Keiko could walk, but Rex wanted to carry her. So he would.

She was lighter than he expected, skin and bones from the time they spent on this island. Rex was likely in the same state, but he had always been stronger than most, and Sea Mauville had elevated his strength after running around the preserve for a month.

"I wanted to try this, just once. If you want me to stop, I will." He looked away, embarrassed. "Otherwise, I've got you, and I'm not letting go."

In fact, he held her tighter, though not to an uncomfortable degree. It was only when Keiko forced Rex to look at her that the issue became clear. Gallade had been his first Pokémon, a reminder of a better time. Now, he had evolved and he was different and everything was strange.

What if Rex got left behind as time passed him by?

"What if I let it go and there's just... nothing left?"

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keiko mori

"Because when Dialga descended and wiped out my town, that's what was left. Nothing. People just... disappeared."

It was the first moment that made him acutely aware of the sensation that humans could be atomized with the snap of a finger, if one was simply strong enough. It was the reminder that humans were just meat animated by some spark of circumstance known as life. Keiko would call it a divine blessing from the Almighty Sinnoh. His hometown would call it his soul.

But what if it was simply nothing?

"You're describing something terrifying, Keiko. What if I let go and carrying this weight was for nothing? Doesn't the feeling of struggling for no reason terrify you?" There was only one thing to do. To set the past right, he would fulfill the promise he had made to his childhood friend and neighbor.

'We'll be champions!'

"When I become champion."

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keiko mori

Something tangible? Rex thought about it for a moment.

"I..." He looked at Keiko for a long moment. For a painfully long moment, he worked through the proper thing to say. He considered something softhearted and sappy, but Keiko saw too much. She would see through some mediocre guise and the moment would be shattered.

He could not lie again.

He would not.

So he spoke honestly, pulling from a memory foggy and faded, like a photo with the color sapped from it.

"Do you think you could get me a camera? To preserve moments like this?"

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keiko mori

Ah, right. Food. His stomach growled. That was pretty important.

"Sorry, I got distracted. It'll probably happen again." At least he was honest about it, in a 'totally shameless' sort of way. He placed the courier down gently, before turning towards the sea of green that separated the beach from their camp. He would've tried to carry Keiko through the trees, but he suspected she'd clip her leg. "Gallade will have the fire ready by now."

Not 'probably', but 'will'. It was the same as Keiko's Pelipper. He had described it as coming back, not that the bird might not return. Still, Togepi was a contingency.

They returned to a cookfire that sent smoke up into the sky.

"We'll have to butcher it, then eat. Shouldn't be too hard, since I've done it a dozen times. I'd kill for a non-Gallade knife, though."

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keiko mori

"Oh yeah? Think you can fit a way to stop a shipwreck into your kit as well?" Rex asked as he sharpened a piece of bark against Gallade's sword-arms, bemused. "Maybe I'll start carrying one too. Together we can, like, punch at any tropical storm that tries to mess us up."

It had been a remarkably weird storm, too. They hadn't seen it coming, had they? The memory was a blur.

Using his makeshift knife, Rex pulled the Tatsugiri from Gallade's arm, letting the blood drain as he did so. He hardly blinked as he systemically butchered the Tatsugiri, easily cleaning the scales from its carcass and excising the entrails from within. It wasn't a particularly clean job, nor was it a perfect one.

Where Rex himself could not issue a cut, Gallade did it for him. Those cleaves were far cleaner than anything Rex could do with a mere wooden dagger.

Soon, the smell of sizzling meat filled the air.

"How do you think the next iteration of the Keiko Survival Kit™ will shape up? Anything else you miiight want to add?"

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keiko mori

As Rex plucked the meat from the fire, he felt a looming sense of dread. It was a primal sensation, one he hadn't felt since the Pangoro. It was the feeling of being watched and knowing that something was encroaching on this small camp.

"Something's coming. It might be help." Rex rose, the cooked fish still on a skewer in his hand. "We sho-"

Gulp! The Tatsugiri disappeared from Rex's hand as it was swallowed whole by a bird as quick as lightning. Instinctively, he dropped the skewer and leapt back. As his eyes adjusted to this new threat, Rex let out a gasp. Either this was divine providence, or Keiko Mori was about to kill someone.

"Pelipper!" The bird squawked at them.

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keiko mori

Gallade looked at Rex. Rex looked at Gallade. They stared at each other for several moments, before blinking and turning to Keiko. He was lucky that she hadn't choked him out for his fuckups.

"Huh." He watched as she suffocated Pelipper with the wrath of a thousand suns. "Uh..."

On second thought, maybe he was unlucky. Rex wished he was that bird, before dragging that thought out back and leaving it to die. There, he shot it good and dead. Best to leave that memory for the crows to feast on.

"Keiko," he said carefully, as if speaking to a walking time bomb. "If Gallade does that, Pelipper will die."

As Keiko choked the Pelipper, it let out a hacking burp. Something shot past Rex's head and donked Gogoat on the head. As Rex turned to look at the goat, he saw it disappear into a small red ball. He immediately recognized it as a Pokeball. It twitched once.

"Keiko..."

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keiko mori