"So... what now?" Calvin asked as he and the other thralls trekked down the hill to the waterfall.
"We're on standby, you fucking idiot," Chase snapped. The real version of him had every right to be mad. All the time he'd spent in Undella—surfing at the beach, walking around shirtless, and chatting up girls—had gone to waste. The reason he'd fallen in love with the sea was simple. It got him wet, in more ways than one. In a region like Unova, where every fat kid set off on a journey at age 10 to get out of middle-school P.E. but didn't end up winning any badges because the sole mention of "Gym" made him curl up in a ball, the town of slim, scantily clad swimmers was a rarefied ocean paradise. Yet the moment he decided to do something worthwhile—explore a mystery other than a hot chick's distant figure with his eyes—he got told off by a kid way smaller than him, rebuffed by the one functioning girl in the group, and picked off sooner than anyone else. Staring at his Alomomola's flat form, which floated in the river as it waited for Chase and the others to embark, reminded him of chests. Flat chests. When all he wished to do was bury his face in the cradle of a full bosom.
At least that's what the lights had understood, controlling him as long as they did. Why had so much time passed until they claimed their next victim? It had taken them a while to get a handle on Chase, since they'd overlooked the fact that he thought with a part of him other than his brain.
"What's with the cursing? Didn't your sister teach you manners?"
"Sorry. I'm just playing the role of the alpha male, since that's the personality our masters inherited and keeping us subdued is easier the more they conform to the people we once were. Wait, how do you know about my sister?"
"I visited her yesterday. Everyone's so focused on the Strange Lights of Route 14 when the real story is the night before."
"Fuck you."
"Haha, I'm just kidding. I know about your sister because we're controlled by the same beings, so I have access to your memories and vice versa," Calvin explained. "The one thing I don't know is what we're gonna do while Dana takes care of Shiro. Any ideas?"
"Well, why don't we start with the reason each of us is here in the first place?" Chase suggested. "I came to discover the truth behind the lights rumors. That's what I tell people, anyway. In reality I got wasted at a friend's villa last night and heard about the lights thinking there was another party out here or something. What about you?"
"Just passing through to get home," Calvin said. "Jackson?"
The foreigner had long mastered the art of not drawing too much attention to himself, lest the authorities snag him and ship him back to Hoenn. He'd silently followed the other two's conversation and melted into the shade of a sombrero that he'd gotten from somewhere, a weed whacker in one hand to cut a path through the stubbornest of bushes and disappear at a moment's notice.
"I did, in fact, come here to investigate the lights myth. Because immigrants end up doing the jobs no one wants," he muttered. "By the way... I would kindly ask that you stop calling me Jackson. That's just an alias I assumed when I entered this country. From now on, you shall refer to me by my true name... Jaxón Gutierrez."
"Is that really your name, or are our masters having too much fun recreating our identities? When did you become a walking stereotype?" Chase questioned.
"Ever since I fell under the lights' spell in the Hidden Grotto. I made sure to stash the drugs I'd smuggled across the Unovan border in some bushes before they led me away, however."
"Drugs, huh? There may not have been a party, but that's the next best thing."
The thralls descended the waterfall and arrived where the bushes parted under Jackson's unlikely leadership. None of them was actually in charge, and all had equal knowledge. But puppets were more fun when assigned the same distinct roles that people possessed in society. When this was all over, perhaps they could venture beyond this route, blend into the masses, and achieve greater things.
"Hold on." Calvin stopped just outside the entrance. "If I remember correctly, someone's in there."
"Oh yeah? There's three of us and one of them," Chase growled, slamming his fist into his cupped hand and storming in. "We'll kick their ass."
The Grotto interior revealed little more than a sunken bed of leaves where a person had once rested. Chase and Jackson hadn't been present when Jocelyn was dropped here. Calvin had conveniently walked off then. The only reason they knew it was a human rather than a Pokémon was Dana, whose memories had supplied the missing pieces. They kept their wits about them as if Jocelyn might drop from the ceiling like an attacking spider.
"Why are we treating her like a Bug-type? If it's a chick we're looking out for, then she'd be a Grass-type, because girls have-"
"Can it, Chase," said Calvin. He was no less soft-spoken than he was pre-possession. That, or the self-proclaimed alpha's big mouth made everyone seem quiet as a Rattata in comparison—Alolan in Jackson's case, since the mustachioed variety was closer to his national origins.
"I see no reason to be scared. If there's a girl here, we might as well have some fun with her..." the foreigner muttered as he frisked the bushes at the Grotto's end for a trace of white powder.
"Are you trying to get deported?" scolded Chase. "You're exactly why we need to make Unova great again."
"Ew, you're a Republican?" Calvin grimaced.
"Of course I'm a Republican. I'm from Lacunosa Town. They literally built a wall."
"To keep out an Ice-type dragon. Get your history straight."
"I'm not a fan of ICE, especially when they come knocking on my door," Jackson said. He reached a little deeper into the foliage and produced six bags of a snowy grain. "Unless you mean the drug."
"Holy shit. Is that actual contraband?"
"I don't know. Maybe they're just packs of sugar I left behind to attract wild Pokémon and save me from the lights. That's what happens when you slather honey on a tree in Sinnoh, anyway," Jackson replied. He eyed the other thralls seriously and tore the bags open. "We'll just have to snort them and find out."
———
"I'm sorry, but someone with no experience can't become a trainer here."
How had Dana gotten to this point? Not long ago she'd passed a route full of trainers and told herself she wasn't one of them. Yet she now stood at the front desk of the Driftveil City Gym and hoped to be. Had she not almost drowned, she could have found employment as a swimming instructor. An indoor pool had no rip currents. But fear had seized her more tightly than the tide and not let go. She'd eyed the local rec center's most popular attraction like a sloshing death trap and decided it wasn't for her.
"...But we do need someone to clean the Gym after battles."
The receptionist had thrown her a lifeline, so to speak. Here was work that she and Close Call could do. That was the name she'd chosen for Floatzel, because it was not only the first thing she'd said to him but also an imperfect rhyme for his species. The "Flo-" and "Clo-" complemented each other, and the "l" consonance at the end of the second syllables sealed the deal.
Dana's first week on the job wasn't as smooth. She lacked the most basic command over her Pokémon—the moves he knew, their practical application, and the giving of orders—which was unfortunate, considering hers was a tall one. Clay's gym, where everyone except for her and a Clerk named Katie was a big, beefy dude, contained more testosterone than a pubescent teenage boy. The messes would be tough to clean even for a seasoned Pokémon handler.
Of course, it was Katie who ended up showing Dana the ropes, because "cleaning was a woman's job," to quote Worker Don, and the miners didn't know a thing about it. She could have berated her male colleagues for their backward thinking, but then she remembered that they'd literally been living under a rock. Besides, could she be so bold? As a young, impressionable new hire in a job she needed more than it needed her, she didn't grasp which behaviors should raise a red flag and which were standard fare in the workplace.
Thankfully, Katie pulled her aside one day before she could see the worst. That was the moment Dana received a proper introduction to the Pokémon world. Differences in strength between men and women didn't matter when the region was crawling with powered monsters. The extent to which she could master them determined her worth in society. If she wanted to be treated fairly, Katie advised, she needed to hone her skills as a trainer.
"I heard about your situation, and I understand you're not interested in battling," she'd said. "But for self-defense purposes, everyone should know how to tell their Charizard to bite a pervert's balls off."
Dana wondered if staffing a squalid gym like this one had coarsened Katie's speech over the years. Close Call had suggested that she simply dump trash on anyone who got on her nerves. Not only was it payback for the ocean litter, but it was also well within her job responsibilities. She wouldn't be making more of a mess. She'd merely be mixing the gym waste with the human waste to dispose of it jointly.
"I'll help you out. Every day after we're done taking challengers, meet me on the battlefield and send out your Pokémon," Katie offered, before Dana did anything petty. She was grateful her senior had extended a hand when she did, because over the next few months, the sexist comments crept more and more beyond the bounds of the acceptable. Every morning that she swiped into work, she had to keep her Trainer Card—particularly the Trainer Class/Occupation field that said "Swimmer"—angled away, lest she invite wonderings from older men about how she looked in a swimsuit.
"You know I'm a minor, right?" she'd fumed.
"We're all miners!" they jeered back.
Under Katie's tutelage, she'd overperformed. Save the dirty remarks, the Driftveil City Gym was as clean as it could be at each day's end. More importantly, the girl who didn't know a thing about battling months prior went on, with the aid of Close Call's type advantage, to defeat every colleague who catcalled her. Yet no matter how thoroughly she trounced her opponent, she couldn't win respect. Neither from those who didn't deserve it in the first place, nor from the Gym Leader. She'd once ventured to Clay's chamber on the lowest floor and calmly voiced her concerns only for them to be dismissed. It was her word against that of the Workers, with whom he'd dug long before his days as a League official. His first impression of Dana wasn't a good one, and when she humbled her fellow employees in battle over the slightest provocation, it only fed the notion that she was a troublemaker.
Eventually, she decided she'd had enough. She stormed into work one afternoon and demanded to see Clay. She'd worked up the confidence to assert herself this time. If he refused to comply and fired her, great, she was quitting anyway. No one took her seriously. It was the busiest hour with several gym challengers ahead of her. The only real attention she got was comments about how she looked extra "thicc" today. All she did was stuff a bunch of Super Potions into her blue hoodie, but that was enough to get the miners' imaginations going. Would it suffice to conquer all the visiting trainers? Probably not.
"I know what you're thinking, Dana," Katie said, coming up from behind and standing at her side, "and I support you wholeheartedly. Anything less and it wouldn't balance out the crap you've had to endure."
She drew her Pokéballs, and then the attention of every civilian battler in the vicinity.
"I'll hold them off. Go do what you need," she assured the teen with a grin.
Dana replayed that image in her mind to preserve her sanity. All that stood in her way now were her coworkers, as lecherous in triumph as they were in defeat. She began to make quick work of every man who stepped to her. His Pokémon, to be exact. But she wanted nothing more than to knee the trainer in the groin whenever he sent out a Drilbur and said, "Prepare to get drilled." Or when Close Call knocked it out with a Water Gun and he commented that at least one of them was getting wet. Or when a particularly hard-of-hearing employee started unzipping his pants when she asked for directions to the "mine shaft." Or when she wondered why Clay's room was so far down and a staffer responded that he preferred being on the bottom.
Though Katie had been with Dana through all her unpleasant times, there was nothing she could do now. The challengers had overwhelmed her and advanced to the elevator. She only hoped that her apprentice would sail back to the surface on a different platform and part the crowd.
But as she'd done with everything else Katie had guided her through, Dana overperformed. The battlers descended into the depths and revealed her smiling brightly on an adjacent lift, parting instead the very darkness that swallowed them. Her mentor couldn't figure what it meant. Had she accomplished what she'd intended, or was she masking immense pain?
"So... how did it go?" Katie asked.
"After an intense fight, I got fired," Dana confessed. "Honestly, it's a huge weight off my chest."
And it was. She'd exhausted all her Super Potions and was much lighter on her way out the door. Clay, who was apparently the president of a company, had pulled a formal notice of termination out of the suitcase he toted. The girl unfurled it and claimed the Quake Badge nestled inside before slipping it into the trash.
———
There was a light at the end of every tunnel, a silver lining to every dark cloud. As far as Dana's experience at the Driftveil City Gym was concerned, that was Katie. So the lights did away with her, squeezed the positive memories from the possessed girl's being and left her a wrung towel of herself—twisted, monstrous, dirtied, and wronged. The harassment was all she remembered. The moment the lights committed the warped recollection to her brain, a new reason to hate the world—more potent than the loss of a fond memory from her journey—hit her like a drug. Shivering with the sudden inspiration, her merciless stare waned and was replaced with a smirk—a bowl brimming with evil, slighter than a full grin or else her negative emotions would spill over and she'd scream like an unhinged demon. The confident smile of a girl who hated so passionately that she loved it, harnessing more power to destroy Shiro than he could fathom.
"That's not how you start a fight..." she chided. "Close, you know what to do."
The weasel rushed Mizuki head-on, accelerating with Aqua Jet and blitzing across the otter's vision. Then, he disappeared. Made himself scarce. Slipped his lithe body inches away from the ground right under the quadruped's nose and exploded upward, throwing out one hand after another to execute a Double Hit.
