~~~ Chapter 15 - Grind ~~~
My favorite legendaries have always been the three dragons: Zekrom, Reshiram and Kyurem. But of the three, I think I like Kyurem’s myth the most. It reminds me of my older brother. My sister and I are twins, and we always fought. We never had a reason. Just wanted to. Mom or dad would come in, try and figure out the reasons for our squabbles; always a tangled mess. And we liked it that way. We were just sisters picking on each other! Did we need reasons to hate each other!? No. We made them up anyway! At one point, it turned into a game, a challenge to see who could confuse mom and dad the longest before they gave up.
Then my brother would come around. He’d roll in, come downstairs, hear us arguing over breakfast. Arceus, I can hear it now. “Yeah yeah, whatever you two say. Shut up and eat your oatmeal.” Oh, it was so infuriating! Maybe he figured out the game or didn’t care, either way, it made us so mad! Nowadays we all get along great!
That’s what Kyurem means to me. That older brother who just steps in and says, “Shut up and eat your damn oatmeal.”
— Lenora, Nacrene City Gym Leader
~~~
I had gathered up the leaves we needed. Swadly sat on my head. Did the kid see Cebi leave? If he had, then he’d probably recognize which pokemon she was.
Jumping off the branch, I bowled the kid over. Tumbling to the ground, spilling the bucket of water Cebi had retrieved. A gasph of air, and I moaned in embarrassment for not looking where I was landing. Gobs of water from the rain collecting on the tree’s leaves splashed on my eyes, each drop warping my vision as they rolled off. Swadly looked at me from above, jumping down himself, his leaves acting like a wingsuit, guiding him down. A splash onto the ground, he landed. He picked up a stray berry that had been left by the bag and ate it.
Lanky had chosen a bad place to stand. Art. Cebi said his name was Art. Maybe I could call him Arty? Eh, I liked my name for him better. Lanky scrambled, rolling away for a second, his slight smell of panic somewhat masked by the drizzling drops. Lanky stood up and then over me as I wallowed on the grass. He knelt down, and felt the new leaves that covered my thorax and the front of my abdomen like a skirt. When he saw my surprise as I flinched, he said another word, picked up the bucket and bag of empty berries, and took them back inside with a surprising amount of speed.
With the leaves, I moved next to the house, under a little overhang where the water was less, the leaves I’d gathered held with my barbs. A few leaves were torn from the fall, but I really didn’t need many. The rest were going to be razor leaves. A quick slice, some silk, and the new patch was ready for swadly before he had even made it back to me. Lanky came back outside, talking, pokeball in hand. A flash of red, and the swadly was gone before I could finish. Oh well. Another flash, and I was gone, too.
That same, terrible, acrid smell from the night before returned. It wasn’t as thick this time, at least. A flash of red and white fluorescent light filled my vision again. I immediately slipped on the floor, falling on my ass. The water hadn’t dried off me yet. A lady in a white lab coat faced me. She said something to Lanky in a stiff tone. Lanky responded, heading to a counter and grabbing some paper towels from a dispenser. The… Nurse? Researcher? She had short, blonde hair and was sitting in a swivel chair, facing me as I lay on the tile. After slipping around the other night, it just wasn’t worth trying to get up.
Lanky chuckled, bending over, dabbing me with some paper towels to dry me off a bit. It wasn’t much. He put his hands around my thorax and lifted me up, setting me on a table with some wax paper on it. I sat up. The nurse talked, motioning him towards the door, kicking him out. Her attention turned to me, she grabbed a couple more paper towels, wiping the rest of the drops off my legs, the rest left to air dry.
She pulled out a tape measure, her pitch turning high as she talked in short sentences. She took hold of my left arm, tugging it gingerly. I complied, extending it to full length. She measured the fore, talking in short spurts, text appearing on a screen behind her. Then, she measured the whole length. This went for every aspect, my thorax, head, antennae, and abdomen. When she’d measured my legs, she seemed satisfied.
When we were done, she turned to the computer, typing. The screen went dark. She turned to me, put her hand on my thorax. I stiffened. Talking in that high-pitched talking-to-kiddies tone. “Up,” she said, lifting me up and having me stand on the table. She wiped off a few more drops of water, turned back to her pc and pressed a button. Two small, mechanical arms extended from the ceiling. I couldn’t tell exactly before they came down, but they mirrored each other, rotating, pausing, rotating and pausing again. I wiggled my arms and body a bit, shaking off some remaining dew. A couple of seconds, and on a screen behind was a rotating leavanny. I couldn’t see the details, but the movement, the splotches of color made it obvious I’d been scanned. I’d had X-rays before in my past life, but nothing whole-body. Nothing this invasive before. Little specks of light glinted and disappeared as the image rotated.
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Once the arms retracted, the girl clicked the mouse and slid through the model piece by piece. Then she turned back to me and the examination continued. She inspected my leaves and my blades. She tried poking at my abdomen a couple times. The armor was blocking her attempt. She tried to reach through the vents I’d left for heat and air. It tickled, but also uh, don’t touch me there, lady. This was taking too long. Sorry girl, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but those scans you took are going to need to be enough. I clicked, and she stepped back, startled. Turning back to her computer and typing, the model went away.
She said another word. One I’d recognized. “Down.” Finally, we were done. At least, that’s what I thought, when she gasped as I jumped to the floor and immediately slipped, crying out “Eeee!” in surprise. She began to hiccup—no, giggle, as she picked me up and set me back down on the table. What came next, reality itself hitched for me, the world slowed. She had a syringe. I watched her hand. Trust. My blade arms—were rubbing together as I forced myself to look away. Pokemon diseases? Pokemon had disease? Can Pokemon get rabies? I felt the pressure of her hand on the back abdomen, and a slight prick as I stared instead at the door. The nurse cooing, we were done. She pulled out a sticker, placing it on my thorax—well, the leaf-plate that covered my thorax. I couldn’t read, but my guess was that it said “Vaccinated from PokeRus!” Why would pokemon want stickers anyway? Whatever. I was sure I didn’t have anything to fear from disease. It doesn’t matter. Aaaand we were actually done, this time! This time I knew for sure. You don’t get stickers until the end of the appointment.
She picked me up and set me down on the ground, holding me up by the blade, helping me walk as I slipped around. The tile really was terrible. She tried to stifle a couple of laughs and giggles, holding me up. I’d be glad to get out of this hellhole. Finally, there was Lanky, being talked at by Professor Smiles. The building had a glass front door with handles I COULD PUSH. The talking stopped, the research-nurse-assistant let go of me as I walked in Lanky’s direction before diverting to the doorway. I pushed on the handle, a couple of slips of my legs on tile, the door gave way against my weight and out into the mist of rain I went instead.
Out of that cursed place, with its cursed air and cursed fluorescence. Salt was in the air now. A small seaside town was in front of me now, wet, and glistening from the withdrawing storm. Lanky came out of the building, pokeballs on his waist. I followed him inside a small store, exploring the shelves, tasting the scent of the foods. It wouldn’t be hard to steal some, but the kid at the register had their eyes on me.
I walked around, loosely following lanky’s path. He put some human food and a bag of berries on the counter, keeping an eye on me. They had sodas, breads, berries, beers, and cereals. It was a small little convenience store. Lots of spray bottles like the ones Lanky had in my not!dream. Potions. That’s what they were. Potions, antidotes, and heals of various kinds. I didn’t see any pokeballs, not on the shelves at my height, at least.
Why hadn’t he tried to run after me and catch me with a pokeball? He waved at me, putting the things he’d bought into his backpack. I thought about being in a pokeball. I shivered. Maybe he’d learned I didn’t like them? Well, I followed him as we walked, he mostly didn’t talk, just stared at his pokedex. That fight with the moth came back to mind. Was it really a dream? What else would it have been? Lanky had been waving around. And what was up with where we had been fighting? That was a serious enemy. Why hadn’t we been fighting in a more official spot? My deep fear was the eternal grind, stuck going from gym to gym, or random trainer to random trainer. That was a pokemon who could have killed me if they took me seriously. Had the moth or trainer been sandbagging?
He walked into a sign, and put the pokedex away to focus on our travels instead. Lanky had never actually had much tech before. It was hard to imagine a world with pokedexes which also built them with planned obsolescence. It just didn’t vibe. Well, they clearly had no problem letting some things decay and fall apart.
I saw a few bird-types fly by. No skarmories, just a few pidgeys and some eagles, the ones with the red feather sticking over their heads.
~~~
“I’m not sure what Artemis was talking about in terms of his leavanny being lit on fire. I don’t see any burns or evidence of burns, and Avery’s records didn’t include a full physical or scan, so we don’t have any internal state. Chances are it got hit by an electric joltik attack on accident, and fell from the tree. Other parts of the kid's story don't make sense.”
Professor Juniper nodded. “Thank you, Kate. What of the results of the physical?”
“They’re uploaded to the profile of Artemis’ pokedex, now. As far as I can tell, the leavanny’s extra-healthy, save for some concentrations of metallic rocks in its abdomen. I tried to see if I could feel them, but that leaf-dress armor got in the way.”
“Will it cause problems for the bug?”
“They seem benign, but we didn't do a complete analysis on the compositions," she reported. The lab had some nice equipment, and could act as a pokecenter in a pinch, but surgery and invasive operations would be out of their list of options unless it was an emergency. His employee continued: "Just tell the kid to be careful versus electric types. They probably amplified any joltiks' effects by quite a bit.”
“Anything else?”
“All in the report. Just a regular, everyday, run-of-the-mill leavanny with a penchant for more traditional-style armor crafting.”
Juniper smiled, like he always did. "Good."