Chapter Eleven

Now I felt weird.

Weird was an understatement. I felt disgusting, heavy, saturated like a sponge. Everything that I hadn't felt when I first acquired the abilities of all those Pokémon I felt now. And there were so many different types of Pokémon in me that everything inside of me seemed to conflict with everything else. The pain I hadn't felt in me before was here now, like a constant headache.

I didn't tell anyone about it. When Clay led me to my new room—I wasn't really a prisoner anymore, now that I was "under his control"—I didn't have to try too hard to look completely pathetic. He had no idea that he couldn't tell me what to do, but I just played along with it. I needed a plan before he figured it out on his own.

My legs felt like iron weights. I hoped Clay didn't notice.

Every member of Team Xana, since I was now officially a member, got their own bedroom and bathroom; how the headquarters had room for all that, I didn't know. The headquarters was far larger than I previously imagined, but most of the space was reserved for the bedrooms. It was like a mini hotel.

Even the bedroom reminded me of a mini hotel room. A small double bed, a dresser (for what—I didn't have anything with me anymore), an empty stand where a television would normally have sat. A door led off into the bathroom which was more impressive than the bedroom; a porcelain toilet, free-standing bathtub, gold-framed mirror.

I didn't have too much time to take in the sights of my new bedroom, though. By the time Clay dropped me off in the room, I had barely made it to the toilet before I threw up in it. He noticed this. Joining me in the bathroom, he reached down, putting a "soothing" hand on my back and brushing my hair aside. His fingers lingered against my neck, holding my hair as I vomited. I couldn't find the power to swat him away.

"How unusual. The effects of multiple abilities must be making you sick. Hopefully it isn't eating you from the inside out," Clay said. That didn't make me feel any better. "Can you last for a moment alone? I have to get back to preparations, so I'll send Silver over to help you." He paused, letting my hair fall forward. "It's good to have you on our side now. I think you'll agree that ours is the right one."

I threw up into the toilet again.

He left me alone for only a moment, as he said. In another second, Silver popped up behind me, and unlike Clay, he just stood there and watched as I emptied my stomach. He didn't pull my hair out of the way, he didn't rub my back… he didn't do anything. And I never appreciated anything more than this.

"Silver," I muttered, wiping my mouth with my arm. I tried to turn my head to look at him, and my head throbbed again. "Silver, I can't—" I turned back to the toilet, throwing up once more. I didn't know what I had left to lose, but it just kept coming up. I felt so sick; compared to the transference of abilities, this was hell.

"Clay shouldn't have done what he just did to you. There's no way your body can handle all those abilities at once. No one can. You're going to give up more than you have." Silver finally sat down on the tiled floor of the bathroom, but he only leaned against the counter beside the toilet. With a sigh, he handed me a towel.

I knew exactly what he was thinking. Now that the abilities were starting to sink into my DNA, I wouldn't be able to handle all the changes. As Clay wondered, the Pokémon were going to eat me from the inside out. I was going to lose everything within me, and they would kill me. Just as Silver predicted, I would die.

"Not… yet…"

Grabbing the edge of the toilet, I tried to push myself to my feet. Silver jumped to my side as my legs collapsed, stopping me from hitting my head on the toilet. But I vomited again, and Silver pushed my head to the toilet. I wiped my mouth with the towel he handed me, looking up into his red eyes.

"No. I'm the strongest one here. I'm not going down that easily," I snapped angrily, managing to get that much out before looking back into the toilet. I wiped my mouth again, but I kept my gaze at the toilet just in case. "It just takes some getting used to. I'll be fine. Come on, Pokémon. All of you in me! You can trust me!"

Silver scooted away from me, looking painfully upset. "You may have the strongest heart and mind or whatever Clay thought… but you don't have the strongest body. You're incredibly underweight, and you're weak. You don't have the body to handle all of these Pokémon. With all of their abilities inside you… there's going to be conflict. You can't handle it."

I felt something strange come over me, and I turned on Silver, pointing a finger at him. How dare he talk to me like that? Who did he think he was? Compared to me, he was a pathetic little boy! I was, after all, the only Champion left. I should have been treated like royalty, and here he was, acting like I was some chick who screamed when she broke a nail.

"Let me tell you—"

Silver flicked me on the arm, and I grabbed the spot with my other hand, gaping at him. How old was he, anyway? Ethan and I used to flick each other to get us to shut up when we were really little kids, and now Silver was in on it as a twenty-two year old? He was pathetic. I should have known this whole time how sad a man he was.

"You need to—"

"Sorry, I just wanted to see something." Silver sighed again, and I narrowed my eyes before throwing up into the toilet once more. "You're just reacting with the more physical Pokémon that have taken over. Your Tyranitar, for instance… she's always been a tad moody, hasn't she? Women…"

The anger disappeared as quickly as it came along, and I grabbed my head as another headache passed through. Did I really have no control over that? What happened to my confidence in stopping Team Xana now? I had no idea what receiving these abilities meant. If I really wanted to use these to my advantage, I needed more control.

"I'm sorry. I'm feeling a little bit better now," I lied, though it was partially true. I didn't feel quite as queasy now, but the headache was stronger than before. And knowing that I really had no control over myself made me feel worse. "Can I tell you something, Silver? Perhaps in a room where it doesn't smell like this?"

I nodded over to the bedroom, and Silver glanced over his shoulder before nodding. "Yeah… you might want to clean up a little, though. So it won't smell later."

Smiling weakly—and regretting even that as pain shot through my head—I threw the towel in the sink. "Okay. You go in the bedroom and wait for a minute, okay?" A second had barely passed before Silver walked out of the room without another word. In fact, it was strangely fast. No hesitation, no comments, no anything…

Clay had provided me with everything: a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, soap, and all the other hygienic necessities. I brushed my teeth to get the vulgar taste out of my mouth, and I threw the towel into the little hamper beside the shower.

It was weird looking into a mirror. The bathroom I used while I was a prisoner had no mirror, so seeing me now was frightening. Silver was right; I looked horribly weak and grimy. My hair was matted against my face, greasy and wild. My collarbones protruded out of me like mountains out of the earth, and when I lifted my dirty shirt, I could see my ribs. I never saw myself so pitiable before, but if anyone did pity me, I understood why.

I was one sad final Champion.

That didn't stop me from trying to walk into the bedroom with my head held high, determined to get something figured out. I was feeling a little better, and I hoped that was a good sign for my survival. And I couldn't help but be glad that all these Pokémon were with me instead of someone else. Mine, Lance's, Red's, Blue's… I prayed they were okay with me.

Silver was standing as I entered the room, looking unsure whether he could sit on my bed or not. "Sit down!" I said, gesturing to my bed, and—just as quickly as he had walked out of the bathroom—he hastily took a seat. I noticed as he furrowed his eyebrows, looking completely mystified.

"Tell me to do something else," Silver demanded, holding a finger up. I bit my lip, unsure of what this would prove. Why?

"Go walk into the bathroom and then come back."

Silver rose to his feet and walked into the bathroom, just like I told him, but as soon as he reached it, he turned right back around. As he sat back down on the bed, I laughed, my head throbbing once again (if anything needed to go away next, it was the headaches). What was he doing? Was he going crazy?

"So? You can walk into a bathroom."

Silver shook his head. "I had no choice. With any of that stuff. You told me to do something, and I had to do it. You told me to leave the bathroom, and my legs started moving. You told me to sit down, and I sat like an obedient dog. You told me to go into the bathroom and come back, and I had to do that. I had no choice. Just like with Clay."

Just like with Clay? Well, what the hell did that mean? Maybe—no. It couldn't be. That didn't make any sense. Mew was the strongest Pokémon.

"Silver… I don't have to obey Clay. Back there, right after the transference… he told me to not think negatively, and I didn't have to. I could think whatever I wanted to. And he said he couldn't read my mind anymore—"

"I can't either. I haven't been able to at all. Ever since you… shit." Silver laughed, this being the first time I had ever heard his laugh, and he jumped to his feet. "Lyra! You're the new Master!" He laughed again, grabbing my arm and swinging me around. It was strange that the first time I ever saw Silver really happy was in such a precarious predicament like this.

"The thinking negatively thing doesn't make much sense, honestly. I can think whatever I want. Clay really doesn't have much control over that since that mind thinks what it wants. But maybe it's true. And I have to listen to you now, Clay can't read your thoughts and neither can I… I could never read Clay's mind. You're the new Master."

I put a hand over my mouth, completely disbelieving this. Had I just taken the reins away from Clay? Did he just land himself in a position of weakness from his own foolish actions? By believing himself to be superior, did he just cause his own downfall? Could I really win this thing? Did I have it set?

"We should test this, Silver. We should make sure—oh…" I grabbed the sides of my head with both of my hands, closing my eyes as a wave of something—I wasn't quite sure what—passed through me. "I need to… lie down… No! I can't now—oh no…"

The smile fell off his face before it had been there for too long. "Hold on, Lyra." Silver scooped me up with ease, feeling my forehead with the back of one of his hands. "Come on, you stupid Pokémon, don't kill our only hope before we've even tried to stop Clay. I need her alive. And so do you."

Without anything left to say, he teleported us out of the room, bringing me to help wherever I could find it.

Author's Note: A lot of people have asked me if Team "Xana" came from Code Lyoko. Just to clarify (I've told the people who asked individually, but for the rest of you), it didn't. Actually, I've never even heard of Code Lyoko! This is just an extremely odd coincidence! :D

So, I've been replaying Pearl… Team Xana is based a lot off of Team Galactic (just because they are seriously the weirdest and best villain group yet, and they have the coolest battle music), and so I looked up stuff about Team Galactic as sort of… research for this fanfiction. How the heck is Cyrus 27 (which is, coincidentally, the same age as Clay)? He does NOT look 27. He looks, like, 40. I don't get it… XD

For those of you who are curious as to why this update took so long, it's because I went to Florida to go to the Harry Potter park. It was AMAZING. If you have the chance to go, then go. The Flight of the Hippogriff ride isn't worth the wait if it's longer than 20 minutes (it's like a little kid rollercoaster), the Dragon's Challenge ride is fun (it used to be Dueling Dragons, so I've been on it before), and the ride in the castle was spectacular. And I went to Disney, too. I've been there so many times, I should just live in the parks.

Update next Tuesday, January 18th.

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon.