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~\({O})/~
34.
Welcome to Paradise
~\({O})/~
Outside Pokemon Paradise
~Zoroark~
The spires of Pokemon Paradise looked like ruck shack buildings stacked up on top of one another until they reached the sky. Every house was made of mud-brown wood and dull violet roofs, and half of them looked like they were on stilts. A large wall of planks and a velvet shroud of mist surrounded the entire city.
Despite all that, Pokemon Paradise was massive and noisy, even from a distance. Zoroark could barely see where it ended on either side from where he stood.
Alexis was the first one to step forward, casting a glance back at the three of them.
"Congratulations," he said dully. "Here we are. Now let's go check in before the afternoon rush."
Zoroark-as-Braixen soon learned what Alexis meant by 'checking in'. As they approached the large wall of planks that stood thirty feet tall all around the city, he donned his illusion once more. The only proper entrance in or out of the place was a large arched gate nearly as tall as the wall itself. Hundreds of pokemon were lining up outside of it, creating a noisy, cramped mess the three of them could barely see the small check-in desk over.
At some point during their walk, the xatu had disappeared. Zoroark didn't know where he'd gone, and by the time he'd noticed they were far too entrenched in the crowd to pay it mind. Maybe he'd slipped away in the chaos.
Alexis nudged him in the thigh. Zoroark-as-braixen looked down.
"Do yourself a favor," Alexis said in a voice only Zoroark could hear. "Go as yourself. They don't take kindly to illusions."
A skiploom who looked like it would happily be anywhere else was marking things up on papers for pokemon as they went through the door.
"Age. Species. Continent of birth." They slid several papers towards the three of them. "Fill it out."
Alexis and Elliot flipped the clerk their HAPPI badges; two of the papers were slid back. Zoroark got a paper to fill out. It was replete with boxes to check and lines to write on. Zoroark's muscle memory honed from years of marking down papers exactly like this one took over, and he filled the paper out within a minute. Until he reached the species bar.
"You'll find no sanctuary here on Mist."
No matter how he tried, Zoroark found himself scared to ink that last bit in. Maybe it was something out of instinct—Primarina had always taught him never to show his true form in public. But right now, Pokemon Paradise was the best chance he had at being able to find a warm place to eat and sleep when he needed to. If his species had as bad a reputation here as Alexis seemed to think… maybe Primarina had a point after all.
A paw on his arm. A hooded pokemon glanced up at him from under the brow, looking at his claw hovering over the box. It was Alexis.
"I hope you're not thinking of marking this up as any other species than your own," Alexis said. "You won't even get past the front gate. Don't be stupid."
He moved Zoroark's claw, and checked the box for 'zoroark' with it. Zoroark didn't make an attempt to stop him.
The papers were handed in. Zoroark got a yellow scarf to wear. Just like before, it made him feel slightly weighed down, like he was shackled. The three of them passed through the gates, and then into the city.
Zoroark was, for a moment, taken aback by all the things that were going on around him. The large buildings up close dwarfed anything he could have imagined from a distance, and pokemon of all shapes and sizes were walking around and attending to their business in hordes at a time.
Alexis put his and Elliot's badges back into his bag, then sealed it up.
"Ready to blend in?" he asked.
"Ready when you are," said Elliot.
The two pulled their hoods down further, then casually walked off into the crowd as if they were two normal pokemon in the daily mess.
That left Zoroark all alone.
A crowd of pokemon filed in and out of the entry gates, making wide rings around him as he passed. None of them looked like they wanted to be near him. Zoroark regained his head quickly. The best chance of getting himself a place to crash for the night was to join the HAPPI facilities further downtown. Even if he didn't stay, rescue team work was easy as dirt to apply for, and they had free lodging. He'd be able to get enough footing to find a place elsewhere.
There were large signs hanging from overbearing buildings in the main plaza, pointing out where all the large streets were. The way to the HAPPI center was pointed out very clearly, allowing Zoroark to follow the posts there without asking too many questions.
Years of living almost solely on a boat had robbed Zoroark of any idea of what it was like to walk through the streets of a proper city. The buildings on either side loomed over him almost claustrophobically, but it was clear that pokemon were living in them. Storefronts were open and pokemon were causally walking up and down the somewhat dirty streets. The wonderful smells coming from a bakery to the left caught Zoroark's attention as soon as he passed it. His stomach grumbled.
But regardless of the strange sights, he was even more unaccustomed to walking around as himself. He felt naked to the world, weirdly vulnerable in a way that he couldn't explain. But he soldiered through it, marching through the streets with purpose. Maybe it would feel less strange tomorrow.
The HAPPI building was located deep within the city, but was also one of the largest buildings around and had land sealed off specifically for the teams that lived there, so it was hard to miss and easy to find.
Zoroark could feel the guards standing outside the building's gates keeping their eyes on him, but he ignored it. He just had to sign up to be on a rescue team, and then it didn't matter what everymon else thought. As long as he had a place to sleep and food to eat.
He wasn't the only pokemon who had arrived hoping for the same thing he was. He was accompanied by a group of pokemon he could easily get lost in. Some of them were battered, bruised, and dirty, just like he was, while others were in much better shape and had much more confident looks on their faces, and still others wore the scarves and badges of HAPPI in the first place. Those must have been the returning explorers, Zoroark figured.
All those pokemon, Zoroark included, were funneled through the entrance of the HAPPI Center, and into a massive hall that had every fixing Zoroark could dream of, and some of the ones he couldn't.
At the end of the large, magnificent room was a small desk, 'monned by a single delcatty. They marked down papers with a claw and lazily batted something attached to a connection orb, letting their spring-like tail move back and forth lazily as they worked. As the group approached, they formed into a line. Zoroark found himself pushed back and back as others formed up, but managed to secure himself a spot in front of a few of the other returning explorers.
His heart skipped a beat when he realized the pokemon right behind him was the vaporeon he had bumped into at the Noe Town dock. It took him a moment to realize that she hadn't seen him as a zoroark. He couldn't act like they'd met before.
The line slowly thinned and shortened; soon Zoroark stood at the desk. The delcatty looked up at him.
"You're here to… ?" she asked him, her voice trailing off at the end promptingly. Zoroark could hear the bluntness in it.
"I'm here to join a rescue team," Zoroark said. "How do I do that here?"
The delcatty marked down a few papers, cleared her throat, and then looked back up at Zoroark.
"You have to pass a physical exam before we assign you," she said. "But why don't you come back tomorrow? For certain candidates we do a background check first."
Zoroark asked if there was a slip or pass he could use to show that he'd made a request for a physical exam. He didn't get one.
He sat down and rested his tired body on one of the room's lavish seats. That wasn't the answer he had been hoping for at all. Now he had to find a plan B for the night, and pass a physical exam tomorrow. And who knew how long it would be until he'd get a team assigned after that.
He looked up at the counter, where the vaporeon from before was talking with the delcatty. Zoroark didn't hear much of what was being said, only broken phrases like 'teammate' and 'new form', but he was able to get a gist of what had been asked. A lost teammate? Or a new one completely? Perhaps she needed a second one? He didn't have quite enough to put together the finer meaning of it all.
The next pokemon at the desk looked like life had treated them better than it had Zoroark or the vaporeon.
"I'm here to join a rescue team!" the flaafy proclaimed proudly. "What's the process?"
"Well, first you'll take a physical exam so we can determine where your abilities fall," the delcatty answered politely, "and then you'll be paired up with a teammate who best suits your abilities."
"Sounds awesome!" the flaafy exclaimed. "When can I take the exam?"
"Unfortunately, you'll have to come back tomorrow," the Delcatty said. "But I can give you this slip. Give this to the pokemon standing by that door over there—" she gestured to a door off to the side that had a few pokemon loitering around it "—and they'll reserve you a spot for the exam first thing in the morning."
The delcatty ripped off a piece of paper and handed it to the flaafy, who skipped off with it in its hooves.
Zoroark watched it go with something resembling surprise. Wait, hadn't he asked for one of those? The delcatty certainly hadn't had the time or politeness to talk to him. Or a paper slip, for that matter. Why? Was it because he was dirty all over? He did look and smell like he had come straight from the streets.
Sure, he looked dirty, but nothing was stopping him from getting back in line and asking for one again. Now that he'd seen the delcatty hand one out, he knew they existed. She'd have a hard time lying her way out of that. Zoroark raised himself from the lounge he was on, walking back into the line.
In the corner of his eye, he could see one of the guards that had been lounging outside the door suddenly leave their post. He looked around, not seeing any specific reason they would have. They must have been on a washroom break or something. Not that it mattered to him. He entered the line, waiting for the six or seven pokemon in front of him to finish off their affairs.
A paw suddenly clamped down on Zoroark's shoulder. He looked around, seeing the visage of a lucario that was looking straight at him.
"What are you doing, loitering around here?" the lucario asked him. "I've seen you go through that line once already."
Zoroark decided to answer him truthfully.
"I asked to join a rescue team, but didn't get a slip for my physical exam tomorrow," he explained. "I'm re-entering the line to get one."
"Mm," the lucario breathed. "Sounds like a misunderstanding. Should we ask our upstanding desk clerk about it?"
Zoroark nodded, unsure of what to say. Something about the lucario made his mane bristle and his fur stand on end.
To his surprise, the lucario trotted off, walking over to the desk. He watched the lucario and delcatty talk for a moment, before the lucario started walking back over to Zoroark.
"Guess you're out of luck," he said to Zoroark. "Clerk says she's out of slips. Come back tomorrow."
"But I saw her hand one out another pokemon," Zoroark protested. "She wrote it down."
"And now she's out," the lucario said. "You can leave. Come back tomorrow."
He gave Zoroark a light shove out of the line and towards the entrance. Zoroark wanted to protest, to say that this seemed wrong, everything about it seemed horribly wrong and the clerk had something against him for some reason he couldn't even fathom, but one look at the lucario's face, and the growlithe and manetric that were joining him for backup, told him that was a bad idea. He turned around, and left the building.
~\({O})/~
Pokemon Paradise
Zorark left the HAPPI building the same way he'd entered it: through large stone gates, with eyes on him from all sides. They took on a different context now, one of wariness.
He walked back into the city, deciding to wander around and see what he could find. At the very least, he needed a place to crash and something to eat for the night. Then he could attack this again tomorrow. Hopefully they'd have done his 'background check' by then.
The streets were made of cobblestone just like Noe Town, and looked extremely uncomfortable to crash in. There were numerous alleyways all around the city that looked like they could make good places to sleep, but Zoroark wasn't fancying that option unless he had no other choice.
At least there were a lot of trash cans to fish around in if he needed something to eat.
His meandering took him into the shabbier portion of the city, where the buildings slowly became the color of mud and rickety houses on stilts stood everywhere. Under those stilts he saw makeshift tents set up, where pokemon were camping out, eating, and huddling around a fire.
Soon he came across a gathering of pokemon who were angrily shouting in unison. A stage was set up among all the rickety, crooked houses, and atop it stood a lone scyther. Off to the side of the stage was a frosslass that stared at the crowd through cold eyes.
"You can feel it in the air!" the scyther cried out to the crowd. "The coming storms of winter!"
Zoroark was about to pass the gathering entirely, but stopped when he heard that. He backed up a bit to listen.
"You can feel it in the wood of these houses!" the scyther continued. "The decay of time!"
He paused, adjusting his voice to be less noisy. "And you can feel it in their eyes, every day you walk down the street. That you are not wanted here.
"And now they want to tear down your homes. Our homes! So they can build new, shiny houses for them to stay in, while we freeze in the streets. What do you have to say about that?"
Roars from the crowd.
"Are you going to let them destroy your homes?"
More roars from the crowd, this time mixed in with cheering.
"Then stand up and say something! The time to act is now!"
More cheers, louder than ever before. The scyther continued his speech, raising his voice to compensate.
"Together! We can secure the funding needed to save these houses!" The scyther yelled, somehow louder than the entire crowd's voices combined. The new wave of applause soon drowned him out. "Together, and only together! We can save our home. From them."
The cheers continued, and soon Zoroark's feet began to get cold from standing around on the pavement for so long.
"You there!"
Zoroark looked up to see the scyther pointing a blade directly at him. "What say you? Will you help us in our quest to save our home?"
Put on the spot, Zoroark just shook his head uncertainly. "I'm just here to visit," he said.
The scyther didn't respond to that. He only lowered his blade, giving Zoroark the same icy stare he'd had the whole while. Then he redirected it to the crowd.
"Do everything you can! Do what you must! Only in this way are we united!"
Before long, the scyther's words faded out of Zoroark's hearing, but they were replaced by something that had caught his attention much more: the presence of a trio of pokemon who wore HAPPI badges.
They were a zangoose, charmeleon, and liligent. They hung near the back of the street, just far enough to be out of sight and mind but close enough that they could see the speech too. They looked bored. Zoroark decided not to get in their way. If they were anything like the team that had accosted him back in the HAPPI building, he wanted nothing to do with them.
He was pretty sure the scyther's eyes were on his back the entire time as he went, but he wasn't brave enough to look back and tell for certain.
"You're new 'round here."
The voice came down from Zoroark's foot. He looked down, seeing a buneary lackadaisically hopping in place next to him.
"Do you live here?" The buneary asked.
"I'm just passing through," said Zoroark.
He cast a quick glance back towards the team in the distance before
"Don't do that," the buneary said. "They don't like it when pokemon stare at them. They might go after you."
That didn't make Zoroark feel any more comfortable, but he avoided looking back at the team again after that.
"I'm Beatrice," the buneary said. "What about you?"
"Just Zoroark," Zoroark said.
"No name? All the pokemon in the city have one."
"Not where I'm from," Zoroark muttered.
At least, Primarina had never given him one.
"So where are you headed now?" Beatrice asked. "We don't get many 'mon passing through."
"I can see why," Zoroark said. "You live here?"
"Of course!" Beatrice lazily hopped by him. "If you're 'round here and you don't have a badge, you probably live here. Are you staying around for long?"
If Zoroark was being honest with himself, he didn't know where he was going. He probably had to figure out where he could find his record. He'd had one under Primarina's payroll, but that was as Braixen, not as Zoroark. Where did new pokemon go to get registered…
He wished he'd asked the clerk what the background check entailed. Maybe he could get a pointer back at the HAPPI building.
"I guess I'm headed out of here," Zoroark said.
"Most 'mon do," Beatrice said sagely.
"Nice meeting you!" the buneary waved after him, a bit too loud for Zoroark's liking. Zoroark halfheartedly returned the wave, then took a right down one of the crooked alleyways. That would lead him back to town for sure, and he wasn't looking to pass some of the weirdos he'd seen on the main street a second time.
~\({O})/~
The buildings in the slums really were as ruck shack and rickety as the scyther had said. Zoroark even thought he saw a few of them swaying dangerously, threatening to topple over him at any minute now. There were pokemon living everywhere inside the houses, outside them, above them, and even under them. The one common factor was that nearly all of them seemed to have the same yellow scarf Zoroark was wearing. He was coming to realize it was some sort of status symbol, that wearing it meant he was to be targeted and persecuted no matter where he went or what he did.
If that was the case, then…
Zoroark looked at the scarf on his arm, and then undid the tie holding it together. He let it flutter off in the breeze, carried away by the same wind that was causing the house he was standing in front of to sway dangerously in his direction. Zoroark gingerly decided to move away before the house toppled over like a tower of cards. Being crushed was not in his ideal plan for today.
Eventually, he walked into one of the nicer-looking streets, looking like he'd just emerged from the filthiest wild den imaginable. He strolled down the street, looking to make a good first impression to the pokemon walking by him. One that didn't scream 'I'm doing something I probably shouldn't'.
For the first five minutes, not much happened. But Zoroark hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings. What jarred him back into reality was a passing trenevant rudely nudging Zoroark with its shoulder as they passed. He looked back in shock, but the pokemon was already passing along like nothing had happened. Zoroark re-adjusted his mane and continued along, assuming it was an accident.
He hoped it was an accident.
The streets were getting more crowded as he walked, and he seemed to be attracting the ire of all the strangers around him like flies to honey. The amount of strange looks he was getting seemed to have shot up through the roof, and if he hadn't felt like he had been wanted there before, then that feeling had been multiplied times a hundred. Zoroark was at a loss as to what had caused it. He'd just been through these streets before – what was causing the sudden change? The only thing that had changed since had been…
A claw suddenly landed on Zoroark's shoulder.
"Excuse me."
He whirled around to see the same rescue team that had been hanging around the slums earlier – the zangoose, the charmeleon, and the lilligant.
"We saw you didn't have your scarf on you," the lilligant said. "that's illegal, you know."
"Illegal?" Zoroark asked. "What?"
"Don't play dumb," the charmeleon sighed. "We saw you in the slums earlier. You were trying to avoid us."
"So that's why we followed you," the zangoose continued. "You deliberately lost that scarf. Tell me.. what were you planning to do without it?"
Zoroark's fur bristled.
"What are you accusing me of?" he asked. He'd had enough of being treated like a villain by these douchebags.
"Why don't you tell us?" the charmeleon countered. There wasn't a hint of unrest in his voice, just chilling calmness. "You of all pokemon should know your kind's ability to falsify things. The illusion-resistant scarves are our only method of protection from your highly dangerous illusions. Were you going to steal something?"
"I'm not a thief," Zoroark growled.
"You're going to have to come with us anyway," the charmeleon said.
"Tell me why I should come with you," Zoroark snarled, beginning to get agitated. "What have I done wrong? All I did was take off that scarf!"
"If you aren't going to come quietly…"
There was no answer. The three members began to step closer, charging up attacks.
That was the point where Zoroark decided it was best to run.
He spun around and took off, running down the street and pushing madly through pedestrians as he went. Some of them pushed back, but he pushed harder. There were some attempts to grab his mane and stop him in his tracks, but he managed to stumble out of their grasp every time.
He looked around frantically, looking for somemon he could copy. He was in enough of a rush that he couldn't make an original disguise on his own, and he definitely wasn't using his braixen one. He scanned the area, his eyes finally settling on a whimsicott. Whimsicott weren't nearly as tall as he was, so he'd have to be careful. But it worked. It blended in.
A second passed. The air around him shimmered. Then, in his place stood a whimsicott identical to the one passing the street on the other side. Zoroark slowed down, doing his best to blend in and let his mane pass as whimsicott fluff as it brushed up against other pokemon.
The rescue team from before was combing through the crowd, searching for him. He restricted his breathing as the charmeleon passed right by him in the crowd, sniffing around for any hint of his target. It was a good thing Zoroark had learnt how to mask his scent with illusions.
At some point, he had managed to slip away into an alley and evade the team for the time being. Once he was sure that no-mon was going to come back for him or even look his way, he collapsed against the alleyway wall, finally letting out all the pent-up stress he'd been keeping in.
That had turned out worse that he could have ever predicted. And now he couldn't go back out into those streets again unless he wanted to keep that illusion up.
But keeping an illusion up was beginning to get tiring. He'd been ignoring the fact that he was famished all day, and now it was finally beginning to come back full force for him. Conjuring up a new illusion out of the blue had taken a large chunk of his remaining energy, and all of the sudden he found it hard to stand without getting dizzy. He needed to find something to eat. And to drink too.
Zoroark drank out of a muddy puddle that pooled at the bottom of the alleyway. He knew he could get sick that way, but he was desperate. He fished in several trash cans that decorated the alleyway, looking for something that wasn't spoiled beyond salvage or covered in something spoiled beyond salvage. He was able to get himself a few bread rinds. One of them was coated in something that smelled like it was rotting. Zoroark wrinkled his nose and dropped it in disgust.
He could smell the bakery down the street. Maybe there was something over there.
"Get away from here!" the rillaboom baker yelled as Zoroark scampered off from the bakery's dumpster. "Don't ever come back! Thief."
The bakery threw away entire loaves of bread. The crusts were hard as bricks and some of them were molding over, but it was good bread. Zoroark had managed to score himself a loaf before the baker inevitably kicked him off the premises. He dug into it with relish. It was cold and hard in places, but tasted like sweet honey. He couldn't understand why it had been tossed.
Soon, the sun set. The wind whipped through the skies, nipping Zoroark through his fur. This continent was just as cold as he remembered it, and it got even colder at night. A 'mon could freeze to death on the streets, and even though he was fluffy he didn't want to sleep out in the open.
There was a fire lit in the alleyway. Zoroark huddled up close to it, just far enough so that it didn't burn his fur but close enough that it still kept him warm enough for the night. He'd fueled it with the scarves he'd dug out of the trash, and they looked like they'd burn the whole night. He just had to hope that the wind didn't take it too out of hand.
Part of him considered going back to the slums, where at least there were other 'mon to help keep him warm and relatively safe. But was there space? He remembered how cramped it had been when he was there. And he didn't want to go back to a place where that rescue team had seen him before. Before he knew it, the next thing he'd wake up to was them standing over him, dragging him off before he had a chance to resist or escape.
Those scarves… he didn't understand it. He didn't understand any of it. Why would he be mistreated so over a yellow piece of fabric? He was finally beginning to understand why Alexis had wanted him to stray far away from here.
But he didn't have that option anymore. He was in this city, and without at least enough food and money to get him back to Noe Town and off the continent, he was in this city to stay. So somehow, he'd have to make it work.
It was looking more and more like there just wasn't an honest way to make that happen. Damned if he had the scarf, damned if he didn't… If that was the case, then he'd just have to get crafty to survive. A whisper of an apology to Xatu swam around in the back of his head, but he was beginning to see it was a naïve promise he'd made back then. Why should he play by the rules, if the rules were just there to kick him while he was down?
Those were the thoughts that plagued Zoroark's mind, as he sat there and stared at the advertisement banner two floors above that had several electric lights shining onto it—"HAPPI Makes Pokemon Smile! Sign up to protect our valiant city and get your name in the history books today!—Then an idea came into his head.
He'd do what he had for years. Just because Primarina was gone didn't mean he was helpless. If he played his cards right, no-mon had to know he was a zoroark, or even a zoroark-as-braixen. For all they knew, he'd just be Braixen, former secretary, now newbie recruit eager to join a rescue team.
And for the first time that night, as the scarves burned to ashes beside him, Zoroark felt excited for the coming day.
~\({O})/~
Crooked Alleyway
The buneary stared up at the rescue team that loomed over them. The alleyway they were in was dark, damp, and crooked; one of the buildings was all-but leaning against the other and cast the cranny into shadows. That made it the perfect area for an ambush.
"Where's that zoroark?" the zangoose asked harshly, just making the buneary cower more. "We saw you with him earlier! Are you hiding him?"
"Tell us what you know and there's a reward in it," the charmeleon said. He stood aloofly in the middle of the alley, twirling a piece of poke in between his claws. The light from outside the alley made it gleam and catch Buneary's eye. Zangoose growled in annoyance, but didn't say anything else.
Beatrice stared at the coin, mulling her options over. That would buy dinner for the night… but she didn't have anything to tell them. Maybe she could give them false information, or something vague enough that it could pass…
Seeing the buneary's silence, the liligent walked forward and crouched over in front of Buneary.
"Sorry to scare you," she said, her voice soft and inviting. "We're hunting a dangerous criminal who's on the run, and you might be the only pokemon who can tell us where he is. If you tell us what you know, you'll be a big help."
"A big help?" Beatrice finally brought herself to ask.
"Yes," the lilligant breathed. "you'll be the biggest help ever."
"And I can still have the coin?" Beatrice asked, pointedly eyeing the coin in the charmeleon's claws.
"Tell you what," the lilligant said. "If you tell us what you know, you can have two coins."
She pulled another coin from her pouch to show the buneary. "But only if you tell us where he went."
The buneary racked her mind for something, anything she could tell them that wasn't 'this way' or 'that way'.
"Fine," she said. "I'll tell you which way he went. But only for three coins."
"Seriously?" the zangoose finally lost it. "That's all you're going to tell us? That isn't worth three coins at all!"
He raised his claws for a swipe of anger, but all of the sudden he didn't have a head anymore. Buneary covered her eyes in horror and whimpered. She heard two more slashes, and then somemon stepped into the square.
"You can open your eyes now, little one."
The buneary did as she was told. She saw—
"Nonono," a large, green blade covered the carnage from view. It was connected to a spindly green arm.
Over her leaned a scyther.
"Those bad pokemon are gone." A purse dropped in front of her. "And you can have all the coins in the world."
The scyther crouched down, and offered a blade. "Why don't you come over to my house? I, too, have an interest in this zoroark of yours."
~\({O})/~
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