~~~ Chapter 41 - Struggle, Bug ~~~
Despite not being worried about this "Burgh" character (as the news agency called him) leaving Nacrene city, when they first landed within Unova, Looker had managed to nab a few of the grass bugs. One leavanny and several swadloon. Dawn didn't ask where he got them from—she never did ask where or how he procured his resources. She had long ago learned to just trust that he and his team were the good guys. Four bugs in total, her and alakazam would be thumbing through their memories in a few hours of practice. Of that, she was confident. With a clear goal in mind, she had memorized the pictures Looker had given her with a fury and dedication that would never have occurred during Dawn's school years.
Even so, with her confidence, Dawn took a breath, reciting her plans. Only perfection in her practice would make the encounter with Burgh's leavanny as minimally-traumatic as possible. Not all minds did well having two extra ones. One of the people she'd practiced on, had described the invasive psychic procedure as less like two minds communicating, and more like being given images, and then losing the ability to direct where your own thoughts went. But in her excitement, Dawn knew she was getting ahead of herself. Taking a deep breath, her alakazam still in its pokeball, she envisioned the process she would practice.
The first step, when working with a psychic to pull memories, was the mind meld. Dawn had done this one numerous times with alakazam as they worked to trace Cyrus' movements. Alakazam were smart as far as pokemon went, incredibly so—but alakazam, even well-trained ones, still needed direction and assistance in order to perform interrogation. Their psychic specialties, knowledge and memorization was strong and raw power was high, but mind reading, rather than psychic attacks required a specific type of translation which trained psychic humans could learn, but seemingly alakazam had difficulty managing.
Dawn had melded with her own alakazam more than enough to know exactly why, and the reason amused her. Impatience. If you were able to kill your prey with sheer mind-power alone, what was the point of connecting to them and spending time for specific manipulations? Just hypnotize them and toss them to the ghosts or your kids and have them eat the target's dreams. Consume the living corpse at the end. Life, Dawn had learned, was a lot simpler if you didn't care about sociality outside of those you consider members of your den or clan.
The mind meld was the hardest part, even humans who'd shown basic psychic abilities on their own, not all of them could meld. It required, to an extent, a certain kind of sacrifice. How do you get your alakazam to see you as on par with them? How did you build enough trust that they would mind meld with you, share your experiences? You had to be willing to give up a part of yourself, in order for the psychics to see you as a member of their den. Not just respect, but as equals. You had to think like a member of their species. Of their specific evolution, even.
Dawn took another breath, pulling her mind back to her core, focusing on the goal of the entire operation, holding in her mind a picture of Giratina and Giratina's child, as well as the black and pink latias. The second step of extracting information from a target, was for the alakazam to connect your mind to the target's. This part, it was harder than it sounds. It had taken Dawn weeks and months before her alakazam and her were able to actually connect.
When are mind-melded, there's a tendency to get feedback from all of the novel alien sensations and sensoria. It was common to get feedback and then end up overwhelmed by the flood of information, and entire world around at once. Even though she'd melded with both her abra and kadabra stages, each one took time for her in order to learn and to map the world the way did. It would take a while before all of the senses balanced out and the human side of her would regain dominance again.
Her psychic-type pokemon primarily interacted with the world via telekinesis, and it turns out, when connecting to pokemon other than psychics which naturally learn to regulate and space out all of their own internal worlds…. Most pokemon simply act as though no one else is communicating or listening in. On top of that, humans don't have the biological hardware needed to process all of the data. They needed to train it, and even then it still wasn't as good as your average psychic pokemon. So, while mind-melded, your pokemon had to be the one to present and maintain the connection to the target.
The third step, once connected, and your pokemon was effectively sending the mental signals of the creature you were connected to, to you, was multifold. While your pokemon would protect you from a bad actor, your target would get no reverse-protections unless they were psychic. This was the stage where she'd felt the least bad about how she'd gone through members of Team Galactic. You imagine the picture, or image or sound, and then your pokemon's connection delivers it. If you're angry with the person, your pokemon's connection will understand that, and will not filter that out. She may or may not have left a few people in the hospital with psychic injuries along the way. The next aspect, and this one was always the strange one, especially when connecting to non-humans, was the translation of the memories you got back.
You could direct human thoughts by sending a word. The last fact Dawn had learned which caused her to storm the mountain that day, had come not from tackling various grunts and interrogating them, no. By the end, only the core teams had incriminating information, and convicting based on a pokemon's memory wasn't something the sinnohan courts would do. Not a lot of people were comfortable with that idea. She couldn't blame them, but she and Looker had come to an unspoken agreement… How do you fight a paramilitary organization to try to stop the end of the world as run by a paranoid megalomaniac if the only real evidence of their doings existed in the minds of the pokemon who had somehow overheard conversations the regular grunts didn't?
The question applied to the whole of Cyrus' conspiracy. Especially with the man, who'd been in the business-world and was known for his incredible dedication and had a nigh-impenetrable and yet somehow clean? Circle of friends protecting him. Cynthia wouldn't go after him unless they had hard evidence, and even then, she hadn't even shown up on Mt. Coronet that day at all. By this point, Dawn had written off pretty much the whole Sinnohan league as useless. She didn't expect any difference from Lyra or the Unovan league, either. Where were they through all of this? Focused on their own fiefdoms, Dawn had reasoned. Her… feelings on the subject of the league's supposed usefulness had only grown stronger when she'd learned that two members of elite four of other regions had actually been contracted by the Galactic "Group".
Her fist was shaking. "Shit," she uttered. She'd let emotions get in the way of her meditations again. She got up from the little motel room Looker had arranged for her in Cimmerian City, a small, podunk town that didn't even deserve the title of 'city'. On the outskirts of the city, she released the small team she'd brought with her—alakazam, empoleon, and her togekiss. If she was going to have trouble both sleeping and meditating through the night, she would at least make sure her team members had been fed and prepped for the long haul they were about to embark on.
After feeding her pokemon Dawn shook her head, chewing on an unovan nutribar herself. It was surprisingly tasty and filling. Sinnoh had similar meal replacements, but nothing so dense that it sank to the bottom of her gut like a rock. She had been tired, her mind easily wandering as she meditated, but whatever the stuff had been, it was like drinking a sip of pokemon potion.
Pulling the four pokeballs out of her bag, she considered her plans, tossing a pokeball out, releasing a leavanny. When the information she could gather through her… extrajudicial means had dried up, or rumors about her methods had circulated, she and alakazam had pivoted. She tossed back the ball, recalling the leavanny, tossing out a second ball, releasing a swadloon. She and her alakazam had to get really good at "interviewing" croagunk, glameow, as that seemed all Cyrus was capable of getting for his staff. In succession, she released the other three bugs, juggling the balls, before rapidly throwing the empty balls out, recalling the pokemon back in before they were even able to chirp, continuing her juggling.
Zubat's memories were pretty alien and impossible for a melded human to glean anything useful from. Even when she had figured out how to read their nonsensical auditory senses, there wasn't anything useful, unfortunately, so she'd fallen back to the pokemon that actually had eyes.
She paused her juggling, catching two of the balls, letting a pair land on the bed. Looker had assured her that these were not pokemon owned by any one trainer. She picked up the ball labeled for one of the swadloon. She'd done what it would take to get the information she'd needed before, and she'd do it again. At this point, she just wanted the living nightmare over, and to be able to return her focus to what she really wanted—putting Cynthia's team where it belonged. In the ground. With that luck, hopefully none of the swadloon nor the one leavanny Looker had managed to procure would be dim, either.
She didn't look forward to the idea of having to go out into the woods to find a new member of the sewaddle line. Finding out she couldn't read a pokemon because it was minor-typed as dark was rare, but it had happened. She'd yet to figure out how to work through the cacophony and sheer mental control that said dim pokemon or humans somehow held over their own mind.
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Thus, the plan was simple. Dawn would meld with her alakazam, their consciousnesses would connect, and she would be able to dig through the bugs like she had with the croagunk and glameows. If it didn't work, there were ways to stimulate their minds. Either way, in the next 48 hours, the little leavanny currently in Nacrene City would be helping them to clue into their ticket to the Distortion world. She'd get taken to Cyrus, and finally be able to apprehend the man and get back to crushing the Sinnoh league under her foot. Then, maybe one day, she'd even find someone worthy of being a member of her own clan.
~~~
When I awoke from the dream, it was still night out, and the moon was strong. The core of a piece of candy was lodged between the flats of my mouth. Lanky had somehow managed to slip one in while I was asleep. Apparently, Leaf had barely awoken before me. Again. At least this time I wasn't sleeping too long due to a passenger munching on the energy generated by my dreams and thoughts and emotions. It was, however, still me coping. My sleep had been a tad longer than Leaf's. At least, based on the fact that he'd managed to glue leaves on me through the night. My armor was fully patched up, at least, so I wasn't about to complain. \
It would take a few hours for the leaves to harden and integrate, but the sun would be out by then. The meganium was lying down, with one eye open at our movements. Refreshed from the dreams, and also with the visions from earlier still heavy in my thoughts, it was time to get Lanky up. Okay, so call me a hypocrite, but the thought of sitting around, practicing my dreamstuff with the meganium around, was probably poor form.
If we were going to be fighting in order to get Lanky's first badge, should I really be practicing with my opponent in view? No. The dreams were pretty clear that neither Leaf nor I had a shot of beating it without some hard as shit practice. Why would I broadcast to the opponent the specifics of my practice? So, the choice was to either disappear until Lanky woke up, or get Lanky up, and disappear. We were in the backyard of a townhome, and while it was a nice wooden fence with a larger yard than should be warranted, since it was shared with other townhomes in this place's group, there were no trees. Which was a no-go for refilling my blades.
I wanted to leave the house, and get some actual distance from the competition. So, I got up, walked over to lanky, and poked him where all humans are the most vulnerable. Right in the belly. With a startled "ach!" noise, he heaved at the surprise poke, immediately sitting up. I dodged out of the way. He rubbed his eyes, then looked at me, then looked around, looking for Leaf. Who'd, well, disappeared off to get fresh leaves. Lanky looked at me, his face turning from panic and fear into a smile. Then, he shot straight up, standing in his travel pajamas, slipping on his shoes, the way you do when you're in a panic.
I hadn't intended to send the sweaty, acrid-smelling sleepyhead into a panic. But it did the job of waking him up. I climbed up the fence, spotting some movement in a tree a couple hundred feet away, across the small foot-traffic-only-street.
Lanky practically shouted, "wait!" the meganium's head curiously peeking over the wood fence I'd climbed over. Our trainer scrambled, throwing his sleeping bag and backpack over the fence, before scrambling after me as I was moseying over to the tree where Leaf was performing his next project. The grass dinosaur seemed disinterested, as evidenced by the fact that their face disappeared. We weren't in a neighborhood, that was for sure, but as I was crossing the street, a door to a nearby shop was propped open. This concentration of sugar in the air—it made the candies seem like a bowl of unsweetened cheerios in skim milk. My mouth's digestive juices were pooling the moment the sugar wafted down, the smell of yeast following behind.
I'd stopped in the middle of the walkway/biking road, Leaf appeared in front of me, and together, we walked towards the store, all other smells and vibrations in the air forgotten. A pokeball flew out of nowhere, tapping Leaf, who disappeared under the pokeball's glow. The hypnotism of the begging smell broken, Lanky was huffing and puffing, pack on his shoulders, his sleeping bag half sticking out from the pack. "Wait," he said again. Unfortunately for him, he didn't have any sugars that were screaming out, that were begging to be consumed.
We were still a few hundred feet away from the store, but I obliged. I don't care how sweet and scrumptious and tasty the air smelled, the glazed, pure, melted cane sugar in the air practically begged to be eaten. I smelled shots of creme, shots of berries. Lanky was speaking again, continuing his requests. The aroma of liquefied sugar and yeasts in the air.
Somehow, I'd teleported Lanky and I in front of the propped door of the store of baked and liquefied sugars. I would have to look into it later. Lanky picked me up as I watched, the giant rows of risen bread rolling through on a metal machine, liquid sugar dripping down. Like a waterfall of the nectars of the gods. Then, Lanky grabbed me, picking me up, pulling us away from the store. Like the angel guarding the tree of eternal life allowed death, a man in a baker's outfit spoke, followed by a greninja and blaziken both stepping out in front of the store, the blaziken eying me as Lanky pulled me away from heaven, back into the darkest abyss. It might not have been today. But I would. I would liberate the sugars.
Lanky set me on the ground, practically pinning me down on my thorax with his knee as he dug through his bag, pulling out several candies, dropping a pair of them in at once. When I relaxed, his face did, too. He sighed, taking his weight off me, his face obscured under the moon's light under the lightening early-morning sun. He shook off his arm, glistening in the moonlight, wiping his shirt with the liquids.
What the fuck was that? I thought to myself. I'd smelled sweets before, but nothing that made me lose all reason. I looked up at the moon, the second layers of the candies already dissolved. Not even the cherry-flavored shower conditioner had that kind of sway. Though, it was, even now, quite attractive. But not so much with my stores of sugar being filled by the candies I was eating. If that was how Leaf was with all sugar, then that would explain the issues. A bug, like a butterfly, floated past Lanky's head, toward the direction of the donut shop, ignoring our presence, as Lanky finished rolling up and properly stowing his sleeping bag in his pack, one leg still set on my thorax as he muscled his belongings around.
When he was satisfied, he stood up, slinging his pack over his shoulder. A few other bugs were following the scent of the bakeshop… And as we walked away from the store, Lanky paused when he noticed how many bugs were flocking their way to the donut shop. In the low light, and the extra distance, I could see spurts of fire and water blasting away at approaching bugs. The shop owner had wanted the smell to be for humans, not us bugs… And were willing to enforce it. Lanky looked down at me. I could maybe cover a few bugs in silk, and keep them from getting turned into flaming chicken and soaked frog-food.
I didn't know what to do, but when I saw a triplet of the red, spiky wurmple inching their way to the shop, I couldn't just let the little ones get roasted. So, with Lanky watching, I did the only thing I could think of. I sprayed them, covering them in silk, hindering and slowing their movements. Then, I rolled the triplet together and… cocooned them all together, ignoring their verbal hisses and annoyed warbles. You don't get to die today, I thought to them, holding the squirming bugs as they tried to wiggle their way free, unsuccessfully, I returned to Lanky, who was watching the slaughter of bugs as the greninja and blaziken earned their own meals.
Lanky continued to stare, his distress palpable in the air. Wrestling the calming bugs, I poked him, breaking his own hypnotism, and walked away, back towards the north, to the gym. When he stopped by a trash-can, he held his face over it, heaving over the public bin. A jogger rounded the corner, looking down at me, then back at Lanky, a pidove gliding around them as the pair was heading in the direction of the bakeshop.
I was probably wrong, and donuts were just that deliciously smelling to bugs, but the muscles in my abdomen turned. Something about that store was wrong. But what could we do? Could I do it? Go there and fight both a blaziken and a greninja at once? Then do what, exactly? Rush in there and gorge myself on the sugars? Okay, my body agreed that shit smelled good. At least evidenced by my splotches of drool now marking our little path on the concrete. Lanky pulled out his water bottle, swishing some water in his mouth, then spat it out on the grass. He looked at me, his face was pale, and cold. Oddly reflective in the dark, early, early morning.
His hands trembled as he pulled out a candy, dropping it onto the ground. I set the triplet of squirming wurmple down, picking up the candy, then consuming it. We continued our walk away from the candy-smelling trap. Leaf would be no help, and there was a decent chance I'd be caught in the crossfire, even from the other bugs I'd be trying to save. I thought back to cresselia/darkrai. What could even do?
I thought about Lanky and Leaf. If we were ever traveling and wound up stuck in a non-artificial mass outbreak, what would I even be able to do? I was just one leavanny. I thought about it. I thought back to my fight with the ampharos. My fight with the scolipede. My nightmare fight with the volcarona.
"Yes. We all must fight, Little Dreamer. Fighting for your dreams is an eternal fight to the death."
Everyone must struggle, bug.