Chapter 4: “Vera Esperana”

  The echoes of chaos still rang in my ears. The air in the library had become unbreathable after the series of psychic attacks, and white dust, composed of shredded paper and fragments of broken shelves, floated around me. It seemed surreal to think that just a few minutes ago, I had been calmly searching for a book about Alolan Grimer to learn more about its movements. Now everything was in disarray.

  My breathing was so erratic that I could barely process what I was seeing: an aisle filled with flying books, torn pages, and the viscous trail that Grimer had left as it moved to protect me. My legs were still trembling—a stark reminder of the adrenaline coursing through me. I couldn’t take my eyes off that girl with dark burgundy hair and pink eyes, who seemed ready to finish me off without any explanation. Her Abra floated beside her, its tail stiff and expression intense, even though its face always appeared sleepy. For some reason, the atmosphere felt heavier, like an invisible weight pressing on my back.

  The first attack had come without warning. In the blink of an eye, she had lifted a stack of books that levitated as if they were alive. Then, with a flick of her hand, she hurled a torrent of sharpened pages at me, hardened by her mental power. It was as if the paper had turned into blades. I barely managed to step back and let out a choked gasp. My heart sank as I watched those pages slice through the air with a deadly whistle.

  Grimer—whom I sometimes call Dosy—reacted before I could give an order. He opened his huge mouth and inhaled with a snort that sounded like a growl of warning. Without hesitation, he placed himself between me and the blades, letting his gelatinous body take the full brunt of the attack. The pages struck his semi-liquid mass with a harsh, almost metallic sound. A few pages stuck to his surface, sinking in slightly. Others fell uselessly to the floor. I saw my Pokémon tremble from the impact, but he stood firm, resisting. I realized he was using Stockpile—he had swollen his body, storing the energy he could absorb. That move reinforced his consistency, allowing him to better withstand the damage.

  I stood frozen, unable to comprehend why I was being attacked. I tried to shout for an explanation, but the girl took another step forward, her gaze filled with icy hatred. I felt an invisible pressure on my neck, as if someone had tied me with a psychic noose. I struggled to move fluidly and could only attempt to shield Dosy, who was inflating himself again. I noticed this was his second use of Stockpile—his body shook with a faint bubbling sound. If he went too far, the accumulation could backfire.

  Another wave of pages rose from the floor, glowing with a bright pink light. I braced myself, expecting to see my blood splatter across the room, but Dosy swelled even more and blocked the attack. However, I noticed shallow cuts that slowly closed as his viscous substance self-repaired. My Pokémon let out a pained whimper, and it felt like a punch to my stomach. I didn’t want to hurt the girl, but I also couldn’t let her destroy us.

  I tried to stammer something like “Stop!” but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. The air was thick with a strange energy that weighed heavily on my chest. Meanwhile, her Abra had floated a few inches closer, its eyes glinting faintly. A psychic force shoved me backward, slamming me into a shelf. Books tumbled down on me, and I managed to get up, coughing from the dust.

  At that moment, Dosy let out a deep, wet growl that reminded me of boiling mud. He swelled for the third time, shaking his head furiously. I knew what he was about to do: with so much energy stored, the next logical move was Spit Up. That technique released all the accumulated force, firing it as a mix of toxic fluid and dark energy. It wasn’t lethal on its own, but at such close range, it could cause serious damage—and the girl would end up badly hurt. I didn’t want to escalate things that far, but I didn’t know how to stop this madness without getting us killed first.

  The girl seemed torn between stabbing me with more paper blades or slamming me into the ground again with telekinesis. She raised her right arm, and several scraps of paper began vibrating in the air again, forming a lethal fan around her. Panic gripped me once more. I opened my mouth to plead with her to stop, but the telekinesis strangled my voice. Dosy, on the verge of releasing his attack, let out a dry roar. I saw him open his mouth wider than usual, revealing a swirling mass of stored energy. A dark, unstable substance mixed with a purple aura churned inside him.

  Then, she made a subtle gesture with her hand. Her lips parted, but she said nothing—only exuded pure rage through her glare. The paper blades flew toward us, and I was certain that if Dosy didn’t fire, we’d be shredded. In a split second, my Pokémon unleashed Spit Up: a jet of viscous energy fired with cannon-like force. The toxic mixture whistled through the air and collided with a barrier created by the Abra, reinforced by floating books the girl had pulled together as an improvised shield. I watched as covers shattered, pages were soaked in the foul fluid, and droplets dripped to the floor. A few splashes hit her arm, burning through the fabric and leaving a dark brown stain. She gritted her teeth and stepped back, never taking her eyes off me. A corrosive vapor rose from where the substance had landed.

  I seized the moment of confusion to catch my breath and finally shouted:

  “I’m not part of the Poison Clan! I don’t want to hurt you!”

  Those words echoed in my mind, a mix of pleading and panic. She still had her hand raised, ready to unleash another attack. But my words—or maybe just the image of me looking so defenseless—made her pause for a few seconds. I watched as her glowing pink eyes still burned with resentment, though she no longer advanced.

  Dosy, after releasing the Spit Up, was utterly exhausted. His body deflated and spread out partially across the floor, panting with his mouth open. Even so, he managed to keep one eye on the girl and her Abra, trying to protect me despite his condition. The silence that followed lasted long enough for me to rise slowly, kneeling next to my Pokémon.

  The next thing I felt was strange—a tingling in my head that made me blink rapidly. I realized she was trying to read my mind or control my movements again because it felt like a psychic wave was crashing against my consciousness. But as soon as that wave reached my brain, I noticed another shift: Dosy moved as best he could, positioning himself between my back and her line of sight. His semi-melted Poison/Dark body interrupted the psychic force she was using to invade my mind.

  “Tch…” I heard her hiss impatiently. “How is it possible for a grimer to have dark affinity?…”

  She straightened up slightly, clutching her injured arm with her free hand. A few scraps of wet paper still floated around her, though fewer than before. Her Abra, its narrowed eyes still focused on me, stopped exerting the pressure that had slowed us down. It floated closer to her, almost as if it were trying to calm her down. I stood there, drenched in sweat, trembling, unsure if she would attack again. I used the brief truce to speak, even though my voice was shaky.

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  “I don’t… know who you are. But I’m not going to hurt you. My name is Aspen. And… my Pokémon is Dosy.” I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I’m just here to study… nothing else.”

  She finally tore her gaze away from Dosy and fixed it on me. Her lips trembled with a hint of uncertainty. She was breathing heavily, clearly worn out from the energy she had expended. After a long silence, she finally spoke a name in a hoarse voice:

  “Vera Espern.”

  She didn’t say it kindly. It was more like a warning—as if to make sure I knew who would kill me if I ever crossed her path again. Her Abra floated at her side, its posture confirming the sentiment. I tried to explain myself without getting too close.

  “I swear… I don’t know why you think I’m part of the Poison Clan. I have no connection to… Koga or those ninjas. I’m just a student. I came here for a book about… Alolan Pokémon.”

  She frowned, her glowing pink eyes still shimmering with that strange hue, though less intensely than before. She lowered her arm slightly, and the floating scraps of paper fell to the floor. Abra tilted its head slightly, as if it were also exhausted.

  “The Psychic Clan has been following me,” she whispered after a pause. “They’ve been trying… to control me for a long time. I know they hired assassins from the Poison Clan. Sometimes they show up without warning and… silence anyone who meddles in the Psychics’ business. I thought you were one of them.”

  I swallowed hard, unsure how to respond. I could hear the acidic dripping of Dosy’s earlier attack and the crackling of the ruined books. Dosy’s breathing was still labored, but he no longer seemed ready to attack. I nodded cautiously, trying to show her I understood her fear.

  “Seriously… I’m not involved in that. I don’t know anything about clans or who hires who.” I lowered my voice. “I’m sorry for what happened. But… you were about to kill me…”

  She narrowed her eyes, avoiding my gaze directly.

  “I’m not stupid. If you’re not part of the Poison Clan, how do you know about Koga and the ninjas that control it? And how does someone with poison immunity not belong to the Poison Clan?”

  Feeling nervous and unsure how to lie convincingly, I stammered, “H-how do you know I’m immune to poison?”

  For a moment, Vera’s cold, serious expression softened, replaced by a look of disbelief—like she was watching a Slowpoke try to eat a rock.

  “You were lying on top of a Grimer without getting poisoned. You were literally sitting on a mass of toxic sludge, idiot. Plus, you know Koga is the leader of the Poison Clan.”

  My face turned red with embarrassment, and I blurted out without thinking, “Dosy is an Alolan Grimer—they aren’t toxic on the outside!, it's just that people confuse it with one of Grimmer's from Kanto because it's a shiny pokemon but look at the yellow slime around its mouth. And everyone knows Koga; he’s part of the Elite Four! That doesn’t mean I’m from the Poison Clan. It’s like calling you a Psychic just because your hair floats like Sabrina’s.”

  The moment the word “Sabrina” left my mouth, I noticed a tremor in the air. It was subtle at first, like a change in pressure, but it immediately turned into a psychic pulse that pushed me back two steps. She opened her eyes wide, and I saw intense rage forming in her expression. Her burgundy hair began to rise slowly, as if an invisible breeze was giving it life. A pink luminosity concentrated on her forehead, forming something like a third eye.

  Abra let out a sharp sound, almost a shriek, and floated to her side, moving its limbs nervously. I felt the crushing psychic force return to my chest. The floor trembled, and pieces of shelves rose into the air, spinning around me. I was too tired to move quickly. Dosy tried to lift himself again, but he had no energy left after the triple Stockpile and Spit Up.

  The light on Vera’s forehead pulsed, growing into spiraling pink waves. The sensation was suffocating, like being thrown into an underwater whirlpool. A sharp pain stabbed at my skull, and I had to brace myself on the floor to avoid collapsing. I thought she would smash me against the ceiling or break my bones with a mental blast at any moment.

  “I-I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…!” I tried to apologize, but my voice was drowned out by the clatter of objects colliding.

  The psychic energy surrounding her condensed even more, and I noticed Abra watching her with concern. It seemed like Vera was about to overstep her limits, on the verge of releasing a devastating blast. My vision blurred, and I braced myself for a final blow that could tear me apart. But something else happened: Abra acted at a critical moment. I saw her grab Vera's torn clothes, and an intense pink glow enveloped them both. It was the unmistakable sign of Teleportation, a sudden flash that expanded outward and forced me to squint.

  The noise suddenly ceased as the glow faded. All that remained were the remains of fallen bookshelves and the clatter of books piled on the floor. The girl and her Abra had disappeared, leaving me in monumental chaos.

  I lay on the floor, panting, with the metallic taste of stress on my tongue. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Dosy was lying beside me, like a living puddle, his gaze lost. I quickly checked him to make sure he was still breathing, running my hand gently over his slimy surface. He responded with a slight bubbling noise, more like a sigh of exhaustion than anything else.

  When I finally managed to stand up, the dust had begun to settle. Overturned chairs, smashed shelves, torn or stained books… everything surrounded me in the aftermath of the battle. I wondered how I could explain this to the Academy staff, but I was too stunned to think straight. Stumbling through the rubble, I searched for my backpack, which had been tossed aside during the chaos. It was then that something caught my eye: two thick volumes with metal covers lying near a toppled pillar. One was titled Encyclopedia of Moves, the other Encyclopedia of Skills. Their edges were slightly charred, but they looked almost new.

  I picked them up carefully, wondering if they were part of the library’s collection. As I flipped through a few pages, I noticed handwritten notes in the margins. They looked more like personal annotations than library markings. The pages were filled with observations about psychic control, resistances, and references to the energetic dynamics of Poison and Psychic types. I felt a lump in my throat as I wondered if they belonged to Vera. She was probably consulting them when I interrupted her, or maybe they were part of her private studies. Either way, they didn’t have the library seal on them, which made me think they had been hers all along. I decided to take them: if they were hers, maybe I could return them later, or at the very least, they might help me understand her situation.

  I looked around and braced myself for the possibility that someone might show up at any moment demanding answers. Trouble seemed inevitable, but I forced myself to take a deep breath and gather my thoughts. At least I was still alive, and so was Dosy. Vera Esperna her Abra had disappeared in that flash of light. I had no idea where they had teleported to, but I hoped I could heal her wounds in time. I didn’t want her dead… even if she had been seconds away from killing me.

  With hesitant steps, I approached my Pokémon, lifting it as best I could despite its weight and slimy texture. Dosy looked embarrassed (if a Grimer could show embarrassment) that I couldn’t do more. I patted her head gently.

  “You did very well,” I whispered in a shaky voice. “Thank you for saving me.”

  She let out a deep “blorp” that sounded almost like a sigh of gratitude. For a moment, we exchanged a tired look. My back ached, but I couldn’t just leave it there. The library now felt like a giant trap, filled with all the visible destruction.

  I made my way to the exit, looking carefully to make sure there was no one in the hallway. A ghostly silence hung over the area, as if the world had stopped. I managed to stumble out, grabbing Dosy and the two books I had found. I closed the door carefully behind me, knowing there was no hiding the devastation I felt inside.

  I lowered my head and let my oversized black and purple hoodie shield my face as much as possible. I walked down the hallway, trying to calm myself. My heart was pounding in my temples and sweat was pouring down my neck. All I could think about was the battle. What had led Vera to distrust me so much? Why had she mentioned that the Psychic Clan hired Poison Clan assassins to track her down or eliminate her? It all sounded too twisted, too far removed from the ordinary lessons the Academy was supposed to offer.

  As I turned a corner, I felt a chill run down my spine. I feared that a teacher, a guard, or another student would suddenly appear to ask me what had happened.