Chapter 11: Of The Earth
Ben stirred as the sunlight hit his face. He cast an irritated glare at the offending party, one of the three nurses currently working in the base, who had drawn the blinds covering in the window. The grunt in the bed across from him said "No mummy, it's Saturday," and rolled over.
He felt a slight pressure on his left hand and glanced at it. Lily's hand had somehow clasped his while he was sleeping, which was odd because she'd been unconscious for the last, oh, sixteen hours, if that clock was right. She had the same ghostly pallor that she had earlier, when he'd first brought her in; if she got any paler she'd probably start turning transparent. He carefully removed his hand from her grip, which was considerable, given her unresponsive state.
Ben stretched, feeling various oddly satisfying pops and snaps in his joints. His neck was extremely sore, but that was to be expected after falling asleep on a hard chair.
"Ah, Mister Evans," came a soothing baritone voice from somewhere on his right.
"Oh, hi, Doctor Leong. Listen, I know what you're going to say, doc, and the answer is n—"
"I humored you last night, Mister Evans, but my patience has run out."
Doctor Leong, the base's resident all-purpose M.D. was the only person Ben knew who could make a white lab coat, golf shirt and khakis look imposing. He peered down at Ben over the top of his glasses.
"But—"
"While I'm sure the young lady appreciates your devotion, I do not."
"But—"
"Get up and go have something to eat. You could do with a shave," he inhaled sharply, "and a bath, for that matter."
"Hey, there's no need for—" Ben began, standing up.
"I cannot run a proper medical facility with friends, family, or concerned boyfriends hanging around! You may return when she is conscious again!"
"I'll damn well—hold on, concerned boyfriend?" repeated Ben incredulously. "I'm not—we're not—I just—that is to say—oh, fark."
"Goodbye, Mister Evans," said Leong, pushing him out the door and throwing his uniform top at him when he turned around. He heard the hiss of the door closing as he ripped it off his head, and stood staring at a closed door.
He eventually sighed and pulled the red sweater-like garment over his head, leaving the hood down.
"Doctors. Veritable tyrants, aren't they?"
Ben spun to face the source of the words. "Who the—? Oh, it's just you."
Ilthuriel smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. They remained as cold and hard as ice-cooled amethyst. He reached up to stroke Midnight, who was perched on his shoulder. Ben had no idea why the black eevee preferred Ilthuriel while most other living things seemed to abhor his presence.
"Tell me…what happened to our most esteemed squad leader?"
Ben felt anger, probably irrational, bubble up suddenly inside him. "Why would you care, you weird f—"
He didn't know how it happened, one second he was launching into a verbal tirade, the next, he was a foot off the ground with his back against the wall, supported only by a hand against his neck.
"Oh dear, this isn't going at all well. We are going to start over. I am going to let you down in a moment, and I am going to repeat my question. You will answer it in full, to my satisfaction, otherwise I will break your jaw. Then, since you will be unable to talk, I will be forced to interrogate Miss Thrasher herself. Have we reached an understanding?"
Ben felt his left arm twitch. He was receiving some mixed signals: his right leg wanted very much to kick Ilthuriel in the groin, but his larynx was complaining loudly and threatening to initiate a system shutdown.
"Yes," he squeaked, with the last of his air. Ilthuriel let him go and he crumpled to the ground, coughing.
"I will repeat my question. What ails Lillith?"
"One of Mal's zangeese…slashed her leg…claw was poisoned…" Ben wheezed through his bruised throat.
"I see. Thank you for your time." He kicked Ben in the stomach, hard, as he tried to rise, causing him to fall back to the floor. "A pleasure, as always."
Ilthuriel walked off along the corridor, silently. Ilthuriel never laughed.
Ben waited until the sound of booted footsteps receded before staggering upright, one hand to the wall beside him and the other at his stomach. He coughed and spat blood, liquid red against the dirty steel of the corridor.
Gods…what was his problem, anyway? No, his, not Ilthuriel's. The dreadlocked grunt was obviously insane, anyone could tell that. Why did he, himself, suddenly decide to be, what? Irrational? Defensive? Whatever it was, it almost made him a hospital case.
He massaged his bruised throat, feeling like the best thing he could do right now was go crawl into his room and die. Well, it wasn't quite his room, of course, as he shared it with three other grunts, but…
His stomach growled loudly, reminding him of another task.
Fine, food first, sleep second, he thought, sighing, beginning the laborious walk to his room…
~*~*~
She stood in a park, if you could call it that. Nothing but fenced-off asphalt with a couple of basketball hoops stuck at opposite ends, with benches on the sides. Once proudly white, the benches were now almost stripped of their original color and clothed in a patchwork of graffiti.
Behind her came the sound of wings. She turned, seeing a cloud of birds, all black, spiral upward toward the gray sky, between the buildings. She watched them for a moment before realizing there was someone standing in front of her.
It was a woman, wearing robes of black silk. She was tall, her hair long and dark. Most strange about her were her wings; folded against her back now, but obviously large...and coal black.
Her arm rose slowly, holding a perfect black feather, taken from one of her own wings, judging by the size. She seemed to be offering it.
"No," she heard herself say. "I don't want it."
~*~*~
"Lily? Lily."
Voices. Calling her back…
She opened her eyes, blinking against the sudden light. "Hmmwhat?" she heard herself say.
"How are you feeling?"
Lily blinked, the image of Doctor Leong coming into focus. "Um, fine…I guess."
"Excellent. You gave us quite a scare earlier, your boyfriend carrying you in, dripping blood everywhere."
"Boyfriend? No, Ben's just…my subordinate. A friend, at best."
Doctor Leong made a noncommittal noise as he wrote down something on his clipboard.
"So, can I leave soon?"
Leong leaned back in the chair, steepled his fingers. "Your injuries include a severe laceration starting at your knee joint and running down to just above your ankle, blood loss and poisoning. That sort of thing requires a little bit more than a day to recover from."
Lily sighed. "Fine. How many days?"
"Three at least. We repaired the muscle and neutralized the poison, but I want to make sure it is healing properly before we let you go."
She slumped back down on her pillow. "Whatever."
"Glad to see you're not as stubborn as your boyfriend."
"He's not my—wait, he stayed?"
"All night, I think. I kicked him out around seven this morning."
"Oh."
"The presence of visitors is not conductive to a proper medical environment, you see."
"Of course."
Lily folded her hands on top of her chest, staring at the ceiling. This may require serious thought…
The grunt in the bed across from her said, "Chardonnay, if you have it," then turned over.
~*~*~
"Gods, Ben, you're a mess."
Ben looked up from his bowl of ramen, clicked his chopsticks together irritably.
"Yeah, I know." His voice came out in a hoarse whisper.
"So, whose ass do I have to beat down?" asked Jake. It never occurred to Ben how severely his blue hair clashed with his uniform.
Ben's neck had purple handprint bruising across it, and a cut on his left cheekbone he hadn't been aware of until he saw himself in a mirror. Not visible at the moment was a round bruise on his abdomen, on the left side.
"Ilthuriel," he wheezed.
"Whoa, no can do there, bud. That bastard scares the crap outta me."
"Yeah, me too."
"What was his problem, anyway?"
"I think psychos like him can go around without needing a problem, Jake." He coughed and ate a few noodles.
"What's up, man? Seems like more's goin' on than you're lettin' show."
"Mm, I dunno," said Ben, clicking his chopsticks. "You hear about Lily?"
Jake raised an eyebrow, indicating that the change of subject was not lost on him. "Yeah, I heard Mal's zangoose, the shiny one, attacked her an' she's in the 'firmary now."
Ben nodded, turning his attention back to his food for a moment. "I brought her in after her leg was slashed. She didn't look good when the doctor made me leave."
"When was that?"
"This morning."
"Oh, so you hung around from the time you brought her in until then?"
"Yeah."
"I see," said Jake, a knowing smile on his face.
"What?"
"Hmm?"
"I'm serious, whatever you're thinking, it's not true, okay?" said Ben irritably. He coughed again.
"Oh, so whatever concern you feel for her is purely platonic, right?"
"Exactly."
Jake sighed, getting up. "Just keep telling yourself that, Ben. See ya." He slapped Ben on the shoulder, making him wince in pain.
He sighed and went back to his ramen.
~*~*~
Nori walked through the sand, her footprints a long line stretching out behind her. Bitey ran along the water, barking at seabirds, getting splashed by the waves. She cast a glance out to the sea every so often. Levi hadn't turned up yet. The adult gyarados was fully able to look after himself, but she was growing concerned that perhaps he had scared the wrong tourists…
Granite Cave was a short distance away from her now. Nearly everyone she had spoken to on the island had warned her about it; it was supposedly incredibly dark inside and the wild pokémon were notoriously territorial.
The cave entrance was large, widened by years of exploring trainers. She peered inside, the sun making the bits of quartz in the cave's namesake rock shine like diamonds.
"What do you think, Bitey?"
"We should go in. This looks like a fun place!" Darkness never worried a dark pokémon.
"Yeah, let's go find Steven," agreed Nori, starting into the cave.
"You're not going in alone, are you?"
Nori jumped, startled. She whirled to face whoever it was who had spoken.
"Who's there?" she asked. There was a figure, silhouetted against the cave entrance. He stepped forward, features becoming more apparent.
He was tall, looked to be around six feet or so. It was hard to tell in the low light, but he looked very tanned and dark-haired.
"Fernando Celeste," he said, extending a hand.
"Er, Noirsha Hunter." She accepted the handshake.
"So, you're not going in there alone, are you?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest.
"I've got my poochyena with me."
"I meant another human being."
"What's the difference?"
"Another person can summon help in the event of an emergency a bit more quickly."
"Ah. Right. Um, would you care to accompany me, then?"
"My pleasure," said Fernando, bowing graciously.
Nori suppressed a laugh. "Alright, have you been in here before?"
"Several times."
"Lead the way, then," she said, gesturing.
He nodded, starting off into the cave. "Stay close," he said over his shoulder, "it's easy to get separated."
"Right."
"He's weird," remarked Bitey from somewhere near her feet.
"Yeah, I can tell."
"What's that?" asked Fernando.
"Nothing. Talking to my pokémon," replied Nori.
"I see," he said, doubtfully.
~*~*~
"So what are you here for?" he asked as they descended a metal ladder to a lower level.
"I've got a letter for some guy named Steven Stone, and I heard he was in here."
"Steven Stone? Are you kidding?"
"No…what's so great about him, anyway?"
"He's the best trainer in Hoenn, some people say. Virtually unbeatable. Who's the letter from?" he jumped off the ladder to the stone floor with a dull thud.
"The President of Devon Corporation, or at least, he gave it to me." She leaped to the ground also, landing more lightly. Bitey jumped off her shoulder. "Gods, it's dark down here." The only light was a dim shaft from the hole above them.
"That's easily fixed," he said. "Go, Esperanza." Red light flashed for a second, revealing a ralts, before it faded and left them in darkness again.
"Use Flash, Esper," said Fernando.
"Ral—You got it!"
There was a burst of blinding light, which Nori hastily shielded her eyes against. Beside her, Bitey was whining piteously. The light eventually dimmed, but didn't completely disappear.
"Are you okay, Bitey?"
"There's little circles dancing in front of my eyes," he said, whining and trying to rub his face with a paw.
"Mine too, do you want to keep walking or would you like to go in your pokéball?"
"Mm, I think I'll walk. The spots are starting to go away."
"Great. Where to next, oh fearless leader?" said Nori, turning toward Fernando.
"Over here, I think…that's were the next ladder is, anyway."
"Right…hey, what's that?"
A small pokémon appeared, yellow with black ears and paws. Its red eyes glowed in the dim light.
"Oh that? It's a mawile…you know, I remember my mother telling me to watch out for those things, but I can't remember why…"
The mawile made small chirping noises as it inched closer to the group, which was odd as it didn't seem to have a mouth. Abruptly, it spun around, revealing a set of jaws that were longer than the rest of its body.
"…Did that jog your memory?" said Nori.
The mawile snapped at them, hissing dangerously.
"Run! I'll hold it off," said Fernando.
"No, actually, I think we'll both run, now."
"But—"
"Come on!"
Fernando recalled his ralts and ran after Nori, who had Bitey close behind her.
"I think the next ladder is around here somewhere," he said, catching up.
"Good, it better be really obvious," said Nori, letting him take the lead.
"It should be—" Fernando's sentence cut into a yell as he ran out onto open air, Nori and Bitey following with similar surprised screams.
~*~*~
Steven Stone looked up from the rocks he was examining.
"Did you hear that?"
"The screams of surprise or the wet thuds that followed?"
"Both. Let's check it out."
Steven stood up and started walking back through the cave, toward the ladder and the source of the noise. There was a sigh behind him and a metallic grinding noise as something else stood to follow him. He heard a groan as he neared the ladder.
"Ohh…merde."
It was two teenagers and a poochyena. They hadn't fallen far, but the young man was obviously the worst off—it looked like he had partially broken the descent of the girl, who may have in turn broken the fall of the poochyena. In any case, the miniature wolf was up and barking, seemingly unhurt and the girl had managed to stagger upright. The male was using the ladder to help pull himself up.
"Are you kids all right?" he asked.
"Sure…just peachy," groaned Fernando, rubbing his back.
"I think I bruised my pelvis…owie. I'm going to need a pillow for a few days, I think…"
"We fell down!" Bitey said, happily.
Steven had to smile at the insufferable nature of the poochyena. "Are you sure you're fine? Those ladders can be tough to climb if you're hurt."
"Fine, just—" Fernando turned to look at him. "Omigod! You're Steven Stone."
Steven smiled ruefully. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice. It's a pain, trying to just go to the shops and getting mobbed by people."
"Mister Stone? I've got a letter for you, let me dig it out," said Nori, crouching down and digging through her backpack. She eventually pulled out a slightly bent envelope. "There you go! It should be okay, I don't think I spilled anything on it."
"Oh, thank you," he said, taking the letter. "And just Steven, please. What's your name, by the way?"
"Oh, Noirsha Hunter, but I prefer Nori."
Nori studied him as he read the letter. He was quite tall, probably around six foot one or so. His hair was a light grayish blue, and—though it was hard to tell in the dim light—his eyes were light turquoise. He was dressed in typical hiking gear: boots, cargo pants, and a dark, long-sleeved collared shirt. It was impossible to tell exactly how old he was; he could've passed for twenty-five, fifty or any age in-between. His voice had a slight accent; it sounded somewhat cultured, aristocratic.
"What's taking so long? They said they were all right. Oh, a letter. Typical."
Something metal, something huge appeared out of the gloom. It resembled a blue, four-legged metal spider; a central section with red eyes glaring out of hollows and four claw-tipped legs attached to it. Most odd about it was the gray steel X that seemed to be stuck between its eyes.
"A metagross," said Nori reverently. "Can I, can I just touch it?"
Steven glanced up, smiling. "I wouldn't recommend it. Meta would probably rip your arm off."
"And eat it," the formidable pokémon added, snippily.
"Oh. Okay, I guess I'll just have to wait for my metang to evolve, then."
"Pardon? You have a metang?" Steven folded the letter up and tucked it into his pocket. "I thought Devon had stopped production…"
"Er, he was a gift, from his guy named Ed Notley. I helped him twice, when Team Aqua was trying to steal some stuff from him."
"Ed? Edward Notley? Let me see, brown hair, about this high, likes shroomish?"
"Yeah, that's him."
"Hah! He's a wet idiot. I have no idea what Naedalya thought she was doing, giving him a beldum…in any case, better you than him. I see you even got it to evolve, lovely. And don't worry, it probably won't turn out like Meta, here…it takes them a few years in the company of other pokémon to develop a distinct personality."
"That's a relief," said Nori seriously. "Um, who's this Naedalya? Edward mentioned her, too."
"She was one of our researchers…specialized in legendary pokémon."
"Was?"
"Yes, she died almost six years ago…say, could you step a bit closer? You look…a bit…familiar."
"Six years ago, odd, that's when my…mother…"
"If the hair was a bit diff—" Steven stopped, seeing her expression change slightly. "No, I'm sorry, I was imagining it. Trick of the light. Listen, um, I need to thank you for delivering this letter, you've come a long way and I never make it easy to find me"—he dug in his pockets for something—"oh, here we go. My favorite TM." He held out a small cube with the number forty-seven stenciled onto one side.
Nori took it and tucked it into her backpack. "Thanks."
"Now, do you two need help getting out at all?"
"Um—" she glanced at Fernando, who shook his head.
"It's okay, my ralts can teleport us outside."
"All right. Well, hopefully I'll see you again soon, Nori. Remember that you are in control of an exceptional power, no matter what pokémon you train." He smiled, kindly.
Nori grinned. "It was an honor meeting you, Steven," she said.
"The pleasure's all mine. Good luck."
~*~*~
Ralts had teleported them instantly to the mouth of the cave, and then to the pokémon center. Nori had been doubtful that she could make it all the way back to the 'center, and Fernando had admitted to the same after a bit of prodding.
"So, where're you off to?" asked Nori as they waited for their pokémon to be healed.
"Slateport, probably. It's tough to book passage on ferries or rent boats, though, lately."
"That's where I'm heading, too…this old guy, Mr. Briney is giving me and a friend a ride on his yacht, though."
"I see."
"I was wondering…want a ride? You can go your own way once we get to Slateport, of course."
Fernando studied her for a moment. "Yeah, sure, Noirsha."
She smiled. "Great. And just Nori will do."
"Sounds good. If you think of a short version of my name, let me know," he said, laughing.
~*~*~
Ha! I realized I haven't been answering many of the questions in the reviews I get, mostly because I keep forgetting. Sooooo, here's my responses to some of the questions (and to some comments, too ^_^):
Mal: TABITHA RULES ALL! I have every picture I could get of him saved off serebii.net. eeeeeeeeeee. *huggles tabitha dollie* ^.^ Erk, anyway…I'll keep that in mind, but if he does appear, he'll probably have his Japanese name (I think it's Kaga or something), as, y'know, Tabitha is kind of a girl's name. N'stuff. *looks nervously at the ground* Also, when I saw his sprite in the game, I thought he was a girl, initially. Eh heh. It helped me come up with Lily, if that means anything. ^_^;; Oh yeah, and Maxie was being soft to Mal? I thought that I was making him be like that to everybody. Oh well, I'll probably make him more irritable as the conflict with Team Aqua heats up. *hinthint* Mwa. :D
Koriku: Meep. You make some good points, there, yes, I feel chastised. *sniffle* ;_; You caught Rayquaza?! I haven't yet, I'm too weeeeeeeeak. Wahh. ;_;
MuRm: Well, when I fought Roxanne, I felt like she was kind of snobby and officious. *shrugs*
Julie: Hehe, one of my older pokémon characters *cough*Ancalagon*cough* and some other planned ones had names that were taken from Tolkien, but these ones aren't. Fenrir is a fearsome wolf from Norse mythology, and Ilthuriel is a slightly misspelled version of the name of an angel whose name means "the discovery of god". I'll let you decide what exactly that means and how it pertains to the story, if at all. *mysterious smile* :)
Archangel: Yeah, you're right about that…I see all those fundamentalist websites (especially the ones going after pokémon and other animé) and my blood just fuggin' boils.
Okay, anyways…review, please, like always! I got thirteen reviews for chapter nine, but only six for chapter 10, so I'm sad. *sniffle* ;__;
Oh yeah, one more thing: just in case I update and then FFnet goes down right after, check the new 'homepage' or whatever it is in my profile for the newest chapter. I'll be uploading them there, too, because I've got some friends who I want to read the story who absolutely hate FFnet in all its forms. o.O