~~~ Chapter 57 - Jittering ~~~

Cresselia, after her initial hesitation, looks forward, eying Darkrai's patient and calm demeanor, floating in the shadows, waiting for her with patience. The night was young, and she glided slightly forward, staring at the crowd of humans walking forward, lining up to go through the queues to the Nimbasa theme park. Cresselia's heart buzzed at the excitement of the pokemon and humans which were running as they filtered through the entrance of the park. Her visage shimmered, the form of a twenty-year old woman with pink and yellow hair forming. Unlike her, Darkrai did not bother with using an illusion or transformation. Cresselia holds out her arm, Darkrai lowers himself to her, and they latch arms, before proceeding into the large group of humans, to find out for themselves, no dreams involved, what riding a roller coaster would really be like.

~~~

The rest of the time in the gym-slash-diner, for me, was pretty uneventful. Leaf tried to wrestle with me again—still twitching from the post-fight high. Looking at Lanky, focused on the fight, and not wanting to potentially cause a public scene, I turned Leaf down, choosing instead to just rest under our sun lamp at our table as Kate's team fought Chili. They had a harder time versus him than Lanky and I did, based on what the announcer said. I felt pretty good when my little skorupi friend came out and the announcer even noted that he was wearing a leafy outfit! I would make more.

"Congrats!" Lanky told Kate when she returned from the battle stage, presenting her new Trio Badge, practically jittering.

"Thank you!" she said, before pulling her krokorok into a big hug, the pokemon responding to her in kind. Lanky looked at me, grabbed my arm and pulled me onto his shoulders, forcing me to shove my leaf-skirt out of the way while she embraced her pokemon. Our trainers retrieved their belongings from the lockers, Leaf was recalled into his pokeball and the four of us left the gym, taking a stroll and enjoying our time as we perused our way to the north of Striaton city. I wrapped my arm around Lanky's head so I could hold still.

"I feel so relieved," Kate said.

"Oh?" Lanky asked. "That's right, you only have three badges left! That's pretty great!" he exclaimed.

"Each gym I beat, it's a huge weight off my shoulders. I'm still a bit worried, though…" she said, her voice trailing off.

"Worried about stalling out?" Lanky asked as we passed a store. He paused. "Actually, I need to pick up some supplies. Leah and Fidget have both been eating more food lately, what I have won't last, even with foraging. These pokesanto nutri-bags of berries outdo natural foraging by miles."

Kate nods, our trainers turning to cross the street. "Yeah, I'm happy I'm making progress, but each time I get to my next gym, I'm worried my team will stall out." Kate said, before wincing as she looked at the store, krokorok following behind us in silence as they walked across the street, heading over toward the store. "Hopefully this won't be costing you too much…" she trailed off.

"It's not too bad! I still have plenty to last me to the end of the year, and worse comes to worse, once I get my third badge, I hunker down in Castelia and mooch off the food there for a couple months, they keep plenty of pokemon food stocked," Lanky said, his voice cheerful. "My birthday's in August, and when we get there, I'll get national income and have a tidy buffer. So, I'm not worried."

Kate's facial expression lightened up. "Well, that's good! In that case…" Kate's face turned into a smirk, "Leah sure is putting on weight!" she said, looking up at me hanging out on lanky's shoulders, smiling, giving my abdomen a poke through my skirt, forcing a chirp out of me. She laughs as I swipe her hand away, annoyed.

She just called me fat! I stared back down at her with as much vitriol as I could muster—which wasn't much, since I didn't have facial muscles for sneering or furrowing brows. Regardless, I stare into Kate's eyes until she diverts her attention back to her krokorok as we finally come to the curb, diverting to the small store.

"Careful with her," Lanky said, before turning his head to look at Kate, who's eyes went wide. Being on Lanky's shoulder meant that I couldn't even attempt to read his expression or lips. I held my mouth shut. I was not going to panic, no sirree. And yet, deep down, my doubts played.

Did he know I understood them? How? Ugh. I was practically kicking myself. I was the one who was bad at reading the cues. They would find out long before I would find out they knew, if they decided to keep the fact that they knew that I understood them a secret. Wrong. It was all so wrong! I didn't even WANT to understand them this well! I just wanted to be a damned pokemon! Being a pokemon was awesome! And yet, no, damnit, somehow it all just had to fall into place!

"Owch, Leah! That hurts!" Lanky said, pulling my arm off his forehead. I'd been pulling too tight. Oh gods, I was giving myself away.

"How, uh, how much has she been eating?" Kate asked, glancing up at me momentarily, before looking away.

"Leah's been getting at least three thousand calories a day—" Lanky began.

He's been tracking how much I eat?

"Holy shit," Kate said.

He continued, "And Fidget's been getting two thousand. Another couple months and he'll be where she is, though he's only a couple pounds behind Leah in weight."

The store's front door slid open automatically when we approached, forcing me to duck down as we went into the building. The ceiling and lights in the store were too low, my headdress and antennae rubbing against the roof of the store. The uncomfortable rubbing and vibrations forced me to hop onto the floor with a light, squeaky thwunk onto the tile. My amazing, fabulous purple shoes had caught me without any slipping, allowing me to strike a pose for the security camera TV combo, eliciting a chuckle from the clerk at the front counter.

"And yeah, not to brag but Leah's picked up fifteen pounds since I first got her back in Anville a couple months ago, it's all muscle too. Leavanny don't molt, so if she was getting fat, the 'dex says she should eventually self-regulate on her own," he said, lasering in on a rack that smelled thick of sugar and dried berries.

"Where do you think she'll top out at?" Kate asked.

"I don't know," Lanky said. "She's about fifty pounds right now—" we moved an aisle over and he grabs a spray bottle "—and full-height, competitive leavanny have been known to hit a hundred pounds. But Leah's nearly a foot shorter than Fidget and easily out-eats him, so who knows."

"That's heavier than Krokky is!" Kate exclaims, patting her krokorok in the head, before looking at his scorch marks, her face turning flush. "Actually… I need to take my team to the pokecenter to get checked," she says.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Lanky nods, grabbing a pack of candies that smelled just like the ones he'd been tossing me while we worked on language stuff. Together, the four of us walk to the front desk.

"Find everything you wanted all right?" the clerk asks, as I hear the beep of the scanner but can't see over the countertop.

"Yessir," Lanky says. I look at the krokorok, staying diligently by Kate's side, not complaining at all, its tail waving back and forth in patience as they waited for Lanky and I at the store's front door.

Stepping outside in the evening light of Striaton City, Lanky and Kate changed direction, heading back toward the Pokecenter. I continued to walk along, following our trainers.

"I'll follow you to the pokecenter. Enough about me and Leah though. You were saying, about having five badges?"

"Oh, yeah! I was just saying that I'm nervous. If I stall out here, I'm not sure what I'll do, I've already stopped school for a couple years just for it," she said.

"What about joining the rangers?" Lanky asked. On the ground, I was busying myself by skipping along, dancing over Krokorok's waving tail, making a game out of hopping over it with each waddle and swing under the fading light of the setting sun.

"My team? With the rangers? Are you kidding?!?" Kate said, huffing. "We couldn't do anything during the ghost outbreak at Castelia, during the Mount Coronet shitshow! We'd be less than useful! Maybe if either Venipede or Skorupi would just evolve already," she spat.

"Is it that bad?" he asked. Kate was about to answer, when his phone vibrated. "One moment," he said, pulling it out of his pocket. While he was checking his phone, I stumbled, tripping over the krokorok's tail, falling onto the sidewalk.

"Hmmm. Did you say you had the Nimbasa Badge?" he asked.

"Yeah," Kate said, shrugging.

"Well, apparently Lyra's taking a stop over there and says she wants me to meet her there."

"Uh, isn't that literally the way we came?" Kate asked. "Though I guess I needed to go back to Nacrene and hope Lenora had enough time to chill out anyway… But sheesh, that's like a four day trip from here!"

"On bike," Lanky said.

"Do you have a subway pass? I thought you didn't have the funds—" Kate asked, her face going red.

"Don't worry about it," he said, smiling. "Lyra's got connections."

"Ooooh, lucky," Kate said. "Are you going to meet her there, then?"

"I guess so," Lanky said. "But the last train of the night heads out in a half-hour, so I guess this is goodbye?"

"Yeah, good luck, and catch the train!" Kate said, and the four of us split in two, Kate heading to the west, and us heading off to the north, Lanky pulling out his bike, and tossing me into the basket, cycling along the street at full speed, the street lamps turning on as their sensors lose the last vestiges of sunlight.

As we biked through town, I heard a beep, and then saw a dark-skinned man resting on a scooter sitting under a street lamp ahead of us. As we drew closer, I heard a series of rapidly increasing beeps. The man looked about as we passed him, we heard the beeping growing slower and fading off as we sped through the streets toward the train station. Lanky pulled off at the subway station, I hopped out of the basket, and the guy we passed earlier shouts at us.

"Hey! Uh, I need to talk to you! Kid with the leavanny with purple shoes!" The dude pulled up to the curb as Lanky collapsed the bike to toss into his backpack.

"Uh, I've got ten minutes until the last train to Nimbasa comes, and I can't miss it," Lanky said.

"I'm an employee from the Aether Foundation and I was here on assignment and I think we can help you!" The guy said. Lanky looked down at me, accusingly. I had never heard of this Aether Foundation before, he shouldn't blame me!

"Then come inside, let's talk on the bench, I promised I'd be in Nimbasa ASAP," Lanky said.

"I just need ten minutes of your time," the guy said, as Lanky and I were speedwalking through the hall into the underground subway station, Lanky coming to the line of turnstiles, pulling out his phone. The light on the turnstile went from red to green.

"Then come on! I'm not going to get dragged around like this any more." Lanky said, the last part under his breath, and I was barely able to make it out under the echoes of the various machines and general rumble of the underground lights. Lanky and I walked ahead, leaving the guy fumbling at the front stop of the train station. I was worried, momentarily, that I would be slipping and sliding all over the smooth concrete, but I did not. Take a guess why. That's right. My fabulous, amazing, ultra-purple shoes.

Finally, Lanky sat down at the bench, and pulled out a piece of juicy, alluring candy from his pocket, smirking, and moves to toss one into his mouth. Before the candy made it into his mouth, my arm and leaf was there, blocking it from going in.

Bitch, that's bug candy. I clicked at him, annoyed, then held my own mouth open. He laughed, pulling my arm down, slipping the candy into his mouth. He was still smirking at his own betrayal when he pulled another one out, taunting me with it, then giving it to me. When the train finally pulled up, the guy that was chasing us barely stumbled into the station area, his hands and arms jittering.

"Come on then," Lanky told the guy as I stepped onto the train, my trainer only a couple steps behind.

"Wow, uh, Unova's train system's really expensive," the Aether guy said, stepping on the train.

"Yeah. There's a lot of reasons why Anville is a dying town." Lanky said. I hopped up onto a seat. It was so late, that no one else was hopping on. My legs dangled over the front of the seat, and I kicked my skirt out of the way, playing with my shoes as they glint in the subway light.

"She really likes those shoes, huh. You're Burgh, right? This uh, Leah? Dancing Leavanny?" the guy said.

Lanky sighed, "Yheawhp, that's us. And you are?"

I pretended like I wasn’t listening, looking over my skirt, looking for scorch marks from the short battle with Chili.

"Oh, sorry, name's Alan," he said, sitting down across from us. Arcanine had deliberately gone easy on me.

"Welcome to the Striaton Route Battle Subway! We are now departing for Nimbasa City, ETA of three hours. We hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable ride. Your conductors for tonight thank you for your patronage!"

"Three hours!?!" the guy said, "The train will be going faster than a hundred miles an hour at top speed!" Alan exclaimed.

There wasn't a scratch on my thorax. No burns on my leaves, well, a little scorch from a dripping ember that the arcanine had landed on me while I was pinned. At least as far as I could tell, that was all there was for damage, though I couldn't see my back in the mirror, from when it played one-dog ping-pong with me as the ball. The doors of the train close. It was just us three in our train car.

Lanky just nodded at Alan's wonder, gently pushing me forward, then glancing at my back and giving it a light rub. "Leah, you look fine," he said, practically cooing at me. "Anyway, what was so important that you had to chase us down and hop on this one way ticket to Nimbasa?" Lanky asked. "I'm getting real annoyed with most of the so-called 'adults' in my life right now, so I really, really hope you're not here to jerk me around."

"Naw man," Alan said, "have you heard of the Aether foundation?" he asked.

"No, but I don't really care. Not unless your foundation's offering me a bunch of money, or can explain any of the events of the past couple months." Lanky said, looking down at me.

Alan's face lights up. "Well, okay, so I'll keep it brief—Aether's whole purpose is the preservation of Pokemon. Our HQ is back in Alola. It's what we do. But uh, as part of that preservation, we also look into strange phenomena, right?" he said.

"Go on." Lanky said, tossing me another piece of candy.

"So uh, I've got this sensor. It's designed to detect a type of energy called Z-Energy, right?" Alan said.

"Right…"

"Have you noticed any strange phenomena or behavior surrounding Leah, here? Strange, really powerful creatures that tend to follow her around or show up at odd times?" Alan asked.

Lanky looked back down at me. I clamped my mouth shut as hard as I could. I looked at the ground. He took a breath. "... yes, I have," he said.

My shoes were really pretty.