[TWENTY-EIGHT: ROUTE 6]
Without a doubt, Route 6 was one of the more picturesque safe zones in the Unova circuit. It scaled the Watcher Mountains, hugging the crystal-clear Bridgewater River from the northeast side of Driftveil all the way to Mistralton City. Being one of the furthest points from both the urban center of Unova and the Entralink, it was also home to the first efforts to rebuild the region’s environment after its ecological collapse. Saplings and brush seeds were imported from upstate and Canada, and while they were no match in terms of height for the barren, skeletal trees of the banned zones, they were already tall enough to block out the sun with their fat leaves and spiky branches. The forest floor was a blanket of pine needles, tree seeds, dead leaves, and compost, mixed and tramped down by the resident fauxkémon until the ground was perfectly tilled for more forest vegetation. Tiny sprouts erupted here and there from the soft soil, giving the forty-year-old forest a scrubby, new look.
The day after Door earned her Quake Badge, a young, pink deerling nudged its nose to a pine cone beneath a towering douglas fir. It snorted then bent down, gently grabbing the cone with its teeth. Abruptly, it swung its head up, ears twitching and mouth full of pine cone. One of its slender legs rose, hoof cocking backwards. The deerling stood perfectly still, listening to the quiet of the forest, the hush of the running river, and the rustle of leaves overhead.
Then, it bleated and bolted, leaping into the air with grace and dexterity…
…just before a volley of pins slammed into its flank.
The deerling’s body struck the fir’s thick trunk with a resounding bang before falling to the forest floor. It dropped the pine cone and bleated again, its hooves clawing at the dirt and detritus. As it struggled to stand, a venipede rushed at it from some distance away. The bug closed the space between them in a matter of seconds and leapt onto the deer’s shoulder, biting down hard until it struck metal. The deer bleated again, then fell back to the forest floor, kicking and screeching in protest, but no matter what it did, the venipede would not let go.
Finally, a poké ball flew through the air and struck the deerling’s shoulder. The deer vanished at that point, drawn into the poké ball, which fell to the forest floor with a thud. Door stalked out from behind a tree at that point, keeping her eyes on the poké ball as it shook back and forth. When it stopped and clicked, she smiled, trotted the rest of the way to it, and knelt on the ground to pick it up.
“Not bad,” she said. She tossed it into the air and watched it glow then vanish into the storage system. “Hey, Geist! Any info on that deerling?”
He walked casually to her side, followed by Opal and Blair. For the past morning, the four of them had been wandering about those woods, looking for pokémon. Sure, Door could have battled trainers, but at that hour, wild fauxkémon were more abundant—and thus, an excellent warm-up. Besides, as her partner had pointed out just before they had set out, she had been relying a lot on Jack and Knives as of late, so she needed to branch out. Try her other pokémon. Build her team into something a little more well-rounded so she could be better prepared for the final three gyms of the circuit. It only made sense, then, that finding and catching more pokémon would
also be on that list of things to do to create a stronger team, so there they were.
“Let’s see,” Geist said. “Ah. That deerling. Male. Rash. Quick to flee. Ability is Sap Sipper, which converts grass-type elemental energy into additional physical power. It’s a bit weaker than many of the local pokémon, but with training, deerling can become formidable members of a team.” He pressed his hands together. “Would you like to hear its pokédex entry?”
Door waved him off. “Nah. I get the idea. Thanks. Let’s call the little guy Prongs.”
Blair smirked. “Prongs?”
In response, Door scrunched her nose at Blair. “Hey, you’re not the only one who reads.” Shaking her head, she stepped towards her venipede. “Anyway, Needles, you did—”
The venipede at her feet burst into a brilliant, white light that temporarily blinded her. Door stumbled backwards a few steps and yelped, pawing at her eyes for a second, only to be caught and steadied by Geist. When Door could finally open her eyes, she felt her heart pound at the sight of a purplish-gray, wheel-like pokémon sitting where her venipede had a moment ago. This new pokémon stared at her trainer with an unblinking, golden eye as she vibrated the spikes jutting out of her shell.
With a smirk, Geist patted Door’s shoulder. “Whirlipede, the curlipede pokémon. It is usually motionless, but when attacked, it rotates at high speed and then crashes into its opponent.” He rested his hand on her shoulder at that point. “I told you Needles was stronger than the other venipede in her swarm.”
“Yeah, but…” Door ran her fingers through her hair and furrowed her eyebrows. “Huh.”
“Well, Miss Hornbeam,” Blair said, in a voice that mimicked Roland Stone’s cold, dry monotone. “Five badges in less than a month, a new capture and an evolution in the same hour, and all this while being targeted by an evil organization. You’re a most impressive trainer.”
Door scoffed. “Okay, first off? Roland Stone doesn’t talk like that.” She straightened her back and lifted her hand in such a way that looked like she was grasping the handle of a delicate tea cup, pinky raised in the air and all. “
Everything is beneath you, and that goes
especially for trainers. So while I admit your deductive reasoning was close, Miss Whitleigh, you are still not as brilliant as I had hoped you would be. How
disappointing.”
Blair snorted with laughter and shoved Door in the chest. “Oh yeah? So what’s second off?”
“Second off…” Door pulled a poké ball out of her pocket, expanded it, and tossed it up and down without letting it open. “You’d better believe I’m an awesome trainer. You think any of that was easy?”
“Maybe,” Blair said. She pulled away, walking backwards with her arms crossed. “Why don’t we find out?”
Door caught her poké ball and blinked. “What?”
Blair spread her arms. “Battle me. Right here, right now. I owe you one anyway, right?”
At that, Door smirked. “I thought you said you didn’t want to battle me.”
Her friend shrugged. “Changed my mind. So, Miss Hornbeam, trainer extraordinaire. Let’s even make this interesting. If you win, I’ll give you a prize.”
Door quirked an eyebrow. “Oh really? What prize?”
Grinning broadly, Blair wagged a finger. “Ah, ah, ah. You’ll have to win first. But trust me. It’s a good one.”
With a chuckle in response, Door tossed the ball upwards. This time, it cracked open, but the light swung up and bobbed by her head. With a burst, Red appeared by her side.
“Red, stand by,” she said. “Keep an eye on what the rest of the team does, got it?”
Blair raised her eyebrows. “You know, you started to explain why you let Red out like that in Driftveil Gym, but you didn’t finish.” She tilted her head, spilling her black hair across one shoulder. “So. What’s with that?”
“Eh. You know.” Door shrugged. “See, he’s my third real pokémon out of four, and in any case, you’ve read the pokédex entries for these guys, right?”
“Mm. Maybe.” Blair shifted her eyes to her Companion.
Opal stepped up at the signal, placing herself right next to her user. “Oh! I know! Yamask, the spirit pokémon. These Pokémon arose from the spirits of people interred in graves in past ages. Each retains memories of its former life.”
Blair swung her head back to Door. “And they’re creepy.”
“I think you mean
cool,” Door said.
Red hummed, bobbing backwards as he slid a red eye in Door’s direction.
“Anyway,” Door said, seemingly as if she didn’t notice, “I’m trying to let Red hang out during my most important battles. You know. Ease him into the whole thing. Help him get experience.”
Blair snickered. “You know that’s not how pokémon ever gain experience, right?”
“Hey, it doesn’t hurt,” Door said. “Anyway, you said something about a battle?”
She pulled out a second poké ball and shooed both her Companion and her yamask backwards to give her space. Geist folded his hands behind his back, raised his eyebrows, and pressed his lips together, all before taking one long stride backwards. Red followed his movements, swinging back until he floated by the Companion’s head. With them safely out of harm’s way, Door grinned and tossed her poké ball in the air to release her first pokémon: Jack. The second he landed on the earthen forest floor, Jack unsheathed his scalchops, swiped them through the air, and then stopped. He blinked a few times, taking the sight of Blair in, before half-turning to his trainer and chattering frantically while motioning to Blair with a scalchop. Door smirked and held up her hands; this was the most excited she had ever seen him.
“Relax, Jack!” she exclaimed. “It’s just a friendly battle!”
“Aww, hey, Jack!” Blair cooed. “Man, it feels like it’s been forever since I last saw you up close! But speaking of old friends…!”
She snapped a poké ball off her belt and gracefully gave it a toss. When it cracked open, its light poured down onto the ground, quickly taking a form Door was embarrassed to admit she hadn’t seen since Castelia City: a herdier.
“Hey!” she said. “Toto, right?”
“You bet!” Blair said proudly. “Evolved just in time for our battle against the Nacrene gym leader.”
Door laughed nervously. She thought back to Castelia—specifically, to the holographic battle she had against her mother. She didn’t have the heart to tell Blair about it
or the fact that she already knew about Toto.
“Congratulations!” Door said, both quickly and awkwardly. Then, before Blair could respond, she jabbed a finger towards Toto. “Jack, use Water Pulse!”
“Not so fast! Toto, Take Down!” Blair exclaimed.
With more speed than Door was expecting, Toto launched herself at Jack. The dewott squealed and stumbled, flailing his scalchops as he dove out of the way. As the herdier plowed hard into the empty ground, Jack rolled across the soft soil, only to stop on all fours. He fumbled to sheath his scalchops as he chattered in exasperation. Then, sweeping his body up and onto his back legs, he wove his front paws in the air to generate a sphere of water.
A few feet away, Toto rose to her own feet and shook off the shock of slamming face-first into the ground. She growled, swinging her head towards Jack, but by then, it was too late for her to dodge. Jack clapped his paws together and pushed, shooting the Water Pulse across the few feet between himself and the herdier, and the attack quickly swept Toto off her paws and flung her unceremoniously at Blair’s feet. Toto yelped as her shoulder hit the earth, but the yelp transitioned smoothly into a growl as she stood and shook off the excess water.
“Not bad, Door, but we’re not going to miss twice,” Blair said. “Toto, Crunch!”
“Don’t need you to miss to beat you,” Door fired back. “Jack, Water Pulse again!”
Toto stormed forward, jaws wide open and dripping with dark saliva. She closed the distance between herself and Jack quickly and leapt on him before he could dodge. Her jaws came down on his left shoulder, eliciting a screech from her opponent as the two tumbled into the ground. However, just as quickly as Toto’s attack happened, Jack flung his right paw into the side of her head and blasted her with a Water Pulse. The act ripped her off his shoulder—along with a patch of his skin—and rolled her through the air and back into the ground, face first once more. This time, as she rose, she staggered, her face dripping and her eyes flitting about the field unfocused. Blair frowned at the sight of her herdier, particularly the confused look on her face, and with a sigh, she recalled Toto.
“Roland’s right, you know,” Blair said. “If you keep spamming attacks, you’re gonna get predictable, and if you get predictable, experienced trainers will plow you into the ground.”
Door winced. “Ouch. Thanks, Blair.”
Blair clipped Toto’s poké ball back in place and peeled another off her belt. “It’s true.”
“Yeah, but it works,” Door protested. She motioned for Jack to come back to her side. “Jack beat Toto.”
“Not necessarily. Spending time in a poké ball clears a pokémon’s head, and Toto’s not damaged beyond repair just yet.” Blair grinned and held up her second poké ball. “And anyway, even if he had, he’s not going to beat this! Tarzan, let’s go!”
Another pop and another flash of light, and Blair’s pansage appeared on the forest floor. He gazed up at the trees and closed his eyes momentarily to take in the sunlight and a breath of fresh, woody air. Then, with a screech, he snapped his eyes open and hopped from one leg to another, eager to get started.
Door scoffed and looked down at Jack, who in turn was gazing worriedly at his opponent. She reached down to pat her dewott on the head, causing him to glance up at her with watering eyes. Whether that was from the prospect of battling a grass-type or the bleeding patch on his shoulder, Door couldn’t quite tell, but either way, she gently pushed him behind her.
“Geist, can you take care of Jack’s wounds?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he replied.
“Great.” Door waved her other hand forward. “Okay, Needles! Let’s go!”
The whirlipede hissed as she rolled forward, taking her position between her trainer and the pansage. Her spikes vibrated again, as if to signal how eager she was to plug one of them into the dancing monkey.
“Where’d you get a pansage anyway?” Door asked. “By the way—Needles, Poison Tail!”
“Nice try. Dodge and use Leech Seed, Tarzan!” Blair ordered.
Needles made the first move, rolling forward as her spikes began to glow a vicious purple. As Needles neared her opponent, Tarzan crouched low, his eyes suddenly glittering in determination.
“Sage gave it to me,” Blair explained. “You know—the Striaton gym leader? She said something about Savory giving away his pansear. Apparently, Tarzan misses it. Sumac’s panpour couldn’t care less, though.”
Tarzan leapt into the air and somersaulted over Needles, and because of this, the whirlipede’s glowing spikes slammed into the earth, kicking up a wave of soil. Righting himself, Tarzan flung his hands out, palms facing his target, and a volley of glowing, brown pips shot from his skin. Needles hissed again and rolled out of the way, firing an impromptu storm of violet pins from her spikes to shoot down the seeds.
“Pansear, huh? Must’ve been talking about Antares,” Door said. “Needles, try another Poison Tail!”
“I thought so too. I told Sage and said I knew you, and that’s how I got Tarzan,” Blair said. “By the way, you’re doing it again. Seed Bomb, Tarzan!”
As Blair spoke, Needles rolled across the field, moving in a neat arc to build up momentum. Her spikes began to glow again, and as soon as they did, Needles launched herself like a cannonball at Tarzan. Once more, he dove out of the way, this time to the side, before twisting around to shoot a green ball of energy into Needles’s retreating form. The whirlipede hissed as she bumped into the air and came down hard on the ground. She dipped to the side, saved from falling over completely only by her spikes, before rolling to a gentle stop.
“What, repeating attacks?” Door smirked. “When I can’t take down one of your pokémon through sheer persistence, maybe I’ll think about varying it up a little.”
Blair snorted. “Suit yourself. Incidentally, Antares? That name’s a little creative for you, isn’t it?”
“Okay, first off, ouch. I’m awesome at names, okay?”
“And second?”
Door brought her hands together to tap her thumbs against one another sheepishly. “Antares is Geist’s pansear.”
Blair blinked. “What, you mean that time, on Driftveil Drawbridge—”
“Needles, Poison Tail!” Door interrupted.
“Hold up, Door!”
Blair had no time to finish her thought. By that point, Needles had received her orders, and with an irritated twitch of her spikes, she rushed at the pansage once more. This time, Tarzan didn’t leap out of the way. Instead, he risked a glance back at his trainer in the split second that he needed to move, and because of that, one of Needles’s glowing spikes came down hard, smashing into his head. She stopped and whipped her spike, throwing Tarzan off his feet and into the ground a short distance away, where he bounced once and rolled to a stop at the base of a tree.
At the sight of her pokémon, Blair couldn’t help but curse.
In response, Door grinned and waved a hand in front of her own face. “Focus, Whitleigh! You don’t want me to beat the crap out of your pokémon so soon, do you?”
“Can you blame me?” Blair said. “I mean … you don’t think it’s weird that your Companion owns a pokémon?”
Door’s face fell. “I thought you already knew. I mean, you were teaching him TMs the other day and everything.”
“Yeah, but Geist didn’t mention that he literally owned Antares,” Blair protested. “I thought he was just holding onto Antares because he was a reserve pokémon or something. You know. Like how some gym leaders set aside one or two pokémon out of their six so they can focus on specific members of their team?”
“Huh. That’s an interesting thought,” she said. “But nah. I’m not doing anything like that. Not intentionally, anyway.”
“Also, to be fair, Blair never asked,” Geist said. “It’s true, though. In a sense, anyway. Obviously, I’m not a trainer, so consequently, Antares is registered as a research pokémon with Amanita’s ID.”
“Amanita’s ID?” Blair asked.
Geist shrugged. “Well … yes. I’m dual registered. Amanita is still my primary user, although Door is my secondary. How do you think I was able to pay for a new arm and a set of clothes? That was all courtesy of Amanita as well. Not that Door would have been able to cover that, given her gym winnings and the discount she gets as a trainer, of course.”
Door winced. “Uh, how likely is Amanita going to kill me for getting you shot?”
“She’s not your mother, so … unlikely.”
Door nodded. “Okay, great. Needles, Poison Sting!”
“Seriously, Door?!” Blair exclaimed. “Tarzan, Seed Bomb!”
Tarzan, who had taken the opportunity to struggle to his feet and dust himself off, instantly whipped his hands in front of himself and formed an orb of green light between his upright palms. He spread his hands apart, allowing the orb to grow larger, and as it grew, the light within it compressed, forming a solid ball of glowing, green matter. At the same time, Needles spun in place, digging herself into a ditch to keep her from rushing forward. Her spikes took on the same violet glow they had for each Poison Tail, and soon, Needles was little more than a spinning ball rimmed with violet light.
With a shout, Tarzan moved first, shoving his hands behind his Seed Bomb and using all his arm strength to fire it at his opponent. Needles released a moment later, sending another volley of glowing, violet pins at the grass monkey. The orb plowed through the storm as if it was nothing, quickly striking Needles head-on and bursting in an explosion of green. However, the Seed Bomb did little to stop the volley completely, and the rest of the storm cut through the air and struck Tarzan in the face and chest. With this simultaneous strike, Needles was thrown off her spin and flipped onto the ground, and Tarzan slammed into the trunk behind him with no fewer than thirty pins sticking out of his skin. While Needles vibrated and clicked in irritation but picked herself up rather quickly, Tarzan weakly tried to push himself to his feet, slipped, and slumped over sideways at the foot of the tree.
“Two for oh, Whitleigh,” Door said. “I think my strategy’s doing just fine.”
Blair rolled her eyes at Door and recalled her pansage. “Like I said,
Hornbeam: don’t get cocky.”
When she threw out her third poké ball, Door wasn’t completely surprised to see that she had chosen Wilbur. The pig grunted and flexed low, straining his arms to show off his muscles. Door opened her mouth to summon Jack forward, but before she could say a word, Blair held up a hand.
“Uh, before we get started on round three, how about answering a question?” Blair asked.
Door smirked and crossed her arms. “Y’know, trainers don’t just stop in the middle of a battle to chat with their opponents.”
Blair rolled her eyes. “Despite the actions of
some people, I know that. But it’s going to eat at me if I don’t ask. Why didn’t you take Antares yourself? He was a gym pokémon, wasn’t he? And given the Icirrus Gym and your current lineup, you could use a fire-type on your side.”
“Is that all?” Door asked. “That’s easy. See, back when I started training, I hated fauxkémon. That and Antares listens to Geist, so I figured why not? Let him keep it. It’d be easier on my conscience if I ditched him with something he could use to defend himself, anyway.”
Geist cleared his throat.
“Jesus, Geist, I’m just kidding!” Door dramatically rolled her head back to look at her Companion. “You’ve got a tracker set up on my poké balls anyway.”
With his eyebrows furrowed at her, Geist held up a hand and swept it in front of him, palm side up, in the universal gesture of incredulousness.
At the same time, Blair hid a chuckle behind her hand. “You know, sometimes, I wish Opal could respond like that. She’s good at emulating emotions, but she can’t hold conversations the way Geist can.”
As if to illustrate her point, Opal leaned forward, hands clasped behind the small of her back, wide smile on her face. Door had to admit Blair had a point. At the start of her journey, when Door had first set eyes on the Companion after her father had gotten to her, she thought Opal looked strikingly human. After all, she had gone from blank slate to smiling and looking distant and mimicking all kinds of other emotions. But after having spent time with Geist, Door could see Opal for what she actually was: a Companion who was just slightly better at emoting than most commercial units. Geist? Geist was something else entirely.
Clearing her own throat, Door shoved away the uncomfortable thoughts playing in her head as she signalled for Jack to step forward. With a strong but happy bark, Jack trotted forward and took his place on the field. Wilbur smirked and grunted, then shifted on his hooves to strike pose after pose: one arm up and the other down, then both arms up and barrel chest out, then one hoof on one bicep while the other hoof curled towards his ears. He winked at the dewott, and Jack, just as excited to see the pig, whipped out both scalchops and twirled them around his claws until he grasped their handles. It was almost like watching two old friends reunite after years, Door realized—which, given the fact that Jack and Wilbur were part of the same set of starters, could very well have been true.
Because of that, Door glanced down at Jack as Needles rolled out of view behind her. Door intended on coming up with some kind of strategy while staring at him with a worried frown, but she stopped before her mind could go any further. The problem was that the one thing that would have made her stare worriedly at her dewott was instead forcing her to stare in confusion.
Namely, his wound was gone. Completely. Save for a pale circle where Toto’s teeth had sunken in.
Door whistled. “Geist, what level of a potion charge did you use? I can barely tell Jack took a hit!”
“Blazing god,” he breathed. “That was the first time you’ve complimented my abilities since … we met, actually.”
“Your sarcasm has been noted, jerkface.” Door grinned. “But fine by me! Jack, Razor Shell!”
“Wilbur, Rollout!” Blair shouted. “Hey, question, Door. Is Needles real or fake?”
Jack unsheathed both his scalchops, and as he rushed forward, water swirled around his blades. Snorting at the sight of him, Wilbur leapt into the air, curled into a ball, and hit the ground spinning. Blair’s pignite drove himself around Door’s dewott, drawing circles in the forest floor as Jack stopped short and stared. Jack chattered softly, his head swinging from side to side in an effort to figure out how to strike a moving target with his blades.
“Real,” Door finally replied. “Why?”
“So out of six pokémon, two are faux and four are real,” Blair continued.
Door narrowed her eyes at the circle Wilbur was drawing. “Blair, if you’re trying to distract me so Wilbur can gain momentum for Rollout—”
“Chill out,” Blair said, holding up a hand. “I’m just saying … it’s odd that you’re focusing all your training on the real pokémon. You have to have caught a lot more fauxkémon than just two, after all. So, question: if you hated them before, how do you feel now?”
Door hesitated. She didn’t even realize that her team was that imbalanced. How did that even happen? Granted, the two fauxkémon she could have relied upon had died, but she definitely had more pokémon to choose from.
Frowning, she extended her hand.
“Jack, get above him and use Water Pulse!” she ordered.
With a grateful chatter, Jack leapt into the air and crossed his scalchops. The water that had formed around them for Razor Shell instead pooled into an orb that shot down, just a hair in front of Wilbur. The pignite squealed but plowed straight into the orb of water. He flailed within its waves, and as Jack gracefully landed on his feet, Wilbur crashed onto his back. To Door’s surprise, Blair immediately recalled him into his poké ball.
“So?” Blair said, clipping the ball to her belt again. “What’s up?”
Door shrugged. “I dunno. I wasn’t even thinking about which one was real and which wasn’t when I picked out my team. It just kinda … happened.”
Blair unclipped her final poké ball. “Okay, but do you still hate fauxkémon?”
Door frowned. “Not really. I mean…” She looked away. “Sure, I used to find them weird and a little creepy, but the longer I’ve been spending out here, the less I’m thinking about that. I even think some of them are a little cute, like Antares and Tarzan.”
Chuckling, Blair expanded Alice’s poké ball. “Thanks. I’ll tell him you said that.”
At that, Door’s expression softened, shifting into a small, uncertain smile. “But it’s not just that, either. You know, I
did have a couple of fauxkémon on my team before I met up with you—obviously more than I’ve got now—but they both died. When the first one died, I didn’t really feel anything. I just kept thinking he could be replaced. But then, the other day, my second one died, and I just got so
angry I had Jack, Knives, and Storm gang up on the pokémon that killed him.”
Blair stopped. She held Alice’s poké ball aloft, but she didn’t throw it. Instead, she stared at Door with an unreadable expression. It wasn’t cold, but it was distant and deep, as if Blair was looking into Door’s head and reading everything in it.
“What were their names?” Blair asked.
Door sniffed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other in discomfort. “The first one was Scout. He was the patrat who left that scar on Wilbur’s leg, but by the time he died, he was a watchog. He … kinda went head-first into a boulder during my battle against Sophia.”
“What about the other one?”
Door let her eyes trail upwards until she locked gazes with Blair again.
“Boomer,” she said. “Darumaka. The a
sshole had a zebstrika that was way too powerful for him.”
Blair let her arm drop. “Door … I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. At the very least, fauxkémon can’t really feel pain.” With a deep breath, she motioned behind her. “Anyway, Red. How about you give this one a shot?”
Sheathing his scalchops, Jack flipped around in the air and darted behind Door on all fours. Above him, his yamask partner glided forward, seemingly ambivalent to his trainer’s request. Red’s movements were slow, and his expression was blank, as if, after having watched all three of the previous matches, he couldn’t care one way or the other about being on the field. Door frowned. Up until now, she was hoping that the pokédex entry for yamask was only an exaggeration—folklore and nothing much more. Still, that was the whole point of having him watch: allowing him to decide whether or not he wanted to participate, just in case it wasn’t. Because ever since she had found out about what Red really was, ever since she knew for certain that he wasn’t just some fabricated spirit but instead a real pokémon that might have been a real person at one point, all of a sudden, she felt like she needed to be
careful.
But then again, that wasn’t to say she wasn’t going to be careful already. Thoughts of Boomer frying from the inside out and Scout with a smashed-in head floated through her mind. Sure, they were fauxkémon—just mass-produced toys—but at the same time, she didn’t want to lose anyone else. She didn’t want to lose another Boomer.
“Yo!” she called out. “You gonna throw Alice in or what?”
“Huh?” Blair lifted her head and blinked. “Oh. Y-yeah. Alice, let’s go!”
Toss. Pop. Flash. By that point in her journey, Door was used to watching someone else’s poké ball open. Granted, she had grown up watching battles on TV, but it was different to watch a poké ball open on the field. Different to see an opponent materialize in front of her.
And there she was, Blair’s final pokémon: the almost spherical blob of pink and purple that curled up and slept in mid-air. A plume of sweet-smelling, pink smoke billowed out of a spot on Alice’s head and filled the forest clearing with a rose-colored haze that smelled faintly of peach blossoms.
“By the way, never got to compliment you on your musharna,” Door said, her grin returning at last. “She looks pretty strong. Is she real or fake?”
“Thanks!” Blair replied with a smirk. “She’s real! Nabbed her in the Dreamyard, just after I’d earned my first badge. But make no mistake, Door. I’ve been training her as much as the rest of my team, and the fact that she could probably floor you is only a coincidence, not a trait of every real pokémon.”
Door scoffed. “Floor me? We’ll see about that! Red, use Will-O-Wisp!”
“Nice try, Door,” Blair responded. “Alice, Hypnosis!”
As Alice’s eyes lit up in a psychedelic array of rainbow colors, Red stiffened, and ghostly purple fire erupted from his skin. The flames whirled around him, blocking his view of Alice until they spun out and separated into a rain of fiery orbs. Each orb rushed at Alice and phased through her skin as if she wasn’t there, but as they passed, she flinched and moaned, her eyes snapping shut and cutting off her Hypnosis in its tracks. Burns and blisters bubbled across her rubbery skin long after the violet fire had touched her, and she writhed in midair at the pain.
“Perfect,” Door said. “Red, follow up with Hex!”
At her words, Red’s eyes flashed purple, and a crimson glow ebbed from his irises. Violet fire erupted from his face as he locked eyes with the trembling musharna in front of him. Her body began to glow with a dark pink aura, and her writhing and trembling ceased altogether. Suddenly, she was propelled into the ground, then dragged closer to Red, lifted into the air, and slammed into the ground again. At the second strike, the light around her dissipated, and Alice uncurled herself enough to let her stubby, trunk-like legs move. Each one pushed against the ground until she stood, trembling, on all fours. Her smoke took on a slightly gray tinge at that point, and between that sickly color and the sight of a musharna standing, Door couldn’t help but feel like the whole sight of Alice was
wrong.
But then, Alice did the one thing Door didn’t expect her to do: she shook off the grayish smoke, shoved against the ground, and shot back into the air to float directly in front of Red.
“That’s my girl!” Blair exclaimed. “Good job, Alice!”
Door smiled. “Wow. Alice is just as tough as Knives.”
Blair flexed one arm and placed her hand on her bicep, just like her pignite had for Jack moments ago. “What can I say? They make them tough in the Dreamyard! In fact—Alice, use Hypnosis!”
Alice’s eyes flashed again, but this time, her move caught Red off-guard. His eyes widened, and for the first time, Door saw an expression on his face: abject fear. Then, his body wavered in the air, and his eyelids began fluttering. He flinched, struggling to fight the oncoming wave of exhaustion, but Alice was resolute in maintaining eye contact with him. Thus, despite all his efforts in trying to stay awake, Red finally slipped into sleep and began drifting towards the ground like a deflating balloon.
Door cursed but then cupped her hands around her mouth. “Red! Get up!”
“I’ve got you now!” Blair exclaimed. “Alice, Psybeam!”
The transition from Hypnosis to Psybeam was swift: the psychedelic flashes in Alice’s eyes merely shot out of her face like a bolt of lightning, crack of thunder and all. And just like lighting, it split the air and struck Red’s body in a millisecond, and with a bang, it exploded.