CHAPTER 182

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

I had been staring at this text for twenty minutes, writing paragraphs worth of words and erasing them because I couldn’t bring myself to press send. The worst part was that I had left my mother on read and that she’d started to type messages multiple times and just not sending them because of the little speech bubble, so I knew she was dying inside too. I just wanted to collapse into myself like a dying star.

Didn’t she know that you just didn’t drop on people like this without warning? If we had had a better relationship, then maybe it’d be justified as a surprise, but most of our exchanges were just small talk via text when I reached a new city or was about to leave one. We didn’t even call like I did with my dad, I hadn’t heard her voice since I had been in Snowpoint. Meeting her today was the furthest thing from what I wanted. Did Dad even know that she was here? And meeting my grandmother? I knew her even less than my mom, and my first interaction with her back in Twinleaf was her calling my father a son of a bitch! No thank you!

I might have forgiven my mother slightly before leaving Twinleaf, but now that the whole thing was resurfacing after I’d changed so much? I didn’t care for a meeting at all, especially when I knew I’d blow up at her and start talking to her about things like debt or prices, something she wouldn’t understand whatsoever. She had cheated on dad and lied to him until he’d find out. That deserved nothing but scorn from me. I took a deep breath and gripped my phone.

Me

Good morning, I’ll have a lot on my plate during my stay in Veilstone, so I’m afraid we won’t be able to meet. I’m a member of the League Trainer Internship Program, I have a lot of obligations to the Poketch Company, and I have a lot of things planned. My schedule is going to be packed for the foreseeable. Sorry, but maybe next time.

My finger hovered over send until I forced myself to press the button. I technically wasn’t lying. Sure, the LTIP didn’t actually force me to do anything, and my obligations to the Poketch Company weren’t that exigent at the moment, but I had just weaved the words in a way that’d make her think I was too busy to meet by listing a bunch of important stuff. Plus, from what I knew, my mom knew nothing about Pokemon battling, so it wasn’t like she’d be able to tell.

“I am busy,” I snapped at my phone screen.

And I was free from the burden of lies.

There was no point in studying when I wouldn’t retain any of the information I was watching, so I cleaned up my notes and decided I’d come back to it later. It was still early, but I didn’t want to let my family train until it was the last thing I’d be doing outside. The less time I spent out and about with wiped-out Pokemon, the less risk I was under. I knew I had a League Trainer shadowing me, but even that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

What I needed was to clear my head and just reset my mental. Just like what Bella had taught me. I took a deep breath and loosened my body. I needed to look at things from a detached, rational point of view. This wasn’t happening to me. It was happening to someone else, and I was looking at her through a screen. Able to be as objective as possible no matter the answer.

What did the girl want?

To make it through this town with all of her friends safe and sound.

What did the girl need to do to reach that point?

She needed to grow stronger to keep what was hers safe by force, because running away was admitting that she was not a proper fairy—

“What the hell…?” I muttered, slowly opening my eyes. All of a sudden, I was the girl again. Tired, ragged, and with no idea of what to do.

I groaned, sitting on my bed and clenching at my hair. It wasn’t working. Or it was, but not the way I wanted it to. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking a certain way, and it hadn’t bothered me when it had just been me, Bella, Night and my team, but I knew that it was abnormal now that I was back in human society. People were not possessions to be hoarded. Putting my head down while the League dealt with all of this was the smart thing to do.

Maybe if clearing my head the way Bella had thought me wouldn’t work, something else would. After all, I had a few hours to kill.

——

“What the hell? A four-move limit? Talk about narrow-minded,” I sighed as I tapped my Trainer ID against the machine’s sensor.

“I mean, there has to be a limit somewhere, right?” Emilia said. “If it was up to me, I’d do five, but four isn’t bad.”

Emi and I were currently in the less-known Pokemon Game Arcade, which was a few blocks away from the Game Corner. It was a more… family-friendly establishment that didn’t involve losing all of your money, but it was run by the same company. It was a bustling hub of activity with all kinds of games and obnoxiously loud music playing in the background. In the corner in the distance, a group of kids huddled over a Voltorb pinball machine. The main attraction was a row of Pokemon fighting games that had caught my attention. It was different than the one we were currently getting ready to play and less strategic. People picked a character Pokemon and could make them in different stages, and it was a pretty big hit, being sold on handheld consoles as well.

“You’re interested?” Emilia asked as she inserted her money into her own machine. She stood opposite of me and had to crane her neck for me to see her. “Pauline goes crazy for the game. She used to force me to play it.”

“I didn’t know Pauline played games,” I said.

“Oh, she does. She’s gotten banned from quite a few because of how toxic she gets. I never got into them though. What about you?”

“Me neither,” I shrugged.

“So what made you decide to invite me out there?”

The game began, and I was given a random team of six Pokemon, each with four moves. I led with a Raichu and Emilia led with a freaking Quagsire.

“Just my luck,” I sighed. “I got into a fight with Mira about stupid stuff, it’s okay.”

I switched to my Torterra and somehow got hit by an Ice Beam. Why could she just do that? Things weren’t fair with arbitrary turns!

“You could tell me more too. I’m here to listen.”

“It wouldn’t be right to involve—”

“I want to be involved,” Emilia said as she took down my Torterra by going faster than him somehow. “I’m tired of being a meek girl that has to be protected. Even Pauline won’t tell me anything. I’ve come too far to be relegated to a damsel in distress.”

“You have,” I acknowledged. Emilia knew about what happened in Solaceon, but she didn’t know about the dangers that lurked in Veilstone or that she possibly had a League Trainer guarding her. I couldn’t help but stare at any adult I saw in the arcade as the potential culprit.

I explained everything to her all while she wiped the floor with me in this stupid game. She listened to me without a word, simply acquiescing with small grunts.

“You aren’t scared?” I asked.

“I am. But I’m also okay. So the fight with Mira…?”

“She blew up at me— well, I blew up at her first because of how reckless she’s being. If I had to summarize it, it was like I stepped on her toes and she retaliated by going for my jugular. If you’re going to go after Team Galactic, at least have a damn plan or something,” I exhaled. “Another round?”

“Sure thing,” Emilia nodded.

“I don’t know, I think at the end of the day, we both made some good points, but I know that I was more in the right than she was. She’s acting like she doesn’t value her life because of how close to her goal she is.”

“Could it have been a cry for help?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know, I think that all she’s thinking about is reuniting with her uncle. She knows that she won’t be able to bring him back, but I think she still wants a confrontation. I don’t know if that’s a battle or just a conversation.”

“She wants catharsis,” Emilia added.

“Exactly. And she doesn’t care what she’ll have to do to reach it. Some of her words stuck with me, though. Revenge.”

“Against Mars? That’s a terrible idea, Grace.”

“Obviously. But I can’t help but worry about what would happen if I was in front of her again. I know I’d have no chance to victory, but would I collapse and cry? Would I shut down emotionally? Or would I want revenge?”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Of course, Emi still didn’t know about me being half fairy beyond the title Bellatrix had given me, but I could still skirt around everything and just give her the dilemma without context.

“Revenge doesn’t exactly lead to anything good.”

“I fundamentally disagree.”

“You know what? Fair enough. Just don’t go and become another Mira.”

“I said I wouldn’t, so you don’t have to worry about it. I just don’t know how I’d react is all, and it kind of scares me.”

“So are you and her, uh, fighting, then?”

“I don’t know. I think so?” I contemplated. “I’ll let her cool off and hope Maeve and Louis help her solve her problems.”

Replaying the argument in my head, I didn’t really know what she had expected out of me by telling me that she’d gotten scolded by her League bodyguard if not me telling her to just stop. Since Kadabra had told her about my change due to fairy type energy, maybe she’d thought I’d be willing to help her in her search, or at least give her words of support. If that was the case, she’d clearly misread me. Under Shiftry’s influence, that might have been the case, but that wasn’t me any longer.

Emilia finished off my Steelix with her Dragon Danced Garchomp, handily winning the battle again. I just couldn’t work with arbitrary numbers like stats.

“Another round?” I asked.

It took me fifteen tries to beat her once, and that was because her randomly generated team had been really bad against mine, but by the Legendaries, did that win feel good. I turned quite a few heads by cheering like I’d just won the lottery, and Emilia laughed at the entire spectacle.

“Why are you so sweaty? We were just playing a game,” she chuckled.

“It might have been a game to you, but that was the fight of my life,” I joked. “On a more serious note, um, I’ve been keeping something from you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Another secret regarding your fight?”

“No, no, it’s just that…”

I sighed. How could I say this?

“The way I think’s been changed on a fundamental level by fairy type energy,” I said.

“D—did that Hatterene do that to you?”

“No. My Togetic did without realizing it, and Cynthia stopped her from doing it for me,” I explained.

“What does that imply? Can it be fixed?”

Her face fell right when she saw me flinch. This was why I hadn’t wanted to tell anyone. The fact that they’d want to fix me just left a terrible taste in my mouth, but Mira had been right. I couldn’t expect to know everything about all of my friends while keeping secrets of my own. It wouldn’t be fair. All this time, I’d been enforcing an unequal pact without realizing it. First, I’d tell her, and then everyone else.

But I wasn’t the only one who had to sort out our dispute. She had to try too.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” Emilia said.

“You did, and that’s okay. It doesn’t really happen to most people,” I smiled thinly. “It makes me more abrasive, extremely protective, I hate unfairness and I think that people should pay for their actions. I don’t want to be fixed, but I do need to figure out how to live with it. I like this side of me, Emi, but there are times when I need to catch myself and draw a line. I’m still trying to figure things out.”

Emilia paused for a few seconds to catch her breath.

“Remember when you just caught your Turtonator? You vented to Cece a lot about… uh, prices. She told me a little bit when she talked about how worried she was for you. I thought that was just how you were.”

“Oh. Right,” I said, shuffling along the floor.

“Thank you for telling me, Grace. It means a lot.”

“Thanks for listening. And then you know, there’s this entire thing with my mom suddenly appearing like some horror movie jump scare.”

“Your mom? What’s she like?”

“I don’t really know, but let’s talk about it over some more games. I need to let out some steam.”

“Are you letting out steam if I’m constantly beating you?”

“Oh, Emi’s got the trash talk now, hm? Let’s try a game that doesn’t arbitrarily restrict you to dumb stat and four moves and see how it goes.”

She beat me.

In every. Single. Game.

——

Unfortunately, my time with Emilia was cut short when I decided that it was time to go train, but hanging out with a friend had helped me out somewhat. I actually took a taxi to route 214’s gate because of how terrified I was of suddenly running into my mother and grandmother. It would be unlikely in a large city like Veilstone, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Hopefully, I’d be able to avoid her the entire time she was here.

She had answered my text already, saying that it was a shame and to let her know if I had a spot in my schedule, and I said I would. Now that I was with my family again and had cleared my head with Emilia, I could focus enough to study Aura first, and then Zachary for tomorrow’s battle. I still dreaded the next time I’d see Mira because there was a lot of unresolved tension there, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

Aura was… well, this was just how I saw how it interacted in the videos, but it was a lot more fluid than I thought it could be. First of all, this didn’t apply to me, but aura attacks and even Aura Sphere could hit true ghosts like Haunter. That poor trainer’s reaction had been quite agitated.

Secondly, although it could be stopped by attacks using pure Type Energy attacks like Thunderbolt or Flamethrower, it was a very inefficient way of doing so. You were better off either stopping it with physical objects like Princess’ Ancient Power or Sweetheart’s Rock Slide, otherwise chances are the aura attack would just slip through your attack like it wasn’t even there unless there was a huge disparity in power. It could also shatter psychic barriers easier, although it wasn’t foolproof, and Protect was still immune to it. Like ghost type attacks, moves like Aura Sphere couldn’t be redirected using Psychic or Extrasensory either. Thankfully this was a battle for my fifth badge, so there weren’t exactly advanced techniques that she would use against me. For Maylene, Aura was her main way of brute forcing past a tough opponent like an annoying psychic or ghost.

Princess would be my main counter there. If I ever got into a Pokemon deficit during the battle, she’d be my ace to be able to catch back up. Using Dazzling Gleam on anything that gets near and then dealing with threats using Air Cutter or Moonblast would do well, but I’d still have to watch out. We’d only have Ancient Power for defense against Aura, so she’d have to stay low to the ground.

Overall, I’d done good progress today, so I decided to move on to the rest of Zachary Gallagher’s team after making rounds to make sure everyone was progressing okay on their moves or if they needed any help. Sweetheart was having issues trying to redirect herself mid-air, but I couldn’t exactly help there. I had no idea what being in her body was like, so she’d have to figure it out alone— with moral support, of course. Angel and Honey were currently sparring against Sunshine, but he was easily handling both of them while still going somewhat easy and not using his body heat.

“Ampharos, Vespiquen, Infernape, Donphan, Ferrothorn, Pidgeot, Gyarados…” I muttered. “Sheesh, these are tough. Sunshine, c’mere for a sec!”

My voice caught the fire type’s attention and caused his face to get hit by one of Angel’s vines. He profusely apologized, rubbing Turtonator’s cheek in an attempt to make the pain go away. Sunshine grunted and waved his vine away, letting him know that his ‘weak’ vines weren’t even close to painful, but Tangrowth couldn’t help himself. His vine around my ankle tightened anxiously.

“It’s alright Angel! It was just training!” I exclaimed.

And yet he still felt like he’d done wrong by hitting him when I’d called down. Electabuzz scratched his head, wondering what to do until Pupitar quickly intervened with Princess and offered him some supportive words, after which he promptly joined in. I smiled as the grass type’s vine loosened and I turned to Sunshine.

“You could use some more tact. Anyway, I’m battling a big shot tomorrow, and his Pokemon look to be all around your strength. Surely that should be a battle of your caliber. Want to join? A six-on-six is a lot more fun.”

Sunshine pondered for a second, asking me why I was so happy to go into a battle that I had no chance of winning.

“Because that’s how I learn, goofball. So are you in or not? That Ferrothorn is going to be a pain without you to help out.”

The fire type agreed, with much less reluctance than I expected. It seemed that so long as he considered the battles worthy of him, he wouldn’t mind helping out. Still, even with him, the playing field was far from even. I would have needed six Sunshines for me to stand a decent chance.

“Cool. Don’t forget to listen to what I say, though, or it’ll go terribly.”

He rolled his eyes and strolled away to resume his training. He once again told Tangrowth that his vines didn’t do anything to hurt and that even if they had it was just training.

“By the way, can we talk about your old team soon? I’d like for everyone to learn more about them.”

This time, I could only see the faintest of nods. I smiled softly and returned to my planning.

I excitedly tapped my feet against the ground. I had my six-on-six, but I needed to figure out what Pokemon he’d use against me. He had seven, after all. The fact that there was no way I’d make it through six of his Pokemon was everpresent, but I wanted to come at this like I’d do for any battle. Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t any real way to tell which ones he’d use or even lead with, because I was pretty sure anything he had would just destroy anything I had unless I led with Sunshine, which wasn’t my plan. Still, even though I'd lose, the true value of the battle was the advice he'd offer me afterward.

Zachary’s team was designed around two things: hard hitters and precise battlers.

The hard hitters like Donphan, Gyarados, Pigdeot and Ampharos were the muscle that helped him deal with tough, bulky Pokemon while his other Pokemon were more focused on taking down trickier opponents. I noted that he had three flying types, meaning that maybe Honey would have a chance to shine here.

I’d analyzed the two styles, but facing both would be troublesome. What that Vespiquen was capable of was truly mind-boggling and her control over attacks made Princess look like an amateur. She was his biggest problem, and I’d need Sunshine to hope to break her, because I knew that unlike with Pokemon like Ampharos or Donphan, all of my Pokemon would never be able to even touch her.

Vespiquen wasn’t his starter, but she sure was his strongest, at least in how annoying it was to battle. I was starting to realize that every trainer at a relatively high level had a Pokemon that defined— no, maybe defined wasn’t the right word. A Pokemon that stood a step above the rest of their teams and was a crutch that their trainers could always rely on in any battle. Craig had his Salamence, Lucian had Alakazam, Aaron had his Drapion, Cynthia had Garchomp… it could technically be said that mine was Sunshine, but that was almost entirely off the work of another trainer. If I didn’t count him, I didn’t really have that. Angel or Buddy could theoretically count, but they weren’t at that level. Even Cecilia didn’t any longer, her team having caught up to Zweilous. I didn’t exactly know why that was a common phenomenon, but for better or worse, I didn’t have that just yet.

Anyway, all of that to say that Vespiquen was awful to battle and I was looking forward to somehow figuring something out.

The afternoon quickly went by and I took another taxi back to the Center. Part of me almost expected my mom to just be at the entrance to catch me. Finding out the Pokemon Center I stayed at wasn’t at all difficult anymore, but luckily it seemed that she at least had her limits. Tomorrow was going to be packed… I wanted to get started on getting my Carry License too, which I’d go do before the battle itself because I knew my Pokemon would need to go to get healed right away.

I was so excited I barely slept.