Unbroken Disguise

Dawn felt lighter than she had in a while, and that was strange to her. She should still be upset about her loss, still frightened by what she had seen at the last stop on her journey. Or maybe that was childish? She’d heard that going on a journey like this was supposed to help you mature, so maybe…

And, well, what happened in Alamos was still… but it felt more… distant? Like it was a storm cloud in the distance instead of hanging above her head like it had been for the last few days. Present, but not raining down on her.

Talking with N had really helped a lot, and the conversation with her mom afterwards had gone surprisingly well? Maybe there really was no need to worry.

But even if she was feeling better, she couldn’t help the knot of anxiety in her stomach as she waited just outside the Contest Hall for everything to wrap up. She idly ran her hands over her pokeballs, hoping that the reminder of her friends' constant presence would help her keep calm.

“Dawn? You’re still hanging around here?” A voice suddenly called out, spooking her, but she managed to keep herself from jumping out of fright.

Zoey walked up to her, her hands adjusting the way her sunglasses sat in her bright orange hair. “I would have thought that you’d be with your mom or Ash or that other guy… he did end up finding you, didn’t he?”

Dawn greeted her rival with a soft smile. “Yeah, N found me. But, um, I wanted to talk to you…”

Zoey looked a bit surprised by that, and there was something else in her expression, but Dawn couldn’t place it. “Okay, sure. What’s up?”

“Do you think-” Dawn’s hand squeezed down on Piplup’s ball, “I was wondering…” she took a deep breath, “...could we maybe travel together?”

The ginger was obviously confused by the request. “I’m not sure how well I’d do in such a large group, Dawn. I’m used to-”

“No!” Dawn cut her off. “I meant, um, just the two of us.”

That expression that Dawn couldn’t place returned, and Zoey stayed silent for a moment. With each second that passed by, Dawn’s worry increased, and she was on the verge of taking it all back and trying to pretend that this never happened and-

“Sure. You and me can travel together, Dawn.”

The bluenette felt like she could collapse with relief. “Great! So where are you thinking of going next? I’m not really sure which contest would be best for us to try…”

Everything was going to work out just fine. There was no need to worry.

“...was totally unfair! Don’t you remember what I told you before? Make sure all your attacks hit! Avoid every enemy attack! I thought that was a wicked strategy, and it definitely would have worked if you hadn’t cheated!” A beam of light recalled the defeated Buizel, and Lucas stood firm with Torterra waiting unflinchingly before him.

“Bzrt, is this guy serious?” Rotom quietly asked.

“Ya know, I ain’ entirely sure….” Mimikyu answered.

Lucas gave his opponent a look that clearly questioned the validity of that claim.

“Don’t give me that look! You’ve got cheerleaders and I don’t! It’s not fair at all! How am I supposed to put my surefire strategy into effect if the whole time you’ve got some people I’ve never seen before backing you up!” The blond pointed at N and his friends. “I should fine you a thousand, no, ten million dollars for this!”

N hesitantly spoke up at that point, trying to get a word in before the boy continued at such a rapid pace. “Look, um,”

“Barry!” The blond proudly proclaimed.

“Right, Barry, I don’t really know what you’re going on about. We didn’t help Lucas in any way during that battle.”

Barry marched right up to him, holding a pokeball up between them. “Then how was his Bibarel able to hit Staravia through all of those Double Teams? It was my surefire strategy, he was supposed to miss every attack!”

“Bzrt, Double Team doesn’t prevent your opponent from landing a hit, it just makes it more difficult!” Rotom chimed in.

“Waaagh!” Barry let out some strange sound between a growl and a whine, rubbing his hands through his wild hair in frustration. “And you’ve got some fancy talking, floating phone too! A billion dollars, I’ll fine you a billion dollars!”

Where did this kid think any of them were going to get a billion dollars from?

Just as suddenly as he had gotten himself worked up into a frenzy, the boy suddenly calmed down, his rage replaced by determination. “No, I guess I have to grind it out and toughen up the team a bit at a time. Anyway! I’m off for Solaceon Town! See ya, Lucas! You’ll be shocked by my growth the next time we meet!”

The boy ran off, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him as he left without giving Lucas a chance to respond at all.

“Is he… always like that?” N asked.

Lucas nodded and Torterra sighed. “Unfortunately,” the giant groaned.

“I can see ‘ow that’d get old real quick…” Mimikyu commiserated.

Lucas didn’t seem too bothered, though. He simply released his team and started healing them up with potions and berries from his bag.

N found himself thinking over his circumstances as he waited to continue down route 209. Travelling with Lucas was… well, while he still felt undecided on whether it was a good idea or not, it was happening. On one hand the boy’s offering of the technical machine had been quite a nice gesture, and on the other N still found himself struggling with all of the trainer’s…. eccentricities. The disregard of Togepi’s safety with the experience sharing device, the quick acceptance of a Pokemon from that awful Bebe woman, the fact that he was doing the Gym circuit…

And that was without getting into how he somehow had “found” plenty of technical machines laying around. N wasn’t sure he wanted to learn the details of that.

But he had accepted the boy’s presence regardless, because Mimikyu seemed to think he could help with the little specter’s goal. Whatever that included…

Had N made the wrong choice? Should he have just gone back home with the Shadows? And on the topic of the Shadows, if he recalled correctly he had instructed them to meet back up with him after leaving Hearthome. They should be making contact soon.

His thoughts of home and strange ninjas were interrupted by Lucas recalling his team, now healed, sans Torterra. However, instead of marching on like N expected, the boy scrambled up on top of his Pokemon, nestling himself up against the tree with his legs sticking between the gaps in the stones on the other side of Torterra’s shell.

N stared, dumbfounded. “Lucas, what are you doing?”

In lieu of an answer, Lucas pulled out his Pokedex, letting it read the entry for his starter. “Torterra, the Continent Pokemon. Ancient people imagined that beneath the ground dwelt a gigantic Torterra. Small Pokemon occasionally gather on its unmoving back to begin building their nests. Some Pokemon are born on a Torterra’s back and spend their entire life there. Groups of this Pokemon migrating in search of water have been mistaken for moving forests.”

“Bzzrt! Rotom is certain that you are not a small Pokemon! Or are you? The refusal to speak may be an indication that we’re being deceived by an illusion…”

N and Mimikyu gave the Electric type a strange look. “Are ya tryna say that Lucas is a Zorua or somethin’?”

The glowing eyes on his flip phone blinked. “Rotom is not familiar with Zorua! Rotom was thinking of Ditto. But if Zorua is another Pokemon that can change how it looks…”

Torterra rolled his eyes. “He’s human. And it’s fine.” Apparently deeming the conversation over, the Ground type started lumbering down the trail, leaving large indents in the soft grass with every step.

Watching a Pokemon get used as a mode of transportation left a sour taste in N’s mouth, but if Torterra was fine with it…

“Hmm.” Mimikyu jumped down from N’s shoulder, making his way up onto the large Pokemon’s back along with Lucas. “It seems like yer shell is made outta dirt, or at least the top layer. And ya got some moss and grasses growin’ over it… I wonder if ya could turn yer back into a garden? Grow some rare berries on the go…”

“Denied.” Torterra grumbled, moving along at a slow pace.

“Why? Bzzrt!” Rotom asked. “By Rotom’s calculations, if you were to grow a combination of Sitrus, Leppa, Lum, and perhaps one or two exotic varieties, you could see profits of-”

“Too annoying,” Torterra cut Rotom off. “Don’t need pests trying to build nests.”

There was a pause before Mimikyu awkwardly hopped off of Torterra, climbing back up onto N’s shoulder.

Sensing an opportunity to get Mimikyu back for his teasing earlier, N smirked. “What’s wrong Mimikyu? Were you thinking of building a nest?”

“I don’ need yer sass, N.”

So the spirit could dish it out but couldn’t handle it himself…

“I see how it is, you think-”

“Wait a moment!” Rotom suddenly called out, quickly flitting about through the air.

Torterra stopped, and they all gave the Ghost their attention. Was something wrong? Maybe Rotom had picked up on whatever Mimikyu did the last time, and the Shadows had arrived. But when he looked towards the fae on his shoulder, Mimikyu looked confused as well.

“What’s wrong Rotom?”

Rotom floated right in front of Torterra’s face. “Where are you taking Rotom? We have left the main path of route 209!”

Had they? N looked around. They’d not gotten far from Hearthome, with the sights and sounds of the city still visible over the tree line. Off in the distance he could see a few winding rivers and small wooden bridges crossing over them. Near the water’s edge were the now increasingly familiar Psyduck, Golduck, and a few Bibarel. Some Staravia flew overhead, and in an open area on the other side of the closest river he could see a few Pokemon that reminded him a bit of Bouffalant without their signature afro.

But Rotom was right. Instead of making their way towards those wooden bridges, they seemed to be veering off into an area of tall grass. It didn’t seem to let out anywhere, just ending at the forest’s edge.

The Continent Pokemon let out a groan of annoyance at Rotom’s questioning. “Hunting,” he grumbled out.

Mimikyu snapped to attention. “You’re hunting? Hunting what?”

N wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. He was well aware that not everything that went on in the wild was pretty, but he would have thought a Pokemon being raised by a trainer would be satisfied by the steady meals provided to them…

“Items.”

N almost tripped over himself in surprise.

“You’re hunting items? What does that even mean?” He quickly asked, looking to Lucas for answers.

But the boy ignored him, playing with the device on his wrist. A Poketch, if N remembered correctly. Lucas tapped the screen occasionally, and it would let out a pinging sound. As Torterra lumbered on, the pinging grew louder, until he suddenly stopped, digging around through the tall grass and dirt.

Lucas held onto the tree with one arm as he twisted around to lean over the edge of the shell, reaching down to the ground and pulling up-

“Is that a Great Ball?” N asked, dumbfounded.

Lucas nodded, wiping it clean of dirt and debris before holding it up like a prize.

“Ya really jus’ find random junk layin’ around? I mean I know what ya said abou’ the TMs, but this is jus’ sorta odd ta see…”

“Yep.” Torterra stated plainly, already moving on to find more lost treasures.

This was… well, it was definitely better than the straight up theft that N had been quietly suspecting, but it was definitely out of left field. “People really leave perfectly good items out in the wild?”

Rotom buzzed angrily. “Rotom refuses to accept this! Great Balls retail at 600 dollars! There is no way someone would just leave a perfectly good one out here! Even if someone were to give up on catching Pokemon, it’s still possible to make a decent amount of that cost back through resale!”

“Accept it.” Torterra kept his reply terse.

“I mean…. It was in the tall grass. Could be that they couldn’ find the thing after they missed a Pokemon, right? I wouldn’ wanna give up on somethin’ that expensive, but ya can only search for so long before deemin’ it a los’ cause…”

“That cannot be true! Bzzrt! This must be a one off event!”

It was not a one time event.

Having worked their way to what N figured was about the halfway point of the route, Lucas had proven just how much you could find if you actually put the effort into searching for the stuff. He had found not only another Great Ball in the same field of tall grass, but since then he’d also discovered some Leppa and Chesto berries, a hyper potion, a super repel, and somehow, as if that wasn’t enough, the boy had walked up to a random fisherman, had a one sided conversation for a few minutes, and been gifted a perfectly good fishing rod!

This couldn’t be normal, could it? Surely there was something else at play here. Did one of his Pokemon have the ability Pickup? He wasn’t sure about the mechanics of it, but he’d heard rumors about Lillipup sometimes being particularly adept at finding lost objects.

“Rotom, do ya feel that?” Mimikyu interrupted his thoughts.

“Are you referring to the ambient Ghost type energy?” Rotom asked.

“I think so? It’s sorta like… hey N, we were expectin’ a visit, weren’t we?”

N glanced over at Lucas, wondering how the Shadows would take to having to deal with yet another companion, this time one he couldn’t vouch for. “We were.” But would they reveal themselves now?

The rest of the group gave the duo odd looks, even if Lucas was missing far more context than the others.

“A visit?” Rotom notably spoke without the aid of the phone’s speaker. “Rotom is not sure what you are meaning, but the ambient energy Mimikyu and Rotom are sensing is likely because of the Lost Tower, a final resting ground for many Pokemon in Sinnoh. Rotom thinks we should be nearing it soon.”

N frowned. He supposed it was nice that humans would honor their fallen friends, but a gesture like that didn’t do much to counter the negativity of the thought of so many dead Pokemon. Perhaps he should make a visit himself…

“Wait, yer tellin’ me that we’re sensin’ that when we can’t even see the tower yet? If ya think it’s that sorta thing, then wouldn’ the Hallowed Tower be closer?”

“The Hallowed Tower? Why would energy be radiated off of a pile of rocks?” Rotom flitted around N and Mimikyu’s faces.

“Wait a moment,” N butted in. “If it’s just a pile of rocks, then why does it have a name like Hallowed Tower? Surely it has to be more than that if they took the effort to name it at all.”

“Well it’s ‘cuz-” Mimikyu abruptly cut himself off, pausing as he focused his attention on Torterra. “Hey big guy… does Lucas happen ta ‘ave a weird, big ol’ rock in ‘is bag?”

Torterra’s eyes narrowed as he lumbered along the trail. “Yes….” The suspicion was clear in his inflection.

“...maybe we should steer clear of the Hallowed Tower, then.”

N knew that Mimikyu liked to be secretive, but this was a bit much. “Would you mind explaining why we should avoid this place?”

“Well… I ain’ exactly sure of the details, but messin’ aroun’ with the tower is probably a good way ta get on the bad side of a really old, really angry Pokemon.”

“Clarification needed.” Rotom suddenly stopped right in front of Mimikyu, forcing N to stop lest he make the two of them collide. “The details of a really old, really angry Pokemon with a connection to a large rock are an odd combination. The only Pokemon in Rotom’s records that would fit the information you are providing currently resides on the Champion’s team. Are you suggesting that you are aware of how the Champion managed to get her hands on them?”

Torterra turned around, stomping towards them. “What are we avoiding?”

Mimikyu didn’t answer, looking between them all nervously.

N didn’t really know Cynthia’s team all that well, and with the way they were describing this Pokemon, he didn’t think it was one of the members he had seen at Alamos. Probably a Ghost type of some sort… actually, hadn’t Mimikyu mentioned something of the sort towards the start of their time together? Though that was during the Fairy conversation, wasn’t it? So probably a Dark type instead of a Ghost…

“Spiritomb, bzzrt, the Forbidden Pokemon,” Rotom explained. That name did sound vaguely familiar. “According to rumor, the Champion’s is over 500 years old, bound to a stone as punishment for its misdeeds.”

N recoiled. “They bound a Pokemon to a rock for hundreds of years? That’s barbaric!”

Lucas, finally having been clued in to the conversation topic, looked just as concerned.

“Now, N, let’s not be hasty ‘ere. I know ya don’ like how it sounds, but we really shouldn’-”

“Are you saying that you think some poor Pokemon has been stuck in that tower for hundreds of years and you just want to leave it there?” N scowled at his friend.

“Well no, obviously not, but I’m sayin’ that maybe we shouldn’ be messin’ with the corporeal form of 108 angry spirits when I don’ know any Fairy type moves!”

So Mimikyu was perfectly fine with charging straight at all those Legends in Alamos, but now a Pokemon needed their help and he wanted to avoid it? If Cynthia had one on her team then obviously it wasn’t any more of a threat than her other Pokemon.

“Rotom. Show us the way to this Hallowed Tower.”

Rotom hesitated. “Rotom isn’t sure that’s a good idea. Rotom isn’t really a battle type of Pokemon, and Torterra has only earned three badges…”

N huffed in annoyance. “Why do you two keep talking like a battle is unavoidable? I just want to help it escape its prison! Surely Spiritomb would appreciate that?”

“That’s possible, bzzrt! However, all information Rotom has on Spiritomb is in regards to the Champion’s, and the things that are said about it are… concerning.”

N didn’t care.

Humans lied about Pokemon all the time. All those nasty things he had seen in the Pokedex, the lies he’d heard in person back in Unova, the constant mistreatment…

N marched down the trail, ignoring the requests of his friends to think this over.

What was there to think over? A Pokemon needed help, and he would gladly be the one to give it.

He was surprised to see that in an odd turn of events, it was Lucas who seemed most supportive of him at the moment. For all his peculiarities and faults, Lucas at least seemed to understand that treatment like Rotom had outlined was unacceptable.

Luckily, it wasn’t hard to find the tower, even if Rotom and Mimikyu were being uncooperative. The wild Pokemon in the area seemed to avoid it, and once they got close enough, even N and Lucas could feel the oppressive aura radiating off of it.

But this was just a poor Ghost.

“N, yer bein’ a moron! I’m perfectly fine with ya helpin’ Spiritomb out, I’m jus’ sayin’ that maybe we should call in an expert before we go ‘n’ mess with stuff we don’ understand!”

“Rotom cannot condone this! Rotom wants it on record that Rotom thinks this is a bad idea!”

“I don’t know about this…” Torterra grumbled, refusing to get within a stone’s throw of the “tower”.

It really was just a pile of rocks. Various colors and shapes, it seemed not one of the stones was sourced from the same place. Stacked haphazardly together, they formed a rough mound that seemed to be missing some central piece at the peak. Or at least, he got the vague impression that something was meant to be there. It was hard to tell for sure with the poor condition it had been left in.

Lucas dug into his bag, quickly pulling out the “big, weird rock” that he had for some reason stuffed in there with the rest of his belongings.

This one didn’t look like the rest. It was smoother, looking more like a carefully sanded down weight than a random, jagged rock. Well, if you ignored the large crack that ran right through the center, almost splitting the thing in half. Spiderwebs of cracks radiated from the central split, though none seemed to be as compromising to the integrity of the stone.

“Will you two listen ta me?! Do I need ta Shadow Sneak ya both out of here against yer will or somethin’?!”

“Fine!” N finally acquiesced. “What exactly do you propose we do? Should we just call Cynthia up? Oh, hey!” N put on a mocking tone. “I know you seem to hate us for the whole Fairy thing, and the Alamos incident is probably fresh on your mind, but we decided we want to free a Pokemon from its prison, and you seem to be the expert, given you’ve trapped one of your own. Think you could lend us a hand?"

“N, I get that yer passionate about helpin’ Pokemon, an’ I can really respect that, but yer not actually listenin’ to a word we’ve been sayin’, ‘ave ya? What if we got a hold of-”

Mimikyu didn’t get to finish his thought.

The sound of stone scraping against stone drew their attention.

Lucas had already put the stone into place.

The oppressive aura instantly multiplied until it was reminiscent of the pressure he’d felt at Alamos.

All thought left his mind, his focus entirely collapsing in on the Hallowed Tower.

And then, after a brief silence, the tower wailed.