Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Altered Bonds
Chapter 19 — Elemental Introductions
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Forlorn. That was the best description Eira had for the fourth and topmost floor of the dojo.
The lower floors didn't feel anywhere as lifeless as this one. The first floor had been quiet, yes, but out of a sense of zen, with bushy potted shrubs, a few gorgeous benches, and halls leading to closed-off training rooms. The second floor was more of the same, though according to Shaymin, its rooms were specialized for certain element types. The third floor, meanwhile, had another kind of silence — a respectful and sacred one, radiating from a small library filled with scrolls, aging tomes, and a few knickknacks.
But the fourth floor? It was just a hall with weakly lit lanterns and a set of little meditation rooms, each filled with a plain carpet and some candles. Their doors were left ajar, lending to its empty feel. The place seemed so muted, so lonely and tragic. Eerie too. Though on the bright side, it was anywhere but where Their Highnesses were.
One encounter with them was one too many. Them staying in town? Staying? It was enough to make Eira collapse into herself. She’d never feel safe thinking again, and most certainly not in her own human tongue, lest it give away her true nature to Their Highnesses as it had for Lugia.
She really, really needed ways to better protect herself. But isn’t that why we’re learning from Mismagius in the first place? Eira told herself.
“This one, dearie.” Mismagius hovered to one of the doors, her face all smiles. Behind was a room decorated with the same plain carpet and candles as the rest, with only an empty wooden bowl to break the monotony. “I was offered this space for my stay here. It will suffice.”
Eira stared at the door, then to the stairs she’d ascended from. With its carved handrails and more luminescent lighting, the stairs had a liveliness that this silent, barebones floor lacked. She wished Shaymin and Togetic were here — but alas, the duo had split off so Shaymin could train with Kecleon, and Mismagius had insisted on privacy anyway. She stepped forward, hesitated, then stepped again.
Every movement made her anxiety worse, threatening to overcome her burning desire for knowledge. Mismagius knew of many things, of souls and magic and humans. And prophecies.
The witch noted her behavior with a tinge of amusement. “You taste of apprehension,” she said.
“D-do I?”
“My kin feed on such distressing emotions, dear.” The voice came from behind, Eira having a near heart-attack as a fleshy cloth-arm clasped her shoulder, courtesy of an illusionary Mismagius — or was she the real one, and the one at the door a faker? “I wouldn’t blame you. In your eyes, I seem like a strangely benign Lugia, who treats your world-shattering prophecy like a mere paper cut. A boon too good to be true.”
There was that, admittedly. “Or maybe,” whispered Eira, “I just don’t like being alone with strangers?”
Both Mismagius stared. And then cackled in harmony, making Eira blush. “Strangers, hee!” the Mismagius at the door said. “Oh, we can ceeeeertainly fix that. Will you not come in, dear human? We will make you at home soon enough.”
Eira felt herself nudged forward, the vixen giving in and walking the rest of the way. A third Mismagius sat at the other end of the small, dark meditation chamber, Eira grimacing as the other two Mismagius waved goodbye and poofed into nothingness — but not before shutting the door behind her. Candles sparked at the witch’s command, blue flames igniting upon their wicks to give the room ambience.
The loneliness had walked out, and all that was left was the ominousness. And a spark of ethereal wonder. The yearning to know began wrestling back with Eira’s anxiety, the girl looking to Mismagius with bated breath.
The witch’s eyes held a hypnotizing glint to them, the world appearing to ripple under its influence. It mesmerized her.
“You will find that I am many things, dear.” Mismagius gave a lazy wave, and the candle flames began to writhe and dance, their color shifting to a magical violet that amply lit the room. “I am a tutor, a historian, and a seeker of the occult. I am a wanderer and a practitioner of magical arts. I am a creature that yearns to discover that which the world has forgotten.
“Believe it or not, you are the culmination of everything my life has been devoted to. A prophecy is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to you, a human girl exposed to the powers we Pokemon channel.” Mismagius gave a quiet chuckle, one that had a strange reverberance throughout the room. “But we shan’t dwell on your omen. Young Eira, your soul has been opened to the most basic forms of spiritual energy. Would you allow me to nurture it into something more?”
It was almost like Mismagius’s words were all part of a great ritual, with Eira feeling like a foolish mage offering her heart to the demon she summoned. Accepting the pact meant no turning back from the consequences. “If you teach me magic,” she felt obliged to ask, “wouldn’t you be helping the prophecy come true?”
“Would it be possible? Perhaps,” was Mismagius’s response. “But then, what is the difference between learning the moves of a Pokemon, and the magic of a human? I offer you power so that you may defend yourself against terrible forces seeking your life, or worse, a ‘false song’ aiming to deceive you.”
Eira bit her lip at that. Maybe it wasn’t worth trying to overthink things — for all she knew, maybe she didn’t even need powers to become the prophetic threat she feared becoming. “May as well learn,” she muttered. “Just, uh, why here?”
Mismagius tilted her head at Eira’s question, before noting the place they were in. She studied the empty bowl at her side, the dim lighting of the mediation room, and the cramped walls that shaped it. Her mouth etched itself into a teasing smirk.
“Here?” said Mismagius. “Oh no, I would never! This quaint room is but my humble lodging, a generous gesture of goodwill from the dojo. It couldn’t possibly serve as a personal training facility, hee!”
The witch drifted closer to Eira, the vixen shrinking back on instinct. “No, no, I wanted you here for anooooother reason,” Mismagius explained. “You haven’t quite noticed, have you? You’re not even in my room anymore.”
“I-I’m not?”
“No.”
And with that, Mismagius yanked the carpet away, and the literal floor with it. Eira yelled as she found herself plunging into the abyss below.
She tumbled, flailed, then curled into herself as she braced for impact. Her eyes went shut, the howling rush of air making them water—
And yet no impact came. She stopped falling, and yet she wasn’t quite on the ground. Her paws lowered themselves, finding purchase on something liquid-like and yet solid, and Eira dared to look.
She stood on jelly-like void. Not true solid ground, but tangible enough to hold her aloft. Her paw pressed against it, and waves scattered from the pressure, flowing outward in circular ripples.
Around her, an endless expanse of dark ate the horizons, the world a plain of absolute nothingness. The darkness’s tyranny didn’t last long, however, overthrown by a mist of dreary indigo that emerged to color the world around her. Above, that indigo transitioned into a swirling mess of purple, with white twinkling stars that gave a galactic beauty to the scenery. Some of the stars shot down, streaming through the indigo mist and then straight into the jelly void, sinking for eternity.
It was like a prettier, more indifferent cousin of the violent, mind-shattering abyss that Rocky Shores had become when it broke down. It’s breathtaking, Eira thought, contradictory emotions welling within her. Horrifyingly breathtaking.
“Isn’t it now?”
Eira leapt into the air, then freaked out when she didn’t fall back down, the void somehow keeping her aloft. She spun over to find Mismagius rising to her new location, a cackle slipping out of her too-wide mouth. “Y-you—” she blurted, before gripping her head with her tails. “What did you do? I-is this an illusion? Where—”
Mismagius gently covered her mouth. Her other arm pointed at her forehead, where the faint pink light of Extrasensory had briefly emerged, and tapped on it a few times. She closed her eyes.
For a moment Eira thought it was some odd attempt at soothing her panic. And then Mismagius let her arm drift toward Eira’s eyelids, a patient smile on her lips, and Eira found herself enlightened.
I’m asleep.
“You are.”
Mismagius’s instant reply to her thoughts made Eira shudder. “Hypnosis and Dream Eater,” continued Mismagius. “This is but a dream world, dear. Your dream.”
A lucid dream. But even lucid dreams hardly felt so real. “I never felt myself fall asleep,” whispered Eira.
“The best hypnotizers are skilled at such feats.”
To have such a power, it made Eira’s soul quaver. She pinched herself, but the pinprick of pain did nothing to awaken her. “Like a Darkrai,” she said.
“The adept ones are capable of doing the same, yes. But fret not — I am not using Dream Eater out of maliciousness, only to control your dream sequence. And to keep you aware.” Mismagius gave Eira a crafty smile. “A dream is but a dream, and yet, what you’ll learn here is no illusion. With that knowledge and some practice in the real world, your soul will develop by leaps and bounds.”
Eira took in her words with burgeoning wonder. A tiny star plummeted from the hazy sky above, the ripples left behind as it plunged through the void dissipating at her feet.
Oh my goodness.
The thirst to know more, to become more, consumed her whole. “Where,” Eira asked, “where do I start?”
And so it began. It was to be a short and simple session, Mismagius informed her. One meant to gauge her foundation, and to give her the bare basics needed for magic.
For a brief while, Eira played with her Powder Snow and Ice Shard, watching both strike the void and form ripples before sinking through, much like the stars falling from above. They sizzled and burnt away into blobs of darkness, the void consuming them prematurely. Curious, she charged up an Extrasensory toward the darkness beneath, and it burst through, Eira wincing as intangible waves of void splashed over her in its wake. The psychic blast penetrated deep into the void before losing speed and then cohesion, unraveling into strands of umbra.
Mismagius took pleasure in it all. “So new to your talents, and yet you’ve learned quickly,” she reflected. “Lucario taught you about the spirit, yes?”
Eira nodded. The spirit was the center of everything, she’d come to learn in her short time as a Pokemon, that made her her. Its complexities were beyond her, but it was the culmination of her entire being.
She could feel its enchanted depths, and the energy that poured out from it, ready to be molded into something more. “It’s my connection to the elements,” she thought aloud. “I can’t use moves without it.”
“No, you cannot. The spirit is the catalyst and the source, something that Pokemon instinctively touch from the egg. Through it, they know their powers, their moves, their Type and Ability — gifts that come with our supernatural origin.”
“Gifts that humans like me don’t have.”
“So you’ve seen your human spirit then? But your Level remains, and a Type affinity too.”
Her human self did have those things. “Other humans in my world never talked about those,” she muttered.
“Hm?”
Confusion covered Mismagius’s face, and Eira pounced upon her opening. At once she spilled her entire conversation with Togetic and Shaymin about rare humans in her world with supernatural powers, the witch caught off-guard at first, before rapt intrigue overcame her. She hovered close to Eira, absorbing every last detail she could find.
“So your jackal was wrong after all, hee! A few of you still use the arts of magic,“ she noted with self-satisfaction. “But only specific kinds, and with too little understanding of the spirit. The wizards of old would grieve at how low mankind has come in such matters. To discover your inner powers through sheer luck, knowing not how you do so! To not even realize their powers and those of Pokemon-kind come from a shared source! It is deplorable.”
Mismagius placed her cloth-arms behind her back, like a teacher about to give a vital lecture. “You humans are a more mundane sort — gifted with advanced cognitive thinking and the drive for progress, but not the natural attunement to magic that us Pokemon have,” she said. “This is what we traded with each other. Here in Haven Archipelago, we adopted the ways of civilization from humans, and we imparted their thirst to learn and improve onto our children. In return, we taught them to feel their soul, and to pull out what resides within.”
“Magic.”
“Magic. The supernatural. Regardless of the name, it is power all the same. You want to understand how far the humans of today have fallen from their heights? I will show you.”
That was her cue. Eira’s gaze flitted to her paw, before startling at the lack of a charred white wristband on her vulpine paw. On a whim she tried to reach for her inner lever, willing to shift back — and found no lever, yet the slight dizziness of transformation overcame her still.
And she was human. No wristband required. “Could I just,” she wondered aloud, sensing Mismagius would hear anyway, “turn into anything here?”
“If you will it, I can grant it.” Intrigue lit flames in Mismagius’s veiled eyes as she examined Eira in depth, from her hands and fingernails, to her facial features and hair, and then to the patched-up blue dress and loose leggings she wore. “Yes, yes, you are much like the descriptions I have read. A Sawk, they’d compare your kindred to, but I think a Kirlia might fit you better. Perhaps even a Nihilego?”
A horrific comparison — those mind-intoxicating jellyfish Ultra Beasts had the uncanny shape of a young girl with long hair and a sunhat. Eira blanched, inspecting her dress and appearance and reminding herself that no, she looked nothing like those monsters.
It made Mismagius chuckle. “I have read the papers you offered Porygon-Z, you see. Astonishing, what I learned about your world through them. Alolan humans like you are especially acquainted with Ultra Beasts, yes? I hardly know of them myself. I certainly didn’t expect to hear of another Calamitus either.”
The mention of a term Their Highnesses had used made Eira bite her lip. “C-Calamitus?” she asked. Had that been some archipelago word for an Ultra Beast? Necrozma, even?
“A distraction for now,” Mismagius said, waving the matter away. “You first used your magic on instinct, yes? Show me, if you can.”
As much as the topic of a ‘Calamitus’ distressed Eira, she chose not to pursue it further. She pulled on the well of energy residing deep within her, and from her finger, frost grew out, creating a cool mist in its wake. She flung, and the frost flew off, dissipating in the air a few yards in. The way Mismagius watched, it was like she’d seen a spell ten times as potent and beautiful as the one actually casted.
“Pure magic,” she spoke with glee. “Unmolded by the nature of Pokemon and their moves. I have dreamed of such a sight.”
“I-it’s just a little ice?”
“A human’s little ice.”
An ice attack no different from her Pokemon moves, though. “It’s just a knock-off Ice Shard,” Eira pointed out, before stiffening as Mismagius’s smile curled, her head tilting to the side. “I mean, it’s nothing special. I-I was just defending myself against Ariados, and I did what I would do when casting Ice Shard—”
The words she said caught up to her. Ice Shard. Her magic had formed similarly to a Pokemon move she’d been accustomed to.
Pokemon taught the human wizards of old to use their spirit.
They would’ve done so by showing their moves.
“Oh.”
Mismagius nodded, pleased to see her connect the dots. “In distant times, Pokemon taught mankind to feel their spirit and cast magic,” she said. “Explaining their moves made it easy for humans to cast their first spells. It gave humans an easy pattern to follow, and built for them a good foundation. But I presume the humans of today aren’t given such aid, yes?”
“There’s no one teaching them the elements, except established psychics or aura users,” mused Eira.
“Ones with improper foundations, who pull out their magic without fully understanding where it comes from. It cripples their growth, and prevents them from having true control over their spirit. They are but eternal novices, candle flames that a master wizard’s inferno would engulf without even noticing. They cannot even read their flimsy Level.”
“But I can.”
“Because your Pokemon form awakened you to it,” Mismagius said. “Just as it has awakened you to the nuances of the magic you cast.”
So it was. Eira let frost condense on her hand, feeling the underlying magic behind it — fueled purely by the Ice-type element her spirit provided, with no accompanying natural cold to aid it. Its formation was more unwieldy too, far messier than it ought to be. Like it was held together by nothing more than hopes and dreams.
It felt easier to shape, with fewer constraints holding her back. But no instructions either. “It’s like a pile of putty,” Eira noted.
“Putty you’re expected to shape into a beautiful sculpture,” Mismagius told her. “Human magic, you see, is the complement of Pokemon abilities. Yours is freeform and chaotic, and ours is strict and orderly. More than that, Pokemon are built to conduct the elements in particular ways, such as an Alolan Vulpix’s natural inner cold. Their souls are an extension to their full potential, offering them blueprints to shape their abilities into concrete, specialized forms.”
“As in, moves?”
“Most commonly moves. Which you humans lack, because your souls offer you no such blueprints. You work from scratch.”
Almost from scratch. Her experiences as an Alolan Vulpix, Eira realized, helped give a little shape to her magic. With the template of an Ice Shard, she could turn it into a bolt of ice.
But could I turn it into something a Pokemon couldn’t make it into?
“Have you considered that might be one of the many things humans specialize in?”
Mismagius laid Eira’s palm flat and face-up, toward the swirling sky above and its myriad of falling stars. “If you’re to understand magic, you must practice it. Channel, dear, and let us see your potential! Let your frost twirl and dance upon your palm. Let it condense and coalesce. Let it be.”
A simple task. Eira had little trouble doing so, reaching into herself to pull out the element of ice. It spread out over her palm—
“Condense and coalesce, I said. Like rainwater folding itself into a dewdrop. A puddle into a grand bubble.”
A little more complex. Eira pulled harder onto her soul, the template of Powder Snow in mind as she tried to figure out what ways to nudge her magic the way she wanted. The frost flaked off her palm, twisting into itself onto poorly-shaped lumps at first, before gradually shifting into a rough sphere, a ping-pong ball borne of winter. Where her ice bolts had been mere rays of cold energy, the sphere was more substantial, requiring a pinch of extra focus to maintain. Still doable though.
Mismagius lifted a brow. “It will do,” she decided. “And now, let it hover over your palm. Maintain it there.”
But that? Maintaining her ice ball while having it float in the air? “How would I do that?” asked Eira. “I’m no Psychic—”
“And yet moves like Will-o-Wisp and Magical Leaf exist, do they not? Surely you don’t mean to keep us here all day.”
Eira’s cheeks grew a flustered red as she contemplated her ice sphere. Make it float, and maintain it? None of her moves had taught her something like that. I never had control over my Powder Snow or Ice Shards after I launched them, nor my Extrasensory blasts, she thought. And I don’t need to be a Psychic to do this?
Already she felt herself yearning for the good old days where Extrasensory had been her only struggle. She searched her soul, trying to find something to latch onto, but humans had no real instincts to guide their magic. Her power was there, yes, but she couldn’t begin to understand how to leverage it. What exactly did she need to call upon?
Mismagius began to shake her head, her smile drooping with a hint of boredom. “You are going about this the wrong way,” she said. “Shall I remind you? Pokemon and their magic tend to follow the rules of their nature. They use their own pre-made blueprints. A human’s magic, on the other hand—”
Epiphany made Eira’s brows shoot up. She palmed her sphere for a moment, letting its frigid touch seep into her hand. It felt real, yet dreamy, the cold sensation not quite registering in her head. Or perhaps she was simply used to the feeling.
She let herself be immersed in the coolness of her sphere. She touched her soul, and when it gave her no design, she pushed back, inputting her own design. Her own intentions.
That she wanted her sphere to be linked to her hand, serving as an anchor point.
That she wanted to push upward with icy wind, keeping the sphere aloft against gravity’s wishes.
That she wanted to keep it steady there, maintaining its frozen, spherical form until she decided otherwise.
Her soul hummed, sensing her desires. And then she felt the feedback. Eira gently tossed her sphere into the air, and willed.
It might’ve been cheating, but her Powder Snow often came with a wind component to direct and empower it. Building on that concept, she pushed out with her hand, a small gale lifting the ice ball upward a few feet. She adjusted, and the gale died a little, enough to stabilize the sphere midair. Her hand shifted a bit to the side, and wind nudged the sphere to follow it.
She hadn’t necessarily forced her wind to do that. It simply followed the rules she had intended.
No way.
Human magic truly was a more chaotic type of art, relative to Pokemon moves. Their sort had it easier — she had to supply all the rules, all the ways she wanted her soul to exert itself. But when done right? It produced this. An ice sphere anchored to her hand that she could pilot as she pleased.
I can control it.
Eira swooned, taxed by the surrealness of it all. And from her magic too — maintaining both the ice sphere and her wind left her soul burning up, the unexpected strain making Eira’s focus slip. Her ice sphere began to melt, droplets stinging her fingers with a shock of cold.
She instinctively jerked her hand back. Her sphere veered off to compensate, the sudden force detaching it from her anchor.
It launched toward her face. Eira yelped, her other hand barely raised in time for the cold bite of her own magic to crash against her palm. Pieces of frost scattered as the sphere broke apart, tumbling into the void below and burning up into shaded wisps.
Eira slowly peeked at Mismagius, her expression inscrutable. “I, uh, lost control,” she said.
Mismagius observed the remnants of frost on her palms for a long, still moment. “You made it float,” she whispered.
“W-wasn’t that what you asked me to do?”
“I wasn’t sure if you could.”
A sense of great respect blossomed within the witch’s red irises — and greed too, a greed that could consume planets. “Pure magic,” Mismagius spoke to herself, “and she takes to like a natural. A prodigy, or the result of being already accustomed to her elements and the spirit’s touch? Perhaps both.”
Her words abashed Eira. Her, a prodigy? “It was just a little wind and some focus,” she said, playing down the feat. “N-nothing impressive.”
But Mismagius cared nothing for her humility, swiping it away with a flick of her arm. “Are all your skills little to you, Eira? Nay, what you did required a spark of creativity, and you figured a way out without any explicit guidance — I knew you had great potential from the day I first laid eyes on you.” Her smile grew into a grin, a ghastly and gleeful grin that made all the bones in Eira’s body shudder. “Yes, yes, you will learn fast. We will do miracles together, you and I.”
The stars dotting the dreamscape seemed to giggle, as if anticipating the days to come. “But I stray too far into the wonders of our future,” Mismagius said. “You struggled a little with controlling your sphere. Again.”
Eira shuddered, feeling the harsh ache making her soul throb. Goodness, human magic was rather taxing to use. Pokemon moves were far more energy-efficient — or maybe Pokemon were just built to better handle the spirit’s powers.
Learning magic as a human would be a very arduous and painful process, wouldn’t it? Was it worth the agony? Bracing herself, she—
Oh.
The pain in her soul was suddenly gone.
No burn, no chafing, nothing. To the contrary, it was brimming with newfound energy, ready to be expended. Mismagius’s doing, surely, but how? That shouldn’t be possible—
Except it’s just a dream.
Mismagius coyly winked in affirmation. Eira took in the gesture, at the galactic sky and neverending void of the reverie she resided in, and found a giddiness bubble within her.
She could train without any real concern for her limits. That was the point of the dream world. It was just a simulation.
There couldn’t be a more perfect place for a human to practice her sorcery. “T-thanks,” Eira told Mismagius, numb and with a wide smile creeping over her face.
She cast another ball of ice.
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~I did not keep you waiting too long, Y/N?~
Lucario had his paws resting upon Porygon-Z’s desk, the Faller on the opposite side and rummaging through drawers. “It’s fine,” Gabite insisted. “A quarter of an hour’s nothing to get worked up over.”
“He was having fun trying to disintegrate Aerodactyl and Mew’s outlaw posters with his mind,” Lucario remarked, an arm rising to parry the elbowed strike Gabite gave him. The scowl Gabite fired in response filled him with dark mirth.
Porygon-Z had rushed in just moments ago, escorting the duo to the Task Management wing of the Explorer Board. They had been looking at the mission posted in the Tasks Board wing, specifically at two new papers that’d been added to the ‘Archipelago Tasks’ bulletin board. Papers condemning the two of the most dangerous threats alive.
PRIORITY ABHORRENT OUTLAW: ‘OBLIVION MATTER’ AERODACTYL
A highly dangerous and highly wanted Abhorrent is on the loose! An Aerodactyl made of burning shadow and skeletal bones with blazing red eyes has been found as a prime culprit in spreading the horrific Abhorrent mutation, causing anguish for many! ‘Oblivion Matter’ Aerodactyl was recently spotted near the Stormsoaked Shores dungeon (formerly Rocky Shores) in Grassbranch Island, having retreated from an explorer team that stopped him from his plans to capture a Legendary Pokemon Lugia. Current location is unknown. May be found traveling with an Abhorrent crystal-armored Mew that appears to be his superior.
If spotted, DO NOT ENGAGE and report to the local Explorer Board and/or authorities. Only highly skilled and well-equipped explorer teams should attempt to hunt down Aerodactyl and engage him in combat. A great bounty will be awarded for his capture. BEWARE: chance of mutation is very possible.
Client: Berrypark Explorer Board
Goal: Track down and subdue Aerodactyl.
Location: ?
Danger: 3*
Reward: 50,000 Poke
Addendum: Mission cannot be reserved by any single team. Please keep this task posted on the board until its completion is confirmed.
Addendum II: If you intend to take up this task, please report to the management of your local Explorer Board. You will be briefed on further confidential matters and plans of action, if found capable of handling the task.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
PRIORITY ABHORRENT OUTLAW: ‘PRIMAL GEAR’ MEW
A highly dangerous and highly wanted Abhorrent is on the loose! A Mew made of black crystalline armor with stained-glass eyes has been found as a key figure in the spread of the horrific Abhorrent mutation, causing anguish for many! ‘Primal Gear’ Mew is a rogue Mythical that is understood to be an artificer of the powerful Z-Crystals, which have been maliciously used as containers for the Abhorrent mutagens. He was recently spotted in a remote location near the Stormsoaked Shores dungeon (formerly Rocky Shores) in Grassbranch Island. Current location is unknown. May be found traveling with an Abhorrent shadow-lich Aerodactyl, who appears to be one of his underlings.
If spotted, DO NOT ENGAGE and report to the local Explorer Board and/or authorities. Only highly skilled and well-equipped explorer teams should attempt to hunt down Mew and engage him in combat. A great bounty will be awarded for his capture. BEWARE: chance of mutation is very possible.
Client: Berrypark Explorer Board
Goal: Track down and subdue Mew.
Location: ?
Danger: 5*
Reward: 60,000 Poke
Addendum: Mission cannot be reserved by any single team. Please keep this task posted on the board until its completion is confirmed.
Addendum II: If you intend to take up this task, please report to the management of your local Explorer Board. You will be briefed on further confidential matters and plans of action, if found capable of handling the task.
It’d been days since Porygon-Z posted them, yet Lucario’s eyes still burned anytime he saw the two missions. Even now he felt his paw clench and unclench, his sense of justice howling with gripping, overwhelming desire. Gabite, of course, had been worse — the calm facade he had put on was a flimsy one, the maddening vitriol he held within himself reflected in his gaze. More than once had Lucario caught him whispering with agitation, as if to ward off voices contaminating his head.
Archipelago-wide tasks were rare, usually for eccentric requests or particularly notorious outlaws. Compared to those, the two papers were abhorrently exceptional, pun intended. And everyone in the archipelago with access to an Explorer Board knows about it.
Blissfully, Porygon-Z had omitted the Stringed Forest events when having the tasks filed. Not once had Lucario heard any rumors about Aerodactyl and Mew’s appearance there, in addition to the talk about Eevee, Eira, and himself — perhaps in part because of Ariados’s meddling. Or maybe because the idea of three Abhorrents and a human being together was so ridiculous that people would altogether dismiss it all as nonsense.
The kings being here might ruin that, however. “You didn’t leak anything about us to Their Highnesses, did you?” Lucario asked.
Porygon-Z kept digging through his drawers while violently shook his head, as if offended by the mere notion. Or possibly just because of his quirky nature. ~Not a word. Self-diagnosis indicates they remain unaware of your state, along with the exact whereabouts of where ‘Primal Gear’ Mew was found. You wonder why I was in dialogue with them, Y/N?~
“Oh, I can take a gander,” Gabite said, tilting his head toward Lucario. “Mind if I give a little history on our Faller here? Their Highnesses took him in.”
Lucario straightened himself, instantly intrigued. Porygon-Z, once under the control of the two kings? “Did they do anything to you?”
~Nothing unpleasant, I assure you. Most of my memory post-dimensional travel is corrupted, but I was delivered to Their Highnesses after being discovered in critical condition near a village. They were curious about my nature, and kindly offered to bring me under their employ in exchange for voluntary experiments and discussions about the human world.~
“And that’s how you came here?”
~I was given permission to work independently here, when there was a shortage of staffing and Their Highness deemed it appropriate to release me. It has been years since, and they wanted to catch up on old times and my progress in memory recollection.~
Well, that sure put Their Highnesses in a rather flattering light. Chances were they were still keeping tabs on Porygon-Z, but it made Lucario wonder if Their Highnesses had an unfairly infamous reputation amongst people.
Not that they would give a human the same amount of autonomy, though. Benevolent or not, the one encounter Lucario had with them was enough to put him on edge. What would it take for the Psychic kings to piece together everything?
Gabite clearly was mulling over the same thing, Porygon-Z picking up on their concern. ~Assurance: Slowking and Shellder do not mind-probe others without a warrant, and they trust me as a confidant. I have requested them to respect confidential information (example: Team Heavendust’s circumstances at Stormsoaked Shores), and they will comply.~
Perhaps Porygon-Z’s words held merit, considering the kings did refrain from prying into their minds earlier. “Lucky for us that you have connections,” Gabite remarked.
Porygon-Z nodded, before pulling out multiple papers with a victorious beep, repeatedly slamming them onto the counter. Lucario instantly recognized Eira’s neat handwriting, scanning the documents she’d written to help the Faller with his memory gaps — all filled with content about various human things. Regions, geographic features, customs, technologies, and Legendaries were crammed into those pages.
Lucario understood Eira and her mother had been seasoned travelers, and it showed. Naturally Alola had a large well of information, Z-Crystals and Ultra Wormholes included, and he’d been somewhat helpful with filling Sinnoh’s page with locations, cultural norms, and notable Legendaries. Other regions got their fair share of notes though, like Johto with its architecture that was similar to the Berrypark Dojo’s style, or places like Fiore, Almia, and Oblivia with their large Pokemon Ranger base and relative lack of trainers. Or Galar, where apparently Eira’s father was from, and its royal heritage and strange Dynamax energies.
General notes on humans were around too, bringing up their appearances and lifestyles, and the bond between them and Pokemon. Togetic and Shaymin had seen some of these papers halfway through the writing process, but Gabite hadn’t, the dragon-shark reading the completed notes with unbridled curiosity. “Why didn’t anyone show me these?” he questioned.
Porygon-Z made an amused beeping noise. ~Kecleon took a dear interest in them last night. Mismagius came to see too, before Their Highnesses arrived, and found them riveting. I myself am most appreciative of your compilation — it has made me aware of data my memory banks never held in the first place.~
That sounded like a success. “Anything that stuck out?” asked Lucario.
A nod. Porygon-Z swiped the paper on Sinnoh, full of notes about its cold climate and mountainous terrain, with places of myth and legend abound. His arm pointed at a specific area of interest, and Lucario’s heart skipped a beat.
Solaceon Ruins. Old cavernous chambers in Sinnoh, and a place where Unown congregated — a place rumored to be connected to their home dimension, in fact.
~I come from Sinnoh, in case Gabite hasn’t informed you. This phrase evokes something in me, especially in conjunction with Unown. I estimate with 98% certainty it is relevant to my Faller state.~
Otherworldly cries whispered into Lucario’s ear, the jackal folding them in reflex. It didn’t surprise him much that Porygon-Z would bring up the Unown, but the fact he specifically pointed at Solaceon Ruins was rather significant. “You were there when the Spacetime Pandemic happened?” he asked.
~Processing query. Answer: fairly probable. Porygon-Z’s head rattled to one side, a loud buzzing noise coming from his beak. I may have been deployed there for research purposes.~
Gabite and Lucario eyed one another. “Common humans don’t,” Gabite said with a slight hesitance, “befriend Pokemon like Porygon-Z, right?”
No, they wouldn’t. Lucario didn’t know the Porygon-Z line very well — Eira likely knew better than him — but a Pokemon like him couldn’t be commonplace. In fact, given his artificial nature—
“You’re suggesting he’s made by scientists for scientific work.”
“I’ve suggested it to him for a while,” Gabite elaborated, tracing his claw over one of the papers on the human world. “He’s built for security and research. Why the fancy textbox thingy, after all, or the other tools he’s got in his possession? He’s built to serve higher-up humans.”
~Perhaps. Their Highnesses have suggested similarly as well.~
Not that the exact purpose mattered. Regardless, Porygon-Z was in Solaceon Ruins, just in time for the Spacetime Pandemic to occur. The rampage of the Unown must’ve caused him to be displaced as a result, due to their combined reality-warping abilities.
All this Lucario told Porygon-Z, who soaked up his words with mechanical focus. And then, with a sudden shudder, he shook his head.
~Incongruent.~
“Uh, sorry?”
~Incongruent. Processing data. Probability of rift travel: 93.21%. Probability of displacement by Unown: 0.62%. Absence of Unown signatures logged (warning: corrupted data may skew results). Conclusion: transportation caused by distortions, but not Unown.~
Porygon-Z squinted, as if surprised by his own statement. The Unown didn’t send him? That couldn’t be right. “The Unown were stir-crazy for the whole Spacetime Pandemic,” Lucario pointed out. “Surely they did something to send you through dimensions? Maybe throw you into their homeworld and then spit you onto the archipelago?”
“Unless Porygon-Z was transported post-Ruptures?” Gabite casually swapped to another page, a twinkle in his eye. “He knows the term ‘Spacetime Pandemic’ after all.”
A phrase that probably wouldn’t have been coined until after the event’s occurrence. Huh. That made things confusing. The Unown had disappeared from Solaceon Ruins after the distortions, and yet Porygon-Z had still found himself transported?
Porygon-Z seemed just as muddled. ~Conflicting logic loops detected. In-progress theory states dimension transportation as the primary culprit, but cannot be confirmed, he stated. I require time to reflect on these matters. Nevertheless, I appreciate your assistance! I apologize that I cannot reciprocate with plausible methods for returning you and Eira home, but I will continue to serve however else possible.~
It always had been a long shot. Finding any method that’d safely get him and Eira back home was. Nothing short of a very capable psychic with Teleport, mused Lucario, or assistance from a Legendary might work.
Like Mew. But that wasn’t someone who would help them, he reckoned. Unless Kabutops had spatial transport methods on hand, it seemed dimensional travel might be the only way out. Would the same path Porygon-Z used work, whatever it was?
We’ll cross that bridge later. Lucario returned Porygon-Z’s thanks, before noticing Gabite intently staring at one of the pages Eira had written. His claws gently scooped it up, Gabite bringing it close to his face and reading its contents with delicate care.
“Huh.” Gabite slowly pivoted to Porygon-Z. “You still need these papers?”
~Oh? No, no, they’re yours to take back! Such delicate information isn’t safe for me to keep lying around, and I have them copied to my secondary memory anyway.~ Porygon-Z slid Eira’s papers over, and Gabite put them away into his Treasure Bag for safe keeping, all to Lucario’s bemusement. Had the dragon-shark seen something?
“Gonna have a talk with your girl, is all,” Gabite assured him, adjusting his Treasure Bag as he gave Porygon-Z a curt nod. He and Lucario left the Faller to his devices, returning back to the main hall of the Explorer Board. “Human stuff’s interesting, what can I say?”
Gabite was dodging specifics, but whatever. Lucario let himself bask in the beauty of the garden hall, with its trees of Chesto, Rawst, and other sorts of berries, well-tended flowers in bloom, and the ever lovely fountain in the center. Sunlight slanted through the glass roof, giving a greenhouse warmth to the place. “Sounds like you’re getting used to Eira,” commented Lucario.
The hideous laugh Gabite let out in response was enough to strangle the garden hall’s tranquility. “I’m still not used to blasted Abhorrents, jackal,” he said, “never mind humans of all things. Her being a sweet pitiable ball of purity changes little for me.”
“Little isn’t nothing, Gabite.”
“Shut it.”
“You can’t deny it, you’re getting somewhere with my girl.”
“Your girl’s not a dumb wizard enslaver.”
Lucario’s quiet chuckle seemed to re-saturate the garden. Water trickled down the fountain in rivulets, its noise a soothing melody to his ears. A form of peace, brief and eternal.
“Curiosity’s in my lifeblood, Lucario.” Gabite let out a little hum, resonating with the water fountain’s tune. “It drove me even in the wild, though Braixen certainly made it worse by getting me into civilized society, hah. I can’t ever stand not knowing something.”
His lips contorted, and Lucario saw a glimmer of the grim dread Gabite sealed within himself. “Humans, Abhorrents, and dungeons, they’re unnatural to me,” he whispered. “Lucario, I’ve seen things in Tumbledust Island. My captors were a level of horror beyond anything, but there were other anomalies too, in other dungeons. Things not Pokemon.”
The disclosure made Lucario turn cold inside. “Terrible things I had to hide from, or keep my distance from,” Gabite continued. “I still believe they weren’t real, just advanced figments of the dungeon. Nightmare fuel constructs, no different from the Pokespawn. And yet, the dungeons seem to be alive in their own way, aren’t they? The Pokespawn, even? You told me they had a strange energy fueling them, with a sliver of a connection to something else, didn’t you?”
“I-I did.” That had been in his first dungeon experience, back in Sapling Woods. Just before meeting Feebas.
“I still dwell on what it means, on what exactly controls those things, or what the blasted red-purplish wisps actually represent. And these Missing One things? As accustomed as I’d like to think I am with dungeons, it doesn’t stop me from worrying, from needing to know — just what are they? How do I understand these distortions, and the things they contain? What in Haven Archipelago are these demons, these forces, that I keep colliding into?”
Gabite shut his eyes, shuddering breaths leaving his mouth. His fears seemed to leak all around him in a haunting miasma. “It’s all connected in some way, I know it,” he said. “The dungeons and Abhorrents are connected. The monsters hidden in the dungeons are connected. Are humans connected too? My humans, in particular?”
There weren’t any good words Lucario had for Gabite. None that would help him — but a Lucario seldom needed words. His paw burned blue, and he channeled a barrage of emotions, swarming Gabite in them.
Tender comfort.
Blazing courage.
Iron endurance.
And most of all, reassuring support. A reminder that even if nothing was fine, they’d change that. Together.
Until the day we are fated to separate.
Unaccustomed to aura’s emotive power, Gabite drowned in it, letting the telepathy overwhelm his mind and soul. “I didn’t ask for platitudes,” he grumbled, though his tone was several degrees lighter than before. “Braixen does it better anyway.”
Prickly as he was being, Lucario knew he was appreciative inside. His aura told him, just as it alerted him to the three figures approaching—
“I take that I’m not being replaced then?”
—right behind him. Lucario spun to face them, strangers to his eyes, and yet familiar as any friends of a friend could be. One was a hulking, samurai-like purple bug encased in a silver armor-like exoskeleton with six arms, four thin ones and two meaty ones. The second was a yellow-black desert lizard with a goofy grin, his frilled collar shaped like the sun. And the third, their leader, was a bipedal fox of fiery white and yellow hues, black legs, a great bushy tail, and a smooth wooden stick twirling in between his digits. Not to mention the Treasure Bag hanging from his shoulder.
There was no mistaking them. This was Team Elementri, the well-respected explorers Gabite had spoken of. They were Goliosopod, Heliolisk, and—
“Braixen.”
Gabite’s whisper seemed to echo through the indoor garden. A manic grin overtook him, but not the maddened sort. The opposite, in fact — a grin that looked right at home, filled with true clarity. Elation too, and wholesome joy. A joy all parties shared.
“Gabite.” Braixen’s stick had vanished before Lucario could even process where it’d been stuffed away, the fox beaming with full force. “You’ve been busy, brother.”
Both sides approached, their team leaders at the forefront. Gabite extended a claw, and Braixen snatched it, the twosome closing in to slap each other’s backs in a fierce hug.
“You don’t know how grateful I am to see your face,” Gabite said.
Braixen’s chuckle came a little pained. “I’d say I can take a gander,” he remarked.
They unwound themselves. Goliosopod leaned in, and Gabite grasped his meaty claw with a loud smack, both nodding their heads in respect. Then came Heliolisk, who playfully jabbed the dragon-shark’s arm. “Heard all about the news on our way back,” he said. “Got ourselves a little trouble in paradise, huh?”
Gabite parted his lips, but Heliolisk shushed him, chuckling to himself. “Nah, nah, don’t dump the nasty stuff on us already! We just got here, and besides—” he pointed at Lucario “—I’m more interested in this new handsome feller. What’s shaking, dude?”
He thrust his claw out, Lucario wincing at the sudden gesture. “Our hands are, that’s what!” said Heliolisk. “C’mon, put ‘er there!”
Lucario frowned. Heliolisk was too eager, his sleazy expression more criminal than Weavile and his gang. He stared at the claw, and imagined it being coated in bolts of electricity.
“He’ll tase me, won’t he?” he asked Braixen.
Gabite laughed as Heliolisk made a show of snapping his fingers and turning away with a pout, while Goliosopod shook his head in quiet amusement. “He would,” Braixen said, placing a paw over his mouth. “Have the journalists been a bother, Gabite? I must say, hearing from the news that you recruited more teammates was no small shock.”
“Temporary teammates,” the dragon-shark corrected. “Lucario here’s caring for a Vulpix — she’s with Shaymin and Togetic at the dojo. I’m afraid neither are here to stay.”
“Aw, temporary? And here I thought you finally got yourself another guy on your girl-infested team!” Heliolisk tsked to himself, before snatching Lucario’s paw and vigorously shaking it. “But whatever, mate’s still a mate. You enjoying life on an explorer team, Lucario? Don’t answer, I know you do.”
Heliolisk had refrained from shocking Lucario when he stole his paw, yet the jackal couldn’t help but feel like he’d been struck numb, Heliolisk’s antics proving a little much for him to keep up with. It’s like if Lanturn and Duosion were fused together with a human class clown from secondary school, he thought. Well, mostly Lanturn. And a class clown.
It was quite the jarring contrast to Goliosopod’s stoic silence and Braixen’s gentlemanly nature. “A Vulpix to care for, is it now? Strange to think you’d allow a spot on your team for a youngling, Gabite,” the fox stated, before sizing Lucario up. “But perhaps I am too hasty to judge, considering who her caretaker is. Your kind are the fabled aura warriors, Lucario, are they not? Gabite must’ve seen something in you and Vulpix to extend a temporary position as explorers on his already well-built team. Golisopod?”
Golisopod’s eyes turned to slits, Lucario feeling a strange weight from the armored behemoth’s stare. The thinner, sleeker four of his six arms quivered, and an approving hum left his raspy throat.
“Then that settles it. Gabite surely must’ve spoken of us to you, Lucario, but for the sake of politeness — I am Braixen, leader of Team Elementri.” Braixen gave a respectful nod. “Golisopod, Heliolisk, and I will look forward to your company, be it in times of idleness or amidst fierce combat. Gabite, may we arrange a debriefing with your full team in the afternoon? I share Heliolisk’s sentiment of regaining our bearings after our long trip, though in the interim, we do intend to visit Rocky Shores to see what’s become of it, and the circumstances we’re dealing with here.”
“Hard to swallow it all, isn’t it?”
Gabite’s remark made Team Elementri bristle ever so slightly. Braixen glanced once more at Lucario, before turning his attention to the Tasks Board room, eyes appearing to burn through the walls to stare directly at two condemned papers.
“Two Abhorrents, a Lugia, and a dungeon gone haywire?” he said. “Anything that intrigues Their Highnesses enough to leave their plush throne and investigate is a matter most extraordinary.”
“We kinda ran into him,” said Lucario.
“Ha! Same,” Heliolisk replied, waving wildly toward Braixen. “Fox wonder here hardly held himself, dealing with the two grand poobahs being up in our faces.”
Braixen dryly spat, his disdain laid as bare as a sheared Wooloo. “They’re merely here to flaunt themselves and indulge their curiosity. Trifling good we’ll get out of them,” he said, before throwing Gabite a solemn look. “It’s true you stopped Abhorrents from claiming Lugia, isn’t it? Lucario was comforting you when we arrived — I imagine the entire ordeal at the beach was most unpleasant.”
“Very unpleasant.” Gabite shook his head, a pitiful rasp leaving his throat. “Braixen, I relapsed.”
Team Elementri stirred as if compelled by a dark spell. Their eyes were wide — Heliolisk’s with horror, Golisopod’s with discomfort, and Braixen’s with raw concern. He opened his mouth, before gesturing to Lucario questioningly.
The jackal understood at once. “Gabite explained his past to the entire team,” he told him. “It’s not a secret between us.”
Braixen’s eyes managed to widen just a fraction more, bulging out of his skull. He muttered to himself, before approaching Gabite. The dragon-shark knelt his head, and Braixen gingerly pawed it.
“Illusions, brother,” he spoke in soothing tones. “They are but illusions, trapped in a stale dungeon of underground desert ruins, and you roam amidst the winds of a peacefully fading summer, free and alive. Nothing will harm you here.”
There was no mental or spiritual touch that accompanied Braixen’s words, but clearly it was unneeded. Lucario had his aura, but Braixen had both a deftness with words and years of brotherhood to make up for it. “The Abhorrents—” Gabite said.
“An inconvenience,” Braixen told him. “And not a problem you need to solve. Your mind is your own. Your life is your own. The mutants will not take you, least of all in this town.”
“No, Braixen. I can’t let Aerodactyl get to Lugia’s dungeon home.”
Braixen blinked, staring up at Gabite’s burning eyes. Primal, but with focus and determination. Courage even, reluctant as it was. It seemed to baffle the fox, just as much as his words.
“His dungeon home.”
“Yes.”
“Aerodactyl seeks a Legendary’s lair?”
“Lugia has something he wants.”
Another blink. Lucario raised a brow at the wand that had suddenly reappeared in Braixen’s paw, the Pokemon tapping it against his forehead as he scrutinized his old, changed friend. “Your Mythical?” he questioned. “Is she pushing you? This isn’t—”
“Oh, don’t coddle him, Braixen.” Heliolisk put a finger over his leader’s lips. “You went toe to toe with that skeletal Aerodactyl, Gabite, didn’t you? New record for bravery there, not gonna lie.”
A record already beaten by Gabite’s willingness to tolerate Eira — but Lucario didn’t mention that, of course. “I tried my best,” Gabite said with a weak chuckle. “Kept Aerodactyl from mutating Lugia. I’m proud of that, at least. But I need to make sure nothing worse happens.”
Team Elementri shared a glance. “You’re banking on us to help out,” said Heliolisk.
“Who else? We need all the help we can get.”
“Truly so, if the situation is so dire.” Braixen straightened himself, looking several years older from the exchange. “But again, let us save this for the afternoon. Just one quick favor, if it’s not rude — might I ask about the newly formed Stormsoaked Shores? Any special warnings you think we should consider when traversing it?”
Gabite barely had to mull over it. “Orbs don’t work,” he warned, before turning to Golisopod. “And the tentacles. Inspect them, but be extremely cautious. It’s important to me.”
Golisopod twitched, his head slowly nodding with forced bravery. “Ooh, yikes, that’s not something you wanna hear,” Heliolisk said. “Appreciate the tip, dude, we’ll be careful out there. Yo, Braixen, we gonna scour the databases on this new-fangled dungeon or what?”
Scarcely had they moved, however, when Gabite’s lips contorted into a grim, almost self-mocking expression. Lucario almost copied it, already knowing what parting words he had to fully blast Team Elementri’s worldview to smithereens. Eira was a taboo topic, but—
“I’ve made a few Abhorrent pals by the way, Braixen,” Gabite said. “They’re helping us fight their own kind. You’d love to meet them, I’m sure, wouldn’t you?”
—but not Eevee. The trio slowly faced Gabite, absolute incredulity warping Braixen and Heliolisk’s faces, and Golisopod doing his best not to follow suit. Lucario could almost feel them grappling with the impossibility. Trying to make sense of it.
Gabite allowed himself a sympathetic smile. A broken one. Braixen took a long, deep breath.
“We wouldn’t miss it for anything else,” he said.
It somehow wasn’t a lie.
Team Elementri went off toward the dungeon database section of the Explorer Board, likely to read up the catalogs on Stormsoaked Shores. Lucario frowned, doubts pricking him in their absence. Doubts on whether they made the right call.
Gabite picked up on it at once. “I’m doing this transparency thing for a reason,” he said. “Braixen’s a worrywort over me, Lucario — hiding things from him isn’t easy. Better that I tell him in advance about Eevee, so I can steer him clear of the Stringed Forest rumors when he inevitably tries to bug me about it. Gotta take control of the narrative before he yanks it from us, you know?”
Lucario’s eyes slid back to the hallway leading to the database center. Worries of Eira’s safety gnawed at his fur and skin, the jackal rubbing his arm as if it’d somehow banish them. “You better know what you’re doing,” he muttered.
“Trust me.”
Gabite coolly turned his own gaze toward where Braixen had departed. For a short while the twosome just stood there, Lucario dimly aware of a few other Pokemon passing by from the side. A Machoke, an Ivysaur, and a Delcatty to be exact, a fellow explorer team that briefly eyed them before heading off toward the Tasks Board.
A hum left Gabite’s throat. “Porygon-Z told me your humans have sleek, little machines with tons more processing power and way more diverse capabilities than our oversized ones. The notes your kid made — she mentioned computers? Phones? Affordable yet mind-blowing stuff that literally everyone owns?”
Ah, fun topic. The digital interfaces of the Explorer Board were only good for dungeon cataloging, all accessed through janky commands in a terminal. Stuff old-school scientists had to live with when computers were first made, according to Adam. “You really ought to tell me what Porygon-Z’s talked to you about,” said Lucario. “This the thing you wanted to interrogate my kid on?”
“Eh, it’s somewhere on the list.” Gabite folded his arms, beginning to walk out of the Explorer Board. “There’s something she knows that I know you don’t know.”
“As in?”
“Legendary stuff, Lucario.” For a moment conflict twisted Gabite’s face, before he made his choice. “But you know what? I’m in the mood to talk about Haven Archipelago’s history. You heard Their Highness name-drop the Calamitus, right?”
A wave of queasiness went through Lucario. “Excuse me?” he said in a raised voice.
----------------------------------------
Eira the Vulpix jolted with a start. The candles of Mismagius’s mediation chamber burnt with half-dead flames, giving feeble light to the small room.
A part of her absentmindedly worried herself over the dangers of smoke conglomerating in such a small space — did the room have hidden ventilation systems? — while the rest of her stared at her paws. Which had been human hands a moment ago.
I’m awake?
“Floating ice sphere. Do it.”
Mismagius sat across the room, strangely weary and yet as prim as ever, her lack of acknowledgment of Eira’s thoughts confirming she was back in the real world. In a heartbeat Eira shifted to her human self again, a hand clasping her head at the slight dizziness she felt, before she followed the pattern she’d grown accustomed to.
Ice forming over her palm. Her shaping it into a sphere. Anchoring it to her hand. Conjuring wind to levitate it in place.
All familiar. As was the recoil, her soul hissing at the drain it produced upon her. But Mismagius had not been one to content herself with the exact same exercises. “Move it in circles,” she commanded.
Done. A careful adjustment of her wind, and the sphere wobbled away from her palm. Her anchor pulled it like a gravitational force, and her wind acted like inertia, keeping it going — making it circle around her hand.
“Let it orbit your finger.”
An adjustment of the anchor and the winds, along with a swift movement of her hand. Eira sweated, cautiously lowering the sphere to have it run loops around her index finger. Her soul tensed.
“Break and reform the sphere. Without dropping it.”
Mismagius had never asked her to do that before. You’re kidding me, thought Eira, and yet she tried, trying to do something.
Pressure from her wind. Her sphere splintered into ice shards, and for a moment, Eira thought she herself was also splintering. Too many shards to individually keep midair! Her wind quickly encapsulated them all like a bubble, but it was hard to keep it going. She struggled against it like a man pushing a boulder uphill, his muscles trembling with traitorous will.
Push. Her wind bubble shrunk in, delicately moving the broken shards toward each other.
Then fuse. Eira lowered the shards close to her hand, before producing icy mist. She let it worm through a hole in her bubble — oh, did it hurt! — and in between the shards. It solidified under her command, and—
Eira gasped as ice shards went crashing down, many plinking against her palm and scattering throughout the little meditation room. They melted, and Eira melted too, her head hung.
“That one was too much for me,” she lamented.
A cloth-arm caressed her shoulder. Mismagius picked up an ice shard with the other arm, inspecting it. “It was supposed to be,” she said. “Had you beaten my expectations again and managed it, I would’ve felt obliged to eat manure for the next three days.”
“O-oh.”
“Suffice to say, you’ve already exceeded expectations. Many of those exercises weren’t meant to be doable for you.” A faint smile covered Mismagius’s lips. “For a species that has forgotten so much of their magic, I am pleased to find you have a talent for it.”
The praise made Eira blush. Mismagius had been putting her through multiple exercises, having her manipulate her ice ball in different ways in order to get her acclimated to the activity. The whole time, Eira carefully had to find methods to get the exact results she wanted, with Mismagius pointing out tips for how she could design her magic to do so. It had been grueling, but for this? It was worth it.
Especially since it’d been just enough to push her spirit’s confines. Level 15. “I didn’t think I’d go up a Level for something so basic,” murmured Eira.
“Basic? Yes, for an expert wizard, but in your case, you are pushing your limits.” Candles rekindled themselves as Mismagius eyed them one by one, bursting into little orange flames. “The same way that you build up physical muscles from constant use, you build up your supernatural muscles similarly. Constant use of your abilities will develop your spirit, especially when you exert yourself beyond your current capabilities.”
Was that so? That explained why her soul grew quicker when she started as an Alolan Vulpix, when just using her newfound abilities was something she wasn’t used to. Now she needed to push herself harder to get the same gains. “And that’s how your Level goes up?” Eira asked, caressing the pain in her soul. “You get stronger by straining yourself?”
Mismagius threw a heavy look at her. Eira fidgeted but kept silent, and the witch tsked, turning her gaze toward one of her flicking candles.
“Did Lucario tell you Levels give you raw strength?”
The very air around Eira seemed to burn. “Y-yes?”
“They imply strength. They are not strength itself.” Another tsk left Mismagius, her clearly forced smile bearing the heat of a hundred candle flames. “It’s infuriating, really. The vast energies conjured by the spirit, translated into a mere discrete number ranging from one to a hundred? Have you any idea of how often Pokemon misconceive them as some kind of system denoting how powerful and skilled they are, as a proof of superiority over those of lower Levels? How often I’ve had to correct simpletons who cannot get such ridiculous ideas out of their heads?”
Eira nervously touched her spirit again, inspecting it further. She noted the size of her lifeforce, a pond filled with growing will and determination. Her pool always seemed to expand with her progress as a Pokemon, and also now, as a human wizard. “Are Levels,” Eira asked, “just milestones for how much energy I can hold?”
“How much energy your spirit can channel, yes.” Mismagius’s smile traded its heat in exchange for authenticity, becoming a pleasant, real smile. “When you touch the inexplicable knowledge in your spirit, do you notice how it translates into something you can make sense of, like your moves and how to use them? Your Level works that way — it is but a unit of measurement. It hints at how attuned one is to the spirit and the inner energy that resides within.”
That made more sense than Levels being a literal power level. Lucario had told her something similar, come to think of it, back on her first night after joining Team Heavendust. The higher your Level, the more energy I can use.
Except it was really the other way around. The more energy she could use, the higher her Level became to reflect that. It was like digging a well — a deeper well could hold more water, and one’s Level told you how deep the well was, more or less.
I just have to keep digging. Even if it gets harder and harder with time.
Perhaps that was another difference between humans now and the wizards of old. Modern magic-users were content with easy gains, with few willing to truly struggle and break past their limits. Their connection to magic was weak, nothing compared to true sorcery. “What were they like?” Eira asked, the need to know making her heart pound. “The humans that did get attuned to their spirit? A-and—”
“You have many questions, don’t you? One at a time, please.” Mismagius sat herself back down, cloak-like body spread over the room’s carpet. “Tales say the elite amongst them could rend cracks in mountains, raze forests whole in wildfires, fly through the skies in hurricanes, or fling dreadful thunderstorms whose lightning could briefly part the oceans. The most skilled of them, archwizards, were said to be on par with even greater Legendaries.”
It sounded too fantastic, like a story out of Mother’s wildest novels. And yet Gabite had faced humans of sorts — or whatever it was that lurked in Tumbledust Island — mages that had brainwashed the inhabitants of their dungeon, a power more outlandish than what Mismagius described. “They could channel any element?” Eira asked. “Not just psychic powers?”
“Humans are far more flexible than us Pokemon, in that regard,” was Mismagius’s reply. “But their affinities often drew them toward certain types. Your affinity draws you to Ice, does it not? The things you gravitate to shape your affinity — your Alolan Vulpix form likely attests to that.”
Alolan Vulpix. Her favorite Pokemon, wielding the powers of the cold winter. Alola’s hot tropical weather had always been a point of grievance for her — summer days there were the worst, its heat promising lethargy and exhaustion. She far preferred the wonder of snow, the frigid touch of chilly weather. Being numb to the bone wasn’t pleasant either, of course, but better to be shivering than to be burning away.
Out of wonder, Eira cast her ice, feeling how cold it was. Freezing cold, her human flesh wincing at its touch. A little piece of ice that she herself conjured, and it bothered her.
“Of course, very few humans reached that pinnacle, and only through the decades of work that Legendaries themselves had to put themselves through.” Eira managed to keep herself from jumping at the false Mismagius beside her right shoulder. “They all started small and pitiful, hardly able to cast an ember without getting burnt, or let lightning spark through their fingers without spasming from the shock.”
“You may find,” another Mismagius on her left said, “that in time you’ll be able to insulate yourself from your own Ice, and control more than a single sphere of frost. You may learn to cast cold winds, rain down icicles, and shield yourself with ice walls.”
“You may branch out into illusions,” said yet another Mismagius, floating above her head. “Simple ones at first that blur the features of your face or hide the wristband you wear, before learning to conceal yourself whole and make false duplicates of yourself.”
The original Mismagius sitting on the carpet waved an arm, and her clones vanished into nothingness. “But of course,” she finished, “All this requires great amounts of practice. And patience. And so, young Eira, I instruct you to practice what we’ve done here today. Dreams train your knowledge, but it is reality where you must train your ability to apply it, and to properly develop your fledgling spirit. Understood?”
Eira nodded, and thus their lesson met its conclusion, candlelights winking out as one. She donned her Vulpix form as the pair left the meditation room, crossing the silent hall of the dojo’s fourth floor.
All the while, Eira couldn’t help but reflect on what she’d learnt today. On the ways of human magic, and what it would develop into. What she, an ill omen, could do in a week’s time. In a month, or several. A year.
What am I going to become? she thought. Amazement and fear wrestled with her, the false vixen unsure which was more appropriate to feel.
In the end, she chose to distract herself. And she had the perfect distraction in mind. “The Calamitus,” she said, and Mismagius paused at the edge of the stairway. “You hinted I knew of a Calamitus.”
The witch nodded, contemplating for a brief, endless moment. “You know it as Eternatus,” she said. “The last ancient scourge that blighted these islands, a little before mankind mysteriously disappeared from our history.”
The name of the Darkest Day, a cosmic skeletal serpent of monstrous proportions and an entity worse than the Ultra Beasts or even the Necrozma that Eira had expected to hear about, was like several injections of Ariados’s Poison Stings into her Alolan Vulpix body. She shifted her paw in time to avoid a misstep down the first steps of the staircase.
Goodness, she couldn’t have asked for a better distraction.