[Pokémon] Vaira

This certainly is an interesting way to start a story. You present two scenes that are supposed to seem momentous, while retaining an air of mystery as to exactly what's going on. Leaving the reader with questions is a great way to get them interested in a story and wanting to keep reading.

Cyrus' speech is quite well-written. It runs a little long, but it works fairly well and does what it sets out to do, showing the reader how influential and how good a speaker Cyrus is. That said, I find it odd that he claims knowledge holds humanity back, when he seems to clearly find knowledge important. Yes, if you want to brainwash people you don't want them to become informed, but I'm not sure how exactly he can vilify knowledge considering how he seems to rely on it. If this is meant to seem hypocritical, maybe consider making this more obvious. The bit about space suits also feels like an unnecessary tangent that takes away from the tone of the scene. Otherwise, I felt you did a good job setting the mood in this scene.

Unfortunately, this seems to be completely at odds with the second scene. With Cyrus' speech, it's very clear what you were going for, and you made it work. But with Dialga, Palkia, Giratina and Arceus, I feel like you had a much weaker sense of what you wanted to convey. The subject matter is actually quite serious - a group of deities are scrambling to stop a destructive beast from wreaking havoc. Yet they speak far more casually than Cyrus does in the previous scene, and they spend so much time bickering that it's difficult to take them seriously. Having the Cyrus scene right before this makes this seem all the more blasé by comparison. I'm guessing that you intended for the legendaries to come across this way and make the scene somewhat humorous, but I just don't find that it worked in this situation. A lot of the dialogue and narration vacillated seemingly at random between being serious and over-the-top in a seemingly random way, and I'm just not sure what you were hoping to achieve here.

There are a lot of very strange moments as well, considering that this is evidently a point of high tension. While we don't know exactly what effect the battle below will have, there seems to be a sense of urgency that just doesn't quite register. For instance, all of Dialga's bickering and complaining seems completely out of place - this is a really bad time to get into petty arguments. Arceus also seems to let the three dragons theorize ways to combat the enemy, despite knowing that none of their ideas would work anyway. Isn't that just wasting time?


I won't go too far into nitpicks, but a few things to note:



Overall, you should focus on setting the mood, and adding description. On the plus side, using the latter will really help with the former in some aspects, but you should also make sure to decide what atmosphere you want to create first, and then find ways of emphasizing it. You definitely have the skills to do so, as you showed with the first scene, so hone those skills when it comes to instances like the second scene.

Good luck,
~Psychic

Hi. Thanks for the review!

I've posted a lot more of this story on another site and I've always gotten negative feedback on the second half of the prologue, so I decided to entirely revamp it. I also added two other scenes to it that I could've posted in another chapter, but I didn't think it was quite long enough and it's going into the prologue on other sites. So I just added them to the last chapter with the new second scene.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your feedback!

Aracai Rangan

Chapter One: Psychedelic Death Threats


Celestic Town, September 2046

I want to start this story with a simple truth: Not everyone wants to be evil, but they don't understand how to be good. They need someone to show them that.

For example: occupants of the Awa Hotel seemed utterly incapable of grasping the fact that there was a global water crisis from the way they kept sending their almost spotless towels to be cleaned. I was quickly remembering that as I prepared another load of laundry in the hotel's basement under the light of horribly inefficient light bulbs.

It was rather monotonous work by any standard. Take pile of towels made by exploited labor in Africa. Put into washing machine made by exploited labor in Asia. Turn to clean pile of towels. Stack. Send to someone else in the basement. Repeat for hours. Break. Resume.

I had worked the front desk for a year or so in the future. Management figured that if they had to have vaira working directly with guests they might as well be pretty. Incidentally, the hotel eventually got some complaints about taking jobs away from sinnoans so they hired some maori to work the front desk. I got moved back behind the scenes in the process. It wasn't a horrible loss. It was quiet down here and I didn't have to deal with the half-second of awkwardness people got when the realized they were going to have to talk to me.

Down here I only had to deal with Nanakia. He would stroll down occasionally in his overly fancy manager's uniform with flaps and pads that looked like they should have metals hanging from them and a long, white, silk scarf. He'd glance over at what I or some other vaira was doing, Occasionally he'd give some meaningless suggestion to at least give the pretense of authority. Usually he would just encourage us to work faster. There was a lot of work to be done and only three people to do it. He was young, no more than thirty to be sure, and basically ran the hotel since his uncle was rich and had bigger properties to manage. In the years where he could have been going to college he had been an above average coordinator. There were interviews and pictures of him during his days of minor celebrity plastered around the backrooms as a passive aggressive gesture to the vaira. I gave up this to come manage you; you'd best behave well.

In reality, he hadn't given it up voluntarily. I had found out in the past-future that he had actually been forced into retirement for five years over a bet with a hated rival. Nanakia had something of a gambling problem. Now the bet had expired. I wasn't quite sure why he didn't just go back to coordinating and leave the hotel to someone else. No one really was.

"Break time. You have thirteen minutes for lunch today for performing well. Use the extra five minutes wisely." Nanakia's voice preceded him into the room. Upon entry he glanced around to make sure that the right people were doing the right thing. He smiled at me in a way that wasn't altogether friendly when we made eye contact. Mercifully, he left almost immediately.

I sat down on one of the chairs in the room and pulled out my lunch sack. I had three mid-sized berries today. Two oran and a pecha. I hated oran berries, but they were the cheapest and easiest to find so I pretended to like them around my family. I said a prayer before eating the pecha first. It ensured I managed to finish something during the break. When I was halfway through eating the first oran my father entered the room and moved towards me. I pulled up a chair with my left hand and he sat down

"How has the work been, Shastra?"

I should probably take a moment to note that at this point I was called Shastra. I prefer Aracai but almost everyone calls me Shastra now.

"It's been good. Fast, but good," I replied while eating the last of the berry. It was rude, sure, but he was almost paranoid about me eating enough. If I had tried to be polite he would have been very nervous.

"Good, good."

He said "good" a lot. I think on some level he believed that if he said it enough it would become true. He slipped me a bag with a colbur berry in it without making eye contact. Colbur berries are literally the best thing about the sinnoh region. I ate it in a matter of seconds.

"You know, Nanakia and I had a talk earlier." I looked up. If I needed to know about their talk, it couldn't be good. But I started eating again after a moment. I was doubtful I could eat four berries in thirteen minutes and hold a conversation if two of the berries were disgusting. "He's offered us some more money if you take a promotion and start working full time. It was a very good offer."

I very much did not want to take that offer. Nanakia was already creepy so I didn't need him thinking I owed him anything, and I had something else on my schedule lined up for the next few months that conflicted with me doing anything but that. My father probably only had a vague understanding of the first point and no way of knowing about the latter.

"I, look, I know we could use the money but I want to finish secondary school first. Can we at least wait a couple months?"

My father frowned. "Why? You can legally drop out. What good will schooling do you anyway?"

"I, um, look. Look, can you just give me some time, okay? Just a little."

"I see." He stared forward and stroked his beard. His tone was neutral but cold. What good was a nearly adult girl who wasn't married, dating, engaged, or even accepting full time employment when it was offered to her?

"Alright, time's up. Get back to work everybody," Nanakia said as he entered the hall. He smiled at my father when he saw him, clearly aware of what we had just talked about, and helped him stand up. They walked together as they left the room. It wasn't altogether uncommon since my dad was officially in charge of managing the vaira, but on this occasion it made me vaguely ill.


I always took a certain path through Celestic Woods home from work. There was a nice clearing the middle where I could gather thoughts or do some quick reading. I walked and read quickly, so I could usually get away with reading a short chapter or two and still be home before suspicion would be raised.

A lot of people say that it is horribly unsafe to walk in nature without a pokémon. That is not at all the case. If you aren't an idiot, pay attention to your surroundings, and carry some pepper spray for good measure you should be fine.

Which leads to another complication I was facing. I didn't have a pokémon. I was in a position where I would probably need one rather soon.

Why? Because I had to save the world.

No, seriously. Dialga (with whom I have a long and complicated history) appeared to me after I royally screwed up saving the world in the future and told me that Arceus was going to reset time and space to a position from which the world could be saved. Which meant that I got to live life as a vaira teenager again. Of course, he hadn't bothered elaborating upon how he expected me to be remotely helpful, but I wasn't really expecting him too. That would have been too easy.

Giratina and Palkia also had champions. The difference was, they liked their champions. They were (more or less) capable of saving the world and were in a position to do it.

I met them in the clearing.

Jane Doe was leaning back against a tree with her eyes closed, as per usual.

Yes, you read that correctly. Jane. Doe. She was an alien from some far-off planet who looked more or less human, except she couldn't have been much more than 1.5 meters tall and her understanding of human culture was limited, but somehow existent. I think she unironically named herself Jane Doe to avoid suspicion because that's the kind of half-understanding she held about more or less everything. Her ralts was sitting beside her, eyes peacefully closed and body slumped. I wasn't quite sure how an alien had a ralts, but I had learned that it was easier not to ask questions.

Evyrus, the lone male on our team, was working through a children's reader when I entered the clearing.

Please note that, whatever his reading level, he actually was a little older than me. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen tops. Jane was hard to read since she wasn't fully human, but she looked most like an older teenager as well. Neither actually knew their age. Jane had mentioned that she wasn't good with time, and Evyrus was… complicated.

As near as I could tell from his story, he had once been a fairly normal boy living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where time didn't flow, humans were basically decimated, and the few pokémon that weren't mindless slaves of a tyrannical Dialga formed the basis of society. Anyway, some stuff happened and he ended up as a pokémon in his world's past, saved the world, and then ended up getting dragged here by Giratina.

I began the conversation the only way you can in a group consisting of members that strange.

"So, how was everyone's day?"

Jane opened her eyes and blinked as her metallic irises slowly faded to a more normal blue. "Oh, fine, I guess. We kind of hung out around the center. I watched some television. He read. I have no idea what you were doing because I was a good girl today and didn't psychically stalk you like you asked. Happy?"

"Reasonably so," I replied.

"I'm making some progress," Evyrus said as he closed his book. The bookmark was on a page about an obese feline sitting. "I should have the hang of it soon enough."

"So, um, about that plan you said you would have a week ago, do you have it yet, because I'm getting kind of bored," Jane asked while she fidgeted in place as if to show just how bored she was. "Celestic's nice and the ruins are pretty and old, but I want to see more of this place."


"Surprisingly, yes. I might have something of a plan. You did bring the documents I asked for, correct?"

"Yes," Evyrus answered as he pulled a book and a reasonably thick stack of printed pages from his backpack. "We got some weird looks at the library when we wanted to check this out. What exactly is it?"

"Legal stuff," I replied as I took the material. "Labor law stuff. I want to figure out if there are any loopholes I could use to go on this journey, since at the moment there aren't any great options for me getting out of here. Which brings me to the plan. I find a way to get out of here legally. You two do the gym challenge, enter the tournament next winter and try to win or do well. That should get you enough recognition and credibility that when we do need help, real help, we can get it. Or we get more information about the demon from knowing people higher up the ladder. You'd get stronger in the process. That would help."

Evyrus nodded. "What about you? Aren't you going to do anything?"

"I'll be your guide. I couldn't beat the demon before the reset and I definitely couldn't go from having no pokémon to going toe to toe with that monster in a matter of months, if it came down to it. I'll just focus on learning more about the demon and keeping a low profile."

"Still, you could help us. And it'd be more fun if you joined!" Jane interjected.

"Well, uh, I'd love to. But it's safer if I don't, Jane. High power vaira tend not to get on the bad side of people you don't want to be on the bad side of here. Like Nazis."

Jane blinked. It was an odd sight, since her eyes rippled across all their possible colors when she did it. "Nazis? I thought they died in Germany?"

"Not literal Nazis," I responded. "Just people very much like them. Bad, bad people. People who can do basically do whatever they want."

Evyrus shifted uncomfortably. He probably didn't have any idea what we were talking about but he didn't like the feeling of it. He had some experience with tyrants.

"Well, what about the Frontier?" Jane asked. "If Evyrus and I are really good, wouldn't it just be more challenging to do that and wouldn't it make us more famous?"

How the heck did she learn about that? The Battle Frontier was something that very few people thought about because only a few of the brains made their battles public, there were never more than six people challenging at a time (most of whose identities were secret), and even though it only took the very best applicants no one ever won. Whether it was corruption or the sheer power of those who worked for it, the organization had long been dismissed as a closeted and elitist pipe dream. The real attention in the region was on the gyms.

"It has notability requirements. You can't just challenge the Frontier. And also I think 'more challenging' things aren't really needed right now. Besides, you only have a ralts."

The ralts opened her eyes at that and glared at me. I felt psychic waves bombarding my body and mind from every direction. I warded it off, of course. I had training. But it felt more like a warning than an actual attack. She might be just a ralts, but she packed some serious ESP.

I shook myself off slightly and nonchalantly bushed a strand of hair out of my eye. The ralts was empathetic, but I could at least keep looking stoic on the outside. Jane laughed. I didn't quite know how extensive her psychic powers were, but they were really, really powerful. She was definitely capable of getting around my standard mental blocks. It was not unreasonable to believe she was empathetic, too.

"Anyway," I said while frowning, hoping she would get the hint, "it's not really possible at this point. If the demon doesn't surface by the tournament I suppose you could do the Frontier next year."

"Who determines notability?" Jane asked. "Frontier Brains themselves? Could one of them let me challenge?"

"I have no idea. Why, do you know one?"

"I can convince most anyone to do most anything here, if I really wanted. Humans have much weaker minds than I was expecting."

"No mind control," Evyrus said. "Just don't. It's not right."

"Even a little?" Jane pouted.

"No," I said. "None."

"But if I hypothetically did-"

"You would be caught. Someone would realize that you didn't have any credentials to challenge the Frontier with and your challenge would be suspended. Do it enough and you'd probably get us all arrested or discredited, which goes against the entire point of the plan."

Jane rolled here eyes as another flourish of color flashed through them. "Fine," she conceded. She looked far more annoyed than fine.

"Well, if that's settled, meet me here again Monday at the same time. I should have made some progress on my end of the plan by then."


My father could try to guilt trip me into doing something I didn't want to do all he wanted, but I was much better at passive aggressive warfare. I also did the cooking. Incidentally, I had a far higher tolerance for spicy food than he did. That night I served some of the spiciest sambar I could make. I liked it and his taste buds got the point. He stopped bugging me about the offer for the time being.


That night I stayed up late reading through the documents that Evyrus and Jane had given me earlier in the day. I shared a rather small room with two of my siblings, sleeping on the highest bunk of a bed quite obviously meant for children. Reading was only possible due to a window letting in the light of the full moon.

I hadn't lied. They were legal documents. That made it somewhat harder to stay awake.

I should probably take this space to further elaborate on the context of the word "vaira" in this narrative, for the benefit of those living outside of Sinnoh.

For roughly three decades before this story begins, the Neoliberals had used means legal and illegal to maintain power. Meaningful elections had been suspended at some point well before I came here. They had only recently been promised again after a particularly violent wave of attempted coups from the right-wing militias.

The Neolibs were rather famous for their attempts to modernize Sinnoh, partially through reliance upon the inventions, designs, or concepts that Team Galactic, now Galactic Enterprises, had left behind. While some of their plans brought prosperity and modernity to the urban areas of Sinnoh, others weren't quite as glamorous.

After a nasty independence war, Sinnoh needed people. Young people. Because almost all of theirs were wounded or dead. So they started importing them from abroad. India, South America, Africa—wherever people whose idea of "a lot of money" was equal to or less than ten USD a day lived. It was cheap, they could be deported for anything since they weren't citizens, and because they were desperate and isolated they could be treated as subhumans to be exploited at every opportunity.

This was compounded by the reality that, even though Sinnoh didn't have enough native, ethnically Maori workers to provide its own labor they still hated anyone from outside of the South Pacific islands as a threat and an invader. They labeled us "vaira," or outsiders. We clearly didn't belong in their perfectly unrealistic order.

My family was given far more permanent residence than most since my father had learned Maori in university, which had been the primary language on the island since the seafaring invaders had marginalized or killed off the natives a couple centuries ago. He also knew enough about business to be justifiable as "necessary labor," meaning that he could stay here until the company either agreed to sponsor his permanent residence or until they decided they didn't want him anymore. Then he would get a 48-hour notice to be out of the country.

My problem: finding a legal way out so I could get on the road and start saving the world without getting my family or myself deported. On my twelfth birthday I signed a part-time contract, since that was the only way a non-citizen could really get employment in this country and my family needed it. Violating that by walking out would put my family, and myself, in some legal hot water. So I needed some way to get either dismissed from work for an indefinite period of time or, ideally, get Nanika to sponsor me for permanent residency. Neither was terribly likely. So there I was awake at almost midnight, reading legal documents to figure out what loopholes I could abuse or what I could offer my boss to make it worth his while to let me go.

The next morning on my way to work, I met a ralts in my favorite clearing. Her comically large head tilted up a little to meet my gaze when I walked in. I think I had woken her up, but she seemed to be expecting me from the look in her eyes.

"Hey." I bent down. "Are you Jane's? I've never really dealt with-"

At about that point everything turned white. When color returned, I was somewhere else entirely.


"Greetings, Miss Rangan."

I looked around me to see a field of multicolored flowers, some of which were shades that should not have existed in nature. Others were glowing. Some were both. The clouds were shades of red and blue and the sky was faintly orange. I turned to see a girl only slightly younger than me (physically) sitting high up on the stump of a redwood. She was barefoot and wearing jeans with the legs cut about thirty centimeters short and a tie-die t-shirt. Her hair was barely kept, with sprigs of an unknown plant in it. Her eyes were composed of several colors and patterns all at once, like they were kaleidoscopes I was looking through.

It was more or less how I had always imagined the world would look under hallucinogens.

"Miss, Rangan, I'm talking to you."

I blinked and looked back up at the girl. The sunlight shone behind her and the entire field was already disorienting.

"Oh, hi. Are you a hippy or something?"

It was an idiotic reply. But how else do you reply to that kind of situation? Seriously.

The girl smiled. "Something to that effect. I've always admired that part of your culture. Peace, harmony, The Beatles. Beautiful. Simply beautiful."

"Your culture? So you are Jane's ralts. An alien, right?"

"Yes, yes I am. I merely wished to communicate with you in a form you would be at ease around. Talking to pokémon is not standard on Earth, I believe."

I glanced around at the multicolor land, noticing new distortions. The clouds were rising and falling like wax in a lava lamp.

"Not really, but this definitely isn't standard on Earth."

"Well, of course not, but it's a metaphor or something. You are familiar with the concept. It is meant to be relaxing and portray my own ideals for life in the world. You understand, yes?"

"Nope. Can ralts even get high?"

The girl glared down at me. "I don't know. I haven't had the chance. Why?"

"I, uh, no reason."

"You haven't even asked for my name. That's the first step of basic politeness, is it not?"

"Usually," I replied. The ralts-girl continued to glare at me. "Fine. What's your name?"

She relaxed only slightly. "Jewel. I trust you know what those are, earthling."

I couldn't tell how much of an insult that was meant to be, but my facial expression must have given away my irritation. Jewel giggled, but continued to look deadly serous for a hippy.

"Well, this has been a nice talk. Did you actually have any reason to psychically kidnap me beyond telling me your name?"

"Of course," Jewel scoffed. "I wanted to give you a stern warning not to harm my mother. It might be inevitable, but it will at least mean that you know what's coming when I crush your skull down to the size of a soda can."

I rolled my eyes. I was unfortunately quite used to death threats. Even really weird ones.

"Right. Can we go back to the part of the conversation where you talked about peace and harmony? Or where you decided you wanted to be a hippy? Do you actually know what any of that means?"

"Of course I do," she pouted.

"Threatening to crush someone's head generally isn't viewed as peaceful or harmonious."

"You lie."

I continued to stare at Jewel's dream projection. An odd thought popped into my head that I probably shouldn't have said aloud. But I figured that she was probably already tracking my mind. If 'peace' was too hard of a concept to grasp, I doubted she would do much better with 'mental privacy.'

"For a baby pokémon, isn't your human form pretty old? Baby humans don't look like that."

"I know what baby humans look like. I am older than my evolutionary stage suggests. And far more powerful."

To prove her point she shook the ground. The lucid sky turned green as if a tornado were imminent and Jewel's eyes turned red with black patterns spiraling within them.

"So tell me, puny girl: do you want to fight me?" she asked.

Then I watched as the world became taller, or rather I became smaller. I wanted to make some snarky response but found that it only came out as "goo gah?" The newly giant Jewel stood above me as her clothes morphed into the translucent dress of a ralts.

"Who's a baby now, earthling?"

Then the world faded once more.

--//|=

Talking to Jewel had at least one positive effect: it made the inevitable confrontation with Nanakia much less intimidating. He had the ability to keep me in Celestic indefinitely and deport my entire family with no reason, but he wasn't the hippy Freddy Krueger.

"Hey, can we talk for a second?"

They were the last words I had ever expected myself to say to Nanakia the first time I was this age, but here I was saying them. He smiled.

"Of course. Let's just go to my office. It's quieter there."

I paused. I wasn't quite sure I wanted to be alone with him, but it also didn't want my plans to become common knowledge just yet and really didn't want my father finding out through the rumor mill.

"Sure," I agreed. If nothing else I had picked up some hand-to-hand combat training in the future.

We walked up the staircases to the fifth floor. I honestly thought he would take an elevator. He wasn't fat or anything, but he had never struck me as a man who cared much for fitness. Along the way we passed by several old magazine pictures of him with his froslass and weavile, either holding a ribbon or executing moves that would win him one.

"How many contests did you win?'

I didn't really care. I had probably known at one point, given his pride in them.

"Thirty-one in seven years," he replied almost instantly. "I started when I was about your age with just an eevee. Went on to become one of the greatest ice-themed coordinators the world had ever seen. Fantastic career." He frowned slightly then and stopped walking. "Do they have contests in India?"

"I, uh, wouldn't know. I'm not from there." Because all people of Indian descent were from India of course.

"Oh, right. Prak is from… Guinea, right?"

"Guyana," I corrected.

"Right, right." Nanakia stood there for a moment and mouthed 'Guyana' a few times before nodding, content he had committed the information to memory. "Sorry about that. I'm just a busy guy."

"I'm sure you are."

He opened the door to his office and walked in. There was a desk for a secretary that was currently vacant after the last one had quit. I didn't quite remember that story; I would need to ask someone about it. He kept walking into his inner office and sat behind his desk. He invited me to pull up a chair.

The room had a few very large posters of his pokémon on the walls. Glaceon, weavile, froslass, abomasnow, mamoswine… he wasn't kidding when he said he liked ice types. The rest of the office was surprisingly bare for belonging to an ex-coordinator. There were a few pictures of his family on a nearby filing cabinet and a stack of papers on the desk. His glaceon sat on a padded circle on the floor. It stirred when I sat down and stared at me as ice crystals spread across its bed. Then it went back to sleep.

"I suppose you're here about the promotion," Nanakia said.

"I, uh, no. Not really. I was actually here about the opposite sort of thing." Nanakia raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. "I would really, really like it if you could sponsor permanent residence for me or at least void our contract."

He laughed. It was the boisterous laugh of someone trying to enjoy a joke they don't find funny.

"Right, right. Interesting. So, about the job-"

"I'm serious." I made eye contact and straightened my posture. At one point I had a rather impressive death glare. I suspect the blood red contact lenses had something to do with that.

Nanakia shifted uncomfortably. "Can I ask why?"

A rather long moment passed before I answered. He probably thought I was just trying to make up more of a bad, impulsive joke on the spot. In reality I was trying to think of something more plausible than the truth.

"University, really. I'm going to graduate soon enough. There's nothing technically prohibiting me from going to school here if I'm a permanent resident. After I get job training and such I could come back here with more human capital and be a bigger asset."

He drummed his fingers on the table. "And why would you come back?"

"My family, of course."

"And what would I gain from having you as a general manager over your father? I can deport him any time I want. Makes it kind of hard for him to negotiate on terms. Let's be real: I'm not used to the hotel business, but I'm not stupid. You'll have to make me a better offer than that now."

I exhaled slowly. When the carrot fails, blackmail is often usable.

"I could always go to the press, you know. Talk about the plight of underaged girls being forced to labor without citizenship in borderline illegal conditions."

Nanakia took that much better than I thought he would. He frowned and glared, but otherwise remained calm.

"The working conditions here are quite legal. The pay is better than what any of you could make back home. I don't deport without reason and don't really threaten it. I'm one of the best bosses this side of Coronet. And you turned sixteen two months ago. You're legally of age."

"In most of the world I wouldn't be."

"And in Ancient India you would be expecting your third kid or something. It's all relative. Who would you report this to, anyway? No one with power really cares?"

I shook my head. I would need to go back to the drawing board. I think a tear or two accidentally ran down my cheek. I wasn't sad, really. Just frustrated. I occasionally cried when I was frustrated.

"Wait," he called before I could leave the room. "There's something you can give me that I want, but you won't do it. There's something you want that I won't give you."

I wasn't sure what 'something' he was referring to, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was the job.

"This isn't really a case where we can trade."

"Right, but it is something where we can compete." He smiled. "How do you feel about a wager?"

Chapter Two: Seeing Red And White


"What do you mean we still can't leave?" Jane whined.

"I mean that I need more time to work things out," I replied. "My initial plan failed so now I need to think of another one. That's all."

"We've been here over a week. Have you even talked to your boss yet? I can talk to him if you want. I can be quite convincing," Jane said.

I ignored her offer.

"Yes, I've talked to him. He declined my initial proposition."

"And? Anything else?" Jane asked.

"He offered to made a bet with impossible terms. Taking it would all but guarantee failure. I'll need to think of something better."

"What was the bet?" Evyrus asked, marking his first question in the entire exchange.

"He's a former coordinator. He said he'll let me go if I can win the contest on the eighteenth."

"And why is that hard? Evyrus and I are going to have to crush gym leaders or frontier brains or whatever. Contests aren't even real battling."

"Just gym leaders," I corrected. "Frontier is probably unviable right now."

"Whatever," she pouted.

"Anyway, it's impossible because I don't have any pokémon. Most of the people who enter Celestic contests aren't even that good, but they're certainly better than a girl who's had her team for a little over a week. Losing the bet would effectively kill any chance I have of leaving. So, it looks like we're back to the drawing board."

"You don't have any pokémon?" Jane asked.

"I've said that before."

"Still sticking with that story?"

I looked at Evyrus. His expression didn't make it clear if he knew why Jane was suddenly curious about this topic. "Yes, it's the truth."

She glared at me as her eyes flashed metallic. "People don't lie on Ek. You're one of the first liars I've met. I hate liars. I want the truth."

I felt her mental offenses pressing against my safeguards and made a strong effort to fight back. If she was anywhere near as strong as her ralts it was hopeless. But symbolic defiance can be important when it's the only kind you have.

"I thought we had rules about mental boundaries," I said.

"Yes, yes we do," Evyrus agreed. "Jane, if you're attacking Aracai, please stop. We're going to need trust if we can get through this."

"I can't trust liars," she said. "I want the truth."

We kept glaring at each other and she kept prodding my mind. But she never made a serious attempt to break in. She was putting up a symbolic offense at that point. Those could be important, too.

"If that's settled," Evyrus said, "let's talk about some other options. I think Jane and I would like at least a little input on this, or at least would like to know what your thought processes are."

"Alright," I said, reluctantly. It was my choice to make. But I didn't want to fight both of them.

"Sounds good," Jane agreed.

"Something I've been wondering, Aracai: why can't we help? You might not like it but Jane could just do some psychic work and we could be done with the whole mess."

"Because of the message it sends," I replied without hesitation. "I don't need some outsider to come in and swoop me out of the situation that the maori have conned me into taking. I want to do it myself. Need to do it myself. It's how I operate and how I made my reputation."

"I, um, I don't really get it," Evyrus replied.

I sighed in exasperation. "Were there systemically oppressed minority groups where you lived?" I asked.

"Dialga didn't like the people trying to overthrow him. I think what he did qualified as oppression."

"Were there people not actively trying to overthrow Dialga that Dialga persecuted anyway?" I clarified.

"Kind of everyone."

"Well, you probably wouldn't get it. Jane? Any reference point for you?"

She was silent and still. Both were unusual for her.

Yes, Jewel said for her. She has a reference point.

I was now curious, but it was clear I wasn't going to get an answer from her then. "So she gets it. I can't just rely on outside help to get me out of it. It's something I've got to do myself."

"I need to get going. Bye," Jane said before disappearing in a teleportation flash with Jewel.

I frowned. "She can teleport?"

"I just kind of assume that she can do everything a psychic type can do and then some," Evyrus said.

"You still want to talk about options, or would you rather go and deal with her?"

"You scare me much less than she does. I think I'll stay with you. Besides, who knows where she's actually at now."

"Alright, I don't have much longer to talk, but we can talk about a few things. You wanted to know about options, right? Other things we can do if this spectacularly fails?"

"I actually wanted to know what your current plan—"

"I don't have one." I looked him straight in the eyes. "I don't have one. I never really did. I figure I'll come up with something eventually, but…" I trailed off and brushed my bangs aside as my gaze fell to the ground. "I don't think I will right now. What's probably going to happen is that you'll have to go on with Jane and occasionally call back to me if you need to know something."

"Please don't do that," Evyrus said. "Please don't. I have no idea what I'm doing here and Jane, well, she thinks she knows things much better than she does. We'd probably both get hopelessly lost or violate every social taboo there is within a week"—I clamped my mouth shut instead of asking if that included public indecency—"Then we'd be arrested or mocked or something else that would keep us from ever saving the world. We need you. We'll need you with us."

I met his gaze. "I'm not letting Jane solve my problems for me."

"What if it was that or the end of the universe?"

We sat in silence for nearly two minutes before I stood to leave. As I walked away, I finally answered.

"I'd think about it, maybe."


My father enjoyed his dinner far too much to provoke me about the promotion. Maybe he knew about the bet. Maybe he didn't. Either way, for his stomach's sake he didn't confront me until it was almost impossible not to. I played nicely. The curry that night wasn't even all that hot by my standards.

"Dinner's good, Shastra," my mother said. "Good job."

Which likely meant: thank you for not doing that thing you did yesterday again.

"Very much so," my sister Maya added. "I do like some of your spicier food though."

"I don't," my father said between bites. "There's a limit to how hot even Indian food should be. What'd you even use last night, ghost pepper?"

"Only a little," I answered. "They aren't cheap so I can't use much. I still have a couple more stowed away if you want to try them again."

That was about the end of complaints about my cooking. It's how I learned soft power. You don't have to be stronger than your opponent if they are utterly dependent on you for the essentials of life. Usually the people providing the essentials just don't realize how much power they have.

"How was your day, dear?" My father asked my mother.

"Aadi's doing well for the most part. I spent a few hours with him and Dhwani at their home. They're almost settled in." She paused. "There are a few legal issues for them. She might lose her job and since she's from India and Aadi's Guyanan there could be some problems. They hope everything will turn out alright."

In case you didn't pick it up there: Aadi is my oldest brother. Total straight edge, suck up, honor-your-parents-and-traditions-above-all-else type of guy. He is married to another more or less permanent vaira. Of course, since neither of them had citizenship or a easy pathway to legal residency in the other's country things could get tricky if one of them got deported. Their employers knew it. Aadi might have been working for less than I was. Not that he would complain, of course.

My father nodded. If he had an emotional reply to give he would do so later in private, ideally when his children were away. The apartment we shared was really too small to get emotional in secret.

"And your day, Jayu?"

"Alright, I guess."

"Good, good." The conversation turned to cricket, which almost made me feel bad. He never asked Maya how her day was because he kind of hated her, so excluding me was definitely not a sign of endearment.


"Anything bothering you?" Jayu asked as he finished setting up a chessboard.

We were in a run-down park near the apartment. It was usually deserted, largely because the swing set was rusty and would probably break if anyone actually tried to use it. The table was functional and it was a quiet place, so Jayu preferred to play chess here.

"You could say that," I replied as I eyed the board. He challenged me to a game of chess every day. There's a stereotype that intelligent people are very good at that game. Some probably are. I'm not. I couldn't have been any fun to play, but for some reason he kept challenging me. I kept playing because I liked talking to him and it was the best way of doing so.

"Nan told me about the bet," he said. "Why the hell did you take it?"

"I didn't," I blurted out. For a minute my mind shut down in shock. Was Nanakia not even letting me decline his deals? "It was stupid and impossible so I didn't. Did he say otherwise?"

"No, he didn't clarify. I just thought you'd take any challenge thrown at you." He laughed to himself before his expression turned serious again. "Why the hell did you make it, then?"

"He did. Can we get to playing?"

Jayu shook his head. "Can we talk first? This is big."

"Fine."

"Why did you let him make it? Why do you want to leave?"

"Jayu, I…" Much to his credit, I contemplated telling him the truth. "It's complicated. I have reasons that I really want to tell you about, but can't?"

"You pregnant?" He asked. "Shit, you're pregnant, aren't you? That's why you want to get away. I swear if that bastard—"

"No, no. Definitely not pregnant. Nothing like that," I interjected. "I, uh, you know I wouldn't let him do that, right?"

Jayu smiled a little. "Of course, sorry about that. But seriously, why do you want to leave?"

"It's just something I have to do now," I said. "Can we leave it at that?"

He moved his hand towards the board as if he wanted to motion for me to move. For a moment he held it there before he pulled it back.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I thought we just went over that. It's complicated."

"No, bigger than that. What do you want out of life? What do you want to do here," he motioned broadly upon saying the word 'here.'

"My answer to a specific question is too complicated to tell you, so ask me a bigger question and expect an answer?"

He laughed. "Basically."

I stared at the board and lifted a pawn after a minute of feigned consideration. I had no idea what I was doing.

"No, seriously. What do you want?"

"I don't know, probably the same thing as everybody else," I said.

"And that is?"

"To leave this place better than I found it."

"And you think that everyone wants that?"

"Yes, yes I do."

"Cyrus?"

"I think in his view of the world, he was trying to make the world better. That just happened to mean destroying it for him."

"Hitler?"

"Why does everyone always invoke Hitler?" I complained.

"He's a pretty well agreed upon definition of evil."

"He didn't kill puppies," I said. "So if he's the definition of evil, then killing puppies can't be evil. And all vegetarians must be evil. He was vegetarian. So both of us are monsters."

"You know you're defending Hitler, right?"

"I'm not. I'm just objecting to your statement."

"Alright, alright. But my question still stands. Did Hitler really just want to make the world better?"

I sighed. "Look, probably. He might have done some bad things to do it, but in his mind I think he wanted to make things better. He just wasn't terribly good at it and his view of 'the world' was rather limited."

"So which world do you want to make better?" Jayu asked.

I rolled my eyes. "This one. It will inevitably get better. It just needs people to guide it along."

"So you want to leave to guide things along?"

"I, um, no. That's not quite the whole reason." I had forgotten that he was at least my equal in manipulating conversations and people. "It's complicated and not that personal. But what do you want, anyway, while we're asking?

"Eh. I'm not sure I have some big want yet. I think too many people rush into it and by the time they find out that it doesn't bring them happiness it's too late. So I just want to talk to people. Figure out what they want and try to help them with it. Maybe when I've worked things out they'll return the favor. I figured I might as well start with you."

I nodded and looked back at the board, more out of courtesy than understanding.

"If we're still going to play, it's your turn."


By the end of the next school day I had been praying on and off for roughly eight hours and still had nothing close to an answer. I had prayed to Shiva, Saraswati, Kali, Murugan and many, many others. Just as the last bell rang and I had to make one final trip to my locker and then head off to work, a strange thought occurred to me:

Why not try Dialga?

It made sense. She was technically my patron, even if we'd had a rough history. Besides, she obviously had something of an interest in not letting Coronet get overrun again.

I didn't have any relevant prayers memorized, so I had to improvise. I am bad at improvised prayer. It ended up roughly like this:

Hey, Dialga. Look, I get that we've had some issues in the past. I'll be the first to apologize. I'm sorry for blowing up your temple that one time. To my credit, I haven't even done it yet! It was an accident anyway, more or less. There just happened to be people in there I needed to take care of and my orders got a little muddled. Point is, I'm sorry. Now, if you could give me some help with saving the world like I'm supposed to do, and more specifically getting me out of Celestic so I can save the world, it would be appreciated.

Thank you.


Dialga must have hated me a lot more than I expected. She answered.


When I walked out of school, I saw Evyrus standing near the entrance. He looked really uncomfortable. That was normal. I don't think he had ever seen a settlement of humans nearly as large as Celestic City, which wasn't even large by Sinnoh standards. He saw me walking towards him and smiled. His chatot fluttered off of his shoulder when he started to move and his infernape began to walk towards me on her knuckles.

"Hey," I called. "Any reason you decided to meet me today?"

Especially at a place where we would be seen together. News traveled fast in vaira communities. I doubted it would be taken well if I was seen walking with a slightly older man that my parents didn't know. If nothing else, I would have to add it to the increasingly long list of things I needed to explain.

"I just wanted to talk without Jane present," he said. "I can talk to her without you a lot, and, no offense to her or anything, I need a break sometimes."

"I can identify with that," I said.

We walked into the tree line to go along my favorite path in the woods. I briefly considered if that would make the inevitable talk at home even worse, but figured that I was probably in for much worse when I had to break the news I was leaving anyway. I might as well get a preview.

"Has Jewel talked to you yet?" he asked.

"Ugh, yes. I thought her trainer was bad, but at least she isn't psychotic magic hippy."

"Is that what you call people like her?" Evyrus asked.

"It refers more to people like her who are way too high to bother with killing you."

"High? Like, mountains?"

"Add it to the list of Earth-things I need to explain to you," I replied.

"OK." A pause settled in as we walked over the wet grass. It had rained earlier that day. It often rained in spring. "What did Jewel say to you?"

"She assumed I was hellbent on killing Jane and threatened to further de-age me, or just outright kill me. I don't think ralts actually have time powers, so probably the latter."

"Kirlia," he said. "The damn thing evolved. Flaunts her body constantly to my partners. If she was smug before, you can't even imagine her now."

"Oh. Wow. Sorry you have to live with her."

Evyrus' chatot loudly screeched at a nearby pachirisu before flying after it, chattering incessantly.

"Chatot! You don't have to pay back every insult," Evyrus yelled.

As he rushed forward and alternated between lecturing his chatot and apologizing to the pachirisu, an interesting thought occurred to me.

"You can speak to all pokémon?" I asked. "Not just yours?"

"I spent long enough surrounded by the language to pick it up," he said.

"So you can actually speak it?"

"A little. It's hard to do with a human mouth. Most of the pokémon here seem to get the basics of the local human language as well, even though the species don't seem to get along as well as they did at home."

"It makes sense. The maori hunted pokémon for a long time here before, allegedly, the local legendaries took action against it. They probably learned as a survival tactic."

Evyrus looked appalled as he stared at me with a half-open mouth, his hand almost clenching at his side.

"That was a very long time ago," I clarified. "A couple hundred years before I was born. And it also wasn't my ancestors, mind you. Indians had much more respect for the animals and pokémon of our lands."

Another pause, this one far more awkward, filled the void in our conversation. Eventually Evyrus filled the gap with the aspect of the human experience most intricately linked to senseless violence:

"So, uh, in the past, future, whatever thing—"

"Just the future," I corrected.

"Right, that. Anyway, in the future, were you married or anything?"

"Engaged," I said. "Had been engaged for a few years. We wanted to put off the ceremony until the demon was defeated. By the time it became clear that wasn't happening, well, it seemed altogether too depressing to actually get married and we had much bigger things to deal with."

"Oh," he said. "So, did he die?"

"I take it your culture is rather heteronormative," I said.

"What?"

"It means that the cultural values reflect straight relationships. Huge problem here in Sinnoh, at least in the parts where the Brigadiers are popular. You just assumed I was dating a guy."

Evyrus blinked. "You were engaged to another girl?"

"If I was what difference would it make? In any case, I was bleeding out when the world ended so I was actually more dead than my partner."

"So you were dying?"

"If you want to be technical I still am. And so are you. But at that point I was dying a lot faster than I am now."

He dropped the conversation. We were close enough to my workplace. He said goodbye and left. He didn't shake hands or hug or anything like that. He didn't seem to like touch very much at all. It made him even more uncomfortable than normal.


Hey, you. I want to talk.

I looked around the laundry room to figure out where the voice was coming from.

I'm not there. I'm back at the Center.

"Jane?" I asked, mentally.

Yes, she replied.

I thought we had an agreement about mental privacy?

How is basic telepathy violating your privacy?

You knew I was looking around.

She didn't reply for a moment.

Fine, I'll stick to telepathy.

So, what do you want to talk about? I asked.

Evyrus is out and, while you're still a liar and I might hate you, you're the only person I can talk to outside of Jewel. I could talk to people in the lobby, I guess.

Don't do that.

Alright, then I'm talking to you, liar.

Why am I a liar? I asked.

Because you lied to me, she responded.

About what?

You know what.

No, I really don't. Please tell me.

You're lying again.

I shifted my attention back to work. This was a pointless conversation. Then my hands stopped folding towels. Trying to do so just made my arm muscles strain against themselves until I felt like I might tear my body apart.

Jane, bodily possession is most definitely a violation of privacy and I suggest you drop it right now.

Then talk to me.

I have some serious psychological issues with possession. It would hurt our cause if I had a breakdown in the middle of work.

Why? How'd you get those?

I don't like talking about it and if you probe my memory for it, I will kill you. No mercy. No regrets.

She was silent for a minute.

How would you do that?

I chose to ignore the question. I already had enough things I was dealing with that I needed to do and had no way of doing.

I'm starting to panic a little. Please let me go.

She complied, mercifully.

So are you going to tell your boss no today?

I already did. I don't need to again.

Meet with him at all?

He might come down to check on me and/or check me out. That would be it.

I see.

She was silent for another hour and a half.


I decided to eat lunch alone in a corner of the hotel's basement that was old enough most people had never encountered it or didn't give it much thought. The hotel was old, even by Sinnoh standards. Portions of the underground were still earthen, even as the rest was updated so that it only looked like a relic. Tourists liked the idea of old things, but they didn't want to live in one.

Unfortunately, solitude can only be chosen if all other parties agree to respect it.

"Hello, Shastra. Odd seeing you down here."

Nanakia strolled into the dank room, looking extremely out of place in his elaborate jacket surrounded by the smells and sights of the mud that humanity had used with before we found less natural, more desirable diversions.

"Just eating alone. Why are you here?" I asked.

I had left my pepper spray in my backpack in the laundry room. This was going to be resolved by talking alone.

As he began to reply, Nanakia's glaceon walked into the room and the temperature instantly dropped. The fox grimaced as she stained her perfect white fur brown with an unfortunate brush against the wall.

He picked his pokémon up, letting some of the mud rub against his jacket, but didn't seem to mind. For a moment I wondered if he might get frostbite.

"I had to inspect the facilities from time to time for the bureaucrat's sake. The hotel's older than their grandparents and they still question its safety."

"I see," I said. "They obviously don't respect tradition."

"Not in the slightest, no one in government does. We've run this land our own way for centuries but the damn Enterprisers wonder how we ever survived without regulation and free trade. As long as they make a buck, well, to hell with Sinnoh."

"I see."

"As you should. So, you thought over the wager anymore?"

Yes, yes I had as a matter of fact. And I still wasn't willing to take it. I'm sorry.

"Yes, yes I have as a matter of fact. And I've changed my mind."

You can guess which one I meant to say.

JANE! It is possible to mentally yell. I was doing it.

"Really?" Nanakia asked.

"Yes," my mouth said. "You're on."

I swear, if you don't let me take back control of my body right now, I will rip you limb from limb and leave you for the staraptor.

You can try, she replied.

"Well, then, I suppose you won't mind if Snowflake and I get into the action ourselves? Since you have agreed, and I have a vested interest in the outcome, it only makes sense that I be allowed to participate."

Three thoughts popped into my head: 1) That was the absolute least original name I had ever heard for a glaceon. 2) Jane, please don't make this any worse. 3) Dialga, if you are in any way responsible for this please know that I can now blow up your temple a second time, this time around for actual vengeance.

I wouldn't threaten beings far more powerful than me if even I can do this to you, Jane said.

You are the single most despicable ***** I've ever met, and I have known more genocidal maniacs than any person ever should.

"Fine by me, if you're fine returning to a loss."

"Well, then. If you're so cocky about it this should be a great match. I look forward to seeing what you bring next Saturday."

Please renegotiate to the next Saturday, if at all possible. Please. Please. Please. Please.

Thanks for using the magic word.

"Wait, if you're going to enter can we push back the contest a week?"

"Not quite so confident now, are you?"

"Well, I need something to beat ice types. I was more prepared for the usual trainers."

Nanakia chuckled. "Fine, fine. But that's as far as I'll push it back. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more of the hotel to inspect."

He left me alone in the moist, earthy cavern. I found myself staring at his retreating form, watching as his immaculate clothes disappeared into the darkness.

Jane, I asked, What could have possibly given you the impression that was a good idea?"

You have a pokémon.

I paused for a long time.

You think I'm a liar because of that?!

You do own one.

Only… no. I'm not having this argument now. Let me go. I need to be let go.

What's the magic word?

I gave her two. They served their intended purposes.

--//|=​

When I got out of work I ran to the Pokémon Centre, utterly oblivious to the misshapen paths and the Brigadiers and the pedestrians and the other vaira. They didn't matter.

Long before I reached my destination my vision was already filled with red.

--//|=​

When I got close to the Centre itself I saw Evyrus standing outside with his infernape. He saw me and moved to block my path. I didn't slow down. He visibly sighed and started walking towards me, his infernape moving beside him. I tried changing paths a little, but his infernape easily outmaneuvered me. I came to a stop. There was going to be a confrontation and, while I might be able to overpower Evyrus despite his considerable size advantage, I knew from personal experience that a trained infernape was more than a match for any human.

"What do you want?" I called out to him as he finished walking to me.

"What happened with you and Jane? She didn't say much about it when I got back."

"She possessed me and made me take the bet. Can you step aside now?"

"I thought we had a 'no possession' agreement?"

"As did I."

Evyrus exhaled and closed his eyes as he analyzed the situation. "I will definitely talk to Jane about that."

"I don't think she understands what privacy means, and at this point I doubt she'll learn before she violates both of ours completely."

"No, no she gets what privacy means. She just doesn't get that most humans aren't psychic."

"What?"

"When I came in and talked to her about what she did, she justified herself by saying that you would have fought back if you were actually uncomfortable. She thought she was doing you a favor."

"I was fighting back. I'm a black belt at two mental defense arts. I was fighting back as hard as nearly anyone can."

"But it still barely even registered to her. Think about that. Barely registered."

"I think I can make an impact that registers with her. Let me. Step aside."

Evyrus raised a hand as if he was going to put it on my shoulder in some fraternal, condescending gesture. Then he withdrew at the last moment.

"If she can override your body, how do you plan on hurting her?"

"She caught me by surprise. I'm angry now. Very angry. I can take her."

"Maybe so. But what about Jewel? If she sees you trying to kill her trainer… I wouldn't want to be in Celestic. Mew knows what she would do. You can't talk to her now, much less try to attack her."

"And does that justify her actions? I spent almost two decades laboring in conditions far beneath me because I was afraid of people. Then I decided to fight back and my fears weren't justified. They were reversed. I might be sixteen again, but I swear that I will not again be controlled by power alone."

"Aracai, you're yelling. You might want to quiet down if you want to avoid attention."

"Do I look like I care?"

"No."

"It was a rhetorical question."

"I figured as much. What I'm trying to say is that if you really, really want to do it, I would wait. Just ride the journey out. You can't just let billions of people die because you two don't get along. We need her power and your knowledge to get through this."

I grimaced. I didn't like it. Jane needed to die painfully and soon. But he had a point.

"Fine. I'll hold back for now. You still might not get to see me on the journey if, no, when I lose to Nanakia."

"You think I'd let that happen? Or Jane, for that matter?"

"I expect you to respect my wishes and stay out of my business."

Evyrus shrugged. "If you lose, I'm not sure I can stop Jane from pulling some strings. She's already anxious to leave and now she'll have to wait a few more days at best."

"Weeks," I corrected. "I got her to push it back a week."

"Well, then, if you won't be too busy training Friday night, there's someone coming into town. He sounds like he's stirring up unrest. Could be bad news for us."

"Did you get a name?"

"Urayu."

"Oh… no."

I smiled a little, rage lessening. Urayu... I'd never met the man. He'd died before I had gotten involved in revolutionary politics, but he was a legend still. As Sinnoh started to fall apart he had always been there, keeping the most vulnerable safe from the wrath of the demagogues. He had built them a safe haven in the Pacific and paid the ultimate price for it... huh. It hadn't occurred to me before that he, and others I had only heard honored as martyrs were still walking around with flesh and blood.

"Urayu's not a threat. He's on our side."

"OK then, I guess. I guess I can't complain about being allied with troublemakers. It's happened before."

He sighed, off in some distant memory as a strange mix of sadness and happiness flowed from his person. He was content. I was tolerant. Jane would avoid her death for a little while longer. I saw clearly now the path ahead on that front. I would bide my time. Regrow my own powers and learn the limits of Jane's. And then, when the world was safe, I would watch her lifeless corpse fall down to Earth. I was damned anyway. What was one more body on the pile?

But Evyrus didn't need to know that. It made no difference to the safety of the planet and thus was none of his concern.

"Well, then, I still need supplies. I've got a vague plan on how to do this, if not a good one."

I stepped forward towards the center and Evyrus, perhaps noticing the shift in my mood or perhaps lost in his own reflections, stepped a little bit aside to let me pass. Our fingers just barely brushed as I moved.

Right as I stepped passed him, he fell to the ground unconscious.

Haha, this is deep! Did you do a lot of research?

Chapter Three: The Trees Have Eyes (And Want Your Food) Pt. 1

A note in advance:

Under normal circumstances I could stop by the Centre to get some materials to catch a pokémon, but I technically already had one, as Jane had unfortunately found out. Technically. It had been years since I had let him go and I only still had his ball because at the time we thought we would get back together some day when everything worked out. It never did.


Sinnoh, like the rest of the former South Pacific Confederation, was a strange blend of the developed and developing world. For example, the forests and wilderness of Sinnoh were mostly preserved. There were a few major railways and a couple roads leading through them to connect the concrete islands, but for the most part the wilderness remained wild. There was a reasonable standard of living (for the Maori, anyway) in the country, but the ecology hadn't been sacrificed. This was part cultural, part political, and part historic.

Culturally, the Maori had always needed to rely on the forests for timber for their homes and canoes. Politically it had been a useful rallying cry when the Industrial West had showed up and tried to conquer. It was a reason that the leaders could claim superiority over their invaders. They respected the spirits of nature. The French, British, and Dutch did not. I also think that man-sized praying mantises, perpetually combusting apes, and giant scorpions that would really, really like to keep their home turf are hard to argue with. As are adorable, sentient animals.

Now I stood at the edge of one of these great preserved forests near Celestic, preparing to step in. I had a bag of supplies from my trainer days and the looming threat of the contest, but nothing else.


I sighed and turned around to see my sister running towards me, still in her red uniform. Maybe I should have picked a less obvious entrance point to the woods than my favorite clearing.

"Hey."

"You have any idea how much trouble you'll be in tonight?"

"Nan let me off work today."

"No, not that. The bet. You made that yesterday and didn't tell father?"

"Oh, right. I meant to but then I figured it was best if I wasn't in the room when he found out."

"Please, you need to have more courage! I always tell him whatever I need to straight to his face."

"Which is how I learned not to."

"The reactions are usually worth it," she argued.

"From a certain perspective perhaps. Shouldn't you still be in work?"

"Work? I don't think Nan's going to deport us for me taking the afternoon off to talk to my mentally ill sister."

"Some bosses would," I said. "Most, in fact."

"He wouldn't. He's too soft."

"Still pretty regimented."

"Isn't everyone?"

"Look," I said. "I'm busy. I have something I need to do this afternoon. Just go back to work."

"Like that's going to happen. If you of all people develop a rebellious streak, I need to stay and make sure you haven't been possessed or something."

"Right. Not possessed. Just need alone time. Good?"

"Alone time to do what?" Maya asked. "I'm not going back to the hotel, so you might as well take me along."

"I was going to catch a pokémon. I kind of need one to compete in the contest."

"You were going to do what now? Do you even have any pokéballs? And how would you even—"

"I have a plan. Can we leave it at that?"

She laughed and rubbed her hand through my hair. I was about average height, but she was almost a giantess. She rather liked being able to treat me like her baby sister however old I got. I wondered if she still would have done that had we met when I was thirty.

"Sis, sis. That's a big girl's type of thing. A guy's, really. You're way too girly to just run off into the forest alone like that. You'd get hurt or chip a nail or something."

If literally anyone else had told me that, I would have broken off a nail in their face. But she had been a tomboy long before I had reluctantly abandoned my last dress. (Officially, anyway.)

"Fine, you can come along," I conceded. "It would help if I could borrow one of your pokémon for the capture."

"Deal," she said while tossing me one of her pokéballs. "Your lead, then. But I would stay on the trail. The forest can be hard to, sis—"

Navigate. I knew. I had lived in it for a long time once. She couldn't have known that when I brushed her off and stepped off the path.

She got over her shock and ran after me almost immediately.

"We should be putting up some kind of rope or something to help us get—"

"I know my way."

"Since when did you get so defiant? I'm liking it. Definitely suits you better than being daddy's ideal girl. So, you going to cut your hair to look the part."

"I like my braid, thank you."

"You sure? Not very tomboyish."

"I like it. And I'm not trying to be tomboyish."

"Well, then what do you want? Why else would you set up a bid to just leave?"

"Maybe I want some certainty in life. Growing up with the constant reminder that one day I could be sent back to a country I barely know for no reason at all is a little disheartening."

"You know the only thing that's certain is that you'll piss off the Brigadiers. They love defiant vaira girls. Especially ones with leftward leanings."

"You mean all of the defiant vaira girls?"

"Most don't keep The Communist Manifesto under their pillow."

"It's a pamphlet. People could succinctly communicate their ideas back then."

"Whatever. My point still stands."

"As does mine."

"And your point was what exactly?" Maya asked.

"That I'm keeping my hair and I have a reason for what I'm doing."

"Have fun explaining that one to dad."

"Oh, you have no idea how fun it's going to be."

"At least you didn't crash somebody else's car."

I laughed, half-genuinely. "Remind me how you didn't get us all deported for that one?"

"Nan's a softy and dad sucked up big time. Probably took a pay cut from the quality of food after that."

She abruptly stopped walking and looked at the bushes around us. They were oran bushes and the smell was overpoweringly bad.

"You know mom comes out here to pick berries, right? All that talk about markets is nonsense. She couldn't afford them from there."

"Oh," I said, frowning. Mom did most of the shopping. I only went to the market on the rare occasion there was something specific I needed that couldn't be grown in a small garden near the playground.

I heard a faint humming sound somewhere behind Maya. I looked up to see… nothing. Then something moved. Green against a green backdrop.

When you are alone in the forests around Celestic, there is nothing more terrifying.

"Maya," I whispered. "Don't move."

"Why?" She asked. "Something behind me."

"You're wearing red."

Maya looked at me curiously until it dawned on her. Then her expression slowly morphed into one of absolute terror.

"Shit. Shastra, that was the only pokéball on my belt," she whispered. "You're going to need to take this until I get one from my backpack."

I nodded imperceptibly and went back to looking forward. Green moved on green again. Gripping the ball tightly, I said one final prayer. Then I tossed it forward.

Maya dove down as a blur shot forward. It quickly collided with a solidifying cloud of red. It hissed and retreated, briefly becoming fully visible. It was a bipedal insect with downright massive claws and eyes filled with calculating malice. One of the most terrifying wild pokémon in all of Sinnoh. Then it shot into a blur once more.

By that point Maya's pokémon had fully formed in front of me. "Rock Blast! I called. Her graveler, for whatever reason, didn't question the different voice calling out orders. He merely grunted and began to blast boulders from his mouth that hurtled towards the insect.

The scyther managed to dodge most of the strikes, but it had been distracted. When its next strike came down upon the rock-type it barely had any effect. "Pound!"

Graveler struck the scyther with two of his fists. One connected, barely, but it was still a hit.

"Starlavia, go!" Maya called. "Tailwind." I felt the breeze pick up behind me, and graveler clearly did too. The wild pokémon hovered uncertainly in midair, now visible as it fought against the winds. "Shastra, you want to go tag-team on it?"

"Good enough for me. Rock Slide!"

"Quick Attack!"

Staravia dove in for a quick strike, bolstered by her own tailwind. Scyther were incredibly fast and intelligent opponents, but even it just barely managed to deflect the hit on its blade. When it was done defending from that it only had a second to escape a slew of thrown rocks coming its way. It avoided some. That was to be expected. But some hit. Scyther hate rock moves.

It stood against the trees, its green body and green blood against the backdrop of foliage. It hissed one last time, rubbing its blades together menacingly.

Then it got slammed against the bark. A vine quickly wrapped around the rest of its midsection and lifted the whole beast in the air before throwing it deeper in the forest.

My eyes followed the Scyther until it landed, my mouth partially open from the shock of the battle's ending. "Maya, was that you?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I don't even have a plant type."

"Then, what was it?"

Before she could answer, an enormous turtle lumbered in between the trees and looked me straight in the eyes.

I almost stopped breathing. He seemed equally surprised. He moved first anyway, hesitantly moving forward one step at a time. His footsteps caused vibrations in the forest floor and disturbed the birds resting in the tree upon his back. Yet with every step the torterra grew faster and more confident until his head was less than a meter from me.

Hi, he said. You have a berry.

I laughed and reached into my backpack, digging through until I found an Occa berry I hadn't eaten at lunch. I reached out my hand to the torterra's mouth and he lapped it up with his tongue.

Nothing better?

"No, no yache's now, but… Siva, I've missed you."

I got down on my knees to hug the torterra's spiny head. He let me hold him for a minute before he pressed his spike into my shoulder. Touchy-feely time was over.

So you don't have any other berries?

"No, no I don't."

"Is that Prathama?" Maya asked, finally speaking up.

"Yes he is," I said. "Do you have any berries on you? He'd like one."

Maya reached into her backpack and pulled out an oran that she tossed to me. I fed it to Prathama. When he was done chewing he looked back up.

Why are you here?

"I need you for a contest. If we win, we can go on a journey like I told you we would. I can wander with you to lots of places where there will be water. We can be together again."

Contest?

"Yes, contest. It's like a show. You do something cool and then battle other pokémon to see who's cooler."

Sounds like work.

"I mean, yes it is, but it's going to be a fun challenge! You'll love it!"

He continued to look up at me expectantly.

"And there is prize money if we win. I can buy you a dozen yache berries if we win."

I don't like battling.

"I know that, but…" I sighed. "But I love you and I need you right now. It's important to me. Really important."

You left me here.

The words hung in the air. You left me here. I had heard him say that in visions and depressive self-hatred cycles for years, but actually seeing it and hearing it from him... I almost cried. I really did.

"I, I know. But I couldn't care for you then. You know that."

You never visited before this.

I sighed and sat down beside him. I tried to pet his head but he moved so that my hand just slid off.

"I told you last time that I would come back and care for you when I could. Now I can."

Prathama considered this for long enough that the silence became extremely uncomfortable. I was a jerk. He surely knew that. But I needed him now and, honestly, I really loved him... but I knew he wouldn't feel the same way. But I pleaded anyway, whether it was good for him or not, because that's the type of person I am.

I want more than a dozen berries, he finally replied.

I bent down to hug him again, barely containing a gasp of shock and happiness.

"How many then? If I can afford it, you can have it."

Ten.


We stayed in the clearing and talked for a while. Maya was fairly quiet, since she couldn't understand Prathama, and Prathama was quiet by nature.

You okay? he asked once I too had fallen silent. You could always talk to Maya.

"I thought you were more interested in my food than my well-being," I teased.

Do sensitive torterra get more berries?

"You know, you either understand Prathama a lot better than I understand my pokémon, or you just really like talking to yourself."

"A mix of the two," I replied. "We should be going home now. Might as well confront the inevitable."

Prathama groaned and many of the birds resting in his tree flew off. He shook himself off to throw off the debris they dropped and began to walk through the forest again.

"Where's he going?" Maya asked.

I looked up at the sun to get an idea of our bearings.

"Home."

I walked to catch up with him and Maya followed. The advantage of following a torterra is that you don't have to move very fast to catch up with them.

We walked behind him in silence for a few minutes. I think Maya was just surprised that we had found my pokémon or didn't want to talk about my very real problems in front of him. I just didn't want to talk about my very real problems. I had my tortoise back. That was a grand improvement over my situation an hour ago. I said a quick mental prayer of thanks to Siva.

You can ride. It's not that far. I'm bigger than I used to be.

"I'm bigger than I used to be," I replied.

Maya looked very confused, unable to understand Prathama's end of the conversation.

I'm much bigger than I used to be.

"Fine." He slowed down and I sat on his back. He kept moving forward without much difficulty.

"Can I get on?" Maya asked.

I stuck out my tongue at her. She laughed. It was a much-needed break before the fireworks started


My father drummed his fingers on the table between us, apparently too angry and unfocused to actually begin the interrogation before he was finally ready.

"Why?" he asked. "Why would you want to leave? Why would you do this without talking to us."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't going to accept until the very moment that I did. I should have talked to you."

"Why wouldn't you have consulted us before making the deal? And why did you want to run away in the first place?"

"I… it's complicated. I don't want to leave, but I have to. I'm sorry."

"Have to? Why, are you afraid of something here? Are we not good enough for you?"

"No, it's more a calling, I suppose. It's hard to explain."

"Calling? Like, from the gods? Do you really expect me to believe this?"

"Sort of. Not exactly. I'm sorry. It's complicated."

"Well, if not a god is it a demon? Are you possessed?"

"No, nothing like that. Something more like a god. I can't put it into words that you would understand."

"Is that meant to be an insult? Am I not good enough to understand your truths? Or, rather, your lies? Stop playing dumb. Why did you try to run away?"

"I, look, it's, uh, complicated."

He glared at me while my mother shifted uncomfortably next to him.

"Fine. You will be staying here anyway. I forbid you from entering the contest. You will forfeit the bet and stay here. All you have really done is humiliate me and drain money from the family. You know we can scarcely afford to decline offers as generous as the one Mr. Nanakia proposed."

"You actually can't override my entry. Sorry."

"I can forbid you from competing. I have."

I would love to say that my next few words were the result of Jane possessing me again. They weren't. They were unfortunately my own.

"And I can still compete. I'm sorry. I have a pokémon now. I might not win, but I can enter."

My father was shocked into silence as I gathered all my resolve to keep my face stoic.

"You dare to do this after all I've done for you?" he whispered.

I nodded. "I need to."

"Shastra, my coworkers always tell me what a beautiful and obedient daughter I have. Please don't prove them wrong. Don't follow your sister."

I smirked. "You just acknowledged I have a sister."

My father closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

"Fine. Ruin your own life. See if I care. Just know that you have hurt your family and will be punished for it one day, whether it be here or in the next life. Go. I have no further business with you."

"If that's how it's going to be, fine."

I rose from my chair and left the room in a hurry.


I may have built up the threat too much in my mind. He hadn't yelled. He hadn't talked much about the money. The whole conversation lasted less than five minutes. He just wanted me to stay. I should've felt relieved, in a sense, but even the brief and quiet conversation we had shared was emotionally draining.

I didn't want to leave either. In different circumstances, I think I would have caved first and come back. But nothing was under my control anymore. I had been sent back to tear my life apart with decisions handed down to me that I had to make. I would have rather my father yelled. Then there would have been a fight. I was comfortable with fighting. I would've been able to walk away with no desire to come back and no regrets. The quiet dismissal was worse. The break was clean enough that I almost wanted to stay.

But I didn't have much time to reflect on all that at the time.

Outside in the late evening air someone else was waiting.

My eldest brother, Aada, turned around to look at me when the door opened and I stepped out.

"Shastra," he said. "Father told me a little about our situation."

"It's not 'our' situation. It's mine. You have nothing to do with it. Step aside. I need time to think."

He moved forward. "I always liked you. You were always so perfect. Smart, pretty, devout. It's rather sad watching you fall."

"I didn't kill anyone. Please stop making things sound like I did. I just made a bet that in hindsight I shouldn't have taken."

"You wanted to run away. Why?"

"It's not running away if you tell people you're doing it. Then it's just leaving. As for why…"

I turned around and looked at the apartment complex instead of answering. There were beautiful buildings in Sinnoh, buildings designed to invoke the strength of the human spirit and intellect. This wasn't one of those buildings. The concrete was brown and cracked and if the building had ever been painted management had given up long ago. The plumbing was questionable and I had once shared a room smaller than six square meters with three other people. He knew all of that. That apartment was still a godsend compared to the fenced in compounds with armed guards that some vaira lived in.

"Alright, it's not a nice life," he conceded. "But we have each other and our traditions. It's our lot. You leaving and not taking more money when you can certainly isn't helping it."

"Aada, you can't understand my situation. Let me go."

"Can't understand? Shastra, I have lived through far more hell then you can imagine. You know about Dhwani, right? We're down to working for one thousand an hour. We have to split meals and shopping with three other families just so we can buy in bulk and maybe scrape by. What are you complaining about? You have food, shelter, clothes and stability. Our ancestors lived with far less than that."

"No, it's… forget it. I'm done."

He grabbed ahold of me.

"No. You aren't. You're going to go back in there and apologize. You've already messed things up more than you understand, but you can at least try to make them better while you still can."

"Let her go," a new voice called. I turned my head to see Jayu walking towards us. "I don't really know what you're doing, but let her go."

"This is none of your concern," Aada said. "Never mind, it is. Help me put some sense into her. It will help you out."

"It's my concern more than yours," Jayu replied as he pulled a pokéball from his pocket. "There are two ways we can do this. Either way, you let her go. How do you want to play?"

"You're making a mistake." Aada drew his pokéball with his free hand. "Don't get your pokémon hurt for this."

A low growl flowed over the field. Heavy footsteps followed and the trees at the forest edge shook as Prathama emerged.

"I, is, what's he doing back here?" Aada asked.

"We met up today," I replied. "He probably isn't liking you holding me like this. Can't guarantee he won't attack you."

"You're a terrible little *****, you know that," he muttered under his breath.

"Let's compromise. You let me cool down. I come back later tonight. Deal?"

"No. You come to puja at my house tomorrow morning. If you are truly willing to put your sins before the gods with no shame—"

"I'm willing. See you tomorrow." I quickly broke his grasp and ran over to Prathama at the forest edge. Jayu and Aada turned to face each other again. They probably battled over me. I wasn't mad that Jayu was doing it. I'm not a huge fan of men deciding women's fates, but if one wants to show support for me I won't stop them. I just might not stay to watch.

Prayer can be hard. Praying while being judged by everyone else in the room is very hard. As such I found my thoughts running away from the business at hand during puja the next day.

For those of you not familiar with Hindu traditions: puja is a ceremony performed in the morning that is a mixture of offering and prayer. It's a large part of why Hindus keep shrines in their homes. No, we are not literally worshiping the statue. We are worshiping the god it represents.

Three sips of water from my cupped hands entered my mouth. My father invoked Siva to enter the home and take a seat.

On occasions when I had fewer things to deal with I wondered why a nigh-omnipotent being would ever want to hang out in our terrible place, especially in Aada's even worse home. But symbolic gestures mattered.

Father offered a bowl of berries to Siva and proceeded to lead the family in a set of memorized prayers. Unsurprisingly, the usual ones were mixed in with a few other mantras and appeals. Most of the new ones dealt with redemption, loyalty, family, obedience, etc., etc. I mouthed them out of obligation to the ritual and to avoid offending any more gods. Most of the time I just said my own impromptu, frenzied appeals to whatever god I thought might listen today.

When everything was said and done, not much had changed. The prayer was completed. All appeals had been made. My mind was unchanged and, if anything, I now had an actual reason to be mad at my father. Humiliating a girl in private is one thing and I could have dealt with it. Bringing in the whole family is irritating. Bringing in the gods to judge a person is going to strain some relationships.

The family grabbed breakfast.

I certainly didn't feel like staying any longer.


"Alright, let's give this one more try. Razor Leaf."

Prathama grunted in acceptance and shook his back, causing a small barrage of leaves to fall down towards the ground. Some shot out in all directions until the clearing's floor was littered with shed plant matter.

"Trick time."

Prathama stomped the ground and caused a small seismic shock. Some of the leaves were thrown back into the air. The torterra closed his eyes and focused and some of the leaves began to levitate higher and form rotating columns over each other. They slowly began to spin around him until…

Nope. Can't do this.

The leaves fell back down, now in somewhat neat stacks.

Can we go back to shaking things? I liked that better. Or, if we must use leaves, can I just fire a bunch of them at once?

"Fine, but I think you can have a break first. Then we can shake things." I pulled a berry out and tossed it to him. He easily snapped it out of the air and ate it. "Maybe we could do something with throwing. We could play frisbee. You're good enough at catching berries."

Frisbees aren't edible. I can't catch them.

"Surely the same principles apply. It should be even easier to catch since it's a bigger object."

It's not a berry. I only catch berries.

"But the idea is that we practice with berries, and then you catch a non-berry object to get berries later. It's not a berry, but it's a symbol of a future edible reward."

Hmm... Prathama crashed to the ground as he partially withdrew his legs into his massive shell. There aren't any birds in my tree today. They don't like the spinning leaves.

"I'm sorry for having you scare them away, then."

It's strange not having anything living on me. No company. Except you.

"So, how have the winters been?" I asked.

It was cold. I learned to dig. It's warmer in the ground.

"You… dug? Like, made a cave or what?"

I found groundwater and put down roots. Then I dug a hole so only my tree stuck out. It was bad. I lived.

"Oh. Is that normal for torterra?"

He made a call that best translates to "I have no idea."

I only saw one other in the forest. Not many of us around here. Most live further north.

"You could have moved further north, you know?"

He let his head droop until it too was resting on the ground.

I thought you would come back.

It wasn't accusatory. If anything it was affirmative. I had, indeed, come back, however long it had taken. That it was only due to desperation didn't factor in to his thinking.

Abruptly a chatot flew into the grove and loudly announced his presence. Infernape entered shortly afterwards, leaping from tree to tree until he settled by the chatot.

"Alright, fine. I get it. Still can't keep up with you without the tail. Can we give it a rest?"

Evyrus pushed through a few small trees to enter into the clearing and join his pokémon and I.

"Hey, Aracai."

"Hi," I responded.

A moment of awkward silence followed. I was still sizing him up as an ally or adversary against Jane. He was far from a brilliant conversationist. But he eventually spoke first.

"So, uh, are you still going to the rally today?"

I looked up at the sky. I didn't think that much time had passed. "Right, but that's in a couple hours. It's still around noon."

Evyrus sat down at the base of the tree his infernape was in. "Oh. I thought you cared a lot about time and being early here?"

"Being early and being several hours early are very different," I said, smiling in spite of myself. Idiocy can occasionally be charming. Particularly the innocent kind. It's why our species doesn't kill our offspring in large numbers.

"Maybe. I really just wasn't sure if you were going to show up."

"I wasn't sure yesterday, if we're being honest," I stated. "But... if I'm going to confront her, it would be safest to do it with you present."

"'Confronting her' might be a bad idea. She doesn't like confrontation at all. Kirlia especially doesn't like anyone confronting Jane. It's much easier to quietly talk about how you might have handled a similar but altogether separate situation and let her figure things out on her own."

Who's Kirlia? Prathama asked.

"Tell you later," I whispered.

Evyrus looked between us. "I thought people couldn't talk to pokémon here?"

I shrugged. "I can't, really. Anyway, how were you saying you deal with Jane?"

He shook his head and then refocused on my question. "You don't do anything that might make her feel bad. That's the first priority. After that she's capable of learning social values and the like. She just doesn't get them and doesn't like being told to her face that she's wrong. You have to go 'oh, someone did this to me at the store today and it made me feel really good' where the thing you're talking about is something she doesn't do or the opposite of something she does. It takes some getting used to."

"And you figured this out in, what, two weeks?"

"Other humans are much easier to figure out than other species of pokémon. I've been training at altitude for the last few years."

"I see." I glanced back up the tree. "How powerful are your pokémon, anyway?

Infernape beat her chest and roared. I couldn't tell exactly what she said but I suspected it to be along the lines of "powerful enough to beat you."

Evyrus looked up at his pokémon and flashed a mischievous smile. "You know, when I met you, you were too terrified to walk over a grate. You've come a long way if you're willing to insult me now. She wants to battle. You up for it?"

I turned to face Prathama. "So how powerful are you now?" I whispered.

Stronger than I was.

"Come on. You're going to be fighting worse next Saturday," Evyrus pleaded.

"No. Nan's glaceon is probably strong... but not that strong."

"You just don't want to battle?"

"Prathama doesn't like battling much and I'm not rushing into a losing fight."

"You know this is where Jane would hijack your body and start the battle."

"I can't tell if you're trying to get me to like you, hate Jane, or battle. Whatever the case, you're wrong. That would be too boring for her. She would just attack me and expect me to counter if she wanted to battle."

"True enough. Still… I could help give you battling advice if you let me see what you can do. I'll get Infernape to hold back some. Promise. I won't even need to give orders if that makes you happy."

Do you have a berry? I'd fight for a berry.

"Prathama," I hissed.

"Yes, I have a few," Evyrus replied.

Good. The torterra rose to his full height and shook himself off. Then let's fight.

"I… fine. Why not. Let's go."

It made no sense. Torterra hated fighting, but he really, really hated getting hurt. This was a losing match against a fire type Giratina thought was a major asset in saving the world. But if he insisted upon it and Evyrus was eager to fight it would have been awkward to decline.

I stood back up and took my place behind my pokémon. Infernape leaped down to take her place in the match.

"You get the first move as the challenger," I called out. "Go on ahead."

"Thank you. I don't plan on ordering much. Fire Pun—"

"Razor Leaf."

Infernape raised her fist and channeled flames into it as Prathama shook more leaves down. He shot them off as the infernape charged. The leaves hastily rushed towards the ape as more and more fallen leaves from prior attacks joined. The fire-type deftly dodged two newly revived pillars and shot an impromptu flamethrower at a third to incinerate it instantly. She kept running through the storm coming from Prathama. She was more powerful and resistant to plant-type attacks.

"Withdraw!" Just as Infernape struck him, a dull blue shield rose around Prathama. The watery aura seriously dampened the flames and even caused the infernape to recoil. However strong you are, hitting a torterra shell at full force is going to hurt. "Into Strength!"

Torterra's blue aura turned red. The infernape went in for another strike and managed to make Prathama flinch, but Strength wasn't an easy attack to interrupt. Before infernape could get away Prathama sidestepped into her with his full bulk. He had a charged attack and a significant size advantage. Infernape was sent crashing into a nearby tree. "Razor Leaf!"

Prathama shot out another pulse of plant matter that infernape intercepted with a huge pulse of fire that tore through all of Prathama's leaves. When the white-hot flames reached my torterra even I could feel the heat.

"Protect!"

With a loud groan, Prathama slowly began to withdraw into his shell. Infernape responded by amping up her Overheat's power, torching the leaves and branches of Prathama's tree before the light became so blinding I could no longer watch. When the attack died down, the front of Prathama's shell was nearly blackened and his tree was torched. His head was wedged into the earth and his limbs were withdrawn. He slowly, carefully raised his head from the ground and extended his limbs, clearly feeling the pain of his burns as he did so.

"We can stop now, if you want," Evyrus offered. I was already reaching for his pokeball.

Prathama didn't reply. He just roared. Prathama lifted his two front legs to the extent he could and pounded them into the ground, creating a shockwave that probably shook the ground straight to the edge of Celestic. Infernape was moving slower than I expected but managed to jump into the air just in time to avoid it. She landed on a tree limb and glared down at Prathama. The torterra didn't wait for me to order. He kept stomping and creating smaller tremors. Infenrape gripped onto her tree more tightly and held strong, but she almost looked frustrated for the first time in the battle. She jumped over torterra and shot down another blast of white heat. Most directly struck his already singed shell, meaning that it didn't touch the parts of him that could still be injured. She landed, somehow, on the still vibrating trees on the other side of Prathama.

I stared up at the infernape in frustration. Things were going better than expected since Prathama was actually fighting and the first overheat had done less than it might have. I expected Evyrus was either telling her to hold back or infernape was most accustomed to close combat. If the latter was the case, I no longer had to worry about the infernape fighting from a distance. Her firepower had to be almost exhausted after two overheats.

Then an idea came to me. A glorious idea. I smiled. I think Prathama began to get the same thought.

"You know, your infernape is hiding from a plant-type in a tree."

"And?" Evyrus asked.

"Nothing."

Just then the leaves around infernape began to spin and fly through the air as they collided against the fire-type, cutting her repeatedly. She started to fire off a blast of heat but realized she couldn't possibly hit all of them. Annoyed by the cuts, infernape jumped back down from the tree to face Prathama head to head once more. She roared and began to charge, an orb of flames building around her.

"Withdraw!" I shouted. By that point it was too late. As the first shimmers of blue rose around Prathama the flare blitz connected directly. Prathama was sent hurtling back towards me. I barely managed to jump out of the way.

Embers and burning leaves littered the ground after the attack. Infernape scarcely noticed as she beat her chest and howled. Chatot flew over the scene and made a noise of disapproval while Evyrus simply stared at the leaves.

What the hell?

I wanted to scream. That sort of force was clearly and unjustifiably excessive, even against a powerful Pokemon. I didn't know what medicine was like wherever Evyrus came from but here... you weren't supposed to do that. Not unless you were trying to kill.

"You have any water?" Evyrus queried.

I blinked and relaxed, removing any visible animosity. He meant the best, probably. "Some. It's expensive as hell and I hate to waste it, but it's better than starting a forest fire." I withdrew Prathama and tossed his ball to Evyrus. "Run to the Centre and drop him off. Those burns looked nasty before he took a flare blitz to the face. Tell the nurse I'll pick him up later. We'll meet up tonight."

Once he was gone I stared numbly at the burning leaves before going to get water to put them out.

That hadn't been pretty. It had been painful. Who was at fault? Me? Prathama? Evyrus?


The waiting room of a Pokémon Centre is a strange blend of pain and agony and comfort and joy that matches the nature of a pokémon journey rather well. Trainers sat in front of a TV and discussed the latest news. A handful were watching another screen that showed a gym match unfolding in Hearthome as an Empoleon dove at a Spiritomb. The outlines and colors were weird since the match took place in perfect darkness. It tripped up a lot of challengers. Even then, it was still viewed as one of the easier gyms in Sinnoh. Not that the leader cared. So long as he had fun, took care of his own, and didn't let too many people through he was fine with just about anything.

But he kept too many Murkrow. I'd had to clean up far too much of their feces working at that place.

...anyway.

At present in the Pokemon Center there were many people waiting. Some were fretting nervously, scanning through books on injuries or their pokémon to figure out how serious it was. I mentally sent Ganesha a prayer on their behalf. Others were more agitated, probably both pouting over a loss and worried about some minor injuries their pokémon might have sustained. I looked pretty neutral. When I had met Evyrus in the lobby he told me that the injuries hadn't been too serious and the nurses thought he would be cured in a matter of hours, at the absolute most.

Saying I was angry would have been understatement.

I had increasingly thought about why Prathama would have agreed to enter that battle and had finally come to a satisfactory conclusion. He had been trying to impress me, and maybe even convince me to keep him again. It was all so wrong. I hadn't wanted him to battle then. If anything he was too good for me.

After all, I had come back to those woods a few years in the future out of necessity. He hadn't been there that winter. At some point he must have figured I wasn't coming back. Indeed, I hadn't until I had no one else to go to both then and now.

So he got himself hurt supporting someone who didn't want him to get hurt and wasn't worth getting burned for in the first place.

Yes, I was mad at him because he was an idiot and I was mad at Evyrus for using a super effective flare blitz on a pokémon not prepared to fight that battle in the first place. But mostly I was mad at myself for letting Prathama be dumb. That's the whole point of being a leader, to not let people hurt themselves.

There was also some concern.

I had left my campsite out in the woods unguarded. While I had literally only purchased much of it in the last few days after winning a few matches in town or taking some money from Evyrus, I didn't want to lose it so easily.

But then again, almost no one ever went that deep into the woods and the food was elevated. I would probably be fine.

I eventually turned to reading an issue of Foreign Policy in the bins of magazines. One advantage of the Neolibs is that they were surprisingly fine with Western media, especially if it didn't regularly report on domestic conditions in Sinnoh. The FP writers were particularly convinced that America should build capitalism and democracy in Sinnoh, so the Neolibs were in love with the magazine.

It had decent reporting, occasionally, even if it tended to downplay domestic issues of countries that were not the United States of America or The European Confederation.

Midway through an article on relations between China and the Mumbai Soviet, the nurse called my name and I went to the front desk.

As a little social experiment, I had listened to the nurse's reports to the trainers who seemed seriously worried. Most of the conversations had downplayed the trainer's responsibilities and gotten some positive feedback before the trainer either got their pokémon back or was given another date to pick up their pokémon. The conversation always ended with some pleasantry from the nurse.

Incidentally, all of those people were ethnically Maori.

When I got to the desk I wasn't altogether surprised that the nurse looked angry.

"Hi," I said. "How's Prathama?"

"What on earth were you fighting? And why couldn't you drop him off yourself?"

"I battled an Infernape. And I had to put out some fires that said Infernape created, so it was just faster if my friend ran it in. Now how's Prathama?"

"You know that it's unwise to put a grass-type against a fire-type? While it might feel nice to play against the odds, it's only your pokémon that gets hurt."

"I know. It's also unwise to put a fire-type against a ground-type. But anyway, how's Prathama?"

The nurse scowled and then picked up a pokéball. "He's fine. Just be much more careful in the future and don't battle with him for a few days."

I smiled. It pisses of racists when you smile at their hatred. "Thank you."

With that I took Prathama. I considered going out to the forest to check up on him and see how he was, but I would have to leave for the amphitheater soon and wondered if it would just be easier to wait until Evyrus came down and then go with them.

Jane came downstairs a few minutes later and answered the question for me.

"Hey. Heard that you got wrecked by Evyrus."

"Hello, Jane."

"You still mad about Sunday?" she asked.

"Yes. Don't do that again."

"I didn't say I would," she pouted. "You're always so quick to judge."

I glared at Jane. "And my judgments are usually accurate."

She didn't respond but she did quickly test my mental boundaries before withdrawing. Jane didn't really want to fight so publicly. So we just glared at each other until Evyrus came down and proposed that we all just walk to the amphitheater together. Neither of us objected, verbally, so we left. I dropped off Prathama at the forest edge along the way and told him I would pick him up later.


"Comrades! I have a message for you today, a message of despair and hope. Despair: the government of Sinnoh has ignored the voices of the great masses of the world. It hears the cries of anguish from India, and Zaire, and Columbia and it does nothing. It recognizes the pain felt by millions around the globe, even as close as New Guinea and Indonesia, and makes no statements of remorse. It concerns itself solely with the affairs of the wealthy rulers and gives no thought to the multitudes harmed in its wake. How different is the family of man that an African can make a hundredth of an Amerian? How different is their labor, their value? These gross inequities—they are a sure sign of the decay of the neoliberal order, just as the prior industrial and feudal orders fell. Ignoring this is a sign of prejudice towards the established and the wealthy at the price of justice.

"Here it is far worse. However much the capitalist nations try, they cannot escape their own need for labors. Their concept of society requires classes. Classes require a great mass of the downtrodden. But how can there be a mass of the downtrodden in a society as just and wealthy as that of Sinnoh? It is simple. They created a shadowy class, a class of others. They have been escaping work beneath their dignity by shipping it abroad for decades. Why could they not do that at home? Why not import the exploited from their wretched holes of poverty and let them be exploited here, in this prison of diamonds? Surely it is an improvement. A kindness, even. A kindness. A most-unwanted, unfortunate kindness. A great mass of the old islanders have seen their jobs destroyed, unable to compete with those who will work for wages and conditions beneath their dignity because the order of the world has told them they have no dignity to satisfy.

"I bring you hope as well. The masses are rising. They have realized that their situation is grim. The islanders protest, but have not yet found their guide. They appeal to old gods, ancient beasts that are unwilling to help them even if they exist. They hold fear and anger. Some have targeted this towards the foreigners, the vaira, as they call them. But more and more have come to our side. They understand that they should not attack the symptoms and hurt the body. Rather, they must purge the evils of capitalist labor systems for good! The workers of the world have united and neither the institutions of the past, nor the prejudices of the present, nor the obstacles of the future may stop them!

"Today, I come to you with COMINTERN's latest plan for liberation, made in concert with the local soviets. We must begin our protests by establishing our dignity. We must show the trampled groups that they have rights, they have value, they have potential, and they should no longer let this be suppressed! We shall send out leaders of the party and the vaira communities into the contest leagues and the gym circuits and the poetry contests and whatever other cultural events we may to prove that they can compete. That they can win. We shall be starting next week here. A top agent of our struggle shall engage in the contest to prove the ability of the exploited to compete against their guards and break their shackles.

"Comrades! A glorious dawn is coming. The end of history lies near. We shall break free of the traditions that bind us and embrace a new and glorious future."


I leaned back and stared at the stage as Urayu gave the microphone back to a local leader. At that point I stopped paying attention to the actual rally.

"The communists stole my idea?" Jane asked. "And apparently also yours, Aracai. Wow. So unoriginal."

"I actually stole it from him," I muttered. "I thought they started that program in the fifties for some reason."

"Still, it means you have another powerful challenger in the contest next week, probably from a similar background."

I shook my head slowly. "I don't think so… I think he was talking about me."

"You're helping the communists?" Jane exclaimed. "I didn't know you were evil. Now I almost feel bad for feeling bad about… never mind. Communist liar."

"No, I didn't talk with him about it, or anyone else in the Sabres," I replied. "He probably just heard the story and decided to integrate it with his cause or there was a communication failure between him and the Celestic chapter. I think you should be able to understand, Jane, that as of late my consent or lack thereof hasn't meant a lot."

"So you're not evil?" Jane asked.

"Depends on how you define evil," I said. "I'd love to debate that later, but…" I leaned back and stretched, pushing my arms back as far in their sockets as they would go. I was tired. Physically, mentally, and emotionally tired.

I got up. I ignored Jane and told Evyrus I was going to get coffee alone.

I didn't get coffee.

I walked down to the forest and found Prathama sleeping in the last sunbeams of the day. I greeted him and tossed him an oran I had picked up on the way down. He thanked me and told me I could lie on his back if I didn't block the sunlight from hitting his tree. The nurses had done a good job. The burns on the front half of his body were merely darker stains now. I slid onto the unburned portion of his back and looked up at the birds and insects living there.

Old societies had believed that the earth was just a giant torterra and we were simply living on his shell. I understood the myth. Back then humans were helpless creatures at the total mercy of nature. It would have been comforting to believe that the world was a benign and forgiving creature, aimlessly plodding along in search of water in the seas. It didn't care what you did, but it didn't hate you. You might be small, but so were your problems and allies and enemies. At the end of the day, you would not be overwhelmed forever. You always had a home.

I smiled as I drifted off.

How nice that would be, being a small girl with small problems and small enemies.

But if there was one thing most of the old stories got right, it was that sometimes that just couldn't be true. Someone had to be the torterra supporting everyone else.

I ended up drifting off to sleep before nightfall. Prathama didn't wake me.


End of Arc One.
Next time: Evyrus tells of a contest, a new enemy, and a capture.

Evyrus
September 1946


The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't move my tail. I tried in vain to push myself up with it as I slowly became conscious again but couldn't. That shock was enough to jolt me upright.

And I had legs.

I had them before, sure, but they were more stubs connecting my long body and paws. I was a water-creature. I wasn't built for land. Now I had legs that were longer than my old body had been. They were back.

Back.

That was the next thing I noticed. I remembered having legs. All of my memories of being human were slowly returning. I found myself gazing around the clearing of the forest, seeing my surroundings but not processing them. I had two lifetimes of memories now, something I had spent years trying to get. And I didn't even know why! I had blacked out in a dungeon with Chatot and Infernape and…

I quickly focused on the clearing and whipped my head around fast enough that I hurt myself. I would have to remember that just because I had a real neck now didn't mean I could abuse it. Before I had time to process the pain, I saw both pokémon passed out nearby, still in their old bodies. I sighed in relief. Then I saw two more bodies in the clearing. One was human, more or less. The other was a Ralts.

The other human woke up shortly after, followed by our pokémon. Later that night another human girl found us.

I don't want to be too repetitive after that. For whatever reason Aracai chose to start her story a week after all of that happened. She wrote better than I ever will so I will respect her decision even if I don't fully understand it.

I only bring up this scene because it was very different than the last time I woke up in a new body. Then I had no memories at all except for my name and the concept of what a pokémon was, as well as a suspicion that I should not be one. I also met a girl shortly after that, but only one. And she was a Chimchar.


Celestic City was remarkable, however much the girls insisted it wasn't. There were several buildings almost as tall as the Guild, and the average building was still far larger than most of the ones in Treasure Town. The streets were crowded with humans and a handful of pokémon, but not as many as I would expect. Infernape was one of the largest on the street, arguing with Chatot about … I don't even know. I'm a quiet person by nature but I always try to pay attention to the world around me rather than get lost in my own thoughts. That time I did. When I noticed that I was "zoned out" as the idiom goes, I shook myself out of it.

"Chatot, how would you deal with rock-types?"

He huffed, as if the very suggestion that something would challenge him was insulting. His wings flashed gray and he dove in close to Infernape who only narrowly leaped back to avoid it. He then flapped back up to my level on the other side of me, well away from the ape. "Like that," he said. "Good dodge, Infernape. I see now why the Master allowed you to graduate."

"Not the saving the world part?" I asked. "I thought that had something to do with it."

"You handled that adequately, perhaps," Chatot conceded.

"So how would you deal with a Gyarados, Infernape?"

Infernape's paw sparked with electricity.

"Right. Don't use that on Chatot."

"She couldn't hit me," Chatot insisted before soaring up as high as he could go to avoid a punch. He only narrowly dodged.

People were stopping to look so I asked them both to behave.

I thought about how badly thunderbolts from Raikou had hurt as a Vaporeon and shuddered. I could only imagine how badly severe weaknesses hurt.

"Do Torterra learn anything effective against ice-types?"

Chatot flew down low and almost perched on my shoulder before deciding against it. "No, but the girl will do fine."

Infernape disagreed. "She's going to get destroyed. If I could beat that turtle there's no way it can beat an ice-type." I had to pause to process it all. Chatot was talking someone up while Infernape disagreed? "You know it's true, Evyrus. It'll be easier if you just anticipate it."

"No, Chatot's right. I trust her."

Infernape grunted like she wanted to say something, but Chatot shot her his infamous glare. The fire-type backed down and I shuddered in sympathy.


We met Aracai at the edge of the woods near the stadium with her Torterra. She was feeding Torterra berries and he seemed to be utterly content, basking in the bright and warm sunlight of the day.

Aracai herself was wearing a black dress. Her equally dark hair was unbraided and fell down her back. She was wearing slanted shoes that I had seen females wear on Earth. I didn't know what they were, but they made her look taller. Her eyes were warm brown, much like mine had been as an Eevee.

"You look nice today," I said.

"Thanks. Dress is too tight. Probably haven't received a new one in two or three years and this thing was used when I got it, which is a whole separate rant, but that's the least of my worries now." She straightened up and ran a hand through her hair. "At least there's sunlight today. Maybe some god or goddess out there still wants me to get out of this place."

"Right. Would that be Moltres, then? Or Groudon. He does have drought and all."

"More likely Surya or Ganesh."

"Oh. And you've met those pokémon, then?"

"Gods," she corrected. "Not pokémon. And no, I haven't met them. But I trust them more. I don't really have time to explain."

"Right, right," I said. However old they, her clothes were still really pretty. I wondered how long it had been since I had seen a human girl since waking up here. Probably seven years. I had been about ten. I wouldn't have been very interested. "So, you nervous?"

"Yes," she replied with no hesitation. "We've been training non-stop, but, still. This was a bad idea. But we'll do what we can. We'll do what we can."

Her Torterra moved his head so that his spine gently brushed against Aracai's hand. She jumped a little, as if the simple contact came as a deep surprise. Then she smiled and ran a hand through her hair before patting her pokémon on the head.

I stood there for another minute. She didn't talk and I had nothing to say.

"Well, uh, I'll go meet Jane in the stadium. See you later."

"Alright, see you," she replied without looking away from her Torterra.


I had to withdraw Infernape, which she hated, but she was too large to be allowed into the amphitheater. Aracai had told me it was normally an indoor stadium, which was a novelty, designed for battles. Today the roof was pulled back to let the sunlight in, so I guess it was an outdoor stadium that day. There had to have been hundreds… maybe even thousands of people in there. It was the biggest building I had ever been in. I found my way to Jane (well, Chatot did, since he could fly over the crowd) and sat down next to her just as the show was about to begin.

Kirlia looked over at me and smiled coyly. She curtsied to Chatot. For his part, he stared at the clouds with the focus of a bird of prey. It was a very good thing that Kirlia didn't know Attract.

Jane looked over at me.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi," I responded. I noticed that her eyes were pink today. Humans didn't have pink eyes where I came from and they didn't here. But her eyes didn't change colors quickly anymore. They did that for the first two weeks when we got here and occasionally afterwards when she was stretched emotionally. But for the most part she had stopped doing that. It was good. Pink eyes were strange. Liquid metal eyes were very strange.

"You aren't intervening in the match today, right?"

"Aracai told me not to," she replied.

"But will you?" I asked.

She closed her eyes and pouted. "You never let me do anything. Ever. I'm here. I have powers. Why can't I use them every once in a while?"

"Was that was a 'yes' or a 'no.'"

Jane didn't reply.

"I don't care if you do," I said.

"What?"

"I don't. Just don't tell me or her that you did it, don't make it obvious, and only do it if it's really necessary."

She smiled and her eyes shifted to a dark purple as she stared at the field with newfound purpose and a certain hunger in her expression.

"Thank you," she said. "I really want to get out of here."

The announcer made his voice big and laid out the rules. All appeals would be given, followed by a four-man tournament of the best contestants. I leaned back in my chair, almost getting scratched when I accidentally butted Chatot from his perch on the seat. I wanted the best for Aracai and our journey. I really did. I hoped I would never have to explain it to her, but if I ever did I hoped she would understand.


"Ladies and gentlemen, Te Kau!"

The crowd mostly burst into applause. A handful booed. They got some very stern glares from the majority.

The first person to appeal was an adult male with some sort of woven armor. He carried with him a massive spear, as if he meant to do battle with the largest of pokémon. He looked deadly serious to the exclusion of all emotion but some rage. It wasn't the anger of hatred, but rather of animosity to anything and everything. He stood at the edge of the arena, scanning the crowd with his disapproving gaze.

At last he roared.

To call it anything else would be a disservice. It was a roar, almost as terrifying as any pokémon I had ever seen. He continued to shout as his pokéball soared over the field, releasing an Electivire after a literal explosion consumed the area around it. The warrior didn't seem to notice. Instead he threw a bag containing a dozen or so metallic balls onto the field and continued to shout. His words—they were increasingly becoming words—gained a fervent rhythm, as if his anger had boiled over into a challenge against the world.

On the field the orbs raised around Electivire, suspended in midair by an invisible force. Off the field the warrior was now spinning his spear as he continued his roaring chant. Electivire glowed yellow and blasted a lightning bolt at one of the balls, causing it to explode in a blast of fire. Another one similarly fell as the angry noises continued to wash across the entire stadium.

What's he saying? Jane asked in my mind.

He's saying it loudly enough, I replied. It had taken me a while to get used to talking mentally, but Jane tended to like mental replies to mental questions. It was usually worth it to do what she wanted. Can't you understand it?

She was silent for some time as more orbs exploded and more words were shouted.

I don't speak Maori. I can usually just glean people's meaning from their thoughts, but I can't with him. He isn't really thinking about what he's saying.

"Oh," I said aloud, forgetting about the need to reply mentally. "I don't think he's saying anything in particular. It sounds more like a memorized thing."

"Thank you," she replied, aloud.

As a timer ran down on the screens scattered throughout the stadium, Electivire leaped into the air, reaching the height of the orbs. Then he shot out a Discharge, causing all of the remaining orbs to explode at once in a roar that drowned out the warrior and made my ears hurt. When the smoke cleared on the field, the contestant withdrew his pokémon and bowed.

He got the most applause of the day. Only a handful dissented and expressed their disapproval. In particular, as the crowd calmed down a man who had booed earlier stood and shouted out things I would rather not repeat. Te Kau heard. He glared at the heckler and pointed his spear at him before leaving the stage. Several people next to the heckler grabbed ahold of him and dragged him off, even as he protested.

I wasn't sure what to do. I looked around and saw the security averting their gaze and the rest of the crowd shifting uneasily at worst. Some seemed rather happy. I continued to sit. I didn't want to accidentally hurt Aracai's chances by intervening in something I didn't understand. I looked over and saw that Jane was also sitting down, even if she was more visibly agitated by it than I was. She seemed to be deep in conversation with Kirlia, but as a non-telepath I couldn't tell what they were talking about. For his part Chatot simply looked at me. When I shook my head he did nothing.


Aracai's boss appealed after a few uninspiring displays from younger trainers.

He was dressed entirely in white. Jane leaned over and told me that his clothes were very, very nice. I didn't really know, but I made a mental note that white was fashionable here. He was getting older, probably thirty or so, so his hair was also white. Aracai hadn't mentioned that, which seemed strange. Why not mention such a sign of wisdom and experience?

Aracai thought he was a bad person, or at least not nice. He was, after all, the only reason we weren't already on the road. He didn't seem bad, though. Especially with the way he looked at the audience.

While Te Kau had eyed the stadium with anger, he gazed at it with more wonder than even some of the new coordinators had. He rubbed his pokéball, presumably for good luck, and threw it onto the stage.

In midair, the ball burst open with a flurry of snow and ice as a stream of white light formed into a Glaceon below. The pokémon shook her fur and caused more snowflakes to form. Then she inhaled and spit out a storm of ice. More snowflakes rushed around the arena as the Glaceon began to run, freezing the path in front of her as she continued to spit out ice. She curved her path as she ran, forming a narrow circle of frost in her path as she went around a second and third time, ice crystals trailing her. Before too long she was no longer lifting her legs. Instead, she just skated around on the ice, blasting off more and more ice beams at strange angles to create banked curves, pillars, and flurries of snow as she raced around.

The effect was beautiful. A dungeon of ice was created in the warmth of the day.

Finally, Glaceon unleashed her largest blast of ice yet, probably a Blizzard or an extraordinarily large Ice Beam, and concentrated it directly in front of herself. As she approached, she let the attack stop, revealing a perfectly formed ramp. As she skated up it and into the air she fired off a Water Pulse that created a ring of water in midair in front of her. As she soared towards the attack, the water began to solidify in midair, forming a ring of ice. That wasn't due to an attack. That was just Glaceon's really, really low body temperature. Like I could melt as a Vaporeon, Glaceon can cause things to freeze around them. She dove through the middle easily and hit the ring with her tail at the last moment, causing it to erupt in a final flurry as she hit the ground and dusted herself off.

I wanted to smile but I frowned.

"If it can manipulate that ice well on a hot day, I'm not sure Aracai can beat it."

"I think she told you both that a lot of times," Chatot said. "But what do I know? No one listens to me anyway. You kids have no respect for your masters in this world. None."

Jane fidgeted in her seat. "Maybe I should have listened to her," she said. "I didn't realize her boss was this strong."

"Doesn't matter. She'll win. Or, we'll win for her," Kirlia said. "What difference does it make if she did it herself or not? It's not like the rest of this quest will be easy, either. Why should we pity her when she gets a challenge?"

Before anyone could respond the announcer asked another new contestant to come to the stage. He fainted midway through. The next coordinator didn't, but looked like she might. The one after that was OK, but nothing special. In truth there were only four truly good appeals the whole day. I'll skip to the next one.


The crowd was rather neutral when Aracai's name was called. (They called her Shastra. I wasn't sure why at the time.) They became much less neutral when they saw her in person. Or, some parts of it did. A group of people who looked more like her than everyone else (Jane told me they were called "Indians") started cheering at one end of the stadium. Another group dressed in red also began to cheer. Most of the same people who had cheered for Te Kau shouted things that made the jeerer who got removed look tame. They repeated the 'vaira' word a lot.

Then there was a large group of people dressed in woven armor about a third of the stadium away from me. With the insults they hurled, one near the stage lobbed a literal spear.

It flew to the side so I assumed it was, if not a gift, not an actual attack. Aracai dodged, but didn't really need to. As the people in red stood up and shouted and the people in armor rose to match them, Aracai simply walked across the floor and stopped in front of the spear. She turned to face the person who had thrown it at her. Then she smiled. It was a glorious smile even from fifteen rows up, especially when magnified on the screens throughout the stadium that showed the appeals. She kept smiling as she kicked the spear out of her way and faced the field.

I almost didn't notice when she sent Torterra out. It seemed like an afterthought at that point.

Jane touched me and I cringed. Thankfully, nothing happened. I wanted to see Aracai's appeal. I turned to face her and saw that she looked confused.

"What?" I asked.

"You looked scared. Why?"

"I just don't like touch," I said.

"But it's absolutely none of your business why," Chatot harshly added.

Jane shifted her gaze to Chatot and glared. Chatot didn't back down.

"Anyway," I broke in, "why did you touch me?"

She blinked, but her eyes stayed the same color. "Oh. That. You were looking at Aracai and your emotions were interesting."

"Do we need another talk about mental privacy?"

"Actually, Jewel told me that. She can't help but sense emotions. It's what her species does. That doesn't matter, though. I just wanted to know if you knew about photoshop?"

"What?"

On the field Torterra began to glow a bright green as an impossibly large volley of leaves was blasted away from him. They began to pile up on the edges of the stadium, brushing against some invisible barrier that had been stopping attacks during the contest, like the time that a nervous trainer's Rapidash had inadvertently shot a Fire Blast at the crowd. Even more leaves crowded onto the field.

"Impressive link attack," I said. "Synthesis plus Razor Leaf. He's using the sun's energy to rapidly generate more leaves instead of health."

"Link attack?" Jane asked.

"It's where you merge two attacks into one move," Chatot replied. "They are very useful when you need to score a knock-out before the opponent can move."

"They can be rather tiring," I added. "My favorite was Surf and Blizzard to create a wave of cold air and water at the same time. I could only do it two or three times before I needed a break, but it could clear a whole monster house in one shot."

"Why don't I know one?" Jewel asked. "I could do… I don't know. Magical Leaf and Shadow Sneak?"

"How would that even work?" Chatot asked.

"I don't know. You know more about these moves."

"Anyway, photoshop," Jane said.

Before she could continue Torterra uttered a primal roar that almost shamed Te Kau.

The leaves around him began to ripple and spin as the ones nearest him were lifted off the ground. They slowly began to rotate him. As they orbited, faster and faster, the circle of orbiting leaves became larger. The leaves on the inside spun fastest, with the ones on the edges moving slower. Eventually the whole stage was one spiraling mass of green moving at various speeds. It was powerful and hypnotic and even Aracai's most aggressive critics were now silent as they watched the leafy whirlpool.

"Photoshop," Jane whispered. "You should know about it. Girls here don't like how they look, so they use photoshop to alter their image and make themselves look better. They might not have it where you come from, but it's a thing here on Earth. She's way too pretty to be natural. She has to photoshop."

I pursed my lips as the spiral of foliage began to condense and rise on stage, slowly gaining height until it became an almost vertical column. Before long it was impossible to see Torterra himself in the center of his storm. "How?"

"It has something to do with computers. That's all I know. I bet she's actually twelve kilos heavier, a couple inches shorter, and a cup size smaller. Probably touched up her face, too."

"And that's common here?"

"Extremely," Jane replied. "There was a protest movement around the turn of the century where some people thought it was bad, but nothing really changed."

"Really?"

"Just ask Aracai. It'll probably embarrass her, getting caught in her lies, but it'll at least give you the truth."

At last the plant matter collapsed into a heap on stage. The audience fell silent as nothing moved. Just as the announcer stepped up to announce the end of the round, the stadium shook as the pile was torn apart by tremors until Torterra emerged on top, triumphant.

The cheers were more confident than they had been at the start. The hatred, while present, seemed quieter and less widespread.

Aracai curtsied and picked up the spear before she withdrew Torterra and left the stage.

Jane had called her a liar for weeks. That was the first time I ever learned of something specific she was concealing.


In the last notable appeal, a larger man in a thick brown coat walked up to the stage. He had hair that was long and chaotic for a male on Earth and a beard that was in similarly bad shape. His eyes shiftily moved on the screen, obviously uncomfortable with such a large audience. He released his pokémon without a word.

A letter 'A' floated above the stadium before opening its eye. An Unown.

The man coughed and made his voice loud. A few other contestants had, but most didn't. Aracai hadn't. I wondered if she could. If she could alter her entire appearance she probably could.

Could all humans here do that?

"Hello," the man on stage called out. "My name is Kuri Zeastle. I am a researcher of the unconfirmed, the strange, the alien…" He trailed off and stared at his Unown. The pokémon got the cue and immediately created a cloud of crystals spiraling around it. They continued to expand and rotate until a spherical shell of some size surrounded the pokémon.

On the sphere, an image formed. It was mostly dark with a few points of light on it.

"We have accomplished a lot. We've gone to the moon and Mars and sent probes outside of our Solar System. But there's far more we haven't done. There are billions of planets in the galaxy and billions of galaxies in the universe. We haven't even left ours. But maybe others have visited us."

The scene shifted to an almost photographic image of a raised mound of earth with a circle of raised stones on top. It then shifted to large pyramids of tan stone, a larger circle of upright stones, and a set of lines in the sand.

"We know there has been life around us in the solar system. Several species came from the moon. Yet, when we got there… nothing. No life to be found. We've found fossils on Mars, but there's nothing there either nowadays. What happened to them? What wiped them out?"

The scene shifted to smaller machines with humans in them. They were holding long metal sticks that I had previously seen in a dream and they were creating fire with them. The fire was shooting towards much bigger machines with three legs.

"What if there are threats out there we can't imagine? Things that could annihilate us before we could even begin to fight?"

The illusion in the sphere shifted to a huge metal disk over a city. It shot a pulse of light down and the city was destroyed.

I heard Jane make a sound of contempt beside me. I turned to see her intensely staring at the stage, her eyes now blue. Jewel was standing upright and seemed similarly focused.

"What's wrong?"

"He stole that scene from a movie," Jane replied. "And the one before that, too."

On stage, the man continued.

"Anything that can reach our planet before we can reach their home will be more advanced than us. They have shown themselves hostile. They will destroy us. Our only option is to find and destroy them first."

The movie scene lingered before the Unown finally collapsed its Hidden Power.

"Thank you."

The audience reaction was mixed. The display had been much stranger than anything else that day, but it was an impressive use of Hidden Power. I turned to Jane to see her expression had changed from focus to a total lack of it.

"Shit, this guy's crazy," Jane whispered.

"Isn't he right?" Chatot added, before he promptly groaned in pain as he glowed blue.

"Jewel, stop," Jane whispered. Her pokémon complied. "No. I don't want to kill him. Why is he so worried? Why does he hate me?"

I wanted to reply, but didn't have an answer that seemed worth saying.


Some time later the judges came back with their verdicts and the announcer gave the matchups for the tournament. Aracai would face Te Kau. Aracai's boss would face the alien guy. With that, the morning of appeals was over.


Before we met Aracai near the woods, Jane and I went down to the concessions stands to get food. I still knew very little about the food here, so I let her order.

We both had IDs and some money when we came, which saved a lot of trouble. We would run out of the money eventually, but by battling trainers around town I had earned almost enough to offset what we spent.

As Jane waited in line, I looked around at the cafeteria. It was far larger than the one at the Guild and there might have been a thousand people eating or waiting to eat. I wasn't sure who cooked the food or how they could do it so quickly. I did notice that the people behind the counter were mostly Indians. I know Aracai had mentioned something about that on the one or two occasions we were together in a public place. I don't think she liked it, but her answer was kind of confusing and technical. She knew a lot about the politics here, which were apparently a lot more complex than they had been where I came from.

When Jane came back with a sandwich (she called it a hamburger) we sat down to eat. She stayed silent and distracted, never touching her sandwich. I ate mine quickly since it was good. When I finished mine she slid me hers, wrapped in paper. I decided to save it until some point later or offer it to Aracai, since I wasn't sure what or if she was eating.

Once we were done eating we left the building and I sent out Infernape. I told her about the appeals on the way over, but she didn't seem particularly interested in any of them. The most she reacted was glancing up at Chatot and asking if he was being serious when he mentioned the spear that got flung at Aracai. She just shrugged when Chatot confirmed that it happened.

I tried talking to Jane, but she was still somewhat despondent. Kirlia didn't walk as much as she danced, spinning and leaping her way alongside her trainer. She seemed as disengaged as Jane, suggesting they were talking to each other.

With Infernape being awkward and the psychics inaccessible, I turned to Chatot.

"How are you feeling about the contest?"

"It's judged on prettiness, right? Or is it just power?"

"Some mix of the two."

"Hmm. I'm worried that Torterra might be too tired to actually battle, but he should be against an electric type. That's good, since he knows Magnitude and has the type-advantage and all that. He's also better at pretty moves. The guy in white should have the advantage in his match. His Glaceon was strong and pretty. Individual Unown are weak."

"So, what about the spear? Was that an actual threat?"

Chatot did not respond immediately.

"I hope not," Jane replied. "It's hard to monitor everyone in the stadium at once. If Aracai really did get attacked…"

"So it goes," Infernape said. "I think she knows the risks."

"Healing is good here," Jewel added. "There's always that."

I pulled out the hamburger and stared at it. In time it would probably get bad, so I unwrapped it as we approached our agreed meeting place with Aracai.


When we first saw her, she was sitting on Torterra completely unfocused and staring into space, muttering something under her breath. The pokémon was asleep and basking in the sunlight. I stared at her unsure of what to do for a moment. Jane sat down and motioned for me to follow.

"What's she doing?"

"Meditating or something," she replied. "Most psychics do it."

"She's a psychic?"

"No," Aracai said as she shifted her attention to us. "And Evyrus, do you know anything at all about Sanatana Dharma?"

"What?"

"Hinduism," she clarified.

I shook my head no.

"Oh, right," Jane said. "You don't do beef."

"No," Aracai replied. "I don't do beef."

"So…?" I asked.

"Hamburgers are beef," Jane said sheepishly.

"Oh, sorry. Sorry," I said as I threw it out into the woods.

"It's not a problem. Just don't eat it in front of me. It'll make everything go better between us."

After a few more seconds of awkward silence, Kirlia spoke.

"Where's the spear?"

"I left it in the woods," Aracai said. "It was too big for me and I don't know how to use them anyway."

"Um, why did they throw the spear?" Jane asked.

Aracai gave her a half-smile that conveyed more sadness than joy. "An excellent question," she replied. "There are people here who very much don't like communists, so they don't like me."

"I don't like communists," Jane said.

Aracai rolled her eyes. "Just don't kill me for it."

That's about how the rest of the conversation went. Aracai was in an inexplicably good mood for the riskiness of her situation (since she basically confirmed that the spear was a mortal threat executed poorly), Torterra was busy resting, and Jane came out of her shell just enough to appear functional. The topic wasn't important and I don't want to make this chapter much longer than Aracai's, so I'll skip the rest of it.


When we settled back into our seats a half-hour later, the announcer came to the stage once more.

"Welcome back, everyone! We hope you enjoyed the intermission and are ready for Round Two of today's contest. Before we begin, I have to announce a correction to a previous announcement. Today's first battle will be between Shastra Rangan and Kuri Zeastle, while our second will be between Nanakia Forum and Te Kau. With that said, our first match will be beginning immediately. Ladies and gentleman, let's hear it for our contestants!"