You Drive Me Crazy (Lay the Very Best - Chapter 414)

Brandy wrapped her arms tight around Dani's soft waist and let gravity do the rest. The pair dropped like stones into the thick haze of Calcine's smoke. The hot smoke rolled heavily in Brandy's lungs, but it was a familiar, breathable burn, and it kept the sniper shots from finding them.

"Brace!" Dani barked as the air rippled around them, and she sent a Tackle straight into the ground.

They hit hard, but the ground broke before them. Brandy kept Dani cushioned against her chest as they tumbled across the colourful wallpaper, which rippled underfoot like water. The Trick Room meant they should have had an almost clear field around them, but the obscuring smoke could be hiding things. Brandy hadn't had time to get a good look at the glitzy Arcade before Trick Room had rotated the whole room.

"I can't see a thing!" Dani coughed, clutching Brandy's shirt. "The lights don't help!"

There were pops of bright colours in the smoke above from the cabinet screens, but it just made things even more disorienting.

"That's the point," Brandy rasped, dragging herself up. "Neither can Cindy. That Pumpkaboo can outshoot Sparky, but I'd bet she'll lose up close. Let's see if we can find who she hit; they might need help."

The smokescreen clung thick around them, curling over Dani's scales and Brandy's arms until their outlines blurred. Every breath carried the tang of Calcine's fire, heat rolling through their throats. Shapes flickered just beyond reach, a lantern-glow bobbing, the outline of a porcelain curve, but the haze swallowed them before Brandy could fix her gaze. Her Compound Eyes jittered against the distortion, showing her too many ghostly images at once.

A whisper slithered through the smoke: "Boo~"

Something slammed into Brandy's side. She tumbled, only to feel Dani pull away and ram into her assailant with a desperate Tackle. A short, sharp yelp rang out, and pumpkin-lantern light spun away in the haze.

"Got her!" Dani shouted triumphantly.

The glow flickered again and vanished in the smoke. Cindy's laugh rang through the haze, playful and cruel. It sounded like she'd moved a good distance. Astonish? Some kind of teleportation. Very annoying for a sniper.

"Try again, little fishy. I've got tricks for days." Cindy giggled.

"Hiding's already gotten old." Brandy huffed, "Did you hurt my partners?"

"It's not gotten old!" Cindy snapped, "I'm doing a cool thing, and you need to appreciate it!"

Ghost Types. They all had their obsessions. The giant teapot lady, Val, clearly loved pain, and that's why she'd taken the lead and practically invited getting hit. Cindy seemed more insecure about her image.

If Brandy were a more practical trainer, she'd have preyed on that. But no, she wasn't going to make a Pokémon feel bad just to win a fight.

"You're a really good shot," Brandy said, "And hitting someone in mid-air was really impressive. But I'm worried about them; it was a big fall. I know Pokémon are super tough, but I still don't want them lying in the smoke feeling hurt and alone."

There was a pause in the haze, like Cindy hadn't expected that at all. The bobbing lantern-glow swelled a little brighter, then dimmed, weaving uncertainly in the smoke.

"You really think it was a good shot?" Cindy said, her voice no longer quite so sharp. "Nobody ever says that. Well, Odile does, but she loves us all, no matter what. The others are all too distracted, and sometimes I feel they don't really see me. But you noticed I was good?"

"I notice everything," Brandy said, forcing warmth into her tone despite the ache in her ribs. "That shot was clean. I'm not mad about your aim. I just need to know my team's okay."

Another giggle came, softer this time, more like a blush in her voice. "You're sweet. Don't worry your pretty head, I wouldn't leave your girls broken. Your spider's already wrapped up safe. Our third is watching her."

Brandy stiffened. "Third?"

"Ohhh, you'll see. Sassy makes sure every girl cums in the end," Cindy sang. Her lantern-glow twirled, then darted further into the smoke, just out of reach. "And your birdie? Mmm. She's fine. Better than fine. I gave her a dose of Trick-or-Treat, and she wolfed down the Trick like it was made of candy."

"You fiend!" Dani yelled into the smoke and then whispered up to Brandy. "What's that do?"

The smoke rippled with a scream, raw and cracked, before it tore open, and Morgan staggered into sight, as if she'd clawed her way up from a grave, her feathers ragged and haloed in a pale green light. Her red eyes blazed brighter than the arcade's flickering screens. Veins of green ectoplasm crawled across her chest and wings, dripping in fat globs off her feathers that smoked when they hit the carpet. Her shadow didn't match her body anymore; it stretched out long behind her, ballooning across the smoke with a twisted torso and two glowing Pumpkaboo eyes glaring from where its stomach should've been.

"Ohhh, never mind, I think I can guess," Dani said. "This is bad, right?"

"Morgan," Brandy said, holding out her hands. "Relax, it's me and Dani."

The Murkrow flexed her claws, and her wings beat out wide, the smoke curling around them. The whole arcade seemed to lean in towards her, as if she now had an immense gravity in this Trick Room.

"I love you, Brandy," Morgan growled, voice rumbling deep, "So much it hurts."

She spread her wings wide, feathers trailing ectoplasm that left paint strokes in the air. Then, with a scream that ripped from deep in her chest, she snapped them down.

The Hurricane spun around her, and the smokescreen didn't just part; it exploded outward, whipped into a cyclone that rattled the warped cabinets and howled through the Trick Room's impossible geometry. Colours from broken screens smeared into streaks of neon, twisting around Morgan like she stood at the eye of a storm. Dani and Brandy had to dig their heels into the wallpaper floor to keep from sliding, the heat whipping across their skin. Cindy's lantern glow whipped away in a swirl, vanishing into the storm.

In a heartbeat, the battlefield was clear. The haze gone, the whole warped arcade revealed again. Val hunched and cracked but still smiling as Calcine laid into her shield with flaming punches. Cindy was crouched on a cabinet lip with her long ponytail whipping in the gale. Sparky was nowhere to be found, but a forest of thick tree roots had wrapped up one part of the arcade, and she would be in that thicket somewhere.

At the center of all, rising up by her own storm was Morgan, green ghost goo dripping down her wings, floating on her own fury.

She bared her teeth, eyes locked on Brandy. "Mine."

Brandy caught the motion of Cindy making a finger gun aimed at her, but Morgan dropped with a crash, and her black energy claws lashed at the ground. The Trick Room warped around her, bending cabinets closer, screens flickering in sync with her heartbeat. The Bullet Seed was curved in the distorted space and missed Brandy completely.

"Mine," Morgan hissed at Cindy, feathers puffing out, breath ragged. "She's mine. I want her. She's not yours."

She sounded crazed, and that's probably because she was. Trick-or-Treat brought out the Ghost in Pokémon, and if Cindy had been honest, Morgan had a lot of Ghost to drag out.

Ghost types were all about their obsessions, and Brandy would have guessed Morgan's was gambling or games. But no. It was her. Morgan was obsessed with Brandy.

She couldn't be mad at that. Even if it was a bit of a pain right now to deal with, Branwen had shown her how to deal with Ghost Types. You couldn't fight what they felt; you had to be receptive to it.

"Dani, trust me," Brandy said, and Brandy pulled Dani forward, the pair of them crashing into Morgan's arms. The ectoplasm dripping from her feathers smeared against Brandy's clothes and skin as Morgan bent lower, her crimson eyes burning holes straight through her.

"You're mine," she growled again, voice raw, cracked, hungry. "Say it."

Brandy's Compound Eyes showed her everything at once: Val cracking apart under Calcine's fire, Cindy crouched with her glowing belly flickering in the gale, roots shifting at the far end of the arcade, but none of it mattered. Her world narrowed to Morgan's breath on her throat, her claws on her hips, her wings closing her in.

She tilted her head back, baring her throat. "I'm yours," she whispered, "Do what you want with me. I won't fight you. I love you to bits."

Morgan's claws flexed, pinning Brandy tighter, and a shudder ran through her body.

"Mine," she said again, softer this time, almost reverent. "All of you mine."

Dani squeaked her scales, glimmering faintly with ghostlight, in Morgan's storm. She pressed her cheek to Brandy's shoulder, wrapping her arms around her waist.

"Then I'll help you," Dani said, her voice timid but firm. "If Brandy belongs to you, then I'm yours too."

Morgan's head snapped toward her, but then a slow grin spread over her face.

"Good little fish," Morgan crooned, wings tightening around them both. "I'm going to use you like a toy."

A giggle bubbled out from the broken cabinets. Cindy's lantern-glow belly pulsed bright as she lay on her front. She'd stopped firing altogether, her hands pressed to her cheeks as she watched eagerly.

"Ooohhh, this is hot," Cindy purred, "Giving up? Just like that? Ohhh, I love it. Val's gonna be sooo jealous she missed this part."

Brandy closed her eyes and let her body go slack against Morgan's grip. Every trainer instinct screamed at her to maintain control, to push back, to devise a plan, but she ignored them. This was how it should be. Brandy, helping to satiate her partner's needs, whatever they were at the time.

"I'm yours," Brandy repeated, louder this time, voice ringing out against the storm. "Yours to hold, yours to use, yours to love. Whatever you want, Morgan."

Morgan's storm flared brighter, cabinets groaning as the Trick Room itself seemed to bend under the weight of her possessive need. Her wings wrapped Brandy and Dani tight, pulling them into her chest, ectoplasm slicking their skin.

Above the howl of wind, Cindy's delighted giggles carried, breathless and excited. "Don't stop! Don't stop! I wanna see everything. Show me how you make her yours!"

If Brandy got Morgan any more worked up, her Hurricane would blow this whole Trick Room apart.

"What are you waiting for?" Brandy said, shivering with excitement as a thrill rolled down her spine at her own words. "Take me already, I'm right here."