Music: 「PAIN IS BEAUTY」by CHANMINA

Mindy opened her eyes to pain. No, it wasn't due to the hard floor. Still, there was pain.

Pain was a trio of Legendary Pokémon, the Lake Guardians of Sinnoh, bearers of knowledge, emotion and willpower, who broke her door down with a psychic flash, leaving it as unhinged as she was the day her life as an outcast began, leaving the windows, wretched as they were under the pelting snow, to be the only gateway to her home. Pain was realising her alarm clock broke because Mesprit accidentally sat on it. Pain was going to the bathroom, only to find Azelf applying her last tube of toothpaste on zir face like a clay mask. Pain was finding her heater switched off because Uxie wasn't accustomed to high temperatures.

Mindy scowled as she got up and did some light stretching. In her peripheral vision, the last of their white bodies vanished behind a wall. She exhaled and cracked her neck before meandering towards her bed. She didn't dream last night, her muscles were sore, and to exacerbate things, she found Uxie tossing and turning on her bed while Azelf and Mesprit fought using her pillow and blanket respectively.

"Ummm..."

They hiccuped simultaneously and faced her.

Mindy wrapped her arms around herself. A bead of cold sweat dripped from her chin. Her shivering legs gave way and she fell onto her knees, her forehead hitting the floor, her head shielding her from the Pokémon's sharp gazes. "You're here to erase my memories, aren't you? And confiscate my feelings and willpower?" She pressed her forehead harder against the floor, hard enough she felt a red mark would scorch her skin, a proof of sincerity that would hopefully make them rescind their decision. "You must want my house too. Take it."

Azelf squeaked. Uxie looked between zir fellow guardians. Mesprit pinched her ear. As she raised her head to reveal burning eyes, she stifled her scream.

"We have her attention," Mesprit said through telepathy, hovering back to form a line with the other two guardians. As it seemed, telepathy was the way they communicated with one another and any other species.

Uxie inched closer to Mindy and cleared zir throat. "We, the Lake Guardians, have come to visit you in your humble abode upon receiving word of your apology. Are you sincere?"

Mindy searched their eyes for a morsel of mercy, finding instead a dry tear in Mesprit, a blank stare from Azelf and an unflinching gaze by Uxie. Judgment was at once present and absent, drifting in and out of the atmosphere like her curtains under the snowy currents. Quivering, she ended the staring contest with a slight nod of her head, a gesture that failed to convince even herself.

Uxie tsked. "Why did you apologise? No, why did you take so long to apologise?"

The maws of judgment clamped her skull. A short-lived paralysis roaring at her synapses rendered her being immobile, chased away what little courage she had scooped with her clammy hands and left her keeling over among bitter thoughts like garden weeds, patches of 'what if's and 'what could've been's emerging and towering over her. She deemed herself a weed. Weeds meant nuisance, incursion, destruction. Mindy was, at this moment, a nuisance, an incursion, a being of destruction.

Hence, she merely hung her head low. A gesture of remorse ought to be sincere enough. But her heart itched. She didn't want to be a weed, even if she bent over and leant forward now, waiting for a sickle's healing touch. No, it didn't feel right, nor did it feel any wrong, to be quiet. A desire needed volumes to fan its own flames.

I must incinerate myself if it means becoming accepted again. The thought slipped into her mind, accompanied by an image of her bound to a burning stake, her buckets of sweat inspiring the heat, her skin melting into a buttery heap, dripping like wax. A heated and dark process, warranting the type combination of an Incineroar, master of desire, lust and power.

When again she spoke, it was with conviction, albeit wavering. "Every villain has a redemption arc. I'm jealous. Will you grant me one?"

To redeem herself as something other than weed, Mindy must first admit her priceless envy before the Legendary trio. How empowering, how moving it would be, should they endorse her redemption arc! She could toss vulnerability into the blizzard and twirl on bare feet in the most furious of snow, spinning and spinning till an avalanche occurred someplace else where it shouldn't, her hands outstretched for the bitter warmth of gradually melting, pelting snowdrops, her tongue shyly summoned out of its slit to collect diamonds raining from the sky, and she could be a brilliant diamond, a shining pearl, a radiant platinum, if only she willed herself.

Azelf patted her head, effectively dragging her out of her bubble. "You apologise because you seek forgiveness and redemption?"

Mindy raised her head and faced the trio. "I don't want to live like a failure anymore. If you're not here to destroy me, then save me. Please."

Mesprit approached Mindy with a ghost of a smile. "We can make it happen. But you must complete three trades with three beings. Do we have us a deal?"

If this wasn't a sweet offer, Mindy would have rejected it immediately and asserted her dominance by having the Lake Guardians clean her house till it resembled a place for humans to live in. Spurred on by the haunting cold permeating her house, she reached her hand out. The trio latched their hands onto hers. Light snowballed out of the room, through the windows, across the route. She shut her eyes, her hair moving like tidal waves in the storm of desire, rising and ebbing till the cold dissipated, as if the blizzard outside was naught but an illusion.

As the world appreciated in silence, Mindy was offered the title of a Trader, someone who would receive what others do not want, fulfilling their wish in return. She would give nothing away that belonged to her, save for her time and emotions. It was equivalent exchange, only that Mindy was the one to bear any unpleasant side effects. But it wouldn't matter, would it? It wouldn't be too unbearable, would it? She had the Lake Guardians by her side after all.

It hence came as a surprise when she yanked her bedsheets off and tossed it into the piling snow the moment Uxie mentioned her first task required her to be in public, and Snowpoint City, specifically. At least Mindy didn't have much of an issue with her first client, a man who wanted to build a terrarium in the middle of the city.

"You know my reputation! I might be murdered even before I set foot in there!" Mindy crashed on her sofa and laid down, her hands gripping the armrest for dear life. The Pokémon exchanged glances and pulled her off the cushions. Her whimpers were dismissed.

"It's a possibility, not an inevitability," argued Azelf. "You won't be able to redeem yourself if you don't go into the radar."

"Pathetic humans remain pathetic throughout their lives, unless they start blaming themselves instead of others for their misfortune," said Mesprit with a snicker. "Don't force her, Azelf. We shan't waste our time."

Uxie combed Mindy's hair and gave her two plaits. "You need to be realistic here. You must try before backing out. Otherwise, it's illogical."

Mindy growled, kicked her butt off the sofa and rummaged her wardrobe for thick clothes. While she donned a black dress with scarlet frills to go with her Mamoswine furcoat and heat-inducing leggings made of the finest of Dewpider silk, the trio of Legendaries brought her bedsheets in and fixed the door using Psychic. She returned with a resigned smile smeared on her lips, her hands on her hips, to stumble into the trio sipping hot chocolate from levitating cups that were made of light, the rim shining like an aurora.

"Will he really accept the trade?" Mindy asked.

They gulped their drinks down and answered simultaneously, "Who wouldn't want a good deal?"

Minutes after she was done fuming and commanding them to tidy up her house, she opened the door, only to have it fall forward, making ab impression in the snow. With a scowl, she set out for the city she had avoided at all costs, together with chatty companions she wished knew how to be quiet.

The path was bitingly cold. Snow-capped trees shook whenever she passed them by, her presence enough to terrify or agitate even the most nonchalant of the inhabitants. Skateboarders cast furtive looks her way, some of them accidentally cutting into her way so as to be satisfied by her scream, or a jump with a start, or a scramble backwards. This was nothing like the redemption she imagined, more like the reality she envisioned, the reality the Lake Guardians promised simply existed in her head as a possibility. No, anything that happened to Mindy was always inevitable.

The trek to Snowpoint ended a good fifteen minutes later. Mindy was frazzled. Any word of encouragement the Lake Guardians provided only brought more attention to herself. She stepped into a pool of gasps and sloshed about cupped mouths and bubbling gossip. Speculation lingered in the air, but no one came forth to ask her why the Legendary Pokémon were hanging out with her, as though Legendary Pokémon had nothing better to do than to be casual friends with humans. They thought it was pity or punishment. The latter couldn't be more true, Mindy gradually concluded as she entered the Pokémon Centre to meet even the discontent of Nurse Joy.

Azelf turned Mindy's attention away from the simmering nurse, directing it instead to a balding man with a straw hat, donned in hiking clothes unsuited for the climate. Clearly, he wasn't a resident here.

Mindy tapped the slouching man's shoulder. He recoiled. When their eyes met, she mumbled, "You're the botanist."

"M-Mindy!" He fell back on his chair. Yet his fall seemed controlled, cautious, and it was then Mindy spotted the pots of plants littered across the floor. Dying plants, to be exact.

"Would you like to trade?"

Mesprit slapped the back of her head. "You should get a hold of his story first!"

The man seemed not to mind Mindy's piercing gaze. "To think there be a day a petulant brat like yer knows how to serve others! If yer can take away my pain!" He beat his chest and surveyed his dying and dead plants. "Do me good. And I make yer city good!"

Mindy arched a brow. "Your pain?"

"Ain't it the Trading business? I give what I want, I get what I want!" The man grabbed a cup of piping hot espresso from the coffee table before him and chugged. "To think Traders truly exist! And I'm chosen!"

"Fine! But what's your pain like?" Mindy resisted the urge to spill his coffee on his clothes. She could request him to leave the Pokémon Centre, but that would only vilify her further.

"Yer find out soon. See, now Traders aren't a rumour, and my life good!" He rubbed his belly and winked at her.

Uxie tapped Mindy's forehead and the latter closed her eyes. "May you flow like water."

A burning sensation seeped through her skin, the magnitude equivalent to a soul-draining Litwick perched on her forehead. The warmth soon gave way to a sharp cold. Opening her eyes, she saw boundless white with green zigzags indicating trees in the area. Behind her was the mouth of Mt. Coronet. The Pokémon Centre was no more, so was the botanist and the Lake Guardians. Ahead of her, the blizzard grew impassioned.

"How am I supposed to flow like water in this damn condition?" She balled up her fists and felt something soft wrap her wrist. She glanced downwards. By her feet, a bunch of Grass-type Pokémon (three Budew, one Roselia, one Turtwig, one Cherubi, and one Cherrim) beamed at her. They encircled her and held onto her, eyes pleading and brimming with tears. Two butterfly pea plants nestled in their clay pots swayed derisively at the edge of the mouth of Mt. Coronet. Mindy rolled her eyes.

The botanist's pain was losing his plants and Grass-type Pokémon to a blizzard during his trek to Snowpoint City. The Pokémon would faint, but surely they could endure the blizzard? They did seem fine back in the Pokémon Centre, unless they were healed prior to Mindy's encounter with their owner. The two potted plants were the root cause of her headache.

At the same time, Mindy felt the world, too, was aching. Whether it was out of sympathy for her or some other inexplicable reason she couldn't quite fathom, one thing was clear: every word, every act, every existence was pain.

And she must pull through and survive. The plants, the Pokémon must survive.

"This trial sucks."

Mindy inhaled till her countenance paled. She confronted the blizzard, her Mamoswine coat flapping in the wind.

For her redemption, she will clench her teeth and leave no room for error.

She took her first step, the potted plants in her embrace. The Pokémon shuffled after her. The blizzard smacked their faces.

Mindy knitted her brows. It was time to play the hero.