Rivals (We Don't Need To Be)

Terrible Beginnings (Tinkaton & Corviknight)

The first time Tink and Talon met, they were both lost hatchlings, entirely on their own. Talon had peeked down from a high branch, turning his head in interest, and she had tilted her own head back to grin threateningly at him. She didn't know why, but she really wanted to knock him out of that tree.

So she did.

It was great! Her catapult worked just as it was supposed to, and he squawked in indignation (and/or shock) as her tiny, half-built hammer hit into his chest. He looked hilarious as he fell in a cloud of feathers, and she cackled as he spiraled down...

...and didn't get back up. She waited impatiently from her spot a bit away from the tree — ideal for catapulting things — but he never flew out from the large rock he'd landed behind. After a while, she huffed out an annoyed breath and started trekking to the rock; she wanted her hammer back, it didn't matter if he was still there or not.

Tink was fully prepared to fight to get her hammer back, she was honestly excited at the thought. What she wasn't prepared for was the sight of an unconscious Rookidee laying wrong on a previously unseen ledge hitting out of the rock, blood leaking out of a half-torn wing, one of his feet stuck in a jagged crack in the stone.

Her hammer was sitting neatly on his chest.

The second time Talon and Tink met, he was waking up in her cave. He tried to get away from the Tinkatink, but was immobilized in two ways: 1) his entire body was engulfed by a dull pain that grew sharp whenever he moved, and 2) he was covered in leaf-and-mud bandages that were acting somewhat as restraints. He wasn't sure if that was intentional or not, and his mind was too fogged up with pain and panic to figure it out.

"Shhh." Tink soothed, pulling a bowl out of her cave's fire. She brought it over to him, cooling it with gentle breaths before lifting it to his beak. "Drink this."

He had no choice but to comply, being hardly in a condition to fight. As the berry mix poured down his throat, Talon could feel his pain start to fade. Unfortunately, so too did his mind...

Tink had always loved fixing things, and she did her best to fix her mistake. She unfortunately had to amputate the torn wing and crushed foot, replacing the latter with a metal contraption she was quite proud of, and then bandaged just about every part of his body. Maybe she overdid it with the bandages, actually, but better safe than sorry!

Once she was sure he was as safe as the situation allowed, she built a net and set out to capture a few Grass Types, intending to question them about what berries might help. Annoyingly, most of them either panicked too much to be of any use or fought against her, but one particularly well-traveled and kind Brambleghast helped out. She liked him.

The Rookidee woke up sporadically at first, always confused and scared and squawking for help. She would shush him, give him berries and water mixed together in easy-to-swallow mush, and coaxed him back to sleep. She tried to keep him clean, worried about infection, but his feathers made it a little tricky.

He started staying up longer, eventually moving around a tiny bit, which Tink considered great progress. He was even growing to trust her a little... Until he finally had enough presence of mind to realize his wing was gone, at which point he went completely unresponsive for about a week. Tink felt strong pangs of guilt about that, even as he later insisted she should stop beating herself up over it.

He learned to hobble and hop on his metal foot, practice from him and upgrades from her eventually letting him move fairly fast and almost normally. But as weeks turned to months, it became clear he would never be able to survive on his own.

So he didn't.

Learning to survive together was rough at first, but eventually they found their groove. It was easier to gather food when there was two of them, disabled as Talon was. Tink distracted bigger Pokémon so he could sneak into their dens and load up their berry hoards into a special cart she had built, or he would use that same cart to catch berries as she threw them down from the very tops of trees. They made a pretty good team.

They were more than a team, after a while; they were friends. They slept soundly in their cave, knowing the other was there to watch over them. She rambled on about contraptions that he couldn't begin to understand, and he hung on to every word anyways. They sat by the fire together, laughing or lamenting about the day's misadventures. They dug up and scrounged for metal to improve her hammer and his foot. For how truly awful their first meeting was, life together was good.

That didn't stop Talon from looking up longingly at the skies, eyes watery whenever he saw another Pokémon soaring far above. And it didn't stop his flinching everytime he had to climb up some particularly tall rock or occasional tree, memories of his fall crashing through him like an almost physical force.

(Tink's heart broke a little more each time)

"Corvisquire!" Sometimes, Evolving healed even the worst of injuries. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of those times. But that was okay, he insisted, he had almost forgotten what flying was like anyways. 

(Tink's heart shattered)

Another thing Evolving could do was increase one's mind. Tink worked tirelessly on all the new ideas and projects she thought up, until Talon began to complain about how much sleep he missed helping her. At which point she still worked tirelessly, just in secret. She could deal with a little sleep deprivation, especially with that new cherry seed drink the Brambleghast had taught her how to make last time he was in the area.

It was worth it, she thought, to complete one project in particular. Talon's eyes were wide as she connected the thin but strong sheets of metal to his side. They were wet when he started flapping his wings, plural. They were overflowing as he shot into the air for the first time in years, a caw of pure delight escaping his beak as he clumsily soared.

Tink watched in wonder, smiling bittersweetly. She had finally fixed her mistake. And if a long forgotten urge started to rumble inside her once more? Well, she was a different Pokémon now. Everyone has instincts, sometimes quite strong ones, but they are defined only by the ones they choose to follow.

Talon's metal wing went through many revisions. Most were for the best, a few were major flops, all were fun to build. He got better at flying over time, and though he knew he could never quite match the sort of skill others of his kind had, he didn't care; it was simply enough to soar.

Collecting food and other resources, scaring off enemies from their territory, testing inventions; everything was much easier with the air opened up to them. And it really was them, as Tink discovered one day when Talon snatched her by the arms, taking off high into the air. Her shout of surprise had become one of elation, then of fear as his wing had given out under the extra weight.

For a few terrifying seconds they had thought themselves doomed, air rushing past then and ground coming up to meet then faster than they could really comprehend. Tink scampered onto his back, bending his wing with her bare hands. The emergency midair repair let them land fairly safely, though most certainly bruised.

They laughed gleefully about the incident, just a few seconds afterwards, and made their way back to their cave. A few upgrades later, and Tink was looking down at the sun shining over the clouds, filled with a feeling that made her so very happy and so so sad all at once; she finally understood just what she had stolen from him.

Tink and Talon were full grown now, no longer the little hatchlings they once were. But they were still lost. Their first time meeting ones that looked like them did not go well, to say the least.

Tink was laying on Talon's back, her hammer gripped gently in his talons; his metal foot held it easily, even better at keeping hold of things than his regular foot after so many years of tweaking and tests.

They were flying aimlessly. Sometimes Evolving can meld one with that they were already connected to, and this had been one of those times — his metal wing melted seamlessly into his body, making their glide smooth and unhurried, even as their topic grew all the more tense.

That kind Brambleghast had suggested quite an interesting idea on his latest visit; surely the two were growing bored of the area after all this time, yes? As nice as their cave was, perhaps seeing some new sights would be even better, spark some new ideas in those clever minds of theirs?

(For Talon really was a very clever Pokémon, even if he wasn't nearly as clever as Tink)

Neither exactly hated the idea, nor did either particularly love it. It was simply out there, weighing heavy on their minds, causing arguments where neither was quite sure which side they were even on. It was true that they were getting a little bored, running out of ideas for inventions and plots, so perhaps a bit of travel would do them some good...

But to give up their home? Their cozy cave where they had become a family? Where they had spent so many nights talking, planning, crying, laughing, dancing? Where Talon had learned to fly again and Tink had learned to care, to love? It seemed unthinkable. And yet...

This particular discussion, going back and forth and getting nowhere, was cut off by a loud squawk. In his distraction, Talon had flown quite a bit farther than usual, directly into the migratory path of a certain species of Bird Pokémon...

Talon felt his heart stop in his chest, nearly forgot how to fly in his shock. Rookidee, Corvisquire, Corviknight — they were everywhere. He could hardly believe it, cawing happily to them and receiving curious caws in return, questions like who he was and where he came from and what happened to his wing did a human fix it and is that a Tinkaton hammer?!

He was flying a bit above them, they couldn't see Tink. But she could see them, if she was careful. She tensed up, both in unexplained fright and the dulled urge pulsing in the back of her mind. She almost whispered to Talon, almost told him to flee, before thinking better of it; he had never seen his kind before, he deserved to make the most of this opportunity. She could handle it, for his sake.

At first it had gone pretty well. Talon asked a million questions that the others answered easily, getting only the occasional odd look for his ignorance and strange mannerisms. He found out that, though he was a little behind in experience due to the years he'd spent grounded, he actually was a pretty good flier. He boasted endlessly about the added maneuverability of his metal wing, whose existence he still refused to explain, and Tink puffed up in pride.

Then a little baby Rookidee, almost too young to fly, had landed on Talon's head for a rest... And spotted the full-grown Tinkaton laying on his back. Suddenly realizing that the hammer wasn't a war trophy and was actually a sign that this peculiar stranger was working with their most hated enemy, the flock attacked.

For the second time in her life, Tink gave into her urge to knock these birds out of her sky. She tried her best to not hit too hard, to make sure they landed safely, but she was desperate and long-repressed instincts can be rather vengeful things. For all her ferocity and Talon's agility, they were outnumbered, and escape seemed more unlikely with each passing moment.

Rescue came in an unexpected form as rocks began to shoot through the air. Whatever was launching them terrified the flock, who gathered their Fainted and hightailed it out of there. Tink was confused untill she caught sight of spots of pink far below, recognized grinning faces identical to hers then and long before. For a moment she felt her heart swell, eyes wide in wonder. After a moment, she swallowed, letting her breath out on a shaky sigh.

"Flee!" Tink yelled, looking away from the painfully not-quite-familiar pink.

"What?" Talon squawked, struggling to stay aloft with the injuries he received from the flock. "Don't you want to–"

"Flee, you overgrown featherbrain!" She commanded with tears in her eyes. "Before they ready the second volley."

"But–"

"Go!"

He turned tailfeathers and soared back home.

It wasn't long before they were physically healed, but mental scars lingered. The horrid truth they had both always known yet hadn't let themselves acknowledge had been made painfully clear in the worst ways; their species were not made to coexist, they could never join their kinds so long as they stayed together.

They longed for others like them in the way all orphans do. But they had grown and fought and survived together far too long to so easily part.

"We can't be the only ones, right?" Talon said hesitantly. "I mean, if it happened once, surely it could've happened again..?"

"Not in Paldea, that's for sure." Tink scoffed, knowing how territorial her species acted over the entire Region, if only through reputation rather than experience. Her eyes widened. "Not in Paldea..."

The entire world over, there had to be a group of Tinkaton and Corviknight that had least tolerated each other. The slim hope wasn't much, but it was enough to finally settle their argument over the Brambleghast's words. They packed their things, gathered extra rations, and blocked their cave with rocks in an — admittedly poor — effort to ensure no others would claim it while they were gone. Perhaps they would return one day.

Talon was big, even by Corviknight standards, the sort of individual that almost certainly would've been a taxi bird had he been born in Galar. He easily carried the special saddle she had made and bags connected to it, filled with their supplies, along with Tink and her hammer.

"Where do you think we should start?" Tink asked, looking out over the clouds. That familiar feeling of wonder pulsed through her at the sight, even after all that time.

Talon laughed, opening his wings wider, speeding forward in flight. "Wherever the wind takes us!" He answered.

For how truly terrible it's beginning was, they wouldn't give up their journey for anything.