Chapter Text
“I don’t mean to be discouraging or anything, but you don’t look like you can make it to Snowpoint City in one piece.” The voice that suddenly came from behind me was the first human voice I’d heard since unwittingly wandering onto Route 216, and my yell sent my visitor backtracking a few feet.
“Y - you sc - scared me!” I tried to keep my teeth from chattering in the biting cold, but to no avail. Even though I was inside a cave, the temperatures here were much lower than what I was used to. In fact, as I clutched my black jacket to my front, I could swear it had already become a few degrees colder.
A light chuckle came from the stranger, whose lips were curved into a knowing smile. “At least the blood’s still pumping in your veins,” she said a little ominously, coming several steps closer. “Underprepared trainers don’t always make it out of these two routes.”
I grimaced a little at the warning tone, as she came a step closer. Pale was the only word I could use to describe her. She had blonde hair that was even lighter than mine, and her skin was almost the colour of the swirling blizzard outside. Her lips were thin and pale, and her style of dress was equally pale and subtle, surprisingly thin for this weather. But beneath her bangs were eyes of a piercing blue.
“Wh- who are y - you?” I asked, a little numbly. She looked vaguely familiar, and even though I was quite certain that we had never met, her striking gaze rang a bell with me.
“You don’t know who I am?” she asked, incredulity creeping into her tone. I frowned, thinking. Was I supposed to know her? She shook her head, and suddenly, her stare seemed less frigid. “That’s okay. We’ll just start from the beginning, then. My name is Glacia, and I’m from Snowpoint City. And you are…?”
“C - Cynthia, fro - from Celestic T - town,” I replied, staring at her. If we had never met before, then why was the name Glacia so familiar?
“Celestic?” Glacia mused, before fixing me with the sort of look that one would use on a preschooler. “Are you trying to get to Snowpoint for your first badge?”
I narrowed my eyes at her, feeling rather insulted. Gabite’s Pokeball rattled indignantly on my belt, and I brushed it fondly as I reached for my badge case. The four badges I had already obtained glittered in the shafts of glaring light that filtered in from outside, and Glacia’s jaw dropped a little when I displayed them to her with a proud flourish. Or, it would have been proud, except my arm was shaking so much that I wasn’t sure if the other was impressed at my achievements or worried for my state of health.
“You definitely don’t look like you have four badges,” Glacia said with a slightly Mareepish smile. “How old are you?”
“Uh - t - thirteen?” I replied, staring down at my attire. Black jacket, white long-sleeved shirt and black long pants, as well as white sports shoes. The hair tie that had been holding my ponytail together had been lost along the way, and my fringe tumbled haphazardly onto my face every time I moved.
In return, I learned that Glacia was four years my senior despite being the same height as me, and that she was a Pokemon Coordinator. In addition to that,
“W - wait, y - you - you won th - this year’s G - Grand Fest - Festival!” I could hardly hear myself above the sound of my chattering teeth, but the realisation was too much to keep quiet. Now I remembered where I had seen Glacia before - she had been on Jubilife TV’s huge screen, along with video clips of her team at various stages of the tournament.
Glacia shrugged and started to walk towards the cave’s exit. “I was,” she agreed.
“H - hey, d - d - don’t go, d - don’t leave m - me here!” I attempted to chase after her retreating form, but my legs were stiff and numb and I only ended up tripping over my feet. Glacia returned, however, just as I was clambering painfully to my feet, a new cut on my knee from the sharp debris on the ground. Her blue eyes widened, and her steps quickened as she approached me.
“The blizzard hasn’t stopped at all,” she said, pulling me into a standing position. “Do you have a Pokemon resistant to ice?”
I shook my head in reply as a trickle of blood snaked its way down my leg. Lucario’s Pokeball hung from my waist, its occupant unconscious, and there was no way the rest of my team could withstand the icy storm for long. Spiritomb might hold out, but I didn’t like my chances. Glacia looked me over, and sighed.
“You’re going to have to try harder if you plan on getting your fifth badge, you know,” she said in a mildly disappointed tone. “My sister isn’t exactly a pushover.” She rifled through her bag and emerged with a frown. “And we’ll need to find a way to treat that,” she continued, nodding at the red trail that had almost reached my shoe. “This was a terrible time to leave first-aid supplies back in Snowpoint.”
“O - oh, d - don’t worry, I c - can manage,” I attempted to sound as though I could indeed manage, but the cold winds, seemingly in an attempt to prove otherwise, screamed into the cave with a vengeance and extinguished every last bit of warmth.
Glacia was still there, watching me with her head tilted to one side. Slowly, she produced a Pokeball from her waist, “If you want to get to Snowpoint this badly…”
A Pokemon that I recognised as her contest ace materialised beside her, its baleful eyes peering curiously at me. Its hand went to its mouth as it smiled at something, turning around and saying something to its trainer.
“I know, Froslass, but we can take a little detour,” Glacia replied. “Besides, I should go and get something else, in case we meet more horrendously unprepared trainers on the way south,” she continued pointedly, and I flushed a little.
“I d - didn’t kn - know it w - would be th - this b - bad,” I protested. “It’s s - summer e - everyw - where else in S - Sinnoh.”
The older trainer leveled a glance at me, her eyebrows furling in confusion. “This is Snowpoint City you’re talking about,” she said with a grim smile. “Up north, it’s always winter.”
By this time, tripping behind Glacia, I found myself nearing the entrance of the cave, and with every step I took, I felt more and more like the blizzard’s personal toy. Stray shards of ice flew in every now and then, one of them whistling as it shot past just mere centimetres from my head. The wind buffeted my sore, numb legs, pushing me in whichever direction it fancied. And all the while, the temperature slowly, ominously fell lower and lower.
“Are you really sure about this?” Glacia asked doubtfully, watching me attempt to step out into the blinding, endless expanse of white. “I’ve lived in Snowpoint all my life, and even I’m not certain I’ll get through this.”
I laughed numbly, too tired to go back. “I - I - I - I d - don’t g - g - give up,” I said, willing my frozen lips to shape into words. “I - It’s j - just a st - storm, a - anyway. I - I c - can make i - it to Sn - Snowpoint.”
And so ignoring Glacia’s protests, I took a tiny, hesitant step into the maelstrom. It roared around me, its dissonant shrieks echoing throughout the Route. I could feel my jacket’s worn sleeve begin to tear, exposing my arms to the sharp, icy debris.
“Y - y - you w - wo - won’t st - stop m - me,” I told the blizzard defiantly, plunging into its icy reaches.
***
In the end, I did reach Snowpoint City - just not in the way I’d expected to. The room I found myself in was as white as the snow lashing against the windows, and for a moment it seemed to spin around me. Only once the room stilled again did I notice another presence in the room.
“Ah, you’re awake,” a crisp voice cut through my mental fogbank, and a woman with many of Glacia’s features pulled a chair to my bedside and sat down, her blue eyes roving over me with the same searching gaze Glacia had turned on me back at -
“Wait,” I said, wincing at how airy and weak my voice sounded. “This is Snowpoint City, isn’t it? How did I get here?” I realised something was off as I spoke, and as I went over my words again, the realisation hit me. My teeth weren’t chattering anymore, and the temperature inside was pleasantly lukewarm.
The woman laughed, and in that one moment, all resemblance to Glacia’s icy front has disappeared in the crinkled eyes and pink lipstick. “Yes, child, this is Snowpoint City. As for how you arrived here…” She fixed me with a strange look. It wasn’t patronising, or pitying, only thinly veiled disappointment. “You shouldn’t have gone out into that blizzard on your own, you know,” she said, looking away.
“What happened?”
The woman bared her teeth in a grim smile. “You collapsed, thank Arceus it was from exhaustion and not hypothermia. Glacia brought you back here.”
“Is she okay?” I pressed, feeling a little guilty.
“Oh, she’s perfectly fine,” the woman said airily. “She’s training at the Gym currently, so you may have to battle her on the way to your next badge.”
“What about my team?”
“They’re all healing nicely,” the woman informed me. “They should be ready for battle by tomorrow. Until then,” she pushed me back onto the soft pillows on she bed, “rest. I look forward to your challenge.”
“Look forward to my challenge?” I repeated a little dumbly. It was only after she had walked out of the room that it hit me.
“You’re the Gym Leader!” I yelped, but her silhouette was long gone.