Chương 21: 21-Storm

Rushing back towards the car as the first drops of long approaching rain begin to fall, Tanya finds herself quite pleased that they didn't park any closer. With the exhibition match complete the majority of the attendants had quickly rushed to leave and the closest parking lots had become a trafficked mess before they'd even left the building.

Joana gives a yelp of alarm as she glances to her side as they rush across the street, giving a perfect view of a curtain of rain rapidly approaching from the sea.

"Hurry! We're gonna get soaked!"

Tanya grunts as she pushes against exhaustion to match the jog of the rest of her squad.

Today has been exhausting, without a doubt one of the busiest she's had in at least the past few months. It's also more proof of something she'd noted from personal experience, that her line tires more easily than humans, more suited for quick bursts of activity than a continuous drain.

Amelia says nothing as she picks up the pace to match her mother, a neutral expression on her face.

Arriving at the car, Joana slams into the driver's door and –fumbling with the key– gives a frantic look over her shoulder at the rain front as its sparse drops get larger.

"Quick! Roll up your windows! I am not reupholstering these seats!" She shouts as she finally gets the key in the door and hops inside. Rolling up the two front windows with an electronic whine as the rest of the doors unlock, allowing Tanya and her partner into the back seats.

Understanding the urgency of the situation, Tanya scrabbles past her partner and across the seat to get to her side's rotary window crank. Reaching it just as the rain front is nearly on top of them, she hurriedly closes the tiny gap the instant before the rain hits like they'd just driven underneath a waterfall.

She slumps as Joana hurriedly urges her daughter to do the same.

With the immediate emergency resolved, Tanya allows herself to catch her breath after the long jog and short sprint fueled by fumes, looking out the window to the sudden downpour with a satisfied nod.

Upholstery is expensive.

Pulling herself upright as the engine rumbles to life, the 'mon buckles herself in while Joana adjusts her mirrors and flicks the windshield wipers to full blast.

"Phew! That was a close one!" She laughs, eyes flicking between the two in the rearview mirror.

"Had fun?"

Tanya gives the question due consideration and, after a few moments, returns with a sharp nod.

"I found it… enlightening."

Once more, seeing the fight on video cannot compare to experiencing it in person. The sheer power on display was only made more impactful by the context it was viewed in, that being an arena, where all parties involved must –by necessity– restrain themselves from tactics and levels of force that would endanger the crowd or their opponent.

There's a slight pause for Amelia to respond, but she doesn't. Simply nodding before looking out the window as the car creeps out of its parking spot and back the way they came.

Joana allows the silence to sit for a moment, eyes gaining a tinge of exasperation and… something else before she continues as if her daughter had spoken.

"Good!" She cheers, then turns her attention fully out the windshield, squinting through the rain to see a stoplight's indistinct glow.

"Wacky weather huh? I'm surprised, Wattson's usually so careful to not let his team's rain dance influence the actual weather. But there was nothing on the forecast today… so."

The light turns green and she looks back at her daughter again, waiting for her to chime in.

She doesn't, still looking out the window.

Meanwhile, Tanya is dealing with the very quick and horrifying proof of her 'heavily restrained' theory with the idea that this storm is the result of spillover from the fight she'd just seen.

"Is… Was… Was the weather effect in the stadium some kind of reduced version of…" She asks hesitantly, first looking to the driver who doesn't respond to the inquiry, then to her partner.

Amelia doesn't respond for a moment, then glances at Tayna out of the corner of her eye before turning to face her fully.

"... It's unlikely." She says with that same neutral expression and tone.

"Weather effects scale linearly with individual 'mon power and multiplicatively on local weather conditions. Restraining the scope of the move's area makes the rain appear more quickly and with less influence from outside factors."

Tanya blinks, looking out to the storm as old academy lessons for the aerial forecasting core are dusted off in her head.

"Is it possible the local conditions were more advantageous than anticipated? Relative humidity is high, all this weather would take is a fast moving cold front."

"You mean Glacia's hail? They were opposing each other, so the energies had destructive interference. If anything it would be less powerful."

Tanya waves off the specification, mind almost completely diverted to the interesting potential interactions between conventional reality and this world's unique methods of manipulating it.

"Perhaps not intentional weather manipulation, but her entire team was a massive heat sink. Throwing all that cold air around might have interacted with hypothetical rain dance spillover and natural weather conditions in unforeseen ways." She says, glancing out the window once again the street flashes like daylight, almost immediately accompanied by a crack of thunder, Amelia doesn't flinch, turning her knees to face her partner slightly as energy begins to saturate her tone.

"Maybe… But that's beside the point, the storm blew into the city, and the strongest storm that Gym Leader Wattson's managed with the assistance of local weather was to put out a wildfire, he got roughly three centimeters an hour for four hours, with swaps, under perfect conditions."

She trails off and half gestures at the monsoon out the window, which has put down at least half that in the first fifteen minutes.

Tanya considers the argument for a moment, then concedes defeat with a nod.

It's obvious Ameila has a strong position here, backed up by a larger knowledge base of historical examples and move mechanics.

And yet…

"So you believe this storm cell is completely natural, yet the weather forecasting service had no warning? Is that common?"

There's limited hours in the day, so the need to figure out the weather forecast's accuracy never occurred. Even if it did, there are ten thousand other things that would still hold precedence.

Amelia frowns, the fire in her eyes flaring brighter as she squints into the dark.

"... No. It's not common. I saw the forecast and there wasn't even a chance of rain." She pauses consideringly, staring out the window behind her partner's head for a moment.

"But ocean air can be unpredictable, and no pokemon could do this…"

She shakes her head softly, then her face twists into a considering expression

"But… Hm… Perhaps a team.

Working together…"

Tanya blinks.

"It is possible?"

"It would be incredibly illegal."

Her partner clarifies, fire in her eyes flaring even brighter as her fingers begin absentmindedly twitching.

"But a strong enough altaria could get high enough to adjust jetstreams with proper moves. You'd need a sensor grid for air pressure and humidity, and high order calculations to process the data. So an absol and metagross are a must…"

She pauses with another hum and Tanya notices Joana looking at her daughter in the rearview mirror with an intense, unidentifiable, yet familiar expression.

Amelia's eyes flick across a spread of information only she can see as she slowly continues.

"Individual water or fire moves don't create enough evaporation… but several strong mon using sunny day over the ocean a few hundred miles downwind. Then communication is an issue… And exhaustion…" She stops, then snaps her fingers as her expression lights up."

Alakazam!

Teleport! They'd be able to assist with calculations as well. Then add a magcargo for another sunny day!"

Her elated expression pulls Amelia out of her own head as she looks over to her partner.

"That leaves metagoss, macargo, and you on evaporation squad! But you'll have to pull double duty with heal pulses… to…"

The fire in her eyes gutters, and Joana's expression twists slightly as if pained before she gently chimes in.

"Well? To what? I'm on the edge of my seat here dear! And that's not a good thing for driving!" She calls back with slightly strained cheer.

Amelia shakes her head, looking back out the window.

"Nothing."

Joana grimaces for a quarter second, then forces a smile back on her face.

"Well it's obviously not nothing, you seemed interested! I'd love for you to tell–"

"It's nothing!

Can we please just forget about it and move on?

Please?" Amelia interrupts, looking back at her mother through the mirror for the first time, a mixture of anger and desperation in her voice.

Tanya silently watches the exchange, partly because Joana wouldn't be able to understand, but mostly because she's grappling with the sudden feeling she's intruding on a situation not meant for her.

Yet, at the same time, as she looks at her partner, something within urges the 'mon to cross the final distance between them and do… something.

The specifics are unclear.

After half a minute Joana's eyes stop flickering to the mirror, remaining steady on the road.

"... Alright." She says softly.

Amelia says nothing, seeming to hunch in on herself as she presses closer to the window.

The ride goes on in silence, only broken when Joana turns on the radio as the car merges onto the highway. A hum of overly cheerful pop incongruous with the mood of the car that's quickly quieted to be barely louder than the rain.

Driving back the way they came takes significantly longer with the weather, which only lightens slightly in the forty five minutes of the drive home on ever more sparse lanes of asphalt.

But as they approach the interchange to the hospital, Tanya can see a long line of traffic and the flashing red glow of two police cars blocking the split. It doesn't take much longer to see the traffic cones covering the remainder of the road and a sign with the unmistakable 'road closed' symbol emblazoned on it.

Joana gives a sighing groan.

"Dam–arn it, why'd the radio not–" She's cut off as the music abruptly switches to an emergency alert chime, followed by a soothing robotic voice describing the flood risk, then road closures.

Joana sighs again, slowing to a near stop in the road as she seems to think, then speeds up again, taking the remaining unblocked road.

"Well. The road's closed!" She says looking through the mirror with completely manufactured pep.

"But don't worry! That just means you get to have a sleepover with us!"

Tanya nods, requiring no further information.

Amelia doesn't move from her spot pressed against her door.

The car now drives into unknown territory, another half hour of slow progress though puddles of standing water before the highway dissolves completely as it reaches a train station, splitting into smaller roads that disappear into the wilderness.

They take one such road, slowly winding through the forest as the yellow double line disappears and the road merges into a strip of asphalt a single car wide, bracketed by a train track to the left.

But just as it seems the road would disappear into nothing but a muddy track, the railway splits away toward the lights of a train station in the distance, and shortly afterward they're merging into the well maintained roads of a suburban sprawl.

The transition from woodland to residential is… abrupt, but sure enough, as Joana winds her way through the rows of housing, Tanya can see nothing but evidence of an entire town built within what seems to be an arbitrarily small footprint.

It's not long after that the car pulls up to a pleasant looking two story building, split into two separate houses under one roof with a narrow car alley on each side between the adjacent buildings.

Joana backs the car into the alley and turns it off, unbuckling as she turns around to look at her passengers.

"Well, we're here! If you don't want to get rained on I can head in first and get an…" She trails off as Tanya shakes her head and opens the passenger door, quickly hopping out with a splash of water as the fuzzy fur covering her body proves slightly hydrophobic. The rain only lightly dampening her as the heavy drops simply slide off.

The 'mon takes a second to recover as, for some unknown reason, her 'aura' has been slow to replenish. Exhaustion and low energy plaguing her for significantly longer than what seems possible.

Quickly making their way around to the front door and inside with a fumble of keys, Tanya sees exactly what she'd expect for an early two thousands suburban Japanese home. Eyes darting around, she's hit by a wave of nostalgia as she takes in the particular colors and styles unique to the era, made only better by the sight in front of her looking better than those faded memories, thus matching the distortion of rose tinted glasses.

On reflex, she wipes her feet on the provided mat before a high pitched voice calls from up the stairs.

"You're back! Finally! Do you know how worried I was with this storm!" The voice grows louder before, with a series of thumps, a jigglypuff hops down the stairs.

"You'd better have gotten that pin Joana!"

"Puffin! We have a guest!" Her partner calls back, gesturing downward.

Jigglypuff pauses halfway down the stars and looks up, locking eyes with Tanya, before she sighs.

"Back into quarantine for me then…" She mutters.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Jigglypuff, I'd offer a– you're a big one aint ya?" She cuts herself off.

Tanya blinks, caught slightly flat footed.

Is she?

She considers the idea, playing back memories for a comparison.

…Yes, she is taller than any of her siblings.

By a rather considerable margin now that she thinks about it…

"Yes, my name is Tanya Degurechaff, it's a pleasure to meet you." She says with a bow, the surroundings reflexively bringing old etiquette to the fore.

Jigglypuff smiles slightly, her earlier informal tone completely replaced by friendly cordiality.

"A pleasure to meet you too Happiny. I'd offer a handshake, but I've got a bit of a stomach bug and I don't want to spread it. Amelia doesn't stop talking about you so it's nice to put a face to a name."

At that she glances over at Amelia, as if expecting her to understand. But stops at the sight of her neutral expression as the girl removes her shoes, either having not understood or ignored Jigglypuff's words.

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The 'mon opens her mouth to say something else, but Joana interrupts, quickly pulling a pin from a pocket.

"Here's your pin! Lets not get Happiny sick alright?" She rushes out, followed by some kind of nonverbal conversation between the partners.

After a second, Jigglypuff looks resigned and holds out her arm.

"Alright. Toss it over."

Joana complies, and the tiny bit of metal flies across the room with shocking accuracy, landing exactly in her partner's outstretched limb despite being across the room and halfway up a flight of stairs.

Without remarking on the skill in marksmanship Jigglypuff gives one last unreadable look across the room, lingering on Amelia for a moment before turning and walking back up the stairs without a word.

Joana breaks the awkward silence with a clap.

"Right! I've got to call the hospital and tell them… the situation. Amelia, the guest room's a quarantine zone, do you mind letting Happiny sleep in your room?"

Her daughter nods, expression neutral.

"I'm amicable." She says before turning and walking toward the stairs.

Tanya follows behind, but finds herself struggling to hop up the stairs, feeling a strange kind of straining sensation when she tries to pull energy to enhance tired muscles that are still slow to recover.

But she manages it and, after a few more moments of silent walking, decides the strange silence between them has gone on long enough. Falling back to a topic that always gets across the sometimes fickle translation barrier.

"I don't have any of my own reading material, for obvious reasons, but I feel using this time to do a thorough review of everything we've learned would be prudent."

Amelia flinches at her voice, then glances down with extreme neutrality in her expression.

"I didnt… I dont unders–" She looks away as she stops at a door, then continues with careful diction as she rests her hand on the doorknob.

"It's in both of our best interest to use this time to study. We can use this time to push further ahead, without having to stop and start we'll be faster."

Tanya feels that intangible strain growing stronger while her partner opens the door in one smooth motion, as if a clockwork mechanism.

Then Amelia's neutral expression shatters as she looks at something across the room, on a desk too high for the 'mon to see.

"She…"

The human walks closer, incredulity fading to rage as she picks up a stack of mail.

"Jigglypuff went in my room!"

She shouts, looking around wildly.

"She went into my room without permission and– how dare– I…"

Amelia stops at the sight of… something in the pile of mail, staring for a long moment as if trying to ignore whatever she's seeing while still looking straight at it.

"I…" She tries again, sniffing as she seems to be trying as hard as physically possible to stop herself from crying.

Then she hiccups, the anger draining away from her face as her shoulders start to shake.

Tanya pushes against awkwardness and speaks up.

"Is… everything alright?" She asks, then immediately regrets it.

Obviously everything isn't alright, and the question gives no new information!

The poor choice in words seems to shove her partner over the edge, the letters falling out of her hands onto the desk and floor as the intangible strain in Tanya's chest grows strong enough to almost hurt.

Amelia staggers as a sob wracks her body, leaning against her desk and looking down, but refusing to meet Tanya's eyes.

"I can't do it!" She warbles.

"I thought I could do it! But I just c-cant!"

Amelia hiccups, wipes face on her bare forearm, then falls backward until she's sitting on her bed with another sob before continuing.

"I w-was trying to forget all a-about the stupid lie!

But then I-I-I saw the fight and it was– I just– I knew I needed to be out there! And when met you I'd agreed to–" Tanya listens with half an ear as the emotional speech devolves into an incomprehensible train-of-thought ramble as she looks down at the junk mail that's scattered across the floor. Follow current novels on novᴇlfire. net This is a problem.

She's interacted long enough with Amelia to have a good understanding of her behavior, this outburst is completely unprecedented. Thus it could only come from some kind of extreme stressor that needs to be resolved quickly.

The abrupt behavioral shift seemed to have been triggered from looking at one of these letters. Finding at least a few of the possible letters will greatly narrow the search criteria.

As if on cue, the now humid air of the ongoing storm has the wall mounted AC unit kick on, lowering the vent cover and sending a stream of cold air across the desk, knocking a flyer from where it teetered on the edge of the countertop.

The stiff piece of paper flutters to the ground and shoots across the room, coming to a rest halfway between Tanya and her partner.

Her eyes automatically scan the words.

'Last chance enrollment! Southwest Hoenn Tech wants you to join the thousands of others who've joined our correspondence program! Now with our improved nursing track, our unique traveling residency program, covering over two hundred affiliated locations means a 'roaming' student doesn't have to choose between adventure and education!'

On the side of the blurb there's the picture of a woman in pink hair that's a quarter shade off from how it appears on every nurse she's ever seen, wearing some bizarre combination of a nurse's outfit and what looks like safari gear.

There's more text, but it's more of the same, and Tanya's interrupted before she can read it besides as Amelia's incoherent sobbing turns back into understandable speech.

"A-a-and now we're friends because we're going to nursing school together and– and– I don't know what to do!"

With that last outburst she collapses out of view into her bed and, by the sound of it, buries her face into her pillow to muffle her crying.

At the sound, that feeling of strain grows taut enough that Tanya feels as if whatever it is is about to snap.

Tanya steps up to the foot of the bed quickly.

It's clear Amelia has some kind of reservation about nursing school, presumably caused by something related to battling.

This sudden eruption comes as a complete surprise, adding an unforeseen complication to a partner Tanya had found acceptable and already invested significant effort into communicating and advancing her academic progress.

Now all of that might be at risk by some kind of hidden complication.

But as she tries to use the sparse information she has to narrow down the potential issue, her thoughts keep getting forced back to the sound of sobbing on the bed, taller than her, too tall for her to see.

She needs to get up there.

The 'mon considers the thought as it pops into her head. Resolving this problem can't happen without a dialogue of ideas. So obviously communication is the first step.

It's also important to make sure she understands Amelia's position, some of the… details were hard to make out in her rather emotional statement of terms– She needs to get up there.

Tanya blinks at the thought as it pops up again, disrupting her normally well ordered methods of thinking, then clears her throat.

"Amelia, I can see you're distressed with some aspect of our continuing education. Would you be able to–"

"I can't understand you!" She cries out between sobs as if the admission was a crime, the words pulling that immaterial connection to its breaking point.

Tanya's body gives a long involuntary warble.

She needs to get up there!

The 'mon shakes her head at the illogical imperative.

Impossible, as much as she wants to communicate now, she'll just have to wait for Amelia to– Like a rubber band pulled far past its breaking point, something starts to give, and a haze of instinctual panic sharpens her mind to a razor's edge.

That raw need discards all extraneous thoughts, shoving down the former soldier with the raw animalistic instinct of a man drowning!

There's no time!

Her friend is hurting!

She needs help!

Attempting to pull energy into her legs to jump, the happiny staggers as nothing responds to her commands. Exhausted from the day and the normally bottomless wellspring she'd come to rely on from the straining bond coming up empty.

She tries anyways, leaping as high as her exhausted body allows she grabs onto the covers and can see her friend, but the blanket slips from her grip and she falls the short distance back to the ground with a thud.

She cries out, a keening whine of distress as wild eyes desperately look around for something, anything that would give her access to her friend!

But it's not enough, Happiny isn't enough. Her body simply cannot do what is required, reality smashing up against intentions and, as always has been and always will be, easily emerges victori– Never!

Happiny growls.

Shewillhelp!

And nothing is going to stop her!

Something within clicks.

She just!

needs!

There's a flash.

To get up there!

And her vision goes white.

—-- Sinking deeper into the pit of sorrow and regret, Amelia's sobs only grow louder as the fact that –after today– she's going to lose Happiny, someone who's fast become one of her closest friends. Then the imagined disappointment of her mother as she has to explain what's happened.

Then the question of an uncertain future now that reality has finally swept aside the illusion that she could be anything but a–

"Chansey."

The simple word immediately arrests Amelia's downward spiral, out of sheer shock if nothing else, the word accompanied by a soft arm pressing against her shoulder.

Hesitantly, the human lifts her head from the pillow and sees…

"... Happiny?"

Happiny, or more accurately Chansey now, looks back at her, eyes still shining white as the remnants of evolution fade, and Amelia's emotions are further put on pause at the size of her companion.

Her partner has always been big, and this evolution only exacerbates the trend as –despite having evolved seconds ago– she's already a little larger than the average adult chansey.

The 'mon uses that size to her advantage as she leans closer, mushing her pillow-like bulk into the bed until her head has crossed the distance between the two of them without her feet ever leaving the ground.

Yet she doesn't say anything, instead carefully locking eyes to ensure she has her partner's full attention for a few long moments, before opening her mouth.

"Ch sey ans an. Ey ey sey. Chansey chan."

Amelia blinks, trying to understand what she'd just heard and not believing her first conclusion. Because it's what she desperately wants to hear.

"But…" She pauses to sniff.

"What about you? I thought you– I know you want to become a nurse." She asks, almost afraid of the answer.

She cannot – will not– force her partner to give up her dream because they'd become friends off of her lie, even if Amelia has to give up her own.

Happ– Chansey picks up the flyer for the correspondence school off the floor and holds it out.

"Chansey. Chan chan ch sey. Ansey an chan?"

Amelia hesitantly grabs the paper.

"Because it would be a sub par education? Learning from a teacher will allow us to learn faster than doing it alone. Plus, schooling is a full… time…" She tries, but trails off at Chansey's exasperated expression.

"An, Chansey chan chan. Chansey?" She asks rhetorically, gesturing toward the bookshelf and desk full of textbooks as if to highlight their efforts.

"Chansey chansey, chan ancey sey chansey. Chan chan an sey."

Amelia blinks, trying to wrap her head around the term 'soft social capital' and finding it an apt –if clinical– description of the sort of… respect people get the more badges they have.

"But for that to work we'd be starting at a loss, we'll need to first get enough badges to offset the stigma of correspondence school. What if we…" She starts, but trails off.

Because her heart's not in it.

Because she knows the fire in her heart won't allow her to stop until she's the best she can be, just as much as she knows the fire won't allow her best to be anything less than the best.

"Chans sey." Her partner says, face hardening as she mirrors Amelia's thoughts on the subject in a mere two words.

The human nods shakily, resolve firming as a plan begins to take shape.

"Ok… Ok! We'll just… try, see if it goes well. If it doesn't work the credits are probably transferable, and so after whatever happens… we'll know. Then go from there, right?" She asks, and despite the fact that the question was supposed to be rhetorical Amelia feels her stomach drop as she waits for her partner to respond.

But the fear can only last less than a second before Chansey nods.

"Chan."

And before she can say anything else, Chansey stumbles back slightly as Amelia throws herself at her in a hug, squeezing her partner's pillowlike fluff as hard as she can.

Then, after a moment of considering silence, Amelia feels an arm gently pat her on the back.

But as Amelia revels in the weightless feeling in her chest as the quagmire of fear drains away, she makes a quiet promise to herself.

One gym.

She will indulge herself for one gym, and if either side of training or nursing falls short she's calling it off.

"Ch an ch an" Chansey grumbles as Amelia pulls back.

Looking down at where her face had been pressed against her partner's fuzz, the human sheepishly reaches for a box of tissues to clean up the… mess.

But as she pulls a few tissues into a hand while Chansey stands back up, looking around the room at her new height with a faintly confused expression, she's reminded of the other momentous event that had occurred just before.

"Oh! Congratulations on evolving Chansey!

I didn't know you had an oval stone!"

Her partner jolts, looking down at herself in utter shock just as an egg appears in her pouch."

Chan seycha–"