The Friendly Necromancer

Chapter 18: Worthy

Ninetails is a quadrupedal canine pokemon covered in thick luxurious golden-white fur. It has a small mane of thicker fur around its neck and a long, fluffy crest atop its head. It has slender legs with three-toed paws and nine, long tails with pale orange tips. It has red eyes, pointed ears, and a triangular black nose.

In the Alola region, Ninetails has a different appearance. Its coat is pale blue, and its fur is wispier and more flowing. The tips of its tails and crest, as well as the lower halves of its legs, are white. The crest on its head is longer and its nine tails are less distinct from each other. Additionally, it has larger eyes, which are blue, and small tufts of fur in front of its ears.

Ninetales has a gentle temperament and is known to aid lost humans in distress, though this is primarily done to keep them out of its territory. It will punish any threat to packs of its unevolved form, Vulpix.

Ninetails possesses several unusual abilities. Flames or plumes of icy fog spewed from its mouth can hypnotize an opponent and its gleaming eyes are said to give it the ability to control minds. It is also strongly empathic, capable of sensing and reacting to strong emotions even without line of sight. The Alolan Ninetails has recently been confirmed to have a strong Fairy alignment, thought to explain these abilities. Interestingly, the common Ninetails has been confirmed to not be Fairy aligned, and there is ongoing research to determine if its abilities stem from Ghost or Psychic power.

The unusual abilities of the Alolan and common variants are not identical, but they are profoundly similar. How this can be possible challenges the current understanding of Ghost, Psychic, and Fairy energies as forces which function in fundamentally different ways.

-----

Beauty noticed the attack before anyone else in the burrow. Which was especially impressive because Madrabaz was anticipating it.

The moment Leader Ahmad had told the search and survival trainers that their battle badge test would come unexpectedly, Madrabaz had known when to expect it. To the Misdreavus, it was as obvious as the sun rising in the morning, though it struggled to explain its logic to Diya. The Canopy Gym trainers were going to try to ambush them sometime during the night, after they'd found Beauty and set up camp. Why? What did Diya mean why? It was because that's how ambushes worked.

After some thought of its own, Diya supposed it made sense. Search and rescue was truly a test of following procedure. A trainer was supposed to be able to pass it even without finding their quarry if they did everything correctly. It wouldn't make sense for the battle to be sprung on them during that phase of the test. Besides, proper search and rescue missions involved local gym teams forging ahead of searchers and drawing out dangerous pokemon to prevent attacks.

Attacking tomorrow, on the last day of the survival portion, also wouldn't make sense. The trainers would know their battles were coming at that point, and be rested and well-prepared. Leader Ahmad wouldn't have bothered saying it was a surprise if that was how they were doing it. It was also possible the teachers would move in right after the trainers 'rescued' their pokemon, but Diya didn't think that was likely. The time and place they'd find their quarries was difficult to predict and the students would have just been exposed to the elements for hours. Better to let the students settle down first, for practicality and safety reasons.

Which meant the only reasonable time for the 'surprise' battle was in the middle of the night right after the rescue test, as the trainers slept the sleep of the exhausted. Or should be sleeping.

Svartis sat down harder on Diya's head. No, wake up, she insisted.

Should! Be sleeping! The sleep! Of the exhausted! Diya sent back.

The gaseous pokemon compressed herself, squishing her body into a thick heavy gas over Diya's face. Her sending this time was a demand. Diya will wake.

Diya tried to blow her off with only air from its nose, and failed miserably, losing its lungs' reserves in the process. It was forced to do as its pokemon commanded and sat up, breathing in with some relief as she dispersed herself to float above the Banette. Why wake me? Diya asked her. Madrabaz was outside the burrow keeping watch for the ambush it was sure would come. If Diya needed to get up, Madrabaz would warn them, but until then it really needed the sleep. Eugh, and the wind was howling outside, it would take forever for it to get back to sleep with all that noise.

But Svartis shook her head -her whole body really- side to side. Look, she insisted, highlighting Beauty in Diya's awareness.

Diya looked.

The Alolan Ninetails was awake. No, more than awake. She was alert. Instantly, Diya could see why Svartis had woken it. Beauty's eyes were wide, fixated on the burrow entrance. Each of her tails was fluffed and extended directly behind her, as far and symmetrically as the limited space would allow. But most of all her lips were pulled back just enough to show her teeth, and leaking out from between them was a cold white mist.

Ah.

You did very good Svartis, thank you. Diya made sure to reassure her even as it jerked out of its sleeping bag -as much as the burrow would allow-, moved its giant Piplup plushie aside, and began pulling on gear. Leader Ahmad said that as a trainer it was important not to reinforce bad messages, and to reward initiative. Clear and immediate positive reinforcement was especially important with smarter pokemon, whose intelligent but alien minds could take unexpected messages from interactions with their trainer.

So even as Diya fought with its snowshoes, it took a moment to fish out a wax paper wrapped marble from one of its pockets. Inside the wax paper was a sticky clay-like mix of oil and charcoal. Diya flicked it to the floor and ignited it with a hissing point of blue fire. The marble burned dirty, sending up a twisting ribbon of oily black smoke which the Gastly gobbled up.

Madra! Diya pulsed out. It blinked, pausing in surprise when Beauty flicked her gaze over to it for a moment. Then it continued, sending Madrabaz an impression of its surroundings, along with the sense of an echo and a request.

A moment later it got back an image from Madrabaz of intense snow rushing diagonally across its vision, some mostly white trees breaking up the limited sightline, and an otherwise empty hill. Then an image of Diya sleeping and indignation. It could handle this, everything was fine, go back to-

-Beauty's bared teeth leaking streams of freezing mist, her eyes locked on the entrance.-

Oh.

That drew a chuckle out of Diya. It sent Madrabaz the memory of its own almost identical reaction when Svartis woke it.

Madrabaz sent a quick burst of appreciation to Svartis. It didn't see or feel anything which might have set Beauty off though. It was going to look around.

Diya finished getting its gear readied, but it didn't stop there. It put its Piplup plushie in the sleeping bag, wrapped that around its food supplies, and stored it all in a ball. Then it proffered an empty pokeball to Beauty and waited for her to nose it and accept stasis within. Diya was supposed to be treating her as a potentially injured or incapacitated pokemon, so using her to help fight would be against the spirit of the test. If there were actually a wild pokemon threatening its camp-

…and now that it thought about it, there was no reason to think that might not be the case!

If there was a wild pokemon threatening its camp, the best decision wasn't necessarily to stay and fight, especially if that might put its rescuee at risk. Leaving its shelter in the middle of the night in a snowstorm wasn't ideal either, but -Diya pulled up the map on its pokedex and highlighted the nearest known burrows and shelters- that was not an insurmountable problem.

While it was packing up, Svartis flew out to take over Madrabaz's position at the front of the burrow. Not even half a minute later the gaseous pokemon flew back in and plunged under Diya's robe. Nope! she projected. It was terrible out there, way too windy! She did not like that at all!

That was okay, Diya reassured her, she could stay in there out of the wind.

Huh, Diya thought. Something about that tickled Diya's brain. It turned the thought over in its mind as it squeezed out of the burrow's entrance. It almost lost it when it finally got outside and the icy wind washed into its lungs. Even with multiple layers on underneath its robe it could still feel how cold the wind was, and every breath exposed its insides to that freezing air.

Then the thought clicked. There hadn't been this much wind yesterday. And the weather reports said the storm was dying down, not picking up. Diya grabbed its hat with one hand and tilted its head back to look up. The snow cut long range visibility to almost nothing, but it thought it could see patches of starry sky with no clouds overhead, so the storm was dying down.

That was what Beauty had noticed. The wind.

Madra! Diya sent.

The answering ping came back choppy and frayed at the edges, despite how close the pokemon should have been. Interference, from some other power in the air.

Madra! Diya pulsed out louder. Did the wind only just pick up?!

The answer this time was loud enough for Diya to pick it up clearly, but the breakdown in communication came from another angle. Spirits processed time differently from creatures with bodies and to make matters worse, Misdreavuses were only physical enough to partially feel the wind.

Diya tried again. It sent a memory of slowly falling snow, then the blasting winds it was in right then, coupled to the thought of Beauty's hackles rising and a question.

That, Madrabaz understood. Yes, the answer came back, along with a trickle of its own fear.

Diya felt more than a trickle of fear. It was powerful for a Banette, and Banettes were feared pokemon for a reason. But the power of its blasts capped out at tearing through tree trunks and shattering rock. It tired when using its powers to jump from roof to roof. That was only flinging a mere fifty-odd kilos through the air.

Moving enough air to create a localized storm, even a small one? June had shown Diya the math once, to illustrate a point about how much power Cori's enhanced Pidgey would need to match Ho-oh's legendary ability to quell storms. This was millions of kilos of air being moved.

Diya pressed itself to the leeward side of the closest tree and hoped it was wrong.

Madrabaz's fuzzy ping came through the storm only a moment later. It had flown up to see if there was a limit to the wind, and there was. Diya received a nervousness-soaked memory of breaking through rushing snowfall into suddenly open air, dotted here and there by gently drifting snowflakes, slowly breaking up clouds, and nothing more. Then the memory oriented down, Madrabaz looking behind itself even as it continued to gain altitude. Beneath it was a howling blizzard twisted into a donut, tearing snow from the ground and pulling it into a whirling ring around some central point in the snowy forest. It couldn't see what was there, the trees were in the way, but it knew what it felt.

Nothing. Not a hint of fear from whatever monster lay at the eye of the storm.

Dimly, echoing into Diya's head, realization dawned on Svartis. She'd been feeling something for minutes, but hadn't been able to put a finger on it. It was Ice, pure raw elemental Ice, swelling over the land so steadily she hadn't even noticed. She sent Diya and Madrabaz both an image, stretching her power to be heard through the storm. It was like crawling through the underbrush of a forest only to look up and realize all the trees had grown ten times as tall.

Stars and shadows, who -and what- had Leader Ahmad sent to test them?

…stars and shadows, Diya hoped Leader Ahmad had sent this to test them.

Reluctantly, Diya asked Madrabaz to track the blizzard from above. How big was it? Was it moving?

The answer came back. Big, though it could be bigger -Diya ballparked the memory at a several hundred meters wide-, and moving slowly. The center of the ring was approaching their burrow.

Diya thanked its pokemon. Now, how did Madra feel about taking a closer look and seeing if there was a gym teacher at the center of that ring along with a pokemon?

There was a long pause with no response.

Finally, Madrabaz responded. That would be the teacher it had been intending to prank, correct?

It was.

Madrabaz's decision flowed in as a trickle as it slowly made up its mind, accompanied by a steadily rising cackle in the distance which could be heard even over the roaring wind. So it needed to put the fear of Madra in someone who commanded that then? Well, no one ever accused Misdreavuses of having more sense than mischief in their heads, and no Misdreavus ever evolved to be a Mismagius by playing it safe! The cackling dopplered suddenly as Madrabaz accelerated down at a sharp angle.

It was too late that Diya realized what its pokemon was doing and blasted out a negation. The next few moments came back to Diya and Svartis as disjointed flickers of memory, distorted by the storm, colored by exhilaration, and disrupted by flashes of spellfire which took priority over communication.

There was wind, distantly felt. A rush of snow passing through Madra's body. A flash of the phantom world's purple fires as it passed through the shadow of one tree and out from another's close to the center of the ring and low to the ground. A massive shape of white with hints of green poking out, taller than any human by half and with ten times as much mass. A human next to it dressed in blurry white-gray, with a splash of orange. A huge face buried under caked-on snow and thick furs that split the difference between bristles and pine needles, seen from close enough to touch. Then closer. Beady eyes hidden under thick brows widened. Then-

Boom.

Spellwork converted shock into phantom force, lined with flickers of purple and black fire. The massive pokemon rocked back one step, the human yelped and fell backward into the snow, and Madrabaz shot away into the forest at a million kilometers an hour, laughing like a banshee.

Shock rooted Diya in place for the longest second of its life. Then-

You are so lucky that worked! it blasted at its tricksy pokemon.

Mad cackling answered it, along with a rush of exhilaration.

The trainer blew a long breath out through its nose. It was going to clear this up with the gym teacher, and then after this it and Madra were going to have a talk about properly communicating when it was going to give people heart attacks, before it gave Diya one.

Diya pulled its robe tight against itself to protect Svartis from the rushing winds, and marched towards the center of the artificial blizzard. Madrabaz, meanwhile, saw no need to stop cackling and flying between the trees at top speed. Diya smiled at the sound, enjoying the way it dopplered in and out of audibility as the wind and trees caught it in interesting ways. It really did have to have that talk with Madrabaz, but the spirit's glee was infectious. Besides, what monster wouldn't be happy to see their pokemon happy?

The wind died down sharply as Diya made its way to the eye of the storm, suddenly cutting off as Diya stepped between two trees into a small clearing. In the middle of the clearing knelt an Abomasnow. Covered in snow and pine needles, the hulking humanoid beast was still taller than Diya even while on one knee and leaning forward, and each of its limbs looked like it might be larger around than Diya's torso. In front of it, standing on her tiptoes on top of a large rock, was one of Canopy Gym's trainers. She was a tall, heavyset woman bundled up in a snow camouflage suit, with a bright orange armband bearing the Canopy Gym's shaded tree logo on one arm, and she was fussing over her Abomasnow.

"No, no! Hold your head still, you big baby. I need to check your eyes." The trainer shone a small flashlight in each of its eyes, flicking it quickly away a moment later. "Okay good, no concussion, no broken teeth, nothing that needs a potion. You're fine to fight."

A deep rumbling growl started somewhere in the yeti pokemon's stomach, rolled out from the teeth just centimeters away from the trainer's face, and pooled somewhere behind Diya's stomach, which it did its best to turn into liquid.

The trainer scoffed. "You know the rules. Injuries always get checked out after an engagement, even if you're tough enough to walk them off. Because you're tough enough to walk them off, Gelera. You could have a broken leg and you wouldn't let me know."

Diya shuffled in place at the edge of the eye of the storm. It folded its gloved hands in front of itself, did its best to stay still, and waited very politely for the teacher presumably managing its battle badge test to acknowledge it.

Aside from the nightmares that haunted its mountains, Abomasnow were the most dangerous pokemon on Kenomao Island. They were a hybrid Grass/Snow pokemon which made terrifying use of their joint elemental affinities. Each summer they rooted themselves in the soil, soaking up sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into body mass and growing larger, along with Grass energy to make themselves more durable. Then each winter they came alive, focusing massive quantities of Ice through their elementally hardened forms to protect their herds of weaker snover. Every year they were stronger than the last, implacable regenerating juggernauts with all the power of an avalanche. Going by size this one, Gelera, was a century old at least.

Diya rather hoped Gelera's trainer had other pokemon for it to battle.

Eventually the trainer finished fussing over her behemoth and turned around to take stock of Diya. She evaluated the young trainer, looking them up and down. "Hm. Diya, right?"

It nodded.

"So you're the ghost trainer. It's good to finally meet you. I'm Teacher Durok. I handle training for pokemon with more physical Ice abilities so it's not surprising we haven't met." Holding up one finger, she fished out her pokedex. She peeled off a glove to type on it and a moment later there was a ping from Diya's own dex. "Ahmad gave me your number. You use text to communicate right?"

The Banette nodded. It stripped off its own gloves and pulled out its own pokedex, conjuring faerie fire in one hand to keep both warm. <I do, thank you.>

"Good. So, as you may have guessed, I'll be testing you for Ice battle proficiency. I was going to see if I could catch you unawares, but…" she looked around the snow-streaked forest, from which Madrabaz's occasional snickers still wafted forth. "You made it pretty clear you knew we were coming."

Hah. Yes. That was definitely a deliberate message Diya and its pokemon had collaboratively sent. Diya fixed a grin on its face behind its scarf - a thick blood-red one that blended with its robes in the night.

"So kid, you ready to fight?"

Diya looked over at Durok's Abomasnow. It had known not to mess with those even as a young city spirit. Instead it sent, <I was hoping not to fight.>

Durok tilted her head. "Oh?"

Diya had a hard time pinning a tone to that loaded word, but it pressed on. <I packed when we noticed Gelera's blizzard. Left when Madra identified them. I have multiple new shelters picked out.> It did its best to meet Teacher Durok's eyes when typing out its next lines. <I am also earning the survival badge. To survive, the best choice is not to fight.>

The big trainer reached up to absent-mindedly pet her hulking pokemon's arm as she read Diya's messages. When she got to the end she barked out a laugh, slapping Gelera's arm with an audible smack. "Hah! I wish half my students had your brains! If it was my choice, I'd pass you right now just for that. I'm definitely putting this in my write up." She fondly patted Gelera's arm, softer this time. "You are absolutely right. My girl here is a terror. In a real life situation, if you know there's other shelter available, leaving would be the correct survival decision. But you are seeking a battle badge, so I do need to test your battle skills."

<Against her?> Around them, just outside the clearing, thousands of tons of air and snow still surged through the trees. Narrower trees were tilting under the force of the wind and yet Gelera didn't even seem to be strained by the effort. Diya really hoped Durok had other pokemon it could challenge.

The teacher let out a throaty prideful laugh. "Yes. Against her. Don't worry, it's okay to tap out. Just show us your skills."

As irrational as it was, something about that pricked at a prideful place inside Diya it hadn't even known existed. It wasn't doing this to collect consolation prizes. The dream it was fulfilling wasn't just to fulfill a social expectation and check off a card. It was a trainer. It was going to travel all of Kenomao with its friends and prove that it and its pokemon deserved the badges of every last gym on the island.

Diya reached down to unbuckle its snowshoes. It took a step to the side, letting its feet sink into the surface of the shadows cast by its faerie fire, effectively standing on top of the snow unaided. Its eyes shone brighter and purple fires burned inside of the dim shadows they cast. <I'll fight too.>

"Oh?" This time Diya caught the tone behind Durok's comment. Respect. "You're psychic, right? Gelera is trained for human combat. Do you know how to fight trained pokemon though?"

Pokemon were all conditioned at pokecenters to not attack humans, but that conditioning could quickly enter tricky territory when a human directly attacked them. Training a pokemon to fight humans safely, whether they were wielding weapons or special abilities, was its own special conditioning regime not all pokemon received. Humans had to be careful on their end as well. Pokemon received conditioning which prevented them from escalating sparring battles too far, and humans fighting them needed to know how to keep the battle within those bounds.

Diya had to suppress a snort. <I do.> it answered. It battled alongside its pokemon more often than not. Besides, none of its pokemon had ever seen the inside of a pokeball. It had taught them sparring etiquette and restraint itself, and one had to know something to teach it.

"Good. Now this was intended to be an ambush, but you've already ruined that -well done by the way- so we might as well take a moment to go over ground rules."

Ground rules. Excellent. Ground rules were good. Diya might be feeling a little prideful and willingly entering into a battle with a monster of an Abomasnow, but it also wanted to get out of that battle with all its bones intact.

"First, you can use as many pokemon at once as you can control. No more. Second, Gelera will pull her punches, against you especially, so if she touches you you're out of the fight. Even if it's a light tap, understood?"

The arms which would be delivering those punches probably weighed more than Diya. The very mortal ghost nodded enthusiastically.

"Third, if you're out the battle is over. Fourth, you can't speak. So if you're out or want to surrender, flash that fire on and off. Fifth, aside from directions I give to Gelera, I'm not a part of this fight. It's just you, your pokemon, and Gelera. And lastly…" Teacher Durok smiled, "hit her with your best shot."

There was a second when Diya blinked, when it wasn't quite sure if that 'lastly' meant it was time to fight. Then a second of sudden sinking realization, when Diya's stomach dropped through its boots as Durok pulled a small horn from a jacket pocket and raised it to her lips. And then the horn blasted and the world stopped being individual seconds and became chaos.

Things went the way they did in practice for about a second. Go! Diya pulsed along its bonds with its pokemon, thrusting its arms forward to let Svartis out through its sleeves and calling Madrabaz to hit Gelera from behind. With a flare of will Diya also widened the shadows beneath it, turning them into a bottomless pit it could fall into and relocate from.

Then the Abomasnow roared, "BAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!", and everything went to pieces. Svartis was most of the way out of Diya's sleeves when the eye of the storm collapsed in on itself and suddenly the storm was raging all the way up to the Abomasnow's snow-covered fur. Diya was forced to abort its shadow step in a panic so it could stay with Svartis and let her take shelter under its robes, falling to the snow as its legs were thrust violently back into reality. Madra arced around the clearing to get behind their opponent and only realized too late that something had gone wrong.

The moment Diya's back hit the snow, Gelera, still roaring, swung one fist in an arc over her head as if it were a sledgehammer. She pounded the earth with the sound of an explosion and all the snow between them surged through the blizzard in a massive wave.

If Diya hadn't spent night after night jumping through the phantom world over rooftops, it never would have avoided the crushing mass of snow falling down upon it. It took that unreal step without even a second to spare. An instant later the snow's phantom shadow hit it, loose wisps of insubstantial darkness that nonetheless still had enough mass to batter it about and push it into the shadowy earth.

Diya heaved itself upright in a panic. Svartis! it called through its bond. Svartis! She could survive being buried in snow, but this fight would be as good as lost without her.

A breeze ruffled the inside of its robes. I'm here, Svartis said, you brought me along. Her presence wrapped around Diya's chest as she pulled some of the tightness from its lungs.

Okay. Okay, good. Diya just needed to take a moment and think about its next move. Svartis couldn't move independently of it so long as the Abomasnow kept the blizzard raging. That made it harder for them to do hit-and-run tactics. So how could they-

-A panicked image of trees as they rushed past, desperately weaving through them, shooting a glance behind as the juggernaut of snow and muscle smashed through those same trees. Madra wove a hex of disorientation and confusion and fired, but mist billowed from the Abomasnow's fur and swallowed the hex whole. Help! Madra wove into its memory as it screamed it out into the world. Help!-

The memory slammed into Diya and suddenly there was no time at all. Stay with me! it shouted at Svartis and threw itself through the phantom world, leaping in great bounds through the shadow-stuff of snow. Madra, turn around! it ordered.

The trickster pokemon, to its credit, knew exactly how to do that. It dove through the shadowed loop of a raised root and rocketed out of Gelera's own shadow moving the other direction at top speed. Unfortunately, to Gelera's credit, whatever senses she was tracking Madra with were sharp and she didn't miss a beat. Diya saw the great flame of her soul turn on a dime, only just missing Madra's candle flame soul with a spinning backhand.

Diya's heart skipped a beat.

A moment later Madrabaz shot past where Diya would be if it were in the physical world, with Gelera hot on its heels. At the sight of her blazing soul -stars and shadows no wonder she could move so much wind- barrelling down on Diya, its heart decided to make up for that skipped beat with a few dozen extra. The thought of what it was about to do didn't help either.

Help me out Svartis, Diya asked.

With its first pokemon at its side, Diya stepped back into the physical world right in the path of a charging Abomasnow. And neither of them moved. I hope this works, it thought.

Diya fired a shadow ball at Gelera's center of mass as Svartis scythed her legs out from under her with a hail of night shade ribbons.

Boom!

The surprised Abomasnow took the blasts without even time to flinch. She hit the snow to Diya's right in a sprawling roll, shoved sideways by the attacks' force. Diya didn't stick around to see how long she'd be down though. It ran atop its own shadow into the driving winds, as far away from her as it could get.

Even expecting it, Diya almost jumped out of its skin when Gelera proved its caution right. She'd barely come to a halt when she swept out with a paw behind them. The attack wasn't full force and missed by meters but Diya's heart didn't care. There was a giant monster behind Diya and its body wanted to be anywhere else.

Madrabaz, bless its soul, came to the rescue. It took advantage of Gelera's distraction to fly onto the back of her head, grabbing hold with its wispy little tentacles and screaming "DREEAAA!!!" as loud as it could. Gelera's head whipped around in surprise, then jerked back as memory of the last time Madrabaz had gotten the drop on her kicked in.

And then Madrabaz wove her surprise into an explosion, using her sudden realization as an extra kick to add more fire to the spell.

The Misdreavus flew into the trees howling with laughter, accompanied by Svartis' own giggles, and Diya couldn't help it. It had to laugh. Without opening its mouth, Diya channeled all of its giddy adrenaline fueled excitement into its powers the same way it would a screech. The power coursing through its veins shivered and tore holes open in the veil between worlds, showing flickers of the phantom world's dark shadows and burning purple flames. And through those rents poured laughter, loud and otherworldly.

Through one of those tears in the veil, as Diya glanced over its shoulder, it could see Gelera's bonfire soul waver.

Then mist exploded around her again, infused with her power, and she was untouchable. She stood up, a juggernaut at the center of her own literal blizzard of power, unbowed and unbroken. And through the driving snow and the mist, Diya caught a hint of sharp yellowed teeth. Gelera was smiling.

Diya stopped laughing and lunged into the phantom world. Not a moment too soon either. The shadows of a shotgun blast of snowballs tore through where Diya stood. It swallowed. In a real fight against an Abomasnow, those loose snowballs would have been thick balls of ice with sharp edges.

To make matters worse, the rapid phantom step wasn't stable and Diya stumbled involuntarily back into the physical world. Gelera almost took advantage of that, but just as she was winding up to throw another blast of snowballs Madrabaz came back around and shot a twisting snarl of shadow into the back of her head. She whirled to throw the snowballs in a broad scattershot behind her instead, driving the spirit off.

Diya breathed hard, desperately pulling in air as it tottered to its feet on soft shadows. It raised an arm to let Svartis fire a stream of night shade ribbons at Gelera, yanking her attention back from Madrabaz, and then fell through its own shadow and out another shadow behind a tree. Gelera's responding wave of snow smashed through the space it had occupied seconds later.

Diya yanked its blood-red scarf below its nose, sagging with relief as the cold air cooled it from the inside out, even as the howling wind scraped its nostrils raw. This wasn't sustainable. It and Madrabaz could draw Gelera's attention off of one another, but their pattern was predictable. Eventually she'd whirl around and catch one of them as they swooped in to save the other. They needed Svartis in play, actually out there in the forest as a skirmisher, so Gelera couldn't know who was going to cover for who and they could have moments to rest.

The blizzard needed to stop.

But Diya didn't have more than a second to pause and rest because Gelera was after Madrabaz again and Diya had to lunge into the phantom world to catch up and distract her.

There was one move which could shut down the blizzard. Spite, which Svartis had developed to shut down Greta's Dark abilities. The ghosts suffused an opponent with Ghost energy, letting it be drawn into their soul along with whatever other elemental energy they were using to fuel a power. Then they dragged that energy back out, scraping raw the pieces of their opponent's soul which managed whatever power they were using. If Diya and its pokemon could spite Gelera enough times, they could shut down her blizzard.

Except spite didn't do any damage. Every time they used it would be a moment Gelera was free to attack at will.

Gelera wound up to throw another blast of snowballs at Madrabaz and Diya shadow stepped out from behind a tree to throw off her aim, slamming a hastily put together shadow ball into her side. She spun around and swiped out with her terrifyingly long arm, sending Diya running into the forest to keep out of her reach. Madrabaz swept in from behind to hit her with a hex and only barely dodged more snowballs when her pursuit of Diya turned out to be a feint.

Svartis tried to help, hurling more night shade ribbons from the collar of Diya's robes. But Gelera knew exactly where she was, and hardened the snow on her back into ice. The ice shattered, absorbing the power of the blast, and Gelera didn't even look back.

Diya made up its mind. Spite was a risk. Keeping this up was a sure loss.

The Banette pressed itself up against a tree and took a deep breath, focusing its will. It needed something that would keep Gelera occupied long enough for them to spite her. To do that, it would have to trust Madrabaz to manage a moment longer. Diya sent a thought to Madrabaz, almost a prayer, asking the little spirit to hold out as long as it could. Then it cupped its hands in front of itself, palms up, and pressed its will down on the world.

With the snap-hiss of an acetylene torch, a point of blue fire burst into existence above its palms, hissing and wavering in the snowy gale. Diya pressed harder, pouring its focus and will into the point of fire. It burned brighter and larger, growing to the size of two clenched fists.

Not enough.

Diya's eyes glowed bright enough to make the snow sparkle pink, even through the storm, and the blue fire became a solid tangible thing. The wind didn't move it anymore, and snowflakes evaporated before ever touching it. And still Diya poured in more power. The ball of faerie fire overflowed, pouring liquid blue flame into Diya's cupped hands until they overflowed as well. Then, spilling more drips of sizzling liquid flame as it did, Diya wriggled its chin free of its blood-red scarf. Carefully, oh so carefully, it leaned down and cracked open its mouth. The Banette's vision wavered as a haze of gray smoke released from its mouth touched the fire and was devoured, sucked greedily within. In a flash the Banette's soul-stuff transformed the blue fire into the same otherworldly purple of the phantom world's flames, as mere fire became a curse.

Nausea forced Diya's eyes shut for a moment, even after it closed its mouth, and it pressed its head back against the tree behind it. Once more Madra, it asked, just one more time. Bring Gelera back this way.

Diya didn't focus on how Madrabaz managed that feat through their link. Recovering and maintaining the font of fire in its hands took too much of its attention. But the little spirit pulled through despite its exhaustion and a tattered sensation of damage Diya could sense through their bond. And it only took Diya a sliver of focus to know when Madrabaz was about to shoot past its position.

They had pulled this trick on Gelera before. Diya was sure she'd be expecting it. Which simply meant it had to hit her hard enough that forewarning didn't matter.

Diya stepped around the tree trunk, holding fire in its hands. It stared the oncoming Abomasnow in the face.

Gelera roared, the snow crusting her body already hardening into sheets of ice. She brought her arms up in front of her face, one black eye peering through the gap, and thundered forward.

Diya had compressed every gram of fire it could control into the liquid, overflowing mass it held. It had even poured its soul into it. And now the Banette unleashed its curse.

The blaze was unnaturally silent. Tree sap boiled in an instant, but the popping explosions from dozens of trees which hurled bark through the air carried no sound. Snow and ice sublimated into steam without a hiss. As the amethyst fire engulfed Gelera, her roar cut out. Even the howl of the wind died as phantom light and heat flashed through the forest.

In a space the size of a house, where there had been trees there were now only skeletons wreathed in flickering purple. The snow was gone, exposing earth charred black and coated with still burning flames. And standing in the center of it, reeling, was Gelera.

The Abomasnow was the only thing within the flames not actively burning, but even she wasn't unaffected. Mist poured from every inch of her body and edges of it burned, fire consuming even the mist. The spectral fire ate its way up the deluge of mist, and Gelera shuddered with the effort of pouring out enough to keep it from reaching her flesh. And beneath the mist were the marks of where she'd failed to protect herself in the initial blast. Both arms, much of her torso, and one leg were all charred black, oddly thin with their thick layer of snow and bristles burned away.

With a start, realizing the extent of the pokemon's wounds, Diya looked around blearily until it spotted Teacher Durok. She was almost impossible to make out, in her snow camo suit in the blizzard. But a whiff of shocked concern wafting off her was enough for Diya to look in the right direction and spot her. She stood still for a moment, watching the scene. Then the concern faded and she gestured for the battle to continue. Diya blinked at that, and then swallowed. It knew Gelera would be healed in a pokecenter after this, but could she really keep fighting like this?

Apparently she could. With a silent roar, Gelera pushed forward through the still raging fire. One step after the other, with subzero mist pouring off of her and pushing the flames back.

There was no time to wait. Spite! Spite her now! Diya shouted to its companions. It raised one arm and Gelera abruptly stopped moving. The mist contracted around her as she diverted power to forming ice armor over her body. But Diya wasn't launching that kind of attack. It reached out with its will and took control of a patch of spectral flames behind her, pulling them towards itself. The purple flames passed through her, burning at something much less physical. All three of the abilities she was powering -stars and shadows she was managing three at once- stuttered. Milky cracks appeared in the still-forming edges of Gelera's ice armor, the mist pulled in that much closer to her body, and a ripple went through the diagonally falling snow surrounding them. Gelera let out a silent huff of air, as if she'd had the breath knocked out of her.

Then Svartis reached out past Diya's hand with her own powers, investing that breath and dragging it out of Gelera. And Madrabaz seized Gelera's shock at her powers failing and dragged that from her too. Then Diya did it again, and again, each of them using their own variant of spite to scrape raw the part of Gelera's soul that was using these powers.

For a moment Gelera twitched, trying to jerk her head in two different directions at once, trails of saliva swinging from her open maw. The curse fire was beginning to die down and Diya could hear her muffled labored breaths as the mist became only a thin coating and badly cracked ice armor melted away. Even the inertia of her storm was fading away. Diya could see the animal panic of being trapped written on her face, taste it on the dying breeze. But then Durok sounded her horn.

Two short blasts and a slightly longer one shattered the silence and suddenly Gelera wasn't on the back foot anymore. Drowning amid ghostly fire, badly burned, and powers deserting her, Gelera heard her trainer's call. She stilled, animal fear melting away, and then she moved. Diya managed to lurch through the shadow of a tree beside it, falling out of another one. It made it to safety with plenty of time; the three meter juggernaut of an Abomasnow needed a moment to build steam before reaching full speed.

But then Diya went to keep moving, to spring off its own shadow atop the snow, keep its momentum going and get into position behind its opponent. And it didn't. Move, it thought, and the command never reached its legs. Diya fell out of a tree's shadow and just kept falling. The shock of snow against its cheek shot through its body, and it realized it was lying sideways in the snow.

Move, it ordered its body. I need to move!

It lifted an arm, shocked to find itself panting with the effort. It pushed its arm into the snow, strained as hard as it could … and didn't have the strength to lift itself.

The tank was empty, the well had run dry. Shadow balls, shadow jumps, phantom steps, curse fire, and spite. Diya had given everything it had.

Blessedly, Gelera seemed almost as exhausted. She barreled through the space Diya had been in and then slammed into a tree when she failed to brake in time. She grabbed the tree with both claws, holding herself upright only with its support. Green light flickered around where her fingers touched the tree and-

Diya blinked once, slowly, from its place on the ground. Green light?

The glowing green light rooted itself in the tree, winding back into Gelera's forearms, pulsing as if in time with her heartbeat. Light surged from the tree into Gelera. Pulse. Pulse. Pulse. And with each pulse, some of the charred black skin on her arms fell away. Beneath it was new skin, still black, but the shiny fresh black of healthy flesh. Thick green pine-needle bristles sprouted from the new skin with subsequent pulses. And the tree shriveled. Its bark grayed and pieces fell off with each pulse. Needles fell from above. Before long Gelera's back was straightening, and it looked as though the tree wouldn't have been able to hold her weight if she'd still been leaning on it, so shriveled and desiccated it had become.

Oh right. Abomasnow is a Grass type too. Diya's thought was resigned. It was one of the type's most famous powers, the ability to drain the lifeforce of their surroundings or their opponents to regenerate. But Diya had forgotten that, even as it overextended itself. Now Gelera would regenerate, recuperate, and win, all while Diya was still trying to get its breath back.

Stall her Madra, Diya asked weakly. It could feel its strength returning even after its curse and all its exertions. Slowly, but it was returning. If Madrabaz could only stall the Abomasnow one more time…

The Misdreavus swooped in from below, nothing more than a flickering shadow among snow-covered bushes. And a spray of dense snowballs smashed it to the ground. The trickster spirit had surprised the ancient pokemon and evaded her time after time, even when Diya couldn't help it. But Gelera had learned and Madra's luck had run out. It lay on the snowy ground, accepting the snowballs for the sharp balls of ice they represented. It was out of the battle.

Meanwhile, Gelera finished healing. She was still bare of snow and looked oddly naked with her green bristles uncovered. She was also unmarred, three meters tall, and the most terrifyingly powerful thing Diya had ever seen. Even drained of two of her defensive powers and her ability to control the weather, there was more strength in one of her arms than Diya's entire body. She casually shoved the drained tree as she turned away from it to face Diya and the tree fell over with a massive crash. Limned with an otherworldly purple light from the dying curse fire, she might as well have stepped out of a nightmare.

She stepped towards her prey.

And stopped.

Floating in between Diya and Gelera in the still air was Diya's first pokemon. Svartis' purple orb of a body was puffed up almost to the point of transparency, to make her appear as large as she could. Her eyes wavered at the edges with strain and fear.

She did not move.

There was a lump in Diya's throat. It tried to swallow past it and couldn't. It reached out to Svartis and told her it was okay. They'd lost. She didn't have to do this.

Svartis told her partner to shut the fuck up.

Shock stole any words Diya might have had.

Then Gelera moved and there was no time for words at all. She crouched, readying a charge, and Svartis unleashed everything she had. Toxic black smog poured from her mouth and buried Gelera. Ribbons of terrible phantom energy tore through the space between them, opening rifts in the smog and blasting furrows in exposed flesh beneath. Svartis deflated as she filled the air with all the death she had inside her.

Gelera lurched out of the smog. She coughed smoke out from her lungs, staggered under the onslaught of ghostly attacks. But she did not fall. She raised one thick arm to protect her eyes and pushed forward.

Svartis inflated herself again with a deep breath, and vomited forth more black smog. Diya could hear the wheeze in Gelera's lungs now, but still the Abomasnow pressed on. Svartis peppered her with more night shade ribbons, but that was all they seemed to do. Pepper her.

"Gaaaaa!" With a squeaking roar, Svartis flew straight at Gelera. She swooped under a wild haymaker and then darted up. The Gastly extended her pink tongue as far and wide as she could, licking all the way up Gelera's chest and face. And into her ghostly saliva she fed all of her memories of being an envenomed Snom, paralyzed and unable to move. The icy memories of what it was like to not even control her own body as she died, with none of the warmth Diya's presence had brought her.

With its pink eyes, Diya watched its protector battle a titan. Straining, it caught a glimpse beyond the veil, of black tendrils painstakingly forcing their way into the raging bonfire that was Gelera's soul. It saw them twine around and into and through her limbs, doing their best to bind them.

It saw all of Svartis' efforts fail to be enough.

With a cough, and then a growl, and then a roar, Gelera pushed through. One step after another, until she was bare meters from Diya's fallen form. Because for all of Svartis' determination and fury and love, what was she in the end? Gelera was a century old Abomasnow, the strongest thing Kenomao's forests had to offer. Svartis was only a Gastly, a lesser spirit born of a lesser bug that formed the bottom of the forest's food web.

This was not a fight a lesser spirit could win.

So.

Svartis would just have to be more than a lesser spirit.

With only a few steps left before Gelera would be able to reach out and crush Diya beneath her paws, Svartis drew in a breath and screamed.

"ggggGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

Svartis had been born small. She had been born afraid.

Svartis had died small. She had not died afraid. The reason for that was lying behind her, and she would die again before Gelera laid one claw on its body.

Svartis shoved herself against Gelera's chest with what little force her half-corporeal body could muster. She wrapped smoke around Gelera's limbs to hold them. She lengthened her tongue until it wrapped all the way around the giant's neck and choked her. And through it all, Svartis screamed.

"GGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!"

There was a flash of purple light.

Where there had been a soft round ball of gas was a larger spiky head. Where smoke had wrapped around thick arms there were two clawed hands floating independently, gripping hard enough to draw blood. As a Gastly Svartis' mouth had been a soft slash with two cute little fangs. As a Haunter she sunk two rows of jagged teeth into the fur of her foe's throat, and Svartis' tongue extended past them to wrap three times around her neck.

Gelera. Stopped.

From where it was still lying on the ground, Diya could see the strain in the Abomasnow's muscles as she raged against her paralysis. But it could also see that same strain in Svartis' new form. Even evolved -evolved! Diya poured every drop of pride and love it had through their bond- the Haunter could only hold such a monster for so long.

But she had held for long enough.

It wasn't quick and it wasn't painless, but Diya raised its head from the snow. It lifted its torso with its arms and got its legs beneath it. And it stood. It swayed on its feet. It was far from steady. But right now, for Svartis? It would lift a mountain.

Energy poured into Diya's open hand, black and purple shadows draining out of the phantom world into a space it carved out with its will. The shadow ball fluttered and shrieked as it formed, as Diya fed it every drop of power it could hold. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. Diya did it anyway.

Diya held up the trembling hand which held the shadow ball up to Gelera's chest. In its mind it whispered to Svartis. Move. Now.

The Haunter exploded off of her opponent into a flurry of gas. The Abomasnow lurched into motion. And Diya's shadow ball hit her square in the chest.

BOOM!

The force of the blast picked Gelera up like a ragdoll and smashed her through a tree.

The Banette sagged. That was the strongest shadow ball it had ever created. Svartis hovered next to her partner, equally exhausted from the greatest working she'd ever done as well. If that didn't do it…

Gelera got back up.

She swayed. She stood hunched over. One paw was pressed to her sternum. The other massaged her throat. She wheezed with every breath and every breath pained her. Still, she was standing.

Across from her, Diya considered it a minor miracle that it was still on its feet. Honestly, it wasn't sure how much longer it could keep that up. But shadows take it, it was damn well not going to collapse before she did. It raised its hand for one more shadow ball.

Four short blasts on a horn split the tension between them. Diya only just managed to focus on Trainer Durok as she stepped between them. Behind her, it caught the blurry sight of Gelera letting herself slump to the ground.

Doing brain things was a little hard at the moment, so Diya had trouble interpreting the expression on Durok's face. But it thought the sentiment behind, "Holy mother of earth, kid. Good job," was easy enough to understand.

It fished for its pokedex, fumbling a couple times before one of Svartis' new hands -whoa she had hands now- pressed the dex into its grip. <Ddd dud did i win?> It was still trying to fumble out a correction, <we win?>, when Durok laughed incredulously.

"Hahahaha, holy shit are you kidding? Kid, Diya, this isn't a fight you're supposed to win! You get the ice battle badge so long as you don't freeze and show some basic ability to command and defend with your pokemon while Gelera's barreling down at you. You passed the test way back when you and your spirits started laughing!"

Exhausted humor trickled into Diya's awareness from Madrabaz, paired with an image of exactly how gobsmacked its expression was. The bruised spirit -insofar as a Misdreavus could be bruised- drifted over to Diya and Svartis, radiating admiration for its friend's new form.

Durok rubbed the bridge of her nose with two gloved fingers. "Stone preserve me, I thought you were a sensible one when you asked if you could avoid the fight."

Oh. Well that was interesting. Did that mean Diya didn't have to be standing anymore? It hoped so, because it was going to stop standing now. It sat down with a flumph in the snow.

"Oh! Shoot, hey just give me a moment kid, I'll deploy my camp for you. You're not in any shape to go anywhere right now."

Diya nodded gratefully. That sounded good right about now.

"And don't worry, it won't count against your survival badge. You said you'd rather run than fight, so you don't get dinged for fighting to exhaustion and needing to use my camp."

Huh. Diya hadn't even thought to worry about that until Durok had mentioned it. That was nice of her to reassure it, though.

Minutes blurred by. Red lights flashed from storage balls and two tents appeared facing a roaring campfire. Gelera drained the tree she'd been flung through and stood up again, though only long enough to find a more comfortable position to slump down.

It was with brisk efficiency that Diya found itself bundled into a warm tent. It had the presence of mind to summon its sleeping bag, along with the stuffed Piplup inside it, but that was about it. Moments later it found itself bundled into the sleeping bag alongside the Piplup, with Svartis and Madrabaz each taking up part of Diya's pillow. Svartis was larger than Diya's head now though, and she spilled over her part of the pillow to rest on top of Diya's head.

Diya's eyes had already closed, but it was still awake enough to hear Durok's parting words. "Mid-battle evolution huh? I've never seen anything like that."

The Banette made a small hum of agreement. Svartis was special.

The teacher's voice became soft. "Your pokemon really love you, kid. You know that, right?"

Diya nodded. They did.

It loved them too.

"Sweet dreams."

They were.

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