Chương 61: Chapter 49

I drummed my fingers across the desk's wooden facade, unable to put any focus on the teacher's droning voice. Something about that struck me as odd. I'd never hated school like some of my peers, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say that I loved it, I certainly didn't dislike the experience enough that I should be ignoring the young man standing at the front of the class. He looked vaguely familiar, with his black suit and odd hairstyle, two black wings flying free from the sides of his head.

I couldn't remember where I'd seen him before, but the issue didn't seem very important. Surely if he mattered his face would be clearer and more distinct. His voice was as uninteresting to me as his appearance, as was the subject he was teaching. I guess being out in the real world, experiencing life first-hand instead of through a lecture or textbook, had poisoned me against traditional schooling.

Which sort of sucked, because if I wanted to follow in either of my parent's footsteps, I'd need to go to school for years and years. Four years of university to get a degree in programming, if I wanted to go into battlefield development like dad. And if I wanted an engineering degree like my mother? Six. Except, that wasn't right, my mom was a nurse. Which meant eight years of schooling, ugh. That was okay though, I'd make a terrible nurse anyway. I didn't even have pink hair. Or pale skin. Or blue eyes.

But whatever. I wasn't going to be a nurse or a battlefield developer or an engineer. I was going to be a Battle Trainer! That's right! Today was the day, the day we'd all be using a Battle AR for the first time! The device was years out of date, just a loaner for students to get used to synergizing for the first time, but it was still exciting. We even got to meet a bunch of friendly Pokémon, who'd be our temporary partners while we were synergizing for the first time ever.

I got assigned a matronly-looking Machoke who would pose and stretch to get a laugh out of any of the kids who were nervous. No need for that with me though, I was ready and eager. All I had to do was put this plastic visor over my head and I'd be off on my journey to becoming the greatest Battle Trainer Ferrum has ever known. All my dreams, all my hopes, everything I could ever want, all at the tips of my fingers. Just… put it over my head. So easy. I couldn't move.

It felt like something was holding me back, invisible presences without hands or voices, screaming at me to stop. But, if I didn't put this visor on, everything would come to an end. I'd never become a Battle Trainer. I'd never win trophies and awards and acclaim. I'd never become anyone important. I'd never amount to anything. If I didn't put the visor on, my life would end. And yet, if I did put the device over my head, I would surely perish just the same. The surety was stark in my mind.

Complete confidence in an impossible contradiction. Like an oracle from the genies themselves, I knew that wearing the visor would kill me as surely as stabbing myself in the heart, and also that discarding it would end me as if I'd never existed at all. I stared down at the device, searching for answers. It looked back up at me, the blank plastic almost accusing. My face was reflected in it, but something was… different. I peered closer, or rather I tried.

The things holding back my arm wouldn't let me pull the visor any closer to my head. That was okay though, because I had a compact in my pocket. It was a little square box, made of reclaimed iron, built in a metal shop in a post-break school class and given as a gift. Once, it'd contained a dark powder, almost right for my skin but just a little off, and it still had a mirror inexpertly screwed into its top half. The little thing was beat and worn and ugly, without a hint of elegance or artifice. And I loved it.

I used to hold it as I slept. Used to smell it, the faint scent of the makeup it once contained still worn into the pitted metal, the distinctive perfume of warm smiles and tight hugs and eyes that looked just like mine. And now I kept it in a box, safe in my closet and tucked out of sight, preserved for the future so that if I wanted I could always pull it out and look, and remember. Even if doing so felt in so many ways like a betrayal. But it'd always be there if I needed it. And I needed it now.

Needed it desperately. Because I was in danger. Imperiled by something grave, and terrible, and awfully, horribly familiar. So here it was, right in my hand. Where else could it be, when I needed it? Needed it to see. To inspect just what was wrong. I held the little hinged powder case up to my face, and stared, gazed into the off-center mirror. And in it was… me. My face. Mine alone, staring back at me. All me, except for one little difference. My left eye. It wasn't the gentle hazel I remembered.

It no longer matched its pair on the other side of my nose. Instead, it glowed, refracting the light and emitting a strange, iridescent orange. In fact, as I looked closer, I realized that the thing in my skull wasn't an eye at all. It was a crystal, growing out of my head. I didn't hesitate. I didn't even think. Fully on reflex, my hand shot up to my skull and my fingers went straight towards that abhorrent, nauseating orange. It'd gotten in somehow.

Nested in my skull, even in spite of my refusal, this horrible thing. This awful monstrosity that had killed and killed and would kill again. I understood now. If I'd put on the visor, if I'd sealed it into my skull behind plastic and metal, that would have been the end. It would have taken me over, and of Fione Alvida, who could say how much would be left. Dropping the visor was easy, I needed both hands, all my effort and will to pry this parasite out of where it nested. This was a decision I'd already made once.

And maybe it had killed me. But I'd live. I'd survive. As long as I plucked this interloper out of my head. Except, something wouldn't let me. Restraints I couldn't see held my arm stock still, even as my legs thrashed desperately, trying to break free, trying to buck these grasping hands so I could get at the sickening, postulant growth that'd taken over my eye socket.

"Fe, swtie, sp!"

"Sh_'s str_!"

"What's g_g on?"

"Get t_e an__esio_ist!" Distantly, I heard a chorus of voices, a smattering of broken and scattered words. Some small part of my psyche tried futilely to log them for later review, but the rest of me knew that they weren't important right now. What value could words hold against my desperate, pressing need for action? All that mattered was prying this evil out of my skull. They didn't understand! It was right there! I could yank it out by the roots, if I could just move! And suddenly, the restraints were gone!

My limbs were free! Able to move as necessary. I didn't wait, didn't hesitate for a moment. With a sickening crunch, the growth, the malignancy, the cancerous desire came free of my skull, and I hurled it away, into the infinite darkness surrounding me. Darkness that I gratefully sunk into, relaxing on cool waves of midnight. The emptiness filtered in through my gaping eye socket and the last thing I felt was the unending void scouring me clean. And then I awoke. - I was born into the world screaming. I presume.

I mean, I was told I was there, which would only make sense, and I was told there was screaming, which made sense as well. I didn't remember it, so I couldn't be sure of the truth, but it all lined up and made sense. Just like it made sense that I was screaming now. If I was lucky I wouldn't remember this either because by the holy fucking asses of all three exalted golems and their venerated creator did everything hurt. It didn't seem fair. None of these wounds had ached this much when I'd gotten them!

That thought was confusing. Actually, everything was confusing. And pain. My world was confusion and pain. Gradually though, both receded. The former, as memories and coherent thoughts reasserted themselves, and the latter as something icy and cool began sliding through my veins, overwhelming the burning agony of my injuries with steely precision. I found it within me to stop screaming, and somehow had enough excess will after to try and open my eyes. It was hard.

Certainly not the hardest thing I'd ever done, but in my current state, I was having a tough time remembering harder. But hard wasn't impossible. And if it wasn't impossible, then there wasn't anything stopping me. My eyes creaked open. Both of them, blinking against the soft light. The forest was gone, as was the snow, and the dirt. Instead, in front of me was a pleasantly painted hospital room, with annoyingly-cheerful motivational posters pasted all over the walls.

'Pikachoose health!'

'We'll help you Bellossom back to normal' 'You're gonna Recover like a Star-you!' That last pun in particular made me want to close my eyes again and maybe go back to fishing in a sea of blackness for a visor. Which was a weird, disconnected thought. Where had that come from? I didn't have much time to worry about it, as my mind and thoughts continued to spin up. Very quickly, parts of me catalogued things in the room that weren't tacky posters. Things that actually mattered. White uniforms and beeping machines.

Pink hair and teary blue eyes and Rookidee's feet. Unkempt facial hair and greasy locks and more wrinkles than I remembered. Pink cheeks puffed out in concern and outrage and fear. A sextuplet of beady black eyes and twitching gray ears that I felt like an idiot for ever thinking were inexpressive. My family. Well, half of them, by number. Plus a smattering of doctors and nurses, murmuring over beeping devices and printed reports.

"Mom, Dad?" I asked, my voice scratchy and raw. It seemed like a stupid question. Obviously that was my mom and dad. They looked like mom and dad. Cried like mom and dad. But this whole situation carried with it a surreal undertone of unreality. Moments ago, I'd been fighting for my life in the forest. Now… I was here. The discontinuity was jarring. It felt like a large, empty expanse in my mind begging to be filled.

"What… happened?" Mom reached out, hand clasping mine. I felt the sensation faintly, as she clearly struggled with not squeezing too hard.

"You got hurt, sweetie, in a battle. You got hurt, but you're okay now."

"I don't feel super okay," I half-joked, idly noting the IVs stuck in my arms and the bevy of machines I was hooked up to. I'd intended for the statement to be lighthearted, but judging by the stricken expression on mom's face, I'd missed the mark on that one.

"Are you still experiencing discomfort Ms. Alvida?" A professional-looking nurse next to me asked, his expression also one of concern, though lighter than the ones worn by my family.

"You just received a rather hefty dose of painkillers." Discomfort seemed like an insufficient descriptor for the pain I'd experienced on first awakening, but whatever they were injecting me with had really worked its magic in the meantime. I tried to respond, and found myself having to clear my throat with a few forced, dry coughs.

"No, sorry. I'm… it doesn't hurt right now. I mostly feel… floaty," I tried to explain, failing to capture what I was currently experiencing. It was like I was swaddled in cotton, but was still being poked by dull sticks. It didn't really hurt, but there was still this overwhelming sense of something slightly wrong. Unfortunately, anytime I tried to express that in words, the explanation fled from me like a Wimpod spotting a predator, so I had to settle on something wholly insufficient.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Or so I'd thought, but the nurse just nodded like I'd revealed to him the secrets of the universe.

"Glad to hear it Ms. Alvida. I'm going to leave you to your family now and we can talk more about your condition and treatment after that, okay?" I tried to nod, which turned out to be a mistake, because my head lolled, and it took me a solid ten seconds to fix it upright again.

"Okay. Sounds… sounds… fine." The nurse retreated, and was instantly replaced by my family once again. For a while, no words were spoken, my parents and our Pokémon apparently content just to be in my presence. Mom held my hand, while dad kept stroking my head, no doubt completely messing my hair up. Maushold has my other hand, idly running their paws up and down my fingers, and letting me rub their heads in turn.

Chansey watched on, splitting her attention between us and the machines and readouts in the room, apparently unwilling to fully leave my treatment up to the hospital staff. After a while, it became apparent that if I wanted any conversation to happen, I'd need to start it myself.

"My partners… My knights, and Mana… are they okay?"

"They're doing just fine Fee," dad reassured me, as he ran his hand through my hair.

"They're still recovering at the Pokémon Center, but last I heard, they should be out before the day's over." Fee. I hated that nickname. I hated how diminutive it sounded. Hated how it made me seem like some sort of cost. But every time I tried to tell dad that I didn't like it, he'd get such a sad look on his face. I had a sneaking suspicion that it was what my birth mother used to call me. Mom would just call me sweetie.

That wasn't my favorite either, but I certainly liked it a whole lot more than the alternative. Any complaints I might have felt negligible, however, next to the concern I felt for my partners.

"They're still at the Pokémon Center? How long has it been?"

"Just a day, sweetie," mom reassured me.

"They'll be fully recovered in no time. You, on the other hand, will need a bit more time," she tried to say it with a smile, and she mostly pulled it off. I only caught the barest hint of a grimace.

"How… bad is it?" I asked. No need to specify what it was. My parents looked at one another, and then back to me.

"We should let the doctor explain," mom told me, before hitting the call button. - The answer to my question ended up boiling down to, not as bad as I'd feared, but not as good as I'd hoped. A doctor had come in and catalogued my injuries to me, offering a laundry list that left my head spinning. A dozen or so lacerations of varying depth and severity. A severe case of syn-poisoning (as opposed to the regular sorts of poison that attacked biological tissues).

Six significant bruises, one of which was on a bone (I hadn't known that was possible). A single cracked rib (and somehow no other broken bones, thankfully). And complete syn-exhaustion. All-in-all, I was going to be trapped in the hospital for at least a week and I'd need another month or so after that to make a full recovery. But hey, at least I wasn't dead. My parents hadn't appreciated that particular comment. They spent the next few hours with me, talking, catching up, just existing in the same space. It was…

nice, and yet somehow oddly unfamiliar. Little spots of friction and awkwardness. Pain points where our experiences didn't match up. I just… hadn't told them a lot about what I'd been doing recently. And conversely, I had next to no idea what was going on in their lives. Mom was trying to cut down her shifts, but finding it difficult. Apparently, in spite of it not being a major tournament season, Pokémon injuries and syn exhaustion were both way up. The culprit? My father.

Or rather, the device his team had worked on and developed. And yet, in spite of the misery the machine had caused both Mom and I, he was the one who had suffered the most in relation to the ill-fated BattleField Go. Apparently, while his company had been expecting people to jailbreak the devices, they'd been blindsided by the sheer speed at which the breach had occurred.

They'd anticipated having months before people started finding ways to abuse the machines, not weeks, and now they were stuck trying to play catch up. The conversation reminded me of my suspicions about where the strange, corrupted synergy stone that had caused my current condition came from, but just the thought of trying to address that with dad right now gave me a headache.

So my suspicions went unaired, and after a couple of hours, my parents departed along with Chansey and Maushold, offering promises to return in the morning. I could tell they wanted to stay, but the doctors insisted that I needed rest. It was galling to admit, but they were more than right. I was exhausted, and after a little while longer I drifted off into an uneasy sleep. When I next awoke, it was morning, and my bedding and bandages both were soaked in an unholy mix of sweat and blood.

Apparently, I'd been tossing and turning in my sleep. Not enough to attract a nurse's attention, but definitely enough to irritate my stitches. So that was great. Also, everything hurt again. Not as bad as yesterday, but certainly enough to have me tapping the call button a few times as soon as the grogginess wore off. So, also great. My whole morning was consumed with treatments and examinations and doctors and machines and pain, passing by me in a sterilized blur.

In a lot of ways, it felt like the day didn't really start until a bit past nine even though I'd awoken at six, because that's when a nurse let me know that visitor hours had begun. And apparently, there were a lot of people lined up to see me. - First in line (by virtue of being family) were my parents, along with Chansey, Maushold, my knights, and Mana. Mom and dad stepped into the room looking a little bit better than they had yesterday. Now they just looked sleep-deprived, instead of like death warmed over.

"Morning Sweetie," mom greeted me with a wan smile, her pink hair limp and matted.

"How was your night?"

"A bit uncomfortable," I admitted with a shrug.

"But I'll live." That comment earned me another piqued look as she settled into a stool set up near my hospital bed.

"You'd better," she threatened with a steely tone.

"You're going to need to be alive to make up for how much worry you gave your father and I." The reminder made me wince, and I nodded my head.

"I'm sorry," I told her, trying to buy time to think up something else to say. My brain came up empty though, no matter how many parts of it I roped back into focusing on the conversation. Into the awkward, floundering silence barreled my father.

"So we picked up your partners from the Pokémon Center," he jumped in, trying to grin bright enough to make up for the bags under his eyes.

"They wanted to come with us to see you right away." I instantly tried to sit up straighter, only for my back to spasm in protest. I grit my teeth and bore through it, riding out the wave of agony so I could focus on what was actually important l.

"Were they alright? Do you have them with you?" There was something inscrutable in dad's expression, but he nodded, pulling three Poké Balls out of the paper tote he'd brought in with him. My eyes fixed on the trio of red and white spheres with a hunger approaching ferocity, and after a moment's hesitation, dad passed them over to me, resting all three on the stand next to my bed.

"The nurses said they were getting some odd readings from…" dad trailed off, eyes glazed over as he obviously focused on trying to remember something.

"Mana," mom supplied, causing dad to snap his fingers in realization.

"That's it, thank you dear," dad nodded, "they said that Mana seemed different from her last check-up, but she was healed up enough to be released, and she insisted on coming along instead of staying at the Pokémon Center. They did say no training or battling for her for at least a week, though." I felt a bit of a frown form on my face at that. Of course I wanted to see Mana, but if she was compromising her recovery to come see me, I'd be at least a little bit cross with her.

Nevermind that were I in her position (that is, able to convince the hospital staff that I could leave under my own power), the Iron Golem himself wouldn't be able to keep me from checking up on her. With a groan of exertion, I reached over to the trio or Poké Balls, pressing them each in turn to release my partners into the hospital room.

"C'mon out, but best behavior, we're in a hospital." Apparently, my knights still respected me enough that my command meant they didn't immediately hop up on the hospital bed. They did form two stacks, each of them taking turns atop the pile so they could look me over to their satisfaction, each with their own eyes. Maushold perched in my lap, fretfully ranging across the bedsheets and inspecting my various bandages and stitches. And Mana floated above all of us, absently swimming about in the open air.

After a few moments, when it became clear that she wasn't about to come down, I called out to her.

"Mana?" At the sound of my voice, she looked down, and the reason she'd been avoiding looking at me became obvious. As soon as she set her gaze on me, big, fat globules of bioluminescent fluid began falling from her eyes. My parents let out cries of alarm as the liquid threatened to splash all over my hospital bed, only for the leaking tears to halt in mid-air, suspended by an invisible force. Mana's hydrokinetic control.

She easily caught all of her glowing tears, and from them formed small, swimming projections that descended to inspect me, cutting through the air as if it were water. The tiny, glowing fishes darted about my bed, forming a mobile of glittering light that left all of us speechless for a few seconds. Before too long, the moment broke, and my dad cleared his throat.

"Ella, why don't we step out for a bit to give Fee and her partners some time." My mom looked for a moment like she was going to protest, but one of the glowing projections crossed her field of vision, and after a couple seconds of obvious deliberation, she nodded.

"We'll be right outside sweetie. Call if you need us," she reassured me, as she and dad stood up to leave. I nodded gratefully, and they departed, leaving me in the room with my partners.

"So first of all, check-in. Are you guys all okay?" I started with the most important question. The answers I got were varied. My knights made various poses and flexes to demonstrate their 'okayness,' but I sensed some hesitation from Lance and Tristan, even as they oversaw their brothers' antics. Mana floated close to let me inspect her flank, though she still kept herself just out of reach.

I could see some lighter, pinkish skin where the scales had been shorn off her side, but already, tiny replacements were starting to regrow to cover the injured area. Physically, Maushold were obviously fine, and they reassured me verbally that they were doing well, but their actions told me otherwise. They clung uncharacteristically close, bustling and fussing in a way that told me that there was definitely something wrong. Taking things one at a time, I addressed the closest concerns at hand first.

I reached out, setting my palm atop the littlest Mauses head and ruffling their fur. I got a noise of complaint that drew the other two over to fuss over the littlest one's new cowlick. I used the opening to wrap all three of them up in my arms and pull them close to my chest. They didn't resist, though they were doubtlessly capable. Their placidity made it easy to draw them in, the whole group weighing just a couple of kilograms.

They felt surprisingly fragile in my arms, though I'd watched them shrug off attacks that would do worse than hospitalize me.

"Thank you for going to get help, Maushold. I know it wasn't fair of me to ask you guys to split off from the group like that, but I needed assistance as soon as possible, and you all followed through. You definitely saved me, and probably Mana as well. I hope you can forgive me for sending you away." I could feel their heads shaking as they huddled close to my chest, ruffling the hospital gown I was wearing, but I could still sense some stiffness in them, made particularly obvious now that I held them in my arms.

Because of course, it struck me, if Maushold wanted to communicate something, a big part of that would be in the way they clung to one another. It seemed obvious now, thinking back on it. Whether they were holding hands, or hanging off each other's arms, or clutching their tails, or hugging close, there was a whole language there that I didn't, couldn't understand. Still that didn't mean I couldn't do my best.

"Seriously. I didn't send you with Hyacinth and Myrrh because I didn't trust you. Exactly the opposite. I knew that if anyone could get help in time to save us, it would be you three. Thank you for listening to me. I knew I could count on you three to rescue us," I pulled them in closer, using my arms to supplement my words, squeezing the trio together against my chest in spite of the complaints from the cuts on my forearms.

They were tense for a few moments, before they relaxed, oozing over my arms and clinging close to me with their little paws. I didn't relax my hold, even as I turned to my knights, who were waiting with admirable, if uncharacteristic patience.

"Knights, great work out there. It was a tough fight, and it certainly wasn't a fair one, but you did exactly what we needed to claim victory." The six of them looked at me, expressions ranging. Kay and Galad seemed down, no doubt upset that they couldn't have done more. Percy and Bers were taking their queues from Lance, who himself seemed a little bit angry, presumably for a myriad of reasons. Tristan also looked upset, though I had a suspicion that the source of his discontent was different from Lance's.

"I'm sorry for not noticing the Poison Powder earlier," I nodded to Lance, addressing what I thought might be his primary concern.

"That sort of thing is my responsibility, and I screwed up. I should have had you all cycling in and out of the fight so I could treat you with antidotes in-between." The admission seemed to mollify the brass a little bit, and he nodded in a way that I had no doubt he considered magnanimous. He still seemed a bit put-out, however, and that wasn't to mention his brothers, so I continued.

"I know it was a tough battle, but we were fighting for our lives, and the fact that we can sit here and talk about it means we won. The time you bought us was instrumental in achieving that victory. If you weren't able to stall so well, with so little direction from me, I wouldn't have been able to figure out how to defeat the Butterfree. Plus, at the very end, Lance and Tristan went above and beyond, without me even needing to ask." The praise, more than anything, brought them out of it, I think.

That, and the reassurance that, in spite of how they might have been feeling about their performance, in the end, we'd been the victors. I must have been a better liar than I thought, because to me, nothing about that battle felt like a win. Before anyone could notice my fib, however, a knocking at the door caught my attention.

"Hello?" I asked, as eleven pairs of eyes flicked over to the sliding door that led to the corridor outside.

"Didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I've actually got some questions about how you did just that, if you don't mind," a smoke-addled voice called from outside the door.

"Can I come in?" I blinked a couple of times, nonplussed, before looking up at Mana, who carefully didn't meet my eye. I continued to stare up at her for a few seconds, but she offered no objection, even nodding towards the door, as if asking, 'what are you waiting for?'

"Of course," I replied.

"Come in." The door slid open, revealing the exhausted husk of Janine Egao. If my parents had looked like death warmed over, the ranger sergeant seemed more akin to an unburied corpse. Her straight black hair was barely corralled in a loose ponytail, pulled forwards over her shoulder in a greasy bundle completely divorced from her usual tight buns. Her black eyes looked haunted, and the dark circles rimming them reminded me deeply of a Zigzagoon's fur, standing in stark contrast to the wan caste of her skin.

A mixed bouquet accompanied her into the room, a heady swirl of perfume, smoke, and whatever shampoo they stocked at the showers in the outpost. And underneath all of that, and yet still somehow unmistakable, the scent of blood. Thick, and cloying, like a nail on the tongue. Stella the Clefairy sat on the ranger sergeant's shoulder, the usually-boistrous Pokémon looking uncharacteristically serious, even as she noticeably leaned away from her partner, angling her nose away from the older woman.

"Sergeant…" I hesitated, but found I couldn't help myself.

"Are you okay?" Something about my tone, maybe the incredulity, evoked a dark chuckle from the haggard-looking ranger.

"I'm pretty sure I'm the one who's supposed to be asking you that, private." I shrugged, and suppressed a wince as the movement irritated the cuts on my arms.

"A doctor could tell you that better. In fact, I'm sure they already have." The woman nodded, and then her expression softened.

"Maybe, but that's no replacement for hearing you tell me how you're doing in your own words. Back there, in the clearing, when I caught you. It looked– you were in rough shape, Fe." I started to try to say something, and found myself again without the words. I tried and failed a few times to reply, and eventually, settled for an unconvincing, "I'm alright." The ranger sergeant obviously didn't buy that for a single second. She took a deep breath, and settled into one of the stools set up at my bedside.

"I know it might be hard to talk about, but I need you to do your best, Fe. There are still so many questions about what went down out there in the forest." She looked me in the eyes, her black pupils focusing in on my own with awful intensity.

"So if you can, I need you to tell me Fe. What happened to you?" I'd been expecting the question, but that didn't make answering it any easier. I took a few moments to collect myself and think over my answer, (during which the sergeant was silent and still as a grave), and then began my retelling.