Archie - Pokémon: 8 Deaths: 2
Blue - Pokémon: 5 Deaths: 0
{Jinua 11th, 10:45PM}
{Hearthome Gym}
"I don't have to take orders from you!" Star snapped. The Luxray was pointedly laying next to her trainer, glaring at the Hearthome gym leader. "I'm not going anywhere. Did you see what that thing tried to do? I'm not letting it anywhere near my human again!"
"If you do not wish to listen to orders, then perhaps you could at least listen to reason," Fantina said firmly. "L'esprit is very afraid, and easy to startle. If you are showing it aggression, it is simply returning the same to you. If you are not capable to show it patience, then you are only bringing harm to your own trainer."
"I am trying to protect him," Star growled.
"Trying is not the same as succeeding!" Fantina argued back. Star absently noted that her accent was slipping and had sounded less foreign for a moment. "It is all good and well to wish to protect someone, I understand it, I truly do, but it is useless to give une anti-brûle to one which is poisoned if that is not what they need!"
"That's for me to decide!" Star snarled, beginning to bare her fangs.
Suddenly, Star got smacked on the nose.
The Luxray roared and defensively swiped a large set of claws at what appeared to be a living pink ribbon.
"It's for Fantina to decide," the ribbon's owner said, glaring at her. He looked vaguely like a smaller and more slender Luxray, with longer ears and a lot more pink. "This is her territory, she's the one with the authority here, and you stepped into that territory so you will do as she says. Don't bother opening your muzzle to argue about her trying to take control of 'your' human. You brought him here. If you didn't plan on accepting her help, you shouldn't have come here asking for it. You can either suck it up and deal with it, or you can continue clinging to your ridiculous pride and see how far that gets you."
"You-" Star started.
"No, I don't want to hear another word out of your mouth unless it's to say 'I agree'," he interrupted sharply. "Get off the bed and sit, get out of the room, or take your trainer and leave. Pick one. Personally I wouldn't recommend the last option, because if that's what he looks like after a first two weeks, I'd hate to see what he'll look like in another two. Right now I'm betting on dead."
"Eldan, ça suffit-"
"Fancie, she needs this," the Pokémon insisted. "She's not getting how serious this is and I'm sick of her trying to act like she knows better than you do. She needs to pull that stick out of her ass and let you take over. If we fuck up in helping the guy, fair enough, she can blame us all she wants. But if she turns around now, she'll only have herself to blame. This needs to go through that thick skull of hers now or she has to be ready to take responsibility for her shit if something happens to him."
Star growled. Fuck him. Fuck his tone. What was his problem? She didn't want to take any of this- not from him, not from his trainer. She never asked for their help or their opinion, and she wished she'd made Blue look for some other person who could help and who wasn't this bitch and her fucking ribbony pink-ass mutt-
"Star?"
The Luxray's head snapped downward, staring as Archie seemed to be vaguely taking in their surroundings with glazed eyes.
"Hon! Are you okay?!" Star gasped.
"Dizzy...Weak..." Archie mumbled between shallow breaths. "Where…?"
"You are in l'arène of Hearthome," Fantina replied softly.
"La...reine…?" Archie tried to repeat, frowning. "A queen…?"
"The gym, mon cher, not the queen, but your guess was merveilleux," Fantina corrected, smiling.
"Blue...Where?"
"Blue is at the Pokémon Center," Star said. "He didn't wanna stay in a gym full of ghosts, and I don't wanna stay here either. Rest up some more and let me know when we can go, okay?"
"Your élégant friend brought you here to request for help," Fantina said sternly. "I well understand her méconfiance as to the nature of what I am trying to do, but I am not able to be of aid if she is not willing to act as I instruct."
Archie watched Fantina for a moment before trying to look at Star.
"I'm not leaving you alone," Star whined.
"Hope not..." Archie chuckled quietly. "Stay...but don't...bother her...okay?"
Star hesitated, still very much upset about having to keep out of Fantina's way and letting her do as she pleased, but eventually gave the Aqua leader a nuzzle to the cheek and lay down to rest next to Archie entirely.
"Do what you want," Star mumbled for Fantina to hear.
"Thank you, Star," Fantina said.
Star watched as Fantina flourished the Spiritomb's Pokéball again.
{Jinua 12th, 8:25AM}
{Hearthome Gym}
To Blue's surprise, both Star and Archie were just coming out of the gym when he arrived.
"Everything good now?" Blue asked, raising a brow.
"Better," Archie replied with a yawn. "Still tired as fuck… Star wanted t' leave, though."
"Fantina did her thing. You're rested enough that we can move and let you rest elsewhere," the Luxray grumbled. "I don't care if we haven't said goodbye or thank you, I'm done with this place. Sugar, any plans on where to next?"
"Canalave," Blue answered. "Overheard a few people this morning talking about break-ins at a hotel there. I know the gym leader, too, so we can get more information from him about it."
"That's like...a week's worth of travel, isn't it?" Archie asked, pulling up his backpack and digging through it. "We should go buy supp-"
Archie paused before pulling a Pokéball out. He stared at it.
"It's the ghost you caught," Star scowled, looking at the ground sullenly. "Fantina said it's better to take it with you. Apparently it was specifically reaching out to you."
"...So I'm still carrying around something that tried to kill us?" Archie asked, a little incredulous.
"She said it's fine as long as you don't show aggression or startle it," Star growled. "Apparently Spiritomb are super timid until you piss 'em off and they flip their shit at you or something. Look, it doesn't matter, just keep the stupid thing in your bag and everyone will be happy, okay? Now let's get out of this city."
The boys watched as the Luxray began trotting away with a frustrated huff.
"Row with Fantina?" Blue asked.
"Row with Fantina," Archie sighed.
{Jinua 12th, 3:39PM}
{Hearthome Gym}
"Let's stop here for now," Archie decided, letting his bag slip off his back and setting it next to a small boulder.
Blue raised a brow. "Already?"
Archie rolled his eyes. "I know there's only a couple hours left to Coronet, but you're the one who's been calling on breaks all day. From the intervals at which we've been stopping, I figured you'd ask for one right about now."
"Only because you've been tripping over your own feet all day," Blue snorted. "At least you seem to walk better for a while after each break."
"Says the one that's been sitting down and taking deep breaths each time."
"We've been walking around Sinnoh for almost a month already. Not that I'm not used to walking, but at least Kanto doesn't feel like it's made of nothing but fucking mountains and caves."
"Ah, right, it's made of ruins and poisonous plants instead. So much better than hills and tunnels."
"Makes me wonder what's worse. A whole region being nearly entirely destroyed by war where Pokémon were trying to defend their rights, or a whole world being nearly entirely destroyed because of a family feud."
Archie was privately proud of himself for not flinching at the comment, but that didn't mean it stung any less than before. Though some part of him wondered if no longer reacting was the first step to no longer caring.
He pressed his lips, opening his bag and digging through it to pull out the Pokéball that was in it.
"...I think I should try and talk to this thing," Archie said.
Blue frowned. "Are you bloody serious?"
"Yes," the Aqua leader replied. "If you don't wanna be around, I'll take it elsewhere-"
"No, I'm tagging along in case I need to save your fucking ass again," Blue growled. "I just don't approve of your idea."
"Before you make a joke about how well my ideas tend to turn out, I'd like to at least try and give this thing a chance," Archie sighed. "Apparently it's pretty shy, so it might not attack right away. We just have to do our best not to piss it off. And...Fantina said it was reaching out to me. I wanna try and find out why."
Archie didn't wait to hear if Blue agreed or not, taking a few steps away and making sure there was a reasonable amount of space around him.
After a flashing of light, a cracked rock lay inanimate in the grass.
"...Hello?" Archie asked softly, crouching down carefully. "Would you...like to talk? About things?" Admittedly the Aqua leader had absolutely no idea what the heck he was expecting from the ghost or what it even wanted, so he wasn't sure that that was the way to coax it out of its rock.
To his slight surprise, a small blob of purple mist and tiny green eyes poked out, peering at him.
"Uh...I guess that could be a yes? Do you have a name?" Archie ventured.
The blob blinked at him and grew slightly in size. Archie wasn't sure, but he thought he could hear distant whispers.
"We are bound to the command Swtkh," Archie heard, still a timid murmur but louder than the other voices.
"S'What?" Archie asked. "St...Swu...uh, Sutekh? Is that close enough?" He shook his head. "Is...that how I'm meant to command you?" The spirit nodded. "Alright, I'll try and remember that...but what about a name? Like..."
"We lost our names," the ghost explained quietly. "All of us. We have no names, only the command of Swtkh. We lost our names in the fire."
"Fire?" Archie repeated.
Archie heard a rustle of grass somewhere on the side and looked up, seeing Blue shift as he watched.
The Aqua leader yelped when the ghost suddenly let out a loud shriek, fully materializing and glowing and heading Blue's way. Archie immediately snatched up the spirit's Pokéball and returned it with a flash of light.
"What the bloody fuck?" Archie wheezed, staring at the Pokéball in his hand.
"Good to know it hates me about as much as I hate it," Blue scowled from his spot. "You satisfied yet?"
"Let me try again," Archie said. "If it goes after you again I'll give up for today."
Blue rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, waiting.
Archie took a few extra steps away from Blue's position before releasing the Spiritomb again.
The ghost came out with an angry hiss, but settled when it saw Archie and blinked in confusion.
"...Is he gone?" the Spiritomb asked, voice a little warped and accompanied by whispers again.
"No, he's not," Archie answered. The spirit growled. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't attack him."
"He wanted rid of us," the ghost hissed, starting to glow. The whispers growing louder. "He wanted to throw us away. We will not be thrown away again! He wanted to HURT us!"
"He was scared because you were hurting me," Archie pointed out.
The glow instantly died and the ghost shamefully shrunk back closer to its rock.
"...I don't think you were hurting me on purpose," Archie offered quietly. "But please don't hurt him either, okay? I think you were scared, and he was too. He won't try to hurt you anymore if he knows you're not trying to hurt anyone either."
"I didn't mean to hurt you..." the Spiritomb murmured, shrinking a little more. "I wanted the hurt to stop...I wanted the fire to stop..."
"You saw fire?" Archie asked. The moment he was done asking that he wished he could take it back because it was probably not a good question to ask.
The spirit rose again, just a little. "You saw it too," the ghost breathed. "You saw the fire. You saw the hurt. You know the pain too. You understand the hurt. Do you know how to make the hurt stop? How do you make the fire stop?"
Archie swallowed. Did he see my nightmares? "I don't know how to make the hurt stop," he admitted softly. "I'm sorry. But...I can still try to help you with yours?"
"You know the hurt," the ghost said. "You understand it. You can help. There is no one else who can help but you. We believe it."
Archie wasn't really sure how to feel about having that kind of faith placed in him by an emotionally volatile spirit that tried to kill him and his travelling partner, but he supposed that in an odd sense it was kind of touching. He smiled.
"I'll do my best to help you, Sutekh. I'm sure we can figure something out."
Somewhere to the side, Archie could almost feel the unhappy face that Blue was making.
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WOW LOOK. Finally another chapter. Amazing. One of these days I'll catch up to where I'm supposed to again, but right now just isn't it and that's sad.
ARCHIE
Shanks the Sharpedo, Prince the Empoleon, Star the Luxray, Warin the Beautifly, Basil the Buizel, Sutekh the Spiritomb
BLUE
Sam the Blastoise, Pete the Pidgeot, Adam the Alakazam, Gary the Arcanine, Girish the Gabite