A/N- Greetings all, it's ya boy. Thanks for stopping by.
Once again, I couldn't resist a creepy little one-shot on one of my favourite new Pokemon, Mimikyu, and I do love writing horror stories. I'm writing a lot at the moment, purely because lectures haven't restarted for me at uni, and I hope you enjoy it while it lasts.
Enjoy the story, and I hope I do one of the most popular Alolan Pokemon justice!
"You'll be fine going in there alone, won't you?"
Until the rather fickle Tapu Bulu chose another islander to be the new Captain of the Tapu Village trial, the purple-haired Acerola remained in some form of limbo. She was used to travelling far and wide by now, of course- she had always been independent as Trial Captain, wandering to libraries to lend books to strangers and doing quick trips to check on the kids at Aether House- but between representing the Elite Four and managing her trial, Acerola was a little stretched to say the least. But she had duties to do, and she would never mind returning to her Trial.
The reason she was back on this particular day was Kelly. Ever since Sun had blitzed through every Trial on the island (including hers) and stormed to the Champion title, the number of Trainers attempting the Island Challenge had risen quite rapidly. Kelly, a keen-looking blonde rancher from Paniola Town on Akala Island, had been the latest to triumph over Acerola's Ghost Trial, but unlike the other Trainers Kelly had stayed in Tapu Village overnight, asking Acerola for a favour.
Kelly nodded, her grin wide and eyes bright. "Sure! I really like the Ghost Pokemon, and if I want a Klefki, I can definitely cope with a little spooky!"
Acerola beamed in relief. "I'm glad to hear it! I don't normally do this, but Hala said there's a challenger incoming today for Sun's title, so I kinda have to go do my duty!"
"Oh sure! I completely understand!" Kelly paused for a second. "Please tell me you have a Ride Pager to get you up Mount Lanakila? You'd be so tired climbing that every time someone challenges!"
Acerola laughed. "Of course! You think I'd walk that route every time? Now I think I've got to go!" She ran off a little, almost forgetting to say goodbye, before realising, turning around and waving with a big smile on her face. "Have fun! Call me with your Pokefinder if you need me!"
Kelly laughed, tossing her ponytail back over her shoulder as the quirky Acerola left. She was unique, there was no doubting that; for someone descended from royalty, she was incredibly down to earth, but there was a unique charm about the girl. She could see why she loved the spooky Ghost-type Trial, and why Tapu Bulu admired her. But she wasn't here for Acerola, and turning to the abandoned Megamart she pushed the door open and headed inside.
Ever the astute Trainer, Kelly immediately popped open a Repel, and took in the scene. She remembered it so well, although considering she had only completed the Trial a day beforehand, that perhaps wasn't such an achievement. The cluttered, derelict building was cold inside, and toys and medicine products were scattered across the floor like rubble. She couldn't just wander blindly until she found Klefki though; she would need to stake the place out, check it out fully as to where the Klefki might hide, and then make her move.
She stopped on her way to the back of the shop to snap a photo on her Pokefinder of the Gengar levitating around without a care in the world; one of Acerola's Trial Pokemon, it stuck its tongue out at her in recognition, giving her a good snap, before resuming aimless levitating. She smiled, but as she looked at the photo again she realised there was actually something different to the day before; the Pikachu doll on the side was missing.
Frowning, losing her wide grin for the first time, Kelly looked around to see if the yellow doll had been displaced, but couldn't find it, when suddenly to her left she saw movement in the corner of her eye. Acerola had been adamant that there wasn't a back room to the Megamart, but the Totem Pokemon had lured her into a storeroom yesterday before being beaten, and the same door swung open with a click to reveal the Pikachu doll, on the floor.
"But I've already done the Trial?" Kelly murmured under her breath, puzzled. She didn't know what to do, but curiosity (and a sense of security buoyed by the fact that her Repel still hadn't run out) drew her to the open door. Stepping inside, and drawing a sharp breath in at how cold the room had suddenly become- almost like a freezer- she picked up the Pikachu doll, before to her alarm the door clicked shut behind her and the lights flicked off, leaving her in darkness.
Rather than scream, a pointless and rather pathetic thing to do in the circumstances, Kelly sighed, trying not to let her concern show in her voice even as she tested the door to find it wouldn't move one inch. "Come on, I did this yesterday. Acerola let me in here to look for a Klefki to add to my team. I'm not here to fight."
The lights flicked back on, albeit dimmer than they were before, and Kelly turned to look at the walls of the store room, still clutching the Pikachu doll to her chest. Her gasp a second later was one of realisation; it wasn't just the Pikachu doll that was different from the day before...
Kelly had watched all sorts of horror movies, and seen all sorts of clichés. But nothing prepared her to see writing on the walls in blood in real life for the first time. The walls yesterday were clean, and covered in pictures and posters of various Pikachu, as if it was some form of shrine. Today, however, with a lingering acrid smell of blood in the air, the pictures on the wall to her left had all been torn down, claw marks in the wall left behind with a smeared message in blood that she murmured under her breath- 'I AM NOT LIKE THEM'...
On the wall in front of her, pictures of Pikachu with their Trainers remained, but where the Pikachu sat on their shoulders or danced by the side of their beloved humans, bloody claw marks had torn three lines through them, as if trying to kill them. There were three messages this time, which Kelly murmured under her breath. "'I am me', 'I want to be me', 'I want to be free'. What the..."
Turning to the right-hand wall, she gasped again in horror as the Pokefinder in her pocket fired up of its own accord, making her drop the Pikachu doll to the floor and put her hand to her mouth as she felt bile begin to rise. The blue Pikachu poster remained, with bloody claw marks in it, but that didn't terrify her most. The Pokefinder,although not picking up any signal from the outside world. had fired up and directed her to find the prone body of a dead Pikachu on the floor, claw marks torn into it and a puddle of sharp-smelling blood pooled around its little form, but even this didn't terrify her the most.
What terrified her, as she put the Pokefinder away in her bag with her hands trembling, was the message in blood on this wall, smeared over the pictures and above the body of the Pikachu...
"'Don't hold it against me...'" Kelly whispered, before she glimpsed movement in the corner of her eye and heard an all-too-familiar cry to her right, in front of the door. As the Pokefinder fired up again, it was all she could do to retain her composure, not wanting to look through a lens at what she knew was there; she had to be brave. Forcing herself to breathe and put the Pokefinder away before turning, she finally, very slowly, turned to look, her voice low and quiet. "What do you want from me?"
Sat in front of the door (blocking, she realised, her escape), the Totem Pokemon, Mimikyu, stared up at her. Its empty Crayola eyes and torn, raggedy disguise were completely soulless, completely devoid of any emotion, but she could sense the hatred and the violence from the smell of blood that strengthened as she looked at it. Nothing so tiny and so vulnerable-looking had ever scared Kelly, who had faced down a thirty-foot Totem Wishiwashi without fear, but right now she had never been more afraid.
For a moment, the Mimikyu stared blankly at her, not moving, but suddenly what almost sounded like a snigger came from under the Pokemon's rags, and the rigid form of the disguise it wore slumped. Its neck bent at an angle no living thing could surely manage; to say it was tilted would have been an understatement, for it looked broken and crooked. But it still maintained that impassive stare through the drawn-on eyes, and suddenly Kelly could hear it speak.
"Me... me curse... you..."
The room went black...
(***)
The latest challenger to Sun's throne as Champion had never made it past Olivia. Acerola was a little put out about this, as it had been a while since anyone had broken the chain of challenging Hala and Olivia first and come straight to her; if people were going to keep losing before getting to her, she might as well have stayed Trial Captain. Nonetheless, as she healed her Pokemon in the Pokemon Centre of Tapu Village, and wandered back towards her Trial Site, it hadn't completely spoiled her day.
She knew something was amiss, however, when she saw the Murkrow. Usually the three birds loitered around the edge of her Trial to watch how things went, enjoying the morbid atmosphere and the creepiness of the Megamart; to see all three shaking in fear set an alarm bell ringing in Acerola's mind, as did the sight of the door to the Megamart being left ajar.
Acerola put her hands on her hips in frustration. "Kelly! You can't just leave the door open and let all the Pokemon out!"
Getting no reply, she sighed, assuming Kelly had left already, and went inside to see how the Pokemon were and if she needed to round anyone up. Her apprehensiveness, however, was made even stronger by the fact her Gengar, usually cheeky and bold, was hiding in the rafters shivering like the Murkrow.
When he refused to come down afterwards, and pointed towards the back of the store with a shaking, pudgy hand, a horrible realisation hit Acerola. Kelly's trial was around the sixth or seventh since Sun had first talked about a back room; she had dismissed it as a joke to try and spook her when Sun told her. But Kelly had been the first since to also say Mimikyu had brought her to a storage cupboard. What if she was wrong? What if Mimikyu really did have a secret room?
The horror of the back room scene nearly made Acerola throw up in disgust, as the remaining wild Pokemon gathered behind her quivered in horror. As a tear rolled down her cheek at the sight of so much blood on the floor, and as she read the messages left by the Totem, Acerola was in shock, but what jolted her out of it was what lay in the middle of the floor, besides a broken Pokefinder and a torn Pikachu doll; a tiny rag and a lightning-bolt shaped stick.
Acerola's hand went to her mouth, realising what this meant, before turning away and running towards the front of the Megamart, away from what she saw. Once outside, taking big breaths of fresh air to calm herself down and to forget the acrid taste of blood in the air, with shaking hands she grabbed her own Pokefinder and activated the call function. "U-uncle Nanu! We h-have a problem!"
There was a sigh on the end of the line. "Kid, if the Yungoos has run off again, I'm not going to get it. Simple."
"No, Nanu, you don't understand! It's the T-totem Pokemon!"
"...Mimikyu? What's it done?"
By the time Acerola had explained, Nanu was as shocked as she had ever heard him, as he too realised what the Mimikyu had done. The gruff, no-nonsense Kahuna wasted no time adding Molayne and Sophocles to the call to update them, and wasted no time in forming a plan. While he locked down Po Town (much to the confusion of the Team Skull Grunts inside Po Town, who thought he already had it on lockdown to prevent them getting up to no good anywhere else), and Molayne began the trek down Mount Hokulani to secure Malie City, Sophocles fired up his machines and began the calculations to find not his Totem Pokemon, but Acerola's. She herself, having joined the kids in Aether House to keep an eye on them, began to let Kukui and the rest of the Captains and Elite Four know. There was no telling what Mimikyu would do next, but they had to find it, somehow, and stop it from acting again...
(***)
"Sure, we've got a seat on the ferry to Akala Island. Feel free to take it! Anything else for you miss?"
The girl shook her head, and the ferry attendant frowned, looking at the blank stare on her face and how pale she looked.
"Is everything okay miss? You don't look well?"
The girl pointed to her throat, buttoned up all the way under her collar.
"Oh your throat's gone?" the ferry attendant asked, realising, and the blonde girl nodded. "That's quite alright, I'll leave you be then. The ferry will depart any moment, so feel free to scoot on up there! And enjoy the voyage!"
As she watched the girl walk unsteadily outside and up the gangplank onto the boat, the ferry attendant felt a little ill at ease. There was an odd smell in the air, and the girl didn't look well. But then again, it wasn't her place to ask, and as the walkway rolled off of the ferry and the captain sounded the horn to signal his imminent departure, she let all thoughts of it escape her mind. She probably shouldn't have though; when the girl nodded to say that her throat had gone, she would have been horrified to know how literally right she was...
The girl formerly known as Kelly sat alone on a seat at the stern of the boat and watched passively through glazed eyes, as the boat's propellers began to churn the water up and as it steadily sloped away from Ula'ula Island. The sensations all around were weird and mostly new; the smell of seawater was nothing new, but the feel of the sea breeze on the skin, sunlight in the eyes and the sounds of Wingull flocks were all previously unknown. There was so much to see and learn.
The girl looked down at her fist, clenched around her ticket, and then at the clenched fist on her other arm. Slowly, as if experimenting, she extended and clenched each finger in turn, before turning her unseeing gaze back to the disappearing island in the distance. Her motionless, blank face began to twitch, and with a grunt of effort a wicked grin spread across her face...
Sensing that it was finally alone, the Mimikyu's puppet's head slumped to one side, resting on its own shoulder at an angle so crooked and so wrong that no living human would ever have been able to survive it; as the boat chugged its way to the horizon, its lips parted, still grinning, to reveal the bloody teeth beneath it. The Mimikyu's new disguise would serve it well, would prevent it from being captured or imprisoned in a Trial or forced to dress like a Pikachu to earn approval ever again.
This was what freedom tasted like...
(***)
A/N- And there we have it. I hope my portrayal of Mimikyu is one you all enjoy: God knows what's under those rags, and I'm not sure I ever want to know...
If you enjoyed the fic, and want to favourite it, I'm grateful to you, and even more so if you want to favourite/follow me for more of my stuff. What I'm most grateful for though, as always, are reviews; glowing praise makes my day, and constructive criticism helps me learn (just no flames, yo)!
Thanks for reading!
Ya boy, out.