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[Pokémon] Cracked, or How the Love of Seafood Saved Unova

98
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Jan 27, 2018
After reading many fanfictions from other authors and my own, I must say I have missed your writing for the past two weeks or so. It's like eating homemade food after eating the flimsy food in my college food court lol.

I was surprised actually. In the last chapter when Teiresias failed to spot Lauren and Co., I thought he was betraying the organization for some hidden reason, but it seems that was not the case.

About his powers, based on the description, I believe it to be a Dark Pulse.

serebii.net said:
The user releases a horrible aura imbued with dark thoughts. It may also make the target flinch.

But then again you might have your own version of some other attack or it could be a completely different power.

Whatever it was, it was definitely scary. Those descriptions are really amazing and did what they ought to do.

I liked your intro of Cheren and Bianca, I am glad that you are using both of them. I am really looking forward for their involvement in the next chapter, or the coming chapters.

I wonder how the government agent and Teiresias managed to catch up with Lauren though. But I can guess that, them being supported by the organization hidden in the dark, it is not much of a surprise. They could have taken a flight or something? Not sure.

I know life's a *****, but I am looking forward for your next update!
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
After reading many fanfictions from other authors and my own, I must say I have missed your writing for the past two weeks or so. It's like eating homemade food after eating the flimsy food in my college food court lol.

Ah, you're too kind.

I was surprised actually. In the last chapter when Teiresias failed to spot Lauren and Co., I thought he was betraying the organization for some hidden reason, but it seems that was not the case.

No, Teiresias is no friend of Lauren. It's just that... well, I can't say very much without giving things away, but something about Halley interferes with the way he perceives people.

About his powers, based on the description, I believe it to be a Dark Pulse.

But then again you might have your own version of some other attack or it could be a completely different power.

I never actually thought what it might be. I just thought about what Teiresias is, and what sort of power might therefore be appropriate for him. It isn't intended to be any sort of Pokémon move in particular.

Whatever it was, it was definitely scary. Those descriptions are really amazing and did what they ought to do.

Thank you. I spend more time writing Teiresias than on any other character; since it's in his nature to inspire fear in others and prey upon them in that way, I've been trying to reflect that in the way I write about him. And I'm not particularly used to writing fear, so it takes me a while.

I liked your intro of Cheren and Bianca, I am glad that you are using both of them. I am really looking forward for their involvement in the next chapter, or the coming chapters.

Me too. We'll be seeing a lot of them soon enough - and through different eyes, too.

I wonder how the government agent and Teiresias managed to catch up with Lauren though. But I can guess that, them being supported by the organization hidden in the dark, it is not much of a surprise. They could have taken a flight or something? Not sure.

Ah, I know exactly how they got there, but I won't tell anyone just yet. You'll find out soon enough.

I know life's a *****, but I am looking forward for your next update!

A masterly bit of understatement there. My life has changed recently, and I'm only just getting used to the fact that my social life now requires a far greater expenditure of time than it used to, owing to the iniquities of public transport. I do try and write on trains and buses, but I can't work properly unless I'm typing; the screen is an extension of my mind, where I can cut, add and rearrange the words continually until I get finished sentences. I'm terrible at just getting down a story and editing it later; I always have to edit as I go along.

Anyway. I must away!

F.A.B.
 

Adin Terim

Absolutely Insane
64
Posts
11
Years
  • Seen Jul 17, 2021
Wow this is great. Is the perspective of the story going to change every time the main character(s?) wakes up?
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
Wow this is great. Is the perspective of the story going to change every time the main character(s?) wakes up?

Thanks. And pretty much, yeah - for now. There's a specific moment when the Unovas switch over, and that's not going to remain the same throughout the story.

Now, for an explanation as to why there have been no updates recently and probably won't be for some time; I feel, as a (mostly) fairly fast writer and sort-of regular updater, that I owe it to those of you who read Crack'd to explain. At the moment, I am still working on the story - when I can. But my free time is primarily taken up with a different story these days, and one which I can't, unlike normally, put off until later, as it is intended as a gift for someone on a specific date and must be finished to a high degree by a specific date, as well as sent to the printer's and bound.

So yeah. My apologies, but there's going to be a little bit of a hiatus for a while.

F.A.B.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
And I'm back! Yeah! An object at rest cannot be stopped!

Chapter Five: The Thick of It


Tock.

"Oh, sh— Short Round's baseball cap. This is doing my head in."

I hauled my eyes open with the strenuous effort more often associated with dock labourers loading up a freighter, and stared at the green ovals hovering just above me.

"Whuh," I mumbled. "Time?"

A voice issued from somewhere in the sea of grey around the green.

"The time isn't the problem, Jared. The problem is the fact that the world seems to have done a f*cking backflip again."

Halley. That was the name of the voice – and those ovals were eyes, and those brindled waves were fur...

I sat up, and felt a lean furred weight fall from my chest.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"Pokémon Centre hotel room," replied Halley. "Not sure how you remember things, but Cheren got you in here claiming you were a Swedish Trainer. Apparently they don't use Trainer Cards in Sweden or something."

Cheren... Yeah, I remembered that. He was cold, calculating and utterly calm; no one without his bland, omniscient eyes and quietly insistent logic could have pulled off such a ridiculous lie. In fact, I'm not sure he could have done it if he didn't know for certain that they didn't have Trainer Cards in Sweden; he seemed to draw strength from facts.

"Oh yeah." I scratched my head. "Ouch. That fight didn't do me any favours, especially after Regenschein's."

"Fight?" Halley frowned. "Did you do some fighting?"

"Yeah – I almost threw Smythe off the train, remember? While you and Candy were fighting the Liepard... thing."

Halley stared.

"I so wish I could remember that," she said wistfully. "It must have been glorious."

"What?" I blinked. "Did you get amnesia again?"

She sighed.

"Don't tell me I have to explain this again."

"Explain—?"

"OK, listen up and don't ask questions," Halley continued without pausing. "Unova seems to be hosting two parallel universes – one modern, industrialised world in which you're a boy named Jared Black, and one old-fashioned, backwater nowhere in which you're a girl named Lauren White. I think they're connected through dreams or something, but I keep sliding between them – with you one day, with Lauren the next."

A memory flashed into my mind with startling clarity – like a single pearl on a bed of rose petals, a lone white seal bounding through slate-grey shallows – and I saw, as if I had suddenly been recalled to sleep, my hand pushing a bangle onto my wrist before a sunlit window. Only it wasn't my hand, it was browner and slimmer, and the nails were painted the green of spring leaves, and I don't wear jewellery...

"Lauren," I said slowly. "I never noticed before."

Halley's ears pricked up, and she sat up straight on the bedspread.

"Noticed what?" she asked eagerly.

"That I wasn't me in my dreams." I didn't know why, but I felt like the veil covering some great cosmic secret had been whisked aside; I could see something incomprehensible with incredible clarity – but I didn't quite understand what it was. "It always seemed so natural," I continued. "But I wasn't me – not Jared. I was Lauren White, and..." I frowned; I could remember nothing more.

"And?"

"I don't know." The secrets slid away and the curtains of reality fell back into place. "I just had a strange feeling."

"So you believe me? About the two worlds and the dreams?"

After that experience, I didn't think I had any choice.

"Yeah," I said hesitantly. "I do. It's – it's what they call the Dream World, isn't it?"

"That's what Lauren said," Halley answered. "Strange, really... I'd have thought she would believe me more easily than you, not the other way around."

"Did she... I... whatever, believe you?" I asked.

"I don't know. She was confused." Halley yawned. "She seemed bright enough, but weak-willed. I guess she clings to what she knows."

"So strange," I murmured. "I... yeah." I broke off.

There was a silence, which after a while Halley broke.

"So yeah. To answer your question, it's thirteen past nine." She looked up at me gravely. "Now put some clothes on and have a shower. You stink of teenager."

"Is that your heightened feline senses talking?"

"No. You're just filthy."

With that, she turned around and slid under the beside table with the peculiar combination of grace and idiocy that only cats can achieve, curled up and went back to sleep.

---

Twenty minutes later, I was clean, dressed and descending the stairs to the Centre's lobby, a large, whitewashed area that smelled strongly of dog; asking the receptionist the way in a passable imitation of a heavy Swedish accent, I eventually got myself to the canteen, where I saw Bianca talking merrily to a composedly silent Cheren.

"Hi," I said, sitting down at their table and letting Candy down off my shoulder. "Sorry. Have you been waiting?"

Cheren looked at me, and then at Bianca's plate – which, I saw was almost full. His own, needless to say, was scrupulously clean with the knife and fork lined up neatly at the side. I got the feeling he'd been done for about half an hour.

"Yes," he replied, "but not for you."

Bianca gaped, and Candy stole a strip of bacon from her plate to gnaw dreamily by my hand.

"Cher-eeeen," she moaned. "I'm not being slow—!"

"You've taken about forty minutes so far," he told her mildly. "In that time, you've told me absolutely everything you know about Jared, a sizeable amount of conjecture about what might conceivably be known about Jared in the future, and your attitude towards your Tepig – again."

Bianca made a peculiar noise partway between a squeal and a yelp, and turned to me with a demand for support forming on her face.

"Jared—"

"I just got up. I know nothing about this." I paused. "Actually, I don't even know who you are, except that you're Trainers."

We hadn't spoken much last night beyond my explanation of who I was, why I had a talking cat and why we'd both been under arrest. I actually still had the handcuffs dangling from my wrists; Bianca's Tepig (a plump, affable creature that for some reason she'd called Barry) had been able to melt through the chain links, but I hadn't wanted to risk it cooking my wrists in trying to destroy the actual cuffs. Halley had told me that they, with my studded jacket and black jeans, made me look a lot like a moron who couldn't decide whether he wanted to be a punk or a Goth.

Anyway, Bianca's natural compassion and Cheren's desire to figure out exactly what was going on had combined to form an agreement that they would help Halley and I out, and so they'd got us into the Pokémon Centre. After a quick meal, I'd gone straight to bed, and this was the first I'd seen of them since.

"Get some food first," advised Cheren. "If only to stop your Archen from eating Bianca's."

I frowned.

"How did you know she was an Archen?"

"Toothed beak, long feathered tail, clumsy attempts at flight and clawed wings," he replied. "Also, I read that there were some recent developments in re-engineering at Ingen's research facility at Nacrene. Which would explain why she's alive – though not why you have her."

"She's... kind of illegal," I said awkwardly. "Hang on. Let me get something to eat."

By the time I came back, Candy and Bianca had become Best Friends Forever as only animals and people who like animals can, and Halley was sitting in my chair.

"I got bored," she said.

"Shut up," I replied conversationally. "You're trying to keep a low profile. Now get out of my seat and sit under the table or something."

She sighed contentedly.

"I want to be pissed-off, but I have to say I've missed this. Lauren would've sat me on her lap and cuddled me, and I would have had no choice but to try and remove her spleen with my teeth."

"Right," I said, shoving her out of the way and sitting down. "What were you saying, Cheren?"

"Nothing. You, however, were talking about why you have an Archen."

"Oh yeah." I outlined the circumstances that had led to Candy's creation and subsequent exile to my house; as I spoke, the star of the story tried and failed to break the neck of a rather sturdy salt shaker.

"She doesn't seem very 'feisty', as you put it," observed Cheren dispassionately.

"That's because she's fairly tame now," I replied. "It's harder to make her angry these days. When we first got her she completely filled the garden with her kills."

"I see."

"Yeah. My uncle said it was fascinating, and the neighbours whose pets she'd killed almost murdered us."

"But she's so cute," said Bianca, watching Candy with wide eyes. "How can she kill anything?"

"She's trying to kill that salt shaker right now," Cheren pointed out. "And when she ate your bacon she hit it on the table first to make sure it was dead."

"She's not killing, she's playing," decided Bianca, and I could tell that nothing at all was going to change her mind on that score.

"OK, whatever," I said, swallowing a mouthful of egg and deciding never to eat at a Pokémon Centre again if I could help it. "You were going to tell me about yourselves?"

"Yes." Cheren pushed up his glasses with his middle finger and sat up straighter, as if he were about to recite some well-learnt lesson. "We're actually fairly new to this; we started Training two weeks ago as part of Professor Juniper's summer journey scheme."

"Oh yeah, I remember that." It had been on the news a few months ago, and heavily advertised since; Unova's leading Pokémon researcher, Aurea Juniper, had been trying to revitalise Unova's lacklustre Training industry, and had somehow got hold of a government grant to send a few hundred sixteen-year-olds out into the wild with Pokémon for a few months. "But I thought that didn't start until this summer?"

"Not officially, no," agreed Cheren. "A couple of us are going early, though – test cases. To make sure that there aren't going to be too many casualties."

"Right." I was about to say something about how disheartening that sounded, but at that moment my phone (which Halley had conveniently retrieved for me on our way to the station the day before) rang, and, apologising, I answered it.

"I'm sorry," said Anastasia immediately. She sounded like she'd been crying. "Jared, I—"

"Annie? Hey, it's OK," I replied, before she could launch into a downward spiral of self-loathing. "It's OK. We got away. Those government people... well, they're still looking for us, but we got away."

She was silent for a moment.

"I'm still sorry," she said eventually. "I just – Jared, that monster..."

Her voice cracked, and I felt a sudden aching desire to put my arms around her, to tell her that everything was fine, that I understood and forgave her – but of course, I couldn't. We were separated by hundreds of miles of city and forest, connected only by the imperceptible ripple in the air that carried our voices to each other's ears.

"It's OK, Annie," I said softly. "It really is. We're all OK. We fought that Liepard off – and the guy with it."

"I know, I know, but..." She couldn't find the words, but I knew exactly what she meant, and said so.

"It's OK," I repeated lamely. "Really. The important thing is that you're safe – and you are, right?"

"Uh – yeah. I guess. Just, um, shaken up."

"That's better than nothing," I said gently. "Come on. Go and shoot some Swedish bears or something."

She almost laughed, which under the circumstances was about as good as I was going to get.

"When are you coming back?" she asked, a note of pleading in her voice.

"I don't know," I replied. "When it's safe, I guess."

"And when will that be?"

"I don't know." I hesitated. "Soon. I hope."

"OK." Her voice was not in agreement with her words. "There's someone asking for me now, Jared. I have to go."

"Are you sure? You don't sound like you want to."

"Of course I don't," she said, a note of her old sourness creeping into her voice. "No, I... I have to go."

"You can call me any time," I told her. "OK? Any time."

"Yeah." She swallowed, and I wondered what that bastard Teiresias had done to her – what horrors it had shown her to reduce Anastasia to this. "I know. OK. Um... goodbye."

"Bye, Annie. Call me soon."

"I will."

She hung up, and I returned to my breakfast to find I'd suddenly lost my appetite.

"How is she?" asked Halley, unusually gently.

"Bad," I replied shortly. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Fine by me," she answered. "I'm told I'm not a good listener."

"Sorry," I said to Cheren and Bianca. "My girlfriend. She's not feeling particularly well right now. What were you saying?"

"That was it, really," Cheren told me. We've plotted out a route through Unova that'll take us via all the Gyms; I'm not sure we'll be able to take on more than one or two before the summer's out, but we'll do our best."

It made sense. I'd never been interested in becoming a Trainer myself, but I knew it wasn't easy. The Gym Leaders were tough; they had vast catalogues of Pokémon at their disposal, and so were always able to pick out a team just that tiny bit too strong for each challenger who faced them. I guess that was why there weren't that many Trainers in Unova any more – for a nation of kids that were used to immediate pleasure, it was too much time and effort.

"Right." I thought for a bit. "Won't it take, like, several circuits to actually beat them all?"

"Yeah, that's what I said!" cried Bianca, as if this were the most amazing coincidence in the world. "But we want to travel too, you know? And see the world!"

"See Unova," corrected Cheren dryly. "There is a world beyond this country. Difficult as it may be to believe."

Unova was fairly isolated on its little island in the Atlantic; there were only two countries on our landmass, and the northern one, Patzkova, was pretty much the textbook definition of wilderness. The British had tried to conquer it, after they took Unova; however, the terrain, natives and wild animals had all put up one hell of a fight, and, given that there was absolutely nothing of value in Patzkova beyond the fighting spirit of its inhabitants, the armies of the Empire had decided it really wasn't worth the effort. Over a century later, Patzkova was still mostly unchanged: there was something vaguely resembling a modern city in the northeast corner of it, and the rest was a seething mass of hostile forest.

"Right." I paused. "OK. So, um... what are we doing today?"

"Bianca and I were going to head north to Striaton," replied Cheren. "You're welcome to tag along, if you like. I don't know what use it will be to you, but we'll be walking along the Trainer Trails rather than taking the train, so it would be a good way to get off the radar while you consider what you want to do next."

That sounded like an excellent idea. Unlike conventional roads, the trails through the wilderness favoured by Trainers were overgrown and meandering, often led in several different directions at once and had patchy mobile phone coverage. If Halley and I wanted to vanish, we could do a lot worse than travel with Trainers – even if it did mean giving up the comforts of civilisation.

"I think I'll take you up on that offer," I told him. "Halley? What do you think?"

She sighed.

"All that time I spent getting out of the f*cking woods into the city and we're heading straight back out there again? All right, I see the need to go, but... Christ. I'm not looking forward to it."

"That's settled, then," I said. "We'll go with you. Candy, put that down."

She had grabbed the edge of my plate in her toothy beak, and bit down reflexively on hearing the reprimand in my voice; there was a crack, and she stepped away, spitting out a mouthful of porcelain and looking at me guiltily.

"Thanks a bunch," I told her, picking her up and looking her in the eye. "Bad dog."

"Dog?" asked Bianca.

"She doesn't understand the concept of birds," I sighed. "Believe me, we've tried. But everyone we know who has a pet has a dog, so she thinks that 'dog' means 'pet'... Look, it's complicated."

"It sounds it."

"Yeah. Uh, is it OK if we go now?" I asked. "I really don't want anyone asking about the broken plate. Given that I'm supposed to be from Sweden. And that I'm on the run from some sinister government organisation."

"Oh yeah!" cried Bianca, jumping to her feet and overturning her plate. "We should totally go!"

"How the f*ck did you two become friends?" wondered Halley. I'm pretty sure both Cheren and I were thinking exactly the same thing at that moment, but we didn't have long to ponder it. We'd broken two plates and spilled a considerable quantity of food: now was definitely the time to bail. We got up, retrieved Halley from under the table, and left.

---

Accumula was more or less the worst possible place that their targets could have escaped them, Smythe thought to himself as he trudged down the little town's main street. Given that the Green Party was currently canvassing here for the upcoming general election – and that Harmonia himself was actually going to make a speech here today – it seemed more or less impossible for him to avoid making a report today. It was expected of him; in fact, he was supposed to be meeting up with his superiors today, with Halley and her new accomplice in tow. What exactly he was going to say to them was beyond him.

Just as irritating was the fact that Teiresias had vanished. Officially, it wasn't supposed to be working with him on this; it had volunteered for it – it had some special interest in Halley, or something – and so its presence on the mission had to be concealed from Harmonia and the rest. Thus, Smythe would be taking the full blame for their failures to date – when in fact the convenient failure of Teiresias' vaunted powers had been responsible for most of it. It just wasn't fair.

A bell chimed, and Smythe leaped out of the way as a gaggle of kids on brightly-coloured bikes zoomed past, chattering wildly.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked, far too quietly for anyone to hear, and, shaking his head in dissatisfaction, continued on his way.

Actually, now that he thought about it, Smythe disliked this whole situation they had with Teiresias' kind. Those... things were lending their support to the Party, and that was all well and good, but he didn't like them hanging around the place, popping up in unexpected places and generally creeping him out. He didn't like the way they'd become so important, that was it. They were changing the whole feel of the Party. Sure, they were doing better in the polls – but Smythe wasn't wholly sure that this was the same party he'd joined any more; it seemed darker now, more... demonic.

Bugger. There was a fleet of electric cars coming down the road – black, white and blue, for some reason the official colours of the Unovan Green Party. They swept by, overtaking him in an instant, and hummed along in the direction of Neurine Plaza.

Smythe checked his watch. Yes, it was almost time for the speech. He supposed he'd better get there; afterwards he had his appointment with Harmonia.

He sighed, girded his loins, and strode off towards the plaza, a lone hero striking out across the grey.

---

"Excuse me. Where did you get those?"

I blinked, and looked around to see who'd spoken; as it turned out, it was a rather Gothic-looking girl who was wearing far too much eyeshadow for so early in the morning.

"Get what?" I asked. Behind me, Cheren tapped his foot impatiently; we were all eager to leave the Centre, but I could tell he especially didn't appreciate delays messing up his carefully arranged timetable.

"Those bracelets."

I stared at her. At my feet, Halley suppressed a snigger.

"You mean these?" I asked, holding up my wrists to show her the handcuffs.

"Yeah, those." She smiled self-consciously. "They're cool, that's all."

"OK. Uh, thanks, I guess. They're, um, home-made."

"That is so cool," she said, staring at them. "I've got to get me some of those."

I nodded in vague confusion.

"Uh... thanks. Anyway, I, er, have to go now..."

"Oh, yeah! Of course. Sorry. Thanks!"

She waved and walked off in the direction of the canteen, doubtless going to tell her incredibly alternative friends about the seriously cool new accessory she'd discovered.

"I cannot believe that anyone would like those," muttered Halley. "F*cking hipsters."

"I don't think she was a hipster," I said, as we entered the lobby. "I—"

"Shut up, you're meant to be Swedish," hissed Cheren, and I fell silent.

"Still, I can't imagine anyone would like that look," chattered Bianca blithely. "I mean, all that black and spikes and stuff. It's so aggressive! Not cute at all... I like cute things."

I stared at her. Was she not aware that she was describing the very clothes I was wearing? This was fashionable in Black City – the latest thing. I didn't know what they did out in middle-of-nowhere Nuvema, but where I came from, this was just about the last word in cool.

"Ignore her," Cheren informed me lightly, without moving his lips. "Some days, that's the only way I can survive."

We left the Pokémon Centre, and almost immediately a wave of sound washed over us: a crowd was laughing nearby. A large crowd.

"What's that?" I wondered.

"I'm not sure." Cheren frowned. "It sounds big."

"It's coming from over there," said Bianca, pointing down the street. "I think it's coming from that square we saw yesterday, Cheren."

"People are staring at me," whined Halley.

"That's because your species is technically classified as vermin," I said. "Now shut up before someone realises you can talk." I looked up from her to Cheren. "Shall we investigate, then?"

"Hm. I think we will. We can afford a short detour."

"Oh, lighten up, Cheren," moaned Bianca, as if she hadn't heard his answer at all. "Let's go! It might be fun!"

"All right, all right," he sighed. "Lead on."

Bianca bounced off ahead, and Candy launched herself off my shoulder to cling to her back, squawking with joy.

"So how did you two meet?" I asked Cheren conversationally, as we walked after them.

"When we were five, I was looking for an illustrated children's encyclopaedia in the school library," he told me. "As it turned out, Bianca had it. She'd propped it up on building blocks to make a house for some stuffed animal." He raised his eyebrows. "I'm still not entirely sure how we got from there to here, actually."

Somehow, that summed up the pair of them perfectly: Cheren looking for a book, Bianca using it as a toy. I smiled, for a moment forgetting Teiresias, Smythe and the mess they were making of my life, and walked on down the street with an extra spring in my step.

The crowd noises were dying down now, and I heard a man's voice ringing out above them; I couldn't quite make out the words, but it sounded familiar. Eager to find out what exactly was happening, we rounded the corner and found ourselves at the back of a crowd several hundred people strong, gathered in a plaza and listening attentively to the tall man with the synthetic eye standing on a podium in front of a banner emblazoned with the words 'Green Party 2013'. He had just finished telling some kind of joke, I surmised, because there was a ripple of laughter spreading through the crowd.

"OK, OK," he was saying, "enough joking around, or I'm not actually going to get to the end of this speech before the council throw us out the square. Times have changed – and so have we. I think you'll find that we're no longer the butt of every political joke in the country..."

"Who's that?" I asked Cheren, staring at the man. "He looks familiar..."

"Ghetsis Harmonia," he replied. "Leader of the Green Party and, if I remember correctly, the second person to have a HawkEye fitted."

That was it – I knew I'd seen him before, and now I knew where. He'd been on the news a while ago; having lost his right eye in some kind of accident, he'd volunteered to be a test subject for Ovotech's new artificial sight system.
"He's standing for Prime Minister this year," observed Cheren. "He's doing quite well so far, too. I believe it's a combination of unusual name, the eye, and a winning personality."

"I see."

"...you all know our stance on climate change, on sustainability, and all that," Harmonia was saying. "That's not news anymore – and neither are our policies. We've made them entirely clear to you over the last few weeks. No, what I really wanted to do with this meeting was to talk about something new we have planned – something that will be taking place if we make it into power."

"Where did Bianca go?" I wondered. I couldn't see her in the crowd.

"Who cares?" asked Halley. "Isn't the real question here why his hair is green?"

"That's not that unusual here," Cheren told her. "It's the world's rarest hair colour – most common in Unova and Patzkova and virtually unheard of anywhere else."

"You know, it's really hard to be facetious when this guy knows everything," sighed Halley.

"That's not true," Cheren replied mildly. "I don't know everything, and I suspect you know it."

"Pedant."

"I refuse to be drawn into a slanging match," Cheren said with dignity. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to hear what Harmonia has to say."

"...liberation." A murmur of confusion ran through the crowd. "Yes, that's correct: liberation. But not any old form of liberation, ladies and gentlemen; there's no ruling elite, no dictatorship to overthrow. There are no humans in our liberation scheme. Just Pokémon."

Another babble of bewildered voices; I exchanged glances with Cheren, but he just shrugged.

"Mr. Harmonia!" yelled a reporter from near the front. "Mr. Harmonia, what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Come on now," Harmonia chided gently. "Give me a chance to explain before hitting me with the questions at least." That earned him a small chuckle, and he waited for it to die down before continuing. "Listen," he said. "I know this is going to sound strange, but hear me out: I propose we set each and every one of the Pokémon currently in captivity free."

The crowd practically exploded in uproar; for a moment, I thought a riot was going to break out, and wished I had my trusty iron pipe with me.

"Career suicide," muttered Cheren, as Halley leaped up into my arms to avoid being crushed underfoot. "Why? Why would he say that?"

"I asked you to hear me out!" boomed Harmonia over the din, the speakers turned up all the way to the max – and abruptly, the turmoil in his audience ceased. "Thank you," he said, motioning to someone out of sight to turn down the volume again. "I know this sounds strange. I expected that reaction. But I want you to understand what I mean – what thoughts went through my head when I thought of this – before you discount my plan entirely."

He leaned forwards on the podium, that gleaming red HawkEye sweeping over the crowd like the single eye of Woden from atop the gallows.

"Pokémon are inexplicable," he said simply. "We know the laws of biology – of physics – of the universe – and almost every species breaks at least one. A Charizard should not be able to generate fire from the empty glands in its throat. A Vanilluxe should not even be alive. It has no organs – nothing, just soft-scoop ice cream and teeth. These creatures are not part of the normal order of creation – and what do we do with them?

"We eat them. We farm them. We harvest their bones and we force them to fight one another. We have done it for thousands of years. And let me ask you – what is the result?"

Harmonia paused, and the burning red eye swooped over the crowd again. I could almost feel its presence on my forehead, as if it projected some kind of heat beam; irrationally, I found myself wondering if he could see right through us with that thing. Everyone in the audience was frozen in place; the man's presence was electric.

"We have been playing with forces that we are not capable of even beginning to comprehend," he said. "In Unova alone, there are fifty-six fatalities and ninety severe crippling injuries among Trainers each year. Add to that the estimated nineteen thousand Pokémon undergoing mental or physical abuse, and the result is a huge pool of suffering in this one nation alone.

"And Unova is not a major Pokémon-using nation," Harmonia continued, holding up one hand to forestall interruptions. "Look at Hoenn – people wanted power, drew on Pokémon, and the world was nearly choked in volcanic ash. Look at Sinnoh – they may not state it outright, but the destruction of Spear Pillar had its roots in the same cause." He shook his head sadly. "Look at Kanto, twenty years ago," he said. "One Pokémon asked why it had to obey flawed humanity. The authorities have not yet been able to finish counting the deceased."

He sighed.

"I could go on. The Raichu storm in Malaysia. The uprising of the Ghosts in Dresden. The Decoyote attacks in Texas. This is nothing new, people. Every year – every month – some new tragedy occurs. The losses on both sides, human and Pokémon, are incalculable.

"So what do I propose we do?" he asked. "Simple. Our kinds go their separate ways. The Green Party is concerned with creating a better world for all species, and I have to say that in our considered opinion, this one act of division will save more lives, of more species, than any edict of sustainability or carbon trapping."

Harmonia paused, head sinking slightly, as if wearied from his speech.

"I don't expect you to rally to my cause right away," he said. "I don't expect you to agree without an argument. In fact, I welcome it: I would be concerned if people didn't challenge me on this. But I want you to think, and I want you to wonder if perhaps your opposition to my proposal stems from truth – or simply from tradition. It is the way things have always been, I'm told – but that's what we used to say about slavery, and human sacrifice."

He drew back from the podium and inclined his head in a brief bow.

"Thank you for listening. I will be available to take questions later this afternoon, at the Bertram Hotel on Wooster Street. Ladies and gentlemen, my gratitude for your time."

With that, he disappeared behind the podium, and the crowd dissolved into ranting, animated chaos.

---

"Well," said Cheren at length. "He's never going to win the election that way."

I stared at him.

"Is that it? He wants to have every Pokémon in captivity released into the wild. That's not just career suicide, that's bloody mental."

"I agree," he said patiently. "And that's why he isn't going to win the election. Come on, let's find Bianc—"

"Chereeen! Jareeeed!"

Bianca's voice cut through the chatter of the dispersing crowd like the needling sound of a screaming child; it was also pretty much just as irritating, and Halley, Cheren and I all winced at the noise.

"OK, found her," Cheren murmured, as she bounced up to us, Candy clinging determinedly to her hat.

"Hi," she said. "Where were you? That was weird, right? Why would anyone want to separate humans and Pokémon?"

"I'm not sure," began Cheren, but Halley interrupted.

"Because he sees the truth," she snapped. "That Harmonia guy's the first person I've heard in Unova who makes any kind of sense."

That took us all aback, and we stared at her as she wriggled free of my grip and dropped lightly to the pavement.

"What?" I asked. "You're not saying you agree with him?"

"If I'm not saying that, then what am I saying?" she retorted. "He's right. When humans and Pokémon come together, bad sh*t happens. Like Zero trying to destroy the world last year. Like Rayquaza being shot down over London. Like that Arctic research station defrosting the frozen Jellicent at Christmas."

"But Pokémon are people's friends," protested Bianca, which was probably the last sentiment in the world that might have earned Halley's sympathy.

"Really?" she asked. "That's what you're saying? Do you not understand how animals work? They stay where they're most comfortable – where there's food, shelter, water and someone to look after them – because it's advantageous to them. Pokémon are no different. Those few that are intelligent don't exactly love us, either."

"Us? You're a wildcat," I pointed out, more to score points than to actually rebut her.

"Temporarily. Anyway, look at the Kadabra and Alakazam. Look at the Ghost-types. Those are as close to the speaking representatives of the Pokémon world as you're going to get, and they all hate us."

"The Kadabra were bound to hate us," Cheren replied. "They lost the war."

There were no Kadabra in Unova, which was just as well; most people found them kind of disturbing. They'd lost out to humans long ago in the race to be Earth's dominant species, and mostly kept to themselves in their reservations these days. In theory, the past was behind us; in practice, the Kadabra had never forgotten, and would in all likelihood never forgive.

"Because we deliberately infected them with Gastly spores," retorted Halley. "So that their global hive mind was almost f*cking destroyed by the Gengar eating it from within. They never did anything like that to us – and it's taken them over a hundred years to rebuild their collective consciousness. And that resulted in an explosion in the Gengar population, which means that for the last century, there's been a massive rise in the rate of fatal Ghost attacks – on humans and Kadabra – worldwide."

"Bravo," said a soft voice. "And that's just one of so many examples, isn't it?"

"Yeah!" agreed Halley. "I – wait, who said that?"

I looked up, and saw that the crowd had all but vanished – all but one person, who was standing alone a short distance away, in the middle of the plaza.

"That would be me," he said, stepping forward. "Excuse me. That was an interesting speech, was it not?"

"Yes, it was," replied Cheren, swiftly nudging Halley behind him with one foot. "I don't think Harmonia will win after that, though."

"We'll see," said the young man thoughtfully, drawing nearer. "Sorry, I haven't introduced myself." He held out a hand. "My name is..."

I didn't need him to tell me. I'd known the moment I set eyes on him; he had triggered something deep inside me, some strange response that came from a more primal place than reason or emotion: I knew nothing about him, but he was as familiar to me as the sound of my own name.

"N," I said without realising, staring into his lifeless, ice-coloured eyes. "Your name is N."
 

Zayphora

Don't mess with the lights...
493
Posts
11
Years
That was great. I liked your description of N, and of Ghetsis's eye. I always thought he was totally blind in that eye, but that's a much cooler idea.

I like Jared more than Lauren, he's just more...relatable. Also, I play Black and B2 so his universe is the one I'm used to.

Also--
"I could go on. The Raichu storm in Malaysia. The uprising of the Ghosts in Dresden. The Decoyote attacks in Texas. This is nothing new, people. Every year – every month – some new tragedy occurs. The losses on both sides, human and Pokémon, are incalculable.

What the heck is a Decoyote? That sounds like an epic new Pokemon. :D

Anxiously awaiting the next chapter~

(Also, rereading some of my old comments on this made me LOL my face off xD To think I thought Kcalb would be involved in this...wow I was stupid.)
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
That was great. I liked your description of N, and of Ghetsis's eye. I always thought he was totally blind in that eye, but that's a much cooler idea.

Well, when you have a chance to throw in a cybernetic eye, always take it. The number of situations that justify it are fairly few, and you have to seize your chances as they come.

I like Jared more than Lauren, he's just more...relatable. Also, I play Black and B2 so his universe is the one I'm used to.

Yeah? I'm more of a Lauren fan myself, though I know I'm in a minority here. Eh. We'll see how opinion changes when her actual strengths are revealed; we've seen Jared in action so far, but not her.

Also--


What the heck is a Decoyote? That sounds like an epic new Pokemon. :D

In every story that features Puck, there's a hidden running joke about him being chased by Decoyote near Dallas. I envision them as being one of those canine Dark-type species, because those are awesome (I'm looking at you, Umbreon and Absol), and being indigenous to America. I mean, given the difference in species even between Johto and Kanto, there's got to be more Pokémon in the world than we see in the games, especially in different continents. I included them here because all of Harmonia's examples were from 'Pokémon' countries, and I wanted to cement their world and ours together a little more firmly.

Thanks for reading!

F.A.B.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
Chapter Six: If You Go Down to the Woods Today

Nacrene was most famous for its artistic quarter, on the east side – for the studios, the cheap bars and the alternative music that seemed to pervade the entire district like a dense fog – but that wasn't the whole story; Cantonbury, the northernmost borough, was as much a haven for the sciences as Dotten was for the arts. Here, one could wander through the rambling halls of the Museum of Unovan Antiquity; peruse a book in the Travison Memorial Library, the largest of its kind in Europe; or, if one had the appropriate security clearance, could walk into International Genetics' research and development facility, and observe the fleshy and repellent Dr. Herman Spitelle approaching Dr. Gregory Black.

Dr. Spitelle, it will be noted, had the charm and verve of the average horned lizard – that curious creature that sprays blood from its eyes to deter predators – and the fat content of the average manatee; like the beasts he created, he was best described by the various animals that had lent him each facet of his appearance.

From this description, it may also be deduced that Dr. Spitelle was neither a popular man nor an ethical scientist.

"Gregory!" he said, and at the sound of his stentorian voice Gregory Black visibly shuddered.

"What is it?" he asked, busying himself with some papers on his desk and trying to look as if he hadn't the time to talk to him.

"An unexpected signal has appeared on our radar," Spitelle said, which Black thought was somewhat cryptic.

"What?"

"Did you watch Harmonia's speech earlier?"

Black gave him the most severe look he was capable of, which, given that he was a man of forty-three who still harboured a secret love of soft toys, was not all that effective.

"I," he said coldly, "was working."

"I was on my break," continued Spitelle without listening, "and, following the election as I am, I naturally was watching. Harmonia made a great many interesting points, but it was not the speech that held my attention."

"Will you get to the point, Herman?" snapped Black.

"It was rather the brightly-coloured – and somewhat toothy – bird I perceived clinging to the shoulder of a young woman in the crowd."

Black froze.

"Of course, this intrigued me," Spitelle went on mildly, a cruel grin spreading across the broad flabby slab of his face. "I paused – the Internet, Gregory, is a marvellous thing – and had a closer look. And it seemed to me that this brightly-coloured, somewhat toothy bird was beginning to look a little familiar."

Black's eyes flicked left and right, searching for some heavy object with which he might bludgeon Spitelle into bloody unconsciousness before making good his escape, but none came to hand.

"Out of curiosity, I looked at the GPS tracker," said Spitelle. "And lo and behold" (Black loathed people who used the phrase 'lo and behold' without irony) "I saw a little blip in Nacrene City that I hadn't seen for two years. A blip that should have stopped when a certain dangerous re-engineered bird was destroyed two years ago. By you."

"Miraculous," said Black, wholly unconvincingly. "Evidently Archen have an unparalleled resistance to lethal injection—"

"Or perhaps the Archen was never given the lethal injection," suggested Spitelle. "Perhaps someone, rather than killing it, released it into the wild."

It wasn't quite the truth, but it was near enough to drain the remaining colour from Black's face.

"Perhaps," he said hesitantly. "Perhaps... not."

Spitelle raised one pudgy eyebrow. Black had never figured out how one ate enough fat to bulk up one's brow of all places, but he refused to let this question distract him at this time.

"Is that the best you can come up with?" he asked.

Black considered.

"Yes," he admitted.

"I think that, given the circumstances, someone ought to contact Harper," said Spitelle thoughtfully. "Unless, of course, someone else could provide that someone with a certain something...?"

Black stared at him, trepidation overridden by puzzlement.

"What?"

"I'm blackmailing you," said Spitelle, dropping all pretence. "I would like five hundred pounds by the end of the week or I let everyone know that you released AR-0834 into the wild."

"Five hundred pounds?" cried Black. "That's – that's – I won't pay it!"

"Very well, then," replied Spitelle, with a faint sigh of disappointment. "Enjoy the inquiry."

With that, he turned on his heel and rolled out of the office like a solid boulder of flesh, leaving Black to think sadly to himself that he might have just reacted a mite too fast back then.

---

The young man looked at me, completely unsurprised.

"Yes, that's right," he said. "And you're... Jared, is it?"

I nodded. I didn't need to ask how he knew.

"So do you two know each other, or...?"

Trust Bianca to break the spell. I wasn't angry, though. I didn't know what had just happened, and I wasn't sure I wanted to: it was something strange and frightening, and not an experience I particularly wanted to repeat.

"No," replied N. "At least, I don't think so. We've never met, anyway."

His eyes darted to mine, looking for help explaining it; I shook my head.

"I have no idea," I told him.

"I see," he replied. "All right."

By now, it was becoming very obvious to the others that something had passed between us that they didn't know about, and the situation was beginning to be uncomfortable; as if to break it up, and return to normal, N looked pointedly away from me and towards Cheren.

"Where was I?" he said. "Ah yes. Pokémon liberation. There's an example right here of interference causing suffering, for instance."

I sighed with relief. It was over – whatever strange friction had occurred when our minds met, it was over, and we could move on.

"Is there now?" asked Cheren, unconvinced. "Go on, then."

"Your Archen," said N, turning to Bianca. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name...?"

"Bianca," she replied. "But it's not my Archen, it's Jared's, and—"

"Jared. Of course." He glanced at me with some unease. "Well... listen to her. Her species comes from a time when there was around 130% more oxygen in the air than today, and when the global temperature was three degrees higher. Here, in cold Unova, she's freezing – and wheezing terribly. Her body can't cope."

I stared at him.

"How on earth do you—?"

N said something too fast and too quietly for me to hear, and Candy hopped from Bianca's shoulder to his hand; he held her close to his ear, and listened.

"As I suspected," he said. "Her diet is no good for her, either. She has an abnormally high heart rate, even for a bird. Thanks to the changing atmosphere, she's also asthmatic – verging on bronchitic, in fact. I would keep her out of cities if I were you."

"Candy, come here. Now."

I held out my arm, and Candy looked up at N.

"Go on," he said. "Go back to him."

She refused to move, and N repeated what he'd said earlier – or something similar to it – and finally, with great reluctance, she climbed up my arm to my shoulder.

"OK, apart from the fact that everyone knows that she's an Archen," I said with annoyance, "what the hell is going on here? Who are you? How did you... control her like that?"

N raised his eyebrows.

"Control? No. Never." He sounded hurt – physically, as if I'd punched him. "I don't control anything, especially not Pokémon. I'm not a Trainer." He pronounced the word with unusual venom; I was beginning to get the idea that he was probably a pretty damn fervent supporter of Harmonia for Prime Minister. "Excuse me," he said politely, recovering himself. "I... suppose I'm a friend to Pokémon, rather than a master. We have a mutual understanding."

He coughed, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Ah, anyway, I'd better go. It was... enlightening... to talk to you."

Abruptly, he turned and began to walk away, without even waiting for anyone else to say goodbye.

"Can you talk to them?" asked Bianca suddenly, and N stopped.

"And what if I can?" he asked, without turning around.

"Um... nothing, I guess," she replied, looking helplessly at Cheren and I for direction. "I, um – I was just wondering, since you looked like you were talking to Candy..."

N looked back at us.

"I think we'll meet again," he said, eyes on me. "Things may have become clearer then... at the moment, I have a few concerns that I need to work through."

He was talking about me – I just knew it.

"Yeah, me too," I replied. "I'll see you sometime... N."

"Jared."

We maintained eye contact for longer than could reasonably be considered normal, each searching the other for something – anything – that might explain this; then, as if by mutual agreement, we broke our stares at the same moment, and N walked briskly away across the plaza and down the street.

Cheren, Bianca and Halley stared at me.

"It always seems to fall to me to be the one to say this," said Halley, "but what the f*ck was all that about, man?"

---

Twenty minutes and one hopelessly inadequate explanation later, we were walking through the maze of tiny lanes that formed Accumula's outskirts, following the signs for the Trainer Trail north towards Striaton. I'd tried my best to articulate the strange connection between N and me – but given that I didn't understand it myself, there wasn't much I could do to explain it, and what I'd come up with hadn't even been clear enough to satisfy me, let alone any of the others.

We were about ten minutes into a bewildered silence when my phone rang again. It seemed I was popular this morning.
"Hello?"

"Jared, status report," said the voice at the other end without preamble. "I've managed to stop Mum and Dad from calling you so far, but I'm not sure how much longer I can hold them off. I'm finding it difficult to tell whether they're angry or worried at the moment; either way, you can expect to have to explain yourself to them sometime soon."

"Uh... OK," I said, slightly taken aback, as people so often are, by Cordelia's manner. "What – what exactly am I meant to say to them?"

"That's kind of your problem, not mine," she said. "I'm doing all I can to keep things going here. Where are you, by the way?"
"Accumula, but—"

"Accumula? What on earth for? Actually, never mind. Have you found out any more about why these people are after you and who they are?"

"No, not really, but I did—"

"Good thing I have, then. From his I.D. card, the man who came to question us earlier today belonged to the Green Party, which means that for whatever reason, they're the ones who want Halley."

"The Green Party? With... with Harmonia?"

"There isn't any other Green Party," Cordelia said patiently. "I also went through his briefcase when he wasn't looking—"

"You what?"

"It's called being proactive, Jared. So, I went through his briefcase and found out that apparently they want you because you're connected to Halley and they want Halley because she's connected to someone who stole something from them."

"A thief... sounds like the sort of friend Halley would have," I murmured. "OK, Cords, thanks for that. I'll look into it."

"All right. I haven't uncovered anything else, and I'm not sure I'm going to. I don't think the people are coming back here again." Cordelia paused. "Stay safe," she said at length, and hung up.

I stared at the phone for a moment.

"You are the weirdest kid on the planet," I muttered, putting it back in my pocket. "OK, Halley? Do you know any thieves?"

"Probably," she replied cheerfully. "Don't remember them, though."

"OK. Well, Cordelia's found out that it's the Green Party that are after you, and they're doing it because you've got some kind of connection to someone who stole something important from them."

Cheren raised an eyebrow.

"Why am I not surprised?" he murmured, to no one in particular.

"The Green Party? Oh, I bet it's Harmonia," said Bianca, frowning deeply. "He seemed like a bad guy."

"He seemed very reasonable, if misguided," corrected Cheren.

"He said humans and Pokémon needed to be separated—!"

"He made valid points," interrupted Halley. "Aw, man! I hope it isn't him after me... If I were Unovan, he'd have my vote. There are only, like, five people in the whole world I agree with; I don't want to end up mortal enemies with one of them."

"I don't know. It might not go all the way up to Harmonia, I guess... but we can't be certain. Turn right here," he added, stepping off the pavement and onto a footpath without hesitation.

I blinked, startled by the abrupt change in direction, and followed. The path disappeared between two little cottages, and within a few metres seemed to end up a million miles away from civilisation; trees rose either side of the trail and bent over them in a kind of leafy arch, and the distant sound of traffic faded seamlessly into the twitter of birdsong.

Halley and I shivered, and exchanged a look.

"You too?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied, knowing exactly what she meant. "Me too."

Bianca looked at us quizzically.

"What?"

"We're city kids," I explained. "This... is kind of unsettling."

"Aren't there Liepard in these woods?" asked Halley, keeping close to my legs.

"I believe so," answered Cheren without concern. "I hope we meet some – they'll be good training, and I think I might like to catch one."

"Jesus. You Trainers are f*cking crazy," muttered Halley, and for once I had to agree with her. The only Liepard I'd ever seen was a corpse possessed by some kind of fear-oozing demon; I couldn't for the life of me understand the mindset that would make anyone want to go out and find any more of them.

"I don't like Liepard," said Bianca. "Or Purrloin. They're vicious. My cousin had a Purrloin that killed rats and hung the bodies on the rose bushes in the garden. It looked like it was snowing corpses." She shivered.

"Oh, Christ. I disgust myself, but that sounds delicious," muttered Halley. "This cat body is getting in my head."

"I really didn't need to know that," I told her.

"Yes, I think we can all agree on that," said Cheren with such an air of finality that the conversation withered and died upon the spot, and we walked on in silence, the only noise the occasional squawk from Candy.

Half an hour later, Halley spoke again – and predictably enough, it was in a whine.

"I don't like this," she complained. "My legs are shorter than yours and I'm tired. Carry me."

"Not if you ask like that," I told her.

"I don't want you to carry me, anyway," she replied. "You've got that psycho dinosaur hawk on your shoulder. But..." A sly grin spread across her face, and she wound herself between Bianca's legs, mewing piteously. Naturally, she reacted by burbling something about cuteness and snatching Halley from the ground to hug to her chest.

"Mission accomplished," purred Halley quietly, her self-satisfied grin visible over Bianca's shoulder. I ignored her, despite wishing that there was some way someone could carry me, and followed Cheren on down the trail.

---

In the dark, somewhere near the crossroads of then and now, Teiresias dragged its body through the void. The battles aboard the train and in the street had not been kind to it; the bird and the wildcat had between them damaged it to the point where Teiresias was considering abandoning it for another. It was, after all, mere ballast, there only to keep it anchored to the mortal realm – and it was difficult to drag it through the dark paths, where spirit flowed freely and flesh dragged like stone.

The journey was easier than it had been earlier, though; when Teiresias had taken the dark path from White Forest to Nacrene, it had had to take Smythe with it, and hauling that quantity of physical matter through the spirit realms was no mean feat. Now, with just a light, half-destroyed Liepard corpse weighing it down, Teiresias almost flew down the path, its lifeless paws barely touching what passed for the ground.

"She will be hiding now," it mused, voice almost as dead as the air in which it hung. "They are making allies... I must not let that Munna interfere again."

Ahead of it, a flickering white presence appeared, and Teiresias slowed for a moment, wary – but it moved away again and vanished into the distance in a few seconds, leaving Teiresias alone once more.

"Few of us are abroad today," it observed, casting its psychic eye about the area and detecting no other travellers. "I wonder... I suspect most of us are with Plasma now."

Those of Teiresias' kind in Unova that had not sided with Plasma were either weakling irrelevancies, or crazed creatures with whom there was no reasoning; neither warranted investigation. The weak ones were prey for the desperate, and the crazed ones... Well. No one crossed their paths if they could avoid it. They were dangerous, even to those of Teiresias' rank – and that was saying something. Teiresias had been in existence (it did not call it life) for eleven thousand years, and though it was no longer the shadowy god that had ravaged Jericho and scourged Uruk, it was still a force to be reckoned with. But those mad beings that wandered the dark paths, flitting over the surface of the earth with only hunger and pain on their minds... They were something else altogether.

Teiresias pulled its thoughts back to the task at hand, aware that to let one's mind wander in this place was to run the risk of drifting permanently into limbo, and ran on down the path, searching for the crack in reality that would show it the way back into reality. The tail fell off its body, and with a twitch of annoyance it shed the entire corpse, letting it stream away behind it in a long line of dust and fur; now free to expand to full size, Teiresias flexed its vast body and sprung forward with renewed vigour, racing on towards the crack – and towards its prey, skulking in the forested trails around Route 2.

---

"So let me get this straight," said Harmonia, frowning lopsidedly. "You captured them both, got them secured – and they both escaped?"

"In my defence, that boy is a lot younger and stronger than I am," replied Smythe faintly desperately.

They were sitting in the parlour of the Bertram Hotel, before a lively fire that effectively banished the spring chill from the room; Harmonia had ordered a half-hour break in the barrage of journalists who had come to ask him about his new Liberation policy in order to make time for Smythe's appointment, and now the two of them were alone together. This, quite frankly, terrified Smythe, partly because Harmonia was his boss and partly because he was drumming his fingers on a large book on ancient torture techniques of the Fertile Crescent.

"Now, Smythe," said Harmonia, removing his hand from the book and leaning forwards, "I understand that this isn't your usual work. But I don't for a moment believe that he could have overpowered you while handcuffed if you didn't want him to. Don't you remember why I picked you for this?"

Smythe did. He might be a minor civil servant at the moment, but that was only the latest chapter in what had been something of a chequered past. It wasn't something he liked to advertise, but for various reasons – mostly bad luck and paranormal mishap – he was persona non grata in thirteen countries, despite his best efforts to convince authorities that 'this isn't what it looks like'. Smythe understood better than most the bitter truth of the aphorism that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

He had thought that, with his quiet government job in Unova, things might have settled down; unfortunately for him, Harmonia had somehow learned of his past activities, with the result that he of all people was deemed most suitable for this illegal hunt for Halley and Black.

"Well, yes," Smythe replied. "But sir... I don't really think this is something I'm particularly good at."

Harmonia raised his one remaining eyebrow.

"You'll excuse me if I don't believe that, given your past exploits." He sighed. "No, Smythe, this won't do. You'll have to try harder – more so now that they have people helping them. You said they were Trainers?" Smythe nodded. "Trainers have an irritating habit of visiting Gyms," Harmonia went on. "Gyms contain Gym Leaders, and Gym Leaders are part of the Pokémon League. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

Smythe nodded. The League had today become the Party's greatest opponent, with the revelation of the Liberation policy. It was the oldest part of the government that still had power, and its age leant it authority; if its members got wind of any of the Party's more questionable activities, they would gleefully take the chance to cripple Harmonia's election chances.

"Of course, if we can recover the artefact, we can overcome any opposition," Harmonia continued, "but as we haven't yet done so, I think we need to be cautious. Find them, Smythe. They're becoming a larger and larger problem with every hour they remain out of our control." His HawkEye narrowed to a threatening red pinprick, a steel iris closing down on the lens. "I don't think I need to remind you what happens to those who fail the Party. You've faced that penalty many times before, but this time you won't be wriggling free. You can trust me on that."

Smythe believed him. He'd received more than his fair share of death threats in his time – so many that he was a little blasé about them – but they packed a serious punch when they came from Harmonia. Anyone who allied themselves so readily with such horrific forces was definitely someone to fear.

"I'll – I'll get right on it, sir," he said, getting to his feet too quickly and accidentally kicking over a footstool. "Oh! Uh, sorry, sir—"
"If you need backup, take one of our noble friends along with you," Harmonia added, ignoring him. "Perhaps that charming Teiresias fellow. It seemed interested in Halley at the meeting."

"All – all right, sir," stuttered Smythe, wondering distantly what sort of man could call Teiresias charming. "I'll – I'll be on my way, then – you probably have things to do—"

"Just get on with it," said Harmonia, evidently amused by his discomfort. "Go on. And tell Rood to let the reporters back in on your way out."

Smythe left without another word. Once again, life had left him up the creek without a paddle – and this time, the water seemed too rough for him to swim for it.

---

I'll freely admit that I'm not used to extended periods of walking, or indeed any physical activity; shopping has made me pretty useful in a fistfight, but that's about the extent of my ability. I'll also admit that I'm not used to staying out in the cold all day; if it isn't a nice day and I don't have to leave the house, then I won't.

But I challenge any reasonable person to walk all day like I did then and not feel pretty miserable by the end of it. At around four o'clock, Cheren decided (apparently he was in charge; it wasn't an official appointment, but he seemed the appropriate person to ask for guidance) we would stop for a short rest, and by then I was seriously envious of Halley, who was not only still being carried by Bianca but had fluffed out her fur and looked suspiciously warm.

"This forest life isn't so bad," she said, jumping from Bianca's arms to land among the leaves. "Maybe I could get used to this."

I shot her a dirty look, and she responded with the most evil grin ever to grace a feline snout; defeated, I shook my head and sat down with the others on a log bench placed thoughtfully at the roadside by the Trail's constructors.

"Is this what it's like being a Trainer?" I asked. "Endless walking and nothing to do?"

"Only when you're near towns," replied Cheren. "That's why we're resting now. We're about far enough from Accumula that we'll probably start to see the occasional wild Pokémon; I've selected the road less travelled, as it were, in order to maximise our chances of finding something."

"Ooh! Maybe I can find a friend for Munny and Smokey!" cried Bianca excitedly. "Like, a cute little—"

"I think two Pokémon is probably enough for you to train right now," Cheren informed her. "I have enough to handle with just Lelouch, although I'm tempted by a Purrloin... We'll see. I don't really want to catch anything unless it's a new species. If we find one of them, I'll catch it for the Pokémon Index Project."

"The what?" I asked.

"The Pokémon Index Project," repeated Cheren. "Or Pokédex, for short. It's a global database of Pokémon information, started by Professor Oak in Kanto in 1992 and adopted by almost every developed nation since. Formerly, there was only access to it in Pokémon Centres and suchlike – but last year, Lanette Burstein released a smartphone app that lets you take a photograph of a Pokémon with your phone and automatically find its Pokédex entry."

"OK, I didn't really need that much detail, but thanks anyway."

Cheren blinked.

"It always pays to learn your subjects to a certain degree of depth," he said with dignity, and fell silent.

"I'm going to let out Smoky," Bianca informed us, totally oblivious to the tension, and released her Tepig in a burst of red light; he looked around at the forest, caught sight of his own tail, stared at it as if it had suddenly turned into the Mona Lisa and promptly fell asleep.

"Uh... I don't think he wants to come out," I said.

"Oh," sighed Bianca crossly. "He always does that."

"He didn't last night."

"Well, not always. But, like, most of the time." She stared at the sleeping pig and stuck out her lower lip like a petulant child. "I think he's just lazy."

Candy crept down my arm, eyes fixed on Smoky and saliva dripping from her beak; I sighed, pinched her jaws together and turned her head to look at me.

"No," I said firmly. "I get the feeling that at some point soon you're going to get a chance to attack stuff, but these Pokémon are out of bounds, OK?"

She looked at me innocently, but I wasn't fooled.

"Don't give me that," I warned her. "No biting. Got it?"

Reluctantly, she climbed back up to my shoulder, and I knew I'd got through to her at last.

"Right," said Bianca. "Smoky! Up!"

The Tepig opened one eye, regarded her with porcine placidity for a moment, and went back to sleep. Pouting, Bianca recalled him and sent out the floating pink thing that had attacked Teiresias last night instead.

"Munny will follow us, won't you?" she asked it; in response, it drifted over to her head and nuzzled her cheek.

"Are its eyes painted on?" I asked with a kind of horrified fascination.

"No, Munna are just strange," Cheren informed me. "Bianca's is no exception."

"Oh, of course. I should've guessed." I shook my head. "This is all normal for you two, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," admitted Cheren. "This situation is very much the norm for me. Well, except for the talking cat."

"People keep calling me 'the talking cat'," complained Halley. "Can't you call me 'the girl who turned into a cat' or something? I feel so dehumanised."

"You have been dehumanised. Literally."

"Shut up, pedant."

"Are we going now?" asked Bianca, bouncing to her feet. "Come on! Munny and I are ready!"

Munny rotated slowly in midair, blinking and gaping, and I had to wonder how she knew it was ever ready for anything.

"All right, all right," replied Cheren, getting to his feet. "I suppose I'll let out Lelouch, too."

His Snivy appeared before him, swiftly checked the area for hostiles, decided we were safe and settled into a watchful, faintly supercilious position at his heels. The difference between him and Smoky couldn't have been more marked.

I sighed, and gingerly lowered myself back onto my aching feet, hoping that we wouldn't be walking much longer today. Unfortunately for me and my blistered right heel, that hope was horribly misguided, and I was to end up suffering for quite a few hours more. It wasn't until eight that we finally stopped for the night, and so exhausted was I by this time that I barely registered we weren't moving before I was asleep.

---

Halley sat by the fire – the only useful thing Smoky had done for them since breaking Jared's cuffs – and waited. The others were asleep, the boys in Cheren's tent and Bianca in hers; the little campsite was Halley's alone. So deep in the forest were they that the trail was almost nonexistent, and sitting upright in her fluffed fur, forepaws lined up neatly against her belly, she felt like she was the only person in the world.

Time passed. The fire burned lower; Halley added what wood she could manage to it and poked it with a stick, bringing it back to the blazing prime of its life. Idly, she wondered if perhaps there was a way for her to do that, to cancel out her age when it got too high and set it back to some more pleasing number – and then she realised that she had no idea how old she was, and decided she must be pretty young anyway.

All at once, the breeze stopped dead. The trees around them froze, branches caught mid-wave by sudden paralysis; before Halley's eyes, each individual flame of the fire stood still, locked into a single moment.

Tick.

Then, within a second, everything started again. Halley pressed one paw against Jared's iPhone (carefully purloined from his pocket earlier), and saw that its clock read 00:00.

"I thought so," she murmured. "Midnight, huh?"

"What are you doing?"

Halley started, and turned to see Cheren sitting behind her. He didn't look like he'd just woken up, either; he had been waiting for this, she could tell.

"Conducting an experiment," she replied. "About this Dream World thing."

Cheren's expression didn't change.

"You don't fool me," he said, and Halley knew he wasn't talking about the experiment.

"I'm impressed," she replied, stretching lazily and curling up. "Then again, I guess not much gets past you."

"It pays to watch people." Cheren's finger played over the button of Lelouch's Poké Ball. "And I don't like what I see."

"And what is it exactly that you see?"

Cheren paused.

"I don't know," he answered at length. "But I don't trust you."

"Good," said Halley, with sudden force. "I'm not trustworthy. Never have been, never will be."

"What do you want?"

"What do you think? Protection, f*ckwit." Halley snorted. "I'm hiding from the Green Party or whoever else it is that's after me."

Cheren's gaze didn't waver; Halley had to wonder whether he even needed to blink.

"Who are you, really?"

"Yeah, ask the amnesiac who she is." Halley laughed. "I don't know, Cheren. The only thing I'm sure of is that I'm not a very nice person."

"You didn't need to tell me that."

"I'm sure I didn't." Halley yawned, and the firelight danced on her pale fangs. "Go to sleep, Cheren. I expect tomorrow's going to be a long day."

"This conversation isn't over," Cheren warned her, and retreated to his tent. Halley watched him for a minute – watched the tent flap fall shut and the zip fasten; watched until there were no more sounds but the breathing of the teenagers and the crackle of the flames – and turned back to the fire.

"It isn't over, is it?" she muttered, hunching into a tight ball and tasting thunderstorms on her tongue. "We'll see, Cheren. We'll see."
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
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Posts
13
Years
Sorry for the delay, everybody - it was unavoidable - and sorry that this isn't my best work, either. It will have to do, though. Owing to circumstances not wholly within my control, I can't bring myself to revisit this chapter ever.

Chapter Seven: Happy Trails

There are myriad pleasant ways to wake up, and Portland Smythe had experienced a great many of them during the course of his life. From the extravagance waking in a vine-wrapped bower in the beating heart of a verdant rainforest to the simple joy of opening one's eyes to the sight of one's lover, he had lived through the lot and, in fact, had ranked his top three favourites during one dull night spent hiding from Czech mercenaries in the Balkans.

This method of waking, however, was not to be found among the top three. It did not even make his top ten. In fact, had Smythe ever thought to compile a list of his least favourite ways to wake up, this one would have gone straight to the top without a second's consideration.

And that was because he was woken from a peaceful dream about cucumbers by a voice that ground upon his consciousness like skeletal feet across the floor of a crypt.

"Wake up."

To say Smythe was alarmed would be an understatement. With a sudden involuntary contraction of his legs, he bent his body into a perfect arc and flung himself clear off the mattress, coming to rest a moment later in an undignified heap on the floor.

"Sumvahwassit!" he yelled, which could have been either an incoherent cry of panic or a florid curse in Hoennian, and looked around wildly for the source of the voice. At first, he saw nothing – and then his eyes came to rest on the Purrloin on the bedside cabinet.

"I found them," it said, in the unmistakeable voice of Teiresias. "Ready yourself. I will take you there."

Smythe stared at it. Within his mind, a brief battle raged between fear and confusion; neither won a clear victory, and in the end they settled for a coalition.

"What?" he said at length, which was, if anything, more coherent than could be expected of a man in his position.

"Has the change of shape confused you? I could not find another Liepard," Teiresias said impatiently. "Now get ready. We must return to the dark paths at once."

Smythe closed his eyes, counted to three and opened them again. The Purrloin had not disappeared.

Sh*t, he thought dismally, and got slowly to his feet.

"All right," he sighed, trudging listlessly to the bathroom. "I'm going."

Never, thought the hotel receptionist as Smythe paid her, had anyone ever looked so dismayed to be checking out.

---

"You're quiet this morning," noted Cheren.

I blinked.

"What?"

"Something's bothering you."

It took a moment for my mind to wrap itself around his words; it had been drifting pretty far away.

"Oh. Yeah." I poked the dying fire with a stick, and watched as a flame streaked out of the cinders and vanished in the crisp dawn air. "I guess... I guess it's that N guy."

"I see. That was quite odd." He speared a sausage – neither he nor Bianca were any good at cooking, especially not over an open fire, and my skills had been much appreciated this morning and last night – and chewed it thoughtfully. "What exactly is it that's bothering you?"

"What he said about Candy." The little Archen looked up at the sound of her name, and I reached out to press my palm against her breast. Her heart hummed with the rapid pulse of a bird – and her chest rose and fell almost as fast. Alarmingly fast. "I never noticed before... She does have trouble breathing. It's just that you can't hear it."

"She's survived this long," Cheren said pragmatically. "I suspect she's tougher than N thinks." He frowned. "What kind of name is N, anyway? I'd like to have seen the look on the midwife's face when his parents came out with that."

"Uh... yeah, I guess." My mind was still on Candy; I'd always taken her quick breaths and feverishly hot skin to be something typical of all Archen, but what N said made sense. I had looked it up last night on Cheren's phone: there'd been thirty percent more oxygen in the atmosphere back then, and it had been warmer right across the world. I knew from the disaster three years ago at Castelia Zoo that animals from Africa had a hard time surviving Unova's winters as it was; how could I expect a creature dislocated not only in space but time as well to fare any better? "I should have realised," I mumbled.

Cheren looked at me.

"I really wouldn't worry," he said, more gently than before. "By the number of lizards she's rounded up and slain already this morning, I'm fairly certain there's plenty of life left in her."

I looked at Candy's little heap of corpses, piled neatly on the other side of the fire, and sighed.

"I guess so," I said, not wholly convinced.

Cheren sighed.

"Sorry," he said, and though there was no hint of emotion in his voice I could tell he meant it. "I can't help you other than with logic."

"I know. Don't worry. I'll be fine." I looked back at Bianca's tent, which remained as silent now as it had been when the sun first rose. "Does she always sleep late?"

He gave me a look.

"What do you think?"

"OK, OK... Why do you get up early, then?"

"Because Cheren likes to watch the world go by, don't you?"

Halley seemed to slink from nowhere, appearing from between the edges of a gap in the air; she was really getting into the business of being a cat, I thought. The next thing I knew she'd be playing with string and chasing butterflies.

"Oh. Hi, Halley," I said. "Where have you been?"

"I've been to London to visit the Queen," she replied sardonically.

"What?"

"It's a joke, 'cause – never mind. You must have different nursery rhymes in Unova." She grimaced. "I actually went hunting. Can you imagine that? I pounced on a jay and suffocated it by biting down on its throat. I almost felt bad when it screamed, but by that point I could already taste its lymphatic fluid so I kind of forgot about how brutal the whole thing was." She sat down next to Candy and yawned. "Seriously, I don't know why I haven't done that before. Think of how much bigger prey I could tackle if I were still human."

"Oh." A sick feeling rose in my throat, and I found myself wondering how human Halley actually was; had she always been like this? Surely she couldn't have been so... bestial before her transformation?

"I seem to have lost my appetite," murmured Cheren, and flicked his sausage over to Lelouch, who regarded it quietly for a second before picking it up delicately between its tiny claws and nibbling at it like a squirrel with a nut.

"Don't Snivy get their energy from sunlight?" I asked.

"They get as much as they can," Cheren replied. "Unfortunately, that isn't enough to sustain extended periods of activity, so they supplement it with berries, fruit and small quantities of meat."

"Plants playing at an animal's game," said Halley scornfully. "Photosynthesis ain't shi— shining snail eggs compared to heterotrophic nutrition." She blinked. "Shining snail eggs? I hope you're pleased with yourself, Lauren. Look what you've reduced me to."

"I'm just happy you aren't swearing," I told her truthfully; I could have added that I didn't understand half the words she'd just used, but didn't want to complicate things and attract more needling criticism. I got it anyway.

"Huh. Of course you are. You would be."

Candy cawed at her, apparently aware that her owner was being harangued by this wildcat; Halley, unlike last time, reacted with no more than a withering glare that shocked the little Archen into submission.

"Yeah, you shut up, you little b*tch," she muttered moodily, and fell to staring at the flames in silence.
I looked at Cheren, and Cheren looked at me.

"What," I began, but got no further before Cheren held up a hand for silence.

"I think it's best we don't ask," he replied. "Something has evidently happened to Halley to make her sourer than normal, and frankly that is a prospect I'd rather avoid."

"OK," I said, relieved to have avoided a line of questioning that, while rooted in compassion, would probably have resulted in a scratch from Halley. "Um... should we wake Bianca? It's nearly seven."

"She'll wake up soon enough," Cheren told me. "Well... Perhaps not. Give her another half hour; she's not used to this much walking, and it really tires her out."

As a White Forest resident, I'd been out on extended hiking trips more than most in Unova, and was pretty good at it – better than Cheren and Bianca anyway, it seemed, although Cheren's self-discipline and encyclopedic general knowledge meant he was catching up fast. He only needed a bit more experience and a couple of cookery lessons and he'd have overtaken me; I hoped I could teach him a little, to go some way to showing my gratitude for letting me come with them.

"Are you, then?" I asked.

"No," he answered. "But it's a case of mind over matter. My goal is to become the Champion eventually, and it won't happen if I don't value the objective over my immediate comfort."

I stared at him, amazed. I didn't think that kind of resolve really existed; it was like something out of the old stories, the kind that dated from the days of the first Treatise. Cheren seemed different to me now, like a lordless knight wandering the hills of mediaeval Europe, determined to seek out glory at whatever cost...

Silly, I thought to myself. He's just like you.

And yet... There was a spectacular steel in his mind. He laid out the facts so calmly and clearly that I had no doubt that nothing whatsoever would cause him to waver from his path.

"I... I see," I said. "OK. That makes sense."

Thankfully, I was saved from having to come up with anything else to say by the sudden and noisy emergence of Bianca from her tent.

"Oh, so early," she groaned, blinking in the sunlight. "Frige, it's so cold."

"Not that cold," said Cheren patiently. "Good morning, Bianca."

"Morning!" She disappeared for a moment, then reappeared with Smoky in her arms. The little Tepig was, as ever, asleep, and I wondered if maybe that was why she had the Munna as well. Smoky didn't seem to me to be the battling type. "Is that breakfast? It smells good."

"Courtesy of Lauren," Cheren informed her. "She has cooking over an open fire down to a fine art."

I smiled.

"Thanks. Here you go, Bianca."

"Thanks."

Smoky opened one eye as the sausages passed above his head, shifted just enough to snag one with his lips and draw it into his mouth, and fell asleep again before he'd even swallowed it.

"Isn't that kind of cannibalism?" I asked dubiously.

"I don't think he cares," replied Cheren. "It's mainly humans that find cannibalism revolting. Many other animals will cheerfully eat their own if it seems like a good idea."

"Oh. I see. That's... um... unpleasant."

Cheren raised his eyebrows.

"I told you. Human."

"Ignore Cheren," said Bianca confidingly, as if he couldn't hear her. "He's just being silly again."

I couldn't be sure, but I thought the ghost of a smile crossed Cheren's face then, and suddenly it seemed a lot clearer to me why he and Bianca remained friends. I smiled, and pulled the last of the sausages off the fire.

"I think these are done now," I said. "Bianca, they're mostly for you, unless your Pokémon want any."

"I think he might, but I don't really want to give him any," she said, taking them from me. "I don't really want Smoky to be a cannibal."

"I told you, I don't think he minds—"

"Oh, Cheren," sighed Bianca in exasperation. "Shut up!"

"Fine, fine," he said. "I'll be quiet."

"What about Munny?" I asked. "Does he... she... it want anything?"

"No, it lives off... um, Cheren, what was it called?" Bianca asked. "Background...?"

"I thought I had to be quiet?"

"Cher-eee—!"

"OK, OK," he said, holding up a hand to forestall further outbursts. "Background imaginative radiation. Munna and its evolved form, Musharna, absorb daydreams, fantasies and waking nightmares, and convert them into regular dreams that can be experienced at night. As a by-product of this, they occasionally emit a pinkish mist known to cause disturbing hallucinations."

"I see," I said slowly, though I didn't really. I wasn't entirely sure how anything could derive energy from dreams – in fact, I had no idea how anything psychic worked. All I knew was that Psychic- and Ghost-types were weird.

"Yeah," said Bianca. "So Munny doesn't need any regular food."

"Then why does it have a mouth?" I asked, curiously.

"It's vestigial," explained Cheren. "Their ancestors were organoheterotrophic feeders; in modern Munna, the entire digestive tract is atrophied, while the skull and ribcage have fused to create a protective case for the massively developed brain."

I stared at him.

"How do you know all this?"

He shrugged.

"When either of us catch something, I like to do my research," he said. "Or if we face one in battle. The more you know, the more effectively you can use a Pokémon's strengths or aim for its weaknesses."

"Oh, OK."

"By the way," said Halley abruptly, "I thought you should probably know that the forces of evil are closing in on us."

All conversation stopped immediately.

"What?"

"Mm. Something wicked this way comes." She stretched and stood up. "I can feel it coming. Must be some animal instinct or something."

"What exactly do you feel coming?" asked Cheren, frowning.

"Dunno. Teiresias, maybe? Seems pretty lethal, at any rate."

Teiresias. So it had found us, then – as I'd known it would. Hiding in the woods might fool a human, but against that black and midnight being it seemed a pretty paltry stratagem. I was certain it could have found us even if we'd hidden on the moon.

I bit my lip.

"We should go, then," I decided. "I don't want to be here when it arrives..."

"Hold on," said Cheren. "We have no concrete evidence that anything is actually coming for us—"

"I guess you don't trust me," said Halley slyly. "Well, maybe you'd better think about the fact that if Teiresias and Smythe get to us, the main casualty will be me. I'm not going to screw around with you on that topic."

"I wouldn't put it past you," replied Cheren darkly.

"I believe her," I said. "Please, can we go? I mean, shouldn't we be going anyway? And if Teiresias is coming, we don't want to be here when it does."

"I agree with Lauren," put in Bianca, shuddering. "That thing – that thing is nasty."

"Understatement of the century," muttered Halley to herself.

"All right, all right, I see I'm outvoted here," sighed Cheren. "Fine. Let's pack everything up. If you really think that monster is coming, we'd better move fast..."

---

"Good God," moaned Smythe in his native Hoennian, and collapsed face-first into the leaf litter.
Teiresias regarded him with such distaste that one could have been forgiven for thinking it could actually see.

"Get up," it said. "We are half a mile from where I saw their encampment."

"Why so far away?" wheezed Smythe, spitting out decaying vegetation.

A shadow crossed Teiresias' broken face.

"I..." It trailed off uncertainly. "I... Why?"

Smythe stared. This was very far from normal behaviour for Teiresias. In fact, it was about as far from normal as it could get short of actually shedding tears.

"Because Halley is perceptive," it said suddenly, its usual manner returning abruptly. "It is perhaps a result of the feline senses she has been gifted with. If we had emerged from the dark paths any closer to her than this, we could well have been detected." It leaped down from the stump it had been sitting on and stalked over to Smythe. "Now get up. We have ground to cover and little time to do it in."

Smythe struggled to his feet, brushed dirt from his suit and sighed.

"I haven't even had breakfast," he murmured sadly to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he said quickly, and trudged off after Teiresias as it began to make its way through the forest. How it knew where it was going was a mystery to him; perhaps the strange psychic eye through which it viewed the world was currently locked onto Halley or White, and acted like a beacon to guide it; perhaps it had simply memorised the layout of all the forest between them and their destination beforehand. Frankly, either option seemed equally plausible where Teiresias was concerned; the vile creature seemed to positively delight in flouting the laws of reality.

Smythe heaved the sigh of the oppressed, and put the matter from his mind. There were no alternate options available to him. Abandoning Teiresias would incur the demon's wrath, and that was almost as frightening as incurring that of Harmonia. He turned the mess over once more in his head, winced at the thought, and trudged on with a heavy heart.

---

It was a bright clear day, the kind that looks far, far warmer than it is, and as the sun rose higher into the sky the forest should have brightened.

It did not.

Instead, the shadows deepened, darkening to the colour of pitch, and the spring green of the leaves seemed to turn a dull viridian. The birds fell silent. The wind died down.

None of us dared look back.

"Is it me, or does this seem worse than last time?" asked Halley quietly.

I nodded. I could barely speak; the air felt thick with tangible menace.

"Much worse," I managed.

"Indeed," agreed Cheren, only the faintest hint of discomfort in his voice. "It's interesting... Perhaps Teiresias' powers take time to charge to their full potential. Previously, it has attacked abruptly, but this time, it has time on its side..." He trailed off, thinking hard. "You know, it might be that it's a slow hunter in its wild state, slowly stalking its prey and weakening it with this psychological barrage of menace before moving in to paralyse and finish it off."

"Che-Cheren," said Bianca weakly, reaching up and clutching Munny tight to her chest, "could you maybe not theorise for a bit, please?"

He blinked.

"Ah. Right. Um, sorry about that." He coughed and adjusted his glasses hurriedly, falling silent abruptly; I wouldn't have thought it possible, but he actually seemed flustered. It seemed he wasn't totally mechanical after all.

"I hate this," growled Halley, her voice suddenly twisting into a cat's snarl. "F*cking Teiresias... I wish it would just attack. I hate waiting like this."

"That's probably why it's doing it," Cheren pointed out, and she hissed at him for his pains.

"I don't – do you think we can beat it this time?" I asked fearfully, jags of memory suddenly stabbing into my mind: a rotting floor, a pounding heart, white eyes that saw nothing but one's soul...

Cheren considered.

"Munny's Psychic attacks seem to confuse whatever it uses to sense us," he said. "Perhaps we can make good our escape that way. But I'm not sure – its power does seem to be building this time, although maybe it only seems that way so that we are more afraid of it and thus easier for it to subdue." He shook his head. "I just don't have enough information, I'm afraid, and until we can look up Teiresias in one of the Treatises, it's going to stay that way."

So even Cheren believed it was a demon, then – which didn't bode well, I thought, another claw of fear curling around my brain. If any of us could have thought of a more mundane explanation for the creature and its powers, it would have been him; now that he seemed to think it was something from another realm as well, any hope we might have of stopping it seemed to evaporate into thin air.

No. Calm down, Lauren, I thought desperately. It's not real, it's a psychological trick, it's just a demon's joke, meant to make you weak; Munny will protect you, blind Teiresias, shut down its eye while you all get away...

A raven screamed and flapped away overhead. I didn't convince myself.

The shadows grew longer.

Distant footsteps sounded behind us.

"It's eight o'clock in the morning in the middle of spring," muttered Cheren. "And yet... to create this kind of atmosphere even on such a bright, cheery day... fascinating."

It might be an interesting opportunity to study our mysterious opponent. It might be an unparalleled insight into demonic hunting tactics.

But that was for Cheren, and for my part, I felt like I was only half a step ahead of Córmi himself, the dark ése's great black wings reaching out to snatch me into death. I had been afraid before, walking in the woods alone – of aelfe, of ettins, of rogue Liepard and black Grimveldt wolves – but this was something else. This was fear for fear's sake, welling up from nowhere and everywhere at once, climbing up the walls of my skull in dark waves and crashing down again into tides of paralytic fear. It was an effort to put one foot in front of the other, and when I looked at Bianca and Cheren I wondered how they kept going, how they were resisting the urge to lie down, curl up and wait for Teiresias' long shadow to fall over them.

It knows you're weak, I thought to myself. It knows you're afraid. It knows Cheren is too cold and Bianca too careless; this performance is all for you, to slow you down and shut you off and make you give yourself up.

"I promised Halley," I murmured, so quietly no one else heard. "I promised..."

I felt, as if from a great distance, tears gather in my eyes.

"I promised I would help," I said again, more forcefully, and the voice in my head retreated.

I blinked and looked up. The shadows were still dark, the birds still silent. The footsteps sounded, if anything, closer.

I was still afraid, I realised, but I could carry on. I could – just barely – resist.

Halley brushed against my leg, and I started.

"You're doing great," she said, voice low and gruff. "Uh... keep going."

With that, she stalked away from me again, and for a moment I stared after her. That had been – that had been concern, right?

"Halley," I muttered, a small smile crossing my face despite the rounding menace, and walked on.

Half an hour later, the aura of menace was still with us, despite our efforts to speed up, and it was then that Cheren hit upon an idea.

"All right," he said, "going faster isn't doing anything. We may have to try and use Munny to scramble Teiresias' trace."

"Oh yeah," I said. "That... why didn't you say that before?"

"Because there's a small chance that Teiresias doesn't actually know where we are exactly, and is spreading this aura around the entire area to try and startle us into showing ourselves," he replied. "If that's what it's doing, then it will be watching for Psychic-type attacks – if we use Munny, it will know what direction to go in, and then it can send in Smythe to deal with Munny before moving in itself."

I stared at him.

"How did you think of that?"

"It's what I would do," he replied. "It's the most efficient course of action. But given how alien Teiresias' mind is, I'm not sure that it would think of doing it." He chewed his lip. "Do we risk it?"

"Don't ask me," I said firmly, shaking my head. "I don't know anything about tactics or anything like that."

Cheren sighed.

"Fair enough," he muttered. "Bianca?"

"If I can interrupt?" asked Halley, before she could reply. "Cheers. For your information, Cheren, Teiresias knows exactly where we are. It's waiting because it's making Lauren afraid, and the more afraid people are of it, the stronger it gets."

Cheren frowned.

"How do you know that?" he asked. "Do you know what Teiresias is?"

"No," she replied. "Yes. I'm... I'm not sure." She frowned. "I can – I can half remember something. Like a long-forgotten..." She shook her head. "I used to know!" she growled furiously, slapping herself in the face. "F*ck!"

"All right, leave it for now," Cheren said tersely. "You'll have time for this later." He glanced at Bianca. "Are you ready?"

"What do I do?" she asked helplessly. "I mean... there's nothing for Munny to attack."

"I don't know, aim at the sky or something. Just don't hit any of us."

Bianca nodded.

"OK," she said. "Psywave, Munny. Just, uh, up."

The Munna didn't move, but the same strange silky ripples in space that I had seen it generate the night before poured out of its body in sinuous waves. Despite its efforts to keep the move away from us, part of it must have hit me, because for a moment I had a headache and a strange understanding of the shape and taste of the colour blue – but a moment later, both pain and synaesthesia had gone, and the rippling aura was spreading out through the air above us.

"Well?" I asked, blinking hard. "Did... did it work?"

"I'm not sure," said Cheren. "The shadows don't seem any lighter." He looked around. "And – and aren't those footsteps faster now?"

I froze.

"Yeah," I said softly. "Yeah, they are."

In fact, they were very fast, and very near.

I looked at Cheren, and Cheren looked at Bianca.

"Well, don't just stand there, morons," hissed Halley. "Run."

---

I could describe the chase. I could describe how we raced down the trail; how on my shoulder Candy shrieked in delight at the wind rushing through her feathers; how Munny trailed a vaporous stream of psionic strings behind it in its agitation; how Halley's breath came in wheezy spurts of curses, even after I picked her up.

But I won't.

I could describe how the tree in front of us, rotted through with Teiresias' corrosive magic, collapsed to block the trail ahead. I could describe Smythe, bearing down on us like Córmi in the legend.

But I won't.

Because none of it mattered except that Teiresias was here, its long black shadow cutting the path in half as it stalked towards us at Smythe's side.

It had changed. It was no longer a Liepard; it was smaller now, a little under Halley's size – a Purrloin. But its eyes were still white, and its voice still dead, and when it spoke my name my feet froze in place on the dirt.

"White," said Teiresias, drawing to a halt a little way off. "And Halley. That is all we desire. You others may leave."

"You've made that rather difficult," observed Cheren, patting the fallen log. "In fact, I don't think you've left us much choice but to stay and help."

"Yeah, um... what he said." Bianca nodded vigorously. She might not have Cheren's way with words, but she definitely shared his spirit; it was about the only thing they seemed to have in common, and distantly I wondered if that was what bound them together—

"Lauren. Snap the f*ck out of it," hissed Halley. "Come on, girl, don't go all panic trance on me here. We need to focus."

I blinked. Yes. Halley was right. I'd made a promise, and I had to honour that.

"Look," said Smythe, raising his hands as innocently as he could when Teiresias was at his side, "I really, really don't want any trouble. I had that damn Munna invade my skull last time, and I'm not really keen to repeat that. I just want Halley and White. That's all."

"Then why aren't you taking them?" asked Cheren. "You're standing here talking when you could be taking action."

"Smythe insists you can be reasoned with," hissed Teiresias. "I am here to ensure that is so, and to safeguard against the possibility that you cannot."

"I'm a very reasonable person," said Cheren, "but I don't think it would be reasonable of me to let you spirit people away without due explanation. How about you tell us why you want Halley and Lauren, and then we'll decide what to do?"

Smythe glanced at Teiresias.

"I have no time for this," it rasped. "Take them."

The ground went black.

No slow spread this time: the entire trail, for as far as I could see, turned black with rot, little curls of it twisting away in coils of decay. I jumped back, but there was nowhere safe to flee to. Cheren snapped out an order and Lelouch dived for Teiresias' throat; dissolving into a green ribbon of light as he snaked across the ground—

The Purrloin swung a paw lightly in his direction, and with a momentary dark flash the Snivy arced away into the forest. It did not come back.

"Do not attempt to use the Munna," said Teiresias. "It will end badly for you."

No one said anything. I don't even know if they could. The smell was back, the smell from the train – the smell of a dead man's hand bloated in the wreckage of the flood – and the fear returned with it. This time, though, I could see the demon, and that made it a thousand times worse. Everything vanished: self, memory, all rational thought was swept away in a tide of unrelenting terror—

—except one tiny little thought that refused to go away.

Why doesn't it move?

I held onto it tight. It was all that was left of me; all I had that wasn't fear.

Why doesn't Teiresias move?

On the train, it had sat down to spread its aura of terror; in the street, it had only moved once Munny had scrambled its psychic 'sight'.

Is it that it can't move?

Now, as then, Teiresias was stationary, and it was Smythe who was walking towards us, Smythe who was doing the actual capturing. Teiresias itself hung back, impervious to harm, motionless as ever. Why?

And then an idea came into my head, and, fighting through the paralysis, I turned my head to Candy and whispered:

"Get it, but stay back."

For a heart-stopping moment I thought she wasn't able to, or she hadn't understood, or she didn't know how—

—and then there was a small whumph by my ear and Candy's head whipped forwards like a striking snake, at almost the same moment as a large stone slammed into Teiresias' rotting body and sent it flying backwards.

Immediately, the spell broke. Shadows faded, darkness dissolved; the rot on the trail withered and vanished and the sun came out from behind a cloud. Suddenly released from the supernatural force that had gripped us, Cheren, Bianca and I staggered forward a step; Halley, lighter on her feet, simply bobbed a little.

Smythe stared, dumbfounded.

"How—?"

"Again, Candy!" I said, as Teiresias climbed back to its feet, a crater of snapped ribs and blood-matted fur in its chest where the rock had impacted. She squawked gleefully and another stone popped into existence between her jaws, swelling to full size as she snapped her head forwards and shooting towards the demon—

—who stuck out a paw and shattered the boulder with another of those flashes of black light.

"You are percep—" it began to say, but Candy was getting excited now, and sent another boulder whistling towards it – and another, and another, and now Teiresias was flickering and twisting in a loop of purple fur, desperate to save its borrowed body from destruction.

"All right, time to run," murmured Halley. "Into the woods. Now."

No one argued. Cheren, Bianca and Munny went first, heading off the trail in the direction Lelouch had vanished in; Halley followed a moment later, streaking across the dirt as only a startled animal can. I went last, Candy maintaining the bombardment from my shoulder. Teiresias was getting better, I noticed; it was moving less now, settling back into position and destroying the rocks without so much effort, and I knew that in a moment it would have adjusted to the new threat and begun to weave its spell again—

I turned, Candy hurling one last boulder over my shoulder, and fled into the woods.
 
Last edited:
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  • Seen Nov 9, 2013
Cutlerine!
I was checking regularly and was about to give up. And then Yay a new chapter!

- Personally I don't see anything poor about this chapter.
- The Shakespeare references never get old.
- Aww, no helicopters yet.
- Regarding Decoyote: whoa major hint drop! Are we gonna see Pearl too?

That is all.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
Cutlerine!
I was checking regularly and was about to give up. And then Yay a new chapter!

- Personally I don't see anything poor about this chapter.
- The Shakespeare references never get old.
- Aww, no helicopters yet.
- Regarding Decoyote: whoa major hint drop! Are we gonna see Pearl too?

That is all.

Ah, OK. Thanks for that. I guess I thought it would be worse because it would reflect everything happening while I wrote it... I suppose I can separate fiction and reality better than I thought. Huzzah!

As for helicopters, there was one... but it was in the prologue, which I took out before I posted it.

Regarding Decoyote... I just like the idea of them, I'm afraid. I won't rule out appearances from characters from previous stories, but I only have one of them planned out right now, and it isn't Pearl.

Thanks for your feedback!

F.A.B.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
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Chapter Eight: The Young Miss Moritz

Niamh Harper (Neeve, she would say with a sigh, it's pronounced Neeve) was one of those people who are, in the movies, invariably referred to as 'the specialists', or 'the cleaners', or some other variant on the same cloak-and-dagger theme. Like her fictional counterparts, she possessed uncanny efficiency, tremendous intellect and more concealed weapons than anyone might safely shake a stick at. Unlike them, however, she was one sixty-fourth faerie.

So family tradition went, anyway, and Niamh had always maintained that the source of her preternatural luck was the blood she had inherited from her aelfen great-great-great-great-grandmother; all the really successful criminals, she reasoned, had a gimmick – Moriarty had the whole 'Napoleon of crime' thing, and the Zodiac Killer had had his bizarre messages, for instance – and it would be a damn shame to miss out on capitalising on hers. It paid, she thought, to think of a decent advertising scheme.

Thus it was that Niamh (the name was supposed to be redolent of the mysterious aelfe from which she claimed ancestry, but all it really did was confuse people) had been contracted by Ingen several years previously as their 'clean-up expert'. (Apparently those in charge of hiring her had seen a few too many conspiracy films.) In that time, she had successfully prevented, among other things, a juvenile Megalosaurus from eating its way through an orphanage, an abortive attempt at creating a shoggoth from absorbing half the Ingen staff (Dr. Spitelle's fault), and a pair of snooping journalists from uncovering Ingen's secret facility on Volundr's Anvil off the east coast. Rather less successfully, she had attempted to stop the escape of a small group of Andrewsarchus into the depths of the Grimveldt Forest, from the security of which strange rumours were now drifting out across Unova of monsters raiding outlying settlements in the night – but then again, one couldn't be perfect all the time. Everyone made mistakes, after all, even people like Niamh.

This, however, ought not to have been a mission on which Niamh would make mistakes. She simply had to travel to Accumula Town, relieve the unknown girl with the green hat of the escaped Archen, destroy it before it fell into the hands of any of Ingen's many competitors, and return home. Simple. She was going up against kids; while it was stupid to ever claim that nothing could go wrong, Niamh was fairly certain that, well, nothing could go wrong.

As the astute reader will have guessed, this was not the case.

And Niamh Harper was about to find that out in spectacular fashion.

---

Smythe looked at Teiresias.

"Should... should I chase them?" he asked tentatively.

The Purrloin was silent.

"Teiresias?"

"No," it said. "No." It got to its feet and began to walk back down the Trail, towards Accumula.

"What? Where are you going?" asked Smythe.

"To Accumula," replied Teiresias coldly. "There is nothing to be gained from chasing them."

"What? But we have to catch—"

"Yes." Teiresias paused, and looked back. "But we cannot chase them. I underestimated White's intelligence. We will have to alter our tactics; brute force is not the way to go."

"Oh," said Smythe, his brain finally catching up with his mouth. "I see... you want to get to Striaton ahead of them and lay an ambush?"

"They are Trainers. They will go to the Gym there," Teiresias went on, as if he hadn't spoken – and now Smythe saw that its eyes were burning blue, seeing deep into something other than the forest around them. "White will not. She will go to – to..." It trailed off. "I cannot see where she will go," it said. "Not yet. But we will have an opportunity to catch her and Halley, when they are separated from the Trainers."

Smythe blinked. He might not quite have Teiresias' intellect, but he wasn't stupid, and he recognised the blue eyes and cryptic proclamation.

"You have prolepsia?" he asked, incredulous. It wasn't common. Fewer than one in five hundred thousand humans were born with the genetic abnormality that let them catch glimpses of future events, and while Smythe didn't know how common it was among Teiresias' kind, he definitely hadn't been expecting it.

"Yes," replied his partner, eyes fading to white again. "It is certain. Our opportunity for ambuscade lies in Striaton."

"I see. It—"

"Whatever you have to say, say it as we move," Teiresias interrupted. "I refuse to drag your swinish flesh through the dark paths again today. We must return to Accumula and use your human methods of transport."

"Oh... right." Smythe thought of the nightmare realm through which Teiresias chose to travel, and heaved a silent sigh of relief. "I guess we'd better go, then," he said, surprising himself by sounding almost cheery.

"Yes," agreed Teiresias. "We had."

It stalked on, and, almost whistling with restrained happiness, Smythe followed.

---

"I see," said Cheren, nodding. "You notice the important details, Lauren, and formulate effective strategic responses... you'd be a good Trainer."

"Oh, I don't know about that," I replied, looking away. "I'm just... I just noticed that it didn't move, that's all."

It was an hour since we had left Teiresias and Smythe on the trail, and an hour since we'd seen any sign of them; they didn't seem to be following us, or at least they weren't being obvious about it, and we'd continued on our way north to Striaton slightly more at ease than before. Lelouch had wandered up to us a few minutes into our search for him, holding his head in his stubby arms and hissing groggily, and he was now back in his Ball; Cheren had given him a Potion and the Snivy was now fairly healthy again, but he'd decided that he deserved a rest after his treatment at Teiresias' hands.

Of course, Halley, Cheren and Bianca had all wanted to know what I'd done to Teiresias and how I'd done it, and I'd just come to the end of my explanation: I had noticed that Teiresias could only concentrate enough to raise its fear aura if it was stationary, and also that it was almost impossible to get close enough to it to move it. That left only one option: try and hit it with some force without getting near. I knew most Rock-type Pokémon knew Rock Throw, and I was pretty sure that Candy was at least part Rock-type; to my relief, she'd been able to work out what I wanted her to do, and had in fact got quite into the whole Rock Throwing business.

"No, I mean it," said Cheren. "You have a knack for it."

"Yeah," agreed Halley. "Looks like you got the brain and Jared got the brawn. If I put the two of you together I might actually get a decent bodyguard."

I ignored her; I had no idea what to say in response to that.

Bianca beamed at me.

"You don't need to be so modest," she said. "You can accept praise, you know."

"Uh... OK," I replied. "Thank you."

"That's better," she said with satisfaction, and was about to say something else when Munny made a loud blooping noise and started bobbing up and down in what was either excitement or acute indigestion.

Cheren stared up at it with interest.

"Oh? What is it?"

"It senses something," said Bianca, a look of concentration on her face, and with a small jolt of excitement I realised that Munny must be trying to communicate with her telepathically.

"That's so cool," I murmured.

"It says... there are a lot of wild Pokémon around," she said, frowning. "Much more than normal... oh, they were running away from Teiresias, and there's lots of them hiding a little further up the trail."

Cheren clapped his hands.

"Excellent!" he cried. "I've had enough spectral persecution for one day. Time to actually do some Training."

I started. It had almost slipped my mind that that was what Cheren and Bianca actually did: catch wild Pokémon, and fight others with them. I'd been so focused on Teiresias and the problem of Halley that I'd forgotten this trip was anything more than a way of evading the Green Party's supernatural hitman.

"Yeah," agreed Bianca. "Put that demon stuff behind us for a while..."

"If it gets us off the radar, it's fine by me," Halley said. "What isn't fine by me, though, is standing around not moving in the woods when we could be moving in the opposite direction to the evil monster hunting us." She leaped up onto a low branch overhanging the trail, and pointed ahead. "So let's move."

"I don't think it's actually following us right now," said Cheren mildly, but Halley was having none of it. Obviously Teiresias had spooked her more than I'd thought.

"Don't care. Don't trust it. Move."

So we did, moving quietly so as not to frighten off any Pokémon ahead. I had my doubts about how effective this would be – after all, I'd spent a lot of time in the woods before, and I knew that Pokémon and animals alike were far more adept at noticing approaching humans, especially when scared, than any of us – but I was willing to play along. After all, Cheren and Bianca were Trainers. They had to have some level of skill at this.

A few minutes later, I held out my hand for them to stop. The broken cuffs jingled, and I hastily clamped my fingers over them to keep them still.

"What is it?" asked Bianca.

"Sssh," I hissed. "There. Right there."

I pointed at the Purrloin crouching ahead of us, half-concealed by the undergrowth.

"What?"

I looked at her.

"Can't you see it?" I asked incredulously. "It's right there."

Cheren's eyes were darting around so fast they looked like they might spring free of their sockets and go on a brief aerial reconnaissance mission; I guess not noticing something must have been pretty galling for someone who usually sees everything.

"I see her," hissed Halley. "I have a bizarre urge to challenge her for her territory, but I'm holding it in."

"I still don't," began Cheren testily, and then his eyes widened. "Ah." He frowned. "Why isn't it running away?"

"Because you three smell of fear," Halley said. "You've been bathing in it all morning, thanks to Teiresias. Any animal with a decent sense of smell is going to be confused by you, since you look bold but smell terrified."

"I don't see it," said Bianca petulantly.

"Look, it's right there," I said, pointing. The Purrloin shrank back from my finger, and I hurriedly withdrew it.

"I still can't see it."

"No matter," whispered Cheren. "You will in a moment." He reached into his pocket and took out Lelouch's ball. "This should be simple enough."

He threw the ball in a high arc, up among the branches and leaves of the canopy; I didn't see where it fell, but it must have been somewhere beyond the Purrloin.

The little Pokémon didn't move. It was thoroughly confused; it probably suspected a trick, given that its nature was to hunt by deceit – in contrast to the wildcats, which were physically stronger and tended to drop on their prey from the trees and wrestle it into submission – but it couldn't work out what it was.

You sound like Cheren, part of my mind told me, but it wasn't true; Cheren was smarter than I was. He researched these things – I'd just seen it happen a few times back in White Forest.

"Now," said Cheren quietly, and Lelouch appeared behind the Purrloin, rearing out of the bushes with the total predatory silence only reptiles and birds can achieve. For a moment, he hung there motionless, and I could see his jaw widening in response to his serpentine instincts, about to unhinge and swallow the Purrloin whole—

—and then his training asserted itself, and he shut his mouth, looking faintly displeased. Almost as an afterthought, he swatted the Purrloin hard on the leg with his viny tail, and the little cat started so hard it looked like it was on the verge of cardiac arrest.

It whirled, instinctively sweeping its sharp tail across its attacker and following it up with its claws – but Lelouch didn't seem to even notice the thin scratches opening up across its chest; nothing bled from them, and I realised what the advantages of being made of plant matter must be – no pain, difficult to incapacitate... I wondered if Lelouch even had organs.

The Snivy blinked slowly, and swallowed the Purrloin's head.

I stared. Had I just seen that happen? Had Lelouch actually just...?

Yes. Yes, he had.

The Purrloin twitched and writhed furiously, scratching at his face and throat, but half-inch claws aren't much good at slicing through plant stems, and Lelouch didn't falter. A moment later, the Purrloin slowed – and a few seconds after that, it slumped, unconscious.

Lelouch made a peculiarly human coughing sound, and spat the Purrloin out onto the leaf litter.

"Well, that was the most disturbing way I've ever seen anyone win a Pokémon battle," said Halley lightly. "Seriously? You get him to suffocate his enemies with his mouth?"

"I'm making use of his strengths," said Cheren stiffly. "The combination of reptile and plant is fascinating – it opens up a variety of tactics—"

"I honestly could not give a single fu— fun-size Mars bar," finished Halley glumly, looking up at me. "Damn you, Lauren."

I smiled at her.

"Thank you."

"I seriously can't tell if that's irony or not," she muttered. "That infuriates me."

"I bet it does."

Cheren fished around in his pockets and pulled out a Poké Ball; a moment later, he was the proud owner of a new Purrloin, and had, for reasons known only to himself, christened it Justine.

"Well," he said, "that was successful. Now, if only I could get a signal out here I could look it up in the Pokédex..." Here, he spared a moment to stare balefully at his phone. Unova's mobile communications networks were unreliable at best and explosive at worst; anywhere outside of the major cities had only patchy network coverage, and the phone masts, manufactured mainly by companies who didn't meet the quality control requirements of other countries, had a tendency to burst into flame when too much data ran through them. "Ah, well," said Cheren, more jovially. "I have a Purrloin now, at least, and that's something."

"So, um, this is kind of embarrassing," said Bianca, "but I still didn't actually see the Purrloin."

I stared at her.

"Um... you are joking, right Bianca?"

"Nope," she said sadly. "I'm... not really very good at being a Trainer, I think."

"Oh, don't worry," I said brightly. "Cheren didn't see it for ages, either. It's just experience, that's all."

"You think?"

"Well, I wasn't born able to see hiding animals like that," I said thoughtfully, "so I guess it must be practice. I've lived in the woods all my life, remember."

"I guess..."

Bianca didn't sound entirely convinced, and I wanted to do more for her – but I wasn't certain what else I could say without knowing her better, and now wasn't the time to start questioning her about her history and lack of self-confidence. I sighed, and pushed Candy away from my ear, which she was trying hard to stuff her beak into.

"Yeah. Just practice." I made myself smile; smiling is infectious, and hopefully Bianca would smile too. "Come on, then. I'm guessing the other Pokémon around here were scared off by that fight, but we might be able to find more. At the very least, we'll end up closer to Striaton."

"Yes, good idea," said Cheren, obviously pleased to have been presented with a way out of a situation he clearly found awkward. "Come on, Bianca."

He recalled Lelouch and started walking; it was a good thing, I thought as I followed, that I was here, or poor Bianca wouldn't have had any comfort at all except from Munny – and the Munna's comforting consisted mostly of bumping into her head over and over again, as it was doing now.

I sighed, and let Candy hop down onto my wrist.

"What're we going to do about that, Candy?" I whispered, falling to the back of the group. "What're we going to do...?"

---

Picture, if you will, the villain's lair. Let the image fill your mind: a castle, a thunderstorm, a fearsome crack of lightning that illuminates for one brief and violent instant unspeakable horrors; picture the guttering candles, wax oozing from their tips like pale snakes with questing, transparent faces; picture the ancient paintings whose eyes have long since been cut out to provide spy-holes for unseen watchers; the dungeons, the long-forgotten skeleton still in his manacles, the attic where the mad wife gibbers in her chains; the lopsided tower, lit fitfully by a cluster of dying lanterns – and finally, the villain himself, committing black and ancient deeds from before the time of man, bringing unto himself creatures that the ése never meant to see the light of day.

This was what would have sprung to the mind of Lauren White if asked to envision the place from which Teiresias had begun its mission. Needless to say, it was not correct.

No, Unova's Green Party had its headquarters in a large and unnecessarily magnificent building in Gaunton, Castelia; it had begun life as the residence of the penultimate British High Commissioner for Unova, and retained almost all of its original splendour. Owing to its erstwhile owner's peculiar architectural fancies, and his patent disregard for the more classical trends of his day, it was a vast and colourful Gothic pile after the manner of Pugin, beginning at the ground in a tangle of white limestone and ending in the sky in a multiplicity of blue-green Undella slate roofs. No two architects would ever be able to agree on whether or not it was beautiful, but anyone at all would concede that it was certainly among the most impressive buildings in the city. It bore its eccentricities with the brash swagger of a cartoon pirate, and had revelled in its own majesty since the year of its completion in 1944.

It was down the twisting halls of this overweening edifice that Caitlin Molloy bent her steps, down to what had once been the Commissioner's office and was now that of Ghetsis Harmonia. She knocked on the door, and at the sound of a cheery 'Come in!' entered to find him seated behind his desk, flicking through a weighty-looking book of immense proportions; as she drew near, Harmonia looked up, grinned, and laid the book down in front of him.

"Ah!" he said, smiling mischievously. "If it isn't my friend from Johannesburg."

Caitlin Molloy was not in fact from Johannesburg. She could, however, do a fine South African accent, although this was not something she did as a general rule.

"Afternoon, Ghetsis," she said, returning his smile at the shared joke. "I brought you the report from Striaton."

She tossed a manila folder down on the desk, and Harmonia's eyebrow rose.

"Ah me," he said, stroking his chin meditatively. "That looks thick." His HawkEye clicked upward to lock onto Caitlin. "Any chance of a synopsis? I will read it, just... not right now."

"It's difficult to know what to do," replied Caitlin, dropping into the seat opposite him. "There's two possibilities here. Either the powder actually converts dreamed objects into real ones, which would allow us to synthesise the lost artefact easily, given access to Dr. Fennel's lab – or it stimulates dreams of another life. Given the way the prevailing winds blow over Unova, Fennel theorises that this could be the cause of the whole Dream World – the mist is generated by the Munna and Musharna near Striaton, desiccates and gets spread across the country. Hence the dreams."

Harmonia nodded thoughtfully. Like everyone in Unova, he had spent at least some time wondering about the cause of the so-called Dream World; it had never, to anyone's knowledge, been satisfactorily explained, although various theories had been put forward to explain it. In fact, it was Dr. Fennel's potential explanation for the existence of the strangely unified dreams of Unova that had first caught his eye as he scanned the scientific literature of the week before.

"I see," he said slowly. "What're the chances that the powder really does turn dreams to reality?"

"I don't know," replied Caitlin frankly. "It doesn't even sound possible, to be honest, but stranger things have happened... it's just one step up from Zoroark venom. It's... well, if it's true, it changes everything." She shrugged. "Fennel was eager to help – you know what these researchers are like, always after funding. We waved a vague offer under her nose in exchange for this report on the Dreamyard."

"The Dreamyard?" queried Harmonia. "What's that?"

"Ah. It's what the people around Striaton call the old Sytec manufacturing plant. There was a lot of waste around there that was never properly disposed of, and the Musharna flocked there to nest. People in Striaton have more regular and Dream World dreams than anyone else in the nation, and they remember them better too – and it's all from the abandoned lot. So they ended up calling it the Dreamyard."

"I see." Harmonia opened the folder and began to leaf through its contents. "Woden's patch," he muttered. "Psychochemical disturbances in the dream matrix? Hyperbombastic ritual dream exchanges? Thunor, this is hard going... she's really trying to impress."

Caitlin shrugged.

"Like I said, she wants funding." She watched Harmonia for a moment. "What do you want to do?"

The red lens moved up to look at her, though the head attached to it remained inclined towards the folder.

"Let's do it," he said decisively. "We've got nothing to lose after all; we have plenty of funds at our disposal, with our new allies. Throw some gold at her and see what we can do – if it works, we could potentially finish this thing tomorrow."

Caitlin nodded.

"I'll get right on it, Ghetsis," she said. "See you later."

"Goodbye," he replied distractedly, returning to the report.

Caitlin left, and twelve minutes later a message was winging its way towards Striaton.

---

By the end of the day, Munny and Lelouch had put paid to about six assorted Patrat, Purrloin and Lillipup between them; Smoky, whom Bianca had all but kicked into action, had dealt with just one, and then only because it had been a particularly pugnacious Lillipup and had tried to bite his tail. He had sat up, torched it and gone back to sleep without ever opening his eyes.

There had been no further sign of activity on Teiresias' part, but when we pitched camp that night we agreed we'd keep watch in case it and Smythe returned while we slept; Halley offered to watch all night, citing her animal instincts, ability to see in the dark and heightened sense of smell as reasons. I refused to let her, though; she needed sleep as much as the rest of us, I argued, so we set up a rota. Cheren seemed to think she had some ulterior motive in offering to take the entire watch, but I couldn't see what it would be – she was nervous, that was all, and who could blame her? Teiresias was a nasty foe.

After we'd eaten, Cheren gathered a few meaty scraps into a little heap, and let out his new Purrloin, which looked around wildly at us for a while before bolting for the undergrowth.

"Well, that was successful," said Halley snidely. "Champion material right here."

"I know what I'm doing," replied Cheren calmly. "She'll come back. Wait."

A few moments later, the Purrloin – Justine – did in fact return, slinking quietly out of the bushes and doing her best to remain in the shadows, out of sight.

"Cheren," began Bianca, delighted to have finally spotted something, but he held up a hand.

"Ignore her," he said. "We're not supposed to have noticed her."

Candy's large eyes flicked over to the Purrloin in the shadows, and she looked up at me inquisitively.

"No," I said, shaking my head as vigorously as possible. "No no no. Don't even think about it."

She made a small noise of avian disappointment, which was something like a squawk, something like a sigh and a lot more discordant than either, and went back to digging a shallow bowl in the dirt near the fire. She had done that last night too; I wasn't sure why. I'd never taken Candy out on extended trips in the woods before, and it seemed to be bringing out a variety of responses in her that I expected Uncle Gregory would have been interested in; he was always going on about how there was no way to accurately work out the behaviour of extinct animals from their fossils alone, and about that being the reason why he'd gone into the re-engineering business, and if they'd just give him ten more years and a million more pounds of funding he'd have solved the Gleinhauser Proposition, whatever that was.

A moment later, Justine materialised next to Cheren's leg, and quietly began to steal the leftovers he'd piled up.

"What's she doing?" I asked softly.

"Purrloin are thieves," replied Cheren, just as quietly. Justine did not look up at the sound of his voice. "They take the kills of others, or steal from campsites. If you give them food, they tend to believe that they're tricking you into feeding them, which makes them quite happy and therefore easier to tame... watch."

He picked up a meaty bone he had kept in reserve and held it under Justine's nose.

The Purrloin froze. Her sharp green eyes focused on the end of the bone, travelled along its length, passed up Cheren's arm and came to rest on his face.

A sly grin passed over her muzzle, and she ran a thin tongue over her fangs. Then, very delicately, she took the bone in between her jaws and climbed onto Cheren's lap to gnaw on it.

He looked up at me.

"See?" he said. "Easy."

I grinned and shook my head.

"That's adorable," I said.

"I know!" squealed Bianca in agreement, so loudly that Justine jumped in surprise and inhaled half her bone.

"Thunor—!" cried Cheren, staring wild-eyed as the Purrloin began to asphyxiate. "How the hell—?"

One hand on the bone and one on her back, he started pulling and patting at the same time; a moment later, the offending article shot out, and Justine collapsed, gasping for air, on his lap. Bianca stared speechlessly.

"I... um... sorry, Cheren," she said at last. She sounded like a toddler who knows they've done something so bad there is no alternative but to pretend it didn't happen.

"That's... all right, Bianca," Cheren said, voice strained. "Just – ah – try not to kill my Pokémon in future, all right?"

"Yeah..." Bianca's head drooped. "Sorry..."

Halley snickered.

"See, that's comedy," she said. "Good old slapstick. There's nothing funnier than serious injury."

"Yes there is," I said. "Justine could've been hurt."

"You're missing the point," she sighed. "That's exactly why it was funny." She waved a paw dismissively. "Whatever. I'm not going go be able to convince you about this one."

"On the plus side," continued Cheren as if neither of us had spoken, "the experience does seem to have endeared me to Justine somewhat."

It was true: while Purrloin weren't really known for their loyalty, I was pretty sure the star-struck look in Justine's eyes indicated that the saviour of her life had now earned her undying respect. It was a pretty big bone for such a small cat; I supposed I'd feel the same way if Cheren had removed something the size of my forearm from my throat.

"Hmm. A little training, and she might even be up to helping Lelouch with the Striaton Gym," Cheren said to himself. "Strange as it may sound, I guess I should be thanking you, Bianca."

Immediately, she perked up again.

"OK!" she cried happily. "That's all right, then. Do we have any pudding?"

"No, you ate it all the night after we left home," he sighed. "I didn't buy any more in Accumula because it didn't seem worth it."

"Oh yeah." Bianca seemed vaguely disappointed, but she couldn't stay that way for long, and by the time we retired to our tents that night, she seemed to be back to normal. Halley, on the other hand, seemed quieter than ever; even when Candy hurled a rock at her, her curses seemed to lack their usual colour and flavour. I asked her what was wrong, but naturally she said nothing – or rather, she did say something, but that something was a torrid stream of invective, which shut me up pretty quickly.

At least, I thought as I lay there in the dark, watching the glow of the fire through the thin fabric, she's still up to doing that. I was still thinking about it when I fell into uneasy dreams, a little before midnight.

---

There a certain moments in life that defy conventional explanation – moments when a chance collocation of events coheres and gives rise to a result infinitely greater than the sum of its parts; moments when disparate strands of destiny cross over, briefly form an accidental Gordian knot, and pass on unchanged. These moments are taken by some to be evidence of wyrd, or fate; others, to be evidence of God.

Niamh Harper was abhorrent of suspicion and possessed of a good vocabulary, so she saw them as serendipity.

If any particular event that afternoon had occurred differently – a minute later, a minute later, a few feet to the left – nothing would have come of it. But as it happened, a man refused the offer of a second drink before leaving for work that morning, citing lack of time; and a woman's alarm clock in Nacrene ran out of power during the night; and a child dropped his toy car on a walk through the park in Accumula; and a busker's bicycle had a flat tyre, and he was forced to go to his usual spot on Neurine Plaza on foot.

And the woman was late for work, and the decrepit Anville Rail Service train was even later than advertised; and Portland Smythe tripped over the car and twisted his ankle so badly he could not muster the speed to make it to the station in time to catch his train; and he repaired to a nearby park bench to recover and wait for the next one.

And Niamh Harper, worn out and stressed from the long train journey, was not looking where she was going as she left the carriage; and the man, who handed out flyers at Accumula Station, was overcome by a small wave of dizziness owing to dehydration; and the two of them collided, sending leaflets fluttering everywhere.

And as she helped him gather the leaflets, she noticed they advertised a coffee-house two streets away near Neurine Plaza, and decided that she was in need of refreshment and rest before continuing her search; and as she made her way to the coffee-house, the busker finally arrived at work and began to play.

And on the street next to the Plaza, Niamh subconsciously heard the unmistakeable strains of jazz flute, and without knowing why looked around for the only jazz flautist she had ever known—

And over the iron railings of the park she saw Portland Smythe, and at the same moment he looked up at the sound of the flute and saw her too.

Their jaws dropped.

Serendipity.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
Chapter Nine: The Bane of Gregor Samsa

Striaton, unlike Accumula, let you know it was coming. It didn't suddenly rear up out of the woods like a spooked horse; it built up slowly, the forests giving way to fields that, in turn, gave way to suburbs. It was a city, not a little backwater village, and as I breathed in the familiar scent of petrochemical fumes, I sighed with relief. I felt like I was coming home.

Candy coughed on my shoulder. I barely noticed; here were the trappings of civilisation again, the tarmac and concrete and cars, and what could possibly be finer than that?

It had taken us the better part of the day to reach this blessed metropolis, and it was four o'clock by the time we'd got into the city proper and were somewhere near a Pokémon Centre. I was exhausted, and looking forward to sitting down – but Cheren, it seemed, had other ideas, and headed off immediately in search of the Trainer's School in the north quarter. Bianca chose not to follow him; like me, she was tired, and still a little dispirited from her failures the day before, and so she came with Halley and me to the nearest Pokémon Centre.

"Well," I said, when we'd arrived. "It looks like someone's, uh, kind of desperate."

The broad windows of the Centre were covered almost entirely by plastered notices, screaming out the same message over and over, the wording more and more despairing from poster to poster.

ASSISTANCE WANTED

the first few read,

WITH A GLORIOUS UNDERTAKING
FOR THE CAUSE OF SCIENCE
VOLUNTEERS TO BE HANDSOMELY REWARDED
ENQUIRE AT PSYCHOSOMA LABORATORIES, 12C BEETWAX STREET,
FOR DETAILS

By the end, though, the flyers were somewhat less grandiose:

FOR GOD'S SAKE, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE HELP?
THIS IS NOT ALL THAT DANGEROUS REALLY,
I PROMISE. AND COMPENSATION FOR ANY MENTAL TRAUMA
WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE. COME ON. ANYONE?
ANYONE AT ALL?

"What school of graphic design did this moron graduate from?" said Halley acidly. "Big and bold is all very well, but this guy's crossed a line – and then pissed on it."

"I wonder what it is," mused Bianca, staring. "It must be important..."

"I guess so," I agreed. "Maybe the receptionist will know."

"How're you going to talk to them?" asked Halley. "You're a cardless Trainer from Sweden, remember?"

I scratched my head. Damn. We didn't have Cheren to convince them.

"Uh... We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"We're standing on the f*cking riverbank, Jared, we're not going to get much closer—"

"Shut up and pretend to be a normal cat," I snapped, pushing open the doors and walking into the Centre.

On my shoulder, Candy perked up suddenly, extending her neck to feel the warmth of the central heating on her scaly head; fleetingly, N's words flickered through my mind, but like most people, I'm pretty good at not thinking about uncomfortable truths and let the thought slip from my mind like an eel through a noose.

"Hi," said the receptionist as we approached. "Welcome to the southern Striaton Pokémon Centre."

I frowned. Was it a uniform requirement for all Centre workers, or was it just a coincidence that both she and the one from Accumula had the same dyed-pink hair?

"Hi!" said Bianca bouncily – so much so, in fact, that her voice seemed to rebound off the walls with its sheer perkiness. Halley and I winced in unison. "What're those posters in the window about?"

Her directness caught the receptionist off-guard for a moment.

"Eh? Oh, those," she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Some scientist from Sotwell—"

"Sotwell?" I asked.

She made a clicking noise of annoyance at herself; she'd forgotten we weren't Striaton natives.

"East of the city centre," she explained swiftly. "She's looking for Trainers to go and get something from the ruined Sytec factory – something to do with Musharna. No one wants to go deep enough into the factory to find a Musharna, though – it's really not a safe place."

Sytec. Everyone in Unova – and probably the world – was familiar with that particular disaster. The only reason Striaton wasn't totally uninhabitable now was because the army had jettisoned most of the waste north into Patzkova (where, conspiracy theorists claimed, it had given rise to a brutal mutant variant of Druddigon) - and what was left had, according to the books, turned the old factory into a twisted maze of semi-sentient psychic fields. I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like something any sensible person would want to avoid.

"What about a Munna?" asked Bianca, pointing to the pink ball floating above her head. "Would a Munna be able to help?"

The receptionist shrugged.

"No idea. If you want to know, I'd ask the scientist herself."

Bianca's eyes lit up, and I sighed.

"Do we have to?" I asked her.

"But I might be able to help!" she said eagerly. "And that might make up for – for yesterday..." She trailed off quietly, and I knew I didn't have the heart to resist her. She wanted to make amends, was that it? To prove that she could still be a decent Trainer, even after not spotting the Purrloin and then almost killing it? Fair enough, I thought; I wasn't going to take that away from her.

"I don't know," I muttered, stalling for time – trying to delay having to accept her proposal.

"And I don't think Teiresias will be able to follow us there, either," Bianca went on. "It won't be able to see us, right?"

I paused, and glanced down at Halley, who looked back up at me. Teiresias' psychic eye was blinded by Munny's mental radiation; if we entered the Sytec plant, it might well do the same.

"It won't be able to see us," Halley whispered, so quietly I almost didn't hear.

"Is that a wildcat?" asked the receptionist, confused. "Who has a pet wildcat?"

"Uh... me," I replied. "I also have a parrot." I scratched Candy's neck and she crowed with pleasure. The receptionist stared.

"Is that an Arch—?"

"All right then!" I said swiftly. "Come on, Bianca. Let's go find this scientist."

Esé damn it, I thought sourly as we walked out. How the f*ck does everyone know?

---

12C Beetwax Street was a good half an hour away by subway, as it turned out, and when we arrived I wasn't entirely sure it was worth the trip. The whole area looked like it had been spat out by a dog that had decided it wasn't worth the effort of chewing, and number 12 looked like it had been right between the molars. Its upper floor, where the landlady informed us 12C was to be found, was more the sort of place I expected to find a yolk kitchen than a laboratory. I supposed that pure science didn't pay too well.

"This... doesn't exactly look like what I thought it might," Bianca said cautiously, looking at the scratched wooden door. The '2' was missing from its sign, and had been for so long that there wasn't even a patch of lighter wood to show where it had been. "It's... um..."

"A sh*thole," said Halley concisely. "A bloody sh*thole. Huh. Gone are the days of the gentleman-scientist, I guess."

I said nothing, but knocked at the door; it swung open at my touch, revealing a cramped tangle of machinery and desks, and a young, haggard-looking woman leaning against the wall and smoking furiously.

"...Woden hang them all," she was muttering. "Theirs is the generation that grew up with Portal, for Frige's sake! How can they not want to help test for science...?"

She did not seem to notice us, wrapped up as she was in her ranting monologue and cigarette smoke, so I said hesitantly:

"Hello? We're, uh, here about the adverts?"

I could've sworn an electric shock ran through her. She shot bolt upright, almost inhaling her cigarette, and hastily tossed it into an ashtray, eyes locking onto us with a fervour that made me doubt her sanity.

"Really?" she beamed, regarding us hungrily. "You're here to – ah, a Munna!" One of her hands curled reflexively into a fist and started wiggling in excitement, and she paused for a moment to calm herself. After a deep breath, she stepped forwards. "Good afternoon," she said brightly, holding out her hand. "My name is Dr. Regan Fennel, and I'm very glad to see you two. My research is almost at a standstill, and without a decent quantity of the dust, I'm not altogether sure the psychoanalytic engines will— but I'm getting ahead of myself," she said, shaking her head. "Please, come in."

Somewhat cautiously, Bianca and I followed her through a maze of abstruse mechanisms, stacked high to the ceiling; they wound about the room in a tangle of wires, of cables, of electrodes and pistons, sprouting monitors and keyboards like curiously geometric fungal growths, clicking and whirring and flashing the occasional light like the eyes of phosphorescent fish in the benthic depths. All the while, Fennel kept up a steady stream of scientific technobabble.

"I'm investigating dream potentiality," she told us. "The hidden energy and possibilities within dream states. Musharna – I know this must seem unrelated, but bear with me, it'll become clear – communicate using psychochemical mists, composed of psychically-charged esters – chemicals that carry a scent and a tagged emotion. In the minds of other Musharna, this triggers a sympathetic psychic response that conveys the original Musharna's meaning. It's a unique system: no other Pokémon uses that combination of smell and psionics. It's why they're so bad at pure psychic communication, why they can only vaguely hint at what they mean when they attempt to 'talk' to humans.

"But that's beside the point. Psychochemicals have so much more potential than simple communication, if there are enough of them – and in the Dreamyard, the Sytec plant, where there are an estimated five hundred Musharna all emitting the sprays at once, and where the roving psychic fields left by the explosion keep warping them..." Fennel paused in excitement. "The sprays dry out," she said, as if this was meant to mean something to us. "They dry out and become powder – and without the water saturating them, their chemical structure alters just slightly: they become able to cross the pulmonary alveoli. Humans can breathe them in, and they affect us.

"Winds blow them all over Unova from Striaton," she went on, as I started to wonder how this long, long labyrinth of machines could fit into the tiny upper floor of 21C Beetwax Street. "We breathe them in, and we feel them unconsciously, and we dream dreams like no one else in the world." Fennel grinned. "We dream the Dream World."

It seemed she wanted a response to that, and she got one. I had been doing more than my fair share of wondering about the Dream World recently, what with Halley's claims about the switching over of reality and Lauren White, and I actually gasped as she said it.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "That's what causes it? Dried-out Musharna spit, or whatever that is?"

Fennel looked pained.

"I see the subtleties of the science elude you," she said, "but essentially, yes. I do believe that." We had stopped, and she gestured for us to go on. "Come on. There's more."

"More?" I asked. "What more can there be?"

I was actually kind of excited now, despite myself. I wasn't usually interested in the abstruse science of psionics – or any science, really – but when the Dream World and Unova's strange dual reality was involved... I was pretty sure this was relevant to me. (Bianca looked lost rather than interested, but then, she had done ever since Fennel had uttered her first polysyllabic word.)

"Much, much more," Fennel said, pressing a button on a nearby panel and waiting for a series of massive gears to grind slowly out of our way. (How much longer could we walk for? It felt like we had gone miles already.) "You see, there's another possibility. Even if the mist doesn't generate the Dream World specifically, it may be able to do something else."

Fennel led us around a corner, and waved her arm at the space beyond – space that, I was truly and utterly certain, was about thirty feet too long to fit into 12C Beetwax Street.

"You see, that's the thing about Dream Mist," Fennel told us. "It makes dreams into reality."

---

"... and left a kidney there on the way," finished Smythe gloomily. "So yes. Same old, same old."

Niamh smiled. Eight years had passed since the incident on the Borealis had driven each to give the other up for dead, but nothing had changed. Portland Smythe – adventurer, flautist, demigod – was still among the unluckiest men on the planet. His wyrd danced over the shears with every stitch of the tapestry, but was never quite severed.

"Your flute?"

Smythe sighed.

"Gone," he said hollowly. "You know what Dragons are like. They love shiny objects. I had to get away somehow, and that was the only shiny thing I had to distract it with." He shook his head and drunk deeply of his coffee. "I hope that bastard Haxorus enjoys it."

It was not a normal Haxorus he spoke of, Niamh knew. It was the Patzkovan variant – bigger, meaner and with an inexplicable fondness for alliterative verse, three traits it shared with much of the northern country's wildlife. It had to be, for though he made little of it, the route he described would have dropped him much too far north for him to have arrived in Opelucid without a lengthy trek south-east through the untamed Hallowveldt.

"I'm sorry," she said at length. "Did you ever... replace it?"

Smythe shook his head.

"No," he replied. "It can't be replaced. No one could make another."

Niamh had thought as much. She had never seen a flute like Smythe's before, and she was pretty sure she never would again.

"Anyway," he said, brightening. "How have you been? Still in the monster-slaying business?"

Niamh smiled, grateful for the lifeline – as anyone was who got drawn into the depths of Smythe's life story would have been.

"Yeah," she replied. "I landed a contract with International Genetics – cleaning up some of their mess. Dinosaurs, monsters – sh*t like that."

Smythe nodded.

"I see," he said. "They're based in Nacrene, right?I guess you're on a job right now?"

"Yes. I'm after an escaped Archen – a little half-bird, half-dinosaur thing. It was meant to be destroyed but someone let it out, and some kid picked it up." Niamh shrugged. "Should be fairly easy to deal with." She frowned. "What's up?"

Smythe was staring, and his heart was racing. Half bird, half dinosaur... he knew that damn bird.

With a strange giddy feeling, he realised that he and Niamh were after the same target.

And with a horrible chill feeling, he realised that he could not possibly tell her.

Teiresias was not visible – it had flickered out of conventional space as soon as Niamh had greeted him in the park, and had remained out of sight throughout their trip to the coffee-house – but Smythe knew it was watching him, and that revealing any Party business, even to as old and trusted a friend as Niamh, would result in it taking swift and deadly action.

And so, though he would dearly have liked to share his burden, and though Niamh was probably the most qualified person he could think of to deal with the fiend, Smythe kept silent.

"I saw it," he said, desperately trying to think of a way to help Niamh out without compromising the Party. "I saw that thing... it's with a group of Trainers, isn't it? Heading north to Striaton."

Niamh's eyes widened. This was an unexpected windfall of information.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. They were at Harmonia's speech the other day; I was there on Party business, and got bitten by the damn bird."

Niamh nodded.

"Trainers... They'll take the Trail rather than the roads. I guess I could try and head them off in Striaton; I could get there before them." She looked up at Smythe as if just realising he was there. "Sorry. Got distracted." She waved a hand. "Doesn't matter. I'll find them easily enough. Thanks for the information, though."

"It's nothing," said Smythe, pleased to have been helpful. "You'd do the same for me, I know."

Niamh smiled.

"What is it that you're doing, anyway? I can see that that 'quiet job' you have with the Green Party obviously isn't as quiet as you'd like."

Smythe sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"It isn't," he said. "It was when I started – I thought maybe I'd finally managed to leave all those misunderstandings, those hurried escapes, the lies – all of that behind me. But Harmonia found out, assumed I was a master criminal, and sent me on a quest." He paused, calculating how much he could say without calling down Teiresias' wrath on his head. "I'm tracking some thieves who stole something of value from the Party," he said at length. "There's an eldritch abomination mixed up in this, too. Christ," he said, voice suddenly passionate, "I wish I'd never left Mossdeep..."

---

"Whoa."
It was Halley who'd gasped, but thankfully Fennel didn't seem to notice – she probably thought it was Bianca or me, and who could blame her? We certainly had reason to gasp: The room bulged out in a great swelling oval, the walls that looked square from outside round in here; I could even see the window with the red curtains that I'd seen from the street, and I knew that this room was completely, totally impossible...

"Dream logic," said Fennel proudly. "This was my first successful experiment. Using the powder from dried Musharna chemicals and a few little scientific tricks, I partially actualised my dream of a better laboratory." She waved a hand at the space before us. "The room works in the way only dreams can work: bigger on the inside than the outside."

I was still staring. There was nothing too special in there – more machines, computers, a bed connected to a web of electrodes – but still, it was so wrong, so different to the reality I knew that I couldn't tear my eyes away.

"How... If you can do this," I asked, "how come you're still here? How come you're not rich and famous already?"

Fennel shifted uncomfortably.

"Well... there's the thing," she admitted. "You don't need all this machinery to bend space like this. You can manipulate reality by blending certain Pokémon moves – Trick Room, Magic Room, Wonder Room – which, when combined, can do any of a great number of things to space as we know it." She sighed. "This research isn't fundable. It doesn't prove anything – doesn't prove I can use Musharna chemicals to turn dreams into real, solid things. Of course, there's a chance I might not be able to do that – the chemicals might have more to do with the Dream World, or maybe something else entirely that I haven't thought of and which could also give these results – but I've built prototypes of the machines that can do it. If I got some more Musharna chemicals, I could conduct the first experiments to find out if I can do it. And then, with a little more funding, I could probably build machines to bring dreams to life, or even record and share dreams between people without the need for Psychic-type Pokémon." She spread her arms. "All it takes is the chemical dust, and money."

"Speaking of which," came an unfamiliar voice, "we've just got a £750,000 grant."

I thought Fennel might explode. She spun around to face the speaker so fast her long black hair swatted me in the face, and cried out:

"What?"

The speaker – a younger, less cigarette-haggard version of Fennel, who appeared to have come from somewhere in the dream-space – held out a letter.

"From Mr. Harmonia of the Green Party," she said, voice hollow with amazement. "He thought our work was very interesting."

A chill ran through me, and my eyes involuntarily slipped over to Bianca's. I could tell she was every bit as shocked as I was.

Harmonia.

Could it be a coincidence? The political party that was pursuing us wanted to fund Fennel's extraordinary research... I couldn't see a connection, but then, there was still a lot I didn't understand. I remembered I'd forgotten to take the opportunity earlier to research the Green party and Teiresias, and resolved to do it as soon as I could. We couldn't run away forever, I was sure of that; sooner or later, we had to stand and fight, and while I knew I was capable of it – Regenschein's was an eminently suitable training ground for battle – I had to know my enemy better if I wanted to win. Teiresias was a foe I couldn't beat just by hitting with a metal pipe – and while Harmonia probably was, I needed to know whether he really was at the top of this conspiracy before I went around beating him up.

"This is— give me that!" Fennel snatched the letter from her colleague and read it voraciously, devouring it with her eyes at a speed that would have done credit to Cordelia (who read with the speed of lightning and the implacable inertia of a runaway freight train). It wasn't even a minute later that she lowered it. "Incredible," she said, voice trembling. "Incredible..." Abruptly, she swept her assistant into a bone-crushing hug. "Ammie! This is it! With this, we can finish – can prove it – can – can—"

"OK, calm down Regan," said the assistant – Ammie? – disentangling herself with some difficulty and leading Fennel over to a chair. "Sit down for a minute." She flashed a shy smile at us, and with a start I realised she couldn't be more than a year older than I was – if she was older at all. "Sorry," she said. "We kind of didn't expect this to happen. Like... ever, really." She left Fennel breathing into a paper bag and came back over to us. "I'm Amanita," she said. "Regan's sister. I help with her research."

Bianca cocked her head on one side.

"You're... pretty young," she pointed out uncertainly. "Are you a genius or something?"

Amanita took the question better than I expected.

"Depends," she replied with a shrug. "According to Terman's definition, yes – I have an IQ of 146, based on the Stanford-Binet test, which places me within the top 0.5% of the Unovan population. However, if you use Hollingworth's definition, which requires an IQ of 180, then no, I'm not a genius. Other than that, 'genius' is a pretty vague label, with many different philosophical definitions, and I'm not sure it can ever be applied to someone other than retrospectively."

"That's enough of a 'yes' for me," said Bianca frankly, which made Amanita smile.

"Anyway," she said, "you two are here about the Dream Mist, right?"

"Dream Mist?" I asked. "Is that the Musharna chemical stuff?"

"Yep," she said brightly. "If you could get some from the Munna or Musharna that live in the Dreamyard, that'd be great. It's all we want you to do."

"I thought maybe my Munna could help?" asked Bianca, pointing it out.

Amanita shook her head.

"Sorry, no. The Mist only desiccates in the Dreamyard; your Munna will stop any wild Munna or Musharna attacking you for invading their territory, but unless it's in the Dreamyard, its chemical sprays dissipate in the air. The psychic fields kind of bake it, in a weird sort of way."

"Cark," squawked Candy, looking at me. I knew what she wanted and shook my head.

"Not baking cakes or biscuits," I told her. "Baking mist."

Candy tried to make sense of that, failed, and decided to go to sleep before her brain melted. Amanita watched with interest.

"Hey, is that an Archen?"

I bit off a curse.

"Yes, she is," I sighed. "Just... don't ask. Please."

"All right," said Amanita, "but it is pretty weird for something so dead to be riding around on someone's shoulder. People will ask questions. Just so you know."

"Yeah, I got that much," I said sourly. "Everyone seems to realise."

"Right," interrupted Fennel, who had glided back over to us without me noticing. "Munna and Musharna are less active in the dark, so you'll probably want to head over to the Dreamyard pretty soon, to get there around dusk. Hopefully, that'll be before the Purrloin and the wildcats wake up – they hunt at night, you see. You want to avoid dealing with them."

"Dealing with them?" Bianca asked. "They usually run away, don't they?"

Fennel hesitated.

"There aren't very many of them, you understand," she said. "Really, there aren't. They die pretty soon after they enter the factory – no food, you see—"

"What are you hinting at?" I asked, unease mounting in my stomach.

"Well... the Purrloin and the wildcats in the Dreamyard..." Fennel looked helplessly at Amanita, who shrugged; Fennel was on her own here, she seemed to say. "They're... they're kind of mutant."

---

There were no houses for a mile around the Sytec plant; it was a long walk from the nearest bus stop. As the city retreated from the scar of the disaster, nature had marched forwards again, trees and grass springing up around the shell of the factory and swallowing it up as if it had never been. Once, long ago, the whole of Unova had been a colossal forest. Long after civilisation collapsed, I thought with a shiver, it would be one again; the trees would stalk in, one by silent one, and devour the cities in a low rustle of leaves and roots.

"Are you feeling OK?" Bianca asked me. There was a strange edge to her voice.

"Uh... yeah," I replied. "Just had a weird thought." I stared at the forest, pressing up against the edge of the suburbs as if it was waiting for us to look away before striking. "It feels weird, even here."

Bianca nodded.

"Yeah."

"I'm impressed," said Halley. "Out of the five of us, you two are the least sensitive, and you managed to feel it even from here. That's pretty good going, guys."

I would've tried to think of some kind of scathing reply, but I didn't think I could come up with one right now. I felt... weird.

"Should we put on the helmets?" I asked.

"Fennel said not til we get there," Bianca replied. "I don't think they'll do anything except look stupid if we put them on before."

I sighed.

"All right," I said, resigned, and stepped cautiously off the road and into the forest.

There were signs along the way – not many, but enough that we didn't lose the trail. They said things like 'Sytec factory ½ mile', 'Sytec factory this way', and, more ominously, 'Turn back – Danger of death'.

"They sure know how to cheer a girl up, don't they?" remarked Halley, when we stumbled across the last one. "It's actually almost funny, if you think about it. To escape Teiresias, we need to flee to one of the few places in Unova that's probably more dangerous than wherever Teiresias is."

"That's not funny," I told her.

"I know. I'm trying to lighten the mood."

"It's not working," Bianca said.

"I know. But at least I'm f*cking trying."

No one answered her. We walked on in silence after that.

It didn't take long. A tall chain-link fence, topped with rusting razor wire and collapsing in as many places as it still stood; warning signs in red and yellow and bold black drooped as if dying from the steel and partially obscured the crumbling network of concrete buildings beyond. Trees punctuated the asphalt of the car park beyond, punching through tarmac as if it were nothing. I saw creepers and bushes, flowers and brambles, much less dense than outside the fence but still present, and definitely in the process of taking over.

And rising above them all, just visible through the crushing vegetation – the spire, the lonely tower that was the root of all the trouble.

Sytec's last project.

The towering, broken mind-flayer.
 

Adin Terim

Absolutely Insane
64
Posts
11
Years
  • Seen Jul 17, 2021
So will reality implode or something if Jared or Lauren comes in contact with the mist, assuming that they are living each others not(?) dream?
 
Last edited:

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
Chapter Ten: Felidae

1983. The year Sytec went bankrupt.

The year the nightmares came.

Speculative weapons research was big business in the years of the Cold War, and Unovan labour at the time came cheap; glutinous chemical artillery, egg-bullets that hatched into flesh-eating larvae, arachnid mind control – the aims of the companies that opened factories in the country were as varied and bizarre as the abstruse machinery they imported.

Sytec was in the psychic missile business.

The idea was simple enough. Plenty of technology was available to track and destroy a conventional missile before it hit its target – but the only way to detect a psychic blast at long range was to ask a Kadabra if there was a disturbance in the hive mind, and the chances of the Kadabra choosing to cooperate were so slim as to be virtually nonexistent. The technology to guard against such a blast simply didn't yet exist.

It seemed a prime research opportunity, and Sytec was not willing to let the competition get there ahead of it. The company rushed an experiment into new and devastating forms of psychic 'mind-flaying' into production, eager to secure lucrative US contracts.

Unfortunately, 'devastating', 'experiment' and 'rush' are three words that should never be found in the same sentence.

No one could reasonably claim that they hadn't seen the disaster coming, but they did so anyway; the government didn't buy it, and Sytec was forced to dissolve and sell its assets to repay Unova for the horrors it had unleashed.

Now, thirty years later, the wounds had faded but the scar was still there, a ragged concrete nightmare embedded in Unova's verdant flank. The Dreamyard.

The home of the Musharna, and the monsters.

---

"I think it's time to put the gimp masks on."

"They're not gimp masks, Halley, they're psy radiation helmets."

"Jared, you can argue with me or you can put your gimp mask on. It's your choice."

I glowered and got them out of the bag. I hated to admit it, but Halley had a point. They did look unnervingly like—

Stop thinking about it, Jared.

Formed of soft black neoprene with dark-tinted bands of reinforced glass across the eyes and at apparently random points on the cranium, they were capable of soaking up 98% of any psychic fields we might encounter, Fennel had assured us. I'd asked about the remaining 2%, and she told me that if we came across any of that we'd be dead anyway, so it wouldn't matter.

This, and the matter of the mutant cats, was weighing fairly heavily on my mind as I fastened the helmet with the zip at the back.

"Definitely a gi—"

"Shut the f*ck up, Halley," I snapped, voice faintly muffled. The world was slightly grey through the glass, but I could see surprisingly well.

"I'm just saying," she said. "They're tight, black, cover the whole head..." She shrugged – a manoeuvre that looked very peculiar indeed when executed by a cat. "What is it that Zed says in Pulp Fiction? 'Bring out the—'"

"Halley, you do know that you've got to wear one too, right?" asked Bianca.

"Yeah, but mocking myself is no fun," sighed Halley. "Self-deprecation is so not my style."

"If you don't shut up," I told her, "I won't put your mask on you and you'll turn into a mutant monster like the other wildcats that come here."

Halley clamped her jaws shut, and I smiled a secret victorious smile.

Her mask had caused Fennel some difficulty. She'd suggested we leave her outside, and we'd had to explain that due to very important but unmentionable reasons she had to come with us. Apparently that sort of cloak-and-dagger business wasn't that uncommon in the scientific world, and with the aid of a pair of scissors she'd sliced up one of her other helmets to create a makeshift one for Halley.

"Doesn't matter," she said when I asked if that was all right. "I just got £750,000. I could cut up hundreds of these and still be in the black."

At the thought of her new funding, her hands started shaking and she almost chopped her thumb off, and Amanita took over so she could breathe into the paper bag again. Twelve badly-punched holes and one makeshift lace later, she'd made a makeshift cat-sized helmet. Evidently she was as practically gifted as she was smart.

Now, I knelt down and laced the helmet onto Halley's head. It fitted as well as could be expected of something made in fifteen minutes, and by that I mean it didn't, but it would have to do; I didn't know if the tightness was important for keeping out the psychic radiation, but I guessed we'd find out once we got into the factory: if Halley keeled over or mutated, the helmet was obviously too loose.

Candy's head, of course, was nowhere near round enough to accommodate the curved glass panels of even a modified helmet, and she'd have quickly chewed her way out of it anyway – so Bianca had given me a Poké Ball, and reluctantly I'd enclosed her in it, where no radiation could get to her.

I was surprised at how strongly I was opposed to the idea of 'capturing' Candy; she was my pet, not my slave, and she belonged on my shoulder, not in stasis in some fist-sized metal prison. I could see the advantages of the Poké Ball – she'd be much easier to hide when I needed to hide her, for instance – but still, I promised myself I wouldn't leave her in there any more than I had to.

Munny, naturally, had no such problems: in fact, when Bianca had released it, it started bouncing with excitement when it saw the wreck of the Sytec plant. While the rest of us shivered at the sight of it, the Munna displayed every sign of actually wanting to live there.

"Ick," said Halley with distaste once I'd finished with her helmet. "This thing is horrible. I didn't realise how much I valued the sensory input from my whiskers til you squished them like this. And my ears are all squashed," she added petulantly.

"Tough," I replied, straightening up. "You can't get it off without me, anyway."

"Bastard opposable thumbs—!"

"Come on, guys, stop arguing," pleaded Bianca. "Can we go now?"

As one, Halley and I looked through the fence at the Sytec plant – at the crumbling concrete, the twisted vegetation, and the awful shadow of the mind-flayer hanging over everything – and blanched.

"OK," I said hesitantly. "Let's – let's go."

None of us moved.

"You first," said Bianca. "You're the fighter."

"You're the Trainer."

We paused.

"Go together?" she suggested tentatively.

"All right," I agreed, and simultaneously we stepped over a section of collapsed fence, and into the heart of the Unovan Chernobyl.

---

Beyond the fence were the remnants of the car park, its surface rucked and twisted by invading roots; the asphalt had held back all but the strongest of the plants, and it was much less dense than in the surrounding forest. It might even have made a pleasant walk, if not for the vague sense of mental discomfort that I felt, even through the helmet. The roving psychic fields were evidently out in force.

"Munny," said Bianca, "can you sense any other Munna or Musharna around?"

It seemed to have some difficulty with this question, which surprised me; from everything Fennel had said, I'd almost assumed Munna were as intelligent as I was. In actual fact, as I later found out, they were closer to monkeys in terms of intellect, and had difficulty with spoken language owing to their poor hearing (a result of over-reliance on their psychic senses). Wikipedia is a fantastic thing.

"Anything else like you?" she asked, rephrasing it to see if it made any more sense. Munny seemed to get the idea now, and drifted off towards the large square building ahead of us.

"We're going to the Musharna to find where the dust is, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," replied Bianca. "I don't know... Do you have any other ideas?"

I shook my head.

"No, sounds good."

"How utterly banal," said Halley acidly, but no one acknowledged her.

We followed Munny through the sparse woods and through a doorway that lacked a door; beyond was a vast, shadowy space that bore signs of the walls that had once divided into rooms and corridors in the lines of crumbling rubble on the floor. Shafts of light streamed from holes in the walls and roof, but made no real impact on the gloom and were swiftly swallowed up amid the tangles of brambles and creepers that grew towards them hungrily.

All in all, it was pretty damn ominous, and that was before the monsters lunged out of the shadows.

They came at us in a pair: twisted things that could have started life as either Purrloin or wildcats but which were now unrecognisable, eyes shrivelled, legs stretched, backs distorted with soft fleshy jags of meat—

I kicked one in the face reflexively, and it backed away, letting loose an baleful shriek; Munny dived towards the other, blue waves streaming from its forehead, but the cat-thing was unaffected, rearing up and swatting the Munna out of the air with one distended paw. Munny hit the ground, bounced and swung away dizzily, whirling on its axis like a top.

The first monster rejoined the second and both jumped at me at once; the world tipped crazily around me and my head hit the concrete floor with a sharp crack of pain. Almost automatically, I rolled onto my side, trying to dislodge them, but their claws were long and sinuous, and wound through my shirt like corkscrews as they fought to get their jaws to my throat—

A gout of fire shot past my ear and set one cat-thing's fur ablaze; it let go of me with a shriek, slashing the other's leg in its haste to escape, and shot off towards the shadows in a trail of sparks. I seized the opportunity and grabbed two of the beast's three ears, pulling its head back and slamming it into the floor.

It let go of me then, and I scrambled to my feet, looking around frantically for something to hit it with; by the time I'd found a rock, it was up too, and had shot between my legs in search of some other target. I turned, saw Smoky spouting cinders from his nostrils, and almost relaxed; he was about to nail the monster with another blast of fire, I could see.

His nose flexed and flames spewed forth – but suddenly the beast's grotesque outlines blurred, and somehow it swept around and behind him in a dark flicker of light before sinking its claws deep into his back.

Smoky squealed in agony and bucked hard; Bianca cried out; Munny heard her distress and started emitting bluish waves that distorted the air like heat haze; I hurled my rock and missed, narrowly missing Bianca—

—and something knocked the monster off its feet with a bang.

It flew off Smoky's back, rolled over on the ground and tried to crawl away, one of its legs apparently no longer working; there was another report, and it lay still with a despairing gurgle.

A sudden calm seemed to fall over the old building then. Smoky's screams died down to a whimper, and then ceased as Bianca recalled him with trembling fingers; the only sound that was left was that of footsteps – two pairs – coming towards us from across the room.

"Are you two OK?" I heard someone shouting. "Hey, you! You OK?"

I looked up from where Smoky had been to Bianca. I couldn't see her face, but she was gripping Smoky's ball so hard her knuckles almost glowed white in the dark. Uncertain of what to do, I patted her arm tentatively, and was surprised (and slightly alarmed) when she pressed her head against my shoulder.

"I changed my mind," she said, voice shaking. "Let's go. I don't like it here—"

"I said, are you two OK?"

I looked up, saw the two people approaching us and nodded.

"Yeah, I think so."

They both wore dark clothes – I thought maybe they were suits, but I couldn't be sure in the gloom, and suits would be ridiculously inappropriate for this place anyway – and had psy rad helmets of their own on; they also carried what looked alarmingly like handguns – alarming since possession of a gun was entirely illegal in Unova with the exception of police officers, soldiers and druids. I couldn't exactly say I wasn't grateful for them right now, though, given that they'd just saved us.

"Good," said the one on the left – a man by his voice. "Those things are lethal... we ran into five on the way here. Every one different but just as f*cked-up."

"What are you doing here, anyway?" asked the other, a woman. "'Sraven, are you Training? This place is too dangerous for that, you know—"

"We were looking for Musharna dust," I told them. "But I think..." I looked at Bianca. "I think we might leave now," I said quietly.

"Good idea," said the woman. They were now close enough for me to see that yes, they were wearing suits – which had clearly suffered during their trip through the Sytec plant. "You were following Fennel's advert?"

"Yeah."

"So're we," the man said. "F*ck me if we can find a single Musharna nest, though."

"I see," I said slowly. These two seemed infinitely better-qualified to search this place than we did – for a start, they had guns, and I wasn't sure how much use Bianca would be now either, after the shock she'd had. "I guess we'll leave you two to it, then."

Abruptly, Bianca peeled herself away from me.

"No, we'll come too," she said, voice surprisingly strong. "I said I'd do this and I will."

I looked at her in astonishment.

Guess she was just startled, then, I thought. Well, she is a Trainer, after all... I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised.

"Hey, look," said the man, "this is serious business, and we don't have the time or ammunition to worry about looking after two kids—"

"We've got Pokémon," Bianca said. "One of which is a Munna." She indicated Munny, now recovered and in a more or less stable hover. "Munny can sense the Musharna and other Munna. It'll lead us right to them."

The woman glanced at the man.

"What do you say, Steve?" she asked. "I mean, we've been poking around this dump for two hours now – and I really don't want to be here when night falls and the rest of the monsters come out."

Steve stroked his neoprene-coated chin.

"All right, fine," he said reluctantly. "You can come with us. Just don't get in our way, all right?"

"Fair enough," I replied. "Deal."

"Enough talking," said the woman. "Get that Munna moving. We don't have all day."

"Actually, Donna, that's all we do have," pointed out Steve. Perhaps he thought he was being witty, but no one laughed.

We followed Munny through the eternal twilight of the ruin, keeping silent and watching out for any sign of attacking Purrloin or wildcats. Perhaps the fire and gunshots had driven them away for now, but I didn't expect it would last long; if Donna and Steve had been attacked multiple times already, I guessed the monsters didn't learn from the fate of their fellows.

Halley followed at a short distance, slinking along behind us and keeping to the shadows; I couldn't ask her why, but I supposed she thought Donna or Steve might shoot her if they saw her.

Munny wound its way slowly across the room, occasionally pausing to check whatever internal force was guiding it, and headed hesitantly for a small aperture in one wall that led into what looked like an unending void of darkness.

"Through here?" asked Bianca, pointing.

Munny bobbed as though nodding.

"We can't fit through that," she told it. "Is there another way?"

"Don't need it," said Steve. "Stand aside."

She did, with some trepidation, and Steve tossed a Poké Ball through the gap. A flash of light illuminated part of a corridor beyond for a brief second, and then the darkness descended once more, leaving a bright after-image dancing on my eyes.

"Take down the wall," he instructed, and took a few hurried steps back. Bianca and I copied him, and a moment later the little gap expanded into a very large gap by the simple means of exploding.

In the distance, something roared in response.

We froze for a moment – that something had sounded big – but nothing happened; Steve recalled his Pokémon, whatever it had been, and we hurried through the gap, eager to get away from whatever had heard the blast.

"Where the f*ck is this?" wondered Steve, as we made our way down a pitch-black corridor.

"If that last building was the main office, this is probably an access passage to the assembly line," replied Donna. Evidently they'd bothered to check a map or two before coming – further evidence of how abominably badly-prepared we'd been. "Where they put together the components for the mind-flayer. The psychic fields will be strongest there; it figures that that's where the Musharna will be." She paused. "We can't stay there long, though. The radiation will eat through the helmets in about thirty minutes."

"I don't plan on being there any longer than it takes to fill those damn vials with dust," replied Steve. (I found myself wondering what we'd been planning to put the dust in. Damn. We really hadn't thought this through, had we?) "We'll get in there, get the dust, and get out."

"All right, all right," said Donna. "I'm just saying."

We continued onwards through the dark – no longer as total as it had first seemed; there was just enough sunlight filtering down the passage that we could see our way – and, a few minutes later, came to a doorway leading into a small room full of shrivelled, dry things that crunched unpleasantly underfoot and which I really didn't want to think about.

"The cats have been trying hard to get in here, haven't they?" observed Steve mildly. "Something's stopped 'em pretty f*cking conclusively, though."

I swallowed, and Bianca's fingers suddenly dug into my arm like the teeth of a man-trap.

"It's the Musharna," replied Donna, poking a mummified monstrosity with her gun. "This close to the source, they're a bit tougher than usual. Doesn't matter if you're Dark-type or not, they'll tear your mind out and leave you for the psy fields to desiccate."

Bianca's grip tightened – something that I thought would have pushed her finger bones beyond the limits of their tensile strength. I winced and patted her hand.

"Bianca? That... really hurts."

"Sorry," she whispered, but didn't let go. I sighed, and tried to ignore the pain.

Donna and Steve straightened up and looked towards the door.

"I guess that's it, then," said Steve unenthusiastically. "The factory floor."

"Yes." Donna turned to Bianca. "You've got the Munna, you go through first. They won't attack you, and hopefully not us either."

Bianca was silent for a moment, then half a minute, and I could tell she was wavering, about to say she couldn't do it—

"OK," she said eventually, voice surprisingly steely. "Let's go."

She took a deep breath, and pushed open the door to the factory floor.

"Woden hang 'em," I breathed, staring up and out at the vast space beyond. "It's huge."

The factory level stretched away for the length of a football pitch, the other end shrouded in darkness; the concrete walls soared upwards to an invisible ceiling, apparently interminable pipes running up their colossal flanks. Giant girders crisscrossed the shadowy heights, disappearing and reappearing in the gloom as if playing with each other.

Half-constructed pylons lay toppled amid pyramids of barrels; tools lay abandoned on benches and huge wheels reclined on beds of cracked stone where they had fallen from the conveyor belts that hung in tatters everywhere you looked, like grimy industrial tinsel. Once, catwalks had serviced the uppermost belts; now only a few remained, the rest hanging at drunken angles from snapped moorings or lying like fallen trees on the floor.

Then there were the Musharna.

They hung in the air like pink clouds, drifting slowly from pylon to barrel to catwalk in an aimless sort of way; rolls of fat drooped from their bellies, and I realised that most of them were hugely overweight – the psychic-radiation-rich atmosphere there must have been a continual feast for them. One suckled three tiny Munna, pouring bluish waves from its flank into their staring eyes; other Munna darted around in the air, livelier than their bloated elders, chasing each other and playing amid the wreckage.

I stared, spellbound, until I heard crackling and realised with horror that the helmet was beginning to dissolve, the surface coming apart like smouldering paper.

"Let me revise my estimate," said Donna quietly. "We've got ten minutes in here before the helmets burn out – five if we want to have enough protection left to make it back to the fence."

"Let's move," said Steve decisively, pulling the vials from his pockets and handing them out. "Start scooping, kids."

I looked down, and realised for the first time that part of the darkness in the room was due to the thick layer of dark purple dust that lay over everything; experimentally, I scooped a handful into the vial and watched as gravity effortlessly erased the gap I'd made. The stuff was deep; it would have taken years to harvest it all, even if the Musharna had stopped making more.

At the thought of the Musharna, I looked up at them, just to make sure they weren't looking aggressive; they seemed almost oblivious to our presence, carrying on with their sluggish, incurious lives. The only clue they were alive at all was the spicy flavour of the air, testament to their chemical language. I wondered if they would have been so placid without Munny here. Given the carpet of corpses next door, I thought probably not.

Munny itself had drifted a little way from us, twirling with two of its wild brethren in what looked like a game of tag; I hoped it wasn't having too much fun – we didn't want it staying here.

"Forty-five seconds," said Donna urgently. "Time to go. Now."

Bianca and I handed our vials to Steve, and that should have been the end of it. The danger was over; we should have walked out and gone back to Fennel's lab.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out like that.

You see, in the dark, Steve trod on Halley's tail, and Halley swore at the top of her lungs – and Donna noticed, and uttered four very ominous words:

"It's her! It's Halley!"

"Oh, sh*t," I breathed. "You're Green Party."

---

My first instinct was to whack one of them over the head, but they had guns, and that changed things; uttering a brief prayer to Córmi for our continued existence, I snatched up Halley with one hand and Bianca's wrist with the other and ran for it.

"Sh*t, that must be Black!" I heard Steve cry out, slow on the uptake, and then a moment later, as we burst into the corridor, I heard their footsteps crunching on the dead things behind us.

"What the hell?" yelled Bianca helplessly. "Why would they— the funding!"

I saw it now as well: the suits, the guns, the fact that they just happened to be here the same day that Harmonia sent the grant to Fennel's lab... The clues had all been there, if only I'd been smart enough to spot them—

"F*ck," I growled to myself. "I'm such an idiot!"

"You can say that again," said Halley. "Also: wheeeeee! Despite the goons with guns, being carried along this fast is actually pretty fun."

"Shut up," I snapped, and for once she actually did.

I could see the main building ahead of us now, the aperture in the ruined wall looming grey against the black – but there were footsteps close behind us, and Steve was shouting:

"Stop running! You'll make it worse for yourself – if you stop, we won't have to shoot!"

"Frige save us," cried Bianca. "Munny! Do something!"

All at once I became aware of the pink ball zooming along beside us; it wheeled around abruptly and blasted a rippling circle of blue light in the direction of our pursuers. The lack of screams seemed a decent indicator of its ineffectiveness, and I remembered too late the damn helmets—

"The helmets would have to be more badly damaged than this for that to get through them," Donna called disdainfully. "Give up. There's nothing you can— 'sraven!"

I heard a blood-chilling yowl from behind us and a flurry of gunshots, deafening in the narrow space; it seemed one of the cats had inadvertently bought us some time, and a moment later we were bursting out into the shell of the first building and sprinting across to the exit—

Suddenly, there was a huge flash of light, and a terrible hulking something materialised in the doorway.

It looked like it had been hewn from stone by the most ham-fisted sculptor imaginable; its body bulged out in crazed lumps between deep cracks and rifts in its skin, and its lopsided eyes squinted balefully out from under a brow broad enough to be used as an anvil. Squat and solid, it might have been a malformed, hairless chimpanzee – but I knew better. I'd seen one before, on TV; there, it had been tamer, dressed in a martial artist's outfit, but it had the same indolent savagery in its eyes, the same knuckle-dragging gait.

It was a Throh, and as we stopped dead in our tracks I suddenly realised exactly how it was that Steve had broken the wall down so easily.

"Nice to see you have some sense," said Steve from behind us, drawing closer. I didn't turn around and look; I didn't dare to take my eyes off the Throh. "Rush at him and you'd all be dead right now."

"You can't keep him out long," Bianca said. "The psychic fields..."

"He'll be fine for long enough to bring you two under control," Donna replied. "Now, you two – or three, I guess – come over here. We'll take you back to Castelia, Harmonia will do whatever it is he needs you for, your memories will be wiped, and all this will be over. Nice and easy."

So it did go all the way up to Harmonia, then, I thought. But why? What was he after? I pushed the thought away and tried to concentrate on finding a way out of the situation, which seemed to be getting worse by the second.

"I don't think so," I said, working up the courage to look away from the Throh and face the two Party members. "We're not going anywhere."

"You have two guns and a Throh pointed at you," observed Donna. "What more persuasion do you actually need? 'Sraven, are you really that stupid?"

"You won't shoot us if you need us—"

"Technically, we only want you and Halley," she said. "We could shoot her" – she indicated Bianca – "and leave her to be eaten by the cats. No one would question it."

"Nice ploy," said Steve admiringly.

"Thank you. I thought of it while we were running."

I looked at Bianca.

"Any ideas?"

She shook her head silently.

I looked back at Donna and Steve, who were still watching us expectantly. Behind me, I heard the Throth cough, an explosive rattle like a backfiring car, and punch the wall out of boredom. From the sound of it, that brought down rather more masonry than I was entirely comfortable with.

"Halley?" I asked desperately. "Ideas?"

"Please hurry up with this little charade," called Steve. "My Throh is losing IQ points by the second, and he didn't have many to start with."

"Yeah, just the one," said Halley. "Munny! Zap the Throh!"

Everyone looked up abruptly: we'd completely forgotten the little Munna, still floating loyally above Bianca's head – and now, as the light began to bend and flex around it, I felt myself begin to smile. I wasn't a Trainer, but even I knew what happened when Psychic moves hit a Fighting-type.

"No—!" cried Steve, but it was too late: the air rippled and distorted in a shimmering wave, the latent psychic radiation in the air feeding the Psywave and magnifying it once, twice, fifty times, a maelstrom of energy funnelling directly into the Throh—

—which promptly lobbed a brick at Munny.

If there's one thing a Throh can do, it's throw: the brick flew straight and true, and smashed Munny out of the air with the sound of cracking bone. It hit the ground, painted eyes closed, and did not move.

At the same time, the Psywave reached the Throh, and twin fountains of grey fluid spouted from its ears as its tiny brain was shaken from its moorings; a moment later, it keeled over as if poleaxed.

"Munny!" screamed Bianca, running to her Pokémon's side. "Munny, Munny—!"

"Sh*t," muttered Halley. "That definitely didn't go as planned."

"Any more bright ideas?" asked Donna, ignoring Bianca and walking over to Halley and me. "You want to get anyone else killed today?"

I felt my nails digging into my palms, and realised my fists were clenched so tightly they were almost drawing blood. Those damn guns, I thought bitterly. Take them away and I could do this, I knew I could...

"Come on, then," said Steve, stepping forwards to join Donna. "It's over. You lost. Give me—"

A long, bass note like the song of a church organ resounded through the room.

We all froze.

"What was that?" asked Donna cautiously.

"I don't," began Steve, but he never finished – for then he saw the things gathering in the corners of the room, and his voice died in his throat.

I never saw them clearly, and it's probably a blessing that I did. But I could catch glimpses as they passed: of transparent limbs and bulging eyes, of jagged prongs and ragged fins, claws and twisted toes and the horrid wet slap of webbed feet on stone—

—and the terrible, awful knowledge, creeping over me like cold water seeping through fabric, that all of these things, these eldritch abominations whose horrendous shapes I could only catch the merest glimpse of – that all these things had once been human...

It didn't take long. The things swarmed in close, and Donna and Steve broke and fled, their eyes rolling with fright, and a horde of half-seen terrors close at their heels—

Then the bass note rang out again, and all was calm.

I blinked and looked around. No Donna. No Steve. No Throh. Just Bianca and Munny, Halley and myself, all alone here.

No, wait. Not alone.

From the corridor came the Musharna, one by one, filing out and into the huge space like some curious ceremonial guard. They swept forwards to Bianca, nudging her gently away from Munny and moving down towards the little Pokémon, uttering strange spiced sighs that were all I could perceive of their psychochemical language.

All at once, I understood. They'd sensed Munny was in trouble – in their eyes, one of their own, a baby. And they had come to defend it.

"They made dreams real," I said softly. "They made their nightmares into reality."

"Childhood nightmares," corrected Halley. "The fear of the monster under the bed and in the wardrobe. The fear of what the dark might conceal. The strongest fears we have." She shifted and slithered out of my arms, still staring at the Musharna. "Munny screamed very loudly, and they heard."

"I didn't hear anything—"

"Because of the psy rad helmet," she said, stalking over to where the Musharna were gathered around Bianca and Munny. "But they heard, and they reacted as you would if you heard a toddler having his fingernails pulled out."

I winced.

"Thanks for that image."

"My pleasure."

The air was so thick with chemicals now that I could almost see them, a kind of heat haze centred on Munny.

"Painkillers," Halley said to Bianca, sitting down by her side. "They think it'll die, so they're numbing the pain for it."

Bianca looked at her sharply.

"Munny's alive?"

"Of course," said Halley, tasting the air with her tongue and grimacing. "It's pretty much one big skull. It'll take more than a brick to break through that. Bring it along to the Pokémon Centre and it'll be— what the f*ck are you doing?"

Bianca had swept her up into a crushing hug, and I had to smile at Halley's wild and ineffectual attempts to get free; she'd gone, as only cats can, from elegant and collected to ridiculous and pathetic in less than a second.

"Oh, thank you thank you—"

"Thank the f*cking Musharna, not me!" yowled Halley. "And put me down while you're at it!"

Bianca dropped her, and was on the verge of hugging the nearest Musharna when she realised that its fur was crawling with centimetre-long ticks; shuddering, she settled instead for thanking them as loudly as she could.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" she cried. "Thank you so much!"

One Musharna blew a large bubble of spit, which she seemed to interpret as understanding, and Bianca nodded happily.

"I don't want to interrupt," I called, "but we should really be getting the hell out of this place. Like, now." I pointed to my helmet. "These things are falling apart," I said. "I can see your hair through the back of yours.

"Oh!" Bianca got to her feet hurriedly and fumbled for Munny's ball. "Yeah, of course." She recalled Munny and the Musharna stared at the spot where it had been in stunned silence; then they turned to look at her, blew out a few clouds of scented gas, and began to make their slow way back to the factory floor. "Thanks again!" she called out after them, and was answered by a strong smell of cinnamon.

She turned, and actually skipped over to join me in her joy.

"Christ," murmured Halley. "Skipping? The girl's mad."

"OK," said Bianca. "Let's go."

"About bloody time," I muttered under my breath. Then, aloud: "Come on, then. Time to move."

So saying, we took our leave of the Sytec plant, relieved, exhausted and not a little disturbed.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
Chapter Eleven: Warp and Weft

Tock.

---

"Today."

Teiresias' voice broke the silence like sand pouring into forgotten tombs, and Smythe shivered. Did it really have to do that every single time it spoke?

"What – they're going?"

"Yes."

Teiresias flowed down from the table to the floor as if its essence wasn't entombed in flesh; since the damage its physical form had sustained in the forest, it moved less like a living Purrloin and more like the fluid spirit that composed its true shape. It was not a change Smythe welcomed. In fact, he hated it; it was creepy and wrong and altogether disturbing.

Shortly after parting ways with Niamh in Accumula – a goodbye that neither had wanted to say, but which was unavoidable for as long as Teiresias lingered with him – Smythe had made his way north to Accumula by taxi, incurring considerable expense but ensuring he stood zero chance of meeting Niamh again on a train or in the vicinity of any train stations. He had set up camp in a hotel here, and had hardly dared leave for fear of running into Niamh and having to explain why he was here; for its part, Teiresias had only returned early this morning, when he'd awoken to the unsettling sight of it sitting on the table in a purple-black haze of smoke. He hadn't quite had the courage to ask what it was doing, and in fact it had said nothing at all until that moment.

"Last night they divided," Teiresias went on. "White and Halley went somewhere I could not see, but they have returned. Today, they will divide again."

Smythe didn't question how it knew this. He just nodded.

"White and Halley will be alone," it said. "However..." It bared its teeth, a curiously feline action, and Smythe wondered if perhaps its last few bodies had left more of an impression on it than he had thought. "They will be somewhere I cannot follow," it said at last. "Somewhere I cannot even go near for fear of detection."

Fear?
What the hell was this? Smythe stared. How could there be anything in the world that Teiresias feared? And, if there was such a thing, what manner of terrifying entity could it be?

"You will have to catch them yourself," Teiresias told him. "For my part, I shall snare one of the two Trainers. If White proves... recalcitrant, a hostage may persuade her to acquiesce."

Smythe swallowed. All right, so this mission hadn't really been that legal to start with, but now... Christ. This was getting messier and messier by the moment.

"Right," he said carefully. "Where do you want me to go?"

---

Cheren hadn't been happy about what we'd been up to last night, and since this was Cheren we were dealing with, he had had a nearly impregnable argument to back up his opinion. We'd gone out without contacting him, and had been unreachable by phone within the disruptive psychic fields of the Dreamyard; we'd alerted the Party to our whereabouts; we'd given them, if they took the effort to work it out, the address of the Pokémon Centre we'd first visited in the city; and we could no longer visit Fennel's lab and so he could not learn more about her fascinating psychochemical experiments first-hand.

I think it was that more than anything else that annoyed him. Out of all of us, he would have understood and appreciated the knowledge Fennel had to impart the most, and I felt kind of bad for cutting him out of it. But I couldn't have done otherwise; Bianca had had to go to the Dreamyard alone. There was no alternative; if she'd gone with Cheren, it wouldn't have been the same. He would have taken over and she would have proved nothing. As it was, she'd managed to call down an entire herd of Musharna to her aid – which, while maybe not intentional, was definitely quite good going.

You could tell it had made a difference, too: when she'd finally got up and joined Cheren and me in the Centre's lounge, she was visibly cheerier than she had been before the Dreamyard escapade. She bounced in, Munny following as if the brick had never hit it, and threw herself onto the sofa so hard she knocked Cheren half off it.

"Uh," he said, sounding faintly aggrieved. "Good morning to you too, Bianca."

"Morning!" she sang out. "Look! Munny's all better."

"Yes, so it would seem. I was just telling Lauren what I found out last night while you two were wasting time and bringing the wrath of the Party down on our heads."

Bianca's smile didn't waver.

"Yeah?"

Cheren sat back and pushed his glasses further up his nose.

"I went to the Trainer's School, as you know, and fairly quickly realised it's not a particularly valuable institution; I think it's more aimed at preparing people who want to become Trainers rather than adding anything valuable to the store of knowledge of a more experienced person. So I went across to a library instead and did a little research on the Green Party online."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. I found out that in the last six months they've ballooned massively in size, power and financial weight – despite not apparently being backed by any investors at all that I could figure out. They were always a middling sort of party, but now they're unquestionably a serious contender for the general election."

"How did they do that?" asked Bianca, frowning.

"Gold," replied Cheren simply. "I don't know how, but for the last few months they've been selling vast quantities of gold bullion. No mines, no suppliers. They own a warehouse in Driftveil and once a week they send out shipments of gold across the world. No one delivers it: it's just dispatched."

"But then where does it come from?"

"No idea," he said, shrugging. "It just comes out of the warehouse, as if by magic."

"How did you find all this out?" I asked. "Surely all this isn't just available on their website, right?"

"No, it isn't," answered Cheren. "But it's there, if you're dedicated enough. I'm not the first one to ask questions about it, which made finding the information easier. The Party hasn't issued anything in response to these questions; I don't think they've been picked up by the mainstream media yet. Or if they have," he added disquietingly, "something has silenced them."

That silenced us for a while, mostly because I think we were all pretty sure it was true. If the Green Party's finances were that transparently suspicious, then someone in the press had to have figured it out already – and the lack of news coverage meant that the Party was significantly more powerful (and more sinister) than we'd thought.

"So," I said slowly, "what do we do about it? Go to Driftveil?"

"Not directly," Cheren replied. "I still want to challenge the Gym here before we leave, and we need to look up Teiresias as well, so we may have to go via Nacrene to visit the library. And if that is insufficient, we may have to visit the High Gorsedd in Castelia."

Reproduction of the Treatises beyond the copies held in the temples was strictly forbidden by decree of Orthalmo the Mad, High Druid in the time of King Ulfric. The legitimacy of the decree was disputed – Orthalmo had ordered, among other things, the eradication of all badgers within the country, the dissolution of the mercantile class and the construction of an four-hundred-foot marble phallus at the temple at Lacunosa – but it had stood until now, and the Treatises were not to be found online or in conventional libraries. If you wanted to read them, you either had to get a druid to lend you a copy or visit a temple – or go to the Travison Memorial Library in Nacrene, which was licensed specially by the High Druid to keep around half the Treatises in its collection.

"Right," I said. "So are you two off to the Gym today, then? I could visit the temple and research Teiresias when you do that."

"Just what I was about to suggest," Cheren told me. "Now, Bianca—"

"I'm hungry. What've I missed?"

Halley leaped up between us from nowhere, somehow contriving to poke all three of us uncomfortably in the side at the same time, and kneaded a cushion into a nest to lie in.

"Where have you been?" asked Cheren.

"Been to London to— nah, I made that joke already and no one got it," she sighed. "I've been sleeping, what do you think? I am a cat. We spend like half our lives asleep if you let us."

"We were just deciding what we're doing today," Cheren said. "Do I have to repeat it for you?"

"Can't be bothered to listen," yawned Halley. "I'll just follow this little b*tch." She jerked her head at me; I wondered if I was meant to be insulted, but decided it didn't matter.

"Right. If you're quite done spewing random vitriol...?"

Halley thought for a moment.

"Yeah, I guess I'm done," she said.

"Then I suggest we get going," said Cheren.

"What about breakfast?" asked Bianca.

"Yeah, what about it?" added Halley.

"Lauren and I have already—"

"What you and Lauren have done doesn't mean shi— shingle to me," said Halley, casting a dirty look at me as she bit off the curse. "I'm hungry."

"It's not really fair if they don't have anything to eat," I put in hesitantly.

Cheren sighed.

"Very well," he said. "You two go and have breakfast, then, and I'll wait here – but please, be quick. It's already nearly half past nine."

"Oh, Christ!" cried Halley in horror. "Half past nine? Why didn't you say so before? What a criminal waste of daylight hours we're currently perpetrating!"

"There's no need to be sarcastic."

"If there was no need, I wouldn't have done it. Lighten up, Che."

"What did you just call me?"

He was trying very hard to sound like he didn't care, but I was almost certain that Cheren found that annoying. Extremely annoying.

"Che. Like Guevara. Short for Cheren." Halley paused. "What sort of name is Cheren, anyway?"

"It's derived from Bulgarian," he replied with such extreme dignity that he had to be seething inside. "It means 'black'."

Halley froze.

"Seriously?" she said, staring at him. "Black?"

"Yes, black," he repeated. "What of it?"

"Bianca's name means 'white'," she said, giving me a significant look. "Lauren..."

"I know," I replied softly, wondering what exactly this new piece of information meant. "I see it too..."

Black and white, boy and girl, city and forest... The thread of opposites kept running through everything, kept turning up everywhere I went. Had Halley started something by revealing the existence of the two worlds to me? Or had it always been this way, this dualism, and it was only now that I knew that I could perceive it?

Cheren frowned.

"I don't get it," he said. "What are you trying to say...?"

"Yes, what?" asked Bianca.

"Nothing," I said hurriedly, wishing I was smart enough to know how to explain it to them. I wanted their help with it – whatever Jared Black might have done, I wasn't confident about tackling such a huge idea on my own – but I just didn't know how to say it yet. "Never mind."

I stood up.

"Come on," I said brightly. "Bianca, Halley, I bet you're hungry, and they're only serving breakfast for another half hour."

"Oh... yeah, OK," said Bianca, looking faintly confused.

"Huh," muttered Cheren, but he said no more, and followed us out into the corridor and across to the canteen.

---

Niamh Harper was a troubled soul.

As the observant reader will have noticed, she had not, in fact, arrived in Striaton before Lauren et al and intercepted them; no, she had renounced the plan of tracking them down immediately in favour of another, more devious plan that lay closer to her heart.

She had, of course, noticed Smythe's discomfort and perceived that there was more to his case than met the eye. One does not deal with mad scientists, plutocrats and criminals for nine and a half years without gaining some aptitude at reading a man – and Smythe didn't exactly make it hard. He wasn't a natural liar, and though life had taught him to lie, he was an exceptionally bad student; Niamh had seen that there was some dilemma wrenching him asunder as soon as the issue had crossed his mind, and now she was determined to find out what it was that oppressed her friend so, and made him terminate their meeting abruptly and with obvious unease.

At least... 'friend' seemed the most apt word. She wasn't exactly sure what the right word for their relationship was, exactly; it hadn't exactly been anything she'd encountered, before or since, and it had surged back into life with a power that had physically stunned both of them when they'd first spotted each other in Accumula.

Niamh had still felt strange, her heart pumping and hands tingling, as she shadowed Smythe after that meeting. He had hung around in the park for an hour or two, watching passersby sadly and occasionally whistling snatches of old songs; after that, he had hired a taxi and headed north – to Striaton, she heard him say to the driver.

This had deepened her suspicions: if Smythe had to go to Striaton, he would have wanted to go with her, without a doubt; what was going on that meant he couldn't speak to her? Confused and wary, Niamh had taken a room in the same hotel as him and waited – and soon enough, she had her answer, in the form of the liquid dark abomination that twisted through the air like some foul fish from the frozen lakes of hellish Córmheim.

She stared and stared through the keyhole, but no matter how long she watched the gentle smoking of the hell-beast's eye-pits did not cease, and despite her atheism Niamh could not but come to one conclusion.

Portland Smythe was in grave danger – worse than during his trek through Patzkova, worse than during that long and terrible night in Prague, worse even than during that unnatural storm that had sunk the Borealis all those years ago.

He was in the thrall of a demon from below the very roots of the Ash itself, and there was no one to save him but her.

---

An hour and a half later, the sun had risen above the clouds and was doing its best to make a windy spring day warm; it wasn't much, but it made the walk to the temple a little less freezing.

"Christ, it's cold," moaned Halley, wriggling deeper into my coat. "Why don't you have a thicker jacket?"

"I don't really think it's that cold," I replied. "So I never bought a thicker one... sorry."

"There you go with the apologising again," she sighed. "Stop apologising for things you never done, 'cause time is short and life is cruel."

"I've heard that before somewhere," I said, frowning.

"Give me strength," muttered Halley, rolling her eyes. "Is it even possible to be a full human being without knowing the Jam?"

On my shoulder, Candy chattered noisily. She enjoyed this kind of weather; with a decent wind behind her, she could glide for perhaps a hundred metres, and probably would have been trying to had I not made it obvious to her that we had a job to do today. I had released her and destroyed the Poké Ball immediately after the Dreamyard adventure; it didn't feel right to keep her locked up like that. Trainers said it wasn't inhumane, but I wasn't a Trainer, and having my pet being reduced to energy and locked in stasis sounded pretty inhumane to me.

The streets of Striaton were quiet enough, but to me, used to the seclusion of White Forest, it felt like I was in the centre of a huge storm of activity; I kept to the edge of the pavement, trying to avoid being crushed by the relentless onslaught of pedestrians, and clutched Halley tightly to me within my coat for fear I would bump into something and squash her.

"You know, I'm not actually made of glass," she told me. "You could loosen your grip a little without me shattering."

"Oh.. sorry," I said hurriedly, and let go, stuffing my hands back into my pockets to guard them from the cold.

"Jesus, more apologising? Mister Weller would not approve."

"Who?"

"Forget it. You didn't get it the first time; I have no idea why I thought you might the second time."

"Aaakk," said Candy, pulling my hair out of pure joy and forestalling any response on my part.

"Ouch! Stop that."

"Aakk," she cawed unrepentantly, and let go.

I sighed and hurried on through frigid streets towards the temple. According to the directions I'd got online at the Centre, I ought to be close now... there! It was unmistakeable: set back a good fifty feet from the street, the building lay behind a large menhir in the middle of a trampled lawn. It wasn't quite the match of my local in White Forest – we had a full henge there, and the temple itself was easily the biggest artificial structure in the forest – but it was a temple, and that meant it would have copies of the Treatises.

"Is that... is that blood on that rock?" asked Halley hesitantly as we crossed the street towards it.

"Yeah," I replied. "Of course. The ése demand sacrifice."

She was silent for a long time, long enough for me to reach the gates in the wrought-iron fence. Here, the menhir towered over us, its presence at once menacing and comforting, reminding me, as it always did, of how insignificant we were before the ése's gaze.

"And, ah... what kind of sacrifice is it that they demand?" she asked, sounding uncertain. It was the first time I had heard her express any real unease, and it didn't suit her.

"Well... human, obviously," I said gently. "We have to give of our most valuable, and there's nothing more valuable than people."

Halley said nothing, just stared up at the menhir. Presumably its bloody granite flanks were taking on some new significance in her mind; I knew that people from outside Unova often had problems with this part of our religion. I would be lying if I said it didn't trouble me too, sometimes, but there was no getting around it. From the earliest times, the ése had demanded sacrifice from their worshippers, and they accepted nothing less than human life. It was so ingrained into the Treatises that to excise it from the faith would have destroyed the whole thing entirely.

"It's how we deal the death penalty," I explained, as I walked around the menhir. "The druids are reasonable. They don't just take people. We're not savages any more."

"That," said Halley quietly, "has the ring of something learned by rote."

That stung, but I wasn't sure why; it was true – it had been comprehensively drummed into my head at an early age – but that wasn't why it irritated me. Perhaps it was the fact that it seemed to so easily deflect my argument, or perhaps it was the fact that Halley of all people was condemning my views; I didn't know. I refused to show it, though; Halley was British, and she didn't understand how things worked here. I had to make allowances for that.

"Well... I know it's hard to understand if you're not Unovan," I replied.

"Sometimes," said Halley as if I hadn't said anything, "I can almost think this is just a slightly crazier version of England. And then sh*t like this happens." She was still looking at the menhir. "Jesus..."

I didn't reply. I wasn't sure anything I could say could salvage the situation.

"Then again," she said, sounding a little more normal, "at least you guys are honest about it. I mean, half the world's religions are derived from f*cking sun-worship, and there they are b*tching about original sin and sh*t. Besides, what do I care if you guys go around killing each other?"

"What?"

I hadn't been expecting that.

"Nah, all I care about is getting inside and out of the cold," continued Halley. "Take me in, Lauren."

"Uh... OK."

I was genuinely uncertain whether or not she was disturbed by our human sacrifices or not, and as I walked up the short flight of steps to the door, I wondered if she was lying to smooth over her awkwardness and maintain her jaded demeanour; in the end, I gave up thinking about it. I just couldn't tell with her.

On the outside, the temple had been an unassuming stone box; on the inside, it wasn't much different. Broad, cool and dimly-lit, it had the feel of a natural cave about it; it was only slightly warmer in there than outside, and there was little furniture except for some plastic chairs stacked against one wall (used mostly when bad weather stopped services from taking place outside, I supposed) and a series of small idols arranged in shrines at far end of the room, dedicated to the four main ése and whichever of the minor ones was considered of importance in this area.

"Is it colder in here than outside?" asked Halley. "Is that even possible?"

"Ssh," I said. "Please? You need to stay inconspicuous."

She sighed.

"Fine," she hissed.

I walked further into the temple, looking around for anyone who looked like they might work here, but could see no one – or even any doors other than the main one. Was no one in?

"Hello?" I called uncertainly.

"Hello!" replied a voice, and I turned to see a man in white robes gliding noiselessly over the stone floor towards me. Where he'd come from I wasn't exactly sure, but given that his feet were bare I doubt I would have heard him coming anyway. He had sprigs of nine different herbs woven into his hair and a gold-bladed sickle in his belt, along with a revolver and smartphone – all the accoutrements of the modern druid. "I'm Lorcan," he said, smiling at me. "Did you need something?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I came to read the Treatises, if that's OK. I think..." I paused, hesitant, and a shadow crossed Lorcan's face. He had seen something in my eyes, I knew.

"What is it?" he asked, suddenly concerned. "What's wrong?"

"I think I'm being chased by a demon."

---

"...so you're not just here for lunch? Fantastic!" cried the waiter. "Oh, man, this is great. We haven't actually had a challenger for more than two weeks now."

Striaton's Gym, owing in part to lack of custom and in part to the peculiar predilection of its leaders, operated as a restaurant as well as a battling facility; there was but one diner at that moment, but at lunchtime and during the evening the place was, Cheren and Bianca were assured, extremely difficult to get a seat at.

Cheren raised an eyebrow.

"Two weeks? Is it that bad?"

"Well, it's the off-season, sir," the waiter said, shrugging. "And there aren't as many Trainers as there used to be. Gym staff get restless at this time of year. But... to business." He composed himself hurriedly. "Right. The rules: challengers get a free lunch if they win; challengers can have up to three practice battles with other Gym Trainers before the challenge the Leader; these can be taken over a period of up to two days, special circumstances notwithstanding. The lunch offer is valid only for a week. No items may be used in the battle against the Leader, and no switches may take place until the current Pokémon in battle has been defeated. All challengers must choose one type as the primary focus for the team they use against the Leader. The Leader will then counter with a type advantage. The Leader will select their Pokémon so that they are always slightly stronger than the challenger's." He paused. "Is that clear, sir?"

"Perfectly," replied Cheren. "I'd like to take the challenge right away."

"No practice battles?"

"No, thank you."

"It's highly advised, sir, especially if this is your first Gym battle," the waiter went on. "Most Trainers never manage to collect more than two or three Badges, if that. Gym Leaders are selected because they are the very best, and it's rare to win a Badge on the first try—"

"I understand," said Cheren calmly. "But I've done my research. I have confidence."

"Well... all right." The waiter shook his head. "What about you, madam?"

"Eh? Me?" Bianca seemed slightly surprised at being called 'madam'. "Uh... I'd like a few practice battles first," she confided shyly.

"How many?"

"Um... three, please," she said.

"OK, that's fine." The waiter stepped briskly over to the bar and consulted a little chart hung up among the bottles. "Let's see... yes, Tia, Sammy and I will be your opponents. We can start right away, or you can watch your friend against the Leader first."

"Oh! I want to see Cheren battle first," cried Bianca. "That's going to be so cool."

The waiter smiled.

"As you wish, madam," he said. "Right. If you could both come this way...?"

He led them through the main dining-room, past the curious gaze of the lone diner, and stopped before a great pair of red curtains at the back of the restaurant; there, he coughed pointedly, and there was a sound of footsteps hurrying around on wooden boards beyond.

"OK, everyone in place?" Cheren heard someone whisper. "All right. Ready!"

The curtains parted with a dramatic fwoosh, and a multiplicity of dazzling lights lit up the stage beyond as if this were a Poison Jam concert; through the plumes of dry ice smoke and the glare of spotlights, Cheren could just about make out three tall, shadowy figures striking noble (and faintly ridiculous) poses onstage.

"Welcome!" boomed a magnified voice.

"To the Striaton City Gym!" finished another.

"Challenger, what type underpins your team?" added a third.

Cheren thought for a moment. Justine was by far the weaker of the pair, which meant most of his team's strength came from Lelouch.

"Grass," he replied.

"In that case..."

"I shall be your opponent!"

The smoke cleared abruptly, sweeping two of the figures away with it and leaving a striking young man standing in the centre of the stage, arms akimbo and hair apparently aflame. He strode forwards, looked directly into Cheren's eyes and said:

"My name is Chili—"

That's implausible, thought Cheren, but said nothing.

"—and I specialise in Fire-types," he finished. "Step up here, then! I'm ready if you are."

Cheren smiled. This was it. He was actually walking up the steps into a Leader's arena, ready to fight for his first Badge. It was actually happening.

Thunor's ire, it was actually happening.

His smile broadened, and he crested the stairway, walking out onto the stage. Chili – whose dyed-red hair seemed to flicker as if it actually were on fire – shook his hand and grinned.

"This your first time?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Always one to remember." He nodded. "OK, how many and how strong?"

"Pokémon?"

"Yes.

"Two. On the General Scale... somewhere just above Grade One and just below it. 1.34 and 0.92 to be precise, if I remember correctly."

The General Scale was a ten-rank system designed to enable (more or less) precise cross-species rankings of power for just this kind of situation; Pokémon were marked as being at, above or below any one of ten levels of power for easy comparison. The calculations necessary to work out a General Scale ranking were a little tricky, but the Pokédex app came with a function that worked out the algorithms automatically, and Cheren had made sure to check it beforehand.

"All right, then," said Chili, reaching into his pockets. "1.5s it is. Max?"

"Yeah?" replied the waiter, who was lingering with Bianca down on the main floor.

"Do the honours."

"Take up your positions!"

Cheren and Chili walked away from each other, almost to opposite ends of the stage, then turned to face one another.

"Ready...!"

Chili and his brothers were known to have a fondness for the elemental monkeys, Cheren knew; he could expect a Pansear. But would he send it out first or second?

"Three...!"

"Good luck!" cried Bianca, but Cheren barely heard her. His mind was racing, wheels turning and pistons moving smooth as ice on ice within his head. Lead with Justine? He hadn't tested her strength too extensively yet, but her speed, devotion and intellect were considerable. She might prove more adaptable than Lelouch, who, being a mixture of reptile and plant, was not exactly overendowed with brains.

"Two...!"

Chili's grin widened further still. What was he thinking, Cheren wondered, staring into his eyes. What was his battle plan...?

"One...!"

Definitely lead with Justine. From what he'd read, Chili was hot-tempered and unpredictable, just like the element he wielded, and might surprise him with an unconventional lead. Growl if a powerhouse, Scratch if a wall...

"Go!"

Cheren hadn't expected himself to move that fast. His arm was up and out almost before Max had finished speaking, and in a moment there were twin bursts of light in front of him—

—and there she was, Justine, tail lashing and ears laid flat against her skull, hissing wildly at the unsettling creature before her. It rocked back and forth, apparently without limbs, face frozen as if carved in wood.

Oh yes, Cheren thought. Definitely unconventional.

Darumaka. Inactive right now, but give it a chance to stoke its internal flames and it would turn from placid wobbly toy to rabid monkey in less time than it took to blink.

"Interesting," he said aloud, and Chili grinned at him.

"Only someone who really knows their stuff would say that faced with this little guy," he replied. "Come on! Let's do this!"

"Of course," agreed Cheren, and raised a hand to bark out an order, wholly unaware of the dark, nebulous presence crouched in the rafters above, flexing its essence, waiting for its moment.

Teiresias was ready.

And this time it would not fail.
 

Daydream

[b]Boo.[/b]
702
Posts
14
Years
...But I want more, where is it?

I'm really enjoying this so far. I like your original characters (especially the way you highlight the marked differences between Lauren/Jared) and the way you put your own twist on existing ones (I'm already intrigued at what we've seen of Ghetsis so far). Not only that, you have a wicked sense of humour and I think you handle well the balance between action and more stilled moments.

I can't wait for more (and am in fact, avidly awaiting it).
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
...But I want more, where is it?

It's coming soon, I promise. I hope.

I'm really enjoying this so far. I like your original characters (especially the way you highlight the marked differences between Lauren/Jared) and the way you put your own twist on existing ones (I'm already intrigued at what we've seen of Ghetsis so far). Not only that, you have a wicked sense of humour and I think you handle well the balance between action and more stilled moments.

Thanks! It's nice of you to stop by and say so. There's plenty more of our green-haired friend coming up in the next chapter, as it happens; you can't make a proclamation like: 'I stand for the release of all Pokémon' and not attract a certain amount of media attention.

I can't wait for more (and am in fact, avidly awaiting it).

It should be along soon. I have a semi-weekly schedule - meaning that I update roughly each weekend - but I've been thrown out of the rhythm a bit by being ill the week before last and posting late. Nevertheless, I'll do my best to get back on track and get the next chapter up soon.

I hope you continue to enjoy the story!

F.A.B.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
13
Years
Chapter Eleven: Goodnight Demonslayer

Most people would be somewhat discouraged by the revelation that their best friend was under the command of a powerful demon.

Then again, most people don't kill monsters for a living.

Niamh Harper immediately set upon a course of action. The fiend was probably impervious to bullets, her preferred method of removing monstrosities from the realm of the living, but she'd always been open to alternatives – like the time she had destroyed a sentient blob of alloyed titanium by kicking it into the furnace of a steelworks. (She hadn't questioned how the company had managed to bring the damn thing to life. Birthing monsters was more or less exactly the opposite of her job description.) In this case, the alternative was probably druidic magic. After all, if demons were apparently real and roaming the streets of Striaton, she was willing to believe that at least some of the forces the druids claimed existed were real.

Niamh stroked her chin. She needed information, that was the most important thing. She had to be sure this thing was what it seemed to be, and if it was, she needed to know how to kill it. The problem was, she had no idea what its name was, or even if it had one. She also had certain reservations about spying on it too much; she had no doubt that it had ways of perceiving hidden watchers, and that if it detected her nearby more than once it would undoubtedly take action against her before she was ready for it.

She'd had to retreat before she heard all the details of what was going on and where – the thing had come too close for comfort – but she still had two little bits of information to go on: a pair of names, and a place.

White and Halley, and the Mandelmort Temple.

All she had to do was connect the dots.

--

"Stay calm, Justine, and Stratch. Aim for the left flank."

The Purrloin darted forwards, far faster than the chunky Darumaka, and laid open its side with a deft swipe of her claws; as Cheren had expected, the force of the blow set the little Fire-type spinning on its axis, and it whirled helplessly for a good thirty seconds before it managed to free its stubby limbs from its trammelling fur and plant them on the floor. Even then, it seemed a bit the worse for wear, dropping to all fours and staggering dizzily off to one side.

Justine looked, if such a word could be applied to a Purrloin, gleeful. Chili just looked disconcerted.

"Well, now," he began, but Cheren wasn't about to let him buy time for his Darumaka to recover. If it regained its senses, it would have its fires up in a minute or two – and at full strength, neither Lelouch nor Justine would stand a chance against it.

"Keep it up," he called. "Knock it down."

Justine needed no encouragement; to her mind, unaware of the little monkey's potential power, this bizarre creature was the best toy she'd encountered in ages. A key selling point, she felt, was the obvious discomfort it felt at being hit. Perhaps the Glasses Man would buy her one, she mused as she lashed out at the Darumaka with the viciously recurved hook on her tail, catching it under the chin and drawing blood; the force was too much for it to take, and it lost its balance. Fur hit floorboards and a little dribble of blood trickled across the stage.

"Yeaaaahh!" shrieked Bianca happily. "Go Cheren!"

"One!" Max began counting. "Two!"

Justine, her foe floored, went into a kind of ecstatic frenzy; she loosed a volley of Scratches at the downed Darumaka so fast they might almost have been Fury Swipes.

"Three! Four!"

"You're gonna win!"

It was nice of Bianca to say so, Cheren thought, but the Darumaka was a hardened fighter and Justine didn't know how to pace herself in pitched battle. While the former was a little groggy, he could sense that his advantage was close to slipping away—

The Darumaka's eyes lit up, suddenly clear of all dizziness.

"Justine, get—"

Its broad skull smashed hard into Justine's jaw and knocked her a foot off the floor; as a cat, she twisted in midair and landed on her feet, but the blow had taken its toll. Her paws didn't seem to be able to get any purchase on the boards, and her ears were flat against her skull; she glanced back at Cheren desperately, and he winced as he saw the blood on her teeth, and the broken fang.

"—back," he finished, too late.

Another crushing blow, and the Darumaka's jaws were aflame as it snapped them shut on her leg; Justine yowled wildly, tearing herself free and scrabbling backwards, covering her retreat with a lash of her tail-hook. The monkey gave no quarter: its internal fires blazing, it was incapable of reason, incapable of listening to Chili, incapable of doing anything but rampaging wildly until either it burned down or everything around it was a smoking ruin. The Gym Leader had brought out the Pokémon equivalent of a Viking berserker – and, Cheren realised, he had no way of countering it.

"Get out of the way!" he cried, a note of desperation in his voice. "Just stay back!"

Justine hissed crossly; was the Glasses Man blind? What exactly did he think she was doing, if not trying to avoid the insane beast currently trying to turn her face into pulpy mush? Holding one foreleg close to her chest, she limped as hard as she could back three steps as the Darumaka bodily flung itself onto the floor where she had been a moment ago. It would take a moment to get up, she thought, she could get away – but no, the damn thing kept coming, rolling at her over and over like a beast possessed. Every step she took wrenched at her wounds with iron tongues, and the Darumaka was getting closer—

Cheren stared, thinking furiously. There had to be something he could do other than just try to weather the storm. There had to be. The Darumaka was using its moves blindly, without reason; surely he could outthink it?

Chili was grinning broadly.

"Harder than you thought, isn't it?" he called. "Come on! The way you set him spinning, you're a smart guy. Prove to me I'm right!"

That was a clue, thought Cheren, watching Justine try and fail to dodge another Fire Fang and getting her tail burnt. There was a way...

It clicked.

"To the left," he said. "Get over to the left!"

Justine might not see where the Glasses Man was going with this, but his Staggering Presence of Mind had saved her from a Situation of Certain Death, and so she obeyed without hesitation, flinging herself to the left, hitting the ground and rolling back to her feet. The Darumaka flung itself after her, the fires streaming from its eyes and mouth leaving a bright after-image on her eyes.

Chili blinked.

"Hey, are you doing what I think you're doing?"

"Yes," replied Cheren. "Absolutely."

The Darumaka attempted another Headbutt and clipped Justine's wounded tail; she hissed and moved further to the left, closer to Bianca and Max – who were beginning to look a little concerned at the proximity of the flaming ape.

"Hey," said Chili. "Hey. No, don't— Weeble! Get back here!"

It was too late: in the grip of its berserker fury, the Darumaka could neither hear nor think. Eyes locked on Justine, it leaped for her again in another crushing full-body Headbutt—

—and she darted lithely aside as it flew clean off the edge of the stage, arcing gracefully down to impact face-first on the carpeted floor.

There was silence for a moment.

"One," counted Max hesitantly. "Two—"

"Forget it, Max," sighed Chili. "He's not getting up from that one. Weeble, return!"

The Darumaka's body vanished in a pulse of light, and Chili grinned.

"You're good," he told Cheren. "Best we've had in... well, in a long time. But don't get cocky. This one listens to my orders."

"Yeaaaahhh!" cried Bianca happily. "Chereeeen!"

This would be the Pansear, Cheren thought, tuning her out for clarity of thought. Justine had done enough; she wouldn't last much longer, and she deserved a rest now. It would have to be down to Lelouch.

"We'll see," he said. "Can I concede my Purrloin? I want to switch."

"Sure," replied Chili. "No sending her back out, though. If you recall her, she's counted as KO'ed. Official League battle rules."

"Fine by me."

Justine vanished and the Snivy took her place. Chili threw down his ball, there was a bright, bright light—

—and the restaurant plunged into absolute, unbroken darkness.

---

"I see." Lorcan nodded slowly. "I see." He sighed. "I'd love to help. I really would. But something like that sounds beyond my capabilities. You can try the archives here if you like, but I know them pretty well and I don't think that this... Teiresias is anywhere in there. From what you describe, that would be in the Glasya-Labolas."

I cocked my head on one side.

"What's that?" I asked.

"One of the classified Treatises," he replied. "It's a comprehensive list of all known demons – and the methods for summoning them. Access is restricted, as you can imagine. Most of us aren't allowed to read it."

I shivered. Did that mean Harmonia had people inside the Gorsedd? High-ranking people, as well, to be able to deliver the means to summon Teiresias to him. How far did his operation extend?

"I know," said Lorcan sympathetically, seeing my discomfort and misinterpreting it. "It's a nasty piece of work. Real, you know. I've seen..." He paused. "They summon a weak one as part of our training," he added confidingly. "I wouldn't say, ordinarily, but since you've seen... something worse... I don't think it'll do any harm. But they call up a thing named Ath, to teach us how to banish it."

"Could you banish Teiresias, then?" I asked eagerly. "If you know how—?"

He held up a hand for silence.

"Sorry, no," he replied, shaking his head. "Yours is definitely one of the stronger ones, and those that are too strong for the basic banishing usually require specific methods – methods I'm far too low-ranking to know anything about."

"I see," I said slowly. "Oh... OK, then."

I must have looked particularly sad just then, because a look of quite staggering guilt crossed his face.

"Sorry to disappoint," he said, brow creasing with concern. "Um... Look, I could send a message across to Nacrene to expect you. They have a copy of the Glasya-Labolas there."

"Oh, could you? Thank you!" I said fervently. "I'd really appreciate it."

He smiled.

"It's OK, it's the least I can do. But..." His smile faded. "You know, there's still no guarantee they'll let you read it just because you claim to have been attacked by a demon. They'll probably ask you to supply proof."

"Oh." Damn, I didn't have anything I could reasonably describe as proof. "What... what kind of proof could I give?"

Lorcan considered this.

"They'll accept a mind-reading," he said. "That is, if you're OK with that."

I hesitated. I'd never had a mind-reading before, and I wasn't sure I wanted to start now. It was the most invasive procedure possible, but it did ascertain the truth – or what the subject believed to be the truth – with perfect accuracy, provided the Psychic-type involved was competent.

"They have professional standards," Lorcan said quickly. "I mean, they won't poke around where they don't have to. They'll just look for the demon there and leave."

"I guess I have no choice," I replied slowly. "Hmm..."

He bit his lip.

"Look," he said, "you don't have to decide anything right now. If you really think this thing is after you, go to Nacrene and prove it to them." He shrugged. "Maybe they won't even ask for a mind-reading. You never know."

It wasn't true and we both knew it. He was lying to make me feel better, I could tell – though I wasn't sure why.

"OK," I said. "I think I'll be heading over there, then." I smiled. "Thank you for your time," I said. "You've been really helpful."

He smiled.

"Not at all," he said. "It's my job."

I said goodbye and left, thinking hard. It seemed like this wasn't going to be easy – but then, I hadn't thought it would be.

"Well, Lauren," cackled Halley quietly as I reached the door. "I didn't know you had it in you."

"What?"

"That guy. Wasn't it obvious? He was drooling over you pretty much the whole time."

I paused, halfway through the doorway.

"What?"

Halley snorted.

"Oh, come on. You must have noticed. Holy man or not, he hungered for your tits—"

"That's enough," I said sharply, feeling my cheeks turn red. "Stop it. Now."

She giggled.

"Christ, this is hilarious."

"Halley!"

"White."

"Smythe?"

I froze, halfway round the menhir, and looked up.

And Portland Smythe looked back.

---

"What the f*ck was that?"

"Cheren!"

"The hell?"

"Teiresias," breathed Cheren, whirling on the spot and staring hard into the surrounding blackness, trying hard to see anything. "It has to be..."

It had been here a while, he could tell. All morning, it must have been waiting, charging its sinister power; it hadn't been able to do anything like this before. How had it known they were here? While it was obvious that Trainers would visit the Gym eventually, it could not have known what time... Had it been following them? Or had it just waited here since its arrival in Striaton?

"Cease moving," sighed an ancient voice, like wind issuing from an open crypt. "It tires me so."

There was a sound of splintering wood, and iron-hard hands gripped Cheren's ankles.

He almost cried out, but he held it back. This was not a time to panic. Panic was exactly what Teiresias wanted; its dark powers seemed to wax with the fear in its prey's mind.

Bianca screamed, and Cheren winced. That wasn't helping anything.

"What is this? Who are you?" yelled Chili.

"I have no interest in you," said Teiresias. Its voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere; where was it, wondered Cheren. If he could see where it was, perhaps he could hit it – force it to move and break its concentration. "You may choose between silence and death."

Chili made no reply.

"Wise man," whispered Teiresias. It sounded bigger than before, thought Cheren uneasily; bigger and more ethereal. Had it taken a new form again? And if so, what form could produce a sound like that?

"Chereeen! It's Teiresias!"

"I know," called Cheren. "It's kind of obvious."

"You two," said Teiresias. "You are the ones who travel with White. You are my hostages."

It made sense. Smythe must have somehow located Lauren, Cheren thought; he would probably tell her to call them, and that would confirm that they were in trouble – and knowing Lauren, there was absolutely no way she would abandon them to save herself.

Which meant that Harmonia got what he wanted.

And Cheren had a feeling that that could only be a very, very bad thing indeed.

"I see," he said aloud, playing for time as he thought. "What do you want us to do?"

"Wait," replied Teiresias. "I want you to wait. Soon enough we will know whether you are to live, or to die. Until then, you wait."

Something growled near the back of the stage, and the darkness seemed to quiver before Cheren's eyes.

"You two," said Teiresias "The green- and blue-haired humans. Recall your apes, or I will unmake them."

That must be Cress and Cilan, thought Cheren.

"What are you?" asked one – he didn't know which – in a low voice.

"Recall your apes, or I will unmake them," repeated Teiresias, and this time its voice contained a hint of eldritch realms beyond all mortal ken; of secrets unknown and unknowable; of whispers of strange beings that stalked the world just outside the sphere of possible imagination.

"Get back," the two men hissed, and with a soft thumping the unseen Pokémon retreated. There could have been no other outcome. Teiresias' voice reached into your chest and jarred your heart from its perch amidst your ribs.

"Good. Now, wait."

And they stood in the dark, in the silence, and waited for ése-knew-what.

---

"Your friends are being held captive by Teiresias," Smythe told me without preamble. "Come with me, or it will..." He trailed off, evidently uncomfortable with what he was about to say. "Well," he finished lamely. "You can guess."

I could. And the very thought sent a chill shivering through my body.

"OK," I said immediately, stepping forward, "I'll—"

"Wait," interrupted Halley perceptively. "You'll appreciate, Smythe, that I trust you about as far as I can f*cking throw you. So. Mind if you tell me why I should believe you instead of trying to bite your throat out?"

I paused. I hadn't thought of that. Could Smythe be lying? I wasn't sure. I thought he was a good man, but he obviously had no choice in this matter. I didn't know what he was capable of under threat from his superiors.

"Caaark," cawed Candy, lowering her head and eyeing Smythe suspiciously. Could she sense he was lying? Or did she just not like him? I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case; her experience of him hadn't exactly been calculated to please.

"Call them," he replied. "Call them and find out for yourself." He hesitated. "And control that bird, please."

That settled it, in my mind. If he was going to let me phone them, it must be true.

"Go on, then," said Halley. "Test his word."

I took my phone out and pressed the unlock button – but the screen stayed dark.

With a sudden sinking feeling, I remembered Cordelia's warning that my parents were going to call soon. That had been several days ago, and with the fear of Teiresias on me I'd forgotten all about it; this was why they hadn't contacted me. My phone had been dead for some time.

"Uh... no battery," I said weakly. "Sorry."

Smythe stared, and a faint look of horror entered his eyes.

"What? You're kidding. You're f*cking kidding me—"

"No, I'm not!" I protested, holding out my mobile. "Look! Blank screen."

Smythe bit his lip with such violence that a thin trickle of blood ran down his chin.

"Sh*t and hellfire," he spat, staring at the ground. "Teiresias is going to kill them."

"What?"

"The phone call!" he cried, looking up at me. "The f*cking phone call! That was the signal to Teiresias that you were giving in! If we can't contact them, it'll assume you're resisting and it'll kill them!"

"What? No – no, it can't—"

"Oh yes, it can," replied Smythe grimly. "Where are your friends?"

"At the Gym," I answered frantically. "I'm not sure where that is—"

"Forty-five minutes from here," he said. "Christ. I don't know if we can make it in time—"

"Portland!" called an unfamiliar voice. "We need to talk!"

He turned and I glanced past him; a woman was crossing the road beyond, approaching us with a steely sort of determination in her eyes.

"Niamh?" asked Smythe in astonishment.

"OK, this situation is rapidly getting way too complicated for me to follow properly," said Halley. "Who's this b*tch?"

"There's no time right now," Smythe told the newcomer – Niamh – urgently. "There's terrible danger—"

"I know, that's the point," replied Niamh. "We have to talk about it."

She gave him a serious look with piercing green eyes.

"We have to talk about the demon."

---

It had been easier than she thought.

All Niamh had had to do was look up where the Temple was, go there and wait in the café across the street, watching the gates; soon enough, a short, slim girl with the white-blonde hair usually only found on very young children passed through them and entered the building beyond. Perhaps it was her hair, but Niamh had a feeling that this was the 'White' the demon had mentioned earlier in the hotel room – and shortly afterwards, her suspicions were confirmed when Portland Smythe turned up to confront her. She had rushed across the street, and there they were: Smythe and White, and – she now saw – a large brindled cat with curiously intelligent eyes.

"How do you know?" asked Smythe, eyes wide. He had gone very pale, Niamh noted; he looked like he might faint at any moment. "How do you know?"

"I followed you," she answered. "I followed you, and—" She blinked. Was that the Archen on White's shoulder? Was all of this tangled up together? Forget it, she thought – there'll be time to deal with that later. Portland comes first.

"Christ," sighed Smythe. "I tried to ward you off, Niamh. I tried..." He shook his head violently. "They'll come after me now. You too. F*ck!" He kicked the fence angrily and looked like he regretted it.

"What's this?" asked White, looking concerned.

"Nothing," growled Smythe without looking at her. "I – we – sh*t, I have no idea what to do."

All the fight went out of him in an instant; he sagged visibly, a puppet with slashed strings, and Niamh stepped forwards to grab him before he fell.

"Whatever it is, I can help," she said earnestly. "Demons. Politics. Whatever. We've dealt with worse before."

Smythe looked at her hopelessly.

"No, we haven't," he replied, and something in his voice told Niamh that he was right.

"Well," she said, faltering slightly, "there's a first time for everything, right?"

He almost smiled.

"I guess so," he answered, straightening slowly. "I guess so... But right now, we have a more urgent problem. Teiresias – the demon – is going to kill at least two people and possibly more if we don't get a message to the Gym in the next few minutes."

"Can we call the Gym?" asked Niamh. She didn't need an explanation; Smythe had told her this needed to happen, and that was enough to convince her. "Would that work?"

He shook his head.

"No one will be able to answer the landline," he said ominously. "And individual Gym Trainers are ex-directory."

"OK," said Niamh slowly, thinking hard, "what next?"

"We have to get there in person," replied Smythe simply. "We have to get there and tell it that I've apprehended these two and there's no need for anyone to die."

"Hey, I haven't exactly agreed to be apprehended yet," snapped the cat. "I—"

"Halley!" cried White. "Now isn't the time!"

Niamh stared.

"Did that cat just—"

The cat chuckled.

"I love the look on people's faces when I do that."

"Yes, she did," said Smythe. "Forget it for now. We have to get to the Gym!"

Niamh nodded, and blanked out her confusion with practised ease; it was a little trick of mental self-control she'd picked up from a heretical monk in a cave in Brittany.

"Right," she said, turning on the spot. "Transport."

She scanned the street with expert eyes and determined which of the five parked cars was the fastest; this she then rejected, on the grounds that certain signs of damage around the left rear wheel probably indicated an internal issue that would slow them down after the first ten minutes, and chose the second car instead.

"That one," she said, pointing. "Follow me."

There were people watching, but Niamh couldn't very well afford to take her time right now; she extracted a pair of suspicious-looking tools from her pocket and in about thirty seconds had the car hotwired and ready to run.

"This is illegal," said White hesitantly, "and this car belongs to someone—"

"Excuse her," interrupted the cat. "What Lauren means is that that was really f*cking cool. Drive on, glorious criminal."

Everyone piled in, and Niamh did.

At tremendous speed.

---

"What are we waiting for?" asked Cheren of the darkness.

"Deliverance," it replied. Then, after some reflection: "Or treachery."

"Do you really have to be that ominous all the time?"

Teiresias made no reply, and Cheren wondered if he'd actually managed to insult it. If so, that was quite an achievement; it displayed little sign of actually having feelings.

"Cheren, are you sure you should be insulting Teiresias?" asked Bianca warily.

"I have a plan," he announced.

"No, you don't," Teiresias told him. "I can see it. You are lost, and confused, and afraid."

Half right, thought Cheren. He was all of those things, but he was still thinking. Something Teiresias had said had struck him oddly – something about recalling the monkeys – something about that was useful in some way—

Aha!

"Lelouch, return," said Cheren, and there was a sudden bright flash of light as the Snivy was sucked back into his ball; for the briefest instant, Cheren saw a series of coiling forms silhouetted against the rafters, and then it was gone, nothing but an after-image burning on his retina.

"What was that?" hissed Teiresias. "What did you do?"

"I just recalled my Snivy," Cheren replied. "Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"Put it back," the fiend ordered. "You are a trickster, and I do not trust you."

Cheren smiled inwardly. He hadn't yet figured out a way to get Lelouch back out, but Teiresias had done the work for him.

"All right," he said. "Whatever you say."

Another flash of light, and Cheren briefly glimpsed the coiling shapes again, trailing from a dark blot on the ceiling; Teiresias hadn't moved, it seemed.

Excellent, he thought. Now he knew where it was:

Cheren reached into his pocket and pulled out the first thing he found – a Potion, from the feel of it.

Let's see how good your aim is, he thought to himself, and raised his arm. He had been careful not to move his head since the dark closed in again, and the after-image that still lingered was, he was reasonably certain, close enough to reality for him to aim by.

One... two... three... Throw.

"What are you—?" began Teiresias, but it never finished. There was a sound of breaking glass and a curiously feline yowl; then several unseen things hit the floor in a quick succession of dry thumps, followed by the tinkle of falling glass.

Silence.

"What was that?" asked Bianca timidly.

"A fool's attempt to dislodge me," replied Teiresias, a note of dark exultation in its terrible voice. "You do yourself a disservice, boy. This body may be shredded, but you must have noticed that bodies are plentiful here."

A chill ran down Cheren's spine.

The voice had not come from the rafters.

It was different, too – more human than before, as if the monster had shed some of its more otherworldly qualities. Not just that, but it sounded familiar, like something he had heard before – something that belonged in the regular waking world, not whatever nightmare realm Teiresias had sprung from.

Cheren froze.

"You didn't...?"

"A body does not necessarily have to be dead to be possessed," Teiresias told him. "I trust there will be no killing this one."

As it spoke, the echo and hiss of its voice dwindled and grew faint, and it sounded more and more familiar, until by the time it concluded there could be no mistake.

It was the voice of Gym Leader Chili.
 
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