Paldean Knights - Chapter 14 (Patreon)

“-and where do you think is the itchiest spot?” I asked with a smile.

Lehonor frowned as she looked over the pokemon in front of us. “Umm... his back?”

I chuckled, “Do you know why?”

Lehonor pouted for a moment, obviously a bit irritated at being forced to reason out her answer. “It's, uh... because he can't reach it?”

I turned to look at the excadrill flexing in front of my sister proudly. “What do you say, buddy? You want a back scratch?”

“Exca!” The digger-pokemon grunted, lowering himself down to the ground and calmly letting me leverage up my little sister to scratch his back. “Driiiiiiii~iiiiiiil.”

Lehonor giggled at the sounds of relief as she raked her hands through his coarse fur.

“Excadrill has arms that face forward, like us,” I told my sister, making sure she was paying attention as I explained an important lesson in pokemon anatomy. “So that means they can't easily scratch their own backs, just like us. You know when your back gets itchy and you ask Mother or one of the maids to help you?”

“So this pokemon is just like us?” Lehonor asked, utterly enthralled with the 'mon's cooing groaning. “Who scratches his back when we're not here?”

“Exca-excaaaa...” The giant mole wriggled like a worm before settling in limply.

“Usually his trainer will do it for him if he really needs it and Nurse Joy at a pokemon center will, too. But out in the wild, other drilbur and excadrill living together help each other. Just like us humans do,” I explained with a smile. “Now, where else does excadrill get itchy?”

“Umm...” Lehonor paused in her scratching, which made the pokemon she was on top of grumble. That, in turn, made the little girl giggle again and return to her previous task. “Under his drill? Because he can't reach that, right? His claws are too big!”

“Very good!” I grinned, reaching up and ruffling her hair.

“Azi!” She grumbled, irritated. “My hair! You're messing it up!”

I snorted, shaking my head. “You're going to need a bath after this anyway, Leha. Look at your knees and hands.”

She blinked, then looked down at her now-dirty fingers and dirt-stained dress. “Aww...”

“Remember that I told you to wear something you didn't mind getting dirty?” I teased her slightly as I gave excadrill one more scratch and then pulled her off his back. “Playing with pokemon will usually get you dirty, remember that if you want your own one day.”

“Okay...” She sighed, turning to trudge back through the courtyard.

I caught her by the shoulder. “Not so fast, little sister. What do we say?”

She turned, blinked at me once, then her eyes widened in realization and she stiffened and turned back to the pokemon. “Oh! Sorry, um... thank you for letting us play with you, Excadrill. And thank you, Mr. Trainer, for letting us play with your pokemon.”

The older man – a little past middle age, if I had to guess – nodded respectfully at my sister and me, his sweaty and slightly-dirty clothing a bit askew from the morning shift he was on break from. “No problem, your highness. Glad he was well behaved for you, excadrill can get a little ornery sometimes.”

The excadrill in question looked mildly offended at the accusation and turned away from the older man with a huff. My sister giggled and, with a final wave, scampered off to where our mother was watching like a talonflame, her lycanroc sitting ready at her side.

“Cadrill,” the large 'mon rumbled, bending back down and looking me over carefully with its small eyes. “Exca. Excadrill.”

I smiled, a blush forming over my cheeks as I dipped my head. “You come from an old line of breeders if you recognize that. One of the old sapper lines?”

His trainer jerked slightly, having been watching my sister go back to our mother. “That's right, kid-er, your highness. My father had connections to one of the old knight houses. How'd you know?”

“Just something he said,” I replied vaguely, holding up a hand. “May I?”

“Hey wait a minute, don't-!” His words caught in his throat as the excadrill bent lower and tilted the protective metal sheath atop his head slightly to the side.

Carefully, I reached up and began scratching between his eyes, smiling at the sigh of relief and pleasure he release. Of course, the dumbfounded look on the trainer's face didn't hurt, either. “Thank you for the honor. Be careful tunneling down there. I know you're immune to poison, but there are plenty of water-types in addition to the ghosts and dark-types.”

Taking my hand away, the excadrill dipped his head again and lumbered off to the hole being dug. His trainer, though, stared at me, his blank shock having morphed to baffled confusion. “He doesn't normally let anyone do that. Only trusts me to help him out with his face on occasion.”

“Of course,” I replied with a nod. “Excadrill's face it its most vulnerable part of its body. It has those red spots of fur set further back to trick predators into attack its 'false eyes.' Since it spends so much time underground, its real eyes are weak and underdeveloped, leaving it with weak visual acuity in daylight. So it would have to trust you completely to let you touch its face.”

The trainer blinked and shook himself, then nodded slowly. “Th-that's... yeah, that's right. You know your pokemon, prince. Still doesn't explain why he'd let you... no offense, but...”

I laughed a bit and popped my neck as I formulated a response. “Hmm... like I said, he's from an old Paldean breeding line of knights who would use them to undermine fortifications, right? Let's just say... he recognized the royal family from stories his line passed down.”

Not entirely a lie.

But not remotely the truth.

I think the excavator knew it, too, but the gaze he flicked at my mother told me he knew exactly how unwise it would be to interrogate me. “Alright then, guess it'll be a mystery. Still, thanks for the advice on the digging. I'll watch out for that underground lake.”

“Best of luck,” I nodded at him. “Your excadrill is a very strong pokemon and you treat him well, you should be proud.”

Despite coming from a child, the words seemed to stiffen his spine as he nodded... then thought better of it and dipped into a half-bow. “Good day, your highness.”

“Good day to you, too,” I nodded, taking my leave with a sigh as I shouldered my egg incubator and my bag. Dropping my voice, I slid my hand along the egg's outer case. “Still not ready, huh?”

There was a muted pulse from the life within, one which I replied in kind to with quiet reassurance and patience.

She'd take her time, and that was fine.

“You seem to like that pokemon,” Mother noted as I walked up to where Lehonor was talking about her experience as if the woman hadn't been watching the entire time. “Thinking about taking a drilbur for yourself?”

I pursed my lips thoughtfully for a moment, but... ultimately shook my head. “I'm busy enough right now. Especially if Grandfather comes through with what I asked him for...”

It had been extremely difficult to narrow down my choices and, if I was honest, I still wasn't sure if I'd made the right call. Receiving what was effectively a 'blank check' to request any pokemon I'd wanted was... big. Really big. Of course, the offer excluded mythics and legendaries, because we don't have Ash Ketchum on tap for that kind of thing. And that's probably for the best, really.

Legendaries were some terrifying bullshit.

Real monsters that could level mountains and wipe out cities, should the mood take them.

And there was a wealth of historical accounts to prove it.

But, at any rate, I didn't really want one of them, anyway. It would cause me no end of trouble to deal with that reputation I'd get from having one of them on my team. I was just figuring out what kind of trainer I wanted to be and I'd doubtless need to suffer some fame for the sake of living as I pleased, but this and that were two different things.

Besides, there were plenty of other options.

Though... I didn't want it to be a pokemon I could acquire for myself. Going on a journey, capturing pokemon... well, that was the point of it. So, even if I wanted a giant apocalyptic flame moth to rain fire down upon my enemies from on high... I knew the general regions where I could find a larvesta and I'd get around to that on my own time. Though, given how long they took to evolve... probably needed to make that a soon-ish priority.

But, more relevantly, I had wanted to pick out a pokemon that I couldn't get in Paldea.

And there were plenty of those, oddly enough. It was a little weird to think about the fact that you couldn't easily get a pidgey, for instance. Or nidoran, machop, togepi, abra, onix...

Hell, there weren't even any absol! I wanted a disaster puppy!

Ahem.

I mean... an absol would be super useful. But they had a certain reputation as harbingers of chaos and disasters. So I couldn't exactly ask for one without freaking everyone out. And, even if I swore up and down they warned people rather than caused catastrophes themselves, I'd have to keep explaining that over and over again... and it would still look bad for the royal family. It'd be in the papers, on the news... a major scandal.

Sometimes being high-profile sucked.

Maybe one day.

So it had to be a pokemon that wasn't in Paldea and, because I was rich and could conceivably afford to purchase an egg or juvenile pokemon from a breeder, that meant any species that could be obtained from them, too. Admittedly, that narrowed my options substantially and helped out quite a bit in terms of coming to a decision.

The obvious choice was a honedge, but...

Ugh, I was being unreasonable. Wanting to do things myself.

So, instead I'd chosen-

“Aznaro?” Mother asked, and I jerked slightly in surprise.

“Ah... sorry, I got lost in thought. It's not that I don't want a drilbur, they're great pokemon. Very strong and useful, great battlers,” I waved her off. “But I have enough right now. Maybe later, after I have the ones I have trained up now.”

“Excadrill as a battler? I suppose I see them on Galar's circuit and every now and then here in Paldea, but they were never numerous enough in Alola for many people to have them outside of industrial uses,” Lani sighed, shaking her head.

“And Alola doesn't have all that much of a battling culture, right?” I asked, frowning.

“We have enough of one, especially with all the noise those da-ah, those Kantonians keep making,” Mother huffed, shaking her head.

I cocked my head, frowning. This was the first I'd heard of-

“But enough about that! Come on, your grandfather wants us to meet near the stable they're renovating for you,” Mother smiled.

Blinking, I was unable to stop myself from taking a sharp breath. “That means-!”

“Your present is ready,” Mother nodded indulgently. “And you were well-behaved at the birthday breakfast today – including being on time for once – so you're ready to receive your gifts. You should be thankful that today's schedule allowed for a good compromise.”

In essence, my birthday had been divided up into a 'breakfast party' and a 'dinner party.' The first was just simple family time that didn't really involve anything interesting or substantial. Now we'd have the actual party, complete with gifts. Unfortunately, that also meant a select few of the nobility had called in favors or been important enough to attend.

Which, yes, I was a tad grumpy about.

But I'd been promised an appropriate tithe.

“But first!” Mother cried with a smile that made my blood freeze. “A quick change of clothes!”

I clicked my tongue and-

“And no sneaking off!” Mother glared at me, lycanroc moving to flank me with an ease that came from decades of coordination. The dog's easy stare silently dared me to try.

I sighed, my shoulders slumping with the exhalation.

“Nothing with ruffles?” I asked plaintively.

“It's for your birthday, so no,” Mother sighed, tugging Lehonor along. “And you, young lady, need a quick bath.”

“Yes, Mother!” Lehonor chirped happily.

…

The theme for the evening was apparently 'very fancy backyard barbeque.'

Although here in Paldea, they called it parrillada.

It was also a lot more subtle flavoring than I'd been used to, a lifetime ago, but was more than familiar by now. Regardless, though, it was still chunks of meat roasted over hot coals for hours in juicy marinade. That was more than enough to appease me after I'd been forced into a suit.

Suits, the perpetual bane of my existence.

“-cumpleanos feliz, te deseamos todos!”

As the singing cut off I dipped into a small bow to all of the important guests, “Thank you very much for coming. I appreciate your attendance at my party, informal as it may be. Rest assured that, when I formally enter society upon my graduation from the academy, you will all receive an invitation.”

Provided I'm not hiding int the wilds and living like a hermit, of course.

If that was the case, I'm sure they would understand.

There were a few more required interactions here and there, but eventually, I managed to make my way over to my grandfather. The king chuckled when he saw me, clapped a guest on the upper arm with an excuse, and made his way over to me with a twinkle in his eye.

“You know this is mainly just your reward, right grandson?” He asked, patting me on the head as we walked off towards the distant stable I'd picked out. “It's not your real present.”

In the corner of my eye, I could see a security team sweeping around us, a few stealthy pokemon out escorting them or hiding where they couldn't be seen. Well, that, or where people wouldn't look. The corviknight and talonflame circling above us, for instance, weren't part of the usual fauna. As far as I knew, there were no fully-evolved 'mon from either of their lines in the King's Wood.

I shrugged. “Either way, it's fine.”

Finally coming to the stable-house, we approached the large high-fenced area and glimpsed a flare of quickly-moving red light. While we were occupied with that, the door to the main building of the stable – a small house – opened up and a man dressed in rugged clothing stepped out. He had black hair, blue eyes, and was just a bit shorter than my grandfather. Of course, everyone was taller than me right now, so that didn't matter much. Still, he approached with deference, dipping his head as he did so.

“Ah, Your Majesty,” he smiled, and I barely needed to read him to know how anxious he looked. “There's been... a bit of a hiccup.”

My grandfather frowned dangerously and the man winced. “Hiccup? What kind of... hiccup? The pokemon is here, isn't it? It's-”

“WHIEHIEHIE!”

My muscles tensed, but I was long-practiced with pokemon by this point, and the aborted charge of the ponyta that left him rearing up and jabbing his hooves in the air wasn't designed to be an actual attack. Just an intimidation move.

My grandfather took two steps back, heedless of the reinforced fence that separated us.

The fact that the fence was still unblemished was testament enough to the fact that the ponyta didn't really want out. If he did, he'd have been throwing fire around a lot more than he was. Even just the few embers he spat off only scorched grass.

“He's wild, too wild,” the stable-hand explained with a sigh as the ponyta backed off and began pacing the large field aggressively. “I think there was a misunderstanding. They sent a stallion instead of a mare.”

“How does that explain... this?” Grandfather asked, waving at the young unicorn with the narrowed gaze as it dug a hoof through the grass and stared us down.

“Stallions are more aggressive than mares, Grandfather,” I informed him, not taking my eyes off the pokemon. “I'm guessing they usually send mares out for younger trainers, then?”

“Ah... yes, your highness,” the stable-hand nodded. “I'm terribly sorry about the mix-up, but-”

“It's fine,” I waved him off and took two deliberate steps forward.

The ponyta jerked its head back in surprise as I closed to the fence line.

How Dare?!

The question was written so plain on his face that I had to fight down a snort, even as the stable hand stepped up in the side of my vision. “Your highness, please, you shouldn't-”

“WHIEHIEHIEHIE!” The ponyta cried again, charging once more in our direction.

I felt more than saw or heard the men sweeping in behind us. Snapping out a hand, I kept my eyes locked on the ponyta's gaze.

The agents paused, likely unsure why they'd bothered.

Calm.

...and the ponyta galloped to a halt, breathing a snort of oven-hot air out at me as he glared. I gave him a single nod, to which he threw back his head and toss his fiery mane.

“You're strong,” I lied to the flame-horse. In absolute terms, the 'mon was young, likely one of the weaker ones of its herd. I didn't know ponyta, but I knew enough herding pokemon to understand some of the mindset. Tauros, in particular. And in any communal grouping, someone had to be low-man on the pecking order.

That would explain the fear I felt being sublimated into anger.

“Pokemon with trainers get stronger than pokemon without,” I spoke plainly, and the young buck huffed loudly, his mane and tale flaring.

“It's the truth,” I shrugged. “I need a strong fire-type for my team. You'd do well. I actually asked for a ponyta specifically. I could have asked for a magmar or a charmander or some other fire-type, but I wanted a ponyta.”

His head rose, pride settling in as he calmed.

Calm.

“It's... weird,” I settled on, edging away from the word 'scary.' Fear would be a sore point with this one. Dragons might be famous for their pride, but it wasn't a trait unique to them. “It's weird being traded away from your herd, I get that. But I don't want a pokemon who doesn't like me. If you don't like me, we can't work together, and neither of us can grow stronger.”

I let that sink in for a moment as we eyed each other.

The other reason why I didn't like the idea of trading or buying pokemon too much. It was one thing if a pokemon wasn't satisfied with their position and wanted to team-swap. It was another when someone coldly decided their pokemon wasn't 'powerful' or 'useful' enough and wanted to trade up to a newer model. That kind of thing hurt.

“You wouldn't want to work with someone you didn't like, would you?” I asked, reaching up to scratch at my neck.

He huffed again, shaking his head and neck in a negative. “Pony! Ponyta!”

Ah, so we can be civil if we want to...

“Ta-pony!” He neighed, stepping closer until we were each next to the fence, the heat of his flames threatening to bring a sheen of sweat on my face.

I tilted my head, then nodded. “Okay.”

-and reached through the fence.

“Kid, wait!” The handler shouted, a the fall of a heavy boot indicating a step forward.

The flames of his mane... felt like nothing I'd ever touched before. They were warm, yes, but... there was the ghostly-sensation of a furry mane entwined within it. My fingers swept through the fire, headless of the primal part of my brain that was deeply upset with me for sticking my hands into the shiny hot stuff thousands of my ancestors had learned meant pain.

I felt the muscles in his neck relax as I ran my knuckles along the shorter white fur of his body.

The ponyta gave a breathy sigh at the sensation.

“You want me to come in and brush you down? Get you some fresh water?” I asked temptingly, and the juvenile stallion seemed to waffle at the offer. “Oops, what's this... there's something in my pocket.”

I gave a mock gasp and produced a pair of sugar cubes I'd swiped from the drink table.

“Whiehiehei,” he nickered quietly, his eyes now locked onto the white cubes.

“Here you go,” I murmured, extending my hand with the palm flat as a greedy tongue quickly lapped up the first, then the second of the treats. I'd have offered him a berry, if I had one, but unfortunately my trusty expanded bag and my egg were sitting inside under the careful watch of Lyra as she took her break and entrusted my security to the broader guard arrayed for the party.

The party also being the reason sprigatito wasn't sitting on my shoulders, unfortunately.

She'd get extra treats later for being a good sport about it.

“Well I'll be...” The stable-hand breathed as I familiarized myself with the ponyta, who leaned into my touch more eagerly now than before. Seriously, the fire-mane was cool... pun not intended. This might be a problem.

“You get what you give,” I told him absently, my attention still focused on the horse. “If you treat a pokemon like they're something to be scared of, they'll become something to be scared of. If you treat them like a friend, they'll be a friend. Everyone likes having friends, right?”

The ponyta rolled his dark eyes and chuffed, but gave me an affirmative nip.

Yeah, yeah, you're too cool for friends, gotcha.

“Can I have a brush and some water? And maybe a few fresh apples?” I asked, turning towards the stable-hand with an expectant expression, as if I didn't notice the sudden eagerness in the ponyta.

Grandfather cleared his throat when the other man didn't respond. “R-right! I'll just, yes!”

The king snorted while the other man ran off and stepped a bit closer to the fence, looking the ponyta over. “It's one thing to hear my son tell me you have a way with pokemon, but I'll admit it's another thing entirely to see it in action, Aznaro.”

“He was just a bit frustrated from being left alone in here all day, weren't you?” I asked, getting a dismissive huff in response. “Ponyta are herd animals. You shouldn't leave them alone. All he was doing was telling us he was-”

Scared.

“-angry that he didn't have anyone to play with,” I explained. “But he's wonderful, thank you Abuelo.”

“I'm glad you think so,” the old man chuckled, seemingly at a bit of a loss for words. “Your actual gift is inside the stable-house. Everything you'll need to take care of your new ponyta and a few odds and ends that were recommended to me when your father and I consulted the groundskeeper on renovating this place. I even had a saddle commissioned for you. Ponyta aren't exactly common in Paldea, so it had to be custom.”

“Here that?” I asked, smiling as I stroked his neck and he perked up. “How about after I brush you down, you have some apples and water, I see about fitting that saddle and we have a bit of a run? Just you and me?”

Turns out? A ponyta's mane and tale brightness are pretty big emotional tells. They get brighter when they're more excited.

Also fire horse go fast.

~~~

Party Time?

Party Time.

Sadly, this is the lame party with nobles and stuff. The cool party is next time. And I do mean cool. Cold, even! But the fun kind!

Anyway, no more suspense about which pokemon Aznaro picked. I won't be cruel.

Next update... I'm still doing some plotting on Mind Games, but if I finish I'll get to work on that. If I don't quite manage to in the next day or so, it'll be Butler Boy. Either way, some combination of Butler Boy and Mind Games this week. Look forward to it!

Also, you've got one more day on the polls! Don't forget to vote!