Edge of Eterna – Late Morning
Orion didn't even try letting Grotle out in the city.
He walked until the sidewalks ended and the air stopped tasting like exhaust. The last fence marked the edge of Eterna's jurisdiction, and after that, there were only trees, loose gravel, and terrain the League hadn't gotten around to flattening yet. He followed the path until it bent toward a half-abandoned clearing and stopped near a patch of crooked sunlight.
He unclipped the Poké Balls one by one.
Grotle emerged first, heavy-footed and slow-blinking, like the ground had to prove itself stable before he'd trust it.
"Alright, you win. Actual dirt," Orion muttered. "Try not to terraform the whole place."
Tyrunt hit the grass with a snort and immediately darted past both of them to pounce on a stick that looked like it had been dead for several seasons. He whipped it around like it was a rival.
"Glad to see you're channeling that rage into productive forestry."
Luxio appeared last, gave a single shake to spark up his fur, and headed directly for Orion's bag.
"You touch that jerky ration, I swear you're going back in the ball."
Luxio paused. His tail flicked. Then he changed direction at a calculated angle of indifference and settled into a beam of sunlight with his back to Orion.
Orion sat down with his back to a moss-covered rock, dug his heels into the earth, and let the morning do whatever it wanted.
Grotle began grazing in a methodical semicircle, tearing through low-growing weeds like he was filing a complaint with the landscape. Tyrunt was now wrestling the stick, chewing on it between growls. Luxio rolled onto his side and stretched long enough to slap his tail against a fallen leaf.
"Just so we're clear," Orion said, eyes on the canopy, "this is not me getting sentimental. This is called decompression."
Tyrunt grunted like he disagreed.
Orion looked over and found him holding what was left of the stick. Half-mashed bark, splinters in his teeth. He marched over and dropped it directly on Orion's boot.
Orion raised an eyebrow. "What do you want, a trophy?"
Tyrunt growled.
"Fine. You get one throw."
He tossed the stick with a lazy flick toward the treeline. Tyrunt tore after it with full battle velocity and crashed into a shrub trying to grab it on the bounce. A burst of feathers erupted from the bush, followed by the angry squawk of a Starly that had clearly not expected to be evicted.
Luxio watched the chaos with zero urgency.
Grotle kept chewing.
Tyrunt came back dragging the stick, a vine, and a very broken mushroom. He spat everything out near Orion's knee and sat like he expected feedback.
"That's your idea of a hunting haul? You're lucky I packed rations."
Luxio trotted over to sniff the wreckage, pawed at the vine, and then casually lay down on top of it like he'd decided it was his now.
"Is everything in this team territorial or is that just me?"
Grotle finally looked up. Orion met his gaze.
"What? You gonna pretend you're above all this now?"
Grotle blinked once, then returned to his grazing without reacting.
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
Orion opened the pack and pulled out the ration bars. One went to each of them. He didn't bother separating portions—just tossed them where they needed to go.
Tyrunt tried to finish his before Luxio could look at it.
Luxio waited until the others weren't paying attention, carried his to a separate patch of grass, and ate it like he was avoiding taxes.
Grotle crushed his food under one paw and licked it up in pieces.
Orion took a few bites of his own ration bar and watched the sky for a while.
Tyrunt brought back a new stick—shorter, wider, but just as ruined—and shoved it against Orion's side.
"You want drills? This is not a drill day."
Tyrunt nudged it harder.
"Fine. You throw it."
Tyrunt looked at him like he didn't understand the suggestion. Orion leaned forward, picked up the stick, and held it toward him.
"You've got claws. A jaw. A rage problem. Figure it out."
Tyrunt bit down on the stick, whipped it in a wild arc, and flung it nearly sideways into the underbrush. Luxio tilted his head and clapped his paw once against the dirt.
"Accuracy twelve percent," Orion said. "Threat level remains comedic."
Luxio padded after the stick anyway, sniffed it once, and brought it back—but dropped it near Grotle, who did not move.
"Congratulations," Orion said. "You invented fetch. Badly."
They did this for a while. No scorekeeping. Just movement.
Luxio occasionally chased after something that might have been imaginary. Tyrunt threw rocks at trees and declared war on one of them. Grotle found a sunny patch and laid down flat, eyes half-lidded like a reptile with no intentions.
The wind picked up enough to push leaves in slow circles. Orion adjusted his position, leaned into the base of the rock, and watched Tyrunt leap over a root like it had dared him to trip.
"I'm never going to have a normal team, am I."
No one responded.
Lunch came out after that. Dried meat, pellet rations, pressed cubes. Orion passed them around with little effort. Tyrunt tried to intercept Grotle's food and got shoved six feet sideways by a single headbutt. Luxio took a bite of his and licked his paw like he was offended by the seasoning.
Orion didn't talk again until they were done.
Tyrunt laid across his leg. Luxio slunk around to the back of the rock and reappeared on the other side like he was performing recon. Grotle stood once, changed direction by twenty degrees, then laid down again.
Orion leaned back, hands behind his head.
"You know… you're not bad company. For a walking fossil, a sentient shrub, and an electric menace with boundary issues."
Tyrunt growled contentedly and gnawed on the stick again.
Luxio rolled onto his side and twitched an ear.
Grotle didn't flinch. He exhaled through his nose and chewed one more weed before resting his head against the dirt.