The Chronicles of Black.

'2nd time this month...'

The man lets out a quiet sigh and turns his head to the nightstand, where the alarm clock reads back '5:13 AM' in its baleful red numbers. It's no use sitting and thinking about them, the cubs he raised by hand.

They're gone.

Lee sighs once more and shifts to try and return to sleep, only to find his pillow unpleasantly damp and sweaty. 'Fuck it. I'm not getting back to sleep after that dream anyway.'

"Psst. Vulpix," Lee whispers, making the vixen's ear twitch. "Hey, honey, rise and shine. Time to get up. Hoenn isn't going to conquer itself."

Vulpix grumbles lowly and raises her head, cracking open an unamused eye to glare at her trainer. The other eye opens shortly after as Vulpix rises to her paws, still on Lee's chest. She does a full-body stretch complete with a jaw-cracking yawn before hopping to the floor.

Lee sits up and peels the damp blanket off of himself with a grimace, noting that his sleeping attire is sweat-soaked as well. "Gross..." He murmurs, standing and walking to the small bathroom off his room. Several minutes later after a short shower in the cramped bathroom, Lee steps back out in fresh underclothes and dons his attire for the day. Vulpix watches demurely from the bedroom door.

The day he leaves the lab and actually begins a childhood dream once thought impossible. The man suppresses a shiver of nervous energy and takes a shuddering breath. He looks down to the Sliph bag at the foot of the bed, going over a mental checklist of things inside.

'Tent, sleeping bag, clothes, food for myself and 'Pix, water, cookware, meds, Potion, pokeballs, books, ax, lighter, power bank. I know I'm missing something, but for the life of me, I can't remember...' Lee scratches his head and hums under his breath before looking to Vulpix. 'Anything I'm forgetting, love?'

Vulpix says nothing either psychic or verbal but blinks and looks at the nightstand. 'Ah, right.'

Lee steps over and grabs the folding beater cellphone on the stand. He takes a long look at the little hunk of plastic and glass, then to his Sliph bag with a shake of his head. "We live in a world where casual spatial distortion tech and flip-phones exist in the same era. What the fuck, man."

He flips the phone open and begins dialing...

"Hey, Lee!"

The scarred man and the fox at his heels stop midway back to the lab guest room. With an exhausted sigh, the man turns to face the voice.

Behind him, a resolute Brendan stands with crossed arms.

"Something I can do for you, Brendan?" Lee mutters, leaning against the hallway wall. "I kinda want to get to sleep." The boy nods. "You turned down Ash's offer to travel with him and May. Why's that?" He asks.

Lee scoffs, recalling Ash's offer over dinner just fifteen minutes prior. "Trust me on this, that kid is a trouble magnet. He's got a target painted on his back that actual terrorists are gunning for. He's a nice guy, but I'm not sticking my neck, and by extension Vulpix's neck out for a stranger. Plus, doesn't a grown-ass man traveling with a pair of kids, one a little girl, seem kinda creepy?"

Brendan mulls it over for a second. "Well, when you put it that way I get it. If you don't wanna go with them, then how about me?" He asks with a grin growing on his face.

The man across from him blinks. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, come on! It'll be fun!" Brendan insists. "Traveling alone sucks!"

Lee and Vulpix both slowly turn their heads to meet eyes. "Traveling without someone else to talk to about human stuff I mean!" Brendan quickly amends with a wave of his arm. "And no, you're a friend of the Birch family and a Hoenn sponsored trainer like me, so it's not weird if we hang out. Yes, I've already asked dad and he's cool with it."

Lee lets his argument die and escape his mouth as a tired hiss.

"Plus..."

Brendan folds his arms behind his head in a forced show of aloofness, but his averted eyes give him away. "Plus I feel like I learn a lot from you, you know? Kinda like a cool teacher. Mudkip's growth is nothing short of explosive, and it's all with your help. I wanna learn to train as you do..."

The elder of the two turns away with pursed lips, trying not to let out an irritated snip. He looks back briefly to the boy, taking in his slowly falling face with a grimace. Finally, Lee sighs and caves. "Tell you what. Let me sleep on it and I'll call you in the morning. I plan on leaving then."

Brendan's grin lights up the whole hallway.

"It's like five in the morning, what do you want..?" Brendan's sleepy voice comes through the tinny cell phone speaker.

"Get up and gather your shit," Lee says, not bothering to hide the smirk in his voice. "We're leaving ASAP. I wanna put feet to dirt and get to a decent place to train before the heat of the day sets in and makes everyone miserable."

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