CHAPTER 199

I’d been sobbing uncontrollably for the past ten minutes. The sheer amount of anguish Sunshine had poured into his tale had driven me to tears before the murder had even taken place. The closer he got to Mount Coronet, the more anxious and tearful I’d grown. At some points, he’d stopped to make sure I was breathing alright. I just couldn’t comprehend the amount of pain he’d been through. The only thing I could compare it to was imagining losing everyone I knew… my family, my friends in a single instant. Everything I had, just gone.

I didn’t think I’d be able to live if that ever happened to me. He was stronger than I’d ever be.

“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. “I’m— I’m sorry.”

Sunshine sighed, his eyes staring right at me. Kamaile had been such a good person. A paragon of what it meant to be a force of good for the world, and yet he’d been ripped away. Taken early by pure evil. Saturn. The words were so hateful to me that just thinking them out loud made me dig my nails into my palms and clench my teeth so hard my jaw locked up. So much suffering he’d caused, and for what? What was the point of doing all of this? It was all so exhausting.

I would do everything in my power to let Turtonator have his revenge.

“Thank you for telling me,” I sniffled. “I understand you so much better now.”

The fire type nodded, telling me that I looked a lot worse than he did. Turtonator hadn’t cried during his story. He’d teared up, but he had held everything in.

“It must have been so difficult for you, holding it all in,” I said. “If you ever want to talk to the others, don’t hesitate to. They’ll listen.”

Sunshine refused immediately. It seemed like he wasn’t ready yet, then.

“But the two members of your team that survived… don’t you want to—”

Turtonator interrupted me. He was scared, he’d told me. I would never in a thousand years thought that he could be scared of anything, but he was terrified of seeing them again.

“I won’t force you,” I said. “But I’ll be the first to tell you that they won’t be disappointed in you, Sunshine. If you were in the reverse situation and you’d been the one taken by the Rangers, would you not want to see Lurantis or Mudsdale again?”

The fact that he’d been the last one out of his Pokeball with Oranguru and that he’d failed weighed on him heavily. The dragon didn’t answer. He simply ignored my question and avoided my eyes.

“We can at least go look to see if they lived. If I present proof that you were Kamaile’s the Rangers should be willing to tell us what happened.”

In truth, I wanted him to meet them again. I wanted so desperately. I knew it would be difficult for him, but it would also be incredibly healing. They were also probably worried sick, not having heard of him since Kamaile’s murder, although from the way he’d told me about them, there was the possibility of them having heard of him with how tech-savvy they were. I just hoped they knew he was alive.

“We can go first thing tomorrow,” I softly added. “I’ll help you find them. That’s the first step. Then, if you feel comfortable enough, we can talk about meeting them later down the line. Is that okay with you?”

He reluctantly agreed, and I wrapped his large body into a hug. He didn’t reciprocate, but he let me do it, something that would have been unthinkable just yesterday. His chest was tough and difficult to grab, but it felt soothing and warm nonetheless. After thirty seconds or so, he gently pushed me away and complained about the snot I was getting on him.

“Okay,” I exhaled. “Give me half an hour to calm down, and I’ll release the others so we can sleep. Is it true that you can’t dream in your Pokeball?”

The dragon nodded as he lay on the floor. All those times I’d made him sleep in his Pokeball when all he wanted was to dream. To experience a night of bliss with the memories of his fallen family, and I had just trampled over all of that. I’d failed him.

I hugged my knees as the tears came back.

“I won’t make any of you sleep in your Pokeballs anymore unless there’s no other choice,” I declared. “I’m sorry for all the times I didn’t do it. I didn’t know.”

He said it wasn’t my fault. That I couldn’t have known before tonight.

“I couldn’t have,” I agreed. The others had never brought it up, and I assumed that it didn’t bother them. “But I feel like shit anyway. I took your memories away from you.”

A heavy silence settled in as I snuggled up deeper in the bed.

“I’ll get you a fight with Saturn, and we’ll all be here,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’ll make sure he gets what’s coming.”

Before, it had only been me being scared of Mars. Now? It was personal. Turtonator didn’t answer. He lay down next to my bed and closed his eyes.

——

I woke up at seven in the morning.

Sweetheart and Princess were still sleeping while Buddy hovered next to the ceiling. Angel sat next to the window to get some sun and Honey had his head on my lap as he transitioned in and out of sleep. I’d gotten a few messages that I perused as I stroked Honey’s head. First, Mira had gotten approval from Cynthia to visit Lake Valor on the way to Sunyshore on the condition that we reported any effects it had on Cecilia and Chase back to the League. We’d also gotten permission to visit the other lakes if need be, so that was something on my list after Princess evolved and I got my license. I’d easily be able to stop at Verity on the way to Canalave, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

Second, my mother had texted and called.

Princess had murdered a Pokemon in front of her, so she was justifiably shaken. Everything had happened so quickly that it hadn’t sunk in after I’d been Teleported away. She hadn’t even known I’d been in that much danger and it was probably the first time she’d seen such violence on display. There wasn’t much I could say to help her aside from the fact that it’d be better off if we reconnected at a later date whenever the situation cleared. She probably saw Princess and me in a very different light than before, but what was done was done. I couldn’t dwell on it, and at least she didn’t want to stop talking to me through text. Strangely enough, no one was talking about the dead Abra in a very public park, even though the media would usually have jumped on such a story. It seemed that Cynthia’s iron grip was a lot tighter than I first thought, but not much could surprise me any longer. Some people were still talking about it online, including on my megathread, but the incident had happened so quickly that no one had recorded it, so at this point it was just spreading through word of mouth.

And some of my fans were denying the fact that it had happened at all.

It was a strange thing, to have fans. I didn’t browse my megathread often, but it still felt surreal to have that many people talking about me. Defending me, attacking me, talking like they knew me personally, nitpicking at any mistake I made… it was weird. Before, it might have bothered me, but I had too much going on to bother.

I stretched and then started to get ready for the day. I had a few things to do today after my inquiry with the Rangers, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I side-stepped around Sweetheart and entered the bathroom.

I did not blink, nor did my face clench up in rage. In fact, I was perfectly calm.

I will kill Saturn, I thought as I stared in the mirror and tied up my hair. He was a cancer upon the world that deserved to be cut out. Destroyed.

That was a promise.

——

I hadn’t thought I’d ever go back to the Ranger Station where I had been interrogated in, and yet here I was. I stepped out of the taxi and walked into the lobby, which mirrored a Pokemon Center, only it was slightly smaller and had none of the warm lights and colors that made them so welcoming in the first place. There was surprisingly a short queue that I had to wait at. One trainer asked for some tips in raising an unruly Tinkatink, the other for the best spots on route 214 to find a Meditite and the last one asked when the next orientation class would take place.

Being a Ranger was a popular career choice for a lot of trainers, it seemed.

“Hi, how can I help you?” The man said as he leaned against a counter. He sported the green uniform that all rangers shared in Sinnoh.

“I have a Pokemon that belonged to a deceased trainer,” I said. “All of his team was wiped out except two Pokemon. Would it be possible to track them?”

Immediately, he was more alert and awake than he’d been seconds earlier. “Do you have the name and ID of that trainer? ID would be ideal, because that means we’d be able to find him in our database instantly,” He said. “And I’ll take your ID as well to verify your claim.”

“Uh, I have his name. Kamaile Nalanie. Actually, Sunshine might know,” I said as I handed him my card. “Mind if I release a Turtonator right now?”

“If it behaves. Any damages, you’ll have to pay for.”

“He will.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I released the fire type and he blinked at the unfamiliar environment.

“Sunshine. Did you know Kamaile’s ID? On his trainer card?”

He nodded, saying that he and Oranguru knew it better than Kamaile even did. He listed off the numbers to me and I recited them to the receptionist.

“KN449281095,” I said.

“Uh, I thought we’d use one of our psychics for that, but alright,” he frowned. He typed in the code and nodded. “Kamaile Nalanie, I’ve got him. Yeah, he got into that nasty accident in Mount Coronet, right? Sorry for your loss,” he said, staring at Turtonator, who promptly ignored him. “Yep, the Turtonator’s in your file.”

He’d held back well at the fact that he’d called it an accident. I patted him on the arm.

“A Lurantis and Mudsdale,” he muttered. “We’ve got one at the ranger outpost next to Eterna Forest and another down at the outpost next to the marsh on route 212.”

I sighed in relief. Since they hadn’t been given away, that meant that they’d be easy to track down. Still, the fact that they’d been separated left a bad taste in my mouth— unless they’d gone their separate ways out of their own volition? When I asked the Ranger, he told me he didn’t know. Lurantis would have to wait until Princess evolved and I got my license, but Mudsdale was right next to Pastoria. It’d be easy to visit him if Sunshine wished to do so.

“Can I do anything else?” He asked. “I could contact the stations and tell them about you, if you want, but there’s not much else I can do for you.”

“Thanks for the help,” I said, turning toward Turtonator. “Verdict?”

Sunshine uncomfortably shuffled, which was way out of character— or at least for what I thought I had known until yesterday night. In the end, he said that he’d rather wait until we made it to Pastoria to make up his mind. I nodded, recalling him as I made my way outside.

My schedule was starting to get packed, but I was fine with that. After my seventh gym, I was planning on going to Lake Verity, possibly both Ranger Outpost to find Lurantis and Mudsdale, go to that ancient city if I could get permission from Cynthia to find a Claydol, and train extensively for the eighth gym. Originally, I had planned on doing all of this after my eighth badge, but Cynthia had thrown a wrench in my plans by saying that we’d be confined at the League after winning the battle. But there was also something else I needed to do.

I wanted to go to the Lost Tower to speak to Ruth and Mathilda.

I had three powerful Gengar to find, after all, and they’d be the only ones that I knew were capable of pointing me in the right direction. I couldn’t just hope for the best while I traveled. Even with Jellicent and Electabuzz being able to sense ghosts, trying to find those Gengar would be like trying to find a needle in a Sinnoh-sized haystack. Impossible.

There was also the topic of that Rhyperior who’d killed Sweetheart’s biological mother, but finding a rock type in the notoriously confusing Mount Coronet was a lot more difficult, and it was probably a lot stronger than what I’d be able to handle even by the end of the year, so that one would unfortunately be on the back burner for now. The Gengar would also be, but I had evidence that they weren’t murderous ghosts, at the very least.

For some reason, the Game Corner’s lights were lit up even during the day. The concept of gambling didn’t appeal to me at all, but I knew Denzel would be here, as he was most days. I sure hoped he wasn’t neglecting his training, because Maylene would capitalize on any weakness. A Dratini would be nice, but I felt like he wasn't seeing the forest for the trees. I hadn’t come here to tell him that, though. Not wanting to enter the building, I texted him and asked him to talk. He came out ten minutes later with a girl I didn’t know, but I knew that she knew me from the way her eyes widened.

“Grace!” Denzel said. “I’ve been wanting to see you! Are you okay—”

He stopped himself and stared at his new friend.

“This is Ashley. She’s been helping me figure out this Game Corner stuff. Ashley, this is Grace,” he said. “Uh, can you wait for me inside? Sorry to make you come all the way out here to send you back, but—”

“I get it. Private stuff,” she shrugged. “I’ll be waiting upstairs.”

Luckily for her, there was no queue to enter the building since it was early in the morning. She quickly entered back and I turned to Denzel.

“How’s your Dratini hunt going?” I asked.

“It’s going great, I’m making more and more money,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll keep winning more than I lose.”

“Oh. You lost some?”

“Yeah, but so long as I win more, I’m still making money. I’m taking a slow and steady approach. I don’t want to lose everything,” he said, his face twitching. “We haven’t hung out lately.”

“Well, you’re doing your Game Corner stuff…” I muttered. “I’ve been busy too. It sucks that our schedules haven’t lined up, but hopefully we’ll have more free time soon. Have you been training?”

“Yeah, I have, you don’t have to worry about that,” Denzel smiled. “I’ve been helping Ashley too. It was a deal we made.”

“Okay. I won’t forgive you if you lose to Maylene,” I teased. “But I actually had something to talk to you about. Uh, you won’t like this.”

He clenched a fist and his body tensed slightly. “Oh. Well, uh, bring it on, I guess?”

“Oh, you want me to say it here? It’d be better to do it somewhere private,” I said. “We never know who might be listening.”

Denzel stared back at the Game Corner for a few seconds, but nodded. “Sounds good. Your Center room?”

On the way there, he told me a lot about the way he made coins at the Game Corner. There was that game where you could bet on battles that he said I’d be really good at, and he went a lot more in-depth with the explanation this time. I wasn’t interested at all, but maybe he had a point. I was good on money though, so there was no way I’d be willing to take risks to make more. Next month, I’d be able to buy the Shiny Stone, and then I’d be able to save again for TMs and more dirt for Sweetheart.

“...yeah, that’s how I’d counter Falinks, I think, but you can’t let your Pokemon get overwhelmed by numbers. Play it safe and from far away, and you’ll have an easier time.”

“My team isn’t exactly the type to like that, but I’ll have to do it. Maybe I can save Froslass for them.”

“Fair enough,” I said as I entered my room. “I’d honestly use Froslass to try to sweep through her earlier picks though.”

“What if she picks Falinks first?”

“Come on, Denzel. You know Gym Leaders don’t bring out that massive of a threat first. Anyway, I have something important to tell you. It’s about the group as a whole.”

“Yeah? So what’s up?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and continued. “You know we were summoned by Cynthia and she told us stuff. Stuff we can’t talk about, despite me asking for you to be able to know. And because of the information we got at that meeting, we think that it’d be best for me, Cece, Mira and Chase to travel together for a little bit.”

Denzel’s face fell, and he sighed. “Chase was there too?”

“He’s involved,” I said. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I can say. I hate it, but she’s forcing things to be this way.”

“And you can’t tell us, like, anything? Not even a hint? You almost got kidnapped yesterday, Grace, and I don’t even know why.”

“I don’t know why either, to be honest, and I’m not lying when I say that. I—” I stopped as my head snapped toward my door and a bead of sweat rolled down my cheek. Was Lou and the League listening to this? They were, weren’t they? The fact that I didn’t know meant that I’d rather not take any risks. “—can’t tell you more than this.”

A sad smile planted itself on Denzel’s face. “You know, when we had that phone call,” he started. “I said I’d have your back and that I wouldn’t let Team Galactic hurt you. Kind of rings hollow now, doesn’t it?”

“Denzel—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, waving a hand in dismissal. “I know it’s not your fault. Circumstances screwed us over, that’s all. I’ll be off to the Game Corner then, yeah? I need to keep grinding to get myself a Dratini.”

He’d cheered up instantly, but I knew he was just pretending. Before he was out of the door, I called out his name. He turned and looked at me.

“Let’s spend more time together in Sunyshore,” I said. “We’ll both have a lot more time there.”

He nodded. “If you say so. I want something else in Sunyshore too, then.”

“Sure, anything is fine.”

“A battle.”

I inhaled sharply, but nodded. “You’ll have it.”

——

Buddy slipped out of one of the pillars we’d raised and immediately spat out a proto-Hydro Pump. The jet of water was so powerful that it created a crater in the ground and nearly collapsed another tower. The water type quickly slipped back inside as soon as he finished his attack.

“Nice!” I cheered. “Keep going, you’re doing great!”

On the other side, Princess was practicing flying in between the pillars as fast she could. It sounded easier than it actually was, especially for a Pokemon like her that had never made it a point to fly quickly before. It was important for her to be able to maneuver properly during the battle. She wasn’t terribly fast— still slower than Jellicent while he used Water Sport, but it was decent enough to work with.

Progress with Air Cutter was going well. Now that we’d mastered creating pillars, it was the move we were working on the most due to its incredible range and speed. Psychic would require her to get closer than I’d be comfortable with. Despite her being both a flying and fairy type, she was still frail. The type advantage would become more irrelevant the further I progressed, and it would do me well to get within that mindset as early as I could. Both her and Buddy would be instrumental to the battle after the battlefield had been set, so they needed to be as prepared as possible. We were also working on Air Slash, which was a natural progression of Air Cutter. She would need to manipulate the air using flying type energy and speed it up as much as she could. I doubted that we’d be able to get it down before the gym battle, but it was good to get started in what would be a pivotal move for her. Even Cynthia’s Togekiss still used the move sometimes whenever it wasn’t doing insanely complicated techniques.

But we weren’t working on the basic version of Air Cutter we knew. What I had theorized was that she could potentially use the move from anywhere, meaning that the streaks of sharpened air wouldn’t have to start from her wings. After all, it was just manipulating type energy. Using her wings just made it easier and was more intuitive, but Princess’ biggest strength was control.

Who was to say that she couldn’t start an Air Cutter from behind an enemy while she was in a completely different spot? The same principle would apply to Air Slash. It would work perfectly with how I was planning to set up the terrain too.

Electabuzz, Turtonator and Pupitar were off in their own little corner, training their respective moves. Progress with Thunder was slow and steady, but there were noticeable improvements with Thunderbolt and Discharge already, so I believed we’d have it ready by the time we battled Volkner. There were whispers of Sunshine teaching Pupitar Dragon Pulse, but they’d made no progress there. Supposedly, she was worthy now that he’d told her she was an honorary dragon, but I just knew he wanted to spoil her rotten. I understood now that training with the team felt lacking for the dragon, so I was looking into setting up possible 1v1s with trainers like Zachary to keep him sharp. There was no shortage of people wanting to battle me.

And so, two days passed. I spent most of it training, getting ready for the coming interview and spending time with my Pokemon. All of my friends had now signed up for their gym battles against Maylene, and the first set was coming up now. I shuffled toward my seat as Louis emerged from the waiting room, Pokeball already in hand. He touched the scar on his cheek and took a deep breath. He was a lot more determined than he used to be, and we all knew why.

He wanted to stop Justin.

The battle would no doubt be interesting, but I’d be focusing on Maylene’s habits. Rare were the Gym Leaders that were as expressive as Candice was, and Maylene was the only one that came anywhere close to that. I’d be a fool to let that opportunity slip past my fingers.