Joshua
It was midday, and on Red Rock Isle it felt like Summer.
In Scarlet Town there was hardly a pub or café that wasn't full to bursting, or a grass verge without a picnic. Almost every battlefield had trainers sparring on it. Ostaro alone knew how much ice cream was being sold. Josh was giving Meg a bath with the hose outside the Pokémon Centre - battling down by the Amphitheatre had exposed her to a lot of salt water. The Centre sat on a headland above the town, a stream of trainers heading up and down the slope. Red sandstone cliffs beyond dropped down to a sheltered cove where the Whirl Amphitheatre rose from the waves. Outside of the Whirl Cup tournament it was being used as a Battle Club venue.
Meg was cheerfully babbling some nonsense song, enthusiastically waving her arms as if she hadn't spent all morning practising her Solar Beam. Full power was still completely beyond her, but she could charge and fire swiftly and incessantly. Nothing seemed to tire her. Ivysaur was sitting nearby, watching her with a kind of tired amusement, drying out after his shower.
"Are ye ready fer this?"
[I'm the ace,] Ivysaur replied bluntly. [Are you ready for this?]
"Touché," Josh said. He resisted the urge to check his phone again, as if somehow everything might have suddenly reverted to how it was before the haunter. That was stupid. His letter couldn't possibly arrive till Monday at the earliest, though he'd made damn sure the address was legible. He was pinning a lot of hope on that photo.
"I ought te feel less pressure, considering a Gym ay a tourney," Josh admitted.
[Ought te, eh?]
"Ought te."
He was beginning to suspect he'd have to get used to being alone again. It was going to feel odd, battling without Eve as a supporter, or as a partner. Even though he could theoretically rechallenge the Gym if he lost, now he had a reason to win. Five Badges before September. The Gyms would get no easier from here. Olivine City, Steel. Mahogany Town, Ice. Blackthorn City, Dragon.
On the outskirts of Scarlet Town, in another sheltered bay, was the Whirl Islands Gym. The Gym was housed in the old lifeboat station, a big, hangar-like building raised up out of the sea on concrete piles. A short bridge linked the cliff path to the station. It might still be the lifeboat station were it not for the sign – a stylised vortex above the name WHIRL ISLANDS GYM in gleaming aluminium letters.
Inside, the Gym was one large hall - a couple of practice fields and a full-sized battlefield. All empty. There were some store rooms off to the right, and offices above them accessible via a catwalk. A shutter at the back of the hall was open to the slipway down to the sea.
"Welcome to my Gym, Joshua Cook," a woman's voice said. "I've been wondering when I'd see you."
She was leaning on the rail of the catwalk. She was a plump girl, perhaps late twenties, in a black Whirl Island Gym-branded hoodie. Her hair was styled in a random, asymmetrical quartet of ponytails. A blue gem glinted from her nose. Waverley. Water-type master, Whirl Islands Gym Leader.
"You've seen me at the Battle Club," he said.
Waverley went quiet for a moment. "What else do you know about me?" she demanded.
I know you don't televise matches. And I know you have no real signature pokémon.
"I challenge you to a Gym battle," he said instead.
"You've got two Johto League Badges, but seeing as you have a Spike Shell Badge from Trovita Island, let's say it's three, shall we?"
Waverley grinned at him like a scheming vulpix.
"Sameera!" she called. A girl emerged from an office. "Show the challenger to the changing room. Oh, and find him a wetsuit."
"Wetsuit?" Josh repeated. "I, I don't do wetsuits."
"Trust me, you'll need one."
Open your eyes …
Josh stood on a granite platform, the waves lapping over his feet. Out of defiance and self-consciousness he'd kept his jacket on over the wetsuit.
The Gym's main battlefield wasn't in the Gym at all, but on the beach below the cliff. Half the battlefield was on the beach proper – the other half, in the sea. A series of circular granite platforms populated the middle third, some standing proud of the waves, some swallowed by the tide. The field was flipped ninety degrees, so the trainers stood at the long edges. This would be his first time battling for something since the Tourney, Josh realised. That Gym battle on Trovita Island had been glorified sparring; Azalea and Violet, killing time. At least this time he was battling as himself, rather than as Melissa. He wouldn't miss Melissa. He did miss Eve. He sighed, segregating those emotions in a mental box for later. Forget the past and future. Now is what matters.
Josh switched his Pokédex to battle settings as the referee and linesmen took their places. On the seaward side to his left, the linesman was snorkelling with a seaking assistant. Waverley had changed into a wetsuit of her own, blazoned with that now-familiar vortex.
"If you would look on an unconquered wilderness, turn left. If you would look on an alien world, then dive," she declared. "There has only ever been one ocean, did you know this? One ocean, spanning the world: a panthalassa, if you will. Panthalassa is not home. Panthalassa is no place for those who dwell on the land. Forget this at your peril."
An especially big wave rolled in and broke on the rocks behind Waverley, throwing up a sheet of foam and spray. Grandstanding. Good grandstanding, but grandstanding.
"Are you ready for me, Mr Joshua?" Waverley called with a wicked grin. Josh shrugged ambiguously.
"This is an official Gym battle between the challenger, Joshua Cook of Mulberry Town, and the Gym Leader, Waverley of the Whirl Islands Gym!" the referee declared. "Each trainer will use three pokémon! The challenger will release first and only he may make substitutions! A Maelstrom Badge is at stake!"
"Ivysaur, take the lead," Josh said. He flung the Poké Ball hard, releasing Ivysaur onto the wet sand at the edge of the surf.
"For my first choice – behold. The original cannonade!" Waverley called. "Octillery!"
Octillery emerged at mid-field behind the breakers, spreading its arms around the top of a granite platform as if bracing itself. There was a moment of quiet. Waverley and Josh watched each other across the field as the waves rolled by.
Waverley cracked first. "Hit it! Octazooka!"
It fired diabolically fast, a powerful salvo of shots half a second apart. Ivysaur barely dodged the first one. The second smacked into his flower, a streak of black ink splattering across his golden petals.
"Vine Whip."
Octillery dropped into the sea and jetted out of reach just before Ivysaur cracked his whips down onto the platform.
"Rain chaos on him!" Waverley urged.
"Patience, Ivysaur," Josh started to say, and stopped himself. Ivysaur knew how to deal with those tactics.
Octazooka splashed into the sand right by Ivysaur's feet. Octillery dipped back under the waves and changed position. Josh could just about see it gliding sinuously through fronds of sunken oarweed. Again and again it fired off snap shots with surprising accuracy before moving off and sniping from somewhere else. Ivysaur struck back once or twice with Power Gem born of Nature Power, trying to dodge Octazooka at the same time. Each time he took a glancing hit for his pains.
"Alright, Ivysaur -" he started, reaching for his Poké Ball.
[I can hit it!]
He should substitute. It would be sensible to substitute. But he'd held him back from Haunter.
"Try it."
Ivysaur dashed into the surf, and waited. This time he made no attempt to dodge. Octazooka hit him square in the face. Ivysaur extended his vines as far as they would go, grabbed hold of Octillery, and ripped it up off the platform, suckers and all. He swung it round, ready to slam it into the wet sand.
"Flamethrower!" Waverley called. Ivysaur howled and dropped Octillery as the flames washed over him. "The sea is not predictable, Mr Joshua!"
"Ivysaur, return!" Josh called before the set-back became a disaster. "I can't lose my ace this early," he told him.
Fine. Wriggle out from beneath this. "Screwball. Charge Beam."
He wouldn't have thought an octillery could move that fast. Charge Beam flashed the wet sand into steam and left glass glinting in the crater left behind. Amazing, the pressure a powerful Electric-type can generate. Thank you for that lesson, Winters. Screwball attacked Octillery with a chain of Magnet Bombs, driving it into deeper water.
"Rise! At least two feet!" Josh called. A spout of Flamethrower sniped up at it – Screwball split itself in three and let the flames pass through its centre.
"Strike and fade! Octazooka!"
"Tri Attack."
The slender beam speared through the waves and struck Octillery before it could hide in the oarweed. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment – then Octillery bobbed to the surface, motionless. Its skin was glittering. Frozen. Checkmate.
"You can't substitute," Josh said. "Screwball can finish your octillery at its leisure. Do I really need to give the order?"
Waverley went quiet again. "Forfeit. And you got lucky."
Josh shrugged.
"Hmm," Waverley grunted. "Adapt to my second choice or fall, Joshua Cook of Mulberry Town! Corsola!"
Adapt? To a corsola?
This corsola was unlike any he'd seen. It drifted slowly across the platform, not standing on it but hovering close to the surface. It was chalk-white. Two little red eyes smouldering in deep sockets, gazing unfocused at nothing. Its branches were insubstantial, misty, seeming to waver as if in a breeze.
This was … unexpected. For a moment Josh almost forgot he had a Pokédex.
"Corsola, Metanthozoa russola subspecies 'maledicta': the Coral Pokémon. Typology: Ghost (Frazer-Edricson classification), Ghost/Water (Montfaucon classification)."
Ghost-type. That explained why Waverley thought this was the joker of the team. But why select a ghost to go up against a Steel-type?
"And begin!" the referee added.
Well, test the waters. "Thunder Wave!"
Corsola tried to leap into the water to escape. Not fast enough – Thunder Wave intercepted it mid-leap and dropped it into the sea.
"Charge Beam."
[Confirm target.]
This again? "Er, two feet left of the platform!"
"Water Pulse, plenty of them!" Waverley ordered abruptly.
Water Pulses erupted from below the waves, bursting like liquid fireworks and showering them with fine salt spray. Screwball lanced a Charge Beam into the water, aiming for the Water Pulse. Josh couldn't see whether it hit or not – he knew Corsola was still there, but the motion of the waves and the glare of the Charge Beam played tricks on the eyes.
"Water Pulse!" Waverley repeated in a sing-song voice. "Plenty of them!"
Nothing happened. Waves pushed a motionless, paralysed corsola into the shallows, its body scraping against the sand.
"Charge -"
"Curse."
"Screwball! You ok?" Josh said.
[Hardware error at … reboot reboot reboot … systems online.]
That probably meant 'yes'. There was an explosion of water as Corsola fired a Water Pulse into the sand, throwing itself back into the sea. The battle went calm as it drifted out into deeper water.
"Corsola, Rest," Waverley said. It dawned on Josh that this was what Waverley had been waiting for all along. Screwball couldn't see Corsola and Waverley could afford to simply wait it out.
"Screwball?"
[Core functionality at 50% integrity.]
"Screwball, return," he commanded. No reason to double down on a losing strategy. "Ivysaur, take over."
This time he released Ivysaur onto one of the platforms.
"Do what you do best, Ivysaur," he said. "Be careful, be patient."
There was a moment of calm as the battle effectively came to a halt. Corsola was there somewhere, Josh knew. Something told him it was hiding in the depths to the left of the field.
"As in our islands, so in our battle," Waverley said cryptically.
Josh never did work out how Waverley knew Corsola had woken up. The Whirlpool formed so subtly that Josh didn't notice anything untoward till the sea was a spiral of surging white water threatening to drown the mid-field platforms.
He was just reaching for Ivysaur's Poké Ball when Waverley sprung her trap. "Water Pulse."
The Water Pulse slapped Ivysaur from his footing, sending him head-first into the Whirlpool. The current immediately swept him into the torrent, dunking and throwing him around like a cork.
Oh, fuck. "Ivysaur, return! Return!" Josh commanded, futilely trying to catch him in the recall beam. If he could just hit once with the recall he could still salvage this round -
"Self-Destruct!" Waverley ordered cheerfully.
An almost lazy pulse of light glowed from the eye of the Whirlpool. A wall of salt water hit him – the next thing Josh knew he was thrashing to the surface, coughing, water stinging his eyes. His new vantage point showed little but bobbing sea.
"Ivysaur! Linesman!" he roared.
"On the beach, challenger," they replied.
Josh hauled himself back onto his platform; kneeling, he spotted Ivysaur unconscious in the shallows. "Return!"
"I did tell you," Waverley said. "The sea is not home."
Well, how very clever of you, Josh thought, but he didn't say it.
"Your release, Mr Joshua," she said.
Sixpence says you can't play that Curse trick twice. He flung Screwball's Poké Ball as high up as he could.
"I thought you might do that," Waverley said. "For my third choice. Arise! Slowking!"
It surfaced from the sea on a column of water. With a leisurely gesture it glided serenely over to mid-field like an ancient general riding his chariot, and settled down on a platform.
"Begin!"
"Trick Room!"
"Charge Beam!"
Josh doubted Slowking could have dodged if it wanted to. It was swallowed in a dense cloud of black smoke. Direct hit – it would have been steam if it had missed.
His head throbbed with psychosensitivity – Slowking somersaulted buoyantly from the smoke, gracefully landing on the sea's surface as easily as if it were sand.
"Get out from its line of sight!" Waverley called, presciently, because a cloud of steam hissed up as Screwball zapped another Charge Beam at it. Slowking emerged from the brume, running on the water, trying to get into Screwball's blind spot – from outside the Trick Room it didn't look like Slowking was moving much at all, but then he'd blink and see how fast it was really moving relative to Screwball.
[Target confirmed,] Screwball droned. [Tracking.]
Magneton don't have blind spots, Josh thought. Screwball disconcertingly rolled around individual eyes to follow it. Slowking started flinging Shadow Balls almost casually as it ran. Screwball fired back with Magnet Bomb, the bombs flashing in silver parabolas as they flew.
"No. Eerie Impulse!" Josh shouted, deliberately, to signal to Waverley she was running out of options. The Shadow Balls popped against Screwball like soap bubbles.
"Send it to the depths!" Waverley called. Slowking swept its arms down, witchfire pouring off it, psychically plunging Screwball beneath the waves. Josh wondered if she was panicking. It's not as if it could somehow drown a magneton.
"Up and out. Magnet Bomb."
"Fire Blast!"
"No! Down, dive!" Josh babbled.
Screwball rose from the sea, crackles of electricity arcing across its body, and was promptly enveloped in Fire Blast. It briefly turned into a bright ball of flame. It emerged blank-eyed and glowing cherry red.
"Magneton is unable to battle! Slowking wins," the referee said.
Clever. A straightforward double-bluff. Repeat the same trick and exploit the element of surprise twice. Josh hefted Fionn's Love Ball for a moment. "Do what you do best, kidda," he whispered to her.
Waverley gave Fionn a critical look, her nose wrinkling in indecision. You don't know what she's going to do, Josh thought. I'm not completely sure either.
"… Whirlpool."
The Whirlpool rose out of the sea and turned into a waterspout, visibly spinning faster and stronger. Fionn gazed at it innocently for a moment – and then shrieked, unleashing a pulse of psychic power. The Whirlpool started trying to spin clockwise/anticlockwise at the same time, and collapsed in a fountain of fine spray. Fionn promptly disappeared into the smoke and spray. She didn't reappear. Josh blinked, and saw her silhouette lingering near the shallows. Waverley was scanning the field fruitlessly. He wasn't sure whether Slowking couldn't see her or whether it just hadn't noticed her yet.
Waverley just laughed. "Surf, Slowking! Make it a tidal wave!"
Slowking raised a battlefield-wide Surf, the beach rapidly lengthening as Slowking sucked in water to build the wave. Just before it crashed over Fionn she parted the water in a neat circle. Slowking instantly hurled a Shadow Ball at it. Possibly only Josh could see it, but he hit her smack in the mouth.
Hmm. He didn't like being out-manoeuvred by a pokémon. Fionn didn't like being out-tricked either, howling and wailing as a disembodied voice. Slowking raised another waterspout with one hand, peering around for the sulking misdreavus, and charging a Shadow Ball in the other.
If Slowking can't see her, then time is probably on my side. The Trick Room must be falling soon. "Future Sight!"
Something must have somehow tipped it off, because Slowking threw the Shadow Ball and sent the Whirlpool spinning downfield right afterwards, setting Fionn blinking in-and-out of sight as she dodged around it.
"Wait for it," Josh called. The wind suddenly died. Future Sight was arriving early. "Wreak havoc!"
Bolts of psychic energy blazed down. None of them hit, Slowking deftly deflecting them into the sea with an assertive gesture. It was enough of a distraction to allow Fionn to move in close and loose a blast of Ominous Wind. With an effort it leapt into the sea to escape. From under the sea it kept speculatively lobbing Shadow Balls. One miss was one too many – she immediately faded away. The speed of the volley was strange. Josh aimed his Pokédex – he know where it was with an odd certainty, even if he couldn't physically see it among the waves and oarweed.
"Trick Room, a Psychic-type -"
Ghostly laughter rang in everyone's ears. The oarweed pounced at Slowking, trying to bind its limbs – Slowking just smacked Fionn with another Shadow Ball.
It does that every time she uses a Psychic-type move. Damn. Waverley was supposed to be running out of options.
Waverley primly folded her arms, a confident little smile on her lips. "Give up yet?"
Robbed of a target, Slowking had stopped throwing Shadow Balls. The pressure is artificial, Josh told himself.
The sea is not home. Waverley had given him clues once already. The sea is not home … the sea is no place for those who dwell on the land. But there were ghosts in the sea. Fionn only breathed for theatrical effect.
The sea is no impediment.
"No," he replied. "Fionn, beneath the water. Ominous Wind."
Nothing seemed to happen. Slowking … disappeared. He couldn't tell where it was any longer. Both he and Waverley were watching the inscrutable sea.
The linesman's flag went up.
"Slowking is unable to battle!" the referee declared, to the sound of Fionn's shrieking delight. "Victory goes to the challenger, Joshua Cook of Mulberry Town!"
Fionn reappeared at his shoulder, hair waving lank and rubbery like tentacles. It wasn't really wet, but the illusion was her idea of hilarity.
Waverley looked curiously disappointed for a defeated Gym Leader. "On the beach," she said, pointing. Josh awkwardly splashed and waded to the shore – Waverley seemed to glide like a seadra through the waves.
"I'm not convinced you understand the sea at all," she said.
"No, I don't," Josh flatly agreed. "But a win is a win."
"A win is a win," Waverley coolly agreed. "Therefore, in recognition of your victory, I present to you the Maelstrom Badge."
It was the Gym's vortex logo, small enough to hold between thumb and forefinger. One Badge closer to the Academy.
Open your eyes …
After the battle, Josh didn't have anything to do other than walk along the cliff outside the Pokémon Centre. The breeze did a lot to counteract the heat of the long afternoon. Midsummer was still a week away. Whenever he could hear the sound of waves breaking he wondered how he had ever lived without it. He'd been re-reading some sea-poetry, to fill these, these solitary days:
'but he always had a longing,
he who strives on the sea.'
There was a ship out there, making its way northwards. The Karego Rose, her white sails hardly visible against the sea-shine. He wondered if the 2nd Mate was in the rigging somewhere, standing fearlessly on the fore yardarm. She probably wasn't looking towards the island. Francesca Livesey was pretty well obsessed with the sea. Embarrassingly, poetry had made no impression on her whatsoever. So much for romance.
From the southwest to northeast, there was nothing but the Great Western Ocean, not the slightest shadow of land on the horizon. At moments like this, you could look out at the sea and pretend there was no further shore.
'And now my consciousness flies,
out of my breast,
my thought,
amid the flowing sea,
over the whale's realm.'
My thought – modseofa. Sometimes translated as 'spirit'. Spirit, soul … the breath of life, in another language. Psyche. Psychic.
And now my psyche flies, amid the flowing sea, over the whale's realm.
Open your eyes.
I saw that.
Hovering near the brow of the headland, like a shifty rookidee, was the girl with the silver-white hair. She immediately realised she'd been spotted and ran off out of sight. Without really knowing why, he followed her, watching her flit down the cliff path. She was a psychic, he'd felt it on Blue Point Isle. A powerful one.
There was nobody else in the bay – just another beach to the islanders, too far away to be of interest to the tourists. She glanced around, as if to make sure he was still there, then dashed along the beach and disappeared into the dunes beyond. Everything was so quiet. The breeze seemed to die down. The omnipresent wingull had ceased their crying.
He stepped into a hollow amid the dunes, surrounded by thickets of marram grass. There was nobody there. Sound of something brushin coyly against the sand and grass. The girl appeared from his peripheral vision. She stalked in close, head cocked on one side, giving him an intense, unblinking stare. Close enough to smell – sharp, briny, faintly musty, which was odd because most girls smelled basically flowery.
"You're not human, are you?"
She didn't say anything – not that he really expected her to. Instead he got a flash of psychosensitive pain.
"Ow!" he gasped. "Careful."
She seemed to get the message, the pain receding as quickly as it appeared. She reached out and touched him lightly in the middle of the forehead. Alien sensations cascaded gently into his mind.
Sea shimmering diaphanously with sunbeams – coral gardens jewel bright – flying over the land under wave – calling a storm with a thought, calming it with a song – to be young, vigorous and perilous – the twilight zone, light soft like feathers – lie and sleep, under deep -
In that moment, he understood what it was to live in three dimensions; to see in total blackness with nothing but the power of his mind; to fly and dive as easily as a human walks; to be a creature of earth, wind, and wave.
His mind rose to the surface. He blinked hard as he remembered who and what he was. She was gone again. There was something soft cupped in his hand. A feather, with a bifurcated vane, so white it almost glittered like silver.