Chapter 89 - Down the Raboot Hole

  Celeste ran a hand over the stained glass panels set into the large wooden door of Fuji’s mansion. The full moon gleamed in the glass, reflecting fractured beams of silver light back onto the worn porch.

  It had been a full moon since she arrived on this island.

  Somehow, she only noticed that now.

  Even though this wasn’t the strangest thing she’d seen in Cinnabar, it brought her a chill. The moon was supposed to change. It was meant to wax and wane, and to mark the passing of days. But here, the sky was stuck. And with it came the creeping realisation that today was the same as yesterday, and tomorrow would be the same too. The sun would rise and no clouds would dot the sky, the flowers would bloom, and everything would remain perfect…

  Infuriatingly, unbearably perfect.

  How could Fuji think this was right?

  How could he look at this… this stagnant, unchanging illusion… and believe it was good for his daughter?

  Her fingers pressed harder into the glass, leaving smudges over its flawless surface.

  “So, are you going to knock?” Came Caleb’s question.

  Celeste exhaled slowly, trying to force the anger out with her breath. It didn’t work.

  She turned to face the others anyway.

  Pat and Shy stood close, their eyes drilling at her. Ariana slouched against a nearby wall, arms crossed, her Murkrow twitching uneasily on her shoulder. Caleb himself stood slightly apart, flanked by Nebula and his Palosand. His focus wasn’t on her—wasn’t on any of them. His eyes were locked on the mansion ahead, as if he could somehow see through its walls.

  No one spoke.

  In fact, no one had said much since they left Gio’s.

  Not long after they had spotted Blaine and his Marowak going into Fuji’s house, more Unown had begun gathering around the mansion. Celeste and her friends had argued, of course. Ariana had put her foot down, insisting they should take the chance to get the hell out. Celeste had barely acknowledged her, shrugging her off with a simple, “I’m going after Blaine.”

  At last, he was taking action—or at least she hoped he was. Either way, she wasn’t about to let him face whatever was inside alone.

  Not that this was a democracy, but once Caleb announced he was going with Celeste to back up Blaine, Ariana (after a very long string of curses) grudgingly fell in line. Celeste suspected Ariana wouldn’t leave without Giovanni, anyway. And after she had riled him up enough, he had vanished some place toward the beach with Delia.

  A sharp creak finally broke the silence as the iron gates behind rattled in the wind.

  “Celeste?” Caleb called again.

  Celeste turned back to the door. Someone had let Blaine in, but now it was locked tight.

  “I have a better idea.” She glanced down at her shadow but knew Shy wouldn’t reveal more of themselves than necessary. Her gaze then flicked to Caleb’s Palosand. “Can Hab go under the door and unlock it from the other side?”

  Caleb adjusted his glasses, considering the request for barely a second before nodding to his ghost.

  “Good idea,” he said with a small smile.

  Hab sunk into the ground, the grains of its spectral sand slipping effortlessly beneath the heavy wooden door. A beat passed. Then another. The wind rattled the iron gate once more. Celeste’s grip tightened around the strap of her backpack.

  And then a click echoed from the door.

  The door creaked open, revealing nothing but darkness. A cool breath of air drifted out, carrying the scent of jasmine and old paper. It felt… inviting. Like stepping into a storybook, where every word, every letter wrote another reality, one even stranger and more stagnant than the rest of Cinnabar. But most importantly, the Unown hadn’t written this story for them. And if Celeste had learned anything, it was that they were not above revisions.

  …Or cutting out characters.

  Ariana exhaled sharply. “Great. Not creepy at all.”

  Pat blinked, glancing up at Celeste as if questioning the wisdom of stepping inside. But this was an island. Even if they ran away, where would they go? Celeste pushed the thought aside. She stepped forward, pausing only when her shadow coiled around her legs. She sighed, murmuring something apologetic as she pulled free.

  Shy’s form wavered before they let go with what almost felt like resignation.

  Caleb was next. “No point standing out here,” he said, Nebula’s glowing eyes flashing on the lenses of his glasses as she drifted forward. A second later, Ariana’s Murkrow let out a disgruntled caw from the shadows.

  And finally, when all was dark, the door slammed shut behind them.

  —*——*—

  The moment the door clicked shut, the house exhaled.

  And not in a poetic, homey way one might imagine a house breathing. Nope. This was a full-bodied sigh, as if the place had lungs, ribs, the whole shebang.

  A flicker of candlelight—though no one had lit a candle—cast just enough glow to show the walls stretching, contracting, expanding past their limits, then pulling in too tight, as if the house couldn’t decide how big it wanted to be. Or maybe how small they should be.

  The floor bucked beneath them, like a tablecloth pulled mid-dinner. Celeste pitched forward, her stomach flipping as if it had missed a step. Her Slowpoke, wide-eyed but still processing whatever this was, wobbled ahead, right into her shins. The unexpected impact sent her stumbling forward in a graceless half-jump, limbs flailing as if trying to negotiate with physics. For a moment, she was airborne, caught between momentum and whatever reality-warping nonsense this place had conjured. Then the walls exhaled again, and gravity reasserted itself.

  She stumbled, managing to grab Pat at the last second, before forcing herself upright.

  “What the hell?” Celeste muttered, twisting to look at the others.

  Caleb and Ariana stood frozen, expressions mirroring hers. Even Ariana, whose first instinct was usually to swear at her problems, just gawked at the room, saying nothing at all. That… was probably a good call, as none of them wanted that place to get pissed at them.

  Then, as if it had been waiting for their full attention, the house lit up.

  Though not in candlelight anymore.

  A full blow spotlight, gold and sharp, illuminated every inch of the room. Celeste flinched as the walls snapped into focus, their patterns shifting. The wallpaper dressed up to the occasion, apparently. Sleek stripes shimmered in vibrant hues, as though the house had carefully selected its wardrobe for the day. And the portraits lining the walls gleamed unnervingly, like broaches on a lapel.

  Talk about a house with a personality.

  Celeste let a small smile at the thought. This was creepy as hell, sure. But kind of amusing? She squeezed Pat lightly as she moved closer to one of the paintings and…

  Amber. And her family. All painted in vibrant colours and large brushstrokes.

  That was Dr Fuji’s house, so those family portraits weren’t unexpected. Yet, seeing little Amber smiling widely between her parents on a sun-drenched beach made Celeste’s mood sour again. The kid deserved happiness, not whatever this was. In the next one, Amber stood mid-kick, with her Scorbunny at goalpost and her parents cheering her on. And in the following, her dad, with an impossible smile, read her a book by a bonfire.

  In all pictures it was summer. Warm. Perfect.

  Celeste’s breath hitched when she moved to the next painting. A tea party. Amber sat by… by Dan. And Dinah. And all the other trainers that went missing from the Gym.

  So it was Fuji’s fault… but…

  This couldn’t be right. None of it. They disappeared barely a day ago. How could they be in a painting, having tea? And what was up with Dr Fuji himself? He was the source of all this, but his smile was just as stretched and blank as all the other people in Cinnabar.

  It was all too much.

  Would he really let himself be swallowed by the illusion?

  Much as Celeste wanted, there was no time to dwell.

  The house had other plans.

  The walls shuddered, lurching inward with a groan that rattled in her ribs. This wasn’t just movement. It was insistence. Impatience. Like the house itself was growing exasperated with their sauntering.

  “T-Time to move on,” Caleb managed to say, somehow maintaining his calm, despite the wall pressing against his back. His Orbeetle, however, didn’t share the same composure. The Pokémon hovered mid-air, her eyes swirling, mesmerised by the shifting walls and the stripped patterns.

  Nebula wasn’t speaking into Celeste’s head, but she could hear it, anyway.

  Fascinating.

  Her own word of choice would be surreal. Bordering on creepy. But Celeste could get fascinating too.

  Caleb reached up and plucked the floating bug out of her trance, tucking her against his chest. She let out a faint, reluctant hum, but didn’t resist.

  With a quick glance at the floor confirmed that Shy was still curled near her feet, Celeste took off. The others followed close behind.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Quick steps, hitched breaths.

  It was a bit much.

  Whatever waited ahead had to make more sense than this, though.

  …Right?

  —*——*—

  They had been walking for too long.

  Or maybe not. It was impossible to tell.

  “This has to be a dream,” Ariana muttered. “Psychics like Munna and Drowzee can pull this kind of crap.”

  Celeste scoffed. “Ryder tell you that?”

  Ariana groaned. “Will you drop it? He didn’t tell me shit. Bet the Munna on your side scrambled his brain. Ever think maybe you’re the bad guy for leaving him for dead?”

  Celeste smirked, half triumphant. “Funny. I don’t remember mentioning Luan’s Munna before.” She tilted her head, enjoying the way Ariana stiffened. “Besides, I didn’t leave anyone. Got dragged to the hospital myself.”

  Ariana’s arms tightened around her chest, as if holding herself together. “That’s not the flex you think it is.”

  She turned away before Celeste could retort, fixing her glare on the drifting mass of Unown swirling through the void they found themselves in.

  And then, for once, she went quiet.

  Celeste sighed, disappointed. A fight would’ve been better than the silence. It had weight here, this silence. It pressed down on them, like every moment they didn’t speak, more imaginary monsters crept behind their backs.

  Well… maybe that was just Celeste. But she had reason to suspect even her imagination was playing tricks on her. After all, it wasn’t every day that the hallways of an old mansion shifted as she walked through them.

  First, there were those walls, so filled with personality and impatience. They pulled them along until Celeste and her friends reached a library of some sort. It was vast and old, and books with covers that made no sense whatsoever lined the shelves. Celeste took one and opened it up, hoping to read about the mysteries of creation. But the script inside had the shape of the Unown, and the words they formed spelled gibberish. Then, when they left the library, the corridors stretched, dark, long and with a light at the end, forever just out of reach.

  That last one took a while.

  Long enough that Celeste started considering the dream theory herself. But she had been to a dream before—to Articuno’s dreams, of all things. Those had some logic. Structure. This?

  This was nonsense.

  Or, she realised, when the walls around them finally peeled away to reveal the spiralling ramp that led up to nowhere, this was something unfinished.

  A reality left half-formed.

  A wish unfulfilled.

  Either because the wish was impossible, or because even the Unown had limits.

  “What do you think of this place, Nebula?” Celeste finally asked when the silence turned unbearable.

  Nebula barely spared her a glance. She was too busy watching Caleb, who placed each step with painstaking care, like the tiles of the ramp beneath him might vanish if he wasn’t careful. But after a beat, the Orbeetle turned, her swirling eyes locking onto Celeste.

  She quickly looked away.

  Hypnosis didn’t scare Celeste anymore, but staring into something swirling... She glanced downward for a second. Below them was just an endless stretch of empty, yawning up forever. Yeah. Better not risk getting dizzy.

  “Dream or another reality?” Celeste asked, flicking her gaze to a cluster of Unown hovering above.

  Nebula buzzed. “Reality,” she said simply.

  Celeste nodded. “Thought so. But…”

  “They’re still figuring out what this place is meant to be,” Nebula murmured, hovering slightly closer to her trainer. “It’s strange. My psychic side feels at home, but the bug in me… it’s struggling.”

  Struggling? Would the others be struggling, too? Would—

  Before Celeste could look down, a gentle tug at her leg made her pause. Shy. A reassurance…? Or a warning? Hard to tell. Either way, the tug meant Shy was fine.

  “But… do you think we’re still in Cinnabar?” Celeste asked. “At the mansion?”

  “I don’t think we’re on Earth…” Caleb muttered, testing another step forward.

  Nebula hummed, displeased. “No. We are still in the mansion. It’s just… changed.”

  Not reassuring.

  Celeste exhaled. “What about Entropy?” she muttered, recalling their conversation at the gym a few days ago. A system always tends toward disorder. Chaos. And the Unown? They needed energy to hold their reality together. They didn’t have infinite power. So…

  “So they collapse inward,” Nebula nodded. “You must have noticed their grip on the island—and on your friends—is slipping.”

  Celeste narrowed her eyes. Ahead, the ramp led to what looked like a platform. Finally, something. But she didn’t rush. Instead, she turned back to the bug. “And what happens to Cinnabar, then?”

  Nebula hesitated. “Maybe… they let go.”

  “You think so?”

  Silence. Long enough to make Celeste uneasy. But at least the platform was getting closer, so she let herself feel hopeful.

  “I don’t have the answer. But I suppose it depends on Dr Fuji.” Nebula’s voice grew quiet in her mind. Thoughtful. “In his journal, he wanted a paradise. Xanadu. A world free of illness, a perfect place for his family. We still don’t know the link between his desires and what’s happening to the island. Did he turn Cinnabar into his Xanadu? Would he be satisfied with just this house as his haven? Or would he retreat fully into the realm of the Unown? That’s the crux of it. If he’s still holding on when it becomes too much, then…” Nebula paused. “Then I doubt the island will be released.”

  The moment Nebula finished speaking, they stepped onto the platform.

  It had nothing. Just a door.

  A door that led to nowhere.

  Celeste stepped to the edge, ignoring Caleb’s and Pat’s protests, and peered around the back.

  It was just a door. Freestanding. Leading to the void on the other side.

  “It doesn’t seem safe,” she said, already being pulled back by Caleb. Checking it out was an excuse, really. A delay. A way to avoid admitting she was terrified of going to the next place.

  Still, much like earlier in this journey, their strange group stood before a door.

  Ariana sighed, rolled her shoulders, and muttered, “Screw this.”

  She grabbed the golden doorknob.

  Above them, the Unown stirred. Aligning themselves, rearranging. Dancing, until words formed.

  Take your place.

  Celeste glared at the message. Maybe they should wait a moment and consider all this.

  Or maybe not.

  Ariana didn’t even look up.

  She just yanked the door open.

  —*——*—

  Celeste barely had time to wonder what “take your place” actually meant before Ariana yanked open the door.

  Reality (or whatever passed for it in this Unown-infested nowhere) didn’t shift so much as it lunged at them. No one in the group moved, but the world on the other side of the door had no patience for their hesitation. It simply spilled forward, crossing over with the effortless confidence of someone who had just decided that here was better than there.

  Bookshelves, tall as skyscrapers, shot up like trees, creaking as they stretched into place. A stadium-sized couch puffed itself into existence with a rather smug-sounding whump, cushions flumping down like pleased house Meowth. A fireplace helped itself to a wall that was still in the middle of making up its mind about existing, carving out a cosy little niche as if it had always belonged there. Above it all, paintbrushes spun like lazy weathercocks before flicking paint onto a blank canvas, splattering in patterns uncomfortably familiar. Stroke by stroke, shapes settled, colours blended, until there they were: Dr. Fuji, his wife, his daughter, smiling down at them with an expression that was just a little too happy.

  It took Celeste a moment to realise that they had, at last, arrived in the mansion’s living room. Probably. Maybe. One could hardly blame her doubt. The journey here had been anything but a straight line, and the room itself… well, it was absurdly big.

  Had the house finally picked a size? Or had they somehow been downsized to accommodate its whims?

  And, more importantly, why did both those options feel like perfectly reasonable explanations?

  Whatever the case, there was no time to dwell on specifics. The platform beneath them rumbled, and Celeste realised, belatedly, that they were no longer floating in a void. They were standing on something solid and connected to the ground.

  A large centre table.

  No—not just a table. A checkered tableau sprawled across it.

  A… chessboard?

  Her white sneakers stood stark against the polished dark square beneath her, positioned near the board’s outer edge.

  Her breath caught.

  She got so caught in this weirdness that she forgot about her friends.

  Where was everyone else?

  Noting a flicker of movement, she turned sharply to see…

  Lahar?

  Blaine’s Marowak was three squares to her left and one to the front, gripping his bone club hard.

  When did he get here? He hadn’t been with them before.

  Also, he wasn’t alone.

  He was surrounded by a Braixen and a Fennekin. The smaller fire type did nothing, but the Braixen stood on the edges of the same square as Marowak, clutching a brittle-looking twig like it was a mighty sword.

  Celeste exhaled hard through her nose.

  The Braixen was exactly what a Braixen should look like. Textbook fluffy yellow fur, absurdly oversized ears, and no personality whatsoever. The Unown had made this one. It wasn’t even a question. Celeste could easily see it now, how fake this fake Pokémon really was.

  She found it rather pathetic, raising its twig like a knight wielding a toothpick against the Marowak.

  Lahar lifted his club higher than his opposing Fire-type and a flicker of blue spectral fire traced the bone’s arc. Then, with a brutal downward slash, he cut through both twig and Pokémon alike. With no ceremony, the Braixen vanished in a puff of smoke.

  Gone.

  Like it had never been there to start with.

  Celeste didn’t even flinch. She had no sympathy for those things. What did make her pause was the sheer anger behind Lahar’s strike, and the brutality with which his bone club came down. The Marowak just stood there, bracing against his club flaring up.

  “Don’t waste time. To C7.”

  Huh?

  Celeste snapped toward the voice.

  Blaine stood at the very back of the board, his expression unreadable. Beside him… Pat?

  He’d been right next to her just moments ago. Now, somehow, he was all the way over there.

  Unsure, she tore her eyes from her Slowpoke and scanned the board. Everyone else had made it too, though not together. They were scattered across the checkered surface like game pieces in a match they didn’t agree to play.

  And yet, the game kept moving.

  Lahar obeyed his trainer’s command without hesitation, stepping forward in a deliberate, precise L-like path. His new position brought him closer to a cluster of fire Pokémon that Celeste hadn’t noticed before. Another Fennekin waited just behind him. It was small compared to what waited in the squares ahead. Bigger, meaner fire-types stood like… well, like chess pieces. Lahar’s gaze flickered between them, pausing briefly on a Magcargo smouldering in the far corner. He scoffed, uninterested, and turned his focus elsewhere.

  A Delphox.

  Tall. Regal. With utterly vacant eyes.

  Lahar locked onto it. Still. Focused. Dangerous.

  But he didn’t attack. Didn’t even step beyond his designated square.

  “The fuck is going on?!” it was Ariana’s voice that rang out this time.

  Blaine’s head snapped up, his eyes widening as if he was only just now registering their presence.

  “What—? How did you get here?”

  “We came to save you,” Celeste tried.

  From Blaine’s left, Caleb hesitated, then added, “The Unown spelled out that we should ‘take our places.’ So… are we in place for something?”

  Blaine’s expression darkened. He shook his head. “You shouldn’t be here. You should be safe somewhere—” Then his eyes cut to Celeste, sharp and accusing. “Wait. Did he say Unown?”

  She looked away. It wasn’t her fault they had all read Fuji’s journal.

  But somehow, it felt like it.

  Before she could answer, something moved.

  A Slugma, a few tiles ahead from Celeste, slithered one square forward, leaving a trail of sizzling lava behind. Its dull eyes locked onto her, unblinking. And behind it…

  More fire-types.

  Another Magcargo, waited motionless at the corner directly ahead. Beside it, a Rapidash, impassive and uninterested. Further down the line, another Braixen stood at attention, followed by the same Delphox that Lahar refused to look away from.

  These Pokémon weren’t just there. They were positioned.

  Facing them.

  As if they were the enemy. Or at the very least, the opposing team.

  The creeping logic of it slid into Celeste’s mind, just starting to take form.

  Take your places.

  On this board. In this game.

  She scanned the board again, and this time, the placements—hers and everyone’s—started to make some kind of sense. Sort of.

  But Ariana groaned, snapping Celeste out of her thoughts before she came to a conclusion. “I stole the journal, old man. We all read about the Unown. We’re only here because Celeste said you were a coward who wasn’t gonna do shit.”

  Blaine didn’t so much as flinch. He only frowned slightly.

  Celeste gawked at Ariana. “I never said he was a coward!”

  Ariana huffed, this time clearly announcing she was done with everything, and turned her glare on her Murkrow. Rebel was perched directly behind Celeste, at the very corner of the board… where a Rook would be.

  “Whatever this is, I not gonna be standing like an idiot a few feet from these fire monsters. Rebel, we’re out.” She stomped forward to the tile ahead—

  And slammed into something.

  She staggered back, blinking, her hands hovering near where she had hit—but there was nothing to see. No wall, no barrier. Just air.

  Yet, she couldn’t move past her square.

  Blaine let out a quiet, relieved exhale.

  “Don’t waste your moves like that,” he muttered.

  “…Moves?” Caleb asked from across the board.

  Nebula, who had been silent until now, lifted a little higher in the air. She had been near the edge of the board, on a dark tile. She said nothing at first. Then, in a smooth motion, she drifted back in a diagonal motion, following a perfect path of dark squares until she reached the position between Blaine and Caleb.

  “This is a chess game,” she said simply. “I suppose that makes me a Bishop.”

  Blaine’s face was grim.

  His position—the square he stood on—he was the King.

  “You could have made your point without wasting us a move,” he said, eyes darting ahead as he waited for the other team’s turn. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this game has been going for a while.” His gaze swept across the board. “And we’re losing.”

  Next Chapter: A very important match

  Artwork of the day - Unown

  Into the Unown

  Where up is down and down is up.