1-4 Goldenwood

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"I should've expected this," I muttered, pacing back and forth in the receiving room of the suite I rented with Red's money.

It was a gorgeous thing, too, all soft shades of blue with bronze accents, a window with a view of Mt. Silver, and a tri-sectional couch with too many throw pillows to sit on. It had a small kitchen inset into a corner with an island and two stools pulled up against it, as well as a thick, fur rug that lead from the front door to the larger of the two attached bedrooms. Which I had claimed, of course, leaving the smaller, kid-friendly one for Red to have.

Which he didn't, because he never arrived, and now I will associate hotels with this anxiety curdling in my heart.

Pikachu made a frustrated noise from where he was pacing against the windowsill.

"He's not dead or even moderately physically harmed, or you would have felt it through the bond, regardless of distance," I thought aloud, breathing Ice in deep. Working through problems this way was a habit I picked up from Mother. "Nor can he be severely psychologically or emotionally harmed, you would have felt that too. So, he must be either unable to travel to Violet City, unwilling to, or is currently in the process of doing so and simply running late.

"If he is unable to come to Violet, it can only be because of a powerful threat. Even absent you, Pikachu, his team is just too powerful, and he himself too aware and cunning, to be waylaid or somehow entrapped by anything but a Fifth Realm or greater opponent. With Espeon I don't think he could have been abducted through teleportation, and with Venusaur's skill in Ground-type control he couldn't have been trapped underground or in some kind of structure, unless he didn't have his team with him… no, if he's unable it's almost certainly because he either lost against, or is in a contest with, another trainer in the Fourth Realm or at least three in the Third."

That is the general rule: three in one Realm can equally contest one in the Realm above. Stupid people would then claim nine in one Realm can challenge someone two Realms above, but the simple truth is, a two-Realm gap is impassable.

"If that's the case, then we shouldn't go to reinforce him. Weak as I am, I and Razor would only be liabilities, valuable hostages for his enemy at absolute best. And if he's currently in the process of arriving and simply running late – which, I gather, is normal for Red – then whether or not we stay here or leave Violet doesn't matter at all. What if he's unwilling, though?"

Pikachu made an aggrieved sound, and I nodded in acceptance. Zero chance Red simply chose to stay longer. He made a promise to me, and has been attempting to be more straightforward and honest in his dealings with me. Additionally, there's the matter of the Pikachu he tasked with my protection. He wouldn't spend longer than he absolutely had to away from his precious starter.

"If he is choosing to delay his return, I can only think of two reasons why," I said, and my breath crystallized in the air. "The first: there is something at the archaeological site that is both time-sensitive and more important than returning to us promptly. If Gary Oak is suffering some kind of issue, or there is a delicate situation at the site, I suppose I can see Red deciding to stay a while. He will eventually come to Violet, and likely open discourse with me with an apology and a promise of some kind of lavish gift. This is the better possibility and, honestly, the more likely.

"The second possibility is he is in some kind of context that, while not an outright, or at least immediate, danger to him, would be a danger to me. The situation would need to be resolved before he can come to Violet or bring me to the site. Maybe there was an altercation with Team Rocket at the site, low-ranking members that he can annihilate but which could in turn annihilate me, or some kind of discovery at the digsite poses a hazard to trainers with weak cultivation. … The more I consider it, the more likely this seems, actually. Perhaps that bizarre Psychic Nexus would pose a danger to me even if I didn't cycle it in- or, perhaps he cycled it, like a moron, and is concerned that he would pose a danger to me with his presence alone if he came to Violet."

Pikachu made a chittering sound, and I nodded.

"Yes, that would explain why Blue and Silver weren't coming to the Indigo Conference. If something at this expedition site, most probably that Psychic Nexus, leaves a taint on the soul after cycling it, then coming to the capital of Indigo during the time of year it is most populated then performing in a high-intensity, televised event would be, ah, really dumb."

The more and more I think about it, the more obvious it is that I should hole up here in Violet for a week, then reconsider if he still hasn't shown. He gave me more than enough cash to afford it, and if I switched to a lower-end hotel, it could stretch to a month. I could subsist forever, honestly, if I utilized Pikachu's strength to accomplish jobs. I'd have to do so under the counter, of course, as Pikachu wasn't registered on my license, but Mother had taught me the ways to do that, so it wouldn't be difficult, just moderately tedious.

I exhaled, breathing out the Ice and switching to my generic, Aura-recovery cycling rhythm. I wasn't anxious, anymore, so the Ice cycling rhythm had done its job, but it was rarely wise to make irreversible life decisions while under the influence of a Type. Ice, despite its reputation as the logical aspect, wasn't unique in this regard. I had only been cycling it for a few months, and already I understood how the Whitegrave clan had been able to optimize themselves out of relevance in Indigo's political scene.

Every thought is crystal-clear, made entirely without the burden of emotion, and utterly rational. Every thought that comes after is built ontop, and when looking from one thought to the next, seems entirely sane. But, after the cycling ends and upon looking at the entire chain, it becomes impossible to understand how someone could have possible gotten from point A to Z. Like ice, the logic had simply continued to stretch, and stretch, and stretch, endlessly.

One of my tasks, as a budding Fantasia intelligence agent, was to keep tabs on trainers that challenged the Rising Gym. It wasn't for any constructive reason except to give me, and every other Fantasia member with the aptitude for it, a soft target to practice and sharpen our skills on. As such, I was assigned the easy, low-priority, and utterly thankless task of building a profile on and constantly knowing the location of an Ice specialist of middling talent called Mariah of Cinnabar.

At the time, I thought the most difficult part of my task would be discovering why a volcano island native would become an Ice Specialist, but that proved easy: she had simply thought that Ice Types were most beautiful and, well, fair enough. The tricky part was in giving my Mother a comprehensive psychological profile on a mid-twenties, Third Realm trainer who sold multiple of her own internal organs, invested in a failing business in Saffron, then died of starvation months later.

As it turns out, she had convinced herself that she needed great wealth to advance in her cultivation. She decided that a certain business could give her that wealth if she became an investor, but she didn't have the credit to take out a loan for cash to invest. By selling her own organs, however, she could rapidly generate that cash, then with the proceeds from the business she could pay for synthetic organ transplants, and as an Ice Specialist, she could use her Aura to keep her body alive without them until that happened. And, if she was already using her Ice Aura to keep her body in near-stasis, then she could cut costs on food, similar to what I had done while surviving in Mt. Silver.

Doing that for a long time, however, also slows the mind, and she eventually lost focus, and slipped on both her diet plans and her channeling. She died peacefully in her sleep, in her home in Cinnabar with a stocked pantry.

When I gave my report to Mother, she had laughed. I had laughed, too.

It didn't seem so funny, any more.

A part of me realized that this story wasn't any different than the innumerable stories of Fire specialists burning alive when they channel too much, or Psychic specialists having seizures from too much stimulus, or Water specialists becoming so pacifistic and lax they won't defend themselves from abuse or threat of violence, or, even, Ice Specialists who die of hypothermia. It was merely delayed. She cycled too much, too fast, and instead of being colored by a Type, she was shaped by it. Ice may be rational, but it is no more sane than any other.

Another part of me knew that Red didn't save me from this, not really. His views on cycling would save more of my mind, but they wouldn't save my life, because I was in very little danger of being another tragic death to flawed cultivation. I was a Fantasia, after all, an old and powerful branch of the Blackthorn Clan, with a classical education and a keen sense of the limits of both my mind and my soul. I wasn't willing to cultivate longer and harder than Red because I was unaware of the contamination, but because I hadn't cared, at the time, and truthfully still don't.

With my next breath, I cycle the Dark in the shadow of the couch, and I stop thinking about this situation in terms of what I should or shouldn't do, and start thinking in terms of what I want.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

And, what I want, I get.

"…I want to move forward," I say aloud, and sigh. Internally, I add: "I want to not be alone."

That's the decision made, then.

I look at Pikachu, who was watching me from the windowsill with his head tilted cutely to the side, and give him a warning look. He chitters softly.

"When we catch up with Red, I'm telling him it's because I don't want him keeping whatever trouble he got wrapped up in all to himself. He needs to save some challenge for me, or I'll never grow, right? Idiot."

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There was once a clan of Grass and Fire masters who conquered the Johtonian peninsula, using controlled wildfires to incinerate their enemies to the south and rout their enemies to the north. Their territory covered the entirety of what is now Azalea Town and Ilex Forest, and, at differing times throughout the centuries until, as most such stories go, the Blackthorn squashed them, extended all the way up to where I am now, just south of Violet City.

They were called the Goldenglow Clan, and they still exist, actually. Nowadays they waste their time on frivolous pursuits like breeding colorful mutations in domestic Pokemon, like Meowth and Aipom, so they don't really matter. Goldenrod City had been built by them, and the Goldenwood had been named after them. Razed then regrown by their Aura so many times over a millennium the brush here took on an unusual, golden-red tint that gave the clan its name, and was obviously, visually distinct from every other forest in Johto, even Ilex further south.

Some of the clan's power had come, or so the old Fantasia records claim, from relics unearthed from an ancient kingdom that preceded even the Blackthorn Clan. I thought kingdom may have been a strong word for a state that couldn't have covered more than a tenth of what Johto does now, but I suppose the accomplishment would have conversely been much more impressive back then.

When Red had, just yesterday, told me that Gary Oak and his student were at a digsite south of Violet City, I only nodded as this confirmed my thoughts on the Goldenglow Clan's ignoble fall from grace. Only a few decades ago, they would never have consented to a League-associated archaeological dig at one of their ancestral sources of strength. These days, they might have even sold it to the League themselves.

As I neared where I assumed the archaeological site to be, I wondered what it could be they found. Obviously, it had something to do with this bizarre Nexus: a ludicrously potent wellspring of Psychic power, that ebbed and flowed like the tide or, perhaps, opened and closed like the Eye of… are there any Psychic-type Legendaries? Here in Indigo, the closest we have would be Mew, I suppose, but Mew aren't said to be any more powerful than a normal Pokemon at the absolute peak of their potential. Celebi? I have no idea how powerful Celebi are supposed to be, but can't be much more powerful than Mew, surely.

Approaching the Nexus made it more unpleasant but, thankfully, no more dangerous. I couldn't cycle anything here without risk of some of that corrosive energy entering into my soul, which was annoying, but the Nexus wasn't aggressive. Some are like that, I've been told: it was most commonly seen in Water Nexuses beneath the ocean floor, which would seep into a trainer's soul through sheer proximity if they dove beneath the waves, but it's been known to happen with every Type.

And, though it burned me, the Nexus didn't feel malevolent to my senses. Some Nexuses are like that, too. It just seemed… intense.

I could only hope that it continued that way as I drew near.

Without a Pokemon to carry me and still suffering the malnutrition and weakness I had developed in Mt. Whitegrave, a trek that could have taken Red an hour has taken me two days. As a Fourth Realm trainer, Red should have been able to sense his starter and veer towards us if he journeyed to Violet City, regardless of which path he took or if he did so atop Charizard's back. Any lingering hopes that Red simply forgot himself and was late have vanished.

Less concerningly but much, much more ominously, I have seen no signs of human life on my trek to the Psychic Nexus, despite tredding the Union Road. This path connects Violet City to Union Cave and, through it, Azalea Town, and truthfully I expected it to prove unpopular. Azalea Town was an out-of-the-way city of low-to-middling importance, and most people traveled to it by boat if they had any reason to visit at all. It was easily the least popular Gym in Johto bar, maybe, Cianwood far to the west, and as such only challenged by trainers who had a Type advantage, wanted a pure-Johto badge case, or were taking a boat from Goldenrod or Olivine to Kanto and wanted a brief diversion on land in the middle of their month-long cruise. In the uncommon circumstance that a trainer was both in Azalea Town and wanted to head to Violet City, it'd be faster and safer to cut through Ilex Forest into Goldenrod then take the Golden Road to Violet. This close to the end of the year, the low traffic undoubtedly cut to near non-existent.

Zero traffic, though, over two days? I expected to see some people head this way for fishing or foraging or to catch Pokemon native to the deepest reaches of the Goldenwood. This was the only place in Indigo where wild Smeargle could still be found, and they sold for quite a lot due to their valuable artistic abilities. Jigglypuff, too, were popular to give to young children, as a Fairy Type not liable to abscond with a child or play some lethal game, and I'm told their music is gorgeous. I'm sure some people care about Stantler.

I regretted not asking around in Violet City about the mysterious, tidal Psychic Nexus. That I hadn't done so is quite unlike me. If Red is sanding down my edge, I'm going to make him regret it.

I arrive at the campsite near sundown on the second day.

Without my Fantasia training, I might not have been able to recognize the camp at all. It had been neatly packed away, traces of its presence carefully erased, presumably out of habit and care for the forest than fear of being tracked. The only physical sign was a pit dug for a fire, that had been improperly filled back in.

I was only so certain that this was the campsite of the archaeological expedition for two reasons:

I could feel traces of their emotions and presence in the ambient Aura flow. I couldn't sense very far or deep, as I was back in the First Realm and opening up my soul to the world would see it seared by the Psychic Nexus, but this is one of the strengths of Dark cultivation. Through my Aura Sight, I saw a greater-than-normal concentration of those Types uncommon in a forest, such as Fire, Electric, Steel, and Dragon. Impressions of powerful souls on the Aura flow, even days after they left. I could also feel echoes of particularly potent emotions, but the trainers of the expedition must have superior control because all I felt was focus and determination.

Second, the Psychic Nexus was directly beneath me.

I couldn't estimate how deep; looking at the earth with Aura Sight is rarely a constructive idea, as the power of Rock, Ground, and Steel is too blinding. It wasn't close, though.

There were no signs of any tunneling into the earth. I knew there would be some dating back to the time of the ancient kingdom, but I didn't know if the Goldenglow clan had shared that information with the League, or if the expedition had a powerful and keen enough Rock or Ground specialist who could locate it through their tremor-sense. If they had found no tunnels and been unwilling to make their own, then they must have went south. The Union Cave goes deep, and I wouldn't be surprised if it connected to this Psychic Nexus.

While I contemplated this, Pikachu and Razor explored the site, the Electric mouse leading the way and occasionally stopping to squeak something at the Sneasel. Razor was paying diligent attention to the lesson. Eventually, after sniffing the ground in a half-dozen places, Pikachu began to glow with Ground power in my Aura Sight and Dug into the earth.

A few moments later, he emerged with a thick paper envelope.

I knew that trainers could leave this messages in this way; Pikachu and Red could sense each other with incredible precision over great distances, so leaving a drop of Aura on a letter and burying it would be a reliable way of leaving a hidden message. There isn't any Aura on the letter, though. Did Pikachu find it with smell? That could only work if Red knew that Pikachu would search for a hidden message, and so didn't need to risk using Aura to attract attention. … How often does Red get into this kind of situation, that Pikachu knew to Dig for a letter?

Dear favorite sister,

If you're reading this, then you didn't stay in Violet City like you should've. Tsk, tsk. We're going to have a talk about running into dangerous situations when I'm done with this.

My rival has decided that this cute little expedition is more important than our rivalry. Can you believe that? I certainly couldn't. I've decided to tag along to see if I can shake some sense into him. Besides, this Nexus is pretty intriguing. The longer I study it, the more certain I am that it's not a Nexus at all.

I'm sure you're eager to cut your teeth on this mystery. I'm afraid this one is a bit beyond you as you are, though. Worry not, for I have a quest for you! It seems Silver and Blue got into an argument before I arrived, and Silver marched off in a huff. You should be able to find him in Violet City. If you do, I'll have a reward for you.

He has red hair and eyes, and can't be more than a year or two older than you. Late second realm, Poison specialist, traces of Ghost, Dark, and Psychic. Kind of unique, no? He totally doesn't feel like the average Rocket.

I might be a week or two. If it looks like we're going to miss the Conference, even with Abby's Teleport, then you have license to freak out. Go to a Pidgeot Courier Service office and ask to send a letter to Box 717 via priority mail. That's the Old Man's personal box.

Take care of yourself, and look after Pikachu for me. Don't go getting lazy on me, either. You should be knocking on the door to Second Realm by the time I catch up with you.

From,

Your favorite brother

After reading the letter aloud, Pikachu made a disgruntled sound. I did the same a moment later.

"The Champion's son is getting brainwashed by a Psychic presence powerful enough to mistake for a Nexus, and he wants me to go back to Violet and play house?" I ask, words dripping with disdain. "Or, Pikachu. Please tell me he expects me to mail this letter to the Champion and just couldn't bring himself to be straight-forward about it."

Pikachu shook his head no.

"That's what I thought. He wants to handle it himself. Gross."

Part of me wanted to mail it to Samuel Oak out of spite. The rest of me wanted to do exactly as Red said, even knowing he was being an idiot.

"Ugh, fine," I decided. "Let's find Silver. I wouldn't know how to find the expedition's new campsite anyway, and I'm not wandering around Union Cave in the vain hopes of running into them."

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I was halfway back to Violet when I walked into the invisible wall.

-When you walk towards the sun, you put your shadows behind you.-

I gave a startled shriek of surprise as I fell on my back. Razor, the traitor, snickered in amusement, but Pikachu hopped out of my arms to walk up to the wall and place a paw on it. He frowned.

"I don't see it through Aura Sight," I said. "Do you, Pikachu?"

Pikachu nodded, then, glowing with Aura, raced up the wall. He looked to be going straight up, but, as he picked up speed and got further away, it became obvious:

"It's not a wall, it's a dome," I muttered to Razor. "Or… a sphere?"

I stood back up and placed a hand against it. I couldn't see it with my eyes or Aura Sight, which was a difficult, impressive feat, but with touch it was obvious what it was.

"It's a Psychic barrier, right?" I asked as Pikachu landed on the ground, sending dirt and blades of grass every which way on impact. Some of it splattered against the barrier.

Pikachu nodded, seeming concerned.

I knocked on the barrier, but there was no sound. The texture was smooth and frictionless. That Pikachu could run up it is a testament to his raw speed, I suppose.

-Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.-

I didn't know if the barrier had been raised after I passed this point, or if it had been one-way permeable and neither I nor Pikachu or Razor noticed as we passed through it. Red clearly hadn't noticed it if it had been there, or his letter would've been very different. Pikachu also didn't notice it until after I walked into it, so though he could sense it it must be very subtle. There's no way of knowing.

Suddenly, the barrier pushed against my hand, and I stumbled back a step. I felt it against the toe of my shoe a moment later, and I grabbed Razor by the scruff and raced back a few dozen meters.

Pikachu sparked with electricity by my side, and turned to look up at me with worry.

"What are the odds the barrier isn't contracting towards the source of that Psychic power, and we won't get smeared against the ground as it passes through us and into the earth?"

Pikachu turned and, suddenly, threw a deafening Thunderbolt at the barrier. It lit up pink where it was struck and dispersed the voltage across the wall in every direction, little curling trails of pink light stretching hundreds of meters across its surface.

Pikachu turned towards me and shook his head. I took a deep breath of Ice.

I don't have a map on hand because I had, foolishly, trusted in the map I memorized for my studies. Now, assuming this barrier is a perfect sphere with the not-Nexus at the center, with the distance I had traveled since leaving from the campsite as the radius, is the entrance of Union Cave within the sphere's range?

I'm… not sure. I think it might be, but I also don't know how fast the sphere is shrinking. It seems to be doing so in a jerking, inconsistent manner. If it's outside the barrier already, I need to either find one of the ancient kingdom's passages or have Pikachu Dig into the ground and pray for salvation.

"We need to run," I said, and raced south.