Will be pausing updates for this for 2 weeks. Want to focus on writing my original novel.
***
Orion Oak returns to Aurawood at dawn. Pikachu rides his shoulder. Zygarde pads behind. Celebi flits overhead. He carries Poké Blocks and Berry seeds. The mountain feels different. Quieter. Scars from HYDRA linger in the soil. Orion adjusts his sack and walks.
The Bidoof came first. Then the Shinx, the Wurmple, the Staraptor. Each one a small victory, a thread of trust spun between the wild and the world Orion is trying to build. But the mountain is vast, and trust is not a thing you harvest once and carry home. It grows. Slowly. Like roots.
The air at dawn carries pine and damp earth and something else — a faint chemical bitterness where HYDRA's bunker collapsed. The soil there is wounded. Orion can feel it through his Aura, a dull ache beneath the mountain's pulse. He walks past the scar without stopping. That wound will take longer to heal than a single morning.
Pikachu's ears twitch. He points with a small paw toward the tree line.
"PIKAPI. PIKA-CHU."
"I see them," Orion says.
The Deerling herd stands at the edge of a clearing, half-hidden by ferns. Seven of them. The leader — a doe with autumn-colored fur and branching antlers still soft with velvet — watches from thirty meters. Her dark eyes track Orion's every movement.
Orion stops at the clearing's edge. He sets down his sack. He kneels.
He doesn't look at the herd. He looks at the ground.
Young Berry plants grow here — volunteers from the seeds he planted weeks ago. They're struggling. Weeds choke their roots. The soil is compacted where HYDRA's heavy machinery once sat.
Orion pulls the weeds. One by one. He works the soil with his bare hands, loosening the earth around the small green stems. He reaches into his sack and pulls out Berry seeds — tiny, luminous things that pulse faintly with potential. He presses them into the enriched soil around the existing plants. Covers them gently. Pats the earth down.
Pikachu hops off his shoulder and sits nearby, watching. Zygarde settles at the clearing's edge, a silent green sentinel. Celebi drifts between the trees, her wings catching the early light.
Orion works for an hour. He doesn't speak. He doesn't look up. He tends the plants the way he tends everything that matters — with patience, with his hands, with the quiet understanding that growth cannot be rushed.
The herd leader steps forward. One careful hoof, then another. She stops ten meters away. Her ears rotate, listening. The other Deerling watch.
She steps closer. Five meters. Three.
Orion keeps working. He pulls another weed. Presses another seed into the earth.
The doe approaches not the food but the act. She lowers her head, nostrils flaring, reading the soil Orion has turned. She understands what he's doing. She's seen the mountain wounded. She knows what healing looks like.
Orion extends his hand. Palm up. Still. Waiting.
The doe steps forward and lets him touch her flank. Her fur is warm and coarse. She doesn't flinch. She makes a soft sound — a low, resonant call that ripples through the clearing.
"DEEER-LING."
The herd follows. One by one, they step into the clearing. They lower their heads to the soil Orion has prepared. They eat the Poké Blocks he's placed among the plants. And as they eat, they understand.
Zygarde's telepathic voice enters Orion's mind. Low. Steady.
We will come.
Orion exhales. He hadn't realized he was holding his breath.
"Thank you," he says quietly.
The doe lifts her head and looks at him. Her dark eyes hold something ancient and knowing. Then she turns and leads the herd back into the trees, their hooves silent on the forest floor.
Orion watches them go. Pikachu climbs back onto his shoulder.
"PIKA PIKA."
"Yes," Orion says. "One more stop."
The Poliwag stream cuts through the mountain's eastern slope, a ribbon of clear water over smooth stones. Orion sits at the edge and pulls off his boots. He rolls his trousers to the knee and puts his feet in.
The current is cold. It bites at his skin. He doesn't pull back.
Pikachu sits on a rock above the waterline, tail curled around his feet. Zygarde has disappeared into the undergrowth — patrolling, always patrolling. Celebi hovers over the stream, her reflection shimmering in the surface.
Orion reaches into his sack and pulls out a Poké Block. He breaks it into small pieces and sets them on the rock beside him. The scent drifts across the water.
For a long moment, nothing happens.
Then a Poliwag surfaces. Blue. Round. Wide-eyed. It stares at Orion with the particular suspicion that water Pokémon reserve for anything that walks on two legs.
Orion doesn't reach for it. He doesn't speak. He just sits with his feet in the cold water and waits.
The Poliwag splashes him. Deliberately. A precise jet of water hits him square in the face.
Orion blinks. Water drips from his chin.
He laughs. It's a real laugh — surprised, genuine, the kind that comes from somewhere deep.
The Poliwag bobs on the surface, its expression unreadable. Then another surfaces. And another. Within moments, a dozen Poliwag surround Orion's feet, their dark eyes fixed on him.
"PO-LI," the largest one says. Just the one syllable. A greeting. A question.
Orion nods. "Good morning to you too."
He picks up a piece of Poké Block and holds it out. The largest Poliwag doesn't take it. Instead, it creates a small water spiral — a tiny vortex that lifts off the surface and drifts toward Orion. It hovers in front of him, spinning gently, catching the light.
A gift.
Orion reaches out and touches it. The water is cold and alive, humming with the Poliwag's energy. It dissolves against his fingertips, leaving a faint tingling.
"That's beautiful," he says.
The Poliwag makes a soft sound. "POLI-WAG."
The others follow. One by one, they send their own small spirals toward him. A constellation of water and light, drifting across the stream.
Orion tells them about the festival. He tells them about Central Park — the open sky, the grass, the space. He tells them about the children who will come with wide eyes and open hands. He tells them about the music and the food and the other Pokémon who will be there.
He tells them they don't have to come. That the invitation is real only if the choice is real.
The largest Poliwag stares at him for a long time. Then it surfaces fully, its round body bobbing in the current.
"PO-LI. POLI. WAG."
The others echo it. A chorus of agreement, soft and certain.
They will come.
Orion sits in the stream with wet boots and Poké Block crumbs on the rock beside him and something warm settling in his chest. Not triumph. Not relief. Something quieter than that.
Connection.
Pikachu chirps from his rock. Celebi lands on Orion's knee, her wings folding closed. Even Zygarde emerges from the undergrowth, his green eyes softer than usual.
Orion looks up at the mountain. At the sky. At the world that is changing, one small act of trust at a time.
"We should get back," he says. "Latias will worry."
He pulls his feet from the cold water. Puts his boots on. Stands.
The Poliwag watch him go. The Deerling have already vanished into the trees. The mountain breathes around him — wounded, healing, alive.
And somewhere in the distance, a Staraptor cries out. A single, sharp call that echoes across the peaks.
The mountain is listening.
Orion adjusts his sack and walks home.
***
Give power stones to support this book.
Advance chapters in P@T0n Najicablitz.