Chapter 23 – Brawl at the Ball
A pain in her head was Kimiko’s first sign of consciousness. She tried to open her eyes, but was blinded by a dim light of some kind. Her head seemed to be at a slight angle off the ground and was facing right at it. The headache wasn’t doing any favors, either. She groaned and tried to roll to her side, aware she was laying uncomfortably on her back as her senses slowly returned, but something landed on her shoulder and pushed her back down.
“– you awake?” a voice echoed distantly, sounding muffled. “Can you hear –? No, no… –not to move, okay?”
Kimiko felt like she’d just fallen down a flight of stairs, and the cold, hard surface beneath her wasn’t helping. Nor was the surface propping up her head, despite being softer. The angle was straining her neck, making the pounding in her head worse. She flexed her fingers and shifted her legs. Nothing broken, far as she could tell. But she ached all over. Where was she? She tried to sit up.
“Aaagh!” she cried in surprise; the dull pulse in her head shifted to a sharp spike of pain throbbing all the way down her spine. Her arms gave out from underneath her and she nearly fell back to the ground, but something grabbed hold of her and slowed her descent.
“I
said take it easy! You hit your head pretty hard.” There was that voice again, clearer this time… saying
not to move. But still sounded muted, like it was far away or underwater. It took Kimiko a moment to realize it was talking to
her. And it was familiar.
She blinked open her eyes again. The light above was still there but now blocked, a figure leaning over her, silhouetted against it. But she couldn’t make out who it was, her vision blurry.
“Wh… where am I?”
“Looks to be a basement of some kind,” the voice replied. “But we’re all locked in a cell. What do you remember?”
The voice was definitely responding to her. What had it said…? Remembering something? Why couldn’t she
focus?
“Oh no… Hey, stay with me! Can you understand me?” the voice asked, sounding somewhat more flustered. “You look… confused.”
She definitely
felt confused. Her head hurt, and it was difficult to think. She had to reply… somehow. But she wasn’t sure what she was being asked…
“Give her one of these,” another voice said. There was some sort of rattling sound, and Kimiko’s headrest shifted for a moment. Then something was pressed lightly to her lips.
“I need you to swallow this, okay?” the first voice said.
Recognition struck suddenly through the haze. “Lillia?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m here.”
“What… happened?” A vague mental image of a pink dress surfaced for the briefest of moments. Was that hers?
“Pill first, talk later.”
Kimiko let out a groan of frustration. Why couldn’t she
think? She wanted to keep trying, but Lillia practically force-fed her the medicine, so she accepted it quietly. She lay there for several minutes, eyes closed, taking steady, calming breaths, while her friend stroked her hair. The sensation of the touch was relaxing, and Kimiko found it easier to ignore the aches in her body.
She wasn’t sure how long she remained like that, but she must have dozed off because when she blinked her eyes open again, her head felt a lot clearer. Her friend’s face melded into view above her, still dark against the light behind her. Seeing her almost instantly triggered a memory; they’d been attacked at the party…
“Lillia…”
“Hey, feeling any better?” her voice asked, sounding much clearer and much closer.
“I… A bit, yeah. Where… no, what’s going on? What happened?”
“You should rest some more–”
“
Please don’t give me that,” Kimiko interrupted. She’d rested long enough. “
What happened?”
There was a slight huff from Lillia before she answered. “The ghosts possessed us,” she spat with disgust. “Last thing I remember, I turned around to ask why you weren’t following me and you kinda looked like a zombie, then everything went black. When I woke up, I was standing in here, and everyone was filing in behind me. Most people collapsed when the ghosts in them left. You hit your head on the wall when you fell. I didn’t think it was that bad, but… well, I’m a trainer, not a doctor. Might be a concussion. I-I’m not sure.”
“The party…” With the medicine helping to ease her aches, she found herself able to focus better, her memories starting to return. “Where’s Olivia?”
Lillia bit her lip and looked away, out over the room. She seemed to be deep in thought… “We should try to find a way out of this cage.”
Not the answer she hoped for. Groggy though she was, Kimiko felt a knot form in her stomach. “Lillia, answer me. Where is she?”
Lillia hesitated again. She took a deep breath before looking down at Kimiko. “…You dropped her when the dreepy possessed you. She must have sensed something was wrong with you, because she ran off. I… I don’t know where she is.”
“I need to find her,” Kimiko responded immediately, attempting to sit up again. And again, Lillia held her down, keeping her head in her lap.
“Stop squirming,” Lillia insisted. Kimiko reluctantly obeyed, but only because moving still hurt, and it was clear her friend wasn’t about to let her sit upright. “We need to figure out how to get out of here first, and you need to rest.”
“Then how do we get out?” she asked, pointedly ignoring the second task. Rest be damned; one of her team was
missing. Again. She wasn’t about to do this a second time.
In fact… “What about Vixen?”
“I’m just as worried about her, I promise. All our pokémon were taken from us when we were dropped in here – not that many of them were proper battlers anyway. I don’t intend to leave her here, but I don’t know where they were taken. But I know Olivia wasn’t with you when we were brought here.”
Of course, that didn’t mean Olivia hadn’t been snatched after they were separated… Silence fell as Kimiko closed her eyes and struggled to think, the medicine dulling her headache but not eliminating it. They were locked up in cages, presumably in the mansion’s basement, along with the rest of the party guests. They had no pokémon with them at all.
Half-formed questions buzzed around her brain. How did the ghosts find them here?
Why were the ghosts here? What did the ghosts want with them… and why did they need
cages? Why were there cages in the mansion? What happened to the rest of the party guests? She hadn’t had a chance to sit up and examine the room but their own cage did not hold many people… and where were all the pokémon? How could they escape without their help?
“Pokédex?” she blurted out.
Lillia seemed to catch her meaning. “No signal. I’ve already tried. Without a connection, I can’t access my storage.”
“But you still have it on you,” Kimiko said, a realization more than a question. Which meant she probably still had hers, too. Not that she knew how it would matter if there was no service down here. Having her new expensive purse was small comfort.
She opened her eyes again to look upwards into Lillia’s face, but her friend was turned away again. It was hard to tell if she was looking at something specifically, or was just staring into space. But then there were sounds. Movement. The dim murmur of the caged prisoners quieted down. Kimiko again attempted to sit up. The ache in her spine returned, weakened by the painkillers. She bit back her urge to groan and managed to get herself upright, Lillia too distracted to push her back.
The basement, wherever it was, looked
old. Nothing like the rooms above, if they were even in the same building. The difference was astounding. Wallpaper was faded and torn. Paint peeled off the walls where the paper had already been stripped away. Old sofas and other chairs were littered with holes, stuffing pouring out from them, and many were missing legs. Most of them, along with the rest of the furniture, had been pushed up against one wall without care to make space for all the cages that lined the room – so that answered where the other guests were. Many of them were slumped over against their cage bars or each other, asleep, unconscious… or worse?
But what stood out most was not a feature of the room itself. Two hooded figures covered by intricately-detailed black-and-gold robes stood in front of one of the cages on the opposite side of the room, flanked by two tiny humanlike blueish pokémon she did not recognize.
There were
people here. Not pokémon, not ghosts, other people. The sight only raised more questions. Were they possessed too? Kimiko wished the pounding in her head would stop, if only so she could try to make any sense of what she was seeing.
Whatever the tiny robot-like pokémon were, they packed a lot of strength. With little more than a hand gesture from the two robed figures, the small pokémon leaned down and heaved up an entire loaded cage over their heads. The people inside began to scream, grabbing the bars to keep from toppling over, begging the hooded figures to let them out. Without any signs of effort, the two small pokémon carried the cage, following the hooded figures out of sight. The cries from the captives moved upwards as they faded, heading towards an upper floor. How their tiny legs reached up the stairs was a mystery.
“We’re being transported,” Kimiko said as the notion struck her.
“Appears so,” Lillia responded. “Guess it’s easier to just move everyone little by little rather than possess us all the way to wherever we’re going. And I guess there’s too many of us to move at once.”
“Who are those people in the robes?” Kimiko asked, as though Lillia would have the answer.
“Only thing anyone’s gotten out of them was, ‘you’re not worthy’, whatever that means. Besides that, they’ve ignored everyone who’s tried to talk to them. Just come down here and pick a cage and have their pokémon carry it away.”
Which meant they were on a timer. They had to find a way to break out before it was their turn. Kimiko studied the cage. The bars were thick, sturdy, and close enough together that it would be difficult for even a small pokémon to squeeze its way in between them. “Any ideas?”
Lillia turned back to her, looking actually worried for the first time since the party began. “No. If we could get them to open the door, then maybe we could make something of it, but if they’re just going to move the whole cage…”
She trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish. With no pokémon and no way to open the cages, they were stuck there. And if the cages didn’t need to be opened, they were going to have to wait until they arrived wherever they were going before even thinking about breaking out. All they could do was wait.
Unacceptable. Olivia was out there somewhere, and Kimiko was going to get her back.
She slowly shifted her position, finding her new purse on the ground behind her. She started rummaging in it.
The movement caught Lillia’s attention. “What are you doing?”
“I swear I have a hairpin in here somewhere… has anyone tried picking the lock?”
“Nothing to pick,” Lillia answered. Kimiko froze and turned back towards her. “It’s some kind of keypad.”
“Then… then let’s start just putting in numbers.”
Lillia looked about to reply, but Kimiko cut her off. “I know it’s a long shot, but what do we have to lose? We might as well try it.”
But Lillia shook her head with a grimace. “If you put in a wrong code too many times, it electrifies the bars of the cell.” She held up a hand; her skin was burned and peeling. “Ask me how I know.”
A glance down at her wrist showed a similar scene. It wasn’t possible for anyone inside the cage to slip a hand through the bars and reach the control panel without touching them.
“But… but they can’t stay like that, right?” Kimiko asked, her voice sounding more frantic than she’d intended. “I mean, they don’t seem to want us dead, or they’d just… be done with us. Right? So… so, it has to stop eventually.”
She looked out over the room. The other cages had people leaning against them, so either it was temporary or they’d not even tried to escape. Was
anyone crazy enough to try, to endure a couple shocks just for a minimal chance at guessing the correct code? She didn’t know if she could even bring herself to do it, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out what the alternative was, either.
“It doesn’t last long, no,” Lillia confirmed, nodding her head at one of the other cages. “But each time you fail, it gets worse. Guy over there tried it and it shocked everyone inside the second time. It must run through the base, too.”
Then that ruled out guessing. Even if anyone among the party guests had an affinity for electric pokémon – an unlikely circumstance, given the people in question – they weren’t immune to being shocked themselves. On top of that, everyone else in their enclosure would most likely have to endure it, too. Not to mention that the cage-wide shock was only the second level of security; who knew how much worse it could get if they kept trying.
“We’re in trouble,” Kimiko said, putting a hand to her head. Even with the painkillers, thinking so much was starting to make her dizzy.
“Lay down and rest,” Lillia said, her voice wavering a bit. “You look terrible.”
The thought of a nap was highly appealing, if she were honest with herself. But of course, she’d rather be doing
anything else right about now. She didn’t really have a choice. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to
sleep right now. I-”
“Then just rest your eyes,” Lillia said, a hint of finality in her voice. “I don’t know if you have a concussion or what, but you’re going to need to be as well as you can be when and if we get an opportunity to get out of here. So just… just rest. I’ll make sure you know if something’s happening.”
They shared a stubborn glare, but Kimiko eventually sighed and relented. She couldn’t argue when she agreed with the points, even if she didn’t like it. There was nothing they could do now, so she might as well use this as a chance to practice regaining control of her emotions. She just had to stay calm while they bided their time. With that, she lay back down with her head in Lillia’s lap and closed her eyes. The lack of light helped more than she’d expected, and though it certainly wasn’t even close to comfortable, laying down did alleviate some of the lingering aches.
She remained laying there even when the hooded figures returned to collect another cage, instead focusing on her slow, deep breathing.
Olivia trembled as she cowered out of sight, waiting for the hallway to clear out. She didn’t like this place. Right from the beginning, it had been loud, a rhythmic, thumping kind of loud, and it hurt her ears. Then there was food! …Which would have been better if she had been allowed to eat it. And then there was a lot of people moving around and screaming; a different kind of loud that was somehow worse. But at least throughout it all, she had the comfort of her human nearby.
But now, she’d lost even that.
She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she could tell something was wrong almost immediately. Something about her human had changed; she just didn’t
feel right anymore. She felt scary!
So, Olivia ran away, weaving around all the other humans and pokémon and ducking into a hole in the wall.
And that was where she remained until the noise went away. No music, no screaming, no chaos. But she wasn’t going to find her human and get out of this place by just hiding away. She had poked her head out when things had gotten quiet and, sensing no one nearby, ventured back out to explore.
The hallways were dark and cold and dirty, and there was something
ominous in the air. Olivia didn’t like it. It was difficult to see, and the smell was terrible.
Perhaps it was because she was focused on it in that moment, but amidst that odor of ghosts and decay, a different scent caught her attention. A
familiar scent. It… it wasn’t her human, but something similar… Olivia had no idea where she was going, so she decided to follow her nose instead.
As she walked, Olivia could still detect a presence here. More than one. Humans. Ghosts. They were easier to pick up on, their spiritual energies lingering in the air, trailing after them wherever they went. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. And twice, she’d been proven right. Once, a tiny blue ghost pokémon passed her by. The next, a human in a large billowing robe. Both times, she’d taken shelter, hoping to remain undiscovered. She crouched close to the wooden floorboards, watching the feet pass by the low sofa she’d hidden below.
The human rounded a corner, and Olivia slipped out from under the sofa. That familiar smell was coming from the room at the end of the hall, where the human had just left. Olivia dashed towards it.
In front of her, the source of the scent – or rather,
scents; a veritable mountain of pokéballs in a crate, each of them carrying what must have been the scent of their human. She hadn’t noticed them while she’d been so focused on tracking the one she recognized, but now that they were in front of her, they were powerful.
Olivia leapt up onto the countertop and put her paws on the edge of the crate, barely able to see over the side. She pulled herself up into the crate, stuck her face into the pile, and began digging.
There were so many pokéballs of different colors and designs in here, and so many different smells! As fascinating as they were, Olivia began to get frustrated as time passed with how many pokéballs she’d come across more than once. She began to fling them outside the basket, removing the ones she’d already tested. A couple of them burst open upon hitting the floor, spilling out their inhabitants in flashes of light. A snubbull barked up at her; Olivia ignored it. It too carried familiar scent, but not the one she was looking for.
As she sniffed around, she came across her
own pokéball – the one with her human’s scent on it! Again, not the one she’d been looking for, but now that she had it, she felt a pang of sadness. Her human wasn’t here with it. So where was she? Olivia wanted to find her. Maybe whatever had happened to her was gone now?
But as the eevee made to withdraw, pokéball in mouth, that original smell assaulted her again. Curiosity and a determination to find the ball it was coming from won out. Olivia set her own pokéball safely on the countertop behind her, away from the rest, and continued digging.
And eventually, she found it; another ball, red and white, like so many others, but this one definitely was what she was looking for. She scooped it up with her teeth and carried it over to where she dropped her own ball earlier, setting this new one down beside it.
She’d found her ball, and the other familiar-scented one… so, what next?
She wanted to go and find her human, that’s what. But… she had no idea how to do that. No idea where to go. Maybe one of the other pokémon that had been released knew where they were? Olivia lay down, pawing at one of the familiar balls, rolling it between her paws as she looked out over the others. None she recognized besides that snubbull, and he didn’t look too friendly.
Distracted as she toyed with the pokéball, she accidentally tapped the release button; the ball opened and the pokémon inside emerged in the usual light. Suddenly, there was a pokémon Olivia recognized! The large ninetales, the one her human’s accomplice brought with them. That was why she knew the smell, she realized.
The ninetales took a moment to look over her surroundings, then immediately took charge over the crowd, barking just once to silence them all, and glancing at the open doorway; there didn’t seem to be anyone there that Olivia could see, but maybe Vixen was worried about someone hearing the commotion?
Vixen examined her surroundings again, closer now without the noise, her eyes widening in surprise as she spotted Olivia. She trotted closer to look the eevee over, sniffing her cautiously. When she was satisfied that Olivia was undamaged, she spotted the nearby create of pokéballs. The ninetales stretched up on her hind legs, planting her front paws on the crate, until her weight toppled it over. The balls it contained scattered, many more of them opening and spewing out their contents. Those that hadn’t opened on their own were quickly aided by those who’d been freed.
Vixen didn’t wait for the crowd; she headed for the exit, scooping the eevee up in one of her tails as she went, and collecting both Olivia’s and her own pokéball in another. Olivia squirmed at first, but once she got settled, it was warm and cozy! She decided she liked it better in here being carried than she did walking.
Olivia lost track of time as she warmed herself in the ninetales’ fur. She poked her head out, barely able to see as Vixen ran down hallway after hallway, somehow never running into a ghost or a human. Olivia could tell they were still nearby, so maybe she could, too. Vixen’s sense of smell must have been better also, because Olivia noticed her sniffing often. Had she picked up on some scent the eevee hadn’t? Or maybe she could still smell her human?
Suddenly, Olivia felt a sensation of falling. She very nearly slipped from Vixen’s grasp, only realizing they’d just traveled downstairs after arriving on the bottom floor. As she righted herself, she caught sight of another of those tiny blue pokémon in front of them, alongside another hooded human. Both spun around as Vixen landed.
“How the ‘ell did you get out?” came a surprised voice from under the human’s hood. “Golett, get it –”
Vixen didn’t wait for him to finish his command. Her gaze jumped down to the blue pokémon and she incinerated it with a fire blast, and it crumpled to a heap against the cage behind it. Then she turned back to the human. Olivia felt rather than saw the psychic energy waves Vixen released in the human’s direction, and his eyes flashed blue beneath his hood.
As the ninetales began to examine the room for any other attacking pokémon or robed humans, another shocked voice called out to them.
“Vixen?!”
Kimiko stumbled as she tried to sit upright in her haste to see what was going on, her body still aching from her possession experience. By the time she’d managed it, Vixen had already darted up to their cage, Lillia’s call having drawn her attention. She’d not dared to believe it when she heard Lillia call out, and even when she saw the ninetales with her own eyes, she still wondered if her headache was playing tricks on her.
“How’d you get out?” Lillia asked, her hand outstretched through the bars to rub her pokémon’s head. “Actually, don’t answer that, are you okay?”
Vixen barked an affirmative, then turned around, holding her tails out towards the cage.
An eevee poked her head out, her face lighting up with delight as Kimiko gasped in surprise. “Vee!!” Olivia squealed in recognition. She wiggled out of Vixen’s grasp and plodded over to the cage, trying to squeeze through the bars.
“Olivia!” Kimiko choked out, forcing back the tears of relief forming in her eyes. She crawled over and knelt at the edge, and poked her hand out to pet the eevee. Olivia proceeded to nibble on her fingers.
A muffled shout from a floor above interrupted the happy reunion. “The pokémon, someone’s let the pokémon out!”
The voice spurred Lillia into action, her joyful expression shifting to one of business. “Vixen, we gotta get out of here. Can you melt this lock?”
Vixen cast one look at the keypad before turning around. The robed human, who had been silently standing in front of the cage he had been collecting until Vixen attacked him, began to move towards them, his glowing blue eyes bright under his hood.
“Lillia…” Kimiko warned.
But her friend didn’t sound concerned. “It’s okay. Vixen’s got him hypnotized.” Before Kimiko could react to that, Lillia pressed on, gesturing at the keypad. “Alright, hotshot, I really hope you’re not just some goon who doesn’t have the code.”
Kimiko watched, holding her breath as the man reached out and poked at the control panel. Moments later, their cage door swung open. As Lillia bolted from the cage, Kimiko reached behind her to grab her purse before following suit. The rest of the party guests trapped with them pushed and shoved each other in their haste to climb out, too.
As soon as she was free, Kimiko lifted Olivia into her arms and squeezed her tight. “You had me so worried,” she breathed, her voice practically a whisper, as Olivia pawed at her hair. “Never run off like that on your own again, okay? I don’t ever want to lose you.”
“Hey, come on, we gotta go!”
It was hard not to be annoyed at having her tearful reunion broken up, but she knew Lillia was right. When she looked up, her friend had already started up the staircase, poking her head around the side and waving Kimiko over.
But Kimiko looked around the room, and realized they weren’t done here yet. “Lillia, we can’t just leave everyone here,” she said, gesturing at all the other remaining locked cages. The inhabitants cried out, arms outstretched, begging or demanding to be released.
Lillia sighed before ordering Vixen and her spellbound puppet to start unlocking cages. “If we get recaptured because we stayed to help these freeloaders, you’d better hope we don’t end up sharing a cage again.”
Kimiko and Lillia followed the crowd up the stairs once the final cage had been opened. But when they got to the top, their options grew as several hallways came into view. People were scattering every direction, joining crowds of pokémon running about, seeking their trainers or also just trying to find an exit. The chaos left Kimiko unsure of which way to go. This part of the building was as run-down as the basement below, and therefore gave no indication of which direction the ballroom was – again, assuming this was the same building. The aesthetic difference was drastic.
No one else seemed to know, either; some continued straight ahead, some sprinted through a door to the left, and some turned down a hallway to their right that curved behind the stairwell they just rose from, leading deeper into the building.
“What’s the problem?” Lillia asked frantically from behind. Her head darted back and forth, scanning the area, but she refused to let go of Kimiko’s hand. She pushed them both against the wall, out of the path of the stampeding party guests funneling up the stairs and keeping close so they didn’t get separated.
“I don’t recognize this area… Which way is the exit?” She looked hopefully down at Olivia in her arm, as though the baby eevee might be able to guide them, but she just mewed softly back at her with a frown. “That’s alright,” Kimiko assured her. “I wasn’t actually hedging our escape on you.”
“Then I guess we’re on our own,” Lillia replied. She surged forward, practically dragging Kimiko with her.
She stumbled a bit in her heels. How they hadn’t broken yet, she had no idea. But at the moment, they were very inconvenient to walk quickly in, especially with people carelessly pushing each other aside in their own hasty attempts to escape. The alternative was to carry them and walk barefoot (for some reason, her brain refused to acknowledge the option to just leave them behind).
Regardless, they had to keep moving. With all of this noise, it wouldn’t take long for the ghosts to realize the rest of their human captives were escaping, and she really did not want to think about what they might do. Instead, Kimiko tried to keep her mind busy by considering what was down the other hallway. She wondered if maybe that may have been the better option; surely, once the ghosts realized most people were heading straight, they’d try to cut them off, and they’d be easy pickings. Going back deeper into the building might have thrown them off long enough to find a different exit… although it also came with the unfortunate problem of taking them deeper into the building.
Screams ahead of them brought her focus back to the hall ahead. Over the heads of the other party guests, she could see the hallway physically twist and morph out of shape, the shadows on the walls distorting. A few people and pokémon had turned around, trying to push back down the hall they’d just come from.
“Ugh! It’s just a ghost illusion,” Lillia shouted in frustration, loud enough to be heard over the panic. “Vixen, burn it away!”
At some point, Vixen had leapt up on top of a bookcase. With a growl, she spewed a stream of flame down the hall, over the heads of the people below. Ghostly wails responded from the shadows, and the hallway snapped back to normal as though nothing had been wrong with it.
A few people cheered and resumed sprinting down the hallway. Lillia, however, was not convinced.
“Way too easy.”
They waited a few seconds as people filed passed them, waiting in anticipation, but Kimiko was antsy. “We shouldn’t linger here; they know we’re out.”
Lillia nodded. She took one step, then fell backwards as a dozen thorny vines erupted from shadows on the floor, and the frantic screams began anew. As people began to surge forwards again, more vines burst from the walls, green, sharp, and dripping with some kind of purple liquid. They lashed out as people tried to pass them, snaring anyone within reach.
A bald man in a tuxedo forced himself between Kimiko and Lillia, breaking their grip. As she was about to turn to find her friend, the bald man pushed passed Kimiko, only to be snared by a vine and yanked into the wall. He hit it hard and rebounded, but the vine pulled him back again. This time, he yelled as he was pulled into the wall itself, and vanished.
Kimiko stepped back away from the wall, bumping into someone else in the process. She finally spun around, but there were so many people pushing their way through the hallway that Lillia was no longer within her sight in the crowd. Her anxiety skyrocketed; not just because she was in danger herself, but
what if Lillia already got pulled in by one of those vines?
She didn’t have to spend much time worrying about it. Something stabbed her ankle, sending her crumpling to the floor as her leg failed to support her. Olivia sprang from her arms and barely managed to dart to the side before she got flattened. Kimiko didn’t need to turn and see the thorny vine wrapped around her foot, snaking its way up her leg, but she did anyway. She pulled, only to flinch and curse as the thorns dug into her skin, leaving behind bloody, reddish-purple scrapes.
A cry from Olivia drew her attention back just in time to see a woman in a red dress landing face-first on the floor beside her. Olivia lay on her side, as though the woman just tripped over her. The eevee crawled back to Kimiko, who cradled her protectively while trying to free her leg. She glanced at the fallen woman with the red dress briefly – brunette. Not Lillia.
The vines had a hold of several people now. The crowd in the rest of the hallway was thinning as people either got re-captured or took their chances running into the unknown. People and pokémon alike struggled against the spiky snares; some of the pokémon launched attacks at them, with little to no visible success.
“These sure don’t feel like illusions,” Kimiko whined as another barb dug into her skin. The pain was dulled, whatever medication she’d been given earlier still working wonders, but there was also a tingling sensation that worried her. Something to do with the purple ooze, she suspected.
Then she cried out again as a second vine attached itself to her, coiling around her wrist, and this time pain of the stingers was sharper. She couldn’t be sure, but a slight tug on her head suggested one had entangled itself in her hair, too. Together, they began to retract into the shadow on the wall. She let go of Olivia and scrambled to grab hold of something sturdy, something she could hold on to keep from being pulled any further, but there was nothing within reach.
Suddenly, Olivia sprung away with a cry. She sunk her teeth into one of the vines, doing her best to bite through it. The vine seemed solid enough, but like the other pokémon, the young eevee wasn’t experienced enough to have much success.
“Olivia, no!” Kimiko cried, her eyes wide. She wasn’t
sure that purple liquid was poison, but it was a safe assumption based on the sight of it, and the last thing she needed right now was her baby pokémon getting ill.
Her eevee stubbornly refused to let go, despite not making any progress. There was nothing else either of them could do. Kimiko had to try to get her pokémon to safety, even if she didn’t make it out, herself. “Olivia, just go! Find Lillia, try to get out of here!”
But Olivia didn’t move. She hung from the higher vine by her teeth, paws flailing in the air as she tried to find something to push off of.
Her fight was short-lived. Another vine burst from the wall’s shadow, knocking Olivia away to the ground before coiling around her, too.
“No!” Kimiko cried. She re-doubled her efforts to pull her limbs from their bindings, only succeeding in staining her legs with red.
A quiet snicker cut through the clatter in the hallway, causing Kimiko to shift her attention towards it. Across the hall, a pumpkin sat on the bookshelf, watching her with yellow eyes and a twisted grin carved into it. She couldn’t place it, but she thought she’d seen something like that before…
“It’s a pokémon! Olivia, there!” She pointed at the pumpkin with her free hand, praying Olivia would understand – she hadn’t even imagined battling with her eevee yet. “Shadow ball at it!”
Instead of attacking, Olivia turned in
her direction, distress clear on her face. But Kimiko wasn’t looking at her, so her eyes followed the human’s pointing finger to the pumpkin on the shelf. Olivia growled weakly at it. The pumpkin’s grin grew wider.
Then a small purple blob of energy shot away from the eevee, so quickly that Kimiko wasn’t even sure it was Olivia that launched it. But the shadow ball nailed the pumpkin dead center. The gourgeist let out a ghostly wail as it toppled off the shelf, more from being caught off guard than injury.
Seconds later, the tightness around Kimiko’s limbs eased up as the vines around her wrist and leg froze, then dissolved back into the shadows. Her arm dropped to the ground, released from the trap. All around her, the other trapped party guests were released from their bindings, too; Olivia’s surprise attack caught the gourgeist unaware, and with its concentration broken, the illusion vanished.
“Yes! Good, Olivia!” Kimiko called, rubbing her sore wrist. The blood was still there, as was the purple ooze and the tingling it left behind. Worrying, but she had more concerning problems right now. She dug into her purse, looking for her single full heal. It and one potion were all she had for an emergency, having not brought her entire bag stocked with trainer supplies.
Meanwhile, Olivia looked around at the sound of her voice. When she found her trainer, she began to sprint towards her.
She was cut off as a shadow ball struck her in the side. Kimiko gasped loudly as Olivia was hit. Ghostly energy sizzled around her and she stumbled sideways from the force of the impact, but then the energy died out, leaving the eevee surprised, but unharmed. Kimiko let out a breath of relief.
They both turned to find the gourgeist standing upright on the ground, a startled expression on the pumpkin. With its illusion broken, its attack doing no damage, and the rest of the humans and pokémon beginning to gather themselves, the grass-type yelped and dove into a shadow, vanishing entirely.
A quick glance around did not reveal any further ghosts in the immediate area, so Kimiko took the opportunity to inspect Olivia’s coat. The eevee’s fur seemed to keep the worst of the vines at bay, but still she found some poison by her ear. She did her best to wipe it away, then sprayed the open wounds with her full heal.
With her pokémon tended to, she turned her attention to her bloody ankle. It was very red, but not particularly deep. Nothing that she would need to tend to immediately; good, considering she gave Olivia her only treatments. Instead, she kicked off her heels and forced herself to her feet, deciding finally that her expensive shoes were not worth it after all. She brushed some loose hair out of her eyes with a frown. At some point she’d lost the scrunchie keeping it tied up and her ponytail had come loose, her long hair now trailing wildly down her back to her knees.
Olivia trotted to her side and she kneeled down briefly to collect her. When she righted herself again, she looked up and down the hallway. The people that had been snared all had begun to move again, none of them back the direction they’d come from. Now towards the rear of the group, it took a few seconds of listening to recognize the sounds of a battle coming from behind, so Kimiko followed her original course.
Running was unpleasant with bare feet on the old, dirty wooden floorboards. Every step sent a fresh spike of pain up her bloody, poisoned leg. It was getting worse, and at this rate, it wouldn’t be long before she was crippled and limping. But she kept herself going, reminding herself that just about any alternative right now was even less pleasant. More importantly was the eevee curled up in her arms once again; she had to get Olivia out of here. She grit her teeth and kept moving.
More screaming erupted from the people ahead of her, reminding her that just because they’d escaped one ghost trap didn’t mean they were out of the woods yet. She skidded to a halt as best she could without slamming into anyone in front of her who’d also come to a dead stop. In front of them, she spotted a few people stumbling and fall forwards toward a large, round, bizarrely-patterned carpet.
But the three who tripped never landed. They disappeared seamlessly, the sounds of their voices fading as though they’d fallen into a hole in the ground. Kimiko didn’t have to wonder for long what kind of illusion this was. The carpet began to shift as it rose up from the ground. The yellow borders that Kimiko had mistaken as designs on the not-actually-a-carpet sealed together, and she realized with horror that those people had just been swallowed by the massive dusknoir before her.
Kimiko found herself wide-eyed and frozen in place as everyone else turned to flee back the way they came, her eyes fixed on the hulking ghost. Disjointed memories of the forest came crashing back like a train, all jumbled out of order, and her breath caught in her throat.
Not again…
not again!
But she couldn’t remember how to move her legs. They felt like stone, glued to the floor. The only movement she could make was her involuntary trembling, growing worse as the ghost floated closer.
Then the hallway itself quaked. The old lanterns on the wall flickered as everyone lost their footing and collapsed on the ground, Olivia managing to land upright as she leapt from her trainer’s grasp once again. Her gaze broken off the dusknoir, Kimiko was again aware of the adrenaline rushing fast. Now was her chance to run – but there was nowhere to go. She glanced back down the hall, where the sounds of the battle were still approaching; they were trapped between the dusknoir and whatever was following them down the corridor.
Kimiko didn’t get a chance to see whatever it was. As soon as she got herself back to her feet, a large hand closed around her neck and slammed her back into the wall. Her feet left the ground as the dusknoir held her there at arm’s length. Gasping for air, she flailed helplessly, legs scrambling for something to stand on. She reached up to try to pull the giant hand away and ease some pressure, but despite the ghost having a solid grasp on her, her own hands went right through the intangible arm.
The dusknoir floated closer, heedless of her trembling. The yellow eye-like patterns on its stomach lit up as it prepared to open. She tried kicking the large ghost, but was met with the same results. She saw Olivia out of the corner of her eye attempting to launch shadow balls at the massive dusknoir, but it didn’t seem to feel them. Her vision began to get cloudy and she could feel her strength and consciousness being sapped away…
As it approached, all Kimiko could think was that this was wrong. They hadn’t wanted to kill anyone. They’d all been kept alive! Imprisoned, yes, but alive. There had to be some reason for that! So what changed? Were they willing to sacrifice a few stragglers if they managed to recapture everyone else? Or maybe the ghosts were just intentionally being more savage in response to their prisoners escaping?
Was this the same dusknoir from the forest?
She supposed it didn’t matter now, now that she was about to–
The grip on her throat loosened. Kimiko coughed and choked as she tried to hastily draw air into her lungs; the dusknoir still had her in its clutches, but it had weakened its hold enough for oxygen to flow. She was still tired, but there was an opportunity here that she knew she needed to try to claim. With renewed vigor, she began to struggle against the ghost, despite it still being as untouchable as ever.
Her vision cleared up enough to notice that the dusknoir was glaring – quite angrily – at something outside her line of sight, but she couldn’t turn her head in that direction.
But then the dusknoir lurched, and Kimiko dropped to the floor.
Move, a voice echoed in her head. She lay there rubbing her tender throat, coughing every time she inhaled but finally able to breathe, and for the moment that was all that mattered.
Move!! the voice echoed again. Her voice. Right. She knew subconsciously that the dusknoir still loomed over her. It could reach down and pick her up easily any moment. Still struggling to breathe, she began to crawl away.
She didn’t get far before Olivia was in her face, pawing at her hair and licking her cheek. She managed to lift herself to her knees and stroked her eevee’s fur before someone reached under her arms and heaved her to her feet.
“You alright? I thought I’d lost you!”
Kimiko turned her head and came face to face with her missing friend.
“Lillia! I thought
I’d lost
you!”
She simply nodded, then pulled Kimiko back against the wall again. Kimiko looked back towards the dusknoir just as Vixen launched another shadow ball at it. Down at her feet, Olivia growled and threw one of her own at the towering ghost. Both attacks made contact, and the dusknoir finally decided it had had enough. It sunk back down through the floorboards and did not re-emerge.
Immediately, Vixen spun around and leapt in the other direction.
“Where’s she going?” Kimiko cried. “It could be prepping an attack!”
“Let’s hope it’s not,” Lillia answered, spinning them both towards the other large ghost in the hall.
Vixen’s energy attacks were green this time as she bombarded the large blue robot-looking pokémon, and Kimiko realized the battle sounds she’d heard before must have been Lillia and Vixen fighting off this pokémon. It reminded Kimiko of the small ones that had carried the cages away… possibly an evolution? Regardless, the giant still swayed on its massive feet, and Kimiko realized Vixen must have hypnotized it long enough for her to briefly shift focus towards the dusknoir to rescue her.
Meanwhile, now at Vixen’s feet, Olivia continued launching her own tiny shadow balls at the new ghost.
Satisfied that her pokémon had the situation under control for the moment, Lillia turned sharply to Kimiko. “Can you walk?”
Kimiko flinched back at her intense tone of voice. It wasn’t like her carefree friend to be so serious, and Kimiko wasn’t sure how to react to that. “I-I think so, I–”
“Good,” Lillia interrupted, turning back to her pokémon. “Confuse ray, Vixen!”
Her ninetales responded with a snort before her eyes glowed yellow. Two bright beams of light blasted the giant in the face. The large pokémon didn’t seem to have eyes so much as glowing markings on its face, but they still squinted from the attack.
“Now, let’s go!” Lillia ordered.
Vixen leaned down to pick up Olivia by the scruff of her neck and paused only to deposit her at her trainer’s feet before sprinting down the hall beyond where the dusknoir had been. Lillia leaned down, picked up the eevee, and practically shoved her into Kimiko’s arms before taking her hand and pulling her behind the ninetales.
The elder trainer looked over her shoulder as she ran, and shouted, “Get moving or get left behind!” The few remaining party guests who had been cowering and hiding from the two huge ghosts scrambled to their feet and charged after them.
Kimiko had no idea if either Vixen or Lillia knew where they were going. They kept running, occasionally spotting a ghost floating ahead of them, but Vixen was quick to blast some fire at them before they could conjure some new illusion to slow them down. Rather than stop and battle, they continued moving, jogging passed while the ghost was recovering. Kimiko was thankful that these ones were weak enough to breeze passed; Vixen looked exhausted, and she knew she
felt that way. The ninetales had stopped using shadow ball, even, resorting to fire or energy ball to ward off attackers now. But Kimiko also didn’t dare to let herself think that the biggest threats were now behind them.
So it was a surprise when they burst through a door to find a familiar – and yet not familiar at all – ballroom, bustling with ghosts and scrambling people and pokémon. The ballroom itself looked like if the one from the party had been lost to time, making even the basement with the cages look modern in comparison.
“What’s going on here?” Kimiko asked as she took in the room, more a rhetorical question in her confusion than an actual inquiry. The walls were falling apart, full of holes. All of the glass windows were shattered, some of them missing glass entirely. Where there had been a once-fancy tile floor, now lay the same wooden floorboards as in the previous corridors. Only one single in-tact chandelier remained, looking as though it hadn’t been lit in centuries and covered now in cobwebs. The buffet tables, the dance floor, the stage. All of them undeniably similar to their brand-new counterparts she’d seen only hours prior, only now looking as ancient as the rest of the building.
And there it was – the exit! One door completely off its hinges, the other attached but open. People and pokémon still attempting to flee, the barrier that had been there previously no longer preventing escape. Ghosts still attacking. In particular, a froslass and a rotom hovered by the doorway, freezing or shocking anyone who tried to slip passed and out into the night air. The froslass had deadly accuracy with an ice beam, while the rotom hardly aimed its thunder wave, gleefully zapping entire areas at once. Kimiko hoped Vixen would be able to distract them long enough to get by.
But as Kimiko and Lillia got close, they realized there was more than just ghosts blocking the exit. A ferrothorn had lodged itself in the door frame and was littering the ground with spikes. An ariados was dragging two cocoons away from the exit towards an enormous web on the ceiling, where several wiggling cocoons already lay. A claydol was teleporting people away from the doorway farther inside the ballroom. And a centiskorch had wrapped itself around someone, their screams being lost behind the hissing of the bug-type’s steam as it roasted its victim alive.
Kimiko was finding it difficult to focus, her vision blurring slightly, as she watched these random not-ghost pokémon attacking. It wasn’t until Lillia’s exclamation of “What the
fuck is
this?” that Kimiko had the realization – she
knew that claydol.
“Well, fancy seeing you two here,” came a voice from behind, causing a flinch and a startled cry from Kimiko as the pair spun around. Kimiko stumbled halfway, losing her balance as her bloody leg gave out, but Lillia managed to catch her and keep her upright. The swaying drew her attention to just how dizzy she felt, and realized the poison must be starting to affect her. But they were almost free…
Costas stood alone, no pokémon at his side. He crossed his arms, his head tilted down towards the floor and shaking slowly. “This certainly is not how I’d expected I’d be exposed.”
Kimiko stared at him, bewildered. “Wh… what are you saying? You… You’re involved with the ghosts? Wh– You’re working
with them?”
While she was stunned and struggling to form coherent thoughts, Lillia was angry and one step ahead of her. “Was this your plan all along? Luring us here as ghost fodder? I trusted you!”
Costas lifted his head to stare her in the eye with a light grin. “And how foolish you were! To answer your question, no. I’d had this event planned long ago,” he replied conversationally. “But as they say… oh, what was the phrase… the more, the merrier.”
“The hell does that mean?” Lillia snapped back. “You went through all that trouble to rescue me and help my friends. What was all of this for? What are you after? Are you the reason the forest ghosts are all aggressive, too?”
Costas’ attention shifted to Kimiko, where his gaze lingered, silently but intently. Not Olivia, he was definitely observing her. A chill went down her spine; she felt like her eyes were piercing her soul, looking inside her.
But why, she wondered?
Why is he looking at me
?
But when he responded, it wasn’t to answer Kimiko’s internal questions. “The reason? Me? Not at all!”
“Bullshit,” Lillia spat.
“You… wanted
us here specifically,” Kimiko added, her words slurring together. “Why?”
“Oh, I assure you, I’m quite serious. I am not the mastermind here.”
He was avoiding her question, this time very well aware that Kimiko knew it. But while she struggled and failed to form words, Lillia pressed on, not giving her the time to think.
“Then who is? You’ve wormed your way into the good graces of these ghosts somehow, or they’d be going after you, too. So, if not you,
someone’s gotta be orchestrating this whole thing!”
“I suspect you’ll find out sooner or later,” Costas replied cryptically. “That is, you may have, should you somehow have survived. Which I’m afraid, given I’m going to be in quite a pickle over this mess, I mustn’t allow.”
A snap of his fingers and a blast of heat erupted from behind the girls.
Vixen leapt in front of the flames before either of them could react, shielding them both from the worst of it. Kimiko hadn’t noticed the centiskorch abandon its victim and creep up behind them; while she was glad she wasn’t entirely delusional yet, it wasn’t really in their favor that Lillia had missed it, too.
Kimiko turned back to Costas just in time to see him put a hand on his claydol and teleport away. She didn’t see where he reappeared, or
if he reappeared. She heard Lilla curse under her breath.
“We’ll deal with him another day,” Lillia said, focusing on his pokémon.
Vixen blasted her own flamethrower at the incoming bug-type, but just like the fire attack she had just blocked, it was instead absorbed by the centiskorch, its body glowing orange as the fire powered it up.
“It’s right there,” Lillia growled, her jaw clenched. “The exit is
right there. I am not going to be stopped by
this.”
“It can’t be hurt by fire,” Kimiko commented.
“I know,” Lillia snapped back. “Vixen’s too tired to use shadow ball any more. Energy ball won’t hurt it either. Vixen, extrasensory!”
A golden glow lit up the ninetales’ eyes, and she opened her mouth. Instead of fire, a golden beam shot forwards, surges of energy rippling off it.
Centiskorch didn’t bother to dodge. Instead, the ferrothorn swung from its spot in the door frame and blocked the attack easily. Vixen launched another flamethrower at it, which the centiskorch slithered in place to absorb.
Lillia cursed again. “This is absurd! It’s
right there!” she repeated. She cast a sideways glance at Kimiko and paled. “Holy
fuck, you look
awful.”
“…Thanks.”
Lillia recomposed herself, turning towards the doorway again. Both the froslass and the rotom had drifted, leaving a slight gap in their reach. “Okay, look, when we attack, run around them and get yourself out. Watch out for the spikes on the ground. Run if you can, otherwise just find somewhere to hide until this all settles down. Try to call someone to come get you. I don’t know. It’s dark, you should be safe enough. You can still run, right?”
Kimiko’s head was spinning. Her entire leg had gone numb. Her breathing had gotten strained. It took a moment to realize what Lillia was suggesting. Things were happening too fast. “I… what? Lillia, no. I’m not leaving you.”
Vixen barely avoided some kind of sand barrage from the centiskorch, still trying to respond but finding her attacks easily blocked.
“There’s no time for this! I’ll keep them busy. You need to get yourself help. That poison in your system isn’t going to cure itself.”
“No, I…”
A startled whine from Vixen drew their attention, and they both flinched back as two glowing energy seeds flew through the air in their direction.
Before either of them could react, a shadow ball collided with them and the leech seeds exploded in mid-air. Still in Kimiko’s arms, Olivia growled softly, her tiny chest heaving. Kimiko was surprised she was still able to launch attacks for this long.
“I’ve got an idea,” Lillia said suddenly, a smirk on her face. She nodded at Vixen, now behind the two attacking pokémon, who turned their attention away from the trainers and back to the ninetales. “We need another one of those.”
Kimiko wasn’t sure what that would do; Olivia lacked the power to really threaten either ferrothorn or centiskorch. But she decided she was better off letting her friend do the thinking at the moment. “Olivia, can… can you shadow ball one more time?”
The eevee tilted her head, and for a moment Kimiko doubted she understood. But a moment later, she conjured another purple energy orb and sent it towards their foes.
“Vixen!” Lillia shouted while pulling a surprised Kimiko to the ground, and Vixen reacted immediately. A golden extrasensory blast shot out of her muzzle, colliding with Olivia’s shadow ball directly above the other pokémon.
The shadow ball grew and expanded rapidly until the extrasensory blasted it a part. A shockwave of ghostly energy blasted ferrothorn and centiskorch apart, tossing them flying in opposite directions, far into the corners of the room.
Lillia struggled to pull Kimiko back to her feet. She sent a concerned glance at her friend when she didn’t immediately start running. “Come
on, now’s our chance!” Lillia demanded urgently.
“My leg,” Kimiko groaned. “I… I don’t have any feeling in it.”
“Can you still
move it? We need to
go!”
While Lillia threw Kimiko’s arm around her neck, Vixen burned away the spikes at the door left behind by the ferrothorn before turning her attention to the froslass, who had started trying to snipe them from a distance now that her teammates were down. The rotom was nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, Lillia practically dragged Kimiko from the building.
With the exit no longer blocked, several other guests were fleeing now as well, pushing passed them and down the trail. The garden outside looked just as ancient as the inside had; whatever grass had been there before was long since dead. What remained of the shrub maze was now purely clumps of branches. The old fountain no longer contained water but dead, dried leaves and twigs, and was barely recognizable, features worn away by the ages.
Ghosts followed the humans outside, but as people scattered, they’d needed to start picking targets. Kimiko knew she’d slow them down; they were some of the easier marks for the ghosts at the moment. They needed to get away and hide.
They made it to the old, rusty gate when a tone sounded from Kimiko’s purse. Lillia
nearly shoved her away in her haste to snatch her own phone.
“Service!” she cried. Without hesitation, Kimiko watched her fiddle with the device for a few moments. One by one, pokéballs began materializing on the slider, and Lillia released her team.
The night sky lit up with fire as Dante the magmar and Hades the houndoom emerged and immediately began roasting ghosts. In their light, Kimiko caught a glimpse of the mansion they’d just vacated. No longer was it a lavish building, but an ancient one, its crumbling exterior matching the decrepit interior. The building was shadowed by a large, dusty red mountain range, no longer the lively greenery they’d been covered by late that afternoon. Only upon seeing the state of the building did Kimiko realize that the ghosts must have disguised the building and surrounding area with one large illusion from the beginning; it had never been a mansion at all. Or, at least, not any time recently.
Two draconic roars nearby caused Kimiko to flinch, her vision going momentarily black. The lightheadedness she’d been feeling intensified, and dizziness caught up with her. Breathing had become difficult, too; the deep breaths she kept taking didn’t seem to fill her lungs. She leaned against the old metal fence and started to sink down to the ground, feeling her consciousness waning.
“Those lights over there, there’s a town down there, that’s our target. Can you hold on until then?”
“I… I think so,” Kimiko lied.
Two charizard stepped into her line of sight. One of them spun around, urging her onto his back; Lillia had already climbed atop the other.
“Good, neither Etna nor Ignatius can carry us both while you’re in that condition, so I need you to stay conscious.”
With a pained grunt, Kimiko forced herself back to her feet, taking another moment to clutch the fence as another dizzy spell threatened to drop her again. Before climbing on, Kimiko had a moment of clarity. She dug into her purse and retrieved Olivia’s ball. “We’ll be safe now,” she said before recalling her. Olivia’s expression of despair hurt her heart, but she couldn’t carry the eevee while flying. “I’ll see you when we get back, promise.”
The two charizard took off into the air. Kimiko wrapped her arms tightly around Ignatius’ neck; the charizard let out a grunt, but the higher up they flew, the less she felt she could hold on. The wind lashing at her body threatened to rip her from the pokémon’s back, and she didn’t have the strength to grip any tighter.
The charizard’s flight leveled out as they beelined for the town in the distance. The wind whipped at her loose hair, sending it flying wildly. Kimiko crouched low to her charizard’s back, but her vision was failing her. It was dark, but now she couldn’t see the stars or the moon. Or the lights from the city. Or even Ignatius’ wings.
The last thing she knew was Lillia’s voice, shouting to be heard over the roaring wind.
