Winter was slowly dying. Sisu sensed the snowstorms had lost some of their strength over the past few days. That didn’t say much this far north, but it counted for something. Then again, with nothing better to do besides wait for Sefonia and Blitzer to recover, who’s to say it wasn’t a hallucination? What did she know about the weather? She was no meteorologist. She didn’t even know what that word meant.
She played with her ghostly fingers while sitting against a building, snow falling all around. ‘What a rough winter’, she rambled in her thoughts, trying to keep her mind off things. She hadn’t visited Blitzer in a while. Not that talking to the comatose offered much. Sefonia had seen quite enough of her today, on the other hand. Lost part of her vapour, just like she lost her patience.
The Marshadow jabbed her horns through the wooden wall she sat against. No damage, though. She had enough headaches to worry about. One of them came running down the street, as a matter of fact.
“Sisu? Sisu?! Where are you?”
She raised an eye. The voice belonged to a Raichu; it was just pitchy enough to make that much clear, and she didn’t know many Raichu to begin with.
“Speedy?”
Looking up in time to see him running down the street, Sisu jumped back to her feet. She ran her hands through her ectoplasm as if she had hair to fix up; snow had a habit of sticking to ectoplasm.
“What’s the hurry?”
“It’s Blitzer!” he said, jumping from one foot to the other, tail bobbing up and down. “He’s losing it right now, you need to-”
The Marshadow grabbed the Raichu by the shoulders, then shook him back and forth. “Hold up. No movements. You sayin’ he woke up? Like, eyes open and talking?”
Speedy nodded, feet jittering. “That’s exactly what I’m saying! And he’s not doing well. At all.”
“How bad is it?”
“Oh, I don’t know… You stuffed him full of that ‘megastone’ crap, right? And that’s why he went berserk right in a pinch?”
Sisu raised an eye at him, letting go of his shoulders. “No I didn’t, he swallowed it himself. I just told him to use it when needed. Didn’t tell him to eat it, Arceus damn it…The hell does that have to do with anything, anyway?”
The Raichu stomped a foot into the snow, his cheeks sparking. “He thinks he’s killed you and that Dragonite girl. You know, big dragon seeing red? Yeah?”
The Marshadow pulled a sour face. “Why didn’t you say that straight away?”
“I was trying to!” Speedy retorted. Sisu shook her head.
“Egh, fight this out later, get me to him! Fast!”
* * *
Blitzer squirmed on top of the bed, his head throbbing, his throat sore. He’d spent a while sleeping in it; days if he had to guess. How come it felt so uncomfortable now? Why didn’t he notice earlier how the straws stuck to his scales? Prodded at his flesh underneath?
Or were those just his scales? His grossly oversized Charizard scales, cracked and torn from evolving, then bruised from his rampage?
Said rampage hadn’t stopped when waking up. He’d smacked, clawed, punched himself all over his body after Speedy ran away. Poor guy was lucky to escape. What if he got a taste for Raichu as well? He’d killed Sefonia, then Sisu, why would an old friend like Speedy be any different? Monsters didn’t care about the past. Only satiating their desires.
And he was a monster, alright. Every part of his body felt… wrong. An aberration. Something that shouldn’t exist. All the sharp teeth lining his gums. His far longer tail that could set the whole building on fire. Two horns. Wings too, because Arceus forbid you were safe in the air. His claws could shred anyone apart. Anyone.
Worst of all was what became of his voice. Gone were the chirps, gone were any and all signs of boyhood. Despite being no older than fourteen years, every noise that left his throat sounded gnarly. Growled. A tad lower, and his name would be Chronos. No wonder that beast said they were related. They might as well have been the same.
Each smell and sound had gotten so much more intense, too. He could hear people walking outside. Smell them. Tell what kind of coat they had, and what their predominant element was. Past his own smoke, he picked up the scent of burnt metal. Electricity. It was mixed inside the musk of fur, though it wasn’t particularly thick. Little feet hopped through the snow with a light crunch. He flinched.
‘No… don’t come back…’
Speedy had been lucky to escape, and now he came back? Blitzer sniffed. Blew his nose on the straws. Half the bed was either wet with tears, or singed and smoking. What would happen when he walked in? What would Speedy even say, now?
A second smell accompanied Speedy’s. It tasted odd. Like someone had dumped candle wax over branches, then set it out in the rain for a few hours. A vague idea of what it belonged to came up in Blitzer’s head, but it faded as quick.
Not long after, the door flew open. Speedy ran into a room; a black blur followed. “Blitz? Blitz? What’s wrong?”
Blitzer didn’t so much as raise his head. Rather, he kept it pointed towards a wall, his tail curling around until the tip was in front of his belly. No need to risk blood being spilled.
“Yo. Blitz. It’s me, Sisu. What’s goin’ on?”
“He’s been like this not long after waking up. He…” Speedy sounded like as if words got stuck in his throat. Like he’d forgotten to chew on them beforehand. “Wh-what am I saying? Blitzer! Look, Sisu’s here. She’s okay?”
“Uh, yeah? He can look for himself, y’know,” the Marshadow said, as laid back as ever.
All reassurances aside, Blitzer didn’t look. Why would his mind lie to him? He remembered tearing someone apart. Sefonia and Sisu collapsed onto the snow. Tired, exhausted, knocking on death’s door. That wasn’t a lie. How come he was hearing her now? Did he not finish the job back then?
‘Don’t look. Don’t look. You’ll lose it again. You’ll lose…!’
The sobbing started back up. Even if Sisu was okay, how could he look her in the eye, after what he’d become? Why would she want to see his monstrous face, and all the cuts and bruises running across it?
“He’s starting again…”
“Ah, Creator be damned… got any better ideas?”
“Better ideas? I tried everything I could think of! I told him you and that Dragonite girl were okay, he doesn’t buy it! Keeps talking about how he’s a monster,” Speedy said, rushing his words out. “I don’t know what else to say! Once, he was daydreaming about being a Charizard!”
“Alright then. Here’s my idea,” Sisu said. Blitzer felt the bed bounce up and down seconds later. “Watch this.”
“What are you-”
Speedy got a few words out before Blitzer yowled. He got jabbed right on the tail - the pain went right up his back and into his arms, and his body jolted right up into a sitting position ,tail laid out across the bed, back and neck flat against the wall.
“Ow…” he whined. Sisu was looking right into his tear stained face. “Wh-what was…”
“Yeah? Eravate to Blitzer, hello? It’s me, Sisu. You see this?” She stretched her arms out into a T shape. “Do I look dead to you?”
“Hey,” Speedy shouted, rattling his tail like an Arbok would. “What are you doing? Are you trying to scare him into submission, or what?”
Sisu whipped her head around, just to stick her tongue out at the Raichu. “Asked you if you had any better ideas, and you didn’t. So this it is~” she hummed. It didn’t take long for Speedy’s cheeks to start sparking. He pulled the kind of face one would pull when their lunch is stolen.
“You know, doing nothing is preferable sometimes, right?”
As the two small fry argued a few steps removed from coming to blows, Blitzer sat and waited, eye twitching, mouth shut. He eyed Sisu with a horrified glint in his eye. No cuts or injuries anywhere on her ectoplasm. Instead of making him at ease, it put him more at edge. Did Ectoplasm heal better than flesh? Sefonia must’ve been scarred. If she still lived. She didn’t. He had his memories. The Dragonite was killed then, her scales ripped apart. So was the Marshadow, her horns ripped off her body… except they hadn’t been ripped off. Sisu still had them. Still whipped them all over the place.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
‘Why is everything wrong? Why are my memories like this?’ Blitzer thought to himself, tears resuming their march, though he had the courtesy to wipe them away. His claws had been dry for a while now, red as they were in his head.
He kept repeating the phrase with a squeaky voice in his mind. Charmeleon didn’t talk like that. Charmander did.
“Look, you can’t just do what you want… I don’t care that you’re a damn Marshadow, alright? You’re not above the law, you’re not above basic decency! Have some respect for the boy!” Speedy’s foot shifted on the floorboards, as he kept whipping his bolt back and forth.
“Umm, yeah?” Sisu said, casually throwing her hands in the air. “Did I ever say I was above the law, or somethin’? Like I said, I ain’t a punk. You think I’m one, but you needed me to get him to stop cryin’, right?”
Speedy glared at Blitzer from the corner of his eyes. “Well, mission failed. Look.”
The Marshadow spun around, hands firmly jabbed in her sides, horns flickering. “Yeah. Let’s focus on Blitz, shall we? What’s up?”
Blitzer crossed his claws over his belly. For the size he had on both of them, he sure didn’t feel very tall. He felt fat. Stuck in the wrong body. Stuck in a bog. A frozen bog, like the one he’d killed the Marshadow on. Weren’t ghost types supposed to be dead, anyway?
“Yeah? You seein’ this right here?” Sisu flicked her horns with one hand, then ran said hand through said horns, causing them to twitch back and forth erratically. Then, for good measure, she flexed her arm, showing off muscles that didn’t exist. “Heard you ripped me apart. I sure look ripped, don’t I?”
As Speedy smacked himself on the forehead, Blitzer gave but a sad stare at her. “You do…” he muttered.
“Sure do,” she added, then leaned back over. “So what’s this about thinkin’ you killed me?”
Blitzer gulped. What to even say? “I-I remember… feeling blood over my cl- hands,” he corrected himself at the end. Saying claws felt wrong. Very wrong. “What happened? I… killed other people, I know… and I thought you were one of them, because… because I just… i-it’s like I wanted to hurt everyone I could see… I lost my mind back there… Like all I could do was kill, kill, kill…”
“Mhm,” Sisu hummed. “That’s the bad side of mega evolvin’ right there. You know some Pokemon go all crazy when exposed to certain energy out there. ‘S what I was talking about when we were getting the hell outta the base. Reason you hear about it but never see it… well yeah, here’s why. It ain’t no superpower. Ain’t fun. ‘Tis last resort kinda crap. Wears off once the energy’s gone, then the stone’s gotta recharge.”
Blitzer felt an itch creep up his throat. “I swallowed the stone…” he said. “A-and what about me…? What happened to me? What did I do…?”
“Ain’t gotta worry about the stone yet,” Sisu replied. “Don’t know what happens when you swallow it, but… We’ll be goin’ to someone who can actually explain that in a few days time. When Sefonia’s in a better state. She’s roughed up.”
The Charizard suddenly jolted forward. “From me?!”
Speedy hopped onto the bed. “Easy, laddie. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Indeed,” Sisu said, patting Blitzer on his knee. “Cold, that Corruption crap, and getting beat up by friends turned freaks? Now that’s how you get sent to a clinic.”
“To miss Audino. You know, you had to see her quite often growing up,” Speedy chuckled. Sisu nodded along.
“Uh huh. To miss Audino, or whoever the miss is. You sure didn’t hurt her. Heck, you’re why she’s still alive. Didn’t kill her, you just helped her walk. Now, you did kill that piece of garbage Ampharos.” the Marshadow stuck her tongue out, then whipped her horn-like tendrils back and forth. “But what gives? I mean, he wanted to kill you, he literally tortured you, said he wanted to kill us both as well. Killing him ain’t a crime, that’s community service.”
Blitzer’s face soured. He looked off to the floorboards; cold as they were, they seemed more comfy than the bed. It didn’t take long for him to sling his feet over the edge. His belly made it difficult. He grimaced looking at it. The oaf in bedtime stories didn’t wake up this clumsily.
“I’d… like it if we stopped here,” he said. “I can’t handle hearing all this.”
The Marshadow hopped off the bed, then wandered past the Charizard standing between her and the door. “Fine by me. Should go and do somethin’ normal anyway. That helps.”
Nonchalant, she reached for the door handle. Just as her hand touched the knob - the lower knob on the door - she retracted. Moments later, she’d spun around.
“You guys know somethin’ we can do? Anything?”
“Why yes, actually,” Speedy said, fixing up the short tufts of fur on his head. “I was thinkin’ we could get pancakes. There’s… One restaurant in town. They’ve been working hard to keep the business afloat, y’know, what with the world falling apart. But they’ve managed. Got goods stockpiled up, and all that.”
“Uh huh. Have we got the money for pancakes?” Sisu asked.
The Raichu spun his ears around, tail-tip twitching curiously. “Of course. I’m a hardworking ‘mon.”
Blitzer then craned his neck up, a weak smile appearing on his snout. “Are you inviting Junior, too?”
Speedy sighed. “He’s not around here at the moment. Still young, so they can’t have him too close to the front.”
“Oh,” Blitzer said, looking away. So much for smiles. His stomach sure seemed excited though, given the growl rumbling in his belly moments later. Speedy laughed at him for it.
“Don’t worry about my boy, Blitzer. He’ll be alright! I go out for dinner with him regularly… as long as my breaks allow for it, ha!” the Raichu said, smiling. “Besides, you’re like a second son to me! And I haven’t seen you smile in way too long. We gotta do somethin’ about that!”
Instead of getting a response from Blitzer, Sisu loudly tapped her foot on the floorboards, the thumping making them creak a little. For a ghost, she had a lot of pep to her step.
“‘Scuse me. Second son?”
Speedy rolled his eyes. “I told you, we lived in the same town, remember?” he reminded her with a whip of his tail.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” the Marshadow lazily hummed back. “So Blitz. Want pancakes?”
The Charizard just looked at them for a second or two. ‘I wish they didn’t argue all the time…’ “Um… yeah? Junior would’ve been nice, but…”
“He’ll be fine,” Speedy added with a wink. Blitzer gently nodded back, a growl rumbling in his throat.
“R-right… let’s… go for pancakes then.” ‘George would’ve been nice, too… I hate my voice. Why do I have to sound like this?’
Strange to the eyes of onlookers as it might be, the Raichu and Marshadow led the thrice as tall Charizard through town. Sure enough, the few civilians immediately caught wind of them, giggling to themselves at the sight. Same went for the Soldier, who passed by with funny looks on their snouts, their scarves wavering in the wind.
Blitzer licked his chops out of nerves. Once upon a time, those green scarves would’ve meant battle. Blood, war, potential death. The conflict had moved past them. There was a new enemy in town. War never changes, but times sure change.
The cold also came and giggled - or rather, it howled. However long he’d been out hadn’t impacted the Whitiaran winter at all. His father had long regaled him with stories of the eternal winter up north, and how few could brave the wastelands during Grandpa Frost’s rampage.
Fortunately for Blitzer, today’s stay in the cold was short lived. On the opposite side of the street the clinic was on, the pancake house stood with open doors. Well, the signage outside promised stews and various other delicacies - many of them meat based - but said items were crossed off. A line cut straight through the runes. Those parts of the menu were reserved for better times.
If better times still existed..
If peace brought the sun with it.
Nevertheless, they weren’t here to eat much more than pancakes. The owner of the house, a Delibird, informed them that they’d keep their doors open, no matter what. Didn’t matter if rationing, fighting or darkness reached the front door. Principles, they stuck by.
Blitzer had his own principles to worry about. Not going berserk again, for one. Even as the pancakes were being served, memories from a few nights ago swirled around in his mind. More than his emotions, it affected the body. Even his eating habits; though the pancakes fit into his maw with little effort, he nibbled on them instead. Speedy ate faster. Heck, Sisu ate faster. And Sisu ate like a Slakoth moved.
At least the pancakes were nice. A little rougher than the ones he was used to, but sweet as candy regardless. He could roll them up with his claws no problem, stick in his mouth, twirl it around his tongue, savour the taste as best he could. For toppings, a puddle of liquidy whipped cream and a touch of jam came alongside the pancakes. You know, in case your sweet tooth weren’t satisfied.
“So,” Sisu said after finishing her second, patting her mouth down with a napkin. “How’s Whitiara been for you, Speedy? You said you ain’t from around here, so I’m curious.”
The Raichu shrugged. “Cold. Way too damn cold. Alliance and Anomalies? Forget about them, freezin’ to death’s the real enemy here. Gotta watch out all the time. Had to tell Junior to keep an eye out for himself too.”
Sisu nodded. “Uh huh. And how’s that going?”
Speedy sighed. “Okayish. We’re both still alive… but damn it. All the stories aside, this is extreme even by those standards. Ever experienced cold like this up here before? You’re a local, right?”
“Mhm,” Sisu hummed. “Sure am. And… well, it did get this bad before, but never to the point where you had homemade mounds of snow at the corner of town. Usually the super cold’s like… a week? Tops? Somethin’ like that, maybe more further up north. But this has been going on for a looong time now.”
“Do you think the sky cracking open’s got something to do with it?”
“Maybe? Dritch would know more. I think it’s bad luck and the sky.”
Blitzer didn’t pay much heed to their conversation. Speedy and Sisu were adults… well, the latter was questionable, but she had plenty of experience over him. They could do business, while he could eat his pancakes, and keep his mind straight.
‘What would George say if he was here…’
He licked some jam off his chops, then eyed pancake number four. Blitzer had six total, the adults both got four. Eating them felt nostalgic, like waking up on a beautiful spring morning to the smell of mom’s cooking. Pancakes for breakfast. That’s the mark of a good childhood.
Blitzer sighed. ‘What happened to those days…’
“Hey, Blitzer.”
He looked up with heavy, sleepy eyes. Speedy leaned over the table. “How are you feeling?”
The Charizard sighed. “I’m alive, I guess.”
“That’s a start,” the Raichu said, grinning a little. “Say…you feel a little better?”
“Not really,” was Blitzer’s answer, followed by a groan - one which sounded far too much like a growl to his ears. ‘I can’t even disagree with someone, without sounding like I’m going to kill them…’
Speedy nodded along to the Charizard’s reaction, neither his gaze or posture switching much. “Understandable. But do you remember what I used to tell you back in the day? When you were a wee lil’ boy?”
Blitzer frowned. “Please don’t call me that.”
The Raichu smirked, much to Sisu’s audible amusement. “Some things never change.”
“You used to call ‘im that?”
“Hey, don’t blame me, he was just a lad then! I stopped doing it like, three years ago.”
Sisu laid her head on her arms. “Before the growth spurts caught up with ‘im, you mean.”
“Sure do,” Speedy said, raising his shoulders. “Anyway. What did I say, Blitzer?”
By now, the Charizard had also put his head on the table, minus the claws they would’ve been resting on. If not for basic anatomy, his eyes would’ve rolled out their sockets and off the table. Instead, he just had jam smeared under his chin.
“Sun always comes after rain…”
Speedy nodded like his spine was made out of rubber. “Yep! There you have it! And that’s what you should remember. Look at it this way, you might’ve hit rock bottom, but there’s only one way from here on out, and it’s up!”
Blitzer mumbled a few words in agreement - words so quiet he could hardly hear them himself. Words were just words, at the end of the day. People say many on a given day, but how many do they believe in? The Charizard didn’t see his as anything more than appeasement. If he said what Speedy wanted to hear, no arguments would break out.
‘What’s the point. Stand up for myself? What’s the point? We’re not leaving until they have me beat on this… It’s not true. It doesn’t get better. Rock bottom only gets deeper and deeper, and I’m sinking further and further…’
“Excellent!” Speedy said, looking at the depression on Blitzer’s face. “Believe me, we’ll turn that frown upside down soon enough. We’re gonna fight back against these bastards.” He leaned back in his chair, then shook his head. “To think I used to be one of ‘em.”
Sisu raised an eye at him. “One of ‘em?”
“Uh huh. Long story short, didn’t like Patrina and her ilk. Still don’t. But y’know what? Sure beats the shady folks I dealt with in the Alliance,” Speedy explained. “Ran around with them until I couldn’t… that was back in the days when they still handed out badges, not those ugly black rags with whatshisname’s face on it.”
The Marshadow cracked up. “Oh, believe me, you ain’t seen crap yet. But go on.”
“That Dritch, eh,” Speedy drummed his paws on the table. “For a walkin’ metal monster, she sure’s got a big heart o’ gold in there. Got me released from custody.”
“Yup. And it ain’t made out of pyrite, either,” Sisu said, leaning back in her chair while her horns simmered around the back of her head. “We’ll be seeing her soon, actually.”
“Me too, or just him?” Speedy asked.
Sisu shrugged. “If you wanna come with us, I’m not gonna complain.”
“Count me in, then!” Speedy said. “I wanna see my boy again.”
Blitzer groaned at his prospects. He stuck a bit of pancake in his mouth right after, playing it off as hunger. If only someone at the table felt safe enough to confide his emotions to. He turned his head away to suppress a tear.
If only he could feel confident in himself again. His limbs still ached.
If only those earlier words were true.
If only.