Pokémon: Exodus (G)

[Kentucky Fried Torchic]

Chapter Five
They spent the night on the plantation, and not in the servants' quarters either. Katarina had enjoyed the largest, most comfortable bed that she had ever had in her entire life, and that was only after a warm, hearty meal where dishes had been constantly being replenished and replaced by a veritable army of stone-faced servants and where Katarina had pled her case to Marion's father. Fortunately, with his daughter's support and Spencer on his best behavior, Master Pryor had been receptive to Katarina's concerns and, as such, he had promised her, Spencer, and the pokémon first-class tickets to Tinko City. "Of course," he had said after making this concession but before the dishes for the main course had been taken away, "the cost of these tickets will be coming out of your reward for bringing back our wayward growlithe." Marion had smirked at that and although Spencer had tried to look cross, he was in a very weak position to do so, having asked for seconds of every dish that had thus been served.

When Katarina had gotten ready for bed and Exo was still sculpting a make-shift nest from the pillows and blankets he had been supplied with, she had told the cubone, "This is great! No more walking and we'll make it to the capital with plenty of time to spare."

"I suspect you are right," Exo had replied without looking up from the cushion that he was reshaping. "If you hadn't insisted on helping that growlithe and accompanying Spencer and Ace, we would still be walking."

"It's still raining, too," Katarina had said after she had glanced outside of the guest room's extravagant bay windows. "I'm certainly happy not to be lying down to sleep in that storm."

Exo had looked up from his completed nest with some satisfaction visible behind his mask, but then his expression grew somber again and he had asked, "I am not sure you would have been up for walking for another three days. How are your feet?"

Katarina had been sitting on the edge of the bed, delighting in feeling it give way under her weight even as she had lifted one foot into her lap and then the other. Her cursory examination showed that her feet were less red and raw than before after spending most of the day indoors and not exerting herself during that time, but they were still far from being healed. "They look better," Katarina had answered truthfully, but something in her tone or her face had tipped Exo off and the cubone had shaken his head and, without saying a word, had curled up in his tangle of blankets and closed his eyes.

"Good night, Exo," Katarina had said quietly and then she had turned off the light.

The next morning, Katarina and Exo joined Spencer, Ace, Marion, and Wanda for breakfast in one of the mansion's auxiliary dining rooms. The boys looked as well-rested as Katarina and Exo, but Marion and her dratini looked somewhat disheveled, even though it was well-hidden under a veneer of styled hair and impeccable dress. "My father will not be accompanying us," Marion said after everyone had finished their meal, except for Spencer who was working on his third helping. "He has some business to attend to this morning, so I will be accompanying you all into town and seeing you off at the train station."

"That's a shame," said Spencer around a mouthful of food.

She rose from her seat and said rather imperiously, "Gather your belongings and meet in the entryway in half-an-hour."

Katarina cleared her throat with a small cough and asked, "Could we get someone to come to our rooms and escort us there?"

"Yes, I will have a servant come by to gather you five minutes before we're to set out." Then, it was Spencer who had a question, but with his mouth still full of food he just gestured vaguely at his plate with his free hand. "No," Marion said gravely, "we will not pack up any food for you. Unless you want to use some of your reward to pay for it?" Even though the second half of her answer had been positively dripping with sweetness, Spencer grunted something that might have been obscene and went back to cleaning off his plate. "Excellent, since that it is all settled, I'll see you all when we reconvene." Then, Marion pushed back her chair and strode off into one of the mansion's labyrinthine corridors accompanied by her dratini.

"She's really something else, huh?" said Spencer, as he dabbed at his mouth with the corner of the table cloth.

Katarina did not reply, but started to clean up her dishes. When a servant came and swiftly took them off of her hands, she sat back down and asked, "Do you really think that it will work? Going on a train, I mean?"

Since his companion was still preoccupied, Ace took the lead and said, "Spence and I have traveled by rail a couple of times. It ain't the same high living that you get in a place like this, but it's a lot better than hoofing it the way you poor saps have to do to get anywhere."

Spencer nodded in agreement and swallowed his last bite. "Not sure when we'll get to eat like this again, so I'd stock up if I were you."

"No, thank you," Katarina said as she watched Spencer lick his plate clean, "I've lost my appetite." She stood up and retreated upstairs with Exo following close behind. Katarina washed her face and replaced her things in her bag. There was not very much that needed to be done since she had hardly unpacked at all during the entirety of her stay at the Pryor's manor, and she spent the next twenty minutes anxiously alternating between sitting on the bed and pacing the floor. In contrast, Exo had found a seat by the windows and was looking at the world outside without really seeing anything.

A man came by and sharply rapped on the door. Once he had gathered Katarina and Exo, as well as Spencer and Ace from their room across the hall, the servant led the children and pokémon down to the first floor of the mansion. As they walked, Spencer slipped something into Katarina's hand. She looked down blankly at the wad of paper money she was holding and then up at Spencer.

"I talked to Pryor," said Spencer and added with an exaggerated shrug, "this is your half of the reward for finding his growlithe."

"Thanks," Katarina said, and she repeated the word again because she didn't know what else to say. She stuffed the money into her bag and promptly tried to forget about the collection of bills that carried such surprising weight.

At the bottom of the stairs, Marion was waiting for them, the only outward sign betraying her impatience was the small but insistent tapping of her foot on the rug she was standing on. To Katarina's surprise, the other girl was dressed a similar, but not quite the same, outfit that she had been parading around in during her mock pokémon battle with her servant and the much less staged one with Spencer. Her bright hair was tied back in a severe ponytail and her entire ensemble, from her black cap to her boots done in the same color, managed to retain an air of class even while appearing eminently practical.

"What's with the get-up?" asked Spencer. "Don't tell me you're looking for a rematch."

"It's nothing like that!" replied Marion with surprising vehemence, but then she withdrew into herself and what Katarina thought was a guilty look passed between her and the servant who had directed the other children and pokémon from their rooms to the front room. "It's only that I cannot be expected to be dressed in my finest when all I am doing is escorting some commoners to the train station. There's no reason to dirty a dress over such a menial task."

After that explanation, Marion promptly spun on her heal and went outside, her upturned nose leading the rest of her body. Spencer leaned over to Katarina and said in a low voice, "'Commoners'… 'Menial task'… Does she know how to make a guy feel special or what?"

Katarina stifled a giggle and followed Spencer out the door and after the prissy older girl. Marion was directing a team of two servants where to store her luggage in the back of the carriage while the pair of rapidash harnessed to it snorted and pawed at the ground in anticipation for the journey to begin. "Glad you could join us," said Marion when she finally deemed to notice the others. "I'm afraid that you'll have to hold onto your belongings during our trip into town as there is simply no room for them back here. Will that be a problem?" Katarina and Spencer glanced down at their bags in unison and shook their heads as a trunk longer than Katarina was tall was precariously loaded onto the back of the coach. "Good!" said Marion brightly. "Go on, climb in."

"Those poor rapidash," muttered Spencer, but he lifted himself into the carriage and helped Katarina and Exo up after him. Ace said that he wanted the chance to stretch his wings after being cooped up inside for so long and stayed outside, finding a perch by the wagon's driver. The last thing they heard from him before they closed the coach's door behind them was a friendly, "Howdy!" delivered to the impassive servant next to him.

Marion and her dratini joined them not long afterward, evidently satisfied with the arrangement of her luggage, and soon the carriage lurched into motion, slowly at first but gradually picking up speed as the rapidash found their stride and grew accustomed to the weight they were towing. Spencer had lowered his gray cap over his eyes before they had even begun moving and Katarina was trying to admire the scenery passing by out of the window by her seat, but she could not fully enjoy it with Marion looking at her and fidgeting nervously all the while.

"What is it?" asked Katarina when it got to be too much.

"What do you mean?"

Katarina shifted in her seat and said, "You've been looking at me funny for ten minutes. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!" said Marion with a light airy laugh that was transparently false. When she saw that the other girl was not fooled, Marion's face took on a serious cast and she said with impressive resolve, "I'm coming with you to Tinko City, without my father's knowledge."

A number of questions occurred to Katarina, and from the resulting tangle she could only pick out a single word, "Why?"

After glancing at Spencer to make sure that he was truly asleep, Marion said in a hushed voice, "I want to be a pokémon trainer, a real one who travels and battles and participates in competitions. My father has indulged my dreams to a point, but he's convinced that I'll grow out of it someday, and he has expressly forbidden me to go to the mainland and undergo the customary pokémon journey. I cannot learn how to be a great pokémon trainer participating in staged contests with my servants. Your friend was right."

Spencer lazily lifted his cap up and away from his eyes and smiled sardonically. "What was that you said, Red? Something about me being right?"

Marion snorted, but checked her temper until she was finally calm enough to say, "Yes, you were right. I don't know anything about being a real pokémon trainer, so I'm coming with you to the capital."

"Maybe we don't want you tagging along," suggested Spencer, but from his joking tone, it was clear that he was not seriously trying to discourage the girl.

"We're going to the same place," said Marion and then she sniffed, "and besides I have your train tickets."

"Is your father going to be upset?" asked Katarina.

Marion bit her lip but made a show of waving away the concern. "Father will be furious, and he'll likely take out his anger on some of the servants, but I will not be gone for long and he will see that I have proven myself and have no choice but to let me go on a pokémon journey."

Katarina processed this silently, allowing Exo to put forth his own question, "What is it that you hope to accomplish in Tinko City?"

"Well," Marion began to say, but it took her some effort for her to compose her thoughts before she continued, "I've never been to the capital unaccompanied by my father and my mother. Tinko City isn't terribly far away, but it is enough of a trek that I can show my father that I am capable of a proper journey and that I would be perfectly fine travelling to Kanto and undertaking the league challenge there."

"I think that you using your father's money undercuts your point somewhat," said Spencer from under his peaked cap. Then, the boy uncovered his face and rubbed his eyes and added, "There's a lot more to pokémon training than just taking the train from town to town and collecting badges. You have to know how to rough it in the wild."

Marion was listening intently, but she still made an effort to dismiss Spencer's points with an airy way of her hand and by saying, "And how do you know that? Have you been on a pokémon journey before?"

"No," admitted Spencer with a shrug, "but it's common sense, I think. Besides, you wouldn't get very far with the way you think pokémon battling works."

Marion huffed in a very unladylike fashion and turned her attention to Katarina. "Do you think that you'll want to travel after you get a pokémon from Professor Oak?"

"I don't know," Katarina said. "I mean, it sounds like it would be fun to travel around and see new people and places, but I would have to be away from my family and our farm for a long time."

"If it's money that's a problem, I'm sure that-"

But Katarina shook her head before the older girl could finish offering her charity. "That's not it, well, not all of it."

Spencer resumed napping and Katarina and Marion continued to talk, with the pokémon in the carriage offering additions when they thought it prudent. Marion was in the middle of describing some of the shops that she had visited with her mother the last time that she was in Tinko City when the vehicle lurched to a halt. They waited in silence for a few minutes, and then Ace came back to perch on the bottom of the coach's open window.

"What's wrong?" asked Katarina, and Spencer echoed her question a split second later.

"Not sure," the spearow said. "There's an injured pokémon out in the middle of the road making a fuss and asking for passage to the nearest town."

"What?" exclaimed Marion and she brusquely forced her way out of the carriage. "We don't have any time to spare on riffraff!" Her dratini, Wanda, dutifully followed her outside, landing with on the surface of the dirt road with a heavy thump. Since they were curious as well and the interior of the stopped coach held no enlightenment for them, Katarina and Spencer trailed after Marion and her pokémon.

They rounded the side of the wagon and emerged past the pair of harnessed rapidash who were snorting and stamping at the ground impatiently. From his perch on the coach, the driver was politely but firmly insisting that the pokémon who was blocking the road get out of the way, only to be met with a constant stream of wheedling pleas and excuses. Said pokémon was a plump creature adorned with brown-gray feathers and a white underbelly. He was leaning on a walking stick tipped with green in order to keep himself upright, but despite the words that were coming out of his beak, Katarina did not trust him.

She was hardly alone. None of the members of the traveling party had a sympathetic ear to spare for the dumpy little pokémon, but even though he had to be aware of that fact, he kept trying to make his case. "Please, I am but a poor old traveler." He stopped to cough for dramatic effect, and then went on, "You have plenty of room for little old me. It will cost you nothing, but you will have my undying friendship as a reward."

"Not going to happen," said Marion curtly. "Let's get moving, Mikhail."

The driver nodded and grabbed the reins but before he could spur the rapidash into action, Katarina said, "Wait! Why can't we help him? Even if he does try to do something bad, there's only one of him."

"Bless you, dear child," the pokémon in question said, failing to keep the joy out of the obviously affected feebleness in his voice.

Spencer cut him off before the little pokémon could launch into another monologue. "This guy's a total con artist, trust me, doll."

"How can you tell?"

"He's switched which leg he's favoring three times since we've been out here." Spencer laughed brightly and said, "Look, as one professional to another, you really have to work on your scam. Everything about you screams 'don't trust me!'. I don't know what your game is, but whatever it is you're after, you've gotta work on your acting, your presentation, all of it. That's your best weapon, especially since you don't have the muscle to try and knock over an entire stagecoach or whatever on your own."

"You think so?" asked the pokémon without the slightest trace of disappointment that he had been found out. If anything, he sounded downright cheerful.

Marion stomped her foot on the dusty ground. "Enough talking! We have a train to catch! Mikhail! Have the rapidash singe his tail feathers! That should get him out of our way."

"Seems like a little much," said Spencer, but he took a healthy step backwards and pulled Katarina after him.

Mikhail the driver whistled sharply and the two rapidash opened their mouths in perfect harmony and shot out identical licks of flame at the pokémon in front of them. The attacks were nothing serious, intended only to get the would-be hitchhiker moving, and move he did, but not in the way that Marion and her coachman had intended. Instead of fleeing the fiery assault, the pokémon swung his walking stick and deftly deflected the flames with a powerful swing of his weapon.

He then darted forward to charge straight at one of the rapidash, prompting another pair of attacks from the larger pokémon, consisting of much more powerful gouts of flame. The rapidash that was breathing fire crosswise at its smaller foe could not hit him without also hitting its ally, but the target of the foolish charge had no issues with exhausting its reservoir of flame in a single explosive burst.

To the surprise of everyone present, the attack did not reduce the strange pokémon to ashes. Instead, he threw his walking stick into the attack, splitting the line of fire to either side of him and hitting the rapidash square in the face with his projectile. The startled pokémon took a step back and whinnied in pain and confusion as its attacker retrieved his weapon. The rapidash was further startled when it backed into the body of the carriage and turned around to try and look at what was behind it, but this pulled the harness tightly around the other rapidash, which started snapping at its companion, leaving Mikhail the driver to struggle to get the two panicking pokémon back under control.

"Give me your valuables, all of them," the pokémon said as he dusted off his walking stick, "and I'll let you go on your way."

Marion's face made it clear what she thought of the ultimatum, but it was Katarina who spoke. "What kind of pokémon are you?" she asked in an awed tone of voice.

"He is a farfetch'd," Exo said as stepped forward from the rear of the group. "His name is Endo."

"Ah, Exo, fancy meeting you here," Endo said, sparing only a short glance away from the still-squabbling rapidash.

Katarina asked, "You know him?"

"We have crossed paths a number of times in the past," said Exo tonelessly. "He's a wandering pokémon like myself."

"Only instead of living off of the fat of the land like good Exo here," the farfetch'd interjected, "I prefer to rely on my wits."

Exo shook his head. "He means to say that he steals from the weak and gullible, not just for survival but for sport as well."

"Call it what you like, but I am what I am." The rapidash had been brought back under Mikhail's control, although they were still grunting in anger and pulling on their reins. "Call them off, Exo, and let's settle this pokémon to pokémon."

Marion blurted out, "This is ridiculous! My father's rapidash are more than enough to take care of him!" She started to give Mikhail and the pokémon a command, but she was stunned into silence by the soft "thwip" sound of Endo slicing through one of the leather straps harnessing the rapidash with the surprisingly sharp edge of his walking stick.

"Let Exo and I settle this, girl, or else you'll have a pair of runaway rapidash to deal with." The farfetch'd looked and sounded far more innocent than he had any right to as he held his weapon dangerously close to another part of the harness, but he allowed himself a chuckle as he added, "And, let me tell you, you aren't going to catch either of these rapidash before your train leaves."

All eyes were on Marion. Under the weight of their expectations, the red-haired girl threw up her hands and said, "Fine!"

"At least you'll get a chance to see a real pokémon battle," offered Spencer helpfully, but Marion stared daggers at him.

"It is not really a pokémon battle," Exo said as he walked onto the dirt road opposite where Endo was now standing. "It is more of a duel. It is not only about strength. It is a matter of honor."

"And if I win, I get all of your things," said Endo, but he quickly abandoned his joking demeanor and adopted a combat stance. His walking stick was held in both of his wings and the farfetch'd stood up as straight as his round body would allow him. Exo mirrored his actions, only with his bone as his weapon instead.

The two pokémon walked toward each other and stopped when there was about three yards of distance between them. Then, Exo and Endo bowed low to each other. The two of them then took their weapons of choice and lowered them into the earth and they walked in slow, deliberate strides in a complete lap of the circle that they traced in the dirt. When they reached the spot where they had started from, the cubone and the farfetch'd held up their weapons again and bowed again.

"What are they doing?" asked Marion, but she was quickly shushed by Katarina, Spencer, Ace, and even her own Wanda.

Exo and Endo emerged from their bows as mirror images, but the instant that their eyes met, the illusion was broken. Endo lunged suddenly forward with a thrust of his walking stick that Exo batted away with a counter-clockwise spin of his club.

"Nice," said Spencer under his breath.

Exo kept his guard up as he and Endo circled around the perimeter of their makeshift arena. There were no taunts or insults exchanged between the two warriors. This was far too serious a matter for such childish things. There was a pause in their silent dance, and a split-second later Endo threw himself at Exo with a wild downward stroke of his stick that met Exo's bone club with a resounding crack. Exo tried to kick at his foe with one of his stout legs, but the farfetch'd leapt backwards out of reach. Endo responded with a few elementary swings, but each attack was easily met by Exo. None of Endo's wild thrusts or slashes made his opponent take a single step back.

The dueling pokémon's audience was largely silent, so when Endo stumbled and caught himself on his walking stick, their gasps were the only sound besides Exo and Endo's heavy breathing. Despite the show of weakness, Exo held back and did not attack. Instead, he waited until Endo had caught his breath and resumed his fighting stance.

"Thought you might finally fall for that," said Endo with a smile on his yellow beak.

"I thought you might have gotten old."

The farfetch'd laughed at that, but before the sound had even left his beak, he was in motion again, thrusting his weapon forward in a deadly pattern of attacks that Katarina and the others struggled to follow. Exo met every attack with small economic motions of his club, blunting each individual segment of the sustained assault without matching their intensity. It was a nearly-identical strategy to the one that he had employed to hold off the nidorino that had accosted Katarina four days earlier. As Endo's attacks kept coming, Exo started to allow himself to move backwards in small retreats, as much as he could afford given the small space of the arena he and Endo shared inside of the circle.

An additional minute of flurried blows might have seen Endo break through Exo's defenses or it might have been enough to force the cubone past the line in the dirt, but there was no way to know for sure. Endo pulled back from his attack and stood still save for his rapidly rising and falling chest. The farfetch'd was watching Exo, studying him, while the cubone did the same to him. Then, Endo knelt on the ground and thrust his walking stick into the ground.

"I yield."

Exo nodded once and lowered his own weapon. Then, the cubone walked over to his foe and offered him a paw to help him up. Endo meekly accepted the help to his feet and then pumped the other pokémon's paw up and down three times in rapid succession.

"You've still got it, Exo," the farfetch'd chattered excitedly. "One of these days I'm going to find the chink in your armor though, and then it'll be a different story."

"What's going on?" asked Katarina, but no one had an answer for her.

Exo had walked his defeated opponent to the edge of the dirt road and was saying, "I am sure you will one day, Endo. How many times have we dueled now?"

"This was our one-hundredth encounter," said Endo immediately. "And I still have only a lone victory to my name."

Exo offered some words of comfort, and that surprised Katarina even more than Endo's sudden and graceful defeat. Then the farfetch'd shouldered his walking stick and, after waving a hearty goodbye to everyone, vanished into the trees lining the dirt road.

"Wait, you fought that farfetch'd a hundred times and he only won once?" asked Katarina as they climbed back into the carriage. "Why did he challenge you to then? He had to know that he would lose."

Exo settled in his seat and rested his club up against the wall of the coach before he answered, "Endo may be a brigand, but he has his own code of honor. I am happy every time that we cross paths and cross blades."

"I'm just glad he didn't try anything funny," Marion said with a huff.

"How do you know he didn't?" asked Spencer. "Maybe you should count and make sure that all of your luggage is still in the back." When it looked like Marion was actually considering ordering the carriage to stop again to do just that, Spencer groaned, "It was a joke!" and retreated back under the shade of his cap.

"It's probably fine," Marion said more to herself than to anyone else. "Besides, we do have to make up for lost time if we want to catch our train. Mikhail! Faster!"

Katarina's stomach lurched as the carriage suddenly picked up speed, driven by the team of rapidash and Mikhail's colorful exhortations for them to go even faster. But soon she was enjoying the pace and watching the scene of Tinko's natural beauty unfold before her eyes through the window of the coach. Woods turned to rolling fields and those turned to farms, all interspersed with snatches of conversation with her fellow passengers. Soon enough, the carriage pulled off of the dirt road and onto the rough uneven street of gravel of town. A sign swung by the road that they were taking that read "Pryortown". Marion did her best not to appear overly pleased about that particular landmark.

There was hardly any time to appreciate the sights of the quaint but bustling town, however. They were running late, that much was obvious from the insistent whistle of the train in the station. Since her family's name was visible from practically every street corner, Marion felt no compunctions about directing Mikhail to pull her carriage up as close to the train as he could manage and felt no sympathy for the pedestrians and other vehicles that would be in their way.

After barreling through the center of the town, they had slowed nearly to a stop. "Mikhail! Can't you just burn up that farmer's cart?" Marion was leaning out of the side of the coach, holding on with one hand while the other secured her hat to her head, and scowling at the plodding pace of the traffic in front of them. "My father will buy him a new one!"

The train whistle blew again and Spencer got out of his seat, slung his bag over his shoulder, and pushed past Marion. His opening the door she was hanging onto earned him a shriek of indignation. "We're probably within walking distance, Red," Spencer said and hopped down to the street. "Thanks for the lift," he said and flipped a small silver coin at Mikhail who caught it and pocketed it in one wordless motion. Ace took off from his perch on the carriage and flew over to join Spencer. Katarina and Exo followed suit and soon Marion and her dratini were left looking foolish as the others started weaving through the busy streets of Pryortown and started to vanish into the crowd.

The train was just about to leave when Katarina, Exo, Spencer, and Ace made it to the station. They moved to board it, but were stopped by the conductor and his single-word question, "Tickets?"

"Ah, look," Spencer said as the start of some elaborate yarn, but they were interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Stop the train! Stop the train!" Marion was crying as she dragged a heavy-looking trunk after her. When she saw people staring at her on the track and from the train, the girl straightened her posture and tried to look as dignified as she could while pulling the cumbersome piece of luggage after her. "I am Marion of the House Pryor. They are my retinue. My father said we are to travel to Tinko City on family business."

The conductor took the note that Marion produced and studied it carefully, especially lingering on the parts where Marion had made some hasty edits to references to the number of passengers the ticket was covering. "Ain't your father worried about you traveling without any chaperone, Miss Marion?"

"Oh, yes, ah, well, don't let his looks deceive you, but that girl's cubone is my bodyguard."

"He's not my-"

The rest of Katarina's sentence was drowned out by a burst of the train's whistle and the conductor waved them aboard while bellowing out, "All aboard! Last call for Tinko City!"