Chapter 10

Day after day, we strove deeper into Pinwheel Forest. The foliage did not get thicker or denser, but the massive trees seemed to loom taller and taller, rising so high they would dwarf the tallest building in Castelia. The occasional patch of trees of ordinary height beneath looked almost absurd among its towering neighbors, but further cemented my belief that this forest had been twisted beyond its natural means.

What really drove this home, however, was that once upon a time, I had climbed Mount Coronet with the fate of the world ahead of me. The massive mountain that dominated Sinnoh had been divided in layers, and the closer one got to Arceus’ seat at the summit, the stranger the environment got.

The sixth layer of Mount Coronet had been a land of tall trees with silver bark and golden leaves that made blood stick out like a sore thumb. As I glanced at the ones around me, I could not help notice the eerie similarities, as if this place were a replica of what was in the mountain.

There would be no answers until we found any clues about this Weaver of Histories.

Hayate had grown slightly more anxious now that he was in true danger. Without my Pokemon around, I feared some of the more ambitious and fearless predators would have ambushed and had him for dinner regardless of the potential retaliation from the Rangers, but as of now the wildlife steered clear of my Pokemon. The last encounter had been an ambitious Vigoroth looking for easy prey, but one look from Sweetheart convinced her to get lost.

Of course, I gave food to the poor thing beforehand. They were omnivores who only resorted to meat when the situation got really desperate, and I could practically smell that feeling off of her. 

Hayate was surprisingly calm about it all after the Vigoroth stopped eyeing him as if she wanted to tear his arm off and chew on it. Instead, he seemed to almost study her—the frantic pace at which she tore into the berries, her darting eyes, the bulging muscles twitching in her arms. 

Madeline had told me he’d been their expert in Pokemon body language the last few years, but I hadn’t expected him to be so eager to learn. Eagerness for anything was not usually Hayate’s forte.

When we continued on, I spoke up. “How’d you find yourself so familiar with the way Pokemon act?”

I was currently lazily perched on one of Sweetheart’s sharp dorsal spikes, so Hayate looked up at me. “I could ask you the same thing. You’re way better than me.” He wiped a bit of sweat off his brow. That much was very much true, but it had been a gift given to me by Mesprit, slowly coalescing over the year I spent journeying through Sinnoh. “I just have a bit of an eye for things, I guess,” he continued. “Cat was the first one who noticed when she took me on her adventures when we were younger. Now I just try to learn when I see something new.”

“First time seeing a Vigoroth?” I asked.

“From that close, yeah.” He laughed nervously. “They really don’t lie when they talk about how hyperactive these critters are.”

“I have a friend with one, though he was a little less constantly excited than this one,” I reminisced fondly about Pauline. “So I wanted to feed the poor thing.”

Hayate had noted at the time that if we fed every Pokemon we came across, we’d run out of food for our own team before we ever got out of the woods, and that much was true, but I hadn’t been able to resist.

He continued talking about some of his early adventures with Catherine and Madeline they’d had as children. With us so deep in Pinwheel Forest, Hayate couldn’t pass the time browsing social media as he usually would, though he had downloaded some audio books. Still, the quiet teen was finding himself to be more talkative these days. 

My relationship with him was an odd thing. On one hand, I kept him at arm’s length most of the time because his burning curiosity would bring questions he did not want answered about my life, and he categorically refused any help or to train in my presence even now that we were deep in the forest, but on the other it felt nice to travel with someone again and to slowly get to know him better as the days went by.

It reminded me of my early days with my first traveling companion Denzel. There was less in common with Hayate, given our sheer gap in skill and experience, but our conversations were made of the same awkwardness and gradual peeling back of each other’s personalities.

On the fourth night, after having set up our camp and having eaten dinner with everyone else, I retreated to the confines of my dimly-lit tent. The heat would have been unbearable had Buddy not cooled it down, the cold air wafting off of his shrunk body as he read a book titled ‘A Concise History of Unova’. It was held completely still in the air by his rudimentary psychic skills. We were technically reading it together, but the ghost had always been ravenous for historical knowledge and he was already halfway done.

Hogging all the icy mist for herself, Princess stuck to him like glue, her fur puffing up as she hummed and sculpted a Meltan from stone to show Mimi later. The rest of my Pokemon were out and about through the camp, and I could hear the not-at-all subtle sound of Honey and Sweetheart arguing about something.

Without internet access, I’d resorted to passing the time by writing down tactics we could use in future Gym or trainer battles we’d weave into a story. It was arduous, mind-numbing work at times, but it was a passion I’d found that gave battles such a deeper meaning. To lose yourself in a character and to tell a story could just be dumb fun, or it could be the best way to pour your heart out to someone. Sometimes they were the truest way to say everything you couldn't bring yourself to say aloud. 

It could be everything you wanted it to be. A blank canvas set upon the world for you to paint whatever color you wished.

Right now, however, was one of the days where I had writer’s block. Instead of beating my head against the wall and staring at a page full of notes, I closed my laptop and sank into Princess’ fur. The sudden contact made the Togekiss mess up her sculpture, but she did not scream bloody murder and threaten torture as she would have if Sunshine or Honey had disturbed her.

Instead, she wrapped one of her wings around me and continued her work, asking if anything was wrong.

“Nah.” I could have said that I missed my girlfriend, but that wasn’t the only thing on my mind. “You know, I’ve been thinking about something ever since that green-haired boy made a fool out of us.”

Buddy’s crimson eyes narrowed to pinpoints in the dim tent. The way the teenager had fearlessly faced us had left a strong impression on the Jellicent’s mind. Princess knew about it, of course, but she hadn’t actually faced the resolute madness in his eyes. It did not have the same effect second-hand.

“I’m thinking we need better unconventional skills to survive what’s out there,” I said. “It’s always a great advantage having the bigger stick, but finer techniques could save our lives.”

Princess rotated her statue, eyes shining bright blue, and she inspected every inch as she asked what I was thinking of.

“Right now, for example, we don’t really have a way to stalk someone.” I ignored Buddy’s protest. “No, no, I mean really stalk. You can separate a part of you and grow an eye out of it, but any trainer or Pokemon on our level would be able to tell.”

He reluctantly agreed, closing his book to give me his full attention. Stalking, infiltration, exfiltration—things that would let me get the drop on someone was something that was sorely needed in our arsenal. That boy so casually toying with us had left a bad taste in my mouth independent of the nonsense he had spewed, even if I could have turned him into a corpse within a second. Like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

“So we’ll start with this idea,” I said. “Summon a Shade for me.”

There was a silent, muffled scream. An unnatural chill spread through the tent that made Princess and I shiver. Ghostly energy peeled away from Buddy in ragged strands tying themselves in knot after knot as they assembled themselves in a Jellicent’s image. It was not a sapient being, just an amalgamation of the endless spirits skulking about in Distortion. One could tell there was rage swirling at its edges, given the way its body never truly settled and the silent, voiceless screams.

My hand went to touch the Shade’s cheek, an endeavor rendered safe only through Buddy’s fine control of the spirits within. It felt cold to the touch, though not with the bite of ice. The chill seeped through my fingertips and into my bones, heavy and lingering, as though the shade were quietly stealing warmth rather than merely lacking it. Its skin wasn't skin at all. It gave like tightly packed mist, offering just enough resistance to convince my hand it had touched something solid. 

I gave it a kind, yet saddened smile. Should I have used my Gift, I would have seen nothing but negative emotions swarming the tent. “You poor thing.” 

Given enough time, all would turn to dust. But lamenting the dead was not what I’d asked a Shade for.

“You can shape it like you, or you can rush the job and make it into some horrifying shapeless thing, but have you ever thought about making it look like another Pokemon?”

Both Princess and Buddy’s eyes widened; they could see the shape of it now. The fairy chimed in, saying the dark purple color and the unstable construct would make it visible from a mile away.

“Right now, that’s true enough,” I said. “But Night Shade is a move of endless potential, kiddo.” I pet her on the head, lips tugging at their edges. Even the ghosts guarding the Lost Tower back in Sinnoh had used the move, and they were vastly more powerful than we were—at least when they kept to their Role.

Granted, there was only one left now—but I was getting side-tracked.

“The… chaotic nature of the shade will be the easiest to change,” I explained, eyeing the not-Jellicent. “If we can get that and work on our shapes—let’s say a Pidove, then we’ll be in business. But the color…” I trailed off.

The color would be an issue, and if I wanted to fool people from up close I’d need to change the texture too.

“Let’s try injecting water type energy into it.”

It did not change the color so much as it muddied it. Murky streaks rippled through the shade's body like oil beneath black water, the darkness thinning in places before greedily swallowing the blue back up. From the strain in Buddy’s eyes, I could tell he’d continuously streamed water type energy into the shade, but that he could not keep going. The pushback had been too great.

Type energy of all kinds had colors, even if they varied greatly. Fire could be the warm orange of a campfire, the blue of a searing flame, or the searing white of a star; grass could be the lush green of spring, the amber hues of autumn, and the lifeless brown of winter; water could be the pale turquoise of a tropical sea or the everdark of the abyss. The possibilities were endless, and so I figured maybe it would inject color into the Night Shade.

I tapped my chin. “Brute forcing might not be the answer, but we’ll keep at it when we train. There’s a good shape to this, I think. We just have to figure out the puzzle,” I said, nodding to myself. After gesturing at Buddy to send the souls back to Distortion, I faced my two companions and clapped my hands. “So, any theories?”

Like the excited child that she was, Princess chirped, suggesting that a Night Shade is already saturated with ghost TE and thus it would always try to reassess itself. We’d made Shades use water type moves beforehand, but never had we actually inserted any other energy inside.

I was of the mind that we might need to somehow communicate with the spirits summoned. They were not sapient, but could still feel and want, like an echo of what had once been. Unfortunately Buddy put a stop to that line of thinking, and quickly dismissed the idea. His tentacles writhed with unease as he reminded me that there was a vast gulf between surviving Distortion and understanding it. We had only traveled through it with Mesprit’s help; we were not scholars of the dead. 

No, instead he was of the opinion that he could bind them ever closer and bend them to his vision if given enough time. While ghosts were effective against psychics, they could be molded by the latter as well, and he figured he could train his psychic capabilities enough to twist the Shade into what he wanted.

Princess rolled her eyes and scoffed at the notion, complaining that he was being too headstrong. 

“She’s right,” I said, raising a finger. “I don’t like the shape of it.”

A slaver to the dead, pushing them in a direction they did not want against their will? That was the stuff of nightmares and villains, even if it might work.

The theories kept flowing deep into the night, each more convoluted than the last until Princess uncovered the truth. 

Simply put, the type energy needed to be woven into the construct during its creation, and not forced in afterwards. 

This would mean that he’d essentially have to learn how to create a Night Shade from zero, and this was only the first step. My breath caught in my throat a little as I began to grasp the sheer ambition of what I’d set out to do. We had plenty of complicated techniques to use in a fight, but none so difficult as this one.

If it worked, however… by the Legendaries, would it be versatile. I vibrated with the thrill of the idea. Not only would it be a great tool, but we’d be able to use it in our stories as well.

“First order of business is making it look exactly like you, and we can go from here.”

My mouth hurt from grinning too wide.

——

Wood creaked under Lickitung’s tongue as she lifted the small, hollowed log. Despite squinting her eyes with exhaustion, she pushed herself further than she’d ever done before and threw the bark forward. The rotting wood shattered into a dozen pieces, and with shining eyes, Stantler picked up the shards. They rotated around his antlers, orbiting him a few times, but the control was sloppier than Hayate would have liked. Many accidentally fell to Stantler’s feet, but the bulk flew toward Dunsparce at high speeds. Hayate’s final Pokemon curled up into a ball and shimmered like metal, and the fragments bounced off of him harmlessly.

Training was continuing at an okay pace. Hayate’s eye twitched, but he shook off the disappointment, offering a faint smile to his Pokemon. “Again,” he said, and Stantler excitedly agreed. He might have been old, but the normal type was the one most eager to progress on his team, having found a passion for battling later in his life than would be usual.

As a result, though, there was often friction between the two of them. Hayate watched absent-mindedly as Lickitung caught her breath, and waddled toward another hollowed bark from one of the smaller trees. 

They disagreed on most things. Stantler wanted to train and push himself further because he knew he had to work harder than the younger Pokemon gallivanting around the Circuit to get more results. Even Dunsparce and Lickitung had caught up to him, and were progressing faster than he was.

Hayate had watched many how-to’s that the guys in the big leagues published online. Tutorial videos on how to train the Stantler line specifically, along with his other two Pokemon to attain the best results.

Stantler were supposed to fight up close, using their psychic abilities to contend with the Pokemon who could overpower them. If yours was not a heavy hitter in terms of psychic abilities, trickery like Confuse Ray or Hypnosis was preferable while you focused most of your energy into big moves like Take Down and eventually Double-Edge.

Lickitung excelled at battlefield control and battles of attrition. Their tongues could trip, bind, disarm, and harass from surprising distances, forcing opponents to react on their terms. Not only that, but they could reposition with Rollout if possible. If a Lickitung was trading blows toe-to-toe, its trainer had probably made a mistake. 

Dunsparce could either be heavy hitters or another attrition fighter, but given his team he’d chosen to do the former. He focused entirely on explosive power with Dig, Drill Run and Body Slam. They could navigate underground with surprising speed, and eventually they would work on Roost to have a nasty combination, regenerating their strength underground and out of reach.

He was following the mainline ways to train, and yet…

Heavy, lumbering steps snapped Hayate out of his thoughts. The faint smell of sulfur hit his nostrils first, making his face scrunch up by instinct before he turned to face the source of the noise. Grace’s Turtonator watched his Pokemon train with disdain in his eyes. He expunged hot air from his snout, attention drifting toward Hayate with a low growl.

Behind him floated Claydol, eyes shining in the forest gloom. Calm music resonated around its weathered clay body, which was in clear contrast with the spotless top hat currently resting atop its head. The ancient human creation thrummed with psychic power Stantler could only ever dream of.

Hayate assumed the two were communicating, given the way the Turtonator let out a series of slow, guttural rumbles, punctuated by the occasional hiss as smoke curled from his nostrils. He’d gotten plenty of opportunities to get his brain used to telepathy, but he was unfortunately terrible with pain and decided he wouldn’t bother until he had to.

Warmth flushed the Johtohan’s cheeks as embarrassment pumped through his veins. Ordinarily he would have jumped at the opportunity to observe a Turtonator’s body language—as he had the past few nights—but he couldn’t help but recoil at the idea of someone watching him train.

“Sorry to bother you, Hayate!” For convenience, Cassianus usually spoke out loud to him. The species had apparently been equipped with an organ of some sort that allowed them to produce speech. “The Enforcer and I were taking a stroll.”

The dragon narrowed his eyes, grunting out something.

“Correction: The Enforcer was taking a stroll, and to not let him get lonely I decided to follow him and bless him with my company.”

That seemed to be more in line with reality, not that Hayate cared much, at the moment. “It’s all right,” he nearly whispered. “Can I help you? We were… training.”

Sunshine—Truth Above, he would never get used to these names fit for a little kid—snorted out a laugh and gave the Claydol an amused look. The scales around his eyes flexed almost imperceptibly, exposing a little more of the sclera framing his slit pupils, and his throat rumbled like the roar of a flame.

“What? No, I can’t tell him that you think him a fool for this training! You’ve barely seen a second of it—wait, I'm speaking out loud.” Claydol’s eyes closed in contempt for itself, and it let out the sound effect of a sad trombone. “Hayate, please come closer. I must erase your memory to spare your feelings.”

The teenager’s blood ran cold, and his Pokemon took a tentative step forward. Did he need to call out Grace’s name—

“I am, of course, joking. I do not have any practice and would leave you a braindead mess, which would be terribly sad,” it said blankly. When Turtonator hacked out another laugh, smoke spilling through his snout, the psychic cheered. “Thank you, Enforcer! I’m glad you do not regret my presence any longer.”

Hayate placed a hand over his chest and felt his heart slow with relief as he leaned against one of the massive trees dotting the forest. “Whatever,” he huffed and looked at Turtonator. “What’s so bad about my training anyway?”

The fire type’s pleased expression returned to his usual scowl Grace somehow called cute, and Hayate felt the need to hide as if he were prey for something much, much stronger than he. Sweat began to trickle down his skin; the humid warmth turned mildly uncomfortable as if the temperature were steadily climbing. Instead of answering, Turtonator turned and walked away, disappearing behind a tree.

Hayate adjusted his collar and let go of a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Arceus…” 

“I apologize on his behalf,” Cassianus said, tipping its hat with fine psychic control. “I believe the Enforcer thinks of your training to be like a child playing pretend.”

The trainer bit his tongue, but his face held still. “What would he have me do?”

“Oh, he thinks of things in a black and white fashion; I would not listen to him. We have all practiced in our own time instead of fighting to unconsciousness repeatedly.” Cassianus said. “But for the best results, it would be an excellent initiative to mix the two together.”

“We’re in the middle of a dangerous forest,” he protested, mildly incredulous.

“The Enforcer had a feeling you never did so anyway. This is not the first time he’s seen you train, in truth.”

That was… true. His Pokemon fought each other plenty, but rarely enough to push themselves to the brink. Not only would Stantler take any loss to heart, but he’d believed it to be an inefficient use of time. A ten minute battle versus an hour or two of training and refining moves? Logic dictated that the latter would be best, but it was true that he’d never done both.

“My King would say: Iron sharpens iron.”

“That sounds like a line out of a cheesy movie,” he said, still taking the lesson to heart. He’d try as soon as they were back on the main road. “What’s she doing anyway? We should head back for now.”

“Oh, I believe she might be elbow deep in some Night Shade right outside her tent.”

He hummed. “Type shit.”

Hayate learned when he got back to camp that Claydol was not kidding.

He slept slightly better that night, happy to have some direction even if it had been cringeworthy and made him want to die.

A few days later, they finally reached the evolution grounds for their first job.