Marshadow had followed her out of the Border without her realizing it until she was at her campsite. She had been inside her tent about to sleep, but the sight of the Marshadow's shadow cast upon her tent, the visual of its outline pressed against the fabric by the moon's light, jolted her to full awareness. Her heart raced, nearly beating out of her chest. "What the hell?"

She wasn't going to be terrorized by Marshadow, not when she had pledged to everyone that she would be stronger. She pushed herself out of the sleeping bag and out of the tent, coming out swinging and with a battle cry, but the pokemon was gone the second she opened the tent. She looked around, but it was nowhere.

A nightmare?

She put her hands down, sighing. Her shoulders dropped and she let her head hang, too. The relief and embarrassment flooded her, but she didn't let it overtake her. She exhaled evenly, determined to sleep well tonight without nightmares of the Marshadow that'd attacked her. But as she touched the flap of her tent again, she felt it before she saw it: the Marshadow just a centimeter within her peripheral, waiting.

"What." She asked between clenched teeth. She took a breath before turning her head to look at it.

Stupid Marshadows weren't as expressive as Snorlax or Gengar. Still, she knew how they were feeling because they put out a vibe or presence that she picked up on like she did with all ghost pokemon and most others, that intuition of hers that picked up on some other level of energy. And this one.... was curious.

About her? Why?

She held its gaze, but it did nothing. She blinked at it, unwilling to break first. She sensed no aggression, but she also didn't feel any affection from it. But why else would it follow her?

It moved towards her; she hated it, but she flinched, instinctively.

For all her work with re-normalizing her life or whatever after the events at the water routes, she still had that stupid animal instinct to hide. Because fighting hadn't worked and running at come at a cost. It was a bitter pill to swallow, her failure, and it was exacerbated by the cruel way she treated her pokemon afterwards, like salt in a wound. Her shame was two-prong, almost three with the way her fear lingered around her, the way she cowered away from the Marshadow before she steeled herself, straightened her posture and leaned in towards it.

She hadn't looked away when she flinched and she wasn't now, even as shame made her want to. But she was Ranger Robin Coello, friend of ghosts, and she couldn't afford to hide. She couldn't afford be scared of any ghost -- it would betray her entire message, her foundation, her purpose in life. "What." She repeated, tone even but forced.

And it turned its head in curiosity. "Why'd you follow me?" She gestured wide with her arms, voice raising in her anger and confusion. "Why not stay in the Border? No one asked you to come here! You don't belong-" She cut herself off and looked away this time. She wanted ghosts to belong, that wasn't what she meant. But Hoenn felt safe to her, outside of the water routes... she didn't want the scariest pokemon she'd ever faced to ruin her sanctuary. But. This wasn't the same Marshadow that she had been attacked by earlier in the year. Her baggage wasn't its cross to bear; she was a hypocrite for trying to do that to it.

She exhaled slow, then met its eyes again. "Why are you here?" She asked quieter.

Like a flash, it flew into her tent. "Hey!" She chased after it, but the Marshadow was resting on her pillow like a person would, staring at the ceiling of the tent.

"Bro-" she started informally before she checked herself. "I-- c'mon. You came here to take my sleeping bag?"

He was between her and her pokeballs. She didn't think he'd go for violence, as she hadn't seen 'play with your food' behaviors from any Marshadow before. She didn't want to stay up all night waiting for the pokemon to make a move. "I'm not playing games with you. Get out of here." She made a shoo'ing gesture. The Marshadow flickered backwards, knocking into one of her pokeballs.

Spiritomb popped out, and Marshadow looked at it with a strange expression. Instinctively, Robin dove between the two of them, awkwardly not on all fours but on three, with one arm braced outward to add distance between Marshadow and Spiritomb. "Don't touch him," she insisted steely.

She stared him down. Marshadow blinked.

"Did you come here for my pokemon?" It shook its head no. "Did you come for me?" It nodded. "Why?" It blinked.

Okay, that's on her. Yes or no questions only. "Are you here to hunt me?" No. "You want a fight?" No. "You here to explore the non-Border land?" A pause. Then, a nod. "Okay. But you're around me. You think I'm a tour guide?" No answer. She exhaled slowly, trying not to give into her frustration. Marshadow pointed at Spiritomb. "My pokemon," she observed aloud. "You want to see them?" Slow nod. So not quite true? "You want to see Hoenn with them and myself?"

An enthusiastic nod.

Okay, so he did want to use her. At least he wasn't trying to knock all her pokemon out and contribute to her abduction. This Marshadow had a low bar to clear in terms of being the best Marshadow she'd ever met. Even still, she didn't need this thing on her team. It did not listen, it still brought up raw memories, and she wasn't knowledgeable enough about anything from the Border to feel comfortable keeping a Border pokemon close to her out here.

"No, I'm not going to do that. You can find someone else." 

Three weeks.

It took three whole weeks for Robin to cave. Marshadow followed her through the shadows and revealed himself at night. Sometimes, in her peripheral, he saw her mimic her gestures and emotions. She felt like a test subject and the victim of a prank in even strokes. On the twenty-first night, she sighed loudly in her treetop rented room. She felt his presence, now, long before he made himself known.

She ranted at him for several minutes as he creeped closer. Then, she found herself complaining at him while he sat at the foot her bed in the same manner she was sitting. She rubbed at her temple, suddenly aware of what they would look like to a third observer. She saw herself in her mind's eye.

He had been haunting her for weeks, hounding her until she'd relent and let him come along. But he had been following her all along, anyways. While she still had her misgivings about this kind of pokemon given her first experience with a Marshadow, he was distinctly acting like a lost soul, and she had become a Ranger to help those. Ghosts were her reason for becoming a better trainer, Ranger, and person.

So, she relented. Marshadow was a member of the team.

Marshadow was officially a member of the team.

Sinistea seemed to like it. But, she liked everything and everyone. All was good, except that she solved one problem and opened the door to another. Marshadow was an outsider slowly melding into the team, but now she had type: null. It was... a unique situation to be in.

She felt good about taking in black sheep, in a sense, but she was wracked with guilt every time she looked at it. Marshadow had been a harbinger of fear, and now this poor creation was a reminder of her other shortcomings and a reminder of her unhinged behavior back in the laboratory. She had nearly killed the scientist. Could she make amends in some cosmic way by nurturing the type: null away from its artificial instincts to hurt?

The scientist was out of the picture, but Robin still needed to find something to do about Type: Null. She had refused when authorities tried to claim it for evidence. She had told them sharply that TN was not evidence of anything they needed to keep track of. Indeed, the lack of humanity - or the betrayal of it, really - that TN represented was not something that got logged into their system or tracked on the chain of custody.

TN was the physical embodiment of hatred and the absence of ethics. She had taken TN to a pokemon cafe to get it some berries; she kept Sinistea by her side, too, so the TN would know Robin treated pokemon well. It had refused to eat. Robin wasn't sure how to coerce it to. The helmet on its head looked painful. She sat with it instead, eating alongside Sinstea and hoping the companionship added something.

Robin sat on the hill, pensive. She watched Type: Null watch her pokemon. Her team was relaxing at the dusk-covered park. Volbeats lit the sky. Sinistea floated along with the bugs, Snorlax reached up to a tree and ate its berries lazily, and her Flutter Mane enjoyed the reflections of the coming night sky across the lake's gentle lapping waves.

Type: Null did not play with others. It did not eat with others.

Robin leaned backwards until she was pressed against the hill and looking at the stars. She didn't know how to integrate it into her team. How did you fit a broken shard of glass into an already-complete mirror?

There was no place for it. Her team was hand-crafted from all of her experiences as a Ranger and in the gym series. She only had one badge to show for her three battles, but her team had evolved greatly for it. She would win her future fights. But it didn't solve the problem right in front of her: if her team was already a well-oiled machine, how could she squeeze Type: Null into it? Combat strategy didn't play into it. All the classes from Gwyar couldn't help her make sense of the social aspect of team-building beyond that bond of trust. And even that... she felt Type: Null did trust her. Which was insane. She had offered it an opportunity to join the wilds, as she didn't want it in custody where it would see a laboratory setting again. That would trigger it, certainly.

But it had stayed. It tended to stay close to her side. Robin hadn't earned such faith. No, Null had been forcibly brought into existence, and it's first experience had been witnessing Robin beat the snot out of the scientist. It should have associated her with violence. It should have been disgusted with her like she was with herself. But the anger, in the moment, had been so righteous and overwhelming.

People always thought they knew what was best. They always thought they were right. It looked like a scientist holding an experiment's value about the value of humanity and goodness. It looked like a Rocket holding a pursuit of power above the peace of mind of Hoennians. It looked like a gym leader who thought shadow pokemon were dirty and evil and disqualified a capable Ranger. It looked like her family holding the value of their image above their own compassion for her: a whole string of psychics with no room for the black sheep who couldn't see the future. She was tired of people who came up with a philosophy or a single goal and held it above all else. She hated them.

And, honestly. She hated herself. The rescue in March had been rough. The days after, with Null, were not much easier. Punching the scientist who had forced Type: Null's birth had left her hand with ugly splotches of color as if she had made oran-chesto jam by smashing the berries with her fist. She healed slow. Robin had refused fairy assistance at the pokemon center. She wanted to remember it. The mark had to stay until she felt better, until Null felt better, until she had her head back in the game.

Gwen had been so scared. Gwen's panic had been so real. And Robin's elbow knocking into her best friend's face had broken her glasses and busted her nose up. The guilt sat heavy in her stomach. The night sky above grew blurry as she remembered the spurt of blood that had come from Gwen's nose. More importantly, she thought about that split second desire to go back to punching the scientist anyways.

She had betrayed her best friend. She had forsaken her own compassion for that righteous anger. But people in power were making decisions for everyone else, at the expense of anything they deemed unworthy, and that warranted anger - a deep, all-consuming rage. The scientist and her parents and Josh were all proof that anyone in a position of power would uphold their beliefs and values and goals above the well-being of everyone else.

Hot tears streaked down her face. She barely had time to wipe at her eyes when Null was by her side, its presence quiet and weighty in equal amounts. She turned to it, stunned. It simply sat down beside her, its helmeted head leaning against hers, just feeling what she was feeling.

And slowly, realization struck Robin as she turned her gaze back to the night sky: perhaps, it was that very righteous anger that had bought Null's trust, that the depth of feeling stood so opposite of the scientist's apathy or that her own anger had matched its own and aligned them. Null did not trust her in spite of her messy feelings but because of them.

Her theory ( it was that very righteous anger that had bought Null's trust... Null did not trust her in spite of her messy feelings but because of them ) is confirmed before long. She had initially expected to find out if that was truly what bonded them when she was out on the battlefield fighting for Hoenn. She hadn't expected it to come weeks before the first wave.

Type: Null is marching behind her on the path from Oldale. Robin's coming from a visit in the community garden. Something about the beating heart of the town is so aromatic and nature-y and peaceful that she finds herself thinking about it more than any other town in Hoenn. But she has to leave eventually, and so she is, but the trek to Dewford is usually grim for her. She never wants to be home. It's on this path that she gets a call from her mother.

She doesn't realize how angry she is on the phone until she sees a passing Poochyena divert course to avoid her. She's screaming into the phone, standing still, just letting out how exhausted she is in having to hear this nonsense from her mom. In Robin's defense, the woman called to ask how she was doing - only because her older brother had insisted something bad was happening to Robin. Mom had interrogated Robin when she insisted she was fine and her precious golden boy was actually wrong, until Robin had to stop walking because of a pebble in her shoe and her mom guaranteed that that was what her brother had been so worried about.

Really, it boggles the mind. But she knows the game.

Her mom plays victim. Robin can't do damage control fast enough. Her mom asks why she never comes home. Robin can't justify well enough. Her mom demands to know why Robin's gone off on the world on some self-righteous quest instead of going to college. Robin namedrops all of the gym leaders and Ranger Captains she's worked with and explains how important her work has been to the war effort and how even Sheriff Davidson - who her mom has a particular soft spot for - has praised Robin's work. And her mom says... Her mom says, I always knew you were going to be a successful Ranger; I saw it in a vision. And Robin can't.

That's why she yells. She yells until she's hoarse, knows she's interrupting travelers on the path who divert into the woods to avoid crossing into her space. She knows she's making a scene. She knows her words are near incomprehensible over the phone between her tears and her rage and her hurt.

She doesn't even know the name for what she feels when her voice descends to a whisper, her face illuminated by a fast-setting sun (and how long had she been standing there bleeding on the road) when she quietly says, "If I see you again, I'll fucking kill you."

She hangs up. Or maybe mom does. Or maybe mom hung up hours ago. Robin moves to walk back to Oldale and Type: Null scurries beside her leg as if herding her and stops her in her tracks. Then, nudges her back. Nudges her towards Dewford. And when she looks at Type: Null closely, she sees a rage that mirrors her own.

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Dreams and reality blur unevenly in the days following her confrontation with her mom. She can't tell if she's dreaming or having visions or outright hallucination. Fog twists, curls, chases. Her vestibular sense isn't working anymore; eyes open and eyes closed, she can't tell if she's standing or lying down or falling. The aftermath of Sootopolis gifted her permanent hearing loss, tinnitus, and vertigo. The last part might be what's causing it all, or maybe she's just losing her mind. [break][break]

Fever isn't the name for her affliction. The restlessness, fidgeting, and inability to relax all work together to make her skin crawl. Spinarak must descend from the ceiling when she isn't watching to walk over her skin like they own the place. Her eyes are closed and she sees ooze leaking from above. Dark red, dark purple. Thick drops fall like blood but render into a toxic, muddy sludge by the time they land. [break][break]

The room fills with it. It crashes like angry waves in the wake of Kyogre. A whirlpool forms in the center. The bed she lies on is most certainly getting dragged into it.[break][break]

Her palms dig into the bed sheets, fingers grasping at mattress to free herself from whatever forces have chained her to it. She wonders if it is a toxic chain. She wants to shake like a rabid poochyena until her bindings fall off, but she can't find the strength to move more than her hands. Hot liquid sloshes against her. The air in the room is being swallowed up by the rising sludge; she's suffocating. Her fingers grip at the mattress as her body drowns, digging like she's in a grave and she's been dead for years, a restless skeleton or a ignorant ghost. [break][break]

She is haunting herself. She is already dead in the sludge but she can't lay herself to rest, can't pull peace from the storm and can't find forgiveness in the overwhelming rage and injustice and guilt and regret. She's eighteen and leaving the house to carve out a place where she belongs. She's nineteen and she's fought a war without a medal to show for her courage. She's nineteen and she's already dead. She's already dead. She's already dead. She's already dead. She's already dead. [break][break]

Her eyes must have closed. Something red glows before them, and she blinks them open to see Omen hovering over her. [break][break]

She is not dead. She did not sleep.

[break][break]notes[break]
after family matters

[break][break]

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Five has always felt like a holy number, reflected in fingers and toes and easy multiplication tables. Five working days in a week and five Coello children to carry its legacy. [break][break]

Robin comes to the Border because it feels like home in a way Lilycove never can and Dewford never did. The Border calls to her like a siren's song but it sounds like the voice of an old friend. The Border is a lighthouse shrouded in darkness that has never obscured it to her eyes. If she were blind, she could see it still; if she were fully deaf, she could hear it still; and if she were lost, her feet would take her to it as if drawn by string. Her internal compass is always pointed towards home. [break][break]

She is going to lose time in the Border because of how the spirits use her body as a vessel to pursue the justice they never received. She does not know it yet. [break][break]

She takes heavy stone and stacks it into something not unlike a birdhouse, except the base is thicker and the top is not a home so much as a prison with one completely open wall. The five-foot-tall monument has three "steps" to the centerpiece. On both sides of each step rests a candle lit with a ghastly blue flame. These flames cannot be put out with water. The center of the cell on top holds an additional flame that burns red much like the blood red Omen's impermeable body drapes itself in. [break][break]

There are five Coello children, but seven living Coellos. The Matriarch sits at the top, but not in this monument. This structure does not reflect life. It reflects death. It does not represent their lives but their souls, which may be further extinguished after death in the Border.[break][break]

Seven souls in the Coello family, and Robin's burns the brightest. At the very least, it burns the brightest in death. [break][break]

She will not recall creating it. She will always know how to find it. She will find herself vulnerable for it. She will fall to her knees in prayer with words she cannot identify, but they will be the correct words all the same. She will not remember the monument on her visits, but it always remember her. The spirits in the Border can trust that when their Oracle comes, they will have an opportunity to speak through her and act through her. They know she will come. She will always come. There will never be one last visit. In life, in death, in the after of the afterlife, she will remain here. [break][break]

She will not recall the vision of the six flames extinguishing and sealing the fate of the Coello name, nor the words Cursed Coellos that comes to her mind each time she walks away from the monument, nor how the eternal flame catches on the frail paper of her new life. She is a living contract between the living and the dead, the unholy and the divine, the righteous and the damned. She is something finally corrected in a wrong world. [break][break]

Five is a holy number, but only one remains.

[break][break][break][break]