Day 14 of the trip to Kanto. Sunny.
The cruise ship docked early that morning, and at last they arrived at the port outside Lavender Town. It was a small town of its own, and from there they would continue overland to Lavender Town, which sat under heavy fog all year round.
"We're getting off! We're getting off!" Amber bounced excitedly the moment she saw the maids packing up. She was sick of the ship by now. No matter where she looked, it was just more sea. Now, finally, there would be something different to see.
"Come on, Amber," Reiji said, taking her hand as they moved into the crowded passageway. He had nothing to pack himself. Everything he owned fit in one backpack. Most of the truly valuable stuff, though, was still stored in Gengar's stomach, including plenty of larger items he only took out when he needed them.
"Rai-nii, we're going to find Mom." Amber sounded even happier saying that. This place still held traces of the life she had once lived with her mother. Some part of it already felt familiar to her.
"Save the jumping until we're off the ship. It's too cramped in here," Reiji told her.
"Okay…" Amber looked around and finally noticed just how packed the corridor was. Voices overlapped from every direction. If she focused, she could even sense the passengers' relief and excitement. After all, everyone was about to get off the ship.
"Rai-nii, there! Over there!"
Without warning, Amber tugged hard on Reiji's arm and pointed at a pickpocket in the middle of lifting someone's wallet. She had sensed the thief's excitement at almost getting away with it, and that emotion was so different from the rest that it stood out immediately.
"Blaine," Reiji called. He saw the thief too, but had no interest in dealing with it himself. Still, ignoring it in front of Amber would leave the wrong impression, so he pushed the problem straight to Blaine.
"Easy enough." Blaine smiled and tossed out a Poké Ball. "Magmar, grab that thief."
The pickpocket had been too focused on the theft to notice Magmar closing in. Only when Magmar caught him did he scream in shock.
"A Pokémon? Where did that come from?!"
"A thief? My wallet—"
The moment people realized what had happened, every nearby passenger reached for their pockets. Some found their wallets still there. Some didn't. All of them turned on the thief in anger.
By the time the passengers finished disembarking, Officer Jenny was already waiting below. There had been more than one thief working the crowd, and not every passenger got their wallet back.
Nothing had been taken from Reiji's group, so the thieves were handed over for Officer Jenny to deal with, with Blaine stepping in to handle the formalities as a Gym Leader.
The whole matter was wrapped up quickly, and after that they set off for Lavender Town.
For the trip inland, they rented a drafty sightseeing car.
Reiji had no idea what Blaine had been thinking. Lavender Town was hidden in fog all year round. Calling it a sightseeing car made no sense when there was barely anything to see. He honestly couldn't understand the old man's logic.
And Lavender Town was famous for supernatural incidents. That meant Ghost-types were almost certainly common there. If they ran into one on the road, Reiji wouldn't be surprised at all.
In fact, it turned out exactly the way he expected.
They hadn't been driving long before the car disappeared into thick fog in the middle of the forest. Even the fog lamps barely helped. Visibility dropped to maybe seven or eight meters.
Cold wind kept moaning through the trees too. The two maids ended up clutching Amber and huddling together, too nervous to even pretend they were enjoying the ride.
A dull thump came from above.
"Pelipper, get ahead of us and use Hurricane to clear the fog!"
Pelipper looked around at the dense mist. Hurricane was perfect for this kind of thing.
Everyone in the car watched it fly ahead, and before long a blast of wind came rushing back. Reiji had to hold Amber's hat down so it wouldn't be blown away.
Pelipper used Hurricane several times in a row, and the road ahead cleared enough for the car to keep moving. Once the view opened up a little, it flew back and settled on the roof to rest.
But it didn't take long for the fog to swallow the road again.
So Pelipper had to use Hurricane again.
That cycle continued for over an hour before the sightseeing car finally rattled into Lavender Town. They caught sight of the tallest building there almost at once—the Pokémon Tower, a seven-story memorial tower for the dead.
As for the return trip?
Forget it.
The driver wasn't brave enough to head back through that alone. Their company had a branch here anyway. He could drive back once the weather improved.
Even after reaching Lavender Town, they didn't get out. Blaine checked the paper in his hand, then started giving the driver directions from the front seat.
They had only just arrived, and already the car was heading back into the forest.
This forest was different from the one on the way in. The trees here were much taller, so tall they blocked out the sunlight completely. Fog hung everywhere, even thicker than before, and the place felt even darker and more oppressive. The driver could barely see where he was going and nearly drove the car straight into a trunk.
There was no way the sightseeing car could make it deeper in.
Blaine finally gave up on forcing it and told the driver to head back. They would continue on foot.
In fact, once they reached this point, there was no road left anyway. Not even a dirt path.
Reiji knew where Blaine was taking them. It had to be Agatha's dojo. What he couldn't understand was why anyone would open a Gym in a wilderness like this instead of in town. The old woman's taste was certainly something.
Once the car stopped and the trip turned into a hike, they suddenly had far too much to carry.
One old man, one child, two women, and only one healthy young man.
Naturally, all the bags ended up on Reiji.
With a sigh, he released Poliwhirl, Kingler, Rhydon, and Gyarados and had the four of them help carry the load.
Scyther was ruled out right away. Those blades would turn the luggage into scraps if it slipped once. Pelipper was exhausted from clearing the fog and was already back inside its Poké Ball resting.
Reiji got the four of them loaded up—and then froze.
Blaine and the others were gone.
The fog was so thick he hadn't even noticed when they disappeared. He almost broke right there. Which direction was he even supposed to go now?
Blaine had vanished without leaving so much as a route behind. How was he supposed to find Lavender Gym like this?
In the end, he released Pelipper again and said, "Pelipper, fly above the forest and look around. See if there's a house or any kind of building nearby."
Pelipper sighed like it had long since accepted its fate. Still, when it looked at the mountain of luggage the other four were carrying, scouting from the air suddenly didn't seem so bad.
Once Pelipper flew off, Reiji waited under a tree.
He had barely noticed it before, but standing still in that forest made the atmosphere impossible to ignore. It was silent, dark, cold, and just eerie enough to make his skin crawl. Living in a place like this probably shortened your lifespan.
"Darkrai, I'm about to head for Lavender Gym. Take Gengar and keep your distance for a while. Just don't go too far from us."
"I already felt it," Darkrai said, looking east. "There's a terrifying presence over there, and it's close. This is its territory. The aura leaking from it isn't even deliberate. It's just a warning for outsiders to stay away."
Reiji followed Darkrai's gaze, then let out a breath.
"No. Go farther than that. I'm worried that old ghost will just eat the two of you."
The truth was, he didn't want Darkrai or Gengar to leave at all. Standing here without them made his nerves jump. Goosebumps ran up his arms, and every hair on his body felt ready to stand on end. It was the same feeling he had back in Saya's castle when Gengar had watched him from the dark.
As it happened, Pelipper found a house almost immediately.
Then it got lost on the way back.
So instead of returning directly, it had to circle above the forest and cry out, hoping Reiji would answer and help it find them again.
Gyarados heard the call first and let out a huge roar.
"For god's sake, don't roar—use Water Gun!" Reiji kicked it in the side. That roar had nearly scared him out of his skin. He was already tense enough without that.
Gyarados turned and looked at him with a wronged expression, like it had no idea what it had done to deserve the kick.
"Alright, alright. Just use Water Gun. I'll give you extra food later."
Reiji patted its thick body in apology. These days Gyarados responded much better to soft treatment than force.
With that promise in place, Gyarados finally spat a high column of water into the air.
Once Pelipper saw the spray rise above the trees, it corrected course and dropped down onto Gyarados's head. Then it lifted a wing and pointed out the direction it had found.
"Move out."
Reiji had Gyarados lead, with Kingler and Hanhan behind it, Poliwhirl covering the rear, and Pelipper acting as navigator.
They pushed through the forest for half an hour before Reiji called everyone to a stop.
Something was wrong.
They had been here before.
The proof was all over the ground—clear dragging tracks where Gyarados's huge body had scraped through the mud.
That meant they had been walking in circles.
Reiji looked ahead. Nothing but fog. The same trunks, the same shapes, the same size. Everything looked identical.
He turned around. More fog. The same trees. Visibility still under ten meters.
And yet Pelipper had been checking and rechecking the direction from above. By all logic, they shouldn't have been able to get lost.
Which meant this wasn't ordinary disorientation.
They had been played.
Maybe it was even a Gym trial. If so, then the first challenge might simply be finding a way through the Misty Forest.
If that was the case, Pelipper's directions were useless now. It might have been misled. It might even have been hypnotized.
From Pelipper's point of view, they really could have been moving toward the house the whole time—except the "house" in its mind had been shifting position.
And if an Elite Four-tier Pokémon was behind it all, feeding Pelipper false information without making a sound wasn't hard to imagine. Reiji already knew how absurd the gap was between Advanced tier and Elite Four tier. Bundle his whole team together and they still wouldn't beat that kind of opponent.
Especially not if the Gym Leader here was Agatha—someone from Professor Oak's generation. He had no intention of underestimating her.
"Pelipper, use Hurricane around us."
Reiji wanted to test something. If this really was part of the trial, then the fog wouldn't go away so easily.
Pelipper warned everyone to brace themselves, then beat its wings hard and blew the surrounding fog away.
For a few breaths, the forest around them actually cleared.
Then, before they had even managed to walk ten meters, the mist poured back in from every side.
Reiji took a deep breath and stared at it.
If Darkrai were still here, getting out of this would have been easy.
But Darkrai wasn't here.
And for Darkrai's and Gengar's sake, that was probably still the right call.
At that very moment, the two of them were watching from elsewhere in the forest.
"How are they back again?" Gengar scratched its head in confusion. It had been wandering around with Darkrai for a while, and then it noticed Reiji's group below looping through the same area again and again.
"Pelipper's been hypnotized," Darkrai said. "It thinks it's guiding them correctly, but all of its directions are wrong."
"Should we help?" Gengar asked. It clearly wanted in. This would have been the perfect chance to show off in front of that violent tadpole.
"No. Leave it. They'll get out on their own," Darkrai said firmly. "If we show ourselves, we'll be exposed."
…
"Forget it," Reiji said at last. "Gyarados, use Hyper Beam in every direction."
Gyarados practically lit up.
At last it had permission to stop holding back and vent its frustration properly.
It reared up and fired one orange beam after another into the fog and trees around them, each one packed with destructive force.
Cooldown? Recoil? Who cared?
On Gyarados, Hyper Beam might as well have had no downtime at all. It kept firing, over and over, not just blasting apart the fog but setting the surrounding trees ablaze as well.
Even rising flames weren't enough to slow it down.
Far away, on the upper floor of a loft-like building, two old people stood watching the forest from a distance.
They could see the orange beams stabbing upward. They could see the fire spreading through the trees.
"So this is your disciple, Old Blaine?" the old woman said dryly. "He's got plenty of firepower. It's a stupid solution, but I suppose it's still a solution."
"Agatha, that's enough. If this keeps up, the fire's going to get out of control," Blaine said, his eyelid twitching. He hadn't expected Reiji to solve the problem by simply blowing the forest apart and starting a wildfire.
Agatha snorted and thumped the floor with her cane. "Then let him put it out himself."
Then she turned to the girl behind her.
"Tania, go bring him here. And tell him to extinguish that fire."
Agatha headed down from the loft first. The boy had barely arrived and was already causing this much damage. There was no way she was going to be in a good mood about it.
Tania had seen the flames too, and anger was already showing on her face. She was Agatha's student, Agatha's granddaughter, and a trainer who loved Grass-type Pokémon. That fire was going to burn through the homes of who knew how many Grass-types.
Even if Agatha hadn't told her to go, she would have gone anyway.
She wanted words with him.
If someone got lost in the Misty Forest and answered by setting it on fire, then he was obviously some hot-headed idiot of a trainer.
The truth was, the fog would have lifted by itself at night.
And this fool had chosen arson instead.
Furious, she set off at once.
She wanted to see exactly what Blaine's disciple looked like. In her mind, he was already some bad-tempered Fire-type trainer, and the whole thing had lowered her opinion of Blaine along with him.
[End of chapter]
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