Two things: one, the Kimono girls hate me. Two, even if they hate me and try to kill me, my Pokémon can kill them. This was something crucial to the balance of power between us. Whenever they lost, they had a desperate, heartbroken look on their faces as they withdrew their fainted Pokémon, and you would've known in your heart that they used their all. And you would've seen the smug look, marred by the almost invisible tic to the side of my mouth, and you would've seen that I used my all. This wasn't a comfortable place to be, to be honest, and I'll train harder. But you get the point.
I hadn't checked the new Gym leader yet, but I bet Lance will get pissed. He isn't able to become a Gym leader of that town because of a dumb rule or whatever, and now that like, Clair's incompetent eleven year old brother is running it, he's probably going to feel even worse. He's going to kick my butt at the Pokémon League, we all know it. Without me saying a damn thing, it had spread like wildfire around Johto that Clair has been fired (everybody thinks there's no way she would've ever backed down on her own) and now everyone is secretly snickering at Lance and his dysfunctional family.
Anyway, I defeated the Kimono girls. (Don't you love the messed up sequencing of my journal entry? I love it too.)
I defeated Miki. I defeated Sayo, the girl after her, but it was difficult, because my Pokémon have been so weakened already. I thought I was going to lose. When Kuni appeared in front of me, and said she was the last one, I gave a struggling sigh of relief. Her Vapereon was taken out by Hamako.
When I was done, Zuki gave me the Tidal Bell. A tremble came and shook the ground, distorting my balance momentarily.
"Big sisters!"
My head whipped up.
"I just saw the big shadow of a Pokémon in the Whirl Islands' waters!"
"What? When!" I demanded.
She, Zuki, ignored me. "It could be..."
She stopped, pausing in some thought. At once she blurted out, "Lyra! We'll be at the Whirl Islands!"
"What!" I said. "When? Right now?"
"We'll see you there," she simply said. She and her "sisters" parted ways among the staircases, descended, and made way to the door.
I stood there, stunned, when I got a call from my mom.
"Hello?'
"Mom!"
"Oh, hi, Lyra. How are you?"
"These stalking Kimono girls...they invited me to their theater, here, at Ecruteak City, they told me to go the Whirl Islands, if I die that's where we went—"
"What? Lyra, I found a useful item while shopping, so I bought it with your money. Sorry!"
"Uh...okay?"
"So, you should stop by the nearest Poké Mart or Department Store and pick it up, again."
She hanged up without even saying goodbye. I stared at my cheap excuse of a phone for a few deep moments, contemplating smashing it to the ground and seeing how it would fare then.
Twister was mostly quiet. She didn't react strongly to anything at all yet and was content to curl up into herself and think. Or at least I assumed she was thinking. She could've been sleeping.
Lorcan was uncharacteristically reluctant to approach her. The movements of his fine tail were tentative as he slowly came closer to her. The other Pokémon, besides Hamako, barely gave any indication that they noticed a new member of the team has arrived. Hamako tried to be kind in her ordinary way, but in the end, she too was absorbed by the thoughts of something else. Obviously, the team's riotous behavior has decreased for a while now, probably because we keep getting closer to the Pokémon League. I know it's not evolution making them more mature, because they were still up to stupid tricks up until a while ago.
I walked Twister around Ecruteak for a while so she could get used to me. She walked obediently behind me, a tad sleepy for the evening hour but still gracefully following. She was like a little moon child, with the blank soft violet colored eyes and everything. Twister wasn't like a baby or anything—she'd had some kind of training before, that was evident to me—but she was still like a child, in a strange way. Was it because of her devolved form? The softness her silky white and blue skin promised?
Anyway, you could tell Lorcan wasn't going to try to ask her on dates for a while, despite their apparently similar age.
I needed a new member of the team to replace Twister, because as much as I enjoy having the devolved forms of Dragonite swarming my party, I still want some attempt at balance. It would look shitty to the Pokémon League if I went in with two of the same Pokémon.
The Pokémon League.
I can't believe I've come so far on nothing but sass and the help of five Pokémon: three of them gifts, one a prize for a stupid game, and the other a catch when I was at my lowest point. If it's this easy to become a Champion, I don't why all the kids don't do this. The rich kids could buy their way into having shines and legendaries before their third Gym. They could even hire a helicopter to take them wherever they need to go.
Maybe most rich people don't like to become Champions. It could be a poor people thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was. The few old money families in the Pokémon business dominate it so fully, in fact, I could see why the other rich people wouldn't bother. For example, Clair's family holds monopoly to the Dragon's Den, the place with the most Dragon-type Pokémon in Johto. This matters, because Dragon-type Pokémon are typically considered one of the most strongest Pokémon types, and by creating a monopoly over a place they most frequent, Clair's family is essentially controlling the stream of powerful Trainers in the region. Blackthorn has the highest concentration of strong Pokémon Trainers in Johto because of this, while Trainers from other locations have less opportunities to go pro than those in Blackthorn, since it is less likely for foreigners to be accepted into the Dragon's Den. I'm sure Clair's family must have some kind of power from this.
I got Twister into the Box, because I wasn't sure what to do with my whole team situation. I figured I should head to the Whirl Islands soon, before the Kimono girls give up and ditch me, so I quickly got everything I needed from the Poké Mart. This included about twenty Poké Balls, twelve Max Repels, ten Revives, and ten Hyper Potions. I'm rich now from defeating every sucky Trainer that's been in my way, so my wallet could handle it. I added three Escape Ropes in case I get kidnapped. I found out my mom ordered me a Super Potion, which was random and sort of unneeded, but I stuffed it into my bag anyway.
All things considered, I thought I was pretty damn ready. Kitty flew me to Cianwood, where from Lorcan's back I got set out into search of the Whirl Islands. I was approached by random swimmers, but besides that, so far, so good. I left in the early evening and the sun's intensity had cooled to a comforting warmth. My Max Repels promised that I wouldn't have to see another Tentacool for the rest of my life. It was a short trip. Lorcan only had to curve around the side of a slate gray cave before I found myself in front of it, on the Whirl Islands, with Kitty. My ankles were deep into the water, even at that tip around the shore.
I entered the cave, feeling anticipation dance in my veins. It was dark inside and I could hardly see anything in front of me, which was actually rather rude—did the Kimono girls not bother to lit up the stupid cave for me? Or maybe it was a prank. My whole life is a prank.
"Flash, Kitty," I ordered. He gave a blank look.
Damn. I had to reteach the move to Kitty, and it was chilling in the dark, to be standing in a musty old cave like that. It smelled like saltwater and ancient emptiness. It was the kind of shit you don't want to be pranked with, basically. I could imagine pentagons drawn on the walls, a historic remain of the days when the Cianwood natives came to worship devils in peace. There would be creepy goblin statues around the corners, undying candlelight cryptically lighting and shadowing those beastly artifacts. It was that kind of place, and the swishing of the whirlpools did nothing to subdue the otherworldly effect the cave's abandonment made.
Were the Kimono girls still there? I thought.
If they weren't, they were the most impatient idiots on Earth.
Kitty's flash made my eyes ache with the sudden brightness, but it cleared my view. I could see a ladder, dirty and old, slung against the wall of a narrow hole. A river appeared to my right, a sloshing mess of water inside the cave. I looked at it, and decided I was going to see where this way went. It seemed like it would just bring to me a wall, but I had to check.
So I came by the river, got to the other side—I see another ladder. And land. There's a Poké Ball, hidden beneath a huge crumbling rock. When I picked it up, as slimy and dirty it was, I found it was an Ultra Ball.
I went down this ladder. The Kimono girls should have left me directions, the design of the place was so bad. Kitty made a strange noise halfway through, and when I looked back, I saw that he was holding a shed horn. I gingerly took it from him and plopped the discriminating thing into my Fashion Case. I always put weird things like that in there because I know I'll never use it.
I kept going, and believe or not, I somehow found a completely different way to get out of the cave. This was how bad it was. By then, I've already used two Max Repeals, and my sore feet felt like it was asking to get an ankle sprain. I was becoming short of breath from all my jostling around. I considered just sitting on my butt at the entrance waiting for the Kimono girls to get out, but I began to think otherwise as I realized that since there were more than one entrance, I could be wasting more time that way. I wished I got one of those idiots' phone number. I have the phone number of Joey, a random boy I've only talked to in person with like, once, but I don't even have the numbers of those weird Kimono girls.
I turned around and went through the cave again, and walked some more, on those dreadful stone paths. I died of boredom five times over. I came across at least two ditches. I tried to crawl up one of them, but my balance messed up on my right foot and I slipped. I laid there, dazed on the floor as Kitty tugged my shirt and jacket trying to get me to respond. I was staring up at the roof of the cave, watching the stars underneath my eyelids. I made a detour and found a ladder I didn't think I noticed before. Excitement surging the adrenaline in my chest, I run up to the ladder and climbed. I found myself back at the entrance where I started.
I surfed back to Cianwood, borrowed someone else's phone, and found on the internet a video of two boisterous young men exploring the Whirl Islands as a part of their New Year's Eve holiday.
Going by the video, I came across a person in the cave. I figured I was going the right way.
"That thing you have...!"
Without any control from me, the silver wing came up in the air and glowed.
"You have found it... Please go ahead."
He moved aside. I couldn't see him well due to the particular arrangement of shadows surrounding him, and this was after my freaky silver wing creeped me out.
"Are you psychic?" I asked suspiciously.
He frowned, but said nothing. I went on.
"This leads directly to the Kimono girls, right?" I asked.
"Yes, of course."
"And it's a straight forward walk, right?"
"Yes...?"
"And there are no ditches, correct?"
"Bish, just walk."
I walked down the slope and found a small opening. Getting onto my knees, I crawled and came out at the other side. There was a beautiful cliff for me to walk on, stylized in the fashion of a balcony. In front of me was the waterfall, its ocean blue color strong and fierce even as its end played with the edge of darkness. It was large and circular shapes at its side, descending down into a calm mass of water underneath. I squinted around my balcony and found that noticeably large stones of a warm brown color bordered each side of the waterfall, each stone having a golden pendant warped around it in a thin yellow thread. These rocks were sat on small plots of land in the midst of the water, like a little green island standing by the waterfall with its own large rock.
It looked like I was going to be sacrificed to the gods. It looked like I was going to be punished for my sins, starting today and lasting forever. Because when I looked down at the waterfall, its roaring echoing in my ears, a shiver fell down my spine and I knew I was going to be dead. I knew it with certainty. This was what Suicune had seen in my eyes. I was a dead man—a dead woman—since before it even met me, and it knew it, and I knew it then, too. I was gonna die. This was repeated, with every pounding of my heart. My chest grew taut.
I picked up something valuable from the floor of my balcony, and again, I knew it, as though God has told me himself—you are damned. I was going to die tonight. I thought about calling my mom or the professor, but decided against it. They'll probably get weirded out, and besides, they'll get all the details later.
After a few minutes of a sense of overwhelming crisis, I left the balcony and retreated into the meat of the cave again. It was another twisting path after another until I reached the bottom. There was another opening there, where I supposed the Kimono girls would be, waiting. My heart froze once but I went forward. With almost no anticipation, I entered the cave, surprising myself. I always thought I would go in with more ceremony to the room I would die in.
(To be honest, I don't why I was so certain Lugia would kill me. In hindsight, I think it was the horror books I read the night before that really got me.)
There was a staircase, worn and stone. It lead to the girls, all five of them. They were bright and there was something illuminating their faces that I couldn't see. They stood on this...island, I suppose. I suppose it was an island; it was small for one, but it was a plot of land, certainly, layered by old rocks and grass. At the center of it was a mossy rock.
I stepped on the staircase. I knew instantly that tonight I wasn't going to die, and that I was kind of panicking before, because Zuki gave me a strange look—I don't know, I can't describe it. I'm not a writer. But she looked me, and her dark eyes had no pity nor aggression, they were blank and expecting. Her upper lip twitched to the side, her nose wrinkled slightly in twisted mirth. She was not going to watch me be killed tonight by her hand. If I was going to die, it wouldn't be from her hand.
"That's right," she said. "This is where we welcome Lugia."
Besides her voice I hear nothing but the roaring of the waves and the strange effect it had when it clashed against the island's mass. My own breath was inaudible to me, yet Zuki's voice, that voice I can hear much too clearly, was quiet compared to her voice at the theater.
"When the dance we practiced many days become one with the sound of the Tidal Bell we entrusted with you, then Lugia shall come out from deep within the waterfall basin once again!"
"What'll happen then?" I asked.
"Lugia will be yours to catch, then."
"But what after that? Will it get angry, hating at being awakened, and slap us with the side of one of its extremities? Drown us?"
Zuki, quietly, gently—"You know better than to ask that, Lyra."
I was silent.
By its own accord, the Tidal Bell came from my bag. It came into the air above all of us, and the Kimono girls quickly separated. They began to dance and spin around, and traditional music began to occur—from nowhere, basically. They danced and spun around, waves rising and coming to surround us. The Bell glowed. I could barely make the shape of something small and white—cherry blossoms, snow?—falling around us, melting as they made contact with the underwater sea. I watched, staring as the bells on the rocks shone. Those golden thing I saw before on the rocks were bells, not pendants.
I inhaled sharply.
We all looked out to the waterfall. The basin of which where Lugia was supposed to be. My eyes blurred as the cave shook, hinting at something fearsome behind the harsh waters. A cry came out, and the silhouette of Lugia came from behind the waterfall, its eyes menacing and glowing a pale yellow. It came from above, and slowly lowered itself on the waves. The last notes of the Bell were sounding as it came down, its last high notes seared to my memory.
Zuki looked up from where she covered underneath the middle rock of the "island."
"That is indeed Lugia... The guardian of these islands from ancient times... So have tried again and again, only to fail. But Lyra...your heart, in complete harmony with the Tidal Bell, has finally allowed it to appear..."
She turned around. "Don't you see? It must have been waiting for someone like you all this time. Wouldn't you agree?"
Silence. She pressed on.
"I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it must be a mistake, that somebody else was meant to get Lugia. But don't you see? That's not the case. Lugia came for you, and we wouldn't have brought you here if we weren't sure, anyway."
Her words were as nonsensical as a child's cartoon.
I circled around the island. There was a staircase. I went down it. There was Lugia, sitting on the water. I challenged it.
And mentally noted to myself that I was never going to read another horror book again.
