The morning was cold. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I wanted to believe that the world was just as somber about my friends leaving as I was. Route 05 stretched in front of us, tiny grey clouds scattered over a long and grassy road.
I slipped my arm around Yuji and Amy’s shoulders, pulling them both in tight. “I’m gonna miss you guys. You better text me. I want to see those Saffron gains!”
Yuji rested his head on my shoulder. “We shall, my friend. I believe we’ve already agreed to daily messaging?”
“Yeah, Derek, we’ll be fine!” Amy struggled as I squeezed them tighter.
I nodded, putting my chin on their head, feeling the fleece of their beanie under me. “I know, bean. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to miss you guys.”
A slender set of arms wrapped around Amy from the other side. Hana looked profoundly sad as she reached over and grabbed Yuji as well, but she still kept a small smile on her face. She’d wrapped her scarf tight around her neck and tucked her chin into it. It didn’t do much to hide her expression, but none of us chose to mention it.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” Hana mumbled.
Yuji and Amy pushed themselves further into the group hug. I squeezed them all once and extracted myself. I stepped back, looking at their little trio with a soft smile on my face. As much as I was a part of this group and they were all my friends, these three had started their journey together. I wanted their goodbye to be just for them.
It was Amy who broke the hug first. “Guys,” they complained, wiping their eyes. “Why am I the only one crying when we’re all this sad? Show some emotion, people!”
Yuji chuckled, shaking his head. “We don’t need to shed tears, Amy. We’re sad now, but we’ll be together again soon. This is just a momentary gap in our journey together.”
“It’s okay, Amy,” Hana said with a strained voice. “I’ll cry enough for both me and this stone wall.”
“Rude, but not wrong,” Yuji laughed.
The three of them hugged again, but it only lasted a moment. Without another word, Yuji and Amy stepped away from us. Yuji wavered at me as he passed, and I high-fived his hand. He chuckled again and kept walking. Amy waddled by and gave me a big-eyed sad look. I tousled their hair and leaned down to give them a peck on the forehead. They grinned and waved goodbye, then ran after Yuji.
Hana and I watched our friends leave down Route 05. We didn’t move from our spots until they’d disappeared over a hill.
A weight appeared on my arm as Hana leaned on me. I ignored her sniffles, even though I could feel my sleeve go damp. I patted her on the head, like I would do for Amy. Hana didn’t reference it, but she did squeeze tighter.
After a while, I hooked my arm under Hana’s and gently turned us back toward Cerulean. We both still had things to do in the city before we left today, and there would be plenty of time for missing our friends later.
----------------------------------------
I left Hana at the Pokemon Center to get cleaned up and start packing her stuff. I had one more therapy session in Cerulean, so she’d decided to do the last of our shopping during that time. With our winnings from Cerulean, we had a decent chunk of change to spend, so she was making sure we were more than prepared for anything that could happen on our journey.
As I walked through Cerulean, I found myself getting sad at the idea of leaving this town so soon. We’d spent weeks in Pewter, learning the streets and the sights, but all told we had spent eleven days in Cerulean. A lot had happened, but I’d seen very little of the city itself. It was beautiful, with its white-stone paved streets and vaguely Kalosian architecture and scattered fields.
I made my way across town, past the gym, and to Mrs. Clara’s office. I walked up the stone step onto the sidewalk and toward the front door, but it popped open before I could reach it. A person stepped out.
I paused, recognizing the blonde locs, dark skin, and overall aloof demeanor of the person in front of me. She recognized me, too, if the tightening of her eyebrows and downward lilt of her lips into a frown was anything to go by. We’d never actually met, but I’d seen videos of her battling and she’d definitely made her opinions of me known on public radio.
“Hm.” Portia Cervelo made a noise of disapproval and judgment. “It’s you.”
I glanced from Portia to the door behind her. This was definitely Mrs. Clara’s office. It shouldn’t have surprised me that she also came here, given that I knew my therapist specialized in trainers and Portia was from here. I hadn’t thought she was in the city anymore, though, so this was out of nowhere.
I stepped to the side, making room for the third-ranked rookie of the season to walk through. “Sorry,” I muttered with a neutral smile. “Didn’t mean to get in your way there.”
“It’s no problem,” Portia said automatically. She stepped past me and down onto the sidewalk, where she pulled a Pokeball out of a small bag on her hip. She hesitated, looking back at me and then to Mrs. Clara’s office. “I assume you have a session soon?
I nodded.
Portia mentally debated something. “Well, then I shall leave it at this,” she declared in a quiet voice. “I did not like how you handled your interactions with my friend, even if he was in the wrong.”
I found myself nodding again. I hadn’t handled things with Mick well, all things considered. I had been in the wrong for most of that.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly. “I plan on talking to him, trainer to trainer, the next time I see him.”
Portia gave me a long look. Her eyes were a light color, I couldn’t tell if they were pale brown or an off-green from this distance. She studied me longer than was comfortable, but eventually, she gave me a single nod.
“See that you do,” she said. Portia turned to leave, but once again, she hesitated. She looked at me one more time. “Congratulations on your second badge,” she added quietly.
Portia released her Pokeball, letting the Pokemon within materialize onto her hand. It was a small spherical green bird, with yellow and pink feathered wings and two tiny pink feet. Its eyes were wide and unblinking, though they also seemed oddly detached from the current moment.
“Chiffon, back to Vermillion,” Portia mumbled.
The bird looked past Portia and up at me. It hopped off of Portia’s hand and to the ground, propelling itself with its tiny legs and flapping its wings to slow its descent. Chiffon wandered up the stone step, hopping over each one, and found its way to my feet. The bird pecked at my shoe and then looked up at me expectantly.
Portia had the piece of mind to look embarrassed. “I apologize for her,” she said, her normally aloof face actually flushing. “Chiffon, get back here-”
“It’s okay,” I chuckled. I leaned down, offering my palm to the Pokemon. “Hi, Chiffon, how are you?”
“Oh, I really don’t recommend that-”
Chiffon hopped onto my palm, and her right eye glowed bright blue.
The world went black. I was no longer in front of Mrs. Clara’s office, nor was I even in Cerulean City. Portia had disappeared, and only Chiffon remained.
“What the hell-” I started, my voice sounding distorted and off.
“Natu,” came a small voice, and I looked down at Chiffon. The Pokemon’s eye continued to glow.
Suddenly, I was standing in an arena. The world around me was out of focus and blurry, and I couldn’t make out any real detail. In front of me, a silvery blue-grey form battled a ghostly purple-tan bipedal figure. My opponent was dressed in black and white, and furiously calling to their Pokemon.
The world shifted, and I was in an office. Two people were in the room with me. The one behind the desk reached forward and held out a ring box to me like they were proposing.
Reality warped and I was standing on top of a volcano. A large chunk of the rock below me had fallen away to reveal a metal structure underneath it. Lava spewed out around me, and something stirred in the smoke cloud around me.
Everything moved again and I was deep underground. I was surrounded by tunnels, and dozens of footsteps were running for me. I’d upset something, and it was angry.
I was underwater, grasped by a thick chain that pulled me deep down under the water. The steel crushed my throat, forcing salty brine to stay trapped in my lungs. It was dark and cold and I’d long since lost my breath, I’d be dead in seconds-
“Gah!” I choked and coughed, falling backward onto Mrs. Clara’s steps. “Fuck- What- I can’t…”
Portia stood over me, brown eyes wide with worry. She’d taken Chiffon from me and held the bird aloft. Wisp was between the two of us, floating half out of my shadow with her teeth bared. Her eyes had gone entirely red.
“I am so so sorry,” she apologized profusely. “I don’t know why she did that, it’s my fault for not controlling her. Please don’t think too harshly about what you saw, her futures are often nonsense or outright wrong-”
“Wisp, down,” I said hoarsely. My Pokemon glanced back at me, almost refusing before I sent her a look. I shook my head, a shiver going down my spine as I still felt the cold of the ocean around me and the pressure of a chain against my throat. Wisp floated to my side, though she sent another glare at Chiffon.
“Hold on,” I held my hands in front of me, quieting Portia’s apologies. My throat was raw. “That was the future?”
Portia frowned at her bird. “A possible one, yes. Though, whatever scenes you saw will probably not come to pass, or if they do, they’ll be different. I’ve not seen anyone have that adverse of a reaction to her before, but I can only assume that… ..well, that you saw something negative in your future?”
I still had trouble wrapping my brain around what Portia was saying. “I mean, yeah, that sucked- wait, your Pokemon showed me my future?”
The high-ranking rookie cast her eyes to the ground. “Yes, to an extent. Natu aren’t very good at seeing the future, unlike their evolution, but Chiffon is particularly good at visualizing things that she can’t see. That’s why I took her on as my teleporter.”
I sat up, leaning my elbows on my knees and massaging my throat. The heat felt good and helped the feeling of cold steel fade. I looked up at Chiffon. The bird was staring at me, its tiny head-body tilted to the side.
I sighed. “Well, there’s not a lot to be done, then.”
Portia’s worried face morphed into one of confusion. “What?”
“Whether or not that future happens, there’s not a lot I can do about it, at least not without unpacking a lot. And, as for your Pokemon, it’s not like you ordered Chiffon to do that. As long as you promise not to do that again,” I shivered at the thought, “I think I can forgive and forget.”
Portia looked genuinely taken aback. She looked like she wanted to say something, but her watch beeped. She cursed quietly, silencing the notification.
“You’re sure?” Portia asked, glancing over to where Wisp was protectively hovering near me.
I nodded. “Just, uh, next time you do a radio show, maybe take it easy on me?” I gave her a grin, despite how deeply uncomfortable I still felt.
Portia, for all her emotional distance and worry, actually cracked a smile. It was gone within a second, but I wasn’t hallucinating anymore. She’d definitely smiled. Portia rummaged through her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper and a pen. She quickly wrote something down and passed the paper to me.
“Even if you are willing to forgive, I owe you now,” Portia said resolutely. “If you need a meal or a small favor in the future, we will be there.”
I slipped it into my hoodie without looking at it. “Heard, chef,” I grinned. “I’ll make sure to pick the most expensive burger joint I can find.”
Portia didn’t smile at that joke. Instead, she looked at the Pokemon on her wrist. “Chiffon, take us to Vermillion,” she repeated slowly, chastising the Pokemon.
The bird blinked at me, and Portia and Chiffon disappeared like they were never there.
The door behind me opened.
“She’s a complex young lady,” Mrs. Clara spoke casually, leaning on her doorway.
“No, yeah, I got that,” I agreed. I pushed myself to my feet, scratching Wisp under the jaw and pushing her into my shadow. “I’d ask if stuff like that had happened before, but I figure that’s probably all part of your privacy agreement?”
Mrs. Clara nodded, stepping to the side to let me in. “It is. I’m sure that young Ms. Cervelo would be happy to speak to you about it, though, should you ask. She really is such a sweet girl.”
“I’ll have to remember that.” I led the way up to the actual office and opened the door for Mrs. Clara. She nodded gratefully and we took our seats.
“So, Derek, I’m assuming that since a day has passed, you’ll have gotten into some amount of trouble?” Mrs. Clara smiled softly at her comment.
“Actually, no,” I said, surprised at myself. “The battle went fantastic, I got this sweet new badge,” I opened the side of my hoodie, revealing the blue tear-drop shape of the Cascade Badge next to my Boulder Badge, “and Misty even gave me a TM. Which, by the way, great looking out for me by warning me my new friend was going to end up being a gym leader.”
Mrs. Clara laughed. “As you just said, I have a confidentiality clause for all of my clients. This one just happened to work out humorously.”
I blinked, not missing what Mrs. Clara was insinuating about Misty being her client, but I shook my head. It wasn’t any of my business. “Anyway, some stuff came up with Hana yesterday, but I genuinely think I handled it well, and we’re going to head out right after this. The only unexpected thing was Portia and-” I swallowed, pushing away the visions that Chiffon the Natu had made me see. “Chiffon. Other than that, life is peachy.”
“Well, that’s quite impressive, Derek,” Mrs. Clara nodded softly. “I’m happy that you’re feeling confident in your decisions, especially those regarding your friends. As for Chiffon, please don’t hesitate to talk about the visions that you experienced. People often hyper-fixate on their futures, and members of the Xatu line have been known to cause people to repeat their visions in their dreams.”
I furrowed my brow. “Nah, it’s okay, I don’t dream all that much and I don’t know that it’s healthy to focus on that, especially because some of them are so crazy. I’m pretty sure I got proposed to in one of them.”
Mrs. Clara shared my odd expression. “Well, best to disregard that one then. You’re far too young for that. If anything, please don’t hesitate to schedule one of our online appointments if you run into anything concerning.”
“Oh, I will,” I promised. “You’re probably only going to be hearing from me once a week or so, but I’m really happy with the work we’ve been doing here.”
“I’m proud to hear you say that,” Mrs. Clara grinned from ear to ear. She settled deep into her chair and placed her hands on her lap. “Now, if you’re comfortable discussing it, I’d love to hear more about this conversation with Hana?”
“Oh, yeah, okay,” I said, leaning back. “Well, remember when we talked about how we knew something was bothering her…”
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Hana picked me up from Mrs. Clara’s after an hour. She had half a dozen paper bags hanging from her hands and looked like she’d cheered up considerably. Her eyes still betrayed a deep sense of tiredness, but she at least was able to keep a smile on her face.
“Retail therapy working out for you?” I grinned as I stepped down Mrs. Clara’s stairs.
“Yes, absolutely,” Hana let out a sigh of relief. “And I wasn’t just shopping for myself. I have a few pieces for you, too.”
“Oh, goodie,” I rolled my eyes with mock distaste. In reality, Hana hadn’t steered me wrong yet when it came to fashion. “Did they have those items that I wanted?”
Hana smiled. “Not only did they have them, but I got the first one at a decent price! The second one, though, I couldn’t get for under market price. The damage wasn’t too bad, we still have more than half our winnings left, and I grabbed more than enough food to go to Lavender Town, twice.”
She handed me one of her bags and I folded my hands like I was praying. “You are a goddess among women, Hana Kanael. Thank you for blessing me with these sweet deals-”
“Alright, alright!” Hana chuckled, pushing lightly against my arm. “If that’s everything, though, we should probably head out soon. It’s already almost noon and I want to be well into the canyons before dark.”
“Yessir,” I agreed, grabbing a few more of her bags. I glanced down into the first bag and my grin got even wider. Inside was a paper package that I assumed contained a grey stone and a black collar with a small pouch on its side. I’d asked Hana to get a moonstone while we were here because they were probably going to be cheaper near Mt. Moon, which I’d been right about. Cleffa still hadn’t hatched yet, though they were due any time, but I knew that I’d need a moonstone somewhere down the line to evolve them.
The collar was a battle item for Artis. After seeing Lily’s Dewgong in action and battling against Starmie, I figured that we needed to start looking at options to increase our recovery, since we really only had Rest and Aqua Ring to rely on. This item was called the Leftovers, and the pouch on the collar super condensed food into nutrient-rich blocks that would boost a Pokemon’s natural recovery and stamina during battle. It was a pretty popular item among anybody who wanted their Pokemon to last a bit longer on the field, so it had been expensive with a capital ‘E’. It was worth it, though, to give my buddy a chance to turn into an even stronger wall than he already was.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
We found a nearby table and distributed the weight as evenly as we could. The most annoying bit was working around the cylindrical tube that stuck out of the top of my bag. The Hoenn flag from the Pewter Museum was by far the biggest thing that we owned, but it felt wrong to get rid of it. I ended up strapping it to the top of my pack, lashed against the frame with a scrap of rope.
After we had our things situated, there was no real reason for us to stick around in Cerulean City. Hana and I found ourselves on the east side of Cerulean walking up hilly roads and ledges that got more common as we made our way out of town. Unlike the well-worn trail that our friends had taken, the trailhead to Route 09 was rough and overgrown. Weeds choked the path and thick brambles curled and twisted into spools of natural barbed wire. The path continued like that for at least a quarter of a mile, where it turned down a winding canyon and disappeared out of sight.
Hana and I shared a look. “Ugh, we need a fire type,” we said in sync. A beat of silence passed, and we both started laughing.
“It would be easier for you,” Hana reasoned. “You’re a generalist, nobody would even bat an eye at you getting a fire type.”
“You’re not wrong. I can’t even think of a fire/grass type. Does that even exist?”
“Not off the top of my head, but there has to be one out there somewhere. Actually, did you ever decide what Pokemon you were going to get from Professor Oak?”
I paused.
Hana raised an eyebrow at me.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu……”
“You might as well send the Professor an email,” Hana sighed. “You’re sponsored by him, did you not think to message him that you were leaving town?”
“I mean, I told him that I was leaving after my gym battle, and that was… …well, it was like a week ago.” I sheepishly pulled the Nav out of my pocket and started typing a message. “I did, by the way.”
“Oh!” Hana’s eyes lit up. “Don’t tell me, let me guess! Was it a pseudo or a fossil?”
“…I thought you didn’t want me to tell you?”
“Alright, so it’s a pseudo-legend, then.”
“Rude… …yeah, it is.”
Hana pumped her fist. “Given the parameters that you set when we talked on Route 03, I would guess… …well, you obviously aren’t going for a dragon type. If that’s the case, there are only two options, as far as I’m aware, and you’ll already have a ground type when you catch your Flygon, even though Tyranitar actually loses its ground typing, so it can only be-” Hana’s eyes turned into dinner plates. “You’re not serious? Didn’t you not want to lean on being from Hoenn that much?”
I shrugged, my lips drifting up at the corners. “Somebody told me I had to start taking every advantage I could. I watched Metagross battle every single day after school. I know how it moves, what it should look like when it fights. I still have a lot of hang-ups, but I thought about it and I think the first step is getting over myself. So, uh, yeah. I’ll be asking the Professor for a Beldum.”
“Wow,” Hana said breathlessly. She gave me a long look, really taking in what I’d just admitted to. “That person sounds pretty smart.”
“Shut up,” I nudged her with my shoulder and pressed send. “So, how are we going to get through all of… …this?” I gestured to the choked trail in front of us.
Hana frowned, studying the situation. “Neither of my Pokemon excel at cutting down plants. Rafflesia’s Razor Leaf can probably manage some, but neither of them have any claws.” Hana curled her fingers in front of her, emphasizing her point.
“Neither do mine.” I looked at the problem, considering our angles. “Wisp could probably burn some with Charge Beam, but it takes a lot out of her to channel so much electricity. Plus, it takes a lot of electricity to cause that much heat. We were barely able to manage one of those blasts against Rhydon.”
“Well,” Hana shook her head from side to side, “that was different. Rhydon is normally immune to electricity. Grass and wood are just sort of resistant. Your point still stands, though.”
“Pft, ‘Mrs. Semantics’ over here…,” I muttered. “This was easier when we had Achilles and Despereaux. If only there was a move that was, like, perfectly made for cutting down small trees. Even then, though, we don’t really have a Pokemon capable of using it- Wait!” I snapped my fingers, surprising Hana. “Embrittlement! Plants shatter pretty easily when they’re cold, right?”
She looked at me like I was stupid. “Yes, Derek. Very cold, like, liquid nitrogen cold. Artis can’t make things that cold.”
“Not with that attitude,” my under-breath muttering returned. “I think you doubt my boy and it’s worth a shot!”
I tossed out Artis’ Pokeball, and as much as Hana wanted to sigh, her face melted into a smile as he barked happily at her. She leaned down to pet him, but I squinted at her.
“Wha- I don’t get to pet him because I disagreed with you?” Hana said in disbelief. “Talk about petty…”
“Nah, go for it,” I grinned. “I couldn’t do that to him.”
Artis looked from me to Hana and back with a confused expression. He shuffled over to Hana and barked at her happily. She leaned down and rubbed right under his whiskers.
I gave them a moment to enjoy themselves, especially given the morning that Hana was having, and then I took a stance with my arm pointed out. “Alright, buddy,” I barked. “Let’s get to it! We’re going to freeze this whole trail, Aurora Beam!”
“Seal!” Artis hopped in place, his belly slapping against the ground. He reared his head back in what was now second nature and released his prismatic beam. The cool colors spread across the brambles in front of us, leaving a white sheen of frost across them. The plants crackled and groaned as the water inside of them froze and expanded. Some of the smaller ones in front of us exploded into tiny showers of wooden scraps, and I jumped back.
“Good job, bud!” I let out a nervous breath as I wiped tiny pieces of wood off of my shoulder. I turned to Hana. “Now who can’t freeze a-”
Hana glared at me, gaze narrowed and eyebrows scrunched. She, having been surprised by my callout, may not have had the same level of warning I did. Tiny bits of wood and dirt had showered her, leaving her covered in debris. Hana pointed at me, and then at her hair.
“Fix. This,” she growled.
A few seconds later, I was out of breath and Hana was spotless. I whistled at Artis, who got the point of what I was getting at and pulled himself into a ball. He circled next to us, building up speed with Rollout, and fired himself like a cannonball down the trail. Artis slammed into the brush, which shattered or blasted off in different directions instead of bending like it normally would. He cleared almost ten meters with the first hit.
I turned to Hana and raised an eyebrow.
Hana sighed, as she often did when I was right. “You had a hypothesis and tested it,” she admitted. “I don’t feel bad losing to the scientific method.”
“Science for the win!” I cheered and Artis barked in self-satisfaction.
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Artis bouldered through about half a mile of thickets and brambles before the trail started to ascend a hill and we left the dry thorns behind.
I let him rest in his ball for a job well done.
With Wisp safely watching from my shadow and Paige clinging to Hana’s bag, we were relatively looked out for and could travel feeling pretty safe. This early in the season, it was guaranteed that pretty much no one else would be on Route 09. The trail took an uphill turn between two buttes, increasing in elevation and letting us see the entirety of Cerulean City behind us, as well as Mt. Moon in the distance. The view was gorgeous and uninterrupted, and if I squinted, I could almost make out Saffron City to the south.
Hana was more talkative than normal on our way up Route 09. I was enjoying the company, but I could feel in my gut that she was trying to make up for Yuji and Amy’s absence, to fill the silence that they’d left behind. We chatted about what my plans were for Beldum, or how long it would be until Cleffa hatched, or how Hana’s battle against Daisy had gone.
“Wait,” I paused, stepping up another rocky ledge. “Tentacool did what?”
“I know, right? It was the only part of that battle that tripped me up. Of course, I’d read the Pokedex entries online, but I’d never actually seen one shoot lasers out of its eyes.” Hana held her hands in front of her eyes like binoculars.
I sighed, stopping in place. “Well, I have to see this.”
We sat our packs down on the side of the road and took a seat on a ledge, letting our legs swing over the edge. It was till mid-afternoon. The sky was clear and the air was warm. The air smelled like dust and plants, interrupted only by the occasion gust of wind from the sea to the north.
Hana pulled out her phone and brought up a recording of her battle against Gym Leader Daisy. She scrolled through the timeline to maybe three minutes into her battle. Rafflesia had taken full advantage of the Sunny Day over the battlefield, using its light to quickly grow dozens of vines that had entrenched themselves into the foam platform and spread multiple meters into the pool water. She had a controlling field advantage, having forced Tentacool into a space that was less than a third of what it would normally have.
“Right here,” Hana pointed at the screen. “See how the crystals on its head are starting to glow?”
I squinted at the video. “Oh, yeah… Are they, like, absorbing the light from the Sunny Day?”
“That’s my best guess. The data entries say as much, at least.”
The red crystal containers that jutted from the blue jellyfish’s head were normally reflective, but here they glowed with an inner light. The light itself was tinged yellow-orange, the same color as Raffelsia’s Sunny Day. It grew in intensity as Tentacool dodged vine attacks from Rafflesia.
In one split second, the orange light flashed blue-white and Tentacool’s eyes blasted twin beams of light, both of which shimmered the blues, greens, and pinks of Aurora Beam. The ice attack seared across Rafflesia’s vines, freezing some of them in place and shattering others.
“Whoa!” I yelped. “That was so friggin’ cool!”
Hana nodded. “It surprised me. As far as I’d studied, I hadn’t seen any ice type attacks in Tentacool’s repertoire, so it led to me hesitating, which caused Rafflesia to get hurt more than I wanted. She still defeated both of Daisy’s Pokemon, but it was close.”
“Well, two things,” I said. “One, yeah, no duh. You’re a planner who works with very specific plans. If somebody tosses a variable that you didn’t account for at you, it’s going to trip you up. The fact that you recovered and finished your battle as fast as you did was awesome. Two, how are you out here neigh-saying Artis when you watched your own Pokemon’s vines get frozen?”
Hana rolled her eyes. “We’re on this again? Well, these were obviously different scenarios. The plants in the pool were brand new and supersaturated in water, which is obviously going to make them more susceptible to freezing. What you were talking about was creating stress in a mostly dry material via cooling it to its ductile-brittle transition temperature-”
“Alright, I get it,” I grumbled. “I was still right, though.”
Hana raised an eyebrow at me, giving me a smug look.
“Well, what was actually going on with Tentacool there?” I changed the subject, pointing at the screen. “As far as I know, it shouldn’t be getting any sort of benefit off of a Sunny Day.”
She accepted my loss and turned back to her phone. “If I play it back at half speed, you actually get a really cool look at what’s going on.”
Hana rewound the footage to right before Tentacool’s light had flared. the orange light warped within Tentacool, doubling over on itself and folding into an infinitely refracted prism of light. Once it reached a terminal amount, the light flared blue over the space of two frames. When it left Tentacool’s eyes, it almost looked like it was venting the Aurora Beam from a large reservoir of light.
“That’s crazy…,” I whispered. “That’s not like an ability or move or anything, right?”
Hana shook her head. “You can’t think of Pokemon so mechanically. This is just a part of Tentacool’s anatomy that works a specific way. If you think about it, you basically do the same thing when you have Wisp phase through solid objects. It might not be a proper ability, but having a huge amount of light around helped Tentacool use a move that would normally be very hard for it.”
“Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense…” Pokemon pulled off crazy stunts all the time that had nothing to do with their battle techniques, this wasn’t any different. There were pokemon that flew that weren’t flying types and Pokemon that weren’t immune to ground type-energy even though they could physically levitate.
There were Pokemon that could see the future even if they weren’t using a move.
I rubbed my throat, still feeling the cold steel that had been there in Chiffon’s vision. I opened my mouth, but I paused before I mentioned it to Hana. Portia had said that Chiffon’s visions were often outright wrong, and if they were true, they were often distorted or different from reality. Mrs. Clara had backed her up, warning me not to think too much on them at the risk of them consuming me.
They were nonsense. Probably.
I shook my head, pushing away those thoughts. “Well, with all this Pokemon talk, you should tell me about this Demise Pokemon that you want to catch.”
Hana gave me a blank look before the corner of her mouth turned up in an exasperated grin. “Dhelmise,” she corrected me. “And, actually, I don’t know a ton about it, other than it’s typing and where it’s rumored to be.”
“Oh? I would’ve thought that Mrs. Scienctist would have gathered everything to know about one of her future teammates?”
“I did,” Hana said with a sigh and a smile. “Dhelmise is a grass/ghost type that doesn’t naturally exist in Kanto, Johto, or anywhere on this continent. They come from the far away region of Galar, though some have been found near the Alolan islands.”
“Near Alola? I didn’t think there was anything near Alola.”
“Well, there’s no land near Alola. Luckily, Dhelmise is an oceanic Pokemon. It inhabits sunken ships, as far as the rumors have been able to tell me. Apparently, something resembling one was spotted south of Lavender by a fisherman who lives on Route 12. I wouldn’t actually have known what it was if there wasn’t an Alolan native on the grass type forums.”
I nodded along with her story. “Okay, that makes sense. So, I guess the goal is to get to Lavender Town, swing by and grab this ghostly barnacle really quick-”
“Barnacle?” Hana frowned at me. “Who said anything about a barnacle?”
“I don’t know, a piece of coral, then? You said the thing inhabited shipwrecks, so I was trying to think of stuff that lives on ships.”
“Oh! No, Derek, when I said that it inhabited ships, I meant that it makes itself part of the ship.” Hana clicked through her phone for a moment before showing me a photo.
On Hana’s phone was a piece of driftwood, probably what used to be the helm. A thick layer of green algae had spread across its surface like a new skin, somehow both deteriorating and reinforcing the flotsam. Where the algae was thickest was a clump in the center of the wheel. Dozens of small pieces of debris and tens of tendrils of seaweed had been pulled into it, creating a bulge of vegetation there. In that clump, there was a single amber eye that stared at the camera with a beaded vertical slit pupil.
My throat went cold as I saw what drifted behind the Dhelmise.
Connected to the helm’s base, a long interlocking tail of metal links extended almost four meters into the water. It glimmered and sparkled, even though it was covered in heavy red rust. The underwater Pokemon’s tail was a steel anchor chain.
It took me a moment to find my voice. “Holy shit…,” was all I could squeeze out.
Hana smiled. “I know, right? This Pokemon is such an amazing opportunity! If I manage to catch Dhelmise, I’ll be one of maybe five people in all of Kanto who have a grass/ghost type, and even then, I’ll be the only one who has this Pokemon as a team member. Now, obviously, we’ll have to be careful actually approaching it, because that chain looks like it packs a nasty punch…”
My attention drifted away as Hana continued to gush about her potential new Pokemon. Out of an ominous feeling in my gut, I slid the Nav out of my pocket and began to type. I listed off the visions that Chiffon had shown me. They were probably nothing, but I did have to clench my hand before starting to stop the tremor in my fingers. I wrote down every detail that I remembered.
Just in case.