NERO

Sunday, April 1, 2018

"I...hate...you," Jude said.

He'd just woken up from a nap, and looked irritated to see me in the same place I'd been the last time he was awake: in front of the door, sorting through the clothes Valentine had donated to us.

I'd arranged them into three piles: ones that would likely fit me, ones that would likely fit Jude, and miscellaneous cloth that I could fashion into miscellaneous things. Like another mask for Jude, a spare set of gloves, and, most importantly, extra bandages: we wouldn't be with Cora and Kuma much longer, and soon we would have to bind our own injuries.

However, I didn't foresee us getting hurt that much once Mag was back at our side: danger tended to shy away when she was around. My heartbeat kicked up a notch as I peered out the cracked doorway, into the hall of the Manor — the sunlight coming through the windows was orangey, and heavy as the sun subsided for the day.

Thirteen hours, just thirteen hours. I was heading down to the Sea House at six o'clock tomorrow morning, and hopefully I would be on the road to Rustboro City once I tracked down Lyle Vega. My tail twitched with an angry impatience. Thirteen hours...a blink and forever, at the same time. Being productive as it wound down at its own pace was proving frustrating. I looked down at my hands, trying to refocus on my little project, only to sigh when I remembered that I was already finished.

"Do you want to try on your new mask?" I asked, raising it towards him. It was a combination of a length of seaweed rope, a patch of layered cloth, and three dozen sloppy stitches. The sloppiness was courtesy of my stung hand, which had been absurdly shaky since yesterday, and the stitches themselves were courtesy of Hattice: Cora's sister had been happy to loan me a needle and thread when I'd asked, and seemed immensely pleased that I was making use of her husband's old clothes.

Jude, though, was anything but: fuming, he said, "I wanna...go...outside."

I lowered the mask, tapping the fingers of my good hand against my tailfin. Going in circles. That was fine, though—if Jude wanted to keep rehashing this argument, I would comply. It was something to do, at least. "You can go outside tomorrow, when I'm in Rustboro City."

"I've been...in here all...day!" he roared. "I need...some fresh...water..!"

"Maybe you should've thought about that before you went wandering off in the middle of nowhere, like an idiot."

"I-I...told you, Cora...and Neko...and them...invited—"

"And? You know better. Remember the last time you went swimming off in the weeds? You collapsed, and you would've been fish food if someone from the village hadn't found your sorry hide."

"I r-remem...ber, stupid. B-but I was w-w-with people...this time and—"

"And it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference. What do you think would've happened if you'd stumbled upon a group of Sharpedo? Or a hunting Gyarados?"

"T-there w-w-weren't any!" he snapped. "Just T-Tentacools, and they...o-only almost...stung me...b-because of y-you."

The fingers of my injured hand closed like a claw, and a bolt of pain rushed up my arm. "Almost is the operative word there. Imagine what would've happened if I hadn't been there to protect you."

"They...woulda...kept...sleeping. So thanks! Still can't...get the...taste of...s-sand...out of my...mouth—"

I took a fortifying breath. "Don't be so sure. They sure as hell moved like lightning last time."

"S-shut up. I'm tired...of you."

My lips thinned. "And me you, smart-ass. You're lucky I'm around to save you from your wanderlust. If it had just been Cora and Neko—"

"So what...am I sup...posed to do?" Jude fisted the covering of the bed, and his tail lashed dangerously. "J-just h-h-h...hide in a...cave for the...rest of my...life?" He shook his head fiercely. "No. N-no. I w-want...to be...able to...go out like...every...one...else. I...need to—"

"What you need is a dose of common sense," I growled. "I want you to move freely like everybody else, but you aren't everybody else, Jude: I wish you were, but you're not. You're slow and weak, and if you keep striking out on your own like a bullheaded moron, you're going to die or get seriously hurt."

"But I...didn't...die," he snapped.

"Because I was there! Shut up," I said when he opened his mouth to say more. "You're grounded, and you're lucky it's only for one day."

"You can't...ground me...you're not—"

"Are you still talking?"

He glowered at me, but quailed a little under my sharp stare. Finally, he dropped his gaze back to the sheets, and began picking at them again. "I have...to pee..." he said mutinously.

"Go to sleep. You're better at that than lying."

He let out something that was trying to be a hiss, but game out gargled, and ripped the covers off the bed. "I...hate...you," he said again as he rolled himself under.

I picked out a long gray shirt, and considered using it to make a small satchel for Jude. But just when I was about to settle down for another half hour, a knock came at the door. Jude sat up, and I glanced over to see a small crowd gathered outside. I pushed up with my tail as Kuma pulled the door the rest of the way open.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Not a thing," Kuma said. "Simply a check-in, boy. Haven't seen sight nor sound of ye since this mornin'." She frowned, her eyes going from me to Jude. "Have ye been stuck in this place all day?"

"He won't...let me leave," Jude complained.

"Shut the hell up," I said. "Are you five?"

Cora poked in after her grandmother. A sour look had replaced her usual sunny smile, one aimed at me; probably because of yesterday. I didn't know what had happened after I'd left the Petalburg Microisles in a huff with Jude, but I did feel bad about leaving the mess with Darwin for her to clean up. I just hadn't gotten around to apologizing for it yet.

My eyebrows went up at who came in after her: Neko, Dinah, and several other village kids flooded the room. "What's all this?" I demanded.

"They be askin' for ye," Cora told me. "They've somethin' to say."

I blinked. "To me?"

"Aye. 'Tis a good time?"

As good a time as any. I looked down at the merkids, all of which had their heads bowed and looked highly embarrassed, even ashamed. I exchanged a glance with Jude, who looked just as baffled. Cora nudged Dinah, who hovered at the front.

"Go on," she said.

Dinah took a breath and looked up at me, staring me straight in the eye. For about three seconds—then she turned away, unnerved. "Um... Just wanted to say our sorries," she mumbled. " 'Twas I who..."

"So he can hear ye proper, girl," Kuma said. Dinah stiffened.

" 'Twas I who thought to ask Jude along," she said a little louder. "I did not know he was not allowed..."

" 'Twas I that asked him," Neko said. He took a guilty pause. "Made him. He was not sure when I did propose, but gave 'im a push, I did, and he agreed... Thought it would be fun fer him, and safe. Sorry."

I glanced to Cora for confirmation, and she nodded. "I apologize too," she said. "Shouldn't have taken 'em so far."

Well, this was... I wasn't sure what to do with this. I rubbed the back of my head, feeling slightly awkward. Probably I should've been angry, but I'd already taken out all of my frustration on Jude, so I just felt done. "Well...everything turned out fine," I muttered. "And to be fair, it's at least half Jude's fault — nobody makes him do anything. He knew what I said, and he went anyway."

"S-so d-does...t-t-t-this m-m-mean...I'm...u-un-grounded?" Jude asked.

I turned and saw that his face was blazing red. And he was stuttering far more than usual, both signs of immense embarrassment, but the good, pleased kind, and little wonder: he had most certainly had the breakthrough he'd been hoping for if the kids felt a civic duty to apologize for yesterday's fiasco and defend him. Still, my eyes narrowed.

"It's still half your fault," I growled. "So you're still half grounded. You can go for a swim later tonight."

Jude opened his mouth, outraged, but was interrupted by Neko: "Mayhap we can stay here with 'im, then? Keep him company?"

What? "I don't think—"

"Excellent idea," Kuma interrupted. "If ye've been here all day, boy, chances are ye could both use some fresh faces anyway." Now I opened my mouth to protest, but was interrupted just the same: "Go along with Cora a moment, will ye? She's told me of yer hand, and it beggars belief that ye've not asked a one of us to look at it. I'll remain here, watch the young ones."

Jude's face lit up, and before I could stop this from setting into motion, the kids moved in a pack to the bed; Neko plopped on the mattress beside Jude with a goofy grin, and the rest of the kids pooled on the floor, one of them producing an old, grimy game board and a handful of pieces. What! They'd come prepared; suddenly, I was highly suspicious, especially when I looked at Kuma and saw an unreadable but heavy look in her eye as she chewed on her pipe, one that spoke of conspiracy. What's going on?

"Nero?" Cora tapped my arm. "Shall we go?"

I considered protesting, but that would be a waste of energy at this point. Also a waste of energy? Losing sleep over what this was all about. "After you," I growled.

She led me out of the room and into the hall, and down a floor. Three doors down from the stairwell was an open chamber. No bed here, just several shelves laden with medical supplies, and two other cabinets mashed together in the middle serving as a table. She motioned me over, and I went down to the floor.

"May I see it?" she asked.

I hesitated. "What are you going to do? It doesn't hurt that much anymore, so I think it's fine."

"That will be for me to decide." She extended a hand. "Nero?"

Another beat of hesitation, and I reluctantly extended my injured hand to her. I did not un-glove it — I could have, but I didn't...want to. Ungloving it meant revealing that new, accursed wound inch by inch, seeing the bloody streaks and torn flesh and new red lines, the same ones that had covered Jude head to tail. That's why I'd barely treated it in the first place yesterday before pulling my gloves back on — if I couldn't see it, it was easier to pretend that it wasn't there, and if it wasn't there, I didn't have to look at it and remember the Tentacruel, and that damned trench.

So I looked away as Cora gingerly peeled off my glove. My fingers tingled when they touched the water, and I sucked in a breath: In the hands, Nero, it's in the hands. If it's in the hands, it's in control.

Cora clicked her tongue. "Did ye plan on leavin' these tentacle fragments in? Fer decoration, maybe?"

I searched for an excuse and found none. "Is it bad?"

"Could be, if ye had gone with yer plan to ignore it and not treat it," Cora said. "A moment." She got up, and came back a moment later, with some tools, it sounded like: they clattered as she placed them on the table. "Might hurt," she warned.

I braced myself as she plucked free the tentacle remnants. It did hurt, but not as badly as I'd expected.

In fact, I reflected, the injury itself did not hurt as much as I'd thought it would. Not even the initial sting, if I was being honest — funny, in my memory I recalled it searing like a bolt of heat lightning, but I now wondered how much of that pain had been physical, and how much of it psychological. Maybe because I'd expected the sting to be bad, it had been bad. My jaw ground at the idea.

There are plenty of Tentacools in the sea, and some of them aren't sedentary. How are you going to be able to defend yourself and Jude against them if you freeze up from this habitual fear whenever you see one?

"Done," Cora said, her voice breaking into my thoughts. "Would ye have it wrapped?"

"If you think it best."

She retrieved some fresh kelp from one of the cabinets and got to work. Once the wound was no longer in sight, I turned to face her again. She glanced up at me. She was still not smiling, and though she worked efficiently and methodically, she looked frustrated, a little disheartened. I wondered why...but wasn't sure I wanted to ask.

"There," she said when she finished. I tried my hand. The binding was stiff, and my palm and forearm still hurt, but not as much. I took up my glove and stuck my fingers back inside.

"Thank you," I said.

"Hm."

The sound was one of dissatisfaction. She didn't move, and neither did I. I could have—she was done patching me up. But I didn't, because... Guilt? For yesterday. I cleared my throat.

"Did things go...all right after I left yesterday?" I asked.

"Aye. We found Mr. Briney, and got Darwin safely there."

I nodded. "Good..." Awkwardly, I added, "Sorry I went like that. I shouldn't've gotten so heated."

She shrugged. "Ye were afeared for Jude. I would have been for Dinah. But..." She hesitated. "He would not have come to harm, Nero, ye do know that? I have acted as nanny many a time before for the young ones, and taken 'em far afield. Never have any of 'em come to so much as a broken nail 'neath my watch."

I sighed. "You could put a leash and chains on Jude, and he'd still find a way to get in trouble."

"But ye would trust me with his safety?"

I hesitated. What a loaded question. "Why are you asking me that?"

"Why? Because it..." She looked away, her cheeks turning pink. "Because it does seem that ye don't trust me, Nero, or Delphirius, for that matter. And aye, ye have not known us long, so that may be expected... But I have hoped ye can feel that ye can rely on me in a pinch, but it does not feel so..."

Arceus. I had no idea of how we'd gotten here, but I wanted to leave just as quickly. "I...trust Delphirius," I said evasively. "I know I haven't said often..." Pause. "Or at all, but I'm grateful for everything that you and your family have done for us."

In fact, now that I thought about it...they'd done a lot — hell, I would be dead if Cora hadn't woken me up in the middle of all of those Sharpedo, and Jude might've been too, if they hadn't discovered him after he'd wandered from the tide pool cave. And he might've died again if Kuma hadn't treated his outlandish Drought symptoms, and taken him to the Sea House. And if we hadn't gone there, chances were that I'd still be out there on my own, trying to track Magdalene down with little more than sheer willpower...

Yeah, no wonder Cora looked hurt. For all the Delphirius merfolk had done for me, I'd done little to show my gratitude except for snap and complain and, in Cora's case, abandon her on multiple occasions. My guilt became immense.

"I...trust you, Cora." The words were a concession, and yet the word "trust" felt wrong coming out of my mouth. I liked Cora, and I did think that I could go to her or Kuma if I needed help or information, but did I trust her...? That implied a bit more... I trusted Jude. I trusted Magdalene. I could tell them things that I would not feel comfortable telling Cora. So on semantics alone, didn't that mean that I did not trust Cora?

She leaned forward, and I flinched as she took my hand, the injured one. "Does that mean you consider us friends, Nero?"

Friends... Yes, that was a better word to describe us. "Yes."

"Then I can tell ye things, and trust ye to be discreet."

I raised a brow. "Yes." Was there something she wanted to tell me?

"And I could extend to ye the same courtesy."

"Ye—" I stopped, studied her a moment, and realized that this was...not a trap, not exactly, but a tunnel, pushing me towards a specific point in the conversation. And the fact that I hadn't seen it coming—especially considering that she'd asked me to boil water yesterday—made me feel more than a little dumb. I tried to pull away, but Cora grabbed my hand with both of hers, holding tight.

"Nero," she said beseechingly, "I have not told another soul. Not Hattie, not me parents, not even Granny Kuma. I told ye, ye can trust me. I simply desire to know."

Deny it. Only, what was the point? I hadn't made any effort to disguise my water-shaping ability yesterday: I'd panicked and simply reacted, lashing out at the Tentacools with hot water. Neko. Dinah. The other village kids. Had they seen, put the pieces together? The thought made me ill. No. They couldn't have — they were young and foolish, and had probably thought that the whirlpool was just some sudden act of nature, as I'd tried to convince Cora the first time.

But that excuse would no longer work—this was her second time seeing a vortex appear in my general vicinity, and this could no longer be swept under the sand.

So I said, "No one will believe you. This isn't common, not even rare—the ability is virtually nonexistent among the merfolk, except for a select few. You..." My teeth ground as I trailed off. Cora was still clutching my hand, watching me seriously, but her eyes were glowing with a wonder that was making my hackles lift dangerously.

Doesn't matter. Jude and I would be gone soon, and Cora would have a juicy little secret that no one with half a brain would put any stock in. I said as much, again, harshly: "No one will believe you."

She loosened her grip on my hand, and I snatched it back to my side. "Granny would," she said softly.

"How's that?" I snapped.

Her voice was calm as she said, "I have seen her do somethin' similar."

My next breath left me with a whoosh. I struggled for a moment, and then barked out a weak laugh. "You're lying," I said accusingly.

Hurt crossed her face, and she said nothing else; that chilled me. Say it, Cora. Admit it... "Tell me you're lying," I said, my voice breaking at the end. "Tell me you aren't serious."

Now there was a wrinkle of curiosity in her brow. "When I be but a whelp," she told me, "Granny often took me and Hattie out playin', in some of the fields beyond the village border, way past the mine. Once we were out at tag, and a boat appeared. Humans too — they took to the water, some with swimmin' gear, others with fishhooks. In such a situation, me parents always told me to Blend and run, but Granny would have none of it... So while Hattie and I fled and hid, she stayed behind. I refused ta go far, 'cause I wanted to make sure she was safe, and when I looked back, she was...

"Well, can't quite say what she was doin'. Sort of looked like a dance, the way she was movin' her arms. But in any case, the sea was suddenly movin' with her, with a fury ye only see in storms. The boat and the humans went fast on a giant wave. Few minutes later, the sea was calm again."

There was a noise in my head, low and droning. "Are you sure?"

"Aye. I asked Granny bout it later, and she be surprised that I'd seen. Made me keep it a secret. Told me that water-shapin' was an ancient art, one of the ocean's greatest secrets, and wasn't fer all ears."

I wound my fingers into my hair. "She called it 'water-shaping'?"

"Aye."

She knows the story. "Who else knows that she can do that?"

Cora looked at me solemnly. "You," she said.

And I fiercely wished that I didn't know. Information was dangerous. Ignorance hamstrung Titus, delayed the plan just a little longer. Now Cora was telling me that Kuma...that the wind one was here, just waiting to be sacrificed on the altar of Titus's high ideals.

Calm down. It's just a story. Cora was young. Maybe she's wrong. Except why did Cora know it as water-shaping? Why else had she looked so intrigued when I'd done the exact same thing with the Sharpedo, and then the Tentacools? Because she'd seen it before, when Kuma had spirited away those humans and that boat when she was young.

This is bad. I tried to breathe, but could not for a claustrophobic pressure building up inside: Jude wanted to think that Titus was no longer chasing us, but this conversation made me feel that the walls were closing in, and that if we didn't get the hell out of here, there would soon be no cracks through which to escape.

Not without Mag.

I bristled. Thirteen hours and I'd be on my way to having her. Thirteen hours, a blink and yet forever. I took a breath: So do it. Thirteen hours and run.

"Nero," Cora prompted. "What is this... This water-shapin' ability? Do ye know why ye and Granny can do such things? And why is the water ye shape hot?"

I dug my fingers into the soft wood of the table, trying to tamp down my panic. In its place, guilt welled once again: she was working hard to show me that I could trust her, yet I could not tell her anymore about it if I'd wanted to. For my safety and more importantly, Jude's.

"Cora," I said, "the ability is dangerous, extremely rare, and can't discussed. That's all you need to know about it."

Her eyes darkened with disappointment. "But—"

"I'm sorry," I said, "but I..." I suddenly knew how this conversation needed to go. "There's someone out there. Titus. He's searching for me and Jude."

She blinked. "Who is he?"

"It's a long story, but he's been after us for a while. It's the reason we're in the Hoenn Region."

"I do not understand... Why is he after ye?"

"Several reasons. But most importantly, he's looking for Jude. And if he knew that Kuma and I can water-shape... He'd be very interested in us too."

Her confusion deepened. "Why?"

I ignored the question. "He's a nasty merman, Cora, and he can be extremely dangerous. And he has people with him — followers that act like old-fashioned soldiers. If they appear in Delphirius and ask about merfolk with the unique ability to water-shape... You can't tell them, understand?"

She didn't look like she did, but she nodded, gripping my hand again. "All right," she told me. "But please explain, Nero. This is all so sudden, and it...sounds like ye don't mean to stay."

I looked down at our joined fingers and squeezed her hand. "I don't," I admitted. "I have to go to Rustboro City tomorrow, and when I get back, Jude and I will be leaving."

"Nero," she said, looking pained.

I breathed deep. I'd said a lot, a lot I wasn't sure I'd meant to say, a lot I wasn't sure should have been said. "We're friends," I said lowly, "so can I trust you to keep your word, Cora? Can you be discreet about this? I don't want anyone else to know about this. You yourself already know too much."

She looked deeply sad, deeply confused, but again, she nodded. "Not another soul," she promised.

***

DARWIN

Monday, April 2, 2018

Today was the day. I didn't know when the call would come down, but I hoped that it was sometime during Combat II.

No such luck, though, and things went a little rougher than usual. Mom had given my stung leg another hot rinse last night, but it was still sore today, and the injured muscles were out of sync with the rest of my body. During laps, I kept stumbling, and I was slower during remedials than usual. This pissed Sergeant Marshall off royally.

"Move it, Blakesley! Your boots are steel-toed, not made of steel! Get the anchors out of your pants!"

I tried to concentrate harder on my movements, and breathe out the pain rippling up from my legs, but focus was hard to find too, because of several things: one, the Combat II exercises were strenuous in general; two, April was finally here, meaning that Midterms and the final battle with Jamie the Vigoroth were not far off; three, Nero. F*cking Nero.

His voice was bouncing around in my head more than Berechiah's today, and I kept seeing his thin-lipped sneer and that surgically-precise insult he'd delivered on Saturday: Tell me, do you treat all your Pokémon as a means to an end? Maybe to you, they're all a dime a dozen.

F*cking asshole! He'd been mad about the whole thing with S— Magdalene, and I should've brushed it off and treated it as such, yet every time I recalled the insult, I felt nothing but a white-hot shame searing through me. Especially when Combat II Training Hall came around, and I was back in the gym with Don. As I watched him work on the Take Down routine we'd been ironing out, I felt like I kept seeing his stats rather than him, his chances rather than his merit. And the commentary running through my head was downright cruel:

His footwork's a bit better, but has he actually gotten any stronger? His blows still feel light as a feather, and he still can't take a hit. And he still can't shoot his paint worth a damn — if he doesn't get any better, he's going to have to get up close, and even then, it might not work, since it doesn't smell sour enough. And the knee thing... Hell, I only fell once, by surprise, and Jamie's not gonna be that stupid, or unaware.

F*ck! I'm going to fail aren't I? And then probably get held back, and then drop out, and—

"Snowman."

I looked over and saw Thomas standing in the mouth of our training cubicle, arching his split brow. I understood his confusion — I was flat on my stomach on the ground, covered in green and yellow paint. Don stood next to me, and poked my back to make sure that I was alright. I picked myself off the ground.

"I'm fine," I said. "What is it?" I asked Thomas.

He jabbed a thumb. "Mr. McDaniel said he got a call from Armstrong. Mr. Reyes wants you down in the office."

Here it is. My heart pounded, at odds with the strange relief I felt in my chest. Finally, she'll be gone. And I could eliminate one avenue down which I could be expelled or held back. Now if I could somehow get Don strong enough to beat Jamie... I shook my head.

"Thanks," I said, picking up Don's Pokéball.

Before I could return him, Thomas said, "I can watch him, if you want. Me and Brick are two doors down—"

"You're training?"

He scowled at the amazement on my face. "What else would I be doing?"

I had no idea what the hell Thomas was doing, not lately. He'd ghosted me for most of last week, and I'd barely seen him today, except for in a couple of classes and by the lockers. Each time, he'd looked distinctly...mellow, no, apathetic, with zero percent of his usual hype and energy, almost like a volcano that had gone cold and dormant. From what I'd seen, his groupies had failed to engage him in conversation, and that usual stupid smile was under lock and key.

This had confused many of the people that normally hung around him — I'd overheard Riley and Patrick discussing whether or not this had to do with his break-up with Marjorie, and apparently Ms. Cain asked him to stay behind in Advisory, probably trying to figure out why the hell he was so sullen all of a sudden.

I had my own theory, and of course it had to do with the Seawatchers. I suspected he was on the third stage of grief, depression, and was still coming to grips with the quarantine and forced contract and Berechiah. The results of our therapy session last week could only persist for so long, especially as Thomas struck me as a guy who didn't do well with taking a lot of sh*t all at once; probably, everything that happened and what it meant was still sinking in. I felt a little bad for him, but wasn't exactly sure of how to reach out...

"How are things with Brick?" I asked.

He shrugged. "He's got that move you taught him down to a science. I like our chances. You?"

I glanced back at Don, who looked innocently back, and tried to swallow a swell of frustration. "It's...coming along." I motioned to the Smeargle, and when he came over, I said, "I've gotta go see Mr. Reyes. Go with Thomas, and work on that paint gun."

"What's with that, anyway?" Thomas asked. "Weren't you just with Mr. Reyes last week?"

"Yeah..." Thomas didn't really know about what had happened at the Abandoned Wreck, past that we'd gone, and I said, "Nero and the other people from...the Society are down today for the trade." He blinked. "The trade of the Sharpedo with the Tentacool I caught at the shipwreck."

"Huh." He looked torn, like one part of him wanted to know more, but another was pissed off at the very mention of the Seawatchers. That latter part won, and a scowl spread over his face. "Okay. Guess I'll see ya later."

"Thomas," I said when he stepped back through the cubicle, "Grandpa Jon says that Orientation is on Friday."

A vicious heat ignited in Thomas's eyes. "Grandpa Jon can kiss my ass."

Then he was gone, Don trailing behind him, and I tried not to feel annoyed. He just needs a little more time... Hopefully Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday would be enough for him to come to terms with the fact that he was going to have to go the Seawatcher Orientation, or else find himself at the mercy of Berechiah.

I headed out of the gym, and made my way over to the Armstrong Building in the center of campus. By the time I stepped through the automatic doors, I was sweating a salty river, adding dark stains to the pits of my ODU. That, along with the paint splatters from Don, made me quite a sight—I tried to ignore the snickers and stares of the few kids that were in the halls at water-fountains and lockers.

Principal Reyes was stepping out of his office when I arrived. "Darwin," he greeted me, giving my paint stains a cursory look. "Art class?" he guessed.

"No sir, Combat. I have a Smeargle, and we're preparing for Midterms."

"Oh I see!" He chuckled. "Looks like an interesting technique you're developing."

For all the good it might do me. I grit my teeth, pushing back the negativity, and shame welled in its place when I imagined Don's innocent face, looking up at me for validation. "He's trying his best," I said mildly.

"I'm sure you'll do fine," Mr. Reyes said as he headed back down the hall; I trailed behind him. "You're a good student Darwin, barring a few major slip-ups. I expect you and your Smeargle will pass with flying colors."

I wished I could be as optimistic, but I just couldn't see it. It was true, Don was trying his best, but... His best might not be enough to beat Jamie. And right now, with the thing with Magdalene about to go away forever, whether or not he measured up to Jamie was all that I...

...cared about...

Tell me, do you treat all your Pokémon as a means to an end? Maybe to you, they're all a dime a dozen.

This time the insult needled deep, birthing a self-hatred that curdled my stomach. It was hard to admit that he was right, but I'd had wicked fantasies of trading Don for a more...workable Pokémon before, and now they cycled back, making me feel filthy. I had nothing against Don, but right now he did feel like a means to an end... A tool for a job, that being passing the Midterm examination so I could ascend to the eleventh grade. And at present he didn't seem up to the task, no matter how I tried, and I would've traded one hammer for another if I could have.

But you can't. And as Midterms were coming up fast, all I knew to do was just keep training him, keep putting him through his paces, even if he was only marginally better than he'd been when we'd started. I felt like I was up against the wall.

Arceus, is there any point in getting rid of the Sharpedo if I'm just going to get held back in the end anyway? I chuckled at the bad attempt at humor. Who knew? Maybe I'd actually get somewhere with the Tentacool.

A few minutes later, we reached our destination: the Pokémon Deposit Portal, a giant computer lab on the ground floor of the Armstrong Building where the administration tracked the withdrawal and deposits of every student's Pokémon, to make sure that none were snuck in or taken off campus. It was mostly empty, save for a small crowd standing by a door at the back: Grandpa Jon, Lyle, and f*cking Nero milled around, waiting for us. The first two were in amiable conversation, while Nero stood off to the side, pacing.

Huh. He's wearing pants again today. Shoes too: blue flip-flops, which were currently putting tracks in the floor. I only looked at his face once, but found that he wasn't glaring back, as he usually did. He looked twitchy, distracted, and highly impatient, at something other than the forthcoming transaction.

"Looks like everyone is here," Mr. Reyes said; across the room, the lab assistant left her desk and came over. "Shall we get started?"

Grandpa Jon turned to me, and nodded. He was holding my Tentacool's Great Ball in his hand. "Tell us what to do, Mr. Reyes."

"Darwin, go withdraw the Sharpedo," Mr. Reyes instructed me. "I want you to see how this is done."

I went over to the Depository on the far wall while the lab assistant opened the door at the back, and led everyone inside the small chamber beyond. A few moments later, I had Sharpedo's Pokéball in hand, and I went and joined them. The room was dominated by a small machine standing within a ring of moving belts. Bracketed around it was a series of loops that looked like tiny gates: scanners. Grandpa Jon was standing at one end of the belt, and Mr. Reyes motioned me to the other.

"Darwin, you've only learned of this in books, but do you think you can explain what this is, and what will happen?" Mr. Reyes asked.

I nodded. There was a whole section about Trades in the Battle Mechanics textbook. "It's a Trade Station," I said. "The Pokéball moves through the scanners, and its electronic data is read and displayed on the computers. After consent is given for the trade, the second set of scanners erases the electronic data of the previous owner and replaces it with information for the new Trainer."

"Very good," Mr. Reyes said. "Mr. Briney's told me that the Tentacool is currently in his name, and ownership will be transferred from him to you, and for Sharpedo, from you to him."

"But that's a technicality, right?" Nero said tightly.

"Yes," Mr. Reyes said. "Once the Sharpedo belongs to him, he is free to release it, as you wish. Or, if you want to register an official Trainer ID in the database, he can transfer it to you, Mr. Delphiri."

Nero's lip curled, telling me he'd rather eat sand than register as a Trainer. "Can we start?"

Grandpa Jon placed the Great Ball in the slot on his side of the station, and I did the same with the Safari Ball on mine. The two Pokéballs rolled onto the belt, and the lab assistant powered up the machine, setting the belt in motion. With a smooth whine, it rolled the Pokéballs along, through the series of scanners. It took less than a minute: soon, the Great Ball had arrived at my station, and a prompt appeared on the screen.

Do you want to trade [Fem-Wat-ty-319-lvl69] with [Mal-Wat-type-072-lvl13]?

Yes, I clicked. The machine whirred, and a fillable form appeared, asking for my Trainer ID, digital signature and, optionally, a name for my new Tentacool.

Brackish, I typed in.

After a loading screen, and the belt was back in motion, rolling the balls back through the scanners in one last cycle. Then the machine sucked the Great Ball into the slot and deposited it into my hand.

Congratulations, Darwin Blakesley. Take good care of Brackish!

We'll see. We'd just traded bites for stings, after all.

Grandpa Jon came around with Magdalene's Pokéball, and he handed it... To me. I blinked in confusion, and he nodded over to Nero, who was coming off the wall. Oh, I see. I guessed this was his way of telling me to try and end this whole affair with Nero on a kinder note. Tell him that! I turned, preparing myself for an awkward conversation.

But I stilled at the look on Nero's face. I didn't think it was possible for this guy to look desperate, not this desperate, yet he stared at the Safari Ball like a desert wanderer might a glass of water, or a jeweler an exquisite gem. His arm shook a little as he extended his hand, almost like I was bestowing up on him not a Pokéball, but a crown. I began to hand it to him...but paused, struck by the intensity in his eyes.

We stood there for a moment, not quite meeting each other halfway.

And for that moment, he actually didn't notice — he just kept staring at the Pokéball with that tight, starving look on his face, and only when he realized that it wasn't actually in his hand did he begin to scowl.

"Give her to me," he demanded.

What's wrong with you, idiot? I discovered why after I dropped the Ball in his hands: watching him stare at it like something beloved lost now found, I experienced a flash of jealousy. Tell me, do you treat all your Pokémon as a means to an end? Maybe to you, they're all a dime a dozen. The comment had been vile and, I'd thought, flippant, but now I realized that not only had it been true, but Nero had voiced it from a place of authority: the proof was there in his eyes, and I thought that if he knew this Sharpedo enough to look at her Pokéball like that, the way I must've been desperate to offload her really, truly had disgusted him. It disgusted me, here and now.

Suddenly, I wished that I could look at Don like that, feel about him the way Nero clearly felt about Magdalene. Maybe that was what the training was missing. Maybe that's why Don kept falling short of the mark: because we weren't especially close, I was bracing for his failure, not building up to his success. His success. Not mine. After all, I realized, this was a trial for him too: he was the one who would be fighting Jamie, not me.

The insight was so obvious, so glaringly, shamefully obvious, that it made me laugh out loud.

The small smile — smile? Smile — that had been on Nero's face vanished. "What?" he snapped.

I shook my head. "Nothing... I...I'm just relieved that she's with you again. I'm..." I almost slid into an automatic apology, then stopped at the last minute. As Nero had pointed out on Saturday, apologies were useless. "I guess that's it."

Nero narrowed his eyes at me, and there was silence; the rest of the adults seemed to be waiting for us to say something else. But all Nero did was turn to Lyle and say, "Can we go?"

Lyle inclined his head towards the door, and we began to file out. Grandpa Jon gave my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze, but I didn't need it. It wasn't like Nero and I were friends or anything: he didn't like me, I didn't like him; he'd wanted his Sharpedo back, and I'd given it to him. Case closed.

Case closed. The relief came at a slow, steady trickle, filling the inside of my chest. Finally, the thing with the Sharpedo was over, and I could concentrate on Midterms. And maybe I'd even figured out a way to strengthen Don's training... The power of friendship.

Yeah, no sympathy needed. I had reason to celebrate.

***

NERO

"It's on the back," Mr. Briney told me. "See that tiny depression? There's a red button inside. Press and hold it, and it'll flash thrice and then stay on. Once you do that, the Pokéball is ready for release."

We were back the Sea House, down at the beach, and my heart was booming like thunder inside my skull. I have her. Magdalene. I've got her. I'd maintained a deathgrip on her Pokéball on the long drive back to Slateport City, such that my fingers were now cramped, and my bad hand was shaking visibly. But I'd refused to even entertain the possibility of putting the Pokéball down for any reason—now that she was here with me, there was no way in hell that I was letting her out of my sight again.

Now I stood in the damp sand at the edge of the waves, layers of foam slicking up and down around my bare feet. I'd taken off the pants I'd borrowed from the Seawatchers, ready to leave with Mag after she adjusted to being back out of a Pokéball. In a few minutes we would be heading back to Delphirius, and from there we would prepare to get on the road, just the three of us once again.

Kuma, the wind one. The stray thought stole away some of my elation, but I swallowed it back. Not yet. I could think about that later. Right now, I just wanted to focus on Magdalene.

"See it?" Mr. Briney asked. He and Lyle were standing a ways behind me.

"Yeah." I saw the little hole he was talking about, and the button in it. I pressed on it with a thumbnail, and just as Briney said, it flashed three times before glowing red. There. Ready for release. I shook even harder.

"Now?" I said. I'd never handled one of these contraptions before.

"Press the big white button on the front," Lyle said.

I complied, and the Pokéball swelled in size in my hand, so suddenly that I almost dropped it. "Now?"

"Aim it at the waves and push the button again."

I obeyed, pointing the Pokéball out towards the burning orange ocean and pressing down on the white button. The device popped open, releasing what I almost thought was a barrage of fire — it arced up out of the device and came down like a meteor in the deeper water several yards into the sea. I shielded my eyes from it and the glowing water, and a moment later I saw a long, dark shape rising up out of the foamy waves like a pike: dorsal fin.

"Mag," I called, wading into the water. "Mag? Mag!"

I went to her and she came to me, and I instantly recognized her massive, scarred shape under the waves; the sight set something aflame inside me, a searing, nearly unstoppable urge to burst into tears. I couldn't tell you whether the impulse reached my eyes or not — she reached me in a giant wave, and soon I had streams of saltwater racing down my face. As I steadied myself, she looped around me in a giant circle, and I felt her teeth close around my left leg, her tongue looking for the scars embedded in my calf.

"Yes," I said, and my face felt tight around a stupid, loony grin. "Yes, yes, it's me, old doll. Are you happy to see me?"

Now her giant skull came up, and she peered up at me with a ruby-red eye, which rolled up and down, up and down, in stark disbelief. I couldn't help it: I let out an exultant cry and flung my arms around her bulk, as much of it as would fit between my arms, and rubbed my cheek against her rough skin.

"I know. I know!" I cried — wept. "I didn't think I'd see you again. Thank Arceus I didn't give up. Thank Arceus I'm stupid and boneheaded!"

Magdalene suddenly backed up out of my grip and surged upward, her mouth yawning open like a fathomless tide pool rimmed with knives. She closed her mouth down around me all the way to my waist.

I screamed.

"NERO!" Mr. Briney's voice, and Lyle let out a wordless, horrified exclamation. "Oh Arceus! She ate him! Arceus, Lyle, we... What? Nero?"

I came up laughing. Choking — I was so giddy that my breath was getting stuck somewhere in my lungs or my gills or something, and I coughed out the rest of my laughs as Magdalene spat me out and swam enthusiastically around me, setting her teeth into my arm in a sweet, good-natured kind of way. From the beach, Mr. Briney and Lyle looked on with abject amazement, faces white as snow.

"Got you," I rasped when I was finally done. "Your faces."

Mr. Briney was baffled. "You're...alive," he said. "But she—"

"A joke," I told him, waving it off. "She wouldn't eat me, she's just playing."

The two exchanged an uncertain glance, but couldn't deny that it was true — I was most assuredly alive, after all. Probably, they couldn't wrap their heads around a Sharpedo playing at anything.

"That's...good," Lyle said awkwardly.

"Are you all right now?" Mr. Briney asked. "Heading back to Delphirius."

I nodded. "Thank you for helping me," I said. "Simeon too. I..." I shrugged, feeling wired, emotional, and highly charitable. "I thought a Seawatcher operation this big was too good to be true, and so I didn't really trust that you would actually be able to help with this. So tell him that I was wrong, and I'm sorry."

"Tell him yourself," Lyle said. "You'll be here for your next Drought, won't you?"

I didn't answer that—I didn't want to think that far ahead, of what we would be doing tomorrow or beyond. Instead, I tossed the useless Safari Ball back at Briney, established a firm grip on Mag's dorsal fin.

"Thank you," I said again. "And goodbye. Mag." I rubbed her hide again. "Let's go. I'll talk as we go."

We went to sea.

--

Arceus, folks, I am so, so sorry that it took me 35 chapters to get Magdalene back into Nero's hands. 35 chapters to tell 25% of the story... Shameful, isn't it? DX

Anyway, this concludes FLOOD...part one. Sure, I could've actually ended the story here, but as you can see, I've got too many active story threads, not the least of which is what Lior's story is building up to, and how it ties into the tales of Darwin, Thomas, and Nero.

However, I think it's time for the story to take a break and cool off a little before I continue. So I've decided that for the month of September 2020, FLOOD will be on hiatus while I work on editing Part One (Ch 1-35) into something cleaner and more comprehensive for new and old reader's alike.

Fear not, though: I've got some other things lined up to keep you folks interested while FLOOD is on break. And of course, there are other stories on my profile if you'd like to check those out as well.

Before you go: I could use your help in the next part, as to your overall thoughts with the story! I'll be posting a survey and some information on the things I'll be looking to bolster or cut in editing. If you complete the survey, you'll earn a prize, so please think about contributing!

See you in October, folks.