TEEN: The Long Walk

[Beth Pavell]

Chapter Thirty Seven – Rejection (Version 1.0)

Evelina​

The conductor blew his whistle as a chilly breeze cut down the station platform. “All aboard!”

Aboard to where? Where, damn you! Her phone would not stop ringing. Eve stared blearily at the wall, wondering where the midnight black train had gone. Her phone’s alarm was piping incessantly. She focussed on the plain dojo uniform hanging behind the door. Oh. Cianwood Gym.

She cancelled the alarm, the dream only evaporating in detail, leaving her feeling unaccountably cold and angry and alone. She must have been redreaming the Nightmare again. Her sleeping cell was sparse, spartan even. No-one had actually called it a cell, but it had that character. Plain magnolia walls. Windows, desk, mattress. No wardrobe – everything had to be hung on the wall. She’d moved into the Gym yesterday, shortly after Josh left for the Whirl Islands, but she hadn’t yet started training of any sort. Chuck wouldn’t tell her what this would entail.

She dressed slowly, starting with her hair. The loose cotton felt a bit like she were changing into pyjamas. The quilted dojo jerkin looked a little warm for June, come to that. Not much in the way of pockets, either, she thought, trying to decide where to put her phone. There were a couple of texts she hadn’t replied to yet.

She stuffed her phone into a shallow pocket, texts unanswered.

The Gym had much the same monastic aesthetic as her cell. It was easy to take a wrong turn – the corridors looked pretty much the same, with an ambiguous attitude towards indoor and outdoor spaces. And yet the bones of the building reminded her less of a monastery than a mansion, or an Alto Marean villa. Some of the floors were decorated with mosaics, beautiful if austere. The corridors tended to open suddenly onto verandas beside strips of tranquil gardens, accented with fragrant berry trees. In the middle of all this, she found the central courtyard. This garden was also a henge – the path crossed a shallow moat before it passed between the menhirs. At the centre of the stone circle was a fountain, the holy water bubbling over pebbles. Narrow stone benches ringed it. Leppa and cheri trees partially shaded it.

Chuck was waiting there along with the Gym Master, whose name she couldn’t remember.

“Eve. Sit down, sport,” Chuck said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said bluntly.

Chuck said nothing for a long moment, apparently enjoying the sound of the fountain. “Cianwood Gym was training pokémon masters long before there was a Pokémon League. Ours is a noble and honourable tradition. Furio?”

Furio, that was it. He was a stocky man, not yet running to fat as Chuck was, but with a receding hairline and a sad ponytail.

“These are our fundamental rules,” he said, soft-spoken. “Break any, and you may be asked to leave the Gym. One: students will treat one another with respect. There will be no brawling, whether with words, fists, or pokémon. Two: we are the masters of the Gym, and you will refer to us as such. A third rule: we will ask nothing of you that is dishonourable – you will give your obedience. Four: within the bounds of the Gym, you will remain in uniform.”

So far, so anodyne, Eve thought, deciding to be obedient entirely at her own discretion.

“Five: you will not take care of your pokémon.”

“What? At a Gym?” Eve said incredulously. “Are you completely insane, Master?”

“Why, do you think there’s something more we can teach you?”

“Pokémon will be distraction,” Chuck said. “So I’ll ask you again: are you ready?”

“Fine,” she agreed, reluctantly.

“Alright then,” Chuck said, grinning. “Breakfast!”

Breakfast was served communally in the refectory. Eve sat herself at the foot of the table, saying nothing to any of the Gym trainers. She didn’t intend to make friends here.

“Good training starts with good food!” Chuck declared. Breakfast was otherwise a quiet affair – everyone concentrated on the business of eating. The food was uncomplicated and straightforward. The sort of food Josh would have approved of, Eve realised, the thought bringing a weak smirk to her face. Everyone had a sardine or three on a round of wholewheat toast. Eve would have passed on the fish and just had the toast, but Chuck’s wife insisted. The Gym didn’t believe in small portions. It didn’t believe in caffeine, either. She had to make do with green tea, as if that were a substitute.

“Can we get the hell on with it? What am I going to do today?” Eve asked.

“All in good time,” Furio replied, sipping at his tea. “And all things in their proper time.”

*​

Furio held out a broom. “Sweep every hall and corridor till it’s spotless.”

Eve glanced around the apparently random stretch of corridor. The rich, dark lacquer of the wood floor stretched to either side. She’d seen a lot of it this morning. “Sweeping?”

“Take all the time you need.”

“Every hall?” she said doubtfully.

“If it’s too much for you, you can always leave the Gym,” Furio said mildly.

Eve snatched the broom from his hand. “Every. Hall.”

With Furio gone, Eve was left alone in the hallway – silent apart from the sound of her own footsteps and the shushing of the broom on wood. At first she swept in broad strokes, but after a while she started to methodically quarter the floor in an attempt to occupy her mind. Even so, it was almost purely physical work. Once she hit a rhythm she started to zone out, leaving her mind free to wander. Sweeping, for fuck’s sake. I don’t need a Gym to teach me how to sweep a floor! The great and famous Cianwood Gym training – I’ve done dirty work before. Evelina Joy is not a delicate orchid. Scrubbing down an exam table, now, that was noble work. The professions, get pregnant, or win something …

Where were you? Why didn’t you call? The thought a memory – maybe it augured something -

Sweeping, come on, that was janitor’s work. Gods, if Sonia, Riley, any of them saw me now. I’d been on such a high, the golden sheep for once. Myriad flakes of blizzarding confetti, orange and white, like petals. Lovelace sobbing openly into Winters’ arms. Invicta vanquished. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion who can’t battle.

The dark-coloured wood managed to hide an annoying quantity of dirt. She’d watched Lyra bounce the length of the field like a kicked pebble. It was just a Counter. It should have been obvious. Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle. You didn’t call, Joshua Cook. I needed you.

Loneliness, bubbling up from deeps of Nightmare. Gusting wind against her skin. Rippling meadows at the edge of the mind’s eye. Loneliness wild beauty hollow loneliness - Eve angrily brushed away a tear.

Furio hadn’t given her a dustpan, so she had to keep sweeping and resweeping the same pile. The corridor opened onto a veranda overlooking a rock garden.

[Killing something always cheers me up,] Meowth suggested. Eve turned round – there he was, lounging on the floor like a dandy on a divan. [That, or f-]

“Get the hell off that! I just swept!” Eve snapped, literally sweeping him right off the veranda onto the gravel. “Have you escaped from somewhere?”

[The big fat bloke gave us the run of this place. What happened to the other one?]

“I made – Josh went to the Whirl Islands. What, do you miss him?”

[No.]

“Yeah, right. Now piss off. And stay off my floors!”

The morning seemed to stretch out relentlessly. She unearthed a dustpan in an unguarded cupboard. The clock was finally creeping past noon when Furio turned up again. Eve ignored him. She hadn’t finished sweeping yet.

“Why do you suppose we had you sweep the floors?” he asked eventually.

“Because the floor is filthy.”

“Well, that’s one good reason.”

“To teach me discipline,” Eve sighed half-sardonically.

“What were you thinking all this time?” he continued calmly.

Loneliness, just a Counter, Tigerlily Champion who can’t battle. “Everything.”

“Everything but sweeping, hm? Thoughts swirling? Anxiousness? Never concluding your train of thought?”

“… how did you know?”

“Wisdom,” Furio said gnomically. “Come.”

Furio led her back through to the now-empty refectory.

“We are not training you to be a Gym Master,” he said. “We are certainly not training you to be a Champion. We are giving you everyday tasks because we are training you for the everyday.”

He pushed open the door to the kitchen at the back of the refectory. “You can find healing within the everyday, if you have the proper perspective.”

With a different perspective will this kitchen look like a clinic? Eve thought. Chuck’s wife was faffing around in the pantry.

“Second pair of hands, Laurel!” Furio declared.

“Oh. A fresh spit girl,” she said dryly.

“She can peel spuds as well,” Furio said. “As you work, focus on the task at hand. As to your negative thoughts, merely allow them to be. The goal is not to block them out, but to acknowledge their existence.”

“A-ok,” Eve replied blandly.

Such a short reign as the golden sheep. A short, golden reign as Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion, not one of the professions. The professions, get pregnant, or win something. Get pregnant! Rosemary from Olivine City got pregnant by her idiot boyfriend on prom night, but the family had just rallied around her like candyfloss, just because she had a girl -

Damn it. Concentrate on prepping those vegetables. She shoved the intrusive thoughts aside and unceremoniously hacked a carrot into randomly-sized chunks.

Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle, she thought, lopping the end off another carrot. It was just a Counter. She’d watched Lyra bounce the length of the field like a kicked pebble, and it was just. A Counter.

“There,” Eve said, as much to distract her own brain, “that’s the last of them – what do I call you?”

“Master Laurel. What else? Not ‘Mistress’,” she added.

One bad night, and this is where I end up? What was it Lovelace said? Being a Joy was ‘really domestic’. Maybe it is, I’ve just spend the day sweeping and cooking -

This isn’t working. Eve sighed in frustration. Domestic. And she’d been the best trainer in the pressure of that Finals struggle. Myriad flakes of blizzarding confetti like petals. Outfoxed Winters in the eleventh hour, turned Eelektross’ Thunderbolt against it. Could it be that this was all just the goddesses’ blessing? Did you raise me up Rhia? How high did you raise me?

Tigerlily Champion who sweeps floors. She didn’t know anyone here, either. The memory of a Nightmare – or was it a recurrence? Wild. Beautiful. Empty, lonely land!

A hot prickle of tears stung her eyes. The knife somehow slipped and cut the flesh of her index finger.

“Ow! Damn it!” she snarled. A bright bead of blood rapidly welled up.

“For heaven’s sake, girl, don’t stand there and drip!” Laurel snapped.

*​

Later that evening Eve sought out the solarium on the west side of the Gym, for her final lesson. Summer light streamed through the clerestory windows, turning the drifting motes of dust into golden firefly-lights. The noise of the Gym, muted to a relaxed murmur. Incense sticks on a wooden shelf. A couple of wheat-coloured cushions laid on the otherwise bare floor.

It wasn’t Furio waiting for her, but Chuck.

“Sit. Get comfortable,” Chuck said, selecting a cushion. His voice was surprisingly mellow for such a brash man. Eve settled onto the other cushion.

“On Route 42, by the Borderland Water, there is a Dharmic monastery,” Chuck said. “There, the monks practice fishing meditation to emulate and honour the slowpoke. Do you know why?”

Eve shrugged.

“A slowpoke is a creature of the now. It recalls much as it needs to; predicts as much as it needs to. Herein lies a noble truth,” he continued. “The key to inner peace is to live in the present.”

There was a moment of silence. “Slowpoke,” Eve said.

“Have you ever known a slowpoke to be depressed?”

“Well, no, but …”

“Out with it, sport.”

“I have a medical problem, not a spiritual one. Master.”

“If you thought a pill would cure you, why didn’t you stay at the hospital?”

She didn’t have an answer to that.

“We call slowpoke’s state of mind ‘mindfulness’. What comes naturally to a slowpoke, for us is no easy skill to master. As you have discovered, the mind will seek to wander. Meditation will help you bring your mind back to the present moment. Let us begin. Hands resting on your thighs. Mind relaxed, but attentive,” Chuck said, his voice slowing in tempo. “Focus your awareness on your breathing …”

Drifting dust motes meandered softly towards the floor as if through warm oil. Somewhere, other trainers were sparring, honing their skills, mastering the Fighting-type. This is supposed to stop me from remembering that night? Eve suppressed an angry sigh. Doing nothing changes nothing, which was damn silly.

Chuck seemed to notice her inattention. “When your mind wanders, simply allow those thoughts to be, and focus again on your breathing. The object is not to control.”

This is so self-indulgent. She stared at the slightly coarse texture of her cushion. A bland shade, the colour of ripe wheat. Or dull blonde. Something about it -

Chapter Thirty Three – Nowhere Girl

Evelina​

Fuck!

Her heart thumped, her hands trembled. She was blonde. Not an exciting blonde, like honey or gold, but a dull, commonplace, wheaten blonde. Her curled fringe was gone, her long tresses were gone. How did this happen? She hadn’t been blonde since she was four years-old. Her heart thumped, her hands trembled. She just didn’t look like herself.

No matter what she tried, the shower remained stubbornly lukewarm. Unobscured by any steam she kept catching sight of her body in the bathroom mirror. Just a moderately pretty girl. The ass was the dull, uninteresting epitome of it. Her ex had lost interest on it. Her. The feeling hit as a wave, that strange loneliness when you technically had a boyfriend but he only reluctantly paid attention to you. Eventually he’d only come round to see me as Plan B.

She glanced at her clothes puddled on the floor. There was no tell-tale smooth glint of plastic. Oh no. Where were her pokémon? She leapt out of the shower, still dripping. They weren’t under her clothes. They weren’t in her pockets. She ran back into the room, leaving wet footprints on the carpet. She ransacked her backpack in rising panic, rifled madly through the drawers, the pockets of her spare clothes, the bedclothes -

They weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere! She pressed the tips of her fingers into her eye sockets. There were no pokémon in Qara.

Smell of incense. Incense.

Chapter Thirty Seven - Rejection

Evelina​

Drifting dust motes meandering as through warm oil. A cushion the colour of ripe wheat. A thin streamer of smoke twirling upwards.

“Eve? You with us, sport?”

Blood still pounding, hands still trembling. She felt somehow blurred, as if in two places at once. Her heart insisted her pokémon weren’t anywhere. Even Lyra, who was first. She thought Chuck was saying something, his voice somehow distant and irrelevant, like a murmuring TV set.

She reached up to her hair and twitched out a strand. Pink. The feeling of spatial dissonance blurred away. Cianwood Gym. Not an inn on the hill of Qara. But the isolation and sense of loss lingered.

“I can’t do this!”

*​

Eve sighed heavily. It was still a lovely June evening, but she’d had enough. She stared listlessly at the plain magnolia walls, the faux pine desk, the mattress bed. Monastic asceticism. She undressed slowly, starting with taking down her hair, almost absently tugging out another strand of hair. Pink. Her phone dropped out of her pocket and clattered on the floor. It occurred to her it hadn’t rung all day. Where were you? Why didn’t you -

Damn that boy. Having fun are you? Maybe 2nd Mate Francesca bloody Livesey was still in the islands, the smug satin-haired, tight-arsed tart -

Seized with a sudden fury she hurled it at the wall. It merely bounced unsatisfyingly instead of bursting into fragments. Fuck the meditation. That night had been at the forefront of her mind all day.

Vision blurring, she made damn certain the door was locked before she wrapped herself in the duvet. It was bad enough the Gym had seen her fail.

Next Chapter: The Wandering Barque

Spoiler: Author Note

Normally I prefer to leave it up to the reader to decide how to read my stories, without me explicitly laying out my intent. In the case of this coming arc, I'll make an exception. Eve's problems in this chapter are inspired by real conditions. Her reaction to them is informed by real experiences of anxious thoughts, flashbacks, and disassociation. However, the cause is essentially supernatural, and on this basis I have decided to take some creative liberties in their treatment.

I shall return to this subject again at the end of the arc

 

[System Error]

Okay, next chapter, next reading, next review.

- SHE TOOK THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN, etc.
- The Nightmare, capital N? Oh damn if that is not a typo capital N spells trouble.
- Never thought Eve would be the type of person who would be addicted to her phone.
- I wonder who Eve is trying to impress by using a word like anodyne in her own thoughts. Herself, maybe?
- wholewheat <- I don't think that should be all one word... apparently it is though? It's awkward as hell looking, at least.
- Where's all this dust come from, anyway...
- As Eve slowly starts to lose her mind.
- I had this funny mental image of Eve lapsing into an accent when she said 'piss off' there. Like Josh sometimes does but not as extreme.
- Well I suppose being trained for the everyday would be better to Eve than being a Joy.
- Not much to comment on through the carrot scene.
- Okay I was not expecting Chuck to be a zen kung fu master. All for different interpretations however. He even still has a bit of his canon personality.
- Slowpoke getting respected by the zen types??? I can see the logic.
- Ha, nice screwy interface thing.
- Well, uh. Looks like she needs Josh way more than she thought. Having someone to balance her mind, at least. Or just someone, from the repeated mention of loneliness.
- The return of 2nd Mate Livesey, always referred to as such!

Man, has it really been that long since a new chapter? Damn. Have to say, it wasn't as much as I was expecting it to be given the wait. We're seeing the effects of the thing still haven't worn off. Not a lot happened besides showing that off. It's an interesting direction, at least. But that said I'm not sure how to feel about this one. It's the grim darking of the Pokemon world and the PUNY HUMANS that I don't really like. Though handled in a much better way than the idiotic things that think a handgun can't even hurt a Rattata, even though it's canon that some maniac with a sword cut down all manner of Pokemon. This is different and interesting, and I am interested in seeing where it goes...hopefully not this time next year for answers. x-

Random rantangents aside, yeah. It was more of a progression chapter. Sometimes a necessity, but slow pace plus slow release schedule. You can't really get around those sometimes, unfortunately. Also, the chapter had some odd wording in places, but I assume most of that (especially the broken sentence fragments) was intentional.

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Hello there! I'm your not-so-Secret Santa this year and I've been assigned by you to review this story! For this assignment, I'll be reviewing the first five chapters — or rather, Act I in its entirety — along with the prologue, which I'll be covering all together as one whole review rather than covering one chapter at a time.

With that said, I'll begin my review proper below.

From what I can tell, this fic seems to be based mostly on the games with some anime elements present here and there, except with a major twist in the setting. Namely that said setting is Johto but also, well, not quite Johto but rather, as I believe you put it once, a British Johto. Which in this case means (among many other things) completely new or renamed towns, unusual accents and dialects, and references to British culture and history that, as an American reader, would probably either go completely over my head or leave me scratching my head for a while as I try to piece things together (through no fault of your own, though). In spite that last point especially, I find it all fascinating at the very least for the sheer novelty of it all, and for that inexplicable good feeling that you get when immersing yourself in another world; a world that's not your own. That said, I'll admit that there were times where I had a bit of an internal tug-of-war regarding how some of the changes to Johto are implemented, based on I've read so far. On one hand, I sometimes wondered to what extent one could still call Johto "Johto" once things start resembling Britain more than the parts of Japan that canon Johto is based on (especially given how very Japanese Johto can be). While on the other hand, I also wondered how the aspects of canon that do remain — such as the gym challenge, and how children as young as schoolkid age are apparently still able to partake in it, or even be allowed to have Pokémon at all — can do so with seemingly little difference from canon given how things have changed elsewhere.

All of the above is the "sitting-down-and-thinking-seriously-about-this" part of me talking, though, while "I've-only-just-read-five-chapters-of-this" part of me remains perfectly satisfied. Especially because the "British Johto" concept provides a wonderful excuse to engage in large amounts of description and exposition for this intriguing version of the Pokémon world, which, by my best (if very rough) guess, probably hovers around 40 to 50 percent of the word count. It's a lot, and I'd imagine that some readers may not be entirely fond of such a percentage versus just getting straight to things, so to speak. I don't really mind it, though, and along with another major element of the setting that I'll be talking about shortly, I actually think that it's an indelible part of the "character" of this story; that is to say, it wouldn't really feel like The Long Walk without it. It's the fic's signature, you could say; something that makes it almost as much of a travelogue as it is a trainerfic, where the journey matters just as much as the destination (if not more so) in the most literal, visual sense. It's the perfect approach to take, I think, for a fic with such a unique setting that practically begs to be described.

Of course, there is still a story to tell, and to begin my thoughts on that, I'd like to make a comparison with the games, given how this fic appears to be based on the core concept of the games on the surface — go on a journey to achieve your dreams with fantastic magical creatures by your side — yet is also so fundamentally different from them. Being the protagonist in a Pokémon game, I'd argue, is the equivalent of being born with a silver spoon in your mouth not only in the traditional sense (who's ever had to worry about food, money, or having a roof over your head in a Pokémon game?), but also in the sense that the entire universe (that is, the game) literally revolves around you and your journey. And so long as you follow the rules of said universe (again, the game), pretty much everything will go your way and you're essentially guaranteed to achieve your goal; it's the ultimate fantasy.

This fic, however, is clearly not a fantasy. The "British Johto" that it depicts seems to basically be the real world, but with Pokémon, which allows for many fantastical and wonderful things to happen but doesn't guarantee that one's life will be wonderful, at least by the normal standards of the franchise where going on a journey and returning home with at least some level of victory and glory is, again, depicted as the normal thing. Instead, in this fic's world (and indeed, the real world), it's more likely that one's life will be mundane and even kind of crappy in some respects, and whatever success and satisfaction that you achieve in life will be attained through a combination of hard work, determination, and luck. And even when you think that you've achieved those things, they're not guaranteed to last. Such seems to be the dilemma with this fic's main protagonist, Joshua Cook (or Josh, the name I'll be referring to for the rest of the review), who kind of gives me "everyman" vibes in that he's just a normal, mundane person with no exceptional talent for anything, doing normal, mundane things in his pursuit to find satisfaction and a purpose in life, without having really succeeded yet. While I can't say that this necessarily makes him an interesting character in his own right — one could call him too normal and mundane — the idea of someone searching for satisfaction and a purpose in life does make him instantly relatable, which is certainly a good place to start for a protagonist. It also instantly distinguishes him from the likes of Ash Ketchum and the other canon protagonists of this series; for Josh, his almost random choice to go on a Pokémon journey isn't some ultimate dream that he's been chasing since the day he was born, but is rather practically a last resort, or alternatively just another attempt out of many to make something of himself.

In all honesty, though, this does also kind of make Josh a strange protagonist for where the plot seems to be heading in these first few chapters, because for all of the almost "grim realism" vibe that the prologue gives (by the standards of this franchise, anyway), it does seem like this story will still ultimately boil down to "get all of the badges and become a master", a very traditional plot for this franchise indeed. Not in a larger-than-life anime sense á la Ash Ketchum's journey to "get all of the badges and become a master", though, given Josh's humble aspirations and his seeming lack of passion for Pokémon battling, which I'd instead imagine might steer the narrative less towards becoming "a master of Pokémon" and more towards becoming "a master of oneself, on your own terms", which may or may not even involve Pokémon at all. That's actually quite a refreshing way to go about portraying a Pokémon journey, especially from a young adult's perspective vs. the somewhat narrower worldview of the younger characters that we usually get in this franchise (which we kind of get to see with some of the trainers that Josh battles, who seem to live only for battling and almost act as foils to him, in a way). Even so, the narrative definitely involves becoming a master of Pokémon right now, so things remain kind of strange, in the sense that I have no idea where such a journey, with such a protagonist, is going to go or where it's going to take me (which is probably not unlike how Josh is feeling about the whole journey himself right now, haha). That leads me to my next thought: will there eventually come a point where Josh realizes that he does not, in fact, really want "to be a master" of Pokémon in any sense — larger-than-life anime or otherwise — and that for all of the time and effort he had spent on his supposed goal, he was really looking for something else the entire time? And if so, then what? What's been given so far is enough to make me look forward to finding out, but hopefully that'll come sooner rather than later in the narrative.

Speaking of becoming a master of something, it's clear that a certain other major character has absolutely no doubts whatsoever about what her happiness is, haha! Although, like with Josh, I suspect that the story won't make achieving that happiness easy for her. Evelina Joy is probably the closest thing that this fic has to a traditional Pokémon protagonist with her fiery and determined personality and, again, a very clear goal involving Pokémon battling. Indeed, she actually reminds me somewhat of a certain canon character who's infamous for having a similar fire (you can probably guess who). Unlike said character, though, Evelina isn't necessarily flippant or malicious in her fire, at least once she warms up to you (all bets seem to be off otherwise, though). But like said character, she also seems to have some serious family issues, which probably inform a lot of her personality traits; in fact, they might even inform the reason why she's on a journey in the first place. Although I didn't feel like I learned that much about Evelina in the two out of five chapters that she appears in so far, I found her likable enough, more so in her first appearance where we get to see her softer side balance out her harsher one. She's also interesting because her strong dedication to Pokémon battling makes her a pretty clear foil to Josh with his more tentative and laid-back approach to the same, and if anything, I would've liked to see more interaction between the two across all five chapters of Act I; their characters seem practically made to play off of each other. That said, given my foreknowledge of this story, I know that Josh and Evelina are going to be seeing each other a lot more in future chapters, which I think will bode well for both characters; good foil makes for good duos.

I think that's about all I have for this one. Hopefully I was able to provide a unique perspective on the first few chapters of this fic, and I'm glad that I got a chance to finally read some of it! I'll be looking forward to reading more.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Chapter Thirty Eight – The Wandering Barque (Version 1.0)

Joshua​

“You do realise he’s a rogue, don’t you?”

Joy shrugged, lazily chewing on a wad of gum. “So are you, they say.”

Josh gave her a tired look. The Yellow Rock move tutor was a barefaced rogue tradesman. Yesterday he’d refused to allow him to sit in on Meg’s training, on the basis that Josh might steal his techniques. Then he’d tried to charge double when Josh insisted Ivysaur sit in instead.

“I think you’re more common than roguish.” Joy shrugged again. “He helps pay the bills, what the fuck.”

Josh looked down at Ivysaur sitting at his feet. “Look after the babby.”

Ivysaur just grunted. He didn’t like the move tutor either. The small class of pokémon were gathered around him in a loose knot, Meg trading Absorbs with an oddish.

“She’ll be fine. I’m sure your girlfriend wouldn’t let me forget it if she weren’t,” Joy said flatly.

“Friend, actually.”

They all see what they want to see. Well, at least this one wasn’t trying to be heartwarming. Ordinarily he quite liked time to himself – or at least, he didn’t mind it any more. He remembered the beginning of this journey in March, when he’d gone more than twenty four hours without speaking to anyone.

“I’ll be back this evening,” he said curtly.

He hadn’t said much since leaving Cianwood City – most of it arguing with people – it occurred to him as he left the Clinic. The streets had that narrow, claustrophobic quality of an old fishing village. The road was hardly wide enough for one-way traffic. A van was trying to inch its way trough the milling pedestrians towards the sweetshop on the corner.

Eve had been strangely … taciturn, come to that. He had been expecting her to relay stories of lording it over the Gym trainers and sundry other exaggerated exploits. If not frequently, then at least enthusiastically.

He found himself looking back, again, at the text thread.

Hey, settled in yet? How’s the training going? Mon 20:38​

Yeah I’m settled in. It’s fine. Rhe 06:54

With Meg at the Clinic he didn’t really have anything to do with the day. Josh wandered aimlessly through the village, letting his feet lead the way. Everywhere in the Whirl Islands was at least a bit of a tourist trap, for good reason, really. Ok, so admittedly there was the usual cream-tea-and-fudge tat here, but Yellow Rock Isle also had some genuine character. The island boasted an inordinate number of jewellers, almost all of them working in corsola coral. He browsed them with amateur interest. Some pieces were on the flamboyant side, but others – often the ones worked with smaller or irregular shards – were really rather beautiful.

Yeah I’m settled in. It’s fine. Rhe 06:54​

You’d love this corsola jewellery. x. Rhe 10:11

He hesitated over the text for a moment, finger hovering doubtfully by Send. Was it too much? Too, for want of a less loaded word, intimate?

He sent it anyway. They all see what they want to see, he tried to remind himself. Except. In the corner of his heart he wasn’t entirely sure what they should be seeing. Most of them were someone’s wife or girlfriend, right? Ergo, they had a greater breadth of experience in these matters, logically?

He bought a pasty from a bakery and headed down to the beach to think. This far from the bucket-and-spade holiday coasts it was an unusually calm beach. He sat down on a gabion, watching the sea roll and break onto sand gritty with bits of pulverised krabby shell, striped with stringy green threads of Chaetomorpha linum exposed by the falling tide. The calmness of the scene coyly belied the wildness of the Johtoan west coast.

Open your eyes …

The pasty was piping hot beneath the crust. He did say ‘I love you’. But he remembered it was, for want of a better concept, easy. No nagging fear of immanent rejection.

Open your eyes, then open your eyes again. Just what did that mean? Obviously I was something to do with Madison’s belief he was latently psychic. He’d tried the obvious solution but the internet stubbornly refused to give up the answer. Psychics are a secretive lot. Almost all the forums he could find required you to prove membership of a guild to join.

Open your eyes … was it a riddle, or advice? An idea occurred to him.

Do you remember whether that psychic, Warbeck, ever said anything about opening eyes? Rhe 10:33

I need space. Leave me alone. Rhe 10:35​

That was stupid, he told himself. One text too many. He shouldn’t have sent that. Obviously she wouldn’t be interested. He just thought that, maybe, after everything that happened, if they weren’t together she’d at least want to hear from him. Hopefully.

10:35. Josh velcroed the Pokégear from his wrist.

“Hey Ma, how ye doing, I bin ettin ok,” Mum answered.

“Hey Ma, how ye doing, you’m a cliché.”

“How was it, a-seeing Valencia Island? Ye never said.”

“I dun know,” he said vaguely. “It’s a long way from Five-’n-Six.”

“We should’ve gone together.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry,” Josh said, and meant it. “It wor a planned visit.”

“I saw it once, when I was a little girl. I remember being disappointed it wor like coming home.”

“Mum, am there any psychics on the Valencian side?”

“Psychics? Well, they said things about your great-grandma, but I dun think so. Besides, ye know what kind of people they were. Who would have taught them?” Mum said. “Why do ye ask?”

“Oh … just trivia.”

“Kiddo, woss the real reason you’m calling?”

“ … Ma, ye know how you always used te ask me what I wanted te do?”

Mum didn’t say anything. She was always good at warm silences.

“Well now I do. I’m a-going te the Ranger Academy.”

“Is this ‘cause o’ what happened on Cianwood Island?”

“This ay a passing phase.”

“I know it ay. But don’t yet have te enrol in Uni or something?”

“The Region Commander says if I win five Badges by September I can apply.”

“Kiddo, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing at all,” he said unconvincingly, he knew. “I’m fine Mum.”

*​

Josh didn’t speak to Eve all evening. Or this morning, either. He supposed he would have to get used to it … somehow. And somehow concentrate in spite of it. He eyed the opposing pokémon - a young totodile showing off his teeth.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

“Perfectly sure,” the totodile’s trainer said, a tomboyish-looking girl in a check shirt. “He’s stuffed himself with rindos.”

Josh glanced at the sky. Overcast, but not dark. Not ideal for battle, but it would probably do for practice.

“Alright, Meg, come on,” he said. “Try your Solar Beam.”

Meg eagerly hopped forward, her brighter pink-white flower raised to the sun, the other, white-pink, aimed at the totodile. There was, perhaps, a brightening of the fuchsia of her flowers, a slight luminosity at the edges of her petals – followed by a desultory spark, like a blown lightbulb. Josh wasn’t really surprised. Meg was never going to get it right first time. The second attempt wasn’t much better – the genesis of a beam, but still too dispersed to be of practical use. Again and again Meg tried to charge and fire at the same time, her beams flickering and spitting. The more she failed the more enthusiastic her attempts became.

“Ok, Megaera, that’s enough,” he started. “Meg, Meg! Knock it off.”

He knew Solar Beam worked by converting adenosine triphosphate back into photons. In theory, the reaction should be finely balanced, as many photons released as absorbed. He didn’t pretend to understand the chemistry, but the upshot was that Solar Beam could make the user especially thirsty.

He tapped at his Pokégear, halfway along to texting Eve about Meg, before he realised: ‘I need space. Leave me alone.’

*​

The sea was a rich, inky black. Unseen waves plashed gently against an unseen shore. The breeze feather-light, coyly rising and falling. Red Rock Isle was just visible in the northwest, a shape above the horizon just darker than the night. And so many stars. The more he looked, the more he saw. Vega in Lyra. Altair, the Pidgeot Star. So many more whose names he’d ever learned. Gauzy wisps of cloud drifted north.

Josh wandered down from the cliff path, boots hushing through the fine coastal grasses growing on the dunes. A long strand ran east, narrowed by the high tide. The rhythmic euphony of the waves, the clean-tasting air, the clear unblemished horizon … he’d missed this. Josh looked out towards that horizon as he headed down the beach. There was a faint red flash beyond the breakers, almost obscured by the rippling waves. Another one. And another.

The sea was twinkling. Thousands of red stars, flashing like some form of cryptic Morse code. Something glinting in the shallows caught his eye. A staryu had somehow washed onto the beach, its core blinking lazily. Then, for no apparent reason, it evolved.

Spots of shimmering light bloomed beneath the sea’s surface. The pure light of evolution transformed the water into a lucent, sparkling aquamarine glow. The evolving staryu seemed to mirror the patterns of the stars in the sky.

“C’est beau ça!” he breathed.

“It’s something, isn’t it?”

The beach wasn’t quite empty. There was a middle-aged bloke a few yards away, receding hairline, with a camera on a tripod.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“You’ve got good timing,” he remarked. “I’ve been waiting four nights for this.”

Josh fumbled for his Pokédex one-handed.

“Staryu, Gemmaria secobrachia. Staryu is among the most common and widespread of benthic pokémon species, and also among the least understood. On clear nights staryu may gather in huge numbers in the infralittoral zone. On rare occasions, these gatherings may preclude mass evolution.

Starmie, Gemmaria celestris. Typically found inhabiting the abyssal plain, starmie occasionally migrate to the euphotic zone. At these times starmie broadcast radio waves into space. The reasons for this are not understood.”

“Why now? Why all together?” Josh wondered. He realised he was crying. Because ‘Why?’ was the most wonderful question you could as at this moment.

“Nobody really knows. Personally I think the answer is in these islands.”

“I wish Eve were here to see this.”

“What about a photo, then,” he said, tapping his camera.

Josh wanted to say ‘yes’. He was certain Eve would love to see this sight in normal circumstances. But … Eve’s phone ringing from another text. No. Not again.

“… do you have a printer, or something?”

“For your girlfriend?”

“Not my girlfriend. But I wish she were here.”

Next Chapter: Low Tide

 

[System Error]

- Well this rogue seems more like a scammer. I'd like to think his 'technique' is just using a TM.
- The conversation at the start is a bit confusing. Though that said, I find 'common' being used in a modern time period with mild 'commoner' connotations kind of amusing
- Yeah yeah she is definitely not your girlfriend. Keep talking Josh.
- Rhe? What kind of week name is that?
- Also I like the right-alignment to simulate an actual text thread! Checked what you did on ffnet, and I guess you didn't improvise there.
- It does occur to me though, both text with full proper grammar? Not unheard of, just a bit amusing they both do
- Well remember Josh, she said 'I love you too.'
- Obviously I was something to do <- I was something to do with typos.
- I'd like to think there are some open forums about the occult and such.
- Well, I can see why he still has his doubts, at least.
- These segments where Josh goes into a heavy accent always throw me off. I forget, is there an in-character reason stated or implied thus far as to why he does this?
- But don’t yet have te <- A typo with yet instead of ye? I don't know. This accent is so weird I don't know what's right or wrong, but since ye was used before for you, I assume this was supposed to be ye too.
- Volunteering to be a target? That's a new one. I do like bringing the Rindo Berry into the mix though. Always fun to see underused game mechanic items in the mix.
- You know I was just making a joke about the rogue being a scammer, but I'm thinking more and more after seeing this scene that Josh got scammed.
- Well I was not expecting one star to be renamed to be Pokemon based yet keeping Vega in Lyra. Though in a way, doing a mix actually probably makes more sense than blanket form doing one or the other.
- Who needs a Water Stone anyway. Evolution works in more mysterious ways than that!
- The Abyssal Plane in my Pokemon??? And of all things, Starmie is an inhabitant?
- the most wonderful question you could as <- Typo, once more, butt I don't have anything smarmy to say with this one that doesn't involves butts.
- Could be an instant camera. Or he could print it later. This exchange is a bit disjointed with that sudden question, dunno if that was the point though.
- Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and probably eventually to the point of where he wouldn't need that last word.

Two and a half months, at least I didn't forget as much this time around, heh. But, always worth it, since these chapters are packed with a lot of stuff to talk about. As for this one as a whole, it was more of a character development chapter that continues a bit with the themes of Josh and Eve really needing each other, maybe more than they would like to admit. It's almost painfully slow burn - albeit in a good way - compounded by the slow releases. Looking forward to what's next on Eve's end, though! Have a feeling things have somehow gotten much harsher for her over there...

 

[Beth Pavell]

Chapter Thirty Nine – Low Tide (Version 1.0)

Evelina​

The thought had somehow morphed into a poisonous little mantra. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle.

Every morning she swept the Gym’s floors from seven in the morning till lunchtime. Furio never seemed to care whether she finished or not. This morning she started on Battlefield 1 – there’d been a challenger last night. She pushed the broom around some splintered flooring. Chuck was particularly hard on battlefields. He’d used Growth-reinforced teak for his floors but his machoke had smashed it like balsa wood anyway.

Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle …

After eight days of that she was … she was tired. Sleep didn’t help. She didn’t want to think. Or emote. Or let the damn thoughts be.

Her phone had been quiet for days now. She’d told him to leave her alone, and he had. She’d asked him to stay once, and he’d stayed. That was a perfect moment. Rare and treasured, like seeing a shooting star. First out he’d found, he’d taken. No, that wasn’t true. She’d given him permission to leave. Well thought-through, Evelina Joy.

She was hardly getting anywhere. A vacuum cleaner would have made better progress. The challenger’s gligar had left a coating of fine sand on the floor. It drifted and floated almost like smoke under the bristles. She was so tired. She’d dreamed of Qara so many times she could remember the town in the waking world.

Sometimes she had to remind herself it was nothing more than a phantasm. Qara. That city on the hill, all fading beauty and old stone. Prisoned by a vast and empty world. Where everything was subtly alien.

There were no pokémon in Qara.

… if Qara was a phantasm, then surely waking loneliness was a phantasm. And yet.

She’d brooded on Qara for too long. There was the increasingly-familiar sensation of imminent unreality itching at her eyeballs. The insistent sense that this world was not real, no more than a vivid dream. It was like standing inside the TV screen, like dreaming whilst still being awake. Loneliness hit as a wave. Eve hurriedly dropped to a knee, running a palm over the sand, trying to concentrate on the exfoliating roughness of it, that this thing is real. Her eyes insisted that it was not, but her hands disagreed.

For a moment, she could hear the sound of the wind swirling around stone towers.

The world appeared to solidify in some ineffable way. This world was real. Of course. Obviously. Qara was nothing more than a bad dream.

Lunchtime had crept up on her. How long had that, well, moment lasted for? She leaned the broom against the wall and trudged off towards the refectory, leaving the sweeping unfinished. Eve was last to the table. The waiting gym trainers all gave her the same expectant look. Lateness earned her a gentle rebuke from Chuck – he took the communal part of mealtimes as seriously as everything else. Today it was rice tossed with lentils, edamame, and chopped eggs, seasoned with chilli flakes and black pepper, still piping hot and fragrant with coriander.

Eve picked at it listlessly, while the others laughed and joked in-between wolfing down theirs. Sometimes they engaged with her in a polite, cursory sort of way. They weren’t ignoring her, but she wasn’t one of them and they all knew it.

Garden chores were supposed to follow lunch. Eve sat on the verandah, ignoring her scheduled work. She was wondering where her pokémon were – she hadn’t seen much of them, almost as if they were avoiding her. Bailey was lurking near a rhododendron bush, the sun glinting off her armour. She probably knew why they were being elusive, and wasn’t telling.

The decking needed sweeping yet again. Little blue and pink flowers were sprouting from the edge of the planking. Josh would have known what they were, common name and binomial probably. It was a shame. They were supposedly weeds, but they were pretty weeds.

Eve squinted up at the sky, almost painfully clear and blue. Gail was soaring high on the wind, taking no notice of her. She’d hardly seemed to be come back down to earth since leaving Goldenrod City. The wind rippled the glossy emerald green of the lawn – the forretress pivoted slightly to stare at it.

Chapter Thirty Three – Nowhere Girl

Evelina​

Long acres of green meadows that had never known the plough. Sound of the wind whistling about the tower. She was standing on a cliff of cold, pale yellow stone stapled to the earth with square towers. The wall, which inspired one word above all others: monolithic. The wall, which was the end of her world. Within its confines, she was alone, where even her name was not her own.

I want to go home.

Somewhere, a wingull called. But there were no pokémon in Qara.

Chapter Thirty Nine – Low Tide

Evelina​

She was seated on a verandah in the Cianwood City Gym. Eve pulled out a hair and stared at it for a moment, shining in the sun. She sank her head into her hands. Tigerlily Champion who doesn’t even know what’s real. Tears welled, but she was too tired to even cry. This was ridiculous. Tigerlily Champion! A Joy who can’t cope, for gods’ sake!

Eve didn’t know what she would do when everyone found out.

*​

“The object,” Chuck repeated, “is not to control.”

The smell of incense drifted through the solarium, mingling obnoxiously with the smell of teenager. Strange how you don’t notice it till you get a touch older, Eve reflected dully. The thought might have been distracting if she seriously thought the meditation would make a difference. During these group meditations she’d learned to simply sit quiet and still.

“You might be feeling frustration. Anticipation. Worried, anxious. Any number of distractions. Let those feelings be. Let them be and accept them. Do not attempt to control your feelings, and they will not control you.”

Chuck had been saying a lot of things like that. Eve couldn’t fathom out the line of logic. Doing nothing changes nothing.

“- in your own time, open your eyes … and come back … to normal alertness.”

There was a general sussuration and stretching of muscles.

“Good,” Chuck continued. “Now to put your new state of mindfulness to use. To your evening chores, students. Go on, get! Eve, front and centre, sport.”

Chuck shut the door before settling back down. “So. How have you been feeling?”

“I’m bored rigid from sweeping and I haven’t slept soundly in over a week,” Eve flatly replied.

“And in your heart?”

“I’m coping.”

“You know, this room is also a sanctuary. Whatever’s said in this room, stays in this room.”

“Physician confidentiality applies to Gym Leaders.”

“I have a moral obligation,” Chuck replied. “It’s up to you whether you want to believe it.”

Eve said nothing for a long moment. “I’m tired,” she said, rather more honestly.

Chuck gave her a long, thoughtful look. “Tell me about your starter. I’d guess it was … the ledian?”

“Er. Yes,” said Eve, taken aback. “Um. Lyra found me, I think. It was a rainy summer, I remember … her egg just appeared one day under the cherry tree. Don’t ask me why it wasn’t guarded by the swarm because I never found out. Nobody complained when I decided to hatch her – it’s the sort of undirected compassion everyone thinks we’re supposed to have. Nobody really thought of her as a starter. I didn’t either, for a while.

I suppose an atypical starter is appropriate for an atypical start. I didn’t have that big family send-off with tears and ‘I’m-so-proud-of-yous’ - what’s the point of all this? I have a recurring Nightmare and I want it gone!”

“Ah. Could it be that the student does not wish to know the Way of Master Chuck of the Cianwood Gym? Does she now wish to follow the Way of the Evelina of Cherrygrove Pokémon Centre?”

“I didn’t say that, but -”

“Tell me about your Nightmare,” Chick said abruptly.

Eve growled with suppressed frustration. “I’m always in a town. Qara. There are no pokémon. My pokémon are missing. Nobody knows me and I don’t know anyone. And there’s always a mirror, or a reflection, where I see my hair’s undyed. Sometimes I see it when I’m awake. Then I’m not sure whether Qara is a dream or Cianwood is,” Eve sighed. “What difference does it make what I dream?”

“Sport, everything you practice here is relevant – your work, your meditation, your sleep therapy -”

“What sleep therapy?”

“… didn’t the hospital tell you to sleep with something living?”

“No.”

“Can it be that the old lore has been forgotten?” Chuck murmured disbelievingly. He shook his head as if to clear it. “Right. When you go to sleep tonight, take one of your pokémon with you. But for now, back to your Nightmare.”

*​

Eve huddled her knees to her chest, and contemplated going back to the Gym. It was getting chilly as the sun slipped towards the horizon. She’d wandered along the point, where the cliff path looped around the boundary of the lighthouse, sitting in a hollow among the coarse coastal grasses. The Great Western Ocean evoked memories of the Orange Archipelago; hot days and warm nights on tropical seas. Pestering Josh into an impromptu waltz on Trovita Island. Sailing by that pod of wailord, their spouting making the water sparkle and shimmer in the sunset. Victory against Livesey, Gail snatching her fletchinder from the sky. Memories far removed from Qara or Cianwood Island.

She gazed listlessly at her phone. So much for being the golden mareep for once. Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle. Wouldn’t that just be a gift to the likes of Riley? The little bitch.

Eve thought of the cheers, the banners, the chants of the Tigerlily finals. It had been a hard battle. Fragments of Bailey’s shell had gleamed evilly in the grass. Clouds of black smoke rising from burning flowers. Eelektross writhing into the air with a flick of its tail, as if struggling free of its Ultra Ball. Its Thunderbolt lighting up Lyra within her Protect like a miniature sun. Eelektross collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, hoisted on its own petard. Lovelace sobbing openly into Winters’ arms. Whitney, Champion Cynthia, and best of all, Imperial Champion Pemberton applauding through a veil of confetti.

Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle.

The one thing she could hold over everyone. It wasn’t one of the professions. She didn’t get pregnant. She’d won a pokémon tournament. It didn’t matter what you won so long as you were the best. It was hers, on her terms. Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle. Reduced to beating the likes of 2nd Mate Livesey. 2nd Mate Livesey was a second-rate trainer. 2nd Mate Livesey didn’t care that she’d lost. She still had soft grey rainwater eyes. She still had satin smooth hair despite all the salt. She still had a glorious figure from climbing the rigging all day.

Eve focused on her phone screen. No new texts. No missed calls, either. She’d told him to leave her alone, and he had. Not a word, for almost a week. He wouldn’t ever call now, she realised. The person who saw Eve and not just some nurse. And who wanted to know about her and what she wanted. Who … she could trust.

She’d managed to drive him away. Oh gods, are you stupid, Evelina Joy.

Eve wasn’t sure how long she sat crying into her own arms. She looked up at the sound of wingull screaming. Gail was practising mock attacks over the retreating tide, scattering them all before her.

“Reckon I could still catch her,” Meowth bragged. He was sitting primly on an outcrop of rock, all four paws together.

“I need you with me tonight,” Eve said sharply. “You’ll have to cancel your debauchery.”

Meowth completely ignored her tone. “I thought you’d never ask.”

*​

Eve cancelled the piping alarm. Meowth, curled up at her navel, lazily opened up one eye. She took in the rumpled dojo uniform hanging behind the door. It occurred to her she’d need to do a load of washing today -

There was no hint of Qara.

She still felt tired, wrung-out, like she could sleep for days. She still didn’t want to be near the Gym trainers at breakfast. But for the first time in days, she didn’t have a terrible loneliness clinging to her bones.

“Sweet Eostre.” It actually worked.

There was an envelope wedged under the door. The address had been carefully stencilled on: EVELINA JOY, CIANWOOD CITY GYM, CIANWOOD CITY, CIANWOOD ISLAND, CN1 8GD. It wasn’t a letter, but a single photo. It showed the sea at night, the waves glowing a gorgeous blue from mass evolution. Josh was standing in the surf. There were tears on his face, but she’d never seen him look so happy.

Eve turned the photo over. There was a single, handwritten, sentence - ‘Wish you were here x’

Next Chapter: Flood and Flame

 

[System Error]

- EVE EVE EVE EVE EVE EVE EVE I'M HAPPY
- Man if that happens to reinforced floorboards I suspect there'd be a lawsuit if they weren't
- Well I've reached the point in my fic where Nori was cleaning Gym floors for no good reason. Can ay that when you think about it, Gym cleaning is kind of a thing no one ever thinks about, what with Pokemon able to summon stuff from nowhere. You kind of have to let a bit of it slide.
- Standing inside the TV screen? So she has seen Pleasantville too.
- Small consistency typo: you call them gym trainers, no caps at all here. Previous consistency, you always capitalized Gym.
- Well I see that Cianwood Gym in this universe is very cliqueish.
- It seems that while Eve as a Joy may be decent at looking after Pokemon, she doesn't seem to be very good at inspiring loyalty...
- Yuck, teenager smell.
- Chuck seems to be spouting fortune cookie lines, almost.
- The part where she says that physical confidentiality applies to Gym Leaders, I imagine, should be a question.
- Well I see this fic goes by Adventures-style starter rules, or something, in how your first Pokemon isn't necessarily your start because it isn't official.
- Ah, animal therapy. It makes sense. Also, I still think Chuck swinging between zen master and old dad who thinks he's cool is amusing.
- She is bringing up 2nd Mate Livesy so much that I'm definitely wondering now if something happened in her past with someone similar.
- There's a dash at the end of a sentence with nothing after is?
- Any significance to the postal code? Besides CN probably meaning CiaNwood
- Hey, making progress with the nightmares!
- Awww. And a nice echo from the previous chapter at the end.

Just under four months this time. Slow slow progress, but steady progress. Don't have much to say about this one that I haven't already said. So keep it up, and I'll be back in a few months when you have more. Always worth reading,.

 

[kintsugi]

hiya Pav, long time no see. a rare little bird mentioned this in passing and I realized I've been pretty far behind, so I figured I'd fix that. general thoughts for part II, more or less. bear in mind that since I've last reviewed I've gotten both better and worse at just saying exactly what's come to the top of my mind during a review, and I've unilaterally gotten worse at organization.

It's definitely an interesting experience getting to read this as a ten chapter chunk; things pay off and make sense a lot more clearly than they would if I were reading "properly"/when you actually published. I also find myself appreciating a lot of the earlier decisions that I'd found questionable—I see why you might've felt the need to establish Eve's victory in the Tigerlily Tournament as firmly as you did, for example; the Lugia interlude seems to be close to fruition; Josh and Eve growing together in order to juxtapose them growing apart. Perhaps all of the buildup wasn't necessary to get to this exact point, but I can see why you included it and it's a lot more satisfying now that the payoffs are starting to come out. I really think you hit a stride in this arc. Perhaps it's been a while since I read the opening section and I've forgotten details, or perhaps this is just the virtue of having 80k words of established backstory to fling around, but events and characters have a lot more weight this time around, and the general emotional thrust of this section felt a lot more compelling and real to me. I remember pitching this mostly as "journeyfic but they deal with other problems instead of badgequests" but also not feeling like that was fully true, and there was definitely still a lot of traditional journeyfic staples here with the non-traditional stuff more as a sidequest; I think in this part, you really do get the opportunity to flip the script and go into more original ideas, and it's a lot of fun to read. I'm also a huge sucker for, you know, crying while staring at the ocean and missing people, ghosts as a metaphor for mental illness, struggling to rebuild yourself after a life-changing event shatters your norm, creepy dreams blending into reality—all dope shit that I'd likely enjoy in any format, but I think your takes here were a good time.

Worldbuilding continues to be a delight. Some bits I flagged as particularly fun while I was reading--Frazer-Edricson classification/species names in the pokedex are really cool (I feel like this is a continued/old thing from you but it remains interesting and fun to look into the etymology of), the ranger corps showing up and being competent plays off well with the more dangerous wilderness you've established, the teleportarium felt like a really grounded system despite literally being reality-breaking magic, beachcombing was a nice way to set off an argument given everyone's backstories, the adaptation of the staryu lore/evolution was particularly pretty, and the gogoat rentals are very good friends and I just want the best for them.

Eve continues to have the more interesting character arc for me. I do like Josh's too here—more on that in a sec—and I think they're roughly balanced here as far as development/focus; it's more that I just am very directly drawn to presentation of the Nightmare as a manifestation of personal issues. Initially I was a little confused about where all of this was coming from, as it's tonally a bit of a leap to go from the tournament arc into these hard-hitting questions about individual self-worth, duty/obligations to family, cultural divides, mental health, but I think that was in general again solved by virtue of being able to read this section in big chunks rather than having to take each chapter piecewise. These are themes that you've been hinting at in the background for the story, and without the general veneer of the badgequest/tournament I think you're able to dig into them properly here. At first I found myself wishing there was more build-up to what at first seemed like very abrupt abandonment from Josh in the face of being alone for the first time in his life, or Eve's nightmares literally coming to life via plot-relevant ghost shenanigans, but, idk, life comes at you fast and sometimes when it rains it pours. Honestly the more interesting parts of these stories are always the aftermath and not the build-up anyway, so I found myself appreciating the decision to cut the early fat there the more I got to read about the payoffs.

The nightmare scenes are delightfully creepy. I like how there's actually just no initial explanation for what's happening and you're unafraid to jump straight into the chapter with them; it makes for a really jarring chapter opener and it really sets the conflict up as one of discovery rather than action. I also really enjoyed the direct flashing back to the chapter 33 header when Eve finds herself drawn back into the nightmare. It's a clever way to play with the meta setup and it does have the jarring sensation of someone being pulled backward in time, experiencing something while still knowing it's blatantly out of place. Chuck's lines about giving her everyday tasks to prepare her for the everyday, not just being a champion, hit differently after 2020 lol, and in general you toe a very good line of being poignant without being overbearing. I like how you manifest her insecurities and concerns, and by the end of this section I really did feel like this was something that's been looming over her for a while, and the capital-N Nightmare was just the final straw. Compassionate Chuck is also a really neat twist on the character archetype and a clever way to get a character to grapple meditatively with things they've been running from.

I think my one major sticking point on this is the physical manifestation of Eve's issues. Most of the dialogue we get both to and from her, and almost all of her internal monologue, suggests that this is a complex problem spanning a wide range of topics—her grappling with her place in the family, her struggles to prove herself, her own self-worth and desire to be viewed as independent and unique. I read the author's note and I'll leave the final call on what the Nightmare is supposed to represent in your capable hands, of course, but to me the guiding thread for all of this has been one about self-assessment, self-doubt: this is a question of Eve coming to terms with how she views herself. Chuck's dialogue with her + his metaphor about how slowpoke focus on the present, Eve's mantra that she's not pregnant/a nurse but a champion etc—these reflect a complex internal struggle of viewing oneself. Anyway. This section ran long and its analysis that you might not care for, but I've fiddled with it for a while and think it at least is worth trying to express.

Spoiler: bit of a bummer commentary

But in the (relatively few) moments where the struggle is taken out of Eve's head/Qara/inner monologue and externalized to things other than sweeping dojos, I don't really get the vibe that this is about Eve's self-perception any more. What I see instead is a very simplified version of how other people perceive women. The focus stops being on a narrator telling a story about herself, and it feels more like someone else telling a story about a narrator.

2nd Mate Livesey didn’t care that she’d lost. She still had soft grey rainwater eyes. She still had satin smooth hair despite all the salt. She still had a glorious figure from climbing the rigging all day.

Unobscured by any steam she caught sight of her bum reflected in the mirror. Nobody’d give that a second look, either, she thought, and sighed. Various friends had generously called it ‘athletic’ or ‘heart-shaped’, in the same way that ‘beige’ could be called ‘champagne’. She knew it was simply uninteresting to look at. Her ex had lost interest in it, in her. It was amazing how lonely you could feel when you technically had a boyfriend but he only reluctantly paid attention to you. Usually, she’d later learned, when he’d failed to pick up a more interesting girl.

The 2nd Mate Livesey callback is a functional one, although perhaps one that I'm more averse to because I could read both chapters she appears in during one sitting rather than two years apart, so I was aware that these are the exact same takeaways Eve has from this character. The jealousy didn't ring as harshly in the first iteration, but in the second time when Eve fully faces that this is a self-worth thing and is able to touch on the other parts of 2nd Mate Livesey that bother her + are more directly relevant to the Nightmare struggles that have been presented in previous chapters—Livesey doesn't care that she lost, Livesey (seemingly) doesn't have expectations to live up to—it's still weird to me that Eve's biggest takeaway leaves her ruminating jealously on Livesey's soft/vulnerable eyes, her luxurious hair, her nice butt, maybe with a touch of framing that Josh's eyes might wander. It's very reductionist in what's generally a complex take on self-doubt and mental health.

The butt shower scene was the only one in this section that wholly drew me out of immersion and reminded me that I was reading a fanfiction (which, on the plus side, does speak to the quality of the writing that came before and after). It feels so unnecessary, and again for me isn't even the content of *this woman is looking at her naked body* so much as how it's framed—what concerns her has nothing to do with herself and is instead how she'll no longer appeal to men and how her physical mundaneness makes her uninteresting to men. The rest of Eve's monologue in these chapters is relatable; it might not be direct thoughts I've had and I've never been trapped in a ghost Nightmare dimension, but even with the fantasy leap I can suspend disbelief. But having been with this character for 150k words I really can't find the universe where a woman just oodles around and stares nakedly at her ass and laments that the worst thing about it is that it's her ass's fault that her ex-boyfriend dumped her. I say this after lovingly trimming 300 words out about how it doesn't make sense to say Solar Beam converts ATP back into photons because thylakoids don't really store photons per se and this is largely a different process than bioluminescence, and even under technicalities it's not photon storage in a meaningful enough way to be weaponized without obliterating most of the plant—that I can handwave with magic, but this I really cannot.

And I think I almost see where this is coming from, ignoring our long-standing differences on opinion on when it is and isn't an appropriate time for the narration to call attention to a female character's butt/boobs. Eve's character is inherently one that's tied up with image and appearance; she's a Joy, after all, so it makes sense that a lot of her indecision and doubt comes from looking or not looking the part. But the other times that physical insecurity manifests in the narrative, and the ones that I think are more effective without just being absurd to me, like with Qara!Eve's hair not being dyed, it's more about how Eve sees herself. As a conflict I find that a lot more successful and easier to anthropomorphize as a nightmare dream sequence that traps someone inside their head with enormous fantasy walls than the concept of other people seeing Eve as more or less desirable than other women.

Initially I wanted to do a pronoun swap with the shower sequence to kind of drive home how jarring and weird I found it, and maybe to prove a point that it's kind of an absurd sequence that really only works if you're already on-board with objectifying the person in the scene. But I think actually there's a more relevant scene a few chapters prior that might get at this better:

“Oh sweetling, I don’t mind. I know you can’t help it,” she said casually. She gave him a playful nudge with her bum. “Besides, I’mma lucky girl. It’s been a while since I last woke up to a cuddle and a cock.” [...] “- but they happen sometimes. It’s part of cuddling. I don’t want you feeling self-conscious about it.”

Compare this scene, which also involves a protagonist suddenly having to come to terms with body parts and other people's desire at an inopportune time. But the framing for Josh is comedic, almost, or at the very least the chapter is specifically structured in a way to immediately reassure us that this is a natural thing; there's a playful woman to show up and coyly explain that Josh isn't to blame for this and it isn't his fault that his desire is expressing itself outwardly like this, and actually, his cock is a blessing that she's, in her own words, lucky to have. Josh's guilt isn't about the adequacy of his body or lack thereof; it's about the embarrassment it'll cause others. He gets words like "fine, firm morning wood" and "hard as a seasoned holly stave"—obviously in-character for you to go tree metaphors, so I get it, but also if I'm going to try to objectively rank words that describe boners, these are words that don't cast judgment and instead frame everything as natural, strong, fine, and good. At worst they're kind of tongue-in-cheek exaggeration. Contrast with Eve's shower scene. Like Josh, within her narrative she's self-doubting/self-conscious (one key difference being that her ass doesn't get words about strength and natural stuff, it's all negative and the metaphors exist explicitly to prove how said ass is underwhelming and ugly compared to expectations); outside of her narration there's no external force to reassure her that these feelings are unreasonable. Her body is framed as something of value only in what it means to others; there's no inherent worth or danger in how she sees it for herself and the focus is solely on how it's viewed by others, both from her friends being "generous" in describing it and her ex in being uninterested. She comes to the conclusion that her butt is inadequate, the cause of all of her issues, and most heinously, boring to other people. It doesn't feel like an actual thought anyone would have about themself, and it's really weird to me in a way that a similar scene with a different protagonist simply wasn't. Even vapid people are trying to be beautiful in part because they want to be beautiful, not solely because they've shaped their minds solely around the perceptions of others.

(There's probably compelling commentary to be made here about how men's images of self-worth and bodily reflection aren't taken seriously and their struggles have to be had internally or played for jokes as a result, whereas women's images of self-worth are typically dominant and have gone full circle from "socially acceptable" to "often the first thing anyone talks about", but I don't really think that was the point being made here, especially not with the immediate conclusion of Eve reassuring Josh that morning wood is natural. There's a secondary argument to be made that Eve's trapped in her own head and by nature of the narrative structure there isn't an opportunity for someone else to come out of the woodwork, nudge her playfully on the bum, and tell her it's natural and she shouldn't feel self-conscious—but this is a story that you've taken conscious steps to structure in this way, so I don't really think it's fair to look at it from that angle either.)

I briefly considered just chucking this entire section out and moving on since, despite it taking up a huge portion of this review, I don't think the massive critical textwall here really reflects my feeling for the chunk of 10 chapters I've read here, which I thought were quite good. Hence the spoiler. But at the same time I did read this chapter when it came out almost a year and a half ago, and I generally just lost interest in what came after because I found this particular scene so ridiculous. I say this knowing that as an author you have no obligation other than to write what you'd like (and you certainly have no need to pander to anyone), and also knowing that general 2020 obligations probably would've caused my decline in readership regardless—but having fully enjoyed the rest of the character arc you constructed around Eve outside of this scene, I really just question the purpose of it. It's rough when you only have two viewpoint characters, because when they start to represent different things such as gender they basically present the only viewpoints for their side/category/gender and it's difficult to separate their views from the author's. Trends can be both a sign of a character making a choice, and an author making the same choice on their behalf, and that line gets blurry. Regardless, I do find it frustrating that of the two, Josh can look at a man doing a job and not feel the need to be jealous of his sultry stormy eyes and pert ass, that Josh gets immediate reassurance for his boner/butt existing, that Josh eating doesn't end in very vivid depictions of sauce/ink dripping down his naked teenage pectorals.

---

Josh's storyline here isn't quite as fully developed, I feel—the Lugia/ranger stuff is only now being introduced, so I feel like there's significantly more ground to cover with him in upcoming chapters, but what's been teased so far is exciting. The staryu nighttime scene felt pretty melodramatic coming from you! But I liked it. It's an optimistic scene in what I ironically think is probably the lowest part of Josh's journey so far, at least given Madison's commentary on how only an idiot would want to join the ranger corps in a vain attempt to get a tiny semblance of self-control in a rapidly-spiraling world. Overall the catharsis feels kind of hollow; things don't feel settled but they don't feel fixed, and that's not really the route I thought you'd take here but I think it's the most realistic one. The sea is a good place to ask why, even if it doesn't have answers, and this section does seem prepared cut to the heart of all of those previous times people have kept nominating Eve for best protag over Josh lol—why does he want this? why does he care? and what is he without her? I think on first glance I was kind of surprised that he immediately turns into a mopey, semi-self-destructive mess within a few days of being apart, but I've reflected more that relationships don't have to be overtly co-dependent for you to miss someone in a temporary absence. It feels real, and it's a lot more introspective and mopey than I'd expected from this crew, but hey, that's adulthood. Curious to see the payoffs here, especially as the answers seem suspiciously pointing to the giant island with Lugia on the inside.

some miscellaneous/minor things I noted while reading, as well as two (2) typos:

Spoiler

The ghost must have ambushed her, Fionn would have harrowed her with her screams otherwise.

The ambiguity of "her"/"ghost" being able to apply to everyone in this sentence made this section a little tricky to read at first.

souk

My vocabulary expansion for this section!

Her heart sank. ID? University ID cards were never anything like official enough.

I thought it was weird that she didn't even try it here? It's a strange city with dumb laws that's completely foreign to her.

The psychosomatic hypothermia was over, the pseudo-coma was over. The worst of it was over.

The rhythm of this feels weird. There's a repetition of "was over", but two of them are tied together and the third is just hanging there, but it doesn't really seem to be building to anything, if that makes sense.

Additionally, pseudocoma is a medical term for when someone is conscious/aware but can't move anything (except maybe eyes? I forget), so it doesn't quite work here as a term for a sleeping state that's adjacent to a coma.

“He’s just tired and emotional and looking for control.”

I do love expository dialogue where side characters are super insightful to explain what's happening about protagonists, but this one felt a bit on-the-nose.

She’d endured the pressure of the Tigerlily finals. No damn Gym battle was going to faze her. Chuck grinned at her across the battlefield. Far cry from the ice queen of Unova.

Initially I'd flagged this as like "lol are you fucking kidding me Eve", but the answer was, yes, she was acting in horrible judgment here.

That’s it. That’s it, you’ve done it this time Eve, he’s not going to stick around, and why should he? But Josh just sighed, and gently pulled her into a hug, saying nothing while she sobbed onto his shoulder.

“You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“So I’m still awesome?” she mumbled.

The de-escalation of this argument felt pretty abrupt.

He could have coldly insisted on a Centre room anyway. He could have sourly pointed out that a man shouldn’t have to take a Shadow Ball to earn some basic trust. But somehow, being rude to nurses didn’t seem important any more.

Josh sums up the emotional shift of Act 2 in a nutshell.

[Four hostiles,] Screwball intoned. He felled a mightyena with a contemptuous Magnet Bomb. [Three hostiles.]

I just thought this was a cool line. Screwball continues to be a good friend.

White hair streaming behind her like a silvery banner, a girl ran past and disappeared down an alley. A moment later three or four men followed in pursuit.

oh my god could it be—

The girl whimpered in a strange sing-song fashion. She leapt into the air and hung there, hunched and fierce as a hungry dragon. Her eyes blazed with witchfire. She swept her arms forward – a sudden gale caught one man and blasted him screaming down an alley.

it could!!

the taste of fresh-killed squid

SQUIDDIES LIVE.

jokes aside the jump into protagonist trying to save gods does feel like a bit of a pivot for how mundane the opening seemed like it was trying to be, but I'm curious to see how this plays out. feral lugia blasting people with wind magic is not how I initially thought she'd go after her introduction either, but I'm here for it.

Obviously I was something to do with Madison’s belief he was latently psychic.

a typo? in this economy?

Because ‘Why?’ was the most wonderful question you could as at this moment.

two typos??
(I jest, but truly I'm not used to this)

The more he looked, the more he saw. Vega in Lyra. Altair, the Pidgeot Star.

I enjoyed the choice of these completely random constellations, Lyra and a Pidgeot(to), nothing to read into here, nope.

“What about a photo, then,” he said, tapping his camera.

Josh wanted to say ‘yes’. He was certain Eve would love to see this sight in normal circumstances. But … Eve’s phone ringing from another text. No. Not again.

“… do you have a printer, or something?”

“For your girlfriend?”

I didn't understand why the photographer assumed it was for a girlfriend here. Was he planning on sharing the photo with Josh some other way? (And if that way was electronic, is Josh incapable of accessing a printer later?)

“Physician confidentiality applies to Gym Leaders.”

“I have a moral obligation,” Chuck replied. “It’s up to you whether you want to believe it.”

I didn't quite follow the delivery on this one--in hindsight I think Eve's first statement is meant to be flat/dubious, and Chuck's defusing her, but that wasn't particularly obvious the first time through.

Don’t ask me why it wasn’t guarded by the swarm because I never found out. Nobody complained when I decided to hatch her – it’s the sort of undirected compassion everyone thinks we’re supposed to have.

Is it undirected compassion? Compassion by definition is directed towards others, and this seems like it's directed explicitly towards the egg inhabitant, and also Eve got a cool new pokemon, so it's not like it's even selfless/no-one-benefits compassion either.

all-in-all, I think this arc is where things really hit their stride, and is perhaps my favorite part of the fic so far. forgive me if I don't stop by for another chunk of chapters; it's a lot easier to enjoy things all at once rather than trying to dig into my fic memory once every four months.

 

[Beth Pavell]

It's been sufficiently long since I did a response post that I suppose I ought to now.

- Also I like the right-alignment to simulate an actual text thread! Checked what you did on ffnet, and I guess you didn't improvise there.

I think I pinched that from Angel, I'm not sure.

- It does occur to me though, both text with full proper grammar? Not unheard of, just a bit amusing they both do

It's hard to decide - this is set in 2012, or at least is intended to be more or less reminiscent of 2012. I seem to recall auto-correct was killing off txt speak at that point, but I don't remember to what extent.

- These segments where Josh goes into a heavy accent always throw me off. I forget, is there an in-character reason stated or implied thus far as to why he does this?

You may notice he tends to speak more in dialect when he's talking to his family.

- The Abyssal Plane in my Pokemon??? And of all things, Starmie is an inhabitant?

The abyssal plain

- Small consistency typo: you call them gym trainers, no caps at all here. Previous consistency, you always capitalized Gym.

I knew I ought to have checked that.

@kintsugi - so organising the response is going to be a little difficult here. As an overview, the shift in tone I'd planned seems to be coming through. There's more risks involved here, and some of it (I won't say what) is much more personal, and therefore somewhat more emotionally taxing to write. I'm having to make some compromises for the sake of getting chapters finished, as opposed to letting them get stuck in limbo - I'll say right now that I think Josh's own family issues will be the weak point of Part Two, but I don't think I can really do better without having to go back over Part One again. Ideally I would, but reluctantly I have to admit that I just don't have the time.

I have been excited to write Josh's separate arc here, in part because of the worldbuilding, but also because in some ways Josh is an overgrown teenager and I can make him start to grow up.

Selected miscellany:

The ambiguity of "her"/"ghost" being able to apply to everyone in this sentence made this section a little tricky to read at first.

Bugger. I thought I'd already deleted the third 'her' for some reason.

Additionally, pseudocoma is a medical term for when someone is conscious/aware but can't move anything (except maybe eyes? I forget), so it doesn't quite work here as a term for a sleeping state that's adjacent to a coma.

I thought I'd made it up.

I enjoyed the choice of these completely random constellations, Lyra and a Pidgeot(to), nothing to read into here, nope.

Strange how the worldbuilding can line up. I felt it ought to be Lyra Josh points out, given how he referenced it way back in Chapter Eight, I think it was, and that being the case Vega would probably be the most obvious star. Which means he ought to be able to see Altair as well, and Altair is Alpha Aquilae, so therefore ...

Is it undirected compassion? Compassion by definition is directed towards others, and this seems like it's directed explicitly towards the egg inhabitant, and also Eve got a cool new pokemon, so it's not like it's even selfless/no-one-benefits compassion either.

Philosophically, probably not, but I don't suppose Eve really thinks this through either.

So, Eve's story. I spent about a week thinking about this response. And also postponed some edits, because, funnily enough, I think I've used the 2nd Mate Livesey call back one too many times.

On the one hand I am very reluctant to dismiss a 'It doesn't ring true' criticism. I'm not completely happy with Eve's chapters, either. The beginning of Chapter Thirty Three was one where I ended up compromising for the sake of getting the chapter finished. On the other hand, for several reasons I don't completely agree with the critique, one being that I have known someone to measure their own worth against the yardstick of other people's (real or imagined) opinions. So I'm not at all certain what I'm going to rewrite at this point. I suppose what I'm aiming at, after drafting this paragraph about four times, is that you've given me some things to think about (The idea of being more, for want of a better word, explicit about Josh's own body insecurities is one that could yield some interesting possibilities).

(As an aside, I think men's body image issues are rarely, if ever, taken seriously in media. And indeed, I do think there's a lot to be said for it, but it's not something I want to put in the middle of my female protagonist's story)

This may seem like a cop-out, but I can't see a way round it, either - but bear with me. Some of what you've picked up on I am coming back round to. For example, Eve is a little more emotionally mature compared to Josh, especially when it comes to the question of for want of a better word, intimacy. She can be quicker on the uptake when it comes to empathising with someone and figuring out what's bothering them. Josh has some growing up of his own to do in this regard - I can only hope the title of Part Two leaves you optimistic as to where I'm going with this.

In any case, I know you tend to beat yourself up over giving criticism, so I'm quite sure you'll receive this response in much the same way that I received the critique in the first place.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Chapter Forty – Flood and Flame (Version 1.0)

Joshua​

It was midday, and on Red Rock Isle it felt like Summer.

In Scarlet Town there was hardly a pub or café that wasn’t full to bursting, or a grass verge without a picnic. Almost every battlefield had trainers sparring on it. Ostaro alone knew how much ice cream was being sold. Josh was giving Meg a bath with the hose outside the Pokémon Centre - battling down by the Amphitheatre had exposed her to a lot of salt water. The Centre sat on a headland above the town, a stream of trainers heading up and down the slope. Red sandstone cliffs beyond dropped down to a sheltered cove where the Whirl Amphitheatre rose from the waves. Outside of the Whirl Cup tournament it was being used as a Battle Club venue.

Meg was cheerfully babbling some nonsense song, enthusiastically waving her arms as if she hadn’t spent all morning practising her Solar Beam. Full power was still completely beyond her, but she could charge and fire swiftly and incessantly. Nothing seemed to tire her. Ivysaur was sitting nearby, watching her with a kind of tired amusement, drying out after his shower.

“Are ye ready fer this?”

[I’m the ace,] Ivysaur replied bluntly. [Are you ready for this?]

“Touché,” Josh said. He resisted the urge to check his phone again, as if somehow everything might have suddenly reverted to how it was before the haunter. That was stupid. His letter couldn’t possibly arrive till Monday at the earliest, though he’d made damn sure the address was legible. He was pinning a lot of hope on that photo.

“I ought te feel less pressure, considering a Gym ay a tourney,” Josh admitted.

[Ought te, eh?]

“Ought te.”

He was beginning to suspect he’d have to get used to being alone again. It was going to feel odd, battling without Eve as a supporter, or as a partner. Even though he could theoretically rechallenge the Gym if he lost, now he had a reason to win. Five Badges before September. The Gyms would get no easier from here. Olivine City, Steel. Mahogany Town, Ice. Blackthorn City, Dragon.

*​

On the outskirts of Scarlet Town, in another sheltered bay, was the Whirl Islands Gym. The Gym was housed in the old lifeboat station, a big, hangar-like building raised up out of the sea on concrete piles. A short bridge linked the cliff path to the station. It might still be the lifeboat station were it not for the sign – a stylised vortex above the name WHIRL ISLANDS GYM in gleaming aluminium letters.

Inside, the Gym was one large hall - a couple of practice fields and a full-sized battlefield. All empty. There were some store rooms off to the right, and offices above them accessible via a catwalk. A shutter at the back of the hall was open to the slipway down to the sea.

“Welcome to my Gym, Joshua Cook,” a woman’s voice said. “I’ve been wondering when I’d see you.”

She was leaning on the rail of the catwalk. She was a plump girl, perhaps late twenties, in a black Whirl Island Gym-branded hoodie. Her hair was styled in a random, asymmetrical quartet of ponytails. A blue gem glinted from her nose. Waverley. Water-type master, Whirl Islands Gym Leader.

“You’ve seen me at the Battle Club,” he said.

Waverley went quiet for a moment. “What else do you know about me?” she demanded.

I know you don’t televise matches. And I know you have no real signature pokémon.

“I challenge you to a Gym battle,” he said instead.

“You’ve got two Johto League Badges, but seeing as you have a Spike Shell Badge from Trovita Island, let’s say it’s three, shall we?”

Waverley grinned at him like a scheming vulpix.

“Sameera!” she called. A girl emerged from an office. “Show the challenger to the changing room. Oh, and find him a wetsuit.”

“Wetsuit?” Josh repeated. “I, I don’t do wetsuits.”

“Trust me, you’ll need one.”

*​

Open your eyes …

Josh stood on a granite platform, the waves lapping over his feet. Out of defiance and self-consciousness he’d kept his jacket on over the wetsuit.

The Gym’s main battlefield wasn’t in the Gym at all, but on the beach below the cliff. Half the battlefield was on the beach proper – the other half, in the sea. A series of circular granite platforms populated the middle third, some standing proud of the waves, some swallowed by the tide. The field was flipped ninety degrees, so the trainers stood at the long edges. This would be his first time battling for something since the Tourney, Josh realised. That Gym battle on Trovita Island had been glorified sparring; Azalea and Violet, killing time. At least this time he was battling as himself, rather than as Melissa. He wouldn’t miss Melissa. He did miss Eve. He sighed, segregating those emotions in a mental box for later. Forget the past and future. Now is what matters.

Josh switched his Pokédex to battle settings as the referee and linesmen took their places. On the seaward side to his left, the linesman was snorkelling with a seaking assistant. Waverley had changed into a wetsuit of her own, blazoned with that now-familiar vortex.

“If you would look on an unconquered wilderness, turn left. If you would look on an alien world, then dive,” she declared. “There has only ever been one ocean, did you know this? One ocean, spanning the world: a panthalassa, if you will. Panthalassa is not home. Panthalassa is no place for those who dwell on the land. Forget this at your peril.”

An especially big wave rolled in and broke on the rocks behind Waverley, throwing up a sheet of foam and spray. Grandstanding. Good grandstanding, but grandstanding.

“Are you ready for me, Mr Joshua?” Waverley called with a wicked grin. Josh shrugged ambiguously.

“This is an official Gym battle between the challenger, Joshua Cook of Mulberry Town, and the Gym Leader, Waverley of the Whirl Islands Gym!” the referee declared. “Each trainer will use three pokémon! The challenger will release first and only he may make substitutions! A Maelstrom Badge is at stake!”

“Ivysaur, take the lead,” Josh said. He flung the Poké Ball hard, releasing Ivysaur onto the wet sand at the edge of the surf.

“For my first choice – behold. The original cannonade!” Waverley called. “Octillery!”

Octillery emerged at mid-field behind the breakers, spreading its arms around the top of a granite platform as if bracing itself. There was a moment of quiet. Waverley and Josh watched each other across the field as the waves rolled by.

Waverley cracked first. “Hit it! Octazooka!”

It fired diabolically fast, a powerful salvo of shots half a second apart. Ivysaur barely dodged the first one. The second smacked into his flower, a streak of black ink splattering across his golden petals.

“Vine Whip.”

Octillery dropped into the sea and jetted out of reach just before Ivysaur cracked his whips down onto the platform.

“Rain chaos on him!” Waverley urged.

“Patience, Ivysaur,” Josh started to say, and stopped himself. Ivysaur knew how to deal with those tactics.

Octazooka splashed into the sand right by Ivysaur’s feet. Octillery dipped back under the waves and changed position. Josh could just about see it gliding sinuously through fronds of sunken oarweed. Again and again it fired off snap shots with surprising accuracy before moving off and sniping from somewhere else. Ivysaur struck back once or twice with Power Gem born of Nature Power, trying to dodge Octazooka at the same time. Each time he took a glancing hit for his pains.

“Alright, Ivysaur -” he started, reaching for his Poké Ball.

[I can hit it!]

He should substitute. It would be sensible to substitute. But he’d held him back from Haunter.

“Try it.”

Ivysaur dashed into the surf, and waited. This time he made no attempt to dodge. Octazooka hit him square in the face. Ivysaur extended his vines as far as they would go, grabbed hold of Octillery, and ripped it up off the platform, suckers and all. He swung it round, ready to slam it into the wet sand.

“Flamethrower!” Waverley called. Ivysaur howled and dropped Octillery as the flames washed over him. “The sea is not predictable, Mr Joshua!”

“Ivysaur, return!” Josh called before the set-back became a disaster. “I can’t lose my ace this early,” he told him.

Fine. Wriggle out from beneath this. “Screwball. Charge Beam.”

He wouldn’t have thought an octillery could move that fast. Charge Beam flashed the wet sand into steam and left glass glinting in the crater left behind. Amazing, the pressure a powerful Electric-type can generate. Thank you for that lesson, Winters. Screwball attacked Octillery with a chain of Magnet Bombs, driving it into deeper water.

“Rise! At least two feet!” Josh called. A spout of Flamethrower sniped up at it – Screwball split itself in three and let the flames pass through its centre.

“Strike and fade! Octazooka!”

“Tri Attack.”

The slender beam speared through the waves and struck Octillery before it could hide in the oarweed. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment – then Octillery bobbed to the surface, motionless. Its skin was glittering. Frozen. Checkmate.

“You can’t substitute,” Josh said. “Screwball can finish your octillery at its leisure. Do I really need to give the order?”

Waverley went quiet again. “Forfeit. And you got lucky.”

Josh shrugged.

“Hmm,” Waverley grunted. “Adapt to my second choice or fall, Joshua Cook of Mulberry Town! Corsola!”

Adapt? To a corsola?

This corsola was unlike any he’d seen. It drifted slowly across the platform, not standing on it but hovering close to the surface. It was chalk-white. Two little red eyes smouldering in deep sockets, gazing unfocused at nothing. Its branches were insubstantial, misty, seeming to waver as if in a breeze.

This was … unexpected. For a moment Josh almost forgot he had a Pokédex.

“Corsola, Metanthozoa russola subspecies ‘maledicta’: the Coral Pokémon. Typology: Ghost (Frazer-Edricson classification), Ghost/Water (Montfaucon classification).”

Ghost-type. That explained why Waverley thought this was the joker of the team. But why select a ghost to go up against a Steel-type?

“And begin!” the referee added.

Well, test the waters. “Thunder Wave!”

Corsola tried to leap into the water to escape. Not fast enough – Thunder Wave intercepted it mid-leap and dropped it into the sea.

“Charge Beam.”

[Confirm target.]

This again? “Er, two feet left of the platform!”

“Water Pulse, plenty of them!” Waverley ordered abruptly.

Water Pulses erupted from below the waves, bursting like liquid fireworks and showering them with fine salt spray. Screwball lanced a Charge Beam into the water, aiming for the Water Pulse. Josh couldn’t see whether it hit or not – he knew Corsola was still there, but the motion of the waves and the glare of the Charge Beam played tricks on the eyes.

“Water Pulse!” Waverley repeated in a sing-song voice. “Plenty of them!”

Nothing happened. Waves pushed a motionless, paralysed corsola into the shallows, its body scraping against the sand.

“Charge -”

“Curse.”

“Screwball! You ok?” Josh said.

[Hardware error at … reboot reboot reboot … systems online.]

That probably meant ‘yes’. There was an explosion of water as Corsola fired a Water Pulse into the sand, throwing itself back into the sea. The battle went calm as it drifted out into deeper water.

“Corsola, Rest,” Waverley said. It dawned on Josh that this was what Waverley had been waiting for all along. Screwball couldn’t see Corsola and Waverley could afford to simply wait it out.

“Screwball?”

[Core functionality at 50% integrity.]

“Screwball, return,” he commanded. No reason to double down on a losing strategy. “Ivysaur, take over.”

This time he released Ivysaur onto one of the platforms.

“Do what you do best, Ivysaur,” he said. “Be careful, be patient.”

There was a moment of calm as the battle effectively came to a halt. Corsola was there somewhere, Josh knew. Something told him it was hiding in the depths to the left of the field.

“As in our islands, so in our battle,” Waverley said cryptically.

Josh never did work out how Waverley knew Corsola had woken up. The Whirlpool formed so subtly that Josh didn’t notice anything untoward till the sea was a spiral of surging white water threatening to drown the mid-field platforms.

He was just reaching for Ivysaur’s Poké Ball when Waverley sprung her trap. “Water Pulse.”

The Water Pulse slapped Ivysaur from his footing, sending him head-first into the Whirlpool. The current immediately swept him into the torrent, dunking and throwing him around like a cork.

Oh, fuck. “Ivysaur, return! Return!” Josh commanded, futilely trying to catch him in the recall beam. If he could just hit once with the recall he could still salvage this round -

“Self-Destruct!” Waverley ordered cheerfully.

An almost lazy pulse of light glowed from the eye of the Whirlpool. A wall of salt water hit him – the next thing Josh knew he was thrashing to the surface, coughing, water stinging his eyes. His new vantage point showed little but bobbing sea.

“Ivysaur! Linesman!” he roared.

“On the beach, challenger,” they replied.

Josh hauled himself back onto his platform; kneeling, he spotted Ivysaur unconscious in the shallows. “Return!”

“I did tell you,” Waverley said. “The sea is not home.”

Well, how very clever of you, Josh thought, but he didn’t say it.

“Your release, Mr Joshua,” she said.

Sixpence says you can’t play that Curse trick twice. He flung Screwball’s Poké Ball as high up as he could.

“I thought you might do that,” Waverley said. “For my third choice. Arise! Slowking!”

It surfaced from the sea on a column of water. With a leisurely gesture it glided serenely over to mid-field like an ancient general riding his chariot, and settled down on a platform.

“Begin!”

“Trick Room!”

“Charge Beam!”

Josh doubted Slowking could have dodged if it wanted to. It was swallowed in a dense cloud of black smoke. Direct hit – it would have been steam if it had missed.

His head throbbed with psychosensitivity – Slowking somersaulted buoyantly from the smoke, gracefully landing on the sea’s surface as easily as if it were sand.

“Get out from its line of sight!” Waverley called, presciently, because a cloud of steam hissed up as Screwball zapped another Charge Beam at it. Slowking emerged from the brume, running on the water, trying to get into Screwball’s blind spot – from outside the Trick Room it didn’t look like Slowking was moving much at all, but then he’d blink and see how fast it was really moving relative to Screwball.

[Target confirmed,] Screwball droned. [Tracking.]

Magneton don’t have blind spots, Josh thought. Screwball disconcertingly rolled around individual eyes to follow it. Slowking started flinging Shadow Balls almost casually as it ran. Screwball fired back with Magnet Bomb, the bombs flashing in silver parabolas as they flew.

“No. Eerie Impulse!” Josh shouted, deliberately, to signal to Waverley she was running out of options. The Shadow Balls popped against Screwball like soap bubbles.

“Send it to the depths!” Waverley called. Slowking swept its arms down, witchfire pouring off it, psychically plunging Screwball beneath the waves. Josh wondered if she was panicking. It’s not as if it could somehow drown a magneton.

“Up and out. Magnet Bomb.”

“Fire Blast!”

“No! Down, dive!” Josh babbled.

Screwball rose from the sea, crackles of electricity arcing across its body, and was promptly enveloped in Fire Blast. It briefly turned into a bright ball of flame. It emerged blank-eyed and glowing cherry red.

“Magneton is unable to battle! Slowking wins,” the referee said.

Clever. A straightforward double-bluff. Repeat the same trick and exploit the element of surprise twice. Josh hefted Fionn’s Love Ball for a moment. “Do what you do best, kidda,” he whispered to her.

Waverley gave Fionn a critical look, her nose wrinkling in indecision. You don’t know what she’s going to do, Josh thought. I’m not completely sure either.

“… Whirlpool.”

The Whirlpool rose out of the sea and turned into a waterspout, visibly spinning faster and stronger. Fionn gazed at it innocently for a moment – and then shrieked, unleashing a pulse of psychic power. The Whirlpool started trying to spin clockwise/anticlockwise at the same time, and collapsed in a fountain of fine spray. Fionn promptly disappeared into the smoke and spray. She didn’t reappear. Josh blinked, and saw her silhouette lingering near the shallows. Waverley was scanning the field fruitlessly. He wasn’t sure whether Slowking couldn’t see her or whether it just hadn’t noticed her yet.

Waverley just laughed. “Surf, Slowking! Make it a tidal wave!”

Slowking raised a battlefield-wide Surf, the beach rapidly lengthening as Slowking sucked in water to build the wave. Just before it crashed over Fionn she parted the water in a neat circle. Slowking instantly hurled a Shadow Ball at it. Possibly only Josh could see it, but he hit her smack in the mouth.

Hmm. He didn’t like being out-manoeuvred by a pokémon. Fionn didn’t like being out-tricked either, howling and wailing as a disembodied voice. Slowking raised another waterspout with one hand, peering around for the sulking misdreavus, and charging a Shadow Ball in the other.

If Slowking can’t see her, then time is probably on my side. The Trick Room must be falling soon. “Future Sight!”

Something must have somehow tipped it off, because Slowking threw the Shadow Ball and sent the Whirlpool spinning downfield right afterwards, setting Fionn blinking in-and-out of sight as she dodged around it.

“Wait for it,” Josh called. The wind suddenly died. Future Sight was arriving early. “Wreak havoc!”

Bolts of psychic energy blazed down. None of them hit, Slowking deftly deflecting them into the sea with an assertive gesture. It was enough of a distraction to allow Fionn to move in close and loose a blast of Ominous Wind. With an effort it leapt into the sea to escape. From under the sea it kept speculatively lobbing Shadow Balls. One miss was one too many – she immediately faded away. The speed of the volley was strange. Josh aimed his Pokédex – he know where it was with an odd certainty, even if he couldn’t physically see it among the waves and oarweed.

“Trick Room, a Psychic-type -”

Ghostly laughter rang in everyone’s ears. The oarweed pounced at Slowking, trying to bind its limbs – Slowking just smacked Fionn with another Shadow Ball.

It does that every time she uses a Psychic-type move. Damn. Waverley was supposed to be running out of options.

Waverley primly folded her arms, a confident little smile on her lips. “Give up yet?”

Robbed of a target, Slowking had stopped throwing Shadow Balls. The pressure is artificial, Josh told himself.

The sea is not home. Waverley had given him clues once already. The sea is not home … the sea is no place for those who dwell on the land. But there were ghosts in the sea. Fionn only breathed for theatrical effect.

The sea is no impediment.

“No,” he replied. “Fionn, beneath the water. Ominous Wind.”

Nothing seemed to happen. Slowking … disappeared. He couldn’t tell where it was any longer. Both he and Waverley were watching the inscrutable sea.

The linesman’s flag went up.

“Slowking is unable to battle!” the referee declared, to the sound of Fionn’s shrieking delight. “Victory goes to the challenger, Joshua Cook of Mulberry Town!”

Fionn reappeared at his shoulder, hair waving lank and rubbery like tentacles. It wasn’t really wet, but the illusion was her idea of hilarity.

Waverley looked curiously disappointed for a defeated Gym Leader. “On the beach,” she said, pointing. Josh awkwardly splashed and waded to the shore – Waverley seemed to glide like a seadra through the waves.

“I’m not convinced you understand the sea at all,” she said.

“No, I don’t,” Josh flatly agreed. “But a win is a win.”

“A win is a win,” Waverley coolly agreed. “Therefore, in recognition of your victory, I present to you the Maelstrom Badge.”

It was the Gym’s vortex logo, small enough to hold between thumb and forefinger. One Badge closer to the Academy.

*​

Open your eyes …

After the battle, Josh didn’t have anything to do other than walk along the cliff outside the Pokémon Centre. The breeze did a lot to counteract the heat of the long afternoon. Midsummer was still a week away. Whenever he could hear the sound of waves breaking he wondered how he had ever lived without it. He’d been re-reading some sea-poetry, to fill these, these solitary days:

‘but he always had a longing,
he who strives on the sea.’

There was a ship out there, making its way northwards. The Karego Rose, her white sails hardly visible against the sea-shine. He wondered if the 2nd Mate was in the rigging somewhere, standing fearlessly on the fore yardarm. She probably wasn’t looking towards the island. Francesca Livesey was pretty well obsessed with the sea. Embarrassingly, poetry had made no impression on her whatsoever. So much for romance.

From the southwest to northeast, there was nothing but the Great Western Ocean, not the slightest shadow of land on the horizon. At moments like this, you could look out at the sea and pretend there was no further shore.

‘And now my consciousness flies,
out of my breast,
my thought,
amid the flowing sea,
over the whale’s realm.’

My thought – modseofa. Sometimes translated as ‘spirit’. Spirit, soul … the breath of life, in another language. Psyche. Psychic.

And now my psyche flies, amid the flowing sea, over the whale’s realm.

Open your eyes.

I saw that.

Hovering near the brow of the headland, like a shifty rookidee, was the girl with the silver-white hair. She immediately realised she’d been spotted and ran off out of sight. Without really knowing why, he followed her, watching her flit down the cliff path. She was a psychic, he’d felt it on Blue Point Isle. A powerful one.

There was nobody else in the bay – just another beach to the islanders, too far away to be of interest to the tourists. She glanced around, as if to make sure he was still there, then dashed along the beach and disappeared into the dunes beyond. Everything was so quiet. The breeze seemed to die down. The omnipresent wingull had ceased their crying.

He stepped into a hollow amid the dunes, surrounded by thickets of marram grass. There was nobody there. Sound of something brushing coyly against the sand and grass. The girl appeared from his peripheral vision. She stalked in close, head cocked on one side, giving him an intense, unblinking stare. Close enough to smell – sharp, briny, faintly musty, which was odd because most girls smelled basically flowery.

“You’re not human, are you?”

She didn’t say anything – not that he really expected her to. Instead he got a flash of psychosensitive pain.

“Ow!” he gasped. “Careful.”

She seemed to get the message, the pain receding as quickly as it appeared. She reached out and touched him lightly in the middle of the forehead. Alien sensations cascaded gently into his mind.

Sea shimmering diaphanously with sunbeams – coral gardens jewel bright – flying over the land under wave – calling a storm with a thought, calming it with a song – to be young, vigorous and perilous – the twilight zone, light soft like feathers – lie and sleep, under deep -

In that moment, he understood what it was to live in three dimensions; to see in total blackness with nothing but the power of his mind; to fly and dive as easily as a human walks; to be a creature of earth, wind, and wave.

His mind rose to the surface. He blinked hard as he remembered who and what he was. She was gone again. There was something soft cupped in his hand. A feather, with a bifurcated vane, so white it almost glittered like silver.

Next Chapter: Every Day, In Every Way

 

[System Error]

- ARE YE READY KIDS?
- Hm, is Josh slipping back into his accent without Eve around too?
- Wow starting really in the middle and moving forward Gymwise
- Thought it'd be a Water-type leader, unless it was a Dark-type leader based off the blackness of the ocean floor. Also, a perfect punny name fitting a Gym Leader.
- Huh, was the Orange Islands thing ever mentioned? Been years.
- The workplace safety violations don't just apply to the Gym puzzles anymore, which...to be fair, are absent in just about every fic - of those I've read I've only seen them in AceTrainer's and my own.
- Hey shoutouts to Nature Power!
- Also shoutouts to the Pokemon wanting to stay in. Always ends poorly for some reason...but this might be the exception.
- But Josh puts his foot down, and rightfully so.
- Nice pretty much using OPEN GET!! to dodge.
- Wait was it using Flamethrower from underwater? Or just poking out?
- Luckshit is the best way to win.
- And here comes not-quite Galarian Corsola, from the looks of it and the last classification.
- Small technical thing: the battle went calm, but then there was a moment of calm right after without anything really happening in-between to make it not calm.
- Wow, sacrifice strats.
- Like the idea of just psychic powering a Whirlpool away
- A little confused by the ending there. I assume Slowking disappeared...beneath the waves?
- SHE NEVER LEAVES THE NARRATIVE. I'm convinced there's something more that's going to happen with 2nd Mate Livesey at this point, because what you quipped on Discord or not, she's being brought up way too much for it to be a simple running gag.
- And suddenly, poetry.
- And mysterious Lugia waifu once more, who may possibly feel a connection to Josh? Just idle speculation at this point.
- Josh seeing right through it too. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even need powers for that one.
- Was the third to last paragraph supposed to cut off that way?
- He is certainly not living in two dimensions, that's for sure.
- Heard of Earth, Wind, and Fire before, but Earth, Wind, and Wave is new.
- And a free wing!

Liked this chapter. A good Gym Battle and sort of solo journey moments in it - rare to see those in fics, and rarer still to see them done well. The mystery of the mysterious Lugia continues to intrigue, especially now that Josh has a Silver Wing. Not much else to say about it and no point in running the wordcount up to 500 since the Review League is apparently dead. Looking forward to the next installment!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Chapter Forty One – Every Day, In Every Way

Evelina​

Silence, aside from the sound of muted brushing of the bristles and the faint tap of her feet on wood. Fine dirt piled up in front of the broom like seafoam. Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle.

Three-quarters swept. The lacquered wood floor gleamed richly in the wake of the broom. It was still – Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle – still a poisonous little mantra, and heavens knew she hated it. She sighed, just a little. Not to block it out. Not to embrace it. Merely to let it be, and sweep.

She was still tired. Mindfulness sounded like a wonderfully serene concept – the reality was, it was hard work. It would be perversely easy to give up on being in the moment and slip back into obsessing over Qara. Obsessing over Qara, and everything else. Chuck said mindfulness took practice. Eve had to just trust that, somehow, because it felt like it was barely working. He was right about the sleep therapy. It worked. The old lore made no sense, but it worked. Eve smirked to herself. I wish to know the Way of Master Chuck.

She’d come to a realisation, while sweeping through the halls. Something about Qara spoke to her, some fear she hadn’t hitherto understood.

Lunchtime had crept up on her again. She swept the dirt off the verandah into the garden and wandered off towards the refectory. This time she was second-to-last to the table, mostly because she took a wrong turn. Today lunch was steamed fish and mixed greens with cashews and sesame seeds. Eve applied herself to her food, more or less ignoring the Gym trainers. She wasn’t one of them, and they all knew it. She wondered what they did think of her, this strange trainer who wasn’t training in their midst. Why was a pokémon nurse meditating at the Fighting-type Gym? Who flipped out barely two minutes into a Gym battle like a bloody lunatic.

She almost didn’t notice she’d finished her lunch. And she felt a bit better.

*​

Eve was feeling annoyed. The solarium was too bright. The room was stuffy with afternoon heat. The air smelled of teenage sweat, cheap body-spray, and incense.

What a lovely place to meditate, she couldn’t help but think. But perhaps the point wasn’t to be tranquil.

“In your own time … come back to normal alertness,” Chuck said, and clapped his hands. “Once again, boys and girls, to your evening chores. Not you, sport.”

The Gym trainers filed out. A couple of them glanced back at her. Calm down. I’m not the new star pupil.

“How have you been feeling?” Chuck said.

“A little better, Master, I think.”

“Any thoughts on our last session?”

“I don’t think you really get what it’s like,” Eve replied patiently. “The best way I can explain is with a memory. I was … fourteen, I think. Maybe a bit older, something like that. I remember I used to wear hoodies a lot, hoping to blend into the background. Didn’t always work. Anyway, I was heading home from school when some lady comes running up, absolutely hysterical. Turns out her nidoran had tried to eat something it shouldn’t have and was in the middle of a hell of a reaction. Don’t tell me they have iron stomachs … she must have seen my hair, or recognised my face. A panicking trainer, a nidoran wheezing like a broken kettle, and she didn’t think twice about throwing it all on my shoulders, because nobody thinks for a second that a Joy can’t cope!”

“Did you help her?”

“Of course I did! Any one of us would. And that’s why she asked. But that’s what it’s like, your life follows a, a script. They don’t see you, they see an archetype! They don’t see someone tired or stressed or hurt – and you know what? That’s because we make damn sure people don’t see!” She paused for breath. “You can’t even trust boyfriends half the time! I thought I’d finally found someone who saw me and the moment he got bored I was plan B! A third wheel in my own fucking relationship!”

“So why not change yourself? Wear your hair a different way, a different colour. Stop treating pokémon. Everything?”

“Everything? Let me tell you about everything. Does anybody stop to think about everything? Once nobody took us seriously, our legacy is -” Eve paused. “We are sensible! We are self-reliant! We are capable! It’s been like that for every one of us for a hundred years!”

“In the Nightmare, you weren’t Joy. Nobody knew you, either. And yet this was not a good dream.”

“I was missing my pokémon as well; what’s your point?” Eve snapped. “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Master.”

Chuck didn’t say anything. Qara. Quaint, strange, lonely Qara. Her next words did not come easily. She could see the wall in her mind’s eye, a cliff of pale yellow stone.

“It.” She brushed away a tear. “It was lonely. My pokémon weren’t there.”

“Being left without a script is lonely, hmm?” Chuck said quietly.

“Haven’t you been listening to me? I don’t. Want. A bloody life script!”

“Really?” Chuck replied, suddenly direct. “You are sensible, self-reliant, capable. A lot to be proud of, and you wear it -”

“So self-reliant that I have to be here – do you have any idea how embarrassing it would be if people found out? You’ve never seen my cousin Sonia when she’s in a bitchy mood, have you? My cousin Riley? My aunt Adeliza?”

“You don’t want them to know because that would affect your prestige in the family pecking order.”

“Yes!”

“So you measure yourself up to the family standard.”

“No!”

“Could have fooled me, sport.”

“I am not happy with my life! I don’t fucking get to be me anywhere!”

“Then why do you insist on clinging to an identity you don’t even like?”

“Because what else is there?”

Eve scowled defiantly at Chuck, eyes stinging, throat tight. I will not cry. Not this time.

“What am I supposed to do?” she choked out.

“What I think you’re beginning to understand is that you’re defining yourself by your name,” Chick said calmly. “The opposite of acceptance is not rebellion; you became a champion because you wanted the glory of being the first of your family to do it. But here’s a question. You say your boyfriend hurt you because you’re a Joy, but what if he was simply a jackass?”

Eve took a deep, steadying breath. “If that’s so … I don’t know any other way to be.”

“You know, a Fighting-type will only evolve when it understands who and what it is. And herein lies another noble truth.” Chuck leaned forwards slightly, peering at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “You have one key question before you: what do you want? When you know that, you will know yourself.”

*​

Thankfully ignored by the handful of evening surfers, Eve sat on the sand, wrapped in her hoodie dress over her dojo uniform. Cianwood summer evenings were usually on the chilly side. Cupped in one hand she held the photo Josh had sent her. It was already curling at the edges. She’d kept the envelope too, just because there was something endearingly dorky about the way he’d stencilled the address, presumably to make sure it was delivered. Square. Square who could cry with joy in seeing staryu evolve en masse. The evening sky was changing from blue to indigo. A few early stars were peeping out.

Eve glanced at the back of the photo - ‘Wish you were here x’. She’d been convinced she’d pushed him away, and in a way, she had. But in the midst of that moment, which must have been so magical, he was thinking of her. Eve tapped out a text message.

I miss you. Thur 21:26

Gail was soaring on the evening breeze again, a darker shadow against a darkening sky. She shone piercingly white, illuminating the beach like a floodlight, and swept off to sea with an exultant cry.

I’ll be on Silver Rock Isle. Thur 21:28​

She’d tried to push him away, but for some reason he’d stayed. And the waves rolled in.

“Why?” Eve said to the sea.

“It’s under no obligation to answer you, you know,” Chuck said.

“Master -” Eve said, starting to get up.

“No, no, sit sport.”

Chuck sat down on the sand a couple of feet away, watching the sea, and apparently paying no more attention to her.

“I’m going to the Silver Conference. I want to finish what I started. I want to spend time with my friend before he goes to the Academy,” Eve said, eventually. The thought that Josh might not make it never occurred to her. “After that, I don’t know.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“That’s a good start,” Chuck said encouragingly.

“It is?”

“Did you think it would all come in a moment of golden clarity?” Chuck said facetiously.

“I think they call that enlightenment,” Eve mused, just as facetiously.

A joyous, raptorial scream floated in from the sea.

“Your pidgeotto evolved,” Chuck observed.

“She’s a simple creature,” Eve said, watching Gail wheel against the blanket of stars. “Pokémon are endlessly fascinating.”

“We can learn so much from them.”

Gail sounded so happy to be a pidgeot. Maybe there was a noble truth somewhere in that, too.

“What’s the photo?” Chuck asked.

Eve pointedly held it face-down against her leg. “Something for me.”

*​

As she had done every morning, Eve got up at six. She dressed in a dojo uniform. She made her way to the refectory for breakfast. This morning, for once, she was looking forward to it. After all, the Gym had a fine philosophy of food – generous portions, uncomplicated food with no rubbish in it.

But today, the refectory was empty. Furio was waiting patiently by the table.

“Er. I’m not late, am I?” Eve said.

“Breakfast is postponed today,” Furio replied, smiling faintly. “Come.”

Furio led her through the winding corridors, back to the central courtyard where she was first admitted into the Gym. He stopped at the edge of the henge, gesturing for her to go on alone. The early morning light was bright but clear, without the glare of afternoon. There wasn’t any sound but for the fountain babbling cheerfully. The branches of the leppa and cheri trees gently nodded, casting a shifting komorebi over the circle.

Chuck was waiting for her in the dead centre.

“Twelve days ago, I told you that ours is a long and honourable tradition. You came to us lost, angry, and fractured. The challenge before you was unlike that of any other student here. And now, perhaps, you are wise enough to find your own Way. Congratulations, sport.”

He held something out. Lying in the middle of his huge palm, a badge in the shape of a rounded fist.

For some reason, all she could think to say was, “Does this mean you won’t give me breakfast?”

Chuck’s booming laughter filled the henge, rich and irreverent and sincere. And Eve could not help but laugh as well.

Next Chapter: Have You Noticed I've Been Gone

Spoiler: Author's Note

I said at the end of Chapter Thirty Seven that I'd come back to the question of mental health and fiction at the end of the arc. I struggled with the question of how much to abstract, and how many creative liberties to take, over the course of Eve's chapters. I generally dislike and distrust 'neatness' in fiction that deals with mental issues and/or personal growth. There's a tendency to depict the understanding of why one is mentally ill as being the same as being cured. It's not. It's merely the beginning. And likewise, media tends not to present therapy in an especially positive light.

There are enough thoughts to work through to sustain many more chapters of many more words than this. And certainly, Eve's arc could realistically involve a longer, harder struggle than is depicted here. But what I wanted to put forward was perhaps a hard truth - that therapy can work, but you have to want it to work. Chuck's quasi-religious approach is, again, fictional, but the essence of it is intended to be relatable.

In an unusually apropos parallel with this chapter, discussing how to depict mental health in art, especially for an ethical goal, could sustain many, many more words than these. So in the interests of being pithy, I will leave these few words do the work of many more.

 

[System Error]

Okay now that my cat has moved out of the way enough to sit back on my bed and read this, let's read this.

- Wanted to make a comment about the starting scene, left it, came back to it, can't think of anything poignant or witty to say.
- Air fresheners. A foreign concept to a gym that doubles as a Gym. Who've have thunk?
- Oh boy, here we go. Possibly getting to the root of this issue.
- Instead of calling a doctor, she runs out like a maniac to find a doctor. Sounds like the sort of irrational reaction a panicky person would make.
- Been a billion years and I forget if Eve's ex was brought up before except in vague terms of him existing. Probably did once or twice, but only in said vague terms.
- I was going to make a joke about changing her style, but in all seriousness now that it was brought up in story, it actually can work. Simply a different appearance would move away from the Joy look, and it can actually be a confidence changer, more of one than you might expect.
- Notably, mentioning the lack of her Pokemon being the reason it was lonely. In a sense, they don't judge. Coming up in my writings too.
- Chuck is absolutely bringing up a point here. Eve is a contradiction. It seems she isn't sure what she wants in life, or wants things both ways. She hates her family, yet still feels attached and obligated to them.
- Chick said calmly <- Aw shit, you did not just make that typo. Now I have a horrible mental image. Thanks a lot.
- And there it is, actually saying she doesn't know what she wants in story.
- Oh right he literally sent a letter. It is absolutely a Josh thing to do.
- The sea: "IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE A FOOL, PUNY EVELINA JOY."
- One step at a time, Eve. One step at a time.
- Was not expecting an off-screen evolution here, more or less.
- I like that "er" in Eve's dialogue. It's a little hesitant, yet its casualness is showing she's loosened up slightly since coming here.
- You know, I like the idea of getting a badge without a battle. Lot of people like to give Ash crap over doing it often early on, but it's not a bad concept. Just bad writing in the early anime
- Everyone laughs ending!
- On the author's notes note: different people heal in different ways. Sadly, it is very much true that the person ultimately needs to want the therapy to work. And sometimes especially when from one person's perspective, it's very abstract and difficult to define. There's a lot we don't know about mental health, and it's constantly evolving (?) with our society. And above all, there's very rarely a magic panacea. It's something you have to work at, and may never completely go away.

And the fic moves on, and it looks like Eve is ready to as well. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing her meet with Josh again. No doubt the healing is going to have to continue, and that he is going to have to be her support. And she may well have to be his for different reasons. Next time, a reunion? Or more solo Josh and the pending reunion/at the very end? Standing by as always to find out more!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Chapter Forty Two – Have You Noticed I’ve Been Gone

Joshua​

The trouble with academic books, is that they never get the bloody point, Josh thought, trying to skim-read Myth and Legend of the Whirl Islands, 1859-1960. It reminded him of trying to prep for exams in the middle of May afternoons. The library had that same soporific warmth, the same charmless aesthetic. Some libraries were all gleaming mahogany and brass fittings. This one was full of crap MDF, facing south so the tall windows turned the room into a vivarium. At Uni he would have had a perpetual cup of coffee at hand, and possibly a peanut butter-and-honey sandwich, too. But she flatly refused to allow food to drink in the library.

When he landed on Silver Rock Isle the previous day, he’d naturally expected to find a public library or museum dedicated to lugia. It turned out the only real repository of information on either lugia or the Silver Wing on the island was privately owned – by Polyhymnia Joy.

When she saw him on her doorstep all she said was: “Oh, it’s you. Rain said you were in the islands.”

“Is she the one on Yellow Rock Isle?”

The second thing Polyhymnia said to him was: “Polyhymnia Joy, MSc, MLibArts, never call me Polly.”

“What do you know about Silver Wings?” he’d asked.

“… what is your highest diploma?”

“A BA,” he’d replied, “with honours.”

Polyhymnia had given him a vaguely surprised look. “Well, I have a double Masters in the science and legend of lugia.”

Not that this meant she’d tell him anything. Instead she just gave him a key to her library.

The whole thing was fairly typical Joy weirdness. Polyhymnia spent her life sequestered in a library researching esoterica and yet she was entirely up to date on gossip. She clearly didn’t like him and didn’t care to hide it, but she didn’t argue or deny him the use of her library.

Josh sighed and shut Myth and Legend of the Whirl Islands. The book was half-padding, half-academic bloviation. He looked back at his notes, haphazardly assembled from about twelve sources with a lot of asterisks and arrows. There were a lot of contradictions. The one common thread was that no-one really knew anything for certain about lugia. They were associated with the Whirl Islands, but not thought to be permanent residents. Their usual habitat was disputed, some experts vehemently insisting lugia aren’t Johto natives. Even their place in the National Pokédex was controversial given the paucity of evidence. Both the Frazer-Edricson and Montfaucon classifications categorised lugia as a Psychic-type. That merely confirmed what Josh already knew. That lugia-girl was obviously highly psychic. His dreams since then had been full of someone – something – else’s memories. Memories of wondrous things. Fish shoaling in silver millions. The light of the twilight zone, soft like feathers. Land under wave. Some mornings he woke with his mouth tasting of fresh-killed squid.

Josh sighed, again. There was still more of legend than of science about lugia. And legend seemed to be obsessed with the Silver Wing. A ship with a Silver Wing aboard would never sink. Silver Wings legendarily adorned the ancestral crown of Johto. Silver Wings hung over cradles to ward off evil. The legends weren’t confined to the Whirl Islands, either. Monanna kept appearing in the stories – and Josh couldn’t help but be familiar with that particular goddess, the Archer of Heaven, the virgin big sister to the younger goddesses, shooting her silver arrows that blasted their marks into ash. She was the first constellation he’d learned to recognise. The three stars of her belt were bright enough to be visible even against Mulberry Town’s light pollution. Across western Johto there were little mosaics in little shrines showing Monanna cloaked in Silver Wings.

Shrines, goddesses, and apotropaics, with silver threads running through it all. The sort of thing Eve would have loved. He remembered how happy she’d been on May Day, kissing the handmaidens, stuffing her face. He found the ritual annoying, but she’d been happy – later it had been his turn, on Karego Rose …

He dropped his pen onto his notepad and listened for footsteps or voices. After a moment he carefully unwrapped the Silver Wing from a handkerchief. He hadn’t told Polyhymnia, or anyone else, that he had it. The feather was about two inches long, palm-sized. The quill was oddly stiff, like spring steel, vane curling elegantly away in a ‘Y’ shape. In the afternoon light it looked almost literally silver.

Josh wondered quite what the lugia had expected him to do with it. Clearly it had value to her, but what value?

He stared at the thing for a while. It gave him an idea.

*​

Silver Rock Isle was higher and craggier than the other Whirl Islands. And also more remote. Porth Carrek was the only real harbour on the island. There were some pleasure boats moored up on the quay, but no fishing craft for once. The influx of day-visitors from the other islands hadn’t arrived yet. A little dirigible droned off in the direction of the mainland. Josh stared at an iron signpost on the quayside. Porth Carrek reminded him of Yellow Rock Isle, but with silversmiths rather than coral jewellers. The Silver Wing motif was everywhere. He found what he was looking for above the post office on a weather-beaten sign – WHIRL ISLANDS HERITAGE MUSEUM.

As museums went, it was a bit sad. Josh had seen bigger coffee shops. The room was simply crammed with bric-a-brac. Pinned-up photos, model ships, pieces of jewellery, faded newspaper pages. A disembodied lintel took pride of place, carven with the livery of Honourable Company of Silversmiths. The curator was squeezed behind a desk in the corner, an old fellow with a walrein moustache.

Josh dropped a few dollars into the donation box perched hopefully on the desk. “Who’s the best silversmith on the island?”

The curator gave him a doleful look. “That would be young Janero up at Trekellys.”

“Trekellys,” Josh repeated, turning to go. Just before he got to the door, the curator called out.

“Janero doesn’t do commissions, though!”

*​

Josh had quietly ignored that.

He headed into the hills shortly afterwards. Outside of Porth Carrek bay, the island became craggy, thickly forested with pine trees. The temperature grew warm to the point where Josh was rolling up his jacket sleeves. Sunbeams wheeled through the treetops, broken by the pines into a striated komorebi. The air smelled of warm rock and resin. He followed the north road as it wound along those crags and granite-sided hills, occasionally leaping a ravine via a bridge built of the island’s blue-grey bones.

Open your eyes … Josh thought. The phrase kept surfacing in his mind whenever he had nothing else to think about. He paused halfway across the span of a bridge, in the middle of a pool of sunshine. Soft drifts of old needles had found their way onto the footpath. In the dingle beneath, he could hear the bubbling chatter of a swift stream.

Open your eyes … perhaps it meant ‘pay attention’. He could see spearow picking their way along the branches. A scrawny-looking aipom raiding nests for eggs. A sudowoodo who thought he couldn’t see it following him. He gave it a wave because he was fed-up of being stalked - it panicked and tried to hide. The road seemed to be deserted. He hadn’t heard an engine since Porth Carrek.

He’d been alone in the forest before, but he’d never been lonely in the first till now.

Open your eyes. He shook his head. The riddle was no less cryptic for all that.

The walk up to Trekellys took a little over two hours. The village wasn’t that much more than a name on the map, perhaps twenty houses strung along the road, and a pub. He noticed a woman walking up a path towards a gate set in the garden wall.

“Excuse me!” he called. “Can ye tell me where I’d find Janero?”

“And why do you want to find him?”

“Because I’m told he’s the best silversmith in the islands.”

That got him an odd, almost critical look. “Come with me.”

She led him down the garden path towards a slate-roofed outbuilding, calling “Janero!” as she went.

“In here!” a voice yelled from inside. The outbuilding was a workshop. It had an air of a place visited by a short-tempered voltorb. Tools and materials were scattered any old how on every surface; storage bins stacked apparently at random; nothing was labelled. A row of modular metal shelves were pushed against one wall, stocked with finished jewellery in ziplock bags. Janero sat hunched over something, peering at his work through magnification goggles. He had on a leather apron over a rumpled flannel shirt. Sweat glistened on either side of his nose. He immediately scowled in annoyance, as if Josh were selling religion on the doorstep.

“Who’s this?” he demanded.

“I have a commission in mind,” Josh said. “And I need the best for it.”

“Damnit Ariene, you know I don’t do commissions!” Janero said hotly.

“Your dumb concept pieces aren’t making any money!” Ariene retorted. “Do what you do best for once!”

Janero scowled at her as she stalked out, without much conviction. “You know she’s really my biggest fan.”

“You know, I believe she is,” Josh replied. “I had one like that at school.”

“What did you make?”

“Jewellery, actually. Craft fair stuff. I miss it sometimes. It would have been nice to make beautiful things for their own sake.”

“I don’t know who told you I’m the best, but I’m really not,” Janero said, after a moment’s thought. He got up and snatched a bag from a shelf. “See!”

It was beautiful. A silver filigree ring worked in intricate leaf designs. They were recognisably hazel and ash leaves. The attention to detail was impressive.

“I finished that last week, and every time I see it I spot a new flaw.”

“What I have in mind isn’t so intricate.” Josh took the handkerchief from his pocket and let it fall half-open on his palm. The Silver Wing glinted from beneath the cotton. “But perhaps it’ll need as much care.”

“… is that?”

“I want this set into a necklace. Very discreetly. As far as payment -”

“My materials, nothing more.”

“You’re sure?” Josh said, taken aback.

“The payment for working on a Silver Wing, will be getting to work on a Silver Wing.”

Josh frowned at him. He hadn’t expected that. But … beautiful things for their own sake.

Janero held out his hand. “Seal it with a handshake?”

If Josh had any doubts, that dispelled them. “Deal.”

*​

It was gone five o’clock when they called it a day. After hours of talking through sketches, they’d settled on a final design. Josh didn’t suspect he’d renege on the agreement. They’d shook hands on it.

“I’ll be back in a few hours!” Janero called over his shoulder. There were three men hanging around in the lane outside. All three wore hard-worn work clothes and five o’clock shadows, sleeves rolled up against the afternoon heat. The youngest of them was Janero’s age, the oldest, sixty if he was a day.

“While we’re young!” the old boy said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, I’m coming,” Janero said. “I’ve got a new commission.”

“Mine,” Josh said redundantly. They all nodded at him. “Anyway, er, where can I get a bite to eat?” he added.

“Well, we’re all getting a bite and a pint at the pub,” the youngest one said. “Come and join us!”

“Oh, no, ye dun have te …”

There was a chorus of denials and encouragement.

“- no, no, can’t have you sitting by yourself -”

“- more the merrier -”

“- want to hear the story behind that bloodstain -”

Josh found himself mumbling polite acceptances amid the shower of hospitable warmth.

“Exhibit A is Cedar,” Janero said, waving a hand at his contemporary, “and this is Kittow.”

Kittow was bald as an egg, middle-aged, and wore canvas shorts like a schoolboy.

“And Alfred -”

“- Alf -”

“Cook. Joshua Cook, of Mulberry Town,” Josh interjected. “West of Mt Silver.”

“Ever done any slinging, Cook?” Kittow asked, as they ambled along the lane.

“Slinging?”

“A Whirl Island tradition,” Janero said. “Throwing things with a sling. We have a practice after work most days.”

“Alf, lend him your spare sling,” Kittow said.

The local pub was the kind of quaint country boozer that yuppies in Goldenrod tended to ape with cutesy names. They all bought a pint and a pasty at the bar before heading back outside. There was a large field with three targets in front of a strong net. One was a wicker scarecrow with a watmel for a head. On the near side, a large barrel of tennis balls.

The whole thing was deceptively simple. The slung was a length of cord with a leather pouch in the middle. One end of the cord had a small loop, the other, a small knot. The object was to slip the loop over the ring finger, whole holding the knot between thumb and forefinger. You swung the wrist, built up some momentum, and released the knot to fling the projectile. In practice, it was much harder than it looked. Knowing when to let go of the knot was tricky and aiming was harder – the ball had a nasty habit of coming out backwards.

There wasn’t a hint of standoffishness from the group. Kittow and Cedar were full of advice for his slinging attempts even if it didn’t seem to help. Everyone yelled an appreciative “OHHH!” after a hit, regardless of how accurate it was, Josh’s included.

It was his turn. Loop over the ring finger. Knot beneath the thumb. Load tennis ball, swing the sling, build momentum, release the knot. The ball glanced off the edge of the target and bounced up into the net.

“Bloody hell, Alf!”

Then Alf struck the scarecrow so hard he almost decapitated it.

“This is why we don’t let him use pebbles,” Janero said.

They were all craftsmen of one kind or another. Kittow was a silversmith, like Janero; Alfred, a carpenter; Cedar made knives. They treated him like a fellow craftsman, too, as if school clubs and eBay were the same thing. In the midst of the fellowship he ended up telling the story of how they’d built the Iron King – ten Townie scallywags, gleefully turning the Regatta into a farce. The others had rowed her, and trimmed her sails, but he’d designed her and it was tremendous fun winding up the Goldenrod Uni snobs when Iron King sunk their boat.

Load tennis ball, swing the sling, build momentum, release the knot. Miss. Damnit.

Halfway through his story it seemed to Josh that all this companionship was bittersweet. He’d had this once, at school, with the Workshop club. Building the Iron King, in hindsight, was the swansong of all that.

It would be worse without his pokémon, of course, but they weren’t the same.

“So what are you working on, Janero?”

“Oh, just a necklace,” he said breezily. “Straightforward commission.”

It was a distraction, and a fairly ineffective one. He hadn’t heard from Eve in a week. Nothing, not so much as a text. He had to assume the photo found its way to her at Cianwood Gym. He had to assume, no, hope, he wouldn’t be going back to being alone.

Spin the sling, build momentum, release the knot. Miss. He remembered vividly. A flawlessly symmetrical, too-perfect face. He’d stabbed her, aron steel flashing in the moonlight. Spin the sling, build momentum, release the knot. Hit the scarecrow’s arm. A yell of OHHH!, distant, as if from another field. Mirthless grinning of a sham girl. Licked the air with a soft pink tongue – how dare she look at her like prey! Spin the sling, build momentum, hurl it with a grunt. Hammered into the net. Smothered in black fog, stars like diamonds wheeling overhead. Falling. Cold down to the bone.

He thought about what he’d found in Polyhymnia’s library. Monanna cloaked in Silver Wings. The Archer of Heaven. Apotropaic silver.

He hit the target dead centre.

*​

The mossy remains of a stone circle sat on the breezy greensward, a rough meadow of coastal grasses on a stubby headland. There was a granite throne in the middle, looking out to sea. It was supposed to be Ostaro’s, but since he obviously wasn’t using it Josh considered it fair game.

The evening sky was changing from blue to indigo. A few early stars were peeping out. The Northern Cross was glimmering over the sea. He’d spent the morning pretty much just walking around the island. He’d spent the afternoon on the beach, slinging pebble after pebble at the rusted hulk of a fishing trawler in a vain attempt to occupy his mind. He shouldn’t have done – it was a waste of a day – but he couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything productive.

The sea breeze rippled through his hair, scented with salt and pine needles. He couldn’t help but wonder if the photo had arrived. Whether Eve cared that it had.

He has no thought for harps
nor the giving of rings
nor pleasure in women
nor anything at all
unless the tossing of waves
but he always has a longing
he who strives on the waves

He’d always thought that was about sea-longing. Maybe he was wrong – but he always had a longing …

The sky grew dark. Josh ignored it. The path from the henge led away from the cliff edge. Deneb shone blue in the Cross with its brothers Sadr, Albeiro, and the rest. A zubat flitted across the sky, hiding Vega for an eye’s blink.

His phone buzzed, to Josh’s dull surprise. He hadn’t expected to get a signal up here.

I miss you Thur 21:26​

Josh closed his eyes and leaned back into the throne. She misses me. In that moment, he realised that was what he’d hoped for the most. Just that she missed him.

I’ll be on Silver Rock Isle Thur 21:28

*​

“Up yours, Polly!” Josh retorted to Polyhymnia’s back. It wasn’t clever, but she deserved it. Polyhymnia’s rudeness was reflexive, like a meowth swatting at bugs. Not that he wanted anything much to do with her, he reflected, watching her walk away, but Porth Carrek was a small town on a small island. It wasn’t difficult to run into someone you knew, even if you only knew one person.

It was a warm evening at the harbour, gently baking in the sunshine bouncing off the tarmac. The island was quietening down – the last boat from Red Rock Isle had been and gone. And Josh had nothing to do but wait. He had decided to get dinner, such as it was, at a bakery near the quayside. A disappointing pasty filled with greyish meat and anaemic vegetables. It was the kind of evening for cold beer anyway.

He had his Pokédex open, trying to do some research on Steel-types. It wasn’t encouraging reading. The last thing he wanted to face at the Olivine Gym was a steelix. The bloody things might know Fire Fang. You couldn’t realistically out-range them. There simply wasn’t any such thing as a small steelix – their sheer bulk meant they could just brush aside lesser attacks.

Josh sighed, and gave up. He wasn’t learning anything anyway. He wandered off along the harbour, tossing the remainder of the pasty into a bin, hoping the walk might calm his mind. Tan lines were beginning to show up on his arms. It took a lot to get him to tan – two weeks in the Orange Archipelago summer had helped it most of the way along. When he did tan he went from ambiguously ethnic to ambiguously ethnic.

… nobody ever got that joke. On a whim he left the harbour, and stopped at the sight of a pub sign. The Silver Dragon. The painting on the sign didn’t look very much like a lugia. Or anyway, it did nothing to convey what a lugia was as opposed to merely what it looked like. Josh rubbed at his temple. Something told him a human shouldn’t know the difference.

“I knew I’d find you somewhere near a pub, you dork,” she said. Josh turned round without really thinking.

Eve was smirking at him.

“Eve!” Josh burst out, throwing his arms around her for the sheer joy of seeing her smile. And kissed her cheek, because he meant it. To his relief and elation she’d thrown her arms around him, too. He didn’t want to let go, stood there in the middle of the street, squeezing Eve just as fiercely as she squeezed him. Tears on her cheek blotted on his.

“I’ve missed you,” she said in a tight little voice.

“I missed you, too.”

Reluctantly, he let go. Josh glanced over Eve’s shoulder and spotted someone watching them like it was daytime TV.

Eve followed his gaze. “Finished?” she demanded.

A thought struck him, and right then Josh didn’t want to wait any longer. “Come on!”

He grabbed Eve’s hand and towed her down an alleyway between a couple of narrow houses. There was a secluded grassy space beyond that, with an abandoned shrine to one side, and no-one else around.

“I didn’t expect you to be that pleased to see me!” Eve commented, winking at him.

“Just shut up for a moment.”

It was wrapped, not in a handkerchief, but in a square of black satin. The Silver Wing, preserved in flawlessly clear resin without bubble or blemish, hanging from a strong silver chain like a moment frozen in time. A thin strip of silver bound the edge, etched with a runic inscription:

ᛗᚩᚾᚪᚾᚪ ᚾᚩᚹᛋ ᛁ ᚪᛗ ᚠᚱᛁᛚᛄ ᚷᛁᚠᛖᚾ​

“This is for you.”

“What on earth have you -” Eve started, already blushing. Then she realised what she was looking at.

“Is that really?” Eve breathed. “Josh, where did you get this?”

“It’s a long story.”

Eve gave him a look of blended wonder and disbelief. She reached out reverently to take it. And stopped short. “Why are you giving it to me?”

Ignoring her stuttering, her clasped the necklace around her neck, letting the Silver Wing drop lightly onto her chest.

“Because.”

Next Chapter: Gym of Steel

 

[System Error]

Not when it's hot off the press for once, but you can blame yourself for that one. But seriously, this is a good event idea! And what better day than Valentine's to review this fic with one of the workshops' OTPs?

- Who is "she," Josh? Actually this seems to be an odd ordering of things. Might want to make it clear who Josh is talking about earlier. Also he isn't shown trying to bring in any food and drink. Take it this was off-camera?
- That feel when a legendary can't even get capitalization for all its status but its feathers can.
- There is something funny about a "mine's bigger" contest with diplomas
- And it seems Polywhatever has a useless degree. Joy. Also insert joke about contradictions here, Mr. Wright
- I like the subtle jab at Lugia being on the same pedestal as Ho-oh. In the games the latter is known to be tied to the gerbils, but only the one anime movie tied Lugia to the birds and there hasn't been any other canon showing any sort of connection. I think even roosting at the Ecruteak Tower wasn't actually a thing - plus its dex entries all say it lives in the seas at that.
- That feel when too much superstition and legend mess with minds
- Welp. Josh has a creative plan. This is going to get interesting since it's him
- That was a quick scene, and well I was not expecting it to go in that sort of direction
- Open your eyes, see the world for what it truly is
- Sudowoodo quip got a snicker out of me
- Hey, at least they weren't selling religion to random people on the street
- Hehe, knew it. He was going to turn it into jewelry for Eve and would convince the guy by going "it's a silver wing you worship these"
- That feel when you get roped into local traditions. Slings were quite the old and fancy weapon and I'm surprised they aren't a weapon in more video games - you see slingshots but not classic stone in the eye of the giant slings.
- A bit amusing to know that in this world, eBay is still eBay. I like that sometimes in contrast to tweaking (or making it Pokethemed)
- This scene gets pretty philosophical at the end. And just a little trippy
- Unproductive days are the worst. Especially when you can't help it
- Awwwww. Just awwwwww. That's all I have to say about that one.
- And suddenly we go from that to him just being hilariously rude. When Josh is being that abrasive you know someone deserves it.
- Why's he worrying about Fire Fang of all moves? Things can worse yet know Thunder Fang
- Sadly not explaining the joke means no one ever will get it...it's like a regional in joke
- Yesss, I was hoping for a hug of joy in reunion
- I notice Eve doesn't actually protest or show any reluctance again what she thinks this might be
- I had to check if the runes were the same on FFNet. And I thought for a second that it was a cryptogram before deciding against trying to crack it directly
- Thinking she's unworthy of receiving such a gift. You are, Eve. You most certainly are.
- Classic Josh at the end there

Yay, back together and reunited, and with a biiiig hook to continue the romantic tensions! Eeeee!! Can't wait to see where this goes!

 

[OrionTheAbsol]

At last. It's time to begin...

THE LONG WALK.

And a journey fic set in Johto, not Kanto starring Ash/Red? What is this madness!?

Spoiler: My Commentary

Prologue – The Green Road into the Trees

• "I, me" vaguely makes me remember a certain industrial metal song, lol
• These descriptions for Mulberry Town are exquisite. The weather, the smaller locations, some history. All in a couple of paragraphs.
• Not gonna lie, some of the lingo is making me feel lost.

Chapter One – One Who Thinks to Travel

• I never thought I would see the description "semen-white flowers" in a Pokémon fic but here we are.
• "Well, making new friends was supposed to be one of the joys of adventure. And here he was, making new friends with a Joy, apparently." - Ah, the irony.
• A Joy taking the gym challenge? Color me curious.
• Huh. So you capitalize your move names. I was unsure of whether to do so or not in my own fic.

Chapter Two - A Real Trainer

• Heh. Wooper's trainer is quite the sore loser.
• Strangely, I forgot the route before Union Cave actually had a Pokémon Center. Nice callback. And based on its status, seems like this would be years since Gold/Silver/Kris had their journeys across Johto.
• A Magnemite out in the wilderness? Well, figures it would go after someone's personal power generator.

I'm honestly jealous of your location descriptions and vast vocabulary, Thesaurus Rex. You made it look so easy, lol. And wow, this story's been in the works since 2013, huh? Definitely had the years to brush up on your writing craft, and they seriously paid off.

I'm afraid that I don't have anything to suggest at this time. I don't know if it's because I'm at a loss for words or it's the fact that I'm reading this around 2 AM in my timezone, lol. But seriously, great job! I feel like I can learn a lot from your prose.

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Day Five of the Review event! And it's finally time, after how long of knowing you Beth, it is finally time to begin:

THE LONG WALK!
Joke was totally not stolen from Orion above.

I've read the prologue and first three chapters for this review and will give my general impressions on those four segments.

Characters:
Honestly, not much to say for Josh for me this early on in the story. He just seems bland to me, but that could be the point since not much is given to us this early about him except he's been pretty homebound for so long and his Bulbasaur was a pet instead of a battler, to the point of it only being able to use Tackle. Again only the prologue and two chapters for him at this point for me, can easily warm up to him.

But Eve on the other hand, I love her. The sass, the pure sass incarnate she is. I am loving this concept of a rogue Nurse Joy in a way, though I am having a hard time believing all Joy's become nurses but that's the cult of clones for you. From Trainers of FanFiction entries I know there are some Joys that support Eve and I'm really excited to meet the chaos that is the Joy family.

Plot:
Not much to say on plot, especially on Josh's segments. Eve seems to have the most story/plot with what you can garner from her appearances alone. I do find it kinda strange though I may have missed it that Josh hasn't disclose his reasoning for journeying yet but that's a mystery to figure out.

Worldbuilding:
Honestly, I might have to steal some ideas for my version of Johto whenever I get there in the Orre: The Desert verse. The original towns of Mudberry and Union Village feels like perfect fits and have always been there, the latter probably should just been there since the beginning with how weirdly place that Center has been in the Johto region. I can't wait see what other original places you've come up with here.

Well the walk as started for me and it will be long, it's taken me forever to get here so I'm sticking around now. Thanks for good read as usual Beth!!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Chapter Forty Three – Gym of Steel (Version 1.0)

Joshua​

It felt odd to see Olivine City from the sea. It was the city he’d once tried and failed to get to as a virginal graduate, a city where he could have used all that hard-earned knowledge from three years of university. Back then he just didn’t have the savings to move and pay for rent while he found his first real job. It looked like it would have been a home away from home, an epithet no town in Johto would be proud of. Olivine was an unlovely city. From the seaward side it was all cranes, concrete wharves, warehouses and shipping containers, the famed lighthouse all but lost among the industry. A pale ochre haze lingered in the sky above the city. Beyond all that, you could see the green hill country of rural Olivineshire.

Olivine had somehow managed to hang onto her city walls through eight hundred years of war, industry, and population booms – now they were a pleasant walk with benches on the towers. Outside the medieval city walls, Olivine looked a lot like Mulberry Town, Josh thought, as they walked along the parapet. Inside the wall, it was more like Azalea Town. Olivine was built on a volcanic hotspot, the inner city crowded with traditional inns boasting hot spring baths. Some had medieval bones, others were little more than a century old.

They descended the wall at the west gatehouse into the general bustle of the city centre. Funny how life seemed to accelerate once you got to the mainland. The weather reports were full of news of a drifblim migration coming down from the Misho highlands -something that had gone ignored in the Whirl Islands. Josh glanced sidelong at Eve. That morning, she’d spent twenty minutes meditating before she’d even touch breakfast, which was strange. She’d been very cryptic about her time at the Cianwood Gym. All she’d say was that the food was good. He decided not to press the issue. Maybe she still needed space.

Olivine city centre was actually more like a gentrified Mulberry Town, Josh decided. A lot of the centre was red brick buildings of the ornate kind, with an abundance of arches and columns and lead-roofed cupolas. Mixed in among them were the steeply-pitched roofs and exposed beams of the medieval inns and townhouses. Even the pidgey cooed at each other more genteelly. In Mulberry the lead would have been pinched, the brickwork chipped, and the pidgey fighting each other.

But the Olivine Gym couldn’t look more incongruous – a windowless ziggurat of gleaming steel, surrounded by gardens of gravel and asphalt. A life-sized steelix sculpture of poured concrete formed an arch over the main entrance. The sheer inappropriateness of the architecture obviated the need for a sign. Beyond the main doors there was no atrium or foyer. There was no greeting of any sort, just a brightly-lit corridor leading deeper into the Gym. The corridor terminated in a pair of automatic doors. They seemed to delay for several second before opening.

The hall beyond was an unlit battlefield. There was a dais just visible in the shadows at the far end, a silhouette of someone standing at the foot.

“Who dares enter the Gym?” a voice boomed.

“Who dares ask?” Eve countered.

There was a click of snapped fingers. The hall lights came on with a thump-THUMP; illuminating a plain battlefield covered with a substrate of grey, feathery ash. Coils of gleaming barbed wire marked the field boundaries. The trainer at the foot of the dais was a tall, riffy sod, his close-cropped hair a clash of teal and orange. The studs on his leather jacket shone in the intense glare of the fluorescent light. He was holding out a Poké Ball at arm’s length.

“I am Zane, and I am steel!”

“I am Evelina Joy of Cherrygrove City!” Eve declared. “I am a Tigerlily Champion and I challenge Jasmine!”

Zane almost smiled. “If you want …”

He disappeared into the shadows at the back of the hall. Josh nudged Eve gently.

“Are you sure?” he murmured.

“I know the key to inner peace,” Eve said, stepping into the trainer’s box.

Jasmine stepped onto the dais. Josh had a sudden impression of a rose wilting in the heat. Most Gym Leaders were flamboyant types – you wouldn’t look twice to see Jasmine on the promenade. Shy, retiring, delicate – apparently delicate. She wouldn’t look directly at her challenger.

Jasmine nodded down at Zane.

“This is an official Gym battle between the challenger Evelina Joy of Cherrygrove City and Jasmine of the Olivine Gym! Each trainer will use one pokémon! The challenger will release first!”

“Lyra! You have the honour!”

Straight to the ace. Eve didn’t hesitate for a moment.

“Scizor,” Jasmine said.

Bug vs Bug, both of them gleaming scarlet. Lyra took to the field with a yell, rising eagerly to attack height. Scizor snapped into a taut fighting position, widening its stance, abdomen canted forward, pincers open. It was almost twice the size of Lyra, and probably over twice as heavy. At first glance Scizor looked the more dangerous, if you hadn’t seen how aggressive ledian could be. Scizor couldn’t actually fly, either.

“Begin!”

“Thunderpunch!” Eve immediately ordered. Scizor remained disciplined and motionless as Lyra closed to attack with two fists sparking.

“Bullet Punch,” Jasmine ordered demurely.

Both Lyra and Scizor tried to dodge – both lunging at their opponent and both missing. Scizor’s other pincer flicked out – Lyra struck back with Thunderpunch for another near-miss exchange. Scizor wasn’t actually all that quick, Josh thought, watching them skirmish back and forth, but its aim was sharp. Most pokémon eventually lost their cool with Lyra buzzing angrily around in front of their face. Jasmine’s scizor just reacted like it was nothing more than morning sparring, calmly stepping around a sparking fist and slamming a pincer into Lyra’s thorax, punting her across the field with a crack.

“Iron Defence,” said Jasmine.

“Air Cutter!” Eve yelled over Lyra’s frustrated shriek. “Cut it to bits!”

Lyra delivered a rain of Air Cutters with rather more fury than accuracy, Scizor stepping and dodging around most of them. The strategy seemed reckless to him – Lyra was steadily drifting closer with each Air Cutter.

“X-Scissor.”

“Thunderpunch!”

The next exchange instantly devolved into a brawl cloaked in a grey cloud of ash, all whirling fists and pincers. It was difficult to riddle out what was going on, but Josh had his doubts. Lyra didn’t do well in brawls, Iron Fist or no, and now she was trying to batter down an Iron Defence.

“Eve …”

She wasn’t listening, and Lyra had gone tunnel-visioned with fury. Something about fighting other Bug-types put the devil in her.

“Counter.”

There was the terrible rasp of a pincer’s tooth scraping across Lyra’s exoskeleton. The attack sent her flying into the ash – Scizor was on her in a flash of scarlet and a hail of Bullet Punches.

Protect! Josh urged.

“Drain Punch!” Eve insisted. Josh glanced at her. That move made no sense. Still the Bullet Punches shot out – slower now, more considered, like a man trying to knock in a nail with the fewest blows possible.

Protect!

Lyra tried to take off. Scizor smacked her back down. She returned a half-hearted swipe with Drain Punch.

Zane had seen enough. “Victory to the Leader. Hail the Steel Gym.”

His heart sank. Counter. Josh realised he’d seen this battle once before, at the Cianwood Gym, with another Counter, and a different Bug-type.

He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder.

“Tch, tch!” she said curtly, waving him away. She recalled Lyra and stepped out of the box, her back to him. Josh stared at her back for a moment, trying to work out what he was supposed to do.

“I challenge the Gym,” he said, at a loss. There was a flicker of red, pale and washed-out in the strong Gym lights, as Jasmine recalled Scizor. Josh stepped into the vacant trainer’s box.

“Zane,” Jasmine said.

He swaggered from the side line, not up to the dais, but to its foot, below Jasmine.

“A Gym battle is at stake!” he declared. “I am Zane and I am Steel.”

Josh took Ivysaur’s Poke Ball off his belt. He was tenacious and versatile, even if the Steel-type resisted him well. The ace, in other words. Besides, on this field his Nature Power would transmute into Earth Power.

“Forretress!” Zane barked.

Forretress in 1v1 … Self-Destruct would be pointless. It would be a wrecking ball … Forretress were not subtle pokémon.

“Ivysaur,” Josh said. “Battle’s on.”

Josh declined to make the first move. Zane showed more patience than he expected, and did nothing. Well, he knew the counter to that game. “Growth!”

“Rollout!”

Forretress locked its shell closed with a snap. Ash boiled up behind it as it revved itself up to speed.

“Sleep Powder!” Dodge around that.

Ivysaur vented a cloud of glittering blue powder into its path – Forretress just ploughed straight through and unceremoniously shunted Ivysaur aside. Josh realised he’d done something stupid. Its shell was locked down – Sleep Powder was never going to work. Ivysaur pushed himself back to his feet just as Forretress swung back round, extended his Vine Whips and cracked them down hard on its left-hand side. It wobbled with the impact and skidded through the barbed wire into the wall.

[Gotcha,] Ivysaur croaked in satisfaction.

This has to finish before it starts Rollout again, Josh thought. That tactic probably wouldn’t work twice.

“Rollout!” Zane ordered. Forretress curled back round to the attack.

No. “Nature Power!”

The floor erupted in a six-foot high geyser of orange and red flame. Little droplets of molten material splashed back down onto the field, smoking where they hit the ash. Forretress was a motionless ball, scorched black.

[Did I do that?]

Zane was glaring at him, as if he’d planned this. Josh wasn’t about to admit he didn’t understand what had happened.

“Fine. You’ve earned the right to challenge Jasmine.”

*​

Steam rose from the bath as a gentle mist, subtly softening the view of the rooftops of historic Olivine. Tiled roofs were capped with ornate chimney pots, decorated with the crowns of sycamores green and gold in the evening sun. They were staying at the Rose and Dragon, a former coaching inn. The inn sign was a dragonair coiled around a red and yellow rose. The upper rooms had bath-rooms open to the air, the hot water piped up from the spring.

Somewhere in the city, the clear tone of a clock tower’s bell was chiming out the hour. Josh lay back against the bath, soaking in the heat, enjoying this moment of doing nothing.

It had been an oddling day. It was the first time Josh could remember that he had been the better trainer. He took no pleasure in that. He couldn’t bring himself to challenge Jasmine, not after seeing the look on her face. Eve had spent hours after the Gym getting into silly battles – she won more than half of them, but they were bad victories. She was watching the trainers more than the pokémon, which she never usually did. Whatever training she’d been doing at the Cianwood Gym, she wasn’t quite back to her old self yet.

There was the sound of the door to the main room opening behind him. Eve was standing on the threshold, wrapped in a towel.

“Can I join?”

“Oi, wait your turn!” he protested.

“Come on, it’s been a long day. Please?”

It was hard enough hearing the tired, beaten little tone in her voice. He liked his alone time in the bath. It was relaxing. It was hard to see how relaxing it could be with the addition of a naked Eve. But it was the ‘please’ that really did it.

“Oh … alright.”

Josh kept his sight fixed on the trees and chimneys of Olivine as Eve demurely slipped into the bath beside him. The turquoise-green waters partially obscured the sight of their bodies beneath the surface. Josh wasn’t sure he wanted to see her naked, and he didn’t trust his body anyway. Eve said nothing for a while, soaking in the heat, her eyes closed.

“This is god weird,” he said.

Eve giggled at first, to Josh’s annoyance. Until she realised he wasn’t joking.

“Good weird?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” he said, immediately regretting his bluntness. “I don’t really know what thissen is.”

Eve stared ahead into the steaming water. “Whenever one of us had a really shit day, we’d all unwind in the bath,” she said slowly. “There were never any arguments then, you know? I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

“No, I day mean that, I meant, uh,” Josh burbled hopelessly.

“I just want to relax with my friend,” Eve said. “Is that so weird?”

“Well, no, it ay,” Josh admitted. Put like that, was it really that different to playing chess at the bathhouse with his cousin? He could feel her eyes on his face, watching his expression. “Just … dun know where te look.”

“You’m allowed to see me tits,” Eve said, and broke into a giggle fit.

Josh sighed. It was half a joke, and not a very good imitation of his accent. He wished she’d take something like this seriously for once.

The illogic of trying not to look at her was beginning to dawn on him. Eve didn’t take it seriously, but he always seemed to take it sincerely. Tentatively, he glanced to one side, and saw the outline of the bath water lapping around her tits. He wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting, but it was something of an anticlimax. There was something crashingly ordinary about the sight. It occurred to him that because of Ninetales-as-Eve he’d already seen most of what there was to see in the Deepwoods. The tendons in his fist hand twitched at the memory. One minute aggressively seductive, the next trying to tear his arm off.

For a while neither of them said anything, soaking in, all things considered, awkward silence. It wasn’t fair that Eve should remind him of ‘Maisie’. Through the gap in the roofline he could see the imposing blue silhouette of a container ship like a castle on the horizon.

“I’m not ready to challenge Jasmine yet, am I?” Eve said eventually.

“I don’t think your team is ready for a Steel-type Gym,” Josh replied, seizing on the ordinary topic. “You haven’t caught a new pokémon since the Ilex Forest, remember.”

Eve paused to consider this. “I’ve never really planned my team … I suppose you’re right.”

“There’s all those drifblim coming down from Misho,” Josh pointed out. “They’re rare in Johto. And drifblim are different to anything else on your team.”

“Maybe …”

Josh couldn’t help but remember that look on her face. It wasn’t far from that look she’d had after abrupt defeat at the Cianwood Gym. The parallel was obvious.

“I’ll never tell anyone that you lost,” he told her.

That didn’t have the effect he’d hoped for. He wasn’t certain if she’d even heard him. She had a strange look on her face, as though she was seeing through the water to somewhere else entirely.

“I learned something,” Eve said, very quietly. “I kept seeing it. Sometimes when I wasn’t even asleep. It was beautiful. And it was always lonely. But I sleep better when I’m with something living. The Nightmare doesn’t come back to me as much. I know it makes no fucking sense, but it works.”

For days she’d said nothing about the Gym. Now that it came to it, he didn’t know what to say.

“Let’s go into the hills tomorrow. I could do with some time to prepare for Jasmine,” he lied.

She punched him on the arm. “Liar!”

Next Chapter: Windblown from Sinnoh

 

[System Error]

Well the murder of the review league made me not as much in a hurry about reading stuff on drop, but I didn't mean to wait this long before reading. Let's rectify that for the Weekly Review Prompt.

- You sure do go all in on the ham whenever called for. Then again, it's not a bad thing and even if it was, I have no right to say anything.
- No hesitation, just jumping straight into the Gym Leader battle.
- Josh with the backseating...
- Wasn't expecting a mere 1v1. Or for Eve to get utterly crushed after a poor performance. So much for learning at Cianwood.
- Why does Josh have to challenge a Gym Trainer first? Or has it been too long and Eve already did so way back when?
- Better to be lucky than good, re: the Nature Power turning into...slagma bomb, or whatever.
- Well, Josh was the better trainer, but that wasn't saying much given the above.
- Not wanting to see a girl naked? Implicit shyness intensifies!
- God weird, or good weird? One of those two is a typo.
- Remembering that Ninetales scene gave me an idea, so thanks for that. Also I'd like to think they might not be able to get it perfect. Besides in any case, he was looking at fake tits before - technically speaking. Eve's here were the real deal.
- Insert sleeping together gag here.
- This walk is certainly going to go places soon.

Not how I was expecting this chapter to go, but hey. Jumping into the next plot thread. Will we see a new capture next time?! Or something more? Hopefully from your stuff on the 'cord I won't have long to find out!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Chapter Forty Four – Windblown from Sinnoh (Version 1.0)

Joshua​

#426 Drifblim
Borealis migrator

Typology: Ghost/Flying (Frazer-Edricson classification)
Junior morph: Drifloon (Borealis perambulatus)

Drifblim are primary Ghost-types within the Order Subnumina. Their closest relatives are thought to be the Middle Kingdom wraiths (See also: Gastly, Haunter, Gengar). Traditionally considered to be native to the Sinnoh region, their native range extends across the Sunset Isles and northern Kalos, and may migrate as far as the Unova region. Drifblim can be found at heights from 1,000 – 3,000m where they feed on aerial plankton.

Large migrations of drifblim, called blooms, occur in response to changing conditions. High population density, scarce food supply, and changes in the strength or direction of prevailing winds may all trigger a migration. The distribution of blooms are thus strongly correlated to changing weather patterns (See also: Breeding).

*​

The Melkfold Downs spread out north and west as far as the human eye could see, green hills rolling into the blue distance.

The landscape sweltered under the June sun. Melkfold Downs was meadow-and-chalkland, a land of wide skies and little rivers and miltank ice creams so thick you had to eat them with a chisel. Farmsteads and spinneys dotted the downland, while miltank mottled pink-and-black pastured in fields bordered with hawthorn hedges. The River Elfwell flowed lazily along its gentle valley, the grey water glimmering in the morning, through the town of Kesport in the middle distance. To the east, the downlands climbed up to the Beacon Hills. That was coal-mining country. The hills rose out of the downland like a rumpled duvet. Thick belts of woodland on the lower slopes gave way to stretches of heath on the heights. From there, with good eyes, you could just see the span of Kesport Bridge, the brightly-painted narrowboats at the marina.

Nobody mined coal there now. Nobody lived there now. People had left their mark behind in old roads, old canals, and abandoned villages inhabited only by pokémon. Josh squinted up into the sky. There, barely visible against the charcoal grey of a cloud, was the pear-shaped outline of a drifblim.

Not only drifblim, either. There was also Gail, soaring awkwardly on a thermal. It had been markedly startling to see her again. She’d gone from being a sleek, manic lightning-bolt of a hawk, to a majestic, powerful eagle, an empress of the clouds. She wouldn’t stop growing, even after evolving. Josh was sure her wingspan had been about twenty feet last week. She’d put at least another three onto that since then.

Gail wheeled across the sun, her shadow rippling over his head. Josh wondered how big she would get.

They summitted the hill by eleven o’clock, to a heathery field rough with bilberry and yellow-flowering gorse, silverweed colonising the edges of the paths. The wind blew steadily from the north-east, down from far distant Misho. The hill was almost as high up as you could get around here short of flying, and in theory would be the obvious landing place for any drifblim. If the weather reports were accurate, this is where they’d be.

There was no point in trying to be stealthy. Every diurnal pokémon on the heath would have spotted them already.

“Eye, eye,” Josh said. There was something drifting across the heather about a hundred yards away. The drifblim realised it had been spotted and tried to Minimise to lower its profile, shrinking itself down to the size of a watmel. That trick might have worked, if it hadn’t got caught on a sprig of gorse.

Eve was already racing through the heather like a hungry pyroar and bowling a Poké Ball overarm. “Lyra! Thunderpunch!”

Lyra emerged flying and raring for the attack, despite her midday lethargy. She was visibly sluggish in charging her Thunderpunch. For a moment Josh wondered whether Gail might not fare better -

She never got there anyway. The drifblim blasted a Gust into the heather, propelling itself wildly into the sky till it disappeared into a cloud.

“Bastard!” Eve screamed.

*​

A speckled wood butterfly skittered from the path, glowing chocolate and rust-yellow as it fluttered through shimmering noonlight and shade. Spots of sun danced as the breeze stirred the leaves of the overhanging trees. Butterfree ignored these high tangled woods, full of the little flowers of herb robert, buttercup, and Holostea stellaria, whose common name he could never remember. Some late harebells peeped out among the tree roots, pale violet, tissue-paper translucent.

Josh delicately stepped over an old rail, onto the sleeper. The soil was dark, ashy, full of chunks of blue-black rock. Intervening years had scattered much of the ballast, but it would still crunch underfoot like a gravel path. The tracks emerged from a tangle of holly and bramble and disappeared into a mine shaft. The rail was flaked and splintered where a skarmory had been at it for nesting material. He wasn’t looking for anything so much as just looking. Any drifblim should, in theory, be sluggish and sleepy at this time of day.

The hair on his arms prickled. He looked round, without moving his feet. There was something watching him from the deeps of the mine. It was the glower of a gastly. In the dark of the adit, it was hardly more than hungry eyes and fangs.

Not intimidated by the likes of you.

There was a crack and a curse behind him. Eve was busy tripping over brambles. Josh ignored her. He watched a paras crawling up a crab leppa – there was a semi-corporeal drifblim roosting in the branches.

He beckoned over his shoulder, carefully, trying not to alarm the drifblim. Eve must have noticed, because a Poké Ball whizzed past his head.

“Bailey!” she yelled. “Take Down that tree! Knock it the fuck down!”

Bailey slammed herself into the base of the tree – the shock of the impact cracked it nearly in two. It heeled over with a piteous creak, branches snagging on its neighbours. The drifblim spilled out of its roost, bouncing gently into some nettles. It blinked sleepily at them as if entirely unconcerned by the appearance of two humans.

“Right,” Eve said. “Meowth, it’s your turn.”

Josh suddenly felt a terrible compulsion to sleep. His eyelids felt leaden-heavy. Eve yawned hugely. There was only one logical reason why either of them would feel that way.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Josh managed before Hypnosis took hold.

*​

“This time we’re ganging up on it,” Josh grumbled, his head throbbing. He must have banged it against a sleeper when he passed out.

This drifblim was floating fifty feet above the meadow and had already seen them. Its outline was hazy and wan in the late afternoon sun.

“No,” Eve flatly refused. She took a run-up and flung a Ball. “Gail! You have the honour!”

She unfolded her great wings almost luxuriously. The coffee-and-cream span of her plumage was like a small airplane, her long crest shining scarlet and gold.

“Twister!”

The vortex formed reluctantly, cobalt flashes leaping from the translucent cloud and earthing themselves on the grass, vaporising individual blades. Drifblim slipped out of it using Phantom Force, lashing madly at Gail with its tentacles. Momentum lost, Gail hammered awkwardly at the air, trying to ascend with the same easy speed she had as a pidgeotto. Drifblim sailed off west in an attempt to make a break for it.

There was nothing awkward about her dive. She easily caught up with it, wrestling in mid-air as she tried to crush it in her talons. Drifblim flailed back at her with its tentacles, repeatedly blasting out useless Shock Waves. Gail screeched with frustration and powered up into the air. The downdraft of her wingbeats drove the drifblim into the grass. Eve watched her proudly, Fast Ball held loosely in her fingers.

Drifblim started to bloat and smoulder ominously. Fuck. Josh just knew what was going to happen. Breaking into a run Josh grabbed the first empty Ball he could find and threw it. The whoosh-snap of the Ball deploying sounded off to his left.

A few second’s grace, he thought, and tackled Eve into a ditch.

There was a tremendous detonation behind them. Shards of Ultra Ball whickered into the grass. A piece of scorched plastic bounced off his shoulder blade. Josh frowned down at Eve lying beneath him.

“That’s twice now you’ve almost been blown up by a pokémon,” he told her.

Eve was looking up at him with an intense sort of expression, as if she didn’t appreciate being tumbled onto a ditch. He hurriedly pushed himself off.

“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d paid attention,” he said defensively.

*​

The village had been called Holcombe. Perhaps it was still, but no-one had lived here since the Olivineshire coal-mining industry collapsed. It was empty, at least as far as humans were concerned, a ghost town. The village was sited in the midst of a valley, woodland hemming it in on either side. The branch canal flowed right through the middle, a chain of locks and basins zig-zagging the valley floor. Holcombe was a village of long streets of identical terraced houses slowly being reclaimed by the Beacons.

They pitched up in the garden of the abandoned inn on the eastern side of the valley. There was a very small hot spring behind a low hedge of a feral privet. Josh felt quite pleased about that after they’d been sweating into their clothes for the past few days – he was getting fed-up of girl-sweat.

Josh was sat idly whittling at a holly stave, as much to keep his hands busy as anything else, half-watching Meg playing with Bullet Seed. The other pokémon were lounging around. Screwball was hovering with the patiently blank expression of a magneton with nothing in particular to do. Meowth was lurking in the shade, too hot to make a villain of himself.

“Meg, knock it off.” She’d just fired off a spray of Bullet Seed buckshot at Ivysaur. He swatted her away with his Vine Whips.

Eve emerged from the relative shade of her tent, plucking at her shirt in a vain attempt to aerate it. She playfully flicked her towel at Gail, who clacked her beak reproachfully.

“Give me your towel after your bath, I’ll have Gail Defog-dry them both,” she said, picking her way through the privet.

“How exactly are you going to cover up with that travel towel?” Josh said, mock-serious.

“I told you, you’re allowed to see my tits,” Eve said over her shoulder, in what Josh was now thinking of as her Imogen tone.

“When do I get to see your arse, then?” he called after her.

Eve’s giggle sounded more like a snigger. “I’m not bending over for you.”

The smile faded from his face once she was out of sight. While it was somewhat forced, bantering did make things less … less … uncomfortable. That wasn’t the word he was looking for. He’d reluctantly decided, somewhere in the middle of a blazing afternoon, that he was being childish about her – though he would rather eat his own boots than admit it.

Josh looked up, and looked around. Meg had disappeared. “Where’s the babby gone?”

*​

Megaera practically jogged along the cracked and weathered asphalt, determined to explore before Ivysaur caught up with her. Meadows were thriving in long-abandoned front gardens, grass and weeds were breaking apart the road surface in the gutters. Rich scarlet poppies were flowering from between the cracks at the base of street furniture.

Swinging her left stem dramatically, Meg blasted a spray of Bullet Seed into the thicket of ragweed growing in the mouth of a garage. The weeds shredded most satisfactorily. She blasted again, feeling rather like she could do this all evening.

A long, yellow and purple leg reached delicately from the thicket, followed by a ruddy, fanged head, peering at her with interest.

Meg squeaked uncertainly. Ariados’ eyes shone darkly. She defiantly fired a volley of pale Solar Beams. The bolts spattered off its chitin armour to no noticeable effect. Ariados paused thoughtfully for a moment, fangs twitching. It seemed to come to a decision, starting to advance purposefully -

Ariados screeched like a buzzsaw. A chunk of brick ricocheted violently off his head, spinning end-over-end till it shattered a roof tile somewhere.

Josh tossed the sling aside and hefted his holly stave into both hands.

“Back off,” he said, “or I’ll smash you into paste.”

Ariados raised a foreleg, tapping uncertainly at the air. Josh stood almost motionless. Then Ariados made a fatal mistake.

It took a step forward.

Josh howled in fury. He raced past Meg in a red rage, bringing his weapon whistling round two-handed. One strike was not enough. He attacked again and again and again, raining down blows in an earnest attempt to smash its exoskeleton. Ariados lunged, trying to Poison Sting him to keep him quiet – Josh danced out of reach and brought his stick down hand on its knee joint. It flailed reflexively in pain, so he stabbed it in the mandibles.

His weapon suddenly felt absurdly heavy – Ariados had latched onto it with String Shot and was trying to drag it out of his hands. Josh hauled back, snarling, too marinated in fury to register he’d been effectively disarmed. The tug-of-war forcibly wound out more String Shot from its spinnerets. Josh’s arms started to ache savagely with exertion.

There was a whistling, rushing noise overhead. The String Shot broke – Ariados skittered away in panic.

Gail came rocketing out of the clear sky. She arrested her misaimed Quick Attack with one huge sweep of her wings, her involuntary Gust bowling Ariados down the street like a tumbleweed.

Gail took off with a shriek of frustrated bloodlust, leaving Josh shaking with rage and adrenaline that now had no outlet.

*​

“[size-5]You stupid bastard![/size]” Eve yelled.

She’d found out what had happened when Gail refused to eat anything, seeing as she’d already finished half an ariados. It hadn’t taken long for her to start shouting at him.

“It was threatening Meg,” he said sulkily.

“You have pokémon,” Eve retorted derisively. “You have a magneton! Half a Thunderwave would have been enough! Fighting a pokémon personally – gods, do you know what that venom could do to you? Did it never occur to you to simply recall Meg -”

Like you wouldn’t go completely Mama Bear if she was yours.

“As for you,” Eve snapped, rounding on Gail, “- I’m not done with you yet, Joshua Cook – if I ever catch you eating shit again -”

Josh tuned her out while she kept on shouting at Gail. He considered going for a quiet soak in the spring, but he had a shrewd feeling she’d actually follow him into the bath to finish telling him off. He considered Meg instead. She could plainly charge and fire Solar Beams with little apparent effort. Curious. He pondered what tactics would open up if she could charge those beams to a consistent power -

“Are you listening?”

Maybe he’d think about it after Eve started to get hoarse.