~~~ Chapter 42 - Anxiety ~~~

Everyone must struggle, bug.

The words had followed in my head, as naturally as any other. I thought back to the dream again of facing the meganium. The memory shifted to me, in the library, struggling to understand whatever it was Lanky was trying to teach.

Everyone must struggle, bug.

My own words echoed in my head, bouncing back and forth. The cocoon of unwilling wurmples in my arms had settled as Lanky and I continued our progress over to the gym. Over and over and over, even with the wurmples, the words pinged and ponged. We found ourselves by the museum/library/gym hybrid. Not quite on the gym property, rather in a semi-open field near the tree-line of the ever-present and seemingly ever-encroaching pokemon forests. The moon was still out. The sun had yet to pop over the horizon. Even so, the world was brightening up, and my shortsighted eyes were able to see progressively further and further.

I set my rescues down, cutting one free as Lanky sat down, putting his head in his hands. The wurmple seemed to be the kind to scrounge the ground for berries or roots, possibly just eating leaves and what sugars they could find. That was what I guessed, anyway, based on my memories of being a human. The wurmple, sitting on the grass, looked at its compatriots who were still restrained, then took the opportunity to scurry awkwardly into the forest. We had escaped the worst of whatever the sugars in that store were. Some people in blue jumpsuits with white stripes down the sides jogged past over the small roads of the city. The gym's walls towered high. We were much further from the gym, so I didn't notice any barking of dog-like pokemon.

The smell of tobacco drifted in the air. The wurmple had wasted no time scrunching away as fast as its lomg, chunky body could. With the first one gone and crawling through the forest underbrush, I released another, who also promptly ran into the forest. Lanky's face was in his hands, muttering to himself. A man in a brown coat just like the detective from last night walked past us, the distinct smell of tobacco drifting. I could not see his face, but though the smell was distinct, they had the same dark brown hair.

Lanky moaned. I was stuck with a distraught trainer. And I couldn't do anything about it with the wurmple cocooned in my arms. So, I set the squirming bug on his lap, and walked off toward the nearest grove of trees, doing the only thing that came to mind.

~~~

Dawn had already left the motel she was staying in. In fact, she'd explored some of the native mountains and coastlands a bit, with Alakazam teleporting the two of them across the short distances they could visualize, as they sought out an area where she could practice. She had, in her bag, everything she needed to stay and camp there, out in the wilds. Still, having left half her team behind in order to enter the country, she was reluctant to do anything dramatic in the unfamiliar region without the rest of her team.

According to her pokedex, she was just north of a popular hiking and spelunking area called Wellspring Cave, about midway between Nacrene and Striaton Cities. She released the first subject, a swadloon. She scanned the pokemon, just to be sure. She raised her eyebrow, when she saw it was registered to the professor Juniper. Chuckling to herself, she rolled her eyes. Looker and his organization certainly had their connections.

The pokemon didn't immediately run away, but instead stared at her hand holding the pokeball, face holding a permanent frown. Then the swadloon curled up under the early morning sun, their own blanket seemingly glowing. Whether a learned reaction or one that happens when faced with a pokemon as powerful as her alakazam, it didn't matter. Then the connection hit—the swadloon was using protect, and was expecting some kind of move to be used on it now.

"Alakazam, hypnotize our subject, please," she said. If Dawn was right, nothing would happen. And she was. She rummaged through her bag. She had come prepared to deal with this situation. It wasn't that alakazam couldn't break through the pokemon's instinctive barriers. The whole process just had a tendency to work better when the targeted pokemon was alive. The swadloon's movements were small, but despite holding its protect, it was rubbing its leaf-covered arms, holding its leaf-blanket fully over its face and head.

Dawn paused. If these were related to Cedric Juniper… then maybe their barriers would come down at a picture of Burgh's Leavanny. She pulled out her pokedex. She still had satellite signals, even in Unova, but she'd still saved a few pictures and videos of the Leavanny in the process of building a sort of profile of the bug. When no second "attack" had come, while she was pulling up pictures, the swadloon eased off. She'd even expected it to run away.

Their introduction wasn't exactly great.

She muted her 'dex, then set in front of the swadloon playing a video of the leavanny moving their legs in wildly erratic motions in front of the camera. The fact it's these videos that are in the news just a week after Mount Coronet, rather than a national or league-orchestrated manhunt… Dawn was clenching her teeth, and her eyes were shut.

She took a breath, pulling her thoughts further inside, trying to distance herself from the emotions. She had her goals. She needed to get to Cyrus. Bring the man back. Her alakazam's presence floated beside her. She'd bonded strongly with him and pip, her once-piplup, now empoleon. She didn't have telekinesis to hold anything heavy. She couldn't even bend her alakazam's spoon. Most humans, even ones that could bond to similar degrees she could, didn't build that level of skill. Instead, as she meditated, she felt the world around her.

Dawn felt the dirt, passing over it with her mind, finding the pokedex, propped up against her pack, then feeling the physical body of her target. With her mind, she rustled through her meticulously-packed bag, counting the items, recentering herself as another thought in her mind focused on recalling the immediate goal. Getting lost too far in the future meant decision paralysis. Focusing in the now meant potentially losing the forest for the trees. Her mind was stuck, focused too much on the forest. She needed to focus on a couple trees.

Her pack had twenty Unovan nutri-bars. She had a miniature bottle of cherry conditioner, picked out for her by Looker. She had only three pokeballs. Two standard-faire, and one master ball, as Cyrus had called it. He'd gifted it to her, even as she had stormed his headquarters. Said he didn't need it. That it was "an extra". Dawn's face smiled. Before she could get lost on that path of thoughts, her mind was lightly directed, reaching out to her alakazam.

Gently, she reached out, lightly tapping her partner with what little power over thought she'd trained. Alakazam accepted, as they had done so, so many times before. The thought-streams weren't separate personas, no. When you meld with an alakazam, it was one being, but they held multiple streams of thought at once, many terminating in moments. There was one mind, one set of memories, one driving agent behind it all. But they had many different tasks.

Why abra slept was extremely simple, seemingly unaware of the world, teleporting at random. Doing all of this was a lot of energy to expend.

The largest number of thought-streams she had ever seen in another human was Lucian, the psychic specialist in Sinnoh's elite four. She'd met the man while exploring Canalave library, as she was tracking down the legends of the Creation Trio. The man could manage four. In comparison, Dawn could barely manage two deliberate thought-streams. Though the man had congratulated her on her incredible bond with her psychic pokemon. In comparison to the incredibly intelligent, yet also animalistic alakazam, humans' abilities simply pale in comparison, each of their streams compounding, directing the force their minds can exert on the world and others.

Alakazam gently pulls her thoughts into its mind, already knowing her intentions, with a care only shown toward those whom the alakazam considers friends. The swadloon is not sleepy, one part of the alakazam pushing for hypnotism, the other, with the care of a bristle brush, stimulating the target. Before Dawn even notices, she is parsing images and senses, fractal leaves of red. The first time she'd melded with a zubat, the session ended, and she'd woken up with her senses spinning, body splayed across the ground, having wretched and heaved, covered in lunch that had decided to make its way out. Her mind had decided the world was spinning.

She pulled out of the connection with her alakazam, taking a manual breath, examining the world around her. She was fine. No spinning. Her limbs felt heavy. She was in the sun. It felt nice. Her mouth was dry. She looked around. No birds seemed to be eyeing them. She'd made a note to give her partner a couple of extra treats for how smooth it was going. That she could see. She pulled up an image of Burgh's leavanny, no purple shoes. No dancing. She reached out again, returning back to alakazam, following the other part of her mind that was still connected. The image had resolved, surprisingly quickly, though there were the occasional artifacts, as some parts on the image. The overwhelming red had faded, the fractal as well.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

The images of the half-hypnotized swadloon's mind, watching the dancing leavanny over the last couple minutes, the reflection of the shoes seemed less purple to her mind, and more gray. As that portion of her mind was back to filtering through the image, the other portion was directed to the next step. Interpreting visual information that both parties have a reference to.

Check. she thought. The next step was to extract information. This was a bit more delicate, however. If you weren't careful, the subject would fall asleep and begin dreaming, introducing general randomness and inaccuracy in the interrogation process that needed to be avoided. Looker had given her the cherry conditioner for that reason. A little bit of the substance, and the subject would enter into a state not unlike meowstic on catnip. Or so the detective had claimed.

The image of the leavanny re-entered the thought-stream, being nudged ever-so slightly back on topic by another part of her.

~~~

When I returned, the detective was completely out of sight and the smell of tobacco was gone. Lanky's hands and clothing were covered in sticky bug-silk, as he had apparently been wrestling with the wriggling wurmple. My trainer's face was covered in tears, which had stopped flowing. I chirped, announcing my return, presenting him with a leaf necklace. He just smiled, holding his head forward, pulling the wurmple close to his chest as I set it around his neck. Lanky began to chuckle, then fell over into outright laughter. I stood there, mouth closed, watching as he rolled around on the ground, wurmple-cocoon in his arms. What else was I supposed to do? He had his own food and water. I could gather some berries, I guess? I chirped in surprise as he pulled me into his arms, practically gluing the three of us together with my silk.

~~~

The first swadloon had fallen asleep, and Dawn was resting from the exercise. She took a bite of the nutri-bar, feeling her body's energy stores restore. Often, with these kinds of interrogations, there was feedback. But she'd never connected to bugs before. Or plant-type pokemon, even. She rubbed her hands together.

The psychology of the sewaddle line was surprisingly not well-established, given how much research was known about the species. Unova's research into their bugs was not nearly as far along as she'd expected. She made a mental note to ask Looker about it, later. So instead, she'd been relying on other regions' records of connecting to bugs.

A couple of the articles she'd read before coming to Unova noted a strange mapping of senses, such as smells mapping to tastes, the strange lack of orientation because they had no ears, no inner ears, fixations on sugars.

She was happy, holed up in the sun, and yet, whenever she'd sent the image of the leavanny, the feeling received only mapped back to pure isolation, a terror of exposure, of one day being abandoned by the strongest protector you knew. It had brought up her own feelings of betrayal. Of people she'd looked to, who'd disappeared when she needed their help the most. Of the region's champions and protectors abandoning her when—she felt the pressure of her own alakazam brushing up on her, helping her recenter, reminding her of her goals.

Thought-streams are dangerous, she was reminded. Abra slept because they spent all their time and energy directing, coordinating the thoughts, searching the world. They teleported at the drop of a hat. Often due to sensed predators. Other times, due to their own disorganized anxiety. Dawn pulled her thoughts back to herself even further, pulling her senses out of the world around her, wiping the tears off her face. She tossed out her togekiss and empoleon. She gave them all an early lunch, tossing her alakazam an extra piece of candies through its favorite puzzle.

~~~

I don't know what I was expecting out of either Lanky or the wurmple, but after Lanky had let me go, giving me and it some food, the face of the wurmple had disappeared, spinning itself into a cocoon of its own, a single red eye now poking out. Lanky, still wearing the necklace I'd made him, collapsed, lying down on the grass, taking a nap as the first rays of light began to peek over, and joggers and cyclists began to filter through. The. uh. Silcoon? Didn't wiggle or run away. It, just like Lanky, apparently decided sleep was the better path. I didn't blame them.

Leaf was still in his pokeball. Which was for the best, really. I didn't want to find out he'd accosted someone because they'd gone jogging and he'd smelled the sugary sports beverages. I really didn't have anything to disagree with cresselia, really. What did I really want out of life? I looked at lanky and the wurmple, relaxing in the grass by the forest's edge as I watched the humans and their pokemon going about their day in the absurdly dense city. I didn't smell any hints of venipede back behind us, so I figured we were safe.

I didn't close my eyes for meditation. Unless I wanted to sleep, I couldn't actually close them. Torpor happened automatically, though if I was to compare it to sleep, it was not so near a conscious off-switch as it was when I was human, unless I was dreaming. But I'd already been able to dream while going about my day. Instead of going into torpor, at least without purpose, there were two things I needed to work on. Negative thoughts would protect me from hitchikers like ghosts, then that was effectively like cultivating dark energies, right? Cebi's body was split in half, what did it ooze? Half oozed black. The other half, oozed pink. No purple or anything which screamed "ghost". Was Cebi filled with some kind of noxious mixture of dream-juice? The pink was her psychic side. It was oddly reminiscent of the black-and-pink latias' marks and coloring.

Could I practice and learn both psychic and dark moves at once? Could I have a tertiary type, like psychic or dark? I could become part ghost, so why couldn't I learn a psychic or dark type move or two? The corrupted latias could read my mind, but she couldn't send messages. I just had to keep in mind one potential problem: this wasn't the games, it never was. There were no generic "special defense" or "special attack" stat governing my abilities. It was likely that I lacked the physical organs to truly specialize in these other abilities. Whatever I would practice or learn, if it wasn't grass or bug-based, it would be weaker. Useful to surprise an opponent, if I could learn some dark-based abilities.

Are you and darkrai willing to help me practice this… 'dreaming'? I asked.

"When you are willing, Little Dreamer. Though this path is lonelier than you can imagine. And we make for poorer company than you know."

That gave me pause. Coupled with the sense of shoving myself in the nightmare realm, I looked at Lanky. I thought back to the latias' tears falling. I thought about Cebi, going after something, not saying what or why. My blades were rubbing together. No. I should practice and get good at the grass and bug-moves I could, first. Gnawing at the back of my mind, worse, was the feeling of shifting myself into darkrai's nightmare realm while practicing. An activity that was on a growing list of things that didn't seem terribly appealing but I was going to have to reckon with, whether I wanted to, or not.

I thought of the energy that came when I learned to fashion the energy of the sun into a solar beam. The sun was peeking over the edge of the skyline. It wasn't particularly bright. I stood, between Lanky, turning towards the forest. The first trees and bushes were pretty thin, but it thinned as the forest canopy had gotten thinner. It wouldn't do to have incidental casualties if this went awry, no. I didn't want to face towards the sky, so instead I targeted the only thing that seemed sensible. The gym wall. Under the increasing light of the morning, for the first time in my short poke-life, I pulled at that energy during a situation that didn't feel like it was life-or-death.

~~~

Dawn had gone a bit too hard on the second swadloon, who'd fallen asleep into a dream state. Somehow, she'd pulled her pack apart, and wrapped herself up in her own sleeping bag. Her face didn't feel numb. It felt too sensitive, like she'd forgotten how to move her mouth. She took off the beanie that she'd worn over her head, giving it to alakazam, who was still floating next to her, reassuring her with its presence. Her empoleon as well. She knew both would protect her and help her through any predators. She pulled out the togekiss' ball, retracting it without even a thought. She took a breath, standing up, as she realized what she'd just done, and why, re-releasing the pokemon.

Mind-melds were already dangerous, and she'd been fucking up her own protocols this whole time. Why? She had ingested more of the physical tics of the swadloon species than she'd expected. Her alakazam had nudged her, pointing to her, some of the personality differences. The memories were heavier and stronger than she'd ever expected from a fucking bug. It shouldn't be working like this! Glameow? Birds? Reptiles? Fish? All alien in their own ways, in ways which blunted the intensity. But these little balls of grass-type bugs were nothing but anxious.

Could bugs have depression? No. That was silly. Blanket refusal to consider it. Bugs didn't process death. They processed not having protection, they processed not having—she bit the inside of her mouth as her teeth ground, the taste of iron. She could take a break, retreating into the mind of her psychic partner as her empoleon and togekiss both walked close in concern for their trainer.

She pulled the blanket tighter, emotions she'd forgotten she'd been storing over the last four years. A moment later, she made the request, and her tears stopped. That wasn't her. That wasn't who she wanted to be. She flexed her fingers instead, balling a fistful of the sleeping bag that she'd wrapped herself in, shaking her fist at the sky in the determination that replaced the fear, keeping the dams sealed tight. Withdrawing the part of her mind connected to her psychic pokemon, she stood up. Looking at the alakazam wearing her beanie, she smiled. It was pretty cute. She looked at pip. Yeah, she could see dressing him up a bit.

When she got back to crushing everyone in her way, it could be in style.