he doesn't say anything about the blatant admittance of the way he mentions his pokemon are treated. it was taboo, but not necessarily uncommon.

kyle simply nods at the answer until a word that depicts a pokemon opposite of a tool comes to play.

dog," he corrects him. "i have one. he helps me out on my job. he's at home at the moment."

rather than an outright confrontation, he keeps the conversation casual. skepticism appears in their chat like any other topic, thrown without any tone of suspicion behind them.

"how did you know?" he asks.

from his bag comes a compressed duffel bag.

now that things have settled and navy has found his footing from the early hurdle of being poisoned, kyle is ready to loot. an opportunist by nature, he sees the same target as navy.

the smile turns upside down when he realizes they don't share the same vision.

"oi, oi, oi. shouldn't we be careful when handling things like-" his words are cut off when he sees the aftermath.

a hand scratches the back of his head heavy. rather than voice his thoughts out, he turns to eddie. "is that insurance? you can back navy up if he does something-" he turns to the attempt of destruction. "-i don't have anything for, right?"

he follows after the elite four before he gets a response, waving as he briskly walks over the carnage forming. if any accidents happen from this action, navy and eddie would most likely be able to take care of it, and he's willing to gamble that noah will make his safety a priority should worse comes to worst.

with a pokeball out, he shifts his mindset.

"the ground's getting weird. i'd rather not stay for too long." he releases an electivire, one that he got after his regression as opposed to before. "if we're looting this ship by blowing it up, then i'm in."

the electivire joins in, gate crashing with a giga impact that sends pieces of the hull all over the place.

• any type 600 power total
• giga impact (150 bp)

he chuckles in a feeble attempt to diffuse the tension, only to wince at the dabbing of alcohol in a wound.

"isn't that too serious of a statement to make? it's kind of sweet though, not gonna lie."

he would have held his hand, but noah was too busy patching him up. as much as he wants to, it was probably in their best interest to not let infections take place, no matter how mild the scratches and bruises are.

the stinging sensation remains, but so does the attempt of a smile.

"i think you shouldn't though, just in case." kyle pins noah's hand between his cheek and his shoulder when he goes for one by his neck. "or else i'll feel obligated to return the favor if the same thing happens to you."

he stares at his eyes, reminded of the reason of noah's visits to slateport's hospital.

he dips his head and guides the both of them out to the main street. formality wasn't synonymous to respect in matias' book, as the kyle of old would have learned. unfortunately, the default configuration does not reflect what had been.

it does not, however, take out what had been inherent in kyle. the nostalgic casual manner of talking remains.

"you like electivire?" he repeats, turning his head to matias. "i got him out of necessity, but i grew fond of him."

the electric-type pokemon seemed to hold back on its tears upon hearing its trainer's comment, but still kept it together. the second statement was enough to salvage it.

kyle shrugs his shoulders after seeing his pokemon's reaction before turning back to matias.

"do you pick your pokemon the same way?"

despite the reckless enthusiasm, the child's interest is genuine. he observes how josh shows it to him, trying his best to replicate each movement and positioning.

kyle, likewise, subtly follows suit. he, too, follows the step-by-step procedure of how to properly ride a pokemon, having convinced himself that they would have a race whether he agrees to it or not.

he might as well take all safety precautions just in case.

"are you doing good?" he asks the child before turning to the gym leader. "is he ready to graduate riding school so we can get the race over with?"

the child is too deep into the hobby that he had tuned out everything else around him. like a sponge, everything from josh is easily absorbed and is reflected with how he handles the pyroar.

kyle never found himself natural for the job the same way navy had been. there is no charisma, but talks have been done under methodological series of talking points that naturally lead to a subject. often times, he gets information through other means.

still, it doesn't beat the tried and tested that navy's pokemon will offer.

"neat! you're a lifesaver." he smiles, seemingly proud. "get it? lifesaver? since we're in water?"

he releases his gyarados back to the waters to accompany the palafin to do their work, leaving him with navy.

his perspective leaves a lot of time between now and the perceived last meeting, which had been gabe's memorial, but time matters little. as much as there is a need to say he missed him, he doesn't. they will always leave off from the last checkpoint and relationship points do not deteriorate.

"looks like we can hang out as soon as i'm done with this," he informs him. "are you excited? maybe you'll get a chance to get in my bedroom if you're lucky."

kyle gives an awkward smile and a thumbs up back while his eyes are busy staring at terrakion after its grand entrance.

terrakion receives the same look of awe kyle had given zacian. familiarity was lost with the incident as the beast will inevitably pick up on. any reaction he will receive will not be reminiscent of the same identity it has met at the border.

"do you have a cool guy that i should be looking out for too?" he questions noah after navy and eddie have shown off their loyal companions.

as much as he tries to keep the situation light with his shameless retorts, worry had already built up from the start even if the air around them didn't induce such thoughts.

kyle rummages through a bag that cling on his back.

"did you even prepare for the trip or do you just wing it every time?" he berates navy the same way his brother berates kyle when he purposely does something wrong in front of him.

ever so cautious and uncertain about things, kyle tries to the best of what he can to prepare. oftentimes, they weren't enough. "i got those antidotes they used back when there's the alien war thing, but if regular healing works, then..."

he dangles a bottle from his bag between his fingers before looking at noah and eddie. he'd rather save it if they have other solutions to keep the option open if they need it later.

the remoraid finally squirms free from kyle's grasps, able to swim freely in the special environment of ultra sea. it continues to spew acid spray to where the nihilego once was, before its trainer directs it to use it on the walls and floors instead.

• special moves 160 power total
• acid spray (40 bp)

he looks for easier ones. the more he can assume is right, the faster he can convince himself he did good enough and be the reason he can excuse himself for doing more since he got a lot already.

a small cluster of stars at the middle of the chart takes his attention. the adjusts his telescope a bit to get a clearer picture, trying to fit whatever in it.

in the end, he settles with a disfigured penguin.

it's the best i can do, he tells himself, satisfied with a lackluster image of what can be perceived as a delibird.

one by one, he starts to cross off from the list of constellations. it brought him a mix of childhood memories from trying to connect the dots to looking for certain objects in a busy page.

he circles the edges of the star charts since those are the easiest to orient himself to. eyes find a particular one at the top, squinting as he tries to derive a shape from the description given.

a long-necked dragon...

he tries his best to keep an open mind, but his head defaults to normal dragons rather than mythical ones he has no idea of. imagination is squeezed from his system just to force it out, knowing that he won't get anything if he sticks to what was conventional.

i guess that's a long-necked dragon, he muses.

i'm definitely not part of this dream team.

kyle doubts that he doesn't share the same objective for this trip as the dewford boys. taking as little losses on the way was part of his own equation to reach the end, but his solution gets skewed with incorrect variables.

the appearance of the regal dog proves as such. he's dealing with people who can afford to act with aggression. in the perspective of an npc, sticking with them is ironically the safest course of action.

"if you guys are confident you can get this done fast, then why not?" he shifts his remoraid's mouth back to the nihilego. "am i even needed here?"

remoraid's own acid spray melts away at any defenses it tried to shore up after the initial blow from zacian, keeping it down for any attack to follow through.

taking care of navy's condition, figuring out what's wrong with the 'ground', dealing with any ultra beast loitering around... kyle wonders he has his priorities all wrong, though he won't be surprised if everything works well without a hitch at the end. navy and eddie did seem comfortable enough from having lived in dewford.

• steel/poison/rock-type 300 power total
• acid spray (40 bp)

similarities with a constellation of a similar denomination as the dog one catches his attention. he was planning on charting everything anyway, and he decides to check if the next one would look somewhat the same with the last.

dog pokemon do evolve with very little changes as far as he knows. he considers electrike to manectric to already be one of the most drastic changes physically, so he hopes this one still vaguely looks like one.

the nearest cluster of stars from the last constellation he found are traced. it doesn't look remotely like a dog, to which he defers back to the list of constellations and the description given to them.

a snake.

kyle sighs heavy with the late realization, jumping to his own conclusions without double checking facts. it's enough to kill his enthusiasm, forcing him to give himself new motivations to finish this small project.

one by one, stars get charted. he smiles at his small victory, wondering if he can finally add his experience with the stars to his resume.

with one star chart done, he pans his telescope to another set of stars in accordance to the cheat sheet. it takes him a while to double check if his view of the astral skies match the coordinates provided before finally parsing through the next set of constellations.

he finds one that beckons him in particular. it's obvious which one it was, and kyle immediately sets off to find it first among the sea of stars.

a thin dog pouncing... a thin dog pouncing...

he repeats the words in his head until all thin dog pokemon come to his mind. although he finds a figure of a canine in the stars, he can't quite pick out which pokemon it was.

not boltund, not lycanroc... he muses.