The Migration

The trip to Vermilion city took on average a week if you were coming from Saffron. At the pace Steven and Vali were taking, they would reach it in a week and a half. The Ponyta and Rapidash migration lasted a total of four days during which the many herds traveled to the southern areas of Kanto in preparation for the coming winter. It was also during this time that new herds formed from the young Ponyta and newly evolved Rapidash that had been born during the spring. While the new herds were forming, the normally docile and even tempered pokemon became fairly aggressive though less so than when it was their mating season which occurred during the tail end of winter into early spring. At this time of year, it was easier to catch one of the equine pokemon.

Vali wanted a Ponyta, but would catch a Rapidash if she needed to. Ponyta had an easier time getting used to humans whereas wild Rapidash disliked being around humans which often led to sightings of the wild equine pokemon to be almost as rare as Vulpix. She looked up from her pokedex as the ground began to rumble and become a bit unstable. She put her pokedex away as she moved towards the top of the hill with Steven and found her breath taken away at the sight of the many Rapidash and Ponyta racing across the plains. She breathed out, "There must over a hundred of them."

"Metagross says that there's almost 200 of them," Steven looked as awestruck as her.

Vali reached into her pocket and pulled out her camera before snapping pictures of the large herds of equine pokemon that were slowing down to a stop in the plains. By the time she was done, she murmured, "They're amazing."

"We need to approach them carefully," Steven said earning a nod as she put away the camera.

With careful steps, they slowly descended the hill making sure to keep their movements as slow as possible to avoid gaining the wrath of the equine pokemon. Most ignored them with the Rapidash shifting away from the two trainers with wary eyes, a few of the Ponyta let out a soft whicker. One of the braver Ponyta walked up to the two humans and nosed Vali prompting the witch to pull out one of the apples she had stashed in the top of her pack. She held it out to the Ponyta who looked at her with wide brown eyes as it slowly reached to take the apple. It chewed the apple thoughtfully before letting out a neigh and moving closer to lip at her hand likely hoping for another one. With a small smile, she offered it another apple which it took with a whiny. Another Ponyta trotted up along with what looked to be a newly evolved Rapidash that was smaller than a majority of the ones around. She fed each an apple before saying, "I don't have any more."

They made pitiful sounds and offered her puppy dog eyes earning a soft laugh from her. Vali felt her camera being removed from her pocket and glanced to the side to find Steven pointing it at her. Smiling, she reached out and gently scratched behind one of the Ponyta's ears startling it slightly before it leaned into her touch. Eventually, the Ponyta moved on to graze with their herds and Steven handed her camera back saying, "I'm surprised you didn't ask to battle one."

"I'd rather take the time to earn their trust and see if I can catch one without a battle," Vali said as she headed back towards the hill to sit down and take a minor break, "I'll see if one of them wants to battle later. You don't mind us staying here for a day or two, do you?"

"I don't mind," Steven shook his head as he followed her, "I didn't expect you to not try to battle one first,"

"There's also the fact that I want to meditate a bit and see if I can access my inner flame," Vali explained earning a curious look, "I haven't been able to access it all when I do meditate, so my thought is that I should be able to access it or at least get a grasp of it if I'm near a large quantity of fire-types. The herds won't be moving on for a few days which will give me the perfect chance to try out my idea,"

Vali found a dry patch that wasn't covered in grass, rocks, or loose dirt before she took a seat. Steven followed her example, "I suppose while you're doing that, I can see about training my Sandshrew to find evolutionary stones,"

"Then we should set up camp while we can, it'll be nice to have a small break while we can," Vali said looking at Balto as the Growlithe flopped onto the ground panting softly.

Balto had great stamina since he was walking beside her the most out of all her pokemon, but even he needed a break especially considering the fact that they'd been training quite a bit over the last few days in preparation for the herds. While she had hoped to catch one of the beautiful equines, she understood that preparing for battle was a very good idea.

Closing her eyes as she breathed in the almost hot air, Vali concentrated on her magic first. Magic to her felt like a river of warmth flowing through her alongside the blood in her veins. She followed the flow of her magic into her core which pulsed just under her beating heart and between her lungs. She settled there for a little while allowing it to soothe away the small aches and pains that had developed during the walk that day. She soothed the agitated parts of her magic caused by the incident with Sabrina and the warning she'd gotten by whatever sent her that vision. Once she felt almost completely relaxed, she focused elsewhere.

With Fawkes' feather on her chest and the massive amount of fire-types not far from her as a guide line, Vali searched through her body for the inner fire that lived there. It took patience for her to search through her entire being even with the guides she had, but eventually she managed to find it. She breathed out sharply at the blazing fire she felt within her that flickered and flared almost randomly. It seemed to fill her body and threatened to burn her to a crisp. Each breath she took seemed to make the fire flare hotter and hotter. Slowing her breathing down, she focused on the fact that the fire was a part of her. She was the fire and it was her. The fire flared once more before settling to a comfortable blaze. As she focused on keeping it there, she heard a gasp and opened her eyes to look at Steven, "Steven?"

"Vali, you..." Steven breathed out as he pointed at her.

Looking down at herself, it took everything inside of Vali to avoid screaming in shock at the fire that covered her skin. She forced herself to stay calm knowing that the fire wasn't burning her or anything around her. Taking a deep breath as she closed her eyes, she willed the fire to return to the core of her being. A chill swept through her body as she tried to seperate herself from the majority of the flames. By the time she opened her eyes again, she felt cold everywhere save for the area where her inner flame rested which was in between her magical core and heart. She looked at herself and sighed in relief at the fact she wasn't covered in flames anymore, "Well that was unexpected."

"I'm surprised they didn't burn anything," Steven sat down as he stared at her in shock along with all their pokemon.

Even Eevee's cold mask was gone as he stared at her in shocked awe, the grudging respect in his eyes for the power Vali showed off made her wonder what she would need to do to earn his trust. It was movement at the edge of camp that had her looking towards the herds only to jerk in surprise at how close many of the equine were. She stared at them in shock as she murmured, "S-steven?"

"Wh-" Steven cut himself off as he saw the crowd of equines shifting at the edge of camp, "Holy mother of Mew,"

"What are they doing?" Vali asked as she looked over the equines that seemed to be battling with their instincts for some reason.

Metagross let out a metallic grunt as they said, "They are interested in you, Friend Vali. They have never met a human with an inner flame nor anyone outside of a pure fire-type to have such a strong inner flame untrained as it is."

"Is that a bad thing?" Vali asked as she reached into her shirt to grab Fawkes' feather, "Will accessing my inner flame make it easier for psychic's to sense it?"

Metagross made a soft clicking sound, "No, we do not believe it is a bad thing. If anything, it will likely assist in gaining one of them as a member of your pack. I do not believe accessing your inner flame will make it easier for those that do not know of its existence to sense it though I advise against trying to train it around humans."

Vali nodded slowly relaxing at the fact that she hadn't ruined her chances at hiding her inner flame from those that would try to use her. She glanced at the equine pokemon, "So they're going to be watching us?" Metagross made a nodding motion, "Well that makes things interesting."

At the very least, Vali would probably end up getting a new team member which was the entire reason they were here.

Falling asleep turned out both harder and easier than it had been anytime Vali went to bed while traveling. The hard part was getting used to the sounds of the equine pokemon around the camp and the light of their manes. On the other hand, the heat they gave off chased away the chill that was starting to set in with the coming fall. The dreams she had that night were a confusing mass of fire and chaos with images of the volcano she'd seen in the vision flashing through her mind. She woke up shivering despite the heat of the massive amount of fire-types and her own pokemon curling around her save for Eevee. She wiped away the sweat coating her brow as she noticed that the sky was still dark and mentally sighed. Instead of attempting to go back to sleep, she decided to meditate due to the unbalanced feeling of her magic.

Steven looked concerned when he saw that Vali was awake before him. He looked even more concerned when she'd mentioned that the dreams revolved around the volcano and that she'd be up since before dawn. Instead of focusing on it especially since she couldn't talk about the volcano without her head hurting, she focused on getting Eevee more used to her as well as training her pokemon.

While with the herds, Vali spent time getting used to being around the equine pokemon as well as making notes on the various behaviors she saw. Unlike most herd bound creatures, the Rapidash and Ponyta didn't congregate around a single male or female. Instead, the herds had several males and females if not more depending on the size. Ponyta weren't herded into the middle of the various herds despite not having evolved into a Rapidash. Instead, they were encouraged to venture around and practice fight with one another. Newly evolved Rapidash were smaller than those already evolved and their horns weren't as large. Once a Ponyta finally evolved, it was surrounded by the various Rapidash who congratulated their newly evolved kin.

Vali saw many fights between both Rapidash and Ponyta. The Rapidash fights were between the younger ones that had either just evolved or were finally being pushed from their old herds. The fights were often brutal and left many injuries though rarely were their broken bones. The Ponyta fights were merely play fights or attempts to evolve. The older Rapidash tended to avoid fighting for the most part, but some did get into fights though they were mostly to keep their skills up. She also noticed that those that didn't fight had more than a few scars marring their creamy coats. It was very interesting to watch them interact and she ended up writing quite a bit in one of her journals knowing that Professor Oak would enjoy reading it.

The dreams didn't leave Vali alone and sometimes appeared during her meditation. It left her a little bad tempered though she did try to avoid taking it out on anyone. If she got too annoyed, she took a walk among the herd which always managed to soothe her temper. Some of the dreams were vivid causing her to jolt awake sweating heavily and attempting to pat out fires that weren't actually there. By the time the herd was ready to move on, she was ready to pull her hair out.