As usual, illness, work, and apathy made this take a lot later than it should've. As it is, enjoy for now... you won't for long... Wait, hold on. Looks through chapters.
Before we get into all that madness, I think it's about time we take a look at an underrepresented element in these stories: the ships!
...Nah, I'm just yanking your chain. I mean the Pokémon! This chapter, we're going to look at their adventures after a few days cooped up in either the Center or the hospital. Have fun!
Chapter 14: General Nonsense!
Sir Aaron Hospital, 3rd Floor, September 24th, Noon
"SCANNING… POSSIBLE POKÉMON DETECTED. VISUAL VERIFICATION REQUIRED FOR CONFIRMATION. …UNABLE TO VERIFY USING CONVENTIONAL VISION. SWITCHING TO INFRARED MODE. …PRESENCE CONFIRMED. POTENTIAL PSYCHIC ABILITIES EMPLOYED TO EVADE IDENTIFICATION. PREPARING COUNTERMEASURE: THUNDER WA-" Coro the Magnemite was interrupted by the passing Wukong clipping it in the side while evading Frigate's attempt to tag him.
"Oops, sorry, Coro! Better luck next time, Slowpoke!" the Chimp Pokemon called as he zoomed down the hallway, followed by the Piplup's cry of, "Wukong, you slippery snail, get back here!" as he chased him. Righting itself, Coro scanned the area in infrared again, revealing nothing. "POKÉMON… HAS LEFT THE IMMEDIATE AREA," it said with a near undetectable note of sheepishness. "FURTHER PATROLLING OF THE BUILDING REQUIRED." And with that, it floated down the hallway… in the opposite direction the other two starters went.
A safe distance away, an invisible Pokémon hummed to itself, amused, and hovered after the Magnemite silently.
2nd Floor, Noon
"And lo and behold," Mistral said, holding up two scales to the bewilderment of his audience of four, "two for the price of one! Here you go, Garvey." He tossed the scales to the starstruck Gible, who nearly dropped them in his state of shock. "How'd ya do that!?" he asked, his bewilderment only an exaggeration of what Atlas, a Houndour, and a Nidorina themselves felt.
"Magic, of course!" the Sneasel laughed, throwing his arm out in a grand gesture and releasing a spray of sparkles, earning himself a smattering of applause.
"I think he just took the scale from your back when he was steering you to the front," a female voice said. The other Pokémon shot the Nidorina sharp looks, but she only shook her head; it wasn't her. They all jumped when the voice piped up again, this time from above them: "Whoopsie! I guess I spoiled the trick! Sorry about that!" They looked up to see… nothing?
"Who… who's there?" Houndour asked uncertainly.
"Well, me, of course!" the voice supplied amiably. After a moment, she said, "Oh dear, am I invisible?"
"Yep yep!" Atlas said, causing a small, snorting laugh to ring through the hall.
"Silly me! I'm new at this," the voice continued. "Let me just…" A haze of blue vapor faded into being, a deep purple orb with a smiling face coalescing not long afterward; a Shiny Gastly. "There, is that better?"
"Loads, thanks," Mistral said drily, still somewhat peeved at her for ruining his performance.
"Oh, I really am sorry," Gastly said sincerely, large eyes downcast. "It's just, I've never seen a magic show before."
"Oh, I'm sure. Heckler."
"Come on, Mistral," Atlas said, seeing the Sneasel's standoffish nature assert itself, "she didn't mean it. Come on, give her another chance- Ow! Garvey, what are you doing?" Next to him, Garvey was whirling around, trying to see the spot where Mistral swiped the extra scale; it was near the center of his back, however, and seeing as he was mostly mouth, this was an abject impossibility. "I… c'n almost- GRAAOW!" he yelled as he tripped over himself for the third time. "Can one of you guys…"
"I can do it," Nidorina offered. Seeing the Gible's consternation, she assuaged him with, "Don't worry, I can't poison you with my paws."
"Well… okay, den." Feeling her poking smooth skin instead of scales, he wiggled a bit, ticklish. "So dat's where he got it from!" He thought for a moment. "But how'd you take it without me feelin' it?"
"I guess… magic?" Gastly said before laughing, and after a moment, she was joined by everyone else. "So, um, do you forgive me?"
The Sneasel made a show of thinking about it, before shrugging and saying, "Yeah, why not?"
"Great!" Atlas said, glad to see everyone getting along. "So, Gastly, you've really never seen a magic show before?"
"Nah, there was never enough time for anything like that where I was, especially for the last few years," she replied, drifting down to eye level. "It seems like I was missing out on a lot of fun, though."
"So, you aren't occupied now?" Atlas asked her.
"Nope, and I'm glad to say it!"
"Then you can stick around and see da show!" Garvey said.
"Weeeell, I don't know…" Gastly said archly, the mischievous light dancing in her eyes gave her away. "Does the great Mistral object to me staying?"
"There's always room in my show for one more audience member," Mistral declared grandly. "Have a seat." Gastly did so, being careful to sit away the non-Poison audience members, as well as keep her gas coiled about her as best she could. Clearing his throat, the Sneasel boomed, "I am Mistral, the walker of the deepest oceans, the tamer of wild dragonfire; the master of light and eater of shadows! I have witnessed a thousand truths, and uncovered a thousand lies! I have crushed mountains in the palm of my hand, and swam the length of a falling drop of rain! I have mastered the techniques of Legends, from the Wish Maker's Doom Desire-" white light suddenly blazed throughout the hallway, stunning the audience "-to the Creator's own Judgment!" He threw his paw into the air, and a loud crack heralded a spray of yellow flares falling toward them. Applause and whoops met his ears as he swept into a low bow.
"Wow!" Ghastly said, honestly astounded. "That was… amazing!"
"Dat was so cool!" Garvey cried, starry-eyed.
"That was a neat trick, Mistral!" Atlas said, clapping his forelimbs together.
"This was a great show," Houndour yipped, "but we should get back to our Trainer. He'd want us to be there…"
"…Oh…" Mistral said awkwardly, realizing what he meant. "So you think…"
"We know," Nidorina said evenly. "It makes as much sense as anything; he was- is old for a human. I just wish we could've known him for longer."
"Huh? Ya mean you guys haven't been wit him for long?" Garvey asked.
"No, actually," Houndour replied. "He caught us barely a year ago. He said he had a bad accident years before that, so he caught us to help him out when the pain got too bad."
"Ah. Well, we shouldn't keep you any longer," Atlas said somberly, extending his foreleg. "Till we meet again."
"Till we meet again." "Hope to see you soon." The two shook the Turtwig's offered limb with a smile, before taking their leave. Looking away, he caught sight of Gastly. "Hey, Gastly, are you alright?"
"Uh, y-yep! Why do you ask?" she said, not quite meeting his eye.
"Well, you're kind of… vibrating?"
"Am I?" she said absently, looking after the departing pair. Coming to a decision, she rose into the air and began to follow them. Garvey began to call out to her, only to be stopped by a super-sized cork finding its way into his mouth courtesy of Mistral.
"Bfff…k… whhh?" the Gible managed to choke out before Mistral shushed him quiet again.
"Nothing's gonna come of it if we just yell at her!" he hissed, pulling out the cork. "If we want to know what's going on, we've gotta trail them."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Atlas quickly whispered, "what's this we business about? And more importantly, what's this about trailing them? We are NOT intruding on them."
"Gastly is," Garvey pointed out.
"Regardless!" He turned to the Sneasel, saying, "Mistral, it's only going to go badly- Mistral?"
"You can't stop me!" came the hissed reply. Looking up, Atlas saw the rapidly retreating Mistral gripping to the ceiling with his claws, doggedly following the now trio. With a groan and a look at Garvey, Atlas trotted after the increasingly odd group, the Gible following suit a moment later.
XxXxX
"So…" Nidorina trailed off, trying to find a new topic; Gastly had finally struck up a conversation with the duo some time ago, but they had already exhausted the few topics available. "What's it like? Being a Ghastly, I mean," she finally said with a shrug.
"Oh, it's great, believe me!" the Ghost type replied happily. "I can hover and turn invisible, and I move so much faster than before-" she stopped herself suddenly, looking away awkwardly.
"Hm? Before wha-" Nidorina said before she caught Houndour's pointed look. "O-oh, I'm sorry!"
"No, no, it's all right." Gastly shook herself quickly before making a loop de loop. "Woo! Alrighty, back to base!" To her delight, the pair giggled at her antics.
"You certainly are different for a Gastly, if you don't mind me saying," Nidorina said.
"Not at all! I'm just glad I can make you laugh!"
"Your voice is especially distinctive," Houndour said, continuing the train of thought. "Every other Gastly I met had a very, well, ghastly voice. Yours sounds… normal, I suppose."
"Well, I am a new Gastly, after all," she said blithely, unaware of her listeners' shared look of surprise.
"What do you mean by old?" Nidorina asked, confused. "Back at the magic show you said you never had the time to go to one, especially for the last few years. Is that new for a Gastly?"
"I wouldn't know," came the glib reply. "I've only been a Gastly for about an hour now."
"W-what?" the pair stuttered. Houndour recovered first, shaking his head and blurting out, "You mean you just... died!? Here, in the hospital? You'd have to have been a human before now, right? That should be impossible!"
"Well it's definitely macabre," Nidorina said plainly. "We should keep going; our Trainer's room is up ahead."
"Alright, lead the-"
"CODE BLUE IN ROOM 236. CODE BLUE IN ROOM 236."
With a crackle and a pop, the speaker turned off, and for a moment, none of the Pokémon could speak. It was Nidorina who finally whispered, "That's our Trainer's room number, isn't it?"
Houndour nodded. "What do they mean by Code Blue?"
"Whatever it means, people are already heading over there," she replied, walking forward. The small troupe reached the room in silence, but hesitated at the door. Nidorina breathed in deep, steeling herself for what she felt was necessary, but a small thud from behind startled her. Whirling around, she saw the trio of starters, with the magician at the lead rubbing his head where he fell on it from his perch on the ceiling. "What are you three doing here?" she said, not sure whether to be bothered by their being followed, annoyed at their intrusion on the whole, or strangely relieved for more Pokémon being there.
"We're sorry for intruding on you all, especially now," the Turtwig said, appropriately contrite. "It's just, we were confused because Gastly was following you since she was more or less a stranger (no offense), and when we saw she was just keeping your spirits up, we were going to head off and go back to our own Trainers-"
"But Mistral was stuck goin' one way on da ceiling!" the Gible, Garvey if she recalled correctly, continued. "So we were debatin' whether or not we were gonna join up wit you guys for real-"
"But by the time we came to that decision, the message had already rang," Mistral finished, "so it would've been really awkward. As it is…" the Starters made to leave, only to be stopped by a voice coming from the room: "So who found him?"
Two scrubs-garbed orderlies exited, the second replying, "The new guy, Chad."
The first one snorted as they continued down the hall the opposite direction the Pokémon stood. "Freakin' Chad? Bet he cried, the wuss, 'specially since the guy was like that for an hour now. What did him in, anyway?"
"Chart said Bacterial Pneumonia."
"Crease, the poor bastard," the orderly said, shaking his head. "Always a bad way to go…" The orderlies' conversation continued even as they finally exited hearing range, leaving the hall a tomb of heavy, silent emotions. After a long while, Houndour whispered, "So that's it, then. We weren't even there; he was gone since a few minutes after we left. That's how it works now?" The air shimmered, the heat emanating from him driving back everyone but Gastly, who instead did her best to approach, despite the fact that, due to her being largely formed of gas, she was extremely susceptible to being carried off by the rapidly heating air. "Houndour-" the Shiny Pokémon began, but the Dark Type's snarl cut her off, grief and anger feeding meanness: "I don't want your pity!"
"I'm not trying to-"
"Why don't you just go off and enjoy being a Ghost alone!" He turned away and loped off, ignoring Nidorina's cry of "Houndour, come back!" The Poison Type turned to Gastly and said, "I'm sorry, Gastly. He's hurting right now; we both are. I should follow him."
"I'll go with you," Gastly said instantly.
"We'll come, too!" Garvey said, Mistral and Atlas nodding along, but Nidorina only shook her head.
"He won't want to see anyone else," she explained sadly. "Houndour's actually a very solitary Pokémon; anytime he was like this in the past, he'd only see me or our Trainer. Since… since it's just me now, I really ought to be there."
"But I-" Gastly tried to say, only for Nidorina to stop her: "Look, I really am grateful for everything you've done so far, and I know Houndour is too, even if he won't admit it now. But this is something we need to work through ourselves." She left at an appreciable speed after her friend, leaving Gastly and the Starters downcast.
"…I… suppose we should go back to our Trainers now," Garvey said, uncharacteristically doleful. They began to make their own exit, when Gastly said, "They're both hurting so much…"
"True, but it's nothing we can fix," Atlas said reasonably. "Come on, Gastly, it doesn't pay to try and fix someone else's problem, especially when they're the only who should."
"But I-" she groaned aloud. "I shouldn't have left it as long as I have! It was just, how do you even bring it up!?"
"Gastly, what are you talking about?"
She told them.
"No, seriously."
It took a few more minutes before the Starters were convinced, but when they were, they were all business. "We have to find them now, then, so you can tell them!" Mistral said, glad that there was something they could do.
"B-but what do I even say?" Gastly said, suddenly hesitant.
"That's something you can figure out on the way," he insisted. "Now come on."
3rd Floor, Afternoon
"Well, thanks again, Mr. Looker," Dawn sighed, tossing her empty bottle into the trash can.
"Just 'Looker' is fine," the Interpol agent said, staring resolutely out the window, "and you must not be so discouraged already. After all, it has only been a few days; the local police force is scouring the area for a possible hideout even now. As it is, I should return to the field myself to lend my expertise, but before that, I would like to run a few theories by you."
"Okay," Dawn said readily, but was nonetheless confused.
"The attack on your friend seemed to be completely random, an unfortunate consequence of his and his attackers' paths intersecting; in short, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. From what Barry heard, these two, a Gardevoir and a Lucario, are in turn looking for an as yet unrevealed third member of their team, CBB. There are many questions: What does CBB stand for? Who is this third Pokémon? Where is it? When and why did it leave? What is this team's purpose? Where did they come from, and where did they go? We don't know for sure yet, but I may have a lead." He pulled out a photograph and handed it to her. Looking at it, it seemed to be a somewhat blurry shot of the beach. The significant part was two figures off-center, one walking away from the other. The second was wearing a black longcoat and an angular, metallic jingasa of the same color; decidedly not beachwear. The figure exiting the scene was wearing a similar hat, but had apparently forgone the longcoat in lieu of a light jacket. From what she could tell, they were both human, and probably male. "This was taken on the day of the attack," Looker continued, "in Sandgem Beach. It was taken by a young girl about your age, a Ms. Marisol Elaine. I feel these individuals may be connected to this Team CBB."
Now Dawn was really confused. "Not to be rude, Mr.- I mean, Looker, but this is just a photograph. I know these guys look weird, but we don't know anything else about them; shouldn't we have a bit more information before we start trying to collar suspects?"
"That is indeed true," Looker replied. "Normally, a photograph of odd individuals is in no way enough evidence, especially when they were in an entirely different city then the one the attack took place. But! I have a feeling, a very odd feeling when I look at this photograph." He tucked away said photograph and began to pace, lost in his thought process. Dawn followed the agent as his erratic tic took him to the stairwell. "When I first laid eyes on the photo, specifically the young man standing still, my first thought was, "This, this cannot be!". But why would I think that? It was not because of his clothes; I have seen odder, in much odder climes. Nor was it because I recognized him; indeed, you cannot make out any features in the picture. No, I had the distinct sensation that this individual should not exist at all, at least, not in the way he appeared; a feeling of Wrongness, I suppose you could call it. It was unnerving, to say the least. But still, that alone was not enough." He opened the door in front of them automatically, allowing her to go through first, before continuing, "After some digging, I got my hands on a few reports. These reports told of nothing special, merely petty crimes of a sort: loitering, disturbing the peace, assault. What was important, however, was that the description of the person in question all match up: Black male, late teens, in a black longcoat with silver buttons and a metal kasa. It seems to fit the individual in the photo quite nicely- one Chicken Parmesan, please," he said to the serving lady, who nodded before asking for the now entirely bemused teenager for her order. "Same, and a water," she decided with a shrug.
"I would also like a coffee with mine," Looker added. A few minutes later they were seated with their lunches, and Looker continued between bites of his meal, "Thankfully, the last report was not from a witness, but rather an arrest. The name he gave, it did not match anywhere, but it is one he apparently uses, so we will work with it for now: Jasper Ole Wells."
"Jasper Ole Wells…" Dawn said, feeling out the words. "That's unusual."
"Indeed. Jasper is a name more common in the American South, while Ole isn't typically a name at all; it is a word from the Alolan language meaning "Zero" or "Nothingness". Perhaps that says something about his state of mind if he indeed chose that name himself to identify by. Whatever his purpose here, it is apparently over and done with, as he hasn't been seen since." He took a swig of his coffee, waiting for Dawn's response. Finishing her lunch, she frowned. "All this is very interesting, and I'm sure it's important, but I meant to ask before: Looker, why tell me all of this? What can I do with this?"
"Ah yes, I thought you would ask me this question. After all, you are a rookie Trainer new to the wide world. And yet I chose to make you privy to information regarding an ongoing case. Why? The answer is simple: I had another feeling." Seeing the look on her face, he quickly clarified, "Understand me, I do not mean the same feeling! It was quite different, I assure you. This feeling, it told me, "This girl is one you can trust!". It may seem odd to you, but when I have a feeling, I usually follow it, and it often turns out for the best." The agent dumped the remains of his meal and began walking again. Doing the same, she followed him.
I've noticed that I end a lot of my chapters with someone following someone else. Oh well. What to say now? I guess the most important thing is that none of these little plotlines are finished yet; they will be concluded next chapter, which will themselves have mostly different perspectives.
In other news, I'm going to do something different: I will change this story's rating to T. That normally means three things on this site: Hyperviolence, slightly sexual themes (or just romantic themes if it's a gay pairing), and a whole lot of language. But I'm going to do something a SMIDGE different: everything's basically going to be exactly the same, but I'm going to monitor my language a bit more. You won't hear anything stronger than "crap" from this fic, no siree Bob, not even a frick.
But.
But. Once a moon or so, I'm gonna drop a fresh, shiny F-bomb, just to add a bit of emphasis to a character's sentiment, whether dramatic, comedic, or some strange fusion of the two. If you think it's weird that I'm doing this, give it a chance for a few chapters. If it's still not to your liking, just tell me in a review along with any other thoughts on how I might improve the story. That's it for now, so Follow, Favorite, and Review, and, as always, Thanks for reading.