XXI
Topsy-Turvy
Shiri and Ashton had biked down Routes 37 and 36 in silence, but as they passed by the gates of National Park, Ashton called to Shiri and nodded toward them. She smiled, understanding his meaning without words, and followed his lead.
It was past lunchtime, so they found a number of vendors within the park who sold a variety of treats. The sweet scent of grilled topo berries drew Shiri's attention immediately, and having bought one, settled down on a bench next to Ashton who had grabbed an order of takoyaki and two lemonades, one of which he passed to her. Shiri set her snack in her lap to cool while she sipped her lemonade, taking in the sights of National Park.
The air had an earthy scent, as if the grounds had been recently tended, and children and trainers walked along the path which circled the great fountain at the center of the park. A small flock of pidgey settled on the highest tier of the fountain, cleaning their feathers in the water, while a trainer's wooper and poliwag played in the wide bottom tier. The trainer sat on the edge of the fountain, snacking on a rawst berry-filled crepe as she watched her pokémon play.
The tranquility of the moment soothed Shiri's troubled mind. For now, she could put aside the worry she felt about Simon, the weirdness of Kayano Farms, the overwhelming feeling of being lost and without much direction. She was determined to enjoy her lunch and the pleasantness of the park.
She released Boltund and Houndoom from their balls, and the two dog pokémon happily stretched and sniffed at the new environment. "Why don't you bring your pokémon out?" Shiri asked Ashton. "It's time I finally met them."
Ashton grinned through a bite of his takoyaki and pulled three poké balls from his messenger bag. His trusty team of three appeared before them: a weavile, a scizor, and an ambipom.
The weavile glanced around, then crouched on the ground beside Ashton's feet. The scizor gazed curiously at Shiri, approaching her cautiously. The ambipom immediately joined Boltund and Houndoom, and the three took a few moments to sniff and poke at each other before they began to play.
Shiri smiled at the scizor and held out a piece of her topo. As the scizor took the piece from Shiri, she noticed that up close, she could perceive the slightest sheen of color around the pokémon's body. It was a bright green, energetic, strong.
Boltund, Houndoom, and the ambipom were too far and moving too quickly for Shiri to see anything, but when she looked at the weavile at Ashton's feet, she could see a similar light. This one was blue and more subtle than the scizor's.
"He's a shy one," Ashton said as Shiri was experiencing this, and he moved down to scratch the weavile on the back of his head. He passed a piece of takoyaki to the weavile, who took it and licked the sticky sauce off the top before nibbling into it. "Ambi over there's real friendly, and Scythe seems to like people more than other pokémon."
"Hold on, what is your weavile's name?" Shiri asked.
"Weave," Ashton answered. Shiri couldn't help her laughter. He grinned again. "Girl, I was like eleven, okay?"
Shiri watched Scythe as she walked behind the bench to investigate an oran berry bush. She bit into her topo, enjoying the springy skin that gave way to creamy, caramelly pulp within. She swallowed, chased it with lemonade, then turned to Ashton. "I can see their auras."
Ashton's eyes widened. "They have black auras?"
"No, no," Shiri said quickly. "Scythe's aura is green, and Weave's is blue."
This made Ashton sit up. "When did that start?"
"I'm not sure," Shiri answered. "I can't see them from much distance. It's nothing like the black aura that Boltund had. That was completely unmistakable. I haven't really noticed other pokémon until now."
Ashton looked thoughtful, pulling out his cellphone and tapping quickly on the screen. As he did this, Shiri called Houndoom and Boltund over, and Ambi followed his playmates. They had to get pretty close to Shiri, within about three or four feet, but she could see them: Houndoom, blue; Boltund, green; Ambi, red.
She gave Houndoom and Boltund scratches on their heads, then held her hand out to Ambi. The ambipom sniffed her hand briefly before spinning around and slapping it with one of the palms on his tails, then bolted for the fountain. Boltund barked and chased him, making Shiri giggle.
"Can you see my aura?" Ashton asked without looking up from his phone, seemingly having missed the interaction.
Shiri peered closely at Ashton, but she saw nothing. "Nope," she answered. "What are you looking up?"
"Simon mentioned this, remember?" he said. "According to the old reports." Ashton said the last two words in a mock Galarian accent.
Shiri nodded, recalling the last conversation she had with Simon. "You think he's okay?" she wondered aloud.
"I can't even begin to say," Ashton answered. "That guy's about as predictable as a three-legged meowth on amphetamines."
Boltund's bark caught Shiri's attention, and she looked back toward the fountain. To her horror, Boltund and Ambi were joined by two more pokémon, a raticate and a magneton, and they both glowed with a black, violent, sickening aura.
Shiri's chest tightened, and she froze. She tried to call to Ashton to get his attention, but her tongue was useless inside her mouth. She felt like she was in a nightmare and if she tried to scream, she would be silent; if she tried to run, she'd sink into the ground.
Houndoom barked, a deep, almost commanding sound that startled Shiri. Houndoom was on her feet, planted, as if waiting for a battle command. This did draw Ashton's attention, and he first looked to Houndoom, then to the pokémon by the fountain, then finally to Shiri.
"You good?" he asked. Shiri still couldn't speak. It wasn't until she felt Ashton's warm hands on her shoulders that the spell finally broke.
"Th-They have it," she was finally able to say, unable to rip her eyes from the pokémon.
Ashton followed her gaze, watching the raticate and magneton. They were joined by a teenage boy, presumably their trainer. Ashton couldn't see a thing wrong with them–but Shiri wouldn't act this way for no reason.
The trainer looked over at them, and Ashton met his eyes. Releasing Shiri, Ashton got to his feet and approached the trainer, a pleasant smile on his face. "How's it going?" Ashton said by way of greeting.
"Hey, nice, thanks," the trainer answered, flashing a smile of his own. "These your pokémon?"
"Ambi is," Ashton said, gesturing to the ambipom. "The other two belong to my friend."
"Wait, Ambi," the trainer said. He peered closely at Ashton. "Oh Arceus, are you Ashton Kayano?"
Ashton's grin widened. "Know me, do you?"
"Of course!" the trainer said, his face turning pink. "I read your blog all the time. I watched your champion battle on TV!"
Shaking the trainer's hand, Ashton asked, "What's your name, kid?"
"Kai," the trainer answered, stammering in excitement. "And this is my team, Raticate and Magneton."
Ashton turned his attention to the pokémon at hand. "They both look great," he said. "You trying to do double battles?"
"Yes!" Kai answered. "How did you know?"
"Lucky guess." Ashton peered closely at the pokémon. He really couldn't see anything wrong with them. Even if he couldn't see the aura, surely something should be wrong with them, right? "You catch them yourself?"
Kai flushed, looking away. "Oh, well, no. Raticate was a gift from my father, and I won Magneton in a lottery when it was a magnemite."
"Sweet," Ashton responded, and this surprised Kai. "Hey, no one ever said you had to catch 'em yourself. Most people don't catch their first one." Kai smiled again, this one warm and appreciative.
Ashton shot the breeze with Kai for another minute, but he glanced back to Shiri. She had finally managed to shake off the shock, and now she was apprehensively approaching the two trainers.
Raticate sniffed the air, then bent his head low, his eyes on Shiri. Magneton's magnets glowed, their three eyes locked on Shiri as well. Ashton stepped in between them while Kai turned to his pokémon, clearly confused as to why they had suddenly taken an aggressive stance.
Shiri froze, and Houndoom jumped in front of her protectively.
"What's going on?" Kai asked, looking at Magneton now. "We're not battling now."
"This ever happen before?" Ashton asked.
"Never," Kai said. "They always listen to me." The air around Magneton began to pick up static, and they still stared at Shiri. Houndoom growled. Quickly, Kai returned Magneton, but Raticate lunged forward toward Shiri.
Houndoom anticipated this, however, and landed a hard Crunch on Raticate as he approached. Kai gasped and returned Raticate as well, a slew of apologies running from his mouth.
"I swear they've never tried to attack a person before," Kai insisted.
Shiri looked like she was on the verge of tears, but she approached Kai, grasping his hands in hers. "Hey it's okay," she said. "It was just an accident."
Kai flushed again, catching Shiri's gaze. He could only manage a wordless nod.
"I don't suppose you'd mind sharing where that lottery was," Ashton said.
"Goldenrod City," Kai answered. "Top floor of the department store. They do it every week."
Shiri walked beside Ashton as they made their way down the main street of Goldenrod City. It was the middle of the day on a Tuesday, so while the streets weren't packed, there were plenty of people out and about: adults running errands or grabbing lunch, trainers battling in the streets, children with parents, teens skipping school to shop at the department store.
Most people had some sort of pokémon with them, whether they were battling partners, pets, companions, or accessories.
And Shiri could see them. The pokémon with the black auras. Shadow pokémon.
These pokémon weren't even uncommon. Most trainers had them, and so did several non-trainers. A woman in her twenties walked an eevee on a leash which glowed with that malicious aura. Two trainers battled in the street, each commanding one.
And no one else, it seemed, could see them. Ashton certainly couldn't. Shiri would wordlessly gesture to one, and he would look at the pokémon without any sense of horror in his face. Everyone tended to their business, blissfully unaware of what was among them.
Shiri's insides burned, and she wished she had never had this ability awaken within her. What had even caused that to happen? Did Celebi do it? Was it lying dormant within her this whole time? She had no answers. She wasn't sure how she could find those answers.
One thing she realized in National Park was that, while those pokémon were undoubtedly hostile to her, there seemed to be some sort of proximity limit. Whatever was within her that they could sense, it had to be close. If she kept her distance, kept her eyes down, she could pass by them without threat.
Ashton took hold of her hand, squeezing it gently, and pulled her down a quiet alleyway. Away from the view of those shadow pokémon, Shiri felt like she could finally breathe.
"How many?" he asked after a moment.
"A lot," Shiri responded. "I feel like I'm going crazy. Everyone's acting so normal."
Ashton shook his head, his brow furrowing. "The gyms give them out, the department store raffles them off. Who knows what other ways these things are given to the public. Shiri, this is just about institutional."
"It is," Shiri said, shuddering at the thought. "And no one's even aware of what's been done to these pokémon. Celebi said they want us to help them, but how can we possibly make any difference?"
"Didn't Celebi say there were other people who could see them?" Ashton asked after a moment. "Maybe there's ways we can find them and reach out."
Shiri nodded, glancing back out toward the street. "So much we need to investigate," she said. "I feel like we're running while blindfolded."
"We got this," Ashton said confidently. As was his usual habit, he pulled out his phone and began tapping away at the screen. "Pokémon Labs goes deep in several regions. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw shadow pokémonin Unova and Alola and all the other places that company's invaded. If there are other people out there who can see these pokémon, they've surely said something about it somewhere." He paused for a moment, then gave voice to the same thought that popped into Shiri's mind: "Be real nice if we could talk to Simon. Stealing that sylveon–guess he's not on Labs' side after all."
"He may not be on any side but his own," Shiri pointed out. "There's no way to know. We'll have to wait until he contacts us." If he contacts us, Shiri added silently, although she would bet her life that Ashton thought the same thing.. "So we have to make do with what we have."
"And we have a lot," Ashton said, holding up his phone with a grin. "I got more contacts than an eye doctor. I'll get them all on it. In the meanwhile, we should find ourselves a base of operations."
Nodding in agreement, Shiri said, "I don't want to stay in Goldenrod City anymore. Maybe we should go home."
Ashton looked at her now, eyebrow raised. "A temporary retreat?"
"Sure," Shiri said, trying to smile.
"Well, I am pretty tired of wearing the same two outfits over and over," he said with a grin. "Back home we go."