C'est La Vie (A Pokemon Y Storylocke)

by LunaKat17

"Never hesitate, never forget"—that is the motto of a Kantonian Trainer. To always keep moving forward, to pursue your dream no matter the cost, price, or consequences. And one Trainer from Kanto finds herself asking if such ideals can survive in Kalos, as she grapples with legends, villains, and secrets that were better left buried. (Based off my Pokemon Y Nuzlocke).

14. Chapter 5: Peste (Part 2)

Chapter 5—Peste
(noun)
—French for "plague", "scourge", or "pestilence"

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.

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Celestine had barely made it down the street before Shauna came up from behind and blocked her. The look on the Hoennian's face was some odd amalgamation of furious and horrified, Mint likely tucked away in her Ball while her Trainer confronted the beast.

The thought sent a curl of amusement through Celestine. Here was the brave little knight, dressed in armor of pink and glitter, armed with a sword in the form of a spiky little chipmunk sheathed in a metal Ball. And Celestine? Well, she was the beast of the story, at least in this tale. If Shauna continued to stand by Celestine, to cling to her and follow after her like a shadow, then it was only a matter of time before the real monsters reared their heads. But knights didn't kill monsters. Monsters ate them up and spat out their bones and Celestine was the beacon. Once the monsters came running, Celestine knew couldn't fight them and protect the knight at the same time. She would have to choose, and she knew she would have to choose protection—it was a simple fact, but a fatal one, because while Celestine was invulnerable, an Aesith of supernatural power, Shauna was painfully mortal and painfully killable.

Celestine was here to fight monsters. She could only do that if she was alone, with no one to focus her efforts on protecting.

I'm going to get you killed, knight, she thought ruefully.

"What the fuck was that?" Shauna demanded, jabbing a finger at Celestine.

The Kantonian narrowed her eyes.

"No, seriously, what was that? I mean, I get that you're mad she almost killed Ray. I get that. Hell, I'm okay with you yelling at her. But hitting her. Physically assaulting her—you can't do that, you hear me!? That's not okay, under any circumstances! Two wrongs do not make a right, and— Are you even listening to me?"

"No," Celestine said flatly.

Shauna's jaw dropped. "Celestine!"

The world of Transcendence was treacherous and frightful, a mad world that existed so close to the world of normality that anyone caught in the middle would be crushed and it would make claustrophobics scream. Celestine recalled the sunrise, the golden divide, and knew what she had to do.

"Why do you even care?" she asked softly, so calm and level that she surprised herself.

"...what?"

Celestine forced her brows to arch as if Shauna's blinking bewilderment baffled her, force the words to come out, even though the broke inside her chest like shards of glass and they cut her tongue as they spilled out.

"Why on earth would you possibly care about some random foreigner who you hardly know? Despite what you believe, Shauna, we're not friends." And it hurt to say it, hurt to remember that she was meant to stand alone and face the beasts, but everyone else was weak and only she could do this. Had to do this, wanted to do this, so she kept going, and the glass broke in her throat and it hurt, hurt, hurt, but she kept going. "And I don't want to be, don't need to be. And if I wanted or needed a friend, someone like you would hardly be my first choice. I mean, honestly? Not only is your reason for this Journey flimsy, but you're not even dedicated, and that honestly makes me pity you."

Shauna took a step back, as if she'd been struck, her eyes flashing with a scintillating hurt. "What...?"

Celestine was bleeding inside. Her tongue was being sliced open and Tanner was trying to ask her what she was doing, Delphi pawing at her chest and peering up at her with a question in his eyes. But she remembered red—red goggles and wicked smiles and silent screams and pain—and she told herself she was a protector, that this was the right thing, and that made it easier to say, "You wanted to go on a Journey to live your life, and yet you slow down to tell someone else how to live? Words can't describe how stupid that is. I hardly know you. I almost left you in the Forest, and you still consider me a friend? Honestly! Hell, I wanted to leave you there. Do you have any idea how annoying you are? I mean, you drag me along just so you can talk about anime, of all the ridiculous things. And you don't take anything seriously. Battles, this Journey, me.

"I'm not some girl who moved in across the street that you can turn into your new BFF after a week or two, talking about boys and watching chick flicks with. I came here for one reason only—a Journey, one that I have been planning for a long time, and, newsflash, you're not part of that plan. If anything, you're royally fucking it up."

Shauna's reaction was slow and really quite spectacular to watch, seeing shock turn to confusion turn to a slow-burning anger turn to hurt. Seeing her brows lower and furrow and turn her forehead into a wrinkled mess, seeing her lower lip twitch and quiver and her eyes turn wet. "Geez, I didn't realize trying be your friend was such an inconvenience."

Celestine forced out a sharp, mocking laugh while the mantra the right thing, the right thing, the right thing spun in her head. "Oh, don't give me that 'all I've ever been was nice to you' act! Can you honestly say that you're happy, trailing after me like a shadow? Inconveniencing yourself for my sake?"

Shauna opened her mouth to fire off a retort—but she stopped suddenly, blinking and closing her mouth, her expression changed from angered hurt to thoughtful. And from there, it morphed into something almost shameful, guilty, biting her lip and looking away.

"I thought so." Celestine brushed past her, trying to ignore the stinging in the back of her eyes. "Let's just do each other a favor and, just, stop. I'll go to the Center, and you go connect to the WonderTrade network, and let's not get in each other's way anymore. Okay? Okay. Great."

There was a stretch of silence and Celestine kept walking. Tanner tried to say something, but she silenced him with a light flick to the head, and she didn't meet Delphi's pleading gaze below her. It was over and Celestine felt like there was giant papercut all along her insides, but at least it was a clean break and now it was over—

"I don't get you!" Celestine stopped and glanced over her shoulder—the one Tanner wasn't sitting on—to see Shauna, bristled and furious, tears glinting in the corners of eyes blazing with hurt. "Just when I thought you were finally opening up— Are you, like, afraid of people getting to know you or something?!"

It took all of Celestine's self control to keep her breathing even. The papercut inside felt like it'd been doused in saline. "Why would I be afraid? You hardly know me."

"Look," Shauna said in a slightly more placating tone. "I get that you've got some intimacy issues, and a bunch of other shit to work out. But I can help—"

"I don't want help. I don't need help." Celestine turned away. "Do yourself a favor and leave me alone."

Celestine heard what sounded like a shuddering gasp, followed by the sound of heels clicking against the brick walkways, but she didn't look back. She started walking again, ignoring the way her throat clamped and seemed intent on strangling her from the inside out.

"Hey." Tanner's voice was harsh, scolding, paternal, and the sound it almost made her laugh. "Was that really necessary?"

"Yes," she said, and deep in her heart, she believed it. Doing the right thing hurt sometimes.

"Oh really?" She could feel Tanner glaring at her, but she kept her eyes trained forward on the brick paths and matching brick buildings. He sounded accusatory, harsh and angry. "And what did that accomplish, exactly?"

The horizon was dipping and bobbing, but maybe that was just the pounding her head, the feeling of the ground turning liquid. Above her head, the buildings soared and squeezed at her.

I'd leave you here too, she thought, flicking her eyes briefly over to Tanner and then to Delphi before looking ahead again, if I could. If I didn't need you. But I do, and I'm sorry for being so selfish.

"You wouldn't understand."

---

Santalune was a picturesque city. It had towering brick buildings with stucco roofs of teal green shingles, multileveled and uniform, cookie cutter prints of themselves. The path was dotted with the occasional brick arch that towered overhead, allowed people to hide under them and bathe themselves in shadow, flowering vines of something that looked either ivy or morning glories yet to flower winding around the stone in a parasitic embrace. In the distance and towering above all the other buildings was a needle-like structure that boasted an aged bronze bell, indicative of old history, of a place that had been around for a long, long time and valued its heritage enough to keep the relic buildings of its founding. Now that Celestine thought about it, a lot of these buildings looked old—occasionally catching a wisp of ivy climbing up the side of the wall—if not immaculately maintained.

Asphodel flowers lined green patches in the streets, bursting out of their stems like fireworks into six-pointed white flowers with rosy streaks dividing the petals, lovely bright colors that were eye-catching enough to be distracting. In contrast, potted planets that hung from what Celestine assumed were apartments were filled by bellwort, which possessed drooping, bell-shaped yellow blooms that hung like the stems were lowering themselves in shame. Downtown was busy and cluttered with rustic cafes, people walking around at leisure paces like they knew where they wanted to go but didn't care how long it took to get there, like time was slow, syrupy thing that could bend to their will and they had it all at their fingertips. Almost everyone Celestine passed had a cup of coffee or a pastry in their hand, which really spoke to this region's eating habits, didn't it? But sometimes, when she peered through the buildings, she caught glimpses of green grass and tall trees likely a park of some kind. Some people were meandering in that direction, free and easy and without a care.

Yes, Santalune was picturesque city, but it was also maze-like and bewildering, paths crisscrossing and feeding into each other, almost grid-like in its format. Every time Celestine made a turn, she felt like she was going in a circle and soon enough, she would either end up back where she'd begun or find herself in that park she'd been glimpsing earlier. After the fifth time of accidentally ending up in that damn park and finding herself glaring at the fountain in the center—a stylized marble structure set on a tiled dais, a Roselia statue with crystalline streams of water overflowing from its twin roses and a serene expression on its face—she was beginning to really hate this city.

While Tanner continually offered to get an aerial view, Celestine had to remind him (constantly, the bird had the attention span of a goldfish) that his sprained wing kept that from being a viable option. She contemplated asking for directions several times, but she had a feeling that she went up to speak to someone, they would probably ignore her. So far, no one had singled her out or paid too much attention to her, and she was stuck trying to decide if that was because it was normal for Trainers to show up dishevelled after trekking through the Forest or if they thought she was homeless and they were trying desperately to pretend she didn't exist, like they often did with subjects they didn't like so much.

Delphi was quiet. Had been since she'd fought with Shauna almost an hour ago. Celestine could tell he was anxious to get to the Center—he shouldn't be, the Ball stasis was cutting edge tech that would preserve Ray's physical condition right down to the very last molecule—but she could understand his concern, and was walking at a brisk pace out of her own concern for the Panpour's wellbeing. His anxiety might also stem from the fact that he was out of Fire Aura, his bread and butter, and likely felt next to useless at the moment. It would be enough to make her anxious, if she were in his position.

He was still in her arms, having not asked to go back on her shoulder, and she had yet to offer.

She ended up in the park again, for a sixth time, and it was then that she had it. Gritting her teeth and stamping her left foot in frustration—bad idea, she was still standing on the cement path, so she'd probably just bruised the underside of her foot, fucking ouch—she allowed her gaze to rove the park for someone to ask for directions.

Her eyes landed on a young man standing near the fountain, handing out flyers to passing pedestrians, and she frowned. She'd spotted him earlier, and his strange attire alone was enough to draw her attention—a white collared shirt and a black tie peeking out from a blood orange business suit, and sunglasses with frames and colored lenses that matched his blazer. But there was also the eagerness, the insistence with which he handed out flyers that bordered crazed and made her all the more skeptic of his presence, and what Tanner had said to her when she'd first spotted him.

"He's wearing the same color as those poachers who invaded the Route," the bird had growled upon the stumbling into the park for the first time, eying the man distrustfully. "And he's all sweaty. I don't trust 'im."

Celestine had ignored it at first, but now... The man rushed over to an otherwise oblivious couple and said something to them, body language agitated and waving a flyer at them. They each took one to pacify him and got the hell out of there.

Huh.

She tentatively made her way over to him. "Ah, excuse me?"

The man turned to her and she instinctively flinched away from him. Even with sunglasses shielding his eyes, Celestine got the distinct feeling of a crazed glint in his eye. "Mademoiselle! Are you here to learn about Team Flare?"

She blinked. "Team what now?"

"Team Flare!" the man exclaimed loudly. He took a flyer from his stack—all of them the same gaudy orange like his suit—and waved it in her face. Celestine barely made out the words

"Florence Lysandre For Prime Minister" in a rather festive font, but it all blurred into big black blurs from the way he was shaking it. "Every vote counts! Would you like to hear our policy?"

"Policy?" Celestine repeated, bewildered. What was happening?

"Yes! All the things we're going to change once Team Flare takes the office—improved economy, more jobs, and we'll be sure to reign in the League, improve it! Dissolve conglomerates, establish universal healthcare, decrease poverty, you name it!"

Celestine blinked again. She glanced down at Delphi, who looked absolutely slack-jawed, and then at Tanner, who was glaring at the man with the same persistent expression of distrust—then she looked back at the man and blinked a third time. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The man paused, his mouth pulling into a tight frown. "Mademoiselle, are you not aware of the upcoming elections?"

"The what now?"

"Elections, mademoiselle! For Prime Minister and his cabinet! For power over the executive branch!"

Celestine fixed the man with a blank stare. "I don't know what any of that means."

"The election for Prime Minister! It's held every four years!" the man said emphatically, shaking the single flyer around so violently it snapped around in the air. "Every vote is important, mademoiselle! Flare has limited power in the Senate and we need to snatch the position of Prime Minister up if we're going to make real change! 'We're all striving to create a beautiful world'!"

He looked at her expectantly. Celestine continued to stare blankly.

"Come on! That's out tagline!"

"I... I don't..."

"Are you or are you not a Kalosian citizen?" he asked her urgently.

Well, the law stated that citizenship was passed down if at least one of the parents possessed it—in the New Continent, anyway—and Celestine's mother had been a naturalized Kalosian citizen. Celestine herself hadn't technically received Kantonese citizenship until she applied for a Trainer's license, but she'd kept the citizenship her parents passed down to her. "...technically, yes?"

His face broke into a grin that was probably meant to be excited, but just came off as crazed and made Celestine want to flinch away. "Great! Then you can vote for Team Flare!" He thrust the flyer in her face. "Here! Help us put Florence Lysandre in office!"

Celestine spluttered and batted the flyer out of her face. It fluttered to the ground, discarded, like a too-bright autumn leaf. "Hold on a sec! Look, I was just going to ask for directions to the Center—"

"Are you saying you don't want to vote for Florence Lysandre?" the man demanded, aghast, and his accent turned harsh and thick and that made him somehow menacing.

Celestine felt her hackles rise, and she took a hesitant step back. The air around the man had changed to something more confrontational than she would have liked. "I—"

"You would rather vote for some ignorant, selfish bigot than someone as benevolent as Monsieur Lysandre?" the man spat. "You would rather put Perrier and his gang of selfish dilettantes in charge of our great region?"

"What—"

"You cannot trust a man like that! Have you heard that he cheated on his wife, not once, but three times? With three different mistresses! The man can't even be faithful to his own wife, and you'd trust him to run the region? My good woman, surely you realize that Monsieur Lysandre, a noted philanthropist who makes donations to a different charity each year and has funded many construction projects dedicated to housing the poor—and dedicates his time to volunteer at local soup kitchens and homeless shelters—is a much better candidate! He built Lysandre Corp from the ground up, oversaw the development of the HoloCaster and the improvements to the PC system, the invention of the Battle Box, funded the implementation of healing machines in poorer towns! Because of him, treatment centers were established in rural villages like Aquacorde! Pokémon Centers were founded in Camphrier and Ambrette! He has done so much good, and what has Perrier done? Had an illegitimate, Hoennian bastard by a cheap stripper who flunked law school."

She held her hand up in almost defensive way, trying to keep him at bay, to keep him from invading her precious personal bubble any more than he already was. Seriously, she was heavily resisting the urge to drop-kick him in the face. "That's nice, but—"

"Mademoiselle, how can I persuade you to vote for Monsieur Lysandre, and put Team Flare in its rightful position of power, where we can make the difference needed? As we speak, the world is becoming uglier and uglier, and at its core, Team Flare's mission is to keep the beauty in this world from becoming lost forever." The man waved his stack of blood-orange fliers urgently. "We must act before it's too late! We—"

"Excuse me, Monsieur," came another voice to Celestine's right, familiar and slightly condescending, and Celestine never thought she'd be so relieved to hear it. She turned just in time to see Calem approaching, his hair slightly mussed and a large blue amphibian perching on his shoulder that resembled Hayami slightly—the same white foam, blue color scheme, and rheumy yellow eyes, but larger and leaner and darker. His grey eyes were alarmingly neutral as he stepped between the man and Celestine, and flashed a placating smile. "If I may interject—I know this girl, you see, and she's only seventeen, not of legal voting age. I'm afraid your passionate words will make no difference, either way."

The strange man deflated a little. "I see." Then he perked up. "Are you—"

"Also not of legal age, unfortunately," Calem said, as if it were some great tragedy. He smiled, a little sadly, the kind of lovely smiles you saw on flyers for some unfortunate cause like cancer or lupis or something. The sort of smile that was sad but hopeful. Poster boy type. "I admire your ardor, though, monsieur. It seems as though Flare has quite an impressive backing."

The man puffed up in pride. "Well of course! Monsieur Lysandre is set on changing the world for the better!"

"Oui, Monsieur. But your efforts are better spent elsewhere." Calem glanced over at Celestine, his gaze unreadable, and Celestine felt the urge to bristle defensively. "Celestine here is new to the region and, even if she were of legal age, likely doesn't understand how the government system in Kalos works. And even then, I don't think she's staying permanently."

The man cast Celestine a pitying look. "I see. My apologies, Mademoiselle. I must have dumped a lot of information on you."

"...yeah, little bit," Celestine mumbled, somehow finding her voice. This whole situation was really starting to weird her out, now. Calem seemed to know what this fanatic was talking about, and was playing the part of concerned citizen to a tee. She couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not, couldn't decide whether this was sincere or him being a brilliant actor, and it unnerved her.

"I'll leave you two be." And with that, the man went off to terrorize some other potential voters.

Celestine turned to Calem, her shoulders knotted with tension that she couldn't quite explain. It was a little thing, helping her wriggle her way out of a tricky situation, but it felt oddly intimating, letting him see her in a moment of weakness. Where Celestine had come from, weaknesses were often things you kept under lock and key, and letting the outward front of strength slip away was reserved only for those close to you, only when things grew uncomfortably intimate. "Um, thanks. For, uh. Whatever it was you did."

"No problem," he answered noncommittally, allowing the façade of politeness to fade back into his usually indifference. He turned away from her to give his amphibian a loving rub on the back of its head. It had to be Hayami—evolved, maybe, but that begged the question of how she'd evolved so fast. "Don't worry about him. It's election season and lots of people get kinda… Well, like Unova and sports season, or I guess Kanto and Tournament season is an analogy you'll understand."

She recalled Tournament season in Kanto and cringed. "Yikes."

He flashed her a sidelong look from his peripheral. "Yeah. Kalos is kind of a politician's playground, and it stretches from every corner. Kinda surprising Flare would try to campaign in Santalune, though. The city's notoriously conservative, and Flare is incredibly liberal."

"You know what's really incredible? How democracy preaches freedom, but they make impossible for you to make your own decisions."

"Oh?"

"Politics are literally the most unconceivably idiotic and convoluted thing in existence. Campaign speeches, slander, ridiculous infomercials. It's like we're being systematically brainwashed. The truth gets distorted and exaggerated to the point where you can't tell what's fact and what's fiction." To his bewildered expression, she fixed him with a flat look and shrugged. "Just goes to show the stupidity mankind involves itself in when it goes unmanaged."

Calem arched a brow, seeming amused by trying to hide it and largely succeeding, but it still showed through just a little. "Well, geez. I'd call you a cynic but I think that'd be an understatement."

She shrugged again. "Sorry, but the 'freedom' associated with democracy doesn't exactly agree with my definition. And besides—there wasn't any politics in the League. We didn't have to suffer through elections or campaigns. The only circus shows we had were actual circuses."

He hummed, turning to her fully. "But unless you have enough skill in battles to stand out from the crowd, you didn't have much of a say, either."

"...fair point." She brushed her hair out of her eyes. "But no system's perfect."

He regarded her for a moment—not in a way that was judgemental or disdainful, or anything that might suggest prejudice of any kind, but it made Celestine's skin prickle all the same. "You look like you just came out of the Forest," he said after a minute.

She shuffled awkwardly, feeling the air change. It was one thing to speak her mind when it came to Kalos vs Kanto. Every minute of every day, she was quietly cataloguing all the differences, and it was a little relieving to get it all out in the open. But casual conversations required thought and careful tiptoing around certain subjects, navigating potential landmines. Yeah, she'd rather be decapitated. Or... have someone attempt to decapitate her, because Aesith were unkillable. You get the idea. "Yeah, I, uh... Kinda did. Just today."

"Yeah, it shows."

Before Celestine could feel properly indignant about that remark, Delphi piped up from the cradle of her arms, "You wouldn't happen to know where the Center is, would you?"

Honestly, in all the confusion and with his body not emitting its natural warmth, she'd almost forgotten his presence, and was a little surprised to hear him speak. He normally didn't stick his nose in—but there was a touch of anxiety in his tone that made her wonder if he was asking out of worry for Ray.

"Certainly," the amphibian answered in a voice that was very much like Hayami's, only a little deeper and with more of a smoothness to it. "Take two rights, then a left, go straight for about twenty minutes, take a right, and there you are. We just came from there, actually."

"Arigato." Celestine arched a brow at Calem. "Did Hayami evolve? I, uh—I ask because I have no experience with, ah, Kalos Pokémon. Like, whatsoever."

A smirk of self satisfaction curled his lips. Not a smug one, but one that appeared after a long period of hard work and dedication. They'd probably done a lot of training. "Yeah, just this morning. She's a Frogedier now."

"It was necessary if we are to take on the Gym here," Hayami said, holding her head a little higher. "The Gym Leader may go easy on beginners, but there is no such thing as being too careful."

Celestine arched a brow. "There's a Gym in this city?"

Calem eyed her warily, but nodded.

"Huh."

"...are you thinking of challenging it?"

At that, she shook her head and allowed a little chuckle. It was stale-sounding, empty and weak. "Oh, god no. Just nice to know where they're located, though."

"Oh."

"Yeah." The muscle in her left shoulder itched with the urge to fidget. The tension was so thick in the air you could cut it with a knife, listen to it scream and watch it bleed out between them. It was alive and suffocating. "I, uh, just want to check in and take a shower."

"And get that stick out of your hair, right?"

"...what stick."

"The stick in your hair." Calem gestured to the right side of his head, wincing sympathetically. "Right there. It looks a little like you're growing a tree."

She shifted Delphi over to her other arm, and then reached out and groped the side of her head for a moment. Then, here, where her hair reached the base of her shoulders, she felt something hard and wooden. Flushing in embarrassment, she grabbed hold and took great care not to yank as she pulled it out—and lo and behold, there it was, in all its glory. A leafless, jagged-looking stick that had been embedded in her mane of tangled hair and sat there for who-knows-how-long, making her look like a homeless wild girl.

She leveled Tanner and Delphi with a glare. "How the hell long has that been in there?" she demanded.

"Since this morning," Delphi answered guilelessly.

"And neither of you thought to say anything?"

"I thought it was a fashion statement," Tanner said with a shrug. "I never know what you humans consider fashionable."

Celestine gawked at him.

"Can I keep it?" Delphi asked shyly.

"...what?"

"The stick. Can I keep it?"

"Why?"

Delphi blinked guilelessly. "'Cause it's a good-looking stick. Please?"

Calem let out an amused snort, drawing Celestine's attention back to him. Hayami gave him a light whack to the side of his head and a stern look.

Celestine considered calling him out on it, but she decided against it. The last thing she needed was to worsen things, to add fuel to the fire. There was already enough complicating relations between them without thickening the tension, adding to the animosity.

...speaking which.

"Hey, um." Awkwardly, she gave Delphi the stick, and he took it into his jaws with a contently wagging tail. She tried to look Calem in the eye, but her gaze kept sliding to his nose. This was so weird, so foreign and strange. "I..."

"I'm sorry," Calem blurted, and Celestine blinked in surprise. She had never thought him as being the first to break, and she would have stopped him, tried to get her own apology in—because she was the one who needed to apologize—but there was something in his eyes that made her pause.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, I... I didn't send Alistair after you or anything but... He pulls stunts like that a lot, and he probably had a grudge against you, so—I guess I should have seen it coming, but I was exhausted and had to put with Tierno's snoring because Trevor wouldn't let me back in the room, and I know that's no excuse but..." He paused, running his hand roughly over his face, and sighed heavily. "What I'm trying to say is, it's partially my fault for not keeping him on a leash. If I'd been in your situation, I'd probably be humiliated."

"...yeah, well." Celestine shrugged hopelessly, not sure what else to do. She felt like she should move, do something, instead of just standing there and doing nothing. "It was no excuse to react the way I did. The slap... was uncalled for."

"Is slapping in general uncalled for?" Tanner asked cautiously.

"Depends on the situation," she answered coolly, pinning him with a glare.

The Pidgey huffed and ruffled his feathers, but said nothing.

She turned back to Calem, her mouth suddenly dry. It was thick in the air, this tension. It pressed against her chest and against the back of her throat, heavy and tyrannical. It was a pregnant pause, one filled to the brim with a thousand words that she couldn't articulate, a thousand ways to convey an apology that had yet to fully solidify in her mind. There had to be something she could do or say to erase it, to wipe the slate clean, but there was so much to say and no way for her to put it into words. It left like she'd swallowed too-big pieces of gum that had gotten lodged in her throat, and she couldn't speak, let alone breathe, without the risk of gagging.

But she'd told Shauna off for a reason, and maybe this discomfort was a necessary incentive to keep him as far away from her as possible. It was better that way, after all.

"I don't mean to be an alarmist," Delphi piped up tentatively, "but we really need to get to the Center."

"Right!" She tried to construe her expression into something she hoped was apologetic. "Um, I gotta... yeah."

"I should be going too," Calem said, voice a little strained. He scratched the back of his head absently, and Celestine wondered if he felt as awkward as she did. "Y'know, Gym battle and all."

"Right." Celestine took a step to the side, removing herself from his path. She felt her ears starting to burn, because, god, this was kind of pathetic.

He eyed her for a moment before stepping past. She could see the tension wrought in his shoulder, the way he tensed as he did so, as if expecting her to reach out and scratch him across the face. He was smart, she decided, to recognize danger where it was. It was more than Shauna, anyway.

She should apologize. She should. It was the right thing. She was wrong, she knew she was. But the words weren't coming out, trapped somewhere inside the endless alveoli and bronchioles of her lungs, damned to forever swirl around her airways and vocal chords. And she recalled the crimson splash of Ray's blood on the dandelions, remembering that she had priorities of her own.

She turned and began to leave.

"Hey, Celestine?"

Celestine stopped and looked back. Calem had stopped, too, and a warzone was taking place on his countenance, eyes flashing with some tentative but resolute. He opened his mouth as if to say something, hesitated, drew it into a thin line, and then repeated. For one awful moment, Celestine thought he was going to push and pry and try to rip the apology out of her.

"Yes?" She tried to sound impatient enough to make him annoyed and leave in a huff. "Something you wanna say?"

It seemed to have the desired effect, because he scowled. "I just wanted to make sure you remembered the directions to the Center."

"Right, right, left, straight for twenty minutes, and then right—did I get that correct?"

"...yeah."

"Okay. Are we done here?"

Calem's brows furrowed at the curtness of her tone. "...I guess we are."

And he turned away.

She bit her lip. Leaving things like this, no matter how much better it was in the long run, didn't feel right.

"Hey, Calem?"

He glanced back at her.

"Good luck on your Gym battle."

His expression softened, and he blinked in surprise. "...thanks."

"You're welcome," she said. "Even though I don't think you'll need it. You're... you're good."

His brows arched in surprise, but by then she had turned and started speed-walking away.

---

When Celestine thought of a Pokémon Center, she imagined a squat, one-story building with cherry red walls and a round, flat roof. It was a long structure, standing short but wide, more like an above-ground bunker than a medical building, with automatic sliding doors composed of translucent blue glass and a great window near the top that depicted the League's symbol, indicating the government's sponsorship. Apparently, the design was a remnant from the days of the Crimson War, when buildings needed to be strong enough to survive the explosion of bombshells and tunnels wormed their way underground, providing enough room to house over a thousand patients and staff each. The medical wing made up the entire aboveground, save for the lobby, while rental quarters and recovery rooms were located below. Of course, her experience with Centers was isolated to the one in Viridian, which had an immaculate lobby full of potted plants and a polished wooden counter and had a seemingly perpetual aroma of pine sap. She recalled rows of mint-colored PCs and video-phones along the left wall, a silver healing machine located just behind the front desk and the nurse's station. As a young Trainer, eager to train and battle, Celestine had been in and out of the Viridian Center so often she knew the names of all the nurses and when their shifts began and ended. She never stayed below ground, though, into the winding tunnels of the Center's rental quarters—a native from Viridian City with a home to go back to had no need to stay overnight at a hospital's underground hotel—or had seen beyond the lobby, into the white inner workings of the hospital itself, but it still felt as familiar to her as the back of her hand.

It was jarring, then, to stand outside a Kalosian Center and find it so different. The cherry red color hadn't changed, nor the automatic sliding glass doors or the League symbol on a high up glass window—though it was slightly more stylized than Celestine recalled, but that was just the symbol of the New Continent Leagues—but instead of a squat, bunker-esque building, what she stood in front of was a tall, glossy tower, all shiny and new-looking and multileveled. A metal ring framed the roof, an emblem of a Poké Ball shining in the light. A great, half-cylindrical metal awning stretched out at the front, supported by columns that looked like they were glass but would have collapsed under the awning's weight, and gave Celestine the impression that she was visiting a hotel rather than a medical center.

"...is this normal for Pokémon Centers here?" she asked.

Delphi looked at her like she was the one who had something wrong with her rather than the Center not looking the way it should. He had set his stuck down, keeping in place by folding his paws over it. The rough wood pressed against Celestine's forearm. "Of course."

Right. Different region, different buildings.

Right.

She walked in.

The interior was different, too. A half-circle reception desk made from a glossy red substance sat in the center of the interior, a stark contrast from polished white tile floors and powder blue walls, with a twitchy male nurse stationed behind it. Behind him, a healing machine rose up from the ground—not one of the state-of-the-art things Celestine was used to, the kind with rows and rows of Ball-holders that could perform emergency Aura-recovery on about six full teams at once, but rather a too-large, clunky-looking thing seemingly connected to an enormous electronic screen mounted to the wall just above it—and Celestine noted that it seemed as though the desk (two of them, actually) circled the column, making two healing machines and two on-duty nurses in total. To the left wall, a line of PC machines and outdated video-phones, all as crimson as the counters, were stationed, Trainers flocking to them to either withdraw boxed teammates or make quick calls to their loved ones (of course, while their HoloCasters charged). On the opposite wall, couches and benches had been set up, and a table with various pastries and what looked like a functioning Keurig sat in the corner. Several other Trainers were relaxing in this makeshift lounge, sipping their beverages or munching on their treats, chatting almost lazing. Celestine's gaze slid to the back left, were the wall dipped into a pair of glass doors clearly marked "rental rooms", behind which she could glimpse long corridors that reminded her of the rest stop she'd stayed at on the way here, all rich and warm colors that should have looked homey but were too new to pull it off correctly. At the back, a few elevators were stationed, gleaming grey metal, opening and closing periodically, people shuffling in and out in steady streams.

Exactly opposite of was a small pocket tucked into the corner, blue instead of the usual red. A glossy blue desk was set up with two young men wearing that standard uniform of Poké Mart employees stationed behind it. Shelves of Trainer gear sat behind the pair, as well as an industrial-grade Storage Key, the kind that could tap into the PCs owned by companies and withdraw stock (thus eliminating the chemical degradation that would have happened if it just sat on some shelf in a warehouse somewhere). And behind that was a large electronic screen mounted to the wall, proudly broadcasting the Pokemon Mart, the slogan scrolling underneath.

(This... didn't make sense. Poké Marts were cheery little buildings with bright blue roofs and bright white interiors, with isles and isles of brightly-colored gear. Food packs, medical supplies, TMs, Poké Balls, digital mail, etc.. They were staffed by brightly smiling employees with cerulean aprons, not these bored men who were leaning over their desks, cheeks supported by fists. Poké Marts were separate buildings and, yeah, this may be more practical, but Celestine had fond memories of wandering through isles while Draco scampered across the top shelf, trying to not knock any of the merch off the shelves—)

A faint buzzing from the base of her neck snapped her out of her reverie. Wincing, she massaged the spot—stupid computer chip—and made her made her way to the nurse's desk.

She tapped on the counter. "Excuse me."

At the sound of her voice, the nurse jumped and straightened, an urgency in his eyes. Celestine arched a brow at this. Nurses usually didn't react with such intense alarm to a Trainer showing up for a regular healing.

"I'd like to have my Pokémon healed, please."

The nurse relaxed. "Of course. Their Balls, please."

Delphi leaped nimbly onto the counter, stick in his mouth, allowing Celestine to pull out her team's Balls and set them down in front of her on the lacquered surface. She couldn't help but noticed how red the counter was. How ironic that a hospital define itself by the color of blood.

She pulled out her Trainer Card and set it down next to the row of dichromatic spheres. The nurse took said Card and swiped in on some machine beneath the counter, earning a satisfying ding.

"Anything I should be looking for?" he asked as Celestine returned Tanner to his Ball and set it back down with the others. She grabbed Delphi's Ball to do the same.

Celestine's brow arched higher. Not a question she usually got at Centers. Oh well, different region, different procedure. "Um, okay. Tanner—the Pidgey I just returned—he has a sprained wing that needs special attention. My Fennekin here is out of Aura, and my Panpour is in critical."

The nurse's head snapped up. "Come again?"

Her brows furrowed. Normally nurses were more professional, more impersonal. She pulled out her Trainer Card and placed "...the whole thing, or just that last part?"

"You said your Panpour was in critical?" the nurse asked incredulously.

"That is what I said, yes." Celestine recalled the incident—the blood and the Fletchling and Rinka—and snapped her fingers. "Which reminds me. Do you have a complaint form I can fill out?"

"What?"

"A complaint form. Against a Field Trainer?"

The man blinked uncomprehendingly.

"They're called Class Trainers here," Delphi supplied. He'd dropped the stick at his feet, tail curled around it protectively.

Right. "Okay. I want to file a complaint against a Class Trainer."

"For what reason?" asked the nurse.

Celestine frowned. "For putting my Panpour in critical."

He frowned back, his expression turning oddly hard. "Mademoiselle, if you are going to involve yourself in Reaper Battles, that is hardly your opponent's fault."

Her frown deepened. There was a clear disdain in his tone, one that clearly showed his disapproval of Reaper Battles and all who involved themselves in them. "That's the thing—this wasn't a Reaper Battle. My opponent landed a condensed attack. I think I have a right to fill out a complaint form."

"You seem very calm about this," the nurse said cautiously.

Oh. Oh.

So that's what it was.

Celestine's eyes narrowed. "Just because I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off doesn't mean I'm not worried or concerned. I happen to find being calm like this gets more done and increases my team's chances of getting the help they need, and that's something I've learned from a lot of time as a Trainer. I'm sorry if my experience comes off as sociopathic, but I'm more concerned with getting my team healed than receiving a stranger's judgement."

Delphi looked stunned by this, but the nurse blinked slowly, unfazed. "You'll have to forgive me, Mademoiselle..." The nurse stole a quick glance under the counter. "Lavieaux. But one of my jobs is to keep an eye out for and report potential Berserkers."

"If that's the case, then let me file my report and I'll get back to you." Celestine pushed the four Poké Balls forward slightly. "In the meantime."

The nurse's mouth tightened. "Please return your Fennekin to its Ball, and I'll get you that form."

"Arigato," Celestine said with strained politeness.

The nurse turned, and Celestine grabbed Delphi's Ball.

"Can I keep the stick?" Delphi asked as she enlarged it.

She cast him a blank look. "What is it with you and this stick?"

He flattened his ears and averted his gaze. "...my evolutions utilize a stick for attacks. I just, kinda, figured I'd find one early and save it for, y'know, later."

Celestine paused. Delphi was young, naïve and inexperienced, his knowledge of the outside world likely sourced from books and stories but not real-world experienced. This had to have him reeling. Maybe obsessing over the stick was his way of distracting himself. Maybe talking about evolution was him thinking about getting stronger and trying to keep this event from repeating. But she didn't know, because she didn't know him. Delphi was still an enigma to her, just as she was to him.

I promised to talk to him once we got here.

She grabbed the stick and placed it in her bag. "There. We're keeping it. Happy?"

It hadn't meant to come out as curt as it had, and it made Delphi wince. The nurse turned back to her and placed the form on the counter, a scowl on his face. Whether it was directed at her tone or he just generally disliked her, Celestine didn't know. And, right now, she didn't really care.

Whatever. She returned Delphi and set his Ball down. The scowling nurse took her team without a word, turning his back to her as he loaded the Balls into the top tray of the healing machine to his left.

Celestine scanned the form. Fairly standard. "Do you have a pen?"

"No." The nurse turned back to her and set her card down, hard enough for the plastic to make an audible snap when it hit the counter. He pushed it close to her, fingers blotting the picture ID. "I'm assuming you want a room?"

"If at all possible, yes." If she and Delphi were going to talk, it should be somewhere private.

"Can't rent you a room until you have at least one healing docked in the records," drawled the nurse. He took his hand off her Card, allowing her to tentatively reclaim it.

"...what?" That didn't make a lick of sense.

"It's protocol, Mademoiselle. I can only assign you a room once your team is done healing."

Celestine frowned, pocketing her Card. "So I have to wait five minutes until I can rent a room?"

"Twenty, actually."

Her eyebrows flew up. "Twenty minutes for a healing?"

"One of your Pokémon is in critical," the nurse said stiffly. "It's going to take a while."

"In Kanto, that would take five minutes," she blurted before she could stop herself.

"This isn't Kanto." The nurse turned away. "There's a lounge at the front where you can wait in the meantime. Take a buzzer. It'll light up and vibrate when your team is done."

Celestine's frown deepened and she turned her gaze to what looked like a ticket dispenser located to her right. Only the thing sticking out of the opening was black and plastic looking. She pulled it out, and it turned out to be a flashdrive-shaped piece of plastic, smooth and sleek, a red LED light located in the center that was currently off.

She slipped it in her pocket, muttered a quick thanks, and turned away.

"We hope to see you again," the nurse called after her, bored and flat and with a tone that said he in no way hoped she would return.

---

NEWS 4-09

"...and that concludes the second official debate between Team Flare candidate Florence Lysandre and Conservative candidate Wendell Perrier! And boy, was it fantastic! Both candidates put a fierce fight, but it's quite clear that the debate went to Lysandre. While is still a shocking notion grasp for more invested politicians that a grassroots organization like Team Flare could gain such a footing within a handful of months, and gain a following far greater than any of the two main parties, Lysandre has indeed achieved this, and doesn't that just say something about his leadership abilities? Not only this, but he also beat out the head Liberal candidate, Arlette Lennox, for a spot on the ballet. Surely a man that can pull off such an impressive, formerly thought impossible, feat, would make him a shoe in for Prime Minister! And given the sheer positivity of their message and Lysandre's superior eloquence, perhaps it's not so surprising after all.

"Sadly, however, no great cause is without its naysayers, and Lysandre is not a man without critics. Many petty opponents and paranoid conspiracy theorists point to rumors of poachers bearing Flare's colors and of labs funded by Lysandre Corp performing classified research, claiming corruption or some conspiracy involving human experimentation,. Lysandre himself has publicly denied these claims and any investigation into these accusations have proved them baseless. The simple fact is that there is simply no evidence to back up these claims, and it makes the people who cling to them look stupid and ignorant. Likely, these people only slander him because of his status as an—

"Oh! There's Lysandre now! He has such a presence about him. So regal, and almost intimidating, in a sense. Reminds of my Pyroar a little— Aaaand he's gone. Damn. I wanted an interview. Oh well. I'm told he doesn't like unscheduled interviews anyway... Any attempts to catch him off-guard so far have failed, and likely won't succeed anytime soon. Still, it'd be nice to actually sit down and talk to him. Lysandre, for all his virtues, is a very private person, and he doesn't exactly flaunt his personal life. In fact, a few of his colleagues claim not to see him outside of the office at all.

"Well, that's all for day. This is Malva Rousseau, NEWS 4-09, signing off. Back to you, Steve!"

---

The air was thick with cloying white steam, vaporous swirls condensing on the mirror and turning it into a foggy sheet in which reflections warped and distorted, when Celestine turned off the nozzle. Her skin felt raw from where she'd scrubbed off layers of dirt and mud, her normally porcelain complexion stained lightly with a faint shade of red, both from friction and from the heat.

Celestine grit her teeth against the chill that instantly invaded her skin once the steady stream of hot water disappeared. Grabbing her hair and winding it into a long black rope, she rung it out, let warm water dribble down in rivulets along her skin, and then threw it back over her shoulder. She couldn't tolerate the feel of air against the back of her neck too long without risking an outbreak of hives—and that in itself was a disaster.

Speaking of which.

Her thumb brushed a small lump at the base of her neck, where a surgeon had made an incision while she'd been heavily sedated and implanted a small black chip into a cavity that had been drilled into her collar bone. That was the only indicator, no, no scar to mark the spot. Aesith didn't scar. Their wounds healed instantly and any lost blood volume was miraculously restored. The only enemy of an Aesith was time—enough time to wear the body down to the point where even supernatural healing couldn't stop flesh and bone from giving out.

But that was besides the point.

With a sigh, Celestine emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. The room that the Center had given her felt too sterile, the colors too bright and the bedsheets pressed too cleanly, and it gave her the impression that the housekeeping staff also doubled as the nurses. No one else could pull off such perfect hospital corners.

Maybe that's where that expression comes from, she thought with some amusement as she sat down on the bed. From the beds at the Pokémon Center.

The bed sat in the center, small enough for one person but no more. Beyond that, a nightstand made of dark, polished wood that was home to a lamp with a none-too-appealing beige lampshade and a white ceramic pot of aloe vera, of which there was no doubt in Celestine's mind stood for something meaningful. She'd long ago stopped caring, though, about flowers and their meanings, ever since that visit to Route One where she'd been forced to endure Kalosian traditions she'd never heard of. Fact: Celestine may have Kalosian blood, but she was Kantonian by birth and proud of it. No amount of floral patterns on the carpets—which this room had, by the way—or wallpaper striped by little purple and yellow flowers was going to change that, nor spark her interest in the "language of the flowers", so to speak.

To the left wall, opposite to the main door, was a single window framed by gauzy white curtains that she'd promptly drawn closed upon her arrival. With no other source of light, save for the lamp and the lights in the ceiling that were currently off, the room had been bathed in shadow, and Celestine preferred it that way. Alone and in the dark... it was sad to say how comforting that was, despite how much it reminded her of that place...

The only thing truly cheery about the room—cheery enough to disrupt the mental image of that place—was a gift basket she'd somehow won when she'd asked for her Pokémon to be healed. Apparently, there had been a raffle going on, and a routine healing was the ticket to entering. There had been some indicator in the buzzer Celestine had grabbed that crowned her the unknowing winner, and before she could fully process what had happened, the nurse had shoved a gift basket so large she could barely walk straight holding it into her arms and sent her to her room. The very sight of it made her cringe at how utterly tacky it was—now she had a basket of woven, glittery pink wood, wrapping in a sheet of plastic and volumous, glossy ribbons that looked like they belonged in the hair of some beauty pageant candidate. The contents were just as teeth-rotting, but in a less aesthetic way, bags of sugary sweets of all varieties, including about four cases of what appeared to be a dozen glazed cakes, a dozen or so eclairs wrapped up in decorative tissue paper, a shiny box of high-end chocolates, and a stylized tin of Turkish delights, just to name a few. If Celestine had more a sweet-tooth, she'd have been delighted, but she didn't, so she wasn't. The whole display looked like it belonged inside Shauna's wardrobe, and she'd dumped on her bed before going off to immerse herself in a steamy ablution.

She spared it a sidelong glance. The sequins on the ribbons reminded her of Shauna's shirt, and unbidden, Celestine thought of mocha pigtails and caramel skin and eyes the color of mint candy that brimmed with hurt. She thought of how protective she'd been that day in the school when she'd confronted Calem—

Celestine stood up to get dressed and banished the thoughts from her mind, the words for the best repeating in her head like a busted tape reel. She could not afford getting too attached to potential casualties.

She failed to notice how the drapes fluttered ever-so-slightly, as if in a faint breeze, despite the fact that the window had been firmly closed and latched when she'd entered the bathroom.

It wasn't until she was half-dressed that she noticed the draft and frowned. She turned to the window and tentatively brushed the curtains back—and that window had definitely not been open when she'd first come in.

Frowning deeper, she pulled it closed and drew the curtains again. At least no one had gotten a glimpse of her bare upper torso...

She was slipping a shirt over her head when she heard what sounded like rustling plastic coming from behind her.

A shiver ripped its way down her spine and with lightning speed, she pulled her shirt down and whirled around, prepared to face either a pervert or an attacker—

—and there was this big, yellow, bulbous thing on her bed, currently working at tearing the plastic wrapping off her gift basket with big, meaty... well, they weren't paws, per se, but they were large and clumsy-looking and they pawed at the plastic in a vain attempted to breach it. The thing must have felt Celestine's attention on it, because it stopped and turned slowly to fix her with a pair of rheumy, too-big eyes and a blank stare that made Magikarp look like geniuses in comparison. She took one look at the enormous, pale bill that swallowed half its face and webbed feet, the oily-looking yellow feathers that lined its body and the stubby, vestigial tail that poke out of its backside—and her frown morphed into a bewildered scowl.

What the hell was a Psyduck doing in her room?

Hesitantly, a wide smirk appeared on the Water-Type's bill, completely overshadowing the once-blank expression. "Well, bonjour, Mademoiselle. I didn't see you there!"

"No kidding," Celestine said flatly. "What are you doing in my room?"

"Well, it's clearly been a mix up," the Psyduck said jauntily, and it struck Celestine just how eloquent—he? The voice had a masculine pitch, so she assumed male—it was. Normally, Psyduck spoke slowly, their sentences punctuated by periodic winces of pain when their headaches bothered them. The latent Psychic aura a Psyduck possessed was incompatible with its Water-Typing, and that resulting in an irregular flow of aura that built up inside the skull and created a chromic pressure that could hinder long-term development. It was why Psyduck Trainers paid top-dollar for experimental pharmaceuticals in order to ease the pressure, a temporary solution while they raced to evolve their Psyduck before the damage became too permanent. She had, however, heard of this one medicinal remedy straight out of Cianwood Island that could indefinitely relieve headaches—by alleviating the irregularity of the aura flow, apparently, and rumor had it that Psyduck treated by that medicine produced more efficient Psychic attacks—and other such ailments, the recipe of which was unknown and enigmatic but famous nonetheless. But that wasn't the point. The point was, most Psyduck were not so well-spoken, not when Psychic pressure was constantly pushing against their skulls. "My sincerest apologies, Mlle. I hadn't realized this room was occupied. I'll just be going then—"

"That doesn't answer my question—what are you doing in my room?"

"Again," the Psyduck tried placatingly, only for the scowl on Celestine's face to deepened, "I did not know it was occupied."

"Stop dancing around the question and fucking answer."

"A lady should not use such deplorable language—"

Celestine began to charge over, and the Psyduck flinched back in alarm, scrambling backwards.

"Alright, alright!" The Water-Type held his arms out defensively, and she stopped, eying him distrustfully. "Look, I spied the basket through the window, and I'm ravenous—"

Celestine crossed her arms. "So you thought you could just thought you could come in here and steal food?"

The Psyduck winced "I didn't think anyone was around—"

"And that somehow makes it okay?"

"I— I'm starving, Mlle. I haven't had a decent meal in almost two weeks."

She frowned and took a closer look at the Psyduck. Now that she was up close, she realized the duck actually was thin—he lacked some of the pudge that she'd often come to associate with Psyduck and their kind, and there were shallow ruts on his upper torso that were consistent with a ribcage. There was a sallowness in his bill and feet that looked didn't look none too healthy, and his coat of feathers looked tarnished and dull—more so than was normal for a Psyduck. This was clearly a Pokémon that had fallen on hard times.

"...you could have just asked," Celestine grumbled.

The Psyduck blinked. "Excusez-moi?"

She huffed and thumped down on the bed hard enough for the springs to creak and for the gift basket to bounce lightly. The ribbon-knot was tight and weirdly elaborate, but it fell apart effortlessly to Celestine's slender, prying fingers, and the plastic and ribbons fell away like the delicate calyx of a blooming flower, revealing the gorgeous petals underneath.

The Psyduck salivated as Celestine took one of the éclairs, a long stick of fluffy bread glazed with chocolate, and unwrapped it. She made a move to hand it over, and the Psyduck reached out, all too eager, but Celestine pulled it back at the last moment.

"First off," she said calmly, ignoring the blaze of dismay that entered the Water-Type's expression, "where did you come from?"

"Oh, s'il vous plaît, Mlle. Have some mercy."

"You can have food after you answer my question."

"Why can you not just—"

"Because if earlier was an indication, you know how to dance around a question, and I have no patience when it comes to ducks breaking into my room." Celestine broke off a piece of éclair—only to grimace when a creamy yellow filling, probably a custard of some kind, dribbled onto her fingers. Um, ew. "Each time give me a satisfying answer, I give you a piece of eclair. Deal?"

"Éclair."

"What?"

"You pronounce it 'éclair', Mlle." The Psyduck paused at her glare. "Excusez-moi, that's just me being pedantic."

"...whatever." She wasn't about to admit she didn't know what "pedantic" meant. "Now, again, where did you come from?"

"Mmm... that's complicated." The Psyduck crossed his arms and looked thoughtful. "You see, until recently, I was under the guardianship of a linguistics professor who was intent on decoding the wild tongue. He lived on an old house just outside the city, more a part of the Route than Santalune. It was because he was looking for participants, he said. I used to live on the Route until I decided to stay with him permanently. His cooking was much better than anything you'd find out in the wild, and he helped me with my headaches. And... he grew on me. He was a nice man, very generous. Learned a lot from him, by the by, about eloquence and articulation and all that."

"The point."

The Psyduck arched a brow calmly. "Rather impatient, aren't you?"

Celestine chose not to dignify that with a response.

"Long story short, Mlle, my professor was well into his elder years when I met him, and only aged as more time passed." And here, the duck began to sound a little sad. "Heart attack—he didn't make it. It was a lovely funeral. His students and colleagues waxed poetic about him. His family, not so much. He was a bit of recluse, and a widower at that, and they all gossiped about the strange man who lived outside the city. I, his only companion throughout the years. When he passed, his contentious granddaughter took the house and kicked me out onto the street. Now I'd been born wild, sure, but that was over a decade ago. I'm ashamed to admit that I've become a bit... tame. So, rather than risk myself back in the Routes, I headed for the city, and here I am."

She hummed and held out the piece she'd torn off the éclair for the Psyduck to take. He grabbed it and snapped it up before she could even blink. Geez, he must be hungry. Celestine tore off another piece, mindful of the custard filling. "Okay, did this professor give you a name?"

"No, but he let me choose my own. I liked 'Tyler' especially."

He snapped up that next piece even more quickly than the last, and with an appreciative moan. It wasn't the most important question Celestine could have asked, but, hey, no one could say she didn't have a heart.

"Did he ever finish his work? This professor of yours?"

Tyler shook his head sadly. "Struck down just as he was on the verge of completion. I wouldn't be surprised if his granddaughter had thrown away his papers by now—or took credit for herself."

Celestine bit her lip to keep herself from commenting on the tragedy of that. She handed off the piece of pastry and tore off another one. "Okay. So then you're over ten years old?"

"Twelve now, Mlle."

Another piece of éclair. Celestine made sure the next chunk she tore off was larger than the last two. "I'm seventeen myself," she said absently.

Tyler was licking custard filling off his fingers. "Ah, the age of consent. Fabulous."

Celestine blinked. Then blinked again. "What."

Tyler shrugged. "It's true."

"...why do you even know that?"

"My professor's quarrelsome granddaughter had an unfortunate career as an adult film star." The Psyduck shrugged. "I would occasionally browse her work."

"Why?"

"Because I found it quite entertaining," Tyler said noncommittally.

Before it could properly sink in that Celestine was alone in a room with a perverted duck, she picked up an odd vibrating noise from nearby. She was pretty sure she'd returned the buzzer she'd taken from the front desk. Her gaze slid to the nightstand next to her bed, though, she homed in on the source—the Poké Ball Chain she'd taken with her from Kanto, a nifty little device that allowed Trainers to keep their teams all in one place. It was exactly what it sounded like, a rather plain-looking metal chain with six slots to hold six Poké Balls. Currently, only four of those slots were filled on the one Celestine owned, and the first slot was the one that was vibrating.

She exhaled through her nose. Delphi.

Celestine scooted past Tyler, handing him both pieces of the éclair, and grabbed the chain. Though simple in appearance, Ball Chains were actually infused with a technology that kept the Balls in their shrunken form, on account of how Pokémon tended to pop out of their Balls when agitated enough. Studies showed that, similar to coma patients had some perception of their surroundings, certain things transcended the containment of the metal sphere, and Pokémon were slightly conscious even during stasis. The vibrating Ball was a sure sign of agitation and, had Delphi not been trapped by the Chain, she was sure he would have burst out already. She didn't need to touch it to know it was hot.

I did promise I'd talk to him, didn't I?

"Are you a Trainer, Mlle?" Tyler asked through mouthfuls of éclair.

"Yup." Her thumb found the released button on the slot with Delphi's Ball. "I'm actually about to talk to my starter, so if you don't mind..."

"Mais bien sûr." There was a rustling sound and Celestine spied the duck snatching a few more éclairs from the gift basket and hopped off the bed, landing with a dull thump. "I'll be in the bathroom if you need me."

"I won't," she muttered as the duck's yellow form vanished and the bathroom door closed. Whatever. She could worry about what to do with the Psyduck in her bathroom in a minute. First—damage control.

Celestine pressed the release button. The Ball fell out and enlarged almost instantly, splitting open. In a brilliant flash of light, Delphi was on the bed, sitting back on his hunches, ears twitching, and his face drawn into an irritated countenance that made Celestine suppress an amused smile. It so didn't suit him.

"We're going to talk now, right?" he asked, slightly impatient.

"I said we would."

"Good. Because I have lots of questi—" He stopped, suddenly, and sniffed the air. His investigation of the foreign scent led him to the gift basket, which he stared at with a strange sense of awe. "Are those Poké Puffs?"

"Maybe?" She shrugged. "I have no idea."

"I love Poké Puffs. Especially the cinnamon ones. Oncle used to get them all the time, but he'd reserve those ones for special occa—" Delphi shook his head suddenly, the wistful expression in his eyes snapping back to a serious one as he turned back to her. "Nope. You are not gonna distract me."

Against her will, her lip quirked into a half-smile. Delphi's eyes narrowed at the sight of it.

"Okay, what?"

"Nothing." Celestine scooted closer to him, and then lied back against the headboard. She pushed the gift basket off to the side for more room, listening to the crinkle of plastic as it slid across the bedsheets, guided by the repulsive motion of her hand. "Go on."

"With what?"

"The interrogation. Ask anything you like, and I shall answer to the best of my ability."

He eyed her skeptically "...are you making fun of me?"

"No." She arched a brow. "What makes you say that?"

"You're being weirdly calm. And kinda... cheeky."

Her brow arched higher. "Would you rather I be defensive and antagonistic?"

"Um, well, not really."

"Then ask away."

Delphi eyed her skeptically again, but then he turned away, his features merging into something more pensive. He was probably thinking of questions to ask her. And Celestine pulled her knee up to her chest, tapping her finger on her kneecap, waiting.

He turned back to her. "Why are you in Kalos?"

"Complicated," she answered flatly.

He waited, and when she didn't elaborate, he frowned. "Hey, you said you'd answer every question!"

"I didn't say every question. And I said I'd answer to the best of my ability."

"So... you don't know why you're in Kalos? Or are you just refusing to answer?"

Celestine shifted her gaze to the opposing wall directly in front of her. The flowery patterns were looping, like vines. Delicate. Childish, almost.

She heard Delphi huff. "Geez, no one said having a Trainer would be so much work."

Her lip twitched, but she refused to let herself smile.

He sighed. "Fine. How about this—what was with that... thing that happened at the rest stop? In the bathroom?"

The thing. The freak out in the bathroom where she'd hallucinated demonic shapes trying to drag her into the Netherworld. Made sense he'd ask about it. That wasn't exactly something someone forgot about so easily.

Despite having prepared herself for that particular topic of conversation, Celestine still sighed and leaned her head back against the solidness of the headboard, turning her gaze up to the blank ceiling. She tried to think of a way to explain it without scaring him too much.

"Well, it's..." At the sound of a little growl emerging from Delphi's throat, she hesitated at the word complicated and broke off into another sigh. She ran a hand roughly over her face, buried fingers in her bangs. "Okay. Okay. I had a weird drug in my system, and when I get stressed, it does weird shit to my body."

Delphi bristled in alarm. "You take drugs!?"

"What?" She turned back to him, her bewildered expression mirroring his. "No. God, no. I didn't..." She bit her lip and looked back at the ceiling. "I didn't want to take it. I was forced to. Someone—they, um, put it in me, I guess."

"You guess?" Delphi asked hesitantly.

"Well, more like I got forcibly injected." Realizing what she'd said too late, she winced. "But that sounds kinda... gruesome, so, I tried to avoid saying it. Yeah..."

She caught a glance at him from her peripheral. Delphi's gaze was still quizzical, but the skeptical edge had given way to an undercurrent of concern. "Someone... drugged you."

"Yes."

Concern was starting to overpower curiosity. "When was this?"

"Like, a month ago, at least." Celestine bit her lip, still refusing to look at him directly. "Not entirely certain on the time perimeters, because it's really potent at the beginning. It causes hallucinations and stuff, but. Yeah, it, it stays in your system for a long time—it should be gone by now, though."

"What kinda drug does that?"

The kind no one knows about, she thought. The kind that, hopefully, no one will ever know about.

"Anything else?" Celestine asked, a little too quickly.

Delphi must have sensed her desire to change the topic, because he tilted his head thoughtfully. "...what made you want to be a Trainer?"

"In general, or in Kalos?" she dared to ask. This was pressing dangerously close to the first question, the one she'd refused to answer and had no intention to.

"Both, I guess."

Celestine was about to respond, but she heard the bathroom door creak open and sat up in a blink. Tyler the Psyduck poked his head out, bill slathered faintly with custard. Delphi blinked, bewildered at his Trainer's reaction, and followed her gaze to the Water-Type. Immediately, the Fennekin leaped into a battle stance and bristled, flattening his ears back and baring his teeth.

"Whoa!" She placed a hand on Delphi's head and run in down his spine, all the way to his tail-tip in one fluid stroke. She repeated the process, again and again, until the hostility had vanished from her Starter's posture. "Easy. This is Tyler. He's harmless."

Tyler waved, unashamed, his bill curved into a shit-eating grin. "Bonjour, mon bon renard."

"Trainer," Delphi said, allowing his ears to perk back up.

"Yes, Delphi?"

His right ear twitched. "I have more questions."

"He snuck into the room for food," Celestine explained, leaning back against the headboard again. "His old owner died and he was out on the street and hungry. But you wanted to talk, so I told him to wait in the bathroom." And here, she cast Tyler a glare. "Where he said he'd give us privacy."

"A thousand apologies," Tyler said, still with that shit-eating grin. "But these walls are rather thin and I could make out a few things—drugs and all."

"Yipee."

Delphi turned to her. "Is he joining the team?"

Celestine's brows furrowed. "What? No. Why?"

"Well, he's out first encounter."

"In a city."

"Cities count."

"They do not."

"Ask Mlle Devereux," Delphi said. "Or Oncle, for that matter."

Celestine tossed a glance from Tyler, to Delphi, to her bag, which she'd thrown into the corner for later, rinse and repeat. Her Caster was in her bag, and Hakase's number was on her Caster. All it would take was a quick click and a few seconds for the connection to link up, for the image of Hakase and his lopsided smirk as he waxed poetic and referred to her in the affectionate ma chérie, while she tried to pretend that it was just his accent slurring his words and she would probably smell alcohol on his breath if she were there in person, pretend that he didn't look at her and see a dear, dear friend whom he'd lost, with whom Celestine held an unfortunate likeness to. And all the while she'd have to smile and pretend this was all okay, that they won't both pining for the same person that they would both never see again.

She got to her feet and walked over to grab her bag. But it was for a Poké Ball that she reached for, not her Caster, and then she slung her bag over her shoulder.

"We'll go to this Route outside the city and catch him there," she said as she came back over to collect her Chain. She didn't look at either of Delphi or Tyler as she clipped the Chain to her belt and headed for the door.

---

It took asking for directions twice before Celestine properly found her way to Route Twenty-Two, and by the time she got there, she could properly appreciate the irony of this Route having the same name as the infamous liaison to Victory Road back in Kanto.

Route Twenty-Two was an echo of its Kantonian sister, with steep, sloping cliffs dyed green with wild grasses and flora of all kinds. Trees rose up in a parapet on the northern mountainside, pines and firs and other such deciduous arbor creating a great wall against the horizon, and a wide expanse of thick grasses divided the woods from the rest of the Route almost like a fence to ward off the wilder parts. The cliffside was jagged, grey and sharp and stony, save for the bursting tufts of alpine grasses that came out like gophers popping their head out for a breath of spring. Upwards—that was the direction the brown, rocky path wound as it carved into the mountainside, bounding and dipping in an irregular manner, climbing up looming hills in the distance where the air pressure was likely to change with the increase in altitude. Even standing under Santalune's pearly white gate, Celestine could recognize that as she allowed her eyes to trace the path, remembering when, in her youth, she'd dared to hop up the cliffs until her ears started to ache from the change in air pressure (and then Draco would chide her for being so careless). In the distance, the wilderness coalesced into a great mountain range that rose like the back of some slumbering beast, somnolent but daunting all the same, its spine steep and arching and dark against the cerulean sky. It was dark with trees and forests, with life and death and the natural order, this shadowy, mysterious thing that no one could properly understand. That's what Celestine thought when she looked at the great expanse that unraveled before her, at the clash between verdant green and earthy brown.

From the side of cliff-face, a gaping hole gushed forth frothing water that crashed down into the river below in a glittering white curtain, churning up a cloud of mist so dense that Celestine couldn't see through it even while squinting. The river ran shimmering crystal blue as it wound through the valley, likely cutting through the Santalune Forest and eventually becoming La Rivier over in Aquacorde. Even staring down at it from the gate, Celestine could hear the powerful rush of the waterfall as it flowed perpetually, carried down from some far-off mountain spring or some other source, and she could make out the slickness of the nearby stones, the result of constantly being bathed in mist from the downpour. A few yellow shapes moved around on the shore of the river, shapes that, Celestine decided, were probably native Psyduck like Tyler.

"Ah, home sweet home," Tyler announced with a hint of fondness. He waddled out in front, taking in the wildness of the Route with a slow, lingering gaze that betrayed nostalgia. "Professor Garnier's cabin is a few miles off. You won't see it from here."

Celestine breathed in deep as she passed the border, stepped out of the city and into the wild. The alpine air was clean, crisp, and it burned her lungs a little as it slid into her bronchioles. Delphi trotted in pace with her, but again, she envisioned a scaly Charmander with more experience than her current Starter, with calmer eyes that were not overwhelmed and awestruck by the landscape.

"So cool," Delphi murmured. She hardly heard him.

Celestine's gaze found its way to something that glittered in the mountainside, something that sent the gamut of hues dancing through the air like a prism. The polychromatic sparkle burned against her corneas and she had to look away for a moment, blinking.

"What's with the weird sparkly thing in the distance?" she asked Tyler.

"Hm?" Tyler followed her gaze. "Oh, that. That's the Gate to Victory Road."

"Wait, really?" It was located on Route Twenty-Two in Kalos, too?

Tyler nodded sagely. "Oh yeah. It's gilded, you see. Rumor has it that it took them almost a month to line it with gold, but it was worth it for it to look as stunning as it does now. And then they put in all sorts of gemstones and murals, so it looks absolutely breathtaking up close. From afar, you can see it for miles on a sunny day. And they polish it, daily, to keep it that way."

Celestine hummed. In her mind's eye, she saw the Victory Road Gate in Kanto, not golden or jeweled as its sister in Kalos supposedly was, but a great monument carved straight into the mountainside, gray stone fashioned into stylized pillars and carvings. And to the side, just as you plunged into the dark expanse of the inner chasm, there was a side of the wall with the etchings of previous Trainers who had done the same, who had collected eight Tohjo badges and had carved their names into the stone for eternity. It was a tribute to all those who came before, and a place for those who followed to gain an immortality that outlasted even the digital records of the Hall of Fame.

She wondered if Kalos's was anything like that, if the sight of it could still the breath in your lungs and make your knees feel weak.

"Celestine!"

Celestine started. Oh, shit, she knew that voice.

She turned and, yup, that was Tierno wading through the tall wild grasses. He was still far off, and she was sure that if she made a run for it now, she was likely to lose him in the city, in the crowds and the buildings.

Tierno waved jauntily as he came closer, and oof, there goes that plan. There was a cordial smile stretched across his face. "Hey! I thought that was you!"

Celestine felt her joints lock up instinctively with the urge to flee. She tried to smile but it felt, and probably looked, strangled. "Yeah. Um. Hi."

"Hey," he said, coming to a stop and looking a little breathless. He was still smiling, all happy and blissfully carefree. "Glad I caught you."

"Really?" she asked warily. "Why's that?"

"Uh." Tierno blinked at her, his cheeriness faltering. "I wanted to talk to you?"

"Are you always this paranoid, Mlle?" Tyler asked.

Delphi sighed. "You have no idea."

Before Celestine could feel properly indignant, Tierno turned to the Pokémon and knelt down. "Oh, hey! You got a Psyduck!"

She opened her mouth to respond, but Delphi beat her to it. "Well, we're actually adding him to the team now."

"Indeed," said Tyler. "And I feel quite honored to be joining a team managed by such a beautiful young lady."

A shudder crawled down Celestine's spine.

Tierno, oblivious to Tyler's perverted tendencies, stood back up with a smile. "Psyduck are good additions, though. They've got solid stats and some awesome Psychic abilities."

Celestine fixed him with a flat look. "I know. I'm a Kanto native. So are Psyduck."

"...right." Tierno scratched the back of his head, and for the first time, he looked awkward. "Sorry. I didn't mean to— Sorry."

"It's... fine." It wasn't, but she could let it go.

Tyler cleared his throat. "Excusez-moi, don't mean to interrupt—I do get my Ball, yes?"

Celestine pulled out a Ball and tossed it at the Psyduck. He caught it easily. "Go nuts."

"So, uh." Tierno was still scratching the back of his head. "What brings you here?"

"The Psyduck," Celestine said flatly.

"Right, um—"

"Trainer," Delphi piped up. "Tyler's in his Ball."

Celestine glanced down at her Starter, finding that the Psyduck was gone and a Poké Ball was resting in his place. She sighed, bending down to pick it up and then clip it to her Chain.

"Okay, well, it was nice running into you." She offered Tierno another strangled smile. "I think I'm going to head back to the Center, now."

"Oh! I'm heading back there, too," Tierno said, and Celestine winced internally. So much for trying to ditch him. "Wanna walk back together?"

Quick. Think of a reason why not.

"Sure!" Delphi exclaimed.

Dammit, why?

"Great!" Tierno grinned blindingly.

And Celestine could do nothing but offer up that strangled, cringey smile and go with it.

---

The walk was probably meant to be leisurely, but it was anything but. Tierno was delightful and engaging and amicable, everything a good conversationalist should be—and Celestine, meanwhile, was trying to radiate antisocial waves in an effort to subliminally influence him into leaving her the hell alone.

"So, I hear the Centers are different in Kanto," Tierno began when the previous topic—that Serena was off investigating the Cave of Emptiness, this cave behind the falls on Route Twenty-Two where the Veil acted oddly, at Hakase's behest, and Trevor was acting as her escort—was met with apathetic silence.

Celestine felt her left eye beginning twitch. What did a girl have to do to be left alone around here? "Yup."

Delphi was back on her shoulder, and she heard him heave a sigh. Get used to it, she thought moodily. Human companionship was a luxury she couldn't afford. The price just wasn't worth paying.

"In the New Continent, the Poké Mart is built into the Center itself," Tierno went on, taking her snappish response in stride. "And a few other things are different, too, like the PC. Hey—if you want, I could show you—"

"I've got it covered, thanks," Celestine interrupted curtly. Granted, that thing with PC might be important, but she could always consult Hakase about it later.

Tierno glanced away, his expression thoughtful. And for a blissful moment, there was silence.

"Y'know"—Oh balls, she groaned internally—"you haven't asked the question most people ask by now."

"And what question is that?" Celestine drawled.

"If Cal and I dated."

Celestine stopped dead. Then she whirled around, blinking. "Wait—you and Calem dated?"

Tierno chuckled. "Oh, god no. He's like a brother to me, y'know? And even if he wasn't, he's not my type. But when most people find out that I'm gay and he's bi, they assume we've dated at some point. I was just kinda surprised you didn't ask."

She blinked dumbly. "It's... really none of my busines—"

Without warning, Celestine felt the air shudder, felt it rupture and ripple. She tensed, an icy tingle running down her spine, goosebumps rising up her arms. It had been a while, but she knew that feeling (how could she ever forget?), and while she hoped to the Birds she was wrong, the mere notion of what it might be made her sick to the pit of her stomach, made her gut lurch all the way up to her throat and her throat squeeze as if to catch it. Trying to swallow the acidic taste of bile climbing up to the back of her mouth, she glanced over to the north, the source of the disturbance, her fingers curling into fists and her hands going numb so she couldn't feel the crescent-shaped puncture marks where her nails bit her palm or the wetness made by the breaking of skin. She tried to breathe evenly, but her lungs felt like they'd turned to iron, and her heart was thundering so hard it was leaving bruises against the inside of her ribcage.

"Actually," Tierno went on thoughtfully, oblivious to the tension that had invaded her body, "he and Shauna dated."

"What?" Celestine turned back to Tierno, caught between remembering the current topic and the disruption she'd just felt in the Veil.

"Oh yeah," Tierno said, the hint of a cheeky smile appearing. "Like, when we were twelve or something. But it got weird fast, the way it does when friends date friends, and it was over before the third week was out. It was awkward."

"I, uh, can imagine." She blinked, trying not to let her voice betray the urgency building inside her chest. "Why are telling me this again?"

"'Cause I figured it would get you talking," Tierno answered. "Gotta get you to open up somehow. And hey, if it means telling some embarrassing childhood stories, I think the others can forgive me."

Celestine glanced away. "I wouldn't, if it were me."

"Mm, yeah, probably," was his nonchalant reply.

She started walking again, more hastiness in her pace. There were more important matters at hand.

But Tierno followed after her. "Okay, okay, I'll give—I talked to Shauna earlier, and—"

And Celestine froze, ears ringing. The memory of Shauna's blazing eyes flared in her mind, vivid and painful and raw, but then it was drowned out by that same mantra of the right thing, for the best, unnecessary casualties, over and over on an endless loop. A lump of cold, hard fury settled in her chest, filled her lungs with a silent scream, her hands clenching harder at her side and her jaw clamping shut so hard she felt the force of it reverberate throughout her skull. She whirled around, hair flying out in a long ebony blade, and her gaze stopped Tierno dead in his tracks. Delphi clung to her shoulder, eyes wide, fur starting to spike as he picked up on her agitation.

"Okay, let me make this very clear," she hissed, something acerbic finding its way into her tone. She needed to end this conversation quickly and discern the source of that disruption. "What I say to other people is none of your business. If Shauna wants to talk, she has to come to me and not send a messenger to fix her problems for her. Deliver that message, if you really feel the need to get involved."

Tierno held his hands up in an appeasing gesture. "Whoa, hold on. I'm not here for Shauna—I'm here for you."

The fury in Celestine's chest loosened. "Wait, what?"

"I've already heard Shauna's side," Tierno said, his tone surprisingly serious, "but I want to hear yours. I didn't come here to judge you or go after you on Shauna's behalf. I just want to find a way to resolve it, okay?"

Celestine's tongue turned numb and useless. She stared at Tierno, the glint of determination in his eye, and, just, couldn't understand.

"Why?" she murmured, finding her voice. "Why do you even care? You don't know me."

"True. But I know what you're going through."

She bristled. "You don't know anything about me."

But Tierno just eyed her calmly. "Mlle, may I remind you that, of my three best friends, two of them I've only really met because they moved to Vaniville? One of which from another region, like yourself, and the other from the other side of this region. And the third lives rather far away. I'm well aware of how people can feel when they're uprooted and dumped somewhere else. And I know how that can make someone want to lash out and push people away."

Celestine almost laughed. "You think I'm bitchy because I'm homesick?"

Tierno crossed his arms, the picture of stability and support. "Is there something else going on?"

Well, yes, but he didn't need to know that, didn't need to know about her Aesith status or how the Veil had rippled moments ago. With a huff, Celestine crossed her arms and tried to stand tall. "No. And even if there was, it's hardly your business."

"Hey, I'm just trying to help."

"Did it ever occur to you that I don't want help?"

"Yes, but." Tierno pointed at her accusingly. "That is exactly the sort of thing said by people who don't want help but need it anyway."

"What?"

"You have no idea how experienced I am when it comes to inner turmoil," Tierno said simply, crossing his arms again. "I'm practically a trained psychiatrist by now. I just need a degree."

Celestine scoffed. "Look, you may think you're doing the right thing, but you're not. You want to help your friends out? Tell them to stay away from me and out of trouble."

"Other than your—if I may use the clinical term here—'bitchiness'," Tierno told her, arching a brow, "I don't see anything about you that would be classified as remotely threatening."

This time, Celestine did laugh. A small, bitter chuckle. "You have no idea the kind of shit I can stir up, if I wanted to."

Tierno's brows rose, startled by this declaration. On her shoulder, Celestine felt Delphi shift anxiously, felt his fur radiating an agitated, uncomfortable heat. "Um, Trainer? What're... what do you mean by that?"

Celestine forced the muscles in her shoulders to uncoil. "Just—tell Shauna to stay back, okay? Trust me. It's for the best."

"For her, or for you?" Tierno asked.

She felt like she'd been struck.

"For her," she snapped, but it didn't sound right. And from the look on Tierno's face, she guessed he didn't buy it either.

Before Celestine could properly defend her point further, she heard Delphi yelp and—briefly flashing back to when Rinka barrelled into her on Route Three—had the sense to leap back. Tierno did the same, and just in time, too, as a figure blurred past them, shooting forward like an arrow loosed from its quiver. Celestine only caught a glimpse of a pair of pigtails, rollerskates, and a fierce expression, but it sent a shot of loathing through her all the same.

"What the hell was that?" Tierno muttered, following the figure with his eyes as they—she, probably—vanished down the street.

"Rinka!" came a loud cry. The name made Celestine's skin prickle uncomfortably, but when she turned, she found that the speaker was a young boy, maybe ten or eleven, with glasses that were far too big for his face, running towards them, only to stop, panting for breath. "Get back here! Riiiiiinkaaaaa!"

"Excusez-moi?" Tierno said, and the boy turned to them. "What's going on?"

"You have to stop her!" the boy yelped, voice tight with desperation. "She's— She's gonna— You have to—"

"Slow down." Tierno held his hands up, and the boy started to tremble. "Deep breaths."

The boy gulped air down desperately, on the verge of tears. A feeling of dread stirred in Celestine's gut. She felt Delphi shift and cast her a glance of concern.

"Okay. Good." Tierno offered the boy a weak smile. "Now, calmly, tell me what happened."

The boy sniffed. "My friend—she's gonna go challenge the Gym. You gotta stop her!"

There was a beat of silence.

"...are you kidding me?" Celestine muttered. The boy turned to her with wide eyes. "That's it? She's challenging the Gym? My god, kid, you made it sound like someone was gonna die."

The boy started to sob, and Tierno frowned at her.

"What?" She turned to Delphi, who was staring at the boy with a look of bewilderment that mirrored her own, and blinked, dumbfounded. "What'd I say?"

Tierno ignored her and turned back to the boy. "Shh. Hey, hey, hey. Why is it so bad for your friend to challenge the Gym?"

"'Cause she's gonna be fighting the Santalune Mantis!" the boy cried out.

"'Santalune Mantis'?" Delphi repeated, baffled.

Sounds like a moniker, Celestine thought. All Gym Leaders had one. Save for Shigeru-san, who had never bothered with one.

The boy nodded fervently. "She's, like, reaaaally strong! And she only ever does Reaper Battles, too!"

That made Celestine arch a brow. She'd spent a few years working as a Gym Trainer in the Viridian Gym, and had learned early on that the Gym Leader and their staff almost always restricted themselves to Non-Reaper Battles—not because League regulations demanded that the sanctity of life be upheld, oh no. Every time a member of the Gym Leader's team, or the team of any of their staff, fell in battle, the Gym had to pay for the procuring and training of replacements. Callous as it sounded, it was simply more cost effective and overall more efficient for Gym Battles to remain non-lethal.

Which was why this boy's claim made no sense.

"And her challengers never come back!" the boy went on, eyes huge, voice trembling. "I heard she, like, has her Pokémon cut their heads off and sows their bodies into this web she keeps in the back of the Gym!"

And here, Celestine frowned. Up until that point, his concerns were legitimate—now they were just tainted by superstitions nonsense and baseless rumors. Overactive imagination much?

"Hey, Trainer?" Delphi piped up, a hint of something both urgent and concerned in his tone. "Didn't M. Calem say he was going to the Gym earlier?"

Celestine blinked, remembering her run-in with Calem earlier and Hayami's evolution. "Yeah. He did."

"Wait." Tierno snapped back to them, eyes widening slightly. "When was this?"

"Maybe a couple hours ago? Not entirely sure." She paused to regard the way his posture changed. "We ran into each other by chance. Why?"

Tierno glanced northward, his shoulders tensing. "...maybe we should pay that Gym a visit."

Before Celestine could tell him he was being ridiculous, she remembered the disturbance she'd felt early, how it had emanated from the same direction Tierno was currently looking towards. The same direction that figure—likely Rinka—had raced off in. If that was the direction of the Gym, and based on the compounding rumors apparently swimming around this place, adding in that ripple in the Veil, then... that must mean—

No. It couldn't be.

Her mouth tasted like bile.

"Fine," she said, trying to keep her voice even, "but I doubt we'll find anything."

Tierno nodded and started walking northward. Celestine attempted to follow, but suddenly felt a hand grasp her wrist.

She turned. The boy. "Y-You're gonna stop Rinka, right? You gotta! She's, like, my best friend ever! I don't want her to end up part of a web!"

Celestine licked her lips. "I doubt she'll listen to me."

The boy's eyes widened, wet and afraid and—dammit.

She sighed. "But I'll try."

He released her, a tentative grin blooming on his face. "Thank you, Mlle!"

Don't thank me yet. And then Celestine was jogging to catch up, trying to pretend that dread didn't weigh heavily in her gut.

---

Current Team:

Delphi, Male Fennekin (Lv 9)
Docile, Takes plenty of siestas
Ability: Blaze
Moves: Scratch, Tail Whip, Ember
Met: Vaniville (Aquacorde) Town

Max, Male Pidgey (Lv 8)
Naïve, Very finicky
Ability: Tangled Feet
Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack
Met: Route Two

Ray, Male Panpour (Lv 8)
Quiet, Likes to relax
Ability: Gluttony
Moves: Scratch, Play Nice, Leer
Met: Santalune Forest

Tanner, Male Pidgey (Lv 8)
Hasty, Scatters things often
Ability: Tangled Feet
Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack
Met: Route Three Two

Tyler, Male Psyduck (Lv 6)
Naughty, Proud of his power
Ability: Damp
Moves: Water Sport, Scratch, Tail Whip
Met: (Route Twenty-Two) Santalune City

---

Author's Notes:

Canadians follow American politics almost as closely as Americans. I guess it sorta bled into my plans, because now there's an overarching theme of politics.

The politics in Kanto is heavily strength-oriented, the belief being that if you had enough passion about something, it would show up in your battling, so only those with enough passion to make a difference had a say. But that's also heavily flawed, for a lot of reasons I'll get into later. And as you'll see as the story progressed, nobody said democracy was flawless either. Celestine hates politics in general though, and I've adapted Flare to be a political party. I'll definitely touch more on Flare later.

Now, Celestine with Shauna and Calem. In Celestine's mind, she needs to push Shauna away for her own protection. She may be rather cruel about it, but i has the desired effect and that makes it justified. Meanwhile, she also needs to make things right with Calem. This won't automatically make her and Calem friends, but she just wants to clear the air.

Ahhh, Tyler. I remember being so frustrated and pissed when I got a Psyduck on Route 22 because I really, really wanted a Litleo (even though I already had Delphi), but he ended up being an awesome addition in his own right. More on him later, probably, but for now, our focus shifts to the Gym.

And can I just say, fucking finally. I have been waiting forever to get to this point and I am so glad we're almost there.

And I love Tierno so much. I didn't at first, but the more I write him, the more I love him.

Translations:
—Excusez-moi = "excuse me" in French
—S'il vous plaît = "please" in French
—Mais bien sûr = "but of course" in French
—Bonjour, mon bon renard = "Hello, my good fox" in French

For those of you who've read C'est La Vie on the forum, you'll probably notice that I expanded a little more on the NEWS 4-09 bit, because the wordcount is less outrageous on this site.

That's all for now,
Luna