Alright, we are nearing the end of Filloma's arc! After this—there's one climactic arc left (ooooh, who could it be about? Nah you could probably guess if you thought a little about it hahaha, it's nothing groundbreaking... unless?)
Wild that we're finally getting close to the end. I can't wait because finishing this story will give me inherent permission to work on another fanfiction I've been dreaming about for like a few months, maybe a year now. But I can't start that one until I finish this one because it'll make me too anxious if I start too many stories at once hahaha. Also I don't wanna focus TOO much on fanfiction. I already did that! or so I think.
Also I apologize in advance for this chapter. It um. It went places I didn't expect it to go.
Chapter 19: Dragonspiraled Monstrosity
The pokemon inside of Colress's poke ball is, of course, the odd little elgyem I had found prior to our capture in Bermuda Village. As soon as I release him, his angular green body flits out of my reach, as if to prevent me from crushing him like I almost did his "home". Goodness. Home? Home?
Asha snickers over my shoulder. We're roving through the forest outskirting the Palace in aimless circles. None of us know where precisely we are, or where the dragons are that are intrinsically tied to Ghetsis.
There is nothing left to do. I glance up at the floating psychic pokemon I had tried to rescue—he flinches—and I ask, Do you have the power of teleportation?
His painfully bright eyes widen. Don't all psychic pokemon?
Can you send us to a specific location?
He pouts. Literally pouts. Why would I do that?
N, listening in, breaks into a laugh. "He keeps answering your questions with more questions."
"Y-Yes, I am well aware," I mutter, shifting around the lichen on my shoulders. I almost hate the brotherly smirk on his lips.
If you send us to a specific place of my choosing, I will leave your poke ball here for you. I—I must say I cannot understand your reasoning, but I won't dispute it either. The elgyem bobs his head and keeps silent. I suppose I must continue to pump words into the air between us. We are searching for a holy land called the Dragonspiral Tower, where it is rumored that its peak crests upon the heavens. Have you perhaps heard anything of it?
Before the elgyem can respond, I snap at N. He glances my way, bewildered. "Can you slide your band on the elgyem's... ah... arm? I want to be sure he is not lying."
N shrugs. He raises a hand out to the jewel-like pokemon, who swivels out of his reach, then glares at me and slowly, slowly reaches out to touch the band. He replies, I will teleport you to the place. There. Happy now? The band remains blue. He must be as done with me as I am him.
I mash my lips together and mutter to Asha, He's making me feel so insecure about myself. The zoroark laughs yet again as cold prickles creep up my spine.
Ehhh. As long as he can sling you over to the Tower.
But then it occurs to me—Asha, you're a dark type. Psychic attacks don't work on you.
Her shoulders roll back in a luxurious stretch. Yeah, I figured. I'll just meet you over there.
Asha! I squeak.
Don't come with me. It'd slow me down. Aww—She breaks off and pats my head. Filloma, don't cry. You'll see me soon.
She's right, but a terse pinch forms in my heart.
We return to the elgyem. I shake myself, try to distill the emotions threatening to harness control over me. You know the location of the tower?
Well, yeah. I know where everywhere in this region is.
I—What? And you tell me this now!
Yet another meaningless shrug from this sluggish crude of a pokemon. Why would I tell you? You're weird. I don't trust you. I don't even know you.
Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I am so close to stomping away and traversing the entire rest of the journey with Asha, whether or not I slow her down.
Her paw eases against my back in some paltry attempt to steady me. I consider punching the elgyem in the face.
Asha squeaks. Filloma! Goodness gracious! He's just a mite annoying! Leave it be, girl.
But I don't want to, I mutter. She lets out a frustrated breath.
Watching the squirm across my frantic expression, the elgyem chimes back in. Also, we are not going tonight! It's dark out, and I refuse to work in the dark. I hate the dark. So I'll teleport you tomorrow morning, and then you all will keep good on your word to never bother me ever again.
I—
Sudden warm hands come flush against my own. N's fingers intertwine with mine. His forehead rests against mine, and his soft, soothing voice overwhelms me: "Filloma, we will wait. It's just another night. It... It appears Father is waiting for us, anyways. And besides, you must be exhausted. Let us rest."
I'm—Oh, this frustration deep within me...
Without looking back at any of my companions, I throw myself into the arms of a tree and climb up its branches, its craggy skin clinging to my own, helping me along. Once I reach a suitable height, I ask the tree to let down its leaves and help cushion me. There is a low, throaty chortle within its deep bark, but branches whip about to protect from the nightly winds.
N watches all of this with a straight, plain face. Then he goes ahead and begins to clamber after me, struggling in fits and bursts, nigh falling out of the tree. I sigh a long sigh and ask the tree to help him too. Another longer chortle—making fun of me, no doubt—and N is brought up by a low-swinging branch to my side. He squeezes in beside me, and I admit that the tree is comfier with his warmth. But not to his face.
Asha waves up at us from the ground. She calls out, I'm gonna start moving, okay! Hopefully I won't be too far behind by the time you come after me!
W-Wait, Asha! I squeak. When is the last time you slept?
This zoroark—She has the audacity to smirk and turn tail, not even granting me a response. I'll sleep once this is all over.
Then she tramps off into the wilderness. At first her footsteps make soothing crunches, but soon she has left our earshot, or perhaps her sneaky, clandestine zoroark abilities are working in her favor.
She will be fine, I remind myself, swallowing harshly. She's the one who helped me out of that horrible holding chamber, whose warm clawed paws scooped me up and brought me to safety. Funnily enough, we found N in that chance moment—but I suppose we've come to understand one another now. Somehow.
There isn't much wiggle room on the sturdy branch, and so we're squished against one another. I think about telling him to find his own branch, but—he's warm. He's safe in the midst of the quick-coming shadows that spill about us, and his presence, his albeit clueless self at my side... I feel as if he is a small reminder that the world is not out to get me. Even the Dukedom, the Dukedom I was so afraid of marring me—it's become oddly clear that despite their best intents, they are not trying to destroy me.
I don't understand it. I don't want to understand it. But I must put up with it for a couple of days longer, until we find Ghetsis and I may demand answers of him. Kill the gods that control us... W-Would these gods deserve such a fate? Are they the ones at fault for leaving me bereft, to be stolen away by hungry human hands? Would I have been happier never meeting Marlun, the Professor (who must be extremely worried now that she hasn't heard from me in days, possibly weeks), even N, as confusing and helpless as he's been for most of this journey?
For a moment I think—I think perhaps something wonderful has been birthed by my loss of pokemon form. My heart trembles in my chest, basking in the glow of the thought, that there are things I never would have discovered had I not been forcibly transformed into a human. If nothing else, it is now abundantly clear that the way humans treat pokemon is truly despicable. They are as capable of free thought as humans, and to think, humans keep them trapped in little red-and-white cages...
They aren't cages. They're like a little warm home, corrects the elgyem, who at some point floated up to a branch over our heads.
Well. I have also learned that not all pokemon agree with me in my time here as a confused human. And I suppose—if I dare to swallow my stubborn pride—that perhaps some of them are allowed not to feel the way I feel, even if the very pit of my soul deems it terribly wrong.
N's gentle voice tickles against my ear. "Are you still confused over what I told you?"
"O-Oh my." I flush before I even catch it happening and clap my hands over my face. "You've never guessed my thoughts accurately before."
"I am learning," he murmurs, but I catch the hint of pride warming his words. Sweet, foolish N.
Hesitantly I let him hold my hands, tugging them out of my face. His cobalt eyes spill into mine, so dark and yet so bright, so breathtakingly pale within their centers.
This somehow reminds me of a question I've had since he confessed his feelings for me were not romantic.
"N, you said we were to be the King and Queen of the Dukedom. Yet you said you are not... romantically... Th-Then how would—?"
"Ah." The light sparks in his swirling gaze, like a dappled sky first seeing stars. "I suppose I always subconsciously thought of us as like family, so King and Queen only felt natural. My apologies if the terminology confused you."
I shake my head. "I was just thinking—How would that work if..." I release a weak laugh. A horrid thought.
His arm sneaks around my back, holding me close to him. "Do not fear, Filloma. As terrible as my social skills may appear, I would never stand in the way of your love with Keebae."
Oh my goodness. "I-I'll push you off this branch if you s-s-say that again! You're s-so embarrassing!"
His brow furrows. "If you push me off the branch, do you also plan to catch me with a vine, Filloma? Isn't that an awful lot of extra work for yourself?"
I hate this side of N that now is fully capable of outsmarting me. Angrily I throw myself at him, my head falling into his stupid chest. "Let's just try to sleep."
I can't believe he knew her name this whole freaking time, and I just never thought to ask him like a pouty little fool.
And I hope—I hope the gods know where she is.
"Ah—Have you given up, Filloma?"
"I am very asleep now, so it would be in your most highest of interests not to speak so loudly."
His gentle laughter, flowing over my head. "Okay. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," I think I return, but it appears my exhaustion has already caught up to me.
Maybe I'll dream about her. Finally steal a glimpse of her face. Oh Keebae... where are you?
Marlun
Bright morning sunshine sparkles in through the terrible cracks in the walls of the tower. Our feet click on ancient hallowed stone, the majority of it scrawled over in runes from a language I can't even begin to recognize. It feels inherently wrong to be walking around in this sacred building in nothing but sweatpants, tennis shoes—no socks, of course—and a stretched out tee with a ghostly little spiritomb on it, his smile stressed across my boobs, that says "can't touch this" on it.
I mean if Iris wanted to—
Not that she'd get the joke. If there's anything I learned from her, it's that jokes need to be spoon-fed to her. Somehow this only makes them funnier.
We've been steadily making our way up staircase after staircase. Apparently there's supposed to be a landing coming up, maybe, but we've been at this all morning and my sweat is crawling down my shirt. Most of the staircases are all crunched up too, so we have to work around boulders and broken steps and the like. Man, one time—best part of the morning—I almost slipped and fell into a crumbly stair when Iris launched over and flitted me to safety. It was so romantic that I threw a kiss to her cheek and she almost stumbled down the steps.
If only all mortal danger tasted like romance.
Through the silence of the tower, I mutter, "I hope we can find Fillmy soon. She's... she must be so scared..."
Iris's eyes slit to me. "Yeah." Her voice has gone oddly quiet. She must be distressed, too, and out of breath. I feel like my stomach is actively trying to claw out my throat.
"Y'know, she's not all that different than you. So I just... I can't imagine how..." I wheeze. "Thanks so much for being here for us, y'know?"
"Yes, o-of course!" The pep sparks back into her throat. It's almost like she had to plug herself into a wall to make it come. I almost joke about it to her, but she's already forcing words into the space between us, words I didn't think she had the lungs to add in. "Hey, Marlun, you said she was like me? What do you mean by that? I just—y-you must understand—as my g-girlfriend's best friend, to hear that she's a little similar to me... it's kind of exciting! It's like, oh, maybe we could be friends too, and get along! I think...
"I think I may have scared her, the first time I saw her. I'd love to know how we are alike so that we might reconcile the next time we see each other."
"Dang, Iris," I break off, wheeze-laughing, "I dunno how you have the energy to chat."
We make it up to another floor, as desolate and empty as the last. I kick another ancient-rune rock and watch it implode, the creepy dragon face depicted on it moldering away.
"You... You can't tell anyone else about this, okay?"
Her head bobs, her soft violet hair fluttering in its braid. I reach out and touch it—and she pauses. "Oh. Sorry. Your hair's just so distractingly soft." I think she laughs, a sort of awkward laugh, but then I let go and we move on. "Lemme just... catch my breath, and I'll tell you, okay?"
She must really wanna know about Fillmy, huh. I guess I would too, if my girlfriend had a weirdo friend like her. Ugh, and to think I thought Fillmy was the cutest girl in the whole world back when we were kiddos. I really was set on marrying her—oh, the soft green hair, the pretty flowers! Ugh. I had no idea the attitude she was bucking behind the tender pretense.
At the next staircase, Iris stops and seeks hold of my hand. "I think this is the last one. So um... let's wait a moment. I'm a little nervous."
"Oh." Hey, that's fine. I giggle weakly. "Yeah, me too."
Apparently dragon gods are sleeping above us.
Our voices lower as if afraid of wakening them. Like our galumphing footsteps hadn't already.
We sit ourselves on the bottom step of the final staircase. There's these once-ornate tapestries fluttering over this landing, once beautiful, now flea-bitten. It really gives off this penultimate vibe. Even the stairs here are a little less brown, less broken. They shimmer with a weak gold sheen.
I pull some foraged berries out of my knapsack and spill them out over Filloma's blanket (we've got nothing better—sorry Fillmy). Iris and I eat quietly, until I pull out my water bottle, take a fat swig, and finally my voice warbles over the silent corridor.
"Fillmy's not, uh, normal. When she was little, she was actually a—a pokemon." I wait for Iris's gasp. When my eyes flick to her, she pales. "I know. Crazy, isn't it? She was a shaymin. Then some evil scientist dudes came and found her and tucked her under their sleeves and underwent some crazy experiments. And they... and they malformed her body. They made her into a human, Iris.
"She kept a few qualities from when she was a shaymin, so the process wasn't completely perfect, but um... yeah, that's why she reminds me of you. Your wings, and all."
Iris is staring so deeply from me that I feel my chilled sweat slither down my spine, almost hear it.
Finally she just whispers, "Wow. That's crazy. I, um..." She stumbles. "I didn't know we were, uh, so alike."
"So you—"
She ducks her head. "Yep. I used to be a dragon. That's why I have dragon parents. My lord let me live with them... but he keeps telling me he has beautiful dreams that will unfold for me as soon as I am ready. A-And so I wait. I wait for that moment. And I hope."
"But... didn't you wanna ask the gods about your purpose?"
A purple bruise-like flash shifts along her face. "Right... y-yeah, I'd like to. But my lord gave me a quest first, and I must succeed."
"Huh..." I manage. Didn't... see this coming.
Who the heck is her lord? And it's not the dragon gods?
And why's she so anxious? Where did her cute little bubbly charm go—the softness that carried her demeanor?
But then there's a sound above our heads, a sound that bleeds away the rest of my questions.
A sharp, piercing pink light envelops the tops of the stairs, and then, in breathless moments, a pair of pale silhouettes emerge.
My mouth falls open. I—I swear I feel a frigid hand rip my back open.
I choose to ask the gods for help finding my best friend... and on the way up to the gods, I find her... It's like... it's like they really... like they really answered me...
I look over, to say something, to tell Iris how grateful I am for her—
But she's not there now. I look up and whoom she's taken to the skies, her hands extended, her nails freakishly sharp. She must've used some sort of dragon attack to do that, because her nails had been pretty normal just a minute ago.
Wait—dragon attack—Filloma—Fillmy's right in her range—
I splinter up the stairs, knowing I'm nowhere near as fast as a dragon and sweating all the way and cursing the knapsack I still have plastered to my back, the knapsack threatening to kilter my weight and send me careening down. "FILLOMA," I'm screaming, my breaths heaving, the tears tearing out of my stupid eyes—why the hell did I tell her? Why did I tell her that Fillmy's like her?
Long before I make it, Iris swipes through the mist of their bodies, and—I ease for just a tantalizing second. They haven't fully materialized yet.
Then as Iris swings up to the heavens, the two figures at the top step resound with a blinding light and stand, gawking at their surroundings. I'm crying out Filloma's name and hobbling over to her, and finally, oh my gosh finally my best friend peers over to me. She takes in my sorry form and asks something something what happened when her eyes become soft and bright and full of white.
She lets out this ominous breath, her face utterly still—then she stands up a little straighter and shudders back. I get a look behind her and see the vines plastered across her body like a tight, battle-ready dress. A horrid line of clawed markings drip down her back, and the pale skin within invites my glance—and there's no blood. The vines protected her.
I shove myself up to their height, at the highest step before a menacing hallway, as Iris banks back and glares down at the short girl at my side. "Shay," she tests, and Filloma's shoulders tighten.
N, who is here also I guess, takes a long look between Fillmy and Iris. He gasps. "Oh! This is the girl you saw who was suspicious!"
Filloma's eyes snap over to him, sparing a split second. "Now I see why I felt so afraid around her." Then her gaze falters back to me. "Marlun, how does she know who I am when I didn't tell her a thing?"
It was me.
Oh my gosh it was me. The cold splash of dread trickles over my skin—it was me it was me it was me—and all the air in the room goes missing. I literally just told her she and Filloma were the same.
Iris wanted to come with me so badly to help me find my best friend—because when she met Fillmy, she thought she thought she thought she knew who she really was, who she'd said she wasn't.
Why does her lord want her to hurt Fillmy?
Iris's face blushes this horrifying purple as her clawed hands fidget, as if they have minds of their own, minds that are furiously thinking up how to cut into this weird plant lady.
Filloma grapples for N's hand—oh, was she straight after all?—and BOOM the vines explode, extending from her dress, a few of them swatting feverishly at the air between her and the dragon girl. She's not looking at me, a few steps in front of me, even as a pair of vines trundle in front of N like faithful bodyguards.
"Shay," whispers the dragon girl encircling us from above. Her wings move her airily about the room, keeping Filloma on her toes, guessing where she'll attack from next. "Shay, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you and claim my spot as our lord's superior child."
Filloma's shaking. There's lichen at her arms, like some sort of cardigan, and it's shuddering. Her sweet glass-like face is horribly pale, like she's reflecting all the colors in the room. She keeps twisting around, struggling to keep her eyes on the winged assassin, and N holds tightly to her hand despite the fact that he's as useless as me here.
"Why?" my best friend finally squeaks in reply. Her voice, so tiny, so quiet, is swallowed up by the tower's massively old structure. "Why kill me?" Then she cringes. "H-He's not my lord, either..."
Iris keeps circling. Just attack her already, my brain is screaming, but of course she's doing this to set all of us on edge. "What do you mean, Shay? He loves you, adores you, spent years searching like a madman for you. I'm just his replacement... the child he'll use if he receives confirmation of your death... and there's only one way to ensure of that..."
I...
I wasted a week with this girl... I can't—I can't believe I...
Her wings hitch—and I recognize the motion. It's what she did when she was about to lift off.
To lift off—
Even as I'm thinking it she's banking towards us, spinning through Filloma's vines—Filloma totally unprepared—slashing them away with her horrific claws, aiming straight for Filloma's supple neck—
And I launch her aside as talons grip the space in the very center of my chest.
An inhuman sound strangles its way out of my mouth.
Filloma gasps this ghostly gasp. I see jewels of blood reflected in her eyes.
I rasp go, go Fillmy, go do what you were gonna do, and her hands outstretch towards me, her blinded eyes blurring violet.
N grabs at her arm and tugs her away, because he knows, because he sees me tilt over and whatever it is they have to do has to be done now.
Iris's claws—unhinge from my gut.
"I sure," I hiccup, "I sure wore the right shirt today. T-T-Too bad you didn't read it..."
Iris is taking steps away from me, but then she's stuck in place, her brown face sapped of its undertones. She can't stop staring, her dark eyes absorbing the color of her actions, her bloodied hand flexing with the sensation of my skin.
I'm on the floor. I don't know when it happened but I'm sitting there, sagging against my own useless weight, and I'm at the top floor of an ancient heaven-reaching tower.
There are no hospitals... no safe way down... no way I can drag myself through hundreds of stairs until I reach the bottom... then hobble over to a place where people can patch up my flustered heart and force it to keep pumping...
I'm... I'm getting blood all over my second favorite shirt... God, what a good thing I didn't wear the togepi in the frying pan today...
These horrible sounds keep coming out of my mouth, sounds I can't even begin to describe. They're like sobs but I'm not crying, screams but not quite loud enough, wails but there's no emotion left in me to feel them.
Finally Iris shrieks.
"Y-You weren't supposed to get in the way!"
I kind of just want her to leave. At this point it's pretty clear that we had no chemistry, and I was just blind to her cute fluffy hair and cool dragon wings.
My eyes roll to the ceiling. She's waiting for me to say something, and so I reply. "You weren't supposed to kill my best friend."
Pretty simple. Maybe don't do that.
"But I... but my lord Ghetsis... I have to... I have to, so he'll love me..."
Oh my gosh. Am I really going to have this conversation right now? "If he really loved you, he wouldn't treat you like that, Iris." I can't believe I'm wasting my final breaths on her. This is actually depressing.
Well Fillmy's not here to listen to me wheeze, so I dip my finger into my own wound and start writing something for her on the ground. It's pretty clear at this point that despite the fact that Iris has wings, literal wings, she has no plans to fly me to a hospital.
I really couldn't have chosen a worse girlfriend.
What did Fillmy say? Fillmy said, oh, haha, you have no standards, Marlun.
Iris is still there. I keep looking at her like she'll go away and finish up her despicable little job, but I guess she really didn't see my actions coming.
I didn't really either. I just—Fillmy didn't trust me anymore. I could see it in her eyes. And I... I didn't want her to stop trusting me...
Ooh, I should add that in my blood-message. Apologize, too.
Man, I didn't realize just how long you have until you're out. And here I thought my last words were gonna be telling Fillmy to keep going.
I look up once from my message. Iris is still here.
"What?" I rasp. "Are you gonna save me, or not? Make up your mind already."
She reaches out to me for a split second, and then she's doubling back, staring down the yawning abyss of the hall. "Bu-But... my lord..."
"Screw him," I try, but now she's turning away from me, her movements slow and wobbly and uneven.
Yep. That's about what I thought.
Man... this sucks.
As I wait for my message to dry, I stare up at this little crack in the ceiling where the sky peeks out.
Then I feel a soft bundle of fluff plop itself into my lap.
I look down.
Scamp. It's my little pink skitty, who sat there and listened to me mewl about a cute girl, a cute girl who ended up breaking my heart in only the most literal of terms.
A shuddery breath escapes me, and then I feel it—I feel something unhinge in the very core of my body. Letting out horrid breath after horrid breath—trying so hard to hold them in—I whisper, "Buddy, I... I hope you find a better trainer... treats you right... trains you up... makes you happy... remembers you..."
Maybe I'm imagining it, but it's almost like his gentle eyes and somber purr are telling me that despite our differences, he would still have preferred me to keep living for him.
For him...
I can't even keep myself together for my freaking pokemon...
Whimpering, I draw a hand over my eye and feel a streak of hot wet blood on my cheek. "Fillmy understood you better... I'm sorry..."
He shakes his fluffy little head.
"M-Maybe," I mutter, "Maybe if... if I'd put this much effort in every day... I would've realize that... th-that I didn't need to be Fillmy to be able to speak with you... I couldn't done it whenever I wanted... if I just..."
His purr strengthens, his warm comfort all I have left. Even my phone is broken. I can't even tell my parents.
I can't... I can't even...
My hand moves shakily up to wipe away the tears, but then it falters, landing atop Scamp's soft little kitty head. He rubs his face against my palm, and he keeps purring, and he stays with me until the world dims and all I hear is Filloma's pained breaths, rebounded and rebounded from the ends of the corridor.
She's asking something about wishes, about godly powers—
about saving—
