Chapter Twenty-Five:
Territory of None

Disclaimer: I do not own the series Pokémon. Like, at all. It and all its respectable characters are © to Game Freak and Satoshi Tajiri. However, all writing contents and semi-plots here are © to me; unless it is stated otherwise. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them.

Notes: Hello, all! So glad you made it to this point in the story. I will always be eternally grateful for my readers, even those who lurk in the background.

I've had a love-hate relationship with this chapter. I would write something, read over it, and then scrap it to start all over again. It sucked in a major way, but it was worth the long toiling hours of getting it just right.

Current Team: Keno the Marshtomp, Sela the Poochyena, Ambrose the Kirlia, Faye the Taillow, Breela the Shroomish, Luna the Skitty

Badges Won: Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge


"If you want to play it safe all the time, go join an insurance company."
Mark Watney, "The Martian" by Andy Weir


"You really got ahead of me, didn't you?" Shay half-laughed as she sat down next to Brendan. He only offered her a thin smile in return. Shay cleared her throat, brows beetling with concern when he gave nothing else. Sienna stood beside him, no longer a small puffy-feathered Torchic but now a lean Combusken. Her feathers glistened in the late morning sunlight, looking like copper and gold ingots peppered across her body. Sienna bounced on her scaly feet, occasionally shooting a look toward the water. Something breached the hyaline surface, a spout of water spraying skyward.

It was revealed in short order to be a Wailmer. The rotund ball of blue and white groaned and blinked languidly at her, then flapped a minuscule flipper to Shay and her team in greeting. Baleen teeth exposed into a great big grin from the whale pokémon.

Keno shuffled closer to the water's edge, giving the Wailmer a little wave back. Faye kept to Shay's shoulder, while the others settled to snooze lightly beside her. Brendan's eyes flicked toward Sela, Luna, and Breela. His gaze lingered longer still on Ambrose. Shay could sense him withholding his concern and hesitation back. There was some respite, however, when he noticed Ambrose's eyes were now developed instead of hiding behind a thin layer of flesh and fur.

"Hey, is everything okay? I mean, I tried letting you know I was leaving town the last time we saw each other, but I couldn't get ahold of you. And I…also don't have your number."

Brendan sighed, shaking his head. She could sense the frustration tailing the fringes of his voice. "You were too busy chatting it up with that pokémon nurse. I figured I ought to just bow out for the night. Especially after…well, you know."

He nodded his head in Ambrose's direction. Shay frowned, a pang of guilt lancing through her, quick as lightning.

"I'm so sorry, Brendan. I didn't intentionally mean to ignore you. Roxanne had my winnings from the gym battle dropped off at the Center. I got hit by those rocks from our fight, remember? And while the paramedics were fixing me up, we all completely forgot about the badge and earnings."

"I…I guess that makes sense. Not to mention that Team Aqua grunt beating up the other half of your face…" Brendan offered Shay a sheepish smile. "Water under the bridge."

"As we sit by a bridge that already has water under it," Shay replied with a chuckle, motioning to the cyclists on the bridge above. Brendan snorted and joined in, bobbing his head. The tension that had crackled in the air between them finally seemed to dissipate, much like the morning fog had done earlier on. Brendan cracked a grin, stretching from ear to ear.

"You know, it just hit me. You owe me a battle," he retaliated good-naturedly when they both stopped laughing. Brendan wagged a finger at her, his smile turning impish. Shay blinked at him and at first, she didn't know what he was talking about. The seconds dragged on before it hit her like a ton of bricks. She did vaguely recall asking for a rain check back in Rustboro. Shay flashed him a crooked smirk, glancing at her team. Keno returned to her side, giving Sienna a wave. She returned it, her long talons clacking gently against one another.

"Yeah, I remember now." Keno gently bumped her hip and from the corner of her eye, Ambrose stepped up on her other side. The rest picked themselves up alongside their trainer as she rose to her feet.

Brendan had a similarly playful glint in his eyes as he rolled to his feet. The Wailmer pressed in as close as it could without beaching itself, its baleen bristles flashing her with yet another smile.

"So, what do you say? Think I could get that battle now? I want to see how you've been doing since you've come this far." Sienna began bouncing lightly on her feet, her feathery crest dipping and rising, excitement dancing in her teak-dark eyes.

"I'm ready to go whenever you are, Brendan," Sienna answered, all confidence and bravado dripping off every word.

"I certainly didn't get to this point on my superb looks and charming disposition alone," Shay laughed as she teasingly flipped her hair and turned to glance at the rest of the team. "You guys ready?"

A chorus of affirmatives burst out of everyone. Shay's wicked grin grew as she turned her attention back on Brendan. "Ready when you are, my dude."

They settled in the barest patch of land on the thin strip connecting northern Slateport and Route 110 to the southern shores of New Mauville. Brendan took to the north, Shay to the south.

Brendan sent Sienna out first. She began bouncing lightly on her feet, feathered arms tucked in tight to her body. The air around her sizzled with heat, threatening to change into a shower of embers. Shay nodded to Keno and he lowered himself down to the ground on all fours, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. He stalked just ahead of Shay to take his place on the battlefield.

The young man across from Shay made the first move.

"Sienna, get in close and use Double Kick!"

The match began in earnest and with a bang. Sienna was ready as she charged after Keno, covering a short distance in a few short seconds.

When Shay had begun as a rookie trainer, her heart always pounded away as the nervous anxiety and tension built up and bubbled deep in her gut. She hardly felt the onslaught of adrenaline and unrest. She was in the moment, but she wasn't ruled by it any longer. A comforting wave of calm washed over her as she called out her attacks for Keno.

"Mud-Slap, Keno! Don't let her get into range; keep Sienna at bay!" Sienna was already sailing through the air, her momentum carrying over to strike at Keno.

He managed to duck her attack at the last second, twisting on his heels. He was surprisingly graceful on land, Shay noted with a touch of awe. Keno whipped around and shot off globs of muddy water out of his maw. His attack went sailing harmlessly into the air as Sienna ducked out of the way from the first two shots. The third and fourth, however, came in quicker successions than Sienna or Brendan anticipated and splattered the Combusken from head to toe in muddy goop.

The lanky Combusken spluttered and stumbled, arms raised in disgust as she shook herself, trying to dissipate the sudden mucky addition clinging to her feathers.

Shay didn't relent and neither did Brendan.

He barked off for Sienna to use another round of Double Kick, Shay was just as relentless in pushing forward, just as quick. Keno hunkered down low to the ground once again, partially obscured by the tall grass surrounding him.

"Use Water Gun, Keno! Drench her!"

Keno burst upward from his patch of grass, surprising the Combusken as a spiraling gush of water hit her square in the chest. Shay encouraged Keno to keep it up, taking advantage of Sienna's dizzy spell. The look on Brendan's face said it all as he watched Sienna fail to land a single blow. Sienna finally went tumbling through the air, striking the ground twice before skidding into the waters. The Wailmer disappeared beneath the glassy surface, barely leaving a ripple behind. Seconds later, it reappeared, Sienna perched atop its head. She was gently deposited onto the grassy shores and Brendan rushed to her side.

He checked her over, and when he assessed that his pokémon wasn't in critical danger, he recalled Sienna and straightened up. He shot a look at Shay. At first, she mistook it for disdain.

Moments later she realized it wasn't disdain, but it was something more along the lines of appraisal. Brendan placed Sienna's pokéball back onto his belt and nabbed another one hanging off it. With a flick of the wrist, he tossed it out.

"Alright, Basalt—don't let me down!"

From the way Brendan looked at Shay expectantly, he was hoping she'd change out her pokémon. Faye took point, positioning herself between Keno and the newly appointed pokémon opponent. Keno cast Faye a doubtful stare, and when he looked to his trainer, she only nodded wordlessly to him. Keno immediately came to Shay's side, recognizing the quiet order.

Shay recognized Brendan's pokémon as a Slugma—just barely. It was more slug-like and amorphous all at once than she recalled it ever being. She could see it's molten form mingling with ashes and volcanic rock to protect its body from direct attacks. The fronds that extended above its eyes waved in a lethargic, almost carefree, manner. The area in which it remained rooted to instantly withered and blackened at the mere proximity of the Slugma.

Shay could immediately understand why Brendan didn't have Basalt out like his other two pokémon.

He was a potential fire hazard that could turn deadly if he wasn't careful.

Brendan began with a bang, not offering any quarter. "Basalt, use Rock Slide; let's clip that Taillow's wings!"

"Faye, use Brave Bird!" The words simply spilled out of her mouth, the repercussions taking a backseat as she saw Basalt's body begin to harden and darken at a breakneck pace. The few shards that rolled across the Slugma's nebulous lava flesh grew in number and size. Seconds later, Basalt was instantly on the offensive—talon-sharp stony projectiles launching themselves upwards in an effort to strike Faye midair.

Faye dove and weaved her way through the barrage, sluiced through the air with absolute grace while picking up speed at the same time. Blue energy enveloped the little Taillow, slowly at first, starting small as sparks before it finally ignited into a bonfire. The air shrieked as Faye continued picking up speed before she nosedived, a sudden and jolting drop.

Energy trails went sprawling behind her as visibly as a plane emits vapor trails. Basalt's attack went sailing through the air at terrifyingly rapid speeds. Faye's descent went from straight down to an evasive spiral, tilting her thin wings just so, making changes in her trajectory with refined grace.

By then, the Taillow was nothing but a faint silhouette in the blazing heart of her own attack.

The aura of Faye's Brave Bird attack struck Basalt before Brendan could shout out a countermeasure, before Shay could even blink. All of this happened in a split second and yet all the buildup had passed as quickly as a season. Brendan's Slugma collapsed into itself, a puddle of living molten rock spreading across the greenery.

Brendan recalled his pokémon swiftly, a stunned expression painted plainly across his visage. Faye's landing was less than graceful as she hopped along into a safe patch of grass. Bits of smoke twined upwards into the air, emanating from her feathers. Shay saw the wince that crossed the Taillow's face, and she called for Faye to come back to her. In return, Faye did as asked, taking the ground route instead of flying to Shay. The woman knelt to pick the Taillow up and cradled her in the crook of one arm, close to her chest.

The woman took a glance at Breela, already seeing the type advantage she could have over Brendan's Wailmer—but she didn't get a chance to say anything at all.

Faye nipped Shay's arm hard, and the woman hissed, muttered a string of profanities, and nearly dropped the Taillow.

"OW! What the hell, Faye—!"

"Shut up, I hear something."

"What could you possibly—"

"SHAY, LOOK OUT!"

The scream came from Brendan, an octave higher than usual, cracking in between syllables with desperation. Shay went flying when something slammed into her side, throwing her down to the ground. She tightened her protective hold on Faye, as a great bellow rent through the air.

Shay caught a glimpse of something out of her periphery and everything inside her froze solid.

All sound ceased at the sight of a goddamned grizzly bear. An honest-to-god, real-life grizzly bear. And judging from the way it was rushing their way, it was already too late to beat a quiet, unseen escape.

"Oh…oh, we are so fucked."


If anyone were to ask how she and Brendan got to New Mauville, Shay wouldn't be able to provide anything of value at all.

The moment she set eyes on the lumbering grizzly bear, everything became a kaleidoscope of colours, sights, sounds. It had all blurred together to form itself into an amorphous streak that made absolutely no sense. It was the one knotted tangle she couldn't pull apart and straighten out. She could remember only glimpses, scraps.

The rotted stench of the bear's breath. The rough, shaggy texture of fur. A roar so loud, she thought it had ruptured her eardrums. Her arm screaming with agony. A pounding heart wanting to escape. Hands yanking her upright. Fire at her backside and wailing howls. The unyielding, bright lights of a cityscape piercing her eyes as night fell.

In actual hindsight, there was one thing Shay could definitively say about the entire encounter: she ended up in the hospital. She could also say that she wasn't alone this time.

Brendan was sitting atop a hospital bed as a Chansey carefully applied another stitch in his arm, a nurse assisting the fluffy pink pokémon. The doctor stood before Shay, sitting on the other side of the room on her own hospital bed.

"Tell me again what happened, exactly?"

"Brendan and I have been over this about three separate times with half a dozen other people."

"You were injured by an unknown pokémon. We need to know what it looks like, how large it was, how it sounds. If there's a pokémon out there that violently attacks anything that moves—especially human beings—we need to be able to track it down and relocate it elsewhere so it can't harm anyone else."

The doctor standing before Shay was pretty slip of a woman, her posture straight and proper as she gazed down at Shay from over the top of her clipboard. Her hair, perhaps once a silky honey-blonde, was streaked with silvery-grey and pulled into a tight bun. Underneath her lab coat, she wore a floral button up blouse and sensible royal blue slacks and simple slip-on shoes. A pair of frameless glasses sat perched atop her nose, giving her a more severe look on top of her prim appearance.

"Can you try?"

"I don't—I don't really remember everything, it's…"

Fragmented. Scraps of split-second details. Puzzle pieces that had been tossed into the air and allowed to lay where they land, jumbling the picture into a chaotic swirl of disjointed patterns and colours.

There had been a bear. It had interrupted their pokémon battle. Now she was in the hospital in New Mauville, her arm heavily numbed and heavily stitched up. A lovely parting gift, she gathered, from the grizzly's massive claws.

The one saving grace is that it hadn't been its mouth that had caught her arm, or it would've been broken into pretty little slivers and she'd mostly likely have needed surgery to fix the damage. Several surgeries, even...but only if she had been very unlucky.

A Blissey entered the hospital room and hustled over to Shay, bearing a sling for her arm.

"Here you go, dear, take it nice and slowly—that's it. There you go, into the sling. Your arm should heal in the coming weeks. Make sure that you change your bandages in a week, and don't let it get wet either until then. The stitches are internal and dissolvable, so you don't have to worry about coming back to us. All right, Miss Kenway?"

Shay offered the Blissey a nod and thanked her quietly before she was gone again. The doctor standing before her watched coolly as the whole interaction occurred. She dropped her gaze down to her clipboard.

"So, you're one of those lucky few, then."

Shay blinked at the doctor, slightly startled. She wasn't sure if the comment had been meant for her to engage in or if it was simply a thought she decided to speak aloud about.

"I'm sorry?"

"The lucky few who can understand and communicate with pokémon. It's a rare genetic trait in any region enough as it is."

Shay's breath hitched tightly in her chest, so much so, that she felt a stabbing stitch lance through her lungs and throat.

"I…I don't—"

The doctor's clipboard dropped just enough for her to stare sternly back at Shay.

"Miss, I'd appreciate if you didn't hide it. It's not a stigma in society, it's a gift and a rare one at that. It can actually be quite helpful in a pinch. I knew only one other person who had it and they now work as a crisis agent here in Hoenn. They speak with wild and trainer-registered pokémon alike when incidents or disasters strike, usually to calm them down and give them a trustworthy human to work with. Especially pokémon who suffer from PTSD and are rescued from abusive trainers. We don't abide by people who willingly neglect or bring harm to pokémon." The doctor offered a thin, encouraging smile to Shay. "It's honest enough work. I actually wish we had more like you around. It'd make things easier, I think."

The doctor's words eased Shay more than she realized. Her shoulders slumped now that the weighty burden of staying silent had been lifted from them. A few more questions were shortly pelted her way, and she offered up the best answers she could. The doctor left, with the Chansey finishing treating with Brendan's own injuries. When that was all said and done, so too did the pokémon leave.

The air grew heavy and constricting as the two of them were left in the wake of silence.

Shay fiddled with her arm sling, adjusting it while she could without feeling anything. She stole glances of Brendan, taking stock of where he'd been hurt.

His hand was heavily bandaged. His jeans' left pantleg was soaked in blood, and had been cut away to access the injury in order to clean, treat, and bandage it. A few scrapes and bruises were visible on his face. They too had been given attention and treatment.

Shay noticed he was staring at her. Waiting. Watching. Saying absolutely nothing.

The heaviness of the air only grew as the minutes ticked by. Finally she had enough of it, needing to break it apart or she'd go mad as a result.

"Brendan—"

"You called it a grizzly."

"I…what?"

"You said it was a grizzly bear." His voice was flat and even. "What's a grizzly bear? Some new variation of an Ursaring? Hm? You seemed awfully sure of yourself back there."

"I…I—I don't…"

Shay was at a loss for words. She felt her temples crushing in around everything, squeezing relentlessly and sending painful stabbings against the backs of her eyes. She pressed them tightly shut in an effort to lessen the pain, to willfully wish them away.

"Don't lie to me, all right? I know you've been lying to me since the day you got here!" Brendan was suddenly shouting at her, and she flinched, refusing to open her eyes. "Norman doesn't have any nieces. He was a single child, and so was his wife, Caroline. They had no brothers or sisters. So tell me who you really are, or I'll tell those doctors what really happened."

Shay let go of the breath she'd been holding and felt something hot and searing slide down her cheeks. She wiped away the tears and sucked in air in stuttering gasps.

"Fine. Fine. I'm not related to Norman." Another breath released, sucked in. Calmer. Measured. "I'm…I'm not from here. And I don't just mean me not being from Hoenn. I'm not from…anywhere here."

"You're not making any sense."

She slowly opened her eyes, but kept her gaze cast down to the ground. There were dents in her hiking boots. She'd probably have to replace them if those dents compromised the integrity of their structure.

"I'm not from this world, Brendan. I'm from a place that doesn't have pokémon." A small lie. They had pokémon, but not in the capacity she was sure he wasn't ready for. "We have animals that can look like pokémon, but…none of them are psychic-types or fairy-types or any of those things. None of them spew out fire or channel electrical charges made from their own bodies. They don't…do any of that. They don't have elemental, fantastical powers like pokémon have here. They have what nature gave them, nothing more. And that thing that attacked us today? It's called a grizzly bear. They're one of the meanest species of bear and if you had listened to me and not tried to run like you did, we could have come out of this unscathed."

"If you had been honest with me before all of this, then maybe we could have—"

Shay bared her teeth in a snarl and finally brought her gaze to lock with his, and anger seethed through her clenched teeth as she spoke next.

"Do not put this on me. It isn't my fault, I didn't drag that bear into this world, that wasn't me in the fucking slightest! I remember telling you to get down on the ground and to not make noise or to move. I remember that much about, because I grew up around these animals. Maybe not directly, but I know enough about them and what to do if you encounter a fucking grizzly bear. And that bear? It saw us as a threat, the very second you tried running away. You painted the targets on our backs the second you turned yours." Her throat was dry and coarse as sandpaper, but she pressed on. "We could have come out unscathed if you had just listened to me! I know it was terrifying, I was about ready to piss my pants too, but I knew what to do and you chose to not listen."

There was a ringing in her ears. Painful, high-pitched, nearly drowning out everything else. An earworm she couldn't simply hum or speak away. It grew louder as her voice rose and Brendan seemed to shrink in on himself in the face of her ire and he was the one who finally dropped his gaze this time.

"I didn't know…I've never—I never meant to…" He took pause to gather his thoughts further. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. "What did you mean by…your world?"

She couldn't hold on to her anger any longer. It was simply too exhausting, and she knew that Brendan wasn't really at fault for all of this. How could she have guessed that they would be attacked by a grizzly bear? No one could have. She had been expecting Electrike, Gulpin, Plusle or Minun with the occasional Oddish or Wingull.

The bear had taken her by surprise just as much as it had with Brendan.

"Like I said…this isn't my home. Nothing in this world is my home." She sniffed, with the words tasting sour as old milk and it made her want to gag. She seethed with unbridled rage, tenfold at everything that has happened to her—to everyone else. To the people that had been misplaced. To the pokémon and animals alike. They were simply casualties that the Creation Trio couldn't even deign to acknowledge or think about. They were gods, after all. And just like the saying goes, 'a lion does not concern himself with the thoughts of sheep'. This rightfully applied to the ancient titans, if not more so than in that very moment. "Just take a closer look at your precious pokémon gods from Sinnoh. They're the ones fucking everything up for everyone else here and in my world, even if it isn't all that obvious at first glance."