"WHAT DID HE DO TO MY EYE?" The Sliggoo threw its body against the cage's bars as I entered the room.
"I do not view his streams, but I suspect he has taken a sample from your eye."
"A sample? He took the whole thing!" It pointed at the left side of its face, where a shallow socket with a small hole in the middle blinked at me.
"I can see that." I picked up the cage, carrying it back out into the corridors.
"That makes half of us."
Doctor Socotra hastened his footsteps as he walked towards the lab, but whether it was from anticipation or anxiousness he could not distinguish.
Come on, Socotra. Give the people what they want, and they'll listen to you.
The end of his lips curved upwards, the smile growing so wide that it threatened to split his face into two.
Stream #705, part 2.
Just like before.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Pokephenomenon! I'm Professor Socotra, and don't worry. I've read your feedback on recent streams, so starting from today, Pokephenomenon will be a return back to form— and that's a fact!"
There that human went again, growling up a storm. The trip here had been a silent one, full of tension between the Shedinja and me.
I could hear the ceiling of the cage open, and the hands of the human closed roughly around me, yanking me upwards. Unlike before, his grip was less than uncomfortable. My shell was squeezed too tightly. The berries I ate churned in my stomach at the weightless, unstable sensation of dangling in midair. Panic started to kick in, and I wriggled around, trying to relinquish the borderline painful hold on me.
"Let me go! You've already taken my eye, what worse can you do to me?"
"You may recognise this Sliggoo from yesterday's stream. She's a bit banged up, but nothing that eye won't use!" My short arms flailed uselessly in the air as I was jerked around. "Sorry for such a lame pun, but it's not like they could be any cornea, right?"
"Help! I want to go home!"
A foreign voice amidst all the laughter. Was another Pokemon here? My antennae couldn't produce an accurate layout of the room, with all mental images received too blurry from being shaken. I craned my neck, hoping if the additional reach could help me hear it again–
"It looks like this little Sliggoo really wants to get started, huh? Well, if you say so. Into the tank, you go~"
I was dropped back into the cage with invisible walls, blocking off my antennae from sensing anything more.
The human was waving its top limbs around, and its tone was growing to be as rapid as its movements.
"Now, dear viewers, you may be thinking: what's so different from yesterday's snoozefest of a stream? Well, everyone knows the saying. One's a snoozefest, and two…"
The light went out, and I recoiled from my sudden vision granted of the room. The human strode past me towards another object on the table. It was covered by a red material, and its shape was likewise to…to a cage.
"Two's a PARTY!" He threw the thin red thing aside, and for a moment I saw purple tones before blinding white light flooded my eye.
A Gastly? A Noivern? There weren't that many purple Pokemon to my knowledge.
Or maybe it could be…
Oh, dear. I tried to back away, to stabilise myself against something, but a new wave of disorientation washed over me as I pressed against an invisible surface.
What was I in for today?
"Quoting the Pokedex, 'Sliggoo has trouble drawing a line between friends and food. It will calmly try to melt and eat even those it gets along well with.'."
Doctor Socotra opened the cage, lifting the new Pokemon out.
"Fact or false? That's what our new buddy's going to help us find out. I didn't feed the Sliggoo yesterday, and who's a better friend…"
He walked back to the camera, feeling the Pokemon in his gloved clutches quiver. Maybe it was the one making his arms shake as he thrust it in front of the camera.
"…than someone of the same species? Say hi, Sliggoo #2!"
"Look at it squirm! We've got ourselves a fighter over here! Well, into the tank you go. You'll be meeting your friend real soon!"
The glass tank housing the two Sliggoos was rectangular in shape, but a glass partition divided the enclosure into two squares. Grabbing the handle on the partition, he slowly slid it upwards, staring at the Pokemon as their antennae began to twitch.
"Where am I? Who are you? Why is this happening to me?"
Why was this happening to any of us? All I wanted was to go back home. I missed the marshland, from my hole in the riverbed, down to the signature acrid stench that clung to everything. It was almost like I could smell it again.
Wait.
My antennae probed the air cautiously.
I could smell it again, coming from the Pokemon before me. This was a Sliggoo, and it was taken from a marshland.
My marshland.
"Okay, kid. I need you to settle down. Panicking won't do you any good in here. What's your name?
The whiny wails stifled themselves, and a tiny voice spoke, its sentences punctuated with sniffles.
"Jacob. W-Why can't I see anything? Do you know where's mom? Dad?"
The relatively high-pitched voice. The inexperience in utilising antennae. This was a young Sliggoo, probably recently evolved. I had no idea how to deal with a child, especially one who should be traumatised by what he had been through.
"Kid. Calm down. Er—I'm Sandra, okay? I'm a Sliggoo too. I'll help us get out of here."
"S-Sandra? Sa-savage Sandra?"
Shit. I didn't think there would be rumours, or that they would even spread.
"Y-you're the Sliggoo who—"
"Look, that's not—I'm not— Listen, I can help. We have to focus on—" I tried to take a step closer to the Sliggoo, gently resting my hand on his shoulder as an attempt at a comforting gesture.
"Get away from me!" Wrestling away from my side, he fled to a corner of this glass cube. I watched as he slammed blindly into walls, hammering on them with futile punches until he slumped defeatedly against them. I could hear his sobs, muffled as he hid his face from me.
Chasing after him, convincing him… it would be of no use. He was probably scared out of his mind, and if what rumours he heard were correct, for good reason. Now I knew how the Shedinja felt first encountering me. I just needed to wait for him to accept his circumstances as I did, then we could talk civilly.
Doctor Socotra watched the two Sliggoo slither away to opposite ends of the tank with a frown on his face. He was hoping for something grisly to happen naturally, especially with the short bursts of hostility between the two Pokemon before. A quick glance at his monitor revealed not as many viewers as he hoped. It was clear people were not impressed at two Pokemon turning their backs on each other.
Well, there was always plan B.
"Another lie!" He screeched. "These two Sliggoo were picked from the same location, and won't so much as spit at each other even when both are starving! Pokedex fact: False!"
He stepped away quickly from the tanks, hoping his wagging finger and confident strut made his audience sure that this stream was far from over.
"That small victory doesn't mean we're done, folks. Viewers of yesterday's stream will recall that I debunked Sliggoo's slime being 'caustic'. Now using the word 'caustic' was a mistake on my part, but I'm not the only one to be shamed! The Pokedex claims that 'Sliggoo's mucous can dissolve anything', but as you saw me handle Sliggoo #2 earlier, none of its slime left a scratch on my gloves! Its slime is completely useless on inorganic materials!"
"But that's not all! To make it up to you guys, my loyal viewers, let me right my wrong, right here, right now! Is Sliggoo's mucous truly caustic? Well, let me just find…"
He ran his hand along the top of the table as he paced around the room, pretending to glance at random locations room like he was searching for something. Of course, he knew exactly where it was.
That's it. Reel them in.
"This!" Pulling a vial out of his many lab coat pockets, he swirled its viscous contents.
"A test tube filled to the brim with Sliggoo mucous. And look what I have here! A tank full of willing participants, holding very still for me."
The human was still growling, but I could sense his sounds coming closer. That couldn't mean anything good.
"Jacob. Whatever stories you may have heard, they're not true."
He was still sulking in the corner, scoffing at my words.
"Look, I can help you. You want to see, right? You have to focus on your antennae. Try moving them around. Take deep breaths, and stay calm. Even closing your eyes work."
He didn't budge from his spot, but his antennae were certainly moving a lot more.
"We're both stuck here, and we both want to get out. I promise I'll get us both out of here. Get us all back to our homes."
"You promise?" His meek voice followed a hesitant head raise towards me. At least he could see now.
"I promise. Shake on it?" I mentally heaved a sigh of relief as he picked himself up, closing the gap between my outstretched arm and his.
"Now. Some of you may be asking, why am I so fussy over the word 'caustic'?"
The Sliggoo seemed to be moving closer together. Would that be a problem?
Not at all. It doesn't matter which one you pick, after all.
Facing the camera, Doctor Socotra spun the test tube between his fingers, the small action briefly easing him as much as it entertained.
"Well, that's because according to the dictionary, the word 'caustic' means to burn or corrode…"
You're stalling.
Do it.
It's what they want. It's what'll make them listen to you.
"...organic tissue." Popping the cork off with a thumb, he watched as he emptied the contents into the tank, making sure his audience could fully see what happened next.
Jacob was much smaller than me up close, and so was his hand in mine. His antennae, once coiled up in fear, were unravelled, poking at this and that in newfound curiosity.
"Okay, Jacob. Let me explain what's going on here. We're—"
I winced as something burned on my shell. The burning continued, and while I turned to inspect it, more landed on me, leaving the same sensation.
What was happening?
My antenna was probably the first to sense it. A mass falling onto us. A mass containing the same thing that was still hurting me.
Fleeing was the first and only option that came to me. I pushed Jacob, but it wasn't to get him away from danger. It was to get away, using him as leverage. I saw him stumble, eyes wide in shock.
"Sandra?" That strained, soft voice of having the wind knocked out of him.
It rained. Liquid covered Jacob completely. His voice, that soft voice… it rose in pitch as he screamed as much as he could, screams slowly descending into gurgles, his throat filling up with the liquid. His eyes caved inwards, sinking back to reveal the holes of two large eye sockets. His flesh bubbled and burned, melting away to reveal what was underneath, and even that melted too. The sound eventually died off, leaving a skeleton and chunks of remains, partially trapped in the mucus.
And the smell that rose from the aftermath…
It smelled familiar.
It smelled divine.
The rest of the stream was a blur, his body working on autopilot with only a few things registering in his mind.
The Shedinja was called in immediately to remove the remaining Sliggoo.
The views had increased exponentially.
The stream had been ended. He wasn't even sure if he had delivered an outro.
He was hunched over that lab table, staring into the tank. His breaths were heavy and steady, all while resisting the urge to retch.
He… had done it.
But what had he done?
What you've always been doing—until you've started turning soft again.
What had he been thinking? What would the others back at—
Don't think about them! They turned their backs on your dream! Your ambition! They'll never understand what you're doing! Never understand what you're trying to accomplish!
A shout exploded out of his in a roar, just as glass exploded outwards from where fists met tank.
People will listen to you now. Just like before.
He extracted a shard of glass from his skin, looking at his reflection in the stained shard.
Just like before.