Weapons, Chapter Forty-Three

 With water still dripping from the messy spikes of my hair – I’d rubbed it once or twice with the towel and left it – I tucked into the food Lex had laid out for me, feet curled up beside me on the couch. “Do I want to know what she’s told you?” I gestured at Kera with my fork.

 “Hm… you know it all anyway.” Lex shrugged, sitting down with a cup of something or other opposite me. “Having lived through it.”

 “Fair point.” I nodded.

 Kera flicked an ear and looked up towards the bookshelf, growling.

 “What is it?” Lex reached out to stroke her.

 She wriggled free and leapt, scrambling towards the shadowed top.

 “Such a welcome! Am I not part of your team?”

 “No,” Kera snarled, the air crackling with electricity. “Leave now.”

 “Kyirin.” I spotted the ghost – more just a disturbance in the air – and narrowed my eyes, tightening my hands around the cutlery in them. “What are you doing here?”

 “I have things to say. Will you listen?”

 “Why should I?”

 Kera snarled, raising her tail.

 “I… I think you should listen to her, Ax,” Lex spoke softly, looking into his cup. “She has some good points.”

 “When did she talk to you?” I flicked a quick glance his way, not taking my eyes off Kyirin for very long.

 “Last night.” He tapped his fingers along the cup’s side. “After you’d gone.”

 “She killed – you killed Hantri. Why?” I shook my head and targeted Kyirin.

 Kyirin floated past Kera and down towards us, where she slipped in and out of view as the sunlight grew. “He was unimportant. I needed a secure place on your team.”

 “What’s to stop me getting someone – who says I’ll choose you for the last place?”

 “Because you need me.”

 “No I don’t.”

 Kera leapt for Kyirin with a growl and went right through her, hitting the table with a thud before sliding off its end.

 “Kera!”

 “I’m fine.” She righted herself, shook herself out, and turned as if to launch herself back at Kyirin.

 “Not in the house, please!” Lex caught Kera up in his hands, holding her firm. “Look, just – listen to her. At least for a little while?”

 I narrowed my eyes. “Fine. What do you have to say?”

 “You have to go to Saffron.”

 Of all the things I could have thought she was going to say, that definitely wasn’t on the list. “Why?” I rubbed at the back of my neck.

 “Because you will need power, and there are gyms there.”

 “I – no. I’m not doing any more gyms.” I shook my head.

 Kyirin seemed to frown. “You must. You will need more power.”

 “Power for what?”

 “For your task. He hasn’t told you?”

 “Who hasn’t – what?” I glanced towards Lex. “This is what she told you last night?”

 “Not exactly.” He shook his head. “But I thought he’d’ve told you.”

 “Who’s he?”

 “The one in your head.” Kyirin cackled. “He has kept you in the dark, hasn’t he?”

 “If you know something, then spill it,” I snarled, almost throwing a knife at her.

 “You are a key to a cage, the chosen of an abomination. That one is your balance – keep him close.”

 “Oh, because that makes so much sense.” I frowned. “If you’re going to talk in riddles, shut the fuck up.”

 “You must go to Saffron. They can help you. Both of you.” And she disappeared.

 I glared at the space she had been in and put the tray onto the table, cutlery finally out of my grasp. “Was she any less cryptic last night?”

 “Maybe a little. The going to Saffron was mentioned… and I gathered from Kera that strange psychic occurrences have been going on around you.”

 “Yeah – well… she said that was a psychic pokémon looking out for me, or some shit like that.”

 “Basically. Well, Saffron – why are you rubbing your neck? Allergic to the soap or something?”

 I pulled my hand away. “Ah… no. Don’t think so. Neck’s just itchy, it does that sometimes. What’s in Saffron?”

 “Psychic gym. They might be able to help… us,” Lex sighed, looking down at the cup in his hands.

 <You must not go to Saffron>

 “Help us with what?” I gritted my jaw.

 “Ax. Have you really not guessed? We’re psychics.”

 “What?”

 “It’s how we can understand pokémon. But from what Kera’s been saying, you’re way more powerful than just that. So you’ll need training.”

 “I… no.” I shook my head. “I’m not going to Saffron.”

 “Why not? It’ll get dangerous if you don’t know how to control it.”

 “I just – I can’t. Really. Not happening.”

 “But – the badges,” Kera said. “I thought we were collecting them – Kyirin said–”

 “And you believe her? Kera, no! She–”

 “She has a point. She knows what we’re about.” Kera’s ears drooped. “Ax, she’s right. We need to do the gyms, to get stronger.”

 I stared at her, mouth open to protest. Except I couldn’t find the words.

 “Why don’t you want to do the gyms?” Lex asked quietly. “Even just for the hell of it.”

 “Because pokémon have died. Because I only left so I could find you, and I only did the gyms I’ve done because I had to. As far as I’m concerned, we’re done.” I looked down at my feet. “Don’t suppose you’ve a pair of shoes I could borrow? I lost one of mine in the harbour.”

 “We’re probably not the same size.” Lex blinked and shook his head.

 “Just so I can go buy a new pair, then.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be exact.”

 “Ax –”

 “Please.”

 He stood up. “Sure.”

 I rubbed my face. Why was everything getting hard now?

 <There is a gym in town. Go>

 “No, I am not doing another gym.”

 <You must. I will have you at the top of this mortal pile before you help me>

 “No. Go find someone else.”

 <You have… how did you term it? Drawn the short straw. You are mine. Go>

 “Ax?”

 “Stay here.” I gesture at Kera for her to sit back down as I leave. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

 I draw a few looks, walking through town on bare feet. Let them stare. The gym was easy to find, signposted as it was and not far from the pokécentre. I slammed open the door, startling the people inside.

 “What are you here for?” An older man looked up.

 “A battle,” I replied. “You the gym leader?”

 The woman beside him made as if to answer in his place.

 “Yes,” he said curtly. “Make your way around, then.”

 I stepped forward, and came up against a glass wall that shimmered lightly in the soft glow of candles as the door shut behind me. Oh, I did not have time for a maze. Releasing Keyare with an abrupt motion, I shattered the glass, pushing it outwards from us as I walked forward. Keyare looked around and hurried to follow me.

 “What’s going on?” he asked.

 I ignored him, stopping before the two adults. “I’ve made my way.”

 The woman scowled. “That is not–”

 “So you have.” The man looked down at me, impassive. “And I suppose that is the pokémon you are using?”

 “He is.” I nodded, folding my arms. “Where is yours?”

 “Oh… around.” He smiled. “Ven, use tackle!”

 I jumped backwards as a small purple blur darted sideways at us, slamming into Keyare.

 The charizard laughed. “This is what you attack me with?” He breathed fire, and something screamed.

 A flash of red light.

 “Psychic!”

 Keyare was lifted into the air and slammed into a glass wall. I watched it crack as he struggled against the hold, fire dripping between his jaws. There were cinders along the floor from his last attack, eating into the wood.

 He dropped to the ground and roared, funnelling fire at another small purple blob. The flash of red that recalled it was almost unseen in the furnace.

 “Toxic!”

 His third pokémon flitted down from the rafters, purple sludge dripping from its body to land in Keyare’s eyes and mouth as he looked upwards.

 “Keep attacking.” I watched as he roared, shaking his head to try and rid himself of the offending liquid.

 Fire rolled out again, but the pokémon flitted free and took hold and slammed him into another glass wall. Keyare landed on his wing with a crack, roaring again. The embers on the floor took hold and flared up, but the gym leader’s pokémon was out of reach, and Keyare was failing.

 Weak. I returned him, sending out Keysorkin. “Use whatever you can to defeat it,” I said, pointing out the target.

 “Leech life!”

 The flying pokémon – venomoth, the information trickled in my mind – dived for my blastoise, seeking a bit of exposed skin. Keysorkin waited until it was close, and turned sharply, catching it in her jaws.

 She was slammed into glass and it shattered as she released the venomoth, retreating inside her shell. Little damage there.

 The venomoth darted in close again to try and steal her life, and Keysorkin caught it in a claw, piercing its wings.

 “Enough!” It was returned. “You have won.”

 I grinned. “Of course I have.” I held my hand out for the badge.

 “You lack restraint.” He dropped it into my hand. “Best you learn that before the next gym, or fall astray of the psychics you will.”

 “Oh, I won’t be fighting the psychics.” I tucked it in beside my other badges. “So no need for that, hm?” Returning Keysorkin, I turned to leave the gym, striding through the aisle of broken glass.

 “You will stay there!”

 “Janine, let her go.”

 “Father!”

 “She has won in her own way. There were no laws broken.”

 I let the door swing shut behind me.

 “Ax!”

 Pain.

 I reeled back, something sharp biting at my ear.

 “What were you thinking?” Kera hissed in my ear, crackling with energy. “That was – beyond foolish!”

 “This is how you measure power, is it not?” I pulled out the new badge. “If I am to be amongst the best, then we had better measure it in a way people will recognise.”

 “Peace, sibling.” Someone caught hold of my arm. “This is not how you should treat her.”

 <It does get the job done though, does it not?>