory finally charged a real attack. With a loud exclamation of a “Mooo-Ry!” it reeled back one of its wings and slashed Fearow on the side of its torso as it shot past them like an ironclad bullet.

  “Feaaah!” The violent hit almost forced the Pokemon into a tailspin as it spun wildly through the air. In that moment, Valerie's grip finally loosened, and as the Flying-Type plummeted, Larry slipped out of his trainer's grip and off the bird, “LARVITAR!”

  “AAAAHHH!” In Freefall, Larry saw his second life flash before his eyes as the ground approached far quicker than he’d ever wished it to, ‘Is this it?! My second life’s over this quickly?!’

  Below him, Skarmory finally stopped itself and looked back up proudly at its work. Before it could even think up any sort of plan, his small body weighing about the same as a grown adult, barreled into the Steel-Type's head at terminal velocity. Rocky Skin meets Steel Armor. Everything goes dark as both are immediately knocked out due to the sheer force of the unintentional attack.

  As both unconscious Pokemon continue to fall, Arin, riding on his Pidgeot, dives past them, “I’ve got it!”

  Pidgeot skillfully slows itself as Arin grabs at Larry's tail, “Oof! This guy's heftier than he looks!” He pulls the Ground-Type onto Pidgeot's back as the Pokemon finally pulls back and stops dead in the air.

  He mimes a thumbs up above himself at the bleeding Fearow, which caught its bearings and was still slowly lowering itself towards the ground, “We got ‘em!”

  “Pidge!”