Chapter 5: R16 | Funny Trick
Media Day—Toril survived it. Barely. Aracely negotiated something that excused Toril from Cynthia's segment—maybe that girl had uses after all—but a gauntlet of garbage remained. She waved off their hair and makeup and they kept applying it anyway. Then one, two, three, four, five hundred photos: Her, her looking this direction, her from above, from below, arms crossed, angry look, okay now determined look—what the fuck is the difference?—okay now hopeful look. You're the protagonist of this story type look. Silly look. What the fuck do you mean silly look? You know something light. Levity. Give us a flex? A flex. Yeah, your muscles, flex your muscles. What is this shit for? Broadcast wants options to depict you, depending how the narrative goes. I don't want broadcast to depict me like this. (I don't want broadcast to depict me at all.) Come on, work with us here. No!
Then the same song and dance for each of her Pokémon. Even the two she hadn't revealed in the tournament yet. They assured her these photos wouldn't be shown to anyone outside of the broadcast crew, there was no way the info would get leaked. Sure. Then again, nobody at this level of competition would cheat. Not even Aracely Sosa.
It ended with an interview. Iono asked the questions. Toril mumbled one word responses and Iono pouted.
"Come ON! Jazz it up. You want everyone watchin' you, right?"
"No."
"Yeah you do! Everyone does! You gotta trap their eyeballs in your Electroweb. Except that's my thing, so find your own thing. That's what this interview's about—findin' your thing, and lettin' everyone see it. Now tell me: You toh-oh-otally think Lachlan Nguyen's a loser, don't you? You think he's got no shot at all. Tell me how bad you're gonna crush him!"
"[Unintelligible.]"
"Puh-leeease! It doesn't have to be much. We'll do the rest in editing. Epic music, bzzzaow, flashy camera effects. It doesn't take a lot to make a main character. But ya gotta give us something to start with!"
Toril stumbled out of the interrogation chamber mindless. She flopped into a chair and regenerated capacity to exist.
Aracely was there.
"That Iono is such a character, isn't she? Way smarter than she looks. Then again, she looks pretty dumb. Hey Tors, you didn't forget our deal did you?"
"Nnnnngh."
"Deal's a deal. Chop-chop."
Aracely somehow dragged her across the Plateau and into a circular tramcar, trapping them claustrophobically with about thirty other people as the tram started to move.
"Since I did promise and all, I'm taking Ziggy with me." Aracely flourished her hands melodramatically at the gaudy yellow Azumarill, who clapped his belly to showboat in turn. "The rascal himself. Who's an evil little traitor~? You are, yes, you!" Undoubtedly, she meant it.
The tram, suspended from a cable, traveled at a downslope, straight through jagged peaks toward the valley below. The Plateau's high rise hotels, chintzy bars, hordes of people: all gone, obliterated by the inexorable edifice of nature, this world rendered in eternal physicality, stone thorns breaching skin. Weakness seeped into Toril's knees. She'd seen similar vistas before, unfettered, on the back of a flying Pokémon, wind in her hair, yet there was something about this controlled descent, the gradual rotation of the round carriage, to render unnatural the stagnant scene, a throbbing sense of lifelessness even among the sea of pines that undulated beneath. Death was here, ossification, fossilization. The first words Aracely ever spoke to her, though she didn't speak them: This world will end on October 12.
"Who's costing me important games~?" Aracely skritched Ziggy's belly, and Ziggy twittered with sardonic glee. "It's you, isn't it~? Yes, you~"
The feeling passed and Toril knew she was actually just a complete fucking idiot. "Even you can't be ignorant enough to not know you'll need a stronger bond with your Pokémon if you want to win."
"Bonds, it's all Dad talks about." Aracely tweaked Ziggy's ear. "But he undercut me at every step. I didn't want to name him Ziggy. I wanted Lemon. Dad vetoed. Too demeaning, he said. Like what does that even mean?"
Toril took a quick onceover on Ziggy, ear to toe. Ziggy waved and blew a bubble, which Toril let pop against her shoulder.
"He knows you hate him," Toril said.
"He doesn't understand the words. I'm a master of tone."
"He knows anyway."
"How could you possibly know?"
Toril's eyes narrowed. "How did you know Rillaboom was Zoroark?"
Aracely only smiled, her eyes a flash in the sunlight that made Toril think—for one molecular unit of time—goddess.
Then Aracely spoke. "Don't look. We're being followed."
"Huh? By who?"
"I said don't look. Act natural. We'll shake them at the bottom."
Aracely's hands gripped Toril's shoulders and oriented her toward the window to once more see the stultified capsule of the sublime. Except now the deathly expanse of nature was broken by a large rectangular sheet.
A billboard. It read, in minimalist font: [Evolve yourself. RISE.]
Beside the word RISE was a symbol. A blue arch, pointing upward. Recognition struck Toril and she groped to place it, where she saw that symbol before. It could've been anywhere, but exactly when Toril gave up she remembered.
Aracely's sapphire pendant.
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Down in the valley the city was still, quiet, unraveled into a position of listless repose, stark brick buildings bleached by decades, like toys abandoned by a child who turned ten and left forever. Rock rose in all directions. A squint one way revealed the tramcar trickling back up to the Plateau. Another way and the lone peak of Mt. Moon dispersed into similar-colored sky.
"It's a far cry from the Celadon fashion district, but the boutiques here are to die for. Nary a mass-produced stitch in sight. And the moonstone jewelry, mm, adorbs."
Toril had been here before. Once, four years ago. She only passed through, en route to Mt. Moon to catch a Clefairy (one not, unfortunately, part of her current team), but even so she understood the city had changed. Outside the boutique Aracely dragged her to was another sign: [Grow for the future. RISE.]
Inside, Aracely engaged demon mode. At incomprehensible speed she tugged fabrics on hangers to inspect before stacking them onto her outstretched arm, deftly directing Ziggy to attack the shop's other half until he carried a pile of clothes higher than himself.
"Cute. Cute. Not cute. Cute. Super cute. Need that one. That too. Mhm."
"Your wardrobe isn't bloated enough already?"
"Tors babe, this isn't for me. I'm staging an intervention. Get thee to the fitting room, I'll be in there in ju-ust a sec—Tors? Tors!"
Toril left.
With a hiss, Aracely tossed her stack of clothes to Ziggy, ordered him to put everything back, and stomped after her. "Tors. Please. This is charity I am bestowing upon you."
"I said I'd—hang out—or whatever we're doing. Clothes are not part of the deal."
"How else do people hang out? Hello-o?"
"Maybe—eat dinner—or something?" Toril wanted to go home. What was the point? So Aracely could tell her what? How she saw through Zoroark's illusion? What insight could she possibly give?
Something. Something nobody else at this tournament knew. Something to give Toril the edge she needed. Because Aracely wasn't just a puppet, like Toril first thought. She brought something to the equation, and during that battle Toril caught a glimpse of it.
But clothes shopping was too much torture for even her to bear.
"Dinner? I'm on a pr-retty strict diet. Oh! I know someplace."
She tugged Toril's sleeve but Toril stood firm. "You're forgetting something."
"Huh? Did I leave my..." She checked her shoulder, where her handbag hung.
"Ziggy."
"Oh."
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At the northern fringe of the city stood the Pewter Museum of Science, built of featureless white brick, but tremendous in size. It was, unbelievably, a reasonable compromise, something both Aracely and Toril abided. It was also the first place in the city not plastered with RISE posters.
"You've never been before?" Aracely asked at the tail end of a conversation in which Toril let slip her past visit to Pewter City.
"If I cared about science and history, I would've stayed in school like you."
"School isn't about caring, Tors, it's about being the best and proving it."
After they paid the entry fee, Aracely yanked Toril behind a column and told her to wait with a finger pressed over her lips.
"He's gonna show up. Our stalker from the tramcar."
"Uh huh."
"Shh. Watch the ticket booth." Between Toril, Aracely, and Ziggy, space behind the column came dear. "Any-y second now."
One second.
Two seconds.
Three—
Out of a shadow cast by the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the museum's façade, a figure emerged. Two figures, person and Pokémon. The details ebbed into existence slowly, but as soon as they did, Toril realized they had been there the entire time, not invisible but faint. Even more incredible, she knew the supposed stalker's identity.
Jinjiao Zhang and his Umbreon, Yinying.
"The fuck is he doing here?"
"Shh! Let him pass."
"What's the point."
Toril stepped out from behind the pillar. She ignored Aracely's whispered pleas and took a direct route to Jinjiao, who didn't notice until she was at arm's length. At which point he jolted, stopped his jolt halfway, and tried to play it like he expected Toril all along.
"Why are you following us Jinjiao."
"Us? So you admit you're with that cancer killing competitive battling?"
Toril knotted one hand into a fist as her other dropped to the Poké Balls on her belt. "So what if I am. Why are you following us?"
"I need to ensure my next opponent isn't colluding with my third-greatest rival at this tournament. Third behind Raj and Red, of course. You're not giving her advice, are you?"
"Who can say."
"Typical. What'd she ply you with? Money? No, you don't care about that. She's giving you something you don't already have. Heh. I know. She's pretending to be your friend, isn't she?"
Toril's jaw clenched hard enough to grind. Her fingers tightened on her Poké Ball. "You little shit."
"Tsk, tsk, Toril. Selling yourself so cheaply. I'm disappointed." He paused, then glanced at his Umbreon for support. At Yinying's dagger-eyed nod, he mustered the nerve to toss out: "You know, if you're really that lonely, you could—uh—you could always be my girlfriend! Heheheh. Hahahah."
"No need for a quick decision on that enticing proposal, Tors." Aracely appeared beside her, weight shifted contrapposto, elbow on hand and hand on cheek. "The post is sure to be vacant into the foreseeable future."
Toril oscillated between ramming her fist down Jinjiao's throat or bringing her boot up into his crotch, but instinct prevailed and she went for her tried-and-true first response. "Alright creep, we're battling. Three-on-three. Right now."
"I might just take you up on that offer. Good way to gauge the competition."
Toril and Jinjiao's eyes locked with the determined gleam every battler knew. The people who trampled her, the people who looked down on her, this was how she put them in the dirt. Her hand unclipped the Poké Ball and—
"Ahh?! Can it be? Yinying!"
A crazed, disheveled humanoid came scrambling among the bones of ancient Pokémon. He skidded to a knee and clapped his hands with an uncontainable sigh of contentment. The snarl Yinying aimed toward Toril turned into a dismayed yip as he padded back on tender hindpaws to the safety of his master's orbit. On all fours the man advanced cooing and babbling babytalk and Jinjiao sputtered—paralyzed—incapable of action. His boggled eyes turned to Toril and Toril jabbed her shoulders into a shrug.
"Stupendous! Oh, Yinying is a top percentage Umbreon without a doubt. Examine the coat's sheen. You can perceive the shimmering gloss clinging to individual follicles. Even under a full moon he'd blend into his environs perfectly. And let's not forget the gold rings. Such incandescence! It's well known an Umbreon uses its rings to hypnotize potential prey. But—forgive me, the research is still inconclusive, there's still so much we don't know—but recent findings indicate the rings are also essential to Umbreon mating rituals, brighter rings being more attractive to potential mates. In the wild, Yinying would certainly have his pick of the gene pool, so to speak."
Aracely's fingers snapped. "Oh, right! I do know you. You're the guy from the analyst desk."
Toril did a double take. Her eyes reexamined the man on his knees. His form, before only amorphous colors blobbed into a conceptual entity, developed specificity.
"Bill Masaki?"
"Please. Bill's good enough."
The instant Bill's attention shifted, Jinjiao was free. He clapped twice. "Yinying, evasive maneuver!" They both sprinted away.
"Wait, Yinying, come back!" Bill attempted a few staggered steps after them, but by then they had blended into the shadows. "Ahh, my heart breaks."
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Maybe be less of a freak next time?" said Aracely.
Bill winced. "Sorry. They don't call me the Poké Maniac for nothing. Eevee and its evolutions are a particular favorite, so when I saw Yinying, I lost control. Did I interrupt something?"
"Not at all," said Aracely.
Bill's eyes drifted to Ziggy, who twirled tiptoe by Aracely's ankle. "That's... good. I noticed three Top 16 battlers enter my museum and wondered what was going on."
"Your museum?"
"That's right. I needed someplace to put my best Pokémon merch... ha, I kid. The museum's actually just the public-facing part of the facility. The rest is a state-of-the-art research laboratory. I bought it when my operation outgrew my villa."
Aracely's demeanor shifted. She leaned forward, hands laced behind her back, balanced playfully on one foot as her head tilted. (Ziggy imitated her slinky feline shape as best his round body allowed.) "Whoa! That is actually, like, super cool. I heard you were smart, but I didn't realize you were a bona fide genius."
"Ehe, genius, well, maybe a few have said that..."
"Omigosh. I got the perfect idea. You should totally take us on a guided tour!"
"I can't say I'm much of a tour guide, but... well, you might get a better experience if you went on one of the professional tours..."
"No-o, not of the museum. I mean the lab! Wouldn't that be so superb, Tors?"
Toril groused [unintelligibly] upon being recalled into the conversation, but—yeah, actually, it would be cool. Bill Masaki wasn't some dickwad academic. The stuff he made was real. Toril used his PC storage system every day. Every trainer did. Without it, you'd need your own ranch if you owned more than a handful of Pokémon. They said Bill was always tinkering, always building something new. Tomorrow, the future—way better than looking at history in this dry museum.
"Um, well, the lab's off limits without security clearance." Bill waved the ID badge that hung from his unbuttoned polo. "Protocol. Corporate espionage and all."
Aracely clasped her hands over her heart. Her long lashes flitted. "Oh, ple-ease? We're not from some company. We just want to see the amazing stuff you do, Bill."
"Hrm. Well... oh, what the heck. You're Top 16 battlers. You're not criminals. Get ready for the tour of your life."
Aracely shot Toril a wink.
Tucked behind reassembled prehistoric bones, past a pair of mutely whispering figures in monkish robes who watched them side-eyed, an unassuming red door displayed the words: STAFF ONLY. Bill flashed his keycard and they were inside, the room strangely small and empty, until Bill hit a button on the wall.
Pipes hummed. Valves hissed. A deep interior architecture writhed as the floor came to life. The elevator descended, at an angle, along a whirring track.
The image from the tramcar returned, the still and dead present, but now they descended into the darkness of an oblique shaft, sporadic industrial bulbs and vague alphanumeric labeling the only waypoints. They kept going down, and down. Into the bowels of a machine whose heart beat beside them.
"I hope you girls don't take anything I say on the desk too hard." Bill gripped the railing at the elevator's edge and peered into his own abyss. "I'm critical because I want to see Pokémon at their peak. Too often, trainer incompetence holds them back."
What could Toril say? Bill spoke simple truth.
"If that were true, Pokémon wouldn't need trainers at all," Aracely said. "Simply turn them loose on the stadium and let them at it—"
"Don't fucking talk about that," Toril snapped, at the same time Bill turned like he intended to say something similar. Aracely shrugged a "don't mind me I'm just a silly idiot" shrug to play it off, but even the mention left Toril's skin crawling. Phlegm turned her tongue to bile.
Her father once dragged her to his gambling den. She remembered hurrying to keep close, because even though she feared and hated him, the grizzled men who inhabited the place seemed infinitely more terrifying. Past card tables, down to the basement, dug into a pit. There, bloodied, they fought.
These other idiots always look for personality, her father said. Who's mean. Who's got the look of a killer. Never fall for that. It's the physique. It's math. One's got a stronger bite, a sharper claw. That one wins.
The elevator reached the base. Bill led them into an industrial labyrinth. Sheet metal walls and through the gaps multicolored wires catching light from bare lightbulbs. Corridors split off and dropped into darkness but Bill zigged and zagged as he pointed at doors and rattled off each room's purpose. "There's our servers." "We keep samples there." "That one's just a closet."
Aracely piped up: "What exactly are you doing down here, Bill?"
"Well—and I shouldn't tell you this, but"—a prideful gleam as he jabbed a thumb into his chest—"you know my PC storage system? Of course you do. You're trainers, and every trainer in the world uses it. The most efficient way to store Pokémon: upload them as digital data, then take them out when you want them again. We've improved the design, enhanced efficiency, but it's been the same basic idea. Until now. This is a paradigm shift. It'll reroute the timeline entirely. We're working on uploading humans into the PC."
"That's crazy," said Toril.
"Why can't you do it already?" Aracely followed Bill (now walking backward to face them) much closer, nearly skipping, giving him a helpful motion when he was about to bump into one of the few labcoated researchers who skirted the facility. "If you can upload Pokémon, why not people?"
"You see it's actually quite fascinating. This goes back to my initial discovery some twenty-odd years ago, but it all has to do with the unique structure of Pokémon DNA. Despite the broad variance in Pokémon types and species, their DNA shares common traits: in particular, an incredible capacity for rapid evolution. Look. Our nursery."
A long plexiglass window peered into a space like a preschool classroom: pastel, plush, incompatible with everything else in this darkness. A hundred Clefairy swarmed a handler who tossed food to their stubby, reaching arms.
Bill stopped by the window. "Clefairy used to be one of the rarest Pokémon in the world. An endemic species, found only on a single mountain: Mt. Moon, a few kilometers east of here. Until a century ago people thought they were mythological. A local legend, which went—"
"Oh, I've heard this! The legend is about how at certain times of year the peak of Mt. Moon seems to touch the moon, right?"
"Right! The locals believed—superstition of course—the mountain and the moon actually connected at those times."
"And when they did, Clefairy climbed down from the moon to live on this world."
"Some pretty obscure lore, Sosa," Bill said. "You been to Pewter City before?"
"I interned here a few summers ago, actually."
"Here? At the museum?"
"No, someplace else."
"Now I was an intern of sorts myself at your age, except I worked under old Ōkido. Oak, for you interregionals. He took me to Mt. Moon, where we became the first two humans ever to watch a Clefairy evolution ceremony—the coming-of-age ritual where the clan allows worthy Clefairy to approach a large chunk of moonstone. After they transform into Clefable, they then assume clan leadership."
Toril teleported there, to that lone mountain peak, encamped behind camouflage mesh, watching rapt as Clefairy gathered around a glowing meteorite. Her real world, these dim and grotesque metal corridors, was worthless in comparison.
Bill kept them moving with a snap of his fingers. "That moment kickstarted my fascination with Pokémon evolution. I thought, if Pokémon can evolve into a new form just by touching a stone, then maybe they could evolve to interface with technology. Long story short, they could."
"But that's different." Now Toril walked close to Bill, leaning forward to ensure she caught his eye, in case she went unheard if unseen. "Pokémon change form, but not that radically. They don't all evolve into Porygon, for instance."
"Astute! But Clefairy turned out crucial on that front too. Clefairy didn't interact with humans as a species until an eyeblink ago, historically speaking. All their evolution happened isolated from humanity. Which is why you see them do things that are completely antithetical to what any human would want in a Pokémon pet."
"They're cute," said Aracely. "Isn't that enough?"
"Coincidence. Just because you evolve independent of humans doesn't necessarily mean you won't take on traits humans happen to like. No, to illustrate what I mean, look at Metronome. Clefairy's signature move. Pure randomness. You might growl cutely or explode. It's unpredictable. For Clefairy, the move had clan significance—a kind of cultural importance—but it was useless for battlers and made Clefairy unruly pets. Humans want order and structure, not chance."
"Clefairy's a strong competitive Pokémon though," said Toril. "Or Clefable at least. I used mine at regionals last year and was runner up. The fairy typing makes her a strong defensive wall—"
"Ah! That's the rub." The corridors ceased branching. Only one path remained and it funneled toward a massive pair of blast doors in the distance. "When Oak and I did our research two decades ago, Clefairy wasn't fairy type. It was normal type. The entire species developed fairy typing—without changing form—over the span of twenty years. It did it to make itself a better battler, to make itself more appealing to humans. Because humans would feed it, care for it, breed it—humans would help its species survive. It changed its molecular structure on a species level in the span of years. That's the kind of rapid evolution I'm talking about, the kind that allows Pokémon to enter a computer, even though computers were only invented recently. I used Clefairy as an example, but all Pokémon share this capacity for change. Azumarill, for instance, developed fairy typing—wait, where's Ziggy?"
They stopped. No sign of the unmissable yellow Azumarill. Toril had gotten so wrapped up in Bill's lecture she never saw him fall behind.
"He's such a scatterbrain," Aracely said. "Ziggy! Over here!"
Nothing.
Aracely cupped her hands and shouted: "Ziggy!" Her voice echoed through the halls.
After a delay, a distant hiss formed. Quiet first, then louder—louder—until on a jet of water Ziggy barreled out of the dark, did ten spins, and landed beside Aracely already bowing for applause. Which Bill excitedly gave.
"He's so cool," Bill said. "Shiny Pokémon are another fascinating subject—"
"But you didn't answer my first question," said Aracely. "Why can't humans go into the computer?"
"Right. Come this way."
As Bill hurried toward the blast doors, Aracely knelt beside Ziggy and patted him between the ears. It only took a second, and if Toril hadn't been giving the showboating little dick the evil eye, she would've missed it. Ziggy stuck out his tongue, and Aracely quickly pocketed the small device—a flash drive—that was on it.
Toril watched the exchange, dumbfounded. Aracely noticed Toril staring, pressed a finger to her lips, and winked. Her demeanor was so casual and harmless, and Toril wanted to hear more, so she shrugged and continued on.
"The point is," said Bill, "humans don't share the Pokémon capacity for evolution. Which makes them resistant to uploading. We evolve our minds, not our bodies. So I thought: How do I make a human be like a Pokémon?"
"A human like a Pokémon," Toril nodded.
Bill leaned over a retinal scanner. Beep-boop, ding-ding. The scanner flashed green and the blast doors awakened, parting slowly with megaton heaviness.
"Then I realized. I already found the answer. By complete accident, years ago. And there it is."
The doors, fully open, revealed a tremendous space with no clear ceiling. Nestled amid an array of arcane computer equipment that rose like black towers was the device Bill indicated with an overexcited, self-satisfied fling of his hand. Two metal pods, each barely big enough to fit a human, connected by a massive tube.
"That's it. That's the device."
"What's it do?" said Toril.
"It merges a human and a Pokémon."
"No," said Toril. "No fucking way."
"It works. I've tested it before. On myself, no less."
"You were a Pokémon?" Toril stepped into the room. The immensity gripped her, an agoraphobia she felt on mountaintops staring straight up into the starry atmosphere, but she staggered forward anyway. There were other machines, too, covered by sheets, dusty. A storage space. One with the highest security in the museum—what did they all do? "You can make a person a Pokémon?"
"Yep."
"Can you make me one?"
Bill's self-satisfied smile faded. "Well. Uh. You know. Some kinks. Regional regulations. I really, really shouldn't."
Toril immediately looked to Aracely. The eyelash thing, she tried to tell her. Do the eyelash thing. Your psychic power to control people. Do it, please, please please please, make him say yes.
Aracely winked. "Oh Bill—"
"No. Nope. This is too much. It's risky. I can't—Nope. Flat no. It's enough I'm even telling you about it."
"Please Bill," Toril said. "Not for long. Only a minute."
"We have no idea what the long-term effects are. So far I'm the only person it's been used on, and that was an accident twenty years ago. No other human in the world has become a Pokémon. We can't predict—"
"That's not true," said Aracely.
"I swear. This machine has never been used on anyone except me. We're hoping to be ready for real human trials—two, three years from now. Until then..."
"I know someone else who became a Pokémon."
The vacuum of the space swallowed them in its silent hum. Pinpricks manifested along Toril's arms, but her heart thudded: the machine, the machine! To become a Pokémon. Even if only for a moment. To see the world their way, to speak in their strange form of communication, to use moves, to be strong, to be seen and respected—
"Where," said Bill, eyes dead on Aracely, "did you say you interned again?"
Aracely smiled.
Bill's blood drained. Pale, shaking, he hooked a finger into his collar and tugged. "I think. I think you two have seen enough. Tour's over."
"Bill, please." Toril slouched a step at him and he scrambled back, hand held out to keep her at bay. "One minute only—"
"You leave now. Or I'm calling security."
"I don't—I don't understand."
"It's okay, Tors," said Aracely. "I doubt we'll convince him like this."
Toril stepped again and Bill yelled at her to stop. Why? What did she do? She only wanted to use the machine. Was that so bad? He had it. Who cared if there were side effects. She'd risk it.
"He doesn't want to be legally liable," Aracely said. "It's fine. We'll go."
Slipping through her fingers. Slipping, slipping, slipping.
"Shouldn't you escort us back, though?" Aracely asked. "You wouldn't want us to get lost, would you?"
Something in Bill's throat gurgled.
"Shame," said Aracely. "All this planning for a future that will never come."
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Shithead bastard Bill. Rich ass computer monopolist. Boot up the PC and it goes Hi! Welcome to Bill's PC like he owned every fucking PC in the whole world. Die in a fiery death.
By the time they exited the museum all in her body was sharp stabbing spurs and each shuffling motion incensed her more. She didn't even realize it was dark out until Aracely wrapped a hand around her shoulder, pulled her close, and said: "Smile!"
"No."
Aracely snapped a photo with her Rotom phone, then inspected the selfie with discernment. "Oh, cute. Really cute. I look cute, don't I?"
Toril barely glanced at the phone and grumbled [unintelligible].
"Except Ziggy is totally photobombing us. Look! Ziggy, look at this. Why'd you stick your big head there of all places?"
Ziggy wiggled back and forth like he didn't understand the words Aracely said.
"Anyway Tors. Bill's a jerk. Don't let weird old men get you down. Getting you down is their like, favorite pastime. Wasn't it cool we got to go there at all?"
A bilious grouse, followed by: "I guess."
"Oh you don't guess. You know."
On principle, Toril refused to respond. Pewter City at night became a city of lonely lampposts: each too far from any other. Unseen bug Pokémon chirruped in harmony as a waning gibbous moon neared the peak named after it.
"Anyway! Don't worry about what happens next. I have it totally under control."
"What happens—next?"
"It had to happen sooner or later. Follow my lead, k?"
Toril lacked even a microscopic conception of what Aracely meant. They walked down an ordinary Pewter street, most shops already closed. The boutique from earlier stood haunted by phantasmagoric mannequins. Devoid, dead. This world will end on October 12.
Something melded out of the darkness just beyond Toril's periphery. She sensed it on instinct, the way in the wilderness she sensed a hidden Pokémon. Logic told her it was Jinjiao, but she hadn't felt this with Jinjiao, this—this violence that dripped from the form's jaws. When a second something stepped out on the other side of her she turned, Poké Ball in hand, only stopped from throwing it by Aracely's shockingly quick reflex.
"No," she whispered, pepless.
Both figures wore white robes. Like monks. Once Toril stumbled upon a monastery as she traversed the mountains. They too had stared at her like this, like she wasn't welcome. Toril stared back. Her hand trembled under Aracely's grip.
From behind, five more robed figures emerged. Toril heard a scrape and looked the other way, and another five were in front of them. Twelve total.
"Hii-i, Nilufer!" Aracely waved at the centermost one. An azure stripe ran down her robes, suggesting a higher rank in the monk hierarchy.
Nilufer met Aracely's greeting with a pitiless stare. "MOTHER will see you now."
"Mm. No-o, not feeling that. Been a long day. I think actually I'll head back up before the tram stops for the night."
"Why did you come here if not to see MOTHER." Nilufer's voice reverberated strikingly deep in the dead air. Toril saw no Poké Balls on her. The robes might conceal them, but Poké Balls had a rounded bulk that usually made them stick out. Nilufer appeared entirely unarmed.
"I came to hang with my new bestie, duh. Say hi to Tors, everyone. Tors, say hi to Nilufer and the rest."
Toril didn't say hi. Nilufer didn't say hi.
Toril gave up trying to read these stony faces or Aracely's bubbly glamor. She looked at Ziggy. He, she could read. All day he did nothing but bounce around, spin and flip, wiggle, clap his hands. Now he stood still at Aracely's side, eyes focused.
"It's in your best interest to leave now," Nilufer said—to Toril. "This is a private matter between members of RISE."
"The—health and wellness center?!"
"Go. Now."
The five standing behind them parted, clearing a path. Toril wondered what to do. Aracely claimed she knew how to handle this, so maybe leaving was what she wanted? Not a single glance or gesture came from her. Toril gritted her teeth.
"N—no. Whoever you guys are. You got no business screwing with us."
"You guys have heard of Tors right?" Aracely said. "I mean, you're watching my games, aren't you? Omigosh, don't tell me you're not. Tragic! Well, let me clue you in. Toril's the third ranked trainer in the world. She'd be first ranked if I didn't knock her down a peg. (Sorry!) Point is, she's really, really strong. I think she's got a good shot of winning the whole thing, or would, if I wasn't gonna win myself."
Now, the robed figures stared at Toril. Maybe Toril imagined it, but a few took a step back and hunched slightly. No, she wasn't imagining it.
A grin spread on her lips.
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah. I'm the best trainer in the world."
Nilufer's gray gaze shifted to Aracely. "You are manipulating that poor girl into a situation she is not prepared to handle. You know who I am."
"I don't know who you are," said Toril, "which means you're not shit."
"It's not like there has to be a situation," said Aracely. "We can all go our merry little ways now that we've done introductions."
"MOTHER will not be satisfied with that."
"She'll be satisfied with this." Aracely took a small object from her pocket, the flash drive she stole from Bill's basement, though it felt weird to think of that moment as theft—Toril hadn't conceptualized it that way before, even if in retrospect it was obvious. But fuck Bill. Toril at full height towered above the robed figures, including the men among them. Certainly above Nilufer. And Gustav's Poké Ball remained in her upraised hand, ready to throw.
Instead, Aracely threw the flash drive. With perfect economy of movement, Nilufer lifted an arm and caught it, never taking her eyes from Aracely. The brief motion caused her robes to ruffle, and Toril saw a flash of metal underneath. Not a Poké Ball. A knife.
"You know where I've been," Aracely said, "so you have a good idea what that is."
A flicker of confusion crossed Nilufer's face. The first expression she'd shown. "Did MOTHER ask for this? I—was not informed."
Aracely winked.
The flash drive disappeared into Nilufer's robes. "Expect to hear from MOTHER soon. One way or another."
The robed figures melted into the darkness.
When they were gone, Toril lowered her hand. Ziggy flopped back and sproinged on his tail, and the bug Pokémon buzzed again.
"What the fuck was that about?"
"Omigosh," Aracely said, "Nilufer is so deadpan. Like okay I get it, you gotta have a personal brand and all, but she's really giving very much sinister. She's way nicer than she looks. Does a killer massage. You've got to try it, might work out those kinks in your posture."
"Uh... huh."
"Anyway. Now that that little distraction is over, we got a new topic to discuss. Strategy."
"Strategy?!"
"You didn't forget our deal, Tors? I need to kick that skinny punk Jinjiao's butt. And you are Miss Top Ranked Trainer and all, which means you know the secret sauce."
Well—Toril did scare off those robed freaks. "Uh, sure."
"Great! Let's talk on the way to the tram. Wouldn't want to miss the last one. Then what would we do, right?"
It only took a few stammered sentences on the subject for Toril to find her footing. Pokémon battling—she knew it inside and out. Aracely, who seemed to know nothing, nodded and exclaimed in wonder at even the most basic stuff Toril said. As they boarded the tram deep in conversation and ascended toward the lights of the Plateau, Toril decided—it'd been fun.