The Underground: Issue #4

THE UNDERGROUND pokémon fanzine n o i t c fi fan fanart reviews

issue #4 • feb 2019

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Contents FANFICTION 4

Coltar - The Prophecy Cavespider_17

14

Operation GEAR: The Gardener of Gratitude illustriousrocket

38

Bitter and Cold Miner7365

50

The Halvarsaga Firebrand

58

Braid Minty

74

Shattered Crests vray

84

Ionization Dtmahanen

96

The Intangibles eldestoyster

-03

FANFI

CTION

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COLTAR THE PROPHECY by

Cavespider_17

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Part 1 “The evening of the 24th of April appeared to have come around quickly this year, due to the tensions within Coltar. The half-moon glowed a creamy yellow, leaving its bewitching light to shine over the fields surrounding the small village of Marsten, in the north of the island of Coltar. The halfmoon was significant to many who lived and were trapped on the island.

It was considered a symbol of a half started cycle, half granted wishes... to be more accurate, the half-moon represented lies.

Many had tried over the years to leave the island, but escaping these lies was impossible and illegal, as all Coltese citizens know. Those who attempted a sea escape were doomed to fail, a job fulfilled by the island’s Guardians.

Many drowned, were mauled or arrested before managing to set sail. As for those who tried to fly away using their Pokémon... many were killed by the electrical currents during storms.

Others were shot down by an electroball attack.

The thought of an outside world beyond the Abyss scared the bravest of Coltese men.

The crowds joining in at Marsten Hall this year was much larger than usual. Members of the Northern and Southern Guard filled one’s eyes with their clashing green and midnight blue uniforms, and cold glares towards one another.

This year Marsten Hall was not just to play host to the ball, but to something much bigger. It was to play host to negotiations between two of the great powers of the island. The current ruler of the entirety of the island, Gere Filktas, was not interested in the tensions between the two Elite Lords who ruled the North and the South. If they were fighting each other they were in no position to challenge him so he would be able to maintain his strength for a far greater challenger if one ever emerged. Therefore, under the advice of the Head of the Master Guard, the

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two Elite Lords agreed to discuss their demands. The location of Marsten was key to the negotiations - it was considered a neutral ground.

The presence of the Lords at the ball was a new experience for the people of Coltar. This also led to the class system appearing in a more rigid fashion.

Only those with an invitation were welcomed inside the hall. The elites consisted of its own hierarchy. The Master sat above all, with his Captain and the Rulers below. The Young Guard, or trainee Guard, were the final class within the elites. Children as young as three years old would be ripped from their families with their Pokémon partner to train alongside the Young Guard providing they filled the requirements.

Coltar was a brutal place. It remains a brutal place.

James scuttled past the old stone columns and muddied concrete. The concrete was beginning to look sandy, as if it was starting to fall away. He was headed towards the courtroom window to get a glimpse of Igor Rett’s portrait. He peered inside the window to see the door wide open. He could see the bland lobby, and upon the walls were metal chains. The lobby was previously where the prisoners were left to rot before carrying out their sentences or being summoned to court.

The metal chains were rusted; some were bloodstained, others were not.

They were left hanging to instil fear into those who planned to escape the control of the Elite Lords.

James caught a glimpse of the purple carpet. It was worn down and dirty.

No matter how many times it had been washed through and through, the dirt remained. Purple was the national colour of Coltar before the divisions – the whole island under one flag.

Something James couldn’t imagine being real, in a world of the political, religious and weather diversity between the North and South.

James stopped daydreaming and started to scan the courtroom. It was much more impressive than the lobby.

The walls were a dusted stone. The floors were a glossed dark wooden set, plank after plank laid horizontally.

There were no seats in the room, other than for the judge in sitting. The judge would sit in dock above the whole of the court. Behind the judge’s dock was the grand portrait of Igor Rett. His pale white face was war torn. He looked beyond stern, as if he had wicked thoughts blooming in the back of his mind. Despite this, he also seemed to feel some form of safety and comfort to know he was watching over the citizens of Coltar. He was rather short in his portrait, but then again he was sitting at the judge’s dock.

His Pokémon was one that no one had claimed to have seen in many years. No one knew its name. Its paws

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were black and its body blue. Like Igor, its face was stern, and paternal, but its colours made it seem surreal, as if it was a myth.

James had seen what he had wanted to see, so his next mission was to see Lord Madison – his ruler, his hero. He tiptoed around the building towards the ballroom. The ballroom was by far the grandest of all the rooms. The long purple curtains draped over the wide, tall windows. The window frames were painted gold on the inside but maintained their stone frame on the outside. The orchestra inside was playing the anthem of the island of Coltar.

Many of the band were playing the Ukuru. An Ukuru was an instrument only affordable to those among the middle class or higher. It was crafted from the bones of a Lairon, cut and curved into a hypnotic spiral. The mouth piece was created from the melted coat of an Aron. The band members who played the Ukuru had to blow into the spiralled metal mouth piece and bend the bone of the main frame in order to change the notes being played. Other instruments being played in the band were mainly variants of the banjo. A banjo was considered a poor man’s instrument in Coltar. The music that filled the room was so beautiful it made the tensions between the North and South seem so far away.

James looked along the floor. It was

a dark wooden patterned floorboard in a diamond shape from the centre outwards. It was glossed, so shiny it appeared to have smiled back at those who looked into it. His eyes then snapped up to the far wall. He immediately noticed the portrait hanging on the wall. At the helm of the ballroom hung the portrait of the historic ruler Rustok Nambi and his Gardevoir partner. His brown skin looked rough and cut. His ocean blue eyes looked sternly at anyone who gazed upon him. He had struck a pose in which he stood in wonder against a forest background. James could see the Ariados and Galvantula lurking behind him. It was terrifying to think that every single ruler in Coltar had a portrait inside of both the Elite Zone castle and Marsten Hall. Nambi’s portrait lay a shadow on all the others in the room.

Part 2 James’s carmine shoulder length hair kept falling in front of his wide Venetian red eyes. He was rather average in terms of height for a boy his age born in the Northern territory. To see more of the dance he had to start tiptoeing, desperately struggling to see inside the ballroom. His ghost white shirt was now coated in a sandy dust from the degrading concrete. He was wearing a russet blazer with only three

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buttons. It was considered to be not very stylish to have it done up, not that James really cared much for style.

He could see an orange Chandelure floating around inside the room. Its flames were so wonderfully warm. It looked happy. All the other Chandelure were purple, so for an orange one to even be allowed to light the hall was a miracle in itself. James didn’t understand the prejudice against the orange Chandelure that are found.

All he knew was they were rather uncommon.

Just like Okta, they were special.

He strained to see further into the hall. He wanted to see Elite Lord Madison, ruler of the North. The man he wanted to be. Instead, James could only see the back of the composer of the band and his Gastrodon. His hair was snow white, short and braided. He was blocking the view of nearly everything inside. The rest of the view inside was being blocked by his yellow Gastrodon, who was happily squelching along to the music.

James could hear the music from the window. He sighed as he listened while his eyes flicked around, trying to see beyond the back of the composer.

James could hear something from behind him. His ears defocused from the music. He could hear footsteps.

He shuffled around the corner to his left and slammed his back against the

wall. An adrenaline rush was the last thing he needed right now. He held his breath and reached down with his right hand to his pocket on his trousers. Okta was there. She was always ready to battle as was he, he convinced himself.

He turned the corner. Horror filled his face. Two men in a midnight blue uniform stood in front of him. Both were ready to send out their Pokémon.

They weren’t just men. They were members of the Southern Elite Guard.

James’ heart started to race from fear. He had been caught red handed peering into the ball, when the law had forbidden him from doing such a thing.

The man on the left was the taller of the two. He smirked and rolled his poké ball behind James. The Machamp that had resided inside was now behind him. Its large hands gripped James’ shoulders. He couldn’t escape. The member of the Elite Guard on the right was still a giant to James. He peered down. His hat was in his left hand. He drew his long sword with his right as James tremored with fear.

“Your Onix is very dirty. You should clean it more. Or maybe you Northern children are too irresponsible to keep a Pokémon? Maybe I should take it,” he spoke softly, as if he was trying not to be so intimidating. He shook the Poké ball and waved it above James’s head, as he returned his Machamp. “You have ten seconds to get out of my sight.”

James didn’t need to be told twice,

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and he grabbed Okta from the man’s hand. He turned to run back down the hill and was gently prodded by the shorter man’s sword. James ran as fast as he could back towards his friends who were waiting for him next to the cobblestone path up to the hall. There was a grass strip there, and at the end of it was a tree under which they waited. Andrew Takui, the youngest of the group, was sitting furthest away. He was feeding his Deino, Nutkio, a nice round and plump Oran berry. He noticed James approaching, and stood up with a spring in his step.

He pulled his long cyan-grey shaded hair back enough so he could see. As he stepped forward to greet James he looked down into the boy’s red eyes with his green ones.

Lioa who was sitting to Andrew’s left and smirked at James’s somewhat speedy arrival. His Timburr, Ruskuo, was tossing a small log in the air for amusement. Lioa had only just turned thirteen and he was proud of that fact.

He strongly believed soon he could join his father and fight the South. His light beige skin was ever so slightly darker than that of his brother and clashed with the moonlight, making his smirk look darker than he had intended. His shorter cyan hair was no use at hiding his green eyes, which were filled with mischief. He shunted James over onto his back playfully.

Kitiku Bryson jumped out of his skin at the sound of his best friend colliding

with the ground, despite sitting quietly on the edge of the grass. His Klink called Rusto whizzed around him while he thought. His skin was the fairest of the group and burnt easily in the tropical Northern heat. His hair was almost jet black. It was long enough to cover his eyes, but not quite as long as James’ shoulder length hair. His eyes were an ash-grey. When looking into his eyes James always saw his hopelessness. Kitiku didn’t trust the world around him. His father was constantly disappointed in him for being “defective” due to his massive height and dislike of fighting. In the north his height made many consider him to be a freak – someone who is broken – someone who is defective.

This was a common reaction to abnormalities in children and adults in Coltar at this time. Nowadays it is more accepted.

Coltar was not used to diversity and certainly didn’t know how to cope with it. It was rather cut off from the rest of the world. Off-islanders who had crashed or were shipwrecked on the island were treated with immediate suspicion and were often thrown in prison for many years in case they carried disease, wanted to overthrow the Lords, or worse. Many medical ideas had crept through to the island, but many more did not.

However, I wander off topic. Back to the reason why what will happen in three days from now will...

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James felt belittled due to his run in with the Lords, however, he was glad his friends were pleased to see him back from his excursion.

“What was it like up there? Did you see Lord Elite Madison?” Lioa looked quizzical. His mouth turned into a slight smile. “What was he like? I bet he was amazing to watch. I bet he put the fear of Darkrai into those ‘Suska Garta’.”

“I didn’t see much,” James replied disappointed. He slumped next to Kitiku and Lioa copied. “Before I could investigate further two of your ‘Suska Garta’ turned up and tried to intimidate me. Those stupid members of the Southern Elite Guard. I showed them.”

“Did not. I bet you came back out of fear!” James gulped at Lioa’s accusation. It was true. He did come back afraid, but...

“They aren’t all bad. You can’t just class all Southern Elite Guards as bad people just because they protect a Lord you don’t like,” Kitiku whispered.

“They are merciless. They would have killed me if I didn’t beat them.

Remember? What I did was technically illegal,” He smiled. “Don’t worry Lioa, we will see Lord Madison defeat the South. He would never sign such a weak negotiation. Okta and I are counting on it. One day, she and I will be the greatest team to grace this world. All twenty-three thousand people in this world will see the rise of James Spitz

and Okta! We will win every tournament we compete in!” He waved his arms as he spoke with excitement.

Okta was curled up in her capsule.

Her long rock body was a golden colour.

She was special and James knew it. Her horn on the top of her head was cut so perfectly. She was his Onix and he wanted the whole world to know it.

“Besides,” James went to finish his speech, “Cresselia will bless my household so that--” “Please, Cresselia isn’t real,” Lioa snapped. “Besides, Darkrai will bless my household. I will be better than you. Darkrai, after all, is real.”

“No it isn’t. Cresselia is real,” James shouted back as the argument brewed.

“Darkrai!” Lioa shunted against James forcefully. James was nearly knocked over but caught himself.

“Cresselia!” James shouted back, making Lioa spit at him.

Lioa angrily pushed James over onto his back and then shouted even louder, “Darkrai!”

Part 3 Kitiku started to shuffle and look stressed by the fighting. His household was under the grouping that believed in Cresselia. He didn’t want to be cursed to nothingness forever after his time

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was over. James and Lioa’s attention diverted to him. They realised they may have caused his discomfort.

from the deepest darkest depths of his mind. The aggressive voice was out to get him.

“Hey Kitiku. Are you okay? Why don’t we go watch the outside Chandelure perform with their masters from the roof tops?” Lioa smiled at him.

“James was lurking around the entrance earlier. He is probably already inside,” James’s mother replied.

Kitiku’s breathing started to slow down a little. He pondered the thought for a moment or so before nodding in agreement.

“Last one on the roof has to ask a Southern Elite Guard for a bedtime kiss!” Lioa laughed. The drainpipes couldn’t support more than one person at a time, so it really was everyone for themselves. Lioa started to scramble up the pipe first.

Kitiku’s height was going to work in his favour, as he grabbed the second nearest pipe attached to the degrading old houses. He pulled himself up towards the roof much faster than Lioa.

Andrew and James ran towards the same drainpipe. As James reached for it Ruskuo threw a small rock at James and hit him in the stomach. James was knocked over into the mud.

Lioa laughed louder, “James guess what? You lose!”

“Where is that little runt?” A voice called out into the street. James scrambled into the narrow pathway between two of the houses. A shiver crept down his spine. Every rough click of that voice caused a memory to rearise

“Then let’s enjoy the party,” James’s step-father responded.

James could see them from where he was standing. His mother had combed her golden hair into a nice bun. Her fair skin was smooth. She would always give James a hug when he cried or felt lonely, or at least he had convinced himself that.

Hanson on the other hand was a different story. He failed to adopt James into the family once he married Carla, nor did he throw James out of the household-which was common in Coltese culture. He disliked James. He let James know regularly this was the case.

“James, you lost, you have to do the loser’s thing. Once you have done it we will let you on the roof to watch the show too,” Lioa teased.

“Yeah James!” Andrew echoed in an irritating way.

James clenched his fist angrily.

He had lost because of that monster.

“Fine. Just fine.” James stormed back up the hill in a rage. Taking Okta out of his pocket and cuddling her Poké ball he blurted out, “That’s the last time we ever lose to anyone, Okta! We will be the

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greatest, I promise! Then no one will make fun of you for your golden colour.

You are perfect. Hey, maybe one day we could go explore beyond Coltar! The Elite Lords always say we can’t leave the island… why would they do that if we are the only people in this world?”

James looked down and kicked a rock.

He stubbed his toe in the process. He grit his teeth and continued to rant. “I want to see more than what I am told I can see...”

The rock had hit something, something that made a grunt when it did. James looked up into the eyes of a tall man. He rapidly became anxious.

The tall shady figure shunted him onto the floor with considerable force. He drew his capsule. A Garchomp emerged from inside. Its eyes were a burning red and it looked ready to destroy whatever crossed its path.

A loud roar came from behind the shady figure. It wasn’t a Pokémon roar though. The figure appeared to be glowing an orange shade. The figure turned and James rose. The once grand Marsten Hall was on fire. A second roar echoed. This one was a Pokémon.

A Charizard with scorching red wings flew up through the ceiling.

James was confused for a moment, but quickly made sense of the situation.

The figure in front of him had vanished.

This, in James’ mind, could mean only one thing – that man, that Southern Elite Guard, had started this fire with

Charizard to kill Elite Lord Madison.

All the Elite Guards were desperate to rescue those inside, especially because Lord Madison wasn’t inside. James knew this to be true. Lord Madison was standing five metres in front of him in a face-off with Lord Piscar. He couldn’t see them very well through the smoke, only making out their silhouettes and hearing their voices.

“This is a new low, even for you,” the first said. He had no accent, and his voice was smooth and rather deep.

To James this was almost proof this was Lord Madison speaking. “You are nothing more than a mass murdering psychopath.”

The screams of those inside were crawling through the air. James imagined the souls of the Distortion World desperately grabbing onto whomever they could with their mouths wide open, screaming.

“You think I am responsible for this?

You are a disgrace to your people, and to mine,” the second voice responded.

It was coarse and higher than the previous one.

James paused. This voice had no accent either. Perhaps this was his Captain of the Elite Guard. No, it was impossible, James thought. One of these had to be Madison. The other had to be the sworn enemy of the North and mass murderer Lord Piscar. The wind was starting to pick up. The tensions were high, James could tell.

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“Negotiations are over. You brought this upon yourself.” A silhouette of a Pokémon James had never seen before appeared amongst the smoke. A second Pokémon, Aggron, appeared as another silhouette. Rain started to fall and became a storm faster than James had ever seen before.

A sudden dizzying flash followed!

James was blinded by the light.

Darkness followed. He felt as if death was creeping up on him and was ready to take his soul to the world which Cresselia watched over. He heard a thunderclap, and then... nothingness.

He was dead, he feared… but if he was dead how come he could still feel the squelchy mud with his hands? How could he feel the vibrations of the earth from the battle raging between the two Elite Lords not five metres away?

He couldn’t risk sending out Okta to help Lord Madison. He couldn’t even see where he himself was, let alone his Lordship. He didn’t want to risk squishing either of them.

A hand seized his arm and pulled him up. Someone was helping him.

After a few more moments his eyes began to recover. He could see but only in tunnel vision and even then it was blurred. His hearing was still not back.

Before James could react, a wave of energy was emitted from somewhere.

It coursed through him and his rescuer and nearly everyone around him. They all dropped to the floor, unconscious.

James wasn’t however, he could see everything, but now he couldn’t move.

His body felt like it was being sat on by a thousand Snorlax. He quickly came to the conclusion it was the sound that had rendered many people unconscious along with the wave of energy.

A few of the Elite Guard of each side were standing. The Charizard was still flying in a rage. The Elite Lords were also standing. They were not fighting anymore. The Aggron looked frustrated by this. One of the Elite Lords turned his back to the other and walked away.

The Charizard was now flying away into the distance. James’ hearing started to return. He was unsure what he just had witnessed, but he knew one thing for sure: Hanson Rei and Carla Spitz were almost certainly inside when that fire was started. The worst case scenario was his step-father had survived, but his mother had not.

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OPERATION GEAR:

The Gardener of Gratitude by illustriousrocket La Ciudad Dorada was a city in the center of a vast island region located in the southern sea. Most of the region’s settlements were on its coasts, leaving the inland kingdom largely isolated from the outside world. Much of its immediate surroundings were barren desert, with the city itself in a fairly mountainous area. The resultant journey was a grueling ordeal for any would-be travellers, leaving passage on foot to be considered an unwise proposition at best. The march of time had done little to ease the difficulty of travel, with the only real means of access from the outside world to the kingdom being the railroad Matt and Cassy arrived on.

In spite of its remoteness, the kingdom was far from short on visitors.

As Matt and Cassy walked down one of the paths between buildings, the number of people and Pokémon passing by kept them on a slow pace.

“Whew…” Matt took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead with it. He looked at how the people around him were dressed and sighed again. “I should’ve worn something lighter.”

“The city of La Ciudad Dorada is known to have sweltering weather, characterized by surprisingly humid air despite the desert surrounding it,” Cassy read from the tourist brochure she’d picked up at the train station.

“Its citizens have grown to coexist with this climate, which may seem harsh to outsiders.”

“I get it, I should have done my homework,” Matt said with a selfdeprecating laugh, scratching the back of his head.

“Seems like I have to tell you that a lot,” Cassy sarcastically added before returning to the brochure. “This sentiment, the feeling of gratitude for nature and the coexistence with it, can

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CHAPTER 1:

The Edge of History

also be seen in the way the city and nature exist as one.” She folded up the brochure and looked around. Some of the buildings nearby were built around trees, and the path they were walking on was broken up by blades of grass growing through it. “Not that you couldn’t tell just by looking around,” she observed.

crafted by its artisans. This is truly a must-see location that all visitors to La Ciudad Dorada should make a part of their travels.”

At that moment, Matt and Cassy emerged from the narrow street they had been on into a spacious plaza.

Numerous vendors had stands set up all around them, selling food, souvenirs and more. While Matt looked around and thought about whether anything he saw interested him, Cassy returned to the brochure.

“If you say so. It says the way to access Lingote Palace is there.” Cassy pointed to a steep hill on the other side of the plaza, which had a number of open-air elevators running up its side.

Once again reading from the paper, Cassy said, “Lingote Palace is built on the Sacred Hill overlooking the rest of La Ciudad Dorada. To reach the palace, take the elevators built onto the side of the hill.”

“The plaza outside of Lingote Palace is the site of the city’s main marketplace,” she read. “Tourists may taste the many varieties of berries grown in the city’s rich soil, taste its distinctive cuisine, or purchase items

“I’d like to go and see everything, but we probably don’t have time to waste,” Matt said. “Fernando didn’t tell us a specific time to arrive, but I imagine we can’t keep him waiting.”

Following the advice of the brochure, Matt and Cassy walked across the plaza to one of the open elevators. Cassy boarded first, and she was the one to

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press the button that sent the lift on its ascent. While they waited, Cassy returned to the brochure once again as a way of breaking up the silence.

“In addition to the opulence of Lingote Palace, visitors to La Ciudad Dorada should make sure to experience the panorama from the top of the Sacred Hill. It is said that the ancient kingdom that once stood on this land extended from the Sacred Hill all the way to the mountains that can be seen from its peak. Additionally, the site is famous for its spectacular view of the sunset and sunrise when the weather is clear.”

“I can already see what they’re talking about!”

Matt exclaimed.

He was standing at the elevator’s guardrail, looking out over the city while shielding his eyes with his hand.

Even though they hadn’t yet reached the top of the hill, he could see over the buildings to the desert landscape beyond, the sands glittering in the blazing sun. Beyond that, mountains spread out across the horizon, reaching far enough into the sky that snow could be seen on some of their peaks.

“Amazing…” Cassy uttered in awe after joining Matt at the rail. “If the kingdom really reached from here all the way to those mountains, it must have been incredible…”

“It’s a shame it fell,” Matt added. “I wish we could have seen it at its peak.

Or at least I wish it lasted long enough

for my grandfather to see it. If what’s here now is really as threatened like Fernando made it sound in his letter, we’ll have our work cut out for us, but we have to do something to save it.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Cassy replied.

Matt and Cassy couldn’t look away from the view of the vast landscape spreading out before them. As the elevator went further up the hill, their perspective kept changing, giving them an increasingly clear overlook of the entire territory. They were so caught up in the view that when the elevator reached the end of its track, they were both thrown off balance and had to grip the rail when it stopped.

Beyond the startling stop, both found their breaths similarly taken away by the sight that greeted them when they turned around.

Lingote Palace, a massive castle built from white marble accentuated with rainbow-colored stained glass, stood before them. All around the gleaming palace, the rest of the hill was covered in a seemingly endless sea of flowers, broken up only by wrought iron arches shaping a dirt path between the elevators and the palace.

“What a lovely garden,” Matt commented as he and Cassy started their way down the path, surveying the flowers and the Pokémon living amongst them. There were a number of Combee flitting from blossom to

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blossom, collecting honey while a Wobbuffet with red lips watched them.

Two Chatot sat on a portion of the rail surrounding the garden and preened their feathers.

“Ah, look at that,” Cassy said, pointing to a place in the flowers where the tails of three Sentret could be seen, giving away where their owners were.

She gasped in surprise immediately afterward when a pair of Chingling floated overhead and landed in the garden, chiming happily all the while.

The two were so caught up in taking in the sights that they didn’t notice when they approached an iron bench where two others were already sitting.

Both were young women of roughly Matt and Cassy’s age, though neither had much else apparent in common between themselves, Matt or Cassy.

“Excuse me, are you here for the tour?” one of them, who wore a plain white coat with a furred collar and had her brown hair tied into three buns, asked Matt and Cassy.

Cassy scowled at the interruption, but she still stopped walking when Matt did, and he didn’t notice her expression.

“I guess so,” Matt answered, before pausing and meekly adding, “well, not really. I don’t know? Technically?”

“You missed the cutoff for the most recent tour’s start, unfortunately,” the woman informed them. Gesturing to the other young woman, who was still

sitting and reading a book, she added, “The two of us just got here and got turned away as well, so we’re waiting for the next one.”

“Yeah, that’s not how this is going to happen,” Cassy interjected. “Matt, give me the letter.”

Without thinking about it, Matt reached into his bag, retrieved the letter from Fernando and handed it over to Cassy. “What are you going to do?” he asked once she already had it.

“To let them know we were invited.”

Cassy walked off in the direction of the castle’s front gate with the letter, leaving an exasperated Matt behind. He extended his hand in her direction, but his attempt to stop her withered away long before it could even come alive.

“You were invited?” The woman tilted her head and furrowed her thick eyebrows. “What did she mean?”

“I guess I should introduce myself, since we’ll be going on the tour together,” Matt said, chuckling nervously. “I’m Matt, she’s Cassy.

We’re classmates at the Rustboro School in Hoenn… we were invited here by Count Fernando VIII because he wishes for me to follow up on archeological research my grandfather did here.”

“Your grandfather… would he happen to be Sutter Chiaki? The famous archeologist and explorer?”

Matt immediately shrank back when he realized the woman knew who he

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was. His face turned red, and he quietly replied, “I see you know of him… might I ask what made you realize it?”

“Sutter Chiaki’s work closely involved my people as well, so it was known that he had a grandson named Matt.” When Matt returned the look of confusion she had just shown him, the woman brought one of her gloved hands to her chest. “My name is Sheena. I am the priestess that guards the Tenganist temple in Michina Town. Right now, I’m on a pilgrimage to learn more about the history of my people. That’s why I’ve come to La Ciudad Dorada. My people have a historical connection to this land that I wish to learn more about.”

“So that’s how you knew… my grandfather’s research here ended up involving your people as well.”

“That’s a part of it,” Sheena said.

“At some point, I would like to ask you some questions about Sutter and his work. Perhaps after the tour?”

“I don’t have a problem with that.”

Matt looked over to the castle gate, where Cassy was showing the letter to the two women clad in Bronzongthemed armor who stood guard, and sighed. “She might be at that for a while, so who knows when the tour will even start.”

“Then let’s get to know each other and pass the time,” the other tourist with Sheena suggested. She shut the book she was reading and jumped to

her feet, causing the ribbon in her blue hair to shake. She took ahold of her billowing, gold-frilled black skirt and curtsied, saying “I’m Eleanor Laplace.

I’m an engineer and I came here from Kalos because this place’s technology fascinates me.”

“Technology?” Matt questioned.

“Oh, you’ll love it!” Just getting to talk about machines excited Eleanor.

“There’s a place in Kalos called the Azoth Kingdom. It’s an entirely mechanized city built from the designs of the great inventor Nikola using Arcane Science! Well, it turns out La Ciudad Dorada is considered a sort of sister city to the Azoth Kingdom.

It has its own type of Arcane Science that’s similar to Nikola’s but still unique. I’m just fascinated by all types of machines, so I had to come here and experience La Ciudad Dorada’s technology for myself.”

“I can relate to that,” Matt said to Eleanor. “I’m into robotics and science myself. I’ve been studying them with Newton Graceland at the Rustboro School…”

“The Newton Graceland?” Eleanor exclaimed. “You have to show me some of the designs you’ve worked on with him! Anyone who gets to work alongside someone like Dr. Graceland must have some real talent in them!”

Sheena raised her hand to her mouth and gently laughed. “Your energy is admirable, Eleanor. I hope I enjoy this

-019

tour as much as you clearly will.”

When she glanced over to the castle gates, Sheena saw something that made her blue eyes go wide. “It appears there’s some sort of incident,” she said to Matt and Eleanor.

Following Sheena’s direction, Matt and Eleanor looked to the castle gates and saw Cassy heading back towards them. The guards stood at attention for the person who was with her, a tall, well-dressed young man whose blond hair was carefully combed into a sweeping style.

“You can say thank you any time you want,” Cassy proudly said to the others as she stepped aside to let the man approach them.

“Allow me to apologize for not giving you a clear schedule to follow,” he said, before putting his hand on his heart and bowing. “I’m Count Fernando the Eighth. It is my pleasure to finally meet you, Matt Chiaki.”

“I… well, it’s an honor, sir,” Matt nervously sputtered in response.

“Did you bring the puzzle box?”

Matt nodded and reached into his bag, producing the box as Fernando requested. Its golden surface glistened in the sun, creating light that reflected in Fernando’s intense green eyes as he examined it.

“So this artifact finally has found its way home,” the count said. “I thank you for returning it.”

“I can’t say I know the entire story behind it,” Matt admitted.

“That’s fine, I didn’t expect you to.”

Fernando turned back toward the castle and gestured over his shoulder. “Come, we have much to discuss. Let’s head to the museum.”

“Wait!” Just getting up the nerve for that one word took so much out of Matt that he had to catch his breath after saying it. Still, Fernando stopped walking to listen to him, so he considered that a relief. “It wouldn’t be fair if you just took Cassy and I along on a special tour. Please, bring Sheena and Eleanor with us.”

“Oh come on,” Cassy complained.

“You know we have a lot of work to do.”

“It might actually turn out to be helpful for us,” Fernando said, though he did not turn around. “Perhaps they will have perspectives that will aid in our quest. Sheena, Eleanor, those were your names? Consider yourselves lucky, you’re going to get to go on a very special tour today.”

“Thank you!”

Eleanor replied.

both

Sheena

and

“Save your gratitude for the history you’re about to witness. Now, let’s get started. Come with me.”

Fernando led the quartet past his guards and into the palace, passing underneath a huge stained glass mural that surrounded the castle’s entrance.

THE UNDERGROUND

The group felt the air inside circulate with a cooling breeze, and Matt wiped his forehead again as relief from the heat set in.

Immediately past the entrance to Lingote Palace was a long hallway lined with more stained glass windows, which cast colorful sunlight onto the marble floor. The group had made it a fair distance inside before Fernando started speaking to them again.

“The reason why I summoned you to my kingdom, Matt, is because we are currently under a threat unlike any we have seen in ages.”

“I could tell from your letter it was serious,” Matt said. “But what exactly is the threat?”

“It is twofold,” Fernando replied.

“We have been threatened with invasion by outsiders who wish to steal our treasures. Compounding that is my sister, Rosalita… she has betrayed the kingdom. When news of the threatened invasion reached us, she murdered our parents, King Fernando VII and Queen Sophia.”

A chorus of gasps went up among Fernando’s four guests.

“I knew this would be serious, but… murders?” Matt thought. “Like my grandfather… was she connected to it somehow?”

“Why would she do something like that?” Eleanor openly wondered.

“She has always been envious that

I was chosen to ascend to the throne over her,” Fernando answered sadly.

“I can only surmise that she intends to aid the invasion in exchange for help seizing power for herself. She stole two of the three clues to the Golden City’s location after the murders, and she kidnapped our family’s royal Pokémon as well.”

By this time, the group had reached a large set of double doors far down the hallway. Fernando stopped and turned around before continuing his explanation.

“And that is why I summoned you here, Matt. Our administrative functions are in disarray with everyone trying to figure out who can be trusted and who is in league with Rosalita.

But even with two of the clues and our family’s Pokémon, she cannot find the Golden City without the puzzle box, as it is the map that will reveal the Golden City’s location in the end. If she cannot find it, she cannot seize power, as there is something sleeping there that all new rulers must obtain first. We must find it before she can, or La Ciudad Dorada will be lost.”

“The temptation of great power can corrupt even the most noble hearts,” Sheena commented. “I know. I’ve seen it firsthand. But what is this power you speak of, exactly?”

“You will see,” Fernando answered as he pushed the doors open. “Welcome.

To the history of La Ciudad Dorada.”

-021

Beyond the doors awaited a spacious room filled with exhibits around its walls and center. Ornate iron arches spread out overhead, and an intricate design of yellow, green, blue and tan covered the floor.

“This is the museum?” Matt asked to get confirmation. “It’s impressive.”

“As it should be. It’s one of my kingdom’s proudest places, where all of our history is kept for the world to appreciate.”

Eleanor immediately broke from the others and ran right to a display case containing models of the train and other devices.

“This is exactly what I came here to see!” she exclaimed in excitement.

“Just riding on it was exciting enough, but I want to really see how it works.”

“The railroad, like all the rest of our technology, runs on the energy created by our Arcane Science,” Fernando explained before adding, “but you probably knew that already. It allows us to prosper while having little effect on our environment.”

“What are those other things?” she asked, pointing at a group of vehicles resembling old-fashioned cars and trucks, all of which had the same blue lamps on them as the locomotive.

“Exactly what they look like, vehicles produced locally by our engineers over time after combining the principles of Arcane Science with sparks of

inspiration from abroad. These models are of older designs than what we have now, but the basic principles that power them remain the same.”

Meanwhile, Matt and Sheena watched Eleanor converse with Fernando, and neither could help smiling at her enthusiasm.

“Hey, Matt, come here,” Cassy called from nearby. “Look at this.”

Sheena followed Matt as he joined Cassy at a red velvet rope, which was blocking off direct access to a painting in a golden frame. It depicted an elderly man in a dark suit with a thick, white beard and small, round spectacles.

“I know who that is,” Matt said after putting his hand on his chin.

“Godey, the famous Sinnohan architect,” Sheena identified. “He was a Tenganist and created works of art inspired by our beliefs. But why is a painting of him here?”

“Because he was the architect who created this museum,” Fernando said as he and Eleanor rejoined the others.

Unlike the clear pride he showed while showing the machine models to Eleanor, his expression had become inscrutable. “My grandfather, Fernando VI, was interested in Godey’s works in Sinnoh, namely the Space-Time Tower in Alamos Town even before its completion. He hired Godey to design a reconstruction of this museum for us.”

“Was your grandfather the king at

THE UNDERGROUND

the time my grandfather came here?”

Matt asked. “He told me he worked with a Fernando, but he didn’t tell me which one. If the Space-Time Tower was incomplete at the time, I think it lines up.”

“You’re right about that.” Fernando broke from the group and stepped a short distance away before speaking again. “Want to meet the old man?”

of ages, all of them bearing at least rough similarities in appearance to their living descendant. There were six in all, with an open pedestal for a seventh at the end of the line. In front of each statue, as well as the empty stand, was a plate bearing the name of the individual king depicted as well as the years of their rule and some information about them.

Matt cocked his head. “Meet him? I don’t understand.”

“Monuments to each king…” Cassy observed.

“Then follow me and you will.”

Matt and the others, who were as puzzled as he was, followed Fernando past a number of other paintings.

They only got brief glances at each one, but the recurring theme of vast, lush landscapes shared by humans and Pokémon quickly became apparent.

One painting in particular, depicting a gigantic Pokémon holding a tiny one in its hand, caught the attention of Eleanor and Sheena.

Eleanor tapped Sheena on the shoulder and whispered to her, “Regigigas and Shaymin, right?”

“Right,” Sheena replied. “Both legendary, mythical Pokémon in Sinnoh. They must be here, too…”

“Well, here we are.” Fernando stopped and stepped aside, gesturing to a line of golden statues against the wall. “Say hello to my grandfather… and all the kings before him.”

The statues were of men of a variety

“They aren’t just monuments,” Fernando corrected her. “These are the past kings themselves. As in, their bodies.”

Almost immediately, Cassy recoiled with such force that she collided with Matt and nearly knocked him down.

Sheena curled her lip. Eleanor, on the other hand, had no discernable reaction at all.

“Their… bodies?” Matt uttered.

“Forgive me for saying this, but isn’t that a little… morbid?”

“That’s not for you to decide, to be frank with you,” Fernando snapped, his voice remaining low but his manner becoming deadly serious. “This is a sacred custom that dates back to the beginning of our kingdom.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to-” “It’s fine, I forgive you,” Fernando huffed, cutting Matt’s apology off.

“You’re just a child. You haven’t had the time to absorb the world the way

-023

your grandfather did.”

Matt shrank back, too embarrassed by his faux pas to say anything further.

His silence allowed Eleanor to step into the conversation.

“I don’t quite understand, can you explain the custom to us?” she asked.

“Now that’s a good question. You see, once the life granted to our king reaches its end, we take great care to preserve them in gold so that they will never be forgotten. It is our way of honoring those who have gone to the Golden City and received its blessings.”

“They do appear too lifelike to just be statues, now that I look more closely.”

The way Eleanor carefully examined the faces of the preserved bodies left Cassy to blanch in disgust. “It’s rather intimidating to stand before six kings…” Eleanor suddenly realized something and turned around. “Wait, you’re the eighth, right? Why are there only six here? Where is the seventh?”

“We haven’t finished the process on my father yet.” Fernando shut his eyes.

“When my sister murdered our parents and fled, it left us in a state of crisis.

We’ve had to focus on defense against her coup and it’s left us no time to properly honor him yet.”

“And to help against that coup you called me here,” Matt said, finding his voice to seek confirmation of his belief.

“Precisely,” Fernando replied. “We should move to the next part of the museum. It is necessary for you to

understand what has happened here in the past.”

“Wait!” Eleanor called out as the others started to follow Fernando away from the line of previous kings. “I have one more question!”

“Just one more before we move on,” Fernando said over his shoulder.

“I just looked at these signs,” Eleanor explained, “and I noticed the dates. Fernando I was in power over seven hundred years ago! How is that possible? How are there only eight generations over that much time? I don’t understand how each king could live that long.”

“They didn’t all live for the same amount of time,” Fernando corrected her, “but the answer is something you’re about to find out.

Come this way.”

Eleanor frowned, but still left the gallery and rejoined Matt, Cassy and Sheena. The four followed Fernando all the way to end of the museum, past numerous exhibits, until they reached the back wall. Spreading out across that wall was an immense mural cast in bronze. Its scale in both physical size and in terms of the sweeping events it depicted left the quartet stunned at the sight of it. Even at a glance, the portrayals of humans and Pokémon engaged in an odyssey of peace and conflict that played across the artwork impressed upon the viewer the scope of La Ciudad Dorada’s history.

THE UNDERGROUND

“Sutter told me there was an amazing mural here he thought I should see,” Matt said as he stared up at the artwork with the others.

“This is not the one your grandfather saw when he was here.” Fernando’s voice carried a hint of bitterness, and even though all of his guests heard it, none of them noticed him tighten his fists. “The original mural was replaced by this carving as the final piece of Godey’s design of the museum. Once everything calms down I intend to replace it with a new painting created by artists from La Ciudad Dorada, as the original one was.”

“Would you donate this one to another museum?” Sheena asked. “It would be a shame for it to go to waste, and I can think of at least one museum in Sinnoh that would gladly accept it.”

“Sure. They can have it,” Fernando replied with a dismissive scoff. “That’s a matter for another time. For now, the story of my kingdom.”

Matt and the others followed Fernando’s indication to the beginning of the tale depicted by the carving. The very first section showed people and simplistic buildings, all gathered under a large sun. Around them was a rough landscape dotted by a small number of plants.

“Long ago, this land was a desert where a small community of people dwelled,” Fernando explained while his guests examined the artwork. “Life

was difficult for them, but they worked hard and were in turn rewarded enough by the land permitting them to survive. So it was for a while, and the people were happy. However, it did not last. Eventually, the environment grew harsher, and the people struggled to just survive day by day. All seemed lost.”

Fernando stopped talking and gestured for his guests to follow him to the next part of the mural, which they did. They found themselves looking up at a depiction of people surrounding a mountain while a man in a cape stood atop it, his arms spread to the sky. At his side were a Lucario and an insectoid Pokémon, while in front of him a single flower was planted. Above them all was the shape of the same hedgehog-like Pokémon Sheena and Eleanor had seen in the painting earlier.

“Just when the people were about to give up hope, a wanderer appeared,” continued the count. “From where he came, they did not know. He was accompanied by the Pokémon called Lucario and Golisopod, and took pity on their suffering. In order to restore hope, he climbed the Sacred Hill and atop it planted a single flower, which he called Gracidea. He then asked the people to think of everything in their lives they were thankful for. The Gracidea flower responded to their feelings of gratitude, and from the golden light it cast, the Gardener of Gratitude emerged… Shaymin.”

-025

“I know stories from Sinnoh about Shaymin,” Matt commented, not taking his eyes off the carving. “I knew it appeared in response to gratitude, so this all makes sense to me.”

“Is there any knowledge of who the wanderer was?”

Sheena stepped forward and said in response to Cassy’s question, “I can tell you, if Fernando would like me to.”

“Go right ahead,” Fernando urged.

“Well, he is the reason I came here in the first place,” she said to the others.

When she turned her eyes back up to the figure in the mural she missed Fernando clench his teeth, an act Matt, Cassy and Eleanor also didn’t notice.

“The writings of my people say that this man was a Tenganist warrior priest from the Ransei region who wandered the world in search of something.”

“Something?” puzzled.

Cassy

repeated,

“It’s not known what he was searching for, unfortunately. What is known about him is that he was extremely powerful and skilled in channeling Gaia, the energy that flows through the planet and all living things.”

“I’ve heard that word before…” Matt said, again putting his hand on his chin while he searched his memory.

“I think my grandfather mentioned it in passing, but I don’t know anything about it.”

“I would be happy to tell you more once we have some free time,” Sheena offered. She brought her hands together in front of herself almost as if she was praying. “For now, though, what you should know is that it gives my people power. Every one of us is different… for example, I’m able to connect with the hearts of humans and Pokémon to communicate with them.

The wanderer, on the other hand…”

Sheena turned to Fernando. “Is it correct to say his power is a key to La Ciudad Dorada’s history?”

“A very astute observation,” Fernando complimented her, his earlier frustration seemingly gone.

“Here, have a look at this.”

The count guided his guests’ attention to the next section of the carving. The wanderer was there, again standing over the people with his arms spread out, but in front of him were Shaymin and the shape of what appeared to be a fountain, along with a man wearing a crown. Behind him, meanwhile, was the gigantic Pokémon from the painting with Shaymin.

“Regigigas!” surprise.

Matt

exclaimed

in

“You recognize it, the Colossal Pokémon?” Fernando ventured.

“There’s no way I couldn’t,” Matt responded, “having grown up in Snowpoint City. I didn’t know it was here too.”

THE UNDERGROUND

“As the people continued to express gratitude for what they had,” said Fernando as he resumed the story, “Shaymin brought new life to the land, turning the once-barren desert into a lush paradise. With his work done, the wanderer entrusted Shaymin with the responsibility of ensuring the people stayed on the path of righteousness. A leader emerged among the people, one with the exact values Shaymin sought.

In order to ensure wise leadership would continue and keep the kingdom on the correct path, the wanderer took all the people to where Regigigas slept.

They knew not where it came from, but the wanderer taught them that it would watch over and protect them as long as they continued to be gracious for what the land gave them. He then built a fountain whose waters flowed with the life energy of the earth, gave Shaymin control of it, and invited the leader of the people to drink from it. When the leader did so, his body was invigorated and his life, greatly extended. He was my ancestor, King Fernando I.” “As I thought,” Sheena said. “My people say that the wanderer was so skilled in using Gaia that he even discovered a way to infuse it into his body and render himself unaging. It makes sense that he could construct a device to do that for others.”

“What did you mean by him giving Shaymin control of the fountain?”

Eleanor asked while Matt stood nearby, lost in thought.

“To clarify,” Fernando explained with his finger raised, “only Shaymin can make the fountain’s life-giving waters flow, to ensure that only those judged worthy can obtain its power and lead our kingdom.”

“I’m beginning to understand what the threat you summoned me here to help with is,” Matt suddenly said.

“Oh?” Fernando wondered.

“You said your sister murdered your parents and stole two clues to the Golden City’s location along with the royal Pokémon, which I assume is Shaymin. If that’s correct, and your conclusion that she wants to usurp the throne is correct, I have to guess that the fountain is in the Golden City and she intends to take Shaymin there to obtain eternal youth.”

Fernando joined his hands behind his back, shut his eyes, and smiled.

“There’s that brain that I knew would help me reach the Golden City before her.” He pivoted around and beckoned his guests to follow. “The kingdom grew over several generations,” he narrated as he guided the group past a depiction of Lingote Palace towering over a massive city filled with flora and Pokémon. “Eventually, as you know, it grew into an empire that stretched out into the horizon visible from the Sacred Hill. For many years, this prosperity continued unabated. However…”

Fernando came to a sudden stop, prompting the others to do so as well.

-027

They all looked up at the carving and found a very different scene playing out in front of them.

No longer were the residents of La Ciudad Dorada coexisting. They were locked in combat, both the humans and their Pokémon allies divided into two groups and viciously fighting. At the center of the chaos, two identical figures wearing crowns stood in opposition to each other.

“It clearly didn’t last,” Cassy guessed. “Who are those two in the middle of it?”

“The contemporary king and his… closest advisor,” Fernando replied.

“The king’s advisor desired the power of the throne for himself and organized a rebellion. Soon, the royal court broke into two factions and La Ciudad Dorada descended into civil war.”

“Sounds like the exact opposite of gratitude,” Eleanor commented.

“Another astute observation,” Fernando said while leading the group forward. “The war consumed the entire kingdom, and both the leaders and their people lost view of what to feel gratitude for. They lost their way, and, well…”

Instead of finishing his sentence, Fernando simply gestured to the mural, and once the quartet saw what was in front of them, they immediately understood.

The

imagery

was

stark

and

unmistakable. Regigigas, with three smaller Pokémon around it, was smashing through buildings, roads and everything else in its path. Anything not within immediate reach was destroyed by projectiles and beams the four Pokémon deployed instead.

Everything around them was aflame.

Matt, Cassy, Eleanor and Sheena all understood exactly what the stakes were even before Fernando spoke again.

“When the kingdom lost its way, they fell victim to a great curse. Regigigas awoke from its slumber, summoned Regirock, Regice and Registeel to its side, and wrought terrible vengeance on the kingdom. It didn’t matter which side of the war they were on, none were spared from Regigigas’ judgment.

Before long, the king and his advisor realized what they had done and laid down their arms.”

Fernando took a single deep breath before escorting the group to the final part of the carving. The two identical figures now stood among broken buildings and ruined earth, raising their hands to Regigigas. Shaymin was in the air over their heads, giving off beams of light. Unlike the previous part of the mural, this one made its viewers relax. Even without explanation, they were able to see its message of peace.

“Once again, the king, his advisor and the rest of the people gave thanks for what they had. Shaymin was energized by these newfound feelings

THE UNDERGROUND

of gratitude, and was able to use its light to calm Regigigas. Regigigas and its three subordinates returned to sleep. The king and the people agreed not to rebuild their empire beyond the city surrounding the Sacred Hill, choosing instead to abandon that land as an act of respect for Regigigas’ power. They built the Golden City around Regigigas’ place of rest as a tribute to it, then obscured its location in order to hide both Regigigas and the life-giving fountain from everyone but a chosen few. And that…” Fernando turned around and put his hands on his hips. “...is the history of my kingdom.

Do you understand why it is so urgent we find the Golden City before Rosalita does?”

None of the four answered at first.

The story was still sinking into their minds.

“Yes,” Matt finally answered, his voice low. “If Rosalita gets there first, she’ll end up unleashing the curse again and Regigigas will destroy everything here. Everything it didn’t destroy the first time.”

Fernando nodded approvingly, but before he could say anything Eleanor asked him, “Doesn’t she know what will happen?”

“She believes her vision for allowing La Ciudad Dorada to join deeply with the outside world is the righteous path.” Mentioning this was getting Fernando emotional again, and this

time he tightened his fists in full view of his guests. “She believes that beyond everything else. It’s a game of life and death for the kingdom, and her obsession will destroy it!”

“If there is a risk of Regigigas awakening, I should come along as well,” Sheena volunteered. “As I said, I can communicate with the hearts of humans and Pokémon. Should the worst case scenario occur, I can use my power to try and calm it down before anything happens.”

“That will be helpful,” Fernando replied, “though allow me to warn you that doing that with Regigigas won’t be easy. That must be the absolute last resort.”

“We’ll have to work hard enough so it doesn’t come to that,” resolved Eleanor.

“What makes you want to be a part of this?” Cassy asked her.

“If you think about it, building a whole city out of gold must have taken some real ingenuity. I’ve got to see the Golden City so I can figure out how they did it.” Eleanor frowned and turned her head away from Cassy. “Besides, I…” Their conversation was cut off by the sudden sound of a bell’s ominous chime. As soon as he heard it, Fernando looked up toward the ceiling with a look of shock on his face.

“What is that?”

Initially ignoring Matt’s question,

-029

Fernando pushed past him and started heading back to the museum’s exit before abruptly turning around. “As of this moment you four are soldiers of this kingdom,” he declared, running his fingers over the golden buttons of his mint-green silk shirt. “We’re under attack.”

-:Outside Lingote Palace, the flower fields were aflame. The Pokémon living there fled the hilltop for their lives as gouts of fire rained from above. Four Pokémon, seemingly unsupervised by any trainer, were carrying out the siege with only a single Bronzong deployed by one of the guards to stand in their way.

One of the attacking Pokémon, a Magmortar wearing a glowing collar, turned both of his cannon arms toward an as-yet-undamaged patch of flowers and launched a wave of flames. The guard immediately replied, swinging her staff and calling out, “Bronzong, Protect!”

Her Pokémon responded with surprising agility, flying in front of Magmortar’s Heat Wave and crossing its arms to generate a shield of light.

It worked to deflect the flames, but within moments an Electivire - also wearing a glowing collar - bounded over Magmortar, using magnetism to propel herself. She produced electrified

netting from her fingers, trapping and shocking Bronzong.

“Bronzong, Gyro Ball!”

try

to

escape

using

Bronzong exerted every ounce of its strength to try and force itself up, but ultimately, all it could do was raise its arms. Electivire’s Electroweb held the Steel-and-Psychic-type Pokémon down and continued to conduct electricity into it.

With Bronzong sufficiently restrained, the collared Probopass sitting at the edge of the hill rotated to face the fourth attacker, a tortoiselike creature whose red-and-yellow body was covered with partially melted bits of metal armor. Probopass’s eyes glowed with a green light that also surrounded the other Pokémon, who then levitated through the air as Probopass turned herself back towards Bronzong. Probopass deposited the other Pokémon near Electivire and Magmortar, and she stomped up to stand between them. All three then started to build up fire, with Magmortar gathering flames in his arms while the other two did so in their mouths.

“Bronzong, get out of there!” the guard plead with her Pokémon to no avail.

All three attacking Pokémon released blasts of fire at the prone Bronzong at once, the middle spinning into a cyclone shape while the others remained straight. The guard planted

THE UNDERGROUND

her staff in the ground, shut her eyes and braced herself for what seemed like the inevitable brutalization of her partner.

Her frightened state was broken not by the explosion she was expecting, but by the sound of a Poké Ball opening alongside a cry from an unexpected voice.

“Sally, Hydro Pump! Hurry!”

She reopened her eyes and discovered that Fernando, Matt, Cassy, Eleanor and Sheena had arrived alongside her at the gate. Matt was the one who had thrown a Poké Ball, releasing a Salamence who immediately spit a flood of water that turned the attackers’ flames into harmless clouds of steam.

“Are you alright?”

Fernando hurriedly asked the guard. When she nodded wordlessly, he instead asked, “What is all this?”

“They came over the side of the hill and just started burning everything,” the guard shakily explained.

“That’s… that’s Heatran,” Sheena said to the others as she stepped back. Her arms and legs shook as she pointed at the quadrupedal Pokémon between Electivire and Magmortar.

“The Pokémon that’s the living soul of volcanoes and magma…”

“What’s it doing here?” wondered, her lip curling.

Cassy

“Rosalita’s begun her attack…”

Fernando said to himself, though

loud enough for his guests to hear.

He turned to the guard and instructed her, “Have your Bronzong put out the fires. We should be able to deal with these four.”

“Yes, sir.”

Recovering her composure, the guard pointed her staff at Bronzong. “Bronzong, Rain Dance!”

Even while still trapped underneath Electivire’s Electroweb, Bronzong was able to lift its arms between the threads. Its eyes flashed white three times, and after the third flash, dark clouds gathered over the garden.

Within seconds a heavy rain had begun, and the fires throughout the garden were soon well on their way to being put out.

“What other Pokémon do you have?”

Fernando demanded of the group.

“If this was a one-on-one battle I have confidence Sally would be enough,” Matt replied while reaching into his bag, “but looking at this… if I’m not mistaken, Heatran’s Fire and Steel-type?”

“Yes, Fire confirmed.

and

Steel,”

Sheena

“Then I think I know what to do.

Anton, Rocky, make your mark!”

In a single swift motion, Matt pulled two more Poké Balls from his bag and threw the spheres, which burst open in twin flares of light to release a Rhyperior and a Hitmonchan.

Sally landed next to them and roared

-031

while the two Pokémon sized up their opponents; Anton stomped his heavy feet and Rocky hit his boxing gloves together to get ready.

The presence of new opponents drew the attackers’ attention away from Bronzong. Heatran was the first to act, opening her wide iron mouth so light could gather inside of it. Magmortar rushed Matt’s Pokémon before Heatran’s attack completed, his arms glowing with green light.

“Rocky, stop Magmortar with Drain Punch!”

A green, swirling vortex took shape around Rocky’s right arm as he ran forward to meet Magmortar. Both of them struck each other at the same time, and while they separated some green energy floated out of Magmortar’s body and merged with Rocky, healing some of the wounds he had just suffered. Magmortar quickly recovered, however, and rushed back in to strike Rocky a second time to complete his Dual Chop.

At that point, Heatran could hold no more light in her mouth. Probopass locked onto Magmortar and lifted him out of the way with Telekinesis, giving Heatran the opening she needed to launch a powerful Flash Cannon attack at Anton. The Rhyperior was nowhere near agile enough to escape from the light, so he braced himself and took the beam’s effects head-on.

“Good thing Anton’s ability is Solid

Rock,” Cassy commented to the others.

“That would have hurt him much more otherwise.”

Fernando stepped up next to Matt and put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. “It looks like that Probopass is playing a support role for its teammates,” the count observed.

“If it was knocked out of the fight, the others might lose their coordination.”

“That’s a good idea,” Matt agreed, “but it’s probably going to be tough breaking through to it.” Turning to Anton, who was breathing deeply after taking Heatran’s Flash Cannon, he directed, “Anton, see what you can do with Drill Run.” He then said to his Salamence, “Sally, give Anton some air support.”

While Sally pushed off into the air with her powerful wings, Anton started rotating the horn on his nose like a drill and lumbered forward with as much speed as he could muster. He had Probopass in his sights, but Heatran intervened by firing a quicker, less powerful Flash Cannon at him. Sally shielded her teammate by cutting off Heatran’s attack with her own stream of fire, causing both forces to cancel each other out in an explosion of heat and smoke. Anton nodded and gave a growl of appreciation to Sally, who replied with a grunt that allowed some stray embers to slip from her mouth.

Suddenly, Electivire propelled herself into the air by projecting magnetic force

THE UNDERGROUND

from her hands. She cast an Electroweb from her fingers to repel Sally, who retreated rather than be trapped like Bronzong was, then pulled her fist back to punch the ground when she landed. The seismic wave that resulted knocked Anton off his feet, creating an opening for Heatran to fire Flash Cannon directly into his face.

“Sally, try to get Probopass from the air! Hydro Pump!”

Having dodged the Electroweb, Sally attempted to fly forward again, but as soon as she opened her mouth Probopass levitated Magmortar into her way. Magmortar unexpectedly discharged electricity from his body, a Thunderbolt that traveled up the water coming from Sally’s maw and made her howl in pain as the shock coursed through her body.

“These aren’t just random Pokémon, Matt uttered in frustration. “Rosalita trained them well…”

“My sister knows she needs an effective fighting force to take the throne,” Fernando remarked.

While Matt and Fernando tried to work out a strategy, Sheena stepped forth. “Allow me to try using my power and connect with their hearts. I may be able to slow down or stop their attack.” Sheena clasped her hands together and chanted, “Transcend the confines of time and space!”

When those words came off her lips,

the world melted away in Sheena’s mind. No longer did she see herself on the Sacred Hill with Fernando, Matt or anyone else beside her. Instead, her mind placed her consciousness in a sea of blue light with only the hearts of the Pokémon around her for company. Her visualizations of Anton, Rocky and Sally all had gentle blue auras around them, but Heatran, Electivire, Magmortar and Probopass were all cloaked in an intense red.

“Please, stop your attack,” she mentally implored them. For a brief moment, it seemed to work. Sheena could feel herself connecting with them and sensed their hesitation to continue, but just as she smiled at her apparent success a flood of energy from the collars intensified their red auras.

Their collective rage broke Sheena’s concentration and forced her back into reality, where she stumbled back.

“Sheena!” concern.

Eleanor

exclaimed

in

“They’re too overcome with anger…” Sheena weakly said to the others. “I can’t reach them. Just as I thought I got through, those collars influenced their minds, or at least they did on the three besides Heatran…

Heatran doesn’t have one, whatever’s controlling it must be elsewhere.”

“Wait, did you say collars?” Sheena’s words made Matt stop to adjust his glasses and examine his opponents more closely. When he noticed the

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devices around the necks of Electivire and Magmortar, and around the red magnet on Probopass’s head, he could feel his stomach sink. “Cassy…” he blankly said, “do those look familiar to you?”

“Collars with blue, glowing lights on them…” she said, squinting at Electivire and Magmortar. “Sure sounds like what your grandfather’s secretary and those guards said they saw that night…”

“What is she speaking of?” Fernando questioned.

Matt didn’t answer. He was too consumed with the storm of emotions the presence of the collars dragged up for him. “They’re the same as the one that Dragonite wore…” he thought, staring down at the ground with his mouth hanging open. “That means that whoever sent these four… they have to be connected to the guy who killed him!”

Cassy could tell from intently watching Matt what was about to happen. “Whatever you’re about to do, don’t do it before you think-” “Rocky, go for Probopass with Drain Punch!” It wouldn’t be accurate to say Matt ignored Cassy. Instead, he was completely unaware she’d even said anything. “Anton, hit Heatran with Drill Run!” Neither Pokémon hesitated to follow their trainer’s direction, even as reckless as it was. Rocky sprinted

past Heatran, whose attention was drawn away by Anton heading straight for her. The legendary Fire-andSteel-type Pokémon stomped one of her cross-shaped feet against the ground, sending a glowing yellow light cracking through the earth that ultimately erupted beneath Anton, knocking him down.

Rocky, meanwhile, found his path to Probopass blocked by Electivire and Magmortar. Electivire cast an Electroweb at Rocky in an attempt to ensnare him, only for the Fightingtype to weave around it. As soon as Rocky did so, Magmortar responded by extending his arms and aiming his cannons in the Hitmonchan’s direction, while Electivire drew in a deep breath. Even in the rain, their combination of Heat Wave and Flamethrower had enough strength to send Rocky flying back to where he started when they hit him, leaving him covered with burn marks.

“Matt, calm down and listen to me,” Cassy said while Rocky pushed himself back up. “I have an idea. At the school I read about Heatran. If I’m remembering correctly, Heatran’s ability is Flash Fire. If you can get Rocky to copy it with Role Play, what just happened can’t happen again.” “...because Rocky will absorb all their flames,” Matt realized.

“Let me help you open up a path,” volunteered Eleanor. “I can help.”

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“Alright,” Matt agreed, “when you see an opening, try to distract Electivire.” After seeing Eleanor nod in acquiescence, Matt turned his attention to his Pokémon. “Rocky, use Role Play on Heatran! Anton, you try Drill Run again!”

each other. Persian grabbed Electivire with her front legs and flipped the Electric-type Pokémon into the air; Electivire managed to stabilize herself with Magnet Rise only for Sally to plow into her headfirst as a purple aura enveloped her body.

Rocky remained in place while his hulking teammate trudged forward once more. The Hitmonchan locked met Heatran’s glare, causing his eyes to turn the same orange color as Heatran’s. Heatran paid him no mind, instead opting to focus entirely on repelling Anton’s approach. She aimed to again hit him in the face with Flash Cannon, only for Sally to swoop in from above and block it with her own Hydro Pump.

Left without his usual partner, Magmortar pressed on alone in a bid to protect Probopass. He again targeted Rocky with his arm cannons, but when he launched his Heat Wave from them, Rocky felt nothing from it. Empowered by his newly acquired Flash Fire ability, he was able to simply run through the flames, his body absorbing any that made contact with him. Seeing this, Magmortar didn’t budge and instead shifted tactics. Electricity sparked around his body as a Thunderbolt started to take form. Before he could strike, however, Magmortar was blown away by a pulse of black energy rings Persian launched from the gem on her head. With that, Rocky had a clear path to Probopass.

“Alright, Rocky, this is it! Go for Probopass as hard as you can!”

Sensing her opportunity, Eleanor threw a Poké Ball of her own and called out, “Persian, show that Electivire your Foul Play!”

Eleanor’s Persian burst from the Poké Ball, and as soon as she materialized her differences from a normal Persian became apparent. She was purple instead of the usual tan color, and her head was fluffy and round.

The two Pokémon, Rocky and Persian, sprinted side-by-side toward their foes. Electivire tried and failed to snare them in an Electroweb, and after dodging it the pair split from

Seeing the danger she was in, Probopass used her Telekinesis to levitate Heatran toward herself. This proved to be a fatal mistake. With her back now turned, Heatran couldn’t protect herself. Sally seized the chance to knock Heatran to the ground by blasting her with water, where Anton was ready to keep up their counterattack by smashing his rotating horn into Heatran’s side. A pained croak sounded from deep in the legendary Pokémon’s

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throat, and her legs gave out.

throne knows no bounds.”

Finally, with nothing left standing in his way, Rocky was able to pummel Probopass. The swirling green energy shifted between his hands with each punch, and with every strike he landed more of his visible injuries disappeared.

For a short while all Probopass could do was wince and endure the blows, but eventually, she had enough.

She released a magnetic pulse from her body to throw Rocky back, then detached the three small noses from her sides. Her eyes and the eye-like shapes on the small noses all glowed at once, and Electivire, Magmortar and Heatran were picked up by her Telekinesis. Propelling herself with her own magnetism, Probopass floated away, taking her three allies with her.

“This will only be the first battle of this war,” Cassy warned.

The battle left a grim situation in its wake. The garden atop the Sacred Hill, which had been lush and beautiful less than hour before, lay in smoldering cinders. Even though the fires were out the damage was done.

“This is my fault, isn’t it?” Matt uttered, falling to his knees as the severity of the destruction before him sank in. “If I didn’t bring that puzzle box here…”

“Rosalita would have done this no matter what,” Fernando said, just managing to contain his anger. “We can rebuild. We will rebuild, just as we always have. But to think she would resort to such acts… her thirst for the

“You’re right,” Fernando agreed, “which is why it is urgent we find the Golden City before her. If she gains eternal youth this will never end… we should retire to the castle library to examine the clue I still possess. She may already be on the trail of the two she stole.”

-:At the edge of the city, away from the destructive battle at Lingote Palace, a young woman and young man stood in the shadow of one of the towers.

Both had jet-black hair that matched their lightweight jackets, and carried six clockwork Poké Balls each on said jackets. The young woman was also wearing a device on her wrist that projected a red-and-black image of several Pokémon - specifically, Probopass, Electivire, Magmortar and Heatran.

“Lookin’ like the test run was a success,” she said, examining the image. “Bit tough keepin’ track of so many Pokémon at once when they’re fightin’, but I’ll get used.”

“You were always the better of us two at it, Sis.” The young man reached into his coat, retrieving a comb that he ran through his pompadour. “‘ey, Sis.

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When we’ve got that Shaymin and all that gold, where do you want to go and spend it?”

“With that kind of cash, we could go anywhere.” She shut off the projection, walked to her brother, and reached up to put her hand on his shoulder. “Where do you want?”

“Gotta admit, would be nice to head home and get to live like the bigs do for a change. Y’know, like Phenac City?

Total opposite of those streets we grew up on.”

“Bein’ able to go off to that Realgam Tower and not get looked down on by those people… I like the way you think, Bro. Promise you, we ain’t comin’ off this job anything less than filthy rich ourselves when all’s said and done.”

END of CHAPTER 1

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Bitter and Cold

by

Miner7365

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Prologue: Bitter

?'s POV After all this time, we‌ we had defeated it.

It was finally gone‌ The being previously in front of me, formerly known as the Bittercold, was now only scattered spikes of ice, a small remnant of the horrifying monster it once was. It was surreal that, after all this time, it was finally gone. Staring at where the thing once stood, as the dust left from the battle started to clear up, I tried to move forwards before finding some resistance, more then likely energy left over from the Bittercold. I guess I needed to wait.

Pulling my scarf tighter around my neck, in a attempt to warm myself up, I looked back at my partner. He was staring down at the ground, if I had to guess angry that he had to stand back and watch me have to fight it alone, rather then be by my side like he had been this entire journey. I figured he

would be fine for now though. Taking one last second to look back at him, I started to look around again to make sure nothing was left of that thing. Still slightly shivering at the surroundings, the fact that I was a dragon type not helping, I started to walk forward, not wanting to take a chance there was any part of it left in its wake.

If there was any part of it left, it had to be destroyed. I could not take any chances.

As I walked forward towards the center of the room, with me fervently searching for any trace of that thing, I felt something odd come underneath my foot. Slightly sighing, I looked down and found that I was greeted with ahuh?

When I looked down, I was greeted with a image of a Zoroark staring back at me, a polaroid image. It stared at me, tauntingly, as I picked it up and tried to make some sense out of it from the image itself. It was a giant enigma

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to put it lightly, considering how I had not seen a single camera in this world as of yet anyways. So from where had it come from?

Just as I was about to examine the image further, I looked back up and saw Spark slightly whimpering; reminding me of what truly mattered right now.

After I gently put the image away in the bag, I started walking towards him.

It was rare to see him in a state like this, but if he was going through what I thought he was going through, then I needed to help him.

So, I did the one thing I knew I could do to help; I hugged him and softly said something I think he needed to hear.

"It's gone. We're all free now. We're all going to be fine. We've won."

"Everyone is free now."

Seeing him having slightly calmed down after I said that, I took his hand and we started to walk down this mountain.

We, at least for a little while, walked together.

Spark's? POV Riley and I had been walking down the path that had lead us up to that monster for a while now, as I found myself mulling over that last sentence he told me.

"Everyone is free now."

I already knew he said it for the sole purpose of trying to get me back up, but I could say for sure it did not work. If anything, the statement only reminded me of the state I was in before I met him in those woods. Back when I was that thing.

Hollowly chuckling, and in a attempt to get my mind out of the gutter, I looked back up at him. He was so cheery, and probably thought I was too, knowing him and his optimism. I had always had my head in the ditch since my childhood, and for as much as I tried to forget, I never truly could.

In being honest, I had never mentioned this to him for the sole reason that I did not want him to think of me as not being normal. All I wanted from him is to be a friend.

A friend, and for him to not think of me as someone who was honestly scared of what would happen if he was not there anymore. Only just a regular old friend.

That was all I wanted.

Almost chuckling at the sheer irony of the situation, and the fact that I was down when I should be up for once in my life, I looked back towards him. He kept walking, almost marching forward in front of me, a certain proudness in each step, probably pride as to the fact that that thing was finally gone. Despite all the stuff I had done in the cavern, he still thought of me as normal, and did not catch on to my true self.

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And I hoped that it was going to stay that way, at least, until I was finally ready to tell him.

If hoping actually meant anything, other then putting blind faith into something.

Sighing at the comment I had just made, I followed him as we continued to walk.

I was just being a pessimist as usual, everything would be fine.

It had to be.

Riley's POV When we got back to town, we were praised as heroes.

Everybody in Post Town had gotten a giant celebration ready at Swanna's inn, with everyone having something to say or something to thank us for. It was one of the most uplifting things I had seen in a while.

Although, in saying that, I swore I saw the slightest tinge of melancholy in Spark's face as I walked past by him during my talk with Emolga. It seemed like I was the only one who noticed it, but it was there. It was there, and it seemed so odd for him.

He was usually the kind of guy to have his head constantly up, so why was he down right now? What could have been so bad?

For a little while, I tried to disregard it, just talking to everyone and trying

to have fun on this celebratory day.

But every time I almost got involved in something, my mind would jump back to the topic of Spark. I could not get my mind off of him no matter what.

I knew I needed to get away for a little while. All I needed to do was go have a few moments to think.

Taking one last moment to take in the lively atmosphere the entire area gave off, I walked towards the door, leaving the lively atmosphere within the inn for the desolate place that was Post Town at night. I could still hear the lively noises of chatter as I walked away into the now empty square, as I looked up at the stars the entire time. They almost seemed to be beckoning me.

And at the same time, also reminding me of all the nights I spent stargazing outside of Driftveil, wondering what was up there. In a way, it almost seemed as if they were calling to me, telling me to go back. Slightly chuckling at the thought, I continued looking up at the stars. Why was I even thinking about that, anyways, it was not like that was even a option any- wait.

Was it an option?

I mean, the Bittercold was gone, and Hydreigon had shown that he was capable of bringing humans to this world. Surely the opposite was true?

Perhaps. I mean, in being honest, going back was a question I had not

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even thought about in so, so long. I had become so accustomed to being here I never really considered it that much in recent times. Was it possible for me to go back?

Would I have to chose between being here, or being with Alexia back home?

Because I was not sure I would even be able to make that choice. In being honest, did I even want to have that choice?

I sighed after I reached the overhang on top of the town, the best place for looking out at the stars. Sitting down, I looked out towards the surrounding landscape; in all their serenity and beauty, with the stars twinkling over the overarching trees on the hills. If anything, I knew I was overreacting to all of this. Even if it was a option, I could worry about that tomorrow or the next day or in a week. Today, I should just be happy that the Bittercold was finally gone.

Today, nothing was going to go wrong— Suddenly, before I had a moment to finish that though, Hydreigon flew into view from below the cliff, slightly startling me. I wondered what in Arceus' name he needed me for, but I simply stayed silent as he began to talk.

"Oh, uh… hey, nice seeing you Riley.

How have you been?”

Scratching my head, confused as to

his presence, I asked, "Hydreigon, is there a issue or…”

I heard him sigh. "No, no, it's... it's nothing. I just want to formally thank you again for everything you did.

Really, I appreciate it."

My hand started scratching the back of my head. "Well, that's sweet and all, but why the privacy? Is… is there something else you need to tell me?”

The more we talked, the more and more I was put off by this whole situation in general. Why had he come all the way out here to tell me how thankful he was if he could have just done that when I got back to the party?

Was he hiding something? Because if he was, I was not sure whether I was going to like what it turned out to be.

I was not sure I was going to like it at all.

After a few prolonged moments of silence, with only the cutting noises of wind and ruffling of leaves making a dent in it, he said, "Well uh… you see… there is this… this thing involving… involving you that I… I need to tell you…”

Now slightly sniffling, he continued. "Riley, your… your time in this world is almost up. As much as I am thankful for what you have done, for the sake of this world you… you need to go back.”

"I have to send you back. I have to.

I'm… I'm so sorry…”

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It was then, at that exact moment, that everything felt like it came crashing down.

But if there was one thing I needed to do, it was get away, like I originally left the party to do. Just get away.

After all this time, I had to go back. It would be a lie to say I had not considered whether I wanted to go back, but that was me thinking of it theoretically weeks or even months down the line.

Here, I was being told I had to go back almost immediately after I defeated that monster. If anything, it felt like it had to be a giant joke.

All I needed to do was get away right now.

And a bad joke at that. The kind of joke you would play on someone you hated. The one that was not funny to anybody but the person making it. It felt like one, big, giant joke.

Finding myself unable to muster up anything to say, I simply walked over to a tree and laid against its side, looking up at the stars. Hydreigon followed me over, much to my chagrin, but I was not about to tell the literal voice of the world off.

Not even bothering to look towards his way as I leaned against a tree, I asked him,"When? When do you have to send me back?"

"Ttomorrow unfortunately..."

morning,

Sighing, I closed my eyes, before kicking one of the nearby rocks off the hill into the stark abyss beyond.

Hydreigon continued looking down at me, probably hating himself for having to say that whole thing knowing him.

Getting off the side of the tree, I started walking before Hydreigon flew in front of me. "Oh uh… there is… is something else I need to uh… tell you.”

Sighing, I asked, "What else could there possibly be?"

Hydreigon looked to the side, shaking his head before finally saying, "There… there is also… also the fact that… that they’ll forget… they’ll forget all about you after… after tomorrow.”

"After tomorrow, you… will basically have never existed in the eyes of everyone around here,” I backed up slightly, glancing around, before he continued. “I’m sorry, but it’s the only way for me to stop any damage you coming here might have caused to the world. I have to do this.”

This was not real, and I knew it.

This could not possibly be happening.

Everyone here was going to forget that I ever existed. All of this might as well not have ever happened to me, considering only I and Hydreigon would be the ones that remembered.

In the eyes of most, these six months might as well not even have happened.

And, it was at that fact, that I found myself breaking down on that hill that night. This could not be happening. It

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just could not. In their eyes, I would have never existed. He was just going to erase all those friendships, and make it like they never existed. He was going to take away the one time I felt like a hero from everyone else. He was just going to take that away.

"Just… meet me here tomorrow, okay,” I heard Hydreigon say, slight sobbing originating from his eyes; slight sobbing I did not want or need.

"I… I know this probably is not how you… you thought your journey would end, but… it is how it is…”

Not wanting to hear anything else, I got up and walked out of the area, hoping Hydreigon would get the hint not to follow. Thankfully, he did.

Knowing I could not go back to the party in the state I was in after that, I continued walking back through the town, hearing a slight ruffling in the bushes I did not bother to investigate, taking it as some feral Fletchling or some little thing that got lost from whatever parents it had. In all honesty, I just did not care.

The walk evolved into a run towards my house, with me only wanting to get away.

Because everything hurt so, so badly.

Spark's POV No… No… no…

This… this could not be happening…

I found myself dashing away from the bush, the bush I had just spied on the whole scene from. I did not know if he noticed the noise from the ruffling of the leaves, but I did not care at the time. Instead, I was too busy caring about what was happening in front of me.

This… this could not be happening…

No… please be a dream… please wake up…

Please…

Memories of the time I told him he should stay here forever came back up in my head, memories that now seemingly haunted me. I told him that, I told him in some hope that it would make him want to stay here, if he ever got a choice and figured out what happened to him.

But of course, it was never a choice, was it? Stories involving me have never had happy endings before, so why would this one be any different? Was I being oblivious?

And then there was the fact… the fact that I was going to forget…

That I would forget all about him… forget all about everything…

Who was I going to be when I forgot… would I still be Spark or… or would I be… would I be him again?

Everything felt like pure agony as I found myself running through the woods, the trees towering over me

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like judges. It was so dark that they looked only looked like towering pillars moving all around me, judging me. They all judged me, judged me for hoping, judged me for believing everything could be good for once, judged me for trying to be someone I was not.

I was so scared of losing Spark, yet it already felt like he was slipping.

Slipping, slipping, and slipping.

Eventually, the towering judges of the forest gave me a final verdict of their own, when I tripped over a root leading to me ramming my head into a fallen log, taking all the wind I still had in me out in one fell swoop.

Darkness consumed my vision as I fell unconscious, not waking up until the light of day shined over all.

And when I woke up, hours later, I remembered how it felt to be alone again.

It hurt.

Riley's POV When my eyes started to twitch open as the light of morning sprawled across my face, I knew my time in this world was starting to come to a close.

Sighing, regretting my actions fueled by anger last night, especially not going to the party again, I continued laying down.

Eventually, after delaying the inevitable as long as I could, I fully

opened my eyes and took one last glance across the room, taking in everything one last time. I found it odd that Spark had not shown back up last night, but I disregarded it, knowing I would not have time to investigate before Hydreigon would send me back.

Either way, I would be spending these final few moments in this world alone. Alone, without him.

Sighing, and seeing no point in procrastinating, I got up and walked towards my bag. I shuffled through it, trying to see if there was anything of that much importance I might want to take with me, if I even could. Something to remember these times I spent here with all of them, together. A kind of memento, almost.

As I kept on shuffling through the bag, I started to lose hope that I would find anything that might work as one.

I was about to fully give up when I felt a very familiar texture come in contact with my hand.

It was that image, that image of that Zoroark I found where the Bittercold once was. The thing that defied all my expectation as to what I would find in there.

I could have just left it, and let all of them back at the Paradise investigate it by themselves. But something about it kept bring back this weird sense of remembrance almost, it was odd. And I knew, if I was going to take anything, it had to be this.

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Slowly pulling the image out, I put it on the ground to free up my hands before closing the bag for the final time I ever would. I had no need to bring it with me, considering almost all the stuff in there would not be useful to me, so I left it there for Spark to find and use.

Where was he, anyways? It was not like him for him to do stuff like this.

Sure, he seemed down, but I had never seen him so down that he did not come back to the house. Did I hurt him by saying something?

I almost considered ditching Hydreigon in a attempt to go find Spark, but I knew that would be a horrid call.

Hydreigon knew better then me, after all, and had helped saved my life from Munna who had tried to hold Spark ransom in order to get me to come out.

I had to respect his wishes, no matter how much they conflicted mine. I could not just betray him.

And besides, he was going to be fine and I knew it. I was just overreacting as usual.

Only over-questioning things that should not be questioned, connecting dots that were never meant to be connected in the first place. If anything, I just needed to get going already and stop procrastinating.

So, softly sighing, I took one last look around the entire place, before walking out of there forever, only to be greeted with the beautiful hues of the morning sky the greet me. On any

other day, I would have found some joy at the sight.

Had it not been the last time I knew I was going to see it. If that little thing was not true.

Trying to get the topic out of my head, I started the long walk to Post Town, constantly thinking about everything I had done here over the last several months. I thought about the time we got Conkeldurr to build that house, and of all the times me and Spark walked along this path. I thought about all the times I had here, all the good and the bad times. I thought about it all.

It was sad, really, how I would soon be the only one with these memories.

If what Hydreigon said was true, then I really was going to be the only one that remembered all of this. This entire journey would stay situated inside my head, only my own, personal little adventure that in the eyes of everyone I knew here, never happened.

Not even Spark.

I never really had a choice, did I? Sighing, and trying to get the thoughts out of my head, I found myself at the gates of post town, with everyone still asleep in their houses. I quietly took in the silence, taking one last glance at the entire area. To think, less then twelve hours prior, I was walking here to simply de-stress. All that memories of things that I did here flashed before me, almost hauntingly.

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In a lot of ways, I wished I had stayed at that party. I really wish I did.

All I could do was hollowly chuckle in my own self-pity as I walked towards the hill, before climbing the steps. Every step was harder then the last, with this being the end of all the experiences I was ever going to have here. This was it.

It was time for this journey of mine to finally reach its conclusion.

After what felt like way too little time, I found myself up in the overhang, with Hydreigon being there as well. We both looked at each other for a while, silently exchanging glances. We both knew it why the other was there.

Eventually, he broke the silence, sighing and saying, "So… are you ready? If you aren’t, I’m fine with you taking a few more seconds t-” I interrupted him. "No, let's just get this over with. There is no point in waiting anyways, is there? I just want to get it over with."

Hydreigon looked somberly at the ground; whether it be in disappointment with himself for having to do this, or the fact that I was being torn away from everything I had known for the last several months, without even a proper chance to say goodbye. Either way, a ball of light slowly enveloped me, before it started to rise bringing me higher and higher in the sky. Post Town lay before me, everything I knew becoming smaller

and smaller every second.

Here it was, all in front of me. The entire town.

All the memories of this place.

The time I had told everyone I was truly human. All the times I went to Kecleon to get supplies for the mission.

Everything.

Everything I had done in the last several months, everywhere I considered home for a long time stretched out in front of me; seemingly forever. I swore I could feel a tear slowly fall from my face as it went further and further from view.

Eventually, I heard Hydreigon ask me, "Is there… is there any… any last place you would like to visit before you leave? Anywhere?”

I took a second to wipe the tear that was rolling down my face off, before saying "Could… could I see the Paradise one last time?”

A slight grin formed on his face.

"Of course."

The orb started moving towards the Paradise, gracefully. The landscapes passed by as it slowly approached the main square, with everyone starting to get up and converge at the square, everyone but… but Spark. They all seemingly stared up at the orb I was in, probably trying to find me due to my disappearance. To think this was going to be the last time we saw each other, all the way up in the sky. I could

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not even hear what any of them were saying from all the way up here.

Suddenly, Hydreigon started speaking again, "There, there is something I have to give you. A gift, if you will."

He slowly approached the orb holding something before putting down a frism, of all things. I looked back up at him before I got it to start playing.

When It started to play, I very quickly realized that it was a goodbye message, with Emolga, Dunsparce, Herdier, and even Quagsire chiming in. Everyone was there.

something extremely horrible. That was when I realized he was crying in the middle of the square.

It was then when I realized just how badly I had ignored him in the last few hours I was in this world.

Did I… did I really just pretend everything was fine? Did my own perception of him blind me for the longest time? Did I… really let that happen?

I... I should have known… I should have.

I should have…

For a moment, I felt the slightest tinge of anger toward Hydreigon, for having told them when I wanted to just disappear and not make them suffer.

But, considering how well all of them seemed to take it, I could not stay mad at him.

And as the orb rose higher and higher into the sky that fateful morning, I found myself slamming my fist against the sides of it, sobbing and hating myself. All I cared about was how much I hated myself at that very moment, for not talking to him at the party but instead trying to get away. I should have helped him.

When It finally finished playing, I turned my head to Hydreigon and said, "Thank you, thank—"

I should not have left him alone, and pretended everything was fine. Now, he was alone.

That was when I noticed something was wrong. That something was very, very wrong. He was staring down at the ground, his eyes solely focused on that one thing. Wondering what could be so bad, I looked down to where he was staring.

And for that, I hated myself. I hated myself all the rest of the way up the sky. I hated myself.

Everyone but Spark.

When I looked down, all I saw was Spark staring up at me, with everyone else staring at him as if he had done

When I reached the edge of the sky, I said one last thing. One last thing on that fateful day.

"Spark, please… forgive me.”

"Please…”

And at that moment, everything in

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my sight was consumed by a bright, white light.

Miner7365 Presents Bitter and Cold

Spark's POV …

Everyone had long since stopped staring at the orb, instead staring at me for what I had just done. I had just ruined whatever send off they had prepared for him, and made him feel horrible on his way out of here. But I did not apologize.

Instead, I found myself running.

Running away from everyone. Running away from it all. I found myself running, holding back tears.

Running, running, and running.

Running and feeling horrible.

Running and wondering why all of this had to happen.

Eventually, I found myself back at my house, where I instantly collapsed into a sobbing session. He was gone, forever, and I had made him feel horrible during those final moments. I made him feel horrible, like me.

And so there I lay, sobbing. Sobbing, and hurting. Hating myself, and hating what I had done the entire time.

Because it hurt. It hurt so, so much.

But, despite this, despite all the anger, I swore to myself one thing.

One, single, resolute thing.

“That I will never forget you…”

it… hurts… it hurts… so, so much…

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The Halvarsaga

by Firebrand

-051

Chapter 15 Halvard squinted against the wind and spray as a rocky island came into view in the south. He had expected to feel nervous, but now that the Storm Bringer’s lair was in sight, all he felt was a strange kind of resignation.

Everything in his life had built up to this moment, and success or failure teetered on the edge of a blade. Halvard had never put much stock in fate or the whims of the gods, and he wasn’t about to start now. Whether or not he died here was entirely in his hands.

One misstep was all it would take for him to meet an untimely end.

But he had danced on the precipice of life and death many times. This was nothing new.

Uthald rumbled beneath him, a vibration Halvard felt in the soles of his boots and up through his clenched teeth. A fork of lightning split the overcast sky, throwing the crags on the shore into sharp relief for a handful of heartbeats. “Arceus have mercy,” Dismas chirped on Halvard’s shoulder.

“Wulfric’s god can’t help us now,” the jarl said. “Where we’re going, there’s only one god that matters.”

Uthald adjusted his course and slowly swam up a narrow inlet that reached to nearly the center of the island. Like the fjords back in Rovngalad, the inlet ran deep, with a sharp drop-off only a few feet from the shore. Uthald drew as close to the drop-off as he could, and Halvard jumped down from his perch on the leviathan’s skull, splashing to the shore. He took Dismas from his shoulder and set the air aligned down on a nearby boulder. “We’ve come this far together, lads. But the next steps are ones I ought to take alone.” He met each of their eyes in turn, Dismas’s wide and inquisitive, Uthald’s resolute and cold as flint. “But I need you both ready to fight. Can I count on you?”

Uthald growled low in his throat, and Dismas puffed up his feathers.

“That’s my boys.” Halvard slung one of the stone spears he had made over his shoulder, leaving the rest in a bundle near Dismas’s stone. They had stopped on the forested shores of northern Kalos the previous day, where Halvard had hewn the spears from the sturdy branches he found there, affixing them with stone heads he had carried from

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Rovngalad. He had seen what happened to metal in a thunderstorm, and did not want his fight with the Storm Bringer to end before it had even begun.

Halvard carefully picked his way across the island, keeping his eye on the large crater in the center.

Lightning continued to streak across the sky, followed by percussive booms of thunder. Fortunately, the rain was only a fine mist, not enough to make the rocks treacherous. Soon Halvard crested the rise of the central crater and saw the Storm Bringer in all of its glory. The massive bird raised its head and held Halvard’s gaze for a long moment.

The beast screamed in anger and indignation, spreading its golden and black wings and beating them furiously.

Halvard cringed as its feathers rattled together in mimicry of the thunder above, and the gale from the wingbeats was enough to make him stagger back a pace. “Storm Bringer!” he roared as loudly as he could. “I have need of your power!”

The god screamed again, shooting into the sky. Lightning crackled around it, creating a halo of white and blue light. Bolts scorched the ground near Halvard, and he felt the heat even from several feet away. The stone cracked under the lightning’s fury, leaving smaller craters. Halvard began to wish he’d thought of a better plan.

Well, too late for that now.

He threw back his head and roared again, a wordless shout of defiance.

Zapdos swooped toward him, and Halvard took off at a sprint, vaulting down the rocks. “Come on, you oversized Fletchinder!” he called. “Hit me with your best shot!” Halvard had a moment of sudden inspiration, and he jumped at a rocky spar just before him. He grabbed on with one hand and pulled himself up to the shelf before running to the highest point he could reach. “Hey!” the jarl shouted, waving his arms. “Over here!”

The Storm Bringer whirled about in the air, finally spying Halvard. As it swooped towards him, Halvard settled his stance and let out a breath. As soon as Zapdos came within range, he hurled his spear, striking the god in its flank, just below the wing joint. The god of thunder howled as the missile found its mark, breaking off its dive and winging up into the air. The lightning around it shone brighter, and Halvard felt his hair stand on end. The wooden spear embedded in the Storm Bringer’s side burst, the heat from the lightning causing it to explode.

Halvard jumped from his precipice and took off running again, but not before taking a heartbeat to check that he had actually wounded the god. A spot of crimson blood stained the Storm Bringer’s golden feathers, and Halvard couldn’t help but feeling a flush of triumph. The gods might be monstrosities powerful beyond

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his comprehension, but they weren’t invulnerable. And that was all he needed to know.

Chatot’s spirit. He ran back up the rise and waved his arms. “Zapdos! I’m not finished with you yet!”

He raced towards the inlet where Uthald and Dismas waited. “Get ready!” he called. “It’s coming!” He reached down and scooped up another spear “And it’s angry!”

The Storm Bringer whirled towards his voice and shrieked. Halvard hurled the second spear, a near miss. Zapdos unleashed all of the lightning it had gathered in its feathers, and Halvard barely managed to dive for cover. The exploding stones threw him from his feet and sent him stumbling and offbalance. The Storm Bringer was no longer glowing, and Dismas saw his opportunity to strike.

Zapdos shot out over their heads, glowing like a second sun. The Storm Bringer soared out over the ocean before looping back around. Thunder filled the air, echoing the god’s furious cry. Uthald shifted his coils and reared up, a white light gathering in his maw.

The Storm Bringer unleashed a column of lightning at the Gyarados, but the water aligned answered with a blast of pure energy. The two attacks met and detonated with a boom that drowned out even the thunder. Dismas’s feathers bristled as the smoke from the explosion cleared.

Uthald slipped beneath the waves and into the safety of the depths to recover from the attack while Zapdos flew forward drunkenly, listing too far to the left. Halvard turned to Dismas.

“Uthald won’t be able to save us for a little while. Looks like it’s just you and me.”

Dismas fluttered his wings and launched into the sky. “Once more to break the shields! Once more and forward!” he screamed as he ascended.

“Once more to fight and conquer!”

Halvard couldn’t help but admire the

Stiffening the feathers in his wings, he ascended in a flurry of wingbeats and began to attack the god. Zapdos merely turned in the air and swatted the Chatot away with a contemptuous flick of its wingtips, making Dismas scream in indignation. The Chatot managed to right himself, but Halvard lost him among the roiling storm clouds. He fetched his third spear and climbed to another rise. “Uthald, any time you want to get back up here,” he shouted. “I’d certainly appreciate it!”

This time, he waited to cast his spear. He couldn’t afford any more misses; once this one was gone, he would have only three left. He ducked into the shadow of a rock formation, out of the Storm Bringer’s line of sight.

The god of thunder soared up, scanning the ground for the interlopers, but it saw no sign of them. Halvard watched as the giant thunder aligned cruised

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lower, lower, until finally it landed on the ground just beneath Halvard’s vantage point, surveying the rocky crags with its startlingly blue eyes.

Halvard leapt from his hiding place and attacked the beast from above, managing to score a slash just above the Storm Bringer’s left eye. Halfblinded, the Zapdos screamed and tried to find Halvard, but the jarl was careful to stay on its left. The bird lunged, and Halvard dropped his spear in his haste to get away, the weapon clattering down the rocks. At that moment, Uthald surged up from the depth, sinking his teeth into the Storm Bringer’s right leg. Disoriented and in pain, the Storm Bringer did not even think to lash out with lightning, instead beating at Uthald with its wings until the Gyarados let go and slithered back into the sea. Halvard cringed when he saw that the sea serpent’s coils had knocked two of the remaining spears into the depths. Zapdos shot back up into the sky, making the heavens shake with its pain and anger.

A lesser pokemon would have fled to nurse its wounds, but the Storm Bringer was a proud and haughty god, and it would not let an indignity such as this go unpunished. The interlopers had come into its territory, and had gone so far as to wound it. It channeled the power flowing through its veins and rained lightning down on the island.

Halvard snatched up the final spear as he ran for cover, sliding over the rain-

slick stones as he tried to avoid the Storm Bringer’s one-eyed gaze. When the god of thunder passed overhead, Uthald unleashed another blast of white light at its undefended back. The beam went wide, only singeing Zapdos’s right wing. Halvard clenched his teeth as he watched Uthald slip back into the darkness beneath the waves to gather his strength again. Until the Gyarados returned, he was on his own with nothing but a single spear and his wits.

It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough.

He flitted from shadow to shadow while the god of thunder whirled overhead, flashes of brilliant light punctuated by echoing booms. Halvard couldn’t afford to stay in any one place too long, not with the Storm Bringer’s lightning striking everything in sight.

It was safer to keep moving, so move he did. As he ran from hiding place to hiding place, he slid on the rocks and tumbled into a crevice. He heard the spear snap, but could see that he was still holding the end with the stone head. Small blessings. Halvard was reasonably sure the Storm Bringer could not see him, but he wasn’t about to wager his life on it. The jarl tried to extricate himself and felt a searing pain in his right arm, and only barely managed to bite back a scream.

He could move a few of his fingers, so the arm was not broken, but it was at the very least dislocated. With his

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spear-throwing arm injured, he would need a new plan. Working as quickly as he could, he climbed out of the crevice, his left hand still clutching the final spear. It was useless to him now, impossible to throw straight, or even with any accuracy. But he felt better having a weapon in his hand.

He tried pushing his shoulder back into its socket, but he couldn’t manage it on his own, not with the rhythm of battle hammering in his ears and his body numb with cold. Halvard crept along the rocky shore to the inlet, where he could see Uthald rising to the surface. Zapdos had spotted the Gyarados too, and was beginning to glow as it summoned another blast of lightning. “Uthald, no!” Halvard screamed, knowing it would give away his position, knowing that he didn’t care. “Stay down, damn it! Stay down!”

But if the Gyarados heard him, Uthald gave no sign. The serpent burst from the waves with a roar, and the lightning around the Storm Bringer grew blinding. Halvard turned to avert his eyes from what was inevitably going to follow.

A boom louder even than the Storm Bringer’s thunder made Halvard stagger back. The blinding flash of lightning never came, and so there was no agonized roar of a dying Gyarados, no stench of charred flesh. The boom sounded again, and this time Halvard raised his eyes skyward. The Storm

Bringer was wheeling about in the air, disoriented and confused.

A small dot of green fluttered around the Storm Bringer, and then the sound came again, nearly knocking the god of thunder from the sky. “Dismas!”

Halvard gasped, nearly crying from relief. “Dismas, you’ve saved us all!”

He cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Keep it up, you mad bastard! We’ll win this yet!”

He sprinted down to the water’s edge while the Chatot continued to harry the Storm Bringer, keeping it dazed and unable to focus. “It’s time to finish this,” he panted to Uthald.

“I have a plan, and you aren’t going to like it.” The Gyarados rumbled deep in his throat, large eyes narrowing to slits. “But I need you to trust me.” The jarl extended his hand, palm out. “All right?” Uthald inched forward, putting his head against Halvard’s hand.

Halvard pressed his fingertips against Uthald’s scales. “Thank you.”

He was sure that by now all of the warriors of Rovngalad had written him off as dead, and if they were not themselves dead already, they soon would be, crushed under Ingmar’s superior military might. He had the power to change their fates, to save all of them. He could subdue a god, reclaim his birthright, avenge Runa, save Wulfric, save Svein, save Ragnhildr and Torvald and everyone else. He was the Fool of Rovngalad. He was the rightful

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king of the north. He would be the first man to tame a god. He had to.

Wulfric was counting on him.

Halvard clutched the broken spear in his left hand. “All right, Uthald. Are you ready to help me pierce the heavens?”

In the air above, Dismas sparred with a god. The Chatot beat his wings furiously, trying to keep up with the Storm Bringer. He fired off a constant barrage of explosive sound, a technique that Ragnhildr and Sigrund had taken pains to teach him. Each burst sent him tumbling head-over-tail feathers through the air, barely giving him time to fill his lungs with air before he had to fire off the next blast. The Storm Bringer’s confusion was quickly giving way to anger once again, and Dismas was getting fatigued.

A three note whistle pierced the air, a sound Dismas knew well. It was the tune the shepherds of Rovngalad used to call in the Mareep from the pasture, that Torvald used to summon Dismas and Branna back from an aerial sparring session. That song was a call for pokemon to return, to come back to the sheltering arms of the humans who cared for them. Dismas folded his wings to his sides and dove.

He shot through the air towards the inlet where Halvard and Uthald waited, and the Storm Bringer followed. Dismas spread his wings to increase drag and alight softly on Uthald’s crown, where he had expected Halvard to be. The

Chatot had barely managed to find his footing before Uthald lurched forward, swinging his coils around and whipping his tail towards the Storm Bringer.

Halvard pressed himself against his partner’s tail fin, letting go when it reached terminal velocity and allowing himself to be flung through the air towards the god of thunder. He opened his mouth and screamed as he raised the broken spear in his left hand.

Lightning flashed and thunder crashed as he flew through the air, straight at the Storm Bringer.

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THE UNDERGROUND

BRAID

-059

by

Minty

THE UNDERGROUND

There are certain rules one must follow while traveling through Ilex Forest.

First, should you consider doing it, never stray from the path. Ever.

Before you looms the darkness of Ilex Forest. You’ve just earned your second badge in the Johto League, and you’re already excited about getting your third. It doesn’t strike you as odd that no one in Azalea Town was willing to talk about the forest. It does, however, strike you as a little odd that no one will tell you how to get through it. Nonetheless, you know from your map that there are two ways to get to Goldenrod City: straight north through the forest or backtrack all the way to Violet City and head due west. One route, you know, will only take you a couple of days. The other will take you a week.

It’s simple math, really. Through the forest. Out the other side. Get Goldenrod’s badge and be halfway to Ecruteak in the time it would have taken you to backtrack just to Violet.

Simple. Easy.

But you can’t help but hesitate at the gate between the city and the forest.

An elderly couple sits on a bench beside the door, and you swear you can hear the old man mutter something.

“Looks like the Voice of the Forest will be happy tonight.”

You turn to him, but his eyes are glued to the pidgey at the edge of the path. His wife reaches into a brown paper bag at her side and tosses a handful of breadcrumbs to the flock, and the pidgey scramble in a mess of feathers and cooing for a single morsel. Not once do the man or the woman look up at you. It’s as if you weren’t even there.

It’s your imagination, you decide.

You didn’t hear him say anything, or if he did, it was about the pidgey.

And with that in mind, you step into the woods.

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a tiny village by the sea. Now, this village wasn’t anything particularly special. It had its chieftain and its people and its traditions, just like any other village. What made it at all unusual was the fact that every year, just after the first harvest, all the women took baskets full of fruits and vegetables to the edge of the village and left them there. No ceremony. No festivals. No words spoken among them.

If the children asked—and of course they would—the elders would say that this was to give thanks to the Voice of the Forest.

And that was all.

Second, should you stray from the path, never take your eyes off it. The woods are a strange place, and it’s

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easy to lose your way. Keep your eyes on the path and walk quickly back.

Take your eyes off it, however, even for a second, and the woods will swallow you up.

Although it’s noon when you start off, the lush spread of leaves overhead quickly blocks out the sun and plunges you into a darkness so deep you could almost swear it’s night. You’re not scared, though. You’ve been through the Ruins of Alph already. You’ve seen gastly in Sprout Tower. You’ve even faced Team Rocket in the depths of Slowpoke Well.

Besides, you have pokémon with you—high-leveled ones, to be exact.

If your team could defeat Bugsy and Falkner, then they can face anything.

And you know this and repeat this in your mind as you journey deeper and deeper into the darkness.

It’s not long into your journey when you come across the first living thing you’ve seen since the pidgey and the elderly couple. It’s a young boy, peering deep into the underbrush on the side of the path. He’s muttering to himself and leaning forward, and he doesn’t seem to notice as you approach.

“Hey, are you all right?” you ask.

He looks up. His eyes are wide, and his face looks pale, even in the shadows.

“It’s my boss,” he says. “He’s gonna kill me.”

“Your boss is in the woods?”

“No! I mean…” The boy wrings his hands. “I brought his farfetch’d in here to cut wood. But I don’t have any badges, so they wouldn’t listen to me and ran off into the forest! I can’t get them back! Even if I knew where they were, they’ll just run away from me.”

He hangs his head. “If my boss finds out I lost his farfetch’d…”

You smile. You know you have the badges to get pokémon to follow you, and you’re always willing to help someone out. Besides, they’re farfetch’d. They’re no match for your team, and you know that, too.

“Let me look for them,” you say.

Looking up, the boy gives you a strange look. “W-what?”

“Sure! Just tell me which way they went. I’ll get them back in no time!”

He grabs your hand and shakes it.

“Oh, thank you! You don’t know how much this means to me! They went that way!”

The boy pulls back a branch, and you realize what he was actually staring at: a narrow path, overgrown and nearly swallowed up by the surrounding forest. It wouldn’t be easy finding these farfetch’d, but … they’re just farfetch’d, right?

“Please hurry,” the boy whines. “If my boss realizes how long I’ve been gone, he’ll come out here looking for me.”

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So, you nod the branch.

and

step

beneath

You have no doubt this will be easy.

As with all villages and towns and just about anywhere someone can name, the village by the sea was likewise filled with all kinds of people … but it was said that the most beautiful and intelligent of them was the chieftain’s daughter. Her hair was golden like the sun. Her eyes were blue like the sea. Her skin was the color of the moon, and her voice was soft and sweet. All of the men in the village wanted to marry her, but each year, she turned away each and every one of her suitors.

But as beautiful as she was, the chieftain’s daughter was far from sweet.

She was proud and vain, and she had no need for old traditions.

“How could anyone believe those silly stories?” the chieftain’s daughter would say. “Why should we give to these gods when they refuse to show themselves to us?

Why should we give to these gods at all? We grew the crops, did we not? We built this village, did we not? Why should we give thanks to the gods, when all that we have we made ourselves?”

And the chieftain would respond as patiently as he could, by reminding her over and over again that the gods are gods and therefore must be thanked. He loved her, yes, but he silently hoped that she would someday understand.

Third, should you lose sight of the path, do not panic. If you flee in any direction, you will only go deeper and deeper into the bowels of the forest until nothing would be able to guide you home.

It doesn’t take you long to find the first farfetch’d. There it sits, rooting through a patch of wild onions. You lick your lips and pluck the first poké ball from your belt. It doesn’t even notice you’re there.

That is, it doesn’t notice until you accidentally step on a branch.

The wood snaps beneath your weight, and the sound of it echoes louder than anything else in the forest. For a brief second, everything falls still and quiet, and the farfetch’d simply stares at you. You straighten up and extend a hand.

“It’s okay,” you whisper. “Just stay there. I’m here to—” The farfetch’d underbrush.

bolts

into

the

“No! Hey! STOP!” Without thinking twice, you bolt after it. You’re not entirely aware of where you’re going, and for that reason, it doesn’t take you long to lose sight of the path.

The one thing the chieftain’s daughter had the least patience for was the basket

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ritual. She knew that it had to be done, and of course, she did it along with the other girls who were of age. Each year, she would take a basket full of fruits and vegetables to the edge of the village, and there, she would place it beside the others. Then, she would retreat back into the village with the others, and like all the others, she would never look back. The baskets would stay where the villagers left them until the next morning, and when everyone went back to the edge of the village, there would be the baskets, completely and utterly empty.

“Why do we do this?” she asked her father one year.

“Because if we refused, our crops would never survive, my child,” her father answered.

“But why?” she said. “What makes the baskets so special?”

The chieftain smiled. “Because, daughter, many years ago, this place was completely barren,” he said. “Nothing would grow, no matter how hard we tried. One day, a god came to our village and said, ‘I can see that your children are hungry, and I would like to help you. If each woman in this village leaves me a basket of your crops every year, I will bless this place for another season, and you will have more food than you can ever imagine.’”

“Is that so?” the daughter replied. “How quaint! Why, then, do we not look back at the baskets when we leave them?”

“Because, daughter,” the chieftain said, “the god comes to the edge of the village

each year and spreads her blessings there.

We cannot watch her do so, for if we do, the blessing will turn into a curse.”

“Is that so?” she asked.

“Yes, my daughter,” the chieftain said.

“The Voice of the Wood is a god like any other, and we must heed her word if we wish to receive her blessings.”

And much to the chieftain’s surprise, she said nothing more.

Fourth, if you travel through the forest calmly, you will eventually come across a place where no light shines through the trees and no pokémon can be heard. At this place will be a shrine. This shrine will not be the one to which the people of Goldenrod and Azalea leave their offerings. Rather, this shrine will be older and untended and covered in vines. Should you come across it, you must leave an offering.

This offering can be anything: food, jewelry, anything you value. The Voice of the Forest will be pleased with whatever you leave.

Never forget this rule. If you pass by this shrine and fail to leave an offering, you will never see the world outside the forest again.

After some time, you lose sight of the farfetch’d. If you were old enough to curse, you would have done so right about now.

Looking back, you realize that you

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have lost track of the path too.

“Nice,” you “Real nice.”

say

to

yourself.

Huffing, you continue in what you think would be the best direction: forward. After all, the forest can’t possibly go on forever.

One year, the chieftain’s daughter came across a handsome young hunter. He, like many others in the village, was enchanted by the daughter’s sunlight hair and ocean eyes and wispy voice. And just like many others in the village, he wanted nothing more than to take her as his wife.

So, one day, not long before the villagers were to leave an offering to the Voice of the Forest, he approached her and grasped her moon-white hand.

“My lady,” he said, “I pledge to you that I will do anything that would make you happy if you give me your hand in marriage in return.”

“Anything?” the chieftain’s daughter asked.

“Anything,” he told her.

And the chieftain’s daughter smiled, for she knew immediately that this hunter was just as simple as the other villagers. She, on the other hand, was smart and cunning, and already, she knew exactly what she had to do.

Fifth, if you fail to leave something at the shrine and if you walk far enough

away that you can no longer see its vine-covered stones, you will come across an old, wooden house with a blood-red door. There will always be smoke coming from the chimney. The air around it will smell like roasted duck and exotic spices. And you will feel a hunger unlike anything you have felt before.

Under no circumstances should you approach this house.

If you thought the path was dark, the forest beyond it is somehow darker.

You don’t know how long you’ve been walking. Overhead, the canopy closes and closes and closes until it’s a thick blanket of leaves and until the darkness around you hurts to look at. You feel a slight chill, but you ignore it, and you ignore the claustrophobic feeling of the darkness pressing in all around you. If you just walk in a straight line, eventually, you would see something, you reason. Eventually, you’ll step into a clearing or find the other edge of the forest or something. And in any case, you’re not afraid of the dark. After all, you have two badges and six pokémon so far. You can face anything.

After what feels like hours, you spot a beam of light slashing through the darkness from someplace overhead.

A painful, almost animalistic spike of panic mixed with relief hammers into your head, and you forget yourself and run forwards, towards it, tripping

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over underbrush and slipping on dead leaves, until you finally reach it. Upon closer inspection, you realize the beam of light is actually simply a gap in the canopy, just large enough to let a ray of evening sunlight slash through the darkness and settle on a pile of rocks that, if you squint hard enough, you can just barely tell is a shrine.

The shrine looks old and worn, and so much of both that you thought it was just a pile of rocks covered with vines at first. Your feet climb onto its stone base, and your hand clears off some of the vines on its face. Even after some of the vines are gone, you can’t quite tell which old god the shrine might be dedicated to; the inscriptions across its flat surface are worn and in a language you can’t recognize. You only realize it’s a shrine because it resembles the small, squat ones you learned about in school and because you can still see a small pile of offerings: a doll with a faded face, a few rusty coins, small animal bones.

You shrug and walk away. It’s an old shrine. Nothing special, you decide. It’s not like anyone believes in the god it might have been for these days, right?

This will be your second mistake.

A year passed after the hunter pledged his loyalty to the chieftain’s daughter.

Each day for one full year, the |chieftain’s daughter would encounter

this hunter. On each of those days, she would invent new tasks for him to complete, and without fail, he would obey her every whim. As the year wore on, the tasks grew more and more difficult.

“I want you to collect for me the moon’s reflection,” she said one day.

That night, her suitor took his silver bowl to the edge of the sea and filled it with water. Once not a drop more could fit within it, he hurried to the chieftain’s daughter and showed her its surface.

There, she saw the moon’s reflection shimmering on the calm water. Yet this did not satisfy her.

“Go into the prairie and find the biggest tauros. Bring its hide to me,” she said another day.

Her suitor went that afternoon and chased down a massive tauros whose hooves made the earth shake whenever it ran. With his bow and arrow, the suitor shot down the beast, and with his knife, he cut away its skin. This he brought to the chieftain’s daughter. Still, she was not satisfied.

“Bring to me the winter wind,” she said on a third day.

Her suitor went to the highest mountain and found a snorunt. Using his hunting net, he ensnared the creature and brought it down to the village to show the chieftain’s daughter. From its mouth, it blew the coldest wind, covering the houses of the village in a fine frost. And still, she was not satisfied.

THE UNDERGROUND

And on and on the year went, with more and more tasks like these. And each day, the chieftain’s daughter would inspect the hunter’s work, and she would say, “Well, my love, your feat was impressive, but I am still not made happy.”

And every day, her suitor would simply nod and smile and promise to come back the next day to try again until the chieftain’s daughter would finally agree to marry him.

When the crops grew ripe and the time to harvest them approached, the chieftain’s daughter said to her suitor, “My love, your feat was impressive, but I am still not made happy.”

Her suitor replied, “I understand, my lady. I will do anything to make you happy if it means you would give me your hand in marriage.”

“Anything?” the chieftain’s daughter asked.

“Why, to catch something, of course,” she answered. “Something that will please the Voice of the Forest.”

And the hunter, who was so very in love with the beautiful daughter of the chieftain, could only smile and give her his net, for he had no idea she didn’t believe in the Voice of the Forest at all.

Sixth, should you ignore all of the warnings above and approach, an old woman will emerge from the house.

Her hair will be as silver as the moon, her eyes will be as black as the ocean depths, and her voice will be like the moaning winds. She will invite you inside to have supper with her, and she will do it using a voice made of honey and words made of sugar.

If she makes this offer to you, you have only one option for survival.

Run.

“Anything,” the suitor said.

“Then, I want your net,” she told him, for she knew he would never agree to the plan she had waited all year to enact.

At first, he was surprised to hear her request. “My net?”

“Your net,” she said. “If you let me use your net tomorrow afternoon after all the women place their baskets by the edge of the village, I will gladly become your wife.”

“But my lady,” the hunter protested, “what ever would you want to use my net for?”

Once again, you find yourself wandering through the darkness of the forest. A nagging worry starts to overtake you. While you’re pretty sure it’s impossible for a place to go on forever, you start to wonder if you have enough food and water to make it back to civilization. It occurs to you that you have no idea how big Ilex Forest actually is, so you don’t even know if you have enough supplies to get to someplace safe. Sure, you know how to forage, but you can barely see the brush in front of

-067

you, let alone anything edible within it.

There don’t even seem to be pokémon to hunt if all else fails.

That’s when you realize something that settles, heavy and cold, in the pit of your gut: there aren’t any pokémon.

You can’t hear the cries of zubat or hoothoot in the trees above you, there aren’t any rattata or paras scrambling through the underbrush, and even the trunks of the trees are completely devoid of insect pokémon. As far as you can tell, you are completely alone.

Your heart beats quickly when you realize this fact, and it takes all of your willpower to keep walking slowly through the woods. It would be a bad thing if you suddenly burst into a run when you’re lost in a forest. This is one of the basic rules you learned before setting out on your journey.

You’d get yourself even more lost, and even worse, you’d end up exhausting yourself faster. So, taking a deep breath, you confine your sudden bout of fear to uncontrollable shaking as you pass through another thatch of trees and underbrush.

On the other side, you suddenly come to a clearing, and in the middle of it is a stone house. Both came abruptly; the way ahead of you had been nothing but a wall of trees and soupy darkness a second ago. Still, you push aside any concern about how strange this all is, and instead, you blink and thank the legendaries that there’s a sign

of civilization right in front of you.

Even better, smoke is curling from the chimney, and the air is heavy with the scents of cooking meat and spices.

That tells you two things. First, it means that you might get something to eat (because you realize now just how hungry you are), and second, it means that there are people inside who might give you directions out of the forest.

By this point, you abandon the idea of finding the farfetch’d. Instead, you run towards the red door.

And as if by magic, when you’re halfway between the trees and the house, the door swings open, and you hear an old, sweet voice coming from inside.

“Hello, dear,” it tells you, and the words flow thick around you, like warm honey. “What might a nice child be doing all the way out here? You must be such a strong trainer. Perhaps the champion?”

You blush. “Well, uh, I have two badges…”

“Ah!” the woman says. “You must be very strong indeed. Come inside. You probably want some rest, and I haven’t had much company lately. Come sit by the fire and tell me all about your adventures.”

How could you say no?

The chieftain’s daughter was happier than usual that year. She even sang as she

THE UNDERGROUND

gathered the most fruits and vegetables than any other villager to put into her basket. With the basket in her arms, she trotted up to the edge of the village and placed her basket right next to the others with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Then, without saying a word to the other townspeople, she walked away, still humming that tune. No one thought twice about this. After all, the chieftain’s daughter had become a young lady that year; it was almost time for her to wed and take her place within their society. Young ladies had no time for childish pursuits like questioning their gods, and so, perhaps, the chieftain’s daughter had realized this at last.

Or, at least, that was what the villagers had hoped.

But as soon as the others had placed their baskets and left, the chieftain’s daughter crept back to the baskets and waited. She waited there all day, hidden among the baskets and watching for anything to come, completely undetected by the rest of the village. Even as she heard the villagers shout and sing in the fields, she never moved an inch from where she was. Eventually, she began to doze, head drooping inch by inch downward until she heard a rustle.

Looking up, she saw a shadow looming over the baskets and a pair of arms reach down towards the ripest pecha berry. The chieftain’s daughter didn’t hesitate. She wouldn’t let this chance pass her up. So, without seeing who the stranger was, she

flung her suitor’s net into the air to catch the shadow.

“Ah-ha!” she exclaimed. “You’re mine at last!”

And when she ran to the net, she found in it the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.

Seventh, if you, like many others, have been lured into the house, do not take any food or drink that the woman gives you. Get out of the house as quickly as possible. Do not explain yourself to the woman.

Eighth, if you fail to do this, the woman will ask you to stay with her for the night. Do not answer her with a yes or a no. If you answer her with a yes, you will be trapped within that cottage until the next visitor comes.

May Celebi have mercy on you if you say no.

You decide that the chicken—you assume it was chicken, but you can’t quite tell—is the tastiest, juiciest piece of meat you have ever eaten. The water must have been drawn from the freshest spring ever created, and you have nothing but praise to offer for the steamed vegetables and berry pie that the woman offers afterwards.

All the while, you tell her all about your adventures. You tell her you were one child of three who were given a starter pokémon by Professor Elm in

-069

New Bark Town. You tell her about your battle against Falkner (shot down by your starter) and Bugsy (stomped by your geodude). You detail the way you captured all five of the other pokémon with you—what they’re like, which one is your favorite, everything. You even tell her about your battles against the sages in Sprout Tower and Team Rocket in Slowpoke Well. The woman says nothing, but she smiles and looks impressed at appropriate moments. You don’t even notice that she’s not eating anything. Nor do you notice how easily the words come out of your mouth.

something about it doesn’t sit right with you. You can’t quite explain what it is, but something sends a shiver down your spine. Smiling, you stand.

After everything is said and after the old woman clears the dishes off the table, she finally speaks.

Right then, the chieftain’s daughter gasped. The stranger in the net stood tall, and her body was adorned with bright, green silks and delicate flowers. Her eyes were blue and deep, like they had seen more than the chieftain’s daughter could ever hope to see. All around her, long, green hair floated, as if it hung in a breeze of its own.

“What incredible stories,” she tells you. “My, you’re quite an accomplished trainer! What might you be doing this far into Ilex Forest, though? Are you heading to Goldenrod City?”

You shrug. “Well, I was, but there’s this guy who lost a farfetch’d somewhere in here. I was trying to get it back, but I got lost.”

She sighs. “Oh, you poor dear!

Don’t you worry. The farfetch’d surely got back to its master by now. They usually do. But you must have gotten exhausted, chasing after that bird. Why don’t you spend the night here to rest?

Tomorrow, I can give you directions back to Azalea Town or to Goldenrod, whichever you’d like.”

Although

her

offer

is

generous,

“That sounds really nice, ma’am, but I really should be going. If you could just tell me which way is Goldenrod, I’ll be on my way.”

The old woman’s expression blanks, and she reaches out to grab your wrist.

Right then, you shiver again, but this time, it’s because you notice that her hand is stone-cold.

The woman reached out, stretching an arm with skin as pale as the snow towards the daughter.

“Princess,” she said, “why in the world did you throw a net over me?”

“Are you the Voice of the Forest?” the chieftain’s daughter asked.

The woman smiled sweetly. “Some people call me that, I suppose. And I know you are the daughter of this village’s leader.

I have been watching you for some time, but I cannot understand why you would want to capture me in a net.”

THE UNDERGROUND

“You say you had been watching me, so how could you not know?” the daughter asked. “It’s all very simple. I want to show everyone in this village that you’re no god.”

“But why?” the god asked.

“Because I know what you really are,” the daughter said. “The stories about gods are silly little things, but I figured it out all on my own. You are no god. You are a thief, are you not? You steal from this village every year because you made everyone think you can cast a spell to make our crops grow. Is that not the truth?”

The Voice of the Forest listened patiently, and when the chieftain’s daughter finished, she smiled just as sweetly as she had before the girl began.

Then, she grabbed hold of the net and ripped it in two.

“It is true that I am not what you would consider a god,” she said, “but I am something else. My brothers and sisters would eat your eyes and burn you alive if you said to them what you just said to me.”

The chieftain’s daughter laughed. “I am not afraid of you.”

“I hardly expect you to be,” the woman in green replied. “I will tell you this. I am also not my brothers and sisters. I will let you live, but I will show you what I am. You scoff at this village and its beliefs, so I will bless you by taking it away. Watch.”

Ninth, remember always that Celebi is with you.

“H-hey!” you exclaim. “Let me go!”

The old woman’s grip on your wrist tightens. “I’m sorry, child. She made me do this.”

Your joints feel stiff. At first, you think it’s just fear, but looking down, you realize it’s not. Your skin has turned rough and brown, and small twigs are starting to grow from your arms.

You want to scream, but you can’t.

Your mouth is open, but no sound comes from it.

The old woman guides you outside.

You can feel the cold wind all around you, but it passes right through your clothes and your skin and directly into your bones. Your insides feel hot, like they’re trying to boil up against your skin. Groaning, you writhe and try to break away from the old woman, but she simply guides you to a spot near the house.

Your feet break out of your sneakers.

Your toes thrust into the ground. The moist earth swallows your feet, and the shadows of the forest pull at your arms and head.

Eventually, you can’t think straight as your body stretches and thickens.

Your legs fuse together into a single trunk, and wood springs up from your throat and fills your mouth. Yet none of this feels painful to you. Uncomfortable yes, but somehow, as your mind begins to fog over, you feel as if this is simply … natural.

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Looking down at the old woman one last time, you notice another creature standing beside her. At first, you think it’s a lady dressed in green, but at second glance, you see a small, pixielike pokémon with large, blue eyes locked on yours.

“Another offering,” the old woman says wearily. “Are you satisfied now?”

The creature nods, and this is the last thing you see.

Panicked by the green woman’s threat, the chieftain’s daughter ran into the village, but she found no help. All around her, she watched her people turn into trees, one by one. She watched as her father’s arms grew into branches, as his face disappeared into bark, as his legs thrust into the ground where he stood.

She watched her suitor drop his quiver and grow leaves from his head. She watched as the children froze where they were, their eyes wide and terrified as they, too, became trees.

After a while, the chieftain’s daughter screamed and ran into one of the houses.

The lady in green followed her, breaking down the red door without even touching it. There, as the chieftain’s daughter sat on the floor and cried, the lady in green knelt next to her and touched her on the head.

“There, there,” she said. “You will not be alone. The people of this village will always watch over you. And, if that is not enough, I will be with you. I have even given you a

gift. You will not know how to use it until much later, of course, but I will have time to teach you some other day.”

She stood. The chieftain’s daughter still said nothing. Instead, she could only glare at the woman in green.

“Someday,” the Voice of the Forest said, “you will come to love the people of the village as they are, and you will come to love me. Until that day, use the gift I have given you to bring me your offerings.

Someday, they might just be enough to earn my forgiveness.”

The woman flashed one more smile, and for the first time, the chieftain’s daughter felt afraid.

The Voice of the Forest left her like that, and the years marched on afterwards. The homes and lodges of Ilex Village crumbled over time—all of them, that is, except the house the chieftain’s daughter had chosen. It grew with her, shifting from a lonely shack to a lonelier cottage, and she, too, grew older with each passing spring.

Always old, but never dead. Her hair turned from sunlight golden to a pale silver, her eyes lost the beautiful sapphire blue that once attracted the sorry hunter, and her moon-colored skin grew as cold as her heart, but she would never die.

Instead, she built a stone shrine to her mistress, and there, she used the magic that the Voice of the Forest had given her— the same magic that she had witnessed herself—to offer countless lost children to the green woman.

THE UNDERGROUND

I’m so sorry.

In the heart of Ilex Forest, where the trees are so thick they block out the sun, a sapling stands, surrounded by hundreds of tall, old trees. At its base are six poké balls that gather dirt and dust. You know they contain pokémon.

High-leveled ones, to be exact. They once defeated Bugsy. But you can’t reach them.

You can hear them now—the trees, that is. All around you, they’re weeping and moaning. They can’t sleep. They can’t rest. They can’t scream. All they can do is stand around the cottage of their chieftain’s daughter, watching as the old witch turns another helpless child into a gift for the Voice of the Forest. Eventually, you find yourself joining them, yearning to warn each new trainer that comes by.

But you can’t.

You can’t move.

You can’t scream.

You can’t sleep.

You can only watch.

-073

They say that if one traveled the wrong way through the trees of Ilex, they might hear the Voice of the Forest, reminding each and every passerby to remember her and her brothers and sisters.

For if there’s one thing the old gods do not like, it’s to be forgotten.

THE UNDERGROUND

Shattered Crests by

vray

CHAPTER 1: In a Moment’s Notice A lone drapion walked along on a deep dark path filled with dense brush on both sides. However, he wasn’t nervous or tense. He knew where he had to go and that the recipients of his message were friendlies. He suddenly heard rustling coming from his left. He immediately leaped backwards, faced the where the sound had come from, readied his pincers and curled his tail to strike. To his surprise, something from above landed firmly onto his back, putting a claw around his neck and a firm foot on his tail.

“Who are you?” A growling voice demanded from above him. He tried to remain calm and uttered the words, “M-miss, I have a letter. From Team Alpha’s leader. He says, ‘Your thick headed feraligatr will listen to you if not to me so don’t harm this guy’.”

“What’s team alpha?” the voice demanded, increasing the pressure she had on his tail and putting he claw even closer to the drapion’s neck.

The Pokémon began to stutter in

fear, but managed to say, “Please don’t hurt me. I’m jut giving a message from Nasch; I swear he said you’d listen to that code or whatnot. Please I’m being honest here.”

The creature above him paused for a moment, then removed the claw from his throat, released his tail and got off his back.

The drapion caught himself as he fell forward, breathing heavily.

“Sorry for voice spoke, After all no here. I hope for you?”

that,” a less threatening “I can’t be too careful. one needs to know I’m it wasn’t too frightening

The mon got up and looked at her. His former attacker was a female charizard.

Strong built, but still slim and tender in appearance. Her eyes were blue and quite calm, and on her shoulder was a Norfarion Crest. He began rubbing the back of his head and blushed a little.

“I-it’s fine miss.”

The lady gave a sigh, determining that she had frightened the poor soul

-075

quite immensely. She gave a gesture for him to follow. “Come, we can discuss why Nasch sent you to my place. Also, if you’d like to rest before you head back, I’d be happy to have you.” She gave a little laugh as she rubbed her left shoulder. “It’s the least I can do after putting you through that startle after all.”

The drapion was quite surprised, but finally gave a nod of approval. She took the lead and the reluctant scorpion followed. As they walked through the jungle area, the drapion managed to muster the nerve to ask, “So um, why are you here miss?”

She gave him a brief glance and just kept walking on. Even with no vocal response, the drapion got the idea that it wasn’t his concern. However, she didn’t leave the stranger completely lost in the dark. “I live with my family.”

“Family?! You are residing here with a family?!” The drapion repeated in surprised.

“Yes I believe I said that,” the charizard replied with a slight bit of

annoyance, “I live with my family.

All four of them to be exact. Speaking of which.”

Without any warning, she thrust her claw into a cluster of lush leaves on their left. The drapion was left confused as she pulled out a little charmander from his hiding place.

“Maw….how didya-” the little orange mon growled in a high boyish voice.

“You shook the brush too much, your breathing was above silent and most of all you didn’t lower your tension enough to make your tail’s light dim enough for stealth. I could see it.

Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t catch the forest on fire again.”

The little charmander crossed his arms with a scowl. Angry that his little time as a spy was cut short. He gave off a little growl to which his mother smiled and began tickling his belly.

The child began struggling to push her hand away, laughing uncontrollably.

“Hahaha, hay stoppit hehe maw!”

THE UNDERGROUND

She finally obeyed his request. She then asked, “Shouldn’t you be with your father in training?”

The little mon looked up to her and exclaimed with an upside down smile, “He let me, Seliph and Jaron outta train’n early. He said dat he had somethin’ tah do.”

Freya sighed and put the little mon on her tail. He clasped onto tightly and laughed a little as his ride move up and down as the adults walked on. The charmander stopped being engrossed in his fun for a second and asked the stranger, “Hey, whawt’s yah name misteh? Mine’s Ciecro!” The Drapion gave a confused look; a mix of surprise by this Western Accent to the lady’s Eastern and the scene that just played half a minute ago.

“Don’t just give out your name son,” Freya rebuked, looking back at her son.

“It’s fine maw. Dad says yah can say whawtevs, so long as yah make sure yah kill’em before dey get away.”

The drapion flinched and Frey facepalmed. He is the spitting image of his damn father. she muttered in her head.

<O> “Jaron!” a frogadier called out, as he strolled through the woods, “Jaron! come on, dad’s going to get mad if we

aren’t back at the house by the time the visitor comes.”

A little rustling came from some grass nearby. The water type quickly glanced at it, but failed to spy it in action. He stated browsing the group of bushes with squinting eyes. He heard another rustle. He darted his stare where the sound came from, but once again he failed to catch it moving. He slowly began to turn around in a circle, glancing anywhere he thought looked suspicious. Finally he sighed, crossed his arms, closed his eyes and smiled. So that’s what it will be huh. Well fine then, Jaron, I’ll catch you. A smile covered the frogadier’s face as he walked on.

Amid the many leaves lying in the area, a totodile watched his older brother. The little water type laughed in his head at his brother’s seemingly clueless display. Despite this, Jaron remained ready to move since Seliph wasn’t a dumb older brother. His eyes followed Seliph’s every movements very carefully. He was aware of the frogadier’s frubbles since he had lost many hide and seek games in the past due to that feature.

Hmm, what’s he doing? the totodile though to himself as the frogadier stood still and closed his eyes. Jaron refused to take his eyes of him though, expecting anything. He can’t be trying to hear me so-...wait...is it me he’s trying to hear? Is he even trying to hear me? The totodile was confused as his brother

-077

remain motionless and seemingly uncaring to even search. Jaron however wouldn’t fall for it. He’s baiting me no doubt. He wants me to move or something.

For seven minutes straight, Seliph remained still and Jaron watched his brother. Jaron’s boredom was slowly getting the better of him. He decided to adjust himself into a better position.

Unfortunately, as he was doing this suddenly Seliph shouted, “Jaron!” The startled totodile slipped a little at this surprise.

“Gotcha.” Seliph quickly spun around, drew out a Cut, and threw it straight at the spot her heard the rustling.

Jaron shrieked and fell over, but not until the move had struck him.

To his surprise, it disintegrated upon impacting him. He landed on his back with a “thud”, startled but unharmed.

Dammit his substitute. But it was too late. Seliph was already leaning over him with a grin on his face.

“I take I win again,” He boasted with a slight smirk.

“That was growled.

dirty

Seliph,”

Jaron

“Your own fault brother,” Seliph answered, holding out his hand to his angry sibling. Jaron raised his hand, but hesitated for a moment before clasping it. “Come on, I won fair and square,” Seliph stated with a smile. Jaron looked up and gave out

an aggravated sigh, before clasping Seliph’s hand.

“How was it my fault?”

Seliph pulled him back up. “You know what my moves are after all.

Certainly, with the vantage point you had, you would have expected some trick up my arm.”

Jaron was still ticked. But he set aside his frustration to ask, “Yeah, but I never expected you to pull off something like that.”

Seliph gave off a short titter.

“Jaron, it’s called being creative. Mom taught you moves are extensions of your power, right? Use your head and manipulate them in ways to your advantage.”

“Well, yeah but...ah screw you Seliph.” Jaron pounced on Seliph, laughing and telling how next time he would win.

Seliph laughed as well. “We really should get back home now.”

Jaron nodded, got off his older sibling and the two started walking home. They didn’t stop till they arrived at a little hut in a clearing. The two went around it to the back and entered.

Once inside Jaron let out a little yawn and asked Seliph, “Hey so when are mom and Ciecro gonna get back?”

Seliph just shook his head. Jaron let out a bigger yawn and muttered, “I hope mom gets back soon. At least before dad.” Seliph slumped his head

THE UNDERGROUND

down. Their faces shot right back up, as a loud slam filled the room. A growl came from the front of the house saying, “Anyone here! Freya, Ciecro, Seliph, Jar-” “We’re here dad,” the two answered, coming to the front room. They couldn’t lock their eyes with Dad’s scary ones, but remained focused on his neck. Jaron turned his head to the floor shaking slightly. Seliph, on the other hand, remained more composed, but was a little nervous too, since their dad’s tone indicated business was happening. Business, that while never happened often, would tend to put Gathor in a less than positive mood.

Despite his unease with having a visitor, Gathor relaxed a little upon confirming that the other two were fine. Their actions in avoiding eye contact didn’t bother him. He turned his gaze to the window and went on to say, “Freya will be bringin’ someone here soon. I want yah tah stay in the back. Do whatever, just don’t come to dah front nor go outside, yah hear.”

Without waiting for a nod in confirmation, he went towards the door, opened it and said, “Be on yah best behavior.” The door slammed as he made his exit.

The two stopped their shivering and let out relieved sighs. Jaron broke the silence first. “You think the visitor is scary? I mean dad is all tensed up. He didn’t even smile slightly.”

“I don’t know Jaron,” Seliph replied, “I don’t think he would be scared of some mon. I mean dad is one of the toughest Norfarians out there.”

Seliph looked at the Norfarion crest on Jaron’s right shoulder, something he, Ciecro, Jaron and Norfarion children would be born with. A birthmark of their bloodlines always on the right shoulder. Of course, that wasn’t all that made them Norfarions, or just Original clansmon in general. “I’m surprised your gift didn’t act up?” he said to Jaron, looking at his brother.

“It was, I could clearly see you and feel your presence. You just startled me you bully.” Jaron got up and walked over to Seliph, “you didn’t even have to use your gift.”

“Yeah heh,” Seliph grinned as he rubbed Jaron’s head making the totodile sulk, “Well, it’s like dad says.

‘Don’ try tah us yah gifts all dah time, o’ yah migh’ give dem clues to yah fightin’ style.’”

Jaron’s annoyance, shifted to a little giggle at Seliph’s attempt at impersonating their father. “Heh, that sounds more like Ciecro,” he joked, making Seliph give him a playful punch to the shoulder.

“You moron,” Seliph said with a smile as Jaron a defiant playful, full toothed grin.

Suddenly voices were heard outside.

The two rushed to the window to see

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their father carrying Ciecro under his arm while Freya talked to a drapion.

Is that the visitor? Seliph thought.

The door once again slammed open and a little Ciecro was thrown in. The charmander quickly got to his feet and rushed towards the exit. He didn’t make any progress due to the feraligatr’s hand walling his son.

“Bu’ dad, I wanna be there to,” the little one demanded.

“This is an adult conversation. Stay witcha brothers, Ciecro.”

“Buh I wanna be dere!” Ciecro protested, “I’m ten now so I’m old enough. Come on Gathor!”

Gathor gave off an annoyed growl and pushed his son back with his palm.

Ciecro struggled to push the arm back with all his body, but Gathor’s arm on his head wouldn’t give way. After multiple attempts of head pushing, the poor charmander finally sank his head in defeat.Gathor then bent down and put his face on level with Ciecro’s. He then put his big left claw on the son’s shoulder.

“Son, if yah can’t budge my hand with you’s body then yah don’t need to concern yahself with dese matters.

When yah’r stronger and learn more, then I can let yah help som’more. Till den, I want yah to be a good boi, okay?”

Ciecro gave a little whimper. Gathor removed his palm from his shoulder and then placed it onto the little boy’s

head. “Ciecro, yah gawt some growin up tah do before yah ready for awdult things. Now stay here with yah brohders Ciecro.” He looked away for a second and then muttered, “and if yah good I’ll give yah a high taws in’ de air.”

Ciecro’s eyes widened with glee and he exclaimed, “Prawmise?”

Gathor tried to keep a straight face, but Ciecro’s cute smile even made him fail to fully hide a smile. “Promise.

Now stay here and be good.”

The door shut tightly behind Gathor as he left the three kids inside. Jaron and Seliph got from their spot at the window and joined their brother in the middle of the room. It was just them and whatever they wanted to do for fun.

Ciecro began doing small twirls with anticipation. “I hope he trows me real high, like higher dan dah trees and up in dah clouds.”

“I don’t think even dad is that strong, bro,” Jaron pointed out.

Ciecro just gave him a slight scoff.

“Yous just jealous, ‘cause when I grow up, I’m gonna be able tah fly and yous gonna be stuck on dah stupid ground.”

“At least countered.

I

can

swim.”

Jaron

“So can Seliph, so whasso special about dat?” Ciecro countered Jaron’s counter.

“Well...uhm...”

THE UNDERGROUND

“Looks like he’s got a point Jaron.

Sides, he’s a fire type so it’s not like he was born to swim,” Seliph added earning a grateful nod from the charmander, who instantly took the time to rub it in the annoyed face of Jaron. <O> That night Jaron and Ciecro were in their straw beds sleeping well. Seliph however was wide awake. He thought about the stranger and the wondered what he wanted from his parents.

Suddenly he heard a door open with a little flicker of light come from the area outside their room.

“I’m going tah bed Freya,” The voice of their father resounded, “Tell me what it’s says, tomorrow.”

This sparked Seliph’s curiosity. ‘What it says’ so it’s a message. He got to his feet and tip toed his way to his Mom’s study. He peered inside and gazed at the room he was rarely allowed to be in. His Mother was at the desk looking at something on it.

Hmm, I wonder what this is about, she thought while she mulled over the message. She stopped pondering as she detected someone outside her study. Acting on instinct her wings shot up, causing something to nudge the door a little. She quickly deduced it was merely one of the kids spying through the door Gathor neglected to fully close.

“Don’t leave, come in here now,” she spoke to the silhouette in the door crack. A nervous Seliph walked in. His face had guilt written all over it. Freya took a deep breath and asked for an explanation.

“I just was curious.” Was Seliph’s reply. Freya gave him a stern look not taking this answer lightly.

“Seliph come here,” she ordered the frogadier. He reluctantly walked over head still downcast. Despite his face looking at the floor, Freya could easily see the remorse in his eyes. She looked at the crest on his right arm and pondered deeply.

“Son,” she spoke in a softer tone, “look at me,” After a few minutes of moving, his eyes finally locked with hers. She picked him up and placed him in her lap. The Water type was caught off guard by this odd move by his mother.

“Seliph, since you’re awake do you want to help me read this?”

It took a few minutes for it to click, but Seliph realized that he wasn’t in trouble but on the contrary, lucky. He looked at the piece with is mother and read over its contents.

“What’s odd straightforward,” finishing.

about this? It’s He stated after

She explained, “Letters like this may look direct, But usually they hold another hidden message. Letters like these sent by Norfarion higher ups

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tend to be coded to be decrypted later by its receiver.” His eyes widened with interest and resolve. But he had no knowledge of any “Code”. Seeing the stumped look on his face she decided to throw out an example.

“Well, some words may say one thing, but usually there is a metaphor or simile in its meaning. Or possibly retracing a sentence or paragraph. I believe this one might be like that so give it a try.”

began reading them out loud.

“Materials that will be sent for research.

Healing Items Food Supplies Material 2 Fire orb A pair of Eye drop seeds Huh? Hmmm” “You found something?” She asked.

Anxious to impress his mother, Seliph tried again. After re-reading he looked back to his mom and summed the contents.

“Well these two ‘Fire orb’ and ‘Eye drop seeds’ are pretty specific. Maybe they are related to the secret message.

What do you thi….”

“The first two paragraphs were very straightforward about inquiring how you were and what you and dad have found. Also it asks if any additional research materials are needed, But,” he shifted to a more analytical stare.

“The third one talked about some list of information and random stuff.”

He stopped upon seeing a serious expression cover her face. It was like she was seeing something horrible from the letter. Seliph said her name over and over till she snapped out of it.

“Any thoughts?” she asked in a challenge tone.

“Well, the list of stuff in the third paragraph appears to be normal items.

But, the first paragraph about asking how you were and if you needed research material felt a little weird.

I mean, would these travel items be research material?”

“I don’t leave here when I work so let’s see about this list,” Freya concurred with the thought. Seliph peered closer to the list of items and

“Mom what’s wrong?” He innocently asked. She didn’t answer, but looked away at her shelf of books. This was a side of his mom he hadn’t seen before.

A scared side. This made him uneasy and sent a shiver down his spine.

Freya put him down on the floor and walked over to the book case.

She was mumbling something under her breathing, but Seliph could only make out the words, “incase” and “Come”. As she fiddled with some books Seliph noticed her wings begin to spread a little. Another indication of her anxiousness thus giving him more reason to worry.

THE UNDERGROUND

She pushed some books aside and pulled out a little box. She then took a key out of one of the satchels on her travel belt and checked to see if the box was locked. After confirmation, she put the box in a drawer in her desk and locked it with another key.

Seliph remained quiet all through this, but was scared to even think of what this could mean. His mom scared?

His mom was never scared? What could possible scare her?

She walked over to her son and moved onto one knee. She gently grabbed his hands and moved them into a cup. She then put the box key in those hands and closed them.

“Mom wha? What’s this?”

“Seliph, I want you to take care of this. What I’m going to tell you is between me and you. I don’t want you to speak of this to anyone at all. Son, if…” She paused to take a second to think of what to say.

“If what?” She sighed softly and with a slight smile she said, “Seliph I want you to hide that key. Only use it and take what’s in that box you saw should we be…attacked.”

His spirit fell at that last word. A thousand question flooded his brain.

Freya put on of her claws on his shoulder. She leaned in and nuzzled his cheek as to calm him down.

“This is only in an emergency Seliph.

I know you are young, but I need you

to be brave. You’re smart and clever and you can take care of your brothers and yourself if need be. I know this is sudden, but I tell you this because I trust you fully.”

These words only made him feel worse. He tried to pull out of the nuzzle, but Freya got the message.

She stopped and pulled back her head.

Looking directly into Seliph’s eyes, she whispered something to him.

Seliph returned to his bed, shaking.

What happened was the biggest question in his head. He looked at the key his Mom gave him and obeying her, stuffed in into his bed of straw. He lay there wide awake unable to even close one eye.

What did she mean by attacked? Will it happen soon? He rolled over to his side and tried to sleep. He wasn’t scared, but the words his mom told him eased him a little.

“Your father and I love you Seliph.

We might not show it all the time, but we do. You, Ciecro and Jaron mean so much to us. I know you’ll do me proud if need be. Because you have strong blood in your veins, but more importantly you are the smartest kid I know.”

-083

Names:

Freya (Fray-ah) Ciecro (See-eck-row) Seliph (Sel-ief) Jaron (Jair-in) Gathor (Gahth-ur)

THE UNDERGROUND

IONIZATION

by Dtmahanen

CHAPTER 2: Magnitude of Your Words

-085

I’m sitting on my bed in the Sandgem Inn, looking at my newly minted Trainer ID. My picture doesn’t look… awful, I guess. I mean, my hair’s a mess (probably from putting up the hood from my hoodie all day), there are huge black circles under my eyes, and my smile is so goddammed forced it hurts my soul to look at, but…eh, it’s fine.

Those things never look good anyway.

It’s like a driver’s license photo, they all suck.

I flop down on the bed, dropping the card on the desk by the bedside. My hoodie is getting really hot, so I toss it off as well. Judging by the sudden creaks and grunts I hear moments after, it appears I hit Yossele, who promptly throws it back at me.

“Not in the mood for this, Yosie,” I mumble, “wanna take a nap.”

I sigh, frustrated that Yossele is being such a stickler about this. “Yeah, yeah, stay up as late as you can the first few nights, I get it.” I sleepily slip my feet off the bed. “Fine, you win.

Whaddaya wanna do to pass the time before I sleep?” {Well, we can start by trying to finish learning the new move.} He lifts his left arm, showing off a list of arcane-looking runes etched into his wrist. {I feel like I’m really close on that ground-shaking one. I’ve even got a rune thought out.} “Oh yeah, you’re right, we were getting pretty close on Magnitude,” I mutter. “Uh, sure, I guess. Can’t hurt to have more moves in your arsenal in case a battle pops up, right?”

“Fuck off, man, you don’t sleep anyway. And besides, you were in your ball the entire flight.” I sit up, staring down the now sitting golett. “Jetlag is a thing, you know.”

Yossele pumps his fist in excitement and practically jumps to his stubby feet. I can’t help but feel amused at his excitement towards learning a new move. However, my amusement turns to fear when he taps the spiral symbol on his chest, his customary ritual for charging the ghostly energy inside his body for combat. I leap out of my bed and try to restrain him.

{I understand,} he responds, {but you do remember what Dad said about long distance travel, right?}

“What the hell are you doing, you lunatic?!” I yell. “You’re gonna wreck the room!”

He taps my bare foot with two fingers. {It’s 2:30 in the afternoon. It’s far too early to fall asleep for the day. I, for one, don’t feel tired at all.}

THE UNDERGROUND

{But I thought we were going to practice,} he says. {Why the change of heart? What’s wrong?} “Nothing, no, we’re still gonna practice, but outside. We’d be in deep shit if we destroyed our hotel room, and I’d rather not get in trouble the first week we’re here.” {But Mom and Dad never got that mad if we practiced at home and broke something. Why is this so different?} “Mom and Dad were able to pay for the stuff we smashed. And believe it or not, they did get pretty mad that we broke things. The hotel, that we are paying to stay at, by the way, will not be so kind.” {But the hotel owns the stuff in the rooms, right? Wouldn’t they pay for it?} “Nope. It would come out of my pocket.”

Yossele doesn’t respond immediately. I think this revelation has shaken his worldview a little bit.

He’s never really had much interaction with social situations outside of me and my friends, so I can understand why he wouldn’t know this, but I feel like it should be common sense.

He waits a little longer, then quickly claps his hands. {Outside, then.} “Good choice.”

-----------------------

Route 202, although not particularly memorable in terms of landmarks, is perfect for a little bit of combat training. It’s mostly open spaces, with a little bit of tall grass dotted throughout the plains, making it a popular spot for beginning Trainers to hang out and have their first battles. As Yossele and I look for a place to practice ourselves, we encounter a bunch of eager kids, clearly just starting their journeys. There are some training with their starters, I think I see a couple of friendly battles going on, and Oh Arceus, are those boys playing tag with a group of bidoof? Arceus dammit, that’s adorable. None of them feel like battling me, as Yossele seems to intimidate them a little bit, but they’re all interested in him. They poke his body, grill me on where I got him, it’s a bit overwhelming. By the time I find a nice open spot to practice moves, I actually have a small posse.

“Hey, you might want to stand back a little bit, guys,” I announce to the group of kids. “We’re practicing a new move, and it’s a little bit wild, and I don’t want you to get hurt, so… yeah, might want to take a step back.”

The kids, who are already somewhat intimidated by Yossele’s large frame, need no further encouragement. They give us a wide berth. {So, how did we start this, again?} the golett asks. {I remember working

-087

on this a little bit back home, but it’s been a while.} “It has something to do with your arm engines, right?” I motion to his thick forearms, which house nascent energy cannons within their bulky frames. As a golett, he still doesn’t have full control over them, which is why we’re only attempting Magnitude right now, nor does he have the capability of flying yet, but it’s a start. “I think you were supposed to, like, smack the ground as you fired your arm jets, or something?” {I’ll give it a try, see how it goes,} he responds. As I back a couple of yards away, he touches the symbol on his chest again, and begins to radiate a ghostly, indigo-colored aura as he powers up.

He pumps both of his arms, channeling some of the mysterious energy into his fists like twin shotguns, and quickly slams them into the ground with a loud “bang”. I instinctively recoil, bracing for a miniature earthquake to hit my legs, but I don’t feel anything. When I look back at Yossele, I see that, while he’s made small craters around where his fists hit the ground, not much else happened. {I think I fired them a little too early,} he says, looking at his smoking hands. {Didn’t time it right.} “Yeah, other than that, it looked perfect,” I reply. “Let’s try it again, you were close. Maybe wait a halfsecond more before firing.”

We go about this for about 20 minutes. Each time, I write down the results in my pocket notebook I keep in my hoodie. I’ve gone through many of these over the years, especially when I was still interested in planning Plasma events, but now they serve to document Yossele’s progress in learning new moves. It was a very interesting process learning Stomping Tantrum, especially since Yossele doesn’t usually have those.

“Alright, Magnitude trial number 48…7?” {It can’t be that much,} Yossele exclaims, {I only started learning it last week.} “Ever heard of sarcasm, buddy?

One more time, but this time focus on punching the blast into the ground, not just hitting the dirt. It seems like you’ve got the timing down, just not the seismic focus.”

Charging his arms again, Yossele slams the ground, and the results are drastically different. As soon as he unloads his ghostly charge into the earth, I feel an immediate rumbling in the ground, and I start to regret not having us practice near some trees. As the ground cracks beneath me, I jump and dodge around flying pieces of rock and dirt before I feel Yossele’s mudbrick arms surrounding me, protecting me from debris. After a few more moments, the shaking dies down.

“That…was…AWESOME!” I shout,

THE UNDERGROUND

as my fear gives way to adrenalinefilled excitement. I burst out from Yossele’s arms screaming at the top of my lungs, much to the amusement of all the kids still watching me. “I dunno what you did different that time, but I could barely stand up while that was going on.” I take a breath, and take out my notes. “What did you do differently that time?” {What you told me and a little extra.} He taps the sides of his fists together, and motions towards the now cracked ground. {I definitely punched inwards, but I also thought it would be a good idea to channel both blasts together, and I guess it made a…} He struggled to find the right word. {A…what’s the center of an earthquake?} “An epicenter?” I say as I try to think of the motion for signing it.

Not remembering it, I make one up, joining my hands together in a ball and shaking them violently. I’ll try to remember that one. {Yeah, that,} he continues. {I guess that was enough to get the earth shaking.} He twiddles his thumbs briefly. {My control over the jets in my arms still isn’t very good, so it might have varying levels of power, but it’s something for a pinch, I’d think.} “Well, that’s Magnitude for ya,” I reassure him. “It’s always difficult for Ground-types at first, that’s why it’s variable.” I pat his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll get a consistent Earthquake in time.”

He gives me a thumbs-up, assuring me that he’s okay with that. I scan the ground, and find a thick branch that I hadn’t seen before. Guess even the trees weren’t totally safe. I should probably ask around, see if people are alright. Before I do that, I hand Yossele the branch.

He proceeds to turn it to his left wrist, etching another rune onto his short list. So far, if I remember correctly, he’s got Shadow Punch (that comes standard with all golett), Mud Slap, Iron Defense, and Stomping Tantrum.

I’m thinking maybe having him learn Mega Punch next.

“Ms. Trainer!” I see a young boy run up to me, a worried look on his face.

He pulls on my hoodie. “I think that attack hit a pokémon. There’s a shinx a little bit away, it looks really hurt.”

“Crap, I was worried about that.”

Yossele and I look at each other for a second, and then we leap into action.

“Alright kid, show me where it is.

Do you have any potions on you?” He nods. “Good, give me a couple of them, just in case it’s very badly injured.

Yosie, when we find it, make sure that no one gets near it. We don’t want anyone capturing it when it’s hurt like that thinking it’s free pickings.”

The golett nods, then looks at the boy expectantly. He points towards a small patch of woods – probably where the branch came from – and begins to lead Yossele there. “Is anyone else hurt, human or pokémon?” I ask the rest of the Trainers. Most trainers shake

-089

their heads or murmur “No,” which is a relief.

I sprint over to where the kid took Yossele, and see a very strange sight.

The golett, potion in hand, is being shooed away by a boy, about my age from the looks of it, with shoulderlength blond hair and small, angry blue eyes. He’s moving his arms frantically, but his face, weirdly enough, is wearing a sort of grin. He seems to be guarding the shinx, its black-and blue body curled up in a little ball as it mews softly in pain.

“Back away from the shinx,” he yells, “it’s really hurt! No one get near it!”

“Hey, you its Trainer?” I say, running up to a very confused Yossele.

“Well, no, but-” “Then let me handle this,” I continue, showing him the potion in my hand.

Yossele holds one up as well. “If you’re just gonna shoo people away, you’re not helping.”

But, but,” he stammers, “you’re just going to catch it, right? You’re totally gonna exploit its injuries and ‘add’ it to your team, aren’t you?”

I look at him, eyes wide with shock.

I know that line of reasoning way too well. “That’s…that’s the exact thing I’m trying to prevent,” I respond. “I don’t want it to get hurt anymore.” I turn to the golett, pushing the crazy thought out of my head. “Yosie, try to get close.

Slowly, like I taught you. Try not to scare it, and maybe apologize a little bit.” He nods, and starts to approach the kitten. His gentle rumbling and slow, methodical hand motions seem to calm the shinx, as its whines get much quieter. He strokes its fur as he sprays the contents of the potion bottle on its wounds and bruises. {It’s going to need more than this to get back to full strength,} he signs to me. {We should take it to the Pokémon Center, let it recover.} “Well, let’s see what it thinks,” I say as I approach the shinx myself. I take that into account as I attempt to talk to it. “Hey, little guy,” I say as I try to pet it. It’s definitely hurt, as I see nicks and cuts all over its body, and he’s injured enough where, even if I wanted to catch him, most Trainers would just let it be, but the wounds are healing rather quickly due to the potion serum.

No broken bones, at least. He shrinks away at first, but, seeing that I mean him no harm, he lets me touch him.

“You feeling alright? Can you move?”

As if to answer my question, the shinx gingerly tries to stand, positioning its hind legs under it.

While it still looked hurt, it seemed like it could move easily, so I let it run off into the woods. {Just pain, nothing super serious,} I sign to Yossele. {He’ll be alright.} As I see it fade into the distance, I turn my attention to the boy who’d accosted me earlier.

THE UNDERGROUND

“Okay, what the hell were you trying to pull there?” I exclaim. “I get the feeling you didn’t trust me for a second when I was, y’know, helping that shinx.

What’s your deal?”

He glares at me like I’d just flipped him the bird. “The only reason you let it go was because I was there. I can see it in your eyes, you wanted to catch that poor, helpless creature. Why else would you hurt it so badly?”

I stand there, stunned at the sheer idiocy of the words I hear coming out of his mouth. “Okay,” I respond, slowly, to make sure my words penetrate his skull, “first of all, fuck off with assuming why I was helping that shinx.

I didn’t know he – the shinx was male, by the way, don’t call him an it – I didn’t know he was there until after some random kid told me he was hurt.

Which leads me to my second point, which was, why the hell would I have Yossele use an area-of-effect attack, which he’s not totally proficient with, by the way, to specifically attack a shinx that I didn’t know was there? That makes no goddamn sense.” I take a long, drawn out breath. “And third, how do you get off saying that allTrainers would exploit wild pokémon like that?

There are so many good Trainers out there, and generalizing about them is really fucking awful. That’s something only assholes would do, and to be quite frank, something that a member of Team Plasma would say.” I pause for a moment. “You Unovan?”

“Born and raised in Mistralton, Miss Know-It-All,” he responds in a very, ironically, know-it-all fashion. Well, that would explain it. Tons of Plasma sympathizers there. “I happen to think that Plasma may have been on to something in their message.”

“Including the part where they steal people’s pokémon?”

“Hey, that’s completely unfair, they only stole from pokémon abusers!”

“Bullshit, you know full well they ambushed people and mugged them for their pokémon. There were even some reports that some Grunts around Icirrus stole wallets and cash along with Pokéballs.”

“That’s…that’s…” He hesitates, clearly at a loss for how to respond to my overwhelming evidence against him. “You don’t know that! How can you know that?”

“Trust me, I know.” I don’t have the heart to tell him that it was actually former Icirrus Grunts that I worked with who mugged innocent bystanders.

In front of me, no less. Not a fun experience. I think that was part of what made me want to quit, actually.

“Look, I’m gonna leave now, make sure you didn’t try to convince these kids to give up their pokémon. See ya later, N wannabe.”

“For your information, my name is David Paulson!” the guy yells. I remember that the Paulson’s were

-091

a very rich shipping company based in Mistralton. Maybe had Plasma connections? Eh, no idea.

battle you, you’re a fucking hypocrite, and now I guess I have more reason to check on the other Trainers.”

“Cool. I’m Mattie Kasdan. Now fuck off.” I turn to walk away, motioning for Yossele to follow. As I see him catching up to me, I notice David’s body twitching with what I presume is pent-up anger. I don’t give it much thought.

Before I can turn away, however, David grabs a Pokéball from his belt and throws it in my direction. As the ball breaks in two, a small, greenishblue creature emerges from the white light bursting forth from the device.

Its green eyes and glowing fingers sporadically light up and dim as it stares at us, tilting its head out of… curiosity, I guess?

Until he starts speaking, a grin once again spreading on his face.

“Battle me.”

I turn back to him. “What?”

He stands up straighter, looking as cocky as he was while blocking the shinx. “You’re gonna battle me, and I’m gonna embarrass you in front of all these people, and then you’re gonna admit to me that I was right. Then, just because you gave me the idea, you’re gonna release that golett right there, and you’re gonna walk away.”

I stand there, trying to process what he just said. Then I start laughing.

The rumbling to my side tells me that Yossele is laughing too. “You can’t be serious,” I giggle. “You – you do realize that you sound like a hypocritical dumbass right now. Like, a Plasma sympathizer, willing to get a pokémon hurt? Dude, you sound so much like the Plasma from a year ago it hurts.”

I calm down again. “And by the way, that’s the Plasma that wanted to take over the region, not the ones with a noble pretense. So, no, I’m not gonna

“An elgyem, huh?” I mutter. “Yep, straight out of Mistralton, that one.” {He probably spends all his time brooding in the Celestial Tower,} Yossele continues. {It would explain his strange behavior.} “If you call yourself a Trainer, Mattie Kasdan,” David pontificates, “then you have no choice but to battle me! Isn’t it common practice for two Trainers, locking eyes, to do battle?”

“Yeah, see, that’s how it works in the video games, buddy. Those games, by the way, are hot garbage, and you should be ashamed of yourself. IRL, nobody does that. I don’t have to battle you if I don’t want to, and I don’t want to. So, once again, goodbye.”

As I turn to leave…again… David desperately searches for anything more to say. At last, he says, “Are you scared of facing me, you coward? Are you that scared of someone like me hurting your precious pokémon, or

THE UNDERGROUND

worse, your pride? Do you think that little of your golett?”

“No, I think that little of you. Now do as I say, and FUCK. O-” I stop as I look over at Yossele.

He’s weirdly still, save for his hands, which are lightly tapping the glyph on his chest, as if he’s powering up for a fight. He only gets like that when he’s mad, something’s up. {Hey, you alright?} I sign to him. {I’m going to fight him.} My eyes widen in shock. “Wait, what was that?” I say aloud.

He turns his head to me. {He called me weak. But more than that, he insulted you. Worse, he used me to insult you. You are not going to stop me, so let me fight him.} He points at the boy, almost ignoring the elgyem entirely.

“Arceus dammit,” I sigh. I turn back to David. “Alright, you’ve ticked off Yossele, so, you win. We’re gonna battle. You happy?”

He sneers at me. “Very.”

“Fine. Let’s get our wagers ready, then.” David gives me a weird look.

“The wager,” I continue. “You…do know that most Trainers put some money on a battle, right? Trainer etiquette? Common practice?” I pull my PokéGear out of my hoodie. “We can do it over VenMa, if it’s easier.” I return his smirk. “That is, if you’re not worried about your pride.”

The look of anger on his face is almost beautiful. I can sorta see some veins popping out of his forehead, and his cheeks are as scarlet as a Cheri berry. “1000 PB,” he growls.

“Deal.” We both stand back, letting our pokémon approach each other.

We’re in a small clearing in the woods, so there’s a nice little area for the two fighters to move around in. The younger trainers from before, who had been listening to our little exchange, gather around our makeshift arena when they realize a battle’s about to start, mumbling to themselves. From what I overhear, they don’t like David very much.

“Alright, Yossele, let’s end this quickly,” I instruct. “Normally I’d be worried by the long-range capabilities of most Psychic-types, but you’re super strong already. Concentrate on getting close.” {Right.} He cracks his knuckles, shedding bits of extraneous mud-brick substance that had built up since his last battle. {This elgyem is a novice. I can tell from the way it’s blinking its comm lights. For a pokémon of my power, this should be easy.} Much to David’s surprise, Yossele puts his fists up to his face, angling his body slightly sideways and putting his left foot at the front of his stance.

I smile. It’s a unique element of this golett’s fighting style. It always catches people off-guard the first time

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they see Yossele put up his dukes like a boxer.

back on track, and puts himself within striking distance.

The first rune on his wrist lights up. A wave of ghostly energy envelops both of his hands, and he clangs them together before resetting his stance. I know that signal.

“Uh, uh, get out of the way, Elg-”

Yossele is major ass.

ready

to

kick

some

“Elgyem, don’t let it hit you!” David calls out. “Use Confusion!”

A wave of pinkish energy slams into Yossele’s frame, causing him to wobble slightly. His stance never wavers, however, as he moves his back foot to regain his balance. I hear his rumbling laugh at the pitiful attack. Barely even a dent.

“Move up to it, Yosie,” I command.

“Quick as you can. Try to avoid getting hit, but if that’s all your opponent has, you got this.”

Nodding, Yossele slowly begins lumbering toward the elgyem, the ground quaking with every step he takes. Panicking, the elgyem begins emitting a harsh, staticy sound that makes the golett visibly wince. “Yeah, nice Growl, Elgyem!” David shouts.

“Now hit it with another Confusion!”

“Get out of the way, Yossele!” I shout.

In sync with my command, the golett quickly loads his arm jet and blasts a blank round to his side, moving him out of the way of the psionic wave. He unloads another blast to put himself

“Grab it!”

Yossele shoots out his left hand, latching onto the elgyem’s large, cylindrical head.

The alien-like creature begins squirming around, trying to break free of the golett’s grasp, to no avail.

“You said you’re mad, right, Yosie?”

He nods.

“Alright then. Stomping Tantrum, let’s go!”

Yossele proceeds to slam the elgyem into the ground, venting its anger as he repeatedly bashes its body with his thick arms. After a moment, he stops, and the elgyem weakly floats off the ground again. It looks towards its Trainer, practically pleading David to end the battle. Yossele turns his head to me. {I think it wants out,} he says.

I nod. “I think your elgyem’s had enough, David. Stop the fight, and forfeit with your dignity intact. I’ll let you walk away.”

However, David angrily continues shouting at his pokémon. “Now, while its back is turned! Use Confusion to, uh, push it away or something!”

The elgyem lets loose yet another ray of pink light, yet although this one hits Yossele, he doesn’t look even remotely phased. His shoulders sag, resigned to the inevitable conclusion.

THE UNDERGROUND

“Yeah, I know buddy,” I mutter.

“I didn’t want to do this either.

Shadow Punch.”

Almost faster than I can give the command, Yossele decks the elgyem with a devastating right hook, his hand coated in a purplish, ghostly flame.

The elgyem careens into a nearby tree, floating to the ground limp and unconscious.

“You lose, David,” I say, approaching him. I can feel a grim look spreading across my face, but I don’t even care at this point. “Take your elgyem to the Pokémon Center and get it looked at. It should be fine in the morning.” I look at him, and I don’t feel much. I think, though, that I feel some semblance of disappointment. “This was stupid, David. Don’t try that again, or you’ll seriously hurt your pokémon.”

I’m right up next to him now. He’s about my height, but skinny, almost gaunt-looking. His eyes are almost wild with anger, even hate. “You’ll see me again, Mattie Kasdan,” he hisses, almost slamming our PokéGears together as he initiates the customary money transfer. “I’ll be stronger, and you’ll be the one whose pokémon are lying in the dirt. You’ll see.” He scrambles over to his elgyem, picks it up, almost cradling it like a newborn child, and runs off towards Sandgem.

I sigh deeply, rubbing my eyes out of frustration and exhaustion. My jetlag is catching up with me again. I feel an

arm on my shoulder. {Let’s get back to the hotel, alright?} Yossele suggests.

Nodding, I begin to trudge in the direction of Sandgem, Yossele following close behind.

I really hope not everyone else in Sinnoh is like this.

-095

THE UNDERGROUND

The Intangibles by

eldestoyster

I

I’m nervous, of course. It’s not my first time in Goldenrod, but it’s close to it, and even just the walk from the station is much more than I’m used to: so many people, so much traffic, cars and bikes and trams all inches from collision at any one time. But I made it, even through that awful trip on the metro where I held up a line of angry Goldenrodders for five minutes while I struggled with my ticket, and now here I am at the Pokémon Centre, back in familiar territory at last. It’s comforting: that yellow light spilling through automatic doors, the redtopped desk and colourful chairs in the lobby. They build these the same all over the peninsula. So that kids on their journey always have somewhere like home to come back to.

Home for me too, for a while: I spent pretty much my last few ducats getting here, staking everything on the fact that Dr Spearing would be able to do something that no one else could. If she

can’t … well, then I’m going to have to deal with that.

It’s a problem for another time. The receptionist is looking at me around the side of her computer monitor, eyebrow raised.

“Can I help you?”

Okay. Moment of truth. I smile hesitantly and take my trainer card from my pocket.

“Hi,” I say. “I’m … I need to see Dr Spearing.”

The receptionist nods.

High cheekbones, immaculate hair. A little too intimidating for a Pokémon Centre receptionist, I think, but maybe elevenyear-olds don’t notice that kind of thing.

“You have a ghost-type?” she asks.

I nod. “Okay,” she says, turning to her computer and tapping at the keyboard. “I can check her availability for you, one moment … Right. How serious is it?”

I swallow.

“Pretty bad,” I tell her. “I don’t know

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THE UNDERGROUND

if … she can’t really hold her shape any more. Her hearing’s gone, too.”

a registered trainer, and then you’re on your own.

Sympathetic smile. Her teeth are very white and even.

She keeps talking. I stare past her without hearing, at the blind arbok with its broken face.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That does sound bad.” She speaks like someone who really knows what she’s talking about; looking past her shoulder, I can see her arbok coiled behind the desk, odd notches in its heavy head and a milky film over its eyes. It’s hard not to stare. I don’t know what could have torn up its face like that, but it must have been horrific. “Okay. I think I can get you in tomorrow, but it will have to be first thing. Eight o’clock okay?”

“Fine,” I say. “Any time, I just … need to see her.”

“Sure.” She looks up from her screen.

“Name?”

“Uh, Morty. Morty Fletcher.”

“Are you staying with us?”

“Yeah,” I say, already handing my card over the counter. “Here.”

“Thank you, Morty.”

She starts putting in my details, delivering the usual spiel on autopilot: mealtimes, laundry costs, computer room access. I’ve heard these words so many times now that they have the comforting ring of familiarity, even though the content is less than pleasant. As a kid, I could stay here for weeks, but they don’t extend that kind of courtesy to people whose journeys are over; you get five days, if you’re still

They saved it, right? Some doctor who knew about giant snakes put its head back together and it slithered on out of that operating theatre and back into its life. So it stands to reason that this doctor who knows about ghosts …

I’m getting my hopes up, I realise, and try my best to squash them. Ghosts are impossible to treat, right? Weird and incorporeal and mostly immune to medicines. I need to remember that.

There are no promises here.

“Any questions?” receptionist.

asks

the

I try to smile.

“No,” I say. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Okay. Room 24, then. Second floor.”

She smiles back. “Don’t worry,” she tells me. “Dr Spearing is the best at what she does.”

“Sure,” I say. “Thanks.”

I sit on the narrow Pokémon Centre bed, eyes closed. If I stretch out my left arm as far as I can, my fingertips will just about touch the mirror; if I reach above my head, my hand will be three and a half inches below the beige shade of the ceiling light. I could straighten my leg, and about ten degrees before

-099

it reaches horizontal my foot will tap against the far wall.

I know this room. It’s mine. More mine than the bedroom I left behind two months ago, anyway. In a minute I’ll take my stuff out of my bag, put it away in the same drawers I did when I lived in this same room back in Azalea; and a couple of weeks after I leave, just when I can’t stay out in the wilderness a moment longer, I will return to this room in another town and do it all over again.

I open my eyes: inoffensive colours, flame-resistant paint. The kind of carpet that can take a pokémon chewing on it.

It’s kind of shitty that this is home, but I guess this isn’t the kind of thing you get a choice about.

At half seven the next morning, I’m already walking down the little glasswalled corridor that connects the Centre to the Royal Westside Hospital. Most Centres have an infirmary wing, but given that Goldenrod’s is right next to the beating heart of pokémon medicine in Johto, I guess it made more sense to the planners to simply join the two.

I’m in a hurry, but I can’t stop myself pausing: from up here on the third floor, the city looks strange and new all over again. Smoke streaks on the buildings. Pidgey swaggering around on the rooftops, shoving regular

pigeons out of their way with the confidence of pokémon among animals.

Below me, the streets are eerily empty: one man with a dog and a growlithe splashing through puddles of last night’s rain, barking at each other; one girl in the phone booth across the street, kicking idly at the wall as she speaks.

It looks so peaceful. Like Mahogany in January, when the snow covers the town and buries everything in gleaming white silence.

I don’t want to think about that. I take Roddy’s ball from my pocket, reminding myself why I’m here, and hurry on across the bridge into the hospital.

I have instructions from the receptionist; apparently I want the Intangibles Clinic, which is all the way over on the other side of the building, tucked away on the fifth floor. She offered me a map, but I was too embarrassed to take it, so I lied and said I had a good head for directions. In the end, I have to ask two other people, first the receptionist at the main desk and then a nurse clearly on his way to a smoke break, and even then it takes me a full fifteen minutes to find my way through the labyrinth of blandly pale corridors to the scuffed green doors of my destination.

It’s different in here: between the deep blue walls and the heavy curtains, it feels like dawn hasn’t come yet. What

THE UNDERGROUND

light there is comes from an eclectic mix of lamps scattered across the waitingroom; it looks to me like someone just went around a series of charity shops and picked out every floor lamp going.

“Hi,” calls someone, seeing me hovering in the doorway. “Come in.

Don’t mind the dark, it’s to keep the ghosts happy.”

The speaker is a handsome guy in his late twenties, leaning out of a window let into one wall. Warm eyes, bright red hair. That medical professional kind of look on his face, calm and competent.

“Hey,” he says, as I approach. “First of the day, huh? I guess you must be Morty.”

“That’s right.” I try to smile, to be a personable kind of guy who this man will be nice to, but now that I’m actually here I can’t seem to make my face do what I want. It’s finally happening.

So many weeks of waiting, and now there’s nothing left but to sit down and wait to be told whether Roddy is going to die. “I, um, I have an appointment at eight. With Dr Spearing.”

The man smiles back, with much more success than I had. His name badge reads LORNE. “Sure,” he says, scribbling something on a piece of paper.

“Everyone’s appointment is with Dr Spearing. She’s the expert, after all.

Have a seat, Morty. I’ll let the doctor know you’re here.”

I want to say thank you, but my worry seems to be a solid thing now, climbing up through my throat and blocking my voice with a tangle of spiny legs. I nod instead, gripping Roddy’s ball so tight it hurts, and find a seat over by one of the uglier lamps.

My watch ticks. Across the room, a gastly flows up from behind a painting of a boat and watches me with wide, curious eyes. It changes shape so fluidly, morphing from trickle of gas to smoking orb in just a second, and though I really don’t want to be that guy I feel my eyes prickle a little in response. I think the gastly knows; it sticks out its tongue and dives under the clinic door, vanishing away to who knows where.

7.53. My stomach growls, but I’m not hungry. Haven’t even been able to think about food this morning. There will be time to eat later, after I know what it is that’s going to happen.

Click. A speaker somewhere crackles, and I hear a woman’s voice, deep and husky: Morty Fletcher, room 1, please.

Lorne smiles at me as I get up.

“Good luck,” he says. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

I wish I had his optimism, his instinctive kindness towards a stranger in pain. I look at him for a moment, trying to respond, then give up and head down the corridor to the first door on the right. It’s ajar, but I knock anyway, and get a response:

-0101

“Come in.”

Her voice has a north Johto burr to it, under the polite veneer of her bedside manner. It makes me even more nervous, in a way – I left that part of the world for a reason – but okay, I’m here, I can’t back out now. I push open the door— —and freeze.

Dr Spearing looks up from her desk, her hair swirling around her head in muddy purple curls.

“Hello,” she says, smiling. Her mouth and eyes are full of green light, like windows onto some otherworldly furnace. “Please take a seat.”

I knew she was dead, of course. She’s practically a legend in Mahogany: the kid genius who won a full scholarship to study medicine in Saffron, got killed on her way home one Christmas and then came back from the dead to invent a methodology for treating ghost-types.

Except that as much as people talk about her achievements, as much as she is an emblem of small-town pride, she never comes home, and nobody really seems to want her to.

So yes, I knew what I was going to see when I walked in here. I’ve seen her photo in the Mahogany Courier a thousand times. But even so, it’s impossible not to stare.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I, uh …”

“It’s all right,” she adds, looking faintly amused. “You’d be surprised

how many people aren’t expecting it.

Have a seat.”

I sit, still staring. I have some experience with ghost-types, of course, but not with the kind that used to be people. Spearing is tall and bulky and eerily ageless, made up of purple fog that curls off her skin in thin, smoky wisps, and though I know I should be making an effort, that she’s probably sick to death of seeing fear in people’s eyes, it is very hard not to be intimidated right now.

“Now,” she says, swivelling her chair to face mine. “Before I begin, I should introduce my colleagues Audrey and Horne here.”

I didn’t even notice, but she’s right, we’re not alone: there’s a younger woman sitting in the corner, a notebook and pen in her hands and a misdreavus hovering by her shoulder.

The misdreavus sees me looking and pulls a face, his eyes glowing a brighter orange for a moment.

“They’re shadowing me today,” explains Spearing. “Is that okay with you?”

“Um, sure, I guess.”

“Great.” Spearing clasps her hands together in her lap. “So, Morty. You’re here about your partner? A haunter, I heard?”

“Yeah.” It’s harder to raise my hand than it should be. As if Roddy’s ball has suddenly turned to lead. “Here. She,

THE UNDERGROUND

um … she’s kind of lost her shape. And I don’t think she can hear me, either.”

“Okay.” Spearing holds out one hand.

Her wrist and forearm are covered in slashes of the same green light that forms her eyes. I think I might know what this means, but I really hope I’m wrong. “May I see her?”

I hesitate – I know, I shouldn’t, but I do – and then put the ball into her palm. Her fog is surprisingly warm to the touch. Almost like living skin.

“Thank you.” Spearing turns the ball between her fingers. “What’s her name?”

“Arianrhod. Roddy.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Like the princess, or the assassin?”

Johto has two famous Arianrhods in its past: a princess from nine centuries ago who ran off with a Kantan knight, and a killer who worked for the Blackthorn dragon clan a hundred and fifty years later. I actually didn’t know about either of them back when Roddy and I first met; I just thought it sounded fancy, and she seemed to like it.

“Both,” I lie. “I guess.”

“Fair.” That’s a touch of Mahogany there. I wonder what she sounds like when not at work. Like my mother, maybe.

God. Why would you think about that, Morty?

“Well, let’s have a look at her.” A

flash of light, and there she is, spilling over the desk in a dark, sludgy puddle: Roddy. My haunter, though you’d never know it to look at her any more.

“Hm,” says Spearing, leaning over her. “Okay.” She motions in Audrey’s direction. “Separation. Quite advanced.

Look here …” I turn away sharply: her fingers are in the puddle now, probing through Roddy like a crow poking at roadkill. Makes my stomach turn.

“Crystallisation. Bits of something else, too. I’ll need to get these under a microscope, but they give us something to go on in terms of her genre.”

I can’t decide whether all this jargon makes me feel better or worse.

She clearly knows what she’s doing, which I guess should be a comfort – but there’s something awful about being confronted with the depth of my own ignorance like this. How did I think we were going to make it on our own? I don’t even know what a bloody genre is.

Roddy moves slightly, lapping at Spearing’s fingers. I’m still not looking, but I can hear it: that gentle liquid sound, like a pool of water just barely disturbed.

“Okay,” says Spearing, and I force myself to look at her again. Her hands are back in her lap; on the desk, Roddy slithers back and forth, white grains moving around inside her without ever quite forming an eye. “Your partner has separated, Morty. Something has gone

-0103

wrong with the force that holds her together, and the physical components of her body have split apart from each other. It’s not uncommon among ghosts, and though it looks dramatic it’s quite an easy symptom to treat – but it can have any number of underlying causes, and unless I can determine what the root of the issue is, I’m afraid that it’s very likely to happen again.”

Easy to treat. I heard easy to treat in there somewhere. That’s good.

Less encouraging is the bit about it happening again. I know she’s not threatening me, just explaining, but it’s so hard to take it that way.

“Okay,” I say. “Um … so she’s going to be all right?”

“Almost certainly.” She’s got that same medical professional face as Lorne, although in her case the fact that her hair keeps crawling around on her skull kind of detracts from the soothing effect. “Your partner’s physical form is by far the smallest part of her, Morty. Ghosts are mostly made of emotion. Which is to say that a sufficiently passionate ghost can come back from anything.” Brief pause. “Are you and Roddy close?”

The day they figured it out. I’d left my instant messages open, but I’m sure I locked the computer; I guess Dad must have been using the admin account to monitor what I was doing.

Or maybe there was some other clue, some mistake I made. But that day

when we fought, and as our voices rose Roddy exploded into the space between us, making herself huge and dark with borrowed shadows, and almost glassed Mum’s meganium when he tried to intervene.

They only let me keep her after my journey on the condition I teach her to obey them, too. And she did, for all those years, until she had to pick a side and chose me without a second thought.

“Yeah,” I say. It sounds so dumb, divorced from all the memories, but I think Spearing gets it.

“Then she’ll probably be fine,” she tells me. “If she cares, she will come back for you.”

An uncomfortable kind of silence, lying thick in my throat and sinuses. I really hope Spearing and Audrey can’t tell how close to tears I am.

“Um,” I say, swallowing hard.

“Okay. Okay, that’s … good to know.”

Spearing smiles in a way that makes me think she deals with a lot of kids.

“I hoped it might be,” she says.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to keep Roddy here a while and run some tests.”

“Uh, sure, if that’ll help.”

“It will. I do need to ask you a few more questions, though. That okay?”

Yes, anything. She asks if I know what genre Roddy is, and when I say no

THE UNDERGROUND

explains what that means; apparently ghosts are too weird and idiosyncratic to form species, but they can at least be sorted into rough groups. Have I battled with Roddy? Yes: all the time; I’ve started again recently. She raises her eyebrows, asks me if that’s a hobby or what.

There’s something strange about the way she asks it. I pretend not to notice, just tell her yeah, it is, maybe I’ll enter a tournament, and though she gives me a look, all she says is okay, well, you must be familiar with her typing and capabilities then.

The questions get more technical and less suspicious: much easier to answer. I think Spearing has something in mind, because after a couple more (where did you two partner? is she good at taking electric-type moves?) she turns to Audrey and asks for her opinion; Audrey looks startled, but suggests that maybe Roddy’s in the eleventh or thirteenth genres. Spearing nods, pleased, and says that’s her read too. Partly expressed ground typing, she says. Better simulate the elemental interactions before running any tests.

Now, how would you describe her health in general? When did you start noticing these symptoms?

Nothing dangerous here. I keep talking, easing my way past my fears, and Spearing nods and writes everything down as if every word matters. Hell, maybe it does.

“All right,” she says, when I’m done. “Thank you, Morty. That’s very helpful.” She recalls Roddy and straightens up in her chair. “Do you have any questions of your own?”

Only one. I hesitate, not wanting to commit the weight of it to my tongue, but it’s Roddy, it’s all I have left, and so in the end I have to ask: “Is she gonna die?”

Spearing shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “That’s a very remote possibility. As I said, we can treat the symptoms. Once I have the preliminary test results, recoagulating her will be a half hour job, and after that I’d like to run a couple more tests – but if I’m right, she’ll just need a few days of therapy and some time to convalesce.

I can’t say how long it will take to find the underlying cause, but I promise you that we will find it.”

She’s confident. I wish I could share in that.

“Okay?” she asks, when I don’t respond.

“Okay,” I murmur. “Okay.”

“Good,” says Spearing. “Good. I’ll take her down to the lab now, and we can get started right away. Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

She stands. Audrey starts to as well, Horne floating up towards head height, but Spearing motions for her to stay sitting.

-0105

“Just a moment,” she says. “I want your opinion on something in a minute.”

“Oh,” says Audrey, looking slightly worried. “Sure, Tacoma. Dr Spearing.

Sorry.”

Spearing waves her apology aside, and I follow her out into the dim light of the hall.

“As I said, she’ll have to stay here a while,” she tells me, as she shuts the door behind us. “At least a week or two. You have somewhere to stay in town while you wait?”

I know then, of course. I’m not surprised. Something about her burning eyes makes me think she can see right through me.

That’s not to say I’m not afraid, though.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m at the Pokémon Centre. But, uh, this isn’t my journey, so …”

“Ah. Only five days?” She shakes her head. “All that money on move R&D, and the League still can’t spare anything for older trainers … doesn’t matter. I’ll page the Centre. You can stay there as long as it takes.”

A place to stay. An actual place to stay, for more than the next few days.

And one meal a day, laundry, healthcare …

I can’t believe it. It must be visible on my face, too, because Spearing grins and says:

“Yes, really.”

“Thank you,” I say. The words sound so inadequate, so stupid in my mouth, but like before, Spearing seems to understand.

“Great. I’ll have Lorne send any updates over there.” We’re at the waiting room. She stops in the entrance, unaware or careless of the guy sitting across the room and staring at her over his magazine, and gives me a serious look. “The results will come back late today or early tomorrow,” she says, “but you can get the receptionist at the Centre to call the clinic if you have any more questions, all right? Or if you … need anything.”

She looks slightly uncomfortable, which means … I don’t know what it means. It means something, for sure.

What is she offering me here? Not medical advice, that much I’m certain of. And maybe I’m in a position where I can’t turn it down, whatever it is – but she’s a stranger, and she’s spooky, and she’s north Johto. So. “Right,” I say. Can’t quite keep the wariness out of my voice. “Thanks.”

She pauses a moment longer, as if expecting more, but if she is then she’s out of luck: that’s all she’s getting.

“Okay,” she says, reaching vaguely towards her face and then seeming to think better of it. “Well, I’d better get Roddy down to the lab. Bye, Morty. And try not to worry.”

THE UNDERGROUND

She turns around and glides away, barely touching the ground. I stare obviously, rudely, and then glance around, feeling guilty. Both Lorne and the guy with the magazine are watching.

“Mm,” I say, not quite succeeding in my attempt to be nonchalant, and head back to the Centre with bowed head and burning cheeks.

Lunch is the one meal a day I get for free here, as a trainer on the road but no longer officially on my journey.

It’s okay. I still don’t have much of an appetite. But I’m here, I need to make the most of it, and so I force myself through the nauseating smell of food and into the canteen. I get a bacon sandwich, which seems like the least depressing thing on the menu, and sweep some bread and apples into my bag for later. I checked with the receptionist, and apparently Spearing did extend my stay, but I guess she couldn’t get me any more meal credits.

I take my haul to a corner, where I hope my age and sour expression will insulate me from the kids. It’s October, and a lot of kids on their journey must be starting to think about breaking for winter, but summer lingers here by the coast and the Centre is still heaving with eleven-year-olds and their partners. I don’t even know if I’ve seen a single other person my own age here.

There was one punk girl who must be

a few years older than me coming out of the bathroom last night, but even if I wanted to speak to her (and I really don’t) she’s much too intimidating to approach.

After a while, you don’t really notice the noise. I’ve spent a lot of time in Centres, over the past two months; forks on plates, excited voices, barking and whining and scratching, have all faded into one dull hum at the back of my head. I pick at my sandwich in silence, worrying about Roddy and about what Spearing will do with her suspicions, until a shadow enters the corner of my vision and I look up with a kind of annoyed relief.

“Hi,” says the guy from the waiting room. “This seat taken?”

There is very obviously no one at this table but me.

“No,” I say.

“Mind if I join you?” he asks.

I sigh.

“I guess not,” I reply, trying hard to communicate in every way but verbal that I do, and watch him sit down.

Longish hair swept neatly back from his face. Nice clothes. A light smattering of acne over one cheekbone. He looks – and speaks – like someone who doesn’t spend a lot of time in hostels like these.

“I’m Eusine,” he says.

“Eusine?” I ask, despite myself. It’s a hard name to ignore, no matter how much you want to be left alone to brood.

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“I know,” he sighs. “But my sister’s called Hypatia, so I figure I got off lightly.”

“Hypatia,” I repeat. “Wow. I’m, uh … Morty.”

Eusine pauses, fork halfway to his mouth.

“As in, short for Mortimer?”

“Yes. Technically.”

A serious nod.

“You know the burden, then,” he says, voice dripping melodrama. “I got the dumbest name in Kanto and you got …”

He trails off, realising what he’s about to say.

“The dumbest name in Johto?” I finish for him. “Thanks.”

“Crap. Didn’t mean that.” He scratches nervously at his acne. “Uh, okay, let me take another run at that one. I saw you at the clinic and thought I’d say hi. You’re in town ‘cause of your partner?”

“Yep.”

“Sorry,” I say. “My haunter is …

I don’t know. Dr Spearing says she’s separated, which I guess is the medical term for turning into a pile of gloop.”

I didn’t mean to sound so bitter. Or maybe I did; maybe I want this guy to shut up and sod off. Leave me to worry in peace.

“Sorry,” he says, eyes wide. I think he means it. “Sounds rough.”

I shrug. I honestly do not want to talk about it, even if it’s all I can think of.

Makes me feel stupid, almost as much as it frightens me. I should have found more partners when it became clear was how I’d get by. But what would I have fed them? The only reason I could take Roddy was because she can spook people and eat their fear.

“Dr Spearing knows her stuff, though,” Eusine persists. “I guess both our partners will be okay.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I hope so.”

I force down a bite of my sandwich.

He spears a piece of sweet potato and pops it in his mouth.

“Cool. Or not cool, I guess, I’m sorry.

But, uh, me too. My gastly, he’s got all slow? Like he’s in a video playing at half speed while the world is normal.”

“She’s something though, huh. I heard she was … well, what she is. But I guess I still wasn’t really expecting it, you know?”

I don’t even know what to say to that. It sounds like a joke, but ghosts are weird, and one thing I’m learning today is that despite almost six years of partnership I don’t know a goddamn thing about them.

“She’s from my hometown,” answer, without thinking. “So—”

I

I cut myself off, wishing I hadn’t spoken. That just invites a followup question – and sure enough, here it comes:

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“Oh, cool,” says Eusine. “You know her, then?”

“No, I just …” I sigh. “Where are you from?”

“Celadon.”

A big Kantan city. Not Goldenrod or Saffron big, but still a city, so I guess he wouldn’t know.

“Maybe this doesn’t make sense to you,” I say. “But I’m from Mahogany, and literally the only two people from there who anyone has ever heard of are her and Pryce Aske, so. She’s kind of a big deal back home.”

I say home as if that’s what it is.

Eusine, for his part, looks at me like he believes it.

“Right,” he says. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. You ever met her before, or …?”

“No. She left town a long time ago.

Lots of us do.”

“Us?” he asks. “You don’t live there any more?”

Goddamn it, Morty. Try thinking before you speak, why don’t you?

“No, I do,” I lie. “I’m just here ‘cause of Dr Spearing.”

“By yourself?” God, he’s persistent.

“Yep. Just me.”

“Right,” he says again. “Right.”

A pause. I think he might have finally run out of questions to ask. I give him two seconds, stretching my patience to

its limit, then make my escape.

“Well, nice talking to you,” I tell him, standing up and grabbing my tray. “Bye, Eusine.”

“Oh,” he says, looking at my unfinished sandwich. “Um … yeah. I guess I’ll see you around? Like here, and at the clinic.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “Sure.”

I walk out, past the noisy rows of kids and squabbling pokémon, and I can feel Eusine’s eyes on my back every step of the way.

Tonight I have the nightmare again, the one where it goes wrong. Where he didn’t just threaten to hit me but he did, and Roddy flew into his face the way she is forbidden to do to anyone, and he breathed her in and fell down on the floor, clutching at his throat.

It’s not a nightmare because he gets hurt. It’s a nightmare because as I look at him writhing on the carpet, my mother’s voice fading in my ears, I don’t feel anything but satisfaction.

I wake early, and take some coffee to an armchair in the corner of the lounge, where I sit with my Game Boy and try to look unfriendly. It seems to work; those kids who have nothing better to do than hang out here at the Centre – tired from travel or waiting for their partners to come back from the infirmary – give me a wide berth.

-0109

On the screen, my pixellated little knights and clerics have their health bars sliced away by rogues and their sneasel, over and over. I’m much too worried to concentrate, although I guess it doesn’t really matter. Since I left home— no, let’s call it what it is: since I ran away, I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out in Pokémon Centres near plug sockets, and I’ve beaten this game three times already.

When are they going to call? I should have asked Spearing, but I just didn’t think. (Story of my life.) Since Azalea, getting Roddy to the ghost clinic has been the only thing in the world; I never really thought about what might happen once we actually made it here.

On the wall, the hands of the clock click around in anxious circles. The lounge fills up, empties out. Someone’s marill comes over to tug curiously on my Game Boy’s charging cable; before I can react, his partner is right there to drag him away, red-faced and apologetic. I smile at her – I was a nervous kid on a journey too, once – but she just runs off back to her friends.

I kill a wizard and a sigilyph.

(Creighton’s Vow of Silence combined with Sarissa’s Pike Charge beats all magic users before the endgame; I can do that even on autopilot.) I make another cup of coffee. (Too much milk and sugar; I keep adding spoonfuls just because my hands need to be busy.) I think about going for a walk, but then

worry I might miss a call and settle myself more firmly in my chair.

And finally, just as my stomach starts me thinking about how to time my lunch so I miss Eusine, I hear a familiar voice crackle from the tannoy: “Morty Fletcher? Message from the clinic for you.”

I jump up, scaring a pair of zubat drinking in the sounds above the radio, and head out to the lobby, where the receptionist from yesterday is back on duty at the desk.

“Hi,” she says. This time I get her name: TAMIKO, winking at me from the badge on her lapel. “I’ve got good news for you. Lorne from the Intangibles Clinic says your haunter is awake—” “Can I see her?” The words are out before I’ve even realised I’m speaking.

“Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t mean to …”

She smiles her perfect, picket-fence smile.

“It’s fine,” she says. “I know I was like that when Makoto woke up after her operation.”

Behind her, the arbok uncoils, turning her sightless head towards her partner with unerring accuracy. I don’t really know how smart snakes are, but she seems to know her name.

“Anyway.” Tamiko gestures at her computer screen. “Dr Spearing actually wants to know if you can come over and see her right away. I think she – um, your haunter, I mean – is a little scared

THE UNDERGROUND

and confused, and she’d appreciate a friendly face.”

that weird can’t-quite-manage-words ghost way. “Ubulumuuu.”

“Okay,” I say, legs already itching with the urge to be away. “Okay, thanks so much, I—”

“What my partner means to say,” says Audrey, stepping from somewhere to beckon him away from me, “is that Roddy’s right over here.” She smiles.

“Hello, Morty.”

“Go on, Morty,” says Tamiko, looking amused. “No need to be polite.”

I’m too impatient even to blush; by the time she’s finished speaking, I’m already halfway over to the stairs.

“I told you!” she calls after me. “Dr Spearing is the best!”

I guess she is, but I don’t have the spare breath to agree.

I arrive breathless with anticipation, and also with having run as much of the way as I could manage without getting glared at too much by passing medical technicians. The clinic is as dimly lit as ever, though much more crowded; I guess there aren’t a lot of options for sick ghosts. I do my best not to look at anyone waiting, feeling guilty about the fact that my partner is recovering while theirs aren’t, and follow Lorne’s directions down the corridor, past the consulting rooms and through the doors at the end into a long, dark room filled with the kind of creepy noises that can only mean ghosts.

I stand there, momentum arrested with the need to adjust my eyes, and then out of nowhere a vivid orange glare leaps into my face.

“Uumuluuoo,”

burbles

Horne,

in

“Mm,” I reply. It’s about all I can manage; I’m still trying to get my heart to slow down. Bloody ghosts. Roddy hasn’t tried to scare me for years now, but it took her eight very long months among humans to kick the habit. “Um … thank you.”

“No problem. This way.”

We walk down the ward – if that’s what it is. I still can’t see more than vague outlines, though I can hear gibbering and babbling and people talking in low voices. Kind of disorienting. Every step I take, I’m half afraid I’m going to hit my head on something.

“Ah. Morty.”

The dark heaves, swirls, and opens a pair of burning green eyes. Spearing fades into existence around them, and in her arms— “Roddy!”

She bursts out of Spearing’s hands in one long fluid movement, reaching out for me with her long, sharp fingers.

She can’t touch me – she’s one of those haunter who are too corrosive for that – but she brushes her hands up and down my sleeves, body flying round and round my head.

-0111

“Mollolloy,” she whispers. Her voice is weak and hoarse, barely even audible.

“Mollolloh, lolloh, loy.”

She smiles. “I just thought the two of you could do with seeing each other, is all.”

“Yeah,” I say, resisting the urge to stroke her. “Yeah, it’s me, it’s Morty.”

I’m glad it’s so dark; I feel like I’m blushing pretty hard right now.

Although I suspect Spearing might have the night vision to see it anyway.

“Mollolloy.”

Roddy twitches suddenly, one of her hands collapsing into a cloud of dust; she hisses, pulls it back together and pats my shoulder. I smell scorched fabric, but it’s fine. She ruined this jacket a long time ago.

“Um,” I say. “Thanks.”

“As you can see, she’s not quite back to usual,” says Spearing. “But that was as much as I could do without you.”

“Sure. I’m sorry to appear so suddenly, by the way. She was very scared when she woke up and couldn’t find you; I had to take her into the shadows to calm her down. I think she thought you might be in trouble.”

I look up from Roddy into her glowing eyes.

There is just the faintest hint of a question in her voice.

“Without me?”

“Yes. Remember I told you that ghosts are mostly emotion? In partnered ghosts, quite a lot of that emotion is attachment to their human.” Spearing gestures at her, still bobbing around me like she can’t believe I’m here. “The more she sees of you, the stronger she’ll be, and the better able to recover.” She claps her hands together. “Speaking of which, I can now offer you a diagnosis.

Have you heard of an epistemic allergic reaction?”

“No. Is that what it is?”

“Yes, I think so. I’m waiting on some more results to determine the specifics, but based on preliminary testing, I suspect Roddy has had an extreme allergic reaction to a dream or concept. As for why I called you in …”

“Yeah,” I say, looking at Roddy rather than her. “She worries.”

Understatement of the century.

Since my little disagreement with my parents, Roddy has been even more vigilant than usual, looking for trouble in every face we pass. I’ve tried to explain to her that there was a very specific reason that Mum and Dad turned on me, that she doesn’t need to worry about everyone, but of course she doesn’t get it. Haunter find us as difficult to understand as we do them.

Spearing nods slowly.

“Of course,” she says. “Ghosts can be very protective.”

I don’t think this is the statement that it pretends to be.

“Yep,” I reply. “Sure can.”

THE UNDERGROUND

Pause. Audrey twists her fingers anxiously around each other and slips away, muttering something about another patient.

Roddy draws her scattered hands back towards her body, curling her fingers into claws. She can feel it in the air too, even if she doesn’t know what it is.

“Roddy,” I say, pulling my sleeve over my hand and tapping her gently.

“Don’t strain yourself. Sorry,” I add, to Spearing. “Like I said. She worries.”

Her smile is one hundred per cent fake.

“Of course,” she says. “Do you have any other questions about her condition, while I’m here?”

“Uh. Yeah. You said she had an allergic reaction?”

“Yes, although that’s not what the problem is.” She gestures at what I think is a chair. “Would you like to sit down?”

“Are you about to give me really bad news?”

She laughs.

“No,” she says. “Just being polite.

Here.”

We sit, Spearing moving with confidence and me feeling around gingerly with outstretched hands.

Roddy flows over with us, sticking close to my shoulder. When I first caught her, she used to be jealous of

my pidgey, Vance, who rode around on my shoulder; after my journey ended and most of my partners went back to their old lives with their newfound strength, Roddy took up his spot with pleasure. Or as close as she could get without being dangerously close to my head, anyway.

I never even realised how much I missed this. It’s been two weeks.

Two weeks of carrying her around as a puddle in a ball, desperately hiking my way north towards Goldenrod and its vaunted ghost doctor. It seems like nothing now, but at the time it went on forever.

“So,” says Spearing, leaning forward in her chair. “As far as I can tell, a month or two ago, Roddy encountered an idea that reacted badly with her emotional substrate. This in itself wasn’t enough to hurt her – there wouldn’t have been any symptoms at the time. But some time after that, she must have picked up a minor illness – the ghost equivalent of a light cold, something that ordinarily she would have barely even noticed – and, with her essence still weak, it destabilised her to the point of separation. Are you with me so far?”

Yes. Yes, I’m with her, and I know exactly what it was that Roddy reacted to.

It’s my fault. Just like everything else. It’s my fault, and maybe I didn’t mean to do it but that doesn’t mean I

-0113

wasn’t the cause, and now Roddy’s in hospital.

“Yeah,” I say, “I’m with you.”

Concentrate. Got to get the important details here. Nobody else will get them for me. “So she’s … she’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”

“Of course,” replies Spearing, and my heart lifts at the conviction in her voice: this is someone who means what she says, who doesn’t just believe but knows that things are going to work out okay. “If I’m right, she just needs a couple of weeks to recover. I’d like to keep her here a while longer, though, to be sure that she’s not going to relapse.”

I can’t tell if she means this, or if she’s lying so that I can keep staying at the Centre. It’s not something I feel much like questioning right now.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay, great.” What else? Got to be more. Can’t just sit here looking like some dumb kid, even if that’s exactly what I am. “Um … So you’re waiting on tests, right?”

“Yes. I should be able to tell you more soon – tomorrow at the latest.

Anything else?”

I shake my head no. I feel like I should have more to say, but I just don’t.

“All right,” says Spearing, leaning back a little in her chair. “Now, I have some other patients I need to attend to, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you like; just let someone know when you’re leaving, and we’ll help you

explain to Roddy that she has to stay.”

She stands up, or more accurately she sort of flows upwards out of her chair, trailing parts of herself behind her.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” she says.

“You can draw the curtain if you’d like some privacy. The cord is there; I know it’s hard to see in the dark.”

I hadn’t even realised there was a curtain. Maybe this is more like a hospital ward than I thought.

“Okay,” I say, like a broken record.

“Thanks.”

“Not at all,” replies Spearing. “I’m glad we were able to help. Let someone know if you need anything.”

She leaves. For a moment I stare after her, trying to tell if she walked off or straight-up vanished, but it’s impossible to be sure. I give up, turn back to Roddy instead.

“Hey,” I say. She bobs up and down, staring into my face like she could eat me with her eyes.

“Lallyuh,” she hisses, gripping my sleeve as tight as she dares.

“Yeah,” I answer, a warmth spreading through my chest. “Me too.”

It takes a long time for me to be able to see the room properly; this is a place designed for ghosts, not for humans.

When I do, I see it’s both much smaller and much busier than I imagined: maybe twenty padded tables like they have in Centre infirmaries, most

THE UNDERGROUND

occupied. Gastly, haunter, a mismagius or two, several puddles connected to strange machines. A lone dusknoir, slumped with a horrible kind of solidity across its table, arm hanging off the edge. Nurses moving around, spectral partners making the dark quaver at their side.

I watch people come and go, talking to their partners, doing things I can’t understand. Audrey and a doctor draw a curtain around a gastly and its partner, and lights begin to pulse irregularly through the fabric. Spearing takes a haunter that won’t stop screaming in her arms and the two of them dissolve into silence.

None of it makes any sense, but somehow it’s comforting anyway. I need it. Roddy is back, yes, but bits of her keep disintegrating, her eye or hand or mouth collapsing into airborne dust before reforming a moment later.

I think the effort of holding together is wearing on her. After that first joyous burst of energy runs out, she sinks down onto the table at my side in a pool of herself, eyes closed.

ordinary chaos of the ward.

Roddy doesn’t answer me when I speak. I keep talking anyway.

I can’t stay forever. I need to eat, for one thing. I also need air; I’ve spent enough time with Roddy that I don’t mind the close, dark spaces she loves, but I’m still human, and sometimes a human needs light and space. I tell her I will be back, which wakes her up enough to babble some kind of argument with me, and head on out.

Even the gloom of the waiting room is blinding. I linger for a moment in the doorway, dreading the electric light of the corridor outside, and while I’m there I hear someone call my name.

“Hey, Morty!”

Well, shit.

“Eusine,” I say, turning around.

“Hi.” “Hi.” He smiles. It’s a very nice smile, which might be why it annoys me so much. “Heading out for lunch?”

“Yeah.”

She keeps hold of my sleeve, though.

Letting me know she’s okay.

“Same. I’ll go back to the Centre with you.”

I tell her about the Centre, about hiking up here through Ilex Forest and over the huge, windswept plains of southern Goldenweal. I look at the ghosts flying overhead, carrying strange devices that look half machine and half magic. I listen to the quiet,

“Oh,” I begin, meaning to say no, I’m going out, but a moment later I remember the whole ‘completely broke’ thing. “Oh, cool,” I finish instead. “Okay.”

Out we go, into the brightness of the corridor. We both pause, stunned by

-0115

the light, and then as one start walking towards the bridge over to the Centre, pretending that our eyes don’t hurt.

“How’s your haunter?” he asks.

I do feel a little bad then. He remembers. People don’t remember unless they care.

“She’s okay, I think,” I reply. “Tired.

Mostly back in her usual shape, though.

Dr Spearing says she’ll be okay, but they’re doing more tests.” Come on, Morty. Reciprocate. “What about your gastly?”

“Still slowed down.” He starts chewing the edge of his thumbnail, apparently without realising. “Dr Spearing says he’ll get better, but it’s going to take a while. There’s this weird black drowzee? From Bulgaria, I think she said it was. It’s doing hypnotherapy with him and he’s terrified of it.”

“Oh.” His case just seems to get weirder and weirder. “Uh … sorry?”

Eusine shrugs.

“Think he’s getting used to it. I mean, he better, he’s got to stay here a couple of weeks.”

He sounds like it’s an imposition.

Like he has a home he wants to get back to.

“What? You’re still on your journey?”

“Yep.” We go around the corner, part temporarily to allow a woman in a wheelchair to pass with her ponyta. “I know, I’m late to the party, but Kanto was weird five years ago. Those Team Brume guys and that poison fog?”

I nod. They didn’t really cross the border at all – why would they? There’s nothing here, even for the likes of them – but Kantan news tends to be Johtonian news too.

“And then, you know, I had school, there wasn’t really a good time … anyway, we all figured I’d better do it now before I ended up putting it off forever. Grandpa’s idea to come to Johto. Money goes further here.”

“Right.” Keeping my voice neutral.

“How’s it going?”

“It isn’t, yet. I got off the train from Saffron last week.”

Last week. Wow. Imagine that: start your trainer journey and immediately have your partner fall sick. If that had happened to me back when I was eleven, that would have pretty much destroyed me.

“Oh, man,” I say. “Sorry. Rough start.”

“Same with Roddy,” I say, trying to ignore it. “At least it’s right next to the Centre.”

“It’s fine.” He scowls. “Wait. No. It’s not fine, but … but you know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “Not really what I had in mind for my trainer journey, though.”

I find myself laughing, though not in a way that sounds very happy.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I do.”

THE UNDERGROUND

Eusine gives me a sidelong look, something sharp revealing itself for an instant beneath his hapless good humour. For some reason I think of a dagger glimpsed momentarily beneath the sweep of a velvet cape, and have to suppress a shiver.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

He doesn’t ask anything else.

This suits me just fine. *** I can’t sleep. I toss and turn almost all night, have a weird half-awake dream about being strapped to one of the tables at the Intangibles Clinic while ghosts shine lights in my eyes and ask incomprehensible burbling questions, and end up slipping downstairs at six, unable to bear my room a single second longer. In the lobby, the night receptionist is reading a taped-together paperback, his sentret keeping watch on the desktop. When it sees me, it squeaks and pulls on his sleeve.

He looks up, says hi. I murmur something inadequate and half run out the doors into the thinning night.

It’s cold out. For a moment I wonder if I should go back and get my jacket, but I can’t go back in now, not after that, and so I just start walking instead.

The light is blue and unfriendly, but I can see the glow of sunrise over the

tops of the buildings, and for no reason other than that it seems like it might be slightly nicer I start heading west towards it, working my way through the deserted streets.

I always thought Goldenrod never slept, but maybe I’m thinking of Saffron. There are just a couple of other people around: someone in a fluorescent jacket picking up trash, a woman in an unfamiliar uniform hurrying off with a pair of jumpluff drifting after her, speckling the air with falling fuzz.

Grass-types in autumn. Bet they shed everywhere this time of year.

Trees up ahead, branches winding through iron railings. A park. Maybe locked up, this early in the day, but maybe not, and if I can get somewhere more open I might be able to find that sunlight. I cross the road and follow the railings along to a gate and a sign: Silvermoor Gardens.

It’s a nice park, as parks go. I can’t name any of the plants, but they are huge and dark and glossy, like an old meganium whose skin is on the verge of hardening into bark with age. They crowd out the city as soon as I’m far enough down the path that I can’t see through the gate, the distant traffic fading away beneath the deadening wall of leaves.

The weirdness of the dream is starting to leave me, dissolving in the chilly air.

I feel like such a hick, fleeing the big city for the comfort of trees, but I guess

-0117

there’s only so far you can run before home starts to catch up with you.

I follow the path around a stand of birches, into an open green sloping down towards a pond. There’s a little island in the middle with a statue of an ampharos, but I don’t know what it commemorates and it’s too far for me to read the inscription.

“Guess I’m not the only early riser in Goldenrod.”

I jump, turn sharply to see a familiar purple figure sitting on a park bench, smoking a cigarette and watching me with interest.

“Oh,” I say. “Um. Hi, Dr Spearing.”

She makes a face. Something in her chest flickers with a faint light, and I see for the first time that there’s some kind of shattered stone floating inside her, in the space where a live woman’s heart would be.

“Name’s Tacoma,” she tells me. Her voice is all Mahogany now, without a trace of her professional bedside manner. “How’re you, kid?”

“Okay, I guess. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Mm. Me either.” Spearing – Tacoma – slips sideways along the bench without actually moving. “Here, have a seat.”

I hesitate – this feels kind of weird – then sit down. She transfers her cigarette to her other hand, keeping the smoke politely away from me.

“I’d offer you one,” she says, catching me looking, “but I feel like that wouldn’t reflect well on me as a doctor.”

“I don’t,” I tell her.

“Probably for the best. Bad habit. Not that it matters for me.” She chuckles, to let me know it’s a joke. “Keep it to yourself though, eh? My partner’s trying to quit, and I’m meant to be giving up too in, uh … the spirit of solidarity, I guess.” A rueful glance at her cigarette. “I’m not doing so great at that.”

I frown.

“Your partner?”

“Huh? Oh.” She shakes her head.

“Not my partner partner, she died years ago. My – well, I’d call her my wife if it was legal, but it turns out you can’t marry the dead. Or other women.”

Ah. I think I just figured out why she doesn’t come home any more.

Is what I’m feeling now relief? I don’t know. It’s like a waterfall rushing in reverse from the soles of my feet right up through my body to pound on the roof of my skull, something deep and important and completely beyond my ability to name. I want to know how I didn’t realise it before – how it could have escaped me for so long that other people must have run away from Mahogany before, just like I did. That they would be out here in the world, waiting for me to find them and ask—

THE UNDERGROUND

Dimly, through the roaring of the rising water, I become aware that I am speaking.

having trouble sleeping? You really don’t need to worry, Morty. She’ll be fine.”

“Right,” I’m saying. “Yeah. That’s … yeah.”

“That’s not it,” I say. “Or no, it … it’s complicated.”

Hearing myself makes me die a little inside. What I want to say is that I’m from Mahogany too, that I share something with Dr Tacoma Spearing, with this person who escaped out into the world and turned out not just okay but spectacular, but apparently all I can manage is to sound really fucking straight.

She nods like she understands. I suspect she probably does.

“Sure is,” agrees Tacoma. Can’t tell her reaction from her voice. I risk a glance at her face, and am relieved to see her smiling. “It’s very yeah.” She takes a quick drag on her cigarette.

“How are you enjoying Goldenrod?”

“What?”

“You’re you?”

from

Mahogany,

aren’t

“O-oh. Um, yeah!” It comes out much too enthusiastic. Now everything is completely weird. “I mean – yes, I am, but, uh, I’m not – I mean I’m not there right now.” I guess the hole isn’t big enough yet, because I don’t seem to be able to stop digging. “I had to – I mean I came here because of … of Roddy.”

Tacoma’s smile fades. I hope it’s not because of what I said. Have I ruined things? Shit, I probably— “Ah,” she says. “Is that why you’re

“Yeah,” she says. “I feel you, kid.”

A quick tap on her cigarette, ash sloughing away like snowflakes. “How d’you think Goldenrod compares? To Mahogany, I mean.”

“I don’t know.” The question seems like a test, somehow. I wish I knew what answer I could give to make her like me. “It’s … big.”

She laughs.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sure is. I still get lost from time to time. Jodi – my partner – she never does. I don’t know how. She’s from Mahogany, same as me. Drags me back there a couple times a year, against my better judgement.”

“Huh? But I’ve never …”

“Seen me there? No. I’d be kinda worried if you had.” She looks out over the pond, at a seagull that’s just landed on top of the ampharos statue. “We keep a low profile. You can hide from even the gossips, if you know how.

We’re, uh. Not exactly welcome there any more.”

“Oh. Um … sorry?”

She shakes her head. “‘S not worth being sorry about.

-0119

All the best people leave Mahogany anyway. Present company excepted, of course.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” I say quickly. “I’ve left Mahogany, so …”

Tacoma raises an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah? Thought you said you came here because of Roddy?”

Ah. Crap.

“I mean yeah,” I say. “That’s why I came here, but I … already left Mahogany.”

Slight frown furrowing her brow.

I can see the question forming in her mind: how old are you exactly, Morty?

And you’re not on your trainer journey?

And from there it’s just a short hop to the truth, that the only home I currently have is a worn-out tent and a series of identical Pokémon Centre rooms, and I cannot let someone who has any kind of access to Centre records to get hold of enough clues to put all this stuff together. Not even Tacoma, not even if I want to. It’s just not worth the risk.

“I’m moving on as soon as Roddy’s better,” I say quickly. “Going to Kanto?

To stay with my cousins for a while.”

The frown deepens.

“Right,” she says. “I see.”

We sit there for a moment longer, not looking at each other. Across the water, a pidgey alights on the stone ampharos, tries to shove the seagull out of the way with a weak blast of wind; the gull

shrieks, flaps, and drives its beak into the pidgey’s neck. It flies away, cooing disconsolately to itself, and the seagull puffs out its chest, proud of having chased off a pokémon with nothing but brute animal force.

I make up my mind, and get to my feet.

“I need to go,” I say, although I don’t have anywhere to be or even any excuse for leaving. “I’ll, um … see you.”

“Sure.” Tacoma grinds out her cigarette on the arm of the bench. “I guess I should get back too. See Jodi before work.” She raises a hand in a lazy sort of wave. “See you, kid.”

She flows up onto her feet and walks away down the path, in the opposite direction to the one I came from. As I watch her go, I wonder if her apartment really is that way or if she’s just trying to spare me the awkwardness of walking with her.

I take a deep breath. It tastes of brine and wet leaves.

“I’m going back to the Centre,” I tell myself, in case it sounds more like a plan aloud than in my head, and leave.

Credits: All content in this issue of The Underground belong to their respective authors.

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Pokémon © Nintendo, Game Freak 1995–2018.

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Gates to Infinity screencap (page 38): Marriland’s Gates to Infinity playthrough.

Celebi screencap (pages 56-57): Fancaps.net.

Pikachu valentine (page 120): Dorkly.com All Pokémon art not listed above: Bulbagarden (archives.bulbagarden.net).

Stock images (hearts—cover/page 3, earth—page 95): created by Freepik.com.

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