Part 7.5: The Crossblade
Chapter 55: To Doubt Oneself
On the DA version, this arc is still called The Grove. We follow Rayse for a while now, and the focus is different than before, so I figure it's earned its place with a ".5' mark.
There's some really gnarly stuff happening in Autumnridge. Like dank stuff. Let's see how Rayse handles it.
I don't own Pokémon.
Rayse
Outside the Grove
Even now, that shredding, burning, melting in me – it never left me alone. Stupid Crossblade.
...
"Just one thing at a time." I told myself, watching the dirt, speckles of it somewhere close moving, like there were insects crawling around, exploring their home, wondering why it was so chilly outside. Poor little black buggy-boogers. They had no idea what was going on with their world. It was always so much bigger than them.
I put one red paw forward, all my pretty blue fur drained away and wrung out for a brownish red, thinner kind of fur. It wasn't a nice color at all, and it was growing all over me – on my other three legs, my tail, my ears, and even my ribbons – but gosh, my ribbons were getting it so bad. At least, the ones tied up to the bow tie on my chest didn't look great. They weren't flat anymore. They were all thick and drippy at the ends – they even... g-gurgled, sometimes. It was like the bubbling feeling I got in my belly. Something inside of me gargled on warm, thick and sticky liquid. Every time I swallowed, I felt my saliva go somewhere, instead of just disappear into a big complicated cloud of Gamma magic. My spit went down a tube, then to another tube, then some other tube. I had tubes all up in me, attached even to my ribbons. Unlike before all this mess, I didn't ever have 'em, but now that I was part of the Red family, I had so many more organs in me than I knew what to do with.
Even on my forehead, a big and shiny red eye showed up and started making me see more things. Not bad things! The eye was my friend and helped me make more sense of this confuzzled place. I could see further, more depth, more shadows and colors and stuff, like I was living in a more vibrant, glistening world! 'Cept, a lot of that glisten came from the broken sun, reflecting off frozen water and dew on dying leaves, stinky mud, chilled spider webs, and the slick surface of my fur.
I was pacing now, I think. Was that what it was when you walked one way, then walked another because that last way didn't have an answer, but then you walked another way because that second way didn't have an answer? So funny. I was supposed to be a super-powerful, smart Gamma being girl, but I only thought about two directions. That way, this way, gee. I tried to keep my head high, the fabric of my hood tickling my little floofy hairs on my head. I did it for Brother, Alli, Secany, and that place I've been doing a poopy job of protecting: the Grove. When I looked on, I saw dead trees and dirt, a path between the trees bending off to another part of the cold, red forest. It didn't look any different behind me, either.
"Huu, I miss when I could phase through things like a ghost," I moaned to myself, my three eyes picking apart the thickest, showing me just how thick they were and how fun it would've been to warp through 'em. N'aww... "I'll get all chopped up if I tried to do that now, but that's what we get for playing a game we don't know the rules to. Maaaan."
My juicy ribbon-things fell to the ground around me. I breathed in the scent of drying leaves and fresh water through my mouth, my nose, and some other hole somewhere that I wasn't sure I had. It tasted and smelled the same down there, too. It was a little nasty, but if I didn't pretend like I was okay with it, surely it would've turned so, so much nastier. Still though, even on a planet I remembered so few things about, the smell of the wilds was on point, just like it was back at home. I wasn't sure if being a Flux should've brought me closer to the wild or set me further away.
"But still..." I cooed, the frightful chill shocking my black, tarry tears dry. "I wonder if Brudder Aza can fix all of this. Can he make a new Vay? Can he make a new me?" I promise ya. We'll come marching in with the cavalry!
And what'll happen to Jirachi and our Crossblade if I get... reborn, again? Oh, Brudder, we really gotta get you out of the Paradox soon, but if anything goes wrong in there, then we're all done for. We might as well have never come to Earth.
"Hummm." I voiced, tongue flicking at my fangs. It sure felt like they got longer since I last, uh, licked them? Wasn't something I did normally, so gee me, they DID get longer. What was I gonna use that for?! My attack stat was, like, laughable. OOH! Did they look cute though? I'll've bet they looked cute. Er, maybe 'Flux' and 'cute' didn't go together as well as I wanted them to. Then again, Cruce was kind of a wittle baboo snookums-booboo. The best part was that I couldn't sniff out that little Flux sandwich's gender. Cruce would'a made a GREAT carny! Buuut, things might've been too serious right now for that.
I stopped thinking about that 'cause there was something funny going on with the ground. I looked at it for a couple seconds before, with all the little buggies buggering around. My paw pads felt something. My third eye saw something. Vibrations, soily ripples, teensy pebbles flung all over. Those insects started working their stick-legs like their lives depended on it.
But that was it! A couple seconds of shaky ground, then all there was left was a Fluxed sylveon with her nose pointed down at the dirt like it just spoke to her! Wacky. Was it a baby earthquake?
Footsteps, then a flash of white and yellow by me.
"Hi Rayse." our shy, sometimes-absent-minded Jirachi flew by me, one of her flowing yellow bands brushing my side. The Crossblade's acid smell burnt the inside of my nose. It was always there, but it burnt louder whenever Jirachi was near. It burnt so bright when I held her in my ribbons that one time. To think I wanted to hurt Jira when she was being told to do things that she didn't want to do. I coudn't afford to feel bad about it now, but I did wonder... Jirachi and her friend were trying to find Sera so that they could get something out of Delta Meadow. Patty said it was Jirachi's memory. Why though?
"Hiya Jira!" I interrupted my thoughts. But Jirachi's part of me this time. Didi's here, too, but I can't help but feel like something is stinky. Rayse? Sera? I AM Rayse. No questions peeped! But where did Sera come from? Did it really come from Luna-Laza? And if Luna made a different name for me and all the other eevees... ...how come the mythical Champions never got one?
Jira and all the other mythicals work just like us eevee-butts. The more of our Gamma we sprinkle over Earth, the more Earth reminds us of ourselves! At least, that's the 'SHOULD' out of all of this.
"Well, I've written down everything for now," our mutant mudkip came from around me, holding a gray pencil between two fingers and a polka-dotted sketchbook in the other hand. She looked so sporty, like she was ready to go on a journalism adventure, geared up with a leather pouch hanging by her waist, strapped over the opposite shoulder. She tapped the eraser end of the pencil against her round chin. "We're to find Charley – I have 'Mari' in parentheses. Anyone else we come across, like Secany or – well, here I wrote that it's up to Rayse."
"That's 'kay 'kay, one thing at a time," I repeated for her. She blinked, smiled, and looked straight on to me. "Your notebook's handy! It'll help us if we ever need to save the game. I think there's three save files, so if we come across a big game-changing choice, let's save over a different file!"
"Are you a big gamer?" Patty simply asked, grinning, her cute spiky orange cheeks raising.
"Mmmm~!" I hummed, stood on three legs, and put a front paw up to my lips, tilting my head~.
I did like games! But I sure didn't like the game Sissany was playing with me. Same thing about Vay!
Still though, sheeeeesh... Secany, you owe me an explanation. A BIG one. With... exclamation marks and... colons. I think I have more than one colon inside of me, too... Wait, what's a colon again?
"I think she forgets," Jira said under her breath. "But we'll remember what we need to. I've got faith in us! We're a new team now, aren't we?"
"It's where we're at," Patty nodded, tossing the pencil over her head and catching it with the notebook, chomping it shut in one hand all coolly! "I'll be depending on you two. I'm useless out there."
"Psshhh," I hissed (I think?), waving my paw at the 'kip. "You have zest and spunk, aaaand you're a fish."
"Wh—I'm a fi-?"
"So don't get all floppy on us, o'tay?" I spoke up over her. "Jira believes you got game. I think you got game! That's two games! You'll score big, Patty."
"S-sorry, Pat, Rayse is a little..." Jira hesitated. I giggled and bunny-hopped to the side, standing next to her now. She backed away and blinked.
"Weeeeird~," I sang. "It's okay. I'm like a bank! If you wanna make an enthusiasm withdrawal, just consult with your nearest Rayse."
"How far do investments go in Rayse?" Patty asked. I spun around with my tongue already stuck out, then slurped it in through my fangs and froze.
"Thuh... uh..." I stopped, then recovered my posture, stood up straight, and cleared my throat. I smiled, 'cause I didn't know anything about bank talk, really! "I-I give freebies."
"Oohoo?" Patty did a little giggle with a tilt of her head, then she raised a brow. Cutest laugh EVER, too. "Are you sure you used to be Zatch? Not... Emelina? Mmm no, I suppose that wouldn't really make that much sense."
I swallowed my thrill to the sound of that name again. It was important for Alli, too.
"Hrmm, if Rayse wasn't Zatch, that would invalidate a lot of things about me, too. Uhm, I think so, at least, but..." Jira paused, floating closer, putting the three of us huddled together, all facing inward. "It's like what Rayse and Diancie said. I wanna be a good Champion, so... if I can learn about your life a little more, Patty, that'd be lovely."
"Uh? I-I'll..." Patty closed her mouth, found her composure, and breathed out, rubbing the back of her head until her hand met the tall fin atop her head. She stopped it there and looked at Jira, then myself, then back at Jira with grayish blue eyes. "Okay. Care to be on our way while we talk? I'd hate to make Alli wait and... not talk, yeah?"
"True, true. Well girls, time to play heroine. Onward~!" I addressed them.
We went all about-face and – wait, no, I started going the wrong way. I made a silly mouth fart noise and turned around, catching back up to Pat and Jira, THEN we went on our way, while our upstanding mudkip filled in all the details about the Circle that I missed with Alli. The things she talked about were more somber and harder to keep quiet around – for me. I guess Patty must've not had the best life, and neither did Emelina, and that was how they came together. From Alli's perspective, everything seemed so much brighter, until she got a little too angry, and then I had to step in and give her snoogles and tell her it was okay. She always got better when I did that, but I had a feeling that Patty was so much less... fulfilled, then Alli. Alli got her foot out the front door (then lost it because skywisps didn't have feet), but Pat barely got a chance to step outside. All she ever did was peek through the blinds of her window, then return to her writing. Prose, haikus, verse – If I had to live a life like that, I would've exploded in a big pool of sloppy, glittery goop.
Listening to how Emelina and the Circle put a smile on Patty's face and trouble her lungs with laughter, I began to feel doubt bubble up inside of me. I shared this subject with Cadi once or twice. She said I had nothing to worry about. Even Didi said I nothing to worry about.
Nah-ah. I don't believe that anymore. I may not be happy about Rinavay, but I think he feels this doubt, too. If every other negative feeling was taken from us right now except for that doubt, I... I think our Flux mutation would be going on just as fast. Things SHOULD be starting to look better! It's a great big step forward. But it still stands to reason that Gamma took every chance that these people had for a decent human life away. It makes me want to put smiles on their faces, then tell 'em to look high and accept their lives as Pokémon or Hypereals or... whatever they are! Yet, I can't. I can't be the same Rayse for everybody, because I'm a Flux, because I have this Crossblade, and all us Champions aren't together. I know you accepted me, Zatch. I don't want to let you down. I know Luna put me inside of you to begin with and you bloomed into me, but I'm like already withering now. You and I are... withering... I think that anybody who tries to change another person this way
No...? Should I be... thinking that way...?
"Um... Rayse!" said a person. A person? Jirachi. Jira said it. Her voice was far off – not too far off. It was up ahead.
I had stopped. When did I stop? I was looking up into the branches, their arms tethered together by twigs, frozen leaves, webs and greening mistletoe. My cheeks were stiff, my chin wet with drool, and my eyes heavy with the oily substance beneath their lids. All three eyes were hot. My legs were stiff, the red taint on my fur more moist than I remembered. It was all warm. None of it felt cold. My whole body was thinking. It needed to think this way. It was the only way I could... find warmth.
I shook my head, shook it again, then shook it yet again, the bow on my head letting out its ribbons, dripping with dark red fluid like the ones bound to my chest. But I was back in the game. An indiscriminate chill wavered over my back and reminded my spine that I should've been walking, reminded my throat that I had a friend to help, and reminded my eyes that they had... an accent... that nobody else here could understand.
"S-sorry! I'm coming! I had to... I-I'm sorry." I told them. I might've been crying. I didn't want to be a bad egg. I was doing okay. I wasn't a Flux. I wasn't Red. I shook away the stiffness in my bones and forced a sprint up to my old friend and my new friend. I tripped a little, one leg seizing up when I remembered the Crossblade was there, too. I yelped, pulled it from the dirt, and scrambled up to them, the color drained from my face.
Or was I... being tripped up by the ground again? Was it that trembling from earlier?
I could've sworn I heard laughter coming from the ground.
It must have just been me.
…
Fluxed Stretch
On our way, we passed by those same broken roads and boulevards where Jirachi and I had encountered each other. Where... everybody encountered each other. It shocked me to think that the showdown between us had only happened a few hours ago, or so I thought. I wasn't great at counting the time anymore. I would'a hoped nobody was. Maybe a whole day passed by since we last fought. But still, that was such a short amount of time for all of this Flux to invade.
It wasn't just me. The cracks in the streets were running with red liquid, like vegetation had torn networks of valleys in them, leaving behind veins for the bright fluid to run through. Not to mention the air was so greasy with the scent of blood. Mixed blood – like EVERYONE'S blood. Clusters of leathery substance cluttered the asphalt in certain sections, filling in potholes with pulsating vents of bright pink goop.
"Gosh, you guys..." I said to the two. They were taking it all in, too.
"I know. This is why nobody leaves the Grove, isn't it?" Patty asked.
"I'd like to think it would be. Oh, look at that." Jira pointed on, full arm gesturing to a grouping of overturned vehicles that were crawling with yellowish, pumping tubes. Looking closer, the tubes were animated from within, something flowing, wholly one with the material as though it was organic. Veins sprouted from the pipes at particular joints, giving them extra security so that they could do what they needed to.
"It's brighter outside now," Patty observed and covered her face as she looked to the red sky. "Not bright enough to be called day, but... I suppose bright enough for us to see what we might've missed before I purged all of the clouds away."
I couldn't believe this, I thought. All of this blight was here the whole time, covering over this town? It was in the trees, fleshy tissue blanketing over segments of houses... I walked forward and met with a ledge, from which warm, noxious steam rose. I was standing right in front of a lip – a layer of shining red skin folding over the ledge and dipping into a pit where a pool of bright yellow liquid broiled, the heat of the putrid acid... somehow pleasant to my eyes and my cheeks. The crevice of yellow acid was lain out for meters, until dipping into a drainage canal. Loose tendrils lined with thorns and vestigial cords, sometimes maws and dripping tongues, littered the plant life, creating bigger branches just so they had somewhere to grow onto.
And it wouldn't have been complete without the evidence of Pokémon, Hypereal, or human life here mixing in. There were indentations of small Pokémon that had been blended – no, digested into some of the tissue clumps, some of their... many eyes, still watching back. They were speaking, but I couldn't hear their voices with my ears. I averted my gaze every time I met with a pair or cluster of eyes.
"No doubt," I shuddered. "That this wasn't here before. Flux is spreading so, so much faster right now. There's no way somebody can survive out here for long without being... influenced. S-Secany, where've you gone?"
"This is GROSS!" Jira exclaimed, wincing away from a dribble of indistinguishable black liquid from above. "At this rate, are you sure we can even fight back?"
"We got no choice," I sulked, backing away from the stomach acid pool. "All that doubt will get to us faster. Jira, even you won't stand a chance against Flux if you don't believe in yourself. I can't have you ending up like me."
I felt my eyes itch, my cheeks burn sticky, and my belly bloat like I'd sucked in way too much air. I blew out, but I still felt distended. When I looked down at myself, everything was just fine, so I didn't understand. Maybe something inside of me was getting a little crazy. Well... W-well that was okay. I turned around, oddly taut-full and tingling, but with enough strength of heart to make my way.
I wanted to tell them something, and I had a teensy suspicion they wanted to say something right back, but a thump caught our ear. Then another. And another. The thumps picked up in pace, until they created a really thick, viscous beat. Something joined the beat, shaking the insides of my ears, my skull, and vibrating the ground beneath my feet. A bassline? It was smooth, had no breaks in between each beat, and soon lowered itself in volume. It was near, but still playing enough of a distance for the reverb to bounce off of surfaces and lift the noise nicely into the air, make it really mingle with the FX and draw out hardstyle kick it followed to.
Huh? What was I talking about?
"Where's that coming from?" Patty asked, searching for the source of the noise. Jira was on the move, flying high to net the sounds a little bit better. We were standing next to a sizzly acid pit and a wall of vehicles, so the best thing that we could do was to get high. I hopped over the trunk-end of a, er, kinda clean vehicle, jumped onto its hood, then put my head to the air. The beats and the bass were coming from a house on the other end of the street, so it was super close by. Great! Somebody had even left the front door open for us!
And it was Zatch's house. I should'a figured I would've run into it here, but I didn't really want to stop by and remember the boy I invaded and took over because Brother told me to. I-I may have saved his life, but I...
"That house over there. Should we investigate?" Jira asked.
"Hold on! I'll need my notebook." said our mudkip somewhere, fumbling around in her pouch beneath the vehicle I was on. Hopefully she could get up and around alright. I checked back for her, but by the time I did that, I heard her and Jira talking, heading to the rustic, trash-coated lawn of my human home.
I just... watched them, for a little bit, letting the droning music win me over. My discombobulated, run-down, useless house with signs of Flux growing over its roof in long, glowing veiny strands, the garage door busted in with a train of cars attached by more Flux, some windows shattered, and nothing much left of that silly flamingo ornament with the sunglasses. Both screen and wooden door weren't even on their hinges anymore. Heck, there wasn't much left of a front entryway.
I lived there once. I turned into a pikachu there with my brother and my sister, raichu and pichu, then we all had a little party, and it was chill. Somebody ordered pizza. We made tunes. We could still do it, even as Pokémon. Who was there with us? Wasn't Topher there?
Nostalgia rumbled me to the rhythm of the beat. I was even moving my head to the tempo, bobbing to each beat like I was the one in control of where the track went, how one third of the studio looked. Zack did the vocals, Zeldster did her insane melodies, and I just kept it all together...
...had some good parents...
...got some good grades...
...made some good friends...
...even weirder love life...
...and I got by.
My front paws hit the road, then back paws. I stood up straight, walking off my aching gut to the music and the off-beat slaps of my feet against wet, tainted ground. Jira and Patty waited for me at the door, the mudkip's pencil scratching against paper, while the little floaty mythical girl had some obvious concerns wringing up her yellow drapery.
"My house...? Zatch Hummings?" she said over the synthless tune. She turned to me.
"I can't believe I'm saying this," I said. "But this is the WRONG time to be having a party at my—er, our house."
"Indeed," Patty hummed. "The weather is terrible."
"Tell me about it." I groaned.
"I would, but we haven't even developed nomenclature for weather this bad, though I'd propose 'nightmare-scape' to meteorologists." the mudkip mused, but nobody was laughing. She didn't deliver the comment hoping anybody would get a chuckle out of it. She was just weird that way. I liked weird people. They were the best. But she didn't even understand Flux enough to 'get real' about it. Maybe that was for the better.
"Mm, yeah," I agreed with her. The music began to soften, gain drifting low, like whoever was in there had heard out voices. "Mmph, I hope its Zack."
"Za-... Zack? Do you think it could be?" Jira asked.
"I don't know, those kicks sound like something of his! C'mon! Our studio's by the kitchen." I told them, passing the two girls by and stepping into the surprisingly Flux free house. The building was being hugged by it, but the interior hadn't been infected, so I had some solace to cling to. Good stuff! If I ever wanted a place to go and hide, this one was perfect for me. The walls were dusty and the floors were messy, but only the outside was Fluxy. So it was just like me, right?
Of course not...
The bass stopped, then the beats soon after. There was no noise anymore, other than a pounding echo in my head of what the rhythm used to be. It was all gone, I thought. Obvs, the studio had been opened this whole time, the glass door left open with a fallen chair keeping it in place, taken from the amber-wood family table set up so nicely in the center of a kitchen much too large for it. Everything had been ransacked, from the fridge to the cabinets and even the dishwasher, of all places. A distinct scent of fresh upholstery hovered around the living room and kitchen, drifting like gnats caught in the red glare. The feng shui of the interior was still evident, sofas in the corners of the living room, and it didn't do to well under bloody sunshine and a roof of yuckiness. I wondered if Jirachi felt the same way that I did.
Or maybe we had no time to get all senti-menty, because the spoops were way too real now! Like, c'mon, maybe we wanted to listen to those sick beats, er, yo? Looking on through the glass, piled around by fallen soundproofing, all of the electrical equipment was there: stands, turntables, Zack's guitars, record shelves, surround sound – it was lit up, too, like someone had just invited him or herself in and made a bunch'a noise happen. But they were being invisible, so silence wafted from the open studio door like a really rotten smell.
"Oh, do you think..." Jira started with a breathless little gasp.
"Hm?" Patty mumbled.
"Patty! I think Zeldster's here!" she said.
"Wat," I buzzed. "Zelda?"
It wasn't totally out of the question. Was it? If she really did turn into a ghost-type like Jira and Pat said, it might've made sense. But wait, those beats weren't hers. She never liked playing with bass, either.
"It can't be Zelda..." I said.
"Mm, I've my own doubts, Jirachi," said our mudkip. "That room's full of blinking lights, and Zelda claimed she had a very profound hatred for the light."
They didn't ever tell me what kind of ghost Zelda turned into. All I knew was that she didn't like the light and still looked like a pichu, which narrowed stuff down a bunch, but there were a handful of ghosts that could make things look like other things, on TOP of not being too buddy-buddy with the light.
"Maybe you're right," Jira mumbled. "It'd make more sense if she was still underground with that Allen guy, too."
"Hrrmmm..." I grumbled. "She better not have the Crossblade. Does that even work the same way as it would for non-ghosts?"
"I wouldn't venture so if it is anything like the Flux. After all, from what I can deduce, Flux requires that you have some form of body." Pat inferred, and boy-oh-boy, what a smarty! If only everyone caught on so quickly, none of us would have to spent so much time with poor literature tactics like exposition and plot devices. Or something.
"Sounds like what Delta Meadow talked about." said Jira.
I started for the studio, squeezing by the chair. When I entered, I had to step around a bunch'a cables. There were a couple overturned stools that I remembered having to use when I was a pikachu, too short to reach the board. Even still, walking around in this convoluted body, I remembered the glass-encased studio from when I was human. The ceiling looked a lot higher and the electronics taller. Melodies played themselves in my memory. They'd burned a place into me deeper than where any amount of Gamma could reach. It was something else to think that, even after Zatch had become Rayse, it really wasn't all that big of a change. Everything that Zatch did was still somewhere in the universe, because, in the universe, there was Gamma, and I had turned Zatch into Gamma, so his music, too, had some of that super special Gamma.
I stared to the corner of the room, where Zack's acoustic guitar was placed crookedly on its stand, by a case for his electric one. Another mic stand was there, too. A pizza box was on the floor beside it. It was closed, but it didn't smell like food in here, just dust, Flux, and pollen. I couldn't smile where I normally would have. There was something here that didn't belong. That scent – pollen? Blue Gamma always had traces of that deep, deep inside of it, but this was different. It was of the earth. It smelled like ACTUAL flower, not magical flower.
In the floor by my rig, there was a hole no wider around than if all my ribbons tried to stuff 'emselves into there. It was so weird, 'cause the hole went through the flooring, cracking the hardwood around it, going so deep that, when I looked, I saw nothing other than a little black pit. I put my nose to the floor, let my forehead's eye peek into the hole, and even then, I saw... mmmm, maybe a bit of rock at the back of a tiny tunnel, but that was it.
A sudden thud behind.
"Aah?!" Jira gasped. I yelped and threw my butt up high. All my muscles went stony when I lifted myself from the hole and spun around, hood flying off'a my head and over my ears.
"Sh-shh!" the slimy new Flux scolded her. W-well, one half of it did. Or third?
"They're all around here," the other half of the Flux spoke up, her long neck guiding her high up as she looked back out the way she must have come in. "Was that you guys making all that goddamn noise?"
"Is somebody in there, Rayse? I heard a pound!" Patty exclaimed, ignoring the Flux behind her. Jirachi was looking right at the Flux, but Patty didn't notice it, pencil held against her notepad, completely still.
Bwah? Hello? Was I cRayse-y again?
But, she was right there! There was a slimy fatty slug thingy right there with – eww, that one was so gnarly, too. I had this tickly, tingly feeling get all up and dirty in my... lower business sector, just looking at how the Flux was shaped. It put a blush in my cheeks and forced my back legs closed, then my front legs for extra... er, chastity.
"Uwehhh?!" I cried out, legs trembling, staring back at the big, gross skin-stalk with its pointy head and its... mouth thingy on that head? And its two yellowish snaky things coming out of its cheeks? "St-stranger danger! No, strangest danger!"
"Where?! Who?! I don't... see anybody?" Patty blurted, panicked, then sedentary.
"Ugh." one of the snooty-nosed parasites grunted, a wet tentacle from the fluffy blob behind it slapping against her face.
"Wh-wh-what... i-is that...?" Jira asked.
The mysterious Flux slithered out of my view, but I went and chased it. I left the studio with a few excited hops, leaping over the chair blocking the entrance. She was in the living room, gooping up the carpet and looking out the front door. Or, ahem, facing it? One of her snooty-snakes was looking at us. Its eyes told me its own surprise, and I felt my pupils dilate to her, asking her why the surprise before I even knew where she came from. She knew me. Something about knowing my face, even if it was covered over with more Red than before. In the short time we stared at one another, she expressed comfort in knowing I could see her at all, that I shared her color, and that I was who I was at all.
Nothing else said, I joined her side and discovered the reason for her urgency. About a hundred other eyes were staring ours back just outside the house, either whited out, blacked out, or mutated in some other horrific way, then glued to misshapen Pokémon bodies, amorphous and stalky and fleshy all the like. They crowded each other, huddled over one another, and clumped up like careless... creatures? Like amoeba? With whatever claws, arms, or tendrils they owned, they reached out to us, crawling ever closer to the house.
"Alright," said the sluggy Flux. "We gotta leave. Now."
I wanted to agree, but I couldn't pull my attention away from that legion of Fluxes. So bright, I thought. So much... freedom. I would've even bet that the Crossblade couldn't melt me anymore if I was already like them. I could be worry free. I wouldn't have to care about how I looked. I wouldn't have to care about changing this world and all of its people. Would that have been better for somebody like me? It was moments like these where, when I really, really thought hard about it, what were the Champions being made to remember? Was all that memory of turning the world beautiful just a ruse to get us to turn it into a fleshy soup?
But... What about me? My personality? I have one of those, and it's so nice! I love it! I'm so happy with it. I have a memory of Rayse, too. It's somewhere. The more Gamma spreads, the more I remember who I was, so if I can pull through and keep it together, I'll find it. There's just... too much pain. There's so much more than little 'ol Rayse can take – or, at least, what little 'ol Rayse there is in little 'ol me, a thing of Gamma. I can't keep doubting. I'm doing this for Alli and the Grove. There's people here I care about, Champion or not. I gotta find Charley. I gotta find Secany. And, most of all, I gotta find him. Aza. My Brother. My... ...angel...
"Rayse! Oh no, she's not turning, is she?! RAYSE!" Jira screamed.
Drool on my chin, stickiness under my eyes. Everything was blurry, and then everything was clear. The Fluxes in front of me were moaning, so close that they could were all crowding the doorway. One of them was laying in front of me, a Pokémon having gone Red so recently that he still looked something like what he used to. A sneasel, I... think, grabbing one of my ribbons and squeezing it in both its claws. It didn't hurt. What hurt was peeling my eyes away from him – no, all of them. It felt like I ripped something open and cut open a chunk of myself. I even heard it when I turned. It sounded like the snapping of bone and tendons. It rolled over me and made me ill when I thought of how much longer it would've taken for me to become integrated.
I backed up, turned for the source of Jira's voice, and ran, pulling my ribbon from the newborn Flux. It wasn't squeezing enough to hold me down, nor did it break any skin when I got out of there. I felt my claws dig into the carpet and then trickle along the tile. I was scared. My body was hot and my heart was going as fast as my legs, 'till I got to Patty and Jira, the strangely cooperative Flux yanking open the back sliding door with the tentacles lurching out of its ball of fluffy blubber. The screen rumbled open, and the Flux kicked itself forward with its gooey tail. Jirachi followed, then Pat followed her, pointing at the screen door with skepticism. She vocalized her concern that the door had just opened itself. I grunted and pushed her onward, then shut the screen behind me with my ribbons, hustling and pulling myself along the cement 'till the door was shut, for what good it would've done to keep us away from that legion.
We all looked at each other – only us three, not including... whoever 'she' was, who made my loins go all tingly.
"Come on, you idiots!"
"Hurry the hell up!" the two of them said, while her main body was already halfway across the backyard, lain over with dead grass, Flux-tainted soil, and scraps from broken fencing. It looked like there was a wide break in the wooden fence. Where it led, I couldn't goad out of Zatch's memory. It seemed like it would've taken us down a pretty steep hill, but I was as ready to do that as everybody else was!
"Let's go, Pat!" Jirachi led her friend, offering her hand as a gesture for the mudkip to follow. She did so without objection.
I did the same, bowels and skin still aching from my encounter with the Flux still as hot on our tails, ribbons, and... tentacles.
…
A slide and glide down the hillside later and we were on another street of sorts, but not the kind made of asphalt. It was dirtier, still larger than the path we took in the woods, and didn't seem to lead anywhere obvious. It had mounds of red dirt, black dirt, yellow dirt – they were all in neat piles at equal distances from one another, with this single road leading down the line of piles, all the way to a big chain-link fence with wheels on its bottom. What kind of place was this?
Looking back up the hill we'd come from, the Fluxed land was trying to reach down to this little valley of sorts, bony fragments and veins giving up partway down the rocky hill. The soil underfoot here was clean and soft, if not a lot colder to the touch thanks to the outside temperature.
The slug Flux was facing us with both parasites' beady pairs of eyes, and the central body's eyes all the same.
"All good?" one of them asked.
"If yes, then we're moving on." the other commanded.
"H-hey, hang on," Jira called out. "You're a Flux, aren't you?"
"What does it look like?" she asked rudely.
"Wh-... Well it doesn't look very good." Jira mumbled.
"Then there you go." said the Flux, before her main loin-tingling body turned around and started slithering through the dirt. I had to wonder, did that feel uncomfortable at all? Gosh...!
"There appears to be a problem," Patty spoke up. "Are you two seeing something that I'm not? You're acting like it."
"Mm." one of the parasites grunted and turned back.
"Yyyeeah, there's a Flux who wants us to go with her—it? Hrm..." I said.
"Stop standing around. I'll tell you when we get moving. Stay close, so if we hit a Trip spot, we go together. Got it?" the Flux informed us.
None of us were in any position to disagree. We had our own quest to take care of, but I was so much more than interested in this Flux person, too. The tall ears on her head reminded me of an eevee's, and I sure knew a thing or two about eevee Flux mutations. They weren't normal! And if she was an eevee before this, then there really was a good chance that this Flux was okay in the head. After all, a non-evolved eevee was better suited for Flux than any other Pokémon that wasn't legendary, even though what came out of it was usually terrible anyway. Like... big, shafty, bulbous... p-pene...trating – anyway, she looked kind of naughty, but she couldn't help that. I already had a lot of sympathy for her. All... three of her. I wonder if she has the Crossblade. Something about her doesn't smell exactly like Flux or the Crossblade, almost like it's... ...an imitation? Not the real thing?
Three...
…
In an abandoned gas station mart
A loud sigh puffed through the dusty darkness of the broken building, particles floating softly through the ambient red glow shooting through cracks in wooden paneling, holes in the roof, the many lines of space separating pieces of trash and metal piled up at the entrance. It wasn't so hard to see with Patty's pocket light, its white shine casting light into the partially demolished ceiling. It sure was dirty in here, but it still beat wading through formless flesh and puddles of bloody stuff, or tripping over loose veins that belonged to nobody but the earth itself.
I put my badonkadonk to the floor, my lungs nice and fresh of breath, Patty leaning up against the store counter opposite me, while Jira sat on the glass counter above her.
"Pfff..." Came a half-sigh, half-scoff from our Flux guide.
"Back at this shit heap again." the other part of the Flux said.
Nobody else had anything to say back – I mean, of course Patricia didn't. She couldn't even see or hear the girl(?), and Jira wasn't too good around people, especially others who spoke with such a sharp tone like her. She sounded mean, but was she really?
"Sooo, what's this place?" I cooed and looked around, 'till I got stuck staring at the circle of light made by Patty's torch thingy.
"Just some run-of-the-mill food mart that went out of business years ago. I don't know." one of them answered.
"Mari and I meet up here." the other said.
"Mari? You're friends with Mari?!" I asked.
"Something like that," a parasite answered, a tentacle behind her pulling a small black bag from the counter. It was brought to her other head, who looked inside of it, then retrieved a brightened rectangular device with another tentacle. She checked the object attentively, the other head still talking to me. "I thought you would've figured that much out, Rayse."
"So," Jira started, sheepish and awkward. "You're... Katalyn?"
"Mm," the non-distracted one grunted. "You can call me Kat. I'm kind of a dick. You'll get over it."
"Er..." Jira murmured and looked away, leaving me with the role of talker! I was okay with it. I liked Kat, even she was a pe-...pen-... She was a peanut.
"I'm trying to access memory banks that I don't even own anymore. Somehow, I can still recall back to when I was Cryhex, and with that information, I can infer that... Ah! Yes! This is so brilliant." Patty mused, pulling her pencil and notepad out and wasting no time getting to business. She wrote down some things and I trusted they were good things – jeebs, I had three eyes and even I woulda had trouble seeing what I wrote down.
"Mm. Poor Patricia. She can't see me." said Kat.
"She can see me messing with this phone. Is that creepy for her? Here. I'll text a message..." said the other... Kat. Maybe I could call that one Alyn? Naah, that made me think of the guy Jirachi talked about.
"Here, lemme ask! Pat, is it creepy that there's a floating phone over there?" I asked. She looked at me, pausing for a second. Then, she checked up on our Flux friend, and went right back to writing.
"'Note: this phenomenon appears to obey certain laws of physics while it doesn't adhere to others, such as light.' So, in theory," she stopped writing. "If I were to... just..."
Our mudkip set her things down and scooched over, shuffling her butt and legs until she was closer to the Flux. She reached out with an open hand to what I imagined must've looked like empty space to her. Blindly, she touched the snout of one of Kat's parasites – the one that was distracted with her phone. She let out an audible breath through Pat's small hand, then a groan. Patty took back her hand, then looked at it.
"Could you tell her not to do that?" the parasite requested.
"Y-you could've moved...~" Jira giggled.
"Fascinating...!" said the mutant 'kip.
"Tch," scoffed the phone-absorbed parasite, going back to her stuff. "Mari actually can't see me either. We communicate through texts and calls. The sound I make can still be picked up by machines."
"Perhaps if I was still Cryhex, I must have been able to see and hear her? No, surely not, that doesn't seem right – I don't think I could. Something else was at play, obstructing my intake of stimuli... Mmm..." Patty said to herself, tapping the eraser end of her pencil to her chin.
"...Nerd..." Kat groaned.
"Heeey, Patricia's not a nerd!" Jira defended.
"Oh, did she call me a nerd? Interesting! Do tell." the mudkip requested, turning her head back all the way so she was looking straight up at Jira.
"Definitely a Circle kid." the other Kat groaned, but with a sweetness through her fangs.
"Heya, Katty? Can ya tell us why people can't see you?" I asked.
"Pbth," she laughed. "Shit if I know why. If anything, Mari's pointed out some things about it. Symbi wielders have trouble seeing me. Fluxes usually see me. Crossblade people... I don't know. We're working on that one. I think she also said something about people being able to see me if they have a strong emotional connection – like, something so big that you might as well be the same thing as a Flux. That's all we know though, and I ain't a fuckin'... scientist, or whatever, like Mari is, so yeah."
"Ooooh, so if Jira can see you, it's probably her Crossblade helping her out?" I inquired.
"Yeah, sure, whatever." said the Flux.
"Is that really the reason...? Are you sure it's not because I'm a Champion?" Jira asked.
"Could be. Don't know. Caden could see me just fine, and he's not Fluxed nor does he have the Cross. I think. So if you wanna break the news to him that he's a Champion like you, be my guest. I'm not responsible for what that kid does next." she said.
"Caden could see you? Bwuh, that's right," I gasped. "You and him and Alli went somewhere and did things!"
"Y'could say that," she said, the other parasite tapping away onto the brightened screen with a pair of tendrils. "How's that little bub doing, by the way? Al? He okay?"
"She turned back into a skywisp and her throat got all janked up, so now she can't talk and..." I took a breath. "Th-that's why we wanna see Mari-Charley. She has a Symbi that can help Alli."
"Huh," Kat started. "Well I'm talking to Mari now. I told her you're with me. She's busy right now, but maybe you can help her."
"Uh, us? H-help... her?" Jira mumbled.
"Is she in trouble, too? Oh, is she a wisp-sicle?!" I gasped.
"A... what—no, she's..." Kat denied. "It's more complicated than that. Probably? We're trying to get Travis back on our side, and some other things are getting in the way."
"What other things, if ya don't a-mind me askin'~?" I said.
"Demon things," said the other parasite. "Things that...
...Hey, you know about that other world, right?"
Huh...?!
"Wh-what, wait, wha? Other world? Which one?" I asked.
"Ohoo! I love this!" Patty giggled, oblivious to one half of the conversation.
"'Guess I can't just leave Champions hanging, so..." Kat sighed. "Yeah, that place where Gamma gets stored, er some shit."
"Are you talking about the Paradox?" I asked.
"Am I? Is that what the place is called? I don't know. All I know is that I have a Crossblade and I'm a Flux, and there's something more to me that I want to figure out. Something 'demony', and it's in that other world." she explained.
She had the Crossblade and the Flux, and there was something more to her that she wanted to learn. If she had just told me that from the start, I would've been so much more okay with the fact that she looked like an overgrown naughty part. Although I might've still had all that tingling between my legs, but THAT WASN'T THE POINT~!
"We should team up, Katty! We're Crossblade warriors, too." I told her.
"Crossblade warriors? Tch," she laughed. "It's Crusaders. People with the Crossblade – Crusaders. Mari and my bitch mom came up with that.
But yeah.
I'd be... I'm coming with you to do whatever you're doing.
Al's hurt, and I feel like shit because of that. I can't keep leaving VC behind either, and... you know, there's someone else who I heard was back in town. Again.
So I want to get a chance to see him – to see all of them."
She was resolute. Funny how I never ran into her at all, not even once, even when she was at the Grove. She must have really had some problems with her mother if she picked the Fluxed up town over a place as peaceful as our very own Grove. I wanted to ask her what drove her away from her mom so much, but this wasn't the best time to ask. Maybe I needed to get to know her better. I could've started by asking her what she was doing so close to Zatch's house, but...
My train of thought went south and then fell of of a cliff (like, super metaphorically and stuff) when Kat brought her phone up to Patty. Being the curious little mud fish she was, Patty got to her knees and crawled up to what must've been a floating phone as eagerly as ever. Hands to the floor, she perused the screen so much dedication that she was biting her tongue.
"'Hey, Patricia," she started reading aloud. "'Don't be scared, its just me' – incorrect word, by the way; that would be 'it is', not 'its' – 'It IS just me, Katalyn Valentine, from school. I know you can't see me. I'm surprised. You got close to the Tangle and you're still not Fluxed. If you can start seeing me, that's how you know you're beginning to turn. Just a warning. Also, you won't like what I look like. I guarantee that.'"
"The Tangle?" Jira queried.
"Yeah, that." said one of Kat's parasites.
"Um..." I flattened my ears. Hearing that word didn't shove my confidence forward, especially not if it had something to do with Flux. It sounded familiar, like I'd... 'experienced' it, before. The only place I could think before this one was back home, on... on the Pokémon world. What was it?
"My God, it's like I'm communicating with a ghost! This is so enlightening," Patty sat back and clapped, then scrambled for her notebook and pencil. "Anyway, making a note of 'the Tangle'."
"The Tangle – it sounds so... angry." said Jirachi.
"Well it's where Mari is, so that's where we're going first. You guys got weak stomachs? 'Cause that place..." Kat began.
"If you thought Orion was bad, the Tangle is... like we're talking biblical shit." the other Kat explained.
"Blibilcal? That's a new word for my tongue." I spouted. I couldn't even say it right! "Biblilical? Bilbidditybillyboocoo? Okay! I think I'm ready. Patty or Jira, if you're not feeling up to it, we can bring you back home."
Jira flew from her spot and lowered herself to Patty. The two girls looked toward one another, then nodded, and, in perfect unison, faced me, Patty putting her notebook back into the pouch.
"I need to come with you. There's more that I need to learn about myself, and about Zatch..." Jira said. Poor wittle thing was always so poorly spoken that it was no wonder she was as shut-in as a star in the daytime.
"And for myself, it goes without saying that I'm here to accompany Jirachi, should even the gates of Hell hath opened unto our doorstep." Patty... preached? Prophecised?
"My God, this girl – who talks like that?" Kat groaned.
"I guess her." the other Kat pointed out. What was wrong with how Patty talked? It was so mysterious and eccentric. Like me! Only without the mysterious part. And maybe the eccentric part lately, because I was sure down in the dumps. N'aw, I needed more people like Patty around so that I felt better. Weirdos were the best! If Alli and Patty and that cute little Crucie-nut could all be better and stuff, we could all be weirdos together!
Somethin' about Kat told me even she would've liked that. Maybe that was why she wanted to go back to the Grove. I hope, for all our sakes, she wanted to stay. Although, it was super convenient and nice running into a Flux who didn't want to feel up my ribbons like a pervert. Weird, too, since she was pervert-shaped.
…
Okay! I can't keep doubting myself, my Brudder, or... well, anything! Seeing Kat like this is giving me all sorts of peppy determination. It's hitting the spot, like hot cocoa on a day like today, where it's all cold and time's frozen and the sky's red and a human town has turned into a flesh buffet. Ah, sure could go for some... hot cocoa...~ But, for real. Alli, Kat, and even Cruce are doing better with Flux than me. There's no excuse that a Champion like me can't handle it. I'm better than this. And... I think Vay is better, too. Maybe he's thinking the same thing about himself. He broke out of his Flux. He HAS to be thinking he's better. But he hasn't seen what I've seen... And I'm about to see something so much worse.
...
