Chapter 17
The Better to See You With / Loremaster
—August 3rd, 128 CR
Moriko couldn't sleep.
They'd flown in at airliner speed, the pokémon they were riding—the pokémon of the woman in black—accelerating and manipulating air-type energy with prodigious skill and power.
They landed at dusk and rushed Russell to the hospital, the woman disappearing soon after. And Moriko couldn't sleep, despite exhaustion, despite a sleepless night and breathless running, despite the protestations of her cramped and stiff body.
She did laundry, washing her fetid clothes and putting freshening tablets in her boots; she sat in the pokémon center cafeteria until it closed; she wandered the terraced streets from lamp to lamp as bugs rasped in the darkness, and Tarahn boasted and preened for the benefit of the street pokémon that turned up to stare and chatter.
Sometime after midnight Tarahn nudged her back to the center, and she crept back into the trainer dorm. She lay down wide awake, and behind her eyes the images roiled, of demons and violent battle, of pokémon mystics and vicious injury. And when she finally fell asleep she dreamed of eyes, of a woman with dozens of them winking all up and down her body, a person hollowed out and devoured by monsters.
x.x.x.x.x
Moriko found her role reversed, getting to play the anxious friend while Russell lay convalescent in the local hospital. He was tired, sick—he'd been drained of energy, that demon power—and the physical wounds the paraslit had dealt him had proved resistant to conventional recovery techniques.
She'd said nothing about the paraslit to the hospital staff, but the data scanned by her pokédex had been synced as soon as they were within reception. Her pokédex was pinging every half-hour with a new contact or request for information from increasingly important-sounding senders, including the Oak Institute and Zukan Johto.
She was anonymous for now, the messages delivered through a proxy to her trainer number, but she felt hunted. She recalled that someone discovering a new pokémon species involved a lot of media attention, from the last time such a thing was on TV.
She wasn't quite ready for that, not so soon after seeing her friend as a dying parasite host, or after seeing two men—pokémon—with legendary-level special attacks fight a woman commanding multiple S-tier pokémon to a standstill. Or after seeing that same woman transform into a pokémon.
She needed a professor, someone neutral—and apparently there were a number of them attending a tour of a nearby archeological site. She'd called Prof. Willow's office back in Port Littoral to see if she could get an introduction, and her assistants had answered: Prof. Willow was already at the dig.
Moriko called her pokédex number, and contacted her at last. Prof. Willow's face was ruddy and sunburnt, with her familiar halo of curly blonde hair filling up the pokédex display.
"Moriko! How are you doing?"
"Hi Professor. How's the tour going?"
"Oh, wonderfully, there have been some amazing finds. Archeology is a lot of grunt work and digging, you know—there is very little use of the whip or grappling hook or running from death traps—but sites like this make it all worth it."
"I heard there were some other professors there?"
"Yes, Prof. Maple has been working here the longest—she called in the rest of us."
"Ah, that's good, you must be able to talk about professory things with them?"
Prof. Willow laughed. "Yes, that's about right. Listen, I've got to get back to work—why don't you and Russell and Matt come by, and we'll give you the tour this evening?"
"Well, Russ is laid up at the hospital for a little while, he, uh, got hurt on the way here…"
Prof. Willow hissed in sympathy. "Darn, is he doing well? Nothing serious?"
"Uh, he's, supposed to recover," Moriko said, trying to sound light and keep her face blank. "Uh, I'll let you go, Professor, um, I caught an undocumented pokémon—"
Prof. Willow squealed, and Moriko almost dropped her pokédex. "That's you!? Oh Moriko, the internet has been on fire with speculation the past while—since your pokédex synced, I'm sure—all we have are some blurry pictures from your 'dex and that it's a bug- and psychic-type. Tell me everything!"
A voice from offscreen, on Prof. Willow's side: "Who are you talking to, Adeline?"
Prof. Willow turned away to speak to whoever it was. "Chandra, one of my starter trainers caught the new pokémon!"
A brown-skinned guy around Prof. Willow's age popped into view of the video call. "Congratulations! I'm Prof. Banyan—you must be excited about your find!"
Moriko laughed, brittle. "It's been… an experience…"
Prof. Willow watched her face for a moment before saying, "Tell you what, if you're up for it, come on down to the dig after dinner, and we'll treat you to the experience of having six professors and a host of research assistants, technicians, grad students, and other assorted hangers-on completely nerding out about a new pokémon. You in?"
Moriko found herself smiling despite everything and nodded. "I'll be there. What are the coordinates?"
x.x.x.x.x
It was still a few hours until the meeting with the professors, so Moriko went to visit Russell at the hospital.
Russ had a bed in a shared room, with spaces for each patient delineated by hanging curtains. At the moment there was only him and another trainer, who had broken his ankle and was recovering from orthopedic surgery and a strong course of tissue regrowth.
There was a common TV and they were watching a rerun of the first episode of Pokémon Journey Kalos. The protagonist, Skye, played by a Kantonian pop idol of yesteryear, had just received her first pokémon from Prof. Laurel.
"Fennekin is so cute!" Skye said. "I'm going to name her Blaze!" She grinned as the fennekin yipped happily.
"'Blaze' is the most popular nickname for fire-type starter pokémon," said her pokédex in a lilting synthesized feminine voice. "Current central database counts ten thousand, seven hundred, and eighty-eight fire-type pokémon registered with the nickname 'Blaze'."
Skye frowned cutely, pausing for the dubbed-in laughter to subside. "Oh. Well, how about Ember?"
"'Ember' is the third most popular nickname for fire-type starter pokém—"
The character had a glint in her eye as she interrupted the machine. "How about Pascal, then, after Blaise Pascal?"
"A pun, or play on words—"
Skye wound her arm back to throw the pokédex in a nearby lake.
"Willful destruction of the pokédex is not recommended," the pokédex intoned. Canned laughter brayed. "Replacement pokédexes can be obtained from the trainer registry for fifteen thousand yen with two pieces of government-issued ID."
"Skye was my favorite," Russ said, unfocusing from the TV. He was rubbing one of Sylvia's ears absently. "It drove me crazy how Pascal only evolved into braixen, though. Delphox is badass."
"They kept all the pokémon cute and unevolved on that show for some reason," Moriko said. "They replaced the pokémon actors with younger pokémon when they evolved. They replaced the actress playing Skye too."
"Well, I suppose it's possible to get sick of pouting at the camera and grueling filming schedules. I sometimes wished for a sassy pokédex VI when I was a kid but I think I'd end up hucking it in the lake too."
"Pokédexes are waterproof now, anyway."
"What a weird show. I liked Zukan Kanzen better. Prof. Kaede knew her stuff."
"I liked the episode when she interviewed the porygon-2 who had been to the moon. Changed my life."
"I can still sing the pokérap. Mewtwo, tentacruel, aerodactyl—"
"Please stop or I will disconnect your IV."
"Noooo, my druuuugs," Russ moaned.
They watched Skye trade barbs with another trainer who would end up joining her to travel by the end of the episode.
Moriko sighed. "Maybe we should have gone to another region. A safer one."
Russ shrugged. "Yes, obviously. Too late now." He smiled ruefully.
They talked about innocuous things for a little while, but Russell soon dozed off; they had given him something that kept putting him to sleep. The wounds on his back had refused to heal under potion, and even regen had done nothing. This apparently meant that Russell's natural healing had been disrupted, probably by something the paraslit had secreted. The doctors wanted to give his body a chance to clear out the anti-healing factor before they tried anything else, and were keeping him on an IV drip of antibiotics, painkillers, and electrolytes.
"Do you want to stay, Sylvia?"
The borfang grunted and hunkered down by Russ's bed, her scaled and furred form strange looking in the pristine hospital room. Moriko left to let him sleep.
"Heyyyy… cool trainer… wanna battle?" said the other patient groggily, as she walked out of the room.
He had a timbark curled up beside his bed that put its ears back and looked apologetic. She winked at the pokémon and kept walking.
x.x.x.x.x
The dig was inland, back into the scrub without quite reaching the desert. Moriko didn't recognize anything special from the air as Liona approached the site: there were tents in one area, and roped-off squares dotted with flags and markers, and floodlights for working at night with their solar collectors still deployed in the summer evening.
Prof. Willow hugged Moriko when she arrived, and a storm of introductions followed that she rapidly lost the thread of. Dozens of researchers and students went by in a blur; there were a few humanoid psychic pokémon among them, and rock- or fighting-type heavy lifters who hung back and waved shyly when she smiled at them.
They guided her into a tent filled with laboratory equipment on tables and piled-up gear in every corner. She turned the paraslit in its pokéball over to Prof. Larch, a dark-skinned, portly woman with voluminous dark hair, who placed it in a PC viewer.
The program was more advanced than the one at the pokémon center: Prof. Larch's computer came alive with data that Moriko couldn't follow, although the techs and grad students were nodding and making significant remarks about egg groups, auras, and energy density.
The computer returned the residual image of the paraslit after a few minutes, displaying it in grayscale fairly accurately.
"You said that you suspect this is a cryptopokémon, Moriko?"
Moriko nodded. "What we… what happened to Russell is… related. Matt showed me the entry on a cryptid they call myiaslice or paraslit—"
"Oh fuck me," one of the grad students exclaimed. "Myiaslice is real!? What's next—chupascabrous?"
"Probably slendamantis," someone said.
"No."
Moriko found herself relating the story of how Russell had become ill, how they had discovered the presence of the paraslit, and a fictional version of how they had finally driven it out. The mood among the researchers grew more and more somber, and several started to look embarrassed at their earlier excitement.
"Ah, no wonder you didn't want to release it to show it off," Prof. Banyan said.
Moriko nodded. The professors were talking among themselves, and a knot of grad students had opened up a cryptopokémon website and were groaning and hissing at whatever they were reading. She felt their pitying looks and stared at the tent floor.
The paraslit had been quiescent, luckily; usually pokémon could only release themselves from a pokéball when they were healthy and experienced, but who even knew with the demon pokémon. Pokéballs were designed to feel like a safe place, like the places that fainted pokémon would retreat to as energy—although a minority of pokémon couldn't stand them, like Vleridin—so perhaps it felt secure for now.
A dangerous pokémon could be put in a locked ball, which wouldn't open unless someone outside triggered the release, but the technology was controversial and there was a great deal of paperwork, special permission, and oversight required to have one. It was a tool for researchers, not for a broke traveling trainer.
There was a time when Moriko would have felt immensely proud to say that she had helped discover a new pokémon, and would have been hungry for the attention and regard. But for the paraslit she only felt a sick desperation to get rid of it—and terror that maybe she couldn't, that others wouldn't understand the danger it posed.
Eventually the professors had more questions, and she showed them the pictures that Matt had taken of Russell's wounds. Most of the grad students left at that, the party atmosphere well-faded, while the professors studied the pictures grimly.
"Is there going to be, uh… when Prof. Redwood exhibited that newly discovered pokémon—" Moriko shook her head and got to the point. "I want to be anonymous. I don't—I don't want to talk about this to random people."
"Absolutely, Moriko," Prof. Willow said, setting aside her tea mug and putting a hand on Moriko's shoulder. "If you like, we can conditionally reveal your name a few years in the future. It's a useful notoriety at times after the initial furor dies down."
"Uh, maybe… I just want you guys to take it away and study it. And people need to know, if they see one around, it's not cool—it's dangerous—it needs to be in a, in a locked ball—"
Prof. Willow nodded. "I believe you entirely, Moriko, and you have a good idea of how we're going to proceed already. Classification of pokémon species is Prof. Tsuga's specialty—she'll handle it."
"Carefully," Prof. Tsuga added. She was a tall, somber east Asian woman with silver in her ultramarine hair. "You and your friends deserve a long holiday after this."
Moriko considered this briefly and then shrugged. "I guess we'll keep on with our journey after Russell recovers."
"There's no need to rush through it," Prof. Tsuga said. "People and pokémon need time to relax."
"I never liked how this league set the age at eighteen," Prof. Banyan said. "I did one badge a summer starting when I was eleven back in Kanto, and that was a fine pace."
"Sure, but who took care of your pokémon in between?" Prof. Tsuga asked.
"Oh, we had battle club and clinics through the year, so they got quite a bit of exercise."
"And that takes time, money, and engagement from professors, gym leaders, and veteran trainers, all of whom are spread out in this region."
"It's a good scene in Port Littoral," Prof. Willow said. "The battle clubs have a diverse membership in age and experience, and many veterans and career trainers volunteer to instruct."
"I've seen your facility, Adeline, and you've got dozens of pokémon on the grounds that you're taking care of for starter trainers. You can do that now, but what happens when time or money run out? What do the kids who weren't chosen for the starter program do?" Prof. Tsuga said, gesturing with a stylus. It had the air of a familiar argument.
"Kids should just bond with one pokémon, like in the old days," Prof. Larch interjected without looking up from the PC viewer. "Most end up with one or two after battling falls through, and it's them who go on to do something useful instead of flashy TV tournaments."
"I do think that you should be able to do a few badges as a teenager," Prof. Banyan said. "Gaiien keeps you pent up until you're done high school, and then you try to do eight in a summer with little experience."
Moriko shifted uneasily. "We've been doing okay, considering…" Considering murder, demon pokémon, pokémon mystics…
"Not to disparage your achievements," Prof. Banyan added, placating. "Just that it's a lot, and you deserve rest if you need it, or to go home."
Later, Prof. Willow walked with Moriko away from the tents. It was dark, with only a band of lightness to mark the western sky, but the glare from the dig lighting made it hard to see the full spray of the stars.
"Everyone back in PL is asking if you all will come home soon," Prof. Willow said quietly. "Trainers being attacked—you had an illness in Russet Town, I heard—and now Russell has been hurt—"
Moriko lined up a response in her mind and then realized that she didn't feel defensive or hurt or angry, and in fact going back to Port Littoral seemed like a wonderful idea. She found herself thinking fondly of bicycling along the waterfront, junior-level pokémon battles with local kids, and appreciating the wide world of pokémon from the safety of a desktop computer. She knew intellectually that there had been a good reason she'd wanted so badly to leave—but all the fights and the yelling and Angela always being a spoiled brat seemed like minor annoyances at this distance.
Russ had been hurt, hurt badly, and he was only along as an amusement before he started school. Rufus and Tarahn would follow her anywhere; Thanasanian the oberant could go with any other trainer to fulfill her mission. But she thought of Liona, stripped of her protectors, who needed to get strong before she could go back to the wild, and of a promise made to a certain ill-tempered and ill-treated mooskeg.
Prof. Willow looked at her expectantly, and Moriko felt a sudden affection for her: the middle-aged professor, fostering young kids' interest in pokémon and in science, giving them starter pokémon, the symbol of nascent adulthood and source of protection. Her love for all those kids had always been genuine, not haphazard or uncertain, and she wanted to protect Moriko now: there were forces abroad that a starter was not shield against.
"I'll see what Russ thinks when he's feeling better," Moriko said.
x.x.x.x.x
Port Brac was the southernmost city in Gaiien, actually a series of several contiguous towns rather than a single settlement. The bluff that gave the city its name was terraced, and steep paths led down to the blue-green water in numerous protected coves where boats bobbed and people could be seen swimming and fishing with the gregarious pokémon who lived nearby.
There was a large native Gaiienese population, descended from the hardy people of the second crossing, and the old villages had been established by their nomadic, seafaring fishers before the modern era. Today relations between the second- and third-crossing humans were cordial, although there was still a thread of resentment among the old supplanted clans.
Downwind of the city were the deep-draft docks and industrial areas that received raw materials by ship or by rail, and performed various arcane processing steps before loading goods to be transported away elsewhere in Gaiien or to other regions. Port Brac was a trading city, a place where goods from Tanos, the tropical region to the south, or from the volcanic islands of Kelau to the west, would make a stop before continuing on to be sold in the densely settled regions like Kanto or Johto.
Moriko wandered the town, walking along terraced streets lined with houses like bright toys, and climbing long winding paths from hill to hill. She had the pokémon out and walking for exercise, some of hers and some of Russ's.
Thanasanian the oberant was a favorite, drawing many admiring glances for her rich fur and striking markings. A pair of girls asked if they could take a picture with her.
"I'm cute, too," Tarahn muttered, watching that production. "Girls like me."
"Make a cute face," Moriko said, and crouched down beside him. She turned the pokédex camera toward them, and he opened his eyes wide and stuck out his tongue very slightly, which met the requirement.
"See? A social sensation." He bumped his nose against the screen. "Make it look better."
Moriko played with the lighting and laughed at the saturated colors of her green hair, and Tarahn's yellow and purple motley. "We look like a Mardi Gras float."
"Better, I said!"
A few trainers had wanted to battle as well, and some of Rufus's and Tarahn's attacks actually scorched or melted the sand or asphalt paths. Moriko was pleased at their strength, but it was a loss in other ways. Their physical attacks had been dangerous for years and a playful swipe or headbutt from an adult pokémon could injure a human badly. She'd had to be careful in choosing battle locations since they needed room to maneuver safely, but now their elemental techniques were catching up, and that real fire and lightning could seriously harm someone.
Moriko sat in the shade by the beach for a while, petting Tarahn. She watched Liona and Keigan circle far above, the nigriff and springbuck racing each other and diving to brush the waves curling over the shorebreak.
She read her pokédex manual, something she'd only really done before to waste time, desperately waiting for the day when she'd get to leave Port Littoral. She vaguely remembered the beginner articles: tips for new trainers; treating pokémon with respect; and the process of raising young pokémon properly, especially when their power and intelligence increased dramatically after evolution.
There were technical articles she'd ignored about battle mechanics that actually seemed to explain just what Vleridin had revealed about transferring energy, though in jargon with confusing empirical formulas. It confirmed that pokémon could gain energy outside of battling through evolution stones, expensive rare candies, or the elemental fruits that trainers called "berries" regardless of size or provenance. There were only footnotes, though, on the absorption of energy from the environment. Best-known though apparently little understood was the use of environmental energy for certain pokémon to evolve, and the purification of the abused and brainwashed pokémon called "shadow pokémon" that were sometimes used by criminal organizations.
Moriko thought of the professors up on the hill and wondered if the mooskeg could teach them something, but she wasn't sure how much Vleridin could help. Her instructions to Maia and Sylvia, though successful, had been along the lines of "just go here!" unless some other mysterious, wordless communication had passed between them.
That distraction aside, what she wanted were articles on battling. Moriko felt nervous reading the lists of energetic attacks that couldn't be used outside of attack-hardened gyms or inside city limits once a pokémon passed that critical point into being 'high level'. She'd have been fined for battling inside the city today if a pokémon ranger or police officer had seen her—maybe just scolded, since the effect had been borderline. But she felt proud as well; maybe they'd be at the right level for tournaments at the end of the summer.
Moriko stared out to sea, thinking of those little scorches in comparison to the huge burnt scars and real molten rock that the demon pokémon aricaust had left. They had evidence for that encounter, but it was confused basic-model pokédex aura readings, attackdex analysis, and blurry photos from Liona's back—the kind of stuff people put up on the internet all the time, mostly hoaxes with a sprinkling of tantalizing unproven incidents.
Where had they gone, the gray demon and the red? What was their purpose? They'd thrown the reginant hive into disarray, and the queen had sent Thanasanian with them—
Moriko looked over at Thana, who was sitting in the sun and staring out at the ocean. The oberant was an adult and had lived her life as a wild pokémon, but today she'd barely strayed more than a few feet away from Moriko, the longest trip being a short flight against the breeze off the ocean.
"Thanasanian, how are you feeling? This must be a lot different than what you're used to."
The oberant waved a claw. "It's all… very new. There are so many green plants here, and the human hives are above ground, but very beautiful, and the sea—look, you can look as far as you can and the sky touches it. Is this the place of your people?"
"No, we're from another town, up the coast to the north."
"I have to learn about how humans live, but… how do you keep safe without your family? We have not been attacked or challenged in this place, and yet it doesn't belong to you?"
Moriko shook her head and tried to see the oberant's alien assumptions. "We… all humans, we all agree not to… we all live together even though we're not all family, and if someone attacks you seriously, then you can tell the police or pokémon rangers."
"I see, these people are the soldier caste of your society?"
"Uh… something like that. That's their career and responsibility."
"They aren't born for that purpose?"
"No, most humans don't know their… purpose. They have to try a lot of things first."
The oberant hummed a little to herself. "I see, yes. Humans are very adaptable, I have heard this. Moriko, I… I feel nervous, walking, with so many strangers around."
"They won't do anything more than ask to battle—or to take a picture with you. But if that makes you uncomfortable, you can refuse. You don't have to be out, you could stay in the pokémon center or in your pokéball."
"Oh! Is that allowed?"
"Yes, of course—everyone is out because they want to be, you can stay wherever you like. Some people don't let their pokémon out enough and they let themselves out and get into trouble." Moriko smiled sadly and scratched Tarahn's neck. "That was us when I was in school."
"How does one get into trouble?" Thanasanian asked seriously.
"Battling without a trainer," Tarahn said, purring. He'd done that enough times to get a talking-to from police pokémon. "And if someone decides you're a wild pokémon and doesn't listen to you, or you can't make yourself heard or understood, they could capture you, and they could take you far away before anyone knows what's wrong."
Ideally an accidentally—or deliberately—re-captured pokémon would be noticed during registration of the capture and comparison of the pokémon signature to the data in the cloud, or at the double-check during pokémon center healing. But it was possible that someone could capture a pokémon on their way out of town and not meet those checks, or to deliberately seek to mask that data. Criminal gangs had tricks to hide stolen pokémon, although it was getting harder as the technology improved.
"What if," Thana said, "someone tries to battle with me?"
"Just run, if you just leave they're not supposed to chase you down," Tarahn said. "And if they do then you can hinder them. If you really fight and get weak, that's how they might re-capture you."
"Never attack a human, you can hurt them very badly very easily, even with just minor attacks," Moriko added. "And if you're high level enough, your energy attacks will hurt them too."
"Moriko, where can I speak with your—leaders? Human queens?"
The oberant had been given a mission to pass on the information about the demon pokémon, and she'd probably go back to her hive when it was done. Moriko quashed the thought of misleading her so that she'd stay with them longer, as much as she hoped that Thana would help her against—well, was she even going on to the tier seven dark-type gym? Maybe it didn't matter.
"Do you have anything else to report? We spoke with the professors and gave them our observations about the demon pokémon, and now paraslit will be officially recognized as a real pokémon, so people will hear about it and hopefully won't be taken by surprise by it."
"That was one group of humans—should we not go on to others, to tell them also? Should we not have been telling passerby in the town?"
Moriko winced at the thought of the kids and tourists in town shrieking over cryptidex pictures. "The professors will put that information on the internet and on the news, which is the best way to reach a lot of people." Seeing the oberant's blank look, Moriko got out her pokédex. "Humans can record information and send it to others electronically, so it can reach dozens of regions and millions of people."
Thana held the pokédex in her claws and whisked her antennae over it. "Yes…? Sorry, this just smells like your hands."
Moriko pressed the touchscreen and a video came up with a pokémon professor, Prof. Cypress, explaining the crystal structure of evolution stones.
"Oh! It makes a picture, and there's a voice…" Thanasanian kept listening, looking back and forth between it and Moriko. "I can only understand it if you're paying attention."
Right, that was how pokémon speech worked—it was partially telepathic, so it needed special devices to record it. Pokémon could speak to anyone, regardless of language, but could only understand ordinary audio recordings if they could skim the meaning off the top of the mind of someone listening.
Moriko pocketed the pokédex again. "All humans can understand that if they speak that language, so we can make those pictures and tell each other things from far away. Some pokémon can learn to understand human speech directly, but it takes time. In the meantime, I can try to tell you what you want to know."
"For now, as it arises, I appreciate your explanations… although… I wish to know about that person who appeared to battle the demons. She was…"—Thana opened and closed her claws, searching—"crowded. I have never seen the like."
Crowded. Moriko laughed a little, nervously, thinking of the woman's many, many eyes, the eyes of the pokémon that ensouled her.
"Neither have I, she… I don't know who she is. What she is."
"She knew your friend. The gray demon knew your friend also."
The woman in black knew Matt. The gray man knew Matt. They called him by name, implied a history—Johto, allies—
Moriko remembered all of Matt's strange moods, his melancholies and significant remarks, his biting impatience, his sudden shuddering fears.
She clenched her fists, thinking of Russell in the desert station, in the reginant cave, wan and drawn and—dying. He had been dying.
Matt, who are you? What did you do?
She found herself weighing her options, contemplating the strength of Matt's pokémon, the type matchups.
"We need to take a walk," she said.
x.x.x.x.x
Moriko found Matt lounging in the sun, using Maia as a backrest. Sai the dragoon was nearby, perched on a fencepost and looking at the ocean, and Dzalar the svarog was downwind with her smoke streaming away in the breeze.
"Matt, I need to talk to you."
Matt's pokémon snapped their heads around to look at her, at Rufus and Tarahn standing casually behind her, something in her voice, in her stance, in her thudding heartbeat. A bird called somewhere in the silence.
Matt broke the spell: he sighed and sat up, looking at his hands. "That can't be good," he said lightly, but he didn't look at her.
"Matt, I… I haven't been that friendly to you on our journey, but I wanted you to know that I really appreciated that you were here when… when all that stuff happened to Russell. And I wanted you to know that I want to help you, with what's troubling you."
She took a deep breath.
"But, Matt, to do that, I… I need you to explain, concisely, all the shit that's going on. It seems to… affect our safety. As a group."
Matt shrugged. "We made an assumption of risk when we went on this journey."
Moriko crouched, trying to get him to look at her, but he'd closed his eyes and was weaving and unweaving his fingers nervously. "Matt, at the weather station, I said something like 'this is all my fault', and you started to say that it was yours."
She crept closer and he withdrew, smaller, into the curve of Maia's body, and the tibyss sat up straighter and put up her fins, the bristling quills instantly making her larger.
"Matt. The gray man. He knew you. The reginant queen, she asked me if we brought him to the nest. Did you? Wh—what demon was going to eat your dragoon, before that, even?" she interjected, remembering.
Matt turned away from her, and Maia showed her teeth, and Tarahn showed his.
"Matt. I need you to tell me everything, or I will leave you here. You can join with another group of trainers, you can go home. You're not helpless. Or you can explain. For once. Decide."
Matt trembled, finally looking at her, and she leaned back uncomfortably at his wide-open eyes. His mouth pinched down into a line, and he shook more and more violently until Moriko opened her pokédex to its phone app and was about to dial emergency.
Maia curled around Matt, blocking him from view, and she make a clicking, growling sound to him. Matt clutched at her, his arms trembling.
Maia looked at her. "He can't explain."
"He won't, and he needs—"
"He can't," Maia growled, flashing a fang, and Tarahn sparked a warning—
A new voice: "Matthew is under a psychic compulsion. A curse."
Moriko rose, darting to the side, and Rufus put himself between her and the newcomer, his armor plates whispering over each other as he shifted.
It was the woman in black. Her charizard was hanging back, charcoal-black and enormous, its blue flames nearly invisible in the sunlight.
"He can't explain," she said, walking in a broad arc around them. "He can't ask for aid. He suffers and suffers, and every moment of his suffering feeds back to the thing that put the curse on him, and makes it stronger."
"A curse? He's been magicked? Why are you telling—why are you lying?" Moriko's voice arced, incredulous. "Just say, just tell—do you think it's worse to be sick than to lie and lie?"
"Where are you from, Matthew?" the woman asked.
"Johto," he choked out.
Maia butted his shoulder with her head, comforting.
"When were you born?"
"In the autumn of 102 CR."
Moriko stopped. "You're… twenty-six? I thought—
"He is. Well, and he isn't. Sixteen going on sixteen, forever. I was there when he was cursed, ten years ago," said the woman in black.
"There too late," Matt said, nearly spitting.
"And what have you been doing since then?" she continued impassively. "Wandering. Shunning help. Taking odd jobs. Betting on battles. Running."
"Describing yourself?"
"You should have stayed in Johto, Matthew. We can protect you, shield you."
"I don't want your help," Matt said, words muffled as he pressed his face against Maia's side. "I don't want your expertise."
"He grows stronger every time he finds a grave," the woman said, her voice betraying emotion for the first time. "Do you understand? I have fought him with all my pokémon, ensouled pokémon, old pokémon, high-level, battle-evolved, and I cannot win. He is steps ahead of me, and every moment he is still yet ahead because every moment you feed him, and every moment you are making this task more—"
"He wasn't supposed to come here," Matt said in a whisper. He dashed his hand across his eyes, and Maia clucked to him.
"The continent where the myth originated and you didn't think—"
"Exactly! He came from here! I thought he'd be finished!"
"No and no," the woman in black said quietly.
"What are you talking about?" Moriko demanded.
The woman flipped a hand impatiently. "Pokémon want energy to grow stronger. Humans have energy that isn't accessible to pokémon—except to demon pokémon. Paraslit are the least of them but they too have that ability, and demons grow and grow at a rate regular pokémon cannot touch—unless they too take human energy."
"…How?"
The woman in black studied her briefly. "You have some experience with ensouled pokémon. How did that come to pass, I wonder?"
"Vleridin fought for me—for herself, really. And she was wounded, and she wouldn't go into a ball, so she… ensouled me, and… my energy…"
The woman stilled at that. "Did she, now?"
Moriko felt dizzy. "You said…"
"Only demons can take energy, yes, but it can be given," the woman said, and Moriko could breathe again.
"All your ensouled pokémon—that's how—"
"Yes, but even then I cannot keep up: I have one person's energy, and my opponent has a dozen, through the energetic connections—through the curses he's placed on people like Matthew. We keep them safe, try to cut them off from him, but Matthew shunned us, and went to Gaiien, where our enemy could take from him freely."
Matt was shaking his head; she continued, savage: "Yes! How many days have you felt sick and weary here, and had to fight against his will, had to fight his injunction against harming yourself or heading into simple dangers like leaving the house?"
Maia growled at her, a sound that gave Moriko a frisson of fear, and the woman actually snarled back with a dragon-type's voice—Maia subsided, her ears back, more out of surprise than actual threat.
"And you are damning him, tibyss," she said.
"I'm protecting him, many-soul," Maia said, disgust in her deep voice.
Moriko looked between them, helpless. "What is—your enemy, the gray demon—what is he?"
"He's a man who thought he was a demon master," the woman in black said. "He allowed a demon to ensoul him, a demon that is ascendant in his body, and it has been my life's work—more than one lifetime's work—to separate them.
"The gray essence is a god's essence, a god's blood, a god who was destroyed and sundered and interred in pieces across the earth during the dawn of days, and these graves were protected by wards to make them impossible to sense… For a time. But everything ends, and one by one the old protections have fallen, and he wanders, and whispers and rumors come to him. Each time he gets a little more power, a god's power and knowledge, and as he wanders he destroys and kills, and calls other demons to him."
"…Can we help?" Moriko heard herself say.
The woman in black was silent a few moments. "Your Vleridin—how long had she been with you, when she ensouled you?"
"Not long, I'd just caught her, and she hated the ball."
"To ensoul a wild pokémon—that's not so common. You have a second-crossing ancestor?"
"My—mom," Moriko said, and regretted it instantly. Don't ask me any more don't ask don't make me remember don't—
"Do you know of battle evolution?" the woman asked, mercifully. She did something with her hands and a sphere glittered between two of her fingers, throwing off iridescence in the sunlight. "A focus for the trainer's energy, a link to one's partner"—the black charizard rumbled—"and a temporary evolution occurs. All the stronger ensouled, but it has its dangers. You were hurt?"
"I was—no, I just, I lost consciousness. For two days."
"Dangerous, but possible in an emergency. Better to have been partners from childhood, as they did in the old days."
The woman looked back at the charizard, turned to Moriko. "You want to help? I have professors and mystics and rangers on my side, but I need an army—and there will be a terrible cost to my soldiers. I cannot ask it of a young person with so much yet to lose."
"I won't go back to Johto," Matt said, sulkily.
"But I can teach you how to shield him," the woman in black added.
Her statement hung in the air, a promise, and Matt's features softened, considering this.
"What did you tell the professors?" the woman asked.
"Not… everything," Moriko said.
"And whom did you speak with?"
"Professor Willow. And other professors were there, and their assistants and students—"
"There are other professors here that you may tell the whole story to, professors who are masters of lore as well as knowledge. Come with me."
x.x.x.x.x
Moriko found herself back at the digsite after a short flight, at a set of tents away from the others she'd visited. All around was grassy scrub, but nearby the turf had been peeled back and the sandy soil excavated, revealing cracked stone: a road, or a stone courtyard; it was hard to tell from the narrow pit.
In the main tent were two professors she hadn't met: Professor Maple, a stout brown-skinned woman with close-cropped curly red hair, and Professor Linden, a pale, thin man with sparse blond hair.
Prof. Maple shrugged and went back to the specimen she was cleaning, an array of fine tools on a palette beside her.
"Ah, Lady Black," Prof. Linden said. "What brings you to Gaiien?"
"My enemy," the woman in black said. She circled the table to look at the specimen. "What is this?"
"So you're weird to everyone, not just me?" Matt asked rudely.
Prof. Linden raised his eyebrows, but the ghost of a smirk crossed his face. "Lady Black was part of the third crossing," he said mildly. "Like most ladies her age, she has a few peculiarities."
Moriko stared, as the woman certainly didn't look over a century old, even with her white hair—but she had implied as much, earlier, and claimed that there was a discrepancy with Matt's age as well.
The woman in black ignored this, listening as Prof. Maple spoke.
"These ruins predate the earliest crossings by humans to this world—you may be familiar with my work and that of the previous Maple on pre-crossing relics—we're trying to find out who these builders were."
"My specialty is pokémon mythology and culture—the beliefs of pokémon themselves," said Prof. Linden to Moriko. "Second-crossing humans have developed plenty of legends about rare and legendary pokémon in the centuries they've been here, but I'm more interested in the mythologies told by pokémon. I sift through such accounts to try to find out what was happening on this world before humans arrived."
"We've met some wild pokémon with stories about that sort of thing," Moriko offered.
"I'd like to hear them if you have time, and first-hand if any of those pokémon joined you," Linden said, nodding. "How did you meet with… the singular Lady Black?"
Moriko related the paraslit story again, this time the full account at the woman's prompting: the meeting with the reginant colony, their discovery of darkwater, their pursuit by the demons, and how the woman in black had narrowly engaged their attention so they could escape.
Prof. Linden nodded through the story and glanced at 'Lady Black'. "The usual excitement that seems to occur when you're around. What did you need from me?"
"Gray essence sites seem to be correlated with pre-crossing ruins—I need a list of known locations in Gaiien."
Prof. Maple nodded, and took the battered old-model pokédex that the woman held to upload the information.
"I'm surprised," said Prof. Linden. "You used to just sense him and tear off."
"He's stronger here."
Prof. Maple and the woman moved to another computer terminal. Moriko released Thanasanian, who looked around the tent curiously.
"Thana, this is Prof. Linden—he makes records of stories told by pokémon. Do you remember any, like the one Kalamatos told us, about legends of long-ago times?"
The oberant bowed and made an expansive gesture with her forelegs. "Greetings, I am Thanasanian, advisor to Kalamatos, currently traveling with trainer Moriko. I do recall numerous legends. Professor Linden—you have a title, do you fulfill an important role in human society?"
Prof. Linden barked a laugh and then waved, apologizing.
"Ah," Thana said doubtfully, "I've made a social misstep."
"Not at all, that was a self-deprecating laugh," Prof. Linden said. "Yes, you could say that—I have specialized knowledge, among humans."
"Oh, a loremaster."
Prof. Linden blinked and his eyes flicked over to where the woman in black was sitting, waiting with unnatural stillness. "I've been called that," he said. "Humans came to this world relatively recently, and so I hope to find out what happened among pokémon before then."
"Humans… yes, there was a time when they weren't here, I think. In the age of gods."
Prof. Linden drew out his tablet-sized pokédex and tabbed on a program. "I'll record this, if you don't mind."
The oberant repeated the legend Kalamatos had told them, about the primeval world ruled by pokémon gods: the betrayal and the first murder that unbalanced their pantheon, the creation of demon pokémon, and the war that destroyed that idyllic ecosystem.
"Do you know where those gods went? Why did they have to leave?"
"In those days there was more energy, and so there was no fighting or killing, and the gods could exist here easily without needing to sleep all the time—elder pokémon have to sleep for years and years, they need so much energy—but after they fought the world was broken."
Prof. Linden nodded, his fingers dancing over a projected keyboard. "Did pokémon build cities or monuments in that age?"
Thana swept her antennae, dismissive. "Not us, certainly. We like caves. Better to feel the ground under your feet, and to sense it. Perhaps it was done by rock-types to amuse the gods."
Moriko broke in: "If demons depend on humans for energy—but they were made before humans came, what did they do then?"
"Without humans, they live like ronin," Prof. Linden said. "They kill other pokémon for energy, but they have no society and they're hated and reviled. Humans crossing to this world must have been a great boon for them. Perhaps they're becoming more common now that they have such a food source—and they can attack subtly, as the legends about paraslit indicate."
"The smaller ones we have seen now and then through the years, but the great demons give them purpose," Thanasanian said. "My queen set me to a task, to go out into the world and to warn humans and pokémon of the demon lieutenants. It seems they grow in power, though the many-souled woman pursues them."
"I will aid you in this task," Prof. Linden said formally. He tapped his pokédex. "I'll transmit this information to other professors, other—loremasters."
He bowed, and Thana bowed back.
x.x.x.x.x
The woman in black left the tent when her map was updated, and Moriko and Matt followed.
"You're going to help Matt?"
The woman looked him over and inclined her head. Matt looked away.
"Not tonight," she said. "I'll be back."
Space distorted as she transformed into the black charizard, and she tore into the sky in a rush of blue flame and a concussion of displaced air.
"Kids," Prof. Linden said, following them, "a piece of advice from an old fogey: go home."
Moriko looked at the ground. "I've been thinking about it," she said, as Matt frowned at her and the professor.
Prof. Linden sighed. "It's hazardous to your health to be around her for long, alright? I get a chill every time she shows up."
"Has she—does she hurt people?"
Linden made a softening gesture. "I'm not saying she's bad, I'm saying… she goes where the trouble is, and she can withstand a lot more trouble than a couple teenage trainers. No offense."
"And she's not human."
Prof. Linden jerked and looked behind him: a young boy—a young girl with white-blond hair came through the tent flap. He gave his daughter—the resemblance was pretty clear—a look, but sighed and nodded.
"There are… pokémon who can take human form," Prof. Linden said, looking into the distance. "Pokémon have a… strong inclination to maintain their form—healing and their transport via PC are dependent on this property to some extent—but powerful ones can change themselves, change their size, even take new forms entirely. Legendaries are famous for doing this to escape detection." He looked at his daughter again and shrugged. "It's possible."
Matt made a face. "So, what, she's a legendary pokémon?" he asked, sulky. "A ghost?"
"We've seen her ensoul several pokémon, though—can pokémon do that to each other?" Moriko asked.
"Maybe? Maybe she's a legendary—maybe she's a number of pokémon, working together to put together a human face. But we don't ask questions—mystics like her, trainers with one foot in the wild and one in civilization, are essential to the safety of our world. Pokémon talk to each other and to them, and we get early warnings."
Moriko watched him. "Warnings about what?"
"Do you still learn about ancient pokémon in school?"
"Of course," Moriko said. "Drills all the time—"
"We haven't seen one for a couple of years," Prof. Linden said. "We're waiting for the big one. You're trainers, adult trainers—you're part of that network now. You need to be alert, use your pokémon to help people, if an ancient pokémon appears. Remember the drills. Don't get caught up in this business. Go home."
"The next badge is just across the strait," Matt objected.
"They come out of the sea, most of the time." Prof. Linden shook his head. "Sleep on it."
They walked away from that meeting dazed, tired from contemplating all the danger that the adults seemed to have long grown used to, had used up their lives fighting—and they had to walk back to the pokémon center on foot without the woman in black, Matt lacking a flying pokémon who could give him a lift.
"Are you really going back home?" Matt asked quietly.
"I—"
"Hey! Hey! I'm coming with you."
Matt and Moriko turned; it was Prof. Linden's daughter.
"Are you? Why?" Matt asked.
She faced them, grinning, hands on hips. "Archeology turned out to be hotter and more boring than I expected. I miss pokémon battling."
Moriko looked her over—short, very pale skin, ragged jeans and faded old tournament t-shirt—"I don't think you're old enough," she said.
Linden Jr. tutted and keyed on her pokédex to its ID screen: she was fourteen years old, and Moriko opened her mouth to say as much, until her eyes fell on the Kantoan League emblem on its corner.
"You have eight Kanto badges," Moriko choked out.
"I kind of cheated," Linden Jr. said cheerfully. "I had my grandma's pokémon. I fought every gym at tier eight, but it wasn't really a challenge. I'm raising my own pokémon now though, Abram is along more for company."
There was a metallic sound, and Abram slouched out of the shadows to stand behind her. It was a huge metagross covered in superficial scars—old injuries, vicious ones, to still show on that steel integument after pokémon center healing—who looked them over, appraising.
Moriko realized she was calculating the benefit an old and battle-ready metagross would have on their group safety as they—if they—went on into wild Gaiien, and shook her head. "We might just go home to Port Littoral pretty soon. And anyway you need your dad's permission, or he could tell pokémon rangers that we abducted you or something."
"I'll get it," Linden Jr. said confidently.
"Okay," Moriko said, skeptical. "Well, look for us at the pokémon center, I guess—"
"I'll bring camping supplies and food and stuff," Linden Jr. said, ticking off items on her fingers. "It'll be great. I hope we see another demon pokémon, I'll take the credit for its discovery if you want."
"Ah, youth," Matt said as Linden Jr. hurried back into the professors' camp.
"Oh my gods," Moriko muttered.
x.x.x.x.x
Takktktkk flapped onto the pokémon center roof, an annoyed exeggutor's psychic attack washing over him harmlessly. He heard it stomp off in a huff, and laughed to himself, gulping down chunks of the berry he'd stolen. Joining with a human trainer was the best thing he'd ever done. He couldn't have imagined that there were so many slow, credulous people in the world with so many things worth taking from them.
The warm glow of the pomeg berry's energy spread through him, and he hopped down onto a shadowed branch in the pokémon exercise yard. He espied the tibyss in one corner of the yard and carefully avoided her—not out of fear, it was just defensive planning like anyone would have done. Below him was the newcomer, the dragoon.
Tak preened; he'd been the newcomer briefly, but he'd risen rapidly after evolving. The ursaring was lazy and seemed to lack appetite for battle, the svarog he'd defeated, and the dragoon was too new. Only Maia stood in his way, and then he'd have the authority to direct Matthew like she did.
Tak sneered at the dragoon and its cringing self-conscious manner. Apparently they usually had gray fur covering their skin, and this one was embarrassed to lack it. It was embarrassing, he had to admit, to be smooth-skinned like a human being: they were appallingly ugly, but the naked dragoon was striped with bright, eye-catching color.
Tak hopped down to the ground behind Sai, noiselessly, and he pecked at one of the spines on the end of his tail, just to see if it would come off. He hopped backward right after, pre-emptively, but the dragoon didn't move. Tak clicked his beak and did it again. Gods, these people were slow—
Sai's tail cinched like a rope around the honchkrow's wings, and as Tak squawked he turned to look at him with mild interest.
"Let go, addle-jawed slimegut!" Tak screeched. "I'll eat your eyes!"
"Not before I pull out half your feathers, birdie," Sai said.
"A few feathers can't fix what's wrong with you, dullmind."
The dragoon bared its teeth like a human, not a threat but as an expression of amusement. Well, maybe both.
"Big words coming from the bottom of the flock. No?"
"No!" Tak squawked back. "You're below me, newcomer."
"Only because you left your old troop behind and joined a group with less competition. I see you, birdie. I know what you're like." The dragoon loosened his tail, and Tak shot up into the tree with a hiss. "I know what I'm like," he added, spreading his clawed hands.
"I'm at the top, ratpiss! You can't catch me."
"You wouldn't have joined a human if you were at the top," Sai said, conversational. He picked a blade of grass and chewed on it. "You would have ruled and got fat and strong and old if you were. Out there." He flicked away the grass. "I heard you can get strong with a human. Stronger than any free person. So strong you don't go back. I wonder what exactly they do to you so that you don't go back."
"They don't do anything," Tak complained suddenly. "I thought there would be devils and evil powers! I thought they drank blood and left eggs on high hillsides for the dead! But they just battle and give each other encouragement," he said, disgusted.
"Ha. Devilish. Why don'tcha leave, then?" Sai asked.
"Well. They are strong," Tak admitted. He shivered, thinking of the monsters they'd narrowly avoided in the desert. "Ain't the time to be a loner, that's for sure."
"And thus, here I am," the dragoon said, sighing. "I haven't got anything. They threw me out."
"Fuck 'em. Who cares? My flock was a bunch of idiots, too busy being bullies or whining about being bullied. They had no idea about the opportunities in a human city."
"Oh yeah? Can you show me? You seem smart."
Tak puffed out his chest feathers. "Uh, yeah, baldy. Stick with me and I'll show you a couple tricks."
He started to preen the feathers the dragoon had mussed and thought about his next trainer, who would be taller and better-dressed in more lovely colors. Every color.
x.x.x.x.x
Tarahn sat with Moriko until she fell asleep, and then he phased out of the trainer dorm into the cool night. He flicked his tail in greeting to Liona and Sylvia by the pool as he scanned the yard, and then trotted over casually when he saw Maia.
He flopped down beside her, readying his great new joke about the timbark and a parked car.
Maia's huge webbed paw slapped down on his, and her claws shot out. "Don't."
Electricity sparked at his cheeks, inadvertent. "What?" he squeaked.
"I told you," Maia said quietly. "I told everyone. Don't hurt Matt."
The raigar willed his frightened fur to go back down and huffed when it didn't. "No one's gonna hurt him!"
"Then why did Moriko approach him with you at her side, looking for a fight?"
"Because... because we didn't know what he was going to do. He had you and Sai and Daz out. Matt is bigger than Moriko," Tarahn said. He tried to imagine how humans would battle but wasn't really sure. They could only swipe at each other and struggle.
"That's stupid," the tibyss said. "He can't fight. You know."
"No? I don't?"
"You were there. That person explained."
"No?"
Maia growled, a basso rumble deep in her chest. "He can't fight. He can't go into danger. He gets scared. He remembers... things. He can't fight Moriko."
"Okay. I mean, I know that now."
Maia's tail lashed once, and then she relaxed, allowing this. "Well, good. Don't."
"Okay, but—"
"What?" Maia flipped the wood she was playing with, slapping it on the sidewalk with a clatter.
"Well... He needs to say. It was making things dangerous, that he didn't tell us. See? I won't hurt Matt. But those... things came to hurt him. And they could have hurt Moriko."
"That is not his fault," Maia answered sharply.
"I know," Tarahn said. He gave his head a shake to hear the bells, comforting. "I'll protect Matt too, Maia. But you have to protect Moriko. We need to know all the stuff or we can't."
Maia's eyes glowed in the dim light, and her claws shredded the scrap wood ominously, but she didn't growl.
The Better to See You With / Loremaster
—August 3rd, 128 CR
Moriko couldn't sleep.
They'd flown in at airliner speed, the pokémon they were riding—the pokémon of the woman in black—accelerating and manipulating air-type energy with prodigious skill and power.
They landed at dusk and rushed Russell to the hospital, the woman disappearing soon after. And Moriko couldn't sleep, despite exhaustion, despite a sleepless night and breathless running, despite the protestations of her cramped and stiff body.
She did laundry, washing her fetid clothes and putting freshening tablets in her boots; she sat in the pokémon center cafeteria until it closed; she wandered the terraced streets from lamp to lamp as bugs rasped in the darkness, and Tarahn boasted and preened for the benefit of the street pokémon that turned up to stare and chatter.
Sometime after midnight Tarahn nudged her back to the center, and she crept back into the trainer dorm. She lay down wide awake, and behind her eyes the images roiled, of demons and violent battle, of pokémon mystics and vicious injury. And when she finally fell asleep she dreamed of eyes, of a woman with dozens of them winking all up and down her body, a person hollowed out and devoured by monsters.
x.x.x.x.x
Moriko found her role reversed, getting to play the anxious friend while Russell lay convalescent in the local hospital. He was tired, sick—he'd been drained of energy, that demon power—and the physical wounds the paraslit had dealt him had proved resistant to conventional recovery techniques.
She'd said nothing about the paraslit to the hospital staff, but the data scanned by her pokédex had been synced as soon as they were within reception. Her pokédex was pinging every half-hour with a new contact or request for information from increasingly important-sounding senders, including the Oak Institute and Zukan Johto.
She was anonymous for now, the messages delivered through a proxy to her trainer number, but she felt hunted. She recalled that someone discovering a new pokémon species involved a lot of media attention, from the last time such a thing was on TV.
She wasn't quite ready for that, not so soon after seeing her friend as a dying parasite host, or after seeing two men—pokémon—with legendary-level special attacks fight a woman commanding multiple S-tier pokémon to a standstill. Or after seeing that same woman transform into a pokémon.
She needed a professor, someone neutral—and apparently there were a number of them attending a tour of a nearby archeological site. She'd called Prof. Willow's office back in Port Littoral to see if she could get an introduction, and her assistants had answered: Prof. Willow was already at the dig.
Moriko called her pokédex number, and contacted her at last. Prof. Willow's face was ruddy and sunburnt, with her familiar halo of curly blonde hair filling up the pokédex display.
"Moriko! How are you doing?"
"Hi Professor. How's the tour going?"
"Oh, wonderfully, there have been some amazing finds. Archeology is a lot of grunt work and digging, you know—there is very little use of the whip or grappling hook or running from death traps—but sites like this make it all worth it."
"I heard there were some other professors there?"
"Yes, Prof. Maple has been working here the longest—she called in the rest of us."
"Ah, that's good, you must be able to talk about professory things with them?"
Prof. Willow laughed. "Yes, that's about right. Listen, I've got to get back to work—why don't you and Russell and Matt come by, and we'll give you the tour this evening?"
"Well, Russ is laid up at the hospital for a little while, he, uh, got hurt on the way here…"
Prof. Willow hissed in sympathy. "Darn, is he doing well? Nothing serious?"
"Uh, he's, supposed to recover," Moriko said, trying to sound light and keep her face blank. "Uh, I'll let you go, Professor, um, I caught an undocumented pokémon—"
Prof. Willow squealed, and Moriko almost dropped her pokédex. "That's you!? Oh Moriko, the internet has been on fire with speculation the past while—since your pokédex synced, I'm sure—all we have are some blurry pictures from your 'dex and that it's a bug- and psychic-type. Tell me everything!"
A voice from offscreen, on Prof. Willow's side: "Who are you talking to, Adeline?"
Prof. Willow turned away to speak to whoever it was. "Chandra, one of my starter trainers caught the new pokémon!"
A brown-skinned guy around Prof. Willow's age popped into view of the video call. "Congratulations! I'm Prof. Banyan—you must be excited about your find!"
Moriko laughed, brittle. "It's been… an experience…"
Prof. Willow watched her face for a moment before saying, "Tell you what, if you're up for it, come on down to the dig after dinner, and we'll treat you to the experience of having six professors and a host of research assistants, technicians, grad students, and other assorted hangers-on completely nerding out about a new pokémon. You in?"
Moriko found herself smiling despite everything and nodded. "I'll be there. What are the coordinates?"
x.x.x.x.x
It was still a few hours until the meeting with the professors, so Moriko went to visit Russell at the hospital.
Russ had a bed in a shared room, with spaces for each patient delineated by hanging curtains. At the moment there was only him and another trainer, who had broken his ankle and was recovering from orthopedic surgery and a strong course of tissue regrowth.
There was a common TV and they were watching a rerun of the first episode of Pokémon Journey Kalos. The protagonist, Skye, played by a Kantonian pop idol of yesteryear, had just received her first pokémon from Prof. Laurel.
"Fennekin is so cute!" Skye said. "I'm going to name her Blaze!" She grinned as the fennekin yipped happily.
"'Blaze' is the most popular nickname for fire-type starter pokémon," said her pokédex in a lilting synthesized feminine voice. "Current central database counts ten thousand, seven hundred, and eighty-eight fire-type pokémon registered with the nickname 'Blaze'."
Skye frowned cutely, pausing for the dubbed-in laughter to subside. "Oh. Well, how about Ember?"
"'Ember' is the third most popular nickname for fire-type starter pokém—"
The character had a glint in her eye as she interrupted the machine. "How about Pascal, then, after Blaise Pascal?"
"A pun, or play on words—"
Skye wound her arm back to throw the pokédex in a nearby lake.
"Willful destruction of the pokédex is not recommended," the pokédex intoned. Canned laughter brayed. "Replacement pokédexes can be obtained from the trainer registry for fifteen thousand yen with two pieces of government-issued ID."
"Skye was my favorite," Russ said, unfocusing from the TV. He was rubbing one of Sylvia's ears absently. "It drove me crazy how Pascal only evolved into braixen, though. Delphox is badass."
"They kept all the pokémon cute and unevolved on that show for some reason," Moriko said. "They replaced the pokémon actors with younger pokémon when they evolved. They replaced the actress playing Skye too."
"Well, I suppose it's possible to get sick of pouting at the camera and grueling filming schedules. I sometimes wished for a sassy pokédex VI when I was a kid but I think I'd end up hucking it in the lake too."
"Pokédexes are waterproof now, anyway."
"What a weird show. I liked Zukan Kanzen better. Prof. Kaede knew her stuff."
"I liked the episode when she interviewed the porygon-2 who had been to the moon. Changed my life."
"I can still sing the pokérap. Mewtwo, tentacruel, aerodactyl—"
"Please stop or I will disconnect your IV."
"Noooo, my druuuugs," Russ moaned.
They watched Skye trade barbs with another trainer who would end up joining her to travel by the end of the episode.
Moriko sighed. "Maybe we should have gone to another region. A safer one."
Russ shrugged. "Yes, obviously. Too late now." He smiled ruefully.
They talked about innocuous things for a little while, but Russell soon dozed off; they had given him something that kept putting him to sleep. The wounds on his back had refused to heal under potion, and even regen had done nothing. This apparently meant that Russell's natural healing had been disrupted, probably by something the paraslit had secreted. The doctors wanted to give his body a chance to clear out the anti-healing factor before they tried anything else, and were keeping him on an IV drip of antibiotics, painkillers, and electrolytes.
"Do you want to stay, Sylvia?"
The borfang grunted and hunkered down by Russ's bed, her scaled and furred form strange looking in the pristine hospital room. Moriko left to let him sleep.
"Heyyyy… cool trainer… wanna battle?" said the other patient groggily, as she walked out of the room.
He had a timbark curled up beside his bed that put its ears back and looked apologetic. She winked at the pokémon and kept walking.
x.x.x.x.x
The dig was inland, back into the scrub without quite reaching the desert. Moriko didn't recognize anything special from the air as Liona approached the site: there were tents in one area, and roped-off squares dotted with flags and markers, and floodlights for working at night with their solar collectors still deployed in the summer evening.
Prof. Willow hugged Moriko when she arrived, and a storm of introductions followed that she rapidly lost the thread of. Dozens of researchers and students went by in a blur; there were a few humanoid psychic pokémon among them, and rock- or fighting-type heavy lifters who hung back and waved shyly when she smiled at them.
They guided her into a tent filled with laboratory equipment on tables and piled-up gear in every corner. She turned the paraslit in its pokéball over to Prof. Larch, a dark-skinned, portly woman with voluminous dark hair, who placed it in a PC viewer.
The program was more advanced than the one at the pokémon center: Prof. Larch's computer came alive with data that Moriko couldn't follow, although the techs and grad students were nodding and making significant remarks about egg groups, auras, and energy density.
The computer returned the residual image of the paraslit after a few minutes, displaying it in grayscale fairly accurately.
"You said that you suspect this is a cryptopokémon, Moriko?"
Moriko nodded. "What we… what happened to Russell is… related. Matt showed me the entry on a cryptid they call myiaslice or paraslit—"
"Oh fuck me," one of the grad students exclaimed. "Myiaslice is real!? What's next—chupascabrous?"
"Probably slendamantis," someone said.
"No."
Moriko found herself relating the story of how Russell had become ill, how they had discovered the presence of the paraslit, and a fictional version of how they had finally driven it out. The mood among the researchers grew more and more somber, and several started to look embarrassed at their earlier excitement.
"Ah, no wonder you didn't want to release it to show it off," Prof. Banyan said.
Moriko nodded. The professors were talking among themselves, and a knot of grad students had opened up a cryptopokémon website and were groaning and hissing at whatever they were reading. She felt their pitying looks and stared at the tent floor.
The paraslit had been quiescent, luckily; usually pokémon could only release themselves from a pokéball when they were healthy and experienced, but who even knew with the demon pokémon. Pokéballs were designed to feel like a safe place, like the places that fainted pokémon would retreat to as energy—although a minority of pokémon couldn't stand them, like Vleridin—so perhaps it felt secure for now.
A dangerous pokémon could be put in a locked ball, which wouldn't open unless someone outside triggered the release, but the technology was controversial and there was a great deal of paperwork, special permission, and oversight required to have one. It was a tool for researchers, not for a broke traveling trainer.
There was a time when Moriko would have felt immensely proud to say that she had helped discover a new pokémon, and would have been hungry for the attention and regard. But for the paraslit she only felt a sick desperation to get rid of it—and terror that maybe she couldn't, that others wouldn't understand the danger it posed.
Eventually the professors had more questions, and she showed them the pictures that Matt had taken of Russell's wounds. Most of the grad students left at that, the party atmosphere well-faded, while the professors studied the pictures grimly.
"Is there going to be, uh… when Prof. Redwood exhibited that newly discovered pokémon—" Moriko shook her head and got to the point. "I want to be anonymous. I don't—I don't want to talk about this to random people."
"Absolutely, Moriko," Prof. Willow said, setting aside her tea mug and putting a hand on Moriko's shoulder. "If you like, we can conditionally reveal your name a few years in the future. It's a useful notoriety at times after the initial furor dies down."
"Uh, maybe… I just want you guys to take it away and study it. And people need to know, if they see one around, it's not cool—it's dangerous—it needs to be in a, in a locked ball—"
Prof. Willow nodded. "I believe you entirely, Moriko, and you have a good idea of how we're going to proceed already. Classification of pokémon species is Prof. Tsuga's specialty—she'll handle it."
"Carefully," Prof. Tsuga added. She was a tall, somber east Asian woman with silver in her ultramarine hair. "You and your friends deserve a long holiday after this."
Moriko considered this briefly and then shrugged. "I guess we'll keep on with our journey after Russell recovers."
"There's no need to rush through it," Prof. Tsuga said. "People and pokémon need time to relax."
"I never liked how this league set the age at eighteen," Prof. Banyan said. "I did one badge a summer starting when I was eleven back in Kanto, and that was a fine pace."
"Sure, but who took care of your pokémon in between?" Prof. Tsuga asked.
"Oh, we had battle club and clinics through the year, so they got quite a bit of exercise."
"And that takes time, money, and engagement from professors, gym leaders, and veteran trainers, all of whom are spread out in this region."
"It's a good scene in Port Littoral," Prof. Willow said. "The battle clubs have a diverse membership in age and experience, and many veterans and career trainers volunteer to instruct."
"I've seen your facility, Adeline, and you've got dozens of pokémon on the grounds that you're taking care of for starter trainers. You can do that now, but what happens when time or money run out? What do the kids who weren't chosen for the starter program do?" Prof. Tsuga said, gesturing with a stylus. It had the air of a familiar argument.
"Kids should just bond with one pokémon, like in the old days," Prof. Larch interjected without looking up from the PC viewer. "Most end up with one or two after battling falls through, and it's them who go on to do something useful instead of flashy TV tournaments."
"I do think that you should be able to do a few badges as a teenager," Prof. Banyan said. "Gaiien keeps you pent up until you're done high school, and then you try to do eight in a summer with little experience."
Moriko shifted uneasily. "We've been doing okay, considering…" Considering murder, demon pokémon, pokémon mystics…
"Not to disparage your achievements," Prof. Banyan added, placating. "Just that it's a lot, and you deserve rest if you need it, or to go home."
Later, Prof. Willow walked with Moriko away from the tents. It was dark, with only a band of lightness to mark the western sky, but the glare from the dig lighting made it hard to see the full spray of the stars.
"Everyone back in PL is asking if you all will come home soon," Prof. Willow said quietly. "Trainers being attacked—you had an illness in Russet Town, I heard—and now Russell has been hurt—"
Moriko lined up a response in her mind and then realized that she didn't feel defensive or hurt or angry, and in fact going back to Port Littoral seemed like a wonderful idea. She found herself thinking fondly of bicycling along the waterfront, junior-level pokémon battles with local kids, and appreciating the wide world of pokémon from the safety of a desktop computer. She knew intellectually that there had been a good reason she'd wanted so badly to leave—but all the fights and the yelling and Angela always being a spoiled brat seemed like minor annoyances at this distance.
Russ had been hurt, hurt badly, and he was only along as an amusement before he started school. Rufus and Tarahn would follow her anywhere; Thanasanian the oberant could go with any other trainer to fulfill her mission. But she thought of Liona, stripped of her protectors, who needed to get strong before she could go back to the wild, and of a promise made to a certain ill-tempered and ill-treated mooskeg.
Prof. Willow looked at her expectantly, and Moriko felt a sudden affection for her: the middle-aged professor, fostering young kids' interest in pokémon and in science, giving them starter pokémon, the symbol of nascent adulthood and source of protection. Her love for all those kids had always been genuine, not haphazard or uncertain, and she wanted to protect Moriko now: there were forces abroad that a starter was not shield against.
"I'll see what Russ thinks when he's feeling better," Moriko said.
x.x.x.x.x
Port Brac was the southernmost city in Gaiien, actually a series of several contiguous towns rather than a single settlement. The bluff that gave the city its name was terraced, and steep paths led down to the blue-green water in numerous protected coves where boats bobbed and people could be seen swimming and fishing with the gregarious pokémon who lived nearby.
There was a large native Gaiienese population, descended from the hardy people of the second crossing, and the old villages had been established by their nomadic, seafaring fishers before the modern era. Today relations between the second- and third-crossing humans were cordial, although there was still a thread of resentment among the old supplanted clans.
Downwind of the city were the deep-draft docks and industrial areas that received raw materials by ship or by rail, and performed various arcane processing steps before loading goods to be transported away elsewhere in Gaiien or to other regions. Port Brac was a trading city, a place where goods from Tanos, the tropical region to the south, or from the volcanic islands of Kelau to the west, would make a stop before continuing on to be sold in the densely settled regions like Kanto or Johto.
Moriko wandered the town, walking along terraced streets lined with houses like bright toys, and climbing long winding paths from hill to hill. She had the pokémon out and walking for exercise, some of hers and some of Russ's.
Thanasanian the oberant was a favorite, drawing many admiring glances for her rich fur and striking markings. A pair of girls asked if they could take a picture with her.
"I'm cute, too," Tarahn muttered, watching that production. "Girls like me."
"Make a cute face," Moriko said, and crouched down beside him. She turned the pokédex camera toward them, and he opened his eyes wide and stuck out his tongue very slightly, which met the requirement.
"See? A social sensation." He bumped his nose against the screen. "Make it look better."
Moriko played with the lighting and laughed at the saturated colors of her green hair, and Tarahn's yellow and purple motley. "We look like a Mardi Gras float."
"Better, I said!"
A few trainers had wanted to battle as well, and some of Rufus's and Tarahn's attacks actually scorched or melted the sand or asphalt paths. Moriko was pleased at their strength, but it was a loss in other ways. Their physical attacks had been dangerous for years and a playful swipe or headbutt from an adult pokémon could injure a human badly. She'd had to be careful in choosing battle locations since they needed room to maneuver safely, but now their elemental techniques were catching up, and that real fire and lightning could seriously harm someone.
Moriko sat in the shade by the beach for a while, petting Tarahn. She watched Liona and Keigan circle far above, the nigriff and springbuck racing each other and diving to brush the waves curling over the shorebreak.
She read her pokédex manual, something she'd only really done before to waste time, desperately waiting for the day when she'd get to leave Port Littoral. She vaguely remembered the beginner articles: tips for new trainers; treating pokémon with respect; and the process of raising young pokémon properly, especially when their power and intelligence increased dramatically after evolution.
There were technical articles she'd ignored about battle mechanics that actually seemed to explain just what Vleridin had revealed about transferring energy, though in jargon with confusing empirical formulas. It confirmed that pokémon could gain energy outside of battling through evolution stones, expensive rare candies, or the elemental fruits that trainers called "berries" regardless of size or provenance. There were only footnotes, though, on the absorption of energy from the environment. Best-known though apparently little understood was the use of environmental energy for certain pokémon to evolve, and the purification of the abused and brainwashed pokémon called "shadow pokémon" that were sometimes used by criminal organizations.
Moriko thought of the professors up on the hill and wondered if the mooskeg could teach them something, but she wasn't sure how much Vleridin could help. Her instructions to Maia and Sylvia, though successful, had been along the lines of "just go here!" unless some other mysterious, wordless communication had passed between them.
That distraction aside, what she wanted were articles on battling. Moriko felt nervous reading the lists of energetic attacks that couldn't be used outside of attack-hardened gyms or inside city limits once a pokémon passed that critical point into being 'high level'. She'd have been fined for battling inside the city today if a pokémon ranger or police officer had seen her—maybe just scolded, since the effect had been borderline. But she felt proud as well; maybe they'd be at the right level for tournaments at the end of the summer.
Moriko stared out to sea, thinking of those little scorches in comparison to the huge burnt scars and real molten rock that the demon pokémon aricaust had left. They had evidence for that encounter, but it was confused basic-model pokédex aura readings, attackdex analysis, and blurry photos from Liona's back—the kind of stuff people put up on the internet all the time, mostly hoaxes with a sprinkling of tantalizing unproven incidents.
Where had they gone, the gray demon and the red? What was their purpose? They'd thrown the reginant hive into disarray, and the queen had sent Thanasanian with them—
Moriko looked over at Thana, who was sitting in the sun and staring out at the ocean. The oberant was an adult and had lived her life as a wild pokémon, but today she'd barely strayed more than a few feet away from Moriko, the longest trip being a short flight against the breeze off the ocean.
"Thanasanian, how are you feeling? This must be a lot different than what you're used to."
The oberant waved a claw. "It's all… very new. There are so many green plants here, and the human hives are above ground, but very beautiful, and the sea—look, you can look as far as you can and the sky touches it. Is this the place of your people?"
"No, we're from another town, up the coast to the north."
"I have to learn about how humans live, but… how do you keep safe without your family? We have not been attacked or challenged in this place, and yet it doesn't belong to you?"
Moriko shook her head and tried to see the oberant's alien assumptions. "We… all humans, we all agree not to… we all live together even though we're not all family, and if someone attacks you seriously, then you can tell the police or pokémon rangers."
"I see, these people are the soldier caste of your society?"
"Uh… something like that. That's their career and responsibility."
"They aren't born for that purpose?"
"No, most humans don't know their… purpose. They have to try a lot of things first."
The oberant hummed a little to herself. "I see, yes. Humans are very adaptable, I have heard this. Moriko, I… I feel nervous, walking, with so many strangers around."
"They won't do anything more than ask to battle—or to take a picture with you. But if that makes you uncomfortable, you can refuse. You don't have to be out, you could stay in the pokémon center or in your pokéball."
"Oh! Is that allowed?"
"Yes, of course—everyone is out because they want to be, you can stay wherever you like. Some people don't let their pokémon out enough and they let themselves out and get into trouble." Moriko smiled sadly and scratched Tarahn's neck. "That was us when I was in school."
"How does one get into trouble?" Thanasanian asked seriously.
"Battling without a trainer," Tarahn said, purring. He'd done that enough times to get a talking-to from police pokémon. "And if someone decides you're a wild pokémon and doesn't listen to you, or you can't make yourself heard or understood, they could capture you, and they could take you far away before anyone knows what's wrong."
Ideally an accidentally—or deliberately—re-captured pokémon would be noticed during registration of the capture and comparison of the pokémon signature to the data in the cloud, or at the double-check during pokémon center healing. But it was possible that someone could capture a pokémon on their way out of town and not meet those checks, or to deliberately seek to mask that data. Criminal gangs had tricks to hide stolen pokémon, although it was getting harder as the technology improved.
"What if," Thana said, "someone tries to battle with me?"
"Just run, if you just leave they're not supposed to chase you down," Tarahn said. "And if they do then you can hinder them. If you really fight and get weak, that's how they might re-capture you."
"Never attack a human, you can hurt them very badly very easily, even with just minor attacks," Moriko added. "And if you're high level enough, your energy attacks will hurt them too."
"Moriko, where can I speak with your—leaders? Human queens?"
The oberant had been given a mission to pass on the information about the demon pokémon, and she'd probably go back to her hive when it was done. Moriko quashed the thought of misleading her so that she'd stay with them longer, as much as she hoped that Thana would help her against—well, was she even going on to the tier seven dark-type gym? Maybe it didn't matter.
"Do you have anything else to report? We spoke with the professors and gave them our observations about the demon pokémon, and now paraslit will be officially recognized as a real pokémon, so people will hear about it and hopefully won't be taken by surprise by it."
"That was one group of humans—should we not go on to others, to tell them also? Should we not have been telling passerby in the town?"
Moriko winced at the thought of the kids and tourists in town shrieking over cryptidex pictures. "The professors will put that information on the internet and on the news, which is the best way to reach a lot of people." Seeing the oberant's blank look, Moriko got out her pokédex. "Humans can record information and send it to others electronically, so it can reach dozens of regions and millions of people."
Thana held the pokédex in her claws and whisked her antennae over it. "Yes…? Sorry, this just smells like your hands."
Moriko pressed the touchscreen and a video came up with a pokémon professor, Prof. Cypress, explaining the crystal structure of evolution stones.
"Oh! It makes a picture, and there's a voice…" Thanasanian kept listening, looking back and forth between it and Moriko. "I can only understand it if you're paying attention."
Right, that was how pokémon speech worked—it was partially telepathic, so it needed special devices to record it. Pokémon could speak to anyone, regardless of language, but could only understand ordinary audio recordings if they could skim the meaning off the top of the mind of someone listening.
Moriko pocketed the pokédex again. "All humans can understand that if they speak that language, so we can make those pictures and tell each other things from far away. Some pokémon can learn to understand human speech directly, but it takes time. In the meantime, I can try to tell you what you want to know."
"For now, as it arises, I appreciate your explanations… although… I wish to know about that person who appeared to battle the demons. She was…"—Thana opened and closed her claws, searching—"crowded. I have never seen the like."
Crowded. Moriko laughed a little, nervously, thinking of the woman's many, many eyes, the eyes of the pokémon that ensouled her.
"Neither have I, she… I don't know who she is. What she is."
"She knew your friend. The gray demon knew your friend also."
The woman in black knew Matt. The gray man knew Matt. They called him by name, implied a history—Johto, allies—
Moriko remembered all of Matt's strange moods, his melancholies and significant remarks, his biting impatience, his sudden shuddering fears.
She clenched her fists, thinking of Russell in the desert station, in the reginant cave, wan and drawn and—dying. He had been dying.
Matt, who are you? What did you do?
She found herself weighing her options, contemplating the strength of Matt's pokémon, the type matchups.
"We need to take a walk," she said.
x.x.x.x.x
Moriko found Matt lounging in the sun, using Maia as a backrest. Sai the dragoon was nearby, perched on a fencepost and looking at the ocean, and Dzalar the svarog was downwind with her smoke streaming away in the breeze.
"Matt, I need to talk to you."
Matt's pokémon snapped their heads around to look at her, at Rufus and Tarahn standing casually behind her, something in her voice, in her stance, in her thudding heartbeat. A bird called somewhere in the silence.
Matt broke the spell: he sighed and sat up, looking at his hands. "That can't be good," he said lightly, but he didn't look at her.
"Matt, I… I haven't been that friendly to you on our journey, but I wanted you to know that I really appreciated that you were here when… when all that stuff happened to Russell. And I wanted you to know that I want to help you, with what's troubling you."
She took a deep breath.
"But, Matt, to do that, I… I need you to explain, concisely, all the shit that's going on. It seems to… affect our safety. As a group."
Matt shrugged. "We made an assumption of risk when we went on this journey."
Moriko crouched, trying to get him to look at her, but he'd closed his eyes and was weaving and unweaving his fingers nervously. "Matt, at the weather station, I said something like 'this is all my fault', and you started to say that it was yours."
She crept closer and he withdrew, smaller, into the curve of Maia's body, and the tibyss sat up straighter and put up her fins, the bristling quills instantly making her larger.
"Matt. The gray man. He knew you. The reginant queen, she asked me if we brought him to the nest. Did you? Wh—what demon was going to eat your dragoon, before that, even?" she interjected, remembering.
Matt turned away from her, and Maia showed her teeth, and Tarahn showed his.
"Matt. I need you to tell me everything, or I will leave you here. You can join with another group of trainers, you can go home. You're not helpless. Or you can explain. For once. Decide."
Matt trembled, finally looking at her, and she leaned back uncomfortably at his wide-open eyes. His mouth pinched down into a line, and he shook more and more violently until Moriko opened her pokédex to its phone app and was about to dial emergency.
Maia curled around Matt, blocking him from view, and she make a clicking, growling sound to him. Matt clutched at her, his arms trembling.
Maia looked at her. "He can't explain."
"He won't, and he needs—"
"He can't," Maia growled, flashing a fang, and Tarahn sparked a warning—
A new voice: "Matthew is under a psychic compulsion. A curse."
Moriko rose, darting to the side, and Rufus put himself between her and the newcomer, his armor plates whispering over each other as he shifted.
It was the woman in black. Her charizard was hanging back, charcoal-black and enormous, its blue flames nearly invisible in the sunlight.
"He can't explain," she said, walking in a broad arc around them. "He can't ask for aid. He suffers and suffers, and every moment of his suffering feeds back to the thing that put the curse on him, and makes it stronger."
"A curse? He's been magicked? Why are you telling—why are you lying?" Moriko's voice arced, incredulous. "Just say, just tell—do you think it's worse to be sick than to lie and lie?"
"Where are you from, Matthew?" the woman asked.
"Johto," he choked out.
Maia butted his shoulder with her head, comforting.
"When were you born?"
"In the autumn of 102 CR."
Moriko stopped. "You're… twenty-six? I thought—
"He is. Well, and he isn't. Sixteen going on sixteen, forever. I was there when he was cursed, ten years ago," said the woman in black.
"There too late," Matt said, nearly spitting.
"And what have you been doing since then?" she continued impassively. "Wandering. Shunning help. Taking odd jobs. Betting on battles. Running."
"Describing yourself?"
"You should have stayed in Johto, Matthew. We can protect you, shield you."
"I don't want your help," Matt said, words muffled as he pressed his face against Maia's side. "I don't want your expertise."
"He grows stronger every time he finds a grave," the woman said, her voice betraying emotion for the first time. "Do you understand? I have fought him with all my pokémon, ensouled pokémon, old pokémon, high-level, battle-evolved, and I cannot win. He is steps ahead of me, and every moment he is still yet ahead because every moment you feed him, and every moment you are making this task more—"
"He wasn't supposed to come here," Matt said in a whisper. He dashed his hand across his eyes, and Maia clucked to him.
"The continent where the myth originated and you didn't think—"
"Exactly! He came from here! I thought he'd be finished!"
"No and no," the woman in black said quietly.
"What are you talking about?" Moriko demanded.
The woman flipped a hand impatiently. "Pokémon want energy to grow stronger. Humans have energy that isn't accessible to pokémon—except to demon pokémon. Paraslit are the least of them but they too have that ability, and demons grow and grow at a rate regular pokémon cannot touch—unless they too take human energy."
"…How?"
The woman in black studied her briefly. "You have some experience with ensouled pokémon. How did that come to pass, I wonder?"
"Vleridin fought for me—for herself, really. And she was wounded, and she wouldn't go into a ball, so she… ensouled me, and… my energy…"
The woman stilled at that. "Did she, now?"
Moriko felt dizzy. "You said…"
"Only demons can take energy, yes, but it can be given," the woman said, and Moriko could breathe again.
"All your ensouled pokémon—that's how—"
"Yes, but even then I cannot keep up: I have one person's energy, and my opponent has a dozen, through the energetic connections—through the curses he's placed on people like Matthew. We keep them safe, try to cut them off from him, but Matthew shunned us, and went to Gaiien, where our enemy could take from him freely."
Matt was shaking his head; she continued, savage: "Yes! How many days have you felt sick and weary here, and had to fight against his will, had to fight his injunction against harming yourself or heading into simple dangers like leaving the house?"
Maia growled at her, a sound that gave Moriko a frisson of fear, and the woman actually snarled back with a dragon-type's voice—Maia subsided, her ears back, more out of surprise than actual threat.
"And you are damning him, tibyss," she said.
"I'm protecting him, many-soul," Maia said, disgust in her deep voice.
Moriko looked between them, helpless. "What is—your enemy, the gray demon—what is he?"
"He's a man who thought he was a demon master," the woman in black said. "He allowed a demon to ensoul him, a demon that is ascendant in his body, and it has been my life's work—more than one lifetime's work—to separate them.
"The gray essence is a god's essence, a god's blood, a god who was destroyed and sundered and interred in pieces across the earth during the dawn of days, and these graves were protected by wards to make them impossible to sense… For a time. But everything ends, and one by one the old protections have fallen, and he wanders, and whispers and rumors come to him. Each time he gets a little more power, a god's power and knowledge, and as he wanders he destroys and kills, and calls other demons to him."
"…Can we help?" Moriko heard herself say.
The woman in black was silent a few moments. "Your Vleridin—how long had she been with you, when she ensouled you?"
"Not long, I'd just caught her, and she hated the ball."
"To ensoul a wild pokémon—that's not so common. You have a second-crossing ancestor?"
"My—mom," Moriko said, and regretted it instantly. Don't ask me any more don't ask don't make me remember don't—
"Do you know of battle evolution?" the woman asked, mercifully. She did something with her hands and a sphere glittered between two of her fingers, throwing off iridescence in the sunlight. "A focus for the trainer's energy, a link to one's partner"—the black charizard rumbled—"and a temporary evolution occurs. All the stronger ensouled, but it has its dangers. You were hurt?"
"I was—no, I just, I lost consciousness. For two days."
"Dangerous, but possible in an emergency. Better to have been partners from childhood, as they did in the old days."
The woman looked back at the charizard, turned to Moriko. "You want to help? I have professors and mystics and rangers on my side, but I need an army—and there will be a terrible cost to my soldiers. I cannot ask it of a young person with so much yet to lose."
"I won't go back to Johto," Matt said, sulkily.
"But I can teach you how to shield him," the woman in black added.
Her statement hung in the air, a promise, and Matt's features softened, considering this.
"What did you tell the professors?" the woman asked.
"Not… everything," Moriko said.
"And whom did you speak with?"
"Professor Willow. And other professors were there, and their assistants and students—"
"There are other professors here that you may tell the whole story to, professors who are masters of lore as well as knowledge. Come with me."
x.x.x.x.x
Moriko found herself back at the digsite after a short flight, at a set of tents away from the others she'd visited. All around was grassy scrub, but nearby the turf had been peeled back and the sandy soil excavated, revealing cracked stone: a road, or a stone courtyard; it was hard to tell from the narrow pit.
In the main tent were two professors she hadn't met: Professor Maple, a stout brown-skinned woman with close-cropped curly red hair, and Professor Linden, a pale, thin man with sparse blond hair.
Prof. Maple shrugged and went back to the specimen she was cleaning, an array of fine tools on a palette beside her.
"Ah, Lady Black," Prof. Linden said. "What brings you to Gaiien?"
"My enemy," the woman in black said. She circled the table to look at the specimen. "What is this?"
"So you're weird to everyone, not just me?" Matt asked rudely.
Prof. Linden raised his eyebrows, but the ghost of a smirk crossed his face. "Lady Black was part of the third crossing," he said mildly. "Like most ladies her age, she has a few peculiarities."
Moriko stared, as the woman certainly didn't look over a century old, even with her white hair—but she had implied as much, earlier, and claimed that there was a discrepancy with Matt's age as well.
The woman in black ignored this, listening as Prof. Maple spoke.
"These ruins predate the earliest crossings by humans to this world—you may be familiar with my work and that of the previous Maple on pre-crossing relics—we're trying to find out who these builders were."
"My specialty is pokémon mythology and culture—the beliefs of pokémon themselves," said Prof. Linden to Moriko. "Second-crossing humans have developed plenty of legends about rare and legendary pokémon in the centuries they've been here, but I'm more interested in the mythologies told by pokémon. I sift through such accounts to try to find out what was happening on this world before humans arrived."
"We've met some wild pokémon with stories about that sort of thing," Moriko offered.
"I'd like to hear them if you have time, and first-hand if any of those pokémon joined you," Linden said, nodding. "How did you meet with… the singular Lady Black?"
Moriko related the paraslit story again, this time the full account at the woman's prompting: the meeting with the reginant colony, their discovery of darkwater, their pursuit by the demons, and how the woman in black had narrowly engaged their attention so they could escape.
Prof. Linden nodded through the story and glanced at 'Lady Black'. "The usual excitement that seems to occur when you're around. What did you need from me?"
"Gray essence sites seem to be correlated with pre-crossing ruins—I need a list of known locations in Gaiien."
Prof. Maple nodded, and took the battered old-model pokédex that the woman held to upload the information.
"I'm surprised," said Prof. Linden. "You used to just sense him and tear off."
"He's stronger here."
Prof. Maple and the woman moved to another computer terminal. Moriko released Thanasanian, who looked around the tent curiously.
"Thana, this is Prof. Linden—he makes records of stories told by pokémon. Do you remember any, like the one Kalamatos told us, about legends of long-ago times?"
The oberant bowed and made an expansive gesture with her forelegs. "Greetings, I am Thanasanian, advisor to Kalamatos, currently traveling with trainer Moriko. I do recall numerous legends. Professor Linden—you have a title, do you fulfill an important role in human society?"
Prof. Linden barked a laugh and then waved, apologizing.
"Ah," Thana said doubtfully, "I've made a social misstep."
"Not at all, that was a self-deprecating laugh," Prof. Linden said. "Yes, you could say that—I have specialized knowledge, among humans."
"Oh, a loremaster."
Prof. Linden blinked and his eyes flicked over to where the woman in black was sitting, waiting with unnatural stillness. "I've been called that," he said. "Humans came to this world relatively recently, and so I hope to find out what happened among pokémon before then."
"Humans… yes, there was a time when they weren't here, I think. In the age of gods."
Prof. Linden drew out his tablet-sized pokédex and tabbed on a program. "I'll record this, if you don't mind."
The oberant repeated the legend Kalamatos had told them, about the primeval world ruled by pokémon gods: the betrayal and the first murder that unbalanced their pantheon, the creation of demon pokémon, and the war that destroyed that idyllic ecosystem.
"Do you know where those gods went? Why did they have to leave?"
"In those days there was more energy, and so there was no fighting or killing, and the gods could exist here easily without needing to sleep all the time—elder pokémon have to sleep for years and years, they need so much energy—but after they fought the world was broken."
Prof. Linden nodded, his fingers dancing over a projected keyboard. "Did pokémon build cities or monuments in that age?"
Thana swept her antennae, dismissive. "Not us, certainly. We like caves. Better to feel the ground under your feet, and to sense it. Perhaps it was done by rock-types to amuse the gods."
Moriko broke in: "If demons depend on humans for energy—but they were made before humans came, what did they do then?"
"Without humans, they live like ronin," Prof. Linden said. "They kill other pokémon for energy, but they have no society and they're hated and reviled. Humans crossing to this world must have been a great boon for them. Perhaps they're becoming more common now that they have such a food source—and they can attack subtly, as the legends about paraslit indicate."
"The smaller ones we have seen now and then through the years, but the great demons give them purpose," Thanasanian said. "My queen set me to a task, to go out into the world and to warn humans and pokémon of the demon lieutenants. It seems they grow in power, though the many-souled woman pursues them."
"I will aid you in this task," Prof. Linden said formally. He tapped his pokédex. "I'll transmit this information to other professors, other—loremasters."
He bowed, and Thana bowed back.
x.x.x.x.x
The woman in black left the tent when her map was updated, and Moriko and Matt followed.
"You're going to help Matt?"
The woman looked him over and inclined her head. Matt looked away.
"Not tonight," she said. "I'll be back."
Space distorted as she transformed into the black charizard, and she tore into the sky in a rush of blue flame and a concussion of displaced air.
"Kids," Prof. Linden said, following them, "a piece of advice from an old fogey: go home."
Moriko looked at the ground. "I've been thinking about it," she said, as Matt frowned at her and the professor.
Prof. Linden sighed. "It's hazardous to your health to be around her for long, alright? I get a chill every time she shows up."
"Has she—does she hurt people?"
Linden made a softening gesture. "I'm not saying she's bad, I'm saying… she goes where the trouble is, and she can withstand a lot more trouble than a couple teenage trainers. No offense."
"And she's not human."
Prof. Linden jerked and looked behind him: a young boy—a young girl with white-blond hair came through the tent flap. He gave his daughter—the resemblance was pretty clear—a look, but sighed and nodded.
"There are… pokémon who can take human form," Prof. Linden said, looking into the distance. "Pokémon have a… strong inclination to maintain their form—healing and their transport via PC are dependent on this property to some extent—but powerful ones can change themselves, change their size, even take new forms entirely. Legendaries are famous for doing this to escape detection." He looked at his daughter again and shrugged. "It's possible."
Matt made a face. "So, what, she's a legendary pokémon?" he asked, sulky. "A ghost?"
"We've seen her ensoul several pokémon, though—can pokémon do that to each other?" Moriko asked.
"Maybe? Maybe she's a legendary—maybe she's a number of pokémon, working together to put together a human face. But we don't ask questions—mystics like her, trainers with one foot in the wild and one in civilization, are essential to the safety of our world. Pokémon talk to each other and to them, and we get early warnings."
Moriko watched him. "Warnings about what?"
"Do you still learn about ancient pokémon in school?"
"Of course," Moriko said. "Drills all the time—"
"We haven't seen one for a couple of years," Prof. Linden said. "We're waiting for the big one. You're trainers, adult trainers—you're part of that network now. You need to be alert, use your pokémon to help people, if an ancient pokémon appears. Remember the drills. Don't get caught up in this business. Go home."
"The next badge is just across the strait," Matt objected.
"They come out of the sea, most of the time." Prof. Linden shook his head. "Sleep on it."
They walked away from that meeting dazed, tired from contemplating all the danger that the adults seemed to have long grown used to, had used up their lives fighting—and they had to walk back to the pokémon center on foot without the woman in black, Matt lacking a flying pokémon who could give him a lift.
"Are you really going back home?" Matt asked quietly.
"I—"
"Hey! Hey! I'm coming with you."
Matt and Moriko turned; it was Prof. Linden's daughter.
"Are you? Why?" Matt asked.
She faced them, grinning, hands on hips. "Archeology turned out to be hotter and more boring than I expected. I miss pokémon battling."
Moriko looked her over—short, very pale skin, ragged jeans and faded old tournament t-shirt—"I don't think you're old enough," she said.
Linden Jr. tutted and keyed on her pokédex to its ID screen: she was fourteen years old, and Moriko opened her mouth to say as much, until her eyes fell on the Kantoan League emblem on its corner.
"You have eight Kanto badges," Moriko choked out.
"I kind of cheated," Linden Jr. said cheerfully. "I had my grandma's pokémon. I fought every gym at tier eight, but it wasn't really a challenge. I'm raising my own pokémon now though, Abram is along more for company."
There was a metallic sound, and Abram slouched out of the shadows to stand behind her. It was a huge metagross covered in superficial scars—old injuries, vicious ones, to still show on that steel integument after pokémon center healing—who looked them over, appraising.
Moriko realized she was calculating the benefit an old and battle-ready metagross would have on their group safety as they—if they—went on into wild Gaiien, and shook her head. "We might just go home to Port Littoral pretty soon. And anyway you need your dad's permission, or he could tell pokémon rangers that we abducted you or something."
"I'll get it," Linden Jr. said confidently.
"Okay," Moriko said, skeptical. "Well, look for us at the pokémon center, I guess—"
"I'll bring camping supplies and food and stuff," Linden Jr. said, ticking off items on her fingers. "It'll be great. I hope we see another demon pokémon, I'll take the credit for its discovery if you want."
"Ah, youth," Matt said as Linden Jr. hurried back into the professors' camp.
"Oh my gods," Moriko muttered.
x.x.x.x.x
Takktktkk flapped onto the pokémon center roof, an annoyed exeggutor's psychic attack washing over him harmlessly. He heard it stomp off in a huff, and laughed to himself, gulping down chunks of the berry he'd stolen. Joining with a human trainer was the best thing he'd ever done. He couldn't have imagined that there were so many slow, credulous people in the world with so many things worth taking from them.
The warm glow of the pomeg berry's energy spread through him, and he hopped down onto a shadowed branch in the pokémon exercise yard. He espied the tibyss in one corner of the yard and carefully avoided her—not out of fear, it was just defensive planning like anyone would have done. Below him was the newcomer, the dragoon.
Tak preened; he'd been the newcomer briefly, but he'd risen rapidly after evolving. The ursaring was lazy and seemed to lack appetite for battle, the svarog he'd defeated, and the dragoon was too new. Only Maia stood in his way, and then he'd have the authority to direct Matthew like she did.
Tak sneered at the dragoon and its cringing self-conscious manner. Apparently they usually had gray fur covering their skin, and this one was embarrassed to lack it. It was embarrassing, he had to admit, to be smooth-skinned like a human being: they were appallingly ugly, but the naked dragoon was striped with bright, eye-catching color.
Tak hopped down to the ground behind Sai, noiselessly, and he pecked at one of the spines on the end of his tail, just to see if it would come off. He hopped backward right after, pre-emptively, but the dragoon didn't move. Tak clicked his beak and did it again. Gods, these people were slow—
Sai's tail cinched like a rope around the honchkrow's wings, and as Tak squawked he turned to look at him with mild interest.
"Let go, addle-jawed slimegut!" Tak screeched. "I'll eat your eyes!"
"Not before I pull out half your feathers, birdie," Sai said.
"A few feathers can't fix what's wrong with you, dullmind."
The dragoon bared its teeth like a human, not a threat but as an expression of amusement. Well, maybe both.
"Big words coming from the bottom of the flock. No?"
"No!" Tak squawked back. "You're below me, newcomer."
"Only because you left your old troop behind and joined a group with less competition. I see you, birdie. I know what you're like." The dragoon loosened his tail, and Tak shot up into the tree with a hiss. "I know what I'm like," he added, spreading his clawed hands.
"I'm at the top, ratpiss! You can't catch me."
"You wouldn't have joined a human if you were at the top," Sai said, conversational. He picked a blade of grass and chewed on it. "You would have ruled and got fat and strong and old if you were. Out there." He flicked away the grass. "I heard you can get strong with a human. Stronger than any free person. So strong you don't go back. I wonder what exactly they do to you so that you don't go back."
"They don't do anything," Tak complained suddenly. "I thought there would be devils and evil powers! I thought they drank blood and left eggs on high hillsides for the dead! But they just battle and give each other encouragement," he said, disgusted.
"Ha. Devilish. Why don'tcha leave, then?" Sai asked.
"Well. They are strong," Tak admitted. He shivered, thinking of the monsters they'd narrowly avoided in the desert. "Ain't the time to be a loner, that's for sure."
"And thus, here I am," the dragoon said, sighing. "I haven't got anything. They threw me out."
"Fuck 'em. Who cares? My flock was a bunch of idiots, too busy being bullies or whining about being bullied. They had no idea about the opportunities in a human city."
"Oh yeah? Can you show me? You seem smart."
Tak puffed out his chest feathers. "Uh, yeah, baldy. Stick with me and I'll show you a couple tricks."
He started to preen the feathers the dragoon had mussed and thought about his next trainer, who would be taller and better-dressed in more lovely colors. Every color.
x.x.x.x.x
Tarahn sat with Moriko until she fell asleep, and then he phased out of the trainer dorm into the cool night. He flicked his tail in greeting to Liona and Sylvia by the pool as he scanned the yard, and then trotted over casually when he saw Maia.
He flopped down beside her, readying his great new joke about the timbark and a parked car.
Maia's huge webbed paw slapped down on his, and her claws shot out. "Don't."
Electricity sparked at his cheeks, inadvertent. "What?" he squeaked.
"I told you," Maia said quietly. "I told everyone. Don't hurt Matt."
The raigar willed his frightened fur to go back down and huffed when it didn't. "No one's gonna hurt him!"
"Then why did Moriko approach him with you at her side, looking for a fight?"
"Because... because we didn't know what he was going to do. He had you and Sai and Daz out. Matt is bigger than Moriko," Tarahn said. He tried to imagine how humans would battle but wasn't really sure. They could only swipe at each other and struggle.
"That's stupid," the tibyss said. "He can't fight. You know."
"No? I don't?"
"You were there. That person explained."
"No?"
Maia growled, a basso rumble deep in her chest. "He can't fight. He can't go into danger. He gets scared. He remembers... things. He can't fight Moriko."
"Okay. I mean, I know that now."
Maia's tail lashed once, and then she relaxed, allowing this. "Well, good. Don't."
"Okay, but—"
"What?" Maia flipped the wood she was playing with, slapping it on the sidewalk with a clatter.
"Well... He needs to say. It was making things dangerous, that he didn't tell us. See? I won't hurt Matt. But those... things came to hurt him. And they could have hurt Moriko."
"That is not his fault," Maia answered sharply.
"I know," Tarahn said. He gave his head a shake to hear the bells, comforting. "I'll protect Matt too, Maia. But you have to protect Moriko. We need to know all the stuff or we can't."
Maia's eyes glowed in the dim light, and her claws shredded the scrap wood ominously, but she didn't growl.