Shiloh rolled to one side, staring up at the little camera lens. Behind it, a little red light flashed every few seconds, indicating that it was still recording.
She acted reflexively, bringing her legs together, covering herself with a paw. This was worse than just being around other Pokémon—they were naked too, they didn't think anything of it. But this video could be seen by anyone.
It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't announce who I was for everyone to see. Shiloh sat up, her ears flattening. "I don't know what you're talking about," she whispered. "Go away."
The drone wouldn't fit inside her tiny room. They'd been built for accommodating little cats in comfort, and some part of that seemed to involve having a small entrance. Maybe it made them feel safer, knowing nothing big could break in and attack?
Either way, it helped her now. The drone couldn't reach far enough to prod at her with either of its grabber arms. Only the secondary camera was small enough to get inside.
Unfortunately she couldn't count on the thing running out of battery and collapsing—with an electrical ghost type inside, it could harass her basically forever.
"I already spoke with assistant Briar," it said. "I confirmed that Champion Shiloh now appeared to be a small female victini with an unusual coloration. This record of your achievements will double as the first video evidence of the existence of Victini! We will win awards."
Her mind could barely even process what the Pokémon was saying. In some ways, it sounded almost human in the way it combined its words together. Maybe Rotom's intelligence was more than she had previously judged as well.
"New instructions, stop filming me," she snapped. "Capturing Mew isn't something I'll be able to do right now. You can shut that thing off and move on."
The camera slid out of her little cubby. Yet as the seconds passed, she still heard the hum of rotors outside. She could try to wait it out—but if she was going to get out of here, Shiloh needed to find someone to teach her how to fly.
Not to mention how hungry and thirsty she felt, the sensation growing harder to ignore the longer she was awake. She couldn't hide forever.
Eventually she poked her head out. Yes, the camera was still there, with Rotom hovering near the ceiling. As if it had chosen a specific wide-angle shot for her first exit from the bedroom.
"Now, pose," it said, speaking over the whirring electric motors.
She rose onto her hind-legs, glaring up at it. "I said stop filming me!" she yelled. Her voice did not sound particularly intimidating, no matter how loud she got. But she could feel the heat, starting somewhere near her ears.
She better be careful with that, or else she might burn the building down around her.
"You are not my trainer," the drone said. "Champion Shiloh Lehman ordered that I film his exploration and capture of the legendary Pokémon, Mew. I am a good Pokémon—I will make his movie."
"But I'm telling you to stop," she barked. She was attracting attention now—a single Pokémon hovering up near the ceiling, poking her head around the corner. One of the mew kittens, the blue one. "If you care about being good, you'll leave me alone."
"You are not my trainer. You are the Pokémon he told me to film catching Mew."
She screamed in frustration and anger—a sound that came out more like a single high-pitched squeak. But no amount of anger seemed to make a difference for the ghost. It just kept filming, oblivious.
I could probably break the drone. But it would keep haunting me. At least if it's stuck inside that one thing, it can't follow me everywhere.
If the drone wouldn't leave her alone, she would just have to be so aggressively boring that the ghost inside it eventually lost interest and went off to film something else.
She made her slow way to the kitchen. Walking on two legs proved easier than she expected—the mew never did it, but it came easily enough for her.
But that mobility came with its own source of annoyance. Something was weighing her down, an even pressure across her entire body. Invisible straps, tied to weights that kept her confined to the floor.
"Hey, up there!" She waved at the blue kitten, who was still watching her from above. "I see you! I wanna ask you something!"
The mew seemed to hesitate a moment, considering what to do. Then it drifted down towards her, settling near the ground.
She didn't land on the carpet, but instead created a little pink bubble, one that supported her weight as she got close. "Yeah?"
"Your name was... Goh, wasn't it?" At her nod, she continued. "How do I learn how to fly? Is there someone who teaches me, or... how did you learn?"
The little Pokémon looked thoughtful, floating gradually sideways, then totally upside-down. "That's hard. Some of it is instinct—if we couldn't fly, we couldn't breathe very good. Some of it we learn after coming here. But if we couldn't fly on our own, we'd still be little kittens in the nest. We're past that."
She lowered her voice, whispering covertly. "Don't ask Miya about flying. She'll teach you, but she isn't a very patient teacher. So if you don't get it right away, she'll lose interest."
Shiloh's stomach growled, loud enough that even the little Pokémon noticed. She giggled, then poked her in the belly with her tail. "You've been locked in your little room for so long. Maybe you should eat first, and fly second?"
"Sure," she agreed. "That sounds fine. I couldn't figure out how the kitchen worked—how are we supposed to open that big fridge?"
Goh giggled again. "That's not for us to use now. That's for practice, when we're bigger. Well... not you. Lane said victini can't transform. That's our thing."
She followed the little Pokémon down the hall to the kitchen. She couldn't see the sun outside, not from their secret position at the bottom of the canyon. But the shadows were long enough, suggesting it might already be afternoon.
How long had she slept?
Goh took her to another soft ramp leading up along the wall, all the way to the counter. "She doesn't expect everyone to be able to fly," she muttered, climbing slowly up. It took most of her focus to avoid falling on the walkway. It wasn't built like human stairs, but was a narrow beam clearly meant for Pokémon.
"Yeah, shaymin can only fly when they're big. But they usually like being outside when that happens. Lane says they're not 'domesticated' like we are. They're... nomadic."
"Except Aspen," she said, when she finally reached the counter. She hadn't been able to see it from the floor, but now she stood somewhere obviously made for Pokémon, just like the bedrooms. There was a large bowl of fresh fruit and greens, along with a single tiny burner and similarly-sized pan, along with a door that went into the standing fridge from the side.
Domesticated was right—Lane and her mew weren't giving up any of the luxuries of modern life, despite being Pokémon. "She turned both of you into mew like her," she said. "Why did she make Aspen a shaymin?"
Goh giggled again, loud enough that her bubble popped, depositing her on the counter beside Shiloh. She rested a paw up against her shoulder, grinning. "Aspen isn't a recruit! She's Elisa and Lane's daughter. I guess you don't know how Pokémon breeding works." She lowered her voice, grinning mischievously. "There aren't any male mews on the whole planet, not yet. Lane was a shaymin when they had Aspen. She might look like one of them, but she thinks a lot like us. She refuses to go with her dad on migrations..." she trailed off, ears pressing flat to her head.
Shiloh followed her gaze back to the ramp, where a set of four little white paws emerged onto the counter. Aspen herself, leafy back glittering with fresh moisture. Like she'd just crawled under a sprinkler for the afternoon watering. Or... was that why they had so many pools?
"The human rises at last," she said. "You're not playing tricks on her yet, are you?"
"I wasn't even thinking about it," Goh said. Several berries levitated away from her abruptly, floating behind her back.
"I just wanted someone to teach me how to fly," Shiloh said. "I didn't know how you did it, but I figured that Mew would be closer. We're both psychic types."
It was hard to stay focused on her explanation. The smell of so much fresh food was right next to her, and it was downright overpowering.
The Pokémon didn't have plates here, but they did have tall bowls with little rods emerging from the side—meant to be carried in someone's mouth?
She selected anything that looked good, using her stubby paws to pile it all inside. It worked, at least if she moved only a single berry at a time. She had only two fingers, but thankfully had kept a thumb. She wouldn't need to rely on psychic powers to get anything done, the way mew did.
"Well if you were asking about me, there's nothing interesting. They tell me what they want me to be, instead of letting me decide. Goh and Miya went through it... maybe you too? Did your parents want you to go on long flights through the arctic, tending to the flowers?"
Shiloh smiled at the absurdity of the question. He was supposed to be back in Kanto by now, celebrating his victory and preparing to take the title of Pokémon champion for life. Now here she was, talking to the Pokémon she thought she would capture.
"They wanted me to be a trainer, and I was," she answered. She wandered some distance down the counter, past the food preparation to a flat area with several cushions. This one even had railing near the edges, to keep anyone from wandering too close to the sides.
She could squint and almost imagine she was visiting some cafe, so long as she didn't look too far and see she was just sitting on a kitchen counter.
The others followed, though none of them had food of their own. Maybe they'd been up for longer.
"I can teach you how to fly," Goh said, as soon as Shiloh started eating. "I mean, I can show you what Lane showed me. I'm not the best. But I'm good enough to find my way around, when there's not too much wind. It'll be... just like when I used to be a trainer."
She spun through the air, doing several slow backflips. This person may've been human once, as she said—but she had the attention span of a little Pokémon. I wonder how old we are.
"Is that machine just gonna... keep floating there?" Aspen asked, glaring up at the drone. This room was bigger, so it could stay a little further away. It kept moving, pivoting gently to find different angles.
"Unless you know how to make it go away," she admitted. "It's part of my old team. I gave it the drone to help me film sometimes. But now it just ignores me when I tell it to stop."
"Weird." Goh flew towards it, until she was hovering directly in front of the lens. "Hey, drone! How do I look?"
"Are you going to battle Champion Shiloh?" it asked. "You should get started, I have enough B-roll."
She giggled, drifting back down towards the counter. "It always talks like that?"
"Its intelligence depends on the size of the computer it's in. The drone has to be smart, since it can do automatic following and threat avoidance and... maybe too smart."
Shiloh pushed aside her empty plate, rising. "Can we go outside to practice? I'd rather do it over the pool."