Thursday, June 8th, 1978, 2215

I was rewarded with a loud sigh, but Dani began explaining herself shortly after. "Okay. You should probably know anyway since you were the one who didn't want to check this place out in the first place. I think you were probably right about this place; something is wrong here."

I blinked. Rare was the day I was told bluntly that I was right about anything. "Go on. We voted, and it was a done deal. What happened?"

"It was a few minutes after you left, and we were just settling down. Ellie was trying to find new clothes for Annabelle, and I was working on bandaging my heels. I have some nasty blisters that I've been working on for the last week, and they got scraped off. Again. There was a knock on the door, and Ellie rushed over to grab it since she thought it was the food. We hadn't eaten since noon, so honestly, I can't blame her. Regardless, she ran up to open the door before waiting the thirty seconds that Ona asked us to. When she opened it, the air just—" Dani trailed off, looking away as if not wanting to continue her story.

"Go on," I urged in my most comforting tone. This was shaping up to be far more interesting than my blissful nap.

Dani took a deep breath before continuing, letting it out slowly. "When she opened it, the air froze. I don't know how to explain it. The windows iced over, and the room temperature must have dropped below zero instantly. That wasn't the worst part, though."

"What was the worst part?"

"It was the feeling that there was something in there with me. Watching me." She shuddered. "Hunting me, or something near to it. Have you ever come face to face with a really scary pokemon, Mare? Where you really thought you were going to die in that moment."

Dani looked up at me with a slightly pained gaze as if she were searching for something.

Validation, maybe?

"Yes. I have," I admitted.

"What was it like?" She asked.

I hesitated, trying to decide how much I really wanted to talk about one of the more traumatizing experiences I had experienced. It wasn't a memory I was fond of, and I didn't want to trouble Dani any further.

"You can tell me," she urged angrily. "I can tell what you were thinking. You didn't want to make me more upset. That's bullshit, Mare. I'm older than you and have been through more than you can imagine. Don't pity me. Ever."

The fire in her voice swayed me and convinced me I had been going about this whole romance thing incorrectly.

Dani wasn't some 'girly girl' or someone who needed to be protected or educated about pokemon. She wasn't a prodigy like Sula or an optimistic free spirit like Ellie. She worked hard and wanted respect for what she put in.

I realized then that I had unconsciously treated everyone except for Kiriel and Sula as less than.

Less educated. Less prepared. Less experienced.

Not able to handle things like I could.

How fucking arrogant can I be? I inwardly cringed before going on ahead with the story. Epiphanies are never convenient.

"It was on our annual trip to Hoenn. I was thirteen, and Sula was fifteen. It was during the break after she finished her first run at the conference. Kiriel made sure that Sula and I traveled a lot. She came with us sometimes, but it was usually just us and a few hand-picked Seiichi clansmen. In this instance, that was the case."

"How many of them were there with you?" Dani inquired.

"Six, not including Sula and I. There were five normal soldiers and then Koga," I explained.

"Koga?"

I nodded. "Koga has been one of my primary trainers. I think he's in his mid-thirties at this point, but it's honestly hard to tell with how unreadable he is. I hope he stepped down to work on having a family this year; I know he wanted to. He's the head of one of the branch families subservient to the Seiichi. They're next in line to inherit if things ever went disastrously wrong, too."

Dani whistled. "I still can't believe you got personal trainers your entire life. Ones that are family heads. That's so unfair! You would've died in the public education system." She shook her head with a wry smile. "What happened with your personal squad of guards? They scare a big bad pokemon away for you?"

I gave an odd half-smile at that. "Well, they died, so no. All of them except for Koga."

Dani's blanched looking like she swallowed a bug. "Mare, I didn't mean—"

I waved off her apology with a hand. "It's fine, I know you didn't mean anything by it. We were up in Meteor Falls, in the Northwest corner of Hoenn. Sula was determined to catch either a Lunatone or Solrock, rare pokemon only found in that specific area. They're rumored to originate from a meteor that crashed in the region centuries ago.

In any case, we had been wandering around this stupid cavern for, like, two days. All we had been seeing were tons of Zubat and the occasional Geodude. Annoying stuff, really. Zubat are loud as hell. Then, Sula had the bright idea of scaling this literal cliff face further into the cave. It was crazy, but Koga is an enthusiast of clever and unique ideas. Says it helps with battle readiness or some bullshit that he got off of Kiriel."

I paused, looking over at Dani to see if she was still paying attention; she was. Her eyes were glued onto me with a laser focus.

I continued, "In any case, we painstakingly scaled this cliff. It must have been close to one hundred meters from the base, but we made it over the course of several hours and many close calls. It had only been a few minutes after we arrived, and Sula decided to storm off into the distance. Classically, she almost immediately found a baby Bagon and grabbed it."

"Oh shit," Dani breathed, telling me she already knew the pokemon and the implied result.

"Oh shit is an understatement," I confirmed, grimacing. "A mother Salamence tore out after Sula seconds later. It wasn't pretty. It didn't take five seconds to rip the five guards to shreds. Probably less. Pretty impressive to average a life per second, really."

"Mare, I get the picture; you don't have to finish," Dani said quietly.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I shuddered as I remembered their screams. "I had previously seen some dragon pokemon in matches against Kiriel, but they were few and far between. This was way different. I don't think this Salamence had even seen humans before and immediately saw us as threats. Anyway, I was helpless. I couldn't breathe or move and just stood there aimlessly, waiting to be eviscerated like the others. Ever dutiful, Koga threw me aside to cover for my inadequacy. Together, Sula and Koga barely managed to take it down, but not before it took down nearly all of Koga's team."

I took a deep breath. It was tough to recount the experience even years later. "Was that the kind of story that you were looking for?"

Dani nodded, surprising me. "Yes. It was. That's exactly what I felt in our cute little inn room less than an hour ago. I was nearly paralyzed, Mare. I couldn't even get a pokéball out to stop it! And I don't even know what it is. It was there for fleeting seconds and then suddenly gone. Ellie couldn't even feel it, which is what got me panicking so bad before you got here. I sort of started spinning out in my head."

She shook her head in disappointment. "We got in a fight, I guess. I got really freaked out when she acted like nothing was wrong after I was frozen, just waiting to die. I felt like a crazy person. I'm not a crazy person," she said in a nearly pleading tone, looking up at me with glistening eyes.

"I'm not," she whispered, barely audible. She turned away, staring absently in the mist.

I waved my hands disarmingly. "Woah. Nobody said anything about you being crazy. Did Ellie say something?"

"No," Dani mumbled.

I cocked my head curiously. "Then why are you so worried about it? It sounds like you had a run-in with something powerful."

"I don't want to talk about it," she said softly.

I looked around, making sure there were no unwanted listeners. "Honestly, I think a powerful psychic or ghost pokemon might be around. The signs match up. The creepy hypnotic doors, that weird presence you just experienced, the weird vibe I got when Ellie first noticed that path."

Dani perked up at that, pulling herself partway from the water. I noticed she was wearing the same black sports bra she wore the day I had first met her. Like I could forget something so important.

"Do you really think so? What kind of pokemon could paralyze me like that? Aren't they super rare, anyway? I've only ever heard of them around battlefields or graveyards, like the one in Lavender Town."

I considered the question. My idea had been pinging around in my head with little thought about what specific pokemon it might be.

"It could be a Dusclops, or even a Banette. They're not native to Kanto, but Hoenn isn't that far away. Hypno also have a really negative reputation here. There are plenty of options." I looked around suspiciously, but couldn't see anything beyond the immediate vicinity. "We should not talk about it that much, though. It can probably hear us even now. Best to just keep our heads down until we get out of here."

Dani visibly shivered as she considered my comment. "Way to bring down the conversation. Now I have to think about an eavesdropping lethal pokemon!"

I huffed. "How is an eavesdropping pokemon worse than a story about a murderous Salamence or your concerns about being crazy?"

Instantly, the air changed. It had been a comfortable yet solemn atmosphere to share experiences, and now it was dark, with a melancholy wave emanating from Dani.

Oh shit. I said something wrong, I realized immediately.

"I'm sor—," I started apologizing, but Dani cut me off with a brisk wave.

She sighed. "It's fine; I wanted to tell you anyway. It's not likely for me to be so emotional. Since we arrived, my negative thoughts and fears seem magnified a hundred-fold, especially after my run-in with whatever pokemon you think might be running this place."

"Tell someone what? I don't really get what's going on, but I promise I'll listen and not breathe a word to anyone," I assured her.

"You promise?" She held out her hand, pinky extended.

"I promise," I said and linked my pinky with hers.

Dani settled back into position deeper into the water, leaving her mouth barely visible. "You know how I told you that my dad gave me his Rapidash last year?"

I nodded, readily recalling our conversation from the beach. "Yeah! You said that he tried the circuit but couldn't cut it, so he returned home. He's working at a pokemart while he works on becoming an engineer. Very respectable profession. Engineers do so much more than people realize!"

"Yeah, I guess that's true, but that's not the point. That was a lie," Dani admitted.

"Oh. Is he not working on becoming an engineer?"

Dani groaned, gripping her face and blowing a few bubbles in frustration. "I almost forgot how dense you are. You're like a real-life version of an edgy Shonen protagonist from the manga I read as a kid."

Manga? Shonen? I felt lost in the conversation. The only things my family let me read were textbooks and classic literature.

She continued, ignorant of my ignorance. "He's not just not becoming an engineer. He committed suicide last year. All the rest of what I said was true; I just changed the ending. It's easier to cope with if I ignore the reality, so I generally just tell people he's studying somewhere so they don't pry about it. My mom and siblings moved back in with her parents in Celadon, but I decided to stay in Fuchsia for another year with my dad's grandparents."

Strangely, the atmosphere shifted yet again at her admission, and I just sat there in silence, trying to process the heavy information.

"Phew." Dani let out a big breath. "I feel a lot better getting that off my chest. Wow. I don't like lying to people, so now you know. When my dad died, I got a tough time from some other kids at Fuchsia High calling him crazy, and I kinda' internalized it. He used to see things, too. Things that weren't there."

"Oh," I breathed. "I'm so sorry, Dani. I'm so, so, sorry."

She shot me a crooked smile. "Thanks, Mare. When I thought I was just having random hallucinations earlier, it really freaked me out. I was afraid I was going to end up like him. Before he did it, he was seeing things and wasn't that present in reality. We were all worried about him, but he always held it together just enough to convince everyone he would be okay. We were wrong," Dani finished bitterly, and I saw tears slowly streaming down her face.

"Well," I started tentatively. "For the record, I don't think you're crazy. At all. And I think it's beyond fucked up that anybody said something like that to you. Ellie told me some stories about the public school, which sounds horrible. I seriously doubt there's anything that I can say to make you feel better. But I think your dad would be proud of you. For what it's worth. I think you're a really neat person, and I'm excited to get to know you better."

Dani turned up to me with a sad smile on her face. She still looked exhausted, and the tears weren't doing her any favors. "I hope so. I've been feeling really down about myself this last week, honestly. You and Ellie seem to do everything so perfectly. Like, she randomly convinced a Chansey to travel with her after fighting over a shirt with it! What the hell is that bullshit? Am I in a fucking movie, or something? I don't know what I have that's unique or relevant in any way compared to the two of you." She laughed, but it was a bitter laugh, rife with self-derision.

"I'm just another average trainer who dreams of making it in the circuit. It's not even my own dream! I'm not even unique enough to have something to call my own. All I'm left with is bits and pieces of what my dad thought he wanted. What he wanted more than living with his family. I miss him so much, Mare. So, so much. How could he leave us?" she practically moaned in grief.

She was full-on weeping now, and her body heaved with tortured movements.

I was really out of my depth now. I had seen Sula cry once, maybe twice if I counted a tear of frustration. Kiriel?

Never.

Then, the strangest thing happened.

As I silently watched Dani, pondering my next move, I saw a shadowy mist start to seep up out of her and towards the looming shrine behind us. It was the deepest black I could imagine, roiling turbulently in hypnotic swirls as it drifted slowly but surely toward the many waiting mouths scattered about the statue's surface.

Dani was utterly unaware, her head down as she descended into the silent, wracking sobs indicative of the deep emotional catharsis that I associated with absolute exhaustion.

I watched in warped fascination as the mist organized itself into several thick strands of a nearly silky quality that moved sinuously, rhythmically, even. As much as that description can be applied to esoteric lines of an unknown substance, anyway. The strands entered the holes through the shrine and dispersed into a burst of shimmering lights, sending shadows flickering into the waiting night.

I don't know how much time passed, but I knew I was watching something that wasn't meant to be seen. After an undetermined amount of time, I noticed Dani had finally stopped crying and was looking up at me in confusion.

"Mare, why are you crying?"

Before I could even begin to tell her that I obviously wasn't crying and that, in fact, she was the one crying, a voice I knew all too well interjected loudly from beyond the opaque mist.

"What the hell, guys! I can't believe you would go soaking without me! Cannonball!!"