Leo sighed, already knowing which part of himself would win the contest of wills.
“Looks like I’m going tracking tomorrow,” he muttered, and closed his eyes.
…
Leo dusted his fingers along the divot in the ground, eyes easily picking up the features of the track.
Whatever had left this was incredibly heavy and large, as the three-toed track sunk deep into the soil.
Amazingly though, it doesn’t seem to leave much trace on the surroundings, Leo thought, glancing around the forest.
True, the trees here weren’t very densely packed, and there weren’t many bushes or anything for the creature to smash with its feet, but there weren’t even any broken branches or gnawed on grass that could suggest what kind of creature left this.
Leo’s first thought was a golem – he’d seen the unevolved forms around so he knew Graveller and Geodude were in the area, but he also wasn’t certain that golem could use what he could only assume to be a hyper beam.
Maybe an Ursaring?
He knew what bear tracks looked like, and this wasn’t a bear, but then again maybe the pokémon Ursaring had different tracks than what Leo was used to seeing from bears.
Standing up, Leo grabbed his atlatl and continued forward, the extra darts he had crafted held in his other hand.
He moved as silently as he could, following the clear trail the monster had left in its wake and keeping his eyes and ears open.
Most importantly he was listening to the noise of the forest, and the sound of the bugs.
Right now flies buzzed, grasshoppers chirped, and the forest was just alive.
If all that fell silent, then it meant there was something else in the woods, something dangerous.
But things were good now, and Leo could afford to relax a little.
He followed the tracks for at least a mile, long enough for him to begin to doubt that he was, in fact, following the right trail, when he came across the scar of the short battle he had only seen the after effects of.
A hole had been blasted through the trees at an upward angle, branches and even entire tree trunks snapped in half from the force of whatever hit it.
Leo whistled as he surveyed the damage.
The beam hadn’t just blown through a few of the trees, it had seemingly evaporated entire chunks of what had been in the way.
One tree in particular had an almost perfectly round, semi-circular hole on the side of its trunk.
It was a miracle it was even standing upright.
Pausing to examine the tracks, Leo situated himself where he thoughts the creature had positioned itself to fire its attack.
Both feet were planted firmly on the ground parallel to each other, evidenced by the divots about three feet apart in the ground, and what Leo could only assume was a tail had slammed against the ground far behind it.
A small shrub was even crushed by it.
“What were you shooting at?” Leo murmured, squinting in the direction the beam had been fired.
Frowning, Leo moved forward, looking at the sky, the ground, the trees, anything that might give him a hint.
It surprisingly didn’t take him long, as he spotted what he was looking for as it lay in a bush, shining in the sunlight Leo furrowed his brows in confusion as he knelt and plucked the large, oblong metal…thing, out of the bush.
It was surprisingly light and was patterned much like a feather would be, with a long, thin tube running along the spine of the curved object, providing support.
The edges were even fairly thin, and though it had the same sort of multifaceted texture as a normal feather, despite its size, it was solid and made entirely of metal.
Realization dawned upon Leo as he hefted the object in one hand, fitting the stalk of it in his palm.
This was a feather, a metal feather.
Which left two options for what could have left it – either a Skarmory or a Corviknight, the only two steel and flying type pokémon Leo could remember.
But he doubted it was a Corviknight, this feather was polished to a high sheen and the edges were sharp – not razor sharp, no, in that respect it was duller than his knife, but it still held a noticeable edge.
He was pretty certain Corviknight didn’t have sharp feathers, and had a darker coloration.
“Then what picked a fight with a Skarmory?” Leo mused, swinging the feather experimentally.
It was long, at least three feet long and too large for his small body, and had a few dents in it, but it was a solid weapon.
He’d find a use for it somehow.
He was pretty sure the lore of Skarmory indicated their feathers could be used as swords, which Leo could see why, though he wouldn’t be using it as such.
Unless the wielder was very skilled it wasn’t likely a sword would do a lot of good against a powerful wild pokémon.
Leo’s immediate instinct was to go back to tracking, but something told him to have a further look around, see if he could find any more feathers.
They would be incredibly useful, he was sure, and after a few minutes of searching Leo had found two more feathers.
Well, more like a small, palm sized shard of one and a slightly longer, twisted and bent feather.
Shoving both of his smaller finds in his backpack, as well as his atlatl, the ends of the darts sticking out of the pack, Leo headed back towards the tracks and continued to follow his prey, toying with his newest find.
He was so distracted by the large feather, in fact, that he almost missed the quieting of the forest before it was too late.
Bugs still buzzed in the distance, and Pidgey cried somewhere out to his left, but in his immediate vicinity it was dead silent.
Leo froze and swiveled his head, adrenaline spiking through his veins as he scanned the trees above and the forest around him.
To his left was a large outcropping of rocks, patches of light green moss growing on the white boulders, while to his front and his right the forest grew densely together and headed downhill – small, shrub-like plants with light yellow leaves covering the ground.
Nothing moved and neither did Leo for a moment, when he slowly began to back up, heading the way he came.
A scraping sound to his left, from the direction of the rock outcropping, had Leo freezing in his tracks, eyes widening as he saw the stones move.
Boulders that easily weighed more than a few tons were rolled to the side as a Tyranitar, in all its glory, revealed itself.
It stretched to its full height of over seven feet, craning its neck to look at the sky and unleashing a yawn that revealed four sharp fangs and rows of dull, flat teeth.
Yet as Leo stared down its ominously black gullet, he found himself eerily calm.
If he did anything rash he could very well earn the creature’s ire, so all he could do was stand there, and pray it paid him no mind.
The Tyranitar’s faded green hide was littered with cracks and scars, tips of the spikes that adorned its spine shattered or broken off completely, while its tail thrashed to and fro, casually sliding the boulders in its way with its immense strength.
Leo could not help but admire the beauty of the creature.
It did not look young – its hide was far too faded and scarred for what could reasonably be considered young (not that he knew how evolution worked here, this was all conjecture), but its regal might was not to be denied.
Stone ground on stone as the Tyranitar shook itself, small pebbles falling from its back and head when, quite suddenly, it finally caught sight of Leo.
It didn’t make a move, and Leo found time stretching as he and the Tyranitar just looked at each other, its large charcoal colored iris just…looking at him.
Slowly, Leo laid his skarmory feather on the ground, and held up his hands.
“I mean no harm,” he said softly, calmly.
The Tyranitar regarded him for a moment, then snorted and shook of its entire body again, rock dust flying into the air, before lumbering off up the hill to the left, each footstep thudding against the ground.
Leo didn’t move until well after the Tyranitar had left and the sounds of the forest returned to the area.
In fact, he didn’t move at all until his legs involuntarily gave out, and the sudden tenseness of the situation he had just survived washed over him.
So that was a Tyranitar, a pseudo-legendary.
Leo laughed shakily, licking his lips and flopping onto his back, staring at the sky and well aware of the stupid grin on his face.
His pack made the action of lying on his back very uncomfortable, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.
“I think,” Leo muttered, “I’m going to need a change of pants,”