Bugged Out

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((It was quarter exam week. Hopefully this break is at least reasonable. Here's your update, expect much more in the days to come.))

"So." A single voice echoes into the silence, accompanied by the inconsistent buzzing of wings. I can feel the breeze they create behind me and know that even the stoic D'spinas is bothered by what's to come.

"Strategy." I say, placing my hand on the doorknob with trepidation. It clicks beneath my hand as I turn it, and yet I keep it held firmly shut.

"Are we really going to talk strategy now? Seems a bit late for that." says Reginae, who has now replaced D'spinas's tapping with the aggravating prodding of his own foot on concrete.

"Well, it's important." I swing the door open, illuminating my Pokemon. The anxious team stands by my side, silhouetted against me in the pale light of the gym. Their anxiety rises like smoke from all of them and I have no way to comfort them except for the knowledge that this was an easy gym last time, but 'last time' doesn't mean very much.

Reginae scoffs as we walk into the gym. "Alright, does anyone have any ideas?"

"I do! I do!" Ten calls. He lifts up a new, sharp stick on high in his beak, brimming with enthusiasm.

"Let me guess, it's a 'sonic screwdriver'." I sigh.

"Actually, no, it's just a stick. It's decently sharp though." He taps it against the ground. The point cracks off like dead pencil lead, but this hardly seems to deter him.

"Can 'a stick' defeat the entire gym? If so, I'm all for this. Let's just sit back and let him work at it." Chiaroscuro says. "I think those bugs are eyeing me funny."

"He's right." D'spinas's antennae twitch. "He's a flying type, so he is our secret weapon. All he needs to do is go in there and defeat the entire gym for us."

"The entire... the entire gym?" Ten asks, suddenly dumbstruck instead of enthusiastic.

"Yes." echo D'spinas and the two grass types. Our team is definitely not keen on doing any work that may get them killed.

Ten twists his whole ball shaped body slightly in what I guess is supposed to be a headshake. "Not without support."

D'spinas lifts a single drill. Chiaroscuro shrinks back, only for D'spinas to knock him forwards with the other drill.

"How hard can it be, anyways?" he asks hesitantly.

"Only one way to find out." I say, stepping forwards. I fall onto an enormous plastic spider the size of an Ursaring, which begins moving across the gym. Beneath me is nothing but rope and webbing. Gritting my teeth, I withdraw my Pokemon and gather myself quickly, standing up only to find myself towering just above an eager bug catcher. He's only about ten years old, the minimum acceptable age for a trainer, but there's already eagerness in his eyes and determination in his patchwork smile full of missing teeth.

"Go, Misty!" he calls, throwing out a Pokeball.

"Go, Chiaroscuro!" I say in unison.

"Nope, nope, nopenopenope-" Chiaroscuro cowers before a Butterfree almost five times his size, the air buzzing with the rise and fall of its wings. The Butterfree's eyes glimmer with purple energy and the Rattata flies through the air and falls against the gym wall, sinking like a stone.

"Chiaroscuro, come back!" I open another Pokeball quickly as I close Chiaroscuro's and Ten jumps forwards. The purple mist shines in the Butterfree's eyes but Ten cuts a full circle around it, moving around to the back and slicing its wing with a peck. Before it falls down, Ten jumps up with a flap of his tiny wings and slams it downwards.

The bug catcher frowns, sniffling. I crouch down to his level. "Don't worry. Nurse Joy will fix Misty right up. Ten's..." I shoot the triumphant Hoothoot an angry glare, "... he's not that bad, he's just a tad bit overexcited to battle."

"Are you sure?" His eyes are large orbs of tears and innocence.

"Of course!" I pat him on the back, keenly aware I've just lied to a child. (Hopefully, he'll never have to find out that Nurse Joy is often far too late to save everyone). I get up. "Well, I have to go defeat the gym leader now."

"No way! Bugsy is super strong!" he calls. When I get on the spider and begin drifting away, Hoothoot in tow, I hear him call, "Good luck!"

I feel oddly guilty about the whole affair. The spider meanders throughout the gym of its own accord. I'm guessing it's some kind of stupid puzzle, but I don't see any switches. The spider goes where it wants to go and I'm just going to have to deal with it. It crawls right past Bugsy, who flashes me an enormously fake smile, and I feel the urge to wring his neck.

Another trainer, this time a female wearing traditional camping gear, stares me down. She can't be any older than the last kid. Does Bugsy just go around recruiting kids? I'm pretty sure there are child labor laws in place. (Don't quote me on that. By all technicality, I'm a thirteen year old running around a country to participate in animal fighting rings for my primary source of income instead of going to school. The Pokemon legal system, or whatever exists of it, is probably extremely skewed.)

Regardless, they seem to be decently powerful trainers regardless of age. This trainer owns a single Beedrill, a cunning male keen to lock his drills with D'spinas. The two twirl on land in and on air, drills clashing back and forth. They lock several times, drills sparking as they collide and spin against each other. D'spinas feints downwards, descending to the ground, and when the opposing Beedrill dives down to attack she holds him off with one drill swung sideways and slams the other straight into his thorax.

He falls to the ground but D'spinas isn't done with him yet. I hear the vrrrrr punctuated by what must be the penetration of the opponent's carapace and withdraw her immediately, feeling sick. I don't want to know what Beedrill organs look like.

The spider finally carries me to Bugsy. He looks significantly less exhilarated now than he did last time we passed him. "Lovely gym you have here," I tell him. I don't know if he can sense the sarcasm, but either way his smile drops immediately.

"Scyther-" he calls, but before he can finish the cry of his Pokemon cuts him off. The green insectoid is almost as tall as he is, and its mouth is full of razor sharp teeth.

"Chiaroscuro, go!" I decide to send out Chiaroscuro to take the first hit. His health is still technically higher than Ten's, despite having taken more damage. Indeed, the Ratatta is actually quite sturdy. The desire to survive runs in his blood.

"Scyther, use Leer!"

Chiaroscuro already looks as if he's within an inch of his life from fear alone, but I assume having a Pokemon of that size glare at you like you're dinner is terrifying enough.

"Now, Quick Attack!"

Chiaroscuro dodges the Scyther's attack by only inches. The scythe grazes his tail, which curls even tighter than usual. My Pokedex dings. Low health.

That was all it took?

Leer must have been more effective than I originally thought.

"Quick Attack!" calls Bugsy again. This time, the Scyther's on a direct collision course. Chiaroscuro doesn't move, completely frozen in place, and a scream builds at the back of my throat. The blades swing down in an x-pattern and a barrier of light shines around Chiaroscuro, intercepting the blow. Ten nudges him away with his usual enthusiasm.

"You just saved my life." Chiaroscuro says blankly.

"Of course! We're teammates, right?" Ten doesn't even fix him in the eye. My brave little owl is holding the barrier up with sheer force of will, and it wouldn't take much to break it. Chiaroscuro nods briefly, scampering back around my feet.

"Good job." I tell him. "Ten's got this."

He's sulking almost as much as Bugsy.

"Scyther, U-turn!" The Scyther bounces off the Reflect, shattering it into thousands of pieces, all of which vanish instantly. It then returns to Bugsy's side, sharpening its scythes against a nearby tree and watching. The scraping noise reminds me of a scavenger tearing flesh from bone. It's anything but pleasant. "Kakuna!" Bugsy calls.

Ten eagerly raises his stick and charges. Despite the angle, there's a fluid grace with which he works. His moves are eerily similar to D'spinas's charges in and out, the quick pokes and long presses interwoven into a barrage that keeps the opponent on their toes.

Unfortunately, the Kakuna is a Kakuna and can't move. It only takes a few hits for it to fall over and lie motionless on the floor, completely disabled.

That's one Kakuna down. The second is thrown forth immediately afterwards. Ten dashes forth again, but this Kakuna has a weapon of its own. As he dives in for a quick blow, its claw raises and a poisonous barb slides right into his skin.

Ten stumbles back in pain. The Pokedex dings. Poisoned.

I click it closed. "Ten, use Peck!"

The Kakuna attempts a parry, but Ten's far more determined and slightly desperate. As he slides back, he grimaces. The poison is beginning to take effect.

"I'm out of Potions!" I yell. "We need to wrap this up, quick."

Ten jumps up and hits the Kakuna from above, but its more of a lopsided blow than anything resembling a tactical move. The Scyther emerges with blades sharpened, and I understand more than before why Leer works so often. Ten trembles from the continued effects of the toxin and I feel his own wings growing stiff, pain coursing through his wings with poison and blood.
"Scyther, now!"

Ten puts up a huge, sparkling barrier. The Scyther's blades come straight down and make a huge crack in it, but it holds steady.

"Ten, Peck!" I call.

Ten groans, staggering beneath the pressure, and nothing happens.

The Reflect shatters around Ten, then the shards suddenly disappear altogether.

A blade falls.

There's a crack.

Chiaroscuro is gone from around my leg.

The body is mangled, broken. A survivor gone against his own will to survive. Ludicracy.

"That... that's what teammates are..." Chiaroscuro hits the ground, blood still spilling from the puncture wound. He twitches and falls still. The Scyther lets out a cry of triumph.

Ten puffs up, standing before the Scyther, trying to hold back the tears. D'spinas emerges from her Pokeball and sweeps him aside. Her blades twist in the air and the Scyther stares in panic. Aggravated by the blood on the ground, her first drill hits the scythe and cuts through it like tissue paper. The Scyther stumbles backwards, trying to step back into safety on its klutzy feet, but D'spinas raises her second drill on high. She stops it less than an inch beneath the Scyther's neck.

Bugsy looks at both of us and gets the message immediately. Wordlessly, he gives us the badge and D'spinas attempts to pick up the body but her drills can not hold him. Angrily, she plunges one of them into the ground. Reginae picks up the body, still sticky and warm with blood, in his mouth and drags it to me. His red eyes are stained with sympathy as I pick it up and we leave, all of the team save for Sunny now crowded on the spider.

I bury him outside of Slowpoke well. It's cloudy out and D'spinas is silent.

She and I share a kindred understanding now.

We're both murderers. She kills enemies without regret and I kill allies and pretend like I don't regret it.

If I stop for a second to think, the guilt will destroy me.

So I don't.

I can't afford to feel anymore. I don't want the team to see me cry again and I don't want to find myself broken down with demons all around me who don't exist anymore (and do I even exist anymore, anyways? I'm from a world that doesn't exist, so is it reasonable that I don't either?)

The next few hours are footsteps and time spent in the dark staring at the ceiling. I make lists of ways I could have fixed the gym battle.

Could have switched in D'spinas for Ten.

Could have had her out in case of emergency.

Could have not caught him at all.

Could stop trying.

I awake in the middle of the night with the memory still at the front of my mind, the aftertaste of tears that weren't mine hot on my lips and from the corners of my mouth where you can form a direct line from my eyes. The team is at least pretending to sleep. I need to make a decision now. Flicking the light on, I put on clothes and swiftly snatch the room key from my dresser. The light switch snaps back off and I disappear into the night.

It's raining. I bet it's nice and comfortable over by the well.

I wonder if Chiaroscuro liked rain.

The bittersweet image of the Rattata, slightly angered, soaking in rain makes me smile for a second. It begins to blur with another image of a Rattata who probably didn't like rain either.

What's the link between them, anyways?

They're both dead.

I barely realize that the rain is beginning to bother me until I step into the air conditioned Pokemon center and begin to feel cold.

Nurse Joy, surprisingly enough, is still awake and at her station. "You're up late. Are you alright?" she asks.

I nod, although even my head is shaking slightly. "I'd like to withdraw a Pokemon from the PC."

She knows. "Oh." She flashes me a kindly smile and pulls up the computer. "Account name?"

"Ashley Hart." My fingers tap idly against the desk, half from anticipation and half to drone out the calamity of voices amassing in my brain.

"Which Pokemon would you like to withdraw?" she asks after what seems like an eternity of silence.

"Clay," I tell her.

Like might be the wrong word, but I know for sure he can get the job done in battle.

A single Pokeball is placed in my hand. Nurse Joy is so careful with it. I imagine it's somewhat of a warning.

Life is precious.

Don't let them die the same way.

I clasp it tighter, about to cry at the slightest provocation. Nurse Joy turns away and so do I. Oxygen fills my lungs and then they're depleted, over and over again, as if it will help the pain go away sooner.

As if Chiaroscuro isn't dead.

As if...

There's a warmth about me, something humid and almost nauseating. I'm reminded of a dream I once had.

Lugia, whispers what I can only assume is the voice of Celebi in my mind. My voice, from a past life.

It's just one more reason to keep fighting. Ethan, I reply.

The two grow intertwined in my mind, and only by repeating the two words over and over until it feels like my brain is about to explode can I keep away the growing guilt.

What if he's dead?

He won't be the first.

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