My Name is Marcus: Sweet Scent

VII. Promise

Wyndon Eye; Standing at over four-hundred feet tall, this massive ferris wheel overlooked the cityscape, watching down upon the commerce of all of Wyndon like a monolithic and ever-present vigil. The neon luminescence, which outlined its circular form in patterns of nearly every color imaginable throughout the night, had been beckoning the two young trainers towards it all evening. At last, they had arrived before it, and after a wait of just under twenty minutes, the ferris wheel operator had gestured the two aboard.

Cinderace swallowed hard, clinging anxiously with one hand to the sleeve of Marcus's suit jacket as the gondola continued its slow ascent towards the skyline.

"You're alright, bud", Marcus assured him gently with a gentle pat on the shoulder. "You don't gotta look out the windows or anything. Just sit back, relax, take some nice easy breaths, and enjoy our company."

Cinderace took in a long deep breath and let it out in a slow huff. Morpeko looked concerned for her friend's well-being as she sat across from him next to Marnie.

"Is he good?", Marnie asked with a cocked head and a raised brow. "I've never seen him so stirred up before..."

"Oh, yeah, he's fine", Marcus answered as he removed his arm from within the slings of his bag, placing the overstuffed carrier on the floor with a modest thud next to Cinderace's feet. "He's, uh... he's just kind of afraid of heights is all."

Cinderace turned his head away and pouted in embarrassment - the proud Striker Pokemon and ace companion to the champion didn't like it when people learned that about him.

"Wha- afraid of heights!?", she exclaimed. "No way! He used to know Bounce, didn't he? That was the move that won your guys's match against Leon!"

"Yeah, and now he doesn't... because he's afraid of heights", Marcus tittered. "Truth is, his acrophobia almost cost us that match. I'd call out Bounce, and he'd either hesitate for just long enough for the enemy to get a quick hit in before he could pull it off, or he'd get into the air and spend his entire time coming back down in a panic." Marcus chuckled. "Between that and Hangry Morpeko, I guess that's two things he's afraid of, huh?"

Cinderace shot Marcus a mortified glare as he elbowed him hard in the arm.

Marcus yelped sharply. "Ah-! What!? It's nothing to be ashamed of, you're still braver than me! I'm afraid of everything!"

"Everythin'?", Marnie inquired with a smirk, her brow raised curiously. "I knew about your fear of crowds n' all, but afraid of everythin'?"

Marcus chortled as he rubbed his arm where he had been struck. "Yeah, I might as well be", he replied bashfully. "Obviously, I've got to try and keep that stuff under raps, though. I mean, can you imagine what people would say if they heard that Galar's champion was afraid of ghosts, for instance?"

Marnie looked at him utterly flabbergasted. "You... you can't be serious, right? You're not really afraid o' ghosts, are ya?"

Marcus placed a hand behind his head and broke his eye contact with her as he smiled timidly. "...what if I am?"

The sensation of sheer disbelief she felt caused her to break out into a laugh - she didn't know how else to react to this strange and contradictory revelation, so she reverted to her default instincts. "Nothin' you just said makes any sense", she chuckled. "Gengar - a Ghost-Type - is your favorite Pokemon in the world... and you're afraid o' ghosts!?"

Marcus placed his left arm around the Gengar plushie as it sat next to him, pulling in closer towards him. "Gengar's different!", he exclaimed with a titter. "He's like a big fluffy purple Clefable that likes to tell jokes... and also just so happens to have ghost powers..."