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MATURE: Iterations

A strong, cold wind blew sea spray into my face and made me glad I hadn’t bothered to style my hair before training.

I looked across the beach at Guinevere, my lucario
This paints a picture, especially with the name of the Lucario, it gives the image of a romantically inclined character who lives to search for beauty. It's a good character establishing moment.

. It was a pretty sunrise. They almost always were on Iron Isle.
Sunrises are almost always pretty, an ugly sunrise in fiction? Now the instances of that I know I can count of one hand (it's 0). You can at least say something unique about it perhaps.

Summer also has sunrises.
Again, I would be more amazed if it didn't. This line almost seems to allude to the fact there are some places, that for whatever reason, do not have sunrises.

which is about all I can do as far as actively influencing others goes.
Something like the 'limit of my powers' or 'psychic ability' might roll of the tongue better/help the pacing but it might just be me (I could be wrong).

…that probably didn’t make sense. I apologize.
The fourth wall is going to get all murky if you keep leaning on it like that.
Kind of uncomfortable for a semi meta intrusion.

A moment later,
Not sure if this needs to here.

It also hurt.
'It hurt' alone might carry more impact.

evolve Lilith.
I am rather fond of your taste in names! I'll say.

I also had minor burns on my forearms, where the skin was a soft pink. Past experience said it wouldn’t hurt unless I pressed something hard or sharp against it. But if I’d kept the aura up for longer it would start to get painful to any touch, and eventually the skin would start peeling. And those wounds didn’t heal particularly quickly.

After a few minutes of meditation and focusing my aura into regenerating my legs, I managed to stand up with reduced discomfort. My midsection would take a while to heal, but at least I could walk to the closet. Once there, I began the task of figuring out how I wanted to present today.
The prose here is good, and manages to both provide character insight/exposition while moving forward the plot.

Cresselia walked in.

She was in her usual human form today. Looked like a woman in her late 30s
I think it's nice how casually you introduced Cresselia, a legendary in human form, as such a mundane thing, again it's something that really works for the worldbuilding. It gives the audience a good sense of the stories attitudes and narratives.

The Paranormal Storage Center.
This name is very descriptive. I thought something more vague, or just more original would work better here. Especially since this seems like it'll be an important location later on.


Pretend to care. About him, about the town, about any of them. And then the next day I’d get on a boat for Canalave and look back across the water, half-hoping the entire place would get sucked into the sea so I could be done with it for good.
Something nice to end on, a good character establishing moment.

As a general comment I love how the theme/symbolism of water is prominent in the piece. It represents moving on, am I right?

This chapter is a lot better than when I first reviewed the first one. It ties the exposition and the plot a lot better and gives me more space to care about the characters because they are a lot better developed, the emotions feel more real, and the plot just feels more coherent. You give the information you need, where you need it. You've generally fixed the problems that you've needed to.
 
@Ghostsoul

Points taken. The point of the "summers also have sunrises" line was that it was cold af and Zia would rather look at it in a warmer season. Because it will still be there. The rest I'm going to change in a second.

I've always been a little unsure of where the fourth wall is in a first-person story? I'm not quite sure if this will have a framing device (i.e. Zia is actually writing this down for people in-universe to read). Until such time as that's established I should change it to something less fourth-wall lean-y.

Water and islands are sort of going to be a motif throughout the story. Basically all of the principle characters have lived on an island and Sinnoh itself really just is one small rock in the world, even if its the rock where the planet's creator lives.

Zia is also quite the romanticist. Fan of Arthurian and old-timey European stuff. Made picking their pokemon's names fun. Glad you enjoyed the chapter! Your advice was super helpful and actually resulted in the ending of this one being changed from something that would've been much worse.

EDIT: re the Paranormal Storage Center: You'll meet the people there later. They... aren't terribly creative, and their strategy with these things is largely to keep names as dull and boring as possible while acknowledging that, yes, they deal in abnormal things. It's all about making the extraordinary appear mundane to pacify the public in a world where twenty years ago a guy enslaved primordial beings and almost ended the universe.
 
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Here for the review game and also because I want to see what this is all about.

Firstly, I have always enjoyed your work. You have a good style that can be casual and eloquent at the same time, and this is yet another example of that. It currently goes along at quite a breezy pace, which is a nice break from some of your other stories which I sometimes found a bit dense (Vaira) or difficult/confusing to read (Backgrounds). Currently, I haven’t really found anything to complain about massively, but will note some nitpicks as we carry along.

The prologue was a confusing but intriguing opener. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I figured that isn’t really the point. It would be good to see some sense of conclusion by the end of the story, and I am hopeful that the appearances of Jane and the callbacks to the old dialogue will come up at some point.

On to Zia. You set the stage with them very well in the first two chapters. It was an info dump in ways but didn’t feel like that, establishing a lot of things about their character, the island, their parents, all in one swift movement. I did miss the fact they identify as gender non-binary from that little description: until the third chapter I had assumed they were a girl who liked to be a tomboy. I feel like stating it outright might kill some of the story’s subtlety, but if you ever look over it again, making it perhaps a little clearer would be helpful.

My one main issue with the first few chapters is the hints about Zia abandoning the island and this role of priestess. There were a lot of hints towards Zia’s past, in terms of being bullied and finding it hard, but there were so many questions left unanswered and merely hinted at that I felt a tad disappointed when we jumped in to the remainder of the plot. While I like the balance you achieved in the first two chapters, I personally want to know more about this side of Zia before we become too embroiled in the ‘saving the world’ plot.

That might be because I am more intrigued by the island side of things compared to the paranormal plot. I really enjoyed the scene in the caves fighting the Steelix – sassy Lilith was amazeballs and I hope to see more of that – and Zia’s meal with Cresselia and her choosing to let the racist man die were fantastically written and really drew me into that world.

Whereas the paranormal plot, I am not quite as hooked. One of my issues with Backgrounds was the big scary organisation that didn’t really go anywhere, and I had a few flashbacks with Zia encountering Omega. Seraph is a nice character and I liked how she dropped all the exposition, but seeing the future means that there is not as much mystery to keep us guessing, and all the hints we know from both her oracle-ing and the prologue mean that I am not currently invested in where this is going as I feel like I already know.

However, all the files have definitely raised my interest in what was going to happen. The Subject 130 gave me chills, especially the ending, and I do wish I had read it at night now. I think those might be better suited attached to the other chapters as a way of building the world and building a bridge between the island chapters and the introduction of Seraph. The jump from island life to ‘ten days to save the world’ felt fairly significant and some more easing into things may have drawn me into the second plotline more readily.

Now for setting (and not just for them bonus points). I like how you described the Paranormal warehouse and the island, you painted an efficient picture of both, and I particularly liked the little touches of how dreary and depressing the island is all coated in dust. I would have liked to have seen more of Zia on the island dealing with the locals, but I got enough of a picture to make me think of Mykonos.

In terms of the world setting; one of my issues with Vaira was there were all these references to the outside world but it never felt hugely necessary, moreso that you had read about other cultures and wanted to include them. I feel a bit of the same way here with Zia coming from Africa/the Middle East, as it feels like real world political commentary that isn’t hugely needed and could be just as easily effective if worked into the Pokémon world, as well as letting you create your own world more. I did like the touches of having new Pokémon species from other countries, as well as physical and type variations depending on country. It gave the real world aspects more of a necessity, but I personally always prefer seeing an author’s original takes on the Pokémon world.

Overall, I was hooked in to the story early on, and the files helped raise my intrigue for what will come next (the Gela reference shook me and I am fascinated to see how this multi-universal aspect of the story plays out moreso than the paranormal plot). I’ll keep reading as Zia and Seraph are both intriguing characters, but I think some more answers and more of a focus on this mess through Zia’s eyes are necessary to stop it becoming overly complicated or losing its sense of mystery. If you want to pick my brains on this, don't hesitate to ask.

Finally, two small grammatical things I noticed:
She smirked and walked over wrap an arm around my shoulders
Missing word between over and wrap

Martha, was sitting in the entry room.
Unnecessary comma

There might have been others but I notice mistakes easier on my phone than on the computer.
 
@AceTrainer14 Thanks for the review.

So to address a lot of things at once: we aren't nearly ten days from the end of the world. We're talking months, although Zia's current role as Seraph's bodyguard is only contracted for ten days. And a lot of this story is just going to be characters talking to each other and figuring things out about themselves, with some exploding buildings from time to time to keep them busy and give them a reason to be together. Don't worry, Zia may have physically left the island but the burdens it left them with aren't going away any time soon.

And the big scary org is definitely going to be looming throughout the story, at least in the background as a government agency that actually takes seriously the warnings of some teenagers about the end of the world. Whether they hinder or help, well, that's to be seen.

As for why the plot moved on, it's honestly because I was worried about this falling into the same trap as Vaira where the first eight chapters took place in the same starting city. Since Zia's depressed there it was hard to really keep writing more "I really hate this place" scenes. And I also didn't want to have so much depressed Zia ramblings at the start it would scare people off. Maybe another chapter, though, if I rewrite.

I couldn't find a good way for them to say "oh yeah, and I'm trans." It's not something they would particularly care to dwell on, even if they don't feel the need to hide it when not dealing with the government. Anything I wrote of them actually saying it felt a little bit too much like writing for the audience rather than the story, which I'm generally not a fan of.

Seraph narrates the next chapter. You'll get some answers as to what's going on in the paranormal side of things, and maybe some on Zia. But as a bit of a spoiler if you're worried you already know where this is going...
Seraph isn't above lying to get Zia to work with her, especially lies of omission.
Also the prologue will be mostly explained by the end of the story, with the little bits that won't be explained making sense if you read Vaira to the end.

As for the broader world, I really understand. It felt weird to have someone read about Saudi Arabia while sitting in the island of Sinnoh. Zia's story isn't really about the UAE, though. It's about what happened after they arrived in Sinnoh. They barely even remember their homeland and its culture, but society will never let them forget it. So maybe in hindsight it might be better to just come up with fictional regions as Middle East and Mexico analogues and just run from there. Will decide on that if I ever rewrite things.

Jane, or at least a version of her, might appear. Evyrus and Aracai are probably limited to their cameos in the prologue. Aracai largely got recycled into Zia (queer jaded aura guardians hailing from across the sea) and I couldn't find a good way to bring Evyrus in. Maybe someone like him could get a role in the late game or he could appear as a sort of spirit advisor for Gela since she's dead or Seraph since she doesn't care about the limits of the universe. Don't know.
 
Chapter Five
Chapter Five: beloved venom

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art by @diamondpearl876

Previously…

Zia Carver, on orders from Cresselia, freed a teenage oracle from the government facility that held her. After her rescue the oracle told Zia her name, Seraph, and the vision she’d seen of the world coming to an end. Zia agreed to help Seraph reach Floaroma Town out of pity but refused to commit to anything more. Now Seraph has talked her companion into challenging the Eterna City gym to obtain the money and supplies they need to cross Eterna Forest and meet a mysterious healer.

Seeing the sky was something of a magical experience, even by the standards of a magical girl.

People don’t focus on the sky much and since most of my mental life outside of Observation Room 23 was spent in the eyes of other people, I wasn’t allowed to focus either. I never got that. You’re telling me you can look up at any time and see little white puffballs in a new shape on a pale blue sky and you stay focused on your petty little drama? So my view of the sky was limited to the small glimpses of blue and white I could get when someone I was looking through happened to take a little peak up and promptly look down. Then on the rare occasions when I was awake I’d have to flip back through the half-formed memory, figuring out what I’d seen.

It sounds pathetic, I know. But when you spend your life on one bed in one room while your body wastes away, it’s nice knowing that somewhere there’s a sky with birds in it and while none of it matters in the grand scheme of the universe they exist and they are happy and they make you happy.

The clouds that day were patchy little lines that formed small formations scattered across the sky. One was a tadpole with a long tail, a fat end and a little set of legs jutting out beneath the tail. Another was an eye with a small arc on bottom, a wider arc on top and a thin slit in the middle. The eye of God gazed upon Eterna and no one could be bothered to look at it.

Undermining all of it were two spectacular, meaningless tragedies.

One: It was 37 degrees outside and the clothing I owned amounted to a glorified hospital gown and some underwear. Zia had bundled me up in all of their clothing that they were not currently wearing. It was enough that it made the chair sort of uncomfortable, pushing my body away from it in odd ways and making it hard to move my hand over the controls. None of it really fit, either, as they had way more muscle and fat than I do (even if they didn’t have that much of the latter) and were a good three inches taller.

But that couldn't warm the freezing air entering my body. I wasn't sure if lungs could get frostbite, but if it was possible for any lungs it was possible for mine.

Two: I had to pay attention to where I was going. It was a cold day and the streets weren’t particularly crowded, but there were still people on the sidewalks along with trash cans, street lights and other annoying obstacles I had to keep navigating around. I guess I could’ve stopped using the power chair’s power parts, but it was probably heavy and I didn’t want to put Zia in a bad mood by making her push it. For the moment I had to keep my eyes on the ground.

The ground wasn’t all bad, though. It was full of little things I’d never seen with my own eyes. Shop windows with clothes in them. A bodega with a glameow resting on a shelf right inside the door, shifting position as a customer walked out and cold air blew in. Pedestrians huddled inside their coats, clenching bags in their gloved fingers or absently looking at their phone. There was one teenage boy in a t-shirt and athletic shorts nonchalantly walking down the opposite sidewalk like it was the middle of June.

Then there was a flock of Starly squabbling by a trash can.

There were five, each subtly different. Four had the same mottled brown and gray pattern, albeit with different shades, spots and lines. One was white and gray with black talons and darker spots and short stripes across their body. They stayed away from the fray, keeping watch over the nearby environment. Unlike the others they had kept her feathers meticulously groomed. I watched as they shook and puffed themselves up, turning into an avian snowball before sticking their beak into the fluff to straighten some invisible mess out. I giggled and ignored the cool air rushing in.

I saw Zia glance at me out of the corner of my eye. They were dressed male today but I had no idea how they were actually feeling. I’m good at predicting events and timings, less good at the thoughts and emotions behind them. They looked younger than they were, younger than I was. Their features were a tad too soft and their hair was a tad too long to convey a seriously masculine presence anymore. Wasn’t sure if hearing that would please or horrify them. Maybe both on different days.

“You want to stop?” they asked.

I glanced at the white bird again. She was so cute… but I knew nothing about her. It wasn’t right to want her without knowing if she wanted to be wanted. She was free and it would be wrong to confine her.

“…maybe for a little longer.”

Zia walked over to me and pulled a bag of pellets out of their coat. They unzipped it and poured a couple into their hand.

“It’s probably ok to touch the white one if she gets close; she looks clean. I’d avoid the others. Just toss it to them.”

I took the pellets.

The starly on the ground took notice rather quickly and started flying towards my chair en masse. I threw most of the pellets out away from me so they’d keep their distance and the flock moved to meet their new food. Many of the birds snapped their food up in midair and others scoured the ground for the remainder.

When the seed on the ground was gone the starly started moving closer to me. I really wanted to just let them land on the chair so I could see them up close but that seemed like the sort of thing that my immune system would kill me for.

Literally.

Then there was one warble that seemed to quiet down the rest of the birds. The white puffball shook herself back into a normal bird shape and glided over to me. She didn’t really fly, exactly, so much as she just sort of jumped off, flapped once or twice and drifted towards me with her wings out. She settled down in my lap and stuck her neck out to scoop the rest of the seed out of my hand. I was a bit too shocked to do anything but stare at her as she gulped the seeds down and gently pecked my hand to see if there were any more. When she’d decided there weren’t she hopped so that both of her talons were on my left leg and cocked her head to look around at her new perch.

She was cuter up close; she had a tiny black dot with small lines poking out from it on her right cheek and a little black patch on her otherwise light grey neck. Her feathers were vaguely iridescent and shimmered in the afternoon light. When she concluded my lap was an acceptable nest, she plopped down and her mass spread out like she’d suddenly become flatter and plumper. I assumed that was her way of showing comfort. I glanced up at Zia to see if that was correct.

“I think she wants to go with you for a little while. Not entirely sure why, but if it works for you—”

“It super works for me.”

“Alright, then let’s be off to the gym.”

They waited to start walking until I started moving the chair and then they kept walking beside and slightly behind me. I heard them shooing the other starly away, probably for my sake. I felt bad for it but also knew it was probably necessary for my health. And the bird pancake in my lap didn’t seem to notice or care as she settled into a nap.

I truthfully didn’t pay the city or the sky as much thought as the bird for the rest of the trip, so a lot of it is a blur. The next thing I really remember is the look on Zia’s face as we approached the gym. Their eyes were squinted and their mouth was stretched out, the corners turned in a grimace.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hospital. I’ll be fine when we get past it.” They glanced at me and gave me a long, cold stare. “You’re hiding something.”

“Yup.”

“And that is?” They sounded serious and annoyed. Also seriously annoyed.

“Um, gym’s around the corner.”

Zia stopped walking and I had to stop the chair, which was irritating because we were so close to the warm of inside. “The gym is next to a goddamn pediatric hospital?”

“Yup. Gym leader likes to use the gym pokemon as therapy mons. You have a problem with that?”

“You know what my problem is.”

I sighed dramatically. “Look, just knock out a lil’ dustox. Then wait for about twenty minutes, at which point events will conspire that you can leave until five. I’ll be fine in the waiting room, by the way. After that go in, spend about an hour hiking through an oversized greenhouse, take the badge and leave.”

They kept glaring at me. “Is there literally any other way to get the supplies that doesn’t involve spending time next to that… that thing over there.”

“Trust me, this is the easiest way for the next few days to go.”

“I could leave you with your bird and go back to my dorm.”

“But you won’t.”

They closed their eyes, exhaled and mouthed a count to eight.

“I won’t. But we are having a long discussion about what I am and am not willing to do after this.”

“Look forward to hearing it in person.”

They shot me another oblong glance but then started powerwalking ahead of me, leaving me to trail behind them as fast as my chair could go.

~~~

The gym was dominated by bright white lights and clean linoleum. There was a small fountain in the corner of the lobby to break up the monotony, but it too was solid white and made up of orderly lines. The place even smelled like it had just been scrubbed down in cleaning chemicals that morning.

I already hated it.

When I finally got in Zia was busy scheduling their prelim challenge with the receptionist. She was a woman in her early twenties with pure white clothing, tidy hair and perfect teeth. Like the entire place and everyone in it existed to be safe, sterile and orderly. I guess it was one take on poison. Not the natural toxins of snakes, amphibians and their ilk but rather the safe, sterile toxins pumped into people because pain is better than facing whatever happens when the pain stops.

Surgical precision and calculated pain against the bright, sterile atmosphere of death and decay: the beloved venom of the twenty-first century.

The receptionist didn’t pay me much attention, which was nice. I guess that when your gym is connected to a hospital, girls with a pet bird and five different veins hooked into their wheelchair aren’t exactly a novelty. Not that you could really see the vein connecting tubes through the increasingly hot cocoon of fabric, but still.

Zia finished their meeting with the receptionist and started walking down the hall. “Let’s go to the bathroom and get you comfortable.”

Mind-readers. Equal parts annoying and useful. Useful for the help, annoying because after my latest lie of omission Zia was noticeably less gentle than they’d been that morning. Not rough enough to do any real damage, but there would be bruises the next day. During the process the starly just perched on the edge of the sink and moved back to my leg when I was unbundled.

After that we were led out to the preliminary battlefield. I was escorted out to a viewing box on the sidelines by a gym attendant in the sterile white uniform of the gym. The viewing area had a lift for the chair that let me get about two meters above the field, although I could only view it through a thick pane of glass. The battlefield itself was a slight break from the white linoleum of the lobby and bathroom in that it was clean white concrete with a couple small cracks in the floor.

There was a blonde girl about my age on the field in what looked like a lighter, more open version of a lab coat. I’d already seen her and the battlefield a half-dozen times in my dreams; I turned my attention to the box itself. There were four gym trainers in it, all looking about the same aside from their hair color. The other three people in it were two kids and a middle-aged man I suspected was a nurse keeping an eye on them.

One kid was in a wheelchair, the other one looked about how I’d felt when I’d had leukemia. I wasn’t sure if I should try and talk to them or treat them like I’d treat anyone else and keep my distance. I ultimately settled on the latter, if only because it was easier. And I wasn’t sure what I’d say to them, except that I had a nice bird I could share.

But I didn't want to share the bird.

The battle started a few minutes later. Zia walked out onto the field with a referee, who stood against the wall between the two trainers. He listed off the standard stuff: welcome to the poison gym, one on one battle, Zia Carver from Iron Isle, et cetera, et cetera, etc. Stuff you can’t bother to pay attention to the seventh time around. Instead I focused on Zia’s face. How angry and bitter they looked in that place.

I almost felt sorry for them, but I didn’t. At the end of the day they would go home and fall asleep pretty quickly and then they’d get up and go about their day without feeling a constant surge of pangs and alarms from their body. However agonizing this was for them, it was just a day trip. They didn’t live in a world of pain.

Besides that, it was necessary.

Zia didn’t really order Lily around in the battle. They just sent the steelix out and let her crush the opponent’s dustox in about twelve seconds. The steelix took some stun spores for her trouble, but the gym attendants would heal those between now and the gym challenge proper. It wasn’t really worth my trip up to the viewing area, but I hadn’t wanted to tip anyone off that I was strange if I didn’t have to.

I ended up rolling back into the waiting area a few minutes after Zia had already stormed back into it from the battlefield. They wouldn’t talk to me and the wonderful bird was still asleep, so I wound up drifting off.

~~~

a story:

You look up from the table at the two humans above you. One is the familiar human, the other is new. Different. Not just feather pattern. Maybe the other sex? Starly have different sexes with more than feather differences.

“She know double-edge?”

“Yes,” familiar human says, “but not the right temperament. Got that from her father along with her coat. Would rather resolve fights then start them. Maybe we could market her to coordinators?”

“Double-edge isn’t really graceful.”

“But her coat is nice. She’s cute and has a unique trick up her sleeve.”

“Trust me, Liz, she’s not marketable. Not worth the money to feed and raise her until you’d sell her to a pet shop. Just let her go. What else did you get from the clutch?”

You are withdrawn into your ball with the sense that you had just badly disappointed your caretaker.

~~~

You wake up to Zia gently shaking your arm and the bird puffing herself up and preparing to fight them off.

“It’s kay, I’m wake,” I groggily muttered as I stirred.

“I’m going to leave for a few hours to talk strategy. You still fine with staying here?”

Ah. So they’d met Eric.

“Yup, have fun!”

Zia walked off with the eleven-year-old boy excitedly trailing beside him, spitting questions. When all of this was over tonight Zia would berate me for not telling them about the part where every day’s gym run is done in a group where everyone either clears the maze and gets the badge or fails together. But they didn’t strike me as a team player, Eric and the badge were necessary for kicking things off and any minute…

…the gym leader walked into the lobby. Madison Colchis. Had a reputation for being surprisingly gentle and kind for a young goth with killer pets. She wore short heels and a light pink dress that clashed with everything else about her person. Ripped black leggings, a skull and crossbones necklace, black nail polish, eyeliner and lipstick and pale blue eyeshadow. She had the type of skin that could’ve just belonged to a very tan white girl if it wasn’t March and she didn’t have a job that kept her inside almost all the time. No one was quite sure what ethnicity she was and bringing up the subject in an interview was the fastest way to get a quick end to the conversation.

In short, she was the type of person who really didn’t mind standing out. From what I could tell from visions she’d acquired a collection of admirers due to her strength, charity and being a attractive woman in a public spotlight.

So it was surprising that, appearance aside, she managed to keep an air of normality around her as she walked towards me, like she was just a random person drifting into my life who’d drift out and be forgotten just as quickly.

“You’re with the steelix guy?”

“Yeah, he’s just out for a bit to get some food.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And he left you here alone?”

“First, I’m not alone.” I gestured to the sleeping starly in my lap. “Second, this doesn’t really seem like the type of place you get assaulted, robbed or murdered.”

Madison let out a short laugh. “I suppose you’re right. Want to come up to my office and talk before the boys get back?”

“Course I would, just let me get things adjusted and…”

I shifted to better operate the power chair. The starly stirred and chirped in surprise. When she saw that I was awake and moving again she hopped onto one of the chair’s armrests and started peeking around her environment.

“Didn’t know that chair model was in circulation yet,” Madison commented. “I helped build it, you know, so I just had to talk to one of the first people to actually use it.”

“It’s nice. Does more things than I thought it would. Like it started trying to warm up my blood or something on the way over. Subtle, but I think I felt it”

“That feature wasn’t mine, but it can do something like that. I mostly worked out the chemical storage and reaction parts of it.

“So you’re a chemist?”

“Something like that,” she waved her hand dismissively and quickly moved to unlocking her office. “Some medical training, some engineering, some biology; my background is all over the place. Queen of all trades, ace of a few.”

“Quite a boast.”

“It’s not bragging if it’s justified.”

Her office was spartan, with a large file cabinet on the wall beside us, a clean wooden desk with a lamp, small printer and her laptop on it. A basket with a handful of tightly coiled cords sat on top of the printer.

As she settled down in her chair and I rolled up to the desk the starly broke away from the armrest and perched on Madison’s closed laptop before settling down.

The gym leader seemed more amused than anything. “How long have you had her?”

“I just met her on the way here from the Pokemon Center, believe it or not.”

“Quick bond, then.”

“She’s a very, sweet pretty bird… but she’s not mine. I don’t actually plan on catching her.”

“Why not? She seems quite fond of you.”

“I don’t want to constrain her. She should be out doing what she wants with her own species.”

“And if what she wants is being with her new friend, then the best way to help her would be to prevent other people from catching her. More practically, she seems quite used to people. It’s possible she’s just a lost pet, and if the ball fails to catch her we can see if she has any chips in her and work from there.”

“I don’t know. I really want to keep her options open. Make sure—”

Madison rolled a white pokeball across the table until it fell into the chair between my legs. “Put it on the table. Most wild pokemon know what pokeballs do, especially the urban ones. If she wants to be captured, well, she’s a smart bird. She can make that choice. If she doesn’t want to be captured, I’ll make sure she’s wild and let her go.”

It sounded reasonable, but I still had reservations. “It doesn’t seem right to take a bird from the sky and confine them in—”

“If she ever wants to leave, I expect you to just release her and let her go. Simple as that.”

I nodded. My predictions weren’t always accurate and this hadn’t showed up in any of the mock conversations I’d had with her, since it wasn’t exactly the type of thing I would’ve looked for. Blind to the outcome, I put the premier ball back on the table. The starly cocked her head and looked at it for a few seconds. Then she hopped down and walked over to it, rolling it over with her beak while she played. Eventually she slammed her beak down in such a way that the ball stopped rolling. Then with a final chirp she pressed the recall button and was sucked inside.

The ball stayed still for five agonizing seconds, with only one small vibration to the side. Then the lock clicked.

I immediately let her out. If she wanted to be with me, fine, but I wasn’t going to lock her up unless she was seriously hurt. And I wasn’t going to let her get seriously hurt in the first place.

Upon release the starly shook herself off, but didn’t seem terribly phased by the feeling. Instead she just rolled the ball down into my chair and flew to my shoulder. She was agonizingly heavy and I struggled to support her weight before she got the message and landed back on my leg.

“Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. It was her choice. Now, as far as registering as a trainer goes, I can walk you through that process. You can be done with it tonight if you want, although you legally don’t have to do it for another month.”

“That would be great… but I wasn’t thanking you for the ball. Or the chair, although both are great. I was thanking you for, well, you made my cancer go away.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I had leukemia as a kid. You treated it.”

She rolled her eyes. “If I entertained you, that’s great, but I am just a pokemon trainer; I’m not an oncologist.”

“I was the girl who showed up at Hearthome Pediatric seven years ago. Subject 462. The department brought you in to help me.”

“That really sounds like something I would remember.”

“I was locked up on a table in the PSC from the time I was cured until yesterday. You really don’t have to pretend not to know about this kind of stuff.”

Madison took out her phone and turned it off. She wordlessly flipped open her laptop and powered it down as well. “You have a cellphone?” she asked.

“No. Literally just own a premier ball, the chair and one outfit. These clothes are my friend’s.”

“Good. You say you were locked on a table?”

“Yes.”

“Allowed to move?”

“They’d wake me up about once a month and push me around in a much less fancy chair.”

She scowled. “I was wondering why you still needed that thing. Was worried it was a relapse. Atrophy is much easier.”

“I’ve also been told my immune system is almost uniquely bad. Always glad to be exceptional, you know?”

“I can get you drugs for that… and refills on the medicine if they aren’t arranging it. That’ll all take a day or two, though. I’ll try and clear my schedule but those are things that take time.”

“Thank you,” there was a pause as I prepared to go into the hard part of this conversation, the one I’d never quite managed to get right in my dreams. “Do you know what I do?”

“I know you appeared and never stopped talking. You also seemed quite out of it when we spoke while you were awake, although I’d have to check my records for more details. But if you have… gifts or anything I don’t know about them.”

“I see things,” I told her. “Anything across space and time, with just a few blind spots.”

“And they let you go?”

“I… I have limits. I can barely control the visions and they work far better if I’m asleep. So I’m not quite as badass as that description made me sound.” I coughed. “Still pretty badass though. But the reason they let me go is because I saw something big. Vision from… Dialga? Arceus? God? Something outside reality? I’m still not entirely sure, but it was big. Apocalypse-type stuff. And I got a few visions of how to prevent it. And one of them showed me you.”

She seemed interested until the last part, which only provoked a roll of her eyes and a dismissive wave. “Been there, done that. You think you’re the first hero to come to me for help in their grand scheme? Not by a long shot. And without fail they disappoint me.”

“This is about the preservation of reality,” I protested. “Bit bigger than anything else you’ve faced.”

“And there will be other heroes. The young ones with a lot of power, bigger dreams and no heart. I’m happy to give you medicine and I’m happy to give you the contact information of people who might be interested in your endeavor. But I am not interested in the endeavor itself. My interest in you begins and ends at your health unless you have something far more compelling to offer me than some grand quest.”

“Redemption and revival. You can be vindicated in the history books and bring your name back from obscurity. You won’t have to hide as an unexceptional gym leader in—”

She glared at me. However good Zia’s look was, it didn’t make me feel like I’d just been murdered and I needed to apologize for making them kill me.

“Unless you want your medicine to fry your vocal cords and gradually shrivel you into a flaky husk, you will never call me unexceptional again. You know who I am, what I’ve done and what I can do. I’m not proud of all of it, but I was known and feared before your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather was a sperm. I will still fix your body out of a compulsion to never do anything, including healing, improperly. But I’m not in any rush to do so now.”

“When the department’s people got you in a drug bust in Hoenn and fucked with your head until you told them who you were… you know they had to dig into the history books, right? Figure out who the fuck ‘Medea’ was and why they should care. I’ve seen it, seen the records. In a few months I can have someone steal them and send them to you. How many people on this island do you even think know about you? A couple classics professors? Maybe an English teacher and the bored class they make read the second most famous Greek book about some jerks on a boat trip. By the way, you don’t come out of that one looking so good. Oh, I guess some department people have had to read up on you now. So… less than one hundred on an island with over three million people. My great-great-granddaddy might’ve quivered in fear of you, but my father sure as hell didn’t. You want to call yourself exceptional? Prove it. Throw everything you’ve got at Zia in the maze. If you win, well, you bested one hell of a trainer with a type advantage without giving a single command. That’s exceptional. You lose and you have to remind me why the fuck I should care about you.”

As I finished speaking, Madison’s face turned from shock into a vicious smirk that almost made me beg for the murder glare to come back. “Alright. Let’s make a deal. I send my worst at your friend. And if I win, maybe he accidentally dies from roserade venom and I get my gym shut down for a bit and have to change things, or maybe I get kicked out of this job and have to kick ass somewhere else. Fine. I’ve lived with worse. And for your trouble I’ll bring you to the peak of human health just to prove I can. And then I’ll reduce you back to a tumor-ridden wreck begging in her sleep for the sweet release of death just to prove that I can. And if he survives and wins, he might just be interesting enough to end my retirement. How’s that for a game, huh?”

Um, I’d love to say that after that I laughed and went to find literally anyone else but the three-thousand-year-old witch with murder issues. Like a smart oracle would. But truth be told I wet myself at some point in that monologue and went into shock from fear and embarrassment. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but given the events that came next I have a sinking feeling that it wasn’t “no.”
 
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I’m a priest of Cresselia and here to lodge a complaint on her behalf.”
Smooth worldbuilding. Gives both the extraordinary and the mundane parts of the story something to rest on (and shows interplay between the two).

Paranormal Storage Center.
I take back my last point, there is something very amusing about this. I love how stuff like this is just an accepted fact of society.

Most of the oil fields had been burned already. The people who were left were always on the brink of dying from thirst or one pandemic or another. Yet money, guns and soldiers were always in abundant supply there thanks to infusions from the outside world. The world powers kept an unwinnable war alive just to make sure their rivals also couldn’t win. And their people didn’t die, so no one really seemed to care. Well, beyond the refugees. They very much cared about keeping those people in the warzone they sustained.

I wondered where the Southwest Asian gods were. The twin serpents of Babylon, the fire spirits of Arabia, the sand mother of Sumeria… they had to still be there. Just about everywhere else’s gods had been stirring in the last few decades as religious extremists built off each others’ successes and kept the world plunging from crisis to crisis. Yet the deities of that region couldn’t be bothered to rise and defend their homeland.

Of course, maybe they were awake and didn’t care. The gods of Sinnoh hadn’t done much to stop their worshipers from being slaughtered to the brink of extinction by Western European invaders. There were always cults formed by native Japanese worshippers, praying for liberation. But it would never come. I’d seen Cresselia. She was quite fine with adorning herself with a lighter skin tone and European dress.
The writing here is good, but it does feel a bit, expostisiony? I don't know how much of it can be merged within separate parts of the text later on.

She had a very, very vivid emotional life. Easy to hurt, yes, but impossible to shatter for good.
This is too vague a statement. In what way was she 'impossible to shatter for good'? It seems very airy-fairy, or idealistic. Perhaps not fitting with the overall tone?


“That’s a pretty name.”
Agreed, you are good at picking names!

We certainly got some interesting details here, and character introduction as well. Although I say your handling of exposition is a lot better, at least in comparison to the first chapter I reviewed, you still seem to deliver it in heaps rather than weaving into the narrative framework and connecting it to current events in the text, or backstory details. Especially if you are going to be using thriller elements, since it relies on how plot points weave together and connect.
I can't find anything else to moan about though, it's a very good, well-written chapter overall.
 
Chapter Six: dark patches
Chapter Six: dark patches

Suicide and suicidal ideation, child abuse.

a story:

You’ve heard it said that hell is other people. You sometimes wonder if another empath wrote that or if it was just a really lucky shot in the dark. Because heading back into the Eterna City Gym and feeling scores of minds lashing out with their pains and problems, begging for help that would come slowly and painfully at best… you still aren’t sure if you believe in a metaphysical hell, but it would seem a bit redundant to have one while this place existed on Earth.

Your companion is talking to you about tactics or something but it’s just a dull buzzing in your ear. Anything you’d say to him now you already said over food. Normally you’d be fine with a scared kid running their mouth to feel a sense of control in a stressful time, but it seems so trivial now with bigger problems barging themselves into your mind uninvited and sobbing on your mental floor. By the time you’ve started to send good feelings their way another soul breaks in and another and another and another.

As the doors to the gym open up in front of you everything else—your studies, finding supplies, winning a badge, even saving the world—feel too small to bother with. The only thing left to do is find a corner to cry in until your mind joins the screaming chorus.

But that won’t help anyone. Deep down you know that and you know that you’ll keep going, however much you want to stop. Because solving even one little problem in the sea of misery? That’s the shred of control you cling to every morning to get up and keep going. The reason you can say you matter when you can feel exactly how small you are.

So, you crash down in a chair beside the girl who got you into this mess and pick up a magazine full of people whose problems you don’t have to feel. It’s one of the battling trades for professionals. You used to read them as a kid since the center kept them stocked. The people they profiled? Those were the people who crushed anything in their way, pushed past the invisible barriers that kept most people embroiled in mediocrity, battled the gods themselves and won… You’d known all of the terminology, at some point. Known the names and rankings of the Global 30. The names of all the major leagues. Even all of the A- and S-tier pokemon.

…it hadn’t done much for you in the end, to say the least. You’d forgotten half of it and never used the rest. The magazines went from wild dreams to a taunting reminder of who you should be. But picking it up again is nice in this specific moment.

You like your pain; it reminds you that something in your mind is yours.

The main article is just a preview of an upcoming match between two ranked trainers. Alolan championship battle, it looked like. You vaguely remembered what Alola was; it hadn’t had a proper league when you’d cared about such things, but it’s gyms were unusual enough that sometimes the trades cared.

It had a league now, and a good enough one that two top trainers would battle for its title. The challenger was a bird trainer who was known for spending years between league challenges but coming out with a new team and a custom-made strategy to beat one of the best trainers in the world every time. You always thought he was overrated as a kid since he almost always lost his title defense matches, or any battle where he couldn’t spend years studying a trainer and building a team and strategy to counter them. But, apparently, the people who decided the rankings still thought highly of him.

Defending champion was born in Mexico but had only really battled in Alola. She was the same age as you, too. And blind. There was a ranked trainer your age somewhere out there who’d immigrated to a faraway island and fought her way to global prominence. You’d kill to know how that happened

how that happened

You sob alone on the cold bathroom floor, feeling the dirt on the floor get swept up by little red floods as your bruises and scars slowly disappear. You had wanted this so badly for years, but can barely bring yourself to care as it happens. The surface pain had never been the issue for you; it was easier to deal with.

Now no one would ever hurt you again. They wouldn’t want to. And if they did you would destroy them. The only thing that gets you to stand up and gather your things hours later is that hope and the illusory sound of the waves a thousand miles away

a thousand miles away

You glance at Seraph. If she’s not asleep, she’s not paying much attention to the world. But you need info. Or maybe you just need to yell at her in a whisper. You neither know nor care and resolve to wake her up. It doesn’t take much, only gently—

~~~​

Fuck, that was disorienting, springing back to the present like that. I looked around. No, it wan't quite the present yet. Still had time. As I tried to zone back out and slip into the future, I reviewed what I'd seen. Zia was going to be more angry than I thought, which might mess up future plans and also might've made me try a bit harder to find alternatives. But it was too late for that. Then the last bit... that was another hug I'd have to give Val if I was physically up to it when I met her.

I wasn't finding a good chance to anchor into Zia and I was fading back into visions fast. I found a possibility in Gwen, Zia's lucario, at around the right time. I suspected her mind was close enough to human to understand.

a story:

you can feel your trainer dying

It feels like a headache from outside, but the colors are wrong. It’s not his aura glitching, but dozens of auras that shouldn’t be in his head sparking around and breaking important parts of his mental infrastructure.

You send out a pulse of strength to fortify a vital pillar and you can feel some of the sparks hitting your aura as you do so, lighting up flashes of pain in your nervous system. However much you want to help, you find yourself pulling away.

It’s nothing. Stay in your own head. Can’t have both of us compromised in there.

Alright. Take care of yourself, please.

It comes out as a whisper, afraid of invoking his rage by touching the pitch-black scars in his psyche

scars

there are four scars

the first was born in fire as a child cried in the ashes of the dead

souls that had left him behind

and then left behind

by the other children raised in ash

people leave in the end

best not to get attached

the second scar

left by

the one adult who really cared and wasn’t obligated to

her colors changed from the bright reds and oranges

to the darker hues

and you told no one

and you don’t know why.

You heard the adults whisper when you were hidden that there weren’t signs

except the ones you saw

and you told no one

but began to care for everyone

because if you didn’t they could go away too

the third scar

You remember your trainer’s third scar clearly. The girl told you they were done with people

people went away

away

the school took a table away

and the one girl who cared

came to the only other table of one

table of one became table of two

two. He hated two. Told you he just ate his food and watched the other auras or read the magazines with the big pokemon or anything else but watch the girl. And she was just as happy with the arrangement. She had her sketchbook and her drawings never ignored her.

And one day he asked why she didn’t put the colors in the people

and she was confused

so

he told her about the colors in the people

the colors in the people sparked curious colors, which led to questions and answers and shared stories.

your colors were happy colors

both

because the one friend you were still allowed to have was happy colors and because you got to play with Lauryn’s cherubi and buneary and feel less alone.

For a while you thought he’d be fine. His challenges were big, and you knew that, but riolu don’t quite understand the concept of limits

limits

After five years of no steady work Lauryn’s father reached his limit and moved the family some place with less dust and more jobs. And Lauryn convinced herself her colors were warmer ones than they were. You knew he talked to her, somehow, through the computer. At first. But time went on

time went on

and destroyed everything

everything

you almost lost everything the day he sent you out of your pokeball on The Old King’s Peak. He never told you that, but the colors don’t lie. People just lie about the colors. His were alternating between pitch black and the brightest blues you’d ever seen and never wanted to see again. You held him until the colors went to a black-blue and then a blue-black.

Then you made him stop lying about the colors and patterns

and how the patterns changed between boy and girl patterns

and he stopped lying to himself

and to his parents, who lied about the colors until

until he forced their hand and embarrassed them

they cared more about that then the colors but relented in the end

the end

She cried at the end, sprawled on his bed and seething at the pain of surrender to the inevitable. But he’d traded the monotone dust for the most vibrant of colors that never quite made it inside of him. He talked less to you. To Lilith. To Percival. Percival took it quietly. Lilith grew up and tried to storm away before love brought her back. You fought him. Over and over. Because physical pain is easier to understand. And he still won’t open up and stop lying

lying

you know the girl with the bird is lying and you hate her for bringing him here and pulling at the scars but you aren’t sure what to do. There wouldn’t be a challenge in fighting someone who can’t fight back and you’ve never learned how to twist the colors. So you stand silently seething in the lobby, waiting for your trainer to make yet another unnecessary trip through hell as if that would take his own colors away.

The colors never lie, but people are excellent at lying about the colors.

It’s a relief when the gym leader comes. She’s about Zia’s age and dresses strangely for a human. You wonder if gym leaders make a habit of dressing to intimidate in order to scare away challengers for their resources and reputation. It would make sense for an apex pokemon to guard their territory like that. If you were wild-born you imagine it might’ve been something you would have done.

The rules are laid out. Both trainers work together. Both must have at least one pokemon out at all times. If one trainer loses all of their pokemon, both lose. If one reaches the final door before one is eliminated, they both win. Six poison types in the maze would be hostile and they’d be the only members of their species in the maze.

The other trainer is quite young and has constantly shifting colors of fear and hope and anxiety. It seems unfair to saddle Zia with someone like that, but you don’t make the rules. A few basic questions are asked and answered before the airlock to the gym chamber proper finally opens. The leader wishes you luck with her teeth bared before you step through.

The first thing you notice, after your lungs adjust to the warm, moist air, is the vastness of the room. A wide canyon sprawls out in front of you, with a river flowing through dense vegetation on the bottom. On the other side is a sheer cliff face with steep switchbacks and metal ladders leading from the canyon’s base back up to the peak. White mist flows over the top on that side, imitating a mountain peak and obscuring your view of the end goal.

On this side of the canyon was a small grove with a sign and six pictures, with a trail behind it leading down the hill and into the canyon. Your trainer releases Percival and turns to the child with him, “Send out your team.”

“Uh, ok.” He tosses his pokeballs into the air and a monferno, bonsly, shinx and kricketot come out. Zia had told you he’d sounded quite proud of having a monferno before he sent you out. Upon materializing you’d found the kid stunned and your trainer quietly bemused.

Upon release the child’s pokeballs all fell to the ground and started to roll away while he ran to retrieve them.

“That doesn’t really work in the real world. Sorry.”

“But all the trainers on tv do it?”

“They have special equipment to make it look cool. You can, too, if you’re willing to spend a grand on a vanity item.”

“Oh. You aren’t sending out your steelix?”

“I’ll wait until we get down the hillside. She’s not terribly maneuverable in rough terrain or close quarters.”

Not without tearing up the gym, anyway. Lilith was perfectly capable of digging through the building’s foundation to get wherever she wanted to go, even as an Onix. Now there is very little that could stop her. Except bills for property damage. It would be surprisingly easy for an onix to wreck a whole bar without trying, for instance. Even if Lilith’s never quite done anything that extreme.

The pokemon and humans walked towards the sign. On it were six pictures with a species name underneath each one: a large, off-color roserade; a dragon with red eyes and long horns; a mass of tentacles, spikes and suction cups around a large ice crystal; a mottled green drapion with fins on its pincers; and nidoqueen with two blades crossed on her back.

The kid gulped. “Isn’t that all the gym leaders’ team?”

“Yes.”

“…then there has to have been a mistake.”

“I don’t think there was.” Your trainer turns to you. Ready?

Please be careful.

He smirked, turned and walked closer to the edge.
 
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Chapter 3 and 4, let's go!

her eyes were wide enough they looked like they could burst out like a cartoon character
Or are you a cartoon character now? :p

“Holyfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
streeeching vooooowels does very little to help increase tension and we are less likely to treat the character seriously if you do that. (Might work in YA fiction, doesn't work here.)

When everything was cleaned up in the room, I went downstairs to retrieve Guinevere and Percival. Then, well, I can’t say that I’d slept very much the night before between worries about Seraph’s health and anxiety over what everything meant. I figured I could use a quick nap myself and crashed on the couch beside her, falling asleep to Seraph’s ramblings unconscious about a dewgong show.
Not really much to say about this chapter? Exposition, lots of dialogue, perhaps a little 'talking-heads' ish in places. Mostly conveyed what you wanted to get across, although I admit felt a little boring in places. It really wasn't the most exciting of your chapters to read.

Omega: The requested files are attached. -Delta
thanks Maxie.

Nurse: Not that I recall, no.
Are you sure Nurse? Are you sure?

The child’s apparent age roughly matches that of a human child of sixty months, making it possible he is the Zia Nair supposedly killed in 1999.
Mystery, mystery.
Good building of mystery! Holy crap!

Scorpio goldeises goldeises (Japanese venomoth), Alterniflora imperius tenebris (Indonesian roselia), Draga yilios (yilios – previously unconfirmed by science), Rex venrex magicae (Imperial nidoqueen), Amphitre bellator amazonia (South American toxicroak) and Scorpio plureius benthus (aquatic skorupi).
I love this headcanon.

There’s some precedent for that. Fallers often have repressed or altered memories to cope with their experiences. Especially young ones. You were thirteen when you arrived in Alola, correct?
I love this headcanon as well, it makes perfect sense and gives some more reality to the truth of being a 'faller'. I can't wait to see what you do with this, and you are going to explore it further.

Despite just being snapshots, I really got more of a feeling for the story in this chapter, it felt more dynamic than the last one, despite them both being exposition chapters. Also, mystery, so much mystery it could fill an ocean. Who are these people? What's up with Zia (are they the same Zia?) So many spoiler filled chapters in time, we're going to have to wait until they are all solved.
 
Boy, I sure have my job cut out for me don’t I? First I want to start by saying that I'm sorry it's taking me this long to get to this. I've actually been wanting to read it for a while, but work and life in general kind of got in the way of things without me realizing it. Either way, I'm finally here and ready to tackle your new project, I was a big fan of Vaira after all.

As a heads up, I wrote each chapter review as I went, so there are mentions of things that I didn’t know at the time that I discovered as I kept reading.

Well, let’s start.

Prologue

I don’t really have much to say about the Prologue except that it really gave me that whole “looking at something you shouldn’t” feel. Like we were some kind of god glancing at the different timelines and stuff. The thing that did catch my eye were the mentions to Vaira and what was supposed to happen, which apparently was a lot more heart breaking than I originally thought. Either way, I’m skeptical since playing around with alternate timelines can be…quite tricky.

I just hope things don’t get too mixed up, but knowing you and knowing how long you’ve been planning this, I don’t think I have anything I should worry about yet…or do I?

Chapter 1

You lulled me into a false sense of comfort with this relatively short chapter, but I’ll avoid any length whining for now. Either way, Chapter 1 acts as an interesting start but an overall short introduction to Zia. That being said, it does a good job of establishing their character, their role as well as their beliefs and relationship with their Pokemon.

Something that really stood out to me here was the way in which you showed how Zia still has a lot of room to grow as an Aura Guardian, the fact that they didn’t know that the Steelix wouldn’t have given them so much trouble had they just sent Lilith out earlier is telling of their lack of connection with other Pokemon, both as an Aura Guardian and the on in charge of the Iron Islands. On that note, the fact that you turned the islands into an abandoned colony is in and of itself and interesting twist.

Lastly, if there was anything that underwhelmed me here was the way the caves were described, it was generally done pretty well, but it still felt a bit short or stagnant in the grand scheme of things, granted, the lack of focus on the caves also drives home the fact that Zia doesn’t really know, or care about them too much, but it’s still something to keep in mind.

Chapter 2

All right, well, now here we really do have a package to unpack don’t we? Chapter 2’s main focus seem to respond to the concerns I had with chapter 1, mainly that while we established Zia’s core character, we didn’t get more of a hint of her personality. Because of this, chapter 2 works double time in expanding Zia’s personality.

And boy is there a lot to unpack. I came into this knowing a few details thanks to my talks to you, such as the fact that, in order to make up for a lack of representation in other stories both in fanfiction and in general, you focus on a lot of women but also gender non-binary characters and Zia is one of them, a fact that is pointed out pretty sneakily in one of the sentences, it’s clear enough if you’re looking for it but it’s also understandable if some people miss it at first glance.

The way in which Zia does things is very telling of their apathy and disdain for Iron Islands, even though we were shown she felt guilty for them not being in a better state, my assumptions about Zia also not having any particular feelings for the place seem to ring truer than I thought. Their relationship with their mothers was also interesting, though I don’t think Zia’s mothers aren’t so much against who they are and what they do (like diamondpearl pointed out) but rather don’t really know how to approach the whole subject.

Zia, sadly, is not a “normal” person in any sense of the word, at least not what people would expect. And that’s obviously something that also weighs heavily on Zia with the way in which they try and fail to be there for others

Zia wants to be what everyone expects them to, but their dislike of the role given to them and the way in which people see them also keep them from truly understanding others, which also adds to their own disdain for their power, since it basically gives Zia the ability to see into people’s minds.

It doesn’t help that, through all these struggles, Zia’s still reminded that they’re overall unimportant by Cresselia and her general dismissal of them and pretty much everything else. You’ve always had a knack for portraying gods in their more self-interested lights, we saw this with Cresselia herself in Vaira as well.

Which leads me to the other thing that jumped at me while reading, the worldbuilding. Much like the prologue showed, you have a mismatched of Vaira and other new elements here, mainly in regards to the people chosen by legendaries. I’d be interested to see what this “Priestess of Dialga” is like and if she’s the Priestess of Dialga I think she is.

Lastly, I liked your prose in this chapter most of all, you’re very good at first person, hell I was that good. However, you do run into a problem when it comes to going through things a little too fast some times. It’s not that you don’t nail moments of setting, such as when you describe the sunrise and the town, but sometimes you kind of rush through things a bit too fast. Granted, it makes sense since chapters would just get longer.

Chapter 3

It was at this point that I realized that the chapter names are referenced to things that have already happened, which gives the whole story a kind of story book feel. The way in which they’re stated, as if it was just a simple thing that happened, also adds to the unimportance that regardless of what happens this is just another story. A small detail, but one that I liked.

But anyway, the chapter itself gave us a heaping helping of more world building and more Zia. I’m a bit disappointed in that Zia still fills up the quota of “sarcastic and bitter” character that has become pretty common, it’s not that I like that archetype, especially since it’s one that rarely comes up in normal entertainment, but it kind of makes them seem as just another face amongst the many other characters that fill that quota.

Anyways, the way in which we’re shown Zia’s though process and how they plan out what they should or shouldn’t do in the facility is interesting, it gives us a better look at their more skeptic side, it’s not that they distrust humanity completely, since they do go along with everything, but they don’t trust the government enough to not put up a fight. All of this just made the fact that a confrontation doesn’t occur more interesting. Granted, it could also be mainly because the government knows they don’t want to piss off a legendary that could also, maybe, stop the end of the world.

And that takes me to Seraph who, is not who I was expecting. Regardless, she seems interesting while also filling in more of the wise and know it all role that you also seem to like so much. The fact that she’s so frail even though she’s so powerful is something that made me curious, how did she end up being that way? And how long has she been a Priestess, she points out a lot of events that are interesting and I hope are mentioned or explained later on.

To cap it off, I give you kudos for the way in which you described Seraph’s state and all the things she needs to survive, it’s clear that you did your research, something that I respect a lot because I probably would’ve a lot of trouble doing it myself.

But anyway, I wonder how Zia and Seraph will get along. They have an interesting dynamic and Zia does need someone that shows them a different view of life.

Chapter 4

Huh, didn’t expect this dynamic. Seraph is a lot more intriguing than I originally thought. I expected her to be more like a calmer Jane, but she’s actually got a pretty good head on her shoulders when she can stay awake long enough. The way she and Zia interact is also an added bonus, as it shows us a different side of Zia now that they have to act as a straight man to Seraph’s antics.

The thing that made the chapter stand out more here were all the mentions to the different region variants, it’s clear that you went far and beyond with thinking up the way in which certain Pokemon would work in different regions…I kind of hope to actually see some of those in later chapters.

Aside from that, chapter 4 was a relatively short cool down and transition chapter. It’s also the one with the most comedy so far, which is a breath of fresh air from all the monotone depressiveness of chapter two and serious conspiracy shit in chapter three. The thought of Seraph struggling to eat cereal but still trying to do it just to prove Zia wrong is an amusing one and the way in which she and Zia derail for a moment to talk about RPG terminology was both amusing and relatable (cause I’m a nerd).

Lastly, I’m quite intrigue by the prospect of a gym challenge, I already knew this had more than a few elements from Vaira in it, but we’ll see. After all, Vaira barely scratch the surface of gyms to begin with.

My only problem with Chapter 4 is that it’s essentially a chapter on exposition, you balanced it well with the comedic bits, but that doesn’t change the fact that not a lot really happened. Again, getting a hang of the characters is important, but it’s a bit weird when you look back on a chapter and can summarize it with “this happened”.

Scattered Files

I didn’t know what to call these but I’m adding them anyway. They’re not an interlude but they’re also adding important background details to the story, so Scattered Files it is.

The first and second file give us more detail on our two main protagonist so far, particularly Zia as we get to know their (possibly?) birth gender. The Seraph thing was a bit simpler than I expected, but Zia’s file really intrigued me into what their past is like and where they come from. The fact that Zia themself still doesn’t seem to acknowledge that there’s something weird with their story adds more to it. However, I’ll throw a guess that Zia isn’t from this timeline, that they came from an alternate timeline where they survived the fire.

Actually, the whole thing with the files just reeks of alternate timelines, from Zia’s story to the story of Subject 199 to Valentina Cabello. It’s clear that you’re playing around with it a lot and I hope that you know how to not mess it up.

Other than that the files were essentially just added details into what I assume will be our “Party” since the number of files matches with the number of members that Seraph said they would have to gather, however if that’s really the case or not is something that I’ll have to see, but it’s definitely interesting. A bit more explanation into how all the powers and abilities work would also be great (but considering I still have two chapters to read I might eat my words).

Chapter 5

Boy, what’s with you and having long chapters right after a short one? That being said, chapter 5 did give me a lot to unpack, being both our first chapter focused on Seraph and our introduction to “Medea” or Madison as she likes to go now.

First, now I’m even more sure on my theory that the people mentioned in the files are going to be our party members, which means that now I really can’t wait until we get to officially meet Valentina. Second, Madison being Medea makes a lot of sense and you’re able to give us a clear look at who she is, who she was and who she considers herself pretty well.

She likes to help others to a T, but it’s not out of any sense of kindness or solidarity, more for herself, to prove that she can do it. It makes sense since Medea herself is a tragic figure who got abandoned in the end, so she’s definitely not lying when she says that she’s too old to really trust and support heroes anymore.

But the chapter wasn’t just about Madison, it was also about Seraph and it showed us a lot of her internal monologue. Seraph continues to be a breath of fresh air, not just because she’s got the brains but also because of her sillier and more childish antic that bounce off well from Zia’s personality. Amusingly, the fact that she can see what’s going to happen actually makes her overly cautious of anything she isn’t prepared for, as shown with her struggle on whether to catch the Starly or not and her encounter with Madison, she knew she was going to meet her, but because she didn’t know how to get the “perfect score” she was scared of what to say.

It’s an interesting struggle similar to Zia’s, where they’re ability as an empath makes them able to understand others, which also makes them afraid of getting close to them for fear of being unable to handle themselves and help them out. This type of double edged sword treatment to powers isn’t new, but it’s one of the more interesting and one that requires a lot of meticulous thinking of your part, so kudos there.

Lastly the thing that I noticed was the description. Description of events and setting is a lot more detailed with Seraph than with Zia, supporting my theory that you’re changing it up depending on who or POV character this. It’s an interesting trick that tells us a lot about what each character values, Zia specifically puts more focus on her interactions with others and pointing out every detail about them, which ties into her abilities.

Seraph on the other hand focuses more on her surroundings and things that catch her interest. Since she knows how everything is going to go, it makes sense that her attention is instead focused on things she wouldn’t be able to see in her visions. This is something that can be seen with how extensive the description gets at the start of the chapter or at every action the Starly makes, but slows down a lot when Seraph is with Zia or when she’s watching the battle. The only exception to this is her conversation with Madison, since she doesn’t know how it’ll go she takes care to focus more on the conversation.

Chapter 6

The newest chapter and one that continues the trend of focusing on someone other than Zia, at first it was a bit confusing whose mind we were in, originally I thought it was Zia…in fact I’m pretty sure it was, then we switched to Gwen the Lucario, which made for an interesting change.

Mostly Gwen’s chapter was meant as a quick look at Zia’s past through Gwen. We get double confirmation of Zia’s birth gender (which was already stated in the files but I took it with a grain of salt there) as well as more details on what their life was like prior to the start of their story. Admittedly, it’s true that the issue with their gender was a big clashing point for their relationships with their parents after all, at least when it first happens.

In general the chapter gives off a very melancholic vibe, mixed in with Gwen’s own feelings towards their trainer and what happened during their lives. This tells us that Zia’s gone through a lot, which in turn reinforces their feelings of bitterness to the world and their exhaustion with what their ability gives them. The way in which Gwen ties peoples feelings to colors also gives us more insight into the way Aura is perceived.

Overall chapter 6 was another cool down chapter in preparation to the gym battle, but it acts as a good way of opening us up to Zia through Gwen. Now I’m excited to see what the battle will be like.

Now for my overall feelings on the fic:

The biggest thing that Iteration has that no one else has is ambition, this is something that stands out in every single one of your stories, they all are high concept and like to play around with as many things as possible. Here you explore many things and add a lot of concept, from magic, to powers to even gods. All the while exploring more human concepts like mental and physical issues as well as the problems that cause people to push others away, with a lot of little moments that help really build the world in which everyone lives in.

High concept is the perfect term for it, and it’s easy to tell why. You’ve clearly been planning this out for a long time, going off of Vaira and then adding a bunch of other things makes the story shine a lot and it feels like the perfect creation made up of many different concepts.

The essence of planning shines on the characters as well, who are all more complex than first glance has you believe and each one has more sides to them revealed with each passing chapter. Tricks such as a change in perspective in the prose also help a lot in conveying this as stated above.

Lastly I have to praise the way in which it’s all presented, I can tell that there’s a lot more to come and that you can’t wait to get to certain parts of the story, if the fact that you’ve been preparing us for the arrival of the other party members is anything to go by. The fact that there’s a lot of other characters and concepts that have been mentioned but still haven’t come into place also stand out here.

Of course, not every story is perfect. Even through all that your story still suffers from a few pitfalls, mainly in the fact that a lot of your chapters can suffer from having too much exposition in them. Another thing is the way in which everything is presented, the switch between character perspectives is a neat trick, but it affects the description which can in turn also make somethings harder to understand.

For as great as chapter 6’s musings were, it was also confusing to really get a hang on who was talking and while learning more about what Seraph cared about or not also added to our understanding of the character, it also made the chapter feel bog down by the weight of its length.

If I were to point out another flaw it would also have to be the fact that while the characters have personalities that upon closer inspection are different from one another, each one with their own complicated gimmicks, they all kind of feel the same. Banter between them is fun but it overall encompasses that same witty, sarcastic outlook, which yes brings a lot of laugh and is something that does happen in real life, but the fact that it’s done so much could overstay its welcome as the fic goes on, so it’s definitely something to take into account.

However, the fic is still in their early stages and the fact that those are the only outright flaws that I can see in it says a lot about the quality of it. It might just be the fact that my mind is tired from reading it all, but overall I say you’ve managed to write another one of the best fics the site has seen and I’m excited to know where it’ll go.

Also, the Starly is the cutest thing ever and you really like to go into quite a lot of detail about birds and what they do? ;p it made for some fun levity at least so I’ll accept it.
 
Response time!

Starting with @Ghostsoul, even though we've talked a bit in private messages about these.

The writing here is good, but it does feel a bit, expostisiony? I don't know how much of it can be merged within separate parts of the text later on.

This was largely fixed. I abbreviated it from four paragraphs to one that deals mostly with Zia's involvement in the events.

This is too vague a statement. In what way was she 'impossible to shatter for good'? It seems very airy-fairy, or idealistic. Perhaps not fitting with the overall tone?

Hmm. I might change that, might not. Might just elaborate it a bit. Point is that, at least as far as Zia can interpret from a quick scan, Seraph has a very high tolerance for defeat after the previous part of her life.

streeeching vooooowels does very little to help increase tension and we are less likely to treat the character seriously if you do that. (Might work in YA fiction, doesn't work here.)

Yeah. Got it. Going to fix.

Not really much to say about this chapter? Exposition, lots of dialogue, perhaps a little 'talking-heads' ish in places. Mostly conveyed what you wanted to get across, although I admit felt a little boring in places. It really wasn't the most exciting of your chapters to read.

Can you explain what you mean by "talking heads?" Or if you have any advice to make things less boring that would be useful.

Thank you for the reviews. Not sure whether you're going to like the Seraph-narrated parts more or less given your previous criticisms and reactions to the character.

@Flaze

Just gonna split this into sections rather than quote-by-quote.

Chapter 1: The irony here is that the old version of Chapter 1 was primarily encumbered by spending too much time talking about the caves, so a lot of it got axed for the sake of narrative. I might touch it up later, but it really isn't in Zia's nature to focus on every rock in front of them unless it poses a threat.

Chapter 2: Can you elaborate on which parts in particular felt rushed? I wasn't actually aware that chapter had the problem. Re :priestess of Dialga, Aracai (or at least, her teenage self) made most of the early versions of what would become Iterations. I seriously considered her being just a jaded low-level criminal with untrained aura powers and a disdain for society. But... Aracai kind of got turned into Zia at some point. Darker skinned foreigner to a white supremacist island with a general interest in politics and aura powers. So having Aracai appear as more than a corpse cameo at the start would've been a tad redundant, especially since you mention below that I have a problem with differentiating characters.

Chapter 3: There was originally a big fight sequence in this chapter right up until I wrote the actual end. And then I realized that, Seraph being Seraph, she definitely had a way to at least gain a non-violent edge. And ending it violently would've left Seraph dying without life support and Zia without any resources to care for her. So for narrative purposes and to establish Seraph's passive badassery compared to Zia's constant combat reflex, I went with the anticlimax. Besides... there will eventually be fights with the department and they'll more or less be the primary antagonists between now and the very end of the story.

I'm not entirely sure I would call Seraph jaded? She's lived through some terrible things, but she really tries not to let them get her down. Except when they do. And that's more sadness than bitterness if I'm doing it right... am I doing it right? Regardless, I acknowledge that I tend to default to broken and jaded characters since I've been depressed irl since at least the time I was ten so it's really kind of hard for me to process non-traumatized people who don't kind of hate the world. Disability, trauma and the ways people cope with them are kind of going to be running themes throughout this.

Speaking of disability, I have read a fair bit on how actual chronic illness and currently available treatments would work. To make things simple, Seraph's chair is far better than anything actual medicine could provide for her now. In the real world she'd probably be homebound and her ventilator would be much more cumbersome. So the chair is pretty much just me partially handwaving things on the "how is she not dead" front.

Chapter 4:

I really felt the need to have a "here's what the heck is going on" chapter between the unanswered questions of Chapter 3 and the oddity of Seraph's narration. But I do acknowledge that the exposition chapter is... less than ideal. I'm just not entirely sure how I should've introduced those things or if all of them needed introduced at once. Some feedback there would be nice.

Interlude: Background Checks

It is technically an interlude, albeit one split into five shorter stories. Val and Gela will appear later in the story in-person (well, so much as Gela has a person at this point). Their powers will get more explanation later on. As will Madison's. But that felt like way too much of an infodump immediately following chapter 4.

There are alternate universes as implied by the prologue. They won't be directly relevant to the plot until the third arc (I consider the "getting everyone together" plot to be the first arc).

Chapter 5:

Nvm I think this may have answered my question regarding Seraph above.

Chapter 6:

This is technically Seraph's narration, albeit her zoned out and trying to figure out how to help her friend. This was originally clearer in the early drafts but I felt like Seraph's upbeat commentary was really jarring when contrasted with Zia's descent off the deep end. So that got cut.

Yes, Seraph is looking through Gwen's POV in the last half and Zia's in the first, albeit both in the poetic second person she sees in her visions. The middle bits narrator I'll leave unclear for now, in part because there are at least three characters who it could be referring to at the end of the world and I definitely haven't made up my mind as to which one it'll be.

The gym challenge will finally be next and it will take up almost the entirety of the next chapter, with a little bit of Seraph in her present at the end.

Overall/criticism:

I'm guilty of too much exposition here and I know it. I'm trying to slowly trim it down in rewrites to only what really needs to be here, but when dealing with a complex story there's a lot of things I feel the need to put out there.

The early drafts of Chapter 6 were a lot clearer but I never quite liked them. I think the point of the chapter in a meta sense is that Seraph's visions, even when perfectly accurate, are a mess for her to figure out and piece coherent narratives out of. So when she gets caught off guard it's not really unrealistic given her powers. But if this was clear enough in Chapter 5 I may revise Chapter 6 to be a little bit less poetic and little more clear and prosaic.

As for characters... yeah, I can see it. Especially since with Seraph I'm struggling to balance a girl who's really just happy to be alive with a girl weighed down by years of cancer and captivity. Combined with Zia's chronic depression and Madison's... ok actually I won't comment on her. Yeah, she's definitely dark and a bit sarcastic, but I think her personality is a fair bit different than the other two. So I will acknowledge that I see where the criticism is coming from but I think a lot of that is just because it's still quite early in the story.

Thank you for the long and detailed review. Always good to see what you think of my work.
 
Time to catch up properly, I guess.

I decided the sky might be overrated.
It most certainly is.

I mean it was sort of a magical experience, even by the standards of a magical girl.
Sounds silly, I mean these characters aren't quite Sailor Moon, although they hold some likeness to 'Magical Girls'.

Surgical precision and calculated pain against the bright, sterile atmosphere of death and decay: the beloved venom of the twenty-first century.
It's an interesting line, I can see why you chose it to be the chapter title.

Perhaps I should reread this with a better sense of concentration, not so tired; but I have to say it didn't interest me all that much? Perhaps it's just Seprah's tendency to go off on tangents that make the chapter feel as if it's longer than it has to be. General rule: If you would skip over it in someone else's story, or it seems excessive to you, you probably shouldn't include it. Although it's part of character voice, I just feel like it's a bit much. Also this chapter is again, really exposition heavy. Nothing much is happening during the plot, because it keeps halting for exposition.

Chapter 6
You’ve heard it said that hell is other people. You sometimes wonder if another empath wrote that or if it was just a really lucky shot in the dark.
The quote 'Hell is other people' is actually to do with the idea that we are constantly subject to other people's conscience and thus, by we must live their terms, because of their views on the world.

Also, second person narration is back! Woot!

scars

there are four scars

the first was born in fire as a child cried in the ashes of the dead

souls that had left him behind

and then left behind

by the other children raised in ash
Poetic, emotional, and kind of inspiring.

The atmosphere of this chapter was a lot better than the last one, although the last one was useful for it's exposition and it's scene setting, which it delivered as it should have done. The narrative is creative and manages to capture the emotion of the character at a personal level all while using not too many words. It also brings back the tension and mystery to the story, which the previous chapter appear to somewhat lack.
 
Here for the Review Game (I swear I like this story for more than just it being active in a forum game - honest!)

Two more mostly solid chapters. I'll start with Chapter Five, which I felt was the better of the two. Getting a chance to go inside Seraph's head for a while made a nice change of pace and helped to flesh out her character. I think she had a clearer personality here than she did in the previous chapter, and I also found her thoughts around the goals/mission to have more of a purpose or sense to them than I had previously. Things are still vague, but they were not confusingly vague as they had been, which was appreciated.

The introduction of the Starly and the brief snapshot in its backstory and how it came to be on the streets was deeply touching and really absorbed me into the story. You have a really good grasp on your Pokemon characters in this story, and I think if more focus was given to some of them you would have a number of strong contenders for Best Pokemon on your hand (but more on that later). The little subplot made for a really sweet touch and I hope that we get to see more of this later in the story and you don't do an Aether and murder your birb.

The gym challenge, I must admit I found the rules you came up with a bit confusing. I am certain I understand them (there's some qualifying match, then a maze which two trainers must complete together, and then the battle?) but it was a bit odd and I don't think it was entirely necessary. I understand completely wanting to do things differently, but I think a focus on the maze could have been a better use of words and we wouldn't be going into our third chapter on one match without there really being a match.

I absolutely loved the scene between Seraph and Madeline. The gym leader made for a formidable foe, and her challenge to Seraph was much needed. I had felt that Seraph and her abilities made her a bit too overpowered, but by having Madeline slap her down to size in a way was a good way of highlighting the presence of gods and the all powerful in the story but also grounded Seraph in a way that did not remove the significance of what she can do but at least showed she is not the top dog in this story. I also liked how effortlessly you slipped in backstory to both characters into the dialogue in a way that was so natural I am extremely jealous. It was the sort of conversation and debate I love - the style you tried in Backgrounds between Gela and the Bond-guy, but it was more rapid fire and believable and overall much better here. Also, Madeline sounds generally badass anyway from her design, though her being a Greek diety rather than a Poke-God I found a little strange. It is believable enough in this story, but as I think I mentioned in my last review I find the global focus a little distracting.

Overall, I loved the chapter. The little touches such as describing how the Starly felt resting on her and the other wheelchair bound kids watching the match just helped the world come alive, and though things slowed down a bit in this chapter, this story is moving at a good pace and there is already a lot of excellent world building.

Only two errors I noticed were Seraph referring to Zia as he twice before Madeline appeared, where she also used they pronouns in the same paragraphs.

Ah. So he’d met Eric.

Zia walked off with the eleven-year-old boy excitedly trailing beside him,

Onto Chapter Six. Whereas the fifth chapter was an excellent highlight of what you do well in terms of dialogue, description, syntax and a poetic style of prose, this chapter had one thing that has always bothered me at times about your work, and that is the slightly confusing mind/dream/flashback sequences. This chapter was made up half of that and with a switching character perspective worked in, and it was confusing as hell. It took me a while to work out we were in Guinevre's mind. I had to stop and go back and read things over again to make sure I had that right, but even then I couldn't see where one character became the next.

how that happened

You sob alone on the cold bathroom floor, feeling the dirt on the floor get swept up by little red floods as your bruises and scars slowly disappear. You had wanted this so badly for years, but can barely bring yourself to care as it happens. The surface pain had never been the issue for you; it was easier to deal with.

Now no one would ever hurt you again. They wouldn’t want to. And if they did you would destroy them. The only thing that gets you to stand up and gather your things hours later is that hope and the illusory sound of the waves a thousand miles away

a thousand miles away

You glance at Seraph. If she’s not asleep, she’s not paying much attention to the world. But you need info. Or maybe you just need to yell at her in a whisper. You neither know nor care and resolve to wake her up. It doesn’t take much, only gently—

i’m sorry but I may have made a mistake be ready but its only a badge

only a badge not the end of the world

That was the bit that still has me utterly lost. If I hadn't just looked at your response to Flaze, I would still think we were in Zia's mind and then somehow went to Gwen's. Even with that context in mind, I still find that sequence confusing and a struggle to read, and I think it removes any sort of cleverness that came in putting it together. Some sort of transition is needed and some sort of context around Seraph otherwise that whole sequence will remain a nightmare to read.

The two separate bits were good. I liked Zia's little thoughts about the gym battle, and getting some perspective from Gwen was really good. Going back to an earlier point, if this whole chapter had been from Gwen's perspective of her reading Zia before the match, it could have been a worthy entry to Best Pokemon. There is enough little detail and insight here to Gwen and how Lucario view the world to hook me in and want to know more about a Pokemon, which is extremely rare, so kudos for that.

Ultimately my only advice/constructive criticism would be to either leave the weird mindfuck stuff behind or work them better into the story, especially if there are character switches going on. Nothing about that middle passage of the story was clear - if it was vague and mysterious, that would be fine, but this was just baffling and really threw me out of what I was reading. You write such excellent prose at a publishing-worthy standard, it is disappointing whenever those mindfucks come up.
 
And two people have pretty much the opposite thoughts on the same chapters lol.

Starting with @Ghostsoul

We've talked privately about a lot of this, but in general I'm going to try and trim some of the really unneeded stuff from Chapter Five and maybe flip some of the Madison stuff at the tail end into Chapter 6.

Glad you liked the second person, although other people are finding it confusing. I'll try and rework that chapter while keeping the overall style.

@AceTrainer14

If I'm going to be up in the review game every couple reviews, waiting to get more points from it isn't a sin.

So I've mentioned before how I keep messing up Zia's gender in my own notes and drafts? Yeah... it's something I struggle with irl when it comes to pronouns, which is annoying given the number of enby friends I have (including myself, although I do use she/her pronouns irl and online).

Something you actually were missing that I now need to go back and make clearer: there is no formal battle with Madison. The maze is the challenge. Different leaders handle it differently, with some gyms (especially those in the larger cities), not requiring the leader to constantly be battling an endless stream of people since the region has literally hundreds of thousands of kids of journeying age and if 1% of them take the challenge, that's a lot of matches the leader has to fight in prime journeying months. So the next chapter is, really truly, the end of the Eterna Gym saga. Promise.

I'm glad you like the Starly and Madison. We will be seeing more of both in the future.

I've struggled a lot with balancing precogs since they seem almost uniquely overpowered as a sufficiently good one would never lose a gambit by virtue of being able to see in advance whether they'd win or lose. Theoretically you could win by taking the fight to them in less than ideal conditions, but then there's a question of if they could find a way to slip out of that and...

So the rules for Seraph amount to "she can't see everything, gets maybe 1-5 tries at something depending on how long she's been working on it and how important it is, and her visions aren't 100% reliable." This leaves Seraph as one of the most powerful knowledge-based characters in the series, balanced by her being next to useless in combat and not a surefire win in any case. In fact, her overconfidence can lead to situations like the one she's in now.

Chapter Six... oh boy.

The first half is Zia, the second is Gwen. The middle bits are a mix of Valentina and [REDACTED] at the end of the world. Originally there was a transitory arc where Zia came in and woke Seraph up, and when she ended up back in her dreams she was seeing through Gwen. I'll put that back in. I originally pulled it because Seraph's light-hearted style didn't really fit between "empath in hell" and "watching friend sink into all-consuming depression." But I'll keep your advice in mind and see what I can do.

Also might make it all Gwen narration, although I quite like the hell is other people bit and it works less well from Gwen.

Thanks for the reviews! I'll get around to Infinite Reins and 8ES in the next week.
 
hi yes it is me, it is birb! holy crap, these chapters fulfilled all my birb needs for the next five years at least! :p

keep in mind i've been behind for a while so these are pre-rewrites for chapter 5 and 6... urk, sorry ;o;

After all of ten minutes I decided the sky might be overrated.

I mean it was sort of a magical experience, even by the standards of a magical girl.

Okay, I hadn't seen much of Seraph because I've been behind for a while but already I love her. Except then she goes on to slowly delve into how much she actually loves the sky and is in awe by it so I'm not really sure the opening sentence holds up.

Then on the rare occasions when I was awake I’d have to flip back through the half-formed memory, figuring out what I’d seen.

Mm, that's a really poignant image there. I like it. Her not getting to see the world except for vicariously... definitely depressing, and now that she is out in the world, she's got business to do. Can't even enjoy it, really.

The eye of God gazed upon Eterna and no one could be bothered to look at it.

Perfect way to sum up how people take everyday things for granted. Maybe Seraph will someday, too, when the world becomes familiar to her. But right now, you're doing a damn good job at emphasizing what she thinks she missed out on as an experiment.

Zia had loaned me some of her clothes, well, Zia had bundled me up as well as they could in all of their clothing they were not currently wearing.

is the gender pronoun switch intentional here? I know you talked about making it intentional, but I wasn't sure what you decided in the end. In the very same sentence it goes from she -> they, so I figured it doesn't hurt to ask.

I wasn’t entirely sure if lungs could get frostbite, but if it was possible for any lungs it would be for mine.

I was kind of worried when Seraph was introduced that she had very little self-awareness about her limits and terrible immune system, but it appears I was wrong. There were some good subtle hints to show she's not all fun and games and wonder. And good thing, too, considering all the important stuff she has to do. She's got enough on her plate already without worrying about catching pneumona or something.

I watched as they shook and puffed herself up, turning into an avian snowball before sticking their beak into the fluff to straighten some invisible mess out. I giggled and ignored the cool air rushing in.

I'm in love. That is all.

Wasn’t sure if hearing that would please or horrify them. Maybe both on different days.

Mm, I could relate to this. Even if I couldn't I think the idea is portrayed very well in such few words.

It wasn’t right to want her without knowing if she wanted to be wanted. She was free and it would be wrong to confine her.

So the starly is not only birb cuteness overload goodness, but also a way to explore Seraph's character. She could be totally bitter, but with the starly we get a glimpse of her that says no, she doesn't want people to go through what she went through, even if the starly was clearly interested in traveling with her and people catch pokemon/hold them captive on a daily basis.

“I think she wants to go with you for a little while. Not entirely sure why, but if it works for you—”

Best capture scene ever. No bias here, nope.

I wasn’t sure if I should try and talk to them or treat them like I’d treat anyone else and keep my distance. I ultimately settled with the latter, if only because it was easier. And I wasn’t sure what to say to them except that I had a cute bird on my lap who might let them pet her. I didn’t really want to share my bird-friend, though.

Bitchy, considerate, and innocent all at once is how I'd describe Seraph after reading this part. Interesting mix tbh, and she is indeed helping to bring a little more life to the narration after Zia's like you thought she might.

Um, I’d love to say that after that I laughed and went to find literally anyone else but the three-thousand-year-old witch with murder issues. Like a smart oracle would. But truth be told I wet myself at some point in that monologue and went into shock from fear and embarrassment. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but given the events that came next I have a sinking feeling that it wasn’t “no.”

A little humor in the face of a journey of priestesses. :p I approve.

As for chapter 6... I don't have a lot of quotes, really, just overall comments. I too couldn't tell when switches were made, but the switch to a pokemon character was most jarring. The focus on Zia's pokemon has almost been nonexistent thus far, and I think trying to put them into the story before a gym battle makes sense, but not quite in the style this is in. It'd work better if this was all in Gwen's POV like you suggested you might do, maybe, but when we haven't learned much of anything about Pokemon sentience throughout the story as a whole, that could potentially feel jarring, too. There is some beautiful writing here, however, and the experimental style fits the tone of the story, so finishing the puzzle with less confusion would be, well, perfect.
 
@diamondpearl876

Owl friend!!!

Okay, I hadn't seen much of Seraph because I've been behind for a while but already I love her. Except then she goes on to slowly delve into how much she actually loves the sky and is in awe by it so I'm not really sure the opening sentence holds up.

Yeah. I, um, I need to change that sentence. It was a good point for starting the chapter as a writing exercise but it should've been removed by the final cut.

Mm, that's a really poignant image there. I like it. Her not getting to see the world except for vicariously... definitely depressing, and now that she is out in the world, she's got business to do. Can't even enjoy it, really.

She really has it the worst. She got to live everyone's life but her own.

Perfect way to sum up how people take everyday things for granted. Maybe Seraph will someday, too, when the world becomes familiar to her. But right now, you're doing a damn good job at emphasizing what she thinks she missed out on as an experiment.

Heh. Unsure how much she's going to mellow out over time. I figure I'll work it out on a chapter by chapter basis in the future.

is the gender pronoun switch intentional here? I know you talked about making it intentional, but I wasn't sure what you decided in the end. In the very same sentence it goes from she -> they, so I figured it doesn't hurt to ask.

Nope. I misgendered Zia there. Thanks for pointing it out.

I was kind of worried when Seraph was introduced that she had very little self-awareness about her limits and terrible immune system, but it appears I was wrong. There were some good subtle hints to show she's not all fun and games and wonder. And good thing, too, considering all the important stuff she has to do. She's got enough on her plate already without worrying about catching pneumona or something.

She's aware that her immune system got wrecked by cancer and never recovered/was never allowed to recover. It's on her mind. But she might downplay the risks occasionally because she really just wants to be out in the world and obsessing over her very real chance of death would interfere with that.

I'm in love. That is all.

That bird only made it into the very final draft pre-posting. I am also in love with her and partially revamped my plans for Seraph because of unnamed birb.

Mm, I could relate to this. Even if I couldn't I think the idea is portrayed very well in such few words.

It's kinda hard even talking about my own fluidity in words that people understand, so I'm glad that worked out.

So the starly is not only birb cuteness overload goodness, but also a way to explore Seraph's character. She could be totally bitter, but with the starly we get a glimpse of her that says no, she doesn't want people to go through what she went through, even if the starly was clearly interested in traveling with her and people catch pokemon/hold them captive on a daily basis.

Seraph's morality basically boils down to a sort of extreme ethical libertarianism. She never wants to make people's choices for them, but beyond that everything goes.

Best capture scene ever. No bias here, nope.

It's honestly the second capture scene I've ever written ever (aside from early terribad Nuzlocke fics) so I'm glad that it worked out well.

Bitchy, considerate, and innocent all at once is how I'd describe Seraph after reading this part. Interesting mix tbh, and she is indeed helping to bring a little more life to the narration after Zia's like you thought she might.

This bit actually got struck in the shortening edit but I think I'm going to add it back in because, what the hell, I like it.

A little humor in the face of a journey of priestesses. :p I approve.

Zia is depressed. Seraph, in spite of all odds, isn't. As long as she's narrating there will be a bit of a tone shift.

As for chapter 6... I don't have a lot of quotes, really, just overall comments. I too couldn't tell when switches were made, but the switch to a pokemon character was most jarring. The focus on Zia's pokemon has almost been nonexistent thus far, and I think trying to put them into the story before a gym battle makes sense, but not quite in the style this is in. It'd work better if this was all in Gwen's POV like you suggested you might do, maybe, but when we haven't learned much of anything about Pokemon sentience throughout the story as a whole, that could potentially feel jarring, too. There is some beautiful writing here, however, and the experimental style fits the tone of the story, so finishing the puzzle with less confusion would be, well, perfect.

I'm adding a bit in the middle where Seraph explains what happened and what is happening. Also cutting the end of the world scene because that didn't need to be there at all.

As far as sentience, I'll have Seraph spell it out in the rewrite but to be brief, some pokemon are basically cat or dog like intelligence in Iterations. Some are very superhuman. Most work out to gorilla level intelligence, with a right-skewed bell curve over that. Lucario is at roughly human intelligence. Some lucario are smarter than some humans, etc. On average probably a little less, though. But Gwen is a smart lucario. Lilith and percival have benefited from being around an aura guardian willing to teach them speech, tactics and the like, so Lilith is almost human-level and Percival is non-ape primate. The starly is probably parrot-level.

Mons like Alakazam and Metagross have supercomputer level processing power but fairly little in the way of creativity, along with a lot of tradition-, biology- or self-imposed restraints. The gods are vastly above human knowledge with greater intelligence as well, but not so much that they're unrecognizable. Mostly they just benefit from knowing all the things and being old enough to have a sense of how situations usually play out.

Some bug, grass or rock type pokemon don't really think at all and just react reflexively to their situation like jellyfish. But those probably won't matter in the story much.

Thank you for the comments!
 
Chapter Seven: granddaughter of the sun
Chapter Seven: granddaughter of the sun

a story:

You see a flash of light out of the corner of your eye right before the world breaks.

Powerful vibrations rock through the earth, knocking you off of your feet and rendering your vision shaky enough that you can’t tell if everything IS moving back and forth really quickly or if you got vertigo. Given the several tense seconds where you can’t feel anything in your stomach – which is worrying for a few reasons – but can still see things moving with your eyes, you suspect it was a mix of the two.

When the earth calms, you slowly push yourself to your feet, careful to avoid placing your hands in the puddle in front of you. When you finally look around to get your bearings, you see that Lux, Rach and Imp are all unconscious. Thankfully, Flare drops down from the trees and confirms that at least one of your team members is still up; you haven’t lost the challenge yet.

You turn to face Zia and his team, all of whom seem unhurt. He doesn’t even seem particularly dirty; maybe he didn’t fall down at all. As for the lucario and empoleon, well, that explains the flash of light. He smiles sheepishly at you, the first real break in the seriousness and anger that’s been on his face since you met him. “Sorry about that. You ok to move on?”

You consider a few replies. ‘Thanks for the warning.’ ‘No, I’m not ok.’ ‘What the hell was that?’

But he scares you, being so much bigger and stronger and… different than you. And he seems sorry. So, you just nod.

“Good. Guinevere, mind taking care of that for me?”

Before you can even ask what he’s talking about, a mass of dirt rises in front of his lucario and condenses into a dense bone shape. She then throws it hard into the forest behind her, creating a dull thud when it hits…

“Toxicroak. It was trying to sneak up on us,” Zia says.

You blink, wondering how he’d even known that. But as his brief flash of vulnerability fades, you decide not to press him on that one, either.

“What about the others?” you ask.

“Two are aquatic. The third flies,” he looks up at the canopy, which is dense enough that you can barely make out the ceiling above. “Doesn’t look like any of them are going to bother us in this stretch.”

You can’t argue with that, so you withdraw your fallen pokémon and advance in silence.

It really is nearly silent now, with only the distant hum of the fans that regulate the temperature. The bugs and birds that had previously sung throughout the dome had been quieted by the earthquake. Huh. You’d thought it’d just been a soundtrack or something, but this place really was a jungle more than a gym arena. You know that it’s not really necessary, but you still find your eyes scanning the dense forest and canopy for signs of trouble.

There’s not much to see, or at least that you understand. This part of the trail is thick, with walls of bamboo and vines all but boxing you in on both sides, with lush green leaves bigger than your torso blocking out most of the light coming from above you. The path is rich brown dirt, the type of stuff that your parents had hauled in every year to put on their flower beds. It certainly smells like it, anyway, mixed in with things that smell like fruit, rain and… you aren’t even sure. Nothing that lives in Jubilife.

Eventually there is one more thing that you notice: water. It starts as a faint trickle barely audible over the already minimal background noise, but it eventually becomes loud enough that even if you hadn’t been paying attention it would’ve been obvious. Ten yards ahead of you, light streams down upon the trail, which dips down beneath the horizon a bit and picks back up on the other side of what’s apparently a creek.

Zia turns to you and frowns. “You don’t have your shinx anymore, do you?”

You shake your head. It was his fault, and you would’ve said it if he didn’t already know it.

“Fine, then, get in the trees.” It takes you a second to realize he’s talking to Flare, and not you. He doesn’t seem to care much about you as he withdraws his empoleon and whispers something to his lucario.

You aren’t sure if he ordered her to, but his steelix starts slithering closer and closer to the riverbank. This time the tremor stirs gradually, slowly building into the terrifying event that had happened earlier. This time you manage to grab onto a shoot of bamboo tight enough that you manage to stay up.

In fact, you think you even sort of see the battle play out. A green thing shoots from the water and hits steelix. The two move around for a while, or maybe they are just swaying in the quake. Or staying still. Anything’s possible. At some point the quake abruptly ends and you hear a high-pitched whining and smell something… no, it’s not burning. But it’s similar. Your questions are answered when an oddly colored drapion is dropped down right in front of you, twitching a little but in no state to get back up.

“Two to go.”

SERAPH.

a story:

This isn’t what you expected the afterlife to–

MARCH 2ND, 2017

a story:

you gently put the premier ball into your—

4:52 P.M.

You open—I opened my eyes.

~~~​

“You ok?”

I blinked a few more times to process the light and the shift in perspective before I shifted to look up at Zia. The starly was standing up protectively in front of my abdomen, glaring at the human trying to wake me up.

“Yeah, yeah, fine. How are you?”

“Your bird bit me.” Their expression was too pained for just a warning peck and their glare was directed at me, and not the bird.

“Her name is Fluffy,” I said (more to the birb than Zia), “and I’m sorry she’s such a good guard bird.”

They squinted at me. “You hiding something else?”

I grinned. “’Course I am. I’ll tell you when it’s time to tell you."

The rest went about as I’d seen up until they went into the maze. Madison came out and explained the rules. Zia looked pissed. Gwen was pissed on her behalf. Nothing new under the sun.

And then they entered and I was left alone with the gym leader. There were several tense seconds after the doors were closed where she was faintly smiling with her eyes closed, biting one side of her lip. I wasn’t sure what to say to her that wouldn’t put her off further.

Eventually she just turned to me and dismissively waved a hand towards a hallway. “That way to the lift. You’re welcome to watch from the observation room.”

She walked ahead of me at a relatively brisk pace, although she did stop at the elevator and wait for me to reach her. When I got there, she opened the door and entered after I’d wheeled in. That left me alone with her in close quarters and quiet for another few seconds.

I’d seen flashes of her life before, both in the initial vision and subsequent attempts to figure out the people I’d be working with. I’d seen her kill without much hesitation, concoct some truly heinous potions, dabble in necromancy… but it hadn’t occurred to me that she would be scary in person. I’d just figured that since we were supposed to end up as teammates she’d just terrify other people. But here she was, her face calm and steady as she tried her best to murder someone she barely knew.

The clear ‘ping’ of the elevator reaching its final destination meant that it was my turn to roll out, with Madison following close behind me before speeding up a bit to walk alongside me. She seemed every bit as serene as she’d been on the lower floor and it was really starting to unnerve me. I’d rather she started monologuing or cackling, or anything that signified that she wasn’t absolutely confident in her victory. Or that murder meant so little to her she’d already moved on to thinking about dinner.

Or murder was dinner. I was pretty damn sure she wasn’t a cannibal, but I’d been pretty damn sure of a lot of things about her that morning.

I wasn’t sure when, exactly, I’d fucked up enough that I’d had to start thinking about cannibalism.

The observation room didn’t have the same crowd of patients the previous one had. Instead there was just one gym staff member when we entered, staring out through the room-length window separating us from the maze two stories below. I glanced through it and saw the vague shapes of Zia and Eric walking down the first set of switchbacks. A variety of monitors throughout the room gave closer views of them. Unlike her boss, the staffer appeared to be some mix of angry and disturbed as she looked out the window.

“Madison, we need to talk.”

“About what?” she said, like she didn’t know perfectly well what the ‘what’ was.

“All six?”

“Trying something new. Wanted a strong challenger for it.”

“Explain.”

Madison walked over beside her, and joined her subordinate in looking out the window. “People have figured out the maze. There are guides online, and pretty good ones at that. So, I want to try something a little bit different in the future. Hide and seek. Challenger get a few minutes to hide, my team gets a bit longer to find and dismantle the opponents.”

Dismantle. Couldn’t help but wonder how literal that was.

“I just wanted to see if it was possible for a good challenger to take on multiple core team members and win.”

The assistant held her mouth open for a second like she wanted to challenge it, but just looked back towards the window and shook her head. “Whatever.”

Shortly after the two challengers reached the ground, a large pokémon began lumbering towards them. A large splotch of red light appeared in response, leaving a steelix in its wake. I turned to the monitor to watch the fight in more detail.

Nidoqueen. Dark purple, almost black, plate armor covering a navy-blue pokémon. Two horn-like growths grew out of her back. With a quick movement, she ripped them out of the armor and brandished them in front of her like swords. Gwen formed a bone from the dirt and stepped forward in response. That was bad. That particular nidoqueen had been around for centuries and wasn’t about to lose a sword fight, type-advantages be damned.

Of course, I hadn’t told Zia about that. I didn’t need them knowing about Madison’s past any more than I needed them to know about the hospital. I’d tried alternate paths, but this was the only option that ever really went anywhere. Hated hurting them, but if it was them or the world… I’d have to take it. I’d have to make it for them if they wouldn’t. Even if I hated doing it.

The one-on-one duel went about as depressingly as I’d feared, with Gwen taking twice as many slashes than the hits she landed. But Zia wasn’t exactly in the mood to play fair. After they’d reached the conclusion they should’ve arrived to at the beginning, Lilith started hurling boulders at the nidoqueen, which Gwen was quite happy to redirect with a psychic here and there. For his part, Percival added in a barrage of hydro pumps and ice beams when he got an opening. Eric didn’t do much at all; he’d tried to send his monferno in, but Zia had snapped at him. Shame the monitors didn’t have audio.

After a few minutes of bombardment, the nidoqueen finally turn tail and rain. Zia let her go, beyond a few dark pulses and hydro pumps on the way out.

Damn, that thing could take a beating. Gwen looked seriously roughed up after the battle, with along scar running from her shoulder to her navel and a dozen more smaller ones across her frame where the horns had hit. She moved to stop Zia when they tried to withdraw her, so apparently, she wasn’t feeling as bad as she looked. Percival and Lilith just looked a little tired.

Going by my last vision, I was guessing they’d encounter roserade in the forest at some point. Roserade would take out most of Eric’s team, Zia would either knock it out or cause it to run after an earthquake from Lilith. Then toxicroak and drapion and… and then I didn’t know. Things would probably turn out alright.

I refused to think about the alternative.

As the two began to walk into the jungle, Madison spoke up. “Mind if we talk in my office, Seraph.”

“Sure, I guess.” I probably sounded as unconfident as I felt, but she started walking towards a door in the back of the gallery anyway. The staff member seemed confused, but didn’t say anything.

The door led into the hallway a few yards from the room I spoke to Madison in earlier. The tile up here was still austere and white, keeping up the aesthetic from downstairs. I could hear the wheels of the chair echoing throughout the building, giving me some sound to focus on aside from my heartrate.

I really didn’t want to think about how much today had stressed my heart out. That was another little thing that just had to work out because the alternative was unthinkable.

She sat back down on the other side of her tidy desk, leaving me to roll up to it. Fluffy stirred; I hadn’t noticed her falling asleep. Everything looked the same as it had before, but everything felt different.

“You’re stressed,” Madison said. As if it was a question and an answer all in two and a half words.

“And?”

“Why?”

“This is sort of a stressful situation.”

“Why?”

I sighed and started to glare at her before I stopped. No point trying to play that game with her.

“Because my friend’s in a death maze and might not come out.”

She stared at me after that, like I’d finally said something truly unbelievable. It was a bit of a contrast to her nonchalance at our earlier talk about much stranger things.

“…might not come out?” she asked.

“Yeah, you know, as happens when people go into death mazes.” The joke was killed by a crack in my voice as I said ‘people.’ Not that it was a good joke in the first place.

She closed her eyes. “You’re precognitive. Strongly precognitive.”

“Yeah…”

“Then tell me how it ends.”

“I don’t know.”

She adjusted in her seat and put her elbows on the desk before she leaned forward. “Why not?”

“I know some parts. They get through drapion. Then I got woken up and lost the vision.”

She frowned. “And you didn’t plan this before?”

“A lot changed. Things didn’t go according to plan. I’m one of my own blind spots and it can be hard to predict… exactly how things are gonna go once I start making little choices.”

I motioned to Fluffy. Not that she’d exactly been a little choice, but she’d still thrown everything off.

“You accepted anyway?”

I tried to speak but my voice finally broke completely, leaving only a whisper behind. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It just happened?”

I nodded yes as tears I didn’t know I’d been suppressing started to fall.

She leaned back into her chair and pulled her phone out. She waited for a few seconds, alternating her glance between me and the phone screen before she finally started typing something out. When it had been sent she powered down the phone and gave her full attention back to me.

“You’re sure that they can get past drapion?”

“Yes. I made sure to do everything exactly the same as I’d done in that timeline until they entered.”

“What are Zia’s pronouns? You keep referring to them as ‘they’ and their face looks a little feminized. Magic attracts many trans people; used to be the only way to change the body. I’ve learned to recognize them over the centuries, and I was getting that impression but didn’t want to be rude.”

“They/them. Zia’s gender fluid.”

“Then they’ll live. Calling the match before the cliffs.”

I let my head fall, even if it strained my neck. That wasn’t good; I’d have to find some other way to get Madison on board. But at least no one was going to die today.

That was the best I could hope for right now.

“Not many oracles take on an active role, you know. You’re a bit peculiar in that regard.”

“What do you mean?”

Madison smiled faintly. I couldn’t tell what that was supposed to convey. “How many times have you seen Zia die?”

“…a lot. Same with you.”

Her half smile became full as she stood up and moved to kneel beside my chair. I wasn’t sure if I’d finally pushed her over the edge with the comment about her dying or not, but the change… it didn’t feel unwelcome.

“I imagine that’s difficult. Losing people was hard for me over the first couple of centuries. Now what’s harder is meeting them, knowing that everything ends in time. And yet here you are… have you considered just acting as mission control? Giving occasional advice but never getting too involved in the action yourself? That might be easier on you, emotionally and physically.”

“No. That would require staying in my cage and… I can’t. Not anymore. And, um, if I can ask... why are you being nice to me? You were kinda doing the... the, fuck it, not gonna be clever. You literally scared the piss out of me."

She looked forward intently, and opened her mouth only to close it twice before she started for real.

“I wasn’t locked up as a kid. Not exactly. But I did grow up on an island with skulls hung from almost every tree. My dad was,” she flinched in spite of herself. After thousands of years there was still something there that hurt her. “Many demigods try and fail to balance their halves. My dad was among their number. I did not understand people is what I’m saying. Not the normal ones.

“And then when I was only a little younger than you are now, a group of ‘heroes’ landed on our shores. They were hopelessly unprepared for their challenge and I—"

She was silent for nearly a minute after that. I wasn’t willing to interrupt her and even Fluffy was looking down at her quietly and expectantly.

“The gods forced me to feel things. And I’m afraid that they’re using you like they used me.”

“I can’t stop,” I told her. “The stakes are too high.”

“No. You can’t stop because doing so would mean going back, and that’s the only thing worse than going forward. And I get that, and I'm sorry I was rude before. I'm afraid I've fallen into the habit of viewing magicians in my league as threats and... I don't think you are. You still care, in spite of everything. The dangerous ones have usually given up on that.” She looked up at me. At some point she’d apparently started grabbing her knees and her once-immaculate eyeliner had been smudged. She looked so young like that. Like she was only a few days removed from being the lovestruck teenager who’d been forced to give up everything and enjoy it. I wondered how old she’d even allowed her body to get. If the apparent age and authority she’d held earlier had just been a trick of confidence, clothing and makeup. “Do you want a hug?” she asked. I told her yes and Fluffy flew over to the desk as Madison rose.

She was surprisingly gentle and good at working around my life support system. Her body radiated warmth: the comforting type of heat, not the burning one. Probably came from being the granddaughter of the sun. I’m not sure how long we held each other. I didn’t really care about time at that moment.

It ended, eventually. She pulled herself away and went back behind her desk, where she took out a small mirror and started fixing her makeup.

“Three conditions and I’ll go.” Her voice was back to being stern, confident and almost overwhelming.

“Name them.”

“One: You never tell anyone about that without my express permission.”

“Lips sealed.”

“Two: you learn to deal with your limits.” I started to protest and she raised a hand to stop me. “People react to stress more physically than cognitively. Your body is a wreck, so your stress reactions are terrible. Today showed that as much as anything. You can give advice and forewarning before even start, but when shit hits the fan you need to step back and stop making decisions. At least until your body and brain are healthier.”

“How long will that take? For those to be healthy?”

She shrugged a little, but didn’t turn to face me or anything. She was still focused primarily on her makeup. “Don’t know. I’ll probably be busy with other things if we’ll be saving the world, some resources I'll need are scarce, you are both young and frail so your magic tolerance is low, and a lot depends on how much of your magic tolerance I have to spend treating normal illnesses you’ll wrack up rather than spending it on improving your condition. I’m a sorceress, not a miracle worker; I don't want to get your hopes up. Third condition: give me three days to get the gym in order and some permissions granted from our wonderful friends at the Department.”

“I can accept all of that.”

“Good, now then. What’s your supply situation look like?”

“Zia’s broke and I own a premier ball.”

"I can take care of the money problem for a little while, then." Madison cocked her head and started analyzing my body. It was unsettling, to say the least. Not creepy in a sexual sense, she didn’t give off that vibe, but I’d had too many people look at my body as an inconvenient problem to solve rather than a place where a thinking creature lived. She mercifully ended it by going back to looking me in the eye, like we were both normal people. “You’re about my size. Thinner, yes, but close enough to my height and proportions aside from that. I’ll shrink some of my winter clothes a little bit."

“Thank you so much for, for all of this,” I gushed.

“Don’t mention it. Not like I care much about the gym, anyway. It’s punishment detail from the Department. Gym leader abruptly quit and I was available.”

“Oh. So, um, if that speech earlier was all a front, does that mean I can call you unexceptional if I feel like it?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Can I give you toad skin if I feel like it?”

My eyes involuntarily widened and she laughed. It wasn’t a reassuring laugh.

What surely would’ve been an awkward moment was averted by a knock on the office door. Madison told the knocker to come in, and a staff member entered. The gym challenge had ended.

Madison thanked her and rose, checking her makeup one last time.

“Shall we?”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but I agreed. She opened the door and I followed her through. It was at least a minute’s walk to the maze exit, but Madison was in an almost infectiously good mood for reasons I couldn’t work out. It made things bearable.

When we reached the exit, Eric and Zia were already there with the staff member who’d been in the observation room. Monferno and Gwen were out with their trainers.

Madison walked up to them and began what managed to sound like a pre-written speech, as if this sort of thing happened every week.

“In spite of overwhelming odds, you two kept forging ahead. You even took down several of my strongest team members. And for that, you both earn the Dart Badge.”

I couldn’t quite get a good view of the actual metal pins Madison gave out. Zia didn’t seem to react much at all, while Eric seemed to be on the verge of tears.

“Your trainer cards will be updated within the hour. Have them scanned at a league-sponsored store to get your prize. With that, your trial in the Eterna City Gym is completed.”

Eric picked up his monferno and hugged him, but Zia just started walking towards me. Well, their focus was past me. Like they barely noticed or cared I was there.

“Zia?” Madison stopped them, not me. They turned around to face her. “I have a bit of an unusual request. Some of the kids saw your lucario in the lobby. She’s a rare and popular pokémon and it would mean a lot to them if you let them play with her tomorrow.”

Zia glanced at Gwen and shrugged. They tossed her ball to Madison, who effortlessly caught it, and resumed walking. “Staying at the Center. Get her back to me tomorrow evening.”

“Do you know where you’re going?” Madison asked. “Because the lift is that way.”

She gestured to another hallway leading away from the lobby. Zia huffed and started powerwalking in the right direction, leaving me to struggle to keep up.
 
Last edited:
a story:

a story:
a story of a story?
Stories story?

You open—I opened my eyes.

“You ok?”
The transition was extremely fluid, I had almost not realized that the narrative had changed. I think you have a good grip of both first and second person narration, for the most part. However, plot wise, later on this becomes

The clear ‘ping’ of the elevator reaching its final destination meant that it was my turn to roll out with, with Madison following close behind me before speeding up a bit to walk alongside me. She seemed every bit as serene as she’d been on the lower floor and it was really starting to unnerve me. I’d rather she started monologuing or cackling, or anything that signified that she wasn’t absolutely confident in her victory.
I would say the prose in this section in general is very well done. Manages to hold it's fluidity while explaining character relations and interpretations.


Magic attracts many queer people. I’ve learned to recognize them over the centuries
Why does magic explicitly attract queer people, in-universe at least?
I guess we don't know much about magic yet, but it's something quite to throw in without much of an explanation and the further extent of magic and it's uses. Guessing we'll find out about it later?

she sighed dramatically (taking a page from my book)
So taking a page from the character's book is sighing dramatically? Eh, it's quite an odd way to put it?

Hmm, this chapter started off pretty well, but the second part, a bit after the shift got a mixed up. Perhaps it would have been clearer if placed in another chapter, or that the chapter was split into two parts, especially since it's somewhat dialogue heavy and contains bits and pieces of some important exposition. It may have been easier for the reader to pay attention and mentally register all of the information if you split the chapter up. Although as a thriller, this story appears to be doing very well as giving us it's mystery (even if there is an awful lot of it).
 
Damn you for posting an update all of a sudden. But well, I guess I can't complain too much so...here you go.

and you here a high-pitched whining
"hear"

I grinned. “’Course I am. I’ll tell you when it’s time to tell you.
There you forgot to close the quotes.

turn to roll out with, with

Repeated with

With a quick movement, she ripped them out of the armor and brandished them in front of her like swords.

No mistake here, I just think the sight of a Nidoqueen holding spike swords is both unprecedented and badass.

As for the chapter itself, you already know about my initial confusion on whether we were focused on Eric or still on Gwen, I reread the start and it is made pretty clear, I totally just forgot about Eric and that's why I was taken aback, do excuse me for that. But anyways, the chapter itself wasn't what I expected, I half expected you to focus on the battles itself.

However, this continues from what I said about Seraph's POV. She's still focusing solely on the thing that are directly bothering her (whether her vision will work out/how she'll deal with Madison) rather than the world around her or what's going on with Zia, mostly due to the fact that she's already seen all of this anyway. I have to give you kudos on showing more of Seraph's fragile personality, which contrasts greatly with Zia's own perception of her, she's not quite as cunning as Zia would think her to be.

I also have to comment on Madison. I was worried that she would continue to be overly agressive towards Seraph for what she did, but she really showed how level headed she was and her caring side, the fact that you borrowed more things from the Medea myth (especially the more...unsavory parts) brought a smile to my face, mostly because I recently read up her story and was wondering if you were going to bring it up. Either way, her accepting to accompany them and calling off the challenge was a good way to show that she's not heartless, she's just been burned a little too much by the world to simply trust others so easily.

Overall the story continues to be intriguing as our heroes gather their third member, it's still a pretty high concept story, showing a pretty careful balance of things both Pokemon and non-pokemon in a way that I think only your stories can. You make me feel jealous that I can't do things like that myself, but that's also what makes your writing special.

Anyways, keep up the good work and please don't kill Fluffy.
 
Chapter Eight: the most human thing here
Extensive discussion of suicide, vocal dysphoria, body dysmorphia

Chapter Eight: the most human thing here

a story:

You stir from your slumber as the first sunlight of the day begins to scout out the corners of your room.

Even in death you can’t escape your awful sleeping patterns.

You rise and look out the window at the partially collapsed roof across the courtyard, letting light and moisture into the building and causing the old asylum to rot. You suppose it makes the poison-types happy and you never venture to that wing anyway, so you let it be.

With a flick of your wrist shutters drop down and block some of the light. You’re supposed to be a creature of the night, prowling your domain when outsiders dare not enter. But you got bored at some point. You’ve read every last scrap of writing in the place, including five separate DSM editions and the dictionary, and you’ve never been terribly interested in the company of others. Now there’s nothing left to do but rest and reminisce, and you hate reminiscing.

Point is, your sleep schedule’s fucked and you don’t really care to fix it.

You glance around your room. Nothing much there, save some old books and furniture. You notice some cobwebs building up in the corner, but that’s exactly the sort of thing you don’t want to clean up. Being able to pull off that aesthetic is one of the few perks of being dead.

You commit to a quick walk around the building. You don’t expect to find much; it’s a pleasant day outside and it’s very early in the morning. The other residents are probably asleep.

The halls have just enough light to illuminate them and too little to give them color you get to be mostly alone. A misdreavus makes eye contact with you but promptly ducks into a side room when it realizes who you are. Small one, afraid, possibly a new resident.

There’s a clan of her kind living in Section A. You wonder if she’s searching for them, or if she’s already found them and is just up to the same thing you’re up to. Either way, she’s not coming out and you have no real desire to talk to her. The dead always have the same things to communicate: mourning for the friends they remember less and less every day, little resentments towards the living, an endless but unspoken search for a way to leave the world for real.

They remind you of your first few months after dying; you fucking hate them for that.

Your walk through Section C is uneventful and brings you to the spiral staircase. Or, at least, what you suppose was once a spiral staircase. At present, only those with no bones to break would dare use it. You opt to walk it and put real weight down with each step, letting the steps creak ominously as you descend. That puts you in the dusty, bug-infested halls of Section D. The wing that used to be devoted to keeping people chained down when they just wanted to go. You’d spent a few days in there on and off throughout your stay.

You weren’t in there when you did it. Funny how that works.

You consider lying down in the staff quarters for a bit; they have nicer beds, and even if you can’t feel them it’s sometimes nice to pretend. But your idle musings are interrupted by something you’d never expected to feel again: a living, human presence had entered your domain.

Winding yourself up in the ethereal mists, you move quickly and quietly towards the main entrance of the building, darting through walls as often as you try to avoid them out of some ingrained feeling that you can’t rush headfirst into solid objects.

You see him shortly inside the entrance. He’s wearing body armor and sunglasses and carrying a large cardboard box with him, heavy enough you can see his muscles fully taut against the skin.. He also has an earpiece that beams constant streams of energy out into the world. You could disrupt that, if you wanted, or shape it to your whims. It is too early for that; you will wait to see what happens. The only other technology on his person is a standard handgun and a pokéball, already activated.

He has a ghost beside him. You’d kick yourself if you still had a solid body; the presence had been so familiar that you hadn’t been looking for it with your eyes. It is a strange ghost, focused on a single stone filled with energy, yet the ghost is not there. The ghost is instead strewn all around the rock in dozens of different shadows, all screaming their own cries or making their own tortured expressions. Some are glaring at you, some at their trainer. Most just hover near the ground despondent and lash out at the other spirits bound to the rock when they get too close.

You have no idea what it is and less idea how you missed it earlier.

Its presence is too strange to understand, so you make a conscious effort to look through your body’s eyes rather than through your presence that fills the building. It is a mass of gray and purple gas sticking up vertically from the stone. And it’s staring right at you, growling. At least as much as a non-corporeal being can growl; it comes off as more of a gaseous hiss ringing from throughout the room in varied volumes and pitches.

The human turns towards you, following the gave of his pokémon.

“Are you there?” he calls out. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you. I thought you would be resting this early in the morning.”

The man doesn’t seem hostile, but he brought one hell of a ghost along with him. You’re pretty sure you could take it if you had to, but the creature’s wicked smile and contemplative expression suggests it’s thinking the exact same thing about you.

You fire the human’s pistol into the floor beside him. “That’s your warning shot. Withdraw the ghost or leave.” Your voice echoes from throughout the room and beyond in the same way the ghost’s hiss did, echoing against the walls and further distorting itself. It’s so much deeper than it used to be and so very hollow and impersonal. In life you’d thought that your voice was somehow a mix of breathy, dull and almost scratchy when amplified up, like it was trying to make you and everyone else around flinch. Now you miss it enough that speaking makes you want to curl up in your room for hours while you let your eyes drift over a page of text without taking in any words.

The human cuts off your downward spiral by bending down to place the box on the floor before withdrawing the ghost and putting the pistol down on the cracked tile, facing away from you. As soon as his hand leaves it you reach out through your presence and whisk it away to the nurse’s lounge in the nurse’s office, locked up with all of your other sharp and shooty objects.

He recoils when the gun disappears but quickly regains his composure.

“Who sent you?”

“Department of the Paranormal. We’ve been keeping an eye on the site since your incident back in ’95, keeping local kids out of your hair so you could calm down. Thought enough time had passed we could drop some things off. We try to keep our charges enriched.”

You aren’t fond of the department, but one thing stood out enough there that you feel compelled to reincorporate. Your body moves from a cloud of phantom mists back into its visible human shape. You still look the same way you did when you died, but translucent: short height, shoulder-length blond hair, bit more padding than you would’ve liked before getting into the hospital and one arm cut off four inches beneath the elbow.

More annoyingly, you don’t think you can change your clothing so you’ve been stuck in the same black sports bra and boyshorts… since ’95. Which brings you to your question:

“What year is it?” Your voice sounds slightly more normal this way, if only because it creates fewer echoes. It’s still unbearably resonant and hollow.

The man shifts his facial expression and you realize that you have no idea what it means. For all you’ve complained about the constant whines from the ghosts around you about forgetting life, you start to realize that you’ve been apart from humans so long you can’t even remember how to read them.

“It’s 2017. The incident was in 1995, so it’s been—”

“I can do math,” you snap, your voice carrying more bitterness and anger than you’d intended.

Twenty-two years. Four years longer than you’d been alive. You hadn’t eaten anything, shared a joke with a friend, cuddled someone or been outside in two decades.

Fuck.

You’re fucking forty now. You glance down at your body again and are struck by how fucking small and undeveloped it is for a fucking forty-year-old, yet here you are…

Could you even date anyone? You’d almost have to date a pedophile if you were supposed to get someone your chronological age and if you went with someone your physical age then that would also be weird—

You close your translucent eyelids and your view of the world becomes murkier, but not pitch black. You were fucking forty and you’d never been on anything more than a coffee date. Never would go on anything more. Never go to a real fucking school or—

You stop and try to breathe, like the fuckers here had taught you. But it’s hard to focus on breathing when no air actually flows through your body, just reminding you of what you are and causing the spiral to start over again.

If there’s any consolation, you wryly note that the thing that upset you almost certainly meant you were still mentally a teenager. Whether that was good or bad, well, you’d decide that when you were alone.

That reminded you there was still a person there. You open your eyes and you recognize his body language. He’d taken a half step back and was leaning on the foot furthest from you. He was quivering a little bit, despite all of his training. You’d been screaming. Not aloud, but with a blast of anger and emotion that had infected and overpowered his mind.

You draw that down, slowly putting your feelings back inside your own body rather than pushing them out into your presence. The human looks increasingly less-offput, but he’s still trembling a little and his hand has moved to his pokéball. You lock it to avoid any escalation.

“I’m sorry.”

The man nods, but his mouth is still partially open and he keeps checking the exits. You take that as a sign he isn’t entirely assured.

“It’s f-fine. I’m, uh, I’m sorry if that stressed you.”

You don’t respond.

“We could send in another therapist if you wanted. Try and get you some—”

The anguish aura kicks back on and you don’t try to stop it. You’re reeling beneath the surface, but you manage to sound perfectly calm when you say, “No.”

Therapists were the people they sent you to when complete control over your movements and body weren’t enough. You might be stuck in this building forever now, stuck with the scars they gave you. But they aren’t going to get to fuck with your head. Not again.

When it becomes clear that you aren’t going to let your assault up, the man stutters out something else.

“N-no th-therapirsts, then. F-fine. We, we can get you s-someone else. Expert.”

You let the emotional cloud calm and withdraw most of it into you. But not all of it.

“An expert in what?”

“Ghosts. Their bodies, magic, uh, anything you want, really.”

You consider the idea. Getting a ghost doctor to give you the talk about your changing mind and body. Why you get the urge to climb into someone and possess them, or what you should do when blood starts dripping from the walls.

You shake your head. You were already tired of being prodded by doctor’s who didn’t give a shit about the soul inside of your body when you died. Besides, they’d just use it as a way to manipulate you. And you are so fucking done with that shit.

“Ok. Then, uh, you can take the box and…”

He stares at you blankly for the several seconds it takes for you to understand his intent.

“You may leave.”

He bolts to the door and exits almost as quickly as you could while ignoring friction, gravity and impact. It’s honestly impressive.

You walk over to the box and gently tap it with your foot, opening up a rift through your presence and sending it to your room. Before you can disincorporate and move back to it, you hear a feminine voice behind you.

“How do you do that?”

You turn around and see a strange ghost pokémon by the standards of ghost pokémon. Floating a foot off the ground, she’s about as tall as you. Her head appears to be a purple stone with a long, elegant white cloak flowing from it. The cloak partially encompasses the head, leaving eye and mouth holes. The mouth doesn’t appear to be functional, but she has bright blue eyes. Crystals of the same shade of blue line her head and arms. A red band, more rusty than bloody, is wrapped around her waist.

You’ve certainly never seen anything like her. What is it with weird ghosts showing up today?

You realize you’ve silently looked her over for long enough it had probably become awkward. “How did I do what?”

“The fear-thing, the noise, the invisibility, the moving things… any of it.”

“I’m not entirely sure. I just reach out through my presence and do things. It’s not really something I can explain.”

“Oh.”

She puts her head down and you’ve dealt with ghosts enough that you’re pretty sure that indicates dejection.

“What are you?”

“I’m… I’m a froslass, I think.”

“A what?”

She looks up and tilts her head, causing her cloak to follow and flutter into a diagonal position above the ground. “Have you heard of glalie? Snorunt?”

“I’ve heard of the latter. The aquarium I used to work at had some in the arctic section.”

“Ok. Froslass are an evolution of those, I think. I’m still not sure how it works and I was expecting to evolve into a glalie, but…” Her eyes widen. You sense out behind you but you can’t detect any threat. “How rude of me! My name is Runty. I take it you’re the girl I’ve been told about.”

“I’m the most human thing here, if that’s what you’re asking about.”

“Oh, good. A drifloon over near Sandgem told me about you, said I could find answers here.”

Then she’s probably recently dead. Sometimes ghosts come to you for answers about what they’re supposed to do now that they’re dead, or how they work their powers or remember their past life or anything. You can’t help them any more than you can help the froslass in front of you, but you at least give them a place to be safe so they can try and help each other.

“No-can-do. None of your kind here, so I don’t think it’ll be terribly helpful to stay. Might be better off going north. Probably a few ghosts up in the arctic who can help you.”

“My human died in the blizzard last month.” Her voice is much softer and quieter than it had been a moment ago. “I want help, sure, but I really just don’t want to be alone. Can you help me with that?”

She’s floated closer to the ground so she can look up at you, her eyes wide and expectant while a mouth slit you’d previously missed is arched enough to count as pouting.

Fuck. You’d forgotten what puppy-dog-eyes looked like. And you’re no better at denying them now then—

—then twenty years ago. That almost knocks you right back into the spiral, but you’re cut off by an apology.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, just, I’m having a bad day. People tend to get hurt when I have bad days. It’s best if you leave.”

“So, you won’t be my trainer?”

“I think trainers are traditionally alive and able to leave their home.”

“I’m dead,” she responded. “I don’t see why you being dead matters. If you’re not the sort of person who wants to be a trainer, though, I understand.”

“I used to be. I’m not anymore.”

With that you wrap yourself back up in the mists and rush towards your room, not waiting for a reply or bothering to avoid solid surfaces.

The box is exactly where you’d willed it to be, undisturbed. You seriously doubted anyone would dare to come into your room without permission anymore, but these were unusual circumstances. There would be curiosity mixing with the lack of self-preservation that could only come from beings with no self left to preserve.

A quick scan with your presence determines that you have no onlookers, ghostly or electronic. You reincorporate and walk towards the box. You summon a pair of boxcutters from your Sharp and Shooty collection, make the needed cuts and whisk them away. First time in probably years that you’d needed anything from there.

The contents of the box are almost entirely books. But something else catches your eye before you can actually check the covers: a clefairy plush.

You slowly lift it up and rotate it around, making sure you are seeing what you think you are. Then you slowly move it towards your chest and reflexively try to wrap your arms around it. And fail. It passes right through you.

With that everything from the day’s events builds up and you start shaking, hearing a rumbling in your ears that quickly becomes an all-encompassing roar around you. You hear fluttering pages from the books you’d had out earlier, but you won’t look away from the stupid fucking doll. You lift it up telekinetically, prepared to throw it into your portal to… wherever it goes.

“Wait. Can I have it?”

The words break your focus and you quickly close the portal out of fear that something dumb enough to enter your room and stay when you got angry would fall into it. You look up. It’s the froslass from earlier.

“What.” Your voice is even, neutral and cold. It sounds like a thin, deep cut.

“The doll. Um, if you won’t use it, can I have it?”

You stare at her blankly. She’d risked her life for a fucking plush?

You fling the doll at her hard enough that it shakes the wall upon impact. The froslass narrowly gets out of the way in time, but still doesn’t seem intimidated for some fucking incomprehensible reason. You’re scaring the human bits that remain in your soul, and she’s more concerned with dusting the plaster off of the doll with breath of cold air.

“I don’t care what you do with it so long as it stays hidden. If I see it again, I destroy it.”

She nods, wraps her arms around the doll and scurries off. Once she’s gone, you lean back on your bed and stare at the ceiling. You find your mind running through the bullshit your therapists had spewed back in the day. Focus. Make a list of things that need done. Find the most immediate item. Do it. Take a break to calm down. Repeat.

The wall. You should fix the wall before the room collapses. That’s easy enough to do. Your presence reaches out and starts reconfiguring the building around you, pulling plaster and concrete from unneeded walls and reinforcing the ones around your room so they can withstand more impacts in the future.

Done.

Calming time.

You float back over to the box and look more closely at the books. Hardware and software textbooks. Fuck, you’d forgotten how out of date you’d be on that shit. The memoirs of an American journalist based in Celadon. You frown and tear your eyes away before those memories also well up. Some fiction. A book with some dice on the cover with an airport-thriller name. Action story with a one-word title and a picture of some guy dropkicking a man in black out of a window while dozens more in the same uniform littered the floor. {on ghosts, crows and magnets}. Another story with some edgy name, some kind of romance serving as an origin story for a terrorist.

They had seriously misjudged your tastes. Except for the magnet one, even if the title formatting was obnoxious.

“Are you going to read?”

“Ok, I get that you’re new but we need to lay out some rules.” You glance up and confirm that the froslass still hadn’t gotten the message. “One, don’t enter my room without permission. You can knock, but I might not answer. Two… honestly, I don’t care about anything else. Work it out with the other ghosts if you’re going to stay.”

“Oh, sorry. But are you going to read?”

“Probably, yes.”

She doesn’t seem to be leaving any time soon. You could get riled up again and kick her out, although you think you’d need to use actual force. Given what happened the last time you used force, you’re reluctant to do so. Especially on a pokémon who’s actually kinda cute in her own way.

“Can you read to me?”

“What?”

“Read something? Aloud?”

“Why would I do that?”

She floats closer to the ground and drifts over to the dresser before settling down, becoming a clump of white lace with a circular head tilted sideways.

“My last trainer did.”

Last trainer. Fuck, she’d adopted you.

“Fine, but you’re getting a new name.”

“What?”

“You aren’t a Runty anymore, and I’d never name a pokémon of mine ‘Runty.’ I’m calling you Selene now, if you want to stay.”

“I don’t understand.”

You ripple your body in a way that’s the closest thing to a deep breath you can do without being able to breathe.

“I had pokémon before.”

“A clefairy?”

Her voice is soft enough that you don’t think you’d have heard it as a human. It also seems truly apologetic for the first time today.

“Yes.”

“What was her name?”

You really can’t tell if she’s innocently insensitive or if she’s trying to get you riled up. You have to take another moment to shove your feelings down before answering.

“Estelle.”

She rolls her head on the table in what’s probably a nod. “I will take care of her.”

You don’t have tear ducts anymore. Not usable ones, anyway. So you don’t know how to express it when the anger you’d been running all day collapsed into sadness.

Selene seems to get the hint regardless. You feel one of her arms wrap around yours. She’s every bit as dead as you are, and ghosts are stuck with the ability to feel and impact each other. For better or worse.

“I’m sorry.”

You keep everything inside your frame to avoid hurting her.

Get out of your head.

The thought comes unsolicited from your pile of hospital memories.

You glance at the last fiction cover in the box. It’s the final installment in a series you’d liked, back when you were really a kid. Before the shouting started. Before your dad left. Before everything fell apart and you were left bloody and broken in the ruins.

It was some high school drama series aimed at tweens. You’d been an advanced reader, though. It’s just about kids getting involved in love triangles and taming dragons. The shit you’d daydreamed about before you stopped being able to see yourself living to high school.

You remember your first day, drifting through the halls alone, unseen and unnoticed and dully surprised you’d reached this point. The third volume had come out then, but you’d never actually found the interest to read it. You couldn’t put yourself in the shoes of happy people, even before the worst things happened.

“I can read to you, if you want. It doesn’t start at the beginning of the story, but I think you’ll be able to follow.”

“I don’t care. Just want to hear a human voice.”

You look away from her and the book and shudder.

“I can’t give you that. Voice isn’t human anymore.”

You feel her shrug as her shoulder presses into your arm.

“It’s close enough.”

You smile for the first time in months and start to read.
 
Review as promised.

For starters, the edits to the last chapter I commented on. The inclusion of Seraph's thoughts between Zia's and Gwen's was welcome and helps that scene flow more. However, it does feel a little clunky and it does have the air of being included later compared to the rest of the work. Probably not what you want to hear as I was one who pushed for that, and I do apologise if it was bad advice, but perhaps something a little more subtle would work for your style. Otherwise I am just a useless reviewer.

On to the new stuff. The last chapter was a good read. I liked the brief thoughts from the little boy to give some different perspective and to see Zia in a different light. Despite my previous comments, I almost wish we had spent more time in this highly imaginative gym you had created, but three/four chapters spent in here really slowed the story down so I am pleased that things have a chance to move on. If you do visit more gyms later in the story, I'd love to spend more time in your imaginative world rather than from Seraph watching on the sidelines.

However, Seraph remained as interesting and insightful as ever. If there is a better cheerleader for a story like this, I have yet to find one. Blending the gym stuff with her and Madison helped things flow, even if I felt Madison did a complete 180 compared to her threats from last time. I am interested to see more of this character on the road with the others, but her vicious streak was what made her stand out so powerfully in her first appearance and I hope it is not gone for good. She turned into a bit of a deus ex machina here by providing money and resources, but if anyone can be one, a character from Greek theatre can get away with it ;) I also look forward to seeing how Zia and Seraph's relationship is tested by what Seraph did.

The interlude-y chapter was a nice departure: it was well written and intriguing enough to read, with plenty of character going in to such a short piece. I am not sure how it really ties into the main story, and therefore can't really comment on it much as I am unsure of how relevant it will be, but it was nice to read something a little different. You are an excellent writer and little one-off pieces like this really play to your style and talents.

Two good chapters that were a joy to read as your work always is. I am interested to seeing how the story moves on now with the gym out of the way, and hope we get to see things pick up a little. More of the Pokemon and more nasty Maddie would be a real Christmas treat.
 
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