Okay, before you read this, I have to warn you that this is an INTENSE part. There will be graphic violence and actual, on-screen death. I'm talking enough to warrant the mature rating. So here is the warning: blood, gore, swearing.
You have been warned.
Chapter 5—Peste
(noun)
—French for "plague", "scourge", or "pestilence"
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The Gyms in Kalos seemed much more ornate than in Kanto. In Kanto, they were built with stability in mind, function over fashion, with great steel walls and a domed roof, a great set of stairs that led up to the entrance, which consisted of a pair of great steel doors that slid open when the challenger came close. At least, that's what the Viridian Gym had been like—though slightly idyllic, painted with various shades of greens in a way that made it look like the forest was growing on the walls and its columns were bound up in ivy that flanked the entrance. But the Gym in Santalune was made of ruddy brick and teal, fish-scale shingles that lined the roof like chainmail, and sported a small set of chiseled stone steps leading up to a pair of stained-glass door with the design of various insects glittering like jewels. White columns flanked the entrance, lined with swirling filigree from top to bottom, and the roof tapered off into a single, tower-like dome lined with flying buttresses, while twin statues of Scyther flanked the doors like a pair of knights—all gorgeous and very eye-catching. Yes, this building was far more aesthetic than the Gym back in Viridian, and it made Celestine furrow her brow at the sight of it, because no way a build as frivolously decorative as this could be a Gym.
And yet, the cement sign sitting in front said otherwise, bold, swirling golden letters glinting in the light: SANTALUNE GYM.
Tierno was already climbing the steps, urgency overpowering any appreciation for aesthetics. She sighed and marched after him.
The doors slid open with a pleasant ding. Celestine trailed Tierno, into the building and—
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
"Sonova—!" She lost her balance and banged her head against the doorjamb, sending white phosphenes bursting across her vision. A scintillating bolt of overwhelming audial stimulation knifed through her brain, sparking up from her brain stem until it exploded inside her brain like a fucking firework. Her ears were already ringing like a bomb had gone off inside her skull, so when Delphi yelped and grappled desperately for purchase on her shoulder, she had to bite her lip to keep from hissing in pain.
Tierno, noticing her plight, whirled around and came rushing over. "Whoa! Hey, Celie, are you okay?"
Celestine winced, massaging her overly-sensitive ears and blinking the spots from her eyes. "Fine," she said, voice strained. Everything sounded weirdly loud, almost echoed. "I'm—I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Tierno held his arms out to help her, but she pulled away. Unsure of what else to do, he let his arms fall uselessly to the side.
"Yes." She held the doorjamb for balance as she straightened. The ringing in her ears was starting to subside, and she subconsciously brushed the bump where the chip had been implanted in the back of her neck. "Totally fine."
"What happened?" Delphi asked, concerned, eyes round.
"I, ah, broke a nail?" Sacred Birds, fucking IP agent never mentioned it would be that fucking loud.
Someone like Calem might have questioned that, but thankfully, Tierno wasn't Calem, and he didn't question it. He just looked worried, hovering uncomfortably close. "Okay..." He glanced around, nervously. "We should probably look for Cal— Oh, wow, this place is crowded..."
Celestine blinked and stepped out of the doorjamb, allowing the doors to close behind her, and realized he was right. In contrast to the Gym's stylized exterior, the lobby was utter chaos.
Minty green tile vanished beneath rapid steps as women in pencil skirts and high heels scurried around the area like a swarm of frantic worker bees, effortlessly dodging each other as if anticipating collisions—like some kind of freaky mind synchronization or something. The walls were lined by photographs of myriad Bugs, all of which were clean and crisp and displayed a level of photographic skill that transcended the level of novicey and outright bordered mastery, and potted ferns that dotted the nooks and corners. In the olive upholstery pressed up against the walls, young men and women of various ages and dress seemed to overflow, couches and chairs so filled that some were left standing, leaning against the wall. All Trainers, likely, all of them looking various degrees of disgruntled and irritated and worried while the uniformed women flitted around to try and appease them. In the center of the lobby, Celestine caught a glimpse of a pigtailed girl wearing a helmet arguing heatedly with a blonde woman in a black trench coat, the former agitated and latter trying to calm the former down—anomalies in the crowd, making them rather easy to pick out. Celestine exhaled through her nostrils. Only Rinka could cause a scene, even in such a bustling place such as this.
Delphi poked his nose against her cheek. Celestine turned to him, and he turned his head and pointed with snout over at the white wall. She followed his gaze and—and it was Calem, leaning against the wall with his arms cross and Hayami perching on his shoulder, glancing over at Rinka and the woman she was arguing with, but doing so without really looking.
Celestine grabbed Tierno by the shoulder and pointed at Calem. Tierno followed her finger, eyes widening when he laid sight on Cal, and then started wading through the crowd. Celestine followed, silent.
"Cal! Over here!"
At the sound of Tierno's voice, Calem snapped his attention to them and straightened. Tierno dodged the scurrying—secretaries? Managers? Gym Trainers? Celestine wondered if the Gym Leader here just had a fetish for women with buns and heels and tight skirts—women with surprising ease and made it to Calem's corner of the lobby quickly. Celestine, on the other hand, nearly crashed into a pencil-skirted woman and, ignoring the woman's apologetic platitudes, before arriving in Calem's little corner of solitude.
"...going on around here?" she caught Tierno saying.
"Yeah," Delphi added, just before Calem could respond. "You'd think a Gym would be more organized."
Calem shrugged. "It was like this when I got here."
Celestine regarded him silently—there was something else, something in the way he refused to meet their gazes. He wasn't saying something. "Did you put your name in the roster?"
He hesitated for a moment. She stared, awaiting.
"I was going to," he admitted, "But then that woman over there"—he gestured over to the blonde woman in the trench coat talking to Rinka—"tried to talk me out of it. And she was adamant about it, too—we argued for, like, fifteen minutes straight. And then... a gurney came in from the stadium with a challenger, and... Well, it was chaotic before, but now it's just a mess."
"That doesn't answer my question," Celestine pointed out. "Did you put your name in the roster or not?"
Calem leveled her with a glare. "No, I didn't. Happy? After the gurney came through, the woman went somewhere else and told me to 'think about it'. That was almost an hour ago."
"So you backed out because you got cold feet?" Celestine asked, arching a brow. That hardly sounded like Calem, adamant as he was. "The sight of a defeat Pokémon was that disconcerting?"
Calem's gaze turned dark. "It wasn't the Pokémon that was in the gurney, Celestine."
Celestine blinked, letting that sink in.
The Pokémon wasn't the one in the gurney.
She opened her mouth to say something, to conjure up some response, but then Rinka's voice rang out over the overlying chaos.
"Listen," spat the Field Trainer, her voice almost screeching in a bratty sort of fury, "I'm challenging this Gym, and no bleach-blonde bimbo is gonna change my mind!"
And then the Roller Skater stormed over to the receptionist at the counter, the crowd almost seeming to part around her, unwilling to face her wrath. The blonde that had been arguing with her wilted, almost visibly, as if in defeat, turning away so that Celestine couldn't see her face.
Calem eyed the scene with a frown. "That's the woman I was talking about earlier. That girl came in and she went over to her, probably to talk her out of it like she did with me."
"She didn't have be to so rude about it, though," Tierno remarked.
"Agreed." Calem's frown deepened as Rinka shouted something at the receptionist. "The hell is her problem?"
"She's trying to save her license, is likely," Celestine answered listlessly.
Calem and Tierno snapped their attention to her, the former slightly perturbed and the latter just plain bewildered. Even Hayami, shifting slightly from her perch on her Trainer's shoulder, blinked in astonishment.
"And how would you know that, Celestine-san?" asked the freshly-evolved Frogadier.
"She used a condensed attack while I was battling her earlier and put one of my Pokémon in jeopardy," Celestine explained simply. "So, once I got the Center, I filed a complaint against her."
Calem stared at her, jaw slack. "You did not."
"That's kinda harsh, Celie," Tierno said, wincing.
A shiver of indignance went through the Kantonian. "The chick condensed a damaging move in the middle of a Non-Reaper Battle! She violated the League's rules. The hell was I supposed to do?"
"And she's the one who started the battle, too," Delphi piped up. "She ran into Trainer and then started spouting insults for no reason!"
"Thank you," Celestine said stiffly. Ignoring the eye roll Calem gave her, she glanced back over at Rinka with a scowl. "Winning a badge will renew her license and nullify that complaint. Plus, she was bitching at me for being League Trainer and how we mistreat Field Trainers or whatever, so this way she also gets her license upgraded."
Calem opened his mouth, probably to fire off an acidic retort, but the blonde woman that Rinka had been arguing with suddenly noticed them and began wading through the sea of flittering Gym workers over to them.
As she came closer, Celestine found herself noticing things she hadn't been able to discern at a distance. Rather than heels, the woman wore a pair of knee-high hiking boots with too-thick laces but not enough scuff to indicate the practice of periodic treks into the wilderness. Under the skirt of her coat, Celestine caught a glimpse of jeans that were torn at the knees and punkish paint splatters. And on the front of her coat, a green scarf was tied in bow that resembled a butterfly's wings, which bounced lightly in an almost flapping manner with each step.
The blonde dodged another high-heeled worker before reaching them, and she cast Celestine and Tierno a concerned look. "You two aren't here to challenge the Gym, are you?"
Tierno chuckled nervously and clapped his hand on Calem's shoulder. "Oh, no, Mlle. We were just looking for our friend here."
Calem frowned at him.
Celestine crossed her arms. "I would like to see your ICU, though."
The blonde, Calem, and Tierno all snapped their gazes over to her.
"Come again?" the blonde asked.
Celestine arched a brow. "Did I stutter? I want to see your ICU."
"The ICU," the woman repeated.
"Every Gym has to have one," Celestine said with a shrug. After all, if a challenger's, Gym Leader's, or Gym Trainer's Pokémon was suddenly put into critical condition, waiting for an ambulance to take them to the Center wasted precious time. It was far more efficient to have a medical wing and ICU on-site. "I'd like to see it, please."
The woman eyed her dubiously. "It's not open to guests, Mlle."
"You're the one who's been claiming the Gym is too dangerous to challenge," Celestine said, meeting the blonde's eyes—green, a shade of jade that sent her memories tumbling back five years, into Viridian Forest, and a young girl with raven hair like her own. Unconsciously, Celestine tightened her grip on her own cross arms, and she ignored the questioning looks Delphi and the others sent her. "You want me to believe you? Show me some proof."
The woman hesitated, visibly conflicted. Her gaze scanned Celestine's face, seeming intent on testing her resolve. Then something in the woman's expression both relented and hardened at the same time.
"Very well. But don't say I didn't warn you." She whirled around sharply. "Follow me."
Celestine's fingernails bit into her arms as she followed. She caught Calem and Tierno exchanging a glance before Calem peeled himself off the wall, and they both followed after her.
Uncrossing her arms, she reached for Delphi's Ball as the woman led them through the crowd. "I'm going to put you back in your Ball now," she whispered to her Fennekin.
He shot her a bewildered look. "Why?"
She enlarged it. "Because I don't think you'll be able to stomach what we're about to see."
"I'll be fine," he insisted stubbornly.
"...fine." She shrank his Ball back down, but didn't put it back. "But if it becomes too much, tell me."
And if Celestine's suspicions proved correct, that would certainly be the case.
The blonde lady led them to a white door labeled with red neon letters: Intensive Care Unit. It smelled icily sterile beyond, something that made Delphi's nose wrinkle. He hated the smell of hospitals, all those weird chemicals and disinfectants. And they were always so white. They gave him the creeps, quite frankly. And that, along with what Trainer had said, admittedly made him a little anxious.
Delphi caught Tierno and Calem exchanging nervous looks, caught the tension wrought in Hayami's muscles, as the lady swiped a silver Card—Wait, silver? I though silver Cards were only for...—in the scanner and the door slid open with a metallic hiss.
"Huh," the lady said.
Calem turned to her. "What?"
"Nothing." The lady pocketed her Card, and Delphi caught a flash of a name—something starting with "V". "Just a little surprised I still have access."
"Why wouldn't you have access?" Delphi asked, bewildered. Particularly because of that Card color and what it meant.
The lady (Delphi was going to start calling her "Mlle V" now) winced. "I'm... not exactly welcome on the premises."
"Discouraging challengers does have a way of making you unpopular," Calem remarked with a hint of sarcasm.
Trainer rolled her eyes and crossed the threshold, and Delphi with her. He didn't really look behind him to see if Calem or Tierno followed until he heard the door shut and he jumped, whirling around to see Mlle V taking up the rear.
And... it was awful.
The whole place was mind-numbingly white, polished linoleum tiles underfoot and a blank ceiling, lights that glared down too-brightly. Delphi felt like his eyes were burning, just looking at it, but then they flickered violently, as if trying to accommodate him or something. But when they came back up, they were far dimmer, shadows pooling in places where there shouldn't have been, and it suddenly seemed eerie. Nurses in blue scrubs and doctors in long, clinical white coats scurried around, just like those ladies in the skirts and heels in the lobby, but they were far more purposeful in their strides, calmer and composed, as if numbed to the sights that glared back at them from behind sheets of glass—windows into the rooms of patients, no doubt. And Delphi had no idea how that could be, how they could act like it was nothing, because he saw red. And it was everywhere.
Beyond the glass windows, that was where the resemblance to a traditional hospital ended. There were no curtains separating patients from one another—there was no anything separating patients from one another. Hospital beds, makeshift cots, and gurneys were all packed in tight rows to the point where there was almost no room for any of the equipment, and all of these beds and gurneys had a patient that looked like they were in desperate need of surgery or treatment of some kind. Human and Pokémon alike, most unconscious and all hooked up to an IV or monitor of some kind. And wrapped in thick layers of gauze, white and pristine save for the enormous rusty stains that marred the otherwise clean fabric.
Trainer was right—it was gruesome.
Most were unconscious, the only sign of life the constant beeping of monitors and jumping lines that signified heartbeats, but some were painfully awake, moaning and coughing and some sobbing. There was staccato beeping that assaulted Delphi's delicate ears, made him pull them back, in addition to the other horrid, and far more organic sounds, that emanated from the invalid. Cuts marred every body, bloody slashes that thick gauze slabs were trying desperately to mend and failing miserably, blood seeping through in copious amounts that couldn't be healthy. Some were hooked up to blood bags, others to saline and others more to something colored bright pink—likely a Hyper Potion, but the type that worked on people instead of Pokemon, although some Pokémon were hooked up to said bags with that same viscous pink fluid. Delphi noticed some of the patients were missing entire limbs, stubs wrapped haphazardly but still bleeding, almost weeping lachrymosely. Nurses darted around, changing dressings or sheets or doing other such odd jobs, occasionally blotting out the patient from Delphi's view, but he could still catch a glimpse of what seemed to be horrid mutilation marks—the kind made by something that could stab and slash and cut with clean, merciless precision—on their faces or torsos. The nurses seemed desperate to try and cover up these wounds, as if they were shameful, but the ones left waiting for eclipsing were left gruesomely exposed. Some were infected, by the looks of it, dripping something that looked vile and slimy and might smell bad if they weren't enclosed in some other room. A nurse slipped into the door and the putrid stenches of sepsis and gangrene and necrosis, rotting flesh and infection, of poo and pee and other disgusting, decaying stenches flooded Delphi's sensitive nostrils and tugged at his gag reflex.
When Delphi heard gagging, he almost thought it was coming from him. He did, after all, taste bitter bile rising up his throat and the room was swaying dangerously. But then he noticed it was coming from behind him, and he turned to see Tierno retching—to see Calem drinking it all in with a dark look in his eyes, to see the horror written on Hayami's face, to see Mlle V lowering her eyes almost guiltily.
Trainer knelt down swiftly to grab a trash can that had been placed by the door and thrust it to Tierno. He took it just as swiftly and retched into it. And all throughout, Trainer's gaze remained frontward. Her face might as well have been stone.
A doctor noticed them and came over, face stern. "You should not be here, Mlle Dupuis," he said, but it seemed like he was addressing Mlle V and not Trainer and the others.
Mlle V (Dupuis?) bit her lip. "I know, but I— They needed to see this."
The doctor opened his mouth to respond, but Trainer suddenly brushed past him and made her way over to the glass window of one room to the left. "M-Mlle, you can't go in there!"
Trainer didn't, though, and made no attempt to. She just stopped, directly in front of the glass window, and stared into the room, eyes smoldering.
But the sight was too much for Delphi. The blood, the moaning, the smell of death that they tried to scrub away with citrusy disinfectant and failed to—he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think about Oncle, about the lab, about his foster Trainer's smiling face, about his siblings and parents and the happy times he'd spent out in the backyard, exploring and play-fighting—
A wet, phlegmy cough sounded from behind the glass. It grew louder, and in the steady staccato of beeps, a member of the chorus suddenly spiked and became more frantic, higher and more desperate. The coughing turning into something breathier, something shuddering and violent—a death rattle. And then, abruptly, it stopped. The beeping that had once been so high and frantic became a long and monotonous, like a scream.
Delphi wanted to cry.
"Excuse me, Doctor?" came Hayami's voice from behind, hesitant and fearful. "Ah... The Gym Leader... Is responsible for this?"
A huffed laugh. "Like anyone else could fill up the ICU this fast."
Delphi cracked open an eye. The nurses were placing a stark white sheet over a nonhumanoid body. Slowly, Trainer placed a hand on the glass. The eyes of her reflection were still smoldering.
"How long has this been going on?" Calem asked sharply.
The doctor grunted. "'Bout a month."
"And the League is letting this happen?"
A feminine sigh, likely Mlle Dupuis. "If the League is aware, they don't care."
"What?" And here, Calem sounded angry.
"Up until recently, this Gym was in serious debt," Mlle Dupuis explained hesitantly. "The Gym Leader was losing constantly—she never minded, of course! As far as she was concerned, it meant there were a lot of talented Trainers out there. But the Gym had to take out several loans to pay for prize money. And then the League cut her off, left her to drown. That's... when this started.
"The Gym isn't losing money anymore. With each recorded loss, prize money from the Trainer's account is automatically transferred into the Gym's account. Add that in with the money taken out for health insurance to pay for treatment here at the Gym's ICU—only half of which is actually used to pay for what's going on here in the ICU, and the other half likely filtering into the Gym's account for the Gym Leader's own benefit—and the Gym is paying off its debts very quickly. The League couldn't be more pleased. It's likely they're also unaware of just how full the ICU is."
"So what?" Calem demanded, his voice cracking with fury. "That's it? The Gym collects money and this all suddenly disappears? Nobody knows anything?"
A pause. Trainer's reflection narrowed her eyes. Delphi closed his eyes again as the nurses began to wheel out the gurney occupied by the unmoving (dead) body.
"The Gym Leader has connections to the Lumiose Star," said the doctor tiredly. "She uses her influence to keep them quiet, and in turn has them keep other media sources quiet."
"Oh my god," Tierno murmured, horrified.
"Can one person really have so much influence?" Hayami asked skeptically. "One media source, I can understand. Connections to the Lumiose Star and all. But all of them?"
"How am I supposed to know?" the doctor snapped. "I'm a doctor, not a reporter. And I have patients to deal with. I want all of you out of here within the next fifteen minutes. Merci." And then his curt footsteps vanished into the pitter-patter of medical staff's footfalls.
"Why would Viola do this?" Calem murmured, his voice tight.
"Who's Viola?" That was Tierno. There was a clattering that sounded like the trash can he'd been vomiting into hitting the floor. Delphi could still smell the fresh vomit, though.
"The Gym Leader here," Calem answered coolly. "I did my research."
"You may need to update your information," came Mlle Dupuis's voice, sounding rather rueful. "There hasn't been a Gym Leader named Viola here in quite some time."
A beat of silence. The beeping caught Delphi's attention again. Lives. These were lives.
"What are you talking about?" Calem demanded.
"Are the Gym Battles still open for public viewing?" Delphi's eyes snapped open at the sound of Trainer's voice. Her reflection had turned away, so Delphi could only view the side profile, but her expression had become hard, fierce in a cold sort of way.
Mlle Dupuis turned to her so sharply that the side of her blond bob slapped her cheek lightly. "What?"
"Shauna... told me that the Gyms here allow public viewing, and she was surprised when I told her the Gyms in Kanto didn't." Trainer stopped, suddenly, shifting awkwardly. It took Delphi a moment to realize she was embarrassed at mentioning Shauna. "So, has public viewing been closed, or no?"
Mlle Dupuis fixed Trainer with a dubious, emerald-eyed stare. "...yes. You'd have to sign up at the front desk. Why?"
"I want to watch today's match," Trainer said, and there was a tremor in her voice—but it wasn't fear. It was fury, the calm sort that was more terrifying than screaming and shouting. Her eyes were burning. "I want to know what kind of person this Gym Leader is, and what the hell she's thinking—tarnishing her Gym's reputation like this."
Calem's expression became a shadow of Trainer's, eyes dark and mouth tight. "Agreed."
Tierno looked a little green around the gills as he cast a worried look between Calem and Trainer, but then he slumped in resignation. "Well, someone's gotta be a buffer between you two."
"The hell is that supposed to mean?" the two demanded—at the exact same time, too. They exchanged a slightly bewildered glance with each other, clearly just as shocked at the other by their unintentional synchrony.
Hayami cleared her throat. "I believe he is referring to your collective streak in noncooperation."
Calem frowned at the Frogadier. Trainer shot her a subtle glare.
Mlle Dupuis bit her lip. "...if you're going to watch, stay away from the front seats. They tend to get...bloody."
Another silence.
Mlle Dupuis turned and opened the door. Delphi flattened his ears as another monitor started beeping louder and faster, as nurses converged on another dying patient.
As they exited, Trainer pulled out Delphi's Ball and held it up. "I'm putting you in."
Delphi straightened. "Trainer—"
"If you can't handle what was in there," Trainer said sharply, "you're not going to handle watching the battle."
"I'm fi—"
"No. You're not. This isn't a discussion." And then there was red light, and Delphi couldn't think how much it reminded him of blood in the dreamless sleep of his Ball.
The Gym Trainer trial was generally uneventful—simply a qualification that the challenger was skilled enough to even challenger the Gym Leader in the first place—so it was usually a private affair. It usually consisted of a test of the Gym Leader's design, something that would test certain aspects of the challenger's ability. Shigeru-san, for example, had installed a maze of gyration tiles that sent challengers spinning through the area and straight into a battle with a Gym Trainer, all to test the challenger's ability to handle disorientation and their overall composure.
According to Calem, Viola's was a dimly-lit maze full of spiderwebs, haunted-house-style, meant to test the challenger's overall courage. When Celestine asked, suspicions raised, how he knew this, he became rather evasive, saying only that he had a source inside the League.
"No offense dude," Tierno said, "but if your source is who I think it is, your information's probably stale."
"Shut up," was Calem's flat reply.
Tierno sighed. "Look, Cal, I'm just saying that your ex from a year and a half ago isn't—"
"Tierno."
"TMI boys," Celestine muttered, cheek in hand.
They ended up not sitting in the bleachers at all, but on a balcony that hovered about ten feet above the ground, just above where the bleachers ended. This was the Gym Leader's chamber—more like a stadium, the standard kind you'd expect in an official Tournament, with a wide dirt battlefield and a protective railing around the bleachers that absorbed Aura, effectively protecting the audience from errant attacks. The balcony lacked this protection, something Calem remarked was a safety violation, but the bleachers were full and the balconies were the only things left unoccupied. Celestine suspected it was for precisely the fact that it lacked protection that it was unoccupied. The railing looked as if it had been replaced recently...
The seats were comfortable, at least, and the view was much better. From this vantage, Celestine could view the entirety of the field, though anything that appeared on it would be significantly smaller. Tierno had taken the leftmost seat, Celestine slumping in the rightmost, and Calem seating himself in the middle—though Tierno had protested that he'd rather be in the middle just to break them up in case they argued, but Hayami assured him she was more than capable of mediating herself if it came down to it. Celestine resented that.
Celestine's gaze flicked back to the field. The lights were off and the stadium was cast in a crepuscular darkness. Rinka's taking forever...
A thought struck her, and she straightened somewhat. Is it just the Gym Leader that's putting people in the ICU, or are the Gym Trainers playing a part too?
Her blood boiled at the notion. As a former Gym Trainer herself, the idea of either Gym Trainer or Leader being the cause of so much blood and death left her beyond furious. A Gym was a sacred institution dedicated to testing the bonds between Pokémon and Trainer. To see it turned into a place of nightmares and darkness was enough to make her want to bash someone's skull in.
A spotlight suddenly the side of the field, highlighting a figure standing on the side of the field. The announcer, likely. A black cord snaked out behind them, probably connected to a mike.
"Laaaaaaaaaadies and gentlemen!" came a booming voice, one that jolted Celestine from her seat and reverberated through her skeleton.
The frubbles on Hayami's neck flared and Calem jumped, eyes round as coins. Tierno looked around, then turned back to them with a frown and jerked his thumb in the direction a speaker Celestine hadn't noticed. Ah, so thatwas why this balcony was unoccupied.
"In the blue corner, Santalune's very own superstar!" The announcer gestured flamboyantly to the left. "The reporter with a passion for insects! The self-proclaimed Santalune Mantis! The black widow herself! Your Gym Leeeeeeader—Alexa Dupuis!"
A second spotlight shone down on the left end of the field, highlighting a brunette figure in red and black attire. The brunette turned to the audience and waved in a perfect, parade-float manner. The audience's applause was weirdly asymmetrical, tepid in some places and overzealous in others.
"Who the hell is Alexa?" Celestine demanded, turning to Calem.
But Calem stared at the brunette uncomprehendingly. "...I have no idea."
Tierno bit his lip and glanced nervously at Calem. "Maybe you should call your ex, Cal."
Calem nodded, too stunned to do anything else.
The announcer gestured warily to the right. "...and in the red corner, the challenger! A Santalune native—give it up for Roller Skater Rinka!"
Another spotlight shone down on the right end, and a figure in a yellow helmet stepped into the spotlight. Rinka. She didn't wave, like this Alexa person had, but the audience cheered nonetheless. Less than for Alexa, though. Something about the air had changed within the bleachers. It was almost...fearful.
"This will be a one-on-one battle," called out Alexa, her voice strong and proud and likely carried to the speakers by a hidden mike. "The first Trainer to effectively kill their opponent's Pokémon will be declared the winner. Do you agree to these conditions?"
Rinka's voice came through speakers tersely, "Yes."
The laugh that Alexa gave was sharply off-kilter and wild, borderline manic, and it made the hairs on Celestine's arms stand on end. "Excellent!" crowed the Gym Leader. "Let's begin!"
Light flooded the field, and the sudden onslaught made Celestine squint. But then she noticed a glimmer of blue and she tensed.
Wait a sec...
Her vision adjusted, Celestine saw Alexa toss a Ball into the field, which released a burst of light that coalesced into something humanoid and bright crimson, body glinting with a harsh, metallic light.
Celestine jumped to her feet and grabbed hold of the railing, throwing her upper body over it to get a better look. "Holy shit!"
Calem joined her at the edge of the railing, Hayami on his shoulder and his face blanching. "...please tell me that's not a fucking Scizor."
It was a fucking Scizor.
Against a no-badge challenger.
What the fucking shit.
"What the frick lady?!" came Rinka's voice, simultaneously outraged and scared. "You can't just throw out a Pokémon like that against a challenger without any badges! The hell happened to the badge ranking?!"
"Oh, honey," Alexa crooned. "I don't know what lameass Gyms you've been visiting, but that's not how we do things here. I go all out, and you go all out, and we see who wins. That's it, plain and simple." She paused, and Celestine watched her hand go up to finger at something around her neck. A choker, maybe? "Unless, of course, you're saying that you're simply not strong enough, in which case you can leave right now. Is that what you're telling me, little bug?"
There was a long pause, during which Tierno came up to join them.
Then, Rinka's voice came, sharp and hard, "No. Let's do this."
"She's batshit crazy," Calem muttered, and Celestine couldn't tell if he was talking about Alexa or Rinka. "Out of her damn mind."
"Fantastic!" Alexa squealed. She clasped her hands next to her cheek. "Send out your Pokémon then."
Rinka did so. Within a moment, her Fletchling was swooping around in the air, free and proud and strong. But not strong enough to take on a fucking Scizor.
"Let's begin," Alexa said, an odd tremor of excitement in her voice. She touched her neck and then there was a scintillating flash of powder blue—and then the air rippled, shuddered and warped. Celestine could feel the Veil trembling violently, could feel it swell and shrink and undulate, even from where she should.
She only caught a glimpse of a vine of ethereal blue light snaking out, the air shimmering and warping all around it like a mirage, before she bolted back into the waiting area behind the bleachers.
"Celestine!" Calem called after her, but she ignored him.
The sound of her own heartbeat drowned out everything except her own frantic thoughts. It couldn't be it couldn't be it couldn't be— But it was. She had seen it with her own two eyes, felt the Veil's rippling as it tried to cope with the disturbance, and she flashed back to the ICU, the state of all those challengers and their Pokémon who had been caught victim unexpectedly, and the light that had been emitted from Alexa's choker—
And it all clicked, her stomach lurching as she burst into the bleachers and practically leaped down the stairs in her haste, ignoring the indignant shouts of fellow spectators as it all of it coalescing into one horrible conclusion. One that made her hands feel numb and her head spin and she thrust herself against the railing of the bleachers just in time to feel it warm up, activating to absorb any stray crackles of the wicked bolt of black-violet, lightning-like Aura that whizzed past. Celestine could feel the air around it rip and rend, feel it tear and screech, and the Night Slash carved a gash into the field that landed dangerously close to Rinka. For one horrid, fraction of a moment, the cloud of dust that had been kicked hung suspended in the air, and it was as if time had frozen.
Then the air exploded into a deafening sonic boom that left her ears ringing, and Celestine braced herself against the superheated rush of displaced air, strong enough to tear at her hair and pull at it so hard she felt it in her scalp, strong enough to burn against her skin and make her eyes water. She opened her eyes just in time to glimpse Danny, high in the air, a mere silhouette against the blinding stadium lights—and then a red blur shot up after it. Her ears were still too busy ringing to properly process the audible crack of a second Night Slash charging on its left pincer, and only came back when it sliced Danny cleanly in half.
The corpse fell in two distinct halves, one to the far side and one to the closer side, the innards spilling out between them. All around Celestine, the crowd erupted into either horrified screams or bloodthirsty applause, and she could only watch, her knuckles turning white.
Celestine brushed hair out of her face as another sonic boom hit, this one strong enough to make her bones vibrate and her teeth clack. The red blur landed with a ground-shaking thump, but it wasn't a Scizor that landed. Oh no, it was too sharp to be a Scizor, its legs geometrically shaped and its pincers far too long, too large and piercing. A black crest marred its otherwise ruby exoskeleton and all around it, the air shimmered and warped, the Veil wrestling constantly to conceal this monster from the eyes of mortals.
Oh no no no no no no no oh Birds please no—
Calem and Tierno joined her, but Celestine didn't see them. Didn't see anything beyond that monstrosity, that thing that was too tall, too deadly to be a Scizor. Its wings were like blades, and its eyes, normally amber-colored, were a frigid shade of blue devoid of freewill.
Her stomach plummeted, throat burning like acid, and she lost all feeling in her fingers and toes.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—
Rinka screamed.
"Are you kidding me? Is that really it?" came Alexa's laughing, sardonic voice. From closer up, Celestine could make out the dulled caramel brown of her bob, the etiolated, skeletal sharpness of her features, the sunkenness of her eyes and the shadows that pooled in her too-sharp cheekbones. A wicked smile was framed by chapped, cracked lips, teeth yellow, eyes glinting like broken shard of a malachite. She must have been pretty, once, but that loveliness was long-gone, replaced by something sickly and in desperate need of help. "Did it really only take one hit? Seriously?
There was a choker around her neck, black and tight like a noose. In the center was a marble-sized orb that shone like a dying star, black and ruby in color but glowing a bright shade of powder blue.
"Oh my god, that's so pathetic!" the woman crowed. Her bottom lip cracked and bled as it stretched into a wide, mocking grin. "That's just—I can't even!"
Rinka started to sob, holding her hands to her mouth. A few sliced-up feathers fluttered to the ground.
"Well," Alexa went on, her voice turning to a slow drawl, "I can't imagine what a painful existence one as weak as yourself might end up enduring if I were to leave you here. I suppose I have no choice then—consider this a mercy."
The Bug monster tensed. Alexa flicked her wrist dismissively.
"Goodbye little bug."
It shot forward.
Rinka screamed again, and Celestine with her.
"Ambrosia, Protect!"
The incoming Night Slash diffused harmlessly off a great shield of frosted blue, glass-like energy that materialized at the last minute. Celestine watched with bated breath as a butterfly with satiny wings colored a vibrant shade of amethyst came fluttering into view, positioning itself in front of Rinka almost protectively.
"That's a Vivillon," Calem murmured as Alexa screeched in frustration and her crimson monster leaped back, snapping its pincers menacingly. "...Elegant Pattern, I think."
"Have you completely lost your mind, Alexa?!" came a voice, seeming to choke on grief but resounded all the same. From the shadows emerged the blonde woman from before, her jade eyes burning furiously, as the Vivillon, presumably hers, dropped the Protect. What was it that doctor had called her? Mlle... Du-something? Celestine couldn't remember.
Alexa's lip curled back and the manic gleam in her eyes grew threefold. "You little bitch! You just don't know when to quit, do you?"
"They... know each other," Tierno said, shocked.
The blonde shook her head wildly. "I'm not going to stand by while you continue to attack innocents!"
Alexa huffed another off-kilter laugh. "Oh come off your high horse, Viola!"
"Viola," Celestine murmured, glancing briefly at Calem's face, which was blank with horror and quickly losing color. "As in, the Viola who's supposed to be Gym Leader?"
Calem inhaled sharply.
Celestine turned back to the stadium. Alexa was sauntering closer, causing Viola to flinch and Alexa to smirk. "What's the matter, little sis? Did you come here to try and win your title back?"
The breath left Celestine's lungs.
Little sis.
Viola drew another Ball from her pocket. "My title has nothing to do with this, Alexa! This about you attacking innocent peo—"
A Night Slash ripped through the air and slammed into the ground just behind them, kicking out a cloud of obscuring debris. The sonic boom that followed nearly drowned out Viola's scream—nearly, but not completely. When the dust cleared, Viola was clutching a long, bloody gash on her shoulder, her face knotted in pain, Rinka ducked on the ground behind her and the Vivillon having flattened itself on top of her.
"Holy shit!" Tierno cried out.
Celestine grit her teeth, her hands completely numb and trembling violently around her grip on the railing. Her feet itched.
"I have no tolerance for blustering pathetic Bugs like yourself," Alexa announced, her mouth drawing into a pout. "So hurry up and die already."
The beastly Scizor started forward again, and Viola braced herself—
"GYM LEADER ALEXA!"
—and then the scene came to a grinding halt, all eyes traveling to the raven-haired girl that was leaning her entire upper body over the railing. Without a word, Celestine vaulted over it cleanly and landed deftly on the side of the field, ignoring the awkward twinge in her ankles that came from landing in heels.
"My name is Lavieaux Celestine from Viridian City," she declared as she stormed into the field, unstoppable as a hurricane, her eyes blazing, "and I officially challenge you for your title and ownership of the Santalune Gym."
"Celestine!" Tierno called out.
"What the fuck?!" Calem snapped.
The crowd erupted into a frantic murmur, equal parts excited and fearful.
But Alexa regarded Celestine with something akin to boredom as she approached. "Go back to the bleachers, little girl. This is a Gym, not the kiddie table at Thanksgiving."
"Get out of here," Viola hissed, but Celestine ignored her.
Alexa rolled her eyes and turned away, eyeing her nails listlessly.
"I'm not a kid—I'm a surgeon," Celestine said softly, once she came close enough to be heard over the crowd without shouting. She stopped, maybe a foot away from Alexa's monster. "I'm here to remove that parasitic thing on your neck."
Alexa snapped back to her, stunned.
Celestine allowed her Aura to flare, allowed her eyes to burn with the saltire mark of the Aesith—the Infinity Cross. The Scizor hissed and stepped back. Alexa's bleeding lip twitched into a grin.
"Well I'll be damned," she purred, sauntering over until she was face-to-face with Celestine. Long, skeletal fingers brushed the choker on her neck, and it stopped glowing. The Scizor slumped, starting to shrink and revert to its natural state, and Alexa whipped out a Ball and returned it before it could do so fully. "And here I thought the only one I'd have to worry about would be Korrina."
From her peripheral, Celestine saw Calem hop the railing and rush over to Viola, who had collapsed to her knees, still clutching her gushing shoulder. Tierno followed after him, tripping over his own feet in a rare moment of clumsiness.
"So what brings you to my web, little fly?" Alexa filled Celestine's vision. She looked even more sickly up close—her eyes were impossibly wide, her irises shrunken but her pupils blown and her sclera bloodshot. Her breath smelled sour and the gem on her choker pulsed like a bloody heart. "Come to take back your precious little trinket?"
Celestine could feel her hands curling into fists. The air was still shuddering from the aftermath, and the source was so close it made her spine tremble, as if anticipating a storm. "Three weeks," she bit out. "Does that work for you?"
"Well, gee, I don't know if I can stand to wait that long." Alexa's grin and eyes were wild, manic. "But I'd rather savor it than rush it, so I think I can... find a way, to restrain myself."
Celestine searched her green eyes and...and there was nothing. Nothing she could—
"Good." Celestine whirled around sharply and started fast walking away as quickly as she could without showing weakness, her bones still shuddering from being so close. Calem was having Hayami use her frubbles to suppress the bleeding on Viola's shoulder. Tierno was helping Rinka up, and she was shaking, Viola's Vivillon flitting around nervously. "Until then."
"I'll be waiting," Alexa singsonged.
Celestine reached the side of the field just as Calem was helping Viola up. The woman was trembling, eyes dull from blood loss. "Let me help," she said.
Calem eyed her for a moment, but Viola was limp and groggy, and the former Gym Leader all but fell onto Celestine. The Kantonian was knocked off balance by the woman's weight suddenly hit her, but quickly regained it. Hayami's frubbles weren't air-tight, and blood dribbled onto Celestine's shoulder, soaked into the fabric of her shirt, warm and wet.
"I've got you," Celestine murmured. She turned to Calem and Tierno urgently. "ICU, now."
"Danny," Rinka was sobbing, "Danny, he's— He's—"
"He's dead." Celestine hoisted Viola up, the blonde's head lolling on Celestine's shoulder. She glanced back at the field, to the halves of the Fletchling's corpse, and fought back a wince. While she had held nothing but acrimony towards the bird for the wound it had inflicted on Ray, she knew it hardly deserved to die. And especially not so suddenly, without any warning, and in such a gruesome manner.
She couldn't stand to look anymore, so she didn't. "C'mon. Let's get the hell out of here."
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
WORLD BUILDING
I.
Originally, the League itself was quite bloody, with Gym Leaders having fixed teams of their choice and entire Routes that went unmonitored, rife with wild, vicious Pokémon still bitter about the damage done to their homes during the Crimson War. It was a deathtrap, which was why the League overwent several revisions in order to make it safer and more efficient.
The first revision was addition the badge ranks. This forced League Trainers to declare the number of badges they owned, and if the gap was at least two badges wide, the ensuing battle must be Non-Reaper in nature. This was to prevent less experienced Trainers from being swept and have their teams slaughtered. Gym Leaders, as well, now keep multiple teams, one of each badge level, a personal team that they often use in the Tournaments the League hosts in order to lure more potential League Trainers into the Circuit challenge.
The second revision was intensifying the process of applying for a traveler's permit. League Trainer applicants must now demonstrate a basic understanding of, not only battle mechanics, but basic care and survival skills. In addition to filling out an application, applicants are vetted by the predominant League Official in the area, either a Gym Leader or a head Ranger or some other official, and must pass several small tests (with subjects that usually range from demonstrating how to set up a tent to filling out a graph on the Type Effectiveness system), which eventually culminates into a weighted exam. With the process of earning a traveler's permit, the very thing that allows League Trainers to travel and gives them their title, being so intensive, this guaranteed that only those competent enough would be allowed to participate in the Circuit challenge.
This does not necessarily mean that those who are denied a traveler's permit cannot be Trainers. Gym Trainers were added to the system around the same time as the traveler's permit, in order to give those who failed an opportunity to still battle and train. These Trainers still must prove competent in battle, but rather than passing a standardized test, they instead earned the approval of the Gym Leader in which they would serve under, thus naturally the process includes both an interview and a battle demonstration. The role of Gym Trailers is to provide a warm-up for League Trainers before they faced the Gym Leader, to give challengers an idea of the Gym's typing and strategies and allow them to formulate effective strategies. Often, Gym Trainers are Field Trainers who assimilate into Gyms in order to earn more money.
While Field Trainers (called "Class Trainers" in the New Continent, Alola, and Hoenn) are employed by the League just like Gym Trainers and are paid more generously than them, but a great deal of that money is poured into caring for their team and the reward money (sometimes called "mercy money") doled out to League Trainers who successfully beat them. Because of this, little of the stipend granted to them is left over, while the money for the care of Gym Trainers' teams is covered by the Gym's expenses and Gym Trainers do not dole out mercy money. Furthermore, Gym Trainers have slightly more liberty with their teams, capturing anything so long as it is native to the region and within the Type perimeters of their Gym. Field Trainers have a guideline of Pokémon they must capture based on the Class assigned to them, and are also assigned level caps. While their role was initially to provide a way for League Trainers to bridge the level gap from badge rank to badge rank, but over time Field Trainers began to be viewed in a more negative light, often thought of as a League Trainer's punching bags. The Class ranks are often assigned based on age, experience, gender, and other variables that have been often called discriminatory. However, one of the biggest criticisms is that, because the application process is so lax, Field Trainers don't even need to demonstrate a basic competence of battle mechanics.
The quality of Field Trainers versus Gym Trainers varies from region to region. In Sinnoh, for example, mercy money is distributed by Gym Trainers, so Field Trainers rake in more money. In Tohjo, the amount of mercy money is simply less, so Field Trainers make much more. In fact, Tohjo Field Trainers are treated the most generously.
Originally, this was the same in Kalos, but since the rise of the Legrand administration, the funding for the League and its officials has slowly gone into decline, and Field Trainers find themselves with smaller stipends every year, to the point where they are left scrap for funds.
II.
The Quantum Veil, or simply "the Veil" for short, is an enigma that, even today, researchers are still desperate to understand. Little is known about the Veil outside myths, rumors, and what little data that has been researched through the use of Dream Mist.
As it stands now, the Veil is mostly known to be a sort of mental barrier that exists between demihumans and mortals. Some demihumans, particularly those of the Fae Class, are more attuned to the Veil than any other, though there are some of the Psychic Class that are connected to it. The Veil tends to shield mortal vision from certain supernatural aspects—Transcendence, being the greatest example. But it can also be manipulated by certain species of Pokémon, such as the Musharna and Zoroark lines, and once the Veil is manipulated, it becomes known as "glamor". It is theorized that certain Fairy-Types possess the ability to create and or utilize glamor, though this ability is not limited to Pokémon of this typing.
Some research indicates that the Veil's source may be located somewhere in Unova, in a place known in theory s the Quantum Vertex. The aboriginal populations that inhabit this area often refer to it as "the Knot", claiming that it the spot where lives, both past and present, become entwined and, as the popular phrase goes, "the threads of Fate become hopelessly tangled".
What information that currently exists does so only from the divulgence of Aesith, who are more attuned to the Veil than any other demihuman or Pokémon currently in existence.
Author's Notes:
First of all, apologies for the lateness, I had a lot to do today and recently got home.
Secondly, remember when I said the pacing would pick up? Well, I meant it.
You have no idea how long I've been waiting to write this and how cathartic it was to finally put it into text. I really hit my stride and am so thrilled with how this turned out.
And that officially ends Chapter Five! I'm going to try to keep the next chapter around or under three parts (hopefully).
So, did anyone notice how Alexa didn't relay any commands? Well, that's not normal, and will be touched on later.
Sorry the last part is just world building. The chapter just felt way too short in comparison to the others and I needed to fill the space somehow. The next update will be another Document, just to warn you, but it will add some more depth to the situation.
In the meantime, enjoy!
Luna