Chapter 2: Groups | Psychic Powers
That chatty slut revealed too much in the restroom. Daddy did it for her: teambuilding, strategy, prep. Sosa memorized dutifully—but she only regurgitated.
To be honest―with herself, who else?—Toril feared Sosa the tiniest amount, back when she was tape with no face. Her team was good. Peak form meta Pokémon, championship caliber. Sosa only lost off unforced blunders, but being unforced made them unpredictable. Now, Toril understood. Sosa crushed trainers who reused past strategies. She sucked when someone pulled out something new—something beyond Dad's prep.
Dad was the puppeteer, Sosa his marionette. Strike the strings.
Look at her. Even at this distance it's obvious: she's choking. She has no fucking clue what to do. She can only make an educated guess, minus the education.
Toril is in your head right now, Sosa. Lurking in those dark recesses, unspooling your thoughts. You think you have two options. First, maybe you guess Rotom outspeeds, so maybe you can get off Will-O-Wisp before Rillaboom attacks. Burning Rillaboom halves its attack, and maybe that means Rotom survives the grass move you're sure is coming. The second option is you don't risk finding out how fast Rillaboom is, because if you misjudge it's lights out. Instead, you hard switch. Get Rotom out, put in something that matches up better.
Pick either option. Both are your funeral. You're about to fall for the stupidest trap in existence.
No other trainer at this tournament, even those from pissrandom wildcard regions, would fall for it. Every single one would know what Toril was really doing. The analyst desk and the announcers surely knew, and they were mental invalids. Half the fucking audience knew.
You don't know, Sosa. And when you show you don't know, everyone watching will see exactly the fraud you are.
Toril's teeth absentmindedly tore a sliver of nail off her thumb.
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Okay. So. Cely was thinking she had two options. (The thirty-second timer before she needed to select a move ticked maliciously.) Option 1: Maybe Rotom's faster. She had no idea if it was, which made it a gamble, but one that might pay off. If she used Will-O-Wisp and burned Rillaboom, it was p-rob-ably too weak to one shot Rotom? Maybe? Option 2, the safer option: Switch Rotom out, don't attack at all.
She tilted toward the latter. Especially since, glancing over her Pokémon, she had by complete chance a solid answer to Rillaboom on standby.
Too bad she didn't actually have psychic powers, because Dad was definitely trying to transmit a move into her head right now.
Her finger moved toward the holoscreen to choose to switch out Rotom—then stopped. Through the translucent projection, she saw Tors on the opposite platform, watching eagerly.
Why so eager?
What are you really up to, Tors?
The timer showed five. Further logical exhumation was impossible. Instead, a feeling swept her. A vibe, if you will, the exact vibe that made her think Toril would use her Ghost team. That vibe was based on... nothing, really, the feeling of just how mad Toril was, how bitter and spiteful. (Like an angry ghost? Like the ghost move Spite?)
The vibe wasn't wrong. It wasn't. She couldn't explain why, but it wasn't.
At the literal last second, her finger zipped across the screen and tapped a move that was the dumbest move in the world if she was wrong. It wasn't Will-O-Wisp. It wasn't a switch either, at least not a hard switch. It was a move totally worthless against Rillaboom.
"Volt Switch," she shouted.
At the same time, Toril yelled, "Nasty Plot!"
Rillaboom did, in fact, move faster. Its massive ape body hunched forward as it rubbed its paws together. Its ringed eyes shone wicked as a sneer opened across its lips, a sneer identical to the one Toril wore earlier.
A message on Cely's holoscreen indicated that, as per the biometric readout provided by the IPL's advanced sensors, Rillaboom's special attack rose by two stages.
But Toril, having heard the move Cely called out, was no longer smiling.
Rotom never stopped smiling as the wires within its washing machine body crackled, sparked, and expelled a blindingly bright (but weak) flash of electricity. The attack should have been negligible against Rillaboom. Instead, it flung back its head and roared in pain as the volts shot through its body.
Why? Simple. It wasn't Rillaboom.
The illusion dispersed in mirage-like waves, the drum vanishing, the leafy mane, the ringed eyes and sourpuss. The creature standing in Rillaboom's place was instead ghastly white and covered with throbbing, nasty, straight up uggo veins. It was Zoroark. Specifically the formerly extinct Hisuian variant of Zoroark (nerd emoji).
Cely knew. She knew. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew. See Dad? Psychic powers. Psychic powers at work!
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In the VIP spectator box, Domino Sosa paced, expelled breath, removed his fedora to scratch what remained of his hair, and explained.
"It's obvious how she knew. Honestly, no goddam clue what Lund wanted to pull. Cely's not that knowledgeable about Pokémon, but a kid sees through that."
He explained to the only other person in the box, Brittany, reclined with her legs trimly crossed and the folds of her dress about her. She waited for Domino to pace away from her before she quietly expelled a yawn.
"Rillaboom's ability creates Grassy Terrain after it enters the field." When he turned again, Brittany was fully alert, nodding along. "Normally, that arena would be covered—covered!—in grass. But it's not. That's a dead giveaway it's not actually Rillaboom, which means it's gotta be Zoroark's illusion."
"Mm," Brittany hummed.
"My daughter would never fall for that. Never. She'd see right through. She'd say, 'There's no Grassy Terrain. That's Zoroark.' Instant. Snap! Like that. She's a good battler. She knows her stuff."
But he was sweating, and rubbing his neck, and fanning himself with his hat.
"She knew. Because of Grassy Terrain. She knew."
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That bitch did not fucking know because of Grassy Terrain. No fucking way. Toril's incisors shredded the flesh of her thumb, snagged a tab of hangnail, peeled a thin strip of skin.
Volt Switch, after doing damage, returned the Pokémon who used it to its Poké Ball. Rotom left the stage. "Go, Ziggy," Sosa shouted, and manifested a loathsomely yellow rodent that bounced and pirouetted and sent the crowd into a frenzy because those slobbering idiots died for anything cute, not to mention the novelty of a shiny Pokémon on the big stage, which was itself an insult, to care so much for aesthetic you trained a shiny Pokémon to peak competitive form, but Toril wasn't thinking about that.
She was thinking about how her trap got found out.
Until the last second—last fucking second—Sosa was clueless. Toril saw it. Then it was like some god's finger descended from heaven to scramble her brains and give her Toril's own thoughts. A cheat? Dad transmitting via earpiece? Classic IPL putting Toril under suspicion, confiscating her Pokémon, only to let this outsider hoodwink them the most obvious way imaginable—but no, it made no sense, why wait until the last moment to feed her the intel, risking a mix-up as time ticked out?
Then how? How did she know? How did she find out, and why did Toril do it, why did she do it—she was right to do it, Sosa didn't know—why did she do it anyway, why, now she was the idiot, the absolute fucking fool, and they all laughed at her, every well-fed dolt in the stands, she pounded her gloved fist against her skull, why, why, why, why—
Her timer flashed five seconds for her next move.
In an instant Toril assessed the situation. Zoroark—Gustav—at half health, but with doubled special attack. Ziggy the Azumarill slow and looking to Belly Drum for the set up.
That was all her time to think. Feeling remained, a feeling shared with her Pokémon below. Gustav was her team's most recent addition, but their bond was strong. From only the intensity of his side-eyed stare did he transmit the feeling: fury, hatred, indignation. Like Toril, he needed to lash out, to revenge himself.
Then have your vengeance. Toril tapped a move.
"Sludge Bomb."
"Ziggy, Aqua Jet!"
Toril's jaw sprang shut. Her thumbnail, between teeth, snapped across the middle. Salt iron taste beaded on her tongue. In her mind, amid an army of self-sired torturers, she managed to mutter an apology to Gustav.
She failed him.
Gustav was faster than any Azumarill, no matter how well trained. And after Nasty Plot, Sludge Bomb was enough to waste it in one hit. But had Toril given herself more time to think, had she not wasted so much in panic at her first blunder this tournament, she wouldn't have made her second.
The moment Gustav's jagged fangs clenched, pooling poison that oozed between his gums, Azumarill rocketed forward. To the human eye, it was almost too fast to see, but Toril knew what to expect. Rather than move using its own speed, Ziggy called up a jet of water from the ground. The pressure propelled him like a missile into Gustav.
No chance to react. Gustav hurtled into the base of Toril's platform as Ziggy bounced off his body, twirled airborne, and stuck the landing with a tongue-wagging smile.
The crowd went ballistic.
Gustav went out like a light. His ire silenced instantly.
And like that—Toril silenced her ire, too. If she wanted to win she lacked the luxury of emotion, two turns and two blunders into this match. Her gloved fist jabbed herself hard in the ribs and clarity returned, full comprehension of facts and flowcharts.
Aracely must not win. This world will end on October 12. Toril believed it. If Aracely Sosa was allowed to become World Champion, the world ceased to exist as they knew it.
Blood running from her fingertips, Toril gripped her next Poké Ball and lobbed it into the arena.
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Tors sent out Rillaboom. Her real Rillaboom. It looked exactly like the illusion, except the moment it appeared it pounded its drum in a steady, haunting beat, and this music conjured out of the barren stage grass and vines and leafy plants engendering pink-yellow fruits.
The holoscreen indicated Grassy Terrain was now active. Cely tapped her lower lip. Oh, yyyeah. Rillaboom did stuff like that. Hm.
Not like it mattered now. The magic of the moment was upon her, upon the crowd. She became cognizant of the camera transporting her image to the jumbotron and gave everyone a double V-for-victory. The start of her narrative, this world's final sentence, began. They were learning her name.
"Ziggy, you're awesome, but come back now. Go, Scizor!"
Her favorite(?) big weird bug appeared, taking Rillaboom's Wood Hammer like a champ thanks to its steel carapace.
The misery started with Scizor. Dad, four years post-divorce, finally got tired of prowling his condo in a beer-drenched daze, so during his month of court-ordered custody (her summer break) he dragged her on a globetrot of all the world's worst places. No beaches, no resorts, no urban centers with a population over fifty. Only caves and forests for poor thirteen-year-old Cely, and after being eaten alive by hordes of much tinier bugs she stumbled on this one.
"You gotta bond with it," Dad said once she (following his painstaking instructions, which he mostly yelled) finally caught the thing.
Bond with it? Okay Dad, sure. I get that you personally enjoy talking to weird bugs in your spare time, but Cely is like, normal? He locked her in a room with it, basically child abuse.
When she did finally quote-unquote bond with it, six years later, it was only on a single solitary point of connection that tethered the utterly alien life experiences of a human girl and a metal insect: They both really, really liked to win.
"Alright Scizor, let's put her in her place. Mega Evolution!"
A stylish flourish flicked a crystal bead from one of Cely's many chic bracelets to the tip of her forefinger, where it balanced as it resonated with the matching crystal Scizor held. You didn't like, have to do a whole rehearsed motion to make this work, but eyes were on her. Scizor's biology, stimulated by the twinned gems, cranked into overdrive. Steam issued from its carapace and cast it in silhouette, before spasmic beats of its wings cleared the congealed fumes and it revealed itself, its form more angular, its claws spike-studded.
Excess heat formed ripples around it, and parts of its red coat blackened from the uncontrollable internal temperature. If Scizor maintained its Mega Evolved form for more than a few minutes, it would start to literally melt.
So let's end this quick, mm?
"Dual Wingbeat!" Scizor hardly needed the command. The instant the buzzer blared to signal the turn it shot into close quarters with Rillaboom, absorbing another listless Wood Hammer before its razor-sharp wings cut gashes, once, twice. Every motion accompanied a spray of steam from its joints. Finished, Scizor leapt back to its side to await its next order.
The thirty-second pause between turns in this fun little game called Pokémon battling wasn't just to give trainers time to think and announcers time to announce. The regimented structure mandated discipline from the Pokémon, which in turn ensured they didn't go, like, feral from bloodlust. If Scizor had its way, it wouldn't stop after one attack, but Dad did train these guys well. For Cely, it served as a simple reminder of the pageantry: a creation of culture, not nature. A game of strategy, wits, manipulation, where Pokémon were pieces on a board. Dad never led with that, all those times he tried to get her into battling. It was always "unbreakable bonds," "comrades in arms," a total snore. MOTHER opened her eyes to the game for what it was: a game.
After thirty seconds passed, Scizor went for another strike.
Rillaboom had no hope, yet Tors kept it in. Why? Cely studied the creature opposite her. Something changed. Arms slack at her sides, face dead-eyed and dead ahead, not staring back, not staring at anything, mechanically tapping Rillaboom's next move (always Wood Hammer) without thought. Did she give up? Why not switch to her third Pokémon? Did it lose to Scizor too?
Something pricked at Cely's skin. She didn't like it. She didn't like the way Tors looked.
"Finish it Scizor. Bullet Punch."
Scizor rocketed forward as fast as the move's name implied and decked Rillaboom with its spiked claw. Despite the force behind the attack, Rillaboom remained standing, and Cely wondered if she miscalculated. But no. After seconds of stolid silence, Rillaboom dropped backward in a dead faint.
Tors was down to her final Pokémon. Other than minor damage to Scizor, mostly healed thanks to the restorative effects of Grassy Terrain, Cely was untouched.
No change in expression. Tors still stone-faced, mouth ajar and dripping—was that blood? Her fingers, also bloody, tapped her thigh. They extended, retracted, swiftly.
She was counting.
Without calling its name, Tors lobbed her final Poké Ball onto the field. Out came Annihilape.
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On an unwatched holoscreen, the announcers noised. "Incredible. Toril Lund, undefeated so far, is down to her last Pokémon. Are we witnessing an upset?"
"Lund's looked off her game all match. Let's see if she can recover with Annihilape, one of the most feared Pokémon at this tournament."
Domino Sosa couldn't watch. He kept watching, peeking through spread fingers, but he couldn't. He loosened his tie. Sweat stained the armpits of his nice cream suit. Up three to one against a tournament favorite he ought to be relieved, but he knew his daughter. Understood all too well her capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
"Can't get cocky. Annihilape's no joke."
Brittany perched her head on her hand. Though she watched him attentively, her fingers drummed the armrest of her seat.
"Scizor can't win. Not with this set. I told Cely that a million times Britt. You'd think Scizor can win. Dual Wingbeat's super effective. It's all thanks to Annihilape's signature move. Rage Fist, Britt, Rage fucking Fist."
"Mhm," Brittany demurred.
"Rage Fist grows in power the more Annihilape gets hit. And Dual Wingbeat is a multi-hit move. It hits twice. Cranks Annihilape's power so fast your head will spin. She's gotta swap to Ziggy. Ziggy beats Annihilape. He's prepared for this. I drilled the flowchart into Ziggy's brain. But Cely's never liked Ziggy. Did you hear her? Wanted to swap him for Momokins. I don't know what she's got against him. Britt, if she doesn't put in Ziggy, I—oh, I can't freaking watch. I can't."
Yet he kept watching...
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No need to apologize to Rillaboom. She did her job and Toril did hers.
Now—numbers.
Her mutilated fingers tapped. In her head whirred: numbers.
Base 110 health plus 240 EVs. Base 80 defense. Equals—421 health, 196 defense. No Swords Dance or it used it already. From the damage to Rillaboom, no attack EVs, no attack boosting nature. Base 150 attack. Dual Wingbeat 40 base power, hits twice. Super effective. Technician x1.5 modifier. Factor in Bulk Up. Grassy Terrain 1/16th healing per round. Equals—
A win. If Aracely keeps in Scizor, Toril wins.
But Aracely will have a flowchart. Scizor suboptimal, plan will be Azumarill. (Rotom not worth it. Though it has Wisp.) Assuming max attack prioritization, 218 attack. Play Rough 90 base power. Super effective. OHKO. That's her flowchart. Safer than Scizor. Daddy would've coached her: Azumarill over Scizor.
On switch, Bulk Up x1.5 modifier. (Bulk Up first whether Scizor or Azumarill.) Outspeeds. Taunt. (Taunt key. Taunt point of failure. Must predict correctly.) Before first attack x2 modifier. Minus 54 percent—plus 6.25 percent. Before second attack x2.5 modifier. Minus—46 percent. Plus 6.25 percent. Total—13 percent.
Aracely goes for the kill. Aqua Jet, 40 base power. Normal effectiveness. Minus 11 percent. Equals—
Equals 2 percent.
That's the line: 2 percent. That's the glowing golden line.
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Retch. Annihilape. Creepy freaking thing. Why did so many Pokémon have nihil in their name?
It just stood there. Unmoving. Eyes so red the redness swallowed any hint of pupils. Ragged gray fur floating on thin static. Manacled limbs inert at its sides.
Pokémon weren't people and Cely struggled to read them. She didn't get vibes from Pokémon, not the way she got vibes from, say, Tors. But this thing emanated rage so palpable you'd have to be senseless to fail feeling it. Instead it was Toril devoid of anything, empty, a husk tapping fingers and counting, as though she'd transferred all her fury into her final Pokémon to operate on the level of a calculator instead.
For the first time since her first move, Cely took the timer to ponder. Scizor wanted to fight, its claws itched and it barely restrained itself from passing the line prematurely. Cely knew it couldn't win.
"Scizor, return. Go, Ziggy!"
Ziggy the Azumarill reappeared to the delight of the crowd and Cely's twinged distaste. Cely thought she might get away with the switch for free because the only way Scizor beat Annihilape was Swords Dance (though hers didn't have Swords Dance this battle) and Annihilape might Taunt to prevent it. No such luck. Toril called the move laconically:
"Bulk Up."
Despite the command, Annihilape didn't move a muscle. It stood there, eyes gates to an unknown inferno. No, wait. It did move a muscle. Literally one. Along its slack left bicep: a single veined twitch. That was all. That was the move.
The holoscreen reported the change to Annihilape's biometrics: x1.5 attack, x1.5 defense.
Fine. Expected. Ziggy's blubbery ovoid body, evolved for flotation, could endure an attack from Annihilape at this stage. The flowchart manifested in Cely's head unbidden, as though Dad browbeat himself into becoming her tulpa:
Annihilape runs either Taunt or Rest, but rarely both. You open with Belly Drum. If it Taunts, then it doesn't have Rest and you win by pummeling it unboosted. If it doesn't Taunt, then you one shot it, Rest doesn't matter.
Dad mathematically worked it out. Logic, tables, spreadsheets. (But imagine if he let her bring Momokins. Then it wouldn't matter. She wouldn't need to think at all. She'd known this. She'd known and he didn't believe her.) In this position, Belly Drum was her safest option.
Except for that vibe. That empty, calculating vibe, masked by the restrained hatred that bubbled out of Annihilape. Those fingers still whirring. Toril knew something. No clue what. But she knew. Cely looked at her and knew she knew. The exact same as that first turn: a Nasty Plot.
"Ziggy, Play Rough!" No Belly Drum. Because Tors was gonna Taunt, and even if Dad said that was fine Cely didn't believe it and she needed to end this now, fast, needed to take this one risk to fill Toril Lund's ugly grave before she burst out of her coffin and dragged Cely with her.
The moment Cely called the move Toril flinched, the emotionless mask broke, and Cely knew she picked right. Dolefully, Toril said—you weren't allowed to change a move after you selected it on the holoscreen—"Annihilape, Taunt."
What happened next happened so fast Cely wouldn't have known what was happening if she hadn't already, in the pit of her stomach, half expected it.
Ziggy, the little gremlin, didn't use Play Rough.
It used Belly Drum.
I drilled Ziggy all day for this Cely, Dad the tulpa said, laughing, taunting, I imprinted the flowchart on his brain.
It wasn't listening to her at all. It was listening, from memory, to Dad.
So it used Belly Drum—or tried. Because Annihilape angled one paw and twitched its fingers in a come-at-me gesture. The taunt landed. Ziggy went mad. It only wanted to attack Annihilape, which it could've done if it listened to Cely, but it didn't, so it didn't do anything, which was so, so stupid.
The gash in Toril's façade resealed. The jumbotron focused on Cely but she no longer wanted to see. She imagined well enough what the announcers squealed: "No Pokémon has refused to obey their trainer's command at the IPL World Championship in such-and-such (big number, possibly the number sixty-four) years!"
Dark clouds entered Cely's mind. Old friends, thought dispelled by MOTHER's magic, here to say hi once more. She shut them out and stayed focused.
"Play Rough," she yelled, and this time, aided by the taunt, Ziggy complied.
"Bulk Up," Toril said.
Ziggy flung itself in what looked like an innocent belly flop, especially since everything Ziggy did looked innocent, but it landed like a wrestling move. With type advantage, it hit hard even through doubled defense.
The fury emanating from Annihilape thickened. Rage Fist increased to 100 power.
The attack dropped Annihilape past half its health biometric, which then healed a smidge afterward, a telltale sign it held Leftovers. Leftovers meant it didn't have a Chesto Berry, which woke it up if it used Rest. And if it didn't wake up from Rest, Ziggy won before it got the chance to attack. Cely didn't actually see Annihilape eat anything, but it was such a weirdo and barely moved ever so she assumed it kept the meal stored in the corner of its jaw, first mouthed to be last swallowed.
"Play Rough!"
"Bulk Up."
Another hard hit. It did less damage than before due to Bulk Up, but even after Leftovers Annihilape was near its limit.
Rage Fist increased to 150 power. Cely saw its anger now, literally saw it, a black miasma, dark clouds that would never truly leave her mind until this world finally, mercifully ended.
"Finish it before it can strike. Aqua Jet!"
Aqua Jet started, and ended, quicker than she could think. Annihilape took the hit without losing an inch of ground. Its health dropped. Cely prayed for it to drop to zero, prayed, but it dropped to two percent.
Two percent.
Rage Fist increased to 200 power.
Fine! End Ziggy now. Do it Tors. Knock its head off for all Cely cared. Scizor had Bullet Punch. Dad specced Rotom's EVs specifically to outspeed Annihilape. It's over you creature. Over!
"Rest," said Toril.
Annihilape instantly fell asleep standing. The psychic slumber revitalized damaged cells at an accelerated rate. Its health climbed all the way to full.
Didn't matter. Beating back black clouds. Didn't matter, didn't matter. Didn't matter Dad said you'd never run both Taunt and Rest. Didn't matter how he was wrong, always wrong, wrong about everything. Didn't matter. Know why? You're still dead Toril. Even at full health. Because you're asleep now and the taunt's worn off. Ziggy uses Belly Drum and finishes you in a single strike. Nothing you can do. Noth-ing.
But Cely knew, from the way Toril's essence shifted.
Still sleeping, still standing, Annihilape rummaged its fur and retrieved a tiny berry. A Chesto Berry. It popped the berry into its mouth. Chewed. And woke up.
How? It could only hold one item. How could it hold Leftovers and a Chesto Berry? How—
Oh.
It wasn't healed by Leftovers.
It was healed by Rillaboom's Grassy Terrain, which remained on field even after Rillaboom fainted.
Cely forgot about Grassy Terrain, again, though she could literally see it on the arena floor.
Now it was over.
"Rage Fist," Toril said.
The motionless form of Annihilape, possessed of so much pent-up hatred, finally received the words to unshackle itself. It blitzed forward and swung its fist and the arena exploded, Ziggy flew somewhere, Cely stared blankly stuck in the sickness of her own smile, her trembling hand went to her next Poké Ball, it couldn't be over. If Rotom burned it—
"Rage Fist."
And Rotom was gone, the world so many rings of color, rings of mountains like teeth closing to clamp, the world's final sentence proceeding without her, the world without her, the world without, ending now, MOTHER and Mom and Dad, and without realizing it Cely sent Scizor onto the field, and—
"Rage Fist."
And the earpiece buzzed amid the calamity. "Aracely Sosa is out of usable Pokémon. Toril Lund is the victor."
While the crowd went wild, both trainers fled for the exits.