Nothing Greater: Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Idle Chat and a New Arrival
There were a few clouds in the sky when the sun made its appearance over the horizon. The white wisps scattered the light across the sky and cast intricate shadows all over the ground below. The striped rays slowly illuminated the Valley, covering the central lava pool and the carvings surrounding it before finally reaching the edge where it intruded into the small cave. As it hit Seria's face, her eyes shut even more tightly out of instincts before they slowly opened, adjusting to the brightness.
She blinked away her sleepiness and stretched a little bit before sitting up. When she did, the shadow that used to be on Charc's body moved and his face was hit with the bright light. His eyes squinted as well, but he rolled over so that he was facing Drek, and a quick snore showed that he was still asleep. She snickered to herself as she watched them sleep for a couple minutes, reflecting on how lucky she was to have two nice family members to keep her company.
She thought a little bit about the day before and how Drek had seemed a little down about not getting out as much as he would have liked. She got an idea and decided to wake both of them up to share her thoughts. She leaned over and roused them from their slumber, and they both stretched in a similar fashion before opening their eyes.
Charc said through a yawn, "Morning mommy."
She shot a glance to Drek who simply smiled back at her. Although it was risky for him to start calling them that, it was pretty cute to hear him say it so innocently. She couldn't help but let a small smirk appear on her face before she responded, "Good morning Charc, and good morning to you too mister lazy."
Drek responded, "Hey, if you want me to get up earlier, just wake me up." He stuck his tongue out at her which made Charc giggle.
She retorted, "I can call you lazy all I want silly. Now put your tongue back in your mouth. You two are gonna help me gather food this morning."
They both groaned in near perfect unison. Charc said first, "But I was gonna meet Agro."
"And what about Darius?" Drek chimed in.
She said looking at each one of them individually as she addressed them, "It won't kill Agro to wait a little longer. You two spend all day every day together, so an hour more apart isn't going to kill you. And Darius will be joining us as well, but that doesn't exclude you from coming with us. You can not go if you want, but I reserve the right to call you lazy every day for the rest of your life."
They both sighed and responded together, "Alright."
"Good, then it's settled. We've still got some food left over from last night, but we'll wait to eat until we get back. Now come on and get your sleepy fire butts up so we can go to Darius's to meet him."
They stretched again before slowly getting up so that they were standing. Charc yawned again which made Drek yawn right after him. She said, "Now stop that. It's not that early. Once we get out into the sunlight you'll be better."
She strolled out of the cave with the two shuffling across the ground and following very slowly behind her. She was right; once they got out into the sun, it was like being rejuvenated, and they were all wide awake by the time they reached their friends' place. Seria called out, and a moment later, Darius came out to greet them. He wasn't expecting to see Drek and Charc with her, so he stopped in his tracks momentarily before he spoke up.
"Oh... Did you guys wanna talk now about that issue?"
Charc asked, "What's that?"
Drek covered up, "Oh it's just boring adult stuff. You wouldn't wanna hear it."
He seemed satisfied with that answer and just said, "Okay then."
Seria said, "No, we'll talk after we get back. I just wanted them to tag along for once since Drek hasn't been out of the cave much and we'd like to spend a little more time with Charc."
He smiled saying, "The more the merrier. Let me run inside and tell Agro that you'll be over later so that he doesn't get anxious. One sec." He disappeared and was back in no time, and he said to them, "Alright, shall we?" He motioned for them to follow him, and the four of them set off to the outskirts of the Valley.
Nothing was too different from the day before when Seria had shown Drek around. Over the course of their walk, Seria and Darius got farther and farther ahead of the other two, and at times it seemed like they were forgotten. Drek had never noticed how close those two were before, but multiple times he would look up and see their arms around each other or their claws interlocked. It didn't bother him that they were close; in fact, he was thrilled that she found another Charmeleon to call a good friend, it just irked him that he had gone unaware of it since he never really saw them together.
After about an hour of searching, they finally headed back with all of them carrying a nice bunch of food. They went to drop off the supply that Drek, Charc, and Seria were carrying at their cave before going back with Darius over to his cave. They found Zenith outside with Agro, and it appeared as though they were wrestling or something. As they got closer, it was obvious that he was letting Agro win, because he pretended to stumble forward and fall on his stomach as Agro climbed on top of his back and stood up, raising his arms over his head.
Darius said to announce their presence, "Did he getcha dad?"
They both looked over to see the group coming up before Zenith said, "Yeah, he got me. I'll have to try even harder next time if I wanna beat this little champion."
Agro spied his yellow Charmander friend and said, "Hey Charc! Come on, let's go!"
He jumped off of his dad's back and tried to run away, but Zenith reached out a claw and snagged his tail, earning an "eep" from him and stopping him dead in his tracks. He said, "Hold on now, you haven't eaten anything today and your mother would kill me if I let you go out without a full stomach."
Turning his attention to the rest of the group, he said, "Let's all go inside and we can eat before we talk about whatever it is you wanna talk about."
They all headed inside where they met Cara, and the seven of them got comfortable in the main area. Zenith took the food that had been gathered from earlier and started passing it out to all of them. When it got to Drek, he said, "Oh, we have food back at our place."
Zenith smiled and forced him to take it saying, "And what kind of friend would I be if I had my family eat in front of you when you're hungry? Don't worry about it and eat up."
He couldn't argue with him, and before long, all of them were munching on the delicious fruit. Zenith was the first one done, and he asked them, "So, what did you wanna talk about?"
Drek brought a claw up to his mouth and pretended to cough, and as he did so, he used his head and eyes to gesture over to the two Charmanders. They were still eating so it would have been rude to tell them to leave, so Seria decided to speak up while Drek was pretending to recover from his coughing spell.
She said, "Oh, no need to bore these two with our discussion. I'm sure we can find something else to talk about in the mean time."
Charc said through a mouthful, "Yeh I warn he a stoy bou yo venchus."
She retorted, "Charc, don't talk with your mouth full."
He managed to say, "Sorry" before swallowing, and then he asked again, "I wanna hear a story about your adventures."
Zenith said, "Oh yes, those are always entertaining."
The two of them thought for a bit and then Drek said, "Haha, I don't think I told you about her and the leaves."
She spat back, "Don't you dare tell that story. It's embarrassing."
Zenith laughed, "Oh, now we have to hear it. Come on Drek, spill it."
Seria frowned and crossed her arms. She thought this particular incident would be kept a secret between them, but apparently she was wrong. She shot Drek an irritated look which he returned with a smirk before he turned back to the group and started talking.
"Ok, so about a month or so after we left in search of this place, leaves started falling off of the trees. We had never really experienced this because were were young, but both of us were fascinated by it. She in particular would try to catch them as they fall from the trees, and she would gather them up and throw them at me.
"This went on for a while, and eventually we stumbled upon a big pile of leaves. When I say a big pile, I mean about half the size of us at the time. I guess in hindsight it wasn't that huge, but after seeing leaves scattered about all day, to see a bunch of them in once neat stack was different. Well... She got the bright idea to mess up this natural arrangement.
"All she said to me was, 'watch this' and watch I did. She ran full speed for the leaves and went to kick it. The second that she swung her leg, she cried out in pain and crumpled to the ground. At the time, I was really worried about her and ran over to see what was wrong. Upon closer inspection, the leaves were in a pile because they were on top of a rock, and she had kicked that rock so hard that she broke one of her claws on her foot.
"I had to carry her for the rest of the day like a baby and it took a whole month for that claw to grow back to what it once was. It was just so funny to hear, 'watch this' and then to see that happen. I still laugh when I replay that image over and over in my head. Hahaha ow...."
He felt a sting on his back, and he looked over at her as she pulled her tail flame away from him. Her face was red and she was doing whatever she could not to look at anyone in particular. The rest of the group joined Drek in laughing for a while, and all the time, Seria's face seemed to get more irritated with it. She finally couldn't take it anymore and said over the laughter, "Yes, I was stupid, ha ha, it's not that funny."
Cara responded to her, "Oh dear, it's never funny when it happens to you: only others." Then she took a claw to her face and wiped away a tear that was rolling down her cheek.
Drek said through his chuckles, "Yeah, lighten up a little. It's in the past."
She turned to him and said quietly so that only he could hear, "Well fine then, what if I inform them about you and the tree and what happened while you were getting acquainted with the tree?"
His laughter stopped immediately and he gave her a begging look and said, "You wouldn't."
Now she let a malicious grin cross her face before responding to him, "Oh I would be more than happy to share that little story with them. Call it payback."
He tried one more time to plead with her, "But that story is so much more embarrassing than the one I told; I'll be humiliated. You can't tell it."
"Just watch me." She raised her voice so that the rest of the group could hear. "Alright, since I've been embarrassed, I need to return the favor. Let me tell you a funny story about my brother here." Their laughter died down and they listened intently as Drek's face turned beat red before she even started talking.
"Okay, so, one day when we were both still Charmanders, we were having some trouble finding some food. We had learned that when we were hungry and didn't have anything to eat, then we could drink a lot of water and that would help until we found something. So we found a creek and had our fill of water before going on our way. We figured following the water along would be a safe bet on finding food.
"We walked along that creek for half a day without any luck. I still don't know how he saw it, but Drek stopped and pointed up at a tree. I followed where he was pointing, and hanging from the limbs above was more fruit than you can imagine. The problem was that it was so high up. As we got closer, we noticed that the inside of the tree was sort of hallowed out and there was a hole near its base. Don't ask me how it was still producing fruit and such because I have no idea; but anyway, this guy got the idea to try and climb up the tree.
"He tried using his claws to go up the sides, but he was unsuccessful every time. We were going to just count our losses and continue searching, but he thought it would be a good idea to go inside the tree and try going up from the inside. I told him that the hole didn't look big enough, but he paid me no attention and he started crawling into the hole.
"He managed to get his arms in and squeeze about half of his body in, and then he didn't go in any farther. It didn't take me long before I realized that he was stuck, and I tried to ask him if he needed help. All I heard from him was 'mmm' and no matter what he said, that's all I could hear from him. I told him to move his tail up and down if he could hear what I was saying, and that's what he did, so I knew he could hear me even though I couldn't hear him.
"I tried pulling him out for literally an hour with no luck. After we failed at getting him unstuck, he started frantically waving his tail at me. I asked him what was wrong, but all I could hear was 'mmm' followed by more tail movements. I just stood there worried that something was wrong, and he started clawing the ground desperately like he was trying to wriggle himself free. Well, what happened next was hilarious.
"All of a sudden, his tail went limp and his legs relaxed, and I heard the sound of water rushing. I won't go into detail, but let me just say that he must have had to pee pretty badly, because that's what I saw and heard for like a solid minute. Needless to say, I couldn't help but laugh at him, and watching him try to free himself after he was done just made it even funnier. He eventually got himself free (no thanks to me) and his face was crimson when he finally saw me... about as red as he is now."
He didn't think he could be more embarrassed as all of them started laughing at him. He frowned and turned to her to show that he wasn't happy. She returned his frown with a big smile and said to him, "We're even."
He said back to her, "How can you call that even? That story was way worse than the one I told."
"Eh, don't worry about it. It's not like the entire Valley will find out."
He cast a quick look over at Charc and Agro, and he could just see them telling everyone that they met. He sighed again and did his best to block out the loud laughter from the others. It lasted a lot longer and basically all of them were crying when it was all over. Some moments of silence followed as they caught their breath. His embarrassment was saved by Zenith who noticed that both Charc and Agro were done eating.
He looked at them and said, "Alright, alright. We're gonna talk about boring stuff, so you two go outside and have a good time."
They said in unison, "Okay!" and in the blink of an eye, they were out of sight.
Zenith continued after they were gone, "Ok, so what did you wanna talk about?"
As the color came back into his face, Drek said, "Well... I know that you know Zenith, and I assume you two know as well, but just in case you don't, I'll start from the beginning. Charc is our son, and we know that since we're brother and sister, that's not something that should be public knowledge." The three of them nodded and waited for him to continue.
"Well, yesterday morning, Charc woke me up by calling me 'daddy' and when he got back that night, he also called Seria 'mommy'. Basically, we can't run the risk of him calling us that in front of anyone else, because if word spread, we don't know how others will react. We like it here, and we would hate for the rest of the Valley to look at us differently all because of something that happened before we even got here before we knew the consequences of our actions."
Darius said, "Huh, I never really thought about that, but I guess he did have to have a dad. What did you tell him when he called you two that?"
She responded, "We didn't know what to say to him. We did find out that he learned the words from Agro after he called you guys that, but I don't think he knows what they mean."
Cara responded, "So what kind of advice do you want from us?"
He said, "Well, we just want to know how to explain to him that we are his mom and dad, but why he can't call us that. He's too young to know about why it's bad."
Zenith said, "Hmm. That is a problem..." He scratched his chin for a bit, pursing his lips together as he thought. "I have already heard some others talking about his yellow skin, so it's not something that has gone unnoticed, and this added information wouldn't help."
Darius said, "Do you think that's why he's not the right color? I mean, it's something that makes him different from every other Charmander."
The four of them looked at him as they considered the possibility. Cara said, "That must be it. I mean, it makes sense. There's too much of a coincidence if it's not true."
Drek said, "Well great, now everyone knows regardless."
Zenith said reassuringly, "Not necessarily. I mean we didn't piece it together until now after knowing all the facts, so there's no reason any of the other inhabitants would jump to that conclusion."
"That's good I guess... But there's still the main issue that we need to figure out."
Darius said, "You can always just tell him that he's too young to understand. Believe me, that has worked for Agro. He might be slightly irritated at first to hear that explanation, because he doesn't want to be too little to know something, but he'll get over it."
It seemed so simple that they couldn't believe they hadn't thought about it earlier. That would work, and this way they could just wait until he got a little older to fully explain it him. Drek said, "Well... I guess that's done. Now that we've got that worked, what else do you guys wanna talk about?"
The group continued to talk about random things ranging from more stories from the past to future plans for cave expansion ideas. Drek was interested in getting some ideas and some tips to make their small home a little bigger so that it would be nicer for them whenever they evolved.
* * *
In the outskirts of the Valley, Charc and Agro were standing in some unfamiliar territory. They had wandered pretty far away: a lot farther than normal. They were at the base of one of the mountains that surrounded the Valley, and they were daring each other to start going up the mountain.
Charc said, "You go first."
"Nuh uh, you first."
They both looked up and saw how high it was and as they were looking, they heard a very faint and distant high-pitched screech. They exchanged a quick look, wondering if the other heard the sound too. It sounded like it was coming from the very mountain they were looking at, which made both of them less eager to start climbing.
Agro said, "Go on, I'll be right behind you."
"No way. Did you hear that?"
"It was probably nothing. Just start climbing already unless you're scared."
"I'm not scared!"
"Then prove it."
He didn't want to, but he took a deep breath and summoned up his courage before he started leading the way. True to his word, Agro followed behind him, and the two of them climbed for about half an hour before they came to a flat resting area. They both sat down to catch their breath, and Charc leaned over the side to see how far they had climbed.
"Wow, we're pretty high up. Wanna just stop here and go back?"
"No way, we're not even a quarter of the way up. We're going up to the top!"
The same screech they heard from earlier resounded again, except this time it was much louder and much closer. They jumped up and looked around frantically for the source. All of a sudden, a big Pokemon landed with a loud crashing sound in front of them. They jumped back from the shock and looked this unfamiliar Pokemon up and down, trying to figure out what it was.
It had wings and a tail just like a Charizard, but it was a greyish color rather than orange. It also didn't have any arms, and its head was much longer and fossil-like. Whatever it was, it eyed the two with squinted eyes, wondering how two young Charmanders had gotten there.
It spoke in almost a squawking voice, "What do we have here?"
They could tell this Pokemon was male from his voice, and Charc stepped forward to answer him, "Hello mister... uh... what's your name?"
He smirked and said, "You can call me Thael, but I don't think you'll be around much longer to have to worry about that."
Charc and Agro looked at each other before looking back at the larger Pokemon and Agro said, "What do you mean?"
Thael responded, "I mean that you two are trespassing on my mountain and so something has to be done about that."
Charc said, "Oh, we didn't know it was your mountain. We're sorry; we'll go back down."
Before he could move, Thael said, "I've got a better idea."
He flapped his wings and in the blink of an eye, he flew past them and used his talons to scratch them across their bodies. They both yelled out in pain and fell over. He circled back around quickly and this time when he flew past, he snatched Charc up by the tail and hovered in front of Agro as Charc dangled helplessly.
Charc screamed, "Agro! Help me!"
Agro yelled, "Stop it! Leave him alone!"
He responded back, "And what are you gonna do about it?"
He inhaled and summoned up the biggest fire breath he could, and he opened his mouth, shooting the flames at Thael's face. When he finally ran out of breath, he thought that it would done something, but as the smoke cleared, all he saw was Thael's malicious, smiling face. Realizing that his strongest attack did nothing, he took a few steps back in fear, not knowing what would happen to him. Thael pivoted in the air quickly, and his tail whipped around, crashing into Agro's head. He screamed again in pain, and he fell to the ground where he lay struggling to get back up.
Thael said, "You're lucky I'm nice kid or you'd be in a lot worse shape than that."
Without waiting for a response, Thael ascended up to the top of the mountain with Charc screaming and struggling in his clutches. Agro was left hurting on the ground, and he rolled over, grabbing his head in pain as blood was starting to form. His stomach was cut up as well, and the whole incident happened so fast that he didn't know what to do.
He couldn't help himself, and he started crying. He wasn't sure how long he lay there with tears rolling down his face, but after some time, he managed to get ahold of himself and start thinking rationally. He was hurt, yes, but Charc was in far more trouble than he was, and he had to save him somehow. He knew that he would be no match against Thael, so he had to go back as quickly as he could and get help.
His body hurt and his face was wet with tears, but he forced himself to start crawling down the mountain. Although it only took the two of them about thirty minutes to get up there in the first place, it took him about an hour or more to get down again. His head and stomach were killing him and he felt nauseous the whole time and wanted to stop, but he knew that his friend needed him. He got back to the the main part of the Valley, and headed toward his home where help awaited.