A Pallet Pair #8:
Preserving Periwinkle City
The sun rose over the ocean far to the east, as slow and sure as it had from the beginning of the world. It was greeted by only the faintest wisps of clouds. Even those who were too far from the ocean to see it over the water were rewarded with the most beautiful eastern sky of the year.
Ivonar Marain, her jaw tightly set in the same scowl she'd been wearing for three hours, was facing firmly south. She gripped a pokéball in one hand, Sweetie to her chest with the other, even as she raced down the road. "Hang on," she whispered. "Hang on."
Beside her, Joey Remshaw was silent. He could have easily raced far ahead, but any attempt he had made to suggest it had been utterly ignored. There was no getting the pokéball out of his friend's hands. He had already placed Chia in her pokéball; she hadn't been able to keep up. He held Cole, Q, and Static in his arms.
On Ivonar's other side, Manx held Fluffball firmly in his jaws as he, too, kept pace with his trainer. His passenger made silence his only option, but, even so, he had nothing to say. Even if his trainer was able to understand him perfectly, which she wasn't, nothing could reach her in her determination.
Or almost nothing, as they soon found out.
Remmy was surprised to hear the sound of an engine approaching behind them. He glanced over his shoulder; a beat up pick-up was coming down the road. Between the early morning light and the truck's headlights, it was impossible to see the driver, much less see if the driver had seen them.
"Ivonar!" he said. She didn't show any signs of hearing him. "There's a truck behind us. Maybe we-"
Before he could say another word, Ivonar's scowl grew even deeper, and she stopped short. Before Remmy or Manx could skid to a stop, she whirled around, dropping Sweetie, and jumped into the middle of the road, her free hand out. "STOP!" she shouted.
The truck's brakes squealed, the radiator coming within two feet of Ivonar before the vehicle skidded to a stop. The headlights blinked off. The driver started to lean out the window, but before they did, Ivonar was around the cab, trying to open the passenger side door.
"What is wrong with you, kid?" the driver snapped.
Ivonar glared at him through the open passenger-side window. Nothing really registered about him except that he wasn't being very helpful. "It's an emergency," she snapped. "Let us in, and get us to Periwinkle City."
The driver rested one arm against the wheel with infuriating calmness. "Oh really?" he replied. "What sort of emergency, hmm?"
"If you don't let us in," Ivonar snapped, "I have just wasted two minutes I could have used to save my Pokémon's life." She glanced down at the door lock keeping her from the cab. "Please," she said softly. "Let us in."
"That's all you had to say." The driver reached over, pulling up the lock. Then he leaned out his own window. "Hey, kid! Come get your lift!" he shouted at Remmy. "You and the cat get in the bed, okay? There's not too much room up front."
Ivonar tore the door open, leaping into the front seat. She held the door open for Sweetie to jump in the cab with them. She buckled herself in, waiting impatiently for Remmy and Manx to get the other Eevees and Q into the back of the truck. She jumped when she heard a bang above her head. "We're in!" Remmy shouted.
The driver shifted the truck into gear and pressed his foot to the gas. "I meant that," the driver said. "Either 'please' or 'Pokémon' and you had me cornered."
Ivonar leaned against the back of the seat and sighed. "Thank you," she whispered. For the first time in three hours, she realized that she was dead tired. She closed her eyes. Already, they were going twice as fast as she'd been running.
"Sorry about giving you grief, there," the driver said. "I'm not exactly the nicest person first thing in the morning, especially not after spending the night in the car." He ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. "My hair is all sticking up, isn't it?"
Ivonar looked over at the driver. She was surprised to see that he was probably just old enough to drive - sixteen, seventeen at the absolute most. His dull, midnight blue hair was brushed mostly back, away from his face. "Yeah," she replied.
"Okay." He nodded slightly. He looked towards her, flashing a quick smile before turning his face back to the road. "I was worried it had gone flat."
She glared at him. "Can you concentrate on driving and not your hair, please?" she asked, gritting her teeth to keep herself from shouting.
He glanced at her again, without a trace of a smile. "I can concentrate on both," he replied. "I was just trying to help you not concentrate on how helpless you must feel not being able to help your Pokémon yourself."
She was about to snap out a reply when she caught herself. "How-"
"How long have you been training?" he interrupted her.
She frowned a little, but decided to let him try his mind games. He was right, in a way - feeling helpless did nothing to make them go faster. She just had to sit back and be patient, now. In one way, it was easier to run than to accept his help: when she was running, it was up to her. Now, Nuisance's fate was in the hands of this stranger and his truck. "A little over a month."
He raised his eyebrows. "You look a bit old to be ten."
"I'm twelve."
"What kept you?"
She frowned. The stranger's bluntness was a little unnerving. "Last year I broke my leg, and the year before I came down with the flu. Bad luck kept me."
"No such thing as bad luck." He hit the turn signal, turning left at a fork in the road. "Just twists of fate."
"Yeah," Ivonar replied, looking out the window. "My fate's pretty twisted, all right." She watched as the ground between the two roads began to get lower very quickly. The road they were on veered even farther left as the low ground spread out.
"Was a nice sunrise," the driver said. "Too bad we missed it."
"I was a little distracted."
"And that's a 'little' understatement." She glanced at him cooly. "You were lucky I was trying to keep half an eye on the sunrise, or I wouldn't have been going so slow. You'd have been a pancake, and I'd've never driven again. In my line of work, driving's pretty important."
Ivonar looked out the window again. She was surprised to see that the ground on her side of the car was nearly non-existent: four feet from the truck, the ground simply dropped. It didn't start again for a good thousand feet. Only a two-foot high barrier separated the road from the cliff. "What do you do?" she asked, to fill in the time.
"I train, too. My fifth year."
She looked at him. "I'd be being nice if I said you looked a bit old to be fifteen."
He glanced at her, then chuckled. "You have me there," he replied. "Just turned sixteen a couple months ago." He chuckled again. "Chicken pox."
She frowned. "Huh?"
He chuckled a third time. "I came down with the chicken pox when I was ten, or I'd've been training six years, not five."
"If you train, why's driving so important?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "I don't really catch Pokémon for fun anymore. Sure, I train in my spare time, but I have a job, now, too, that helps me to train." He reached out of the truck with his left hand and hit the outside of his door. "This is the company truck."
"What company?"
He sighed. "I used to work for the city, but I had to get a better-paying job after my first flopped. Now I work for PPE most of the time."
"'PPE'?"
"Take your pick - 'Periwinkle Pokémon Exterminators' or 'Painless Pokémon Evictors'."
"Exterminators?!" Ivonar cried.
"Hey! Take it easy!" The driver put one hand toward her, as if to ward her off if she decided to attack him. "I really prefer the second title. I get Pokémon out from where they don't belong."
Ivonar frowned, her expression suspicious. "What do you mean?"
"Say a Pikachu gets into a house and starts chewing electrical wires. It's my job to get it out of there and back into the wild where it belongs. Or if a Gastly decides to have a little fun and haunt an attic, it's my job to convince it to find someplace else. Or if a Gloom finds itself panicking in a mall, it's my job to face the smell and get it calmed down enough to get it someplace where it feels safer. I get Meowths out of trees, Eevees out of gardens, fickle Goldeens out of swimming lakes." He slowed down as they went over a bump. He waved to a man in a small booth, who waved back. They started to drive over a bridge. "That's my job. I don't hurt Pokémon. I just remove them from places they don't belong."
"Oh." Ivonar looked out the window again; the ground was far, far below them.
"We're going over the bridge across the Angle," the driver said.
"The Angle?" Ivonar repeated, looking at him again.
"Yeah. The Angle is a part of Tier Canyon that juts out from the rest."
Ivonar thought back to the map. Tier Canyon had been shaped vaguely like a diamond, except that its upper-right side had a sort of triangle sticking out of it. She decided that he must be talking about the triangular part. "Are we almost there?" she asked.
"Just another couple of minutes. What happened?"
She shook her head. "I'm not entirely sure. I was asleep. I had these… these weird dreams, like I couldn't move, and I heard these voices… familiar voices that I couldn't quite understand…" She shook her head.
"Go on."
"Then… then I got this weird feeling all over me, and… it was as if I wasn't myself anymore. I saw Nuisance, his eyes glowing nearly black, and I was terrified, and surprised, and… and then I… I can't describe it. The next thing I knew, I was sitting up, screaming that I was sorry."
"Sorry?"
"That was the last thing I kind of remember about it. I felt… kind of sorry, for something." She shook her head. "When I got out of my sleeping bag, I found Nuisance, his head all bruised. He wasn't conscious. And… and his heart was so… so slow…"
"His heart?"
She nodded. "It… it sounded wrong. It never sounded nearly that slow."
"What is Nuisance?"
"A Psyduck."
"A Psyduck with its eyes glowing black…?" He frowned. "I've dealt with a few Psyducks. Never seen them with black eyes before. But those whose eyes glowed blue had their psychic abilities working. From my experience, the darker the color, the more angry they were." His frown deepened. "You said you found your Psyduck unconscious. Had it been fighting something?"
She nodded. "An Abra."
"Ah." He nodded as well. "Ever think he might've been in shock?"
"Shock?"
"Has your Psyduck ever fought with another Pokémon with any psychic abilities?"
"No…"
They drove off the bridge. The driver slowed for another speed bump, then drove faster again. "Brain freeze."
"Huh?"
"Your Psyduck probably fainted from expending too much psychic energy. Psychic attacks aren't exactly their most powerful against other psychic attacks. Your Psyduck probably wiped itself out. Psychic attacks aren't like physical attacks. Too many punches just hurts the arm, and maybe a few back muscles. Psychic weariness affects more than just the mind." He frowned a little. "Never heard of a Psyduck beating an Abra at its own game."
"You haven't met Nuisance."
He glanced at her, mildly surprised. He looked back at the road as he hit the turn signal again. "I'll have to make an appointment, then." He turned into a short driveway. "We're here."
Ivonar unbuckled quickly, then, shoving her door open, jumped out. She was about to slam the door shut again, when she remembered to wait to let Sweetie out. She looked up at the driver. "Thanks."
He gave her a quick smile, and a quicker salute. "Be sure to stop in at the PPE office later. I want to know how your Psyduck's doing."
"Okay." She shut the door.
"Your friend out of the back?"
She turned back to him, then felt a hand on her shoulder. "We're all out," Remmy replied for her. "Thanks for the lift."
The stranger nodded.
"Come on," Ivonar said, turning to the Pokémon Center. She ran inside.
Remmy paused, watching the retreating truck. "Hope she knows who he is," he muttered to himself. Manx snorted impatiently; Ivonar had gone too quickly through the door to let him or the Eevees follow her inside. Remmy grimaced, then hurried after his friend, the Persian and the Eevees at his heels.
*
They sat silently in the waiting room, Sweetie in Ivonar's lap, Static in Remmy's. Q had taken refuge under their seats, and Manx lay by their feet, as if they were cooperating to keep the Pokémon whose species remained a mystery from the sight of anyone who might wander in. Chia sat in the chair beside Remmy's, a worried look on her face. She pet Cole, who was curled up beside her, and waved her tail lazily to keep Fluffball occupied.
Ivonar kept her eyes fixedly on her hands, which were folded together on top of Sweetie. Her knuckles were dead white. "How long has it been?" she asked tonelessly.
Remmy looked up at the clock across the room. "Four hours," he replied.
"Since I last asked?"
He shook his head, even though she wouldn't see him. "It's been twenty minutes since you last asked."
Ivonar finally looked up from her hands, to look at the lit ER sign. "Hang on," she whispered, then looked back down at her hands again.
Remmy sighed softly. He picked Static up, putting him on the floor so that he could stand up. "Eevee, I'm going to call Professor Oak," he said. "I understand you want to wait to see what they say about Nuisance, but for now, I'm going to see if Professor Oak knows what Q is. Okay?" She didn't even nod, much less look at him. He knew she could hear him; he guessed she didn't really care what he did, at the moment. "Come on, Q. Chia, you stay here." Q crawled out from under the chair Remmy had been sitting in, the bar it still carried scraping against the floor; Manx tucked his hindquarters tighter into the ball he was curled up in to make it easier for it to get out. Remmy picked it up, carrying it to one of the public phones in the corner of the waiting room. He chose the one farthest in the corner, where he was least likely to be seen. He sat at the chair provided, with Q in his lap. He fed some change into it, and dialed.
After a couple minutes and several rings, the connection finally went through. "Just a moment…" a frazzled voice said, before the picture came through as well. Professor Oak looked awake, if barely; a mug of coffee sat dangerously close to the monitor. "Joey! Good to see you! You're up bright and early." He reached for his mug, bringing it to his lips.
"We've had our share of problems," he replied. "Good to see you, Professor."
"'We'?" Professor Oak echoed, nearly spilling the coffee all over himself. "Oh! You mean you and your Bulbasaur. How is it?"
Remmy shook his head. "I mean me and Ivonar," he corrected the man.
"You… and Ivonar?"
Remmy nodded. "We've been training together. She didn't mention it when she called you?"
Professor Oak shook his head as he tried to take a sip of his coffee; somehow, he managed to without spilling it on himself. "No… she complained about her Poliwag evolving, and told me a real shocker about her Psyduck. Does it really know Psychic Toss?"
Remmy nodded again. "But we've found out something new. Nuisance is a year older than Ivonar thought."
"'Nuisance'?"
"The Psyduck." Remmy grimaced. "Did you get the Abra?"
Professor Oak nodded. "Sullen little thing. I know Abras spent most of the day sleeping, but it hasn't moved at all since coming here! What happened to it, anyway? It took me awhile to realize it was completely… neutralized, for lack of a better term. Confused, paralyzed, disabled… all but poisoned and pummeled!"
"It and Nuisance had a disagreement." Remmy's grimace became a scowl. "The Abra tried training Ivonar instead of the other way around. Nuisance didn't let it." He looked toward Ivonar; she hadn't moved. "Nuisance beat it… but now he's in ER. Ivonar said he was dying."
"Oh… oh, dear." The Professor bit his knuckle, grimacing, before speaking again. "Tell Ivy my prayers are with you."
"I will." Remmy exhaled slowly. "We have another thing, though."
"Not something else!"
"It's not really bad news, Professor. Just a question we really hope you can answer."
Professor Oak sighed in relief. "What is the question, Joey?"
"Can you name this Pokémon?" Remmy took Q under the armpits and lifted it in view of the telephone's screen. The movement knocked the pot Q wore on its head over its eyes.
"Not… with the pot on its head, I'm afraid. What's that in its paw?"
"Part of Ivonar's mess kit. It doesn't want to give it back." Remmy placed Q lightly on the telephone's keypad, and took off the pot. Q glared over its shoulder grumpily, but, unlike the night before, didn't seem frantic to get its helmet back. Instead, it smacked him sharply in the thigh with the bar in its paw. He cringed.
"I…" Professor Oak leaned forward, toward the screen. Q cocked its head to the side, and did the same. It looked as if they were nose-to-nose. "I… I don't believe I can." He sat back down. Q pressed its snout to the screen, then one paw, as if to follow him. "In all my years, I don't think I've ever seen that Pokémon species before. You found it?"
Remmy nodded. "Just a few minutes before we found the Abra. The Pokédex says the closest thing it's programmed to recognize is a Cubone."
The professor frowned, then shook his head. "If that's a Cubone," he said, "why doesn't it have a skull helmet?"
Remmy shrugged. "It's been wearing the pot ever since Ivonar took it out of her pack."
Professor Oak shook his head. "If you tried removing the skull off a Cubone… even if you had been training it for years… well, in the very least, you probably wouldn't be able to count to ten on your fingers anymore. Let me see its profile, Joey."
Remmy nodded. He put the pot on the floor, and shifted Q so the Professor could see its right side. The older man shook his head again. "Its tail is too short… the ridges down its back completely wrong… I can't tell you anything about the head, I'm afraid, but from the rest of it, I wouldn't call it a Cubone."
"There's one other thing," Remmy said. "All it says is 'q'."
"Q!" the Pokémon agreed, turning to look at the monitor again. It grinned.
"Hmm…" Professor Oak shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't answer your question, Joey. I'll have to ask some of my associates if they know of anything of the sort... perhaps some of the geneticists I know will have an idea. It may be a hybrid of some sort that escaped a lab, or a resurrected Pokémon from prehistoric DNA whose current records are limited to skin samples and incomplete skeletons..."
"Thanks anyway, Professor," Remmy interrupted him politely.
"Oh! Yes, I'm sorry. I totally forgot the line was still open." The professor frowned seriously. "I'll look into getting that Pokémon identified, Joey, and, as I said, tell Ivy that I hope everything turns out for the best. Good luck to you both."
"Thanks, Professor. You too. Tell my parents I said hi, okay? I don't know when I can get to a phone again, and I have to sit with Ivonar for awhile."
"Of course. I'll also give a word to Ivy's parents as well…"
"Professor? Maybe it's better you didn't." Remmy grimaced a little. "At least, let Ivonar give them any bad news."
The professor grimaced as well, then nodded slightly. "Yes… that's probably for the best. Thank you for calling, Joey. Until later, then."
"Bye, Professor." He hung up, grimacing again, then picked up the pot, put it back on Q's head, and got up. He carried the Pokémon back to his seat, putting it on the floor so it could scurry under his chair again. He sat down again.
"How long was that?" Ivonar asked tonelessly.
Remmy glanced at the clock. "About ten minu-"
"Ivonar Marain?"
Ivonar leaped to her feet. "Yes?" she snapped out quickly at the nurse who had suddenly appeared. It was another Nurse Joy, but Ivonar was starting to get used to the idea. Besides, she had more important things on her mind.
The nurse looked tired, but she was smiling. "Your Pokémon took quite a shock," she said, "but it will be fine, with plenty of rest." Her smile vanished completely. "How could you be so irresponsible to battle it into that condition?"
"Battle it-" Ivonar scowled. "I would never do that to Nuisance!"
"'Nuisance'?" the nurse echoed harshly. "With a name like that-"
"My brother named him!" Ivonar snapped. "I would never hurt Nuisance! He happened to have saved me! I didn't battle him! He caught that Abra by himself! I was asleep!" She clenched her fists. She inhaled sharply, not quite sobbing. "It's all my fault, helping that Abra. I shouldn't have been so stupid. I should have seen that the stupid thing was using me. But I didn't. Nuisance did - and look where it got him!" This time, she did sob. "It is my fault," she whimpered, tears stinging her eyes. "I should have seen- should have noticed- shouldn't have-"
All anger had fled from the nurse long before this point. Sympathetically, she wrapped her arms around Ivonar, holding her close. "Shh," she murmured. "It's all right. Nuisance will be fine, given a few weeks to recuperate. "You can't blame yourself. You did what you felt was right. Sometimes, what is right turns out wrong. Sometimes, when a Pokémon comes in here, I'm certain I can save it - and I can't." Ivonar looked up at the nurse's now kind expression. "But today, a Pokémon came in that I wasn't sure I could save - and I did." She gave Ivonar a little squeeze. "It's always best to do what is right, Miss Marain. It may not turn out for the best, but, in the end…"
Ivonar nodded, wiping at her eyes. "I understand," she muttered softly. "When… when can I see him?"
"Tomorrow," the nurse replied. "For now, I have Nuisance sedated. More than anything, it needs its rest, so for now I want it to stay asleep."
Ivonar nodded again. "But he'll be okay?"
The nurse nodded, but her smile faded. The harsh expression from before did not replace it, but that didn't mean her expression was any less stern. "He will need several weeks to recuperate, however. That means no battling at all. I'd prefer he just stay in a pokéball for at least a week."
"Except to eat, all he really does is sleep on my feet at night, unless he battles," Ivonar replied. "Is it okay if he still does that? Except for the battling, I mean."
The nurse nodded. "Nothing stressful for him. His natural headache will be quite strong for the next few weeks from the strain he was under. I want you to give him two of these with every meal." She pulled a pill bottle out of her apron, handing it to Ivonar. "You can't give Pokémon aspirin, but this is their equivalent. Two with each meal," she repeated, then added, "but, since it's a Psyduck, no more than four a day. With Psyducks, there is a slight possibility of addiction to this. He may become accustomed to having a lesser headache: he can become too used to it."
"No more than four," Ivonar echoed, nodding seriously.
"Also, you can't give him the two doses he's allowed daily within six hours of each other. I suggest you give them twelve hours apart - perhaps eight a.m. and eight p.m., or whatever fits into your schedule best. Remember - because he's a Psyduck, this could be harmful if used incorrectly." She pointed to the bottle in Ivonar's hand. "That should be a month's supply. A moment ago, I was seriously considering telling you to leave your Psyduck here, instead of giving you that." She smiled reassuringly. "But now that I know what happened, I think it may be better for him if he stays with you."
Ivonar nodded slightly, smiling as best as she could. "Thank you."
"You can stay here, for the night, if you wish," the nurse told them. "There's rooms upstairs for trainers whose Pokémon stay overnight." Ivonar nodded.
Remmy nodded as well, and took Ivonar's elbow. "I think we should get some breakfast," he said, then added as Ivonar gave him a skeptical look, "if only to kill time. We're not going to mope around here all day, are we? There's nothing we can do, Eevee, and we'll only get in the way."
Ivonar grimaced, then sighed. "All right. The Eevees are probably hungry, anyway. It's passed their breakfast time." Sullenly, she followed Remmy back to their seats.
*
After a small breakfast at a diner that seemed even smaller than their appetites, the two trainers wandered aimlessly along the sidewalk in the early morning haze. The beauty of the morning had vanished: a sort of thin curtain of haze seemed to hang over the entire line of buildings, and filled the canyon that the city seemed to hug too closely for safety's sake. The haze hid the other side of the canyon from view: it was if the city were perched on the edge of the world. They had left the Eevees in Chia's care back at the Pokémon Center: the only Pokémon with them was Manx.
"So this is 'kle City'," Remmy joked.
"Huh?" Ivonar asked dully.
"According to the map, we're on the east side of Tier Canyon, so we're in 'kle City'." He glanced at her. She had her head bowed, looking at her feet as if to ask them how they could stand to be attached to her. "Ivonar," he said, "aren't we a little far for that psychic bond to affect you?"
"Hmm?" She glanced at him, a pained expression on her face. "If you mean we're too far for Con to have any effect on me… well, your guess is as good as mine. I really can't tell. I couldn't tell even when he was right next to me." She kicked at a stone. Even though her expression remained passive, the distance the stone skipped in so short a time told of the anger that dwelt beneath her self-punishment.
"My parents always told me, there's no such thing as an evil Pokémon," Remmy said. "Con seemed to come pretty close."
Ivonar shook her head. "Con's not evil." She looked toward the canyon running parallel to the sidewalk. "Just self-centered and greedy. All his life, he had to look after himself. I was just another means to do that. If it meant using me against my will, then he'd do it. Same as training an unruly Pokémon. Instead of trying to get me to respect him, as I did Ro and Manx, he was going to use force." Manx snorted softly, as if the very idea of him respecting her was simply silly, but his faint smile made it unclear if he meant it or not. "He simply didn't know any better."
Remmy nodded. "Selfish little brat."
"Exactly. But he had the power to make himself dangerous, too." Ivonar grimaced. "If I ever see Con again," she murmured quietly, "it will be too soon."
Remmy nodded again, then decided to change the subject. "Did you get to thank the guy that drove us here?"
It was Ivonar's turn to nod. "He said he wanted to know how Nuisance was. We could try to find where he is, to kill some time."
"Sounds good. Do you have any idea where to find him? What's his name?"
Ivonar shrugged. "I… kind of never asked," she replied. "But he said he works at a place called the PPE."
"The what?"
"It's some sort of Pokémon relocation thing. Sounded like a pretty cool job, actually. He's paid to drive around, getting Pokémon out of places they don't belong without hurting them."
"Did he say where it was?"
Ivonar shook her head. "I guess he figured we could find it. Maybe it's a popular place or something." The thinly paved road was only one lane; no cars passed by. The sidewalks weren't that crowded, and what people were about at the early hour did not look willing to pause to give directions. The citizens of Periwinkle City seemed sullen, if not downright upset, as they hurried from where they had come from to where they were going, their eyes almost fixedly on the ground. Ivonar looked again toward the canyon. "Have you noticed that nobody seems to look at the canyon?"
Remmy nodded. "It's like, if they ignore it, it'll go away."
"You'd think there'd be more bridges across it. I haven't seen any." Ivonar frowned. "Isn't there a whole second half to the city on the other side of the canyon?"
"According to the map, there is," Remmy agreed. "I know what you mean. It's kind of weird that there aren't any bridges across it."
"Never thought I'd see the day." The two of them looked up at a slightly balding man who had paused on his way in the opposite direction. "You actually came to Periwinkle?"
"It was kind of an emergency," Ivonar replied.
The man nodded. "That explains it," he said. "Was kind of surprised to see you had your Pokémon with you. Most people have enough sense to keep theirs indoors, where air conditioning can save their lungs. You don't wander around Periwinkle unless you have to, kids. Keep that in mind."
"What do you mean?" Remmy asked.
"You really don't know?" The man covered his mouth with his fist, a rough cough escaping him before he continued. "See that so-called 'canyon' over there?" He pointed roughly at where the ground dropped off not a hundred feet away. "Used to be the main hub of Periwinkle Town. Then somebody deepening a water well went and struck some sort of valuable ore - coal, I think. A big mining corporation bought out about seventy percent of the town, and either bribed away, or scared off, everybody else. That overgrown ditch is the result of one of the biggest mining flops in history. Nothing but dirt down there. The company actually paid the people who used to live in Periwinkle Town the same price they paid to buy their land to get them to take it back! That was twelve, thirteen years ago: we're still trying to get back what we had. And we won't any time soon, either." He started coughing again. "I have to get out of this air. The dust still hasn't settled from all that deconstruction… You take care of yourselves, and get inside!"
"Wait! Sir?" Ivonar jogged a few steps after him. "Do you know where the PPE office is?"
"Got a Pikachu in the wires? Yeah… we've been having a lot of Pokémon problems ever since us 'brave' ones moved back. With the loss of the clean air, they've been taking shelter in our homes, same as we have. End of the street, the way you're going. Can't miss it." He hurried away, coughing again, before Ivonar could thank him.
"He's right," Remmy said. "The air is disgusting." He looked up. Where, mere hours before, barely a cloud had marred the sky, a smoggy haze hid any clue of what color the sky might be. "I guess this is what Daisy and the others meant about avoiding Periwinkle City."
"Yeah, I guess - but we didn't really have a choice, did we?" Ivonar gave Manx's head a quick rub as she turned around again, facing the direction they had been going before. "Let's go see that guy before we start choking, too."
*
As he ran his fingers through his hair, he knew it was a habit he'd been meaning to break, but after six years he still hadn't even come close. What began as something he did when he was nervous was now something he did at just about every other time too. "Lazy day," he grinned at Janice. "Phone hasn't rung once."
She glanced up from her magazine, sparing him a cold look. "It's barely nine in the morning, Zeke. Stop saying that before you jinx it."
He cringed: that, along with his full name, was a label he hated. Still, as a matter of peace, he let it slide. He leaned back in his chair, putting his feet on his desk with his ankles crossed. To give his fingers something to do, he toyed with a rubber band. "You know I hate lazy days, Jan," he replied with a calmness he had learned over the years. It was a calmness calculated to that perfect pitch of coolness that drove people to the edge of fury without giving them a reason to act on it. The use of her own disliked nickname only added icing to the metaphorical cake. "I happen to like this work."
"You would," she retorted, as if it was an insult. With a rustling snap, she flipped the page of her magazine. "Just leave me alone, will you? Find something else to keep you occupied besides annoying me."
He grinned his closed-mouth, all-knowing grin, the one that, like the calmness he'd mastered in his voice, was perfectly calculated to drive people nuts - especially people like Janice, who were far more interesting when they were nuts. "But you make it so much fun!" he replied in his most innocent voice.
She spared him another cold look, then returned to her magazine.
Obviously, she really wasn't in the mood. Hs sighed softly, then winced as he accidentally snapped the rubber band against his finger. He lifted his left fist, then raised his thumb. He looped the rubber band on his thumb, pulling it taut, and took aim for the nose of the model on the cover of Janice's magazine. He sighed again; deciding to be nice for once, he lowered his thumb quickly, letting the rubber band snap back against his fingers.
He heard the faint chime of the bell on the door. Immediately, both he and Janice sat up. Janice stashed her magazine in her desk as he put his feet back on the floor.
There was a long pause, a quiet disturbed only by muffled voices from the waiting room. "New client," Janice muttered. "Nothing else takes this long."
"Great." He leaned back again to put his feet back up on his desk. "We'll be waiting another hour, then. Wake me when-"
The door to the mini-office they (thanks to the incomprehensible judgement of their superiors) shared opened. Surprised, "Zeke" leaned back quickly to get his feet, which were halfway on his desk, back on the floor, and overcompensated. For the first time in his life, he blessed the fact that the room was so tiny: the chair hit the wall and bounced back into the upright position so quickly, the familiar faces in the door barely had time to blink before he was standing up, all professional.
"Hey," he greeted them casually. "How's the Psyduck?"
The girl from that morning nodded, grimacing. "He'll be okay," she replied, brushing some slightly-longer-than shoulder-length brown hair off her shoulder. "Right now he's under sedation. We're stuck here for the day."
"Lucky you," Janice told her cynically, smirking. She opened her desk drawer, pulling out her magazine again. "Zeke, keep the personal business short, okay? You're on paid time."
He rolled his eyes slightly, grimacing a little. "Then if anyone shows up, I'm taking lunch early."
"Great! Leave me all the work."
"What work? I just spent two days in Lavender trying to convince a Gastly to get out of someone's basement and back into their tower. Both nights were in the cab of the truck. You spent the same two days answering magazine quizzes. Don't give me grief, Jan. I'll be back in an hour." With that, he went around the desk, putting one arm around the girl's shoulders, the other around the boy's, and hauled them back out of the micro-office, trusting their Persian to have enough sense to follow.
*
"Sorry about that," the boy said, as once again they found themselves in the heavy air of Periwinkle City. "That was Janice, my fellow junior-member. She gets annoying fast."
"I can see why," Ivonar agreed. "People like that make me glad I don't have an older sister. I'd rather deal with Toby any day over a stuck-up model wannabe."
"Toby?" the stranger echoed.
Ivonar shrugged a little. "My little brother."
The stranger chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind. I'm an only child, actually." He looked toward the canyon for a moment, then released their shoulders to wave them after him. "Come on. I know someplace we can breathe." He jogged down the sidewalk, heading farther away from the Pokémon Center. Remmy and Ivonar traded a look: as far as they could tell, there weren't any buildings beyond the PPE office. Remmy shrugged a little. They headed after their new friend.
They became a little worried when the sidewalk soon ended, and the path took a sharp turn downward. The stranger looked over his shoulder to give them a reassuring grin. "I'm taking you below the smog-line," he told them, "just inside the canyon. Most people hate it, because it ruined Periwinkle's look, but most of the adults don't realize is that, inside the canyon, the air's pretty clear. The adults avoid even looking at the canyon, most of the time."
"We noticed," Ivonar agreed.
"What's your name?" Remmy asked.
"Ah. Someone else realizes we're lacking something." He slowed down, letting them catch up to him. They went slowly over the infirm ground, watching their step, but he seemed unafraid of slipping. "My parents were cruel enough to name me Ezekiel Andrews the Fourth. Most people around here call me Zeke, which I hate but put up with."
Ivonar nodded sympathetically. "Some people call me Ivy. I can't stand it."
"Ivy, huh?" Ezekiel echoed. "Green thumb, or is it short for something?"
Ivonar gave him a skeptical look. "I like being called 'Eevee' better." She chucked her thumb at her friend. "That's Remmy."
"Another nickname," Remmy said, shrugging a little. "The only one of us without one is Manx." He ruffled the fur on the cat's head.
"Sure he does," Ivonar said, smiling faintly. "I like to call him 'scaredy cat'." Manx gave her an amused glare.
Ezekiel stopped short on a slight ledge, then jumped to another one three feet below it. "Evelyn and Rembrant?" he guessed as he hopped to where the path continued, two feet below the second ledge.
Ivonar shook her head as she followed after him, Manx beside her. "My name's really Ivonar," she said.
"Hmm." Ezekiel frowned thoughtfully at her as she landed beside him. He wasn't overly tall: at most, he was three inches taller than she was. "Haven't heard of that name before."
"Neither have I," Ivonar agreed ruefully. "I have no idea where my parents got it from."
Ezekiel looked up at Remmy, who was still on the first ledge. "What about you?" he asked. "What's 'Remmy' for?"
"Remshaw," Remmy told him, jumping to the second ledge.
It was Ezekiel's turn to look skeptical. "And I thought I was unlucky."
Remmy grinned one of his rare grins. "That's my last name."
"Ah." Ezekiel grinned, too. "Then I stand corrected. I am the unlucky one." His grin became a pleasant smile. "Personally, I like being called Zan. 'Z' from 'Zeke', 'an' from 'Andrews'. I don't know who started it, but…" He shrugged. "I dunno. I like it."
There was quiet on the rocky path.
"Zan?" Ivonar echoed. She paused for a long moment. Zan waited for her to find what she wanted to say. "You're the Periwinkle City gym leader?"
Zan snorted softly. "I wish." He turned around, heading further down the path. Remmy, Ivonar, and Manx followed as best as they could. The path was rocky and steep; half of it looked like it would turn into a rockslide any minute. "Or, should I say, I wish I still was," he corrected himself a moment later, as he slid a few feet down an especially steep part.
"What do mean, still were?" Ivonar asked. "Somebody replaced you?"
Zan shook his head. "That's just it," he sighed. "That's the job I used to have for the city - I ran the local Pokémon gym. We managed to get one, and we hoped it'd bring in trainers looking for badges. It was hoped that trainers going to Cerulean City would come here to get a badge, replenish their supplies, and generally help us get even more work done in reclaiming what that stupid corporation made us lose." He sighed as he skidded down the path. "I barely remember when this was Periwinkle Town," he said quietly. "I was only three, I think. I vaguely remember when they brought in the digging machines. Right where we are used to be twenty feet below the park in front of my house." He looked back up the way they came. He pointed. "Right where the rim is, where we started down? That's where my house used to be. They tore it down, same as they did nearly everything else."
"That's terrible," Ivonar murmured.
"That's people," Zan replied with a slight shrug.
"That's a strange thing to say," Remmy said slowly.
Zan chuckled. "I don't tend to give people much credit," he said. "I greatly prefer Pokémon. They don't do things like this." He waved a hand toward the entire canyon. "They don't destroy each other's homes for the sake of something they can't see. The only interest they might have in another's property is the ability to live off of it." He crouched down, gripping the ledge he stood on. There was another, much larger ledge below, but the drop was closer to seven feet than three. Zan grimaced a little, then shoved his feet outward. He twisted around as he launched himself forward, letting go with one hand in order to face the ledge as he hung in the air above the next ledge down. Only then did he let go. He grinned up at the others. "Coming? I can catch you, if you like."
Manx looked down at him with a scowl, then, in a very determined way, lay down right where he was. He snorted, shaking his head slightly, as if to dismiss any knowledge of anyone who was foolish enough to try such a thing.
Remmy and Ivonar looked around for another way down, but, finding none, accepted help getting to the next ledge. Once they had ground beneath their feet again, Zan grinned. He turned away from them, going right to the edge of the ledge, and inhaled deeply. "Much better," he sighed, exhaling slowly.
"Why aren't you a gym leader anymore?" Remmy asked.
Zan sighed, staring out across the canyon. He was right: here, maybe fifty feet below the city, the air was much clearer. They could see the matching cliff across the expanse of the man-made canyon. "Not enough trainers showed up to make it worthwhile," he replied. "Periwinkle City has been balancing on the edge of collapse ever since people came back. The only reason we're not a town anymore is because we rebuilt around the canyon - we're simply too big to be a town anymore." He sat down with his legs hanging off the edge of the ledge. "Not counting the few people who tried more than once to earn a Chasm Badge from me, I battled twenty-two times as the gym leader of the Periwinkle Gym," he told them, his voice quiet. "Of twenty-two battles, I gave eight badges."
"Only eight?" Ivonar asked, surprised. She eyed the ledge, grimacing slightly, then chose to sit behind him. The drop from the ledge they were on was mind-boggling: there was nothing but small juts of rock breaking a plunge straight down to the bottom of the canyon.
"Only eight," Zan confirmed. "Most people didn't count on the bad air having such an effect on their Pokémon - it weakened them before they even got to the gym."
"My cousins run the Cerulean gym," Remmy said. "They told us you specialize in ghost and poison Pokémon."
Zan chuckled. "I didn't start specializing in ghost Pokémon until after I was forced to take the job with the PPE. Most of the problems outside Periwinkle are with ghost Pokémon not having any place to go. With all the ghost Pokémon I've come across, the most fun they can possibly have is to play tricks on humans. To catch them, you have to be even trickier." The slight smile he was wearing faded as he sighed again. "As for poison Pokémon… I chose to specialize in them because, while my folks and I lived in Cerulean while the miners were here, I would sometimes come down here. I actually watched Tier Canyon be dug."
"Why's it called that?" Remmy asked.
"You know what a 'tier' is?" Zan asked him. He took the ten-year-old's silence as a negative. "It's like a shelf in a bookcase, or a floor on a building. It's a level out of many levels." He looked down toward the bottom of the canyon without looking the least bit scared. If anything, he looked sad. "The mining company dug out the canyon layer by layer. Tier by tier. That's why it's called Tier Canyon." He bit his lip slightly before he continued. "I chose to specialize in poison Pokémon because I saw what was happening here. I saw the haze begin. It never lifts, you know. Poison Pokémon are about the only Pokémon who can survive here happily. I wanted to be a Pokémon trainer, but, in case we ever moved back here, I wanted to have Pokémon who could be happy here."
"You're not afraid to fall, are you?" Ivonar asked him.
Zan shook his head. "Not at all," he replied easily. "See, if the ledge were to break beneath me, I have a Pokémon who can catch me long before I get hurt. It's happened a few times, you see. After the first couple times, I got over it."
"So there's no gym here at all?" Ivonar asked, sounding only a little disappointed.
"Oh, there is." Zan patted the ground beneath him. "We're sitting on the roof, actually." He pointed down toward the bottom of the canyon. "There used to be a metal staircase down to the gym, but after the gym was closed down, people forgot about it. It started rusting, and eventually rusted right off. It's down there somewhere, now." He grimaced sadly. "I was a little surprised the day I found it gone. Nobody really comes down this way. Nobody really cares." He stared out over the canyon, toward the other side. Still, the other half of the city was blocked from view by the haze. "It's my hope that some use for Tier Canyon can be found to help out the city. People prefer to just ignore it, but I'm sure that, somehow, what destroyed our town can save our city." He leaned over, crossing his arms and resting them on his knees. "I just wish I could figure out how."
*
Half an hour later, they started the climb back up to city level.
"We only climbed half a tier down," Zan told them, as he gave Ivonar a boost back up to ledge Manx had refused to leave, "and there's three hundred of them. The whole canyon is about three thousand feet deep. Falling takes awhile."
Ivonar shuddered as she scrambled onto the ledge. Three thousand feet… that was about half a mile. Half a mile straight down! She turned around, kneeling on the edge of the higher ledge to hold a hand out for Remmy.
Remmy stood with his foot in Zan's hands, just as Ivonar had, but his shorter height made it impossible for him to reach the ledge. If Ivonar hadn't been there, he would have been stuck. He grabbed her hand, and she jerked her weight backwards, lifting him the few inches necessary for him to get a good grip on the ledge while Zan boosted him up from below. "That's… pretty deep," Remmy grunted, as the ledge caught him a little roughly in the gut. He pinwheeled his legs to help get himself up. Zan stepped backwards quickly, so not to get kicked. "Did they find any fossils, or anything?"
"Fossils?" Zan echoed. He backed up further, right to the end of the ledge. He grinned up at them. "You're going to have to move," he said. They stepped backwards. Zan ran forward, jumping up to grab the ledge and boost himself up in one smooth motion. He slipped for a moment, almost falling back, but managed to catch himself. He stood up again, brushing off the dust-colored uniform he wore. "What do you mean, fossils?"
Remmy shrugged a little. "Three thousand feet is really deep. They didn't find any fossils?"
"They? Who's they?"
Ivonar frowned. "Nobody's studied the canyon at all?"
Zan shrugged. "It's a mining hole. If you look, there's some marshy water at the bottom, but I sent Asthma down there once, and he said it's not drinkable."
"'Asthma'?" Remmy echoed.
Zan chuckled. "A Koffing I caught on my first job for the PPE. He evolved into Weezing a year or so ago. His name's a joke, really, but he doesn't mind." He smiled a little as he boosted himself up onto another ledge. "But, like I said, why should there be fossils down there? Wouldn't the miners' machines have destroyed anything interesting down there?"
"Anything directly in the hole, yeah," Ivonar agreed, "but maybe there's stuff in the walls. I mean, each of us could be standing on a fossil right now."
In unison, all three of them paused, looking down at the ledge they stood on, and lifted one of their feet to check the theory. Everyone came up disappointed. Manx rolled his eyes.
"That is an idea," Zan said as they climbed the rest of the way back up to city level. "Maybe later we can check it out. I get out of work at four…" He checked his watch. "That's about six hours from now." He sighed. "That's a while, isn't it?" He grimaced a little. "Here." He reached into the pocket of his pants, frowned, then reached into the other one. His face lit up as he pulled his fist out. He held it out and opened it, to reveal five pokéballs. "These are Asthma, Nido, Nida, Jester, and Bloom. Asthma, the Weezing, should be able to get you deeper into the canyon safely; Nido and Nida are my Nidos." He smiled. "Nido's a Nidorino, Nida a Nidoqueen. They're good for power-lifting, if you see anything half-hidden under a boulder or something. Jester's the Haunter - he can slip into the rock, look behind the walls and stuff. And Bloom…" He chuckled. "Bloom the Gloom will start to stink if she gets scared. She won't be much help, but I don't know which is her pokéball, so I'll give you her, too. Around four, send Asthma back up here to get me to you, okay?"
"Fossil-hunting is a good a way to spend the day as any," Ivonar agreed, accepting the pokéballs. She had left all but one of her own pokéballs back at the Pokécenter, but her belt was still around her waist: she quickly slipped the pokéballs into all but the third pouch, which still held Manx's pokéball. "We'll see you around four."
Zan nodded, then frowned. "Be careful down there," he said. "If you think up here's treacherous, you can bet it'll only be worse down there. Stay together, and if things look at all dangerous, have Asthma get you out of there. What Pokémon do you have?"
Ivonar shook her head. "We left all but Manx back at the Pokémon Center."
"We don't have any that would be real useful in digging," Remmy added. "Nothing super-powerful or anything."
"What about Fairie?" Ivonar asked him. "She lived how long in Mount Moon? Maybe she has… I don't know, some kind of skill that'll be helpful." Remmy shrugged: he had no way of knowing how old his Clefairy was. "Maybe she can help us find some stuff."
"Maybe our Zubats, too…"
Ivonar shook her head. "They're good for caves, but an open canyon?"
Zan chuckled. "You guys do what you want, so long as it involves me getting my Pokémon back. I really have to head back. Janice is a snitch, and if I'm a nanosecond late she's going to make my day miserable. I'll see you two later."
*
An hour later found Manx back at the Pokémon Center, and Ivonar clinging for dear life to the larger portion of a Weezing as she hung at least two thousand feet in the air, with nothing to catch her except jagged gray-black rock.
For something that weighed less than twenty-five pounds, Asthma was quite strong. Already it had brought Remmy to the bottom of Tier Canyon, and now, not even winded (but, as its name implied, wheezing just the same), it lowered Ivonar quickly but smoothly toward the deserted floor of the mining hole.
A few moments after that hour, Ivonar was only too glad to get her feet on solid ground again, not far from the rusted ruins of what once may have been a staircase. "Thanks," she told the Weezing, giving its rubbery body a friendly pat with one hand as she pulled Q out of her jacket with the other. Since they were pretty sure it was a ground Pokémon, they had agreed that it might be useful, somehow.
Asthma smiled as best it could with its grimacing mouths. "Wheeze," it replied, blushing a little.
Remmy reached into one of his pockets, pulling out a pokéball. "Come on out, Fairie," he said. The ball opened, letting out the pixie-like Pokémon.
"You too, Jester," Ivonar said, pulling the pokéball out of the fourth pouch in her belt. It had taken her a few tries to find the ball that held Asthma, so she knew which balls held all but Bloom and Nido. "Start looking through the walls of the canyon for anything interesting, like bones, and stuff." With a flare of light, the large Haunter burst from its ball, grinned an almost evilly mischievous grin at Ivonar, then slid through the nearest wall, out of sight.
"You know," Ivonar said, addressing Remmy, "somehow I find it hard to trust Jester."
"With a name like that, I guess it probably likes jokes," Remmy replied. He frowned a little, giving the bottom of one of his shoes a disgusted look. He picked up a rock to scrape whatever had gotten stuck on his sneaker off.
"I just hope it doesn't decide to try some out on us," Ivonar said, frowning a little. She looked toward the rock through which the Haunter had disappeared, but there was no sign of it. "Let's start looking."
They wandered around for about half an hour, staying within each other's sight, but otherwise going where they wanted. Ivonar, Q at her heels, started almost straight out from the wall, looking as closely as she could at the ground she walked on. At one point she paused, crouching down, but what she thought might have been a footprint turned out to be nothing more than an air bubble in the slightly mucky ground in that particular area. While she was crouched, Q jumped onto her shoulder; she cringed at the mucky footprints that it put on her jacket, but didn't scold it. When she was a good distance away, she looked up, and whistled.
The canyon, in spite of its enormous depth, was only a few miles long; it would be possible to walk from one end to the other in a few hours. That, and the haze that firmly hid any view of the world above, gave the deserted place the same feeling as an empty closet - bare, unnatural, almost claustrophobic.
The only sign of civilization was a large building that seemed built directly into the eastern rockface. Rather than being an actual building, however, it looked as if it had been a cave whose mouth was covered with the front of an impressive public library. Thin columns of rock decorated the front of it; the entrance seemed oddly small. The overhang on which she, Zan, and Remmy had been perched an hour before really was the top of the building. Three large letters were carved into the rockface, just below where they had been sitting: GYM.
"Wow," she murmured, not knowing what else to say.
"Q," Q agreed. To keep its balance while holding onto the bar forced it to hug the back of Ivonar's head with its free paw. The other used the bar to point toward the abandoned gym. "Q?"
She tickled it under its chin, not knowing how to answer its question, considering she had no idea what the question was. She sighed softly, then returned to walking around, staring intently at the ground.
Remmy stayed close to the eastern wall, following after Fairie, who hopped from rock to rock, glancing curiously here and there. Asthma floated a few feet above him, glancing every once in a while in Ivonar's direction to make sure she was all right.
After the first half-hour, Ivonar headed back in Remmy's direction, still watching the ground carefully, but still getting very bored very quickly. "Any luck?" she shouted at him.
He shook his head. "And Jester's still gone," he replied.
"If we've lost it, Zan's going to kill us."
"Probably not. He was the one who said it'd be helpful."
At that moment, the Haunter slipped out of the rocks, giving each of them a pointed look, as if to demand how they could question its helpfulness. Then it chuckled, and pointed to the rockface a few feet behind Remmy. "Haunt, haunt-haunt-haunt," it laughed, tapping one claw-like finger against the rock. "Haunt!"
"In there, huh?" Remmy asked it.
"Haunt!" it agreed.
"Nido, Nida, come out!" Ivonar said, patting her belt. Obediently, two flares of light emerged from the pokéballs, forming into two impressively large Pokémon. Then a third flare emerged, one that formed into a much smaller Pokémon. "And… um… hi, Bloom."
The Gloom looked at her through her narrowed eyes. "Gloom," she murmured, hurt.
"It's okay if you're out for awhile," Ivonar assured her, gingerly patting the petals on the plant Pokémon's head. "It isn't fair if all the others have some fun, is it?"
"Gloom!" Bloom agreed, giving Ivonar's leg a quick hug.
"Nido, Nida," Remmy said, looking at the other two Pokémon, "see where Jester is? Could you… very carefully… start digging there? We think there might be something important back there."
Nido roared his agreement, and looked at the Haunter. Jester spoke some quick words, after which the Nidorino charged forward, ramming his head into the side of the canyon. Rocks fell from the impact. Remmy hurried to stand closer to Ivonar, out of the way. When the Nidorino backed away, the Nidoqueen stepped forward, picking up the rocks he had knocked out of the wall and throwing them aside, clearing the way for his next charge.
"I guess Jester told them where it is," Ivonar said.
"Guess so," Remmy agreed, as Nido began his second charge.
*
Ivonar yawned as she leaned against Remmy. Both were sitting on a cold rock, using each other to prop themselves up. Q dozed fitfully in Ivonar's lap as Bloom sat on the ground, moping. Asthma had floated upward, almost out of sight; it was time for him to wait for his trainer. "Do you think they're almost there?" she muttered. "I mean, they've been at it for hours."
"I'm surprised Nido doesn't have a headache yet," Remmy said, as the Nidorino rammed into the canyon yet again.
Over the last few hours, the three Pokémon were still at it - Jester floating at the mouth of the small cave the other two had carved out, occasionally offering some suggestion; Nido ramming into the wall; and Nida throwing the rocks that fell out of the way.
"Ivonar!"
The two trainers looked up at the vague shout from above. Asthma was descending rapidly with a familiar passenger literally sitting on its larger part, his arm threaded through the small, tube-like part of the Weezing that connected them. "Ivonar!" Zan shouted again, urgency in his voice. "You have to get back up there, quick!"
"What?" She stood up quickly, grabbing Q before she spilled it on the ground. Remmy got up as well, but more slowly. "Why?" she shouted back.
"It's your Psyduck!"
Ivonar felt her stomach tie itself in a knot. "What?"
Zan jumped off the Weezing before it had descended the entire way, landing in a crouch. "You have to get back to the Pokémon Center right away," he said. "Nurse Joy found out from somebody we'd gone down here earlier, and caught me about to meet you. Hurry." Without hesitation, he gripped Ivonar under the armpits, lifting her up. Asthma got under her, and Zan put her on him, sitting down. "Loop your arm in there," he said, pointing, "because Asthma's going to take you up as quick as he can. Good luck."
Ivonar didn't even answer. "Go!" she told the Weezing. Immediately, it began ascending again, far more quickly than it had brought her down. She looped her arm through the handle-like part, as Zan had told her: while sitting on the Weezing was hardly uncomfortable, its rubber-like body was so smooth, she'd nearly slipped right off.
It took Ivonar a moment to realize it, but she discovered that the Weezing was going up at an angle. Instead of taking her straight up, he was taking her more toward one end of the canyon. With a start, she realized he was taking her directly to the Pokémon Center. The knot in her stomach tightened.
Q clung to her jacket for dear life, nearly forgotten.
*
Ivonar raced into the Pokémon Center, Q still attached to her jacket, Asthma hurrying to keep up with her. "What's wrong?" she demanded of no one, the moment she was through the door. "Nurse Joy, where are you? What's wrong?"
The nurse appeared almost immediately, a pained look on her face. "Miss Marain…" she began, her voice gentle.
Ivonar shook her head, as if to disagree with whatever the nurse had yet to say. "No," she whispered. Then, louder, "No! No, he's okay, right?"
Nurse Joy grimaced a little. "I gave Nuisance a strong sedative to help him sleep, in spite of how powerful his headache was. It should have worn off hours ago… I tried to find you, but I had no way of going down into the canyon…"
"What do you mean, should have?" Ivonar demanded, fighting back tears.
The nurse looked away. "He was fighting so hard," she replied. "When you brought him in, he seemed so determined to pull through. But… it's like he's just given up. I… I don't think he's going to wake up."
Ivonar stared at her blankly, unable to accept what she was hearing, but, at the same time, believing every word. "Can… can I see him?" she asked softly.
The nurse nodded. "Come with me." She led the way into the back portion of the Center, passed rooms with water Pokémon in small aquariums, fire Pokémon in oxygen tents, and grass Pokémon in mulch. They passed several closed doors, of rooms with recovering patients resting quietly. Finally, Nurse Joy opened one of the closed doors, holding it open for Ivonar. "I'll leave you alone," she murmured.
Ivonar stared at the scene before her. "Oh…" was all she managed to say. Nothing else seemed appropriate, or necessary.
Nuisance lay in a small bed on his back, his usually cheerful, if blank, eyes closed, his generally friendly expression contracted into something foreign, an unnamed expression related to, but not being, pain. His skin was faded to a sickly, almost greenish color. A pair of tubes was thread into his nostrils, feeding extra oxygen to his lungs. Some wires were attached to him with medical tape - one to each of his temples and four to his chest. The ones attached to his temples led to one machine, whose monitor showed a line leaping up and down to the beat of a frantic sound akin to a fast-forwarded busy signal. The others were attached to a different monitor, which had three lines on its - two identical and barely waving, and one whose unmistakable heart rhythm beat unnaturally slow.
Ivonar, Q still on her shoulder and Asthma still following her, went in. The nurse closed the door behind them.
*
Gone.
After all he had done, all he had fought for… she was gone.
He remembered quite clearly the battle he had fought - the battle he thought he had won.
What had happened? Had she brought that creature back? Had he failed in his attempt to unite them? Was she back under that foul little brat's spell?
Briefly, memories of his own, past master forced themselves upon him - memories of yelling, mostly, and concentration lost and gained. Never once had his first master hit him: no, that was not in that master's nature. That master was too smart to think that beating was the best way to train him. No - that master had known words hurt him more than any blow ever could.
He remembered, too, the other one - the one who evolved before him, the one who had stayed when he himself was thrown away. They had been close, they two. Still he wondered what had happened to him afterwards. They hadn't known why their master wanted them to evolve…
The other, he had realized, had been weaker than he. While he wanted a master who was pleased with him, the other had been content with simply pleasing the master they had. He had been the stronger of the two, in so many ways. He hadn't evolved, while the other had.
But the loneliness, when his former master had discarded him… those horrible, endless days without a single familiar voice… how he wished he had evolved then. The master's voice usually wasn't very kind, but it was familiar. It wouldn't have left him out in the open, alone, lost… afraid…
Then there was the boy, for that week or so… the boy, too, was unkind, but his actions were based more on his youth than any real disappointment with him. The boy could not help being immature, for he was only acting his age.
So clearly, he remembered the day, one of the days he had been trapped in the boy's room… the last day of that imprisonment. He remembered the shriek that nearly set his powers off, it was so loud, so painful… and so laden with pain. The noise, the pounding, of something falling, hitting, tumbling down the stairs he had so recently been smuggled up. The boy had run from the room… and didn't come back for hours…
When he did come back, he had shoved him out of the room, as he was too heavy for the boy to lift. The boy shoved him across the hallway, into the room opposite…
…and that was the first time he met her.
He remembered his astonishment at how bruised the girl had been. Bruises marked her bare arms and forehead, her neck and the shoulder he could see. One leg was encased in a husk, the other as bruised as the rest of her.
She'd glared at him - no, not at him, he'd realized, but the boy. Then she had looked at him, with astonishment.
The first words he ever heard her speak were, "What are you doing with that?!"
The first few days with her were awkward, for him. She was moody from her injuries. He slept on the floor, or in a chair. Then, one night, he heard her whimpering. When he came over to see what was wrong, she whispered to him - her first words to him, directly - "Go away. My leg really hurts." He didn't know what to do about that: he just stood there, trying to look as sympathetic as he could. Finally, she slid away from the edge of the bed, and patted the space next to her. "Fine," she'd told him. "Don't just stand there staring at me."
Cautiously - since the boy had scolded him any time he tried getting onto his bed - he did as he was told. One she'd gotten him to lie facing away from her, she put her arms around him, hugging him. She started whimpering again, at the pain, hugging him tighter.
That was how his nights were spent for the next few months - beside her, being hugged. Some nights, she slept soundly; others, she would just talk to him about nothing in particular. There were other nights she whimpered, and still others in which she wept herself to sleep, burying her face in his neck so no one else would hear.
But she never punished him. Never once did she yell, or scold. She simply let him be what he was - addled, but affectionate. Distracted, most of the time, and occasionally downright stupid, but that was who he was and she accepted it.
Then the cast came off her leg, and she didn't spend nearly as much time with him. But nights still found her in the same bed. Now that the cast was off, however, she started to roll over more, and he found it impossible to lay next to her. Finally, one night, he went to lie on her feet instead, where he wouldn't be hit with a stray shoulder in the middle of the night.
The night after, she sat up when he went to lie on her feet instead of next to her again. "What's wrong?" she'd asked him, sounding hurt. He'd stared at her, surprised that she would notice the change, only to be surprised at himself for being surprised.
Somehow, by some miracle, he had found her, a master who did not care if he did not evolve, or berate him for doing things he did not know were wrong: he had found a master pleased with him, not what he did.
And now… she was gone.
Gone.
All he had now was an intense pain, more intense than he had ever felt before. A pain that was completely useless to him as a source of his power. He could think more clearly than normal, but he couldn't concentrate at all. All he was aware of - all he could think about - was how she wasn't here, how she was gone, how he would never see her again. How he would lie here, trapped, half between awake and asleep with pain so incredible only his chemically-induced stupor kept him from screaming out loud, without her to make it all worth while.
Where was the point in that?
Why should he fight against that pain if she wasn't there to fight it with him, as he had been there for her?
Vaguely - so vaguely - he was aware of what went on outside the pain he had hidden himself away in. He heard the door to the room he was in open, heard the woman who had tried to help him speak. For a moment, he thought he heard her voice… but no, she was gone. She was far away now. He had failed her. She would never come for him again, not so long as that creature held her against her unaware will. The door closed again, leaving him alone once more.
But… no, not alone. There were footsteps. Not the woman's… the woman's sounded different. The footsteps stopped, so near… numbly, from far away, he felt a hand gently brush against his cheek. Then he heard another sound… a familiar sound, from so long ago…
Again he remembered when her leg was encased in the healing cast, when she hugged him at night. Again he remembered those nights, when she buried her face in his neck…
That was the sound.
It was the sound of her weeping.
Was it just the memory… or… was she… here?
He pulled out of the pain, forcing himself against it. It swallowed him, ravaging his mind, but he ignored it, too intent to discover the truth.
The sound was louder, it seemed, but really it wasn't. He just heard it better… yes, he really did hear it!…
He opened his mouth, to find his throat parched and dry. Weakly, he whispered, Is it… really… you?
*
"Ssss…iiiii?"
Ivonar looked up, her eyes flying open. Tears streamed down her face and blurred her vision, but still… had she imagined it? "Nuisance?" she whispered.
Slowly… so slowly… his eyes cracked open. He turned his head, just slightly, in her direction. "Psy?" he whispered again hoarsely, his voice less slurred.
"Nuisance?" she said again. She swallowed painfully, reaching over the rail separating them to touch his face again. "Can you hear me?"
He looked at her a long moment, seemingly oblivious to the wires attached to him or the tubes up his nostrils. "Psy…" he whispered again, smiling just faintly. He peacefully closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, letting it out in a gentle sigh.
On the monitors, the frantic beeping from the first machine remained unchanged. But on the other, the two identical lines took a leap upward when he took his deep breath, and picked up their pace. The heart rhythm, though it remained steady, quickened as well.
Ivonar looked down at him, smiling in relief. Then, she sat in a chair in the corner of the room, and cried.
Asthma hung silently in the air, knowing better than to make a sound. Q dropped its bar into her lap, and hugged her loosely around the neck.
*
After Ivonar managed to collect herself, and Nurse Joy had managed to convince herself of Nuisance's complete turnaround, they realized it was getting late, and that Zan and Remmy were stuck in the bottom of Tier Canyon until they sent Asthma down to get them. They hurried outside with the Weezing, letting it drift down into the canyon. "Remmy's probably starving," Ivonar said. "He's been down there most of the day, and all we had to eat all day was a little breakfast."
"You're not hungry?" the nurse asked.
Ivonar chuckled dryly. "After having the fright of my life and witnessing a miracle? How could I possibly think about food?"
A couple minutes later, the Weezing returned, without a passenger. "Wheeeeeeeeze, wheeze-wheezing!" he intoned, his voice like that of an out-of-tune bagpipe. "Wheeeeee-zing!"
"He says they want you to come down right away," the nurse translated for Ivonar, "and to bring… Q?"
Ivonar smiled a little as she picked up the little Pokémon, tucking it into her jacket before the nurse could get a good look at it. "Our… um… Cubone," she said quickly.
"Oh." Nurse Joy frowned. "Why does your Cubone wear a pot on its head?"
Ivonar shrugged as she sat down on the Weezing. Sitting on it was a much easier way to ride it than hugging it. "Just because," she replied vaguely. "We all have our quirks."
"I'll go check on Nuisance again before I do my evening rounds of the other patients," Nurse Joy told her. "I'll see you later!"
Ivonar gave her a small wave just before the Weezing sped down into the canyon. Soon she could see Nida leaning against the canyon wall just outside of the cave she and Nido had made, her head lowered against her chest as she took a nap. Nido was rolled into a ball near her, with Bloom curled up on top of him. It wasn't until she was closer that she saw Jester, floating just beside Nida; she had mistaken it for the Nidoqueen's shadow.
As Asthma slowed down to let her off, Jester opened its eyes, and gave her one of its eerie grins. "Haunt, haunt!" it greeted her, pointing into the cave. Then it held its sides and laughed loudly, as if at some joke. She spared it a brief, skeptical look as she jumped to the ground, pulling Q out of her jacket before going into the freshly dug cave.
Inside, Remmy, Zan, and Fairie sat together, the two boys talking excitedly. Zan had a flashlight. At the sound of her approach, Zan shone it at her, blinding her for a moment. "Ow!"
"Sorry." He turned the flashlight up, shining it under his chin, then grinned in an eerily talented mimicry of Jester. "Have you come to see our discovery?" he chanted. Then he lowered the flashlight. "How's the Psyduck?" he asked seriously.
"He'll be okay," she replied, just as she had when he had asked her so many hours before. "He's just sleeping right now."
"What was wrong?" Remmy asked.
Ivonar shook her head; she didn't want to talk about it.
Understanding, Zan stood up. "We asked you to bring Q for a reason," he said, pointing the flashlight toward the ceiling of the cave to provide the most light. "We think we found what it is."
"I told him," Remmy said quickly, before Ivonar could ask how he knew.
"Oh," she said.
"We still don't know what he is," Zan continued, "but we think we finally found something of its species. A some-odd great-ancestor, probably." He turned the flashlight toward the back of the cave. "Look at all familiar?"
*
He stared, eyes wide. His mouth fell open as the bar in his paw clattered to the ground.
There, a little over his head, was a skeleton.
Its physical condition was extraordinary - nearly perfect. The petrified bones stood out starkly against the dark rock holding them in place.
The creature had been less than two feet tall and upright, with a single talon per foot. Its arms had been short, ending in small hands with four tiny stubs which might have, either in its ancestors or descendants, been developed fingers, and a single short, opposable claw. The skull had a short muzzle, filled with teeth that were short and sharp in the front, molars in the back. Its one visible eye socket looked almost oversized compared to the skull. The skull was smooth, save for the ridge over the eye socket and two jutting horns near the back. Its spine was arched oddly in the middle, suggesting that the creature had probably died from a broken back, and ended in a short, curved tail.
"Wow," he heard the girl murmured softly. "It looks like the entire thing!"
"I think it is," the newer boy agreed. "Do you know how much a full fossil is worth?"
"Must be millions!"
There was a slight pause before the newer boy continued. If he had looked, he would have seen him nod. "And if there's one skeleton, you can almost bet there'll be more fossils." If he had looked now, he would have seen the grin come over the boy's face, but he was too busy staring at the skeleton trapped in stone. "I knew it! Given any problem, the answer is usually in plain site. That's how I knew the answer to saving Periwinkle City had to be in the canyon. I would never have thought to look for fossils… how did you find this one? It's fifteen feet into the rock!"
"We sent Jester into the walls to look, just like you told us to," the other boy replied.
"Then Nido and Nida started digging," the girl added.
"And you, me, and Bloom finished up," the boy finished.
"Bloom?" the girl echoed.
"She helped us chisel away the rock when Jester told us any more ramming or digging by the Nidorans would damage what was back here," the newer boy told her.
The girl chuckled. "Between you and your Pokémon, Zan, you could probably search the whole canyon!"
The newer boy laughed in agreement. "I'm going to," he said. "If I can find a couple more fossils, like this one… Periwinkle City could probably afford to have the entire city cleaned up. No more smog over the canyon, no more Pokémon in the basements and attics, no more high air-conditioning bills. We could actually see the other side of the canyon when we looked across, actually see when it was going to rain, actually see the sun rise like it did today, without having to leave our homes." If Q had looked this time, he would have seen the boy smirk. "You could almost say that finding these fossils could preserve our city."
As the others groaned, he took a step closer to the skeleton. He pushed the pot on his head farther back, letting his horns keep it on as he stared.
Was that really what he looked like… on the inside?
He looked at his mitten-like hand, unbroken but for where his thumb jutted out of it. He looked up again at the skeleton in the wall.
Was that… really… him?
It was then that he did what anyone who finds a skeleton identical to their own under thousands of feet of rock might do. What he did was perfectly understandable, given the situation.
That was why it was really strange when the humans were surprised when he fainted.
Pallet Pair #8 is dedicated to the memory of Charlie "Tunafish" Kelly, a dear friend who passed away April 10, 1994. In 1985, he was a small black kitten who was found abandoned in a shopping cart when he was barely weaned, and brought to a veterinarian's office by a stranger who left neither name nor money to care for him. He stayed in a cage at the vet's until my parents brought me there, especially to see him. I had always wanted a cat, and the vet had said that the orphaned young tom was very good-natured. He was the only unclaimed animal they had, but, as a joke, the vet asked me which cat I wanted. By some eerie coincidence, I pointed right at the cage in the corner with the little black cat, and exclaimed, "That one!" We had him neutered and declawed (as he was an indoor cat meant for a three-year-old), and he remained my best friend for nearly twelve years, insisting on sleeping on my bed every night.
Charlie's one major problem was that he was plagued with several illnesses over the course of his life. After one risky surgery, he hadn't come out of the anesthesia, and the vet was certain he wasn't going to. I was allowed into the room to say goodbye. While I cried and petted him, Charlie woke up. He lived several more years after that, surviving at least two other surgeries and even a broken paw.
"Miracles", like Charlie's recovery as well as Nuisance's do happen. The same presence of loved ones that helps hospitalized humans to heal faster and coma victims wake up works just as well for animals, too.
If you have a pet, give them a hug for me (unless they're a bird, because most birds don't like hugs, or a fish, 'cause hugging a fish is just a bad idea). It might save their life someday.