Chapter Text
"So what happened?"
"Garbodor saved us and drove Zetta off. Unfortunately the gyarados turned back into a rift when it spat you out, but…" She trailed off and looked away.
Aya clicked her tongue and kept walking. "We got away, that's the main thing."
Melia nodded and focused on the train, only a short distance away. She did not focus on the tiny off rhythm thuds of wet shoes on grass, nor the noises of wings flapping behind her as Trinity the fletchinder tried to handle things herself for her drenched trainer. Melia made herself keep walking, glancing at the girl who was trailing after her.
Aya was stumbling. her left foot dragged a little, but she kept her head up and kept on walking.
Eventually, unable to stand the proud set of the small shoulders before her, Melia tried to be a decent human being and help her not do that, but admittedly, her eyes kept trailing to the new marks going up and down her arms, the visible part of her neck, what could be seen of her ankles and all over her fa- were those over her eyes? And therefore, she had to work very hard to keep her hands where they were.
"Relax," Aya said after a couple fumbles of her wrists. "They're not scars anymore. It's just flesh marks, like when you get swirls on your arms when you sleep."
"... what?"
Aya stared at her aghast a moment. Then she shook her head. "Right, people don't read much into human biology that's not related to pokemon biology. Here I'll put it like this. Humans have poison in their bodies."
"They what?" Melia tried to remember to not look at Aya, and flushed with the effort of not doing it.
"Yeah humans are, as a penpal of my mom's once said, 'shitty normal and poison types' and that's why regular bites down on human flesh and blood make everyone except poison types sick. It's the saliva in humans that does it, similar to what causes most pokemon to be able to learn Toxic by machine. Everyone can be poisonous. Even me. Even you."
Melia gaped a moment. "You're insulting me."
"Stating fact can only be an insult if it's twisted that way." They reached the train and Aya returned her pokemon. Melia did her own, much to the chagrin of Hapi. "And right now, we have no proof for or against. So the likelihood is that humans are just shitty normal types and no one's really figured out how to make them not shitty. The poison cannot affect the body of the person it came from. These marks are like that, just imprints as proof that something happened or could happen."
"Stop cursing," Melia said, for lack of anything else to say.
"Started at nine, not stopping now," Aya said, boarding the train without looking back. Melia did however, staring at the red spark gone from the trees, the broken leaves and branches, the dirt path and trampled flowers.
She was leaving it behind, leaving it to adults, stronger people, better than her. But.
"Melia." Aya was looking at her, the marks on her skin vivid in the lights overhead. "Let it go. You said the police were here. Let them take care of it."
Some kind of rebellion rose up in her throat, from the distrust of almost no police being here, no understanding of what was and what is. "But what if they don't do it right?"
It sounded stupid now that she said that, especially not that. She wasn't a baby anymore, what the hell was the matter with her?
Aya looks at her up and down and says, "Well, what would be right?"
Melia opened her mouth and shut it slowly, as they settled back into the seats of the train. Somehow, the time between this morning and now made the upholstery itch at her neck and shoulders. "Arresting those people," she finally said as the train began to speed away. The car was empty but for them, the people left behind and giving testimonies. Melia had bumrushed hers for the moment because Aya was gone and she didn't really look to be in much shape to give one anyway once she got back. "Taking their pokemon, giving them jail time, that sort of thing."
Aya let out a grunt at the idea, sitting up and lifting her head up. "That takes months people don't have the patience for, proof that's now sitting in my PC, and trucks that probably were rounded up when the police got there. They could escape into the forest and out of it and get where ever and so on. And they might be bought, I dunno."
"Then why would we ask them for help?"
"Because we're kids," Aya said in the most matter-of-fact voice Melia had ever heard. "And even if they're useless, I want them to think the kid will be stupid enough to get out of the way, rather than reckless enough to put a target on their backs. We're not one-man armies. We're people. Don't sit there and act like you could do anything by yourself because you're indignant enough. Your pokemon are worn out, so are mine. Their lives are worth more than going after chump change."
It stung.
The impassiveness, the utter disinterest stung. The idea of her incompetence buzzed in her like angry bees. She was going to be a gym leader starting tomorrow. Just because she failed a test for an elitist prep school didn't mean she was dumb.
But the idea of her and her exhausted team doing much of anything right now made her slump into her seat with a sigh.
Aya managed a grin and shut her eyes as the train sped up steadily. "How far are we from the city?"
"It's about a two hours by train from here to Gearan if the train's running well. I hear pokemon can do it a little faster." Melia chewed on her lip and settled once more, "But that's without stopping."
"Mm." Aya stretched and leaned back. Then, her eevee popped into view and settled into her lap. "Are you really a shadow?" she asked it. It only yawned at her in response.
"That's a shadow for sure then," Melia asked and saw a nod. "Only well, maybe it's the light, but they seem to be sparkling."
"I can only see purple," Aya admitted, reaching to stroke her back. "Is she shiny?"
She looks like my eevee." Looking around, Melia risked it and released her own. He was a little dirty and bruised, but he licked Melia's fingers enough. Aya silently offered Melia a potion, which she sprayed over the fur and rubbed gently into the fur and skin. "Yep," she said, once her eevee was purring in her arms, relief thrumming over her in waves. "Very sparkly, very shiny."
"You infected my baby," Aya said with mock outrage.
Melia's eye twitched. "I did not."
Aya laughed at her.
Melia made to relax in her chair. "I'm going to rest for a bit." She affected her voice as haughtily as she could manage, as if this entire discussion was beneath her. "You should do the same. It's gonna be another hour."
Aya nodded. Melia closed her eyes.
Melia's ears were ringing.
She wasn't quite sure why. She was sure she had been using the window as a very poorly made pillow not even twenty minutes ago. Now, her ears were ringing, smoke tickled her nose and there was a faint breeze in her hair. She opened her eyes-
Below her was a smoking pile of metal and plastic, twisted and warped, melting into the track of the trains. There was… nothing left of the train.
Reality and panic set in.
Don't look.
The words weren't in her head really, but Melia couldn't say she'd heard them out loud either. They just… existed. It was just us on that train. We're fine.
"Aya?" she breathed.
Somehow. The voice sounded weary. Tell me the way, or you're gonna die. I dunno how long i can keep doing… whatever this is.
Melia swallowed. Her throbbing arm was suddenly no longer hurting at all. "Right. Keep going east."
Gotcha.
And something swept downward, than upward, like wings. Like wings meant for a creature much larger than a child. They continued, steady and quick until eventually the sound faded and they were zipping forward. Melia risked glancing at her arm once more. The arm she'd meant to look at before she'd fallen asleep.
There wasn't even a scar. Her fingers flexed and curled with ease, like the arm had never been hurt since she'd been born with it.
"Aya?" she repeated.
Aya didn't respond. Something shuffled on her shirt. Aya's eevee clung to the back of it and looked at her, as if it knew what she was thinking. As if it didn't like it.
Well, that wasn't the pokemon's business now was it?
Which way? The girl's voice sounded like a croak.
"Turn east again and just keep going. We'll be at city limits soon, at this rate."
I hope so. This isn't good.
"Can you rest?"
No. Someone will see. I can't let people see. But I need… I need you to do me a favor.
"At this point I'll do nearly anything." Melia swallowed. "What is it?"
Describe your bedroom to me. As clearly as you can. That's our landing spot.
"I'm not gonna ask how we're going to land there." But Melia closed her eyes and thought about it.
The movie posters plastered over her drawers and mirrors. The computer that runs on sputtering and older systems known to man that her father wouldn't replace. Her desk with the suitcase on her chair, clasped closed with the tickets to the side. The photos with her and her father, the notes between them on long days. The piece of Hapi's egg shell put in a jar, the warm blanket set decked in checkered plaid. The worn clefairy doll.
The faint smell of Dad's favorite air freshener.
Melia's eyes welled up with tears. She missed him right now. She missed him so much. She was almost willing to forgive it all, so long as he still loved her. They could work through the rest. They had to be able to work through the rest.
A quiet humming filled her ears, a low sound like a flute, down at her feet and rising up her skin. It grew to a soft coo, a gentle warble. And then on.
And on.
Carried on the wind, sweet as an oran. A warble that grew and fell, a trill reaching into her body and undoing her, marking and unmaking, molding her from clay.
"Aya?" Melia whispered.
The song swelled within her in answer.
Aya's voice grew more human for a moment, words of fire and storms, words of love and longing, and then they fell once more into the rhythm of the unseen drum, the call of the trilling bird.
"You said you carried Ho-oh's will," Melia whispered.
The song thrummed in answer. And it wasn't a lie. It just wasn't all of the truth.
And that truth is something you don't need to know.
Melia awoke again with a jolt. They weren't in the sky now. In fact, she was looking at her bed, her walls, her floor. "We're back," she said as her feet gently touched the floor. "How did we-"
The warm breeze was gone, the air smells of smoke and something… something tangy, almost meat. Melia turned to find her new friend. "Aya, how did you-"
She covered her mouth, muffling the scream as the girl's body, torn to lesions and charred skin seemed to start folding in on itself, turning from simple ashy grey and cold black and lava red and just pulsing. She could see her veins moving, expanding and contracting and something bubbling, beneath. Popping skin, empty eye sockets, images that were sewn into her brain.
Aya, or what had to be her, breathed. The motions were small and fast. There were no hairs on her head.
Her bag, beaten and sooty but just fine, sat with eevee's mouth on the strap nearby. The eevee didn't move, merely watched.
"Please," croaked from the body on the floor. "Bo-" She wheezed, and a bleeding, blistered, mangled hand struggled to rise. "B-Boots, please."
Melia nodded, shook her head, something. "I-I'll get dad," she said, and, as she would be ashamed of later, bolted out of the room. She heard Aya croak a plea out again, but she didn't move back towards it. She couldn't.
"Dad!" she shouted! "Dad, help, it's an emergency-"
She reached his recording area, his favorite desk with the best camera angles, and found that he was not alone.
A woman leaned on his desk, over him. The heels helped, but her father didn't seem intimidated. A far cry from last night to where he had been nauseous and wheezy. Now, he almost looked bored.
"You really shouldn't have hung up on me," she said, in a voice that was supposed to make people feel bad.
"And you shouldn't be so obvious in a public place. I have new trainers coming in nearly every day. You do know Jan checks the cameras." A flicker of annoyance. Her father… he never really sounded like that, unless he was talking to donors. Because he hated that. "And he doesn't particularly like you either."
A scoff. "What, are you going soft now because we let you have a baby? A baby you hid from your friends and coworkers I might add. What, were you ashamed of her?"
Melia's blood ran cold.
"I do believe I'd been given the orders to keep her quiet, right?" Her father didn't even twitch. "Considering, oh, I don't know, I had no experience with kids? it would have been suspicious. Madelis, you're supposed to be smart."
"So are you, professor." Her voice took on a syrupy tone. "You really just forget your place."
"Not quite as much as you do. Besides, I did what you asked." He shook his head. "What more do you want from me?"
Melia inched closer. Her heart was pounding.
"I was just checking if your heart was really into this. I heard you collapsed last night." The syrupy noise sounded even thicker than before. Melia swallowed, half-expecting something sticky in her throat. "Is the burden so big and heavy for our dear professor? You can't be that old yet. Thirty-nine or so, yes?"
Her father laughed. Not the belly laugh of pride, not his giggles with her about her days in the gym. This was hot, hot, hot.
"There's nothing I can do about that," he said, without fear. "But I've met something bigger than you, something more terrifying, something that will make you quake. Compared to this, all of you…" She watched him shrug his shoulders. "There is nothing you can do."
"Oh and I thought we had an understanding-" She reached over, climbing on the large desk that she as a child had used to scribble homework on. "We keep you alive, we give you what you want, and then we take back what belongs to us. You don't betray us. This came from us." She reached out and touched his neck. "Are you telling me you're willing to throw away everything? All these people, all your work, because of some unknown variable?"
"For Melia?" Her father smiled. "Without question."
The room seemed to shiver.
"I see." She paused on her knees. "You talk a good game Jenner. It's a shame you're just a pawn. Putting on an act for the cameras. You're a fantastic liar."
Her father remained silent.
Melia thought fast and raced to the front. The sound of the sliding door made them turn, and she come running forward. It was hard to control her breathing, hard to not laugh at the start of anger that burned in those red eyes, not blood red, not chilling red, just red like construction paper, easily to cut.
She whipped around towards her father. "You- she was supposed to be in the forest."
"And I was!" she said, a shudder clattering through her bones. It was true. he had sent her there. To be captured by then. But then, but then-
"Someone asked me to look after you."
Had that been dad? Even back then, yesterday even, had that been dad? The snag machine in her bag, the mural in the back? Had her dad… used her?
Anger filled her belly like cement. Why was he like this? He was always gentle with her sure, but everything, everything was a test, a game, a puzzle. Sometimes for her, sometimes to help him. There were some times where she wasn't sure he looked at her and saw a child at all.
She watched, both of them watched, the triumph burn over her father's face. "I knew they could do it," he said. Then his eyes snapped to Melia. "Where are they?"
Where is it? seemed to linger in the air. "That's why I'm here!" and the horror threatened her again, the calm she'd managed to gather in herself. "Come quick dad, she's hurt!"
Dad nodded and got up from his chair. The woman's wrist flicked and out came a great, slobbering dog, its drool seeping holes into her father's jacket, paws the size of her shoulder bone at his chest. His chair toppled with him in it, leaving him pinned down and held by rows of large, sharp teeth.
"That's better," the woman said softly, smiling at her. "Come on now, Melia. it's time to come with me. Your dad will be fine, in fact, he'll be better if you just come quietly this time. We'll forgive him. After all, you're in this situation because of him. He's one of us."
Melia watched her father struggle and bunch. He didn't fight anymore, admittedly he had never wanted to, and throwing a houndoom as big as that one would be a struggle, even for him, she imagined.
That said, she had her answer. Hapi was out of her ball in one second, throwing great glowing rocks in the next. "Not a chance! Hold her off, Hapi!"
She got a trill in response, waiting as another glimmer of extrasensory energy threw the woman to the side. she caught herself on the desk with a snarl, her houndoom sent off dad. Just a little. It was enough for him to scramble to his feet and run for her.
"Where," he wheezed, eyes burning and holes spreading on his coat.
"My room," she said, calling out her buneary now. He grumbled with exhaustion but still bounced obediently enough.
Dad nodded and scurried around the corner.
The woman was back on her feet now, smiling nastily. "Oh-ho, do you think you're going to hit a human?"
Melia grimaced, nerves in her stomach. She'd never done it before. she'd never wanted to. You didn't send your pokemon to attack people!
"Ancient Power!" she ordered and Hapi obeyed. Then Melia grabbed buneary and returned him, racing into her room with Hapi and locking the door.
As soon as she was inside she made the mistake of taking a deep breath. Melia only managed to gag on it on the way out.
The body, Aya's body, was still there, crackling and bubbling and bleeding now into the carpet. Dad was right up next to it -her, her her-, fingers brushing against the skin of the- the legs, no, where the feet we-
The boots. She had talked about boots. Why.
Dad reached into the charred remains of the thick footwear and pulled out… a knife?
It didn't seem particularly special at first glance. A pretty hilt, a slender blade, a delicate looking sheathe… but why wasn't it a lump of metal and stuff or melted or… anything?
"Do you swear?" Melia jolted out of her thoughts. "Do you promise me? To do all you can, to do all you must?"
Aya… or what might be Aya… rattled in her slumped mess on the floor. It took her a minute to realize, that was what laughter could sound like. "I'm not doing it for nothing."
"My research is yours," he said, urgently. Behind her, Melia heard a thump on her door. "My soul is yours. My life is yours. Anything here, it's yours. Do you swear to me?"
"I won't promise the impossible," she rasped and was it Melia's imagination or did she sound clearer? "Not for the possible?"
"Please," he said, and for a moment, Melia thought tears were on his face. "She is everything to me. Worth more than anyone here, more than anything in existence. Please."
No Dad, she wanted to say through the bile in her throat, the acid in her mouth. No. I'm not helpless, I'm not weak. I'm not a thing you can lock up and let out when you please. I am not!
The eyeless head, the noseless skull shifted, as if it, as if she, could read minds all of a sudden. "I see. Then I so swear… now… please. Make it quick."
Her father unsheathed the dagger. And it was beautiful, a beautiful iridescent series of colors that did not, could not exist in anything she knew.
And before her eyes, he raised it high in both hands. Melia reached out to the other side, to grab his arm-
He stabbed it down. It shuddered, cracking the pure black thing that could be a chest cavity, past the ribs and down into the heart with a single splash of sizzling blood.
The girl twitched once and lay still.
Melia's scream died in her mouth.
"It'll be fine, Melia," he said, as if he'd just noticed her. "She'll be fine. We need to be ready to fight our way out of here. Madelis can't be the only one here. Are your pokemon okay?"
Melia stared at him, aghast. "No," she whispered. "This can't be happening. This isn't real."
He looked at her slowly. "Calm down Melia."
"Calm down," she repeated. "You just killed someone. You just killed my friend."
"Don't worry about it," Dad said, and his voice seemed, almost far away.
She shook her head. "No. No more of this. I'm… I'm getting out of here. I… you… you're not my dad. You're… you're a monster."
He looked at her, in the eyes, none of the gentle, reckless, overworked old man. None of his playful forgetful guy act. Just a cold looking, stern man. "Yes," he agreed softly. "And what about it? I'm trying to save you, Melia."
"Yeah?" And there was the anger. She was good with anger. She could handle anger. "For what? For some big experiment, some important purpose?! This is all for you, isn't it? It always is! Whenever it's inconvenient for me, I come anyway! When's the last time you- no. No! I'm not gonna hear your excuses! I don't care! You just… you killed the person you called to save my life! What is wrong with you?!" He opened his mouth and she shook her head. "No, no I'm done. No more! Hapi!" She grabbed her pokemon's leg as she appeared. "Metronome!"
Three flashes of light, and her room was gone. Her so-called father was gone. Her friends were gone. And… her new friend, Aya… her body was gone.
I won't let them get away with this, she promised herself. I'll avenge you. I'll take them down. Whoever they are, Team Xen, they'll pay.