Pokémon Azure

Chapter 3: The Third Dimension

(Beth Larson)

Everything looked red through the viewfinder of Gina's PokéDex. Ivysaur was transposed in scarlet, all of his colors flat, an endless reel of scrolling data traveling up the screen to the left and right of Victoria's newest Pokémon.

"Can you send your Razor Leaves up in an arc, then down from above?" Victoria asked him, her voice steady and confident, but a very slight frown betraying her trepidation.

Ivysaur executed the move without hesitation. He planted his feet wide, tilted his head down, and aimed his budding flower forward at a 45-degree angle. At once a respectable swarm of sharp, hard, bright leaves the size of Beth's outstretched hand whipped from Ivysaur's back. They cascaded up in a strange, graceful dance, then took a sharp turn midair and pelted the duct taped "X" Victoria had put on the floor. The sound of the leaves hitting the concrete was exactly what Beth thought shuriken would sound like hitting their mark.

Beth had taken to borrowing Gina's Dex more often than not these days, whenever Victoria wanted to train her new Ivysaur. Victoria spent a great deal of her down time doing this. In fact, Beth couldn't remember her ever having spent this much unbroken time training up one of her Pokémon. She knew it wasn't that Victoria cared about Ivysaur more than Victreebel, Gloom or Butterfree. Victoria just understood that Ivysaur needed more time to adjust to her as a trainer.

On the surface, everything was fine. Ivysaur obeyed every command with accuracy and speed, a grim-faced little soldier, never once hesitating, stopping, using the wrong move, or flat-out ignoring his new trainer. But there was something in the Grass-type's expression, a haunted, hollow determination, and Beth thought sadly that she had never seen a trainer and a Pokémon who connected less on an emotional level.

The interesting part she had noticed, in peering through the Dex's viewfinder, was that Ivysaur's stats were climbing alarmingly fast. She'd finally thought to ask Tim about this, and the Champ had nodded with a look of dawning realization. Apparently this happened sometimes, where traded Pokémon levelled quicker, for whatever reason. Beth couldn't help harkening back to the days Blake, Gav and she had spent with the HM guy and the mirror of that advice he had given them when it was time to take Gav's Graveler.

"Good," Victoria was saying in response to Ivysaur's precision point Vine Whip. "Jason's given me some pointers about ways to dodge and block Fire moves, so if you're alright with it, I'd like us to challenge Kaylee at some point. Alright?"

Finn's Ivysaur—and Beth really had to try to stop thinking of him as "Finn's" Ivysaur—didn't even turn to face her. He just gave one stiff nod, still facing forward and poised for action. Beth's strong, confident sister seemed to deflate a little, her shoulders sagging, but she barked out another quick set of orders for Ivysaur to follow.

Beth turned her attention back to the screen. The longer they sparred and trained, the more Ivysaur's steadily-crawling stats reminded her of the Department of Population Studies' website, which featured a little counter that kept track of how many babies were born across Kanto every second. It was a small increase compared to the overall numbers, but it never, ever seemed to stop. Ivysaur's Attack, Speed, Special Attack, Defense and Health were constantly climbing skyward in steady, tiny intervals.

Beth looked up when Victoria sighed. "Alright," she said. "That's enough for today. I'm going to return you, alright?" She always made sure to get Ivysaur's consent for everything, and Beth privately wondered if that was a good idea. It probably wasn't helping Ivysaur feel like he wasn't a guest in her roster.

For the first time since training had begun, Ivysaur turned to look at Victoria. For just a second, Beth could see a flash of an expression on his turquoise face. He looked surprised, and beyond that, disappointed, but a second later he'd schooled his expression back into that neutral, flat obedience. He nodded, then faced forward again.

Victoria hesitated a full ten seconds, looking like she wanted to take it back and continue training, but in the end she recalled him. The moment he was gone the tension in the room broke, but was replaced by a heavy, uneasy melancholy.

Beth tried to frame this in a positive light for her. "He's getting really good with the Razor Leaf… stuff," she noted.

Victoria had noticed that Razor Leaf was the move Ivysaur struggled with the most. Vine Whip was standard, Tackle and the rest were hard to mess up, but Razor Leaf required some precision and a modicum of control over the leaves even after they left the Pokémon in question. Beth would never cease to be amazed at a Pokémon's inherent set of abilities. She wondered what it was that allowed a Grass-type to fire off leaves from its body, and yet still maintain a few seconds of control and say over where those leaves went once they flew out. The hold on the leaves didn't last for much longer than that, but it made the difference in a fast-paced battle. The Grass-type could utilize Razor Leaf in a number of ways, and it was true. Finn's Ivysaur was getting better at controlling the leaves once they left him.

Not "Finn's" Ivysaur, Beth reminded herself. Not anymore.

As if her frankly depressing thought had triggered it, Victoria ran a hand through her wavy red hair, a nervous gesture Beth thought she had picked up from Gav. "How close is he to level 32?" She didn't sound excited.

Frowning, Beth glanced down at the data that remained on Gina's Dex for up to five minutes after the Pokémon it was looking at left. "Not very. He's about six levels off, maybe seven? Why?"

Victoria switched to massaging her cheekbones. "What do you think he'll be like when he evolves?"

For a second Beth thought Victoria was worried that Ivysaur's personality would change, the way Zahlia's Haunter's had. She opened her mouth to give her opinion, but Victoria seemed to realize she hadn't been clear enough.

"I mean, they say once a Pokémon evolves, if the trainer's not up to scratch, that's when things get really hard. Especially with traded Pokémon."

Beth frowned, lowering the Dex. "Oh, Vee, I don't think he would do that. He's really in this, you know? He wants to…" She trailed off.

"Avenge his real trainer," Victoria said, without a trace of bitterness, but an undeniable hint of sadness in her voice. "Still, I don't have a single Gym badge. Those are supposed to help, you know… 'establish my credibility.'" She huffed out a laugh with no mirth behind it.

Beth was quiet for a time. She could comfort Victoria and try to assure her it would be fine, but blind optimism didn't ever make her older sister feel better. Only logic did. "Even if something happens to Ivysaur after he evolves, and he's tempted to stop listening to you, I think he'll muscle through and still obey. What happened to him… what he saw, it's left a big imprint. I know you're struggling with that same imprint now, but it'll keep him on track. He's highly motivated."

Just like you, Beth thought sadly. Ivysaur and Victoria had a few things in common, and she wondered if either Pokémon or trainer understood that.

"Thanks," Victoria said, heavily.

Beth could tell her sister appreciated the vote of confidence, even if she wasn't convinced yet. She could also tell, however, that this part of the conversation was done.

"Oh," Victoria said, something evidently occurring to her. "Been meaning to ask… the heck is up with Kaylee lately?" Beth didn't follow for a second, and Victoria arched her eyebrow, analyzing her genuine look of confusion. "She's been acting more nuts than usual. The other day I went back to the tents and Kaylee just about took a flying leap out of hers when she heard me coming. Felt the need to explain to me she was in there grabbing some spices for dinner. Kept positioning herself between me and the tent even though I was only there to put my towel away." Victoria rolled her eyes. "Don't get me wrong. I was tempted to pull the 'big sister' card and demand that she turn out her pockets, but I can't imagine what she would be hiding. What would be dangerous in this place? Unless she's stuffed a littler of Pikachus into her pillowcase."

Beth knew full-well what Kaylee was trying to hide, not only from Victoria, but from everyone except her and Gina. Beth managed to turn her expression of pained amusement into just straight amusement, and hoped Victoria thought it was because she was picturing Kaylee stuffing her bed things with wild Pokémon. She really had no poker face, and Beth wondered how much longer Tim and Kaylee would succeed in keeping their relationship under wraps.

She couldn't even see why they were being secretive anymore. Beth persisted that no one would care beyond the initial surprise and a few questions. It was likely that Kaylee didn't think it appropriate to parade a relationship around in light of all of the struggles they were facing, but Beth disagreed. Anything that made the world a little happier, and brought people closer together instead of farther apart, was good in her books and worthy of being shared.

Beth stoutheartedly served as her friend's secret-keeper. "You know Kaylee," she said, huffing out a tiny laugh. "She's a weirdo. Just like your 'hubby,'" Beth teased. Victoria gave a very tiny jump at that word, and Beth rolled her eyes dramatically. "Oh, come on," she said, exasperated but fond. "I'm kidding." Victoria rolled her eyes right back. "You can't honestly tell me the idea of getting married to Gav is surprising to you. Seriously, we'll all be kind of shocked if it doesn't happen."

"What," Victoria asked, a little pink in the face but recovering. "You make it sound like there are bets being made about it. You all are way too invested in my love life."

"Rei always said he'd pony up a fat stack of marks if you guys got married in the next three years," Beth said, without thinking. She wanted to take it back the second it left her mouth. For a long moment both Larson sisters were silent, but Beth knew it wouldn't last.

Victoria leveled a concerned look at her sister. "Has he been… still… um, you know?" she asked.

Beth didn't have it in her to play dumb. The lingering amusement she had been trying to cling to died from her face as it was snuffed out inside her. She blinked rapidly before looking at the floor. "Um, yeah," she said, quietly. "He has. Um, I don't know. I don't really have the heart to block him, like I've done with everyone else, you know?"

She frowned at that, suddenly feeling like a terrible daughter. They had blocked their parents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and yet somehow her ex-boyfriend was higher on that list?

Victoria interjected, able to read the guilt off her sister like it was text written in a second language only she knew. "Stop that. I know that you didn't block him, not because you care about him more, somehow, but because he knew more. He was more involved. Mom and the others don't know much of anything. Of course they're worried, but Rei…" She trailed off, and Beth nodded.

Rei had been blowing up her phone ever since Pallet. It seemed, after everything they'd been through, after all his protesting, Rei wanted to help. His first attempt to contact Beth after the siege had gone live was a frantic, desperate series of voicemails that Beth hadn't been able to delete. They were short and to the point, mostly demands to know if she was okay, and pleas for her to call him. After several days went by with no response, he had begun to offer more targeted arguments and heartfelt assurances that he believed her. Everything she and the others had been wrapped up in was legitimate, and he understood why she had not been willing to share it with him before.

That message, oddly, was the first one that had made Beth cry. She had no idea why that was, when his voice had been so wrecked with worry and desperation during the first few messages. She supposed it was just the sheer relief that, for the first time, she knew he didn't blame her anymore. Still, Beth was in limbo. She knew she should have blocked him immediately, or else just answered him.

Victoria was quiet while she gathered her thoughts, and when Beth was ready she simply shrugged. "I don't really know what to do," Beth told her sister simply.

She expected Victoria's patented brand of loving, but stern advice. We can't reach out to him. We've known this for years. I understand that he's worried, but it'll be easier for both of you if you keep up the "no contact" rule, rather than give him false hope. She might even tell Beth that, if she really wanted to, she could message him just once to let him know she was okay, and leave it at that. That was about the most generous offer they could give Ida Silvermann's nephew.

Victoria shocked her to the core when she said, "Do what you feel is best. I don't know much about Rei's connections, or how well he'd fit with us. I don't know that he wouldn't change his mind once he heard everything. But he's at least proved he won't tell anyone. If he was going to do that he'd have gone to the papers by now." Beth just stared at her sister while Victoria looked off into the distance, thoughtful. "If he really wants to help, and that's something you would want, also… then reach out to him. And I know Gav would agree with me. We trust you and your judgment. You'll do the right thing."

Beth was stunned for about a hundred reasons, but one of them rose to the forefront of her mind. Somehow, Victoria knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what Gav would say about an issue this important. It would be kosher to run it by everyone else too, just to be sure, but Victoria's words about Gav still rang true. She knew him that well, to be able to speak for him like this, and through the shock an unwanted stab of longing and regret hit home.

Beth had never been able to get to that point with Rei. They had never had the chance.


what's the weather like?

Beth sent the text and waited. She was down one of the lesser-traveled corridors of the Power Plant, Gav's Marowak serving as her Ground-type guardian mostly to put the others' minds at ease rather than her own. Full roster type disadvantage or no, Beth knew her team could school any of the wilds in this place. Starmie, her top team member, was nearly double the level of the average wild they ran across, but it was a nice gesture to send her along with a bodyguard.

Her phone buzzed and a return text flashed across her screen. Clear skies. Who do you want?

Knowing it was safe to speak plainly now, Beth tapped back, spikey, if possible. i know that's out of your way so if you can't do it that's fine. She hit "send" and watched as her phone struggled a little to deliver the message to Alan Zachariah's secure line.

Even though Victoria had as good as given Beth hers and Gav's blessing to reach out to Rei, Beth couldn't do it yet. She didn't know if she was deep in avoidance behavior or genuinely needed more time to make up her mind. In the interim, she'd made herself useful the only way she knew how—touching base with Spikey.

Over the past several months, she and the host of Everything Under the Sun had exchanged covert emails, heavy with a clumsy code they seemed to be making up on the spot. Gav's PDA was in high demand at all times now, and Beth had to share it with others who had to keep in touch with various contacts or check the internet. None of their other devices had that capability.

Spikey had made the brilliant suggestion during their last email exchange to utilize Wilbur and his contact as a go-between to make their conversations easier, and Beth had promised that, sometime over the next few weeks, she would arrange an actual phone call. She'd been putting it off a little, still grappling with guilt over endangering the gregarious radio personality. Now, between the options of reaching out to Rei and continuing to talk with Spikey, it was clear which one would cause her less turmoil.

Alan Zachariah wrote back. I've got a 30 min window. I'll contact her to see if she's free and let you know.

Beth tapped out a quick, thanks, debated adding a smiley face, then decided Zachariah seemed a little too serious and straight-edged to appreciate an emoji, and left it off.

She expected to have to kill more time before hearing back from either Zachariah or Spikey, but Zachariah wrote back only five minutes later. She's free. Teleporting now. Will call in 5.

Beth wrote, thank you, again, and, feeling that the expression of gratitude looked too boring twice in a row, threw caution to the wind and added the smiley. If he thought she was a silly, vapid girl, so be it.

Beth didn't really have anything planned for this conversation, and hoped it wouldn't be a wasted trip on Zachariah's part. She had just come to the point of trying to think up an agenda when her phone rang, about three minutes early. Beth fumbled with her phone, almost dropped it, then answered.

"Hello?" she asked, breathlessly.

"Is this Beth?" a kind, matronly voice said on the other line, one very familiar to Beth from her countless hours in front of the radio. Beth grinned, already feeling a little starstruck.

"That's me! It's good to finally—" she began, just as Spikey said, "Oh, I'm so happy to—" They both stopped, insisted the other go first, and laughed.

Finally, Spikey spoke. "So I know we've only got twenty minutes, but I'm so glad you arranged this call. EUTS has been an absolute madhouse."

"I bet," Beth said, fidgeting a little. "Post-Pallet, I mean, everything's got to be really…"

Spikey continued on with Beth's train of thought, not giving Beth the feeling she was being cut off. It was more like she was simply being joined in her rapid conversational momentum. "Yes, absolutely! I've wanted for so long to arrange a face-to-face meeting with you and your group," she said, her voice a little mournful. "And I still want to, very badly, but I just don't see how I'll be able to get away right now. It would be suspicious for me to take a day trip when things are this chaotic. And I can't say I'm off getting a story, because then I'd have to return with some kind of material."

Beth nodded, realized she couldn't be seen nodding, and said, "Yeah, no, we totally understand. Maybe we can try for… a couple weeks from now?"

"That would be perfect!" Spikey said. "I'm thinking maybe sometime next month? Pick a day, any day, I'll make it work."

"No no," Beth said. "You're the one with an actual schedule, we just, well… we're just kind of in hiding so we're wide open." She laughed a little, awkwardly, and Spikey chuckled too.

"Alright, I'll let you know. I'll be in touch with this handsome young man here and he'll pass the message along to you, yes?"

"Yes," Beth said, "safer than sending it in an email, I agree."

They dissolved into talk of various other things, their conversation taking them through reported sightings of the foes who'd attacked Pallet, the news coverage of the event in general, and the public's theories about what had happened to Nathan Fremont, who had been missing in action for many long months. Twenty minutes flew by in a flash, and while they didn't come up with any brilliant solutions, they'd swapped valuable news and insight.

When they were getting ready to say goodbye, Spikey said, "Oh! Alan says to tell you 'colon upper-case D.' What does that mean?"

Beth frowned for a second, not understanding, then burst out laughing. "Tell him 'less than three,'" she responded, wiping at her eyes. Spikey laughed, proclaimed herself hopelessly out of touch, and bid Beth farewell.

She was in such a good mood that the wall of text that flashed on her screen accompanied by a vibrating hum took her completely off-guard. She was actually still smiling when she realized that the message was a novel-length text from Rei. It took her another few faltering seconds to lose her ear-to-ear grin. She couldn't help but skim the preview text, her eyes reading and her mind comprehending the words against her will.

God, I don't even know if you're still alive. I don't know what to do. A part of me thinks that something awful must have happened to you, otherwise surely you would have answered me by now? Even just to say that you're ok? You did that last time, god I was so stupid…

Beth sucked in a breath, fortifying herself, then clicked the message open. She always clicked all of them open, just so they wouldn't remain unread in her inbox, taunting her that way.

God, I don't even know if you're still alive. I don't know what to do. A part of me thinks that something awful must have happened to you, otherwise surely you would have answered me by now? Even just to say that you're ok? You did that last time, god I was so stupid, all this time you've been trying to protect me, do right by me, and what have you gotten for it? A whole lot of grief. I swear to god Beth, I'll make it up to you if you'll let me. I want to help, so much. I wrote to you before about how of course I'd want to help, with my aunt being the victim of some kind of crime, and the more I think about it the more it makes sense that you and your sister and your friends came looking for us in lavender. I know now that what happened to her has to do with what happened in pallet somehow. I cant see the bigger picture and its driving me crazy. I want to do this for her and for you and for me, please, let me. I don't know what else to do or say. Im sorry.

Tears were streaming down Beth's face by the time she finished reading the long-winded message. She could practically hear it spoken in his voice, could see the way he'd be abusing his lopsided mohawk with both hands, raking his fingers through his russet hair in hard, agonizing sweeps. If he even still had the lopsided mohawk. He might have changed it by now, shaved it all off, grown it out, dyed it another bright color.

Beth closed her eyes and sucked in a steadying breath, but it didn't steady her at all. The emotional whiplash from elated and excited during her talk with Spikey to absolutely crushed was straight-up exhausting. Beth turned her phone all the way off, tucked it into her bra and got up to wander. Marowak followed after, patient and loyal, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that he had had to sit through a giggling phone call and was now going on a pointless stroll. Every so often his sleek bone mask would twitch this way and that, vestiges of the short attention span he'd had as a Cubone, but post-evolution, Marowak was able to buckle down and be serious.

Beth sniffed heavily, wiped the back of her hand over her nose, and didn't have to stoop very far to stroke Marowak across the back of the head with her other.

She'd thought she didn't know where she was going, meandering like a true wanderer, but after a few moments she realized she did have a destination in mind. Each of their group had a specific haunt, a place they hung out in when nothing else was going on, and Beth's feet were carrying her now to Blake's.

Almost all of their group operated in two dimensions: forward-back, left-right, always on the ground level, rarely looking up. The place was big enough that no one really overlapped when they wanted to be alone, but Blake had found his hiding spot by utilizing the third dimension. He went straight up. Beth often thought of him as an overgrown Meowth, leaping nimbly from kitchen counter to microwave to fridge to tall cabinet, seeing a path from point A to point B that the rest of them simply could not. Only instead of kitchen furniture, his playground was the massive, vaulted ceilings of the Power Plant. Beth thought she could figure out how he got up and down, though she'd never seen it in practice. The idea of him actually climbing those broken, hanging cables caused her stomach to lurch unpleasantly.

Blake saw her before she could spot him. "Who dares intrude upon my lair?" he said blandly from somewhere very high up.

Beth squinted skyward at a dusky corner of ceiling and thought she could see a pale form moving up there. "It is I, Lady Larson of Celadon," Beth said dramatically, performing a curtsey. She pantomimed holding a skirt up as she was wearing jeans. "I come bearing the gift of my radiant company. Also one bored Ground-type Pokémon."

Blake paused, apparently considering these boons. "I find this acceptable," he said, and then Beth gasped, because he had leapt suddenly into the air like he was somehow immune to breaking every bone in his body from a sixty-foot freefall. Beth fought the urge to cover her eyes and watched with taut nerves as he snagged handholds, leaping down on top of stacked-up generators, grabbing power boxes and finding sliding down a thick metal pipe the way a fireman would. She was feeling jittery but amused by the time he landed and strolled over to her on bare feet.

"Necessary?" she asked in a mock-scathing tone.

"Very necessary," he replied, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black cargo pants. He didn't ask Beth why she was there, which was an enormous relief. She didn't know what she'd have said. Instead Blake frowned down at Marowak. "Man, they're seriously making you walk around with him escorting you everywhere?"

"Yep," Beth replied, smiling down at Marowak with a kind of resigned fondness. "He's my knight in shining…"

She paused for so long that Blake prompted her. "Shining…?"

"I was gonna say 'cartilage,' but that's not right," Beth said, staring at Marowak blankly. "I feel like I just flunked primary, what is bone made of again?"

Blake just stared at her. "You're asking me? Fuck if I know."

Beth snorted and buried her face in her hand. "Oh, thank God, I don't feel so bad now if you don't know either."

"Don't use me as a measuring stick, I finished my education online like a plebeian."

"… How does that make you a plebeian?"

"I don't know."

"You just wanted an excuse to say the word 'plebeian,' didn't you?"

"Maybe."

Beth stuck her tongue out at him, but was grinning in earnest now. "But for real, I want to know what bone is made of now. Like, that'll eat me up if I don't find out."

"Let's borrow the PDA and look it up. Then Gav can see the question in his search engine history and silently judge us."

"Looking up what bone is made of is clearly a top-priority use of the PDA."

"Naturally."

It was so easy. Beth and Blake fell into banter the way she slipped beneath the surface of the water, wearing it like a second skin. He was morose and blunt as always, and nothing was safe from his black humor.

They strolled a bit, but wound up performing a large circuit of the same general area and soon wound up back where they'd started, at Blake's hideaway.

"So, it kinda makes me feel like a bad person, but I straight-up hate that Fearow," Blake honestly reported, surprising Beth as he began hoisting himself up a pile of abandoned circuit casings. He turned back, saw the trepidation on her face, and smiled. It was rare to see him offer one of those. A second later he released Grumpy and extended his hand to her.

"It's easy," he assured her. "Just follow my lead."

"You're seriously telling me to clamber up all this crap like a Mankey and willingly put myself and solid ground like sixty feet apart." Beth stared at him incredulously.

Blake rolled his dark eyes. "I'm not telling you anything, you're a grown woman…" He trailed off, though, and retracted his hand just a little. "Can't say I ever pegged you as scared, though."

Beth narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't you remember the board game night?" she asked him. "We've already established that I can tell when you're trying to bait me."

"Doesn't mean you're not baited," Blake pointed out.

Beth scowled, but there was no real feeling behind the expression. "If I fall and die I'm coming back to haunt you."

"Like William Trentolds' Charmeleon?" Blake asked, interested, and it took Beth a second to recall that tidbit of information on the Champ in the Hall of Fame.

"Exactly like that, but way less a sweet reunion and way more a brutal life-ruining."

"So nothing like Trentolds, got it," Blake said, then shoved his hand out again. "Why'd you think I let Grumpy out? He'll be our safety net. Now c'mon." Beth only hesitated for another few beats. Then she took his hand.

For the first few bits of climbing, neither of them spoke. Beth was concentrating on following Blake exactly, looking down only at her hands and feet and never anywhere else. Then it got a little easier, and she glanced up to the back of Blake's head. He was in a gray long-sleeved shirt today, and the back of his collar had shifted slightly from their climb.

Beth could see his scars.

She'd been the one to help take over changing his bandages after Zeke. Tim had laid the groundwork of the initial care, but Beth had stepped in past that point, just in case it was weird for the two men who didn't really know one another well yet. Zahlia would have normally been first pick, but… after Lavender, she wasn't in the right frame of mind for any extra responsibility. She'd been told to focus on herself, Blake's wounds had needed tending, and Beth was more than willing to help.

The gashes were bad. Grumpy's talons were enormous and they'd cut deep, in sloppy, jagged trenches. The marks were a small price to pay for his life, but Beth still felt a hollow, sinking sorrow when she saw them. Only the top edge of one was visible now, stretching up from the collar of Blake's shirt and climbing up the back of his neck, but she knew that one. It crawled all the way down his back and twisted around his ribs.

Blake, oblivious that she was staring, went on about his Fearow now that the cadence of their climb was steadier. "Fearow. He's an asshole. I hate him and he hates me."

Beth snapped out of it. "That's just how it's gonna be, for now," she said, softly. "It'll get better."

"I dunno," Blake said, shrugging one shoulder. "He looks like he might be kind of tasty."

"Blake!"

"In a gamey, marinated-in-evil kind of way."

"You're terrible."

"You love me," he reported with confidence. They'd come to a tricky part and Blake paused, glancing back to her. "You first."

"Oh, hell no. You're delusional," she insisted, eying the crisscrossing, unstable tangle of fallen beams complete with hanging black cables dripping down from the stripped ceilings.

"I'll tell you exactly where to put your hands and feet," Blake promised. "We're going together."

Beth bellyached some more, but Blake was already moving into position behind her, one arm on either side of her. "Ready?"

"No! Haven't you been listening to me at all?"

"Not really," Blake admitted, a second before he nudged her forward and said, "left hand, black cable, 10:00."

"All the cables are black!" Beth whined, but she snagged the thick, ropey hanging and clung tight.

"Right foot, metal beam," Blake instructed, and it was somehow clear to Beth which one he meant.

"I hate you," she droned.

"We've been over this," Blake said patiently. "Right hand, loopy cable, 2:00. You love me."

They progressed that way, climbing steadily upward in an increasingly steep angle, Beth defaming him more and more the higher they got. It was clear Blake was taking her up the 'easy way,' though. He was at the point where he could leap from this height with the full confidence that he'd grab the right jutting object to save himself a messy end.

"Left foot, platform of sanctuary," Blake finally said, though it was unnecessary. Beth scrambled her way onto it at once, squishing herself into the most secure corner of the gridded scaffolding. Blake, ever at his ease, loped after her and leaned over the dilapidated railing.

"I wish I could say the climb was worth it because the view is spectacular, but…" Blake trailed off.

Beth chuckled, edging a little closer to him but still maintaining a respectable distance from that ledge. "Yeah, I know. It's just a lot of Power Plant. Still, it's cool I made it up here. Bucket list checkbox and all that."

Blake gave her a weird look. "… Climbing heaps of old junk in the abandoned Power Plant was on your bucket list?"

"No, more of an ongoing, 'do one thing each day that scares you' bucket list requirement," Beth explained. "But I don't do one every day because I don't want to stroke out before I'm twenty."

"Legit," Blake said. "Plus, our lives are scary enough as it is. You've had your daily requirement filled for years."

Beth saw it. For just a second, Blake disappeared. He was still standing exactly where he was, but a light winked out in his eyes for an instant. Not a single muscle moved on his calm, remote face, and in a blink he was back and engaged again, but Beth had seen it.

As if to prove her right, the subject Blake brought up next was a more serious one. "So, mom's been telling Zahlia some pretty interesting things about Ghost-types."

"Yeah?" Beth asked, eager to keep him talking, though a part of her had to wonder if his train of thought had gone from danger to Zeke to Lavender to Ghosts.

"Yeah, she sort of hinted at this when Zahlia and I visited her that one time, but she's expanding on it now. Thing she said first was that you can use a Ghost-type to… like…" He trailed off and frowned, waving his hand vaguely around his head.

Because he'd prompted her when she'd taken too long to pick a word earlier, Beth returned the favor. "Design wigs? I had no idea."

Blake gave her a bland, withering look, but it was coupled with a smile. "Gengar seems more like a milliner to me."

Beth stared at him for a second until the word clicked. "That's an awfully fancy word for 'hat maker' from a guy who can't remember what bone's made of."

"You don't know either!" he protested, but they got back on track after that. "Aaanyway. Ghost-types can give you an insight into what someone's doing, through possession. They enter your body and you act like them… I guess… but when the Pokémon returns to you you can figure out whatever it saw through the eyes of the possessed target."

Beth stared, open-mouthed. She hadn't heard of this technique, though that wasn't surprising. Blake was referencing the visit to his mother that had immediately preceded Zeke's attack, the destruction of Edith's cottage, and their harried flight to Pallet. Understandably talking to the rest of them about Ghost-type techniques hadn't been high on the Nakawa siblings' "to do" list.

"It gets more nuanced, though. So mom's telling Zahlia that if she's right, and she thinks she is, Zahlia can get like… like a 'direct feed' stream of images from Gengar's possession in real-time. No clue how to make that happen, but… could be useful."

"Well… well yeah, but… wow. Do you think…" She trailed off. "When you say the Ghost-type enters the body and the person acts like them… do you think that means the Ghost-type can like, force that person to do whatever they want?"

Blake nodded. "It could certainly get that deep, yeah. The Channelers in Lavender were always sort of a joke, but fact of the matter is they'd start rushing tourists, babbling about weird things and basically acting like lunatics. Lots of folks thought it was just some kind of subculture or cult mentality but now I'm thinking maybe it was more."

"Wow," Beth said, sitting back on her heels and considering this. It was getting strangely easy to forget she was roughly six storeys above the ground now that she was situated. "Of course you know my mind is going to extraordinary things now. Like possessing one of Nakawa's lackeys and having them push him off a cliff."

"It would be so easy, as he always pencils in 'stand in repose over a cliff' during his Tuesday lunch hour," Blake agreed. Beth doubled up, laughing, and Blake, seeing this weakness, didn't relent in the slightest. "'Ah, what a beautiful morn for turning my back and inviting a gruesome death. Jenkins, fetch me my bedroom slippers.'"

Beth managed to mouth out the word, "Jenkins?" without any sound, wiping her eyes, and Blake levelled her a serious look.

"Of course. He's got to have a manservant named Jenkins. And he's got to be called a 'manservant' otherwise you might get confused and think he employed a pogo stick instead. Easy mistake." Beth waved her hands at him to stop, which he did not. "It's actually remarkably hard to find steady work as a pogo stick. They're forming a union, I hear." Blake gave an approving nod to the tears now freely streaming down Beth's face. "I know, their plight is moving."

And Beth knew why she had come now. She'd needed to laugh, needed to feel normal—she'd needed this, right here.