Excerpt: poD.doc: convention

(There are typos. Whatever, that's for December.)

The terrain leveled off right before Lance's clearing, and then they were there. Fluffball and Fuzzball were unleashed to run off their concentration and generally be hyperactive dogs. Their human counterparts flopped on the ground and stretched.

"We're getting so dirty." Adalee snickered, feeling cold, moist dirt press up against her already sweaty t-shirt.

"Yeah, Ceri'd pitch a fit." Jaaren said, craning his neck and staring back at the utterly blue sky with no regard for the cleanliness of his hair. "It's really wet up here."

"Yeah, I figured it was a mountain thing. Like it rains a lot, or the dew point's high, or something. Like that fog the last time." She shrugged, listening to the dogs romp around with one ear. Birds tweeted, sweet and high pitched. "It smells so good up here."

"Can we just recommend Dragonair pop out some babies here?" Jaaren wondered.

Adalee threw a clump of soggy grass at him. "No."

"You just want to play with the babies."

"Damn straight I do."

Jaaren stretched again, flexing his foot to work the cramp out before it escalated. "We're out of shape." He lamented. "We shouldn't be feeling this yet."

"Blame the thinner air." Adalee suggested, doing the same. She rubbed her calf, then examined her bare arms. Fine scratches nicked them like faded crimson spider webs. "You all scratched up?"

"Yep. Blame that razor leaf bush." Jaaren sighed. "Fatal Leaf."

"So… let's not piss off any grass types." She suggested. "That could end poorly."

"If we can't set them on fire first." Jaaren said snidely, recalling the dismissive attitudes of his fellow masters. "Addie, if you come across any of them, any, I don't even care who, Solar Beam the holy hell out of them."

She saluted with one hand, trusting him to catch the motion out of his peripheral vision. He sat up and took a few long drinks of water. "Ready to explore properly?"

"Always." Adalee said, although she was slower to get up, even using her arms to push herself into a standing position. "Call 'em over."

Jaaren whistled for the dogs and gave Fuzzball a brief explanation of what was expected from his superior olfactory sense. "Fluffball will smell for wild types. You focus on our track so you can get us back to this clearing. Got it?"

Fuzzball woofed and wagged his tail.

"Okay, where to?" Adalee stood up on her toes again and peered over Jaaren's shoulder at the map. "There's another ridge that way. Wanna find it? It'll give us some frame of reference, at any rate."

"Let's do that last." Jaaren pointed at the slope up to the mountain. "Let's get that out of the way while it's sunny and clear. I don't-shit. Adalee, did you check the weather patterns and forecast?"

"Fuck me, I did not." She groaned. "I thought you did."

They just looked at each other. Fluffball pinned his ears down and dropped to his belly in exaggerated fear for his life.

"There will not be a repeat of Sea Foam." Jaaren said sternly. "I don't care what we find, or where."

"If Charmy can bail us out." She said darkly. "And I replaced Maro with Fuzz."

"No repeats." Jaaren repeated, not willing to go quite so realistically fatalist yet.

"Sure." The bright smile she gave him was condescending at best. "So… mountain?"

They clipped the dogs back on and headed that way, Fluffball ahead and Fuzzball bringing up the rear, solidifying the scent of their trail in his head. Adalee hung back with him, more space between her and Jaaren than they were used to, but enough to give the dogs room to work while still being harnessed. Trees were more sporadic there, although bigger. Their root systems were enormous, jutting through the rocky soil and creating almost hurdles in some places. The theme of the flora was clearly quality, not quantity. Visibility was made that much better, though, and in places where the trees had been done away with for whatever reason, there was almost even room enough to call it a small clearing. Some of the trees were cracked and scorched, lightning damaged, but some were just broken, their stumps eroded away.

"I don't like this." Jaaren said under his breath. Adalee only just heard him, so she moved closer. The line had enough slack for Fuzzball to keep whatever distance he wanted. She caught the last of his thought. "This isn't stable."

"The trees concern me." She agreed, looking back down at the ground. Some straggles of grass poked through, but not nearly enough. "Maybe the soil just sucks, but I'd expect more. There's plenty of sun and water."

At the next tree they stopped at, Jaaren tugged experimentally at a low hanging branch. It snapped off in his hand with minimal pressure. The interior of the limb revealed it not to be dead, but not far from it, either. None of the trees were particularly leafy; most were pine, and their browned needles littered the ground.

The closer they moved, the more they could see where the mountain began. It was a sudden ascent, although just as gray and brown as everything else. They kept that as a marker and began moving parallel to it. Jaaren consulted the map; Lance's clearing was a small natural plateau, so moving away from the mountain in almost any direction would bring them back to it. Fuzzball was still on duty, if for no other reason than needing the practice.

"Should have asked what Dragonairs look for." Adalee said, looking back up to the sky. Still that preternaturally clear blue, without a cloud or even a smear of one in sight. She kicked at the ground. The resulting divot was dark. She bent down, removed a glove, and ran a finger through it. "It's just wet, not healthy or anything."

Jaaren looked up at the mountain again. "Must be a lot of runoff."

"So I really can't in good conscious suggest she-do they work like that?-lay eggs somewhere like this." Adalee concluded.

"I wouldn't." He looked at the map again. "Okay, let's see how accurate this is. Let's just cut straight and see if we hit clearing."

Fluffball obligingly changed directions and they moved on. The eerie stillness continued, like they were the only living things there. Even the birds had largely silenced.

Jaaren began getting a bad feeling about it. He watched Fluffball almost exclusively, waiting for even the smallest indication that he smelled something. Nature didn't go silent for no reason. Nature went silent out of fear, or because everything was dead. The entire region was too prosperous, too crawling with life for him to believe the latter. Even isolated spots like that should have had something claiming it as an ecological niche, although he recognized that the sparseness of trees and underbrush would cut down on the small prey in the area. Nowhere to hide.

He didn't like that thought either, and flicked the leash to quicken Fluffball's pace.

"Fluffball, why aren't we going in a straight line?" Adalee asked.

Fluffball wagged his tail once and kept going in his chosen direction. They were taking a diagonal route, Jaaren noticed, still in the direction of the clearing and away from the mountain, but they were taking a slant away from their point of origin. Fluffball was too experienced of a traveler to do that no accident. His tail wag had been acknowledgement of that.

Fluffball's diagonal flattened, almost parallel to the mountain face again. Jaaren followed without question. Fluffball might have just scented a lake or some other large obstacle and was just skirting it. That was not a problem.

Fuzzball did not follow so easily. Adalee felt a tug as he hung behind, although he kept moving trustingly. When she looked over her shoulder, his body language radiated anxiety. "Uh oh," she said under her breath. She held the line in her hand, trusting the glove against rope burn. "Come on, big guy. Just keep moving."

Fluffball, never one to lose his cool, kept walking, his tail erect.

Fuzzball let out a tiny whine and jumped forward to press against Adalee's legs, nearly tangling himself in the suddenly slack leash. The insignificant high pitched noise triggered a massive reaction in Fluffball. He exploded forward in a run, moving for some denser trees in a lateral direction. Jaaren nearly hit the ground, but the loose line he'd allowed between them gave him half a second to keep on his feet. Fuzzball did not launch himself forward, but stayed as close to Adalee as possible.

Something big rumbled in the woods between them and the clearing. Fluffball kept his direction toward the denser trees. Jaaren didn't have time to check the map and see if the trees were denser for any particular reason, like a sharp drop-off. Adrenaline spiked through their systems and they blindly trusted Fluffball, because they really didn't have another choice.

Whatever had spooked Fuzzball sent a tree thudding to the ground, the impact reverberating through the soft ground and echoing against the close mountain face. And then they knew where all the trees and most of the wildlife had gone.

Fluffball slowed to a trot, then a walk, and then to a stop. He took on an aggressive stance, ears pricked forward and teeth bared. Jaaren moved behind him and unhooked him, wrapping the rest of the harness around his waist quickly. Adalee freed Fuzzball and in his consequent moment of panic, returned him. She looped up the leash and stepped next to Jaaren. Her heart thundered in her ears.

Fluffball snarled and glanced back at them pointedly.

"Big." Jaaren said lowly. "Kills trees."

Adalee felt the first sharp prick of panic. There weren't a lot of scraggly, towering pine trees, but there were enough to neutralize Charmy's biggest advantage. Nidoking was huge-most of hers were huge-but none could take out pine trees. "I can't." She said helplessly, Lance's words about them not being able to take on a lot of the area's denizens floating around her mind, taunting her and tangling up any clearheaded thought she might have had.

Jaaren didn't respond to her. He stared intently through the trees. Fluffball's tension practically vibrated off him and up Jaaren's leg. Fluffball didn't thing running was a viable option anymore. That meant they were pretty screwed, since there wasn't an empty space for them to climb on Charmy and none of the trees were climbable. Although in a pinch… "Can Bulby's vines get us up the tree?"

Adalee looked hopelessly up the tall, thin pines. "Maybe six feet. Not these trees." And they were apparently crashing to the ground, anyway.

Another fell, and they both flinched at the boom.

"Why can't we run?" She demanded. She fished the map out of his back pocket.

Rock face. That was why the trees suddenly went dense. It wasn't just foliage darkening the horizon, it was stone. And she did not want to risk pissing off rock types on top of this.

Jaaren sucked in his breath and she looked up sharply, suddenly cold fingers folding the map and cramming it back in his pocket. His pockets were bigger than hers and fit maps easier. She resented that. She could have pocketed it easier in her jeans. Her thoughts felt disjointed.

A dark purple mass barreled toward them like a small train, flattening saplings in its way. Not much in the world was purple and Adalee fleetingly wondered if their luck had run out. She had nothing to combat that, not in this arena.

Jaaren was already thinking ahead. Fluffball disappeared in a flash of red light and Adalee was glad that one of her favorites wasn't going to be in harm's way. She swallowed hard. Jaaren's breathing was shallow, but his movements were quick and precise. Flareon, Vaporeon, and Magmar appeared in front of them, arrayed like a line of cavalry.

Adalee's mind, stunned by the rare occurrence of being useless, snapped back into focus. She watched Arbok slither closer, bigger than any snake had any right to be. Its body had to be at least six feet in diameter, to say nothing of its head. "Snakes hate cold," she blurted, since it already obviously had them in its sights.

"That's great." Jaaren said tersely. Vaporeon's ears flicked back to them, listening. "Aurora Beam." It wasn't a command, just yet.

"I taught her Blizzard a few weeks ago." Adalee said, speaking so fast that the words tumbled over each other. "To see if I could. Dewy helped."

Jaaren had a very interesting way of speaking in crises. He sounded tense and annoyed and exasperated all at the same time. "When we get through this." He said, very clearly but also incredibly stressed, "I am either going to kiss you or kill you."

Adalee put all of that out of mind, almost relieved for something else to focus on instead. "Vape." She said sharply. "The sequence is Blizzard, over and over again. Aurora Beam if he calls for it."

Jaaren was giving orders to his fire types. "Magmar, just send lobs of fire." He said softly. He didn't know how well Arboks could hear, but he didn't want to give Flareon away. "Cover fire. Whatever you want or can do. Just cover. Flare, get too close for retaliation and nuke."

Adalee gnawed her lip just once, painfully, leaving little teeth marks. "If a fire starts, Surf." She added to Vaporeon. "But priority is Blizzard. I can get Squirmy to Surf if we have to."

Vaporeon gave her a curt little nod and braced herself. As soon as the monstrous Arbok was within range, its bright warning colors like an obscene and mocking target against its dark hide, she began Blizzard. Arbok spat, venom hitting the dirt. Flareon tucked his tail down as low as it could get, ready to run. Vaporeon pulled another Blizzard and they both shivered. Icicles dangled from pine needles and the dirt felt almost slushy. Flareon dug his paws in a little, preparing for his bolt. Magmar's flames smoked lightly, but he stood stolidly.

She blasted another Blizzard, panting afterward, and Arbok seemed to still. He jerked his head around, but his fluttering tongue moved sluggishly. The bright blaze of hostility in his eyes never dimmed.

Flareon took off on his own count, and Arbok spasmed to get a good aim at him; Magmar hit him with what on all accounts looked like a small comet. Arbok forgot about the tiny Flareon, the size of a large house cat to his mammoth tree-felling bulk, and focused on the enemies standing still in front of him. Magmar threw another comet at him.

Even as he followed the action with darting, nervous eyes, Jaaren wondered if he could make an attack out of that. Vaporeon was clearly struggling, and he let her rest. The significantly lowered ambient temperature had dulled Arbok's movement and reflexes, and Flareon had taken a roundabout route, curving through some trees and keeping low to the ground as he honed in on the large coils. One wrong roll or thrash would squish him flat. Jaaren let him judge his attack. He didn't need to be directly in contact for three thousand degrees to do some major damage.

Acidic spit hit the ground and smoke curled up from the thin layer of frost. Magmar threw another one and Arbok jerked massively. Flareon jumped further away. He had quit running and was pacing the length of Arbok's body, keeping out of Arbok's peripheral vision. Both Jaaren and Adalee kept silent, letting instincts run the show. Her finger rested on Squirmy's ball. Reflex would send the belligerent reptile into the fray.

Vaporeon took a deep, deep breath and blasted Arbok with an Aurora Beam on her own initiative. Sparkles danced around the golden, almost prismatic beam. They reflected like broken diamonds on the ice. Arbok shuddered again. It was enough for a fast retreat, but in the long term, that wouldn't solve the problem. Arbok had gone after them after Fuzzball had emoted fear. It wouldn't take much else for him to find them again, or Dragonair.

Vaporeon and Magmar began backing up, so the humans did the same. It was their one warning that Flareon had found his point of attack before the world went up in a roar of white, garnet behind tightly closed eyelids. Jaaren only just returned Vaporeon before he threw Adalee down under him and hit the ground. Adalee prayed her hair wouldn't ignite even as she struggled to breathe after the double impact knocked the wind out of her. Arbok screeched, then roared, and only added to the cacophony of catastrophe.

When the noise receded, Jaaren peeked. The trees around them burned merrily like enormous matches. Vaporeon's ice was all gone and the ground steamed. Flareon trotted out of the destruction like a furry little harbinger of death. At first he didn't see Arbok, looking for the giant purple. Arbok wasn't purple anymore. Arbok was black hulk. Little localized fires licked the air all around, including on the body. It was still overwhelmingly hot, heat coming across from the epicenter in waves. Adalee was struggling to breathe under him so he got up; she managed to crawl to her knees but still bent over, one hand supporting her upper body's weight on the ground and the other on her chest.

Flareon trotted over and nosed her arm, concerned. She tried to laugh and only wheezed, not yet having enough air in lungs. Magmar looked around, nonplussed. Extreme heat was nothing to him, or Flareon, or even to a lesser degree Jaaren. Adalee's skin was hot and her face was flushing, but she was holding out alright.

"Knocked-air…" She gasped. Jaaren pulled her to her feet and she took a few trembling breaths, each fuller than the last. "Okay."

Jaaren hit the second ball on her belt. They were muddy. Squirmy made lots of displeased noises upon materializing, lifting feet in quick succession. Jaaren supposed the ground was hot. "Yeah, yeah." He said. "Sorry. Fire control?"

Squirmy gave him a narrow-eyed look and watered the ground beneath him to cool it. Adalee quickly stepped in his puddle. He gave Adalee a cursory once-over to confirm her health before systematically jetting spurts of water over most of the flames on the ground. The trees turned torches would just burn themselves out. Most of the area was wet enough not to flare up, but Jaaren couldn't in good conscious leave a smoldering hotspot like that.

Once Squirmy was satisfied that he'd saved the forest, he squirted Adalee as well. After a second thought, he drenched Jaaren. She just laughed and hugged what she could of him. "You're so sweet." She teased. Her voice was dry and hoarse and she coughed. Jaaren handed her the water. Squirmy topped it off.

Jaaren waited until Squirmy had been nauseatingly loved on by Adalee and returned before complaining. "Now we're gonna freeze." He said unhappily, waiting for the first mountain wind to knife through his wet clothes.

"Blah blah blah, fire and ice." Adalee said. She stepped forward tentatively. "On second thought, Magmar, you go check out the carnage. I don't want to melt my boots."

Flareon yipped and danced after Magmar. Magmar practically sauntered to the charred remains of Arbok.

Jaaren watched them fondly. "Wonder if he's cooked all the way through."

Adalee slanted him a look and released Charmy. Charmy was obviously disappointed at missing the fun. Adalee pointed. "Go find out if we can eat that." She directed. "Flare nuked it. Your wings are a liability in trees, so don't sulk."

Charmy forgave most slights, real or imagined, for food. He hurried after the other two, his wings tightly folded.

"It's like microwaved snake." Jaaren said, the adrenaline and success making him giddy. "Dried out, and overcooked in some places-maybe undercooked or okay in others? Deeper in?"

"You're going to make them dig?" Adalee asked, aghast. "That's gonna be a bitch to clean!"

"He will anyway, to see if he can eat it. Obviously the outside's just gonna flake off." Jaaren said wisely. "Snake skin is delicate, anyway. Most of the exterior probably straight burned off. You can't see that fan of his anymore, can you?"

Adalee had to admit that no, she could not.

"Thinner skin." He sounded so damn smug, so she backhanded his upper arm with little feeling behind it. "It's gone. Bone is hard to burn, so the skull might still be intact. Tomorrow if it's cooler I wanna go check it out-maybe Vape can Blizzard it?"

"Wow." Adalee reflected, watching the three hardy fire types scavenge around, sniffing, poking, and kicking as they saw fit. "Ceri would have a fit."

"She'd be dead of about three heart attacks by now." Jaaren agreed. "Think Lance saw this coming?"

"I don't know, but I never want to go anywhere without you." Adalee said. "You make me look like a pussy."

Charmy used some modified form of Slash to cut open Arbok. Steam hissed free, billowing forth and obscuring Charmy from view for a few seconds. Magmar dug around inside and emerged with a handful for Charmy to investigate. Charmy sneezed at it and Magmar dropped it unceremoniously to the ground. Flareon sniffed at it and then promptly kicked some dirt on it.

Adalee giggled uncontrollably.

Magmar offered Charmy another sample. Charmy declined. Flareon did too. Adalee laughed her ass off. "Dude, let… let Rapidash out. She should be able to go over there, and she deserves to see this."

Jaaren looked down at her puddle and let Princess stand with her. Princess sat down, her tails lifted carefully out of the way, and actually looked goofy and approachable. Rapidash, not so much a crass carnivore, trotted around the perimeter of the disaster site looking for hidden damage that needed attention.

Charmy chewed a handful of Arbok meat thoughtfully then spat it out. Flareon had to dodge. Adalee nearly cried. Princess licked her arm, agreeing.

Jaaren wasn't sure that life got better.