Dear Diary,
Fear.
What is this concept and why do I not understand it? It is an instinct; that much is certain. But why does it limit us, whilst at other times it aids us? Fight or flight, they call it. But is it flight when fear paralyzes you and stops you from escaping?
I asked these questions as they tried to stop me.
I received no answers but their dying screams. They were intelligent, but in the end they did not teach me.
Perhaps my answers lay elsewhere…
Pokémon
Transgression
By Crukix
|And For All Your Power, Where Is Your Strength?|
-O-O-O-
I'm not scared.
Surely, if I say it enough times, I should start to believe it. The only problem is that no matter how many times I whisper it to myself, I just don't.
"Come on Squirt," Jerry says, patting me on the head. "She's not all that scary."
I glare at him from the cover of my hat and scarf. She is that scary! She lives in this den of ice, surrounded on all sides by frozen walls and floors and things that don't seem like they know what warmth is! Just sitting here on this bench, waiting for the creepy-ice-lady is making my nose grow wet and numb!
"I don't like her," I mutter darkly. "She's weird." She has to be weird, because no one can live in somewhere so cold without being slightly weird! Ali says it's because she's adapted to ice, but I don't believe that. The place was just too cold! It shouldn't have made Jerry and I both freeze up and forget how to breathe!
Snowpoint Temple is evil.
"Don't you worry about her," Ali says. She puts her arm around my shoulders and pulls me into her. "I'll make sure to kick her frozen butt for you. With any luck it'll shatter like glass."
I grin madly. This is why I like Ali. She's always ready to beat up the people that scare me or are just a bit too weird for me to be anywhere near. I laugh to myself at the thought of scary-ice-lady melting like an ice cube in the sun and find myself a little bit more relaxed about having to be anywhere near her again.
Then at that moment, she rounds the corner into the waiting room and I have to fight the urge to hide underneath the bench.
With her is a kid about my age. He wears a lot of dark green and has bright ginger hair that sticks out of his hat in big clumps. He talks to the scary woman as if she's nothing that frightening and happily accepts something that looks like a badge from her before he leaves.
If someone like him can beat her, either he's amazingly strong or she's all scare and no battle. I'm not sure what one to believe and it seems like I don't really have much time to think about anything like that as she looks up and pins her gaze on me.
She's still wearing that freaky cloak. It still flutters like there's a breeze which makes me convinced she's hiding fans in her armpits.
"Follow me," she rasps, her face hidden in her cloak but her head pointing at Jerry. She seems to glance at me and Ali before she nods to something. "You two may follow – I will direct you to the spectator seats before the match. After the match, please make your way down to the field."
Ali nods. "Of course." There's no fight to her voice, just simple words. It's strange to hear her speak like that. I think it's because she's seen scary cloak-lady for the first time and has to understand what I meant about her!
As scary lady starts leading us through corridors made of thick, black ice, I hang back with Ali and hug myself. "How is her cloak even moving like that?" I whisper.
Ali grins at me. "Maybe she's got gas?"
I descend into a fit of giggles that are only stopped by the scary lady stopping and looking at us. She points us up a flight of stairs and I can feel her eyes on my back as I make my way up and into the stands above the arena. All the chairs are in lines upon lines, like those in the football stadium in Nimbasa, except here they're a dull blue and coated in frost.
In fact, it's cold enough in here that I can see frost floating around in the air. We grab seats on the bottom row, as close to the battlefield as possible and end up still bouncing up and down in our seats in an attempt to get warm. Finally Ali lets out Jude and we place the pignite in front of us both, holding our hands towards it like an open fire.
"I need to get a fire pokémon," I decide. I consider trying to roast marshmallows over Jude too, but by the way it snorts and slaps its gums together, I decide that they'd probably only end up covered in pignite drool.
"They're pretty awesome," Ali tells me, "but of course, you need to train them first. They're not exactly polite with their fire at first so you'll often end up having to run around trying to put out fires. And trust me on this; you don't ever really want to wake up and find out your pokémon has burnt off your eyebrows in your sleep. Not an attractive look."
"I'll just catch something that's warm then," I decide. Something that won't be likely to burn my face off in my sleep sounds nice. Or something that won't freeze it off. Or drown me. Or potentially just kill me.
I'm not entirely certain that leaves a lot of pokémon left.
"Oh look, creepy-demon-lady's out here."
I follow Ali's finger and stare at the battlefield, where Jerry's taking his place on a podium opposite her. Creepy-lady announces herself as Candice, says a few boring rules – who knew there were so many? – and then finally gestures for Jerry, as the challenger, to go first.
He nods and throws a poké ball forwards. From the flash of light, the familiar sight of his throh appears. It seems to be covered in a few more scars than I remember, and it now wears a black robe with a bright red belt, but other than that it looks exactly the same as the monster that used to jump out of closets and scare me when I was little.
It adjusts to the battlefield almost instantly, though it seems to see me out of the corner of its eyes and when it does, it actually smiles and waves at me.
"That's actually kinda cute that it remembers you," Ali says.
"No it's not," I growl. "It's evil. It used to jump out of closets to scare me."
"My older sister used to do that to me," Ali says with a shrug. "I mean, I guess that's part of being an older sibling and great, she has a jynx."
I blink and look back to the battlefield, surprised I managed to miss anything. Sure enough, on creepy-lady's side of the field stands the flapping, torn red dress, tattered blonde hair and frostbitten, purple skin of a jynx. It looks even creepier than the books ever managed to show and I'm fairly certain that its skin seems to be slowly peeling off.
"There goes my hopes for an easy match," Ali mutters.
Meanwhile, creepy ice lady smirks. "End this," she hisses, slashing a hand through the air.
Jerry however, seems to have a plan up his sleeve. "Stun it and then send it right back!" he barks. I've never really seen him battle before, like this so I'm already feeling excited. All of his other battles happened when I was too young to travel, so usually my parents would go and I'd be left with my grandparents. Now however, I get front row seats!
I wonder just how Punch is going to manage to stun the jynx without getting close when all of a sudden it pulls down its pants and thrusts at the jynx!
Ali and I are stunned into an equal stuttering silence. Jude, in front of us snorts something I don't quite understand, whilst the jynx just stares at Punch, who stands there wiggling. There's a moment in which the air seems to grow still and silent, when suddenly it all bursts back into life. Punch pulls up its pants and leaps at the still stunned jynx, smacks it on the side of the head and grabs its legs. Its head hits the floor hard enough that I hear the crack and without missing a moment, Punch spins it round and run by its feet and throws it straight back at scary-lady! I cheer as it seems like it's about to collide with her, but then out of nowhere it turns into bright red energy and simply washes over her.
Not fair. I wanted to see scary lady get flattened by the frostbite monster.
As Candice seems to glower from beneath her hood, Jerry's smirking and so is Punch. Ali meanwhile is laughing so hard she sounds like she's choking, which doesn't seem to get any better the moment Punch winks at her.
"I remember the first time Punch did that in a battle," I say as Ali seems to recover. "It was the first time my parents had taken me to see Jerry battle anywhere. It was only a little battle in the park near home. Dad was not impressed at all."
"I can't imagine why," Ali says.
Finally another pokémon appears for Jerry to fight. As the light fades, there's a little floating red box left behind, occasionally discharging sparks of purple electricity. I wonder just what in the world it could be before Ali tells me it's something called a rotom. I tell her that doesn't exactly help, but as the box takes flight and starts peppering Punch with frost, she tells me about how they can possess anything electrical. After that, I decide they're pretty awesome.
Punch growls as the rotom shocks it once more. I see them both light up with purple sparks and the moment Punch leaps at the rotom; it simply falls to the floor, somehow white and not moving anymore! I stop for a second and just stare. Punch has killed it! It has to have! Why else would it be all red one minute and then plain, white and boring the next?
That's when a red shadow pulls its way out of the floor with a haunting cackle. Punch spins around on one foot and takes a blast of yellow electricity to the face! It drops to the floor, grunting and even from a distance; I can smell burnt flesh and clothes. But it gets up again and before I even know what's happened, it's taking a blast of electricity to its arms!
It snarls, arms crossed before its face and glowing a soft green. I wonder just what it is as Punch throws its arms to the heavens and electricity arcs everywhere. As it sparks around the room, Punch vanishes in a flash of red light, only to be replaced seconds later with the familiar sight of Mitchel, who hisses, growls and then snaps up the rotom like a little rag doll and shakes it around like a lillipup with a toy.
It's at that point that the scary-lady recalls her rotom. As she does so though, the dark expanses of her hood just stare at me under I shudder and make my excuses to leave. I don't know what it is about her, but I just don't like her. I'm entirely certain she can't be human, but there's no way of proving that, short of going into the icy gloom of the temple once more, or capturing something that can withstand the cold.
I'll just make sure I'll bring someone with me, just in case I find another corridor of icy doom.
-O-O-O-
I'm still in the gym almost an hour later, collecting my pokémon from the training facilities there. The man running it looks like he's part beartic, considering that his eyebrows seem to reach up into his actual hair. He speaks with a thick accent I can't really understand and tells me something about the progress of my pokémon. Or possibly something to do with fish and lipstick. I can't really understand him.
Either way, at least my pokémon are back and a little stronger – supposedly. I signed them up for a cold endurance training, which I thought would be really complicated, but instead they were put in a really big freezer and blasted with little bits of cold and snow for a little while. Kiki glares at me for making it suffer like that, though the beard of icicles make any glares look positively ridiculous. Mandy seems unbothered by anything – though it never seemed really affected by the weather anyway. Instead the eyebrow-man mumbles something about Mandy attacking the snow machines and directing them at other pokémon.
I think it's funny, personally. At least they got the other trainers got their money's worth. I can't exactly help it if Mandy happens to cause mayhem wherever it happens to be.
Still better than what she did in the pokémon centre the night before, though. There was a kid going on about how awesome his new swinub was. He got really annoying and I have no idea how Mandy managed it, but somehow it left a dead swinub outside the boy's door and hid his actual swinub's poké ball on the roof. His screams had woken us all up at some time in the morning – while it was still dark!
At least they found the poké ball about an hour later. Mandy was still cackling darkly in my room, perched on my bed's headboard at the time. I don't know how she did it but I think it would be awesome to know how. I could always learn ninja skills from my equally ninja-bird.
"Hi Jerry!" I shout as he rounds the corner. He noticed I was missing after his match and tracked me down here. At least he let me carry on training rather than watching Ali's match too. It wasn't that they were boring; it was simply that I didn't want to be anywhere near scary cloak-lady. I'd told Ali as much, but I only let Jerry know I was training. He worried too much and if he knew I was scared of cloak-lady staring at me during the match, he'd probably go after her and end up frozen in a big ice cube or something.
Needless to say, bringing home my brother, trapped in a big popsicle would be kind of difficult to explain.
"Hey," he says, pats me on the head and glances at my pokémon. Kiki's still stood there, glaring defiantly still, even with all the ice covering it. Mandy meanwhile is perched atop eyebrow-man now, squawking and covering him in a fine coat of snow. Eyebrow-man seems to think it's funny, at least.
"Do I even want to know?" Jerry asks.
I shrug. "I put them in for cold-weather training. They got blasted with loads of snow and looked like vanillite! I think Kiki hates me even more now though."
Jerry glances at it once more and shrugs too. "She's not built to withstand cold. Maractus are desert pokémon."
"I know that," I say quickly. "But there's no desert here. It's all just snow. So until I catch something warm or something that doesn't mind the cold, they're going to have to learn." It's not like I keep Kiki out with me anyway. Mandy's usually out and perched on my shoulder whenever I'm wandering around in the cold – it doesn't seem bothered by it at all. Jerry says it's because most vullaby aren't bothered by the weather at all – heat, rain, snow or sandstorms, apparently they're able to hunt in all of them.
"Where's Ali?" I ask.
"With Candice. She's getting her badge now too. So since both of us got our badges from here, when do you want to leave?"
"Now?" I ask hopefully. I'm bored of the cold. I want to go somewhere warm! Even if it rains all the time! "I've still got to battle Roark," I tell him. "So can we head to wherever his gym is?"
"Well, his gym happens to be south of here, and since south happens to be the only way you can walk from Snowpoint, I guess we've got no choice, huh?" He smiles at me as I recall both my pokémon and wave goodbye to eyebrow-man, who tells me I can come back anytime for more training. Jerry suddenly goes all protective about that until I tell him that when my pokémon were training, I spent most of my time playing with eyebrow-man's daughter. She's five and kept going on about my strange pokémon, even as she sat there with a swinub that was as big as her!
"What does swinub evolve into anyway?" I ask Jerry.
He points to my pocket. "You've got a pokédex. Why not use that?"
"Because you know these things! And because you're a complete geek with pokémon so you've got to teach me what you know, right?"
He sighs and flicks my head without even looking. "Swinub evolve twice. Once into something called a piloswine, which is basically a bigger, furrier swinub with little tusks. And then that evolves into something called a mamoswine, which is a huge piloswine with less hair and insanely big tusks."
"Wow," I say, swinging my arms as we walk. "How do you know all of this?"
He grins. "I've been a trainer for five years. You learn a lot when you're travelling. It also helps that I'm smart."
I roll my eyes. "You're a geek."
"And you're a freak."
"No I'm not!" We're about to descend into calling each other names once more when Ali leaps through the doorway, shouts something strange and makes us both scream in fright! She bursts out laughing as I scowl at her and Jerry goes bright red and tries his best to tell her he wasn't scared.
"Come on," she says between laughs. "I've gotten my badge now, so let's head back to the centre, heal up and then head off. Where are we going next?"
"South," Jerry says. "We're going to need to buy some cold-weather supplies before we go though."
She nods and they start talking about something that sounds boring and only happens to be about cold provisions. I hum to myself as we walk out of the gym and get blasted by freezing cold from outside. All the local people are walking around with thin coats, claiming this is a warm day for them. I think they're all insane snow-people. There's no way that this can be warm! I'm pretty sure my hands have already gone blue and I'm going to get a snow-beard to rival Kiki's!
Snow, I decide, is so boring when it's permanent, rather than a strange occurrence once every few months.
-O-O-O-
Three days into the snow and I'm fairly certain I'm going to end up crazy from the lack of any real food.
Every time we've tried to light a fire for our camp, the winds pick up or the snow drifts towards us and the fire goes straight back out. We have to settle for trying to get Jim and Jude to cook our food, but they can't really control all of their fire so most of the time we end up with crispy charcoal inside of actual food.
Then we tried cooking inside our tents, which only made them fill with steam which stuck to us and then would freeze whenever we went outside. So we've been eating nothing but little snack bars.
And on top of everything, all our water keeps freezing. Jerry has his bibarel out every so often to give us water, but I don't exactly like the thought of drinking vomit. It's only when Ali points out that my only option is to eat snow, which people and pokémon have walked in and used as a toilet that I decide vomit water's probably the best option.
Add to that the lack of sleep from not being able to sleep because of howling winds; I'm a little out of it.
I grunt as I catch myself falling asleep again. We've stopped to try and train our pokémon, which somehow seems to have become Jerry's dodrio and darminitan and Ali's heracross chasing Kiki and Mandy around the snowy fields. Kiki obviously can't walk much at all – it's more of a stagger that people tend to do when they walk down the road at night, shouting silly things and occasionally vomiting in their shoes. Even still Kiki manages to evade them, mainly by kicking up clouds of snow and shrouding itself beneath cotton fluff.
Everything stops suddenly though when we hear a scream come from behind the trees. Before I even realise what's happening, Jerry and Ali are both with me, their pokémon tense and growling and even Kiki's somehow made its way back. Mandy flutters above us, screeching something as Ali's gurdurr trudges its way through the snow towards us, carrying one little, screaming thing that seems to be human.
"Sam!" Ali barks as she makes her way towards it. "What are you doing, where did you find him and no you can't keep him!"
Meanwhile the kid is still screaming, flailing madly as Sam holds him up in the air like a prize. "I didn't know it was a trainer's pokémon!" the boy screams wildly.
I have to force myself through snow that's up to my waist to see the situation clearer. Ali is still talking to her pokémon, trying to convince it to put down the boy, who's screaming for his pokémon to come back to him. I see a flash of ginger beneath his dark green hat and recognition flares through me.
"I recognise you!" I say suddenly. I wade my way towards him and stare up at him. He looks completely frightened, which I guess I can understand considering he's being held up in the air. "You're the guy that beat Candice before my brother and Ali fought her!"
Ali takes him in a moment and seems to recognise him too. "So he is. Sam, put him down already. I've told you that you're not allowed to keep him, alright?"
Her pokémon grunts something and drops the boy straight into the snow. He staggers back to his feet and tries his best to shake off all the snow that's covering him before he sheepishly moves away from Sam.
"I didn't realise it was a trained pokémon," he says. "I thought it was wild, so I tried to catch it, but it beat my staravia and then picked me up and dragged me back here."
"Yeah, sorry about that," Ali says. "Sam has a strange habit of picking things up to use as weaponry ever since he lost his girder he liked so much."
"What are you doing here?" I ask the boy. Jerry seems to have made his way towards us; our pokémon too. "Are you on your own?"
He nods quickly. "I'm travelling on my own and I'm trying to get back to Eterna. I need only three more badges until I've got them all!" He looks between us then suddenly drops his eyes to the floor. "So, urm, can I go now, please?"
Ali and Jerry share a look I don't understand before they sigh. "Do you want to travel with us?" Jerry asks him. "This route's dangerous on your own and you seem like you could use the company."
The boy blinks, just as surprised as me. I don't think I've ever heard Jerry actually offer for anyone to travel with us! The few times people have asked, he's always had some weird excuse!
The boy glances at our pokémon nervously. "They won't try to eat me or anything, will they?"
Ali smiles. "Not unless you try to eat them. We were training anyway before you came along, which is why they're all out anyway."
"Alright," he says slowly. "I'm Nathan."
He's only just a bit older than me too. Apparently he's eleven, nearly twelve and has been travelling since he was ten as well. He tells me that he started off with something called a hippopotas which has nearly evolved and he's got five other pokémon too. I see them later when he lets them out to train – there's the staravia he mentioned, a vine-monster he says is a tangela, a monkey that's butt is on fire, a bronzor and a floatzel too.
I stare at my own meagre collection of pokémon and decide that I have to try and capture something. The only problem is that with all of our pokémon out, nothing comes near us for me to capture. Every time I try to wander off to find something, Jerry or Ali always appears to tag along with me and their pokémon scare away everything before I even get the chance to capture anything!
They offer to capture something for me, but I need to do this on my own! I want to capture something new, but the only things I can see are delibirds fluttering around in the trees and little swinub scurrying around in the snow. I don't want either of those, even if swinub do evolve into something with massive tusks. I want something different that's awesome!
Maybe I'll just catch something when I go to Kanto. It'll be undoubtedly easier than over here. All it means I have to do is beat Roark and then I can get a boat over there. I wouldn't mind something like a butterfree. Maybe I could get a ditto and then cause loads of mayhem by having it transform into loads of different things!
It's an awesome plan, I decide.
-O-O-O-
I wake up to the ground beneath me rumbling.
I shoot up and glance around, my hair stuck to my face and Ali already awake and pressing her hands against the floor. Kiki's out with us in my tent, scowling and hissing things I can't quite understand.
"Must have been something big passing nearby," Ali assumes. "We might as well get back to-"
- the ground rumbles again. I jump out of my sleeping bag and thrash against its stupid binds. There's something big out there, making the ground rumble and it has to be nearby! Who knows what it's going to do!
I fall out of my tent and hiss as the cold air slaps my face. Jerry's already out of his tent, Jim by his side and hooting at something in the dark. I can't see far enough – all I can see is nothing but a black expanse covered by the occasional swirl of snow.
"What was that?" I ask him.
He shrugs and crouches in front of me. "I'm not sure. Are you alright?"
I nod. "Yeah. Tired, but I'm fine." Kiki comes out of the tent with Ali, both of them looking sleepy and confused. Nathan appears out of the tent he was sharing with Jerry, nervously looking over his shoulder as he does so.
"This place is meant to be haunted," he says. "There was a big abomasnow here ages ago that rampaged through this route. It killed a few people and there's a rumour that its ghost is meant to haunt this place."
"That's stupid," Jerry says quickly. "If it was an abomasnow, it would be coming from the trees, not from underground."
Ali looks like she's about to say something when the ground trembles again. I lose my footing and end up face-first in the snow, spluttering madly as I try to get it out. The ground underneath me vibrates and I swear it feels like it's actually got a beating heart!
"I don't like this," I mumble as I get back to my feet. "What's doing this?"
"I'm not sure," Jerry admits. He puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me against him. "Just make sure you stay near me, alright?"
I nod, reach out for Ali and grab her by the hand. She looks really pale and scared and I feel exactly the same way. I don't know what's happening but I know that something is out there, under the ground and waiting to do something!
The night turns strangely quiet.
And then a colossal roar pierces it!
I can feel it all the way down to my bones and my ears still vibrate even after it finishes. Jim is screeching at something in the dark and Kiki is making frantic gestures at us all.
"It's the abomasnow ghost!" Nathan cries. "It's coming to eat us!"
He panics and runs in the darkness before we can stop him. There's another roar as we shout after him and all of a sudden, the ground bursts open and showers us all with snow and dirt. Nathan screams as he looks up at the monster. I see a flash of yellow eyes in the sky and hear another roar, louder than before. Nathan screams again and suddenly the ground bursts open underneath him and something swallows him whole!
I barely even notice that I'm screaming until my throat starts to hurt. The snow is sprayed red with blood, Nathan's blood and I can hear the monster chewing and snapping and slurping Nathan!
Jim screeches and lights up the sky with fire. In the orange glow, I see the towering monsters for what they are.
A pair of hungry steelix, mouths coated red in blood.
I don't know which one of us screams the loudest. All I know is that one moment I'm there, staring at the angry, hungry faces of two steelix and the next Elizabeth is underneath me and its running as fast as it can over the snow. Jerry's holding onto me and Ali both, directing Elizabeth to run faster and faster and it's not fastenough because the monsters are close enough behind us that I can feel their hot, stinking breath on my neck!
Jerry shoves a poké ball in my hands and I only dimly become aware of the fact it's Kiki's. Mandy's is still in my pocket and I see Jerry stashing Jim's poké ball away in his jeans. Ali's swearing frantically, calling the steelix all sorts of names as they roar behind us. Their roars sound like screeching metal being torn apart and my ears scream each time they roar. Blood trickles from my ears and I start to not be able to hear anything over the thundering of my heart or Jerry's shouts for Elizabeth to hurry, hurry, hurry!
One of the steelix roars and Elizabeth screeches as the floor underneath it disappears. We're sent flying into the snow randomly and I can't see anyone nearby! I search for Jerry and Ali both but I find nothing but darkness and the roaring sounds of monsters hidden somewhere in the dark where they might be eating my brother right now!
Out of nowhere something swoops down and scoops me up. The ground disappears beneath my feet and I scream and scream and scream!
"Stop struggling!" Ali shouts above the sounds of insect wings. I look up and I can barely see her face above mine. She's biting her lip and behind her I see something dark and with wings, hissing frantically as we slowly come closer and closer to the ground.
"This is not the time to tell me to lose weight!" Ali screams at the thing carrying it. I guess it has to be her heracross because it's the only thing that can fly but if we're here that means Jerry has to still be on the ground somewhere fighting off the monsters!
Another roar echoes behind us and we both scream. Hot breath washes over us and we're sent spiralling round and around in the air until I'm sure I'm going to be sick. Ali swears again and suddenly we're in the snow again, Ali coughing and her heracross hissing wildly at something in the dark.
"Where's Jerry?" she shouts.
"I don't know! I thought you'd found him!"
"I could only find you!" Her hands grab me in the dark and lead me back towards her heracross. I can only see it, just barely. It looks as terrified as I feel, quickly looking in every direction and clicking wildly. "We need to get out of here!" Ali shouts.
"No!" I scream and shove her hands away. "Not without Jerry!" I see a flash of fire in the distance and the looming silhouette above it. My stomach drops and I know its Jerry fighting against one of the monsters.
"Jerry!" I scream into the distance and try to run towards it.
Ali's hands grab me and force me back and her face appears in mine screaming, "It's too dangerous!"
"I don't care!" I scream. I release Mandy and grab it by the feet. "Mandy! Fly me over there!" It tries, squawking madly but I don't ever leave the ground. "Mandy! Fly me!" I scream but no matter how much I try, I can't get into the air and Mandy's too small and I can see where Jerry might be dying and I can't reach it in time!
"She's too small!" Ali tells me. "She can't fly you there!"
"I don't care! He's my brother and he's fighting those things and there's one right behind you!"
Ali screams and turns just in time to catch the flash of yellow eyes and blood-stained teeth. Her heracross appears out of nowhere and slams into the steelix's mouth hard enough to leave a dent. Her heracross punches it in the eye and the steelix screams louder than I've ever heard and with enough force to knock me off my feet as blood trickles down from where its eye used to be.
"Nina!" Ali screams. "Get away!"
But her heracross doesn't listen and punches the steelix in the face again. Dents appear all over it as Nina punches it harder and harder and suddenly the steelix roars, leaps and Nina disappears between its jaws!
"Nina!" Ali screams and goes to fight the steelix herself. "Give her back you overgrown bastard!" She throws snowballs and everything she can find at it as the steelix looks like it's trying to chew what remains. Except there can't be much that remains, because I saw what little there was left of Nathan and how quickly he just vanished.
But then against all the odds the steelix slowly opens its mouth and there is Nina, arms' shaking as it holds the steelix's jaws apart. Ali cries in relief and recalls her pokémon instantly, but that just leaves a hungry steelix facing us down again.
"Run!" Ali shouts and I don't need to be told twice. I recall Mandy and try to run, but the snow is our enemy because it's up to our waists and stops us from being able to mouth fast at all. I can hear the steelix behind us, slowly weaving around and trying to trap us in its long, snakey body. I see flashes of orange in the distance again and see the other steelix slowly getting closer and closer to Jerry. I see something floating around nearby him and flashes of purple fire and know he has Annie out, but I don't know if he has anything else out and alive to fight the monster.
The steelix around me roars once more and I see that all around me is its body, trapping us in and ready to kill us both. It looms above us, one eye gleaming in the moonlight and its mouth opens, raining blobs of saliva as big as me around us.
Ali has her pokémon out, already trying to move the snake. But it's too big and her pokémon are too small because even with five fighters trying to pick it up and move it, they still can't manage to shift it more than a few inches. I throw Kiki's ball out in front of me and scream, "In the eyes! In the eyes!" before Kiki's even fully formed.
It shoots hundreds of tiny little seeds out instantly that hammer over the steelix's body and bounce harmless back to the ground, sprouting in mid-air. The steelix roars as some land in its eye and even more sink into its open mouth and start to strangle it from the inside. It thrashes wildly as roots spout all along its insides and its tail shatters the floor and covers the ground around in in craters.
"Move!" Ali screams and grabs me by the collar. I barely have time to recall Kiki as her primeape throws me over the shoulder and sprints off into the distance. Ali's being carried by her sawk and her pignite is racing in front of us both, completely ablaze and melting all the snow around us.
"I can't leave Jerry!" I scream and try to move on the primeape. It holds me tight and I pull at its fur to try and get loose. It screeches but doesn't even let me go as it continues to run further and further away from the flames that are getting shorter and weaker in the distance.
"Let me go!" I shout. "I can't leave him! Turn back! Turn back!"
"It's too dangerous!" Ali shouts. The steelix thunders along behind us again, blind and dying but still giving chase. Ali swears and ducks as her pignite shoots balls of fire mid-run at it, but somehow the steelix knows they're coming and swerves around them all. "It's getting closer!"
I fumble around in my bag and reach for something, anything that might help. I find a poké ball and throw it as hard as I can at the steelix, but it just smacks it away with its tail and keeps on chasing after us. Ali leaps onto my idea and throws as many poké balls as she can at the steelix, but it swats away each one of them before any of them can even so much as get near to it.
Finally one opens up and bathes it completely in red light. We take the few seconds it's stunned to race away as fast as we can, but in no time at all the glow has gone and the steelix is chasing us again and belching green fire!
"It's not stopping!" I scream. Green fire explodes over my head and launches straight into Jude and knocks the pignite completely off its feet and only Ali's quick timing stops it from becoming the steelix's latest meal as we pass it. The monster roars again and I don't know how it's still managing to chase us when there's leech seeds growing out of its mouth but it is and it's going to eat us and I'm getting further and further away from Jerry and he might be dead already because there's no fire in the sky anymore and-
-the steelix behind us roars suddenly and stops moving. We slow down but don't stop running as I see the steelix slowly float into the sky, covered in a blue glow that crackles and sparks with visible energy. It roars and twists in the air but then there's a sudden, sickening snap as its body twists all the way round in two different directions and it drops to the floor, unmoving and not breathing.
I get to my feet shakily and find Ali thrown somewhere nearby from where the steelix hit the floor. She recalls her primeape and leans against Cap for support as she stares at what's left of the steelix and swears under her breath.
Something moves atop the steelix. I flinch and reach for Mandy's poké ball when a little ball of light starts to float around the figure and illuminates it for us to see.
Creepy-cloak lady stands atop the steelix corpse, cloak fluttering in the wind and her jynx stood beside her.
"Wait here," she says and vanishes in a flash of blue light. I see the light shine in the distance, somewhere near the silhouette of the other steelix. There's flashes of light but no sound as I see the steelix taken down in short, staggered displays of power. Once it's over, the blue light shines in front of us again and Candice is stood atop the steelix once more, her jynx beside her and in front of her and most importantly of all; Jerry.
I scream his name as I race towards him and throw myself at him. He grunts and hisses as I hug him but I don't care because he's alive and even though he's bloody and bruised and something feels like it's broken, he's still alive and the steelix are dead and they're not coming back!
Candice jumps down from the steelix and floats down slowly to the floor, her cape trailing behind her. Even now, her face is hidden in the shadows of her hood. She looks at us each in turn and then back to her jynx before she taps the side of the dead steelix.
"These escaped Snowpoint Temple several days ago, which was why you found me down there," she said, and even though I could see she wasn't looking, I knew she was talking directly to Jerry and I. "You're lucky. The cold slows them down considerably. Otherwise I dare say you'd have been dead and digested by the time I got here."
None of us say anything. Jerry's still hugging me and Ali's with us and after an awkward moment I just drag her with us and hug her because we're all alive and we're not dead and the monsters are!
Candice looks back at us and cocks her head. "I was too late to save all of you, however."
I remember Nathan disappearing under the shroud of snow and dust and the way the steelix had so effortlessly ate it. Jerry stiffens at her remark but says nothing and Ali trembles with silent tears but I just feel nothing more than the thundering of my heart that still won't calm down.
"There's a small village nearby with a medical centre," Candice says. "I shall teleport you all there so that you may recover. In the future, I recommend you don't attempt to be snack food."
I get the feeling like she's smirking as she reaches out and touches Jerry's shoulder. She grabs her jynx and everything vanishes in a shroud of blue.
-O-O-O-
It takes nearly three weeks for us and our pokémon to recover from everything. Most of Ali's pokémon had broken bones – her heracross had both arms broken and a twisted ankle – and Jerry's pokémon had a number of injuries too. Jerry himself had a broken arm and bruised ribs, whilst Ali had a sprained wrist. I was told that I had the beginnings of hypothermia and had to stay as warm as possible for ages whilst Kiki had to rest for a while from overexertion. I still felt like I got off easily compared to the others.
When we finally leave, most of the stronger blizzards have stopped. We walk from the little village atop one of Mount Coronet's peaks, called Frostback, to Eterna city. It doesn't take as long as I thought it would, but we still move slowly if only because of our own injuries and those of our pokémon.
Ali spends her time trying to train her heracross to be able to fly with more weight attached, whilst Jerry tries to train Elizabeth to run just as fast whilst carrying heavy weight. The doctors in the village told us we were lucky, because steelix become slower in the cold, which meant that even though our pokémon were slower because of the weight, they were still just that little bit faster.
They seem to have taken it harder than me and spend every moment training their pokémon to be able to move quickly, should they need to again. I try and train Mandy to fly me somewhere, but yet again it doesn't seem to work at all. They tell me I have to wait until Mandy's bigger until it can fly me anywhere, but I'm sure it can carry me because I'm not all that big.
When the snow finally starts to part for brown earth and bright green grass, however, we start to relax. Days before we even reach Eterna we can see the statue they have to the Sinnoh pokégods – bronze sculptures of The Dialga and The Palkia wrapped underneath the twisting body of The Giratina. The sight of it reminds of me of the steelix and I spend each day trying my best to not look at it and focus on something else.
Finally we come across civilisation once more. Ali talks about how she wants a hot shower whilst Jerry goes on about the food he wants to eat. I'll just be happy never to have to see another giant pokémon that wants to use me as a toothpick ever again.
Eterna splits into two distinct parts; old and new. We can see the new before we even get there, with huge metallic buildings that threaten the skies and shine brilliantly under the light. The older parts are pretty, with stone buildings made of white marble and black granite that glisten and from above, reminds me of a chess board.
The strangest thing about Eterna we notice, however, is the distinct lack of people.
"I don't like this," Jerry says as we pass the sign welcoming us to Eterna. Except, it's not attached to the billboard anymore, instead crumpled on the floor and most of the letters have been rubbed off. Ali walks towards it, nudges it with her foot and screams as a little sentret pokes out and scurries away. We laugh nervously as our hearts slowly start to return to normal, but then I see the huge black letters someone has painted across the smiling face of a cherrim-flower.
Turn back.
I decide that the sign has to know exactly what it's talking about and agree with it. Jerry tells me it has to be someone pulling a prank, though as we get into the city limits, we see rubbish lying on the floor, cars left in the streets and the remains of clothes and pokémon collars left everywhere – even atop bus stops.
"I feel like we're in a horror movie," Ali says as she lets Cap out. It grunts as it looks around, picks up the remains of what seems to have once been a dress and hisses, throwing it as far away as it can.
Jerry lets out Elizabeth as I call out Mandy. We make our way slowly through the empty streets with only the rustle of plastic bags and the never-ending silence as our only company.
Finally we round a corner and see people.
All lying on the floor.
Dead.
It seems like there's been a war in the street. Blood paints everything and I can see bits of body parts on the street that I'm sure have to stay inside the body. A few skinny pokémon lie on the floor, equally as dead and everything stinks worse than anything I could ever imagine and I have to fight the urge to be sick.
"I think the sign was right," Ali says. "We should leave."
I agree quickly, though as I turn around I see something move in an alleyway. I point it out and we slowly move around the street. The cars lay abandoned in the middle of the road, most with the keys still in the ignition. Most are stained with blood.
Ali's right; I feel like I'm in a horror film.
Finally we hear what sounds like an actual person. We find someone hidden behind the body of a broken red car, huddled over the remains of what I think was a woman. I hear slurps and snaps and I'm reminded instantly of the steelix and the way it ate Nathan.
"Hello?" Jerry asks nervously.
It's at that moment the person looks up and I realise it isn't a person. Its skin is sunken and purple, covered in horrible blotches. Fangs seem to come from its mouth and there's a huge hole in the side of its head. It stumbles to its feet and moans, dropping the remains of the woman's arm back to the floor.
These people are dead, I realise.
And Eterna is full of zombies.
