SingingViolin
Youngster
- Pronouns
- she/her
Summary: Will and Karen are on a class trip to Ecruteak city. It takes an unexpected turn when rumors about a monster in Burned Tower prompt them to investigate.
Karen and Will are children in this (hence class trip). I'm playing around with some ideas about Johto-Kanto lore, and this one-shot is partially an exploration of these.
There are references to a past war and implied bad stuff that happened there, but nothing graphic or explicit.
“Come on, Will!”
Karen’s laughter rang through the night: vibrant, fearless, challenging all the ghosts of Ecruteak to come get her if they dared. She stood in front of Burned Tower: the moonlight dancing on her hair, her Eevee at her side. She emphasized her words with an impatient gesture of the hand, egging Will on.
He gulped and rushed to her, casting nervous looks around him as he moved. “Be quiet,” he told her after he reached her. “If anyone catches us, we’re in big trouble.”
That just made her burst into louder laughter. “Ooh, big trouble. I’m so scared .”
“Hush!”
“Relax , Will. No one’s gonna snitch. And Ms Williams always sleeps like a log.”
“Still.”
It wasn’t the rule-breaking that scared Will, not really. They did that all the time. Of course, they did need to be careful. They were on a class trip to Ecruteak: they were supposed to be on their best behavior. Sneaking out at night was not best behavior, no matter how you sliced it. But that wasn’t really his main concern. His folks didn’t really care what he did; and as for Karen, she could talk her way out of anything.
No, the real problem was that there were ghosts in the tower. Everyone said so. There’d been a fire there, many years ago: a fire that had destroyed most of the building, and claimed the lives of the humans and Pokemon in it. The locals said that the spirits of the victims still lingered in the place, seeking a closure they could never find.
Lingering spirits were no joke. The other kids in class were always trying to out-spook each other with stories about them: how time had made them bitter and vengeful. How they could devour your soul, or fill your sleep with nightmares, or make you their puppet for all eternity.
Of course, Will didn’t believe all the tales. He was eight years old now, almost a man. Only babies believed everything they were told. Still, if there was a chance that your soul might be devoured, it seemed better to avoid it.
“What’s up with you anyway?” Karen asked. “You said you wanted to come with me. You said you wanted to find out about the monster, too.”
“Yeah, but…” He’d said that during the day. When the sun was out, and ghosts and monsters seemed like something remote: spooky, but in a cool way. Nighttime made them real.
“Maybe we should come back another time,” he suggested.
“Why?”
Will scrambled for some excuse. “Pen isn’t feeling too good.”
He felt the pokeball shaking in his pocket. He could sense Pen’s displeasure at the lie, even from inside the capsule. She was only a little Natu, but she had big opinions and she was expressive about them. Sometimes, she let him use her as an excuse to bullshit his way out of situations. But her tolerance had limits, and she liked Karen a lot.
Karen scrunched her nose. “Pen is sick? Really? She looked fine earlier.”
“It was sudden. Real sudden. She needs rest and water. Lots of water.”
He could tell Karen was skeptical. “Well… okay, then. I’m going in. You don’t have to come.”
That wouldn’t work at all. “If you go in, I have to come too.”
“Alright, come then.” He heard the amusement in her voice; it both flustered and irritated him. He wished she would take this seriously.
“What if there’s no monster?” he tried. “Then we’re just wasting our time.”
Karen frowned. “You’ve heard the sounds. I have, too.”
That was true. They had both heard the sounds. Everyone in their class had heard the sounds, from their accommodation near the tower. You could only hear it at night: a mix of growls and mournful whines, not like anything Will had heard before. They told the teacher, but she just said not to worry about it.
Some kids said it was a ghost, but that seemed unlikely. Ghosts didn’t growl; at least, Will didn’t think they did. Others said it was a Pokemon, but Will didn’t believe that either. It didn’t sound like any Pokemon he or Karen knew, and they’d studied a lot of different cries in class. There was something different about it, something that gave Will the creeps.
The whole class kept talking about it: everybody had a theory, but nobody had the guts to actually investigate. So of course they turned to Karen for a solution, like they always did. And of course she took charge, like she always did. And of course Will followed her, like he always did.
Perhaps honesty was the best policy – partial honesty, at least. “Everyone says there are ghosts in the tower, too.”
“So?”
How could she be so casual about this? “So , Pen doesn’t like ghosts.”
“Pen is in her pokeball.”
Will wished he could be in a pokeball, too. “Yeah, but she’s worried about me.”
“Come on, Will, stop using Pen as an excuse. If you’re scared, just say so.”
“I’m not scared of ghosts. I just… I prefer to avoid them, that’s all.”
“Well, Eevee laughs at ghosts. She’ll protect us. Right, Eevee?” The Pokemon stood taller, rubbed itself against Karen’s leg, and politely accepted a pat on the head.
Eevee’s presence did make Will feel a little better. She was the strongest Pokemon in their class, after all – perhaps even in the whole school.
“Okay. Let’s go, but be careful.”
The damaged floor creaked under Will’s step.
He kept the flashlight steady, his grip just a bit too tight. The tower was nothing fancy: just the charred remains of a once majestic building. Rattatas could be heard squeaking and scurrying through the room, but Will ignored them. Pokemon were used to sharing the tower with humans: they would not attack unless they were seeking a trainer. His real fear stemmed from the things his senses could not perceive: the lurking presence of something hidden, following them at every step. Will felt like he was being watched by a thousand eyes; but whenever he turned the light on a shadowed corner, whatever might have been there disappeared.
“Maybe there’s nothing here,” he suggested, more to hear the sound of his own voice than anything. It came out like a croak. “Maybe we were wrong.”
“We barely looked.”
“I’m telling you, there’s nothing. Just Rattatas and Zubats and stuff. Kinda boring if you ask me. We should go back.”
Karen turned to face him. Under the scattered light, he saw her grinning. “Torchic.”
“Am not,” Will retorted, piqued.
“Tor-chic!”
“Am not! Shut up!”
“Cluck, cluck! Cluck cluck cluck, cluck…”
GRRR.
The roar sprang from the depths of the earth and echoed across the room. It shut them both up. Will instinctively moved closer to Karen, one hand holding the flashlight in a death grip and frantically turning it all around the room, the other on Pen’s pokeball. Karen moved closer to him too, and they stood together, counting the seconds of silence. After a while, a different sound was heard. It came from the same creature: Will knew this with a certainty he could not entirely explain. It had the same blood-chilling quality, but it was also different. A whimper. Pained, and – could it be? – scared.
He exchanged a look with Karen. She was wide-eyed and paler than usual. Same was true for him, probably.
“I think it’s coming from downstairs,” Karen whispered.
“Yeah.” That’s how it’d sounded to him, too.
“It sounds like it’s in pain.”
To this, Will did not respond. He wasn’t sure how. He felt conflicted.
“You can sense emotions,” she pressed. “What d’you think?”
“I’m not very good at that yet,” he clarified. He could move objects with his mind since he was a toddler, no problem. Emotions were harder. He could only sense them in their rawest, simplest form. And even that, he couldn’t always do. He could never understand his parents’ emotions, for instance. They were too complex, too unfamiliar; sometimes hiding behind other emotions, or fighting with each other in chaos. Sometimes they were hidden, like they were behind a dirty glass. Often, they were silent: Will could sense something was there, but he didn’t know what, because it had no voice.
Even simpler emotions weren’t all that simple. He could never be sure of any of his readings, and they took a lot of focus and energy. It wasn’t something he could just automatically do .
He tried, though. He swam through waves of uninteresting, run-of-the-mill feelings belonging to the Pokemon in the tower. Most of them were calm. Some of them were mildly irritated at his and Karen’s presence, but without real hostility. There was a moderate level of excitement in the mix, too. Nothing unusual: perhaps the Pokemon it belonged to had just met a friend, or found something to eat.
Will acknowledged them all, but pushed past them, working his way through until he found the only source of real agitation in the picture. It burned, overwhelmingly, like the only sun in the center of a frozen universe.
“Fear,” he said reluctantly. “I mean, real fear, not like when you just have your guard up. Pain. Distrust.” He paused for a moment. “There’s some hunger in there, too.”
He saw Karen’s expression change: shifting from hesitance to that bullheaded determination he was all too familiar with. “We have to help.”
“No, we don’t.” He spoke more firmly than he felt. In truth, he was conflicted himself, but they had to at least consider the non-suicidal option. “We really don’t. We could just go back and tell a grownup.”
“A grownup?” Karen repeated, in a tone of utter disbelief and contempt. “They never do anything.”
She had a point.
“What if it lunges at us?”
“It’s hurt. Scared. You said it yourself.”
“All the more reason!”
“Okay. It might,” she admitted. “But are you really fine with just leaving?”
He wasn’t. But he hated the alternative.
“Besides, we’re not alone.” She turned to her Eevee, who, throughout all of this, had stood protectively by her side. “What do you say, Eevee? Should we go?”
“Vee,” was the firm response. Tail wagging. Eye contact. Erect body posture. Will did not have a trainer’s bond with that particular Eevee, but even he didn’t find it hard to understand her meaning.
Karen turned to him again. “In a few years, we’ll be real trainers. We’ll have to learn how to deal with that stuff.”
“But we’re not real trainers yet .”
More whimpering was heard from below.
“I’m going,” Karen said determinedly. Then she met his eyes, and her expression softened. “It’s okay if you’re scared. Go outside. I’ll meet you later.”
He knew that she really meant it, but there was no way he was taking her up on it.
“Shit ,” he muttered. He took Pen’s pokeball out of his pocket and let it open: if they were doing this, they were going to need all the reinforcements they could get. His Natu got out – in perfect health – and looked at him reproachfully.
Under normal circumstances, Karen would have made some sarcastic remark calling him out on his earlier lie. But she let him off, something that he was thankful for.
“Sorry,” he told Pen. “I know you don’t like this. But will you please come with us? Maybe we’ll need you.”
He didn’t need to explain the situation to her. She had followed the conversation so far: it was immediately obvious from the judgmental way she was looking at him, and the link between their minds confirmed it.
She responded to his request with a half-hearted “coo”. Then she flew just over his head and a bit forward, close to the ladder that led to the floor below. She remained there, flapping, to show she was waiting for them. Will stood there for a few moments, staring at the darkness beneath their feet.
“Thanks, Pen,” he said finally. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
So they descended the abyss.
Then they followed the sound until they found the monster.
It was… small.
Much smaller than Will expected. Funny, really, how scared he’d been. It was a puppy, practically: skinny, giving off a stench that could probably bring the ghosts back to life. Other Pokemon had left it alone: it had a corner of the room all to itself. Will couldn’t make out much of its appearance at first, because its first instinct was to retreat from the light they shed at it. After it got used to the light, it tried to get up, growling threateningly to warn them to back off. But its leg gave way, and it collapsed on the floor with a yelp of pain.
Then it raised its head defiantly and stared at them as if daring them to approach. Its eyes were full of hatred. Will flinched; some of his fear returned, and he took an instinctive step back. Karen remained rooted where she was. She looked thoughtful.
“A Houndour,” she said.
Will gave her a puzzled look. “A what?”
“We’ve seen pictures in class.” Upon seeing his continued perplexity, she added: “The devil’s hound.”
That made a switch flip in Will’s head: he remembered. They had seen pictures of it in class. Kinda. It had only been one lesson, about the war with Kanto and how dark-type Pokemon had been used there. The pictures weren’t quite like the real thing: they made it look bigger and meaner. The teacher never gave it a name, either. None of the Pokemon mentioned in the lecture were given names. Just monikers. The devil’s hound. The shadow thief. The summoner of night.
The teacher had seemed unwilling to even refer to them as Pokemon. That attitude wasn’t unusual, either. Grownups never wanted to talk about the war, and the role of dark-types in it was a particular sore point. It was a taboo Will remembered ever since he could remember himself.
“How do you know what it’s called?” he asked Karen.
“I looked it up in a book after class,” she said.
“At school?”
“No, at home.”
That made sense. Her parents’ library was bigger than the school’s. Will had only seen it once, but he remembered feeling awed and a bit dizzy as he looked up at the towering shelves.
“Was it hard to find?”
“No, not very. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? There’s a lot of stuff school doesn’t teach. But dark types have been around for a long time. It’s not like all the information about them was suddenly lost. People just don’t want to look for it anymore, or talk about it.”
Houndour whimpered. It had given up trying to stand or intimidate them, and was now lying limp on the floor. Will and Karen regarded it silently for a few moments.
“What’d you think happened to it?” Will asked.
“Dunno.”
Will hesitated. “If we take it to a Pokemon center, do you think they’ll treat it?”
“Yeah. They have to – it’s the law. You can’t mess around with medical care. You can still catch dark types, too: they’re recognized by the online system and stuff. Can’t use them in official matches, though.”
Will frowned, trying to remember what they’d learned in class. “What about unofficial ones?”
“Dunno. I’ve never seen anyone use them. I think most people would be horrified.”
“Figures.”
“In fact, I thought Houndour weren’t even found in Johto anymore,” Karen continued. “The book I read said that, after the war, Johtonian people tried to displace the remaining dark types. So their numbers fell.”
“What’s displace mean?”
“I think it’s when you make something go away.”
“Make it go away how?”
Karen shrugged. “Dunno. The book didn’t say.”
Another pause.
“So are we taking it to a center or what?” Will asked.
“Yeah, we are.”
Will looked at it. Despite its exhaustion and injuries, it still seemed perfectly willing to bite their head off at the first provocation.
“How are we going to do it?” he asked hesitantly.
“We have to gain its trust first.”
“Yeah, but how?”
Karen spoke confidently. “I’m going to give it a treat.”
Will looked at her skeptically. “A treat?”
“Yeah, I always have some on me in case Eevee gets hungry. But she doesn’t mind sharing, do you, Eevee?”
“But… do you think that’ll work?”
“Sure it will! You can make friends with anybody if you give them food. Watch.”
As Will observed her – quite astonished at her bravery – she approached the Houndour, her Eevee in tow. Will forced himself to snap out of it and started to follow her, too. But she motioned him to stay back, and he understood. Houndour was already feeling cornered. If they both came at it at once, they might frighten it to the point of snapping. He sat on the floor and remained motionless.
Karen stopped walking when she was close enough to gain Houndour’s undivided attention, yet far enough that it couldn’t jump her. “Hey,” she said soothingly. Houndour turned its wary eyes on her and growled warningly. “Easy. It’s okay.”
“Grr.”
“Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”
“Grr.”
“I have some food here for you.”
“... Awoo?”
“That’s right. I’m just gonna leave it here… don’t maul me, okay? Good doggie.”
She left a couple of treats on the floor and backed away slowly. At first, it looked like Houndour wasn’t going to accept the offer. It stayed where it was, eyes fixed suspiciously on the food. But in the end, hunger won. Houndour limped closer to the treats and sniffed them. After a few more moments, it seemed sufficiently convinced that they weren’t poisonous – or, at least, sufficiently famished to be willing to risk it. It devoured them in a single gulp.
“Want some more?” Karen asked. Houndour eyed her cautiously, but with less hostility than before. As she started walking towards it again, Will heard a scurrying sound. From the shadows, a couple of Rattatas emerged – probably attracted to the treats, he thought. Before he or Karen could do anything, Houndour barked the Rattatas away. It couldn’t even stand properly, but it sounded so vicious that they turned tail immediately, running back into the darkness.
Karen smiled. “Scrappy, aren’t you? That’s good. Don’t worry, it’s your food.” Houndour visibly relaxed, and she paused for a second. “Say, your leg looks bad. It’s hard to walk, isn’t it?”
A whine of agreement.
“How about you let me come a little closer this time? Just so you don’t have to walk. Is that okay? I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Houndour growled again, but this time there was no menace in it. It was simply a sound of communication – acknowledgment. It allowed Karen to get closer than before, and this time, it didn’t wait for her to walk away before starting to eat. She backed off anyway, just in case, and went to sit next to Will.
“Poor thing,” she quietly remarked.
Will looked at her thoughtfully. “Suppose we treat it,” he said. “Suppose we take it to a center and they patch it up and everything’s fine. What happens then? You keep it?”
She made a face. “I don’t think it’s looking for a partner.”
“Who knows. Pokemon get attached to people who help them. Maybe it’ll want to stick around.”
She shrugged, avoiding the point. The uncertainty wasn’t like her at all.
“Do you think what they say is true?” Will asked. “About dark types in the war?”
“How should I know? I mean, I was a baby when it ended. My parents were around, but they didn’t have to fight.”
“My mom did,” Will said. “But she didn’t want to. That’s why we had to leave Kanto – she left the army when she wasn’t supposed to. They come after you for that. But I’m not allowed to ask her about it.”
It was the first time he’d told anyone that. It wasn’t like most people would care, anyway.
Karen treated his confession with quiet acceptance. She hugged her knees and let her chin rest on them, eyes fixed somewhere far away. “My parents hate dark types,” she admitted. “Or at least, they act like they do. They say Eevee can evolve into anything I want, except an Umbreon.”
“And what do you say?”
Eevee looked trustingly at her trainer; Karen scratched her under the chin. “I say she can evolve into anything she wants.”
“You’ll be grown by the time Eevee evolves,” Will said. “It won’t matter what your parents think then. Houndour is another thing.”
She pondered this, letting his statement linger in the air for a while: not refuting it, but not quite accepting it either. “For now, we just have to get it to come with us,” she said in the end.
“It’s okay.”
Will sensed Houndour’s wariness returning as Karen spoke to it. It wasn’t her fault. She was squatting down to its level so she’d look more harmless. Her voice was soothing and gentle, and she was saying all the right things.
“We’re gonna take you someplace where they’ll fix up your leg,” she said. Silence followed, which was somehow more unnerving than the growling. “I promise, they’ll help you feel better.”
Houndour stared hard at her. Will felt its indecision, its rising panic. Small flames sprang into life and danced around its nostrils.
Karen backed off a few steps. “Are you afraid of the pokeball?” she asked. “It’s okay. It’s comfortable, and you can leave it whenever you want. It doesn’t work if you don’t want to be in it, anyway.”
That was true, but Will wasn’t sure if Houndour knew it. In fact, based on the increasing suspicion he was picking up on, he would be willing to bet it didn’t.
And he understood. Words were nice. Treats were nice. But they were strangers to the Pokemon, and while he didn’t know what had happened to it, he could feel its deep-rooted distrust. Something more was needed here, and he wasn’t sure if it was something they could give.
The Houndour’s continued silence worried him, too. A growl was, at least, a warning.
He was about to tell Karen to drop it: she’d tried, she really had, but they had to leave now. If Houndour refused the pokeball, there was nothing they could do, and it might still snap.
Then Eevee stepped forward.
“Vee.”
Will stopped in his tracks. Karen stepped aside, and Eevee started a conversation with Houndour. Will couldn’t understand their language, of course, but he could feel Houndour increasingly calming down as they spoke. Its posture relaxed. The flames dissipated. He felt Eevee’s conviction burst forward, too, enveloping her audience, sweeping all resistance away like an overpowering stream.
After a few minutes, the Pokemon seemed to have come to an understanding. Eevee stepped aside, met her trainer’s eyes, and nodded.
Karen extended the pokeball and Houndour touched it with its muzzle.
It opened. Shook once: there was still some internal struggle. It wasn’t a simple decision. Shook twice. Thrice.
Then it locked.
Tension he’d been unaware of left Will’s body. He walked up to Karen; she picked up the pokeball and turned to face him. She was smiling, quietly but radiantly.
Karen and Will are children in this (hence class trip). I'm playing around with some ideas about Johto-Kanto lore, and this one-shot is partially an exploration of these.
There are references to a past war and implied bad stuff that happened there, but nothing graphic or explicit.
“Come on, Will!”
Karen’s laughter rang through the night: vibrant, fearless, challenging all the ghosts of Ecruteak to come get her if they dared. She stood in front of Burned Tower: the moonlight dancing on her hair, her Eevee at her side. She emphasized her words with an impatient gesture of the hand, egging Will on.
He gulped and rushed to her, casting nervous looks around him as he moved. “Be quiet,” he told her after he reached her. “If anyone catches us, we’re in big trouble.”
That just made her burst into louder laughter. “Ooh, big trouble. I’m so scared .”
“Hush!”
“Relax , Will. No one’s gonna snitch. And Ms Williams always sleeps like a log.”
“Still.”
It wasn’t the rule-breaking that scared Will, not really. They did that all the time. Of course, they did need to be careful. They were on a class trip to Ecruteak: they were supposed to be on their best behavior. Sneaking out at night was not best behavior, no matter how you sliced it. But that wasn’t really his main concern. His folks didn’t really care what he did; and as for Karen, she could talk her way out of anything.
No, the real problem was that there were ghosts in the tower. Everyone said so. There’d been a fire there, many years ago: a fire that had destroyed most of the building, and claimed the lives of the humans and Pokemon in it. The locals said that the spirits of the victims still lingered in the place, seeking a closure they could never find.
Lingering spirits were no joke. The other kids in class were always trying to out-spook each other with stories about them: how time had made them bitter and vengeful. How they could devour your soul, or fill your sleep with nightmares, or make you their puppet for all eternity.
Of course, Will didn’t believe all the tales. He was eight years old now, almost a man. Only babies believed everything they were told. Still, if there was a chance that your soul might be devoured, it seemed better to avoid it.
“What’s up with you anyway?” Karen asked. “You said you wanted to come with me. You said you wanted to find out about the monster, too.”
“Yeah, but…” He’d said that during the day. When the sun was out, and ghosts and monsters seemed like something remote: spooky, but in a cool way. Nighttime made them real.
“Maybe we should come back another time,” he suggested.
“Why?”
Will scrambled for some excuse. “Pen isn’t feeling too good.”
He felt the pokeball shaking in his pocket. He could sense Pen’s displeasure at the lie, even from inside the capsule. She was only a little Natu, but she had big opinions and she was expressive about them. Sometimes, she let him use her as an excuse to bullshit his way out of situations. But her tolerance had limits, and she liked Karen a lot.
Karen scrunched her nose. “Pen is sick? Really? She looked fine earlier.”
“It was sudden. Real sudden. She needs rest and water. Lots of water.”
He could tell Karen was skeptical. “Well… okay, then. I’m going in. You don’t have to come.”
That wouldn’t work at all. “If you go in, I have to come too.”
“Alright, come then.” He heard the amusement in her voice; it both flustered and irritated him. He wished she would take this seriously.
“What if there’s no monster?” he tried. “Then we’re just wasting our time.”
Karen frowned. “You’ve heard the sounds. I have, too.”
That was true. They had both heard the sounds. Everyone in their class had heard the sounds, from their accommodation near the tower. You could only hear it at night: a mix of growls and mournful whines, not like anything Will had heard before. They told the teacher, but she just said not to worry about it.
Some kids said it was a ghost, but that seemed unlikely. Ghosts didn’t growl; at least, Will didn’t think they did. Others said it was a Pokemon, but Will didn’t believe that either. It didn’t sound like any Pokemon he or Karen knew, and they’d studied a lot of different cries in class. There was something different about it, something that gave Will the creeps.
The whole class kept talking about it: everybody had a theory, but nobody had the guts to actually investigate. So of course they turned to Karen for a solution, like they always did. And of course she took charge, like she always did. And of course Will followed her, like he always did.
Perhaps honesty was the best policy – partial honesty, at least. “Everyone says there are ghosts in the tower, too.”
“So?”
How could she be so casual about this? “So , Pen doesn’t like ghosts.”
“Pen is in her pokeball.”
Will wished he could be in a pokeball, too. “Yeah, but she’s worried about me.”
“Come on, Will, stop using Pen as an excuse. If you’re scared, just say so.”
“I’m not scared of ghosts. I just… I prefer to avoid them, that’s all.”
“Well, Eevee laughs at ghosts. She’ll protect us. Right, Eevee?” The Pokemon stood taller, rubbed itself against Karen’s leg, and politely accepted a pat on the head.
Eevee’s presence did make Will feel a little better. She was the strongest Pokemon in their class, after all – perhaps even in the whole school.
“Okay. Let’s go, but be careful.”
The damaged floor creaked under Will’s step.
He kept the flashlight steady, his grip just a bit too tight. The tower was nothing fancy: just the charred remains of a once majestic building. Rattatas could be heard squeaking and scurrying through the room, but Will ignored them. Pokemon were used to sharing the tower with humans: they would not attack unless they were seeking a trainer. His real fear stemmed from the things his senses could not perceive: the lurking presence of something hidden, following them at every step. Will felt like he was being watched by a thousand eyes; but whenever he turned the light on a shadowed corner, whatever might have been there disappeared.
“Maybe there’s nothing here,” he suggested, more to hear the sound of his own voice than anything. It came out like a croak. “Maybe we were wrong.”
“We barely looked.”
“I’m telling you, there’s nothing. Just Rattatas and Zubats and stuff. Kinda boring if you ask me. We should go back.”
Karen turned to face him. Under the scattered light, he saw her grinning. “Torchic.”
“Am not,” Will retorted, piqued.
“Tor-chic!”
“Am not! Shut up!”
“Cluck, cluck! Cluck cluck cluck, cluck…”
GRRR.
The roar sprang from the depths of the earth and echoed across the room. It shut them both up. Will instinctively moved closer to Karen, one hand holding the flashlight in a death grip and frantically turning it all around the room, the other on Pen’s pokeball. Karen moved closer to him too, and they stood together, counting the seconds of silence. After a while, a different sound was heard. It came from the same creature: Will knew this with a certainty he could not entirely explain. It had the same blood-chilling quality, but it was also different. A whimper. Pained, and – could it be? – scared.
He exchanged a look with Karen. She was wide-eyed and paler than usual. Same was true for him, probably.
“I think it’s coming from downstairs,” Karen whispered.
“Yeah.” That’s how it’d sounded to him, too.
“It sounds like it’s in pain.”
To this, Will did not respond. He wasn’t sure how. He felt conflicted.
“You can sense emotions,” she pressed. “What d’you think?”
“I’m not very good at that yet,” he clarified. He could move objects with his mind since he was a toddler, no problem. Emotions were harder. He could only sense them in their rawest, simplest form. And even that, he couldn’t always do. He could never understand his parents’ emotions, for instance. They were too complex, too unfamiliar; sometimes hiding behind other emotions, or fighting with each other in chaos. Sometimes they were hidden, like they were behind a dirty glass. Often, they were silent: Will could sense something was there, but he didn’t know what, because it had no voice.
Even simpler emotions weren’t all that simple. He could never be sure of any of his readings, and they took a lot of focus and energy. It wasn’t something he could just automatically do .
He tried, though. He swam through waves of uninteresting, run-of-the-mill feelings belonging to the Pokemon in the tower. Most of them were calm. Some of them were mildly irritated at his and Karen’s presence, but without real hostility. There was a moderate level of excitement in the mix, too. Nothing unusual: perhaps the Pokemon it belonged to had just met a friend, or found something to eat.
Will acknowledged them all, but pushed past them, working his way through until he found the only source of real agitation in the picture. It burned, overwhelmingly, like the only sun in the center of a frozen universe.
“Fear,” he said reluctantly. “I mean, real fear, not like when you just have your guard up. Pain. Distrust.” He paused for a moment. “There’s some hunger in there, too.”
He saw Karen’s expression change: shifting from hesitance to that bullheaded determination he was all too familiar with. “We have to help.”
“No, we don’t.” He spoke more firmly than he felt. In truth, he was conflicted himself, but they had to at least consider the non-suicidal option. “We really don’t. We could just go back and tell a grownup.”
“A grownup?” Karen repeated, in a tone of utter disbelief and contempt. “They never do anything.”
She had a point.
“What if it lunges at us?”
“It’s hurt. Scared. You said it yourself.”
“All the more reason!”
“Okay. It might,” she admitted. “But are you really fine with just leaving?”
He wasn’t. But he hated the alternative.
“Besides, we’re not alone.” She turned to her Eevee, who, throughout all of this, had stood protectively by her side. “What do you say, Eevee? Should we go?”
“Vee,” was the firm response. Tail wagging. Eye contact. Erect body posture. Will did not have a trainer’s bond with that particular Eevee, but even he didn’t find it hard to understand her meaning.
Karen turned to him again. “In a few years, we’ll be real trainers. We’ll have to learn how to deal with that stuff.”
“But we’re not real trainers yet .”
More whimpering was heard from below.
“I’m going,” Karen said determinedly. Then she met his eyes, and her expression softened. “It’s okay if you’re scared. Go outside. I’ll meet you later.”
He knew that she really meant it, but there was no way he was taking her up on it.
“Shit ,” he muttered. He took Pen’s pokeball out of his pocket and let it open: if they were doing this, they were going to need all the reinforcements they could get. His Natu got out – in perfect health – and looked at him reproachfully.
Under normal circumstances, Karen would have made some sarcastic remark calling him out on his earlier lie. But she let him off, something that he was thankful for.
“Sorry,” he told Pen. “I know you don’t like this. But will you please come with us? Maybe we’ll need you.”
He didn’t need to explain the situation to her. She had followed the conversation so far: it was immediately obvious from the judgmental way she was looking at him, and the link between their minds confirmed it.
She responded to his request with a half-hearted “coo”. Then she flew just over his head and a bit forward, close to the ladder that led to the floor below. She remained there, flapping, to show she was waiting for them. Will stood there for a few moments, staring at the darkness beneath their feet.
“Thanks, Pen,” he said finally. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
So they descended the abyss.
Then they followed the sound until they found the monster.
It was… small.
Much smaller than Will expected. Funny, really, how scared he’d been. It was a puppy, practically: skinny, giving off a stench that could probably bring the ghosts back to life. Other Pokemon had left it alone: it had a corner of the room all to itself. Will couldn’t make out much of its appearance at first, because its first instinct was to retreat from the light they shed at it. After it got used to the light, it tried to get up, growling threateningly to warn them to back off. But its leg gave way, and it collapsed on the floor with a yelp of pain.
Then it raised its head defiantly and stared at them as if daring them to approach. Its eyes were full of hatred. Will flinched; some of his fear returned, and he took an instinctive step back. Karen remained rooted where she was. She looked thoughtful.
“A Houndour,” she said.
Will gave her a puzzled look. “A what?”
“We’ve seen pictures in class.” Upon seeing his continued perplexity, she added: “The devil’s hound.”
That made a switch flip in Will’s head: he remembered. They had seen pictures of it in class. Kinda. It had only been one lesson, about the war with Kanto and how dark-type Pokemon had been used there. The pictures weren’t quite like the real thing: they made it look bigger and meaner. The teacher never gave it a name, either. None of the Pokemon mentioned in the lecture were given names. Just monikers. The devil’s hound. The shadow thief. The summoner of night.
The teacher had seemed unwilling to even refer to them as Pokemon. That attitude wasn’t unusual, either. Grownups never wanted to talk about the war, and the role of dark-types in it was a particular sore point. It was a taboo Will remembered ever since he could remember himself.
“How do you know what it’s called?” he asked Karen.
“I looked it up in a book after class,” she said.
“At school?”
“No, at home.”
That made sense. Her parents’ library was bigger than the school’s. Will had only seen it once, but he remembered feeling awed and a bit dizzy as he looked up at the towering shelves.
“Was it hard to find?”
“No, not very. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? There’s a lot of stuff school doesn’t teach. But dark types have been around for a long time. It’s not like all the information about them was suddenly lost. People just don’t want to look for it anymore, or talk about it.”
Houndour whimpered. It had given up trying to stand or intimidate them, and was now lying limp on the floor. Will and Karen regarded it silently for a few moments.
“What’d you think happened to it?” Will asked.
“Dunno.”
Will hesitated. “If we take it to a Pokemon center, do you think they’ll treat it?”
“Yeah. They have to – it’s the law. You can’t mess around with medical care. You can still catch dark types, too: they’re recognized by the online system and stuff. Can’t use them in official matches, though.”
Will frowned, trying to remember what they’d learned in class. “What about unofficial ones?”
“Dunno. I’ve never seen anyone use them. I think most people would be horrified.”
“Figures.”
“In fact, I thought Houndour weren’t even found in Johto anymore,” Karen continued. “The book I read said that, after the war, Johtonian people tried to displace the remaining dark types. So their numbers fell.”
“What’s displace mean?”
“I think it’s when you make something go away.”
“Make it go away how?”
Karen shrugged. “Dunno. The book didn’t say.”
Another pause.
“So are we taking it to a center or what?” Will asked.
“Yeah, we are.”
Will looked at it. Despite its exhaustion and injuries, it still seemed perfectly willing to bite their head off at the first provocation.
“How are we going to do it?” he asked hesitantly.
“We have to gain its trust first.”
“Yeah, but how?”
Karen spoke confidently. “I’m going to give it a treat.”
Will looked at her skeptically. “A treat?”
“Yeah, I always have some on me in case Eevee gets hungry. But she doesn’t mind sharing, do you, Eevee?”
“But… do you think that’ll work?”
“Sure it will! You can make friends with anybody if you give them food. Watch.”
As Will observed her – quite astonished at her bravery – she approached the Houndour, her Eevee in tow. Will forced himself to snap out of it and started to follow her, too. But she motioned him to stay back, and he understood. Houndour was already feeling cornered. If they both came at it at once, they might frighten it to the point of snapping. He sat on the floor and remained motionless.
Karen stopped walking when she was close enough to gain Houndour’s undivided attention, yet far enough that it couldn’t jump her. “Hey,” she said soothingly. Houndour turned its wary eyes on her and growled warningly. “Easy. It’s okay.”
“Grr.”
“Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”
“Grr.”
“I have some food here for you.”
“... Awoo?”
“That’s right. I’m just gonna leave it here… don’t maul me, okay? Good doggie.”
She left a couple of treats on the floor and backed away slowly. At first, it looked like Houndour wasn’t going to accept the offer. It stayed where it was, eyes fixed suspiciously on the food. But in the end, hunger won. Houndour limped closer to the treats and sniffed them. After a few more moments, it seemed sufficiently convinced that they weren’t poisonous – or, at least, sufficiently famished to be willing to risk it. It devoured them in a single gulp.
“Want some more?” Karen asked. Houndour eyed her cautiously, but with less hostility than before. As she started walking towards it again, Will heard a scurrying sound. From the shadows, a couple of Rattatas emerged – probably attracted to the treats, he thought. Before he or Karen could do anything, Houndour barked the Rattatas away. It couldn’t even stand properly, but it sounded so vicious that they turned tail immediately, running back into the darkness.
Karen smiled. “Scrappy, aren’t you? That’s good. Don’t worry, it’s your food.” Houndour visibly relaxed, and she paused for a second. “Say, your leg looks bad. It’s hard to walk, isn’t it?”
A whine of agreement.
“How about you let me come a little closer this time? Just so you don’t have to walk. Is that okay? I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Houndour growled again, but this time there was no menace in it. It was simply a sound of communication – acknowledgment. It allowed Karen to get closer than before, and this time, it didn’t wait for her to walk away before starting to eat. She backed off anyway, just in case, and went to sit next to Will.
“Poor thing,” she quietly remarked.
Will looked at her thoughtfully. “Suppose we treat it,” he said. “Suppose we take it to a center and they patch it up and everything’s fine. What happens then? You keep it?”
She made a face. “I don’t think it’s looking for a partner.”
“Who knows. Pokemon get attached to people who help them. Maybe it’ll want to stick around.”
She shrugged, avoiding the point. The uncertainty wasn’t like her at all.
“Do you think what they say is true?” Will asked. “About dark types in the war?”
“How should I know? I mean, I was a baby when it ended. My parents were around, but they didn’t have to fight.”
“My mom did,” Will said. “But she didn’t want to. That’s why we had to leave Kanto – she left the army when she wasn’t supposed to. They come after you for that. But I’m not allowed to ask her about it.”
It was the first time he’d told anyone that. It wasn’t like most people would care, anyway.
Karen treated his confession with quiet acceptance. She hugged her knees and let her chin rest on them, eyes fixed somewhere far away. “My parents hate dark types,” she admitted. “Or at least, they act like they do. They say Eevee can evolve into anything I want, except an Umbreon.”
“And what do you say?”
Eevee looked trustingly at her trainer; Karen scratched her under the chin. “I say she can evolve into anything she wants.”
“You’ll be grown by the time Eevee evolves,” Will said. “It won’t matter what your parents think then. Houndour is another thing.”
She pondered this, letting his statement linger in the air for a while: not refuting it, but not quite accepting it either. “For now, we just have to get it to come with us,” she said in the end.
“It’s okay.”
Will sensed Houndour’s wariness returning as Karen spoke to it. It wasn’t her fault. She was squatting down to its level so she’d look more harmless. Her voice was soothing and gentle, and she was saying all the right things.
“We’re gonna take you someplace where they’ll fix up your leg,” she said. Silence followed, which was somehow more unnerving than the growling. “I promise, they’ll help you feel better.”
Houndour stared hard at her. Will felt its indecision, its rising panic. Small flames sprang into life and danced around its nostrils.
Karen backed off a few steps. “Are you afraid of the pokeball?” she asked. “It’s okay. It’s comfortable, and you can leave it whenever you want. It doesn’t work if you don’t want to be in it, anyway.”
That was true, but Will wasn’t sure if Houndour knew it. In fact, based on the increasing suspicion he was picking up on, he would be willing to bet it didn’t.
And he understood. Words were nice. Treats were nice. But they were strangers to the Pokemon, and while he didn’t know what had happened to it, he could feel its deep-rooted distrust. Something more was needed here, and he wasn’t sure if it was something they could give.
The Houndour’s continued silence worried him, too. A growl was, at least, a warning.
He was about to tell Karen to drop it: she’d tried, she really had, but they had to leave now. If Houndour refused the pokeball, there was nothing they could do, and it might still snap.
Then Eevee stepped forward.
“Vee.”
Will stopped in his tracks. Karen stepped aside, and Eevee started a conversation with Houndour. Will couldn’t understand their language, of course, but he could feel Houndour increasingly calming down as they spoke. Its posture relaxed. The flames dissipated. He felt Eevee’s conviction burst forward, too, enveloping her audience, sweeping all resistance away like an overpowering stream.
After a few minutes, the Pokemon seemed to have come to an understanding. Eevee stepped aside, met her trainer’s eyes, and nodded.
Karen extended the pokeball and Houndour touched it with its muzzle.
It opened. Shook once: there was still some internal struggle. It wasn’t a simple decision. Shook twice. Thrice.
Then it locked.
Tension he’d been unaware of left Will’s body. He walked up to Karen; she picked up the pokeball and turned to face him. She was smiling, quietly but radiantly.