The next morning came and went like a sigh, in a good way. It finally seemed I'd have some peace after all the chaos of the last few days, and I planned to take at least a couple of afternoons to truly rest. Things were slowly returning to normal, and I couldn't have been happier about it.
Well, to be fair, 'normal' was a somewhat misleading word.
Sitting on the sand of the beach where I died, eating a magic berry and chatting to a bird while watching hundreds (if not thousands) of tiny crustaceans' form teams to play the most extreme version of 'capture the flag' I had ever witnessed was not exactly what I would have defined as normal a little over half a month ago, but that was what my no-life had become, and I didn't regret anything.
"Oof, that must have hurt," Cap said, gesturing with a wing at a group of Krabby being knocked down by a rather powerful Bubble Beam, losing the match when the rival group of Corphish snatched the stick stuck in the sand they were using as a flag. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Huh? What do you mean?" I tilted my head slightly, unbalancing the Frigash that was pecking at a particularly spicy Razz Berry. "I know capture the flag is a somewhat violent game, but it's a haven of peace compared to what they usually do."
"Come on, Sandy, don't play dumb," he said, his tone making it clear he wasn't buying my naiveté. I could almost see him roll his eyes. "You know exactly what I mean."
Letting out a sigh that was halfway to becoming a laugh, I took a second to collect my thoughts as I sank my teeth into a Pecha Berry, which was quickly becoming my favorite food after I tried it.
It was true that the number of visitors to what I had begun to consider my house had increased considerably, more than doubling overnight. If I had jokingly called them the Red Tide before, now they certainly deserved that title, as both the sand and the water of the whole beach were covered in the orange-red of their shells.
The reason was no mystery, not at all. The Krabby colony had joined the party, and it didn't look like they were going to leave anytime soon.
"Of course I know what you mean, but it still doesn't seem like the 'big deal' you're trying to make it out to be," I replied, shrugging at the bird's indignation before continuing. "It's not that I have anything against most of them anyway; they even apologized properly! As long as Mr. Stupid doesn't show his face around here, I don't really care what the rest do, to be honest."
Of course, I, being the completely healthy, rational, and not at all gluttonous person that I am, raised an eyebrow when I saw all those crabs fluttering around as soon as the sun came up, but all my doubts disappeared when they added a couple of extra berries to the initial offer I'd made to the Corphish.
It wasn't like I was going to say that to my friend, obviously.
"Oh, that's where we differ, girl," Cap murmured, his voice a little too cheerful, radiating the same ghostly glow as the day before. "Nothing would please me more than to see Mr. Stupid try to invade the beach again. That would give me a reason to peck that inept lad who pretends to be a king just because his species is called Kingler, instead of actually learning how to be a good leader and head of the family."
"In fact, I'm pretty sure he's not a Kingler anymore," I added without thinking much.
"What?" he asked, his almost homicidal tone softening into a more normal confusion. We really should work on that Ghost thing someday… "How sure are you?"
"About 200% sure, more or less," I said with a hint of sarcasm, resuming our usual banter. "It turns out that last night he managed to free himself from his bonds and came looking for me to try to 'exorcise' me once more. I think it goes without saying that it didn't go very well for him, hehehe~."
"Sandy, what have you done to Mr. Stupid?" he asked, hiding behind an almost worried voice a morbid curiosity and a very poorly disguised expectation.
"Wow, Cap, you need to step up your game. I can't even see your face and yet I know you're smiling~," I crooned, earning a dry cough from the bird above my head. "Anyway, I didn't do anything too serious to the BBEG; I just beat him so badly I almost killed him, healed him after messing around a bit with Heal Pulse, and he evolved."
"That… Is bad, I think? The last part, I mean."
"Nah," I shook my head as a wild grin spread across my face. "An evolution implies an increase in power, of course, but I highly doubt he'll like what he's become. I highly doubt he'll like having evolved into a Ghost-type Pokemon~."
A slight silence settled in the vicinity, a brief moment in which only the wind and the waves could be heard, before that silence was broken by the loudest laugh I'd ever heard from Cap.
"HAHAHAHA. He totally deserved it, that scoundrel. Anyway, wow, not even in my wildest dreams would I have imagined such a severe punishment. You're cruel, Sandy."
"Thank you~."
"It wasn't a compliment," he replied in a monotone voice, although I was pretty sure that his smile and mine were exactly the same.
"Anyway, moving on to more relevant matters…" I began, adopting a serious tone and straightening up slightly. "There's something I need you to decide, Cap. Something of vital importance."
"Oh yeah? What could be so important?" asked the bird, flying out of my head as he saw me get up, and watching with a raised eyebrow as I began to pull the gigantic chest out of my shadow.
"It's crucial. Something that only you can do," I continued in the same solemn tone, opening the chest and placing all the caps inside on the sand. "I know I'm asking a lot, but… I need you to choose a cap for me."
My words seemed to pierce the bird's soul, more lethal than any arrow, and the gasp of pure horror he let out would make even Gelatina… I mean, Giratina, shudder.
"H-how could you do this to me, Sandy?" he sobbed, clutching a wing to his chest and shedding crocodile tears worthy of Broadway. "I thought we were friends! How could you betray me like this?!"
"I'm sorry, Cap, but it's necessary," I answered resolutely, letting the flames in my eyes die down and lowering my head a bit, just enough so that the shadows obscured the features of my face. "It's the only way…"
After a few tense seconds of silence, in which only the breeze, the tide and the four thousand crustaceans in the background could be heard, one of us snorted and we both started laughing out loud.
"Heh, okay, that was fun," I crooned after we'd calmed down a bit. "I almost believed it this time; you're a great actor when you want."
"Thank you, thank you," he said, making a couple of odd bows with his wings in midair. "Although I noticed you weren't joking. What do you want a cap for, if I may ask? Am I not enough for you?" he inquired with a tone of mock indignation.
"No, no, no, you're more than enough; maybe too much," I replied with a smile that made him snort. "Joking aside, the only reason I need a hat is to improve my 'perfectly normal human' disguise. The idea was to use a cap and sunglasses to disguise my unnatural hair and eyes, though I'm not quite sure where to find the latt—"
"Glasses like those?" Cap interrupted me instantly, pointing with his beak at a corner of the chest where, unexpectedly, there were some round sunglasses with amber-tinted lenses and a kind of grid on the sides, I assumed to prevent the eyes from being seen in profile.
…
Were those Alucard's glasses? How the hell had they gotten there, and how had I not noticed them before, considering how unique they were? Well, if it wasn't obvious before, this made it clear that someone was messing with me.
Just thinking about that, as if that someone wanted to further fuel my paranoid mind, I heard a playful laugh behind me, and when I turned around to look, I could only glimpse a pink blur disappearing near the line of trees that separated the beach from the forest.
"Yeah… Glasses like those…" I muttered, blinking slowly and pinching the space between my eyes, letting out a tired sigh. "Ahhh. I'm a magnet for weird stuff, aren't I?"
"Wasn't that obvious from the start? After our conversation about the Will of Arceus, nothing surprises me anymore, to be honest," Cap half-growled, beginning to examine the caps closely and abruptly changing the subject. "I must say, those are some nice caps you have here, lass. Where did you get them?"
"From the same place as my clothes; Mr. Krabs gave them to me," I said, delighted to take the detour to stop thinking about a certain pink cat/embryo/god/thing. "And if you're wondering where he got them, apparently there's a shipwreck on the Krabby beach."
"Oh? That sounds quite interesting," he exclaimed, somewhere between surprised and happy. "It sounds like an exciting adventure to embark on."
"Right? Unfortunately, it seems there's something dangerous in there, since Yezalel sealed the ship behind a barrier," I explained, playing with the sand that formed my face to add a nose and a pair of ears to hold my new glasses. "I have to talk to her sooner or later anyway, so I'm going to ask her about this, but I'm a little scared of what might be in there if Yezalel herself chose to seal it away instead of dealing with it herself."
"It certainly sounds dangerous… But that only makes it more exciting, doesn't it?" he said, smiling broadly.
"Of course~."
After that, we immersed ourselves in a comfortable atmosphere until the afternoon, gossiping like old women in a doorway while Cap decided on one of the caps and I refined the sand constructions on my face, using a Shadow Bone shovel covered with Iron Defense as an improvised mirror.
We were taking it easy, since I could have used Calm Mind at any moment to accomplish my goal more quickly and efficiently, and I'm pretty sure the Frigash had a hat picked out before he even started looking through the others, but we weren't in any hurry. We'd tacitly agreed not to fight that day, since neither of us was in the mood for a brawl, and we were just looking to relax for a while.
Left to our own devices in a corner of the beach, our conversation naturally turned to the couple of the moment. Mr. Krabs and Pale Feathers had disappeared at some point, as usual, and Pincitas had developed a sort of camaraderie with Led and Skept, but nothing had prepared me for seeing Jubilo and GM form an instant bond the moment their eyes met.
Was that why GM defended the Krabby so much last time? Because her unrequited love was among them? Was it some kind of crustacean 'Romeo and Juliet'?
"Those two are getting married tomorrow, I'm telling you," Cap murmured, curling up on the hat he had chosen after hours of supposed indecision; a simple blue sailor's cap with a black cord and fine gold embroidery on the edge of the visor.
I was wearing it at that moment and it fit perfectly on my head, matching surprisingly well with the color of my pants too, which made me wonder a little whether the pink entity had put it there on purpose or not, but I wasn't going to get paranoid about it. I wasn't going to ruin the mood just because of my natural aversion to Pokemon nonsense and literal gods.
Aside from that minor mishap, I must say it was very relaxing to rest like that. No pressure, no tension, just a couple of friends hanging out while doing the equivalent of watching kids playing in the park. That was something I could get used to.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end sooner or later.
When the sun passed its highest point and the Corphish and Krabby began to return to their homes, leaving only the ever-present but absent Shedinja, The 24 Claws, the trio of Kinglers, the duo of birds and myself, he appeared.
"Phaaantooom! What have you done to me!?" shouted a certain crab after emerging from the sand a few meters away, levitating his gigantic claw a little above him in a threatening position.
"You'll have to be a little more specific, Mr. Stupid; I've done a lot of things to you~," I said, practically teleporting in front of him with Cap clinging to my cap, positioning myself between the insistent threat and my friends.
I wasn't too surprised by his arrival, to be honest; he seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't give up no matter how many times he was trampled on, although that didn't mean I was happy to see him on my beach. Cap, on the other hand, looked like a kid who'd been told Christmas was twice that year, because he was beaming.
"Shut up! You know exactly what I mean…"
"Hey, that's my line!" croaked the bird above my head, adopting the same mocking tone I was using. "Well, well, the almighty Kingler can't handle an unexpected evolution, huh? I can't say I don't understand, but it's still pretty pathetic coming from you."
"And you are…?" he asked rhetorically before opening his eyes wide. "Wait, no. You can't be that Wingull. You should be badly injured, or…"
"…Dead?" my friend finished sarcastically, beginning to float beside me as his ectoplasm, red as blood, thickened slightly. "Oh ho ho~. Well, yes, I am… In a way, at least."
"I understand…" said the zombie crab after a few seconds of silence, momentarily ceasing to infuse his words with Aura. "You too have fallen victim to her spell, just like me. Don't worry, comrade, I will defeat her and return us to our vibrant glory! Fight by my side and I promise you that—"
"Oh, shut up already, you scoundrel," my comrade spat. "If it weren't for Sandy, I'd be dead, and you probably would be too! You'd be as much a murderer as a corpse!"
"I… My intention wasn't…" muttered the ex-Kingler, becoming increasingly self-conscious.
"I don't give a damn about your intentions!" Cap shouted from the depths of his soul, interrupting him again. "Face reality, king, and be grateful that I'm not correcting the mistake my friend made in letting you live."
"Well, how about we calm down a bit?" I asked sincerely, surprising everyone (myself included) by being the voice of reason for once. "We have berries and plenty of time, we're all tired, and frankly, this doesn't seem like something that can be solved with a fight anyway. Not anymore."
"What's wrong, ghost? Are you afraid I can defeat you with the very form you've given me?" he asked defiantly, with a toxic spark permeating his words, but with a hint of genuine doubt behind it. "Are you afraid of losing to a being born of your own power?"
"No, just… Oof, dude, you're the most dramatic thing I've ever had the misfortune of encountering in my two lives," I sighed, rolling my eyes. "On the other hand, I'm very curious. You intrigue me, Mr. Stupid."
Something weird must have crept into my gaze as I said that, because both the bird and the bearded crab shuddered, but I decided to ignore it.
"Fine…" he said after a few moments, his eyes losing much of their steely intensity. "Although I implore you to stop calling me such a derogatory name; my name is Rex."
Rex, huh? Had he just decided that name, or did he already have it from the beginning? Either way, looks like I didn't know his name after all, since I had never asked him before…
Ha, sweet irony, scolding him for hating me without even knowing my name when I myself didn't know his. To be fair, no one had ever referred to him that way, so I don't think I was the only one who didn't know, but it wouldn't have hurt to ask.
I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite, after all.