Sorry for the wait! It's been a hell of a month and a half, let me tell you.
In any case, this might be the last chapter for a bit. I'm going to try to keep on writing, but things have picked up in my life as of recent. But it's also hard to say because, well, y'all know me. When I should be doing something more productive, I'm writing and posting chapters like crazy.
Anyway, I'd also like to thank everyone who voted for AEM in the awards. It's really an honor to see this little fic get that much recognition. I mean, least of all, it tells me I made the right choice to reboot it, but more importantly, it means a lot to me to see that many people get into it.
Idk, guys. I'm kinda rambling, but hopefully, that made sense. The short of it is, I was floored when I saw the results, and I love every last one of you for getting AEM that far. Thanks, and here's to hoping the rest of this year is just as enjoyable as last year's chapters apparently were.
Raye's Glossary of Terms
Nii-chan = older brother
Okiro = “Wake up.”
Twelve
D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 10
CLEARANCE ACCEPTED.
DOCUMENT TYPE: CORRESPONDENCE
DESIGNATION: N/A
DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO RECORDING BETWEEN COMMITTEE MEMBERS 1 THROUGH 5. MARKED FOR DESTRUCTION PENDING ARCHIVAL OF DOCUMENTS PERTAINING TO THE ADAM INCIDENT.
DATE-TIME: [ERROR]
C-01
Might as well start things off formally. Four, what’ve you got?
C-04
Reports from Recon Team Delta-Five have detected activity in central Hoenn.
C-01
Maybe I should reiterate. What have you got that’s actually news?
C-04
Well, sir, according to Team Delta-Five, there has been a spike in activity in Sector Six, Four, and Twelve.
C-01
Huh. Five, what’s the research arm think of it?
C-05
We suspect the SE-650’s movement is linked to Codename Lilith’s activity.
C-01
Five, every day, I’m astounded by the brilliance of my colleagues here.
C-05
As a reminder, sir, Codename Lilith has been dormant for the past three months. Our teams are currently working around the clock to decipher the call she issued from Point Zero two days ago. Currently, we theorize it may be akin to climatic responses elicited from earth-born pokémon.
C-01
So you’re saying they’re migrating south for the winter.
C-05
Yes, sir.
C-01
Right. Three, please have something intelligent to say.
C-03
Two’s not here.
C-01
Never mind. Four—
C-03
All due respect, sir, I don’t think it’s wise to trust Two.
C-01
My God. An insightful comment.
C-03
What do we know about Two or her operation, sir? You know who she reports to. The last thing we need is political interference.
C-01
Acknowledged. I’m about as happy as you are with it, Three, but Two could be our most valuable asset, considering our situation.
C-03
But is it really wise to rely on Two?
C-01
No. But we don’t have much of a choice, do we? Leave Two to me. How’re your field agents?
C-03
Ready and loyal, sir.
C-01
Your sarcasm has been noted, Three. Obviously, we’ll need men in the sectors recon has kindly outlined for us.
C-03
I’ll need recon to send a scout party ahead of us to clear the way.
C-04
Consider it done.
C-01
Good. In the meantime, Four, get me in contact with the current Hoenn champion and any champion currently within the regional borders.
C-04
Sir?
C-01
You heard me. We could use some firepower. Three’s right, and we’ll need a failsafe.
—
Thom’s cell phone beeped when he absentmindedly pressed the red button on its screen. His attention was split between petting Manectric and watching the scene beyond the window he leaned against. Thumping his forehead against the glass, he sagged his shoulders and grimaced.
“Crap. Missed the battle completely,” he muttered. “Officer Jenny’s gonna chew me out again.”
Pushing against the window, he stretched and clasped his hands behind his head. Manectric lifted his muzzle in the air and emitted a curious growl at the sudden lack of petting.
“Oh well,” Thom said. “Not like you coulda done anything anyway. No offense, buddy.”
Manectric tilted his head and whined. Upon hearing his partner, Thom snorted and stood, letting the floorboards creak as loudly as possible under his weight. There was no use hiding now. That he knew.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “What, you think I would’ve whipped out one of the others? Yeah right. The way we’re going, one of ‘em would’ve been shot first. Or killed by Lanette.” He cast a glance over his shoulder, towards the window. “Damn. How many was that this time around? She must’ve killed, I dunno, sixteen ixodida, maybe? That’s gotta be a record.” Heaving a sigh, he let his shoulders sag a little more. “Officer Jenny’s gonna chew me out for
that too.”
The dog barked and rose to his four paws. With another grin towards his pokémon, Thom pocketed his phone.
“Well, boy. Let’s get this over with, right?”
Manectric responded with a low whine but padded after Thom faithfully, and from there, the two crossed the empty room in silence. At the same time, Thom could hear the sounds of footsteps pounding down the stairs beyond the door. He hesitated, waited for a few beats for the footsteps to die down, and finally reached for the doorknob. Upon opening the door, he muscled his way past groups of people and pokémon rushing down the steps in order to climb up, towards the roof. No one acknowledged him, and that, in his mind, was perfectly fine. He never liked attention anyway. It really was easier since he came to Fallarbor, since people started learning he wasn’t going to be a hero. Not like Steven or Wallace or any of the other strong trainers of Hoenn. He was just Thom. Just the same goofball as he was before the whole ixodida thing started.
And that was okay. Because it meant he could handle things the way he normally would: not as a leader like Officer Jenny or a loner like Lanette but instead as someone who helped. Someone who could be relied on to lend his strength in a team. Someone like…
“Nurse Joy!” he shouted as he snatched her arm.
She stopped short, mid-step on her mad dash down the stairs, to swivel around and stare at Thom. Chansey, who had been following her, nearly slammed into the both of them but managed to hop awkwardly down a few steps and come to a stop beside Manectric.
“Thom?!” Nurse Joy cried. “Thom, what are you doing here?! Where have you been?!”
“Sorry. Got lost,” Thom lied. He didn’t have a taste for lying, but he couldn’t very well tell her where he actually was. After all, he gave his word he wouldn’t.
She seemed to sense the lie, but all she did in response was raise an eyebrow and study him carefully.
“Right. Thom, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to talk to you,” she said as she gently pulled her arm out of his grasp. “There was a fight.”
“I know. How’d it go?”
“…We won.”
Thom smiled. “Oh, really? Awesome!”
“No, it’s not awesome.” Joy sighed. “Thom, there are a lot of pokémon on the street that are injured right now. I need to get to them, okay? So unless this is important—”
“Where’s Officer Jenny?” he asked.
Joy started down the staircase. She didn’t bother to look back and check if he was following. “Heading to the pokémon center, I assume. Raye’s absol appeared at the end of the battle, and Lanette went after it. Officer Jenny is going after her.” At that, she threw a glare over her shoulder to see Thom following her after all. “And I’d suggest
you find a way to beat her there. You’re not supposed to be here, you know. You have a job to do in situations like these.”
Thom picked up the pace to match Joy’s. “This is about Rachel,” he said.
“Of course it’s about Rachel. Where is she?”
“Back at the pokémon center.”
“Alone?!”
“Nah. With Bill.”
Joy glared at him again. “You left Rachel with an ixodida?!”
“Hey! Don’t snap at me!” Thom protested. “I thought you liked Bill!”
“I never said I’d trust him enough to leave him alone!”
“Lanette seemed okay with it!”
“Thom, that’s Lanette!”
“I know! But she—”
“And she’s not the one I’m worried about. When Officer Jenny gets word that you left your post….”
Thom stopped dead in his tracks. He thought that over for a second, visualizing exactly what Officer Jenny would say when she found out he had left a child with an ixodida.
“Aw,
crap.”
Officer Jenny was, without a doubt, going to chew him out for that one too.
—
In the basement of the pokémon center, very little had changed for the past five minutes. Bill still lay at the bottom of the cage of light, unmoving and silent. His eyes were wide open, but they were vacant and fixed on Domino’s boots. Domino stood facing the cage with one hand on her hip and the other playing with her cell phone. Her routine, for those few minutes, had been rather repetitive. First, she would dial a number on her phone. Second, she would press the call button and bring the device to her ear. Third, she would wait for a few seconds, only to be rewarded with the click of a call aborted before it was even placed. Fourth, she would grumble, curse, and repeat step one all over again. After the sixth cycle, she lowered her arm and snapped her phone shut.
“Typical. No reception. Don’t you hate it when that happens?”
She paused, frowned at the box, and kicked it hard. The walls sparked, and ripples of light rushed from the sole of her foot across the entire surface of the box. Yet its occupant didn’t even flinch.
“Hey!” she snapped. “I’m talking to you!”
Bill shifted—but only to curl his tail slowly and shakily over his legs. Domino groaned and smacked her forehead against the wall of the box in response.
“Well, isn’t that just great?” she muttered. “I can’t get through to headquarters,
and this ixodida is defective. And it’s not like we can just reprogram this thing, either. I’m never going to hear the end of this.”
She pivoted on her heel and walked a few paces away from the box. With a flick of her wrist, she flipped the phone open again. As she began to key in the same phone number, a jet of water tore it out of her hand and sent it clattering across the floor. Her expression morphed into one of anger as she whirled around to face her attacker.
“Who did that?!” she demanded.
There, just a few feet from Domino, stood Wartortle, bracing himself with three claws on the ground and the third angled in the air. He smirked just before he inhaled and shot another jet of water at Domino’s face. At the last second, she dodged and swung her arm across her body. Her fingers snapped towards Wartortle, and a black tulip flew from her hand, aimed directly at the turtle’s head. Before it struck, a red light enveloped Wartortle. His form faded, shrank, and vanished completely, allowing the needle to sail through empty space. Surprised, Domino swiveled around, only to see a small figure standing on the stairs. Raye stared back, wide-eyed and clutching a poké ball with both hands. For a few seconds, they were frozen in perfect silence until, finally, Domino smiled.
“Why, hello there, cutie,” she said. “Why don’t you give me that poké ball so I don’t have to hurt you?”
Naturally, Raye started for the first floor. Before she could climb half the stairs, Domino bolted after her and gracefully jumped up the steps until she blocked Raye’s path. Raye stopped, trembling in front of the Rocket agent.
“What’s your rush?” Domino purred. “I’m not going to hur—”
A bang followed by an electric crackle interrupted her train of thought. Looking up, Domino saw Bill standing in the middle of the cage, his tail switching in agitation.
“Oh? And what do we have here? What, you don’t like it when I threaten this little cutie pie?”
Domino draped her arms over Raye and held her close. Raye squirmed in her grasp, but the agent held her like a vice as she smiled at the cage. In response, Bill lifted his hands as swirling, silver orbs of light formed in his palms. Without a word, he aimed both of his hands at opposite corners of the box.
“Ah ah ah!” Domino scolded. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
As she drew out the last syllable, she flicked one of her wrists, and another black tulip slid into her fingers. She aimed the sharpened point of the stem at Raye’s neck, drawing it close enough to nick her skin. Slowly, she pushed Raye closer, down the stairs and across the floor until a foot of space stood between them and the cage. All the while, Raye whimpered and craned her neck as a drop of her blood trickled down her throat.
“Make one wrong move, and this little thing’s as good as gone,” Domino said. “You wouldn’t want that, now, would—”
She stopped. It was then that she could see Bill’s face. And it was then that she could see in full, plain view that something was horribly, horribly wrong.
Bill was awake. He was angry. He was lucid. But his expression was completely, totally, and inhumanly blank.
Although she wasn’t fully conscious of it, Domino felt her mouth move and her voice hiss out of her throat.
“Oh
sh—”
The orbs of light flew at the devices and exploded with a brilliant burst. Seconds later, the walls of the box rippled, and the edges flickered. Yet the box didn’t fade. It stood, solid as ever, humming as it always had been. At that sight, Domino relaxed a little, tilting her head with a smile.
“Hmph. Nice try. Guess Zager was useful for something after a—”
Something dropped from the hole in the ceiling and landed with a thump behind Domino. Whirling around, she watched as a small, bulbous shape rose to its feet, illuminated by the light streaming through the opening in the ceiling. Domino blinked, watching the gloom tilt its head a little and blubber out part of its name.
“Raye!” a new voice shouted from the hole. “Hold your breath!”
The girl in Domino’s arms inhaled deeply, in time with the gloom just a few feet away. But unlike Raye, the gloom did something else afterwards: it spewed sparkling, blue powder from its flower crown.
“Oh crap!” Domino shouted.
She shoved Raye away from her and covered her mouth frantically, but by then, she had already inhaled part of the dust cloud. It didn’t take long before she fell to the floor with a thud, having succumbed to a deep sleep.
The next thing to come from the ceiling was a red light that drew the gloom back to the floor above them. Shortly afterwards, an absol dropped from the hole and snapped its head from side to side, and from its glowing horn, a pair of tornadoes burst and rushed across the floor beneath it. The winds ripped through the basement, blasting away the remaining powder. Raye doubled over, bracing herself against the light cage to maintain her footing, and when the gale died down, she drew her hands away from her mouth and sank to her knees. Absol padded to her and nuzzled her, licking her face as she wormed her fingers through its fur. Raye didn’t move from this position when she heard the basement door open or the sound of footsteps on the stairs. And she still didn’t move as Lanette came to a stop next to her.
“Raye?” Lanette asked softly. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and buried her face in her pokémon’s mane. And for that brief second, Lanette grinned, but as soon as she transferred her gaze to Domino, her expression faded back into a stone coldness. With a swift kick, she threw the unconscious agent onto her back before stooping down to run her hands along Domino’s body. She crouched low, using her body as a shield against Raye’s eyes as her hands slipped into Domino’s hidden pockets and drew from them the cell phone and tulips, all of which she quickly slipped into the pouches on her belt. It was only when she was satisfied with her search that she shifted, rising to her full height and facing the box as her foot shoved Domino away.
“You,” she said to the box’s captive. “What’s going on here?”
Inside, the creature smiled awkwardly and tilted his head. “Good to see you too, Lanette.”
There was a short moment of silence as the two stared at each other.
“Bill?” Lanette asked.
“Of course it’s me.”
“Is that so?”
An exasperated sigh. “Would you like me to give you the password again?”
“In front of Raye?”
“If that’s what it’ll take to make you believe me.”
Another silence. Lanette narrowed her eyes.
“Raye. Go over to the boxes and cover your ears,” she said.
With a questioning look at her guardian, Raye did as she was told. Lanette waited, keeping her eyes on Raye as the girl stood, walked to a pile of boxes, and plopped herself down with her absol padding after her. Raye clasped her hands over her ears and looked away, and a second later, she began to hum. Once she was certain that Raye wasn’t listening, Lanette gave the creature in the box a dark look.
“Listen here, you parasitic abomination, I will open this box and
skin you alive if you don’t stop playing games with me,” she hissed.
Immediately, any trace of expression on Bill’s face vanished. “Astute, but you will quickly find that skinning us is quite impossible.”
“Then I’ll find worse things to do with you,” Lanette growled. “Let me talk to Bill.”
“That would also be impossible.”
“I’ll start by breaking your horns off.”
“My, my. You
do have quite a temper.” Adam lifted its chin. “But no. It is quite impossible because Bill is asleep.”
“Then wake him up.”
“I tried. He refused.”
“What do you mean ‘he refused’? What the hell did you do to him?”
“Look behind this cage.”
“What?!”
Adam only nodded towards the back wall of the box. Lanette shifted, creeping along the edges of the cube without taking her eyes off the creature inside it. When she wandered to the back, she finally tore her eyes away from it…
…And saw the body on the floor. She froze, tensing all at once until, slowly, it registered in her head that the corpse was real.
“An ixodida,” she gasped. “It’s … it’s…”
“Dead,” Adam said. “Its core is destroyed as well. You are free to check if that would make you feel comfortable.”
Lanette didn’t even wait for Adam’s permission to search the body before she was on her knees. She flipped the body over roughly and scanned every inch of it. Sure enough, as mutilated as the corpse was, besides the head, there was only one missing body part.
“It’s gone,” she breathed. “The core … you’re telling the truth.”
She looked up at Adam, into its blank eyes. It merely stared down at her steadily.
“Of course I am. I find it inconvenient to lie,” Adam told her.
Lanette struggled to process what she was seeing. An ixodida killing another ixodida was virtually unheard of. Even in groups with more than one type of member, ixodida attacked as a single unit. It wasn’t conducive to their survival to fight among themselves. Or, at least, Lanette assumed that was the case.
But the longer she dwelled on it, the more another horrifying thought came to mind. It took a few seconds, but at last, it surfaced, filling her entire body with a cold dread.
“Oh gods,” she murmured. “Bill … that’s why he won’t wake up.” She snapped her gaze back to Adam. “You made him watch!”
“Apparently, he was not ready to see such a thing,” Adam replied. “It is strange, honestly. Bill has seen pokémon do worse things to one another, yet the death of a creature similar to us by our own hands was too much for him.”
Lanette jumped to her feet. “He was a pacifist, you monster! Of course he wouldn’t be okay with watching a murder!”
“Is it a murder?” Adam asked. “From what I understand, you see my kind as bloodthirsty abominations as it is. You admitted to killing us yourself. Why would you find eradicating my kind perfectly acceptable for you but not for Bill?”
She stopped. Her gaze fell on the floor, and she gritted her teeth. Lanette couldn’t say a word. She couldn’t admit to this thing that her situation was complicated.
“Do you wish to hear my opinion?”
She didn’t, but she glanced at Adam all the same.
It held its head at an incline again, almost as if it was trying to appear curious. “I think you are a very guarded woman. This is your way of protecting Bill. In your opinion he was not meant to experience this world—our world. A world where my kind and yours fight for territory. A world where both my people and yours die brutally and where children like the little one over there must live in fear every single day. Your world was innocent and safe before my kind came to it, and you hate us for disrupting the balance of your planet.” Adam hesitated. “Am I close?”
Lanette narrowed her eyes and stared at the corpse again. “Bill is too soft for this war. As is Raye.”
“And you are not?”
“I was too, but I had to change.”
“Are you afraid that Bill and Raye will change?”
Lanette lowered her head. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you and I are monsters, and they shouldn’t have to become monsters like us,” she spat. “You shouldn’t have let Bill watch.”
“If I did not, then I would not have been able to protect him,” Adam answered. “The fact of the matter is that there is a dead ixodida in this room. I took care of its core. Therefore, I was the one who protected both Bill and Raye. Think about that for a moment.”
Lanette said nothing. She used all of her energy to glare at the creature in the box.
“There is nothing you can do to save Bill. This is his fate.” Adam held up both of his hands, palms out. “You know this. However, I can promise you that it will not be hellish for him. There is a complicated contract between us that protects what little is left of Bill’s humanity.”
“A contract?” Lanette asked. “What are the terms?”
Adam lowered its hands. “The privacy of the contract is sacred to the parties involved. I cannot tell you.”
Lanette scoffed. “Of course you can’t.”
“However,” Adam continued, “I can give you an idea. I propose a contract between us.”
“No,” Lanette replied flatly.
“Listen to the terms first, child, before you pass judgment.”
“I am not a…” Lanette took a deep breath. Her eyes fell back on Adam, staring at him calmly. “Go on.”
“Freedom,” Adam stated. “In exchange for my cooperation, I want you to release us from this box and allow us to walk freely within your ranks for as long as we wish to remain here.”
“Cooperation?” Lanette inquired.
“Yes. I am an ixodida, am I not? I can provide valuable insight into my kind.”
Lanette stepped forward and leaned towards the box. “And why would you do that?”
If Adam could smile, it would have right then. As it stood, a shadow passed over its face. Its expression didn’t change, but something about it seemed more … bitter to Lanette.
“We have a common enemy,” Adam answered.
“Is that so?” Lanette asked.
“Yes.” Adam raised its eyes to the ceiling. “The empress. You did realize that there is a queen among us, did you not?”
For a long while, Lanette said nothing again. But then, slowly, she grinned. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Then join me.” It held a hand out, palm up, claws glinting in the dim light of the cage. “Free me, and let us be allies. Together, we will bring the empress to her knees.”
Shadows shifted across Lanette’s face as she lowered her head slightly. With graceful steps, she walked back around the box, and clasped her hands together behind the small of her back.
“No,” she said.
“No?” Adam responded.
“Not that I would trust you enough to agree to your terms in the first place,” Lanette told the parasite, “but the contract you’re proposing is incredibly one-sided, don’t you think?”
“Is that so?”
Lanette leaned her head back, rolling it just enough to glance at Adam out of the corner of her eye. “You want me to free you in exchange for your cooperation. How is that an incentive if I have no idea whether or not you have any valuable information for me? I know about your cores, and clearly, I know about how you organize yourselves. What else would I need to know to defeat the empress?”
“You misunderstand. I am not offering information in exchange for freedom. I am offering safety.”
Chuckling, Lanette turned her head away again. “It’d be easier to leave you in this box, lock the door, and let you die. Or kill you quickly. Whichever you would prefer.”
“I was not simply referring to the safety of your and your people.”
“Then what?”
Behind her, Lanette could hear an electric crackling. Her smile faded, and she reached up to grasp the handle of her crowbar. Before she could draw it, however, she heard something else—something that made her stop dead.
“Lanette.”
A soft voice. One with emotion, not the dull monotone of the parasite. Sad. Plaintive. Slowly, Lanette turned to find the creature standing at the front wall of the box. Both of its hands were pressed into the wall’s surface, and its head was bowed once more. But Lanette could see its expression—the way its lips parted slightly, the way it furrowed its eyebrows, the way its eyes glinted in fear.
“Lanette,” it said. “Please. You’ve got to help me.”
She gripped the handle of her crowbar harder. As she pulled the crowbar from its sheath, her weapon sang.
“Stop it,” she barked.
It lifted its head to stare into her eyes. Lanette stopped, holding the crowbar in both hands as she stared into her partner’s face. It looked too human, too much like Bill. She felt her stomach drop at that thought, and for that, she grasped her crowbar until her knuckles turned white.
But it was a show of weakness, and she knew as soon as she recognized it as such that she would regret it.
“Please,” he—it—begged. “Please don’t kill me. I’m still in here, Lanette. Help me. Please.”
“Stop it!”
She slammed her crowbar against the box. A shower of sparks rained from where the cage was struck, but she didn’t seem to notice as she bared her teeth at the creature. She didn’t care how much noise she was making. She didn’t care whether or not Raye was listening. She didn’t even notice as the girl uncovered her ears and peeked over the boxes she hid behind. Lanette’s entire world for that moment was comprised of herself, the box, and the creature inside it. Nothing more.
“Stop it!” she shrieked. “Stop using his voice!” She struck the box again, sending another shower of sparks into the air. “Stop using his body!” Another strike. “Stop using him!”
Her crowbar cut through the air and slammed one more time into the side of the box. The wall flashed, and her arms jerked back, nearly throwing her onto the floor. Somehow, she jerked herself to the side just in time to regain her footing, and when she did, she threw her eyes back towards the box. She raised her crowbar, readying it to strike once more. Inside the box, Adam’s facial expression faded into the same blank, neutral gaze, and that act—that dissolution of humanity—fuelled the fire that Lanette could feel inside her chest. She screamed. Her arms tensed. And then, she swung.
“Wait! Don’t!”
Lanette stopped short at the sound of the new voice. Looking down, she saw Raye slide between her and the box. Raye spread her arms wide and looked up at Lanette with pleading eyes.
“Don’t do it!” Raye said. “Please don’t hurt Nii-chan!”
“Raye, this is an ixodida,” Lanette replied. It wasn’t an argument. It was an astounded statement. This was Raye. Lanette knew how afraid of the ixodida she was. Yet there Raye stood, begging Lanette not to hurt one.
Raye shook her head. “It’s Nii-chan. That’s all that matters.”
Lanette lowered the crowbar to her side and looked back at the parasite. It stood motionless behind Raye, its face just as blank and stony as ever. But something in its eyes looked almost knowing to Lanette. Wise, even.
“Tch.” She twirled her crowbar with one hand and stepped towards a corner of the box. “Using Bill as a bargaining chip. You know how to negotiate, parasite.”
She drove the sharpened end of her weapon into the ball at the bottom corner of the box. It sank easily, crushing the ball all at once. Sparks danced as the edges of each wall flared to life and then fizzled into nothingness. The walls vanished, and the balls hovering on the top corners dropped to the concrete floor and rolled away. Lanette kicked the broken one at her feet, sending metal fragments flying.
“Well?” she asked. “Uphold your end of the deal, then.”
She threw a glance back to the parasite, just in time to see the expression on its face blank. But it wasn’t the same kind of blankness that it maintained throughout their conversation. This one was a vacant one, with its eyes glazing over before fluttering shut.
“Bill?” Lanette murmured.
The ixodida’s body collapsed sideways, sprawling into the floor with a loud bang. Raye reacted first, diving to her knees as her hands reached for her brother. At her side, her absol appeared, pacing around the two quietly.
“Nii-chan?” Raye cried. Her hands grabbed his shoulder and shook him vigorously. “Nii-chan! Okiro!”
Lanette sheathed her crowbar and flicked her eyes to the hole in the ceiling. Through it, she could see Officer Jenny lean down, watching her with a steady gaze.
“Officer Jenny,” she said. “Are Thom and Nurse Joy with you?”
“No,” Jenny responded. “Thom should be here, but—”
“That’s not important right now. I know Thom left his post, and I pardon him for it. But we need him to move a steel-type and Nurse Joy to treat it. Ask her to prepare one of the trainer dormitories as well.”
“Ma’am…” Officer Jenny reached down and grasped the edge of the hole. “Are you sure about that?”
“How much of our conversation did you hear?” Lanette asked.
“Almost all of it, but—”
“Then yes. I’m sure.”
The sound of scratching—boots against dirt, she gathered—caused her to tear her eyes away from Officer Jenny. She shifted her gaze to the hole in the floor, just in time to see a silhouette vanish into the darkness below. Sweeping one of her feet to the side confirmed her suspicion: the Rocket was gone. Although she was tempted to puzzle over how the agent might have roused so quickly, her attention instead flitted to the girl curled up over the ixodida on the floor. Listening to Raye’s quiet pleas, Lanette closed her eyes and exhaled.
“That’s all,” she said. “Go.”
She waited until she could hear Officer Jenny’s footsteps on the floor above her. Then, she clenched her fists.
“If I find out you cheated me, parasite…” she hissed.
But the truth was she had no idea how she would end that sentence.
—
Inside the tent within the dreamscape Adam shared with Bill, the air was hot and humid, and the strong odor of incense and perfume hung like a heavy cloud. It was the kind of heat that one could see, the kind that distorted colors into undulating waves. Bill watched reds and purples and golds through the haze of an incense burner, but nothing in particular registered for him. He merely lay on his side in the nest of cushions at the center of the tent, where he allowed images to come to him. Because of that, he didn’t even notice when Adam materialized next to him.
“You are in my seat,” it said.
Bill did not move. He did not speak. All he did was lay where he was, on his side, watching the colors through the smoke of the incense burner beside him.
For that, Adam stamped a foot into his side and pushed in an attempt to shake him.
“Did you hear me? You are in my seat. Move.”
Nothing. After several moments, Adam stopped shaking Bill with its foot. It stood still, arms crossed and head bowed. Another moment passed before it sighed and sat down on the cushions beside him. Its fingers drew the hookah’s mouthpiece to its lips, and its sucked on it until the rolling bubbles broke the silence. Without removing the mouthpiece, it looked to its host and began to speak.
“You did well in that battle,” it purred. “In fact, I might even say that I am impressed with your performance, particularly in your choice of a move. Most members of our clan begin with Metal Claw. It takes skill and willpower to overcome the weight of our skin and use a fast-paced attack such as Bullet Punch.” Adam removed the mouthpiece and lifted its eyes to the ceiling. “Your adaptability is admirable. It came naturally to you, did it not? You are learning how to use this body even faster than any other host I have had the pleasure of encountering.”
A long silence answered Adam. Its stony face grew colder as it turned back to its partner.
“How impertinent,” it drawled. “I give you a compliment, and you choose to ignore me.”
Bill tensed. One of his hands clutched the cushion beside his face, and his legs drew themselves closer to the rest of his body. But these were only slight movements drawn out over several more seconds than Adam thought they needed.
And still, Bill did not say a word.
Adam drew another breath through the hookah pipe, and as it exhaled curling, silver smoke, it grumbled its response.
“Get up.”
Bill refused to respond, but Adam hadn’t expected much. It set aside the hookah pipe and exhaled once more, this time slowly and cleanly.
“I am through with repeating myself, and that includes concerning what is and is not necessary for our survival,” it said. “I know very well what this is about. You are suffering from misplaced guilt over having killed one of my kind. You confuse me, Bill. You can be the ideal host in one situation but the weakest choice in the next. I can see into your mind. I can feel you fighting against what you have just experienced, but the more you reject it, the less you learn from it.”
Something happened this time, much to Adam’s surprise. Bill curled up in a tighter ball and whispered almost inaudibly into the cushion he embraced. Watching him, Adam sighed, drew the hookah’s mouthpiece to its lips again, and bit down on the plastic tip.
“Perhaps you do not understand this space that well,” Adam began. “I cannot blame you if that is the case. Although you have had experiences with psychic pokémon, you do not possess such abilities of your own, and thus, a psychic plane may be beyond your level of comprehension.” It laced its fingers together and stared straight ahead, all while moving the mouthpiece to the center of its jaws. “This place is our haven, a place where we may speak freely. Your thoughts are mine here, so long as you do not make an effort to guard them. So having said that, what are you thinking right now?”
It took a moment, and when Bill’s voice came, it was barely a whisper. “I’m…”
“Do not resist it,” Adam told him. “Face it.”
For another long while, Bill was silent. Adam shifted the mouthpiece to one corner of its mouth and half-closed its eyes. It was almost certain that Bill was retreating into himself again when his soft voice finally surfaced once more.
“I’m a good person.”
Adam removed the mouthpiece altogether and looked at its host again. Bill curled into an even tighter ball, and Adam could see that his entire body was trembling.
“I want … I want to think that…”
“Good. Evil.” Adam propped its chin on a hand. “You humans have the most inconvenient definitions of morality. Nothing is ever simple for you, is it? Nothing is ever classified as necessary and not necessary. You all overcomplicate things.”
When Bill stopped shaking, Adam could feel it. It could feel a coldness wash over its mind—a kind of coldness that burned and bit its skin. In response, Adam clicked its teeth against the mouthpiece.
“He was just a kid,” Bill murmured.
Adam sucked on the pipe. “And?”
“You … you killed it. And you…” He tensed. “I couldn’t do anything! You killed him.
You killed him.”
The parasite opened its mouth. Perfect smoke rings floated between its lips and into the open air. “And?”
Bill froze. His body relaxed, and he twisted to stare at Adam in a stunned silence. Adam regarded him carefully before drawing the pipe from its mouth.
“What?” it asked. “Did you truly care for the little thing?”
The floor beneath the parasite heaved and tossed it into the air. Floorboards thrust upwards and twisted, melting together to form a pair of writhing, black tentacles. Adam allowed itself to be lifted and tossed into the air—and even then, its only reaction was to narrow its eyes at Bill. Even as the tentacles constricted around its form, it stared down at its host as Bill shakily rose to his feet. He glared back with features twisted in pure, venomous rage.
“He was not a thing,” Bill snarled. “He was a human being, and you killed him.”
Adam’s face remained unchanged—blank, with narrow eyes casting an unreadable glance down at its host. “And you believe that this will avenge it?”
Bill held up his hands, palms towards the growths. His fingers bent into claws, and as his arms straightened and shook, the tentacles wrapped tighter around Adam. Yet nothing fazed the parasite; it continued to stare blankly at Bill, even as its bones audibly cracked under the pressure.
“You,” Bill growled. “You monster! You will not … I will never…”
“Never be like me?” Adam said—casually, calmly, as if its breathing wasn’t even restricted by the tentacles. “Never kill anyone else? Bill, I tire of your childishness. Believing that my actions were anything but necessary. Do you not trust me?”
Bill’s fingers curled a little more, causing the tentacles to constrict harder. “Shut up.”
“I can see into your mind,” Adam replied. “I can see your thoughts. They are unfocused. Over-emotional. You wish to control me, yet here you are … becoming me.”
“Shut up!”
As Bill flung his arms outward, the tendrils responded to his movements. They swung violently, unfurling to snap Adam into the air, but even then, it wasn’t remotely alarmed. At the last second, it grabbed one of them and swung itself up and over the growth until both it and the appendage came to a stop: the tendril poised in the air and Adam standing on its toes on top of it. The alien held out its hands to calm the other tentacle, which paused and twisted lazily towards Adam.
In the next few seconds, Adam curled its hand towards Bill. The latter looked up, and in that brief second, his furious expression faltered. A spark of fear sent a tremor across his face.
And then, the tentacle shot at him. Faster than he had sent it at Adam.
“Do you think you can control me?” Adam asked.
Its hands twirled in the air, and the tentacle wrapped itself tightly around its host and yanked him into the air. As he dangled several feet in the air, Bill’s bones crunched, and he struggled to suppress a scream. Without shifting its expression in the slightest, Adam closed one of its hands into a fist, its fingers curling slowly into the palm. And in response, the tentacle closed tighter, Bill’s bones crunched louder, and Bill himself released a howl of pain into the tent. Adam knew it was agonizing; Bill’s attack was just as vicious, after all. It knew how it felt, how white-hot pain flooded every point of its body the moment its ribs fractured under its cracking arms. But the difference was that humans were so weak, so fragile. They couldn’t help but react to torture.
This was something Adam knew it would have to beat out of Bill eventually.
“To you, this is a dream,” it continued. “That is why you thought you could get away with being so audacious towards me. But you forget, Bill, how thoroughly I inhabit this body. My original form is intertwined with our neural network. It is easy for me to convince your brain that you have suffered any injury I inflict on you in this meeting place of ours. So I can make you feel pain.”
It opened its hand and squeezed it into a fist again. The scream it got out of Bill this time was a gurgling, strangled cry—as if one of his lungs was punctured.
“As much pain as I want you to feel, in fact,” Adam added nonchalantly. “So. Shall we reach an agreement? Will you perhaps give up your foolishness so that we may finally begin our work? Or shall I demonstrate once again that you do not control me?”
To its surprise, the tentacle released its host violently. Bill hovered where he had been hanging a moment ago as the appendage whirled around his body. He extended his arms and flung them towards Adam, prompting the tentacle to split into a mass of black tendrils that shot in unison at the parasite.
“Your tenacity is admirable,” Adam quipped as it held up a hand. When the tentacles slowed to a stop in front of it, Adam dropped its voice into a low growl. “But you should remember
I am stronger than you.”
The tentacles shot back at Bill, and once again, he had no time to dodge. In a split second, each of the appendages twisted around each other to form a giant drill. And this drill shot straight through Bill’s chest and pinned him to the floor. There were no screams. Not even a yelp. Just the crash of the drill into the wooden floor and the dull thuds of Bill’s limbs striking the splintered floorboards. Floating over him, Adam peered down at its host, into the pale and trembling face of its host.
“Are you done?” it asked.
Bill neither moved nor spoke. Adam exhaled and lifted a hand. The drill pulled itself out of the floor and unwound, fanning its tendrils out behind Adam. As soon as the drill withdrew, the wound on Bill’s chest began to close.
“Get up,” Adam ordered.
He refused to stir. Adam took the opportunity to kick him—hard.
“Get up.”
Nothing.
Adam lifted a hand. “Very well. If this is what you choose to do, then so be it.”
It snapped its fingers, and one of the doors in the wall swung open to reveal perfect blackness beyond it. Adam trotted around Bill and partway down the steps. It didn’t get very far before a faint voice echoed from the doorway.
“Nii-chan!”
Bill flinched. His eyes widened as he listened to the voice. Raye’s voice.
“Nii-chan! Okiro! Please! Okiro!”
“Raye,” he mumbled. With some effort, he moved his head towards Adam. “What are you…?”
“What am I doing?” Adam replied. “What do you think? Going outside. If you refuse to wake up, then I have no choice but to take over your body completely. I will merge our energy reservoirs. Drown you out. Obliterate your mind. Such a pity that everything will have to go to waste, but you are being far too uncooperative for me to manage.”
“And … and Raye…”
“Will she be protected?” Adam asked. It hesitated. “What happens to her is not any of my concern. But if you refuse to help her, she will undoubtedly die. Perhaps I should put her out of her misery. It would be far easier if I—”
A force slammed into Adam’s back and slammed it into the wall. The attack was blunt and heavy, as if a sledgehammer drove itself into Adam’s back. Then, the object moved, dragging the parasite like a rag doll up the wall and into the air. The tentacle jerked upwards, tossing Adam towards the ceiling before wrapping around its frame and clenching. At once, the familiar feeling of being crushed flooded its body, but the tentacle wasn’t applying enough pressure to do the job. At first, Adam thought that this wasn’t intentional, that Bill wasn’t strong enough to use the appendage to deal massive damage to it, but looking down at its host, the parasite could see that this was a different case entirely.
Bill was on his feet. But he wasn’t standing in an animalistic pose like he had during his first attack. His back was straight. His arms hung steadily at his sides with his hands balled into tight fists. His eyes were on Adam, and his face bore a sharp frown. But more than that, the look in his eyes wasn’t one of the wild anger Adam had seen a moment ago. It was a cold fury, a calculating one, an intelligent one. This wasn’t the look of a man who wanted to paint the walls with whatever was left of his enemies. This was the look of a man who would chain them down and pull out their fingernails, who would drip acid into their eyeballs, who would take away everything they loved first just to watch them suffer. Bill looked like he was going to kill Adam, but that death was going to come as gradually and painfully as possible.
And if Adam could smile, it would right then out of pride.
“If you hurt her,” Bill began.
He waved a hand towards the other tentacle and gestured vaguely towards Adam. The tentacle responded by shooting towards the parasite and splitting into a thousand thin wires that all stopped within inches of Adam’s face. From that vantage point, Adam could see the glistening, razor-sharp edges of every single fiber.
“I will dissolve our contract and take this body for myself,” Bill finished.
Adam believed it. The creature believed every last word of it. Yet it couldn’t help but tilt its head and comment.
“How do you know that I will not simply wrest control out of your hands and lock you away inside your head?”
The tentacles unwound, dropping Adam onto the floor with a thud. Quickly, they receded, snaking under Bill’s feet to form the floorboards once more. All the while, Bill continued to stare at Adam with the same furious expression.
“You know as well as I do that locks can’t hold me,” he replied. “Not if you’re threatening my sister. No matter what you do, I will break out, and
you will regret it.”
“You also cannot kill me,” Adam responded. “You know the consequences if you do.”
“Who said I would kill you?”
It was then that Adam stopped, and it was then that it studied Bill for a long while, not out of amusement but out of actual, sheer curiosity. There was something in the way the human carried himself now, something that went beyond even Adam’s understanding. Adam was mistaken. This wasn’t murderous rage, nor was it a vengeful wrath. Bill had no desire to kill him. But this was a calculated promise all the same, one that both fit Bill’s natural aversion to destruction and offered nothing but a creative Hell. No, Adam wouldn’t die. But Bill would make it wish it would.
And then, upon dwelling on why that was, Adam opened its eyes. It knew now what this meant and who the promise was really to. No, not Adam. Not specifically. It was a promise to anyone who hurt the people Bill cared about—that little girl especially.
“Love is a curious thing, is it not?” Adam said. “I was wrong about you.”
Bill began walking to the open door. He had nothing to say.
“What will you do now?” Adam called after him.
Pausing at the threshold, Bill answered, “You know exactly what I’m doing.”
He looked over his shoulder, and in that second, Adam could see that he was …
smiling. Actually smiling.
Adam was wrong about Bill, and it knew that now. It was very, very wrong.
“I’m waking up,” Bill said.
