PKMN - A First Officer Only Has Five Lives
Summary: Or, "Five Times Friede Could Have Died, and the One Time He . . ."
Adventuring around the world comes with its fair share of danger, particularly when one is prone to reckless, and sometimes self-sacrificing, behavior. Fortunately, Friede always comes out on top. That is, until he doesn't.
Word Count: 7,566 Characters: Friede, Orio, Cap, Landau, Murdock, Mollie Additional Tags: Five Times + 1, Pre-Series (until the +1), Canon Compliant, Near Death Experiences
Snippet:
It was their maiden voyage, the first time the Brave Asagi had ever taken to and successfully sailed the skies, and yet Orio already knew that she would never tire of what it brought her. The furnace in the engine room had enough fuel to last them at least through the night, if not well into the next morning. So with Metagross keeping an eye on things by the broiler (and its psychic powers allowing it to alert her if any changes came to pass), Orio took the time to step away and make her way up onto the deck. If not for the fresh breeze that brushed her cheeks when she stepped outside, she would hardly believe they were moving at all; the ship suffered no turbulence, at least not on a day as clear as this one, and her own mechanical prowess hadn’t failed them. Though she would never admit this to Friede or anyone, part of her had wondered if the Brave Asagi would truly make it safely off the ground after she’d built it. It was only now that they were thousands of feet in the air that she could breathe easy, relishing in the freshest of air and bluest of skies. At least, until she made it to the deck of the bow and saw her childhood friend standing on the railing. “Friede—!” Orio clapped her hands over her mouth the second his name left her lips, not wanting to startle him into falling. His head turned in her direction regardless, just enough so she could see the devil-may-care grin playing across his cheeks. “Hey, Orio,” he called over his shoulder. “Did you need some fresh air, too?” “Fresh air I can get by standing on the deck, yes,” Orio said, lowering her hands from her mouth to over her rapidly beating heart. “Do you want to fall? Get down from there.” “Nah, I’m fine.” Friede spread his arms wide, the wind blowing his jacket back as though it were a cape. In his defense, she supposed, he wasn’t standing on the topmost rung of the railing; instead, he was on the secondary rung, so that the topmost rung hugged the top of his boots. All the same— “By the way, we’re headed for Cinnabar Island in Kanto. Apparently there have been strange sightings of bizarre, dangerous pokémon along the shore there. Sounds interesting, right?” “Sure,” Orio said, scanning the deck for someone—anyone—to back her up. Her search came up empty. “Where’s Captain Pikachu? He didn’t already fall off the railing himself, did he?” Friede snorted. “Do you think I’d have just let him fall if he did? Nah, he’s in the cockpit making sure we stay on course. And you can just call him Cap, you know. We’re all part of the same crew.” “Well, I think Cap would prefer it if our crew stayed in one piece. We’re small enough as it is, you know,” Orio said. She didn’t need Friede to look back at her to know that he was rolling his eyes. “Come on, get down before you fall over.”
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