Chapter Text
Dark smoky veils tickled Diya’s face as it leapt through the shadow a tree cast in the phantom world. Shadows exploded around its feet as they plunged into earth and soil that was less substantial than it should be. All of it in the perfect silence of a world where sound couldn’t be caused by anything as mundane as kinetics.
Then Diya dropped back into the physical world and there was nothing but noise.
The ground boomed as soil blasted out of the way of Diya’s rematerializing feet, an Ariados in the distance hissed like a teakettle, Svartis shrieked right back at it, somewhere in the trees Madrabaz was cackling, and June swore furiously as she noticed Diya flanking her and yelled for her other Ariados to lay down webs between them. Too late though. Diya raised its hand and called darkness into a ball-
Wait.
It could see one Ariados standing guard between Svartis and June, and one spraying sticky noxious web fluid at the trees and ground in front of Diya to snare the Banette if it approached. That was two.
Diya let its shadow ball go in an aborted thwump of energy and threw itself to the side. Roots dug painfully into the Banette’s hip as it hit the ground, and the ghostly trainer winced. But the pain was well worth it because when a nightmare spider with fangs longer than Diya’s fingers surfaced from the tree's shadow, it didn’t get those fangs on Diya’s arm.
And surfacing from the tree’s shadow wasn’t a fancy metaphor for being stealthy, but quite literal. The horned spider emerged from the tree’s shadow like it was breaching the surface of a pond. Diya had thought June’s giant evolved versions of Spinarak were bad enough when they were just giant spiders. But no, it turned out the horrible pokemon could slip through shadows the same way ghosts did. Because of course they could!
The Ariados was a full meter tall and weighed almost as much as Diya did. Its body was banded dark red and black and its legs were ringed in bands of toxic yellow and purple that screamed ‘danger, poisonous pokemon!’. Which Diya personally thought was overkill. Anything which looked at a spider that large and thought that it looked like a meal deserved its fate.
The giant spider pokemon hissed and lurched forward, putting an end to any wayward thoughts. Like all of June’s pokemon it had been put through extensive conditioning programs and even in a fight would never actually inject its venom into a human - or in Diya’s case something human-shaped. But that didn’t mean Diya was about to stand still and let the Ariados put its mouthparts all over it.
So Diya screamed. Not with its mouth, but as it had done fighting June’s Wurmple when they first met. The Banette pulled in power until its soul was stuffed to a buzzing, bursting overfulness, and then loosed it to screech out into the world. The air between it and the Ariados shivered, reality straining under the pressure until it began to give way, the burning purple which replaced darkness in the phantom world bleeding through. The space beneath the tree glowed a brilliant purple, denying the Ariados the shadows it needed to flee.
And it was trying to flee. June may have conditioned her pokemon for battle, but her spider pokemon were ambush predators to their core. When an ambush didn’t immediately succeed, their first instinct was to retreat and regroup. When an ambush failed and their prey let loose a fear-inducing phantom howl that thinned reality, retreat became their panicked second and third instinct as well.
Diya grinned. Svartis was still pinning down one of June’s Ariados and she was too busy micromanaging that fight to give new orders to her second Ariados, which was still -rather pointlessly now- laying down poisonous web between her and Diya. Which meant nothing was stopping Madrabaz from doing whatever it wanted.
“BOO!” Madrabaz burst out of the brush in front of the fleeing spider, solidifying from nearly complete transparency to full presence in an instant. In the same moment the Misdreavus wove a tricky little spell which directly converted shock into phantom force and-
Boom.
Flickering purple and black fire exploded around the fleeing Ariados’ head. The concussive blast knocked it for a loop and down it went. Its legs collapsed out from beneath it even as it tried to jerk its head back, and the spider pokemon plowed into the cold earth in a jumble of limbs. The ghost was on it a moment later, its red and yellow eyes reflected in a thousand places in the Ariados’ shiny compound ones. Diya didn’t bother waiting around to see how that turned out. Once Madrabaz was inside its opponent’s head the fight was over.
Svartis, meanwhile, was still screaming her lungs out as she pinned down one of the Ariados, keeping it tied up defending its trainer. But -Diya cocked an ear- her screams were starting to sound less terrified and more like that of a tiny berserker. Chips of bark and plumes of snow flew as she unleashed a furious barrage of night shades. The Ariados was trying to respond in kind -the cursed things could use night shade as well- but Svartis was simply better. It was all June could do to cajole her pokemon into sticking its head out to ineffectually fire back, while Svartis’ ribbons twisted around cover to score glancing blows all over the Ariados’ carapace and punished any attempt to seek better cover with devastating force.
The Banette’s heart swelled and it couldn’t help but smile behind its scarf. Svartis still trembled around Spinaraks and their larger evolution, Ariadoses. After the horrible experience of being liquified alive by one, Diya didn’t think that would ever change.
But she wasn’t letting that fear make her run. She’d demanded Diya ask for this matchup with June. She was a ghost , an incarnation of the very concept of death by poison come back to haunt the living. It wasn’t her place to fear death by poison. It was her job to make things like Ariados understand that fear.
So Diya watched with unrestrained pride as Svartis turned fear into fury and relentlessly pinned down the dread pokemon which had been her greatest fear as a Snom. Her night shades filled the air with her special brand of toxic spiritual smog and before long the pinned Ariados was swaying on its legs as its lungs refused to properly draw in air.
“Shit shit shit shit shit ,” June swore as she recalled her ailing Ariados. She looked around, starting violently as she noticed one of her other Ariados was down, “Shit!”. She swore even more viciously under her breath as she realized her only remaining Ariados, the one webbing the area between her and Diya, had been left tiring itself out doing something pointless. June opened her mouth to order it to her defense-
-and then closed her mouth a moment later as Diya stepped out from behind a nearby tree with a fully charged shadow ball in hand. The moment the ambushing Ariados had been dealt with, Diya had repositioned through the shadows, and now June’s defending Ariados was on the opposite side of her rather than between them.
June let out a heaving sigh and folded over, placing her hands on her knees and taking deep breaths. “Alright. You win. Eugh, shoot, I’m too used to fighting Bashak. I need to change tactics.”
<Good spar!> Diya texted. Off to the side, Svartis let out a delighted trill, leaping into the canopy for a celebratory dance. <Also, tell me about fighting Bashak?>
June walked over to Madrabaz’s thoroughly mind-screwed Ariados and recalled it into its pokeball. “Well, you know, he fights like a herder. All of his pokemon clustered around him in a defensive wall, with Greta leaping out to launch probing attacks. Dealing with that is pretty straightforward. Not easy, gods no, but straightforward. I just lay down webs between him and me to prevent him from rushing me, use a harassing pokemon to probe his defenses, and then when he sends out Greta to counterattack, counterattack her back. I don’t always win, but it’s hard to lose against him when I do that, you know? I certainly never lose this badly.”
Diya stroked the ends of its scarf -a brilliant yellow scarf with lightning motifs it had bought with some recent research bounty money- and thought about that. <So why do you think it didn’t work with me?>
“Eugh. You’re too damn mobile! Trying to harass you with my pokemon didn’t pin down anything but Svartis. And if I’m being honest, that started to feel more like I was being pinned down pretty quick. Trying to set up webs between us did absolutely nothing but tie up one of my pokemon - yes pun intended, no I am not apologizing. And while I didn’t see exactly what happened, trying to counterattack you just got my pokemon counter-counterattacked.”
Diya stroked its scarf some more. <You’re not wrong … but also I don’t think that’s the real problem.>
“Oh?” June perked up, standing up straighter and looking up at the taller trainer. “Go on.”
Diya held up a finger to ask June to wait, and sat down next to her on a log as it typed. <The real problem is your multitasking. I’m sure you do fine when all of the fighting is focused right around Bashak, but you couldn’t keep track of all three pokemon at once when their targets were separated.> Diya texted that to her and kept typing.
June opened her mouth to respond and Diya held up a finger again. It still had more to say. It could see June fidgeting, itching to say something, but she let her fellow trainer take its time to type.
<You’re not wrong, your strategy would have worked *better* on Bashak. But if you’d seen the webs not doing anything and ordered your second Ariados to reinforce the one Madra counter-ambushed or to help take out Svartis, it would have worked okay. Not great, but okay. As is, you were fighting with one pokemon while another twiddled its mandibles and the last got taken out without support.>
The bug trainer glowered and drew in a grumpy breath. But when she let it out in a huff, she nodded. “Eugh, you’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. Mind you, I still think I need to change tactics. A tactic which might work against you -if implemented by someone better- is still useless if I can’t pull it off. But you’re also right about the multitasking. I’ve never been much of a combat trainer, so I tend to get anxious and tunnel vision on one conflict in a match. It’s typically not a problem when you’re practicing at school in one-on-one battles but…” June shrugged and glowered some more. “Wilderness battles don’t care about letting you fight one-one-one, do they?
Diya shook its head sadly and patted her on the shoulder. It left its hand there and gave her a comforting squeeze. <Nope.>
June groaned. “The funny thing is, this is part of why I told Bashak we should come here. Kenomao Island has a reputation for gym challenges which mirror real life, rather than emphasizing league matchups. And I thought, you know, I get nervous about this stuff. I’m not great at it. So if I was gonna actually do my pokemon journey, and not just put it off forever, I should do it where I could learn how to really do it. That way I could go home and look out into the forests past the safe zones the rangers have marked out and know for a fact ‘yeah I can handle that’, rather than just having some league battle badges which say I should be able to handle it.”
The bug trainer let out a laugh which Diya thought came out bitterer than she meant it to. “I just forgot that meant I’d actually have to, y’know, do that thing I’m bad at and get super nervous about.”
Diya leaned its head on June’s shoulder, shifting its hand to pat her beanie. <It’s scary, huh?>
June snorted. “Yeah, a little bit.”
An idea struck Diya. <What if I eat your anxiety? So you can know what it’s like to fight without it?>
Diya’s friend pulled back so she could turn and look at its face. “Wait, you can do that?”
The Banette nodded. <Pain, sadness, frustration, anxiety, anything that counts as ‘grief’.>
A distant expression settled on June’s face as she thought about it. “Huh. Huh. Yeah that’s a thought. Maybe it would be easier to focus on not tunnel-visioning in a fight if I knew what that felt like.”
<Wanna try it?>
“Sure. Give me a moment, I’ll swap out the Ariados Svartis poisoned for Wurmy.”
<It’s not poison.>
“Diya, I love you, and I know you and that other girl who’s always at the sparring center have got some bet going about this or something, but I do not care. If it acts like poison, floats like poison, and talks like a sentient cloud of poison, it’s poison.”
“Poissssssson,” Svartis hissed at hearing a mention of her new favorite word.
Diya sighed and pushed exasperation at her. She was not helping.
-----
Bashak hummed as he spun thread.
There was something different about him though.
The herder was wearing the same jacket he always did, a heavy thing of green, red, and gold, thickly embroidered in abstract patterns. His shaggy black hair hung loose over his ears and tumbled about his glasses, just like it always did. He wore thin leather gloves, typical for him when he was spinning outside in the cold. And, as usual, the giant boy felt like he loomed over Diya even while he was sitting down on his folding chair and Diya stood.
Diya leaned against a tree and stared at Bashak. Whatever was up with him wasn’t anything bad. The Banette risked a quick hiss of breath in through its mouth to enhance its phantom sense of taste, and even so couldn’t taste any grievances wafting off of Bashak.
Bashak was clearly aware Diya was staring at him, but even so he took his time before looking up from his spinning. His lips quirked up in a smile when he asked, “Yes, Diya?”
Ah! That was it! Diya hadn’t noticed until Bashak looked up at it - and didn’t uncurl and roll his shoulders, to compensate for how he was hunched over. Diya’s friend had a tendency to do that when he sat down, to crouch down over his work if he wasn’t paying attention to his posture. But Bashak had been sitting up straight as a board.
The herder raised his eyebrow, waiting for Diya’s response.
Diya fumbled off a glove -cursing in its head about the especially cold day- and texted its friend. <Okay, what’s up with you?>
At that the herder only raised his other eyebrow too.
<You’re holding yourself different. It’s good.>
Bashak hummed to himself and Diya could see the moment where he took stock of his body language and it shifted minutely. “I suppose I was.”
<So? What’s up?>
That got Diya another hum in response. Bashak took a moment to wind his thread around its spindle and adjust the copper hook and wire that prevented the Mareep wool from shocking him. Eventually he answered, “I told you I wasn’t going for a battle badge.”
<The search and rescue and winter survival badges instead?>
“Mm. I’m going to go for it.”
Diya blinked. <Really?> Diya had been under the impression that Bashak didn’t care to collect battle badges. For that matter he’d never seemed to care much about being a journeyer at all. It had never been said out loud, but Diya wondered sometimes if Bashak might have journeyed out only to give June the courage to do the same.
“Really.” Bashak leaned back in his folding chair. He let out a wintery exhale and watched the steam rise into the air.
“Alicia’s been doing well,” he told Diya. That was what Bashak had named the Pilowswine he’d saved. But Diya already knew that. Half the reason the ghost trainer was here was so they could see how she held up when interacting with Madrabaz and its sudden surprises. Bashak saw the quizzical look in Diya’s eyes and clarified. “Real well. Leader Ahmad says she might even evolve into a Mamoswine one day.”
<That’s impressive.> Diya tried to compensate for the terse message with an earnest expression, but it didn’t want to type any longer than it had to. It slipped its hand back into its glove. The day was so cold it could feel the inside of its nostrils freezing, and typing barehanded was miserable. Just because it could puppet a frozen hand didn’t mean it liked the experience.
Bashak smiled. “It is, I suppose.” He exhaled again to watch the steam rise. “Mind if I tell you a story?”
Was Bashak offering to talk? For an extended period of time? Of his own free will? Diya couldn’t nod fast enough.
“Is that a yes you mind, or…?”
Diya shook its head.
“...I hate to ask again, but…”
The Banette snorted, cold fingers twitching irritably in its glove. It pulled off its other glove and slowly typed with its offhand, <Tell the story.> ‘Of course, you dummy,’ Diya didn’t add, because typing offhanded was already hard enough. It loved being able to type to people, it really did, and it was so grateful to both June and Nurse Claire for their help with that. But sometimes the cold, the words it had to leave off for brevity’s sake, the awkward pauses while people waited for it to finish typing, all those little annoyances made a growl rise up in the back of its throat.
Bashak was patient though, and waited unperturbed for Diya to give him the go-ahead. When he had it, he spoke in a musing tone. “I never worked one-on-one much with any pokemon. Except for Greta. But it was more that we worked together with the herds, if you understand me?” Bashak searched Diya’s face for understanding before he continued.
“If we needed to scare off a Gabite, it wasn’t Greta and I facing it down directly. It was Greta and I gathering up the herds, getting them into defensive formation, and keeping their backs firm while the dragon circled. There isn’t call for your League’s kind of fighting, how we live.”
Diya tilted its head curiously. It really didn’t know much about how shepherds like Bashak fought wild pokemon. It assumed that directing whole herds in combat would be different than directing just one or two pokemon, but it didn’t know the details. It motioned for its friend to continue, eager to hear him talk more.
The herder was puzzled for a moment before realization set in. “Ah. Need me to explain that?”
The Banette nodded happily. It always wanted to learn new things.
“Well, you can’t fight with a whole herd. Too chaotic. What you do is head off fights. Gabite’s a Ground type, so it’s immune to Mareep, but they don’t care to tousle with prey which are a fairer fight. One comes around, we get all the Mareep in the center and surround them with Gogoats. Then we have our Chanseys sing, some to calm the Mareep and some to make the Gabite nervous.”
With a quick rub of its hand for blood flow, Diya took off its glove and typed, <That works? Aren’t Gabites powerful? What about Garchomps?> It didn’t know too much about Gabites, but it knew they were powerful dragons. And their evolution Garchomp was considered one of the toughest Dragon types in the world.
“They are. Gabite could fight through, grab a Mareep and run off, two times out of three. Garchomp, nine out of ten.” The herder shrugged. “That’s not good enough. They have to eat a few times a week. A predator which took those odds would get injured every month. Injured predators can’t hunt, so they’re careful what fights they pick.”
Diya regarded its friend with no small amount of awe. It knew that living out at the edge of settled lands was different, but Bashak was talking matter-of-factly like he’d done this before. Had he faced down Garchomps before even going on his pokemon journey? <It’s that easy?>
“Hah!” Bashak barked out a laugh when he checked Diya’s text. “Gods no. Getting Mareeps to not bolt around a Gabite is hard . And Gogoats may not be hunted by Gabites, but that doesn’t mean they like standing between one and its food. Scaring off a Gabite means making every pokemon in your herd do something their instincts hate. And if one of them breaks and runs for it, the rest will too.”
Bashak reached down to grab his thermos first, taking a long drink. Diya wasn’t surprised he needed it. Bashak could go for a whole day without talking this much. “So no, it isn’t easy. It is different than gym fighting though. Gym fighting is...” he looked for the right words. He took another sip in the meantime.
Eventually he shrugged. “I like it.”
Diya blinked. It hadn’t quite been expecting that. <Why?>
“Hmmm. Circling a herd, you’re fighting against your pokemon. They’re scared and you need to make them do frightening things. You don’t have time to calm each one, you’ve just gotta give orders and hope they trust you more than their own fear.” The herder’s normally soft face twisted into a grimace. “You’re surrounded by terror, trying to be calm, and relying on a hungry dragon that could kill you to make the smart decision.”
A memory washed over Diya for an instant, the intensity of it spilling out from Bashak.
“-RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” The Garchomp screamed and he flinched. The young herder almost tumbled out of the saddle and only old Brigadier’s skill as a mount kept Bashak from taking a nasty fall off his mother’s Gogoat.
Gods, its fangs were longer than his hands. One of its terrible scything arms clawed at the ground and threw great clods of dirt into the air, showering the Gogoats between Bashak and the dragon. They bleated in terror, rearing back, and in a moment of shock Bashak realized he’d forgotten his duty.
The younger herder whistled for Greta to firm up their line and whirled around, tearing his eyes away from the dragon which wanted to kill him. What did he need to do, what did he- There! A clump of Mareeps were edging away. Bashak blasted his whistle to get the Chanseys’ attention, pointed at a pair of them, and whistled again to order them to soothe the Mareeps. He whistled again to call another pair, the piercing shrill of it ringing in his ears. If he could just-
“RRRAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH!” The Garchomp lowered its head and charged the Gogoat line, screaming to expose those awful teeth which filled the young herder’s vision. Bashak’s heart leapt into his throat along with a scream. It wasn’t supposed to do that! It wasn’t- At the last second the Garchomp aborted its charge, pulling up and screaming frustrated rage into the line of Gogoats held firm by Greta -bless her!- barking a steady staccato rhythm at their heels.
Where was Mom?! She was supposed to be just two hills over, where was-
Surfacing from Bashak’s memory felt like emerging from an icy river, complete with uncontrollable shivers. <Sounds like a nightmare.> Diya’s hand was getting cold again, but it didn’t put its pokedex away.
“It is.”
<And gym fighting isn’t.>
Bashak closed his eyes and some of the icy fear of his memory faded. He smiled. “No. It’s not.”
With that smile, Diya caught a whiff of another emotion off of Bashak. It was positive, but with just enough of an aggressive bite for Diya to pick up on. The taste of triumph and vindictiveness. The Banette tilted its head. <That’s not all though.>
The herder nodded. “Our home is temperate, except when Articuno flies overhead. Our Swinubs are more Ground than Ice and they rarely even evolve to be Piloswine.” Bashak’s eyes stayed closed even as his smile widened. “Not the ones here.”
The ghost trainer tilted its head, something half remembered from another life’s schooling niggling the back of its brain. Why would that matter, what was it about Ice that-
Oh. Diya’s thoughts clicked into place. The elemental force Dragon types called upon was little understood, but one thing which was certain was that Ice abilities tended to disrupt it. An Ice attack could deal unusually disproportionate damage to a Dragon as its own draconic energy went wild inside of it. Ground types were also affected by Ice in the same way. And the pokemon of the Garchomp line were all Dragon/Ground pokemon.
Diya looked at Bashak with wide eyes, tasting the vindictive triumph rising off of its friend. <You’re training a Garchomp killer.> Garchomps, and even their lesser evolution Gabite, were monstrously powerful. They were less likely to flinch in the face of their elemental vulnerability than they were to simply bite an offending Ice pokemon in half. But Mamoswines were huge, one of very few pokemon Diya could imagine taking a hit from such monsters and staying on their feet. And their tusks, formed from solid ice, could channel Ice energy to devastating effect.
Bashak’s eyes opened and he met Diya’s gaze. “I’m thinking about it.”
No. There wasn’t any anxiety which Diya could taste, and the way Bashak had been holding himself tall and straight-backed didn’t speak to hesitation. He’d already made his decision. <No. You’re not.> The Banette smiled and sent a second message to its friend. <Good luck.>
“Thanks, Diya. I’ll need it.”
Diya’s hand was really getting cold now, but it kept typing anyway. <I’m no dragon, but I’ve got a scary scream. Want Alicia to practice holding her ground with me?>
Bashak smiled at his friend. “I’d like that.”
-----
The wind whistled past the Banette’s ears as it leapt through the cold night air. It landed heavily but silently on a house’s sloped roof, sinking partway into its own shadow to absorb the impact. Its lungs burned and its mouth ached to open and pant, but it didn’t stop. The Banette heaved its weight up and forward, trying to keep its momentum going. But to keep its footing on the snow-slick surface it had to let its feet sink half a centimeter into the shadows beneath them with each step, making every step take just a little bit more effort.
The shadows also kept its footsteps silent, which was important. People were sleeping in the home below, and the Banette didn’t want to be rude.
Diya bent its knees as it reached the end of the roof, using all of its flagging strength to keep them from buckling. Its could barely think, its mind drained by the exercise to point where the Banette would have had trouble solving 3+4. But somehow it mustered the focus to step as it leaped, propelling itself into the phantom world where everything was a shadow of itself, even gravity if one knew the trick of it. The Banette soared not just across the gap between houses, but fully over a house, coming down on the house after that.
Sound reasserted itself in a whistling howl as Diya let itself fall back into reality, soaking the impact in its shadow again. Its nostrils flared as it sucked air in. Sweat stuck its exercise scarf to its neck, a thin black silk thing that nevertheless felt far too hot against its skin. But it pushed itself up again, running for the end of the roof at just under a sprint. Just one more roof, it told itself, just like it had for the last -Diya’s exhausted brain refused to count- several? houses.
Throwing itself up and into another world took more focus than could share space with the thought and Diya let it go. It would run until it couldn’t, that’s how many more roofs it would do.
The body Diya inherited had been fit. The teachers in Ledos Village had seen to that. They made sure their students could hike a day without complaint and wouldn’t sprain an ankle if they had to run from a dangerous pokemon. But it wasn’t fit enough . There was a world of difference between hiking and fighting. Nothing could have possibly prepared Diya for how quickly combat drained one’s body. Especially the kind of fighting Diya was suited for, hit and run tactics augmented by shadow walks and phantom steps.
It needed to be better if it wanted to earn a gym badge. So it ran.
Just one more roof.
One more.
One more.
Diya ran out of houses. The Banette came plummeting down in a park nestled in the neighborhood, staggering to its feet after the landing. Breathing as hard as it ever had in its life, Diya looked up at the houses around. It might be able to leap from one roof to another, one more time. But leaping up to a roof?
No. It was done.
With a heartfelt groan, Diya let itself fall backward. A thin layer of snow cushioned its impact and it moaned gratefully. Its body burned like a furnace, so much that it didn’t even feel the cold of the snow on its skin. And, blissfully, its brain was too wrung out to be bothered by that.
A minute later Svartis and Madrabaz slammed into the snow beside its head, rolling over one another and sending up sprays of snow as the two ghosts argued excitedly about who got second place. Diya huffed and waved a hand through them, dispersing their bodies and shooing them somewhere they wouldn’t get snow all over its face. It didn’t tell them to stop though. The young ghosts were clearly enjoying the argument far too much for it to stop them.
Over the next few minutes Shuppets trickled into the clearing, each illuminated by the faint blue glow of fading faerie fire. The little ghosts had joined Diya at the start of its run, but been unable to resist playing catch the will-o-wisp as they flitted through the night sky. They’d still followed after the Banette, but as a darting cloud of blue glows loosely tethered behind Diya rather than flying beside it.
After a long night the Shuppets were all worn out and one by one they settled into trees and on park benches. Their fading faerie fires lit up the park with a low flickering glow, casting dancing blue shimmers and gray shadows across the snow. Diya smiled. It was pretty. The Banette giggled, something in its exercise-addled brain finding that thought hilarious.
“Whoa.”
With an effort, Diya raised its head, peering about for who’d said that. At the edge of the park, a young girl half Diya’s age peeked out of her front door. The child shuffled out of her house slowly, weighed down by a big fluffy quilt she’d wrapped around her shoulders. She shut the front door cautiously behind her, clearly nervous she’d wake someone up.
The child took slow shuffling steps down the front stairs. Oversized Buneary slippers poked out from beneath the quilt with each step. Once she was free of anything that might creak or make noise though, she rushed over to the park as fast as the quilt would let her. “Whoa,” the little girl breathed again.
Diya waved hello to the child, though it didn’t bother to get up. It was still, oh, approximately five times too sore to do that. The Banette even winced with the motion of the wave. It might have, just maybe, pushed itself a little too hard.
The child waved weakly back, barely able to muster the attention to notice Diya. She spun around in a slow awestruck circle, faerie fire illuminating her face. The Shuppets shuffled anxiously on their perches as the child’s gaze passed over them, but she was only a small human and they were tired so her presence didn’t send the shy ghosts darting for cover.
After three whole rotations staring at the blue-lit park, the child spared Diya a quick glance. She asked in an awestruck whisper, “Are these all your pokemon?”
Diya shook its head, then held up two fingers and gestured to Svartis and Misdreavus resting by its head.
“Oh.” Diya could see gears turning behind the young girl’s eyes. “Just those two?”
It nodded.
“And the others?”
The Banette was too exhausted to pull out its pokedex and type, so it shrugged. Let her make of that what she would.
“Oh.”
Diya smiled. From the wonder in her eyes, the specifics didn’t matter to her. She just saw the beautiful pokemon lighting up the park and wanted to watch them shine.
-----
Diya was in The Mighty Meowth, pondering the best way to get a bowl of spicy tofu into its mouth, when Cori suddenly threw herself over its back. The impact forced a “Glrk!” out of its mouth. “Hey! How are you doing?!” she exclaimed.
Before she even finished her sentence the Banette was gone, stepped out from under her into the phantom world. Diya lurched through the table and collapsed back into the real world in the chair on the other side. The table jumped as the trailing edge of Diya’s cloak tried to reassert itself in the same location and they pushed each other out of the way. The Banette’s heart pounded and it had to struggle a bit to keep breathing through its nose.
The back of the chair caught Cori in the ribs as she flopped down into the suddenly empty space. “Ow,” she groaned. She looked up at Diya with wonder in her eyes. “Whoa, you can teleport? That’s so cool! Did you need an Abra to teach you that or is it something you could learn on your own? Can all psychics do that?”
Diya’s heart was still going two beats a second as it pulled out its pokedex. <PLEASE don’t do that.> it wrote, turning the screen around for her to see.
She blinked. “Oh. Sorry.” She adjusted her red beanie and lifted herself off the chair. “Do you mind if I sit with you?” she asked, and gestured to the chair it had just vacated.
The Banette was still focusing on bringing its breathing under control so it didn’t pay too much attention to the request and waved for her to sit down.
“Cool, thanks.” She pushed its bowl of tofu across the table towards it. “Hey so I-” Cori paused. “Uh, wait. Are you okay?”
<No> Diya replied. With a conscious effort the Banette took direct control of its heart and slowed it down to a more reasonable level. Its breathing relaxed a few moments later as its blood stopped demanding so much oxygen.
“What’s wrong?” Cori leaned over the table with worried eyes.
<Bad memories of sudden yelling.>
Cori winced. “Ah. I’m sorry Diya, I know what that’s like. Not exactly the same but … sorry. I shouldn’t do that again, I assume?”
The Banette nodded. <Yeah, thanks.> It pulled down its scarf -a light blue and pale red plaid one- to smile at her, to show all was forgiven.
The energetic trainer smiled back. “Cool. Hey, you have a Misdreavus though. How do you handle that?”
Diya snorted ruefully. <A psychic bond to track it. And it’s exposure therapy.>
“Hah! It would be, wouldn’t it?”
Diya reached across the table to retrieve its bowl of spicy tofu and typed with its other hand, <So what’s up?>
With a beaming grin, Cori pulled a black corded necklace out from under her fleece. Strung on it were three battle badges, and the one Cori held out to Diya was the ice battle badge from Canopy Gym.
<You got your badge!>
“Yup! Winter survival too, but that one’s in my storage ball.”
<Congrats!> Diya jumped out of its chair to hug her.
“Aw, thanks.” Cori leaned into the hug and squeezed Diya before letting it go. “Anyhow, that means I’ll be moving on to Zima City. I was hoping to get one more spar in with you this afternoon though, if you’re free?”
<Of course!> Diya sighed and leaned in to hug Cori again, more gently this time, before retaking its seat. <I’ll be sad to see you go.>
“Yeah, me too. It’s been fun Diya. But hey, if you’re quick you might make it to Zima before I clear out their gym too.”
The Banette let out an amused snort. <Real quick, knowing you.>
Cori laughed and favored Diya with a wicked grin. “Hah, true! I still count as humble so long as you’re the one who said it though, right?”
<Absolutely not.>
“Well, finish up your food and come meet me at the sparring center. I’ll be waiting.” Cori stood up and gave Diya a half wave before walking out of the restaurant.
With a shake of its head, Diya settled back into its seat. Of course Cori already had her Canopy Gym badges. That wasn’t much of a surprise. It was surprised at the ache it felt over that though. She was a fun sparring partner to be sure, but Diya hadn’t realized how much it enjoyed having her around. And Diya couldn’t imagine Cori struggling with a gym, so if it wanted to move fast enough to see her in Zima city…
It would have to test for its badges now. As soon as the next testing sessions were scheduled. Were June and Bashak ready for that?
Was Diya ready for that?
The young trainer huffed out a breath and smiled. Well. There was only one way to find out.
