Diary,

The leader of Saffron is a remarkable woman. I have seen her accomplish feats that even pokémon would struggle with.

Yet she faces a losing battle. The scars still linger over the city, throbbing like a living, unhealable tissue. She has repaired as much as she can, yet I fear that it will not be long before the tears open once more, bringing with them the creatures that feed upon malignance.

I am doing my best to help. Yet as the tears begin to unravel, I can see the thunderstorms in the distance growing ever larger.

Soon, he shall awaken. When he does, Saffron shall suffer.

Pokémon

Transgression

By Crukix

|Too Young, Too Weak|

-O-O-O-

The evening breeze is cool and almost smells like the sea. When the flash of light from my poké ball illuminates the night, I can almost picture how Ecruteak would once have looked, way back when.

The rhyhorn snorts at me, awaiting my orders. As it turns out, the rumours about rhyhorn not being too smart are true. It took Kiki and Cassie teaching him why attacking me was not a good idea and now suddenly he's almost docile towards me. The saddle I bought sits neatly between the protruding diamond-hard plates of rock on his back. His eyes remind me of a meowth's, with the way the night time light illuminates them.

"We don't have long," I tell him as I take the saddle. "Follow the road out of here."

Simple commands work best with him. I'm still struggling on a name, something that will sum him up properly. It's been nearly a week since I met Nieve and all I've done since is train as much as possible.

Duke was the first to undergo the latest training that I've designed for him. Talking with other trainers has made me realise how little I'm actually doing in regards to expanding what my pokémon know - sure, I can have them hit targets from ages away and I do the normal sort of training like running and strength stuff and making sure they can use their skills faster and more accurately, but I haven't given them much room to actually improvise.

My pokémon are smart. I've noticed that already. Even Cassie, despite all her craziness, still seems to be way smarter than me with her abilities.

It makes sense really. I'm just their trainer, but they're the ones with the actual reality warping powers. Humans might be able to think of new applications for pokémon abilities, but it's not the same as growing up with all the power of the world at their fingertips.

I decided I have to work with what they know naturally, first. I've looked back over my own scattered notes and seen how often I change my mind with everything. When I spoke with Nieve, something afterwards felt like it changed. Like, I had known all along that Craig couldn't have been the only one that had gone missing. But no one had said anything. I had never found anything written down.

Now I know people are looking for him. I spent the rest of that day being honest with myself; I wasn't really doing anything to help. I kept saying I was going to, but what was I really doing? Distracting myself.

Duke can carry on learning the alphabet and how to read and write. Most of what I've taught him can stay, but I can't rely on whims anymore. I feel like a schoolteacher, with all my notes about the next year of classes written down. I even have dates by when I want certain things to be completed by.

When we have time, I have Duke digging holes and filling them with an alternation of hot water, cold water and ice. Meanwhile I have Cassie running along after him – when she's not busy dancing to the latest tune in her head – trying to freeze the hot water, thaw the ice and leave the cold water alone. It's like a weird game of tag that I'm not sure will have any positive effects, but I need to try something new and see if it works.

After all, ice is just frozen water. Surely if Cassie can control ice, she should be able to do something with water too. But to know for sure I need to go to Mahogany and speak to the gym leader there – though said gym leader is meant to be a grumpy old man who will probably freeze me when I walk in the door.

The strength exercises are mostly easy. Duke has weighted bracelets and ankle bands now. Even though it's making him slower for now, I know it'll boost his muscles in the long term. I have Mandy and Kiki practicing together when I can, carrying on with what I was already doing with them.

So long as I remember my pokémon's strengths and play to them, I can find other ways around everything and ways that I can shock and surprise people. Since I've had the rhyhorn, people have been surprised to see someone like me with such a big creature at my command. I've spoken with Ali and taken her advice to heart. I need to exploit this as much as I can.

I can't keep pretending that the world will sort itself out around me. I've witnessed dead legends – legends that, according to all the accounts and myths I can find, are the weakest ones in the hierarchy. It just makes me think that whatever's killing them is working its way up.

The lighthouse in Olivine is visible even though it's miles away. The sights of Ecruteak's ancient buildings slowly filter away and open up to grassy pastures and miltank farms.

Rhyhorn's heavy footsteps keep me company in the night. I wrap my purple scarf tighter around my neck and crouch low in the saddle, able to feel my eyes darting over each strange piece of the landscape.

Nieve will be here soon. I phoned her this morning and told her I wanted to meet her. She might think it's strange I want to meet in the middle of nowhere, but I want to see just how much the medicham is influencing me.

Mandy appears in a flutter of light from her ball. She takes to the sky without a sound and blankets herself in darkness. The eerie feeling of an unknown person watching my back is always present whenever she disappears. The darkness distorts all my senses, yet there has to be another one that humans have that we haven't classed yet. We always know when we're being watched, but that doesn't fit into any of the five.

A flash of blue appears in the field. I nudge rhyhorn's sides and guide him towards the light. From a distance I can see the glow of Xur's eyes and the torch on Nieve's phone.

"Stay close," I whisper.

Xur's glowing eyes turn to me. Across the distance of the empty darkness he seems to stare directly into my soul. It's strange, almost able to remind me of Diz.

I can see that Nieve has a gun holstered on her waist. Her uniform is hard to see, but I can identify enough to see she's wearing an Unova police uniform.

When the rhyhorn stomps into place in front of her, she doesn't even so much as flinch. Instead she just crosses her arms, looks me up and down and says, "No."

I grunt. My stomach spirals like I've left it on a horrible theme park ride and a sickly feeling lunges into the back of my throat.

"I haven't even-"

"No," she says, her scowl barely visible. "You're not going to work with me. I'm not going to work with you. What sort of police officer would I be if I enlisted the help of a ten year old?"

"But, you said you could help me," I say quickly, flustered. My brain feels like it's running at a thousand miles an hour. This was meant to be the way that I could help to find Craig. She can't take it away from me.

"I said that I could help you. I didn't say that would involve me taking you on a journey across the world in order to find missing children." She shakes her head and I can't help but feel it's directed at me. "I have an extremely strong psychic pokémon here with me. Your vullaby might be strong, but she's still not enough to block out all of his cognitive functions, should he focus enough. I don't care how many badges you have. I don't care what you've been through or what you may or may not be able to do. The way you can help me is by telling me anything and everything you can think of do to with Craig. I can keep you updated, but I need to know if there are any links we haven't seen between all the disappearances."

"That's not good enough," I say. "I want to help. I want to do something. I've been flailing around and trying to avoid people and I haven't been able to do anything to find Craig. He's the whole reason I even started my journey – I can't just find out that I might have a way to find him and be unable to do anything."

"I can appreciate that. However, you're still far too young." She runs a hand through her hair, picking at strands of curly hair. I almost miss the little snap of her fingers she makes. Something about it seems strange. "I don't care how strong your pokémon are. I don't care what you can make them do – you are still a human child and do not have any of the protection that your pokémon have."

Something cold and sharp presses against the side of my neck. Goose flesh races down my spine. The horrible feeling of being trapped fills my every pore.

Beneath me, the rhyhorn doesn't even make a movement. I wouldn't be surprised if he's managed to fall asleep with his eyes open.

"That's my bisharp," Nieve says. I can feel the blade against my neck brush the hair away from my skin. "That is how you train a pokémon properly. Your vullaby can conceal senses in a limited area; in time she'll be able to conceal her presence completely."

She waves her hand and the blade pulls away. The rhyhorn still seems to have decided that nothing is wrong. Either the bisharp is tall enough that it can reach over the rhyhorn and press a blade against my neck or it's just that good at concealing itself from detection.

"I'm sorry to point it out to you like that. But you need to wake up and see how things actually are. You can make your pokémon as strong as you like, but you're still human. A bisharp, a scyther, even something like a kingler can all cut you to ribbons in a moment. I won't bring you out with me without you being prepared for what awaits you."

The anger bubbles and swells inside me. When will I actually ever be prepared? It seems like another excuse just to try and stop me from helping out with something I could actually be of some use with.

"One day," she tells me. "One day you'll actually be able to help in the field. Until then, train. Make sure you're the strongest you can be, both physically and mentally." I barely hear her whisper to herself, "Heavens know I've dealt with enough kids so far."

"Fine," I mutter. The rhyhorn moves slightly beneath me, apparently bored with standing still. "I'll tell you everything I know."