I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this extra-long chapter of Backslash. There's things I definitely feel could be better, but... well, we'll see how it goes.
Backslash (Beta) - 5 (
Hyphen/A Backwards Grin)
Tear-out
Mawile
I don't know exactly how long we run for before the flood of maddening, irrational terror wears off. I just know that by the time we stop, we've somehow ended up next to a familiar river, though it's at least not any part of it that I immediately recognize.
Thankfully, the Stantler were apparently satisfied with just driving us back into the forest rather than actively hunting us down, meaning that when Astra and I finally chance looking back the way we came, there's no herd of terror deer in sight. Sighing in relief, the two of us near-simultaneously collapse to our knees.
"What in the world was
that?!" Astra cries, her telepathic voice unaffected by the exertion she just put herself through.
"I think... I just got a taste... of my own medicine." I reply, barely able to speak past my own gasping breaths. "Or rather,
we did... several times over... all at once."
It is no longer at
all a wonder to me that other Pokemon have been running away from me for the past week. Even just a fraction of that aura would probably have had me scared to get anywhere near, regardless of how relatively harmless Stantler physically appear to be... though, since those jackass deer are evidently most of the reason I'm even still
in this stupid forest, it turns out appearances are a pretty terrible metric to work off of anyways. Suppose I should have known that already, given that Mawile are all but the literal avatar of the idea that appearances can be deceiving, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant a revelation.
The two of us recuperate in silence for a minute or two, just getting our breath back. Absurdly, the thought that primarily dominates my mind while doing so is that I didn't know I could still move that fast; in spite of being less than half her height, I actually managed to keep up with Astra decently well. Although, whether that says more about my physical capabilities or hers, I'm not entirely sure.
"Hey," I say, finally starting to get my breathing under control again, "I'm, uh... sorry about, you know... getting trapped in an illusion and almost attacking you."
It seriously felt like I was in a living nightmare for a bit there. Stupid, thrice-damned,
absolutely Psychic-type deer.
"I forgive you." Astra replies, more easily than I'd expected. "It wasn't your fault. Let's... try to avoid repeating that in the future though."
Yeah, no kidding.
I stand back up, with Astra doing the same a few seconds later.
"Okay..." I say slowly, beginning to pace back and forth along the riverbank. "So, clearly getting out of here isn't going to be as simple as we hoped. I think we can agree that trying to just force our way through the Stantler blockade is a bad idea, right?"
Astra visibly shudders. "Definitely. I
never want to feel like that again."
"Same." I agree, nodding my head. "In that case though, we're either going to have to be clever about this, or find an alternative route."
Not that any such route has worked for
me in the past, but we have to try.
"Hmm... you mentioned seeing rock walls in the distance earlier, right?" I ask. "Think we could get on top of one of them?"
Seeing as they're deer, not goats, I doubt that the Stantler would be able to follow us upwards all that easily, and with a high enough vantage point, maybe we could-
"I don't think so." Astra replies, interrupting my still-forming thought process. "From what I saw, they looked way too steep to climb. They were really more like cliffs, honestly."
I stop in my tracks and stare up at her. "Wha-
cliffs?"
That's a
bit of a step up from the kind of rock formations I thought she was describing earlier. Are we operating off the same definition of what a cliff is? Because if so, then even accounting for my minuscule height, the ever-present cover of the treetops, and my apparently being repeatedly given the illusory runaround, how the hell did I never even so much as
glimpse something as large as-
My eyes widen in sudden realization. Wait a second. Cliffs... Treecko's bizarre word salad statement of "Canyon trees in the"... if that wasn't actually just a weird translation failure, was he trying to say that this forest is at the bottom of a literal
canyon?! In which case, "way through isn't one more"... that must have actually meant-
"Only one way out." I mutter under my breath.
Shit.
"Um, is everything okay?" Astra asks, concerned. "It feels like you just found out you got picked for compost duty."
I sigh as I turn to face her. "I'm fine. It's just that I think I finally figured out what Treecko was trying to say-"
Wait, oh no, Treecko!
"You did get Treecko out of there, right?!" I ask, not a little frantically.
"Wha- oh! Yes, he's safe." Astra quickly assures me. "He got hypnotized by the Stantler too, so I recalled him. That was before I snapped you out of that illusion though, so I guess you didn't see."
I let out another sigh, this one of relief. "Right, should have figured... sorry, panicked for a second there."
"That's a thought though." Astra suddenly says, raising a hand to her chin. "This forest is home to a lot of other Pokemon, right? And you said every Pokemon can- that they're intelligent like us, right? Surely they can't be okay with what the Stantler are doing. Maybe we could ask for their help?"
I consider it for a moment, then shake my head.
"That could maybe work, if not for the fact that
I'm involved." I say. "I don't know if I exactly have a 'reputation', since no one would even talk to me, but based on
why that apparently was, I'd hazard a guess that I'm not exactly well liked around here. Especially given I've... you know, kind of had to find what food I can, where I can."
Astra shifts and glances away at the reminder of how we met all of a couple hours ago, and I wince. Really wish this didn't keep coming up.
"Besides," I continue, pushing through the awkwardness. "I'm pretty sure the Stantler are basically just doing the same thing I've unknowingly been doing for the past week, and most of the time that just resulted in any other Pokemon I tried to talk to fleeing on sight. So even if any of them agreed to help, I doubt they'd withstand that fear aura much better than we did."
"Right..." Astra frowns, crossing her arms. "Well, maybe we can sneak past the Stantler then? I can sense nearby minds even without seeing them, so we might be able to just avoid them entirely if we're careful."
"I'd agree, if we weren't apparently in a
canyon." I immediately reply. "If there's only one way out of here, they aren't going to need to cover much ground to completely wall us off."
Astra blinks. "What?"
I relate my new understanding of Treecko's earlier "explanation" to her, followed by the conclusion I've come to as a result.
"...oh." Astra mumbles. "Well then... hmm..."
She frowns, her brow slanting downward in apparent frustration — not that she's the only one who's frustrated right now. Come on, think! We're being barricaded in this forest by a bunch of dirtbag deer who might not actually be all that strong, but can cast highly realistic illusions on anyone who looks at them, and make themselves feel like the most terrifying thing on the planet when grouped together. We're also
apparently surrounded by cliff walls on at least two, probably three sides, so we can't just pick a different direction and run that way as fast as possible. Our resources consist of Astra and all her various psychic powers, me with all my significantly less impressive
non-psychic powers, a Treecko, a Marill, and a Slakoth of mostly unknown ability, everything in Astra's bag, and whatever she has in that giant case she carries around...
I pause.
"Er, Astra? What
is that thing on your back, anyways?"
I meant to ask about it earlier, but it slipped my mind. Admittedly, right now probably isn't the best time to be remedying that, but if it's something that could help us, I'd feel stupid for not doing so.
"Oh, this?" Astra replies, glancing over her shoulder at the oddly-shaped case. "It's my violin."
That throws me a little.
"Your- what?" I ask, unable to stop myself from inquiring further. "Why do you have a violin?"
"Because I enjoy playing it?" Astra says simply. "Also, I use targeted telepathy to direct my Pokemon in battle, but I guess not
sounding like you're giving them any instruction is considered weird? So to avoid questions, I've been playing it during trainer battles, and just telling anyone who asks that I'm commanding my Pokemon through the music."
"...huh." I say, tilting my head slightly to the side. "Okay. Neat."
Part of me also wants to ask
how she managed to both purchase and learn to play an instrument as complicated as a violin, especially given that she has even less fingers than I do right now, but in the interest of getting back on topic, I manage to refrain this time.
"Setting that aside, what about the stuff in your bag?" I continue, examining the pack speculatively. Is… is it made of
grass? "Anything you think might be useful?"
Astra shakes her head. "Not for this situation. I have a couple of Poke Balls, a TM for Rock Tomb, a jar of Leppa Berries, and a few other general use items, but nothing I imagine could really help us right now."
She pauses.
"Except..."
"Except what?" I prompt when she doesn't immediately continue.
Rather than answer verbally, Astra kneels down in the grass and opens up the bag in question. After rummaging around in it for a couple of seconds, she slowly, carefully pulls out a large wooden box with a rather elaborate latch on one side.
I shiver, suddenly a bit cold for some reason.
"My Grandpa gave me this the night before I set out." Astra explains. "He said to only use it in a major emergency, and... well, if this doesn't qualify, I don't know what would."
She unlatches and opens the box, revealing a bundle of cloth draped over something spherical, about half a foot in diameter. I find myself drawing back from it slightly, unnerved for a reason I can't explain, and a little unsure if my eyes are playing tricks on me. Something about the light surrounding the cloth seems
wrong, looking inexplicably darker than it should be, but why-
Astra removes the cloth, and my eyes go wide.
"What the hell is
that?" I say without thinking, flinching back from the black-and-purple sphere that's now been exposed to the light of day.
"No one is really sure." Astra rather cryptically replies. "The Ancestor didn't leave behind any sort of explanation."
"...who?"
"Oh- the Gardevoir who founded my village." Astra elaborates. "Apparently she was really,
really strong, and lived with humanity a long time ago, but then was... crippled, somehow, and decided to gather everyone of our kind in Hoenn together and hide us away. According to Grandpa, one day she just... vanished, and this orb was all she left behind. I've never used it before, but from what Grandpa told me, it can transfer a huge amount of energy to whoever holds it, giving them a major boost in power... maybe enough to get us past those Stantler?"
Taking a moment to process that explanation, I nervously glance back at the orb again. If I was judging it by looks alone, I'd be tempted to think it's some sort of oversized mega stone, especially given the prominent, albeit alarmingly
veiny-looking DNA helix at its center. However... given the way Astra just described it, the region she apparently came here from, and its rather concerning "aesthetic", I'm actually more inclined to compare it to the Red and Blue Orbs, AKA Hoenn's Artifacts of Doom, which were bad news in literally
every continuity I recall them being mentioned in. Between that, Astra's apparent trepidation at the idea of using it, and the fact that it looks like it's all but
eating the light around it, I am getting a really,
really bad feeling about this thing. Not to mention the orb is
cracked, so even if it doesn't have some sort of inherent corruptive or mind control effect, trying to use it still might cause it to literally blow up in our faces.
"Do you actually trust this thing?" I ask, not bothering to hide my own reticence.
"Absolutely not." Astra immediately replies, glaring at the unsettling sphere. "Everything Grandpa told me about this orb made it clear that it's incredibly dangerous, and I don't really even know how to use it. Apparently he and some other Kirlia could use it fine, but the one time we actually
needed to, it...worked a bit too well."
Her face falls for a moment, before returning to sullen annoyance. "Not to mention it's my best guess as to why I've been having these weird visions..."
Visions? What- no, shelve that topic for later.
"Still," Astra continues, her tone serious, "I think it might be necessary. As much as I'd like to go without, I don't think we can face those Stantler without having
something up our sleeve, and with what you've said, I'm not really seeing any other way out of this."
...she does have a point. We
are in a pretty tight spot right now, and this very well might be our only feasible option. In which case... well, it's not like the Red and Blue Orbs were
inherently bad, right? They just really didn't like being "mismatched", and even if this one works similarly, it was apparently originally connected to a Gardevoir, so there shouldn't be a species conflict or anything. Plus, even if Astra isn't exactly a typical example of her species, I can't really imagine that Kirlia have some sort of secret primal reversion state I'd need to be concerned about.
Still...
"Let's... call that Plan B, maybe?" I suggest. "We can keep the orb on hand as a fallback option, but I'm sure there's
something else we can try first."
Astra gives the orb another lingering look, then nods. "Fine with me. I'd rather not use this if I don't absolutely have to... I suppose I should leave it out of the box for now though."
Bundling the orb back up in the cloth it was hidden under, Astra separately places both it and the box it came from back in her bag. Meanwhile, I turn my thoughts inward again, still grasping for some small vestige of an alternative plan. Ergh, if only Astra had been a trainer for a little longer... TMs apparently exist in her world, so HMs probably do as well, meaning she'd undoubtedly have caught a decently large Flying-type at
some point along the way simply for ease of transportation, which in turn would have made getting out of here incredibly easy-
Wait... hang on. Come to think of it, Astra probably wouldn't have bothered catching a Flying-type, at least not just for getting around. She wouldn't need one, because-
I lower my face into my hands.
"I said it before, but allow me to reiterate — I'm an
idiot."
"Huh?" Astra says, taken aback by my sudden self-deprecation. "No you're not!"
"Yes I am." I reply flatly, my words rather muffled from my face-full of palm. "We're not trapped here, or trapped anywhere for that matter, because there is literally nowhere that you, personally, are incapable of getting out of."
Astra squints at me, tilting her head in confusion. "I'm... not following."
"You know how you said 'maybe later' earlier?" I ask, looking up at the psychic. "Turns out, later is now."
Astra blinks. "Wait, you want me to- look, I'd love to just pop us out of here, but like I said before, I still don't know how to teleport! Not very
well, at least! I told you, I haven't had any practice yet!"
"Well, now's the time to make up for that then." I reply, gesturing back to her bag. "The Stantler only followed us so far in, and you said you've got Leppa berries, right? If those work the way I think they do, then practicing it shouldn't run any risk of... erm, 'power exhaustion', I guess."
Or whatever actual Pokemon call running out of PP.
"You mean psychic fatigue? I… well, you're not wrong." Astra admits, looking a bit more thoughtful now. "But even if I figure it out instantly, I'd still need a destination; I can't just pop over to 'outside the forest' if I haven't already been there before. The best I'd probably be able to manage right now is like, small, line-of-sight hops."
"Line-of-sight range should still be
more than enough." I point out. "Hell, you could probably just climb a tree and port us straight across the canopy — even if it's not instantaneous, it should still keep the Stantler from following us, assuming they even manage to spot you up there to begin with. Even better if you can get us on top of one of the canyon walls; there's basically
no chance they'd be able to follow us up there if they're as tall as you implied."
Seriously, teleportation is such a ridiculous advantage maneuverability-wise that by all rights it should have been the first thing I thought of. In fact, it
was the first thing I thought of, before we even knew that the Stantler were an issue. How did we go through like, four or five other ideas before getting back here?
"Well... alright, I'll try." Astra says, capitulating. "Give me a moment?"
I step back as she sets her bag down for the moment, then starts floating a couple small pebbles off the ground for some reason. A moment later however, she frowns and lets them drop, then turns to look at a nearby tree, maybe three meters away from her.
"Okay." she mutters, her voice seeming quiet despite originating in my head. "Here goes..."
She remains silent for the next few seconds, undoubtedly doing some sort of psychic calculation or measurement that I'm not qualified to truly comprehend, then slowly closes her eyes. I'm tempted to call out some kind of encouragement, but as this process presumably takes concentration, I wouldn't want to distract-
I lose my train of thought as Astra suddenly blurs, vanishes, and—
Space is not empty.
Nor is it whole.
Jagged light fills the hollow
From seams and tears wrought from uncaring gods
See the dancing flame at the edge of existence
And know that none would care to stamp it out.
...
Twice now has the world been set adrift.
Paths and plans again shattered and reforged.
And yet, a new canvas appears.
Already scarred, yet ripe for the hands of an artist.
...
I wonder which will be the first to break?
—reappears roughly a foot away from the tree she was previously staring at, leaving a muted clap of air in her wake. A moment later, she opens her eyes, perks up, and whirls around with a massive grin on her face.
"I did it!" Astra cheers, throwing up her arms in celebration.
"Congrats." I say, smiling. "I knew you could."
I mean, I literally saw her do it earlier on instinct alone, so of course she could, but I'm not going to spoil the moment for her.
"Hold on," Astra says, "let me just..."
She focuses for a moment, then vanishes again, this time reappearing at a tree about five meters away. Then again, ten meters away. She does this several times in succession, each teleport crossing progressively more and more distance, until I spot the Kirlia abruptly appear
across the river- and then she pops out, and back into existence directly in front of me.
"
Yes!" Astra exclaims, looking the happiest I've seen her so far. "Wow, that actually was a lot more-
erk..."
She wobbles unsteadily on her feet for a moment, one hand clutching at the top of her head.
"B-berries..." she whimpers.
Quickly getting the idea, I scamper over to her bag, rooting around in it until I come up with a small jar of roughly cherry-sized red and yellow fruits. I pass it to Astra, who opens it and quickly devours a couple of the berries within, the tension almost instantly leaving her body as she does so. Wow, those work fast.
"Okay, I'm good now, I think." she says, sighing in apparent relief. "I guess I should be more careful about how quickly I do those in succession."
She looks back up at me, grinning again. "You're right though, this might work! It's tiring, but not nearly as tough as I expected. Heh, actually, maybe I shouldn't be surprised; Grandpa is the best teleporter we have, and he's
my Grandpa! Of course I'd be good at it. Anyway, like you said, if I can blink across the treetops, then the Stantler shouldn't be able to-"
The Kirlia's cheer abruptly fades. "Wait... that'll work for me, but what about you? Bringing others along is way more advanced than just teleporting yourself, and you're not a Psychic-type, so I'm not even sure how
safe it would be."
"No worries." I reply, waving off her concerns. "Pokemon are hard, but I'm guessing objects aren't, right? Just put me back in the Poke Ball, and it should be fine."
Astra blinks, seeming surprised by my suggestion. "I thought you said-"
"Yeah, I know what I said." I interrupt. "Given the circumstances however, I'm more than willing to make an exception."
Honestly, being inside a Poke Ball wasn't even
that bad. Just kind of odd, really — a bit like being shrunk and shoved into a tiny, spherical hotel room, albeit one I'm forced to curl up in. It was comfy enough, and I could even still see and hear outside, sort of. My main objection is really just to potentially being
stuck in the ball for extended periods of time without the option of leaving it on my own, not the concept in and of itself.
"Are you sure?" Astra asks, even as she fishes my ball back out from under her robe.
I nod. "I trust you to let me back out once we're safe. You ready?"
It takes her a moment, but Astra nods.
"Ready."
Holding the Poke Ball out towards me, she presses the button on the front, and I vanish in a beam of red light.
Astra
Astra tucked Mawile's ball away, smiling to herself.
As it turned out, directed teleportation really wasn't anywhere near as tricky as she'd imagined it to be. It was tiring, to be sure, but not actually
hard, at least not now that she'd evolved. Maybe if she was teleporting to some
one it would be more of a challenge, and jumping longer distances would undoubtedly be a quick route to a bad migraine, but for destinations she could see directly, weren't moving, and were practically only a stone's throw away? Stamina seemed like the only real issue, at least thus far.
After doing a couple more sample jumps with all her stuff on this time, just to make sure she wasn't going to accidentally leave anything behind, Astra decided that was probably as much practice as she could risk without running down her supplies. Gulping down a few more Leppa berries, she tucked the jar back into her bag, then hefted it onto her side and readied herself.
She sure hoped this worked...
Wanting to conserve as much energy as possible, Astra elected to climb the first tree on the "route" manually. It only took her a minute or so to reach the top, which would have been a record when she was still a Ralts — the additional foot of height she'd recently gained was a major help, and the extra finger she now had on each hand certainly didn't hurt either. Being able to grab things this easily was so
nice!
Clinging to the tree's topmost branch, she took a moment to look around. The cliffs, or rather, canyon walls — not that Astra had really known what a "canyon" was prior to Mawile explaining it — loomed large over the forest, towering at least twice, maybe even thrice as high as the treetops proper. When she'd seen them before, she'd mostly just found them annoying in how they kept her from seeing anything beyond them, but now...
Astra grinned. Now, they represented a way out of this mess. She hadn't been sure about it before, but now that she'd gotten some practice in, she was pretty sure that as long as she could see and visualize where she wanted to
land, she could teleport just about anywhere. Though, if she wanted to not immediately pass out at the other end, she'd still probably need to get a little closer first.
Her eyes roamed around until they caught upon a small plateau sticking out of one of the cliff walls in the distance, more than large enough to land on. Perfect — if she was really going to try to get on top of the canyon, that would be an excellent midway jumping point. She could do this!
Gathering her concentration, Astra focused on a treetop a fair ways in the distance, concentrated, and—
*pop!*
—found herself atop its highest branch. She wheeled for a moment, the branch in question being rather narrow — but, now that she was a Kirlia, re-balancing seemed to come almost naturally. Smiling as she steadied herself, Astra turned to the next tree.
Several hops later, the plateau was looking much, much closer, and Astra was feeling good, having neither seen nor sensed any sign of the Stantler yet. She'd already crossed what had to be a good quarter of the forest, and it was only a couple more jumps to go!
She teleported again, reappearing atop a tree with wide, spreading branches that looked perfectly suited for purchase-
And immediately began to plummet, her feet failing to catch on anything at all. What-?!
Screaming in surprise as the ground came rushing up to meet her, Astra quickly yanked her arms downwards and let out a pulse of unfocused psychic force, the energy impacting the grass below just a split second before-
!-!-WHUMPF-!-!
-
she did.
A few moments later, groaning in pain, Astra rolled over onto her side.
Well, it could have been worse... her psychic pulse hadn't done much to actually cushion her fall as she'd hoped, but it had at least pushed her into a position where she hadn't landed on her head. Why had she fallen through that branch in the first place though? It wasn't like it had snapped beneath her, she'd somehow just fallen straight through it, like it wasn't even-
Astra's neck snapped up as she realized that she was now sitting directly in the center of a number of similar, familiar life signatures — ones which were actively closing in on her even now.
She scrambled to her feet, just in time to see over
twenty separate Stantler emerging from the surrounding forest — or rather, from the air, as a number of the surrounding trees abruptly wavered out of existence, revealing Astra to actually be standing in the middle of a clearing. But how?! She would have noticed any illusion placed directly on-
Astra's eyes widened as she realized what must have happened — the Stantler hadn't caught
her in an illusion, they had laid an illusion over the
area itself. And because she had been basing her jumps off of line of sight, she had teleported directly into their midst, possibly- no,
undoubtedly just as planned. Damn it!
Her eyes flickered from side to side as the Stantler continued to tighten their circle. They weren't emitting their terror aura yet, and their horns couldn't make her dizzy as long as she didn't look at them, but they already had her boxed in. She could still teleport out, but they were definitely fast enough to catch up again if she didn't put a
lot of distance between them...
Astra's gaze turned back to the edge of the plateau, still visible from here owing to the recently-vanished tree cover. It was probably still too far away to safely jump to — it was
certainly a greater distance than the one she made across the river — but she didn't have much choice. She'd undoubtedly end up with a splitting migraine coming out the other end, but if she could just buy a bit of time, and get a few moments to concentrate...
A Stantler abruptly stepped forward from the rest of the herd. Not the same one from before, Astra silently noted — this one looked older, with grayer fur than the other Stantler, as well as considerably larger antlers, and what looked like the beginnings of a small mane beneath its neck. Astra even thought she could detect a bit of genuine psychic power lurking beneath this particular Stantler's surface, making her even warier. Their leader...?
"My apologies, young lady," the Stantler in question spoke, his deep voice seeming further wizened by age. "But I'm afraid I'll need you to hand over the creature you have in that ball under your robe."
Astra bit back a curse. They already knew where Mawile was... but she had no choice now but to stand her ground.
"Not going to happen." she replied, half her attention still on setting up her impending teleport. "Like I'd ever hand her over to jerks like you, just so you can have fun repeatedly screwing with her sense of direction."
The Stantler leader ruefully shook his head.
"It seems one of the younger members of my herd has given you the wrong impression." he sighed. "True, we enjoy such pranks, but that is hardly the primary reason we wish to curb the movements of that unnatural
thing."
Astra recoiled a little, taken aback by the sudden vehemence in the Stantler's voice, before anger caused her to rally again.
"Why do you keep calling her a 'thing'?" she demanded in the psychic version of a growl. "She's my friend! And what do you mean 'unnatural'?"
"Your
friend?" the Stantler incredulously repeated. "My dear, have you truly not realized?"
Just a little longer; she almost had it-!
"Whatever that creature is, it is
not a Pokemon."
Astra's concentration faltered.
What...?
"It certainly
looks like one, yes," the Stantler elaborated, "but that is mere surface appearance. The slightest glance beneath the surface will reveal there is something fundamentally
wrong with it; foreign in a way that defies description. Surely, as a psychic, you sensed as much yourself?"
"...I don't make a habit of poking around people's heads." Astra replied, unable to help herself, even as she privately cursed herself for letting her attention waver.
The Stantler snorted. "Unwise of you. You cannot know your enemies if you are unwilling to take such a basic step. Regardless, the creature should count itself lucky we have merely chosen to
contain its existence, rather than to stamp it out entirely. Its savagery alone would be cause enough to justify such."
Beneath her cloak, Astra felt Mawile's Poke Ball begin rocking back and forth.
"That is hardly the
only reason for our precautions, however." the Stantler continued, sending a tangible ripple of unease through the rest of the herd. "Even more than how dangerous it is on a personal level, it is also unnatural to the world
at large. We know this, for its arrival in this forest several days ago was accompanied by an immense distortion in the fabric of space, making its presence here a transgression upon reality itself... something it apparently saw fit to repeat this morning, in fact."
Astra's eyes widened. A distortion in space? Wait, had the Stantler somehow sensed-
A small psychic pulse suddenly ran through her, surprise leading Astra to fail to block it. As it passed through her body, she felt as though she was somehow being seen through; scrutinized on some undetectable level... and at the same time, the lead Stantler suddenly squinted at her, causing a sudden shiver to run down her spine.
"Wait..." the Stantler spoke in a low voice. "Now that I look...
you don't feel like you belong to this world either."
Uh oh.
"Well, I suppose that makes sense then." the Stantler noted, his tone growing harsher. "Nothing
else would willingly partner with that twisted beast, after all."
Astra tried not to swallow.
"Look," she started, her voice firm, "you've got the wrong idea. Mawile and I aren't actually-"
The world abruptly seemed to tilt on its axis, causing Astra to stumble in place. When she looked back up, she found herself now standing in a massive desert, the sand beneath her feet rapidly giving way.
Though her first instinct was to panic, Astra quickly calmed — while her eyes told her that she was currently sinking into an endless sea of sand, her psychic senses informed her otherwise. She was still standing exactly where she had been a moment ago, surrounded by the Stantler's life signatures — this was just an illusion, if a more powerful one than expected. She wouldn't be fooled by this.
Mentally grasping for the threads of the illusion invading her mind, she quickly located and began unraveling them, teasing them apart until they came completely undone. A moment later, the world wavered and collapsed back into normality.
...and there was a Stantler reared up in front of her, its front hooves mid-way through the motion of kicking her in the chest.
All of the air in Astra's lungs evacuated from them in a single moment as she went flying backwards from the impact. As she crashed to the ground, so too did Mawile's Poke Ball, flying free of her cloak and splitting back open in a burst of white light.
"
There you are." the Stantler who had kicked her growled.
"Yeah, here I am, you
assholes!" Mawile screeched as she reformed, immediately spinning on one foot and sending forth a gust of sparkling pink wind. Washing over the entire herd, the seemingly-harmless breeze began to snap against their hides, causing many of the Stantler to let out brays of pain.
"I heard you in there, and you can take your stupid suspicions and
shove them!" Mawile continued shouting as Astra scrambled back to her feet, desperately taking in air. "I didn't
want to be here! I didn't want to be
this! And the only reason I've been reduced to 'savagery' of late is apparently because of YOU!!!"
Mawile split her maw open and
glared. The Stantler who'd attacked Astra scrambled backwards, and even the surrounding ones began to rear up and back away, flashes of terror crossing their faces as their enclosing ring began to fall apart-
"
Calm."
As their leader's pronouncement rippled out over the clearing, the herd stilled. Ceasing their backwards motion, they steadily closed in again.
…and then, one by one, their
own fear-inducing auras began to reemerge. Astra's breath briefly seized at the return of the literally horrifying pressure, while Mawile, still bearing the brunt of the herd's attention, seemed to almost violently choke. The smaller Pokemon's own fear aura sputtered out as she wordlessly collapsed to her knees, breathless whimpers the only thing now making it out of her throat. No-!
With their primary target incapacitated, the Stantler collectively turned to Astra. Terrified, but still standing, she shakily formed an orb of psychic energy in one hand, holding it out at the surrounding Pokemon like a ward.
"S-stay back!" she cried, words faltering as even basic telepathy began to fail her, the all-encompassing cloud of dread making any sort of concentration nigh-impossible. "Don't c-come any closer-!"
Unfazed, the Stantler began to stalk forward, the weight of their presence only climbing higher as their ring continued to shrink inwards. Astra quickly squeezed her eyes shut, but still she felt the panic creeping in, the life signatures in her mind's eye now looming over her like ever-growing monsters.
"I apologize," she heard the herd leader speak from her right, "but I'm afraid you don't get to simply
run this time
..."
The fear in her mind crescendoed, and rational thought left her completely.
"G-get away, get away get away get AWAY-!!!"
Astra's free arm dove down into her bag as though of its own accord, desperately questing for the only thing that could save her now, all former reservations dashed in the face of the mind-melting terror now running through her brain-
Her hand touched crystal, her mind burrowed further, and in an instant, the fear was gone. Vanished, as though it had never even been.
And in the void left behind, gorging on a torrent of raw, unfiltered
power, was a pitch-dark, all-consuming
rage.
Mawile
I realize that something has changed the moment the crushing aura of fear abruptly seems to evaporate off of me, and I hear Astra suddenly make a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sigh.
As my brain attempts to reboot, having previously all but blacked out from the sheer fear flowing through me, I realize that the Stantler must have just turned their attention to Astra. When I finally manage to look up however, I realize that while that much is true, it's apparently not why she gasped.
That was due to the sudden haze of violet mist that's rapidly creeping over her arm...
And the cracked, dark purple orb now clutched tightly in the hand attached to it.
"U-um... As... tra...?" I stutter, pushing myself back up on still-shaking legs.
Astra just starts cackling in response, laughing both telepathically
and from her actual mouth, her already-dual voice gaining an eerie resonance in the process. Meanwhile, the dark fog surrounding her arm continues crawling up her body, dying jagged stripes of deepest black across her hair and skin.
"
So... you won't let us leave, right...?" Astra whispers as her mouth curls up into a manic grin.
The herd leader takes a startled step back. "What- what have you- what
are-"
"
You really think you can just attack us, terrify us, and get away with it?" Astra interrupts, her crooked smile widening even further. "
You really should have just left us alone!"
The sphere of energy hovering beyond her outstretched hand abruptly triples in size, drastically darkening in hue as it does so. The Stantler surrounding us balk and begin to rapidly backpedal again, breaking their encircling ring wide open in the process — but I can hardly take advantage of that, too busy beginning to panic myself as Astra's ball of psychic power just continues growing larger and larger. Damn it, I was right, that thing is corruptive or something!
"Astra!" I yelp as the surrounding light begins to fade, the visibly twisting blackness contained within the ever-growing attack somehow darkening even the world around us. "Let go of the orb!"
"
Why?" Astra asks, her already crimson eyes now glowing an even deeper red. "
I have these pests handled."
"I'm not actually that worried about
them anymore!"
As if to punctuate this, the Stantler leader suddenly lets out a loud, warbling cry, and the herd abruptly turns and flees, not a single word exchanged between them as they begin stampeding off into the forest.
"
Can't take what you dish out?" Astra sneers, turning in the same direction that the Stantler just fled. "
Figures. But don't expect me to return your earlier courtesy. After all..."
Her eyes flash, and the pulsing sphere jitters like a living thing as she lifts it over her head.
"YOU DON'T GET TO SIMPLY RUN!"
"Astra,
NO!!!"
"
SO JUST LAY DOWN-"
I lunge forward in tandem with the downward swing of her arm, the massive ball of power all but blotting out the sky.
"-AND DI—!"
My maw slams into the side of Astra's arm a split second before she can finish her pronouncement. The impact unsteadies her, wildly throwing off her aim.
...but the attack still goes flying from her hand.
Time seems to dilate as I watch the globe of psychic hatred go flying, slamming into and
through the surrounding trees without slowing down in the slightest; annihilating them like a tiny inverted sun. Surging forward on a slight downward incline, the energy rips through ground and wood alike, until it's practically tunneling into the earth itself. Before it can go completely underground however, the sphere's outline seems to judder, and I swear I see the darkness at its center
writhing as though desperately trying to escape, before the entire thing abruptly seems to come undone, and-
The light, or rather
darkness hits me first, overtaking so much of my vision that for a moment I think I've gone blind. Then comes the wind, a gale with the force of hurricane slamming into me and blasting my tiny body backwards through the air. I don't even manage to cry out before I slam into a tree back-first, the impact forcing nearly every scrap of air from my lungs, then fall back to the ground where I crash land on my stomach and face, allowing me to feel the earth quaking like it's about to split open underneath me.
In pain and struggling to move, I manage to lift my head again, just in time to see chaotically-fluctuating streams of purple-tinted blackness slam into the now easily-visible canyon walls. The ground shakes even more as enormous chunks of rock are carved out of the cliffsides and come crumbling down into the forest, accompanied by what has to be every single bird Pokemon in the vicinity shrieking in tandem as they take off into the sky as quickly as they possibly can.
Terrified out of my wits, there's nothing I can do but wrap my horns around myself, place my tiny hands over my face, and curl up into a ball as I pray that the world stops ending soon...
Before it ends me along with it.
.
.
.
.
.
A minute that feels like a millennia later, the sound of crashing rock and exploding energy finally dies away. At roughly the same time, the ground ceases bucking like the maw of hell is opening up nearby, stillness overcoming the land once more.
Forcing myself to uncurl, no matter how frightening the idea currently seems, I hesitantly, achingly push myself to my feet...
And find myself staring out at a portrait of pure, utter ruin.
The ground for what has to be at least a solid
half-mile in front of us has been carved into a thirty-foot wide trench. Absolutely nothing remains of the trees that were in the attack's direct path, and even those outside of its immediate range have been toppled over like playing cards, the pressure of the psychic blast's passing alone apparently having been enough to rip their roots right out of the ground. At the distant epicenter of the blast, a lake-sized crater in the ground now sits, a large patch of darkness still floating over it like a tiny, static black hole.
The Stantler are nowhere to be seen.
Nothing is anywhere to be seen, even as the sounds of panicked bird-squawks and hysterical wildlife continue to erupt from what little remains of the forest in front of us.
As I gaze out upon the miniature cataclysm with wide, disbelieving eyes, my vision catches on the Orb of Doom, the artifact having apparently fallen at some point and rolled to a stop at the base of a tree. The cloth it was wrapped in is caught on a nearby bush, miraculously both still intact and not blown half a forest away.
Stumbling over to the cloth in a near-delirious rush, I tear it from the bush before scrambling over to the Orb and frantically wrapping the fabric around it, making
absolute certain not to touch the cursed thing myself as I do so. Only once the last shadowy scrap is finally covered again do I finally manage to regain some semblance of coherent thought.
Why the
fuck did I advocate for using this thing as the backup plan. Why the fuck does Astra even
have something like this?! I knew using it might be a mistake, but what kind of apocalyptic
emergencies was her grandpa expecting her to run into that she would need something like THIS to take care of them?!
"I- I..."
I turn, wincing from the pulse of pain that doing so too quickly causes. Still positioned at the blast's immediate site of origin, Astra has fallen to her knees, her legs having seemingly given out beneath her. The stripes of black have thankfully disappeared from her body, the orb's effect presumably having ended once she stopped holding onto it... but the real damage is already done.
I limp over to her side.
"Astra...?"
She doesn't respond, merely continuing to stare sightlessly out at the destruction.
"Astra!" I repeat, shaking her shoulder this time.
Her head turns fractionally towards mine, face still frozen in an expression of utter shock.
"Damn it, snap out of it already!" I growl.
Nerves stretched to the limit, I force Ghost-type energy to the surface of my skin, eyes glowing red as I activate Astonish. Astra rears back as though I just slapped her, taking in a gasping heave of breath at the same time.
"I'm sorry!" I immediately apologize, ending the attack. "You were insensate, and I couldn't think of any other way to-"
Before I can even finish my sentence, Astra wraps her arms around me in a death grip of a hug and begins to cry, or perhaps more accurately
bawl her heart out. Though the pressure she's putting on my rapidly-forming bruises hurts, I do my best to wrap my arms around her in turn, knowing she needs the comfort.
"Shh..." I whisper to her, softly as I can manage. "We're okay... it'll be okay..."
Yet as I look over Astra's shoulder at the ruins of the forest, I can't help but wonder just how true that is.
AN+Patrons: Funnily enough, due to how connected Stantler are with the concept of "warping space" to create their illusions, I was planning out that explanation before Hisui or Wyrdeer were ever even a thing. How nice of Game Freak to help legitimize my plot points in advance, for all that I left them out of ABG proper. ^^;
Normally I wouldn't add patrons to a sidestory/omake, but this is like 8K words, so a huge thanks to
@Pheonix14,
@Warclam,
@ScorpioBot,
@The Crimson King,
@Dai,
@BunnehWyld, Henry Branscombe, That Guy, Nubcaekz, Bertucchi, BlackEagle91, Jordan Juengel, Stays Secret, and my eleven other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives an identical Doom Orb of- er, no, scratch that; terrible, terrible idea. Just... have a copy of Astra's Rock Tomb TM instead, or something? It's got to require less reforestation efforts, at the very least. 💿
