✏️ PokéCommunity Big Bang 2016 ✏️
Hello, and welcome to a joint event collaboration between the Fanfiction and Writing and Art and Design sections , the PokeCommunity Big Bang!
If you don't know what a Big Bang is, it's an event in various sites, like Tumblr and Livejournal/Dreamwidth, where writers and artists collaborated together on a project. Usually the norm would be over 10,000 words and several art pieces, but because this is the first time we're doing this we'll be doing this low key. The purpose of this challenge is to bring the writers and artists of PokeCommunity together and have them work one another to create fantastic Pokemon fanworks!
To get an example of how this works, check out this Pokemon Big Bang from Dreamwidth a few years go.
Artist who have signed up will get first call on claiming a story. You will have one week. Your claiming period will end on November 4th. After the claims become open and a week has passed (Nov 11th) and there are still open claims, artists will be able to claim multiple stories.
Comment here with the name of writer of the story you want to claim!
Once the first claiming period ends, we are opening up claims to all artists regardless of if you signed up or not! So after November 4th, anyone is welcome and encouraged to sign up for untaken stories. : ) Please sign up! I've done it before and it's a lot of fun. Read more about the Big Bang here!
After the claims become open and a week has passed (Nov 11th) and there are still open claims, artist will be able to claim multiple stories.
Aisu "Dealing With Death"
Bardothren "By the Skin of His Fangs"
icomeanon6 "Hubris Island"
Summary: "Katie and Jen have a fun day in the Whirl Islands lined up, but Katie is too distracted to enjoy it. She'll be moving on from her Pokemon journey to real life soon, and she's worried about how her younger, trouble-prone partner will handle being on her own for the first time. On top of that, Katie feels she has only one more shot to do something she's wanted to do since her journey began: see a legendary Pokemon."
Negrek CLAIMED BY NINA
Summary: "Given a choice, Ariel would have preferred to spend her last night with her best friend enjoying the Summer's End Festival, not wandering around in the dark looking for ghosts. But Lara's determined to investigate the rumors about Seven Island's Tanoby Ruins while she still has the chance, and there's no way Ariel can let her go alone. Even down in the ruins, with her phone malfunctioning and the unown gone into hiding, Ariel's convinced there's nothing supernatural about the place--until the stones begin to sing."
9/5/16- Sign ups for both artists and writers begin
10/16/16- Sign ups for both artists and writers closed. Partial rough drafts due.
10/17/16- Summaries of stories will be posted in the Art and Design section. Claiming begins
10/24/16- Claiming of summaries end. Artists and writers will be informed of their matchups within a few days or sooner. We'll also have sign-ups for pinch-hitters soon.
11/20/16- Final drafts and art due.
11/21/16 towards 11/28/16- Posting period
This is the initial schedule, though it is subject to change.
PokéCommunity Big Bang 2016
Fanfiction & Writing and Art & Design Collaboration
The event and its purpose
Hello, and welcome to a joint event collaboration between the Fanfiction and Writing and Art and Design sections , the PokeCommunity Big Bang!
If you don't know what a Big Bang is, it's an event in various sites, like Tumblr and Livejournal/Dreamwidth, where writers and artists collaborated together on a project. Usually the norm would be over 10,000 words and several art pieces, but because this is the first time we're doing this we'll be doing this low key. The purpose of this challenge is to bring the writers and artists of PokeCommunity together and have them work one another to create fantastic Pokemon fanworks!
To get an example of how this works, check out this Pokemon Big Bang from Dreamwidth a few years go.
CLAIMS ARE NOW OPEN!
Artist who have signed up will get first call on claiming a story. You will have one week. Your claiming period will end on November 4th. After the claims become open and a week has passed (Nov 11th) and there are still open claims, artists will be able to claim multiple stories.
Comment here with the name of writer of the story you want to claim!
Spoiler:
ordinaryOddball said:ordinaryOddball
Nina said:Nina
Forever said:Forever
WE HAVE MORE STORIES THAN ARTISTS
Once the first claiming period ends, we are opening up claims to all artists regardless of if you signed up or not! So after November 4th, anyone is welcome and encouraged to sign up for untaken stories. : ) Please sign up! I've done it before and it's a lot of fun. Read more about the Big Bang here!
After the claims become open and a week has passed (Nov 11th) and there are still open claims, artist will be able to claim multiple stories.
Stories to Claim
Aisu "Dealing With Death"
Spoiler:
Dealing with Death
Old traditions, while being just that—old—are revered on the island for what they symbolize, and for what they mean to the villagers' wellbeing. Although it does not affect me personally whether they perform their ancestral rituals or not, it is my job to oversee them. It's not like anyone else can do it.
Bamboo torches are arranged in the familiar zigzag pattern as on me and lit with the ghostly lavender flames of the village's only Chandelure. The chief's bare feet sink into the sand as he stomps each one, raising his hands and chanting in the same movements. Ahead of him lies the wooden coffin where my newest burden awaits. The other villagers remain in a loose huddle as they witness the old magic act, as if they haven't seen the same smoke-and-mirrors dozens of times before.
'New faces, old matters… We are gathered to witness the passing of yet another soul from this village. For tens of hundreds of years, we've committed to this ritual of purging the body of its weight, releasing our child to the place where they can reach their final judgment alongside their final rest. I, Hezekiah, as village chief, hereby—power vested—grant this soul—to—path of whence he—through our appointed—and—forevermore.'
My attention returns to the chief as he finishes his chant in the old tongue, lowering his hands to the coffin and finishing with the words I'm most familiar with. From the coffin comes his soul, and his soul forms something vaguely humanoid. The white sheer of his body fades away as my mouth closes around him, and I can immediately feel his presence in my body.
Malakai.
The villagers cheer as the violet flames extinguish themselves, then one man hangs to collect the smoking torches as they return to their shacks and huts. The moonlight creates odd patterns over the sand through the large palm trees, which I pay too much attention to as I cross the familiar pathway. I have a very good sense of him, of Malakai, inside of me, which is both unnerving and plain uncomfortable. I shouldn't be able to feel a spirit, they don't have the energy to maintain physicality—
"Let me out!"
I nearly fall on my face, his shout surprises me so.
"Let me out! I want to go home!"
How long has it been since the soul has willingly fought against me? I'm almost tempted to release him, then I cross onto the Unwavering Pathway, marked by torches on either side of the thin sand trail lit with ever-burning ghostly fire, and I let the thought die. There is no room for error now, otherwise—
"I see an opening!"
I feel a full-body shiver come on as his hand…touches me. It's such an unfamiliar, gut-wrenching feeling that I heave, automatically opening my mouth and spewing him out. A ball of white sheer rolls across the sand, given a ghastly aura by the firelight, before disappearing down the path and into the darkness where the glimmer does not reach. I grit my jaw and give chase.
"Ooh… I'm still on the island…" Malakai's voice echoes past my line of sight into the dark forest. I cover as much distance as I can, however I can hear his growing footsteps getting even further away from me. He's becoming solid again, which means he'll soon have his mental facilities back.
"Don't step off of the path!"
"Is that a Pokémon…?" A torch blows out a few feet away, but before it does I catch a glimpse of amber-colored eyes. A second later the crack of a tree trunk rents the air, shortly followed by the scuttling of a mad Kingler horde. I follow them to a small clearing filled with rocks and low-hanging vines, and due to those there is only one torch to light the area. The dimming glow reflects off of the Kingler's flexing pinchers and Malakai's tanned skin alike, giving me something of perception to their relative position. I form electricity from the energy in the air and bend it around my fist before slamming it to the ground. The bolts quickly jump across the Kingler, causing them to jump and scatter before the surges can even dissipate.
They shouldn't have been able to cross onto the path, not while I am here with the torches lit. Something is amiss…
"You're the thing that tried to eat me," Malakai says, crossing his arms over his chest. He's closer to the will-o'-wisp now, and I take note of his features. Dark hair hangs over his forehead, semi-curled by the sea breeze, and his eyes—the same orange-gold color I remember from earlier—are steely, defiant. I hate them immediately.
"I'm sorry, perhaps I should have left you to be torn into ether." He continues glaring and I think that he misunderstands. "Ether is nothingness. From there, not even the spirit world can be attained."
"You know, I can't understand anything you're saying. I don't speak Pokémon."
"Curious. I thought that was basic knowledge among the villagers. No matter." Malakai tries walking off and so I quickly cut him off. "Do not leave the path," I say with gestures meant to help him understand.
"I don't care about this stupid hiking trail. I have to get home. I have to go home—she's probably crying herself to sleep right now—"
"Your mother is not worried," I sigh, switching to the old language. If he's surprised, he doesn't show it, but I also haven't seen one genuine facial expression from him yet. He appears stuck on lassitude right now. "She was at your passing ceremony."
"My passing ceremony," he repeats flatly. "That's impossible. That's a ceremony for those that…passed."
"Should I put it in bright lights for you?" I say sardonically. "More so, do you not recognize me?"
"I can barely see you. It's nighttime, in case you can't tell." I concede him that much—even my eyesight is limited. I hold out my hand and create a Will-O-Wisp between us, lighting our faces. He squints for a moment, analyzing my features, and thins his lips as his apathy slowly melts into sobriety. "You are the village's Dusknoir. You only come to take the dead to the afterlife."
"And so that would make you…?" I let him put two and two together. His eyes widen.
"Oh. Oh, Arceus, I'm damned."
"No, you're dead. That fate has yet to be determined." He covers his face and turns away.
"I can't… I don't even remember what happened. I argued with Mom, left her house, and… Arceus, it hurt so bad."
"When you came free from my body, some of your sheer—your body—was lost to the ether. You should count yourself lucky that you did not lose any limbs—memories are expendable."
"I'm dead," he pronounces with a moan. "I can't be. I'm nineteen. I can't be dead—dying is for the old, the sick—"
"Death knows not age or condition, it knows only where to strike next."
"I'm not dead!" He holds out his hand—for what, I don't know, maybe to strike me—and in that second he sees it, sees how the light bends around and through it as glass. He stares at his hand, his arm, his other arm, his torso, and turns away. He reaches out towards the trunk of a tree and presses his hand against the layered skin. Then, gritting his teeth, he pushes harder. His hand sinks through the skin and into the tree. He waves it back and forth repeatedly but still cannot touch the tree. Eventually he draws it back, although he looks physically pained to do so. "…I'm dead," he says without inflection.
"Now you see the picture. If you don't mind, I would like to get you to pass on before the end of the night."
"What, do you have a hot date to attend to?" Bitterness. Well, humans are known for that. "Your only job is to take the dead to their final resting place."
"That's my job, correct. It isn't something I particularly enjoy. Walk." He grudgingly continues down the path while I keep pace behind him. It would be a lot faster to consume him again, but if he does that odd…thing…again, I would rather spend all night out here.
"Then can't you just leave me to get back to my damn body?"
"No, for two reasons."
"…Well?" he asks after a moment.
"I apologize. Your body is buried. We're on the path." It looks like the torches are growing dimmer, but it must be a trick of my eye.
"I really don't get the deal about this stupid trail. I've hiked it every year," he says dully.
"That was different. While these torches are lit, this Unwavering Pathway leads straight to the afterlife. Straying from it would put both of us in danger, so we continue until we reach the end."
"Then what? What is past that point?" There is no inflection left in his voice and it comes out low and nearly gravelly.
"I can't say."
"Why the hell not?"
"You will see soon enough."
"Did anyone else ever find you so annoyingly cryptic?"
"I wouldn't know. You're the first spirit I've ever talked to."
"I can tell. You suck at the talking thing."
"It's not a necessary skill." Something is definitely off. The fires are barely match lights now and we're not even nearing the end of the path.
"Then what? You just silently creep along this trail while the poor unlucky victim crashes inside of you?"
"…What does it matter, honestly?"
"Then let me ask a relevant question: Can you tell me how in hell I died?"
"I believe it was from a bad strain."
"Strain? Strain of what?" he asks, paling.
"In layman's terms? Curiosity." He grouses once more. "It will do you no good to know the fine details, Malakai. They will only plague you."
"You're plaguing me—can I forget you too?"
"You are not ending things well for yourself. This pathway leads to both redemption and damnation, you know."
"What do I care? I know what I deserve already," he declares dismissively. He looks at his hand again, flexing his fingers as if testing their weight. I have a good sense of Malakai's character, and although he is very blunt and dismissive, I cannot sense anything inherently bad about him. Then again, I also cannot make sense of memories due to the emotions tied in with them—they are so…mortal, they are always scrambled in my head like sound waves. "I'm going to miss Mom," he mutters after a moment of silence, coming to a stop. A sound comes up nearby, giving me an excuse to dodge the topic.
"Are you a good runner?"
"What's it even matter? I'm dead." He says dead as if it is the worst thing that can happen to someone.
"And as hard as it will be for you to hear, you'd be better off staying that way. Something is nearby, and I want you to be capable of running away—along this path, I feel I need to add."
"What's with you and this dumb hiking trail? I don't care about it."
"I'm doing this to preserve your life, you know. So should you want to throw away your chance at an afterlife, I will not stop you."
"You will not?"
"No. It is not my duty to give chase against resistance, neither do I want to. It's annoying and tiring."
"So you've done it before." I choose not to go down memory lane again and push him forward. He stumbles, more in surprise than from my force, and turns to me. "You touched me."
"Of course I can? I'd think it obvious. Move quickly. Quicker." His face flashes in a nearby light, just as blank as before, but he needs to understand the danger. A rustle sounds nearby and I snap my head towards the source of the noise, catching glowing green eyes before they fade behind the brush. "The torches are going out, meaning the protections around this path are becoming weaker. We'll be more susceptible to vile spirits."
"Then what is the point of staying on the path if we're vulnerable anyway?" he says between breaths as he runs down the path. He was at least a fast runner in life—I can float, so it makes it easier for him to keep up to my pace.
"The path leads to the afterlife, as I've said two million times already. Once you reach there, you're safe; if you stray from the path now, you won't be able to find the entrance and you'll be lost to the evil out there."
"Then how come this evil—" Malakai says disdainfully, "has never come up in the village while I was alive?"
"The village has its wards." I'm starting to tire of speaking, but he's easier to deal with when he doesn't question every other action I take. "The path's wards, as you can see, are wearing out."
"Because of what?"
"…That is the one answer I cannot give you."
"Then aren't you helpful." I may or not have been summoning a curse when, without any warning whatsoever, the last of the torches puff out, plunging us in the expansive darkness that only a forest could house. A wail echoes beyond the trees before petering out, then it returns much closer. I spot the flash of a Sableye's gem, then the halo of a Shedinja. That makes two Pokémon, but no spirits?
"Close your eyes. Now."
"No," he says quickly, looking towards a noise in the brush. I juggle a Shadow Ball between my hands before letting it fly towards a growl. The Sableye jumps forward just as it explodes several palm trees into chunks of bark and charred leaves. It lands at the edge of the path but doesn't come any farther. I can't tell if there still exists some protection or if it's simply biding its time.
"Soul, soul, precious soul," it hisses, eyeing Malakai. "Precious gem. Tasty gem."
"…Should I be scared?" he says dryly. Sableye grins before disappearing into the shadows. I pick up its presence a nanosecond before it reappears on the path and slashes at Malakai's leg. It vanishes again before I can retaliate, leaving his form wavering with instability.
"Your fear isn't the issue here. Whether you take this seriously or not, it is very grave." His soul solidifies again, leaving him staring blankly into the distance.
"I feel fine?"
"Rather, it's what you don't feel." I send out several of my own flames to the nearby torches—they won't have the same properties, but at the very least they act as light sources. Sableye edges away from the light, but as evident from a cackle opposite to it, there are more enemies. "Keep going. The torches will light your way."
"You're going to get beaten hard," he tells me.
"This is my job."
"Suit yourself," he mutters, starting to run. He stumbles once before regaining his footing and continuing down the path. Before I can start to move something grabs me from behind, yanking me backwards.
"We will have precious soul," Sableye rasps.
"It is my job to give souls safe passage to the afterlife, and no one can interfere."
"No one could, at least not with Deacon's flames alight," the Shedinja says. "And as you can see, those flames no longer remain on this Unwavering Pathway. All spirits are now for our taking." It turns its back to me, and with a ghastly sound like nails on glass it moves its carcass wings, creating a zephyr that quickly grows into strong Gust. Sableye releases me and I have no time to gather my bearings. The wind catches me and blows me away from the path and into the trees.
Old traditions, while being just that—old—are revered on the island for what they symbolize, and for what they mean to the villagers' wellbeing. Although it does not affect me personally whether they perform their ancestral rituals or not, it is my job to oversee them. It's not like anyone else can do it.
Bamboo torches are arranged in the familiar zigzag pattern as on me and lit with the ghostly lavender flames of the village's only Chandelure. The chief's bare feet sink into the sand as he stomps each one, raising his hands and chanting in the same movements. Ahead of him lies the wooden coffin where my newest burden awaits. The other villagers remain in a loose huddle as they witness the old magic act, as if they haven't seen the same smoke-and-mirrors dozens of times before.
'New faces, old matters… We are gathered to witness the passing of yet another soul from this village. For tens of hundreds of years, we've committed to this ritual of purging the body of its weight, releasing our child to the place where they can reach their final judgment alongside their final rest. I, Hezekiah, as village chief, hereby—power vested—grant this soul—to—path of whence he—through our appointed—and—forevermore.'
My attention returns to the chief as he finishes his chant in the old tongue, lowering his hands to the coffin and finishing with the words I'm most familiar with. From the coffin comes his soul, and his soul forms something vaguely humanoid. The white sheer of his body fades away as my mouth closes around him, and I can immediately feel his presence in my body.
Malakai.
The villagers cheer as the violet flames extinguish themselves, then one man hangs to collect the smoking torches as they return to their shacks and huts. The moonlight creates odd patterns over the sand through the large palm trees, which I pay too much attention to as I cross the familiar pathway. I have a very good sense of him, of Malakai, inside of me, which is both unnerving and plain uncomfortable. I shouldn't be able to feel a spirit, they don't have the energy to maintain physicality—
"Let me out!"
I nearly fall on my face, his shout surprises me so.
"Let me out! I want to go home!"
How long has it been since the soul has willingly fought against me? I'm almost tempted to release him, then I cross onto the Unwavering Pathway, marked by torches on either side of the thin sand trail lit with ever-burning ghostly fire, and I let the thought die. There is no room for error now, otherwise—
"I see an opening!"
I feel a full-body shiver come on as his hand…touches me. It's such an unfamiliar, gut-wrenching feeling that I heave, automatically opening my mouth and spewing him out. A ball of white sheer rolls across the sand, given a ghastly aura by the firelight, before disappearing down the path and into the darkness where the glimmer does not reach. I grit my jaw and give chase.
"Ooh… I'm still on the island…" Malakai's voice echoes past my line of sight into the dark forest. I cover as much distance as I can, however I can hear his growing footsteps getting even further away from me. He's becoming solid again, which means he'll soon have his mental facilities back.
"Don't step off of the path!"
"Is that a Pokémon…?" A torch blows out a few feet away, but before it does I catch a glimpse of amber-colored eyes. A second later the crack of a tree trunk rents the air, shortly followed by the scuttling of a mad Kingler horde. I follow them to a small clearing filled with rocks and low-hanging vines, and due to those there is only one torch to light the area. The dimming glow reflects off of the Kingler's flexing pinchers and Malakai's tanned skin alike, giving me something of perception to their relative position. I form electricity from the energy in the air and bend it around my fist before slamming it to the ground. The bolts quickly jump across the Kingler, causing them to jump and scatter before the surges can even dissipate.
They shouldn't have been able to cross onto the path, not while I am here with the torches lit. Something is amiss…
"You're the thing that tried to eat me," Malakai says, crossing his arms over his chest. He's closer to the will-o'-wisp now, and I take note of his features. Dark hair hangs over his forehead, semi-curled by the sea breeze, and his eyes—the same orange-gold color I remember from earlier—are steely, defiant. I hate them immediately.
"I'm sorry, perhaps I should have left you to be torn into ether." He continues glaring and I think that he misunderstands. "Ether is nothingness. From there, not even the spirit world can be attained."
"You know, I can't understand anything you're saying. I don't speak Pokémon."
"Curious. I thought that was basic knowledge among the villagers. No matter." Malakai tries walking off and so I quickly cut him off. "Do not leave the path," I say with gestures meant to help him understand.
"I don't care about this stupid hiking trail. I have to get home. I have to go home—she's probably crying herself to sleep right now—"
"Your mother is not worried," I sigh, switching to the old language. If he's surprised, he doesn't show it, but I also haven't seen one genuine facial expression from him yet. He appears stuck on lassitude right now. "She was at your passing ceremony."
"My passing ceremony," he repeats flatly. "That's impossible. That's a ceremony for those that…passed."
"Should I put it in bright lights for you?" I say sardonically. "More so, do you not recognize me?"
"I can barely see you. It's nighttime, in case you can't tell." I concede him that much—even my eyesight is limited. I hold out my hand and create a Will-O-Wisp between us, lighting our faces. He squints for a moment, analyzing my features, and thins his lips as his apathy slowly melts into sobriety. "You are the village's Dusknoir. You only come to take the dead to the afterlife."
"And so that would make you…?" I let him put two and two together. His eyes widen.
"Oh. Oh, Arceus, I'm damned."
"No, you're dead. That fate has yet to be determined." He covers his face and turns away.
"I can't… I don't even remember what happened. I argued with Mom, left her house, and… Arceus, it hurt so bad."
"When you came free from my body, some of your sheer—your body—was lost to the ether. You should count yourself lucky that you did not lose any limbs—memories are expendable."
"I'm dead," he pronounces with a moan. "I can't be. I'm nineteen. I can't be dead—dying is for the old, the sick—"
"Death knows not age or condition, it knows only where to strike next."
"I'm not dead!" He holds out his hand—for what, I don't know, maybe to strike me—and in that second he sees it, sees how the light bends around and through it as glass. He stares at his hand, his arm, his other arm, his torso, and turns away. He reaches out towards the trunk of a tree and presses his hand against the layered skin. Then, gritting his teeth, he pushes harder. His hand sinks through the skin and into the tree. He waves it back and forth repeatedly but still cannot touch the tree. Eventually he draws it back, although he looks physically pained to do so. "…I'm dead," he says without inflection.
"Now you see the picture. If you don't mind, I would like to get you to pass on before the end of the night."
"What, do you have a hot date to attend to?" Bitterness. Well, humans are known for that. "Your only job is to take the dead to their final resting place."
"That's my job, correct. It isn't something I particularly enjoy. Walk." He grudgingly continues down the path while I keep pace behind him. It would be a lot faster to consume him again, but if he does that odd…thing…again, I would rather spend all night out here.
"Then can't you just leave me to get back to my damn body?"
"No, for two reasons."
"…Well?" he asks after a moment.
"I apologize. Your body is buried. We're on the path." It looks like the torches are growing dimmer, but it must be a trick of my eye.
"I really don't get the deal about this stupid trail. I've hiked it every year," he says dully.
"That was different. While these torches are lit, this Unwavering Pathway leads straight to the afterlife. Straying from it would put both of us in danger, so we continue until we reach the end."
"Then what? What is past that point?" There is no inflection left in his voice and it comes out low and nearly gravelly.
"I can't say."
"Why the hell not?"
"You will see soon enough."
"Did anyone else ever find you so annoyingly cryptic?"
"I wouldn't know. You're the first spirit I've ever talked to."
"I can tell. You suck at the talking thing."
"It's not a necessary skill." Something is definitely off. The fires are barely match lights now and we're not even nearing the end of the path.
"Then what? You just silently creep along this trail while the poor unlucky victim crashes inside of you?"
"…What does it matter, honestly?"
"Then let me ask a relevant question: Can you tell me how in hell I died?"
"I believe it was from a bad strain."
"Strain? Strain of what?" he asks, paling.
"In layman's terms? Curiosity." He grouses once more. "It will do you no good to know the fine details, Malakai. They will only plague you."
"You're plaguing me—can I forget you too?"
"You are not ending things well for yourself. This pathway leads to both redemption and damnation, you know."
"What do I care? I know what I deserve already," he declares dismissively. He looks at his hand again, flexing his fingers as if testing their weight. I have a good sense of Malakai's character, and although he is very blunt and dismissive, I cannot sense anything inherently bad about him. Then again, I also cannot make sense of memories due to the emotions tied in with them—they are so…mortal, they are always scrambled in my head like sound waves. "I'm going to miss Mom," he mutters after a moment of silence, coming to a stop. A sound comes up nearby, giving me an excuse to dodge the topic.
"Are you a good runner?"
"What's it even matter? I'm dead." He says dead as if it is the worst thing that can happen to someone.
"And as hard as it will be for you to hear, you'd be better off staying that way. Something is nearby, and I want you to be capable of running away—along this path, I feel I need to add."
"What's with you and this dumb hiking trail? I don't care about it."
"I'm doing this to preserve your life, you know. So should you want to throw away your chance at an afterlife, I will not stop you."
"You will not?"
"No. It is not my duty to give chase against resistance, neither do I want to. It's annoying and tiring."
"So you've done it before." I choose not to go down memory lane again and push him forward. He stumbles, more in surprise than from my force, and turns to me. "You touched me."
"Of course I can? I'd think it obvious. Move quickly. Quicker." His face flashes in a nearby light, just as blank as before, but he needs to understand the danger. A rustle sounds nearby and I snap my head towards the source of the noise, catching glowing green eyes before they fade behind the brush. "The torches are going out, meaning the protections around this path are becoming weaker. We'll be more susceptible to vile spirits."
"Then what is the point of staying on the path if we're vulnerable anyway?" he says between breaths as he runs down the path. He was at least a fast runner in life—I can float, so it makes it easier for him to keep up to my pace.
"The path leads to the afterlife, as I've said two million times already. Once you reach there, you're safe; if you stray from the path now, you won't be able to find the entrance and you'll be lost to the evil out there."
"Then how come this evil—" Malakai says disdainfully, "has never come up in the village while I was alive?"
"The village has its wards." I'm starting to tire of speaking, but he's easier to deal with when he doesn't question every other action I take. "The path's wards, as you can see, are wearing out."
"Because of what?"
"…That is the one answer I cannot give you."
"Then aren't you helpful." I may or not have been summoning a curse when, without any warning whatsoever, the last of the torches puff out, plunging us in the expansive darkness that only a forest could house. A wail echoes beyond the trees before petering out, then it returns much closer. I spot the flash of a Sableye's gem, then the halo of a Shedinja. That makes two Pokémon, but no spirits?
"Close your eyes. Now."
"No," he says quickly, looking towards a noise in the brush. I juggle a Shadow Ball between my hands before letting it fly towards a growl. The Sableye jumps forward just as it explodes several palm trees into chunks of bark and charred leaves. It lands at the edge of the path but doesn't come any farther. I can't tell if there still exists some protection or if it's simply biding its time.
"Soul, soul, precious soul," it hisses, eyeing Malakai. "Precious gem. Tasty gem."
"…Should I be scared?" he says dryly. Sableye grins before disappearing into the shadows. I pick up its presence a nanosecond before it reappears on the path and slashes at Malakai's leg. It vanishes again before I can retaliate, leaving his form wavering with instability.
"Your fear isn't the issue here. Whether you take this seriously or not, it is very grave." His soul solidifies again, leaving him staring blankly into the distance.
"I feel fine?"
"Rather, it's what you don't feel." I send out several of my own flames to the nearby torches—they won't have the same properties, but at the very least they act as light sources. Sableye edges away from the light, but as evident from a cackle opposite to it, there are more enemies. "Keep going. The torches will light your way."
"You're going to get beaten hard," he tells me.
"This is my job."
"Suit yourself," he mutters, starting to run. He stumbles once before regaining his footing and continuing down the path. Before I can start to move something grabs me from behind, yanking me backwards.
"We will have precious soul," Sableye rasps.
"It is my job to give souls safe passage to the afterlife, and no one can interfere."
"No one could, at least not with Deacon's flames alight," the Shedinja says. "And as you can see, those flames no longer remain on this Unwavering Pathway. All spirits are now for our taking." It turns its back to me, and with a ghastly sound like nails on glass it moves its carcass wings, creating a zephyr that quickly grows into strong Gust. Sableye releases me and I have no time to gather my bearings. The wind catches me and blows me away from the path and into the trees.
Bardothren "By the Skin of His Fangs"
Spoiler:
By the Skin of His Fangs
By Bardothren
As you sit down next to a Croconaw, the first thing you notice are his fangs. Two sparkling incisors jutted from his upper jaw as he threw back an entire pint of frothy beer. His shirt was clean, pressed blue fabric that made his skin appear pale cerulean, and his jeans clung to his legs just tightly enough to display his thick, powerful thighs.
The Croconaw glances at you out of the corner of his eyes and smiles. Then he holds up two fingers towards the bartender and turns towards you.
"Hey baby, you here alone tonight?"
You tell him you like his fangs.
"Oh, these?" He said with a chuckle. "Nearly got myself killed getting one of these during a dungeon raid."
Two beers come, and he slides one towards you. You pick it up, take a sip, and slide closer to him.
"Yeah, I used to be an explorer once," he said after he drained the second beer. "It paid alright – the Guild collected most of the findings, but in return, they had comfortable beds and lots of food. It wasn't anything special – the food was usually oran berries and apples, both of which only came fresh-harvested when we gathered them ourselves. It was also a pain hiking down from the mountaintop to town anytime I wanted to visit the market or get a drink."
You finish the last of your beer, and it slides down your throat like cream. You hold your glass out, and the Croconaw gestures to have it refilled. You tell him you didn't catch his name.
"Oh, it's Theo."
The second round of beers arrives. You say your name and ask him to say more about exploring.
"I was just a rookie explorer before I left. They never let us visit anywhere too dangerous – the scorching volcanoes and subterranean labyrinths were reserved for the veterans. Instead, they had us scour dungeons already plucked clean of traps and treasures. Anyone with sharp eyes and patience can find a few hundred dollars worth of battered gold coins the veterans didn't bother taking. All in all, I got paid less than the desk job at Silph, but my savings account slowly and steadily grew."
Theo leans in closer. Beneath the alcohol, you smell very fine cologne and a sexy undertone of sweat.
"I didn't have any friends in the Guild. A competitive air clung to the mountaintop walls of the Guild, and everyone considered the other as bitter rivals robbing them of wealth – much like Silph, actually. The few times I tried reaching out to other explorers all ended in scowls, and after a year in that place, I became one of those that scowled at the fresh rookies. New recruits get special treatment to break them into the Guild, while the older ones get left high and dry.
I don't know who the boss was. The person giving the orders around here was a frazzled, absent-minded Bibarel named Sikes that tried to tell jokes every so often, but would lose their train of thought and wander off. However, Sikes was sharper than spikes when it came to money. He could tell the market value of most treasure by looking and tapping it with his teeth, and when anyone doubted him, the auctioneers always proved him right."
You finish the second one, and now you can't smell the alcohol. You ask why he quit.
"Why I quit? Well, it all happened on a gorgeous summer day, when the warmth and smells of baking pies from the town below wafted up the mountain and set my stomach rumbling with all the noise and force of an avalanche. I knew I had an adventure coming up, but I couldn't help myself. I ate enough to make my belt groan. I swear, if my stomach won't kill me, nothing will.
The job was to head out to this remote island in the middle of a lake. It's a great opportunity for good swimmers like me – those kinds of places always have bits of treasure lying around. Problem is, you have to swim out there, the water's too shallow and choked with weeds to get a boat or raft out there. So there I was, out in the middle of the lake, nearly bursting from all the food I ate earlier, when I get my bag snagged on a sunken log. I tore and tore at the bag, but I couldn't untangle it, so I had to drag the blasted thing all the way to shore so I could cut the strap off."
You take the glass and tip the last few drops of alcohol into your mouth. You consider a third glass, but instead ask for water. The glass arrives, sweating buckets from all the ice put into it. You press your cheek against the glass as Theo continues his story.
"I was starving by the time I made it. Luckily, my bag didn't leak, and all the food I stuffed inside was still good. I ate a few apples before going in.
The dungeon is more of a stone cavern with stairs leading down into it, and once you get inside, light comes in through a bunch of small holes dug into the walls. The Guild also gives us a helmet with a light on it, but I didn't use it because it makes my head feel hot."
Your cheek feels numb, and you start to shiver as the chill spreads across your face. You take a long sip and put the glass down, letting warmth flow into your skin.
"So, I went hiking through the tunnels for a while, sniffing around for any bit of gold I could find. Gold has a faint, soft metallic smell that gives it away, so there's not much left for rookies most of the time. The better finds are pottery shards and tablets. History buffs loves those, and a high-quality tablet can sell for thousands. As luck had it, I happened upon a stone tablet in reasonably good shape. There were faint traces of gold leaf within the crevices that had mostly worn away, but the lettering in the clay itself remained legible. I held onto it as I walked down a long, narrow corridor, trying to puzzle out the words on it as I walked, when all of the sudden the tablet vibrated and broke apart into tiny pieces."
Theo slammed down another beer and asked for a water. He drank it all down in one gulp and gestured for another. "That was when the door opened up."
He places his hand on your arm, gently, just enough to pass his warmth into you. You notice that, despite having drank four beers, he's surprisingly clear-headed and steady.
"The first thing they teach you in the Guild is that the only two things that will ever move in a dungeon are traps and puzzles, and both are probably going to kill you. However, like the idiot I was, I was lured inside by the smell of gold. It wafted from the door, so thick I could imagine heaping piles of coins that could tower over mountains. But the moment I went inside, the door slammed shut behind me. The thud of stone on stone snapped me to my senses, and I ran back to the door. I even tried using Rock Smash on it, but all I got for my trouble were scraped knuckles. That stuff was hard as steel.
Next, I tried using the homing beacon. With the push of a button, it beams you back to the Guild headquarters. Each one costs a few hundred dollars to use, but in a pinch, they can save your life, and the Guild can figure out where you were when you used it. Well, that time it wouldn't work. I kept tapping it in the vain hope it would work, but the whole time I was stuck in there, I couldn't escape."
You ask how the beacons work.
"No idea. I think the Boss makes them. Anyways, I had no choice but to keep going. I used a stick to tap my way through the corridors, but even with that, I walked into a few traps. There were quite a few deadfall traps that rained boulders if you tripped a wire, and a lot of pitfall traps too. Some even led straight into a pitful of jagged stone spikes. Luckily, I was small enough to clamber over the deadfalls and fast enough to jump over holes. There were a few puzzles as well, along the way. Most times, you can force your way through a puzzle, but there was one that had me stumped for an hour before I realized the statues in the room could be rotated.
After what seemed like a day, but really, I have no idea how long I was stuck down there, I finally found the treasure. It was a mausoleum, packed with emerald-studded statues of Sceptile, mounds of gold bars, and plinths adorned with Heirlooms. I took the Heirlooms – they're light, extremely rare, and always in demand by the Pokémon that can use them. A Sun Scarf was my most valuable find, along with a few Swampert Claws and a Lucario Fang. My best find, though, were these two," Theo said, tapping his fangs. "Rather than stick them in my bag, I decided to save space and stick them in my mouth instead. They had a funny taste to them, like a mix of meat and cinnamon. Mmm, just thinking about it is making me hungry."
Theo orders a plate of fries and slaps a twenty down on the counter. The bartender takes it and scribbles a note for the kitchen.
"Anyways, once my bag was full, I continued down the mausoleum and happened upon a gold leaf book in perfect condition, sitting on a dais right next to a well-adorned tomb. Texts like that are worth millions, if not more, and I dumped out a scarf in favor of the text. I couldn't read it at all – the text must've been thousands of years old, predating even Unown runes, and it had illustrations of celestial events and gods studded with tiny gems."
Theo's fries arrived, drizzled with nacho cheese and garnished with a thick layer of ketchup. He offers you some, but you turn him down. He shrugs and crams a handful into his mouth, taking care to keep his fangs clean. He continues his story in between bites.
"As I kept walking, I started smelling food. The food I brought had long been gone, and any sense I had flew out the window as I followed the scent to a grand, spacious hall. Tables long enough to cross a river lined the halls, robed with lily white tablecloths and decorated with gem-encrusted silverware. Each table had heaping platters of seafood – roasted crab, clam chowder, steamed lobsters swimming in tubs of butter, prawns and cocktail sauce, crayfish gumbo, fried bluegills, smoked salmon, steamed, grilled, sautéed, pan-fried, breaded, beer-battered, you name it, it was waiting there, warm as the moment it came out of the oven."
The pace of his eating speeds up as he thinks about the food, and you wait a few minutes for him to finish his snack. He pushes the platter, which holds a few cheese-soaked, lukewarm fries, in your general direction and towards the bartender. You decide to take one before they are cleared away. The cheese sticks to your tongue, refusing to budge, filling your mouth with its gooey, slimy flavor.
"I couldn't help myself. I was starving, all that food was sitting there, and I hadn't seen a trap in hours. So, I started eating, and I didn't stop until the end of my tail got burnt off. You can still see the scars."
He lifts his pants, showing you the tip of his tail. The end is flattened into a craggy black nub, and half of a tail spike is missing. You ask what happened.
"The whole room started filling with acid," Theo says. "It hissed and bubbled at everything it touched. By the time I had noticed it, the acid was almost up to the chair. So, I kicked a few plates off and stood on the table, looking for a way out. The beacon wasn't working, again, and all the exits were cut off. I didn't even have anything to pile up to give myself a few more minutes.
Then I noticed the plates I kicked into the acid. Though the food on it was quickly eaten away, the gold floated around, untouched by the acid. It gave me a crazy idea. I tore up the gold leaf text I had in my bag, spread out the pages on the table, and stomped them flat. By the time I was done, I had a thin, flimsy raft about ten feet wide on all sides. I curled up the edges, sat in the middle, and waited for the acid to come. I could feel it slip under the gold. It was hot, like sitting on asphalt on a blazing summer day, and I squirted a bit of water down there to keep from getting burnt. Then, bit by bit, I felt the raft lift off the table and drift down the room. The farther I went, the faster the raft went, faster and faster until I was racing down corridors. Acid splashed up all around me, spraying me with tiny burning drops. I have those scars too, wanna see?"
He pulls up the shirt on his arm. His right arm is speckled with tiny black dots. You touch one, and it feels smoother than the rest of the skin around it.
"It felt like I spent an hour in that raft, curled in a ball, holding my arm over my eyes, and praying to Arceus that the raft doesn't tip over. Well, it did. It tipped over, and I found myself staring down a sixty foot drop into a bubbling pool of acid. The raft fell apart as it fell after me, scattering into tiny golden flakes."
You ask him what happened then. He grins, showing off his glittering fangs.
"I did the only thing I could do – I tried the homing beacon again, and Arceus be praised, it worked."
Another glass of water was placed in front of Theo, but he didn't look at it. Instead, his eyes are fixed on you, clear, bright red, and reflecting the smile on your face.
"I fell onto the Guild floor with a thud, covered in burns and still carrying that bagful of treasure. Sikes got at it first, examining everything I brought back and tallying out their values before I could even pick myself off the floor. And once I did get up, he immediately grilled me for all the details – how I got in, where the loot was, what kind of traps, anything else out of the ordinary. I told him everything – the Guild pays pretty well for information on new dungeons, and this one was bursting with loot.
Then I asked how much everything I brought back was worth, and holy crap, did I bring back a fortune. Sikes put everything I had at about twenty million dollars at a bare minimum. Those deluxe items are a challenge to give a market value for, and as it turned out, the Guild got fifty million for that stuff. But you wanna know how much I got? Fifty thousand. Don't get me wrong, that's more money than I had ever made in the two years I worked for them, but I was hoping to get the usual one percent – expecting it. As it turns out, the mounds of paperwork the Guild has you sign includes all sorts of clauses that allows them to keep more of your loot if you make it big, and in exchange, they reward you with "promotions". Bigger bags, access to better dungeons, free homing devices, that sort of stuff.
They offered to promote me twice, up to Gold rank. I thought about it. Even Gold ranks make more money than most jobs offer. But all I had to do was look at the scorched end of my tail to make up my mind.
After that, I went to work for Silph. I never wanted to, but leaning over a keyboard all day sounded far better than getting the rest of my tail scorched off. And it went pretty well. I got myself a cheap apartment and cooked my own meals, started off as customer support for their Up-Grade products. You wouldn't believe how many Porygon I had to reprogram to follow the latest updates. Then after a while, I got enough positive reviews that management decided to promote me to district manager of the branch, and now I make more money than I ever did scraping gold off of crumbling walls."
You ask if he misses being an Explorer.
"Yeah, I suppose it's fun when there's no danger around. But honestly, I'd never want to go back again. You never know what might happen."
Theo wraps an arm around your shoulder and gently pulls you in closer. You can barely smell cinnamon in his breath beneath the molten cheese and beer, and it's that faint scent of cinnamon that makes your skin dance. The room feels hotter, and you begin to imagine Theo without his clothes on, with a light glaze of sweat moistening his scales. You try to shake the thought from the mind, but it clings to your head like molten cheese.
"You know, now that I'm a district manager, I got myself a nicer apartment, with a huge bedroom and a gorgeous bathroom. I'm not much of an Explorer these days, but I'm always down for some cave exploration. Would you care to spend the night with me?"
After looking over his clothes and fangs again, you give him a light kiss on the cheek, brushing up against his fangs, and you tell him yes. As you get up and take your jacket, Theo rubs his fangs, chuckles and whispers, "Works every time."
By Bardothren
As you sit down next to a Croconaw, the first thing you notice are his fangs. Two sparkling incisors jutted from his upper jaw as he threw back an entire pint of frothy beer. His shirt was clean, pressed blue fabric that made his skin appear pale cerulean, and his jeans clung to his legs just tightly enough to display his thick, powerful thighs.
The Croconaw glances at you out of the corner of his eyes and smiles. Then he holds up two fingers towards the bartender and turns towards you.
"Hey baby, you here alone tonight?"
You tell him you like his fangs.
"Oh, these?" He said with a chuckle. "Nearly got myself killed getting one of these during a dungeon raid."
Two beers come, and he slides one towards you. You pick it up, take a sip, and slide closer to him.
"Yeah, I used to be an explorer once," he said after he drained the second beer. "It paid alright – the Guild collected most of the findings, but in return, they had comfortable beds and lots of food. It wasn't anything special – the food was usually oran berries and apples, both of which only came fresh-harvested when we gathered them ourselves. It was also a pain hiking down from the mountaintop to town anytime I wanted to visit the market or get a drink."
You finish the last of your beer, and it slides down your throat like cream. You hold your glass out, and the Croconaw gestures to have it refilled. You tell him you didn't catch his name.
"Oh, it's Theo."
The second round of beers arrives. You say your name and ask him to say more about exploring.
"I was just a rookie explorer before I left. They never let us visit anywhere too dangerous – the scorching volcanoes and subterranean labyrinths were reserved for the veterans. Instead, they had us scour dungeons already plucked clean of traps and treasures. Anyone with sharp eyes and patience can find a few hundred dollars worth of battered gold coins the veterans didn't bother taking. All in all, I got paid less than the desk job at Silph, but my savings account slowly and steadily grew."
Theo leans in closer. Beneath the alcohol, you smell very fine cologne and a sexy undertone of sweat.
"I didn't have any friends in the Guild. A competitive air clung to the mountaintop walls of the Guild, and everyone considered the other as bitter rivals robbing them of wealth – much like Silph, actually. The few times I tried reaching out to other explorers all ended in scowls, and after a year in that place, I became one of those that scowled at the fresh rookies. New recruits get special treatment to break them into the Guild, while the older ones get left high and dry.
I don't know who the boss was. The person giving the orders around here was a frazzled, absent-minded Bibarel named Sikes that tried to tell jokes every so often, but would lose their train of thought and wander off. However, Sikes was sharper than spikes when it came to money. He could tell the market value of most treasure by looking and tapping it with his teeth, and when anyone doubted him, the auctioneers always proved him right."
You finish the second one, and now you can't smell the alcohol. You ask why he quit.
"Why I quit? Well, it all happened on a gorgeous summer day, when the warmth and smells of baking pies from the town below wafted up the mountain and set my stomach rumbling with all the noise and force of an avalanche. I knew I had an adventure coming up, but I couldn't help myself. I ate enough to make my belt groan. I swear, if my stomach won't kill me, nothing will.
The job was to head out to this remote island in the middle of a lake. It's a great opportunity for good swimmers like me – those kinds of places always have bits of treasure lying around. Problem is, you have to swim out there, the water's too shallow and choked with weeds to get a boat or raft out there. So there I was, out in the middle of the lake, nearly bursting from all the food I ate earlier, when I get my bag snagged on a sunken log. I tore and tore at the bag, but I couldn't untangle it, so I had to drag the blasted thing all the way to shore so I could cut the strap off."
You take the glass and tip the last few drops of alcohol into your mouth. You consider a third glass, but instead ask for water. The glass arrives, sweating buckets from all the ice put into it. You press your cheek against the glass as Theo continues his story.
"I was starving by the time I made it. Luckily, my bag didn't leak, and all the food I stuffed inside was still good. I ate a few apples before going in.
The dungeon is more of a stone cavern with stairs leading down into it, and once you get inside, light comes in through a bunch of small holes dug into the walls. The Guild also gives us a helmet with a light on it, but I didn't use it because it makes my head feel hot."
Your cheek feels numb, and you start to shiver as the chill spreads across your face. You take a long sip and put the glass down, letting warmth flow into your skin.
"So, I went hiking through the tunnels for a while, sniffing around for any bit of gold I could find. Gold has a faint, soft metallic smell that gives it away, so there's not much left for rookies most of the time. The better finds are pottery shards and tablets. History buffs loves those, and a high-quality tablet can sell for thousands. As luck had it, I happened upon a stone tablet in reasonably good shape. There were faint traces of gold leaf within the crevices that had mostly worn away, but the lettering in the clay itself remained legible. I held onto it as I walked down a long, narrow corridor, trying to puzzle out the words on it as I walked, when all of the sudden the tablet vibrated and broke apart into tiny pieces."
Theo slammed down another beer and asked for a water. He drank it all down in one gulp and gestured for another. "That was when the door opened up."
He places his hand on your arm, gently, just enough to pass his warmth into you. You notice that, despite having drank four beers, he's surprisingly clear-headed and steady.
"The first thing they teach you in the Guild is that the only two things that will ever move in a dungeon are traps and puzzles, and both are probably going to kill you. However, like the idiot I was, I was lured inside by the smell of gold. It wafted from the door, so thick I could imagine heaping piles of coins that could tower over mountains. But the moment I went inside, the door slammed shut behind me. The thud of stone on stone snapped me to my senses, and I ran back to the door. I even tried using Rock Smash on it, but all I got for my trouble were scraped knuckles. That stuff was hard as steel.
Next, I tried using the homing beacon. With the push of a button, it beams you back to the Guild headquarters. Each one costs a few hundred dollars to use, but in a pinch, they can save your life, and the Guild can figure out where you were when you used it. Well, that time it wouldn't work. I kept tapping it in the vain hope it would work, but the whole time I was stuck in there, I couldn't escape."
You ask how the beacons work.
"No idea. I think the Boss makes them. Anyways, I had no choice but to keep going. I used a stick to tap my way through the corridors, but even with that, I walked into a few traps. There were quite a few deadfall traps that rained boulders if you tripped a wire, and a lot of pitfall traps too. Some even led straight into a pitful of jagged stone spikes. Luckily, I was small enough to clamber over the deadfalls and fast enough to jump over holes. There were a few puzzles as well, along the way. Most times, you can force your way through a puzzle, but there was one that had me stumped for an hour before I realized the statues in the room could be rotated.
After what seemed like a day, but really, I have no idea how long I was stuck down there, I finally found the treasure. It was a mausoleum, packed with emerald-studded statues of Sceptile, mounds of gold bars, and plinths adorned with Heirlooms. I took the Heirlooms – they're light, extremely rare, and always in demand by the Pokémon that can use them. A Sun Scarf was my most valuable find, along with a few Swampert Claws and a Lucario Fang. My best find, though, were these two," Theo said, tapping his fangs. "Rather than stick them in my bag, I decided to save space and stick them in my mouth instead. They had a funny taste to them, like a mix of meat and cinnamon. Mmm, just thinking about it is making me hungry."
Theo orders a plate of fries and slaps a twenty down on the counter. The bartender takes it and scribbles a note for the kitchen.
"Anyways, once my bag was full, I continued down the mausoleum and happened upon a gold leaf book in perfect condition, sitting on a dais right next to a well-adorned tomb. Texts like that are worth millions, if not more, and I dumped out a scarf in favor of the text. I couldn't read it at all – the text must've been thousands of years old, predating even Unown runes, and it had illustrations of celestial events and gods studded with tiny gems."
Theo's fries arrived, drizzled with nacho cheese and garnished with a thick layer of ketchup. He offers you some, but you turn him down. He shrugs and crams a handful into his mouth, taking care to keep his fangs clean. He continues his story in between bites.
"As I kept walking, I started smelling food. The food I brought had long been gone, and any sense I had flew out the window as I followed the scent to a grand, spacious hall. Tables long enough to cross a river lined the halls, robed with lily white tablecloths and decorated with gem-encrusted silverware. Each table had heaping platters of seafood – roasted crab, clam chowder, steamed lobsters swimming in tubs of butter, prawns and cocktail sauce, crayfish gumbo, fried bluegills, smoked salmon, steamed, grilled, sautéed, pan-fried, breaded, beer-battered, you name it, it was waiting there, warm as the moment it came out of the oven."
The pace of his eating speeds up as he thinks about the food, and you wait a few minutes for him to finish his snack. He pushes the platter, which holds a few cheese-soaked, lukewarm fries, in your general direction and towards the bartender. You decide to take one before they are cleared away. The cheese sticks to your tongue, refusing to budge, filling your mouth with its gooey, slimy flavor.
"I couldn't help myself. I was starving, all that food was sitting there, and I hadn't seen a trap in hours. So, I started eating, and I didn't stop until the end of my tail got burnt off. You can still see the scars."
He lifts his pants, showing you the tip of his tail. The end is flattened into a craggy black nub, and half of a tail spike is missing. You ask what happened.
"The whole room started filling with acid," Theo says. "It hissed and bubbled at everything it touched. By the time I had noticed it, the acid was almost up to the chair. So, I kicked a few plates off and stood on the table, looking for a way out. The beacon wasn't working, again, and all the exits were cut off. I didn't even have anything to pile up to give myself a few more minutes.
Then I noticed the plates I kicked into the acid. Though the food on it was quickly eaten away, the gold floated around, untouched by the acid. It gave me a crazy idea. I tore up the gold leaf text I had in my bag, spread out the pages on the table, and stomped them flat. By the time I was done, I had a thin, flimsy raft about ten feet wide on all sides. I curled up the edges, sat in the middle, and waited for the acid to come. I could feel it slip under the gold. It was hot, like sitting on asphalt on a blazing summer day, and I squirted a bit of water down there to keep from getting burnt. Then, bit by bit, I felt the raft lift off the table and drift down the room. The farther I went, the faster the raft went, faster and faster until I was racing down corridors. Acid splashed up all around me, spraying me with tiny burning drops. I have those scars too, wanna see?"
He pulls up the shirt on his arm. His right arm is speckled with tiny black dots. You touch one, and it feels smoother than the rest of the skin around it.
"It felt like I spent an hour in that raft, curled in a ball, holding my arm over my eyes, and praying to Arceus that the raft doesn't tip over. Well, it did. It tipped over, and I found myself staring down a sixty foot drop into a bubbling pool of acid. The raft fell apart as it fell after me, scattering into tiny golden flakes."
You ask him what happened then. He grins, showing off his glittering fangs.
"I did the only thing I could do – I tried the homing beacon again, and Arceus be praised, it worked."
Another glass of water was placed in front of Theo, but he didn't look at it. Instead, his eyes are fixed on you, clear, bright red, and reflecting the smile on your face.
"I fell onto the Guild floor with a thud, covered in burns and still carrying that bagful of treasure. Sikes got at it first, examining everything I brought back and tallying out their values before I could even pick myself off the floor. And once I did get up, he immediately grilled me for all the details – how I got in, where the loot was, what kind of traps, anything else out of the ordinary. I told him everything – the Guild pays pretty well for information on new dungeons, and this one was bursting with loot.
Then I asked how much everything I brought back was worth, and holy crap, did I bring back a fortune. Sikes put everything I had at about twenty million dollars at a bare minimum. Those deluxe items are a challenge to give a market value for, and as it turned out, the Guild got fifty million for that stuff. But you wanna know how much I got? Fifty thousand. Don't get me wrong, that's more money than I had ever made in the two years I worked for them, but I was hoping to get the usual one percent – expecting it. As it turns out, the mounds of paperwork the Guild has you sign includes all sorts of clauses that allows them to keep more of your loot if you make it big, and in exchange, they reward you with "promotions". Bigger bags, access to better dungeons, free homing devices, that sort of stuff.
They offered to promote me twice, up to Gold rank. I thought about it. Even Gold ranks make more money than most jobs offer. But all I had to do was look at the scorched end of my tail to make up my mind.
After that, I went to work for Silph. I never wanted to, but leaning over a keyboard all day sounded far better than getting the rest of my tail scorched off. And it went pretty well. I got myself a cheap apartment and cooked my own meals, started off as customer support for their Up-Grade products. You wouldn't believe how many Porygon I had to reprogram to follow the latest updates. Then after a while, I got enough positive reviews that management decided to promote me to district manager of the branch, and now I make more money than I ever did scraping gold off of crumbling walls."
You ask if he misses being an Explorer.
"Yeah, I suppose it's fun when there's no danger around. But honestly, I'd never want to go back again. You never know what might happen."
Theo wraps an arm around your shoulder and gently pulls you in closer. You can barely smell cinnamon in his breath beneath the molten cheese and beer, and it's that faint scent of cinnamon that makes your skin dance. The room feels hotter, and you begin to imagine Theo without his clothes on, with a light glaze of sweat moistening his scales. You try to shake the thought from the mind, but it clings to your head like molten cheese.
"You know, now that I'm a district manager, I got myself a nicer apartment, with a huge bedroom and a gorgeous bathroom. I'm not much of an Explorer these days, but I'm always down for some cave exploration. Would you care to spend the night with me?"
After looking over his clothes and fangs again, you give him a light kiss on the cheek, brushing up against his fangs, and you tell him yes. As you get up and take your jacket, Theo rubs his fangs, chuckles and whispers, "Works every time."
icomeanon6 "Hubris Island"
Summary: "Katie and Jen have a fun day in the Whirl Islands lined up, but Katie is too distracted to enjoy it. She'll be moving on from her Pokemon journey to real life soon, and she's worried about how her younger, trouble-prone partner will handle being on her own for the first time. On top of that, Katie feels she has only one more shot to do something she's wanted to do since her journey began: see a legendary Pokemon."
Spoiler:
Hubris Island
Katie had hoped she wouldn't be fifteen years old yet, but as of three weeks ago she was. She had also hoped that she'd be able to enjoy this excursion to the Whirl Islands without worrying about her age, but there was little chance of that now. She tried to distract herself with the wide, cloudless sky and the salt breeze coming off the water, but it was no good. Then their little sailboat hit a small wave that sent some thick spray into her face, and she spat over the side.
"Hey Derek," said Jen, "What's with all the turbulence? I thought you were supposed to be good at this."
"Keep it up and the ride isn't going to be free anymore."
Jen just laughed. She tended to give her older brother a hard time, and Katie thought it was to his credit that he let her get away with it as much as he did. At the moment Derek was leaning off the edge of the boat to balance the sail. Katie was pretty sure he was nineteen, and today she saw a whole new side of him: specifically that he looked pretty good in an undershirt that was a size too small for him. It drew the eyes away from his face, which always looked something in the range between vacant and irked.
"Don't worry, Katie," he said, which snapped her attention back to his painfully boring face. "Jen's paying for your ticket, too." Then he paused. Katie had noticed that where most people might go 'uhh…' or 'so, like…' Derek just said nothing and took on a thousand-mile stare before he found whatever it was he wanted to say. Finally he said, "You're almost done, right?"
Jen answered for her. "Yeah. She got accepted to Nerd School, Goldenrod Campus."
Katie sighed. "Nobody keeps journeying forever."
"We'll see about that."
Katie could believe that Jen intended to stay on her Pokémon journey indefinitely, if only because she was still thirteen and nobody had confronted her about her future yet. One day of course she'd have to move on, whether that meant going to school like Katie or starting a career like her brother, whatever it was he did for a living. Katie had asked him once and hadn't gotten a clear answer.
"The real question," said the aforementioned brother, "Is who we're going to find to babysit you next."
Jen stuck her tongue out at him as she took off her glasses to wipe away some of the spray. Then the boat hit another wave and she had to juggle to keep from dropping them.
"Is that your fifth pair in three years?" asked Derek.
"As if. I haven't lost any since we went to Cinnabar, and that was a year and a half ago."
"I remember that," said Katie. "You tried to find them in some volcanic mud, and then I had to pull you out of the mud."
"Hey! That was a secret!"
Jen pouted, but Katie could tell she was still having fun. After spending over three years in close proximity it was never a mystery to her when Jen was actually upset. And sure enough, moments later Jen was staring at the sea and practically jumping out of her skin in excitement. "Wow! It's a Mantine!"
"Don't rock the boat!"
Katie leaned forward to see the Mantine and was careful not to agitate Derek any further. She had never seen one in person, but its huge fins that were stretched out like a kite were unmistakable. It swam alongside them for a few seconds before it dove under water and out of sight.
"I'm so catching one of those today," said Jen. "It'll be a great chance to use my new Ampharos, too."
"Wrong," said Katie and Derek together.
"Huh?"
"You tell her, Katie. I'm trying to concentrate."
Jen looked at Katie like there was no way she'd be able to explain why using an electric type was a poor decision in this case. So Katie leaned back again and began to deliver the lesson. "When it comes to matchups against electric-types, Mantine's more similar to Gyarados than to other water Pokémon. Those fins act like wings and let Mantine fly several feet above the water when it gains enough speed. So electric moves don't just take advantage of conductivity, they also lock up its 'wings.' A fully-evolved electric-type will just knock it out in one hit, which is great unless you're trying to catch it."
Jen stared at Katie in amazement. Katie wasn't finished, however. "On top of that, I've seen your new Ampharos, and the guy you traded her to you was a terrible disciplinarian. If you try telling her to use an electric attack around the ocean or really anywhere that's wet she's going to send electricity everywhere and then I'll have to take you to the hospital."
Now Jen was turning a little red, but she tried to play it off. "Yeah, good point. That'll make it tough, though. Other than Ampharos all I've got is fire-types and a Staryu for Surf. I guess Summer's strong enough that it doesn't matter, but hmm…"
"Duck," said Derek.
Katie and Jen both ducked as Derek adjusted their course and let the sail's boom swing over their heads. "By the way," he continued, "I notice you drawing attention to the fact that you really could have made your way out here on your Pokémon and without my help."
"Why would we want to do that when boats are fun and you're so nice?" said Jen.
"Correction: boats are fun when you don't have to pilot them and worry about how to get around the rocks and whirlpools. I'm here for work."
"What's this got to do with your so-called 'work?'"
"You don't need to know that."
While the siblings went back and forth, Katie looked to the horizon and zoned out. Mantines may have been captivating enough for Jen, but not for Katie. After five years she had seen so many Pokémon, and she was running out of time to see any that were truly special. The truth was that Jen was the only one who was here for fun. Katie wanted to find a Pokémon that nobody had seen for generations, and which was rumored to reside nearby. She wanted to fill one of the obvious gaps in the Pokédex before she had to leave the world of nature and Pokémon for who knew how long. She wanted to see Lugia just one time.
*********
Katie, Jen, and Jen's Arcanine Summer were standing on a shallow beach that belonged to a small, rocky island. It was almost noon, and Katie could just see Derek's sailboat receding into the distance. She still wondered where exactly he was going and what he was going to do there, but she wasn't going to lose sleep over it.
Jen stretched, smiled, and soaked in the sun before asking Katie, "You're sure you want to split up?"
Katie nodded. "I don't want to get in the way of your fun."
"Fine, as long as you're still having fun yourself."
Katie didn't want to say outright that she only cared about finding Lugia and not whether it was fun. "Hmm."
"Cause, you know you've got, like, a one in a million chance of seeing Lugia. If there's a Lugia. And I'd say that's fifty-fifty so we'll call it one in two million."
Katie rolled her eyes and tried to signal with her posture that she was about to walk off. "Don't make Summer go too deep in the water."
"Jeeze, I know that much. Don't I, Summer?"
Summer barked in an expression of total confidence. Katie wished she could share the sentiment and started to stroll down the beach. "Let's meet back here before sunset."
"'Kay! Gimme a shout if you find him!"
Katie kept walking until she could no longer hear the splashing and the barking. She shook her head. How was she going to leave Jen to continue her journey by herself if she was worried about leaving her alone for one afternoon? It seemed like every day she had to stop her from doing something stupid, and every week she had to fix the mess from some stupid thing she ended up doing anyway. Jen was such an impulsive little kid.
Of course, all this reminded Katie of the only thought worse than that of leaving Jen unsupervised: in a few weeks she wouldn't have Jen around to remind her to smile now and then. So she shook her head again and thought about how she might track down this legendary Pokémon.
On the other side of the island there was a cave which connected underground to several other islands, according to Katie's prior research. If Lugia was down there, it would take Katie way too long to find it. She needed to find a less obvious but more precise lead than that, and she was thinking it had to do with the sky and the sea. With that in mind, she decided to leave the beach and start climbing. There was no way she could reach the peak of the island's steep mountain, but there were visible outcroppings that would give her a better view.
It was easy going at first as the base of the mountain consisted mostly of smooth boulders that rose only gradually. Katie wondered if the tide sometimes reached this far up. Past the boulders the rise in elevation became much sharper and she had to put a hand on the mountainside to navigate the narrow almost-a-trail. She decided she was right to leave her Pokémon in their balls today. Her Kadabra Marie especially hated high places with poor footing.
When she reached a relatively broad shelf she took a break and looked out to the horizon. The sun was bright overhead, but there were a good number of clouds in the distance near one of the other islands. She could see a few whirlpools between shelfs of rock, and nothing was out of the ordinary. It was about as good a day as you could ask for from the Whirl Islands.
In a bit of absent-mindedness, Katie found herself taking out her Pokédex. She had read everything it had to say about Lugia a thousand times, so she figured a thousand and one times wouldn't hurt. When she pulled up the page, Dexter began to narrate automatically.
"Lugia is said to be the guardian of—"
Katie hit the skip button to shut him up so she could read in peace. There was little to read though besides vague conjecture and myth. The one solid fact it cited was that it was a flying-type, and there was disagreement as to whether it also had water-based or psychic qualities. The only image it had was a crude illustration, and Katie thought the hand-like wings depicted therein were probably ancient artistic license.
Most of the things Katie had ever learned about Lugia were, of course, legend. The key take-away though was that all of these legends focused on or at least made reference to the weather. It was possible that the alleged sightings in the Whirl Islands were mere rumors that seemed plausible because of the area's unpredictable winds and currents, but at the same time any other place in Johto would have seemed like even more of a stretch. If Lugia was anywhere to be found, it was here.
With that in mind, Katie decided she would spend at least an hour watching the air and water for anything unnatural. If she was lucky she might catch Lugia on the move, and it seemed like a better bet than stumbling in the dark caves to find it sleeping. In this sense, it was a shame that the weather was so nice. So for some time Katie fixed her eyes on distant clouds and whirlpools. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, though.
Then after thirty-odd minutes had passed, something caught Katie in the corner of her eye. They mostly hidden by the mountain behind her, but there were some new, tall clouds that weren't so far away from the island. It took her a while to figure out what was off about them, but she noticed that it seemed to be rolling more vertically than horizontally. She felt a small burst of optimism and knew she had to get a better view. There was a terribly thin path leading away from the shelf and further up the mountain in that direction, so she took it. Around a bend she came across an even shallower shelf than the first one, but one that provided a perfect view of these new clouds.
Katie sat down with her back to the wall and her legs dangling over the edge to observe the anomaly. She had never seen a cloud formation like it. It was almost as if she were looking at clouds from above; as if someone had turned them ninety degrees vertically. The shadows didn't make any sense either. They seemed to move independently of any clouds or anything else. It all spun much like the whirlpools that were all around the sea, only much slower. The sight of it all had her mesmerized.
She thought about taking out her notebook to make a sketch, but she wasn't comfortable with managing her bag in this position. Instead she continued to look at the clouds with a measure of optimism that Lugia or something like a Lugia might have something to do with this. Then she thought about taking out her notebook to make a sketch, but stopped when she realized she'd just thought about that, which was weird. She was probably thinking in weird ways because of how the horizon would spin along with the clouds until she realized that was impossible and blinked, only for it to start again every time. On top of that, it was tiring the way the shades of gray shifted and spun and made her vision slip out of focus.
All of this made Katie decide she could probably continue to monitor the peculiarities with her eyes closed.
*********
Katie didn't want to be asleep anymore. It may have been dark enough, but it was terribly loud and oddly wet. A small part of her that she never made known to anyone was worried that she'd wet the bed, but that hadn't happened in a number of years, the exact number of which was absolutely nobody's business. Besides, the wetness was all over, and it was cold rather than warm. While her mind was still hazy this provided a small amount of comfort, but this vanished as soon as she opened her eyes. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs.
It felt like a typhoon. The sun was gone, the rain was coming down in sheets, the wind was blowing into her face at what felt like twenty miles an hour, and she was sitting in the same spot and holding on for dear life.
She tried not to panic. She tried not to freak out about how the beach was now completely covered by the tide, and how the path she took here was difficult enough when dry so climbing it now would be suicide, and how even if she could take out one of her Pokémon they would have nowhere to go, and how if she tried to jump from here she'd die from either the water or the rocks. She was stuck. And even if she weren't stuck she was far too terrified to move.
All she could do was sit there and grip the shelf beneath her with white knuckles. Some amount of time between five minutes and five hours passed when she thought she heard something besides the wind and the hammering raindrops. It was her name. She brought herself to look down, and she could just spot Jen riding on a Pokémon beneath her.
"…ump!...Jum…!"
Katie couldn't believe what she was hearing. How on earth was she supposed to jump? "No!" she yelled back, "You're crazy!"
Jen kept trying to convince her, but Katie knew that even her survival instinct was smarter than Jen. There was no way she could move now.
"…old on!...ust…econd!"
Jen was up to something. Katie saw that she was getting her Pokémon to swim in an oval, gradually picking up speed. The water was getting higher. If Jen was trying to use Surf to raise the tide enough for her to jump in, that was insane. She'd never get the water high enough that it wouldn't kill Katie to jump. Katie closed her eyes and wished it would all just go away. There were some warm drops on her face now among the cold ones, which must have been tears.
When Katie opened her eyes, something had indeed gone away: Jen. She wasn't in the water anymore. But she wasn't drowning. It was only in the upper right corner of her eye that Katie caught her.
Jen was kneeling on a Mantine. It had grabbed the wind and was leaning into it to climb fast. It was almost as high as the rock shelf, but its trajectory looked like it hit the mountain well below and away from Katie. Jen leaned as far as she could in one direction without falling, and shouted something. The Mantine pulled off so it was flying nearly parallel to the cliff face, and it kept on climbing.
Then Katie was looking slightly up at Jen. She couldn't see her face clearly, but her posture was hard and steady like steel. Her friend pulled slightly at the Mantine's face so that for just a moment it stalled. The Pokémon was nearly hanging still in midair just seven feet away from Katie. Jen wasted no time. She rose to her feet, and then she jumped into space. With a grunt, she somehow managed to hug the wall of the mountain instead of bouncing off it. She immediately found her footing, and now the two of them were on the shelf together.
Katie looked up at Jen in utter astoundment. Jen's breathing was rough but she didn't seem rattled in the least. She stuck out her hand. "Come on, get up!"
Katie's right hand felt weak and she didn't want to let go of the rock, but she managed to reach out to Jen's. Jen left nothing to chance and grabbed her forearm. Katie had never been so glad Jen wore fingerless gloves everywhere. Now, all of a sudden, it felt like it might be possible to get out of here. Katie slowly raised one of her legs and tried to keep her balance toward the wall. She had one foot on the shelf.
It gave way. Katie's foot slipped and everything immediately slowed down as her brain processed the beginning of a freefall. There was nothing beneath her but air.
Then with a jerk she stopped. Her arm nearly fell out of her socket, but Katie was not falling. Jen was still holding on. Katie was spun around, her left hand and her feet had nothing, but Jen was somehow handling the whole thing. When Katie finally looked up, she saw Jen on one knee. She had a death grip on the mountain wall with one hand and Katie's arm with the other. Her eyes were closed and her teeth were clenched.
As Katie's arm began to rise again and the rest of her body with it, only one thing passed through her mind: 'When? When did she get this strong?'
Her wits returned to her, and Katie found the wall and helped pull herself up the rest of the way. They were both standing on the shelf now. The rain and wind were still belting them without mercy and they were out of breath, but for the moment they were okay.
Jen turned them around to face the sea, and then she shouted down to the Mantine who had glided back to the water. "Surf! As hard as you can! Surf!"
Katie watched as the Mantine obeyed. To the naked eye it looked like it was swimming in ovals, but any experienced trainer could tell that it was effecting the stronger waves that were now hitting the mountain, each one starting and ending taller than the last.
"We need good timing, but it'll work!" yelled Jen over the gale. "Link arms! Here we go!"
At this point Katie would believe anything Jen told her. They pulled tight with their elbows and were locked together. When she looked down again, Katie's gut told her there was no way the waves were tall enough to catch them right, but they were committed now.
"Ready?" Jen didn't wait for an answer. Katie braced herself.
"One! Two!"
Jen was interrupted. From twenty feet to their right and ten feet above them there came a crack that blew out Katie's ears and a flash that struck her blind. Something was pinching her from her toes to her chest, and it felt like every hair on her head was standing erect. As her sight came back in a haze, she looked over and saw a small tree sticking out of the mountain that was now on fire. Her heart was in her throat along with her tongue.
Katie vaguely heard a voice that sounded like counting, and on 'three' her body moved on its own without her. She was falling. Someone's arm was in hers though, so it didn't quite register as falling. Then something shocked her feet and she was underwater. The water was moving fast and pulled them forward and away from the mountain. Something shined in front of her face, and for a moment it looked like a pair of glasses floating away, never to be worn again.
At last, something smooth came up from beneath her. It pushed her and up and over the surface again. It now registered with her that the arm was Jen's, and that the smooth thing beneath them was the Mantine. The storm showed no signs of stopping, but they were riding away from the island.
*********
It was around midnight when Katie and Jen staggered up to the Cianwood City Pokémon Center. They were soaked to the bone and still speechless after hours of trying to keep balance on Jen's new Mantine, to say nothing of the preceding ordeal. Jen tried to take off her glasses which weren't there, and then just rubbed her eyes and yawned.
Katie was immediately relieved when they passed through the automatic doors and into the bright, warm building. She was so relieved she almost walked into the man who was trying to leave at the same time.
"Oh, uh…"
Katie looked up. It was Derek. Suddenly she woke up a bit and found herself acutely aware that she was wearing a white shirt and that it was drenched. To her dismay she pieced together that her bra must have been on full display right in front of him. She resisted the urge to look down and check, and instead crossed her arms over her chest as quickly but casually as she could.
Then she looked more closely at Jen's older brother, and noticed what she had missed in her momentary panic: Derek looked beyond awful. He had a black eye, a swollen cheek, a cut around the corner of his mouth, claw-shaped holes in his shirt, a bandaged hand, more claw-shaped holes near the crotch of his pants that revealed his boxers, and last but not least a missing shoe.
Katie, Jen, and Derek all stood still for a while. Between all the visible (but obfuscated) underwear, Derek's various injuries, and Jen's conspicuously absent glasses, it seemed inevitable that somebody would lead things off with a question.
At length, Derek did ask a question: "Anything happen?"
Jen shook her head. "Uh…no, not really. How about you?"
"Nah."
Jen waited a beat. "'Kay."
"Yeah."
Derek walked past them and out the door without another word. Likewise, the two girls walked to the front desk without another word so Jen could drop off her Pokémon. Then they stopped by the vending machines to buy some hot chocolate and found two comfortable chairs to collapse in.
It was fifteen minutes later and no earlier when they finished their drinks, looked each other in the eye, and finally broke out laughing.
"Hey," said Jen. "I think there's, like, a lesson in here about hub-reese."
"It's 'hue-briss,'" said Katie, who stared at the floor and rubbed her forehead. Pronunciation aside, she knew Jen was right. For that reason Katie was about to admit that some credit was long overdue, and that much talk about 'babysitting' had to be taken back. But Jen kept talking before she had a chance.
"That's legendary Pokémon for you. I bet that's how they get their kicks—you know, trying to scare the crap out of anyone who thinks they got what it takes to find them."
Katie jerked her head up again. She didn't know what to say. Surely that couldn't be Jen's only takeaway from all this. That wasn't right at all. "Yeah," said Katie regardless, "They don't mess around."
They fell back into silence. It was a silence that was uneasy for Katie, even if it seemed perfectly easy for Jen. Katie knew she had to make it right, even if Jen was letting her off the hook. Rather, especially if Jen was letting her off the hook.
"I was thinking," said Katie, "After…When I head off to school, you ought to team up with someone younger. Someone you can show the ropes to."
Jen stared at her wide-eyed, as if the thought had never crossed her mind. "You really think so?"
Katie did think so. Maybe she thought that Jen would have to slow down and think a little more if that was the road she was going to take, but there was no doubt she'd make the adjustment.
"Mull it over. I think it'll be a good change of pace for you."
Jen kept staring for a moment, then sat back, stared at the ceiling, and smiled.
Katie decided she would leave it at that for now. School was still a few weeks away, and it wasn't like she wanted to start saying goodbye.
Katie had hoped she wouldn't be fifteen years old yet, but as of three weeks ago she was. She had also hoped that she'd be able to enjoy this excursion to the Whirl Islands without worrying about her age, but there was little chance of that now. She tried to distract herself with the wide, cloudless sky and the salt breeze coming off the water, but it was no good. Then their little sailboat hit a small wave that sent some thick spray into her face, and she spat over the side.
"Hey Derek," said Jen, "What's with all the turbulence? I thought you were supposed to be good at this."
"Keep it up and the ride isn't going to be free anymore."
Jen just laughed. She tended to give her older brother a hard time, and Katie thought it was to his credit that he let her get away with it as much as he did. At the moment Derek was leaning off the edge of the boat to balance the sail. Katie was pretty sure he was nineteen, and today she saw a whole new side of him: specifically that he looked pretty good in an undershirt that was a size too small for him. It drew the eyes away from his face, which always looked something in the range between vacant and irked.
"Don't worry, Katie," he said, which snapped her attention back to his painfully boring face. "Jen's paying for your ticket, too." Then he paused. Katie had noticed that where most people might go 'uhh…' or 'so, like…' Derek just said nothing and took on a thousand-mile stare before he found whatever it was he wanted to say. Finally he said, "You're almost done, right?"
Jen answered for her. "Yeah. She got accepted to Nerd School, Goldenrod Campus."
Katie sighed. "Nobody keeps journeying forever."
"We'll see about that."
Katie could believe that Jen intended to stay on her Pokémon journey indefinitely, if only because she was still thirteen and nobody had confronted her about her future yet. One day of course she'd have to move on, whether that meant going to school like Katie or starting a career like her brother, whatever it was he did for a living. Katie had asked him once and hadn't gotten a clear answer.
"The real question," said the aforementioned brother, "Is who we're going to find to babysit you next."
Jen stuck her tongue out at him as she took off her glasses to wipe away some of the spray. Then the boat hit another wave and she had to juggle to keep from dropping them.
"Is that your fifth pair in three years?" asked Derek.
"As if. I haven't lost any since we went to Cinnabar, and that was a year and a half ago."
"I remember that," said Katie. "You tried to find them in some volcanic mud, and then I had to pull you out of the mud."
"Hey! That was a secret!"
Jen pouted, but Katie could tell she was still having fun. After spending over three years in close proximity it was never a mystery to her when Jen was actually upset. And sure enough, moments later Jen was staring at the sea and practically jumping out of her skin in excitement. "Wow! It's a Mantine!"
"Don't rock the boat!"
Katie leaned forward to see the Mantine and was careful not to agitate Derek any further. She had never seen one in person, but its huge fins that were stretched out like a kite were unmistakable. It swam alongside them for a few seconds before it dove under water and out of sight.
"I'm so catching one of those today," said Jen. "It'll be a great chance to use my new Ampharos, too."
"Wrong," said Katie and Derek together.
"Huh?"
"You tell her, Katie. I'm trying to concentrate."
Jen looked at Katie like there was no way she'd be able to explain why using an electric type was a poor decision in this case. So Katie leaned back again and began to deliver the lesson. "When it comes to matchups against electric-types, Mantine's more similar to Gyarados than to other water Pokémon. Those fins act like wings and let Mantine fly several feet above the water when it gains enough speed. So electric moves don't just take advantage of conductivity, they also lock up its 'wings.' A fully-evolved electric-type will just knock it out in one hit, which is great unless you're trying to catch it."
Jen stared at Katie in amazement. Katie wasn't finished, however. "On top of that, I've seen your new Ampharos, and the guy you traded her to you was a terrible disciplinarian. If you try telling her to use an electric attack around the ocean or really anywhere that's wet she's going to send electricity everywhere and then I'll have to take you to the hospital."
Now Jen was turning a little red, but she tried to play it off. "Yeah, good point. That'll make it tough, though. Other than Ampharos all I've got is fire-types and a Staryu for Surf. I guess Summer's strong enough that it doesn't matter, but hmm…"
"Duck," said Derek.
Katie and Jen both ducked as Derek adjusted their course and let the sail's boom swing over their heads. "By the way," he continued, "I notice you drawing attention to the fact that you really could have made your way out here on your Pokémon and without my help."
"Why would we want to do that when boats are fun and you're so nice?" said Jen.
"Correction: boats are fun when you don't have to pilot them and worry about how to get around the rocks and whirlpools. I'm here for work."
"What's this got to do with your so-called 'work?'"
"You don't need to know that."
While the siblings went back and forth, Katie looked to the horizon and zoned out. Mantines may have been captivating enough for Jen, but not for Katie. After five years she had seen so many Pokémon, and she was running out of time to see any that were truly special. The truth was that Jen was the only one who was here for fun. Katie wanted to find a Pokémon that nobody had seen for generations, and which was rumored to reside nearby. She wanted to fill one of the obvious gaps in the Pokédex before she had to leave the world of nature and Pokémon for who knew how long. She wanted to see Lugia just one time.
*********
Katie, Jen, and Jen's Arcanine Summer were standing on a shallow beach that belonged to a small, rocky island. It was almost noon, and Katie could just see Derek's sailboat receding into the distance. She still wondered where exactly he was going and what he was going to do there, but she wasn't going to lose sleep over it.
Jen stretched, smiled, and soaked in the sun before asking Katie, "You're sure you want to split up?"
Katie nodded. "I don't want to get in the way of your fun."
"Fine, as long as you're still having fun yourself."
Katie didn't want to say outright that she only cared about finding Lugia and not whether it was fun. "Hmm."
"Cause, you know you've got, like, a one in a million chance of seeing Lugia. If there's a Lugia. And I'd say that's fifty-fifty so we'll call it one in two million."
Katie rolled her eyes and tried to signal with her posture that she was about to walk off. "Don't make Summer go too deep in the water."
"Jeeze, I know that much. Don't I, Summer?"
Summer barked in an expression of total confidence. Katie wished she could share the sentiment and started to stroll down the beach. "Let's meet back here before sunset."
"'Kay! Gimme a shout if you find him!"
Katie kept walking until she could no longer hear the splashing and the barking. She shook her head. How was she going to leave Jen to continue her journey by herself if she was worried about leaving her alone for one afternoon? It seemed like every day she had to stop her from doing something stupid, and every week she had to fix the mess from some stupid thing she ended up doing anyway. Jen was such an impulsive little kid.
Of course, all this reminded Katie of the only thought worse than that of leaving Jen unsupervised: in a few weeks she wouldn't have Jen around to remind her to smile now and then. So she shook her head again and thought about how she might track down this legendary Pokémon.
On the other side of the island there was a cave which connected underground to several other islands, according to Katie's prior research. If Lugia was down there, it would take Katie way too long to find it. She needed to find a less obvious but more precise lead than that, and she was thinking it had to do with the sky and the sea. With that in mind, she decided to leave the beach and start climbing. There was no way she could reach the peak of the island's steep mountain, but there were visible outcroppings that would give her a better view.
It was easy going at first as the base of the mountain consisted mostly of smooth boulders that rose only gradually. Katie wondered if the tide sometimes reached this far up. Past the boulders the rise in elevation became much sharper and she had to put a hand on the mountainside to navigate the narrow almost-a-trail. She decided she was right to leave her Pokémon in their balls today. Her Kadabra Marie especially hated high places with poor footing.
When she reached a relatively broad shelf she took a break and looked out to the horizon. The sun was bright overhead, but there were a good number of clouds in the distance near one of the other islands. She could see a few whirlpools between shelfs of rock, and nothing was out of the ordinary. It was about as good a day as you could ask for from the Whirl Islands.
In a bit of absent-mindedness, Katie found herself taking out her Pokédex. She had read everything it had to say about Lugia a thousand times, so she figured a thousand and one times wouldn't hurt. When she pulled up the page, Dexter began to narrate automatically.
"Lugia is said to be the guardian of—"
Katie hit the skip button to shut him up so she could read in peace. There was little to read though besides vague conjecture and myth. The one solid fact it cited was that it was a flying-type, and there was disagreement as to whether it also had water-based or psychic qualities. The only image it had was a crude illustration, and Katie thought the hand-like wings depicted therein were probably ancient artistic license.
Most of the things Katie had ever learned about Lugia were, of course, legend. The key take-away though was that all of these legends focused on or at least made reference to the weather. It was possible that the alleged sightings in the Whirl Islands were mere rumors that seemed plausible because of the area's unpredictable winds and currents, but at the same time any other place in Johto would have seemed like even more of a stretch. If Lugia was anywhere to be found, it was here.
With that in mind, Katie decided she would spend at least an hour watching the air and water for anything unnatural. If she was lucky she might catch Lugia on the move, and it seemed like a better bet than stumbling in the dark caves to find it sleeping. In this sense, it was a shame that the weather was so nice. So for some time Katie fixed her eyes on distant clouds and whirlpools. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, though.
Then after thirty-odd minutes had passed, something caught Katie in the corner of her eye. They mostly hidden by the mountain behind her, but there were some new, tall clouds that weren't so far away from the island. It took her a while to figure out what was off about them, but she noticed that it seemed to be rolling more vertically than horizontally. She felt a small burst of optimism and knew she had to get a better view. There was a terribly thin path leading away from the shelf and further up the mountain in that direction, so she took it. Around a bend she came across an even shallower shelf than the first one, but one that provided a perfect view of these new clouds.
Katie sat down with her back to the wall and her legs dangling over the edge to observe the anomaly. She had never seen a cloud formation like it. It was almost as if she were looking at clouds from above; as if someone had turned them ninety degrees vertically. The shadows didn't make any sense either. They seemed to move independently of any clouds or anything else. It all spun much like the whirlpools that were all around the sea, only much slower. The sight of it all had her mesmerized.
She thought about taking out her notebook to make a sketch, but she wasn't comfortable with managing her bag in this position. Instead she continued to look at the clouds with a measure of optimism that Lugia or something like a Lugia might have something to do with this. Then she thought about taking out her notebook to make a sketch, but stopped when she realized she'd just thought about that, which was weird. She was probably thinking in weird ways because of how the horizon would spin along with the clouds until she realized that was impossible and blinked, only for it to start again every time. On top of that, it was tiring the way the shades of gray shifted and spun and made her vision slip out of focus.
All of this made Katie decide she could probably continue to monitor the peculiarities with her eyes closed.
*********
Katie didn't want to be asleep anymore. It may have been dark enough, but it was terribly loud and oddly wet. A small part of her that she never made known to anyone was worried that she'd wet the bed, but that hadn't happened in a number of years, the exact number of which was absolutely nobody's business. Besides, the wetness was all over, and it was cold rather than warm. While her mind was still hazy this provided a small amount of comfort, but this vanished as soon as she opened her eyes. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs.
It felt like a typhoon. The sun was gone, the rain was coming down in sheets, the wind was blowing into her face at what felt like twenty miles an hour, and she was sitting in the same spot and holding on for dear life.
She tried not to panic. She tried not to freak out about how the beach was now completely covered by the tide, and how the path she took here was difficult enough when dry so climbing it now would be suicide, and how even if she could take out one of her Pokémon they would have nowhere to go, and how if she tried to jump from here she'd die from either the water or the rocks. She was stuck. And even if she weren't stuck she was far too terrified to move.
All she could do was sit there and grip the shelf beneath her with white knuckles. Some amount of time between five minutes and five hours passed when she thought she heard something besides the wind and the hammering raindrops. It was her name. She brought herself to look down, and she could just spot Jen riding on a Pokémon beneath her.
"…ump!...Jum…!"
Katie couldn't believe what she was hearing. How on earth was she supposed to jump? "No!" she yelled back, "You're crazy!"
Jen kept trying to convince her, but Katie knew that even her survival instinct was smarter than Jen. There was no way she could move now.
"…old on!...ust…econd!"
Jen was up to something. Katie saw that she was getting her Pokémon to swim in an oval, gradually picking up speed. The water was getting higher. If Jen was trying to use Surf to raise the tide enough for her to jump in, that was insane. She'd never get the water high enough that it wouldn't kill Katie to jump. Katie closed her eyes and wished it would all just go away. There were some warm drops on her face now among the cold ones, which must have been tears.
When Katie opened her eyes, something had indeed gone away: Jen. She wasn't in the water anymore. But she wasn't drowning. It was only in the upper right corner of her eye that Katie caught her.
Jen was kneeling on a Mantine. It had grabbed the wind and was leaning into it to climb fast. It was almost as high as the rock shelf, but its trajectory looked like it hit the mountain well below and away from Katie. Jen leaned as far as she could in one direction without falling, and shouted something. The Mantine pulled off so it was flying nearly parallel to the cliff face, and it kept on climbing.
Then Katie was looking slightly up at Jen. She couldn't see her face clearly, but her posture was hard and steady like steel. Her friend pulled slightly at the Mantine's face so that for just a moment it stalled. The Pokémon was nearly hanging still in midair just seven feet away from Katie. Jen wasted no time. She rose to her feet, and then she jumped into space. With a grunt, she somehow managed to hug the wall of the mountain instead of bouncing off it. She immediately found her footing, and now the two of them were on the shelf together.
Katie looked up at Jen in utter astoundment. Jen's breathing was rough but she didn't seem rattled in the least. She stuck out her hand. "Come on, get up!"
Katie's right hand felt weak and she didn't want to let go of the rock, but she managed to reach out to Jen's. Jen left nothing to chance and grabbed her forearm. Katie had never been so glad Jen wore fingerless gloves everywhere. Now, all of a sudden, it felt like it might be possible to get out of here. Katie slowly raised one of her legs and tried to keep her balance toward the wall. She had one foot on the shelf.
It gave way. Katie's foot slipped and everything immediately slowed down as her brain processed the beginning of a freefall. There was nothing beneath her but air.
Then with a jerk she stopped. Her arm nearly fell out of her socket, but Katie was not falling. Jen was still holding on. Katie was spun around, her left hand and her feet had nothing, but Jen was somehow handling the whole thing. When Katie finally looked up, she saw Jen on one knee. She had a death grip on the mountain wall with one hand and Katie's arm with the other. Her eyes were closed and her teeth were clenched.
As Katie's arm began to rise again and the rest of her body with it, only one thing passed through her mind: 'When? When did she get this strong?'
Her wits returned to her, and Katie found the wall and helped pull herself up the rest of the way. They were both standing on the shelf now. The rain and wind were still belting them without mercy and they were out of breath, but for the moment they were okay.
Jen turned them around to face the sea, and then she shouted down to the Mantine who had glided back to the water. "Surf! As hard as you can! Surf!"
Katie watched as the Mantine obeyed. To the naked eye it looked like it was swimming in ovals, but any experienced trainer could tell that it was effecting the stronger waves that were now hitting the mountain, each one starting and ending taller than the last.
"We need good timing, but it'll work!" yelled Jen over the gale. "Link arms! Here we go!"
At this point Katie would believe anything Jen told her. They pulled tight with their elbows and were locked together. When she looked down again, Katie's gut told her there was no way the waves were tall enough to catch them right, but they were committed now.
"Ready?" Jen didn't wait for an answer. Katie braced herself.
"One! Two!"
Jen was interrupted. From twenty feet to their right and ten feet above them there came a crack that blew out Katie's ears and a flash that struck her blind. Something was pinching her from her toes to her chest, and it felt like every hair on her head was standing erect. As her sight came back in a haze, she looked over and saw a small tree sticking out of the mountain that was now on fire. Her heart was in her throat along with her tongue.
Katie vaguely heard a voice that sounded like counting, and on 'three' her body moved on its own without her. She was falling. Someone's arm was in hers though, so it didn't quite register as falling. Then something shocked her feet and she was underwater. The water was moving fast and pulled them forward and away from the mountain. Something shined in front of her face, and for a moment it looked like a pair of glasses floating away, never to be worn again.
At last, something smooth came up from beneath her. It pushed her and up and over the surface again. It now registered with her that the arm was Jen's, and that the smooth thing beneath them was the Mantine. The storm showed no signs of stopping, but they were riding away from the island.
*********
It was around midnight when Katie and Jen staggered up to the Cianwood City Pokémon Center. They were soaked to the bone and still speechless after hours of trying to keep balance on Jen's new Mantine, to say nothing of the preceding ordeal. Jen tried to take off her glasses which weren't there, and then just rubbed her eyes and yawned.
Katie was immediately relieved when they passed through the automatic doors and into the bright, warm building. She was so relieved she almost walked into the man who was trying to leave at the same time.
"Oh, uh…"
Katie looked up. It was Derek. Suddenly she woke up a bit and found herself acutely aware that she was wearing a white shirt and that it was drenched. To her dismay she pieced together that her bra must have been on full display right in front of him. She resisted the urge to look down and check, and instead crossed her arms over her chest as quickly but casually as she could.
Then she looked more closely at Jen's older brother, and noticed what she had missed in her momentary panic: Derek looked beyond awful. He had a black eye, a swollen cheek, a cut around the corner of his mouth, claw-shaped holes in his shirt, a bandaged hand, more claw-shaped holes near the crotch of his pants that revealed his boxers, and last but not least a missing shoe.
Katie, Jen, and Derek all stood still for a while. Between all the visible (but obfuscated) underwear, Derek's various injuries, and Jen's conspicuously absent glasses, it seemed inevitable that somebody would lead things off with a question.
At length, Derek did ask a question: "Anything happen?"
Jen shook her head. "Uh…no, not really. How about you?"
"Nah."
Jen waited a beat. "'Kay."
"Yeah."
Derek walked past them and out the door without another word. Likewise, the two girls walked to the front desk without another word so Jen could drop off her Pokémon. Then they stopped by the vending machines to buy some hot chocolate and found two comfortable chairs to collapse in.
It was fifteen minutes later and no earlier when they finished their drinks, looked each other in the eye, and finally broke out laughing.
"Hey," said Jen. "I think there's, like, a lesson in here about hub-reese."
"It's 'hue-briss,'" said Katie, who stared at the floor and rubbed her forehead. Pronunciation aside, she knew Jen was right. For that reason Katie was about to admit that some credit was long overdue, and that much talk about 'babysitting' had to be taken back. But Jen kept talking before she had a chance.
"That's legendary Pokémon for you. I bet that's how they get their kicks—you know, trying to scare the crap out of anyone who thinks they got what it takes to find them."
Katie jerked her head up again. She didn't know what to say. Surely that couldn't be Jen's only takeaway from all this. That wasn't right at all. "Yeah," said Katie regardless, "They don't mess around."
They fell back into silence. It was a silence that was uneasy for Katie, even if it seemed perfectly easy for Jen. Katie knew she had to make it right, even if Jen was letting her off the hook. Rather, especially if Jen was letting her off the hook.
"I was thinking," said Katie, "After…When I head off to school, you ought to team up with someone younger. Someone you can show the ropes to."
Jen stared at her wide-eyed, as if the thought had never crossed her mind. "You really think so?"
Katie did think so. Maybe she thought that Jen would have to slow down and think a little more if that was the road she was going to take, but there was no doubt she'd make the adjustment.
"Mull it over. I think it'll be a good change of pace for you."
Jen kept staring for a moment, then sat back, stared at the ceiling, and smiled.
Katie decided she would leave it at that for now. School was still a few weeks away, and it wasn't like she wanted to start saying goodbye.
Negrek CLAIMED BY NINA
Summary: "Given a choice, Ariel would have preferred to spend her last night with her best friend enjoying the Summer's End Festival, not wandering around in the dark looking for ghosts. But Lara's determined to investigate the rumors about Seven Island's Tanoby Ruins while she still has the chance, and there's no way Ariel can let her go alone. Even down in the ruins, with her phone malfunctioning and the unown gone into hiding, Ariel's convinced there's nothing supernatural about the place--until the stones begin to sing."
Spoiler:
The fireworks over One Island were dazzling at this distance, all cascades of red and orange and gold for Moltres' festival, on a beautiful clear night before Zapdos' storm season began. Sevii didn't get cold in the fall, not like the mainland did, with trees shedding their leaves and people bundling up in sweaters. Instead the rains moved in, rains Ariel could already smell on the air, in the fitful wind blowing over Sevault Canyon, shushing through the scraggly highland grasses.
"Look at that. They're throwing a pretty big party to celebrate getting rid of you, aren't they?" she asked Lara, and was rewarded with a grin.
"I'd rather that than having them coming after me with pitchforks like they will with you when they find out you won't leave," she said.
Ariel grinned and put on a mock-offended air. "As if! Life around here would be totally boring with me gone, and they know it!"
There would still be the fireworks, of course. There would be fireworks even after Lara headed off to university, every year, and Ariel would be up here alone, watching. Well, no, probably she would be down in the lights she could see even from here, the festival crawling up the slopes of Mt. Ember and no doubt annoying the real Moltres to no end, if it really did roost there. And she'd have her pokémon, of course. She'd have them out now, to appreciate the spectacle and enjoy the cool night air, but tonight was about her and Lara, and Lara didn't like pokémon much these days.
"So," Ariel said, after the last of the fireworks had faded from the sky, "remind me again why we're sitting up here in the middle of nowhere instead of down there where all the action is?"
"Oh, come on, you whiner." Lara stood and brushed herself off. "This is the first time Summer's End's fallen on a new moon the whole time I'll be alive. This is the last chance I've got to check out the ghosts. Since when have you ever turned down the chance for a little adventure?"
Since she didn't want her last night with her friend to be spent traipsing around some empty old caves only to find nothing interesting, because old stories like that were just old stories, especially when it came to the unown. Everybody liked to make up weird stuff about them, like they were aliens or a secret hive mind poised to take over the world or whatever, as though being sentient writing somehow wasn't strange enough.
"Hey, I hadn't even heard of this legend thing until you started spouting off about it this year. The dead walking, history repeating itself, is that it? If you say so, Lars."
Lara was already waiting for her at the edge of the unkempt grass, and Ariel sent out Ravager, taking point with him as they waded in. The hitmonlee jogged easily in a wide circle around the trainers, on guard for any wilds. Even in the middle of the night, the grass was full of rustles and titters that were more than the wind's mischief.
It could be any chamber, Lara said, and so when they'd stood outside this first one for what felt like hours, listening to the waves chewing on the shore and the wind rattling around the old stones, Ariel considered suggesting that they pick a different one. There was only so much time you could spend staring into a dark doorway; after some times, even nerves started to get a bit boring. It was pitch-dark inside, and Ariel was suspicious the wind wasn't the only current stirring the air. It felt to her suspiciously like there was a steady wind rushing into the black pit of the ruin's entrance, like a constant indrawn breath, like the old place was trying to suck them in. The ties on her hoodie swayed and drifted faintly in the direction of the black archway. But that was either suspicion or some kind of weird draft.
"So, are we going to go in?" she asked at last. "I mean, we haven't got all night, and it's"â€"she pulled out her phone to check the time, and it showed her a screen flickering purple and green bars. "Well, it's creepy o' clock, I guess." She tucked the phone back in her pocket and tried to convince herself she didn't feel the sour twinge of fear in her chest. Of all the times for the stupid thing to go out on her. Not that there was any signal out here anyway, but still.
Lara didn't answer. Ariel let the night unfold for a couple minutes, until there was some kind of loud splash out on the ocean behind them and that was definitely just a mantine jumping, but still. "It's just some weird pokémon, you know. Unown, and all that. Nobody knows what's up with them, but it's not like they're dangerous or anything." Which was a fair point, definitely worth remembering, but also, "Or we could just head back. It's not like we've got anything to prove, right? The party's on One Island'll be going on all night, there's plenty of time for us to get over there andâ€""
Rainer let out a colossal rumble of irritation and stomped forward, turning sideways and ducking to fit through the human-sized doorway and disappearing into the black.
Ariel spent a moment so startled she couldn't do anything but turn to look at Lara, and then the stunned look on her friend's face was enough to make her laugh, and not even anxiously at that. After a moment Lara was laughing, too, and then they were just two old friends about to set off on an ill-advised adventure. "Okay. I guess we're going in, then," Lara said.
For a moment they passed through into complete black, the starlight shining in through the doorway not so much illuminating the place as making the distinction between shadow and deeper shadow clear. Then Ariel let Charge out and asked the electrode for some light, and the place lit up with harsh white glare, bringing stone slabs and crumbling bricks and Rainer's scowling face into sharp relief.
Ariel picked Charge up, and the electrode obligingly didn't electrocute her, keeping its light confined to a crackling halo around the top of its body. It wouldn't be safe to let Charge roll around on his own, not with this place full of debris and tight corners and uneven floors, and even a small jolt could make the electrode explode. Tragic for the priceless ancient ruins, of course; even more tragic for the people who'd have the priceless ancient ruins come down on their heads.
It was odd, studying the ruins from behind the electrode's arcing light. It was almost too bright, probably brighter than if they'd actually come in the daytime, and
"I don't see any actual unown here, do you?" Ariel asked. There were marks on the walls, dark smears that suggested the general shape of ancient writing. There was the suggestion of eyes, always eyes, and the feeling Ariel couldn't shake that they followed her with their gazes. But they didn't, really, because they weren't alive, really were just markings on stone. The unown were gone. "No ghosts either, haha."
"No," Lara said. She was reaching out like she wanted to touch the symbols, but enough years of living in Sevii, getting it drilled into your head that you Do Not Disrespect the History stopped her from going all the way. She walked deeper into the ruin, looking up and down the quiet corridors, and Ariel followed with the light. Rainer was last, waddling along cramped and cranky, sighing loudly to himself. He clearly hadn't been up for this little venture in the first place, and if nothing was even going to attack them, his patience must have been running out.
"Well," Ariel said after they'd made it to the rear wall, where the scuffed marks were a little bolder but still no pokémon appeared, "I guess they went off somewhere. Maybe they're out watching the fireworks. Why don't we go? We can check another one of the chambers, I guess, or we can call this our ghost hunting for the night."
"No. They're supposed to be here." Lara got even closer to the wall, and then she actually did start running her hand over it, which was bad enough to set Ariel's conscientious-student teeth on eged. "There must be another chamber or something."
"Wouldn't the spooky ghost stories have mentioned it? I mean, I guess we can look around outside, too, but we really don't want to accidentally destroy the priceless artifacts, do we? Come on, let's tryâ€""
"If you want to get out of here, then go, Ariel," Lara snapped. "I mean it, they have to be here somewhere. I'm staying."
Ariel stood in uncomfortable silence, arms aching from holding Charge up, starting to wonder if she was in a different sort of horror story than she'd imagined, one where her friend had gotten possessed by some demon or something and was about to summon Evil Arceus through some arcane ritual. Or maybe that would be the preferable option, since Evil Arceus was at least something you could punch.
"Hey, uh," Ariel said while Lara continued poring over the wall, face set in a cold frown of concentration, "you okay over there? I get it if you're going to be disappointed if we don't see anything spooky, but you're acting kind of strange."
"They're here. I'm not leaving. Can't you hear them?"
Ariel turned slowly to look over her shoulder at Rainer. The blastoise rumbled a negative, and he still looked bored. In her arms Charge hummed, not that Ariel could tell if that was a yes or a no without turning it around to look at its face. But the fact of the matter was that no, she definitely couldn't hear anything, and she didn't like the way Lara was shuffling along, an almost hungry look on her face as she swept her eyes over the old markings. "Bing the light closer, would you?" she said, not turning to look at her friend.
"Hey, uh, maybe they're hiding?" Ariel said, trailing after Lara with her mind whirring in nervous circles. Couldn't leave Lara here alone, couldn't call anyone, no signal, why had it seemed like a good idea to come all the way out here where there was no help, no one knew they were gone, no one would worry? There were reckless stupid teenage hijinks that you laughed about later, and reckless stupid teenage hijinks that ended with somebody dead. "So we should like... go... outside? And maybe they'll come out again and we can see them?"
Lara didn't even bother to answer. "Well, I think I might see if I can find something in one of the other ruins," Ariel said, slow, buying time to think. She could leave Charge here with Lara, yes, and Ravener, too, she could take Rainer and surf back to the canyon, run until the cell signal picked up and she could call in the rangers.
Those were the thoughts filling her head when she heard it, too.
It was a quiet noise, one high, ringing note, gone as soon as it began. It was the kind of noise Ariel wouldn't find threatening under ordinary circumstances, but when she'd come in search of ghosts and seen her friend start to go crazy instead she was a little less willing to write mysterious sounds off as harmless.
She looked over her shoulder at Rainer again. The blastoise snorted, giving her a "why're you looking at me?" stare, and oh, good, then the delusion was spreading. The noise sounded again, another faint, melodic hum, and that was more than enough.
"Okay, then, I'm going to go," Ariel said, bending to set her electrode down. "You just handle Charge for a few minutes, and I'll see if I can'tâ€""
"It's here!" Lara pressed forward, fingers locked in a fissure through the stone. She finally turned back to Ariel, like she'd only just remembered her friend was there. "Come on, we have to get the switch!" In Charge's harsh light her excited grin looked strained and too broad, casting angular shadows over her face. "It's back near the entrance, come on!"
"Lara! Come on, leave it alone. We don't want to bring this whole place down on top of us." She couldn't follow that quickly, couldn't jar Charge or the whole place really would cave in, not that whatever Lara thought she was doing with that hole in the wall was likely to be any better. So Ariel jogged, carefully, and the sounds were getting louder now, quavering notes coming one after another, building into some kind of melody. Rainer, running along behind,
"Look at that. They're throwing a pretty big party to celebrate getting rid of you, aren't they?" she asked Lara, and was rewarded with a grin.
"I'd rather that than having them coming after me with pitchforks like they will with you when they find out you won't leave," she said.
Ariel grinned and put on a mock-offended air. "As if! Life around here would be totally boring with me gone, and they know it!"
There would still be the fireworks, of course. There would be fireworks even after Lara headed off to university, every year, and Ariel would be up here alone, watching. Well, no, probably she would be down in the lights she could see even from here, the festival crawling up the slopes of Mt. Ember and no doubt annoying the real Moltres to no end, if it really did roost there. And she'd have her pokémon, of course. She'd have them out now, to appreciate the spectacle and enjoy the cool night air, but tonight was about her and Lara, and Lara didn't like pokémon much these days.
"So," Ariel said, after the last of the fireworks had faded from the sky, "remind me again why we're sitting up here in the middle of nowhere instead of down there where all the action is?"
"Oh, come on, you whiner." Lara stood and brushed herself off. "This is the first time Summer's End's fallen on a new moon the whole time I'll be alive. This is the last chance I've got to check out the ghosts. Since when have you ever turned down the chance for a little adventure?"
Since she didn't want her last night with her friend to be spent traipsing around some empty old caves only to find nothing interesting, because old stories like that were just old stories, especially when it came to the unown. Everybody liked to make up weird stuff about them, like they were aliens or a secret hive mind poised to take over the world or whatever, as though being sentient writing somehow wasn't strange enough.
"Hey, I hadn't even heard of this legend thing until you started spouting off about it this year. The dead walking, history repeating itself, is that it? If you say so, Lars."
Lara was already waiting for her at the edge of the unkempt grass, and Ariel sent out Ravager, taking point with him as they waded in. The hitmonlee jogged easily in a wide circle around the trainers, on guard for any wilds. Even in the middle of the night, the grass was full of rustles and titters that were more than the wind's mischief.
It could be any chamber, Lara said, and so when they'd stood outside this first one for what felt like hours, listening to the waves chewing on the shore and the wind rattling around the old stones, Ariel considered suggesting that they pick a different one. There was only so much time you could spend staring into a dark doorway; after some times, even nerves started to get a bit boring. It was pitch-dark inside, and Ariel was suspicious the wind wasn't the only current stirring the air. It felt to her suspiciously like there was a steady wind rushing into the black pit of the ruin's entrance, like a constant indrawn breath, like the old place was trying to suck them in. The ties on her hoodie swayed and drifted faintly in the direction of the black archway. But that was either suspicion or some kind of weird draft.
"So, are we going to go in?" she asked at last. "I mean, we haven't got all night, and it's"â€"she pulled out her phone to check the time, and it showed her a screen flickering purple and green bars. "Well, it's creepy o' clock, I guess." She tucked the phone back in her pocket and tried to convince herself she didn't feel the sour twinge of fear in her chest. Of all the times for the stupid thing to go out on her. Not that there was any signal out here anyway, but still.
Lara didn't answer. Ariel let the night unfold for a couple minutes, until there was some kind of loud splash out on the ocean behind them and that was definitely just a mantine jumping, but still. "It's just some weird pokémon, you know. Unown, and all that. Nobody knows what's up with them, but it's not like they're dangerous or anything." Which was a fair point, definitely worth remembering, but also, "Or we could just head back. It's not like we've got anything to prove, right? The party's on One Island'll be going on all night, there's plenty of time for us to get over there andâ€""
Rainer let out a colossal rumble of irritation and stomped forward, turning sideways and ducking to fit through the human-sized doorway and disappearing into the black.
Ariel spent a moment so startled she couldn't do anything but turn to look at Lara, and then the stunned look on her friend's face was enough to make her laugh, and not even anxiously at that. After a moment Lara was laughing, too, and then they were just two old friends about to set off on an ill-advised adventure. "Okay. I guess we're going in, then," Lara said.
For a moment they passed through into complete black, the starlight shining in through the doorway not so much illuminating the place as making the distinction between shadow and deeper shadow clear. Then Ariel let Charge out and asked the electrode for some light, and the place lit up with harsh white glare, bringing stone slabs and crumbling bricks and Rainer's scowling face into sharp relief.
Ariel picked Charge up, and the electrode obligingly didn't electrocute her, keeping its light confined to a crackling halo around the top of its body. It wouldn't be safe to let Charge roll around on his own, not with this place full of debris and tight corners and uneven floors, and even a small jolt could make the electrode explode. Tragic for the priceless ancient ruins, of course; even more tragic for the people who'd have the priceless ancient ruins come down on their heads.
It was odd, studying the ruins from behind the electrode's arcing light. It was almost too bright, probably brighter than if they'd actually come in the daytime, and
"I don't see any actual unown here, do you?" Ariel asked. There were marks on the walls, dark smears that suggested the general shape of ancient writing. There was the suggestion of eyes, always eyes, and the feeling Ariel couldn't shake that they followed her with their gazes. But they didn't, really, because they weren't alive, really were just markings on stone. The unown were gone. "No ghosts either, haha."
"No," Lara said. She was reaching out like she wanted to touch the symbols, but enough years of living in Sevii, getting it drilled into your head that you Do Not Disrespect the History stopped her from going all the way. She walked deeper into the ruin, looking up and down the quiet corridors, and Ariel followed with the light. Rainer was last, waddling along cramped and cranky, sighing loudly to himself. He clearly hadn't been up for this little venture in the first place, and if nothing was even going to attack them, his patience must have been running out.
"Well," Ariel said after they'd made it to the rear wall, where the scuffed marks were a little bolder but still no pokémon appeared, "I guess they went off somewhere. Maybe they're out watching the fireworks. Why don't we go? We can check another one of the chambers, I guess, or we can call this our ghost hunting for the night."
"No. They're supposed to be here." Lara got even closer to the wall, and then she actually did start running her hand over it, which was bad enough to set Ariel's conscientious-student teeth on eged. "There must be another chamber or something."
"Wouldn't the spooky ghost stories have mentioned it? I mean, I guess we can look around outside, too, but we really don't want to accidentally destroy the priceless artifacts, do we? Come on, let's tryâ€""
"If you want to get out of here, then go, Ariel," Lara snapped. "I mean it, they have to be here somewhere. I'm staying."
Ariel stood in uncomfortable silence, arms aching from holding Charge up, starting to wonder if she was in a different sort of horror story than she'd imagined, one where her friend had gotten possessed by some demon or something and was about to summon Evil Arceus through some arcane ritual. Or maybe that would be the preferable option, since Evil Arceus was at least something you could punch.
"Hey, uh," Ariel said while Lara continued poring over the wall, face set in a cold frown of concentration, "you okay over there? I get it if you're going to be disappointed if we don't see anything spooky, but you're acting kind of strange."
"They're here. I'm not leaving. Can't you hear them?"
Ariel turned slowly to look over her shoulder at Rainer. The blastoise rumbled a negative, and he still looked bored. In her arms Charge hummed, not that Ariel could tell if that was a yes or a no without turning it around to look at its face. But the fact of the matter was that no, she definitely couldn't hear anything, and she didn't like the way Lara was shuffling along, an almost hungry look on her face as she swept her eyes over the old markings. "Bing the light closer, would you?" she said, not turning to look at her friend.
"Hey, uh, maybe they're hiding?" Ariel said, trailing after Lara with her mind whirring in nervous circles. Couldn't leave Lara here alone, couldn't call anyone, no signal, why had it seemed like a good idea to come all the way out here where there was no help, no one knew they were gone, no one would worry? There were reckless stupid teenage hijinks that you laughed about later, and reckless stupid teenage hijinks that ended with somebody dead. "So we should like... go... outside? And maybe they'll come out again and we can see them?"
Lara didn't even bother to answer. "Well, I think I might see if I can find something in one of the other ruins," Ariel said, slow, buying time to think. She could leave Charge here with Lara, yes, and Ravener, too, she could take Rainer and surf back to the canyon, run until the cell signal picked up and she could call in the rangers.
Those were the thoughts filling her head when she heard it, too.
It was a quiet noise, one high, ringing note, gone as soon as it began. It was the kind of noise Ariel wouldn't find threatening under ordinary circumstances, but when she'd come in search of ghosts and seen her friend start to go crazy instead she was a little less willing to write mysterious sounds off as harmless.
She looked over her shoulder at Rainer again. The blastoise snorted, giving her a "why're you looking at me?" stare, and oh, good, then the delusion was spreading. The noise sounded again, another faint, melodic hum, and that was more than enough.
"Okay, then, I'm going to go," Ariel said, bending to set her electrode down. "You just handle Charge for a few minutes, and I'll see if I can'tâ€""
"It's here!" Lara pressed forward, fingers locked in a fissure through the stone. She finally turned back to Ariel, like she'd only just remembered her friend was there. "Come on, we have to get the switch!" In Charge's harsh light her excited grin looked strained and too broad, casting angular shadows over her face. "It's back near the entrance, come on!"
"Lara! Come on, leave it alone. We don't want to bring this whole place down on top of us." She couldn't follow that quickly, couldn't jar Charge or the whole place really would cave in, not that whatever Lara thought she was doing with that hole in the wall was likely to be any better. So Ariel jogged, carefully, and the sounds were getting louder now, quavering notes coming one after another, building into some kind of melody. Rainer, running along behind,
Schedule?
9/5/16- Sign ups for both artists and writers begin
10/16/16- Sign ups for both artists and writers closed. Partial rough drafts due.
10/17/16- Summaries of stories will be posted in the Art and Design section. Claiming begins
10/24/16- Claiming of summaries end. Artists and writers will be informed of their matchups within a few days or sooner. We'll also have sign-ups for pinch-hitters soon.
11/20/16- Final drafts and art due.
11/21/16 towards 11/28/16- Posting period
This is the initial schedule, though it is subject to change.
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