[Pokémon] Yggdrasil - Rated T

1.1. the interdimensional interstate.

part i​

There I was, standing in the middle of the darkness with their blood on my hands. It hurt somewhere inside of me, I guess, but overall I felt better. Liberated, even. The darkness shifted, then it wasn't their blood anymore.

It was mine.

I stared at my hands, horrified, as laughs crept up on me like an icy chill, stilling me and making me feel as stiff as stone. I tried to swallow but my throat was too dry, and I cracked my mouth open just a bit and blood started running down my chin. I hit my knees, feeling completely ravaged, my head pounding and my heart pounding slowly, then my body went completely numb and I fell on my face.

——————

He pried his eyes open past their tears and saw fingers—his fingers, real fingers—digging into hard-packed dirt, his new fingernails splitting from the effort and leaving thin trails of red human blood. He blinked several times, stunned, before the pain returned and he hit the ground bodily, curling in on himself. (Bodily, wow; he could never use that word before sans the sarcasm.) His jaw clamped down on his tongue so hard that the coppery taste of blood surged in his mouth, and when he parted his lips just a little crimson blood spilled out onto the ground.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the pain began to wane. He became more familiar with his new body, feeling long and wavy hair, a lean torso, and a small burn scar on his left ankle. He braced his hands on the ground, feeling his arms shake and trembling as a newborn ponyta's before he could find his center of balance. He let out a breath of exertion and prepared to get to his feet, however he was interrupted. A new, stronger sensation rippled through him, so potent that he fell on his face all over again. He couldn't retain a cry as vocal agony tore through his throat, his fingers digging painfully into his scalp as he groped for a hold on something, on anything corporeal.

Is this… Is this really what they suffer from? Arceus—tricked—me!

The anger overruled the pain and for the first time in what felt like centuries, he could actually move. He clenched and unclenched his fists as he pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly before finding his center and raising his head. The room he was in was terribly dark and his eyes couldn't adjust at all, simply forming half-assed shaped from the blackness. He gritted his teeth and strained his ears, trying and failing to make any further sense of things than what he already had. It made no sense that he, who almost was shadows, would fall prey to their dark deceptions. Borderline anything could've been in that room and he, a defenseless human being, would've been powerless to stop it.

"…You're half-right, anyway," a familiarly ragged voice hissed somewhere in the darkness. "Bad things take solace here—you know, just as you did, or used to." He tried to speak but found his tongue and vocal cords were immovable yet. Spooks, wherever he was hiding, found that hilarious, and he felt his face heat in anger. "Taking things as seriously as always, I see," his right-hand pokémon continued, and finally he could spot bloodshot eyes through the black.

"—where?"

"Where are we? Containment," Spooks answered a tad smugly. "At least you've found a man that matches your personality to a T."

"—get—get me—"

"I'll get you all right. It's always been 'Spooks do this' and 'Spooks do that' for you because you think you're such a hotshot that every pokémon within a twenty-mile radius just has to prostrate before you. But look at you know, as weak as a human!" Spooks' laugh resounded in the small room as his eyes slowly floated closer. "Did you know that 'Spooks' isn't even my name? Sure, it's the one you gave me, but it's not mine. Not that you ever cared."

"I—" He felt a cold chill run down his back right before another ghostly laugh.

"I don't want to hear you talk anymore." Another cold chill skipped across his skin as stones in a pond, and then the darkness lightened enough for him to make out Spooks' shape several feet away from him. The distance quickly closed between them as Spooks floated towards him, eyes glowing brighter, until he gave one leap and rammed through his annoyingly corporeal body. He gasped in shock, then groaned in pain as the half-possession distorted his human innards, twisting them around until it felt like a cold fist was jammed inside of his intestines and was knotting them up. He fell back against the wall, stunned, as red blood stained the underside of his skin and more blood dribbled out from his mouth.

Sleep well, Master, Spooks' bodiless voice jeered from somewhere in the growing darkness of his peripheral. Because if you do wake up, you'll have the entire Ghost-type committee tearing you to pieces.

…

…NO. DAMN. WAY.

He reached out blindly, hand coated in the same shadows that Spooks was reveling in, and grabbed the recalcitrant gengar by his arm, squeezing so hard that his laughter ceased instantaneously. You must have forgotten who you're dealing with, he whispered without really "speaking." I don't care how I treat you or even what your name is, and do you know why?

"W…Why?" Spooks was, for lack of a less ironic term, thoroughly spooked.

Because you are nothing more than one drone in my force, and if you dare attempt to bite my hand again, I will wipe your ectoplasm out of all existential planes. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

"Y-Yes, Master," he stammered.

Now help me get out of here. He released Spooks to clench his abdomen, feeling the man within cry and scream in agony. Spooks moaned in his own sort of agony as he put his paws on the ground, then he resigned himself to the cool feeling of shadowy darkness as they sunk down within them. That darkness, he was completely accustomed to, and he welcomed it like an old friend.

"Where?" He closed his eyes, feeling out the familiar darkness around him. To those that endlessly searched for faster methods of travels like flying-types or airplanes or whatever else ridiculous invention that the humans came up with, they had yet to realize that they were literally standing on the Grand Central Station of their Earth. As long as there were shadows there, beings of darkness could reach that place, and as there wasn't a place without shadows, the reach was inconceivable.

"Viridian City," he whispered, his voice misting in the cool blackness. It would be a while until he could use that body properly, but until then he still had one lackey to push around, just as long as Spooks remembered his proper place. He blinked heavily and watched his blood crystallize in the cold, and he gripped his stomach tighter before his body finally gave out.

He woke only because something was licking his (borrowed) face.

"Koko! What are you doing?" He cracked his eyes open to see a small growlithe getting pulled away by a young girl with auburn pigtails and freckles across her pale face. "Sorry, mister," she apologized. "Koko is really friendly."

"You smell like blood," "Koko" said to him. He snorted through his nose and went to close his eyes again before he remembered what was going on. He instinctively leapt forward, knocking the girl onto her back and pinning her arms to the grass. She shrieked, alarmed, and Koko bristled as she started gnawing uselessly on his wrist.

"Who in hell are you?" he demanded, gripping her wrists so tightly she cried out in pain.

"L-Linda," she moaned, tears streaming down her face. He raised his eyebrows at the sight. "Linda Fitzgerald…"

"Where are we right now?"

"W-We're outside of Viridian City," she whimpered, terrified. "Please don't hurt me." He looked around at the stretch of dirt path and green grass around them. Maybe he could see a city in the distance, he wasn't sure, as his eyes had yet to properly adjust to the bright sunlight.

"Why would I…hurt you?" he finished, a little stunned at his own behavior. His goal was to find the disturbance and get back home, not to freak out the underworld dwellers. Messing with the humans would just make it that much harder to get his job done and return to Yggdrasil unobstructed. "Spooks," he snapped, irritated that his ghost had made yet another disappearing act. "When I find him, I'll—"

"Shady, Needle Arm!" He was knocked away as spinning green arms bearing razor-sharp thorns swung at him, causing him to go rolling across the grass until he reached a stop a few feet away. In normal form that wouldn't even have dented him, however a human body was much more fragile and he found himself with several disgusting and likely to get infected puncture wounds on top of his contorted viscera. He saw a nearly-identical redheaded boy helping the girl up with a cacturne keeping an eye on him.

"Mel," she whispered, putting her arms around him and burying her face in his chest. He held her protectively with one arm as he glared daggers at him.

"What the hell were you doing to my sister?" he demanded angrily, his cacturne bristling with thorns. He dragged himself onto his elbows and wiped a smear of blood from his forehead.

"Nothing of consequence… I wanted some information."

"Damn way of getting it," he growled.

"Dick," his cacturne agreed.

"Ugh…" He groaned, the pain really hitting him. "You two…you'll regret doing that…" He dug his fingers into the hard dirt for a moment, trying to gain leverage, then he pushed himself to his feet, feeling his body sway gently from side to side. "Spooks… Spooks!" he shouted, clenching his fists. Unless Spooks had suddenly metamorphosed into one of the random pidgey above, he sure as hell wasn't coming anytime soon. "Arceusdamn it, that gengar is so— Wait." He paused, getting a good look at Mel's cacturne. "Dark-type," he said sternly, pointing at Shady. Shady's eyes narrowed a little in response as it stepped forward. "I command you to use Pin Missile on the brat."

"Shady won't—" Mel started, an interesting mix of confused and irritated, just as Shady spun around and fired a stream of arrow-like thorns at him. He froze, eyes wide, before Linda tackled him out of the way, the pins exploding into a shower of dirt and grass on the ground. He laid sprawled for the better part of five seconds before carefully pushing her away and sitting up.

"Shady won't what?" he taunted Mel. "He knows how to save his spiny skin. Now, I have a little favor to ask of you two. Try attacking me again before I can speak and this plant will wither before your very eyes—like magic."

"No!" Linda cried, beating Mel to the punch. She held Koko back as she barked angrily.

"You two can call me…" He searched in his mind a bit before smirking and snapping his fingers. "Orville. That's his name. You two can call me Orville."

"I know what I'll be calling you," Mel hissed in response, holding Linda protectively in his arms as her eyes watered in fear. Oops, there he went again. If he wasn't careful, he would make a ruckus before he even got close to discovering—

"…I have a question," Orville told them. "Were there any strange occurrences by your proph—newscaster? Psychic happenings? Weather disturbances? Anything like that?" They exchanged a look that was more or less meaningful before shaking their heads in unison. Orville stomped his foot down, becoming aware of his lack of protection there. He had to remember to grab some sort of footwear. "Don't lie to me." Mel's cacturne raised his arms as well.

"W…We're not!" Linda said, alarmed. They had to be lying, as he was completely certain that the energy he sensed was in that area. Maybe they were completely oblivious, he couldn't tell, but for all he knew they were hiding something. Had Spooks been there, he could've extracted the information from them within seconds, but since he felt like playing hooky, Orville had to play it by the book.

"Then how about a deal?" he offered. Mel's expression soured almost immediately as Linda paled. "Don't think it's anything too sordid," he added, raising his hands defenselessly. He noticed Shady emulate the gesture from the corner of his eye and grimaced. He nodded his head a little to the side and Shady's eyes darkened as he returned to the world. "I just need some help, and if you two can give it, not only will I leave you alone, I'll help you as well."

"You can help by getting as far away from here as possible," Mel growled.

"Not happening, and frankly you're annoying. Shut up. Anyway, I'm looking for a type of anomaly. All I know is that it's here in this area and I need to get rid of it A.S.A.P. Help me and I, uh, won't kill you." That broke through even Mel's façade and Orville clamped his mouth shut. "Wrong words. I don't plan on killing you two—but I will hurt you," he added quickly as Mel tensed as if for a fight, "all one hundred pounds of you."

"Mel, just agree," Linda whispered to him. "That way, he won't hurt us."

"Hurt us?" Mel exclaimed, taking out a pokéball. Orville couldn't move fast enough as Mel returned his cacturne and got to his feet. "Linda, make Koko fight him."

"I—no, she'll get hurt—"

"We'll get hurt!" he argued. Distraught, Linda released Koko from the cage of her arms. The little growlithe sped across the grass before sinking her teeth into Orville's leg. He stumbled, shocked, as blood matted her fur and she started tearing.

"Get off of me before I stomp you to death!" he hissed, trying to regain his balance on one foot. Growlithe were known for their persistence, however, and she did not even flinch at the threat.

"Tear his leg off, Koko!" Mel said even as tears streamed down Linda's face. Orville growled even though it didn't mean much as a weak human.

"I said get—" He stopped, still balanced awkwardly on one foot as the pain slowly began to make a return. Arceus, not now! He waved his foot back and forth and tried his hardest to quell that damn man, but as always it wasn't his body to control. They always backfired on him at one point or another, always, but this time there wasn't any room for failure. If he did fail, everybody in all three worlds would die.

"NOOO!" he roared, aggravated and in pain at the same time. It was something he hadn't experienced in a very long time from some kids, not since being challenged by that overgrown weed from Sinnoh…

"Koko, stop!" Linda cried abruptly. Her growlithe persisted, seemingly in the zone, and Linda ran up herself to grip her body and try pulling her free. Orville watched as his veins blackened starting from his feet and working their slow way up. That body was rejecting him and his darkness again, but this time he didn't have the strength to fight back. He would get forced out and who the hell knew how long it would take him to find another compatible human? He'd be damned courtesy of Arceus and then the entirety of the underworlds would be over too if that anomaly got the change to spread.

A sudden chill ran down Orville's back, making him think that Spooks had returned, but instead he felt a sudden heat bearing down on every inch of his skin. He took a pointless second to consider how much it itched, as if that human was born of shadows as well. He shifted slightly before looking down, and not only did he find that the darkness had vanished from his body, the shadows had too, leaving nothing but green grass at his feet.

What? Shadows can't just disappear.

They reappeared just a second later, almost making him believe it was an illusion as Koko detached herself from his leg, leaving a ring of bloody teeth marks as she ran to Linda's side, who had lost consciousness on the grass. A wave of vertigo hit him as time caught up and he just barely caught himself as he spun towards the ground. He let his eyes roam the land to find stretches of darkness like fingers left from the shadows like dirty residue, branching out from his feet and past Linda's body to Mel, who was in just as prone of a state. He felt a bit dazed too, and as a matter of fact the only one that was perfectly fine was Koko.

"Ugh," he groaned, slapping a hand against his forehead as the world began to spin slowly in his peripheral. He felt like utter crap but he couldn't afford to focus on it at the moment. A disturbance happened there, and even though he didn't know the finer details or even the cause, he did know the consequence: a portal through Yggdrasil would open. He had seconds to grab the brats and move before some other pokémon with a grudge against him (which numbered somewhere in the hundreds) would appear and seek their own form of revenge. Oh, Arceus must have sent him there on purpose, as he had to have known how many pokémon would want a piece of him—the human him. Koko barked angrily at him as he picked Linda up, cradling her small body against his unsteadily. He could hold her, sure, but he needed Mel to move. "Be useful and wake him up," he snapped at Koko.

"I'm not your pokémon," Koko growled in response.

"Yeah, well pretty soon you'll be too dead to be anybody's pokémon, you and your damsel trainer." Koko bared her teeth, enraged, but he didn't have time to mess around. He stepped down on Mel's wrist, cracking it, and Mel's eyes snapped open the same time that he took a gasping inhale as if he just came from underwater. Orville grabbed his arm, roughly dragging him to his feet before he was even fully conscious and forcing him into a run. Not even a second later a deathly boom rang out from behind them as if from tons of pressurized air, knocking them off of their feet and back onto the ground. Linda rolled from his grip and down the path as Orville shifted to his back, watching the pokémon materialize from the air and hover a few feet above the ground. Crimson eyes locked with his as the Eon Pokémon folded back his notorious blue wings to fly.

"Damn all of us to Hell," Orville said as he pushed himself onto his elbows. He watched Latios center himself and surreptitiously dug his fingers into the shadows at his side, slowly bringing his hand up to let them follow like ink dripping from his extremities. He threw the shadows out just as Latios charged soundlessly, his body getting halted centimeters from Orville's as his shadow was subjugated by the latter's. Not a second later the sound that had preceded Latios' movement came once more, the loud crashing and gush of compressed air that was a sonic boom. Dirt and grass flew everywhere as if a tsunami had hit, clouding the air and darkening the sun above as it momentarily obscured their vision and leaving a huge crater where Latios had been. Orville stared at Latios for what seemed to be a long while until the former smirked.

"I thought I had you," Latios told him.

"Pokémon tend to think that."

"You're still clever."

"Of course."

"And not clever enough." He started struggling against Orville's grip, the veins of his arm turning black and bulging as he tried to hold Latios in place. In the meantime, he roused Mel and Koko and took up Linda, who was no closer to waking than before.

"Let's go before he gets free," Orville hissed to them, grabbing Mel around the waist with his other arm and lifting him in order to move faster. Koko, as he witnessed, was fast on her own, and as long as he had Linda, she would follow. The farther they were towards Viridian Forest the less Orville's hold on Latios could hold. He felt it being stretched as thin as rubber as they crossed the boundaries, then his arm hurt as it "snapped."

"He'll follow us!" Koko whined to him through the darkness. He gritted his teeth, already annoyed that he could barely see two feet in front of him through the thick growth of trees.

"Maybe so, but he'll be slower about it. He won't risk a sonic boom where there's this much wildlife, hating me or not." Koko had a better time getting around than him, which irritated him to no bounds despite him knowing what he had gotten himself into.

"Why is Latios after you?" she demanded. "And why do you smell like that?"

"Like what?"

"You smell a lot like blood, like you killed someone, but you also have a weird scent of ghost energy and something I have no idea about."

"Smart mutt," he muttered, glancing over his shoulder. Though he wasn't sure, it seemed to be Latios slowly flying through the mess of trees some dozen or so feet behind them. "Look, Cocoa or whatever your name is, I need your eyes and nose."

"No! You're not my trainer!"

"Aagh! I know I'm not, but I don't think you want to die because that guy's after me!" Koko thought about it. "These damn eyes can't see crap, so I need you to help me."

"Then explain everything! —Duck!" Koko suddenly cried. Orville almost fell on his face as he doubled over, and not a second later Latios suddenly flew overhead and rammed his head into an oak a few feet away, causing the trunk to shatter and letting it hit the ground with an ear-splitting noise.

"Everything is a lot to explain," he said with a grimace. "For now let's focus on living, and if we manage that then we'll focus on the next step." He knew that the only real way to get rid of Latios was another portal through Yggdrasil, but in that state he was incapable of opening one safely. On the other hand, he was doomed if he didn't open one, so he might as well have taken the risk. He just needed something reflective, anything large enough to take in all seventy-nine inches of Latios… "Is there a pool nearby? A pond, a lake, anything clean?"

"Why?"

"Again, I'll tell you if we live." Koko didn't like that but took the lead anyway, guiding him towards the west but still letting him run into tree branches. Behind them Latios persisted, more attacks flying at them and coming so close that the hairs on the back of his neck were too tired to even rise anymore. He watched the trees thin to allow more light, finally giving his eyes a break as he noticed an abundance of ground plants and water-types that scattered upon sensing Latios.

They came out of a particularly thick growth to a small clearing with a pond the size of a human vehicle. The pokémon lounging around it immediately scattered as Orville came bursting in, and he wasted no time as he felt Latios almost literally breathing down his neck. He didn't even release Linda and Mel as he jumped into the water, and as he passed through he spun around to release his energy to the surface. Latios attempted to follow him but just as he breached the water the portal formed, causing him to vanish whereas Orville just sunk through six feet under. He waited until the portal vanished on its own, being incredibly weak, and then he surfaced, letting Linda and Mel have their own unpleasant awakening.

"Blergh!" Mel spluttered as he swam up, flailing wildly within the water. Orville found his lack of swimming expertise hilarious and especially so when Linda had to help him float. "What the hell!?" They swam to the shore and Mel landed gratefully on the grass, shedding his drenched hoodie and jacket and even dropping his utility belt. Orville picked it up but Mel paid him no attention as he shook his hair dry with Koko seeing to Linda. "What the hell? Were you trying to drown us!?"

"I'd have fun drowning you, but no, I wasn't. I was actually saving you two," he corrected, spinning Mel's belt around his finger. "You would've been caught in Latios' mess and been killed on the spot."

"Latios? The legendary Latios?" Linda asked, eyes wide. Mel barked out a dry laugh.

"Very funny."

"Whether you believe me or not isn't my concern. The only concern at the moment is getting as far from here as possible before another disturbance happens." They weren't known to follow pokémon, but Orville wasn't willing to take any risks while he was still so defenseless. And because of the children—he couldn't recklessly endanger children. Arceus sure as hell wouldn't like that.

"My concern is getting my sister away from you, you—you freak," he spat in response, grabbing Linda's arm. Koko growled in response, huddling closer to her.

"It's all right," Orville told them as they took a step backwards. He snorted through his nose and put his hands on his hips, turning his back to them. "Just remember that what you saw here can and will happen in numerous other places—maybe even your cozy house. Think of what would happen if, say, Groudon landed in your mother's kitchen. I bet she wouldn't find that very fun." He was lying, but since he was the only one out of the four of them that really understood anomalies, he could get away with it. They were expectantly silent as they mulled it over, looking at each other.

"Where's the proof again? That mystical, magical, invisible Latios?" Mel sneered.

"He's telling the truth there," Koko grumbled, pawing Linda's leg. She looked down before looking back at Mel worriedly.

"I don't think he's lying about that, Mel."

"Don't tell me you two are getting brainwashed by this creep!"

"I'd look who's calling who a creep, Mel," Orville sneered in response. Mel's eyes widened as he clenched his fists. Linda was the smarter one of the two, grabbing his arm to stop him from getting his face broken.

"We'll help you—" she started, earning Mel's disgusted shock, "—if you give us more information."

"Gladly," he smirked.


It wasn't easy getting back on track to Viridian City with how much destruction Latios created, but they tried. It did reinforce Mel's ever so hard to garner belief however, seeing the upturned dirt as big as an airplane's landing strip where there was previously green grass. He didn't admit Orville was right however, which still pissed him off to such high bounds. And as if one brat on his behind wasn't enough, that growlithe was no less than five centimeters behind him at all times. That girl Linda was the only levelheaded one in the whole situation, although she did look to be on the verge of tears most of the time. It was somewhat humorous that despite looking so alike, she was very timid and he was obnoxiously brazen.

"Where's that explanation you promised?" Mel asked deprecatingly, just barely turning his face to Orville as he spoke. He grunted in response.

"What did I promise exactly? Do I really need to give you written word? Am I that untrustworthy?"

"You're prevaricating."

"Nice vocabulary. But yes, I did say that I would tell you." He decided to omit the harder to believe parts of his tale, although it would dent his credibility somewhat. "I'm here looking for what we call an anomaly. It turns the space into thin ice and not just that, but it also releases dangerous pokémon into this underworld, which puts lives in danger."

"And who's this we you're with? The Ghostbusters?"

"We are the ones that care for all of you scumbag eight-year-olds that swear you can handle yourselves, but guess what?" With one arm, Orville lifted Mel over his head and threw him down onto the dirt, then he dug his heel into Mel's birdlike ribcage, holding him down. "If a worthless human like me can take you down without batting an eye, you can bet your skinny ass that something better than me won't even dedicate a brain cell to the action."

"G-Get off of me," he stammered, pushing Orville away to no avail. Orville could've very easily crushed his chest, but instead he removed his foot and allowed Mel to stand. "Bastard," he muttered, turning away.

"I'm not with you three for my good health either," he told them. "This is basic knowledge to all of us but I still have to explain it, yet you're having so much trouble understanding."

"Because in the first place, legendary pokémon are just that—legendary," Mel said. "This kind of crap is something from a sci-fi movie or maybe fan-fiction."

"Well seeing is believing, brat," Orville retorted, pushing Mel back by the chest. He stumbled a little before regaining his balance, mouth open for an angry reply. "And if you decide not to help me you sure as hell will be seeing a lot of proof. Not all legendary pokémon are the people pleasers you read about in your picture books. I'm actually trying to do you all a favor here, so it would help if you'd stop being such a little monster about all of it." Mel shut his mouth but shot daggers at Orville visually. Linda took Koko up in her arms as she stared pensively at Viridian City on the horizon.

"And what do you do to the things that cause anomalies?" she asked hesitantly. "Do you…kill them?"

"Maybe," he said vaguely, crossing his arms over his chest. She paled, eyes wide, and Mel grabbed her hand. Orville sighed. "Why is death such a raw topic to you two?"

"Ugh," Mel complained, his brain apparently exhausted and unable to concoct any witty responses.

"Nobody likes to think of death. It's scary," Linda elaborated. Orville didn't have a response this time. Death wasn't scary, not to the legendaries, but he would've had a hard time explaining the concept to a human.

"Yeah? Well being scared of it won't make it disappear either." He sighed, unwilling to get into the fine details of unnecessary topics, and rubbed his arms. The man, Orville, had been wearing odd grey clothes, thin and cheap-feeling, not to mention the no-shoes thing. On top of that, Spooks (damn him) mentioned that Orville was in containment. If so, then he wouldn't be well off wandering in a wide open city. It was lucky enough that he got away with Mel and Linda. "What were you two doing out there alone anyway? Parents abandon you or something?"

"Um," Linda mumbled uncomfortably. "We were, uh…"

"Look," Mel said sharply, "we're not pals. You need our help to get off our backs? Fine. You don't need to know about our lives to get your mystical crap done, so don't ask. Not everybody has a nice story to tell or even wants to tell it, so shut your—"

And a pidgeotto came and plucked Mel up. Like a magikarp.

It was so ridiculously satisfying it was hilarious.

"Mel!" Linda cried as the pidgeotto soared back into the air. She spun to face Orville, tears running down her cheeks as Koko barked and jumped in the air futilely. "You have to do something?"

"Do what, exactly?" he chuckled. "Fly up there and get him? Pidgeotto like little annoying things to eat—that's the circle of life. Maybe he'll reincarnate as something more useful, like a miltank." He didn't see reason to be scared of her—she was even smaller than Mel, and a female—but the look she gave him made him stop mid-laugh and fear for his mortality just a bit.

"Save my brother," she ordered, her eyes red from her crying. "Or else." He was so shocked, in fact, that he didn't even ask what the "or else" was. He had a suspicion that it wasn't going to be a merry skip through a flower field.

"I'll, uh, see what I can do." He backed out of her reach and sighed in relief. Those two really stuck their necks out for each other. As he bent down and tried to summon Spooks from the depths of his soon-to-come demise, he suddenly remembered why Latios and Latias disliked him so much.

"Hide-'n'-seek? What's that supposed to be?" Latios snorted. Latias cried out in surprise.

"You don't know? All the kids play it in Alto Mare! You, um, uh…" She flew in a wobbly circle as she tried to remember. Emerson (his current possession) wouldn't have minded had they not been in the Snowpoint Temple, Snowpoint City, in Sinnoh, in one of the few places he could freely access.

"You what?"

"You, uh, you go hide and count to fif…fifteen! And when you get to twenty then you win!"

"Do you even know what you're talking about?" Latios sighed, letting his wings drop to his sides. The ensuing wind cleared the snow from the floor surrounding him, revealing the smooth ice covering it. Emerson tried to keep his eyes on his reflection but they were getting quite annoying.

"She rarely does, so I'll say so," Emerson put in, looking at them from the corner of his eye. They were reasonably incensed by his two cents.

"You can't talk to my sister like that," Latios growled, his eyes flashing. Emerson shrugged a shoulder.

"Well, you're in my region, in one of my domains, so I believe I can say what I please with my mouth."

"Actually, Sinnoh belongs to Dialga and Palkia," he pointed out smugly. Emerson gave him a short round of applause for his contribution and his nose flared angrily.

"The point is, we can pass freely through the regions," Latias said, rubbing Latios' shoulder to placate him. "It's in the accords. Nobody owns a region."

"Yeah? Well that's not what Arceus said when it confined me to a world without physics and sunlight and, uh, what else is it missing? Riiight, any other living things. That cold dark place is mine own to enjoy. You should go visit, ungrateful brat." He passed his hand over the ice and it immediately darkened into a streak of black amidst the white snow. Latios gasped as it was pulled downwards tail first, and Latias wasn't fast enough to grab him before he was sucked in. Her head slammed against the ground as the ice returned to normal, then she raised it to shoot a murderous look at Emerson.

"Bring my brother back!"

"He'll get back on his own," he chuckled. "You know, if he can figure out the place fast enough. You'll see him in I'd say…fifty years at the latest?"

Latias' feathers stood on end, making her appear a lot more rugged than she was, and they shone with a bright blue light. "Bring him back!" she snapped, her feathers falling away and swirling into a ball of energy. Emerson sunk into the shadows as her attack crashed into the pillar behind him, shattering it into piles of lumpy rock, and he resurfaced just behind her.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he said, eyes glowing red. "I only take orders from Arceus."

Latios was returned as Latias brought the matter to Arceus, and since then he was too happy to come after Orville every time he was in the underworld. Linda and Mel were like them in a way, but maybe all brothers and sisters cared for each other like that. Maybe he would've known more if his purgatory wasn't eternal solitude.

He put his back to Linda and steeled himself before plunging his hand into his shadow. It hurt even more than he expected, doing it on his own, and the backlash was so strong that he almost was pulled headfirst into that cold darkness, but he planted his feet and held his ground. Koko sniffed around him, probably to ensure he wasn't going to attack them, and he snorted at her. He waved his hand back and forth blindly until he found what he was looking for, thank Arceus. He held on tight and dragged Spooks free even as he tried to cling for his not-life. Orville held him up by the leg as he laughed weakly.

"You, uh, found me," he muttered.

"Yes, uh, I did. Thank Arceus that I don't have time for punishment now. I want you to take us out there," he said, pointing in the direction the pidgeotto had gone. "If I hear one word from you on the way, I'll rip your mouth off and banish it to the corner of Yggdrasil." Spooks started to reply but wisely kept his mouth shut. He took a deep breath and took a more gaseous form as he expanded until he was six feet tall. He grabbed Linda and Koko with one arm and Orville with the other before floating off into the sky.

"We're not going fast enough!" Linda complained worriedly.

"You heard the lady," Orville said. Spooks grumbled to himself but wisely didn't make it audible as they moved faster through the air. Orville looked down and saw the green grass make way for hard dirt and gravel. He didn't know Kanto all that well, but he figured that it meant they were getting off-track from Viridian City. It could've just been a small detour, but he couldn't decide that without first seeing the cause of the anomaly. If it was a person living in Viridian, then that was just a detour; on the other hand, if it was a pokémon or even someone conscious of him on their tracks… Who knew how far they would get before he could catch up again, and he didn't want to wait for another anomaly to locate them. Another anomaly meant another legendary, and that meant more lives in danger.

"How far is he?" Koko asked as they continued flying. They had only been moving a short time, but to them it probably felt like eons.

"Well, pidgeotto can fly up to sixty miles to catch prey—"

"Prey?" Linda repeated, startled. "He's not prey! He's bigger than it!"

"Didn't seem to stop the bird."

"Orville!"

"It's a pretty ingenious plan if you think about it. The boy is a little gamy, but pidgey can pick his bones clean for some protein, and he's just big enough to feed a flock of—ouch!" he exclaimed as Koko bit down on his hand.

Spooks reached a mountain range sitting around a city. It had plenty of ledges that he assumed a pidgeotto would nest in. "Spooks, check around there," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," Spooks muttered in response, holding his tongue from any extra comments. He circled the mountain from the bottom up. Linda grew nervous as they found minor collections of rock-types and nesting areas for smaller bird pokémon, but not the guilty pidgeotto. He sighed and looked towards Linda, expecting another invective, but she was crying silently instead. He looked to Koko for pain instead and found her in pretty much the same state. He was, in simple terms, dumbfounded. Mel was irascible and rude and crass, yet he was still so well-liked. Orville was just the same, though he hated to admit any similarities to the brat, yet he was loathed among many communities. What…could have been the difference?

"How does he do it?" he wondered aloud, a wry smile on his face. Linda looked at him in confusion and he just shook his head. Then he spotted it. "There. Right there." He directed Spooks to a small ledge with just enough space to house a nest settled between two large rocks as anchors. Mel was lying in the collection of twigs unmoving, his body set between three large pidgeotto eggs. As soon as Spooks drew near Linda wiggled from his grip to jump into the pidgeotto's nest despite Orville's protests.

"Mel! Mel, wake up!" she urged, picking twigs and leaves from his hair as she tapped his cheek.

"Oi, you insolent female, listen to me!" Orville snapped. "Pidgeotto hate when others step in on their territory. If that bird comes back and sees you this close to its eggs, you're just as much chow as him." She ignored him and he sighed in defeat. "Why are these kids' heads so full of cotton? Spooks, take me away—I think I can find better travel guides in a daycare."

"Whoops, not enough time," Spooks said before releasing Orville to flop on his face in the twigs. He gave a sinister grin before he faded away to be seen whenever the hell he wanted to. Orville growled, taking up a rock and bouncing it in his palm.

"When I see that one again I'll be sure to banish him to the darkest, coldest pits of Hell." He looked up as a distant figure appeared on the horizon, flying towards them much faster than Spooks moved. "If we have time."

Mama pidgeotto returned with one hell of a vengeance, talons out for blood. Orville tossed the rock with as much force as he could muster, but for all of his effort she only veered slightly off course. Linda hugged Mel closer to her body as the pidgeotto swooped down towards them. A thousand thoughts raged in his head as he watched, the scene transpiring a lot slower than he would've preferred. He wanted to get his crap done and go back home, but he knew that if Arceus discovered he let three innocents get killed while he watched, he'd end up down there with Spooks. Moreover, a tiny, tiny empathetic part of him wanted to save them just because. He spat on that part and obeyed the voice of his own safety as he stood over them and put his arms out to cover them, then he braced himself for the pain of having his chest carved out. Then he chose an alternative.

He took up her eggs and let her smash into them instead.

The half-formed little pidgey spilled into the nest with a flood of embryonic fluid in a heap of grey, underdeveloped flesh. It wasn't the grossest thing he had seen—not after witnessing Manaphy giving birth, whoa—but Linda started dry-heaving from the sight. The pidgeotto screeched in alarm, snapping back from them, and Orville took the opportunity to grab onto her leg, pulling her harshly towards the nest. He moved out of the way so her body slammed into the rock wall and she hit the ground.

"Well," he sighed. "Who wants fried chicken?" He looked at Linda's expression and frowned. "Not the time?" He picked up a larger stone about the size of his head and brought it down on the pidgeotto, ending her days. Mel also chose that moment to open his eyes. His muscles tensed automatically and he sat straight with his arms out protectively.

"Don't drop me!" he cried. A few seconds later he calmed down, rubbing his arms as he looked around. He took one look down the side of the mountain and screamed like a little girl—Orville mentally filed the moment away for posterity. Mel sat as far from the edge as possible hugging his knees to his chest, his face deathly pale until he made eye contact with Orville. It turned even redder than his hair as Orville burst out laughing so hard it brought tears to his eyes.

"Heights? Are you kidding me?" he laughed. "That's all it took? I won't give you a break from here on."

"Shut up!" Mel snapped. Orville was still snickering as he looked down at the drop. It was a bit severe, but there were enough ledges to land on to make it possible as long as the birds didn't peck their eyes out.

"So, unless you three want to claim this nest for your own, we should get down. I suggest Mel goes first."

"Damn you." He hesitated, looking down at the pidgey embryos, and his face turned a little green. "Why did you come for me anyway? Don't you hate me?"

"Hate is a…strong word. I hate confinement; I hate solitude. You're just bearable. And what kind of question is that? My emotions have no say in the matter. I won't let a semi-innocent kid get killed."

"Semi-innocent?"

"You constantly antagonize me. I think my feelings are forever traumatized." Mel rolled his eyes. "And if nothing else, your concern for each other has moved me." They exchanged a look.

"Really?"

"My heart isn't stone. Now go before another bird wants to grab you." Linda released Koko to the ground to take Mel's hand. He gripped it tightly as she walked towards the edge and he kept his eyes to the skies as they skidded the five feet down the slant to the nearest ledge. Orville sighed as he followed.

Pewter City was as boring as he remembered, that was for sure. But this time it wasn't from a lack of color or even lack of annoying neighborhood Mikey—more like an excess of that creep Orville. Mel didn't like him from the get-go, but his distaste festered as Orville laughed literally every second that he spent crawling down the mountain. He hoped that the bastard ruined his lungs.

"Hey, hey, I've got a serious question," he chuckled as they reached ground level. Mel blew his cheeks out, already angry at the result. "You save her skin, and she saves yours—what happens when neither of you aren't up for the call?"

"Huh?" he asked, thrown off. He and Linda stared as Orville calmed down, running one hand through his tangled hair.

"Let me word it better… Do you ever not want to save each other?"

"What? Why wouldn't we want to?" Orville let his hand rest on his forehead as his eyes squinted from some sort of pain.

"It looks tiresome to me and I barely know you. Or maybe I'm just a selfish bastard—don't respond, I know I walked into that one," he said as Mel readied himself for an insult. "But, uh, anyway, we're in, uh…" He rubbed his forehead as he stared at the city.

"Pewter City," Linda told him. "It's a few miles from Viridian."

"Oh… So, I'm guessing that here lies the rock specialist gym leader?" he asked absently, angling his whole body towards the city. "Okay, so…" He stopped talking to bring both hands to his head, trembling a little. Koko started towards him but then backed away out of confusion. Okay, that wasn't a good sign.

"Hey… You're not dying or anything, are you?" Mel asked awkwardly. "I don't want to watch somebody die."

"Ain't that selfish of you," he said dryly, cracking his eyes open a little with a wry smile. "No, not gonna die… I'd never die in this worthless state." Saying that didn't make him look any more alive.

"Then maybe you need a hospital," Linda suggested. He waved her off and took a weak step forward. Mel squinted at his face and saw little black branches appearing under his skin. They looked like his veins but that was impossible—nobody had black blood. Yet they still throbbed a little like veins and especially when Orville grunted before falling on his side.

"I'll—," he choked out as they bent at his side, "—take that—hospital after all—" He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head to the side to cough out a semi-solid mass of blood, mostly red but with black boils. (Could liquids get boils? …That was something Mel never wanted to imagine, let alone see.)

"What's wrong with you?" Linda asked, panicking, as she shook his shoulders. His head just bounced from side to side like a ragdoll's.

"Linda, I think he passed out. We gotta take him to a doctor." If she was surprised by what Mel said, she didn't show it. He avoided doctors like a plague…and if that counted as a pun, it wasn't intended.

"How? He's too big for us to carry!" Koko was still sniffing around him, although she kept a two-feet distance with that perplexed expression on her face.

"Growlithe," she said uneasily, looking up at them. "Lithe."

"Is she saying don't touch him?" Mel asked, just about to jab Orville in the eyes. Linda looked twice as anxious as she shrugged.

"She just says something's weird about him."

"Yeah, I can see that. Guy looks like he swallowed a fountain pen. Probably hurts like a—"

"Don't curse," she said immediately, standing and brushing the dust from her jeans. Mel stood as well as she waved her arms at the street leading out of Pewter. Mel wanted to join her, but he was honestly terrified of another flying-type mistaking him for a snack.

"Hey, heeey," Mel urged, pushing Orville's back. "Don't die, okay? You didn't let me die even though I'm pretty sure it was Linda that told you to come after me, so I won't let you die." More of Orville's veins showed through his skin as he started coughing again, his blood showing less red and more black.

"I n—I need—" he rasped. "Need to—get out—hu—hurts too bad—" What looked like black smoke started coming from Orville's skin and pluming into the air. Mel backed away as more of it…seeped out and made him pretty much untouchable. Mel was pretty staunch in his disbelief of legendary pokémon, but that crap could only have been described as something divine, and not from the good end of that spectrum. All the smoke must've looked pretty terrifying, because a truck heading into Pewter screeched to a stop a few feet away from them. A young man jumped from the driver's seat and looked between the three of them before his eyes landed on Orville.

"What's going on with him?" he exclaimed, pointing.

"That would be the million-dollar question," Mel replied. "I don't know if he needs an expert or an exorcism."

"Maybe both." The man drew closer and Mel got a better look at him. He was a pokémon trainer if the pokéball belt around his waist meant anything, although there was just one pokéball and it was shrunken down, and he was colored almost exactly like the city: brown skin, brown hair, brown eyes that suddenly glinted with understanding. He bent down next to Orville and grabbed his arm, causing him to groan in pain, then he lifted Orville to his feet, half-supporting and half-dragging him. The black smoke made him shiver a little but he was otherwise unaffected, so it probably wasn't toxic.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking him home," he answered. He walked a little funny until Orville started moving their legs, and they walked in synch towards his truck. "I believe I can help him."

"Really?" Mel asked dubiously.

"Sure. I've got nothing better to do anyway." Linda rushed to Mel as the man had to not so gently put Orville in the truck bed, which Mel took a small amount of pleasure in.

"Can we trust him?" she asked in a low voice.

"I mean, we already trust Orville," he responded bitterly. "We're already scraping the bottom of the barrel. I don't think there's anything left to lose if we trust this guy too."

"If you say so," she said tentatively.

"And even if he does try something, I'm here to protect you, remember?"

"Growlithe!" Koko said. Linda took her up as Mel sighed in defeat.

"Her too."

"Mm…"

He wound his fingers through hers and held their hands up. "Two halves of one whole. Just like the sun and moon make up a day—"

"—love and hate make up a person," she finished quietly. "Okay, I trust you."

"Why is that the only thing that still works?" he sighed. "It's just a stupid mantra we came up with as four-year-olds."

"I think it's still cute."

"You also think pigtails are cute. Your opinion is obsolete," he joked. The man honked his horn and gave them an impatient look. They looked at each other, sighed, and went towards his truck.

"Your friend is dying and you kinda took your time," the man said, looking at them in the rearview mirror as he turned back towards Pewter. The smoke spouting from him completely dissipated as soon as they began moving, and he couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Not my friend," Mel pointed out. "I'd say the bane of my existence—"

"Can I ask your name?" Linda interrupted.

"Sure. It's Demetrius, but everyone calls me Dee. I used to be pretty good with pokémon a couple of years back, so I can see what's wrong with your friend—err, bane of your existence."

"What, don't tell me he's a pokémon."

"Eh, well, I'm not sure. He looks human, but I can't ask him in that condition. I know that black smoke though: ectoplasm. It's a—"

"I took classes in pokémon biology, I know," Mel interrupted. "It's the substance that ghost-types are made of." Dee met his eyes in the mirror with a little annoyance. "I didn't know it turned into smoke."

"It usually doesn't. It's leaking out of him, like a punctured water balloon. If he's just an average guy possessed, then it's a good thing. On the other hand, this could be like that one Horror movie and he's a corpse brought back to life by a banette with—"

"You sound stu-pid," Mel said, drawing it out for effect. He sighed in response.

"You're not the nicest kid around, are you?"

"Adults say I'm as friendly as a jalapeno pepper. It's also a bad redhead joke." He looked over his shoulder and could see smoke still trailing them through the cab's window. As they drove through busier streets it also got a fair amount of gaping pedestrians and at one point Mel heard fire truck sirens in the distance, although he never saw the truck itself and they could've been saving a cat from a rubble'd building. (There wasn't much fire to be heard of in a city whose chief exports were topsoil and bedrock.) He wondered, Could Orville have been possessed? To be that annoying couldn't have been humanly possible so yeah, it was an option. On top of that was the fact that he was talking about "anomalies," something Mel and Linda had never heard of, but they had some pretty strong evidence that they were real. Mel was a pretty hard person to scare, but knowing that Orville was looking to kill was terrifying.

"You remind me of my little sister," Dee said. "You've got that same tongue."

"We'd be best friends…you know, if I had any friends." Linda became fed up and pinched his side. "Ouch! Hey!"

"I'm sorry, he has no chill," Linda said. "I'm Linda, and this is my brother Melchior." Oh, so she was that mad at him. Dee tried to swallow a laugh and failed.

"Melchi—"

"Mel. It's Mel. Everybody that values their life calls me Mel."

"Dude, you're, like, half my size. I'm so scared," Dee chuckled. Mel ignored him and bumped Linda with his elbow, looking at her from the corner of his eye. She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, giving him a good view of the back of her head. He wanted to tug her pigtails until she turned around, but he knew from painful experience that that was a last resort.

"You're always mean to everyone we meet."

"Are you really counting Orville?"

"Okay, I won't count Orville. What about all of our teachers, our neighbors, Mr. Clark at the market?"

"I'm sorry but that doesn't give you the right to blab my name to everybody. You know I hate it."

"People hate us too when you start going at it. And it makes you sound like a little boy with these dumb insults!" She gave him the look that said she was about to jump into her 'I know you're still upset about what your life was like before but' spiel and he cut her off to avoid hearing it for the zillionth time in his life.

"I'm sorry if my attitude bothers you. Really, really sorry, Linda." She scanned his face like a high-tech lie detector. Seeing through his bull was pretty much her hidden ability.

"We're here," Dee interrupted, pulling into an apartment complex's parking lot. Mel and Linda exited the truck with him but he stopped them before they entered the building. "You should make sure your friend's okay," he said. "I'm gonna go to my place and grab my ghost-type—it can help if that smoke really is ectoplasm."

That long as hell drive was just so you can get a pokéball? Mel wanted to say, but he knew it would annoy Linda so he kept his mouth shut. "Thank you a lot for your help," she said to him. He nodded before jogging across the parking lot and heading into the building. Mel went to the back of the truck and saw that Orville was sprawled in the truck bed like he was asleep—of course he would be—but his eyes were darting around beneath the lids. Too much, actually; he must've been having a nightmare. Mel started wondering what that guy could possibly be afraid of.

"Let's wake him up," Linda said.

"Nah, he looks pretty happy. Let's leave him be for another few hours."

"Mel," she chastised.

"Okay, we should wake him up." He reached for his belt and jumped when he realized it wasn't there. Linda pointed and Mel saw that his utility belt was on Orville. "That bastard! When did he do that?" He didn't wait for an answer and took it back. "Let Shady wake his ass up."

"Mel!"

"I'm sorry, I meant let Shady wake his sorry ass up."

"Growlithe," Koko said, and he imagined that she agreed. He started to release Shady, then he remembered why he returned Shady in the first place and let the pokéball be. He started pulling Orville's cheeks and poking his eyes. "Wake up. Wake up wake up wake up." He pinched Orville's nose and covered his mouth. He must've been a damn good swimmer, because thirty seconds later he was still KO'd.

"Hey," Dee said as he returned, this time holding what looked like a bug-type's shell wearing a cape. Mel just stared, perplexed and a little grossed out, until the shell floated into the air by itself and just…stayed there. It didn't flap its wings or even breathe, only hung in midair by the invisible strings of Arceus. It was totally creepy. "This is Omen," he introduced.

"As in 'omen of death'? Because that thing is scaring me," Mel said, putting the truck between them. If it heard him, it didn't react in any way.

"It's a shedinja—you've never seen one?"

"I, uh, never got out much. Why is it wearing a cape?"

"There's a hole in its back, and if you look at it it'll steal your soul." Mel put an extra few yards between himself and the living corpse. "See if you can help their friend," Dee told his demonic spawn. Mel didn't think it understood until it moved two inches closer to Orville and its eyes started glowing with purple energy. Orville's head went back and he groaned in pain, then his eyes opened to show his pupils going all over the place. His irises were bright red instead of the dark color they were before. Dee looked at his shedinja in a way that made Mel think that they were communicating telepathically, then he looked over at them. "Omen said that he is, in fact, possessed."

"Possessed by who?" Linda asked.

"By what?" Mel corrected. Dee looked at Omen again, listening intently.

"It's not sure," he said. "Omen only senses the presence of another ghost-type. You'll have to ask him yourself."

"He'll most likely lie through his teeth," he lamented.

"How'd you guys meet anyway?"

"You know, he assaulted my sister, almost got us killed—normal stuff," Mel said dryly. Dee looked at Linda as her silence confirmed his words.

"Then why are you still with the guy?" Mel exchanged a look with Linda. Orville never said that the anomaly crap was classified info, but it would be a hard pill to swallow even for Dee.

"He needed help," Linda answered quietly. "So we helped."

Orville—if that even was his name—groaned again as he focused on them.

"What, now there's three of you bastards?" he asked hoarsely, rubbing his eyes. The blackness slowly faded from his veins, leaving his skin looking paler than before.

"What dead bastard are you?" Mel asked him, getting to the point. "Cyrus? Spiritomb? That bastard cheat at the pool hall—ow! Linda!"

"How about…none of the above?" he grumbled, grabbing onto the edge of the truck to pull himself out. He didn't fall on his face as Mel expected but still looked to be in pretty bad shape. He looked over at Dee's shedinja and nodded at it. "You helped me. Thanks." Mel was astounded that he even knew the word.

"Sheeeediiinjaaa," it replied in a ghastly moan that made Mel hide behind Linda. Orville, on the other hand, found it worth laughing at.

"We should keep in touch. And uh, thank you, his owner," he added, looking at Dee.

"I live to help. What are you guys doing out here?"

"Coincidence," Mel said before Orville could speak. He continued anyway with a smug expression:

"Melon here almost became the light snack of a pidgeotto's family."

"A what?" Dee asked, perplexed. "I've never heard of a pidgeotto grabbing a person like that."

"She probably thought he was a rattata with a fur mutation." Mel tried to punch Orville in the side but was repelled by one hand. "And of course, I saved his life, the good Samaritan that I am."

"That's not true," Linda said, beating Mel to the punch. "I asked him to save Mel when he refused to." Dee raised his eyebrows at that while Orville only explained himself with a shrug.

"But yeah, I guess it's a little weird," Orville conceded. "It could even be anomalous… Hey, uh, that machine, the metallic monstrosity that runs across rails…?"

"A train?" Dee supplied.

"That. Do you have one that goes to Viridian City?" Dee scratched his head as he thought about it.

"Mhm," he answered after a moment, "but it doesn't run on a good schedule. The next one leaves in the morning."

"You memorized the train schedule," Mel said deprecatingly.

"I work part-time selling tickets—it was that or with the family Fossil store. It's kind of a boring city," he explained.

"And what time is it now?" Orville looked at the sun for a few seconds, analyzing its position. "About five… That's a long wait." Dee shrugged helplessly.

"You should try the pokémon center if you need a place to stay."

"Thanks," Orville said again. "Thanks a lot for your help."

"No problem." He clapped Orville on the shoulder and nodded at Mel and Linda before heading back to his apartment. Orville watched him go before turning to them with a sigh, holding his hands out. Mel and Linda stared at him in confusion and he snorted.

"What, you all don't shake hands anymore?"

"No, but…for what?" they asked.

"You didn't let me die, even though I'm a bastard—yeah, even I know that much. So, thank you."

"Well da—I mean, err, you're welcome." Mel shook his hand reluctantly, then he punched Orville in the chest. It surprised him but didn't knock him off balance. "And now you explain why and whose body you dragged from the coffin to torture us."

"Eat first," he said, letting his hands fall to his sides. "Then I'll give you any answer you want. Promise."

"It's a little hard to take your dirty stinking word for it."

"Fine. On the way." Mel rolled his eyes and looked at Linda, who shrugged. "Well? Don't hurt yourself thinking too quickly."

"Fine, whatever."

There's this running gag where one of the characters keeps dying in several ways, but he comes back in next episode.

1.4. the interdimensional interstate.

part iv

mel's p.o.v.​

"Now, you speak," Mel said as they headed down the sidewalk. Orville was almost skipping as Koko kept nipping at his bare heels.

"Tell her to stop," he told Linda.

"She won't listen."

"Good for her," Mel praised. "Speak already."

"Speak? You can't just give me commands like that, I'm not a mutt like this little—ouch!" he yelled as Koko hit home. "Put her in her pokéball already!"

"She doesn't have one," Linda said. Orville came to a sudden stop, surprising Koko and causing Mel to run into Linda's back. He crouched down and, jeez, started barking at Koko, which Mel thought was bogus until Koko started barking back in pretty much the same way. They had what sounded like a passionate argument before Orville's eyes flashed red and he literally growled at her. She yelped and ran behind Linda, crouching at her sneakers.

"Koko?" Linda picked her up and Koko curled up into her chest. Her face turned as red as her hair and Mel thought Well damn, Orville unleashed the Beast. "What did you do to her!?" she shouted at Orville. He recoiled just a bit before regaining his footing and looming over her.

"She was the one attacking me! Don't shout at me like I'm the culprit! I get enough of that back home!"

"You hurt my friend!"

"Boo-freaking-hoo, I'll cry you a river."

Mel hated to interrupt a good shouting contest, but they were starting to get nosy bystanders. He finally intervened by pushing the two of them apart. "Okay, okay," he said, looking between them. "Orville's a jerk and you're mad, let's leave it at that. Please. Now let's get back on topic."

"Back on topic," he muttered disdainfully, looking around as the bystanders reluctantly dispersed. "Then ask away and I'll answer truthfully—that's what you wanted, right?" He started walking and Mel and Linda had to jog a little to keep up, he was taking such long strides.

"Yes, but how do we know you're not lying?"

"I won't," he said, turning back to look them in the eyes. "You helped me, so I owe you as much."

"Okay, then tell us who you really are." Orville hesitated for a moment before giving a defeated sigh.

"One of…Arceus' chosen, I guess you could call it," he said, picking his words carefully. "One of its many call boys to dump menial work upon. It's all I've been doing since my creation."

"When was that?" Linda asked. Orville sighed with exhaustion, his steps becoming slower with his feet dragging along the concrete until he finally came to a stop, his slouched back to them.

"Millenniums ago… Perhaps even eons… Where the legendaries exist, time is nearly irrelevant—there is only a fight here and there to mark its passage, and how long it continues, and how long it takes for the fallen to revive and, vindictive as they are, return for further bloodshed. We exist to keep the balance, yet most are fonder of damaging it to watch what can happen to the residents all along Yggdrasil…" He stopped as if he realized what he said and completely changed his tune. "And that's why I'm here! To have those guys in this world where the amount of pokémon that can adequately fight a legendary are limited would just be a travesty."

Mel was speechless at how beaten Orville had sounded a moment ago. He found Orville to be a pain, but never thought about what it meant for him to be there on his own trying to combat issues on the spatial level. "I'm sorry," he said before he could change his mind. Orville looked up at him. "That you had to watch all of that."

"Eh, it's life," he shrugged, forcing the matter away. "Any more questions?" Mel and Linda exchanged a look.

"Why us?"

"You two were the first humans I saw. It could have been literally anybody else."

"And why him? 'Orville'?"

"Possession is like finding clothes. You focus on getting a good fit with breathing room, and the appearance comes second. Although I can tell from what little he remembers that he wasn't the most pleasant guy around."

"So you can see his memories too."

"Not all the time," he amended. "It doesn't help that his mind is still jacked up. Possession causes a lot of pain for the person and the pokémon…that's the one downside, I'd say. Well, that and the fact that the extra powerful pokémon such as myself have a hard time staying corporeal. Human bodies weren't meant to hold or use pokémon abilities so they suffer the longer that we stay inside." He rolled up a sleeve to show his veins slowly blackening all over again. "This here is an example. Ghost energy in its most potent state is like poison to any living thing, let alone weak humans…no offense. Which is why I was having so much trouble sticking—and why I'm still having trouble, matter of fact."

"But you're decently knowledgeable with human things," Mel pointed, "so this isn't your first time possessing a human?"

"Well no, but let me correct you on that: ghost-types don't need human bodies, anything solid works. Household items or another pokémon, because they all can interact with this world. Ghost-types…can have a little trouble with that at first, as it's an acquired skill. Sometimes they end up scattering themselves and from what I hear it's extremely painful. I, on the other hand, am a certified professional," he boasted.

"Glad to see your pride isn't poisoned," Mel muttered.

"So the man, the real Orville," Linda asked tentatively, "is he in pain?" Orville gave her a very odd look, like he felt an emotion that he couldn't articulate on his face.

"Is he…in pain?" he repeated. "Well…I said that he is, didn't I?"

"And you're in pain too?" He just nodded, still bewildered. "It sounds cruel, that the both of you are in constant pain," she said with a sad look.

"No, no, no no no, please don't pity me," he sighed, slouching over again. "I don't want it, nor do I need it. If there's one thing Arceus can teach you, it's that pain is just as irrelevant as time. There are worse things than pain, Linda, like…" He deflated even more if it was possible, then he turned on his heel and started walking again, muttering incomprehensibly to himself. Mel and Linda followed until he stopped in front of a small open-air café. (Why there would even be an open air café in Pewter City, Mel had to wonder, because the only scenery was rocks.) "This place looks good." He started up the steps but stopped suddenly, a forlorn expression on his face. "Right. Humans use money, I almost forgot."

"Doesn't matter," Mel said. "We can pay."

"Hmm, trainers still pay for losing a battle? I thought that fell out of practice long time ago."

"What? We're not trainers."

"Huh? You're not?" They shook their heads. "Then why were you out in a field by yourselves? I could figure if you were on a journey, but since you're not trainers—"

"We already went over this—our lives are our business."

"You know what? I don't feel like arguing the matter," he said, waving them off as he went up to the bar. "Whatever's good, I'll take it," he said to the woman behind it. "And uh, something for these kids."

"Do you have ice cream sandwiches?" Linda asked.

"Sure," the woman replied. "Vanilla or strawberry?"

"Strawberry," Mel answered. "And I'll take a couple of roast beef sandwiches and two cups of lemonade. And bread." In the middle of writing it all down she paused.

"Bread? Like, plain bread?"

"Yeah, just bread."

"Mm," she shrugged before going into the kitchen. Orville didn't say anything about it, just sat on a bar chair with his head still down.

"Don't tell me that that's all you were questioning about me." Mel and Linda sat a few seats away from him.

"I wonder," Linda said. "You speak English well. Do all pokémon know a human language, or did you get it from those memories?"

"We can understand your language well enough," he answered. "And no, I didn't learn how to speak from these memories. Remember, I've lived a pretty long time—it would've been a shame for me not to learn anything."

"Yes, but you apparently never learned about trains," Mel said dryly. Orville shrugged a shoulder.

"I'm forgetful. It happens."

"Okay, one last thing. You've never said what pokémon you are."

"Does that really matter?" he sighed.

"Kinda, yeah."

"Later."

"There's no later. You said you'd answer all of our questions."

"You won't believe me," Orville said, "and I'm really not in the mood for your verbal tirade, Mel." The woman returned with a dragonite that served them their plates. Orville's food turned out to be a salad adorned with pink petals and a large glass of something dark and bubbly, and when he saw it his face went white like he was about to die. "Um, is this gracidea?" he asked the bartender.

"Yes, it is. Are you allergic?"

"No, just…I don't think I'm hungry anymore," he said bitterly, pushing the plate away and grabbing the glass. Mel released Shady and passed him a sandwich and he set Koko on his lap to give her the other one.

"Growlithe," she said appreciatively.

"Sure thing."

"Let me know if you want anything else," the bartender said before going over to another customer. Her dragonite stayed back to start a conversation with Linda as she ate her ice cream sandwiches.

"What's your beef with gracidea flowers?" Mel asked as Orville gulped down whatever was in that cup.

"Reminds me of worse times," he said with a grimace. Then he, of course, changed the subject. "Why aren't you two trainers? You know, unless that's also super classified in-for-ma-tion."

"It is," Mel confirmed. "But I…couldn't…do it."

"And I didn't want to leave Mel, so I stayed with him," Linda said.

"You two are pretty inseparable huh? You even do that a-nnoy-ing twin talk thing."

"Twin talk thing?" they asked.

"Yeah, that thing. I know twins just like you, that are never apart and always stick their necks out for each other… I feel sorry for them," he said, resting his head on the counter and upending his emptied glass. "They care for each other so much I doubt they remember how to care for them-selves. You too…I don't think that you two can help your-selves anymore."

"Orville?" Mel snapped his fingers in front of him and Orville's eyes crossed trying to follow the movement. Mel picked up the cup and smelled it. "You never drank beer before?"

"Beer? What's that?" he asked tiredly.

"That's a no, that's what that is. Well now you're even more useless than before."

"'m not useless," he muttered, banging his fist against the wood. "I can do more than just cause trouble for everyone… Damn Arceus for not seeing that…!"

I know what it's like to feel useless.

"Lithe," Koko whined, licking Mel's hand. He snapped from his thoughts and saw just crumbs in his palm.

"Sorry, I'm out of sandwich. Maybe Shady will share."

"Turn," Shady protested, stuffing the rest of his sandwich in his mouth staunchly and drinking a glass of lemonade.

"She's not licking you because of the sandwich," Linda told him as Koko moved from his lap to the counter, tentatively nudging Orville with her nose. He groaned and pushed her away weakly. "She does that when she smells sadness."

"Dragonite? Drag?" the dragonite asked her.

"Growlithe, growl lithe lithe," Koko replied, sitting down.

"Like how she used to growl at me every she smelled me?"

"She doesn't like anger either." She paused for a minute, then picked up Orville's cup and smelled it, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "How do you know what beer smells like?"

"I don't know…scratch-'n'-sniff?"

"Mel!"

"I wasn't drinking, if that's what you think," he said, annoyed. He deflated quickly at Linda's reprimanding look. "I used to…when you were at school…" he murmured, running his finger along the lip of her glass.

"What?"

"Sneak out of the house and go to that gas station down the street…you know, the one that sells snow cones…and homeless guys were always drinking and pissing out there." He looked away, unwilling to see her expression.

"You never told me that."

"I know."

"How many times did you sneak out without me knowing?" He shrugged.

"A lot," he mumbled, staring at his shoes, feeling her eyes burn holes into his skull.

"Mel." She sounded hurt, which was twenty times worse than her being angry. She was his mother and his babysitter and his sister all in one, had always been and even more so since they left, and disappointing her was like having his own heart ripped out.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking up, but she had already turned away, was paying the bartender for their food as she stood up with Koko yipping and pawing at her jeans worriedly. She pulled Orville's arm and he, being reasonably sober, got to his feet, which reminded Mel of something else. "We should take him to a clothing store," he told her, shaking her shoulder a little. She looked away from him as she nodded. Shady tapped his arm gently as they started walking, catching his attention.

"Cacturne," he said, which was pretty much his way of saying Well, you're damned.

"Thanks a lot, you useless plant," Mel muttered, returning him.

"What is this place?" Orville asked, looking around the shop. It took a few hours of standing outside and watching him run into streetlamps like a total moron before the pain sobered him to walking levels.

"It's a store," Mel said, pushing him inside. Linda tried to enter but was stopped by an associate who warned her about taking pokémon inside. "It's okay, I'll keep an eye on him."

"Okay," she said, giving it up way easier than she usually would. His heart was ripped out again as she went to sit on a bench just outside of the store.

"You seem depressed," Orville noticed as he looked at a pink shirt.

"Thanks for caring," he said sardonically. "Also, that's a female shirt."

"Is there a difference?"

"Well you don't have tits, so I'll say yeah."

"Tits," he repeated blankly.

"Tits. You know what I mean. Guys have dicks and girls have tits."

"I'm not good with slang," he said.

"Yet you're good with almost every other facet of English." Orville replaced the shirt on the rack with a sigh.

"I am, in fact, well versed in more than just English," he clarified. "Remember that I've been here a long time, seen most languages develop. Still, I don't come to the lower levels of Yggdrasil much, so the challenge is adapting to how the language has changed every few decades. Slang is hard to keep up with. If you can tell me the non-twelve-year-old version of the word—"

"You know what? Never mind, it's not important." He shrugged but kept one eye on Mel as he continued searching. "What, is there something on my face?"

"No."

"Then why the hell are you staring at me?"

"I wonder," he said absently, checking another women's shirt.

"Wonder what? Hey, answer me!" he snapped as Orville ignored him.

"I'd say you're annoying, but I'm sure you hear that all the time. How can Linda stand to be around you?"

"She's my sister!"

"Ha! Family means nothing," he said disdainfully, turning to face Mel. "My family is always trying to rip out one another's throat. I'd take you there if I could, if for nothing else than to trim that ego. I'm not the best guy around and I know it, but at least I can be fucking humble when the need arises."

"Shut up Orville! That's why you're here, alone, no one here to help you!"

"Watch yourself," he warned, eyes flashing. "It would be brutal and I'd surely get punished, but it would be so worth it just to snap your neck." He flinched at that, involuntarily but still noticeably. Orville scanned his expression with a smirk, making him fume more and more. Then he shrugged it off like it was nothing and took up an armful of clothes, asking a worker where he could try them on.

Mel ran both hands through his hair as he tried to calm down. He caught a glimpse of himself in the store window, his hair all up in a mess and his face still slightly red, and he turned away, resisting the urge to break the glass because that sure as hell was going to hurt. But it didn't help that it was a clothing store and therefore had a lot of mirrors around. He found a safe place near the bathrooms and sat there to wait.

"Yeah sure, but what size socks?" a girl near him said into her phone as she passed through the shoe aisle. "Color? Style? …Okay, I'll get whatever." She long, kind of nice brown hair and a pokéball belt around her jeans. "Nothing else? Alright, bye." She hung up and looked around, which was when she locked eyes with Mel. "Mel?" she gasped, covering her mouth. He sighed through his nose.

"Mikey, wow, I thought you were out on a journey or whatever else stupid reason."

"I'm visiting my folks," Mikaela replied, pocketing her phone. "It's been two years, hasn't it?"

"Yeah… You grew up," he commented, eyes on her chest particularly. She didn't reply to that but clenched her fist as a warning.

"And you're the same size, like always. Where's Linda?"

"You just assume Linda is here with me?"

"Well, I know you two stuck together like conjoined twins the last time you were here."

"Don't you know how twins work?" he pointed out. "She's outside—they wouldn't let Koko in here."

"Hmm," she mused, then she gasped a little as the topic he was dreading occurred to her. "Why are you out here? You couldn't leave the house before. Did you—"

"I left," he answered in a clipped tone. "Please don't ask any more questions about it."

"But Mel…" she said worriedly, and she had that stupid pitiful look in her eyes.

"I'm fine!" he said, trying not to make a scene, but his attitude always got the better of him. He stood up and smacked his chest for emphasis. "I. Am. Perfectly. Fine! I already have Linda's pity, I have too much of my Mom's pity… I don't need yours too! If that's all you have to give me then you can make a U-turn and fuck off! You should be more concerned with that deadbeat dad of yours. Last time I saw him, he was lying around with anything that has a heart—"

Wrong person.

In between his moderate-to-severe concussion and severe-to-deadly strangling, he remembered why he found Mikey annoying: she wasn't afraid to call him out on his bullshit. Violently.

The fight had to be broken up by a few store security and Orville was sent out with just flip-flops, which was better than nothing, and they all ended up on the street. Linda hugged Mel to her, which he normally would've protested on grounds of him being a capable man, but he took it for the time being because she was good protection from Mikey. Orville stepped between then as she started cracking her bloodied fists. "Hey, I'm the one reserving the right to kick Mel's ass, so back off," he told her.

"Who are you, their uncle?" she sneered. "Step away. This is between Mel and I."

"Yes, well, now it's between you and I." She narrowed her eyes as she unclipped a pokéball. "You shouldn't do that," he warned. "If you attack me, I have no responsibility for what happens to you."

The pain didn't hit him until he touched his face and his hand came back bloody. He remembered that Mikey's bulldozer fist knocked him into a mirror (irony) and he got a good view of his panicked expression before his face collided with the glass. Koko climbed onto his lap to lick the wounds, which made him feel a little better until Linda pulled her away. "Don't, Koko, you'll get germs in it."

"Her tongue is cleaner than ours," Mel murmured. He saw Mikey release a pokémon from the corner of his eye and tried going for his pokéball but his hand was too slick to grab it. Mikey's aerodactyl held up Orville as she headed back towards Mel. He should've said something snarky to throw her off, but there was real pain burning in his face and he couldn't find his nerve. At least with Orville, there were more threats—Mikey would definitely kick his ass across the world. Koko jumped in-between them with a growl and Mikey came to a stop, reaching for another pokéball.

"Catch!" Orville called before she was assaulted by her own aerodactyl. He was thrown into her and the momentum knocked both of them to the ground, giving Orville the space to run forward and grab Mel's arm, pausing to let Linda get Koko before tugging him forward. Mel saw that they had no time to run though, as Mikey was already back on her feet and her aerodactyl was back in the air. He was pulled backwards and felt his foot catch on something, but instead of hitting the ground he kept going further through the street. They sunk into something that felt like an ocean of ink, black all around and freezing cold and dulling every other sense he had. He tried to gasp but couldn't breathe, couldn't move. He started to panic, feeling his heart race as he truly believed he was going to drown, and he didn't get to see his parents again—

His center of gravity made a sickening shift as they suddenly went from falling to rising, and just as quickly as going under they popped back out. Mel turned his head away from the sunlight before his back collided with something wooden. He cracked his eyes open in time to see Orville land a few feet away, then Linda rolled across the platform with Koko in her arms. "Ugh," Orville groaned, pushing himself up. "Why do I have to suffer for your mouth, brat?"

"Mel? What did you do?" she demanded, staring him down. He turned away, covering his face.

"I'm sorry."

"And Arceus says I cause trouble," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "What exactly are you good for besides taking up air and pissing people off, huh? And why am I even saving your ass now? You deserve what you've got coming to you." He started forward and Linda stood in front of him protectively, arms out to cover him. Orville rolled his eyes again, stopping a few feet away. "Hey. I'm doing humankind a favor here. Move out of my way."

"You're not going to hurt him."

"I mean, I don't have to. He already has an avid volunteer." She didn't budge and he sighed. "All he does is singlehandedly piss everybody off. Why are you still covering for him?"

"Because I know why he does it. I don't excuse it, but I understand it."

"Then please, enlighten me. He's dodged his sob story so many times now that I'm downright burning with curiosity."

"He…" She stopped and turned to Koko as she started barking furiously. Mel followed her eyes and saw Mikey's aerodactyl flying in from the distance. Orville's body tensed as he came within speaking distance, his muscles going so rigid it looked painful. His eyes flashed red once, twice, then he threw his head back as violet-colored smoke poured out from his skin. It plumed in the air and started taking more colors like gold and black and grey, writhing around to become solid, and when Mel actually recognized what came out, he felt like he died for real.

"Linda," he whispered, "do you see this too?" She grabbed his hand with both of hers, her general panicked gesture, which he took to mean yes. He had wondered why Orville wasn't overly specific about his species, but now it made a lot more sense, because he wouldn't have believed it unless he saw it.

You and your violent trainer are the least of my problems, Orville/Giratina growled. So I suggest you find you way back to Pewter City before you find yourself in the afterlife. He added another growl for good measure before giving a regular roar, identical to the one in the pokédex and also loud and grating enough to shatter windows in what sounded like a five-mile radius. The aerodactyl turned wing and took off into the sky, and just in time too, because three seconds after he turned his back the Giratina part of him was unceremoniously sucked back inside of his solid body, which revived with a horrible smoker's coughing fit. "Arceus that hurt," he complained, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth, but blood still leaked through his fingers.

"What did you do?" Linda whispered.

"I-I scared it off," he replied, shifting to his knees as he looked to the sky.

"But you were… I saw…"

"He's coming back!" he exclaimed, pushing himself to his feet. Mel looked out and sure enough, the aerodactyl realized it had been duped and whirled back towards them. Orville watched him for a moment before rushing forward, grabbing Linda and Mel as he went. Then they were falling again, except this time there was no cold and darkness—he got to watch several wooden platforms and steel girders whoosh through his peripheral, which he slowly put together as a construction site.

They just jumped.

From the top of a construction site.

If he wasn't already crying from the pain, he burst into tears then.

"Stop whining," Orville grumbled right before they collided with what felt like a tarp. It ripped under their weight and dropped them into a stack of cardboard boxes that split on impact, raining foam insulation over them. The remainder of the tarp was ripped away by Mikey's aerodactyl as he came back around with his jaws wide.

"Koko, use Iron Tail!" Linda called. Koko used Mel's head as a launch pad to get extra air before smacking the aerodactyl down to the hard dirt. She started drawing it away from them, which surprised Mel because he rarely ever saw Koko fight. Orville tore away part of his hoodie's sleeve and tied it around his forehead, covering up most of his injuries, not that they were cleaned or anything. Mel kept his eyes on Linda as she gave commands to Koko, watching Mikey's aerodactyl try to sweep down and attack her directly several times before Koko repelled him, but every time he came close Mel's heart felt like it would jump out of his chest, it was pounding so hard.

"You care about her," Orville said, his voice muffled as he spoke into his arm. Blood was still draining from his mouth if the spreading stain on his sleeve was anything to go by. "I thought you were faking but no, that's real panic on your face. So, obviously, you have the capacity to not be an asshole."

"…Only around her…"

"Ooh, I sense your hard shell cracking. All it took was a good punch? I should've gave you one earlier."

"You can shut up because I don't even want to be telling you in the first place." Orville grimaced but didn't interrupt. Mel wiped his face, scowling when he realized there were still traces of tears on his cheeks. "I've never went on a plane, or even on a flying-type, and I never got to go to the neighborhood pool to learn how to swim… I never got to go to school with Linda or play with wild pokémon…" He gave Orville a look that felt steely but probably looked like glass and turned away right after, focusing on a caterpie scuttling across the stone. "I was always sick as a kid, stuck behind a damn window watching everybody live their lives. I watched Linda go out to school every day, make friends, play with pokémon, and I…" He glared at Orville from the corner of his eye, expecting his usual disinterested look, but amazingly he was listening intently.

"That's a lot of hate for a little boy."

"You'd be surprised how much a human can hate, no matter their age."

"And that's why you're such a bastard," he sighed. "Pitiful."

"Yeah, you're like the zillionth person to say that." He wasn't listening though, apparently deep in thought.

"Well," he muttered, "I guess we're more alike than I thought."

"I'm nothing like—" He cut himself off as he heard Linda's scream. Mel spun towards her in time to see her fall towards the ground. He started towards her, but whatever happened affected him too, because a wave of dizziness hit him that almost made him kiss the asphalt. Orville ran to catch both of them with a groan, his muscles going stiff from pain.

"Be glad that right now, we don't have time to waste on this." Directly behind him, the air shimmered as another pokémon "stepped through." It was a little over three feet tall and canine in shape with black and green scales. He roughly shoved the two of them away, sending them rolling across the street and away from him. The pokémon growled with its claws digging into the asphalt, but Orville appeared majorly unaffected as he rolled his eyes and covered his mouth again. "I don't suppose you've forgiven me for killing your Cells?" he asked.

"Zygarde!" it barked at him. It started glowing green, then the green dissolved into several light arrows that continued splitting until there were a hundred, then a thousand hanging in the air. Passersby stopped and stared in alarm, pokémon out, and even Mikey's aerodactyl froze in the air. Linda and Mel hugged each other, expecting them to burst out and pierce everything within a few miles' radius. Instead, Orville gave them an exhausted look as he dropped his hand, and Mel saw that it was covered in black blood that was still dripping from his mouth.

"Playing hero is tiring," he said before jumping onto the pokémon, grabbing it by the scales hanging loosely from its neck. He braced one foot on the ground and forced it forward into the shadows. His eyes flashed red as its scales gripped him back, tangling around his wrists and pulling him down as well. "Heh… I'll play this game with you, if that's what you want," he said before they both disappeared. The arrows it left behind hit the ground shortly before fading away.

"Thanks for caring," he said sardonically. "Also, that's a female shirt."

"Is there a difference?"

"Well you don't have tits, so I'll say yeah."

"Tits," he repeated blankly.

"Tits. You know what I mean. Guys have dicks and girls have tits."

"I'm not good with slang," he said.

Click to expand...

"The meeting has now begun."

"About damn time it has," Palkia grumbled a second before the usual din flared through Arceus' dimension. Mostly greetings—"Wow, I haven't seen you in a couple of centuries!"—but there were the occasional life threats and halfhearted attacks thrown around. No family was perfect, after all, and theirs was damn near dictionary dysfunctional.

"Silence!" Arceus roared, and in an interdimensional second everyone went quiet. "The first matter I'd like to bring up—thank you Palkia—is several temporal-spatial distortions occurring in the Sinnoh region."

"Those aren't distortions. I like to call them 'a weekend morning,'" Azelf said.

"Next!" Keldeo called.

"Second matter: blizzards are stretching for too long in the Kalos region. Humans are growing antsy."

"Sorry," Arcticuno said. "It was a bad day."

"What, did Zapdos break your heart again? Boo hoo," Regirock shouted from the back of the mass. There wasn't any air, but the space seemed to get a little colder.

"Third," Arceus interrupted, glaring the others into silence. "There has been a new abundance of anomalies in Kanto. I will need one of you to take human form and investigate." That was the one statement that it made that left the dimension silent. It waited for the volunteers that wouldn't step up before continuing, "This is a dire matter, you all. Should it be left unattended, the underworld will fall apart, therefore causing the collapse of our dimensions as well."

"That may be so, but no one wants to take up a human vessel," Virizion protested. "They are cumbersome and don't have nature's powers as we do."

"And they smell," Azelf added.

"You're talking about three percent of them, tops," Moltres corrected.

"But we all agree that being a human is no fun and none of us want to do it?" Regirock asked, and the others voiced their agreement. Arceus stamped a hoof for silence.

"It does not matter whether you want to or not—this is something that must be done to maintain the stability of the world, and it can only be done surreptitiously as to avoid the immediate detection from humans. Being a human allows more mobility, hence the temporary vessel. The faster the job is done, the faster you can return. Now, who chooses?"

"It can't be me; it would be near impossible to maintain the volcanoes of the world from a vessel," Entei protested.

"And I, the thunderclouds," Raikou added.

"They smell!" Azelf repeated.

"I do not have the necessary emotions to properly assimilate," Uxie pointed out dully.

"Even within a vessel I burn too hot to interact with manmade items," Moltres said.

"I am too cold," Regice continued.

"I nominate Giratina," Dialga piped up. "It does little more than idle in the Distortion World anyway."

"It's not so hot that it burns everything it touches," Moltres added helpfully.

"And it is not cold-skinned."

"Though I think it's coldblooded," Mespirit complained.

"Barbs aside, we agree that Giratina is the best choice?" Arceus asked. The legendary pokémon gave their consent. "What say you, then, Giratina?"

"I say hell no, uh-uh," Giratina argued, stamping a foot down in protest. "I have the Distortion World to maintain, which takes immense amounts of concentration—I'm not exactly sitting there and counting the fucks that I don't give about you all."

"See? Perfect candidate. He already has the shitty human attitude," Rayquaza said.

"Immense concentration… Is that why portals are always showing in the human world?" Palkia asked sardonically.

"Sorry that I can't keep an eye on one hundred and fifty square miles at once," it replied testily. "How do you fare with that again?"

"I ought to—"

"You ought to keep a better eye on your dimension. Aren't anomalies your problem, Space Pokémon?"

"And isn't it your job to maintain the balance between spaces?" it countered. They were a second from tearing into each other before Arceus bodily cut them apart, although shorter than both of them.

"ENOUGH OF THIS PETTY ARGUING!" it roared. "Which of you was last to destroy Sinnoh?"

"—Giratina," Palkia answered before Giratina could get in a single shout.

"Then Giratina will be going. Meeting adjourned!"

"What the hell!?" Giratina burst out, pushing past the crowds of jostling pokémon to reach Arceus' side. "You'll just take their excuses and let them shirk the duty onto me?"

"I have more pressing matters to attend to than your squabbles," it replied harshly.

"Right, right. You're the one maintaining time and space—oh, wait, that's Dialga and Palkia. It must be hard controlling the weathers of the regions—no, those are the dogs and the birds. Then it must be hard sitting back and watching others slave for you." Arceus' eyes flashed, signaling Giratina was stepping too far, but it had to say something. "Injustice, that's what this is. Why not put more than just myself? Two heads are better than one, or even twenty."

"Because," it snapped, fed-up, "the others will be missed more than you."

"You're insinuating that no one here cares enough to miss me?"

"Well, do they?" Giratina fell short in responses and Arceus turned away, irritated. "I thought as much." Soon enough, it left along with the rest of the legendaries, leaving Giratina alone in the expanse of space.

"I don't know what the hell 'being missed' has to do with anything," it muttered as means of consolation to itself. It worked on tearing open a portal back to the Distortion World, wanting a taste of it before confining itself to a cumbersome vessel for who-the-hell-knows, and focused as to ignore the tiny blip of a presence behind it. "Go away," it grumbled.

"I want to know something," Mew replied, buzzing about his tail like an insect. The urge to swat it down was overpowering, but if Arceus was the overbearing parent of their screwed-up family, Mew was the Golden Child.

"Knock yourself out. No, really." It managed the portal open and slid through, hoping Mew would take the hint, but it followed it straight into the Distortion World, faltering and spinning momentarily before it adjusted to the new gravity. Giratina, meanwhile, enjoyed the sensation of shedding a heavy load.

"Why do you stay here alone all the time?" It was like a child, curious to the point of exasperation.

"Because I have to be here and no one else wants to join me?" he said sardonically. Mew hummed, undeterred, and followed him as he slithered to the depths of the world. If the gravity bothered her at all, she didn't show it.

"Well, I'm joining you," she continued brightly even as a groan rumbled through him.

"What, is Arceus punishing you?"

"Why would this be punishment?"

"Have you been living under a rock all these years? I'm not exactly the fan favorite among the legendary pokémon," he snorted, swerving past an upturned waterfall. "As a matter of fact, they hate my guts just because I'm the only one without a filter."

"Filter?" she repeated, baffled. It sighed, thoroughly exhausted with Mew, but some company was better than no company.

"For being the scant minority to willingly speak any and all thoughts, no matter the vulgarity."

"You're bad with pokémon," Mew commented. "That, I remember."

"It's quite hard to forget."

"You're mean," she said quite simply. "Sometimes it's warranted, but mostly you're just mean." He finally came to a stop next to a mangled piece of streetlamp. Mew hovered just within reach, as small and fragile-looking as a newborn or maybe even an embryo.

"I'm mean. It's always fun to hear that."

"But you're not being mean now."

"It wouldn't do to disrespect the ancestor of all pokémon, would it?" it pointed out dryly. Mew tilted its head to the side, intrigued by the thought.

"I'm superior to you?"

"You're superior to all us belly-draggers out here."

"Hm… I've never thought of it that way."

"No one's actually dedicated the brain cells to that kind of thinking, no one except me. I get a lot of free thinking here, you know—it helps me focus on how much you all play me every day. I do little more than idle here… Tch. Palkia can shove it up where the new guy Sunleo or whatever won't shine. I have this entire world to keep track of, little portals that show up whenever they feel and cause huge disruptions in the human world, and when even that slight interest fails me, I have no one to interact with."

"You can't leave here?" it asked.

"I could," it answered bitterly. "But outside of the legendaries that don't considering me a present in their lives, the human world is very dull." Mew gasped, scandalized.

"The human world is amazing! There are things like toys, candy, and there are all kinds of little soft dolls that look like us… I'd think you're always down there, the way you speak," she added, barely capping her excitement.

"It's more a convenience than a souvenir." Giratina was beginning to surprise himself, holding a conversation that long without losing his temper. Well, it helped that Mew wasn't an unbearable bastard like two other dimensional Pokémon, although she could pry like a crowbar.

"But you've been out there? Don't tell me there wasn't one thing that you enjoyed!"

"I enjoyed bullfights—does that count?" Apparently, it didn't.

"Cute things!"

"Ew. No." He wasn't sure if it was because he wasn't shouting or because he had remained still on the ground for so long, but Mew took some invisible cut to perch herself on one of his claws. It wasn't like she could get tired hovering psychically, but more than that the physical contact annoyed him. "Get off."

"Have you ever tried ice cream?" she persisted.

"What? No. I said get off."

"It's a sweet thing made of milk, sugar, salt… It can have other flavors too, like fruit or mint. I tried sharing one with a little boy long time ago—he was really smart—but he said he didn't like sweets, but I'm not sure if I'm making that up or not—"

"I didn't ask for the Dummies' Guide or your life story either. Don't make me squish you." She was becoming damn near hardheaded.

"What about cake? Have you had cake? Double chocolate is really tasty—"

"Arceus you're stubborn. I'd storm away if this wasn't my home."

"You said no one talks to you, yet I'm talking to you and you're getting angry about it."

"Of course, the irony isn't lost on me. Just…" He sighed, mentally exhausted, and lowered his head to the dirt. "I'm used to complaining, not so much being thankful." Mew patted his head, and if she meant it to be comforting, it was more patronizing. "Don't, or I'll eat you."

"Have you ever tasted soda?"

"Yes. It's fizzy and irritating."

"Bubblegum?"

"It sticks to my armor and I can't get it off."

"Then what do you like? And nothing brutal!" she asked. He sighed, then sighed again when he realized that the question required a fair amount of thought.

"Salad."

"Really?"

"It makes me feel like I'm consuming one of my adversaries." She groaned and flopped over, throwing her paws up in exasperation. Giratina wasn't one to appreciate cuteness, but the little display was amusing enough to get a short chuckle from him. "It's not funny!"

"On the contrary, your despair is highly entertaining. Please continue."

"You're just mean," she pouted, but it was said in jest, something that threw him off a moment.

"Thanks," Giratina replied in the same tone with a smirk. Mew fell silent long enough for him to assume that she'd fallen asleep, and lowered his claw to the ground to let her down before she fell. Well, he couldn't blame her; time ran differently in his dimension than the others. Legendary pokémon didn't age as the mortals did, so the effect was more like jet lag, but if a curious idiot stumbled through a portal, it was beyond him when they finished the remainder of their lives in thirty seconds.

"'m not tired," she protested, blinking heavily.

"Sure you're not. And I'm a giant pink dinosaur."

"…Teddy bears?"

"Quit it already and go to sleep. My throat hurts from talking so much and you're starting to get annoying." And he had to be rested himself, and Arceus wouldn't spare him any excess time, because time is 'of the essence' or 'precious' or whatever other crap excuse it came up with to make Giratina's life harder in the long run. Talking with Mew almost made it forget how hard things really were.

"Mm," it mumbled, words lost under its breath. At least there was one Pokémon that didn't totally hate its guts.

author's drabble - i suggest that if you're currently wearing socks, gym or knee high or ankle or any kind, you promptly remove them, because they will be knocked off by the first real battle of the story





The last time Orville fought another legendary on Zygarde's level was years before when Dialga was wrecking the human world and, consequently, the Distortion World. (Suffice it to say, Giratina was very much on Dialga's hit-list.) He wasn't a notorious fighter either, not like a pokémon with fighting as a prerequisite—Meloetta, Keldeo, pretty much everyone from Sinnoh—and especially since a major part of his strength lied in the Distortion World, where he held his home-field advantage.

They resurfaced in what initially appeared to be a huge hole in the ground. Orville hit the rugged rock a second before Zygarde, who landed on his stomach hard enough to knock the breath out of him. It growled as its eyes roamed the crater. "This was where the war was held, three thousand years ago," it said to itself before returning its attention to Orville. It pushed down on Orville's ribcage hard enough to fracture, then it knocked him away. Orville slammed against a large boulder, which served as the breaking point as a second later he was thrown away from his human vessel and onto the ground.

"My body!" Giratina growled, digging his claws into the dirt. His Altered Form felt so cumbrous after so long moping in the Distortion World. It would take him a moment to get used to battle, then he could focus on flying. "Arceus will make you sore for that."

"Arceus is busy. What happens on this earth is my problem," it reminded Giratina. It used Thousand Arrows again, letting them hover for a moment before sending them all flying. Giratina sunk into the shadows to avoid them, relishing the feeling of being in full control again with no chance of a weak human body bleeding out. He burst out right behind Zygarde and lashed out with his tail. Zygarde jumped away and bit down full-force on his neck in-between the golden guards. He growled in pain and swung it away but Zygarde landed easily on his feet. As it was so very obvious Zygarde wasn't willingly going to leave, he had to immobilize it, but there was also a glaring second issue.

"We don't need a crowd," Giratina said as miniature portals appeared all around the crater, allowing Zygarde Cells and Cores through. The Cells and Cores squirmed across the dirt to stick to Zygarde, every bare inch of scales until it was completely covered. It glowed as he started growing, changing shape and size until it was eye-to-eye with Giratina. Giratina decided that well, he had better things to do than get his ass kicked by all the earth, and made to climb away—that ability, thankfully, sufficed well in lieu of flight. Then a large chunk of dirt came at him at record speed, slamming him into the wall of the crater.

"On the contrary, there is a crowd of pokémon that would love to see this," Zygarde countered.

"I know that!" Giratina growled, digging his claws into the dirt. Zygarde was only at 50%—that was good. Giratina had balls, at least in the metaphorical sense, but even he wasn't haughty enough to take on 100% form and get himself brutally murdered. "And I know you care more about kicking my ass than the small talk, Zygarde." Light danced across Zygarde's scales as the dirt around it rose into the air, whipping around them faster and faster until it was a sandstorm. He felt the grains battering his skin and armor but ignored them as Zygarde readied a real attack.

"Such secular speech… Humanity has had too great of an effect on you." Zygarde vanished a second later, and Giratina only caught it a second before it reappeared, tail out as a whip. He curled inwards to let his armor take the hit, although he could feel it crack from the impact, and Zygarde quickly switched to Dragon Tail, knocking him from his grip and sending him rolling down the slope of the crater. He didn't have time to recover or even stop the world from spinning before the dirt beneath him violently jerked upwards, tossing him forward and into a bed of jagged rock.

"Augh," it groaned, spitting a mouthful of gravel. "The ages are just ages to you: altered faces on the surface and with the same tedium as filling. What, pray tell, do you really care about them? About us?"

"Don't accuse me of sharing your isolationism sentiments."

"Isolationism sentiments?" Giratina barely forced the words out through its growl. Ghost energy swirled around it before shooting forward, as thin as the wind and sharp as a blade. Zygarde lost a few scales before it erected a shield. "I was never asked my take on being confined to the Distortion World, Zygarde. I was imprisoned there against my will, guarding that twisted reflection of a dimension with no company other than my own thoughts, and even those grew tiresome after the first century. You take a lot for granted, you know: the Earth changes all the time, every second of every day; that place does not."

"Are you pitting your woes on me?" Zygarde replied heedlessly.

"To what avail would that be? I know you don't trouble yourself with our problems," he sneered. He let his Ominous Wind build until Zygarde's shield broke apart and it was slammed back into the dented wall of the crater. "And while you sought to stay as far from us as possible, I spent my solitude honing my abilities. I am one of the few that can control shadows, after all—I might as well have learned their full extent." He caught his front leg on Zygarde's shadow as the sun shifted, and with one quick movement he tore a gash down the darkness like a rip in paper. An identical slit appeared in Zygarde's shoulder area, dark green blood leaking down over its scales.

"So we're showing tricks now," it said, undeterred. "I have plenty more than you." The dirt around Giratina shot up into tall pillars, which quickly shifted to form numerous hands that bore down on him and latched onto his limbs, forcing him down into the ground.

"Cute. Very cute," Giratina grounded out. "On the other hand, it would suit you well to not place me near the darkness." He burst into darkness that quickly melted in with the other shadows around them. Zygarde watched him travel along the ground before its scales shone with energy once again. Thunder rumbled distantly as thick dark clouds rolled in and blocked the sun, instantly throwing them in semi-darkness. Giratina was ejected from the ground as the shadows faded away.

Zygarde was in Giratina's face in a moment and swung its tail, slamming him to the side and right into its special rock wall. Giratina shook his head out and lashed out at Zygarde with his claws. The whirling sand suddenly cut in front of him, forcing him away as the high-speed sediments cut numerous scratches into his hide. He backtracked into a pitfall made by his adversary, tripping over his rear legs and baring himself for a razor-sharp piece of stone that shot into his chest, barely missing his heart. He groaned at the pain as blood leaked around the point of contact, increasing in flow when Zygarde pushed down on it.

"Ugh… You think…this will…kill me?" Giratina smirked.

"At the very least, I assumed they would shut your accursed mouth." Zygarde retrieved several other stones and, cracking them down to killer points, buried them in Giratina's limbs, effectively pinning him to the ground. He growled before his body faded to transparency, lifting the rocks and spinning them around to Zygarde before letting them fly. It caught them right before they made contact, crumbling them into dust.

"I'm getting a little tired of playing with pebbles… Aren't you?"

Zygarde's scales shone, but this time the light remained longer before scattering around it like an external reflection. The green and gold condensed into a single, bright point between its eyes, gathering blue and scarlet draconic energy and swirling into a ball. The ball scattered into several lights that arced into the air before shooting down to earth in a wild pattern. Giratina formed several dozen Shadow Balls in response, tossing them back to match each Draco Meteor. The consequent explosions coalesced into a massive one that almost took up the entire crater, poisoning the air with smoke and waves of heat energy. Hidden by the remnants, Giratina tested his wings and, finding them apt, took off into the air.

"I see you attempting to escape, Giratina!" Through the gloom came several hundred flashes of green that Giratina was just a second too slow in dodging. One pierced his wing through, dropping one of his spikes to the ground and causing him to dip, and another chipped one of his golden guards. That was ten… Nine thousand and ninety to go, he thought bitterly before turning tail. He could sense the power of them trailing him as he soared over Geosenge, keeping a solid space between himself and them even as he watched Zygarde keep the same pace directly below him, slithering across the grass like a pro. If he remembered correctly from the dozen or so times he'd been dragged to Kalos, Coumarine was the port city, meaning lots of water, meaning a portal large enough to take even Zygarde's big ass. Problem was, Zygarde would surely be harder to trap than Latios.

Giratina glanced back to make sure Zygarde's arrows were still following—they were—before preforming a sharp dive. Zygarde came to a stop on the rocky route to watch Giratina spiral towards the dirt, wings folded back to increase his speed, and the earth started shaking. Not giving it the chance to retaliate, he spun and exploded a Shadow Ball right in its face, blinding it as he sunk into the shadows. He surfaced a couple of miles away in time to feel a drop of rain on his head, quickly succeeded by a heavy downpour from thick, slate-grey clouds.

"You're going to give me a bath now? Not that I don't appreciate it, having been rolling in the mud so long," Giratina jeered, planting his feet on the route's grass. The simple shower soon became a downpour, however, raindrops hitting him like bullets and softening the dirt so much he was forced to remain in midair lest he be taken away in a mudslide. He didn't expect that, of all the things Zygarde would do—in that form, it was unable to fly, so it wouldn't be able to physically reach Giratina. He continued backing away, however, as the green glow of its Thousand Arrows showed through the gloom, and as the ground was out of the question, he had no other choice than to take the attack head-on. The arrows couldn't quite pierce his armor, but his skin was easily sliced apart, creating several deep lacerations on his body that slowed his flight until he was hovering precariously above the mudslide.

"I'm going to do more than just clean you," Zygarde intoned, its voice preceding its appearance in the dark environment. Giratina growled as he spun as quickly as he could in his condition, creating several wobbly Shadow Balls on the spot as his eyes darted in search of Zygarde's massive form—it couldn't be too hard to find a hulking green reptile in the center of a rainstorm— "I'm going to, as the humans say, wipe the floor with you." Giratina met eyes with a blue-palette version of his adversary right before it slammed its tail into his face, sending him spinning head over tail backwards. He had no time to recover as Zygarde was instantly behind him—how in hell was it moving so quickly all of a sudden?—and head-butted him, severely damaging his mouth guards and knocking out a couple of teeth. Giratina was spiraling towards the muddy ground, disoriented, but it still hadn't had enough, and the churning mud was instantly covered with a sheet of thick white ice that he collided with bodily, throwing him into blackness until Zygarde's tail around his aching body awoke him.

"H-How are you—" he managed before a bubble of blood cut him off.

"I used Camouflage to become as the rain, since the earth was not as effective on you," Zygarde said. Its grip intensified so much Giratina could feel his organs shifting. "You've always sustained the belief that you can speak to us however you wish to, do whatever you wish because you can eventually escape our ire in your world, but now there is no escape for you. Your punishment will surely make you think the next time you feel the urge to speak."

"J-Just k-kill me."

"Not as long as Arceus is using you—powerful as I am, I do not wish to weather that storm. However, it has no qualms with traveling damage." Zygarde backpedaled down the small icy island it created, finally giving Giratina a chance to breathe deeply. "Are you unable to rise now, Giratina?"

"Of course I—" he began, indignant, but all attempts to roll to his feet failed as an acute agony in his center forced him down again. Zygarde rumbled a laugh in response to his pained writhing as he fought to regain his bearings past his scrambled thoughts. He was injured, barely able to move, and on top of that Zygarde now had the type advantage. There was no way he could make a portal in that condition, let alone force it through. Maybe, maybe if it returned to 10%, it would ease his burden, but the only way he could strip it of its Cells now—

Arceus, he was going to feel this battle in the morning, if he even made it that long.

"I believe—argh—I believe you're greatly underestimating me, Zygarde," Giratina growled, finally rolling to his feet. He was glad that his battered body served as an excuse for halting his offensive. "And I also believe you all are giving yourselves too much credit. I'm selfish and hard to get along with? Then why is it that, in every meeting we have, you all do a pretty good job of arguing up a storm without my input? You all love to hold yourself in such high regard even as the world falls to pieces because of your…our…inanity. We aren't all that far off from humans." Especially that redheaded pest.

"Your time as a human has made you think as one."

"We all think as humans, whether we'd like to or not. I know Mew does," he pointed out with just a bit of amusement. "And there's nothing wrong with that—humans in general are not bad creatures. When they lose their way, that is when they are something to be reckoned with, and that is what we shouldn't be. Then again, I don't need fingers to count the number of times that we've all screwed things up. Take responsibility for yourself already, will you?" he snorted with an eye roll. Zygarde growled, irate, which was just what Giratina was going for. "The truth is annoying, isn't it? Here's something else that should really sting: you were also meant for the ability to open and close portals as you wish, but Arceus decided I was the better one to hold that, and it restricted you to just toting your Cells from here to there. And now you're charging me," he smirked as Zygarde slithered towards him. "Great."

The clouds rent as a great white bolt of Thunder shot down towards their icy islet. The small fingers of electricity grew into their own lightning bolts as they caught on the rain, expanding the attack until they were amidst a field of energy jumping through the air. Zygarde suffered most, being a Water-type, but Giratina's pain doubled as the volts zapped across his sliced skin. The current buzzed between them, molecules crashing and crashing until they finally reached their end point and blew the two of them apart with a giant burst of white lightning, throwing them into the still-churning mud. Zygarde surfaced quickly, back to its original green shade, but Giratina had a much harder time getting his bearings as his limbs remained locked up from the Thunder. He struggled to keep his head above the sludge but still gulped it down instead of air as it weighed him down like tons of steel, locking his wings in place and eventually yanking him under.

"You're not gonna catch me!" Shaymin called with an arrogant grin, winding circles around Giratina in its own dimension. It growled, opening its mouth guards and baring its teeth as it fought to keep pace with the lithe little rat. "C'mon, stop messing around Brother!"

"I'm going to rip you to shreds, you pest!"

"That is, if you can catch me at all!" It was tired, it was frustrated, and it was destroying the buildings as it faltered in imitating Shaymin's turns, which it knew would earn it a long invective from Arceus as the underworld suffered. It turned back towards Shaymin as it whirled from behind, eyes glittering with the excitement of battle, and went to—

He was brought back to the surface by a foreign power in time to catch a wild, pained roar. Giratina shook his face clear of mud and caught Zygarde's tail disappearing into a midair ball of rainwater. He blinked, perplexed, then caught the pink glow around the edges—it was being maintained telekinetically. He could use Psychic, yes, but not with the pain blurring all edges of his mind. It was coming from something—someone else.

"You're welcome!" Mew beamed, a bright spot among the gloom of the storm. Giratina felt no gratitude—it was too fatigued for that.

"How…" he trailed off, vaguely aware of Mew forming a Psychic barrier above his head, sparing him from the rain, then set to work on his injuries. Then he remembered his Thunder attack, the outpouring of the last of his energy amplified by the rain. He managed to create an anomaly, which he could only assume Mew traveled through. That wasn't his intention, but thank Arceus anyway.

"Wow, it really did a number on you," Mew commented, looking up towards the sky. She wrinkled her nose in distaste and the rain slowed to a complete stop, the black clouds withering away until they were little more than streaks against the dusk. "You weren't kidding about the legendaries disliking you, huh?"

"Why…would I…"

"Oh no, I didn't assume you were joking, but this is just…wow." She looked at the damage they had caused: patches of missing ground, damaged rocks, entire cliffs charred and broken away and still crumbling into the nearby shore. Coumarine was just in the distance; it was a wonder nobody had come to investigate. Then again, with the storm having dissipated, the humans were surely rushing over. Mew apparently came up with the same thought, because she strengthened her hold on Giratina and started pulling him towards the water.

"M…body…"

"I can't hear you."

"Body…Orville…" he growled, forcing his tongue to work. "In Geosenge…still there…"

"Body… You mean your vessel! That's going to be a problem," she sighed. Giratina was glad she couldn't hear his resounding Well duh! "What if you damaged him?" she suddenly gasped. "You were in that vessel for longer than normal, weren't you? and you used your powers…"

"Don't…care…"

"You should!" she reprimanded. Giratina smiled a little, likening her to Linda. They were both small, bright, and very buggy. Not quite a bad thing. "What's so funny?"

"You."

"What? Why? —Tell me!" she pressed when he remained silent. She pouted as he continued grinning to himself, but he quickly sobered as he watched the braver humans trek onto their battlefield. The effects of a legendary fight were just that, and often remained for generations after. All because of a freaking anomaly— Wait.

"Psychic…psychic people exist…right?" he asked.

"They're a minority, but yes. Some just have vague abilities like communication with pokémon, and others can warp reality like Gym Leader Sabrina."

"I see." The first few anomalies' locations were unknown to him, but he knew they took place somewhere in Kanto. The first one that he'd tracked was in Viridian, where the three were leaving; the second occurred right where they were as Linda tried to pull Koko away; and the third was when Mel was endangered by that girl's aerodactyl. It was safe to assume that they all came from the same person, which narrowed it down to either Mel or Linda, and Mel already had trouble communicating with his own species, let alone another one, so that left the girl. But she'd never done anything on purpose, and unless she was an ace liar (which she didn't appear to be by a longshot with her gumdrops-and-rainbows demeanor) she had no idea what was going on. Regardless, if she was, in fact, the one causing anomalies, she would have to be dealt with.

…He would think it through while recovering.

?Breaking news: a battle between the legendary pok?mon has just occurred outside of Coumarine City in Kalos! The battle, waged between the Distortion World pok?mon Giratina and the guardian of our earth, Zygarde, has left miles of damage in its wake, and in its aftermath the two have not been spot??

?Mel!? Linda complained as he tossed a pillow at the television, followed by him getting up to shut it off.

?What?s it matter? The bastard?s gone and isn?t our problem anymore,? he said, dropping into a cross-legged position at the base of the Pok?mon Center?s bed. He quickly changed his mind and threw himself back, his hair going all over the pillow and his face as he sighed.

?But it?s my fault that he had to come in the first place,? she murmured, hugging her pillow to her chest. Koko placed her paws on her leg, resting her head on Linda?s knee with a whine. Mel blew his cheeks out before turning his head away.

?Can?t be, I?m telling you. Sure, you kinda understand Koko, but you guys?ve been together since forever, so that?s no big deal.?

?It?s more than Koko though. Even Shady, and you just caught him a couple of months ago. Wild pidgey too, and caterpie and diglet and?? She closed her eyes and turned to the wall, gently pushing Koko away. ?That pok?mon almost ruined the city, almost killed people? It would?ve been my fault, Mel.?

?Lindy??

?He could fix it.?

?Or he will kill you,? he added bitterly, waving a hand. ?And it?s not like he was frank about which he?d do. We were going to see Sabrina about it, weren?t we? We just keep going and stick to the original plan.?

?But Mel??

?It?s going to work, trust me,? he insisted, sitting up and letting his eyes burn into hers. He was impossible when he got like that, clinging to his beliefs and notions like a lifeline.

?It?s not that I don?t,? she replied, turning her body towards him, ?but what about the meantime? It can happen again?chances are that it will happen again!? Linda didn?t want to cry but she felt tears creeping past her eyelids anyway. She wiped at them furiously as Koko whined and pawed at her side, licking her free hand consolingly.

?I-I don?t know what you want me to do anyway. That guy?s all the way in Kalos, and as you just saw, he probably got his ass kicked back to his home, so we couldn?t call him anyway! Arceus, Linda, stop crying?I mean, please stop crying?I mean?jeez!? He pulled her hand away and wiped her face with his sleeve, but his eyes were shining with unshed tears. ?I?m the problem,? he admitted quietly. ?I?m the one that got us in this mess in the first place. Please don?t cry, Lindy.? She bit her lip a second before shaking her head.

?What can we do?? He bumped shoulders before resting his head against hers.

?I don?t know,? he said. ?That scares me the most.?


Mel was sort of a know-it-all. It helped that most of the time, he did know it all?he did, after all, spend most of his life at home, so he didn?t have much other to do than read?and he didn?t waste any chance to prove it to anyone and/or everyone. It was bothersome sometimes and annoying at worse, but it was good that Linda always had someone to ask for answers. But now he didn?t have any answers, and he was just as confused as she was. What did they do then? None of them had any idea.

Linda stood with Koko in her arms as Mel checked them out, watching the Trainers come and go with pok?mon in hand. She used to always think about the Pok?mon League, but lately the idea of challenging Gyms rarely crossed her mind. Maybe a Coordinator though?she could teach Koko the tricks and wow people? Well, if she managed to get things under control any time soon?or any time at all. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and right when she turned around a candy bar was shoved into her mouth.

?I bought it from the vending machine,? Mel explained with a small smile. ??Cause I know you and Koko like almond chocolate, and it was the last one. It can?t fix all our problems, but it?ll make you feel better short-term.?

?Thanks.? She still felt a little dazed as she chewed, alternating bites with Koko. He stared blankly at her for a moment before tugging on her pigtails.

?Come on, smile. I promised that I?d fix things, didn?t I??

?But you don?t even know how or where to begin.?

?Sabrina?that?s where to begin. I don?t know where things are going to end up from there.?

?You always have no clue,? she said halfheartedly. ?You don?t think things through?ever.?

?I?m not a good planner and I admit that, but things have worked out so far?more or less.?

?The more or less there is the issue? There isn?t a halfway that we can get to, Mel. You know what the stakes are.? He winced slightly but didn?t turn away.

?He?s not the one that can make it better,? Koko reminded her. Linda hummed in dissatisfaction.

?What did she say??

?You?re not the one who can fix this. Orville? Giratina is the one that knows about anomalies and how to stop them.?

?I told you, no?I don?t want him to hurt you, and that?s taking things lightly.?

?What other choice do we have??

?I told you??

?Realistically, Mel! This is something we never heard about before, and I really don?t think it?s something a person would just keep bottled up. If Sabrina did have this happen to her she would?ve told someone!?

?Sabrina?s not exactly known for being a social butterfree.?

?Anybody with logic would?ve told!? she protested.

?Well?? Mel started, then stopped upon seeing her expression. He shook his head once and ran both hands through his hair with a sigh, mussing it and causing it to stand on end. ?I?m trying,? he said after a moment.

?You?re trying to run circles around the only lead we have. For what??

?He?s annoying, abrasive, and he treats us like bugs?that?s for what. It?s not worth it.? Linda hugged Koko tighter.

?It?s not, but?look at the alternative.? They both fell silent.

?Kalos is such a long way away,? he muttered. ?And considering that he was with another legendary there, chances are that he already ran off.?

?Or maybe he?s injured. Every time we saw legendary pok?mon fight on the news, both of them were injured because they?re equal. If he?s injured enough, he?ll be there for a while.?

?If,? he repeated. ?It?s something, I guess.? He watched Koko eat the last of the chocolate and sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. ?Look, it?s seven in the morning. Let?s eat, then we?ll catch the next train to?this is Cerulean, so?we?ll catch a train to Saffron. The airport?s there, I think.?

?I? Okay, brother.?


?Mel! Mel, look! She?s hurt!? Linda cried, running into their room and carrying the comatose growlithe with some difficulty, them being nearly the same height.

?What?? Mel looked up from his book as Linda came near, then started coughing. ?Ugh, she smells like smoke!?

?She?s a fire-type.?

?I?m gonna have an attack, Linda. Just tell Dad to?cough cough?take it to the Pok?mon Center.?

?She wouldn?t go near him?I think she?s scared of people.?

?She?s not scared of you,? he pointed out, shutting his book. She ignored him, putting the growlithe down on the carpet and running to the bathroom. ?Hey! What are you doing??

?Taking care of her!? She took the first-aid kit to their room and cracked it open. The growlithe snarled as she came close with the peroxide, then she yelped in pain as Linda started rubbing her injured paw with it. Mel sniffed in indignation, pulling his shirt over his nose as he drew closer. The growlithe snarled and dropped into a pounce, causing him to jump three feet back.

?It?s gonna eat me!? he cried.

?Don?t be a meanie, Mel.?

?It?s the one trying to eat me!?

?She,? Linda corrected. ?She?s a girl.?

?No, she?s a wild animal!?

?She?s more than a wild animal! I can? I can hear her talking, and she?s saying real words!?

?Now that?s crazy,? he muttered. She ignored him for the time being, gently cleaning the growlithe?s paw and whispering to her until she calmed down. She was wrapping the injury when Mel spoke up again: ?How?d you even sneak that thing past Mom and Daddy??

?I?m sneaky,? she said, tying up the last bandage. The growlithe tested her weight on her paw, making slow circles around the room, before woofing happily. She turned and jumped on Linda, licking her face and nuzzling her neck. Linda giggled and hugged her even as they were both knocked to the ground.

?Gre?at,? Mel sighed. ?Now she can go.?

?Mm,? Linda complained, sitting up with her. The growlithe looked at her curiously.

?Should I eat him?? she asked. ?He?s small enough.?

?No? He?s a meanie, but he?s my brother.?

?Hey,? Mel whined. ?I?m no meanie.?

?He?s a meanie, but he?s my brother, and he?s always snappy when he doesn?t take a nap, so don?t pay attention to him.?

?What am I, a baby? I?m eight years old damn you.?

?And he needs to wash his mouth out with soap, and he will when I tell Mommy on him.?

?Oi, Linda!? he protested as she got up, throwing his arms out. He wrestled with himself for a minute before grumbling, ?Don?t tell Mom on me.?

?You wanna stay with us?? Linda asked.

?Just with you,? the growlithe replied. Linda squealed in delight, spinning them around while pretending not to notice Mel smiling behind her. (He liked when she was happy and giggly, but he denied it whenever she asked him on grounds of looking unmanly.)

?Ooh what should I name her??

?How about ?Sparky??? he suggested, going back to his book.

?Mm? Koko?? she tried. ?What about ?Koko??? She wagged her tail with a smile. ?Koko! Your name is Koko.?

?Gre?at,? he repeated. ?Now you just have to convince Mom and Daddy. And me, don?t forget me. There?s no way they?d let you have an arcanine.?

?Then she won?t evolve!?

?What about the smoke, huh?? He coughed as if to punctuate his point.

?She won?t use fire-type attacks either. Then Mommy and Daddy will have to agree.?

???

?Melchior!?

?Oi, you know I hate that. I don?t care either way what happens, but I don?t think they?ll let you keep her, or at least not until you?re ten.?

?I?ll? I?ll make them agree,? she decided, holding Koko?s head between her hands. ?Because??

?Because?? he asked. ?C?mon, you got me on the edge of my seat now.?

?Because?I like her,? she lied, and hated doing so. Linda loved Koko, but what she really meant to say would?ve been horrible. Koko, sensing it, licked her hand and warmed her fur to a comfortable temperature. Linda nuzzled into her fur with a sigh.


?Look, it?s a flower shop,? Mel said, tugging Linda?s arm. She blinked back to reality and followed his eyes: yes, there was a florist?s stuck in-between a game store and a trainer?s hardware shop. On the other side of the slate-paved street was the polished metal railing, and below that was the canal, always moving in a frothy rush. ?You like pretty sweet-smelling crap.?

?Yes?? It wasn?t the way he said it?Mel was never known for his tact?but the fact that he was willingly offering to take her browsing in a flower shop. Usually he skipped out on anything bright and sunshiny and happy.

?Then c?mon, let?s look at the flowers.? Another sentence that had her questioning both of their lives.

?O?Okay, brother.?

The inside was crowded with shelves of all kinds of flowers, some from Kanto and some from Sinnoh and some really tropical ones she guessed were from Alola. ?Ooh Mel look at these!? she cried, dragging him towards a bouquet of white flowers.

?I?m looking,? he muttered, peering closely at them. ?They look kinda funny.?

?Hello,? said the flowers. Both of them jumped back in shock, almost topping another shelf, as a Pok?mon came from the flowers?no, the flowers were a part of her.

?What in hell is that?? Mel asked. She looked like a grass-type with lots of flowers and a sweet, perfume-y scent, but that was all Linda could tell.

?Lilligant,? Koko told her. ?She?s a lilligant.?

?Your flowers are really pretty.

?Thank you,? the lilligant replied. ?Anything in particular that you?re interested in??

?Um?? She started looking through the displays, noting in the corner of her eye Mel following behind her as dutifully as Koko. She passed by several crates marked with the flowers? meanings below, things like ?joy,? ?femininity,? ?perseverance,? among others. She stared between them, unable to choose, and turned to ask Mel only to see he had disappeared. She bent to talk to Koko instead. ?What do you like??

?That!? Koko pointed her nose at the sunflowers. Linda took one and knotted up the stem to put it just behind her ear. Koko pushed her head into Linda?s hand, an affectionate rumble in her throat, and Linda smiled.

?Hey, Lindy, stay still a second.? She felt Mel pull a little on her pigtails and started to complain, then her old ties snapped and her hair tumbled down her shoulders. Then he put a ring of flowers around her head. ?Okay, there.? She shifted around to look at him and saw him smiling and still holding up two flowers, one dark purple and one light purple. ?Larkspur for ?beautiful spirit.? Gladiolus for ?strength of character.? And uh, a Lindflower,? he added, poking her under her chin with a browning stem.

?What? Dandelions are not weeds!? she protested.

?They are?look at my book.? He held the page out for her to see. ?They steal the food from the soil so that the pretty flowers like roses and daisies can die.?

?You?re a liar!?

?It?s all in the bo?? He stopped when he saw her start to cry, slamming the book shut and setting it down on his bed. ?It?s no big deal Lindy, really! Please don?t cry!? He grabbed a tissue from his nightstand and passed it to her. ?I know something a lot prettier than some stupid dandelions.?

?Roses?? she asked, wiping her nose.

?Nope, prettier.?

?Daisies??

?Sweeter.?

?Orchids??

?Maybe,? he said, his voice muffling as he dove under his bed. Old books, Kanto League magazines, his retainer?

?You told Mommy you lost that.?

?I did,? he said absently. ?I lost my patience with it. Stupid lisp.? He inched his way backwards after a while, his hair sticking all over the place, and held out a flower stem.

?It?s just a stem.?

?No, no, look,? he said when she started crying again. ?Look at this.? He poked her chin with it and held it there. She stared at him, confused, as he stared back at her expectantly. ?A Linda flower. Lind? Lindflower. The best one of all of them.?

?You?re so sweet, Mel,? she said, ruffling his hair. He groaned and pushed her hands away, smoothing it down with a disgruntled expression.

?Let?s just go already.? She turned to the lilligant happily.

?How much for the flowers??

?Call them a gift,? she replied. Linda took up Koko and let Mel move ahead of her towards the door.

?Thank you, Mel,? she added. He muttered something like girls and their stupid flowers under his breath but didn?t reply. He opened the door and started to leave, but whatever he saw made him rear back so quickly he crashed into her. ?Mel! What?s going on? Is it Zygarde??

?No,? he said after a moment, eyes wide.

?Latios??

?No??

?Orville??

?I?m pretty sure it?s related to him,? he said with just a little of his usual dry humor. Linda slid past him and opened the door.

?That was mean,? Mew commented, giving Mel a pointed look. Linda couldn?t help but gape too, and so did Koko. The sunlight reflected off of her short fur in an odd way, making her pop in and out of sight. ?But Giratina said that he does scare easily, so??

?You?re here because of Giratina?? she asked, getting her bearings. Mew smiled.

?I?m here to take you to it, yes.?

?What?s it saying?? Mel said behind her.

?She?s saying?she?ll take us to Orville??

?No thank you. We?ll pass.?

?That?s not an option, sadly,? Mew said, rubbing her paw against her forehead. She was so tiny in person, around Koko?s size. ?The anomalies are still at large, and he can?t exactly come to you.?

?But?how can we help with them?? Linda asked warily. Mew?s smile turned calming.

?I?m a mind-reader, Linda. You and your brother can help more than you think. Now come, I don?t want to be seen.?

?How?? Mel began before psychic energy bubbled all around them. Linda felt a strange pulling sensation at her head like Mel was on her pigtails, then it became an all-over tingling sensation. Compared to Orville?Giratina?s shadows, it was a much warmer feeling. The world blurred into watercolors for a few seconds before it returned as bright sunlight over rough dirt and mountains. Linda stumbled a moment as she landed on an unsteady slope, but she managed to backtrack onto flat ground. Mel, on the other hand, slipped on a rock and landed on his behind. ?Oof. What?? he said, baffled.

?What indeed,? came a deeper voice behind them. Linda pulled Mel up and turned to see Giratina?s massive body half-shadowed by a cave set in the mountain. He stared at them for a long time with a rumble sounding deep in his throat like distant thunder. Cuts and scores and gashes were all over him, some even leaking something clear like water. ?I thought you two were small before,? he said, ?but I?ve actually forgotten how miniscule humans are.?