I was mostly rested when Cliff woke me up for the last watch of the night. Vio was still snuggled against my chest, making a few discontent noises when I started to move, at least until she fully woke up.

Outside, I looked around, noticing a dim glow in the sky, indicating that somewhere behind the mountains, near the horizon, the sun was starting its way across the sky.

“Do you know any details about the ruckus earlier?” I asked, speaking quietly so Claire wouldn’t be disturbed.

“Yeah, Lucas thinks he managed to catch the prankster. He noticed a Murkrow sneaking into the camp and trying to steal some of his snacks and went after it,” Cliff explained with a shrug.

“Claire mentioned you saw that Murkrow before, while you were on your task?” I prodded, getting a frown in response.

“Lucas found a small, shiny coin during that job and decided to pocket it. Afterwards, a Murkrow started making trouble, culminating in that mess where we lost quite a bit of our stuff, I think we told you about it, right?” he replied and now it was my turn to nod. They had told me about their trouble, a group of Murkrow swooping through their camp and stealing or destroying some of their stuff during Lucas’ watch.

“It might be that the Murkrow continued to follow Lucas and played those pranks on us. Murkrows are quite known for their pranks and vengeful nature,” he finished, looking mildly worried.

“But why let itself get captured?” I could only wonder and given that Cliff was looking at me with an expression of pure confusion he probably had no idea either. There might be no answer anywhere but within that Murkrow’s head.

“Get some sleep,” I told him, before heading to one of the many, large boulders and sitting down, Vio following behind me.

“What do you think, Vio?” I asked her, once we had made ourselves somewhat comfortable, Vio sitting on my lap, her back leaning against my chest, my arms wrapping around her. The only reply I got was a chirp of discontent as if she wanted to tell me not to bother about some feathery rogue, a sentiment I could fully support. At least until that rogue decided to continue playing pranks but hopefully, Lucas would put an end to that.

But just the idea that Lucas had to be the responsible one in that combination brought the ominous feeling from earlier back and I quickly took a deep breath, letting the cool air soothe my worried mind. Things would, hopefully, be fine.

Vio and I continued to keep watch, slowly watching the sun bath the peaks above us with golden light, some of its rays filtering down to us. It was a beautiful sight, a hidden, gentle dawn that one couldn’t directly see but still admire.

Once it was time, Vio switched places with Charm, going to rest in her Pokéball while my fiery friend helped me prepare some breakfast for the others and, most importantly, some hot tea. It was one of the reasons why either Lucas or I held the last watch most days, that we both had a Fire-type partner that could help us prepare breakfast. Without those partners, it would be a lot more annoying, given that we had been travelling above the treeline for quite some time, meaning that it would take at least an hour of difficult, rough climbing to get close to anything worth burning. At times, we could find some large patches of shrubbery or tall grass but overall, there was little that could serve as fuel in the Coronal Mountains.

“Morning,” I greeted Claire when she came crawling out of our tent. She happily filled a mug with tea, quickly drinking and letting out a sigh of comfort.

“Thanks,” she grinned, “Did you find out anything about our nightly visitor?”

“No, Lucas is still asleep and Cliff didn’t tell me any details, either,” I shook my head, continuing to stir the porridge.

“Well, he’s going to be out soon,” she nodded towards the movement visible through the tent’s thin canvas.

And she was right, not even five minutes later, Lucas came crawling out of the tent, with Cliff following after him.

“So, what was that all about tonight?” Claire asked, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I noticed a dark, almost invisible shadow sneaking up on the camp. It was pure luck, Champ decided to show me some cool trick with his flames and I noticed one of the shadows not moving as it should, making me suspicious. Given that I needed Champ for the light, I called out Gem and, to my surprise, the intruder didn’t just flee but stuck around and fought,” he shrugged, looking a little sheepish.

“That was when I noticed the pattern on the Murkrow’s coat was familiar, it was the same annoyance that has been haunting me for a while and decided that if it wants to join us that badly, I’ll grant its wish and tried capturing it after Gem beat it up. Lo and behold, it stuck around in the Pokéball, and unless I miss my guess that’s going to be the end of those tasteless pranks you’ve been complaining about,” he grandly announced, causing me to look at him with a bit of distrust. Sure, a Pokémon had managed to sneak into our camp but that didn’t mean it had done all those things. I was quite confident that it hadn’t managed to sneak past me, though that confidence meant that Lucas would have managed to sneak past me. Neither was a comfortable idea.

“Where’s your conviction coming from?” Claire asked the question I was thinking about.

“Why else would it try to sneak into our camp? Pretty sure it was trying to play yet another prank,” he groused, though his words weren’t too convincing. The future would tell if the pranks stopped or not.

“Anyway, you got a new partner, I hope you don’t plan to hold a grudge?” I asked, looking at him somewhat cautiously. Holding a grudge against your Pokémon was about the worst thing a trainer could do, you were partners and needed to have some trust in them. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to train them to their full potential, a problem I might have to solve regarding Su. If his increased surliness was merely a temporary mood, everything was good, if it wasn’t I might have a serious problem.

“Eh, it’ll be alright, I think the little guy just needs some direction, so those pranks aren’t as boring as those you mentioned. I mean, really, stealing underwear?” Lucas waved me off, his words bringing back that ominous feeling I had before, only now it was morphing into true dread.

“Why don’t you call your new partner out, I’d like to see it by the light of day,” Claire suggested, looking at him somewhat expectantly.

“Sure,” he nodded, pulling out a Pokéball and quickly pressing the button. In a flash of light, a relatively small, black avian appeared, standing roughly as tall as Vio, though it had a rather odd shape. Its wings looked far too short, and the head far too big for the size of its body, especially the beak. But what truly send a shiver down my spine were the red, almost glowing eyes that looked at us with something I could only describe as malevolent glee. I wasn’t about to ascribe human characteristics to a Pokémon from a single glance, but if I did, I would immediately call it evil.

“That’s…” I started, only to trail off, unable to finish the sentence.

“I think I’ll call her Rogue,” Lucas grinned, after a brief look at his Pokédex. “I think it fits her quite well.”

The newly named Rogue seemed to accept the name, the malevolence in her gaze somewhat dissipating, but not to the point that I became comfortable. She looked around for a few moments, glancing at each of us and our belongings, before focusing on Lucas. He gave the bird a grin, before taking out a few berries and offering them to her. For a moment, I was worried about his hand when the massive beak shot forward but instead of tearing off his hand, Rogue just picked up one of the berries before hopping on one of the rocks, her gaze wandering around again.

Claire and I exchanged a brief, worried look, apprehensive of what mischief might come from this development. One prankster, getting trained by another prankster, that might be troublesome in the future. But who were we to decide what Pokémon another trainer is allowed to train?

Curiously though, Rogue, the freshly named Murkrow, didn’t focus that malevolent gaze on us, most of the time her attention was firmly focused on Lucas and his pack.

Either way, things would get interesting in the future but for now, we hopefully would be able to continue on our way and soon leave the Coronal Mountains. As beautiful as the environment was, I was slowly getting sick of it.