Chapter 31.8
Then it was Victor's turn.
The purple Gastly knew, of course. Ravina spotted his tell immediately, the moment her gaze shifted toward him, Victor began drifting sideways, executing what he probably considered a subtle retreat pattern.
"Victor."
His drift continued, gaining altitude.
"Victor."
"I believe I hear an extraordinary bird in some distant canopy. Quite fascinating."
Owlbert tilted his head from his branch, one perfect hoot of disagreement.
Ravina folded her arms, expression hardening.
"You're a ghost. You don't get to pretend you didn't hear me."
Victor stopped abruptly.
Slowly rotated.
"My spectral nature truly comes with cruel limitations."
"Here. Now."
He descended with deliberate reluctance, approaching her not unlike a condemned prisoner facing execution.
Ravina sat cross-legged in the grass, pulling out her notebook as the others gathered around. Toni toddled closer, settling beside her. Nikola plopped down nearby, curious. Cinder, still fatigued from his Flame Wheel practice, sprawled with his head across his forelegs.
Ravina clicked her pen.
"All right."
Victor tilted his smoky head.
"All right?"
"What can you actually do?"
Victor blinked.
Then grinned, wisps of purple haze expanding like a dramatic collar.
"My dear muse, that question could fill volumes."
"In battle."
"Less thrilling to discuss."
"Victor."
He sighed theatrically.
"You wound me."
"I haven't even started." Ravina turned to a fresh page. "We've worked together, yes. Seen some things. But we've never systematically gone through your actual abilities."
Victor considered that, bobbing thoughtfully in the air.
"That is true."
"So." She poised the pen above the paper. "Teach me."
That sparked genuine interest.
Victor's entire form brightened, excited.
"Ah."
Ravina's brow furrowed, immediately regretting her phrasing.
"Don't make this weird."
"I've uttered nothing improper."
"You were about to."
"Entirely unsubstantiated accusation."
Ravina pointed the pen at him like a weapon.
"Moves."
"Techniques."
"Fine. Techniques."
Victor drifted slightly higher, the cloud of him expanding with purpose.
"Where shall we begin?"
"You tell me."
A wicked grin spread across his face.
"With the classics."
- - - - -
Chapter 31.9
Victor's gas-cloud eyes ignited with an ethereal purple glow, and suddenly the air around Ravina thickened, heavy with subtle influence. Not true sleepiness descended upon her, but rather a peculiar softening at the edges of awareness, as if the world had been filtered through layers of gauze. His smoky voice, when he next spoke, carried new depth, each word landing with a gravity that pulled her attention from everything else in the training field.
"Hypnosis," he announced, his voice resonating through her altered perception.
Ravina blinked once, twice, the act requiring conscious effort. The realization struck her that this wasn't an ambient mood but deliberate manipulation. Her fingers instinctively curled at her sides.
"Stop."
Like a snap of elastic, the peculiar heaviness vanished, leaving behind an echo of residue, as though awakening from a brief half-dream. Victor's grin widened, pleasure evident in his semi-solid form.
"An elegant technique," he proclaimed with a flourish.
Ravina frowned, forcing her hand back to her notebook where the pen hovered uncertainly. HYPNOSIS, she wrote, the letters more forceful than intended.
"Usually sleep?"
"In battle, yes," Victor confirmed, his purple haze swirling slowly as if pleased by her continued engagement.
Something in his tone, a subtle inflection, perhaps, made her pause before completing the thought. "Usually?"
Victor adopted an expression of wide-eyed innocence that fooled no one, especially his observant trainer. The corners of his smoky mouth twitched upward in restrained amusement.
Ravina narrowed her eyes, magenta darkening with suspicion. "You can do more than put somebody to sleep."
"With cooperation, susceptibility, sufficient time..." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Suggestion has intriguing possibilities." The last words emerged slowly, deliberately placed like stepping stones into uncharted territory.
Ravina paused, pen suspended above paper. Interest warred with caution in her expression. She added to her notes: Sleep / trance? Then underlined it decisively.
"We're revisiting that another day," she declared, voice firmer than she felt.
Victor looked positively delighted by her command, as if she had exactly validated his earlier point.
"Promises, promises," he replied with eager relish.
Ravina met his gaze directly, unflinching. "Battle training."
"Yes, muse," he answered, bowing slightly, entirely unconcerned by her attempt at discipline.
“Demonstrate something else.”
Victor's form swirled ominously, and an impossibly long, spectral tongue unfurled from his gaseous center, lashing through the air with unsettling precision.
Ravina instinctively recoiled at the sight, her eyes widening. “Absolutely not.”
The tongue vanished instantly back into Victor's violet haze. “You inquired about techniques, my muse.”
“It needs a name.”
“Lick,” he announced with dramatic flair.
“That's literally what you're calling it?”
Victor adopted an affronted expression. “I'm simply following established convention.”
Ravina shuddered involuntarily at the memory of that tongue.
“Besides,” Victor continued with satisfaction, “it's quite effective. Contact inflicts significant pain.”
“Obviously.”
“And occasionally,” he added with deliberate relish, “it leaves the target's muscles rather uncooperative.”
Ravina's pen scratched against her notebook:
LICK — close combat / induces potential paralysis
Toni, who had been watching with round-eyed fascination, mimicked Victor's demonstration by sticking out her own tiny pink tongue.
Victor expanded with delight. “A student manifests!”
“Over my dead body.”
Ravina reached over and gently pushed Toni's tongue back inside her mouth. The Togepi blinked in innocent confusion.
“Not happening, sweetheart.”
Moments later Toni's little tongue reemerged in defiance...
- - - - -
Chapter 31.10
“Next?” Ravina tapped her pen against the notebook page.
Victor's smile sharpened, his purple haze coalescing into a more deliberate form. “Spite.”
The scratching of Ravina’s pen stopped abruptly. “Sounds like you.”
“I consider it one of my more personal techniques,” Victor replied, his smoky voice carrying theatrical weight.
Ravina tilted her head. “What does it do?”
Victor drifted slowly toward one of the practice markers placed in the training ground. “Attack me.”
Ravina stared at him. “With what?”
“Imagination.”
Ravina clicked her tongue. “You are extremely difficult to train.”
Victor sighed dramatically, circling the marker like a vulture. “Suppose Cinder repeatedly used Ember against me.”
At the mention of his name, Cinder lifted his head, orange-red eyes brightening with interest.
Victor gestured graciously toward the Quilava. “I take offense.”
“Naturally,” Ravina said dryly.
“Spite makes repeating that same attack increasingly unpleasant.”
Ravina’s brow furrowed. “Unpleasant how?”
“More exhausting,” Victor explained, his form pulsing with each word. “The technique doesn’t vanish. They can still use it.” A wicked smile formed. “But it begins costing them more.”
Ravina’s expression softened with understanding. “Oh.”
“Precisely,” Victor bowed low.
“So if somebody relies too much on one good move...”
Victor performed an elaborate flourish. “I encourage variety.”
Ravina laughed, the sound bright in the training air. “That is the most charitable possible description.”
She scribbled in her notebook:
SPITE — repeated techniques become harder / more strenuous
Then paused, tapping her pen thoughtfully. “That's actually useful.”
Victor looked deeply offended. “Actually?”
- - - - -
Chapter 31.11
"And then," Victor continued, "Mean Look."
Ravina poised her pen above the page.
"What does…"
Victor fixed his gaze upon her, and the words died in her throat.
The training ground remained unchanged. Trees still lined the perimeter, the distant road still stretched beyond the clearing. No physical barrier materialized between them.
Yet something primal seized hold of Ravina, a visceral certainty deep in her gut that averting her gaze from Victor now would invite disaster. She could stand. She knew she could walk away if she truly wished to.
But her body simply wouldn't obey that rational thought.
Victor's expression remained unnervingly placid as he held her immobile with mere attention.
Ravina's eyes narrowed, challenging him with her stare.
"Turn it off," she commanded, voice tight.
As abruptly as it had appeared, the suffocating pressure vanished.
Air rushed back into Ravina's lungs. She rubbed absently at her forearm.
"Victor."
"Yes, muse?"
"That's horrifying," she breathed.
"Thank you," he replied with a dismissive flourish.
"They can still escape though, theoretically," she reasoned aloud.
"Theoretically," Victor confirmed.
"But they can't bring themselves to do it."
"More or less."
Her pen scratched furiously across the notebook page:
MEAN LOOK — psychological restraint / prevents escape
Ravina stared at the words, then back at her Ghost-type.
"You possess an unnerving talent for psychological torment."
Victor drifted closer, his purple haze expanding dramatically.
"I delight in specialized skills."
- - - - -
Chapter 31.12
Victor descended, his purple cloud compressing slightly as if gathering weight. His smoky form, usually buoyant with flair, had acquired a sudden gravity that altered the air around them.
“And finally...”
Ravina’s pen lifted, sensing the shift.
Victor’s usual theatrical cadence softened, his voice gaining a resonance that felt less performance, more confession.
“Curse.”
Single. Deliberate.
Ravina poised her pen. “Define.”
“I harm myself.” The statement emerged starkly, stripped of embellishment.
Ravina’s fingers tightened on the pen. “To what degree?”
“Significantly.” His form wavered slightly. “The self-inflicted wound creates a tether.”
Ravina’s brow furrowed. “To whom?”
“The adversary.”
“And then?”
“The curse begins siphoning away their life force.”
“Rate?” Her voice remained clipped, professional.
“Gradual at first. A persistent drain.” Victor floated closer. “Unceasing.”
Ravina’s gaze hardened. “When does it conclude?”
“Dispelled, or when the target expires.”
“Otherwise?”
Victor held her gaze, his smoky features unnervingly still.
She didn’t need him to answer.
“Terminal,” she finished for him.
Victor inclined his purple head. “Eventually.”
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant chirp of wild Pokémon.
Ravina’s pen moved with decisive strokes across her notebook:
CURSE
Below, in block letters that broke from her usual script:
EMERGENCY USE PROHIBITED WITHOUT MY CONSENT
Victor drifted over her shoulder. “Your ink bears excessive anxiety.”
“Given that you describe inflicting substantial self-harm to potentially lethally drain an opponent… I think the anxiety is appropriately scaled.”
“When you render it with such brutal inelegance...”
“I have transcribed your exact description,” Ravina interrupted without glancing up from the page.
Victor’s form sagged theatrically. “Great art requires suffering.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Even for...”
“Especially not.”
“Muse, you restrict my creative expression.”
“You are restricted from methods with lethal consequences unless I explicitly authorize them.” She stabbed a period at the end of her note.
Victor recoiled, wounded.
Ravina’s pen remained poised, unrelenting. “Do we understand each other?”
The Gastly sighed, a puff of purple vapor. “Perfectly.”
- - - - -
Chapter 31.13
She leaned back, the notebook resting against her knees. Her eyes scanned the inked words:
Hypnosis. Lick. Spite. Mean Look. Curse.
Ravina lifted her gaze to find Victor hovering expectantly, his purple form casting a gentle shadow on the grass.
"Victor."
"At your service, my muse."
"Your entire arsenal is... concerning."
His grin widened with theatrical delight. "A compliment, however hesitantly delivered."
"Definitely not praise."
"I beg to differ with your interpretation."
Ravina's focus returned to the list. A realization dawned.
"You don't engage in combat like Cinder."
"Gods forbid," Victor gasped, purple haze expanding dramatically.
"You force opponents to regret challenging you."
Victor considered this, then placed a spectral hand over his orb. "At last. True recognition."
She studied him carefully, noting the earnestness beneath his theatrics.
"Something's missing."
His orb tilted with curiosity.
Ravina gestured toward him. "What happens when speed overwhelms you? When someone charges past your strategies? When Hypnosis fails and you need immediate response?"
Victor drifted silently for a moment, his usual flamboyance replaced by something deeper.
A slow smile formed, not his typical wide, attention-seeking grin, but something smaller, more calculating.
"I may have an idea."
Ravina's eyebrow lifted. "Something you can already perform?"
"Not with mastery," he admitted.
Her attention sharpened. "What technique is it?"
Victor's gaze drifted toward the dappled shadows cast by the nearby trees.
"Another day."
Ravina stared, suspicion rising. "You're teasing me."
"Perhaps."
"Victor."
"I would rather reveal it when the demonstration honors the art."
Ravina looked back at the notebook, then smiled. "Very well."
She closed it decisively.
"Next training session, you're my priority."
Victor bowed deeply, a gesture of elegant contrition.
"I eagerly await my moment in the spotlight."
As she stood, Ravina felt a twinge of apprehension. "I'm suddenly worried."
"As you should be."