From close up, the Eterna Forest was even more impressive than from afar. Massive trees stretched into the sky, far taller than any building I had seen so far, towering even above the Gym in Sandgem City. High above, a dense canopy filtered out the sunlight, giving the whole forest a cool, dark climate, with some moisture from morning dew still lingering in the air. At ground level, there were countless small shrubs, vines and tangles, forming dense underbrush that made moving difficult. Even the official Route had lost to the growth, turning into a barely-there path, little more than an animal trail. Between the two extremes, the dense canopy and the tangled underbrush was a curious void, the bare tree trunks stretching up without using energy to grow branches or foliage, making me think that it would be a paradise for certain arboreal Pokémon or animals.

As we stepped in, the change of atmosphere and temperature was almost a physical blow, moving from the warm sunlight into the cold dampness of the forest. Even with Cynthia’s coat, a brief shiver ran down my body and next to me, Claire visibly shook before putting on a coat of her own.

“A week of this, until we reach the White River.” I mused, watching as Claire wrapped her arms around herself, waiting for her body to adjust to the cold air.

“Wonderful.” she grumbled, clearly not happy at the prospect. “How do we keep from getting lost?” she asked, looking ahead and seeing only a wall of green, the trail soon vanishing in the foliage.

“That’s easy,” I grinned, remembering the navigational advice on this part of the journey. When I stretched the pause a little too long, Claire gave me a gentle shove, urging me to continue.

“We don’t,” I finally answered her question, getting a scowl in response. “There is no fixed path through the forest, but there is a major landmark that you almost cannot miss. Unless you start flying through the trees, you’ll eventually reach the White River if you keep going north. Given that there is no bridge, you either get very wet or notice the river and follow it east. When you leave the forest and reach the mountains, you also reach Route 2-05.”

“So, keep heading north, got it. That does sound easy.” she let out a sigh, clearly not as confident in this as I was.

“Oh, we’ll be fine, cheer up. Shouldn’t you, Miss Gardener, be utterly at home in this place?” I prodded her, poking fun at her obvious affinity for grass-type Pokémon. Nuts had been growing like a weed, outstripping Su’s progress, despite the effort I put into training the surly Shinx.

“As long as neither you nor Charm burn down the forest, I’ll be fine.” she joked back, as we started walking amongst the trees.

“I can’t promise you that, if there are too many Bugs, I might decide that a forest fire is the only answer.” I laughed, only to have a large drop of water land on my face, turning the joke on me. Scowling, I looked upwards only to see nothing but the canopy far above.

“The forest doesn’t like your talk of fire.” Now, it was Claire’s turn to laugh, while I grumbled under my breath, cursing the stupid forest. Not only did it look like Grass-types had something against me, but now even the forest itself was joining in on bullying me.

A good thing about the forest was that it was teeming with Pokémon, giving all of our Pokémon ample opportunity to train themselves. Stumbling onto some Bug-type, trying to snag an unsuspecting Pokémon was a regular thing, with other types liberally strewn into the mix. Most of the Bug-types turned into sparring partners for either Myna or Charm, neither of them struggling individually, but with enough encounters, fatigue was slowly piling up.

Luckily, the two of them could rest between battles, either because we simply took a rest, making sure we didn’t run into further trouble, or because we ran into a different type of trouble, one that another of our Pokémon took care of.

We made sure to match our Pokémon well against the wild Pokémon we encountered, maximising their strengths. That meant Su was sent against the various flying foes, such as the moth-like Dustox and the shimmering Beautifly, but also the few Hoothoot that came by during the evening and early morning and the odd Murkrow that had made their home in the outskirts of the forest.

On the other hand, Nuts didn’t have too many good match-ups in the forest, the best he could hope for, were neutral matchups against the Budew and, near the outskirts, a few Bidoof and Buneary that had made their way into the forest from the heathland outside.

The Buneary became the latest target in Claire’s crusade to find a fluffy partner for herself now that she had given up on the Parchirisu. Their adorably large eyes, their ears and the entire rabbit-like appearance had a certain, undeniable charm, but I wasn’t too smitten with them. Claire, on the other hand, was almost as eager to catch one of them as she had been with the Parchirisu. She only started pacing herself when I reminded her there was a long journey ahead and she had already used multiple Pokéballs in her attempts to catch a Parchisu the previous days. If she really wanted to catch one of the Buneary, she should at least make sure that it had good innate strength.

The other problem, besides the amount of wild Pokémon, was a lot smaller but it stung a lot more. The moist climate of the forest, combined with the warm spring weather made for the perfect breeding ground for all sorts of insects and bugs. Small insects, buzzing around us and biting as much as they could. Amusingly, they seemed to prefer Claire’s blood to mine, making her cranky and annoyed.

“Didn’t those books you kept reading say anything about these stupid bugs?” she growled, as we were making camp on our first evening. She had just smacked the fifth gnat in as many minutes and her temper was getting short.

Pausing in my work, I closed my eyes, thinking back. I had read a lot of things in Floaroma, not all of them with a great deal of focus, but there had been reports and guides to Eterna Forest. As I heard another slapping sound, followed by a quiet curse, it came to me, the description of a particular herb. A creeper plant, growing on large trees and the leaves could either be turned into powder and used to repel insects or burned directly, achieving the same effect but with a lot lower duration.

Jumping up, I called out to Claire, telling her to look for the distinctly five-tipped leaves of that creeper plant. She almost flew away from our campsite, moving with an urgency I had not yet seen. If she ever got that diligent in the training of her Pokémon, she might become a Gym-Leader at some point. Chuckling to myself, I started moving as well, with less urgency but quickly enough to get results.

It didn’t take us long to find the ubiquitous creepers and with a little help from Charm, they soon burned with bright flames, releasing a peculiar scent. It wasn’t overly pleasant, sharp and pungent, but when there were no more slapping sounds and curses, the efficiency was aptly demonstrated.

“We will gather a supply of that stuff, we will carry as much of it with us as we can,” Claire muttered as if swearing an oath to some deity. Or maybe just to her skin, as the red spots showed her suffering.

“Dani, you think Charm can help us dry the stuff? You said the dried variant can be ground into a powder and stored that way?” she asked, utterly focused on the idea.

“That’s what the report said, yes,” I gave her a wry smile, a small part of me feeling a little guilty that I hadn’t paid enough attention. My feeling of guilt was vanishingly small, as Claire hadn’t even bothered to research, but still, it was there. As if I had failed my little sister or something like that.

It was a peculiar thought, a little sister. The images in my dreams, that smiling, male face I knew to be my brother still visited me occasionally, the intensity somewhat abating with repeat exposure and time, but still, it was there. Did I have the desire to take care of him, too? Or had I been the one who was taken care of?

Leaning against Charm, I felt a little melancholy.

Who was I? Such a simple question, often answered with a name, maybe a short description of your history, if you wanted to be thorough, but for me? I had a name, Dani, but even there, a small, nagging part of my mind insisted that there was more to it. A history? In my case, that was two months of memories and a lot of blurry, contradicting images. Images that made no sense, some of them fitting into the reality I was experiencing, some of them utterly alien, with weird, metallic monsters and contraptions, stranger than any Pokémon I had seen thus far.

The melancholy in my mind faded a little, when Charm turned and placed an arm around me, his tail wrapping to my front, surrounding me in a cocoon of warmth. Whoever I had been, I now was his partner and trainer. And the partner and trainer of little Vio and the surly Su.

Maybe, those connections would be enough for a future me. Even if I wanted to know about past-me, to clear those cobwebs that tangled up my mind.