This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose and JhinoftheOpera.
[6-2] Hell of My Own
Each day she woke up, she tried something new.
She picked out running shorts and a tank top at random that day, so she decided to go running. Upon learning she intended to leave the building, a guard blocked the door. The black-haired woman shook her head and threatened to call more to babysit her.
To compromise, Kris lapped the main halls of the castle. One foot in front of the other, and she was flying, running the perimeter of the once-royal chambers and lapping countless wandering employees no doubt late for their next dry board meetings. It was almost effortless, as she could maintain a full sprint longer than most could run without any real need for rest at all. She led the herd of International Police, hoping she might exhaust them to the point that they couldn't continue following. Other denizens of the castle flashed past her in her race to nowhere, repeating like a hall of mirrors.
At some point, sbe dropped to a run, then to a jog, then to a walk. She just wasn't feeling it today, even when she was chugging at full speed. Maybe it was because she was locked in this prison—she couldn't feel the natural wind outside, instead having to cut through the stagnant air trapped by the stone. Yeah, that was it.
Kris returned to the Champion's suite, having sweat only a single drop, and awaited when she'd have more fun the next day.
As per request to one of the agents, the stack on her desk grew each morning. First it was a paper, then a packet, then a manuscript, and though she glanced at it each day without fail, she never once found motivation to take one from the top. What stared at her then as she pulled up her socks was Multivariable Calculus. She vaguely enjoyed dissociating to high-level math, but the more she considered it, the more it exhausted her. A handful of nights in high school had sacrificed sleep for lower calculus classes, and that was a handful too many in her opinion.
Her email inbox blared with alerts. Past due. Grace period extension. Additional reminder. She didn't read any of them, only glancing at their titles before pushing her SPTI-provided tablet away.
Kris decided to seek out the concert hall. With one agent now glued to her side as punishment for trying to outrun them, she traced the castle carpet to an ornate, gold-trimmed door in the east hall. As she pushed inside, her eyes dilated. A single island of light swam at the heart of the auditorium's dark ocean, atop it a lone grand piano that wished to be rescued from its stranding.
Her fingers felt naturally on the keys and massaged the white gloss. Perhaps Kyokuga's Suite No. 3? Or No. 4, maybe No. 5. The latter two weren't as complex but were twice as long each, meant to accompany theatrical productions. She also considered Griegen's Prakten for more local flavor, but after considering the one agent in the front row and then the cavalcade hanging in the darkness, she supposed it didn't matter. None were likely to be Sinnohan since they were on loan from the Grand Axis.
"Anything wrong, Miss?" asked the one close by. He seemed excited for the performance and tried to make conversation on the way over about hearing classical music at local shows with his grandmother.
The tone of a single key's press answered him. She still enjoyed the sound, yearning for it as it faded away, yet nothing hung around in her mind.
"It's nothing. I can't really think of anything to play," she said. "Sorry."
Kris pushed back the stool and asked for an escort back. An array of historic pieces ran through her thoughts, each with their own beautiful legacy, praying that they might be played again before the slipped from the grasp of history forever.
Some days, she didn't leave her bed.
The Champion's Suite was the only place in the entire castle where she was alone. The guards were mandated to stay outside, a glass screen between them as the angel of her privacy. However, it only lasted for minutes at a time, as the stillness of her bedroom was disturbed by periodic footsteps outside her bedroom door. Agents regularly used the newly added spyhole to check that she hadn't leapt from the window into a burial mound of snow.
Kris focused on the black box again. Though she had yet to open it, she tried to keep it close when she returned to the suite. It was a morbid fascination, like she feared her own reaction when she eventually peered inside.
With the blackout curtains closed, the room's single source of light was one of unpacked candles burning on the nightstand. The dance of lemon and lavender was her last memory of the world outside and she begged it not to vanish.
When the door creaked open so an agent could deliver a meal and her assignments for the day, she refused to remove herself from the covers. The food
was placed on the stand, and she was alone again.
She let herself descend back into nothing within the stagnant air of her bedroom. The meal went cold, and the candle burnt out.
The television ran in the background as she wasted away in the suite. The League-provided cable was an infinite playground, with so many channels on the listing that they eventually resorted to things other than numbers as their codes. Even as she paced, or dusted the counters, or did stretches on the chilly floor, her fingers clenched around the remote, prepared to leap off the next frequency drowning in grief.
"—today is a special presentation on the legacy of our beloved late—"
"—responses by the Pokémon League to local crime is coming under fire. Some criminals are even wearing uniforms of the now-defunct Galactic Company, as if to mock the government's inefficiency. Citizens worry if it's too preoccupied with—"
Her thumb dug into the next channel button.
"—ourism in Sinnoh has experienced a sharp quarterly decline, and is predicted to continue its downward trend, likely due to the absence of—"
"—an inspiration to Trainers around the Sinnoh Region, proving that national boundaries are—"
She pressed the membrane switch hard enough that it punched through the device, leaving shards of plastic in her hands. She left the TV to play, out of energy to even use the remaining channel button.
A narrator continued speaking over clips of Pokémon battles, one with Absol versus Rufflet and a second showing that same Absol squaring off with a Braviary. It was actually a news program about… Ciel. Two hosts critically examined, or at least made a vague attempt between peddling cheap cleaning products, his two previous Goldenrod Showdown bids up to and including their battle.
"It's not that often that a foreigner catches the public eye like this, but following the League Airlines SC-007 Incident, fans from as far as Snowpoint are peering into his battle history. Who exactly is this Johtoan hero?" said the host of the show, done up in a bright violet suit. He motioned to digitally spliced footage of Ciel in battle, including a fight against Morty Matsuba. How did they even get that footage?
"He even looks a bit Sinnohan, doesn't he? You sure he isn't ours?" asked the other.
"Looks more Kalosian to me. Somewhere in the southwest. But we'll take him if nobody else wants him." They burst into laughter, and then one pulled a suspicious bottle from under the table. They wasted no time that could be spent swindling.
As thoroughly as she'd trounced him, Kris found no trace of her own visage. The footage conveniently cut anywhere the arena cameras might have shown more than an arm at the edge of the screen.
In morbid curiosity, she searched back through every program, and true as it was, she was nowhere. It's not like there was some law in place that prevented them from speaking about her—her brother was on every third channel.
Media reports scrambled for updates on the missing Sebastian Masuta and told of the ongoing search by the International Police. Many wished him to come home soon, wanting to see a star Trainer safe. One reporter directly criticized him for taking manpower away from the IP that could be investigating the death of—
She finally rose to her feet and powered the TV off directly, afraid of how much the digital dredge corroded her sanity, before plopping herself right back where she sat. It was horrible to see them both on their own little quests, heroes of their own stories. But here she was a hostage, and not even to the Pokémon League. She was Christine Masuta, and they weren't keeping her here. Someone else was.
A knock on the door that made her tilt her head over the couch. Someone invited themselves in.
"Oh, hello there, young lady," said Dr. Cassius, framed between the two permanent guards on the opposite side of the door. A pair of small, circular spectacles threatened to slide off his nose.
"Umm… you need anything?" she asked.
"I'm just here to perform a routine observation," he said. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Your brother would prefer I kept tabs on you."
She didn't even react to those words. Every moment of her life had been surveyed for the past weeks, without any regard for her. She didn't even want to leave, even if she wished she could just meander about the grounds for a while. What was one more pair of eyes, set upon her without so much as a care for her response?
He slipped her a small note. She knew what they meant even if the digits themselves were unfamiliar. Saber had picked up yet another burner device, hoping to keep the International Police off his trail. He had never once reached out first, understanding the risks of opening communication with her but offering the option regardless. It was funny. The longer she stayed unconnected, the safer he would be. For once she was in control.
"Is that all you need?" she asked.
He took her hint in stride, nodded, and removed himself from her private space. It was hers, and right now, hers alone. That's what she wanted.
When she next headed down to the Training Hall, the six Poké Balls in her hands weighed one tonne each.
Kris found them slumbering on the suite's entertainment center one morning. At first, she assumed them a recent gift, but with her attention elsewhere, they could've sat there for days. Weeks. It was good practice to release Pokémon from the PC every month at minimum, to stave off side-effects of digitization. Go figure that the Pokémon League preferred to simply warn Trainers rather than address those rumored side-effects itself.
Saber had transferred the Pokémon to her ownership without her confirmation, probably before her mother's account was automatically closed. He'd once claimed that she had a better relationship with them, but she doubted that was the whole truth of his decision.
The training hall was comfortably empty this time, so after switching the active slots in her account on the available terminal, she set up in a vacant lot and populated it with bursts of red. Six familiar—yet equally distant—forms emerged and faded to their real colors. Jeb, her mother's Spiritomb, was locked in his keystone, nothing unusual there, but the rest quickly gained their bearings and made no attempt to conceal their confusion.
"H-hey," she said, providing a wave to make up the assertion deficit. "I'm probably not who you're expecting, but, uhh, yeah."
They looked between themselves. The Togekiss merely shrugged off the unexpected situation and licked his feathers into style, while the others turned back towards her.
"So, it's been a few weeks since you were last out and about. I thought it was time for some quality time together," said Kris.
Kiki stepped forward first. The Garchomp towered over her and bared her savage claws, though Kris had it on good word that she'd never hurt her Trainer. She played with that last thought. Was that who she was?
The rough-skinned monster craned her neck downward and pressed her star-patterned snout to Kris's head. She searched for a more comfortable scent, and when she couldn't find it, she looked to Kris for an explanation.
Pain stabbed her eyes and ears and nose and tongue and hands. She waited for it to subside before opening her mouth, and she spoke in fear that it would return. "I'm taking care of you guys for now. Your, uhh, your Trainer's on a trip right now and didn't need any Pokémon."
She knew Kiki trusted her, so when those rough fins wrapped around her, she knew she had betrayed that trust. The others accepted the team leader's judgement with nods and Kris's guilt welcomed the pain back. It was worsened by the piercing gaze of Rick, the Lucario. He didn't nod. Instead, he kept stabbing through her and dared her to ignore it as she briefed the other members of the team.
A half-hearted plan resulted in one pair and one three-way exercise. Rick and Roserade—Boss—traded swift blows with each other, using solely Normal-type moves to put focus on their technical skill. Meanwhile, Opie—Togekiss—soared overhead, acting as a moving target for Kiki and Princess—Milotic—to attempt to hit with their suites of moves. Neither had landed more than nicks, and Opie was more than willing to continue to taunt them.
At some point the inert keystone moved close to her. It was now sitting half a meter to her side, though it still showed no signs of life.
Kris couldn't keep her attention on the exercises, not with Rick's gaze on her mind. As he came down from a flurry of kicks and jabs, just as the feeling started to slip away, his searching eyes refreshed the memory, reminding her what exactly she lied about.
Before she realized it, she was crying, despite how many times she screamed at herself not to do so outside her room. She lowered herself down onto her rear and pulled her knees to her chest, hoping with all her heart that no one might accidentally wander into the training hall to witness her sobbing behind the barrier, not that the posted guards hadn't already been imprinted with her gross outburst.
The Pokémon kept up their training and paid her no mind at all. But the stone inched closer, allowing her to lean on it. Maybe it knew. It was supposedly a collection of spirits anchored to this world, peering into theirs from somewhere beyond. It may have already talked to her. To them.
Attacks flew across the field, slamming into the barriers, though Kris tuned all of it out. It was the same with her own Pokémon, and she was only now beginning to realize it.
It wasn't fun anymore.
That was why she kept returning to the warmth of her bed. It didn't expect anything from her in return, and she didn't have to expend energy for a vague, unreliable gamble of enjoyment.
The only other thing she had remotely enjoyed in a while was… talking to Ciel. Despite everything, his company had made the short day he was around fly smoother. She wanted to talk to him again. She wanted to talk to someone.
"My offer is still open. Whenever you need it."
She stood from her loathing and clapped her hands, making the field vanish in an instant. She recalled the six pieces of her burden mid-Training and motioned to the agents at each quadrant. Here wasn't where she wanted to be.
It's odd to say I was looking forward to this chapter, but I truly was. It's not something I've done before—a perspective on depression and anxiety, drawing both from my own personal experiences and research into the feeling (or lack thereof) of people who've endured it. Mostly, I wanted to stay as grounded as possible, to point out that things aren't going to improve so quickly or easily, but the small steps are important. Definitely a hard message to write.
Next time is Part 3: The Chat With the Blood Trail. See you someday.