Journey of a Thousand Miles

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened."

—Douglas Coupland, Life After God

"You said you were an Absol?" I'm not particularly curious, but I find it ironic that a Pokémon that could sense danger, coupled with having a long lifespan, has perished. Stein's candle light flickers in what I assume to be a sigh, but his tone is still exasperatingly optimistic.

"Once upon a time, yeah. Feels like forever ago now."

"Oswald has not mentioned this to me yet, but how did you all die?"

"Well, that's . . . not a nice story," he says uneasily. "But he does like you, so I don't think he'll be too mad at me for telling. Well, I'll at least tell you part of it. Before the Big Fall on Mt Silver and all, Oz wasn't getting on too right with his parents. I'm the youngest of his Pokémon, so I don't know the whole story, but I know that they didn't treat him right. It was disgusting." His flames blaze for a moment, upping the temperature of the room, before shrinking down with a loud puff of smoke. "So, he ran off. He thought that if he could beat Red, he could get famous and rich and move far from them. We were alive when he climbed Mt. Silver."

"And you died before he could descend it, I presume?"

"Yeah, that's what happened. Something went wrong afterwards. Oz beat Red and all, but there wasn't a big hubbub right after like with you. It took a little time . . . enough time for that darkness to get free." The air suddenly seems colder as Stein closes his eyes. "We're his Pokémon. We protected our Trainer with our lives."

"And now you're wasting that life." His flame abruptly roars back to life, spiking the temperature so harshly I start sweating in seconds.

"He knows that! We always tell him, but he's so damn stubborn about it. We're not trying to kill him, you know. We wouldn't."

"Whether you're trying or not, you're doing so," I tell him. "Why don't you all just leave?"

"It's not our choice to make," he says gravely. "If we do, it'll be the last straw, and he'll break."

"That's dependency. It's no better."

"He knows that too," he says dismally. "As his Pokémon, even in death, we refuse to hurt him, but staying with him is hurting him too . . ."

"Look . . . and don't tell him I've said this . . . I don't want to see Oswald mortally injured, especially not dead. It wouldn't be any better to see him damaged, but he'll recover. He may be stubborn as an ox, but he's as strong as one too."

"That's Grit's strength, you know," he mutters.

"Not physically. I'm referring to the strength within."

"That's . . . still us, bro."

"You know what the hell I mean, and I'll send you to a second afterlife if you dare make me say it aloud."

"Ah, okay. Ya know, Oz has had a good influence on you. You're not as frosty as Grit anymore."

"Gee, thanks," I say with all the joy of a dead man. Stein's eyes close with happiness. "You did say you were an Absol?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"From my research, I learned that Pokémon, upon death, will turn into a Ghost-type of equal strength. An Absol is statistically much stronger than a Lampent, perhaps even stronger than a Chandelure."