"So how long are you home for this time around?" Carly asked as she dragged over a stool for herself.
"Two more weeks," Maya replied, happily. She kicked her feet and couldn't help but smile at everyone. It wasn't often she got to come home when it was still decent weather out, and definitely not for so long.
"You excited?"
"Yeah. I've never been abroad before, and I've heard Sunyshore is really pretty. Want any souvenirs?"
Carly thoughtfully tapped her drumsticks against her thigh. "Hm."
Behind them, the boys suddenly broke into a slightly off-key rendition of Home. Carly winced; Scott hit a wrong chord on the guitar, and they trailed off with laughter. Ree clapped and goaded them on again.
"Earplugs," Carly deadpanned.
"Should you be saying that about your singers?"
"Yes, since Bryce can't hold those long notes as well as he thinks and since I haven't heard Scott get that part right yet. I hate new songs, they sit there and go over the same goddamned part over and over until..."
"They look like they're having fun, though," Maya observed, craning her neck to see her sister and the two male band members talking excitedly. Ree elbowed her boyfriend and he strummed something out for her. Maya didn't recognize the song she began singing, but it didn't sound quite right. Bryce laughed at her attempt. "I'm glad you guys were playing somewhere while I was back. I haven't heard you at a show in I don't know how long."
"It's been off and on lately, but the past couple months have been good. If you visited more in the summer and fall, maybe you could catch one."
"The nicer weather is when it's best to train. My team doesn't like the cold," she said with a huff.
Carly rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it before. I just know that Scott and Ree both like it when you're around, and I have far fewer headaches when those two are better behaved. And I won't complain if we have another fan in attendance."
"Will you guys be playing Famous tonight?" Maya asked hopefully.
Carly might have smiled. It might have been the lighting, or a twitch, or an actual smile. Maya wasn't sure. "I like doing requests." She slid off of the stool and stretched, turning from the younger girl, and mumbled, "Now where the hell is Daisy?"
Ree and Scott broke into an overly loud and giggle-filled version of Good Feeling and Carly stomped over to cut out the noise. Maya definitely smiled at that. It was nice to be home.
-.-.-
Chapter Twenty-Six: Ree Majors' Wonderful Journey Of Creating Sound Strategies
-.-.-
The first round was a breeze. Not that she was worried or anything, oh no. (A smaller, meaner part of her had the thought, If Harry could do it...) Whippy had handled two of the pokémon with grace, and then Unika had been left to handle a rufflet. The third battle was a little closer, but the type advantage, as well as Uni making for a tiny target, eventually won out. Ree treated them all to a restaurant dinner as a prize, hoping to encourage Harry's budding self-esteem as a trainer as well as hoping that positive reinforcement would work on her own team.
She wasn't sure if she had too large of a meal or if... Ree shook her head and stepped out of the bathroom, pants unbuttoned and only with a bra on top. "Do I look fat to you?" she asked, standing sideways. She ran her fingertips over her stomach, not sure if it was a food baby in there—or an actual one.
Harry, cheeks painted pink, gave her a glance of about two milliseconds and then decided to survey the far wall. "I-I don't know."
"I know it wouldn't be fat," Ree rationalized aloud, and stepped back into the bathroom. She kept the door open and stood in front of the mirror, back up against the wall in order to maximize her view. "I'm not sure if I'm showing yet. I'm not sure if this is showing."
"You, um, started in August, right?"
"My last period was in early July." Ever since Lenore had rewritten her math for her, she had made sure to remember the important dates. July to April.
"Three and a half months, then. That's almost four months—gosh, that's a third of the way done."
"Almost four months," Ree repeated numbly.
"Even if you're a little, oh gosh, rounder, you can still wear shirts! N-No one would notice if you were not h-half naked in front of them," Harry squeaked, aiming to move the conversation along once more. Ree nodded.
They were both scheduled for later rounds the next day, so they took the opportunity to get some shopping done beforehand. Which meant that Ree bought some baggier clothes, Harry spent hours in a fabric store in the yarn aisle, and, finally, Sophia II was obtained. The bat was aluminum, slightly lighter than its predecessor, and fit oh so wonderfully in Ree's hands. Harry asked her not to swing it about, and eventually Ree relented, but it felt great to have something with which she could beat people again.
The guards at the stadium were a little less pleased with Ree's acquisition. "Ma'am, we're afraid weapons aren't allowed here."
"She's not a weapon, she's for self-defense," Ree replied testily. She didn't like being referred to as ma'am instead of miss. Did she suddenly look older in addition to fatter?
"This stadium is already protected. You will have no need of it inside. You may leave it at the desk or return it to wherever you are staying," the guard said, conspicuously placing his gloved hand on the pokeballs on his belt. "If you'd please."
She had enough time and felt just resentful enough to make the trip back to the center to drop Sophia II off. Harry stayed at the stadium, since she had a little less time before hers. Ree stewed during her jog; it was just a bat, honestly, how much trouble did they think she could cause? It wasn't even deadly unless she was aiming for heads or had some time to devote to specific targets...
Pokémon are more dangerous than any human weapon, anyway, she thought as she tucked Sophia II into her bunk. After they won their way through the tournament, and she got a badge from Clay, they'd be free of the city and she could carry the bat around as much as she liked. It would be great.
Her trip took a little more time than she'd anticipated. Harry's battle was already underway by the time she got back in, and she had no time to do more than offer one whoop of encouragement before being ushered down the hall to her own section of the stadium. Her own opponent was a younger boy with a baby face and a frillish floating over his shoulder.
Ree grinned. Being late had its advantages. A water pokémon would be good practice for Unika, too. They took opposite sides of the field and the referee called the start—Ree let out her newest teammate with that same grin, and across from her, the boy released some sort of bug.
Her smile fell off her face. Stupid, of course he wouldn't use it! Must be one of those companion types. Ugh, she thought and grit her teeth. Uni swam back and forth through the air, her little tail undulating and wiggling, taking in all of the people around them. "Just—shit, hold on," she said, digging through her bag for her pokédex. "Uni, just start off with some sparking, okay?"
"Ty!" she squealed happily and let loose a sizable streak of electricity. The bug cried out and curled up into itself, some of its white ruff looking rather charred.
Ree knew Uni couldn't handle attacks like that for long. She was sort of a glass cannon until she evolved, and a very short-lived one at that. At last, Ree found her pokédex and quickly turned it on. As it booted up, the boy commanded, "Use a flame charge!"
"I know that move." That was the move that that damned zebstrika kept trotting out to use against Whippy. "Uni, move! Keep dodging it!"
The bug wasn't terribly fast, but the move gave it speed. And it would continue to, Ree knew. How a bug could learn that move, though... Her pokédex finally gave her the answer: it was a larvesta, and it was bug and fire typed. The boy had probably been expecting a grass pokémon to come out against his frillish. At least she hadn't been that obvious.
Switching out a pokémon would only leave them open, and Whippy and Lala were out of the question, anyway. It wasn't as if Uni was at a disadvantage, anyway...
"Slow it down! We need a stable target to hit!" the boy growled, clearly frustrated. At least Uni was doing a good job at darting all around the arena. Maybe larvesta weren't that well-equipped for longer battles, either. "Switch to a string shot!"
"Don't let it get you!" Pinning her down would only end in her tynamo getting knocked out. They had the advantage while they had movement, although Uni couldn't attack all that much before getting exhausted. Wait, she had a thunder wave attack. That could paralyze the bug and slow it down, perhaps frustrating its trainer enough to recall it or make a stupid mistake, but it would use valuable electricity...
Unika circled around the arena, staying just ahead of the string shot. Several audience members got it on them, to their collective dismay. She slid around the air like it was water, and she didn't have to worry about difficult turns, but her levitational abilities meant she had very little room to go up or down. And it looked like the larvesta was beginning to figure that out.
She tried to nail it with a thunder wave, and managed to once, but it didn't seem to have been enough to actually paralyze it. And her electricity reserves were running low. Ree chewed on her lip, wishing there was a way to boost that. Evolution would help but that was quite a ways away. She hardly had enough spark left for any longer range attacks, and if she got in close it would just find it easier to attack.
Unika cried out as a string shot finally connected to her tail. She flipped around in the air like a fish and tried to swat it off, but it was too sticky. Across the arena, the boy cheered. "Yes! Finally! Now quick, use an ember!"
The larvesta squeaked and not letting go of its end of the webbing, set fire to it. As it turned out, string shot was very flammable. Unika's own squeal was almost too high-pitched for Ree to properly hear and she zapped wildly as the flame raced towards her. "Return!"
The tynamo disappeared just before it caught her. Ree let out a breath and glared at the pokeball in her hand. It'd been a long shot, anyway, but now she had a fiery bug to deal with. Whippy and Lala were out. She had to use Harper.
Harper came out with an awkward flutter, landing on the ground. She stretched, cocking her head as she examined the field. Little wisps of string shot were still burning near the larvesta; the bug shrank back with a a hiss. Its trainer looked just as sour.
She stretched out her wings again, and then took to the air. Ree's heart jumped into her throat as she wobbled a bit, at first. Harper lazily circled as she worked her way upward. By the time their opponent figured out that she was trying to readjust to flying, she was out of the bug's attacking range. Not that it stopped trying, blowing out jets of bright orange fire every time she ventured towards it.
"Okay, harpy, just keep your distance and you should be fine," Ree called. Harper chirped in response. She stayed aloft, at one point perching in the rafters, and sniped with gusts and air cutters. Lenora's gym all over again. Not terribly accurate, but she didn't have to be. Not as if it could hurt her.
The larvesta fainted soon after. Harper squawked, proudly, and allowed herself to gracefully float down to the ground once more. She turned and regarded her trainer over one shoulder, as if telling her how capable she was. How healed she was.
"That's all well and good, but come back anyway," Ree said and held out her hand. Harper squinted at her, briefly, but flapped over and landed on her arm. The chances of her opponent having two fire pokémon was slim, whereas he could easily have an electric one waiting for a bird. Or maybe his frillish knew ice attacks. He glowered at her, and again, he didn't send out his frillish. The blue pokémon just floated behind his shoulder, looking entirely disinterested with the battle.
Ree's heart had to have come up and out her throat when the opponent pokémon looked like an older Mitzi. An evolved Mitzi. Or maybe that feeling was the bottom of her stomach falling out. Or maybe her insides had simply liquefied and didn't know what to do.
Statistically speaking, she knew eventually she'd have to battle a minccino or cinccino. They had, but wild ones. And always from a distance. Harper stepped up onto her shoulder, pressing her wing against Ree's cheek. "Tran."
"I." She had already called Harper back, she had to use another pokémon for this round. She couldn't send out Whippy. "Lala." She moved to return her tranquill to her ball, too, but Harper stubbornly dug her claws into her shoulder. Ree didn't want to fight her.
Lala took one look at the cinccino and turned back to Ree with disbelief on her features. "Whim?"
"Just—do it," she replied, irritated, and waved her back towards the field. Lala rolled her eyes and before anyone could call out an attack, whipped up a tailwind.
Perhaps in hindsight Ree should have realized that using such an attack indoors would have drastically altered how it worked. Or perhaps Lala should have. A breeze started up, to the surprise of some of the audience members, but it was nothing like the gusts that she could have kicked up before. Lala turned and waved her paws again. The breeze scooted her forward but couldn't pick her up. The cinccino gave a small, delicate laugh.
The whimsicott turned on it with a snarl. It should have tipped Ree off when Harper flapped into the air, squawking at her, "Tranquill-quill, tranquill!"
Lala positively growled. Ree's discomfort grew. "Uh, you can try the stun spore trick—"
"Scott!" she snapped. Lala reached around and started grabbing pawfuls of her fluff, pulling it around herself like a coat. The cinccino laughed again and mimicked her, throwing its fur over its shoulder like a boa. Lala didn't react that time and pulled more around herself, sticking her arms through it like it was her sleeves.
"Enough! Start off with a work up before it... finishes!" her opponent called.
Ree had to wonder what Lala would finish. It just looked like she was getting dressed.
The cinccino took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, and then gave a war cry. A very cute one. (Ree stopped herself from wondering if Mitzi would have ever been like that.) Without waiting for further orders, it charged with a surprising speed.
Lala dug her heels in, patted down the fluff against her chest, and swept her arms towards the cinccino. The resulting wind was far stronger than before and her surprised foe couldn't change direction in time. Lala bowled it over and skidded to a halt near the other trainer. She sat back up with a groan, one matched by the cinccino.
"That wasn't a tailwind," Ree said dumbly. Lala patted her fluff back down again, and repeated the move. She was moving much faster than normal, and only in a straight line. And the move appeared to be shredding her fluff, if the trail she was leaving was any indication.
Harper squawked and flapped her wings, nearly cuffing Ree. Lala waved her off as she staggered back to her feet.
"Enough of this! Start digging!"
"Cin!"
Eyes wide, Lala charged at the cinccino again, but it disappeared into the ground in a frenzy of dirt and rock. Lala skidded to a halt near the other trainer, glowering at the hole.
Not a moment later, the cinccino came back up, directly beneath the whimsicott. She screamed and jumped, but the other pokémon managed to get a good hit in nonetheless. And before she could retaliate, it vanished into another hole. Lala windmilled her arms, creating a gentle puff of air that kept her from touching the ground, and she floated gently off to the side of the arena.
Once she touched ground, the cinccino was upon her again, like a krookodile waiting in a sand dune. She snarled and twisted, trying to kick off of it, but it latched on with claws and teeth. A brief scuffle, and then it disappeared again. Lala waved her arms and floated upwards, chest heaving. "...Whim."
"Tranquill!" Harper tweeted suddenly. "Tran-tran!" She flapped into the air, hovering for a moment, and jutted her neck up towards the ceiling.
Lala looked up, and then sighed. "Scott, whimsicott." Before she touched the ground, she pulled her fluff around her, and then shot up towards the rafters. It took some maneuvering and at least one more attack before she latched on.
"Oh, come on!" the other trainer cried in exasperation. "That's cheating!"
"Your cinccino is waiting below the arena, I don't see why we can't be above it!" Ree snapped back. He pursed his lips and didn't complain again. She huffed, and then returned her attention to her pokémon. Lala sat down on the rafter, rubbing her chest. Her expression was difficult to make out from so far away, but Ree could see little splotches of red from her injuries.
The referee shifted, either from nerves or frustration. She couldn't quite tell. Most battles didn't lend themselves to guerrilla warfare very well, least of all ones that were supposed to be for entertainment. The other trainer still had one more pokémon, too, and Ree was hardly the most patient of trainers.
As Lala hopped from rafter to rafter overhead, heading towards a wall, her tailwind still not powerful to do anything more than gently scoot her along, Ree realized how she had been moving so fast earlier. "Gust. Lala, you've been using a gust!" Harper knew the same move; it was the only way she could have created a wind instead of utilizing an existing one. And with the air motionless inside a building, she couldn't afford to idly puff around.
"Quill," Harper answered, sounding pleased.
"And that's why she's been having to shield herself. Oh my god." Those attacks had been hurting her as well. But without an advantage, without something to light her stun spore on fire (why, oh why, had they decided to use that as an actual, reliable strategy?), Lala clearly hadn't wanted to drag out the battle. The more Lala learned and adapted to her new moves, the more it scared her on some sort of basic trainer level. "Lala, just stop that! Snipe with razor leaves or something!" Distance could work to her advantage, too, even if accuracy would suffer. Just like with Harper, and Uni.
But Lala turned her snout up in the air. That much was visible across the distance. She made it to the wall, alighting with a flourish—and then jumped off. She floated downward, twirling in the air to face the wall once more, not much more than a silhouette in front of the far window.
Then she shattered the glass with a flurry of razor-sharp leaves.
The cinccino, who had popped up in order to investigate its missing opponent, squealed and ducked again. But the glass fell harmlessly off to the side; Lala didn't bother messing with it. Instead, with a whirl of her arms, she suddenly had wind to work with. She flew through the air, circling once, then hit another window. She broke it with a cackle and a kick.
By that point the ref had caught wise, shouting for her to stop. Ree shrugged when he turned towards her. "Can't you stop it?!"
"She doesn't like to listen to me. She just wants a bit of a breeze, that's all."
Mercifully, Lala stopped after breaking three windows, and by that point, could fling herself through the air like the most skilled of trapeze artists. And as if reading her trainer's mind, she did a somersault. She danced through the air, arms guiding her movements, and flitted up to the ceiling again. Ree's opponent seemed rather pale all of a sudden.
Harper braced herself up against Ree's head. She only had a moment to wonder at that before Lala plummeted downward with a crack. The two trainers and the referee stumbled back at the blast of wind, Lala disappeared into one of the holes, and the cinccino was thrown out of another. There was a collective dazed moment.
Lala popped up out of the hole and flew at the cinccino before it could scramble back underground. The two tussled, snarling and squeaking, and Ree noticed that her grass pokémon had begun shedding stun spore in addition to damaged pieces of fluff. The fisticuffs didn't last long, though. Lala came out victorious, her fluff patchy and her sides scraped up, grinning madly.
"Intentional damage to the building's structure is not allowed," the referee spat.
"They were just windows. The glass didn't hit anyone."
"You'll pay for the repair cost."
"Fine." Deep down, Ree had known that it'd be unavoidable. But Lala had managed to pull off another stunning victory, and she had demonstrated her knack for thinking in unorthodox ways.
She could feel the heat from her foe's glare from across the arena. Right, they still had one round left. Ree looked between Lala and Harper. Both would benefit from the air movement, though Lala more so. He had already used a fire type and then a normal one. Would he use the frillish or—shit, he knew all three of her pokémon.
Do grass and flying types have any common weaknesses? Ree couldn't remember. Electricity was out, and so was fire. Psychic? No. Definitely not water. The two trainers glared at each other and Lala pattered over to her trainer, seeking further praise. He was clearly aiming to get an advantage over one of them, but which?
Then again, Ree could still use both of them. Lala was a little banged up, but still raring to go, and Harper was in good shape. He only had one pokémon. Even if he got lucky, she could likely overpower him and win.
They released their last-round pokémon. He grimaced; she smirked. It still wasn't the frillish, though, but instead another blue pokémon that Ree immediately recognized: an elgyem. She hadn't thought they were legal for regular trainers to have, but then again, it wasn't like they could ban an entire native species. Maybe it just couldn't teleport?
Harper kept her distance on the field. Ree returned Lala for the moment. She didn't need to get excited all over again, and a little rest in between would help, on the off chance that Harper went down. "Tran?"
"I dunno, it's a psychic. I'm not sure how long of a range it has, though," Ree called back. The psychic pokémon jerked in the air, leaving the ground momentarily, and then turned quizzically back to its trainer.
Without warning, it sent out a wave of bright purple energy. Harper squawked and couldn't avoid it, but she caught herself from falling. She flapped backwards, putting more distance between them and built altitude again. Ree only noticed it because she personally did it, but the other trainer hadn't said anything. Before, he had called out guidelines. He was the one who had told his cinccino to start the guerrilla warfare.
It unleashed another violet attack and Harper dove down under it. She darted in close, beating it about the head with her wings and claws, pecking fiercely at one of its eyes. It squealed, but its arms were too short to do more than knock her tail back and forth. Its trainer stepped forward, hands balled into fists but utterly silent.
The elgyem reared back, glowing with an oily purplish sheen, and then headbutted Harper—but with a glint in her eye, Harper rolled to the side. She hit the ground and threw herself upward at it, sending it sprawling while it was already off balance. "Tranquill!" She perched on its back, just like Whippy would when he was trying to pin something, but she was significantly smaller than him.
It threw her off with another unaimed psybeam. Shaking with rage, the psychic pokémon cloaked itself with more shiny purple, and then advanced on her. Harper glanced back at Ree.
She couldn't decipher that look, or what her bird wanted from her. "Uh, use a gust?" she guessed.
Harper unmistakably rolled her eyes.
Affronted—Harper had always been the nice one, not one of the unruly ones!—Ree scowled and crossed her arms. "Fine then, let's see what you can do on your own!" ...As if she didn't already do that. Maybe she hadn't been looking for feedback? The tranquill was frustratingly taciturn at times.
Harper dropped to the ground and folded in her wings. The elgyem, not a fast pokémon, hobbled forward. She arched her neck and puffed out her chest, strutting off to the side, flicking her tail feathers back and forth in time with her steps. It looked like she was—
She's taunting it! Ree realized. ...And then she was completely unsure of how to take that strategy. Harper obviously had a plan, but pissing off a strong psychic didn't seem like a very good start.
"Quill?" Harper asked, and then faked a yawn. The elgyem actually stomped its foot in its anger.
"Stop letting it get you mad!" And there the other trainer finally broke his silence. He was pacing back and forth at the edge of the field, rivaling his pokémon's anger. Okay, so maybe there was some benefit to Harper's show of a strategy. Ree liked watching pissed off preteens as much as the next girl, and she knew better than anyone that angry people tended to make stupid mistakes.
Wait, he started talking to it. They had to have been talking telepathically, then, but now they weren't. Harper had isolated it, or at least taken away its element of surprise—could the other pokémon battle well without guidance? "Go, harpy! Get it!" Ree called. May as well be supportive.
It lurched forward again with another type of headbutt, and Harper easily flapped out of the way with a mocking caw. She clawed at the back of its head before it turned around. It didn't seem particularly good at defending itself up close, and with how wildly it was firing off psybeams, it hadn't hit Harper in some time.
It was like watching a liepard play with a patrat. Harper mocked, it tried to attack, she saw through the obvious movement, and then attacked while it was off balance. And Ree hadn't thought she could be a close-range fighter. Soon enough, it fell, and even Harper's slight weight was enough to keep it down.
"This round has concluded!" the ref announced and Harper landed back on Ree's shoulder, soaking up her praise with cooing and preening.
"You know, I don't think I give you enough credit sometimes. Though the eye roll was unnecessary."
"Tranquill, tran-tranq quill," Harper said with a sigh. She nestled down into the crook of her neck, even if it was a bit more difficult for her to do since she'd evolved.
"Yeah, I don't get that. Would it kill any of you to let me look like a competent trainer sometimes?"
"Quill!"
"I don't care if it takes others off guard. I'd just like to be in on all of the planning and shit." Ree spotted Harry near the exit, sitting and knitting. She supposed that her battle had gone on awhile. "Hey! Got another win for Team Ree, even if Lala had to turn into a kamikaze battler to manage it."
"Oh, that's... good." The redhead hardly looked up from her knitting. A long scarf in two gray tones, looking to be almost done.
"How'd yours go? You must've been done pretty fast, though I guess mine kind of dragged a bit."
"I. Um." Harry bit her lip and then ducked her head to avoid Ree's gaze. "It was r-really close. We barely won, and Hattie got burned pretty badly..."
Ree's face fell. "But... but you still won, right?"
Harry nodded. "I've already dropped her off with the nurses. She'll be fine, nothing long-term, but they don't want her to battle for a couple days." She finally looked back up at her, mouth quivering, eyes shining. "Oh, Ree, I was just—she's so little! I was really scared, oh my gosh. A-And now, I won't be able to battle tomorrow..."
"Bullshit you can't! Jackster and Shady are fine, aren't they?"
"Y-Yes, but—"
"It's three on three. I can loan you one of mine," Ree said firmly.
"None of them are registered to me, just to you," she replied, voice flat. She wiped at her eyes and looked back down at the scarf draped across her lap. "We both knew going into this that I wasn't going to make it very far..."
"You can still battle! Jackster is strong, he just needs confidence! And Shady—she's a fire pokémon! They're always great offensively. You could still get lucky!" But it was three on three matches, and Harry had already been battling with a team of three unevolved pokémon. Ree at least had four to choose from, and three of hers had already evolved once. "Just try, okay? For me?"
"I don't want to just lose in front of people."
"Put up a fight, then. Let your pokémon battle. Sometimes, even knowing the odds are frustratingly against you... Knowing you're probably gonna lose and battling anyway is the sign of a trainer. Or something." She had meant it to come out inspirational, and then cite her struggles against Elesa as support, but it came out too poorly to salvage.
Harry shrugged and got to her feet, stuffing the scarf and yarn into her bag. "Thank you, Ree, but I'll be okay. Let's just... I-I think Jackster said he was hungry. Shall we go get dinner?"
It was a little early yet, but Ree wasn't going to say no to either hungry pokémon or such a sad Harry. "Fine, may as well milk this for all it's worth."
By making it through the second round, they not only got free food through the end of the month, but had discounts, a t-shirt, and now, a pass for a day at the spa. Neither girl even thought about asking for the alternative (who needed pokémon classes when they could have massages). Ree hoped that Harry would cheer up when they stopped by the table to get their coupons, but she only stowed that in her bag with the same listlessness as before. The taller one grimaced; cheering people up was not her forte. Especially sensitive ones like her companion. Friend. Confidante. Really, they had been through quite a bit together; having a close call shouldn't faze them.
But she supposed that two on three wouldn't be fair. The odds were stacked against her, and they hadn't been ace battlers before, even with Lala's rather evil help. Maybe if she had a zebstrika, a leavanny, and a... whatever Shady would evolve into, but she didn't. And even if Hattie was strong enough to have evolved, she hadn't, because Jackster hadn't...
That damned blitzle. He needs to evolve. There was no way it was simply a matter of being too inexperienced to evolve. Harry had had him for years, and even if they'd taken a break, he was keeping up with the wild pokémon and the few battles Harry let him into. They had won two rounds together! Ree chewed on her lip, allowing Harry to lead them to the restaurant.
If he wouldn't simply evolve and be done with it... He needed a confidence boost, or else a (forcible) nudge. The only times Ree had seen him stand up for himself involved protecting Harry. She could work with that. It wasn't like she wanted to put her in danger, per se, but if she could fake it somehow... Jackster knew her, knew her team. She couldn't stage something herself, it would have to be an outside source. Wild pokémon were too unpredictable, and since he could usually dispatch them without getting too worked up—no, that wouldn't work. He was too strong for that to work. He had to think he needed to evolve to protect her.
Ree did the menu reading dance for her pokémon, since they felt picky and owed a good meal for their hard work, but hardly paid attention to her own meal. Harry was likewise subdued. Hattie was still at the center with the nurses, and would get fed there, and it wasn't like her pokémon were particularly noisy. Quiet, awkward dinner. Ree's thoughts wavered between wondering why Unika had wanted raw fish (that Whippy was trying to steal from her, displeased with his own choice of barbequed something) and trying to come up with some sort of way to scare Jackster into evolving.
Scare...
Halloween was at the end of the month.
Ree set her chin in her hand, stabbed a piece of asparagus, and smiled.
-.-.-
After Ree nearly bullied her into it—to be fair, Ree did feel guilty for it—Harry tried to battle. Jackster won the first round, which had been against a basculin, and really weakened the boldore that followed, but ultimately fainted. Shady didn't stand a chance.
Ree, on the other hand, had a delightfully easy time with her third battle. The poor sap had started off with a palpitoad, which hardly lasted five minutes against Whippy. Then she sent out a sawk that Harper defeated with minimal eye-rolling or taunting. She used Uni for the final round, against an archen, but ended up frantically switching for Whippy when its rock throws got a little dense.
And Ree learned that archen couldn't fly. They were her new favorite bird enemy.
Since they no longer had to wait for two battles to finish, and since Ree's battle the day after would be an early one, they decided to take their free trip to the spa afterward. Ree wasn't worried about losing the fourth round. Unika was getting the hang of making the most of her limited supply of electricity, and Lala was in top form. Harper was getting back into the swing of things, too. She felt a little bad for not using her starter more, but when she needed a grass advantage, Lala was a good choice and a little more versatile. If Whippy had noticed that he wasn't being used very often, he didn't mention it.
That night, however, Ree had a nightmare. Her dreams had been pretty quiet (surprisingly) since Mitzi had died. She should have known it had been too good to last. It started out normally enough, involving a warped battle of her team versus Scott's, until suddenly Yorick turned into a heatmor and set Lala on fire. And then Lala became Mitzi, and Whippy got eaten by a dragon, and Ree herself was eaten by a giant shadow.
And then a woobat flapped calmly into her black dream and perched on the non-existent floor in front of her. "State your name for our lord," it told her.
Shaking, Ree stammered out, "M-Miss Mitzi Whiplash."
The woobat scowled and cut a hole into the shadow's stomach. They both tumbled out. Ree landed on her hip; the woobat took to the bright violet sky. Ree vomited out red, red like Mitzi's copper smell and red like food dye. The woobat huffed. "This isn't her. I'm moving on."
Ree woke up with the very real urge to throw up. She scrambled out of bed and didn't even bother to turn on the bathroom light. She had taken no bad dreams and no morning (which still didn't confine itself only to her mornings) sickness for granted. Stomach emptied, tiredness setting back in, Ree Majors closed her eyes. She was glad it wasn't red.
"Ree? A-Are you okay?"
"Shit, did I wake you?" She didn't raise her head from the toilet seat. She still felt a little queasy.
"No, I woke up on my own. Had a bad dream." Harry came in and sat beside her, rubbing her back. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired and sick," she sighed in reply. Then, Harry's words caught back up with her. "Bad dream?"
"Nothing too bad, just strange. Do you want a glass of water?"
Ree nodded. She sipped at the water until Harry fell back asleep, and then quietly slipped out. She had Whippy's pokeball in her hand, but figured she wouldn't need him.
Sure enough, there were a couple of other sleepy trainers in the lobby. One older than her, one about her age, and then three younger ones. One of them couldn't have been older than ten or eleven. Ree did a double-take when she realized that one of the trainers was her opponent from round two, his frillish still floating beside him. He did a double-take, too, and then scowled when he recognized her. She scowled right back.
"You had a nightmare, too, right?" the eldest asked, looking up from his spot on the couch. Ree nodded tightly. "The nurse is in the back checking the doors right now. No one else has come in through the front ones for a couple hours. Whoever did it either snuck in, or has been here the entire time."
"The nightmares came from inside the house," one of the kids said and then giggled nervously. Ree's opponent glared at her.
Maya had a reuniclus, and more than once she had used him to convey messages in dreams, or in one case, gather blackmail on her sister. Psychic dreams felt weirder, but it was a weird Ree could recognize. They also tended to linger longer after the fact; normally, she was terrible at remembering the details of her dreams.
"What's your guess?" the eldest trainer asked brightly. He had a bit of a northern accent. Ree sat down on the couch beside him, setting Whippy's pokeball in her lap. "We're placing bets on psychic or ghost."
"I really like how absolutely no one is questioning what went on here," Ree's opponent said dryly.
"You have a ghost, you know what's up," the youngest of their group piped up. He sat down on the floor near the desk, and then yawned.
"He's right. Other trainers would just dismiss it if they didn't realize that a pokémon was haunting them."
"What if it was some sort of hype for that abandoned place?"
"What? That's completely tasteless, and it's just a joke for Halloween."
"What if it really is haunted and its ghosts wanted to come drag us there?"
"A psychic did it," Ree interrupted. "I saw a woobat in my dream."
"It was a talking paper girafarig in mine. That was almost as surprising as the drowning bit."
"That's why I said a ghost did it," frillish kid said, "because ghosts bring nightmares with them. A good psychic is more delicate about it."
"Or maybe it didn't care."
"Maybe it wanted to be mean. I've heard of trainers doing it to one another to psych each other out, and we are in the middle of a tournament."
"But not all of us are still active in the tournament," Ree said with a snicker. Frillish kid shot her another nasty look.
At that point, the nurse came back. She looked haggard and had her hair down, as if she had been woken up herself. "All of the doors are locked, and they have been the entire night. None of my nurse pokémon have seen anything, so I'm afraid that whoever did this did not break in to do so."
"Isn't there some way to track this?"
"Not unless an aware psychic or ghost happened to notice it."
All eyes turned towards the boy with the ghost. He flushed and shook his head. "Not mine—he was asleep in his ball. Couldn't tell me anything by the time I woke him up."
"What about your psychic?" Ree spat.
"Also in his ball. I sleep with all my pokémon like that," he replied venomously. "And he's not even good at dream stuff, anyway."
"I'll have security look through the tapes," the nurse sighed, interrupting the glaring match. "And I will put out a bulletin tomorrow asking if anyone has any information on it. I'm sorry, but there's simply not much else we can do. Especially if it affected so few of you."
Grumbling and yawning, most of the trainers departed back to their rooms. Ree trailed after the older boy, until he fell into step beside her. "...I think it was looking for someone, but I didn't want to bring it up."
"Yeah, I think so, too."
"I don't want to be whoever they're looking for, not if they're willing to risk searching half a pokémon center to find them."
"Yeah... Well, goodnight." Ree awkwardly watched him leave before heading to her room. She didn't exactly want to get buddy-buddy with unknown trainers—regardless of how charming their accents were—when there was a psychic roaming around. Harry was still asleep, and she didn't know what it was. No reason to worry her.
The next day dawned with some good luck. While a tougher battle (and while ungodly early in the morning), Ree won another round, and the girls were free to spend the day getting pampered. Better yet, so were their pokémon. Hattie was on the mend, and their teams were ecstatic at the surprise spa trip. Harry seemed to be in a much better mood and it was easy to forget about sabotage and tournaments when they could stretch out in heated mineral water.
Whippy decided to get a manicure with them, and no matter how much they giggled, he seemed pleased with his ruby-colored claws. Lala spent most of her time getting her fluff taken care of, which apparently required two trained workers and three hours. At least she didn't look so uneven or shaggy when she was done.
Unika and Harper both stuck close to Ree. The strange place seemed to make the tynamo a little nervous. Ree had to wonder if it was an electric thing or not; Jackster could only be lured away from Harry's side with the promise of a coat brushing and mane trim alongside a very pretty pokémon called a rapidash, that belonged to the spa's owner. Harper politely declined all treatments offered her except for a quick dunk in the mineral water with the girls. She spent most of the rest of her time preening herself, Unika snuggled tightly up against her side. It was cute, if unexpected.
The girls and their pokémon returned from the spa happy and glowing. Whippy's scales positively shined, and even Jackster couldn't help but show off his lustrous coat. Ree sighed happily and looked at her painted nails. Even though bottles of nail polish had made it into her backpack, she'd never had the time to use them. "It feels so nice to be pretty again."
"You're always pretty, Ree—I-I mean, um, y-you look... nice."
"Thank you. We should do this again sometime."
"We already used our coupons..."
"And we're nice and girly for now. I mean in like, a couple months or some shit. After we're grimy and rough and tough and whatever again."
Turning a corner, Harry nearly ran into someone. Ree yanked her back just in time, but still the redhead blushed and stammered away. "I-I'm sorry! I wasn't—"
"Get lost," snapped the young woman, who had a teenage boy pinned against a brick wall in front of them. Well. That was something that was not often seen. She had to be in her mid twenties, and he looked to be just older than Harry. Not quite a fair fight.
"Uh, what's going on here?" Ree didn't have Sophia II with her, but they both had their full teams. And as much as she personally liked assault charges, she didn't like seeing them happen in front of her.
"This little shit just tried to steal my pokémon. So really, I am not in the mood for this right now," the auburn-haired woman grunted, and pushed him harder against the wall. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead just cried out in pain.
"Let go, let go, I didn't—Ow!"
Pokémon theft was a big deal. But... "Where's your pokémon?"
The woman rolled her eyes so hard Ree could have sworn she felt it. "I returned it. Now will you two kindly keep walking?"
"Do you want us to call the police?" Harry, bless her kind soul, asked timidly.
"I'll take this fucker in myself!" the woman barked. She shook her hair out of her eyes, and Ree noticed that she had something shiny in her hair. A circlet. Rich? No wonder she was protective of her pokémon—well, no, every trainer should be protective of their pokémon.
"C'mon, Harry, let's go."
"But she's—"
"The police station is that way," Ree said pointedly, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "Just start him walking that way or we will call the cops."
The boy against the wall gave another whine. "Please, I didn't—"
"Shut up." The woman turned to Ree, eyes narrowed. "Fine. I'll see justice done the proper way."
She pulled him back, arm still twisted behind him, and started him marching. "I didn't do anything wrong! I didn't do this!"
Ree watched them go, unnerved. She wasn't too bad of a fighter, but she hadn't wanted to get in the middle of that. At least the police could contain it, whatever happened.
"That felt... off," Harry said once they were out of earshot.
"Yeah. But I wasn't going to start shit in the middle of a city, and certainly without my Sophia. Come on, let's head back. The sooner I have her in my beautiful, manicured hands again, the better I'll feel!" Ree kissed her nails for good measure.
They went out again for dinner—and once again, her team insisted on trying to mix it up—since they may as well take advantage of their free food. Ree sighed wistfully at their drink menu. Pokémon training in cities would have been so much more fun if she could get drunk. Could pokémon get drunk? ...She decided against trying, just in case.
"I heard some of the kids in the pokémon center talking about Halloween parties that the city government sponsors. Apparently they're a big deal," Harry said conversationally. As if Ree needed more ha-ha-you-can't-drink in her life.
"I think I saw a poster or something for it," she replied, poking at her food. Whippy, despite ordering fish, was trying to steal Lala's meal that night. She hoped he wasn't acting out or something.
"There's a big one that allows pokémon, it's held in a warehouse across town. Costumes are encouraged," she continued.
Costume parties were definitely up Ree's alley. But they were also more fun with alcohol involved. ...Then again, pokémon could be a fun thing to throw into the mix. "...Can you dress up pokémon?"
"I don't see why not. I-I think it would be fun to go," Harry admitted with a shy smile. "I can talk Jackster into it, and I think—I hope—once he sees that the other pokémon aren't there to battle, he'll be okay with it. Shady could be something cute, oh gosh, and Lala could do cute things, too!"
Lala looked up at the mention of her name in reference to cute. "Scott."
"Halloween is next week. Kind of short term for a bunch of costumes..." But it would be fun. They had the time to burn since a winter storm was forecast near Mistralton. Ree was going to grab Clay's badge, cut her losses, and head south for the winter.
"They're even setting up haunted houses and trick or treating for trainers and their pokémon." Harry kept talking, describing the party in question, but Ree stopped listening at 'haunted house'.
Scare him into it! I can scare Jackster into it, literally! Halloween would be a perfect time to get him good and spooked, and all it would take is one little 'accident'... Lala could seek out some large pokémon to lure in, or Ree could talk to another trainer and see if they could get a pokémon to volunteer... Something could just jump out, or if they were in a haunted house, they could pretend to attack Harry and if Ree happened not to be there to protect her, surely he would—
"—and Jackster really loves caramel apples. I bet Whippy would, too."
"Uh, yeah. He would. Just so long as he brushes his teeth afterward. Let's do this."
-.-.-
Next Chapter: Ree has a plan! The tournament draws to a close, and Ree hardly pays attention to how difficult the later rounds are getting. It's so much easier to plot against her friend. Of course, with all the weirdness going on, it can never be that easy.