Inyssa thought she was ready for the kind of training Maylene had prepared. She'd accepted it all high and mighty, sporting a wide grin like someone who knew what she was getting into.
The first three days had been nothing short of hell for her Pokemon. The regime was built specifically so that they would last just long enough to clear their tasks before collapsing from exhaustion. And collapse they did, so violently that she felt her own heart tugging just looking at it.
Still, she couldn't deny it. The brutal training was slowly but surely bearing fruit.
The wind blowing just outside the city hit her in the back, rustling the grass and making shiver. She stood in the middle of a wide, empty circle, forest at her right and rock formations at her left, carefully observing each of her Pokemon as they approached the end of their daily quota, which was less than a few minutes away.
Shadi stood close to the rock formation, body covered in dirt and sweat. Determined little thing, she slashed at a stone in front of her, scythes covered in a pale green energy. Her task was to charge an attack in less than half a second and still gather enough power to cut one of those stones in half. So far she'd managed to get through half of it.
Looking towards the forest she saw the white and black blur that was Steven dive through the thick branches. He was to fly from one extreme to the other as fast as he could while not letting himself be touched by anything, not even a single leaf.
However Kuro and Bret's training was the most brutal, since they were the two least accustomed to actual combat. First they worked on their endurance by running laps around the city for an hour, then they took turns attacking the other with either razor leaves or electricity, and whoever was on the receiving end had to dodge a hundred of those attacks in a row. Kuro's record was fifty-five, while Bret's was in the low forties.
All of them were making progress, a lot faster than she actually expected. Still, there was a long way to go and they had less than four days to get there. Maylene had put it very clearly; she'd only accept her challenge once her Pokemon cleared their specific trials.
They can do it, she assured herself. They've already proved themselves more than once.
The clock struck four and her Pokétch let out a high pitched beep, startling her out of her thoughts.
The noise was music to the ears of her Pokemon, who fell to their knees as if their souls had left their bodies. Steven appeared from between the threes and flapped weakly towards her, chest rising up and down with his heavy breathing.
"Alright everyone, that was a lot better than yesterday!" She clapped her hands and tried to form the brightest smile she could. "Steven, you're getting so close! I know you'll only need a few more tries to succeed."
The Staravia let out a chirp of exhaustion, rubbing his cheek against hers.
"Kuro and Bret, you're both getting so fast! And your reflexes are improving wonderfully." She patted both of them in the head. "And you, Shadi…"
Her praise was cut short as she saw her Kricketune laying face down on the grass, snoring loudly. She'd fallen asleep as soon as the clock struck four.
Pride tugged at something behind her chest. Without a word she knelt in front of her and felt Shadi's forehead with her fingers.
"I'm so proud of you," she whispered. "I promise all this training will be worth it."
She returned them all to their Pokeballs so they could get some well-deserved rest. Then, she approached one of the stones Shadi had been carving and sat on it, letting the wind carry her thoughts away. Leaning back on the flat surface of the rock, eyes fixed on the clear sky above. There were few if any clouds to be seen, and the strong wind ruffled her hair and threatened with toppling her hat off her head. She took a deep, deliberate breath and closed her eyes for a moment.
No time to rest. You still have something else to do.
She nodded weakly and unwittingly got to her feet again. Her hand hovered over one of her Pokeballs, the one occasionally zapping her hip with weak jolts of electricity.
"Here goes nothing…" she whispered, and pressed the button.
Light exploded in front of her, and two electric blue eyes emerged from it.
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"Is it okay if we have a chat?"
Inyssa didn't like how her words sounded, how the air left her throat all slowly and full of doubt, disappearing into the loud crackle of electricity that Hao expelled from his body.
His eyes were set on her. Bright and unblinking, to the point where it hurt to stare directly at them. But she had to. She wouldn't be the first to look away.
"I don't know if you've been… paying attention to what's been happening," she continued, swallowing down the gnawing anxiety boiling in her throat. "Why Enma isn't with us anymore. You tend to keep to yourself, after all."
Absolutely no response. Not even a movement or nod or fucking anything to tell her he was listening. She would've almost preferred the jolts of electricity coming her way.
Electrocute me once for yes, and twice for no.
Forcing laughter back into her belly, she kept speaking. "My point is… I wanted to know what your answer was, about what happened in the fight with Fantina. I promised you I'd do anything you asked, even if…" She gulped, choking on the possibility. "Anyway, just wanted to let you know that you can take me up on that."
A slow, frantic buzz came from his tiny mouth, which sent a shiver through Inyssa's spine. After about five counted heartbeats Hao finally moved, floating down slowly and leaving weak blue flashes behind him. She held her breath and did her best not to turn around and run away as he approached.
He stopped in front of her right hand, and his eyes set on the device in her wrist. Another few buzzes and crackles left his mouth.
"My… Pokétch?" She raised the thing in front of her. "What do you…"
Realization came to her. A memory floated up from her mind in front of her eyes, from that day in Eterna. A single image; that of Hao's unblinking eyes behind the monitor of that machine.
A small gasp escaped her mouth. "R-right! You went inside the machine, somehow. Can you…" She looked down at the device. "Do you want to… enter my Pokétch?"
Yet another whirr of incomprehensible sounds, which were starting to make her head hurt.
Really wish I had some frame of reference for this fucking thing.
"Sure, if that's what you w…"
A blink later and Hao had disappeared. She stood frozen for a few seconds, gaze unblinking towards the empty space where her Pokemon was just a moment before.
An electronic beep coming from her Pokétch brought her back to reality. She looked down at the screen blinking on and off as apps were opened by someone who wasn't her.
"Hao, I'm doing my best not to freak out here…" she said. "And I'd appreciate it if you could tell me what the hell you're doing."
Two warnings simultaneously popped up in the screen, accompanied by two loud beeps.
Downloading: Knight-Mayres RPG Character Creator.
Downloading: Chatot's Text to Speech App.
"Wh-" She furrowed her brow, deeply confused. "Hao what are you…"
"Ah, this feels so much better!"
If the blasted Pokétch weren't attached to her wrist she would've sent it flying with how strongly she jumped backwards.
A person had just appeared in her screen, blocking most of the apps and the purple wallpaper of her phone. He looked like a tall, handsome anime boy with spiky red hair and electric blue eyes. The outfit he wore was some ungodly combination of a traditional Johtonian kimono and an RPG-like leather jacket with sharp shoulders and a bunch of belts hanging from it.
"What the f…" Inyssa took a step back, not quite realizing that didn't get her far away from what she was seeing. "H-Hao? Is that… you?"
The outlandish boy smiled widely, showing his perfect white teeth. His eyes sent a jolt through her hand towards her entire body.
"The inside of this thing is so much comfier than a Pokéball," he said, his voice just close enough to a human one to be uncanny. "You have no idea."
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Inyssa was, as she so eloquently put it inside her head, freaking the ever-loving fuck out, which didn't help with the ghost Pokemon's wishes of having a conversation with her.
"I thought having a more human appearance would make you more comfortable!" Hao yelled, a cartoonishly large sweat drop appearing at the side of his head.
Inyssa shook her head strongly. "How is that human? You look straight out of a bad RPG from twenty years ago! I…" She drove one hand through her hair, words failing her. "Hao, I appreciate it but like… this is really fucking weird. How are you even…?"
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Hao sent a small jolt through Inyssa's wrist, making her squint. A devious smile could be seen on his face.
"You saw what I can do back in Eterna, didn't you?" His avatar shrugged, at about four frames per second. "Controlling a tridimensional model program and a voice modulator at once isn't a big deal."
I beg to differ, she wanted to say. If not for the painful shock he'd sent her way she would've thought she was dreaming.
"I just… this is…" She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. "No offense Hao but… this is not how I imagined this would play out at all."
His avatar smiled widely, showing his perfect white teeth. It kinda reminded her of Barry.
"Don't I look cute in this?" he said as he did a small twirl, grabbing onto the folds of his outfit. "Shame about my hair, though. I wanted more of a # f6865d kind of color but I had to settle for a # f84200 due to the app's limitations."
Inyssa had absolutely no idea what any of those garbled letters and numbers meant, and she made it clear by the complete and utter confusion reflected in her face. She felt like the cogs inside her brain had stopped.
"Oh, almost forgot." Hao stopped doing twirls and he set his blue eyes on her. "You said you'd do anything I wanted, right?"
She was caught off guard, but after a few seconds she gave him a slow, careful nod. Something about the way he talked… she knew his voice was completely electronic and didn't belong to him, but she could feel his intonation through it somehow.
"Yeah, I owe you that much."
"Awesome!" he clapped. "I didn't want to rush you, but I've been waiting for this for a while."
The answer made itself wait, and Inyssa had to stop herself from complaining and tell him to just say it already. A knot started to form in her throat.
"What I want..." He looked at her, not smiling anymore. "...is for you to break my Pokeball."
Oh.
Inyssa wanted to take a step back, but feared she'd break into pieces as soon as she did so. A memory surfaced from the icy mist inside her mind.
Suddenly, she was fifteen again, wearing her old black and pink outfit. An open door stood between her and the look of regret and sadness in Sarah's eyes.
She'd brought with her the news that would change her life, tucked all neat and professionally under her arm. The news that would turn her mother bedridden for almost a year and land Inyssa in a hospital for weeks. Eyes dull and colorless, mind dazed by the myriad of pills given to her as punishment for what she'd tried to do. For trying to make the hurt stop, make the knowledge that she was fated to be abandoned by everyone disappear.
It wasn't just a sister she'd lost that day. And faced with the realization that she might be about to lose Hao as well… even if she didn't know him that well, even if he was the member of her team she struggled to understand the most…
Wetness formed in her eyes, and she quickly covered them with her hands. Sloppy they were, all shaking and about as telltale as an open book.
Get a fucking hold of yourself.
"If that's what you want…" She began to say, desperation clinging to her voice. "I'll do it, I'll break…"
"Jeez, what's gotten into you?" Hao interrupted her with a judging glance. "I'm only asking you to break it because I wanna live here from now on."
In any other situation, perhaps one where she wasn't on the verge of crying, Inyssa would've loved to see her own face as she heard him. She figured it might have been funny enough to make it all worth it.
"Wh-what?" she asked, whisper thin. "But I thought you…"
"What do I get from leaving you?" Hao shook his head slightly, one hand raised. "We're both after the same thing, and I can't survive out there."
She had to open her mouth a couple times before the words came out. "What do you… mean?"
"Stop saying What!" He threw his hands down, eyebrows pinched together. "Seriously, it's like I'm talking to a kid. You're smart, aren't you? Stop bawling your eyes out and get a clue already!"
She threw one last sniff as she wiped her eyelids with her sleeve. "I wasn't bawling, shut up!"
Hao's avatar rolled his eyes and Inyssa had the urge to throw her Pokétch into the ground. What was he talking about anyway? Nothing indicated they had anything in common, much less…
She stopped, and realization came to her.
"Team Galactic." For the first time she uttered the name with more surprise than rage. "Back in Eterna! That old guy seemed to recognize you and…" She put a hand on her head, trying to remember through the haze of that day. "You were the one who made everything explode."
Hao looked away. "That wasn't my proudest moment. It wasn't long after you caught me so I was still pretty mad. I just wanted to bring down Charon, even if…" He gulped. "Well, you saw what happened. I do apologize for putting you in such danger."
Charon… she could swear she'd heard the name at some point in her life, but it just wasn't coming to her. Still, considering Hao's attitude towards him and the fact he'd been as heartless as to use a bunch of innocent young Pokemon to extract that energy…
She began to connect the dots inside her head, and really started wishing she was wrong about her assumptions.
"There was no information about you in the Pokédex. And the only one who saw you before me was my sister, so…" She squinted. "Are you… did Charon… create you?"
Silence swallowed the field around them for a few heartbeats, while Hao's eyes were glued to the lower part of the screen.
"That's one way you could put it," he said, all joy gone from his voice. "He's the one who turned me into… this."
"I've heard of artificial Pokemon like Porygon before, but… I never thought I'd see one," she whispered, beside herself. "Ah, sorry if that's insensitive."
"I don't care," he said, just a bit too fast for it to be true. "Not a huge fan of talking about it, and I don't remember many of the details myself. All I know is that I want to find Charon, and kill him."
The word made her recoil, even though she knew it shouldn't have. Of course he wanted the man dead, she chastised herself, so why did the idea turn sour inside her mind? If she were in front of Mars right now, would she…?
"Whenever I go against Team Galactic I'll make sure to find him for you," she said. "I owe you that much."
"And when will that be?"
She stood quiet for a few seconds. I haven't really thought of that.
"I need to train my team first. At the very least get through most of the Gyms before I go looking for them. I'm not gonna endanger any of my friends again."
Hao didn't seem to be paying much attention as he floated on his back through the screen, hands behind his head. "How noble of you. Well, you better catch someone else then, because I'm not really made for fighting."
Inyssa raised an eyebrow. "Really? You seemed plenty strong against Fantina's Mismagius."
"I am strong, and I needed to gain your trust," he said, "but I was specifically not designed for battle. Charon made it so just being in the open makes the electric charge of my body dissipate, and when I actually attack… well, I imagine you don't know what a huge part of your being suddenly disappearing feels like."
Guilt crept up her spine. She'd been the one who asked him for help during the fight with Fantina, and thanks to that…
"Don't feel bad about it." He waved his hand, seemingly reading her thoughts. "It's definitely not as bad as when you found me. Back then I was so weak and desperate I was willing to kill you just to get inside your Pokétch and recharge."
She wasn't sure how comfortable she felt with the casual way he mentioned that, as if trying to bury them under a couple tons of rubble were the equivalent of playing a prank on them.
"Why did you stay in the Old Chateau for so long?" she asked. "If you need to recharge your body after some time…"
A powerful shiver traveled from her wrist to the rest of her body, the pale ghost of the shock she'd suffered earlier. She stopped talking as she saw the daunting expression in Hao's eyes.
"I was trapped there," he growled, eyes narrowed. "By that woman, the one with the faded green eyes."
"Sh-Shadi?" She yelped, eyes going wide. "That can't be, she said in her report that you disappeared from the house and she gave up!"
Hao let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a cough of irritation. "Well, whatever her intention was, she's the reason I was stuck there for two years. She put that… weird stone plate in one of the rooms, and it was like a magnet. I couldn't get out of the house no matter how hard I tried."
The Specter Plate, she thought as her eyes went wide. An image flashed in her mind, that of Barry standing in front of that strange statue in Eterna City while he read the inscriptions in both the plates he'd found. All the while his eyes had turned that warm and powerful gold.
She bit her thumb, her mind going as fast as it was capable of trying to connect the dots. It felt like she was trying to solve a puzzle while blinded and missing half the pieces.
Shadi… she had the missing pieces, that was for sure. Whatever had happened to her it had something to do with all the strange things she'd encountered in her travels. It was possible that she and her friends had gotten into a situation they shouldn't have, and the result…
"I… I'm sure Shadi didn't know how your body worked," she said. "She didn't mean to put you in that situation."
"Don't worry about it," Hao said. "I'd say we're about even considering what happened."
She couldn't help but smile. "Yeah… I guess."
"And it's nice to finally get to talk to you."
"Yeah! I've been meaning to get to know you better, even if I'm still super weirded out by all this."
He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "You'll get used to it."
Another thing came to mind, and she let her shoulders drop.
"How do I tell Barry about it? He'll freak out even worse than me."
A wicked grin formed on Hao's face. "Another thing you don't know how to get across to Barry? Careful, that pile's already big enough to almost collapse on itself."
Inyssa's frown almost managed to make Hao regret his words.
"You…" She gulped, cheeks turning red. "Don't tell me…you could hear stuff through your Pokeball?"
"Yep, see them too," he added. "Don't worry though, I tried my best to respect your privacy. As best I could, anyway."
She recoiled, realization hitting her like a punch to the face. That night with Barry, right after she'd woken up from her fever…
"Oh god…" she whispered, eyes unfocused. "Okay, new order. You're not allowed to see or hear anything that's outside whenever it's clear I want some privacy, you freak!"
Hao's high pitched giggle made her want to punch the screen until it turned to shreds.
"Sure, no problem," he said through chuckles. "I can use that time to do other things, like take a look at all these files you have inside this thing, connected to the computer in your house."
"Y-you… wouldn't," she growled, voice full of poison.
He put a hand over his mouth, through which could be seen the corners of his smile. "Oh my, is this a folder full of your fanfiction? How curious…"
"Don't you dare!" She tried to shut off the Pokétch but all the buttons were locked. "Hao, this is not funny!"
"I could feel Vivi's warm breath slip through my fingers as I placed the piece of chocolate in front of her face," he read aloud, making Inyssa flinch at the sound of every word. "She locked eyes with me and gently parted her lips, a deep blush tinting her cheeks red. The book we'd been reading left our minds as we bared the weight of each other's gaze, our hearts pounding longingly..."
"I swear to god I will throw this thing into the fucking lake!" she threatened, pointing towards a small body of water in the horizon.
"Jeez, learn to take a joke!" Hao laughed, raising both hands. "I'm not gonna look into these anymore, I just wanted to get a rise out of you! I promise I'll behave…"
Now that's a goddamned lie, she thought to herself as she read through his expression like an open book.
She let out a deep sigh. "Great, now I have another pain in the ass to take care of."
They both shared a short laugh as they contemplated their current situation. Inyssa was pretty sure if someone had told her that her terrifying ghost Pokemon was a merry prankster who'd end up living inside her Pokétch she would've looked at them and silently wonder what kind of drugs they were on.
Still, there was something that weighed on her even though there was a smile on her lips. Something round and metal, hanging from the side of her belt like a cold reminder.
It's just like a band-aid, you gotta do it fast so it doesn't hurt.
Except that had always been a lie because ripping something off fast still fucking hurt.
She grabbed Hao's Pokeball and moved it between her hands, the previous levity turning sour in her mouth as she convinced herself to do what she needed to do. It was only a gesture, after all. It wasn't like Hao would actually leave her.
"You can take your time," he said through the device. There was no sign of sarcasm in his voice.
She nodded slowly and pressed the button on the middle of the Pokéball. It opened and showed her an empty inside, coated in black metal and something that looked like glass.
Just get it over with already.
Her fingers closed around the outer edges so strongly they turned white, and with hands trembling she started to apply force. The hinges keeping both halves together started to bend and budge under her strength, and after only a couple of seconds she felt the snap of thin metal, accompanied by a crack that, to her, sounded like the sound of bones shattering.
The now useless pieces of metal fell to the ground, bouncing slightly against the wet grass. She stared at them for god knows how long, eyes lost someplace else.
Looks like I'm down to four members again, she thought to herself, forming a weak smile.