Chapter 10
The Perfect Seed.
That was the name given by Lliam to the glowing cocoon between his white paws. The growlithe twins observe as the peculiar item's gleam pulsates.
This mysterious cocoon is a hollow heart-shaped cage. Its surface is rootlike and spreading from stem to bottom in an intricate, never-ending web of scarlet lines. Though light and fragile in appearance, its exterior seems sturdy enough to be handled without deforming its contour. Within the shell lies a muted kernel of red light, stiffly tethered to the stem and forming the core of the object.
"It looks like a heart", Bill comments, curiously furrowing his brow.
"It looks like an apple", Gill follows up.
"Why, yes, that is more correct in a sense, Gill" Lliam finishes as he inspects the cocoon leveled to his eyes. "This Perfect Seed is most valuable indeed, for its tree begets the sought-after Perfect Apple—a rare fruit. It is by miracle that I chanced upon this highly modified strain. It is special, for it germinates at incredible speed, sprouting and spreading its progeny as far as the eye can see!"
Lliam walks towards the window in his office, leaving the glowing seed on his desk.
"Perfect Apples... there used to be a single place in the entire continent that used to house them. 'World's number one apple,' according to the words of many a seasoned merchant. Soft, sweet and low in acidity. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.
Anyway, your mission is simple: you are to venture to the nearby Apple Woods and plant this seed at the heart of the forest. Dig it, cover it, water it. As easy as that! This strain's unique casing is quite sturdy, so the seed isn't as fragile as it looks."
Bill keeps glancing at the item, looking doubtful. "Apple Woods... so you mean—"
"Precisely. As you know, Team Misfits accidentally burning down Apple Woods remains a sore point to this day. You may have noticed that us, being kooky internet dwellers from another world are somewhat... disreputable here."
Lliam spoke truth. Bill had unfortunately noticed the side-eyes while purchasing groceries. The same kind of passing glance that the Misfits get. "Again... how come everyone else is a 4chan user but me?"
The meowstic's eyes glow stronger, surrounding the seed in a slight pink haze. It starts to hover mid-air.
"We've been finding it hard to operate without objection from the local parties. After a lot of hard work, however, we've managed to get into the Exploration Team Federation's good graces, and it helps that Cyndaquil has kept to himself more often. After a laborious day of deliberation, I was able to persuade the federation liaison and the local authorities that I should be the one in charge of reforesting Apple Woods."
"And you trust US to do this?" Bill asks. "We may be a month in, but we're still fresh."
The guildmaster lets out a shrill chuckle. "Bill... as a matter of fact, I can't think of anyone better than you to perform this task. You of all people should know that humans here have dared into expeditions as early as their first day! And for your information, you two have built up a bit of a reputation. Everyone has seen the training laps you do around Capim. No one ever ventures to Stalwart Prominence's summit, let alone to seal a rift. Or (and word spreads fast as of today), injure a highly-trained aura user such as KFC in a fair match. Teams would kill to have your level of fighting proficiency, and that's outside our guild. Believe it or not, you are more qualified than anyone else in here as far as the townspeople are concerned. That's how far our reputation has fallen."
"Uh, speaking of which... what about KFC?" Gill asks this time.
"The liaison would allow it, the rest would not. KFC has raised too many red flags for them. It's a complicated affair."
"I am not convinced," Bill cuts Lliam short with his answer. "Strong or not, we have not gotten enough field experience to be prepared for 'dungeons'."
Lliam claps his hands together. 'Hoho! That is why you are going to receive unofficial help from one of our very best...
...Gus!"
Unassuming, the light-blue sea otter had been sitting on one of the chairs beside the guildmaster's desk. Bill had begun to wonder why he was even in here in the first place. He crosses his flipper feet casually:
"Yep. I've been around longer than most 4chan anons and been on more missions than I can remember. That means I'm the strongest among us. Just kidding! I suck hard at fighting and you guys would kill me in a heartbeat!" He adds with a casual flick of his paw. "But I have enough exploring know-how if any of you have questions during the trip."
Bill sighs.
Gus leaps off the chair into the floor. His simple black eyes look at the growlithe. "Bill, believe me when I say you and Gill are overqualified. Lliam's request is so easy I could probably carry out the mission myself. We just need a new and capable team to lead this one. Got it?"
At the wooden desk, the Perfect Seed continues to glow.
At the canopy, the sun continues to glow.
Vegetation all around, the forest buzzes—radiates with life. Uneven terrain and low mounds sometimes hide unsuspecting roots, a slight hazard that Gus nonetheless complained about from time to time ("Sometimes I hate being barefoot.") This dusty path is the most well treaded however—lightly gnarled trees extend beyond their field of view, creating a backdrop that grows noisier in the distance. The minty smell of dewy leaves is overpowering, all-encompassing and... wild. Bill's sensitive nose had grown a peculiar fondness to it already. Far from the only smell, the familiar scent of fructose coming from pure, non-Perfect red apples is also melding into the environment. Gill could perceive them. The unripe ones do not possess it yet. The few rotting ones... are bitterly sour and acidic. Luckily few. The whole picture felt in the air is not unlike continuously enjoying a fruit salad.
Gill is confidently leading the way, several feet ahead of Gus and Bill, who carries a large explorer bag on the side of his chest. Even though Lliam mentioned the shell to be impenetrable, Bill still frets over its fragility—he doubts the porous casing will be of much use to an attack less than physical. The two are engaged in conversation. Until...
A massive orange blur leaps above them from the side, pincers held high.
Gus gasps. As if presciently, Bill blasts fire a fraction of a second later, illuminating the forest with a loud bang. The booming blaze catches a large, rather unfortunate crustacean bearing toadstools on its back. Paras's pained legs retreat into its darkened, still body. Gus and Bill continue to walk as if nothing had happened.
"Heh... what did I tell you? You're too powerful for this," Gus comments.
"I-It's honestly creeping me out," Bill responds. Part of him was unamused due to KFC's intense regimen, but... "I don't think the average pokemon on Capim would've reacted the same way I did to that paras."
There is something else from afar, but no one notices.
"As I was saying..." Gus continues. "You've been looking off lately. Hope it's not Cyndaquil. I can't imagine having him as a patient."
Bill looks back at the burned paras slowly crawling out of view. "It's not anything related to what I do. Plus, I try my best to keep confidentiality with each of you."
"Ah, right. Sorry. What is it, then?"
Up ahead in the distance, the canopy rustles with several monsters dangerously darting out towards Gill. The former backflips, his tail summoning floating spiky rocks that zip one after the other at the birds. And one after the other, their screeching can be heard.
Bill observes this more calmly than he thought he would as he and Gus continue walking towards Gill's direction. He quickly glances between Gus and Gill, as if to assure himself that Gill is as far away from them as possible.
"Well, Gus, I've been thinking. I've done nothing but think ever since I got here."
"Been there, done... that" Gus admits while slightly worried, being understandably distracted by the skirmish up ahead.
"It's about Gill. It's complicated."
"Gill?"
Bill looks at his brother up ahead in the distance, having the time of his life as he fires another salvo of magical rocks. The former speaks again:
"Do you know what 'epistemology' is?"
"Can't... say that I do," Gus says in earnest, growing used to Gill's situation being under control.
"It's something that comes up in humanities at uni. It's a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge. You maybe heard something like 'Is your red the same as my red'?. Does that ring a bell?"
"Uh, actually yeah," the oshawott admits. "I've thought of it once. Don't remember if it was an original thought."
"The answer to that question is something that we can know, but we can't 'know', quote-unquote. That's a classic epistemological question. The meaning of 'knowledge', the nature of consciousness... it's all philosophical, however. Science can't falsify such a thing as 'foreign consciousness' easily and would rather turn to a premise that makes consciousness as a whole a more digestible concept. In fact, even philosophers nowadays don't think consciousness and external experiences cannot be unknowable. I happen to agree with all of this... in theory."
...
"Ssssssure...?"
Bill sighs slightly, frustrated as he realizes he did a very poor job explaining himself and did nothing but blather. "Is Togetic rubbing off on me?!" His thoughts seem to weave back and forth, same as his bushy tail. By now, the sounds of fighting are long gone.
"Let me put this another way. Do you know what it feels like to be a... sea otter?"
"Huh? Ah... I don't know," Gus says as he puts a stubby white paw in front of him, clenching and unclenching it. "I'm a parody of an otter, if anything. But I do know how it feels like to swim with your whole spine, flippers and a flat tail. And also what a, uh, tail feels like."
"Would you say you would've been able to 'know' that as a human?"
Gus keeps walking, now lowering his paw and looking to his side. "...I think I know what you mean."
"Exactly. But this whole thing is ridiculous. You can't transform a human brain into an otter's while keeping 'Gus's soul'. Souls aren't a thing. And humans are too different from otters."
"Pokemon don't exist either. Yet look at us. Not that I want to die on the 'soul' hill..."
"That's besides the point," Bill affirms as he looks down at his own forepaws treading the ground. "I'm currently having a very vivid experience of being a... growlithe. I can't deny that. But I also can't admit that I've transformed into this. It shouldn't work like that."
"So what are you getting at?"
They hear another scuffle up ahead, but pay it no mind. Bill collects his thoughts again before speaking up:
"I've come up with two possible explanations. The first one is that my human self is currently being stored somewhere else and I'd be controlling this body from afar. Be that an out-of-body experience, a simulation... that would mean that I'm not 'truly' experiencing being another creature, just an interface as a convincing illusion—a 'proxy'.
As far as the second one... it's the one that keeps me up at night. It would be the following: the entity you're calling 'Bill' right now is not actually Bill. It is in fact a vessel that had that human's mind impressed upon it . It thinks it's 'Bill' when in reality it's a another entity altogether. This resolves the previous issues since there never really was a 'transformed' human who experienced these new sensations to begin with. If true, then that would make me an impostor of sorts—an 'imprint'.
So that's what I've come up with. I'm either a 'proxy' or an 'imprint'. A man, dreaming he is a butterfly. Or a butterfly, dreaming he is a man."
...
Gus curtly responds after the silence: "You DO REALIZE you've turned into a POKEMON from Nintendo, right? It's magic. Stop complicating this."
"But... but that CAN'T be!" Bill barks out, suddenly feeling very silly for having shared all of this. "You... ugh... I..."
"I gotta say," Gus interrupts. "I forgot that you started this by saying you were worried about Gill. So you're saying that Gill is..."
Bill sighs. "Well... my brother... he got into this terrible car accident as a human right before we woke up here, washed up on a shore."
Gus turns his head slightly towards Bill, as if to communicate that he won't be flippant about this.
"...And he's the perfect Gill from my memories. My perfect brother. Almost too good to be true. Headstrong, goofy, upbeat... even more so now. He's been unfazed by all of this weirdness. I'm always asking myself: 'is this really how he would've reacted to transforming into a pokemon?'. I-It makes me afraid that maybe it's not really him. Myself, I... I still don't know what got me here, exactly. I'm holding onto the hope that we can both be these 'proxies'—that we will one day wake up in our human bodies and I'll get to hug him again. But if we're 'imprints' instead, and home is not awaiting us... I... I can't bear to think that something bad might have happened to Gill. I don't want him gone."
...
"Yeah. Listen," Gus expresses nonchalantly. "You have two explanations you've come up with. Or... you could go for the third one."
"Which would be?"
"Magic. And your brother is fine."
Gus keeps looking at Bill, as if to expect the big canine to stop looking forward blankly.
Said big canine can't help but chuckle.
"Ah, I think I know why you're laughing," Gus knowingly points out. "You remind me a lot of myself when I first got here..."
"Look," Bill responds with a smirk. Not that the growlithe thinks his theories are moot... but it doesn't matter for now. "It's going to be a long while until I get out of this mental rut I'm in."
"Seems like it," Gus points out with ribbing irony.
"But... thanks for the perspective."
"Any time, any place."
...
"Where's Gill?"
Bill asks as the forest turns silent. All around, there is nothing but trunks extending into nothing. His brother's scent had become faint. "Gill? GILL!"
The realization makes his throat sink.
Where's Gill?
Where did he go?!
"Bill... calm down, he can't be far—"
"On my back, Gus," Bill turns around to the otter, uncaring of his imperative tone. "I can smell him still, but I need to track him as fast as I can."
The scenery speeds past, becoming darker. Bounding, leaping, Bill has difficulty traversing the dense forest with the uneven terrain and Gus sticking to his scruff like an overgrown tick. He echoes Gill's name. No one answers. Heart races faster. His smell is completely lost now. All of Bill's willpower is focused on keeping track of the direction the scent was last detected. There was nothing around the initial area. Nothing in the immediate surroundings. No signs of a struggle. No entrances hiding shelter. It's as though his brother had completely vanished, save for the one direction the smell was pointing towards.
Trunks all around become grayer, showing signs of withering. Amidst the hisuian growlithe's phantom scent, the fruity aroma had long since been lost against a pervasive sooty environment. Though he barely pays attention to it, the growlithe has been surrounded on all sides by decay.
The once lush forest had become an endless panorama of tall, eerie darkened sticks. No longer prevented by canopies, the sunny day highlights death below—an empty wasteland inhabited by no one. Burnt leaf is all one can smell. Arid earth beneath is dusty and forlorn. The only sound heard is that of four paws sprinting on the soil.
Bill draws closer to a clearing, and out in the distance is a giant dead tree. It is almost as tall as the guild's building, its knobbly calcined roots bulging with tremendous width. The gnarled branches dancing above are the only thing that remain, not a single leaf in sight.
No scent, no scent... scents can't just disappear like that, Bill thinks. This situation where someone lacked scent... it came about with people who likely did not 'exist properly', like Porygon, or a so-called ghost-type.
Ghost-type?
Bill skids and stops on the dusty terrain, his oshawott partner nearly sliding off above his head.
"Gus. Hang on tight. I have a hunch."
"D-Do you now...?"
Focusing on the phantom feeling of energy within, keeping in mind KFC's lessons, Bill closes his eyes and his whole might is put into focusing his sense of smell. Everything is identified... all down to the carcass of an apple core hanging ten feet above them. Identified down to the earthy soil of an uprooted, dead trunk fifty feet away to the right. Identified down to...
Several faint voids zipping by at his 1 o' clock.
Ghosts.
Gus yells as Bill immediately sprints forward from a standstill. Bill leaps. His fangs wreathed in black energy BITE the air.
Several figures are revealed out of nowhere and tumble clumsily out of the air, dropping a limp hisuian growlithe between them.
Instantly after landing, a beam of fire is aimed at the mysterious figures' direction.
One of them screeches in a comical high-pitch as his head catches fire, rolling on the ground.
Gill gets up.
"Billy!?" he exclaims in a daze as he tries getting up on uneasy feet. The sound of his voice alone fills Bill with relief.
"You okay?" Bill asks, giving his involuntary glowering smile to the enemy.
"They... used a gas... some kind of drug...?" Gill quickly gets into a battle-ready stance. "No, seed! They put me to sleep with a seed then they carried me away!"
Gus leaps out of Bill's back and fidgets around with his scallop, then tries to get into his own fighting stance towards the strangers: "Uh... simple ferals don't do that! Who are you?!"
The ghosts' appearance had become easier to appreciate, now scrambling on the ground trying to float back up. At a quick glance, they seem like floating helmets fashioned out of wood, being stump-like and chopped on both the top and the bottom. Two openings for eyes are carved out of them, with glowing red lights beyond them. Upon closer inspection, tiny wispy bodies made from solid black smoke are attached to the helmets. They are phantump.
"Ugh... great fricking job, 'chief'! The boss is going to get mad we were found out by someone!" A male child's voice, seemingly no older than ten, comes out of one of the phantump as he quickly adjusts his 'helmet'.
"Don't talk to me like that! I'm forty years older than you!" a girl's voice, decidedly even younger sounding than the first one, comes out of the phantump in the middle. "Maybe YOU can tell me how to do MY job once you learn Phantom Force!"
"Guys! We've been found out!" the third phantump points out after getting rid of the fire on his head, being another boy. "Looks like we got the wrong one too! Either we get the Perfect Seed or Basil's gonna—! AH! I mean... the boss! The boss is gonna... you know—!"
Gill shouts: "CHILDREN! Settle down!"
Surprisingly, they immediately oblige. In less than a second, they neatly organize themselves in a static row, their glowing eyes timidly avoiding eye contact with Gill as if being scolded by a parent. Bill and Gus, having slowly relaxed from their battle stances, pay attention to the unusual sight.
"The one in the middle! Step forward!" Gill orders.
The phantump girl 'steps' forward hurriedly.
"So you're the leader," he asserts, his voice showing clear disappointment. "Listen up. We're not out to harm people just because. So we promise not to do any bad things to you. Now, if you could please tell me... why did you try to kidnap me?"
"Um... uh..." her tiny wispy hands rub against each other.
"Please look at me when I'm talking," Gill quickly asks in a quieter tone.
"Y-Yes, mister," she complies, shifting her two red glowing eyes to Gill's.
"Why did you kidnap me?"
"Er... mister... I'm not sure if I can tell you that. S-Someone might get very upset with me," she utters in a meek tone, in an even higher pitch than her already youthful voice.
"I will talk to that person myself and make sure he doesn't hurt you," Gill responds in an increasingly inviting tone. "You guys mentioned a 'Basil', correct?"
"Please, mister! It's been years since we failed a mission! We captured you by accident, I think it should've been your other friend instead! Can't all three of you just... come with us to make sure?"
"That won't be necessary."
Bill, Gill and Gus turn their attention to the deep, scratchy voice coming from the giant dead tree's direction.
The voice comes from the top of the tree. The black trunk, ending in a mess of bulging branches, has a previously unseen individual. The two-legged figure sits casually at the base of one of the branches cross-legged, as if expecting this moment. Against the sun, his silhouette is lost amidst the web of interlocking dead wood. He drops himself off.
His dark green garb flutters downward and follows suit with the rest of the body. The green feline's feet gently absorb the landing as if their descent hadn't been several meters long. He is easier to appreciate now—taller than both twins, the stranger is a green, cat-like humanoid. His dirty cloak is tattered and worn, bearing resemblance to an improvised jacket with torn sleeves. Being so thin and threadbare, the spiky loose sections billow in the wind. The coat as a whole is unkempt and wild. Upon the feline's dark green face is a slight smirk and apathetic red pupils as vivid as will-o-the-wisps.
Danger abounds.
"B-Boss!", the phantump trio greet the floragato shyly, trembling. The girl immediately follows up: "I'm so very sorry, boss! It's been years since I last—"
"Move aside," his scratchy voice commands.
The phantump immediately clear the way. He edges closer to the trio.
They get into a fighting stance again. Gus points his scallop at the arrival, unsure.
"Gill," Bill whispers, suddenly acutely aware of the priceless Perfect Seed in his bag. "Maybe we can take him on, but I can't gauge him yet. First chance we get, we make a run for it."
"Gill...?" the floragato mentions as he comes to a stop. His big hand's digit hits his forehead in an act of mocking reminiscence. "Yeah... yeah, uh-huh. How could anyone forget that stupid nickname... so you would be Bill! Ha-ha!"
He points to the other growlithe, laughing. His sudden jesting demeanor contrasts the tense trio. "I'll say! This is very... very strange and fever-dream-y for me. It sure takes me back... back when I got here all over again. Never in a million years would I see you little spic boys as cartoon animals!"
All three relax their posture in confusion. Gill tilts his head slightly. The twins remember someone.
Gill can't help but give an involuntary chuckle at the ridiculousness of the situation. It couldn't be him.
Good thing their mother was nowhere to be seen. Or any adult, for that matter.
"Firecrackers! Where'd he get those?!" Bill thought as he observed the multiple strings bearing an array of small red explosives. "You didn't..."
"I did! 'Borrowed' them from Dylan, he saw that one coming for messing with us," the boy explained with a smug smirk. "We can use some of these for New Year's..."
"Alright, I'm lost, what the hell is going on here?" Gus breaks the tense silence while lowering his scallop in annoyance.
"That's... Dylan?" Gill half-answers to Gus with another chuckle.
"A troubled boy we used to know from way back in elementary," Bill explains. "We just... completely forgot about him until now. It's actually kind of amusing that he's here with us."
"Heheh, amusing isn't it?" Dylan relaxes his posture even further, hands on knees and heartily laughing at the ground without a care in the world. "Haha! We're all magical creatures now! That's just rich! Like, man, ain't that SOMETHING!"
"I know, right, gatito?!" Gill, now relaxed, points to the feline. "I, uh, don't think I can approve of you bossing children around like this though."
"What can I say, It's a living... You scrape by with some ghosts, try to survive... then the 'pokemon' start to call you names like 'The Basil Phantom!" He recounts as he jokingly air quotes with his big digits. "But whatever! I don't care for silly names like those... silly names like... 'gatito'? HAHA! Great to see you again, Gill, I really mean it."
Bill sighs. "A-Alright. I don't approve of... whatever it is you're doing either, but I'm glad you're happy to see us. Now, if we could just—"
There's a subtle whooshing sound. Gus yelps.
What happened?
The swift feline had leapt in a tall backflip, oshawott in hand. Midair, Gus is quickly thrown downwards, being caught by big bulging green tendrils shooting up from the roaring ground!
Just like before, Dylan effortlessly lands as if gliding. "Uh-uh, nope, don't give me that ugly face, Billy" he calmly condescends as Bill's face is twisted into his unnatural battle scowl. "I'm the one who's controlling those vine-things you're seeing. And this dumb otter's bones don't seem too STRONG."
With a brusque, exaggerated gesture from his hand, the thick vines are driven down into the earth, slamming Gus's struggling body downwards with a loud whimper. Laying limply in pain, he is now firmly coiled up in the vines near the base of the tree.
The trio of phantump rapidly scatter, fading away into nothingness.
Both twins glower up at the relaxed figure towering over them.
"Let him go!" Gill demands, summoning Rock Slide bullets all around him with his tail.
"Let me get to the point first," Dylan cracks his knuckles as he paces nonchalantly towards the glowering duo. "All I'm asking is for you to give me that expensive little seed you're hiding. I know Billy has to have it in that bag. Give me that and I PROMISE..." he claps. "...not to break your cute little otter any further than he is right now."
Gill grunts in exasperation. He can see Bill doing a deep inhale and exhale, as if sighing in defeat...
...or is he? Gill notices a quick knowing glance from Bill before the latter prolongs his sigh. Only to then prepare another subtle inhale.
He's doing the same breathing pattern. He's readying Agility.
With this knowledge, Gill's magical bullets fall to the ground with several thuds. "...I... we... ugh... just don't hurt Gus!"
"Uh-huh," Dylan quickly nods, disinterested. "Whatever, just give me the seed."
Bill opens his eyes, glowing pink. "FIRE! NOW!"
Quickly, Gill blasts fire towards a surprised Dylan, who swerves to the left. That second is all that the speeding Bill needs to leap towards Gus and rip apart the vines with blazing fangs. In no time at all, Dylan faces Bill, Gill, and a groaning Gus.
Gill quickly lowers his body so that a pained Gus may crawl up to his back: "Gus! Here... quick... hold on, now let's GO!" he whispers before breaking into a sprint towards the opposite direction.
The sprint lasts only a second as he looks back. Bill is staring at Dylan. Both haven't moved an inch.
"Bill? Bill! W-What..."
Bill's visible teeth contort into a slight manic smile. Dylan smiles back with a relaxed grin.
"What's going on!?" Gill incredulously calls out, Gus groaning from the sudden swerve as he tries his best to hold still. "Whatever happened to 'first chance we get, we make a run for it'?"
"I may not look like it right now, Gill, but my mind is as clear as can be," Bill explains as his wrinkled muzzle trembles, violent and unwitting in equal parts. "The right call... is to fight. The scope of his power is enough to be a liability to our escape, not to mention Gus's safety. But I noticed: Dylan right now wasn't expecting our strength. His ghosts flee at the first sign of a direct confrontation. Those weak vines of his are nothing but a show he's putting on for us all. Lastly... I was faster than him just now."
One of his front paws digs the ground menacingly in his stiff posture. The manic grin is ever-so-slightly bigger. "We're putting this Basil Phantom out of commission or else. Right now."
The wind blows.
Dylan says nothing. The smile on his face looks more fleeting, yet it does not fade. His half-lidded bright eyes are hard to get a read on.
He chuckles once more, breaking his expression. "I've been bored for so long inside this... this weird place, you know! Being all alone here for years on end can make you go wild. But once you learn the rules of the game... you know how to break 'em. Everything becomes boring afterwards."
From within his green cloak, he reaches out for a pink bulb. It drops and bounces in the air thanks to a tether connected to his hand. Casually, he twirls it in a circle like a sling. "So make this fun, will you?"
Leaving Gus's battered body on the ground, Gill's tail conjures rocks all around.
Bill's ferocious scowl lunges forward like a blur, fangs blazing.
The Phantom's twirling pink halo in his hand glows blue. Faster than anything else, six spinning, incandescent teal spheres are conjured around him with a hum and shoot out!
One connects with Bill's muzzle and bursts with a bang!
The growlithe's body flies past and tumbles. Muzzle screams with pain deep within jaw joints. Blood boils. It's enough to make anyone pass out. Everything burns...
Dylan sidesteps the oncoming Rock Slide bullets one time, two times, three times.
Gill keeps shooting, too focused in his relentless volley to react. "Was that Hidden Power...?"
Bill, no stranger to pain anymore, gets up on his feet again. In spite of his pain and his racing thoughts, his smirk becomes even more manic. "YOU'RE ON!"
Twin beams of fire are shot at different intervals, bissecting the dead trees all around. Followed by Rock Slide. Followed by beams. Followed by Rock Slide. None of it connects.
Laughing, the Phantom keeps darting, rolling, flowing from one side to the other. Bill feints an Ember, instead going for another lunge. Dylan is caught off-guard and sidesteps less gracefully. Gill finally connects a potent Ember shot!
Dirt and dust dispel...
...to show a static Dylan's outstretched, blackened hand. His expression is severe, but no visible pain.
Both twins's breath is taken away. Bill in particular drops his gleeful scowl for a second.
There is no way that didn't cause any damage, Bill thinks. Even he himself feels burning pain from Gill's Embers.
Confident in this new confounded spell he's created, Dylan glances at his dark palm and rattles it in a mock attempt to rid himself of his pain. "I'll be kind... and say you were too busy trying to land a hit to make it hurt."
With a flick of Dylan's wrist and a pink blur, the next thing Bill feels is the yo-yo-like projectile wrapping and revolving around his body several times over in a vicegrip. The speed is such that he isn't aware of what's going on until it's too late...
Dylan flexes his body mightily and swings Bill's entire body off the ground in a single motion, drawing a long arc in the air and striking the earth with Bill's spine.
Gill's scream, "BILL!", is the only thing he can discern as the mute, excruciating pain in his tailbone clouds his senses. Then his body is carried in a wild aerial trajectory...
From Gill's perspective, Dylan's turned his tethered brother into an unrecognizable blur, travelling all around him in a sadistic protective dome. The phantom laughs heartily as he continues his intricate dancing motions, amused by the mockery that he turned Bill's body into:
"Come here! I'm all exposed! HAHA!"
Gritting his teeth, Gill turns around and runs towards the opposite way, far away...
"Run along now! I'll drop your brother off later after...! What—"
A thunderous quake later, a blackened rod travels towards Dylan... an entire dead tree, trajectory clawing the air in its wake.
Dylan leaps sky-high, Bill in tow. Trunk scrapes, splinters and tears the landmass asunder in a storm of dust.
High up above the forest, he's not given respite. Another dark trunk ominously travels towards him without a sound.
The floragato swerves midair... but Bill's tether proves cumbersome—
Smack! Goes one of the countless branches at his face.
Far below, Gill does several bounds, scaling up the to the treetop of the giant Perfect Apple tree. This much training and fighting these past few months would bear fruit...
"DYLAN!" Gill yells out as he goes for the most stable branch. "Billy doesn't like to admit it since he's FAST..."
Gill's hindlegs spring off the main tree with such power so as to leave the behemoth a couple degrees crooked. He flies towards the falling Dylan:
"...but I've grown STRONGER!"
Midair, tens of thick Rock Slide bullets burst into being, instructed into firing with a potent swipe of Gill's tail. The vicious salvo follows the freefall of wooden debris, further tearing them into a mess of splinters that culminates into a thick cloud bursting below. Gill lands far away on all fours and brakes on the soil with a slide. Not breaking a sweat, he runs towards the dusty cloud... where his brother comes out, messy and limping slightly. The tattered bag on him still carries the faint red glow of the Perfect Seed within. Indeed, its protective shell has not wavered in the slightest.
"Is... it's safe," the battered Bill remarks, groaning slightly.
"Heh... I'm glad YOU'RE safe," Gill answers back. "Thankfully my rocks didn't hit you."
"...Don't you think that was a little excessive?"
"You saw how tough he was. I needed to go all out."
Regretfully... the raspy voice makes itself known: "'All out'? Man, oh man..."
The twins ready themselves towards him. Dylan walks out of the cloud of dust, spinning his arm in circles in an attempt to fix an annoying soreness in his shoulder. Relaxed, he starts stretching his arms out:
"Granted, I wasn't expecting you to start throwing trees at me. You also put more oopmh on the rocks, so that hurt for once. You're not getting a hit like that again."
"Keep talking... keep talking..." Bill thinks as he desperately tries to slow down his breathing, attempting to trigger Agility again ... and he does.
World stands still. Everything is perceived. Nothing is out of reach.
Aware of his heartbeats taking too long to pass and his blinking being too lazy to bear, Bill's facial muscles pull back again slowly into his manic smile. Unannounced, his feet pummel the dirt, zooming in with a mighty horizontal leap to Dylan's side...
...but Dylan looks back at him?
"What!?"
The floragato's foot drags mud from below and ruthlessly kicks Bill's jaw from the side!
Heartbeats flow normally. All-seeing clarity fades.
Bill gasps as his mud-covered body is tossed aside. His muzzle is misshapen, with the lower part being slightly off somewhere it shouldn't be. Pain is too intense to bear. It's blurring his vision. A second later another kick is performed. His twin's scream is even louder than Bill's.
Much farther away, a dirty, bewildered Gill is left limping. He consistently trips over unsteady legs before moving no longer.
The other growlithe writhes on the ground, unable to ease the unending pain in his jaw and his spine. The mostly unharmed cloaked figure towers above the latter, uncaring of his plight: "If it makes you feel any better, you almost got me there. Even if I did see your trick coming after you've done it the first time."
Bill eventually stops contorting, forcing himself to stand with a defiant, crooked scowl as he slowly backs away. His eyes glow faintly pink with a second, unrealized Agility. This would not be the end... but he's going to leave. He'll save everyone, as hard as that sounds right now. But he'll figure. He'll escape this nightmare...
Dylan conceals his own pink weapon with a deft bounce and a flick. His voice becomes unexpectedly softer: "Listen, Billy. I'm not lying, no one comes close to getting a good one on me. And to be frank, I don't much care about that little trinket you're carrying."
Bill cannot speak lest his injury brings him back to reality. His unchanging scowl is enough of a response for Dylan. But he continues:
"...I went to that Fogbound Lake place myself, where Uxie lives. It's hopeless. He told me there wasn't a chance."
That is enough to make the growlithe's stare falter. All this time... no, this can't be! Uxie is the only way that hasn't been tried! He must know a way out!
"You're not the only one who's been wanting out, shocker I know. I spent so much time and effort trying to find out myself. So many horror stories about Uxie over the years and they don't amount to anything. He said that I was just an 'uncouth brat' and that I would stay here forever, boohoo."
Dylan crosses his arms.
"These creatures see me as a criminal... fair enough, I do like being good at their games. Yet all I've wanted is power to break through the rules that actually matter. Go back to my world, you know? Resources help, like with that Perfect Seed's value in cash. But creatures as strong as I am... and potentially willing to actually hear me out? That is always impossible to come by. I need people like those for what I'm planning. I don't think all hope is lost."
He couldn't be seriously suggesting this... Very slowly, Bill tries to articulate:" "After... what you just did... to us... to my brother—"
"This is petty stuff and you know it. I got you roughed up, so what? That 'KFC' chicken can and does do worse."
"Y-You... you just don't look... like..."
"I'm being as frank as I can be! Yeah, I'm a lowlife, all that, whatever. But I know the secret behind leaving here after years of not finding any leads. In time, this will all just be a bad, strange dream for me. I'll wake up from my crappy bed..."
Bill can't help but gasp. Dylan takes note: "Ah. Yeah. That tells me the whole story. I'm not even asking you to 'side with me', whatever that means. I'm just asking for you to come with me for a while and give me the opportunity show you. I'll even patch you and your pathetic brother up, I have the means."
For a time, no one says anything. Bill's scowl has completely faded by now, but he's stopped looking at Dylan.
"Alright! Alright..." the floragato uncrosses his hands and starts walking away. "Just in the middle of the fight I realize how things should've been from the start, I can't expect you to suddenly kiss my ass. Guess what, that's reasonable. Come by from time to time to the big dead tree and see if I'm available. If you don't come in a while, I'll find someone else who's strong AND willing to help me. Goodbye."
Pain is forcefully set aside. If Uxie is a no go... this might be the only lead.
"...wait...!"
He takes a wobbly step forward. "...I'm willing... I'd do..."
"Hey, hey, calm down, I haven't really asked anything concrete of you yet," Dylan says as he turns around. He approaches Bill until he's right above him, cleaning his hands as if to prepare himself to carry the growlithes. "But thanks, little spic puppy."
"...Don't... call me that..."
"Sure thing, partner. But first..."
Dylan grabs the Perfect Seed.
With another cruel kick, he sends Bill to the ground. The latter's heart sinks.
The floragato starts cackling: "AHAHAHA! You. Actual. MORON! I can't believe you bought all that!"
Bill tries to get on his belly. But his spine acts as dead weight. He cannot get up again.
"Boy have I got news for you! There's no way out! I know for a FACT I died, ended up here and all that matters is that I get to keep playing the game! That's how it is!
And this Perfect Seed... yeah, I'm pretty sure this'll turn some heads at the pawn shop. Maybe I have to aim a little higher, hahaha! I kill myself... See you l-ACK!!"
Dylan's cry of agony resonates in the dead forest louder than his previous cackling.
The unexpected sound makes Bill's vision snap into something clearer at that very instant.
The floragato starts gasping and groaning as he hunches over and holds onto his burning side.
Behind him... is a panting, weak oshawott, wielding a blade of blue light borne from his scallop.
As soon as the wounded Dylan turns around to meet his assailant, his face disgustingly distorts into venomous hatred strong enough to make Gus tumble onto his rear, paralyzed and scared.
"YOU... I can't be touched...! H-How... HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME!?"
In one powerful wide swing of his claws, glowing leaves are flung downwards! Gus screams in horror and in pain! Glowing stilettos rain down with another growling swing! One! Two! Three! Four! Five...!
...Gus's screams of pain are lost among the furiously spiteful flechettes. Almost as if he stopped crying out altogether.
...six, seven, eight, nine...!
Bill cannot get up... but even from this position, his fire remains growing ever more powerful. In time, he slowly strains his dislocated mouth open and screams a powerful beam of fire that envelops a screeching Dylan, searing the large gash on his exposed back!
But...
The beam's trajectory was misfired. Though it connects with Dylan... in the process it covers the hand that held the Perfect Seed.
A singed Dylan falls to his knees, voice nearly breaking from his cries. He realizes that he dropped the item... and on the sooty heart-shaped shell below, the red glow is nowhere to be seen.
The Perfect Seed is no more.
His constant agonized gasping turns into a series of wretched growling at the realization. Despite his will to fight, pain stops him from raising his arms. Frustrated, he grasps onto his side and turns to Bill, crazed eyes meeting his:
"MARK MY WORDS, YOU STUPID SPIC! Any of you... anyone associated with you even DARES heading a little too far eastward... if I find out, THEY'RE DONE! I CAN'T BE TOUCHED! My ghosts will find out... I better not see any of you or you're DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD! YOU... you...!"
Gasping, nearly frothing at the mouth, the Basil Phantom's tattered visage leaps out and disappears into the endless sea of tall dead trunks.
...
All that is left is the mess that became the three of them, surrounded by burned wood and debris. Pain stops bothering Bill, instead feeling a looming fatigue. From his vantage point on the ground, he sees the worthless shell that he himself burnt. He sees the horrible sight that became of Gus, who is worryingly not moving.
And far out into the distance, between the trees lies the silhouette.
It stares down at him from a distance. Unable to lose consciousness calmly, Bill's thoughts black out in fear and anguish.
On that day, Gill would be the first one amongst the three to regain strength.