CHAPTER 2

  Most six-year-olds dreamed about becoming the next Champion. If not that, then they wished for smaller things like no more homework or endless chocolate fountains.

  Not me. I was more concerned about living expenses.

  People flocked to Castelia from all walks of life. It was the so-called city of dreams and countless opportunities, but the simple reality was that not everyone could make it big.

  Some of us were just busy trying to survive.

  Mom was a failed actress turned local diner waitress. Meanwhile, dad worked as a bellhop at a hotel in Central. He’d wanted to be a trainer in his youth but gave up when he realized he didn’t have the talent. Their wages weren’t much, and oftentimes we counted more on the tips they got as windfalls. We lived in a tiny apartment in one of the shadier neighborhoods in Lower Castelia.

  We’d probably still be living there, too, if not for certain circumstances.

  20 YEARS AGO. CASTELIA CITY, UNOVA.

  Berry told me he was hungry.

  In response, I gulped nervously. My small hands tightened their hold on our family Sewaddle. He’d been with us for about a year now. I’d found him rooting through trash in an alley after school one day. Some trainer hadn’t wanted him anymore and dumped him there. Jerk. Sure, Berry was a bit old and had problems changing directions, but he was really friendly.

  As sad as it was, Berry’s story was not an uncommon one. Bugs weren’t exactly the most popular Pokemon. Young trainers liked picking them up because they weren’t hard to handle, but a lot of the time they lost patience with how weak they were in their early stages.

  Well, he was ours now.

  Our apartment (and our finances) didn’t allow Pokemon, but the landlord had folded after dad pleaded with her for hours to make an exception. I was still grateful to my parents for letting me keep Berry. I think they felt bad because it was the one time I’d actually asked for something. I never pestered my parents for anything, not when I constantly saw mom and dad huddled around the table poring over bills late at night.

  I didn’t want to add onto their troubles, which was exactly why I was trying my hardest to ignore the fact that I could understand Berry.

  He wiggled a bit in my arms as we continued walking through Eli Park. Dad was with me on a rare day off. Mom couldn’t join our family outing because she was working an extra shift at the diner.

  Berry called my name again. He said he didn’t want me to use up my energy carrying him, and that he could walk for himself. He also repeated that he was hungry.

  I felt bad, but I avoided eye contact with the Sewaddle and kept walking.

  Hearing voices was never a good thing. Usually it meant you had to go to a hospital.

  I hadn’t been able to understand Berry at first. Everything started a couple months ago when I’d begun to hear a sort of… buzzing sound in my head, sometimes, as I walked through the city. It took me another week to realize it was usually when I visited Castelia’s largest park with dad, and then it took me another week to realize it was when I was in the vicinity of Bug type Pokemon.

  The buzzing developed into fragmented words and eventually complete phrases.

  Case in point, here I was today able to communicate with Berry. I didn’t talk to him when there were other people around, of course. That would have raised multiple alarms.

  I was confused at first, but I thought being able to understand Pokemon was cool. I idolized our city’s Bug Gym Leader, Marcus, and I liked Bug type Pokemon. The way they fought to survive resonated with me.

  My delight had disappeared when I found out the truth.

  I thought I’d do research on whatever the heck was happening to me. I took myself to the Castelia Public Library after classes ended one day and rooted through books in the history section. The librarians on duty had given me weird looks for reading books six-year-olds usually had no business reading, but I’d been too busy trying to stave off a terrible feeling from seeping into my bones.

  It differed by region, but parents told their kids that the bogeyman — usually Dusknoir, Gengar, or Chandelure — would come for them if they behaved badly.

  In Unova, there was one other cautionary tale that was passed on from parents to children and taught to older students in history lessons: Ability Holders, those who possessed supernatural abilities related to Pokemon.

  Researchers and scholars still debated where and when exactly Ability Holders had come from. Some people argued they were distant descendants of the Heroes of Truth and Ideals. Others thought they simply came to be as a result of humans long coexisting with Pokemon.

  Whatever the case, they had a particularly long history in Unova… a notorious one.

  There had been wars waged by and between Ability Holders in bygone ages. People who, with the power to control Pokemon, had used their abilities to conquer lands and inflict violence.

  One civil war in particular caused a fire so large that it ravaged an entire forest where many Pokemon lived. At least the Swords of Justice saved them.

  The point was this: I was 99.9% sure I was one of those Ability Holders, and it rattled my very being.

  You didn’t want to be an Ability Holder, not in Unova twenty years ago at least.

  The public was afraid of them. Scorned them, even. Being an Ability Holder was also a one-way ticket to getting yourself constantly monitored by the League. That included mandatory check-ins, interviews and examinations to make sure you weren’t going to go off the deep end, and basically having a label attached to you for the rest of your life.

  You were supposed to report to the government if you were an Ability Holder. Then they’d add you to national and international Ability Holder registries, and you’d be under public and federal scrutiny from that point on. If they deemed you dangerous enough, things got a lot more serious and even involved confinement or ‘rehabilitation.’

  Obviously, all of that scared six-year-old me a LOT.

  I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t want anyone to look at me differently as if I was some sort of villain. I just wanted to live my life.

  So here I was, keeping mum about it all. I thought I was doing a pretty good job at it.

  That was until dad sat me down on a bench in a quiet part of the park and knelt down in front of me. The serious expression on his face combined with his next words almost made me forget how to breathe.

  “Kayden, you’re hiding something, aren’t you?”

  I hugged Berry more tightly to my chest, only letting up when the Sewaddle let out a protest. I hoped I didn’t look too spooked.

  “What are you talking about?” I retorted. I would have said more, but I shut my mouth when dad raised a brow. He started holding up fingers while he spoke.

  “Let’s see… you’ve barely spoken a word to me since we got here. You used to love taking walks in the park, too, but you don’t even ask me to hang out with you anymore recently. I had to basically drag you with me today. It doesn’t take a genius to know something’s wrong,” he explained dryly.

  Fudge balls. I slumped in my seat, biting my lip. I didn’t say anything.

  “Did you break something in the apartment?” Dad asked in a joking tone, trying to continue the conversation. When I still didn’t respond, he sighed.

  “Kayden,” Dad called softly. He placed a hand on my shoulder, eyes searching my own. “Whatever it is, I promise I won’t get mad. I’m just really worried about you.”

  I couldn’t help it. I really couldn’t. All the stress that had been building up since I learned about my Ability combined with the parental worry from dad had me bawling in seconds.

  Dad immediately sat next to me on the bench and wrapped me up in a tight hug. Berry wiggled his way out of the embrace and onto my shoulder instead, rubbing my face with his in a comforting gesture.

  About twenty minutes passed before I had calmed down enough to talk. By talk, I meant whispering my secret into dad’s ear because I was afraid of someone somehow hearing. I felt like a criminal waiting to be judged as I leaned back in my seat and waited for dad’s reaction.

  Contrary to any and all expectations I had, he hugged me again, this time in a more protective manner. He was trembling.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” he told me. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I clung to his words like a lifeline.

  I believed him. I wanted to.

  That day, dad and I agreed we would keep my Ability under wraps. That meant not even telling mom because the fewer people that knew, the better. He didn’t want a life for me where the Unovan government would hang like a constant shadow over my shoulder.

  Life went on.

  Six months later, everything was pretty much still the same.

  We were still living in our crappy little apartment, mom and dad were still trying to make ends meet, and my secret was still safe.

  There was one positive difference: dad had recently been promoted to a bell captain at work for his numerous years of service.

  The promotion came with a surprisingly hefty bonus and a higher hourly wage. My parents were already looking for a nicer, safer neighborhood to relocate to. It was going to practically deplete our savings, but they thought it was worth it.

  That day, I approached the living room with a paper in hand. On my way, droplets of water hit my hair. I frowned and looked up at the ceiling. It was leaking again in about three new spots. I made a detour for the supply closet and pulled out battered plastic buckets, sticking them under the spots of trickling water.

  They’d fill up fast in a couple hours, but this was good enough for now.

  I made my way to the living room again. Mom and dad were, as usual, looking over living expenses and calculating what we’d need to put aside for the next month.

  They looked up when I trudged in and presented the paper in my hand to them.

  “There’s going to be a field trip next week,” I explained. “It’s at the Relic Castle.”

  The ruins had been discovered a long time ago, but even after decades, their massive subterranean depths still weren’t fully explored yet. Last year, there were rumors of plans to open the ruins to the civilian public as a historical landmark. Said plans had finally come to fruition. Only the small entrance area and first floor were available to the public due to safety reasons, though. More than a few tour groups led by qualified guides had already visited and written their reviews online.

  I was lucky enough to live in a city with a distinguished Pokemon Professor. Professor Quint made a lot of guest appearances at schools and academies in Castelia, and he’d been kind enough to sponsor a few field trips to the ruins. My school was one of the lucky chosen ones.

  I saw mom’s brows furrow as she scanned the paper, and I was quick to speak up. I knew she was probably checking to see how much money we had to pay for the trip.

  “It doesn’t cost anything,” I said with a grin. “The Professor’s paying for the class’s travel expenses.”

  Mom’s eyes widened.

  “Oh sweetie, that’s not…” she trailed off, flustered. “Kayden, don’t worry about that. Here, let me sign the paper.”

  She hurriedly grabbed a pen to mark the paper with. There was a whole section with questions like if your child had ever Teleported before, did they want to bring a family Pokemon along, medical history, etc. All standard stuff.

  She jotted down thorough answers to all of them and checkmarked the box giving permission for Teleport. The class would be getting warped straight to the ruins with the help of League Psychic types. After mom signed her name, she passed the paper back to me with a smile.

  I was about to take it before dad intercepted the paper.

  We both looked at him in confusion.

  He simply grinned, grabbing a pen from the table to checkmark a box. “It says here they’re looking for parent chaperones! We were always so busy that we didn’t get to participate in any of the Take Your Parent to School Days. I have more paid days off now that I got promoted. Hope you don’t mind me coming along, Kayden.”

  I knew he wasn’t going to embarrass me or anything, but I gave him a poor imitation of his famous ‘look.’

  “Please be on your best behavior, dad.”

  He barked out a laugh.

  I wasn’t especially interested in ruins, but I was still excited for the field trip. I didn’t get a lot of chances to do stuff like this considering our financial situation.

  A week couldn’t come fast enough.

  20 YEARS AGO. DAY OF THE FIELD TRIP. RELIC CASTLE, DESERT RESORT. UNOVA.

  My class only got a scant few seconds to check out the Relic Castle’s exterior before we were ushered inside by our teacher and Professor Quint. As per rules set in place by the government, we only had a limited amount of time to view the ruins before we had to make space for the next tour group.

  “Would anyone like to guess how old these ruins are?” Professor Quint asked with a smile.

  Hands shot up into the air, but mine wasn’t among them. The Professor chattered on while I swiveled my head, looking around me with interest. I also had to try very hard not to roll my eyes when I heard faint snickering from my left. There were two boys in my class — Hayden and Mitch — who liked to think of themselves as the top dogs. They picked on a lot of people, but I was by far their favorite target.

  Their reasons were lame and stupid. I was scrawny, poor, and I associated myself with Bugs.

  Our school allowed family Pokemon to be brought to class so long as they behaved, so I usually brought Berry with me everywhere for company. (It was also so I could take advantage of the school cafeteria and feed the Sewaddle more food.)

  I’d taken Berry with me on this field trip, too. He was hanging out on my shoulder and being quiet like I’d asked him to be before we left the apartment. Good boy.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our class bullies point fingers at me and Berry. The best tactic was ignoring idiocy, so I did that and focused on my surroundings instead.

  Relic Castle was huge.

  We were restricted to the first floor, but it didn’t matter considering how impossibly wide it was. Plains of sand stretched out across cobbled, well-worn flooring. Our teacher had warned us in advance of quicksand, but there was no need for worry in the first place. The government had already sealed off all such pits with barricades, steel, and tarp. What else was there… I raised my head. The ceiling loomed far above in half-darkness. Strange, half-broken murals adorned it.

  I was able to make out their details somehow. I hadn’t told dad, but it felt like my eyesight had been getting… sharper lately. It wasn’t only my eyesight, but my hearing, too. I hoped it was nothing strange.

  What I noticed more than the ancient writing on the walls and the sparkling sand was how warm this whole place was.

  A pleasant heat filled the air. It somehow radiated from the floors up through the soles of my sneakers and into my body. I attributed it to the sand and the arid environment outside, but… no, never mind.

  Dad stood with two other parent chaperones a few feet away. When I caught his eye, he smiled and waved discreetly. I waved back once I made sure the other adults weren’t looking.

  I started paying attention again to Professor Quint after that. A lot of what he was saying about the ruins was actually interesting. Apparently, it was estimated to have been built over two thousand years ago. He was in the middle of explaining the legend of the Twin Heroes when I heard it.

  Tremors. I almost thought I was imagining things, but I felt the ground shake ever so slightly. Then—

  Everything happened so fast.

  People screamed—

  Sand and rocks flew everywhere—

  Two crocodilian Pokemon were locked in a fight—

  A gaping hole—

  Dad lunged for me with a panicked expression—

  And the world spun into complete and utter black.

  I woke up with a gasp and hot tears sliding down my cheeks. My left leg felt like it had been torn off. My thoughts went haywire as I mentally screamed.

  It hurts, it hurts, IT HURTS, SOMEONE HELP—

  I wanted to check if my leg was actually still attached or not, but I couldn’t. It was so dark for some reason. I couldn’t see anything. My heartbeat thundered in my ears as the gears in my mind spun frantically.

  What— What happened? I thought I remembered… hearing a crack, and then…

  A hole opened up in the ground. Gigantic figures. Two Pokemon that emerged from the sand. Krookodiles.

  Had the floor collapsed from their territorial fight?

  I shifted in place and groaned as pain shot forward in waves from my leg. Okay, so my left leg was still there. It was probably sprained or broken, though.

  Why was it so dark? And what was I sitting on? It felt strangely durable and elastic. I used my hand to press down lightly on the space next to me. Yep, whatever I was on was elastic alright. I forgot about that for a moment, my mind flashing to Berry and dad instead. Were they okay?

  I didn’t want to die here in the darkness.

  I wiped away my tears, trying to ignore the pain and despair that were setting in. With awkward motions, I pawed at the air around me, trying to get a sense of my bearings in the darkness. Once, twice, thrice… I felt elastic surfaces a few times. It felt like I was in something. Then I recoiled when my hand suddenly bumped into something that was distinctly not elastic.

  I didn’t have any more time to investigate. I jolted in place when I felt heat at the back of my neck and crawled backwards as far as I could go in the strange, enclosed space I was in. I tried not to bite my tongue from the agony of shifting my leg. It was getting hot very, very fast here. My heartbeat accelerated.

  A dot of fiery light appeared in the darkness. It grew exponentially in an instant, and I yelped when flames suddenly appeared in front of my face. They were so close they almost touched me before dissipating.

  I stared out into the newly made hole. My eyes needed a moment to adjust to the difference in lighting, but… I felt myself calming down now that I could actually see.

  Thanks to the light spilling in from outside, I could now identify the elastic stuff from before as silk. I’d been inside some sort of thick, cocoon-like structure. My attention was held more by a certain creature. Bright blue eyes stared curiously at me, and they belonged to a fuzzy, larva-like Pokemon with red horns. A memory poked at my mind, some featured article I’d read in a science magazine at school.

  I was pretty sure I was staring at a Larvesta.

  They were rare, really rare, and their evolution was still worshiped in some remote areas of Unova. Champion Alder was the only one in our region who owned a Volcarona. In the rest of the Galovea Continent, I was pretty sure there were only two other trainers with a Larvesta or Volcarona that people talked about on the Pokenet. One of them was a researcher from Paldea, and the other was an old trainer who’d retired to Alola.

  “T-Thanks?” I stammered. For searing the cocoon open went unsaid.

  The Larvesta stared at me without moving. I decided to forget about it for a moment and check what I had touched before, so I turned around.

  My eyes widened.

  “DAD!”

  Further inside the cocoon, Dad lay on his back unmoving. The exclamation ripped itself from my throat as I threw myself forward. On his forehead, there was a huge bump and some blood. I pressed a trembling hand first to his chest and then to his neck. I almost had a meltdown when I couldn’t feel a heartbeat, but my shoulders soon sagged with relief.

  It was slow and faint, but a heartbeat was there.

  “Dad! Dad!” I cried, but he didn’t respond. He was out cold.

  It was then that I noticed the round lump lying a foot away. It was a Swadloon.

  A Swadloon and a cocoon of silk. My mind connected the dots almost instantly.

  Berry must have been the one who saved me and dad from instant death while we fell, and he’d evolved from the stress of the situation in the process. Otherwise, there was no way he could have spat out this much silk as a Sewaddle.

  “Berry…?” I called out hesitantly.

  He didn’t move.

  It was only when I rolled the Pokemon over on his side that Berry finally replied in a weak voice. That was the only confirmation of life I got from him before he fainted. His cloak of leaves was halfway torn to complete shreds, and he looked as haggard as he sounded.

  I instinctively knew he’d pushed himself far more than he should have to save us.

  It took me a bit to carefully pull dad and Berry out of the cocoon, and it was more so because of dad than anything else. I was a child attempting to drag a full-grown man. My throbbing leg didn’t help matters either.

  Thankfully, I managed it in the end with some effort. Now that I was fully out of the cocoon, I took a look around my surroundings.

  We were in some sort of narrow passage. It was hot enough that beads of sweat glistened on my forehead. Sand poured down from small holes in the rugged ceiling and formed piles on the ground. Around me, brick walls full of small carvings and inscriptions stretched out until the ends of the hall. I didn’t recognize the language.

  There was a huge pile of rubble close by that stacked all the way to the ceiling. I saw a hole up there plugged by rocks from when the roof collapsed. I could only assume that was where we’d fallen from.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  I was more shocked to see the people lying near the rubble.

  There were three figures. The first was one of the parent chaperones. She had her arms around two of my classmates, Hayden and a girl named Nicole. Cuts and bruises littered the visible parts of their skin. I was afraid they were dead for a moment, but then I saw the rise and fall of all their chests. They were still alive. They weren’t exactly on the ground but half-submerged in a massive ball of cotton instead. The Cottonee hopping anxiously up and down by them clued me in on how they’d survived.

  Good thing Nicole had brought her family Pokemon along.

  I strained my ears, but I couldn’t hear any sounds from above. No people shouting our names, no sounds of movement… nothing.

  “HELLO?” I shouted, just to be sure. My voice echoed. I waited a couple seconds, but no one answered. I’d initially thought we were a floor below or something, but that didn’t seem to be the case anymore.

  We were… We were really far down, it seemed. It was a miracle we’d all survived.

  I slumped to the ground with a miserable expression. It didn’t help that my leg sent twinges of pain throughout my body every other second.

  We weren’t going to die down here, were we? Surely the Rangers or someone would come get us soon?

  I was struggling to take calm breaths in and out when the Larvesta from before headbutted my non-injured leg. Hard.

  “Ow!”

  He was lucky one of his horns hadn’t stabbed me, or else I’d really be mad.

  I glared at him, but my gaze softened when I realized the headbutt wasn’t out of malice. It was kind of hard to tell, but somehow I knew the Larvesta was only curious. I could sense it.

  He’d probably never seen a human before.

  It was more out of habit than anything, but I checked furtively left and right before facing the Larvesta.

  “Do you know a way out of here? Like to the surface?” I asked hopefully.

  My hope fell when Larvesta shook his head. He’d lived down here his whole life.

  Great.

  “And… how long is that?”

  Many, many sun cycles apparently. I had no idea what he was talking about considering you couldn’t find a sun underground, but when I asked him to elaborate, he gave me this weird explanation about a sleeping herald of summer.

  This was getting nowhere. At least this Larvesta was friendly. Then again… Bugs seemed to like me in general.

  I sighed, letting my head hit the wall of the passage. It wasn’t like I could try exploring given the state of my leg, so the only thing I could do was sit around and wait for help.

  I tried not to think about how long that would take. I had no idea how far we’d fallen, and I could only assume the Rangers would have to deal with the wild Pokemon who lived in the ruins on their way to get us. Being trapped underground sucked.

  My leg started to scream more with pain at this point, so with nothing better to do, I started talking to one of the two other conscious living beings in the room: Larvesta.

  Talking out loud definitely helped distract myself from the pain. I told Larvesta stories about the rundown apartment my family lived in, the school I went to, and even what I had for breakfast that morning. Every now and then, I checked to make sure dad and Berry were still breathing.

  Larvesta was a funny little guy. He talked in a tone that reminded me of a grandpa, which… I guess made sense if he was as old as he said he was. He also asked a lot of questions about the surface, some of which I had trouble answering in easy enough terms for him to understand.

  “You’d have to see for yourself,” I said at one point. “It’s not easy living on the, uh, surface, but it can be fun, Larvesh— Larvesta. Ugh. It’s annoying trying to say your full species name. Can I call you Lar?”

  The displeased hiss from Larvesta had me backtracking immediately. He didn’t like that.

  “Never mind. What about… Vesta?”

  I realized as an afterthought that that was what Champion Alder called his Volcarona. This Larvesta? He hated that shortened version of his name, too.

  I sighed. He was so picky. “What do you want me to call you then? Just Larvesta?”

  The Pokemon thought for a moment before veering left. I stopped walking and watched as Larvesta paced around the wall, almost as if he was looking for something. He eventually poked a symbol carved on the wall with one of his horns.

  I squinted at the symbol. It looked like… It looked like…

  “Yeah, I don’t know what that means,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. Ancient languages were not exactly taught in public school. “What does it mean? Is that your name?”

  It wasn’t. Larvesta told me he didn’t know what the symbol was, he simply liked the shape. He even pointed out a few other symbols he liked the appearance of.

  In spite of the horrible situation I was in, I laughed. This was unbelievable.

  “How about I call you Rune then? Easy enough for me to say.”

  Larvesta smiled.

  I was having more fun than I expected while being trapped underground of all places.

  Some time later, the Rangers still weren’t here yet. I turned my head slowly from one side to the other, staring at the endless sands and the paths that led further into the ruins, presumably to more identical passages. Maybe scholars would have jumped at this opportunity, but I was tired and hurt. It all looked bleak to me.

  “Do you ever get lonely down here?” I asked.

  Rune didn’t answer, but that was a reply in itself. I looked at the larva Pokemon next to me with a frown. I wasn’t sure how big an average Larvesta was supposed to be, but this guy was… small. Scrawny, even, and he had some bruises and scuff marks across his body.

  When I asked if they were from fighting wild Pokemon, Rune answered with an affirmative. He had to fight over certain sources of food, he had to fight to secure a sleeping space, and he had to fight if he wanted to see a new day. Lots and lots of fighting. The Pokemon down here were strong.

  Even Pokemon had it hard.

  “It’s not easy living underground either, is it?” I mused out loud.

  We were lucky no other wild Pokemon had come across us yet. Getting attacked by predators on top of being trapped underground would have made chances of survival drop to nearly zero. A new question popped into my head while I was thinking about what other Pokemon lived down here.

  I tilted my head with furrowed brows. “Now that I’m thinking about it… How’d you find us anyway?”

  Rune looked at me like I was stupid. He said he’d heard me calling for help.

  “Inside the cocoon? I didn’t… I don’t think I said anything.”

  The Larvesta nodded his head insistently. I had.

  I mean, I hadn’t said anything out loud. There was no way he heard my thoughts, though, right?

  Right?

  I was torn out of my thoughts when I heard a groan.

  “Ugh…” a familiar voice got out.

  “Dad!” Relief flooded my facial features as I awkwardly crawled over to him, ignoring how my leg screamed as I bumped into tiny rocks. Rune followed me with a curious expression.

  “Kayden…?” Dad croaked out. His eyes were open now, and they focused on my face with great difficulty. He was still out of it. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied, clutching his calloused hand. “How are you feeling?”

  “Could be better,” Dad replied in a lighthearted tone. He tried to smile, but he ended up coughing a few times instead. “As long as… you’re fine… I’m…”

  He didn’t finish. Dad’s words trailed off until his eyelids fluttered shut again.

  “No!” I yelled, panicking. “Dad, stay awake!”

  I squeezed his hand, but that didn’t rouse him back to reality. His heartbeat felt like it was getting fainter and fainter, too.

  Waiting around wasn’t an option anymore. Dad needed medical attention NOW, but I didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t anything I could do in the first place. I was just a kid stuck underground with a bunch of unconscious people and Pokemon. Rune and my classmate’s Cottonee weren’t going to be of much help in getting everyone back up to the surface.

  I felt my breathing grow harsher and harsher as I squeezed my eyes shut. I was slipping into full-on panic. Come on, there had to be something I could try. Anything—

  My eyes snapped open. I stared contemplatively at Rune.

  He’d said he’d heard me calling for help. I knew for a fact I hadn’t verbally said anything. It was crazy, but… what if this had something to do with my Ability? What if I could somehow… reach out to Bugs with my mind?

  It reminded me of a comic I’d read before at the public library. The plot included an evil scientist that commanded his army of robots through a mind network thingy. Maybe I was capable of something remotely similar.

  I had no idea if there were more Bug types in the area, but Rune’s existence here proved how resilient Bugs were. Maybe there were more Larvesta like him or even a Volcarona I could fly on. I didn’t care.

  I wanted any kind of help. I wanted to save dad somehow.

  I was going into this blind. I had a feeling I looked pretty ugly as I scrunched my eyes and nose in concentration, awkwardly trying to ‘reach out’ with my mind. Since Rune had reacted to my desperation, maybe I needed to channel some serious emotion into it.

  Help. Help me, please, I thought. My small hands curled into fists so tight that my nails almost drew blood.

  I took a deep breath, trying to imagine my mind as something physically reaching out to the surroundings.

  Please help me, I repeated over and over.

  Nothing.

  I only grew more desperate.

  Raw emotions bled into my thoughts as I kept up my seemingly foolish endeavor. I focused on the pain in my leg. I focused on dad’s barely breathing form. I focused on Berry, the parent chaperone, and my two classmates who were lying nearby.

  HELP ME. I WANT TO LIVE. I WANT TO LIVE.

  A strangled yell tore itself from my throat when I felt something. A buzzing sound filled my head, and it wasn’t going away. It reminded me of when my Ability had first emerged months ago and I’d hear endless buzzing at the park.

  COMING. COMING. STAY.

  It was like a hundred voices were speaking in my head at once. A headache so painful that it threatened to send me keeling over took root in my mind. I almost felt like throwing up. It felt like I’d tapped into something, like a… like a network of different minds. The buzzing disappeared, but I could still feel their lingering presence. There was something else, too.

  Even with the intense headache, I could feel another faint presence in the void of my mind. It felt warm. Almost too warm. I reached out to it curiously with my mind—

  THE SUN FLASHED. IT BLINDED ME.

  I instantly recoiled from the mental imagery. The presence was gone.

  I also had to throw up from the second wave of nausea that hit me. Rune had the misfortune of getting to see the breakfast I’d described for him earlier with his own eyes.

  As I wiped my mouth, I decided I didn’t want to know what the hell just happened. I’d at least made contact with some Bugs or so I believed. My confidence only ballooned further when Rune confirmed he’d heard my mental voice again.

  Now I waited impatiently to see who had responded. I didn’t have to wait long.

  I got deja vu when I felt the ground tremble, but I forced myself to stay calm. My face paled, though, when things eventually broke through the floor.

  Dozens and dozens of rock crabs — Dwebble and Crustle alike — scuttled toward me.

  The already narrow passage was flooded with them at this point. I couldn’t even begin to count how many of them there were. At their cast’s forefront was their leader. Crustle were native to Unova and not exactly uncommon, but I’d never heard of one growing this large before. The shell it carried was almost as tall as the ceiling, and the numerous scars it carried suggested a long and arduous life. It had to be at least nine or ten feet tall.

  Three tiny Dwebble peeked curiously at me from atop the Crustle’s shell. I tried my best not to flinch as the giant approached me. Beside me, Rune tensed.

  Crustle’s eyes gave a cursory glance over my figure and the people and Pokemon behind me. He raised a thick claw, and I really thought I was going to die from getting my head bashed in.

  He held it out in a peaceful gesture instead. I stared at him as the crab asked if I still needed help. He had a gruff but not unkind voice.

  I was still bewildered by the situation but had enough sense left to bob my head up and down in silent vigor.

  “Up to the first floor please,” I managed to get out in a faint voice.

  In the matter of seconds, dad and the others were carefully placed onto the backs of the other adult Crustle. Meanwhile, Leader Crustle personally hoisted me and Berry onto his own shell with who I presumed were his kids. The three Dwebble clicked bubbly greetings to me. I hugged the still unconscious Berry.

  It all felt like a fever dream to be honest.

  While Crustle started relaying orders to his companions about making a path up, I looked back at Rune. The Larvesta was still on the ground and watching me with an inscrutable expression.

  A lump formed in my throat as I looked down at his tiny figure. We’d part ways here. He’d probably go on living and fighting the rest of his days here in the underground, but I—

  Rune blinked at the hand I extended. The words I blurted out came almost without me thinking, but they felt so natural.

  “Come with me.”

  It wasn’t a demand but an open-ended phrase. As short as our time together had been, I didn’t want to say goodbye yet to the Pokemon that had shown me light. I wanted to talk to him some more.

  I got my answer when Rune propelled himself with flames from his horns and landed next to me on Crustle’s shell. He made a huffing sound and shook his head. Apparently, he was concerned about how weak humans seemed to be. He figured he’d look after me since he was getting bored underground.

  Uh huh.

  I don’t think I’d ever smiled so widely before as I did at that moment.

  Any further conversation had to be put on hold. Crustle warned us to brace ourselves, so I grasped onto the rugged surface of his shell as best I could with one hand while holding Berry with the other. Rune crawled onto my back right as we shot upwards.

  They could have smashed the rocks with their claws, but Crustle and his companions were considerate of our frail human bodies and chose a more delicate method of ascension instead.

  That meant manipulating the very rocks themselves.

  Rock pillars shot upwards from the feet of the crabs and propelled us upwards into the ceiling. Instead of crashing it, parts of the ceiling simply parted in place like sliding doors.

  Layer after layer of rock above us were broken into moving sheets that zoomed left and right, continually creating a path for us to go through. Three Crustle were ahead of us on rock pillars of their own. Using their own tough bodies as shields, they prevented falling debris from getting on the rest of us. Below, the rest of the cast followed in quick pursuit on dozens of smaller, miniature rock pillars.

  Just like that, we broke through floor after floor of the ruins.

  The whole experience felt like I was on a drop tower at an amusement park. The only difference was that we were continuously going up in one smooth motion.

  It wasn’t exactly a straight path we took. Crustle and his crew subtly changed the direction of our rock pillar rides to different angles at various points. It almost felt like they were avoiding something. Other wild Pokemon, if I had to guess.

  I let out a shout of excitement when the rocks way above my head slid left and revealed gaping white. I could feel it. That was the first floor.

  It really was.

  I was greeted with familiar surroundings as Crustle and gang popped out from the long winding path they’d made. Leader Crustle landed with a heavy thud on the sand nearby. More and more rock crabs popped out from the hole and joined us. I was so happy to see we were back at the entrance that I almost missed how our surroundings weren’t quite so familiar after all.

  For one, the rest of my class wasn’t here anymore. Secondly, and most important of all, there were League Trainers and Rangers spread out across the room in defensive formation, each with Pokemon out in front of them.

  I also saw one member of the Unova Elite Four and our dear Champion himself.

  Alder’s eyes darted between me, Leader Crustle, and the cast before resting on my figure once more. I was pretty sure I saw a figurative light bulb go off in his eyes. To say he didn’t look happy was an understatement.

  The grin on my face faded as I slid down from Crustle’s back. I felt very much like a Deerling caught in headlights.

  Moments later, I was whisked away to the League HQ without much fanfare.

  “Did you see it?”

  That was the first thing Elite Four Sierra asked me once we’d Teleported into a meeting room. This was after I had a cast placed on my leg by a doctor. Sierra grasped my shoulders with her hands, eyes boring into my own with a sort of frenzied look.

  “DID YOU SEE IT?” she repeated, this time in a louder voice.

  I had no idea what exactly she was talking about, but the urgency in her tone scared me into silence. Berry had been taken away from me to get medical treatment.

  Rune was still with me, though, and he hissed viciously at the woman from where he was by my feet. Sierra ignored him and kept talking to me. At least she wasn’t shaking me like a ragdoll.

  “Did you talk to it? Did you touch it—”

  “Sierra, that’s enough,” Alder interrupted in a firm tone. He walked up to us and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, frowning. “Give the kid some space.”

  Sierra shrugged off his hand with a frown of her own. She kept staring at me, but she at least let go of my shoulders and straightened back up.

  “This kid, Alder, is an Ability Holder,” she retorted. I shrunk back in fear. They knew. “He’s dangerous. Did you see all those Pokemon he controlled?”

  I bristled with indignation but kept it under control.

  “I— I didn’t control them,” I interrupted as politely as possible. It was better to try and keep myself in their good books any way I could. “I just asked them for help. They were nice. My dad, h-he needed medical treatment.”

  Both adults ignored me for the time being to keep holding a conversation of their own.

  “I know, but he’s also a kid,” Alder countered gruffly. “Look at him. He’s probably no older than six or seven, and he just got out of a dangerous situation.”

  “Yes, with a small army of Pokemon—”

  They stopped talking as three other figures Teleported into the room. A League Reuniclus was with them. The rest of the Unova Elite Four had joined us. As one, they all turned to me.

  I was no longer left out of the conversation from this point on.

  They sat me down in a chair and interrogated me. Half of the Elite Four at least tried to be neutral about it, but the other two looked at me as if I was already a criminal in the making. Alder was the most polite out of the bunch.

  They asked so, so many questions.

  “Can you describe your Ability?”

  “When did your Ability first manifest?”

  “How many Pokemon can you control at once?”

  “Have you ever used your Ability to harm a person or Pokemon?”

  My answer to a lot of these questions was that I didn’t know.

  Their Psychic type was there to verify everything I said was the truth, but some of the Elite Four found issues with this at some point during the interrogation.

  Apparently, their dissatisfaction stemmed from the fact that I held a compatibility with the Bug type. They were worried my mind held some sort of hidden interference technique against Psychics.

  I wanted to say that was complete and utter Bouffalant crap, but I kept my mouth shut. I was not in a position to argue here. Thankfully, Alder voiced thoughts similar to my own out loud, and the matter was dropped.

  Before we took a break, Alder picked up where Sierra had previously left off with her questions. He asked me to describe my experience in the Relic Castle’s underground floors and if I’d come across anything unusual.

  I almost didn’t want to, but I told them about the warm presence I’d felt in my mind at one point, the one that had made me throw up.

  Alder and his Elite Four gave each other a certain look I didn’t like.

  They didn’t ask me anything else after that. I was glad because I was tired of repeating and confirming things for them so many times.

  I was forced to sit in a corner of the room while they conversed among themselves inside a psychic sound barrier. Every now and then they glanced over at me with scrutinizing looks. Rune had crawled onto my lap and now stood guard like a sentry. I nervously fisted and unfisted the hem of my pants, trying not to shake.

  I wanted mom and dad here. This was scary.

  My wish was granted when hours later, dad barged into the room with bandages wrapped around his head and a look of fear on his face. Berry was in his arms. Mom followed close behind as well as two League Trainers.

  Once he saw me, dad’s fear melted into relief. He and mom hurried toward me and swept me up in a hug. Then mom turned to the Elite Four members and asked what this was all about.

  Alder cleared his throat.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Sterling, thank you for joining us. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Please have a seat while we wait for a few others to join us.”

  And by a few others, he meant executive officials from the civilian side of our government. I felt dread pool in my stomach.

  I don’t remember everything they talked about anymore. I only remembered the important bits.

  I remembered how shocked mom was to hear I was an Ability Holder, and I remembered the look she gave me as Alder described the powers I had displayed today. It was almost soulless.

  I remembered them describing me as a ‘dangerous individual and a threat to national security.’

  I remembered dad defending me with all the fury of a Force of Nature, saying that I’d only been acting to save him and the others trapped underground with us. I was not dangerous by any means. Hell, I was a child!

  Of course, what I remembered most of all was when the Unova League and government handed out their verdict after a private discussion among themselves.

  Champion Alder looked almost uncomfortable when he addressed my parents. I saw his mouth move and shape words, but I was shell-shocked halfway through that I didn’t process the rest of what he said.

  I wasn’t allowed in Unova anymore.

  There was a lot of flowery language, but in layman’s terms, they were kicking me out of the country.

  Dad slammed his fist on the nearest table, unable to control his anger. Both of mom’s hands flew up to her mouth as she sat there in shock.

  “You’re exiling my son?” Dad demanded in utter disbelief.

  Alder closed his eyes briefly before opening them.

  “Not… exiling,” he said in a placating manner, “but requesting that you leave in the interest of preserving public peace and security. If you leave on your own, I will guarantee that none of what happened today will be recorded as part of your son’s written criminal history record. It will stay strictly between us as a verbal discussion. Of course, we will have to register your son in Ability Holder registries, but—”

  “‘Criminal history record?’” Dad interrupted, snarling.

  Elite Four Sierra jumped into the conversation.

  “Unlawful use of an Ability in the presence of civilians, controlling what we deem as powerful Pokemon as a non-registered trainer, not registering as an Ability Holder like he should have, unauthorized entry into a highly restricted part of the Relic Castle—”

  She would have gone on if Alder hadn’t held up a hand. Dad had been about to jump out of his seat. The Champion asked everyone else to step out of the room so he could talk to us on his own.

  The door swung shut with a thud. Alder sighed once it did.

  “It’s the best I can do for your son, Mr. Sterling,” Alder said softly. His voice sounded strangely louder now that the room was near empty. “Either he leaves the country willingly on his own two feet, or we have to escalate this into something larger. If you refuse to leave, we’ll be forced to see him as a true threat.”

  My family and I were silent.

  Alder gave another sigh, this time more mournfully than the last.

  “I’m sorry. There’s not much else I can do. This was the best I could negotiate with our government. With my authority as Champion, I can at least make it so that this incident never happened. Your son won’t have to have a criminal record attached to him for the rest of his life.”

  “But he’ll still be known as an Ability Holder,” Dad said dryly.

  Alder winced. He knew full well how the public perceived Ability Holders during this specific time period, and he didn’t say anything else.

  Dad tried arguing with Alder some more and even tried appealing to his emotions, but the Champion would not — could not — budge. He had to look out for the interests of the nation regardless of personal feelings, and to that end, I could not be here.

  The Unova League and government were scared of the potential of my powers and what I could become in the future. They were afraid I’d abuse them and wreak havoc on society. They wanted me out of their borders so that they’d feel safer.

  So many ifs.

  Why couldn’t they look at me simply for who I was now?

  Dad’s shoulders drooped as he realized there was nothing to be done. He gave a small, terse nod, and that was the end of it. Mom was the first out the door with an odd expression on her face, and dad ran after her. I heard them talking in raised voices before the door closed.

  I was about to follow them when Alder stopped me. His eyes drifted to the cast on my leg and then to the Larvesta in my arms. His lips quirked upwards in a sad smile.

  “You’re gonna have to leave that Larvesta here with the League,” he said, and my heart dropped. “The others thought it’d be too dangerous to let you keep it. Larvesta and Volcarona have quite a reputation around these parts. Doesn’t help that you have a Bug specific Ability.”

  Rune started hissing.

  “But—”

  “But,” Alder butted in, holding up a finger, “as the Champion, I say that you can keep it. The others won't be happy about it, sure, but I’ll figure it out.”

  I closed my mouth. Rune did the same.

  “I know you probably hate me, kid, and I don’t blame you. I’m sorry. Let’s have this stay between you and me, but it really does suck having this job sometimes. I have to do things I don’t like,” Alder went on.

  He got up from his seat and stared at me. I didn’t glare at him, but my lips were pressed shut in a thin line. Alder raised a hand like he wanted to offer a handshake before he ultimately lowered it.

  “I hope someday you can come back to a better Unova. I really do. I’ll try my best to make it happen.”

  Nice parting words from someone who’d basically upended my whole world in the matter of a single decision. I didn’t say anything in response and darted out the door.

  Only dad was there waiting for me, and he’d been crying. I only learned later why.

  I was technically the only one being kicked out of the country, but of course dad wasn’t going to leave me alone. He was coming with me.

  Mom… wasn’t.

  She chose Unova over me. She was afraid of me.

  There were other complications like stress that had built up over the years from constant poverty, but I was basically the straw that broke the Numel’s back for mom and dad’s marriage.

  They divorced.

  Later, Dad and I packed our meager belongings into two small bags, and we left the country.

  PRESENT DAY. UNOVA.

  Dad had originally wanted to move to Galar since our uncle lived there. Estranged as he was, dad was hoping uncle would take pity on us and offer help. That plan fell through immediately because Galar wouldn’t take us in. They were wary of me.

  Unova may not have slapped an official criminal history onto my records, but they’d entered my information in international Ability Holder registries. Every government on our side of the world knew about me now. No country was willing to harbor us for the time being.

  Every region except Alola at least.

  We had to wait a week before their leaders came to a consensus, but eventually we were accepted into the islands. Their warm community welcomed us with nothing but kindness.

  The rest was history.

  I grew up resenting the Unovan government. Later, I became a trainer and traveled the world. Thanks to the Alolan government appealing on my behalf when I was older, other countries in the Galovea Continent were willing to let me into their borders.

  Some good things came out of misery, though. Dad got remarried about a decade after we moved to Alola. He was with a nice lady by the name of Kanani, and they were very much in love. I didn’t see my birth mom as my parent anymore and liked to think of Kanani as my real mom instead. I also had a ten-year-old little brother now. The huge age gap didn’t bother either of us. Kale was the best sibling anyone could ask for even if he had a tendency to chat my ears off.

  I really owed a lot to dad. He had given up his entire life in Unova for me, and he had always, always defended me and been on my side. I wouldn’t have been able to survive without him or grow up as well as I had.

  I might have become a very different person otherwise.

  So here I was, unable to say no to him, and once again in the country I had been exiled from. It never ceased to amaze me how dad had reached the point where he could essentially forgive the Unovan government. His anger had faded over the years as he understood their position and how afraid they’d been.

  Alder had kept his word about keeping my childhood incident off written records. I was just surprised he’d kept it off Unovan records, too, or maybe it was just confidential information for those higher up the ladder.

  He’d also kept his word about trying to make Unova a better place.

  When that Dragonite first came to me five years ago with a letter in hand, I’d almost thought I was dreaming after I read the contents. It’d taken them fifteen years to get new laws passed… to get the ball rolling and improve the rights and perception of Ability Holders.

  I almost thought the letter was some sick joke. After the way they kicked me out two decades ago, now they wanted me to come back and enjoy being a Unovan citizen once more. At my core, I understood they were probably trying to make up for what they did all those years ago, but there was a part of me that twisted it all as mockery.

  I had mixed feelings about all of this to say the very least, but there was no more time for self-moping.

  My heart trembled as skyscrapers came into sight on the distant horizon. I squared my shoulders.

  Alright. It was time to see what the Castelia of today was like.

  I will be taking some creative liberties and interpretations concerning in-fic-universe stuff. So if you see anything that differs from the games, chances are I probably altered it a bit on purpose to suit the purposes of the fic. Hopefully everything is reasonable enough that it doesn’t step on anyone’s toes.

  So, Unova at large is based on the state of New York. Castelia in particular is based on New York City, or the borough of Manhattan. Lower Manhattan, if you want to get even more particular. I was trying to figure out where I wanted to stick Midtown, or the middle part of Manhattan, and I’ve decided on Castelia. Central Park in NY is located in Uptown, but I’m moving the Pokemon equivalent of it to Castelia.

  *Central, short for Central Plaza = this fic’s equivalent of NYC’s Times Square

  *Eli Park = this fic’s equivalent of NYC’s Central Park

  I was inspired by the Pokemon Adventures manga for Kayden’s backstory. For those who’ve read the beginning parts of that series (and for those who haven’t, manga spoilers ahead!)…

  Lance in the manga laid waste to Kanto by abusing his powers. He was a child from Viridian Forest with the ability to heal, and he could control Dragon Pokemon.

  I feel like the harsh response from the Unova government in this fic is appropriate given that people generally fear the unknown and what they cannot control.