Pokémon: Exodus (G)

[Kentucky Fried Torchic]

Chapter Eight
Having grown up on a farm, it was a rare occurrence for Katarina not to be up with the sun and she savored this rare opportunity to feel the warming rays and to shield her eyes from them without having to worry about a long day of chores ahead of her. Instead, she would be getting her first pokémon, or so she hoped. That idea made her smile and, as she lay in bed, Katarina looked at the plaster ceiling overhead as her mind projected all kinds of wonderous creatures onto that blank canvas.

Next to her, Marion muttered something in her sleep and rolled over, attempting to take a significant portion of the covers with her. Katarina's smile thinned and she briefly fought with the other girl for a fair division of the blankets just as it seemed that she had for half of the night. As she struggled with Marion, Katarina saw that Exo was up as well, and she conceded defeat to the other girl. It was still warm in the bed, even without the covers, but Katarina took their loss as a sign for her to get up. First one foot then the other dropped off of the bed to the cooler, but still warm, surface of the hotel's wooden floor.

"Good morning, Exo," said Katarina cheerfully but quietly to the cubone.

He had been watching her since she had started to get out of bed, but only spoke when spoken to. "Good morning, Katarina."

"How long have you been up?"

Exo looked up towards the hotel room's window and thought before answering, "Not too long, I think."

"Oh, okay." Katarina tried to keep quiet and avoid waking up Marion as she crept her way over to Exo. "Have you eaten yet?"

"No."

Katarina opened her bag and produced a single apple, the last remnant of the food she had packed so many days ago. Its red surface was bruised and covered with a thin layer of dirt and dust that Katarina tried to rub off as best she could with the palm of her hand. Then she offered it to Exo, who accepted it with a gracious nod.

All of the hard work put into maintaining the quiet ambiance of the hotel room was for naught when Exo took a bite of the apple and the resulting crunch resonated in the small space. The cubone gave Katarina a look of sympathy, but he did not stop eating.

Marion grumbled and groaned, but she sat up in the bed all the same. "Is it morning already?" she groused, but she got out of bed more quickly than Katarina had. The sleeves of her frilly pink nightgown jostled as Marion wiped the sleep from her eyes and then ran a hand through the mess of her long, curly hair. There were plenty of snarls that needed to be undone, and as soon as her fingers found the first tangle, Marion grabbed a brush from her bag and started to undo the damage. "Are you excited, Katarina?"

"What?" asked the girl who was examining her own blonde hair.

"About getting your first pokémon today?"

"Oh, of course!" said Katarina happily. "It's hard to believe that it's finally happening. I almost wonder if I'm dreaming."

Marion smiled, grimaced as she pulled her brush through a particularly nettlesome patch of her mane, and then resumed smiling. "Well, if this is all a dream then you have no cause for depriving yourself! Spencer and I will go and get us some breakfast while you stay here and get ready."

Although she attempted to decline the offered meal, Marion simply would not take no for an answer and overruled Katarina's objections. That was how Katarina found herself alone in the room washing up after Marion had changed into something more presentable and corralled the pokémon and Spencer to leave the hotel in search of food.

Katarina had time to dry off and dress herself before the others came back. By then she was more than a little hungry and was excited to see what they had brought her. Breakfast turned out to be a set of breaded pastries with different types of jam fillings. Spencer and Marion were unusually quiet throughout the meal, and Katarina was content to eat her fill before she finally asked, "Is everything all right?"

The others exchanged a look while their friend cleaned the crumbs off from around her mouth. Whatever they were trying to communicate was too difficult to convey nonverbally, so Marion and Spencer started whispering to each other, as though Katarina couldn't hear them.

"You do it."

"No, you."

"You should do it."

"It'd be less strange coming from another girl."

Marion did not seem to be able to come up with a counterargument to that point, so she stood up from where she had been sitting on the edge of the room's bed and walked out the door.

"What's going on?" asked Katarina.

Spencer pretended as though he failed to hear her question or that he thought it was directed at one of the pokémon, but it didn't last long and he just said, "You'll see."

Before she could press him any further, Marion swung open the door to the hotel room. The older girl was grinning from ear to ear, but Katarina didn't notice that. Her eyes were glued to the beautiful green dress that Marion was holding.

"This is for you!" said Marion brightly and she thrust the dress towards Katarina who rose from the bed and stumbled to her feet.

"Thank you," croaked Katarina, and she cleared her throat and said it again, but this time her mouth wouldn't stop and she said, "Thank you," four more times in one quick breath. She grabbed for the dress and Marion had the good sense to let her have it. Holding it up in front of herself, Katarina looked down to get a picture how she would look in it.

Marion recognized what the other girl was doing and said, "There's no need to use your imagination, Katarina, go ahead and try it on." Then she led the others out the door.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and then Marion let herself back in. Katarina had been too preoccupied with watching the green fabric flow around her knees as she swayed back and forth to answer the door and looked up from what she was doing bashfully. If Marion had been trying to wash away her shyness, she picked the worst words for the job as saying, "You look beautiful, Katarina," made the younger girl's face turn bright pink.

"Thank you, Marion," murmured Katarina. Then, without warning, Marion grabbed Katarina by the arm and pulled her out of the hotel room.

"You're welcome, now you can model it. The others are right outside."

It was dimmer on the balcony of the hotel without as much natural light getting through the windows at the ends of the hall, but there was simply no way to hide Katarina, especially when Marion let go of her and bounded over to join Spencer and the pokémon in watching her.

With her knobby knees shaking and her face growing redder with each passing second, Katarina felt less like the beautiful princess that she had in the solitude of the hotel room and more like a child caught playing dress-up with her mother's clothes.

Once again, Marion picked up the younger girl's feelings in an instant and returned to Katarina's side saying, "No, no, no. You simply cannot go out looking like this." Katarina's heart fell, but then Marion added, "No, if you're going to impress Professor Oak, you need to be confident! Straighten up!" The last sentence was an order, barked at Katarina as though she was one of the servants on the Pryor estate.

The strange thing was that it worked, and Katarina found herself up to her full height, an inch below Marion's. Her knees had stopped shaking now that they had a job to perform. Marion examined her studiously and then her next commands rang out one after another, "Pull your shoulders back! Tilt your chin up! Put one hand on your waist! And don't forget to smile!" Katarina followed them all without question, feeling more than a little like a doll for Marion, but there was no denying her expertise. At first, Spencer had certainly been impressed at seeing her clean up, but as Katarina had improved her posture and looked more and more at home in her new outfit, he was looking at her in a new light. That thought threatened to bring about a fresh wave of blushing, so Katarina focused instead on the reactions of Exo and the other pokémon, all of whom, despite their lack of understanding of human concepts of fashion and beauty, nodded and commented their own approval at Marion's work in shaping the raw material that was Katarina and her new dress.

"Gorgeous," said Marion approvingly once she was done.

"Th-thank you," said Katarina, barely remembering to keep her back straight as she spoke. "This dress, breakfast, the train, everything. Thank you for all of it."

Marion beamed, but she also shook her head and her red hair followed suit. "To be honest, I cannot take all of the credit."

"Spencer?"

He didn't say anything, so Marion jumped in and explained, "When I told him that I wanted to buy that dress for you, he insisted on paying for half of it. He said that he wanted to do something nice for you too."

"Hey, now, Red, keep your voice down," said Spencer, "I've got a reputation to maintain."

"And while they were shopping," piped up Ace, "I was flying around the city and found where that Professor Oak person is holed up! He's renting out a suite about half a mile north of us. He's got a whole bunch of other people with him, but it looked like most of them were packed up and leaving though."

"Oak must not be far behind them," mused Spencer. "We'd better get going if we want to catch him."

He started towards the stairs, and Katarina followed him. Marion shifted back and forth on her feet for a few seconds, saying, "Oh, but we should really do something about her hair, and those dirty shoes look just silly," but when it was clear that no one else was listening, Marion sighed and went downstairs as well.

They checked out of the hotel without incident and were quickly back on the streets of Tinko City. In the daytime, there was a lot more activity than there had been the night before, but somehow the strange, small pokémon that were inside of the glass orbs of the street lamps were managing to sleep through all of the hustle and bustle of the city come to life.

"Lead the way, Ace," said Spencer and the spearow perched himself on the boy's forearm and started directing the group's path with sweeping gestures of his stubby wings.

As they walked, Katarina was so excited that she hardly noticed the sights, sounds, and smells around her. Everything blurred into a happy indiscriminate fog when compared with the crystal-clear vision that Katarina had in her head of meeting Professor Oak and finally getting her first pokémon. Her confidence radiated out from her to a degree that even Exo felt the need to comment upon it. "You're not nervous at all, are you?" he asked, with a hint of amusement in his low voice.

"Not in the least," chirped Katarina as Ace signaled for them to turn the corner. "I know just what I'm going to say to Professor Oak when I meet him. I'm going to shake his hand and I'm going to say-"

Whatever it was that Katarina was going to say, it was muffled by the chest of the man she bumped into. She stumbled backwards, but Spencer and Marion both reached out to catch her before she could fall. Looking up, Katarina saw a stern-looking man in a long white coat and a red shirt tucked into a pair of butternut-colored pants carrying a heavy-looking travel bag in his left hand. Her heart leapt up into her throat, but the man who she belatedly recognized as Professor Oak only muttered something under his breath and brusquely walked around Katarina and the others.

He did not get far before Katarina recovered and pulled free of her friends' grasp to start after the pokémon expert. "Excuse me, Professor Oak!" she said. He turned around, still frowning and Katarina started, "I-"

"Your apology is accepted. Good day."

Professor Oak moved to resume his walk, but he did not take another step before Katarina blurted out, "I want a pokémon!"

That made Professor Oak round on her again, and his voice was even harder as he said, "Little girl, I am a very busy man and I don't have time for any of your tomfoolery. If you want a pokémon, you should ask your father instead of harassing me."

This was hardly how Katarina had imagined this meeting going, but she had to make the best of things. She might never get a chance like this ever again. "Professor Oak, I'm sorry for bumping into you, but I've traveled for days in hopes of meeting you and asking you for a pokémon. Will you please hear me out?"

Professor Oak considered Katarina's earnest face and then those of the pokémon and children who were silently watching this whole exchange before returning to Katarina again. She imagined that she could hear his brain working before Professor Oak finally said, "Very well. My ship leaves in two hours. You have as long as my walk to the dock to make your case."

"Thank you, sir!" said Katarina and she fell in line with Professor Oak and struggled to keep up with his long, powerful strides. "My name is Katarina Zawadzki and I live on a farm much further inland. My parents said that we couldn't afford the licensing to get me a pokémon when I turned ten, but I heard on the radio that you would be in Tinko for a week, so I decided to come here and look for you."

"You ran away from home in order to get a pokémon?" asked Professor Oak, and Katarina couldn't tell if he approved of her or was mad when she nodded. In either case, he added, "With your friends here?"

Marion and Spencer had both been listening in carefully and perked up in response to this question. Katarina shook her head and explained, "No, I met all of them, Exo, and Spencer and Ace, and Marion and Wanda, after I had already left. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all of their help. I'm very lucky that they decided to come with me."

"Quite," said Professor Oak and he looked back at the others that were following him and Katarina. "I see three children and three pokémon. Are all of the pokémon in the care of your little friends?"

"No, sir, Ace, that's him on Spencer's arm there, is with Spencer and Wanda is Marion's dratini, but Exo is, well, he's-"

Professor Oak supplied the word, "Untamed?"

"Yes, but no, not really." Katarina almost floundered but she caught sight of Exo and that steeled her resolve. "Exo is his own pokémon," she said. "He knows no master, human or pokémon."

"Interesting," remarked Professor Oak with a few strokes of his calloused fingers on his chin. "And does he still feel the same way, after spending time with you?"

"You can ask him yourself, sir."

But Professor Oak ignored her and continued, "It would seem that the easy solution to your problem is right in front of you. Since you already have a pokémon that is willing and able to be your partner, advanced in age he might be, there is only the matter of the licensing fee, and that could be taken care of in a matter of-"

Now it was Katarina's turn to interrupt, and she said, "Professor Oak, sir, even if Exo wanted to be my partner, I wouldn't say yes."

That made everyone falter in their paces, including Exo who said in a low voice, "Katarina."

"Exo has his own life and I can't simply tear him away from it because I want a pokémon. Out there in the wild, living the way that he does, he's something, someone, exceptional. He won't be as special if he's my pokémon, and I can't ask Exo to do that. It wouldn't be fair to him."

"Katarina," said Exo again, but it was more tender this time.

Katarina smiled at him and then turned back to Professor Oak and said, "You see, sir, that's why I need your help."

Professor Oak took all of this in without expression, then his stony façade broke. "The way that humans and pokémon live together here… Even if I live to be a hundred, I'm afraid that I'll never understand this strange country," said Professor Oak with a sigh.

"That's not giving yourself much time," quipped Ace, and earning himself a smack on the head from Spencer.

"Very well, young lady, I think that I may be able to justify giving you a pokémon."

"Yes!" cheered Marion, but hers was only the most verbal expression of the excitement that everyone else was feeling.

Professor Oak smiled genially and added, "You can have a pokémon, Miss Zawadzki, if you can beat me in a pokémon battle." Everything seemed to freeze for Katarina as the news hit her like a punch to the stomach. If he noticed her change in demeanor, Professor Oak gave no sign of it, but instead led the group over to a square with a fountain in the middle of its cobblestone surface. "You can use any one of the three pokémon with you that you desire, but decide quickly. We don't have very much time."

Before the weight of the man's words could even fully register for Katarina, Marion was already offering up Wanda for Katarina's use, imploring, "She comes from a long line of battling pokémon, the blood of champions runs through her veins!"

"No, no, listen to me, Kat," countered Spencer, "you need a pokémon with experience. Ace has got that in spades."

Professor Oak was watching the scene playing out before him with some amusement, but he was entirely unsurprised by Katarina's choice. Indeed, it had been obvious from the outset what her decision would be.

"Exo, will you help me?" she asked.

The cubone walked towards Katarina and he offered his paw to her. She bent over and took it in her hand and he said simply, "Yes."

"A fine choice," said Professor Oak as he set down his bag and undid the buttons that kept it closed. He reached in and pulled out a handful of small capsules that were red on top and white on the bottom and examined each one in turn. Finally, Professor Oak selected one with some writing sloppily scrawled across its surface and returned the others to his pack. Then, he said, "Since we don't have an impartial referee, I'll keep the rules simple. We battle until one of us admit defeat."

"Yes, sir," said Katarina and she took a spot roughly ten yards across from him. Exo walked purposefully to stand in front of her.

Professor Oak smiled and lifted the capsule in his hand. "Excellent, let us begin." He tapped his thumb against the circle at the center of the ball in his hand and a red beam of blindingly bright light shot out from it. Katarina shielded her eyes from it, and when she was able to see again, Professor Oak was almost completely obscured by the huge, hulking shape of his battling pokémon. It was taller than any living thing that Katarina had ever seen. Its brown scaly skin was marred by protrusions of bone and rippled over the flexing of its heavy muscles body. As soon as it deigned to notice Exo standing across from it, the pokémon raised one of its heavy clawed feet and stomped it against the ground and opened its mouth to unleash a roar that echoed throughout the park and the surrounding blocks.

If Katarina could have opened her eyes any wider, they would have fallen out of her head. She did not exactly know what it was that she had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't the monster that was standing in front of her. She tried to look brave, but she didn't feel it and her knees had begun to shake again.

"Would you like to give up?" offered Professor Oak. His voice sounded conciliatory rather than stern.

Before Katarina could answer, Exo looked over his shoulder and said loudly, "Katarina! You can do this! Trust me!"

Katarina set her jaw and nodded. She tried to focus on Exo, but it was hard to do so with the behemoth that he was going to have to fight crowding her field of vision. She opened her mouth and shouted, "Exo! Attack!"

A small crowd had gathered around them, drawn no doubt by the volume of Professor Oak's pokémon's roar and kept by the promise of a spectacle. A collective gasp rose up from the bystanders as Exo launched himself at his foe and spun his bone club in his paw until it was a blur. The larger pokémon tried to halt his drive forward by sweeping its tail around in a wide arc, but Exo jumped over the counterattack and swung his club into the brute's side. It hardly flinched from the blow and reached down to squash Exo under the weight of its heavy claws and palm. Exo rolled out of the way of the other pokémon's attack and put some distance between himself and his titanic opponent. He was already breathing hard. Professor Oak's pokémon, in contrast, looked mildly amused at the whole encounter.

"I'm sorry, young lady, but 'Attack!' is hardly the command of a battling pokémon trainer," chided Professor Oak. "It's understandable to rely on your pokémon to make some decisions, especially when it possesses more experience than you do, but without your help shaping and nurturing its strategy, your pokémon will ultimately have to rely on its instincts."

"Yes, sir," said Katarina, but she was having a hard time concentrating on his words with his brutal pokémon looking at her and Exo like they were its next meal. She had to prove herself to Professor Oak during this battle if she wanted a pokémon of her own, but how was she supposed to contribute? Exo knew much more about fighting than she did, so he probably would already have thought of any ideas she might have.

Whatever time that Professor Oak had allotted for her to learn the lesson that he was trying to teach evidently ran out, because the middle-aged man flicked his wrist casually and said, "Now, Tomyris! Pin him!" Without hesitating, the pokémon obeyed its master and rushed at Exo much more quickly than either Exo or Katarina had anticipated given its bulk.

Exo was standing his ground, but Katarina panicked and blurted out, "Go between its legs!"

To his credit, Exo did not hesitate either and he dove between the heavy footfalls of the larger pokémon and was back on his feet by the time that it had turned around to face him.

"An adequate move," said Professor Oak, "but are you going to just have your pokémon run away until it's time for my boat to leave? Or do you have a plan for actually winning this battle?"

Again, Katarina tried to think, but she kept running into an insurmountable wall in her mind. How was Exo supposed to beat a pokémon that was more than twice his size and weighed who knew how much more than him? She had never been faced with a challenge like this before.

But maybe Exo had?

"What should we do, Exo?" she asked.

"No one is unbeatable, pokémon or human," replied the cubone through gritted teeth. "There is always a weak point."

Exo's words made sense, but Katarina had trouble with applying them to the present situation. The hide of Professor Oak's pokémon looked to be invulnerable. Exo's first attack hadn't even left a bruise on its side.

"I hope that my kangaskhan doesn't have you too scared, young lady," said Professor Oak.

"No," said Katarina and she forced herself to look at the massive pokémon with new eyes. It looked impatient and was scratching at the lighter colored stomach with one of its claws. Katarina searched frantically from its tail to its head for a place to strike. Then, all at once, she saw an opening and said, "Okay, Exo, get ready to use your head." When he nodded at her, she added, "Think about the way that Spencer and Ace do their tricks." The next nod was slower to come, but Exo lowered himself to the ground, one of his paws landing in a gap between the cobblestones, to prepare for another headlong dash at his enemy. Only then did Katarina order, "Go! Hit it between the eyes!"

Professor Oak smiled and said, "We'll play your game, won't we, Tomyris? Match him."

The two pokémon charged at each other with their heads down, with the kangaskhan covering much more distance in the same amount of time because of its longer strides. Exo did not give up though and he rammed his head and his helmet against the top of his larger opponent's skull. Both pokémon were dazed, but the kangaskhan recovered quickly and started to push Exo back. Exo did his best to resist, but all he achieved was scratching helplessly against the surface underfoot. Then, so quickly that Katarina almost didn't see it, Exo brought up his paw and threw fistful of dirt into his foe's eyes.

With his vision obstructed by Tomyris' bulk, Professor Oak could only guess at why his kangaskhan had reared back and was roaring in irritation as it clumsily tried to wipe the debris from its eyes. Katarina and Exo were both ready to press their advantage, and Exo advanced on his handicapped foe swinging his bone club for another attack. He swung once, twice, but Tomyris had recovered enough to open one eye and the kangaskhan intercepted the third blow. Its claws closed around Exo's weapon and it lifted it up, pulling Exo off of the ground as well, since he refused to relinquish his club.

He could only fight gravity for so long, however, and Tomyris shook Exo off and he fell to the ground in a heap. Before he could get back to his feet, the larger pokémon had placed one foot on top of his head and was pushing down on Exo at the same time that it was threatening to snap his club into splinters.

Before either threat could be carried out, Katarina yelled, "Stop! I yield!"

Tomyris released Exo and even graciously handed him back his bone club without a word of command from Professor Oak. Instead of speaking to his pokémon, Professor Oak addressed Katarina, "A wise choice." Then, he retrieved the red and white capsule from his pocket and pointed it at Tomyris and the kangaskhan vanished in a flash of red light.

"I'm sorry, Katarina," Exo said quietly. He wouldn't look at her, but just stared at the ground, his expression blank behind his mask.

"It will be okay, Katarina!" said Marion quickly. "I can help you get a growlithe from my father! Everything will be all right!"

Professor Oak cleared his throat and said, "Things are not nearly so bad as you think they are. Katarina, I'll give you a pokémon."

"What?" said multiple voices simultaneously.

"You've certainly proven yourself worthy of one," he said with a wide smile. "I think that most any pokémon would count itself lucky to be your partner."

"I don't understand," said Katarina slowly. "I lost the battle. I gave up."

Professor Oak held up his hand to stop her and said, "Yes, you gave up, but not right away. Even though you were up against a fearsome pokémon that you had never seen before and it was almost certain that you were not going to triumph, you still decided to do your best and help your cubone do the same."

"He's not my-"

"Second," continued Professor Oak as he raised another finger, "you were capable of improvising and adapting your strategy when things did not work. You took inputs from myself and your pokémon and used them to try something new."

"But he's not-"

"Finally, you were compassionate. Admitting defeat was not easy when you thought that you had so much depending on your winning our match, but you still saw that you were in an untenable situation and were mature enough to bring it to an end rather than force the issue and risk your pokémon getting hurt. In short, you were more interested in your cubone's well-being than in your own ambitions."

"Professor Oak, I've been trying to tell you-"

This time it was Exo who interrupted her as he looked up at Katarina and said, "I am not her pokémon, but I am her friend." Then, to Professor Oak, he said, "Thank you for the opportunity to battle against you and your pokémon. It was an honor," and bowed to him.

Professor Oak nodded and then turned his attention back to Katarina and said, "Everything that I witnessed during our battle confirmed what I had gleaned during our walk. I will give you a pokémon."

"I'm getting a pokémon," said Katarina, then, just to hear the words aloud again, she repeated them, "I'm getting a pokémon!"

"She did it! She did it!" cheered Marion and she threw her arms around Spencer for an embrace.

"Now let's see which one I can spare," Professor Oak spared as he opened his bag and reached for the other capsules inside of it.