Whispers of Leaf and Jade

[Chibi Pika]

Jade let herself exhale slightly after holding her breath for the last half minute, waiting to see how the Aerodactyl would respond. Under the fluorescent lighting, she could see the bits of black stone embedded in its hide, and her memory flashed back to Razors's unnaturally rocky armor, also from Team Rocket's tampering.

It wanted out. And she wanted to be able to show it the way, but she didn't know the way, not while the hallway seemed the stretch out endlessly. Which way?

She'd escaped from Celadon HQ before. So had Leaf. The way out was there, in both their memories, and the dungeon knew it. She just had to make it happen.

Jade took a step further in the direction she'd been heading. "This way," she said firmly. "We need to get out of here." To Aerodactyl, to her team, all of them needed to leave.

 

[Phoenixsong]

"You knew those pokémon were down there and you were totally happy just leaving them. Guess old habits die hard, huh?"

"How dare you," snarls the woman. "I left all of that—them behind years ago! I cooperated with the police as much as I could, I tried to make amends, I did more community service than they ever asked of me. And still she—" She stops, flinches, as if willing herself not to remember something. "And I've still carried the guilt of what they made me do for years." She has to stop again to steady herself, and almost succeeds. "I did what I could. But my responsibility is to you first, before anyone else!"

"Oh, okay, gotcha. You're just a coward, then, 's that it?" Leaf laughs and also doesn't, her voice shaking. "I think you don't get to tell me what I did was wrong when I was trying to help. When I did help. When Minerva and all those other pokémon would still be there, or god knows where by now, if we hadn't found them. When you ought to be thanking me for stepping up and dealing with problems that people like you caused, since you're too spineless to." The shaking all but disappears under the cold edge in her tone. "You're welcome."

The aerodactyl hesitated. It looked at Jade—no, past her this time, down the hallway that went on forever. Behind itself, back at the holding and reconditioning room one more time. Then back at her.

You, came the meaning under the hiss. Go first. It waited, still watching, for Jade and the team to take the lead. No chance it was leaving its back exposed to all that potential water, no matter how much it seemed to tremble with anticipation for out. But if they did move, it followed. Slow, halting, head occasionally snapping around to look over its shoulder before glaring ahead again. But following.

Turning around revealed that the blackness shrouding the end of the hallway was gone. In its place, probably only thirty feet away, sat the end of the hall. Visible around a corner just before it were stairs leading up. And out.

Behind the door there was... no Game Corner, no Bridge Punk, no Marisa or Cleffa or anyone they might have gone running for. Just open, yawning, utterly lightless black. There was the sensation of all sensation dissolving into a meaningless blur, then snapping back into what the world remembered it was supposed to be: a cavern, dark, but still light enough to make out the patternless sprawl of natural boxwork lattices overhead. And whispering that, for once, hopefully, might have been just the wind.

 

[Chibi Pika]

One step after another. Down the hallway. Up the stairs. Out of the hideout once more. And finally, back into the cave once more, paws on smooth stone. When Jade turned around, there was no trace left of the memory she'd just visited. Leaf's team was gone. Aerodactyl was gone.

She looked down at her hands—paws once more—and clenched them experimentally. Meowth again. It'd almost felt unfamiliar to be human again after all this time.

Jade stared back the way she'd come, her chest tightening with a strange, wistful feeling. That feeling of having her team by her side, even if it wasn't her team...

She turned back to face the sharp-edged cavern, exhaling slowly. She wasn't sure why the Comb had put her through her any of that, but... in a way, she was glad. And then it occurred to her that she might not have been the only one.

"Hey, Leaf?" Jade called out hesitantly, hearing her words fade into an echoing whisper.

But Leaf wasn't there. She was somewhere else, far away—

<><><>​

As the passageways of the Comb wound deeper, the sound of Leaf's hooves on the hard stone floor was slowly drowned out by the whispering, all around, a smothering blanket of sound coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. The wind shifted, no longer sighing in and out like breathing; now it was coming from below. Leaf would feel a curious sensation of weightlessness, like her hooves were walking on air, and then--

And then suddenly, falling.

The cavern walls snapped away, instantly giving way to open air, miles of it, and what looked like a city impossibly far below. No more hooves—Leaf was met with the sight of her own human hands and feet reaching out through the freefall, air streaming through her hair, her clothes. No sign of where she'd fallen from, no rescue within sight.

At her waist, she'd find Pokéballs.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Leaf paused. Had someone just called out for her? She wanted to insist that they hadn't, that it was just more dungeon crap, she had to take this seriously and stay focused, but it'd sounded so much like... "Hey, I'm over—"

Then the ground stopped existing and the rushing air tore the rest of her words away.

Falling. She was falling, straight down, nothing to grab onto, nothing anywhere. It felt nothing like when Minerva went for a dive; just plummeting, uncontrolled, helpless, damn it, dammit dammit oh god dammit she had to do something or she'd just be a pancake on the streets shit—

—wait. Streets? Like, outside, not in a cave? So... so this was the dungeon crap, then? It felt—well, it felt like she was falling to her death, so not great, but there was no way this wasn't the dungeon. Okay, okay, that was probably better (hopefully?), okay, just had to figure something out, just had to focus even though the wind was howling past her and the ground (not real) was getting closer. Okay.

God but it would've been nice if rapidash could levitate... could they? She tried anyway, tried concentrating, tried shutting out the wind and the sky and the ground and simply holding herself in place through sheer force of will. Nope. Nothing doing. Damn it, god dammit, okay, had to think of something else...

At some point she'd thrown her arms in front of her to brace herself, even though that was stupid, there was no bracing for a fall like this, you just hit the ground and then game over. (But not, because this wasn't real, it wasn't allowed to be real, dammit, please.) And also that wouldn't work anyway because she didn't have arms anymore. Except she did? There they were, right there. Hands and fingers and everything, human arms, her arms.

...was she already dead? Like, Forlas-dead, sent back home after something (what?) had gone horribly wrong in the Comb? Was this what happened, just friggin'... air dropped out of nowhere?

Beetle, buddy, you've gotta work on your aim.

But if this was her body, her clothes, if she had any of her stuff then also— yes! Poké balls. Okay. Okay. Now she was getting somewhere. She fumbled at her waist for Minerva's ball and opened it, her attention entirely on the light taking the familiar shape and not on anything that was or was not (please) below it.

 

[Chibi Pika]

The ball opened and the light inside took the expected reptilian form with leathery wings, clawed feet, twin horns...

...orange scales and flame-tipped tail?

The Charizard (Firestorm, ever-protective, ever-determined to be helpful) spiraled limply through the air, eyes closed and jaw slack. His scales were covered with fresh gashes, wings tattered and torn, tail streaming weak embers. Knocked out from something, some desperate battle, no doubt protecting his trainer like always—

Four more Pokéballs. The city still dizzyingly far below. Some strange feeling in the back of Leaf's head would tell her that there was more than one flier.

 

[Phoenixsong]

That wasn't Minerva.

It wasn't flying, either.

A charizard? Was that— Charizard? she thought for one horrifying moment, why was he here, what happened to him, where was Blue, but— no, not Charizard, just a charizard, a charizard named Firestorm. How did she know that? (Where had she heard that name before?) What had happened to leave him in such awful shape?

Leaf's mind raced as she recalled him. This couldn't actually be real, then, right? They weren't supposed to be sent back home by skydiving from the moon or whatever the hell; even if they were, no way things could get so mangled on the trip back that she'd end up with someone else's team. (Where was her team? Were they okay?) This was the stupid dungeon doing whatever stupid dungeon stuff Dunsmuir had warned them about. Had to be. God damn it, she'd said they shouldn't've listened. The ground wasn't really rushing up to meet her, clearly not, it'd better not be, and wherever Firestorm was really supposed to be he was fine, probably, hopefully. He couldn't possibly have actually deserved this.

So she wasn't really falling, okay, great, definitely 100% reassuring right now yep, but god she really wanted to stop falling, had to find some way (someone) to make it stop. Work with me here, wise guy. She grimaced as she grabbed for another poké ball. Someone who can help. Real or fake, I'm not smashing someone else's teammates into the pavement with me.

 

[Chibi Pika]

The second Pokéball opened, and the light inside took the shape of a Flygon (Aros, brash and prideful, yet reliable), his scales covered with frost, wings frozen stiff. Another flier out of commission. And if Leaf reached for a third, it'd take the form of a Pidgeot (Swift, quiet and thoughtful, always by her side), wings limp, feathers blackened by electricity. No good. Leaf would get the vague impression that the last two Pokéballs weren't fliers—not worth checking, they wouldn't be able to help.

The city below still felt every bit as far away, and yet somehow she'd be able to make out the smoke drifting up from it, the occasional flashes of energy, and the shape of something flying over the buildings. So tiny she shouldn't have been able to see it at all, and yet... was that Mewtwo?

All the while, the tiniest hint of psychic pressure, needling at the back of her brain...

 

[Phoenixsong]

She knew these pokémon. Not personally (?), but she'd heard about them, somewhere. She was certain of that much. But where...? And why were they like this? What even was the point of the dungeon showing her the, the... the aftermath of... something? Some kind of fight? Was that what was going on up there, wherever "up there" was? Leaf tried to twist herself around in midair, see if there was any sign of anything above.

And below... still some unidentifiable city, still impossibly far down even though she'd been falling for however long. She thought she could almost see something below—light, movement, smoke?—did that mean the ground was actually getting closer? Felt like it was and wasn't at the same time. Clearly she shouldn't be able to make out Mewtwo down there if she wasn't seconds from impact, but the—

—oh. Oh, now what.

All right, fine, so... what. Was that Giovanni? Wouldn't make any sense if the Mewtwo she knew was here if her own team wasn't, as much as anything (nothing) made sense right now. Or was that some other other mewtwo? (Why was that a thing.) What was it doing that she could feel its power in the back of her mind from might as well've been right friggin' next to it all the way up here?

Whatever. The pokémon couldn't help her, they needed help, god knew she needed help right now, and if that janky little connection was the one bone this situation was gonna throw her then screw it.

"Hey!" she thought at the mewtwo, or the whatever, hard as she could. "What the hell is going on?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

The figure far below that might have been Mewtwo didn't respond. There was another flash of explosive energy and a plume of smoke billowing upward. It almost looked like he was fighting something...?

(The psychic pressure kept building. Should she really have been able to feel it from way up here?)

When Leaf glanced upward, she'd see it. Silhouetted against the sun, the shape of a sleek avian, way too big to be a regular Pokémon. Long-necked and tailed, with gleaming silver feathers. Had it been there the whole time?

Wingbeats stirred the air. Her chest constricted. She jerked her head upward and found herself staring into an avian face twisted into a cruel smirk. Glowing blue eyes gazed into her soul.

She tried to turn and run, but her legs moved in slow motion. Distant echoes of psychic pain tore her apart. She was sinking, slipping into a smothering void. Her arms blindly reached out for something to grab hold of, but the movement was sluggish, muscles unresponsive.

Couldn’t breathe. Drowning. Deeper and deeper, until the only thing she could see were those piercing eyes staring down at her like she was nothing.

The bird gazed down at Leaf with a dismissive look. Its psychic voice filled her mind: "What are you doing?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

Whoa. Okay. That was... what was that? Big, definitely. The size of the thing, the way the light shone off its feathers like silver... a lugia? For real? (Well, for whatever-the-hell-this-was.) For a moment Leaf was dumbstruck, not quite able to process much more than the majesty and sheer power practically radiating from it.

The lugia was just... hovering there, though. Just watching her fall (?) like someone would just watch an injured bug spin around on the floor, like none of the nonsense that was happening right now actually mattered.

Well, screw that. It mattered to her. And something sure as hell mattered to this guy if it was bothering to sit there and talk to her at all.

"Thought I'd get some fresh air," she snapped back, not bothering to hide the sarcasm. No way that wasn't a terrible idea, no way it couldn't just fold her like an origami crane (couldn't breathe— deeper and deeper—). But either this wasn't real or, given it already seemed disinclined to actually catch her, she was basically dead anyway. "What're you doing? What's Mewtwo doing down there? What happened to these pokémon?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lugia considered her, its wingbeats slow and methodical as it hovered overhead. (That didn't make any sense, she was still falling--)

"He is striking back against the humans," the legend said. The 'as you well know' went unsaid. "And I can hardly be expected to keep track of whatever foolish, ill-thought conflict has rendered your team inert this time."

The legend spoke as if it knew her, and whatever impression Leaf might have given of being out of place in this world had gone completely unnoticed. Its voice stuck in her mind with a strange, alien familiarity, tinged with the bitter regret of lost opportunity. They hadn't spoken in so long...

"I thought you’d changed. I thought you’d learned from what happened in Viridian. I guess I was wrong."

<Do you really think things will be so much better with our power at their disposal?! Do you really think that will save lives?!>

"Of course I don’t! We can’t let that happen, but we can’t let this happen either!"

Viridian, that was definitely Viridian, far below, although how exactly she knew this was hard to place.

Lugia craned its neck downward, eyeing Leaf as she fell. Despite everything, it was curious. "What will you do now?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

"Mewtwo's doing what?" Even falling-floating for so long like this, Leaf felt her heart drop out of her chest. In the middle of Viridian City, in the middle of the day, so many people, so much smoke from the buildings— she could've sworn Mewtwo was trying to be reasonable about this—

—no, no, think. Not her Mewtwo. Clearly not Giovanni, either, if he was looking for revenge against humans. Against Team Rocket? Had to be Rocket, that was the only thing that made sense ~~if they'd just wanted to slaughter people Cerulean was so much closer~~. Why Viridian? Rocket shouldn't still have been around there; they'd scattered after Red scared Giovanni away... from her Viridian, yeah. But maybe not this one.

...Wait. Jade? They were still around in Jade's Kanto. Dammit, she knew she'd recognized the pokémon from somewhere. So where was Jade? What'd happened to her after her pokémon fell—

Or was this... one of Jade's dreams, maybe? This was still so unreal, the falling, the way a lugia was just casually talking to her like this. (Did Jade actually know a lugia?)

Ugh, focus, focus. Mewtwo was destroying the city and absolutely not bothering to differentiate between Rocket and bystander. Jade's team was in no shape to help—that was probably the Rockets, of course it must've been them—and she was stuck, falling forever, alone aside from a high-and-mighty legendary, completely useless.

Had to try anyway, though. (Jade's team had damn sure tried.Jade would try.) Somebody always had to try.

"I want talk to them— him. Or, I dunno, something. If you take me closer I can do it." (She'd done it before, after all. Talked down an angry, suspicious mewtwo, at least for a little while. Sure, that mewtwo had very seriously considered killing her anyway, but they hadn't, now had they? So it'd worked. She'd done it.) "Talk him down or get people out of the way or get the Rockets out of the way. I'll figure it out when I get there."

She looked back at the lugia, frowning at its curiosity. "Call it foolish all you want, but you wouldn't be here asking if you didn't want to try something, too."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lugia drew back slightly, its expression... confused, almost.

"There is no point," the giant avian said, its piercing eyes staring straight through her. "You should already know that he is committed to taking action, tired of waiting and doing nothing while the enemy does whatever they please." A pause, and then: "I believe he is right."

<I need to help Mewtwo.>

“I thought we had something here. I thought we were finally learning to understand each other and fight for a common goal. But I guess you’re willing to throw all of that away.”

<Stop acting like it’s that simple!>

Mewtwo wasn't the only one. If Leaf squinted down at the chaos breaking out in Viridian City, she'd see multiple blasts of energy colliding with one another in an all-out brawl. Some of them were no doubt aligned with Mewtwo, which meant the others must have been part of the Rockets' forces, though it was hard to tell which ones. Scattered bits of fire, ice, and lightning...

There is no point, Lugia had said. And yet, that lingering air of regret saturating every inch of this world was telling her otherwise. If she'd just pushed harder, refused to back down, what if—

 

[Phoenixsong]

No point? Already decided? What did that even— what was going on— rrrgh. Whatever this was was complicated, and complicated was something she really didn't have time for right now. But... but she couldn't just leave it, not if it was Team Rocket, it would've been wrong to just...

"I'm not saying ask him to do nothing while Team Rocket gets away with what they're doing," she snapped. (...had they done something to Lugia?) "I'm saying he can't— he can't just put everyone in danger!" If that was Rocket down there right now, then it wasn't even just Mewtwo punching holes in buildings, damn it.

"If there's a way to stop them or draw them off outside the city or do something, then fine! Take me down there and we can do that! But you can't tell me the only options are either roll over or just screw everyone else. I'm not just going to sit here and do nothing while whatever's going on down there gets worse. And I'm not letting anyone make it worse when there might still be something."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lugia recoiled backward as if it had been physically slapped, a mess of conflicted emotions flashing across its face. Anger, surprise, confusion, shame. Psychic energy reverberated outward from the legend, and Leaf felt a sudden pounding headache as her vision swam, distorting into... something, somewhere, a long time ago.

A vision of herself (Jade?) standing in a field on the outskirts of a city (Viridian?). Night had fallen, but the moonlight shone eerily bright, highlighting everything with an unreal glow. On the ground, an open Master Ball. In the air, Lugia, eyes burning with psychic fury.​

​

And then, more words from somewhere...​

“You never even apologized.”

<I… that was—>

“I know you feel awkward about it, but you don’t even feel bad about it! You still think that was an okay thing to do!”

<You—?!>

“You tortured a kid over a stupid mistake!”

The visions and the whispers and the psychic pressure slowly melted away as Lugia's expression shifted into... acceptance. "This is... more conviction than I would have anticipated from you." Several seconds passed, punctuated by heavy wingbeats, before Lugia finally leaned forward, eyes flashing with telekinetic energy. Leaf would feel a psychic hold cushioning her from all over, and the sensation of uncontrolled falling would finally come to an end.

"I will bring you to him."

Sudden acceleration, but controlled this time, no longer the wild freefall, but a deliberate dive as both she and Lugia rushed toward the city below. Nearer and nearer, the sky melting into rippling distortion the closer they got. The last thing she saw was Mewtwo, turning suddenly to gaze upward, his eyes wide, panicked, and piercingly red. Then, everything faded into darkness.

When Leaf's feet eventually touched the ground, they were punctuated with the sound of hooves striking stone. All around her, boxy stone structures and other cave formations. No Viridian, no Mewtwo, no Lugia, the last echoes of what she'd seen slowly fading into the whispering wind.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Finally, finally it was listening to her—to Jade? To sense, at least. She was still moving downward now, but carried, controlled, no more sensation of endless falling. No more sense of helplessness, usefulness, now there was something to do.

"This is... more conviction than I would have anticipated from you."

"You should give her more credit," she said coldly, out loud, and then it didn't matter because the lugia was gone. Was probably never there in the first place.

(But it'd better have gotten that through its head anyway.)

...​

The Comb again. Forlas again. Leaf allowed herself a few seconds of disappointment over the re-loss of thumbs, followed by a few more seconds of general relief that, sure, maybe she had four feet again instead, but at least all of them were solidly on the damn ground.

She was alone again, too. She wasn't sure whether that was good or bad.

"Anyone there?" she tried, insisting to herself that it wasn't pointless. "...Jade?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Anyone there?" "...Jade?"

Jade's ears flicked toward the sound—that was a thing they did again—and she felt a bit of the tension leave her muscles. The strange whispers that she wasn't sure if she'd imagined or not had gradually faded away.

you can't tell me the only options are either roll over or just screw everyone else—

The winding passages of the comb had evened out, and it even seemed like there was light and heat, further ahead. Had... had they made it?

"I'm here!" Jade called back. She was pretty sure she could hear the distant echo of Leaf's hooves on stone. So they'd both made it, then. And if this really was the heart, then they'd soon know if the others had made it here as well, not to mention Brisa...

"Looks like we might be near the end. C'mon, let's see if we can catch up with the others!" Jade called out.

The echoes of Celadon HQ still lingered in the back of her mind. That was in Leaf's past, wasn't it. But then, what had she seen...?

Well, there'd be time for that once they were outside the dungeon.

<><><>​