Tags: Attempted murder (twice!), cursing, more talk of casual immortality

Chapter Thirty-One - A Heap of Flesh and Bones

Training did not start the next day.

Aya didn't mind. She was helping the help center today, trimming the Eldest's bushes with good grace. The woman was staring at her funny, like she wasn't what was supposed to be here. Not who, what. How weird. The elderly were strange. Fu-chan's matriarch was at least a thousand years old and she was only better at pretending not to be weird. Aya didn't mind her watching though. Ghosts watched people all of the time. They just weren't visible to her.

"Do you want them any lower?" she asked, stretching out her stiff knees.

To her credit, the woman actually checked her work, looking at the bushes and the pile of carefully plucked flowers that Isaiah was gently practicing water gun over in a fine mist with the help of one of the swablu that liked perching by sensei's house. "Hm. No, thank you though. To wrap up, can you help me wrap and tie these? I tend to send them to Goldenleaf for the graves."

"Sure!" Aya shifted to sit in the dirt and waited for the woman to come back with her. "How do you send them? I thought they don't like outsiders over there."

"The head has me teleport the flowers into a room for her with natu here." Said natu alighted onto the nearest railing, staring at her soul with pitiless eyes. "It must be hard, bearing the burdens of a whole city, especially one with such opposite feelings to her own."

Aya did not flinch. "That is the duty she has as its leader. Not to be a dictator, not to be its commander, nor to be its voice, but its guide. All a leader can do is work with the power they allow themselves to have. There's nothing shameful about it." She began to gather the flowers into the offered paper and tie them together. "Her way of doing things just isn't working."

The eldest chuckled. "You have no shame, do you? It's fairly entertaining."

Aya carried over her first few bouquets. "Only because you mix shame and humility."

The woman cackled again.

Aya really didn't understand old people.

Eventually, freed from helping with menial labor around the village, including getting a pancham from a nice girl who wanted an aipom to navigate the forests, Aya picked up two quests back in Gearan. The first was to get some cargo back. The second was to find more clues about that supposed hidden library under Gearan.

"Too bad Grandpa Z can't use a phone…" she muttered, beginning to type on her phone under her shared group chat. "He'd love that…"

Her phone pinged and Ren answered, "Yeah I'm near Sheridan. I could use some more training."

Venam added a moment later. "I know who those thugs are. They work for the bridge bunny. Let's stomp 'em flat."

She grinned at the device. She was so glad to have friends that loved to fight like she did.

"Enjoying yourself, are we?"

Aya's smile faded. Fuck you, Hortense, with a spiked glove.

"How rude. I was merely suggesting that you are much happier without that blond girl you tried to use to escape destiny."

Aya stiffened as she approached the man sitting in his truck. He waved at her and she managed to smile back. Fuck off.

"My little master was trying to run away. But we both know that isn't what kind of person you are. A reckless, feckless little fairy. She was a perfect stepping stone, wasn't she? For you."

Aya hoisted herself up into the back of the truck and let out a sigh. "You're awfully chatty lately."

"Well, I enjoy having you all to myself." The god laughed. "And I do want to understand human motivations. Pokemon are always after something in action. You humans, well you facsimile of a human, always have to think about it. It's quite silly. But that's all right, my silly little vessel. You can keep having hope as long as you want. You won't be able to change so long as you cling to it. Someday I'll have that body of yours again and I won't bring you back when I'm done. I'll even cure your friends for you, just to make it fair."

Shut the fuck up already.

"Oh if I must. After all, you don't want to look like a monster in front of your friends. Just a cute little rich kid with a big, powerful family. All the good things in the world, none of the foul things you really love about yourself."

Aya rubbed her temples as someone else heaved themselves over. "Well, you look like shit," Ren greeted. "Thanks for waiting for me."

"Ah… sure." She wasn't going to tell him that she hadn't waited at all, merely been so busy arguing with the stupid fire chicken ghost that she had forgotten to ask the truck dude to drive.

He squinted at her. "You seriously look like shit. You okay?"

Aya opened her mouth to say she was fine, but stopped and shook her head. "Talking to the grumpy gods makes me tired."

"Yikes." Ren settled next to her, pulling out his bag and fiddles with a ball. "Venam told me you caught Arceus."

The car began to reverse beneath them. "I did," Aya said cautiously. "He's a brat."

"Takes one to know one," Ren said with a shrug. "Still, that's pretty wack. Goldenleaf worshipped Giratina until the Radio Tower burned down. Then they got mad she didn't save the children and the people. The statue we've got has been pissed on and crap."

"She?" Aya tilted her head. "Giratina doesn't have a gender."

"The legends in Aevium call Giratina a bloody, fearless warrior queen." Ren tossed a pokeball up and down. "She ruled a great and terrible kingdom in the land that became this one and went to war with a peaceful kingdom whose name I don't remember. Because of that, she was betrayed and killed by her sisters and her daughter. The story's in the ruins down below the city. I've never heard all of it, because I don't have any badges, but I've heard trainers flee from the ruins screaming about it." Ren tossed out the pokemon in its ball, revealing a blue and yellow bird. "Sariah and them would always go fucking crazy laughing at them, even though they always nearly fell in the pits when we played down there. Stupid."

Aya watched the bird flap its tiny wings over his head and asked. "What happened to your murkrow?"

"Sent them to my sister via PC," he replied wearily. "Cocorin got really messed up when they damaged her ball, and she's always liked flying types. Maybe if I send her something to look after she'll stop breathing down my neck. This is Babadook, my rookidee."

Babadook chirped.

"Your sister sounds as clingy as my cousin," Aya finally said, rather than touching the weight of… any of that.

"Does your cousin hate when you get mad and act like you're going to crumble like tin-foil pokeballs?"

Aya pinched her nose. "She probably would if I'd seen her in the past couple of years. We got into a fight and we're not really talking right now."

Ren peered at her, watching Amethyst Cave and its pokemon zoom past them. "What happened?"

Aya shrugged her shoulders. "She wants me to leave my friends to die."

"The… wait, the kids in the pokeball?" Aya nodded. "Why?" Ren sounded horrified.

"It's more that she doesn't want me to try and fix the problem because it was the problem of our hometown and they should do it." Aya fidgeted with Pich's tail, who squeaked happily at the attention.

Ren tried to imagine that level of harshness and could only think of Narcissa's cold eyes as she destroyed him in battle for the seventeenth time in a row. "What happened?"

"The same thing that happens to all ghost-type trainers eventually if they're worthy." Aya looked up at the ceiling. "She met the dreaming dead, and the demons that go with it. She's not quite had a handle on it like she thinks she does. So she's bitchier with everyone now, and I told her where to shove it. She's kind of always been like that. I just realized it wasn't okay."

Ren grimaced. "That must have been hard."

Aya made a face. "Hey, you told your entire hometown where to stick it. Don't act like you don't do the hard shit."

"I ran away, that's not hard."

"Sure it is." Aya raised her hands to let the tiny rookidee perch on them. Pich sniffed the bird even as it squawked in fear and surprise. "You could have lived in that town and its bullshit forever and actually started believing it. You could have not looked back when you left. Give yourself some credit, dude."

Ren blushed to his ears. "Thanks. But getting back in's been a hecking nightmare."

"I'll help you when I'm done in Sheridan," Aya offered. "I gotta go anyway."

Ren grinned. "True facts. Hey, when we get back to Gearen, you wanna crash on Venam's floor? Her mother will be apoplectic."

"Heck yeah." Aya grinned at him. "I'll get Rua and Aelita and see if they can come."

"No idea who they are but the more to piss off Karrina with noise complaints the merrier."

"Does everyone hate her guts?" Aya was in genuine awe. The last person she'd met who got that much loathing she'd actually seen deserve it.

"She's got a pineco up her ass about something," Ren said, rolling his eyes. "She's always glaring daggers at me when I'm around. If you're not in her gang, she pretty much doesn't like you."

"I caused a rock slide in here and she lost her crap at me," Aya admitted.

"Everyone does that, what the fuck?" Ren let out a happy laugh. "It's Aevium terrain 101, people don't play fair."

"Is that what it is?"

"Yeah she likes a fair fight." Ren let out a laugh. "Well, she had you around so it's definitely not fair."

"Changed my mind, I'm kicking you off this truck."

"Don't you dare-"

They arrived in Gearan still bickering and laughing. His rookiedee had given up and gone back to the pokeball to keep up with them.

"Probably can't use him in whatever this is," Ren admitted as he hopped off the truck, waving at the guy. He waved back at them and parked, heading to the store. "Venam said that the punks at the port like to use electricity because of the cargo packing factories. Made an entire field out of it."

"Well that reeks." Aya slipped her hand into her back. "Can't use my birbs or Isaiah then."

"You gonna be safe in there? They like to electrify the floors." Ren glanced at her as she finally gave in and pulled out a clear umbrella to avoid the drizzle.

Aya thought about it. Then she grinned. "I'll just float in ominously just above the tiles and make them think they're high."

Ren howled outright. "You're definitely from a ghost town. That's genius."

"Thanks, I try." They headed towards Venam's house, Pich poking his head out of Aya's hood. Eevee slept on inside it.

Ren raised an eyebrow. "Aren't they heavy? For your neck, I mean."

Aya shook her head. "Bit of kimono girl training is running up and down mountains with hiking gear on for our size and weight. They'll be on my shoulders soon enough anyway."

"Is that why I can fully imagine you breaking boulders with your bare fists?"

Aya smirked. "Let me tell you about the time Mister Pryce destroyed boulders with his cane."

"Oh this sounds wild."

By the time they reached Venam's yard, Ren was practically howling with laughter as Aya mimicked the flopping of a magikarp mid-walk. In the yard, someone raised an eyebrow.

"Hope you don't usually walk like that," they said. Aya turned to look at her, then grinned.

"Nice ponytail, Venam."

Venam touched her hair, now multiple shades of purple. "Thanks! Mom helped me do it. Better to keep my mind off… everything, ya know?" She tried to grin, but only succeeded in looking tired. "Mind helping me with these boxes? They're not heavy but I gotta get them to the Lab to send off before we go down to the cargo hold."

Ren scooted over and picked up a couple. Aya paused long enough to let Pich and Eevee down to follow."What's all this?"

"Donating my clothes for peacekeeping." At Aya's raised eyebrow, Venam made a face. "You remember that girl Amber I bitched about?" Aya nodded as she picked up a box. "She and I hate each other for something that happened when we were kids. She blames me for it because it got her kicked out of Gearan. I blame her for it because there was a heck of a lot of evidence that it was her fault by accident and I haven't seen my dad since because of it. We have no idea. There were other kids involved. It was a whole thing. So she's exiled to an island with her rich ass mom. But the problem is their drone deliveries suck out there. So I'm going to port these and a cd I've hung onto over to her."

"That's a bit of a jump, Ven," Ren said conversationally, leading them towards the League because he was of course tall and could see. Pich was sitting on his box, the lazy squeaker.

Aya could see Venam's ears turn red. "Well, uh, I have my reasons."

Ren nodded briskly because he clearly knew and Aya decided not to press. "Do you need help covering shipping?" she decided to ask.

"Squirt, if you try to pay for me to fix my life I'm going to string you up by your toes," Venam said, laughing again. "Hell no, you've done enough. Now let's get these boxes in the mail so we can beat up some morons who expect you to come alone."

Aya glanced at Ren, who shook his head, then shrugged. "Okay, Ven-Ven."

"If you call me that now, I'm going to break your nose for the five seconds it takes for it to fix itself."

Aya grinned, the mischief of a fae twisting her mouth in a cruel little curve. "Did my therapist call you?"

Venam scowled,fingers digging grooves into boxes. "Yes, and one of your dads told me he'd beat me within an inch of my life if I hurt you and let my mom do the rest."

Aya laughed so hard she actually felt it in her ribs. "That sounds like dad all right. Papa wouldn't say shit he'd just look at you until you prostate yourself on the floor."

"Someone could have told me that Eusine was a papa wolf." Venam grumbled with flushed cheeks. "Anyway, that Wes guy asked me to do a DNA test. See if we've got some relation."

"If you're related to a thief," Ren began, voice dry as sand. "Then that would explain so much about you."

"Oh fuck off man."

Aya snorted at the two of them, and missed the look they exchanged over her head.

Of course, there was someone standing guard at the cargo hold when they finally moseyed on down there.

"All this for some Pokemon treats?" Aya asked. "I mean they're god dang extortion anyway, being $1500 a pop but still." She didn't add that they smelled like fake bacon.

"It's probably inheritance recipe rights," Venam said with a scowl. "The inventor had five kids and two of them want it over the youngest daughter who it was given to. She secluded herself and they probably think that if they threaten the cargo, she would give it up."

"Why'd the youngest daughter get it?"

"She's the only one who could bake."

Their sniggers caught the attention of the guard, who looked at them with a scoff. Aya grinned at this all the wider. Venam could actually see the birdlike curve of her mouth the longer she did it. Wicked. Aya rolled her shoulders and marched up to the guy, which Venam almost twitched at. But then, either of them would have also done that.

"Heyo," Aya chirped, actually chirped. "I was called by the Help Center and a nice lady said you were hoarding GourmetTreats?"

The man squinted at her, likely seeing a fresh-eyed, sweet looking ten year old girl with pink hair and not a walking possible catalyst of chaos. The small, fluffy, over popular pokemon at her feet probably helped too.

Venam had to wonder if that was the real reason Aya kept them around. With them, she didn't look like a very powerful trainer, just a stupid kid who played with the popular things.

"What's it to ya?" the man finally asked. "Thinkin' yer a hero of justice or something?"

Ren saw it before Venam did, the way the light just shuttered and died from Aya's face, even though the smile remained. "Nuh-uh," she said, agreeably. "I just have a job to do, and that's to stop you and your lot. I need to eat."

The man chuckled, reached into his pocket, and took out a wad of cash that probably was all fake with some actual loose poke change mixed in to fool dumb kids. "Take that and scram brat. Adults are doin' their jobs here."

"Izzat so?" Aya's smile widened. "All righty!"

Then, like magic, a staff appeared in her hands and she jabbed it, jewel end first, into the man's gut and he flew through the metal cargo hold door like it was a curtain.

Ren blinked once. "Okay, is that a Joy thing or a Ho-oh thing?"

"That has got to be a Joy thing," Venam said after a minute. "I saw videos of Nurse Joy lifting up god damn snorlax and being able to cut their skin. And those are the ones that don't like to fight. Battle Joy are like, freaking monsters. You ever see those videos of moms lifting bridges with their bare hands? Battle Joy do that all the time, like Forgers and, uh… there's a group of people who and live underwater their whole lives and devote themselves to Kyogre. Fucking mad lads. I think they're all dudes. Forget what they're called. My mom dated one before the old Blakeory dude kicked him off the job for having a life."

"I feel like some dinky human," Ren muttered, beginning to jog after her.

"I doubt anyone on Aevium is some dinky human," Venam said with a snort. "We just gotta find your superpower. Maybe you can shoot lasers from your hands, like Luca can set her eyes on fire."

"Yeah, right after I learn to fly."

The two of them bickered all the way to the door, and then they heard an awful shrieking sound. Trainer instincts propelled them not to go in, but teenage impulsivity caused them to go anyway.

Aya was standing there watching the guy she'd punched getting electrocuted by the floor of the moving conveyor belt. She looked, at least, concerned, a slightly pinched note at her lips. "I keep trying to send him over my geodude," she told them when they arrived. "To get him out of there, but he's acting like i'm trying to kill him."

"You did punch him through a solid door," Ren reminded her in the most deadpan way possible. "Most people don't trust you after that."

She made a face. "I guess that's fair. You guys have any ground types?"

"I have a trapinch," Ren said and took her geodude's ball and let out his trapinch. "I'm impressed you didn't try to just leave him there, he's squealing like you just about killed him."

"I mean this could do that."

"How do you have a trapinch?" Venam groused, glaring at him as he released the two to promptly ignore all the zapping and screaming as they crawled and floated towards the guy and the smell. Ugh.

"I figured the lab isn't paying me anymore so I spent some of my paycheck and traded them some water and grass types and a few stray birds for it."

"Hot damn."

They finally got the poor man onto non-electrical ground, by now unconscious. Aya looked him over with a squint and then cracked her knuckles. "This could take a minute."

Then the power in the factory went dead, plunging them into darkness. "Fucking hell," Venam muttered.

Aya muttered something and Pich's cheeks sparked with light, lighting up the area around them from Aya's head. "Good move bud," she told him and she glanced at the guy a minute more. Then she sighed, reached into her bag, and popped out a potion to spray him down with. "If he's smart, he'll let an actual nurse look at him."

"Ey!" someone shouted. "What'd you do to our mate?"

Ren and Venam proceeded to roll their eyes.

Aya, just as unimpressed but actually twelve, turned towards them with a ball in hand. "Some people like a hands-on approach," she said, releasing a shuppet to hover and cackle at nothing in particular. "Calia, don't fuck around, go on and say hi. It's rude."

The shuppet stuck out its tongue at her and darted ahead of them. Seconds later someone screamed in terror.

Aya sighed. Ren and Venam laughed at her. "Come on, Calia's a right fucker and he might actually drive them insane. We need them alive so I don't get arrested."

"Yeah, murder's illegal here." Seviper rubbed affectionately against Venam's knee and slithered forward, taking the lead like he loved to do. He glared at Aya as he passed, who raised an eyebrow. "Still mad at your swoobat."

"Oh, fair."

Ren raised a hand to silence them, pointing to his growlithe. Said puppy gently scratched at the floor multiple times. He raised six fingers. Six trainers. Venam and Aya nodded and he went left, Venam went right, and Aya took the center, mainly because they expected her to. As they separated, Ren watched her swipe her hand and the staff vanish into thin air.

Hm. He didn't like that.

Ten seconds later, the light went out for a moment, then electricity exploded as the entire factory sparked back to life. Ren leaped into the air to dodge the electricity now coming off of the tiles. Thankfully there was one gaping dumbass staring right at him, so Ren used him to cushion the fall.

Though he had never leaped quite that high and far before. Maybe Venam had a point about that "Aevium folks had powers" idea. The other guy threw a qwilfish at his face and Lilypad, his cacnea, literally smacked it into the opposite wall.

"Dang, girl." he said. She puffed up her full body in pride. He pointed at the nearest porygon. "Do it again."

She was more than happy to oblige that command. With both arms.

Cripes.

He sent Carmen forward, his growlithe borking like he wasn't in a death trap. As his pokemon did. By griatina's tattered wings, he was messed up.

The guy underneath him groaned and Ren hurried off of him, just as he threw a ball right towards his face. Bonnie burst from his belt and knocked it off course, water pulse crashing right into the man's mouth and nearly breaking his teeth. "Bonnie, back!"

The frog croaked at him but did not attack the fallen man again.

Ugh. There was so much wrong with this, with attacking trainers. People at home did that, overwhelmed people with their ghosts and beat the everloving shit out of them and mugged them for money. Then they hid their faces and dyed their hair and went to the festival or the train through the forest and snuck through and got food, or stole it or whatever, this wasn't righ-

"REN!" Venam's voice caught him just before a booted foot kicked him in the chest and threw him up into solid air. Solid…

A mr. mime stood below him, sealing the second wall into place in front of him. It looked at him without sympathy.

Ren did not need to look up at the ceiling to guess what was happening. They were going to deprive him of his air to make him and them, stop fighting. Maybe this would even kill him.

The 's eyes stared at him, into him, then turned as a needle the size of his finger jabbed into the 's neck.

The pokemon's eyes rolled into the back of its head and it toppled to the ground. Aya was staring at it, silently, motionless as the shuppet grew and grew in the shadows of Flash while the shuddered in pain.

As its shudders grew weaker, less frequent.

Horror bubbled in his throat and Ren shouted. "Wait!"

Aya glanced up at him, then at the mr. mime, then at Ren, then at the trainer, who looked like he had pissed himself. Then she lifted the ball and returned her shuppet and whistled for her pikachu, who knocked both human and pokemon out with a swipe of his sharp tail.

"If you say so," she said, in a way that made him feel like he was going to vomit his breakfast.

They finished the rest of the task quickly, Aya finding the cargo boxes and pocketing something as they did. Ren did not even notice his pokemon wrapping up.

She had nearly had her pokemon kill that other pokemon. Which, yes, was a thing in nature, a thing in the wild. Some people even ate pokemon because the fake meat made them sick. But that was cold, premeditated murder planning right there. If he hadn't shouted, these guys would be dead.

"Dude, breathe." Venam looked at him with calm, easygoing brown eyes. The same as always. "Just deep breaths man. They're not dead, and you're not dead either."

"How are you so fucking calm," he hissed.

Venam regarded him thoughtfully. "I'm looking at it as, I have the loyalty of someone willing to kill for me instead of die for me. Besides, if it's between you and this random potted plant, I'm taking you. Is that so bad?"

Yes he wanted to say. Yes it was. They were still lives, they were still people, they still mattered.

But he couldn't choke the words out.

"They didn't think of Melia that way," Venam said softly. "They didn't think she freaking mattered. These guys didn't think you mattered. It's not about mattering, man. It's about the choices. Your town made bad choices, but hey it got you out of it and right now that's fine by me."

Ren could only stare, heartbroken and terrified as they finished up.

Why wasn't this a big deal for them?

"Aya," he finally said. "Were you really going to kill that pokemon?"

Aya looked at him through an oran berry. She chewed a piece and swallowed it. "If I had to. Wouldn't you?"

No, he wanted to say. No, of course not. It's murder. "It's wrong."

"Morals and ethics are less important than the people who use them," Aya said, smiling a little. It was so uncanny, so so wrong. "I didn't think I'd have to, because these pokemon aren't trained very well." She knelt down beside the unconscious mr. mime. "But the barrier walls could have squished you like a grepa, or choked you to death. Anything could happen. I wasn't going to let that happen."

"But it's murder," he said, for lack of anything else.

Aya nodded sharply at him once. "It is. Why does it bother you now?"

"I…" He licked his lips. "I don't know. It just does."

"Ah." Aya went to one of the unconscious would-be thieves and lifted items from his pockets and belt with barely a rustle of clothes. "That's good though. It means you still see life matters. I do too, but that's the problem with raising ghosts. The dead still matter too, I think."

"What if you're wrong?"

Aya blinked at him. "I'm pretty sure you guys would tell me considering you're older, bigger, probably stronger-"

"Smarter," Venam added. "Don't forget that."

"And objectively uglier too, definitely can't forget that," Aya finished. "You're more than willing to tell me I'm fucked up. I might actually take you seriously. What are friends for?"

Ren remembered the last younger person he was friends with, the last person he'd laughed along with and tried to do right around and be right for.

Thinking of Melia now made him sick in the worst sorts of ways.

He couldn't help but wonder if, in the heat of the moment, if he would kill to protect her. To keep the purity of her existence free of blood and hardship and pain. Would he be willing to do that?

Something in him gut said yes, and that terrified him.

A/N: Rip Ren. Also, me, imply Aevium is a place of superpowers? Perish the thought.