GengarEatBanana
Banana eating Gengar
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How did I see that happening?
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TEEN: The Thinking Man's Guide to Destroying the World
- Thread starter Cutlerine
- Start date
How did I see that happening?- Thread starter
- #62
Probably because it was the only thing that could have happened under those circumstances. Huh. Electrocution.
Anyway, it's time for another chapter.
- Thread starter
- #63
Chapter Thirty-One: The Importance of Being A Meteorite
Sapphire burst through the spray, Rono rolling half a step ahead of her; the sight she met was not a comforting one. Kester was already unconscious, lying almost under her feet, right at the end of the bridge.
“What the—?”
She stepped over him and took a few paces towards the Magmas and their captive. Between them was a large, pitted lump of blackened iron.
“All right,” Sapphire said authoritatively, “whatever you’re doing, stop it and let Professor Cozmo go!”
The tall, thin Magma with the hood looked at her as if she were an interesting butterfly specimen.
“Fabien, Blake,” he said. “Kill her.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Blake, the burly Magma, and started to take a gun from his pocket; before he had it even halfway out, a blur of stone and steel rolled across his feet, eliciting a roar of pain and making him fall over. Rono uncurled and growled a thin, tinny growl.
“Get up,” ordered the hooded Magma. “Try again.”
This was nowhere near as impressive or dangerous as Sapphire had imagined it would be. Blake started to rise, and his partner Fabien took a Poké Ball from his pocket, but Sapphire crossed the distance between them in three giant strides and punched him square on the nose. It crunched satisfyingly beneath her fingers, and he dropped the ball and stepped back, squealing and clutching at his face.
Blake leaped up and loosed off a shot at Sapphire, but it passed harmlessly and improbably through her sodden fedora; Rono made an ineffective leap for his gun hand and landed on his foot again. The Magma cried out again and shot Rono, but his steel hide turned the shot and the bullet bounced, as it could only do in a cartoon, straight back and flicked the gun from his hand. It clattered over the rocks, and he dived after it – but it slithered over the stone and vanished into the depths of the milk-white river.
Meanwhile, Sapphire turned around and swiftly grabbed Cozmo by the hand; she was about to haul him across the bridge when a red flash lit her vision, and something big appeared between her and safety with a thump that shook the ground.
It was large, it was shaggy, it was orange, it was blue; it snuffled and snorted, smoked and smouldered; it began with four flat feet and ended with two stony humps. Its head was low-slung and its eyes cantankerous; its thick tail swished back and forth, and occasional tongues of fire leaked from the volcanic excrescences on its back. It was a Camerupt, and it was not happy.
“You two are absolutely useless,” came the voice of the hooded man, and Sapphire glanced back to see him push his two subordinates out of the way. “I’m amazed you managed to catch him.”
He waved a hand in Cozmo's direction, but the Professor did not seem to appreciate the gesture; he shrank away and retreated to the metallic rock in the centre of the island.
“Let him go!” commanded Sapphire, though with significantly more bravado than she felt.
Fabien s******ed through a torrent of blood.
“Oh, she makes demands at a time like this!” he cried theatrically. “Well, I can tell you that’s not about to work! As the main cha—”
“Fabien,” said the hooded man without emotion, “if you don’t shut up I’ll push you into the river.”
Fabien suddenly acquired an intense interest in picking up and polishing his Poké Ball.
“Little girl,” the hooded man said, “my name is Tabitha.”
Sapphire couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. Even Cozmo gave a nervous chuckle.
“Tabitha?” she asked incredulously. “Your name is Tabitha?”
The Camerupt gave an impatient snort, and Sapphire’s laughter died on her lips.
“I had hoped you might have heard of me, and have cause to fear my name.” Tabitha sounded somewhat disappointed. “Never mind. I am one of the Administrators of Team Magma, and I will do as I please. Including kidnapping the good Professor, and including taking your little Aqua head into our custody, as well as your somewhat...” – he glanced at the prone Kester – “explosive friend.”
“Oh, of course,” Sapphire said sarcastically. “I’m going to let you do that, no question.”
“Good,” began Tabitha, and Sapphire sighed.
“That was sarcasm,” she explained. “I’m actually going to do everything I can to make this harder for you. Rono, Roar!”
The Aron crouched down on his tiny legs, tipped back his ovoid head and let out a spine-chilling roar out of all proportion to his size; it was like the war cry of the Royal Bengal tiger mingled with the bloodthirsty shriek of the hunting Archeops; the Camerupt, startled, bucked and fired a plume of fire thirty feet into the air, instantly boiling the spray that arced over it. Sapphire had planned to grab Cozmo and run in the confusion, but the volcanic Pokémon turned tail and thundered onto the bridge, heavy feet pummelling the slats. It managed to make it to the other side before the whole thing fell away into the all-devouring water, and Sapphire was left staring at the remnants of her only escape route.
There was no time for anyone to react to the sudden destruction, however, for on the back of it came a terrified scream that rose high above the crashing waves: the Sableye had taken offence at Rono’s Roar, and had risen from his hiding place in Kester’s sodden T-shirt to express his fright through a series of arm-flailing manoeuvres.
“What the hell is this?” Tabitha shouted. Sapphire made the only honest reply she could: a shrug. “You’ll pay,” said Tabitha, and a gun appeared in his hand, the black circle of the barrel dead between Sapphire’s eyes.
The roar of the water seemed to fade away; Sapphire could only hear Tabitha, and the furious beating of her heart. She wasn’t afraid – she had faced too many potentially fatal situations over the last week to really be afraid of them – but she was wary.
“I mean, you didn’t have to make everything so difficult,” Tabitha said, aggrieved. The Sableye noticed the gun, identified it as something foreign to his experience and therefore scary, and hid under Kester again. “We were only going to question you and force you to work for us.”
“It’s probably better for you to shoot me, then,” Sapphire rejoined. Tabitha looked stung.
“Why, you—!”
Reflexively, his finger snapped back on the trigger, and a loud report rang out through Meteor Falls.
---
Spike moved down the slopes of Jagged Pass slowly, reluctantly; the closer she got to Lavaridge, the more her pace slowed. The red rocks crunched beneath her feet, and a lone Altaria, one that hunted without a pack, circled the mountain’s peak above her head. She knew that Altaria. It had been circling here for as long as she could remember; whether it had ever dived and killed something was another matter entirely.
At her side, her Torkoal stumped gamely forth on thick legs; it was a mark of how slowly Spike was walking that the Torkoal kept pace with her easily. She left a trail of oily white smoke behind her, like a gaseous snail, and where it touched the rocks it left beads of whitish-yellow liquid: the residue from the fires that burned within her shell.
Spike stopped altogether when the monastery came into view. It was the very same vihara she had robbed all those years ago, and the sight of its low grey walls was enough to strike fear into her heart. The bhikkus would have forgiven her – they forgave everyone for everything – but the townspeople of Lavaridge had never quite got over their animosity towards her. That was assuming they even recognised her now, with her wild hair and piercings.
She chewed her lip, avoiding the ring in it. Could she return? Should she return? Would it be better if she didn’t come back, if she stayed in exile; the delinquent girl who disappeared one day and never darkened anyone’s doorstep again?
Spike released her lip from between her teeth and sighed.
“I...”
The sound of her own voice was almost startling: save for that, Jagged Pass was very nearly silent. Only the swishing of the pine trees in the valleys below and the distant chanting of the bhikkus broke the still calm of the mountain air.
“I’m going to regret this,” said Spike, and walked on.
---
Like some strange love-child of Voltron and Optimus Prime, Rono expanded. Sections of armour slid out from beneath others; his steel skin swivelled in panels, telescoped out and reformed again. Limbs retracted into his body to reveal others in their place; his head rotated into his body and another swung out to replace it.
Unlike the famous Autobot, however, Rono did not change into a truck: he was a larger, meaner version of himself, more resembling a crocodile crossed with an industrial excavator than a cute baby dinosaur. The bullet meant for Sapphire glanced off his metallic forehead with a ping, and his new, considerably meaner blue eyes glared at Tabitha with an expression more usually seen on the face of heavyweight boxers, just before they go in for the kill.
“The hell?” said Tabitha, eyes widening. “How did – how the hell did...?”
“Spontaneous Defensive Evolution,” murmured Sapphire, her eyes, if anything, wider than his. “Now that is rare.”
It was a well-documented phenomenon, the sudden evolution of Pokémon in response to extreme danger; it had happened to a wild Chingling suddenly faced with a landslide, to a Snover that had been on the verge of being devoured by a Luxray, and even, once, to an Absol that had fallen from a cliff – despite the fact that they could not normally evolve. It happened, too, to Trainer’s Pokémon: one of the most famous cases was that of a Poliwag belonging to Red Pastelle, the renowned four-times winner of the Indigo League Tournament. It had evolved once into a Poliwhirl to save him from drowning, and again into a Poliwrath to save him from Lieutenant Surge, the corrupt Gym Leader of Vermilion City.
Now it seemed that Rono had done the same: too low-level to evolve to Lairon, he had done so anyway, purely with the aim of saving her life. If there was ever anything to make a girl feel wanted, surely that was it; in the midst of her surprise, Sapphire felt a warm glow of affection for the steely monster.
“OK,” she said to Tabitha, “let the Professor go. I seriously doubt you can handle a Lairon without your Camerupt.”
Tabitha stared at her.
“You’re an idiot,” he said at last. “I can’t let the Professor go, because the bridge is gone!”
“Ah.” Sapphire’s face fell. “That is a problem,” she admitted.
A mournful sound halfway between the bellow of a cow and the rumble of a trash compactor echoed out across the waves; the Camerupt stared balefully at her through the spray. Tabitha holstered his gun, realising it was useless against Rono, and had an idea.
“Camkor, return!” A beam of red light lanced through the spray and snagged the volcanic camel across the water; it was a risky recalling, for at this range the ball might well have failed and dropped the Camerupt into the river, but it worked. The next moment, Tabitha had sent it out again, and now it stood between him and Rono, blinking and looking very surprised. Its tiny brain looked to be having some difficulty understanding where it was and why.
“Now what will you do?” asked Tabitha. “There’s no way for you to leave here, and there’s no way you can beat Camkor. I also doubt you’ll want to leave your friend there.”
Sapphire glanced at Kester. He looked very wet, and very pale. She’d forgotten about him, and some strange part of her wondered if he was all right. The shape of the Sableye’s head could be discerned beneath his shirt, quivering slightly beneath the waterlogged cloth.
Tabitha took her lack of response for submission.
“I thought you might agree with me,” he said. “Now, Professor, I—”
“Hold it right there!” roared an unknown voice. Everyone on the central island looked around wildly for its source, and it took only moments to find it: a stocky man in a dark blue suit, the jacket buttoned shut over his bare chest, standing atop an island further upriver. A blue bandanna was wrapped around his head, and a thin beard lay snugly about his square jaw. He looked like a rather effeminate pirate, but his presence made everyone stop and stare nevertheless.
Tabitha swore fluidly and screamed a command at Fabien. Reluctantly, Fabien handed his Poké Ball to his superior, and Tabitha recalled his Camerupt. The next moment, he had shoved the metallic rock from the floor into his bag and risen into the air, clasping the legs of a familiar-looking Golbat. Swiftly he fled across the river towards the tunnel that led to the surface, leaving the rest of them to the mercy of this newcomer.
The man in the bandanna and suit strode towards the edge of his island and, for a moment, seemed to walk across the water towards them; it took Sapphire a second to realise that he was walking across a series of strategically-placed Wailmer, and wondered how long he’d spent planning this. A series of blue-suited minions popped up from nowhere to follow him, and with a jolt Sapphire realised who this was.
This was the leader of Team Aqua himself, Archie Taniebre.
“It’s good to see you all,” he said, alighting on the island. Fabien, Blake and Sapphire stared, and Cozmo cowered; he sounded a lot like Marlon Brando. “I trust you know who I am?”
“Pardon?” asked Sapphire. “You’re mumbling.”
Archie frowned.
“You know who I am?” he repeated, this time at a volume audible over the water.
“Oh, that. Yes.”
“Well,” Archie said, “you should be afraid, then, Team Magma. It seems I have interrupted your nefarious deeds once again.”
It sounded like a poor-quality movie script, and Sapphire would have said so if it weren’t for the five gunmen standing behind Archie. Instead, she just exchanged a glance with Rono.
“Now, I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse,” the Aqua Leader went on, spreading his hands. “Come with me freely, right now, and you won’t be killed.”
Blake and Fabien looked at each other.
“Sounds good to me,” said Fabien, and they hurried over to the Aquas and allowed themselves to be searched for weapons. Archie, meanwhile, looked at Sapphire with a raised eyebrow.
“You prefer to die?” he asked. “How honourable.”
“Oh no,” said Sapphire quickly. “It’s just... I’m not with Team Magma. My friend and I were just... nearby and felt we had to stop them.” At the word ‘friend’, she gestured towards Kester. “Er... our sympathies have always been with Team Aqua,” she added for good measure.
Archie nodded slowly and impressively.
“A loyal Trainer and citizen,” he said. “Come, child. We will escort you from this place.”
Sapphire glanced at Rono again. The look in the Lairon’s eyes seemed to say: He’s clearly an idiot, and Sapphire had to agree. Then again, every single member of either Team had turned out to be an idiot so far; why should she be surprised?
She recalled Rono and the Sableye, then hauled Kester upright as best she could. Immediately, a burly Aqua came to take the burden, and hoisted him onto his shoulder.
“And who might you be?” asked Archie of Professor Cozmo. “Some sort of Magma scientist?”
“N-no,” stammered the Professor, in a weak and wavering voice. “T-they kidnapped me... I had to find them a M-Meteorite...”
“You will provide us with useful information,” said Archie flatly. “Come with us, and you can go home later.”
All in all, thought Sapphire as she walked across the chain of Wailmer, which had moved to connect them to the exit tunnel, the situation had turned out quite well. Team Magma had been thwarted, and now Team Aqua were conveniently rescuing her.
However, there was one thing she failed to register, and that was Fabien. He had watched the whole exchange with interest, and it had given him pause for thought. If Team Aqua didn’t know who Sapphire was – and she clearly didn’t work for Team Magma – then what exactly was going on?
---
“Sorry, kid,” said the caretaker of the Gym, after taking a long, faintly disgusted look at her, “Uriah’s dead. Ain’t no one challengin’ this place for a while.”
Spike gave a forced smile. At her side, her Torkoal rumbled uneasily.
“I’m not here to battle,” she said. “I’m here because my granddad’s dead.”
The caretaker’s eyes widened, then narrowed, then widened again.
“Flannery?” he asked incredulously. “What the hell’re you doin’ back here?”
“I just told you,” replied Spike. “My granddad died. You might have heard about it.”
“Don’ you get smart with me—”
The caretaker started forwards, but Spike held him back easily with one hand and pushed him aside.
“You always were a grazhny bratchny,” she told him conversationally, and shoved him into a herbaceous border before barging the door open and entering the Gym.
It was just as she remembered it: a maze of long, low rooms, the wooden floorboards covered in sand. This covered a series of holes that would drop you down to a lower level; depending on which room you landed in, you could climb stairs either back to the start or to a different room. It was pleasantly warm without being too humid, and Trainers often chose it as the stage for official battles; today, there was no one here save a few policemen and a man in a red suit, whom Spike could just see in the distance, on the Leader’s podium.
It did not take long for her to negotiate the Gym’s maze. She knew it of old, had run through its halls before the soul-crushing stagnation of Lavaridge had started to get to her. Before the people of the town had decided that children caused more trouble than their cuteness made up for.
“Who’s there?” asked one of the policemen, and they all turned at the sound of her boots crunching on the sand. “How did you get in?”
“I pushed Jenen out the way,” Spike answered. “My name is Spike Temulence, and I’m Uriah Moore’s granddaughter.” Her eyes were shiny with defiance and emotion as she raised her face to the group clustered around the Leader’s chair. “Now, tell me what happened here.”
---
Barry was currently in the middle of wondering when exactly Scarlett was going to shut up.
“... and that’s how I hurt my hand,” she finished, concluding a ten-minute epic on the subject of the origins of a small cut on her thumb. Personally, Barry was of the opinion that the part about the unicorn was just the tiniest bit unlikely, but he didn’t care enough to say. He was more concerned with where they were going.
They had been heading north for about half an hour now, and had just entered the Akela Jungle, following the non-Trainer path, the one with Cleanse Tags hung up to repel any wild Pokémon; it was dark and cool under the great green leaves, and the light was filtered so that it seemed as if they were walking along the bottom of the sea. All around them rose colossal trees that Barry doubted even he could have broken the branches from, and flowers and butterflies filled the undergrowth with a riot of colour and movement. From the distance came the rattling tin-can cries of Skarmory, and the mournful lowing of Tropius; closer, Barry could hear the soft sound of Gloom dragging their feet, though he never once saw one. Once, a blur of brown and yellow had buzzed past, so fast that Barry hadn’t been entirely convinced it was real; only Scarlett’s testimony had been able to make him believe that he had indeed just seen a rare Ninjask.
“What’s a samoflange?” asked Scarlett suddenly.
“Huh?” Barry had not been expecting this. Truthfully, he had expected very little of what had happened today.
“What’s a samoflange?” repeated Scarlett insistently.
Barry thought.
“I don’t know,” he answered after a great deal of deliberation, “but you should keep your foot off it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” bellowed Barry, frustrated. “Please be quiet!”
There was a long silence, during which Scarlett was silent and her lip quivered ominously. Then she spoke:
“I’m going to tell Mum that you shouted at me.”
“No!” cried Barry, not knowing the consequences but knowing it would be bad to be on the wrong side of an Administrator. “No, don’t do that!”
“Make it worth my while,” Scarlett replied, dropping the tearful act, “and I won’t say anything.”
Barry halted, looked down and stared at her.
“You’re ten,” he said.
“Yeah!” replied Scarlett happily.
“And you’re blackmailing me?”
“Yeah!”
Barry rubbed one massive, meaty hand over his face and concentrated on not picking up the girl and throwing her headfirst into the nearest tree.
“Fine,” he said, sighing. “What do you want?”
“Do you have any sweets?” Scarlett looked very hopeful, and she currently had more power over him than Barry would have liked, so he dutifully searched his pockets. Regrettably, they were devoid of anything save some keys, loose change, his lighter and half a pack of cigarettes.
“I don’t have any.”
“See that you get some,” said Scarlett coldly. Barry blinked in surprise. For a moment, she had seemed about ten years older than she actually was.
“Uh... OK,” he agreed dismally.
They continued on their way along the path, and Scarlett seemed to revert to her normal self: she started chattering about drawing and how she was the best artist in her class and probably the whole school, and people even paid her for her pictures. Barry was utterly bamboozled; her character was so normal for a ten-year-old that he wasn’t even sure that the blackmailing thing had even occurred. The only unusual thing about her was her artistic talent – which was unquestionably real, given the look she had insisted he had at her sketchbook. It was full of pencil sketches and watercolour paintings, and though Barry knew nothing about art he could tell they were good. He sighed. Being around so many people who were better than him at so many things was starting to get on his nerves.
Eventually, Scarlett turned off the path, grabbing a Cleanse Tag from a tree to take with them in case of Pokémon attack. Barry followed, slightly confused, and they made their way through the trees to a small clearing that contained nothing at all except a small wooden hut, barely the size of a phone booth, adorned with scaly yellow talons at the four corners.
“This is where we’re going?” queried Barry.
“Yep,” confirmed Scarlett cheerily, fiddling with a lock of her hair. “Come on!”
She walked up to the hut and pulled open the door, then motioned for Barry to get in. He did, and with some difficulty, Scarlett squeezed in after him. Then she pulled the door shut, and, as they stood confined in the pitch darkness, something extraordinary happened.
---
“I’ve seen so much I’m going blind,” said Tchaikovsky philosophically, and knocked back another drink. He was in a bar in Fallarbor, and he was talking, as the lonely man does, to the barman.
“That so?” the barkeeper replied, polishing a glass. All barmen polish glasses, almost all the time. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or a joke shamelessly stolen from somewhere else.
“Yep,” Tchaikovsky affirmed.
“Bodacious,” replied the barman, after giving the matter some thought.
“You must be new,” Tchaikovsky said, indicating that he wanted more alcohol. “No barkeep says ‘bodacious’.” He sighed. “I think I’m seeing a pattern emerging,” he went on. “They’re going up against each other so much more than usual... something’s coming.” He stared into the amber depths of his newly-refilled glass. “But I can’t find the reason for these extraordinary intergalactical upsets. There’s got to be something...”
Tchaikovsky sighed and drained his glass. Unbeknownst to him, he had just entered Zero’s plan, another set of values to be totted up.
And the total did not look good.
Sapphire burst through the spray, Rono rolling half a step ahead of her; the sight she met was not a comforting one. Kester was already unconscious, lying almost under her feet, right at the end of the bridge.
“What the—?”
She stepped over him and took a few paces towards the Magmas and their captive. Between them was a large, pitted lump of blackened iron.
“All right,” Sapphire said authoritatively, “whatever you’re doing, stop it and let Professor Cozmo go!”
The tall, thin Magma with the hood looked at her as if she were an interesting butterfly specimen.
“Fabien, Blake,” he said. “Kill her.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Blake, the burly Magma, and started to take a gun from his pocket; before he had it even halfway out, a blur of stone and steel rolled across his feet, eliciting a roar of pain and making him fall over. Rono uncurled and growled a thin, tinny growl.
“Get up,” ordered the hooded Magma. “Try again.”
This was nowhere near as impressive or dangerous as Sapphire had imagined it would be. Blake started to rise, and his partner Fabien took a Poké Ball from his pocket, but Sapphire crossed the distance between them in three giant strides and punched him square on the nose. It crunched satisfyingly beneath her fingers, and he dropped the ball and stepped back, squealing and clutching at his face.
Blake leaped up and loosed off a shot at Sapphire, but it passed harmlessly and improbably through her sodden fedora; Rono made an ineffective leap for his gun hand and landed on his foot again. The Magma cried out again and shot Rono, but his steel hide turned the shot and the bullet bounced, as it could only do in a cartoon, straight back and flicked the gun from his hand. It clattered over the rocks, and he dived after it – but it slithered over the stone and vanished into the depths of the milk-white river.
Meanwhile, Sapphire turned around and swiftly grabbed Cozmo by the hand; she was about to haul him across the bridge when a red flash lit her vision, and something big appeared between her and safety with a thump that shook the ground.
It was large, it was shaggy, it was orange, it was blue; it snuffled and snorted, smoked and smouldered; it began with four flat feet and ended with two stony humps. Its head was low-slung and its eyes cantankerous; its thick tail swished back and forth, and occasional tongues of fire leaked from the volcanic excrescences on its back. It was a Camerupt, and it was not happy.
“You two are absolutely useless,” came the voice of the hooded man, and Sapphire glanced back to see him push his two subordinates out of the way. “I’m amazed you managed to catch him.”
He waved a hand in Cozmo's direction, but the Professor did not seem to appreciate the gesture; he shrank away and retreated to the metallic rock in the centre of the island.
“Let him go!” commanded Sapphire, though with significantly more bravado than she felt.
Fabien s******ed through a torrent of blood.
“Oh, she makes demands at a time like this!” he cried theatrically. “Well, I can tell you that’s not about to work! As the main cha—”
“Fabien,” said the hooded man without emotion, “if you don’t shut up I’ll push you into the river.”
Fabien suddenly acquired an intense interest in picking up and polishing his Poké Ball.
“Little girl,” the hooded man said, “my name is Tabitha.”
Sapphire couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. Even Cozmo gave a nervous chuckle.
“Tabitha?” she asked incredulously. “Your name is Tabitha?”
The Camerupt gave an impatient snort, and Sapphire’s laughter died on her lips.
“I had hoped you might have heard of me, and have cause to fear my name.” Tabitha sounded somewhat disappointed. “Never mind. I am one of the Administrators of Team Magma, and I will do as I please. Including kidnapping the good Professor, and including taking your little Aqua head into our custody, as well as your somewhat...” – he glanced at the prone Kester – “explosive friend.”
“Oh, of course,” Sapphire said sarcastically. “I’m going to let you do that, no question.”
“Good,” began Tabitha, and Sapphire sighed.
“That was sarcasm,” she explained. “I’m actually going to do everything I can to make this harder for you. Rono, Roar!”
The Aron crouched down on his tiny legs, tipped back his ovoid head and let out a spine-chilling roar out of all proportion to his size; it was like the war cry of the Royal Bengal tiger mingled with the bloodthirsty shriek of the hunting Archeops; the Camerupt, startled, bucked and fired a plume of fire thirty feet into the air, instantly boiling the spray that arced over it. Sapphire had planned to grab Cozmo and run in the confusion, but the volcanic Pokémon turned tail and thundered onto the bridge, heavy feet pummelling the slats. It managed to make it to the other side before the whole thing fell away into the all-devouring water, and Sapphire was left staring at the remnants of her only escape route.
There was no time for anyone to react to the sudden destruction, however, for on the back of it came a terrified scream that rose high above the crashing waves: the Sableye had taken offence at Rono’s Roar, and had risen from his hiding place in Kester’s sodden T-shirt to express his fright through a series of arm-flailing manoeuvres.
“What the hell is this?” Tabitha shouted. Sapphire made the only honest reply she could: a shrug. “You’ll pay,” said Tabitha, and a gun appeared in his hand, the black circle of the barrel dead between Sapphire’s eyes.
The roar of the water seemed to fade away; Sapphire could only hear Tabitha, and the furious beating of her heart. She wasn’t afraid – she had faced too many potentially fatal situations over the last week to really be afraid of them – but she was wary.
“I mean, you didn’t have to make everything so difficult,” Tabitha said, aggrieved. The Sableye noticed the gun, identified it as something foreign to his experience and therefore scary, and hid under Kester again. “We were only going to question you and force you to work for us.”
“It’s probably better for you to shoot me, then,” Sapphire rejoined. Tabitha looked stung.
“Why, you—!”
Reflexively, his finger snapped back on the trigger, and a loud report rang out through Meteor Falls.
---
Spike moved down the slopes of Jagged Pass slowly, reluctantly; the closer she got to Lavaridge, the more her pace slowed. The red rocks crunched beneath her feet, and a lone Altaria, one that hunted without a pack, circled the mountain’s peak above her head. She knew that Altaria. It had been circling here for as long as she could remember; whether it had ever dived and killed something was another matter entirely.
At her side, her Torkoal stumped gamely forth on thick legs; it was a mark of how slowly Spike was walking that the Torkoal kept pace with her easily. She left a trail of oily white smoke behind her, like a gaseous snail, and where it touched the rocks it left beads of whitish-yellow liquid: the residue from the fires that burned within her shell.
Spike stopped altogether when the monastery came into view. It was the very same vihara she had robbed all those years ago, and the sight of its low grey walls was enough to strike fear into her heart. The bhikkus would have forgiven her – they forgave everyone for everything – but the townspeople of Lavaridge had never quite got over their animosity towards her. That was assuming they even recognised her now, with her wild hair and piercings.
She chewed her lip, avoiding the ring in it. Could she return? Should she return? Would it be better if she didn’t come back, if she stayed in exile; the delinquent girl who disappeared one day and never darkened anyone’s doorstep again?
Spike released her lip from between her teeth and sighed.
“I...”
The sound of her own voice was almost startling: save for that, Jagged Pass was very nearly silent. Only the swishing of the pine trees in the valleys below and the distant chanting of the bhikkus broke the still calm of the mountain air.
“I’m going to regret this,” said Spike, and walked on.
---
Like some strange love-child of Voltron and Optimus Prime, Rono expanded. Sections of armour slid out from beneath others; his steel skin swivelled in panels, telescoped out and reformed again. Limbs retracted into his body to reveal others in their place; his head rotated into his body and another swung out to replace it.
Unlike the famous Autobot, however, Rono did not change into a truck: he was a larger, meaner version of himself, more resembling a crocodile crossed with an industrial excavator than a cute baby dinosaur. The bullet meant for Sapphire glanced off his metallic forehead with a ping, and his new, considerably meaner blue eyes glared at Tabitha with an expression more usually seen on the face of heavyweight boxers, just before they go in for the kill.
“The hell?” said Tabitha, eyes widening. “How did – how the hell did...?”
“Spontaneous Defensive Evolution,” murmured Sapphire, her eyes, if anything, wider than his. “Now that is rare.”
It was a well-documented phenomenon, the sudden evolution of Pokémon in response to extreme danger; it had happened to a wild Chingling suddenly faced with a landslide, to a Snover that had been on the verge of being devoured by a Luxray, and even, once, to an Absol that had fallen from a cliff – despite the fact that they could not normally evolve. It happened, too, to Trainer’s Pokémon: one of the most famous cases was that of a Poliwag belonging to Red Pastelle, the renowned four-times winner of the Indigo League Tournament. It had evolved once into a Poliwhirl to save him from drowning, and again into a Poliwrath to save him from Lieutenant Surge, the corrupt Gym Leader of Vermilion City.
Now it seemed that Rono had done the same: too low-level to evolve to Lairon, he had done so anyway, purely with the aim of saving her life. If there was ever anything to make a girl feel wanted, surely that was it; in the midst of her surprise, Sapphire felt a warm glow of affection for the steely monster.
“OK,” she said to Tabitha, “let the Professor go. I seriously doubt you can handle a Lairon without your Camerupt.”
Tabitha stared at her.
“You’re an idiot,” he said at last. “I can’t let the Professor go, because the bridge is gone!”
“Ah.” Sapphire’s face fell. “That is a problem,” she admitted.
A mournful sound halfway between the bellow of a cow and the rumble of a trash compactor echoed out across the waves; the Camerupt stared balefully at her through the spray. Tabitha holstered his gun, realising it was useless against Rono, and had an idea.
“Camkor, return!” A beam of red light lanced through the spray and snagged the volcanic camel across the water; it was a risky recalling, for at this range the ball might well have failed and dropped the Camerupt into the river, but it worked. The next moment, Tabitha had sent it out again, and now it stood between him and Rono, blinking and looking very surprised. Its tiny brain looked to be having some difficulty understanding where it was and why.
“Now what will you do?” asked Tabitha. “There’s no way for you to leave here, and there’s no way you can beat Camkor. I also doubt you’ll want to leave your friend there.”
Sapphire glanced at Kester. He looked very wet, and very pale. She’d forgotten about him, and some strange part of her wondered if he was all right. The shape of the Sableye’s head could be discerned beneath his shirt, quivering slightly beneath the waterlogged cloth.
Tabitha took her lack of response for submission.
“I thought you might agree with me,” he said. “Now, Professor, I—”
“Hold it right there!” roared an unknown voice. Everyone on the central island looked around wildly for its source, and it took only moments to find it: a stocky man in a dark blue suit, the jacket buttoned shut over his bare chest, standing atop an island further upriver. A blue bandanna was wrapped around his head, and a thin beard lay snugly about his square jaw. He looked like a rather effeminate pirate, but his presence made everyone stop and stare nevertheless.
Tabitha swore fluidly and screamed a command at Fabien. Reluctantly, Fabien handed his Poké Ball to his superior, and Tabitha recalled his Camerupt. The next moment, he had shoved the metallic rock from the floor into his bag and risen into the air, clasping the legs of a familiar-looking Golbat. Swiftly he fled across the river towards the tunnel that led to the surface, leaving the rest of them to the mercy of this newcomer.
The man in the bandanna and suit strode towards the edge of his island and, for a moment, seemed to walk across the water towards them; it took Sapphire a second to realise that he was walking across a series of strategically-placed Wailmer, and wondered how long he’d spent planning this. A series of blue-suited minions popped up from nowhere to follow him, and with a jolt Sapphire realised who this was.
This was the leader of Team Aqua himself, Archie Taniebre.
“It’s good to see you all,” he said, alighting on the island. Fabien, Blake and Sapphire stared, and Cozmo cowered; he sounded a lot like Marlon Brando. “I trust you know who I am?”
“Pardon?” asked Sapphire. “You’re mumbling.”
Archie frowned.
“You know who I am?” he repeated, this time at a volume audible over the water.
“Oh, that. Yes.”
“Well,” Archie said, “you should be afraid, then, Team Magma. It seems I have interrupted your nefarious deeds once again.”
It sounded like a poor-quality movie script, and Sapphire would have said so if it weren’t for the five gunmen standing behind Archie. Instead, she just exchanged a glance with Rono.
“Now, I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse,” the Aqua Leader went on, spreading his hands. “Come with me freely, right now, and you won’t be killed.”
Blake and Fabien looked at each other.
“Sounds good to me,” said Fabien, and they hurried over to the Aquas and allowed themselves to be searched for weapons. Archie, meanwhile, looked at Sapphire with a raised eyebrow.
“You prefer to die?” he asked. “How honourable.”
“Oh no,” said Sapphire quickly. “It’s just... I’m not with Team Magma. My friend and I were just... nearby and felt we had to stop them.” At the word ‘friend’, she gestured towards Kester. “Er... our sympathies have always been with Team Aqua,” she added for good measure.
Archie nodded slowly and impressively.
“A loyal Trainer and citizen,” he said. “Come, child. We will escort you from this place.”
Sapphire glanced at Rono again. The look in the Lairon’s eyes seemed to say: He’s clearly an idiot, and Sapphire had to agree. Then again, every single member of either Team had turned out to be an idiot so far; why should she be surprised?
She recalled Rono and the Sableye, then hauled Kester upright as best she could. Immediately, a burly Aqua came to take the burden, and hoisted him onto his shoulder.
“And who might you be?” asked Archie of Professor Cozmo. “Some sort of Magma scientist?”
“N-no,” stammered the Professor, in a weak and wavering voice. “T-they kidnapped me... I had to find them a M-Meteorite...”
“You will provide us with useful information,” said Archie flatly. “Come with us, and you can go home later.”
All in all, thought Sapphire as she walked across the chain of Wailmer, which had moved to connect them to the exit tunnel, the situation had turned out quite well. Team Magma had been thwarted, and now Team Aqua were conveniently rescuing her.
However, there was one thing she failed to register, and that was Fabien. He had watched the whole exchange with interest, and it had given him pause for thought. If Team Aqua didn’t know who Sapphire was – and she clearly didn’t work for Team Magma – then what exactly was going on?
---
“Sorry, kid,” said the caretaker of the Gym, after taking a long, faintly disgusted look at her, “Uriah’s dead. Ain’t no one challengin’ this place for a while.”
Spike gave a forced smile. At her side, her Torkoal rumbled uneasily.
“I’m not here to battle,” she said. “I’m here because my granddad’s dead.”
The caretaker’s eyes widened, then narrowed, then widened again.
“Flannery?” he asked incredulously. “What the hell’re you doin’ back here?”
“I just told you,” replied Spike. “My granddad died. You might have heard about it.”
“Don’ you get smart with me—”
The caretaker started forwards, but Spike held him back easily with one hand and pushed him aside.
“You always were a grazhny bratchny,” she told him conversationally, and shoved him into a herbaceous border before barging the door open and entering the Gym.
It was just as she remembered it: a maze of long, low rooms, the wooden floorboards covered in sand. This covered a series of holes that would drop you down to a lower level; depending on which room you landed in, you could climb stairs either back to the start or to a different room. It was pleasantly warm without being too humid, and Trainers often chose it as the stage for official battles; today, there was no one here save a few policemen and a man in a red suit, whom Spike could just see in the distance, on the Leader’s podium.
It did not take long for her to negotiate the Gym’s maze. She knew it of old, had run through its halls before the soul-crushing stagnation of Lavaridge had started to get to her. Before the people of the town had decided that children caused more trouble than their cuteness made up for.
“Who’s there?” asked one of the policemen, and they all turned at the sound of her boots crunching on the sand. “How did you get in?”
“I pushed Jenen out the way,” Spike answered. “My name is Spike Temulence, and I’m Uriah Moore’s granddaughter.” Her eyes were shiny with defiance and emotion as she raised her face to the group clustered around the Leader’s chair. “Now, tell me what happened here.”
---
Barry was currently in the middle of wondering when exactly Scarlett was going to shut up.
“... and that’s how I hurt my hand,” she finished, concluding a ten-minute epic on the subject of the origins of a small cut on her thumb. Personally, Barry was of the opinion that the part about the unicorn was just the tiniest bit unlikely, but he didn’t care enough to say. He was more concerned with where they were going.
They had been heading north for about half an hour now, and had just entered the Akela Jungle, following the non-Trainer path, the one with Cleanse Tags hung up to repel any wild Pokémon; it was dark and cool under the great green leaves, and the light was filtered so that it seemed as if they were walking along the bottom of the sea. All around them rose colossal trees that Barry doubted even he could have broken the branches from, and flowers and butterflies filled the undergrowth with a riot of colour and movement. From the distance came the rattling tin-can cries of Skarmory, and the mournful lowing of Tropius; closer, Barry could hear the soft sound of Gloom dragging their feet, though he never once saw one. Once, a blur of brown and yellow had buzzed past, so fast that Barry hadn’t been entirely convinced it was real; only Scarlett’s testimony had been able to make him believe that he had indeed just seen a rare Ninjask.
“What’s a samoflange?” asked Scarlett suddenly.
“Huh?” Barry had not been expecting this. Truthfully, he had expected very little of what had happened today.
“What’s a samoflange?” repeated Scarlett insistently.
Barry thought.
“I don’t know,” he answered after a great deal of deliberation, “but you should keep your foot off it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” bellowed Barry, frustrated. “Please be quiet!”
There was a long silence, during which Scarlett was silent and her lip quivered ominously. Then she spoke:
“I’m going to tell Mum that you shouted at me.”
“No!” cried Barry, not knowing the consequences but knowing it would be bad to be on the wrong side of an Administrator. “No, don’t do that!”
“Make it worth my while,” Scarlett replied, dropping the tearful act, “and I won’t say anything.”
Barry halted, looked down and stared at her.
“You’re ten,” he said.
“Yeah!” replied Scarlett happily.
“And you’re blackmailing me?”
“Yeah!”
Barry rubbed one massive, meaty hand over his face and concentrated on not picking up the girl and throwing her headfirst into the nearest tree.
“Fine,” he said, sighing. “What do you want?”
“Do you have any sweets?” Scarlett looked very hopeful, and she currently had more power over him than Barry would have liked, so he dutifully searched his pockets. Regrettably, they were devoid of anything save some keys, loose change, his lighter and half a pack of cigarettes.
“I don’t have any.”
“See that you get some,” said Scarlett coldly. Barry blinked in surprise. For a moment, she had seemed about ten years older than she actually was.
“Uh... OK,” he agreed dismally.
They continued on their way along the path, and Scarlett seemed to revert to her normal self: she started chattering about drawing and how she was the best artist in her class and probably the whole school, and people even paid her for her pictures. Barry was utterly bamboozled; her character was so normal for a ten-year-old that he wasn’t even sure that the blackmailing thing had even occurred. The only unusual thing about her was her artistic talent – which was unquestionably real, given the look she had insisted he had at her sketchbook. It was full of pencil sketches and watercolour paintings, and though Barry knew nothing about art he could tell they were good. He sighed. Being around so many people who were better than him at so many things was starting to get on his nerves.
Eventually, Scarlett turned off the path, grabbing a Cleanse Tag from a tree to take with them in case of Pokémon attack. Barry followed, slightly confused, and they made their way through the trees to a small clearing that contained nothing at all except a small wooden hut, barely the size of a phone booth, adorned with scaly yellow talons at the four corners.
“This is where we’re going?” queried Barry.
“Yep,” confirmed Scarlett cheerily, fiddling with a lock of her hair. “Come on!”
She walked up to the hut and pulled open the door, then motioned for Barry to get in. He did, and with some difficulty, Scarlett squeezed in after him. Then she pulled the door shut, and, as they stood confined in the pitch darkness, something extraordinary happened.
---
“I’ve seen so much I’m going blind,” said Tchaikovsky philosophically, and knocked back another drink. He was in a bar in Fallarbor, and he was talking, as the lonely man does, to the barman.
“That so?” the barkeeper replied, polishing a glass. All barmen polish glasses, almost all the time. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or a joke shamelessly stolen from somewhere else.
“Yep,” Tchaikovsky affirmed.
“Bodacious,” replied the barman, after giving the matter some thought.
“You must be new,” Tchaikovsky said, indicating that he wanted more alcohol. “No barkeep says ‘bodacious’.” He sighed. “I think I’m seeing a pattern emerging,” he went on. “They’re going up against each other so much more than usual... something’s coming.” He stared into the amber depths of his newly-refilled glass. “But I can’t find the reason for these extraordinary intergalactical upsets. There’s got to be something...”
Tchaikovsky sighed and drained his glass. Unbeknownst to him, he had just entered Zero’s plan, another set of values to be totted up.
And the total did not look good.
GengarEatBanana
Banana eating Gengar
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2010
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Cool new chapter. Go Rono!
- Thread starter
- #65
Thanks. I'd been trying to think of a way to make something evolve for ages; unfortunately, Aron don't evolve until Level 30, which is really quite annoying, so I changed the rules a bit.
Now, let's see what happened next, shall we?
Now, let's see what happened next, shall we?
- Thread starter
- #66
Chapter Thirty-Two: Aww, She Thinks She’s People
Fifty-nine Manaphy, sitting on a wall,
Fifty-nine Manaphy, sitting on a wall,
And if one of those Manaphy, should accidentally be blasted repeatedly with lightning until its eyes fall out,
There’ll be fifty-eight Manaphy, sitting on the wall...
I should have been used to waking up to the sound of Puck’s voice by now, but I wasn’t. Especially when he was singing.
“Nooooooo,” I mumbled, through a blur of sleep and headache. “I can’t stand this any longer...”
“You’re fine, Kester,” came a familiar voice, and I squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could.
“Damn it,” I said, “you’re still here.”
“Thanks for rescuing me from Meteor Falls, Sapphire, it was really considerate of you. Oh, that’s OK, Kester, only doing what anyone would have done in my place. Now open your eyes and get up.”
I groaned. Reality, it seemed, was back and here to stay. I sat up slowly, peeling my eyelids away from the balls, and blinked blearily in what I thought was Sapphire’s direction.
“What happened?”
You Charge Beamed yourself with a maxed-out Special Attack, with surprising results. Wouldn’t have defeated a real Rotom, but your thoughts seem to be made of electricity, so I think it scrambled your brain.
“You got knocked out somehow, and the Magmas failed to do anything productive. Team Aqua turned up and saved us – seems they didn’t realise who we were. Archie himself was there.”
“Archie? Wow.”
I could see now. I was back at the Pokémon Centre; this scenario, waking up in a hotel room after an intense period of weirdness and action, was becoming all to familiar. Sapphire was lounging against the cupboard in the corner, hair wet from a shower, turning her hat over in her hands. It had a bullet hole in it now, which either ruined it or made it really cool – I wasn’t quite sure which.
“The lead Magma got away with a Meteorite, but the two who kidnapped me are still with the Aquas. Oh yes, and Professor Cozmo’s fine. So it all turned out OK in the end.”
Oh good. A happy ending’s always a favourite. Except with me, but only because I like to watch humans suffer.
“That’s good,” I said, relieved. “What time is it?”
“It’s just gone two,” Sapphire replied. “Do you want to get something to eat now, or go straight to Lavaridge?”
“Food now,” I answered. “God, I’m hungry.”
“Come on then.”
It’s nice to see you two getting along so well, Puck said. Perhaps Sapphire is one of those tsundere characters.
Please don’t say any more, I begged, you’re repulsing me.
We left the Centre and started combing the streets of Fallarbor for somewhere to eat. Every so often, we’d come across one of the streets we’d rushed down during our car chase; you could tell by the holes in the Stop signs and the wrecked cars at the side of the road.
“That reminds me – what happened to our taxi?” I asked. Sapphire looked at me blankly.
“I forgot about him,” she replied. “I wonder what happened?”
I reckon that’s all the explanation we’re going to get, Puck said. Which is a bit lazy, but true.
At this moment, a feathery blur of blue and white fell out of the sky, bounced once off my head, and landed on the pavement.
“What!”
Aaah! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
I whirled to look for it, and saw a small, powder-blue bird picking itself up on the pavement nearby. It used downy wings to brush flecks of dirt from its feathers, then put on a small hat and one of those pairs of glasses with a fake nose and moustache attached, and walked into a nearby bar.
Oh, it’s just a Swablu, said Puck, disappointed. Let’s keep going.
Sapphire and I exchanged glances.
“Was that—?”
“Yes. Did it—?”
“Yeah...”
Then, without further ado, Sapphire pushed open the bar door and ran in to investigate. I followed close behind: whatever this was, it was probably going to be very weird and worth watching.
Inside, the little bird – and I saw now that Puck had been right, it was a Swablu – had fluttered up onto a stool at the bar, and drawn the attention of the barkeeper and his sole other customer. They were both staring at it, somewhat stupefied.
“Aaarrrk!” squawked the Swablu, and slapped a five-hundred-dollar note on the polished bar.
“Who are you?” asked the other drinker, “who, who, who, who?”
“Is that a Swablu?” the barman said, confused. He reached out to pull the false glasses from it, but it jerked away and shook its head furiously.
“It’s trying to be a person,” Sapphire said slowly, staring at it with
bewilderment.
The barman looked up at our entry, and looked relieved.
“Oh? Trainers, are you?”
Sapphire’s ball-belt made it obvious.
“Yes,” she replied. “Shall I get rid of her for you?”
How does she know it’s a female? I asked Puck.
How should I know? he retorted. I know a lot of things, but I’m not omniscient.
“OK. You might want to move out of the way.”
Sapphire dropped a ball and Toro appeared, springing from foot to foot; she hadn’t been let out for a while, and was itching for a fight. The barman took three steps back and hastily moved a couple of bottles of whisky out of her reach: mixing fire with alcohol was not going to be good for business.
The Swablu whisked off its false glasses and glared at Toro resentfully. It cheeped, and beat its downy wings; something barely visible parted the air, but the Combusken skipped sideways nimbly and dodged whatever attack it was.
“Ember,” ordered Sapphire, “but gently. We’re catching, not killing.”
Toro punched the air and a small burst of fire shot from her knuckles; it hit the Swablu square in the chest and set light to its feathers. As well as an inevitable screech of pain, the little bird started giving off one of the most unpleasant smells it had ever been my misfortune to encounter.
While it was thus distracted, Sapphire tossed a black and yellow ball at it, and the flaming bird was engulfed in a wave of red light. The ball shook once – twice – three times – and then lay still with a click.
Huh. I like to think I’d put up a better fight than that, Puck said. I’d possess the Poké Ball before it hit me, and then it’d be like Wings Have We, except I’m funnier and I’m too clever to get stuck like that.
I had no idea what he was talking about – but did I ever? I tried to ignore him, and watched Sapphire retrieve the ball.
“Thanks,” said the bartender. The lone drinker raised a glass to us in thanks. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t quite work out what it might be.
“Cheers,” he said. “That thing was weird.”
This was undeniable, but most things seemed to be weird nowadays.
“Er... all right,” I said. “Um... good capture, Sapphire.”
“We’ll be on our way.” Sapphire flashed a smile at the barman and his customer and led me back outside again, recalling Toro as she went.
“That was strange,” I said as we started walking again. “Did that Swablu think it was a person or something?”
Sapphire shrugged.
“Don’t know. And it was a ‘she’, not an ‘it’.” She held up the Ultra Ball. “I’m going to keep her to use.”
“You’ve got one hell of a weird team,” I pointed out. “Toro, Rono, a paranoid Sableye and a Swablu that wants to be a person.” I paused. “What’re you going to name it?”
“Her,” corrected Sapphire. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”
Bertha Rochester, said Puck without hesitation, though I didn’t relay the message.
“Stacey,” I said, choosing the first name that popped into my head. Sapphire looked at me oddly.
“I think I like that,” she said. “Yes, she’ll be Stacey.”
Be prepared for a lot of work, Puck warned. Swablu are notoriously moronic.
Unlike Toro?
Puck considered.
Fair point, he admitted at length. I guess Sapphire can handle it.
“Can we get back to the whole ‘finding food’ thing?” I asked. “I’m hungry.”
I really was; nearly two weeks of irregular, widely-spaced meals had engendered a sort of near-continuous background hunger in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I could probably have eaten my way to the end of one of Trimalchio’s banquets.
“Fine,” said Sapphire. “We’ll stop here.”
She halted at a corner café, similar in appearance to Blintzkrieg; warily, I checked the sign, in case it was a chain and it really was another one. Thankfully, it was a completely different place called, for reasons best known to the owner, Fools Rush In, and I entered without fear of pancakes, though with my doubts about whether any angels would tread here.
As we ate, Sapphire let out Toro to sit next to us, since she’d been so restless back in the bar. The Combusken displayed an alarming aptitude for stealing my food, but I let it slide; she could probably break my legs if it came to a fight.
More than your legs, muttered Puck darkly. She could break bones you don’t even know you have.
I’m not sure if that’s a threat or just a logical statement.
Me either, admitted Puck. I just felt it was the right moment to say something.
“So after this,” I said, “we’ll go up to Lavaridge and meet Felicity.”
Sapphire grimaced.
“She’s not going to be happy, is she?”
“Hopefully she’ll understand,” I said. “We were fighting Team Magma, after all.”
“Well, that’s your opinion,” Sapphire replied. “I thought she seemed pretty nasty, even when she wasn’t working for Team Aqua.”
“She’s... got a lot on her mind,” I said defensively, and somewhat lamely.
Sapphire gave me a look, and threw a scrap into Toro’s mouth.
“Why do you keep defending her?”
“I... just think you’re being unfair.”
It was a better response than the one I’d made last time, but it was still awful.
“Right.” Sapphire arched one eyebrow, and went back to her meal.
“Anyway,” I said quickly, “what’re we doing when we get to Lavaridge, exactly?”
“You tell me. This plan to stop Zero is your idea.”
She’s right, you know.
“Er... let’s meet up with Felicity and take it from there,” I decided.
Loser.
“I’d better challenge Spike at the Gym too, if she gets elected in time,” Sapphire said thoughtfully.
Toro recognised the words ‘challenge’ and ‘Gym’, and looked up inquisitively.
“Not now,” Sapphire said. “You know, we said we were going to fight her?”
“I remember,” I replied. “Do you think you can beat her?”
“If she becomes a Gym Leader, she’ll have a team to match anyone’s level. So as long as she uses the right team, I can win. I’m willing to fight.”
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, Puck said, and that’s Sapphire’s: fortitude. Then, for no reason I could discern, he laughed.
Not long after that, we paid and left. It was a quarter-hour walk from where we were to the public helipad, and when we got there we were told that it would be a further half-hour until the next helicopter arrived. The building at the pad wasn’t the most pleasant of places to wait in – it was glamorous on the outside, like all of Fallarbor, but the seats were damp and the air inside dank – so after Sapphire bought two tickets, we crossed the road to sit in a park. This pleased Toro, because it meant that she could run around and kick some trees. Watching her, I felt vaguely annoyed that I couldn’t be amused so easily.
It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, said Puck, adopting the accent of a New York gangster. If she puts a tree in the hospital, they’ll put her in the morgue.
Sapphire dropped her Ultra Ball and released the Swablu. Immediately, she dusted herself down, adjusted her singed hat and pointed her beak in the air. Toro stopped kicking trees and stared at her.
“OK,” Sapphire said encouragingly, “your name is Stacey. Got it?”
Stacey gave her a long look, then flapped onto the bench and tried to imitate the way I was sitting. It was difficult for a bird – especially one that was near-spherical – but she gave it her best shot.
“Stacey!” snapped Sapphire. “You’re not a human!”
I picked up the little Swablu and tossed it back to her; she caught it and glared at me.
“Don’t throw her!”
“She’s got wings!” I cried. “It’s not like she’s going to fall to her death!”
Abruptly, Toro cheeped loudly; irritated, Sapphire recalled her.
“OK,” she said, “I can see you’re going to need some work.” She raised Stacey up to her eye level and stared into her beady little eyes. “You. Are. Stacey. Now, go over there.”
She put Stacey down and she fluttered over to a discarded newspaper, which she pretended to read.
“Here goes nothing.” Sapphire took a deep, calming breath. “Stacey!”
The Swablu kept reading.
“Stacey!”
Still no reaction.
“Stacey!”
She turned a page. By now, I was almost convinced she actually could read.
“Stacey, I’ve got a magic... humanising potion,” Sapphire tried unconvincingly.
The Swablu gave an almighty screech, shot into the air and landed in her outstretched hands. Sapphire stared at her with undisguised loathing.
“God,” she said, “you’re really weird, aren’t you?” Then she turned to me. “Why is it that every Pokémon you lead me to ends up being strange?”
I shrugged.
“Lots of strange things have been happening to me lately. You might have noticed.”
“I’m not keeping this thing,” Sapphire said in disgust, recalling Stacey. “I’ll send it home to Dad to look at. He’s got a friend who likes to study psychological disorders in Pokémon.”
“Are they common?”
“Not normally. But we’ve got an albino Sableye who’s scared of everything, and a Swablu that’s convinced it must be a human. Something’s definitely up.”
You’re probably some kind of weirdness magnet, Kester, suggested Puck helpfully.
“Thanks,” I murmured ironically.
Sapphire spent the remaining time running over moves with Toro; according to her, Rono had once again leaped ahead of the Combusken in terms of strength. She didn’t even bother with the Sableye. His cripplingly low self-esteem made him all but useless as a fighter – his useful luminous eyes and potential for use as a tracking device were probably the only reasons she hadn’t put him into the PC and emailed him home to Birch already.
At length, I heard a thunderous sound, like a vast flock of Salamence flying in from the distance, and the helicopter shot overhead; I’d never seen one before in real life, and stared open-mouthed as it growled past. It was like an insect, a wasp or a Beedrill, but larger and more angular, and infinitely more angry. I caught a glimpse of a yellow logo splashed across the black side – and then it disappeared behind the helipad’s ticket-office-***-departure-lounge.
“Right,” Sapphire said. “Let’s go. Toro!”
There was no response.
“Toro?”
We looked around, and found her hiding under a bush. Having had some experience of cities, the little Combusken could just about cope with cars and boats, but it seemed the helicopter was too much for her. Sapphire recalled her, and we crossed the road again, heading back to the helipad.
Behind the building, the helicopter was crouched like some great predatory bird, its rotors held still like hooded wings; though there was plenty of bare tarmac around it, it filled the space with its sheer personality. It looked like it was about to jump up and kill someone.
Now that’s a machine, said Puck, with the deep satisfaction of one who knows. I’d like to possess one of those one day.
I thought of what terrifying manoeuvres Puck might put the chopper through if he had control of it, and shuddered.
Not today. Please.
Relax. I’ve piloted a Boeing 747 before. He paused. Well, when I say ‘piloted’, I mean ‘crashed’. And when I say ‘Boeing 747’, I mean a bus full of orphans. I’m not even sure why I said it in the first place now.
Sapphire and I climbed aboard the helicopter; inside, it had been fitted with benches along the walls, and I judged its capacity to be about twenty people. Much of the area of the sides was occupied with windows, and as I took my seat I found myself eagerly anticipating the view we’d get.
One other person got aboard – it was out of season, and the Gym was currently out of action – and then the doors shut a few minutes later. The seats started to vibrate a little, and I heard the full-throated roar of the engine.
Oh, gorgeous, Puck cried ecstatically. Virizion’s curly horns, this is such a beautiful machine! I want to get right inside it!
That reminded me unpleasantly of that business last year, where several of the wrong things had got inside something else, and my mind came back down to earth with a bump.
That’s... weird, I told him.
If by weird you mean fantastic—
I meant weird.
The rotors started to spin, faster and faster, until the sound reached fever pitch; I hadn’t expected it to be so loud. We started to rise, and my stomach turned over; I glanced over at Sapphire, and saw her face was pale as paper and her eyes were large in their sockets.
“Oh, God,” I groaned. “Airsick too?”
She nodded apologetically, and threw up in my lap.
---
The floor dropped away beneath their feet, descending at least thirty feet in less than half a second; Barry felt like he’d left all of his organs up in the hut, and when Scarlett opened the door again, he almost outright fell over through it. The whole process left him with only one option: emitting a low-pitched incoherent roar.
“Excuse me? Can I help you?”
“I don’t need anyone’s help,” rumbled Barry indignantly, getting to his feet. He was in a tunnel hewn into the living rock, damp from nearby aquifers and supported by great wooden beams, their surfaces pitted with age. This was odd enough in itself, but he was also talking to a man dressed in rags and patches who looked like he would have been more at home in the circus than in a mine shaft.
“This is Barry Hawksworthy,” Scarlett piped up, skipping ahead of him. “Barry, this is Vladimir. He’s hired help.”
“Right,” said Barry dubiously. “Where is this place?”
“This is your Team Aqua’s secret tunnel, formerly an abandoned chromium mine,” Vladimir said. He had a faint accent, but Barry couldn’t quite place it. “My friend and I, we were hired to help man it, since it appears that none of your Team can be spared to come here.”
“Right,” said Barry. The dubious tone had not yet disappeared. “What’s all this about, then?”
“Come with me,” Vladimir said. “Shelly will explain.”
“Shelly’s here?” Barry’s head felt like it was on the verge of exploding. This was all far too nonsensical for him; he had been sent here to assist his Administrator, and he had ended up in an old mine with a ten-year-old girl (almost eleven, she would say) and a foreigner. He found himself thinking almost wistfully of Felicity, wishing she hadn’t gone AWOL after the Spectroscopic Fancy debacle; she might have made his life a living hell, but at least he was on firm, mostly sane ground with her.
“Yeah, Mum’s here,” confirmed Scarlett. “Come with me!”
As usual, Barry’s mind, fully aware of its own intellectual shortcomings, simplified the decision process here, narrowing it down to two options: go with Scarlett and Vladimir, further into this madness, or beat the hell out of them and leave Team Aqua, then the country. After wavering for a moment – he did hate Scarlett, after all – he decided, and not without some regret, that his loyalties to the Team demanded he stay, and took the former course of action.
The eccentric duo led him through a network of tunnels, illuminated only by a series of rather unreliable arc lamps attached to the beams; the flickering light turned the rough walls into seas of light and dark, tiny pitch-black shadows rubbing shoulders with crests of glistening highlight. Occasionally, one would go out, and Vladimir would poke it experimentally until it came back on, or he got an electric shock – whichever came sooner.
Eventually, they ended up in a small, roughly circular room, in which someone had, amazingly enough, installed a large sofa, a desk and a filing cabinet. Seated at the desk was a tall, thin woman surrounded by a great mass of her own violently-ginger hair; she wore a modified Aqua uniform, as was the right of an Administrator, and she was inspecting some papers through horn-rimmed spectacles when they came in.
“Oh! You must be Barry,” she said pleasantly, getting up and taking off her glasses. “I’m Shelly. It’s so nice that they finally sent someone to help out here.”
Barry looked around at the paintings somehow fixed to the walls, and the folder on the desk marked ‘INVASION PLANS’, and replied in a guarded rumble.
“Yeah. Here. Where exactly is ‘here’, and what exactly do you mean by help...?”
---
“They what?” Maxie leaped to his feet, found he was too angry to stand, and sat down again. Then he leaped up once more, and started pacing. “They what?”
“They caught Blake and Fabien, sir,” Tabitha said, eyeing his boss uneasily. “You know, the useless ones.”
“I know they’re the useless ones!” howled Maxie, his mouth an inch away from Tabitha’s eyes. The blast of saliva-laden air, hot and moist, forced Tabitha’s eyes shut, and he leaned backwards a little. “I know who everyone in this goddamn organisation is, Gerald!”
“Tabitha, sir.”
Tabitha was a tall man, but Maxie had no trouble in lifting him bodily from the floor and ramming him furiously into the wall.
“What the hell! You’re Gerald if I say you’re Gerald!”
“F-fine, sir,” gasped Tabitha, fighting for breath. He had seen this happen to many others in his time, but Maxie had never directly vented his spleen on him before – and the man had a seriously strong grip.
Maxie dropped him and turned away, scowling ferociously.
“Those two idiots could blow our entire operation,” he growled. “We can’t change the date of the Meteorite project, so I want you to go and get those two morons before Team Aqua gets so much as a word from either of them. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly, sir.” Tabitha licked his lips nervously; they had suddenly dried out. The resuscitated Mightyena was crouched in its puddle of darkness in the corner, and it seemed to have picked up on the heightened tension in the room; it was growling and snapping at thin air as if it wanted to bite him right now.
“Well, what the hell are you still doing here!” roared Maxie. Despite the phrasing, it wasn’t a question.
“Leaving, sir,” said Tabitha, and slithered out from beneath his descending fingers to exit the office at a run.
---
Felicity was sleeping.
She lay on an old iron cot in a darkened room, water flowing freely over her naked body from a hole in the ceiling. It would take time, but it was knitting together flesh and blood, reattaching tendons, locking pieces of bone back in place.
Zero watched her heal from his seat across the room, pondering. It had taken a surprising amount of torture for Maxie to wind down; he had been on the verge of stopping him when he finally ended Felicity’s torment. He really was an expert; despite the pain, she had been awake during the whole thing. Zero supposed that having your eyelids shaved off made it difficult to sleep.
In the end, the Magma boss had got all the information he wanted out of her. Before handing her over, Zero had told her what to say, muttering it in her native language so no one else would understand: the whole thing was an Aqua plot, and their goal was to delay the Magma’s progress in the grand scheme. She hadn’t wanted to say anything, but he had promised her that her torture would be swifter if she gave Maxie the information he wanted. As it turned out, that had been a lie, but that did not bother Zero. Very few things did.
A distant door clicked; Zero got to his feet and left the room. As he locked the door behind him and started to climb the stairs to the ground floor, he shifted persona: from the man who played chess with Hoenn to the loving partner to Courtney Staunton.
“Is that you, honey bunny?” he asked, hands on his mask.
“Yeah,” she called back, and he removed the mask; it didn’t matter if Courtney saw his face. He had ensured she would never reveal his identity to anyone, if she even knew who he really was.
“How was your day?” he asked, passing through the hall and into the kitchen, tossing his mask carelessly onto the table. Courtney sighed and dropped into his arms, exhausted.
“Awful,” she murmured. “Maxie’s furious.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
She smiled.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make everything better.”
Zero pondered.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, genuinely uncertain for once. “I don’t know, honey bunny.”
“Maybe it’s love,” said Courtney thoughtfully. Zero kissed the top of her head.
“Perhaps,” he said, eyes as dark and tumultuous as Heathcliff, “perhaps that’s exactly what it is.”
And he smiled that cold cruel smile that terrified Felicity and melted Courtney’s heart, and a little more of his plan fell into place.
Fifty-nine Manaphy, sitting on a wall,
Fifty-nine Manaphy, sitting on a wall,
And if one of those Manaphy, should accidentally be blasted repeatedly with lightning until its eyes fall out,
There’ll be fifty-eight Manaphy, sitting on the wall...
I should have been used to waking up to the sound of Puck’s voice by now, but I wasn’t. Especially when he was singing.
“Nooooooo,” I mumbled, through a blur of sleep and headache. “I can’t stand this any longer...”
“You’re fine, Kester,” came a familiar voice, and I squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could.
“Damn it,” I said, “you’re still here.”
“Thanks for rescuing me from Meteor Falls, Sapphire, it was really considerate of you. Oh, that’s OK, Kester, only doing what anyone would have done in my place. Now open your eyes and get up.”
I groaned. Reality, it seemed, was back and here to stay. I sat up slowly, peeling my eyelids away from the balls, and blinked blearily in what I thought was Sapphire’s direction.
“What happened?”
You Charge Beamed yourself with a maxed-out Special Attack, with surprising results. Wouldn’t have defeated a real Rotom, but your thoughts seem to be made of electricity, so I think it scrambled your brain.
“You got knocked out somehow, and the Magmas failed to do anything productive. Team Aqua turned up and saved us – seems they didn’t realise who we were. Archie himself was there.”
“Archie? Wow.”
I could see now. I was back at the Pokémon Centre; this scenario, waking up in a hotel room after an intense period of weirdness and action, was becoming all to familiar. Sapphire was lounging against the cupboard in the corner, hair wet from a shower, turning her hat over in her hands. It had a bullet hole in it now, which either ruined it or made it really cool – I wasn’t quite sure which.
“The lead Magma got away with a Meteorite, but the two who kidnapped me are still with the Aquas. Oh yes, and Professor Cozmo’s fine. So it all turned out OK in the end.”
Oh good. A happy ending’s always a favourite. Except with me, but only because I like to watch humans suffer.
“That’s good,” I said, relieved. “What time is it?”
“It’s just gone two,” Sapphire replied. “Do you want to get something to eat now, or go straight to Lavaridge?”
“Food now,” I answered. “God, I’m hungry.”
“Come on then.”
It’s nice to see you two getting along so well, Puck said. Perhaps Sapphire is one of those tsundere characters.
Please don’t say any more, I begged, you’re repulsing me.
We left the Centre and started combing the streets of Fallarbor for somewhere to eat. Every so often, we’d come across one of the streets we’d rushed down during our car chase; you could tell by the holes in the Stop signs and the wrecked cars at the side of the road.
“That reminds me – what happened to our taxi?” I asked. Sapphire looked at me blankly.
“I forgot about him,” she replied. “I wonder what happened?”
I reckon that’s all the explanation we’re going to get, Puck said. Which is a bit lazy, but true.
At this moment, a feathery blur of blue and white fell out of the sky, bounced once off my head, and landed on the pavement.
“What!”
Aaah! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
I whirled to look for it, and saw a small, powder-blue bird picking itself up on the pavement nearby. It used downy wings to brush flecks of dirt from its feathers, then put on a small hat and one of those pairs of glasses with a fake nose and moustache attached, and walked into a nearby bar.
Oh, it’s just a Swablu, said Puck, disappointed. Let’s keep going.
Sapphire and I exchanged glances.
“Was that—?”
“Yes. Did it—?”
“Yeah...”
Then, without further ado, Sapphire pushed open the bar door and ran in to investigate. I followed close behind: whatever this was, it was probably going to be very weird and worth watching.
Inside, the little bird – and I saw now that Puck had been right, it was a Swablu – had fluttered up onto a stool at the bar, and drawn the attention of the barkeeper and his sole other customer. They were both staring at it, somewhat stupefied.
“Aaarrrk!” squawked the Swablu, and slapped a five-hundred-dollar note on the polished bar.
“Who are you?” asked the other drinker, “who, who, who, who?”
“Is that a Swablu?” the barman said, confused. He reached out to pull the false glasses from it, but it jerked away and shook its head furiously.
“It’s trying to be a person,” Sapphire said slowly, staring at it with
bewilderment.
The barman looked up at our entry, and looked relieved.
“Oh? Trainers, are you?”
Sapphire’s ball-belt made it obvious.
“Yes,” she replied. “Shall I get rid of her for you?”
How does she know it’s a female? I asked Puck.
How should I know? he retorted. I know a lot of things, but I’m not omniscient.
“OK. You might want to move out of the way.”
Sapphire dropped a ball and Toro appeared, springing from foot to foot; she hadn’t been let out for a while, and was itching for a fight. The barman took three steps back and hastily moved a couple of bottles of whisky out of her reach: mixing fire with alcohol was not going to be good for business.
The Swablu whisked off its false glasses and glared at Toro resentfully. It cheeped, and beat its downy wings; something barely visible parted the air, but the Combusken skipped sideways nimbly and dodged whatever attack it was.
“Ember,” ordered Sapphire, “but gently. We’re catching, not killing.”
Toro punched the air and a small burst of fire shot from her knuckles; it hit the Swablu square in the chest and set light to its feathers. As well as an inevitable screech of pain, the little bird started giving off one of the most unpleasant smells it had ever been my misfortune to encounter.
While it was thus distracted, Sapphire tossed a black and yellow ball at it, and the flaming bird was engulfed in a wave of red light. The ball shook once – twice – three times – and then lay still with a click.
Huh. I like to think I’d put up a better fight than that, Puck said. I’d possess the Poké Ball before it hit me, and then it’d be like Wings Have We, except I’m funnier and I’m too clever to get stuck like that.
I had no idea what he was talking about – but did I ever? I tried to ignore him, and watched Sapphire retrieve the ball.
“Thanks,” said the bartender. The lone drinker raised a glass to us in thanks. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t quite work out what it might be.
“Cheers,” he said. “That thing was weird.”
This was undeniable, but most things seemed to be weird nowadays.
“Er... all right,” I said. “Um... good capture, Sapphire.”
“We’ll be on our way.” Sapphire flashed a smile at the barman and his customer and led me back outside again, recalling Toro as she went.
“That was strange,” I said as we started walking again. “Did that Swablu think it was a person or something?”
Sapphire shrugged.
“Don’t know. And it was a ‘she’, not an ‘it’.” She held up the Ultra Ball. “I’m going to keep her to use.”
“You’ve got one hell of a weird team,” I pointed out. “Toro, Rono, a paranoid Sableye and a Swablu that wants to be a person.” I paused. “What’re you going to name it?”
“Her,” corrected Sapphire. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”
Bertha Rochester, said Puck without hesitation, though I didn’t relay the message.
“Stacey,” I said, choosing the first name that popped into my head. Sapphire looked at me oddly.
“I think I like that,” she said. “Yes, she’ll be Stacey.”
Be prepared for a lot of work, Puck warned. Swablu are notoriously moronic.
Unlike Toro?
Puck considered.
Fair point, he admitted at length. I guess Sapphire can handle it.
“Can we get back to the whole ‘finding food’ thing?” I asked. “I’m hungry.”
I really was; nearly two weeks of irregular, widely-spaced meals had engendered a sort of near-continuous background hunger in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I could probably have eaten my way to the end of one of Trimalchio’s banquets.
“Fine,” said Sapphire. “We’ll stop here.”
She halted at a corner café, similar in appearance to Blintzkrieg; warily, I checked the sign, in case it was a chain and it really was another one. Thankfully, it was a completely different place called, for reasons best known to the owner, Fools Rush In, and I entered without fear of pancakes, though with my doubts about whether any angels would tread here.
As we ate, Sapphire let out Toro to sit next to us, since she’d been so restless back in the bar. The Combusken displayed an alarming aptitude for stealing my food, but I let it slide; she could probably break my legs if it came to a fight.
More than your legs, muttered Puck darkly. She could break bones you don’t even know you have.
I’m not sure if that’s a threat or just a logical statement.
Me either, admitted Puck. I just felt it was the right moment to say something.
“So after this,” I said, “we’ll go up to Lavaridge and meet Felicity.”
Sapphire grimaced.
“She’s not going to be happy, is she?”
“Hopefully she’ll understand,” I said. “We were fighting Team Magma, after all.”
“Well, that’s your opinion,” Sapphire replied. “I thought she seemed pretty nasty, even when she wasn’t working for Team Aqua.”
“She’s... got a lot on her mind,” I said defensively, and somewhat lamely.
Sapphire gave me a look, and threw a scrap into Toro’s mouth.
“Why do you keep defending her?”
“I... just think you’re being unfair.”
It was a better response than the one I’d made last time, but it was still awful.
“Right.” Sapphire arched one eyebrow, and went back to her meal.
“Anyway,” I said quickly, “what’re we doing when we get to Lavaridge, exactly?”
“You tell me. This plan to stop Zero is your idea.”
She’s right, you know.
“Er... let’s meet up with Felicity and take it from there,” I decided.
Loser.
“I’d better challenge Spike at the Gym too, if she gets elected in time,” Sapphire said thoughtfully.
Toro recognised the words ‘challenge’ and ‘Gym’, and looked up inquisitively.
“Not now,” Sapphire said. “You know, we said we were going to fight her?”
“I remember,” I replied. “Do you think you can beat her?”
“If she becomes a Gym Leader, she’ll have a team to match anyone’s level. So as long as she uses the right team, I can win. I’m willing to fight.”
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, Puck said, and that’s Sapphire’s: fortitude. Then, for no reason I could discern, he laughed.
Not long after that, we paid and left. It was a quarter-hour walk from where we were to the public helipad, and when we got there we were told that it would be a further half-hour until the next helicopter arrived. The building at the pad wasn’t the most pleasant of places to wait in – it was glamorous on the outside, like all of Fallarbor, but the seats were damp and the air inside dank – so after Sapphire bought two tickets, we crossed the road to sit in a park. This pleased Toro, because it meant that she could run around and kick some trees. Watching her, I felt vaguely annoyed that I couldn’t be amused so easily.
It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, said Puck, adopting the accent of a New York gangster. If she puts a tree in the hospital, they’ll put her in the morgue.
Sapphire dropped her Ultra Ball and released the Swablu. Immediately, she dusted herself down, adjusted her singed hat and pointed her beak in the air. Toro stopped kicking trees and stared at her.
“OK,” Sapphire said encouragingly, “your name is Stacey. Got it?”
Stacey gave her a long look, then flapped onto the bench and tried to imitate the way I was sitting. It was difficult for a bird – especially one that was near-spherical – but she gave it her best shot.
“Stacey!” snapped Sapphire. “You’re not a human!”
I picked up the little Swablu and tossed it back to her; she caught it and glared at me.
“Don’t throw her!”
“She’s got wings!” I cried. “It’s not like she’s going to fall to her death!”
Abruptly, Toro cheeped loudly; irritated, Sapphire recalled her.
“OK,” she said, “I can see you’re going to need some work.” She raised Stacey up to her eye level and stared into her beady little eyes. “You. Are. Stacey. Now, go over there.”
She put Stacey down and she fluttered over to a discarded newspaper, which she pretended to read.
“Here goes nothing.” Sapphire took a deep, calming breath. “Stacey!”
The Swablu kept reading.
“Stacey!”
Still no reaction.
“Stacey!”
She turned a page. By now, I was almost convinced she actually could read.
“Stacey, I’ve got a magic... humanising potion,” Sapphire tried unconvincingly.
The Swablu gave an almighty screech, shot into the air and landed in her outstretched hands. Sapphire stared at her with undisguised loathing.
“God,” she said, “you’re really weird, aren’t you?” Then she turned to me. “Why is it that every Pokémon you lead me to ends up being strange?”
I shrugged.
“Lots of strange things have been happening to me lately. You might have noticed.”
“I’m not keeping this thing,” Sapphire said in disgust, recalling Stacey. “I’ll send it home to Dad to look at. He’s got a friend who likes to study psychological disorders in Pokémon.”
“Are they common?”
“Not normally. But we’ve got an albino Sableye who’s scared of everything, and a Swablu that’s convinced it must be a human. Something’s definitely up.”
You’re probably some kind of weirdness magnet, Kester, suggested Puck helpfully.
“Thanks,” I murmured ironically.
Sapphire spent the remaining time running over moves with Toro; according to her, Rono had once again leaped ahead of the Combusken in terms of strength. She didn’t even bother with the Sableye. His cripplingly low self-esteem made him all but useless as a fighter – his useful luminous eyes and potential for use as a tracking device were probably the only reasons she hadn’t put him into the PC and emailed him home to Birch already.
At length, I heard a thunderous sound, like a vast flock of Salamence flying in from the distance, and the helicopter shot overhead; I’d never seen one before in real life, and stared open-mouthed as it growled past. It was like an insect, a wasp or a Beedrill, but larger and more angular, and infinitely more angry. I caught a glimpse of a yellow logo splashed across the black side – and then it disappeared behind the helipad’s ticket-office-***-departure-lounge.
“Right,” Sapphire said. “Let’s go. Toro!”
There was no response.
“Toro?”
We looked around, and found her hiding under a bush. Having had some experience of cities, the little Combusken could just about cope with cars and boats, but it seemed the helicopter was too much for her. Sapphire recalled her, and we crossed the road again, heading back to the helipad.
Behind the building, the helicopter was crouched like some great predatory bird, its rotors held still like hooded wings; though there was plenty of bare tarmac around it, it filled the space with its sheer personality. It looked like it was about to jump up and kill someone.
Now that’s a machine, said Puck, with the deep satisfaction of one who knows. I’d like to possess one of those one day.
I thought of what terrifying manoeuvres Puck might put the chopper through if he had control of it, and shuddered.
Not today. Please.
Relax. I’ve piloted a Boeing 747 before. He paused. Well, when I say ‘piloted’, I mean ‘crashed’. And when I say ‘Boeing 747’, I mean a bus full of orphans. I’m not even sure why I said it in the first place now.
Sapphire and I climbed aboard the helicopter; inside, it had been fitted with benches along the walls, and I judged its capacity to be about twenty people. Much of the area of the sides was occupied with windows, and as I took my seat I found myself eagerly anticipating the view we’d get.
One other person got aboard – it was out of season, and the Gym was currently out of action – and then the doors shut a few minutes later. The seats started to vibrate a little, and I heard the full-throated roar of the engine.
Oh, gorgeous, Puck cried ecstatically. Virizion’s curly horns, this is such a beautiful machine! I want to get right inside it!
That reminded me unpleasantly of that business last year, where several of the wrong things had got inside something else, and my mind came back down to earth with a bump.
That’s... weird, I told him.
If by weird you mean fantastic—
I meant weird.
The rotors started to spin, faster and faster, until the sound reached fever pitch; I hadn’t expected it to be so loud. We started to rise, and my stomach turned over; I glanced over at Sapphire, and saw her face was pale as paper and her eyes were large in their sockets.
“Oh, God,” I groaned. “Airsick too?”
She nodded apologetically, and threw up in my lap.
---
The floor dropped away beneath their feet, descending at least thirty feet in less than half a second; Barry felt like he’d left all of his organs up in the hut, and when Scarlett opened the door again, he almost outright fell over through it. The whole process left him with only one option: emitting a low-pitched incoherent roar.
“Excuse me? Can I help you?”
“I don’t need anyone’s help,” rumbled Barry indignantly, getting to his feet. He was in a tunnel hewn into the living rock, damp from nearby aquifers and supported by great wooden beams, their surfaces pitted with age. This was odd enough in itself, but he was also talking to a man dressed in rags and patches who looked like he would have been more at home in the circus than in a mine shaft.
“This is Barry Hawksworthy,” Scarlett piped up, skipping ahead of him. “Barry, this is Vladimir. He’s hired help.”
“Right,” said Barry dubiously. “Where is this place?”
“This is your Team Aqua’s secret tunnel, formerly an abandoned chromium mine,” Vladimir said. He had a faint accent, but Barry couldn’t quite place it. “My friend and I, we were hired to help man it, since it appears that none of your Team can be spared to come here.”
“Right,” said Barry. The dubious tone had not yet disappeared. “What’s all this about, then?”
“Come with me,” Vladimir said. “Shelly will explain.”
“Shelly’s here?” Barry’s head felt like it was on the verge of exploding. This was all far too nonsensical for him; he had been sent here to assist his Administrator, and he had ended up in an old mine with a ten-year-old girl (almost eleven, she would say) and a foreigner. He found himself thinking almost wistfully of Felicity, wishing she hadn’t gone AWOL after the Spectroscopic Fancy debacle; she might have made his life a living hell, but at least he was on firm, mostly sane ground with her.
“Yeah, Mum’s here,” confirmed Scarlett. “Come with me!”
As usual, Barry’s mind, fully aware of its own intellectual shortcomings, simplified the decision process here, narrowing it down to two options: go with Scarlett and Vladimir, further into this madness, or beat the hell out of them and leave Team Aqua, then the country. After wavering for a moment – he did hate Scarlett, after all – he decided, and not without some regret, that his loyalties to the Team demanded he stay, and took the former course of action.
The eccentric duo led him through a network of tunnels, illuminated only by a series of rather unreliable arc lamps attached to the beams; the flickering light turned the rough walls into seas of light and dark, tiny pitch-black shadows rubbing shoulders with crests of glistening highlight. Occasionally, one would go out, and Vladimir would poke it experimentally until it came back on, or he got an electric shock – whichever came sooner.
Eventually, they ended up in a small, roughly circular room, in which someone had, amazingly enough, installed a large sofa, a desk and a filing cabinet. Seated at the desk was a tall, thin woman surrounded by a great mass of her own violently-ginger hair; she wore a modified Aqua uniform, as was the right of an Administrator, and she was inspecting some papers through horn-rimmed spectacles when they came in.
“Oh! You must be Barry,” she said pleasantly, getting up and taking off her glasses. “I’m Shelly. It’s so nice that they finally sent someone to help out here.”
Barry looked around at the paintings somehow fixed to the walls, and the folder on the desk marked ‘INVASION PLANS’, and replied in a guarded rumble.
“Yeah. Here. Where exactly is ‘here’, and what exactly do you mean by help...?”
---
“They what?” Maxie leaped to his feet, found he was too angry to stand, and sat down again. Then he leaped up once more, and started pacing. “They what?”
“They caught Blake and Fabien, sir,” Tabitha said, eyeing his boss uneasily. “You know, the useless ones.”
“I know they’re the useless ones!” howled Maxie, his mouth an inch away from Tabitha’s eyes. The blast of saliva-laden air, hot and moist, forced Tabitha’s eyes shut, and he leaned backwards a little. “I know who everyone in this goddamn organisation is, Gerald!”
“Tabitha, sir.”
Tabitha was a tall man, but Maxie had no trouble in lifting him bodily from the floor and ramming him furiously into the wall.
“What the hell! You’re Gerald if I say you’re Gerald!”
“F-fine, sir,” gasped Tabitha, fighting for breath. He had seen this happen to many others in his time, but Maxie had never directly vented his spleen on him before – and the man had a seriously strong grip.
Maxie dropped him and turned away, scowling ferociously.
“Those two idiots could blow our entire operation,” he growled. “We can’t change the date of the Meteorite project, so I want you to go and get those two morons before Team Aqua gets so much as a word from either of them. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly, sir.” Tabitha licked his lips nervously; they had suddenly dried out. The resuscitated Mightyena was crouched in its puddle of darkness in the corner, and it seemed to have picked up on the heightened tension in the room; it was growling and snapping at thin air as if it wanted to bite him right now.
“Well, what the hell are you still doing here!” roared Maxie. Despite the phrasing, it wasn’t a question.
“Leaving, sir,” said Tabitha, and slithered out from beneath his descending fingers to exit the office at a run.
---
Felicity was sleeping.
She lay on an old iron cot in a darkened room, water flowing freely over her naked body from a hole in the ceiling. It would take time, but it was knitting together flesh and blood, reattaching tendons, locking pieces of bone back in place.
Zero watched her heal from his seat across the room, pondering. It had taken a surprising amount of torture for Maxie to wind down; he had been on the verge of stopping him when he finally ended Felicity’s torment. He really was an expert; despite the pain, she had been awake during the whole thing. Zero supposed that having your eyelids shaved off made it difficult to sleep.
In the end, the Magma boss had got all the information he wanted out of her. Before handing her over, Zero had told her what to say, muttering it in her native language so no one else would understand: the whole thing was an Aqua plot, and their goal was to delay the Magma’s progress in the grand scheme. She hadn’t wanted to say anything, but he had promised her that her torture would be swifter if she gave Maxie the information he wanted. As it turned out, that had been a lie, but that did not bother Zero. Very few things did.
A distant door clicked; Zero got to his feet and left the room. As he locked the door behind him and started to climb the stairs to the ground floor, he shifted persona: from the man who played chess with Hoenn to the loving partner to Courtney Staunton.
“Is that you, honey bunny?” he asked, hands on his mask.
“Yeah,” she called back, and he removed the mask; it didn’t matter if Courtney saw his face. He had ensured she would never reveal his identity to anyone, if she even knew who he really was.
“How was your day?” he asked, passing through the hall and into the kitchen, tossing his mask carelessly onto the table. Courtney sighed and dropped into his arms, exhausted.
“Awful,” she murmured. “Maxie’s furious.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
She smiled.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make everything better.”
Zero pondered.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, genuinely uncertain for once. “I don’t know, honey bunny.”
“Maybe it’s love,” said Courtney thoughtfully. Zero kissed the top of her head.
“Perhaps,” he said, eyes as dark and tumultuous as Heathcliff, “perhaps that’s exactly what it is.”
And he smiled that cold cruel smile that terrified Felicity and melted Courtney’s heart, and a little more of his plan fell into place.
- Thread starter
- #67
Chapter Thirty-Three: Lavaridge is Neither a Ridge Nor Lava. Discuss.
I don’t know about you, Puck said, but I’m finding it pretty difficult to think of any more Bond jokes.
Oddly enough, that isn’t really worrying me right now.
Sapphire had apologised, and attempts had been made at cleaning me up, but the foul stench of vomit still clung to me, as did several of the stickier pieces of our last meal in Fallarbor. Consequently, I was in a very bad mood – though Sapphire said she was now feeling a little better.
Let’s see, Puck continued blithely, we’ve got The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy who Loved Me, Octopussy and Casino Royale to go. Damn, those are hard.
Shut up, I thought back. I’m sick of the sound of your voice.
Technically, I have no voice – these are my thoughts. But whatever.
The helicopter roared on, though within it we were silent; out of the windows, I saw the mountains rising like the teeth of the earth high into the sky, piercing clouds and shaking off the forests that cloaked the valleys. A flock of Altaria parted hurriedly at our approach, screaming abuse from their great white-cheeked mouths.
“We’re now approaching Mount Chimney,” crackled the pilot over the PA system. “If you look to your left, you can see the crater itself.”
I looked left, and could indeed see the crater; it was dark and full of bilious smoke that streamed out across the mountainside like a wave of black tears.
In a bit of a dark mood, aren’t you?
There were some barely-discernable figures atop the mountain, setting up some sort of machine; we couldn’t go any closer, but the pilot informed us of their probably purpose:
“You can see what are probably Lavaridge’s resident team of volcanologists, keeping an eye on things,” he said. You could tell he was proud of the long word he used. “Mount Chimney hasn’t erupted in seventy-three years, but the risk is always there, especially with the recent tremors.”
The other passenger, a man in middle age, looked up sharply.
“Tremors?”
“Tremors,” confirmed the pilot. “There have been a few minor earthquakes recently in the Lavaridge earlier. The scientists think that the tube that carries up the lava is probably blocked, and that the pressure has got to the point where it’s slowly forcing the blockage out, causing little earthquakes.”
It’s called ‘magma’ below ground, not ‘lava’. Puck sniffed. And to think this man flies over the volcano all the time! What other criminal activities does he get up to? Strangle kittens in his spare time?
I didn’t know what a kitten was, but thought it unlikely that the pilot strangled anything in his spare time, since so few people do.
We passed through a cloud, and the windows misted over; when they cleared, all I could see was red-brown rock, surrounding us on every side. I looked down, and as well as inflicting a stupendous case of vertigo on myself, I saw a medium-sized town spread out below, in a high alpine valley. Pools of dark water, almost black from this height, were liberally scattered across Lavaridge Town, congregating on the east side, where they nestled amongst the hot sand that cloaked the volcanic rock.
“We are now entering Lavaridge,” the pilot told us, somewhat pointlessly, and we descended towards the helipad. It was set about five hundred yards away from the main body of the town, atop a small hill, so as not to spoil the atmosphere of the place. I thought it was a futile trick, since the helicopter was loud enough to be heard all over town anyway, but that was how it was, and after disembarking we had quite a long walk to get to Lavaridge proper.
Upon reaching the town, we found it to be eerily empty; it didn’t necessarily appeal to families like Dewford, and relied mainly on elderly and cultured people for tourism. No one came there in the summer, either; it was a place that people retreated to in the autumn and the winter, to dispel the chill from their bones with the searing water that bubbled up from beneath the earth. I’d been once before, and had developed burns on the soles of my feet; I had seen the sign that cautioned against walking across the volcanic rocks without shoes a little too late.
You are such a moron, Puck said.
Easy for you to say, I thought back. You don’t even have feet.
The streets were lined with houses that were either four hundred years old or very well-disguised; they were built in the old Hoennian style, with mansard roofs and Tudor arches.
Oddly enough, that wasn’t my description, Puck commented. You learned that in Taste class?
Yeah.
“Kester,” said Sapphire, “come over here!”
I turned to look; she’d found a sign that bore a simplified map of the town.
“Here,” she said, pointing at a large red ‘G’, “is the Gym, but first we’d better find Felicity.”
Heh, Puck said, I wonder if that’s an original G?
“Excuse me,” came a voice from behind us, “did you say you were looking for Felicity?”
We turned sharply, Sapphire’s hand reaching for a Poké Ball out of instinct – but it was just an ordinary-looking man, dressed in a shabby grey suit and holding his battered hat in front of his chest as if halfway through doffing it.
“Who are you?” Sapphire asked suspiciously.
“No one,” he answered, turning his hat over in his hands. “I was just paid to tell you she’s gone.”
Sapphire stared.
“Gone?”
“Yes,” nodded the man. “Oh, and is your name Kester Ruby?” He looked at me inquisitively.
“Yeah,” I answered guardedly. He held out an envelope.
“Zero sends his regards,” he told me as I took it, and walked off.
I looked from the envelope to the man and back again. Sapphire seemed on the verge of running after the man, punching him to the floor and forcing him to tell us more, but I laid a hand on her shoulder to hold her back.
“Leave it,” I said. “If Zero’s half as intelligent as Felicity made out, that guy won’t know anything about his plans.”
Sapphire sighed and nodded.
“Fine,” she said irritably. “Open the letter, then.”
I did, and drew out a single sheet of paper, which, when unfolded, was revealed to bear a short, typed letter:
Dear Kester,
You really are doing spectacularly well, but I’m afraid you’re not going to get much further in this matter. I applaud your audacity in attempting to stop me, but it simply isn’t going to happen. My plans are too well-laid.
However, you are affording me no end of amusement, so I’m happy for you to continue if you wish. Should you choose to do so, the next phase of my plan goes into operation two days from now, on the top of Mount Chimney. I’ll be sure to be there, so I can say hello if you turn up.
Yours sincerely,
Zero
Wow, said Puck admiringly, I like that signature. Makes me wish I had hands.
“He took back Felicity, didn’t he,” I said. It was not a question.
“Yes,” agreed Sapphire quietly. “Almost certainly.”
There was a long pause.
“What now?” I wondered.
“We can’t give up,” Sapphire replied. “I don’t do giving up. Especially not against people like Zero.”
“Right. But what do we do?”
Sapphire looked at the letter.
“Two days from now, we go to the top of Mount Chimney,” she said. “That’s where it’s happening. Zero’s obviously really arrogant, and doesn’t think we’ll succeed, so he’s given us directions to try and stop him.”
“Those people on the mountaintop,” I said, recalling them from our flight. “They’ve probably got something to do with it.”
Sapphire nodded.
“Right.” There was another pause, and she looked at the map. “So, we have until Sunday, and we promised we’d challenge Spike...”
“You want to go to the Gym at a time like this?”
“Got a better idea?”
I thought for a moment.
Hey, wait a moment, Puck said uneasily, I don’t like the sound of that thought...
“We could investigate what’s happening at the top of the mountain,” I said. “You know, try and stop whatever’s going on before it happens.”
“Well, I’m going to the Gym,” Sapphire said firmly. “You can sneak around on mountaintops by yourself.”
I decided not to argue. I might be technically free now, but Sapphire was still definitely in charge.
“Regrettably, I can’t,” I sighed. “I have to take this moron with me.” I pointed at my head.
That’s not very polite, Puck said. And this spying idea is bad. I had a lover who was a spy once – and she died.
Are you complaining or making Bond jokes?
There was a pause.
Both, he admitted at length.
“Let’s go to the Pokémon Centre then,” Sapphire said. “We’ll get set up there, and we can go our separate ways.”
The Pokémon Centre was marked on the map with a yellow ‘PC’, about which Puck, surprisingly, had no joke to make, and since the town was so small, it took only a few minutes to get there. It was as similar to every other Centre I’d seen as it could be without actually being the same one, and the receptionist had the same weird dyed-pink hair.
“Good afternoon,” she said brightly. “May I see your Trainer Cards, please?”
I had forgotten about that. I closed my eyes and let out a silent groan.
---
Tabitha sat in his jeep and tapped his fingers against his thigh nervously. He hoped to God that everything was all right in there.
Two blocks away was the main Aqua stronghold in Fallarbor; this was Magma country, but the other Team had a presence here too. Excepting Slateport and Lavaridge, no settlement fell entirely under the control of either gang.
About half an hour ago, Tabitha had pulled up here – he never trusted anyone else to drive for him – and told his group what to do. They were the SHNB1, his personal troops and so elite and secret that not even he knew what the letters in their name stood for. Like all serious Magma units, they wore clothing of a darker red than mere field agents: these were men and women who killed by stealth, not with brute strength.
The SHNB1 force had immediately vanished, melting into the shadows like leaves blowing through the bars of a fence. Where they were now, Tabitha could only guess at; they were mist on the breeze, stealthy as leopards and vicious as Mernimblers.
“They’d better get them back,” he muttered for the hundredth time, clenching his hand into a nervous fist. “Or the boss will be...”
As it happened, the SHNB1 was having no difficulty at all finding and releasing Fabien. They had scaled the walls and climbed into the base through upper windows; from there, they had slipped from shadow to shadow and slit the throats of any unsuspecting Aquas in their path.
They moved in a needlessly complex and eerily silent series of acrobatic manoeuvres, from leaps and somersaults to pirouettes and flips; they clung to the ceilings and dropped onto their blue-clad foes, or popped improbably out of cupboards and garrotted them with thin, sharp red ligatures.
The SHNB1 had, in fact, killed the entire population of the top floor before anyone noticed they were there. They were alerted to this fact by the cutlass that removed the leg from one of their vanguards, and the Aqua in full piratical dress holding it. He then proceeded to pull a Horatius, and defend the stairs down against their superior numbers for an unreasonably long time.
By the time they managed to kill him, the SHNB1 faced a small army of Aqua shock troops, massed at the bottom of the stairs; a short but bloody battle ensued, in which rather a lot of guns were fired and katanas slashed about. The SHNB1, being considerably better-trained, better-armed and more prepared than the Aquas, took five minutes to butcher every last one of their opponents, having only lost three men, and proceeded to comb the building for signs of the two captives.
It turned out that they were actually confined to a chamber on the fourth floor, meaning that the battle had been a sickening and pointless waste of human life, but, never ones to let the past drag them down, the SHNB1 agents simply got on with their job. They picked the lock – they did not believe in breaking down doors – flitted in and dragged two very confused Magma field operatives out with them. They tossed them out of a window, and four of the SHNB1 inexplicably materialised down on the ground to catch them. From there, it was a swift thirty-second somersault-leap-walk back to Tabitha’s jeep, into the back seat of which four of them dropped from an unlikely height. They deposited Fabien and Blake there, then informed Tabitha that they had met with ‘slight resistance’ and left for Lavaridge by their own means.
“All right, you two,” snapped Tabitha, slamming a foot down on the accelerator, “did they get any information out of you?”
“What – what the hell was that?” Fabien asked, somewhat in shock.
“Answer me!”
“They didn’ get nothin’,” Blake said, more cool-headed. “We refused to talk.”
“Good,” said Tabitha, relieved. “That’s... brilliant.”
He rounded a corner at high speed and made an obscene gesture in the general direction of the honking horns that ensued.
“All right,” he said. “Listen up, morons. You two need to lie low for a while. You got that? Get out of uniform, go to the North District or something. Just for God’s sake, don’t attract any attention.”
“Why?” asked Blake.
“Because my unit just told me they’d met with slight resistance,” said Tabitha grimly, “and that means they killed everyone again. So Team Aqua aren’t going to be happy, and you two are the ones they’ll blame. So lie low, get drunk and stay off the radar. Capische?”
“What?”
Tabitha growled with impatience.
“Do you understand?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Blake nodded, glanced at Fabien, and said, “'E does too.”
“Good.” Tabitha thought of something. He pulled Goishi’s Poké Ball from the glove compartment and tossed it back; Blake caught it in one massive hand. “That’s yours, I believe.”
“Much obliged, sir,” said Fabien somewhat stiffly, relieving Blake of the ball. “Could you drop us at the train station?”
“If you’re going to make demands of me, Fabien,” Tabitha said, a vein pulsing in his temple, “you can get out here and walk.”
So saying, he braked sharply, slewing onto the pavement, and threatened to shoot the pair of them if they didn’t leave in the next fifteen seconds. They hurriedly acquiesced, and Tabitha was left to complete his journey alone, half relieved but also half furious. Blake and Fabien really were maddening company.
---
Well, I can’t say this isn’t a pretty disheartening situation.
I was sitting on the kerb, and had been since I’d been thrown out of the Pokémon Centre. While this had amused Puck and Sapphire enormously, I hadn’t enjoyed the experience that much.
Cheer up, Puck said, things could be worse.
“Tell me how?”
You might be an undesirable person living in Germany during the war, Puck said thoughtfully, and be shipped off to the concentration camps. Or you might be chained to the Atlas Mountains, where an eagle eats your liver every day. Or you might be horribly smelly. Oh. Wait. You stink of vomit.
“Somehow, I’m not comforted.”
It had been a quarter of an hour now, and Sapphire still hadn’t emerged from the Centre.
Let’s run away, Puck said. Come on, we’ll go investigate Mount Chimney.
“You said you didn’t want to.”
Yeah, but life’s no fun without a good scare.
“Are you quoting?”
Absolutely.
“All right,” I said, standing up stiffly and stretching. “I guess Sapphire’s having a shower or something.” I glanced down at my sick-stained jeans. “Not that I couldn’t use one.”
I started to walk off back towards the sign with the map on, in the hope of finding directions to a tourist information centre where I could find out how to get to Mount Chimney.
I found one a few doors down from the low brick building that called itself Lavaridge Town’s Pokémon Gym. I was about to go in, but my curiosity got the better of me and I went to investigate the Gym sign, to see if Spike had actually been inducted as Gym Leader in the space of less than twenty-four hours.
Lavaridge Town Pokémon Gym, read Puck. Leader: Flannery, ‘One with a fiery passion that burns!’
“That’s odd,” I said. “I thought she hated being called Flannery?”
Maybe she thought she needed a more serious name or something, suggested Puck. What amazes me is that she was made Leader so quickly, and that they managed to get a new sign painted up so fast.
“It is unusual, I’ll admit,” I agreed. “But I guess they don’t have much else to do here.”
True enough. Can we stop off at a power station and lick the transformers? I’m hungry.
“No,” I replied firmly, “and if you ask again I’m going to think about Felicity. Lots.”
Eeurgh, groaned Puck, how can you find a creature in such obviously poor physical condition attractive? Surely it points to a lack of suitability as a mate?
“It’s different for humans.”
Nah, not really. You’re no higher than other sentient beings with preferences – top-tier stuff.
“What?”
Read your Singer, Kester. Preference utilitarianism, you know? It’s my kind of morality. Or it would be, if I had morality in the human sense.
“This conversation is going nowhere,” I said loudly, startling a few passers-by. “Let’s go to the tourist centre.”
Not stopping to say hi?
“Sapphire’s coming by soon,” I reminded him, one hand on the glass door, “she can do it.”
Inside, the tourist information centre was like a bird’s nest of leaflets; I’d never seen so much wasted paper in my life. Red, green, blue, purple; all parts of the spectrum were represented on their shiny surfaces. They burst from racks, formed stacks on shelves, sat neatly side-by-side in self-satisfied piles on a small table by the door. I felt a sudden and inexplicable urge to set fire to the lot of them, and, quelling it with effort, made my way across to the abandoned desk.
Sorry, said Puck, that was my sudden and inexplicable urge to burn these pamphlets. I once had a bad experience with some waste-paper, the Professor and Mrs. Flittersnoop, and I’ve been kind of phobic of vast quantities of loose paper since.
On the desktop was a small bell of the kind that you press, and, since there was no one around, I pressed it. It failed to make a noise, and the little button part stuck fast with a quiet but audible crunch.
Way to go, Kester, Puck said. You broke the bell.
“Shut up,” I whispered furiously. Then I called out, more loudly: “Er – hello? Is anyone here?”
With startling speed and silence, an elderly man with a long, flowing mane of white hair and matching beard materialised on the other side of the desk.
“My name is Hinzelmann,” he told me, with enough earnestness to crush my soul. “How can I help you?”
“Ah... er...”
Another weird guy, eh? Puck gave a sigh. Never mind, we’ll get through it.
“I wanted,” I managed at last, “to know if it would be possible to go up onto Mount Chimney. Right up to the peak.”
“That’s pretty dangerous,” Hinzelmann said, his massive eyes fixed on mine with such intensity as was never known before. “Even the tunnels are dangerous.”
“It’s OK,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. “I... I’m a Trainer. I have experience of danger.”
“Oh, in that case,” Hinzelmann said, fishing out a small map from within a drawer of his desk, “you should take the Fiery Path.”
The map was of a network of tunnels that ran through the interior of Mount Chimney; I could see at a glance that it would be a long trip up to the top, and probably one that was interrupted multiple times by wild Pokémon.
“Isn’t there any other way?” I asked helplessly.
“You could walk up Jagged Pass,” Hinzelmann replied, after a short pause for thought, “but that’s tricky. It’s very—”
“Jagged?”
Hinzelmann beamed.
“Why, yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what it is. And, of course, there’s the Lone Altaria, but if you’re a Trainer he won’t bother you.”
“The what?”
“There’s an Altaria without a flock that circles the mountain above the Pass,” Hinzelmann explained. “He can be quite dangerous, but he’ll know you’re too much bother, since you’re a Trainer.”
I weighed up my options. I could go through the Fiery Path, take forever and be continually attacked, or I could climb the Jagged Pass, run the gauntlet of the Lone Altaria and get there quickly.
“Thanks,” I said. “How do I get to this Pass?”
---
“... so you see, this place is a forward base for mounting an attack on the W.R.I.,” finished Shelly. “I moved in recently to get the project moving again – it’s been two years – and hired Didi and Gogo to help.”
“Who’s that?” asked Barry, confused. The only other people he’d seen so far were Vladimir and Scarlett – and Scarlett was surely just here because of her mother. He seriously doubted she was hired help.
“Our nicknames,” explained Vladimir. “I’m Didi. Gogo’s not here right now, but he’ll be along shortly.”
“Is he sitting by the road again?” asked Shelly. Vladimir nodded sadly.
“It’s difficult for him,” he said soulfully. “He can’t quite kick the habit.”
For the sake of the preservation of his sanity, Barry decided not to ask what they meant by that.
“What am I supposed to do?” he rumbled instead.
“Well, tunnelling would be a start,” Shelly said, looking him up and down. “You look strong.”
“Strong? There’s no one stronger.” Barry was pleased with this new development. When physical power was involved, he was in his prime; he could probably have given Brawly a run for his money in a wrestling match.
“Splendid,” cried Vladimir. “The north tunnels need expanding if they’re ever to reach the W.R.I.”
“That’s true,” agreed Shelly. “Until we get there, Archie has refused to send any more troops. He says it won’t do to alert them to our presence.”
This, Barry thought, was fair enough. The Gorsedd Hoenn already guarded its compound with enough force to stop even the government interfering with whatever went on in there; if they got wind of a potential Team Aqua attack, the place would become virtually impregnable.
“Anything other than digging?” he asked, hoping there wasn’t. He would prefer to spend his time alone with a drill and pickaxe than have to consort with Vladimir, the mysteriously absent ‘Gogo’ and Scarlett.
“Yes,” Shelly said, “your record says you have a Pokémon, yes?”
“Yeah...?”
“So you’ll be responsible for buying in supplies from Plain Rooke – I know there are Cleanse Tags, but it pays to be prepared, and I’m too busy to do it myself.”
“I can do it,” began Scarlett, but Shelly cut her off.
“Sweetpea, you already tried and you couldn’t carry it back. Mr. Hawksworthy will handle it.”
Mr. Hawksworthy... Barry nodded thoughtfully to himself. Shelly was a woman, which lowered her worth in his eyes, but she knew how to treat a man with respect, it seemed. It had been a long time since someone had called him ‘Mr. Hawksworthy’ rather than ‘Barry’ or ‘moron’ or ‘that big guy who just broke the table’.
“Didi!” cried a thin voice from outside. It had the same accent as Vladimir. “Someone came!”
“He already came, Gogo,” replied Vladimir wearily as another man in rags and patches rushed in, wild-eyed.
“I know, I know,” Gogo replied, “but it surprises me every time. It was a Trainer. We talked.”
“About?”
“The brevity of human existence,” Gogo said. “I made him cry.” He looked thoughtful. “Then again, he was only eleven.” Just then, he caught notice of Barry. “Hello! Who’s this?”
“This is Barry Hawksworthy,” Shelly said. “Barry, this is Estragon, our other hired worker.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Estragon said, doffing his broken hat. “Wait. Is this my hat, Didi?”
“It’s Lucky’s.”
“Whose?”
“You never remember him.”
Barry turned to Shelly before his brain melted.
“Where do you keep your mining equipment, ma’am?” he asked. “I – er – think it would be a good idea to start.”
Shelly beamed.
“Fantastic,” she said. “Gogo will show you the way.”
Barry suppressed a roar of rage, and let himself be led helplessly away by Estragon. Somewhere in the middle of his bottled fury, he wondered how long he would last before going completely insane.
I don’t know about you, Puck said, but I’m finding it pretty difficult to think of any more Bond jokes.
Oddly enough, that isn’t really worrying me right now.
Sapphire had apologised, and attempts had been made at cleaning me up, but the foul stench of vomit still clung to me, as did several of the stickier pieces of our last meal in Fallarbor. Consequently, I was in a very bad mood – though Sapphire said she was now feeling a little better.
Let’s see, Puck continued blithely, we’ve got The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy who Loved Me, Octopussy and Casino Royale to go. Damn, those are hard.
Shut up, I thought back. I’m sick of the sound of your voice.
Technically, I have no voice – these are my thoughts. But whatever.
The helicopter roared on, though within it we were silent; out of the windows, I saw the mountains rising like the teeth of the earth high into the sky, piercing clouds and shaking off the forests that cloaked the valleys. A flock of Altaria parted hurriedly at our approach, screaming abuse from their great white-cheeked mouths.
“We’re now approaching Mount Chimney,” crackled the pilot over the PA system. “If you look to your left, you can see the crater itself.”
I looked left, and could indeed see the crater; it was dark and full of bilious smoke that streamed out across the mountainside like a wave of black tears.
In a bit of a dark mood, aren’t you?
There were some barely-discernable figures atop the mountain, setting up some sort of machine; we couldn’t go any closer, but the pilot informed us of their probably purpose:
“You can see what are probably Lavaridge’s resident team of volcanologists, keeping an eye on things,” he said. You could tell he was proud of the long word he used. “Mount Chimney hasn’t erupted in seventy-three years, but the risk is always there, especially with the recent tremors.”
The other passenger, a man in middle age, looked up sharply.
“Tremors?”
“Tremors,” confirmed the pilot. “There have been a few minor earthquakes recently in the Lavaridge earlier. The scientists think that the tube that carries up the lava is probably blocked, and that the pressure has got to the point where it’s slowly forcing the blockage out, causing little earthquakes.”
It’s called ‘magma’ below ground, not ‘lava’. Puck sniffed. And to think this man flies over the volcano all the time! What other criminal activities does he get up to? Strangle kittens in his spare time?
I didn’t know what a kitten was, but thought it unlikely that the pilot strangled anything in his spare time, since so few people do.
We passed through a cloud, and the windows misted over; when they cleared, all I could see was red-brown rock, surrounding us on every side. I looked down, and as well as inflicting a stupendous case of vertigo on myself, I saw a medium-sized town spread out below, in a high alpine valley. Pools of dark water, almost black from this height, were liberally scattered across Lavaridge Town, congregating on the east side, where they nestled amongst the hot sand that cloaked the volcanic rock.
“We are now entering Lavaridge,” the pilot told us, somewhat pointlessly, and we descended towards the helipad. It was set about five hundred yards away from the main body of the town, atop a small hill, so as not to spoil the atmosphere of the place. I thought it was a futile trick, since the helicopter was loud enough to be heard all over town anyway, but that was how it was, and after disembarking we had quite a long walk to get to Lavaridge proper.
Upon reaching the town, we found it to be eerily empty; it didn’t necessarily appeal to families like Dewford, and relied mainly on elderly and cultured people for tourism. No one came there in the summer, either; it was a place that people retreated to in the autumn and the winter, to dispel the chill from their bones with the searing water that bubbled up from beneath the earth. I’d been once before, and had developed burns on the soles of my feet; I had seen the sign that cautioned against walking across the volcanic rocks without shoes a little too late.
You are such a moron, Puck said.
Easy for you to say, I thought back. You don’t even have feet.
The streets were lined with houses that were either four hundred years old or very well-disguised; they were built in the old Hoennian style, with mansard roofs and Tudor arches.
Oddly enough, that wasn’t my description, Puck commented. You learned that in Taste class?
Yeah.
“Kester,” said Sapphire, “come over here!”
I turned to look; she’d found a sign that bore a simplified map of the town.
“Here,” she said, pointing at a large red ‘G’, “is the Gym, but first we’d better find Felicity.”
Heh, Puck said, I wonder if that’s an original G?
“Excuse me,” came a voice from behind us, “did you say you were looking for Felicity?”
We turned sharply, Sapphire’s hand reaching for a Poké Ball out of instinct – but it was just an ordinary-looking man, dressed in a shabby grey suit and holding his battered hat in front of his chest as if halfway through doffing it.
“Who are you?” Sapphire asked suspiciously.
“No one,” he answered, turning his hat over in his hands. “I was just paid to tell you she’s gone.”
Sapphire stared.
“Gone?”
“Yes,” nodded the man. “Oh, and is your name Kester Ruby?” He looked at me inquisitively.
“Yeah,” I answered guardedly. He held out an envelope.
“Zero sends his regards,” he told me as I took it, and walked off.
I looked from the envelope to the man and back again. Sapphire seemed on the verge of running after the man, punching him to the floor and forcing him to tell us more, but I laid a hand on her shoulder to hold her back.
“Leave it,” I said. “If Zero’s half as intelligent as Felicity made out, that guy won’t know anything about his plans.”
Sapphire sighed and nodded.
“Fine,” she said irritably. “Open the letter, then.”
I did, and drew out a single sheet of paper, which, when unfolded, was revealed to bear a short, typed letter:
Dear Kester,
You really are doing spectacularly well, but I’m afraid you’re not going to get much further in this matter. I applaud your audacity in attempting to stop me, but it simply isn’t going to happen. My plans are too well-laid.
However, you are affording me no end of amusement, so I’m happy for you to continue if you wish. Should you choose to do so, the next phase of my plan goes into operation two days from now, on the top of Mount Chimney. I’ll be sure to be there, so I can say hello if you turn up.
Yours sincerely,
Zero
Wow, said Puck admiringly, I like that signature. Makes me wish I had hands.
“He took back Felicity, didn’t he,” I said. It was not a question.
“Yes,” agreed Sapphire quietly. “Almost certainly.”
There was a long pause.
“What now?” I wondered.
“We can’t give up,” Sapphire replied. “I don’t do giving up. Especially not against people like Zero.”
“Right. But what do we do?”
Sapphire looked at the letter.
“Two days from now, we go to the top of Mount Chimney,” she said. “That’s where it’s happening. Zero’s obviously really arrogant, and doesn’t think we’ll succeed, so he’s given us directions to try and stop him.”
“Those people on the mountaintop,” I said, recalling them from our flight. “They’ve probably got something to do with it.”
Sapphire nodded.
“Right.” There was another pause, and she looked at the map. “So, we have until Sunday, and we promised we’d challenge Spike...”
“You want to go to the Gym at a time like this?”
“Got a better idea?”
I thought for a moment.
Hey, wait a moment, Puck said uneasily, I don’t like the sound of that thought...
“We could investigate what’s happening at the top of the mountain,” I said. “You know, try and stop whatever’s going on before it happens.”
“Well, I’m going to the Gym,” Sapphire said firmly. “You can sneak around on mountaintops by yourself.”
I decided not to argue. I might be technically free now, but Sapphire was still definitely in charge.
“Regrettably, I can’t,” I sighed. “I have to take this moron with me.” I pointed at my head.
That’s not very polite, Puck said. And this spying idea is bad. I had a lover who was a spy once – and she died.
Are you complaining or making Bond jokes?
There was a pause.
Both, he admitted at length.
“Let’s go to the Pokémon Centre then,” Sapphire said. “We’ll get set up there, and we can go our separate ways.”
The Pokémon Centre was marked on the map with a yellow ‘PC’, about which Puck, surprisingly, had no joke to make, and since the town was so small, it took only a few minutes to get there. It was as similar to every other Centre I’d seen as it could be without actually being the same one, and the receptionist had the same weird dyed-pink hair.
“Good afternoon,” she said brightly. “May I see your Trainer Cards, please?”
I had forgotten about that. I closed my eyes and let out a silent groan.
---
Tabitha sat in his jeep and tapped his fingers against his thigh nervously. He hoped to God that everything was all right in there.
Two blocks away was the main Aqua stronghold in Fallarbor; this was Magma country, but the other Team had a presence here too. Excepting Slateport and Lavaridge, no settlement fell entirely under the control of either gang.
About half an hour ago, Tabitha had pulled up here – he never trusted anyone else to drive for him – and told his group what to do. They were the SHNB1, his personal troops and so elite and secret that not even he knew what the letters in their name stood for. Like all serious Magma units, they wore clothing of a darker red than mere field agents: these were men and women who killed by stealth, not with brute strength.
The SHNB1 force had immediately vanished, melting into the shadows like leaves blowing through the bars of a fence. Where they were now, Tabitha could only guess at; they were mist on the breeze, stealthy as leopards and vicious as Mernimblers.
“They’d better get them back,” he muttered for the hundredth time, clenching his hand into a nervous fist. “Or the boss will be...”
As it happened, the SHNB1 was having no difficulty at all finding and releasing Fabien. They had scaled the walls and climbed into the base through upper windows; from there, they had slipped from shadow to shadow and slit the throats of any unsuspecting Aquas in their path.
They moved in a needlessly complex and eerily silent series of acrobatic manoeuvres, from leaps and somersaults to pirouettes and flips; they clung to the ceilings and dropped onto their blue-clad foes, or popped improbably out of cupboards and garrotted them with thin, sharp red ligatures.
The SHNB1 had, in fact, killed the entire population of the top floor before anyone noticed they were there. They were alerted to this fact by the cutlass that removed the leg from one of their vanguards, and the Aqua in full piratical dress holding it. He then proceeded to pull a Horatius, and defend the stairs down against their superior numbers for an unreasonably long time.
By the time they managed to kill him, the SHNB1 faced a small army of Aqua shock troops, massed at the bottom of the stairs; a short but bloody battle ensued, in which rather a lot of guns were fired and katanas slashed about. The SHNB1, being considerably better-trained, better-armed and more prepared than the Aquas, took five minutes to butcher every last one of their opponents, having only lost three men, and proceeded to comb the building for signs of the two captives.
It turned out that they were actually confined to a chamber on the fourth floor, meaning that the battle had been a sickening and pointless waste of human life, but, never ones to let the past drag them down, the SHNB1 agents simply got on with their job. They picked the lock – they did not believe in breaking down doors – flitted in and dragged two very confused Magma field operatives out with them. They tossed them out of a window, and four of the SHNB1 inexplicably materialised down on the ground to catch them. From there, it was a swift thirty-second somersault-leap-walk back to Tabitha’s jeep, into the back seat of which four of them dropped from an unlikely height. They deposited Fabien and Blake there, then informed Tabitha that they had met with ‘slight resistance’ and left for Lavaridge by their own means.
“All right, you two,” snapped Tabitha, slamming a foot down on the accelerator, “did they get any information out of you?”
“What – what the hell was that?” Fabien asked, somewhat in shock.
“Answer me!”
“They didn’ get nothin’,” Blake said, more cool-headed. “We refused to talk.”
“Good,” said Tabitha, relieved. “That’s... brilliant.”
He rounded a corner at high speed and made an obscene gesture in the general direction of the honking horns that ensued.
“All right,” he said. “Listen up, morons. You two need to lie low for a while. You got that? Get out of uniform, go to the North District or something. Just for God’s sake, don’t attract any attention.”
“Why?” asked Blake.
“Because my unit just told me they’d met with slight resistance,” said Tabitha grimly, “and that means they killed everyone again. So Team Aqua aren’t going to be happy, and you two are the ones they’ll blame. So lie low, get drunk and stay off the radar. Capische?”
“What?”
Tabitha growled with impatience.
“Do you understand?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Blake nodded, glanced at Fabien, and said, “'E does too.”
“Good.” Tabitha thought of something. He pulled Goishi’s Poké Ball from the glove compartment and tossed it back; Blake caught it in one massive hand. “That’s yours, I believe.”
“Much obliged, sir,” said Fabien somewhat stiffly, relieving Blake of the ball. “Could you drop us at the train station?”
“If you’re going to make demands of me, Fabien,” Tabitha said, a vein pulsing in his temple, “you can get out here and walk.”
So saying, he braked sharply, slewing onto the pavement, and threatened to shoot the pair of them if they didn’t leave in the next fifteen seconds. They hurriedly acquiesced, and Tabitha was left to complete his journey alone, half relieved but also half furious. Blake and Fabien really were maddening company.
---
Well, I can’t say this isn’t a pretty disheartening situation.
I was sitting on the kerb, and had been since I’d been thrown out of the Pokémon Centre. While this had amused Puck and Sapphire enormously, I hadn’t enjoyed the experience that much.
Cheer up, Puck said, things could be worse.
“Tell me how?”
You might be an undesirable person living in Germany during the war, Puck said thoughtfully, and be shipped off to the concentration camps. Or you might be chained to the Atlas Mountains, where an eagle eats your liver every day. Or you might be horribly smelly. Oh. Wait. You stink of vomit.
“Somehow, I’m not comforted.”
It had been a quarter of an hour now, and Sapphire still hadn’t emerged from the Centre.
Let’s run away, Puck said. Come on, we’ll go investigate Mount Chimney.
“You said you didn’t want to.”
Yeah, but life’s no fun without a good scare.
“Are you quoting?”
Absolutely.
“All right,” I said, standing up stiffly and stretching. “I guess Sapphire’s having a shower or something.” I glanced down at my sick-stained jeans. “Not that I couldn’t use one.”
I started to walk off back towards the sign with the map on, in the hope of finding directions to a tourist information centre where I could find out how to get to Mount Chimney.
I found one a few doors down from the low brick building that called itself Lavaridge Town’s Pokémon Gym. I was about to go in, but my curiosity got the better of me and I went to investigate the Gym sign, to see if Spike had actually been inducted as Gym Leader in the space of less than twenty-four hours.
Lavaridge Town Pokémon Gym, read Puck. Leader: Flannery, ‘One with a fiery passion that burns!’
“That’s odd,” I said. “I thought she hated being called Flannery?”
Maybe she thought she needed a more serious name or something, suggested Puck. What amazes me is that she was made Leader so quickly, and that they managed to get a new sign painted up so fast.
“It is unusual, I’ll admit,” I agreed. “But I guess they don’t have much else to do here.”
True enough. Can we stop off at a power station and lick the transformers? I’m hungry.
“No,” I replied firmly, “and if you ask again I’m going to think about Felicity. Lots.”
Eeurgh, groaned Puck, how can you find a creature in such obviously poor physical condition attractive? Surely it points to a lack of suitability as a mate?
“It’s different for humans.”
Nah, not really. You’re no higher than other sentient beings with preferences – top-tier stuff.
“What?”
Read your Singer, Kester. Preference utilitarianism, you know? It’s my kind of morality. Or it would be, if I had morality in the human sense.
“This conversation is going nowhere,” I said loudly, startling a few passers-by. “Let’s go to the tourist centre.”
Not stopping to say hi?
“Sapphire’s coming by soon,” I reminded him, one hand on the glass door, “she can do it.”
Inside, the tourist information centre was like a bird’s nest of leaflets; I’d never seen so much wasted paper in my life. Red, green, blue, purple; all parts of the spectrum were represented on their shiny surfaces. They burst from racks, formed stacks on shelves, sat neatly side-by-side in self-satisfied piles on a small table by the door. I felt a sudden and inexplicable urge to set fire to the lot of them, and, quelling it with effort, made my way across to the abandoned desk.
Sorry, said Puck, that was my sudden and inexplicable urge to burn these pamphlets. I once had a bad experience with some waste-paper, the Professor and Mrs. Flittersnoop, and I’ve been kind of phobic of vast quantities of loose paper since.
On the desktop was a small bell of the kind that you press, and, since there was no one around, I pressed it. It failed to make a noise, and the little button part stuck fast with a quiet but audible crunch.
Way to go, Kester, Puck said. You broke the bell.
“Shut up,” I whispered furiously. Then I called out, more loudly: “Er – hello? Is anyone here?”
With startling speed and silence, an elderly man with a long, flowing mane of white hair and matching beard materialised on the other side of the desk.
“My name is Hinzelmann,” he told me, with enough earnestness to crush my soul. “How can I help you?”
“Ah... er...”
Another weird guy, eh? Puck gave a sigh. Never mind, we’ll get through it.
“I wanted,” I managed at last, “to know if it would be possible to go up onto Mount Chimney. Right up to the peak.”
“That’s pretty dangerous,” Hinzelmann said, his massive eyes fixed on mine with such intensity as was never known before. “Even the tunnels are dangerous.”
“It’s OK,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. “I... I’m a Trainer. I have experience of danger.”
“Oh, in that case,” Hinzelmann said, fishing out a small map from within a drawer of his desk, “you should take the Fiery Path.”
The map was of a network of tunnels that ran through the interior of Mount Chimney; I could see at a glance that it would be a long trip up to the top, and probably one that was interrupted multiple times by wild Pokémon.
“Isn’t there any other way?” I asked helplessly.
“You could walk up Jagged Pass,” Hinzelmann replied, after a short pause for thought, “but that’s tricky. It’s very—”
“Jagged?”
Hinzelmann beamed.
“Why, yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what it is. And, of course, there’s the Lone Altaria, but if you’re a Trainer he won’t bother you.”
“The what?”
“There’s an Altaria without a flock that circles the mountain above the Pass,” Hinzelmann explained. “He can be quite dangerous, but he’ll know you’re too much bother, since you’re a Trainer.”
I weighed up my options. I could go through the Fiery Path, take forever and be continually attacked, or I could climb the Jagged Pass, run the gauntlet of the Lone Altaria and get there quickly.
“Thanks,” I said. “How do I get to this Pass?”
---
“... so you see, this place is a forward base for mounting an attack on the W.R.I.,” finished Shelly. “I moved in recently to get the project moving again – it’s been two years – and hired Didi and Gogo to help.”
“Who’s that?” asked Barry, confused. The only other people he’d seen so far were Vladimir and Scarlett – and Scarlett was surely just here because of her mother. He seriously doubted she was hired help.
“Our nicknames,” explained Vladimir. “I’m Didi. Gogo’s not here right now, but he’ll be along shortly.”
“Is he sitting by the road again?” asked Shelly. Vladimir nodded sadly.
“It’s difficult for him,” he said soulfully. “He can’t quite kick the habit.”
For the sake of the preservation of his sanity, Barry decided not to ask what they meant by that.
“What am I supposed to do?” he rumbled instead.
“Well, tunnelling would be a start,” Shelly said, looking him up and down. “You look strong.”
“Strong? There’s no one stronger.” Barry was pleased with this new development. When physical power was involved, he was in his prime; he could probably have given Brawly a run for his money in a wrestling match.
“Splendid,” cried Vladimir. “The north tunnels need expanding if they’re ever to reach the W.R.I.”
“That’s true,” agreed Shelly. “Until we get there, Archie has refused to send any more troops. He says it won’t do to alert them to our presence.”
This, Barry thought, was fair enough. The Gorsedd Hoenn already guarded its compound with enough force to stop even the government interfering with whatever went on in there; if they got wind of a potential Team Aqua attack, the place would become virtually impregnable.
“Anything other than digging?” he asked, hoping there wasn’t. He would prefer to spend his time alone with a drill and pickaxe than have to consort with Vladimir, the mysteriously absent ‘Gogo’ and Scarlett.
“Yes,” Shelly said, “your record says you have a Pokémon, yes?”
“Yeah...?”
“So you’ll be responsible for buying in supplies from Plain Rooke – I know there are Cleanse Tags, but it pays to be prepared, and I’m too busy to do it myself.”
“I can do it,” began Scarlett, but Shelly cut her off.
“Sweetpea, you already tried and you couldn’t carry it back. Mr. Hawksworthy will handle it.”
Mr. Hawksworthy... Barry nodded thoughtfully to himself. Shelly was a woman, which lowered her worth in his eyes, but she knew how to treat a man with respect, it seemed. It had been a long time since someone had called him ‘Mr. Hawksworthy’ rather than ‘Barry’ or ‘moron’ or ‘that big guy who just broke the table’.
“Didi!” cried a thin voice from outside. It had the same accent as Vladimir. “Someone came!”
“He already came, Gogo,” replied Vladimir wearily as another man in rags and patches rushed in, wild-eyed.
“I know, I know,” Gogo replied, “but it surprises me every time. It was a Trainer. We talked.”
“About?”
“The brevity of human existence,” Gogo said. “I made him cry.” He looked thoughtful. “Then again, he was only eleven.” Just then, he caught notice of Barry. “Hello! Who’s this?”
“This is Barry Hawksworthy,” Shelly said. “Barry, this is Estragon, our other hired worker.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Estragon said, doffing his broken hat. “Wait. Is this my hat, Didi?”
“It’s Lucky’s.”
“Whose?”
“You never remember him.”
Barry turned to Shelly before his brain melted.
“Where do you keep your mining equipment, ma’am?” he asked. “I – er – think it would be a good idea to start.”
Shelly beamed.
“Fantastic,” she said. “Gogo will show you the way.”
Barry suppressed a roar of rage, and let himself be led helplessly away by Estragon. Somewhere in the middle of his bottled fury, he wondered how long he would last before going completely insane.
- Thread starter
- #68
Eep! Been neglecting these forums. I really must start posting - and reviewing, damn it! - more often.
Chapter Thirty-Four: Someone Holds a Candle to Sapphire
Sure is jagged here, Puck remarked, as I tripped for the fortieth time.
“That so? I hadn’t noticed,” I replied sarcastically, from between clenched teeth. I climbed back to my feet wearily; I had long since stopped checking to see if I’d cut or bruised my legs after each fall, because I invariably had – and now my knees were very unpleasant to look at. My jeans were also even more ruined than they had been already.
Jagged Pass was bordered by pine forest to the east and west; at least, it was until you got to the higher parts, where the red rock rose stark and bare, bereft of all covering. Precisely why no trees grew on the Pass itself was beyond my understanding. I also didn’t know why it was even called a pass – it wasn’t a gap through the mountains at all, but a long slope that formed one side of Mount Chimney. I was, however, certain that I knew why it was called ‘jagged’: it was covered in ledges, uneven terrain and boulders, and the ground was almost completely obscured by scree and talus that seemed to have been carved by the elements into natural knives.
Mount Chimney isn’t very high, is it? said Puck. I mean, I know Lavaridge Town is really high up, but it looks like you’re going to get to the peak by five at the latest.
“Best not to question these things,” I said wisely, clambering up another rocky ledge and wishing someone had thought to bulldoze a path up the mountain. My hands and forearms were scratched, bruised and filthy; my clothes were as ripped and battered as they had been after my previous misadventures. I sighed. I was going to need a new outfit again.
I staggered onwards, slipped and gave myself a bruised forehead with a cut in the centre. Hauling myself up onto a boulder, I sat down heavily and cupped my bleeding head with one hand, staring down at the distant town below.
“This isn’t going well,” I stated. “I’m halfway and I’m not sure I can go any further.”
It’ll be at least as bad going back as it is going up, Puck pointed out. Greater chance of slipping, too.
“I suppose.” I glared sullenly up at the sky, and the distant shape of a larger-than-average Altaria, circling eternally. “I hate to say it, but I think Sapphire could really have helped here. She’s better than me at this stuff, anyway.”
Ah, don’t say that. We’re like a drifter – born to walk alone. We’ll make it.
“I suppose it might have been worse if we’d gone through Fiery Path,” I said. “We’d probably have got lost, and made a positively Shandian digression.”
I don’t believe you’ve read that, so I’m going to assume you’ve just heard someone say ‘Shandian digression’ and thought it sounded clever.
Blast. Caught out.
“Damn. How did you know?”
Kester, you’re the last person in the world who would read Laurence Sterne.
“Who?”
Exactly.
I decided that that was enough, and it was time to start climbing again. Tucking my palms inside the lacerated sleeves of my hoodie, I grabbed onto some larger, more stable rocks, and began to guide myself carefully up the sea of stones.
Shortly afterwards, I passed a walled compound that I assumed was the vihara; the walls were made of pleasantly cool grey stone, mined from somewhere distant, and I could see the roofs rising above them like hills of slate. As I hiked past, I wondered what it was like to be a bhikku, and spend your days in meditation and learning.
Happy, if you’ve the mind for it, Puck answered. He sounded almost wistful. I’m too attached to things, though. I’d be the world’s worst Buddhist, let alone bhikku.
“I guess.”
It took me the better part of an hour to reach a point at which the ground levelled out a little; by that time, it must have been around half past four, and though the sun was still high in the sky, I was beginning to feel cold. We had to be close now.
Come on, urged Puck. There’s about twenty feet more, and we’ve reached the top.
With a tremendous effort, I forced myself up onto the flattened top of Mount Chimney, and saw, laid out before me as if by some divine hand—
“Absolutely nothing,” I said, crestfallen. “What the hell?”
There was the peak, an expanse of rough red stone, and the crater at the other end of the space, spewing its dark smoke to the north. All in all, it looked rather like a suitable place to destroy a ring, but of the supposed volcanologists or their strange machine, there was no sign at all.
“What happened?” I wondered. “Where are they?”
Coffee break? suggested Puck.
“Funny,” I said, in tones that I hoped suggested it wasn’t. “Let’s have a look around. I didn’t climb this mountain for nothing.”
I wandered over the mountaintop, searching for any signs of life; however, I came across nothing save the occasional scraggly bush and, once, a small and rather weedy Slugma, who chased me very slowly twice around a boulder before I decided I’d had enough and walked away, leaving him making furious bubbling noises at my back.
“This is stupid,” I said angrily, leaning against a rock near the heaving smoke of the crater. “Where – huh?”
The rock did not feel like rock. There was a sharp edge digging into my back, and something that felt like cloth dragging over it. I turned around, but there was only a boulder there; I reached out cautiously and touched it.
I don’t believe it, said Puck. It’s a shroud.
Dyed the rough red colour of the surrounding stone, the cloth was a perfect disguise as long as no one touched it; I hauled the sheet of fabric away and the boulder stood revealed as something very different indeed.
“What,” I wondered, staring, “is that?”
I don’t know, Puck said slowly. But it looks vaguely octopus-y to me.
It was the strange machine the ‘volcanologists’ had been setting up earlier, a great metallic box with a vast number of pipes rooting it to the stone as if it were some artificial mangrove tree. They actually seemed to go into the rock, and I wondered if they extended all the way down to the magma beneath. Atop the gleaming chrome body was a glass structure that put me in mind of a bell jar, and inside this was a set of clamps that were currently notable for not actually clamping anything.
“Putting that awful joke aside,” I said, “can you possess this and find out what it is?”
I can try, said Puck, but I warn you, it doesn’t look like it’s going to do anything without someone putting something in that jar.
“Just try.”
I laid a hand on one pipe, and blue sparks danced around my fingertips. A light flickered on the side of the machine, and it began to hum – then it cut out abruptly and the light died.
OK, bad news, said Puck. It doesn’t seem to do anything. I tried everything I know – and let me tell you, the things I don’t know about machinery aren’t worth knowing – but it seems that it won’t do anything until that jar has something put in it.
“All right.” I sighed and withdrew my hand, then looked around. Even if this had been a wasted trip, the view was spectacular: the Madeiras raised their rust-coloured hears all around me, like a great crown of thorns perched on Hoenn’s head. Up here, I was level with the Altaria; the flocks wheeled and cawed above the valleys in their endless search for food. The only things above me were the clouds and the Lone Altaria, which flew at such heights that it probably had problems breathing.
I dragged the camouflage sheet back over the machine and wandered over to the crater, going as close as I dared to the edge and trying to catch a glimpse of lava or something behind the veil of black smoke.
You’re lucky the wind’s blowing northwards, observed Puck, or you’d be covered in ash. Also, it probably isn’t very safe to be doing this. The volcano’s obviously not very stable right now, and it might erupt. Which would kill you as surely as a bullet. Fired from Scaramanga’s golden gun.
“Er, yeah, you’re probably right,” I agreed, taking several hurried steps back. “I should probably leave.”
I walked back over to the end of Jagged Pass and was about to make my way down when I saw a group of figures coming up the slope, slipping and sliding on the scree.
Figures in red.
“Magmas,” I breathed. “Puck, Team Magma’s coming!”
Thanks for that. It’s not like I can see them or anything.
“Shut up.” I looked around wildly. “See any hiding places?”
In the crater?
“Correction: any hiding places I can survive in?”
I don’t know, just go behind some boulders or something. They’re going to go to the machine, so just make sure they can’t see you from there.
“Gotcha.”
I ran back to the disguised machine, checked its camouflaging sheet was more or less how it had been left, then darted behind the nearest pile of rocks. I wanted to be able to hear what they said. I crouched down and flattened myself against the warm red stone, heart pounding like a drum, and I waited for them to reach the peak.
And waited.
And waited.
That pass really is jagged, isn’t it? remarked Puck, as the sound of distant cursing reached my ears. It’s at times like this that I’m glad I don’t have feet.
I sighed and relaxed a little, leaning back against the boulder. It looked like I was going to have a long wait on my hands.
---
Sapphire stood outside Spike’s Gym and wondered how she’d been elected so quickly. It usually took at least a week for Leaders to be decided on; the League had to approve them, and the townspeople needed to all cast their vote. She frowned. She knew something about this – something that was odd about the election – but she couldn’t remember it.
“It’ll come back to me,” she decided, and went over to read the Gym sign. She was surprised to discover that Spike had chosen her real name to use, despite her hatred for it. Shrugging, she walked up the steps, ignoring the caretaker’s efforts to inveigle her into small talk, and pushed open the door.
Inside, the Gym was long, low and ankle-deep in warm, powdery sand. Sapphire looked at it with distaste, then sighed and waded in, feeling it rush into her trainers and fill them with grittiness.
“Sandy,” she said, shutting the door behind her and beginning to walk. “I hate sand.”
Sapphire could take mud, water or leaves; she’d been covered in ash and soot before, and slime, and even banana pulp – but sand was the one thing she couldn’t stand to get in her clothes. It hung around for days and turned up in her hair, in her shoes and under her nails; it got everywhere, and she hated it.
The room Sapphire was in was only a small part of the Gym, that much she could tell; the place was divided up by walls formed of wooden palings driven into the ground, and through a small gap in the fence she could see further rooms – and, in the distance, the flash of Spike’s dyed-crimson hair.
Sapphire took one more step, and found to her alarm that there was no more floor beneath her feet: she plummeted face-first into the sand, fell through it and landed hard on another layer of sand below.
“Whuh...?” She picked herself up slowly, and a thin stream of sand fell down on her head with a soft pitter-patter sound. Sapphire got to her feet, brushing sand from her clothes, and gave a groan of frustration. “Dear. God. So. Much. Sand.”
She shook her head vigorously, and sand flew out of her hair; she took off her hat and emptied about a pint of the fine granules onto the floor. The Swellow feather, she decided regretfully, was ruined, and she pulled it out, resolving to get a replacement at the first opportunity.
Then, reasonably clean, Sapphire began to explore this lower room, figuring out the Gym’s puzzle as she went. She always refused to read up on Gyms before challenging them; the traps installed by the Leader were supposed to be a test of the Trainer, just as the battles were a test of the Pokémon. Here, it was fairly easy to see what she had to do: drop through the right concealed holes, avoiding the others, and climb the stairs to come out in different rooms. The difficulty lay in actually managing to do any of it.
Sapphire tried one set of stairs and almost immediately fell down another hole; she picked herself up and tried to think. She got a notebook and a pencil from her bag, and started trying to map the Gym, drawing in two levels and trying to figure out how the rooms and holes linked up. For a full forty minutes, she just wandered, working on her map – and after that time, she had a pretty good diagram of the building’s interior. The only thing that eluded her was the method of reaching the Leader’s podium itself, which, if her map was correct, was at the heart of the maze.
Since her map showed every sand-pit and staircase that she had found so far, Sapphire was pretty sure she must have missed a hole somewhere, and spent a further twenty minutes pacing over the surface of every room in the Gym, trying to find another concealed hole. She found two, but they led into rooms she’d been in before, and didn’t help.
Sapphire stopped on the lower floor, the one with the stairs, and rubbed her head, doing her best to ignore the gritty crunch of the sand against her skin. She was missing something. There had to be something obvious that she wasn’t seeing. She sat down to think – and the floor gave way beneath her, the soft sand swallowing her up like the gelatinous flank of a Muk. She experienced a brief second of flight and then – whumph! She landed flat on her back, on an even lower floor that she had never even suspected the existence of.
“This is worse than that Corsola hunt Dad dragged me along to,” Sapphire murmured to herself, watching sand drift down in loose coils from the ceiling to her chest. She staggered upright, made a futile attack on her new, grainy outer shell and set off to see where this floor led, adding it to her map as she went.
Five minutes later, Sapphire emerged from the subterranean depths of the Gym’s lower floors and stepped up onto the Leader’s podium. At her approach, a girl with bright crimson hair stood up and turned to face her, whereupon Sapphire noted with some surprise that it wasn’t Spike at all.
This girl wore her hair in a similar style to Spike’s, and she was the same age, but she had no piercings, and was dressed in a plain, faded red T-shirt and normal, undamaged jeans. That, Sapphire thought, would be why the sign said ‘Flannery’ – Spike hadn’t made Leader, and someone else had been elected in her place.
“Oh!” said Sapphire. “Er – sorry. I was expecting someone else.”
The girl raised an eyebrow.
“Who else would you be expecting?” she asked. She was well-spoken, unlike Spike – but the voice was undeniably the same. “It’s me, Sapphire.”
Sapphire stared.
“What?” she asked. “That... you’ve had a major style change.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Spike opened a large chest behind her; Sapphire could see it was filled with a multitude of Poké Balls, in all colours and sizes. “How strong are you?”
“Um... mid to late twenties,” Sapphire told her, thrown by the curt response. “Two Pokémon.”
She wasn’t going to use Stacey or the Sableye; both were far too mentally disturbed to be of any real help in battle.
“Fine.” Spike withdrew two balls from the chest and shut the lid. Sapphire noted that her knuckles were white against her skin; it was obvious now that something was up with her. “You’re my first challenger,” she admitted. “I shall make this a victory to remember.”
With that, she tossed down her first ball, and a small, round creature in shades of pastel yellow appeared, blinking confused eyes and smoking gently from an aperture in its back. This was a Numel – and one day, if trained enough, it would become a Camerupt such as the one Tabitha had used at Meteor Falls.
Sapphire responded with Toro; the Combusken seemed fully recovered from her fright at the helicopter, bouncing from foot to foot like a professional boxer.
“Cheee,” she chirruped pugnaciously, making fists of her clawed hands. “Cheee.”
“Double Kick,” Sapphire ordered, and Toro lunged forwards, legs whipping forwards into a blur of feathers—
—but she missed completely, the Numel dissolving in a flash of light beneath her feet. She landed heavily on her side, but sprang back up nevertheless, looking around alertly for her opponent.
Spike threw down another ball, and, of all things, a large, fat candle burst forth from it, sitting completely motionless in the middle of the podium. The only sign that it wasn’t anything but an ordinary candle was the large purple flame that burned at the end of its wick.
Toro looked at the candle. Sapphire looked at the candle. Then they both looked at each other.
“I’ll let you make the first move here,” Spike said. “Go on.”
“Double Kick,” Sapphire said, and obediently Toro tried again; however, she passed straight through the candle as if it weren’t there, and crashed into the wall beyond. There was a crack, and for a heart-stopping moment Sapphire thought Toro had broken her leg – but it was just the wood splintering beneath the attack.
Sapphire started and cried out; the candle was a Ghost? Almost as soon as she thought it, she wanted to kick herself: the purple flame was the giveaway. Only Ghosts could make fire like that. And most Ghosts could also learn—
“Pallas, Psychic,” ordered Spike, and, though the candle didn’t move, Toro emitted a piercing cry before toppling over, blood pouring from her ears. Her whole body went limp at once, and she crumpled to the floor like a paper bag.
Sapphire swore under her breath and recalled Toro, sending out Rono in her place. The Lairon roared, happy to be of use, looked around for an opponent, and dropped a small boulder on the spectral candle. Where the stone for the Rock Tomb came from was unknown, but Sapphire never questioned it.
The attack had the desired effect: made of wax and evil, the candle stood no chance, and was squashed flat. Rono bellowed happily, but Sapphire was still tense: she already knew that Spike’s other Pokémon was a Numel, and if it managed to get Rono with a Ground-type move, the battle would basically be over – especially if that move was Earth Power, and it would make perfect sense if it was.
The Numel appeared, and Sapphire’s voice rang out concurrently with Spike’s:
“Rock Tomb!”
“Dig!”
The boulder crashed down, but the floor was sandy and soft, ideal for digging in, and the rocks simply made shallow craters in the dirt. All at once, the action stopped; Rono froze, trying to work out where his foe was, and Sapphire cautioned him:
“Stay still! Listen for it.”
Spike said nothing, just kept her eyes fixed on the ground.
The time stretched out; it might have been seconds, or it might have been minutes. Still, the Numel did not reappear.
Sweat trickled down Sapphire’s brow; she’d never fought anyone who had been in such total command of the battle. From the switching in of the candle-Ghost to the fear tactics induced by the Numel’s long absence, Spike’s stratagems had been perfect. What was more, she was formulating these on the spot – there was no way she could have known what Pokémon Sapphire would use against her in advance. This was what real battles were like, Sapphire thought: these were the kind of tricks the Trainers in the League Tournament used, or the Elite Four. You could tell that Spike was at their level: her skill was nothing short of masterful—
With a rush of earth, the Numel surfaced – behind Sapphire.
“Earth Power!” snapped Spike, and Rono, unable to see where the attack came from, was tossed a foot into the air by the force of the exploding ground beneath him. From nowhere, plumes of lava and dirt blasted out of the floor as if it had been laced with mines; a pained roar echoed through the room, and when Rono crashed back into the sand, his rocky underbelly had holes punched in it the size of Sapphire’s fist. He struggled once to rise – twice – and fell back against the ground, eyes glazed and breath ragged.
“Return,” said Spike, recalling her Numel. “It seems you weren’t good enough. Come back another day.”
With that, she swept away through a concealed door at the back of her room, slamming it shut behind her. Sapphire was left standing there, looking at her defeated Lairon and wondering why, throughout the whole of her time in the Gym, Spike had never once met her eye.
---
“... and all I said was, ‘I don’t tip.’”
“You don’t tip?”
The voice sounded incredulous. There were eight of them, and they had just made their way over the crest of Jagged Pass. Their conversation, though inane, was somehow compelling, and I found myself listening harder.
“No, I don’t believe in it,” said Magma No. 1.
“You don’t believe in tippin’?” asked Magma No. 2, as if trying to straighten the matter out in his head.
A third voice broke in:
“You know what those chicks make? They make nothing.”
“Don’t gimme that,” Magma No. 1 said. “If she don’t make enough money she can quit.”
Someone chuckled, and over him Magma No. 2 spoke:
“I don’t even know a damn blue who’d have the guts to say that.” He paused for a moment, presumably to wrap his brain around the concept of not tipping. “Let me just get this straight. You never tip, huh?”
“I don’t tip because society says I have to,” argued Magma No. 1. “All right, I’ll tip if someone really deserves it – if they really put forth the effort I’ll give ’em somethin’ extra – but just tipping automatically... that’s for the birds.”
Magma No. 2 laughed incredulously.
“As far as I’m concerned,” went on Magma No. 1, “they’re just doin’ their job.”
My God, Puck said, in hushed tones, they’ve learned the entire opening scene, haven’t they?
“What?” I whispered back.
Nothing. Just – oh, Kester, you’ve got so many films to see.
“Here’s the machine,” said Magma No. 1.
Oh, said Puck, disappointed, they stopped.
“Just where we left it,” said Magma No. 2.
“I don’t even see why we need to keep checkin’ on this thing anyway,” complained Magma No. 3.
“It’s the boss,” replied Magma No. 1. “You know, he’s determined this goes off without a hitch or anythin’. So we make sure nothin’ goes wrong, that this thing’s not been tampered with.”
There was the sound of shifting cloth, and a beep and a hum from the machine. I had an unpleasant thought – what if they could tell we’d messed with it?
What do you think I am, a common footpad? asked Puck haughtily. I’m a professional art thief. I cover my freakin’ tracks, man.
All right! I thought at him. Sorry, sorry.
You damn well better be.
“Looks fine to me,” said Magma No. 3. “No one even comes up here, do they? Not with the volcano like it is.”
“I really hope it don’t erupt on Sunday,” Magma No. 2 put in. “I mean, we’ll be up here.”
“Nah, the boss has it all figured out,” Magma No. 1 said. “It’ll be fine.” There was a pause, and I guessed they were all staring worriedly at the smoking crater. “Mind you...”
“We should get outta here,” suggested Magma No. 3.
“I second that,” said Magma No. 2.
“Me too,” Magma No. 1 said. “All right, let’s get back. It’s definitely not safe here.”
The sheet was replaced with a whoosh, and I heard their footsteps retreat; peeping out from my hiding place, I saw them crunch their way down onto Jagged Pass, and I stood up with a sigh, massaging my legs – I’d been crouching for quite a long time now.
“What do you make of that?” I asked quietly.
They’ve all got great taste in films, Puck replied. Oh, you mean about the whole Magma plot thing? Yeah, I didn’t get anything about that. Except that Maxie’s pretty anxious that it goes off well, which means it’s important – which we already knew, because Zero told us.
“You’re right,” I said despondently. “We didn’t learn anything, did we?”
We sort of did, Puck said thoughtfully. I mean, think about it. Where did those Magmas come from? They sort of appeared halfway up Jagged Pass. Which would seem to suggest to me—
“A secret passageway, leading into an evil volcano lair!” I cried “Like in the movies!”
Actually, I was going to say it suggested that Team Magma use the Fiery Path to get around, Puck admitted, but your idea’s cool too. Hey, he added, shall we follow them?
I hesitated.
“Puck, that’s... really stupid. They’ll see me coming from a mile off on Jagged Path, and they’ll know I must have been on the peak at the same time as them, and even then, walking into the secret Magma lair would be really, really stupid...”
All these are valid points, Puck conceded, but I think we should follow them.
“No.”
Ah, you’re no fun.
“Whereas you seem to think life is one great big casino royale, where the stakes are death and sanity, and you gamble life and limb in the hope of winning entertainment.”
Well done, that boy! Puck cried admiringly. Casino Royale’s got to be one of the hardest ones! It’s also the last one, he added thoughtfully. Which means we need to decide a winner.
“Have you been keeping track of who got more?” I asked, hoping I would beat him.
Er... Damn it. No.
And so our Bond film referencing contest came to a singularly disappointing end, much like this chapter.
Chapter Thirty-Four: Someone Holds a Candle to Sapphire
Sure is jagged here, Puck remarked, as I tripped for the fortieth time.
“That so? I hadn’t noticed,” I replied sarcastically, from between clenched teeth. I climbed back to my feet wearily; I had long since stopped checking to see if I’d cut or bruised my legs after each fall, because I invariably had – and now my knees were very unpleasant to look at. My jeans were also even more ruined than they had been already.
Jagged Pass was bordered by pine forest to the east and west; at least, it was until you got to the higher parts, where the red rock rose stark and bare, bereft of all covering. Precisely why no trees grew on the Pass itself was beyond my understanding. I also didn’t know why it was even called a pass – it wasn’t a gap through the mountains at all, but a long slope that formed one side of Mount Chimney. I was, however, certain that I knew why it was called ‘jagged’: it was covered in ledges, uneven terrain and boulders, and the ground was almost completely obscured by scree and talus that seemed to have been carved by the elements into natural knives.
Mount Chimney isn’t very high, is it? said Puck. I mean, I know Lavaridge Town is really high up, but it looks like you’re going to get to the peak by five at the latest.
“Best not to question these things,” I said wisely, clambering up another rocky ledge and wishing someone had thought to bulldoze a path up the mountain. My hands and forearms were scratched, bruised and filthy; my clothes were as ripped and battered as they had been after my previous misadventures. I sighed. I was going to need a new outfit again.
I staggered onwards, slipped and gave myself a bruised forehead with a cut in the centre. Hauling myself up onto a boulder, I sat down heavily and cupped my bleeding head with one hand, staring down at the distant town below.
“This isn’t going well,” I stated. “I’m halfway and I’m not sure I can go any further.”
It’ll be at least as bad going back as it is going up, Puck pointed out. Greater chance of slipping, too.
“I suppose.” I glared sullenly up at the sky, and the distant shape of a larger-than-average Altaria, circling eternally. “I hate to say it, but I think Sapphire could really have helped here. She’s better than me at this stuff, anyway.”
Ah, don’t say that. We’re like a drifter – born to walk alone. We’ll make it.
“I suppose it might have been worse if we’d gone through Fiery Path,” I said. “We’d probably have got lost, and made a positively Shandian digression.”
I don’t believe you’ve read that, so I’m going to assume you’ve just heard someone say ‘Shandian digression’ and thought it sounded clever.
Blast. Caught out.
“Damn. How did you know?”
Kester, you’re the last person in the world who would read Laurence Sterne.
“Who?”
Exactly.
I decided that that was enough, and it was time to start climbing again. Tucking my palms inside the lacerated sleeves of my hoodie, I grabbed onto some larger, more stable rocks, and began to guide myself carefully up the sea of stones.
Shortly afterwards, I passed a walled compound that I assumed was the vihara; the walls were made of pleasantly cool grey stone, mined from somewhere distant, and I could see the roofs rising above them like hills of slate. As I hiked past, I wondered what it was like to be a bhikku, and spend your days in meditation and learning.
Happy, if you’ve the mind for it, Puck answered. He sounded almost wistful. I’m too attached to things, though. I’d be the world’s worst Buddhist, let alone bhikku.
“I guess.”
It took me the better part of an hour to reach a point at which the ground levelled out a little; by that time, it must have been around half past four, and though the sun was still high in the sky, I was beginning to feel cold. We had to be close now.
Come on, urged Puck. There’s about twenty feet more, and we’ve reached the top.
With a tremendous effort, I forced myself up onto the flattened top of Mount Chimney, and saw, laid out before me as if by some divine hand—
“Absolutely nothing,” I said, crestfallen. “What the hell?”
There was the peak, an expanse of rough red stone, and the crater at the other end of the space, spewing its dark smoke to the north. All in all, it looked rather like a suitable place to destroy a ring, but of the supposed volcanologists or their strange machine, there was no sign at all.
“What happened?” I wondered. “Where are they?”
Coffee break? suggested Puck.
“Funny,” I said, in tones that I hoped suggested it wasn’t. “Let’s have a look around. I didn’t climb this mountain for nothing.”
I wandered over the mountaintop, searching for any signs of life; however, I came across nothing save the occasional scraggly bush and, once, a small and rather weedy Slugma, who chased me very slowly twice around a boulder before I decided I’d had enough and walked away, leaving him making furious bubbling noises at my back.
“This is stupid,” I said angrily, leaning against a rock near the heaving smoke of the crater. “Where – huh?”
The rock did not feel like rock. There was a sharp edge digging into my back, and something that felt like cloth dragging over it. I turned around, but there was only a boulder there; I reached out cautiously and touched it.
I don’t believe it, said Puck. It’s a shroud.
Dyed the rough red colour of the surrounding stone, the cloth was a perfect disguise as long as no one touched it; I hauled the sheet of fabric away and the boulder stood revealed as something very different indeed.
“What,” I wondered, staring, “is that?”
I don’t know, Puck said slowly. But it looks vaguely octopus-y to me.
It was the strange machine the ‘volcanologists’ had been setting up earlier, a great metallic box with a vast number of pipes rooting it to the stone as if it were some artificial mangrove tree. They actually seemed to go into the rock, and I wondered if they extended all the way down to the magma beneath. Atop the gleaming chrome body was a glass structure that put me in mind of a bell jar, and inside this was a set of clamps that were currently notable for not actually clamping anything.
“Putting that awful joke aside,” I said, “can you possess this and find out what it is?”
I can try, said Puck, but I warn you, it doesn’t look like it’s going to do anything without someone putting something in that jar.
“Just try.”
I laid a hand on one pipe, and blue sparks danced around my fingertips. A light flickered on the side of the machine, and it began to hum – then it cut out abruptly and the light died.
OK, bad news, said Puck. It doesn’t seem to do anything. I tried everything I know – and let me tell you, the things I don’t know about machinery aren’t worth knowing – but it seems that it won’t do anything until that jar has something put in it.
“All right.” I sighed and withdrew my hand, then looked around. Even if this had been a wasted trip, the view was spectacular: the Madeiras raised their rust-coloured hears all around me, like a great crown of thorns perched on Hoenn’s head. Up here, I was level with the Altaria; the flocks wheeled and cawed above the valleys in their endless search for food. The only things above me were the clouds and the Lone Altaria, which flew at such heights that it probably had problems breathing.
I dragged the camouflage sheet back over the machine and wandered over to the crater, going as close as I dared to the edge and trying to catch a glimpse of lava or something behind the veil of black smoke.
You’re lucky the wind’s blowing northwards, observed Puck, or you’d be covered in ash. Also, it probably isn’t very safe to be doing this. The volcano’s obviously not very stable right now, and it might erupt. Which would kill you as surely as a bullet. Fired from Scaramanga’s golden gun.
“Er, yeah, you’re probably right,” I agreed, taking several hurried steps back. “I should probably leave.”
I walked back over to the end of Jagged Pass and was about to make my way down when I saw a group of figures coming up the slope, slipping and sliding on the scree.
Figures in red.
“Magmas,” I breathed. “Puck, Team Magma’s coming!”
Thanks for that. It’s not like I can see them or anything.
“Shut up.” I looked around wildly. “See any hiding places?”
In the crater?
“Correction: any hiding places I can survive in?”
I don’t know, just go behind some boulders or something. They’re going to go to the machine, so just make sure they can’t see you from there.
“Gotcha.”
I ran back to the disguised machine, checked its camouflaging sheet was more or less how it had been left, then darted behind the nearest pile of rocks. I wanted to be able to hear what they said. I crouched down and flattened myself against the warm red stone, heart pounding like a drum, and I waited for them to reach the peak.
And waited.
And waited.
That pass really is jagged, isn’t it? remarked Puck, as the sound of distant cursing reached my ears. It’s at times like this that I’m glad I don’t have feet.
I sighed and relaxed a little, leaning back against the boulder. It looked like I was going to have a long wait on my hands.
---
Sapphire stood outside Spike’s Gym and wondered how she’d been elected so quickly. It usually took at least a week for Leaders to be decided on; the League had to approve them, and the townspeople needed to all cast their vote. She frowned. She knew something about this – something that was odd about the election – but she couldn’t remember it.
“It’ll come back to me,” she decided, and went over to read the Gym sign. She was surprised to discover that Spike had chosen her real name to use, despite her hatred for it. Shrugging, she walked up the steps, ignoring the caretaker’s efforts to inveigle her into small talk, and pushed open the door.
Inside, the Gym was long, low and ankle-deep in warm, powdery sand. Sapphire looked at it with distaste, then sighed and waded in, feeling it rush into her trainers and fill them with grittiness.
“Sandy,” she said, shutting the door behind her and beginning to walk. “I hate sand.”
Sapphire could take mud, water or leaves; she’d been covered in ash and soot before, and slime, and even banana pulp – but sand was the one thing she couldn’t stand to get in her clothes. It hung around for days and turned up in her hair, in her shoes and under her nails; it got everywhere, and she hated it.
The room Sapphire was in was only a small part of the Gym, that much she could tell; the place was divided up by walls formed of wooden palings driven into the ground, and through a small gap in the fence she could see further rooms – and, in the distance, the flash of Spike’s dyed-crimson hair.
Sapphire took one more step, and found to her alarm that there was no more floor beneath her feet: she plummeted face-first into the sand, fell through it and landed hard on another layer of sand below.
“Whuh...?” She picked herself up slowly, and a thin stream of sand fell down on her head with a soft pitter-patter sound. Sapphire got to her feet, brushing sand from her clothes, and gave a groan of frustration. “Dear. God. So. Much. Sand.”
She shook her head vigorously, and sand flew out of her hair; she took off her hat and emptied about a pint of the fine granules onto the floor. The Swellow feather, she decided regretfully, was ruined, and she pulled it out, resolving to get a replacement at the first opportunity.
Then, reasonably clean, Sapphire began to explore this lower room, figuring out the Gym’s puzzle as she went. She always refused to read up on Gyms before challenging them; the traps installed by the Leader were supposed to be a test of the Trainer, just as the battles were a test of the Pokémon. Here, it was fairly easy to see what she had to do: drop through the right concealed holes, avoiding the others, and climb the stairs to come out in different rooms. The difficulty lay in actually managing to do any of it.
Sapphire tried one set of stairs and almost immediately fell down another hole; she picked herself up and tried to think. She got a notebook and a pencil from her bag, and started trying to map the Gym, drawing in two levels and trying to figure out how the rooms and holes linked up. For a full forty minutes, she just wandered, working on her map – and after that time, she had a pretty good diagram of the building’s interior. The only thing that eluded her was the method of reaching the Leader’s podium itself, which, if her map was correct, was at the heart of the maze.
Since her map showed every sand-pit and staircase that she had found so far, Sapphire was pretty sure she must have missed a hole somewhere, and spent a further twenty minutes pacing over the surface of every room in the Gym, trying to find another concealed hole. She found two, but they led into rooms she’d been in before, and didn’t help.
Sapphire stopped on the lower floor, the one with the stairs, and rubbed her head, doing her best to ignore the gritty crunch of the sand against her skin. She was missing something. There had to be something obvious that she wasn’t seeing. She sat down to think – and the floor gave way beneath her, the soft sand swallowing her up like the gelatinous flank of a Muk. She experienced a brief second of flight and then – whumph! She landed flat on her back, on an even lower floor that she had never even suspected the existence of.
“This is worse than that Corsola hunt Dad dragged me along to,” Sapphire murmured to herself, watching sand drift down in loose coils from the ceiling to her chest. She staggered upright, made a futile attack on her new, grainy outer shell and set off to see where this floor led, adding it to her map as she went.
Five minutes later, Sapphire emerged from the subterranean depths of the Gym’s lower floors and stepped up onto the Leader’s podium. At her approach, a girl with bright crimson hair stood up and turned to face her, whereupon Sapphire noted with some surprise that it wasn’t Spike at all.
This girl wore her hair in a similar style to Spike’s, and she was the same age, but she had no piercings, and was dressed in a plain, faded red T-shirt and normal, undamaged jeans. That, Sapphire thought, would be why the sign said ‘Flannery’ – Spike hadn’t made Leader, and someone else had been elected in her place.
“Oh!” said Sapphire. “Er – sorry. I was expecting someone else.”
The girl raised an eyebrow.
“Who else would you be expecting?” she asked. She was well-spoken, unlike Spike – but the voice was undeniably the same. “It’s me, Sapphire.”
Sapphire stared.
“What?” she asked. “That... you’ve had a major style change.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Spike opened a large chest behind her; Sapphire could see it was filled with a multitude of Poké Balls, in all colours and sizes. “How strong are you?”
“Um... mid to late twenties,” Sapphire told her, thrown by the curt response. “Two Pokémon.”
She wasn’t going to use Stacey or the Sableye; both were far too mentally disturbed to be of any real help in battle.
“Fine.” Spike withdrew two balls from the chest and shut the lid. Sapphire noted that her knuckles were white against her skin; it was obvious now that something was up with her. “You’re my first challenger,” she admitted. “I shall make this a victory to remember.”
With that, she tossed down her first ball, and a small, round creature in shades of pastel yellow appeared, blinking confused eyes and smoking gently from an aperture in its back. This was a Numel – and one day, if trained enough, it would become a Camerupt such as the one Tabitha had used at Meteor Falls.
Sapphire responded with Toro; the Combusken seemed fully recovered from her fright at the helicopter, bouncing from foot to foot like a professional boxer.
“Cheee,” she chirruped pugnaciously, making fists of her clawed hands. “Cheee.”
“Double Kick,” Sapphire ordered, and Toro lunged forwards, legs whipping forwards into a blur of feathers—
—but she missed completely, the Numel dissolving in a flash of light beneath her feet. She landed heavily on her side, but sprang back up nevertheless, looking around alertly for her opponent.
Spike threw down another ball, and, of all things, a large, fat candle burst forth from it, sitting completely motionless in the middle of the podium. The only sign that it wasn’t anything but an ordinary candle was the large purple flame that burned at the end of its wick.
Toro looked at the candle. Sapphire looked at the candle. Then they both looked at each other.
“I’ll let you make the first move here,” Spike said. “Go on.”
“Double Kick,” Sapphire said, and obediently Toro tried again; however, she passed straight through the candle as if it weren’t there, and crashed into the wall beyond. There was a crack, and for a heart-stopping moment Sapphire thought Toro had broken her leg – but it was just the wood splintering beneath the attack.
Sapphire started and cried out; the candle was a Ghost? Almost as soon as she thought it, she wanted to kick herself: the purple flame was the giveaway. Only Ghosts could make fire like that. And most Ghosts could also learn—
“Pallas, Psychic,” ordered Spike, and, though the candle didn’t move, Toro emitted a piercing cry before toppling over, blood pouring from her ears. Her whole body went limp at once, and she crumpled to the floor like a paper bag.
Sapphire swore under her breath and recalled Toro, sending out Rono in her place. The Lairon roared, happy to be of use, looked around for an opponent, and dropped a small boulder on the spectral candle. Where the stone for the Rock Tomb came from was unknown, but Sapphire never questioned it.
The attack had the desired effect: made of wax and evil, the candle stood no chance, and was squashed flat. Rono bellowed happily, but Sapphire was still tense: she already knew that Spike’s other Pokémon was a Numel, and if it managed to get Rono with a Ground-type move, the battle would basically be over – especially if that move was Earth Power, and it would make perfect sense if it was.
The Numel appeared, and Sapphire’s voice rang out concurrently with Spike’s:
“Rock Tomb!”
“Dig!”
The boulder crashed down, but the floor was sandy and soft, ideal for digging in, and the rocks simply made shallow craters in the dirt. All at once, the action stopped; Rono froze, trying to work out where his foe was, and Sapphire cautioned him:
“Stay still! Listen for it.”
Spike said nothing, just kept her eyes fixed on the ground.
The time stretched out; it might have been seconds, or it might have been minutes. Still, the Numel did not reappear.
Sweat trickled down Sapphire’s brow; she’d never fought anyone who had been in such total command of the battle. From the switching in of the candle-Ghost to the fear tactics induced by the Numel’s long absence, Spike’s stratagems had been perfect. What was more, she was formulating these on the spot – there was no way she could have known what Pokémon Sapphire would use against her in advance. This was what real battles were like, Sapphire thought: these were the kind of tricks the Trainers in the League Tournament used, or the Elite Four. You could tell that Spike was at their level: her skill was nothing short of masterful—
With a rush of earth, the Numel surfaced – behind Sapphire.
“Earth Power!” snapped Spike, and Rono, unable to see where the attack came from, was tossed a foot into the air by the force of the exploding ground beneath him. From nowhere, plumes of lava and dirt blasted out of the floor as if it had been laced with mines; a pained roar echoed through the room, and when Rono crashed back into the sand, his rocky underbelly had holes punched in it the size of Sapphire’s fist. He struggled once to rise – twice – and fell back against the ground, eyes glazed and breath ragged.
“Return,” said Spike, recalling her Numel. “It seems you weren’t good enough. Come back another day.”
With that, she swept away through a concealed door at the back of her room, slamming it shut behind her. Sapphire was left standing there, looking at her defeated Lairon and wondering why, throughout the whole of her time in the Gym, Spike had never once met her eye.
---
“... and all I said was, ‘I don’t tip.’”
“You don’t tip?”
The voice sounded incredulous. There were eight of them, and they had just made their way over the crest of Jagged Pass. Their conversation, though inane, was somehow compelling, and I found myself listening harder.
“No, I don’t believe in it,” said Magma No. 1.
“You don’t believe in tippin’?” asked Magma No. 2, as if trying to straighten the matter out in his head.
A third voice broke in:
“You know what those chicks make? They make nothing.”
“Don’t gimme that,” Magma No. 1 said. “If she don’t make enough money she can quit.”
Someone chuckled, and over him Magma No. 2 spoke:
“I don’t even know a damn blue who’d have the guts to say that.” He paused for a moment, presumably to wrap his brain around the concept of not tipping. “Let me just get this straight. You never tip, huh?”
“I don’t tip because society says I have to,” argued Magma No. 1. “All right, I’ll tip if someone really deserves it – if they really put forth the effort I’ll give ’em somethin’ extra – but just tipping automatically... that’s for the birds.”
Magma No. 2 laughed incredulously.
“As far as I’m concerned,” went on Magma No. 1, “they’re just doin’ their job.”
My God, Puck said, in hushed tones, they’ve learned the entire opening scene, haven’t they?
“What?” I whispered back.
Nothing. Just – oh, Kester, you’ve got so many films to see.
“Here’s the machine,” said Magma No. 1.
Oh, said Puck, disappointed, they stopped.
“Just where we left it,” said Magma No. 2.
“I don’t even see why we need to keep checkin’ on this thing anyway,” complained Magma No. 3.
“It’s the boss,” replied Magma No. 1. “You know, he’s determined this goes off without a hitch or anythin’. So we make sure nothin’ goes wrong, that this thing’s not been tampered with.”
There was the sound of shifting cloth, and a beep and a hum from the machine. I had an unpleasant thought – what if they could tell we’d messed with it?
What do you think I am, a common footpad? asked Puck haughtily. I’m a professional art thief. I cover my freakin’ tracks, man.
All right! I thought at him. Sorry, sorry.
You damn well better be.
“Looks fine to me,” said Magma No. 3. “No one even comes up here, do they? Not with the volcano like it is.”
“I really hope it don’t erupt on Sunday,” Magma No. 2 put in. “I mean, we’ll be up here.”
“Nah, the boss has it all figured out,” Magma No. 1 said. “It’ll be fine.” There was a pause, and I guessed they were all staring worriedly at the smoking crater. “Mind you...”
“We should get outta here,” suggested Magma No. 3.
“I second that,” said Magma No. 2.
“Me too,” Magma No. 1 said. “All right, let’s get back. It’s definitely not safe here.”
The sheet was replaced with a whoosh, and I heard their footsteps retreat; peeping out from my hiding place, I saw them crunch their way down onto Jagged Pass, and I stood up with a sigh, massaging my legs – I’d been crouching for quite a long time now.
“What do you make of that?” I asked quietly.
They’ve all got great taste in films, Puck replied. Oh, you mean about the whole Magma plot thing? Yeah, I didn’t get anything about that. Except that Maxie’s pretty anxious that it goes off well, which means it’s important – which we already knew, because Zero told us.
“You’re right,” I said despondently. “We didn’t learn anything, did we?”
We sort of did, Puck said thoughtfully. I mean, think about it. Where did those Magmas come from? They sort of appeared halfway up Jagged Pass. Which would seem to suggest to me—
“A secret passageway, leading into an evil volcano lair!” I cried “Like in the movies!”
Actually, I was going to say it suggested that Team Magma use the Fiery Path to get around, Puck admitted, but your idea’s cool too. Hey, he added, shall we follow them?
I hesitated.
“Puck, that’s... really stupid. They’ll see me coming from a mile off on Jagged Path, and they’ll know I must have been on the peak at the same time as them, and even then, walking into the secret Magma lair would be really, really stupid...”
All these are valid points, Puck conceded, but I think we should follow them.
“No.”
Ah, you’re no fun.
“Whereas you seem to think life is one great big casino royale, where the stakes are death and sanity, and you gamble life and limb in the hope of winning entertainment.”
Well done, that boy! Puck cried admiringly. Casino Royale’s got to be one of the hardest ones! It’s also the last one, he added thoughtfully. Which means we need to decide a winner.
“Have you been keeping track of who got more?” I asked, hoping I would beat him.
Er... Damn it. No.
And so our Bond film referencing contest came to a singularly disappointing end, much like this chapter.
- Thread starter
- #69
Chapter Thirty-Five: Blood, Sweat and Swablu
Sapphire was standing outside the Pokémon Centre, leaning against the wall and waiting for Kester. It had gone seven o’clock now, and the first hint of sunset was stealing across the evening sky.
She wasn’t at all worried about Kester’s long absence.
The lamppost across the street flickered briefly into life, decided it wasn’t necessary and turned off again. A car containing an elderly couple drove slowly past, at the pace of those who have come to the realisation that nothing in life is so important it can’t be done later, or not at all. A few Murkrow flew over the town, drawn from their lairs in the mountain forest north of the town by the prospect of the encroaching dusk. They weren’t native to this region, but Murkrow got everywhere: wherever humans went, they would follow, secure in the knowledge that there would always be something they could steal from them.
Sapphire watched all of this with half-lidded eyes; she wasn’t worried about Kester at all.
A bell struck the quarter hour in the distance. Something rustled, and a far-off car rumbled. A rolling breeze danced a playful fandango down the road, tossing a few leaves on its heels, and a large grey rat slunk out of a broken drainage grill and into a hole in someone’s garden wall.
Sapphire unfolded her arms and trailed a finger along the wall, the tip bouncing over the worn-mortar gulf between the bricks. She wasn’t concerned about where Kester might be in the slightest.
Suburbia trundled quietly into evening, its elderly inhabitants ensconcing themselves on sofas in front of televisions, or behind bingo tables in the hallowed halls of the community centres; one man walked past Sapphire on the other side of the street, a tame Ovame from Turkey trotting before him on a leash. It wasn’t common to see Pokémon from as far afield as Europe in Hoenn – but Sapphire had already seen one that came from even further today; the candle Pokémon, she had found out from Wikipedia, came from Unova.
Sapphire listened to the clopping of the Ovame’s hooves, and told herself that she wasn’t anxious about what might have happened to Kester.
A few lines of black smoke scrawled lazy loops across the sky; they had evaded the southerly wind, and somehow floated south to decorate Lavaridge’s evening. Between them and the ground, a hundred darting insects darted back and forth in a frenzy, searching for something that only they could name. Two Taillow flitted through the swarm, circled around and flew back again, scooping up bugs in their beaks and devouring them on the wing. It was the very model of a Hoennian summer’s evening.
Sapphire kicked at a stone, and it rolled across the road. Kester’s absence was not troubling her in the slightest.
The street was almost entirely deserted, and a layer of silence sat atop it like a toad crowning a lily-pad. Old people do not make much noise, and are not keen to venture abroad after dark. The only people in sight were the man with the Ovame, and the ragged, stiff-legged figure walking down Sapphire’s side of the road.
Sapphire frowned, then smiled.
“Kester!” she cried, and took three steps towards him before she caught herself and stopped. “Where have you been?” she snapped.
He did not answer, but drew closer, and she saw that his clothes, his skin and, presumably, his dignity were in tatters. His arms and face were covered in cuts, and a spectacular series of bruises covered virtually his entire body. As he moved, his lacerated skin released small quantities of blood; all in all, he looked something like a beaten-up goblin.
“I’ve been on a walk,” Kester said sourly. “You know, up a mountain covered in knives. As you do.”
Sapphire fixed him with a steady look.
“I told you I was going,” he went on, seeming not to care. “By the way, nice of you to take so much notice of the marks of my brush with death.”
“Are you OK?” asked Sapphire, somewhat alarmed. Kester was definitely out of sorts.
“Just peachy, Sapphire,” Kester replied. “The world is my oyster. Except for the fact that I just fell down the side of a mountain.” He paused thoughtfully. “You know, I’m starting to see why they call it Jagged Pass now.”
“You took the Jagged Pass... up the mountain?”
“Yep,” agreed Kester, with false cheer. “It was just great. Fantastic view.”
Sapphire stared, and then she gaped. After that, she did both at once.
“Do you have an answer?” Kester pressed her.
“Oh... My... God...” Sapphire’s voice was barely a whisper. “How are you still alive?”
“I’m not entirely certain that I am. In fact, I think this might be hell. You’re here, he’s here” – he pointed to his head – “and I’m in a town inhabited only by old people and mobsters. Next to an active volcano. Yeah, must’ve died and been reborn in the hell realm.”
“Er... I think you need to sit down,” suggested Sapphire. “You seem... tense.”
“Tense. Yeah, I’m tense. I’m very tense,” Kester muttered angrily.
“Let’s go inside, shall we?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not welcome in there,” he said. “Give me some money and let me go to a hotel. I’ll see you in the morning, if I manage to wake up again.”
Abandoning Kester in his current state didn’t seem like the wisest course of action, but Sapphire gave him twenty thousand dollars for something to eat and let him limp away, trailing a large chunk of shoe from one heel. She was all too aware that he was perfectly capable of killing her if he chose, and he was definitely angry enough that he might just have done it.
“And he’s going to need new clothes again,” she murmured, shaking her head and turning back to the Pokémon Centre. “Damn, Kester. Why does nothing last with you?”
Sapphire sighed, and went back inside. She was feeling hungry, and there’d be something to eat in the canteen.
---
“How are you feeling?”
Felicity didn’t look up. She didn’t want to meet Zero’s eye. She hunched her back and curled further into a ball, arms clasped firmly around her shins.
“Are you traumatised, Felicity?”
She told herself not to answer. There was nothing she could do here except lose, or refuse to play.
“Felicity. I’ve asked you two questions. I’m afraid that if you don’t answer me, I shall have to move house.”
What sort of a threat was that, Felicity wondered. That gave her a location, though – she was in Zero’s home, probably in a basement or something.
“Naturally, I would do so after bricking up the cellar door.”
Involuntarily, Felicity’s eyes flicked upwards and alighted on Zero’s, shining out from behind his mask. He smiled.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now talk to me.”
Felicity’s mouth hurt; it felt so dry it might crack. Her tongue was fat and stiff between her teeth.
“I...”
Her lips were bleeding, but it wasn’t any sort of blood she was familiar with. It was pinkish rather than red, diluted with more water than was good for it.
“I’m scared,” Felicity managed, frankly. “What did you do to me, Zero?”
“She’s growing,” he replied, his smile unwavering. “You’ll have to hurry up. She gets stronger every day. The more you rely on her powers, the more she will consume you; the more you actively resist her, the more she is encouraged to attack. Only one of you can possess that body in the end, Felicity, and unless you help me swiftly, it will not be you.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Felicity asked in a hoarse whisper. “Why would you...?”
“Quite frankly, you are of absolutely no concern to me,” Zero replied. “In case you hadn’t yet noticed, I’m more or less entirely amoral.” His smile broadened, and he gave a soft laugh. “Ah, rest up, Felicity. I’ll be back tomorrow and you can leave again for Team Aqua.” He stood up and strode towards the door.
“I’m not going back,” she said defiantly, and Zero turned suddenly, grabbing her by the throat and pressing her back against the wall. Stars exploded before her eyes as her head cracked against the stone.
“You’ll do what you’re told,” he said simply, “or you’ll die.”
Then he was gone, and Felicity was alone once more. Except that she was never alone, because there was someone with her; someone who had been with her for a while now, who was slowly changing her into something beyond her comprehension and who was, day by day, eroding her will to live.
licityhellolicitykillyoulicitykilleatwatereatkillkillkill
Felicity shivered, and curled up again, pressing her hands over her ears and trying to block out the voices in her head.
---
Mirror in the bathroom, please don’t freak
The door is locked, just you and me...
I seriously considered the merits of putting my head through the windowpane, but decided in the end that since that would actually free Puck, it wasn’t the most desirable option.
Don’t you like that song? asked Puck. I like it.
“I don’t understand it,” I replied, rubbing my head. “You’re singing in English.”
I can do more than that.
“I don’t want to know.”
Listen to me: Is this a dagger that I see before me?
The handle toward my hand—
“Stop it.”
I’m afraid I can’t do that right now, Dave.
“If there’s anything worse than you talking in my head, it’s you talking in English in my head,” I growled. “Now shut up or get out.”
Fine, Puck said sniffily. I know when I’m not wanted.
Thankfully, it seemed he actually did for once, so I finished drying my hair and started to shave; I hadn’t done that since my weird journey with Sapphire began, and since there was a razor in the room I thought I’d better make the most of it. I was halfway done when he suddenly said:
Yo, Kester.
I jumped and opened up one of those incredibly tiny, incredibly sore cuts you get if you make a mistake while shaving. Considering all my other cuts and bruises, it was disproportionately painful.
“Puck!” I yelled, punching the wall as a substitute for his face. “Don’t do that!”
Sorry, he said sheepishly. I didn’t know that would happen.
“I’m holding a razor next to my face, what did you think would happen?”
All right, all right, Puck said. I admit it, I made a mistake. Lighten up a little.
“I’m bleeding!”
You were bleeding already. The cleaner’s going to think someone died in here.
This was true. I hadn’t moved much in my sleep since I was so tired, but I had done so enough to open up all the half-closed wounds that covered my body. Consequently, my hotel room was rather bloody at present, and the bed – well, it looked like I’d committed a violent murder there. Jagged Pass had a lot to answer for.
I pressed a finger to my cheek to try and staunch the blood flow, finished shaving and tried to get dressed one-handed. It didn’t work, and I was forced to use both hands and also bleed quite a lot.
“I have to say,” I muttered, trying to button jeans that resolutely remained unbuttoned, “I’m going to be glad to see a Full Restore.”
Yeah, agreed Puck. You really took a beating when you tripped like that.
I winced.
“Don’t remind me.”
That was the cause of all my injuries. Partway through my descent of Jagged Pass, I had stepped on a rock that ought not to have been stepped on: it had slid to one side, twisting my ankle and causing me to fall an alarming distance down the side of the mountain, rolling over the sharp stones so that nothing broke but everything bruised. It was up there with that business that occurred last year as one of my least favourite experiences of all time.
That’s it! snapped Puck. You keep referring to this ‘business that occurred last year’, in all sorts of situations, and I’m getting sick of it. What happened?
“I can’t say,” I said with a shiver, pulling the remnants of my hoodie over my head. “I swore I’d never speak of it again.”
I can look it up in your memories, warned Puck.
“Fine. Do that. But on your own head be it.”
Well, that’s ominous, said Puck cheerfully. I picked up my room key, slid it into my pocket and left to the sound of pages rustling in the distance.
Halfway down the corridor, the Rotom spoke again.
Whoa, he said. Seriously? How did that.... how could such a thing happen?
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
But seriously, Kester! Was that girl even human?
“I said I don’t want—”
And those children... I swear humans can’t do that. It doesn’t obey the laws of thermodynamics, for Terrakion’s sake!
“It was technically legal,” I said quickly.
You have laws about that kind of thing?
I decided to quit before I revealed too much, and stopped talking as I left the lobby for the bright outdoors. I looked at my watch, but it hadn’t worked since the car crash, and after being electrocuted, soaked in water and battered by razor-edged stones it was almost unrecognisable as a timepiece. I peeled the plastic strap thoughtfully from my wrist, and dropped it into the nearest bin.
You don’t need that anyway, Puck said. I mean, it looks like it’s late morning, maybe noon-ish, right?
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Do you think Sapphire will be at the Pokémon Centre?”
Puck chuckled; it was one of those chuckles that indicates that someone knows more than they are letting on.
I bet she is, he said. I bet she is.
“What’re you talking about?” I asked, turning left and heading for the Centre.
I’m sure you’ll find out. Plot-wise, it seems the logical thing to happen.
“Whatever.” I gave up on it. “Do you think she won her Gym Battle?”
I doubt it. Wattson was crazy, and Spike’s about three million light years above him, I know it. There aren’t very many Trainers who can last more than a minute against even one of the Elite Four, from any country.
I remembered that Spike had beaten both Sidney and Phoebe – an impressive achievement, to be sure. It was very, very infrequently that anyone managed to defeat all four of them; in the last three years, only two people had managed it. From the sounds of things, Spike would probably join their ranks soon.
The Pokémon Centre was not far off, and soon hove into view, the orange-red roof vivid against the backdrop of pine trees that cloaked the lower slopes of the mountains. I walked in, doing my best to avoid being noticed by the receptionist, and glanced around the lobby in search of Sapphire. She wasn’t there, and I had to ask the woman who’d thrown me out yesterday where she was.
“She’s in the lounge,” she replied curtly, dyed-pink hair bobbing. “What happened to you?” she added, looking at my tortured body and tattered clothes.
I decided to go with the easiest explanation.
“Cut myself shaving,” I replied, and walked off to the living-room.
Sapphire was the only person there, which wasn’t surprising. She was watching the news, and I hovered in the doorway a moment, eyes on the TV.
“...in other news, the Venetian law courts have finally given their ruling on the case that has whipped the city into a frenzy,” Gabby van Horne was saying. “It was ruled that the contract was legal and binding, and the court ordered Antonio Pugliese, speculative merchant, to pay the debt owed. However, an unusual appeal was launched just this morning: the contract fails to mention blood, and the lawyer for the defence, Balthazar, has claimed that only if Shylock is capable of removing the flesh without spilling blood is he within his rights to do so...”
“Wow,” I said aloud, “international news.”
The TV clicked off; Sapphire turned around and sat up. She looked at me for a long moment, as if looking for words to use.
“You look awful,” she said at last.
I spread my arms and gave myself a once-over with my eyes.
“Yep,” I agreed. “Feel awful, too. In fact, I’m pretty generally awful right now.”
“Wait here,” said Sapphire, and left the room. I sat down on the arm of the sofa to wait, and she was back within a few minutes. “Full Restore?” she said, holding out a bottle like a waiter offering a drink.
I almost snatched it from her in my eagerness.
“Please.”
I emptied it into my face and instantly felt so much better that I leaped upright and punched the air.
“Man, that’s good!”
“If you’re quite done?” Sapphire asked. I coughed, stopped dancing and turned to face her.
“Uh. Yeah. So, did you beat Spike?”
She gave me a sour look and shook her head.
What did I tell you? Puck asked smugly.
All right, I thought back, no need to gloat.
I told you she’d lose, that’s what I told you.
All right!
“She’s ridiculously good,” Sapphire said. “She surprised me with a Pokémon I’d never seen before, and even with just that and a Numel, her tactics were too good.”
Ask her what the new Pokémon was.
“Puck wants to know what the other Pokémon was.”
“A little candle thing... it was called Litwick.”
Ghost/Fire. I know those things – we have them in England. They only really live in cooler, northern climates, hence why there are a grand total of zero Litwicks in Hoenn.
“Puck says he knows all about Litwicks.”
“Really,” said Sapphire, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, “now that might be useful. But,” she went on, “that can wait. What happened to you yesterday? When you got back you were... uncommunicative.”
“Yeah...” I recalled that exchange with a small amount of shame. “Sorry about that.” I wasn’t sure if I was actually sorry – this was Sapphire, after all – but it seemed the right thing to say.
I told her about my misadventure on Mount Chimney, and how it had been a failure. Sapphire expressed a desire to infiltrate the Magma lair, if indeed there was one; however, I dissuaded her, with more success than I’d had with Puck. She conceded that it was, upon reflection, a bad idea, and agreed with me that the only thing we could do was wait until tomorrow to see what was going on.
“So that gives me today for training,” she said. “Do you want to come with me? You can train too, if you like.”
“There’s nothing else to do in this town,” I said despondently. “Fine. Let’s do that.”
And we left the Pokémon Centre, heading for the tourist office. We needed to know how to get to the Fiery Path.
---
The time: Saturday evening, six o’clock.
The place: Genessoum Street, Fallarbor Town.
The characters: Fabien Latch, Blake Henderson, and Goishi the Golbat.
Fabien looked at Blake, and nodded. Blake looked at Fabien, and nodded. Goishi looked at both, and sighed.
They had free time, and where better to spend it than in the heart of Fallarbor itself, in a heady mix of roulette and alcohol, spinning around towards financial oblivion for one night only before waking up in a gutter smelling of rum, and staggering off back to their hotel? Fabien certainly couldn’t think of anything finer to do, and so it was that they headed straight for the casinos, Goishi in tow in case the two of them got so drunk that they had difficulty telling when they were losing.
All was set for as grand a night out as any on the moon. The only question was what would happen tomorrow, and if they’d known the answer to this question, the Magmas might well have had a quiet night in.
For by half past eight on Sunday, things would have gone wrong, and in the most hilarious of ways.
---
“Jagged Pass was jagged. Fiery Path is heated. What is it with the unimaginative names around here?”
We had gone from the tourist office to a cave in the mountainside, cloaked by the forest, making two stops on the way for my breakfast and some new clothes. I think Sapphire must have felt sorry for me, because I couldn’t imagine her ever usually doing that.
Now, here’s the thing, Puck had said as we climbed up the hill. Assuming Spike keeps her team the same, the way to beat her is with – get this – Stacey.
I’d relayed his words to Sapphire and she had grimaced.
“I thought it might come to this,” she’d said, resigned. “I need to evolve her, yes?”
Right on, She-Trainer, was Puck’s slightly odd reply. She’ll become a Dragon, so she’ll resist Fire; as a Flying-type, she’s also immune to Ground. You win all round.
So, with Stacey fluttering along beside us, doing her best to convince us that she was a human by cheeping loudly whenever anyone said anything, we came to the Fiery Path.
It certainly lived up to its name: we had scarcely been in five minutes when Sapphire had shed her coat and I my hoodie. We were close to the boiling heart of the volcano, and from what I could see I believed it was still beating. The rocky walls were completely dry, and occasional puffs of steam rose from cracks in the floor. At one point on our way in, we’d passed a place where the tunnel wall was gone on the left, and a river of lava flowed in its place. I had never seen anything so awe-inspiringly dangerous, nor felt anything as hot; we moved past quickly, for fear of boiling.
“There are more Pokémon the further in you go,” Sapphire said. “Or at least, that’s what that Hinzelmann guy said.” She shivered despite the heat. “He was strange, wasn’t he?”
“Very,” I said.
Inordinately, added Puck.
You’re one to talk, I thought back, but he didn’t deign to reply.
“Stop,” said Sapphire, putting a hand on my stomach and pushing me back a step. Stacey fluttered on forwards, so Sapphire grabbed her tail and yanked her back again. “When I say stop,” she muttered at the little bird dangling from her fist, “I mean stop. Understand?”
Stacey gave a faint-hearted chirrup, and Sapphire put her on her shoulder. This was un-humanlike, so Stacey flew down to the floor and stood next to us on the warm rock.
“What is it?” I asked Sapphire. She nodded ahead.
“Take a look.”
I did, and saw nothing; then I looked again, and saw a short blue creature, roughly the size and shape of a small child, hiding behind a boulder and watching us warily.
“That’s a—”
“Machop, yes.” Sapphire nudged Stacey forwards with one foot. “Go on. Kill it.”
I looked at her.
“Don’t you need to give more specific commands than that?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Sapphire replied, “Stacey doesn’t respond to specific commands. Unless you promise her magic potions that’ll turn her into a human.”
There was a brief swish, and we glanced forwards again to see Stacey standing over the broken, bleeding body of the Machop. Following this was the most stunned silence I’d ever taken part in.
At last, I dared to speak:
“Is – is it really dead?”
Sapphire walked up to the Machop, and poked it with one foot. It did not move. Stacey lifted her bloodstained beak and chirruped happily.
“I didn’t think she’d do that,” Sapphire said slowly. “My God.”
“So... it is dead, then?”
“No, just horribly injured,” Sapphire replied, picking up Stacey and turning around. “She’s just a Swablu. They can’t actually kill things.”
Looking at Stacey’s blood-spattered face, I had my own thoughts on the matter, but kept them to myself.
Swablu do evolve to Altaria, said Puck darkly. They kill things. They kill and kill and kill until there’s nothing left. And then they kill each other. And when they’ve killed each other, they kill themselves. And after that... they don’t do anything. They’re dead. All of them.
Slowly but firmly, I whacked my head against the wall.
“Please,” I said, “never, ever speak to me again.”
OK! Oh wait, too late. Never mind. Next time, hey?
It looked set to be a long, long day.
Sapphire was standing outside the Pokémon Centre, leaning against the wall and waiting for Kester. It had gone seven o’clock now, and the first hint of sunset was stealing across the evening sky.
She wasn’t at all worried about Kester’s long absence.
The lamppost across the street flickered briefly into life, decided it wasn’t necessary and turned off again. A car containing an elderly couple drove slowly past, at the pace of those who have come to the realisation that nothing in life is so important it can’t be done later, or not at all. A few Murkrow flew over the town, drawn from their lairs in the mountain forest north of the town by the prospect of the encroaching dusk. They weren’t native to this region, but Murkrow got everywhere: wherever humans went, they would follow, secure in the knowledge that there would always be something they could steal from them.
Sapphire watched all of this with half-lidded eyes; she wasn’t worried about Kester at all.
A bell struck the quarter hour in the distance. Something rustled, and a far-off car rumbled. A rolling breeze danced a playful fandango down the road, tossing a few leaves on its heels, and a large grey rat slunk out of a broken drainage grill and into a hole in someone’s garden wall.
Sapphire unfolded her arms and trailed a finger along the wall, the tip bouncing over the worn-mortar gulf between the bricks. She wasn’t concerned about where Kester might be in the slightest.
Suburbia trundled quietly into evening, its elderly inhabitants ensconcing themselves on sofas in front of televisions, or behind bingo tables in the hallowed halls of the community centres; one man walked past Sapphire on the other side of the street, a tame Ovame from Turkey trotting before him on a leash. It wasn’t common to see Pokémon from as far afield as Europe in Hoenn – but Sapphire had already seen one that came from even further today; the candle Pokémon, she had found out from Wikipedia, came from Unova.
Sapphire listened to the clopping of the Ovame’s hooves, and told herself that she wasn’t anxious about what might have happened to Kester.
A few lines of black smoke scrawled lazy loops across the sky; they had evaded the southerly wind, and somehow floated south to decorate Lavaridge’s evening. Between them and the ground, a hundred darting insects darted back and forth in a frenzy, searching for something that only they could name. Two Taillow flitted through the swarm, circled around and flew back again, scooping up bugs in their beaks and devouring them on the wing. It was the very model of a Hoennian summer’s evening.
Sapphire kicked at a stone, and it rolled across the road. Kester’s absence was not troubling her in the slightest.
The street was almost entirely deserted, and a layer of silence sat atop it like a toad crowning a lily-pad. Old people do not make much noise, and are not keen to venture abroad after dark. The only people in sight were the man with the Ovame, and the ragged, stiff-legged figure walking down Sapphire’s side of the road.
Sapphire frowned, then smiled.
“Kester!” she cried, and took three steps towards him before she caught herself and stopped. “Where have you been?” she snapped.
He did not answer, but drew closer, and she saw that his clothes, his skin and, presumably, his dignity were in tatters. His arms and face were covered in cuts, and a spectacular series of bruises covered virtually his entire body. As he moved, his lacerated skin released small quantities of blood; all in all, he looked something like a beaten-up goblin.
“I’ve been on a walk,” Kester said sourly. “You know, up a mountain covered in knives. As you do.”
Sapphire fixed him with a steady look.
“I told you I was going,” he went on, seeming not to care. “By the way, nice of you to take so much notice of the marks of my brush with death.”
“Are you OK?” asked Sapphire, somewhat alarmed. Kester was definitely out of sorts.
“Just peachy, Sapphire,” Kester replied. “The world is my oyster. Except for the fact that I just fell down the side of a mountain.” He paused thoughtfully. “You know, I’m starting to see why they call it Jagged Pass now.”
“You took the Jagged Pass... up the mountain?”
“Yep,” agreed Kester, with false cheer. “It was just great. Fantastic view.”
Sapphire stared, and then she gaped. After that, she did both at once.
“Do you have an answer?” Kester pressed her.
“Oh... My... God...” Sapphire’s voice was barely a whisper. “How are you still alive?”
“I’m not entirely certain that I am. In fact, I think this might be hell. You’re here, he’s here” – he pointed to his head – “and I’m in a town inhabited only by old people and mobsters. Next to an active volcano. Yeah, must’ve died and been reborn in the hell realm.”
“Er... I think you need to sit down,” suggested Sapphire. “You seem... tense.”
“Tense. Yeah, I’m tense. I’m very tense,” Kester muttered angrily.
“Let’s go inside, shall we?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not welcome in there,” he said. “Give me some money and let me go to a hotel. I’ll see you in the morning, if I manage to wake up again.”
Abandoning Kester in his current state didn’t seem like the wisest course of action, but Sapphire gave him twenty thousand dollars for something to eat and let him limp away, trailing a large chunk of shoe from one heel. She was all too aware that he was perfectly capable of killing her if he chose, and he was definitely angry enough that he might just have done it.
“And he’s going to need new clothes again,” she murmured, shaking her head and turning back to the Pokémon Centre. “Damn, Kester. Why does nothing last with you?”
Sapphire sighed, and went back inside. She was feeling hungry, and there’d be something to eat in the canteen.
---
“How are you feeling?”
Felicity didn’t look up. She didn’t want to meet Zero’s eye. She hunched her back and curled further into a ball, arms clasped firmly around her shins.
“Are you traumatised, Felicity?”
She told herself not to answer. There was nothing she could do here except lose, or refuse to play.
“Felicity. I’ve asked you two questions. I’m afraid that if you don’t answer me, I shall have to move house.”
What sort of a threat was that, Felicity wondered. That gave her a location, though – she was in Zero’s home, probably in a basement or something.
“Naturally, I would do so after bricking up the cellar door.”
Involuntarily, Felicity’s eyes flicked upwards and alighted on Zero’s, shining out from behind his mask. He smiled.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now talk to me.”
Felicity’s mouth hurt; it felt so dry it might crack. Her tongue was fat and stiff between her teeth.
“I...”
Her lips were bleeding, but it wasn’t any sort of blood she was familiar with. It was pinkish rather than red, diluted with more water than was good for it.
“I’m scared,” Felicity managed, frankly. “What did you do to me, Zero?”
“She’s growing,” he replied, his smile unwavering. “You’ll have to hurry up. She gets stronger every day. The more you rely on her powers, the more she will consume you; the more you actively resist her, the more she is encouraged to attack. Only one of you can possess that body in the end, Felicity, and unless you help me swiftly, it will not be you.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Felicity asked in a hoarse whisper. “Why would you...?”
“Quite frankly, you are of absolutely no concern to me,” Zero replied. “In case you hadn’t yet noticed, I’m more or less entirely amoral.” His smile broadened, and he gave a soft laugh. “Ah, rest up, Felicity. I’ll be back tomorrow and you can leave again for Team Aqua.” He stood up and strode towards the door.
“I’m not going back,” she said defiantly, and Zero turned suddenly, grabbing her by the throat and pressing her back against the wall. Stars exploded before her eyes as her head cracked against the stone.
“You’ll do what you’re told,” he said simply, “or you’ll die.”
Then he was gone, and Felicity was alone once more. Except that she was never alone, because there was someone with her; someone who had been with her for a while now, who was slowly changing her into something beyond her comprehension and who was, day by day, eroding her will to live.
licityhellolicitykillyoulicitykilleatwatereatkillkillkill
Felicity shivered, and curled up again, pressing her hands over her ears and trying to block out the voices in her head.
---
Mirror in the bathroom, please don’t freak
The door is locked, just you and me...
I seriously considered the merits of putting my head through the windowpane, but decided in the end that since that would actually free Puck, it wasn’t the most desirable option.
Don’t you like that song? asked Puck. I like it.
“I don’t understand it,” I replied, rubbing my head. “You’re singing in English.”
I can do more than that.
“I don’t want to know.”
Listen to me: Is this a dagger that I see before me?
The handle toward my hand—
“Stop it.”
I’m afraid I can’t do that right now, Dave.
“If there’s anything worse than you talking in my head, it’s you talking in English in my head,” I growled. “Now shut up or get out.”
Fine, Puck said sniffily. I know when I’m not wanted.
Thankfully, it seemed he actually did for once, so I finished drying my hair and started to shave; I hadn’t done that since my weird journey with Sapphire began, and since there was a razor in the room I thought I’d better make the most of it. I was halfway done when he suddenly said:
Yo, Kester.
I jumped and opened up one of those incredibly tiny, incredibly sore cuts you get if you make a mistake while shaving. Considering all my other cuts and bruises, it was disproportionately painful.
“Puck!” I yelled, punching the wall as a substitute for his face. “Don’t do that!”
Sorry, he said sheepishly. I didn’t know that would happen.
“I’m holding a razor next to my face, what did you think would happen?”
All right, all right, Puck said. I admit it, I made a mistake. Lighten up a little.
“I’m bleeding!”
You were bleeding already. The cleaner’s going to think someone died in here.
This was true. I hadn’t moved much in my sleep since I was so tired, but I had done so enough to open up all the half-closed wounds that covered my body. Consequently, my hotel room was rather bloody at present, and the bed – well, it looked like I’d committed a violent murder there. Jagged Pass had a lot to answer for.
I pressed a finger to my cheek to try and staunch the blood flow, finished shaving and tried to get dressed one-handed. It didn’t work, and I was forced to use both hands and also bleed quite a lot.
“I have to say,” I muttered, trying to button jeans that resolutely remained unbuttoned, “I’m going to be glad to see a Full Restore.”
Yeah, agreed Puck. You really took a beating when you tripped like that.
I winced.
“Don’t remind me.”
That was the cause of all my injuries. Partway through my descent of Jagged Pass, I had stepped on a rock that ought not to have been stepped on: it had slid to one side, twisting my ankle and causing me to fall an alarming distance down the side of the mountain, rolling over the sharp stones so that nothing broke but everything bruised. It was up there with that business that occurred last year as one of my least favourite experiences of all time.
That’s it! snapped Puck. You keep referring to this ‘business that occurred last year’, in all sorts of situations, and I’m getting sick of it. What happened?
“I can’t say,” I said with a shiver, pulling the remnants of my hoodie over my head. “I swore I’d never speak of it again.”
I can look it up in your memories, warned Puck.
“Fine. Do that. But on your own head be it.”
Well, that’s ominous, said Puck cheerfully. I picked up my room key, slid it into my pocket and left to the sound of pages rustling in the distance.
Halfway down the corridor, the Rotom spoke again.
Whoa, he said. Seriously? How did that.... how could such a thing happen?
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
But seriously, Kester! Was that girl even human?
“I said I don’t want—”
And those children... I swear humans can’t do that. It doesn’t obey the laws of thermodynamics, for Terrakion’s sake!
“It was technically legal,” I said quickly.
You have laws about that kind of thing?
I decided to quit before I revealed too much, and stopped talking as I left the lobby for the bright outdoors. I looked at my watch, but it hadn’t worked since the car crash, and after being electrocuted, soaked in water and battered by razor-edged stones it was almost unrecognisable as a timepiece. I peeled the plastic strap thoughtfully from my wrist, and dropped it into the nearest bin.
You don’t need that anyway, Puck said. I mean, it looks like it’s late morning, maybe noon-ish, right?
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Do you think Sapphire will be at the Pokémon Centre?”
Puck chuckled; it was one of those chuckles that indicates that someone knows more than they are letting on.
I bet she is, he said. I bet she is.
“What’re you talking about?” I asked, turning left and heading for the Centre.
I’m sure you’ll find out. Plot-wise, it seems the logical thing to happen.
“Whatever.” I gave up on it. “Do you think she won her Gym Battle?”
I doubt it. Wattson was crazy, and Spike’s about three million light years above him, I know it. There aren’t very many Trainers who can last more than a minute against even one of the Elite Four, from any country.
I remembered that Spike had beaten both Sidney and Phoebe – an impressive achievement, to be sure. It was very, very infrequently that anyone managed to defeat all four of them; in the last three years, only two people had managed it. From the sounds of things, Spike would probably join their ranks soon.
The Pokémon Centre was not far off, and soon hove into view, the orange-red roof vivid against the backdrop of pine trees that cloaked the lower slopes of the mountains. I walked in, doing my best to avoid being noticed by the receptionist, and glanced around the lobby in search of Sapphire. She wasn’t there, and I had to ask the woman who’d thrown me out yesterday where she was.
“She’s in the lounge,” she replied curtly, dyed-pink hair bobbing. “What happened to you?” she added, looking at my tortured body and tattered clothes.
I decided to go with the easiest explanation.
“Cut myself shaving,” I replied, and walked off to the living-room.
Sapphire was the only person there, which wasn’t surprising. She was watching the news, and I hovered in the doorway a moment, eyes on the TV.
“...in other news, the Venetian law courts have finally given their ruling on the case that has whipped the city into a frenzy,” Gabby van Horne was saying. “It was ruled that the contract was legal and binding, and the court ordered Antonio Pugliese, speculative merchant, to pay the debt owed. However, an unusual appeal was launched just this morning: the contract fails to mention blood, and the lawyer for the defence, Balthazar, has claimed that only if Shylock is capable of removing the flesh without spilling blood is he within his rights to do so...”
“Wow,” I said aloud, “international news.”
The TV clicked off; Sapphire turned around and sat up. She looked at me for a long moment, as if looking for words to use.
“You look awful,” she said at last.
I spread my arms and gave myself a once-over with my eyes.
“Yep,” I agreed. “Feel awful, too. In fact, I’m pretty generally awful right now.”
“Wait here,” said Sapphire, and left the room. I sat down on the arm of the sofa to wait, and she was back within a few minutes. “Full Restore?” she said, holding out a bottle like a waiter offering a drink.
I almost snatched it from her in my eagerness.
“Please.”
I emptied it into my face and instantly felt so much better that I leaped upright and punched the air.
“Man, that’s good!”
“If you’re quite done?” Sapphire asked. I coughed, stopped dancing and turned to face her.
“Uh. Yeah. So, did you beat Spike?”
She gave me a sour look and shook her head.
What did I tell you? Puck asked smugly.
All right, I thought back, no need to gloat.
I told you she’d lose, that’s what I told you.
All right!
“She’s ridiculously good,” Sapphire said. “She surprised me with a Pokémon I’d never seen before, and even with just that and a Numel, her tactics were too good.”
Ask her what the new Pokémon was.
“Puck wants to know what the other Pokémon was.”
“A little candle thing... it was called Litwick.”
Ghost/Fire. I know those things – we have them in England. They only really live in cooler, northern climates, hence why there are a grand total of zero Litwicks in Hoenn.
“Puck says he knows all about Litwicks.”
“Really,” said Sapphire, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, “now that might be useful. But,” she went on, “that can wait. What happened to you yesterday? When you got back you were... uncommunicative.”
“Yeah...” I recalled that exchange with a small amount of shame. “Sorry about that.” I wasn’t sure if I was actually sorry – this was Sapphire, after all – but it seemed the right thing to say.
I told her about my misadventure on Mount Chimney, and how it had been a failure. Sapphire expressed a desire to infiltrate the Magma lair, if indeed there was one; however, I dissuaded her, with more success than I’d had with Puck. She conceded that it was, upon reflection, a bad idea, and agreed with me that the only thing we could do was wait until tomorrow to see what was going on.
“So that gives me today for training,” she said. “Do you want to come with me? You can train too, if you like.”
“There’s nothing else to do in this town,” I said despondently. “Fine. Let’s do that.”
And we left the Pokémon Centre, heading for the tourist office. We needed to know how to get to the Fiery Path.
---
The time: Saturday evening, six o’clock.
The place: Genessoum Street, Fallarbor Town.
The characters: Fabien Latch, Blake Henderson, and Goishi the Golbat.
Fabien looked at Blake, and nodded. Blake looked at Fabien, and nodded. Goishi looked at both, and sighed.
They had free time, and where better to spend it than in the heart of Fallarbor itself, in a heady mix of roulette and alcohol, spinning around towards financial oblivion for one night only before waking up in a gutter smelling of rum, and staggering off back to their hotel? Fabien certainly couldn’t think of anything finer to do, and so it was that they headed straight for the casinos, Goishi in tow in case the two of them got so drunk that they had difficulty telling when they were losing.
All was set for as grand a night out as any on the moon. The only question was what would happen tomorrow, and if they’d known the answer to this question, the Magmas might well have had a quiet night in.
For by half past eight on Sunday, things would have gone wrong, and in the most hilarious of ways.
---
“Jagged Pass was jagged. Fiery Path is heated. What is it with the unimaginative names around here?”
We had gone from the tourist office to a cave in the mountainside, cloaked by the forest, making two stops on the way for my breakfast and some new clothes. I think Sapphire must have felt sorry for me, because I couldn’t imagine her ever usually doing that.
Now, here’s the thing, Puck had said as we climbed up the hill. Assuming Spike keeps her team the same, the way to beat her is with – get this – Stacey.
I’d relayed his words to Sapphire and she had grimaced.
“I thought it might come to this,” she’d said, resigned. “I need to evolve her, yes?”
Right on, She-Trainer, was Puck’s slightly odd reply. She’ll become a Dragon, so she’ll resist Fire; as a Flying-type, she’s also immune to Ground. You win all round.
So, with Stacey fluttering along beside us, doing her best to convince us that she was a human by cheeping loudly whenever anyone said anything, we came to the Fiery Path.
It certainly lived up to its name: we had scarcely been in five minutes when Sapphire had shed her coat and I my hoodie. We were close to the boiling heart of the volcano, and from what I could see I believed it was still beating. The rocky walls were completely dry, and occasional puffs of steam rose from cracks in the floor. At one point on our way in, we’d passed a place where the tunnel wall was gone on the left, and a river of lava flowed in its place. I had never seen anything so awe-inspiringly dangerous, nor felt anything as hot; we moved past quickly, for fear of boiling.
“There are more Pokémon the further in you go,” Sapphire said. “Or at least, that’s what that Hinzelmann guy said.” She shivered despite the heat. “He was strange, wasn’t he?”
“Very,” I said.
Inordinately, added Puck.
You’re one to talk, I thought back, but he didn’t deign to reply.
“Stop,” said Sapphire, putting a hand on my stomach and pushing me back a step. Stacey fluttered on forwards, so Sapphire grabbed her tail and yanked her back again. “When I say stop,” she muttered at the little bird dangling from her fist, “I mean stop. Understand?”
Stacey gave a faint-hearted chirrup, and Sapphire put her on her shoulder. This was un-humanlike, so Stacey flew down to the floor and stood next to us on the warm rock.
“What is it?” I asked Sapphire. She nodded ahead.
“Take a look.”
I did, and saw nothing; then I looked again, and saw a short blue creature, roughly the size and shape of a small child, hiding behind a boulder and watching us warily.
“That’s a—”
“Machop, yes.” Sapphire nudged Stacey forwards with one foot. “Go on. Kill it.”
I looked at her.
“Don’t you need to give more specific commands than that?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Sapphire replied, “Stacey doesn’t respond to specific commands. Unless you promise her magic potions that’ll turn her into a human.”
There was a brief swish, and we glanced forwards again to see Stacey standing over the broken, bleeding body of the Machop. Following this was the most stunned silence I’d ever taken part in.
At last, I dared to speak:
“Is – is it really dead?”
Sapphire walked up to the Machop, and poked it with one foot. It did not move. Stacey lifted her bloodstained beak and chirruped happily.
“I didn’t think she’d do that,” Sapphire said slowly. “My God.”
“So... it is dead, then?”
“No, just horribly injured,” Sapphire replied, picking up Stacey and turning around. “She’s just a Swablu. They can’t actually kill things.”
Looking at Stacey’s blood-spattered face, I had my own thoughts on the matter, but kept them to myself.
Swablu do evolve to Altaria, said Puck darkly. They kill things. They kill and kill and kill until there’s nothing left. And then they kill each other. And when they’ve killed each other, they kill themselves. And after that... they don’t do anything. They’re dead. All of them.
Slowly but firmly, I whacked my head against the wall.
“Please,” I said, “never, ever speak to me again.”
OK! Oh wait, too late. Never mind. Next time, hey?
It looked set to be a long, long day.
- Thread starter
- #70
Chapter Thirty-Six: All Things Bright and Beautiful
Darren Goodwin lay awake in his bed, the cool of the pre-dawn air playing across his upturned face. It was Saturday, his favourite day of the week, and next to him, Melissa was asleep, her arm unconsciously looped over his chest. Moments like these were his favourite times in life, but this one was more bitter than sweet: the higher-ups had decided that he had had a long enough break, and now it was time for him to begin again his search for Kester Ruby and Sapphire Birch.
Outside, birdsong rose and fell in high trills; the leaves of the old oak tree brushed the side of the house with a sigh. Mild-eyed and melancholy as a Lotos-eater, Darren sat up and slid out of bed. He needed to get ready to leave.
---
Fabien blinked once, twice, and then a third time. His eyelids felt rather like someone had varnished them: stiff, uncomfortable and unaccountably shiny.
Shiny?
Fabien sat up and looked around. Shaken into full consciousness by the startling realisation that his eyelids were shiny – something he now realised wasn’t true, and had probably been a mistake born of the fact that he was staring at a lit lamp – he took in his surroundings at a glance. This was a hotel room. There was a bed in it, which contained Fabien; on the floor was Blake. This seemed about right; Fabien usually managed to talk his partner into leaving the comfortable places to sleep for him.
The second thing of note in the room was a table. There were an alarming number of bottles on it, which seemed to indicate that Fabien and Blake had got very drunk the night before. There was also a Crobat on it, which indicated—
“Hang on,” Fabien said aloud, “a Crobat?”
He got up, realised his head hurt and sat down again, holding it gingerly. Either he had a hangover (and this hypothesis was supported by the bottles on the table) or someone had offered him a choice of pills last night, and he had chosen to dream on and take the blue one.
Fabien blinked. No. It had to be a hangover. Didn’t it?
Thinking about it, it could well be that this reality was a mere illusion. After all, he had been starting to get concerns about whether or not he was a main character. That could mean he’d been starting to uncover a terrible secret: that they were perpetually living in a dream of the year 1999...
No. That couldn’t be right. After all, they had much better computers than they had in the nineties.
“Hey,” he said, “I forgot about the Crobat.”
And he got up again and went over to investigate, putting his existential worries out of his head for a while.
The Crobat was, as Crobat are, large, purple and rather unattractive to all those who don’t particularly enjoy the sight of oversized bottom incisors first thing in the morning. It also had a strange blue symbol spray-painted onto its back, which could only mean—
“Goishi?”
The Crobat blinked and hoisted itself onto all fours. In this position, it reminded Fabien quite a lot of the pterodactyls from Jurassic Park, only smaller, less beaky and more purple.
“E-eeeeek?” he asked blearily.
“Goishi... why are you a Crobat?”
“EEEEK?!”
It seemed to be as much a surprise to Goishi as it was to Fabien, and the ensuing screech of shock woke Blake, who jumped upright, thought he was being attacked and reflexively punched Fabien to the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” cried Fabien, rubbing his jaw and scrambling up again.
“Wha’ – ’oo – oh, sorry,” said Blake contritely, overcoming his confusion. “I though’ – I though’ we was under attack.”
“From who? We’re lying low, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Blake scratched his head. “Didn’ think of tha’.”
“Honestly.” Fabien massaged his jaw, then returned to his temples, which actually hurt considerably more. “Right. It seems that Goishi has evolved. Do you remember why?”
“No,” answered Blake. “Maybe ’e go’ really drunk and decided ’e liked you enough to evolve?”
Fabien considered this. It could well be true; Goishi was what is known as a happy drunk. If he had got even half as drunk as Fabien seemed to have done, then it was very likely that his friendliness could have increased to the point where he was ready to evolve.
“Ee-eee-ee-e-e-ee-ek,” Goishi said, which probably meant something like ‘will no one consider my feelings in this matter?’ He followed this up with ‘Eee-eeeeeeeee-eek’, which almost certainly meant ‘actually, forget it. You never care about what I think.’
“Well, leaving that mystery to one side,” said Fabien, completely oblivious to Goishi’s sentiments, “we need to decide what we’re going to do today. Something that’ll keep us off the radar.”
“Si’ in ’ere and take painkillers?” suggested Blake. “No one’ll find us, an’ we could use the res’.”
“Blake, Blake, Blake,” Fabien said, with a friendly shake of the head, “that’ll never do. Come on, man. Think about it. We need to keep moving; doubtless, there are Aquas working to track us down as we speak.”
“There are?”
“There are,” confirmed Fabien. “No doubt about that. When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, Blake, you get a sense for these things. A sixth sense.”
“Eee-eek?” Goishi asked snidely, meaning ‘Oh? You see dead people, do you?’
“A sort of criminal-vision,” Fabien said, and it was plain to see that he was warming to his theme. “Yes, that’s it. What do they call it in the business now, ah, it has a name—”
“Eek?” (‘A blatant lie?)
“Yes! That’s precisely it, Goishi!” Fabien cried, snapping his fingers and misreading the great bat completely. “They call it C-sense. For Crook, or criminal, or lots of other things. That’s the beauty of the abbreviation – it stands for all sorts of criminal things. Like... crime, and culpability, and – and cookery.”
“Cookery?” asked Blake, puzzled.
“Yes,” replied Fabien gravely. “Cookery is very important to criminals. Why, back when I first joined the Magmas, I, er, heard of a master thief who habitually robbed banks using nothing more than a good lasagne.”
Goishi slapped one wing across his face and let out an ultrasonic groan. He hated it when Fabien got carried away. Unfortunately, Fabien seemed to be permanently carried away, and so he was in a state of continual hate. Doubtless, this was bad for his soul, but he’d heard it said that Pokémon and animals didn’t have those, so that was one less worry.
“Righ’.” Blake seemed uncertain, but he trusted Fabien, and voiced no doubts. “So what do we do?”
“We find us some aspirin,” Fabien said, counting things off on his fingers. “That’s a prime consideration. Important stuff. Then we hit the brochures and see what the doubtless manifold attractions of Fallarbor are, and spend our day moving from location to location, always one step ahead of the blues, like ghosts in the night.”
He’d painted quite the image, and it was with deep satisfaction that Blake told him it was one of the best ideas he’d heard in a long time.
“You do ’ave these good ideas, Fabien,” he said, slapping the smaller man on the back and almost knocking him over again. “An’ this one’s a cracker, ain’ no doubt abou’ that.”
“I know, I know,” Fabien said, modestly waving his compliments aside. “It comes with practice. One day, Blake, you too will have these ideas. You too, Goishi.”
Goishi gave Fabien a look of great loathing and power, but his target wasn’t looking and so the effort was wasted.
“Now,” Fabien said, picking up the sheaf of complimentary brochures that stocked the bedside cabinet, “let’s see what they’ve got here. I’m sure we can find somewhere to hide out at...”
---
“Puck? Are you awake?”
I’m always awake. Mostly.
“Can we talk?”
It depends what you want to talk about. If you’re going to ask me about my past, or about what I might or might not be hiding from you, then no.
“I want to talk about Sapphire.”
Oh. Puck made a strangely indescribable noise, of which all that I could tell was that it was avuncular. The Jeanie to my Ferris. What do you want to know about Sapphire?
I stared at the ceiling for a while, collecting my thoughts. I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d gone to bed already; I didn’t feel tired at all.
“You know something about her that I don’t.”
We’ve been through this sort of thing before. I’m perceptive, you’re not. I’ve worked out we’re not real, you haven’t. So I know a lot of things about her that you don’t.
“What do you mean, we’re not real?”
It’s a philosophy thing, don’t worry about it. Or maybe it's a plot device. Puck paused. What specific thing that I know about Sapphire that you don’t did you want to talk about?
It took me a second to extract the meaning from his sentence.
“Earlier today, I asked if she would be waiting for me at the Centre, and you said—”
I bet she will, Puck finished for me. I remember.
“And then yesterday, she was—”
Surprisingly pleased to see you, Puck interrupted.
“Yeah.”
So what’s your point, Kester? I assume you’re not a broken pencil or an Uwe Boll film, and that you actually have one.
“Hilarious. I don’t know how you do it. My point is – is it me, or does she hate me less than she used to?”
Definitely, Puck replied immediately. It might help that you’re no longer a captive Pokémon. It’s so much easier to treat someone as an equal when they’re a free being.
“Mm.”
I mean, it’s like in that film... Puck trailed off. Damn it! I can’t remember it!
“You actually forgot a reference?” I asked incredulously. “You?”
I – hey, it’s not impossible! Puck cried defensively. I’m not perfect, however much you might like me to be.
“Than I might like you to be? You’re a narcissist!”
Narcissist? I’m no narcissist! I’m – I’m Echo, goddamn it – I love crazy people!
“Who’s Echo?”
Echo – Narcissus – don’t you get it? No? Gah, no classical education at all.
“I’m not Roman.”
Neither am I. Puck sighed. No, let’s not fight. I can’t be bothered. Go to sleep, Kester.
I looked at the clock on the bedside cabinet. The hands glowed in the gloom, and I thought they were pointing to the one and somewhen past the four.
“It’s gone one o’clock,” I murmured. “Weird.”
Go to sleep, Kester. Puck sounded tired, and I wondered how the mood had suddenly become so serious. We need to get up early tomorrow, to get to the peak of Mount Chimney.
I winced.
“Damn. I’d forgotten about that.”
We’ll take the Fiery Path. It’ll be OK, Sapphire’s Pokémon will take care of the wild ones – if they even dare attack us after today.
Using a clever yet nonsensical blend of amateur psychology and plain bribery, Sapphire and I had inveigled Stacey into giving the inhabitants of Mount Chimney’s interior a serious beating. She had KO’d every Pokémon in our path until one Slugma proved less lethargic than the rest, and had set her on fire with a belch of astonishing ignitive power. Stacey had flown around screaming, crashed into my head and collapsed unconscious on the floor. Before this disaster, though, she had managed to gain a level or two.
Is ‘ignitive’ a word? wondered Puck. If it isn’t, it should be... No! Go to sleep, Kester. Your body works better when rested, and it’s in both of our interests for it to be running well.
“Fine,” I murmured. “I’m sleeping now.”
Liar. Relax... Your eyes are feeling very heavy... limbs like lead... wait, that should have been eyelids, not eyes... your eyelids are very heavy... hey, this is actually working!
There might have been more, but I didn’t hear it: I was already asleep.
---
Felicity was very quiet during the train journey. She could sense people staring at her, but whenever she looked up they looked away; they didn’t want to seem insensitive.
Zero sat opposite her, reading a newspaper in Japanese. He was a widely-travelled man; Felicity doubted that anyone in the carriage other than he and herself could have read that paper – and she didn’t count, because she was actually from Japan.
The scene was not unusual. To the uninformed observer, they appeared to be father and daughter, or maybe uncle and niece; Zero’s silver-grey hair looked like it could have been related to Felicity’s white locks. As she thought of that, Felicity picked up a strand of her hair and stared at it. She wished it hadn’t changed colour, or grown so long; however, that was beyond her control. It was the thing within her that had altered it.
Felicity took in her reflection in the window, and was unable to suppress a shudder. Snow-white hair and skin, utterly bloodless; circles of purple flesh around blue-and-yellow eyes; arms and legs unnaturally thin. There was more, too, that couldn’t be seen: the patches of blotchy flesh that that had appeared around her waist, the twin aches that burned on either side of her head – and the way her hair would move when no one was looking, twisting itself into ropes and snatching at nearby objects.
“Oh, by the way,” Zero said, bringing her back from her trance, “I saved this for you.”
He lowered his paper and held out a single grey headphone. Felicity snatched it from him in her eagerness, and, clipping it back to her ear, pulled out the antenna once again.
“Say thank you.”
“Thank you,” Felicity replied. She didn’t need any prompting. She knew, and Zero knew that any rebellious spirit in her was broken. Maxie had seen to that.
She gave up on trying to tune in to the radio station she wanted – its signal didn’t seem to reach this far – and listened instead to the music that was already on there.
Zero watched her for a moment, an odd expression on his face, then he smiled to himself and went back to the paper. The train sped on into the night, and another piece of the plan fell into place.
---
“I don’t believe it!” Fabien exclaimed. “Boys, we are in luck today!”
He held up a glossy brochure and waved it to and fro; the front bore the words FALLARBOR ZOO.
“A zoo?” asked Blake.
“A zoo,” confirmed Fabien. “Not just any old zoo, either. This zoo has actual animals.”
“Animals?”
“Animals.”
“No, wha’ d’you mean, animals?”
“You know. Animals.” Fabien looked confused. “Like Pokémon, only... not.”
Blake looked blank.
“Blake,” began Fabien, in a patronising sort of voice, “have you ever left the country?”
“No,” was the reply.
“Have you ever seen any non-Hoennian films?”
“I’ve seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
There was a long pause.
“That was possibly the most unexpected thing you’ve ever said to me,” Fabien said, staring at Blake. “But... seen any other non-Hoenn films?”
“No. Bu’ Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was good.”
“Right.” Fabien glanced at Goishi, and the bat stared impassively back. He saw no reason why he should even try and aid his master. “Er... animals, animals...” Fabien stroked his chin and mused. “How do I explain what an animal is?”
“Maybe a dictionary migh’ ’elp,” suggested Blake. Fabien snapped his fingers.
“Right! Let’s find one. To the bookshops!”
Fabien bounded over to the door, forgetting his hangover, and collapsed in agony on the floor mid-step, clutching at his skull.
“Akkkk, God, that hurts,” he said in a strangled whisper. “OK, first we go to the chemist’s, and buy some aspirin. Then we’ll hit the bookshops.”
Thirty minutes and one transaction later, Fabien and Blake were standing in a bookshop, leafing through the A section of a copy of the Epimetheus Hoennian Dictionary. It was not that Epimetheus had compiled it, but for reasons best known to himself, he had lent his name to the text. Goishi was outside, since he was too large to bring in, and his wings would have fanned up all the pages of the books.
“Animal,” Fabien said, pointing it out. “Any member of the kingdom Animalia, typically being complex eukaryotic multicellular organisms that differ from plants in lacking the capability to photosynthesise and requiring complex nutrients such as proteins. See also Pokémon.”
“Well, wha’ did all tha’ mean?” asked Blake. “I still don’ get it.”
“Hum. OK, this first bit, ‘complex eukaryotic multicellular organisms’ means they’re made up of more than one cell – that’s the ‘multicellular’ bit. The ‘eukaryotic’ means... it means they all have these things called eukas.”
“What the ’ell’s a yooka when it’s a’ ’ome?”
“A euka is... a special organ,” Fabien told him, “found in the brain of animals, and people too. It, er, contains their natural power.”
“Eh?”
“Well, people can’t use Pokémon powers, can they?”
“No...?”
“So there you go. The euka is what’s stopping you.”
“Can’t we ’ave it removed?”
“No. It also... controls your limbs. So if you take it out, you get paralysed.”
“Oh. I see.”
Fabien mentally patted himself on the back.
“Wha’s this ‘photosynthesis’ thing?”
“That’s what plants do. They can make light into energy.”
“Righ’.” Blake nodded warmly at Fabien. “You’re learned, you know tha’?”
“Oh, no,” Fabien said demurely. “Not me.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Oh, if you insist.” Fabien patted himself mentally on the back.
“Bu’ I still don’ understand,” Blake said, “wha’ animals acherly are.”
“You know what Pokémon are?”
“Yeah.”
“And you know what humans are?”
“Well, animals are a lot like Pokémon, only they’re like humans in that they don’t have any superpowers.”
There was a pause.
“Bu’... wha’ if they get attacked?” Blake asked. “Don’ they just die?”
“Oh, they’ve got ways of defending themselves,” Fabien said. “Some are very fast, some have thick shells and things. Some are very strong, some are very big, some are poisonous, some have sharp teeth and claws – they can take care of themselves.”
“Do they ’ave types?”
Fabien gave a short and very patronising laugh.
“No, Blake, they don’t. It gives them a massive advantage over Pokémon – they’re much more common in most parts of the world. It’s just that Hoenn is one of the few places where there aren’t very many of them.”
“We ’ave some?”
“Yes. Mostly insects and fish and things.”
“Oh,” said Blake, and the light visibly dawned on him. “I always wondered where fish came from.”
Fabien wondered if perhaps Blake had been replaced like a pod person since they had left the hotel room. Surely no one man could claim to have seen and enjoyed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and also to not know where fish came from?
“Hey! You two!”
A tall and irritable man in horn-rimmed spectacles came over to them; according to the badge on his shirt, his name was Mazuza. This struck Fabien as singularly unlikely, but he supposed it took it all sorts.
“What is it?” he asked.
“This isn’t a library,” he said. “Are you going to buy that or not?”
“We were just looking up the definition of ‘animal’,” Fabien explained. “My friend didn’t know what they are.”
“I’m still no’ a hundred per cen’ sure,” Blake added confidingly.
Mazuza stared at them.
“Don’t know what animals are?”
“I know, it’s surprising,” Fabien said. “It threw me at first, too.”
“Why, animals are like Pokémon, only they have different superpowers,” Mazuza said.
Fabien stared.
“No,” he replied, “that’s not true. They don’t have any superpowers.”
“I have a cousin who has a friend who has a sister who has a boyfriend who has a brother who has a pet dog,” Mazuza said haughtily, “and they got him in America.”
Fabien had to take a step back. This was getting serious. Bringing in America like that... Mazuza’s cousin’s friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother must be rich. Fabien knew all sorts of things about America (some of which were even true) and one of them was that everyone there was rich, and so it followed that the dogs must be very expensive.
Still, he couldn’t let a mere shop assistant bring him down like that. He would have to fight back, and establish his supremacy. It was his duty as a learned man.
“Well I,” he said, in a dignified voice, “I’ve actually stroked a rabbit.”
Mazuza’s eyes widened, Fabien noted with satisfaction. That ought to show him. It wasn’t even a lie – he actually had. He’d been on an English exchange trip, and the host family had had a rabbit. It was one of the most amazing things he’d ever seen. All the rumours and the legends had been true: the ears really were long and pointy, and it really did eat carrots and hop around. The only thing it didn't do was say 'What's up, doc?', but Fabien had never really thought that one was true anyway.
“You’ve been abroad?” Mazuza asked respectfully. “To... America?”
“To England,” answered Fabien proudly. It was the opinion of most people in Hoenn that America was the pinnacle of civilisation, but the English people he’d met had been so secure in their superiority over Americans that he’d worked out that their country must have been the real best in the world.
“Ah,” said Mazuza. “I’ve never been.”
It was true that it was difficult. The exchange trip had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; Hoennian Airways planes tended to stop working after being in the air for more than an hour and a half, and so it wasn’t really practical to leave the country unless you could get a seat on another airline’s plane – and those were rare, and highly sought-after.
“Well, then,” Fabien said, “I say that animals have no superpowers at all. Now, Blake, let us leave. We have a zoo to get to.”
He held his head high and swept out past Mazuza, eyes half-closed in an imperial manner. This and the head-lifting meant that he didn’t see the small table in front of him, and consequently suffered some injury, but he left the shop with his dignity, unlike his legs, intact.
Darren Goodwin lay awake in his bed, the cool of the pre-dawn air playing across his upturned face. It was Saturday, his favourite day of the week, and next to him, Melissa was asleep, her arm unconsciously looped over his chest. Moments like these were his favourite times in life, but this one was more bitter than sweet: the higher-ups had decided that he had had a long enough break, and now it was time for him to begin again his search for Kester Ruby and Sapphire Birch.
Outside, birdsong rose and fell in high trills; the leaves of the old oak tree brushed the side of the house with a sigh. Mild-eyed and melancholy as a Lotos-eater, Darren sat up and slid out of bed. He needed to get ready to leave.
---
Fabien blinked once, twice, and then a third time. His eyelids felt rather like someone had varnished them: stiff, uncomfortable and unaccountably shiny.
Shiny?
Fabien sat up and looked around. Shaken into full consciousness by the startling realisation that his eyelids were shiny – something he now realised wasn’t true, and had probably been a mistake born of the fact that he was staring at a lit lamp – he took in his surroundings at a glance. This was a hotel room. There was a bed in it, which contained Fabien; on the floor was Blake. This seemed about right; Fabien usually managed to talk his partner into leaving the comfortable places to sleep for him.
The second thing of note in the room was a table. There were an alarming number of bottles on it, which seemed to indicate that Fabien and Blake had got very drunk the night before. There was also a Crobat on it, which indicated—
“Hang on,” Fabien said aloud, “a Crobat?”
He got up, realised his head hurt and sat down again, holding it gingerly. Either he had a hangover (and this hypothesis was supported by the bottles on the table) or someone had offered him a choice of pills last night, and he had chosen to dream on and take the blue one.
Fabien blinked. No. It had to be a hangover. Didn’t it?
Thinking about it, it could well be that this reality was a mere illusion. After all, he had been starting to get concerns about whether or not he was a main character. That could mean he’d been starting to uncover a terrible secret: that they were perpetually living in a dream of the year 1999...
No. That couldn’t be right. After all, they had much better computers than they had in the nineties.
“Hey,” he said, “I forgot about the Crobat.”
And he got up again and went over to investigate, putting his existential worries out of his head for a while.
The Crobat was, as Crobat are, large, purple and rather unattractive to all those who don’t particularly enjoy the sight of oversized bottom incisors first thing in the morning. It also had a strange blue symbol spray-painted onto its back, which could only mean—
“Goishi?”
The Crobat blinked and hoisted itself onto all fours. In this position, it reminded Fabien quite a lot of the pterodactyls from Jurassic Park, only smaller, less beaky and more purple.
“E-eeeeek?” he asked blearily.
“Goishi... why are you a Crobat?”
“EEEEK?!”
It seemed to be as much a surprise to Goishi as it was to Fabien, and the ensuing screech of shock woke Blake, who jumped upright, thought he was being attacked and reflexively punched Fabien to the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” cried Fabien, rubbing his jaw and scrambling up again.
“Wha’ – ’oo – oh, sorry,” said Blake contritely, overcoming his confusion. “I though’ – I though’ we was under attack.”
“From who? We’re lying low, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Blake scratched his head. “Didn’ think of tha’.”
“Honestly.” Fabien massaged his jaw, then returned to his temples, which actually hurt considerably more. “Right. It seems that Goishi has evolved. Do you remember why?”
“No,” answered Blake. “Maybe ’e go’ really drunk and decided ’e liked you enough to evolve?”
Fabien considered this. It could well be true; Goishi was what is known as a happy drunk. If he had got even half as drunk as Fabien seemed to have done, then it was very likely that his friendliness could have increased to the point where he was ready to evolve.
“Ee-eee-ee-e-e-ee-ek,” Goishi said, which probably meant something like ‘will no one consider my feelings in this matter?’ He followed this up with ‘Eee-eeeeeeeee-eek’, which almost certainly meant ‘actually, forget it. You never care about what I think.’
“Well, leaving that mystery to one side,” said Fabien, completely oblivious to Goishi’s sentiments, “we need to decide what we’re going to do today. Something that’ll keep us off the radar.”
“Si’ in ’ere and take painkillers?” suggested Blake. “No one’ll find us, an’ we could use the res’.”
“Blake, Blake, Blake,” Fabien said, with a friendly shake of the head, “that’ll never do. Come on, man. Think about it. We need to keep moving; doubtless, there are Aquas working to track us down as we speak.”
“There are?”
“There are,” confirmed Fabien. “No doubt about that. When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, Blake, you get a sense for these things. A sixth sense.”
“Eee-eek?” Goishi asked snidely, meaning ‘Oh? You see dead people, do you?’
“A sort of criminal-vision,” Fabien said, and it was plain to see that he was warming to his theme. “Yes, that’s it. What do they call it in the business now, ah, it has a name—”
“Eek?” (‘A blatant lie?)
“Yes! That’s precisely it, Goishi!” Fabien cried, snapping his fingers and misreading the great bat completely. “They call it C-sense. For Crook, or criminal, or lots of other things. That’s the beauty of the abbreviation – it stands for all sorts of criminal things. Like... crime, and culpability, and – and cookery.”
“Cookery?” asked Blake, puzzled.
“Yes,” replied Fabien gravely. “Cookery is very important to criminals. Why, back when I first joined the Magmas, I, er, heard of a master thief who habitually robbed banks using nothing more than a good lasagne.”
Goishi slapped one wing across his face and let out an ultrasonic groan. He hated it when Fabien got carried away. Unfortunately, Fabien seemed to be permanently carried away, and so he was in a state of continual hate. Doubtless, this was bad for his soul, but he’d heard it said that Pokémon and animals didn’t have those, so that was one less worry.
“Righ’.” Blake seemed uncertain, but he trusted Fabien, and voiced no doubts. “So what do we do?”
“We find us some aspirin,” Fabien said, counting things off on his fingers. “That’s a prime consideration. Important stuff. Then we hit the brochures and see what the doubtless manifold attractions of Fallarbor are, and spend our day moving from location to location, always one step ahead of the blues, like ghosts in the night.”
He’d painted quite the image, and it was with deep satisfaction that Blake told him it was one of the best ideas he’d heard in a long time.
“You do ’ave these good ideas, Fabien,” he said, slapping the smaller man on the back and almost knocking him over again. “An’ this one’s a cracker, ain’ no doubt abou’ that.”
“I know, I know,” Fabien said, modestly waving his compliments aside. “It comes with practice. One day, Blake, you too will have these ideas. You too, Goishi.”
Goishi gave Fabien a look of great loathing and power, but his target wasn’t looking and so the effort was wasted.
“Now,” Fabien said, picking up the sheaf of complimentary brochures that stocked the bedside cabinet, “let’s see what they’ve got here. I’m sure we can find somewhere to hide out at...”
---
“Puck? Are you awake?”
I’m always awake. Mostly.
“Can we talk?”
It depends what you want to talk about. If you’re going to ask me about my past, or about what I might or might not be hiding from you, then no.
“I want to talk about Sapphire.”
Oh. Puck made a strangely indescribable noise, of which all that I could tell was that it was avuncular. The Jeanie to my Ferris. What do you want to know about Sapphire?
I stared at the ceiling for a while, collecting my thoughts. I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d gone to bed already; I didn’t feel tired at all.
“You know something about her that I don’t.”
We’ve been through this sort of thing before. I’m perceptive, you’re not. I’ve worked out we’re not real, you haven’t. So I know a lot of things about her that you don’t.
“What do you mean, we’re not real?”
It’s a philosophy thing, don’t worry about it. Or maybe it's a plot device. Puck paused. What specific thing that I know about Sapphire that you don’t did you want to talk about?
It took me a second to extract the meaning from his sentence.
“Earlier today, I asked if she would be waiting for me at the Centre, and you said—”
I bet she will, Puck finished for me. I remember.
“And then yesterday, she was—”
Surprisingly pleased to see you, Puck interrupted.
“Yeah.”
So what’s your point, Kester? I assume you’re not a broken pencil or an Uwe Boll film, and that you actually have one.
“Hilarious. I don’t know how you do it. My point is – is it me, or does she hate me less than she used to?”
Definitely, Puck replied immediately. It might help that you’re no longer a captive Pokémon. It’s so much easier to treat someone as an equal when they’re a free being.
“Mm.”
I mean, it’s like in that film... Puck trailed off. Damn it! I can’t remember it!
“You actually forgot a reference?” I asked incredulously. “You?”
I – hey, it’s not impossible! Puck cried defensively. I’m not perfect, however much you might like me to be.
“Than I might like you to be? You’re a narcissist!”
Narcissist? I’m no narcissist! I’m – I’m Echo, goddamn it – I love crazy people!
“Who’s Echo?”
Echo – Narcissus – don’t you get it? No? Gah, no classical education at all.
“I’m not Roman.”
Neither am I. Puck sighed. No, let’s not fight. I can’t be bothered. Go to sleep, Kester.
I looked at the clock on the bedside cabinet. The hands glowed in the gloom, and I thought they were pointing to the one and somewhen past the four.
“It’s gone one o’clock,” I murmured. “Weird.”
Go to sleep, Kester. Puck sounded tired, and I wondered how the mood had suddenly become so serious. We need to get up early tomorrow, to get to the peak of Mount Chimney.
I winced.
“Damn. I’d forgotten about that.”
We’ll take the Fiery Path. It’ll be OK, Sapphire’s Pokémon will take care of the wild ones – if they even dare attack us after today.
Using a clever yet nonsensical blend of amateur psychology and plain bribery, Sapphire and I had inveigled Stacey into giving the inhabitants of Mount Chimney’s interior a serious beating. She had KO’d every Pokémon in our path until one Slugma proved less lethargic than the rest, and had set her on fire with a belch of astonishing ignitive power. Stacey had flown around screaming, crashed into my head and collapsed unconscious on the floor. Before this disaster, though, she had managed to gain a level or two.
Is ‘ignitive’ a word? wondered Puck. If it isn’t, it should be... No! Go to sleep, Kester. Your body works better when rested, and it’s in both of our interests for it to be running well.
“Fine,” I murmured. “I’m sleeping now.”
Liar. Relax... Your eyes are feeling very heavy... limbs like lead... wait, that should have been eyelids, not eyes... your eyelids are very heavy... hey, this is actually working!
There might have been more, but I didn’t hear it: I was already asleep.
---
Felicity was very quiet during the train journey. She could sense people staring at her, but whenever she looked up they looked away; they didn’t want to seem insensitive.
Zero sat opposite her, reading a newspaper in Japanese. He was a widely-travelled man; Felicity doubted that anyone in the carriage other than he and herself could have read that paper – and she didn’t count, because she was actually from Japan.
The scene was not unusual. To the uninformed observer, they appeared to be father and daughter, or maybe uncle and niece; Zero’s silver-grey hair looked like it could have been related to Felicity’s white locks. As she thought of that, Felicity picked up a strand of her hair and stared at it. She wished it hadn’t changed colour, or grown so long; however, that was beyond her control. It was the thing within her that had altered it.
Felicity took in her reflection in the window, and was unable to suppress a shudder. Snow-white hair and skin, utterly bloodless; circles of purple flesh around blue-and-yellow eyes; arms and legs unnaturally thin. There was more, too, that couldn’t be seen: the patches of blotchy flesh that that had appeared around her waist, the twin aches that burned on either side of her head – and the way her hair would move when no one was looking, twisting itself into ropes and snatching at nearby objects.
“Oh, by the way,” Zero said, bringing her back from her trance, “I saved this for you.”
He lowered his paper and held out a single grey headphone. Felicity snatched it from him in her eagerness, and, clipping it back to her ear, pulled out the antenna once again.
“Say thank you.”
“Thank you,” Felicity replied. She didn’t need any prompting. She knew, and Zero knew that any rebellious spirit in her was broken. Maxie had seen to that.
She gave up on trying to tune in to the radio station she wanted – its signal didn’t seem to reach this far – and listened instead to the music that was already on there.
Zero watched her for a moment, an odd expression on his face, then he smiled to himself and went back to the paper. The train sped on into the night, and another piece of the plan fell into place.
---
“I don’t believe it!” Fabien exclaimed. “Boys, we are in luck today!”
He held up a glossy brochure and waved it to and fro; the front bore the words FALLARBOR ZOO.
“A zoo?” asked Blake.
“A zoo,” confirmed Fabien. “Not just any old zoo, either. This zoo has actual animals.”
“Animals?”
“Animals.”
“No, wha’ d’you mean, animals?”
“You know. Animals.” Fabien looked confused. “Like Pokémon, only... not.”
Blake looked blank.
“Blake,” began Fabien, in a patronising sort of voice, “have you ever left the country?”
“No,” was the reply.
“Have you ever seen any non-Hoennian films?”
“I’ve seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
There was a long pause.
“That was possibly the most unexpected thing you’ve ever said to me,” Fabien said, staring at Blake. “But... seen any other non-Hoenn films?”
“No. Bu’ Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was good.”
“Right.” Fabien glanced at Goishi, and the bat stared impassively back. He saw no reason why he should even try and aid his master. “Er... animals, animals...” Fabien stroked his chin and mused. “How do I explain what an animal is?”
“Maybe a dictionary migh’ ’elp,” suggested Blake. Fabien snapped his fingers.
“Right! Let’s find one. To the bookshops!”
Fabien bounded over to the door, forgetting his hangover, and collapsed in agony on the floor mid-step, clutching at his skull.
“Akkkk, God, that hurts,” he said in a strangled whisper. “OK, first we go to the chemist’s, and buy some aspirin. Then we’ll hit the bookshops.”
Thirty minutes and one transaction later, Fabien and Blake were standing in a bookshop, leafing through the A section of a copy of the Epimetheus Hoennian Dictionary. It was not that Epimetheus had compiled it, but for reasons best known to himself, he had lent his name to the text. Goishi was outside, since he was too large to bring in, and his wings would have fanned up all the pages of the books.
“Animal,” Fabien said, pointing it out. “Any member of the kingdom Animalia, typically being complex eukaryotic multicellular organisms that differ from plants in lacking the capability to photosynthesise and requiring complex nutrients such as proteins. See also Pokémon.”
“Well, wha’ did all tha’ mean?” asked Blake. “I still don’ get it.”
“Hum. OK, this first bit, ‘complex eukaryotic multicellular organisms’ means they’re made up of more than one cell – that’s the ‘multicellular’ bit. The ‘eukaryotic’ means... it means they all have these things called eukas.”
“What the ’ell’s a yooka when it’s a’ ’ome?”
“A euka is... a special organ,” Fabien told him, “found in the brain of animals, and people too. It, er, contains their natural power.”
“Eh?”
“Well, people can’t use Pokémon powers, can they?”
“No...?”
“So there you go. The euka is what’s stopping you.”
“Can’t we ’ave it removed?”
“No. It also... controls your limbs. So if you take it out, you get paralysed.”
“Oh. I see.”
Fabien mentally patted himself on the back.
“Wha’s this ‘photosynthesis’ thing?”
“That’s what plants do. They can make light into energy.”
“Righ’.” Blake nodded warmly at Fabien. “You’re learned, you know tha’?”
“Oh, no,” Fabien said demurely. “Not me.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Oh, if you insist.” Fabien patted himself mentally on the back.
“Bu’ I still don’ understand,” Blake said, “wha’ animals acherly are.”
“You know what Pokémon are?”
“Yeah.”
“And you know what humans are?”
“Well, animals are a lot like Pokémon, only they’re like humans in that they don’t have any superpowers.”
There was a pause.
“Bu’... wha’ if they get attacked?” Blake asked. “Don’ they just die?”
“Oh, they’ve got ways of defending themselves,” Fabien said. “Some are very fast, some have thick shells and things. Some are very strong, some are very big, some are poisonous, some have sharp teeth and claws – they can take care of themselves.”
“Do they ’ave types?”
Fabien gave a short and very patronising laugh.
“No, Blake, they don’t. It gives them a massive advantage over Pokémon – they’re much more common in most parts of the world. It’s just that Hoenn is one of the few places where there aren’t very many of them.”
“We ’ave some?”
“Yes. Mostly insects and fish and things.”
“Oh,” said Blake, and the light visibly dawned on him. “I always wondered where fish came from.”
Fabien wondered if perhaps Blake had been replaced like a pod person since they had left the hotel room. Surely no one man could claim to have seen and enjoyed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and also to not know where fish came from?
“Hey! You two!”
A tall and irritable man in horn-rimmed spectacles came over to them; according to the badge on his shirt, his name was Mazuza. This struck Fabien as singularly unlikely, but he supposed it took it all sorts.
“What is it?” he asked.
“This isn’t a library,” he said. “Are you going to buy that or not?”
“We were just looking up the definition of ‘animal’,” Fabien explained. “My friend didn’t know what they are.”
“I’m still no’ a hundred per cen’ sure,” Blake added confidingly.
Mazuza stared at them.
“Don’t know what animals are?”
“I know, it’s surprising,” Fabien said. “It threw me at first, too.”
“Why, animals are like Pokémon, only they have different superpowers,” Mazuza said.
Fabien stared.
“No,” he replied, “that’s not true. They don’t have any superpowers.”
“I have a cousin who has a friend who has a sister who has a boyfriend who has a brother who has a pet dog,” Mazuza said haughtily, “and they got him in America.”
Fabien had to take a step back. This was getting serious. Bringing in America like that... Mazuza’s cousin’s friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother must be rich. Fabien knew all sorts of things about America (some of which were even true) and one of them was that everyone there was rich, and so it followed that the dogs must be very expensive.
Still, he couldn’t let a mere shop assistant bring him down like that. He would have to fight back, and establish his supremacy. It was his duty as a learned man.
“Well I,” he said, in a dignified voice, “I’ve actually stroked a rabbit.”
Mazuza’s eyes widened, Fabien noted with satisfaction. That ought to show him. It wasn’t even a lie – he actually had. He’d been on an English exchange trip, and the host family had had a rabbit. It was one of the most amazing things he’d ever seen. All the rumours and the legends had been true: the ears really were long and pointy, and it really did eat carrots and hop around. The only thing it didn't do was say 'What's up, doc?', but Fabien had never really thought that one was true anyway.
“You’ve been abroad?” Mazuza asked respectfully. “To... America?”
“To England,” answered Fabien proudly. It was the opinion of most people in Hoenn that America was the pinnacle of civilisation, but the English people he’d met had been so secure in their superiority over Americans that he’d worked out that their country must have been the real best in the world.
“Ah,” said Mazuza. “I’ve never been.”
It was true that it was difficult. The exchange trip had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; Hoennian Airways planes tended to stop working after being in the air for more than an hour and a half, and so it wasn’t really practical to leave the country unless you could get a seat on another airline’s plane – and those were rare, and highly sought-after.
“Well, then,” Fabien said, “I say that animals have no superpowers at all. Now, Blake, let us leave. We have a zoo to get to.”
He held his head high and swept out past Mazuza, eyes half-closed in an imperial manner. This and the head-lifting meant that he didn’t see the small table in front of him, and consequently suffered some injury, but he left the shop with his dignity, unlike his legs, intact.
GengarEatBanana
Banana eating Gengar
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Good couple of chapters. I'm really enjoying the Fabien and Blake and Goishi sub-plot.
- Thread starter
- #73
Chapter Thirty-Seven: In the Zoo, the Mighty Zoo, the Lion Sleeps Tonight
“Two adults,” Fabien said to the man in the ticket office, “and one Crobat.”
“You have to put it in its ball,” the man replied. “Pokémon aren’t allowed in here.”
Since Fabien’s ego had been inflated quite considerably this morning, he did not take this well.
“Not allowed!” he cried incredulously. “Not allowed!” He turned to face the people in the queue behind them, and repeated it once more for their benefit: “He says that Pokémon aren’t allowed!”
His comment was met with well-feigned disinterest, and so he turned back to the ticket man in order to pursue justice.
“Er – you could jus’ recall Goishi, Fabien,” Blake pointed out. “We don’ wan’ ter attrac’ attention.”
“No,” said Fabien, raising one finger to eye level. “No, I’m defending my rights as a citizen of Hoenn! I have the right to carry a weapon and defend myself at all times—”
“You do spend qui’e a lot of time infringin’ other people’s righ’s as citizens of ’Oenn,” Blake pointed out.
“Whose side are you on?” asked Fabien furiously. “No, this is unaccept—”
“Sir, the animals don’t like it,” interrupted the man. “Now, there are other people waiting. Either you can put your Crobat away or leave.”
Glowering, Fabien obeyed, paid and the two Magmas moved on into the zoo itself.
There was a small square near the entrance, where one could purchase food, drink and souvenirs; at its centre was a rather nice fountain in the shape of a lion.
“Wha’s up with tha’ Luxray?” asked Blake, pointing at it. “’Is mane’s all weird.”
“It’s not a Luxray, Blake,” answered Fabien, his good humour returning in an instant now that an opportunity to prove himself knowledgeable had presented itself. “It’s a lion.”
“A lion?”
“A lion. They’re like Luxray, only – look, let’s go and see them. The map says this way...”
On the way to see the lions, they passed penguins, crocodiles and kangaroos, all of which Blake marvelled at. One thing he didn’t understand was why animals were often so similar to Pokémon – why, for those three species alone, he could think of Empoleon, Krookodile and Breloom as analogues.
Fabien wasn’t entirely certain of the facts, but he was damned if he was going to admit it, and answered Blake with as much certainty as he could muster.
“No one knows,” Fabien had answered, with a wise shrug of his shoulders. “It’s one of life’s great mysteries; the fossil record shows that Pokémon have always existed alongside animals, and they’ve always resembled a few of them – lots of ancient Pokémon looked like dinosaurs, for example.”
Blake had been very impressed at this, and had remained silent for quite some time afterwards, presumably turning the thought over in his head.
At last, they came to the lions, and they were indeed something like Luxray, but also completely different. Blake was especially impressed by this, and waxed eloquent – or as eloquent as he could – on their beauty and probable multiplicity of virtues.
“Heh,” said a passing zookeeper of tender years, hearing his little speech and deciding to stop and enlighten him, “that’s not so true. There’s nothing noble about a lion.”
“I beg your pardon?” replied Fabien, drunk on the success of his morning’s lies and forgetting who he was talking to. “I assure you, lions are very noble. Probably the most noble of all beasts. That’s why they’re called the Kings of Leon.”
The zookeeper gave him a long look, and tried hard not to laugh.
“You mean the Kings of the Beasts?”
“No,” said Fabien, doggedly sticking to his guns, “I meant the Kings of Leon.”
“’E’s a zookeeper, Fabien,” Blake said cautiously, “I think ’e knows wha’ ’e’s talkin’ abou’.”
“Blake, have I ever let you down before?”
“Yes.”
“All right, I have, but have I let you down today?”
“No.”
“Well then. Let me argue my corner.” Fabien cracked his knuckles, in the manner of one who is about to do mighty things, and turned his attention back to the zookeeper. “They are called the Kings of Leon because they come from Leon, and they’re the most noble things there.”
“It’s really funny,” the zookeeper said, deducing correctly that he was dealing with a moron of the first water, “how someone can confuse two completely unrelated concepts like that. You must be the kind of person who knows a little bit about the West and pretends to know a lot.”
“I didn’t come here to be insulted!” cried Fabien. “We’re the customers here. That means we’re always right!”
“It would if I were being paid,” agreed the zookeeper, “but I’m on work experience and I’ve decided I’m never, ever going to become a zookeeper, so I don’t care if they kick me out.”
Fabien’s face fell.
“This is an outrage!” he proclaimed.
“I’m more used to hearing those words from the mouth of a weird pink octopus-head thing,” the zookeeper said, “but you’re still wrong. About the lions, I mean. They’re not noble at all. If a new male joins the pride and gets rid of the old one, he kills all the cubs so they don’t compete with his own cubs.”
“Tha’s nasty,” Blake commented.
“Don’t agree with him!” Fabien said. “Oh yes, I’ve got your game, sir,” he told the zookeeper, narrowing his eyes at him. “You think you can get us with your mind games? Turn my friend against me? Well, it isn’t happening. Lions are very noble beasts, that’s the truth of it. They fight against the evil hyenas who steal other animal’s kills, or they did until the hyenas got marshalled into an army by a lion who turned to the dark side.”
The zookeeper let out a loud guffaw.
“You do realise that’s a Disney film, right?” he gasped through his laughter. “It’s not real!”
“Oh, it’s not real, is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” the zookeeper said, wiping a tear from his eye. “It’s true, hyenas are scavengers – but they also hunt for themselves, and often lions steal their kills because they’re too lazy to hunt.”
“Well that’s clearly just not true,” Fabien said. “I should know. I’ve been to England, you know!”
“I was born there,” the zookeeper said, “and I lived there up until last year.”
Too late, Fabien recognised the accent; too late, he realised that here was someone he couldn’t bluff his way past. For one moment, he was frozen, a like a rabbit caught in headlights; then his mind flickered over possibilities and he took the only course of action he perceived as available to him: he turned on his heel and fled into the crowd, an idiot beset on all sides by iniquity and the tyranny of evil men.
Blake turned to the zookeeper, and saw his own confusion mirrored in the young man’s eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. “Don’ know wha’ came over ’im.”
“That’s all right,” the zookeeper said, smiling brightly. “It was definitely an interesting way to pass the time.”
---
As they so famously did on the towering heights of the Hills of the Chankly Bore, storm-clouds were brooding above the Madeira Mountains; the sky was black and bruised as if the Altaria flocks had turned their bloodthirsty tendencies heavenwards, and it felt overall like the perfect day for an evil plot to go ahead.
We had once again ascended to the peak of Mount Chimney, this time by the more sensible route of the Fiery Path, and had concealed ourselves, as I had done yesterday, behind a large boulder. The Magmas had been coming up the Jagged Pass from their lair since long before we had arrived, and were busy doing something with the octopus-y machine that Puck and I had discovered on Friday.
“Do you have a plan?” I asked Sapphire in a low voice.
“I thought we’d try and work out what the machine will do,” she whispered back, “and then, once they’ve powered it up, have Puck destroy it.”
Now, I find it morally repugnant to destroy any piece of machinery, began Puck, but I interrupted:
“That’s a good idea. We’ll do that.”
“Ssh!” hissed Sapphire. “Listen!”
I listened, and heard two Magmas talking.
“... so important about this rock anyway?”
“Not sure. Only Maxie knows.” The second one stopped and sniffed; it sounded like he had a cold. “Apparently, he’s going to tell us all when he gets here. A big speech or something.”
“So that’s why we had to get our uniforms cleaned yesterday.” This issue seemed to have been preying on the guy’s mind for a while.
“Yeah.” He coughed. “Damn. Can you believe it? The height of summer, and I’ve got a damn cold.”
“Maybe it’s hay fever.”
“Maybe you should shut up.”
“How old are these guys?” Sapphire asked incredulously. “Twelve?”
I suppressed a chuckle, and marvelled. Whether consciously or not, Sapphire had made a joke.
Big surprise, Puck said sarcastically. She is human, you know.
I keep forgetting.
Time wore on; the machine was successfully set up, and the Magmas – what must have numbered around fifty or so by now – were wandering around, looking bored. If I hadn’t been so afraid that one of them might find us, I would have been complaining about how long it was taking Maxie to get here. As it was, I sat rigidly in a state somewhere between abject terror and extreme boredom – certainly one of the stranger feelings I’ve had.
These things happen, Puck said. I mean, I was buried in lard once. Never been the same since. About anything.
I was at a complete loss as to how this remark ought to be answered, and so I made no reply. I wasn’t even sure if it counted as a legitimate piece of conversation. Thankfully, I was saved from too deep a contemplation of the comment by the arrival of Maxie.
He rose up over the lip of the mountaintop like a sun-god, the arched wings of a Golbat spreading out behind him and his feet a full yard from the ground; no cut legs and bruised limbs for him, then. Behind him limped the tall, hooded man from Meteor Falls, and a very pretty young woman with coal-black hair and dead-fish eyes.
The woman’s Courtney, one of the Magma Administrators, Puck informed me. We saw her outside Spectroscopic Fancy. Briefly, I admit – we went through some unpleasantness with a Mightyena – but we did see her. I presume the man’s the other Admin.
“Friends, Magmas, countrymen,” Maxie cried out theatrically, descending to earth and letting his Golbat fall from his back with a thin, exhausted cry, “lend me your ears!”
The Magmas hurriedly arranged themselves in rows, lining up to hear whatever speech their leader had ready for them.
“Listen carefully,” whispered Sapphire. “This is when he tells us what’s going on!”
“I know,” I replied. “I was listening earlier.”
“Many of you will know why we are here today,” Maxie said loudly, “but those of you what do not...” He paused, grinning broadly. “We are here today to bring our Team into a new era.”
A murmur ran through the assembled grunts.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumours,” Maxie went on. “The ones about the blues and their attempt to take control of a superweapon that could annihilate us once and for all. This is our pre-emptive strike. Mount Chimney is close to eruption, and the machine we have set up here will utilise and redirect the power of the magma flow – to awaken the beast in the belly of the mountain itself!”
A cry went up from the Magmas: I had no idea what Maxie was talking about, but it was obviously something very surprising, and very welcome.
“We shall then bind it to our will, using advice given to us by our kind Benefactor,” Maxie continued. “After that... well, Archie had better find his superweapon quick, because ours will be marching on Lilycove within the week.”
The Magmas were cheering now, and my head had started to spin. Superweapons, beasts in the mountain – what was going on here? And what was all this about finally managing to destroy Team Aqua? A glance at Sapphire told me she was as confused as I was.
The beast in the belly of the mountain... Puck sounded pensive. Maxie’s an idiot. That thing moved on ages ago; what’s left now is just a shell. It’s gone when all good souls come to rest – the mountain called Monkey.
“What? Puck, do you know what he’s talking about?” I asked. Sapphire looked at me inquiringly.
Something old went to sleep in this mountain, long before you humans ever came to Hoenn, he said. But it died in its sleep, and all that’s left is the husk of its body. I suppose that could be quite dangerous, if Maxie gains control of it.
I relayed his words to Sapphire, but they confused her just as much as they had me. There was no time to consider them, though, because the action was beginning again.
“Now, let me pass!” Maxie cried, holding up a large, pitted chunk of rock. The Magmas parted before him, and he strode down the aisle thus formed to get to his machine.
Beside me, Sapphire gasped.
“That’s the Meteorite,” she said. “The one they forced Professor Cozmo to find for them!”
“By the power contained in this Meteorite,” Maxie went on, pressing a button and causing the dome atop the machine to slide open, “let our plan begin!”
He placed the Meteorite in the clamps, and the dome slid shut again; he pressed a button, and something deep within the mountain began to shake. With my hand against the rock, I could feel it quivering ever so slightly, and I caught Sapphire’s eye.
Something was happening, and I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good.
---
In the heart of Mount Chimney, in the chamber when the stony shell of a once-great being reposed, the magma was flowing. It powered up towards the surface, drawn by the inexorable pull of the eruption; it forced its way through narrow cracks, up vents and shafts and mines, sweeping confused Slugma along in its wake.
It was headed for the crater.
The plug of petrified lava that held the volcano shut quivered under the onslaught, the pressure beneath it rising to levels more commonly found at the bottom of the ocean. The caged fire raged and lashed tentacles of heat against its prison, and it seemed as if the plug must surely give way – and then the pipes opened.
Now a strange celestial force, conveniently inexplicable, coursed downwards through the snaking tendrils of the Magmas’ machine; the magma hissed at its touch, curled in on itself, rolled and swayed in an attempt to get away – and started to flow downwards.
Down it went, down and down and down some more, back down the vents, down the shafts, down the mines; it flowed and rippled and bounded like a great fiery tiger, until it poured in through the roof of the central chamber again—
---
There was a distant boom, and the Magmas started to cheer again, even as the ground gave a violent lurch; Sapphire and Kester were tipped over by the quake, and came to a rest sprawled out in the open on the peak.
Immediately, they were on their feet, but no one seemed to have noticed in the revels; Sapphire grabbed Kester’s hand and dragged him back behind the boulder, then on past it towards the quivering machine.
“You’ve got to stop it!” she cried. “Puck, stop the machine!”
Kester nodded, took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the machine with one hand; it was then that Maxie noticed him.
“Who the devil are you?” he roared. “Get out of here!”
This had the unfortunate effect of drawing the attention of all the Magmas, and suddenly Sapphire and Kester found themselves surrounded on all sides. Poké Balls and guns appeared with frightening speed, and Sapphire uttered a brief prayer to whatever higher power might conceivably come to the aid of a committed young atheist such as herself—
BOOM!
Everyone looked up, and Sapphire with them. The sound had shattered the air, blown away the smoke from the crater; it was the noise of the earth moving, of a mountain dragging itself out of its own long slumber – the sound of the plug that held in the lava giving way.
Only what was rising out of the mountaintop wasn’t lava.
It was a colossal hand.
Unimaginably vast, it blotted out the sun with its ponderous wavings; it was the shape of a massive shovel, a series of sequoia-sized claws forming a great spade on the end of an expanse of rocky red skin.
Sapphire stared. Kester stared. The Magmas stared. Maxie stared.
The pilot of the helicopter did not.
Twin missiles shot from beneath its blue-painted belly and struck the hand amidships; it shattered like a dropped pot, bursting into a thousand house-sized chunks of rock and revealing itself to have been hollow. As the deadly boulders rained down, everyone dived for cover; Sapphire wrenched Kester away from the machine just as one car-sized piece of reddish skin landed on it, reducing it to a heap of twisted metal.
They flung themselves to the floor and slid painfully across the stones, ending up in a hollow between two wedged rocks; all around them were the sounds of destruction. Screams, crashes, explosions; with the giant monster and the rain of death, it was like a horrible, nightmarish mixture of Cloverfield and Reign of Fire – neither of which, Sapphire thought detachedly, she had particularly enjoyed.
In the tiny hole, in the midst of the apocalypse, Sapphire shut her eyes, and waited for death, or for the noise to stop. She no longer particularly cared which came first.
It felt like she’d waited forever, but in actual fact it was only fifteen minutes. The noise ceased abruptly, and slowly, cautiously, she crawled out of the hollow. Kester followed in silence.
The scene was one of utter devastation: the crater had doubled in size, and the peak was covered in chunks of the red rock that had once been the giant hand. The Magmas were scattered over the area, but were regrouping, weapons in hands, in order to combat the Aquas what were getting out of their helicopter. In the centre of it all, Maxie and Archie were standing barely a foot apart, foreheads inches from each crazy and roaring so loudly that their words were lost in the general noise.
A cacophony of animal cries rang out through the air as Numel, Carvanha and Golbat were summoned; the Teams looked like they were about to have a full-scale battle amidst the ruins of the Magmas’ great plan.
But at the last moment, Archie backed down. He let out a long, loud laugh, which surprised Maxie and his Magmas so much that they forgot to kill his crew, and walked off back to the helicopter. In a moment, they were no more than a buzzing dot on the horizon.
“What the hell is going on here?” Maxie demanded to know of someone. He grabbed Tabitha by the front of his jacket and hauled him off the floor. “Tabitha! Answer me!”
“I – um – we should contact the Benefactor...”
Maxie dropped him abruptly.
“That’s right,” he growled. “The Benefactor. The old bratchny’s double-crossed us!”
A roar of rage went up from the assembled Magmas, and they began to storm down the Jagged Pass, presumably heading back to their lair. Sapphire wondered if it had been flooded with lava or not, but it seemed a moot point: they were leaving, and that was that.
“Wait,” Maxie growled. “You two.”
His eyes and outstretched finger were locked on Kester and Sapphire. They looked at each other, collectively gulped, and decided that the best course of action was fleeing.
Which they did, making a break for the edge of Jagged Pass.
---
Now, I don’t know if you were paying any attention to my descriptions of Mount Chimney, but I’m pretty sure you must realise that it would be impossible for us to reach Jagged Pass and descend it without the Magmas catching us up. It wouldn’t have been possible even if we hadn’t been so confused about what had just happened; as it was, my head was going around and around faster than Colonel Dedshott’s.
Consequently, I’d only got a few paces before I was completely and utterly surrounded by Magma grunts, and my arms were seized and I was marched back to Maxie.
“Who the hell are you!” he roared. “What did you do to my machine!”
That’s loud, remarked Puck distantly. I mean, those didn’t even sound like questions, they were so loud. Any louder, and we’d have been blown over like Marty McFly at the beginning of Back to the Future, Part One. God damn, I love that film.
Not helpful! I thought furiously. Then, aloud:
“Er... I’m not entirely sure.”
This was said in reference to the machine. I really wasn’t sure what Puck had done to the machine. I wasn’t even sure what had happened as a result of it – only that something weird had happened.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?” Maxie asked. He had killer cheekbones, I noticed as if from a distance, a lot like a young Elvis.
That’s my kind of comment, Puck said approvingly. And you’ve raised yourself in my eyes, because you know who the King is.
“I mean, I’m not sure,” I replied more strongly, surprising myself with the strength of my voice. “What do you think I mean?”
Maxie went scarlet and crimson by turns – by which I mean that he flashed in different shades of red, in the grip of some unimaginable fury. The Magmas around me shifted uneasily.
Kester, I think you might have made an error of judgement there, Puck said nervously. Maxie’s renowned for his temp—
I know what I’m doing, I replied, and to my surprise I was right. I actually did have something of a plan. Perhaps I wasn’t so bad at this adventuring stuff after all.
No, this is suicide—
Ssh!
“You,” Maxie managed at last, voice choked in the brambles of his rage, “you—”
He got no further. With an extreme effort, I forced a Charge Beam out of my eyes, hitting him in the chest and throwing him over backwards into the wreckage of his machine; the Magmas’ grip slackened, and I twisted free and turned to face them, feeling myself glow orange.
“Any of you move, and I swear I’ll kill him.” My hands were crackling with sparks, and I kept my left hand steadily aimed at Maxie, who was getting slowly to his feet and groaning. The Magmas were very, very still; in the front row, Tabitha looked shell-shocked. He had just worked out that I was the Rotom-kid, I guess, and was cursing his stupidity in not catching me earlier.
“An Aqua plot,” Maxie said slowly, wiping dust from his face. “Grazhny blues.” He regarded me with those piercing eyes; there was no fear there, or anger either. I had the sudden feeling that he was the real deal – he wasn’t like the bumbling goons who had been chasing us, he was a genuine criminal, with actual intelligence and the capacity for real forward planning. “You’re the Rotom-boy, aren’t you? Kester Ruby?”
“That would seem to be the case,” I agreed.
Pointlessly well-phrased, Puck said. I like it.
Maxie didn’t blink.
“What is it you want, then?”
“Let my friend go,” I said, pointing to Sapphire. The Magmas who were holding her looked at Maxie, who seemed rather put out that they’d consider letting him die just to keep hold of a prisoner.
“Well, let her go, you morons!” he snapped. Hurriedly, they did, and Sapphire looked at me for instructions. There was a respect in her eyes, I noted with satisfaction, that hadn’t been there before.
Congratulate yourself later, Puck said tersely. We’re not out of the woods yet.
“Get out of here,” I called to her. “I’ll follow – er – when I can.”
That ‘er’ really spoiled the effect, Puck remarked. And there I was, almost convinced that you were getting the hang of this ‘cool hero’ thing.
Sapphire nodded and the Magmas parted to let her past; she vanished onto Jagged Pass a few moments later.
Now, how are we getting out of here? Puck inquired.
I’m working on it, I replied.
“So what now?” Maxie asked me. The hint of a smile was playing on his lips. He knew that if I moved, I would no longer have a clear shot at him, and if I tried to grab him, I’d just end up killing him anyway. The problem with Charge Beam was that it had to charge – and so I had to hold the charge in my hand. Touching Maxie would discharge the beam into him, and not only would that lose me my hostage, it would make me a murderer, which was something I wasn’t overly keen on.
“Er...”
Then I had an idea, which Puck flat-out refused.
No, Kester. Not that.
Got a better plan?
Er... no.
Well, then.
I took a deep breath, and concentrated. The sparks around my hand started to flicker and crackle; the Magmas and Maxie looked concerned. Then came a terrible, awful sound, one that I’d heard too many times before and which, despite the fact that my plan needed it, I never really wanted to hear again.
Pop!
“Two adults,” Fabien said to the man in the ticket office, “and one Crobat.”
“You have to put it in its ball,” the man replied. “Pokémon aren’t allowed in here.”
Since Fabien’s ego had been inflated quite considerably this morning, he did not take this well.
“Not allowed!” he cried incredulously. “Not allowed!” He turned to face the people in the queue behind them, and repeated it once more for their benefit: “He says that Pokémon aren’t allowed!”
His comment was met with well-feigned disinterest, and so he turned back to the ticket man in order to pursue justice.
“Er – you could jus’ recall Goishi, Fabien,” Blake pointed out. “We don’ wan’ ter attrac’ attention.”
“No,” said Fabien, raising one finger to eye level. “No, I’m defending my rights as a citizen of Hoenn! I have the right to carry a weapon and defend myself at all times—”
“You do spend qui’e a lot of time infringin’ other people’s righ’s as citizens of ’Oenn,” Blake pointed out.
“Whose side are you on?” asked Fabien furiously. “No, this is unaccept—”
“Sir, the animals don’t like it,” interrupted the man. “Now, there are other people waiting. Either you can put your Crobat away or leave.”
Glowering, Fabien obeyed, paid and the two Magmas moved on into the zoo itself.
There was a small square near the entrance, where one could purchase food, drink and souvenirs; at its centre was a rather nice fountain in the shape of a lion.
“Wha’s up with tha’ Luxray?” asked Blake, pointing at it. “’Is mane’s all weird.”
“It’s not a Luxray, Blake,” answered Fabien, his good humour returning in an instant now that an opportunity to prove himself knowledgeable had presented itself. “It’s a lion.”
“A lion?”
“A lion. They’re like Luxray, only – look, let’s go and see them. The map says this way...”
On the way to see the lions, they passed penguins, crocodiles and kangaroos, all of which Blake marvelled at. One thing he didn’t understand was why animals were often so similar to Pokémon – why, for those three species alone, he could think of Empoleon, Krookodile and Breloom as analogues.
Fabien wasn’t entirely certain of the facts, but he was damned if he was going to admit it, and answered Blake with as much certainty as he could muster.
“No one knows,” Fabien had answered, with a wise shrug of his shoulders. “It’s one of life’s great mysteries; the fossil record shows that Pokémon have always existed alongside animals, and they’ve always resembled a few of them – lots of ancient Pokémon looked like dinosaurs, for example.”
Blake had been very impressed at this, and had remained silent for quite some time afterwards, presumably turning the thought over in his head.
At last, they came to the lions, and they were indeed something like Luxray, but also completely different. Blake was especially impressed by this, and waxed eloquent – or as eloquent as he could – on their beauty and probable multiplicity of virtues.
“Heh,” said a passing zookeeper of tender years, hearing his little speech and deciding to stop and enlighten him, “that’s not so true. There’s nothing noble about a lion.”
“I beg your pardon?” replied Fabien, drunk on the success of his morning’s lies and forgetting who he was talking to. “I assure you, lions are very noble. Probably the most noble of all beasts. That’s why they’re called the Kings of Leon.”
The zookeeper gave him a long look, and tried hard not to laugh.
“You mean the Kings of the Beasts?”
“No,” said Fabien, doggedly sticking to his guns, “I meant the Kings of Leon.”
“’E’s a zookeeper, Fabien,” Blake said cautiously, “I think ’e knows wha’ ’e’s talkin’ abou’.”
“Blake, have I ever let you down before?”
“Yes.”
“All right, I have, but have I let you down today?”
“No.”
“Well then. Let me argue my corner.” Fabien cracked his knuckles, in the manner of one who is about to do mighty things, and turned his attention back to the zookeeper. “They are called the Kings of Leon because they come from Leon, and they’re the most noble things there.”
“It’s really funny,” the zookeeper said, deducing correctly that he was dealing with a moron of the first water, “how someone can confuse two completely unrelated concepts like that. You must be the kind of person who knows a little bit about the West and pretends to know a lot.”
“I didn’t come here to be insulted!” cried Fabien. “We’re the customers here. That means we’re always right!”
“It would if I were being paid,” agreed the zookeeper, “but I’m on work experience and I’ve decided I’m never, ever going to become a zookeeper, so I don’t care if they kick me out.”
Fabien’s face fell.
“This is an outrage!” he proclaimed.
“I’m more used to hearing those words from the mouth of a weird pink octopus-head thing,” the zookeeper said, “but you’re still wrong. About the lions, I mean. They’re not noble at all. If a new male joins the pride and gets rid of the old one, he kills all the cubs so they don’t compete with his own cubs.”
“Tha’s nasty,” Blake commented.
“Don’t agree with him!” Fabien said. “Oh yes, I’ve got your game, sir,” he told the zookeeper, narrowing his eyes at him. “You think you can get us with your mind games? Turn my friend against me? Well, it isn’t happening. Lions are very noble beasts, that’s the truth of it. They fight against the evil hyenas who steal other animal’s kills, or they did until the hyenas got marshalled into an army by a lion who turned to the dark side.”
The zookeeper let out a loud guffaw.
“You do realise that’s a Disney film, right?” he gasped through his laughter. “It’s not real!”
“Oh, it’s not real, is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” the zookeeper said, wiping a tear from his eye. “It’s true, hyenas are scavengers – but they also hunt for themselves, and often lions steal their kills because they’re too lazy to hunt.”
“Well that’s clearly just not true,” Fabien said. “I should know. I’ve been to England, you know!”
“I was born there,” the zookeeper said, “and I lived there up until last year.”
Too late, Fabien recognised the accent; too late, he realised that here was someone he couldn’t bluff his way past. For one moment, he was frozen, a like a rabbit caught in headlights; then his mind flickered over possibilities and he took the only course of action he perceived as available to him: he turned on his heel and fled into the crowd, an idiot beset on all sides by iniquity and the tyranny of evil men.
Blake turned to the zookeeper, and saw his own confusion mirrored in the young man’s eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. “Don’ know wha’ came over ’im.”
“That’s all right,” the zookeeper said, smiling brightly. “It was definitely an interesting way to pass the time.”
---
As they so famously did on the towering heights of the Hills of the Chankly Bore, storm-clouds were brooding above the Madeira Mountains; the sky was black and bruised as if the Altaria flocks had turned their bloodthirsty tendencies heavenwards, and it felt overall like the perfect day for an evil plot to go ahead.
We had once again ascended to the peak of Mount Chimney, this time by the more sensible route of the Fiery Path, and had concealed ourselves, as I had done yesterday, behind a large boulder. The Magmas had been coming up the Jagged Pass from their lair since long before we had arrived, and were busy doing something with the octopus-y machine that Puck and I had discovered on Friday.
“Do you have a plan?” I asked Sapphire in a low voice.
“I thought we’d try and work out what the machine will do,” she whispered back, “and then, once they’ve powered it up, have Puck destroy it.”
Now, I find it morally repugnant to destroy any piece of machinery, began Puck, but I interrupted:
“That’s a good idea. We’ll do that.”
“Ssh!” hissed Sapphire. “Listen!”
I listened, and heard two Magmas talking.
“... so important about this rock anyway?”
“Not sure. Only Maxie knows.” The second one stopped and sniffed; it sounded like he had a cold. “Apparently, he’s going to tell us all when he gets here. A big speech or something.”
“So that’s why we had to get our uniforms cleaned yesterday.” This issue seemed to have been preying on the guy’s mind for a while.
“Yeah.” He coughed. “Damn. Can you believe it? The height of summer, and I’ve got a damn cold.”
“Maybe it’s hay fever.”
“Maybe you should shut up.”
“How old are these guys?” Sapphire asked incredulously. “Twelve?”
I suppressed a chuckle, and marvelled. Whether consciously or not, Sapphire had made a joke.
Big surprise, Puck said sarcastically. She is human, you know.
I keep forgetting.
Time wore on; the machine was successfully set up, and the Magmas – what must have numbered around fifty or so by now – were wandering around, looking bored. If I hadn’t been so afraid that one of them might find us, I would have been complaining about how long it was taking Maxie to get here. As it was, I sat rigidly in a state somewhere between abject terror and extreme boredom – certainly one of the stranger feelings I’ve had.
These things happen, Puck said. I mean, I was buried in lard once. Never been the same since. About anything.
I was at a complete loss as to how this remark ought to be answered, and so I made no reply. I wasn’t even sure if it counted as a legitimate piece of conversation. Thankfully, I was saved from too deep a contemplation of the comment by the arrival of Maxie.
He rose up over the lip of the mountaintop like a sun-god, the arched wings of a Golbat spreading out behind him and his feet a full yard from the ground; no cut legs and bruised limbs for him, then. Behind him limped the tall, hooded man from Meteor Falls, and a very pretty young woman with coal-black hair and dead-fish eyes.
The woman’s Courtney, one of the Magma Administrators, Puck informed me. We saw her outside Spectroscopic Fancy. Briefly, I admit – we went through some unpleasantness with a Mightyena – but we did see her. I presume the man’s the other Admin.
“Friends, Magmas, countrymen,” Maxie cried out theatrically, descending to earth and letting his Golbat fall from his back with a thin, exhausted cry, “lend me your ears!”
The Magmas hurriedly arranged themselves in rows, lining up to hear whatever speech their leader had ready for them.
“Listen carefully,” whispered Sapphire. “This is when he tells us what’s going on!”
“I know,” I replied. “I was listening earlier.”
“Many of you will know why we are here today,” Maxie said loudly, “but those of you what do not...” He paused, grinning broadly. “We are here today to bring our Team into a new era.”
A murmur ran through the assembled grunts.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumours,” Maxie went on. “The ones about the blues and their attempt to take control of a superweapon that could annihilate us once and for all. This is our pre-emptive strike. Mount Chimney is close to eruption, and the machine we have set up here will utilise and redirect the power of the magma flow – to awaken the beast in the belly of the mountain itself!”
A cry went up from the Magmas: I had no idea what Maxie was talking about, but it was obviously something very surprising, and very welcome.
“We shall then bind it to our will, using advice given to us by our kind Benefactor,” Maxie continued. “After that... well, Archie had better find his superweapon quick, because ours will be marching on Lilycove within the week.”
The Magmas were cheering now, and my head had started to spin. Superweapons, beasts in the mountain – what was going on here? And what was all this about finally managing to destroy Team Aqua? A glance at Sapphire told me she was as confused as I was.
The beast in the belly of the mountain... Puck sounded pensive. Maxie’s an idiot. That thing moved on ages ago; what’s left now is just a shell. It’s gone when all good souls come to rest – the mountain called Monkey.
“What? Puck, do you know what he’s talking about?” I asked. Sapphire looked at me inquiringly.
Something old went to sleep in this mountain, long before you humans ever came to Hoenn, he said. But it died in its sleep, and all that’s left is the husk of its body. I suppose that could be quite dangerous, if Maxie gains control of it.
I relayed his words to Sapphire, but they confused her just as much as they had me. There was no time to consider them, though, because the action was beginning again.
“Now, let me pass!” Maxie cried, holding up a large, pitted chunk of rock. The Magmas parted before him, and he strode down the aisle thus formed to get to his machine.
Beside me, Sapphire gasped.
“That’s the Meteorite,” she said. “The one they forced Professor Cozmo to find for them!”
“By the power contained in this Meteorite,” Maxie went on, pressing a button and causing the dome atop the machine to slide open, “let our plan begin!”
He placed the Meteorite in the clamps, and the dome slid shut again; he pressed a button, and something deep within the mountain began to shake. With my hand against the rock, I could feel it quivering ever so slightly, and I caught Sapphire’s eye.
Something was happening, and I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good.
---
In the heart of Mount Chimney, in the chamber when the stony shell of a once-great being reposed, the magma was flowing. It powered up towards the surface, drawn by the inexorable pull of the eruption; it forced its way through narrow cracks, up vents and shafts and mines, sweeping confused Slugma along in its wake.
It was headed for the crater.
The plug of petrified lava that held the volcano shut quivered under the onslaught, the pressure beneath it rising to levels more commonly found at the bottom of the ocean. The caged fire raged and lashed tentacles of heat against its prison, and it seemed as if the plug must surely give way – and then the pipes opened.
Now a strange celestial force, conveniently inexplicable, coursed downwards through the snaking tendrils of the Magmas’ machine; the magma hissed at its touch, curled in on itself, rolled and swayed in an attempt to get away – and started to flow downwards.
Down it went, down and down and down some more, back down the vents, down the shafts, down the mines; it flowed and rippled and bounded like a great fiery tiger, until it poured in through the roof of the central chamber again—
---
There was a distant boom, and the Magmas started to cheer again, even as the ground gave a violent lurch; Sapphire and Kester were tipped over by the quake, and came to a rest sprawled out in the open on the peak.
Immediately, they were on their feet, but no one seemed to have noticed in the revels; Sapphire grabbed Kester’s hand and dragged him back behind the boulder, then on past it towards the quivering machine.
“You’ve got to stop it!” she cried. “Puck, stop the machine!”
Kester nodded, took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the machine with one hand; it was then that Maxie noticed him.
“Who the devil are you?” he roared. “Get out of here!”
This had the unfortunate effect of drawing the attention of all the Magmas, and suddenly Sapphire and Kester found themselves surrounded on all sides. Poké Balls and guns appeared with frightening speed, and Sapphire uttered a brief prayer to whatever higher power might conceivably come to the aid of a committed young atheist such as herself—
BOOM!
Everyone looked up, and Sapphire with them. The sound had shattered the air, blown away the smoke from the crater; it was the noise of the earth moving, of a mountain dragging itself out of its own long slumber – the sound of the plug that held in the lava giving way.
Only what was rising out of the mountaintop wasn’t lava.
It was a colossal hand.
Unimaginably vast, it blotted out the sun with its ponderous wavings; it was the shape of a massive shovel, a series of sequoia-sized claws forming a great spade on the end of an expanse of rocky red skin.
Sapphire stared. Kester stared. The Magmas stared. Maxie stared.
The pilot of the helicopter did not.
Twin missiles shot from beneath its blue-painted belly and struck the hand amidships; it shattered like a dropped pot, bursting into a thousand house-sized chunks of rock and revealing itself to have been hollow. As the deadly boulders rained down, everyone dived for cover; Sapphire wrenched Kester away from the machine just as one car-sized piece of reddish skin landed on it, reducing it to a heap of twisted metal.
They flung themselves to the floor and slid painfully across the stones, ending up in a hollow between two wedged rocks; all around them were the sounds of destruction. Screams, crashes, explosions; with the giant monster and the rain of death, it was like a horrible, nightmarish mixture of Cloverfield and Reign of Fire – neither of which, Sapphire thought detachedly, she had particularly enjoyed.
In the tiny hole, in the midst of the apocalypse, Sapphire shut her eyes, and waited for death, or for the noise to stop. She no longer particularly cared which came first.
It felt like she’d waited forever, but in actual fact it was only fifteen minutes. The noise ceased abruptly, and slowly, cautiously, she crawled out of the hollow. Kester followed in silence.
The scene was one of utter devastation: the crater had doubled in size, and the peak was covered in chunks of the red rock that had once been the giant hand. The Magmas were scattered over the area, but were regrouping, weapons in hands, in order to combat the Aquas what were getting out of their helicopter. In the centre of it all, Maxie and Archie were standing barely a foot apart, foreheads inches from each crazy and roaring so loudly that their words were lost in the general noise.
A cacophony of animal cries rang out through the air as Numel, Carvanha and Golbat were summoned; the Teams looked like they were about to have a full-scale battle amidst the ruins of the Magmas’ great plan.
But at the last moment, Archie backed down. He let out a long, loud laugh, which surprised Maxie and his Magmas so much that they forgot to kill his crew, and walked off back to the helicopter. In a moment, they were no more than a buzzing dot on the horizon.
“What the hell is going on here?” Maxie demanded to know of someone. He grabbed Tabitha by the front of his jacket and hauled him off the floor. “Tabitha! Answer me!”
“I – um – we should contact the Benefactor...”
Maxie dropped him abruptly.
“That’s right,” he growled. “The Benefactor. The old bratchny’s double-crossed us!”
A roar of rage went up from the assembled Magmas, and they began to storm down the Jagged Pass, presumably heading back to their lair. Sapphire wondered if it had been flooded with lava or not, but it seemed a moot point: they were leaving, and that was that.
“Wait,” Maxie growled. “You two.”
His eyes and outstretched finger were locked on Kester and Sapphire. They looked at each other, collectively gulped, and decided that the best course of action was fleeing.
Which they did, making a break for the edge of Jagged Pass.
---
Now, I don’t know if you were paying any attention to my descriptions of Mount Chimney, but I’m pretty sure you must realise that it would be impossible for us to reach Jagged Pass and descend it without the Magmas catching us up. It wouldn’t have been possible even if we hadn’t been so confused about what had just happened; as it was, my head was going around and around faster than Colonel Dedshott’s.
Consequently, I’d only got a few paces before I was completely and utterly surrounded by Magma grunts, and my arms were seized and I was marched back to Maxie.
“Who the hell are you!” he roared. “What did you do to my machine!”
That’s loud, remarked Puck distantly. I mean, those didn’t even sound like questions, they were so loud. Any louder, and we’d have been blown over like Marty McFly at the beginning of Back to the Future, Part One. God damn, I love that film.
Not helpful! I thought furiously. Then, aloud:
“Er... I’m not entirely sure.”
This was said in reference to the machine. I really wasn’t sure what Puck had done to the machine. I wasn’t even sure what had happened as a result of it – only that something weird had happened.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?” Maxie asked. He had killer cheekbones, I noticed as if from a distance, a lot like a young Elvis.
That’s my kind of comment, Puck said approvingly. And you’ve raised yourself in my eyes, because you know who the King is.
“I mean, I’m not sure,” I replied more strongly, surprising myself with the strength of my voice. “What do you think I mean?”
Maxie went scarlet and crimson by turns – by which I mean that he flashed in different shades of red, in the grip of some unimaginable fury. The Magmas around me shifted uneasily.
Kester, I think you might have made an error of judgement there, Puck said nervously. Maxie’s renowned for his temp—
I know what I’m doing, I replied, and to my surprise I was right. I actually did have something of a plan. Perhaps I wasn’t so bad at this adventuring stuff after all.
No, this is suicide—
Ssh!
“You,” Maxie managed at last, voice choked in the brambles of his rage, “you—”
He got no further. With an extreme effort, I forced a Charge Beam out of my eyes, hitting him in the chest and throwing him over backwards into the wreckage of his machine; the Magmas’ grip slackened, and I twisted free and turned to face them, feeling myself glow orange.
“Any of you move, and I swear I’ll kill him.” My hands were crackling with sparks, and I kept my left hand steadily aimed at Maxie, who was getting slowly to his feet and groaning. The Magmas were very, very still; in the front row, Tabitha looked shell-shocked. He had just worked out that I was the Rotom-kid, I guess, and was cursing his stupidity in not catching me earlier.
“An Aqua plot,” Maxie said slowly, wiping dust from his face. “Grazhny blues.” He regarded me with those piercing eyes; there was no fear there, or anger either. I had the sudden feeling that he was the real deal – he wasn’t like the bumbling goons who had been chasing us, he was a genuine criminal, with actual intelligence and the capacity for real forward planning. “You’re the Rotom-boy, aren’t you? Kester Ruby?”
“That would seem to be the case,” I agreed.
Pointlessly well-phrased, Puck said. I like it.
Maxie didn’t blink.
“What is it you want, then?”
“Let my friend go,” I said, pointing to Sapphire. The Magmas who were holding her looked at Maxie, who seemed rather put out that they’d consider letting him die just to keep hold of a prisoner.
“Well, let her go, you morons!” he snapped. Hurriedly, they did, and Sapphire looked at me for instructions. There was a respect in her eyes, I noted with satisfaction, that hadn’t been there before.
Congratulate yourself later, Puck said tersely. We’re not out of the woods yet.
“Get out of here,” I called to her. “I’ll follow – er – when I can.”
That ‘er’ really spoiled the effect, Puck remarked. And there I was, almost convinced that you were getting the hang of this ‘cool hero’ thing.
Sapphire nodded and the Magmas parted to let her past; she vanished onto Jagged Pass a few moments later.
Now, how are we getting out of here? Puck inquired.
I’m working on it, I replied.
“So what now?” Maxie asked me. The hint of a smile was playing on his lips. He knew that if I moved, I would no longer have a clear shot at him, and if I tried to grab him, I’d just end up killing him anyway. The problem with Charge Beam was that it had to charge – and so I had to hold the charge in my hand. Touching Maxie would discharge the beam into him, and not only would that lose me my hostage, it would make me a murderer, which was something I wasn’t overly keen on.
“Er...”
Then I had an idea, which Puck flat-out refused.
No, Kester. Not that.
Got a better plan?
Er... no.
Well, then.
I took a deep breath, and concentrated. The sparks around my hand started to flicker and crackle; the Magmas and Maxie looked concerned. Then came a terrible, awful sound, one that I’d heard too many times before and which, despite the fact that my plan needed it, I never really wanted to hear again.
Pop!
GengarEatBanana
Banana eating Gengar
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What?! Aaaaw, a cliffhanger?! Good chapter though.
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- #76
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Humming the Bassline
Yeah! This is DJ Professor K, baby, the master of mayhem, you know what I’m sayin’, bringing you another Tokyo under-ground pirate radio broadcast from... Jet Set Radio! I'm gonna bust into your head through your cute li’l ears and blow your minds with my sexy voice and out-of-sight sounds! Those of you prone to nosebleeds should keep those tissues handy, suckas!
Nah, in all seriousness, this is just me, your friendly neighbourhood plasma Ghost, Robin Goodfellow.
First up, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing this and not Kester. See, the thing is, the kid’s not here right now, and I’m seizing my chance to jazz up this narrative a bit. I’ve possessed the computer, and I’ve got to say, it’s a pretty comfortable ride. Better than a washing machine, anyway – I never liked getting water in me. I told you about that way back in Chapter Seven, if I recall correctly.
Anyway, back to the point. That’s the thing about me; I’m unconstrained by petty human values like ‘narrative technique’ and ‘not waffling’. I write what I please – though that’s not at all the same as saying that I please what I write. Although, it does work with I eat what I like, because I also like what I eat.
Er...
Where was I? Oh yes, back to the point. I thought I’d regale you here with a little story of the old days, long before I met Kester in that accursed hospital in Rustboro – long before I’d even thought of ever going to Hoenn. This was in the demon days of the middle Noughties, and I’d just finished using my considerable talents as a computer virus to put a stop to the Gorillaz world tour before it had even happened – made a tidy profit out of that, I can tell you, though to this day Murdoc won’t speak to me. That’s the problem with existing mostly in the virtual plane – people who aren’t even real can interfere with your life.
So this would have been around 2006, 2007, something like that. It was then that I had this brilliant idea. I was going to steal something that everyone thought was unstealable: the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
All right, so I was a shade overambitious. After all, the ceiling’s still there, so you already know I didn’t pull it off. But I want to tell you it was through no fault of my own, it was the damn Swiss Guard. When you’re incorporeal like me, you tend to rely on hired hands – and hired hands don’t tend to be bulletproof. Thus, they get shot up by the Swiss Guard.
Wait. That’s not what ‘shot up’ means. Never mind, I’ll use it how I want. Like Humpty Dumpty, I can make a word mean whatever I so choose. Impenetrability, that’s what I say.
Er... Oh yeah, the Sistine Chapel. So it goes like this: I possessed this Boeing 747 – and this time I actually mean a Boeing 747, not a school bus full of orphans – and had it gutted. Everything taken out, to make it as light as possible.
Actually, there’s an interesting story about the debris from the gutting. I sold it off in Holland for five thousand pounds, then bought myself about a hundred and fifty thousand punnets of strawberries. I swapped those for a load of Béarnaise sauce in Mongolia, sold that to a restaurant in Kanto for six thousand, bought up shares in a Sinnoh company mining the Underground and sold them off a month later for eight hundred thousand. It was one smooth bit of business, I can tell you. Nothing illegal, and very, very lucrative.
Anyway, back to the Sistine Chapel ceiling. So I hired up these goons to secretly saw through the roof supports, so that I could fly over, attach the whole roof to the plane and fly away with the ceiling.
But yeah, as you can imagine, that’s where the plan came down. I flew over, had my guys parachute down – a couple of them broke limbs/necks/spines in the fall, but it was OK, I’d factored that in – and they got sawing, but the Swiss Guard got wind of it all, and they were kind of uncooperative.
Now, I’d considered hiring something like a team of crooked Kadabra to just levitate it off, since they could repel bullets with their minds, but I assumed the Swiss Guard would have Pokémon too. They did, as it turned out – a fleet of Zuppenkrab from Germany. Apparently the only thing that’s worse for hired goons than being shot is being sliced in half by a giant crab made of iron. So yeah, the plan was something of a dismal failure. Oh well. Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today, eh?
What do I mean by that, I wonder? I’m not entirely sure. The White Queen seemed to know what it was all about, so I guess I’ll just trust in her. I couldn’t do much better, after all – she was the one who taught me how to believe impossible things. Great woman. One of the few meatfaces for whom I have any modicum of respect.
So... back to the Sistine Chapel ceiling theft. That was a bit of a failure, but I can assure you it’s not representative of my work overall. I’m mostly an art thief, and I’m really, really good. Promise. I’m like Thomas Crown. Better, even. I’ve stolen works of art from almost every major museum gallery in the world, except the Dallas Museum of Art because whenever I go anywhere near Dallas I end up getting chased by packs of hungry Decoyote.
That reminds me, there was this one time back in ’98 when—
Ah, damn it, Kester’s back! Speak to you later, boys and girls. Stay tuned, and don’t go anywhere!
---
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
I stepped forwards and punched the nearest Magma as hard as I could. On either side of me, my clones did likewise.
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
My personal army was ever-expanding; now there were around fifteen of us, and we walked forwards, lashing out at the Magmas with wild abandon. I had become lost in the mass; I doubt that anyone knew which one was the real me any longer.
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Faced with over twenty Kester Rubies, with more on the way, the Magmas decided that it wasn’t going to be possible to extract me from the mass. My clones pressed tight around me, keeping me at the centre of a defensive ring. It was like being in the world’s strangest hall of mirrors, and rather disorienting – but we ploughed forth through the crowd, our number ever-growing. Several of my clones were shot, knifed or hit with Pokémon moves, but always more sprang up to take their place as they flickered and vanished.
“Stop!” called Maxie wearily, looking at his minions’ pathetic efforts. “This isn’t working. It would seem young Kester has beaten us today.”
My clones and I paused, and turned to look at him with the Magmas. Around us, the red-suited goons were starting to grumble; they didn’t like to give up, though they could see their situation was fairly hopeless.
“You are a worthy adversary,” Maxie said, looking directly at me. For a fleeting moment, I wondered how he knew I was the real one, but the thought was pushed out of my head by what he did next: in the midst of his Team’s utter failure, he smiled. “It seems the blues are kicking it up a notch,” he went on mildly. “Well, good! I appreciate the challenge.”
He looks like a shark, Puck commented, and he did: his eyes had gone very dark and his smile very broad; his face seemed to be stretched unnaturally across a carcharine skull. I shivered, and so did my duplicates.
“Until we meet again, Kester,” he said, making a small and probably ironic bow. “Until we meet again.”
‘Probably’ ironic? queried Puck. You mean to say you can’t detect irony with 100% certainty? Shame on you, Mister Ruby.
I turned and left. I’d had enough of the shark-faced leader and his red-suited grunts to last me a lifetime.
---
“Didi.”
“Yes, Gogo?”
“My foot really hurts.”
Vladimir gave Estragon’s foot a cursory glance.
“Boots must be taken off every day, Gogo – I’ve told you this before.”
Barry gritted his teeth and mined harder, but not even the rhythmic drilling of the excavator could block out the two men’s inane banter.
“But,” Vladimir continued, warming to his theme, “there’s man all over for you. Blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.”
“Didi.”
“Yes?”
“Haven’t we had a conversation like this before?”
“Only about seventy times.”
“Ah.” Estragon drilled in silence for a while. Then: “It’s funny how hard habits die, isn’t it?”
“Habit,” pronounced Vladimir, in the tones of someone delivering a momentous truth, “is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.”
“That’s a good one.”
“It was Beckett, writing on Proust.”
“Beckett. Now there’s a name.”
There was another long pause, and Barry was just settling down to some nice, peaceful drilling when Vladimir spoke again.
“Do you mean that it is a name, which it is, or that it’s a good name?”
Barry let loose a warning rumble that carried right over the relentless hammering of the excavators. Vladimir and Estragon each gave him a long, concerned look.
“I’ve a feeling he doesn’t like us.”
“Does anyone?”
“They do now,” Vladimir affirmed. “We moved on, remember?”
“Oh yes.”
There was a third long pause. If Barry had been a better-read man, he might have made some sort of remark about Harold Pinter at this point, but he wasn’t, and didn’t.
“What’s it all about?” pondered Vladimir, after some time had passed.
“The weasel under the cocktail cabinet?” suggested Estragon.
“Wrong playwright,” Vladimir countered.
“Ah!” cried Estragon, but he had nothing further to say, and the pair lapsed into further silence.
It was not long afterwards that Barry’s excavator hit something that produced an entirely different sound to crunching rock: the sharp clang of struck metal echoed through the shaft.
Immediately, the three men stopped drilling. The Gorsedd had been known to lay mines before, and it wouldn’t do to go smashing those up without due care and attention.
Barry hefted his excavator over his shoulder – a feat that required two hands, even for such an improbably muscular man as he – and tossed on the ground behind him. Vladimir and Estragon laid theirs down more gently, and they gathered around the piece of metal protruding from the end of the shaft.
“What is that?” wondered Estragon.
“I’m not sure,” Vladimir replied. “Pozzo would have known, I know it. He seemed a bright enough fellow.”
“I’ll tell you who would know,” Estragon said.
“Who?”
“Him.” Estragon made meaningful movements of his eyebrows, and Vladimir nodded slowly.
“Yes,” he agreed, “he would.”
“It’s a mine,” growled Barry, resisting the urge to dash the two foreigners’ brains out against the wall. “Go and tell the boss.”
“I’ll go,” offered Vladimir.”
“No, I shall—”
“Both of you go,” ordered Barry, and perhaps the blood in his eye was showing more obviously than usual, because neither Vladimir nor Estragon cared to debate the point, and left with unusual alacrity.
Alone at long last, the giant Aqua sat down and leaned against the wall, keeping a watchful eye on the mine. It was a mark of how low he seemed to have sunk that he would choose to stay in the presence of an unexploded bomb over any of the other options available to him right now.
Barry considered Vladimir and Estragon. Their presence was like a set of iron barbs in his skull; they made his very brain bleed with annoyance.
Then there was Shelly. She wasn’t nearly as bad – she treated her workers right, which was more than you could say for most bosses – but she was a woman. And Barry’s fierce chauvinism rankled at the idea that he was under the command of a member of the fair sex.
And then there was the final member of the little crew down here. The one whom Barry loathed above all people, the one who had led him to this accursed place in the first instance.
“Hi Barry!” said Scarlett, coming around the corner. “It’s me!”
“I can see that,” rumbled the giant, regarding her with steely eyes. “What do you want?”
“I came to see if you had any more sweets.”
A series of embarrassing outbursts, which shall go unrecorded in this chronicle, had left Barry owing a great many sweets to the blackmailing ten-year-old, and he had so far succeeded in paying off half of his debt. The only good to come of it, Barry mused sourly and with unusual intellect, would be felt by her dentist.
“I don’t.” Barry’s voice was so low that it passed out of the range of human hearing in places. “Go away. There’s an unexploded mine here.”
“Fine.” Scarlett stuck her tongue out at him. “I was going to tell you that another Aqua has arrived, but I’m not even going to show you the picture now.”
Barry’s heart leaped. Another Aqua? A companion in this wilderness of insanity? This was the best news he’d had for a long, long time.
“What kind and how many?” he asked, referring to sweets.
“Two packets of fizzy cola bottles,” Scarlett said briskly, “the big ones.”
“All right.” Barry held out a hand, and the diminutive artist pressed her open sketchbook into it. He looked at the page, and his eyes widened. Then he looked up, and saw someone coming around the corner, just behind Scarlett.
Barry looked at the person, and looked at the paper, and then looked back at the person again.
“Hello Barry,” said Felicity, pushing her sunglasses further up her shapely nose. “How... nice to see you still alive.”
---
“OK,” said Fabien, pulling disconsolately at his beer, “I might not have been telling the whole truth back there.”
He, Blake and Goishi were in a small, run-down bar that they vaguely remembered having spent some time in last night; at one o’clock, it was probably too early for decent people to lose their sobriety, but none of them fell into that category, and consequently were unbound by social convention.
“Well, I be’ you were jus’ misinformed,” Blake said consolingly. “I mean, you’ve never been wrong before.”
“Yeah.” Fabien sat up. “Yeah! I should go right back and say—”
“I don’ think we should go back,” Blake said. “The cops’ll be there by now, won’ they?”
After deciding that running away was the coward’s way out, Fabien had released Goishi and gone back to make the zookeeper see sense; however, the Crobat’s presence had several of the smaller animals into shock, and spooked the zebras in the next enclosure so much that they’d tried to stampede, found it was impossible in their small home and ended up with a variety of injuries between them. At this, the zookeepers had shown up and shot Goishi with a tranquiliser dart, not realising that no noxious chemicals really affected Poison-types, and then there had been something of a difference of opinions. This had ended badly for all concerned, but worst of all for the young intern zookeeper; after that, Fabien and Blake had decided that it would be best to flee before the police showed up.
“Yes, that’s true,” Fabien said thoughtfully. “Well, that kid should know better than to mess with his elders and betters. I mean, I was perfectly polite.”
“EE-eee-ee-ek,” Goishi put in, which probably meant ‘no, you weren’t. You were savage and unreasonable and a great many more things besides.’
“Quite right, quite right,” agreed Fabien. “I understand entirely.”
“E-E-E-eek.” (Sure you do.)
“Mind you,” Fabien said, “it’s lucky I came to my senses when I did. After all, I don’t know my own strength when I’m in a mood like that. I could have killed him.”
Blake and Goishi exchanged glances.
“Righ’,” said Blake. “Well, wha’ we doin’ now?”
“Getting drunk,” replied Fabien. “Isn’t it obvious? There’s been an unpleasantness, and I find that the best way to get over an unpleasantness is to drink. So. Barkeep! Another round, if you please.”
“Oh.” Blake sat back. This sitting around thing seemed very similar to what he’d had in mind for the day, but who was he to argue with a criminal genius like Fabien? He had C-sense, after all.
He took up his beer, leaned on his elbows and closed his eyes contentedly. However Fabien felt, the world was all right by Blake today.
---
Sapphire and I were looking at each other across my room at the hotel. I was sitting on the bed, she was sitting on the chair.
The atmosphere was weird.
Weird, repeated Puck. That the best you can do? ‘Weird’? How about ‘tense’? ‘Charged’? He stopped suddenly. Hello? Are you listening? Hello?
I wasn’t. My eyes were fixed on Sapphire’s face, hypnotised by the contortions it was going through. I knew exactly what was going on.
She was trying to congratulate me.
Our escape from Mount Chimney had been entirely my doing – I’d even managed to dismiss my clone army, which was quite an achievement – and we’d come straight back here afterwards, without a word passing between us. All the time, Sapphire had been trying to say thank you, and as of yet, she hadn’t managed it.
Ordinarily, I’d say you’re being arrogant and presumptuous, Puck said, but I think you’re right.
“Kester,” said Sapphire at last, and I started. I’d been betting on at least another hour.
“Yep?”
That’s my trademark cheery tone! cried Puck, scandalised. Give it back – nah, just kidding. You can use it if you like. But not too much, he added in a disquietingly dark tone. Because if you threaten my position as the funny man...
A brief mental image of something unspeakable flashed before my eyes, and I had to struggle to resist the urge to throw up.
“I want to say... thanks,” Sapphire managed.
“No problem,” I answered. I wanted to add ‘See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’, but felt it unwise and somewhat tactless.
You have tact? Puck asked, shocked. When did this happen? Why wasn’t I informed?
“I thought I had you down as a useless coward,” Sapphire went on, choosing each word carefully. “But then you decided we’d go after Zero, so I knew I’d got that wrong. So I got another image of you, but now I think that was wrong too.” She stopped. “Is this making any sense?”
“Mostly,” I affirmed. “Carry on.”
“I don’t know what else to say.” Sapphire seemed to be at something of a loss. “Er... thanks again, I suppose.”
It’s a start, Puck said. We can haz character development, no?
“It’s OK,” I said, ignoring him and his Internet meme references. “I get it.” I smiled, partly at her discomfort and partly because it was, well, pretty nice to be appreciated for once.
“Right.” Sapphire looked at the clock; it told her in no uncertain terms that it was 13.12. “Shall we get something to eat?”
“Yes,” I said, “let’s do that. And then maybe you” – I was talking to Puck – “can shed some light on what the Magmas were up to.”
Sapphire looked puzzled.
“I don’t know what they were doing.”
“Not you. Puck.”
I’m sure I had no idea that Maxie was trying to call forth the Earthmaster. Puck stopped suddenly and swore. Damn my flippancy! I gave it away.
“You can tell us all about that over lunch,” I said, hard-eyed. He couldn’t see them, but it was the thought that counted – especially as he was reading them. “And if not...”
He read my mind.
Oh Zekrom no, he gasped, appalled. No, not that. I don’t think I can take that again.
I was going to muse long and hard on the business that had occurred last year, in all its glorious depravity and improbability. Especially on the part where—
No! All right, all right, I’ll tell you. Puck shuddered. That part... it’s wrong on so many levels. Morally, spiritually, dermatologically...
That’s enough, I replied. Then, to Sapphire: “Let’s go.”
We left, and spoke no more until we were comfortably installed in a small restaurant just off Lavaridge’s main street. I wondered how Sapphire’s bank balance could stand the sustained assault of repeated dining out, but in the end decided it didn’t matter. It was her money, after all, and if she wanted to spend it feeding me then that was all right in my book.
The restaurant appeared to principally cater to the tastes of old people, and so its dishes seemed to be based on the notion that softness was supreme. I ordered something squishy, and Sapphire something else equally squishy; Puck looked on with the faint disgust of the well-mannered.
All the restaurants in all the world, he began, then stopped. No, I already made that joke.
“Here,” said Sapphire, putting her mobile in my hand. “Have him speak through this, so we can both hear.”
“Thanks. OK, Puck,” I said, taking a long draught of my Coke, “tell us what’s going on.”
“All right,” he said, voice crackly through the phone’s inferior speakers. “The first thing you have to know is that I’m not sure. I can’t be sure about any of this until I see a few more pieces of the puzzle. But it has to do with an old Hoennian legend – a legend that I think you’ll find familiar. The legend of Rayquaza.”
At this, Sapphire’s eyes widened.
“I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence,” she said, though I’m not sure she had actually thought anything of the kind. “Rayquaza’s murder, the raising of that hand – they were connected, right?”
“Our survey said...” An unpronounceable noise that seemed to signify the affirmative came from Sapphire’s phone. “It isn’t common knowledge, because only Rayquaza has ever been seen by humans, but because I’m so amazing, I know it. Settle down, boys and girls, and listen to my story.
“A long time ago – though in this galaxy, not in one far away – there were two Pokémon. Groudon, or Behemoth, the lord of the earth. And Kyogre, or Leviathan, the master of the ocean.
“Land and sea have never coexisted happily. You can see it in the way the waves erode the shoreline, or rock flows up from underground to expand the landmass. They’re always fighting each other, and the battle began with Groudon and Kyogre.
“Groudon and Kyogre fought. Their very essences opposed one another: fire and soil versus rain and wave. Groudon raised up massive continents, trying to cover the globe with earth so that Kyogre would lose the water it needed to survive; Kyogre tried to drown Groudon in its sea. Their battle was bloody and the losses unimaginable. Millions and millions of creatures, animal and Pokémon alike, were caught up in the storms and earthquakes and perished by the thunder and the stone.”
“So what happened next?” Sapphire’s voice was low, almost a whisper; looking back now, I think she always had a better imagination than I did, and I’m sure that she could see the devastation in her mind's eye, a brutal Golgotha that stretched for a thousand miles in all directions. For me, Puck’s words were just that: words. I don’t think I even believed them at the time. After all, legends are... well, they’re not true. That’s why they’re legends.
“Something had to be done,” Puck replied simply. “So people prayed.”
“Prayed? To whom?”
To whom. I would just have said ‘who’, but I guess that was me being ignorant.
“Anyone they could think of. The Psychic-types of the time were fairly advanced, though none of them are alive today. The story says the species was called Utalion, but I don’t know how much of that is true.
“Anyway, their prayers were answered. No one knows who by, but current scholarly opinion inclines to Arceus, though from what I know of it that guy wouldn’t lift a finger to save a drowning orphan – he’s just so deist.
“Er... yes, so Arceus created a third Pokémon, Rayquaza of the sky, to counterbalance Groudon and Kyogre. And Rayquaza ended their conflict.”
“How?” I asked.
“It flew up to the very limits of the stratosphere, and Hyper Beamed a meteor, bouncing it off-course and sending it crashing into the Earth. It killed off millions more of the inhabitants, but since it landed on Groudon and Kyogre, it knocked them out. After that, Rayquaza separated them, sealing Kyogre deep under the ocean and Groudon inside a mountain – which subsequently became a volcano.”
“Mount Chimney!” cried Sapphire.
“Precisely.” Puck sounded smug – but then, he almost always sounded smug. “Maxie must have found out about the legend – probably from this Benefactor guy, who I’m going to guess is Zero – and tried to raise Groudon to use as a weapon against Team Aqua.”
“But... what happened?” I asked. “It didn’t work, did it?”
“Because Groudon died,” Puck stated baldly. “Nothing lives forever. What Maxie raised was its fossilised skin, a massive hunk of rock that looked like a Groudon. Hold up, the food’s coming.”
As we took our plates from the waiter, I tried to wrap my head around what Puck had just told me – and to my surprise, I succeeded. I supposed that after all I’d been through these last two weeks, I was ready to believe just about anything.
“Right,” Puck went on once the waiter had left, “where was I? Oh yeah, the Groudon thing. Now, Groudon’s dead, but... it isn’t dead, if you know what I mean. It’s an Osiris sort of thing. His... life force, or soul or whatever you want to call it, has left and gone elsewhere.”
This I couldn’t believe, and, it seemed, neither could Sapphire.
“His soul?” she asked, raising one eyebrow. “Those don’t exist.”
“She’s right,” I confirmed. “Nothing is permanent.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, throw your Buddhist ‘anicca’ stuff around all you like—”
“I’m not a Buddhist,” started Sapphire, but Puck carried on:
“—or your godless heathen stuff, if that’s your bag, but it’s true. You’ve probably even seen his soul. It’s in a museum, and it glows red with the power of magma.”
That stopped me dead in my tracks. I actually had seen it before. Everyone had.
“That can’t be true,” I said in hushed tones. “Can it...?”
“You’d best believe it, baby,” Puck said. “The Red Orb in the Pyre Memorial Museum is the soul of the planet core.”
GengarEatBanana
Banana eating Gengar
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Ooooooooooh... plot twist!
Aerospacer
Green Skittles ≈ Lysol
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Hello there, Cutlerine!
Just letting you know, but I'm simply amazed by your fic. And as a matter of fact, I might be the first person {my deepest condolences if someone was before me} who actually went to your PokeCommunity profile and completely read the absolute, full-blown, entire story of The Thinking Man's Guide to Destroying the World. I must say, your story is brilliant --the major plot twist at the end nailed me by surprise for sure. I actually have a question about the fate of a certain character that went unexplained, but I'd rather not voice it aloud, just for the sake of other readers. {Think of a certain male chauvinist, if that explains enough.}
Just letting you know, but I'm simply amazed by your fic. And as a matter of fact, I might be the first person {my deepest condolences if someone was before me} who actually went to your PokeCommunity profile and completely read the absolute, full-blown, entire story of The Thinking Man's Guide to Destroying the World. I must say, your story is brilliant --the major plot twist at the end nailed me by surprise for sure. I actually have a question about the fate of a certain character that went unexplained, but I'd rather not voice it aloud, just for the sake of other readers. {Think of a certain male chauvinist, if that explains enough.}
- Thread starter
- #79
I must apologise for not having posted for so long; I've had a few Internet difficulties.
Yes, things are about to get rather interesting.
Thanks! I aim to please, after all, and it's nice to be vindicated. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
As for the character you mentioned, well... Let's just say that none of the main or main supporting characters from The Thinking Man's Guide to Destroying the World have appeared for the last time yet. (Well, except Maxie, Archie, Shelly, Matt, Tabitha and Courtney. They're never coming back.) They'll all be back in some form or another, and when the one in question does, I'm sure you'll find your questions adequately answered.
F.A.B.
Yes, things are about to get rather interesting.
Thanks! I aim to please, after all, and it's nice to be vindicated. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
As for the character you mentioned, well... Let's just say that none of the main or main supporting characters from The Thinking Man's Guide to Destroying the World have appeared for the last time yet. (Well, except Maxie, Archie, Shelly, Matt, Tabitha and Courtney. They're never coming back.) They'll all be back in some form or another, and when the one in question does, I'm sure you'll find your questions adequately answered.
F.A.B.
- Thread starter
- #80
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Raiders of the Lost Kester
There had been some pretty protracted silences so far on our trip. There had been some pretty stunned ones, too.
But this one took the biscuit.
At a conservative estimate, it lasted well over a minute, throughout the whole of which Sapphire and I just stared at the phone that was, for now at least, Puck’s mouthpiece.
“Well,” I said at length. “That was... unexpected.”
“What, you were expecting some sort of temple that can only be found if you use a jewelled staff to focus rays of light onto a secret map of the area?” Puck asked. It wasn’t up to his usual standard of quip, but I put it down to having an idea in his head that he couldn’t get rid of, or something of the sort.
“No, but... something more secret,” Sapphire said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter what you expected,” Puck replied. “Because we need to get a move on and safeguard that Red Orb sharpish.”
“What? Why?”
“Because,” Puck explained, with the exasperated patience of one who is intellectually light years above his companions, “if you recall, this isn’t Maxie’s plot. This is Zero’s. Remember what Felicity said: Zero is using both Teams for his own ends. There’s no way someone who plans things out as well as Zero wouldn’t know that the real Groudon is at Mount Pyre.”
“So why did he get the Magmas to go after its corps—?”
“Think, Kester. It doesn’t even seem that Groudon’s Zero’s main aim. Everything he’s done so far has been whipping the Teams up into a frenzy, setting them against each other with more fervour than they’ve had since the gang wars of ’98.”
I remembered those. Things had got so bad that the government declared martial law, and the country almost descended into civil war, with the army fighting the Teams. No one left their homes for a week, and by the time we could go out again both the Magmas and the Aquas were reduced to a near-literal handful of members hiding out in disused warehouses. It had taken them thirteen long years and a pair of spectacular new leaders to reach their previous size, but they had learned from the mass arrests and shootings: they hadn’t fought seriously again.
“So, is Zero trying to destroy them again, or...?” I couldn’t quite see what the objective was. Setting the Teams against each other could only be a good thing in the long run; it was pretty much the only way to eradicate them. They would smash each other to pieces, and the government would mop up the bits. Simple, neat, effective.
“That much I don’t know,” Puck said. “But I have a sneaking suspicion that it must be something more, and something worse. Remember, there’s a beast other than Groudon that Rayquaza sealed in sleep. Kyogre, the sea monster. Which is under the sea. Now, I don’t know what you think, but Team Aqua like the sea, and we found out in Slateport that they were having a submarine built. I leave it to you to put those pieces together.”
“So either the Magmas or the Aquas—”
“—or Zero,” I put in.
“Or Zero,” agreed Sapphire, “has Rayquaza killed so that it can’t interfere, and then both Teams try to raise one of the legendary Pokémon...” She swore softly. “Team Aqua are going to know now that Groudon and Kyogre are dead, aren’t they? So they’re going to be—”
“—heading for Mount Pyre as well,” I finished, shaking my head. “Because if Groudon’s soul is the Red Orb, I’m willing to bet that the Blue Orb—”
“—it’s Kyogre’s soul, yes,” Puck said. “In short, the forces of evil will converge on Mount Pyre, and Zero’s pulling every single string going to make sure they pull it off. Doubtless he’s going to arrange for them to arrive at the same time, so there’s some sort of battle.”
“And we’ve got to stop them,” I said uneasily, “or they call up two Pokémon with whose power they’re going to end up killing thousands and thousands of people just to get at each other.”
“Pretty much,” confirmed Puck. “Not to put a downer on the conversation or anything, but yeah, the safety of all Hoenn rests on your little teenage shoulders.”
Sapphire and I stared at our plates. Neither of us had much of an appetite any more.
---
“What do you have to say for yourself, Zero?” snarled Maxie.
The masked man stared back impassively. Either he was very stupid or very brave, because Magma men held a gun to each side of his head.
“Well?” Maxie’s voice was at its most dangerous, the low tone that he used after he had passed through the unthinking stages of rage and entered the cold, logical end phase.
There was a third reason why Zero might not be bothered by the guns. He might have been very confident.
“My dear Maxie,” he said, “this was a test run. I couldn’t let you know, or the Aquas would have found out. They now think they’ve stopped you getting at Groudon – my mole confirms this. She is quite tractable now, after you gave her that little session.”
“Don’t mess with my head,” Maxie snapped. “The blues have stopped us getting at Groudon. We’ve failed. And it’s your fault.”
Simultaneous clicks sounded on either side of Zero’s head. The guns were ready to fire.
“But they haven’t,” corrected Zero mildly. “I think you’ll find this was a scam, a decoy test mission. Maxie, Groudon is sleeping still, and is ripe for the taking. All it needs to return to life is enough raw flesh to rebuild his body.”
“Where is it? What is it?”
Zero held up a photograph, and Maxie’s eyes widened.
“There? Really?”
“Yours for the taking,” Zero said, eyes hooded. “Almost defenceless.”
Maxie waved a hand, and the guns were removed. He was smiling again now.
“You slimy old bratchny,” he said with relief, slapping Zero on the back. “Damn good plan.”
“Planning is what I do best,” Zero said, and his eyes were laughing at a joke no one else could hear.
---
Tchaikovsky tapped the steering wheel with his fingers, and sucked in a thoughtful breath through his teeth. He was certain now. Something was definitely up.
One of the benefits of working as a driver was that he was pretty anonymous, even with his strange habits. He had seen both the Magmas and the Aquas at work, neither of then suspecting for a moment that he drove for the others too, and he was sure now that there was someone controlling the actions of both groups. The same person, playing the Teams off against each other for their own ends, the king or queen of the butterfly collectors.
Tchaikovsky nodded thoughtfully. He was going to get to the bottom of this. He had to break out of the conflict between his head and his tail and get the cool shoeshine.
The driver frowned. That wasn’t right. That song had come out after the year 2000.
Feeling that this was a sign, and probably a bad one at that, Tchaikovsky drove on, brooding.
---
“Look, Fabien,” said Blake, “we should prob’ly move on now, righ’? Given tha’ we’re bein’ pursued an’ all?”
“Pursued?” It took Fabien a while to work out what he meant, then he said: “Oh yes, pursued.”
They had been in the bar for three hours now, and Blake was getting worried. He didn’t want to get caught by those Aquas whom Fabien was so sure that were pursuing them; his gun hadn’t been replaced since its loss in the Meteor Falls debacle, and Goishi, although powerful, could only protect them so well.
“Well,” Fabien said, “I think we might have outrun them. So it’ll be fine.”
“Outrun ’em?”
“Yes.” Fabien drank deeply, and stared ahead moodily. “You know, if they go to the zoo they’ll lose our trail, because of all the confusion.”
“Oh. Righ’.” Blake supposed that Fabien did know best, but this abrupt change of direction seemed a little unlikely, to say the least. “Are – are you sure? I mean, you said they wouldn’ give up.”
“They won’t, but they won’t find us.” Fabien looked dead at him. “You have my word as a C-sensor.”
That was all right, then, Blake supposed, but he still had a few doubts; today, Fabien had swung from genius to idiot and back again with such frequency and regularity that it had done more harm to his image than good. For the first time, Blake was beginning to think that perhaps Fabien wasn’t entirely the master criminal he claimed to be, and a small, unexpected thought was creeping into his head.
“Fabien...”
“What is it?” snapped the smaller man.
“Er... are you sure there’re Aquas after us?”
Fabien gave him a long, inscrutable look.
“Blake,” he said at length, “do you want to know something?”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely nothing I said today is true,” he said despondently. “I’ve lied and cheated every step of the way, and I got caught out by that zookeeper, and it’s put me in an awful mood, and I’m seriously considering sitting here for a few more hours before walking out of Team Magma, leaving Hoenn and going to Korea to study linguistics.”
“Why Korea?”
“I can speak Korean.”
Blake paused, uncertain about whether or not this was true.
“Was any of tha’ true?”
“No. All lies. I speak nothing but the truth. Forget I said anything.” Fabien returned his attention to his drink, and Blake wondered what to do next. He glanced over at Goishi, who rolled his yellow eyes and motioned for him to ignore him.
Full of doubt, Blake hunched himself up on his bar stool and pondered. It seemed there was more than one dimension to his partner after all, and he wasn’t sure that this one was one he cared to know about.
---
“We’ll call the police,” I said suddenly. “This isn’t something we can do. Call the police.”
Sapphire didn’t say anything, and I felt a wave of anxiety break on my skull.
“Sapphire? You agree, right?”
She raised her head to look at me, and her eyes told me everything I needed to know, with a little more besides.
“What do you think they’ll do, exactly?” she asked.
“Well...” I said. “They’ll, um, arrest them or something...”
“OK,” Sapphire said, “that’s assuming they believe a story we’ve based on an ancient legend that was relayed to us through a terminally facetious ball of plasma.”
“None taken,” said Puck huffily, and I put Sapphire’s phone down. He would only make things worse.
“When you put it like that,” I said, “it does sound kind of unbelievable.”
“That’s because it is,” Sapphire pointed out. “Two monsters of unimaginable age and power, being summoned by rival underworld factions to kill each other off, and the whole being orchestrated by a criminal genius with some unknown but grandiose goal? That isn’t real life, that’s a film.”
Or a novel, Puck added.
“Isn’t that what Trainers do?” I asked helplessly. “I thought you said weird things happened to Trainers all the time!”
“Weird, yes. Insane, no.” Sapphire’s face suddenly twitched along one side and broke into that lopsided grin. “So the police won’t do anything,” she said, and I could tell that in her heart she’d already accepted the challenge. “But that just means we have to do it ourselves, don’t we?”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” I said, putting my head in my hands. “I was OK to go up against a criminal mastermind for the sake of helping one person break free, and stop some little plot or something. But stopping what amounts to civil war? No. No way, that’s beyond me.”
“After what you did on the top of the mountain?” cried Sapphire. “Come on, Kester, that was proof enough, wasn’t it? You aren’t a normal person, surely you’ve noticed that by now!”
She’s right, Puck said. You attract weird Pokémon, you have all the powers of a Rotom, you keep going through adverse conditions despite all the opportunities to turn back... I hate to break it to you, buddy, but if this was High Fantasy, you’d be the dragon-riding protagonist. You couldn’t make a worse job of it than those losers already did, he added. I think that it was meant to be a compliment, but I couldn’t work it out.
“It’s stupid,” I said, standing up. “I – you know what, I really don’t know why I haven’t gone home already.”
If this was one of those teenagery vampire novels, Puck went on thoughtfully, you’d be the alluring guy who sparkles in the sunlight and fights werewolves.
“Forgotten about Devon?” Sapphire asked. “Sit down, Kester.”
Or, Puck continued, apparently desirous of covering as many genres as possible, if this was a wizards-at-school kind of story, you’d be the kid who survived the unsurvivable death-spell.
“They haven’t come after us for ages now,” I argued. “I haven’t even seen Darren Goodwin since Thursday.”
“Oh? Missed me, did you?”
My blood froze. I knew that voice.
It was Puck who vocalised our thoughts the best.
By the many tentacles of Davy Jones’ beard, he cried floridly, it’s the Goodwin!
---
It wasn’t hard for Darren Goodwin to track down Kester and Sapphire. An anonymous tipster had told Devon of the Magma plot, and they’d had a Xatu in place to spy on the action, relaying the images back to Rustboro via its psionic powers and a satellite. Regrettably, the so-called Psychic had failed to foresee its death at the talons of a flock of rapacious Altaria, and had perished mid-communication – but they had seen the Magmas gathering, and, crouched behind a rock, the two people they wanted most to find in all the world.
Kester Ruby and Sapphire Birch.
If any confirmation that they worked for Team Aqua was needed, this was it. They had obviously been sent there to foil the reds’ scheme, whatever that had been. So Darren had shrugged on his green overcoat, polished his spectacles and taken the express train to the Cable Car station. Two Magma grunts had attempted to persuade him that it was closed, but, with the Raiders’ assistance, he had convinced them that they were wrong, and had made his way to the top of the mountain.
By then, the action was over, and all that was left was more devastation than Darren would have felt entirely comfortable shaking a stick at. Huge chunks of red rock were scattered around the peak, and, oddly enough, they were withering, like cut flowers. A red fog rose from their decomposing shapes, and all in all, the Goodwin had decided that it was probably not the best of ideas to hang about up there. He had made his way swiftly down Jagged Pass – the rocks were no obstacle to him; his extensive training had included a course in hostile-terrain hiking – and immediately set about combing Lavaridge down for his targets. Since it was so small, he had found them within the half-hour.
And that is where we left off, and where, for those of you who are looking forwards to a battle, the good bit begins.
---
I hadn’t seen him for a while, and I really didn’t feel like seeing him now. The lab coat and overcoat, expensive black shoes and shining eyeglasses; the details of Darren Goodwin’s appearance flooded back into my mind with the terrifying familiarity of the business from last year.
The lone waiter quietly vanished from his corner into the kitchen, and I heard the door lock behind him. He knew trouble when he saw it.
“Toro.”
Sapphire was on her feet beside me, and the Combusken materialised between us and Darren, bouncing on the balls of her feet and limbering up for a fight.
“Raiders,” replied the Devon man, and something like nine Magnemite poured out of a Poké Ball, floating around each other in loose synchronicity. A cloud of cutlery immediately flew up to hover around them, performing lazy orbits around the powerful magnetic field.
“Puck,” I whispered, “what is that?”
It’s a Magneton, Puck replied. They’re natural aggregations of Magnemite that occur when three or more decide to bind permanently. It’s rare to see one with over five constituent Magnemite; my guess is that these ones have been artificially fused by Devon. Either way, we’re no match – Toro’s the best bet here.
“I’m going to give you one last chance,” said Darren Goodwin. His face was expressionless; he might have been asking for a pint of milk at the corner shop. “Give me back the Master Ball, and I will leave you alone.”
Sapphire pulled the halves of the ruined ball from her pocket and tossed them across the room; they were caught in the Raiders’ magnetic grip and Darren gave them a cursory glance.
“I meant with Kester still in it,” he clarified, with a trace of annoyance. He let out a long sigh. “This is probably going to get very boring for me, very quickly. And when I get bored, I make things interesting. When I make things interesting, the people around me very swiftly discover precisely how much they dislike being in pain.”
I’m... at a loss. Is that a good line or a bad one? It’s certainly threatening.
“Look here.” Darren suddenly became very businesslike. “There are two potential outcomes here. One is that Kester comes with me, we leave and no one gets hurt. The other is that the Raiders and I comprehensively beat you, recapture Kester and leave with everyone having got hurt. I’d like you to make the decision now as to which one you’ll take.”
Sapphire appeared to give the matter some serious thought, which wasn’t exactly comforting, but certainly understandable.
“Er, how about – Toro, Ember!”
Ah. It had been a ploy.
Before Darren or his Magneton could react, Toro had darted forwards and a gout of flame had shot across her foe’s metallic surface; emitting a noise like gears grinding, the orbs that made up the Pokémon drew together and raised themselves higher up off the ground, obviously in pain. Their steel surfaces blackened with soot, they whirled on the spot and shot a Thunderbolt straight down with a thunderous blast.
The room filled with blinding light and the smell of burned carpet; squeezing my eyes shut, I blundered backwards, desperate not to be grabbed by Darren. I tipped over a table and heard it crash behind me. Something warm brushed my wrist – so I grabbed it and discharged a Charge Beam through it.
“KESTER!”
The howl was full of agony and anger, and also in a very familiar voice. I let go of Sapphire’s arm abruptly and cried out:
“Sorry!”
Thank the heavens for your low level, Puck said. Seriously, Kester, you could have killed her!
“Now is totally not the time for that!” I hissed back, forcing open my eyes. I was just in time to see Toro being hit by something bright - Flash Cannon, explained Puck - and dived out of the way as she flew through the air towards me.
I hit the floor, twisted and fired a Charge Beam in the direction where I thought Darren was; I still couldn’t see properly.
“Where the hell did you go?” he roared, which seemed to indicate I’d missed.
Sapphire tripped over me and fell onto my face, which hurt a great deal, and I struggled out from under her in a welter of confused swearing. I had just regained my balance and taken in the scene around me when I noticed that Darren had recovered his wits and vision, and had taken a Master Ball from his pocket; thinking quickly, I grabbed a nearby chair and threw it at him with every ounce of strength I had.
This did the trick: the ball bounced off one leg and landed amid the leaves of a pot plant on the windowsill. The chair kept going, but Darren’s Magneton rose up and let it splinter over its iron-hard bodies, apparently suffering no ill effects whatsoever.
“Toro!”
Sapphire was back on her feet, and emitting a strong smell of burned flesh; I glanced at her arm and looked away again hurriedly.
Whoa, Puck breathed, if she doesn’t get that seen to she’s going to end up with the same number of arms as the drummer from Def Leppard.
Way to be reassuring, I snapped back, as Toro leaped forth in response to Sapphire’s command, legs streaking forwards to crash into one of the Magneton’s constituent orbs, the Double Kick crumpling the steel into scrap and throwing the ball clear of the rest of the organism.
The Raiders tipped its eyes skywards, making a loud and very unpleasant screeching sound; the creature looked visibly pained by the extraction. This was quite an achievement, since it could only really communicate with its eyes – and those seemed to be painted on.
Darren blanched.
“No!” he cried. “Don’t—”
“It’s artificial, isn’t it?” snapped Sapphire. “The links between the Magnemite are weak. Together, I bet they’re stronger than any normal Magneton. But apart...”
The Raiders were shivering and twitching uncontrollably, sparks bouncing off its surfaces; it did not look at all well. It reminded me of a broken machine on the verge of exploding, or a small crate that contains a large and angry Salamence.
Toro rounded on it for another volley, but this time her feet never met steel: Darren Goodwin had whipped off his greatcoat and caught the little bird mid-flight in its folds, holding it out like a toreador. With a flick of his forearms, he had her firmly entangled, and let her momentum carry her on into the wall. Something cracked inside the tangled coat, and Toro let out an almighty screech, thrashing wildly in her prison.
Sapphire’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped slightly; I think she might not have entirely grasped the Devon man’s skill until then. For me, less used to Training, it didn’t seem so strange, but it was almost unheard-of for a human to mess with a strong Pokémon mid-move and come away as the victor.
“Two down,” Darren said calmly. He wasn’t even out of breath. “I suppose it’s time for my third Pokémon now, isn’t it?”
He recalled the Raiders – all of it, including its lost orb – and produced a white Premier Ball from somewhere. There was a large sticker, emblazoned with a number ‘3’, stuck to the upper half. Rather than throw down the ball immediately, though, Darren hesitated.
“One more chance,” he said. “Give in now?”
I glanced at Sapphire.
“What are you looking at me for?” she asked tersely. “It’s your freedom.”
“But your Poké—”
Look out!
Puck’s words came just a little too late. Distracted by my conversation with Sapphire, I had no chance of evading the Master Ball, and consequently was captured within the second.
There had been some pretty protracted silences so far on our trip. There had been some pretty stunned ones, too.
But this one took the biscuit.
At a conservative estimate, it lasted well over a minute, throughout the whole of which Sapphire and I just stared at the phone that was, for now at least, Puck’s mouthpiece.
“Well,” I said at length. “That was... unexpected.”
“What, you were expecting some sort of temple that can only be found if you use a jewelled staff to focus rays of light onto a secret map of the area?” Puck asked. It wasn’t up to his usual standard of quip, but I put it down to having an idea in his head that he couldn’t get rid of, or something of the sort.
“No, but... something more secret,” Sapphire said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter what you expected,” Puck replied. “Because we need to get a move on and safeguard that Red Orb sharpish.”
“What? Why?”
“Because,” Puck explained, with the exasperated patience of one who is intellectually light years above his companions, “if you recall, this isn’t Maxie’s plot. This is Zero’s. Remember what Felicity said: Zero is using both Teams for his own ends. There’s no way someone who plans things out as well as Zero wouldn’t know that the real Groudon is at Mount Pyre.”
“So why did he get the Magmas to go after its corps—?”
“Think, Kester. It doesn’t even seem that Groudon’s Zero’s main aim. Everything he’s done so far has been whipping the Teams up into a frenzy, setting them against each other with more fervour than they’ve had since the gang wars of ’98.”
I remembered those. Things had got so bad that the government declared martial law, and the country almost descended into civil war, with the army fighting the Teams. No one left their homes for a week, and by the time we could go out again both the Magmas and the Aquas were reduced to a near-literal handful of members hiding out in disused warehouses. It had taken them thirteen long years and a pair of spectacular new leaders to reach their previous size, but they had learned from the mass arrests and shootings: they hadn’t fought seriously again.
“So, is Zero trying to destroy them again, or...?” I couldn’t quite see what the objective was. Setting the Teams against each other could only be a good thing in the long run; it was pretty much the only way to eradicate them. They would smash each other to pieces, and the government would mop up the bits. Simple, neat, effective.
“That much I don’t know,” Puck said. “But I have a sneaking suspicion that it must be something more, and something worse. Remember, there’s a beast other than Groudon that Rayquaza sealed in sleep. Kyogre, the sea monster. Which is under the sea. Now, I don’t know what you think, but Team Aqua like the sea, and we found out in Slateport that they were having a submarine built. I leave it to you to put those pieces together.”
“So either the Magmas or the Aquas—”
“—or Zero,” I put in.
“Or Zero,” agreed Sapphire, “has Rayquaza killed so that it can’t interfere, and then both Teams try to raise one of the legendary Pokémon...” She swore softly. “Team Aqua are going to know now that Groudon and Kyogre are dead, aren’t they? So they’re going to be—”
“—heading for Mount Pyre as well,” I finished, shaking my head. “Because if Groudon’s soul is the Red Orb, I’m willing to bet that the Blue Orb—”
“—it’s Kyogre’s soul, yes,” Puck said. “In short, the forces of evil will converge on Mount Pyre, and Zero’s pulling every single string going to make sure they pull it off. Doubtless he’s going to arrange for them to arrive at the same time, so there’s some sort of battle.”
“And we’ve got to stop them,” I said uneasily, “or they call up two Pokémon with whose power they’re going to end up killing thousands and thousands of people just to get at each other.”
“Pretty much,” confirmed Puck. “Not to put a downer on the conversation or anything, but yeah, the safety of all Hoenn rests on your little teenage shoulders.”
Sapphire and I stared at our plates. Neither of us had much of an appetite any more.
---
“What do you have to say for yourself, Zero?” snarled Maxie.
The masked man stared back impassively. Either he was very stupid or very brave, because Magma men held a gun to each side of his head.
“Well?” Maxie’s voice was at its most dangerous, the low tone that he used after he had passed through the unthinking stages of rage and entered the cold, logical end phase.
There was a third reason why Zero might not be bothered by the guns. He might have been very confident.
“My dear Maxie,” he said, “this was a test run. I couldn’t let you know, or the Aquas would have found out. They now think they’ve stopped you getting at Groudon – my mole confirms this. She is quite tractable now, after you gave her that little session.”
“Don’t mess with my head,” Maxie snapped. “The blues have stopped us getting at Groudon. We’ve failed. And it’s your fault.”
Simultaneous clicks sounded on either side of Zero’s head. The guns were ready to fire.
“But they haven’t,” corrected Zero mildly. “I think you’ll find this was a scam, a decoy test mission. Maxie, Groudon is sleeping still, and is ripe for the taking. All it needs to return to life is enough raw flesh to rebuild his body.”
“Where is it? What is it?”
Zero held up a photograph, and Maxie’s eyes widened.
“There? Really?”
“Yours for the taking,” Zero said, eyes hooded. “Almost defenceless.”
Maxie waved a hand, and the guns were removed. He was smiling again now.
“You slimy old bratchny,” he said with relief, slapping Zero on the back. “Damn good plan.”
“Planning is what I do best,” Zero said, and his eyes were laughing at a joke no one else could hear.
---
Tchaikovsky tapped the steering wheel with his fingers, and sucked in a thoughtful breath through his teeth. He was certain now. Something was definitely up.
One of the benefits of working as a driver was that he was pretty anonymous, even with his strange habits. He had seen both the Magmas and the Aquas at work, neither of then suspecting for a moment that he drove for the others too, and he was sure now that there was someone controlling the actions of both groups. The same person, playing the Teams off against each other for their own ends, the king or queen of the butterfly collectors.
Tchaikovsky nodded thoughtfully. He was going to get to the bottom of this. He had to break out of the conflict between his head and his tail and get the cool shoeshine.
The driver frowned. That wasn’t right. That song had come out after the year 2000.
Feeling that this was a sign, and probably a bad one at that, Tchaikovsky drove on, brooding.
---
“Look, Fabien,” said Blake, “we should prob’ly move on now, righ’? Given tha’ we’re bein’ pursued an’ all?”
“Pursued?” It took Fabien a while to work out what he meant, then he said: “Oh yes, pursued.”
They had been in the bar for three hours now, and Blake was getting worried. He didn’t want to get caught by those Aquas whom Fabien was so sure that were pursuing them; his gun hadn’t been replaced since its loss in the Meteor Falls debacle, and Goishi, although powerful, could only protect them so well.
“Well,” Fabien said, “I think we might have outrun them. So it’ll be fine.”
“Outrun ’em?”
“Yes.” Fabien drank deeply, and stared ahead moodily. “You know, if they go to the zoo they’ll lose our trail, because of all the confusion.”
“Oh. Righ’.” Blake supposed that Fabien did know best, but this abrupt change of direction seemed a little unlikely, to say the least. “Are – are you sure? I mean, you said they wouldn’ give up.”
“They won’t, but they won’t find us.” Fabien looked dead at him. “You have my word as a C-sensor.”
That was all right, then, Blake supposed, but he still had a few doubts; today, Fabien had swung from genius to idiot and back again with such frequency and regularity that it had done more harm to his image than good. For the first time, Blake was beginning to think that perhaps Fabien wasn’t entirely the master criminal he claimed to be, and a small, unexpected thought was creeping into his head.
“Fabien...”
“What is it?” snapped the smaller man.
“Er... are you sure there’re Aquas after us?”
Fabien gave him a long, inscrutable look.
“Blake,” he said at length, “do you want to know something?”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely nothing I said today is true,” he said despondently. “I’ve lied and cheated every step of the way, and I got caught out by that zookeeper, and it’s put me in an awful mood, and I’m seriously considering sitting here for a few more hours before walking out of Team Magma, leaving Hoenn and going to Korea to study linguistics.”
“Why Korea?”
“I can speak Korean.”
Blake paused, uncertain about whether or not this was true.
“Was any of tha’ true?”
“No. All lies. I speak nothing but the truth. Forget I said anything.” Fabien returned his attention to his drink, and Blake wondered what to do next. He glanced over at Goishi, who rolled his yellow eyes and motioned for him to ignore him.
Full of doubt, Blake hunched himself up on his bar stool and pondered. It seemed there was more than one dimension to his partner after all, and he wasn’t sure that this one was one he cared to know about.
---
“We’ll call the police,” I said suddenly. “This isn’t something we can do. Call the police.”
Sapphire didn’t say anything, and I felt a wave of anxiety break on my skull.
“Sapphire? You agree, right?”
She raised her head to look at me, and her eyes told me everything I needed to know, with a little more besides.
“What do you think they’ll do, exactly?” she asked.
“Well...” I said. “They’ll, um, arrest them or something...”
“OK,” Sapphire said, “that’s assuming they believe a story we’ve based on an ancient legend that was relayed to us through a terminally facetious ball of plasma.”
“None taken,” said Puck huffily, and I put Sapphire’s phone down. He would only make things worse.
“When you put it like that,” I said, “it does sound kind of unbelievable.”
“That’s because it is,” Sapphire pointed out. “Two monsters of unimaginable age and power, being summoned by rival underworld factions to kill each other off, and the whole being orchestrated by a criminal genius with some unknown but grandiose goal? That isn’t real life, that’s a film.”
Or a novel, Puck added.
“Isn’t that what Trainers do?” I asked helplessly. “I thought you said weird things happened to Trainers all the time!”
“Weird, yes. Insane, no.” Sapphire’s face suddenly twitched along one side and broke into that lopsided grin. “So the police won’t do anything,” she said, and I could tell that in her heart she’d already accepted the challenge. “But that just means we have to do it ourselves, don’t we?”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” I said, putting my head in my hands. “I was OK to go up against a criminal mastermind for the sake of helping one person break free, and stop some little plot or something. But stopping what amounts to civil war? No. No way, that’s beyond me.”
“After what you did on the top of the mountain?” cried Sapphire. “Come on, Kester, that was proof enough, wasn’t it? You aren’t a normal person, surely you’ve noticed that by now!”
She’s right, Puck said. You attract weird Pokémon, you have all the powers of a Rotom, you keep going through adverse conditions despite all the opportunities to turn back... I hate to break it to you, buddy, but if this was High Fantasy, you’d be the dragon-riding protagonist. You couldn’t make a worse job of it than those losers already did, he added. I think that it was meant to be a compliment, but I couldn’t work it out.
“It’s stupid,” I said, standing up. “I – you know what, I really don’t know why I haven’t gone home already.”
If this was one of those teenagery vampire novels, Puck went on thoughtfully, you’d be the alluring guy who sparkles in the sunlight and fights werewolves.
“Forgotten about Devon?” Sapphire asked. “Sit down, Kester.”
Or, Puck continued, apparently desirous of covering as many genres as possible, if this was a wizards-at-school kind of story, you’d be the kid who survived the unsurvivable death-spell.
“They haven’t come after us for ages now,” I argued. “I haven’t even seen Darren Goodwin since Thursday.”
“Oh? Missed me, did you?”
My blood froze. I knew that voice.
It was Puck who vocalised our thoughts the best.
By the many tentacles of Davy Jones’ beard, he cried floridly, it’s the Goodwin!
---
It wasn’t hard for Darren Goodwin to track down Kester and Sapphire. An anonymous tipster had told Devon of the Magma plot, and they’d had a Xatu in place to spy on the action, relaying the images back to Rustboro via its psionic powers and a satellite. Regrettably, the so-called Psychic had failed to foresee its death at the talons of a flock of rapacious Altaria, and had perished mid-communication – but they had seen the Magmas gathering, and, crouched behind a rock, the two people they wanted most to find in all the world.
Kester Ruby and Sapphire Birch.
If any confirmation that they worked for Team Aqua was needed, this was it. They had obviously been sent there to foil the reds’ scheme, whatever that had been. So Darren had shrugged on his green overcoat, polished his spectacles and taken the express train to the Cable Car station. Two Magma grunts had attempted to persuade him that it was closed, but, with the Raiders’ assistance, he had convinced them that they were wrong, and had made his way to the top of the mountain.
By then, the action was over, and all that was left was more devastation than Darren would have felt entirely comfortable shaking a stick at. Huge chunks of red rock were scattered around the peak, and, oddly enough, they were withering, like cut flowers. A red fog rose from their decomposing shapes, and all in all, the Goodwin had decided that it was probably not the best of ideas to hang about up there. He had made his way swiftly down Jagged Pass – the rocks were no obstacle to him; his extensive training had included a course in hostile-terrain hiking – and immediately set about combing Lavaridge down for his targets. Since it was so small, he had found them within the half-hour.
And that is where we left off, and where, for those of you who are looking forwards to a battle, the good bit begins.
---
I hadn’t seen him for a while, and I really didn’t feel like seeing him now. The lab coat and overcoat, expensive black shoes and shining eyeglasses; the details of Darren Goodwin’s appearance flooded back into my mind with the terrifying familiarity of the business from last year.
The lone waiter quietly vanished from his corner into the kitchen, and I heard the door lock behind him. He knew trouble when he saw it.
“Toro.”
Sapphire was on her feet beside me, and the Combusken materialised between us and Darren, bouncing on the balls of her feet and limbering up for a fight.
“Raiders,” replied the Devon man, and something like nine Magnemite poured out of a Poké Ball, floating around each other in loose synchronicity. A cloud of cutlery immediately flew up to hover around them, performing lazy orbits around the powerful magnetic field.
“Puck,” I whispered, “what is that?”
It’s a Magneton, Puck replied. They’re natural aggregations of Magnemite that occur when three or more decide to bind permanently. It’s rare to see one with over five constituent Magnemite; my guess is that these ones have been artificially fused by Devon. Either way, we’re no match – Toro’s the best bet here.
“I’m going to give you one last chance,” said Darren Goodwin. His face was expressionless; he might have been asking for a pint of milk at the corner shop. “Give me back the Master Ball, and I will leave you alone.”
Sapphire pulled the halves of the ruined ball from her pocket and tossed them across the room; they were caught in the Raiders’ magnetic grip and Darren gave them a cursory glance.
“I meant with Kester still in it,” he clarified, with a trace of annoyance. He let out a long sigh. “This is probably going to get very boring for me, very quickly. And when I get bored, I make things interesting. When I make things interesting, the people around me very swiftly discover precisely how much they dislike being in pain.”
I’m... at a loss. Is that a good line or a bad one? It’s certainly threatening.
“Look here.” Darren suddenly became very businesslike. “There are two potential outcomes here. One is that Kester comes with me, we leave and no one gets hurt. The other is that the Raiders and I comprehensively beat you, recapture Kester and leave with everyone having got hurt. I’d like you to make the decision now as to which one you’ll take.”
Sapphire appeared to give the matter some serious thought, which wasn’t exactly comforting, but certainly understandable.
“Er, how about – Toro, Ember!”
Ah. It had been a ploy.
Before Darren or his Magneton could react, Toro had darted forwards and a gout of flame had shot across her foe’s metallic surface; emitting a noise like gears grinding, the orbs that made up the Pokémon drew together and raised themselves higher up off the ground, obviously in pain. Their steel surfaces blackened with soot, they whirled on the spot and shot a Thunderbolt straight down with a thunderous blast.
The room filled with blinding light and the smell of burned carpet; squeezing my eyes shut, I blundered backwards, desperate not to be grabbed by Darren. I tipped over a table and heard it crash behind me. Something warm brushed my wrist – so I grabbed it and discharged a Charge Beam through it.
“KESTER!”
The howl was full of agony and anger, and also in a very familiar voice. I let go of Sapphire’s arm abruptly and cried out:
“Sorry!”
Thank the heavens for your low level, Puck said. Seriously, Kester, you could have killed her!
“Now is totally not the time for that!” I hissed back, forcing open my eyes. I was just in time to see Toro being hit by something bright - Flash Cannon, explained Puck - and dived out of the way as she flew through the air towards me.
I hit the floor, twisted and fired a Charge Beam in the direction where I thought Darren was; I still couldn’t see properly.
“Where the hell did you go?” he roared, which seemed to indicate I’d missed.
Sapphire tripped over me and fell onto my face, which hurt a great deal, and I struggled out from under her in a welter of confused swearing. I had just regained my balance and taken in the scene around me when I noticed that Darren had recovered his wits and vision, and had taken a Master Ball from his pocket; thinking quickly, I grabbed a nearby chair and threw it at him with every ounce of strength I had.
This did the trick: the ball bounced off one leg and landed amid the leaves of a pot plant on the windowsill. The chair kept going, but Darren’s Magneton rose up and let it splinter over its iron-hard bodies, apparently suffering no ill effects whatsoever.
“Toro!”
Sapphire was back on her feet, and emitting a strong smell of burned flesh; I glanced at her arm and looked away again hurriedly.
Whoa, Puck breathed, if she doesn’t get that seen to she’s going to end up with the same number of arms as the drummer from Def Leppard.
Way to be reassuring, I snapped back, as Toro leaped forth in response to Sapphire’s command, legs streaking forwards to crash into one of the Magneton’s constituent orbs, the Double Kick crumpling the steel into scrap and throwing the ball clear of the rest of the organism.
The Raiders tipped its eyes skywards, making a loud and very unpleasant screeching sound; the creature looked visibly pained by the extraction. This was quite an achievement, since it could only really communicate with its eyes – and those seemed to be painted on.
Darren blanched.
“No!” he cried. “Don’t—”
“It’s artificial, isn’t it?” snapped Sapphire. “The links between the Magnemite are weak. Together, I bet they’re stronger than any normal Magneton. But apart...”
The Raiders were shivering and twitching uncontrollably, sparks bouncing off its surfaces; it did not look at all well. It reminded me of a broken machine on the verge of exploding, or a small crate that contains a large and angry Salamence.
Toro rounded on it for another volley, but this time her feet never met steel: Darren Goodwin had whipped off his greatcoat and caught the little bird mid-flight in its folds, holding it out like a toreador. With a flick of his forearms, he had her firmly entangled, and let her momentum carry her on into the wall. Something cracked inside the tangled coat, and Toro let out an almighty screech, thrashing wildly in her prison.
Sapphire’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped slightly; I think she might not have entirely grasped the Devon man’s skill until then. For me, less used to Training, it didn’t seem so strange, but it was almost unheard-of for a human to mess with a strong Pokémon mid-move and come away as the victor.
“Two down,” Darren said calmly. He wasn’t even out of breath. “I suppose it’s time for my third Pokémon now, isn’t it?”
He recalled the Raiders – all of it, including its lost orb – and produced a white Premier Ball from somewhere. There was a large sticker, emblazoned with a number ‘3’, stuck to the upper half. Rather than throw down the ball immediately, though, Darren hesitated.
“One more chance,” he said. “Give in now?”
I glanced at Sapphire.
“What are you looking at me for?” she asked tersely. “It’s your freedom.”
“But your Poké—”
Look out!
Puck’s words came just a little too late. Distracted by my conversation with Sapphire, I had no chance of evading the Master Ball, and consequently was captured within the second.
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