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Pokémon Nothing Fickle About Loyalty

part 1: teal

elyvorg

somewhat backwards
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she/they
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  1. grovyle
Hello! I am still on my Kieran fix, this time with a Pokémon POV twist. This is the story of Kieran's loyalest apple dragon, and the rocky experience of being this boy's Pokémon throughout... all of the everything. There will of course be spoilers for the S/V DLC in this story, and if you aren't familiar with the DLC then I can't promise Kieran's character progression as shown here will be fully followable from this outside perspective - but then again, the outside perspective is the point, so take it as you will.

This was originally planned to be a one-shot, but as I am terrible at keeping things one-shot length, it's now a three-shot.

Content warnings: Nothing much beyond the kind of toxic behaviours you'd expect from a story about Kieran's arc.



-- part 1: teal --

You emerge from your Poké Ball in your usual spot by the open window, stretching out your eye-stalks to catch the last rays of the evening sun. A breeze blows through the opening, bringing with it the familiar scent of the apple orchard you used to call home, until you met Kieran.

Your human friend yawns and flops back onto his bed. “It sure feels weird to be home after bein’ at the Academy for so long,” he mumbles.

Kieran mentioned this trip wouldn’t be a long one – and you don’t expect to see much outside of his room while you’re here – but still, it’s nice to be back in Kitakami again.

The others are out of their balls too, Yanma buzzing excitedly around in the enclosed space, the Poliwag siblings squabbling on the floor, Sentret using his tail to hop up and join Kieran on the bed. They might get to have some battles here, against wild Pokémon if nothing else. But you’re just a weak little Applin, barely able to do anything but hide yourself away.

And yet despite that, Kieran chose you to be one of his friends.

All of a sudden, he sits back up, his eyes lighting up with that familiar twinkle. Human eyes are tricky to read with the way they barely move, but you’ve learned to spot this from him if nothing else. “But hey, guess what?! Me and Sis already met one of the trainers from Paldea, and man, she was somethin’ else! She swept the floor with Sis’s Pokémon without even breakin’ a sweat – like, wowzers! You don’t meet a trainer like that every day…”

He sighs and gazes out the window, just past where you’re perched. “Man, wouldn’t it be awesome if… if I got to battle her too, sometime durin’ this trip?” His face falls for a moment. “I-I mean… there’s no way I’d win… and, y’know, she probably wouldn’t even wanna waste her time on someone like me, but, still… Well, it sure would be cool, huh, Applin?”

You start, almost shrinking into your apple at suddenly being addressed. It’s not like he’d use you against this trainer – like he said, wouldn’t want to waste her time. But with that small smile on his face, the thing humans do to show their happiness, you can’t help but chitter out a “Y-Yeah!” of agreement nonetheless, even if he doesn’t understand your words.

It’s been getting rarer and rarer to see Kieran smile lately. If he wants this, if this makes him happy, that’s what counts.

You just wish there was something you could do to help him with that.

~~~​

As you listen hopefully through your Poké Ball the next day, it sounds like Kieran gets his wish, far sooner than you’d imagined. He excitedly confirms this to you during lunch out in the fields, then packs up the picnic quicker than usual and gets back to what seems to be more battles. There’s a lot of those today, most of them against wild Pokémon. Perhaps the match against that trainer, Ju-something, helped Kieran remember how much he enjoys battling.

He won’t send you out for any of it, of course. But at least he got what he wanted, and it seems to have cheered him up a little. That’s enough for you. Satisfied, you imagine curling up inside your apple, the best you can do without a physical form, and lose yourself in the Poké Ball’s dreamlike haze.

The next thing you know, you’re barely done materialising into Kieran’s room before he breaks into an excited stream of chatter. “You guys! Oh, man, today was like the best day ever! We got to battle Juliana – twice! – an’ I even told her all about how much I like the ogre and took her to see its den, an’ she didn’t even get mad at me! And then – and then! – she said that we’re friends! I mean, wowzers! Friends with someone as cool as her! I can’t believe it!”

Blinking in the artificial light of the room, you scramble to keep up. The whole group’s here and some of them look different, but more importantly than any of that, Kieran is smiling, the biggest smile you’ve seen on him in… perhaps forever.

“Friend? You made a friend! A human friend!” Sentret – no, Furret – exclaims in delight, his new longer body twisting this way and that around Kieran’s legs.

A human friend…? Kieran’s never had one of those before, never even really talked about wanting one. But you’re pretty sure humans usually have friends among their own kind, and the smile on his face certainly tells you this is a good thing. His eyes are practically sparkling.

Overhead, Yanma’s zipping around even faster than usual. “You’re happy! You’re happy! I’ve never seen you so happy!”

Kieran glances at both of them and chuckles. “Then we went to the Festival of Masks together,” he goes on, “me an’ her an’ Sis, and it was a lotta fun! Well, mostly…” His beaming grin falters for a moment, and his next words come out mumbled. “Sis and Juliana were acting kinda weird near the end, like they were makin’ fun of me… I-It’s probably nothin’, though…”

Your tail twitches at that, but then Kieran shakes his head and puts his smile back in place, turning to face you. “A-Anyway, look, Applin! We got a little stronger, too – Sentret and Big Sis Poliwag evolved! Isn’t that awesome?”

Furret proudly stretches himself out to his full height, while beside him, the now-Poliwhirl flexes one of her new arms. “Knew we could do it if we tried,” she says.

Her little brother, still a Poliwag, peers up at her, his eyes shining.

“And Yanma’s been workin’ really hard as well,” Kieran adds as the bug Pokémon lands on his head. “Seeing Juliana made me really wanna try, y’know? So, um, at the festival…” He rummages through his bag and pulls something out to show you. “I finally went an’ did it! I bought a Syrupy Apple, so you can evolve too!”

Your eye-stalks stand straight up in amazement, staring at the glistening fruit before you. He’d mentioned this once or twice, a special apple from the festival that lets an Applin evolve, but you’d never thought – you never dreamed—

Kieran holds out his free hand towards your perch on the window ledge. “How about it, Applin? Do you wanna get stronger with me?”

You’ve never wanted anything more.

You roll onto his hand and fix him with a determined gaze. “Of course!”

“All right!” You don’t need to be able to read Kieran’s expression to know that he’s matching your determination. “You got this, Applin!”

With a burst of courage, you launch yourself out of the apple that’s the only home you’ve ever known, and burrow into the new one. A blinding surge of power overwhelms you, along with a spark of eager curiosity. You’ve never seen this ‘Dipplin’ for yourself – what kinds of changes might be in store for you? A different shape, like Furret? Or perhaps new limbs, like Poliwhirl?

As the rush of power fades, you take in the room, towering over you. You’ve shrunk? No, you’ve just dropped to the floor. You are bigger, but not by much – even Poliwag’s still taller than you. Other than a new antenna, your body hardly feels different. Your tail isn’t even long enough to poke out of this larger apple.

“Wowzers! Way to go, Dipplin!”

But none of that matters, because Kieran is thrilled, kneeling down to your level with a huge grin. Perhaps it’s that he can tell you’re stronger now, despite your size. You can feel it, too: the sweet, sticky goodness of your new apple filling you with power like you’ve never known.

And there’s something else new, something your tail keeps bumping up against, shifting within the core of this apple. No… someone else? Another wyrm, just like you. Where did they come from?

“Ah, hehe… you’re all sticky! Guess I won’t be pickin’ you up as much any more, huh?”

You barely noticed Kieran try to touch your apple, too preoccupied with probing at this new creature who’s inexplicably here with you. But you don’t want to let on to Kieran that anything’s wrong, so you hide your alarm and hiss at the newcomer, “Who are you?” For once, you’re glad Kieran can’t understand you.

“…Who are you?” the new wyrm responds.

“But man, I can’t wait to start trainin’ you tomorrow!” Kieran goes on, oblivious. “I bet you can learn all sorts of cool moves now! Maybe you can even go up against Juliana!”

“Juliana…” mutters the new wyrm. “Didn’t he say… she was making fun of him earlier?”

“Why would you bring that up?!” you splutter. “Besides, it’s fine! Kieran said it was nothing, so it’s nothing.” Who does this wyrm think they are, barging into your apple and being a downer in what ought to be the greatest moment of your life?

“Kieran’s happy,” you insist, keeping your gaze on that beaming smile on his face. “He’s happier than I’ve ever seen. That’s what counts.”

“I know,” the other wyrm says quietly. “I wish I could see him.”

It strikes you only now that, down there in the apple’s core, they can’t see a thing.

…Which is fine, because you’re the one who’s Kieran’s friend. More than that, he’s your trainer now. You’re strong enough to battle for him, at long last.

For the first time in your life, there’s something you can do to help keep him smiling.

~~~​

When you see Kieran again the next day, his smile is gone.

At the foot of the hill that used to be home, you, Poliwhirl, Yanma and Furret peer up at your trainer as he stands there before you, his gaze on the ground. You’re scanning Kieran’s face to try and figure out what’s wrong, but all you can tell through that hair of his is that yesterday’s smile is nowhere to be seen. He’s chewing on one of the tips of his hands, his other arm tapping repeatedly against his side. The other team members mumble in confusion.

“I only hear three others,” mutters your core-wyrm. “Is Lil’ Bro Poliwag not getting trained?”

“It’s fine,” you mutter back.

“Um, l-listen up, everyone,” Kieran says, still staring at a spot on the ground rather than at any of you. “I’m… I’m gonna battle Juliana again today, and I wanna win this time. So I… I have to get stronger. I’m countin’ on you guys to give it your all.”

At last, his gaze shifts, meeting your eyes. “Dipplin, you got a lotta new moves to practice. I wanna see what you can really do now, alright?”

“Right!” you agree, more than ready to give it your all for him. You finally can.

He turns to the next in line. “Poliwhirl, I got you a Water Stone. I know it’s kinda soon after your last evolution, but the stronger you get, the better, y’know?”

Poliwhirl nods eagerly. “No complaints here.”

“Yanma, we gotta work on pickin’ up Ancient Power so you can evolve, too.” Yanma trills her agreement amidst a loop-the-loop. “And Furret…” Kieran hesitates. “Just… just keep doin’ your best, okay?”

Furret cocks one ear to the side. “Of course I will!”

“What was that?” pipes up your core-wyrm. “Why did he pause after Furret? He doesn’t think…?”

“Be quiet,” you hiss, poking them with your tail.

“Something’s wrong,” they insist. “He’s not happy today, is he? I can hear it. Was it that Ju-lee human? He did say she was ma—”

“Shut up!” you snap. They shouldn’t be going on about that. Not on the day you finally join Kieran’s Pokémon team for real. “And anyway, if he’s not happy, its our job to fix that.”

…You said ‘our’ without thinking, but you meant you and the rest of Kieran’s Pokémon. Not you and this interloper. You can’t imagine they’d be any help, when all they’ve done since they showed up is complain.

After watching Poliwhirl evolve – at which the core-wyrm frustratingly points out that Kieran sounds much less excited about an evolution than he did yesterday – you begin your training.

You’ve got real power now, so much greater than the pathetic little Astonish that was all you could muster before. Kieran guides you in practicing your new moves against wild Pokémon: flinging your syrup to damage and slow opponents, charging up orbs and pulses of grass and draconic energy. And… Double Hit, which needs the core-wyrm to strike with their tail for the second blow. As you stew on this fact, it becomes impossible not to notice that they’re contributing power to your other moves as well. It’s frustrating that you need the help of someone like them.

Then it’s time at last for your first real battle for Kieran, against that Juliana human. He said he wants to win this – and if you do your part in that for him, surely, it’ll put things right.

For all of Kieran’s talking her up, this trainer just looks like an ordinary young human, and her Pokémon, four little white mice fighting together as a single unit, doesn’t even seem that threatening. You’re a lot stronger than you used to be. You can do this.

“You got this, Dipplin! Get ‘em all covered in syrup!”

“Maushold, Play Rough!”

“Huh…?!” You try to ignore Kieran’s cry of dismay and focus on building up a sticky glob of syrup. The mice are already on top of you, the larger pair working in tandem to smack you and your apple with a whimsical energy that cuts to your core. Reeling from the unexpectedly harsh pain, you manage to cough the syrup over them, yet it hardly seems to faze them.

“Ack, I shoulda thought things through!” Kieran moans. “It… it wasn’t supposed to go like this… D-Dipplin, try to—”

Even drenched in sticky syrup, those mice are far too fast. Before Kieran can muster a command, before the core-wyrm can inch you away with their tail, the Maushold closes in again, and it’s too much for you to bear.

~~~​

You come to sometime later in the haze of your Poké Ball. Though you’d quite like to have it all to yourself, unfortunately you can feel the core-wyrm’s presence in there with you.

“We lost,” they mutter.

Just great – you can hear their voice in here, too? And you thought they couldn’t get any more frustrating. “I’d noticed.”

“Kieran must have lost the whole battle,” they go on, ignoring your irritation. “If he’d won, he’d have told us by now. He really wanted to win… and yet…”

And yet you failed him. Another thing you didn’t need them pointing out for you. Your first chance to actually make a difference for your trainer, and you were still no good at all.

You shift your attention to the outside world, trying to pick up on whatever might be going on out there. There’s nothing but silence for a long while, but you keep listening intently anyway. Anything to avoid having to put up with the core-wyrm’s blather.

Then, out of nowhere, there’s the distant sound of an angry grunt, followed by a series of smaller, choked noises that claw at your heart. You know what this is; you’ve heard it far too many times before. But today of all days…

“He’s crying,” says the core-wyrm, as if you somehow hadn’t noticed. The last thing you need is them going on about this, too. “He sounds really upset… worse than usual…”

“And what of it?” You wince internally at sounding so dismissive of Kieran’s pain, but you just want them to stop talking.

“Something must have happened,” they go on. “He was so happy yesterday. He can’t have gone from that to this out of nowhere. It has to be because of that Julee human – that’s why he wanted to beat her today. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Does it?” you counter, still trying to get them to shut up. “She’s his friend. Friends have battles all the time, don’t they? She’s the reason he was so happy before!”

“Exactly. If something happened to make him think she wasn’t his friend… He worried that she was making fun of him, remember?”

With how they’d kept bringing it up, you could hardly forget. “But he said that she called him a friend,” you insist. “He said so. Are you doubting him? Do you think he was—”

“No!” they say. “Of course not. But…” They pause. “…Maybe he doubted her?”

Indignation squirms within you, and you wish you had your physical form so you could smack them with your tail, hard. It’s not even that they’ve got the audacity to blame Kieran’s first ever human friend – they think this is somehow Kieran’s fault?

“Maybe you’re the problem,” you snap out. “Think about it: it only got bad once you appeared and started complaining about every little thing. I bet things would be going way better if you weren’t here.”

They take a moment to respond. “If I weren’t here, you wouldn’t be strong enough to battle for Kieran.”

That stings worse than that Maushold’s attacks.

“What is with you?!” you exclaim. “You’ve been nothing but a huge frustration ever since you showed up! You know, since you’re gonna have to stick around, I might as well call you something, and that sounds about right for you: Frustration.”

Even in this formless world, you can sense them flinch at that.

“I’m… I’m not…” they mumble, their voice trailing off, as if they can’t deny it.

There’s a minute or so of sweet, victorious silence. But then they speak up again, quiet and thoughtful. “Candour. That’s my name. That’s who I am.”

Candour…? Like all they’re doing is telling the truth? And they even have to make it sound all high and mighty of them, as if any of that helps even a little bit.

“No, you’re Frustration, alright,” you insist. “And I’m Loyalty. I’m the one who’s doing everything I can for Kieran. I’ll always be on his side. Unlike somebody.”

“You’re…? That’s…” They hesitate, and you can almost feel them sigh and curl in on themself in defeat. “…If you say so.”

Outside, you can no longer hear Kieran crying.

~~~​

“I can’t hear Furret. He’s not here today, is he?”

The next day begins much like the previous one, with Kieran urging you into even more training. The only real difference would have been that he didn’t mention wanting to battle Juliana this time… only Frustration just had to comment on the other thing, too.

But none of their quibbles matter, not when you’ve got to give your all for Kieran. Whatever the problem actually is, it’s up to you as his Pokémon to put things right. If he wants you to train and get stronger, that’s what you’ll do.

In amongst all the battling practice, you help Kieran add a Cramorant and a Gligar to his team. The lunch break, even aside from Frustration insisting you confirm that Furret and Lil’ Bro Poliwag aren’t around, feels odd with the two newcomers in the group – but they’re here on the promise that Kieran would make them stronger. If they’ll use that strength to win for him in turn, you’ve got no reason to complain.

Yanma’s finally evolved, too, an encouraging sign that all this training is bearing fruit, even if it’s harder to notice that in yourself. You are getting stronger from this. You even manage to help Kieran win some battles against other trainers around Kitakami.

As for that special trainer, the one who called Kieran a friend… you don’t see her again that day. But the next morning, as you’re waiting for Kieran to begin training, you hear him say her name out of nowhere. It sounds like he’s talking to both her and his sister, something about the story of the ogre, his voice fervent and angry.

You know all about the ogre, of course. Kieran’s told you of it countless times: the strong, cool legendary Pokémon he’s always dreamed of meeting, perhaps even one day befriending.

“And you two did the same thing to me! You treated me like an outcast when you went an’ met with the ogre!”

They did…?! His sister and the other human just went and met the ogre… without bringing him? Didn’t they realise—

“You know how much I love the ogre! You acted like you didn’t know anything, but you were laughing at me behind my back all along!”

This is why. This is why. It was never Kieran’s fault; of course it wasn’t. It’s all because of this other human, this Juliana.

“Liar! You're a liar!”

Yes. She lied to him. She must have been lying when she called him a friend, if she’d turn around and treat him this way. No true friend would do something like this.

You feel Frustration stir within the ball, but they remain satisfyingly silent. Even they can’t deny, hearing this, that it isn’t Kieran’s fault.

Kieran’s demanding a battle with Juliana, which is exactly what you want, too. You squirm with frenzied impatience as you wait your turn, itching with the desire to fight on his behalf and show that human who’d dare treat your friend, your trainer, like this.

As you’re sent out, you’re so furious that you’re even ready to take on the huge black bull pawing at the ground before you, no matter how fierce it looks. But just as you’re about to ruin its blue-flecked mane with a good glob of syrup, it vanishes back into its ball, replaced by a new foe that towers even higher over you.

The Baxcalibur – a fellow dragon, you can tell – stands steadfast against the blast of your Syrup Bomb like it’s nothing. You suppress a shiver just looking up at the creature. This is true draconic power, mighty and indomitable, and you’re just—

“Icicle Crash!”

“O-Okay, Dipplin, use Dragon Pulse!” comes Kieran’s command.

—But you’re angry, and determined, determined to do everything you can for your trainer, so you reach into your apple for your own well of draconic energy. Yet, even covered in syrup, the huge hulking Baxcalibur manages to move before you (why are you still so slow?), summoning great pointed crystals above your head. They crash down with piercing, agonising cold, and just like that, your anger is smothered into icy oblivion.

~~~​

Not long after that loss, you hear more commotion outside the Poké Ball than usual. It sounds like Kieran’s sister and Juliana are actually letting him meet the ogre – Ogerpon, she’s called. That’s good, surely? You don’t know if this makes up for how they treated him before, but it has to mean something. This is a dream come true for Kieran. He should be happy.

(You want to tell yourself that your part in the last battle helped somehow with this turn of events. But you don’t need to voice the notion to know that Frustration would shoot it down in a heartbeat.)

At least there’s still more training. More chances for you to grow stronger and prove yourself, and finally actually make a difference for Kieran. Somehow.

“He’s met the ogre, like he always wanted,” you muse out loud during a Poké Ball break, weary from the exertion of training but still buzzing with an itch for more. “He even got to help her out a bit. He’s okay now, right? Everything should be fixed.”

It should. But if that’s the case, then…

“I’m not so sure,” Frustration pipes up, even though you weren’t talking to them. “I’m glad he got to meet her too, but… he’s still training too hard.”

“How is that a problem!?” you shoot back. “What’s wrong with training to get stronger?”

“Nothing, necessarily,” they admit. “But it doesn’t feel right. The way he talks and commands us – it sounds the same as before. Like nothing’s changed.” They pause. “…He’s still not smiling, is he?”

You’re struck silent. You want to deny it – you’re the only one who should know that for sure – but they’d just see right through your lie. They’re so frustrating like that.

“And if things were normal,” they go on, before you can find something else to say, “why isn’t Furret on the team any more? For Kieran to push one of his friends away like that… it’s not right. And he’s stopped hanging out with us in the evenings, outside of training. Nothing’s been fixed.”

Of course they have to keep harping on about Furret. “Well, Cramorant’s not here any more either,” you counter. “So it’s not about his friends. It’s just that… Furret and Cramorant weren’t strong enough.” Yes. That’s got to be it. “Kieran wants to get stronger, so he needs his team to be the best it can be. That’s all.”

Of course he does. That’s why he’s still catching new Pokémon, evolving them, strengthening his team.

(And what about you? You haven’t exactly been winning him battles since you evolved. Not the ones that matter, anyway.)

…But that’s what your training is for. Even if you can’t evolve again, you can still grow stronger, strong enough to make Kieran happy. You’re not like Furret, or Cramorant. You’ll never stop giving your all for him, your trainer, the one person in the world who saw something in you when you were nothing but a weak little Applin.

He can’t have been wrong to choose you. He can’t have been.

Frustration hasn’t tried to argue your words. Which means, knowing them… that they know you’re not wrong.

You throw yourself back into the training, but in between all the move practice and the battling, you feel as if you’re stewing in… something. You can’t call it ‘frustration’, because for once it doesn’t even have that much to do with them.

Then there’s a new development. Outside the Poké Ball, as you hear the humans saying goodbye to Ogerpon, it turns out Ogerpon wants to stay with Juliana. And Kieran speaks up, his voice fervent.

“…I… I wanna… I want Ogerpon to come with me!”

Of course. Why didn’t you realise it sooner? Just meeting the ogre was never Kieran’s only dream – even more than that, he’s always wished to befriend it. In other words, to add her to his Pokémon team. That’s what he really wanted. That’s why he still wasn’t satisfied.

“…Juliana! Please! Let me battle you! I want to see which one of us should get to keep Ogerpon with them!”

And that’s why he kept on training. If he can win this battle, prove his strength to Ogerpon, just like you helped him prove his strength to the other new Pokémon who’ve been joining his team… then he’ll have his wish.

This is it, finally: the opportunity you’ve been hoping for, to really make a difference for him.

“Whoever wins this gets to be Ogerpon’s partner… So don’t… don’t you dare hold back!”

You won’t. You never would have anyway, but especially not when this battle decides something so important. If Kieran wins and becomes Ogerpon’s partner, like he’s always dreamed of, he’ll be happy again. Everything will be fixed. And you’ll be the one to give him that.

“You heard him,” you mutter in a low voice to Frustration. They better not think about holding back either, ruining this chance for things to finally go right.

“…I won’t.”

As your turn comes to battle, you size up your opponent: that Maushold. The source of your first defeat – but you refuse to be intimidated. Even as all four mice smack into you over and over with frustratingly skilled teamwork, you duck inside your apple and weather the attack, building up draconic energy. Your Dragon Pulse strikes true, blasting your foe into unconsciousness, just as Kieran trusted it would.

A victory! At last.

There’s no time for praise or celebration, not when the battle isn’t over. The next Pokémon emerges with a huge flash of light and an uncomfortably familiar roar, and you shiver as you find yourself staring up at that Baxcalibur again. Already battered, with Frustration nibbling futilely on the small apple core Kieran gave you, you can feel your heart sinking.

But you won’t give in. Kieran needs you to win this, needs you to finally put things right, somehow. At his command, you face down the fiercer, stronger dragon, no matter the odds, and build the biggest Dragon Pulse you can muster. Even knowing that it’s hopeless, that it’ll never land in time (you’re far too slow), you’ll never stop giving it everything you have, for your trainer, for Kier—

—Until the ice crashes down upon you, rendering all your efforts a useless failure yet again.

~~~​

The next time you emerge from the Poké Ball, everything is different. You’re back in Kieran’s other room at the Blueberry place – but more than that, Kieran is different.

The way he stands and holds himself is taller, straighter. The clothes he’s living in have shifted, and the hair on his head that used to hang down is pulled up out of the way. You can make out his face a lot better like this. It’s even easier to see that he’s not smiling.

“Huh…?” mumbles Lil’ Bro Poliwag, who’s standing here beside you, peering up at him. “You look odd… Wh-Where’s everyone else…?”

“What’s with you guys?” comes the voice of the only other Pokémon in the room, an Impidimp. “You’re all as small as me! I know he had someone bigger when he caught me!”

On hearing this, Frustration pipes up. “They’re all gone, except us…? Even Poliwrath and Yan—”

“Listen up,” says Kieran, his sharp tone cutting through the chatter. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to defeat Juliana, one day. And to do that, I need to get much, much stronger. She’s not here right now, so there’s plenty of time. However long it takes.”

“That’s strange,” Frustration comments. “He… sounds different. It’s still him, I can tell, but his voice… How is he doing that?”

“What does it matter what his voice sounds like?” you hiss back.

You were afraid that Kieran would be upset about your failure with the ogre, but… somehow it feels like that’s already long in the past.

“We’ll start with the BB League,” he continues. “The trainers there are no pushovers. They’ll be good training. Once we reach the top, we’ll be closer to Juliana’s level. Then… we keep climbing.”

You’re only now noticing that Kieran has extra stripes of hair above each eye, both of which are slanting downwards in the middle. You’re not sure what this means, but it doesn’t seem like a good thing. If nothing else, that sparkle that you could always recognise in his eyes, especially when he used to talk about battling – it’s nowhere to be seen.

“So I don’t need anyone on my team who isn’t going to give it everything they have,” Kieran finishes, staring down at the three of you. “Got it?”

Impidimp glances between you and Poliwag. “I don’t really get any of this,” he says, “but… he’ll make me stronger, right? That’s what I signed up for.”

“He will,” you assure him. “Trust me.”

He squints at you – if only you weren’t as small as him, he might be more convinced – but then he looks up at Kieran and nods. “Well, if you say so, I’m in.”

“Good.” Kieran returns the nod and recalls Impidimp. “Don’t disappoint me.”

Frustration fidgets with a “Hm?” in response to those words. You poke them irritably at their need to react to that at all. Don’t disappoint me. Of course you won’t. You can’t afford to.

“Poliwag. I was too hasty with your sister.” Kieran’s moved on to him. “Poliwrath looks strong at a glance, but Politoed’s ability has the real potential. You’re gonna be a Politoed, and you’re gonna be even stronger than her.”

“Uh… sure!” says Poliwag, not sounding sure at all. He glances at you, as if for reassurance, then back up at your trainer. “I… I wanna try getting stronger, too!”

“Alright.” Kieran recalls Poliwag as well. “Give it your all.”

He turns to you. “As for you… I looked up some stuff, and I’m pretty sure Dipplin can evolve again.”

Your antenna shoots straight up in surprise. Again? It’s still possible for you to grow into something else? Something bigger, and stronger, and more than just what you are right now…

“Haven’t figured out how yet,” Kieran admits, “but we’ll get there. And you’ll become stronger than you ever imagined you could.”

As you marvel over the possibility of it, Frustration’s dispirited muttering cuts through your thoughts. “…Because we can evolve. That’s the only reason we’re still here, and not—”

“Shut up!” you snap, slapping them with your tail. “We are here. That’s all that matters. And I’m going to keep it that way.”

(If you can evolve. Kieran didn’t sound certain.)

“I knew you’d be on board,” Kieran says, kneeling down to meet your eye. He pulls out a few small items, sticking one of them to the front of your apple. “This Eviolite’ll make you a little stronger until then. And I need you to sniff this mint, and eat this mochi. Trust me – they’ll help.”

You peer at the light blue sprig of leaves and the pale white lump he’s holding, then back up at him. The hair above his eyes is doing that inwards-slanty thing again.

“To get stronger, we need to change. Right, Dipplin? It’s time for a fresh start. For both of us.”

~~~​
 
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Dragonfree

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All of a sudden, he sits back up, his eyes lighting up with that familiar twinkle. Human eyes are tricky to read with the way they barely move, but you’ve learned to spot this from him if nothing else. “But hey, guess what?! Me and Sis already met one of the trainers from Paldea, and man, she was somethin’ else! She swept the floor with Sis’s Pokémon without even breakin’ a sweat – like, wowzers! You don’t meet a trainer like that every day…”
Looking forward to Applin eventually noticing the lack of that twinkle in his eye :copyka2:

The next thing you know, you’re barely done materialising into Kieran’s room before he breaks into an excited stream of chatter. “You guys! Oh, man, today was like the best day ever! We got to battle Juliana – twice! – an’ I even told her all about how much I like the ogre and took her to see its den, an’ she didn’t even get mad at me! And then – and then! – she said that we’re friends! I mean, wowzers! Friends with someone as cool as her! I can’t believe it!”
Oh, Kieran. This hurts knowing where it's going.

Kieran holds out his free hand towards your perch on the window ledge. “How about it, Applin? Do you wanna get stronger with me?”
Oh noooo :sadwott: Of course he puts it like that. Man.

“Ah, hehe… you’re all sticky! Guess I won’t be pickin’ you up as much any more, huh?”
Man, that's kind of symbolic of where Kieran's relationship with his Pokémon is headed, huh :copyka2:

“Juliana…” mutters the new wyrm. “Didn’t he say… she was making fun of him earlier?”

“Why would you bring that up?!” you splutter. “Besides, it’s fine! Kieran said it was nothing, so it’s nothing.” Who does this wyrm think they are, barging into your apple and being a downer in what ought to be the greatest moment of your life?

“Kieran’s happy,” you insist, keeping your gaze on that beaming smile on his face. “He’s happier than I’ve ever seen. That’s what counts.”

“I know,” the other wyrm says quietly. “I wish I could see him.”

It strikes you only now that, down there in the apple’s core, they can’t see a thing.

…Which is fine, because you’re the one who’s Kieran’s friend. More than that, he’s your trainer now. You’re strong enough to battle for him, at long last.
Ohoho. The other wyrm is sort of embodying their worries and negative thoughts, aren't they, while the head remains in denial. Nothing slightly unhealthy about this at all!

I'm guessing the other wyrm definitely literally split off from them and fully believes they're the one who was Kieran's friend, don't they.

“I only hear three others,” mutters your core-wyrm. “Is Lil’ Bro Poliwag not getting trained?”

“It’s fine,” you mutter back.
:copyka2:

“Yanma, we gotta work on pickin’ up Ancient Power so you can evolve, too.” Yanma trills her agreement amidst a loop-the-loop. “And Furret…” Kieran hesitates. “Just… just keep doin’ your best, okay?”

Furret cocks one ear to the side. “Of course I will!”
Oh boy. Furret's the only one unable to evolve for this battle, and already lost to Juliana last time.

“What was that?” pipes up your core-wyrm. “Why did he pause after Furret? He doesn’t think…?”

“Be quiet,” you hiss, poking them with your tail.

“Something’s wrong,” they insist. “He’s not happy today, is he? I can hear it. Was it that Ju-lee human? He did say she was ma—”

“Shut up!” you snap. They shouldn’t be going on about that. Not on the day you finally join Kieran’s Pokémon team for real. “And anyway, if he’s not happy, its our job to fix that.”

…You said ‘our’ without thinking, but you meant you and the rest of Kieran’s Pokémon. Not you and this interloper. You can’t imagine they’d be any help, when all they’ve done since they showed up is complain.
Oof. The most literal compartmentalizing! All those doubts and worries just go into the apple core! Everything is fine!

With how they’d kept bringing it up, you could hardly forget. “But he said that she called him a friend,” you insist. “He said so. Are you doubting him? Do you think he was—”

“No!” they say. “Of course not. But…” They pause. “…Maybe he doubted her?”

Indignation squirms within you, and you wish you had your physical form so you could smack them with your tail, hard. It’s not even that they’ve got the audacity to blame Kieran’s first ever human friend – they think this is somehow Kieran’s fault?

“Maybe you’re the problem,” you snap out. “Think about it: it only got bad once you appeared and started complaining about every little thing. I bet things would be going way better if you weren’t here.”
Oh boyyyy. Twisting this all around into "They think this is somehow Kieran's fault" sure is something.

“No, you’re Frustration, alright,” you insist. “And I’m Loyalty. I’m the one who’s doing everything I can for Kieran. I’ll always be on his side. Unlike somebody.”

“You’re…? That’s…” They hesitate, and you can almost feel them sigh and curl in on themself in defeat. “…If you say so.”
Ahahahah. I can see where this is going with the title - Loyalty is going to be the one who always does Fickle Beam, determined to be always on his side, and the others are a lot more reluctant to join in.

But none of their quibbles matter, not when you’ve got to give your all for Kieran. Whatever the problem actually is, it’s up to you as his Pokémon to put things right. If he wants you to train and get stronger, that’s what you’ll do.
Because everything will be fine if they just do whatever Kieran says, right? :copyka2:

(And what about you? You haven’t exactly been winning him battles since you evolved. Not the ones that matter, anyway.)

…But that’s what your training is for. Even if you can’t evolve again, you can still grow stronger, strong enough to make Kieran happy. You’re not like Furret, or Cramorant. You’ll never stop giving your all for him, your trainer, the one person in the world who saw something in you when you were nothing but a weak little Applin.

He can’t have been wrong to choose you. He can’t have been.
Noooo :sadwott:

The way he stands and holds himself is taller, straighter. The clothes he’s living in have shifted, and the hair on his head that used to hang down is pulled up out of the way. You can make out his face a lot better like this. It’s even easier to see that he’s not smiling.
I enjoy that they'd refer to his clothes as the ones he's living in - their own closest analogue being their apple, after all.

You’re only now noticing that Kieran has extra stripes of hair above each eye, both of which are slanting downwards in the middle. You’re not sure what this means, but it doesn’t seem like a good thing. If nothing else, that sparkle that you could always recognise in his eyes, especially when he used to talk about battling – it’s nowhere to be seen.
And there it is. Oooooff.

“I knew you’d be on board,” Kieran says, kneeling down to meet your eye. He pulls out a few small items, sticking one of them to the front of your apple. “This Eviolite’ll make you a little stronger until then. And I need you to sniff this mint, and eat this mochi. Trust me – they’ll help.”

You peer at the light blue sprig of leaves and the pale white lump he’s holding, then back up at him. The hair above his eyes is doing that inwards-slanty thing again.

“To get stronger, we need to change. Right, Dipplin? It’s time for a fresh start. For both of us.”
Love the symbolism of how he needs to change Dipplin's nature, just like he needed to change his own.

Oof, I can already tell this is going to be such a painful ride. Loyalty's just obsessed with doing whatever will make Kieran happy, with the misguided notion that whatever Kieran says he wants is what will make him happy. Candour can see it and be silently alarmed, but Loyalty remains in abject denial, feeling useless and desperate to prove themself, sort of similarly to Kieran himself, really.

The brief battle snippets are very effective here, I think; usually one-hit KOs are pretty anticlimactic in a fanfic battle, but that's the point here, and it really drives home this sense that they're completely outmatched. Every time, Juliana just pulls out something exploiting Dipplin's weaknesses and is far too fast for them and again and again they're helplessly crushed - it really sells how impossible it seems to beat her, which also helps sell Kieran's arc.

And, yeah, poor Kieran in the background, going through his painful negative spiral of a character arc. His initial excitement about Juliana, and about battling, transforming into this grotesque obsession, is perhaps even more painful to watch here than in the game, from the point of view of his Pokémon partners who are seeing him mutate from their excited, bright-eyed friend to someone increasingly only preoccupied with whether they can get stronger. Loyalty just completely can't deal with what's really happening here at all.

I'll be interested to see how you tackle Indigo Disk. The evolution into Hydrapple will be relatively early, I imagine, now that Kieran's determined to make it happen - the use of the second wyrm here was a lot of fun, as these compartmentalized worries while Loyalty stays in denial, so I wonder if the Hydrapple evolution will effectively embody even more cognitive dissonance as even more distinct concerns split off. Loyalty's arc is also paralleling Kieran's own a bit as they, too, become more obsessed with strength after being repeatedly beaten and increasingly selfish in the process, so I figure that'll probably continue, which promises to continue to be tasty.

All in all, definitely doing a lovely job of making the journey of these poor worms alongside their trainer interesting and harrowing! Looking forward to the other two parts.
 
part 2: blueberry

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-- part 2: blueberry --

There’s even more changes as you begin your training in the segmented landscape of the Blueberry place. For the first couple of days, Kieran has you battling a seemingly endless stream of wild Pokémon, all of a very few specific species, even though most of them are beaten far too easily for you to be gaining much strength from this. It doesn’t make any sense to you, but you trust Kieran to know what he’s doing.

“You’re always going to be slow,” he tells you as you begin this. “So why waste effort dealing with that? Better to train your other skills and work around that weakness, so it doesn’t hold you back any more.”

And he’s right. If anything, by the time you’re battling real opponents again, you’re even slower than you used to be. But that doesn’t matter, not when you can endure more hits and hit back harder than you ever could before. It feels freeing, to no longer be hindered by your old problem – and to not have to rely nearly so much on Frustration, whose main job was using their tail for mobility. Kieran even replaces that annoying Double Hit with a move that apparently gets stronger the slower you are, as incredible as that is. The less you need Frustration’s help in battle, the better.

It's only a few days later that Kieran mentions he’s been looking more into how you can evolve. “It said something about ‘the cheering of dragons’,” he tells you. “Then I remembered how some Pokémon evolve when they know a certain move, like—” His voice cuts out abruptly. “…Well, like some Pokémon. And there’s this move called Dragon Cheer. Drayton uses it. He’ll give the TM to someone who can beat him.”

You’ve heard about this Drayton human before: the strongest trainer in this place. A trainer of dragons. Kieran even used to rave about specific Pokémon of his and how strong and cool they are – his Dragonite, his Archaludon. Dragons far bigger and mightier than you.

“When we defeat Drayton – when we become Champion – that’s when you’ll evolve.”

Defeating him? As just you, just as you are, nothing but a little Dipplin – it almost seems—

But there’s no option but to do it. Whatever it takes. Whatever Kieran needs of you. He said ‘when’, not ‘if’ – he believes you can beat this Drayton one day. So you can’t let him down.

“Because we can evolve. That’s the only reason we’re still here.”

“We will evolve,” you murmur, to drown out the memory of Frustration’s words from before. “No matter what.”

“If it works,” muses Frustration here and now. For once, they don’t even sound like they’re being contrary, just… thoughtful. “This Dragon Cheer move – it sounds like he’s just guessing.”

“There you go, doubting him again,” you snap back. “I believe in Kieran, even if you don’t. I’m going to evolve, just like he wants.”

If only evolving would mean you’d be rid of them.

Something else you’ve learned is that it’s actually possible to work together with someone who doesn’t complain at every juncture. Kieran has you fighting alongside other members of the team, practicing for double battles. You’d still rather rely on nobody but yourself, but at least it’s significantly better than being stuck with just Frustration all the time.

Politoed and Grimmsnarl – who didn’t take long to reach their final forms, unlike you – aren’t the only partners you practice with, not once Kieran begins cultivating his new team. His standards are high: only Pokémon willing to truly dedicate themselves to his training regime are deemed good enough to join, and some are dropped again soon after. There was a Scraggy you’d begun to work with, until she abruptly wasn’t there any more.

(And of course Frustration has something to say about all of this, but you’re growing better and better at tuning them out.)

Then there’s Dratini, who just… shows up one day. You don’t remember Kieran catching her, but there she is, getting trained as if nothing were more natural.

“Another dragon,” you hiss to Frustration soon after she appears. “Why does he need another dragon?”

“Dragons are strong,” they respond evenly. “Especially those like Dragonite, apparently.”

Of course they had to go and remind you that Dratini evolves into Dragonite. Just like that one Kieran was so in awe of.

“But I’m already strong!” you insist. “Are you saying he thinks a Dragonite would be better than us? Than me?!”

“I don’t know,” they say, sighing. “Perhaps.”

Somehow, it sounds like they wouldn’t even care either way. That’s the most infuriating thing of all.

Before long, Dratini is indeed a huge great Dragonite, and you’re still just a little Dipplin. It isn’t fair, not when you’ve been with Kieran the longest out of anyone here.

He almost never sends you and Dragonite out to battle together, which you can’t help but be glad about. It sounds like she gets paired most often with Politoed, who even seems to get along with her, somehow.

“She’s nice,” Politoed mumbles when you ask him one lunchtime why he’s suddenly so chummy with Dragonite. “It’s a nice change from… I-I mean, I don’t wanna be rude, but… you’ve been kinda scary lately. A bit like… N-Never mind.”

He buries his face in his food bowl to hide from the scowl you make at that, because you know exactly what he was about to say. A bit like Kieran.

Kieran’s not scary, and neither are you. You’re both just… determined. As you need to be.

Soon enough, Kieran deems the team ready, and you begin taking on other trainers. Battle after battle, all for Kieran’s sake, to show the other humans in this place just how strong he is. He doesn’t lose a single match. Even though you faint sometimes, he always wins in the end – you’re sure of it. You’d know if he didn’t.

And you are determined to give this your all, no matter the hardships. Kieran spends more and more time training in the one segment of the Blueberry place that’s horribly, blisteringly cold. The frost pierces through your apple and chills you to the bone just from being out in it. You almost didn’t believe Kieran when he told you this is where the dragon trainer resides. But then it hit you: if a dragon could learn to get used to this, how much stronger would they be? And you still can’t forget the way Juliana’s Baxcalibur overwhelmed you with its chilling command of ice.

So you put up with the cold, however tough it is. Frustration grumbles about it from time to time, despite having much less reason to down there in the apple’s core. But Kieran isn’t living in anything warmer than usual here either, yet he’s not complaining. So neither do you.

No matter how much it bites and gnaws at you, it’s necessary. You need to go through this frozen hell, to learn to endure this suffering, in order to become strong enough.

(And surely you must be bearing this more stoically than Dragonite. Maybe this, at least, is one thing you can impress Kieran with more than she would.)

There’s no moon and no seasons in the Blueberry place, so the days blur into each other with no way to tell the passage of time. Nothing but endless training, battling and winning. Just like Kieran wants of you. However long it takes.

“He wins all the time now,” Frustration says one evening, “but he’s still not happy.”

You want to think of this as them moaning, like usual, but their voice barely even has any emotion in it. It hasn’t for a while.

“Because those trainers aren’t Juliana,” you explain, trying not to lose your patience. “She’s what this is all for. He’s told us that enough times, hasn’t he? It’ll all be worth it once he beats her.”

You sense them stir, like they want to respond to that… but they don’t. They must realise you’re right. They’ve been realising that a lot more lately.

Even with all these wins, Juliana’s still such a distant goal. But it’s getting closer, bit by bit. And your evolution is even closer still.

“Top ten at last,” Kieran announces one day after another hard-earned win. “I’ve finally got my Tera Orb. That means one of you can Terastallise.”

The ‘one of you’ part sticks to your attention and doesn’t let go. You squirm in your spot down at the end of the team line-up, watching Incineroar idly flex his muscles. Everyone else is so much more imposing. Even Porygon-Z is over twice your size.

Kieran’s pointing his human device at Dragonite. “Normal, huh? That could work with Extreme Speed, but… let’s see…” He moves on down the line, having to lower the device when he reaches you. “Wait, Fighting? I could’ve sworn you were…” He trails off. “Doesn’t matter. Yeah, Fighting works. Covers some weaknesses. Won’t be seen coming. Alright, you’re up, Dipplin.”

You can hardly believe it. This new power, this new special boost that only one of his Pokémon can use – he almost gave it to Dragonite, but then he chose you.

As the crystals surround you, filling you with energy, you feel a shift within your very being. More than ever before, you’re at one with the endless drive to train and grow stronger, to test your strength and prove yourself. Not just for Kieran’s sake, but simply because it’s a part of you. The natural thing to do.

Emboldened by this new power, you take on the last few battles with renewed vigour, blasting your way through the competition. At last, you make it to the long-awaited battle against Drayton, the dragon trainer, the strongest in this place – but you refuse to be intimidated. Within your Terastal cocoon, the attacks of the rival dragons don’t faze you. Even the cold of the battlefield doesn’t cut through you like it always used to. All that effort spent fighting to endure the chill has finally paid off.

It's a close-fought battle, coming down to just you and that huge gleaming Archaludon – but thanks to Kieran’s training, you weather its hits, hit back even harder, and it finally goes down. The crystals fade from your body as you let out a roar of triumphant delight. You proved yourself, tiny little Dipplin that you are, as mightier than any of Drayton’s dragons.

(…Well, than some of them. Obviously the rest of Kieran’s team took down the first few. But you were the one left standing at the end, and that has to mean something. It has to.)

And your reward: to be able to evolve, and gain true might at last.

As you re-emerge elsewhere in the snowy landscape, Kieran sprays you down with a potion, then holds out the new TM towards you. “Once you learn this, just a few more battles and you should evolve,” he says. “You ready?”

“Of course!” you answer. You’ve never been more ready.

(If it works. If he was right about this.)

“…Really?” groans Frustration. “Here, of all places? We don’t even get to rest?”

Despite the potion healing your wounds, it’s true that your body’s still weary after your efforts in battle not long ago. And you can’t deny that, without Terastallisation, the cold’s biting at you like always.

But none of that matters, not now of all times. “For the last time, enough complaining,” you tell them with an irritated poke. “Don’t you want us to evolve?”

You feel them squirm, enough to draw your attention away from the TM in front of you. There’s a long, heavy pause before they respond.

“I… I don’t know.”

You can’t believe they just said that. Are they okay with you staying like this forever? Do they seriously want to blow your one chance of ever being truly good enough for Kieran?

“Dipplin…?” Kieran probes, withdrawing the TM just a fraction.

In an instant, you press your forehead to the disc and focus on its energy. You can’t let him think you’re hesitating – that you might not be willing to give everything you have for him. Frustration’s opinion doesn’t matter; they aren’t the one in charge.

“Well, then,” you hiss to them as you retract your head, feeling the new move solidify itself in your mind. “It’s a good thing you don’t get a choice.”

“Alright,” says Kieran, the moment of hesitation hopefully forgotten. “Let’s replace Dragon Pulse for now and try this out, make sure you’ve got the hang of it.”

Closing your eyes, you concentrate on shifting the energies inside you, just as you do each time you pick up a new move and let go of an old one. The new knowledge is right there – you focus on it, allow it to guide you… and you let out a primal, reverberating cry.

There’s no other Pokémon nearby, no target for it to latch onto, but—

“Ah—!”

Frustration stiffens beneath you, and you can practically feel them vibrate. An instant later, they let out their own cry, mirroring yours, and a vivid tingle shoots from the tip of your tail to the top of your antenna.

All at once, you’re overcome with a sense of fierce clarity. Of course you’ll evolve, all for Kieran’s sake, so that he’ll never ever think you’re not good enough, never cast you aside for someone better. It’s time to solidify your status as the mightiest of dragons, just like you deserve. There’s no point in letting anything hold you back.

“Huh,” Kieran says. You blink up at him, still a Dipplin (for now!), having almost forgotten he was there. “Guess Dragon Cheer works kind of weird when there’s no target. But it looks like you’ve got the move down. That’s all we need. Time to train.”

And train you do, still buzzing with that overwhelming drive. Even Frustration actually seems into it for once, more alive than you’ve felt them be in a long time. You take down the strongest wild Pokémon Kieran can find, never mind the cold, or your exhaustion, pushing yourself harder than ever, whatever it takes to tip the balance over the edge—

—There! The burst of power envelops you just like it did once before, surging into you, changing you. You feel yourself grow – actually, truly grow, longer and taller, up and up until you could practically touch the sky.

Then the power fades, and you let out a roar of sheer delight that echoes all around you.

“Hydrapple!” Kieran exclaims. “Wowzers—” He breaks off and clears his throat. “I – I mean… you’re… bigger than I expected.”

“…What was that? Did he just say that word again…?”

You look down at him – down! You’re taller than him now! – as he locks eyes with you and nods. “Good job. I knew you could do it.”

“Did he? Did he know that? Surely he must have thought…”

You can feel shifting beneath you, around you, along with muttering that sends a sinking feeling down your spine. It’s just like Frustration, but not them –unfamiliar voices, more of them.

“I can see him!” These words accompany something popping out of your apple beside you – a second syrpent’s head. “He looks… different. Really different.”

“He looks exhausted,” says another syrpent from behind you. “His eyes… like he hasn’t…”

“He’s not smiling…” Yet another one, on your other side, the familiarity of their complaint grating at you. “Shouldn’t he be happy for us evolving?”

“I can’t see him any more!” comes a voice from below you, more than a little anxious. “Evolving wasn’t supposed to be like this…”

“…He’s looked like this the whole time, hasn’t he?” And one more, rising up behind you on the other side. “And guess who never thought to mention that.”

You’re too disoriented to say anything yourself. Kieran takes a step back from you, wide eyes flitting between the various syrpents’ heads. “Huh…! There’s, uh… five of you now. That’s…”

“Not five… seven,” mumbles the voice from below. Now that you concentrate, you can feel their tail poking out of the apple like Frustration’s used to. Two of them, in fact.

“Is that too many for him?” frets the other tail syrpent. “Does he not want…?”

“Do we not matter to him…?”

“…Well, that’s good, right?” Kieran finishes, regaining his usual composure. “The more of you there are, the more powerful you’ll be in battle.”

At those words, all four syrpents around you falter and slink back inside the apple, leaving nothing but their closed eye-stalks showing. “And there he goes again,” mutters the last one behind you.

Kieran freezes for a moment, his expression shifting in a way you can’t read. Then it returns to normal. “A-Anyway,” he says, looking up at you, “let’s get back to training.”

“Already?” the other syrpent behind you mumbles. “It’s still freezing here.” The usual moaning is harder to tune out when it’s in a whole new voice.

The cold’s still gnawing at you, too – worse than before, with your long neck. There’d barely be room to draw it inside the apple now. Not that you would do that, not when Kieran’s expecting you to train.

“It says here you should be getting a new move,” he says, peering at his human device. “Fickle Beam – weird name, huh. Dragon-type, looks fairly… no, really powerful. Alright, let’s try it out on that rock over there.” He points, then adds, “You can go ahead and forget Dragon Cheer now. Won’t be using it anyway – not like I can rely on crits.”

Once again, you concentrate on the energy of a new move that’s coalescing inside you. This one reminds you of Dragon Pulse, but more focused, more… singular. As you build up the power, you feel something strange that you’ve never felt before. You’re the only one fuelling it. The other syrpents are inert, contributing nothing at all.

Nonetheless, you fire the beam right at the icy rock like your trainer instructed. The layer of ice fizzes into steam at the impact, leaving a satisfying scorch mark beneath. A good deal stronger than one of your Dragon Pulses, but… is that just because you’ve evolved?

“That didn’t feel like much…” mutters the leftmost tail syrpent.

“Is that it?” Kieran says. “I guess that’s fine, but… Hang on.” He goes back to staring intently at his device.

“No… was that not good enough for him?” frets the other tail. “If he thinks we’re not good enough, then…”

Of course Kieran won’t think that, you’re evolved now, but – they’re right. It could have been even better.

“What’s the deal?” you snap, directing your ire at the four syrpents surrounding you. “Why didn’t you all help with that? It’d have been way stronger if you’d joined in!”

That starts up a frenzy of uncertain muttering among them.

“Huh? But he’s…”

“I don’t know if I…”

“If he’s just going to…”

“Why should we?” The last voice, firm and cutting, comes from the syrpent behind and to your right. He raises his head just enough to stare at you, as if those words alone are all the argument he needs.

“What?!” you splutter. “What kind of question is that?! Of course we should give it our all for Kieran! He needs us to be at our strongest!”

The other syrpent isn’t deterred. “Is that so?”

Does he need us? What if…?” frets the right tail.

“I was no good…” the left tail mumbles. “I wanted to help… but…”

“I know,” you murmur. And somehow, you do – you’re sure that the those tail twins would have helped you out, if only they could have. As if to prove that they’re willing, unlike the others, they inch your apple forward, letting you peer over Kieran’s shoulder. Not that you can make any sense of the markings on his human device.

“…It’s luck-based? Seriously?” Kieran lets out a long, angry sigh. “Fine. Never mind that. We’ll just have to find a way around it.”

He turns to you, eye-to-eye. The hair above his eyes is slanting inwards. “Even if the whole world’s against us, we’ll make it there anyway. Our own way. Right, Hydrapple?”

You nod, fervently. By ‘Hydrapple’, you can tell he means you – only you, and not the others.

And you’re just fine with that.

~~~​

“I still can’t get over how different he looks. And not just that, but the way he moves, and talks, and acts… all of it.”

The day’s training finally comes to an end as the light begins to fade. The whole team’s out of their Poké Balls and awaiting dinner, thankfully just past the border into the warmest segment of the Blueberry place. But one of your apple-mates – specifically, the one on the left in front of you – seems to have taken this break as an opportunity to vent.

“It’s nothing like how he used to be,” he complains, staring over at Kieran where he’s preparing the food. “It’s like he’s a completely different person.”

You sigh. Frustration had grown blissfully quiet lately, but now you have to deal with this. “Different or not, what does it matter?”

“Because I liked how he was before!” the other syrpent protests, turning to face you. “…Didn’t you?”

Before you can manage a reply to that, the syrpent to the right emerges and pipes up, “I did, too!”

You glance between the two of them, dumbstruck. It’s not a familiar feeling, being outnumbered like this.

“It doesn’t matter what he looks like, or sounds like or whatever,” you insist, finding words. “He’s still Kieran.”

“But is he, though?” The left syrpent’s gaze shifts back to your trainer. “All of the things that made him Kieran… I can’t see any of them now. Remember how excited he used to get about battling?”

“Yeah!” agrees the right syrpent. “Or smiling from being around us… the old team from Kitakami, I mean…”

“That sparkle in his eyes… You know?”

Of course you know. The light in Kieran’s eyes that’s long gone, ever since… since you failed to help him win over the ogre. You know that far better than any of them.

“But it doesn’t ma—”

“Or that word he used to use whenever he was amazed,” the left syrpent goes on, ignoring you. “That no other human ever says, just him, like it’s his special word… He almost never uses it any more. And the worst part is, when he does, he acts like it was a mistake.”

He stares up at you, insistent. “Don’t you see? He’s not acting like himself. And he’s doing it on purpose. It’s not right.”

A flash of ire shoots down your spine at his words. This nonsense again. Like things are somehow Kieran’s fault.

“How dare you?” you snap out. “Who’re you to act like you know him better than I do?!”

The syrpent pauses for a moment at that, thoughtful. “I’m Sincerity,” he answers, fixing you with an even gaze. “And I know him just as well as any of us.”

“Ooh, that’s a nice name!” says the right serpent, peering at him with interest. “I suppose we should all come up with names, shouldn’t we, to make it less confusing? Hmm…”

She falls silent, lost in thought. …She? You’re not sure how you know she’s a she, but you can sense it somehow – in the same way, it occurs to you only now, that you never questioned Frustration being a they.

As she ponders, Politoed hops hesitantly towards you, stopping a short distance away. “Um, sorry, I… couldn’t help but hear what you were saying,” he mumbles, “and I – I just wanted to say… I miss the old Kieran, too.”

You huff. As if being outnumbered by your own apple-mates wasn’t enough, even he’s on their side.

“Right?” Sincerity agrees. “It feels good to say it, doesn’t it?” The other syrpent is watching Politoed as well, her expression open and welcoming.

Politoed nods. “I just wish… he hadn’t changed so much.”

“What are you talking about?” you splutter. “You’ve got to change in order to get stronger. Didn’t Kieran tell you that? Or would you rather you were still a weak little Poliwag who couldn’t win at anything?”

A high-pitched croak of dismay escapes Politoed as he shrinks back.

“Hey!” the she-syrpent snaps, rounding on you. “Leave off! That was uncalled-for!”

“…Like we were a weak little Applin…” mumbles one of the tail syrpents, the left one. “Have we really changed enough since then…? I don’t feel any different…”

“Just ignore him,” the she-syrpent tells Politoed. “You can talk to us.”

“Huh?” After a nervous glance up at you, he focuses on her. “Um, I mean, I’m glad I got to grow strong and evolve, but… I wish it didn’t have to be like this.” He hangs his head. “I-I wanted to show Sis, but I haven’t even seen her in all this time…”

“Yeah, that’s another thing.” The she-syrpent’s eye-stalks droop a little. “The old team. Sen – I mean, Furret, and Yanmega, and your sister. Weren’t they Kieran’s friends, too? It’s like he doesn’t care about them any more…”

“…Because they weren’t strong enough…” mutters the other tail syrpent, the one on the right. “If we’re not strong enough, we’ll go the same way… He won’t want us any more…”

“Mhmm,” Politoed agrees. He doesn’t seem to have heard the tail syrpent. “It’s… sorta lonely now. At least Dragonite’s been nice to me, but…”

The she-syrpent perks up a little. “Oh, is Dragonite your friend? Maybe we could…”

She trails off, likely distracted by the continued muttering beneath you. “Dragonite…” the same tail syrpent goes on, his voice becoming yet more agitated. “She came here to steal our place as Kieran’s dragon…!”

“We can’t measure up to her…!” agrees the left tail syrpent. “We’ll never be that strong!”

Their voices overlap. “As soon as he realises she’s the better dragon, he’ll be done with us for sure!”

You look over at Dragonite, who’s quietly watching Politoed from a distance. It’s strange. You used to feel… some kind of way about her being here on the team, a rival dragon. But the thought seems almost silly now. Here you are, fully-evolved, tall enough to face her eye-to-eye. Kieran worked this hard to get you here, chose you over her for Terastallisation. If Dragonite gets any ideas in her head about who’s more deserving… well, she’ll have one hell of a fight coming.

You’re snapped out of your thoughts by Kieran arriving with your food. Politoed starts and hops back to his spot beside Dragonite, as if he was caught doing something he shouldn’t. Which he was, really – it’s a good thing your trainer can’t understand what he and the syrpents were talking about.

“Good job today,” Kieran tells you, catching your eye with a short nod and placing the bowl in front of your apple. “I figured you’d need a much bigger portion now.”

Ravenous after the day of battling, evolving and training, you reach down and begin gobbling up the food. The two other syrpents in front try to put their snouts into the bowl as well, but you shove them out of the way.

“Hey!” they protest.

“Let us have some!”

Your trainer’s already moved on to handing out the rest of the team’s meals, so it’s up to you to settle this yourself. “Kieran gave thish to me,” you point out with your mouth full. “Jusht me.”

The pair of syrpents at the back crane around, but they’ve got even less chance of reaching the bowl from their position. “Don’t we get to eat some of it?” complains the one on the left – another female, you realise. “We’re all hungry too.”

“Technically, it doesn’t matter,” the one on the right says. “Any food nourishes the apple, which nourishes all of us. That’s how Candour managed.”

Candour…? Right, that was the name Frustration gave themself. You’d practically forgotten.

“…But it would be nice to finally get to taste it, wouldn’t it,” the back-right syrpent adds, pointedly.

“Maybe if you’d helped out in training more than once,” you mutter between mouthfuls, still forcing the front syrpents away from getting more than a morsel or two. The whole afternoon of practicing, only one time did they all join in with Fickle Beam and double its power. “Kieran recognishes my effort.”

“So if we don’t work hard enough, we don’t get to eat?” protests the back-left one. “Is that it?”

You don’t know why she’s so bothered – she just got told why it doesn’t actually matter.

“Speaking of not eating…” she goes on, her voice sounding further away, like she’s raised her head to look at something, “…is that really all Kieran’s having?”

“Huh?” You tilt your eye-stalks upwards without moving your head from the bowl. He’s got his meal in one hand while he stares at his device held in the other one. “Yeah, he eats those bar thingsh mostly these days. S’normal.”

“That can’t be enough food, surely…?” There’s an anxious note in her voice. “For a creature his size… And you say that’s normal for him?”

“Something else he didn’t feel the need to tell Candour about, apparently,” comments the back-right syrpent.

You give a noncommittal mumble and focus on cleaning your bowl. You don’t see why it matters what you said or didn’t say to Frustration, especially now they’re not even here any more.

As you finish licking up the last few crumbs, you hear footsteps approaching, followed by an unfamiliar human voice. “Hey… Kieran, right? I heard the news – you beat Drayton! That’s awesome! You’re Champion now, congrats!”

You look up to see Kieran staring at another trainer, his eyes wide. He nods.

The trainer fiddles with their hands. “So, uh… I guess that means you’re in charge of the club now too, huh? Champion’s privilege and all.”

Kieran blinks, standing up a little straighter. “…That’s right. I’m in charge now.”

“Right! Well, I… I hope you take good care of things!” The other trainer pauses, glancing around as if looking for something else to talk about. Their gaze lands on you, and their face lights up. “Oh, wow, is that your Pokémon? I’ve never seen that species before! It looks really cool!” They take a step towards you, and you draw yourself up proudly to your fullest height. They’re impressed by you – definitely just you, and not any of the other syrpents also peering at them.

“Do we deserve that…?” the left tail murmurs. “I don’t feel any different… I still feel like… like nobody…”

“Hey – could I battle it, maybe?” asks the trainer. “Just a quick one-on-one, nothing official?”

You perk up even more. Despite the weary full-body ache of a hard day’s training, you’d relish the opportunity to show off your new strength in a real battle. But Kieran’s silent, staring at the other trainer.

“If they see…” mumbles the right tail, his voice wavering. “If anyone sees what we really are, it’s all over… Can’t let it show…”

Then Kieran takes a step back, tilting his chin up. The hair above his eyes slants inwards. “…Seriously?” he says. “What rank were you again, twenty-something? You’d just be a waste of my time.”

The other trainer practically shrinks. “Huh…? S-Sorry… I just… wanted to ask…” They raise one hand to fiddle with their hair, turning their face away. “Uh, I-I gotta go…”

And they run off, back towards the nearby structure of white blocks that lies at the centre of this place. Kieran watches them leave without saying a word.

“That… that was really mean!” complains the she-syrpent on your right. “They were just being nice to him!”

“You heard him,” you say, defending Kieran on principle, even though you are a little disappointed you didn’t get to battle. “They weren’t worth his time.”

“But… maybe they wanted to be his friend,” she says. “Isn’t that worth it? If he hadn’t been so mean…” She droops. “I thought… I thought Kieran liked having human friends…?”

“That sparkle in the other human’s eyes when they saw us…” murmurs Sincerity. “It didn’t matter if they’d lose – they wanted to battle us for the fun of it. Just like…”

The she-syrpent stares off to the side. She’s watching a wild Exeggcute as it bounces past. Six individuals in a single Pokémon, all working together as one.

“I know my name now,” she says. “It’s Amity.”

Dinnertime’s over, judging from the flashes and sounds of Kieran returning the team to their Poké Balls. Seeing him approach your end of the group, Amity raises her head and calls out to him. “Kieran! Kieran, listen! You should have—”

Her plea that he wouldn’t have understood anyway cuts off as your Poké Ball pulls you inside.

You want to call that the end of the day and get a hard-earned night’s sleep after everything you’ve achieved. The six other distracting presences make it harder than usual, but eventually you manage to settle into the ball’s dreamlike haze and drop off. Except that, far too soon, you find yourself woken by a voice.

“It’s the middle of the night…” It’s the yet-unnamed she-syrpent from behind you. “Why is Kieran still awake?”

Groggily, you listen outside the ball. You can hear faint scratching and shifting sounds every now and then, presumably from Kieran’s room. Nothing unusual – you hear this kind of thing all the time when settling in to sleep, and you never paid it much thought.

“Why are we still awake?” you mutter back. You can feel the others shifting and mumbling as they’re woken as well.

“I had to check on Kieran,” the she-syrpent answers. “I thought he looked like he hadn’t been sleeping enough, and I was right. Kieran!” All of a sudden, she raises her voice. “Kieran, it’s late! You should be sleeping!”

You huff as she keeps shouting. This isn’t exactly going to help you get any sleep.

You hear a chair scrape against the floor outside. “…Huh?” comes Kieran’s voice. “Hydrapple? Is that you…?”

In a sudden flash, you’re there in Kieran’s room, the space lit by just a single artificial light. “What’s the matter?” he asks, his gaze on you alone. “Couldn’t sleep with your new form?”

Before you can try telling him that you’d have perfectly well liked to, the she-syrpent reaches forward past you, fixing your trainer with an urgent stare. “Kieran,” she says, enunciating her words slowly as if that’ll help him grasp them, “what – are – you – doing? You – need – sleep.”

Kieran shifts backwards a little. You catch sight of the array of paper scattered across the table in front of him and peer closer, as if you could make any sense of the tiny human markings on them. What is he doing at this time of night?

He follows your gaze. “This? I’m studying,” he says. His eyes narrow. “If I’m going to beat Juliana, I need to learn everything there is about battle strategies.”

That’s what’s keeping him up so late…? Your trainer’s always seemed to know so much about battling, and moves, and how it all works – it never occurred to you that he could teach himself even more in that regard. To think that after a hard day’s training out with the team, he goes on to push himself even harder, every day, all to become the best trainer he possibly can… Kieran is incredible.

“No!” the she-syrpent protests. “You need rest!” She cranes over to the opposite side of the apple, gesturing emphatically at Kieran’s bed. “Sleep. Please.”

You nudge her with the back of your neck. “Stop that. This is what he wants.” You can hardly believe she’s trying to make him throw away that amazing dedication for something as mundane as sleeping.

Kieran glances at her for just a moment, but then his gaze falls back on you. “You know, since you’re awake too, you might as well help out. Wake me up if I fall asleep at the desk. Hate it when that happens.”

“What?” The she-syrpent rears up in alarm. “No! That’s not what I wanted; that’s…!”

Kieran’s already turned back to his work, ignoring her. She droops. “…He won’t listen, will he?”

The other syrpent behind you emerges partway. “It doesn’t seem like it, no.”

“As he shouldn’t,” you put in. “He’s studying so he can defeat Juliana. That’s far more important than anything else.”

The second syrpent gives an unconvinced sort of huff. “And what, exactly, is so important about defeating Juliana, hm?”

You twist around to stare at him, at the squinted, sceptical look he’s giving you. “What kind of question is that?! Of course it’s important! It’s the one thing Kieran wants most! It’s what all of this training has been for!”

“I’d gathered that much,” he drawls, unimpressed. “But why, though? What’s Kieran going to gain from beating her?”

“He’s—!”

Your voice catches. The answer to that question doesn’t come. You thought you knew why, long ago – that you were training to beat Juliana for Kieran’s sake because it would put everything right, make him happy again. That still has to be what it’s for, surely? And yet—

All at once, you let out a vehement hiss, towering over the other syrpent with your greater height. “Quit doubting him already! Kieran knows what he’s doing, better than any of us! Of course he’s—”

The chair scrapes as Kieran turns to glance your way. You shrink back guiltily. You were raising your voice too much, distracting him. That’s the last thing you of all syrpents should be doing.

Behind you, the other syrpent sports a victorious smirk. You want to wipe that grin off his face, to tell him exactly why he’s wrong – but you can’t. Because Kieran needs to focus on his work.

You avoid the syrpent’s eye instead, stewing in the ensuing silence. Your body’s exhausted from the day’s training and the late hour, urging you to curl up atop the apple and get some sleep – but you can’t do that, either.

The she-syrpent breaks the silence out of nowhere. “My name’s Comfort, by the way,” she says with a yawn. “I’m sorry for waking you all up…”

The syrpents in front shift a little. Apparently they were listening in on this, too. “You had to try,” says Sincerity. “I get it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” murmurs Amity. “I like your name.”

You huff, quietly. ‘Comfort’. Another name that’s annoyingly self-righteous. And the worst part is, there’s too many of them to go calling them all something like ‘Frustration’. Even though they are.

“Anyway,” mumbles Comfort, her voice muffled by the syrup she’s burying herself in, “m’going to sleep. If I can. You all should too.”

The two in front murmur this agreement and retreat into the apple. But the other one at the back remains out, just a little. “I suppose Stubbornness here will be staying awake, so that he can do Kieran’s bidding?”

You rear up in indignation, rounding on him. “What did you just call me?”

“Well, you need a name, don’t you? I haven’t heard you come up with one yet.”

“I don’t—! I don’t need to.” You have to fight to keep your voice low despite your rising ire. “I’m still Loyalty, obviously. ‘Cause I’m the only one here who cares about doing what Kieran wants.”

The syrpent tilts his head, pretending to consider it. “Hmm, no, I think Stubbornness suits you better. What does everyone else think?”

Sincerity emerges from the apple just enough to be heard. “It is pretty fitting for you…”

Amity glances back at you. “Sorry, Stubbornness… they’ve got a point there.”

“Hm? Yeah,” mumbles Comfort sleepily, still nestled in the syrup. “You’re as stubborn as Kieran.”

“Well then,” concludes the syrpent who started this, “looks like it’s decided.”

Trapped, attacked on all sides, you want to yell at them, to tell them how wrong they all are. But even if you could raise your voice… it’s practically impossible to argue with four of them.

You grumble and turn away from the victorious glint in the fourth serpent’s eyes. At least stubbornness is something you have in common with Kieran. So it’s basically a compliment, even if the others are too short-sighted to see it that way.

But you’re Loyalty. You are. You’re the only one here who’s on Kieran’s side, and you’ll never let that change, no matter the opposition.

“What’s your name, anyway?” you mutter at the argumentative one. Not that you expect hearing it to improve your mood, but you need to have something to think of him as. Your mind’s too much mush right now to come up with a name for him yourself.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he replies. “I’m Sense. Because I’m the one who can see that our trainer hasn’t been making any.”

Every word of that just rankles you more. You squirm and grasp for at least something about it to protest to.

“He’s my trainer,” you insist. “Mine alone. You’re all just… hangers-on.”

You can practically hear Sense’s infuriating smirk. “If you say so.”

“I knew it,” murmurs the right tail syrpent. You’d almost forgotten he and his twin were there. “You don’t want us around at all, I could tell…”

“Huh? I didn’t…” As strange as it seems, you actually didn’t mean those two. Granted, they aren’t exactly any better on the complaining front, but if nothing else, they did try to help out during training by moving your apple around, albeit painfully slowly.

“No wonder we’re just hangers-on to you,” adds the left one. “We’re not worth any more than that… not even worth having names…”

“Hm?” Amity emerges again. “Of course you two can have names! Just tell us what you want to be called!”

The left tail answers almost straight away. “No… I wouldn’t be able to come up with a good one…”

“Whatever name I picked, you’d all hate it…” mumbles the right.

“…Oh,” says Amity. “Um…”

Sincerity sighs. “I think I know what your names should be.” You feel his tail burrowing down to where their heads are huddled together, tapping first the left one – “You’re Inadequacy” – and then the right one – “and you’re Paranoia.”

“Huh…?”

“You…!”

Sincerity’s tail slinks back to its usual spot. “I know it’s harsh, but you can’t deny they fit you.”

“Um…” Amity adds, her voice awkwardly bright. “You’re welcome to come up with nicer names if you’d like!”

“No…” mumbles Inadequacy, shrinking further. “It’s just what I deserve, isn’t it?”

“I knew you all hated me.” Paranoia’s voice is wavering again. “You can’t get rid of me, so you’ll make fun of me instead…”

“Wow,” Sense remarks. “Quite the pair, those two. I’m glad I’m not the one responsible for them.”

You can sense something there, some kind of loaded meaning. But you can’t quite get your mushed-up mind to—

“Just go to sleep,” says Comfort with an exhausted, muffled groan. “Everyone. Please.”

Her words seem to be the end of things, as the rest of them mumble their agreement and settle in for good, even the tails. You fight to stop a yawn from escaping you. Maybe you’ll at least curl up on top of the apple, just to give your body a little rest. But no more than that.

It’s been a long, long day. You’re so tired. There’s a traitorous part of you that wants to give in and do as Comfort says. It’s so easy for the others to just do that when they don’t care about Kieran like you do, about helping him out and doing whatever he needs from you.

But you, you need to stay awake, because Kieran’s right there, still working hard, having trusted you with a simple task. You have to try and match his incredible dedication. He’s counting on you. You have to. You have to…

Everything grows fuzzier. You’re Kieran, struggling to make sense of the indecipherable scribbles in front of you, fighting to stay awake, all while six other Kierans surround you, filling your head with nonsense about how you shouldn’t even be trying this, you ought to just give up, there’s nothing to do but fail, fail, fail…

…That was a dream, wasn’t it. You already failed him.

Kieran doesn’t ask you to keep him awake at night again.

~~~​

In the following days, you put all your focus into nothing but training. Everything’s exactly as it was before, except that you’re much stronger now. It doesn’t matter what any of the others have to say. They don’t matter.

Well, maybe Inadequacy and Paranoia matter a little. They’re actually trying to help Kieran out in their own moping, flailing way, which is more than you can say for the rest. You’ve figured out what Sense was hinting at the other night: the tail twins are your responsibility, because they’re on your side when it comes to battling for Kieran. So it’s up to you to motivate them as effectively as possible.

Of course, you don’t really need their help. All they can offer you is mobility on the battlefield, which you’ve trained to work around your lack of. You’re already a cornerstone of Kieran’s team, with or without them. But any little thing might give you an edge when it matters most. There’s always more you can do to better yourself, just like Kieran.

Getting them to move in the right direction is easy – they’re surprisingly perceptive, picking up on subtle cues from you leaning the apple one way or another. But they’re so frightfully slow, and all they ever seem to do is mope about how bad they are.

“I’m sorry… I know I’m useless…” laments Inadequacy, after you ask him yet again why he can’t just move even a little faster.

Paranoia trembles. “You’re only putting up with us because you’ve got no other choice…”

It’s… well, it’s a whole different kind of frustration, really.

Even so, focusing your attention on Inadequacy and Paranoia helps keep it off the inane concerns of the other four, which can only be a good thing.

Amity’s been practically tying herself in knots every time Kieran talks to another human. That’s begun happening a lot more now – something to do with how being the Champion makes him in charge of everyone else. As he deserves, with how hard he’s worked for this.

But Amity can’t find it in herself to be proud of Kieran’s success. Each time he exerts his authority over another trainer, she has to go and make a huge fuss about it. “He didn’t need to be so harsh!”, “He shouldn’t be pushing them away like this!”, and so on, even though Kieran can do whatever he wants now that he’s the strongest trainer here.

And he can. Even the former strongest, the dragon trainer Drayton, can’t do a thing against Kieran now, despite his best efforts. Things start out as just a conversation, Drayton approaching Kieran to discuss some annoyingly familiar topics: how he’s not acting like he used to, how he’s upsetting people in the club, how he’s burning himself out. The four from your upper apple listen eagerly through the Poké Ball, practically cheering him on against Kieran, the traitors.

But then things escalate into a battle challenge, and it’s your time to shine. You gladly help Kieran wipe the floor with this human once again – far more easily than before, now that you’re evolved – and put a stop to his protests.

“I don’t have to listen to someone who’s weaker than me,” Kieran declares to his twice-vanquished opponent, and that’s the end of it.

Or at least, it ought to be. If only shutting up your apple-mates was that easy.

“He won’t listen,” Sincerity moans soon afterwards in the Poké Ball. “Not even to that Drayton human, the one he used to look up to. Everything Drayton said was right, and yet…”

“And he won’t listen to us, either,” adds Comfort. “I tried, the other night – he must have known what I meant – but…”

“He’s cut himself off from everyone,” says Amity. “Even us.”

“Not quite.” Sense sounds thoughtful. “There’s still one chance. A single one of us that Kieran just might listen to. The only one who’s as stubborn as he is.”

Even in the nowhere space of the Poké Ball, you feel all their gazes converge on you.

“Stubbornness…?”

“You’re right,” murmurs Sincerity. “If it’s him… Kieran might just listen. It’s our only hope.”

“To get Kieran to stop… we need to…”

“We don’t need to convince Kieran,” Sense confirms. You can feel his stare piercing into you. “We need to convince you.”

“What?” you splutter. “No! No way! You’re not convincing me of anything!”

It’s inconceivable that they’re even thinking about it. To try and make you, of all syrpents, be the one to—

“Do you realise what you’d be getting me to do?! You want me to betray him! To make him throw away everything he wants, and everything he’s been working so hard for!”

The thought of it makes your stomach twist, like acrid, congealed syrup turned sour.

“I’ll never do it. Never. There’s nothing you can do to convince me.”

“It won’t be easy, of course,” Sense says, addressing the others like you’re not even here. “He’s Stubbornness, after all. But we’ve got plenty of time. Haven’t we?”

Have they…? Something about that seems off, seems worrying, but you can’t quite put your tongue on it.

…It doesn’t matter. You’re not Stubbornness, you’re Loyalty, and you’ll never let that change. You’re the only one who’s on Kieran’s side. None of the others understand; none of them care about him. Only you. He chose you, saw your worth when you were just a tiny little Applin, and you won’t let him down.

The easiest way to do that is to continue pretending they don’t exist. Just keep your attention on nobody but Inadequacy and Paranoia, who at least are on your side in this.

There’s still the question of how to motivate them to make anything useful of themselves down there, but the burning acid in your gut provides the answer.

“Is this seriously the best you two can do?!” you snap at them next training session as they trudge pathetically through the snow. “You’re hopeless!”

Inadequacy shudders. “I know I’m hopeless… I know, but, but, but…” You feel him redouble his frantic squirming.

“It’s a good thing I’m the one doing all the hard work up here,” you add, “‘cause Kieran would have kicked you two off the team for sure by now!”

“No…” Paranoia tenses, shuffling even more desperately. “No, no, no, he can’t…!”

“Stubbornness, stop it!” protests Amity. “You’re just being cruel!”

“Well, it’s working, isn’t it?” you respond. They’re moving you just a tiny bit faster than before, you’re sure of it. “Come on, you two! If you keep this up, maybe Kieran won’t realise how useless you are!”

Yes – you’ve hit upon the solution. It figures that flagrant deprecation is the only thing those two will listen to.

“You… you’re just as bad as Kieran!” Amity blurts out, like something boiled up and burst from inside her. “He keeps pushing away everyone who might’ve been his friend, and nobody’s going to like you either!”

You pause, bewildered. Is that her idea of a persuasion tactic? As if comparing you to Kieran is any kind of insult.

“Maybe he just doesn’t want friends,” you shoot back. “Not human ones, anyway,” you correct, quickly. “Ever thought about that?”

The words came out without thinking, but now that you consider it, there’s a certain kind of logic there. Kieran had never really talked about wanting human friends in the first place, before all of this. Then there was Juliana, who if anything just proved him right about that assessment. Perhaps he’s simply decided that loyal Pokémon partners are all he needs.

“…Even if that is true,” Amity answers after a moment, her voice lower, “a-and I’m not so sure it is… he should. No-one deserves to be alone.”

“Kieran’s not alone,” you say, firmly. “He has me.” He’ll always have you. And you’ll always have him – so the others don’t matter at all.

“But are we— are you really his friend any more? Or just his Pokémon?”

It’s a meaningless question. There’s no difference. She’s not going to convince you of anything like that.

“They’re plotting against you,” Paranoia informs you out of nowhere later that day. “They’re jealous of you being Kieran’s favourite, so they want to make him hate you. Don’t listen to them.”

You weren’t going to, obviously – but there’s something almost sweet in how Paranoia’s trying to help you out. Maybe your negative reinforcement really did work on him, in a strange, backwards kind of way.

So you keep it up, constantly reminding the tail twins how worthless they’ll be to Kieran if they don’t try even harder, and gradually, painfully slowly, there’s improvement. One time they manage to let you dodge a Beartic’s cavalcade of icicles, and even Kieran seems impressed. Though he does remind you not to forget about your defences.

If only you could test out the tails’ skills in a real battle – but Kieran hasn’t been challenging any more trainers since he became Champion. Well, mostly. Drayton comes after him again a couple more times, each time with an attempt to convince him of the same nonsense. Each time, Kieran has you and the team shut him up, more comprehensively than the last.

But even without trainer battles, there’s still plenty Kieran can teach you. Honing your moves, as well as everything about battles that isn’t a move, teaching you new combinations and strategies – strategies he wouldn’t even have been able to come up with if Comfort had her way. You trust Kieran to know just what the team needs in order to be ready for Juliana.

Plus, the training’s exactly what you need to keep your mind off the other syrpents’ constant exhausting nagging. They even try joining in with a Fickle Beam every now and then, as if they’re hoping that’ll magically make you listen to them. Not a chance, when you know just how fickle their so-called ‘loyalty’ is. You won’t fall for their tactics.

Still, anything’s better than the Poké Ball breaks, when there’s nothing at all to distract you from their never-ending lectures. You resolve to ignore them, to not rise to their bait, not say a word. Most of the time, you manage that just fine. And yet…

“I don’t know how you can be okay with it,” Sincerity moans at you one time. “Seeing Kieran like an empty husk of himself.”

It’s the same kind of complaint as always, the lack of that spark in Kieran’s eyes. Of course you’re not okay with that – but you’re the one working on getting it back. That’s more than he’s doing.

“All this battling and training, yet when’s the last time he actually had fun with it, like he used to?” Sincerity pauses. “For that matter, when was the last time you had fun with a battle, Stubbornness? Don’t you miss it?”

That… that’s a strange question. Battling’s never been about fun. Ever since you were a Dipplin, since you were strong enough to truly battle, it’s always been about helping Kieran get what he wants.

“When we were a weak little Applin…” mumbles Inadequacy. “When Kieran was weak…”

“What?! Don’t talk nonsense!” you snap at him without thinking. “Kieran was never weak!”

He wasn’t, was he? He’s always been… your trainer. The one you look up to.

“Huh?! I thought he used to say…” The tail syrpent shrinks. “S-Sorry… I guess I’m just wrong… But, he was… less strong, back then, wasn’t he?”

“Sincerity wants Kieran to be weak,” Paranoia puts in. “That’s what he’s saying.”

“What…?! No…”

You round on Sincerity. “Kieran’s always wanted to get stronger. You of all syrpents should know that. How could you be trying to take that away from him?!”

“I’m not—!” He sighs, muttering under his breath. “Those two…”

“You’re the one who wants him to be weak, Stubbornness,” Comfort pipes up, absolute nonsense delivered in a bizarrely level tone. “Kieran’s growing weaker by the day. Not sleeping enough, not eating enough, not living in warm enough clothes for the cold place… it’s a wonder he’s even still going. And you want him to keep torturing himself like this.”

It takes you a moment to even untangle the ridiculous, backwards knot of words that was. The idea that you’re making Kieran weaker, not the exact opposite…

“…He’s training himself,” you manage at last. “Pain is a part of getting stronger, isn’t it? Kieran’s been working just as hard as us Pokémon, putting in more effort than any of you lot could imagine. You should be proud of him, not… whatever this is.”

“Training like that is for Pokémon, not humans,” she says. “Humans are different from us. More fragile. He shouldn’t be doing this to himself.”

Which is just another way of saying she thinks Kieran is weak.

You shouldn’t have risen to the bait. You don’t have to listen to her. Nor to anyone who doesn’t believe in him like you do, who’s not as loyal as you.

“You mustn’t fail him, Loyalty,” Inadequacy tells you. “You mustn’t. Kieran needs… he needs… this.”

Of course he does. He needs to do whatever it takes to become strong enough to beat Juliana. And he needs you.

“If he doesn’t have this, he’ll have nothing. He’ll fall apart. And it’ll be all your fault.”

A shiver runs through you. Paranoia didn’t have to put it like that – but he’s right. You can’t afford to give in to them. You won’t.

Whatever complaints they have, whatever downsides there might be right now, it’ll all be worth it when Kieran defeats Juliana. It will. No matter what Sense keeps saying, you trust Kieran to know what he’s after.

You’re the only one who truly understands Kieran, after all. Not only among the other syrpents, but among the rest of his team. One training session, Grimmsnarl complains that he’s bored of not getting any proper battles, and you remind him, not for the first time, that Kieran’s training to beat Juliana.

“Yeah, yeah, this super tough trainer,” he says, far too casually. “You know I’m up for the challenge. But when’s the boss gonna take her on, huh?”

“Good question, Stubbornness.” Sense is suddenly there, breathing down your neck. “When is Kieran going to challenge Juliana, hm?”

He’s got no need for the smug tone; the answer’s simple. “When he’s ready.”

When?” Grimmsnarl scoffs. “C’mon, we’ve been trainin’ like crazy even after we became champs! We’re ready for anything! So what’s the big holdup?”

Perhaps the team’s ready for any normal challenge – but Juliana’s something else entirely. Why doesn’t Grimmsnarl get that? Hasn’t Kieran made it clear enough?

“We’ll never be ready,” mumbles Inadequacy. “Never. Not for Juliana. She’s not just strong – she’s invincible. We’re nothing compared to her…”

His words open a pit in your stomach. Could it be… that Kieran…?

“If Kieran’s never ready, this’ll never end,” Paranoia mutters fretfully. “Just this. This training and arguing, over and over, forever, and ever, and ever…”

“Well, Stubbornness?” Sense prompts, an infuriating glint in his eye.

That was what he meant, the other day, when he said they had plenty of time to convince you. He doesn’t think Kieran will ever be ready to face Juliana either.

If Kieran never defeats Juliana, if he never even faces her, just this endless purgatory of training…

(If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better to…?)

“No!” you snap out, cutting that thought dead before it can worm its way into your mind. “I believe in Kieran. He has a plan. He’ll be ready any day now, you’ll see.”

Grimmsnarl looks unconvinced, and Sense just answers with another smug grin, but Kieran will be. Just a few more days. It’d be pathetic to even think about letting your trainer down so close to your shared goal.

“I know you believe in Kieran,” Sincerity says to you one evening, as you listen to the sounds of your trainer still studying hard in his room, “but… does Kieran?”

More days pass. And some more. Still nothing but training. Not even a hint of any plans involving Juliana.

The other syrpents’ voices are growing louder and louder in your head each day.

“He’d be so much happier if he wasn’t so harsh on everyone…”

“He’s living in a mask, pretending to be somebody else. Don’t you want the real Kieran back? Wouldn’t that be better for him?”

“He’s so exhausted… He needs rest, real rest, soon, or else something awful might happen…”

“Beating Juliana wouldn’t fix anything even if she did show up – and you know it, don’t you, Stubbornness?”

“They want you to betray him,” says Paranoia, one of the only two who are on your side. “They want you to make him hate you.”

“Don’t fail him like I would, Loyalty,” adds Inadequacy. The tail twins’ voices are somehow the loudest of all. “Don’t be weak, don’t be pathetic, don’t fail him…”

“It’ll never end,” adds Paranoia, so close you can barely tell if it’s his voice, or if it’s coming from inside your own head. “He’s trapped us like this forever and it’ll never ever end.”

“But you mustn’t fail him!”

“Or he’ll blame it all on you.”

You won’t fail Kieran. You won’t. Everything’s descended into a swirl of exhaustion and uncertainty, training and doubting, but if there’s one thing you’re sure of, it’s that you’re Loyalty. You have to be there for Kieran, no matter what. It’s the entire purpose of your existence. It doesn’t matter if this goes on forever; you can’t let him down.

(What would even be the point of you if you did?)

~~~​
 
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Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Premium
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
  7. chinchou
  8. misdreavus
There’s even more changes as you begin your training in the segmented landscape of the Blueberry place. For the first couple of days, Kieran has you battling a seemingly endless stream of wild Pokémon, all of a very few specific species, even though most of them are beaten far too easily for you to be gaining much strength from this. It doesn’t make any sense to you, but you trust Kieran to know what he’s doing.
EV training!

“Then I remembered how some Pokémon evolve when they know a certain move, like—” His voice cuts out abruptly. “…Well, like some Pokémon. And there’s this move called Dragon Cheer. Drayton uses it. He’ll give the TM to someone who can beat him.”
He's thinking of Yanma/Yanmega, I imagine. :copyka2:

You’ve heard about this Drayton human before: the strongest trainer in this place. A trainer of dragons. Kieran even used to rave about specific Pokémon of his and how strong and cool they are – his Dragonite, his Archaludon. Dragons far bigger and mightier than you.
Awww, of course Kieran used to look up to Drayton. Makes it all the more heartbreaking how things wind up.

“If it works,” muses Frustration here and now. For once, they don’t even sound like they’re being contrary, just… thoughtful. “This Dragon Cheer move – it sounds like he’s just guessing.”

“There you go, doubting him again,” you snap back. “I believe in Kieran, even if you don’t. I’m going to evolve, just like he wants.”

If only evolving would mean you’d be rid of them.
I have some bad news for you about what evolving is going to look like, Loyalty :copyka2:

(And of course Frustration has something to say about all of this, but you’re growing better and better at tuning them out.)
Better and better at shutting out all doubts! Nothing unhealthy about this at all!

“Another dragon,” you hiss to Frustration soon after she appears. “Why does he need another dragon?”

“Dragons are strong,” they respond evenly. “Especially those like Dragonite, apparently.”

Of course they had to go and remind you that Dratini evolves into Dragonite. Just like that one Kieran was so in awe of.

“But I’m already strong!” you insist. “Are you saying he thinks a Dragonite would be better than us? Than me?!”

“I don’t know,” they say, sighing. “Perhaps.”

Somehow, it sounds like they wouldn’t even care either way. That’s the most infuriating thing of all.
Awww. Loyalty is so determined to be strong for Kieran, so of course they're the one who winds up complaining when Kieran has suddenly obtained a new dragon, while Candour doesn't care.

He almost never sends you and Dragonite out to battle together, which you can’t help but be glad about. It sounds like she gets paired most often with Politoed, who even seems to get along with her, somehow.
Enjoy how Loyalty's not really comprehending the strategic reasons Kieran wouldn't send out his two dragons together.

“She’s nice,” Politoed mumbles when you ask him one lunchtime why he’s suddenly so chummy with Dragonite. “It’s a nice change from… I-I mean, I don’t wanna be rude, but… you’ve been kinda scary lately. A bit like… N-Never mind.”

He buries his face in his food bowl to hide from the scowl you make at that, because you know exactly what he was about to say. A bit like Kieran.

Kieran’s not scary, and neither are you. You’re both just… determined. As you need to be.
Nothing scary or unsettling about any of this, naturally!

Soon enough, Kieran deems the team ready, and you begin taking on other trainers. Battle after battle, all for Kieran’s sake, to show the other humans in this place just how strong he is. He doesn’t lose a single match. Even though you faint sometimes, he always wins in the end – you’re sure of it. You’d know if he didn’t.
Mmmm, are you sure you would know if he didn't...

But Kieran isn’t living in anything warmer than usual here either, yet he’s not complaining. So neither do you.

No matter how much it bites and gnaws at you, it’s necessary. You need to go through this frozen hell, to learn to endure this suffering, in order to become strong enough.
Oof, Kieran would silently refuse to dress for cold weather because he has to be strong enough to Just Deal. (But for Dipplin it's got to be even worse, and yet they refuse to complain about something Kieran is willing to endure. They must not disappoint him!)

“He wins all the time now,” Frustration says one evening, “but he’s still not happy.”

You want to think of this as them moaning, like usual, but their voice barely even has any emotion in it. It hasn’t for a while.

“Because those trainers aren’t Juliana,” you explain, trying not to lose your patience. “She’s what this is all for. He’s told us that enough times, hasn’t he? It’ll all be worth it once he beats her.”

You sense them stir, like they want to respond to that… but they don’t. They must realise you’re right. They’ve been realising that a lot more lately.
Quite willing to bet that Candour is thinking something more like, He won't be happy even if he beats her, and he shouldn't hang everything on whether he can beat this one person. But they've realized it's not much use trying to point this out to Loyalty. It's harder for them to be honest with themselves about any of this.

Kieran’s pointing his human device at Dragonite. “Normal, huh? That could work with Extreme Speed, but… let’s see…” He moves on down the line, having to lower the device when he reaches you. “Wait, Fighting? I could’ve sworn you were…” He trails off. “Doesn’t matter. Yeah, Fighting works. Covers some weaknesses. Won’t be seen coming. Alright, you’re up, Dipplin.”

You can hardly believe it. This new power, this new special boost that only one of his Pokémon can use – he almost gave it to Dragonite, but then he chose you.
Of course Loyalty doesn't really see the strategic reasons for this decision - Fighting covers weaknesses, Normal is just Normal - only the fact that Kieran actually gave the power to them.

Kieran implies Dipplin's Tera Type has changed - obviously, the Fighting Tera type is very symbolic of the obsessive drive to get stronger, both in Kieran and in Loyalty. Which makes me wonder if effectively Fighting is Loyalty's Tera type, while previously Applin's Tera type was whatever Candour's Tera type is, giving Candour a stronger claim to being the original Applin wyrm.

Emboldened by this new power, you take on the last few battles with renewed vigour, blasting your way through the competition. At last, you make it to the long-awaited battle against Drayton, the dragon trainer, the strongest in this place – but you refuse to be intimidated. Within your Terastal cocoon, the attacks of the rival dragons don’t faze you. Even the cold of the battlefield doesn’t cut through you like it always used to. All that effort spent fighting to endure the chill has finally paid off.
It's ironic that they say all that effort has finally paid off - because what's paying off is the Terastallization, by literally changing their type to eliminate that weakness.

(…Well, than some of them. Obviously the rest of Kieran’s team took down the first few. But you were the one left standing at the end, and that has to mean something. It has to.)
It has to :copyka2:

But none of that matters, not now of all times. “For the last time, enough complaining,” you tell them with an irritated poke. “Don’t you want us to evolve?”

You feel them squirm, enough to draw your attention away from the TM in front of you. There’s a long, heavy pause before they respond.

“I… I don’t know.”

You can’t believe they just said that. Are they okay with you staying like this forever? Do they seriously want to blow your one chance of ever being truly good enough for Kieran?
:sadwott: Loyalty just wants to be good enough for him, and Candour's seeing where this is going and of course they feel doubts about continuing along this path.

“Dipplin…?” Kieran probes, withdrawing the TM just a fraction.
This is actually breaking my heart. Kieran is so obsessed with strength, but when he sees one of his first Pokémon hesitating, he does have a moment of concern, doesn't just force it upon them.

Of course, Loyalty then insistently takes the TM anyway, terrified that hesitating might get them booted off the team. And it might have, difficult as it would have been for Kieran.

There’s no other Pokémon nearby, no target for it to latch onto, but—

“Ah—!”

Frustration stiffens beneath you, and you can practically feel them vibrate. An instant later, they let out their own cry, mirroring yours, and a vivid tingle shoots from the tip of your tail to the top of your antenna.

All at once, you’re overcome with a sense of fierce clarity. Of course you’ll evolve, all for Kieran’s sake, so that he’ll never ever think you’re not good enough, never cast you aside for someone better. It’s time to solidify your status as the mightiest of dragons, just like you deserve. There’s no point in letting anything hold you back.
Ohoho. It targets Candour, who is obviously Loyalty's ally in that body. And pumps them up with determination, suddenly bringing the two of them into a kind of harmony for the first time.

“Hydrapple!” Kieran exclaims. “Wowzers—” He breaks off and clears his throat. “I – I mean… you’re… bigger than I expected.”
Aww, look at him forgetting himself in his excitement.

“I can’t see him any more!” comes a voice from below you, more than a little anxious. “Evolving wasn’t supposed to be like this…”
:copyka2: Oh boy, look at this syrpent whose subjective experience was being Loyalty and then getting trapped inside the apple

“Is that too many for him?” frets the other tail syrpent. “Does he not want…?”
This also one sure seems anxious to please Kieran, just like Loyalty was! I'm guessing the ones who used to be Loyalty are the head and two tails, and the other four heads are the ones who used to be Candour?

“…Well, that’s good, right?” Kieran finishes, regaining his usual composure. “The more of you there are, the more powerful you’ll be in battle.”

At those words, all four syrpents around you falter and slink back inside the apple, leaving nothing but their closed eye-stalks showing. “And there he goes again,” mutters the last one behind you.

Kieran freezes for a moment, his expression shifting in a way you can’t read. Then it returns to normal. “A-Anyway,” he says, looking up at you, “let’s get back to training.”
The formerly-Candour heads don't approve of Kieran putting it in terms of how powerful they are, do they :copyka2:

Kieran actually seeing disapproval from his just-evolved Pokémon for the first time has got to rattle him a bit. He never saw it when Candour was stuck inside the apple, so it's very new to him that part of Hydrapple might not like him.

The cold’s still gnawing at you, too – worse than before, with your long neck. There’d barely be room to draw it inside the apple now. Not that you would do that, not when Kieran’s expecting you to train.
Loyalty would never :copyka2:

“It says here you should be getting a new move,” he says, peering at his human device. “Fickle Beam – weird name, huh. Dragon-type, looks fairly… no, really powerful. Alright, let’s try it out on that rock over there.” He points, then adds, “You can go ahead and forget Dragon Cheer now. Won’t be using it anyway – not like I can rely on crits.”
Ha. Of course he can't! Juliana is the one who gets lucky crits; Kieran doesn't get to have good luck.

“…It’s luck-based? Seriously?” Kieran lets out a long, angry sigh. “Fine. Never mind that. We’ll just have to find a way around it.”

He turns to you, eye-to-eye. The hair above his eyes is slanting inwards. “Even if the whole world’s against us, we’ll make it there anyway. Our own way. Right, Hydrapple?”
Of course Kieran doesn't feel great about the move being luck-based, does he.

You sigh. Frustration had grown blissfully quiet lately, but now you have to deal with this. “Different or not, what does it matter?”

“Because I liked how he was before!” the other syrpent protests, turning to face you. “…Didn’t you?”

Before you can manage a reply to that, the syrpent to the right emerges and pipes up, “I did, too!”

You glance between the two of them, dumbstruck. It’s not a familiar feeling, being outnumbered like this.

“It doesn’t matter what he looks like, or sounds like or whatever,” you insist, finding words. “He’s still Kieran.”
Aww. Of course it's a bit hard to respond to that. But what matters to Loyalty is always just that he is Kieran.

“But is he, though?” The left syrpent’s gaze shifts back to your trainer. “All of the things that made him Kieran… I can’t see any of them now. Remember how excited he used to get about battling?”

“Yeah!” agrees the right syrpent. “Or smiling from being around us… the old team from Kitakami, I mean…”

“That sparkle in his eyes… You know?”

Of course you know. The light in Kieran’s eyes that’s long gone, ever since… since you failed to help him win over the ogre. You know that far better than any of them.
Oh boy. Of course Loyalty blames themself for failing to help him win over Ogerpon.

“Ooh, that’s a nice name!” says the right serpent, peering at him with interest. “I suppose we should all come up with names, shouldn’t we, to make it less confusing? Hmm…”

She falls silent, lost in thought. …She? You’re not sure how you know she’s a she, but you can sense it somehow – in the same way, it occurs to you only now, that you never questioned Frustration being a they.
Ah, I was just wondering about the pronouns. Syrpents with different genders!

“Right?” Sincerity agrees. “It feels good to say it, doesn’t it?” The other syrpent is watching Politoed as well, her expression open and welcoming.

Politoed nods. “I just wish… he hadn’t changed so much.”

“What are you talking about?” you splutter. “You’ve got to change in order to get stronger. Didn’t Kieran tell you that? Or would you rather you were still a weak little Poliwag who couldn’t win at anything?”

A high-pitched croak of dismay escapes Politoed as he shrinks back.

“Hey!” the she-syrpent snaps, rounding on you. “Leave off! That was uncalled-for!”
She's friendship/communication, isn't she.

“…Like we were a weak little Applin…” mumbles one of the tail syrpents, the left one. “Have we really changed enough since then…? I don’t feel any different…”
Insecurity? (Makes sense that one split off from Loyalty :copyka2:)

“…Because they weren’t strong enough…” mutters the other tail syrpent, the one on the right. “If we’re not strong enough, we’ll go the same way… He won’t want us any more…”
Anxiety?

You look over at Dragonite, who’s quietly watching Politoed from a distance. It’s strange. You used to feel… some kind of way about her being here on the team, a rival dragon. But the thought seems almost silly now. Here you are, fully-evolved, tall enough to face her eye-to-eye. Kieran worked this hard to get you here, chose you over her for Terastallisation. If Dragonite gets any ideas in her head about who’s more deserving… well, she’ll have one hell of a fight coming.
Yup, all those worries and insecurities split off into the tail syrpents and Loyalty is just left like what are you talking about. Healthy! :copyka2:

“Speaking of not eating…” she goes on, her voice sounding further away, like she’s raised her head to look at something, “…is that really all Kieran’s having?”

“Huh?” You tilt your eye-stalks upwards without moving your head from the bowl. He’s got his meal in one hand while he stares at his device held in the other one. “Yeah, he eats those bar thingsh mostly these days. S’normal.”

“That can’t be enough food, surely…?” There’s an anxious note in her voice. “For a creature his size… And you say that’s normal for him?”
Oof, poor Kieran. And Loyalty is so dogged about just supporting whatever Kieran does that he doesn't even think there's anything concerning about it.

“Right! Well, I… I hope you take good care of things!” The other trainer pauses, glancing around as if looking for something else to talk about. Their gaze lands on you, and their face lights up. “Oh, wow, is that your Pokémon? I’ve never seen that species before! It looks really cool!” They take a step towards you, and you draw yourself up proudly to your fullest height. They’re impressed by you – definitely just you, and not any of the other syrpents also peering at them.
Obviously, he's the only important one :sadbees:

“If they see…” mumbles the right tail, his voice wavering. “If anyone sees what we really are, it’s all over… Can’t let it show…”
Interesting... what they really are may just be referring to the disunity of them? Unless this is just the anxiety talking with anxiety gremlins.

“That sparkle in the other human’s eyes when they saw us…” murmurs Sincerity. “It didn’t matter if they’d lose – they wanted to battle us for the fun of it. Just like…”
Oof, recognizing old Kieran in this other trainer that Kieran has rejected as not worth his time :sadwott:

The she-syrpent stares off to the side. She’s watching a wild Exeggcute as it bounces past. Six individuals in a single Pokémon, all working together as one.
Nice moment to see another set of several Pokémon genuinely working together as one, huh. :copyka:

“I know my name now,” she says. “It’s Amity.”
Close enough!

That’s what’s keeping him up so late…? Your trainer’s always seemed to know so much about battling, and moves, and how it all works – it never occurred to you that he could teach himself even more in that regard. To think that after a hard day’s training out with the team, he goes on to push himself even harder, every day, all to become the best trainer he possibly can… Kieran is incredible.
Definitely the right word for it :copyka2:

You twist around to stare at him, at the squinted, sceptical look he’s giving you. “What kind of question is that?! Of course it’s important! It’s the one thing Kieran wants most! It’s what all of this training has been for!”

“I’d gathered that much,” he drawls, unimpressed. “But why, though? What’s Kieran going to gain from beating her?”

“He’s—!”

Your voice catches. The answer to that question doesn’t come. You thought you knew why, long ago – that you were training to beat Juliana for Kieran’s sake because it would put everything right, make him happy again. That still has to be what it’s for, surely? And yet—

All at once, you let out a vehement hiss, towering over the other syrpent with your greater height. “Quit doubting him already! Kieran knows what he’s doing, better than any of us! Of course he’s—”
Almost starting to realize the futility of this, but he remains too loyal :copyka2:

You huff, quietly. ‘Comfort’. Another name that’s annoyingly self-righteous. And the worst part is, there’s too many of them to go calling them all something like ‘Frustration’. Even though they are.
:sadbees:

Sincerity sighs. “I think I know what your names should be.” You feel his tail burrowing down to where their heads are huddled together, tapping first the left one – “You’re Inadequacy” – and then the right one – “and you’re Paranoia.”
Sounds about right.

“Wow,” Sense remarks. “Quite the pair, those two. I’m glad I’m not the one responsible for them.”

You can sense something there, some kind of loaded meaning. But you can’t quite get your mushed-up mind to—
Yeah, he's presumably thinking of how they sprouted from Loyalty.

It’s been a long, long day. You’re so tired. There’s a traitorous part of you that wants to give in and do as Comfort says. It’s so easy for the others to just do that when they don’t care about Kieran like you do, about helping him out and doing whatever he needs from you.

But you, you need to stay awake, because Kieran’s right there, still working hard, having trusted you with a simple task. You have to try and match his incredible dedication. He’s counting on you. You have to. You have to…

Everything grows fuzzier. You’re Kieran, struggling to make sense of the indecipherable scribbles in front of you, fighting to stay awake, all while six other Kierans surround you, filling your head with nonsense about how you shouldn’t even be trying this, you ought to just give up, there’s nothing to do but fail, fail, fail…

…That was a dream, wasn’t it. You already failed him.

Kieran doesn’t ask you to keep him awake at night again.
Oof. :sadwott: Just so determined to do whatever Kieran needs from him, at whatever cost to himself.

The thought of it makes your stomach twist, like acrid, congealed syrup turned sour.
Enjoy this simile.

“It won’t be easy, of course,” Sense says, addressing the others like you’re not even here. “He’s Stubbornness, after all. But we’ve got plenty of time. Haven’t we?”

Have they…? Something about that seems off, seems worrying, but you can’t quite put your tongue on it.
Guessing he's thinking of how Kieran's not going to beat Juliana any time soon?

“Well, it’s working, isn’t it?” you respond. They’re moving you just a tiny bit faster than before, you’re sure of it. “Come on, you two! If you keep this up, maybe Kieran won’t realise how useless you are!

Yes – you’ve hit upon the solution. It figures that flagrant deprecation is the only thing those two will listen to.
Replicating Kieran's bullying of others! Oofff.

“Kieran’s not alone,” you say, firmly. “He has me.” He’ll always have you. And you’ll always have him – so the others don’t matter at all.
Waraider energy (not for the only time this chapter)

“…He’s training himself,” you manage at last. “Pain is a part of getting stronger, isn’t it? Kieran’s been working just as hard as us Pokémon, putting in more effort than any of you lot could imagine. You should be proud of him, not… whatever this is.”

“Training like that is for Pokémon, not humans,” she says. “Humans are different from us. More fragile. He shouldn’t be doing this to himself.”

Which is just another way of saying she thinks Kieran is weak.
Noooooo

“They want you to betray him,” says Paranoia, one of the only two who are on your side. “They want you to make him hate you.”

“Don’t fail him like I would, Loyalty,” adds Inadequacy. The tail twins’ voices are somehow the loudest of all. “Don’t be weak, don’t be pathetic, don’t fail him…”

“It’ll never end,” adds Paranoia, so close you can barely tell if it’s his voice, or if it’s coming from inside your own head. “He’s trapped us like this forever and it’ll never ever end.”

“But you mustn’t fail him!”

“Or he’ll blame it all on you.”
Truly just externalizing all the issues Loyalty had before evolving, huh :copyka2:

You won’t fail Kieran. You won’t. Everything’s descended into a swirl of exhaustion and uncertainty, training and doubting, but if there’s one thing you’re sure of, it’s that you’re Loyalty. You have to be there for Kieran, no matter what. It’s the entire purpose of your existence. It doesn’t matter if this goes on forever; you can’t let him down.

(What would even be the point of you if you did?)
Oh, you poor thing.

Loyalty sure is on a spiraling journey toward self-destruction along with Kieran, huh. The other syrpents have such valid concerns and Loyalty just has to dismiss all of them like his life depends on it even as everything grows more Concerning. Enjoy things like the Candour syrpents giving him a disparaging name the way he used Frustration.

Can't wait for the actual battle against Juliana and what follows; I'm imagining you'll cover the full rest of Kieran's arc, and boy, do I expect the syrpents to have plenty to say about it. The others have been trying to persuade Loyalty on the basis that challenging Juliana will never happen, of course, but we know it does happen - though not because Kieran challenges her so much as because she challenges Kieran at last.

It's also interesting to watch Kieran himself here and what happens between the DLCs - Drayton challenging him multiple times trying to talk sense into him but losing each time, oof. Him letting a "Wowzers!" slip one time and then trying to correct it is painful and also extremely in character. This poor kid and his worrying eating and sleeping habits or lack thereof. I may enjoy Comfort the most of the new syrpents just because she's so adamant about taking actual care of Kieran while Loyalty just clings to the idea that whatever Kieran wants is what it means to be loyal to Kieran.

Bit too tired to be super coherent, but all in all, I am in pain, write more noodles.

“Hey… Kieran, right? I heard the news –you beat Drayton! That’s awesome! You’re Champion now, congrats!”
You'll want a space on both sides of that dash.
 

elyvorg

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  1. grovyle
EV training!
Yup! Fun fact: I considered showing Kieran using those Power items to speed up the training, but I didn't, because... Blueberry Academy doesn't sell those. That's a little surprising for this elite trainers' academy, and the out-universe reason for it is presumably just that the player already has access to those items in Paldea. But it is very fitting for Kieran's arc that he just doesn't get any of these special trinkets others might have that make getting stronger easier, and he has to painstakingly do it the most slow and gruelling way possible in order to get onto that level.

Awww, of course Kieran used to look up to Drayton. Makes it all the more heartbreaking how things wind up.
Given that he went out of his way to get himself a Dragonite, it figured he'd have looked up to the guy he knew who has a Dragonite! And also Drayton tells us about how Kieran's eyes used to light up while watching battles - presumably those were Drayton's own battles he saw it in.

I have some bad news for you about what evolving is going to look like, Loyalty :copyka2:
Well, technically, he's going to be rid of Candour, at least. ...Sort of.

Better and better at shutting out all doubts! Nothing unhealthy about this at all!
Just like Kieran himself! :copyka2:

Awww. Loyalty is so determined to be strong for Kieran, so of course they're the one who winds up complaining when Kieran has suddenly obtained a new dragon, while Candour doesn't care.
Dragon envy. :copyka: Loyalty totally doesn't have a case of dragon-inferiority-complex, having started out as arguably the smallest weakest Dragon-type ever, even though dragons are supposed to be strong.

Nothing scary or unsettling about any of this, naturally!
Kieran can't possibly be scary, because that's a bad thing, and Kieran would never do or be anything bad, you see!

(Poor Politoed :sadwott:)

Mmmm, are you sure you would know if he didn't...
Hm, I had in mind that this was genuine (Kieran does canonically never lose while battling his way up the BB League, I'm pretty sure), with the sense that at the very least he'd notice Kieran being upset and determined to train even harder for a rematch if it'd happened. But now that you mention it... maybe Kieran wouldn't make it so noticeable, huh. After all, he is already perpetually in that state of "upset at a loss and determined to train for a rematch", isn't he :copyka:

Oof, Kieran would silently refuse to dress for cold weather because he has to be strong enough to Just Deal. (But for Dipplin it's got to be even worse, and yet they refuse to complain about something Kieran is willing to endure. They must not disappoint him!)
Suffering is necessary in order to get stronger, right??? That's what Kieran believes (when it's him, anyway), and that's what he's silently taught Loyalty through this, giving Loyalty a twisted way to shut down Comfort's very real concerns later :unquag:

Quite willing to bet that Candour is thinking something more like, He won't be happy even if he beats her, and he shouldn't hang everything on whether he can beat this one person. But they've realized it's not much use trying to point this out to Loyalty. It's harder for them to be honest with themselves about any of this.
More or less - I had in mind that this was the Sense part of Candour wanting to speak up, but not yet having the heart to.

But it's fine, though, because Candour not saying anything must simply mean that there is nothing to say and Loyalty is right. :))) It sort of vaguely used to mean that, back when Candour had more spirit and would voice anything on their mind, but not so much any more.

Of course Loyalty doesn't really see the strategic reasons for this decision - Fighting covers weaknesses, Normal is just Normal - only the fact that Kieran actually gave the power to them.
The only thing that matters is that Kieran somehow thinks he's better than Dragonite at something, you see.

Kieran implies Dipplin's Tera Type has changed - obviously, the Fighting Tera type is very symbolic of the obsessive drive to get stronger, both in Kieran and in Loyalty. Which makes me wonder if effectively Fighting is Loyalty's Tera type, while previously Applin's Tera type was whatever Candour's Tera type is, giving Candour a stronger claim to being the originalApplin wyrm.
Huh, that's an interesting thought! I wasn't quite thinking of it that way myself - I feel like Loyalty didn't start with the Fighting Tera, because if Kieran had been less obsessed with strength and therefore Loyalty had been less determined to emulate that, he probably wouldn't have had it.

I gave a lot of thought to the question of why Fighting Tera type, which goes roughly as follows:

Kieran doesn't have access to the restaurant in Medali that changes Tera types. Again, this is another "the player already had access to this feature in Paldea, no need to make another source for it in the DLC" thing, and one could imagine that really Blueberry Academy does have some sort of way to change Tera types that the player just never sees. But it is kind of interesting to think that it doesn't, especially as we only see two other Blueberry trainers using Pokémon with Tera types not matching their own (Lacey, the director), so those could be some kind of special cases. And it would make sense if Kieran wasn't able to choose his Hydrapple's Tera type, since Fighting really isn't the most optimal one, as it covers some weaknesses but is still weak to Flying and Fairy.

I also decidedly didn't want it to be the case that his Applin simply had that unusual Tera type from the beginning, say from a raid den or being one of those overworld Tera encounters, because it's important to Loyalty's character that there was absolutely nothing remarkable about him at all and yet Kieran still befriended him.

I also went and checked the flavour text for changing your Pokémon's Tera type at the place in Medali, which says something about a "life-changingly delicious meal". What that tells me is that, while the restaurant's special meals full of Tera shards can fast-track it, it is possible for a Pokémon to naturally change Tera types on their own if they go through some really big life-changing kind of event. So, well, Loyalty throwing himself whole-heartedly into Kieran's obsessive drive to grow stronger certainly seemed like it would count as that. :copyka: It feels the most right that the thematic appropriateness of the Fighting Tera is not a coincidence or a conscious choice on Kieran's part, but rather an inevitability simply because of his obsession rubbing off on his most loyal Pokémon partner.

Still, it is an interesting thought that perhaps individuals in a multi-headed Pokémon could have different Tera types, and the one that activates is the one belonging to the individual who's most central to battling. I hadn't considered that. Maybe Candour's Tera type isn't Fighting and is still whatever it was to begin with, huh!

:sadwott: Loyalty just wants to be good enough for him, and Candour's seeing where this is going and of course they feel doubts about continuing along this path.
It goes even deeper than that - Candour knows that if they don't evolve, Kieran will most likely kick them off the team... and a part of them is kind of okay with that happening. They're just so tired of hearing him be this way and not being able to do a thing about it :sadwott:

This is actually breaking my heart. Kieran is so obsessed with strength, but when he sees one of his first Pokémon hesitating, he does have a moment of concern, doesn't just force it upon them.
Aww, true! I never gave much thought to Kieran's end of this interaction, but you're right. I think this is Kieran having a moment of worry and hurt at seeing that his partner, who he'd assumed was all-in on this getting-stronger thing just like he was, maybe actually isn't completely? (Which he is going to see much more clearly once Dipplin evolves and the other heads are visible, oh dear :unquag:)

Kieran's training regime may be strict and tough, but he's not outright abusive - he doesn't force any Pokémon into doing something they don't want to do. While he did very much decide Poliwrath and Politoed's evolutions for them, for example, I did make sure to show that both of them were okay with that decision.

(Of course, if he did have a Pokémon that didn't want to evolve... they probably wouldn't be on his team any more once he realised that.)

Of course, Loyalty then insistently takes the TM anyway, terrified that hesitating might get them booted off the team. And it might have, difficult as it would have been for Kieran.
Yyyup. Well, not for just hesitating, but if it became apparent to Kieran that his Dipplin no longer wanted to evolve, I don't think he could have kept him around. :sadwott: Which really would have torn Kieran apart, to have that "betrayal" from his loyalest partner whom he'd thought was with him all the way.

(Then he'd probably just outwardly channel that heartbreak into frustration that now he's got to catch and train up a whole new team member, ugh what a pain :sadbees:)

Ohoho. It targets Candour, who is obviously Loyalty's ally in that body. And pumps them up with determination, suddenly bringing the two of them into a kind of harmony for the first time.
Determination to be more proactive and more specific about all of the Problems with Kieran :copyka2:

Aww, look at him forgetting himself in his excitement.
let 👏 the boy 👏 wowze!

(the boy will not let himself wowze :sadbees:)

:copyka2: Oh boy, look at this syrpent whose subjective experience was being Loyalty and then getting trapped inside the apple
Oh dear. It really does suck to be those two, having been Loyalty and determined to evolve and get strong, only suddenly now they are small and pathetic and blind and can think of nothing but how weak they are and how everything's going to turn out horrible :sadwott:

This also one sure seems anxious to please Kieran, just like Loyalty was! I'm guessing the ones who used to be Loyalty are the head and two tails, and the other four heads are the ones who used to be Candour?
Yep!

Funnily enough, in the planning stages when I had all seven syrpents' personalities down, Inadequacy and Paranoia were originally planned to also come from Candour (the thinking being that Candour was just the "everything negative" one). But then I started actually writing Loyalty, and I quickly realised that no, all of the insecurity about not being strong enough and possibly being abandoned by Kieran was coming from him, not Candour, and it would be way more fun if the tails sprouted off from him instead.

The formerly-Candour heads don't approve of Kieran putting it in terms of how powerful they are, do they :copyka2:

Kieran actually seeing disapproval from his just-evolved Pokémon for the first time has got to rattle him a bit. He never saw it when Candour was stuck inside the apple, so it's very new to him that part of Hydrapple might not like him.
Oh dear :unquag: That really must have stung for him, poor kid.

But it's fine so long as the one who does all the battling is still on his side!!!

Ha. Of course he can't! Juliana is the one who gets lucky crits; Kieran doesn't get to have good luck.

Of course Kieran doesn't feel great about the move being luck-based, does he.
Love that these two moves let me have some fun showcasing Kieran's ridiculous complex about luck. Obviously there's no way he can expect Fickle Beam to do double damage when it really matters against Juliana, right :copyka:

Aww. Of course it's a bit hard to respond to that. But what matters to Loyalty is always just that he is Kieran.
Also hard to respond because what do you mean there are now multiple syrpents who disapprove of his current attitude, and not just a single one who was easier to shoot down or ignore :unquag:

Ah, I was just wondering about the pronouns. Syrpents with different genders!
For the record, Loyalty was always a he, even as a Dipplin; I just couldn't really show it back then without multiple syrpents to enable referring to him in third person.

She's friendship/communication, isn't she.
More or less! I was thinking more of friendship/kindness - I think communication is something Sincerity also cares about too, in a bit of a different way. Like, Amity values communication for the sake of friendship, while Sincerity values communication purely for the sake of self-expression.

Insecurity? (Makes sense that one split off from Loyalty :copyka2:)

Anxiety?
Almost, but not quite! Insecurity and anxiety feel like more general terms that kind of cover both of them, so I wanted to make their names a little more specific. (In particular, Inadequacy's name almost was Insecurity in the planning stages, but then I realised that paranoia is sort of a subtype of insecurity and so it'd be better to change the left one's name to something more specific to the idea of not feeling good enough.)

Yup, all those worries and insecurities split off into the tail syrpents and Loyalty is just left like what are you talking about. Healthy! :copyka2:
Yep! :)))) Splitting off his insecurities into entire separate individuals is completely fine and good, because it means he doesn't feel those things any more! nothing bad could possibly come of this

Oof, poor Kieran. And Loyalty is so dogged about just supporting whatever Kieran does that he doesn't even think there's anything concerning about it.
It is, after all, very canon that Kieran didn't eat proper meals! And evidence from his room suggests he was largely surviving on candy bars and energy drinks, which, yes, Healthy :unquag:

but Kieran cannot possibly be wrong about anything, you see, so it's fine,

Obviously, he's the only important one :sadbees:
That trainer definitely doesn't think Hydrapple is cool because it has five heads, they are definitely only impressed by this one slightly bigger head in the middle

(I think Loyalty actually realises on some level that he's kidding himself with this one.)

Interesting... what they really are may just be referring to the disunity of them? Unless this is just the anxiety talking with anxiety gremlins.
I was mostly thinking of general anxiety gremlins about being fundamentally weak/pathetic/not good enough/etc, though I suppose the disunity is one of the things that would theoretically make them Not Good Enough.

(What I was really thinking about with this line, and with Inadequacy's line shortly before it, was that the two of them were sort of parallelling how Kieran feels at suddenly being met with this praise and admiration, thus illustrating why he chooses to respond so inappropriately harshly - out of his insecurity and fear of being seen as weak otherwise.)

Oof, recognizing old Kieran in this other trainer that Kieran has rejected as not worth his time :sadwott:
Yyyep. I realised as I wrote this that the other trainer is sort of similar to how Kieran used to be - looking up to cool strong trainers, enjoying battles just for the fun of it, being somewhat emotionally fragile and genuinely hurt by Kieran being so harsh on them. The main difference, of course, is that this trainer isn't so frightfully timid and actually has the courage to just walk up to someone they admire to talk to him and ask for a battle, entirely on their own.

(Somewhere deep down, Kieran may have noticed this and be very bitter about this one key difference)

Nice moment to see another set of several Pokémon genuinely working together as one, huh. :copyka:
That was also the reason I chose to give Juliana a Maushold as one of the Pokémon they fought before! If only Loyalty was better at teamwork, maybe they could win :sadbees:

Definitely the right word for it :copyka2:
Yes, the correct word for regularly sacrificing sleep to obsessively study strategy: "incredible", and not "deeply concerning"

Almost starting to realize the futility of this, but he remains too loyal :copyka2:
He just cannot acknowledge that all of his loyalty has been stupid and misfounded and futile this whole time.

(a bit like Kieran can't)

Yeah, he's presumably thinking of how they sprouted from Loyalty.
Something Loyalty refuses to properly confront, because what do you mean he used to be that pathetically insecure somewhere deep down, nah, couldn't be him

Replicating Kieran's bullying of others! Oofff.
Clearly the best way to deal with these literal anxiety gremlins personified is to... mirror their negative self-talk back at them, yes, this approach can only lead to good things and definitely will not give them more of a voice and make them louder and louder and... oh :unquag:

Waraider energy (not for the only time this chapter)
Much Waraider energy in this whole fic, really! I reread your Waraider extra as I was planning this :3

Truly just externalizing all the issues Loyalty had before evolving, huh :copyka2:
Oops. Turns out excising your own insecurities by making them into literal separate individuals actually just make things worse, because now they are talking at you all of the time and you can't make them shut up! (especially when you go on to fuel them by constantly reinforcing their negativity at them)

Loyalty sure is on a spiraling journey toward self-destruction along with Kieran, huh. The other syrpents have such valid concerns and Loyalty just has to dismiss all of them like his life depends on it even as everything grows more Concerning.
A bit like how Kieran himself must have been desperately dismissing all his own niggling internal worries that he's doing the wrong thing and ought to just stop :copyka:

Can't wait for the actual battle against Juliana and what follows; I'm imagining you'll cover the full rest of Kieran's arc, and boy, do I expect the syrpents to have plenty to say about it. The others have been trying to persuade Loyalty on the basis that challenging Juliana will never happen, of course, but we know it does happen - though not because Kieran challenges her so much as because she challenges Kieran at last.
Yep, all of Indigo Disk coming up in the final part! There sure will be Opinions about Juliana :copyka:

It's also interesting to watch Kieran himself here and what happens between the DLCs - Drayton challenging him multiple times trying to talk sense into him but losing each time, oof.
Drayton definitely canonically did that! Kieran once scoffs at Drayton for "always losing" to him, meaning he challenged Kieran multiple times :copyka:

Him letting a "Wowzers!" slip one time and then trying to correct it is painful and also extremely in character.
He does that once in the actual champion battle, too! The boy cannot help but wowze even when he is determined not to :sadbees:

This poor kid and his worrying eating and sleeping habits or lack thereof. I may enjoy Comfort the most of the new syrpents just because she's so adamant about taking actual care of Kieran while Loyalty just clings to the idea that whatever Kieran wants is what it means to be loyal to Kieran.
Aww. She is very good, just wanting her boy to stop literally torturing himself already :sadwott:

Bit too tired to be super coherent, but all in all, I am in pain, write more noodles.
I am delighted that you are in such pain over these Noodles and their Boy :copyka:
 
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Seren

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  1. sableye
Hiya again! So it looks like only 2/3 parts are available right now, but I'm gonna see if I can get caught up with them both, if not tonight, then within the next few days.

.
You just wish there was something you could do to help him with that.

So, this entire first paragraph draws a lot of parallels between Kieran and Applin right off the bat. Which, I guess in some ways, is to be expected; like trainer, like 'mon. But Applin's got that same sort of 'I'm not good enough' attitude as Kieran here. Applin's even looking at the rest of his teammates and thinking even if Kieran gets to battle, they would be the ones he'd use in it. And that's confirmed in the very next paragraph. Poor lil thing.

“Friend? You made a friend! A human friend!” Sentret – no, Furret – exclaims in delight, his new longer body twisting this way and that around Kieran’s legs.

Interesting, I forgot you battle Kieran twice in one day here. Also interesting that Applin doesn't seem to comment besides a passing note about some of the team having evolved. I wonder if maybe at this point Applin doesn't expect to evolve so it (is Applin male or female? I don't recall, and the 'you' PoV makes it harder to tell) just doesn't think about it.

Your eye-stalks stand straight up in amazement, staring at the glistening fruit before you. He’d mentioned this once or twice, a special apple from the festival that lets an Applin evolve, but you’d never thought – you never dreamed—

Ah, that's why it was glossed over. And seems I was right, Applin never seriously considered s/he would get to evolve too. Kinda love how s/he rolled and fell on the floor during and that threw off the perspective for a moment while s/he readjusted. It's gotta be a little disappointing to finally get a new form when you never imagined you would, only for it to... not really feel much different, other than gaining a roommate (although, I suppose that could be considered a drastic change). I wonder what Applin thought about Furret and Poliwhirl, since theirs were more drastic physical changes.

“…Who are you?” the new wyrm responds.

And on that note, it's interesting to consider here that both Applin seem to feel like they were the original. They have to come from somewhere, of course, but it's a little sad to think the blind one inside the apple used to be able to see Kieran and now it just... can't. Once s/he evolves again I'm sure they both will, but until then, I wonder if they'll just take turns.

“Poliwhirl, I got you a Water Stone. I know it’s kinda soon after your last evolution, but the stronger you get, the better, y’know?”

Oh, I hadn't thought about this. I wonder if this is a case of a stone 'mon evolving too quickly? (I know that was kinda early anime weirdness, but also for a long time stone evolutions couldn't even learn moves naturally, so I've always kind of kept that headcanon.)

“And Furret…” Kieran hesitates. “Just… just keep doin’ your best, okay?”

:sadwott:

and her Pokémon, four little white mice fighting together as a single unit, doesn’t even seem that threatening. You’re a lot stronger than you used to be. You can do this.

Kinda love the absolute audacity of Dipplin here; Dipplin, who's only ever fought wild 'mon and never had a proper trainer battle before, laughing at his/her opponent. I know s/he feels strong, but this was very amusing. Especially when they get bombed immediately by a fairy move.

They take a moment to respond. “If I weren’t here, you wouldn’t be strong enough to battle for Kieran.”

Ouch

Yanma’s finally evolved, too, an encouraging sign that all this training is bearing fruit, even if it’s harder to notice that in yourself.

Earlier, Applin sure had a lot of parallels to Kieran. Here, it seems like Loyalty is still that way, already diving headfirst into that 'must get stronger' mindset. Both in adding cramorant and gligar (as long as they use that strength to help), as well as noting yanma finally evolving. In theory, these guys have been with Kieran at Blueberry for quite some time before coming home, and now in the span of a couple days, Loyalty's already thinking like Yanma's taken too long to evolve despite only getting real training for... those two days.

I'll admit, I've been frustrated with Fru- I mean, Candour, too, but they really are just telling it like it is.

This is true draconic power, mighty and indomitable, and you’re just—
He can’t have been wrong to choose you. He can’t have been.

Yep, Loyalty's still got that same feeling of not being strong enough, for sure. And both of these fights, you can argue that Loyalty didn't have a chance; I guess the maushold could have been winnable, but certainly not against an ice-type. Both times, s/he was against a move they're weak against.

A victory! At last.

There ya go! Proof that maushold was defeatable, even through a super effective hit.

“Poliwag. I was too hasty with your sister.” Kieran’s moved on to him.

Oh, so I was right here, too; maybe not directly, but poliwrath definitely evolved too fast.

As you marvel over the possibility of it, Frustration’s dispirited muttering cuts through your thoughts. “…Because we can evolve. That’s the only reason we’re still here, and not—”

Well, at least there's a realization they can still get stronger than they are. Poor Loyalty doesn't even really get to enjoy the moment, though.

I'm glad I read the dodrio one-shot before this one. There's some nice similarities here. One of Dipplin's wyrms has that same unwavering devotion to their trainer, while the other wyrm is the more practical, like the 'anger' dodrio head, but without the bite back. In fact, this wyrm sort of combines attributes of those other two: s/he's got that realistic view, but rather than being angry about it, they're more on the sad side of the coin, perhaps with a bit more concern in there, too. I can only imagine how you're going to handle the hydrapple form, that's a lot of heads to keep track of!

You've got such a great handle on your characters; this was true way back in FC, and remains so even now. Even between the wyrms, they're each their own distinct personality. I can see why the main wyrm is called Loyalty. S/he's got that same kind of crazed dedication to getting stronger. But unlike Kieran, Loyalty has someone to kind of keep them grounded, keep them from spiraling out of control and taking it a step too far. Of course, they're still Kieran's 'mon, so they have to kinda go along with it anyway, there's not really much choice, but knowing you, that was deliberate. One has to wonder if Kieran had someone like that on his side, if the Blueberry arc would have happened the way it did.

I also notice you mention this is a three-parter... the next chapter is, pretty obviously, going to be the Blueberry arc. I wonder if you're going to include the Area Zero stuff with that, or if that's going to be part 3 on its own. I'm actually kind of hoping part 3 is an epilogue of sorts (and I'm sure there'll be a segment of one either way), but I'm expecting Area Zero to be its own chapter.

Either way, I'm looking forward to that! I dunno if I'll have the energy to get to part 2 tonight after dinner, but if not, hopefully some time in the next two or three days.
 

Seren

Lurking
Staff
Pronouns
He/Him
Partners
  1. sableye
I really need to stop committing to dates I may or may not be able to achieve. :unquag: Anyways, part 2!

.
There’s even more changes as you begin your training in the segmented landscape of the Blueberry place. For the first couple of days, Kieran has you battling a seemingly endless stream of wild Pokémon, all of a very few specific species, even though most of them are beaten far too easily for you to be gaining much strength from this. It doesn’t make any sense to you, but you trust Kieran to know what he’s doing.

I kinda love this little nod to EV training. On one hand, one wouldn't expect constantly facing the same 'mon over and over to actually be a viable training method, but then you think about it, certain 'mon probably do offer solid practice for some strategies over others.

His standards are high: only Pokémon willing to truly dedicate themselves to his training regime are deemed good enough to join, and some are dropped again soon after. There was a Scraggy you’d begun to work with, until she abruptly wasn’t there any more.

Considering other 'mon Kieran might have trained is fun to think about... I wonder if there's any rhyme or reason behind this Scraggy pick? (Knowing you, probably yes.) I also wonder if you've thought of any others he may have tried.

He buries his face in his food bowl to hide from the scowl you make at that, because you know exactly what he was about to say. A bit like Kieran.

Kieran’s not scary, and neither are you. You’re both just… determined. As you need to be.

Ah, Dipplin's in denial here, even though they absolutely do see it; else they wouldn't have known what Politoed was about to say.

But then it hit you: if a dragon could learn to get used to this, how much stronger would they be? And you still can’t forget the way Juliana’s Baxcalibur overwhelmed you with its chilling command of ice.

Suddenly, it hit me why Hydrapple has a fighting tera-type. I don't think it's ever canonically given a reason, but fighting is a solid counter for a dragon/ice type.

(And surely you must be bearing this more stoically than Dragonite. Maybe this, at least, is one thing you can impress Kieran with more than she would.)

Huh, I wonder why this is? Both have secondary types also weak to ice... does Dipplin just not realize that? Or do they just so desperately want to be better than Dragonite at something? :copyka:

You sense them stir, like they want to respond to that… but they don’t. They must realise you’re right. They’ve been realising that a lot more lately.

Oh, no, I don't think that's the reason for their recent silence...

Kieran’s pointing his human device at Dragonite. “Normal, huh? That could work with Extreme Speed, but… let’s see…” He moves on down the line, having to lower the device when he reaches you. “Wait, Fighting? I could’ve sworn you were…” He trails off. “Doesn’t matter. Yeah, Fighting works. Covers some weaknesses. Won’t be seen coming. Alright, you’re up, Dipplin.”

Hm... How do you decide what gets what tera type? Wild 'mon in-game are pretty much always found with one of their base typings (a scyther could have either bug or flying, for example), or possibly be found with one of their base form's typing (like a flying tera type scizor, for example). Dragonite with normal could be explained way because I'm pretty sure your headcanon is that draitini was a gift from another person rather than a wild capture, but... how did Dipplin end up with fighting, then?

I personally kind of like the idea that tera types are sort of like hidden power and therefore based on that (so maybe Dipplin's HP would be fighting?) but I don't recall if that was a widespread theory or not.

Emboldened by this new power, you take on the last few battles with renewed vigour, blasting your way through the competition. At last, you make it to the long-awaited battle against Drayton, the dragon trainer, the strongest in this place – but you refuse to be intimidated. Within your Terastal cocoon, the attacks of the rival dragons don’t faze you. Even the cold of the battlefield doesn’t cut through you like it always used to. All that effort spent fighting to endure the chill has finally paid off.

Huh. Actually, now I'm wondering if you base it on their personality or something? Like because there's a big emphasis here on Dipplin fighting hard for Kieran, so much so that it subconsciously influenced its inner abilities? That seems like the sort of flavorful twist you'd spin on it.

“Well, then,” you hiss to them as you retract your head, feeling the new move solidify itself in your mind. “It’s a good thing you don’t get a choice.”

I feel like there's another comparison here, something about Dipplin treating Frustration the way Kieran's treating his team, but that's not quite right... The team does have a choice, comply or be dropped. Frustration does't have the option to leave.

“Guess Dragon Cheer works kind of weird when there’s no target. But it looks like you’ve got the move down. That’s all we need. Time to train.”

If I'm not mistaken here, Dragon Cheer actually affected Frustration, which is a nice touch.

“Hydrapple!” Kieran exclaims. “Wowzers—” He breaks off and clears his throat. “I – I mean… you’re… bigger than I expected.”

Love this little flash of the true Kieran still in there, his walls crumbling for just a second in the heat of the moment.

“Already?” the other syrpent behind you mumbles. “It’s still freezing here.” The usual moaning is harder to tune out when it’s in a whole new voice.

Also love this little segment here, where now there's six other Frustrations all sharing the same thoughts. And just like Frustration, it seems like the other heads (and tails) also remember being able to see him... guess it sucks for the two tails who used to be able to and now can't, though, since there's no more evolution to remedy that...

As you build up the power, you feel something strange that you’ve never felt before. You’re the only one fuelling it. The other syrpents are inert, contributing nothing at all.

I wonder why this is. I'm sure it's in relation to fickle beam's double power effect, but this is one of those weird moves that just... translates awkwardly from game to text. Anyways, naturally this is going to be used to get all the other serpents to join in and make the next one a real bomb.

“…It’s luck-based? Seriously?” Kieran lets out a long, angry sigh. “Fine. Never mind that. We’ll just have to find a way around it.”

...Or maybe not. Hm. Well, I can still see Kieran approving it over dragon pulse purely because it's pretty much just a better move overall; comparable base power with a chance to be explosive.

She falls silent, lost in thought. …She? You’re not sure how you know she’s a she, but you can sense it somehow – in the same way, it occurs to you only now, that you never questioned Frustration being a they.

Oh, really glad this was addressed; I'm pretty sure I'd taken note of it in part 1.

You look over at Dragonite, who’s quietly watching Politoed from a distance. It’s strange. You used to feel… some kind of way about her being here on the team, a rival dragon. But the thought seems almost silly now. Here you are, fully-evolved, tall enough to face her eye-to-eye. Kieran worked this hard to get you here, chose you over her for Terastallisation. If Dragonite gets any ideas in her head about who’s more deserving… well, she’ll have one hell of a fight coming.

Can't help but take mental note here of how, even with tera fighting, Hydrapple still has a weakness to Dragonite. Unless they somehow both tera at the same time.

“That sparkle in the other human’s eyes when they saw us…” murmurs Sincerity. “It didn’t matter if they’d lose – they wanted to battle us for the fun of it. Just like…”

It's honestly a little frustrating (heh) that the main head is the only one who doesn't seem to see this.

“You know, since you’re awake too, you might as well help out. Wake me up if I fall asleep at the desk. Hate it when that happens.”

:sadwott:

At least stubbornness is something you have in common with Kieran. So it’s basically a compliment, even if the others are too short-sighted to see it that way.

Of course they would twist it into a compliment. This poor dragon...

Kieran doesn’t ask you to keep him awake at night again.

Oof. There's such a heaviness to this line. It's such a small, innoculous thing, and yet, it's there.

“We don’t need to convince Kieran,” Sense confirms. You can feel his stare piercing into you. “We need to convince you.”

Ah, you know, yeah, now it makes a bit more sense why they're all-but-one seemingly on the same side against Kieran. (Well, aside from the obvious; we know how this all turns out.)

It is kind of interesting that Kieran doesn't listen to the other hydrapple serpents, as though they're all just one being and only the main head is sentient. Can't even use the excuse of disagreeing or not liking what they're saying, since he can't understand them. This is probably just an overlooked thing for story purposes, but it does add a strange angle to the dynamic.

Yes – you’ve hit upon the solution. It figures that flagrant deprecation is the only thing those two will listen to.

Oh dear. Easy comparison here.

The words came out without thinking, but now that you consider it, there’s a certain kind of logic there.

This is such a sad, scary line of thinking. Could apply it to various other things too but I'm not gonna go outside the story.

“They’re plotting against you,” Paranoia informs you out of nowhere later that day. “They’re jealous of you being Kieran’s favourite, so they want to make him hate you. Don’t listen to them.”

Oh no, come on now, why are you making it worse, Paranoia?? :unquag:

Drayton comes after him again a couple more times, each time with an attempt to convince him of the same nonsense. Each time, Kieran has you and the team shut him up, more comprehensively than the last.

It's almost kind of sweet that Drayton of all people keeps coming back to him... but it's probably having the opposite effect, I imagine. With each time Kieran defeats him (and more easily each time), the more confident he'll be feeling that he's on the right track.

Whatever complaints they have, whatever downsides there might be right now, it’ll all be worth it when Kieran defeats Juliana. It will. No matter what Sense keeps saying, you trust Kieran to know what he’s after.

Man, at this point, I wish they'd just get it over with and take her on already! Wake up these poor delusional serpents (and their human!). Of course, none of them know she's coming to Blueberry at this point, so of course no one could say when they're going to get that battle even if/when they were ready.

“Yeah, yeah, this super tough trainer,” he says, far too casually. “You know I’m up for the challenge. But when’s the boss gonna take her on, huh?”

Ah, and now even the team is starting to see that, too. I guess it's probably too easy to simply say 'she's not here' as an excuse as to why they're not facing her yet, even were it the truth.


And that's a wrap for part 2! Man, what a tangled mess of emotions. Loyalty (or Stubbornness) is true to their name both of them), just like their human. It's honestly infuriating to watch. They've got a very different dynamic than Dodrio. We all know how this ends, but it's gonna be interesting to see the fallout; the last chapter's not actually going to be entirely what I'd expected it was going to be.
 

DroopyMcCool

Youngster
Pronouns
he/him
Hi there! New to the community and stumbling around looking for something to read I found this.

I never actually got around to playing the DLCs, but I've picked up enough of the story to understand what's going on here. This is a really cool idea for a story. Love the inherent drama of communication only being possible in one direction. Playing with perspectives like that is a lot of fun, especially when the whole point of the story is the splitting heads and different perspectives they offer. I always like a Gatsby-esque story told from a side character's perspective. Especially when that side character ends up having a bit of an arc anyway. And then that arc ends up reflecting/mirroring Kieran's arc. Which is all very cool.

Internal doubts being manifested physically is always fun from a storytelling/character perspective. Especially when those doubts become external later. And then the one who is literally blinded at the start is somehow more perceptive, which adds a cool layer to it. Then as a hydrapple the blinded ones are the most irrational except for maybe the narrator themselves. It's a really cool way of manifesting subtleties and perspectives as actual characters in a surprisingly deep and layered way.

Splitting the story into three parts instead of doing a one-shot was definitely the right call. Pacing-wise it cuts very neatly at key points of Kieran's arc. I am interested to see just how far through the plot Part 3 takes it. Although like I said, I haven't actually played the DLC. For all I know Hydrapple gets eaten by Terapagos in a cutscene or something. Looking forward to that scene.

I'm not sure how I feel about the inclusion of the more "gamey" stuff like EV-training. It makes for a cute reference, but also feels kinda lampshadey if you know what I mean. Like very little about the game world actually makes sense if you apply any amount of scrutiny to it, so I tend to not love when the most video-gamey elements are canonized in a story. I don't know. That's just me. It's a very subjective thing. That all said, this is a story trying to be highly faithful to the game so it's probably fine.

Don't think I missed the irony of learning and then immediately forgetting dragon cheer, the move that encourages working with others and supporting them positively haha. This is great.

Looking forward to Part 3!
 
part 3: indigo New

elyvorg

somewhat backwards
Premium
Pronouns
she/they
Partners
  1. grovyle
-- part 3: indigo --

“Huh—?! Juliana?!”

Kieran’s voice pierces through the Poké Ball haze. You were trying to drift off, to let the latest of Amity’s complaints wash over you – but none of you can ignore the name your trainer just said.

As the others’ mutterings renew, you burst out into sudden laughter. All that time worrying that Juliana might never show up, afraid of what you might end up doing if – but of course she did. She’s here now. There was no point getting worked up at all.

“Wh-Why…?” you hear Kieran mumble. Then, a moment later, “For real?”

“He wasn’t expecting this,” Sense observes. “He’s not the one who called her here.”

“What if… what if he isn’t ready…?” frets Inadequacy. “It’s Juliana…”

“But she came anyway…” Amity muses, ignoring the tail syrpent. “I wonder…”

“She came before he was ready so she could ruin him,” says Paranoia.

It shouldn’t matter that Kieran didn’t summon her. The end result is the same. He’ll finally get to battle her again, and then…

(But… if he isn’t ready yet… if you’re not—)

“It doesn’t matter who I’m facing,” Kieran says, his voice hard and firm. “I don’t lose.”

…No. He’s right; he doesn’t. And neither do you. Not any more.

You can do this. You have to – for him.

Soon afterwards, you materialise into Kieran’s room. He’s pacing back and forth in front of you, his gaze on the ground. “She’s here.”

“I know,” you tell him.

He glances at you. “You heard, huh?” Then back down at the floor. “Juliana. She’s joining the BB League. Any day now, it’ll happen. And I—”

His face does something you can’t interpret. He steps closer, looking you in the eye, and reaches out to lay a hand on your neck. You shiver at his touch, leaning into it almost unconsciously. It’s the first time he’s held you since you were a tiny Applin.

“You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to lose to her…” His voice is barely above a whisper.

Sincerity emerges, just a little. “Kieran,” he says, “it’s okay to be nervous. You don’t have to—”

Kieran glances down at him, then withdraws his hand, taking a step back, tilting his chin up. The hair above his eyes slants inwards as he looks back at you. “Make sure the others know what they’re up against,” he instructs. “I’ll see you in the Terarium.”

And you’re back inside the ball, glaring invisibly at Sincerity for butting in.

Not long after that, you overhear Kieran telling Juliana that she’d better not lose before reaching him, that he’s going to show her how the best of the best battle. He doesn’t sound nervous at all, despite what Sincerity said. Nonsense, as usual. Of course Kieran’s ready for this. He has to be.

The others are still chattering away about Juliana’s arrival. “Maybe this is a good thing!” Amity’s saying. “She’s his friend, after all. If Kieran just… talked to her, properly…”

“What are you on about?” you cut in. “Have you forgotten how she lied to him and made fun of him? She was never his friend.”

Amity pauses. “…Wasn’t she?”

“He should talk to her,” Sincerity agrees. “Tell her how all of it made him feel. That’s got to be what’s behind all this – if he’d just… be honest with himself…”

You scoff. “You really think Kieran would have trained this hard for something that could be solved with talking?”

“Evidently,” Sense mutters under his breath.

“Does she know?” wonders Comfort. “What he’s been doing to himself because of what happened. Does she realise what she did to him?”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean to!” Amity pipes up.

“I don’t think she does realise,” says Sense. “If she had something to say about that, she’d have said it by now. But it sounds like she’s all for battling him, too.” He sighs. “There’s no way Kieran will talk to her on his own. And Stubbornness won’t listen to anything we say now. That chance went sour the moment she showed up.”

Of course you won’t. To think they ever believed that was possible… ridiculous. Kieran’s about to get exactly what he wants.

You soon find yourself on the snowy mountain with the rest of the team, pushing back the biting cold with practiced discipline. All Kieran needs to say is, “Juliana’s here.”

Incineroar growls appreciatively, Porygon-Z does a jittery twirl, and Grimmsnarl catches your eye. “About time, huh?”

You fidget, suppressing a grumble. They’re far too casually excited for something of this magnitude. At least Politoed and Dragonite, watching Kieran silently, seem to understand.

Your trainer turns his gaze down the slopes of the mountain, at the segmented landscape of the Blueberry place laid out below. The battlefields where you triumphed against the four strongest trainers look so small from up here. “She’s down there somewhere right now, challenging the Elite Four,” Kieran says. “It won’t take her long. And once she’s through them… I’ll finally get my chance.”

“Yeah!” Incineroar punches the ground, kicking up a spray of snow that turns to vapour. “And we’ll take her down, just like we did everyone else!”

“You lot don’t get it,” you blurt out, unable to help yourself. The other Pokémon turn to eye you. So does Kieran, but he lets you talk – he asked you to do this, after all.

“Juliana’s not just another strong opponent,” you tell them. “She’s so much more than that. She’s—”

The cold pierces through you, so reminiscent of the way her Baxcalibur’s cascade of ice helplessly crushed you beneath its might. You fight to suppress your shivering. How can you explain this so they’ll understand?

You gesture with your head down the mountain’s slopes, at everything else so small and far below. “It’s like… down there are all the trainers we beat before. And we’ve climbed up here above them. But Juliana, she’s…”

Your gaze travels up, up, and up, all the way to the glittering green orb high in the sky at the very top of this place. So far away, even from up here on the mountain. Utterly unreachable.

“…She’s invincible…” mumbles Inadequacy, trembling from the cold. “We’ll never be able to reach her level… never…!”

With a sudden twitch, you shift your focus to the mountain’s peak. Higher than where you’re standing, but… not so far away. “She’s up there. At the summit,” you finish.

Grimmsnarl chuckles, idly flexing the hair tentacles on his arms. “Hey, that’s only a little higher. We can make it there, no sweat! And then we’ll win!”

You can’t help but feel you failed to get across the magnitude of this like Kieran wanted.

“There’s no way we’ll win…” mutters Inadequacy.

“But we have to win, or else…” Paranoia puts in.

“…It’s impossible…!”

“…It’s all going to fall apart…”

You try to push their words out of your mind and focus on training. But it’s difficult to ignore those two in particular when they’re meant to be training, too. All they do is fret and moan, the very opposite of everything you need to hear right now. Even your usual persuasion tactics only succeed in making their panicky moping worse.

You should have realised it from the start: you can’t count on them to help you win this. It was a waste of effort trying to coax them to be better. They’re utterly lacking the kind of determination that Kieran needs from you.

And you already know the other four syrpents won’t be any help when the time comes. It’s all up to you, and you alone.

“You know,” muses Sense at one point, “if he does manage to win, perhaps he’ll actually notice it not fixing anything, and come to his senses.”

The stress on ‘if’ is scandalous enough to catch your attention. There is no if you win. You have to.

Not that you should be surprised. None of the other syrpents have any faith in Kieran – you already knew that.

“And if he loses…” Sense goes on, thoughtful, “…well, I guess we’ll have to see. Perhaps this battle was the only way this could ever end. Good thing Juliana turned up on her own.”

“Whether he wins or loses,” adds Comfort anxiously, “maybe he’ll finally let himself rest?”

“Maybe he’ll talk to her then!” Amity pipes up.

“It might just be the thing to get him to open up…” muses Sincerity.

Easy for them to be prattling on about their irrelevant nonsense when they don’t care about the outcome of the battle, don’t care about the most important thing. They can just laze around, babbling amongst themselves, while you have to make sure you do everything you can to help Kieran win. The showdown with Juliana is so close now, and yet each day of training seems to last so much longer than before, when every move and strategy, every slightest thing, needs to be utterly perfected, or else…

A couple of days into this – though it feels like more – Kieran gives an update on Juliana’s progress. “She’s taking longer than I expected… but I watched her beat Amarys earlier. Wasn’t even close. She’s just as strong as ever.” The corners of his mouth curl upwards, revealing his teeth. “Winning against that… it’ll all be worth it.”

Is he… smiling again? It’s been so long since you’ve seen him do so that you’ve forgotten quite what it looked like. That shape of his mouth… that’s it, right?

You almost want to say something to the others – that Kieran’s happy again, that of course this battle with Juliana is exactly what he needs – but something stops you.

“That’s… that’s not a proper smile,” Sincerity puts in, as if he heard your thoughts. He’s poking just far enough out of the apple to be watching your trainer too. “Look at his eyes. It’s all wrong.”

You hate that he’s got a point. The light still isn’t there in Kieran’s eyes.

But winning this battle for him will bring it back at last. It has to.

(If it doesn’t… what else even could?)

“And another thing,” adds Sincerity. “He just watched Juliana battle, so he should have seen Ogerpon, surely?”

…Ogerpon. You’d almost forgotten that the ogre’s with Juliana now.

“But he didn’t mention her,” Sincerity goes on. “He’s never talked about her once, this entire time, even though she’s…”

“Well, maybe she wasn’t there,” you interrupt. “In the battle.” That’d explain why Kieran didn’t bring her up. (And it’d mean you wouldn’t—)

“Don’t be silly!” says Amity. “Juliana’s her friend now, right? Why wouldn’t Ogerpon be battling with her new trainer?”

“Of course she’ll use the ogre!” wails Inadequacy, curling his tail in against the apple. “The two of them together – we’ll never measure up to them. They’re both too strong!”

Paranoia shudders. “She stole the ogre from Kieran so that he could never ever beat her. And she’s here now to prove that. He’ll have nothing left. Nothing!”

Useless pessimistic nonsense, as always. There’s no use listening to Sincerity or Amity, either. All you need to do is focus on training, blocking out everything else, to make sure you’re ready for this.

After a couple more days that are somehow both excruciatingly long and yet not long enough, the moment approaches. Kieran lays down his finalised battle plan for the whole team.

“You’ll be out last, Terastallised,” he tells you. “Screens’ll be up, probably. You’ve got the best defences on the team. Whatever happens, you hold the line. Do not go down. Understand? It all depends on you.”

He’s counting on you the most – and he’s right to. You of all Pokémon, of all syrpents, will not let him down.

And then, with a zealous scream from Kieran, it’s happening, and there’s nothing to do but be ready, because you need to be. The shouts and clashes of battle echo outside the Poké Ball, but you block them out, holding on to your conviction. You can’t let yourself get caught up in how it’s going without you. Whatever happens, whatever the situation when your turn comes, you’ll hold the line, you won’t go down, and you’ll—

“You’ve got some nerve…” Kieran’s voice, louder than usual, tense and furious and something else, cuts through your focus. “Bringing out the ogre now of all times?!”

“I knew it!” says Amity. “Of course Ogerpon would be battling!”

Sincerity sighs. “And of course he didn’t want to face it, until he had no choice.”

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it…” Inadequacy babbles, a miserable echo of Amity’s words. “There’s no way we’ll stand a chance against the ogre…”

“It’s already over,” Paranoia’s voice is feverish. “He’s already lost. Juliana’s just playing with him, rubbing it in that he’ll never have anythi—”

Shut up!” you hiss. “The last thing I need right now is any of you talking!”

This would all have been so much easier if they weren’t here.

Mercifully, they fall silent, and you try and regain your focus, letting the sounds of battle from outside wash over you. It doesn’t matter what (or who) you’ll be facing – all you have to do is hold the line.

But that edge never leaves Kieran’s voice. Which means Ogerpon is still in the fight.

You feel the familiar shift of him taking hold of your ball. “Just go down already!” he yells in a frantic fervour. “How are you still standing after I’ve thrown everything I have at you?!”

Except he hasn’t, not yet. Because there’s still you.

As you’re hurled onto the battlefield, you size things up in an instant. Grimmsnarl beside you, Reflect in front, as expected. Beyond the screen, that Baxcalibur stands opposite, staring you down. You hiss back, now almost rivalling it in size, nothing like before.

But next to it gleams a dazzling structure of blue and white Tera crystal, a face-like shape so huge you can barely make out the nimble green figure behind it. Kieran told you, long ago, all about the masks. This is the ogre at the peak of its strength.

(“Already over…” Paranoia’s voice, so close it you’re not sure it’s not inside your own head. “It’s already over, you’ve already—”)

“I don’t need the old me anymore!” Kieran’s declaration snaps you back to him, and you feel Sincerity squirm. “I’ve changed, and I’ll show you I can change again!”

You’ve changed alongside him, too, just like he needed you to, just like the others refused to do. And just like always, the Tera crystals become one with you, imbuing you with the determination to fight, to grow stronger, to win.

“Tera Blast the Baxcalibur! Grimmsnarl, use… Spirit Break on the ogre!”

You’re slower, as always, but it doesn’t matter. You’ve learned to conquer the ice that crashes onto you from above, barely leaving a dent in your apple. Your huge blast of crystallised energy sends the Baxcalibur reeling, toppling onto its side.

Beside you, Grimmsnarl growls in pain and shakes out his hand as a barrier of spikes fades from the ogre’s crystal mask. Kieran lets out a grunt of frustration.

“…I’m capable of winning too, you know!” he exclaims. “Victory will be mine and mine alone! Fickle Beam! Sucker Punch! Same targets!”

You ignore the flurry of movement and smashing of crystals elsewhere on the field, focusing on the Baxcalibur. Back on its feet, the dragon flips forwards and shoots through the air, hurtling through the Reflect, the huge blade on its back cutting right into you.

This blow hurts more than the last, shunting you backwards, but you weather it and keep charging your attack. You neither expect nor need the other syrpents’ help. The golden beam blasts into your foe point-blank, and this time, as it crashes to the ground, it won’t be getting up.

Beside you, Grimmsnarl lies prone, sopping wet and surrounded by crystal shards. Both he and Baxcalibur vanish in a flash, leaving you faced with that huge glittering mask. Just you against the ogre.

You knew you’d be Kieran’s last Pokémon – but the ogre is the last one, too. It all comes down to this. You can win this, if you just—

“Hydrapple!” Kieran’s all but screaming. “Fickle Beam! Do it!

The ogre’s faster, of course, swinging a huge crystallised cudgel into you out of nowhere. Even dampened by the Reflect, the impact is dizzying, your vision going dark for a moment until you shake your head and force yourself to stay upright. Hold the line. Do not go down.

…But you can’t take another hit like that. With a stab of horror, you realise why Kieran’s so desperate. The ogre still has plenty of strength. This last Fickle Beam needs to be full power, or else—

“Come on!” you urge the others as you charge the attack. “Please!”

Just this once. This one time, when it matters most of all…!

You feel the four of them shift, registering your plea – but they don’t answer it. Those traitors stay inert, tucked inside the apple, not caring enough to help, as the Fickle Beam fires from your mouth alone. It shoots through the crystal mask, eliciting a cry of pain from the ogre behind it—!

—But it’s not enough. Just as Kieran knew it wouldn’t be.

“No…” your trainer gasps. “A-Again!” he cries, and you can’t fail to hear the undercurrent of despair in his voice. As if to rub it in, the Reflect flickers and vanishes. Too late. No chance left.

But if you can’t take another hit – could you dodge…? In an instant, you signal to the tail twins, urging them to move you out of the way, ducking low to the apple—

—Useless. The crystal cudgel smashes right into you in a mockery of your pathetic efforts, dooming you to the oblivion of failure yet again.

~~~​

You find yourself in Kieran’s room, lit only by a dim glow from the not-window. Your trainer’s standing right there, but on instinct, you cringe away, unable to bear facing him.

He needed you more than ever, was counting on you most of all, and you still failed him.

“Kieran, it’s okay—”

“It doesn’t matter that—”

“Please try to—”

The others speak all at once, emerging from the apple, their voices overlapping. And suddenly you remember exactly why you lost, how close you were to winning, if only…

“It’s their fault!” you insist, raising your voice above theirs, desperate to be heard, to be understood somehow, over the clamour. “I did everything I could, we were so close, I tried to make them help at the end, but they wouldn’t listen! They don’t—”

Kieran holds up a hand, and all of you fall silent. His gaze is on the ground.

“It’s fine,” he says, his voice hollow. “I know what I have to do now. Tomorrow, we’re going to a place called Area Zero to search for a legendary Pokémon. Terapagos. And I’m going to catch it.”

“A legendary Pokémon?” echoes Sincerity. “Like…”

Sense tenses. “That won’t—”

Kieran looks up, finally meeting your eye. “So I need you to battle it for me. I need you to – to prove that I’m worthy. You can do that for me, right, Hydrapple…?”

Before you can respond, Sense speaks. “But you’re already worthy.”

You blink, staring at him in disbelief. He said that in his usual tone, like it’s completely obvious. But he’s—

“Of course you are!” Amity agrees. “You don’t need to befriend a legendary Pokémon to be worthy, Kieran!”

“There’s no need to push yourself so hard to prove that,” adds Comfort.

Sincerity tilts his head. “Why are you the only one who can’t see your own worth?”

Frozen, dumbfounded, you glance between them all. Beneath you, the tail twins cringe and curl inwards.

“There’s no way we’re worthy…” Inadequacy moans. “Not against a legendary Pokémon…!”

“He’s hesitating,” Paranoia points out. “He knows we’re not worthy of him. It’s all falling apart…!”

“H-Hydrapple…?” Kieran’s ignored all the others’ words – words he doesn’t understand. He’s looking to you alone for a response, his voice wavering. For a moment, you aren’t sure what you should do.

But you’re Loyalty. There’s only one thing you can do: whatever Kieran wants of you.

So you lean forward, gently touching your forehead to his. He rests a hand on your neck, and you feel him trembling, holding onto you like you’re the only solid thing in the world.

“I promise, Kieran,” you whisper, closing your eyes. “I will prove you worthy.”

And this time, this time, you won’t let him down.

~~~​

Kieran’s journey through this Zero place takes a while. Now and then, through the Poké Ball, you hear snatches of his conversations with his sister, Juliana, and another human who’s here. None of it matters much, of course – you’re just waiting for them to reach the legendary Pokémon, this ‘hidden treasure’, so that you can do as Kieran asked and prove his worth to it in battle. But the other syrpents are finding plenty to say about the things they’re overhearing.

“He used that special word of his again!” Sincerity points out, more upbeat than you’ve ever heard him. “More than once! And his voice – it sounded like it used to, just for a moment there. His mask is breaking! The real Kieran’s coming back, at least a little!”

Not long after that, Amity pipes up. “Did you hear him just now? He was being considerate of someone else! He hasn’t forgotten how to be kind!”

“I told you!” says Sincerity. “He’s still in there. It was never gone, just… covered up.”

It’s just background chatter, meaningless words to pass the time until the moment Kieran needs you. You could easily drift off into the Poké Ball haze and shut it out entirely. But… it’s less of a pain to listen to than their ramblings usually are. It’s such a change to hear them being positive for once.

“Now that you mention it… I didn’t hear him studying the night before this,” says Comfort. Her voice is lighter, too, but only a little. “I hope he at least tried to get some proper rest, maybe…” She sighs. “But… I don’t know. Something’s still off.”

“It’s this whole trip,” says Sense. His tone is the same as ever. “None of those small things change why he came here. There’s no good reason he should want to capture this ‘hidden treasure’, but here he is anyway.”

“It’s what he wants,” you insist. “That’s the only reason he should need.” And it’s the only reason you need to think about.

“As if Dragonite wasn’t enough, now it’s a legendary Pokémon!” Paranoia frets. “And just after we failed him, too! Can’t you all see what this means…?!”

“Like Ogerpon…” mumbles Inadequacy. “So, so much stronger than we could ever be… We’re nothing compared to that kind of strength…”

Sense huffs in annoyance. “…What this means is that nothing’s changed. Not enough, anyway. Kieran’s still trapped in that irrational obsession of his.”

You scoff. Clearly Sense hasn’t changed either. You’d almost thought, for a moment, back then in Kieran’s room… but of course not. Of course he still can’t do anything but complain and find fault with your trainer’s every decision.

You’re saved from any more of that as you’re called out of the Poké Ball. There’s no legendary Pokémon yet, just a labyrinth of caverns, lit entirely by dazzling crystals embedded in the rocks everywhere you look. The whole place thrums with an intense energy that reminds you of being Terastallised. The other syrpents emerge from the apple too, drawn out by the extraordinary beauty of the place. It’s like you’re in a whole other world.

Seeing you staring, Kieran’s mouth twitches upwards, just a little. “I guess it’s pretty cool here, isn’t it?”

“It is!” Sincerity agrees eagerly. “It’s okay to say that word of yours again, if you want…?” He trails off, the hopeful note in his voice going unanswered.

Amity’s peering over Kieran’s shoulder, where Juliana and the other humans are stood around a table not far behind him. “Why are you by yourself?” she asks. “It looks like they’re having a picnic! Don’t you want to join them…?”

Kieran pauses, glancing between both syrpents for a moment. “A-Anyway,” he says, focusing on just you. “I sent you out for some quick training. I want to switch up your moveset before we reach the hidden treasure.”

You weren’t expecting this, but you nod regardless. With Kieran guiding you, you concentrate on shifting the energies inside you. The other syrpents don’t bother to help, of course, continuing to chatter away on the periphery of your attention while you focus on regaining Dragon Cheer.

“Why do we need to do this now?” Comfort complains. “The other humans stopped to rest. You should rest too, Kieran. Eat something.”

“Perhaps this is just an excuse not to join the others,” muses Sincerity. He glances behind you. “I knew it. Ogerpon’s there with them.”

Amity droops. “Now that you mention it… he’s still barely talked to Juliana at all, has he? Does he still think she wasn’t his friend?”

“You’re still hurting, aren’t you, Kieran?” Sincerity’s facing right at your trainer. “You should talk to her about it!”

“Talk to her! She is your friend, I’m sure of it!”

You force yourself to ignore them, to ignore all the things you’d definitely otherwise be saying right now about how wrong and pointless their words are, because Kieran needs you to focus. With Dragon Cheer remastered, he moves onto Syrup Bomb. You’re not sure why he’s choosing these moves, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever he wants of you.

“Syrup Bomb…?” mumbles Inadequacy. “But we’re far too slow for Syrup Bomb to help us! It’s useless!”

“Dragon Cheer… Syrup Bomb… these are support moves,” says Paranoia. “He’s turning us into nothing but support…! I knew it! I told you!”

You try to block out their words and concentrate on Kieran’s guidance. The tails’ babblings shouldn’t matter.

Regaining the hang of Syrup Bomb takes you longer than it ought to.

“And last up, let’s replace Tera Blast with Body Press,” Kieran says.

Paranoia tenses up on hearing that, and so do you. You have to force yourself to nod.

“Replace Tera Blast?! Of course!” The words burst out of the tail syrpent in a frenzy, echoing exactly what’s on your mind. “He doesn’t need us to Terastallise any more! I told you, I told you! He’s gonna replace us with that legendary Pokémon!”

Inadequacy’s voice grows even more despondent. “That’s it, then… We’re useless. Completely useless to him. Just like we always were from the start…”

Paranoia’s curled in against the apple, trembling non-stop. “I knew we couldn’t hide it forever… He’s getting rid of us… We failed him and he doesn’t need us and he’s getting rid of us for someone better…”

You can’t ignore them, no matter how you try. You used to be Kieran’s strongest. His best, his most reliable, the one he always depended on. That’s what you’re supposed to be. But at this rate…

There’s a tiny part of you that wants to ignore your trainer’s instructions, to refuse to let go of Tera Blast or to battle this legendary Pokémon – to do anything you can to hold onto your position for as long as possible.

…A tiny, traitorous part of you.

But this is what Kieran wants. He wants you to learn these moves, and he needs you to battle Terapagos and prove him worthy. It doesn’t matter what happens after that.

You’re Loyalty. So you’ll do this, for Kieran’s sake, like always. Even if it might end up being the last thing he ever needs you for.

~~~​

Though you keep yourself conscious above the dreamy haze of the Poké Ball, you’re not letting yourself think about anything. You’re just listening out for one thing. The only thing that matters.

And there it is, at last: Kieran’s voice, tense and urgent, talking about the hidden treasure like it’s somewhere right in front of him.

Because he needs you for this. At least this.

“If I can get the hidden treasure of Area Zero,” he declares, “I… I can finally beat Juliana!”

Sense lets out a frustrated sigh, but you’re not surprised. It figures that beating Juliana is still Kieran’s goal… doesn’t it?

Not that he can rely on you for that any more. You’ve already failed him there. You were supposed to be the one to put everything right, to finally make Kieran happy again. But now…

“Come on, Kieran,” the syrpent mutters. “You should know that won’t fix anything.”

(It won’t, will it? Because you can’t fix anything any more.)

“Shut it, Sis!” Kieran blurts out, his voice rising with an anguish that tears at your heart. “Juliana has everything I’ve ever wanted!”

“Oh, Kieran…” murmurs Sincerity.

“She’s got strong Pokémon! She can go anywhere she wants, and she can be friends with anyone!”

You have strong Pokémon,” Sense points out, again like it’s obvious. “You can do anything she…”

“I loved Ogerpon since forever ago! But even Ogerpon chose her over me!”

“Go on…” Sincerity sounds like he’s… encouraging him? “Let it out. You’ve been keeping this in for so long now…”

“Even you, Sis! You were being all nasty towards her at first, but then boom! You were like best friends in no time!”

“But so were you, Kieran!” insists Amity. “You’re already her friend, too!”

“I’ve got nothing,” Kieran goes on, oblivious to their words. “I worked so hard, and for what?! I still lost in the end!”

“You never had to work that hard,” Comfort tries to tell him. “And you’ve always had us, if only you could see it!”

What did she just say…? He’s always had them?! That’s a load of nonsense.

(Isn’t it…?)

“This… this is all I have left now!”

Those words cut you to your core, more than any other shard of your trainer’s pain. All I have left. There’s so much he’s been carrying, more than just Juliana’s strength, more than you can process right now—

(—more than you ever tried to help him with—)

—but you know exactly how this feels.

This hidden treasure, this Terapagos, this one last chance to make something of yourselves… it’s all that both you and Kieran have left.

After all the times you’ve failed him, you won’t – you can’t – let it happen again. As soon as he awakens the legendary Pokémon, you’ll do what he needs from you and prove your trainer worthy, just like he deserves.

And maybe, just maybe, it’ll prove you still have some tiny shred of worth to him, too.

A bursting, popping noise crescendos as if something’s emerging, followed by a thud of it hitting the ground. You hear the voice of an unfamiliar Pokémon, a tinkling quality to it like the glittering of crystals. This has to be Terapagos.

Any moment now, you’ll feel the shift of your trainer grasping your Poké Ball to send you out. That familiar sensation of him relying on you. Any moment…

“No…” Kieran gasps. His voice rises into a sharp cry. “You’re mine!”

There’s a lurching shift, but it feels different, wrong. The sound of a Pokéball rings out – not a send-out, but a capture. It’s faint, but that wobble and click is unmistakeable.

“He didn’t…” murmurs Sincerity.

Amity sounds dismayed. “Kieran, no!”

“F-Finally,” your trainer says, and you’re scrambling to catch up, to fit yourself into this sudden new reality. He’s talking like – like he just caught Terapagos. Already. Without you.

You distantly hear that other human in the group mention something about a Master Ball, and Sense sighs. “That ball that catches any Pokémon without fail,” he says. “He must have had it ready this whole time.”

But… he was supposed to battle it. You were supposed to battle it, for him, just like he asked you to. To convince it to join him, to prove him worthy of it. So then why…?

“We weren’t good enough to face it,” Inadequacy mumbles. “He thought we’d fail – of course he did! How many times have we already failed him?”

“He said he wanted us to, but – but if he always had the Master Ball ready, he must have been lying to us!” babbles Paranoia. “He never trusted us, not after that loss!”

Their words eat away at you like acid, making far too agonisingly much sense. And even, even if they’re wrong and those somehow aren’t the obvious reasons why, there’s one solid fact that can’t be denied.

Kieran… didn’t need you.

Now that he has Terapagos, he might never need you again.

You can hear him out there, challenging Juliana to battle him. Him and Terapagos. Not you.

Sense huffs impatiently. “Kieran, come on,” he insists. “Even if you win with Terapagos, that wouldn’t prove a thing about your strength. You’ve got to know that, at least. Stop running from the obvious.”

A part of you, worn with familiarity, wants to snap right back at him. What’s ‘obvious’? That he’s a failure?

Except you’re the obvious failure who can’t run from that any more.

Terapagos’s cry sounds again as Kieran releases it to fight, and it doesn’t even surprise you to hear it battling alone. A single battle. If he’d chosen doubles, you could have at least helped out, done something of worth, even if you could never be the one your trainer truly relied on any more.

But getting shifted to support moves, as much as it felt like a downgrade at the time… even that was false hope. An empty promise. You’re not even support – you’re nothing.

“It’s not right,” Amity’s saying. “Catching poor Terapagos without giving them a choice, making them battle without even getting to know them… What about what Terapagos wants? This isn’t like Kieran! Not even since he got worse!”

“And it’s not safe, upsetting such a powerful Pokémon,” Comfort adds. “It sounds like… like Terapagos doesn’t quite realise what’s going on yet…? But what if they get angry at him? I don’t like this at all…”

You can’t muster any retort to them, either. They’re criticising Kieran like always, and yet some horrid part of you wants them to be right. Because that’d mean… that he shouldn’t have caught Terapagos like this. As if that’d somehow turn back time to before that happened, when he still needed you.

And there’s something else, beneath their criticisms, a glimmer of the reason they’re even making them. Something new… or, is it really new at all? Could it have been there all along, and you just… couldn’t see it…?

“Kieran knows this isn’t right,” says Sincerity. “I can hear it in his voice – it’s different to when he last battled Juliana. His heart’s not truly in it. I just… I don’t think he knows what else to do.”

“Shouldn’t that be obvious?” Sense answers. “The first thing to do is stop this.”

Outside the Poké Ball, as if in response, Terapagos lets out a pained cry – one of defeat. “Wh-Why?!” comes Kieran’s voice.

“See? Come on, Kieran,” urges Sense, as if your trainer can hear him. “Give it up already.”

“I don’t think it’s so easy,” Sincerity says. “If he gives this up, then… what does that leave him with? What is he forced to face?”

You shrink in the nowhere-space, as Kieran’s anguished words from outside wash over you. You know the answer to Sincerity’s question, all too well, but you don’t want to be the one to say it. That’s not supposed to be like you. It’s not supposed to be Kieran.

“…That he’s nothing,” says Inadequacy, saving you from the shame, his voice small and plaintive. “That he’s worthless. Oh, Kieran…!”

“Except he isn’t,” says Sense, once more saying it like it’s obvious. Like it isn’t the very opposite of everything he’s supposed to have felt about your trainer.

“Of course he isn’t,” Sincerity agrees, so without hesitation that you’d turn to stare at him too if you could. “But he’s always felt that way. And he’s been doing everything he can to run away from it… haven’t you, Kieran?”

“Speaking of…” Comfort pipes up, her tone anxious. “What’s he doing now? Is that… Terastallisation?!”

You can all feel it, even through the Poké Ball: a vibration, a familiar thrumming of energy, a loud crackling, bursting noise you’ve heard so many times before.

“No, Kieran!” cries Amity. “Stop forcing Terapagos to fight for you!”

“Don’t! It’s too dangerous!”

If your trainer could hear and understand them, would he listen? Or would he just…

It doesn’t matter. It’s already too late. The nowhere-space shakes with a tremendous explosion of power, and something hurtles closer, growing louder, mixing with your trainer’s cry of alarm and fear—

“No! Kieran!!” screams a voice – several voices.

Yours wasn’t among them. It was the others, with Comfort the loudest of all. She keeps babbling, in a frenzy of anxiety, as the noise dies down. “What happened?! Is he okay?! It sounded like it hit something, but I don’t think – it didn’t feel like—”

She’s cut off by even fiercer turbulence. A cacophony of rumbling and crashing echoes from outside, as if the whole world’s falling apart out there. “Kieran! Please be alright, please…”

You couldn’t do anything; you still can’t. Your trainer could be hurt – could get killed – but you’re useless, powerless to protect him now that he doesn’t want your help.

“O-Okay!” comes Kieran’s voice. “Come back, Terapagos!”

“He’s alright!” Comfort blurts out in relief. “I think, I think – he doesn’t sound hurt, just frightened… I think…”

There’s a sudden snap, not from rock or crystal, but something human-made. “Huh…?” Kieran gasps. “It won’t go back inside…? Wh-Why…?” He lets out another cry of fear, behind which you can hear Terapagos’s glittering, reverberating roar.

“I knew they’d be angry at him! Kieran, please stay safe…!”

“I don’t know…” says Amity. “I don’t think Terapagos really wants to hurt him – they sound like they’re just… scared, and out of control.” You can practically feel her writhing in anxiety. “Ohhh, I’m sure Kieran didn’t mean to hurt them either! He’s not like that, not really! He just… wasn’t thinking…”

“N-No… This wasn’t supposed to happen…” Kieran’s voice is trembling, tight with fear and shame. “This is all my fault!”

Sense sighs, but there’s something almost relieved about it. “He’s finally starting to see his mistakes. And hopefully not just this one.”

Some withered part of you wants to snap back at that, too, but… no matter how you look at it, you can’t deny that this right now is Kieran’s fault. If he hadn’t captured Terapagos (if he hadn’t decided he didn’t need you), then…

It still feels like a betrayal somehow, to think that Kieran could have done anything wrong – but if he himself is admitting it, doesn’t that make it okay? You’re just… agreeing with him. That he’s…

“Can’t you see now, Kieran?” says Sincerity. “Running away only ever makes things worse. I know it’s hard, but you need to start facing it. Please…”

…What does it matter anyway, when Kieran doesn’t need you any more? You worked so hard to make him happy, and for what? You still failed him in the end, the one time it actually mattered.

If you’d just won that battle like he wanted, like you were supposed to, he wouldn’t have needed to go after Terapagos, and he wouldn’t be in this mess right now. Doesn’t that make all of this your fault, and not his?

…But if he had beaten Juliana then, would it have truly made anything better? Or was Sense always right that it’d fix nothing? Would Kieran have just kept finding new ways to keep running away from his pain, like Sincerity’s saying?

In that case… what was ever the point of you…?

“What’s happening out there?” Comfort’s asking, still in an agony of anxiety. “I think I can hear battling, but… is it drawing Terapagos’s fire? Is Kieran safe…?”

“It’s got to be Juliana!” says Amity. “And maybe Kieran’s sister too…? They’re trying to keep everyone safe! Poor Terapagos… I suppose this is the only way to stop them…”

“Kieran could be helping as well,” Sense points out, like it’s obvious. “But he isn’t.”

(Is that obvious? He’d need Pokémon, and you’re supposed to be his strongest, but if even you’re not good enough, then…)

“I-It’s no good!” Kieran wails, as if he heard. “I’m useless…”

He sounds small, and lost, and broken, and your entire being aches with the urge to do anything at all to make him less that way. But there’s nothing you can do. You’re nothing but a failure, and Kieran didn’t need you, doesn’t want your help any more, and yet…

…that’s not stopping them.

“Of course you’re not, Kieran,” Sense says. “You’re a good battler. You became Champion, for goodness’ sake! One loss doesn’t change that. You could help here, too, if you just tried. Why is it so hard for you to see the obvious?”

Kieran can’t hear them, wouldn’t be able to understand them if he could, but even knowing that, they’re clamouring to be heard.

“I wish you hadn’t pushed yourself so hard,” says Comfort, “but the way you always kept trying – there’s nothing useless about that! Please – you’ll stand a better chance of getting through this if you help them fight!”

You’d always thought, with all their criticisms, that they saw him as a nuisance, that they had nothing but contempt for him, but…

“Nobody’s ever thought of you as useless!” cries Amity. “Not your sister, or any of your Pokémon – especially not us!”

…They haven’t, have they? You don’t know why you couldn’t see it until now, but it’s so obvious. Everything they’ve ever said… they’ve always been trying to help him. To steer him away from this.

“And not Juliana, either! I just know she sees you as a friend! I bet she’d love to have you helping her out!”

Does she…? You’d thought Juliana was nothing but the enemy, but if Amity’s right, if Kieran could hear her say this… that’d help, wouldn’t it…?

…Far more than you ever could. You’re completely at a loss, just as useless as when you were a weak little Applin. Back then, you always knew Kieran was upset and hurting, yet there was nothing you could say, and certainly not a thing you could do, to make anything better for him.

But the others…

No, they were that same Applin too, weren’t they?

“I know, Kieran…” Inadequacy murmurs. “Like you’re nothing, like you’ll never amount to anything, no matter what you do… I had a feeling you still felt weak too, but I never realised just how much…”

“Like everyone’s against you, even the world itself,” Paranoia adds, his voice feverish. “Never letting you win, never letting you get what you want… It’s horrible, isn’t it? And there’s no escaping it…”

“But even if that’s us…”

“Even if you don’t want us any more…”

“…it shouldn’t be you. You deserve so much better!”

“I don’t want you to be trapped like this too!”

Even the tail twins, the most pitiful of all of you, are in a better position to help Kieran than you. They’ve always understood the pain he’s been carrying, in a way you’ve only just begun to. You were too busy focusing on battling, on winning, blinding yourself to Kieran’s real problems. Even despite six other voices constantly trying to tell you.

“You’re finally facing it,” says Sincerity, his voice level, but with an urgent undercurrent, like he’s been waiting so long to say this. “But just because a you’ve always felt this way, it doesn’t make it true. There’s so much more to you than that part of you. You have so much worth, just by being you!”

Each of them knows what they want to say to Kieran, exactly the things he’d need to hear right now, if only he could. They’ve spent all this time, in their own ways, thinking about anything they can that might help him.

But you? You’re just dumb blind Loyalty. All you ever did was what Kieran wanted, not what he needed. If he doesn’t want your help any more… what use is Loyalty then?

Or perhaps you were only ever Stubbornness after all. Because the others, always trying to help, always knowing what he really needed in order to get better… isn’t that more like true loyalty than you ever were?

“But… I can’t…” comes Kieran’s voice again, just as lost and broken as before. “I can’t help anyone…”

You cringe, curling in on yourself in the nothing-space like the tiny, pathetic wyrm you are. Neither can you. Never again.

Unless…

“Y-You can help me,” you say all of a sudden, only wishing he could somehow hear you.

“Stubbornness…?”

“Wait, you’ve been a lot quieter than…”

“Are you okay…?”

The others’ voices don’t matter right now, not if they’re directed at you. All you want to hear is your trainer, answering you, even though you know it’s impossible.

“Please, Kieran. Just… ask something of me again. Anything. Give me a way to help you…!”

For an endless, agonising moment, there’s nothing, and nothing, and more nothing, a wretched reminder that he can’t hear you, he doesn’t want you, there’s nothing you can do.

Then something shifts. It takes you a moment to realise it’s the Poké Ball space moving, the sensation of Kieran taking hold of it and getting ready to send you out. That familiar feeling of him relying on you, that you were so afraid you’d never feel again.

Kieran lets out a great scream of pure, unrestrained emotion, and then throws you onto the battlefield. “Hydrapple! I need you!”

As you emerge, you throw back your head and echo Kieran’s cry with your own triumphant roar of elation and relief, hearing the other syrpents mirror it all around you.

But only for a moment. Terapagos looms before you, their huge, gleaming indigo form speckled with every colour of the rainbow, multiple tiers of crystals stacked on top of each other, leaving you unsure where Terapagos ends and the Terastallised structures begin. You catch a glimpse of Ogerpon beside you, her nimble movements a little clumsier than when you battled.

The other syrpents are still out, peering behind you. “Kieran!” exclaims Sincerity in delight. “I can see it – that light’s back in your eyes!”

Despite everything, you resist the urge to turn around and see it for yourself. Terapagos lets out a wordless cry, and you watch as a shimmering barrier coalesces in front of them. You have to keep your eyes on the threat. That’s your role, as the one he’s counting on to battle for him.

“O-Okay!” Kieran declares, still anxious, but determined nonetheless. “I’ll help out, too!”

With a small shake, you push down all of the self-loathing you’ve just been swamped by, because it’s not true. You can do something after all. “Alright, Kieran,” you murmur. “I’ll help prove your worth – to you.”

On your trainer’s command, you begin charging a Syrup Bomb, yet something feels different. It’s easier, somehow lighter, like it’s not taking as much of your energy – and then you realise. For the first time since you became a Hydrapple, the other syrpents are helping out, contributing their power to your attacks. You’re finally united in doing exactly what Kieran needs.

Before you can launch the move, Terapagos lets loose with a wide spray of sparkling, star-shaped projectiles. You quash the instinct to duck into your apple – not here, with the enemy out of control, with Kieran behind you. Instead, you raise your neck and do your best to block as many of the projectiles as you can with your own body, sensing the other syrpents extending outwards to do the same. Nothing matters more than keeping Kieran safe.

The moment it’s over, you fire the Syrup Bomb into the glowing barrier. Terapagos’s movements have barely begun to slow before Kieran has you charging up a Dragon Cheer this time, while Ogerpon continues darting forwards to jab at Terapagos with lengthened branch-like horns.

Another starstorm shoots at you before you’re done, and you nudge the tail syrpents to move you right into the densest part of the attack, letting it pelt you again. You resist the urge to check if your trainer’s okay, trusting that the other syrpents who can afford to look away from Terapagos are keeping an eye on him.

As the Dragon Cheer flows out of the five of you and into Ogerpon, she glances your way through the Teal Mask and gives a quick thanks. There’s an undercurrent of exhaustion in her voice, but she lengthens her horns again nonetheless and leaps at your shared foe.

Kieran calls for a Fickle Beam, and it doesn’t even surprise you to feel the other four raise their heads and charge it with you. This time Terapagos is slower, letting the five of you fire the great golden beam right into the legendary Pokémon while they’re reeling from Ogerpon’s hit. The barrier’s still there, absorbing a lot of your attacks’ power, but you know you’re getting somewhere.

Another round of glowing stars shoots out from Terapagos. Battered from the previous onslaughts, it’s even harder to resist the urge to duck away, but you tough it out, determined to protect your trainer, pushing back against the darkness that creeps into the edges of your vision. You don’t have to stay in this; Kieran has the rest of his team – but you want to keep battling. It’s the least you can do for him after missing the point of what he truly needed all this time.

And if nothing else… you want to be there to see him triumph over this.

As it turns out, there isn’t much else you need to do from here. Juliana’s collected enough energy to Terastallise Ogerpon. With that huge gleaming Teal Mask and a crystallised facsimile of her cudgel, she shatters the barrier in one huge hit that slams right into the disk-shaped part of Terapagos – their true body. It only takes one more great blow for the legendary ogre to end this.

But you know you helped out. Slowing Terapagos down, boosting Ogerpon’s focus to help her get in those decisive hits – you made a difference here. And so did Kieran.

With an ear-piercing crash, the Terastallisation around Terapagos shatters. The great Pokémon shrinks down to a surprisingly small creature, dazed and exhausted atop the cavern’s crystal pedestal.

“Maybe it’ll go inside a ball now!” Kieran says, the nervousness from before gone from his voice. “I know I can count on you, Juliana. You got this!”

Sincerity twists to look behind you, and you feel him almost leap out of the apple in delight. “He’s smiling again!”

“He’s trusting Juliana!” Amity adds.

“He knows he doesn’t need Terapagos,” Sense says with satisfaction.

Comfort sighs in relief. “He’s safe. We did it.”

“W-We did…?” mumbles Inadequacy.

Paranoia fidgets. “He’s… gonna be okay. Isn’t he…?”

More than anything, you want to turn around, to see Kieran’s renewed smile with your own eyes. But not just yet. Terapagos looks defeated, but they could still be a threat, so you keep your eye on them, ready to react in case there’s any danger to your trainer. Because you’re Loyalty.

Only once Juliana’s ball clicks safely shut with Terapagos inside do you turn back towards Kieran at last. His shoulders slump in relief, and he looks up at you, his eyes sparkling as a huge grin lights up his face.

You had no idea just how much you’d missed his smile.

~~~​

Back in your Poké Ball, you find yourself exhausted. Through the haze, you hear Kieran crying, but Sincerity reassures you it’s a good kind of crying. Safe in the knowledge that there’s nothing to worry about for now, you stop fighting the sleep and drift off.

Some time later, feeling refreshed, you emerge into Kieran’s Blueberry room.

“Hydrapple,” he begins. “I, um…” His demeanour’s back to how it used to be before all this – awkward, hesitant. Softer. But the light’s there in his eyes again, even as he fidgets and fumbles with what to say. “Well, I… I wanted to apologise! For how I was acting before…”

You tilt your head. He doesn’t need to apologise to you for anything – but the others are out of the apple too, listening. It’s not directed at you, is it?

“I was pushin’ you real hard, and there wasn’t even a good reason – I mean, I didn’t really need to beat Juliana like I thought, and… Well, I’m sorry,” Kieran finishes, hanging his head in shame.

“Aww, it’s okay!” says Amity.

Sense smirks, but there’s a fondness in it. “At least you can finally see it.”

Kieran glances back up in response to their voices. “And… an’ not just that! I’m sorry for… for ignoring you. The rest o’ you, I mean. I only ever paid attention to the big guy in the middle, but you other lil’ guys… you’re all part of Hydrapple, too, right?”

He fixes his gaze on each of them in turn. You’re not used to him not looking straight at you, but the others deserve his attention just as much. …Probably more.

“I knew you didn’t like what I was doing,” he goes on, “that you were tryin’ to get me to stop… but I didn’t wanna hear it. I shoulda listened.”

Comfort nods softly. “We only wanted what was best for you.”

“Apology accepted,” Sincerity says. “We’re just glad you made it here at last.”

The front syrpent’s leaning forwards as he speaks, and Kieran reaches out to stroke Sincerity’s neck. All at once, the other three are craning towards him, squabbling for their share of his affection, which he struggles to dole out with only two hands, chuckling.

You stay out of it, having already received some before, just watching the way your human friend smiles. It looks even better than it used to, without all that hair obscuring his face.

“Hey, you two lil’ ones down there, you’re separate too, aren’t ya?” Kieran says, crouching down and shuffling around to the back of your apple. “Don’t wanna leave you out!”

The tail syrpents tense up in shock as Kieran gently strokes what he can reach of them both. “Do I… deserve this…?” mumbles Inadequacy in disbelief.

“He doesn’t mean it…” Paranoia mutters. “He can’t… Unless… maybe…?”

“Of course you do,” says Sincerity.

“Of course he means it!” Amity adds.

You feel them relax into their trainer’s touch, just a little.

Satisfied, Kieran straightens up and reaches out to you. You crane forward, closing your eyes and leaning your cheek against his warm hand. “Um, as for you,” he says, “I really wanna thank you. For always sticking by me. I know I probably didn’t deserve it, but, just knowin’ you always had my back… it really helped, y’know?”

You open your eyes, looking right at him in surprise. But – you couldn’t win like he wanted – you’d thought – that you were no use – that he didn’t—

And yet… just your loyalty alone… it meant that much to him…?

“Kieran…” You close your eyes and lean back into him, trembling with emotion. “I’m so glad.”

“That’s… kinda why I figured it’d be easiest to apologise to you first,” Kieran goes on, letting go after a couple of heavenly chin rubs. His smile fades away. “But I’m gonna apologise to all the rest of my Pokémon, too. An’ that includes Poliwrath and Yanmega and Furret.”

“The ones you left behind…” Paranoia murmurs. “You’re…”

“Maybe they’re gonna hate me, but…” Kieran shrinks a little. “It’s the least they deserve.”

“No,” says Paranoia, with surprising conviction. “They won’t hate you.”

“Yeah,” Inadequacy puts in. “I… I don’t think they will.”

Sincerity leans forward and nudges Kieran encouragingly. “You’re doing the right thing.”

“You are!” says Amity. “This is great! I can’t wait to see them again!”

Kieran’s smile comes back, if fainter. “Thanks, Hydrapple. Although…” He sits down on the edge of his bed and stifles a yawn. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought… Couldn’t sleep too well on the plane, y’know? Maybe… I mean, d’you think it’d be okay if… if I took a nap first, then apologised to the rest of ‘em after…?”

“Of course it’s okay!” Comfort exclaims before he’s even finished. She nods eagerly towards the bed, looking about ready to throw the covers over him if only she could. “Get as much rest as you need.”

“And don’t worry,” Sense says. “We’ll make sure you don’t run away from what you have to do.”

“I, uh… Yeah, you’re right,” Kieran agrees, shifting to lie down. “It’s… it’s okay to just rest. Yeah.” As he pulls the covers over himself, he adds, “Hey, d’you wanna stay out of your Poké Ball? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

All of you nod almost right away. It has been a long time since you stayed outside your ball while Kieran slept (well, except for that one night you don’t really want to think about). Doing so feels… like things are beginning to go back to normal. Like he’s not just your trainer, but your friend again.

You gently signal the tail twins to move you over to the other side of the room. Comfort would be beside herself if you disturbed Kieran’s rest, but there’s something you need to say.

With a grimace, you manage to come out with it. “I… I owe all of you an apology, too.” You feel them all turn towards you, but your eyes are closed, not wanting to see the smug looks on their faces. “For the same reasons as Kieran, really. You all had good points, but I didn’t want to hear them. I thought my way was the only way to help him. I thought…” You sigh. It sounds so stupid now. “I thought you didn’t care about him.”

“What?” gasps Amity. “But of course we did!”

“Wasn’t it obvious?” says Comfort.

You shrink in on yourself. “It should have been.”

“We thought that just didn’t matter to you,” Sincerity says.

“There’s another thing you have in common with Kieran – stubbornly refusing to see the obvious."

You were dreading Sense’s response the most, but despite his words, there’s a kind of fondness in them. You open your eyes, and though the look he’s giving you is exasperated, there’s no contempt in it.

You manage a disparaging chuckle. “I guess you were right to call me Stubbornness. All of you turned out to be more loyal than I ever was.”

“Oh,” Amity mumbles sheepishly. “I’m sorry about going along with that… I was annoyed at you, but it was a bit mean…”

“Stubbornness certainly fits you,” says Sense. “But so does Loyalty, in the end.”

“We all had our own ways of showing it, that’s all,” Comfort reassures you. “But Kieran appreciated the kind of loyalty you showed him, didn’t he?”

“You should keep the name,” Sincerity tells you. “After all, it’s what you value most. Isn’t it, Loyalty?”

You look between them all, feeling surprisingly touched. “If… if you all think I still deserve it,” you concede. “I’ll… make sure it applies to you too, from now on.” It’s the least you can do for them, after everything they’ve done for Kieran. After they’ve forgiven you this easily.

And it’s true that you feel… different now. Like you’re beginning to shed the part of yourself that was so stubborn – or at least, that was so unpleasant about it. You’re a bit like Kieran in that way, too.

You burrow down through the apple with your tail, gently poking the two tail syrpents. “That includes you two as well. I was pretty rotten to you, even though you were always trying to help. And even though… I knew how you felt.”

“You?” Paranoia questions. “Knew how we felt?”

“But you were always so…!”

You wince. “Not as a Dipplin. I think that’s where you came from. Because I wanted to shut out those thoughts.”

Sense tilts his head, a teasing quality to his voice. “Finally figured it out, have we?”

“That was Kieran’s problem, too,” says Sincerity. “Shutting those feelings away, when he really needed to be facing them.”

“That’s… not very fair, is it?” Amity reflects. “Not for our two friends down there, or for those parts of Kieran.”

“Then we need to help them get better,” says Comfort. “Now that Loyalty’s on our side, it’s the next right thing to do.”

The tail syrpents jolt in surprise. “You’ll help… us…?” Paranoia asks, disbelieving.

“…We will,” you agree. “You’re not useless, or unwanted. We’ll do whatever we can to help you both believe that. You deserve to grow into some better names.”

“You think… we can grow…?” murmurs Inadequacy, with a faint spark of hope.

“Of course,” you tell them. “Kieran’s already proven it’s possible, hasn’t he?”

He’s right over there, your trainer – your friend – resting off the ordeal he just overcame. He’ll have a lot more growing to do from here, but you know he’s going to be okay. That’s all you ever really wanted, in the end, no matter how much or how little you had to do with it.

Still… “We’ll keep being there for him, too,” you assert, glancing between your fellow syrpents as each of them nod in agreement and determination. Even the tails aren’t showing any doubt on this. For all your differences, you’re finally united in the one thing that matters most.

“All of us.”

~~~​
 
Last edited:

elyvorg

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  1. grovyle
@Seren
and her Pokémon, four little white mice fighting together as a single unit, doesn’t even seem that threatening. You’re a lot stronger than you used to be. You can do this.

Kinda love the absolute audacity of Dipplin here; Dipplin, who's only ever fought wild 'mon and never had a proper trainer battle before, laughing at his/her opponent. I know s/he feels strong, but this was very amusing. Especially when they get bombed immediately by a fairy move.
Hm, I didn't really intend for this to read as Loyalty laughing at the Maushold - more just him psyching himself up to believe that winning here is possible after spending a lifetime as a weak useless Pokémon and having Kieran talk up Juliana's strength so much. (Maushold is a lot more capable in battle than it looks, too!)

Earlier, Applin sure had a lot of parallels to Kieran. Here, it seems like Loyalty is still that way, already diving headfirst into that 'must get stronger' mindset. Both in adding cramorant and gligar (as long as they use that strength to help), as well as noting yanma finally evolving. In theory, these guys have been with Kieran at Blueberry for quite some time before coming home, and now in the span of a couple days, Loyalty's already thinking like Yanma's taken too long to evolve despite only getting real training for... those two days.
Huh, I didn't actually mean for the "finally" there to have that implication, but you know what, that works, I'm not complaining!

There ya go! Proof that maushold was defeatable, even through a super effective hit.
And don't worry about the fact that Maushold was probably already weakened by another one of Kieran's Pokémon beforehand, it's fine :copyka2:

Oh, so I was right here, too; maybe not directly, but poliwrath definitely evolved too fast.
My idea with Kieran being "too hasty" with Poliwrath wasn't actually that he evolved her so soon that she couldn't learn moves - after all, in gen 9, stone evos can be taught the level up moves they missed. (We can imagine that this is different from older gens perhaps as a result of increased knowledge about how to teach Pokémon moves - see also how move relearners are no longer a thing and trainers apparently just know how to do this themselves.) It's meant to mean that Kieran has now realised that Politoed is the better evolution, thanks to Drizzle's strategic use, and so he was too hasty in evolving Big Sis Poliwhirl into a Poliwrath at all when she would have been "better" in the other form.

But unlike Kieran, Loyalty has someone to kind of keep them grounded, keep them from spiraling out of control and taking it a step too far. Of course, they're still Kieran's 'mon, so they have to kinda go along with it anyway, there's not really much choice, but knowing you, that was deliberate. One has to wonder if Kieran had someone like that on his side, if the Blueberry arc would have happened the way it did.
I bet it still would have done! The whole point with Loyalty here is that, while his nagging doubts are externalised and have a voice, he is still nonetheless stubbornly refusing to listen to them and act on them at all. Therefore the parallel suggests that even if Kieran's suppressed doubts also had an actual voice to speak to him with, he too would still ignore them and keep throwing himself down the path of self-destruction anyway, just with even more stress than he already had. :copyka: If anything, Kieran's the better one off, because at least he gets to lock all his doubts away and doesn't actually have to listen to them yelling at him all the time.


Considering other 'mon Kieran might have trained is fun to think about... I wonder if there's any rhyme or reason behind this Scraggy pick? (Knowing you, probably yes.) I also wonder if you've thought of any others he may have tried.
There is indeed! In my headcanon, Dratini was a trade from Carmine, which means Kieran must have given her a Pokémon in return. So I looked at the two new Pokémon Carmine has on her team in Indigo Disk - Toucannon and Scrafty - and figured that Scraggy was more the vibe of something Obsessive Kieran might have started training.

I... haven't actually thought of any others he might have tried, no. Only thought of Scraggy for this specific reason.

(And surely you must be bearing this more stoically than Dragonite. Maybe this, at least, is one thing you can impress Kieran with more than she would.)

Huh, I wonder why this is? Both have secondary types also weak to ice... does Dipplin just not realize that? Or do they just so desperately want to be better than Dragonite at something? :copyka:
This is more about attitude than types. Loyalty's telling himself that, since he is The Most Dedicated, even if he's not stronger than Dragonite, he can at least be better than her about choosing to stoically endure the cold.

Hm... How do you decide what gets what tera type? Wild 'mon in-game are pretty much always found with one of their base typings (a scyther could have either bug or flying, for example), or possibly be found with one of their base form's typing (like a flying tera type scizor, for example). Dragonite with normal could be explained way because I'm pretty sure your headcanon is that draitini was a gift from another person rather than a wild capture, but... how did Dipplin end up with fighting, then?

I personally kind of like the idea that tera types are sort of like hidden power and therefore based on that (so maybe Dipplin's HP would be fighting?) but I don't recall if that was a widespread theory or not.


Huh. Actually, now I'm wondering if you base it on their personality or something? Like because there's a big emphasis here on Dipplin fighting hard for Kieran, so much so that it subconsciously influenced its inner abilities? That seems like the sort of flavorful twist you'd spin on it.
Your last paragraph here is more or less what I had in mind, yes! I went into a big spiel about how I considered the Tera type change in reply to Dragonfree, so I'll just quote that here:
I gave a lot of thought to the question of why Fighting Tera type, which goes roughly as follows:

Kieran doesn't have access to the restaurant in Medali that changes Tera types. Again, this is another "the player already had access to this feature in Paldea, no need to make another source for it in the DLC" thing, and one could imagine that really Blueberry Academy does have some sort of way to change Tera types that the player just never sees. But it is kind of interesting to think that it doesn't, especially as we only see two other Blueberry trainers using Pokémon with Tera types not matching their own (Lacey, the director), so those could be some kind of special cases. And it would make sense if Kieran wasn't able to choose his Hydrapple's Tera type, since Fighting really isn't the most optimal one, as it covers some weaknesses but is still weak to Flying and Fairy.

I also decidedly didn't want it to be the case that his Applin simply had that unusual Tera type from the beginning, say from a raid den or being one of those overworld Tera encounters, because it's important to Loyalty's character that there was absolutely nothing remarkable about him at all and yet Kieran still befriended him.

I also went and checked the flavour text for changing your Pokémon's Tera type at the place in Medali, which says something about a "life-changingly delicious meal". What that tells me is that, while the restaurant's special meals full of Tera shards can fast-track it, it is possible for a Pokémon to naturally change Tera types on their own if they go through some really big life-changing kind of event. So, well, Loyalty throwing himself whole-heartedly into Kieran's obsessive drive to grow stronger certainly seemed like it would count as that. :copyka: It feels the most right that the thematic appropriateness of the Fighting Tera is not a coincidence or a conscious choice on Kieran's part, but rather an inevitability simply because of his obsession rubbing off on his most loyal Pokémon partner.

As for Dragonite - it's actually "canon" within the game code that Kieran's Dragonite has a Normal Tera type, even though he can never utilise it! I figure this fits with my headcanon that Dratini was caught by Carmine while she was off visiting other regions with Briar, in that she may well have come across Pokémon with unusual Tera types during their Terastal research.

I feel like there's another comparison here, something about Dipplin treating Frustration the way Kieran's treating his team, but that's not quite right... The team does have a choice, comply or be dropped. Frustration does't have the option to leave.
I don't think I had a specific comparison in mind here with this line of Loyalty's... but Loyalty's unpleasantness towards his apple mates was very much meant to parallel Kieran's demeanour in general, yes.

I wonder why this is. I'm sure it's in relation to fickle beam's double power effect, but this is one of those weird moves that just... translates awkwardly from game to text. Anyways, naturally this is going to be used to get all the other serpents to join in and make the next one a real bomb.
This whole fic kind of sprung from the thought that, if we assume Kieran's Hydrapple is very devoted to him due to having been with him for so long, why don't all of the syrpents always join in with Fickle Beam to help him win like he wants? In terms of game mechanics it's just luck, and that's all Kieran's Pokédex is able to tell him on the subject, but the actual reason for the inconsistency, as implied by the move's name, probably has a lot more to do with the multiple syrpents' fickle attitudes than anything else.

Oh, really glad this was addressed; I'm pretty sure I'd taken note of it in part 1.
Yeah; it can't be made explicit until now when there are multiple other syrpents to refer to him in third person, but Loyalty has always been a he. As a whole, Kieran's Applin/Dipplin/Hydrapple is considered male, but I figured why not let the noodles be a little genderqueer, as a treat.

(In terms "official canon" game data, every one of Kieran's many various Pokémon is male (except Porygon-Z of course), but screw that, that very much sounds like something that was done automatically without any thought, so I have made some of them female in my canon since a random spread would be more realistic. Hydrapple stayed male, though.)

Can't help but take mental note here of how, even with tera fighting, Hydrapple still has a weakness to Dragonite. Unless they somehow both tera at the same time.
When he says she'll "have a fight coming", Loyalty isn't really thinking about them directly fighting each other (I think he's at least vaguely aware that incidental type matchups don't prove which one Pokémon is better than another), but more just than they'll both be "fighting" to prove their value to Kieran.

It is kind of interesting that Kieran doesn't listen to the other hydrapple serpents, as though they're all just one being and only the main head is sentient. Can't even use the excuse of disagreeing or not liking what they're saying, since he can't understand them. This is probably just an overlooked thing for story purposes, but it does add a strange angle to the dynamic.
Not overlooked at all! Kieran's very much noticed that the other heads feel differently about him, and I certainly intended to show that at least subtly. When Kieran first sees all five heads and comments that this should make Hydrapple stronger, the other four slink back into the apple in annoyance at him making it all about strength, and Kieran briefly reacts to this. Then when Comfort was trying to get him to sleep, while he didn't understand her words, there's no way he didn't pick up on the meaning from her gesturing pointedly at his bed. He just didn't verbally react to that because he didn't want to acknowledge it.

It hasn't taken Kieran long to internalise that the non-main syrpents don't like him and/or want to nag him about pointless things that'll totally just make him weaker, a bit like Carmine and Drayton have been doing. But that doesn't matter, so long as the strongest syrpent who does all the battling is still on his side!!! He can just ignore the other ones, just like he's been ignoring his sister and Drayton :)))

Oh no, come on now, why are you making it worse, Paranoia?? :unquag:
Because he's Paranoia :copyka:

Ah, and now even the team is starting to see that, too. I guess it's probably too easy to simply say 'she's not here' as an excuse as to why they're not facing her yet, even were it the truth.
There's an unspoken assumption going on here (I considered including it explicitly but it felt too clunky) that Kieran will be able to summon Juliana here to battle him once he's ready. Therefore the only reason she isn't here yet has to be that he's not yet ready. :unquag:

And that's a wrap for part 2! Man, what a tangled mess of emotions. Loyalty (or Stubbornness) is true to their name both of them), just like their human. It's honestly infuriating to watch. They've got a very different dynamic than Dodrio. We all know how this ends, but it's gonna be interesting to see the fallout; the last chapter's not actually going to be entirely what I'd expected it was going to be.
Very much intended for my Hydrapple here to have a totally different dynamic than my Dodrio! It'd be boring if every kind of multi-headed Pokémon worked in the same way, after all :3


@DroopyMcCool
Internal doubts being manifested physically is always fun from a storytelling/character perspective. Especially when those doubts become external later. And then the one who is literally blinded at the start is somehow more perceptive, which adds a cool layer to it. Then as a hydrapple the blinded ones are the most irrational except for maybe the narrator themselves. It's a really cool way of manifesting subtleties and perspectives as actual characters in a surprisingly deep and layered way.
Manifesting a character's doubts and issues in some physical way is one of my favourite things to see in stories, so naturally I had great fun writing a version of this with Hydrapple here! Glad you liked it too!

I'm not sure how I feel about the inclusion of the more "gamey" stuff like EV-training. It makes for a cute reference, but also feels kinda lampshadey if you know what I mean. Like very little about the game world actually makes sense if you apply any amount of scrutiny to it, so I tend to not love when the most video-gamey elements are canonized in a story. I don't know. That's just me. It's a very subjective thing. That all said, this is a story trying to be highly faithful to the game so it's probably fine.
Hm, yeah, I understand the hesitation there. I figured that since it's just a brief reference and I don't go into any detail about how it works in a more realistic setting then one can just imagine that it Somehow Does. I was indeed trying to go very gameverse with this, since it's following a canon game story. My thought behind including this little mention at all was to show that Kieran is becoming more Hardcore with his training after his change in attitude.

Don't think I missed the irony of learning and then immediately forgetting dragon cheer, the move that encourages working with others and supporting them positively haha. This is great.
The reason I had Kieran make them forget Dragon Cheer (well, other than that his Hydrapple canonically doesn't have that move in the decisive battle against the player) was that in some of his dialogue he has this ridiculous complex about how luck always favours the player over him, so he can't expect things like critical hits to work in his favour when it counts. But your interpretation of it being about working together is also a fun and fitting metaphor! I will pretend that was totally intentional as well.

Thanks for deciding to check out my story despite only a passing knowledge of the DLC! Hope you enjoy the conclusion!
 

Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Premium
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
  7. chinchou
  8. misdreavus
As the others’ mutterings renew, you burst out into sudden laughter. All that time worrying that Juliana might never show up, afraid of what you might end up doing if – but of course she did. She’s here now. There was no point getting worked up at all.
Naturally! She was always going to show up. Retcon all that worry out of existence.

His face does something you can’t interpret. He steps closer, looking you in the eye, and reaches out to lay a hand on your neck. You shiver at his touch, leaning into it almost unconsciously. It’s the first time he’s held you since you were a tiny Applin.

“You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to lose to her…” His voice is barely above a whisper.
Awww. Kieran having an unusually vulnerable moment on two different fronts; probably not a coincidence that he shows physical affection with Hydrapple specifically when he's thinking about how he used to lose to Juliana.

Sincerity emerges, just a little. “Kieran,” he says, “it’s okay to be nervous. You don’t have to—”

Kieran glances down at him, then withdraws his hand, taking a step back, tilting his chin up. The hair above his eyes slants inwards as he looks back at you. “Make sure the others know what they’re up against,” he instructs. “I’ll see you in the Terarium.”

And you’re back inside the ball, glaring invisibly at Sincerity for butting in.
Loyalty sort of blaming Sincerity for Kieran pulling back :sadwott: Which is to say, probably Sincerity expressing something like sympathy did trigger him withdrawing in that particular moment, but given everything I'm betting he would have withdrawn anyway.

(And of course, Loyalty can't see Sincerity obviously trying to help Kieran there, just "butting in".)

Not long after that, you overhear Kieran telling Juliana that she’d better not lose before reaching him, that he’s going to show her how the best of the best battle. He doesn’t sound nervous at all, despite what Sincerity said. Nonsense, as usual. Of course Kieran’s ready for this. He has to be.
Obviously Kieran not sounding nervous means he isn't at all! (Enjoy that Loyalty still made note of it, though, which suggests he did almost expect Kieran to sound nervous.)

Your gaze travels up, up, and up, all the way to the glittering green orb high in the sky at the very top of this place. So far away, even from up here on the mountain. Utterly unreachable.

“…She’s invincible…” mumbles Inadequacy, trembling from the cold. “We’ll never be able to reach her level… never…!”

With a sudden twitch, you shift your focus to the mountain’s peak. Higher than where you’re standing, but… not so far away. “She’s up there. At the summit,” you finish.

Grimmsnarl chuckles, idly flexing the hair tentacles on his arms. “Hey, that’s only a little higher. We can make it there, no sweat! And then we’ll win!”

You can’t help but feel you failed to get across the magnitude of this like Kieran wanted.
Very appropriate metaphors. Loyalty is so desperate to believe it's totally possible even though he kind of knows the Juliana in Kieran's mind really is completely unattainable.

You hate that he’s got a point. The light still isn’t there in Kieran’s eyes.

But winning this battle for him will bring it back at last. It has to.

(If it doesn’t… what else even could?)
Ooof. :sadwott:

“You’ve got some nerve…” Kieran’s voice, louder than usual, tense and furious and something else, cuts through your focus. “Bringing out the ogre now of all times?!”
The something else is fear, isn't it :copyka:

You feel the four of them shift, registering your plea – but they don’t answer it. Those traitors stay inert, tucked inside the apple, not caring enough to help, as the Fickle Beam fires from your mouth alone. It shoots through the crystal mask, eliciting a cry of pain from the ogre behind it—!

—But it’s not enough. Just as Kieran knew it wouldn’t be.
The worst possible way to lose that battle :copyka2:

“H-Hydrapple…?” Kieran’s ignored all the others’ words – words he doesn’t understand. He’s looking to you alone for a response, his voice wavering. For a moment, you aren’t sure what you should do.

But you’re Loyalty. There’s only one thing you can do: whatever Kieran wants of you.

So you lean forward, gently touching your forehead to his. He rests a hand on your neck, and you feel him trembling, holding onto you like you’re the only solid thing in the world.

“I promise, Kieran,” you whisper, closing your eyes. “I will prove you worthy.”

And this time, this time, you won’t let him down.
😭 The boy is not okayyyy (and neither is his most loyal noodle)

“It is!” Sincerity agrees eagerly. “It’s okay to say that word of yours again, if you want…?” He trails off, the hopeful note in his voice going unanswered.
Let 👏 him 👏 wowze 👏

You can’t ignore them, no matter how you try. You used to be Kieran’s strongest. His best, his most reliable, the one he always depended on. That’s what you’re supposed to be. But at this rate…

There’s a tiny part of you that wants to ignore your trainer’s instructions, to refuse to let go of Tera Blast or to battle this legendary Pokémon – to do anything you can to hold onto your position for as long as possible.

…A tiny, traitorous part of you.

But this is what Kieran wants. He wants you to learn these moves, and he needs you to battle Terapagos and prove him worthy. It doesn’t matter what happens after that.

You’re Loyalty. So you’ll do this, for Kieran’s sake, like always. Even if it might end up being the last thing he ever needs you for.
Oh noooo :sadwott:

“This… this is all I have left now!”

Those words cut you to your core, more than any other shard of your trainer’s pain. All I have left. There’s so much he’s been carrying, more than just Juliana’s strength, more than you can process right now—

(—more than you ever tried to help him with—)

—but you know exactly how this feels.

This hidden treasure, this Terapagos, this one last chance to make something of yourselves… it’s all that both you and Kieran have left.

After all the times you’ve failed him, you won’t – you can’t – let it happen again. As soon as he awakens the legendary Pokémon, you’ll do what he needs from you and prove your trainer worthy, just like he deserves.

And maybe, just maybe, it’ll prove you still have some tiny shred of worth to him, too.
Oh, man. :sadwott:

“No! Kieran!!” screams a voice – several voices.

Yours wasn’t among them. It was the others, with Comfort the loudest of all. She keeps babbling, in a frenzy of anxiety, as the noise dies down. “What happened?! Is he okay?! It sounded like it hit something, but I don’t think – it didn’t feel like—”
Love how the cry of concern for Kieran is an inverse of Fickle Beam, where all of them join in but Loyalty can't.

…But if he had beaten Juliana then, would it have truly made anything better? Or was Sense always right that it’d fix nothing? Would Kieran have just kept finding new ways to keep running away from his pain, like Sincerity’s saying?

In that case… what was ever the point of you…?
Wrong lesson to take away from this :sadwott:

He sounds small, and lost, and broken, and your entire being aches with the urge to do anything at all to make him less that way. But there’s nothing you can do. You’re nothing but a failure, and Kieran didn’t need you, doesn’t want your help any more, and yet…

…that’s not stopping them.

“Of course you’re not, Kieran,” Sense says. “You’re a good battler. You became Champion, for goodness’ sake! One loss doesn’t change that. You could help here, too, if you just tried. Why is it so hard for you to see the obvious?”

Kieran can’t hear them, wouldn’t be able to understand them if he could, but even knowing that, they’re clamouring to be heard.

“I wish you hadn’t pushed yourself so hard,” says Comfort, “but the way you always kept trying – there’s nothing useless about that! Please – you’ll stand a better chance of getting through this if you help them fight!”

You’d always thought, with all their criticisms, that they saw him as a nuisance, that they had nothing but contempt for him, but…

“Nobody’s ever thought of you as useless!” cries Amity. “Not your sister, or any of your Pokémon – especially not us!”

…They haven’t, have they? You don’t know why you couldn’t see it until now, but it’s so obvious. Everything they’ve ever said… they’ve always been trying to help him. To steer him away from this.
Awww, tearing up at Loyalty finally figuring it out. Kieran feeling useless and unable to help, and Loyalty likewise feeling useless and unable to help in just the same way, but finally properly seeing that the other noodles are in fact helping anyway, affirming that Kieran isn't useless and never has been, when Loyalty's never properly been able to shake this toxic idea that worth really is conditional.

“I know, Kieran…” Inadequacy murmurs. “Like you’re nothing, like you’ll never amount to anything, no matter what you do… I had a feeling you still felt weak too, but I never realised just how much…”

“Like everyone’s against you, even the world itself,” Paranoia adds, his voice feverish. “Never letting you win, never letting you get what you want… It’s horrible, isn’t it? And there’s no escaping it…”

“But even if that’s us…”

“Even if you don’t want us any more…”

“…it shouldn’t be you. You deserve so much better!”

“I don’t want you to be trapped like this too!”
Aww, I love the two of them helping by just relating to Kieran's issues.

“You’re finally facing it,” says Sincerity, his voice level, but with an urgent undercurrent, like he’s been waiting so long to say this. “But just because a you’ve always felt this way, it doesn’t make it true. There’s so much more to you than that part of you. You have so much worth, just by being you!”
Loyaltyyyy that applies to you toooo

“But… I can’t…” comes Kieran’s voice again, just as lost and broken as before. “I can’t help anyone…”

You cringe, curling in on yourself in the nothing-space like the tiny, pathetic wyrm you are. Neither can you. Never again.
Oof, the parallels are so clear. :sadwott:

With a small shake, you push down all of the self-loathing you’ve just been swamped by, because it’s not true. You can do something after all. “Alright, Kieran,” you murmur. “I’ll help prove your worth – to you.”
❤️

More than anything, you want to turn around, to see Kieran’s renewed smile with your own eyes. But not just yet. Terapagos looks defeated, but they could still be a threat, so you keep your eye on them, ready to react in case there’s any danger to your trainer. Because you’re Loyalty.
Aww, enjoy this affirmation that he really is Loyalty after he'd begun to doubt it himself.

The front syrpent’s leaning forwards as he speaks, and Kieran reaches out to stroke Sincerity’s neck. All at once, the other three are craning towards him, squabbling for their share of his affection, which he struggles to dole out with only two hands, chuckling.
:veelove: Noodle pets!

It's lovely and satisfying seeing all of the syrpents reconcile and understand each other at the end and apologizing to each other for how they've acted. Inadequacy and Paranoia not getting left out is very good and important too - they're also suffering and also need support and growth rather than just being sidelined as the annoying downers! They are becoming much more functional noodles and it's good and important :veelove:

I really enjoyed what you did with Loyalty's issues here, mirroring Kieran's own crippling sense of uselessness. The use of Kieran swapping out Hydrapple's moves for support moves as a trigger for Loyalty just spiraling was something I wasn't anticipating and I really enjoyed that - in-game it's just to make him a better battle partner for the player, but it really adds an extra layer to it to consider it in-universe, as Kieran preparing to capture a legendary who would presumably become his new ace, and how badly that messes with poor Loyalty who's been doing everything out of an unwavering devotion to being whatever Kieran wants from him. It's a lovely little twist on it and helps to sell Loyalty reaching that rock bottom point where he can finally begin to recognize that the others do care about Kieran and that's why they haven't joined in with Loyalty's stubborn nonsense.

In general I think my favorite moments here were the little private vulnerable moments with Kieran that we don't see in the game but that really help fill in the blanks of the torment this boy was going through behind closed doors. It makes heartbreaking sense that Loyalty (specifically!) is the only Pokémon he dares show that side to, because he's someone who's been with him all this time unlike the handpicked team he painstakingly replaced his original team with - someone who already knows he used to be weak and lost with him and has always, always stuck by him anyway. And I love that that really is highlighted as important, too; Kieran was so alone during this time, and Loyalty was one of the few things he still had to cling to.

In that vein, I like how Loyalty isn't just wrong and bad for being so stubbornly, toxically in denial all this time. That was toxic - but Loyalty was in a position to give some form of emotional support to Kieran when the others really weren't, because Kieran wasn't emotionally ready to listen to them. Loyalty really was the only one who could prove Kieran's worth to himself. (Kieran apologizing at the end for ignoring the other ones was very good - he'd sensed they were trying to stop him and just dealt with it by ignoring their existence.)

Also, the boy finally gets some rest! Let him sleeep.

All in all, the noodle dragons are good and I love them. Kieran suffered so much in his inadequacy spiral, and this fic was a great way to explore it from a lot of different angles, from the point of view of someone who not only witnesses it but goes through an all too similar character arc himself. Thank you for writing this! It was a lovely read and really helps highlight the painfulness of Kieran's arc.
 
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