i fled in a blind panic, as far as fay’s wind took me. antennae twitching like mad, i tried to search for her, but i couldn’t tell where she was- she’s too far away, i realised with a sinking feeling in my chest. the tailwind ran out somewhere in the middle of the maze of caves, and staying in the air became more difficult.
calling out in my chittery, high pitched cry, i hoped that my friend would respond. but every corner i turned- there was no sweet scent, no sight of her protective petals, no flower shield. anxiety grew in the pits of my stomach- i couldnt fly well without her wind, and sooner or later i would tire and become completely immobile, left at the mercy of the monsters and beasts of this cavernous lair.
the roars of dynamaxed pokemon echoed, and i felt a chilly, subzero wind blow from the left. a trainer and his fainted magmortar fled from the den to my left, teeth chattering and skin pale from the max hailstorm whatever pokemon had unleashed. holy crap- whatever was in there was not something to be messed with. i caught the cold draft of wind, and rode it to the top of the cave, where i found a series of smaller tunnels. i went down the middle one.
i tried to press on, but my body was already tiring. i fluttered down onto a rock to rest, my abdomen aching from all the time spent flying.
fay might be in danger right now- and its all my fault. my antennae drooped like wilting flowers, and guilt washed over me like a giant wave.
i need to go find her. i’ll be safe with her- and she’ll be safe with me.
pull yourself together, tori.
i struggled to my tiny feet, trying for the first time in my life to walk like the humans did, putting one foot in front of the other. however, i only toppled over again, yelping as i went. my triangular feet were obviously not meant for walking- and they were useless too, so why were they even there at all?! frustration bubbling up inside, i pushed myself up again, but a wave of fatigue overcame me, and i flopped backwards onto my back, like a turtle on its shell. the damage i had sustained from that hurricane attack had caught up to me- i was on the verge of what trainers called ‘fainting’, or passing out.
NO. now was NOT the time to faint or pass out. pull yourself together. get up, tori!
there came the scraping of footsteps against rock. someone was coming- and i didnt know if it was friend or foe. most probably the latter.
“oh conley- what now? we’re lost, and im quite scared… what if we never find a way out?”
there were voices. human voices, and a pokemon as well. images of weird trainers dressed in colorful suits, chasing me down and trying to capture me and kill me and send me home flashed through my mind, again and again. i needed to escape.
“hold on. conley… theres something ahead.”
had they spotted me? what were they going to do to me? i wasn’t in the best condition to fight, after all- one hit of a move and i would keel over and faint.
there was a rummaging sound, and a light flickered on, shining onto me. there was an audible gasp- the voice was masculine, and sounded scared and trembling. i turned around, facing the person- he looked young, but wasn’t a child either. sporting a short, straight bob of silvery white hair, he didn’t look like much of a threat, but i decided i still needed to be wary- even the most innocent looking people could commit the most heinous crimes.
his pokemon, which looked like a little brown fox, leaped off his shoulder, glaring at me with the most aggressive stare that those round, cute and watery eyes could manage. well now- if this pokémon was going to attack me, it wouldn’t be good. i kept my gaze trained on the small mammal, my antennae bobbing up and down like seesaw ends.
“oh my!” the person exclaimed in half amazement, half terror. “is that an ultra beast? wait- don’t tell me. you’re that little one named kartana, aren’t you?” he smiled, and turned to his pokemon, gesturing for it not to attack. it gave a disapproving coo, but stepped back anyway.
amazing. he knew what i was- but i have to admit, it was a little foolish of him to decide i wasn’t hostile just like that. lucky for him, that i was thoroughly incapacitated then, and even more so, with no intention to harm.
hey, i might be an ultra beast, but not all of us are brutes who harm without thinking. in fact, i can speak for the kamitsurugi- all of us probably didn’t realize cutting things up was bad in this world till humans tried to kill us, including me. well, my story was a little different. but thats another tale for another time.
“are- are you injured or something? you look… crumpled.” he timidly inquired, still not daring to go within five feet of me. “i can help you if you are. though- you have to promise not to attack me first.” he said quickly, pillaging though his bag.
he took out a pink spray medicine- one that i immediately recognised as the hyper potion. it stung a lot when you had it sprayed on you, but only for a short while. then, you would be good as new. he held it out tentatively, like he was testing me.
if i had eyes, i would’ve rolled them. what’s with all the hostility and dread and suspicion? i wouldn’t lurch out at him, or attack him or cut him apart- as i told you, i wasn’t a monster. i was more wary of the glaring fox on his shoulder instead of the boy, looking ready to blast me with its attack at any moment.
diluted, stinging pain like acid enveloped my body, and i flinched, still not used to the feeling after multiple times of having the medicine sprayed on me. my whole body went numb with pins and needles, a very uncomfortable after-effect you get after being sprayed with hyper potion. that passed quickly, and i felt the strength begin to return to my body.
“there, that should do it,” the person mumbled as they shoved the half-empty hyper potion bottle back into his duffel bag. “you’ll be feeling better in no time, kartana!”
well, thank you, i guess, for the free but very uncomfortable heal. i really would have preferred fay’s healing flowers over the hyper potion, but i guess beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“you know, i’ve read all about you lot.” he began with a bright-eyed smile. “some of you are quite scary, but i think you’re quite cool, little beast. i once heard you saved alola by cutting up a giant meteor that was gonna doom the whole of melemele island into small little harmless pieces, like a hot knife through butter!”
alola? giant meteor that was gonna doom the whole of melatonin island? i mean, cool cover story for the paper- “tiny origami doll that’s alive saves island’s population from hurtling giant meteor”, but i don’t recall being involved in giant-rock-dicing or any heroics of the sort. shame, but i could only cut space portals from the sky, not turn back time, what could i do?
“there’s that slender one that looks like a cockroach that kicks you if you come too near, and also that one that looks like a lego fortress that hates it when you stand on top of it- it’ll buck you off if you tried! and then there’s the gigantic one that looks like the love child between a geisha and a rocket, rumor has it that it’s still rocketing it’s way through the stars., and then…”
aughhhhhh. this boy wouldn’t just shut up. i get it, i get it, thanks for not thinking we’re mindless monsters monomaniacally focused on driving the human and pokémon population to extinction, but like that’s a lot of words…?
out of the blue, the cave trembled under the booming roar that echoed from a lair somewhere to our left, and me, the person and their pokémon shrieked, startled. i was half relieved that the person had stopped rambling, half jarringly reminded of the beasts and dangers of the max lair. i realised, the longer we stayed here, the more time we gave for some random dynamaxed dude to discover us, and then it wouldn’t be very happy and grumpily kill us all to death. and… fay.
fay was still in the middle of all this mess, this maze where death had an approximately 100% chance of lurking around the next corner.
and it was my job as her samurai and as her friend to go rescue her.
“hey- kartana? do you know a way- hey! hey, wait for me!” the boy yelled after me as i leapt from the hollow at the top of the cave and started to drift down to enter the main network of tunnels again. i raised my little paper antennae, hoping fervently to sense maybe a scent of her luscious, healing blooms, a twitch of her tiny body zooming through the darkness- but there were none. gargantuan monsters and their ardent roar obscured my sensory radar, and i withdrew with a visible shudder, closing my cootie-catcher eye.
terrifying. i wonder how trainers find the courage to even enter this cursed pit of rampaging giants in the first place.
“kartana, there you are,” a voice sighed, as the muffled flapping of wings sounded from behind me. i turned; the boy from before was dismounting his pokémon which looked like the bird version of the big blue sky- a blue avian pokémon about the size of a small truck stared back at me with quizzical little eyes, ruffling its fluffy clouds for wings. “i was afraid i’d lost you. what’s wrong? why are you off in such a big hurry?”
“i want to find my friend, who is too lost in this maze of lairs. she could very well die at any moment, so of course i need to hurry!”
i tried to speak their language, but it came out garbled, reversed. no way the human would understand that, i groaned inwardly to myself in frustration.
“hold on! you’re trying to talk to me, right?” the person exclaimed, and attacked their bag again, rummaging fiercely through. jeez, give your bag a rest, you look like you abuse it so much that i’m sure it wants to run away by now.
they pulled out a bright red phone with a face on it (phones have FACES??) and flicked their thumb across it several times.
“speak into this, kartana! go on, i know a way to understand what your saying,” the person encouraged, holding the phone up to me like a microphone.
i was a tad confused, but did as i was told. i repeated what i said into the phone.
“now, rotom, please reverse the recording for me.” they commanded the phone earnestly.
“[SURE!]” the phone replied in a mechanical, pleasant voice. to my very huge wonder and amazement, the piece of metal with a face repeated exactly what i said- only this time it was understandable to the human ear, unscrambled and in clear, conceivable english.
as they listened to the recording, the person’s face fell. “your friend is in danger? and you need to go save them before it’s too late?”
i nodded as fiercely as my thin paper head could nod.
“well- do you want me to help? we could assist you, in finding this friend of yours. are they your trainer, or just a pokémon?” they beamed down at me, their smile seeming to light up the dim, dingy tunnel. “just let me know!”
“she’s a pokémon about as small as me, and she carries flowers on a string around with her all the time.” i spoke in the same scrambled human speech.
the person simply reversed it with his phone again. “oh, a pokémon that small would be quite hard to find in this humongous place…” they mused, hand to their chin. of course fay would be hard to find! that’s why we needed to waste less time here and spend more time trying to actually find her?? i chirped sharply in disapproval, jabbing an arm down the tunnel to signal that we needed to get moving or get eaten by any monsters that happened to come this way.
“no matter. you said they had flowers with them, didn’t you?” they looked to the tiny brown mammal, still perched on their shoulder. “conley can help sniff out their scent!”
this was one of the times i wish i had eyes so i could roll them sky-high at such a redundant procurement of help. i could already do that myself, no problem! but i guess it’s worth it having a sidekick to go along with me, especially under these circumstances.
as the boy spoke, something in the shadows sent a tingle down my little antennae. i paused, and the tremble came again and again, shivering down my entire body like some sort of eerie ghost warning.
no doubt… something was here.
it was not my fairy, but why did it feel so horribly familiar…?
the boy mounted his blue cloud bird, completely unaware. “now come on. lets get moving, kartana-”
“oh, you’re not moving anywhere, not on my watch.”
both the boy and i turn to the source of that cold, cackling drawl. wait, wasn’t that…?
the same pair of greedy, glinting eyes i’d so narrowly escaped from just a while ago smirked at us through the darkness.
the ghost i’d sensed, it climbed like a monster out of its hole, out of my own shadow. i shrieked, alarmed and vulnerable, trapped between my pursuer and his malevolent spirit for a servant, who pinned me down like a tack through paper just with their bloody-eyed glare. i couldn’t even cut the ghost in half, my blade just sailed through their spiritual body like they had never been there at all.
the shadows seemed to crowd in around me, and i felt warmth and the boy’s desperate cries drown away as the ghost loomed, inciting terror that seemed to crumple my fragile paper figure like a very strong hand that could not be cut.
“gengar, shadow ball!”
Oooh. What’s gonna happen to Kartana, I wonder…
