Unbroken Disguise

A shadowy tendril quickly slid out from beneath Mimikyu’s disguise, pushing Mismagius away from him. “Alright, none of that, yer gettin’ a bit too close ‘n’ too weird for comfort.”

Mismagius giggled, but backed off just a bit. “What’s the matter? Never had someone so interested in you?” Gone was the haunting quality of her voice, now replaced by a more teasing tone. The hunger in her eyes only seemed to grow at the brief contact, though.

“I can’t tell if ya wanna eat me, dissect me, or… well,” Mimikyu trailed off awkwardly. “Look, no matter where yer interests might lay, I ain’ in’erested. Ya seem like a real nice, if a bit crazy, sorta gal, but uh…”

N stepped in before Fantina could pick up on his reactions to the awkward conversation. “We’ve grown frustrated with our lack of progress, Fantina. Please, whatever it is that you’ve noticed, just tell us.”

Though her promise of finally fixing Mimikyu’s lack of moves was wonderful to hear, the reactions that Mimikyu’s demonstration was getting were concerning. He didn’t think she was about to share good news with them.

Fantina hesitated, watching as her Mismagius started to float around his friend, the two of them never taking their eyes off of each other, though for very different reasons. “Well… I am not knowing how to explain… I am not knowing if I can explain…”

“Bzzrt! Why not?” Rotom questioned her. “With how thick your accent still is, you cannot have been in Sinnoh for too long. You have spent most of your life in Kalos, outside of the information restrictions of the League. Rotom cannot be certain, but it would not be unreasonable to conclude that the only person in the League who knows more about the oddities concerning Ghost types than you would be Kanto Elite Four member Agatha. Even then, she is only an exception due to her age. In addition to this, your understanding of the Fairy type is no doubt the best in the entirety of the League. You are in a unique position to be extremely helpful to Mimikyu! Bzzrt!”

That was… a very good point. He had been so caught up in the woman’s strange manner of dress and speech that he hadn’t stopped to consider the implications of her accent.

Although, that did bring up another important question. How was someone from Kalos allowed to serve as a League Gym Leader at all?

Kalos had been one of the main antagonists in the last war, at least according to the official League position. Even now, all these years later, relations between the League and Kalos were hostile at best. N could maybe see a scattered few of them being allowed into League territory, but for one to be accepted as Gym Leader?

Mimikyu had stopped keeping a wary eye on Mismagius as he turned towards Fantina, intrigue obvious in his body language… to N, at least, though that probably had a lot to do with how much time he’d spent with the little Fairy type.

Fantina bit her lip in a way that somehow seemed classy. “It is… interesting that you are knowing all of this. But you should consider the position that leaves me in. My skills are far above the station I have been given, and yet here I am assigned. I at least am having more freedom than A-” She cut herself off, frowning. “Je m'excuse. There are things I am not being able to share with you.”

“Ugh. Is this some sorta political garbage?” Mimikyu complained.

“Even Fantina is trapped by foolish human concerns,” Mismagius sighed heavily. “There is not much she can do in her situation. Escaping into the wild would mean she could no longer commit herself to her Contests, and we cannot bring ourselves to force her into that. Disobeying orders from the League would mean her being reduced to Alder’s state or cast out of the League entirely, and after what we have done… there is no returning home. What would we do? Run off to some far flung region? No. It is better to accept their terms… for now.”

N really hoped that his poker face was holding. He could understand being in an unfavorable position with the League, but the things he was hearing… She had skills far above the station of Gym Leader? What did “reduced to Alder’s state” mean? He was a Champion, surely that would be an upgrade, at least in the eyes of the sort of person who would even consider being something as barbaric as a Gym Leader. And what exactly had Fantina done to warrant not being able to return home?

He didn’t think he would be getting answers any time soon.

But he was not going to leave empty handed, either. New questions might go unanswered, but he would get the knowledge he came for at a minimum.

“Surely you can tell us something as Sinnoh’s Ghost type expert,” N pleaded. “Gym Leaders are expected to pass on knowledge to those who seek it.” They had to be good for something after all the abuse they put so many Pokemon through.

Fantina sighed. “That is true…” She thought it over for a moment. “I am supposing that if I… am wary of my bounds, I might be able to help you. But there would be conditions.”

N didn’t like the sound of that. “Such as?”

“No speaking of the secondary typing. I am a Ghost type Gym Leader. That is the knowledge I am giving.”

So she did know things about the Fairy type. And given her position in the League… well, he supposed he would have to accept losing a potential well of information there. It’s not like they had come into this expecting to learn about the Fairy type, anyway. N nodded his agreement.

“Also…” she continued, “If you are being asked about this, you are telling them that I helped Mimikyu learn moves, and no more.”

“Yeah, yeah, fair ‘nough. Can we get to the actual learnin’, please?” Mimikyu urged them along.

N agreed. That sounded fair enough to him.

The Gym Leader relaxed a bit after that. “Good. Now… how to be explaining… What do you know of Pokemon moves on a… how do you say… function level? How they are working.”

“Bzzrt! Using a proper move is the result of expelling a portion of your Source in an acceptable configuration!”

Fantina blinked. “That is a… intéressante way to put it, but yes. From what I have been told by Olympia and Lucian, Pokemon have a pool of energy inside of them. When they are wanting to use a move, they let some of it out, like turning on a faucet. Turning the faucet a small amount will allow the energy to trickle out and make something like Lick or Astonish, and if a Pokemon lets the energy pour out, they can make something like Shadow Ball. I am making it simple for you, but that is the basic understanding. There is much I could be saying, but if we skip to the part that is importante to you… we must consider differences between types. For an Électrique type,” she looked towards Rotom, “you might consider this energy in terms of watts. If there are more watts, there is a stronger move. Glace and Feu… ah, pardon, Ice and Fire, they might be considered in terms of temperature. My Froslass will do more damage the colder she can make that pool, and a… a Chandelure will try to make the pool as hot as it can for an Overheat.”

Given his overall displeasure regarding all things Pokemon battles, he had never really sat down and discussed this sort of thing with any of his friends. There was no need to know the intricacies of how moves work if he wasn’t making them participate in bloodsport. But Fantina’s explanation was making sense to him so far, so he nodded along.

“For most types, these are simple things to understand for us as humaines. We understand temperature and pressure and toughness and toxicity… others though… they are not being so easy to understand. Ghost is one of these types.”

Mismagius giggled.

“For Ghosts… how to say it… it is a matter of Distortion. This is not something you will ever truly know. C’est impossible à comprendre. Even I, a master of Ghost types, have barely scratched the surface of understanding. But you can think of it… as something otherworldly. Not alien like from another planet,” she clarified, obviously trying to distinguish it from what he’d been told about the Fairy type, “but more… beyond what we know.”

That didn’t really help. First he needed to understand the differences between types, but now she was telling him he’d never understand the Ghost type? That was a bit of a problem, wasn’t it?

His confusion must have been apparent, because Rotom decided to chip in. “Bzzrt! Think of it like another dimension! Or maybe a computer and a server? If Rotom wants to use Distortion, Rotom sends a request to the Distortion server, and then makes use of what is returned!”

“So yer sayin’ a Ghost type Source is like a portal to the Distortion world?” Mimikyu asked.

“Not quite…” Mismagius disagreed, “but that’s good enough for a working explanation.” She paused her hovering, the hunger in her eyes turning to a more simple curiosity. “Do you really not know your Source? How peculiar…”

“A strange analogy, but it works,” Fantina nodded in response to Rotom’s clarification. “The important thing to be noting is that where other types want more heat or more solidity, for Ghosts it is not a matter of more, but how pure. A Ghost wants their connection to Distortion to be uninterrupted and free of corruption. Their weakness to other Ghosts is due to the overlap of two connections corrupting the… signal, you could say? And Dark types, they sever that connection completely, forcing a Ghost to remake it. So, in order to produce stronger moves like Shadow Ball, a Ghost needs to have a very precise contrôle over their connection in order to ensure it is as stable as possible. Or at least, this is my understanding of it.”

“It’s not bad for a human,” Mismagius assured them. “Fantina has a deeper understanding than most, but it is less of a… academic understanding and more of an instinctual one after submitting herself to Distortion for so long.”

“Bzzrt! It’s a better explanation than Rotom would have given on Rotom’s own!”

“That’s great ‘n’ all, but what does it ‘ave ta do with my Shadow Sneak not bein’ real or whatever?” Mimikyu inquired.

N relayed the question to Fantina, though he framed it as his own.

“Well,” Fantina hesitated once more, “While Shadow Sneak is a useful move, it is not particularly powerful. It should require a relatively small pull on Distortion, barely more than Astonish, but what Mimikyu showed us… perhaps a comparison would help. Duskull, if you would?”

A skull popped out from behind the couch they were sitting on. Or rather, part of a skull, just enough to make up the face if you discounted the jaw. A grey cloth was draped over the rest of its small, round body… except the Pokemon looked hollow when he looked into the eye sockets. Only a single red orb seemed to comprise its insides.

The Pokemon, apparently a Duskull, didn’t make a sound as it floated past them so everyone could see properly before abruptly disappearing into the shadows and reappearing a short distance away. Shadow Sneak, just as he knew it.

“I don’t see the difference,” N admitted.

“Which is why I am not blaming others for not noticing. To the average observer, they are identique. But when you have seen as many as I… Mimikyu, would you show us again? Let us see them at the same time.”

“Uh, sure? I ain’ seein’ the difference either, though…”

N kept his eyes peeled as the two Ghosts used Shadow Sneak at the same time. It was only then, with the two being compared side by side, that he picked up on the miniscule difference.

Duskull faded into the natural shadows, an obviously unnatural shadow with the same lighting as its source followed a straight path to its destination, and then Duskull popped out of the shadows.

With Mimikyu, it was much the same, but the shadow seemed darker, with just a tinge of purple added to it, and the movement was slower, the shadows swirling a tiny bit instead of being a direct path.

Still though, even having picked up on those small differences, N didn’t see how it could be anything but Shadow Sneak.

“Bzzrt! You were right, it’s much more obvious with a direct comparison. Mimikyu’s pulls in far too much Distortion for a simple Shadow Sneak, and the control is nowhere near the same level. What could explain this?”

“I almost wonder…” Fantina began, “I may be… how would you say it in Unova… grasping at straws? But I almost am thinking that instead of releasing the appropriée amount of energy from his Source and shaping it into a Shadow Sneak, he is turning the valve wide open, letting it pour out, and somehow forcibly making it resemble a Shadow Sneak. That would explain the discrepancies, yet… I am not sure that it is possible.”

“It should not be,” Mismagius shook her head to communicate that to Fantina. “Excessive pulling from Distortion should only make a Ghost radiate more fear. There has not been a difference, so it must be going into a move. And yet there is far too much for a simple Shadow Sneak to satisfy it… how vexing…”

Fantina shook her head in defeat. “I am afraid I am at a loss. I do not know what it is that Mimikyu has been doing, and if I cannot… well, I am not sure that anyone would know.”

Mimikyu cursed, and N couldn’t blame him. If Fantina was as much of an expert on Ghosts as she had been made out to be and she couldn’t figure it out…

“I will not have you be leaving here empty handed, however. I told you that I can be solving your problem of no moves, non?”

N and Mimikyu perked up at that.

“I am thinking that you are not understanding the feeling of using a move, little one. You have had things explained to you, and perhaps you have knowledge of it, but that is not the same as understanding. Luckily, in the modern world, there are ways to cheat in this regard.”

N almost wanted to roll his eyes. “You mean technical machines? We already went over this, I don’t have a trainer’s income, I can’t afford to just buy every move Mimikyu might want to learn.”

Fantina laughed. “Do not be so hasty! I am thinking that once Mimikyu understands the feeling of using a move, learning more will come to him naturally.”

“Bzzrt! So you’re proposing that using a single TM will kickstart the process?”

The Gym Leader smiled. “Indeed! And, it just so happens that as the Hearthome City Gym Leader, I have access to quite a supply of one in particular!”

She looked down, her gaze meeting Mimikyu’s.

“Tell me, little one. How would you like to learn Shadow Claw, free of charge?”

Brock was worried. The events surrounding Legendary encounters were always taxing, but this was the first time it had fractured the group, and it seemed to be hitting Ash pretty hard.

Now, he wasn’t particularly upset about N leaving. That might make him a jerk, but even up to the very end, he had had his suspicions about the guy. He maintained that there was something fishy going on there, even if he was lacking any major evidence… or any at all really, outside of his gut feeling.

Dawn, though… that had been surprising. He understood that Alamos might have been traumatic for her, he’d seen to her injuries first hand. But to just up and leave the way that she did…

Ash was a guy who cared about his friends, perhaps even more than he should. He would never have fought the idea of Dawn leaving, knowing that sometimes people just went their separate ways, but Brock knew it was eating him up inside. This wasn’t like Misty, Tracy, May, or Max. This hadn’t ended on a high note, even if they’d tried to salvage things with that final meal.

And Brock didn’t know how to get him out of this slump, either. Battles and new Pokemon normally did the trick, in his experience. And maybe if the circumstances for the battles since the separation had been normal, that would have done it. But the next real battle that Ash saw was between Cynthia and that Paul kid. He doubted Ash had anything against Cynthia, even if her appearance was definitely bringing up some unpleasant memories from only the day before, but Paul? Well, he and Ash got along like Seviper and Zangoose. It had been a bit of a disaster.

They’d managed to help out a few wild Pokemon after that, and Brock had been hopeful that Ash’s spirits would rise like they normally would after a job well done. They’d met an apparent evolution of Misdreavus, and even a completely new Pokemon in Hippopotas.

It just didn’t seem to be enough, though. Ash would get excited over the new Pokemon while they were around, but once they went their separate ways… Brock suspected that every departure was only reminding him of Dawn and N leaving.

Even Team Rocket finally going back to their usual Pokemon stealing attempts hadn’t gotten Ash back into the swing of things, and if that wasn’t a return to form, Brock wasn’t sure what was. They must have been avoiding them with Mimikyu around, but now that the Fairy type was gone…

With a heavy sigh, Brock looked up at the towering Mount Coronet. The highest peak in the Sinnoh region. He had heard something about certain evolutions only occurring there. Maybe they’d stumble on one of those, and that would cheer Ash up?

“Pika?”

“Woah, what is that Pokemon?!” Ash shouted before running ahead of him.

Well, maybe Brock would get lucky and this was it.

“Wait for me, Ash!”