Thomas was looking ghastly, face white as a sheet and being held up by his Phantump while his Sandygast made sure his legs didn't give out. I couldn't see Lori around but I assumed she was in his shadow.
"Hi-i-i-i" he said to me while I marking something in my notebook for training Puff.
"What happened to you, lets get you to a hospital" I started walking over but he sat down where he was.
He waved me off as he leaned back and pulled his knees in front of him "Do-n't wor-ry, jus-t held Lor-i too long." Yeah, like made me feel less worried. Like Ian, Lori could absorb life force as a ghost but it usually didn't turn out this way. She must have been taking a lot over a long time, and oh wait, that does seem worrying.
I got him some water and bought him a sandwich from a nearby Subway. He absolutely devoured it, bite after bite where he choked twice but was saved by his Pokémon pulling some ghostly assistance. Zac saw what was happening and came over to join us. "What happened to this guy?"
"I won my first badge!" Thomas explained, now having color to his face. I looked over at Ian, his eye seemingly very creepy and scary in that moment. I shuddered and listened to the ghost specialist's story. Apparently, Lori had done really well, defeating a Poochyena, and he celebrated after with his parents and his younger brother who watched. Lori had sat on his lap as the Pokémon of the hour all through the afternoon activities and since Thomas wasn't fully accustomed to handling ghostly energy he ended up like that while carrying Lori through the city to get here.
"I'm not undead I swear" he said. Not undead huh. Zac and I looked at each other but didn't act on the suspicious wording.
"That's great Thomas, glad you beat them gym finally. We can celebrate it over dinner that is if you can stay" I led the conversation, slowly introducing Zac to Thomas. When I backed out to see about dinner they were chatting it up about ghosts, Zac finding Thomas' boundless knowledge interesting and Thomas needed no other reason to flaunt his knowledge.
Dinner was fun, Ian was able to skewer even more Pokémon with his lengthened blade from his training. Everyone gathered around once again but this time they also pulled out berries and other food that they had bought or gathered in the wild. Puff was over the moon with having berries instead of meat and got me to thank the responsible parties for finding them. She also went around to get to know their new Pokémon and check in with the ones she knew, followed closely by Mime Jr.
I hung around Thomas, introducing him to everyone and he had the biggest smile on his face the entire time. He not only talked about ghost types but all the stories, misconceptions, studies, and pretty much anything remotely related to them. Of course he was overjoyed when someone asked him how his battle went.
"It was an amazing rematch. A one vs one battle with Lori here" he pointed behind him into the creeping shadows behind him for pink eyes to open up, swiveling around before closing once more. "It was a tough battle against this galarian Zigzagoon."
He pulled out his phone, showing us a picture of Lori and a defeated black and white Zigzagoon. "It was really fast and immediately used tackle. I was ready for this and told Lori to use icicle spear and she started going pew pew pew and the Zigzagoon dodged a bunch of them."
He did little finger guns and Zac laughed before quieting down to here more. "Lori hit it twice before I had her use bulldoze which caught it off guard and rammed into it. The gym trainer was very impressed and had Zigzagoon use knock off and that was where I started getting worried. See knowing that I had bulldoze ready, the gym trainer had Zigzagoon run back and forth and zig zag with its tackle even wider than it had been doing."
"They really zig zag, like its actually a real thing?" Hannah asked. I was curious too because the book reason we studied in our summer course was that they did it because they found everything interesting. That couldn't possibly be true for trained Pokemon though right?
"It's true, it was great for dodging a lot of Lori's spears but once she got used to it she started pinging it until it reached her again. It switched to knock off after dodging the bulldoze and tagged Lori." I was shocked, not only that Zigzagoon really did this but that this one was able to evade the bulldoze. Ian could float but couldn't dodge her point-blank attacks, it really must have been fast since it could do that from the ground.
"She tumbled out of her shadow and got damaged while losing her berry bag. The berries were scattered around the area but the Zigzagoon was right after her so I called for her to run away with shadow sneak."
Smart, shadow sneak is a fast move. "She was able to get away but almost got hit with pin missile. Once she got away, the Zigzagoon was getting tired and a few more bulldozes and spears were able to finish it off." We cheered even though we knew the final outcome. He pulled out the badge then, a badge that had a figure of darkness being stepped on by a tiny hero with a sword. It looked a lot cooler than the fashion badge that was of a Jigglypuff with a pink neck scarf.
We stayed up until I started feeling out of it and drowsy at around 10 and I went off to collapse. The celebration kept going for longer but I fell asleep before everyone left. My sparky little doggo got up from her napping position and settled down over my leg and lolled her head onto my knee. A Spritzee, wait that's him, our Spritzee was coming back from somewhere and settled down, releasing a sweet scent that helped me enter the dream world. The calls of the wilds that night were soft and distant as out in the forest, the hunters started finding others in the darkness unprotected by human hands.
................................................................
Finally, I think, clambering over some rocky terrain while holding back my overwhelming headache. One that was made slightly better when I daydreamed about killing my dad, tossing his ever-glowing form again a wall and throwing him around for all the pain he caused me.
My small body was still hampered by the state of weakness that it has been in since the day I was born. Being ensnared in his debuffing moves, leer, mean look, fake tears, thunder wave, gravity, charm, yawn, confuse ray, flash, and many many more. He was the best, literally titled by the world as Devolver for his greater feat made possible by his immense talent in this field.
My mind was assaulted by the massive pool of energy once again as my thoughts shifted. I supposedly could control this ocean one day but until then it was a nuisance. Something all of my species suffered from initially, even my talented father.
Through my scanning of my surroundings I realized a Pokémon would pass in front of me if I continued so I waited, and silently felt disgusted by its psychic nature. A Slowbro then wandered farther in front of me, a guard of my father. I never knew when someone was looking at me due to my blindness but it seemed to stay its waddle.
"Freedom was earned" he always said. To that point, I had to wield dark energy before he allowed me the freedom to have my thoughts to myself sometimes. Even then he overpowered it and still popped in my head sometimes to look around at how his experiments were working and in amusement at how I planned to escape. He knew in fact how I planned this, didn't even care as long as I could get away with it. It was practical training in his mind, as I wouldn't be able to do anything once he found me again just like the other times I escaped.
I traveled on as fast as my little legs could carry me instead of other forms of travel to conserve my energy. Farther and farther until I felt that I sensed that I had left the dragon alpha's territory that we had been staying in. My dad never claimed any, nor did he care about this place. Only his homeland, somewhere I have never been, was of importance.
I trudged on, dodging others of the Slowpoke lines and making my way towards the land of sand. My uncertain journey was only beginning.
