Tink.

  ...Mm...m...

  Tink.

  Ghm...mmm...

  Tink.

  ...Muh? Whuzzi...nngm...mmmm...

  "Oh dear, is it already midday? Astra must be sleeping through the candle alarm. Pardon, but could you all go retrieve her? Thank you."

  A parade of footfalls and wingbeats, then a considerate silence.

  "Cada. Cada nincada."

  "Grove."

  Prod prod. Prod prod.

  Nnnn? Nmnghhh...

  "Grovyle."

  "Swa?"

  "Nin nin."

  Silence but for the scratching of heads.

  "Ron?"

  "Grove."

  Shake shake. Shake Shake.

  NNNNnnnn! Fuh'n, gho 'way...

  "Grove..."

  "Slak?"

  "Vyle gro!"

  A frustrated outcry.

  "MARILL!"

  Inhale.

  Mhh!? Whuh—WATER!

  Astra bolted upright, shrieking as the water gun blasted her back into consciousness. She rolled away from the onslaught, only to slam her forehead into the rocky wall next to her. The water gun cut off abruptly, leaving her soaked, shivering, and cursed with a massive headache.

  She turned, finding her entire team staring at her in horror from the middle of her room—except Marill, who had puffed up victoriously.

  "Mar mar!" she chirped, proud of finally awakening their trainer. Astra stared back, slumped against the wall as water dripped from her hair.

  And then, across the room, another rock needle fell from the alarm candle—

  Tink.

  —And the spell was broken. Astra lit up like a bonfire, dark swirls of purple energy pervading the room. Pink eyes seemed to turn blood red in the gloom.

  Grovyle, Nincada, Aron, and Swablu took a step back. Marill froze, eyes wide in terror. Slakoth blinked.

  A Psychic sphere coalesced in Astra's hand, and she screamed—

  "What the fuck is wrong with you!?"

  There was a boom, and an elderly Kirlia looked across his cave to see his granddaughter's Grovyle, Marill, and Nincada sent screaming across the chamber, smacking into the—thankfully empty—far wall. Swablu flew out right afterwards, chirping wildly as she fled, with Aron following suit as fast as her nubby legs would allow. Picking themselves up, the three blasted Pokemon ran for the exit as the dull cry of an irritated Slakoth emanated from Astra's room.

  Astra's grandfather shook his head. "Not a gentle way to accomplish it, but it appears Astra is awake now," he noted, turning to Rena.

  The Alakazam looked up from the roasted Magikarp she'd been devouring, humming in amusement. "Maybe not gentle," she agreed, popping another chunk of fish into her mouth with great relish, "but it is amusing. I used to dump orbs of river water on my friends when they slept for too long, myself."

  "It certainly gets results," he allowed. "Though, it is unusual that such methods were necessary. Astra is normally such an early riser."

  "She had an eventful night…and my usage of {Four-fold Rest} didn't help at all, I'm sure. It's no surprise that she was too exhausted for any normal waking exuberance."

  Astra's grandfather politely ignored the quiet curses that had begun radiating from Astra's room. "You mentioned that technique before; what exactly is it?"

  "A handy Psychic trick that speeds up how fast you sleep," Rena explained, idly picking at her teeth with a bone fragment. "The recipient feels like they have had a full cycle of rest within a fourth of the time, though it costs a great deal of energy to perform and deepens their next rest significantly. I couldn't use it on myself, else I would have had a much easier time managing my Creches."

  "Truly? Incredible. Why can you not cast it on yourself?"

  Rena snorted. "The way it works means it only functions when the recipient is already exhausted; would you try to perform a costly, stressful technique on your own mind while halfway down the river?"

  "An intriguing turn of phrase, but I understand. I hope you would be willing to teach me how to perform it in due time; it sounds fascinating," the Kirlia said, smiling as Astra finally entered the room, dragging a whining Skaloth along behind her. "Good morning, Astra! Did you sleep well?"

  Astra gave her grandfather a flat stare. "What do you think?" she asked, her tone acidic. She ran a hand through her hair and flicked a handful of water off to the side.

  "I think that Magikarp is amazing," Rena exclaimed, flicking her own hand and pulling another fish from the fire pit. She floated it over to Astra and waggled it enticingly. "Surely you must be hungry! Water you waiting for?" she asked, eyes lit up in mirth.

  Astra looked at the offering for a moment, then rolled her eyes and grabbed it, tearing a big chunk out of the Magikarp. Oh, it was sweet! Grandpa must've soaked it in Oran juice overnight.

  "Mmm. That is good," she said, her mood considerably brightened. "Morning Grandpa, Rena."

  "Slaa..."

  "And Slakoth," she acknowledged. Astra tore off a piece of Magikarp and grabbed a few Oran from the table across the room, telekinetically guiding them into his suddenly ecstatic claws. He hadn't been the one to blast her with a water gun, so she wasn't particularly inclined to hold a grudge. She pulled over a chair and sat next to Grandpa and Rena, humming as the pleasant warmth of the bonfire slowly started drying out her sodden hair and coat.

  "If you wanted a real answer, I did sleep well—up until the last five minutes or so," Astra continued, plucking out one of the Magikarp's eyes. Perfectly baked! "After that, not so much!"

  "It could have been more gentle, but it is already nearing mid-day," her grandfather explained. "As much as I would have loved to let you sleep in, I'm afraid we do have somewhere to be today."

  "I haven't had a full rest myself quite yet," Rena commented. "I've spent forty years sleeping in fragmented bursts; I'm not going to break the habit that easily. I've mostly been ensuring that all of my Abra are settling in with their new guardians, and ensuring those guardians are up to the task of caring for them. Though I am grateful that there were so many Kirlia willing to share their home, I do not think they were expecting to house up to three of my Abra at once."

  Her whiskers twitched in amusement. "I expect a majority of them will come seek me out once they realize my Abra will sleep for eighteen hours at a time, and then again once they realize how utterly outclassed they are at teleporting by my younglings. The prospect of allowing others to care for them—for me to be able to sleep in...it still feels dream-like." Her voice softened. "I have so much time now..."

  "I'm glad," Astra said, smiling at the Alakazam's radiant joy. She turned back to her grandfather, taking another bite of fish. "I assume everyone wants to know what else I saw out there?" The urgency of last night's task had overpowered everything else, but now that she was back in the village…

  Well, not giving people a story would be simply unacceptable.

  Her grandfather nodded. "Indeed. With all the celebrations last night, we were not able to consult you with how you wished to regale your tale to us. Will you make use of the plaza again?"

  Astra considered the question. Normally she would have said yes; the more the village saw of what she'd seen, the better. Except she had several Human-shaped lumps that were present for nearly all of it. Showing May and Brendan to the entire village at once would likely cause some sort of uproar, and she was not enthused about hosting another mass question-session.

  "A private meeting would be best," she decided. "Elders-only. You all can decide how much everyone else hears. Some of it is going to be...upsetting."

  "I'll send word, then." Her grandfather gave her a dry smile. "I imagine finding out you have been travelling with a pair of humans while on a stealth mission will ruffle quite a few coats."

  Astra's eyes lowered, and her voice followed suit. "Among other things," she mumbled. Flicking a hand through her hair again, she found it acceptably dried and stood up, idly lifting Slakoth up alongside her. There was no telling what he might rifle through if she just left him in her home alone. She'd drop him off somewhere along the way, maybe with Grovyle. "Right, let's get this show on the road."

  Her grandfather blinked at her. "Pardon?"

  Astra briefly gave her friends another silent apology. For as impatient and volatile as she was, May must have had the endurance of a hardened Cascoon to put up with this sort of thing all day.

  "Let's just go," she sighed.

  The sky-stage was a particularly scenic structure in the village, constructed by one of the woodworking Elders several dozen summers ago. Set atop an unusually flat and thick-branched patch of canopy supported by five sturdy trees, it was a fair-sized circular platform surrounded by a few layers of ascending wooden rings that lay exposed directly to the sky. Half of the planks had been coated with a sooty paste such that it resembled night, while the rest had utilized myriad colorings to mimic dawn, midday, and dusk.

  It was one of the tallest points in the village, and though it didn't breach the whole treeline she'd have trouble thinking of a better place to stargaze from. It was also popular for any number of performances, of course, although Astra doubted it would make for a very good Rebound arena.

  It had been a long time since she'd come up here—teleportation was a necessity, so up until now she'd been dependent on her grandfather to ferry her—and she was slightly disappointed to discover that the paint had drastically faded. Sunlight and rain would do that, she supposed.

  …Though her own disappointment paled in comparison to the vocal chagrin of the Elder who'd created it. He stared at the weathered paint like it was vulgar, though a moment later his expression soured even further as something even more offensive caught his eye.

  "It's all warped!" the distraught Architect cried out as Astra, her grandfather, and Rena drew closer. He gestured wildly to a patch of wood that, upon further inspection, appeared to be getting a little distorted. The other two woodworking Elders were standing off next to their compatriot, looking down at the disfigurement in pained sympathy. "Look at this! This is unacceptable! Who's been on maintenance duty these past few storms? They think they can slack off and let water puddle up and deface my stage!? Do they even realize how long it takes for good wood to grow? My mother planted the trees that made these planks herself! Those rotten slackers are going to carve replacement boards with their bare hands when I find them, I swear by the stars—!"

  "He seems to be having fun," Rena commented as the trio arrived at the center-stage where ten other Elders were waiting.

  "Excitable for certain," Astra's grandpa agreed. "Those poor Kirlia."

  Shaking her head, Astra turned from the spectacle. "I heard that everyone wants me to take another turn at storytelling," she called out, catching the group's attention. The Matron stepped forward, frowning.

  "Yes, it's only prudent that we find out what all you've been getting up to out there," she said, folding her arms. "It concerns all of us, after all."

  "The Ancestor never said much about exactly what humans were capable of," the Scarred Elder added. His near-mauled eyes stared through her, unusually muscled arms flexing as he clenched his hands for a moment. "Preparing as though we are being faced by another Alpha Mightyena is one thing, but I would prefer something more solid to put our efforts towards."

  Astra looked at him and carefully suppressed the urge to grimace. "Right. Well, there's certainly a lot to say, so let's get on with it."

  The two Elders nodded, and after all but dragging the carpenters from the damaged wood, Astra was faced with the full array of the village's fourteen leading Kirlia (including her grandfather) as well as Rena. Would the Alakazam be considered an Elder now? Surely. The latter two gave her an encouraging smile while the rest looked on in rapt attention.

  Astra stood there, pondering how best to describe her journey. Skipping around from topic to topic seemed kind of messy, and she didn't know what to start with, either. Chronologically was probably for the best. First thing was...her fight with that Bug-type trainer just before Petalburg?

  ...No.

  There had been something before that, hadn't there?

  "I'll go through it all in order, though I'm starting with a doozy," Astra said, waving her hand behind her. Route 102 shimmered into view, her Pokedex's screen splayed large across the air. "Immediately after I left the village, I began to examine the device that Professor Birch gave me when I became a trainer. This is called a Pokedex, and it is a machine which holds many different informational tools within itself."

  Astra looked around the stage, then quietly pointed to the name of an app on the screen: Clock. "Tell me, can anyone read what this says?"

  The Elders blinked, looking at each other in confusion.

  "Is that...human writing?" the Elder in charge of the gardens asked, peering at the illusion and rubbing her chin with a berry-stained hand. "I'm not sure anyone knows how to decipher that sort of thing, dear. We don't have enough examples to even try."

  Astra looked to her grandfather, who shook his head. Next to him, Rena shrugged. "I was too busy tending my Abra to figure out how to read anything the humans made. I didn't have anything to do so with either."

  Astra nodded. "Right. Well, I can. It says 'clock,' and it brings up a function relating to tracking time."

  "You learned humanity's written word?" her grandfather's friend—the Presenter—asked, he and all the other Elders looking very impressed. "It's not even been a third of a season yet; either it's easier than I thought or you're an absolute genius!"

  "That's the thing," Astra said, looking up at the display and avoiding her audience's gazes. "I didn't learn it. I was able to recognize and interpret every single word on this device and throughout the human world from the very first day I set out. But I hadn't understood a word of it just the day before.

  "Once I realized I could read the Pokedex, all I could conclude was that between the previous day and my setting out, I had somehow gained a comprehensive understanding of human writing without realizing it." Her skin prickled as she continued. "I couldn't have possibly gotten it on my own, so my best guess is...I was mentally compromised and had the skill forced on me by someone else."

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Horror greeted her words, an array of shock and fury writ across every Elder's face.

  "You were what!?"

  Astra's grandfather vanished from his seat with a splitting crack, and Astra found herself staring into his desperate, wide-eyed gaze. "Are you okay!? Were you harmed? Was anything missing—no, how could you tell if there was?" he rambled, gripping her arms firmly. "I must check for damage or warping. Please, will you let me in?"

  Astra felt the familiar, frenetic, yet still feather-light touch of her grandfather's energy brush against her shield. She allowed it through, and soon felt a warm presence mingling with her own, gently investigating the contours of her mind for irregularities.

  "No, nothing obvious," her grandfather muttered, eyes unfocused and tone steadily calming. "Stress and strain, as to be expected, but...acts such as those invariably leave scars. I cannot spot anything wrong," he concluded, sighing in relief. Astra shivered as he withdrew, a bracing chill replacing the warmth his energy had brought.

  "Nothing?" Astra checked, dread pooling in her gut at the diagnosis. "Are you sure? I—I mean that's good, but..."

  She had been hoping for an answer that wasn't what she had been suspecting. Her grandfather seemed to pick up on the thought, frowning worriedly.

  "I cannot imagine anything in that professor's lab would have done such a thing to you, and any such profane act by one of our own would necessitate that they both know the skill themself—which none do—and be capable of violating a mind without leaving a trace." He frowned as he mused. "What could possibly have done this? Astra, did you notice anything unusual?"

  Astra was silent for a moment, putting her thoughts in order. "The night before I left, after you gave me the Ancestor's orb," she began, "I got...curious. I opened the box and...well, I Psychically poked the orb. What happened next...I don't really know how to describe it. Something like a cross between a vision and a memory. It's the only thing I can think of that was strange."

  The Elders glanced between each other, eyes wide and countenances grim as they murmured.

  "Of course it would be the old hag…" "It makes sense. She came from the human world before she founded the village; she would know how to read their writing." "Thousands of seasons would let anyone master obscene techniques, and the trials to evolve into a Gardevoir were voluntary and deliberately atrocious; anything could be justified." "She poked it inside the village? What foolishness—" "How could that be possible, though? The Ancestor is long gone and the orb, while incredibly potent, is still a simple amplifier. It's never done anything like that..." "When was the last time we tested the foul thing?" "Some time after the Mightyena fell. My memory is a bit hazy but I don't recall anything unusual happening."

  Rena just looked confused. "Sorry, I think I'm missing context for all of this. Astra told me of your 'Ancestor' before, but what is this about an 'orb'?"

  Astra's grandfather hummed as the other Elders began to answer. "It is still uncertain how it was done, but nothing else would fit. If your sudden knowledge was from some unknown contingency of hers..." He grimaced. "I do not approve whatsoever, but we can be assured that the situation is less abhorrent than I thought. Immoral, but not malicious."

  Astra could only shrug minutely. It had helped immensely; she would have no doubt utterly failed soon after she left if she couldn't read. Still...she hadn't asked for it. Hadn't known to want it. She didn't say yes. In the best possible light, it could be said that her many-times great grandmother had simply given her a helping hand, but it still felt empty when the crippled Gardevoir had vanished seasons before Astra's egg came to be.

  It would've been nice to have someone to scream at.

  "You said you experienced some manner of vision or memory?" one of the stoneworking Elders asked, once everyone had settled back onto the stage rings. "What did you see?"

  "It's...hard to recall," Astra admitted, frowning. She hadn't thought too much about her visions; it had been much easier for her peace of mind to just move past them. "There was a forest, and it was raining heavily. A Ralts was hiding in a fallen, hollowed out tree log, when a human child found her. They...talked? Danced, I think. And then when the rain stopped, they both left. That's all."

  A pregnant pause as everyone considered her words.

  "A memory," the Bead-haired Elder repeated thoughtfully. "If all this was caused by the Ancestor...she said she had once been partnered with a human, before she founded the village. Could that have been one of her memories?"

  Another silence, significantly more disquieting than the last.

  "Perhaps that accursed sphere is more than an amplifier after all," the Charred murmured, the burn scars on her arms stretching grotesquely as she clenched her hands.

  The heavy air continued for a time, but couldn't last; with nothing left to say on the matter—for now—Astra was thankfully able to return to her story. Glossing over her first battle with the Bug-type trainer, she brought up images of the Pokemart and Pokecenter she'd visited on the outskirts of Petalburg. Gasps of disbelief, awe, and bitter outrage sounded out at the medicines alone, though their moods quickly returned to confusion and amusement at the selection of Pokemon treats.

  "Oh!" Rena said, excitedly. "Those metal scraps! Human metal is much purer than raw ore; {???□???????■???} would love those! Your Aron would too. See about getting some for her; I doubt she's had much iron at all!"

  "What is 'ectoplasm'?" the Matron asked. "It sounds like some sort of disease."

  "Oh, those are for Ghost-type Pokemon," Astra clarified.

  The Elders stared—and Astra belatedly remembered that nobody knew that ghosts were real.

  Silence lingered.

  "The old tales are true...?" the Scarred whispered, hands twitching as though he wanted to reach out for a spear. "I thought they were simple entertainment to scare hatchlings. The Hollow-eyed Gnasher, the Hag in the Cauldron—what of the Stellar Fury? Did a star truly shatter against the moon and rain screaming light across the sky?"

  "Oh my," Rena said, leaning forward. "Those sound awful! You'll have to tell me about them sometime."

  Astra chuckled awkwardly. "No no, those are definitely just stories. Most of our apparitions involve...severely aberrant members of our line, and humanity isn't aware of any Kirlia existing in the entire region, distorted or otherwise."

  "So the figures of legend and nightmare—none of them are out there?" the Architect asked.

  "As far as I can tell, Ghost-type Pokemon don't have anything to do with our horrors, so nothing's going to carve out your horn or make the moon shriek. Wow, I haven't heard that one in a long time..." Astra trailed off, thinking back to the old tale where the celestial body had...uh.

  Hm. Hadn't Brendan said that the Meteor Falls were created when a 'bright flash had lit up the moon'? Maybe there was something to that one after all. It didn't really matter, she supposed; the Fury was more of an event or an omen than a creature that would harm you, and it wasn't like any of them were going to the moon.

  ...Wait, weren't the humans in Mossdeep launching rockets to build houses up there? Um. Well.

  Sucks to be them, she guessed? It wasn't her problem, but she wished them the best.

  "Anyway, back on track, who wants to see the new instrument a human in Petalburg gifted me?" Astra exclaimed, quickly flashing her violin case into her hands. The Beaded jumped from her seat, nearly vibrating in place.

  "You were able to get a human instrument!?" she gasped, twinkles in her eyes. "By the stars, why didn't you say so sooner! Show me, show me!"

  Astra grinned and pulled out the stringed instrument, laughing as the Beaded sprinted up and inspected it with an almost starving intensity. "Easy now, I can't replace this, so no touching. Trevor—the human I got it from—was kind enough to teach me how to play and then gift me his own personal instrument; he had some ailment that meant he was losing the ability to use it as well as he once could."

  "You were talking to humans outside of necessity?" the Matron queried, frowning. "That's dangerous."

  "Ah, who cares!" the Beaded scoffed, excitedly hopping in place. "Quick, quick, play it! Let me hear what it sounds like!"

  "I can give a demonstration, but I think I'd prefer to do something more complete once I can invite everyone else," Astra demurred, taking out the bow and resting the base of the violin against her neck. Pausing to consider what she knew, she decided on a sample of a larger piece: Makar's Wind Aria.

  From the moment she drew the bow across the strings—short, jaunty notes filling the air—Astra could feel a spark of wonder enter the air. A tone both wondrous and ever so slightly wistful caught the nerves of the Elders arrayed before her. A call to adventure and brighter days, an inevitable parting with hopes of a future reunion.

  Astra only played for half a minute, but the awe on her audience's faces made her feel like she had performed a whole concert at once. Even the stoic Scarred and Charred had begun to ever-so minutely sway along to the melody.

  "It's...beautiful," the Beaded whispered, eyes watery. "You must perform for the village before you resume your task; I will brook nothing less than an entire ensemble to perform alongside you!"

  All present enthusiastically agreed, and Astra grinned.

  "Of course," she said, stashing her instrument away. "Maybe we can do something tomorrow night. I've still got a lot of story to tell."

  Astra's encounter with Norman at the Petalburg Gym was received by resounding mockery. Names were thrown, his appearance mocked, and the Scarred was particularly zealous in calling the man churlish and neglectful.

  "This human is supposed to act as a goalpost of their trainers and guide them to new heights, yet he refuses to interact with novices?" he scoffed. "He is no combat instructor, merely a glutton for battle! You cannot expect to harvest quality fruit when you toss out saplings with the weeds!"

  The Gardener nodded in firm agreement, very appreciative of a good agricultural metaphor.

  "Yeah, he was a huge jerk," Astra said, banishing her memory from the air. She braced herself for what came next; there was no doubt in her mind that they'd be stuck here for a while. "Afterwards, I was sitting on a bench outside the gym and planning my next move when I was approached by a human teenager."

  She waved a hand, and a life-sized illusion of Brendan formed at her side. He grinned at the audience, legs planted wide and arms up in his usual pre-battle stance.

  "This is Brendan Birch," Astra announced. "His father was the Professor I met in Littleroot—the one who allowed me to become a Trainer and gave me Treecko."

  "Oh, I recognize him!" Rena cut in, eyes lighting up. "He and that girl were with you at the mouth of the cave where we first met! I was so certain you were a lost Abra in peril at the time that I teleported them into a Zubat swarm; I don't know how I thought that made sense."

  The Elders stared intently at Rena, who's smile slowly began to drop into an uncertain frown. Then they turned to Astra, who was trying not to grimace.

  "Yes, thank you, Rena," she said, sighing. Trying to ignore the dozen intense looks she was receiving, Astra continued on. "Brendan's father told him about me, and had come over to introduce himself as well as...well, comfort me. I hadn't enjoyed my encounter with Norman, so I was feeling pretty miserable. We talked for a bit and had a Pokemon battle, which I won. Afterward, another human came over and started teasing Brendan for losing."

  Another image formed, her best friend sporting a cocky smirk as she looked over her audience. She held a pokeball in her palm, her other hand planted firmly on her hip.

  "This is May," Astra explained. "She initially dismissed me, but after Brendan revealed my position in a certain aspect of trainer culture I hadn't been aware of—starter Pokemon like Treecko are usually given out to groups of three, and the three trainers who get their starters from the same set often wind up connected in some fashion—she challenged me to a battle, which I very swiftly lost."

  "I suppose you couldn't have won every conflict, but that is still disappointing to hear," the Presenter said. He cocked his head. "So you were connected to these two humans just by acquiring your 'starter' from the Professor? That must have been difficult to deal with."

  "In a manner of speaking, yes," Astra replied, her face kept carefully blank even as she saw the suspicious looks among many of the other Elders morph into horrified realizations. She shifted from leg to leg, then sighed.

  "Yeah, here we go," she murmured, then straightened up. "Since we shared a connection, I thought it would be prudent to ask them questions I had about human society, which occurred in a nearby restaurant. A building which serves food," she clarified. "Afterwards, Brendan left to go...perform field research for his dad." Namely, by searching the nearby trail for other Ralts because Birch had found out about May's run-in with her.

  Her words began to flow faster. "May then asked me where I was spending the night. I told her I was planning to sleep in the woods. She, uh, insisted that I share the room she had rented in a hotel. I accepted, and safely made it through the night sleeping in the same bed.

  "In the morning, we set out for Rustboro. Together," Astra added, shrinking in on herself at the collective dumbfounded shock spread amongst the Elders. "And, uh. I've been travelling with her—and Brendan, lately—ever since."

  Silence. The Matron stood up, nearly vibrating with rage.

  "You made friends with humans? While you were trying to hide!? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?"

  Astra closed her eyes as a cacophonic pandemonium erupted amongst her audience, accusations and screams of outrage overlapping until she could hear nothing but apoplectic static.

  She sighed. Mmm. Yeah.

  That's about what she expected.

  Discord! Update my !

  Sand.