September 28th, First Year
Step. Step. Bump. Step. Step. Bump. Jaku clung onto the solid presence beside her, swallowing back the urge to stop and paw at her itching wound as she carefully made her way down the muddy slope, the solid but lanky figure beside her gently holding her by the arm to keep her from tumbling forward. The rest of her pokémon padded slowly behind her, Lilith keeping a rigid pace as she scanned the trees for any sign of imminent danger, her fur bristling.
Jaku didn't dare look at the horrid form Jester had decided to take, knowing it to be false but still uncomfortable nonetheless as she fiddled with the cracked dias of the Time Pendant. Of all the people to disguise yourself as, why'd you have to choose Emmet? She wasn't anywhere comfortable with the man's visage being that physically close to her, let alone touching her. Even though she knew it was her beloved pokémon under the illusion, Jaku still didn't feel right with what was going on.
And as if reading her thoughts, Jester playfully pulled on a loose strand of her hair with his free arm, grinning.
"Oi. Stop that."
"No. I don't think I will," Jester retorted telepathically, moving Emmet's mouth to falsely form the words. "Oh- careful, master!"
Jaku grunted, allowing her partner pokémon to carefully help her over a rather harmless stream, not quite used to how surprisingly strong Jester was "I'm not made of glass, you know."
"I know! I just think it's funny to haul you around like a sack of potatoes." And as if to emphasize his point, Jester easily hefted Jaku up into his arms, smiling crudely upon her with Emmet's features. "See? You weigh like a pawful of berries!"
"Alright. That's enough," Jaku protested, fighting her way out of her pokémon's grip. "Just let me fall into a sinkhole or something. I refuse to be mocked by my own pokémon."
"Thin skin, I see!"
"Shut it."
Within the hour, the massive group came upon the shadows of where the Diamond Encampment used to be. Jaku pushed through the dense swathes of heather and tall grass, struggling to pull her restless gaze from the massive spinning dome that covered Lake Valor like an angry, inflamed wound. I did that. I caused that. Jaku stopped abruptly, feeling Raptor's chest feathers whisper along her neck. "Alright guys. We're approaching the encampment," she announced brusquely.
Jester sighed, dropping his illusion of Emmet as he scratched noisily at the back of his head with his foot. "Do we really have to go back into our pokéballs?" he asked plainly, his nose scrunching up. "Do we really scare humans all that much here?"
"You do and you will if the people of the Diamond Clan see me walk into camp with you all. Better to be safe than sorry," Jaku added, reaching for her belt. "I'll let you all out as soon as possible… Or would you all rather wander about until dusk?"
Jaku's pokémon conferred in a loose ring. Eventually, they came to a decision with Jester leading one half and Lilith leading the other. "We'll go with you," Jester announced, gesturing to Castor, Dusk, Raptor, and Peanut. "The others will go with Lilith." He then gestured to Ghost and Hydra.
"Hunting?"
"Yup."
"Okay." Jaku quickly recalled her following pokémon back to their rightful places up on her side before shooing away her remaining partners. "Meet me back by Lake Valor no later than sundown. No 'buts'." She then quieted and when she felt that she was fully alone, Jaku carefully continued the rest of the way up to the destroyed wooden gates of the Diamond Encampment, the scent of smoke and growing things hanging heavy in the air.
All around her, the Diamond Encampment was slowly but surely being built back into its previous shape. The scattered debris of Lilligant and Ursaluna's wrath sat like burgeoning reminders of the sheer amount of sorrow their frenzies had caused. Houses were strewn about across the torn up lakeshore. Dead grass, broken dolls and windchimes floated in the intercrossing streams that had been newly formed between the collapsed communal walkways. Decks and bridges sat partially destroyed, beams with splintered wood shimmering with dust in the pale light of the sun.
Jaku could only marvel at the destruction, knowing that she hadn't been around for a grand bulk of either of the frenzies. And as she slipped through the decimated encampment roads hearing the routine squelch of mud under her boots, a spirit of hope flared within her when she saw crews working on erecting new huts. Teams constructing new docks and scaffolding. Groups laying down beds of silt and cobblestone. The Diamond Encampment was being rebuilt.
Passing through the encampment had been tiresome but leaving it behind to continue her journey to the Sludge Encampment had been brutal. Jaku felt partially guilty. She didn't feel as connected to the Diamond Clan as perhaps Ingo did to the people of the Pearl Clan. Upon receiving news of her task, she had easily dropped her attachments to her host clan, not willing to form bonds only to break them further down the line. It was shameful even, to walk past the carnage with her face turned to the ground praying that nobody would recognize her or call out to her- almost as if her work had turned her into a ghost- almost as if she had never belonged there anyhow. And despite her misgivings, she passed through the encampment like a specter, easily slipping past the gate guards and back out into the swamplands.
With Jester and Castor helping find the trail and follow it south, it had taken them only a few hours to find the Sludge Encampment where it sat hidden in the depths of the Scarlet Bog in the shadows of the jungle hills, the sky shining red like blood as its ominous light hung over the sea of tents.
"My, my. That's a face I haven't seen for quite some time."
Jaku froze as did her team of following pokémon as they turned toward the source of the noise. She didn't make a single sound as she reached for her belt. Jaku wasn't a huge fan of battling- never had been. Her pokémon were her friends and she never felt right commanding them to do her bidding, finding slight ease at the compromise of only asking them to perform moves outside of battle. Away from urgency.
"Do not worry! It is only me! Professor Laventon at your beck and call!" The portly man ducked low under a hanging branch, his eyes widening at the three pokémon that tailed Jaku like thunder did lightning. He took a hasty step back, a nervous smile wobbling on his face. "What a… diverse array of specimens you have there, my old friend."
Jaku instinctively felt herself relax; she had never considered the possibility of the professor posing a threat to her but nonetheless, carefully bade her pokémon into their respective pokéballs. "Professor Laventon," she spoke calmly, slightly bowing her head. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be back at Jubilife Village."
"Hmm," Laventon hummed, a disconcerted look on his face. He crossed his arms behind his back. "An astute observation. But… Well." The man then wiped a bead of sweat from his face. "You are correct that I would rather not find myself in such a humid-" he grimaced, plucking a small bug from an exposed crop of skin- "wet habitat. But I must unfortunately say that there's something else keeping me here. And it's not my studies."
Jaku narrowed her eyes. "...It's Rei, isn't it?"
"How do you know that?" Laventon replied almost immediately. "I thought you would be away performing some feat for… someone. At the very least, that was all Adaman mentioned the last time I spoke to the poor fellow."
"Not really. I heard Rei got really sick and so I came to check up on him."
"I didn't take the two of you to be so… close." Laventon framed it delicately, crossing his arms in his delivery while his tone dipped. It was strange being on the receiving end of such a pointed question.
"We're not," Jaku retorted. "I just felt bad for the poor kid and wanted to say 'hello' and all that. Besides," she continued, showing just the barest sliver of exposed bandages peppering her throat and chest. "I'm injured myself. Stopped into the Diamond Encampment to get treated for a bad fall," she lied.
"Oh my. Well then, we'd best move inside the encampment then," Laventon eventually caved. He bode her forward, setting a gentle hand upon Jaku's back as she passed him. It made her feel itchy.
Seeing Rei's true condition had been a lot more harrowing than Jaku had anticipated. She stood at the bedside, Laventon rambling all the while as Jaku took in every feature. He was so… skinny. So thin and frail where he had once been simply lean. His skin resembled shrink wrap the way it clung to his bones. The way his cheeks laid across his teeth and how raspy and shallow his breathing was. The way his hair- once thick and shiny- was dull and sparse, a few spare strands lying on his pillows. Involuntarily, Jaku reached out and gently swept back the mess of hair along Rei's forehead, inwardly recoiling at how clammy and warm the boy's skin felt.
"How long has he been like this?" Jaku asked in a quiet voice.
Laventon heavily seated himself on a stool, affixing a pair of small reading glasses to his face as he held one of Rei's much tinier hands in his own. "For some time now. Over a month, I believe. It's the worst case of poisoning the medics have ever seen. They say it comes in waves- sometimes, Rei is tossing in his sleep from fever and sometimes, he sleeps like a newborn baby. Nobody is quite sure what's causing it."
Jaku swallowed. So this is what Akari was hiding… This is revolting. In her chat with her much younger fellow champion, the teen had used her example of Jaku kidnapping Emmet to parallel what she had done- what she had been doing to Rei. And now, Jaku felt insulted. Never in a million years would she resort to something as cruel and inhumane as keeping somebody poisoned to cover her own ass. I kidnapped Emmet but at least I kept the bastard warm, clothed, and fed. And conscious. Don't forget conscious. If Rei ever wakes up, there's no way he would ever see eye-to-eye with Akari- I know I wouldn't.
Jaku then glanced at where Laventon was sitting. He had pulled out a massive paper book with numerous pages sticking out, his fingers twitching around the pencil in his grasp. She grimaced. I told Akari I wouldn't tell anybody- that I would leave it to her to deal with.
Jaku felt Castor's pokéball twitch at her hip and in a flash, the frog pokémon appeared beside her, easily hopping onto the bedside beside Rei's covered legs but not before croaking when Professor Laventon hastily scrambled away.
"Castor, what on earth are you doing, buddy?"
Castor gave another bubbling croak before it took one of her hands in its own, using one finger to secrete a thin, watery fluid that bubbled the second it pattered against her skin. Gently, it guided her hand over to Rei's open mouth.
"No. I'm not giving your finger juice to him," Jaku refused, her nose scrunching at the vile scent the fluid emitted. "You're a poison-type, buddy you'll just make it worse."
It was then that Laventon chose to pipe up. "Well, perhaps your little friend could be… right." He stood from his chair, keeping his distance from the persistent Croagunk as it tried to stick its finger into Rei's mouth instead. "Please don't do that, little one," Laventon tried. "I have considered the theory of anti-toxins," he muttered. "A few scouts stationed here have rumored the discovery of gaining immunity to certain poisonous effects from… well, repeated exposure. Paras cuts. Dustox spores. The like."
"That's still just a theory, though," Jaku argued, hoisting Castor away from his position beside Rei's head. "And I'm not letting Castor potentially hurt Rei who's unconscious and can't consent to being experimented on." She cradled Castor in her arms, giving the frog pokémon a reproachful look. "Stop trying to put your filthy hands in his mouth, you little vermin." At her jab, Castor only chuckled gleefully before disappearing back inside his pokéball. "The medics can't help him?"
"They've tried. We've found the cure for paralytic spores- the dust of a ground Paras mushroom. Horrible to gather," Laventon added, shuddering. "But the same can't be said about the poison and sleep spores. I'm afraid the medic corps is trying everything they can just to keep my poor boy alive."
Jaku sighed and clasped her hands in front of her. She would give Laventon her condolences and fix Rei's hair one more time before leaving the medical tent. Jaku would keep well on her word and let Akari handle the situation. A part of her still believed that the merchant- Volo- still had something to do with the tone of desperation Akari had taken during their conflict days before. Maybe I should ask him about it, Jaku mused. Beat the truth out of him. It wouldn't be hard. But I have no idea where that guy's at.
By sundown, Jaku had made her way back to the Diamond Encampment, joining up with her pokémon by the lake before making it back to camp by the time the sun had fully set.
Her hut had somehow survived the onslaught of the damage the Diamond Encampment had endured. There were a few leaks in the roof. A few rotten planks in the steps. Maybe some waterlogged articles of clothing here-and-there that had reeked of mildew. But it was her home nonetheless, mostly empty and lifeless- and Jaku didn't waste any time swapping out her ragged, filthy clothes for a new tunic and finally lying down upon her futon that she had thankfully forgotten to take with her months ago.
Her pokémon curled up around her, Dusk and Peanut curling up close into her sides while Ghost, Jester and Raptor laid across her legs. Jaku couldn't remember the last time she had taken the proper time to rest. Things had been a blur ever since Adaman had sent her away to her hideout in the mountains. Ever since she had started collecting the gears. "Come to think about it, I never did get relieved from my station," Jaku mumbled aloud. She then chuckled. "Maybe I should've just gone there instead; would've been more privacy."
She found her hands moving to the broken Time Pendant beneath her shirt. She hadn't mentioned it to either Ingo nor Emmet when it had happened: when the impact of her body hitting the mountainside had cracked the pendant into numerous tiny pieces. Jaku had seen a momentary image of Azelf right beside her, mouthing something incomprehensible before time restarted and things began to move again. Arceus knew what was keeping the thing intact but Jaku could immediately tell from the reintroduction of debilitating hunger and exhaustion that her brief stunt of gear-hunting would have to be put on the back burners while she took some time off for recuperation. Her chest wound was going to take a long time to heal properly if it ever did.
Jaku rummaged around in her bag and through her pantry, eventually pausing when Castor slipped in through a window with a Magikarp slung over his shoulder. Without a word, Jaku cooked the fish and devoured it, feeling much better about her situation. All she had to do was figure out how to repair the pendant and then things would be back to normal again.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three loud and raucous knocks that nearly rattled the door on its hinges. Jaku winced, realizing that she had never bothered to cover the windows and that it was currently night. Of course people could see right into her hut and to that extension, her. She grimaced, feeling her chest wound ache as she clumsily got to her feet, ignoring the twinges of pain that radiated up into her neck. And when Jaku opened the door, she was met with an unlikely and unwelcome sight.
"Well, well, well! Look who finally decided to come back to camp, huh?" Akanti immediately leaned in the moment Jaku opened the door, his eyes glinting with ire as he braced his arm against the door, effectively preventing Jaku from shutting the door closed in his face. "Took you long enough, little Teddiursa," he commented lowly. "Have fun on that little excursion of yours?"
Jaku only grunted at the usage of the cutesy nickname, instead bidding the man into her home before carefully shutting and barring the door behind him. "If you mean going stir crazy in a hidden cave in the middle of nowhere, then no- not by a long shot. And stop calling me that."
Akanti paused, seemingly confused when Jaku invited him to sit. He reluctantly did so, eyeing her as she rested back alongside her pokémon. "What's the deal with you?" he eventually asked, setting his hands on his crossed legs. "We've never talked before without you nearly biting my head off, let alone entering your hut. What gives?"
Jaku only rolled her eyes. She remembered her previous conversation with Akanti that had been wiped from existence due to her time travelling backwards, now knowing that the older man hadn't been acting with any real malice to begin with. "I'm too tired to care, that's what." She then gestured to the bandages around her neck and chest. "Had a nasty fall and I don't want to get into a shouting match."
"...Oh." And then Akanti relaxed. "So you… don't hate me anymore?" he asked slowly.
"You're a jackass and that stunt you pulled during my trial was unacceptable. Period." Jaku glared at the man. "There was nothing funny about it," she lectured him. "Don't ever try anything like that with me again." And to solidify her warning, Jaku gestured to the eight resting pokémon around her that had perked up upon their trainer's barbed words. "My pokémon and I will leave nothing left of your corpse if you do."
Akanti swallowed. Unlike their previous conversation where he had taken her warning as a flustered and stubborn rebuttal, there had been no buildup to her clear-as-day warning of violence and so Akanti could only nod and agree. He then bowed his head. "...Sorry. For what I did to you during your trial.."
"You're forgiven," Jaku immediately responded. "Just don't try anything like that on me again."
"I won't."
"Promise me."
Akanti blinked. "Promise you?" He smiled. "Ah, so you do like me, Teddiursa."
"Call me 'Teddiursa' one more time and I'll reacquaint you with my hands and fingernails.."
Despite her reservations of having never really talked to Akanti in the destroyed timeline where they had saved Hassun, the man had proved himself to be a mannered house guest, even despite the fact that he hadn't stated why he had shown up unannounced at her doorstep in the first place.
Allegedly, Akanti recounted that he had gotten lost tracking down Lord Ursaluna while the noble had rampaged in the Crimson Mirelands. A trio of bandits- women, all of them- had toyed with him and had led him and Lichi all the way out to the Cobalt Coastlands to the east where Akanti could progress no further. While there, he had caught new pokémon: a small little Crobat named Pecha and a feisty Haunter named Colbur.
"So… berry names, huh?" Jaku murmured derisively while taking swigs out of her waterskin.
"Don't mock me."
"Oh no. I just think it's cute," Jaku remarked. "Are you gonna become a wielder too?" She had meant her words to be joking. Not at all sincerely mocking his choice in names as she herself was terrible with coming up with them. She hadn't expected Akanti to blush and turn away, scowling as the two named pokémon appeared from their pokéballs, quickly making friends with Jaku's own.
"...Maybe." Akanti gathered himself and leaned back on his hands, lazily regarding Jaku as she poked at the fire in the hearth again. "So… What were you doing in the mountains, oh mighty champion of Almighty Sinnoh?"
"A fetch quest. Not a fun one considering that they had me run all the way to the Obsidian Fieldlands and then get injured again looking for some small, useless items."
Akanti considered her words for a second. And then, he reached across the hearth and grabbed at Jaku's hands, his grip firm and rough. "Listen to me-"
Jaku immediately pulled away, her expression souring. She felt a familiar itch begin to burn in her fingers. "Hands off, Akanti."
The man immediately let go but his fervent tone hadn't left him. "Listen. Everytime I see you, I get this weird sense of deja-vu. Like there's something that's supposed to happen that isn't- well, I just can't tell what. But you're Almighty Sinnoh's chosen- you must know something."
Jaku's heart skipped a beat. There's no way he has his memories from when he saved Hassun. I can't have another Emmet. Please, Dialga, I cannot deal with another Emmet. She instead shook her head. "I dunno. Beats me."
"I'm positive something is up between us," Akanti asserted. He then sat up straight, his dark eyes gleaming. "Almighty Sinnoh gifted you with some kind of power, didn't they?" He continued when Jaku didn't confirm nor deny his claims. "That other one- the girl from the Galaxy Team- she's got that thing with her. I'm willing to bet that you've got something just like it, don't you?" He blinked. "You're wearing a necklace…?"
Jaku instinctively blocked Akanti's advances but he had moved much faster than anticipated, grabbing the string of beads that held the Time Pendant before unceremoniously yanking the dais out of Jaku's shirt.
"Now what's this-"
"Give that back!" Jaku pried the pendant back. "What did I just say about boundaries?"
"You lied to me! You do have something! Something valuable!" Akanti retorted. But he didn't make another grab for it. He instead leaned forward, his eyes trained on the dial as Jaku shoved it back into her shirt. "I feel like I've seen that thing you're wearing before." And then, Akanti began to wonder aloud. "You know, if Almighty Sinnoh controls the domain of time- and if you're its champion- then that must mean that it gifted you with some kind of power over time." Akanti then beamed. It didn't quite reach his eyes. "That's why I get deja vu around you." He leaned in closer. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything. You're just making up things on the fly."
"You can't lie to me, little Teddiursa," Akanti jeered. "You're hiding something- something big. Are you sure I can't take another look at that necklace of yours?" he asked mischievously, his hands already reaching for her neck.
"Absolutely not. Now stop asking about it before I kick you out of my house. You're lucky enough that I let you in in the first place."
Akanti only laughed. "Defensive, are we? Fine. I'll let it be… for now."
"Boundaries, Akanti. Boundaries."
"Fine."
A storm had settled over Lake Valor shortly after their conversation had ended, so bad that the boats threatened to fly off of the water. Jaku, knowing that Akanti's outpost was some distance from the Diamond Encampment, reluctantly allowed the man to stay overnight- she would kick him out at dawn's first light.
And for the first time in a long, long time, Jaku voluntarily shut her eyes and drifted off into an uneasy sleep. That sleep, filled with images of Azelf's blurry form hovering over her own, lasted for only the briefest second before a burning white pain and an accompanying bone-chilling cold tore Jaku out of her dream. She caught the glimpse of an upside down waterfall before she was fully brought back into the waking world.
A raucous, blood-curdling scream pierced the night, Dusk's startled flames illuminating the room before they were violently snuffed out. Jaku's throat burned and the fear that filled her only worsened when she recognized that it had been her own voice that she had heard. She had involuntarily screamed.
"Teddy?" Akanti's voice boomed.
"Akanti!" Jaku instinctively called out. Another pain, sharp as though a knife had pierced her skin, stabbed into her leg, cutting her voice short as she whipped around to find her attacker. She saw nothing. Nothing but void-like shadows and the glint of something silver.
Jaku clumsily attempted to get to her feet, her wounded leg failing her as the horrible pain stabbed once more into her leg, another into her calf. A heavy breath sounded just a pace away along with the rattle of the floorboards. Panic surged through every nerve in her body. Jaku ripped away her leg, hissing with pain as she moved over toward her pokémon who had until that point been disillusioned and confused.
Lilith instinctively curled its great body over its trainer's as Dusk blew a fan of flames from its back, illuminating the hut in its entirety. A familiar sight loomed before her. Her futon had been soaked and splattered with blood. She had been attacked in her sleep like how she had been after Lake Verity.
Akanti was halfway out of the doorway, a horrible gash in his shoulder as he turned and gave Jaku a fleeting glance, relief shining in his eyes. "Teddy," he breathed. "Someone…! Someone was just here!" Akanti's hands were empty and his teeth gritted, but the bruises along his knuckles and the blood dribbling from his brow suggested that he had caught the intruder during Jaku's own fear-filled stupor. He stared between the dark woods and Jaku before he eventually made his way over to her, quickly doing an inspection of her leg. "For Almighty Sinnoh's sake, Teddy! Your leg! It's torn to pieces!"
Jaku didn't have the energy to snap at Akanti's silly nickname, instead moving to tear off her tunic and undershirt. "Get to my bag," she ordered Akanti, doing her best to keep calm despite the harrowing amount of blood that oozed out of her leg. "There should be a pencil or a stone wedge in there. Grab one of them and bring it to me." She then tore up her undershirt into one long strip and made a makeshift tourniquet once Akanti had done as she asked. "There," she huffed. "Dialga, save me. I need to get to Rez or the healers."
Akanti nodded, his eyes widening. "I'll go and get them. Lichi! Come on!" He and his pokémon left in a hurry.
In turn, Jaku could only lean against the wall of her hut, shaking in the cold humidity of the swamp that had found its way in with the storm. With her tunic and undershirt ripped to pieces, Jaku could only hold her arms to her chest in an effort to keep warm, her pokémon curling around her.
Eventually, Jaku began to feel tired. Very, very tired. Despite the tourniquet, she knew that she had already lost a large amount of blood, her eyes trailing on the large splatter pool that had dried into the wood. What the hell just happened? Did Akanti attack me? … No… No, he fought off whatever was here… i think. Her exhaustion worsened. Jaku willed herself to stay awake, knowing what would happen if she allowed herself to fall asleep. If the pendant is broken, then I may or may not be covered by Dialga.
Jaku wasn't a religious person- not at all. But as she laid against the wall with the warm breaths of her pokémon soothing her, she prayed that she wouldn't die in such a pitiful way. And when she couldn't fight her own exhaustion any longer, she closed her eyes and let go.
"Do Not Worry, My Champion. You Will Always Have A Chance To Try Again."
And when Jaku awoke, she found herself slumped against a massive mangrove tree, her skin wet with rain and the tourniquet on her leg gone. The lacerations remained. So too did her pokémon. A bright flash of lightning briefly illuminated the jungle and in turn, the massive mangrove tree that marked the entrance to the Holm of Trials.
"...Why does this keep happening to me?"