Gladion was jostled awake by Not before he could get any rest. According to her, Kau'i was right on top of him. 'Don't rush,' he thought, 'she's still weaker than me. It'll be a surprise attack, which means I actually have the upper hand.' He sent a text to Eva to get the grunts mobilized. While Kau'i waited for Gladion, the grunts would attack her from behind.

  I woke up slowly, completing that list of biological processes one by one rather than all at once. I knew I shouldn't've been so relaxed, given that I was the target of a manhunt, but it was a pretty shitty manhunt. I grabbed my phone from where it had fallen between the bedframe and the wall like I was the claw of a claw machine, which was a bit hard on my hands, but that's just how it goes sometimes, and laid back as I opened it.

  "Gladion thinks Kau'i's going to attack him.", Eva had sent,

  "Fucking dumbass."

  I just reacted to the message with an emoji to show I'd read it, then put the phone back in my pocket. Then I grabbed the ankle-length skirt Toma had made me. 'Not the clothes for a wild Zangoose chase.', I realized, grabbing the essentials out of the pockets woven into the fabric and pulling it off. As was my routine, if I was gonna change clothes, I might as well shower, and if I was gonna try to blend in, I might as well redye my hair too.

  I let Kumī out of his ball and carefully lifted him into the basin of the sink. "I need you to eat the color out of my hair.", I told him. He rose an unbothered thumbs up from the pool of his body. Next, I released Toma, who carried a chair for me over in front of the sink. Finally, I sat down and let my scalp sink into Kumī's poisonous mass.

  One session of tingly burning on my skin later and my hair was once again a bleach blonde canvas. I got Toma to untangle my hair with his knowledge of webs, then knuckled down to get the dye in. It was definitely too much fine movement for my reconstructed musculature to handle. I let it sit, thinking on different ways to get Gladion to chase me around or even stay in Malie City after I left.

  Finally, I went through the torture of shampooing, rinsing, conditioning, rinsing, and drying my massive mane of hair. 'Might need a raincheck on that chase today.', I thought, staring at the backs of my hands to try and make the pain go away. I was starting to dread going out and facing Gladion.

  I pulled on something decently colorful to avoid any association with Team Skull, a scratched up red T-shirt and overly yellow cargo shorts with extra black pockets stitched in. I turned to Toma, pointing at my ominous black mass of hair without any shine to it, and said through a grin, "We match." The uncanny matte effect of my hair was sufficiently aposematic up close, yet blended into a crowd easily. It was perfect.

  I choked back my hesitation and texted Eva.

  "Whered they put my supplies this time??", I sent, in character as Agarta.

  "Dumped by Abby's.", Eva replied in that professional tone I'd come to expect from her coordinating supplies.

  "I need to have a talk with those jackasses", I added, a plainly obvious bit of code to anyone in on it.

  "They'll be at the race track.", she provided.

  Abby's house in Po Town mapped roughly to the corner of Malie by the recycling plant, which would be where we'd have our "chase". The race track corresponded to the bit of Malie Garden where I'd meet with Rich and Will to plan ahead. If I ran into Gladion on his own before then, all the better. It would mean an easy escape and mollifying his need for conflict for the day without all the theatrics.

  I shuffled what was in that outfit's set of pockets and returned everyone but Toma to their balls. I made sure I had everything I might need for the chase on me and left my backpack in my room at the center. Without my backpack, Toma riding around on me was not a comfortable arrangement, so he walked at my side to Malie Garden.

  On the walk over we passed a palette of unopened drinks being thrown out behind a restaurant, so I loaded up my shoulder bag and sipped on it the whole way there. The streets of Malie City were ever-so familiar, being the place I'd gone to to steal in my capacity as a nostril of Team Skull. Even before that, it was where I'd landed with Gerald and stolen Kawami's ball just over three years prior.

  Malie Garden was, admittedly, less familiar. The tourist trap was far too well manicured to have worthwhile litter lying around and too spacious for most pickpocketing techniques to work. I had done some stealing there anyway, no shortage of good marks, but those trips had been some of my closest calls with the law.

  The stupidly ornate gate was the biggest sign of what I hated about Malie. Sure, it was a tourist spot, but it only was one because it was so unalolan. Rather than the native styles of architecture, or a caricature of native styles, or even the ones developed in Unova that got exported everywhere else, Malie City was right out of Johto, Kanto, or Kitakami. Of course, the tourists were almost all from those regions. It was a home away from home taken to an artificial extreme.

  I dragged my feet through the garden and weaved around the existing paths as much as possible, just to scuff up their grass. Then I reached the lake. I decided I would continue to desecrate things, since I was in such a "good" mood, and had Toma make a silk bridge for me rather than use the tacky wooden ones. The web started falling apart in the water as soon as I was across, exactly like I wanted. Yet another perfect piece of engineering from Toma.

  When I sat down at the tea shop across from Will and Rich, they were gawking at me. "What?", I asked. "Since when are you so... conspicuous?", Will asked back. I snorted and joked, "Conspicuous! That'll get you a good Scraggle score." Rich butted in, "No, seriously. What was up with that?" "Oh come on, like I've never been unsubtle.", I defended myself, "I walk around with my freaky pokémon all the time, my hair's always some kind of eye-catching, hell, I threw a brick into a cop car once!"

  "Those had reasons.", Rich said. Will was waving at the stupid tourists staring at us. I huffed and replied, "Yeah, the reason was cause I wanted to and it got shit I wanted done. I wanted the people in Malie Garden to remember where they are, and to have a little more trouble mowing the grass." I hucked the plastic juice bottle up in the air behind me and called, "Acid Spray." With a hiss and a splat, the melted glob of gunk stuck onto the grass.

  Will hissed at me, grabbing my wrist for just a moment before I flinched, "What. The. Fuck?" I stared into their eyes, challenging. "Do you think I want to be doing this shit?", I hissed back, "Putting on a show with you guys so everyone else can clean up Team Skull's mess? Our mess? Why is that my responsibility? Cause I know how to make a fuckin' stupid teenager mad at me?"

  Rich was moving to stop me, but I kept going. I hadn't realized how mad I was. "What day did the season start?", I prompted bitterly. "What?", he muttered. I urged, "What day?" "February twenty-seventh, why?", Will said, begging for a return to normalcy.

  "It's now April nineteenth. I've completed the island challenge of two islands in the time since then, on top of that boot camp and my recovery.", I huffed, "I could be out there demolishing the island challenge in record time, getting the recognition I need to become independent. Instead, I'm here.", I concluded.

  Rich spoke up intelligibly after a heaping minute spent stammering or silent. "The Pokémon League piles recognition on trainers who do this kinda thing! Red, Ethan, Brendan and May, even trainers who didn't almost single-handedly save the world or whatever.", he argued, "Plus," he started to say. I scowled and cut him off, "The whole point of this is that I can't get recognized for doing what I'm doing."

  Rich was frustrated too now, with me. "Plus," he emphasized, "didn't you start this with that phone call where you taunted him?" I looked at him. I was furious. I wanted to keep being furious. I closed my eyes and raised a shaking hand to stop them from continuing. "I have an idea for today's chase.", I said through clenched teeth.

  "You're going to do it?", Will asked, confused. "Igagh... Yes.", I confirmed, pushing down the part of me that wanted to continue arguing, "I was thinkin' you guys should use your new teammates too, we can give them a hand training." Will and Rich communicated silently after that, but all I knew was that it was about me and my weirdness.

  I leaned forward. "What'dya think?", I insisted. Rich sighed. Will patted him on the shoulder and answered, "Sure, I don't see why the fuck we wouldn't." "Alright, can you bring them out? I need a better understanding of what they can already do and time to research.", I replied. With another bit of inscrutable silence between the two, Cavendish and Misty appeared.

  I gravitated towards Cavendish first. He still stank, and I couldn't quite figure out why. I crouched down in front of him and asked, "What moves do you know?" He lifted one trashy limb and scratched behind his head. "You've gotta know some moves.", I pushed. Rich stepped in. "Don't force him like that.", he ordered me.

  "Do you want my help or are you just going to stall me the whole way?", I asked venomously, standing up to be closer as I looked in his eyes. "I... uh... I don't-", he stuttered, eyes darting around like prey searching for an exit. I about-faced and started on Misty rather than waste my time. 'Seriously, do ya wanna be a stronger trainer or not? Make up your mind.', I grumbled in my head.

  Misty was much less fussy. She knew Absorb, Astonish, and Moonlight. A strong starting kit by my standards, but I didn't quite see how it would fit into Will's team. I dug through my textbook until landing on the page for Flash. Now that, that was right up Will's theft-filled alley.

  "Flash, Mega Drain. Those should be your goals. Should come pretty naturally as twists on Moonlight and Absorb too.", I told Will and Misty, "Your role is debuffing and battlefield control, in a weird way." They both seemed on board with the idea. Nice and simple, now it was time to get back to Cavendish. I returned to crouching in front of the Trubbish.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  That smell, again, assaulted me. I sniffed, finding something familiar in it, then reflexively cleared my nose as it burned my nostrils. Again, I was certain this wasn't the ability Stench, but it had to have some type energy behind it or it wouldn't've affected my insensitive nose so easily. "Hold.", I said, reaching for Kumī's level ball.

  "Kumī, Poison Gas, light as you can please.", I instructed as it settled next to me. It eyed Cavendish, as if casually sizing him up, then followed my request. A cloying rotten odor drifted from its mouth, nearly the exact same as the one from Cavendish. I gave Kumī a pat on the head and dismissed it. I had my answer.

  "Cavendish has no control of his Poison-Type energy and is constantly using a slight Poison Gas. Constant exposure to that is gonna make you sick, so get a check up soon.", I informed Rich. Will raised an amused eyebrow while Rich and Cavendish started to protest. "Gag them.", I said, seemingly to no one. Toma hit both of their mouths with a String Shot each.

  I got up in Rich's face. "I'm the Poison-Type specialist here. Are you going to listen to my expertise or just whine?" Rich gestured with his eyes to the silk gag that was stuck in his mouth. I rolled my eyes. "Glove, then Spray a bit of Acid in my hand.", I ordered Toma. I carefully took the gag off of Rich before my own glove melted, then motioned limp-wristedly for him to speak (which was mostly just to keep from stressing my hand too much.)

  "I'm his trainer, not you. I don't need you telling me how to train my pokémon.", Rich said defiantly. Of course he was going to be stubborn about this; He was a Team Skull grunt after all, and continued to be one. Now I was on the other side of this stupid dynamic.

  "Sure dude, whatever," I capitulated, "but when your hair starts falling out from your skin slowly dying and melting, don't say I didn't warn you." I waved behind me like an admin dismissing a grunt, again limp-wristed, and gave Will a thumbs up and a raised eyebrow. With the thumbs up returned, I left with Toma to get back to the pokémon center.

  I figured, if I was gonna stand around the recycling plant for so long waiting for the gang to come and chase me away, I might as well get something out of it. So I'd wandered down the path behind the houses that I'd taken to steal that poké ball back in the day, poked around the plant, and finally just walked through the front door and started talking to someone.

  "So I'm a Poison-Type specialist, right? Any insights on the type in general or on the pokémon you guys use for recycling?", I asked the secretary guy working the front counter. "Uh, yeah actually, I think we have something.", he said, seeming kind of surprised to be prepared for the scenario I'd put him in.

  He ducked down, then passed me a staple-bound booklet with the plain title "Operations Procedure for the Malie City Regional Recycling Plant" printed on a flat white cover page. "Government makes these for transparency, so constituents know how they're money's being used.", he explained, "Should include a section on the raising, care, and training of the Grimer and Trubbish lines."

  "Neat.", I commented, "Any way I could talk to one of the workers about it directly?" "Maybe on their lunch break, I'll tell 'em you're around.", he answered, slumping back into his chair. I shuffled the contents of my shoulder bag around on his counter to fit the booklet in without damaging it too much, then walked back outside.

  As I waited, my mind kept going back to Rich's Trubbish. I went to the textbook again, poking through what Trubbish and Garbodor were capable of. Stockpile, Swallow, but not Spit Up. Recycle and Sticky Hold. Sludge Bomb, Belch, and Gunk Shot. I remembered that they had very well rounded stats in the Kukui Equations. I could guess at the TM and egg moves to some extent. In short, they were absolute brick shithouses, emphasis on the shit, and they wouldn't stay down long.

  As I dug, I was convinced. I could train Cavendish miles better than Rich could. Rich wasn't a bad trainer, Howey was enough proof of that, but he just didn't have the stomach for digging through how the pieces of a pokémon's kit fit together. Hypno weren't exactly a hard species to figure out.

  I emerged from my fervor to see a Noctowl in the sky above me. That was my cue. I shoved the book in my bag and let Waiola and Kawami out of their balls to join me and Toma, then, we were off. We sprinted away from the recycling plant so we wouldn't be cornered between the water and Gladion, making for the wider city.

  Dustin the Archen was flying above part of the city, purposefully giving away which direction the gang was coming from, while Gladion's Noctowl continued to follow us. I hid behind the house at the end of the street so when they arrived the Noctowl would have to dip down to show our exact position.

  The fossil met with the owl, and soon I could hear Gladion arrive. He wasn't exactly subtle about it. "KAU'I!", Gladion hollered. Noctowl started to come down on top of us, so I pointed and ordered, "Toxic." With a hurl from Kawami, the one way Gladion had of tracking me was put on a timer. I starting running down that timer by bursting from cover and out into the city.

  Everybody knew the plan. A Sweet Scent fell in Waiola's wake while Kawami flew ahead low to clear a good route. Toma stayed at my side, starting his assault with a Swarming Infestation. I pulled another bottle of the juicy beverage from my bag and gulped down a few swigs while I still had the element of surprise. I'd need the hydration.

  Toma gave me a signal with a quick spit of silk in front of us. Null was already gaining on us, going much faster than the speed me and Toma shared. "Don't let me down!", I encouraged my friendly arachnid, stuffing the rest of the drink back in my bag. I heard the telltale splatter of his String Shots not a moment later. I skidded into a hard turn and pushed to get my lost speed back.

  Gladion's Weavile launched itself around the corner following a sound of bending metal, appearing over my head with claws at the ready. Kawami chose that moment to slam into the Ice-Type with a Cross Poison that knocked it off course. Eva's pokémon were waiting for me at the next intersection, leading me away from her into a u-turn back toward the rest of the gang.

  I followed that path without a fuss, since it wouldn't do any good to let Gladion's team do all the work just because they were fast enough to catch me. Another turn and I was heading straight into that trap. I could see the canopy of Gladion's Trevenant poking around the building at the far side of the street and a Haze cresting the buildings across from it.

  "FALL IN!", I shouted in time for my team, sans Kumī, to group up around me just as I slid into the plaza they were waiting for me in. Toma beat back Howey with a Shadow Sneak out the gate while Waiola defended me from Trevenant and Kawami flew ahead to find our way out, dodging overshot attacks from Will and Rich's teams and a completely genuine flub of Cavendish's Pound.

  I circled a fountain in the center to stall for time, prompting a lunging Take Down from Type: Null. I tumbled trying to get out of the way of the attack, ending up under the chimera and entirely too close to their sharp talons and claws. I scrabbled against the slick tiles beneath me to get out from under the legendary abomination, but it wasn't enough. The loss of traction in my hands reared its ugly head as Null's talon raised to come down on me.

  Toma beat Type: Null away from me with Fell Stinger in the knick of time, and I got to my feet again. As I faced the direction Kawami was leading me, my thoughts were on scheduling another physical therapy appointment. Waiola leapt over the fountain to be my battering ram through the converging crowd of pokémon. Misty produced a brilliant Flash and we launched forward like it was the starting pistol of our race.

  My breaths were coming out ragged and phlegmy as I broke off down an alley in the confusion and let Kawami linger on down the road I'd left behind. Rich sent us a thumbs up as he ran past, letting Gladion continue down my fake trail, which Toma conveyed to me. I waved to a street vendor as I ran towards a pokémon center on the other side of the city from where I had been staying.

  I took the opportunity to catch my breath, then continued to sprint. 'Noctowl will spot me again before long, so I'll have to lose Gladion a couple times before it sticks.', I thought. Even think of Giratina and he shall appear, apparently, since the moment I was done thinking that, Noctowl spotted us from above and immediately started flying down to rest. That poison had done its job at least.

  I could feel the blood pooling strangely in my hands as I swung them out to keep my balance. Another signal came from Toma indicating Gladion had spotted us. A Spider Web came up behind us, blocking the way of our pursuers and a few unlucky pedestrians. I kept pushing forward, not letting the gang catch me out on a parallel street. I heard Weavile and Trevenant take apart the blockade while I was still only halfway down the block.

  "Fire Lash!", I coughed. Waiola whipped back behind us with a burning trail of gas, slipping around confused bystanders to strike just the Ice and Grass-Types behind us for super effective damage. "Trampoline!", I followed up, getting the resident web slinger to pop up a bouncy bunch of silk to help us take the next corner faster. He'd paid attention to Kawami's directions when I hadn't, so I followed where he made it. Whoever's truck it was he mounted one side of it to would just have to deal.

  Kawami kept me from falling again as the bounce of the upright trampoline threw off my balance. As I expected, Eva and Will had been following me on the road just across from me to catch me in just this kind of scenario. Of course, though, we were all pulling our punches. A barrage of attacks came our way, and I released Kumī in their path to tank the damage for us before returning him right back to his ball. He didn't mind.

  I took a left and a right, actually letting Kawami trail behind me like I'd pretended to do the last time, then stuffed myself in a pile of trash and returned all of my pokémon to leave a cold trail. Maybe the trash pile was a bit too predictable for a Poison-Type specialist, but Gladion and his pokémon didn't see through it. Did he actually listen to me after all those times I said I wasn't really a specialist? That was kind of nice of him, in a weird way that didn't really matter in light of recent events, but nice.

  Once they passed, I walked casually in the opposite direction from the way I'd led Gladion, took a left back to where I'd come from, then kept walking for a few more blocks until I was in line with the decoy pokémon center. This next time would be the last time I lost Gladion, at least for today. My heart was still pumping in my chest. I finished the rest of the drink I'd opened earlier, then released Kawami, Toma, and Waiola again. I bolted down the street towards Gladion, preparing for another bit of improv theater.

  The crowd cleared out around me and I spotted someone calling the cops on me for no reason at all. I was doing a public service! Those don't count as public disturbances, I would know, I was a serial public disturber. You wouldn't call the cops on a parade, and parades aren't talked about in the same sentence as people who save the world, like this was by Rich earlier today. The ruckus was good though, it would catch Gladion's attention and get the last stretch of the chase underway.

  Within visual range of the pokémon center, Gladion and the gang came pouring out of the adjacent street on an intercept course with me and my team. "UP!", I shouted. Kawami grabbed my shoulders while Waiola cut in front of me to offer her tails as a springboard. I was carried right over the horde of Team Skull associates in a clean arc that kept me going forward.

  I got my footing back on the ground and immediately used it to change course. There was a lovely deadend ahead that would make the perfect finale point for this little excursion. "Dustin and Howey, out.", I told my team in a more hushed tone as we approached the end of this chase, "Toma, prepare for a ramp."

  Gladion's pokémon stampeded around the corner while Eva set up in front of us in the gap that would get us closer to our "destination" with an amused wave. We continued straight towards the culdesac. Waiola left a thick Smog in Howey's way while Kawami shook off a Swift to batter Dustin. Both collapsed just as we came into what seemed like our last stop.

  I continued rushing straight for the house at the other side of the cul-de-sac. "Trampoline!", I fake ordered, rolling my eyes and winking at Toma as we both smiled devilishly at eachother. A diagonal web bridge was built between the ground and the roof of the house in front of us. "Up!", I faked, suppressing a giggle. I jumped onto the relatively inelastic web as if it would bounce me up and back, then kept running up it onto the roof of the house.

  Waiola cut the bridge behind us just as Gladion switched from, 'She's going to fly above and behind us.', to, 'She tricked us and is getting away!', in his head. I turned around on the roof and tried to flip him off, but I couldn't get my middle finger to extend with the rest closed after what I'd just put my hands through, so I just yelled, "FUCK YOU GLADION!", from the rooftops instead.

  From there, getting away was easy. I slipped down from the roof into the alleyway behind the house with Kawami and Toma's help, returned my pokémon to their balls again, and pulled a inconspicuous grey hoodie on over what I was wearing. I just walked the rest of the way back to the pokémon center I was actually staying at. Having lost me right next to another pokémon center, they'd assume I would go straight there while I had the time and wouldn't step inside themselves, being Team Skull members and all.

  And tomorrow, Gladion would have them all waiting for me at the wrong pokémon center. I bought myself some street food that never ended up in the trash, a sign of great food, as a treat as I sauntered back to the central pokémon center to get some much deserved rest.

  Gladion couldn't rest. He was entirely too familiar with the feeling of his life falling apart, and he didn't want to feel it again. So he stayed up, posted with his grunts around the northeastern Malie City pokémon center, waiting for Kau'i to show her face. He slugged back another sip of his Focus Energy Drink. The Nidoking on the can didn't make him feel any more powerful.

  He called Null over with a shout. It felt weak to rely on his pokémon for anything, especially keeping his emotions in check, but it would be even weaker to give up on Kau'i. If nothing else, he was determined. He wouldn't fail his family. He clung onto Null's warm fur and plumage.

  Gladion's eyelids were heavy, fluttering down and becoming harder and harder to lift back up each time. He forced himself back up onto his feet. The intersection was empty, only street lights and the rare window letting any light into the space. The moon had already slunk below the horizon hours ago, hiding just like that traitor.

  He walked, mostly to get the blood pumping around his body, but also to check on the others. Null stayed at his side. He passed a street of quiet houses and shops before sitting down next to Eva. "Holding it together?", he asked. "Better than you by the looks of it.", she quipped back. It didn't fit his image as an admin, particularly of Team Skull, but he would really prefer a kissass yes-man to most of his subordinates.

  "Nothing?", he checked. She knew the rest of the question that had gone unsaid. "Nothing.", she confirmed. He sighed, looking down the road at the pokémon center. At least it was a different view, his eyes were engaged. After a long silence, he blurted out, "She's better than us... isn't she?"

  Eva stared at him. "No.", she stated, like it was a concentrated droplet of truth, "You're the stronger trainer. And we are supporting you. She is just slightly better suited to this form of attack. She's crafty, a thief, a trickster, exactly the type to succeed despite the odds. But that will only work for so long."

  'This is the benefit of Team Skull's stubbornness,' he thought, 'honesty.' Another period of quiet passed before he spoke again. "Thanks.", he said. Then, Gladion got up and returned to his spot a block away. As he sat back down, the exhaustion seemed to creep back tenfold.

  He draped himself over Type: Null as he kept his eyes on the pokémon center. His eyelids drooped again, and he reached for the energy drink. As he lifted it to his mouth, Gladion lost his fight with sleep, slumping forward onto his companion.

  Team Information:

  Kawami- (Poison/Flying Type, Female She/Her, Hasty Nature +Spe/-Def)

  Abilities: Inner Focus, Infiltrator

  Moves: Supersonic, Astonish, Absorb, Hypnosis, Poison Fang, Wing Attack, Confuse Ray, Bite, Air Cutter, Curse, Frustration, Screech, Swift, Quick Guard, Crunch, Cross Poison, Tailwind, Toxic

  Toma- (Bug/Poison Type, Male He/Him, Jolly Nature +Spe/-SpA)

  Abilities: Insomnia, Sniper, Swarm

  Moves: Poison Sting, String Shot, Absorb, Constrict, Spider Web, Infestation, Scary Face, Shadow Sneak, Acid Spray, Swords Dance, Fell Stinger, Baton Pass, Night Shade, Substitute, Toxic

  Waiola- (Poison/Fire Type, Female She/Her, Lonely Nature +Atk/-Def)

  Abilities: Corrosion, Oblivious (Developing)

  Moves: Scratch, Poison Gas, Fake Out, Ember, Dragon Rage, Smog, Sweet Scent, Flame Burst, Toxic, Fire Lash

  Kumī- (Poison/Dark Type, Male He/It, Relaxed Nature +Def/-Spe)

  Abilities: Gluttony, Poison Touch

  Moves: Poison Gas, Bite, Poison Fang, Acid Spray, Toxic, Harden, Disable, Assurance, Shadow Sneak