After giving a glance to the evolving Twiggy, I focused on Vio. She stared at Twiggy and I got the distinct impression that she was almost at the point of attacking him.

“Vio, come back.” I called out, trying to call her back into her Pokéball. But instead of obediently following my command, Vio swiftly stepped aside, dodging the beam. For a moment, I thought she’d actually attack Twiggy but instead, she started to make her way back to me, demonstrating that she had far higher physical capabilities than her diminutive form suggested.

After hopping over the branches, she directly made her way to me, stopping right before me and looking up, her red eyes shining with aggravation. Considering for a moment, I picked her up, marvelling at the smooth, slightly spongy feeling of her skin and cradling her in my arms. In turn, she put her slender arms around my neck, holding onto me with surprising strength. Not painful, but clearly in search of closeness or comfort.

Instead of trying to do anything about her, I simply held her, gently rubbing her back while looking down at Twiggy. By now, his evolution had concluded and instead of the stout creature he had been, he was a size larger and distinctly changed. The legs were a little shorter, compared to overall size, leaving him at about a metre in height, though he was incredibly bulky for that. His formerly nut-like shell had elongated, giving the impression of a seed-pod and from it, in the middle, were two hedge-like growths, which had been the leaves on his head.

“Twiggy, let’s see if you can destroy these branches.” Claire ordered and Twiggy started to make his way up the path. Hearing her call, Vio snuggled in a little closer, making me wonder just what was going on. My best guess was that Twiggy had, somehow, taken more of the energy released from fighting the two Bidoof, maybe by virtue of proximity, as that was the only thing I could think of Vio could have been interested in. Or maybe she simply wanted to be coddled and spoiled. Either way, I wanted to be good to the little darling, even if she had been a little willful.

On the path below, Twiggy was using brute force to deal with the thick branches blocking his path. Some of them, the thinner ones, he simply picked up with his mouth, dragging them out of the way and aside. Thankfully, he didn’t just drop them into the water, or the pond would soon become stagnant with rotting vegetation. Why it hadn’t already, I wasn’t certain but I was thankful for. With the thicker branches, he demonstrated that Pokémon-attacks had insane power when he started to radiate thin, white light before crashing through them with a Tackle, sending splintered wood flying everywhere.

It took Twiggy a few tackles and a lot of brute force to make his way up the path, and even so, the path was far from cleared. It was traversable, but the wood might shift at any point, blocking it off once again. We’d have to drag the various branches up, to make sure they wouldn’t block it again. Even if it was likely futile, as someone or something had to have dragged them there in the first place.

Looking down at the crystal clear, almost sparkling water, I pulled at my clothes, stained with sweat and itching from the earlier work and decided that I’d try just how warm the water was.

“Vio, I have to help Claire and Twiggy to clear the path.” I quietly told the still clingy Pokémon. When she simply shook her head, burying a little deeper into my chest and snuggling in I had to laugh, her spoiled behaviour simply too cute.

“Has Twiggy bullied you? Did he take all the power from that fight?” I quietly asked, but there was no answer, at least not one I could understand. Instead, she simply held on closely, and I could only shrug at Claire’s look of disbelief.

“Hey, I did the work earlier. Guess it’s your turn now.” I told her, poking my tongue out.

For the next twenty minutes, Vio acted spoiled, giving me an excellent excuse to remain up top, watching Claire and Twiggy work hard. They had to carefully drag up heavy branches, some of them with sharp splinters poking out from his earlier, rough handling. Mostly Twiggy provided force, while Clarie followed along the trunks, pushing and pulling to guide, getting sometimes swiped or slapped by snapping branches. All in all, it looked like an awkward, unpleasant job and thanks to the cutie in my arms, I didn’t need to help.

Instead, I kept an eye out for trouble, making sure that nothing tried to sneak up on us, just like Claire had earlier. Finally, Vio seemed to be pleased with the attention she had received and loosened her arms around my neck, wiggling around a little before hopping out of my arms. For a moment, she just stood in front of me, before moving behind my legs once more, almost as if trying to hide from Claire and Twiggy.

“So, now you can help?” Claire asked, once she noticed me shaking with laughter at Vio’s antics.

“Maybe. Though we need to chastise your Twiggy, I think he took Vio’s share of the post-battle energy to evolve.” I told her, walking down the now mostly cleared path. There was still a bit to do, but they had done most of the literal heavy lifting.

At my accusation, Twiggy let out a deep, rumbling grumble before hanging his head, making him appear like a scolded, sad puppy, pitiful enough to make me laugh again. Looking behind me, even Vio held a hand to her face, as if trying to hide her laughter. When I reached down and ruffled her grass-like, teal hair, she quickly tried to hide behind me again, her hands busy trying to fix her hair back to its normal, smoothly hanging style.

“Let’s quickly finish this. Afterwards, we can enjoy the pool for a bit, I’d love to wash up.” I told Claire, as I called Vio back into her Pokéball. This time, she willingly went without a fuss.

Together, it only took another ten minutes to clear the path, though it was still hard work. But once it was done we could easily walk down, make sure that the two Bibarel weren’t overly harmed and settle in. Looking at the carved path that led down to the pond, I realised that it continued to spiral on, into the water like a ramp. By this point, I was curious enough to investigate, so I stripped off my clothes and started to make my way down into the water, asking Claire to stand guard, just in case.

It was curious, the water was almost perfectly clear, allowing me to watch how the path circled on downwards in concentric circles, at least until it became too dark to see it any further. But the small, maybe fifty metres across, pond was surprisingly deep. At least fifteen metres but there was no way to tell if that was all of it.

Walking down the ramp, into the water, it was quite warm at first. Warm and comfortable, at least after some heavy, physical work. Once I got into it hip-deep, that changed and my feet were suddenly in cold water, but not painfully cold, so I pressed on, walking forward until I had to swim. Considering for a moment, I realised that even if I tried to dive, there was no way to get deep enough to find out what was down there, not without some sort of equipment or a Pokémon to help.

Instead, I simply submerged myself, floating in the crystal clear water for a moment, before taking a step back and briskly starting to wash. Simply getting clean, especially in a nice bath, was an incredible luxury on a journey like ours and one I didn’t take for granted.

I stayed in the water until the cold got to me, playing around and carefully washing myself. Finally, once my teeth started to chatter from the cold, I got back out, shaking myself like a dog. While we carried towels, they were not the size to quickly dry off a person. But instead, I had a nice, heating Charmeleon, so while Claire stripped and went into the water, her Twiggy back in his Pokéball, I had Prince Charming come out and stand next to me, the heat radiating from his body keeping me warm while I dried in the sun.

“What do you think this is?” Claire asked, having noticed the obvious oddity of the pond.

“I have no idea.” I admitted, before giving her a grin, “But I’ll find out in the future. Though, I’m curious why Bree sent us here, she must have known that we’d see this and start to wonder.” I added, before shaking my head, still amused.

“Let’s have lunch. We can continue on afterwards.” she suggested, likely realising that there was nothing more we could do here, not with our current abilities.