Backslash 5 (Alpha 3) - Co-op (Hyphen / A Backwards Grin)
Dermonster
The Shittiest Wizard
Backslash - 3 (Alpha) (Hyphen/Backwards Grin)
Co-op
Despite having spent hours in that other forest, barely any time appeared to have passed at all back here, Astra observed. The shadows on the ground and the sun in the sky had only moved by a few dozen minutes, if at all. The clouds looked mostly the same as before, so barring some oddly repetitive weather, it was still the same day as well. Though given recent events she wasn't quite ready to count it out.
"—once is weird enough, twice is pushing it, but three times!?"
Relief was the best emotion to describe what Astra was feeling at the moment—alongside a helping of sheer panic, but she was getting used to burying that. Getting back from...wherever that had been would have been time consuming at best, inviable or utterly ruinous at worst. But that obstacle had been inexplicably solved, and the creeping fear of being forever banished from home had gone with it. Mostly.
"Someone is definitely screwing with us! Who is it? Mew? Hoopa? Celebi? Are they still here!?"
She could still reach her village. She could still reach May. She could still accomplish her goal. She still had problems, but the problems weren't trapped in another world problems. (Unless it happened again—) No, panic was bad, she just needed to breathe and focus on the present.
If it weren't for an unexpected tag-along, Astra might have concluded the entire experience to be a rather strange and oddly lucid vision. Her new companion, however, was not taking their sudden dislocation to Rustboro City quite as well.
"Wait, we're in Hoenn, is someone making hell with Jirachi? Astra!" Mawile whirled around, a wild look in her eyes. "Have there been any festivals celebrating a comet recently?"
"No, Mawile." Astra sighed. The smaller pokemon had been...not quite ranting, but certainly pacing around and talking out loud a lot. Mostly to herself, as many of the things she had been saying had flown straight over Astra's head. A little irritating, but it had given Astra enough time to center herself. "I've only been travelling in the human world for a few days, I don't know much of anything that's happening. What's a Jirachi?"
"Right, right. Ugh." Mawile bit her thumb, the giant maw on the back of her head seeming to vibrate with small but forceful clacks as she did. "Okay. Have you met a small, floating, white pokemon about a foot tall, bipedal, head shaped like a yellow star with blue tassels?"
Astra shook her head. Mawile scowled, and continued. "Alright, then it might be someone else, or maybe you just didn't see them. Maybe it is Hoopa, that one likes playing tricks. But I didn't see any rings? Then, Mew? Palkia? Arceus themself? Ugh!"
Mawile grit her teeth. All of them. Astra flinched as a wave of fear emanated from the smaller pokemon. "M-Mawile!" she said, only just managing to not scramble backwards. "Calm down!"
"Calm down? Calm down?" Mawile shouted, turning toward Astra with a glare. Her maw seemed to snarl, opening just enough to show all of its pointy, pointy teeth. "How can I be calm when we're being shunted across the multiverse like some sick game of ping pong?"
A new onslaught of fear lashed out, making Astra shiver. "Be-because we can't do anything, and would you stop that!?" she yelled, managing a glare.
Mawile paused, a flash of regret crossing her face. Grumbling to herself, she closed her eyes. She slumped after a moment, all the tension draining out of her body and her gargantuan horn lazily drifting to rest on the forest floor.
Mawile sighed, looking over at Astra with a frown. "Sorry. Still not used to that. Still, I don't get why you're so calm; something's playing hell with us and they could do it again at any moment! How are you so okay with this?"
Okay with it? Astra stared at Mawile, bewildered and more than a little angry. "I'm not," she said, scowling. "I know that something could happen again any moment. I know that there's probably someone doing something awful somewhere. But look around!" Astra waved to the empty forest surrounding them. "Do you see anyone? Anything? There's nobody here except us. If whatever made that happen decided to happen again, there's nothing we could do."
Mawile's eyes were wide. Astra looked down, suddenly unwilling to meet Mawile's gaze. She'd been trying to think of ways to deal with the situation for a while now, but nothing seemed feasible. Her village was days away, and she'd never even heard of alternate dimensions before today anyway, so how could they know? Her other option, asking for assistance from humanity, would undoubtedly throw her under the worst kind of attention and completely wreck her plan! She didn't even know what caused it. One of those all-powerful Pokemon Mawile was talking about? Random happenstance? Or maybe it was connected to the Ancestor's orb in some way. But it wasn't like she could get rid of it. She clenched her hand, held it tightly for a second, then exhaled and let her arm fall. What could she even do?
Astra raised a hand, staring at her new fingers. "There wasn't anything I could have done the first time something inexplicable happened. Or even the second. I still don't know what's going on, so what's one more thing to add to the pile?" she muttered, the words souring even as she said them.
There was silence for a moment. "You've... been displaced before?" Mawile asked, confused. "I thought you said...?"
Astra shook her head, looking up at Mawile with a tired grin. "No, nothing like that. But I've been dealing with things I can't control all week. Look at this," she said, digging into her pack and grabbing her pokedex. "Do you know what this is?" she asked, holding the device out.
Mawile took it, examining it with a curious wonder. "A pokedex?" she breathed. "Oh man, I wish I had one of these. This would have been so helpful back in that forest!"
"Less than you'd think," Astra replied dryly. That map was just the worst. She frowned. "Wait, you can use that? Can you read human writing?"
"Oh, uh. Yeah." Mawile confirmed, blinking owlishly at her. "Why, is that strange?"
"I guess not?" Astra half-asked, scratching her head. "This is convenient, actually. You lived with humans, right? Did they teach you?"
Mawile paused, then slowly nodded. "Yeah, I picked up a few things. Like their writing and how to use things like this." she said, indicating the pokedex.
"Huh. Well, nobody taught me," Astra said, folding her arms. "There aren't any books in my village. No writing at all, as far as I can remember. But a few days ago I looked at that thing for the first time and I could just...understand it. I knew what all the words meant, but it was the first time I'd ever seen any of them."
Mawile looked from Astra to the pokedex, frowning uncertainly. "You...just knew?" she asked, lowering the device.
"Yeah." Astra shrank back, gaze flicking to the ground. "All the words, all their meanings, even for things I'd never heard of. I could just understand them, for no reason, while I'm almost certain I wouldn't have just the day before. My best guess is that someone or something invaded my mind without me knowing about it, just to help me read."
Were her hands shaking? Was her vision a little blurry? Most of the time, Astra hadn't thought about any of these things too hard. There was nothing that could be done, no one she could have told. "Something's been messing with my head ever since I started being a trainer and nobody is supposed to do that but there's nobody I can tell to stop. Visions of different places, memories of creatures I've never seen, a language I've never learned. Getting shoved to an...another world is just another thing I have to deal with." She bit the last words out, anger and despair coloring her tone. She sniffed, wiping her face with a sleeve.
When she looked back up, Mawile stood a few steps closer, hand half-outstretched and concern written across her face. "Um." Mawile said, haltingly. "Are you okay?"
Astra took a moment to compose herself before responding, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling. "Yeah. Sorry, I shouldn't have unloaded on you like that. I've just... been bottling that up for a while." Astra shook her head and looked at Mawile. "I can't stop what's happening. But I can keep moving. If I end up somewhere else again, then I'll just have to find a way back. Palkia, Dialga, Jirachi—whoever. But until then, I'm not going to worry about it. I'll just do what I can to solve what problems I can reach."
"Oh." Mawile said, a hint of surprise in her voice. She still looked shaken, but gave Astra a small smile all the same. "That's... a pretty mature outlook, honestly. I... I'm sorry," she continued, looking away. "For bringing all that up. I didn't mean to—well, I didn't know. Do you want to talk about it?"
Astra raised an eyebrow. "Do you know what's messing with me?"
Mawile hesitated. "In Hoenn? Are you sure you've never heard of Jirachi?" Astra shook her head. Mawile shrugged. "Then I don't have a clue. Could be anything."
"Then there's no point. Thanks, though. Ah, could I get that back?" Pocketing the pokedex, Astra looked back at Rustboro, the city's towers gleaming in the sunlight. She checked the sun's position in the sky again, then hummed. No time had passed, so it seemed her original plan was still good to go. "Alright, let's get going."
"Yeah, I guess we should—eh?" Mawile blinked, watching Astra stride deeper into the forest. "What? Where are you going? The city's that way."
"It is. But I wasn't going there when I left. Come on, let's—" Astra paused as a thought occurred. Did Mawile even want to stay? She looked back at Mawile, uncertain. "Actually, do you even want to come with me still? This is my home, and now that I'm back I..." It hurt her to say this, as Mawile seemed nice, but... they'd barely known each other for an hour. "I can't go looking for those legendary pokemon while my village is in danger. If you wanted to go look for them yourself—"
Mawile held up a hand. "Gonna stop you right there," she said, cutting the taller pokemon off. "Astra, I'm not leaving."
Astra blinked, confused. "But— don't you want to go home? I can't help you look for Palkia or Dialga until I make sure my home is safe."
"Astra, in case you haven't noticed, I'm still not human." Mawile said, motioning to herself. "Nobody else can understand me, and it's not like I can just swim to Sinnoh." She grimaced. "It's not like I could get help from other pokemon either. Judging by what Treecko was like, everyone else here is... hard to understand, at best. On top of all that, someone else might try to capture me. You're still my best shot, delay or not."
Mawile paused for a moment, a small smile coming over her face. "Though, I guess that's not all bad. If I'm honest, exploring a foreign land has always been a fantasy of mine. I didn't want to get kidnapped to do it, but otherwise this is sort of a dream come true. Traveling with you doesn't seem like a bad way to go at all. Other than that, you got displaced just like I did, so I've gotta stay near you in case it happens again. Maybe it will, maybe it won't." She grinned, punching a fist into her palm as her maw rose up and clacked above her. "And if we get the opportunity, I wanna have a long, hard talk with whoever's pulling this crap."
"So," Mawile continued, folding her arms. "I'll help you save your home and have a good old adventure while I'm at it, and when you're the champion, you help me go home. Sound like a deal?"
Mawile held out a hand. After a moment, Astra took it, smiling. She could use all the help she could get, and though they were still only acquaintances Astra could see herself becoming friends with the smaller pokemon. It would be nice, she thought, to have someone she could talk to. Plus, maybe her weirdly expansive knowledge could come in handy?
"It's a deal," Astra said. "Though, you'll still have to pull your own weight."
"Figured as much." Mawile muttered. "So, what next, oh trainer of mine?"
Astra grinned. Mawile looked at the wide expression on Astra's face and took a step back.
"We're going to train!"
When Astra said that we were going to train, I hadn't considered that the first one to be trained would be Astra. We had found a nice clearing to occupy a few minutes from our landing site, and my newfound trainer wasted no time in stripping her robe off and starting up some kind of dance routine, leaving me to sit by the treeline.
Fortunately, Astra was kind enough to share one of her jars of Oran berries with me on the way. I had been 'hunting' when we first met and I still hadn't had anything to eat since then, so I was absolutely famished and had said as much.
"Go ahead and eat as much as you want," Astra said, plucking out a few for herself. "I don't have too many left but I can always forage for more, and there's always the bags of food in the Pokemart. Besides, I'd rather you eat these than try for me again."
"I wouldn't do that," I protested, even as I grabbed at the container.
Astra just grinned. Again.
Joking aside, the berries were delicious, filling in a way that all those other pokemon hadn't been and bursting with flavor for every bite. If I could bring these back to Earth I bet I could make a decent living selling them as exotic fruits; apples and oranges just didn't compare.
I tore through half the jar, watching as Astra pranced through the grass. Her movements were pretty graceful, perhaps fairy-like if I wanted to get clever. "So," I said, swallowing my latest morsel, "What's with all the dancing? Is this some secret method for Kirlias to practice their moves?"
"Mmm. I wouldn't know any of those," Astra commented, spinning in place. She tilted forward, arms spread at a right angle and one leg extending behind in a classic ballerina pose. Really living up to the theme there, girl. "I only evolved earlier today, so I'm just having a bit of fun first. Plus with all my new power, I bet there's loads of stuff I can do better now."
I blinked. She evolved earlier today? Wow. I frowned, a thought coming to mind. How did a pokemon get 'experience' if they weren't fighting a battle head on? Did Astra have an 'Exp Share'? Did either of those concepts even exist here? "How exactly did that happen?" I asked, curious. "Did you win a fight?"
"Yep!" Astra replied, grinning. She took a few steps back, then launched herself forward, flipped—
"Ow!"
—and landed right on her face.
I couldn't help it; I burst out laughing. Astra looked up and pouted at me, looking cutely miserable as my laughter redoubled. "Sorry, sorry!" I managed, stifling myself, and wiping a tear from my eye. "You were saying?"
"Honestly," Astra huffed, picking herself up. "Laughing at the person who gave you food? Rude." She sent a mock glare my way, then shook her head and began to look around the clearing. Purple light shone around Astra's hands, and she started to...collect rocks? I stared at the floating stones, fascinated. The pink sparkles I could throw around were cool, but this was downright magical. "As for your question, yeah! I fought the Rustboro gym earlier today, beat Roxanne—the gym leader—and got the Stone Badge."
I whistled...and failed miserably at it, to my sudden frustration. (Dratted mouth shape!) But damn. Gym badge, evolving, getting shifted into another dimension, and then still going out to train? This girl was pretty hardcore. I guess I would be too if my entire family depended on me beating the champion. I didn't remember the third gen beat for beat, but Roxanne was the first gym leader to challenge, if I recalled right. Norman was encountered first, but the gym itself didn't open until later. Well, in the games, at least. Who knew what continuity I was in now? None of them had a Kirlia like Astra.
"Nice," I said, giving her a nod. "Was that your first badge?"
"Yep!" Astra grinned, looking incredibly pleased with herself as a few good-sized rocks floated around her. Then she rubbed her arm, pride turning to embarrassment as her face flushed. "Then...I had to go hide in the bathroom while I evolved."
I barely managed to not laugh again. "Yeah, I bet glowing like a lightbulb and growing a few inches would be pretty suspicious, wouldn't it?" I said, finishing off another Oran berry.
"Very," Astra agreed, circling around the treeline. She looked at the rocks, carefully scanning her eyes over every last part of the clearing before her. "I had to come up with a new illusion too, since I couldn't exactly walk out eight inches taller than I had been. So I made myself look shorter. Humans kind of grow like trees, so I thought I'd just make myself a bit taller every day until I caught up."
I blink. "Humans grow like— what?"
"Trees," Astra repeated, glancing my way. "Humans don't evolve, but they come in a bunch of different sizes, so they must grow over time. You know, like trees. Do you think they're a type of fleshy plant?"
I stared at Astra. Several half-formed responses formed and died in my mouth. What? "No, Astra." I managed, "Humans are not fleshy plants."
"Aw, drat." Astra said, mock-pouting. "And here I thought I was on to something. Hehehe~"
I rolled my eyes. So she was messing with me. "Hilarious," I deadpanned, biting into a new berry with a thick munch. I looked around, trying to figure out what she was doing with the rocks. She had placed them seemingly haphazardly around the clearing, each of them big enough to be plainly visible through the tall grass. Astra slowly circled around the area, examining them from every angle.
After watching her pace around for a moment, I gave up. "What's with the rocks?" I asked, gobbling down my latest snack.
"Markers." Astra replied, somewhat absently. "I've been really looking forward to learning how to teleport, and having something to focus on makes it easier to, uh, focus."
Huh. Teleportation. I already knew, abstractly, how much of an advantage Astra had in life over me, but the sheer unfairness of it all still stung a bit. However, that didn't stop me from being a bit curious. "Don't you already know how to do that? I saw you flash away from me back when we first met."
Apparently done with her examinations, Astra went to stand near a larger rock in the middle and turned to face me. She rubbed the back of her head, looking a little sheepish. "Yeah, but that was more panic than anything. Anyone can just blind fire a teleport, but if you don't know where you're going it can get a bit messy. I was lucky I didn't end up in a tree, or with my legs lodged in the ground."
"Heh. That'd be a sight to see." I chuckled, reaching for another Oran. I paused, a thought coming to mind. Stuck in the ground? She could teleport into occupied spaces? "Uh. Quick question. What happens if you teleport into a space someone else is already in?"
Astra blinked. "You...don't?" she said, looking faintly confused. "Teleport isn't very strong. Anything that can think just...repels it. That's what my Grandpa says, anyway. Why?"
"Oh, just curious," I deflected, relaxing at the answer. No tele-fragging here, it seemed. If she didn't know, I wasn't about to give her the mental image. "Are you trying it out now?"
"Yeah." Astra nodded, turning back to her rocks. "Give me a minute, I need to concentrate."
I hummed in assent, biting into my latest berry. I'd gone through another quarter of the jar now and truth be told I was starting to feel a bit bloated. But a week of near starvation combined with the sudden abundance had me reluctant to set the thing down. Instead, I watched curiously as Astra stood in the center of the clearing and stared intently at one of the closer rocks.
The stillness and silence stretched on for a bit, and I was just starting to wonder if anything would happen at all when Astra suddenly vanished—
—and reappeared a few meters away, leaving a clap of displaced air in her wake and blinking dazedly.
"Woah!" I exclaimed. "You did it!"
"I did it!" Astra echoed, staring down at herself with a massive grin. She pumped a fist in the air, cheering. "Yes! I can teleport!"
"Impressive!" I said, giving her a vigorous round of applause. "Now, let's see you do it again!"
Astra was only too happy to comply. She began to hop around the field in echoing bursts of cracking air—slowly at first, with a few odd mishaps, but with increasing speed, eventually popping away as soon as she set foot on a rock. Until very abruptly she stopped, falling to her knees and clutching her head with a pained groan.
I bolted upright, berries forgotten. "Astra!" I called. Rushing over, I grabbed her shoulder, keeping her steady as she swayed. "Did something happen? What's wrong?"
"Nng..." Astra grunted, eyes squeezed shut. "Migraine. Did...too much. Too fast. Leppa berries in my bag. Small, red. Bring me some?"
Leppa berries? Those restored PP, didn't they? Did Astra use up all her PP—
I paused and hastily rewrote that thought.
Did Astra use up all her Power Points and accidentally use Struggle? Was that what it translated to here? Migraines if you used your powers too much? Or maybe this kind of migraine was a psychic-specific symptom? I'd never pushed myself that far, and hopefully would never have to, but it was good to keep my limits in mind.
"Sure thing," I said, "I'll be right back."
Sprinting toward Astra's pile of stuff, I opened up her backpack and started rummaging around. Man, this girl had a lot of jars. And... jerky? I stared at the strips of dried meat for a moment. Huh. Was that...fish? I guess Kirlia weren't herbivores either. Her Pokedex was crammed in there as well—which I really should take a closer look at some time—alongside what looked to be a kitchen knife without a handle. Wait, was that a damascus steel pattern? How the—? Not the time.
Last but not least was some sort of wooden box, handcrafted and carved with strange, curling symbols that reminded me of smoke and clouds. I hesitated a moment, staring at the thing. Something about it felt...off. I brushed my fingers across one of the carvings and flinched back at the sudden chill in my hand. Cold? Why was it cold?
A groan from Astra shook me out of my thoughts. Right, Leppa berries. Searching through the multitude of jars, I quickly found one half-full of what looked like cherries with flame decals. Snatching it up, I rushed to Astra's side.
"Found it," I said, and handed the container over. "Sorry, you had a lot of jars."
Popping the lid off, Astra reached inside and quickly shoved one in her mouth. She relaxed near immediately, a grateful sigh escaping her lips. Wow, that was fast. Magic berries for the win, I guess.
"Thanks," Astra said, smiling at me. She rubbed her head again, wincing. "Ugh. I thought it'd take longer before I went into psychic fatigue, once I became a Kirlia."
"Psychic fatigue?"
"You haven't—? Right, not, uh. Hm." Astra thought for a moment. Did she forget I wasn't psychic? "When I use up too much psychic energy, I start to get headaches, and if I keep using it, they get worse and worse until...bad things happen." Astra grimaced. "It's my fault, really. Everyone always talks about how draining teleporting is, I just wasn't expecting that. Only seven times? I wasn't even going very far..."
I gave Astra a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Hey, you only just started, don't beat yourself up about it. Heck, I'd take just one short teleport over my current none. I bet you'll be popping all over the place in no time!"
"Heh. Even Grandpa can't do it that much." Astra chuckled and rose to her feet. She winced and considered the jar in her hand for a moment, before sighing and popping another berry in her mouth. She made a face. "Nngh. Spicy. Not my favourite."
"You okay?" I ask. She didn't look to be in pain anymore at least, but it was good to make sure.
"Yeah," Astra replied, capping the jar off again. She waved her hand and it flew back off to her backpack in a haze of purple light. "Though I think I'll hold off on more practice for now. I don't have a lot of those, and I have a lot more to do than I thought I would."
"Fair enough. I suppose you didn't come out here expecting me to tag along."
"I was under the impression I'd be working with my Slakoth," Astra said, giving me a rueful grin. "Wandering through an alternate dimension and finding a Mawile? Not so much."
"Too bad, you're stuck with me now," I said, grinning right back. "A Slakoth, huh? Do I have any other teammates waiting in the wings?"
"Well, you already met Treecko," Astra began, "But aside from Slakoth, the only one you haven't met is Marill. I got Marill two days ago and had time to train her, but I only got Slakoth late last night. I was gonna bring him up to speed, but then, well..."
Ah, I saw where this was going. "Me?"
"You," Astra confirmed. "And since I have to get both of you ready, I might as well start with the one that's already out and about, right?"
I guessed I couldn't argue with that logic. Shooting Astra a grin, I started to warm up, pulling my arms side to side, twisting around to work out a few kinks in my back, and giving my horn a few test chomps as well. "So, you wanna see what I can do, then?"
Astra glanced at my horn for a moment, looking a bit uneasy, but nodded all the same. "That's the plan!" Waving a hand, Astra summoned a decently sized log from the depths of the forest and implanted it in the ground. "So, I think we'll start with the obvious. Can you use your, uh, second mouth to bite the log?"
"Easy enough." My horn rose up as I positioned myself in front of the post, widening it enough that the two halves were almost parallel. Dark energy surged through me and into my maw, and with a grunt of effort I snapped out and crunched the wood. A fourth of the log was summarily sheared straight off, the torn piece reduced to mere tinder.
I reflexively chewed for a moment, then let the mass of pulp fall to the grass below. I still didn't know exactly how the things I ate with my second mouth were digested—did it go into the same stomach as my regular mouth, or did I have some secret second one?—but a belly full of splinters seemed a bad idea in any respect. I had taken a risk with bones, but I didn't want to find out that wood was a hard no the difficult way.
"Oh," Astra said, and I turned to find her staring at the log with very wide eyes. "Oh," she repeated, slightly paler than she was before, which was impressive because I was fairly certain she was pure white to begin with. "Maybe...don't use that while sparring."
I was pointedly reminded that I had almost eaten Astra when we first met. "Trust me, I'm not planning on using this on anyone I like," I say, raising my hands up reassuringly. "I can definitely promise you that."
"Thanks," Astra said, still looking a bit uneasy. She coughed. "Well then. Um. Let's do something else. Let's see..." She thought for a moment, then lit up, slapping a fist into her palm. "Oh! Back in your forest. I smelled something really good. Was that you?"
"Oh, Sweet Scent? Yeah, that was me. Let me just..." There was no energy to push around with this move, merely a sort of muscle for a gland somewhere between my head and my horn. Inhale, trigger the muscle, blow out through my horn...
And suddenly the clearing smelled like someone dumped a truck of sugar all over the place.
"Woah!" Astra said, looking around wildly. She sniffed, blinking rapidly. "Wow. That smells amazing. Don't know how good it would be in a fight though."
She sniffed again, and I found myself a little uncomfortable with how much she seemed to like it. I don't think I'm getting the full effect of it, being my own skill and all, but watching someone blissfully inhale what was basically my own breath was just a little weird. "Well, it was good for luring other pokemon toward me."
Astra paused, grimacing. "Oh. Right."
Perhaps I should stop mentioning my recent dietary practices. Reminding Astra that I'd nearly eaten her didn't seem to be helping, somehow.
Astra shook her head, visibly turning herself away from her train of thought. "Hm. Maybe if you concentrated it? Might be strong enough to disorient someone."
I... hadn't considered that, actually. Last time I fired it at full blast, a horde of bugs swept through not long after, but that was when I was trapped in one spot. If I wasn't sticking around to deal with the aftermath, then... "That just might work."
"Worth a test. Though, maybe at the end of the day. I'd rather we not season the clearing while we're still using it." Astra hummed, thinking. "That's all the obvious stuff. Do you know anything else?"
"Astonish and Fairy Wind," I replied, listing off the other two moves I knew. "Astonish basically lets me startle someone so hard that they get hurt by it, and Fairy Wind...well, I haven't actually been able to use that on anyone, but it does let me throw around some pink, sparkly wind."
"Pink, sparkly wind...?" Astra asked, a hint of amusement in her voice. "Well, that sounds interesting. I guess the log won't work for either of those?"
"Nope," I said, popping the 'p'. "Astonish needs an actual opponent, and as far as I could tell Fairy Wind didn't do anything to the trees I tried it on besides rustle their leaves a little."
"Right..." Astra considered the log for a moment, thinking. "These moves...are they as, uh, effective as your bite?"
"Not even close," I say. Game levels were probably a bad crutch to rely on, considering how much I was able to vary the strength of my bite, but Astonish and Fairy Wind were novice level moves. They couldn't be that bad. "Painful at the worst, but not crippling."
"Hm. I suppose there's no helping it, then." Astra sighed. She waved a hand and a pokeball flew out of her bag. "We'll need someone to take a hit. Come on out, Marill!"
I was tempted to protest the casual use of a teammate as a punching bag, but why bother? Getting beat to a pulp was literally the global pastime, I'd be shocked if Astra's pokemon blinked an eye at this type of thing.
The pokeball's light resolved into a solid shape, and I got my first look at a Marill. She was about half as tall as me, and sported extremely fine blue-and-white fur, a mousey face, big round ears, an absolutely rotund body plan, stubby limbs, and a long jagged tail topped with a shiny blue sphere. In a word: adorable.
Marill shook herself, looking around curiously. "Skyward whence?" she said, before spotting me. She turned to face me, crouching down with her tail waving erratically through the air behind her. An anticipatory smirk crawled across her face. "Mystery miscreant! The on wheelstone grit?"
I stared. So much for adorable.
"Marill, this is Mawile," Astra said, crouching down to eye-level. "She's joining our team. Mawile, this is Marill."
"...hello, Marill," I said, still trying to puzzle out what the hell she just said.
Marill frowned at me, but relaxed. "Yap inscrutable. Concession alas, comrade entrance celebrant in for the pocket!" That said, she eyed me up and down. "Exceed size, valor of self-polish? Shine me greater!" She wagged her tail around again, grinning. "Awe the crawl."
"...sure." Was this what it's like to have a stroke? I rubbed my forehead, trying to parse the scrambled lingo.
"Mawile?" Astra asked, looking concerned. Across the clearing, Marill exclaimed something about 'radiance' and 'ascension' before tackling Astra's leg. "Wh—Marill! Not now. Mawile, you okay?"
"I'm fine." I replied, shaking myself. "Just... trying to translate."
Astra blinked at me. "Oh. What did she say?"
I still had no idea, but I could give it a crapshoot based on her tone and body language. "She's...happy to have a new teammate, and...thinks she's tougher than me?" Marill shot me a smug look. I glared back. She might have more experience, but I'm not about to let anyone look down on me. Especially when they're half my height.
"Hah. Sounds like her. Well you'll have the chance to test it out soon enough. Marill," Astra said, looking down at the blue ball playing with her...skirt flaps? I'm unsure what to call them. "We're experimenting with Mawile's skills, but we need someone to test them on. I'm thinking that you could take anything she dishes out no problem, right?"
Marill puffed up and beamed at Astra. "Unconquerably! Forthwith I chipped nay the trial, cack!"
Alright, that last one wasn't even a word. Could I talk to whatever magical phenomenon was overseeing this? I'd like to file a complaint.
"That's the spirit!" Astra said, heedless of my exasperation. "Go stand over there and get ready; there's only a couple things we need to try."
Marill saluted and trod over to stand at one of the marker rocks. She looked at me expectantly. "Hasten! Inevitable upper proven!"
Astra looked back to me and gave me a thumbs-up. "You're up, Mawile," she said, backing away.
I simply nodded and moved toward another rock a few meters away. Astonish would probably be the best to open with; all I needed to do was throw around Ghost energy, plus it didn't have me spin my horn like a propeller. On top of that, it would be suitable payback for her looking down on me.
"All right, I'm gonna start with Astonish," I called, gathering a modicum of tar-like Ghost energy. "Here it goes!"
With that said, I released the pent up power and glared. The effect was immediate. Marill paled and shrank back from me, a frightened gasp escaping her lips and a look of terror in her pinprick eyes. But only for a moment. The ghost energy dissipated rapidly, and with it Marill's fear. She shook herself, staring at me with newfound wariness and, I note, a shortness of breath. So scary as to inflict actual harm, huh? I wondered if I could give someone a heart attack if I kept it up.
Marill stared me down, determination flaring to life in her eyes. "Combustion internal drum! Repetition why unwary, fear repurposed as the feast!"
"W-well," Astra stammered, and I turned to see her looking shaken. I mentally cursed as I realized why—Psychics are weak to Ghost moves. She wasn't quite behind me, so she must have gotten caught up in the attack. "Man, you really know a lot of scary techniques, huh?" she said, laughing nervously.
"Yeah, sorry." I scratched the back of my head, giving her an apologetic grin. "Can't really help it. I am what I am, and all that."
"It's fine," Astra reassured, but still grimaced. "If other pokemon can do those things, it's better that I find out about it now than later. Anyway, you had one more left, right? Fairy Wind?"
Acquiescing to the topic change, I nodded and turned back to Marill. "Yeah. It's a pain to use, though. Marill, hold still!"
Marill hunkered down, grinning. "Deliver activation!"
Now that I could understand. Drawing on the Fairy-type energy, my body began to feel as though someone shook up a soda can inside of it. Pushing the fizzy power into my horns, I swiveled around, dragging my horn along with me. I swung it like a bat then violently swept it through the air—oh god my neck—and released.
A burst of sparkling pink wind shot forward, and as it flowed across Marill—
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I hope you enjoyed this addition to Backslash. I won't be working on this series until after the the next proper Hyphen chapter.
Thank you for enjoying my work, and tell me what you think!
Co-op
Despite having spent hours in that other forest, barely any time appeared to have passed at all back here, Astra observed. The shadows on the ground and the sun in the sky had only moved by a few dozen minutes, if at all. The clouds looked mostly the same as before, so barring some oddly repetitive weather, it was still the same day as well. Though given recent events she wasn't quite ready to count it out.
"—once is weird enough, twice is pushing it, but three times!?"
Relief was the best emotion to describe what Astra was feeling at the moment—alongside a helping of sheer panic, but she was getting used to burying that. Getting back from...wherever that had been would have been time consuming at best, inviable or utterly ruinous at worst. But that obstacle had been inexplicably solved, and the creeping fear of being forever banished from home had gone with it. Mostly.
"Someone is definitely screwing with us! Who is it? Mew? Hoopa? Celebi? Are they still here!?"
She could still reach her village. She could still reach May. She could still accomplish her goal. She still had problems, but the problems weren't trapped in another world problems. (Unless it happened again—) No, panic was bad, she just needed to breathe and focus on the present.
If it weren't for an unexpected tag-along, Astra might have concluded the entire experience to be a rather strange and oddly lucid vision. Her new companion, however, was not taking their sudden dislocation to Rustboro City quite as well.
"Wait, we're in Hoenn, is someone making hell with Jirachi? Astra!" Mawile whirled around, a wild look in her eyes. "Have there been any festivals celebrating a comet recently?"
"No, Mawile." Astra sighed. The smaller pokemon had been...not quite ranting, but certainly pacing around and talking out loud a lot. Mostly to herself, as many of the things she had been saying had flown straight over Astra's head. A little irritating, but it had given Astra enough time to center herself. "I've only been travelling in the human world for a few days, I don't know much of anything that's happening. What's a Jirachi?"
"Right, right. Ugh." Mawile bit her thumb, the giant maw on the back of her head seeming to vibrate with small but forceful clacks as she did. "Okay. Have you met a small, floating, white pokemon about a foot tall, bipedal, head shaped like a yellow star with blue tassels?"
Astra shook her head. Mawile scowled, and continued. "Alright, then it might be someone else, or maybe you just didn't see them. Maybe it is Hoopa, that one likes playing tricks. But I didn't see any rings? Then, Mew? Palkia? Arceus themself? Ugh!"
Mawile grit her teeth. All of them. Astra flinched as a wave of fear emanated from the smaller pokemon. "M-Mawile!" she said, only just managing to not scramble backwards. "Calm down!"
"Calm down? Calm down?" Mawile shouted, turning toward Astra with a glare. Her maw seemed to snarl, opening just enough to show all of its pointy, pointy teeth. "How can I be calm when we're being shunted across the multiverse like some sick game of ping pong?"
A new onslaught of fear lashed out, making Astra shiver. "Be-because we can't do anything, and would you stop that!?" she yelled, managing a glare.
Mawile paused, a flash of regret crossing her face. Grumbling to herself, she closed her eyes. She slumped after a moment, all the tension draining out of her body and her gargantuan horn lazily drifting to rest on the forest floor.
Mawile sighed, looking over at Astra with a frown. "Sorry. Still not used to that. Still, I don't get why you're so calm; something's playing hell with us and they could do it again at any moment! How are you so okay with this?"
Okay with it? Astra stared at Mawile, bewildered and more than a little angry. "I'm not," she said, scowling. "I know that something could happen again any moment. I know that there's probably someone doing something awful somewhere. But look around!" Astra waved to the empty forest surrounding them. "Do you see anyone? Anything? There's nobody here except us. If whatever made that happen decided to happen again, there's nothing we could do."
Mawile's eyes were wide. Astra looked down, suddenly unwilling to meet Mawile's gaze. She'd been trying to think of ways to deal with the situation for a while now, but nothing seemed feasible. Her village was days away, and she'd never even heard of alternate dimensions before today anyway, so how could they know? Her other option, asking for assistance from humanity, would undoubtedly throw her under the worst kind of attention and completely wreck her plan! She didn't even know what caused it. One of those all-powerful Pokemon Mawile was talking about? Random happenstance? Or maybe it was connected to the Ancestor's orb in some way. But it wasn't like she could get rid of it. She clenched her hand, held it tightly for a second, then exhaled and let her arm fall. What could she even do?
Astra raised a hand, staring at her new fingers. "There wasn't anything I could have done the first time something inexplicable happened. Or even the second. I still don't know what's going on, so what's one more thing to add to the pile?" she muttered, the words souring even as she said them.
There was silence for a moment. "You've... been displaced before?" Mawile asked, confused. "I thought you said...?"
Astra shook her head, looking up at Mawile with a tired grin. "No, nothing like that. But I've been dealing with things I can't control all week. Look at this," she said, digging into her pack and grabbing her pokedex. "Do you know what this is?" she asked, holding the device out.
Mawile took it, examining it with a curious wonder. "A pokedex?" she breathed. "Oh man, I wish I had one of these. This would have been so helpful back in that forest!"
"Less than you'd think," Astra replied dryly. That map was just the worst. She frowned. "Wait, you can use that? Can you read human writing?"
"Oh, uh. Yeah." Mawile confirmed, blinking owlishly at her. "Why, is that strange?"
"I guess not?" Astra half-asked, scratching her head. "This is convenient, actually. You lived with humans, right? Did they teach you?"
Mawile paused, then slowly nodded. "Yeah, I picked up a few things. Like their writing and how to use things like this." she said, indicating the pokedex.
"Huh. Well, nobody taught me," Astra said, folding her arms. "There aren't any books in my village. No writing at all, as far as I can remember. But a few days ago I looked at that thing for the first time and I could just...understand it. I knew what all the words meant, but it was the first time I'd ever seen any of them."
Mawile looked from Astra to the pokedex, frowning uncertainly. "You...just knew?" she asked, lowering the device.
"Yeah." Astra shrank back, gaze flicking to the ground. "All the words, all their meanings, even for things I'd never heard of. I could just understand them, for no reason, while I'm almost certain I wouldn't have just the day before. My best guess is that someone or something invaded my mind without me knowing about it, just to help me read."
Were her hands shaking? Was her vision a little blurry? Most of the time, Astra hadn't thought about any of these things too hard. There was nothing that could be done, no one she could have told. "Something's been messing with my head ever since I started being a trainer and nobody is supposed to do that but there's nobody I can tell to stop. Visions of different places, memories of creatures I've never seen, a language I've never learned. Getting shoved to an...another world is just another thing I have to deal with." She bit the last words out, anger and despair coloring her tone. She sniffed, wiping her face with a sleeve.
When she looked back up, Mawile stood a few steps closer, hand half-outstretched and concern written across her face. "Um." Mawile said, haltingly. "Are you okay?"
Astra took a moment to compose herself before responding, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling. "Yeah. Sorry, I shouldn't have unloaded on you like that. I've just... been bottling that up for a while." Astra shook her head and looked at Mawile. "I can't stop what's happening. But I can keep moving. If I end up somewhere else again, then I'll just have to find a way back. Palkia, Dialga, Jirachi—whoever. But until then, I'm not going to worry about it. I'll just do what I can to solve what problems I can reach."
"Oh." Mawile said, a hint of surprise in her voice. She still looked shaken, but gave Astra a small smile all the same. "That's... a pretty mature outlook, honestly. I... I'm sorry," she continued, looking away. "For bringing all that up. I didn't mean to—well, I didn't know. Do you want to talk about it?"
Astra raised an eyebrow. "Do you know what's messing with me?"
Mawile hesitated. "In Hoenn? Are you sure you've never heard of Jirachi?" Astra shook her head. Mawile shrugged. "Then I don't have a clue. Could be anything."
"Then there's no point. Thanks, though. Ah, could I get that back?" Pocketing the pokedex, Astra looked back at Rustboro, the city's towers gleaming in the sunlight. She checked the sun's position in the sky again, then hummed. No time had passed, so it seemed her original plan was still good to go. "Alright, let's get going."
"Yeah, I guess we should—eh?" Mawile blinked, watching Astra stride deeper into the forest. "What? Where are you going? The city's that way."
"It is. But I wasn't going there when I left. Come on, let's—" Astra paused as a thought occurred. Did Mawile even want to stay? She looked back at Mawile, uncertain. "Actually, do you even want to come with me still? This is my home, and now that I'm back I..." It hurt her to say this, as Mawile seemed nice, but... they'd barely known each other for an hour. "I can't go looking for those legendary pokemon while my village is in danger. If you wanted to go look for them yourself—"
Mawile held up a hand. "Gonna stop you right there," she said, cutting the taller pokemon off. "Astra, I'm not leaving."
Astra blinked, confused. "But— don't you want to go home? I can't help you look for Palkia or Dialga until I make sure my home is safe."
"Astra, in case you haven't noticed, I'm still not human." Mawile said, motioning to herself. "Nobody else can understand me, and it's not like I can just swim to Sinnoh." She grimaced. "It's not like I could get help from other pokemon either. Judging by what Treecko was like, everyone else here is... hard to understand, at best. On top of all that, someone else might try to capture me. You're still my best shot, delay or not."
Mawile paused for a moment, a small smile coming over her face. "Though, I guess that's not all bad. If I'm honest, exploring a foreign land has always been a fantasy of mine. I didn't want to get kidnapped to do it, but otherwise this is sort of a dream come true. Traveling with you doesn't seem like a bad way to go at all. Other than that, you got displaced just like I did, so I've gotta stay near you in case it happens again. Maybe it will, maybe it won't." She grinned, punching a fist into her palm as her maw rose up and clacked above her. "And if we get the opportunity, I wanna have a long, hard talk with whoever's pulling this crap."
"So," Mawile continued, folding her arms. "I'll help you save your home and have a good old adventure while I'm at it, and when you're the champion, you help me go home. Sound like a deal?"
Mawile held out a hand. After a moment, Astra took it, smiling. She could use all the help she could get, and though they were still only acquaintances Astra could see herself becoming friends with the smaller pokemon. It would be nice, she thought, to have someone she could talk to. Plus, maybe her weirdly expansive knowledge could come in handy?
"It's a deal," Astra said. "Though, you'll still have to pull your own weight."
"Figured as much." Mawile muttered. "So, what next, oh trainer of mine?"
Astra grinned. Mawile looked at the wide expression on Astra's face and took a step back.
"We're going to train!"
When Astra said that we were going to train, I hadn't considered that the first one to be trained would be Astra. We had found a nice clearing to occupy a few minutes from our landing site, and my newfound trainer wasted no time in stripping her robe off and starting up some kind of dance routine, leaving me to sit by the treeline.
Fortunately, Astra was kind enough to share one of her jars of Oran berries with me on the way. I had been 'hunting' when we first met and I still hadn't had anything to eat since then, so I was absolutely famished and had said as much.
"Go ahead and eat as much as you want," Astra said, plucking out a few for herself. "I don't have too many left but I can always forage for more, and there's always the bags of food in the Pokemart. Besides, I'd rather you eat these than try for me again."
"I wouldn't do that," I protested, even as I grabbed at the container.
Astra just grinned. Again.
Joking aside, the berries were delicious, filling in a way that all those other pokemon hadn't been and bursting with flavor for every bite. If I could bring these back to Earth I bet I could make a decent living selling them as exotic fruits; apples and oranges just didn't compare.
I tore through half the jar, watching as Astra pranced through the grass. Her movements were pretty graceful, perhaps fairy-like if I wanted to get clever. "So," I said, swallowing my latest morsel, "What's with all the dancing? Is this some secret method for Kirlias to practice their moves?"
"Mmm. I wouldn't know any of those," Astra commented, spinning in place. She tilted forward, arms spread at a right angle and one leg extending behind in a classic ballerina pose. Really living up to the theme there, girl. "I only evolved earlier today, so I'm just having a bit of fun first. Plus with all my new power, I bet there's loads of stuff I can do better now."
I blinked. She evolved earlier today? Wow. I frowned, a thought coming to mind. How did a pokemon get 'experience' if they weren't fighting a battle head on? Did Astra have an 'Exp Share'? Did either of those concepts even exist here? "How exactly did that happen?" I asked, curious. "Did you win a fight?"
"Yep!" Astra replied, grinning. She took a few steps back, then launched herself forward, flipped—
"Ow!"
—and landed right on her face.
I couldn't help it; I burst out laughing. Astra looked up and pouted at me, looking cutely miserable as my laughter redoubled. "Sorry, sorry!" I managed, stifling myself, and wiping a tear from my eye. "You were saying?"
"Honestly," Astra huffed, picking herself up. "Laughing at the person who gave you food? Rude." She sent a mock glare my way, then shook her head and began to look around the clearing. Purple light shone around Astra's hands, and she started to...collect rocks? I stared at the floating stones, fascinated. The pink sparkles I could throw around were cool, but this was downright magical. "As for your question, yeah! I fought the Rustboro gym earlier today, beat Roxanne—the gym leader—and got the Stone Badge."
I whistled...and failed miserably at it, to my sudden frustration. (Dratted mouth shape!) But damn. Gym badge, evolving, getting shifted into another dimension, and then still going out to train? This girl was pretty hardcore. I guess I would be too if my entire family depended on me beating the champion. I didn't remember the third gen beat for beat, but Roxanne was the first gym leader to challenge, if I recalled right. Norman was encountered first, but the gym itself didn't open until later. Well, in the games, at least. Who knew what continuity I was in now? None of them had a Kirlia like Astra.
"Nice," I said, giving her a nod. "Was that your first badge?"
"Yep!" Astra grinned, looking incredibly pleased with herself as a few good-sized rocks floated around her. Then she rubbed her arm, pride turning to embarrassment as her face flushed. "Then...I had to go hide in the bathroom while I evolved."
I barely managed to not laugh again. "Yeah, I bet glowing like a lightbulb and growing a few inches would be pretty suspicious, wouldn't it?" I said, finishing off another Oran berry.
"Very," Astra agreed, circling around the treeline. She looked at the rocks, carefully scanning her eyes over every last part of the clearing before her. "I had to come up with a new illusion too, since I couldn't exactly walk out eight inches taller than I had been. So I made myself look shorter. Humans kind of grow like trees, so I thought I'd just make myself a bit taller every day until I caught up."
I blink. "Humans grow like— what?"
"Trees," Astra repeated, glancing my way. "Humans don't evolve, but they come in a bunch of different sizes, so they must grow over time. You know, like trees. Do you think they're a type of fleshy plant?"
I stared at Astra. Several half-formed responses formed and died in my mouth. What? "No, Astra." I managed, "Humans are not fleshy plants."
"Aw, drat." Astra said, mock-pouting. "And here I thought I was on to something. Hehehe~"
I rolled my eyes. So she was messing with me. "Hilarious," I deadpanned, biting into a new berry with a thick munch. I looked around, trying to figure out what she was doing with the rocks. She had placed them seemingly haphazardly around the clearing, each of them big enough to be plainly visible through the tall grass. Astra slowly circled around the area, examining them from every angle.
After watching her pace around for a moment, I gave up. "What's with the rocks?" I asked, gobbling down my latest snack.
"Markers." Astra replied, somewhat absently. "I've been really looking forward to learning how to teleport, and having something to focus on makes it easier to, uh, focus."
Huh. Teleportation. I already knew, abstractly, how much of an advantage Astra had in life over me, but the sheer unfairness of it all still stung a bit. However, that didn't stop me from being a bit curious. "Don't you already know how to do that? I saw you flash away from me back when we first met."
Apparently done with her examinations, Astra went to stand near a larger rock in the middle and turned to face me. She rubbed the back of her head, looking a little sheepish. "Yeah, but that was more panic than anything. Anyone can just blind fire a teleport, but if you don't know where you're going it can get a bit messy. I was lucky I didn't end up in a tree, or with my legs lodged in the ground."
"Heh. That'd be a sight to see." I chuckled, reaching for another Oran. I paused, a thought coming to mind. Stuck in the ground? She could teleport into occupied spaces? "Uh. Quick question. What happens if you teleport into a space someone else is already in?"
Astra blinked. "You...don't?" she said, looking faintly confused. "Teleport isn't very strong. Anything that can think just...repels it. That's what my Grandpa says, anyway. Why?"
"Oh, just curious," I deflected, relaxing at the answer. No tele-fragging here, it seemed. If she didn't know, I wasn't about to give her the mental image. "Are you trying it out now?"
"Yeah." Astra nodded, turning back to her rocks. "Give me a minute, I need to concentrate."
I hummed in assent, biting into my latest berry. I'd gone through another quarter of the jar now and truth be told I was starting to feel a bit bloated. But a week of near starvation combined with the sudden abundance had me reluctant to set the thing down. Instead, I watched curiously as Astra stood in the center of the clearing and stared intently at one of the closer rocks.
The stillness and silence stretched on for a bit, and I was just starting to wonder if anything would happen at all when Astra suddenly vanished—
...
...
...
Hm.
There are two, now.
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
What do you think?
...
...
Hm.
There are two, now.
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
What do you think?
—and reappeared a few meters away, leaving a clap of displaced air in her wake and blinking dazedly.
"Woah!" I exclaimed. "You did it!"
"I did it!" Astra echoed, staring down at herself with a massive grin. She pumped a fist in the air, cheering. "Yes! I can teleport!"
"Impressive!" I said, giving her a vigorous round of applause. "Now, let's see you do it again!"
Astra was only too happy to comply. She began to hop around the field in echoing bursts of cracking air—slowly at first, with a few odd mishaps, but with increasing speed, eventually popping away as soon as she set foot on a rock. Until very abruptly she stopped, falling to her knees and clutching her head with a pained groan.
I bolted upright, berries forgotten. "Astra!" I called. Rushing over, I grabbed her shoulder, keeping her steady as she swayed. "Did something happen? What's wrong?"
"Nng..." Astra grunted, eyes squeezed shut. "Migraine. Did...too much. Too fast. Leppa berries in my bag. Small, red. Bring me some?"
Leppa berries? Those restored PP, didn't they? Did Astra use up all her PP—
I paused and hastily rewrote that thought.
Did Astra use up all her Power Points and accidentally use Struggle? Was that what it translated to here? Migraines if you used your powers too much? Or maybe this kind of migraine was a psychic-specific symptom? I'd never pushed myself that far, and hopefully would never have to, but it was good to keep my limits in mind.
"Sure thing," I said, "I'll be right back."
Sprinting toward Astra's pile of stuff, I opened up her backpack and started rummaging around. Man, this girl had a lot of jars. And... jerky? I stared at the strips of dried meat for a moment. Huh. Was that...fish? I guess Kirlia weren't herbivores either. Her Pokedex was crammed in there as well—which I really should take a closer look at some time—alongside what looked to be a kitchen knife without a handle. Wait, was that a damascus steel pattern? How the—? Not the time.
Last but not least was some sort of wooden box, handcrafted and carved with strange, curling symbols that reminded me of smoke and clouds. I hesitated a moment, staring at the thing. Something about it felt...off. I brushed my fingers across one of the carvings and flinched back at the sudden chill in my hand. Cold? Why was it cold?
A groan from Astra shook me out of my thoughts. Right, Leppa berries. Searching through the multitude of jars, I quickly found one half-full of what looked like cherries with flame decals. Snatching it up, I rushed to Astra's side.
"Found it," I said, and handed the container over. "Sorry, you had a lot of jars."
Popping the lid off, Astra reached inside and quickly shoved one in her mouth. She relaxed near immediately, a grateful sigh escaping her lips. Wow, that was fast. Magic berries for the win, I guess.
"Thanks," Astra said, smiling at me. She rubbed her head again, wincing. "Ugh. I thought it'd take longer before I went into psychic fatigue, once I became a Kirlia."
"Psychic fatigue?"
"You haven't—? Right, not, uh. Hm." Astra thought for a moment. Did she forget I wasn't psychic? "When I use up too much psychic energy, I start to get headaches, and if I keep using it, they get worse and worse until...bad things happen." Astra grimaced. "It's my fault, really. Everyone always talks about how draining teleporting is, I just wasn't expecting that. Only seven times? I wasn't even going very far..."
I gave Astra a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Hey, you only just started, don't beat yourself up about it. Heck, I'd take just one short teleport over my current none. I bet you'll be popping all over the place in no time!"
"Heh. Even Grandpa can't do it that much." Astra chuckled and rose to her feet. She winced and considered the jar in her hand for a moment, before sighing and popping another berry in her mouth. She made a face. "Nngh. Spicy. Not my favourite."
"You okay?" I ask. She didn't look to be in pain anymore at least, but it was good to make sure.
"Yeah," Astra replied, capping the jar off again. She waved her hand and it flew back off to her backpack in a haze of purple light. "Though I think I'll hold off on more practice for now. I don't have a lot of those, and I have a lot more to do than I thought I would."
"Fair enough. I suppose you didn't come out here expecting me to tag along."
"I was under the impression I'd be working with my Slakoth," Astra said, giving me a rueful grin. "Wandering through an alternate dimension and finding a Mawile? Not so much."
"Too bad, you're stuck with me now," I said, grinning right back. "A Slakoth, huh? Do I have any other teammates waiting in the wings?"
"Well, you already met Treecko," Astra began, "But aside from Slakoth, the only one you haven't met is Marill. I got Marill two days ago and had time to train her, but I only got Slakoth late last night. I was gonna bring him up to speed, but then, well..."
Ah, I saw where this was going. "Me?"
"You," Astra confirmed. "And since I have to get both of you ready, I might as well start with the one that's already out and about, right?"
I guessed I couldn't argue with that logic. Shooting Astra a grin, I started to warm up, pulling my arms side to side, twisting around to work out a few kinks in my back, and giving my horn a few test chomps as well. "So, you wanna see what I can do, then?"
Astra glanced at my horn for a moment, looking a bit uneasy, but nodded all the same. "That's the plan!" Waving a hand, Astra summoned a decently sized log from the depths of the forest and implanted it in the ground. "So, I think we'll start with the obvious. Can you use your, uh, second mouth to bite the log?"
"Easy enough." My horn rose up as I positioned myself in front of the post, widening it enough that the two halves were almost parallel. Dark energy surged through me and into my maw, and with a grunt of effort I snapped out and crunched the wood. A fourth of the log was summarily sheared straight off, the torn piece reduced to mere tinder.
I reflexively chewed for a moment, then let the mass of pulp fall to the grass below. I still didn't know exactly how the things I ate with my second mouth were digested—did it go into the same stomach as my regular mouth, or did I have some secret second one?—but a belly full of splinters seemed a bad idea in any respect. I had taken a risk with bones, but I didn't want to find out that wood was a hard no the difficult way.
"Oh," Astra said, and I turned to find her staring at the log with very wide eyes. "Oh," she repeated, slightly paler than she was before, which was impressive because I was fairly certain she was pure white to begin with. "Maybe...don't use that while sparring."
I was pointedly reminded that I had almost eaten Astra when we first met. "Trust me, I'm not planning on using this on anyone I like," I say, raising my hands up reassuringly. "I can definitely promise you that."
"Thanks," Astra said, still looking a bit uneasy. She coughed. "Well then. Um. Let's do something else. Let's see..." She thought for a moment, then lit up, slapping a fist into her palm. "Oh! Back in your forest. I smelled something really good. Was that you?"
"Oh, Sweet Scent? Yeah, that was me. Let me just..." There was no energy to push around with this move, merely a sort of muscle for a gland somewhere between my head and my horn. Inhale, trigger the muscle, blow out through my horn...
And suddenly the clearing smelled like someone dumped a truck of sugar all over the place.
"Woah!" Astra said, looking around wildly. She sniffed, blinking rapidly. "Wow. That smells amazing. Don't know how good it would be in a fight though."
She sniffed again, and I found myself a little uncomfortable with how much she seemed to like it. I don't think I'm getting the full effect of it, being my own skill and all, but watching someone blissfully inhale what was basically my own breath was just a little weird. "Well, it was good for luring other pokemon toward me."
Astra paused, grimacing. "Oh. Right."
Perhaps I should stop mentioning my recent dietary practices. Reminding Astra that I'd nearly eaten her didn't seem to be helping, somehow.
Astra shook her head, visibly turning herself away from her train of thought. "Hm. Maybe if you concentrated it? Might be strong enough to disorient someone."
I... hadn't considered that, actually. Last time I fired it at full blast, a horde of bugs swept through not long after, but that was when I was trapped in one spot. If I wasn't sticking around to deal with the aftermath, then... "That just might work."
"Worth a test. Though, maybe at the end of the day. I'd rather we not season the clearing while we're still using it." Astra hummed, thinking. "That's all the obvious stuff. Do you know anything else?"
"Astonish and Fairy Wind," I replied, listing off the other two moves I knew. "Astonish basically lets me startle someone so hard that they get hurt by it, and Fairy Wind...well, I haven't actually been able to use that on anyone, but it does let me throw around some pink, sparkly wind."
"Pink, sparkly wind...?" Astra asked, a hint of amusement in her voice. "Well, that sounds interesting. I guess the log won't work for either of those?"
"Nope," I said, popping the 'p'. "Astonish needs an actual opponent, and as far as I could tell Fairy Wind didn't do anything to the trees I tried it on besides rustle their leaves a little."
"Right..." Astra considered the log for a moment, thinking. "These moves...are they as, uh, effective as your bite?"
"Not even close," I say. Game levels were probably a bad crutch to rely on, considering how much I was able to vary the strength of my bite, but Astonish and Fairy Wind were novice level moves. They couldn't be that bad. "Painful at the worst, but not crippling."
"Hm. I suppose there's no helping it, then." Astra sighed. She waved a hand and a pokeball flew out of her bag. "We'll need someone to take a hit. Come on out, Marill!"
I was tempted to protest the casual use of a teammate as a punching bag, but why bother? Getting beat to a pulp was literally the global pastime, I'd be shocked if Astra's pokemon blinked an eye at this type of thing.
The pokeball's light resolved into a solid shape, and I got my first look at a Marill. She was about half as tall as me, and sported extremely fine blue-and-white fur, a mousey face, big round ears, an absolutely rotund body plan, stubby limbs, and a long jagged tail topped with a shiny blue sphere. In a word: adorable.
Marill shook herself, looking around curiously. "Skyward whence?" she said, before spotting me. She turned to face me, crouching down with her tail waving erratically through the air behind her. An anticipatory smirk crawled across her face. "Mystery miscreant! The on wheelstone grit?"
I stared. So much for adorable.
"Marill, this is Mawile," Astra said, crouching down to eye-level. "She's joining our team. Mawile, this is Marill."
"...hello, Marill," I said, still trying to puzzle out what the hell she just said.
Marill frowned at me, but relaxed. "Yap inscrutable. Concession alas, comrade entrance celebrant in for the pocket!" That said, she eyed me up and down. "Exceed size, valor of self-polish? Shine me greater!" She wagged her tail around again, grinning. "Awe the crawl."
"...sure." Was this what it's like to have a stroke? I rubbed my forehead, trying to parse the scrambled lingo.
"Mawile?" Astra asked, looking concerned. Across the clearing, Marill exclaimed something about 'radiance' and 'ascension' before tackling Astra's leg. "Wh—Marill! Not now. Mawile, you okay?"
"I'm fine." I replied, shaking myself. "Just... trying to translate."
Astra blinked at me. "Oh. What did she say?"
I still had no idea, but I could give it a crapshoot based on her tone and body language. "She's...happy to have a new teammate, and...thinks she's tougher than me?" Marill shot me a smug look. I glared back. She might have more experience, but I'm not about to let anyone look down on me. Especially when they're half my height.
"Hah. Sounds like her. Well you'll have the chance to test it out soon enough. Marill," Astra said, looking down at the blue ball playing with her...skirt flaps? I'm unsure what to call them. "We're experimenting with Mawile's skills, but we need someone to test them on. I'm thinking that you could take anything she dishes out no problem, right?"
Marill puffed up and beamed at Astra. "Unconquerably! Forthwith I chipped nay the trial, cack!"
Alright, that last one wasn't even a word. Could I talk to whatever magical phenomenon was overseeing this? I'd like to file a complaint.
"That's the spirit!" Astra said, heedless of my exasperation. "Go stand over there and get ready; there's only a couple things we need to try."
Marill saluted and trod over to stand at one of the marker rocks. She looked at me expectantly. "Hasten! Inevitable upper proven!"
Astra looked back to me and gave me a thumbs-up. "You're up, Mawile," she said, backing away.
I simply nodded and moved toward another rock a few meters away. Astonish would probably be the best to open with; all I needed to do was throw around Ghost energy, plus it didn't have me spin my horn like a propeller. On top of that, it would be suitable payback for her looking down on me.
"All right, I'm gonna start with Astonish," I called, gathering a modicum of tar-like Ghost energy. "Here it goes!"
With that said, I released the pent up power and glared. The effect was immediate. Marill paled and shrank back from me, a frightened gasp escaping her lips and a look of terror in her pinprick eyes. But only for a moment. The ghost energy dissipated rapidly, and with it Marill's fear. She shook herself, staring at me with newfound wariness and, I note, a shortness of breath. So scary as to inflict actual harm, huh? I wondered if I could give someone a heart attack if I kept it up.
Marill stared me down, determination flaring to life in her eyes. "Combustion internal drum! Repetition why unwary, fear repurposed as the feast!"
"W-well," Astra stammered, and I turned to see her looking shaken. I mentally cursed as I realized why—Psychics are weak to Ghost moves. She wasn't quite behind me, so she must have gotten caught up in the attack. "Man, you really know a lot of scary techniques, huh?" she said, laughing nervously.
"Yeah, sorry." I scratched the back of my head, giving her an apologetic grin. "Can't really help it. I am what I am, and all that."
"It's fine," Astra reassured, but still grimaced. "If other pokemon can do those things, it's better that I find out about it now than later. Anyway, you had one more left, right? Fairy Wind?"
Acquiescing to the topic change, I nodded and turned back to Marill. "Yeah. It's a pain to use, though. Marill, hold still!"
Marill hunkered down, grinning. "Deliver activation!"
Now that I could understand. Drawing on the Fairy-type energy, my body began to feel as though someone shook up a soda can inside of it. Pushing the fizzy power into my horns, I swiveled around, dragging my horn along with me. I swung it like a bat then violently swept it through the air—oh god my neck—and released.
A burst of sparkling pink wind shot forward, and as it flowed across Marill—
As it flowed acro—
aS iT fl—
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[Fairy.Type is missing or corrupt. Please contact your system administrator.]I hope you enjoyed this addition to Backslash. I won't be working on this series until after the the next proper Hyphen chapter.
Thank you for enjoying my work, and tell me what you think!
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