Part 8: The Bell - Gauntlets
Chapter 62: Gauntlets
Gauntlet ONE: Data Management
NEW PERSPECTIVE AND A WHOLE LOTTA SHIT HAPPENING LET'S GO mudkip
I don't own Pokémon.
Patricia
Another sentence punctuated, another page filled. Mechanical pencil between thumb and finger, I absorbed any white space upon the page. I rued it. To let the point of the pencil trace upon blank space was euphoria. To paint thought onto paper, prose or number, was all I the incentive I required to convince myself that I made any semblance of a contribution. I was a corrupted person made flesh, once metal, and another time fire. No matter my corporeal presence, I had the benefit of knowledge, the memory of a poem and a locket, and the drive to operate at maximum efficiency. Such were the dregs of owning a computerized conceit, but Cryhex was no more; and yet, this Paradox of a world, with its dazzling, electric sky and its digitized terrace, left me enamored, corners of my pages lavished with square-like patterns, ones and zeroes, and the mishaps of crossing lines. So many memories of a machine, the memories of magic, and, to their end, the illusive culmination of Autumnridge lost deep in a world hidden somewhere within both machine and magic – yes, the two; so, I felt strangely at home.
We were walking – I was walking, but the others around me were apt to float instead. The fin atop my head tingled. I'd disowned myself from its usefulness. Bothered by the incessant need to 'sense' that came with this mudkip body, I closed my hand at the notebook's spine, forcing both ends together. The book closed, blowing air into my face. I blinked out of instinct, tucked the pencil into the spiral spine until it snapped into place, then put my arm to the side. Heat coursed through me to my own accord, my opposing arm a conduit, my palm a beacon. I raised it, white light congregating in my blue hand. Gentle wafts of ozone and sweet oil encompassed me. My nose, my head-fin, and my eyes sensed it for what it was.
My dearest friend, Emelina, answered my call. My glowing hand, I thought, beckoning her forth, replacing my view of it with her own likeness. Her big smile met me, fiery tail curling around my arm several times. She was seated, the warmth of her body no more than that: warmth, and welcome as always.
"Patkip! You called?" she queried, burning bright with excitement.
"I'm sure it's not eluded your attention," I spoke, turning my attention to the buzzing sky, ever obscured by floating rubble, incomplete in digital structure. Nevertheless, attending to my own eyes were the dregs of a 'strike' – a black pit in the static, such static closing around the wound. "The green strikes of lightning in this place. What are they, exactly?"
"What, the mega loud blasts where everything gets all fuzzy? I meeeean, that's a little bit hard to ignore!" she scoffed. "Weeell, that and everything else! Like, 'what' – am I right?! A whole world copying ours?!"
Oh, there were metaphorical bounds and leaps to overcome in this realm, I would have agreed under any circumstance. Why, were it not for all the transformation and such, merely fainting at the sight of the Paradox's inner workings was an appropriate reaction. Not a very helpful one, but one among the selected few. Off the matter, what was the purpose of such a volcanic outcry from the skies? I would have been a fool to believe the science behind it was akin to the relationship lightning had with earth and sky in our own world.
"They said that those Trip zones got warped into here, um..." Jirachi addressed.
"I've given minimal thought to the concept of Tripping," I admitted, reminded of many a side note I had marked in a scribbling rush to conclude another thought. "Not fond of the term. It's spacial misplacement, but that doesn't roll off the tongue."
"Y'could say that 'Tripping' trips off the tongue!" Emelina suggested, delivering a couple clicks of her own tongue.
"And tumbles straight into the Paradox, where such areas seem to live," I continued. "I'd gather the Tangle has replaced acres of Autumnridge terrace, only to be reinstated here. Then again, the Tangle is not a Trip area, as far as I know."
I thought over it. Areas of intense Gamma concentration in our homeland had been duplicated and sent here, albeit with another motif latched on altogether: data, corruption, 'glitch'. The same was true for Trip spots, where they appeared as regular as ever in the original world, but saved and copied over to the Paradox. A marvel, yes, but nothing short of frightening, as I would have been the last one to choose a life in this digitized world.
On the second thought, would I? It bears a resemblance to my mind. Bits of corruption. Glitches in a system. I feel I am but wires and metal away from a cyborg – the obvious. My brain, yet a computer evermore, finds surreal comfort in this land.
I couldn't stay here. Emelina lives within me. She is my responsibility, as are Jirachi and the Circle.
…
An open area encompassed us, the ground littered with holes in the Paradox's 'data', black gaps that appeared a steady surface for standing, animated with green rays, some uniform, others violently clashing with where blackness met crooked terrain on the two-dimensional plane. Outside of these many scenes was a sky draped over with that haunting fuzz, opaque and hiding any stars, sans the dark holes, verdant energy pouring into and out of them; bedlams, I thought, with a purpose as mystifying and hazy as was the blizzard of static snow before my eyes. Emelina grazed the pixel-fog, brightening it, her fiery light reflecting on the surface of every white pixel present, many a million. For what the fog did for vision, it did it poorly, as I could still see structures looming in the distance. They were dreamlike, obelisks, shadows, chunks of uprooted land and the hard edges of buildings, lights, incomplete architecture.
I'd only just realized I was idly standing with the point of my pencil to a blank page. It scorned me when I found it, staring my way, the metal spiral cold against my hand. I wrote, 'Why do they live here?'. I wrote it again. A glance over made it appear as the ramblings of a madman, and so the second sentence became naught more than erase marks; and yet, why did they live here?
Cement, I found, giving my feet a place to be. A park terrace, parts deleted or being built, old black lamps unlit along brick roads diverging from the center fountain. It was marble, dry, save the bottom – a pool of leaf-covered water remained, coins and all at its bottom. The details were as intricate as the bell tower before this, while the parents of the leaves which the fountain owned were incomplete, trees missing from their places, wireframe and useless for all other than appeal, and appeal to me they did, moving me enough to provoke a flap of the tail-fin.
"I don't know which way to go," one of our own said – Bryan. Once a fool, now a Flux, the poor thing was still lost. "It's harder to see now."
"Mmmh, tell me again about your eyes and how they're better than mine~?" Diancie requested at the expense of Bryan's humility. Her tone was melodious and deriding.
"Well, we're in Solstice Hill Park," Cruce spoke up. "Thought this place got buried with its Church, but heeere it is! Should we take a break? Wait up, maybe? No Fausti or Shaymin yet."
I stepped forth, a solution lingering on my tongue. Before I could give it to everybody, Emelina took it for me.
"Oh, I got this! Yeah yeah, we're gonna head north from here, 'cause that's the best way to get into that part of town from here," she began, whipping around while she gave her directions. "Lucia's café is this way, too, I think – no wait, it's the northwest road. Is it? Is it, Patty?"
"I-I'm fairly certain..." I froze, fingers playing the pages of my notebook into a breezy flutter, each leaf of paper flicked under my thumb until there was nothing left, with no semblance of navigation.
"Ugh, you humies and your sense of direction," Rinavay sulked, obviously intended as a challenge. I raised my head to the autumnal Pokémon. "Though, this ain't feel right. Where'd Shaymin fly off to?"
"I don't trust him," Bryan repeated. "There's something bad in his eyes."
"For the last time, you pipsqueak, ain't no need to worry, alright?" the leafeon said. "I made him into what he is, 'n you can trust me. He's turned a new leaf."
I could never look at Shaymin's face, no matter how cute, and find innocence behind it. For the human that man was, the Pokémon, with his diminutive stature, was far worse. I couldn't read it. It was a Gamma being's body now, and it had the memory of a sociopath like Chevron. No matter the expression I wore, rigor had me before forgiveness.
"How do you know? You're Red, too. Did you look into him? What about you, Cruce?" Bryan pressed on, raising rivalry between himself and Rinavay. Cruce turned away, not to ignore his friend, but to ignore the new ideas shaven so close from said friend.
"I don't... know," Cruce said, voice trembling. "What am I supposed to feel? Fausti's-..." he stopped.
Fausti, my creator, I thought. I became breathless. The compulsion to articulate my thoughts overcame me and I shook.
"Cruce," I spoke, and I spoke it loudly. I shut my book, pencil wedged between its pages, and took a few steps ahead. Quickly, I reached for Cruce's shoulder, grasped, and traced my grip down to his tiny red wrist, pulling his arm up, his effeminate eyes glued to me, surfing my intent. I remembered my intermission at Delta Meadow. I wasn't sure how to do it, but I wanted to relax him – brace him for what I had to say. "A-... at the heart of Delta Meadow, there's a machine. It's underground – it's..." I left my jaw open.
"The one underground," he repeated me, putting his opposing paw over my arm. It didn't contest my grip; instead, it lay there and soothed me. I looked at it. "Hey, what's the matter? Why the crazy-fish?"
Normally, I would have laughed, but I felt too cold and mechanical to loose even a snicker. Cryhex, I thought. I remembered the it for my namesake: CR-HX3. It was in my databank, my processing. Was it?! It had to be! Was there some form of firewall blocking me out? The pain of being so close to that memory urged me to yank my own hair out and let the thoughts bleed forth, but for what my new anatomy should have implied, I wanted to keep that hair.
"I'm sorry, I'm trying to think back—it's important! It's about Travis, and-..." I stopped, gaining Bryan's attention more quickly than I'd interrupted myself.
"Travis," Bryan said. "Or Flicker?"
"Oooor Suano'o'whoa?" Emelina added, but unfortunately with nothing to gap my own...
...Synapse failure, I thought. Synapses didn't translate well from circuitry. Perhaps it would've been better if I wasn't Gamma fluid – coolant. Perhaps if I was a motherboard instead of a liquid cooling agent, I would have had more luck pulling this from the appropriately paradoxical depths of a memory transformed from software to gray matter. I let Cruce's arm go, stepped away, and pondered.
What is it?! It's here! I know it's here, in my head! It's...
"Drew!" I announced. Cruce deflected it with a cute tilt of his head. "That machine was put there for Drew Maire, a child who displayed sociopathic tendencies. The Meadow was going to converge the neurological process in the hearts and minds of Drew and Travis. That's all I could-..." I stopped again, each jolt in memory quite pressing in difficulty. It gave my head a few sharp spells of pain.
"Is that memory from Cryhex, or Willow...?" Jirachi asked me, immediately understanding my thoughts. I couldn't answer her, because even I was unsure. Did something else happen while I was Willow? I was locked deep in that facility – in the home of the HX, and Delta Meadow twice over. I had to carry something with this mind. Surely, I did.
"Maybe both," I answered. "I'm doing my hardest to put them together," I said, letting Cruce's arm gently fall. "Delta Meadow put a meteorite into that container."
"I never knew WHY they had the rock in there, only that I had to go 'n rescue it," Rayse added, briskly bridging our silence. "And maybe play 'emotional bumper cars' with you guys~!"
Why the meteorite was in there, I asked myself – I asked it in the voice presented to me: Rayse's, and it only fueled my conviction to form an answer, or perhaps skim my notes again for any segue into one.
"Holy shit..." Cruce gasped. I was taken awry by his surprise (and far more girlish gasp than I could accomplish). "That's the HX, isn't it? That's the thing that killed Molly."
"Molly?" Alli broke in, hands on her slender hips. "What—how?"
"It was Doctor Kaiser – Mew," I took a breath, unearthing the memory, steering the subject back onto its road. "Who delivered the meteorite to the HX containment cell."
"Why though? What'd that albino phony hope to get at?" Rinavay asked.
"I think he wanted to fix his son's mental health," I proposed. "Needless to say, I'm not so sure he's succeeded. Princess Diancie, when you were Atti, you were Drew's friend, weren't you? Did something ever seem off to you? A-about him, I mean?"
"My former self spent time with Drew and Caden outside of class, but only for moderate swathes of time," she answered, feigning the objectivity in her voice with an underlying fondness. "Nary long enough to sense any pathological problems, especially for the child I was."
The way Diancie spoke was so elegant and tantalizing that I wished I'd time to fawn over her accent and her charm. I resisted the urge to fan myself with a hand – at the very least, she swept away my analytical overdrive and pulled back the human in me.
"This is... what Shaymin said," Cruce interjected. "He said it all stems from Kaiser wanting his son to be okay, but somewhere along the way, Kaiser lost himself."
"Awh, I kinda feel bad for him," Rayse said. "Should I feel bad? He did bad things."
"You're right, Rayse. He did bad things, and that's why I think Kaiser and his Meadow are a load of bullshitty-shit," Emelina growled. I always felt afraid when she had the need to use her, er, big-girl words. "He could have done like a MILLION different things to help Drew with his problems. Psychiatrist, special education – I mean, you NAME it! Instead, he makes, like, probably a kuhjillion-dollar project or whatever, does some gnarly science crap, kidnaps and experiments on loads of innocent people – LIKE, COME ON!"
"Eyup, once again, Emi hits the ball outta the park and didn't even use a bat," Alli agreed. "Whoever or whatever this guy's ambitions, he's an asshole and he needs to maaaybe go eat magma forever."
"I hadn't met Kaiser, but he sounds like a unique gentleman," Nikki commented. "And he's the reason most of you are here."
"He got ahold'a this and started warping everybody," Cruce addressed his accessory, the shining golden bell. "I remember him saying that his son never cared about Pokémon until he met Molly, and going off of what Shaymin told me – 'bout how their, like, hearts and thoughts merge 'n all that... I-I don't know, guys. I'm coming off the knowledge that my family's been puppets for this huge science organization."
"Hold up, dude; so you're saying that Drew's interest in Pokémon came from little Molly-Maxi?" Alli asked, squinting. "'Cause if that's case, and this big scary project was supposed to mix those kids' feelings up, uh... Where the hell did Pokémon Gamma come from, guys?"
Nobody answered. Static buzzing filled that quiet void between us, with no Rayse to chirp her lively, sweet voice in between this time. Everyone sought each other out for an answer. Our eyes met – mine with Cruce's and Nikki's, and for as fond as we were of each other, I felt sheepishness when I looked at my friends, because now I didn't have an answer anywhere – not beneath the folds of cybernetic memories or a time when I was Willow. What was especially unsettling was that each of our Champion friends had naught to put forth.
"Guys?" Alli asked again, slow and cautious.
"Would Xima know?" Nikki suggested. "We can trust her knowledge, can't we?"
"Well, I don't know, she basically told us we were gonna get fucked up and we'd better accept it." Alli crudely clarified.
"I met Xima once," Rinavay said. "Eerie type. Said something bad was gonna happen to Laura, and it went and did. That is, if we're talkin' about the same meowstic. Humie-lookin' meowstic, too."
"Isn't that what I am, Vay?" Cruce suggested. "A meowstic, but uh... a what else? Pachi-something?"
"Pachirisu, Cheeks," he corrected. "It's the reason you got those cheeks of yours, doll."
"Blegh, stop." Alli groaned, to Rinavay's amusement.
By this point, I opened my notebook again, found a blank page, and let the tip of my pencil rest against the paper, so delicately indenting it. Xima, I thought. How did one spell that name? It wasn't the first time I heard of it, but the scenario and the crowd were vastly different to the one before me now. Regardless, I wrote many interpretations of the name down: 'Sheemah, Sheema, Shima, Shimuh, Shema, Schemah, Schima'. The further along I listed, the less of a name the title appeared. It became a nonsense word, repeating over and over in my head. I found myself glaring at the page – that open comma was a nasty sight, followed by so much blank space, taunting me; it was an eagle eye view of a snowy tundra, searching for prey, but without fortune. It starved me.
From what everybody was saying, it seemed as though they each had their own perspective on Xima, like the entity had come to visit them and affect their individual struggles in some way. I would have announced it to be a viable idea to put our heads together on the matter were I not already engrossed with these separate experiences on paper, writing down what I heard from my friends. There was Nikki, who was taken into the meteorite at Delta Meadow and given the Symbi Arcadia, next to becoming a siren. There was Alli, to whom she owes Xima for her skywisp appearance. Rinavay had his short exchange with a foreboding Xima. Rayse said that the Xima she met was far different to the others' encounters, with an entirely new attitude to boot.
None of this helps me.
My head-fin ached with brief pain. I brought my pencil up to the spikes on my cheeks and flicked it against them. It only tickled, but to such a surprising extent that it became uncomfortable very quickly; or, rather, painful. Both sides of my face perked up with pain. I searched for an answer outside of my book and found Jirachi hovering a yard away.
"Jirachi?" I called her. The little Champion brought a hand up to her chin and faced me. My fins were aching more loudly now.
The ground started to fizzle, flat, square particles shedding from the concrete and the fountain, draining them of their color and features, green wireframe beneath their facades. At first, the particles floated like steam off boiling water, albeit in organized columns. Moments later, I felt static electricity run through me – namely my hair, tickling me. I shivered. Jirachi's yellow bands oriented themselves to the direction of the fizzling, pixel-particulate. Her bands arose, and she faced the ceiling of this world, then gasped, arms thrown out. Having caught the severity, I closed my book, gripped my pencil tight, and sent my gaze skybound.
Directly above us, a rend in the static, blacker than dreamless sleep. There was a perfect circle in the static, our location caught in its radius. We were its pupil. With urgency, I was yanked away from my roots, pencil-wielding hand tugged into the air. My feet left the ground. I turned my attention downward, the cement, the fountain, the park drifting away. I found Jirachi, pulling me into the air, then letting go, my body trickling with an invisible force. It kept me afloat. My fear departed as soon as I found Jirachi's confidence staring back at me, Emelina's heat returning to the arm Jirachi had released. We were leaving the spot, without much of a word spoken between us. I tossed in Jirachi's soft, telekinetic influence, tail between my legs. We were scattering, Cruce and Rinavay going one direction, Bryan and Diancie another, and Alli with Rayse closest to us, sharing airspace. I dreaded it all the same.
A green flash. A boom so loud that I failed to perceive that green color any longer – so loud, that it put me into a painful repose. I saw nothing. I felt awful, like my insides were boiling, and perhaps they were with Emelina being a part of me, or perhaps Emelina felt this pain, too, and her pain was mine.
Something smelled so strongly of seawater that I swore I was immersed within it, but I couldn't tell. Sounds didn't register, nor did sights. I tried to open my mouth, wide as it was, to gather taste. I didn't have access to that function any longer.
Function. Function? No...
No, please!
Don't shut me down again.
What was this?! Had I been lost to the Paradox?! Had I malfunctioned?! The memories were swarming. The lucid nothing of a power-saving mode, an idle. Powering off. Sleep. Executing command.
No! No more! I'm alive! I'm not that thing anymore!
Why couldn't I breathe?! Why couldn't I act?! Did I-... Complying with directive.
It's... the only... comfort...
Initiating sleep mode.
…
"Patty?! C'mon, girl, don't go haywire like that. You're still you!
I don't know what's happening either. If you have to tell yourself that you're shutting down 'cause you're scared of the truth here, then fine, but please know you're still a cute 'n cuddly fishy, okay?
No circuits, no metal, no crazy wing thingy...
Well, one crazy wing thingy, and that's your girl Emiterasu!
I'm'na get you goin' again. I don't think I can join you yet. Something's gone wrong with us.
It was that huge bolt from the sky. It hurt me, too. I don't understand, but I can give you a push!
Keep at it, Pat. You and I SERIOUSLY need to show everyone else what we're really made of!"
…
GAUNTLETS
…
Ah, torpidity.
Calm. Emelina spoke to me, and I heard it with clarity. The encouragement was a delight, but the soft, glowing pain that was my being, and the confused, frightened human that was my spirit were my demons; yet, I could not help but feel as though my body still depended on Gamma to fuel it in some way, now more than ever. The gentle pain flowing through my poor, battered body, told me poetry, and for that, I prayed. I prayed that I could reciprocate it, because, when Emelina gave me her bolster, it turned the most terrible memories of my Gamma into something I could see myself illustrated into, framed with, painted to my fullest saturation, yet wholesome with shading.
I could feel the wet heat boring through the emptiness inside of me, all the while salubrious with courage—no, the heat stuck to me, and Emelina was there to be the adhesive, soothing the scars that this strange world struck me with. Our bodies were conjoined and, at long last, Patricia could raise her head to the unquenchable fire that was her dearest friend's enthusiasm. Once a shadow, and now the liquid kindling.
Funny. Gamma once cooled me. Now, it's my heat.
To the spark of that thought, I found myself conscious. I sat myself up with aches in my fins and back asking otherwise. Water droplets crowded me; their noise played against the floors and walls of cave that I appeared to be laying in, back against a puddle. While the water was most welcome against my scales, I seemed to remember very clearly not being of a cave. The atmosphere was saline, the shale and limestone ceiling of the cave awash with blues, greens, grays, surfaces smooth. Patches of the same 'unimplementation' as prior showed on much less of these surfaces than Autumnridge's park, with only a comparable handful of missing cave surfaces, replaced with tiny black voids, wireframe, and the like, than the park's terrace. I ran my hand over one upon the floor by me; a cluster of pixels trying so desperately to conform to the contours of the asymmetrical, wet limestone. Disarrayed they may have been, they felt the part of a proper wall, solid all the like.
The back of my hand was barren – blue, yes, but barren, and the realization hatched: said hand upon said arm once wielded my notebook. Nothing was there. I lifted my opposing arm, checking that side, but alas, nothing. One stretch—a look over the left shoulder provided nothing. Another stretch—right shoulder, and yet no book or pencil. I took a moment to digest the feelings: loneliness, panic, limbs rigid. Surely priority didn't include my writing utensils, but I would have liked to capture what seascape beauty I'd found myself in.
"Well..." I breathed out, the breath accented by the droplets and the distant sound of waves. "What a wonderful new crypt I've bumbled into now."
…
I explored it. My escapades took me to an upward direction, the smell of seaweed growing more pungent the higher I climbed. Though the surfaces were slick, I persevered. Being blessed with such a small center of gravity, I could navigate narrow edges and inclines with less difficulty than before – to discredit my human and cyborg bodies from before; and, although the form I took when I was Willow could fly, I doubted such a wet environment was suited for that. Hands against a smooth wall, I inched along a ledge, and when I looked at the space below, there were waters. A tide pool, I thought, large and still, with no one to ever come and disturb. I marveled at its lucidity, how light it was without a view of the sky. Step by step, I pondered over the Paradox. Light traveled differently here, or perhaps our senses translated this world differently. I kept the thought for a later edit to my notes. My hands, now free of the wall I'd leaned against, tickled with the need to write – one of them anyway, while the other longed for pages to turn. My feet, finding secure ground, had to do the labor now.
The cave winded, taking me to dead ends much too narrow for even my slick body to worm through. I thought the same of the waters I'd encountered. They led nowhere, and yet for what fish I was, I could have done well to search them – but for what? Had my notebook fallen in, it would have been ruined. But was I not suited for this environment? I thought this, watching stalactites grasp to the ceiling, each carrying tiny, shining bubbles at their tips. A living, breathing mess of Gamma, I was, much like all of my friends.
The alien was Gamma, but it tethered me to another of its own. Jirachi, I would have said aloud, was I not so captivated by the growing volume of ambient waves. To her own will, she stayed with me, much like my own unto her, and yet she herself was the best example of a confused cluster of Gamma. I found allure in it.
A network of caves soaked in shining liquid. The metaphor was neon, and what ornaments the Paradox decided to patch these caves with only served to plant its own existence onto the metaphor.
…
Along the way, where the terrain became sandy and shallow waters flooded the floor, I beckoned Emelina forth, but there was no answer. Slowed by the tiny tide, I wrapped one hand around the other wrist and squeezed, as if emptying the contents of a tube, trying so hard as to force my friend out from somewhere inside of me. I accomplished nothing more than a pool of light in my palm, little embers flicking off painlessly, floating on the water's surface before fizzling out. Perhaps if the cave wasn't already lit, this would have been a fine way of doing so. Nonetheless, the path before me (and all directions for that matter) had ample light for me to make my way.
It did nothing for the fear I began to feel in my heart. I walked, clutching wrist in hand, reminiscing over the voice I'd heard only moments before I got up to explore this place. I thought it to myself before: it was far too moist for fire here, but if I had any semblance of reason, I would have recognized that Amaterasu was no ordinary fire, and could sustain herself both without burning others and burning out in most conditions. What was it, then? Was something awry going on inside of me?! I felt compelled to ask, but the greatest expert on Gamma came shared between the Circle and the Champions, perhaps Fausti.
Ah, that's right! Fausti was absent from our group. Despite my shortcomings with the scientist she used to be, I may depend on her knowledge!
Though, I'm wary of Shaymin. I would like for him to mean well, but I worry what the weight of his conscience will drive him to.
Although, should I be worrying more over the striders?
"Ah, of course!" I said.
I felt it appropriate to snap my fingers, and so I did. The snap echoed. Then, in hindsight, I wasn't sure why I had snapped. The thought of the striders excited me, how they leaked into the woodland clearing like molasses, sluggish hunters they were. In that tangent of excitement, heat began to take me – my right shoulder blade burned, but not hot enough for my body to wince away. Light grew intense around me, flaring up and flicking wildly. Though one half of my spine was pulling in the direction of the heat and light, no extra weight encumbered me, and before I knew it, I'd grown a wing of fire, brightest sections bound by a ropy red blaze, dripping with delicate embers. Reflexively, I folded the wing forward, and it obeyed – it was a part of me, the sensations all too familiar. Jaw agape, I gazed into the white-hot core of one of its glimmering segments, winglets of flame licking off of it, intricate, yet haphazard and wild. I ventured forth with the hand that snapped and touched the apex of the wing, the outer glow consuming my fingers, and yet some surface therein was soft and feathery enough for me to pinch and stroke, and it was delectable.
"Oh, Emi..." I whispered.
"You," a boy said, perhaps my age. I let my fiery wing free, allowing it to return to its natural position. I searched for the voice, once to the left, then behind me. A white body, slender, yellow eyes piercing what little darkness there was, and yet there was darkness underneath them. A Pokémon, I thought, and he seemed to have traces of Flux. "Patricia?"
"Yes?" I turned my body to the sound of my name, raised my head, and found the young Pokémon approaching me. There was more to the white snake than I'd thought. Beneath the surface of the water, I could see he owned a pair of tiny legs, two leaflets acting as hands further up his belly. Two thorny tendrils escaped his backside, one white and one black. In the white tendril, a familiar notebook, and in the left, a mechanical pencil. My chest seized up. "You have something of mine there! Take care not to drop the book in the water, please...!"
"I won't," he assured me, voice shaky. "I'm not finished with it."
"Ah, right; well, have you been enjoying it?" I asked quickly, hiding spite under my tongue. "And if you're interested in reading it, why take the pencil, too?"
"So I could correct your mistakes, and..." he paused. Mistakes, I thought. Well, pardon me then. "A-and fill in what you missed—about, uh, the striders, I mean."
"Striders?" I chimed. "What about them? How much of that have you read, anyway?! That's invasive – never mind the means how you acquired it!"
"I... Well, I started from the end," he said. "I had to know if there was an end, and... there's not."
Waves crashed upon a shore somewhere close. It was as if I was a brisk walk away from a beach. I took the silence and stillness between us to mean he wasn't going to offer my belongings back to me.
"If, by chance, you know your way around here, could we work together?" I offered. "I was part of a large group, and now I've lost them."
"You were with a large group..." he repeated me blankly, much akin to Bryan's commentary nowadays. "Is that why...? But, didn't they-... Maybe I could just..."
His tendrils, amorphous at their ends, displayed an alarming amount of fine motor skills, to be able to wrap around him and grasp pencil and book in spiky, devilish digits, flip pages, and orient the pencil forward. My heart stopped as the pages did. He was about to make his own note.
"No! Wha—no, don't do that!" I called out, frantic. I began walking, albeit gingerly, as not to alarm him. I couldn't have the book ruined. That was my data. My information. "Please—that won't be necessary – listen, if you co-could just tell me what you'd like to add, and I'll... y-yes, I'll do it for you!"
He was scratching away at the pages already. My fingers clenched into my palms. The brightness around me waned to a degree – must have been my wing. The paper was my skin, and he was cutting into it.
"You don't understand," he breathed, slow, methodical. I could tell by his speech that he was making large strokes, taking more space than necessary, messy handwriting, unneeded voids between letters and words. "How this feels..."
I bit my lower lip (quite hard not to, with how large the new mouth was), held back a spiteful remark about erasing his work the moment my belongings returned to me, and stopped in the water. He kept writing, his pointy snout aimed at the pages, eyes following what distant scribbles his horrid appendages could engineer.
"There's an ending here, somewhere in my head," he chanted. "And I can put it here. I need it. Please, I need this. I've been trapped here. I need your help."
"Consider ASKING, then," I remarked, voice raised. My patience was at its end. "I don't know what you've skimmed or spoiled for yourself, but if you have any idea what I've been through – and, oh, it's all in that book – you will come here, hand those things to me, and you and I can start over from the beginning."
The waves again. Silent contemplation. My pencil was still in his hold, both in continuity and position. He wasn't even looking at the pages. I didn't bat an eye away from him, nor did he from me. My heart was beating. Negotiation oft escaped me, but with what fire inside and outside of me there was, I could speak new volumes.
"It's always-..." his mouth creaked open. "All right. I'm sorry."
He waded through the water, all the while taking due caution to close the book without dropping it, resting the clip of the pencil through the metal spirals. I blinked at the sudden show of respect for my things. Only moments ago, the Pokémon appeared borderline hostile. Perhaps he was right. I couldn't understand him, at least not yet. His newfound respect continued, as he passed the objects over to me. I took them, contact with the book breathing fresh sanctity into my arms and chest. Holding it in both hands, I looked over the fuzzy, hard cover.
"I'm Jovany," he told me, more quickly than I was ready for. "I know you're Patricia, because..."
"Well, you would've read it." I told him – I was sure he noticed the headlines for the majority of the pages.
"If you still want, I'd love to tell you about what you can write." he continued. I would've felt insulted, as I wasn't too fond of being told what to write, but the context was sensitive.
"...Does it not bother you at all that I have a wing made of fire?" I brought up. Just felt like doing so.
"Uh, does it hurt?" he asked me, elusive.
"Are you concerned?" I asked back.
"I'm a little bit bothered," he finally admitted, his tendrils shrinking away. He appeared so much more cowardly. It was almost adorable. "I can help you out of this place."
"Thank you!" I alighted. "See, now that's much better."
…
Well, I'd made good headway for myself, considering we were just shy of a triple digit pace-count from daylight, or perhaps static-light, as the sky was no less fluid with trillions of those manic pixels. In fact, once at the mouth of the cave, it seemed that there was a layer of fog looming not too far above – the fog itself was comprised of the obvious: pixel-matter, though I supposed the tiny water and air particles that created fog wasn't all that different from whatever it was that I was taking in here with every breath. I would have needed to make a note of that, perhaps next to 'famous last thoughts'.
Perusing through my collection of thoughts, I did happen across those which weren't my own. It was as I had suspected: the handwriting was sloppy, the letters large and inelegant, but there was meaning to be had in them. I took it Jovany had time to add his own topics to the pages while I was exploring the 'Beach Cave', as he had called it, both in words and in writing.
It read, 'Why do I live here? Who am I supposed to remember? Is it Lu? Did I have somebody else before that? He kills me all the time. Do I get closer? Where am I going? The war is still going, but I have a place to be. I need to be here. The Beach Cave.
Treasure City's going to be erased at this point, but I think Beach Cave is still fine. Celebi will be okay. She's always okay, the only one here anyway. Sometime soon, I'll bring this to her. We can write together.
I need Patricia. This is Patricia's story, and she's the main character. Maybe Emelina, too. I'm sorry I can't be like you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't be like you I'm sorry I'm sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry
He doesn't get it. I don't get it either. Get away from me. I'm sorry.
I see her. She's up. Patricia. I'm sorry. I need help. Please help me please help me please help me please help me
She has us there doesn't understand it doesn't make sense she doesn't understand how it feels what it is never ends'.
"You really have some things to say, Jovany." I said, the strands of his vocabulary still in front of me. I felt dry sand crunch beneath my small feet, flames blowing off of my wing in the sudden, open air. So strange, that feeling, as if the fires had nerves of their own.
"Sorry..." he said, ashamed.
"Um, I think you've apologized enough. You might end up sounding like Jirachi." I told him.
"Jirachi..." he said, like it carried depth, or maybe he'd caught a glimpse of her name several times.
I could let the waves fill our silence with much more bravado now. Even then, something sounded off about them, like the noise was processed through some kind of filter. While it was difficult to pick up from the cove below, hearing it quite literally 'play' out in the open put emphasis on the idea of a digital world in development. The stream of sizzling static above wasn't helping either, and I seemed to read over the term 'deleted' in Jovany's chicken scratch. For what the thought was worth, I let it sculpt images, or lack there of, of empty whiteness, blackness – appropriate, given the tendrils on Jovany's back. I couldn't help but watch him walk with me. He hung his head down like the sand was going to swallow him up. He didn't bother avoiding patches of black 'deletion', where I stepped over them like they were deep, muddy puddles (which may have been a poor simile, all things provided).
Another thought hatched: Where were we going? Some yards ahead, there was a pass, tidy with trees and shrubbery at either side, carved into the rock face. The pass went on and bent into some place I couldn't quite translate into sense, because, not only did it vanish into a mess of geometry and incomplete terrain, but also that very same fog layer. I looked up against the orange cliff-side nearby, followed it to its apex, and found that the fog layer swallowed it up, some lights off beyond desperately shining through, orderly. What was up there, I asked myself.
"I can't go on," Jovany spoke up. I'd only noticed I had left him meters behind. He looked at me with the saddest, golden eyes. "This isn't-..."
"Come again?" I prompted him.
"Could we stay here a little longer?" he pleaded. At least he was polite.
"If you're willing to tell me where I am, then of course. Otherwise..." I turned away from him, feeling my wing slap the air.
"You read it," he said. "I saw you reading it. Right?"
"Yes—look, Jovany," I sighed. "I want to hear it from your mouth, because you wrote a bunch of illegible nonsense in my book."
Untrue; it was legible, but hardly comprehensive.
"I'm sorry." he said again. I faced him, fully, crossing one arm over my chest and cupping the other arm's elbow in my hand, fingers pressed against one side of my head.
"Autumnridge," I began. "Doesn't have a beach. One moment, I was in a poorly copied Autumnridge, and the next, I was on a beach. Do you follow?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "This isn't Autumnridge, but I know how to get there from here. It's close. It's not like your world, where everything's far apart."
"Excuse me—not like my world? Jovany-"
"I mean-!" he croaked over me. That helpless, sad look in his face warped into something more loathsome. He appeared angry. "Yeah, I did say that, but I didn't mean it!"
A gentle crash. A sudden surge of green in my view, and from above, but not from the sky, from what I could see. The green figure landed in the shallow water, throwing droplets into the air. The droplets appeared to freeze, rather than return to the water, before disappearing altogether – an incomplete animation. The new Pokémon, bearing uncanny resemblance to Jovany, stood tall not a second after he landed.
"Stop!" the colored variant of Jovany commanded, more shove to his tone than his counterpart. A brief, crimson gleam shone from his eyes. He was nimble, leaping out of the water, his tail and similarly white and black, spiny tendrils following after him. For what size his legs implied, it should have been impossible for him to get that kind of height, and yet he made full use of it, somersaulting, then diving right for the other. A meager hop in the opposite direction only got him so far as a foot back, and that was just enough.
The green, white-bellied version of Jovany lay prone in the sand, half-coiled, both tendril points buried. His snout flicked forward, shoveling some sand ahead, brow vicious.
"YOU STOP!" the monochrome Jovany shouted back, voice still notably shakier, almost whinier. He took a few steps back, hunching himself forward, aiming his tail and his crooked vines at the other. It was as if he'd already been backed into a corner, yet he owned all of this space to maneuver. That corner was starting to look more like me the more he backed away.
The green variant collected his form, tail slithering, then vaulting him a few feet skyward. His body bent inward, both of his weaponized appendages at either side, he took another lunge at Jovany.
Their forms collided just as the monochrome Pokémon took a stride to the right, his black tendril catching the other's white. Jovany ventured a jump, using the green variant's momentum to climb into the air. The dodge and grapple already looked to be more graceful than Jovany intended, but he deflected it well enough for me to be impressed. Jovany released the other's vine, leaving him to roll.
Jovany landed, and, unfortunately, with other, using every motion to his advantage, let his tail hammer into Jovany's legs. The monochrome Pokémon fell backwards, while the more dexterous of the two chased his opportunity, spiraling, building momentum quickly, standing, and aiding in Jovany's fall with the white tendril, the thing making an impish hand, forcing the white and black Pokémon into the sand. There was a terrible cough, the flailing of a white tail, as two helpless tendrils wriggled and wormed underneath the green Pokémon's own free vine, bolting them into the sand, while the other choked all of the strength and vitality out of Jovany.
"Good, I think you're starting to get it!" the green Pokémon mused loudly. From my angle, I could see an awful smile on his pointed face. He lifted Jovany's neck and head some, then slammed him into the sand again, and again, and again. That served no purpose. Bashing somebody into sand shouldn't have caused damage. Jovany was being toyed with, and here I was spectating something that had blown up in our faces in less than a minute.
I had to act. For now, it didn't matter how little to me Jovany meant. I needed him.
"Hoy, piss off!" I blared, the heat of the moment summoning a thicker dialect out of me. I closed my hands into fists, tried to bring any sort of tactic to mind, then shook the thought off and decided it best to sloppily barge my way into the mix.
It ended poorly. The aggressive Pokémon saw me, poised his tail up, and flicked some form of blackened foliage at me, dark dust trailing the air behind each little leafy spearhead. I hadn't even the time to process where he'd summoned the black leaves—perhaps folds in his tail that I couldn't see?! I stopped, digging my right foot into the sand and anchoring myself. I threw one arm over my face and my fiery wing followed the motion. One eye shut (I was foolish for keeping one open, really), I watched the myriad specs come at me, some disappearing into the shimmering flame. A select few broke through the fire. The pain was tremendous, needles sinking into my arm. My wing slowly blew away from my face, returning to its place. I lurched for my blocking arm, the pain unbelievable. I panted. I cried out. The little black leaves were stuck in my arm. They were sucking me dry.
I fell. My knees hit the sand, and my notebook a moment later. I lost track of it. My vision pulsed. It was just my arm. Just my arm, I thought. Why?! Why was this so bad?! My blood flow, my heart, my lungs – the leaves were drinking me alive. I gasped. I felt a tear race down my cheek. I bit down. I looked down, flung my head back up.
Fingers clutching my arm until I swore I could feel the bone warping, I threw it into the sand. It thumped, and I did it again. It began to burn. Blood, heart, and lungs alike – they all began to burn. I couldn't even make heads or tails of which organ was doing what. Afflicted arm shaking, it stung so loudly that I wanted to silence it, scream over it, bury my face in the ground and make it disappear. I watched it. Embers poured forth, but not from my wing. I blinked.
Teeth grit, I trembled. The embers were coming from somewhere that wasn't Amaterasu. Emelina wasn't doing this, I thought. This felt different, and sure enough, this feeling ate away the one before it. The embers became flames, making seams in my arm. The seams spouted fire. The fire fanned around my arm. It was miserably dry, but with something to quench the dryness for me, so that I didn't have to suffer. A scintillant fan of flame cleared the space between my fingers. The bright effect gave way to a small volley of blasts. Attentive, the blasts themselves seemed to slowly trail through the air, dripping fire into the sand, chemical reactions giving the ground its glassy sheen.
Jovany's green doppelganger evacuated, both throwing himself off of his prey and just managing to fling Jovany himself the opposite way. I couldn't see the interaction, only the fires cast forth – it divided the two bodies from one another, one jumping, the other skidding in the sand, and the quotient was three pairs of apprehensive eyes watching a salvo of flames scuttle away and fizzle into digital seawater.
I was still on my knees, sparks flying from the outline of the seams in my arm. The pain of the doppelganger's attack grew over the noisy fire once again. I felt the tear leave my face. Startled, I searched for it, but it had already vanished into the sand. I swallowed hot spit, leaned my rear against my calves, but didn't think for a second to let go of my very, very busy arm.
What did I do?!
That's not Amaterasu at all! Amaterasu feels so soft and fair of texture in me, but this...!
Emelina?! What's happened to you?
"Did you," the green predator started, glaring down the glass trail that I'd left, following it to me. His gaze was paralyzing. "Just cast a facet?"
"What? I don't know—I don't..." I said, shriveling, only mouthing the last few words.
"I don't go down here," he carried on. "Not anymore; but I caught a scent. Scent of Green.
I thought I'd found him. I could kill him again.
Instead, that scent was you, wasn't it?"
Scent of Green meant nothing to me. 'Facet' meant nothing to me. Nothing he said meant anything to me, and it was a question poised for me. I detested that. This enigmatic rambling was a cancer between these two! I'd had enough!
"Ugh, GOD, what do you MEAN?!" I burst, biting down. "You attacked Jovany! You attacked me! I don't understand—NO, I DON'T CARE! I want Emi and Jirachi back!"
Still shaking. I couldn't compose myself. This was a rarity. I told myself that as a means to bring my emotions back down. I never broke. I couldn't afford to. The Circle wouldn't have wanted that. That was supposed to be the point. I didn't need to be alone. I didn't need to be a stranger.
"Go." the bolder of the two similar Pokémon grunted. The voice wasn't aimed at me, but then I didn't really care, nor was I going to respond. Scared breaths. Scattered attempts at words. Feet shifting in the sand. They all came from Jovany. "Really. Go."
With no more hesitation spared, the spineless white snake went. I heard his soft footsteps grow quieter, trailing off somewhere to the left. He went back into the cave. I didn't watch him go, but the next time I looked up, the green snake was staring at the spot where his prey used to be. Had I only not cared enough to save that useless Jovany, I wouldn't have been in this position, brought to my knees by a few leaves, only to have my body practically explode afterward.
More footsteps. The sand was so busy with them. He stood over me, the merciless Pokémon. I couldn't look at that. I was scared. I waited for pain again. I waited to be sucked dry by some kind of disgusting, vampiric attack. I could hold my arm and anticipate it, watching my body reject this alien fire. So wrong, I thought. My arm shouldn't have had these cracks. Was I going to change again? I was running out of stamina for this. I closed my eyes.
"Ah, gee..." the Pokémon sighed above me. I felt myself freeze a moment, the fear declining. His tone had changed. 'Ah, gee' didn't threaten me, nor was I being impaled by him or anything. Quite nice. "What's happening out here?"
"Back AWAY from her right now!" Nikki hollered. My eyes shot open.
Something sparkled around me. A sheen of light. Another. Another. It was as if I'd been encased in glass, and yet all of the glass was very clearly on the ground ahead of me. I could sway my tail about and it wasn't getting wedged into any tight spots. My scales crawled, tingled. The sensation crowded me. My body became resilient to the lingering pain. It didn't quite erase the pain, but it made me care much less—not, not that either. What was it?! Nikki?
I found her jogging into the scene, weary of the sand, but stepping into the fray. Despite our body structures, she was still bigger than me, but that was because of how much fur she had. It looked incredible on her, but I couldn't attest the same for the lines in her arms. I checked my own arm. Lines. Hers. Lines; though, hers were glowing a radiant white.
Rinavay! Rinavay said something about this.
Mutants have potential? What did he mean?
It couldn't have been this. This is all wrong.
The lone mutant Pokémon settled into a confident walk, both arms extended, as if pushing something away. Her legs and her giant tail blocked my view of the green snake. She was protecting me.
"You'll answer to me: What did you do?" she asked with stunning valor.
"You're not Melodi, but..." the snake replied. "Never mind. I'm sorry. I did retaliate."
"What?! What happened?!" Nikki clamored.
…
I sat against the cliff's wall, pushing the sand out with both feet. I clung to my notebook, both arms hugging it against my chest. Thankfully, neither of my arms were about to burst at the seams anymore, but one of them felt less at ease than the other. The impulse to tuck it away under the sand was almost crippling. I kept my Symbi out, still worried for Emelina's sake. Head tilted back, ponytail draped against the symbiotic fire, I was reminded of how gentle and soothing Amaterasu was yet again, her fires like satin or silk – more of a bioluminescence than a fire, but with the ability to perform both roles.
I rolled my neck to the other side lazily. Nikki was here, arms healed, a hand over the fluffy dress encircling her neck. Her tail brushed into the sand next to me. Looking up at her reminded me of how divisive her own transformation was compared to mine. The memory of Emelina's reaction to it put a tired smile on my face.
I let the smile sink, opened my notebook to the place I had tucked my pencil away, and reread what I wrote:
'Symbi Amaterasu is not responsible for the fire I conjured; instead, it was described as some form of Gamma that only exists here in the Paradox, and may be expelled from the body in the form of a facet. This is Green Gamma, and Nikki appears to have it as well.
There are two variants of Jovany (species: Servine) here. The one I met in the Beach Cave is a strider, and the one who took the time to explain to me everything is the real, credible Jovany.
I'm terrified of what's inside of me. I don't understand Green Gamma. I hardly understand any of the other colors, but this overshadows them. I'm not even sure Jirachi could answer my concerns.'
"I've only seen Celebi cast facets," Jovany spoke up. I caught what dangling part of his and Nikki's conversation I could. "At least, before you two. Celebi and I have been here from the start, and even I don't know how to use them."
"From the start?" Nikki pressed on. "When was the 'start'?"
"I don't know; the start," Jovany answered coldly. "I don't know what's real anymore. I think I remember seeing someone turn into something like Patricia, but that's all a blur. I have two memories, and both of them never end."
"I... see," Nikki said, cautious. "Well, I know a Jovany from Metedia High, if that's anything."
Jovany didn't say a thing. His expression was rock steady and lifeless.
"Um," Nikki prodded – literally. She actually leaned in and physically poked Jovany's cheek with her forefinger. I sucked in my cheeks at that. "Is this thing on?"
"It's on—I mean, I'm-... I'm on, yeah," the servine quizzically replied. "You're touching me?"
Nikki squinted, puffing her cheeks out, studying the other Pokémon. She kept her finger completely still against his face. The most amazing part was that Jovany didn't budge. His eyes flicked around, but he kept his face right there in perfect poking proximity.
"'Kay," Nikki chirped, moving her hand away from him. "Tell me about striders, tough guy."
"What?" he asked, looking at her.
"There's a strider who looks like you, a strider who we all thought was Cruce, and a strider who the Champions thought was their brother," Nikki listed. "Do you know anything about that, huh?"
"Luna," he simply said. "Aza's strider. She's with him. I don't know what they're doing, but it's affecting the Paradox. I'd go to find out, but I'm not sure I want to be in the middle, so I'd rather just finish my project."
"Your 'project'?" I echoed him. "You know, I'm addled, but I take that to mean you're responsible for why that strider looks like you?"
"He's getting closer. I want him alone. I'll get him," Jovany declared. "Nobody else needs to be involved."
"Ah, and is that why you hurt Patricia?" Nikki asked, shedding her sass.
"I told you; I retaliated." he said. "This isn't your problem, and you've already been hurt because you tried to get in the middle."
"Well, if this Green Gamma is inside of us, then wouldn't it be most logical to deduce that it IS our problem, Jovany?" I argued.
"Stay away from the striders," he simply stressed. "They're worth no emotional investment, and—you're touching me again."
She was. Nikki held her finger against the servine's cheek shamelessly.
"Yes, because you keep breaking," said our cinccino. "This'll be your reminder from now on. You break, I press a button to fix you. Got it?"
"I'm not-"
"Ah-ah-ahp! Button. Got it?" Nikki clamored over him.
"Button...?" he sighed, his dignity rebuked.
Well, better Jovany than myself to own a button.
I believe, one time, I actually owned one like that.
"Good – so good~!" Nikki delighted. What a cute voice she made. So chipper. She gave Jovany some space once more, letting her hand return to her hip. "Put your project on hold, won't you?"
"Fine," he agreed. "You two smell more like Green Gamma than he does."
"What does that entail?" I asked.
"Striders can sneak up on us. They might even be more aggressive toward you. If it means anything, I haven't seen my strider leave the Beach Cave ever since I drove him in there. It's because of Patricia that he came out, probably." he explained.
"Oh, 'probably'," Nikki mused. "That's reassuring."
"Should we make an arrangement," I paused mid-sentence, pushing my feet forward, back against the wall, and ultimately standing up with a breathy grunt, all the while holding my pencil and book in place. "To group up with everybody, and to sate Jovany's livid curiosity?"
"I'm tempted to take him with us all the way back home," Nikki schemed. "I would love to see how he gets along with Bryan!"
"I live here," he defended. "This is my home. I'll come with you until I learn why you can cast facets. That's it."
"Do I need to pinch you, too?" Nikki pondered. "Well, never mind. Pat, where's Emelina? Is she okay?"
I quickly grew self-conscious of my wing. I reached back and fluttered it forward simultaneously, closing my book and resting it under my arm. I folded the wing under my chin, petting against the largest surface I could find. The cottony warmth nuzzled into my chest and relaxed my shaken heart. The wing smelled less like her now, and more like the grassy, saltiness I seemed to remember from when I was pushed into this world, and...
The lightning bolt.
"She's here. I don't know how well she's taking the new Gamma, but I know she's here," I cooed, my voice ever so gently muffled and webbed into the surreal, fiery-fabric texture. "I feel I could nap for days, and I'd only just awakened in that cave."
"You don't sleep in the Paradox," said the servine. "You're hunted the moment you come here."
"And you call this place hoooome," Nikki groaned. "I bet you'll change your mind once you lay down in a soft bed."
"If there are any soft beds left back home." I said, much to Nikki's disagreement. Jovany hadn't a comment to make, and if he did, perhaps it would've pertained to striders. It seemed to be his berserk button, so I was beginning to accept the idea of incorporating a new button for him, à la Nikki.
We pressed along, and I hid in the back of the trio, etching away at the pages, simply vomiting my thoughts as the strider Jovany had done. From the outside looking in, I wasn't too sure who was more dangerous: Jovany or his strider. I would have argued for the former, given the physical trauma he did to myself and the strider, but with how striders seemed to function, it may have been only a matter of time before Jovany's strider became that way, too. Was that what he wanted though? He spoke so negatively of the striders; hunters, he called them, yet he reversed the roles between himself and his victim. He made his strider fear him. He had nothing to say for Cruce – Angel – and almost nothing for Luna. I would have vied that they were the ones to bookmark, not some traumatized, shapeshifting being from another dimension driven into a cave underwater. I wasn't too sure if I was referring to myself or the servine strider. Amusing.
Nikki and Jovany were walking along territory they must have tread before, but it was all new to me, and all the newer and more frightening once we entered the fog, far more malignant than the pixel snow in Solstice Hill Park. This, however, was Treasure City, a place where Pokémon once lived and aspired to create a utopia where adventure, zeal, and ambition could shape a future reaching beyond imagination. At least, this was what one of the plaques on a flickering, digital sign read somewhere above a building's entrance. I could barely see what future was six or seven feet in front of me. Irony was malicious, then.
I closed my book for the time. I strove to stay as close to my team, despite my heightened prudence toward one of them. Somewhere, in the deep, fickle haze, the Paradox shook and roared, alive with a storm unlike anything else.
Oh, guys...
You'd best be okay. Nikki seemed fine on her own, even if she was 'infected' all over again.
I have no idea how we became separated. It may be that Tripping is still a prominent threat, but operates differently. As misplaced as everything is, it seems sound.
Emelina, I hope you wake up when everyone's together again. I can't stand to have my fire cry again.
Despite everything, I will carry you through oblivion and out the other end.
