8- The Kingdom of the Sea

Quentin stood up and slipped out of his hammock, stretching and groaning quietly as his back popped. It was still dark out; he wasn't quite sure why he had awoken. However, when he looked over, the other hammock was empty. That, he knew why.

Making his way up to the deck, he saw her figure waiting at the prow, shivering and looking out over the ocean. Throwing a quick glance to the tiller lashed straight, he padded up behind her, alerting her to his presence with a tap on the shoulder. She still jumped, before turning to him.

"Hey Quentin." she muttered with a small smile.

"You look terrible." He wasn't exaggerating by any means. Her wide eyes carried dark bags under them, marred by tear tracks in the dust; the line of her shoulders belied weariness, and the shivering wasn't helping her image at all.

They both looked out over the calm sea in companionable silence, saying nothing. Jacqueline was the first to speak.

"I just can't get his face out of my head. Every time I close my eyes, I can see him. Wide, blind eyes set in a bloody face."

Quentin didn't have any response to this, so he simply unfolded the blanket he had brought and draped it around her shoulders. Jacqueline clutched it gratefully.

"Am I a murderer, Quentin?" she murmured quietly.

Feeling a terrible guilt settle on him, he smiled softly, painfully; and gathered her to his chest in a hug, trying to share some measure of comfort. "No, you're not a murderer. Mr. Briney..." his voice gave out, and he had to try again. "Mr. Briney was very sick. What happened wasn't your fault."

The words felt wooden and false on his tongue, and he hoped desperately she couldn't detect that. They were empty words, and he knew it all too well. A man was dead due to them. An old man, and not a healthy one, but the law made no distinction. After all, either way, there was a corpse moldering in the stinking house, and they were riding the corpse's stolen property south.

"If I'm not a murderer, then what am I? What happened back there?"

Ignoring the second question, he answered in a matching whisper, "You're Jacqueline. That's good enough for me."

Jacqueline, mollified somewhat, began to doze off, held in his comforting arms and a warm blanket protecting her against the night air. Quentin stared back towards the mainland, happy that the fear was gone from her eyes, but his gaze was troubled. The only noise was the soft lapping of the waves against the sides of the ship, and the gentle creaking of timber as they rode the swell. The black sky offered no solace.

-Idealism-

Quentin had perhaps too much time on his hands as the boat half-sailed, half-drifted south. Too much time to think. Despite his previously successful repression of the memory, Mr. Briney's face had returned to his dreams. So had Jacqueline's mask of fear when he had forced her to keep moving. The third participant in these dreams was Brasidas, the little Ralts he had recently adopted. His doubt and mistrust of Quentin had been rather evident when he had been called out to hold off a grief-stricken Wingull attacking Quentin, who was kneeling over a dead body.

Not the best of impressions, that was to be sure.

Sighing, he wondered how he was going to explain that to the Ralts. The little psychic had seemed so nice initially, then sent a mental spike deep into his thoughts that same day. He'd do it later. There was no point in confronting his pokemon on an isolated boat, traveling who-knows-where.

They were going south still, right?

At least he could busy himself for a while yet puzzling over incomprehensible sea-charts and odd instruments. Keeping his mind off things was always helpful.

Nightmares or fears, you can't run from anything when you're on a boat and they are too. It's just how boats work. Isolation, but also a trap.

Quentin would remain in the cabin until they hit dry land. And the verb "hit" is not at all metaphorical.

He was jarred from his chair and thrown across the room, hitting the wall painfully as a resounding crack echoed from the front of the ship and it stopped abruptly. He took his time getting up; several books had fallen on him. Big-ass books on navigation and boats that he couldn't make heads or tails of. Quentin had to catch his breath after those landed on him in a dizzying impact.

The ship groaned, and shifted slightly. Keeping his balance was an ordeal. When the tremor passed, he ran up the hatch, having to steady himself as the ship settled lower. The first change in the scenery he saw was the looming wall of sandstone, with a thin scrap of beach lying in front of it. The second thing he saw was that the sky had changed from a brilliant blue to skies as grey as steel. However, neither of those was the first problem. That would belong to the spar of rock, wet with spray, that had impaled the front of the ship, emerging tall and menacing from the foredeck.

To get there at that angle, it'd have to pierce straight through the bottom of the ship... and every compartment in the way...

His gear was stowed belowdecks where he slept. He didn't have any of his pokeballs on him. Quentin, scarcely daring to hope, scarcely daring to fear, scrambled down the companionway, ignoring the many splinters he was accumulating from the shredded planks as he heedlessly pushed off of the walls.

When he crashed through the door to the cramped cabin, some of his fear was realized. The spar had pierced neatly through the center of the room, obscuring anything behind it and destroying the small lantern that had lit the room. The darkening day did not help the visibility, which came in angles and half-light best seen in peripheral vision. Sloshing his way through the dark water which lapped around the floor, he made his way to where his own hammock once hung, now only a tattered net of snapped and frayed fibers. Sighing, he discovered his bag still in the storage space he had left it, thankfully high off the ground. Clipping his belt and pokeballs back onto his waist, he relaxed slightly in their familiar weight. He threw his black, slightly puffy jacket around his shoulders and slung his backpack on one arm.

Feeling a little more complete, he was warned against dawdling by the ship shifting again, this time lower. The dark water splashed thickly around his ankles, a little higher this time. High-stepping his way out, Quentin released Turnus and handed him his backpack. "Take this to shore, okay little buddy? I gotta go back and grab my other stuff."

The mudkip attempted to protest, but with its mouth firmly clamped on a backpack strap, could only make a muffled "maaaa" noise. Quentin patted his starter on the head, before straightening up and slipping down into the hold once more.

Turnus looked around, only now realizing the gravity of the situation. Waddling over to the edge of the boat, he fell off, striking out strongly for the shore. He was a water pokemon, after all. Freshwater may be his environment, but it doesn't mean he's helpless in an ocean.

However, it does mean that there are hunters more adapted to the environment than he is.

As Turnus doggedly swam on, he couldn't help but look down at the vast depths beneath his feet. Imagine his surprise when he looked down and a light blinked back. Curious, he paused, paddling in place to watch the little light. It blinked slowly, in and out, in a rhythmic pattern. As he watched, the light seemed to illuminate his vision, as the surrounding details of the ocean began to fade out.

There was the light. It seemed to steadily begin growing, mesmerizing, enfolding him in that beautiful, pure light. It was so strange, so intriguing, that he barely kept holding on to the backpack he had been entrusted with. The light was just below him now, pulsing faintly. Entranced, Turnus stretched out a paw to stroke it, to touch that light; then it began flashing brilliantly, with a blindingly bright light emanating from that single focal point. Turnus closed his eyes; he didn't really have any choice in the matter. The brightness was painful.

Then came the swish of displaced water, and Turnus felt the water squeezed out around him as something snapped shut behind him. However, it couldn't finish its motion as it encountered the backpack Turnus carried.

Turning, Turnus could see the light through the faint gap the backpack forced open. What was this jagged gap? Watching, he could only begin to fathom what was going on, even as the surface he stood on began to move about. With a cry, he was thrown on his side as the floor moved all around him.

The lanturn, its light now dimmed, shook itself violently as it tried to swallow that annoying little tidbit jammed in its mouth.

-Idealism-

Quentin, back in the bowels of the ship, had returned to the cabin. Gathering his items to him, he packed them all safely away in a duffel bag, and as an afterthought added all the food he could lay his hands on. Throwing this duffel over his shoulder, he returned to the deck, conscious of a nagging feeling in the back of his mind. He was forgetting something...

Or someone.

Where was Jacqueline?

Fear iced his limbs as he slid back down the hatchway, bursting back into the cabin, heedless of the new splinters.

"Jacqueline!" he called cautiously, fearing both a response and silence. Nothing answered except the dark water lapping around his shins.

Looking once more at the spar piercing through the center of the cabin, he moved closer. Running his hands over its wave-worn surface, he hummed tightly and nervously as he searched for some sort of gap.

There!

At one side of the cabin, there was a gap between the wall and the solid rock. It was roughly triangular, and about three feet by three feet. However, it was nearly submerged. Tossing his duffel into a mostly-dry hammock, he took a deep breath before diving under.

It was dark, and quite cold; Quentin never swam much, and the ocean was no exception. Feeling his way roughly until he came to the entrance, he surfaced, taking a deep breath. Then he dove back to try and wriggle through.

He roughly forced his way through the gap, bruising his shoulders but emerging onto the other side with only a little contortion. However, here was even darker, if that was possible. Stumbling forward, he came across an object in his path, and he fell. Gritting his teeth against his eventual impact with the cold liquid pooled on the floor, he was very surprised when he never hit. Instead, his fall was stopped by a warm body in a suspended hammock, which didn't respond to him rudely falling onto it.

Quentin stopped breathing for a second. Attempting to regain his balance, he cautiously touched the form in front of him.

"Jacqueline?" he half-whispered.

His hand brushed the bare skin of her stomach, and he swallowed a gulp of nervousness. She still hadn't stirred.

Lightly tracing his way up her body with his fingertips, he shivered in fear. As little as he liked to admit it, he had gotten attached to his short-term traveling partner. But now, his hands found her immobile body in the darkened hold of a stolen boat. Closing his eyes for a split second, he exhaled deeply, even as his fingers found the stickiness of blood between her shoulder and neck.

In anger and frustration, Quentin punched a wall. With a resounding thud, the whole side of the boat shook, and the wood dented inwards. He angrily struck the weak wood again and again until he struck through into air and water, the surf striking him straight in the face. He glared into the waterline without blinking, salt stinging his eyes. He wasn't quite sure where it was from.

Wrestling her body out of the hammock, Quentin pulled both of them into the spray, no longer quite so sure of where he was going; just attempting to get off this cursed ocean.

Flailing his way blindly to the shore, he succeeded in pulling the both of them onto the wet sand of the beach. Flopping down half-in, half-out of the spray, Quentin groaned, exhausted, collapsing and breathing hard.

-Idealism-

Turnus wasn't doing quite so well. He was shaken frightfully hard as the lanturn thrashed, attempting to dislodge the bag stuck in its mouth, and by extension, the mudkip. He could hear the deep sea fish snapping futilely as it jerked back and forth. The thrashing lanturn, isolated from its pod near the surface, was also somewhat out of its element. This was realized as one of its rare predators decided to pay this lanturn a visit.

The beast's blunt nose drove upwards into the light pokemon, stunning it with the blow. The lanturn's jaw slackened as it floated stunned, and water once more flowed into its half-open mouth. Turnus took the opportunity to swim out, dislodging the backpack strap. He barely avoided the snapping jaws of the predator as it seized on the lanturn's deadliest weapon- its beacon- and ripped it clean off. The wailing creature sank deeper, its blood drawing others of the kind that hunted it; and Turnus swam away in a rush as sharpedo fought over the dying lanturn carcass.

Finding his master on the beach, he dragged the waterlogged bag up by his head before lying down in the crook of Quentin's neck and curling up, falling quickly asleep.

-Idealism-

The first thing Quentin was aware of when he woke up was of something crawling on his face. Idly shooing off the small sand-crab, he groaned, not want to open his eyes to the brightness he could sense beyond them. After the crab and the brightness, he felt the sand and salt and sweat making an unholy grime over his body. Not the most pleasant of feelings.

Shifting slowly upwards, ignoring the crust of sand cracking and falling off in small fitted pieces, he sat up. He felt a powerful urge to rub his eyes, but he was aware that his hands were no cleaner than his face, and compromising, used the shoulder of his sweatshirt. It wasn't much less sandy either, but it was an improvement.

Quentin slowly cracked his eyes open and was greeted by a wrenching sight. First off, Turnus was here with his bag; he had worried about his mudkip. Second, in the middle ground was the body of Jacqueline, head lolling bonelessly to one side. In the far ground, out in the surf, the wreckage of a sailboat was impaled on the reef, and was crashing to pieces with the impact of the waves, bit by bit. Sitting up fully, he grimaced.

Making his priorities known, he reassuringly touched Turnus' fin before limping over to Jacqueline. A nasty cut lined the side of her head, marring her dark hair with dried blood. The cut was now lined with sand, causing Quentin to wince slightly. Brushing her hair out of her face, the teen sighed, heavy with guilt.

Rocking to his feet, he began to walk away, recalling Turnus and picking up his bag. His eyes were dry, and he looked ahead to the forbidding cliffs with trepidation.

He paused.

Yep, he wasn't hearing things.

That definitely was a scratchy cough from behind him.

Turning, he was speechless at the sight of the girl he had almost left for dead dragging herself up onto one arm, hacking weakly. He wasn't quite sure when he slid to his knees, or when she stopped coughing, long sandy hair masking her face.

When she managed to raise her head, a challenging smirk tugged at the corners of her lips. Finally succeeding in this aim, a full-blown smile stretched across her face. Quentin was silent still; his eyes said all that he needed to. "Heh..." she spoke, in a voice rusty from misuse.

"Looks like we made landfall, huh?"

Quentin walked over and offered his hand, and pulled her to her feet with a powerful tug. Finally regaining control of his vocal cords, he smiled "Yeah. Pity about the boat though."

The banter was roughly interrupted by a coughing fit. When they were fit to resume conversation, Quentin did not offer any extra information on the shipwreck or how he came to drag Jacqueline out.

"If we're to get to Dewford, we're going to need to find a way around this mountain. I don't think we're in the shape to go over." The mountain in question sloped sharply down to the very cliffs that edged their beach, littered with sharp rocks and treacherous drops.

Stepping forward, Jacqueline let out Terry. The vulpix yawned and stretched, before noticing the state of his trainer. Yipping worriedly, he rushed up to her, nosing her salt-soaked pant leg. How had she come to be in such a state? It took several minutes for Jacqueline, chuckling, to assure him that she was alright now, and that she'd keep him out for a while longer.

They began to make their way down the sun-soaked beach, heading for the cliffs. Jacqueline took the opportunity to stretch her legs, breaking off crusted material in the joints of her clothing. Her discomfort was noticeable.

After a short jaunt to the cliffs, they paused to catch their breath, lamenting their lack of endurance. "This might take a while," spoke Jacqueline, filling the silence.

Quentin only inclined his head in response, not wanting to say anything more. Turnus bounced around them, completely recovered from nearly being eaten by a lanturn some time ago. Finding a spot on the ground that made a funny noise when he landed on it, he repeated the process again and again, rejoicing in the sound, and landing as hard as he could.

However, that was not the best of ideas in this situation. For when the rumbling started, he had weakened the thin crust of rock that supported them; and the unexpected shaking caused them to fall through into the caves that riddled the island. With ungainly squawks of surprise, they tumbled down , landing in a cloud of sand and shattered rock.

Jacqueline was the first to stand up, looking up at the circle of bright blue sky. Sand fell in soft waves down the edges of the hole, but she had eyes only for the distance back to the surface.

They wouldn't be able to climb that high.

The next thing she became conscious of was a shuffling noise behind her. Turning, she saw Quentin staring down a fearsome, armored beast, paralyzed with his own fear. The creature wore steel plates as a kind of armor in serrated ridges down its back, with circular holes on the sides as the only flaw. It seemed built to inspire fear, with metallic spikes and ringed bands adorning its dark gray body. It growled threateningly at Quentin, who stared wide-eyed at the armored quadruped. Without pausing, she grabbed Quentin's shirt collar and dragged him backwards, away from the powerful pokemon.

Gritting out of the corner of her mouth, she spoke to her companion without taking her eyes off the sturdy pokemon. "Any idea what the hell that is?"

Quentin's Pokedex spoke out loudly in the tense atmosphere.

Lairon, the Iron Armor Pokemon. It habitually shows off its strength with the sparks it creates by ramming its steel body into boulders.

The boy winced at the volume. He would need to find the settings for that at some point. Angered by the noise, the newly-recognized Lairon roared at them, with Turnus' weak growl being overpowered by the metal beast's louder cry.

Before it could charge, however, another noise made it halt.

This noise, contrary to all expectations, wasn't rough, or menacing, or the sign of more misfortunes. Instead, it was clear, and high, and unmistakably human.

"Hey hey, Rono! What have I told you about going off without my permission?"

A girl about their own age emerged from the passageway, and stopped short at the sight of the two humans that had dropped in.

Unsure of how to react, both parties stared at each other for a short while, openmouthed. Quentin drank in the sight of a wide-eyed girl clothed in an red zip-up shirt and black bike shorts, with light brown hair falling straight down from a matching red bandana to frame her face. The newcomer took in the sight of two ragged, filthy teens, a boy and a girl. She wasn't completely sure if that was their original hair color or if it would change after getting cleaned. The two looked like they had just been through hell and back or, alternatively, rolled down the mountain. Neither was true, but it was a fun mental image.

She smiled hesitantly, patting her Lairon reassuringly on the head. "Hi, what are your names? I'm Haruka, and this is Rono."

"Hi Haruka, I'm Jacqueline! You have no idea how glad we are to see someone here!"

"...Quentin." muttered the boy with the mousy brown hair.

After a short pause, where Jacqueline sketched out their arrival in a shipwreck to Haruka, Quentin remembered why they had been sent to Dewford.

"Haruka, would you know of a trainer down here called May?"

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, and the room seemed to cool a few degrees. "Who wants to know?" she challenged.

"Her father asked us to deliver a letter to her." spoke Jacqueline cautiously.

Still tense and angry, Haruka glared at both of them in turn, before sighing.

"Only my father calls me May. And I'm not going to read any letter he sent two kids to deliver. If he actually cared, he'd come himself. As things are, I'm not going back to Petalburg. May I see the letter?"

Jacqueline removed the miraculously dry letter from a pocket of her bag, and handed it to Haruka.

Without pausing, she turned and flung the letter into a narrow stream that disappeared into the darkness of the cavern. "Now that we have that unpleasantness out of the way, why don't you come to camp? We'd be happy to have visitors! And no offense, but you guys need a wash."

Jacqueline snorted slightly and rolled her eyes, even as Haruka stepped forward to help Quentin up. As their fingers brushed, there was an undeniable spark. Haruka paused, startled, while Quentin fell back. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards as he complained, "You shocked me!"

Taken off guard, Haruka's laughter pealed out across the cavern. Sticking out her tongue at the boy, she slipped on one black-and-white glove before pulling him up by the wrist.

"Come on, Rono and I need to show you guys base camp."

Author's Note: And that's a wrap!

I've had AP tests, and more finals coming up, so I apologize for the late update. It'll probably be a while before the next one, too. I just wanted to get this one out to you guys so you know I'm still writing.

As is evident from Haruka so far, she's based more off of Sapphire from Adventures than anime May. However, she's the daughter of Norman of Petalburg rather than Professor Birch, and there are other changes that have yet to be revealed. There's also some trouble between Haruka and her father that will probably not come up for a long long while. I really should start writing all this stuff down, but it's floating in my head just fine for now.

MAIN CAST

Quentin

Badges: 0

Pokemon:

Turnus (Mudkip). Known moves: Water Gun, Growl.

Brasidas (Ralts). Known moves: Confusion.

Jacqueline

Badges:0

Pokemon:

Terry (Vulpix). Known moves: Ember, Tackle, Tail Whip.

Haruka

Badges: 1

Pokemon:

Rono (Lairon). Known moves: Roar, Metal Claw.

Chic (Torchic). Known moves: Peck, Flamethrower.

LESS IMPORTANT CHARACTERS

Mr. Briney: Dead in a pile of Wingull poop.

Norman: Wants May (Haruka) to come back, breaks innocent desks.

Ranger Norris: May or may not be named Chuck. Saving idiotic kids who get lost in the forest.

Sam: Hallucinating on pain meds.