Evolution is a worldly miracle.

It comes in when the Pokemon’s mind and body deems itself ready to move on to the next stage. The body usually makes preparations; a slight change in fur color, a sudden growth spurt, an increase in appetite and energy needs. The mind is aware, the Pokemon understands that it is at the precipice, ready to make the plunge.

It is mentioned often but seldom seen face to face. We all see it in movies, you read about it in books, you learn about it at school– but there’s a huge, key difference between hearing about it and seeing it with your own two eyes.

For one, it is beautiful.

My starter, Stella the Cleffa, lit up with an ethereal light so bright it practically dimmed her surroundings.

White, red, yellow, green, cyan, purple– the light fractured into a prism of colors that danced across her body like reflections across water. It was enchanting and otherworldly, a sight that commanded attention and reverence, where the world stopped to witness and none dared to halt the miracle.

Her body began to float off the ground slightly, small paws trailing beneath her. The light brightened and she gasped, tears glimmering and floating off the corner of her eyes. Her body grew in size, her proportions shifting, limbs and fingers on her paws lengthening slightly and ending in small claws.

She gasped once more, and faint wings fluttered on her back.

The light dimmed. I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding as movement returned to the world– I felt moisture on my cheeks. Oh no, was I crying?

Stella turned to me, adjusting to her newfound weight and size and she rose up a hand to wave. “Clefairy!”

“Stella! Oh Stella, I am so, so happy–” and I stopped myself there, throat choked with emotion.

My Cleffa, who I had seen hatch, my Cleffa, who I had been raised with, my Cleffa, who had been my partner, my best friend, my little sister for over a decade.

My other half had become more. I could feel no greater pride.

The world hadn’t stopped turning, however.

To my side, Selene and Hau cheered and congratulated my starter on her evolution. Both looked hopeful and anxious, Hau giving me a comforting pat on the back.

Faint flames danced across the scorched earth as the Kahuna’s Pokemon stood, the Torchic in the middle of its element. The Kahuna was probably waiting for me to sort my feelings out–

I had to swallow the immediate, reflex fear that welled up.

“I know it’s been a bit, Stella. I’m trusting you.” I told my starter, my Clefairy, then turned my attention to my opponent. “My apologies for the wait, and my thanks for your patience. I am ready to face you, now.”

“...Let’s get going then,” he rumbled, stretching and rolling his arm in his socket. “See if you burn bright enough.”

He barked out an order, and the Torchic took off.

A few months ago, when the truth of Mother’s actions had been revealed to me and my brother, I had felt emotions like no other before. Confusion, disbelief, fear.

Maybe I wasn’t too unfamiliar with the latter– or at least with cautiousness; the understanding that parents have high expectations and what consequences would befall us if they weren’t met. Father strived for moral excellence, mother demanded perfection. Father wanted us to be kind and smart, mother wanted us to be great.

Then Father disappeared.

Thus marked the start of the hostilities. Mother expected even more of us, as though there could be something attainable beyond perfection. Public appearances, photos, soirees– we were brought to a slew of social events in Lumiose where our image had to be paramount, pristine and chiseled like marble statues.

Things took a turn for the strange. More erratic behavior from Mother– more erratic than we had been used to. We moved to Alola. Gladion and I found documents, missives, reports on experiments that seemed far too strange to be anything but illegal.

I felt like a Deerling in the headlights.

The Fire type zoomed across the battlefield, dashing through fire and smoke alike. The latter cloaked the arena in a murky haze, occasionally obscuring vision of Kahuna and his Pokemon– multiple Embers suddenly shot out of the smoke!

Stella wasn’t fast enough– she narrowly bounced away and while one Ember crashed harmlessly against the arena’s border, two shots rammed into her leg and arm and she let out a sharp yelp.

I choked out a gasp as a chill went down my spine– my heart beat fast and loud inside my chest, thundering in my head like a blaring alarm. She was hurt, she was hurt and she could die–

I felt a hand shake my arm– Selene’s worried eyes met with mine and I blinked away the shock that flooded my system. I couldn’t let my fear take control of me like this.

Stella righted herself up, scanning around to find the torchic in the haze. She turned around for a second, giving me a thumbs up. Two faint scorch marks darkened her fur where she had been hit– she was fine.

Stella wouldn’t be able to stay far away; what other options did we have, then? Wasn’t Torchic a Pokemon that would eventually evolve into the Fighting-type– going paw to paw with one would probably not be a good idea.

How do we beat it?

My life had stopped making sense.

All of my life, recontextualized. My Mother, some kind of monster that lied and permitted experimentation on helpless creatures– who knows what even had happened to Father!

Gladion was filled with a drive like I had never seen before; a sense of justice, a desire to stop my Mother in her tracks, a duty to avenge Father if that was what happened. He moved and planned a heist and a grand escape, presenting it to me like the answer to fix everything.

Mindlessly, I followed– in truth, my world had been too shattered for me to make any decisions. What could we even do as kids with no fighting experience? What was I to do, when my mentor in life was rotten to the core? What kind of person was I, when this monster’s blood flowed in my veins?

Weeks passed. The time came for Gladion to enact his plan, and for me to do my part.

Another exchange of projectiles– this was a battle of aiming and dodging and our opponent was winning. Embers and Swifts streaked through the smoke-filled battlefield.

My Clefairy fluttered her wings, and with it came a sudden burst of movement that would send her careening in a different direction. She couldn’t quite fly – and to my knowledge, she would never be able to, anyway – but theoretically she could float and propel herself away from harm.

Another yelp as an Ember clipped one of Stella’s ears and I had to bite back the wince that went through my entire body.

This hurt. This hurt her, and this hurt me, and I was terribly afraid of how much more this could hurt in the future– but–

This time– this time, I didn’t want to back out. I didn’t want to flee. I couldn’t hide my head in the sand again and pretend the problem did not exist. Lilliane Athier, Stella, how do you fight back?

Ever the performer, Stella gracefully twirled and another set of white stars popped into existence around her – white lights against the dark backdrop of smoke – before flying toward the Torchic. Her opponent zipped in a zig-zag pattern, letting the white stars crash into the ground at its feet, before shooting off another set of Embers at my starter. The fire pellets shone just as brilliantly as our Swifts did. Was there any chance that we could…?

“Stella, darling!” I yelled. “Get in the smoke! We’re going to try a magic trick!”

The nature of the Clefairy line is that their biology doesn’t quite make sense, that they don’t exactly need lungs to breathe or eyes to see– what could a little smoke do to them?

Stella disappeared in the murk. Now she was just a dark shape in the cloud, and as she conjured her Swift, it shone as brilliant stars twirling around her body.

Three more Embers shot into the cloud toward my starter, and as they reached her they shone just as bright, indistinguishable in the smoke from her own stars.

“Now, Stella!”

Stella side-stepped and spun like a ballerina, arms outstretched and fingers pointing at the projectiles, and as she did the Torchic’s Embers and her Swift curved around her like they were captured by her gravity– disappearing in the blind spot behind her.

In the gloom, two sets of light now spun around my starter. Two sets of light were fired at opposite angles, curving back toward the Torchic as it stood flabbergasted, its own fire stolen and turned back toward it–

Its reflexes kicked in and it hurled itself out of the way. Fast enough to avoid a set of stars but not fast enough to avoid the second, impacting into its feathers with a burst of glitter, sending it thrown back.

My Stella– she must have been training in secret, hadn’t she? The little magician loved to put on a good performance. As the smoke dissipated, she held her finger in front of her and proudly blew over it like one would a smoking firearm.

My attention was brought to the Kahuna, and to his recovering Pokemon.

“Aye,” Kahuna Hala spoke. “You still burn yet. Let’s see how you handle close quarters, now.”

This was a mistake. This was such, such a terrible mistake.

My brother’s plan was well underway, him at a separate level grabbing what data he could, while I would go to free as many Pokemon as possible. Get into her computer, set it to copy everything to a drive, look inside her drawers and take what pictures I could, and–

Hit the hidden button, enter the hidden room. Let loose the Pokemon inside.

The light of my phone shone through the translucent glass of the cage, illuminating yellow fur within. The Pikachu inside was suspended in mid air as though it was simply swimming in water, though its body did not move an iota – no breathing, no pulse, no twitches – yet a small screen read out its vitals, confirming that the Pokemon inside still lived.

This wasn’t an experiment. This was “art”.

Ice in my veins, dread in my heart. My fingers trembled as I inspected the cage; no release dial in sight.

Two more enclosures of a similar make. One with a Pyukumuku, another with a Slowpoke.

Beyond, the vault.

Inside was a creature like nothing I had seen before; a patch of night plucked out of the sky, a little dark nebula with swimming stars, a stripe of gold bisecting its body. The center of it was black, and faint light shone through its closed eyes.

Only a small window of the blast door let me see the Pokemon within. Screens showcased data, graphs and nonsensical readings, the critter’s biology laid out for all to see. It felt like peering into the privacy of this Pokemon, like it was being dissected before my eyes–

My knees hit the cold floor as I collapsed before the Pokemon’s prison, tears falling down my cheeks as I tried to quieten my sobbing as much as possible. How could this happen? How could anyone do this?

How could the world be so cold?

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. In my head, all I could see were the faces of people working here, their partners, their Pokemon– how many let this pass? How many tolerated it? How many Pokemon saw their own in cages or in stasis and allowed it?

If we escaped with Pokemon in tow– where would we even go? Who could we ask for help in this unfamiliar region? How would I live my life without any of my parents?

What will Mother do, not if, but when she finds out what we did?

And I pictured it clearly–

I imagined my Cleffa in its place.

The dynamic of battle shifted.

The Torchic’s feet raked across the battlefield as it rushed down my Pokemon. The two were now stuck in a furious dance; a frantic exchange of talon and claw; a flurry of blood and fur.

The Fire-type moved with a ferocity it hadn’t shown before. Its body bruised by the prior Swifts, it led its charge with vicious Scratches and Pecks that tore lines of red in my Clefairy. She tried to answer this close-range assault with Pounds and Disarming Voices of her own– but attempts at retaliation hurt her more than it hurt her opponent.

Despite it all, she kept up a brave front as she always has.

I winced, I held back tears as my dear Stella put her all on retreat–

I had cursed myself.

I had chosen my “safety”, and that of my starter, over doing the right thing.

My life turned into a nightmare of my own making. My brother disappeared. Stella, bless her soul, respected my choice and stayed by my side, adamant as ever. I kept up the front of perfection that my Mother desired, afraid that she would find out the truth. Time passed like nothing had happened– I was sent to participate in the Island Trial as though life could just return to normal.

I spent days in a dreamlike haze, keeping the mask for as long as I could but– how could it be called living? How could I leave these Pokemon behind? How could I look at myself in the mirror?

How could I pretend I wasn’t the same monster my Mother was?

I focused my breathing. My eyes blinked furiously and I wiped my wet cheeks, tears streaming down, but I refused to look away.

“St–Stella! Jump!”

My Clefairy bounced off the floor and floated, four to five feet up, immediately conjuring the bright specks of light that Swift would make. Her hide was covered in the marks of battle.

I clenched my arms a little closer to my chest.

The Torchic zig-zagged below my starter as it avoided nearly all the blasts of the impacting Swifts on the ground, throwing dust and sand around, waiting for my starter to float back down–

I am growing tired.

Tired of lying, tired of posturing, tired of terror from making mistakes.

Tired of hating myself.

It’s me. I’m the one holding Stella back.

My Clefairy delivered a sudden brutal Pound as she reached the ground, narrowly knocking the Torchic to the side. It rolled and stumbled, and Stella bounced away as quickly as she could.

I needed to look at it differently– it’s like I was more hurt than Stella was when she took the blows, and I could see how it distracted her and made her look my way.

Yet at the same time, I can’t exactly turn off my feelings, can I?

An arm laced around mine.

To my side, Selene gingerly locked her elbow with mine, eyes worried and searching. The world paused. Warmth radiated from where our arms touched.

“H-hey,” she whispered. “I know you’re scared– but it’s okay. We’re okay!” She stumbled across her words, embarrassed but earnest. “I’m not teaching you anything new, you told me as much. Just know that you’re not alone in this– we’re here, your Pokemon’s here, and we’re all making it through, right? Nobody left behind.”

A warm hand rested encouragingly on my shoulder – Hau came from the other side, a confident glint on his face. “You’re almost there,” he assured. “Stella is holding on, that Torchic is on its last legs and it’s got a one-track mind. Just one more trick!”

My eyes flickered between Selene’s, Hau’s, back to the arena where my starter was still locked in combat–

In this region – these islands of Alola – can I reinvent myself?

Can I evolve?

Time resumed. My Stella was bouncing away from the approaching Torchic, trying to gain distance, and I saw something at the corner of my eyes–

“There!” I shouted at her, “That patch of grass, to your right– go there!”

Stella changed course with a determined look and a flutter of her wings– she couldn’t exactly know what I planned with just a word, but the Trainer’s Bond is a powerful thing, something magical even–

Her little leg landed on the patch of grass; the last one left on the arena, where a single flower remained sprouted from the damp earth.

We would have to take risks. No ifs and buts about it. I could cry about it all I wanted, the facts remained the same.

I felt the warm touch of Selene and Hau and I knew I wouldn’t have to face the music alone.

“Turn on the charm, Stella! Get close if you have to!”

In one fell swoop, her hand snatched off the flower and twirled on her axis, holding up the flower and leaned into the charging Torchic; a trick we had learned back when we had faced the Fairy gym during our own junior journey–

Mwah.

The Fire-type completely stopped in its tracks, its feathers fluffing up its body. My Stella leaned away from the Sweet Kiss, pleased as a plum, the shocked Torchic swaying on its feet.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“It’s time to wrap this up. This test has gone on long enough,” I addressed the Kahuna, meeting his eyes. I took a shuddering breath. “Your fighter is looking awfully tired; Stella, won’t you sing them a song?”

She looked at me with a wry smile, as if to say, ‘Gladly’.

The Kahuna shouted an order to snap his Pokemon out of its dizzy spell, and it complied, rocking its body forward with the driving force of a Peck– but it stumbled, a sudden vertigo causing its body to slow down and lose balance. Stella simply stepped aside, took its head and one wing and swung it around like they were partners in a dance. Then she swayed with her chosen partner and began to Sing.

The Clefairy dance is something almost mystical– the world seemed to dim, the arena quietened. Stella always knew the song but couldn’t do it properly, but now that she was a Clefairy, well…

Stella sang and swayed, guiding her befuddled dancing partner through the motions. Oh, it tried to fight back, sure, it tried to jerk its body away but my Clefairy simply leaned into the motion, turning it into another graceful swirl. And yes, its eyelids grew heavier, the clouds in its head thickened and thickened, little Mareep jumped over the fence of its mind’s eye, until sleep took it fully…

Gently, Stella placed the unresponsive, softly breathing Torchic onto the grass, and bowed to the Kahuna.

I held my breath.

The older man looked upon the silent arena, flames dying down, and nodded.

“It is my pleasure to welcome you to adulthood, young Trial-goers,” he announced, a smile starting to form on his face. “You have much to face in the future. For now, you shine bright enough to succeed on this Trial.”

The world cheered. The audience let out its feelings, Hau jumped in cheer somewhere to my left, Selene gave a shake to my shoulder and a kind word– I had only eyes for my Pokemon, bruised and battered, but standing and smiling.

She noticed me staring and gave me a thumbs up.

We would be okay.

----------------------------------------

“Hey.”

I spoke softly into the dim, dusty room.

The beast within flinched, then stirred, movement sudden then slow. Paws and talons pushed against the uncovered mattress as he slowly raised his heavy head from where it had rested on his front legs.

His head turned and we locked eyes.

What he sees is some kind of foreign boy. I don’t look Alolan, but I don’t exactly stand out here either; my hair is a fucked up blond mess that’s trying to escape from the top of my head. I’m wearing clothes that are two sizes too big and also mismatched. I look like a fucking tool, but at least I don’t stand out.

What I see is something difficult to describe; this is a monster, this is a beast, this is a mismatch of Pokemon parts, this is DPr. Frankenstein’s monster in the flesh. What jumps out immediately, truly, is that he is fucked up to look at: fur, chitin, scales, skin, this is a chimera that combines too many features to look natural.

He’s a monster, and he deserves to be free.

His masked head turned a little too sharply and he flinched again– I could see from here where the iron mask dug into his skin and pinched it a little too tight. He let out an echoey whine and froze in place.

“...Don’t move.”

I picked up my bag and a chorus of hollow clinks rang from within. I slowly approached from the side as his eye trained on me, unable to move without hurting himself. I had to be mindful of the heavy mask and the sharp talons– my clothes weren’t covered in rips for nothing, gouges in the cement room floor could attest.

I sat next to him and slowly laid a hand against his neck and immediately could feel his weight pushing against my hand, head leaning against towards me. “Gentle! Gentle,” I warned, and he relented. His finned tail swished once, displacing the ripped sheets and blowing a gust of air.

I rubbed the side of his neck, gently, close to the place where his mask pinched the skin, feathers breaking under the weight. He softly crooned and relaxed.

Fishing around my bag with the other hand, I took stock of how much supply we had left. Medicine for his nose and painkillers for his joints; basic potion for the rashes on his skin and his loosening feathers. His meal was being made in the room over, a slurry of protein-based pokechow, nuts and sitrus.

So began our routine. Medicine, painkillers, potions and salves. A cocktail of chemicals was painted on his whole body. This was a creature that was riddled with health problems, not ones that seemed to threaten his life, but ones that made life difficult and painful– his nose would congest, his legs would ache, his skin was surprisingly sensitive to sunburns.

Next up; the arduous effort of getting him to eat. With time, we’d figured out the best way was to blend or mash his chow– I’d jury-rigged a kind of pump with a plastic bottle and a plastic tube, and I could feed the tube into one of the mouth holes and slowly squeeze the food out. It was slow, but it worked, and it didn’t spill food everywhere or worse, drown him in the stuff.

The real problem was still the mask.

Cold anger simmered in me. The mask.

A thirty pound hunk of cold iron, seamless, encapsulating the entire head. His world, reduced to immediate space around his face, with only the eyes uncovered. Panels on the side indicated that there were some kind of electronic component to it– but who knew, no amount of bashing or tinkering revealed its secrets.

He turned his head to the other side and one of the mask’s branches caught onto the mattress with a rrrip, tearing a new hole in the fabric.

The mask is a piece of hell brought into the world and worn around the neck. It’s heavy, it’s unwieldy, it’s creepy as shit.

What kind of monster would bring out this poor beast into the world and torture it like this?

For months now I wondered– I thought to myself every night, thinking about the people who would willingly do this. People who would come to work, lie to their family, sit in a lab to create life and outfit it with a fucking torture device, design this tool with crosses and spikes like some kind of fucked up religious icon.

I was going to kill them. I was going to fucking kill them–

An echoey cry brought myself out of my head– the masked beast snorted and nudged me, getting antsy. His eyes searched for mine. I shook my head trying to dispel the angry thoughts and tried to control my breathing, laying a hand against him and whispering soothing words.

There was a knock. A dark blue muzzle and red eyes peeked in, my starter looking in skeptically.

“...It’s fine. I just scared him.” I hung my head. It wasn't the first time.

Rio rolled her eyes and let out a disapproving bark, approaching my side and looking into the bag. She removed the medicine one by one and pointed out their contents, tapping against the bottles with a paw.

We were getting really short.

“I’ll go get more. You stay here and keep guard, okay? If anything happens, you just text.”

She gave me a thumbs up, then she focused and shuddered, returning to four legs– for a moment, her preferred Riolu form shifted like ripples across a lake, dark waves running through her body, fur changing to ash gray and dark red. In one noiseless motion, her form shifted again, and she was back on two legs, teal short fur clinging to the spindly limbs of a Sneasel.

“Looking real threatening, here.”

Rio grinned and cackled, her voice now higher and squeaky in this illusion of a Sneasel. She brought up her front claws and ran them against one another, sharpening the tips. She scampered off to another corner of the room and retrieved her bag and the crappy pokénav we’d got her.

The night air was cool, thrumming with the beat of distant music. A Spinarak skittered around a corner at the edge of my vision.

I rubbed off some of the dirt off my clothes– my only way into the current hideout was through a narrow basement window behind a set of bushes. Well-hidden, but a real hassle to squeeze through.

Sigh. The me from 8 months ago would fucking hate this place.

Po Town is a dump. It’s as far and as different from Paradise Labs as it can be, and it’s where I’ve holed myself up for the past few months.

Naming it a ‘town’ feels like a mean spirited joke; it’s practically a sprawling city on the northern shores of Ula’ula. It stands squeezed between the island’s massive mountain range, mount Hokulani and the ocean. People get here mostly by boat or by foot, with most of the neighboring roads difficult to drive or in disrepair.

One would think the people who build this place were trying to build a knock-off Castelia; towering skyscrapers line the hills, fancy manors nest upon the higher levels, the harbor is wide enough to fit a thousand yachts. Then one looks a little closer and sees the actual state of the buildings: like the construction crews came in, gave up halfway through and left it all half-built. Skeletons of buildings remain standing, walls stand erected with no protective coating, holes in the street remain unfilled and expose the inner tubing.

And yet, people still came to live here– coming with their Pokemon to build over the foundations with cheaper materials. Holes were filled with gravel, walls were built with wood and plastic. A weird hodgepodge of shelter on the ruins of overpriced dreams.

Wild city Pokemon are all over, totally unhidden, in a way I hadn’t seen in Lumiose before– black-furred Rattatas scamper the streets, Trubbish and Muks crowd alleyways, Zubats and Murkrows and Skarmories nest on the rooftops. Packs of wilds have taken over city blocks and live there like they own the place.

Nobody pays attention to one kid in a hoodie, no matter how foreign they look.

We’re well into the night and still the town is well awake. Bars and clubs keep open till very late, booming out loud music, while street markets hawk their wares. The scent of sweat and street food is all-encompassing. People watch fights from blocky TVs or through crackly radios, this place’s technology stuck twenty years in the past.

A guy turned around on his chair, looking away from the action on the big screen– did he recognize me? Does he know who I am?

I can’t trust anyone here.

I’ve grown to be wary of the people around me– this is a city that tourists come to to have fun, sure, but I’ve been made increasingly aware that there're other things that people come to this city for, that these aren’t exactly legal, that the police struggle to control.

I stuck to the shadows. I’m just a kid like a thousand other kids in the end– I just need to stay close to the street walls and keep an eye out not to walk on the tail of a sleeping wild Pokemon.

On the other side of the street, light and sound radiated from nearby bars. ´Til the Threshold swallows us’ one read in neon letters. People chatted loudly as they sipped on their drinks and smoked awful cigars. Light cast off from windows on the side of massive buildings shone like stars. A few drunk tourists stumbled with their Pokemon in tow; and on another end I see a familiar sight, a Passimian making its way over with a stripe of red painted on its face–

Shit. Fuck. I ducked around the corner– those wild Pokemon stayed on their side of town normally, and I didn’t want to be here once trouble inevitably reared its head.

Right on cue, on another end of the street, I see a couple of men and women walking toward the Passimian. All young adults, all hiding their pokeballs. One has a skull symbol on his jacket, the other wears a chain with crossed bones dangling from it. The local authority around, though I haven’t been around this district long enough to find out.

I can’t trust anyone. I can’t be seen. I can’t be found.

I disappeared in a nearby alleyway and took the long way around.

Imagine your Pokemon breaks a leg.

Any other city and you could just go around the street and stop at the nearest Pokecenter. Big cities easily can have two dozen centers, if not more, to handle everyone’s problems.

But this is Po Town. You’re far, far from the big cities.

There is one Pokemon Center. It stands smack-dab in the middle of the least run-down part of the city, all the way uphill. It’s constantly overcrowded and swamped with patients. That center is not League-funded– it’s a private establishment, because the League wouldn’t touch this place with a ten-foot pole.

So if your Pokemon gets really injured, you have two options: go to a private clinic, or self-medicate.

Aether specializes in the latter. Come to your neighborhood pharmacy, buy all the medicine you need to fix your ´mons up. Get all the potion your ‘mons need to feel better in the morning. If you’re feeling depressed, grab some shitty ether and huff it. Remember, everything’s just a little too expensive in this piece of shit world.

I’m going to fucking destroy them.

A cool wind blew in the alleyway behind the Aether store. The night sky cast its dim shadow onto the space between buildings, covering it in a thick veil of dark. A scent of trash and chemicals hung heavy in the air, as the faint sounds of city night life continued to echo in the distance.

I ran my hand across the Pokeballs in my pocket, then tapped two of them.

A sudden brightness of red illuminated the space, and then a faint reflection of light replaced it. In the near darkness, only the reflective outline of a metallic, floating sphere Pokemon was visible, accompanied by a faint hum.

Among the Pokemon I had rescued from the Paradise Labs, only two had offered to remain by my side when released.

Mag the Magnemite slowly rose, its eye scanning the wall in front of us. Magnemites are notorious city pests, very good at sensing out electromagnetic waves, able to feel electricity coursing through wires even through walls.

This one was trouble and a half. It had a singular mind, a singular mission: to consume; and I had encouraged it to do so as long as it started its meal with the cameras.

My Electric-type scanned its way up the wall with an excited chorus of beep and boops and– there, it stopped at a point that would be around ceiling height, focusing its intent with a slow turn of its screws and faintly emitting sparks.

Step two. I pulled up a neck muffler to cover the bottom half of my face. At my feet, I felt the slow rise of the second Pokemon I had released. In the near darkness, you would think I was alone, if not for the faint sound of shifting– first on my shoe, then up my leg, then across my chest. The sensation was not too different from being buried in sand, with the familiar pressure settling across my shoulders like a scarf, their face looking at me from my shoulder, shovel tilting forward.

The Magnemite had stayed for reasons that were clear to me; survival. In Sandy the Sandygast’s case, I really couldn’t guess why they’d decided to follow me, but I wasn’t about to complain.

A faint childlike whispering rang in my head as they began to exert their influence. Hello.

With them so close to my body, I could feel my mind slipping into a sort of muted numbness, like descending into a cold bath. The lights of the city appeared to dim. My anger receded into a distant buzz. I was focused. Less distracted.

I pressed my hand into the concrete wall and felt it begin to part like water.

My arm slipped through. Sandy’s work made concrete walls like this weirdly malleable, like pushing my hand into mud, like I was a ghost myself. Some part of you did die. You’ll walk it off.

I pushed a little harder against the wall, first my shoulder then my head, closing my eyes. I came out the other side with a watery sound like a bloop– finding myself in a clean, sterile room, the wall behind me closing like liquid filled the space I came through. The air was thick with the terribly familiar smell of chemicals.

Tilting my head to take a look at the ceiling, I saw the faint flickering of a malfunctioning camera– I pulled Magnemite’s Pokeball, plunged my hand into the wall and recalled it from outside, then released it from inside the room, where it returned to the ceiling to continue its snack.

That was almost all of my tricks– I had learned as much as possible from files I had stolen from the Paradise Labs on how they managed their facilities, and the sort of security they used there. If I could slip in, grab what I wanted, and slip out unnoticed and unrecorded, everything would be well.

Everything will be well.

Now to get what I was here for.

In the muted colors of Sandy’s veil, I walked with my bag full and rustling with every step.

Slowly and methodically, we’d made our way through the facility. Room by room, we had made sure to locate the cameras first, send Mag to deal with them second, and crossed through third. A robotic, scratchy burp had echoed out, and I had frozen for half a minute until I realized that my Magnemite had made the sound.

We were at our final stop before leaving– up a set of circular stairs, past a floor of machines and chemical materials (no Pokemon in sight), we had found a room with desks and computers, with drawers on the side. The light of the city faintly shone through rickety blinders, sending out shadows like prison bars across the floor.

Mag gave out a low set of boops, our signal that it was good to come in– though it wobbled a little. Could Magnemites overeat? That’ll be a problem for later.

Making my way to a desk, I located the nearest PC, plugged-in a busted-up drive and turned it on. The screen shone with an infuriatingly bright white light, as the grey logo to Aether appeared on a white background. Just as quickly, the screen snapped to black, white words appearing as the Porygon keygen cracked open the computer.

Escaping the Paradise Labs had been the first step. The second step, now, was to gather more information about their work– I had a vague idea but nothing truly concrete. What I had gathered seemed fantastical and impossible, honestly, and here I was trying to understand it through the smaller experiments they sent out to other branches– I had visited two, with this as the third.

Eventually, I could figure out how to expose Aether to justice– I just couldn’t go to the cops, I couldn’t talk to the league, I couldn’t rely on anybody but my fucking self.

But I knew way, way too little, still. What had happened to Dad, what Aether was trying to achieve, why he had been made this way…

Gladion. There’s someone here.

A horrible, low shudder went through my spine. The hair raised off my back. All the fear and stress I had pushed seemed to return to me tenfold, like a wave of cold coursing through my body, as I became increasingly aware of the presence of someone else.

There, in the way of the room’s exit. A tall shadow.

“F– Shock them!”

The words had left my mouth before I could even process them– Mag reacted on the dot, turning on the man to send out a Shock Wave. A shape suddenly buzzed into view, flying soundlessly as water shot out and captured my Electric type in a sphere. There was a loud zap and a flash that had me close my eyes, and Mag fell to the ground with a hollow thud, its own frame smoking as it had stunned itself with its own Shock Wave.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck– I yanked the USB drive out and recalled my Magnemite with a flick, the red glow briefly illuminating the man’s large lanky frame, now a few feet closer.

Adrenaline in my fucking veins as I bolted towards the window as fast as I could – “Sandy! Through!” – and my Sandygast’s ghostly veil fell on me in full force, the world shifting to tones of black and white.

For a moment, I felt free and weightless. My feet faded not just through the ground, but also into the wall, coming out outside entirely and at a lower level, the steel floor of external stairs rushing up to meet me–

Pain, pain, pain. A chorus of grunts, clangs and bangs as my body crashed into the steel guardrail of the external stairs. There was gasp and a set of hisses from Sandy, their veil immediately broken– they had immediately dismissed it, so we would land on the external stairs and not somewhere on the curb twenty feet below. I had felt something snap and bend– sudden, radiating, paralyzing pain flooded my body and I yelled out, then reached out with a hand to grasp the guardrail and wrench myself up.

Pain. Pain still radiating from– somewhere around my left leg or my hips, but there was no fucking time. I rushed my way down the stairs, first running then hopping on one leg, pain spiking every time I put my left foot down.

The bottom of the stairs opened into a side alley. I felt my legs tremble, my body so suddenly weak– aware I would have to run a few city blocks, but still I steeled myself and took one step–

My leg fell under me and I tasted the curb once more.

Ffffucking. One time. That’s all it took. I pushed out my arms, tried to bring myself up– but my leg was now a ball and chain, a beacon of pain that forced me to curl up into myself.

Tears welled up in my eyes.

What a fucking joke I am.

A long shadow was cast over my prone form.

It was the tall shadow– a tall, lanky man, approaching with lazy, lumbering steps. Light shone on him from behind.

“It takes fucking guts, what you just did,” he drawled. “But it leaves me the joy of having to teach you a lesson. It’s no fun to kick someone who’s already down.”

He crouched, elbows resting on his knees and getting a lot closer, face still shrouded in shadow. The shape from earlier buzzed above, its wings faintly reflecting eye-like shapes– a Masquerain, I now recognized. The ghost on my shoulder cowed.

“Not a good place to break into, that,” he nodded at the Aether building. “Not on my turf. So what will it be?”

What– what was he talking about? Slowly, through the pain, my neurons made the connection – I had thought this to be some form of Aether employee, but this wasn’t, this was–

“You got any family, kid?”

For a second, I practically saw red.

“N-no. No family,” I winced out.

He turned his head. “I can see that, yeah.” He returned his gaze to me. I felt the full weight of his attention once more, and he continued to talk.

“...When I’m told that there’s a new homeless kid around the block, it’s a shame, but it don’t surprise me that much. When I hear there’s been a string of weird little robberies in pharmacies of other districts– it ain’t the first time. But I can connect the dots.”

He seized my bag and started to pull it– I grabbed it with both arms, clenching it tightly. The bottles inside clinked against one another, damp at the bottom– some potions had started to leak.

“This,” he shook the bag lightly, letting the clinks ring out, then released it. “This is medicine for the fuckin’ freak of nature you got at home.”

Fury gripped my heart.

“D-don’t call him that,” I hissed out. “Sssilver. His name is Silver.”

“Silver, huh.” He mulled over my words, taking my sudden outburst into consideration. The glint of a smile was almost visible to the low light. “Alright. So either way, what will it be, kid? How are you repaying me?”

“...What for?”

“Well,” he gestured at my lower half. “You need to see a doctor, kid– one that can keep his mouth shut. And you’ll need me and my crew to cover for you, ‘cause otherwise news of – hah – Silver is gonna leak all around town. So? What will it be?”

…

I was fucked.

I wasn’t caught by Aether, but I was still fucked.

“I–” I sneered. “I can– I can work for you. I’ll pay you back.” I hissed it through clenched teeth.

The imposing shadow of this man grinned wide.

“Welcome to the team, kid.”

He held out a hand.

“Meet your new boss; ya boy Guzma.”