THE GREATEST TRAINER
azurus,
White forest:
Lauren white(?)-main, white equivilent of Jared
Cordelia-lauren's sister.
Although I like Jared better,
I would love to see a hippy wail on a goverment official with a metal baseball bat!
I'm in that middle ground between hippies and jared, Many earth help beliefs, but would be willing to beat some guy up in the street to sucseed
They say if you press cntrl and W you get to see the programming of a website after making a signature with 3 ws and 8qs
Fanfics I like that are still in production: The human species, Pokemon mystery dungeon overthrown, pokemon mystery dungeon journal,pokefusers: saviors of the earth, Pokemon proffesor X, The adveture of advetureness (series). Will trade good fanfic info.
I NEED A BETA READER!
Check out my fic.
http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...2#post14945242
I claim deino!
Soon to be Gryghaim
Hello, long time silent reader here.
Well, I must congratulate you. Only two chapters in and you've already introduced some sort of mind shattering/blowing/breaking concept.
Since we haven't heard the Black city take on the 'Dream World' yet, even though I suppose they're the same, I'll assume for now that both versions of Unova are just as real as the other one. Wait, that'd mean there are two worlds? Or do the switch palces with each other every now and then? *confused*
Also, nice touch to make Ghetsis' monocle a synthetic eye instead. Then again, knowing you it might turn out to be someone else.
Anyways I'm looking forward to all the craziness you're going to pull this time around, and I'd like to be added to the PM list.
Spoiler:- HeartGold Nuzlocke:
Swinke!
Yes, that's right. And I realise that Jared seems like the more interesting person here, but Lauren has her strengths too. I've designed them so that (hopefully) they complement each other well, covering each other's weaknesses fairly well. Unfortunately for Halley, she might not always end up with the right person for the right situation - but that's life, isn't it?Originally Posted by Rotomknight
See Rotomknight's explanation. I endorse it.
Don't worry. It's supposed to be confusing. If my characters haven't worked it out yet, I don't expect anyone else to have done so. But essentially, yes: there are two Unovas, a Black one and a White one. They occupy the same place in space and time, but differ in several rather important ways. Why Halley has noticed that there's a difference between them and no one else has, and why she seems to have passed between the two in the night, is currently a mystery. Hopefully, Black Unova will have more of a Guide feel and White Unova will have more of a Trip feel, to help differentiate between the two universes.
Do you really think it's a monocle? I thought that didn't make any sense, really, given that it's red and seems to be attached to his face. I always thought he'd just lost one eye and had it replaced with some kind of cyber-eye; they seem to have that sort of technology in the Pokémon world - at least, they do in the Black version of Unova. Perhaps it gives him Terminator vision.
Anyway, the next chapter is coming along nicely and should be up relatively soon. Oh, and I've added you to the PM list.
F.A.B.
Who's laughing now?
Watch it be as if every single time the 'version' switches, they say it was a dream or something. Inception all the way.
So:
(Black/White)
Jared Black/Lauren ???? (White?)-Main Character
Cordelia (Dilly)-Sister
Anastasia (Annie)-Girlfriend?
Halley-Talking Cat, only one seemingly able to pass through both worlds.
Does Candy stay? Or does she turn into a Tirtouga?
Check out the forum World Beyblade Organization! It's a huge forum with over 75,000 members dedicated to the hobby of Beyblading! You can sign up here, please help this forum grow bigger every day!
Swinke!
Precisely. It took a lot of weaving to make the Dream World, the Entralink and the weird, dual nature of Unova fit into one coherent narrative, and I think I finally found a way to make them all work together.
As for Candy, we'll see her again shortly, and you'll find out what happens to her.
F.A.B.
Banned
oooooh this is really good! i didnt notice any spelling mistakes or anything like that, i did get abit confused on the second chapter but i kinda like that haha.
The whole shopping thing just made me chuckle, and ive just relised he was on the phone to a cat... hahahaha.
well done its looking great so far!
Swinke!
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoy it.
F.A.B.
Swinke!
So, I'm sorry I haven't been replying lately, but I've been kind of busy. Real Life had a stranglehold on Internet Life all last week, so I've only just managed to get this finished and posted.
Chapter Three: By the Pricking of My Thumbs
I stared at the door. Just like that, I'd run away. Run from the government man, harbouring someone they badly wanted to get their hands on. If I wasn't very much mistaken, I'd probably just become a criminal.
“Up here!” cried Halley, from atop the fence. “You can climb, right? If not, you're going to learn. Fast.”
“I can climb,” I replied, slightly nettled; I might not be good at catching stuff, but I was a White Forester, born and bred. Most of my childhood had been spent up trees.
“Then prove it,” she said shortly, and dropped out of sight.
I sprinted to the fence, jumped up and easily vaulted the top; a moment later, I touched down lightly on the other side.
“OK,” said Halley, staring at me, “I thought it was cool when I realised I could do that. But that was f*cking awesome.”
“It's a White Forest thing,” I replied, looking out down the dirt track that ran along the back of the house. “We spend our childhoods running around in the woods.”
I felt a little shudder of panic rise in me, but pushed it down. Forget about what might be happening back in the house; those people wanted Halley badly, and that meant they probably also wanted me. I had to focus on getting away.
“Where do we go?” I asked.
“I don't know. Just away from here,” said Halley, crossing the track and loping past another house towards the main trail. “How big is this place?”
“Not very big. About six hundred houses.”
“Too small to hide in. We have to get out of here, then.” Halley thought for a moment. “Is there a train to other towns or something?”
“Yeah, but I don't have any money,” I pointed out. “My bag's still at home—”
“Sh*t. We're f*cked.” Halley slowed and sighed. “Unless we just run blindly into the woods, which is probably a bad idea, we can't—”
“Wait!” I cried, a good idea suddenly popping into my head and temporarily pushing aside any fear or reluctance. “We can go to Annie. If we explain the situation, she'll help us.”
“Annie.... that's Anastasia, right?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, setting off again with renewed confidence. “It's this way to her house—”
“What, uh... what relation is she to you?” asked Halley tentatively. “Because I think she was Jared's girlfriend, and—”
“Oh, she's mine too,” I said, slightly disconcerted; Halley's knowledge was definitely beyond what I thought it should be. I hadn't mentioned Anastasia at all yesterday, and yet she knew about her – and if she couldn't participate in the Dream World, maybe she really had slipped between realities yesterday.
“Oh. Ah, OK,” replied Halley, clearly surprised. “That – I didn't expect that. But I guess it makes sense, since everyone else apart from you seems to be exactly the same as in Jared's world. Cordelia was, and from the sound of it your mum was – so I guess Anastasia is too. Everyone has the same character, the same personality, the same relations... everyone except you.”
“Do you really think there is another reality?” I asked apprehensively.
“Uh, yeah? Have you been listening to anything I've been saying at all?” she retorted. “I've been telling you that I've fallen into some weird parallel universe all morning!”
“It's actually only half past six—”
“It's a turn of phrase!”
She stalked along in silence for a while, looking around at the trees and timber houses with mingled wonder and disgust, and I had a chance to think again about what had just happened.
I had fled the house because it had been invaded by sinister government operatives who wanted to get hold of Halley. There, I'd said it. It was crazy, but that wasn't what bothered me; I was happy to accept pretty much anything that I actually saw as being possible. (The druids at the temple always used to say that only fools and philosophers doubt the evidence of their own eyes.)
No, what really worried me was what those people might be doing back in the house. Would they hurt anyone, or arrest them even when they couldn't find Halley? I hoped they wouldn't; I didn't even want to think about that. And while I was certain that going with and helping her was the right thing to do – after all, she was going to need a human to speak for her, to avoid drawing attention to herself – it looked like it might be dangerous to be around her. From the sound of it, this Jared, my Dream World self, was the kind of person who could face danger and punch it with equanimity, but I wasn't. I was someone else: sixteen, shy, fairly ignorant about the world beyond the sleepy Unovan countryside... For her sake as much as mine, I wished Halley would slip back across the world of Jared Black. Lauren White wasn't nearly as much of a hero.
But I'd do my best, I told myself, holding my feelings in check. I'd help Halley as much as I could, no matter what the difficulty. It was the right thing to do and I'd see it through. And if I could help it, I'd try not to think about what the man in black and his acolytes might be up to.
“I just thought,” said Halley, sounding worried. “If there's a forest here instead of a city – what else is different? Is Unova still wealthy?”
“Wealthy?” I almost laughed, despite myself. “We only became independent twenty years ago. We haven't had a chance.”
“What?” Halley turned to look at me sharply. “Um... the Unova I know is a global superpower. It's right up there – more important than America. And it's had independence since the Second World War.”
“Really? This is Jared's world?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that sounds nice,” I said. “But we weren't really sure about whether or not the country would be able to stand on its own, and we kind of liked the British after all that time, so we stayed until 1990 or something like that. Then there was a big traditionalist revival and a return to old-style Unovan culture – except the language, because no one really wants to learn it.”
I could actually speak Unovan – it was a compulsory subject in all schools – but very few were properly fluent, and even fewer actually spoke it on a regular basis. It consisted of ninety-two syllables expressed in various combinations of twenty-nine runes, and sounded a lot like a Swede speaking English while affecting a mix of Welsh and Romanian accents. Consequently, it sounded very familiar to everyone in Northern Europe while also being totally incomprehensible to them.
“This is some weird sh*t,” mused Halley. “What about the rest of the world? Is China an emerging superpower? Is the world in recession?”
“Uh... I don't really know,” I admitted. “It sort of sounds familiar, though.”
“So some things haven't changed.” She sighed. “I don't know. This is all just too confusing.”
“I know,” I agreed. “Do you have any idea why that man is after you?”
“No,” she replied curtly. “It's like I've been cut out of my own memories. I remember everything else, just not anything to do with me.”
“It must be hard,” I said sympathetically. “If you want to talk about it—”
“I'm not that sort of girl,” Halley told me frostily. “From what I can work out about me, I'm the bubbly, happy-go-lucky sort who sometimes indulges in a sh*tload of criminal activity and often murder. You know. Like in Jennifer's Body.”
“What?”
“You don't get to see many movies here, do you?”
“No...”
“F*ck. This is going to be a dull trip.”
“I'm sorry,” I said, feeling somehow like I'd done something wrong. “I—”
“Please, for the love of God don't apologise for sh*t like that. It makes you seem so much more pathetic, and believe me, you seem pretty pathetic already.”
I was about to say sorry and then thought better of it.
“Uh, turn right here,” I said instead, and rounded Elm Corner. In the distance, I heard the sound of the van starting, shattering the forest calm like a gunshot.
“Bugger,” muttered Halley. “They sound like they're coming this way.”
I listened, and had to agree. The van was coming closer, and fast.
“In the bushes,” I suggested, and turned to see a long grey-and-black tail vanishing into a shrub. “I guess that's a yes,” I said to myself, and joined her.
A moment later, the van rumbled past like a solid thunderclap, trailing music from the open windows in glistering streamers. I caught a snatch of conversation as it went past – “the hell did she go” – and then it was gone, heading south towards The Cornrow.
“I cannot live like this,” moaned Halley. “Hiding in bushes. Ducking around trees. I should be driving the cars, not slinking about in the f*cking shrubbery.”
“You're a wildcat. How do you not like bushes?”
“Hell-o? Not in spirit. I was turned into a cat, remember? I used to be human. I think I used to live in a city somewhere. This is not the world I live in, and I'd rather not be here.”
I hadn't really thought about that. It hadn't occurred to me that there might actually be people who didn't like it here; White Forest seemed pretty much perfect to me.
Halley sighed.
“Let's just get out of the bushes and over to your girlfriend's house before those guys in the van think of going there.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
I got to my feet and back on the trail; Halley followed a moment later, rubbing leaves off her flanks on my jeans.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “God. The sooner we get out of this place the better.”
“It's not far to Annie's house,” I assured her. “We're practically there.”
One last corner and we were on Ash Street; Anastasia lived two doors down from the other end.
“Is this it?” asked Halley when we stopped.
“Yeah,” I replied. “You might want to stay out of sight at first. Just so I can explain things.”
“Right. Good idea. Will she be up, though? It's only... actually, I don't know what time it is, but it's not long after dawn.”
“It's twenty to seven,” I told her, looking at my watch. “And she'll definitely be up. She doesn't like to waste time.”
I knocked softly on the door, trying to attract Anastasia's attention without waking her parents; I succeeded, and a moment later she appeared at the door in the swirl of minor chaos that usually attended on her, looking like a cross between an exquisitely beautiful Muscovite noblewoman and a train wreck.
“Lauren?” she said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“Annie!” I cried, hugging her. “I need help. Badly.”
“What? OK, uh, come in.”
“Before I do,” I said, disentangling myself, “I have to tell you something.”
Anastasia fixed me with a piercing stare that no one else in Unova could replicate; I think it might have been something she inherited from her Russian ancestors.
“What's happened?” she asked shrewdly. “Lauren, what's wrong?”
“Um, it's kind of difficult to say,” I began, but at that point Halley lost her patience and slid into view.
“I'm a talking cat, government agents are chasing me and they're after Lauren too because she's harbouring me. We need money for a train. Give it to us and let's get the hell out of here.”
Anastasia stared.
“What?”
Halley sighed.
“I can't help but feel I've done all this before,” she remarked. “All right. Let us in and Lauren will explain everything.”
“Um, this is Halley,” I said, indicating her. “Halley, this is Anastasia.”
“We established that some f*cking time ago,” she said sourly. “Can we just get inside before someone sees us?”
Anastasia looked at me with a helpless look in her eyes.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling bad for interrupting her morning. “But I – we – really need your help.”
“OK,” she replied, running a hand through her hair distractedly. “OK. I guess you'd better come in.”
I followed her into the hall and up into her bedroom, which was less of a place for sleeping and more of a haven for gaming; one wall was dominated by an intimidatingly large screen, and below it was a messy row of consoles, all connected by a tangled web of wires and cables. Anastasia wasn't quite as big a fan of the peaceful woodland life as most people in White Forest; she was always complaining about the lack of reliable Internet access, and seemed to acquire a new video game practically every other day. Right now, the vast screen was displaying a pause menu, but behind it I could see something that looked like the box of the Eostre gift I'd got her.
“I was testing out your present,” Anastasia told me. “Thanks, by the way. I've never been so glad to see a pile of dead animals.”
As far as I'd been able to work out from the packaging, Bjřrn was a game in which you played a hard-bitten ex-cop panther whose family had been murdered by a Swedish mafia kingpin who also happened to be a bear. Apparently it offered hours of absorbing gameplay, most of which seemed to revolve around shooting a variety of cheerfully insane enemies.
“This place is awesome,” breathed Halley, looking around. “I so wish I had thumbs so I could play with all this.” She paused. “OK, so apparently I like video games. Not the most useful thing to remember, but it's a start.”
“OK, Lauren,” said Anastasia, looking down at her, “I think I need some answers now.”
So I told her the whole story – from finding Halley in the bushes yesterday to the escape from the government agents by way of Halley's conviction that she'd slipped across universes – and waited for a response.
Anastasia sat on her bed, fiddling with a thumbstick, and stared into space.
“Let me get this straight,” she said, obviously trying very hard to stay calm. “This girl's turned into a cat, lost her memory and is being chased by the government – and you haven't questioned it so far?”
“Well, I have a bit,” I replied. “But, you know, only fools and philosophers—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Anastasia sighed. “It's just that it seems... well, it's pretty crazy.”
“Uh, living proof sitting right here,” interjected Halley.
“Well, yeah, but...” She broke off. “I don't know.”
“I know it's crazy,” I pleaded, “but I really need your help. We have to get some money to get a train out of here, and I can't go back to the house because those guys are probably watching it and—”
“Calm down,” said Anastasia, putting a hand on my shoulder. “You're babbling.”
“Sorry.” I paused and tried to collect my thoughts. “It's just... it's been a bit of a shock.”
“Understatement of the f*cking century,” put in Halley, but we both ignored her.
Anastasia sat there for a while, sliding her teeth back and forth across one another as she did when deep in thought.
“I could come with you,” she said, but I shook my head.
“That's not happening,” I replied firmly. “I'm not getting anyone else involved. Besides, I don't have time to wait for you to get dressed.”
Despite venturing into society slightly less often than J. D. Salinger, Anastasia was as fussy about her appearance as any high-flying socialite; it rarely took her less than an hour to be ready for anything at all.
“I...” She struggled for the right words for a moment, gave up and sighed. “Lauren, I can be fast—”
“That agent and his goons will probably be here soon,” Halley interrupted. “You know, asking if anyone's seen Lauren around. And it sure would be appreciated if you hadn't disappeared in mysterious circumstances, and could give a little false testimony to misdirect the agents. And then, pretending to get text messages from Lauren, keep feeding them false information as to our whereabouts as the search progresses.”
“I get it.” Anastasia nodded. “OK. But are you sure? I can come—”
“No.” The stubbornness in my voice surprised me; I'm not usually the strongest-willed person around. But now, for some reason, I was sure: we needed the cover Anastasia could provide if we were ever to get out of this tiny village, and I didn't want to involve any more people in this mad adventure if I possibly could, especially people who didn't actually have some means of defending themselves. If Anastasia had been a Trainer or something, I'd probably have taken her with me – as it was, she'd just be one more ordinary person like me, only without my gymnastic ability. “Think about it. We're going to be running and hiding, and making swift escapes and stuff. It's not exactly your forte.”
“It is if we're talking Deus Ex,” she muttered. “No, OK. Point taken.”
“Then hurry up! We don't have time to argue about this—”
“Yeah, I get it.” She paused, then sighed. “OK, Lauren, I might not be able to help you as I'd want to, but... I trust you. Even when you're acting like your sister. “So...” She reached under her bed for her bag, pulled it out and blew the dust off it – there was nowhere to go in White Forest that really necessitated taking along a handbag – and extracted her wallet from within. “I've got Ł25 here,” she said, examining the contents. “That should be enough for a train to Nacrene City at least.”
“Thank you!” I cried, hugging her tightly. “Annie, you saved my—”
“Yeah, OK,” she said, gently prising me off. “But remember what you were saying right now: you don't have time for this. You need to move fast. White Forest is tiny, and it's going to take them about five minutes to find you here.”
“Ah. Yeah. Right.” I looked at Halley. “I guess we should go, then.”
“You think?” Until that moment, I hadn't been aware that cats had eyebrows; however, it seemed they did, because Halley raised one. “Come on, Sherlock. We need to get moving.”
We went downstairs quietly, mindful of Anastasia's sleeping parents; if they woke, there'd be witnesses to prove I was here, and Anastasia wouldn't be able to do anything to throw our sinister pursuers off our trail.
I paused on the threshold of the door, and turned back to Anastasia.
“Um – bye,” I said nervously, suddenly realising that I was going to be leaving White Forest – and literally everyone I'd ever known in my entire life – behind.
“Dosvedanya,” replied Anastasia, kissing me. “Come back alive, OK?”
“I'll do my best.”
At my feet, Halley rolled her eyes and muttered something about there never having been a story of more woe.
“Shut up, cat,” said Anastasia sharply. “We're having a moment.”
“No, she's right – we have to go,” I told her. “The trains only leave once an hour, and I don't want to be stuck waiting on the platform while people are after me.”
“OK.” Anastasia smiled anxiously at me. “Good luck.”
She shut the door; both she and I knew that if it remained open, I'd take another fifteen minutes to leave – time that we just didn't have.
I sighed, and turned to the road. It seemed like all the doors of my life were slamming in my face.
“No going back now,” I told myself nervously, and set off at a brisk walk for the station, Halley padding along at my heels.
---
Portland Smythe was not a happy man. Not merely because he was called Portland Smythe – an interesting name to be sure, but not one that really suited him – although that did factor into it, as a minor irritation that formed a continual curtain of background anguish in his mind; no, the real cause of his unhappiness was that his quarry, a mysterious young woman known only as Halley, had somehow evaded him.
Portland knew that she had some sort of connection to the theft of the artefact, and he knew that she had gone to ground somewhere in White Forest; he also knew that she was currently, for reasons unknown, in the shape of an Unovan wildcat, and that she had been asking around the area for help. From a few witnesses, he had gleaned that she had been spotted in the society of one Lauren White, and this morning he had led four of the Green Party's agents on a slightly illegal raid of the property; however, neither White nor Halley had been on the premises.
This meant, he thought, that they had escaped. And that meant, he knew, that he was going to have to find them – and soon, or he would have to face the consequences.
Portland sighed, and mused. White and Halley were probably trying to flee the Forest, he thought, which meant he ought to check the train station. There, the trains left hourly, and since it was coming up to seven, he need only wait around for a few minutes to make sure his quarry didn't get aboard.
“It won't take long to look,” he murmured aloud. “It can't be more than two minutes away, and the place is tiny.”
He turned the van around and headed back north.
“Get ready,” he called to the men and women in the back. “We've got a lead to follow up.”
This done, Portland glanced to the creature sitting in the passenger seat. It was long and tall and lithe, a creature of slim bones and taut muscles tightly bound in purple fur. You might have called it a Liepard – but no Liepard ever had eyes like those, smoking pits of white fire, and no Liepard ever sat so still and so upright, watching the world around it like some menacing totem.
And no Liepard ever spoke the language of humans before, and certainly not in a voice that reverberated in the air like the prelude to a landslide.
“She is here,” it said, and its voice came with the rank smell of grave-earth. “I feel her presence.” It sniffed the air deeply. “Yes, she is here,” it confirmed, its head sinking low between its shoulders and its eyes closing to ash-white slits. “And we are getting closer.”
Portland shivered, and drove on. Sometimes, his Pokémon scared the crap out of him.
---
When we arrived at the station four minutes later, there was a surprise waiting for us: Cordelia, standing by the single wooden platform that connected White Forest with the rest of the world.
“Dilly?” I asked, staring. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might go to Annie's house, so I got her number from your phone and called her,” she answered. “She told me you were heading to the station, and I realised I'd better bring you a few things before you forgot them. One: mobile.” She handed me my phone – and, because she was Cordelia and never forgot anything, its charger as well (something I would never, ever have remembered myself). “Two: jacket. Your purse is in the pocket.” I was glad of the jacket: it was freezing at this time of year, and I really wanted more than a T-shirt on. As for my purse – well, it had no money in it, but it had a credit card that would give me access to my savings when we needed it. “Three: protection.”
Candy stuck her head over her shoulder, saw me and squawked with joy, hopping over onto my bare arm and almost slicing open an artery as she went.
“But I can't – ow! – take her,” I began, but Cordelia cut me off.
“Candy's main goal in life is to bite as many things as possible,” she said. “Add that to the fact that you're her favourite person and I think she'll be a good asset.”
“But we're meant to keep her secret – if Ingen find out—”
“Tell people she's an exotic parrot from South America. They're not going to contradict you.” Cordelia looked at her watch. “I need to get going. Everything's still in chaos back home.”
“Is everyone OK?”
“Yeah, just shaken up and worried about you. Don't worry, though – I'll keep an eye on them.” That was reassuring; Cordelia was as efficient and single-minded as Terminator, and when she said she'd do something you could bet your life she'd do it. “I can handle this end of things if you take care of yours, OK?” She gave me a reassuring smile.
“OK,” I said dutifully, squashing the rising concern within me. “Thanks.”
“It's nothing. The next train leaves in ten minutes; I bought your ticket already, so just get on board before anyone sees you.” She handed me a scrap of orange and green paper – it looked like we'd be saving Anastasia's money for later.
“Got it—”
“Bye.”
“Goodbye.”
She didn't hang around. A moment later, Halley, Candy and I were alone on the platform.
“She's like the SAS of organisation,” whispered Halley, so as not to be overheard by the man in the ticket office. “And you say she's related to you?”
“I don't know either. She's just... she's always been like that. When she was little, she had a rotation system for cuddling her soft toys. If you gave her the wrong one she set up a pretend court martial and executed it at dawn for treachery with a knife.”
“Jesus.” Halley clapped a paw over her mouth. “Oops. Too loud. I'm going to shut up now.” She jerked her head in the direction of the ticket office, and I nodded.
“Good idea.”
In the distance, I heard the van's engine rumbling.
“They're coming,” I breathed. “Hide!”
“Eh?” queried the man in the ticket office, looking out of his booth. “Is someone there?”
We dashed across the platform and into the bushes; in a moment, we had disappeared from sight. One of the advantages of living in White Forest is that it's incredibly easy to hide; everywhere you look, you see more shrubbery.
Once installed behind the bushes, I checked my phone's clock. One minute since Cordelia had left; nine to go until the train left. That meant seven and a half until the train arrived for us to board.
The van pulled up, and I heard the doors opening. Two sets of footsteps crunched across the leaf-strewn trail – a man and some four-legged animal, by the sound of it. Maybe a dog or a Liepard.
“Hey!” cried a familiar voice – the ticket man. I knew him well; I knew everyone in White Forest well. You have to actively try in order to not know everyone in White Forest well. “Hey, you can't bring that van here. It's a nature reserve.”
“This is official government business,” said the same man who had knocked on our door earlier that morning. “We would appreciate it if you did not attempt to hinder us.”
I peeked through the leaves, and saw that the man was tall and exotic-looking; he didn't have pale Unovan skin but the bronzed tropical variety instead, and his hair was long, black and carefully slicked back over his skull. Next to him was the Liepard I'd suspected, and it was a lean bruiser of a beast, the biggest I'd ever seen – and I'd seen quite a few. They were fairly common around here, and had a long-running feud with the wildcats that saw purple and tabby fur scattered over the village streets at least twice a week.
Beside me, Halley flinched, but I couldn't ask why without giving away our position. Maybe it was an instinctive wildcat response to seeing a Liepard, something that had seeped into her mind when she'd transformed. Candy was spooked too, but I clamped her beak shut in one hand and held her still with the other. The last thing I needed was for her to give us away.
“Oh, I, uh – I see,” stammered the ticket man. “Is there anything—?”
“Yes, actually. Have you seen Lauren White?”
“Lauren? Well, I think I heard her a minute ago – talking to her sister about something—”
“So they're here,” hissed a third voice, a slow dead voice like the pattering of earth onto a grave. “Yes, I think I detect...”
My eyes widened – it was the Liepard that had spoken, and though I'd met a talking animal yesterday, I definitely hadn't expected to meet another so soon.
The Liepard stalked across the platform, head sweeping back and forth across the ground, and I saw the white marbles of its eyes and the ashen smoke that wisped from them. Sweat pricked on my brow and a cold dread rose within me: those were not the eyes that should have rested beneath that brow, not the eyes of any animal that I knew...
Halley pressed a paw over my mouth, and the shock caught me just in time to stop me crying out in fear.
“What in the fields of Neorxnawang...?” breathed the ticket man.
“I don't have to answer your questions,” said the agent. “If I were you, I would ignore everything that is happening right now. You should try and spare yourself the effort of worrying about it; I'd rather not leave a trail of traumatised civilians in my wake.”
He sounded almost kind, and for the first time I wondered who he was when he wasn't hunting people for the government – a husband? A father? Even the bad guys have families, I thought, and—
The Liepard's face swung up just inches away from mine, separated by nothing but a few paltry leaves; I froze, breath dying in my throat, as the smoking eyes fixed on mine—
“They're gone,” said the Liepard in its corpse-mouldy voice. It sounded puzzled. “It's almost as if... No. I don't know.” It turned away from us and loped across to its master – or maybe colleague, since it seemed so intelligent. “They have left. I detect no trace of their presence.”
“What?” The agent seemed confused. “Well... Maybe they bought the ticket, then retreated, knowing we would come here to look for them. In which case, they must be hiding somewhere until the next train comes.” He stroked his chin. “That gives us an hour to find them,” he mused. “All right. Come on; I have an idea of where to start looking.”
He turned and walked out of sight, scratching his head; with one last demonic look at the platform, the Liepard followed, padding away silently as if setting out to hunt. The van started up and drove away, and then there was silence.
For a very long time.
“OK,” said Halley at length. “What the f*ck was that?”
Last edited by Cutlerine; 10th October 2012 at 10:35 AM.
THE GREATEST TRAINER
Kitty Katty attacky!
So then, i think the liepard is reshiram, likes halley and tinks it's it's friend.
How will team pasma fit into this.
or ghetsis, or the fact that none of them are trainers.
They say if you press cntrl and W you get to see the programming of a website after making a signature with 3 ws and 8qs
Fanfics I like that are still in production: The human species, Pokemon mystery dungeon overthrown, pokemon mystery dungeon journal,pokefusers: saviors of the earth, Pokemon proffesor X, The adveture of advetureness (series). Will trade good fanfic info.
I NEED A BETA READER!
Check out my fic.
http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...2#post14945242
I claim deino!
The Ancient Absol
Discrepancy here in the time, either they are going backwards in time or they hid for 23 hours.
Huh, well this is certainly interesting. Maybe laurens sister swapped places with Jareds sister, after all, in Black City you have to be efficient.
So Candy is still the same, that's good. I wonder what role they will be playing in the future.
I wonder as to why the Liepard couldn't detect there presence, can it not smell things? If your that close, you should be able to pick up a scent at least.
Keep up the good work, and hopefully you won't be as delayed next time, thought I didn't mind the wait too much.
Looking forward to more.
Credit to Brutaka for the Amazing Banner
_______________________________Fic Related_______________________________________
"If only I was stronger, I could break free of this nightmare"
-Lunus, during sleep.
_________________________Below This Line Is Pure Randomness____________________________
Why do I keep looking for updates when I know there's nothing there?
Time, there's never enough of it but it's always there to waste.
-Azurus
Support me as a type
Okay. Since it seems like it'll happen a lot, I'm going to be starting a count for everytime the story so far has been retold in-story, just for fun. It happened a ton in the guide, and given the premise of this story, it's probably going to happen a lot. And I really want to know. I'm not critisizing it or anything, I'm genuinely interested.
1Easy, said Halley. I woke up today in the woods to find I had amnesia and had turned into a cat. I came into the city looking for help, found Jared here and stole his phone so he'd let me into the house and give me a place to stay for the night. As well as, she added, turning back to me, a base of operations while I try and discover exactly what happened to me.
2Yesterday, this she indicated the waving treetops of White Forest was a city. F*cking skyscrapers and everything. Yesterday, you were a boy named Jared, who found me on his way to a department store. At some point in the night, the world went batsh*t crazy, and I have to know what happened. Now.
3What? I sat up. Halley, it's me. Lauren. We met yesterday, remember? I found you in the bushes.
4So I told her the whole story from finding Halley in the bushes yesterday to the escape from the government agents by way of Halley's conviction that she'd slipped across universes and waited for a response.
Okay, with that out of the way, onto the review. I really like it so far. The characters are memorable so far, which is what you want to see. We have two talking 'cats' already, which is pretty impressive. You're lucky to see one in a story. Have no idea why.
You see? This is a problem. You make awesome characters, but they aren't around enough.I don't know either. She's just... she's always been like that. When she was little, she had a rotation system for cuddling her soft toys. If you gave her the wrong one she set up a pretend court martial and executed it at dawn for treachery with a knife.
Just kidding, though I do hope we see more of Cordelia.
Finally, the end of the chapter. I have to say, that villian made a bad move. Did he have the train times wrong, or was he expecting them to catch the one after the next one to throw him off? Beyond that, I'm curious to see why Liepard's sensing ability failed. All things considered, this will probably a plot point that we can only understand in later.
Oh, and I can't wait for Jared to come back on the scene.
I have officially claimed Castform, The Master of all Weather!
Wonderful superiors:
Swinke!
Don't worry, there are still going to be battles. I think. I planned for there to be, but things are always subject to change.
And Plasma and Ghetsis are both still present. They're just a little more subtle than they are in-game, owing to the fact that my Unova presumably has a police force.
So there is. I'll change that.
They're the same person. It's just that we never got a chance to see Cordelia in action in Jared's world.
Yes, it should have been able to smell them. This will be addressed in the next chapter.
Thanks!
Yeah, people my protagonists meet usually have to have everything explained to them. It's an unfortunate consequence of the plot being bizarre and unbelievable.
I'm correcting the balance of the universe, one cat at a time.
I hope so. She didn't originally have much of a character, but I usually do end up giving interesting personalities to minor characters anyway. I can't help it.
Mm. Portland's not really used to this sort of thing, as will become apparent. And Jared should return shortly - resulting in further chaos.
F.A.B.
The Ancient Absol
It's still wrong, you have half past 7 which is 7:30 then you have twenty to seven which is 6:40, I think you mean half past 6.
Credit to Brutaka for the Amazing Banner
_______________________________Fic Related_______________________________________
"If only I was stronger, I could break free of this nightmare"
-Lunus, during sleep.
_________________________Below This Line Is Pure Randomness____________________________
Why do I keep looking for updates when I know there's nothing there?
Time, there's never enough of it but it's always there to waste.
-Azurus
Wobbufet fan
Luvvit just like all your stories!!!!
Can I please be on the PM list?
THE GREATEST TRAINER
Are the druids cyber druids?
And when will the Butler of Butlerness apear? (BOND) Or Jorland? Or Pgzie?
They say if you press cntrl and W you get to see the programming of a website after making a signature with 3 ws and 8qs
Fanfics I like that are still in production: The human species, Pokemon mystery dungeon overthrown, pokemon mystery dungeon journal,pokefusers: saviors of the earth, Pokemon proffesor X, The adveture of advetureness (series). Will trade good fanfic info.
I NEED A BETA READER!
Check out my fic.
http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...2#post14945242
I claim deino!
Bagels...
Yay, other chapters! I guessed correctly on the Black City/White Forest co-location, and I'm forming theories.
Anyway, so they're going to Nacrene City, and they're bringing Archen. I forsee discussion about said bird.
Anyway, I don't have much to say; the last chapter didn't have that much. PM list please <3
Black FC: 0390-4123-1831 3DS FC: 5241-2857-4396 White FC: 1120-6901-0228
Quotes in my signature make me feel smart.
Swinke!
Oh, man. Sorry about taking so long to reply to all these. I'd say I have an excuse, but all I can offer in that regard is art college, a social life and tiredness.
Yeah, it didn't... Just me trying to get them out of White Forest. Next time: action!
Also, added.
Unfortunately, there are no cyber-druids. At least, not in the White world...
As for Bond... I haven't actually worked out whether I need him in this story or not yet. I thought I would, but I'm not entirely sure. Stay tuned; there's a good chance he might turn up.
Sure, since you ask so nicely.
Yes. Yes I do. Apologies; numbers hate me, and I'm not overfond of them either.
F.A.B.
Swinke!
Ugh. So overdue. Forgive me.
Chapter Four: Greek Prophets with a Dash of Satan
Trees, endless trees, blurring into one another in an eternal parade of leaf and bark; the railway route south to Nacrene City was scenic, but it did get a little dull after a while. Add to that the fact that the ancient steam train was slow and prone to sudden inexplicable stops – and that it was a four-hour journey to Nacrene even without delays – and you'll understand why I couldn't help but feel that we weren't fleeing fast enough.
Because the thing in the shape of a Liepard was hunting for us in White Forest, and it was infinitely more terrifying than anything I had ever encountered before. It wasn't an animal, I was sure of that – it was a demon, something from outside the normal world, some foul changeling beast or an ettin in Liepard form. I didn't know why it hadn't noticed us and I had to admit that I didn't care all that much; I was just glad that the government man had trusted its word.
Halley, on the other hand, sitting on the seat opposite me in the compartment, seemed less affected – as did Candy, who was attempting daring acrobatic manoeuvres on the luggage rack.
“It was blind,” muttered the wildcat. “I'm sure of it – and obviously didn't have a sense of smell, either, because it should've detected our scents.”
“Uh huh,” I said, not really listening; in response, she poked me with a claw.
“Ow!”
“Listen to me,” she insisted. “This is important. That thing was not a Liepard. I felt it – I don't know – with some animal sense or some sh*t like that. It wore the body of a Liepard, but it was only a shape: the eyes didn't work, the nose, the ears – if they did it would have found us like that.” She tried to snap her fingers, remembered she no longer had any and settled for making an airy gesture instead. “The point is, it didn't have access to any senses. It had some other way of detecting us and it failed. Why?”
“I don't know,” I replied. “Candy, careful.”
She squawked at me as if to say that she didn't need to be careful; the train went over a bump and she fell from the luggage rail into my lap.
“I warned you.”
Candy got to her feet with a philosophical air and began to climb the curtains. I sighed, picked her up and put my jacket over her; immediately, thinking it was night time, she curled up on my lap and began to sleep.
“What were you saying?” I asked Halley.
“This Liepard. I can't believe you're not wondering about it. That thing is clearly the most dangerous f*cking thing in White Forest and we escaped it by about this f*cking much.” She held up two claws close together, to show exactly how much we'd escaped it by.
“That's another thing,” I said. “Could you please not swear so much? It's kind of annoying, and I am helping you...”
Halley rolled her eyes.
“Give me a f*cking break,” she muttered. “The girl's serious. We were just chased by government agents and a monster beyond mortal f*cking comprehension and she's telling me to stop—”
“Halley!” I snapped. “I'm serious.”
She stopped mid-sentence, evidently stunned; I don't think she thought I had it in me to actually be forceful.
“I'm worried too,” I told her earnestly. “And I want to help, especially as it looks like we're both in trouble now. But... I just think it would be easier for me to work with you if you weren't so... sweary.”
Halley looked at me for a long moment, her pale green eyes expressionless.
“All right,” she said at length, looking away. “OK. Sorry. We'll do things your way.”
“And – what? Really?” I broke out into a smile. “Oh, that's great! Thanks so much.”
Halley's head whipped around and settled into a glare. A hard glare.
“Yeah, OK,” she growled. “Don't start thanking me for this shi— shipbuilder's manual.” She blinked. “Wait, what? Is that what comes out when I don't swear? Random words? Jesus, this is going to be weird.” She looked up at me. “Blasphemy's OK, right?”
“I guess. Just keep my gods out of it.”
“I can live with that.” Halley kneaded the seat with her paws and lay down, curling up. “All right. Let's move on: the Liepard.”
“That was scary.”
“Well done. Ten points for perspicacity. Now, can you think of anything that could masquerade as a Liepard like that?”
“An ettin,” I said immediately. “An evil fairy. A—”
“Something that actually exists would be nice.”
“I believe they exist,” I replied simply, trying to hide my irritation. I'm fairly easy-going, or so people tell me, but this was something that was actually important to me. I studied the Treatise twice a week after school; I might not have a perfect record of attendance at all festivals and religious events, but I did believe, and I didn't particularly like Halley attacking that belief without cause.
“Right.” Halley hesitated, the memory of our recent altercation visible on her face; eventually, she let it slide. “Fine. We'll, uh, agree to disagree there.” She sighed. “But I don't get this. What that thing was... and, for that matter, what the fu— fudgemaker's reunion ball was it doing working for the government?”
“I don't know.” I thought for a moment. “It doesn't seem like something the government would have anything to do with.”
“What? Listen, I don't know much about governments, but I'd say shady stuff like this is right up their street.”
“Not ours. The Free Unova Party is in power.”
“Free Unova?”
“The nationalists. They helped free Unova in the Eighties. They're big on Unovan culture and stuff – which means they're strictly religious. Whatever that monster was, they wouldn't even dream of consorting with it. It's... definitely unholy.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot. This is Lauren White's world, where everything is backwards.” Halley twitched her nose. “Hey, your name's White – and Jared's is Black. That's can't be a coincidence. Anyway, that's not relevant. If the Liepard isn't with the government, then who are these people that are after us?”
“I don't know.” I thought of the other people who might reasonably claim to be part of the government – mainly the other political parties – but I couldn't really see any reason why any of them would be hunting Halley down with a leopard cat from hell. “But I don't think that man is who he says he is.”
“He's pretty evasive about who he says he is in the first place,” observed Halley. “I don't like this. We need information – but where the hell are we going to get it?”
“I don't know!” I cried. “Can we just get to Nacrene and take it from there?”
“All right, all right,” she sighed. “Fine.”
We lapsed into silence, and the trees rushed by to nothing but the clacking and hissing of the train for a time.
“Hey,” said Halley after a while. “Lauren.”
“What is it?”
“Do you have an iPod or something I can play with? I'm bored.”
“I'm not sure we have the same taste in music,” I said hesitantly. My phone held as many songs as its tiny memory could hold – it was old even by Unovan standards, which meant that people outside the country could hardly even recognise it as a phone – and none of them were likely to be to Halley's taste.
“Why? What do you listen to?”
“The kind of music that you'd probably call sappy and sickening.”
“Oh. Folky poppy crap about lovers meeting, or how wonderful life is, or about the lengths to which one nonexistent lover is willing to go for the other?”
“I guess so,” I admitted. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Just keep your music to yourself,” Halley advised me.
The train rattled on, and far behind us, something in the shape of a Liepard turned granite thoughts in our direction.
---
Impossibly, they were waiting for us.
The first thing I saw when the train cruised to a halt in Nacrene's sleepy station was a man in a dark suit, the sole figure on the platform; the second thing was the lithe purple shadow stalking over to him from the ticket office.
“They're here,” I hissed, not taking my eyes off them. “Halley! They're here!”
“How the f*ck did they do that?” she cried. “They were at White Fo—”
“Halley!”
“What? Oh, the swearing. OK, sorry. But how did they do that?”
“I don't know. What do we do?”
“How about hide?” Halley vanished beneath her seat in a swirl of tail. “I mean,” she continued from out of sight, “that seemed to work pretty well last time.”
“Should we get off and make a break for it?” I asked. “Nacrene's quite big – we could lose them—”
“Not once that thing's noticed us,” she replied grimly. “I have a horrible feeling that once it finds you, you stay found. Until it chooses otherwise.”
“But my ticket only takes me this far – I can't stay on the train!”
Halley's face reappeared, an isolated image of astonishment.
“I can't believe you just said that,” she said. “Lauren. There are monsters chasing us. Hide.”
She had a point, and I crouched beneath the window, carefully arranging myself so I was out of sight from the window; as an afterthought, I grabbed my jacket with the still-sleeping Candy and put it under the seat.
“Glad you've seen sense,” whispered Halley. “Now shut up and hope they don't actually come on board.”
As if on cue, the train doors opened with a rattling clunk.
“Ah, sh— shooting the Duchess of Malfi,” she said gloomily.
Footsteps down the deserted carriage aisles. Shivers down my spine. Now a voice:
“The whole damn train is empty.” It was the agent. “It's going to take some searching to find them, if they're here.”
“They are here,” came the reply, and it as I had feared: the words definitely issued from the dry, desiccated mouth of the Liepard. “No one else will have embarked at White Forest other than they.”
“It's still a big search... I mean, I don't know how long I can get them to hold the train here, Teiresias.”
Teiresias. The demon had a name; now I could label my fear, look it up in books of legend. Perhaps someone had encountered it before; I knew that fiends like that rarely died unless killed, and it might just have been recorded in one of the lesser Treatises.
“Let it continue. We can leave when we are done.”
There was a horrible disquieting undertone to that – some implication, some hidden threat – that I couldn't work out – and instinctively I retreated underneath the seat, curling up as tightly as I could to try and fit in the tiny space usually reserved for luggage. Unovans tend to be tall, but I'm way shorter than average, and I just about managed to fit.
“Stay silent,” mouthed Halley at me, completely unnecessarily. Of course I had to be silent; my heart was already beating against my ribs so hard I could feel it in my knees pressed tight against my chest; if I added any more noise to that I was sure I'd be heard miles away.
The footsteps were coming closer – both the heavy, measured tread of the man and the soft, near-silent tread of Teiresias, undetectable to anyone except a forest native.
“Actually, this is stupid. You check that way, I'll check this way.”
“As you wish,” murmured Teiresias, and its soft footsteps faded into the distance.
“All right,” said the agent to himself. He sounded close to our compartment. “Just check in each of these, yeah?”
I heard a door sliding open – a whirr terminating with a clunk as the door slid home – and then another, and then another, each one closer than the last. I shot a terrified look at Halley – what would we do? Whatever it was that had fooled Teiresias, I was sure it wouldn't work on a normal man with normal senses. However, she made no reply, huddling deeper into her recess and shading the glow of her luminous eyes.
Whirrr-clunk. Just a few feet away.
“This is going to be a long day,” the agent muttered.
Whirr-clunk.
That had to be the next door down, it was so close—
Whirr-clunk.
OK, it wasn't, but that one had to be—
Whirr-clunk.
Our door.
“Is there anyone in any of the— huh?”
I froze, lungs and heart suddenly immobilised as if in death; what had got his attention? Had he seen the edge of my jacket, too close to the edge of the seat? Had I left something – my phone, my wallet, my sense – out in plain view on the seat cushion?
“Cool,” said the agent, bending down to pick up a pound coin on the floor. “That's one bit of luck, at least.”
With that, he turned his back and retreated, and I heard the sound of sliding doors retreating down the passage.
Halley looked at me, and I looked at Halley.
“Is this guy for real?” she whispered. “He's an idiot!”
“Ssh!”
The door was still open, and I didn't want any sound that might betray our presence reaching the ears of either of our pursuers. For a long minute, the footsteps continued – and then, abruptly, I heard the sound of a door slamming shut, and realised the man had passed into the next carriage.
“OK,” I hissed, “what did you want?”
“The man's a moron!” replied Halley. “He didn't even think to check under the seats.”
“Maybe this isn't his normal job,” I said charitably. “Maybe he usually works in an office, as a – a clerk or something, and today they ordered him to—”
“Stop being kind to the enemy,” hissed Halley. “Listen to yoursel—”
She broke off abruptly as a violet shadow passed the door, swift and silent as a ghost, and continued down the corridor. Evidently Teiresias had finished checking its half of the train, and was hastening to meet its comrade. A moment later, the train started moving again, and I looked at Halley in mild panic: now we were trapped on board – along with those hunting us.
“What do we do now?” I mouthed.
“Stay hidden,” was the reply.
I tried. I really did. And I'm flexible, yeah, but I'm not a cat – and so, just a few minutes later, I felt the first sharp stabbing needles of cramp bite into my leg. For a second, I managed to hold on – but I'm no good with pain, and at last I thrust my leg out into open with an agonised yelp.
“What are you doing?” cried Halley, but it was too late: the heel of my shoe caught the wall with a resounding thump, and footsteps came running down the train—
“Get up and run!” howled Halley, shooting out from under the seat. I struggled out after her, still clutching my leg and trying to drag Candy out after me, and got to my feet just in time to see Teiresias and the agent materialise in the doorway.
“Ah, there you are,” said the man. “Right. Lauren White and Halley... um, Halley, my name is Portland Smythe and I am here to take you into custody on behalf of the Unovan government.”
“I still cannot detect them,” breathed Teiresias, taking absolutely no notice of him. “I know they are here – I have followed your footsteps – but I see nothing before me...”
“What?” Smythe looked surprised for a moment, then recovered his cool with a visible effort. “No point worrying about that now. Let's just—”
I felt Candy stirring in my jacket and without thinking threw her at Teiresias.
The sudden flash of colour and movement startled Smythe, and he took an instinctive step back; Teiresias, still apparently unable to locate us, stood stock-still, staring blankly ahead as Candy awoke fully in midair and realised that there was something new and threatening in front of her. Predictably enough, she spread her wings, flapped vaguely and managed to guide herself into landing on the fiend's snout, from where she sank her teeth into its throat—
—and fell away to the floor, a mouthful of yellow fur coming with her and releasing a thin trickle of ashy grey dust.
“Ah,” said Teiresias slowly, apparently not noticing. “I see you.”
“Oh sh*t,” muttered Halley in frantic fear. “Oh sh*t oh sh*t oh sh*t oh—”
“You were clever, but I have found a way around your trick now.” Teiresias sat back on its haunches as Candy rallied for another attack, and the floor around its feet started to blacken and give off a rank smell I'd only encountered once before, when I was eight and the river had burst its banks, and we had found a single bloated white hand among the debris.
My knees went weak, and I reached for the seat back for support – but I missed, and stumbled against the wall instead. Snakes uncurled from nowhere in my belly, and climbed through my abdomen, pushing their sleek bodies through veins and guts and arteries, to loop themselves around my heart and choke it out of shape...
Halley's claws stabbed into my calf, and reality returned with a palpable snap like a released bowstring.
“F*cking run,” she whispered hoarsely, and vanished between Smythe's legs.
I looked around, and in one moment of stilled time I saw Teiresias rising to its feet, slow, unhurried, and Smythe staring at the mouldering floor with horror in his eyes, and Candy burying her head in drifts of purple and yellow without any perceptible effect – and screaming a prayer to Eostre for help on this her feast-day, I flung myself bodily at Smythe, knocking him off-balance, and fled down the aisle.
As soon as Teiresias was out of sight, my mind returned halfway to normal. I was scared, yes, but nowhere near as scared as I had been; something told me that that demon's power lay in fear, that if I could see it I would never be able to resist it—
“Lauren!”
Halley was waiting for me at the end of the carriage, pawing desperately at the door that connected it to the next.
“Get this door open!” she shrieked. “I have no bloody thumbs!”
A wild laugh burst from my lips – apparently some part of my mind wasn't consumed by the idea of escape and the fear of pursuit – and I unlatched the door without thinking, leaping the short gap into the next carriage as soon as I could squeeze through.
Something hit my back, squawking defiantly; Candy had caught up with us. I didn't think about how she could have done so until a breath of wind hit the back of my neck and almost knocked me down; I stumbled, tripped and fell into an instinctive forward roll to save momentum, jumping up a moment later to keep on rushing down the aisle.
“Run, run, run,” came the soft dry voice of Teiresias. “You have nowhere to go, and I have more forces than you can name at my disposal.”
“Jesus f*ck!” wailed Smythe from the distance, somewhat spoiling the moment. “What is this?”
Teiresias grunted in displeasure; it probably hadn't meant to include Smythe in the awful aura of decay and despair it had cast over the carriage – but I didn't care, it made things easier, Smythe was distracted and where were we running to—?
Another gale, this one tinged with blood and fungus, and the world around me caved in like a rotten tree, leaving oblivion in its wake.
---
I don't drink, and while I know that that kind of things happen in the cities, I'd never experienced that terrible feeling of waking up and not knowing anything abut why you are where you are before. But when my eyes opened to a red-tinged world, I could think of no reason why I would be in a train carriage, or why my hands were in cuffs, or why my head felt like someone had buried it in a heap of mouldering meat for a week.
Until, that is, I saw the white-coal eyes of Teiresias, sitting on the seat opposite, and memory returned like the fall of Tiw's sceptre on the heads of the guilty.
“Frige preserve me,” I mumbled through faintly numb lips.
“Oh, thank Christ,” said Smythe, suddenly swooping into view. “I thought you two were dead.”
“No, I think you just beat the sh*t out of us,” rejoined Halley in a dull groan. “Ah. Wait. Sorry, Lauren.”
I didn't reply. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open for longer than a couple of seconds; the red glow was receding, but there was still a nasty lethargy around my eyelids.
“Jesus.” Smythe dropped into one of the seats opposite and sighed. “That went so horribly wrong. Teiresias...”
“What?”
It was not a 'what' you could reply to: ice-cold and razor-sharp, and tinged with that arid darkness that characterised the hell-beast's voice. Consequently, Smythe chose to say no more about his partner's methods.
“I'm sorry,” he said at length, taking off his glasses and looking me squarely in the eyes. His irises were violet, I noticed, which struck me as strange; in stories, it was always the beautiful heroine who had violet eyes, not the villain. “I'm not a mercenary. I'm a civil servant, and I'm not used to this.”
“Don't reveal too much,” Teiresias reminded him quietly.
“F*ck you,” he mumbled. “I'm not a monster and I don't want people to think I am.”
Despite everything, a flower of compassion bloomed within me; I had been right – this guy wasn't a bad person or anything, he was just out of his depth. If I hadn't just been knocked out and handcuffed, I probably would have given him a hug.
The thought cleared my head a little, and I felt up to looking around; Halley, it seemed, was on the seat to my left, in an oversized cat carrier that seemed to have come from nowhere, and Candy was wrapped in my jacket, sleeping soundly. I sighed. I wished I could do that; sleep seemed like it would be a nice, easy way out of this situation.
“Anyone going to tell me where we are?” asked Halley, breaking the silence. “I get that we're on the train, but what time is it? Where are we going?”
“And what do you want with Halley?” I added quietly. For some reason, I wasn't scared any more. Teiresias might have sprung from the blackest depths of hell, but Smythe was a good man, I was sure. He wouldn't hurt us.
“Oh. Yeah.” Halley blinked. “Probably ought to have asked that one first.”
Smythe frowned.
“Don't play dumb. You know something about the theft.”
“Theft?”
“I told you not to play dumb.” Smythe put his sunglasses on again and leaned back in his seat. “Doesn't matter. I'm sure you'll be more accommodating when we get you back to Party HQ.” He paused. “Anyway, we're still on the train. Waiting for the next stop.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Accumula.”
Accumula. That was a long way from home, I thought dismally – a long way from the verdant trees of White Forest in spring; a long way from my family; a long way from Anastasia.
“Annie,” I said aloud, suddenly thinking of something. “Did you speak to my girlfriend? Anastasia?”
“Hm? Yes, we did,” replied Smythe. “She lied about where you went, if that's what you want to know.”
“Then how'd you know we were—?” began Halley, only for Teiresias' voice to cut through hers like a mortician's scalpel.
“I'm... resistant to lies,” it said softly. I noticed with a chill that it seemed completely unaffected by the little wounds around its neck and breast, each pouring streams of dust down its legs each time it moved its head. “And very persuasive.”
A little star of panic swelled and burst in my breast; had the fiend done something to—?
“He scared her,” explained Smythe quickly, obviously realising what was going through my head. “Nothing more.”
“O-OK,” I said, unsure if I was relieved or worried.
“I don't want to hurt anyone,” Smythe continued earnestly. “I'm just doing what has to be done. For the best.”
“For whose best?” queried Halley.
“The world,” replied Smythe quietly, and would say no more.
The journey continued with nothing notable occurring except that I grew steadily hungrier and thirstier with the waning sun; I'd eaten and drunk nothing since Eostre's Eve and, since it was approaching five o'clock, when the ancient train finally pulled into Accumula's station, I was pretty desperate for food by then. In addition, the cuffs were biting deep into my wrists, and all in all, I was really looking forward to getting off the train, even if I would be exchanging it for the comfort of a prison cell.
“All right,” said Smythe, rising from his seat, “time to get off. White, grab that... bitey bird thing.”
“She's a rare parrot from South America.”
“Whatever. Just keep it away from me, OK?”
With some difficulty, I picked up the wrapped and sleeping Candy, and held her close against my chest as Smythe picked up the cat carrier with Halley in and motioned for me to leave the compartment. What would happen now, I wondered? Where would we be taken, and what would happen to us when we get there?
My thoughts continued in this vein for a while – mingled with regret at not being more useful to Halley – and the next thing I knew we were passing through the arch that led out of the station, with people staring at us and murmuring. For the first time, I realised what I must look like today: wild-haired, unkempt and handcuffed, clearly under the guard of an important-looking government agent and a massive, dust-bleeding Liepard. I hate being looked at – I'm almost terminally shy – and right now I wanted nothing more than to vanish into the bowels of the earth.
Accumula looked pretty, I told myself, trying to take my mind off my mounting embarrassment. Much larger than White Forest and with far fewer trees, it stretched away in a curve of aged stone across the three hills it was built on – and there, to the south, it swooped down into the hollow between them, a dark pocket in the town's heart.
And the people! So many more than I was familiar with, and I knew Accumula was one of Unova's smallest settlements, with Anville and White Forest beating it to the title by just a few hundred inhabitants. And all – all of those citizens seemed to be staring at me. That young woman with the baby in the pushchair – that boy with the glasses – that blonde girl with the green hat...
Hang on, I thought as we crossed the car park and emerged onto the street. Those last two really are staring. And they're coming over here.
“What's going on?” asked the boy, drawing level with us. He looked about my age and very serious, his cold blue eyes unsmiling beneath neat black hair.
“Nothing that need concern you,” replied Smythe coolly. “I work for the government, I'm making an arrest – that's all you need to know.”
“Really,” said the boy, his eyes roving slowly up and down, slowly devouring every last detail of Smythe's appearance. He saw something, I knew; no one could look at our group with those eyes and not see that something was wrong. “So you have some proof of that, then?”
Smythe hesitated. Right on the edge of my vision, I saw Teiresias close its hideous eyes, and the street began to empty, people propelled away from us by some dark compulsion. In the cat carrier, Halley stiffened, catching the edge of the feeling.
“We are alone,” said Teiresias softly, as the last pedestrian cleared the corner. For one moment, the boy and his friend stared in shock – and then the air around the hell-beast's skull began to darken and thicken, like burning sugar, and with a cry of alarm red light flashed before my eyes—
Then all at once something lithe and green was winding itself around Teiresias' limbs, a streamer of emerald flame in the weak light – a pinkish blot seemed to have replaced the sun and swooped towards Smythe with a bubbling shriek – and the green-hatted girl grabbed my arm, the contact a brief gust of reality in the chaos of the moment.
“Run,” she said, and I almost did, but I was thinking of Halley, and I cried out:
“The cat! The cat!”
The girl understood, and snatched the carrier from Smythe as the pink blot circled his head, emitting strange gossamer circles of sound that forced him to his knees.
“Silence it!” roared Teiresias, its voice a gaping tomb, its head flicking this way and that. “It blinds me!”
But I was no longer listening – no longer even present. I was flying, running down the street with the green hat girl, Halley in her arms and Candy in mine, and before I knew it the conflict was a distant bell-chime and I was being dragged to a halt by the girl in an alley somewhere.
“Stop!” she panted, hanging onto my arm; why was she out of breath, I wondered; I could keep up this pace for hours— “We got away!”
I took a deep breath, willed my heart rate to slow and let sense return in giddy waves. The first thing I registered was the girl's appearance: blonde, pale, prettier than me – but not, I reminded myself sharply, prettier than Anastasia. No one had that honour, in my eyes at least...
“She's no good with fights,” said Halley, watching me struggle to regain my wits. “She scares easily and gets distracted by random thoughts.”
The girl dropped the cat carrier as if it were a red-hot coal.
“You can talk!” she cried.
“I can also hurt,” replied Halley acidly. “As in fact I'm doing right now. Because you dropped me.”
“Oh! Sorry.” The girl scrambled to pick up the carrier and turned it so she was facing Halley.
“So you should be,” muttered the wildcat. “I'm Halley. The stupefied one's Lauren.”
“Er... hi,” said the girl, unable to decide whether to stare helplessly at me or at Halley, and wavering between us both. “I'm – my name is Bianca, and that guy is Cheren.”
The Ancient Absol
Well well well, it appears that some entity hollowed out a Liepard, I wonder what creature can do that. It's other abilities are rather amazing as well, Fear, Decay, Mental Perception.
Ah, Cheren and Bianca, I wonder as to their reasons for showing up there in such a timely manner. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.
As always, I enjoyed this and eagerly await more, regardless of the wait, which I forgive you for. It's simply too well written to be angry waiting for.
Credit to Brutaka for the Amazing Banner
_______________________________Fic Related_______________________________________
"If only I was stronger, I could break free of this nightmare"
-Lunus, during sleep.
_________________________Below This Line Is Pure Randomness____________________________
Why do I keep looking for updates when I know there's nothing there?
Time, there's never enough of it but it's always there to waste.
-Azurus
Who's laughing now?
Finally, Cheren and Bianca show up! Been waiting for them.
The Liepard is blind and you named him Teiresias ha ha ha. Next thing you know we're going to have a distrusted Pokémon named Cassandra who can see the future as well.
Archeops is actually one of my favorite Pokémon, I really hope Candy will be able to evolve.
Your choice of words for censorship are, as noted by even Halley, interesting to say the least.
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