Burnout 2.13
Shayne HayesSeptember 2015
Pierce was a chubby kid with bright, ginger hair that had been buzzed to a fuzz over his scalp. He got it from his mother, who was a rather chubby redhead as well. Maybe it was her broad shoulders, but she had a hell of a swing.
I watched with mild disinterest as she slapped her son hard enough to make a Brooklyn pimp proud. There was a loud crack as he went sprawling over the dirt. Already, a red handprint was forming over his cheek. She then yanked him to his feet and hugged him like a bear as she cried and dribbled snot over his shirt. She also called him a retard who got her husband’s brains.
It was probably child abuse, but eh. Carnelian Bay didn’t have social workers and truthfully? He kinda deserved a few good smacks upside the head, anyway.
“Should… Should we do something?” Sabrina asked as she nudged my arm.
By “we,” she really meant me. I eyed them, then her with the kind of bored detachment that came from having survived several near death experiences. “Nah, not worth it. Let’s let them work it out on their own.”
“Right. Family’s important,” she said with a melancholic smile. She leaned into my side and gave me a one-armed hug. “I can’t believe you really cleared a second dungeon, and with no preparation.”
“The main challenge was a lot easier than it could have been.”
“Hmm? Are you getting arrogant, Mr. Hero?”
“No, I mean that literally. The RKS System, it was… nice, almost as if the King of Bountiful Harvests was looking out for me.”
“Which Legend is that? I don’t recognize the title.”
“That’s the fun part; neither do I. I have no idea who it is because the System only gave me the title to go off.”
“How curious… You’ll have to tell me more about that later. Either way, you did good, Shane. Go get some rest.”
“Thanks. Can you send Pierce over to Dr. Lansdowne later? I’m sure he’ll want to check up on him.”
“Will do. I’ll see about getting that cherubi settled, too.”
I handed over my notebook. “Here, take a look at that while you’re at it. It’s not much, but we did encounter a few new pokemon.”
“Sure. Go to sleep, Shane. I’ll let everyone know Rocket has permission to bite anyone who tries to wake you.”
“Thanks, Sabrina. You’re a gem,” I said with a drawn out yawn.
I made it back to my little camper. In the Before, it would have been little better than a hovel, a place to crash for a few nights at most. Now, seeing it and the jury rigged shower setup, I felt as if I’d come home to a mansion. I put Sir Swagsire into a mud puddle, took a freezing shower, and passed out with Rocket’s tail as my pillow.
X
I woke up the next morning. The sun was well on its way to noon and Rocket gave me the stink-eye as he shook some feeling back into his tail. I grabbed a quick breakfast of beans and onions before heading out to the fields to find Pat, the head agriculture-guy.
At this point, we had a decent collection of grass pokemon: skiddo, oddish, and a singular gloom. Though he hadn’t been a farmer in the Before, he’d taken charge of that whole section and was doing a good job of keeping the town fed. We mostly grew temperate and cold-resistant produce like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, lettuce, and onions. According to him, we were quite blessed with our location.
I found the heavily tanned man digging holes around a juvenile pecha berry tree with the gloom. Sections of chain link fencing had been stripped from yards and hammered into tree guards. They wouldn’t keep out a dedicated pokemon of course, but they didn’t need to. These were for deer, and the like, animals that sometimes wandered this close to town.
The berry trees were growing nicely and now stood at about chin height. It hadn’t been that long since I’d gotten the seeds from the Stampede Reservoir Dungeon. I knew fuck-all about trees, but this growth was definitely unnatural.
Truly, it paid to be nice to the grass pokemon.
“Hey, Pat, how’s it going?” I called.
“Eh? Well, if it ain’t the big damn hero himself,” he said. He set the point of his shovel on the ground and stomped on the head, driving it deep. “Sabrina said you’d be dropping by.”
“Yeah, I’ve got new seeds for you. We found a few types of pumpkins, a whole packet of oran berry seeds, a special type of carrot, and even some gracidea flowers.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
I held out the pink flowers. “These. We helped out a lilligant in the dungeon and she gave them to us because they symbolize gratitude.”
“Ah, game thing, then?”
“Yup. The shaymin love them.”
“The name sounds familiar.”
“They’re a grass type Legend, look kind of like hedgehogs. They’re one of the Legends that are confirmed to have multiple members of their species.”
“So like a mythical creature, not necessarily a god,” he said, scratching his chin. “Huh, maybe we should plant those gracideas in a different plot, start working on a little flower garden for them.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“What about those carrots?”
“They’re called iceroot carrots. They were my dungeon clear reward.”
“Sounds fancy. What do they do? Do you know?”
I shrugged with a helpless smile. “A grown carrot was considered a fitting offering for the ‘King of Bountiful Harvests.’ Well, his steed, anyway. I’m going to assume they’re like gracideas, a special plant that a Legendary pokemon loves.”
“Yeah, we’re definitely starting you your own garden,” he said. He gestured to the rolled up fencing. “Come on, help me set the tree guards and we’ll go do that next.”
“Sure, why not.”
So, that’s what we did for the next hour and a half. These nets weren’t going to do shit to a caterpie or weedle, but they weren’t supposed to. Just keeping the mundane pests away would be sufficient.
Afterwards, we went to the compost bin and loaded up a wheelbarrow full of fertilizer. Pat swore that this was the real secret behind the rapid harvests. Parfum the gloom spat literal acid over biodegradable matter until it became a gray slurry. It was then mixed with sand and bits of gravel until she was satisfied with the texture of the newly made soil.
We took that bin back to the golf course where my camper sat. This was a shared space for anyone who couldn’t nab a real house or preferred their privacy like me, but with such a small population, we had plenty of room. And, what was a golf course if not a glorified lawn?
So, I claimed dominion of the nearest putting green and declared it to be my garden. I’d fence it off later, or maybe have Sir Swagsire dig earthen ridges to mark the space properly. I had enough round rocks to hire some of the kids as guards.
When it came time to plant the gracideas and iceroots, Pat offered to help, but Parfum stopped him with a slow shake of her head. She’d taken one look at the flowers and seeds and nodded with the solemness of a priest preparing for a baptism. That was how I knew these were legit, not that I had any real doubts.
Rocket, Sir Swagsire, and I worked all day after that. No moves, just careful, intentional motions that were as much prayer as planting. I wasn’t even sure why I did it this way, with a gardening shovel instead of Dig to ease the way. It just… felt right.
Maybe a shaymin would visit in a few months. Maybe the King of Bountiful Harvests would come riding atop his frosty steed. Either way, I had the sneaking suspicion that I’d gotten something far more precious than a few berries in the Rubicon Trail Dungeon.
X
Two days after my return, I met up with most everyone who mattered to me and the idiot-turned-hero. That meant Xavier, Jarvis, Sabrina, and Dr. Lansdowne.
Pierce looked every bit like the scared, out of his depth kid he was. His chubby, pimply face was paler than usual, in that way that no amount of sun could fix. He was unnaturally still, but the cherubi in his arms sensed his nerves and twitched enough for the both of them.
“Well, doc? How is he?” I asked. I mostly just wanted to get this meeting over with.
The aged doctor opened his patient files. “Remarkable. Or rather, perhaps ‘nonsensical’ is the better word for it. I’d already expected as much from examining you, but this confirms it.”
“Did you have a baseline for Pierce already?”
“I did. Dr. Nguyen and I made sure to update patient records for everyone we could once we got established, especially minors. According to the last physical, Pierce is sixteen, five feet seven inches tall, and weighs one hundred eighty-two pounds. His BMI is estimated at twenty-eight point five percent.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Not great. Typically, any BMI between twenty-five and thirty percent is considered average. While I wouldn’t say he’s obese, he’s on the heavier end for sure. There aren’t any true concerns regarding his health, but he could do with a bit more exercise.”
“Yeah? Sounds like every other chubby kid,” Xavier grunted. The ex-army vet had stepped back from rangings since his girlfriend got pregnant. These days, he usually trained other people in survival skills, basic fitness, and self-defense, not that the latter was especially useful against a pokemon. “No offense.”
Pierce shuffled awkwardly, mumbling out a “None taken.”
The doctor coughed awkwardly. “Right, what’s fascinating about this is that I know what a normal boy of his size and fitness should be able to accomplish. In fact, when I conducted another physical yesterday, not much changed. He grew half an inch and lost a handful of pounds since the last time he was in my office, all perfectly normal things.
“And yet, he demonstrated athleticism far beyond what I know should be normal for a boy in his class. For example, he ran a mile in five minutes forty-two seconds, which might not seem impressive to you, but is over a full standard deviation beyond his natural limits.
“I observed this with Shane, but now that I have a preexisting patient record to compare it to, I can say for certain that there is an unaccountable change in those who conquer a dungeon. In short, the data lies,” the doctor declared with an excited gleam in his eyes.
“So Pierce and Shane are superhuman now?” Jarvis grunted. He ran a hand over his shaved head, something I noticed he did when his hands didn’t have anything else to do. “Nice, but what does that mean for the town? I mean, this changes things, right?”
“Well, son, that's up to him.”
We all turned to Pierce. He wasn't the most confident kid under normal circumstances. Faced with the attention of so many “important” adults, he practically sank into his chair.
I suppressed a sigh of disappointment. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn't a “superhuman” or “aura guardian” or whatever else they decided to call us. All I saw was an awkward kid who did something stupid and somehow came out of it with a pokemon and magic. He’d managed to fall upwards, and had no idea how to handle it.
I threw the kid a bone. “Let's start with one thing at a time. Pierce, do you want to be a ranger with me and Jarvis?”
He shook his head. “N-No! Once was more than enough for me. I… I'm not cut out to be a ranger, Shane.”
“You're wasting the gift, kid,” Xavier said, somewhat hypocritically. He was a bit of a hardass who liked to play the bad cop. “Aura's no good if you don't get out there.”
“I-But…”
“Is he, though?” Sabrina chimed in. “Shane uses aura to be a better ranger, but there's more to it than a physical boost.”
“Maybe,” Xavier admitted. He hadn't been big into the series as a kid, but even he knew the broad strokes. “Fine, what do you want, kid? Say you don't follow Shane around like a lost puppy. What will you be doing otherwise?”
Pierce fiddled with the sentient cherry on his lap. “I… I'm not sure. I don't have any special talents.”
“Come on, Xavier. Kid's sixteen. Is it really fair to ask him what he wants to do with his life?” Jarvis said, happy to play the nice adult.
“No, shit's not fair,” Xavier agreed, “but we tossed aside ‘fair’ a long time ago. He's got aura. He's got a pokemon. The town needs him.”
The table went quiet at that. He wasn't wrong. It did seem like a waste for him to just go back to being a kid after returning from a dungeon. Usually, kids did whatever they could to help around town, but they were a little aimless. He could be a lot more than that. At the end of the day, Carnelian Bay could always use more help.
A part of me also felt that it was justified punishment in a way. He and his buddies wanted to be taken seriously, and now, he would be. He'd get to find out for himself all the shit we rangers dealt with. It was dramatic irony, or something like that.
“Maybe there is more than one way for a trainer to be of use to the town,” the good doctor said. “For starters, I wouldn't mind keeping him nearby so I can keep recording the changes aura has on the human body.”
“Right. There's also cherubi,” Sabrina said. She had my notes in her hand. “In the dungeon, Pierce got put under a trance by a… pumpkaboo… It’s probably a grass and ghost type. The cherubi released a powder that snapped him out of it.”
“She did,” I confirmed. “The powder smelled like cherry pie and I figured it was Aromatherapy. Just smelling it brought him back to his senses.”
“Aerosolized healing powder? How effective is it? We have some powders from the oddish but they're quite poisonous,” Dr. Lansdowne said.
“It heals anyone who smells it from status conditions. That includes poison, burn, paralysis, freeze, and sleep. The entire team was affected in-game. In real life, I think it might also affect panic? Or confusion? If we could bottle it like a smellingsalt…”
“Ah, more of that game lingo. I'm afraid biochemistry and pharmacology are more Dr. Nguyen's specializations. I'm sure she'd love to study it.”
“It could also have been a derivative of Sweet Scent. The oddish can use the move so I’ve been studying it. It soothes pokemon and can be used as a pacifier or lure,” Sabrina added.
“Y-Yeah, cherubi can do all of that,” Pierce said with an eager nod. He really didn’t want to be a ranger, not that I could blame him.
“How about this, then? Pierce stays here and works with Pat and Dr. Nguyen to bottle powders. While he’s at it, he can take care of the garden of gracideas and iceroot carrots while Shane is away.”
“I still reckon he should train with me,” Xavier said. “That way, Dr. Lansdowne here can see how aura affects physical growth.”
“Sounds like a full schedule to me,” Jarvis threw in his two cents. “Boss?”
I winced internally as everyone looked my way. Why my approval mattered so much, I had no idea. We had a mayor. Last I checked, I wasn't him.
No, I did know. Before I really knew what was happening, I’d come back one day and found myself as the shot-caller in town. I didn’t care for it, but this wasn’t the kind of thing that took my opinion into account.
“Yeah, that's good. Maybe, if he shows a knack for it, we can turn this into an apprenticeship with you, doc. Basic first aid, recordkeeping, that sort of thing,” I said with an approving nod.
“That might not be a bad idea,” Dr. Lansdowne hummed in thought. “I was only a year or two older than him when I joined up. Cleaning wounds, taking care of tools, keeping good records, those are things anyone can learn.”
“Good, that's Pierce squared away, but we might have a different problem, boss,” Jarvis said. “Now that Pierce came back safe, people might get it in their heads that the dungeons aren't so dangerous after all.”
“T-That’s not true,” Pierce stammered. “I wouldn’t have survived without Shane. I.. I’d probably be fertilizer right now, or still flapping around convinced I was a flying pumpkin."
“Sure, but that might not be what people take away from this. As far as everyone else is concerned, you coming back fine and dandy might convince them that they’ve got a shot. And who wouldn’t want powers and a pokemon of their own?”
Xavier leaned back in his chair, visibly disinterested. “Bah, who cares, man? I mean, the question isn’t whether we should let them. The real question we should be asking is if we can stop them in the first place.”
“Bro, that ain’t right.”
“But it’s true. Jarvis, man, you handle ranger schedules. Can you seriously tell me you’ve got enough guys with enough free time to watch everyone?”
“We can stop people from leaving town, right?” Sabrina said. “We have enough people for that.”
“Sure, if you take away from hunting, trapping, scouting, and supply runs around Truckee. And even then, so what? People can leave through the water or at night. That’ll always be true even if we could somehow convince the geodude to extend the walls out into the lake. Hell, the farms are barely secured by necessity.”
“Xavier’s right. At the very least, this is the kind of thing that should be decided at a town hall, not just between us,” Dr. Lansdowne said. “We’ll need to involve Mayor Rodney if we’re serious about this. It won’t be popular, though; folks like to do their own thing around here.”
“I… A part of me gets it,” I began slowly, trying to put my thoughts together. “The dungeons don’t seem so bad because we proved you can clear one. And, I ain’t about to tell a grown-ass man what he can or can’t do so long as it doesn’t threaten the town. Challenging a dungeon doesn’t do that.”
“But Shane–” Sabrina started.
I held out a hand. “At the same time, going into the dungeon means I won’t be able to help. I’ve got too much on my plate to wander through a random dungeon with someone else if I can help it. And once they go inside, they won’t even be able to call for help if they need it.”
“So what’s the answer then, boss?” Jarvis asked, shaking his head. “We’re going to have a few idiots running off. Hell, I bet most of them will be rangers. Aura would benefit us the most, after all. Either that, or kids who see Pierce here and think they’ve got what it takes.”
“I want to say I’d be willing to organize a structured raid, but that’d be a lie. Dungeons seem to get more dangerous when more people enter. At least, that’s what the data says.”
“How about one or two people at a time?”
“Maybe… I’m still afraid I’ll be getting people killed.”
“We’ll make it damn clear they know what they’re signing up for. Rangers, not kids. Maybe we should set a curfew for anyone under eighteen.”
“Worth thinking about. Bring it up with Mayor Rodney if you want; that’s his wheelhouse. For now, we need another supply run. Dr. Nguyen was saying she was running low on medicines before this mess with Pierce. We could also use more general supplies like fishing line or gas. I don’t want to put it off any longer.”
“Alright, boss. I’ll ask around, get together a wishlist and have the Adams brothers fix up what trucks are still working.”
“And I’ll work with Mayor Rodney,” Sabrina said. “Maybe if we tell the whole town how close Pierce came to dying, it’ll discourage the smarter ones.”
Author’s Note
River silt is fantastic for gardens, in controlled amounts. It’s basically fine grain minerals and biological waste deposited by slow-moving water. It’s basically the gold standard for nutrient density.
However, because it’s very fine, it can be compacted into a shell or retain too much moisture. Usually, it’s mixed with other things like mulch or even just sand.
Animal Fact: The European catfish is the largest freshwater fish on the continent at 1.3 - 1.6 meters (4’ 3” - 5’ 3”) long. They can be found all over Europe but aren’t originally native to Western & Southern Europe. They were introduced in the 1800s. Being such fuck-massive fish, they quickly became apex predators.
In the River Tarn in Southwestern France, some individuals have taken to leaping out of the water to scoop up sunbathing pigeons from shore. They then wiggle themselves back into deeper water with the pigeons in their mouths. This behavior is also seen among bottlenose dolphins or orcas.
Catfish have extremely sensitive whiskers. They use these whiskers to detect vibrations in the water and go after birds that shift and shuffle around in the shallows. Which means that to birds, these things are basically crocodiles.
We don’t really know why some do this while others are content with fish. One guess is that because they’re such successful apex predators, there might be a decrease in fish populations. In which case, we might see this behavior propagate over generations.