Chapter 84 - Gym Training
Celeste’s new reality at the gym felt like a major upgrade from the week she’d been running away, but it wasn’t without its downsides. First, Ariana still had to babysit her. Blaine, reasonable as he was, wasn’t budging on that. And Ariana was the last person Celeste wanted hovering around, considering she still held a grudge over the whole not being able to check on Giovanni thing. But worse than that, though, was constantly having others around. Celeste liked to make new friends, but people everywhere meant Shy wouldn’t come out. So no late night pictionary or anything of the sort.
Out of the people in the gym, Celeste was most thrilled to actually meet Babs—she was fun. Probably depressed, too, but fun. Turns out she had a Ledyba and they had been out buying drinks for her party when the Unown took over. Plus, she actually laughed when Celeste told her about using her fireworks to deal with fake officer Jenny. She said it was better than the intended use. When Celeste probed further, asking if she had any idea what went down in the labs, Babs just shrugged, having the same reaction as everybody else: she thought Celeste called the creatures Unown as in ‘not known’ and didn’t have any other information about it.
But as cool—or flaming, as people here said—as Babs was, Celeste really wanted to chat with Shy about having met her. Trouble was, the only way she found to do that was by locking herself in the bathroom. Even then, Ariana wasn’t ever too far behind, banging on the door.
“Everyone knows about your ghost, Celeste. Get out.”
That freaked Shy out every single time. Celeste would step out grinning, Pat at her side, all innocent. “What ghost?” she’d ask.
It drove Ariana mad.
And Blaine?
Celeste had got pretty close to him by now, and he was actually kind of sweet—most of the time, anyway. He made sure to introduce her to the rest of the gym trainers, even though she’d already befriended half of them on her own. He also insisted she join their daily training sessions, even though she had only had Pat to train with. Apparently, the opposite of a Fire-type wasn’t a water or ice Pokémon, but a Slowpoke, specifically, which made everything more challenging.
Spending more time with him also made her more relaxed, less formal. She didn’t hold back anymore, which led her to burst into his office to just chat. One day, she strolled in there to pitch in her master plan for battle strategy: spontaneity and creativity.
“Think about it,” she said, leaning forward, eyes bright. “I can make like Lego pieces out of moves. So, every time I battle, I can build something completely different and new and no one will know what to expect from me.”
At first, Blaine seemed intrigued, nodding along as she talked. He even smiled. But the longer she rambled on, the more his smile started to look… strained.
“Well, creativity’s important,” he’d say diplomatically. “Everyone should have their own style.”
But quickly enough, the questions started coming.
“But what happens if you don’t come up with something fast enough in the heat of battle?”
“You want something different every time? How will your Pokémon know what to expect from you?”
“Creativity’s great, but where’s the consistency they’ll need under pressure?”
And the worst of all:
“What if it doesn’t work? Do you have a fallback, something solid to rely on?”
He did finish by insisting that she should really train with the other gym trainers. Something about her needing a solid base before thinking about ‘Lego pieces’.
Training at the gym involved waking up at the crack of dawn for “fire drills,” or whatever Blaine called them. They were underground, for Arceus’ sake, and she was pretty sure half the Pokémon around weren’t even diurnal. Litwick and Lampent? Literal lamps—they evolved to light up the night, not sunbathe at 6 a.m. But still, she dragged herself out of bed, did heat-resistance drills with Pat, and ran laps around the arena with the other trainers. Blaine wasn’t doing that himself, of course. No way he was trying to jog with his Rapidash with that bad back of his.
But anyway.
After all that, she’d usually sat with a group of trainers as Dinah, the girl with the Incineroar, lectured them about move combos and synergies. No battles, though—Blaine had said those were off limits since there wasn’t a properly working Pokémon Centre.
So the exercise afterwards was to workshop the concept of combo and perfect it. All the gym trainers were focused on specific combinations already. Wax the Litwick was working on something “traditional”. Will-O-Wisp followed by Hex, though he was mostly trying to control the wisps he created, and they tended to go haywire. The Lampent was doing the more complex, Flame Burst followed by Psychic combination. The trainer explained the concept was to corner opponents by controlling the flames on the field. This gym trainer was the only one around who actually seemed to know what they were doing, and his Pokémon already knew both moves pretty well, with his focus being on strategies to move the fire without losing control. Finally, the Houndour on the side was practising her Howl which at some point was supposed to connect with Fire Fang for some sort of explosive finish.
Celeste had loads of ideas, too. Especially now that Pat was getting more comfortable with Confusion. He could flood the battlefield and then explode the water from under the opponent like minefields. He could get started on Hydrokinesis, for Water Pulse and maybe make a water whip or something? Or if she wanted to go with something simpler, he could fill in the battlefield with yawn bubbles and water and completely disorient the opponent. Heck, maybe she could add an actual Confusion there and—
And nothing.
Before she could get too excited, the trainer in charge told her to rein it in. “Let’s stick with something on your level,” Dinah said cautiously. Eventually, they settled on Yawn followed by Confusion to disorient opponents, but without all the water explosions to overcomplicate the strategy.
The exercises were fun—at first. By day two, though, they had her doing the exact same thing. And again the next day. And the day after that. Four days straight of nothing but Yawn and Confusion, all because Pat hadn’t fully mastered Confusion yet. The repetition was driving her crazy. So, she tried to mix things up—found a rag, had Pat levitate it, and worked on him psychically tugging it in different directions without dropping it. But instead of appreciating Celeste doing something cooler, the others just stared at her like she’d lost her mind.
“That’s not how Confusion works,” Lampent boy said, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not about making your opponent dizzy by poking them on all sides—your Slowpoke has to reach into their mind.”
But five minutes later, he grabbed Celeste’s rag for his own Psychic training, and lo-and-behold—he thought it was good.
“Actually, this helps me progress to fire control,” he admitted, blushing as Celeste flashed him the smuggest grin.
Even with that small victory, the repetition was killing her. So again she burst into Blaine’s office to tell him she was bored of doing the exact same thing for four whole days and that her legs hurt, because keeping up with Pat for the morning laps meant she had to jog in place for longer than everyone else.
“Four whole days, huh?” Blaine raised an eyebrow, smirking. “That’s almost… a whole hand’s worth of days.” Celeste groaned, but he didn’t let up. “You’re not quitting just because it’s boring.”
It seemed that was that.
“But,” he added, “if you’re that bored, you’ve got the rest of the day to train however you want.” He wasn’t wrong. And it wasn’t as if she could go anywhere, anytime soon.
That’s how she ended up dragging Ariana all over the gym until they found Nebula.
“Hey,” Celeste grinned at the Bug-type. “Think you can help Pat with barriers? I’ve got a Protect TM, but I wanted him to do barriers like you do. Psychic ones.”
How could a bug say no to that?
—*——*—
“What exactly am I supposed to do here?” Ariana asked, stretching out on the rocky floor as Celeste fiddled with the Protect TM.
“Observe,” Nebula said with a click of her mandibles. “It’s not every day we get to study the learning process of a Slowpoke’s mind.”
Ariana groaned dramatically, throwing her arm over her eyes. “Watching a Slowpoke think. Never been more excited.” She let out another loud sigh for effect.
“Hey!” Celeste shot back, but finally adjusting the TM’s settings for Pat’s species, she refocused on him. “Pat, pay attention, alright? This thing’s gonna teach you Protect, and then Nebula’s gonna help you make it the best Protect ever.”
“And this is my life now,” Ariana groaned, putting on a mock version of her own voice. “Oh, let’s head to Cinnabar, check on Gio and his latest meltdown. Maybe we’ll get to sip margaritas by the pool. Just a day off. Genius. Perfect timing.”
Celeste gave her a sideways glance, half-smiling. “Pretty sure you’re not old enough for margaritas.”
“And I’m pretty sure you reeked of beer when we first met.”
Bzzzzzzt.
Nebula fluttered her wings in annoyance. “Let’s focus on the subject.”
Subject. Her Pat was a subject. Celeste sighed. Arceus, she missed her actual friends.
Still, Nebula was right. Celeste was going to focus only on Pat—and a quick flicker of her shadow told her she wasn’t the only one.
Pat, meanwhile, was laser-focused on the TM.
Well… Probably.
His wide eyes stared blankly at the device as it played sounds in a frequency only Slowpoke could hear, designed specifically for his species. Celeste had no idea what was playing, but she trusted Pat.
The process dragged on for about twenty minutes. By minute five, Nebula informed them the TM had already finished, but Pat just kept staring, his tail swishing lazily back and forth like a metronome. By the ten-minute mark, Celeste was about to ask if he needed her to run it again, but Nebula stopped her with a buzz.
“Fascinating. The subject seems to be ruminating on the information. Making sense of it.”
By minute fifteen, Celeste was on her feet, ready to poke Pat out of his daze, but Nebula wasn’t having it. With a flick of psychic energy, she shoved Celeste back down, not bothering to be gentle.
Ariana burst into laughter. “How’d you end up with a Slowpoke again?”
Celeste clenched her jaw. She was tired of this—tired of people assuming a Slowpoke was the wrong choice for her; she was almost as tired of that as she was of people calling her wrong. Her relationship with Pat was special, and she wasn’t about to let anyone tell her otherwise.
“So is Murkrow your spirit Pokémon?” Celeste shot back, letting a smirk spreading across her face. She leaned in, her voice dripping with venom. “A sneaky, thieving little pest that steals shiny things for a laugh? Or was it a walking curse that leads people down dark paths just to mess with them? Yeah, that checks out.”
Ariana pushed herself up on her elbows, eyebrow dropping. “Damn right it does. But I’m also sweet like my Oddish.” Her smirk grew sharper, more dangerous, as she added, “Perfect fit, unlike the hothead with a Slowpoke. How’s fire training going, by the way? Gym trainers tamed you yet?”
Celeste scoffed, ready to fire back, but before she could finish, Nebula buzzed in. “I’m studying Slowpoke. Your teenage bickering is well-documented and, frankly, uninteresting.”
“Buzz-kill,” she couldn’t resist.
And at that… Ariana actually laughed.
—*——*—
It took a few more minutes for Pat to finally be done with the TM. Celeste… well, she knew she’d failed miserably at the whole “mindful and present” thing on her part. But in her defence, it was easier when it was just the two of them and she didn’t need to shut Ariana up.
But she shook it off as Pat turned to her with a lazy grin.
“How’s it, bud?” Celeste asked, and the Orbeetle hovered closer, interested. Ariana had completely checked out by then. “Wanna listen again?”
He took a few seconds, and then let out a rumbly “ke”.
Nebula buzzed. “It seems he—”
“He got it,” Celeste smiled, getting an even bigger smile from him. The bug seemed curious.
“You understood him?”
“Yeah. ‘Po’ for yes, ‘ke’ for no. No need for telepathy,” Celeste said, pulling Pat into a hug.
Nebula paused, considering that. Long enough for Celeste to set Pat down and start gathering pebbles from the rocky arena. Her plan was simple. She’d sit a few feet away, toss pebbles at him, and Pat would throw up the Protect barrier. First, they’d see how long he could hold it. Then they’d test how quickly he could react. After that, it’d be time to refine things with Nebula’s help.
As Celeste settled across from Pat, Nebula buzzed again, tilting her head slightly.
“But you wish to communicate with him telepathically,” she said. “I sensed it in your thoughts.”
“Can you… not look into my mind?” Celeste grimaced.
“But you do,” Nebula insisted.
Celeste glanced at Pat, who tilted his head, eyes suddenly downcast. Nebula, of course, noticed it as well—she probably saw way more than Celeste could even guess.
“He wants it too.”
“I know,” Celeste admitted with a sigh. “But he can’t do it right now. And I’m not gonna push him just because it’d make things easier for me. He’ll do it when he’s ready. It’s about his Own Tempo, not mine.”
The bug tilted her head. “Own Tempo doesn’t function like that. It’s a battle ability, nothing to do with—”
“Arceus, I know! I wasn’t being—Can we focus on my exercise?” She raised her voice, causing Ariana to snicker from her spot on the floor.
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Nebula gave a small buzz of approval. “Very well. Protect requires significant endurance. Your Slowpoke may not sustain it for long. Allow me to provide guidance alongside your… unconventional approach.”
“Fine.” Celeste nodded, then gave Pat the signal. “Let’s go, Pat!”
He bellowed in reply, and Celeste tossed the first pebble. It clattered against something invisible midair and dropped to the ground. It worked! First try. Celeste threw her fists up in the air, ready to cheer—
“Continue,” Nebula cut in. “He won’t be able to maintain it for long,”
Undeterred, Celeste threw another pebble, then another, and another. She lost count after ten. Pat held the barrier without breaking a sweat. Nebula began teleporting around him, her interest clearly piqued. He only lowered the shield when Celeste told him to, and that was because Nebula insisted.
“Hypothesis one: the subject has an innate talent for Protect. I propose we explore teaching him psychically reinforced barriers like Light Screen. Hypothesis two: the subject is unaware of his own fatigue and—”
“It’s the first one!” Celeste cut in, not letting Nebula finish. “I know him. He’s not tired.”
Already gathering more pebbles, Celeste was determined to prove her point.
“You’re allowing personal bias to interfere—”
“Pat, speed round! Let’s see how fast you can block them!” Celeste shouted, lobbing a pebble. It… bonked him right on the head. He merely tilted his head, letting the stone tumble off.
“I’m telling you—” Nebula started again.
“Sneak attack!” Celeste yelled over her, already chucking two more pebbles in quick succession. Pat barely managed to raise the barrier in time to block the second one.
From her spot on the ground, Ariana snorted. “Careful, Nebula, or she’s gonna start throwing rocks at you next.”
After several more throws, Pat had generated multiple barriers without any sign of tiring—though his reaction time wasn’t exactly fast. Nebula had to admit his endurance was remarkable. She buzzed, informing Celeste that Pat averaged 850 milliseconds to form a new barrier. She noted that while speed wasn’t his forte, his stamina compensated.
“If he’s not showing fatigue,” Nebula continued, wings fluttering rapidly—though that seemed more excitement than actually flying. “I’ll proceed with the next phase of the experiment: coaching him through the psychic aspects of Protect. Eventually, I’d like to test his limits, see how long he can maintain the barrier under more rigorous conditions, and improve his speed.”
She kept on ranting for a bit, buzzing about how “fascinating” her “subject” was, which got on Celeste’s nerves.
But honestly? Nebula could call Pat whatever she wanted if training kept going this well.
—*——*—
It took ages for Pat to show any sign of tiring, but Celeste watched him closely, unable to wipe the proud grin off her face. He stood at the centre of the training arena, a faint shimmer of energy flickering around him—a barrier he’d held up for much longer than anyone expected. Nebula hovered beside him, her wings humming as she observed every last detail.
“Remarkable,” the Orbeetle noted, her voice resonating in Celeste’s mind. “He’s consistently infusing it with Psychic Energy. And still standing.”
Celeste couldn’t help but beam at that. She never had a training day this successful. Protect, Nebula explained, was a move most Pokémon could learn—a basic defensive technique that created a brief, invisible shield using universal energy pathways common to all species of Pokémon. But any Pokémon can refine basic concepts with their own Type Energy as well as personal abilities. The art of barrier refinement was one quite common among Psychic Pokémon (though Steel and surprisingly Ice did it often too).
“You know,” Celeste began, glancing at Nebula, “I once met a Mr Rime who did the most amazing things with his barriers. He made these boxes and shapes. Caused a lot of chaos with that.”
Nebula turned her large eyes toward Celeste (though Celeste still refused to look directly into them). “The Mr Mime’s line is renowned for their precise manipulation of psionic constructs through mimery. Their physical gestures act as conduits, allowing them to shape barriers and constructs with exceptional accuracy. Other Psychic-types, myself included, typically achieve only rudimentary forms of this ability through extensive training.”
Celeste nodded, her mind already jumping ahead. “Sooo… Pat could learn it? To make super strong barriers and shape them like anything?”
Nebula clicked disapprovingly. “After evolution, it might be attainable. But you’ll need to decide whether he becomes a Slowbro or a Slowking. Slowbro enhances physical resilience, allowing for more robust but less intricate barriers. Slowking, on the other hand, gets a big boost in brainpower, which could enable more precise and complex manipulation. I need to compile data to devise the best path for the subject. It could be an interesting experiment… to condition… yes…”
Celeste glanced at Pat, who had now settled comfortably on the ground, his tail swishing lazily as he blinked at her with that familiar, sleepy look. Nebula’s talk of experiments and “the subject” was starting to get a bit weird, so she waved it off.
“We’re good. No need to devise anything… or do any experiment…”
Pat gave a slow blink and a faint, contented hum, and that made Celeste’s heart flutter. She crouched down next to him, giving him a gentle scratch behind the ears.
“Whatever you become, bud, you’ll be amazing. You already are.” She dusted off her knees and stood up, grinning. “And you know what? I think you’ve earned a reward. What do you say we raid the kitchen?”
That was what caught Ariana’s attention. She propped herself up on her elbows, her bored expression shifting to a sly grin. “Finally, something fun,” she said with a dramatic stretch.
Celeste shot her a look, but a smile stayed on her face. “Oh, so now you’re interested?”
“Anything but studying the inner works of your Slowpoke,” Ariana said, getting to her feet. “And all that hugging and cheering and repeating how ‘Pat is the most amazingest Slowpoke ever’?” She stuck her tongue out.
“Weren’t you sweet like an Oddish?” Celeste shot back.
“Pot’s close to evolution.”
“You… called it Pot because it’s a plant that stays in a pot… right?”
Ariana snorted very, very loudly. “Sure, Celeste, let’s go with that.”
Nebula watched them with a tilt of her head. “It seems likely that the name is a reference—”
“She get’s it,” Ariana laughed again, already walking out.
—*——*—
“It’s fucking weird, okay?” Ariana laughed—the sound, Celeste noted, reminded her of a Murkrow. Pokémon take over the trainer, but the opposite was just as true and Rebel might actually be Ariana’s spirit Pokémon.
Celeste pressed her lips together, trying not to giggle. That’d be too mean. “I thought it was kinda cute, actually…”
Ariana shot her a sideways glance. “It looked like a nutsack.”
Celeste’s eyes widened, her face flushing red, which only made Ariana double over, laughing even harder.
“Aw, what’s wrong? Too pure for the word?”
Rebel fluttered down, dropping a shiny bottle cap into his trainer’s hand. Without missing a beat, she flicked it across the gym arena below them. A startled trainer yelped as it pinged off his shoulder, and Rebel swooped from the stands they were on, eyes gleaming with the delight of the chase.
Celeste rolled her eyes at that. “Well, if you had a Castform, what would you call it?”
“Bollocks,” the other girl declared without hesitation.
“And it’d be best mates with Pot the Oddish.” Celeste snorted despite herself.
They settled into a companionable silence for a moment, watching Rebel dive and twist after the bottle cap again. The past few days had blurred together—barrier training, endless drills with the gym trainers, and a creeping restlessness that Celeste couldn’t shake. At least Ariana had stopped banging on the bathroom door every time she snuck in to chat with Shy.
Sooo… small victories, right?
Well, maybe not. Blaine still insisted Ariana babysit her, while Ariana herself was under the gym trainers’ watch to stop her from slipping away.
And talking of Blaine… Celeste was kind of angry at him right now.
Earlier in the day, she had tried to make herself useful by volunteering for a supply run, but the Gym Leader shut her down immediately, making her stay in the gym with Ariana. Even Dan got to go. Bloody Dan! Everyone knew he’d probably lose his Litwick on the way to the shop. But whatever. With her new gym friends busy elsewhere, Celeste ended up looking for Nebula for a distraction.
She’d found the Orbeetle with Caleb for once, and joined them as they headed upstairs to feed his team. Playing with Aria and Powder always lifted her spirits, and that always made Pat happier, too. So it seemed like a good plan. It was also the first time Ariana had come along for that, and Celeste finally met Pot the Oddish—who was actually cute as buttons, despite the poison typing.
And then there was Caleb’s team. That’s when her very crass frenemy really started laughing—when she saw his Castform for the first time.
And she still hadn’t stopped.
“You know, I’ve seen a bunch of Castform before on some film and TV sets I visited,” Celeste said, lifting her chin, though she blushed when Ariana’s grin turned smugger. “They’re not that weird in their other forms.”
Ariana took her sweet time to bask in the awkwardness before replying.
“Look at you, a little star, hanging around on movie sets,” she said slyly.
“They weren’t my sets,” Celeste mumbled. “I was just tagging along—”
“Sure, sure. You know Diantha.” Ariana snorted, tossing the bottle cap to Rebel again. “That’s why you’re a little star. Not like a rock-star, or a superstar. More like, ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are,’” she sang in a mocking baby voice, batting her eyelashes. “Maybe I should call you Twinkles.”
“Seriously?”
After that she wasn’t done with mocking. “So what was the pop-princess playing? Generic love interest? Kissing in the rain?”
“Something like that,” Celeste muttered—it was actually exactly like that.
“Something like that,” Ariana mimicked, not letting out. “C’me on, Twinkles, I just dissed your friend. Where’s your bite?”
Celeste smirked. “At least I’m Anthy’s actual friend and not just using her for her pool or whatever.”
“Meh. You can do better.” Ariana leaned back, stretching. Rebel swooped down again, and she tossed the bottle cap once more. The gym trainer had left by now. “I’m not Gio’s friend because he’s rich. Give me some credit.”
“Riiiight… you keep talking about his mum… Babysitter much?”
“I don’t—I just give his mother updates when I see her, okay?”
Celeste raised an eyebrow. “So you babysitting him discreetly.”
Ariana shot her a glare. “I’m not. Ugh! Will drop it? I’d follow Gio to hell if I had to, not his… Whatever. I got a better job these days, okay?”
There was more to this story and Celeste knew it—Ariana had even hinted as much before. Something about her father working for Giovanni’s mother at some point and her being roped into keeping tabs on Giovanni when they were kids. But Ariana always changed the subject before she could dig deeper.
This job, though. It had to be super embarrassing, considering how cagey she was.
Before Celeste could press further, Ariana cleared her throat. “You know why Blaine has me babysitting you, right?”
Celeste tilted her head. “Because he wants to teach me to put up with annoying.”
“Because we’re the two most likely to cause trouble. Easier to keep tabs if we’re stuck together.”
“Wouldn’t that just make us more trouble?”
Ariana paused for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Yeah, but you’re too much of a goody two-shoes, Twinkles. You’re one to stumble into chaos. You gotta want to sew it instead.”
“Are you really sticking with Twinkles?” Celeste deadpanned.
Ariana just shrugged.
“Anyway,” Celeste continued, “I’m pretty sure the last thing I need is more chaos. I’m trying to learn patience, remember? Being less reckless?”
“That’s ‘cause everyone’s trying to cut out your claws. Old Man Fire was supposed to be all about explosions. Did you know that? Yet there he is, forcing you to be bored out of your mind and, worse, dragging me along. You’re already too nice, Twinkles. If you go all monk, you gonna lose your edge, and where’s the fun in that?”
Celeste blinked. It sounded like good advice. Somewhat. “Explosions, huh? I’d like to learn that.”
Ariana smirked. “Now you’re talking.”
The conversation lulled as Rebel fluttered back, dropping the bottlecap at his trainer’s feet once more. The faint clink echoed through the empty stands. Ariana leaned back, stretching her arms across the seat behind her, idly nudging the cap with her foot but not bothering to send it flying again.
“You mentioned having a job?” Celeste asked eventually, breaking the silence.
“Again, it’s not babysitting Gio. Or you.”
“Yeah,” she snorted. “I dunno. It just… makes you sound so… responsible.”
Ariana’s scoff at the word responsible was loud. “Fuck no! I’m not responsible!” Her voice rose. “My job is cool. I’m like a secret agent for trouble. Ready to denounce the evils of truth and love.”
“Denounce the evils of truth and love?” Celeste burst out laughing. “Is that from some song?” she asked between giggles. “To denounce! The evils! Of truth! And of love!” She banged her head up and down like a terrible impression of a metal player, adding exaggerated air guitar strumming for good measure.
“You wouldn’t get it. It’s cool. I do tons of field work.” Ariana’s eye twitched.
“Field work, huh?” This was too good. “Do you hand out flyers warning about the dangers of truth and love?”
Rebel perched on the backrest behind his trainer, his eyes watching everything lazily. Ariana didn’t seem to notice. For a moment she fumed, but then her gaze was suddenly off, fixed in the distance, jaw tight. Seeing that Celeste paused halfway through making another joke.
“You okay?” she asked.
“You made me think about work, and now I’m annoyed,” Ariana muttered.
“Sorry. You can talk to me, you know? I won’t make fun of it. Promise.”
“Oh, because you’re just soooo kind, huh, Twinkles?”
Celeste sighed. “Because it seems like you need to vent.”
“You wouldn’t—” Ariana started, then hesitated. “Actually, maybe you would get it. It’s like that supply run Blaine shut you out of. My boss? Same deal. Only sends me out for grunt work—like, not even the cool kind. And now? Fuck, Madame’s gonna be pissed I’ve been AWOL for a month.”
“Madame?” Celeste asked, frowning.
“Yeah, we can’t use her name,” Ariana said, waving it off like it wasn’t a big deal. “So there was this big mission a few weeks back. Career-making stuff. Ugh! Why am I telling you this?”
“Because bottling things up and pretending we’re not worried about stuff… doesn’t help,” Celeste said. “Come on. We, of all people, know that.”
The other girl stared at the floor for a moment. “There’s this guy in our… organisation,” she began, eventually. “Thinks he’s hot stuff, but he’s not. Total sellout. He stumbled onto something big and called for reinforcements. Suddenly he’s leading a huge operation, and he didn’t pick me for his squad. ‘Little Ariana’s not good in a crunch,’” she mimicked bitterly. “The higher ups agreed.”
“Their loss.” Celeste offered a sympathetic nod.
“Damn right!” Ariana punched the air, with Rebel cawing in agreement. “And guess what? He messed it up. Big time. I was ready to make popcorn and watch the fallout, but since I was the only one around HQ when it all went to shit, they sent me to bail them out of that mess. Not a cool mission. Extraction by boat. Middle of the night, middle of a blizzard, and I had to go to fucking Sevii to play getaway driver.”
Celeste’s stomach tightened at the mention of a blizzard… in Sevii. Not… the best memories. “That blizzard was the worst,” she murmured.
Ariana’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You… were in Sevii too?”
“Yeah,” Celeste said, forcing a casual tone. “Four Island. Crazy coincidence, huh?”
“Yeah… crazy.”
An uneasy silence settled between them. Pat stirred from his nap nearby, lifting his head to look at them.
But in the end Ariana just shrugged, letting whatever that was go. “Anyway, at least I got to see him and his elite team fail miserably.”
Celeste snorted. “Did you feel vindicated?”
“Fuck yeah. If they’d sent me from the start, it wouldn’t have gone south.” Ariana’s grin flickered, then faded. She leaned back, arms draped lazily over the seat behind her, but her expression tightened. “Their screw-up was what got me stuck here, though.”
“How so?”
“That sellout I mentioned? He got wrecked—concussed, half-frozen, the works.” She rolled her eyes. “I had to haul his sorry ass to the Seafoam Islands, and then guess who got stuck playing nurse while he recovered? Like that’s all I’m good for. Can you believe after all that, I couldn’t even get back to HQ to watch the boss lose it? Missed the whole meltdown.”
How many people had been concussed and half-frozen after that blizzard again? The thought gnawed at Celeste, but she forced a smile, pushing it away. “So you were stuck in Seafoam, annoyed, and then…?”
Ariana shrugged, flicking a strand of hair from her face. “Tried to take a day for myself. Clear my head, you know? Figured I’d swing by and see Gio since I was so close. He’s been taking a break around here for a while. But then, all this happened.”
“Talk about bad timing,” Celeste forced a laugh, but her mind was already racing.
“No kidding. And did I get to relax? Of course not.”
“Rough.”
“Right?” Ariana groaned. “Went from listening to some idiot sing a nursery rhyme about a bird hopping to Gio getting caught up on Cinnabar’s fuckery. When the island went to shit, he went to the beach and tried to make poetry about sand. Can you believe it? ‘My ambition stretches farther than the shores, vaster than all the grains of sand beneath my feet’. It wasn’t even good poetry.”
Celeste’s breath caught. “N-nursery rhyme?”
“Mhmm. But that was the guy at Seafoam. And he was doing it ‘cause he hit his head. At least he didn’t come up with his own. How did it go again? A bird hopped… and then stopped?” Ariana scratched her head.
“Once I saw a little bird… Come hop, hop, hop; So I cried, ‘Little bird, will you stop, stop, stop?’” Celeste recited, her voice barely above a whisper. She heard it about a month ago… in a blizzard… in Four Island.
“Yeah, something like that… Guess it’s famous in Galar, or…?” Ariana frowned, noticing the colour drain from Celeste’s face. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Yours finally jump out of your shadow?” She smirked, glancing at the shadow behind Celeste.
Celeste didn’t answer, though. Her heart pounded too hard in her chest for words to form. Pat must have sensed something was wrong too, because he slowly trotted to her side, his eyes suddenly alive.
It took a lot for her to speak again. When she did, her words were colder.
“I heard it from Ryder.”
Ariana opened her mouth. Then closed again. Her Murkrow tensed behind her too. “I don’t think I told you his name…”
“No, you didn’t.” Celeste remained steady, despite herself.
“Four Island… You said you were on Four Island…” Ariana’s tone shifted, something sharper creeping into it as her gaze slowly moved from Celeste’s face down to her waist. Her eyes locked on the Premier Ball clipped to her belt. Powder’s Premier Ball. “And… you’ve got an Ice Vulpix.”
Celeste’s hand moved instinctively to cover the Pokéball. Pat stepped forward, protective, while Rebel took flight, circling above.
“Gozu had a lot to say about the trainers his team ran into…”
“Did he now?”
Ariana’s smile suddenly twisted as she rose to her feet. Her eyes stayed locked on Powder’s Premier Ball, though. “The girl with the boss’ Ice Vulpix—he said she was a real hothead, but pretty harmless.” She tilted her head, smirk deepening. “The ice specialist was the dangerous one… hindsight is a bitch, eh? Lorelei took the Frigibax for herself, didn’t she? Should’ve realised it was you sooner. Maybe I could’ve taken the chance to swipe that from her, too.”
Ariana’s gaze slid back up to Celeste’s eyes, predatory now. Celeste’s fingers tightened around Powder’s Pokéball, while Pat braced himself at her side, sensing the shift. She wasn’t letting her brashness take over again. Not this time. This wasn’t like Ryder’s battle. And she didn’t have Lori to fall back on now. Messing this up wasn’t an option.
“What are you going to do? Try to take Powder?” Celeste kept her tone steady, almost cold. “We’re stuck on this island, overrun by things we can’t fight. We’re both trapped here. I can call Blaine.”
Ariana stepped closer, her smirk cutting like a blade. “Calling teach? C’mon, Twinkles, you’re better than that. Look, your Vulpix? Boss wants it—and from what Gozu said, once his debrief is done, she’s gonna want it bad. But hey, hanging with you almost made this whole mess bearable, so don’t take it personal. I’ve simply been AWOL for a month. Bringing something back would make things a hell of a lot easier for me. You get it, right?”
Her words didn’t matter. Celeste wasn’t gonna let them matter. She’d be patient. She’d hold her ground—
Ariana’s laugh echoed in the empty arena. “Oh, Twinkles… nothing to say? I told you. Lose your bite, and you’re no fun anymore!”