Love Lost, Chapter 15a: Alignments.
#29 of Love Lost
Love Lost, Chapter 15a: Alignments.
Percival badgered her before the glow faded. "Hey, you haven't learned to use psychic in combat yet, have you?"
Grace regained her senses and recognized her surroundings as a gym lobby, but not one she had visited before.
Percival stood nearby at a table, filling out cards to register his pokemon and the techniques they would be using in an upcoming contest. "Yo, ground control to Grace; have you figured out how to hurt someone with your powers, or only make them disoriented?"
Disoriented was an appropriate word at that moment. "Yeah, that. Well, unless I can get my hands on them. I'm supposed to be developing it soon, though."
"A load of good that does us today. They're making us register move sets for tonight, and if all you've got is what you showed me last time, I'm not sure putting you on my roster isn't the same as giving four points to my opponents for free. Anyway, shadow-sneak good, teleport bad. Understand?"
Grace looked at him blankly and considered how he was patronizing her; and how she might get his attention. "I know this," she blurted out forcefully while lightly punching him beneath his extended writing arm, electrocuting him with high voltage but very low current.
"Augh! Gah," Percival fell to a half-squatting stance for a moment and stood again despite all of his extremities twitching spontaneously. "Don't ever, again," he tried to point a finger at her but had trouble controlling his point, and instead took up a pen in a death-grip and scrawled a sloppy "thunder-wave" on Grace's profile card. It really was not legible. Percival called out to someone behind a desk. "Hey, do I have to turn these in right now?" A gym attendant informed him that the deadline for profiles was one hour before the competition began. "Good, that gives me some time to figure something out." Percival headed for the door.
Grace followed behind. "Figure what out?"
The automatic doors glided open silently. "What to do with you. You've got shadow-sneak which is okay, but thunder-wave is kinda redundant since Frankie is a static-discharging pro, and magical-leaf? Not only does Sam have grass covered already, but magical-leaf sucks when you could have energy-ball or grass-knot. I've got to find a way to put some decent moves on you, or at least something different."
Percival recalled her and released his bicycle with Indan Fall's library/pokecenter hybrid as his best-chance destination. There, he remembered how deficient the place seemed to be. "Hey, Joy!" he shouted as he let Grace loose and approached the counter, "Does this town have any T.M. shops or tutors? Heck, I'll take the address of a trainer who has a Psychic-type that's willing to teach if that's all you guys got." He directed a thumb toward Grace, "She's hurting for attacks."
Martha's response was colored by annoyance at how Percival addressed her. "Not a lot of options around here. If you want T.M.'s you might find a trainer with something to trade. In fact, check on the other side of the library. That's where we installed the teleportation room. A local boy went that way a moment ago and I think he has a Psychic-type with him. Maybe they haven't left yet."
Percival passed through the library like he was cruising through a subway tunnel. For Grace it was far more interesting, as the admittedly few patrons were all faintly transmitting their thoughts of what they were reading, a familiar situation that she had become habitually attentive to. They discovered that indeed on the other side was a room that once served as a reference room with a table in the center. Now, it was a reference room with a table pushed against the wall and three silver posts cluttering its open space. Within stood a teenage boy, his starter, and a recently-evolved xatu.
"Teleportation is not one of my finer talents," the green bird admitted. "I can move myself and as needed a guest a reasonable distance, but I will never master the focus needed to use these," the speaking pokemon graced a pole beside herself with a brush of her right wing, "as freely as you might like."
Her trainer felt annoyed and let it into his inflection. "And you won't fly for me, either?"
"For you? Of course. Carrying you? No, that would seem silly."
The trainer's typhlosion butted in. "Nobody else seems to mind the idea."
"You misunderstand. I would carry him if his welfare depended on it, but consider how allowing such a circumstance to come to pass would reflect upon me, given what my finer talents are."
Vincent rolled his eyes a little. "Since you evolved last week, your finest talent seems to be being a pain in our butts. Let's go, come on." He walked away with Theodore immediately behind himself, but his bird stood fast. "I said, come on. Vera, why are--"
"Because good things come to those who wait. Today," she glanced around, "those who wait inside this room."
With a frustrated groan, Vincent re-entered and took a seat at the room's long table. Theodore judged the room's chairs' arm rests to be a little narrow for his comfort and hopped onto the table's surface instead.
Percival started talking as soon as he got a look inside the room, library policy about low voices be damned. "Hey, are you the kid with the Psychic the nurse said was hanging around?"
"Probably. Are you looking to train against a Psychic?"
Grace drifted inside the room behind Percival as he hopped up to sit on the counter, too. The bird did not respond to her physically, but Grace felt that it was doing something.
"No, I'm trying to get this one up to snuff. It can't hurt me for her to be an option in tonight's comp, but her trainer," a word he inflected with a mocking sarcasm, "hasn't done jack to get her a move-set. I'm hoping to find someone with some T.M.'s to trade or at least a Psychic who could teach her the basic stuff."
Vincent drew out his trainer's device. "I should have some stuff to spare. For free Psychic moves, ask her."
Vera opened her eyes and turned to face the group. "There are a few things I may do to help this one." Grace approached her as she raised her wings in a welcoming manner, soon holding them against the sides of Grace's head.
"She's a cutie; has nice colors, too," Vincent remarked as he compared the T.M.'s he had in his inventory against a list of moves known to be gardevoir-compatible.
Percival became uncomfortable and defensive. "Don't get to thinking things; like I said, she's not mine, and--"
Theodore, seated between the boys, reached across Percival's chest, planting a heavy paw on his distant shoulder, and leaned in, forcing Percival back a bit. "What kind of things do you think the boss might get to thinking?"
Percival became more uncomfortable and defensive. "Nothing. Just that, you know, trainers with certain species--"
Theodore cut him off. "Get a little too close to think of their pokemon as sporting equipment?"
"Not that, exactly. That they get a little too close," Percival lowered his voice to proper library levels, "start sleeping together, you know?"
"I know I've slept beside the boss almost every night since he gave me my home."
"Not like that, like," Percival tried to make a hinting gesture, but could not move any parts that would make clear its meaning, so the best he concocted was a vague wiggle of facial muscles, "you know."
"Yeah. I know. Boss, I don't like this kid."
Vincent cut a list of a few cheap basics that he had multiple licenses for. "Tio, I can feel your temperature rising. Don't forget how hard it was for me to convince them you could be trusted around all the paper they keep in here."
Theodore snarled, opened his mouth a little, and ran his tongue across his teeth before leaning back and releasing self-described future Pokemon Master Percival Finnegan. The image lodged in Percival's mind, as the typhlosion's fangs were noticeably larger than average.
Across the room between silver pillars, Grace and Vera engaged in small talk over a telepathic channel between lessons.
"And, that's it?" Grace mused.
"It will be simple for you to perform with practice. I see you have dabbled in manipulating dream states. Be careful, however, that you do not harm friends if you need to use it on them to energize yourself," Vera advised, as she completed transferring her own experiences with the dream-eater technique so that Grace could understand how to perform it for herself.
"I know what that's like. There's a ghost in our house that uses it on us whenever she wants."
"You allow that behavior?"
"We hoped it would go away and didn't want to risk a fight in our house causing damage. Joe's--oh, my trainer's--other pokemon is a blaziken, so he would have to use fire on her. After a while we just got kinda used to it, and as for damage..."
"Please, bring her to the forefront of your mind and allow me to see." In absence of resistance, Vera strengthened her connection and investigated the situation briefly. "Her story about using dream-eater to help her friend; you trust that it is true, and know that only with love and compassion in her heart would she work so hard to allay his pains. That is why you got used to it."
Grace almost rejected their link. "Whoa, Marianne is a hateful vindictive monster. The only things in her heart are ice and treachery. She said it herself, she wanted him to live on only because he was a daily meal for her."
"Perhaps. I have not met that ghost, so all I can speak about her is what I see through you. From that, why do you vocally disagree with yourself?" Vera selected another strategy to impart and began to teach it before Grace had a chance to formulate a response. "Like dream-eater, this technique would not develop in you for a long time. It allows you to manipulate enhancing energies and focus it into a reflexive attack. That means, if your opponent has been beefed up with a lot of magic, this strategy can let you take it and cripple them."
Percival announced as he entered his offer, "Alright, one street hidden-power and a breeder's earthquake for swagger, taunt, and toxic."
Vincent confirmed their trade of licenses. "Sounds good to me. I got my vaporeon tested and he came back showing potential for a strong Electric hidden-power, so I'd like to see that in action. Breeder's license on earthquake, though?"
Percival snapped his T.D. shut the instant it chimed to announce the closure of their deal. "My uncle's got a ranch, so once in a while he sets me up with some goodies. And, as it happened, the kid down the street, too."
Within their minds, Vera took in the sights of a strange, dreamlike world. "This is a peaceful place. Your mother gave you a great gift, and I thank you for sharing it with me. May I experiment?"
Grace consented and observed as the geography changed. Scattered stones of a ruined temple appeared, soon surrounded by dense bushes and trees. "Yes," Vera sang in an uncharacteristically bird-like tone as she moved to stand atop one of the stones, "this method will serve nicely. Thank you, Grace, you have compensated me well for what I have given you. However," Vera released Grace physically and let vanish their shared illusion while switching to vocal communication, "what I have done is all that I should do for you at this time."
Grace needed a moment to sort herself out after sustaining Vera's presence in her mind for so long. Even when she had connected with her mother, the overlap had not been so great except on the night they separated, and then it was for only a few seconds. "Now, uh, now what?" Grace wondered.
The xatu had stepped back, leaned against the table, and placed her right wing over Vincent's shoulder. "Now, you relax, let your subconscious mind digest your lesson, and hopefully if you need to use one of those techniques, the right one will come to you."
"And if it doesn't?"
Vera feigned concentrated thinking by turning her eyes and head to her left and glancing at the ceiling. "Call your psychic help line. Your first consultation is free, and I saw in your memory that they weren't there when you didn't need them, so perhaps they are as serious as they are legitimate."
Grace's gills turned pink; she did not notice at all that she had been probed by the xatu. "How many of my memories did you look at?" she whispered.
"All done?" Percival asked above proper library voice volume.
"I think so," Grace admitted, glancing to Vera who nodded affirmatively.
A librarian who noticed their seating arrangement from afar approached to scold them all, save Vincent who was using a chair properly, but as though perfectly timed to disrupt her plans, the whole group slipped off of the table's surface. At least they could still be accused of talking too loudly.
Percival stopped at the pokemon center side of the facility to see Grace taken care of, and to receive a printout on what her estimated statistics and abilities were. Vincent departed with Theodore beside him and Vera behind.
"You set this up, didn't you?" Vincent asked, glancing over his shoulder briefly, "Insisting after you evolved and I asked about long-distance teleports that we wait until today to try it, demand we be here at exactly this hour--"
"Making me miss my show," Tio interjected.
"--so you could make us wait for that kid to show up."
Vera caught up and gently nipped his ear. "You wanted to get hidden-power for Phil. I saw an opportunity."
Tio stepped aside and glanced at Vera. "Two days ahead of time? From some guy we've never met?"
"Properly introduced, no, but his path crossed ours once before. Two days is no feat when fate is favoring you. I hope someday I can demonstrate something that requires a little effort to see through."
Together they stopped near the park by the falls. Vincent whistled loud to call to a friend. "Alright, Vera, when you were little you always seemed one step ahead, but now that you're showing off your fine talent, how about predicting tonight's gym results? Am I finally going to get to pin my hometown badge?"
A dragonair emerged from the water and slithered up against Vincent.
Vera's eyes dilated as she raised a wing to block daylight. "There are countless paths, to see which will be chosen by so many participants is beyond me." Her irises revealed their amber tone again as she leaned in close to Vincent's left ear. "Or maybe it would be more fun if I didn't spoil it." She stepped away and whispered something to Theodore before taking flight.
Joe's jaw dropped as he came to realize Sulmepride Arena's scale. Seating dominated his view, lining the walls of a titanic bowl. The gallery was empty, of course, except for a crew of janitors checking for any scattered debris or damage.
Maximilian hurried him along to his proper position. "Mister Well will be joining you shortly. I have business to attend to." He rolled his eyes and huffed, "Finally," under his breath, now that his duty to the young Rainier was complete. Joe soaked in the luxury of sitting in the finest box in the largest arena in all of Ocimene, even larger than Tartaroyal's, a city where everything is done on a grand scale. He was siting in a chair that supported the asses of only the most influential people in Pokemon League. People fought fiercely and paid exorbitantly for far inferior seats here, and all he did to get in was to naively ask the right person for a fight.
Simon came in and sat beside Joe. "Since this match is somewhat symbolic, and you did say that this was to prove that you and yours could handle being alone, we will not be influencing our pokemon's actions. That is why we will observe from here. Also, while this is an official League match, there will be no limits on techniques used or other civilized constructs; all's fair in love and war, do you agree? Since I did book the entire venue, I thought it would be nice to let a couple guests enjoy the show with us, I hope you don't mind." Joe twisted around whenever the heavy door behind him opened. First came a man who seemed vaguely familiar. Mr. Well introduced him to Joe, who recognized his name as that of "that guy on T.V. with the cooking show." Next came an elderly man. There was no vagueness in his familiarity: he was the judge who D.Q.'d Grace. Third was a man dressed somewhat like a waiter, who brought some light snacks and drinks to serve. Fourth and fifth were two men dressed in solid black. They reminded Joe of the ninjas featured in films that Burner liked to watch, back before he evolved.
Simon introduced them, or at least, explained them. "These two men shall serve as our proxies as far as releasing and recalling our pokemon is concerned. Obviously they will have little to do, but this is standard League procedure for matches where pokemon and their trainers are isolated. If you will lend your champion's ball, we can proceed with our contest."
Joe held Burner's plain red-and-white affair and looked at the ninjas. "Who do I give it to?"
"You may choose either to be your proxy, it does not make any difference."
Joe handed his ball to the ninja on his left. Simon revealed Ivana's ornate capsule and offered it to the other ninja, who took it carefully in his gloved hands. They departed dutifully. Simon, Masato, and Calvin chatted about wealthy, refined, and celebrated topics until the kuroko took their positions ring-side. So far away they were that even beneath spotlights they were difficult to see. Once released, Burner looked about and, like his master, became instantly overwhelmed. He was also surprised to turn and see not Joe but a cinematic foe. As a reflexive response, his wrists flared and he took a fighting stance. The ninja stepped back slightly and was relieved when the sound of Ivana stretching her wings and singing something snatched away Burner's attention and explained enough of their circumstance. They took their positions without needing instruction and looked into each other's eyes. Burner recognized that she did not want to fight him. Ivana recognized that he was determined to defeat her.
With a flicker of strobe light and an audible chime, their battle commenced.
Ivana wasted no time and opened with the same combination that she used in her previous battle, whipping up a hurricane to sweep Burner off of his feet. She was successful, but she had no masonry against which to fling him. Burner tapped into his freestyle fall-recovery experimentation, and managed to land with a roll that got him onto his feet just in time to dodge the sheer-cold that followed her blasting wind. A little of the super-cooled fluid caught his right arm, but only enough to turn it into an icy cudgel that he was able to strike her with before the heat of his wrist flames melted it loose. He came at her with a blaze-kick, but she hopped aside and flapped her wings with great force, blowing him away again. Burner landed in a kneeling position and quickly gripped the synthetic rubber surface of the arena with all of his talons, resisting her second hurricane's buffeting winds with only a loss of a few loose feathers. He sprang forward and faked another blaze-kick, but coughed up an ember, taking Ivana by surprise and knocking her out of the air briefly. She was both thankful that it was not flamethrower instead, and confused that it was not flamethrower instead. He kept up his weak but elementally-effective assault for a while, until he started to grow fatigued of it. Sensing an opening, Ivana summoned a strange form of energy and directed it at him. Ancient-power was not a strong attack, either, but it was much harder to brace against than hurricane. Burner came back on her just as she thought that she could enjoy a moment to roost and catch her breath. She failed to evade another blaze-kick and cried out as she rolled across the arena floor. She did not tap out as Burner approached. He intended to pin her down and force their match's end, but she looked up at him with hurting eyes and he could not bear to do so. He reached down and helped lift her back to her feet. She walked with a limp toward the rim, leaning against Burner. She sang something sweet.
"Enough of this fighting. Come on, let's go to my room and relax together."
Burner kept walking for two more paces. Then he stopped. He could imagine the one he loved saying those words, but the one he loved did not speak with that voice. He turned to face Ivana. Her expression shifted, from a phony contentment to a genuine despair. He shoved her away and she took flight with his momentum. Again she whipped up a hurricane with a supernatural flourish of her wings as she spun her body about. Burner was flung away, but he slammed his open palm against the mat as he rolled and gripped with enough strength to keep himself from rolling out of the ring.
Hearing her grunt with effort, Burner rolled to the side and dodged her sheer-cold. Clambering to his feet again, he saw the tip of her wing swinging behind her body and felt a wave of strange emotion wash over him.
Rather than enamored, he felt insulted that she kept trying to put the whammy on him.
Ivana shifted her strategy to one that was mostly defensive. She had little choice. Because hurricane was typically unreliable and Burner had demonstrated that he was ready to withstand it, she relied on ancient-power to knock him aside while she fluttered around wishing that this combat were a timed match. However, ancient-power was only a stop-gap. It was too fatiguing to keep using and it did not seem to be helping much, even after one use channeled some energy back into her. Also, somehow Burner was getting faster with his reactions; weary and disheveled, too, but even though he would probably fall to a few strong attacks could she muster them, no Ice-type attack was effective against him and she would not be able to out-pace him.
Distracted by her own thoughts as they rummaged through her memory in search of any technique that could reverse the situation, Ivana started taking hits she should have been able to evade. She tasted blood in her mouth. She desperately tried to cast reflect. Gesturing with her wing put it into harm's way. She fell to the arena floor. The pain was greater than any she felt in battle before. She wondered if it was a sliver of what he felt when she lost him. Her vision was blurred but she could see the distant overhead lights streak by as her body was turned over. She heard a sound, a delightful trill that only bird-types could master, carried by a voice of horror and panic. "Somebody, help her!" it cried out, but in a tongue that could not be understood by anyone else who heard it. With a bloody gurgle, Ivana tried to chuckle. Burner truly was a pokemon at heart, no matter how human his lifestyle had become. A bright red glow filled her vision.
To the humans, Burner's brief crowing sounded almost like a cry of triumph. The kuroko held no opinions on the matter. Mister Grovewell thought it despicable, and took his leave immediately. Iwamoto was far more familiar with the tongue of pokemon and whispered something into Simon's ear before departing himself.
With the players removed from the stage, Joe looked not out onto Sulmepride Arena proper but on a nearby monitor, displaying a feed from a camera that was left running, pointing at a place where an articuno lay moments ago, but now showed only fresh blood glowing red beneath strong lights.
"Congratulations, Mr. Rainier," Mister Well began, "you've won your first battle against a legendary pokemon, your first battle in Sulmepride Arena, and the first battle that proved you and your little starter can get on with life not worried that a horrible monster is going to come and get you when you aren't watching each other's backs."
"I don't think I'll need a second of any of those."
"In the third's case, that's because you lack experience. The fact remains: nothing has changed today, yet. You aren't a better trainer, your blaziken isn't a better fighter, Ivana would still gladly try to bear his offspring, and no member of your family is any safer tomorrow than they were yesterday. What has happened is things are now put into motion. What you choose to do next will determine if anything changes today. I have business that demands my immediate attention. Your pokemon will be returned to you shortly and you will be seen to the car."
Percival accidentally squeezed some mayo out of his gyro when Grace surprised him by releasing herself. Once she reconstituted, she tossed her hair a little, collected her ball, sat opposite of him, and glanced at his tray. "I guess you prefer to eat alone?"
"Food is expensive, and pokemon inside their balls don't need to eat."
Grace glanced at him askew. "This one does. Doctor's orders." She floated to the end of the service queue and read an overhead menu, hoping to see some of the less spicy berries as a vegetable topping, but settled for extra tomato. She ate with haste and determination, recognizing that Percival had no intention on waiting for her to finish at her leisure. "I guess money is a concern if you aren't winning enough battles to make money be the other trainers' concern."
"I'm sure you guys are living large off of what Burner can bring in from prizes and field battles. Not all of us have A-plus pokemon on our rosters."
Grace hovered her sandwich and fumbled with a napkin. "Didn't he come from the same place your pokemon did?"
"Sam and Frankie came from my uncle's ranch, but they weren't commissioned by someone planning to go for an international title. They're a couple of seconds that he felt were too good to release and had the right temperament to go to my sister and me. Fiona, well, she's testament to why winners don't catch wild when building a team."
Grace's sandwich tasted somewhat sour suddenly. "Yeah, I've heard some things about those wild pokemon."
A man in his twenties walked by and cast them a glance. "Like Neapolitan, with blue-moon instead of strawberry," he thought to himself while generating a mental image strong enough that Grace could pick up an impression of it. She also sensed that Percival noticed something, although he was not privy to any detail at all.
"Source and stats aren't everything, though. It's all about the trainer." Percival finished his last bite and tidied his table.
Grace withdrew her medicine from her purse and added it to the last couple inches of her own lunch. "You're right about that. I heard the last time they had a local tournament in Rennin, a guy lost because he let one of his pokemon screw everything up."
"Yeah, I was there when it happened. It's a little continental, but trainers with inexperienced pokemon need to tell them what to do. Maybe he'll figure that out someday." He stood to depart. Grace followed.
"I guess it takes a firm hand to hold onto the reins. I'm eager to see your leadership in action."
Percival smirked. "The rest of Ocimene should be, too." He took back her ball and set off for Indan Falls Gym.
Customs was a hassle. That was probably part of the reason why few trainers from Ocimene visited other regions. That, and the cost of traveling so far.
"One, clean," spoke Hunter when he was asked if he was in possession of any Ocimenean examples.
"We're the judge of that." Hague's customs agent took Onyx's ball and placed it in a machine for an intensive scan. While the speech T.M. had become a part of life in Ocimene, all other regions viewed it like a disease, and had maintained something akin to a quarantine for almost as long as the invention existed. There had been a few outbreaks, since some pokemon could migrate wide and far if they chose, but all were swiftly contained and for the most part swept beneath a rug. Nobody asked why once every few years, a number of wild pokemon were suddenly rounded up, "released to an appropriate habitat," and never spoken of again.
Onyx's test results proved him to be S.T.M. negative, which made things a little easier. They still took no chances, however. Onyx was registered as an alien pokemon and, as though he were S.T.M. positive but granted a competition visa, given a chemical agent that would render him sterile for no less than a full year. Technology able to detect the speech T.M. came from Ocimene, and thus it too was not truly trusted.
From the port-of-entry, Hague waded through a shallow sea of welcome-center distractions. "See the REAL Ruins of Alph," read one targeting Ocimenean travelers, hoping to incite a little offense and interest simultaneously. Everybody "knew" that the true first Arceus graced the ruins in Johto, while the ruins in Ocimene were merely a sister site, perhaps indicative of cultists having traveled there in ancient times, or of a connection between the lands forged by legendary pokemon themselves. One professor, soon regarded as a crack-pot, invested his colleagues' respect in promoting a theory about the ruins being connected through another world. His poppy-cock ran so thick that an anonymous philanthropist in possession of a great lugia ordered it to use its psychic power to open the professor's supposed portal. Aside from the spontaneous appearance of a strange navigational buoy in the middle of the sea--easily enough explained as a simple use of teleport--nothing interesting happened and the professor's theory was soon forgotten. Fortunately, he lived on an island that nobody really cared about and he only taught field classes to graduate students, so Scoparin University had no trouble down-playing that incident and aside from a few chuffed advertisements, nothing of those twin ruins being more otherworldly than before remained in the public consciousness.
The visitors' center did offer a useful map that outlined local attractions and points of interest. Hague read it as a refresher while wandering the streets of Goldenrod City till he found his way to its pokemon center. He sat in its lobby and looked around. Nothing had changed. Of course, pokemon centers were all rather alike, despite each being completely unique. A young boy and girl dashed inside with balls in-hand, declaring it an "emergency" because one of their pokemon was bleeding and the other seemed dazed.
O, to be young.
"Alright, time to read my mail." Hague removed a tiny scroll, not much larger than a fortune cookie message, from a similarly sized holder strapped to Onyx's leg. In tiny print on the outside, it warned not to read until he had arrived at his destination. He unrolled it.
"Earn your stripes. Your starter pokemon is with you now."
Hunter cursed under his breath and headed for the counter. He would need a trainer's device, and hoped that Johto centers kept a few pokemon in need of trainers on-hand. If not, perhaps a breeding facility to the south mentioned in the visitor's guide could help. It was not for fear that he could not catch pokemon, of course, but actually raising and training them? That was what drove him to his career of selling everything he trapped in the first place.