A/N: Team Roster: Jackson (Raboot), Sap (Vikavolt), Hudson (Mudsdale), Rosa (Bellossom), Mateo (Riolu), Dia (Meowstic)
Chapter 14 - Mushroom Graves
Mateo bounded around the pitch, jumping back and forth. This was his first Gym battle, and he had been gearing up for a while. Steel was one of the few Pokémon types effective against Opal's Fairy-types, and Mateo's Metal Claw was their surefire path towards victory. All their training in the Glimwood Tangle was finally coming to fruition.
Dolly and Mateo had breezed through Opal's odd quiz questions, her Weezing, and her Togekiss. His stat boosts were blazingly high, thanks to Dolly answering all of Opal's questions correctly (well, thanks to Mateo knowing the answers and then telling them to Dolly). He was doing excellently, which was a relief, as Dolly was nervous for his first big battle. While Jackson may be unrefined during travel, his power and fiery nature blazed forth in battle. And, while Mateo was refined during travel, Dolly was nervous he would be cautious against Opal and her Pokémon. That fear was quelled, however, as Mateo confidently and succinctly tore through Opal's first two Pokémon. Her Mawile was up next, then after that, the Gym's fourth and final Pokémon, and after that, another victory. Perhaps she could stay for Hop's match afterwards. She smiled at the thought.
"You're goin' down!" her Riolu grinned, pumping his fists as the Mawile appeared before them. "I'll beat you just like I did your other two mates, and then me an' Dolly will get a Gym Badge!"
Mateo surged forth again with a Metal Claw. If Dolly remembered correctly, Mawile was Steel and Fairy-type, so Mateo's Steel-type attack wasn't as effective as it was on the others. The two bounded back and forth, weaving around each other on the turf.
Dolly calculated as they bounded around the pitch, jumping and dodging, attacking and defending. None of Mawile's attacks were super effective against Mateo, so just a surge of power from her Riolu, and Opal would be down to her last Pokémon. She didn't know of any other Steel and Fairy-type combination Pokémon, so Mateo could handle whatever the Gym Leader threw out next just fine.
He was nimble and quick, skidding under the arms of the Mawile as it lurched forth. All those races with Jackson must have trained him just as well as the wild Pokémon did, because very rarely did this Mawile land an attack on Mateo. Just a few more hits and it would be defeated - it looked like it had a weak spot between its shoulder blades. It was risky, but with how fast and sharp Mateo's movements were, he would-
She was torn from her calculations when Mateo's taunts were cut short. Mawile's massive jaw crunched down onto Mateo, and flung him with incredible force into the ground. Pebbles flung into the air, no longer lodged in the ground thanks to the crater that formed beneath Mateo. He took a shaky breath, the shock of the first hit shooting through him. The adrenaline was pumping, tensing and pulsing, as Mateo made eye contact with the Mawile.
The Mawile lurched forth, sprinting at full speed. Mateo was scrambling, clawing, kicking himself out of the crater he was buried in. The Mawile was only a foot away, and Mateo's pupils went wide.
"Dolly, help!"
Dolly surged forward, but Mawile was faster. Its jaws lurched forward again, gripped Mateo's trembling body, and whipped him into the wall of the stadium.
There was a horrifying crunch, and Mateo crumbled to the pitch. He was always small for a Riolu, and that was even more apparent when Dolly saw him lying on the ground, a small spot of blue against the massive wall of the stadium.
"Mateo!" she screamed, breaking into a sprint.
Again, the Mawile was faster. It made it to Mateo first, and with another terrible crunch, flung him back to the middle. His small body finally rolled to a stop in the center of the pitch.
Dolly's fingers began to prick. They pricked like the voices in the air, the voices around the stadium, the voices in her head. They pricked and buzzed and shot into her arms.
Time was heavy as Dolly tried to run to Mateo. It was like a terrible dream - her shoes could find no traction in the grass of the pitch, her legs like sand, unable to hold her weight as she tried to move, as they spilled out from beneath her. She was pushing through water, everything grayscale, except for that shot of blue that was, too, slowly fading.
Opal called her Mawile to her side, watching the Trainer before her crumble beside her Riolu like sand.
The terrible numbness was shifting, pricking in her arms, her chest. It tore into her heart, into her head, as she recalled the pain and the torture of this feeling not long ago. An Eevee falling, a Noibat falling, a Wooloo falling, and now, here in her arms, she heaved out a breath as the stabbing tore into her heart. Because there, in her arms, was Mateo, fallen, and already cold.
The air was waterlogged, murky and swallowing, slowing down time and everything around her. Then, only one thing shot through the water, shot into her head.
"Dolly, help!"
The words, the memory, it played over and over and over in her mind like a scratched record, rewinding at the worst part again and again. Louder, louder, and louder it played as she stared at her Riolu. It reverberated through the metaphorical water she was in and she felt like she was slowly seeping into the ground.
"Mateo…?" she whispered, pulling him onto her lap.
She ran her fingers through the fur on his face. Those big, orange eyes that often gazed up at her with so much love were now closed. And they always would be, thanks to her.
"A shame."
Dolly's head whipped up.
"Televised to the entire nation," Opal sighed, still gazing from across the pitch.
Her brow was furrowed, eyes soft. Even she was grayscale. Dolly was still holding Mateo in her arms as the stabbing in her veins grew stronger.
"He's dead, isn't he?"
Gasps erupted from the stands.
"Send out your next, we're almost done here."
Dolly still felt underwater, still felt outside of time, but the part of her that was still breathing obeyed. She returned Mateo to his Poké Ball, though her arms still felt heavy without his weight in them. She sent out Jackson.
She was stunned into nothing, only watching as her Raboot blazed forth. Jackson bounded forward, hardly needing her direction as he defeated the Mawile with ease. She was in shock and he was enthralled in the battle, so neither noted the screams and shouts from the stands to stop.
The words from the crowd swam up to Dolly's face, snaked over her body, wove into her hair. Abusive. Disqualify. Monster. Drinks and banners were being thrown onto the pitch, at her, at her Pokémon. But her body was too far to notice, and her mind was too far to care.
Opal sent out her Alcremie and both their Pokémon Dynamaxed. Again, it didn't take long, nor through much instruction, for Jackson to throw powerful attacks. Dolly squinted at the heat that Jackson produced, shielded her face from the glitter that fell from the Alcremie. Opal's Alcremie started to crumble, bits of frosting falling to the earth as it shrunk from its Gigantamaxed form, already defeated.
Jackson began to shrink as well. The grayscale of the stadium erupted, shining and shimmering from the red of Dynamaxing to the blue of evolution. The color returned to Dolly as the crowd gasped. Dolly's Raboot finally evolved into Cinderace.
Jackson stared at his paws, moving his body as he shook out his legs and arms. A grin spread across his face as he turned to Dolly.
"Finally! Right at the end of a battle, too, awesome! That'll be some nice views for the fans back home!" he grinned, bouncing up and down. He pointed to the Rotom camera fluttering around them, then he turned to Dolly. "Maybe now that I'm bigger and stronger, I'll finally beat Mateo in a race! Send him out, he's got to see this!"
Dolly stared at him, though she still felt like she was sinking. Jackson stopped bouncing, still looking into Dolly's eyes with a grin.
"Go on, send him out! He's got to be a Lucario by now, too, right? He probably beat all those other Pokémon and evolved, he's so ace! If not, then I'll definitely beat him, probably in an arm wrestle, too," he laughed. "Our matches will be legendary for sure!"
Dolly stood frozen as the crowd turned from yells and jeers to an anticipatory murmur. The noise surged through the stadium like a wave in a storm, growing and pulsing. It throbbed as the Trainer and Pokémon stood across from one another.
Jackson took a step closer, and Dolly started to shake her head. She felt like she was being ripped back and forth from the storm bulging in the water, in the noise around her.
"Dolly," he said again. "Send him out."
The tears fell freely, quickly, tumbling from her eyes as she could only shake her head at her partner. She moved her glasses up, setting them on her hair as she wiped at the tears. The noise of the crowd was throbbing, pulsating, just like how her heart wrenched with each beat.
Jackson's eyes widened. A mix of horror shot through them, then disbelief, then despair, then fury. They flashed through his eyes like gunshots, each emotion replaced as quickly as it came.
"No." he said, taking a step back. Dolly could only stand and stare at her partner glaring back into her eyes.
"NO!" he yelled, gripping her shirt collar with his paws. "Send him out Dolly! Tell me he's still fine, tell me he's still alive!"
A choked sob escaped her throat as she only shook her head, tears falling freely to the pitch below. His grip loosened as he stared at her in horror.
"Dolly."
The tears fell, streaming down her face. The noise in the crowd was ripening, ready to burst. The only color she could see was the blazing red that was burning in his eyes.
"Tell me he's still alive."
She opened her mouth, and nothing escaped. She tried again, and again, watching the fear flash in Jackson's eyes. She couldn't speak through the water that was sliding down her throat, choking her slowly. She had to will it with everything she had to say the words she wished she didn't know.
"I can't," she choked out. "He's gone."
Jackson was frozen. He too, was now part of her grayscale world. No fire blazed in him and his heart barely beat.
Then, it was like a single drum beat. A single sound reverberated throughout the stadium, throughout the water, throughout the grayscale. Jackson slowly reached back, then through the water, through the noise, through the gray, he reared back, and his fist shot through the water. It wasn't slowed by anything. Jackson had reared back, and punched Dolly in the face. His fist hit her eye and she stumbled back, falling to the ground, sloshing through the water around her. Jackson returned to his Poké Ball as she gripped her face, her eye already starting to swell shut.
The dam had burst. The waves that were throbbing, that were pulsating against her eardrums, had finally erupted as the crowd shouted, as they stood and hurled garbage onto the pitch. Banners and drinks and shouts were thrown at her, tearing at her, shooting into her skull. The curses and insults and objects hurt just as badly her eye did, and they flashed and blinded her too.
She could only sit there, crying into her hands as the entire world watched. Watched her Pokémon die. Watched her starting partner attack her out of rage, fear, hurt. Watched her as she sat, a broken girl crying in the middle of the pitch.
Opal walked forward and held out a hand. After a moment Dolly took it in hers, still holding her other hand over her face. The color was now too saturated, too contrasted, too bright. It was grainy and loud, like a photo that had been over exposed.
"Your pink is still lacking, but you're an excellent Trainer with some excellent Pokémon. Good try, but still not what I'm looking for."
Dolly could do nothing but look back at the nonchalant woman before her.
"Don't worry yourself about it, child. It's just a matter of my preference. I'll find the next Gym Leader elsewhere. Too bad about all that, but here's a Fairy Badge for your efforts."
Opal held out the gold Badge to her, but Dolly didn't even want it. She didn't want proof. Still on autopilot, she took it anyway, the jeers and cries still shouting from the stands.
The pair made their way off opposite ends of the pitch.
She changed in a daze, peeling off her soaked Challenger shirt. Someone threw their drink at her on her way out, and the syrupy liquid was sticking to her skin. She shoved her uniform in her bag and pulled on her old clothes, zipped up her old jacket.
Dolly sighed weakly, her eye still throbbing where Jackson hit her. She deserved it. She didn't blame him. Not a single bit. She trudged into the atrium of the Stadium, staring intently at the ground until she made her way back into the cool air of Ballonlea.
She finally pulled it out and gazed at the Fairy Badge in her hand. The pink twinkled, she let out another sob, and made her way to the Pokémon Center.
And again, just like all the Pokémon before him, the nurse said there was nothing to be done for Mateo.
The beautiful colors of Ballonlea had dulled.
The Chinchous and Morelulls drifted around her, floating through the air like ethereal stars. They moved as slowly as she did, as if they could feel the despair settled in the bottom of her heart. They moved as if they could feel how it seeped into her arteries like a murky liquid, wetting every inch of her chest, every fiber in her bones. How it sat loosely, thinner than water, shaking with each movement, yet engulfing her entirely. The Pokémon's dancing glow cast warped shadows beneath her, and they danced as well, as if alive. One shadow grew larger than the others, and Dolly looked up.
"I've got a few errands to run in Hammerlocke," Opal said. "Care to join me for the journey? If you're headed for the next Gym stadium, you'll need to get to Hammerlocke, too, after all."
Dolly couldn't bring herself to speak. The energy within her was sapped the second Mateo hit the ground. It took energy to even lift one leg to walk, much less battle on the pitch. She looked up to Opal and nodded. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if they went together, as it was easy to keep pace with Opal, and she didn't have much energy to walk anyway. They started their way to the forest, walking in silence.
"They say that Pokémon buried in the Glimwood Tangle are blessed with a happy afterlife," Opal said after a while. "Only if they're buried beneath a green mushroom, of course."
Dolly's heart sank.
"Or, a pink mushroom if they were the victim of a curse."
Dolly stopped in her tracks as Opal continued. She shook her head and fell back into step with Opal.
So, Opal knew about it too, then. Dolly tucked her hand into her pocket and rubbed Mateo's Poké Ball with her thumb. She supposed it was only natural, after all. Her outburst at Motostoke was quite the spectacle for local media, and it didn't take long channels to catch up on what might be going on with her. Even throughout her travels, she often heard and saw little snippets of the next big conspiracy theory surrounding her and her team and what the Nuzlocke Curse could be. At first her mum called her every few hours to check up on her, making sure that she wasn't actually drinking Tentacruel poison like an article she read had said.
Mateo was the first of her Pokémon to have his death advertised to all of Galar. It hadn't registered for her; she had only returned Mateo to his Poké Ball and continued the battle. She didn't even process the fact that others might have caught on, especially since her visit to Motostoke last. News was spreading quickly about the Gym Challenger with the strange condition. That thought was confirmed when she ran to the Pokémon Center and caught the tail-end of a newscast replaying her battle already:
A cry from her Riolu. Her yelling his name. They even got the bit where Jackson hit her.
"Most all of Galar knows about it now, I'm afraid," Opal continued, as if reading Dolly's thoughts. She stopped suddenly, turning to Dolly. "The question is, do you?"
Dolly looked up to Opal, her blue eyes piercing Dolly's brown. As she gazed at her down her long, crooked nose, something seemed to flash in the eyes of Opal.
"A little," Dolly replied, unable to keep eye contact with the Gym Leader before her. "Mr. Kabu told me a bit too when I was in Motostoke after… after I lost my first few Pokémon. I figured some stuff out on my own when I was younger, and an odd hostel owner told me stuff too."
"Then you should know that you aren't the only one to have dealt with this," Opal said, turning on her heel again. They continued down through Ballonlea, finally making it to the threshold of the Glimwood Tangle.
"That's what Mr. Kabu said too, he knew a girl named May when he lived in Hoenn who had it," Dolly replied, stepping over another branch. "And the Champion of another region maybe had it, too."
Opal let out a small hum and they continued down the forest path. As they walked deeper into the forest, the world around them seemed to exist only of tall, dark trees and bright, neon glows. The winding trail thinned as they walked, and Dolly found herself ducking under branches and over stumps, all of which Opal seemed completely unaffected.
"I knew a boy who had it too, long ago," Opal said wistfully, gazing up at the tops of the trees. Spritzees chirped and hopped from branch to branch, singing mournful songs. From their coats wafted what looked like glitter. As soon as they hit Dolly's nose, she began feeling nostalgic.
"Thinking of him takes me back," Opal sighed. "Oh, Elio."
"He had the Nuzlocke Curse?" Dolly asked, stepping over another branch.
"He did," Opal affirmed, still looking to the tops of the trees.
Dolly looked to the forest floor ahead. She hadn't noticed before, but it seemed little Pokémon were ducking in and out of the trunks, brush, and mushrooms, all scuttling around to remove debris from Opal's path... Even if it meant shoving something in front of Dolly's feet in the process. That explained why there had been dozens of logs that she tripped over that she could have sworn weren't there before.
"We met when my father took me along for one of his business trips. Oh, we had such a grand time on those islands," Opal mused, her eyes looking far into the distance. "He told me about his Curse one night, during many of our moonlit rendezvous."
At a quick glance Opal almost seemed younger, her skin radiating in a way Dolly hadn't seen before. Dolly nodded, then stumbled as a Phamtump fluttered around her feet.
"It took a while for me to coax it out of him. I had always known he was different, grand in some way. That's what attracted me to him, of course, and him to me, but my feminine wiles got the best of him. It only took him so long before he couldn't resist my beauty and charm," she added, still plodding along the forest path. "I know it is surprising, but I was even more beautiful than this at one point,"
They walked in silence, until Opal paused and cleared her throat.
"Uh, right. Right of course, that's quite hard to picture though, Ms. Opal," Dolly spluttered. Opal narrowed her eyes. "...Th-that you could be even more beautiful… than you are now..."
That seemed to satiate her, and they continued forward.
"He told me of similar symptoms you seem to be facing. Namely, the sudden death of many of his Pokémon."
Dolly flinched at the word.
"At the time, however, he was not afflicted by them. He could battle and lose, and his Pokémon would be right as rain after a quick trip to the Pokémon Center."
Dolly's head whipped around to Opal.
"He overcame it, Dolly, so may you,"
Dolly hiked her backpack up higher on her back, looking to the ground intently. So, it was possible to break the Curse, Kabu was right. Her and May's stories weren't just a fluke or a coincidence, but they seemed to be connected. This Elio bloke seemed to have the same effect, at least when he lost Pokémon battles. If the Nuzlocke Curse afflicted Trainers throughout the surrounding nations, perhaps her condition wasn't so lonely after all. If Elio overcame it, and Kabu was pretty sure May overcame it, and maybe that Champion overcame it, then perhaps these visions she was having weren't so mad after all. Maybe they too had guiding voices calling them to break the Curse.
"Do you know how he did it, Ms. Opal?"
At this, Opal sighed, and looked again to the tops of the trees.
"He beat the Champion of that region, but that's all I knew. I had to leave before I heard the end of his story. My father's business conference ended before we anticipated, so I was whisked away. It wasn't before we spent one final night together though, alone on the beach. Oh, to this day, that was one of the best nights of my young life. Never have I held another man without seeing that passion in Elio's eyes the night we-" she paused, glanced down to Dolly, and cleared her throat. "...Never mind."
Dolly wasn't focusing on Opal but was instead thinking back to the hostel in the Wild Area. Beat the Champion, break the Curse. All these stories were corresponding, and Dolly's lonely heart settled into the melancholy confidence that she would continue this journey to the end. She would do it for Mateo, for other Trainers like her, just as much as she would do it for herself.
"Thanks for telling me about this, Ms. Opal. This extra perspective is helping me feel like I really can overcome this Curse. But… where are we going?" Dolly asked, looking behind her.
Even through her one good eye she noticed the trail had been lost for a while now, and she couldn't even remember the last time she had seen it. This certainly wasn't the path she and Hop had taken into Ballonlea.
"You'll see."
They trekked through the Glimwood Tangle, Opal still miraculously keeping her same slow and steady pace, never once tripping or stumbling along the way. Dolly, on the other hand, was the polar opposite. Her skin was riddled with little cuts and bruises where she stumbled over a stump, into a thorn bush, or was once smacked in the face with a tree branch by an Impidimp. It hit her right in the eye, and she saw stars again. She sighed, accepting how that bruise would probably last a while.
Throughout it, though, Dolly reminisced on the similarities between Opal and Kabu's stories of these Trainers from other regions. Her mind wandered to the complexities of this Curse, and yet the simplicity of it as well. There seemed to be a handful of 'rules,' almost, that each afflicted Trainer must follow. Such simple rules with such dire consequences. And all for what?
Dolly wished she could have met this May and this Elio and ask them the thousand burning questions that dwelled within her. Could they talk to Pokémon? How many partners did they lose, and how did they deal with it? Did they have these dreams and visions as well? Did they break the Curse forever, or did it come back? What spurred them to break it, and how did they find the strength to continue? That hostel owner probably wouldn't answer any of them, even if Dolly was correct in her prediction of her identity.
These questions buzzed around her head like a thousand Beedrills. It wasn't until Dolly noticed a soft pink glow slowly growing stronger that they stopped, and Dolly almost ran into Opal's back.
"And we're here," Opal smiled, looking back at Dolly.
With a gesture of her arm, Dolly followed Opal into the clearing before them. Her breath caught in her throat. Before them was the largest mushroom Dolly had ever seen. It towered over the others around it, almost as tall as the dark trees of the forest. It cast a warm pink glow over the clearing and through the leaves of the trees around it, its cap emitting the ethereal beams of light. Although the Glimood Tangle was a strange place, Dolly felt that this place was even more different, even more strange. It was almost as if they were stepping into another world entirely - a world that existed of only the protective light of this massive pink mushroom.
All sorts of Pokémon flitted about the clearing, those native to the Glimwood Tangle, and some that Dolly didn't even recognize. They danced and played around in the grass, singing songs and giggling as they chased each other about, all under the giant mushroom overlooking the clearing. The clearing was almost a perfect circle, with the trees, berry bushes, and thickets of grass cut symmetrically around. Little white flowers and small glowing mushrooms bloomed throughout the clearing, adding texture and a bit of glitter around the base of the massive mushroom sitting in the middle. Puppy Pokémon, what looked like a hedgehog Pokémon, and other dancing flowers scampered around them, unafflicted by their entrance to the clearing.
As she and Opal approached the center, it seemed to Dolly that they weren't the first Trainers to visit the sacred site. She could faintly pick out little rocks with names carved into their surface neatly lined beneath the pink mushroom. The names each carried the unknown weight of memories. She looked back up to Opal.
"Is this for…?" she asked faintly.
Opal nodded. Dolly could feel the weight of these headstones as she rubbed over Mateo's Poké Ball again. A rumble came from her bag and Jackson appeared before them, brow furrowed as they both looked to Mateo's Poké Ball.
"Jackson," Dolly started, voice trailing off.
The look in his eyes was complete despair, brokenness. His gaze never wavered from the Poké Ball in her hand. She reached to return him to his Poké Ball until Opal set her hand on her wrist.
"Let him watch. Let him grieve and have his closure as well."
Pokémon from the forest appeared again, and one of them handed Dolly an old, rusted shovel. When she took it, she wondered how many other grieving Trainers held its handle. How many of them cried? How many of them held it in anger? She only knew how she felt as she broke the ground with it, and laid Mateo to rest.
Jackson patted down the last few tufts of earth, smoothing it over nicely for his friend. In the glowing pink light, Dolly watched as a few sparkles fell from his eyes, landing on the grave beneath him. Where they landed, leaves began to sprout, and little white flowers already started to bloom.
Dolly faintly wondered about the other white flowers scattered about the clearing.
He stood, wiped his face, and returned to his Poké Ball, never once meeting Dolly's eye.
Opal turned, and Dolly gave the grave one final goodbye before turning away for the last time. Perhaps it was only a shadow cast by the glowing mushrooms, or the trees swaying around it, but in the corner of her eye, Dolly glimpsed the faint shadow of a small Pokémon to join those playing in the clearing, waving his final goodbye as well.