An Aerodactyl shot across a sea of deepest blue, and on its back Vance held a compass out in front of him.
"Five days gone and still no sign of a city on the horizon, and not one merchant ship or liner either. Nothing to do but drift about out here. This is hard going."
Vance put a hand over his face and laughed at himself. It was not that he had no sense of direction; it was that the sea was too wide and there was nothing to take a bearing from.
"Pssh, pssh, pssh—"
Several Water Guns broke the surface and fired at the Aerodactyl as it passed. Below them a few Crawdaunt and Corphish had come up out of the water and were shooting at the Aerodactyl overhead.
The Aerodactyl dodged for all it was worth, got clear of most of it, climbed higher and flew on.
It was a common enough thing by now. The Aerodactyl had had a great deal of it over the last few days: fly low and the water Pokémon attacked, fly high and some bad-tempered flying Pokémon attacked instead.
"Aerodactyl, let's go this way."
Vance had felt it. Ahead of them, where sea met sky, there was darkness: dense black cloud filling the whole sky, without edge or end, spreading away into the far distance, and inside it lightning flickered stroke after stroke. Over there a gale and a downpour were raging, and with them came a strange weight of pressure.
It had the look of black cloud bearing down to crush a city. Under a display of that kind, a man or a Pokémon looked very small indeed — and that darkness was spreading their way.
"Kaw—"
A flock of Wingull went by, hurrying off in one direction. Living out on the sea as they did, they knew what weather like that meant.
There was no telling how long they flew before the shape of an island came into view a long way off. It was not a small island either — many times the size of the last one. The Aerodactyl made straight for it, set down on this newly found land, and cast about for somewhere to shelter.
"Hello. Somebody's been here."
In a cave, Vance found things left by human beings. They had been there a long while; a layer of dust lay over them.
Beside them was burnt-out charcoal. So people had been here after all. Did that mean the mainland was not far off?
Not necessarily, though. They might have been in the same position he was: adrift at sea.
"Combusken—"
Inside the cave the Combusken raised one claw and gathered a ball of flame on it, lighting the whole place up.
"Pit-pat, pit-pat—"
Outside the cave, heavy rain had begun to fall.
Just as Vance was thinking of resting, the ground shook.
"Rumble, rumble—"
Dust and sand came down inside the cave as though it were about to collapse.
"Kreee—"
As Vance and the Combusken came out of the cave, a bolt of lightning struck down not far away and blew a huge crater in the ground, with arcs of electricity still crawling through the earth at the bottom of it.
Vance looked up. It was a Pokémon with yellow feathers and a body covered in sharp spikes, carrying a strange majesty about it, threading through the black cloud.
"Zapdos!"
Vance said it aloud in astonishment. That yellow bird Pokémon weaving through the black cloud was the Legendary Pokémon Zapdos.
For whatever reason, it was loosing thunder freely inside the cloud, and the shaking in the cave a moment ago had probably been one careless blow of its.
"Kreee—"
Up in the sky a flower of thunder opened with the Zapdos at its heart. The Zapdos was letting its own power out without the least restraint.
A single casual bolt could shear the top off a mountain. Power as terrible as that, moving the very weather the moment it struck, left Vance shaken to the core.
Every Pokémon on the island bowed before that blazing majesty and lay flat to the ground.
Even the Combusken felt the pressure of it down in his blood, and a sense of his own helplessness rose in him.
That Zapdos was a Pokémon he could not beat.
"No. No. I can't think like that. That kind of strength is what I want. If I'm afraid of it now, how am I ever going to get there?"
The Combusken shook his head suddenly and drove the fear out. The sight of the Zapdos in its majesty had lit a fire of hope in him instead.
He, the Combusken, was going to be strong too, one day!
The Combusken's face was set, and he had taken no harm from it. Watching from beside him, Vance was glad of it.
The Zapdos showed itself only for that moment and then sank into the banked black cloud, and Vance could get no further look at it however much he wanted one.
"With power like that, it must be Champion-class."
Vance was guessing. He had never seen a Champion-class in action; the strongest he had seen was Lance's Near-Champion Pokémon, and that had nothing like this kind of presence.
The Zapdos flew further and further off across the sky, without once looking at the creatures below. Nothing on the island beneath it was worth its attention.
The attack just now had only been a careless stroke while it drew in the energy of heaven and earth. There had been no purpose behind it.
"The Legendary Zapdos."
Vance breathed it out in wonder. He had only watched from far off and only for a few moments, but the bearing and the brilliance of that Legendary Pokémon had left a deep mark on him.
A Pokémon that splendid, an existence that powerful, and a Legendary out of the stories besides — who does not want strength?
Did Vance want to catch it? He did.
Was he in any position to? He was not.
If it really came to facing it, one attack would be the end of him. As things stood he would have his work cut out against an Elite-Four-class Pokémon, let alone against this Zapdos.
When he had first transmigrated into this world Vance had thought rather well of himself, and carried an unaccountable air of superiority with it; lying in bed at night he had daydreamed about catching a Legendary Pokémon — and an ordinary Legendary would not even do.
If he was going to catch one, it would have to be a Legendary of the highest order — a Rayquaza, a Darkrai, something of that kind. One at this Zapdos's level he would have had to think about: not a high enough grade, and he would only have been embarrassed to have caught it.
But reality is cruel. Never mind Legendaries and pseudo-legendaries — back then he had not so much as a Rattata, and against a Caterpie he might well have lost. There was every chance a Caterpie would have strangled him.
So Vance had faced facts and put aside that confidence, wherever it had come from.
There was once a Legendary Pokémon in front of me, and I did not treasure it, and did not dare treasure it, and it was only when it left that I felt any relief at all. To have a Legendary in front of you and no way to catch it — there is nothing more painful in this world than that.
"The road is long and hard. Still, it pays to get out and travel about — I'd never have thought I'd run into a Zapdos in a place like this."
"Combusken, combusken—"
The Combusken nodded along beside him to show he agreed.
Man and Pokémon stood at the mouth of the cave and watched the Zapdos go. That was as far as the day's travelling would get; the rest could wait for tomorrow.
The thunderstorm today, he supposed, had a good deal to do with that Zapdos.
They would have to set out again tomorrow.
The unexpected arrived right on cue — and this was exactly why Vance had spent so many days going round in circles at sea. There were far too many surprises.
Sometimes it was the Pokémon, sometimes the weather, and so on.
A faint light came up over the Combusken's body. He looked to be on the verge of evolving.
Without either of them noticing, the Combusken had reached level 35, and with it the verge of evolution.
"This feeling — I think I'm about to evolve. Combusken."
The Combusken looked at his own two claws and murmured it.
He remembered the feeling. It was familiar enough.
"So you're evolving."
Vance watched him quietly from the side. He had been through it several times now, but every time he saw it there was something new about it.
Every Pokémon's evolution struck him differently.
Perhaps seeing the Zapdos appear just now had given the Combusken a jolt and touched off some opening in him, and the evolution had begun.