Chapter 12 – A Question of Loyalty
"Am I ever going to get a full night's rest again?" Kimiko groaned to herself, rubbing her tired eyes.
The small party continued to follow Kirsten's beedrill through the dark path of the forest well into the late night hours as he led them to whatever it was he had discovered. With Fantomé's disappearance, Kirsten suggested all other pokémon be recalled for the time being, save her own – they had enough on their plate with Diamond, the missing girl, her party, and now the gastly without any more pokémon going AWOL. She summoned her crobat back to the party alongside her seviper and venomoth to compensate as Thorn and Symphony were returned to their pokéballs.
With Venomoth leading the way, Seviper and Crobat on constant alert, and the three beedrill above, no other ghosts had as of yet disturbed their seemingly endless trek; however, no one missed the numerous pairs of eyes constantly watching them from the darkness of the surrounding bushes.
"What are you two doing back in here, anyway?" Kirsten asked in a rushed whisper. "After what you told me last time, I'd have thought you both would try to avoid this place like the plague."
"Just taking shelter from the rain," Alex replied. "There's really no cover on the route between Ferrum and Neutron, and it looked like the storm was going to get pretty bad. She put up quite the resistance, regardless," he added, jerking a thumb towards Kimiko; the blonde opened her mouth to argue but all that came out was groan, her exhaustion leaving her too worn out to argue.
"You probably would have been better off camping in the rain," Kirsten deadpanned. At this, Kimiko shot a tired, angry glare towards Alex. "I mean, you remember what happened to me the first time we met, don't you?"
"I thought we'd be safe on the edge…" Alex trailed off. "I mean, I didn't expect Diamond to go running off on his own."
"You caught him here. This was his home. These ghosts are probably his friends, his family, and you thought it would be okay to just let him roam on his own?"
"I didn't let him roam," Alex said defensively, his voice rising. "I let him out for protection – which, okay, looking back probably was not the best idea I've ever had. But he was behaving up until the screams."
"You would have thought we should help the screaming girl anyway, whether Diamond ran off or not," Kimiko added sharply, arms crossed.
Kari looked down, embarrassed, her voice high pitched and squeaky. "I'm sorry, I never meant for you all to get involved in any of this…"
"No, it's not your fault!" Kimiko remedied quickly. "We would have–"
Kirsten's seviper turned to Kimiko and let out a hiss. His trainer followed up with her own translation: "We can assign blame all you want later, but right now you guys really need to keep your voices low! I'm serious. I'm not trying to give you orders or anything, but for real, the less attention we draw to ourselves, the better, and you're not just putting yourself at risk, you're endangering everyone else here as well, so for the love of Arceus, will the three of you please shut the fuck up!"
"Sorry!" Kimiko and Kari muttered in unison.
"We're already being watched," Alex said, glancing off to the right and causing the pair of eyes there to vanish into the darkness.
Kirsten sighed. "Yeah, alright. We need to hurry the hell up and find all these missing pokémon and people and get out of this place. Beedrill!" she shouted, abandoning all concern.
The shiny beedrill drifted out from the treetops, his two bodyguards remaining above to protect from any aerial attacks. "We haven't found anything at the last two spots you've led us to. Are you sure what you saw wasn't just another ghost illusion?" The bug-type buzzed violently. Kirsten sighed, her hands up in defeat. "Okay, okay, I forgive you already. Go back up there and keep watching out, okay buddy?" Without another sound, the shiny darted back into the treetops, out of sight.
"I have an idea," Kimiko piped up. "That is, since our position is kind of compromised anyway, we might as well use what sounds we can… right?"
Kirsten stopped moving forward and turned to face her, a look of confusion evident on her face. "Maybe I'm tired, but can you run that sentence by me again?"
Kimiko instead pulled out her pokédex. "Well, I mean… since the ghosts are already watching us and know where we are… why are we trying to hide it? They're already keeping track of our movements. Maybe if we start playing tauros' cry, it might respond back to us. It might not work on Diamond or Fantomé since they ran off on their own free will, but…"
"That's… actually not a bad idea," Kirsten said after a minute. "But first…" She made some kind of slashing motion in the air, and after only seconds, Kirsten's toxicroak and drapion appeared on the scene from the darkness. "I still don't like the idea of drawing attention, but the sooner we find everyone, the sooner we can leave. Might as well get out all the protection we can. Not you," she added as Alex and Kari reached for their own pokéballs. Drapion began sniffing at the air and hissing something at Crobat. "I don't want anyone else getting lost. My pokémon are at much higher levels than yours. If we get separated, they can handle themselves for a little while, at least. Leave the protection to me and my team. Now… go ahead."
With a nod, Kimiko scrolled through her pokédex to find the entry on tauros. She skipped over the statistical data and began the recorded cry, replaying it after a few seconds after it stopped. The party remained still, listening for a few minutes for a response.
"Well, I hear more buzzing," Alex said. "There must be a dozen more beedrill up there."
"Let's keep moving. And keep playing that recording. Listen up team; keep your eyes open. I know you're all tired, but we're in ghost territory. Venomoth, you just keep that flash going. Everyone else, keep the ghosts away from the rest of us."
It paid off. They found Thrasher a short while later leaning back against a tree, all alone, legs gashed and bleeding. The tauros looked up and let out a threatening growl as the party approached. He tried to stand but collapsed before he got upright.
"Hey, it's just me, it's Kari, see?" said the blue-haired girl, her hands up in surrender. While the rest remained behind, she walked slowly towards the injured tauros, her chimecho now out and floating along in her wake. "Let me fix your leg… Symphony?"
The chimecho chimed and ripples of multicolored energy began radiating off her body, enveloping Thrasher. The tauros closed his eyes and began to calm down as the gashes on his legs started to seal themselves.
"Heal pulse," Kirsten confirmed, noting the others' puzzled expressions.
"Can you stand?" Kari asked, kneeling down and putting a hand out towards the bull. Thrasher opened his eyes and growled again, but butted his head into her hand before forcing himself upright. He stomped a few times, testing his strength.
He then let out a very angry cry. Startled, Kari jumped out of her skin and fell backwards. Symphony caught her with his psychic energy before she hit the ground. Thrasher jerked his head to the side a few times, as if stabbing something in front of him with his horns.
"I don't know where Ana is," Kari responded frantically as Symphony released her onto her feet, answering the tauros' question. "I know you're upset, but I don't know!"
Thrasher lowered his head and began to walk towards Kari. Alex started sprinting to her side, but Kirsten grabbed his arm, saying, "Relax, she's fine."
Kari held her ground as the angry bull lowered his head…
…and nuzzled Kari's stomach.
"N-no, I'm fine, really, I don't mind walking – gah!" Kari choked as Thrasher jerked his head upwards, tossing the girl over onto her stomach on his back. "W-well, if you insist…" she choked out. Symphony giggled as she settled her trainer into a sitting position.
"One down, three to go…" Kimiko muttered.
"This is all well and good, but… Beedrill!" Kirsten called, and the party began moving again. The bee drifted once more out of the treetops. "Sounds like you brought the entire swarm along. Any sign of the sableye or the gastly?" The beedrill remained silent, floating in front of the champion. "What about the girl?" Again, the bee did not respond in any way Alex could see. "Alright, keep looking."
Not long after, Fantomé burst onto the scene with a bellowing wail and began circling Kimiko gleefully. Kirsten's venomoth whirled around and let loose a psybeam instinctively, but in the panic her aim wasn't even close. The rest of the group came to a halt and spun around also, watching the gastly.
"Fantomé!" Kimiko demanded in a stern whisper. "Be quiet, now! What did I say about flying off on your own?"
In response, the ghost nestled in her hair.
"Fantomé, no!" Kimiko insisted. And then the gastly darted off again, just as quickly as he appeared. Kimiko ripped open her bag and began digging through it to find his pokéball, but Alex stopped her.
"Wait, let's follow him."
"Crobat, tail him. At least if we lose sight of him, you can come back and show us where he's gone."
Seviper seemed to have trouble keeping up with the party as they ran, though as it turned out, Fantomé was not trying to wander out of sight this time. He would occasionally dart too far ahead or behind a tree, but would always shoot back to make sure his trainer was behind him, cackling all the while.
"He's very eager to please," Kirsten commented.
"Come again?" Kimiko asked, utterly confused.
"He doesn't seem to know how to form a complete sentence yet, but he keeps saying things like 'I find girl, trainer will be happy now, or something to that effect."
"You can understand him?" Kimiko asked, taken aback, over Kari's shout of "Could he mean Ana?"
"In sequence, yes and most likely, yes," Kirsten replied in between panting, jumping over a sleeping slakoth. "You'll learn to understand what your pokémon are trying to tell you in time, as you spend more time with them. Not in words, of course, but… well, it's hard to explain. You'll understand eventually. It starts with body language, and that remains a large part of it but eventually you'll learn to recognize speech patterns and such. It's almost like learning a second language.
"As far as Ana goes, if Fantomé has actually found a girl, it could be any number of people. I don't believe he has any idea of what the one we're looking for looks like, and a lot of people have gone missing in here recently."
Impressed with Kirsten's thought process, even if the logic didn't make sense to her, Kimiko asked, "Think you can maybe tell me why my clamperl hates me later?"
"If you can get a word out of her," Alex muttered under his breath, though not quietly enough to be missed.
A sharp wail from Kirsten's crobat silenced the group. They all stopped moving and turned towards the flying-type.
"Diamond?" Alex shouted. "What are you doing?" The scene before them froze, from the small, ferocious group of ghosts (including the three trevenant, a few banette, and even a shedinja, among others), led by a startled lampent, to Alex's sableye, to the red-haired girl in mid-step towards the ghosts. The only motion came from Fantomé, circling the clearly aggravated sableye with his typical gleeful innocence. Noticing his trainer, he shot towards her and licked her cheek before once again nestling in her hair with eyes closed and a content smile.
"Ana!" Kari cried. The girl in question remained silent, however her body was turned enough to see three pokéballs visible on one side of her jeans. Her well-toned body was covered by just a grey sports bra. She was also barefoot, no socks or anything, and her bright red hair was up in two short pigtails. Thrasher began to trot towards his trainer with a roar.
The ghosts in the area seemed to take that as a challenge, each one shooting forward and forming a line between the trainers and the girl. Thrasher came to a skidding halt, nearly throwing Kari off his back in the process. Kirsten's team lined up neatly alongside Thrasher, ready to throw down.
"Nobody move!" Kirsten bellowed, trying to seize control of the situation straightaway. "Don't make a move unless they do. Kari, get back over here."
Kari cried as her chimecho lifted her off the tauros' back, still trying to call to her friend. The other girl remained stiff, despite her friend's pleas. Symphony then floated back to the line above Thrasher, both of them willing to join the fight to help their friend.
Alex again called out to Diamond once Kari was back behind Kirsten's team. The sableye scowled, hissing something both at the ghosts next to him and then directly at Kirsten's crobat. Crobat retorted angrily, and immediately the shiny beedrill dove from the treetops to join their line. Diamond sunk into a battle stance, now on edge as the bug-type joined Crobat. He was the only one to appear however, despite being with at least two others during the journey.
"What are they saying?" Alex asked as the sableye, crobat and beedrill continued to exchange clearly heated conversation.
"It's difficult to follow," Kirsten replied, still trying to hear the conversation. "Crobat of course wanted to know what your sableye was doing. I think he accused him of actually assisting the other ghosts. Diamond denied it, of course, but said nothing else. Then Crobat called Beedrill down and all of a sudden Diamond got really defensive."
"That must be because of their last battle," Alex said. "Last time we were in here, your beedrill and his swarm saved us from Diamond and his ghost gang before I captured him. They had a pretty heated fight."
"Well, that explains how he knew you. Anyway- oh, what's this?" The tone of her voice shifted into something very unsettling. "Diamond just ordered the other ghosts not to harm our pokémon. That really… really worries me."
"Why?" Kari asked. "That means it's over, right? We're safe?"
"No," Kirsten replied, her voice dropping to a whisper and half-turning to address the group. "If Diamond was able to control these ghosts, then why did he not do so upon finding them with Ana? If I didn't know any better," she added, eyeing the lampent, "I'd have almost thought that Diamond was the one leading Ana to the rest of the ghosts. What the hell does all this mean?" she finished, frustration evident in her tone.
"That can't be true," Alex demanded, offended at the thought. Kirsten turned to him, daring him to prove her wrong. "This was all going on before Diamond ran off," he offered. Which, he knew, might not be entirely true, but he also knew for sure that he heard the screams before Diamond had even woken up. "Besides, half of these ghosts weren't there that first night. At least, I can't tell if the banette or duskull are the same ones…"
Finally, Beedrill jabbed a stinger towards the lampent, directing his buzzing now at the fire-type and returning the trainers' attention back to the scene before them. Kirsten's team seemed uneasy, all of them settling into attack poses, Symphony and Thrasher included (the latter who, Alex noted, was surrounded by a faint blue glow – it seemed that the chimecho was holding him in place, likely to prevent him from instigating melee). The lampent in question turned curiously to Diamond, as if to ask his permission to act. Diamond glanced up at the red-haired girl still frozen amidst the ghosts, then back towards the lampent and nodded briskly. The fire-type began to drift backwards until it was out of sight. Then, with a sharp cry from Diamond, the rest of the ghosts began to slowly back away until they as well melded with the darkness.
The sableye relaxed and turned innocently towards the remaining pokémon and humans, muttering a single "Eye," and waving a hand almost lazily towards Ana.
"Battle," Kirsten translated. "Battle Ana?" Diamond nodded.
"Why?" Kari asked, her voice breaking. "And how? She won't respond to anything."
"My guess is that she was being hypnotized by that lampent and lured here. But it still doesn't add up… what would be gained by battling her?"
"Kirsten, I think we should worry about it later and just do it," Alex spoke up. Diamond suggested it, after all, so maybe he knew something they didn't. "We should probably get out of here fast."
"Right, right… Kari, why don't you do it? She's your friend, she'll likely best respond to you. And you know her team better than any of us."
"M-me?" the blue-haired girl choked out. "B-but… we've never… I mean, Ana and I have never had a… well… I-I'll try…"
At her command, Kirsten's team spread out and formed a perimeter around the battle area, to keep any ghosts from returning. Diamond waddled back towards Alex wordlessly. "We're going to have a talk when this is all over," Kirsten scolded as the sableye passed her. Diamond glanced at her as she spoke, but continued walking. He sat down in front of Alex and looked up at him curiously, as if to say do I have to?
"Don't give me that look, I want answers too," Alex told him before recalling him to his ball.
Meanwhile, Kari was fiddling with her belt, trying to decide what pokémon to use. "Symphony, you stay there and make sure Thrasher stays c-calm…" she said, addressing her psychic, her voice shaking as much as her body. "This probably won't be fun for him… okay, Carnation, help me?" Kari pulled a pokéball off her belt. Instead of throwing it, she simply held it out in front of her at arm's length, allowing it to open while still in her grasp – no enthusiasm, no rage, just an attempt at determination. In fact, Alex noted, he couldn't remember her ever throwing a pokéball so far. Even when she let out the chimecho to heal the tauros when the party found him, she simply nudged the button and held the ball out.
Carnation turned out to be a lilligant. She spun around gracefully, if a little clumsily due to being suddenly woken up, after emerging, then stopped short upon seeing who was across from her. She turned back to her trainer curiously.
"Lil, gant?" she asked.
"Yes, we're battling Ana… please do your best, she needs our help." Without a second thought, Carnation spun around again to face Ana. "Try to calm her down, if you can…"
Ana still refused to move. Carnation closed her eyes and bobbed her head side to side, the large flower on her head wobbling in unison. After a few seconds, Kimiko spoke, clearing her throat to do so. "Wow, I just got hit with a huge wave of exhaustion… and does anyone else smell oranges?"
"That's lilligant," Kirsten replied, "the scent it releases from that flower. It's supposed to be relaxing."
Finally, Ana reacted. Her elevated foot, frozen in place since the party found her, returned to the ground and she turned to face Kari properly – though her face still betrayed no emotion, her eyes still void of life. She pulled a pokéball of her own slowly off her belt – from her left side, Alex noticed, meaning she must have more than the three visible from his position – and tossed it backhanded in front of her, calling no names but saying only "Go…"
"Her voice…" Kari said, shuddering and taking a step backwards. "That was so… demonic… it sounds like her but there's something… something else layered on top, almost…"
I might have called it simply… empty maybe, Alex thought.
Ana's pokéball revealed a Kantonian golem. With a roar, the golem began to stomp his feet, then paused after taking a breath. He relaxed, then turned toward Carnation. "Golem?" he asked.
"Gant, lilli," Carnation replied.
"She was hypnotized," Kari added. "We think – that is, it was suggested to us, that if she battles, she might start to come to her senses."
The golem tucked in his legs and spun in place, turning his back on Kari and Carnation to look up at his trainer. Ana did not look back at her pokémon, but instead issued a single-word command: "Steamroller."
Her pokémon's attention returned to the lilligant a few meters away, then looked down at the ground, torn whether to obey his trainer and attack friends or not.
"Please do it, Sarsen," Kari pleaded. "Don't go easy on us, listen to her. We'll be okay, r-right Carnation?"
"Gant!" her lilligant answered with a cheeky wink.
With a sigh and then a grunt, Sarsen tumbled towards and began his attack. The golem picked up speed as he rolled forward, aiming to bowl right over Carnation.
"Um… use quiver dance," Kari commanded – or perhaps suggested would be a better term, after hearing her uncertain tone. Regardless, her lilligant elegantly spun and twirled her way out of Sarsen's path. The golem continued rolling, attempting a u-turn but ending up crashing into a tree, nearly snapping it in two.
"Try aromatherapy," Kari ordered.
As Carnation once again forced a relaxing, calming scent upon the area, Alex noted, "She's using attacks that will affect Ana too."
"Actually, at the moment," Kirsten replied, "she's using moves that will directly affect Ana. She's not really worrying about the golem at all. Rousing Ana is the whole point. I think her plan is something like this… if she keeps avoiding the golem's attacks, and combined with the stimulating scent, Ana will get frustrated enough to snap out of it in order to focus."
Kimiko looked at the redhead, puzzled. "I don't understand… what's the point? I mean, why didn't Ana just wake up when the lampent broke its hold over her? And how exactly do you know this is going to help her?"
"I don't," Kirsten deadpanned. She watched Carnation once again dance around Sarsen's attack, this time a barrage of sharp rocks. "I'm just going off the sableye's suggestion. I have no idea how it feels to be hypnotized – only possessed – or how to break it," she continued, almost as though she was talking to herself. "Something is wrong here. Something… I don't understand how she could still be under the lampent's spell, and short of attacking the girl herself, I can't even begin to guess at any other way to- wait a minute."
The champion's eyes narrowed as her gaze drifted back towards Kari's opponent. Something about the girl was unsettling – almost unnatural. "Look at the way Ana's eyes are glazed over. And her body – stiff as a board. She's not even twitching. Think of any horror movie. Wouldn't that imply she's still under the control of some outside source?"
"What are you getting at?" Alex asked. "I'm pretty sure we've already determined that."
"Yes, but we're missing that source. Toxicroak!"
The fighting-type bounded over the battle-in-progress and landed next to his trainer; Drapion and Seviper moved a bit closer to cover the wider gap. "Bring Ana to me," Kirsten told him. "Through the darkness."
While Alex and Kimiko watched curiously, Toxicroak seemed to understand his trainer's intentions. He vanished in a cloud of purple energy, reappearing behind Ana. The girl didn't even turn as Toxicroak grabbed her leg and disappeared again, this time pulling her into the feint attack with him. Once again, he popped into existence next to Kirsten, Ana in tow.
Almost immediately, a dark blur shot out of the girl and she collapsed into Kirsten's arms, unconscious. Fantomé leapt upon the shape with an uncharacteristically menacing growl, blasting the new ghost in the area with barely aimed night shades, while the newcomer shrieked in pain like a banshee.
Sarsen and Carnation, having abandoned their battle when Ana vanished, turned to the commotion before the rock-type hurried to his trainer's side, Kari following right behind him. Fantomé continued to drive away the new ghost from his trainer relentlessly until Kimiko called him back to her side, at which point – she was very surprised to note – Fantomé returned to her immediately and stayed there. Kirsten's crobat was upon the other ghost before it had a chance to rest, forcing it to remain on the defensive.
"Just as I thought," Kirsten said. "It wasn't just the lampent, she was being possessed. I never even saw it overshadow her. Who knows how long it's been there?"
"What is it?"
"That's a mismagius," Alex noted.
Realizing its cover was blown and now was outmatched, the mismagius turned and fled into the trees. Crobat hung back but Beedrill took off after it, the buzzing of his swarm in the treetops above picking up in volume. "Let it go," Kirsten called to the swarm. "It's time to leave."
After recalling most of their pokémon, Kirsten, with the aid of her toxicroak, returned Kari and Ana back to their campsite, where the four of them – unconscious Ana aside – packed their things away before making their way back to Alex and Kimiko's tent to collect it as well. Toxicroak collapsed in exhaustion afterwards, having moved all five humans plus Thrasher (who was carrying Ana on his back) twice. They all were in agreement to move their campsite back onto the main route, where the sun was already well on its way into the sky.
They set up a joint camp not far from the main path, where less wild pokémon were likely to bother them. Eager for some much needed rest, Kirsten called Emily O'Connell, giving her a brief report and asking her to meet the party in Neutron Town the next day. She then set up her own tent alongside the other two and retreated inside for some sleep.
Kari put Ana to rest inside their own tent and then meekly asked to join Alex and Kimiko as they sat on a nearby rock and watched the sun rise, both lost in thought – Alex with dozens of questions for his sableye, as he held Diamond's pokéball in his hands, and Kimiko, leaning on Alex's shoulder half asleep, voicing her concern over Fantomé's sudden aggression.
"He was just being protective of you," Kari said with a yawn.
"He's never been aggressive before," the blonde replied. "Not like that, anyway. He's usually so… spirited."
Kari shrugged, unsure of how to respond. She was spared from worrying about it by a low groan from behind; Ana had stumbled out of their tent and kneeled down beside her girlfriend. She was squinting in the sunlight. "Kari? Where are we?"
"Ana! You're awake! You should be resting!" Nonetheless, Kari practically threw herself at Ana, knocking them both off the rock and to the ground awkwardly, with Kari crying into the redhead's shoulder.
"Where's my shirt?" Ana replied, wrapping her arms around the blue-haired girl. "I'm cold and feel like shit. Did I have a nightmare or something?"
"It's a long story," Kari replied, crawling up enough to look into Ana's eyes; the redhead pulled her down into a long kiss.
Kimiko began to stand up, wrapping an arm around Alex's and tugging him out of his trance and along with her. "We should give them some privacy," she whispered, leading him to their tent. "Besides, sun's up now, you have a promise to keep."
A/N: Last update: June 21, 2015. This update: July 21, 2015.