Remembering what I now considered mistakes in dealing with Su, I offered the Larvitar a few berries in my hand, waiting for him to approach me. The little rock monster’s gaze flickered between my hand, the berries and my face for a bit, almost too long for my comfort. I didn’t want to push the Larvitar, stare him down and push into his space as I had done with Su, I wanted that it trusted me enough to come to me. As a gesture of goodwill, I called Aura back into his Pokéball, leaving me alone with my newest partner, waiting for him to make the first move.

Luckily, the Larvitar was either hungry or the previous battle had weakened it to the point that it needed the energy within the berries, making it step up. Or maybe it simply innately trusted me, taking to me as Vio had but I rather doubted that, the little guy seemed to be quite prideful.

Watching the Larvitar grab one of the berries from my outstretched hand, nibble on it while holding it in both his claws, while surreptitiously looking at me was simply adorable. I wasn’t sure if the Larvitar worried that I was about to steal his food, or if he wasn’t sure the berries were healthy, but he didn’t seem to fully trust me just yet. Not a tremendous surprise, just a little earlier I had been in his cave, stealing a stone he might have been guarding, battling against him and causing the cave to collapse, so trust wasn’t expected just yet.

He had decided to stay in the Pokéball, though that might be due to the circumstances we’d been in, and that had to be good enough for me. Trust would come with time, as would friendship. For now, acquiescence would have to be good enough, while we started to build the other two.

“You need a name, little guy,” I told him, briefly scanning its features and what information I had in my Pokédex about Larvitar and its evolutions, Pupitar and Tyranitar. If the Larvitar managed to fully evolve, he would truly become a force to be reckoned with, strong enough to, allegedly, break mountains and cause earthquakes. I wasn’t quite sure if that was true, but regardless, it sounded impressive.

“What do you think about Crash?” I asked, remembering the battle between Aura and him, a battle that, despite neither of them being fully evolved, had been enough to collapse the cave and send out shockwaves I had been able to feel at the surface after the emergency teleport.

Sadly, his reaction was distinctively negative, a disdainful glare that I returned, forcing him to back down. But he had managed to get the message across, he wouldn’t be called Crash.

I tried a few more names, both playing on his current and future appearance or the character traits I had discovered so far, but he didn’t seem to be interested. Finally, as he was munching on the last berry I had held out for him, from somewhere deep within my mind, a thought sprung forth. A name, a nicely simple name, that might just be the right one.

“How about Rex? I think it means King in some old language, pretty sure I read it during my studies with Professor Carolina,” I asked him, hiding my amusement when he froze, the berry at his mouth, as he considered. For once, there was no rejection, only a look of interest and almost longing on his face.

“You want the name and you want the power to live up to that name? To not only be called Rex but to be the king and strongest?” I asked, curious if I had managed to read his expressions and emotions right. Given that he didn’t react outwardly to my declaration, only staring at me intensely, I decided that I was right.

“You shall be called Rex. My name is Dani, and I’ll be helping you to reach your full potential and claim your crown. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I offered him my now empty hand as if to shake it. I had no idea what he would make of the gesture, but his reaction brought a wide smile to my face. Instead of shaking my hand, he put his head against it, allowing me to feel the fine, almost sand-like grains that made up his skin. He didn’t quite rub against me, it was more a gentle contact, maybe demonstrating that I was allowed to touch him, something I carefully began testing. I didn’t want to spook the monster, I wanted to give him ample opportunity to signal me if he didn’t like something. A much more careful approach, compared to my forceful demeanour when dealing with Su. Hopefully, it was the right call, sadly, there was no simple and easy way to gain a Pokémon’s trust and loyalty. If there was, everyone would be running around with a full team of six, all of them bonded and at the peak of their strength. Alas, bonding and training was a long-term commitment, unless one was as stupid as me, almost getting killed in the cave. That would have cut my trainer career rather short.

With my new partner named and a bit of physical comfort established between us, I called him back into his Pokéball, so he could rest. Glancing outside, I could see still more snow falling but it looked like the amount was slowly lessening, making me hopeful that I would be able to leave before night fell. Trudging through the snow would be bad enough, doing so while even more snow was coming down from above, with quite a bit of wind whipping things up even further, would be nigh impossible.

Making myself as comfortable as possible, I pulled out the rainbow stone I had found. Just holding it caused a strange, tingling sensation to run through my hand where I held it, not painful, nor really pleasant, just a weird numbness. Almost as if my hand had fallen asleep previously and was now waking back up, a tingling, prickling current.

Looking at it, I still could see the glow, though it was only really appreciable if I used my hands to shield the stone from outside light, otherwise, the glow was too dim to see. Sadly, that still didn’t tell me what I actually had, there was no label to the thing, nor had I ever seen anything alike. It was just a smooth, vaguely spherical gem, its colours shifting through the facets of the rainbow, depending on how it was hit by outside light, with a faint, innate glow that seemed to somewhat echo those colours. There might be some sort of pattern within, but I wasn’t sure, as it again depended on the way the gem was hit by the light, making it impossible to determine. It might simply be my desire to see a pattern where there was none, just like I sometimes could see the shapes of Pokémon in the clouds.

Not thinking that it would really work, I pulled out my Pokédex and tried scanning the thing, only to receive an error message, telling me that what I was trying to scan wasn’t a Pokémon. Not useful, but entirely expected.

Letting out a sigh, I put it back into my pocket. If nothing else, I had a really cool rock, one that I might use as an accessory, maybe as a pendant or something similar. I could easily see it fitted into a bit of silver and hanging off a leather band to wear around my neck. Somewhere between adventurous and feminine, the image in my head felt quite appealing. But it was nothing I had to decide right now, before anything else, I had to get back to town.

Luckily, the snow had mostly stopped by now and I had about four hours of daylight remaining. Normally, I would need about two hours, maybe two hours and a half, to get back to town, but that presuposed normal, or slightly rough conditions.

Looking outside, the conditions weren’t just slightly rough, the amount of snow looked brutal. Cautiously stepping outside, hoping that I may be light enough not to sink into the snow, I almost fell flat on my face as I did just that. Wading back, I let out a few choice curses and considered my next step, only for a wide grin to spread across my face.

A quick press of a Pokéball’s button later, the cave was wonderfully warm, thanks to a newly evolved, quite large fiery dragon.

“Buddy, think you can push away the snow and carry me as we fly to town? I really don’t want to trudge through that mess, I’d turn into a popsicle,” I asked him, a part of me giddy at the idea. Flying on the back of my dear Prince Charming, it was, literally, a dream come true.

Or, with what the Uxie had told me, maybe a memory reawakened I wasn’t sure and didn’t really care. Flying on his back was a dream, but maybe one that would come true now.

Charm obeyed like a champ, using his large, sail-like wings to push enough snow away to make space for both of us outside.

“You go up first, buddy. Come back once you are confident in your flying,” I told my dear partner, watching as Charm took to the sky with a roar of glee, shrouded in a dim, azure glow.