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Operation GEAR: The Angel of Reckoning (R)

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
Colress’s mockery moved Yung to take another look at Mewtwo. The Mirage Pokémon was still pressing Nekou into the wall, but much to its creator’s shock, she was moving around underneath it.


Yung. The Mirage Mewtwo. Together the two of them had taken Ariana away, and that was the only coherent thought rising from the maelstrom in her head. She didn't even really feel the pain from Mewtwo's electricity. Her other self saw to that.


"I'll ****ing destroy this thing!!"


The presence in her head, if it had a physical form, would have embraced her and stroked her hair. She certainly felt the sensation as if it were real.


"Don't worry," the voice whispered to her, "we can do anything if we're together. Anything is possible."


In the course of her convulsions, Nekou felt her arms spring free. She was able to rip an iron bar off the wall, which she then smashed across Mewtwo’s face with a loud smack, making Mewtwo stumble away. Giving chase, she kept hitting Mewtwo with the metal rod despite the Mirage Pokémon already being dizzy from the first blow. Every strike forced Mewtwo to cede a few more feet until Nekou shifted to hitting it over the head instead. At that point, it wasn’t long before she viciously beat Mewtwo to the ground, keeping up her onslaught against it even after it lay stunned.


“Disappear! Disappear!!”


Yung couldn’t help but be totally stunned at what he was watching. “The Mirage System is the perfect invention…” he uttered, dumbfounded. “Mewtwo is supposed to be the world’s strongest Pokémon… and the Mirage System removes even its flaws… how can this be?!”


“Maybe your confidence in your little creation is your undoing?” Colress suggested. Even though he’d said this in a completely innocent voice, he was anything but well-intentioned. It was all an act, just to mock Yung more than ever. “That living hologram of yours? It’s a flawed specimen born of flawed theories. My methods are the only real way to draw out a Pokémon’s true strength!”


“Flawed specimen?” Those two words made something in Yung snap. He’d certainly been angry before, between Colress’s constant disrespect and having to face Ariana. But when he heard his colleague call the product of his life’s work a flawed specimen, he completely erupted. “Just watch! Prepare to witness the ultimate Mirage Pokémon, you corrupt fool!” Punching keys on his controller anew, Yung shouted, “Mewtwo, get rid of her!”


At its creator’s command, Mewtwo flipped over, driving its fist into Nekou’s throat. The hit threw her several feet into the air, but she still managed to land on her feet. She dropped the iron pole in the process, however, and clutched at her neck instead of trying to recover it. Mewtwo, seizing the opportunity presented by Nekou stunned and coughing, formed three Water Shurikens around its hands and threw them at her. The watery stars slashed into her face and hands, but like all the others, the wounds vanished in seconds. Not only did they heal, but the sensation of their regeneration snapped Nekou out of the daze Throat Chop inflicted on her.


“I’ll rip that ****ing thing to shreds!!” her voice, combined with that of her other self, rang out in her head. Pure instinct drove her to charge at Mewtwo again, entirely prepared to fight with her fists once more.


“Not this time!” Yung defiantly said. “Mewtwo, Iron Defense!”


Mewtwo spread its arms instead of taking direct action against Nekou. Its body retextured itself, taking on a much more sturdy constitution of solid, reflective steel. Nekou’s punch bounced off Mewtwo’s armor with a loud clang, shattering the bones in her hand and wrist for no gain against the creature.


“That’s about right,” Mewtwo’s creator concluded. “Now, Mewtwo, finish her off! Focus Punch!”


Colress couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud when Yung issued that call. He bitingly accused his colleague, “You really don’t want to win this at all, do you? Giving her an opening now of all times? Surely you must see what’s happening right in front of you!”


He would never admit it, but Yung actually hadn’t noticed what Colress was referring to. Not until the visor-wearing scientist called his attention to it, anyway. While Mewtwo stood still and focused its power, Nekou’s broken bones were regenerating unhindered, restoring her hand to normal. Her bones cracking and popping as they shifted would have turned his stomach by itself, to say nothing of the compounding factor his shame over his mistake provided. No, what truly terrified him was how nonchalant she was about it. In fact, judging from the sigh that slipped from her lips as she shook off the last of the injury, he came to believe she was enjoying it.


Once her hand and wrist fully healed, Nekou sprang at Mewtwo with such speed that Yung couldn’t react. She seized Mewtwo around its torso and, the muscles in her limbs straining and swelling to exert their full strength, lifted it up.


“Impossible!” His confidence shattered, Yung frantically and incoherently entered commands into his controller. He wasn’t thinking anymore. “With the added weight of that metal body, there’s no way… fine, if that’s the way you want this to go down, Mewtwo, use Self-Destruct!!”


At first, Mewtwo didn’t react to its new directive. The state of near-perfect mental acuity it had reached while preparing to use Focus Punch took a few seconds to fade away, but when it did,the Mirage Pokémon released its stance and tucked in its arms and legs.


“You know, I don’t know how much more of my power you can handle right now.”


Nekou had no choice but to acknowledge that her other self was correct. As she lifted Mewtwo, she was starting to gasp for air. “I… y-you’re right… come on, let’s ****ing end this.”


“I’ve got enough left in me… in you… for that.”


With one last surge of strength, Nekou bet her spine back to heft Mewtwo above her. The artificial creature was, by then, radiating a bright light, but before it could detonate, she flung it straight at its creator.


“Fucking… take… that!” she roared at Yung between huffs for air. If anyone was going to be caught in Mewtwo’s Self-Destruct, it was going to be the one who took Ariana away from her. That was the one inevitable truth she held in that moment.


Or it was the one inevitable truth until Mewtwo actually reached Yung.


When Mewtwo should have struck its creator, it simply flew straight through him and crashed into the darkness beyond. Yung’s image flickered and distorted, but he wasn’t alone in suffering such an effect. Mewtwo’s piercing the shadows lining the lab’s perimeter glitched them as well, and within the cloud of static, a drone carrying a Mirage System generator became visible near where Mewtwo landed.


Normally, seeing the device giving her nemesis life would have directly led to Nekou attacking the drone itself. She had no need to in this instance, however. Mewtwo’s Self-Destruct, which went off moments later, saw to that. The explosion totaled the drone and kicked up a shockwave that knocked Nekou onto her back. With the drone disabled, both Mewtwo and the veil of darkness around the lab faded, reverting into the Mirage System’s lines of code before disappearing entirely.


“That’s it, I’m spent and so are you,” the presence in her mind said to her. “Besides, you don’t need me anymore, that monster’s gone. There was room for only one monster here, after all.”


Understanding what the voice was implying, Nekou spitefully answered, “**** you. I’m not what you say I am…”


Nekou could easily imagine the sort of sneering grin her other self was shooting her, even without a face to look at. “Aha. You’ll see… you’ll see.”


And then, just as suddenly as it arrived, Nekou felt her other self slip from her mind completely. She felt herself regain control of her body, and along with it, finally felt like she could breathe freely again.


“Aaah!!” she gasped, inhaling more than she was certain she ever had before. That feeling of relief derailed into a groan, however, when all the pain her other self had been shielding her from caught up with her at once. It nearly paralyzed her, but she forced herself to sit up anyway.


Somehow, even with the Mirage System in the lab offline, Colress and Yung were still there, standing just as they were when she went down. It wasn’t until then that it began to sink into Nekou’s mind that they actually weren’t there at all. The way Yung had hidden from detection until he wanted to appear. How he seemingly made the Mirage System controller appear out of thin air. Why Mewtwo passed through Yung when she threw it at him. All of it had only one explanation that made sense, and that explanation left her to stare wide-eyed at the two scientists.


“Yes, my dear Nekou, you’re beginning to understand, aren’t you?” Colress taunted her, stepping away from his console. “Jeunes and I have been one, two… no, three steps ahead street crooks like you from the start. We knew you were going to attack the Adenosine Base today, so we had plenty of time to get all our valuable research material off the platform! I know you must be thinking, ‘what about the Pokémon we were able to steal?’ right now. Well, those were just our failed research subjects! All the good ones are long gone! Everything that happened here today has unfolded exactly the way Polaris planned it!”


“Y-you’re saying… it was all for nothing…”


“I wouldn’t say it was for nothing, my dear. Hopefully you and your family will have learned a valuable lesson in humility and won’t cross our paths again. That said…” Colress jabbed a finger up in thought. “In case we somehow don’t run into each other again, I’d like to explain to you how we pulled this off. This base has been unmanned the entire time. It was thanks to a combination Jeunes and I cooked up that we tricked you so well… his Mirage System created the Mirage Pokémon and made you think there were crewmen aboard for you to worry about, but the two of us have been using a VR system I recently developed. That’s how we’re still here. Quite impressive, don’t you agree? Even the Mirage System has some use, in the end!”


Colress started laughing hysterically, amused by a joke only he thought was funny. Bitter at being made the punchline, Yung glared at him, only to spot something else he hadn’t expected to.


Ariana, still alive, had pulled herself up on Colress’s mainframe and was about to connect a cylindrical device to it. Between their preoccupation with fighting Nekou and Colress’s stepping away from the console, she had been able to drag herself behind Colress without notice.


“Colress, behind you!” Yung shouted.


Colress turned, but it was already too late. Even though she was struggling to hold herself up on the computer, she managed to click the cylinder into a port on the console, then glared spitefully at the hologram of the blond-haired researcher and pulled her phone from her uniform.


“Mission complete,” she uttered into her communicator. “Contact Pierce for extraction.”


“Maman!! You’re… you’re…” Nekou still struggled to speak, her body badly impaired by the pain she felt. Even though every inch of her being hurt in ways she could hardly comprehend, the sight of Ariana gave her the strength to fight it. She hoped against all odds that things might turn out alright.


“That appears to be quite the curious gadget you’ve got there,” Colress said to Ariana, scratching his chin with his finger as he spoke. Much to the surprise of those around him, his interest seemed to be genuine. “Might you be willing to tell me what it does?”


“Gladly,” Ariana spat, coughing before she could continue. “It’ll… it’ll let us send an energy pulse through all your machines in this base… they’ll overload, and then they’ll explode, and they’ll take the whole Adenosine Base down with them. Tough luck.”


“Remove it!” Yung angrily demanded.


“There’s no need, Jeunes,” Colress contradicted him. “Polaris has no more use the Adenosine Base anyway, so it’s hardly a loss. Besides, I’m sure she wouldn’t actually remove it, no matter how nicely we asked. In addition…” Tilting his head so he could shoot Nekou a dirty look over his shoulder, he added, “...I no longer have any need for these two. They have no value left for my research.”


That snide comment turned out to be Colress’s last. His hologram flickered and vanished, soon followed by Yung’s doing the same.


Nekou had no concern whatsoever about where they had gone. As far as she cared, their leaving the laboratory was as good as them leaving her mind altogether. They didn’t matter. Who did matter was Ariana, who finally lost her strength and slumped down with her back against the computer.


“Maman!”


-:-


Meanwhile, in another dark chamber far from the Adenosine Base, Colress and Yung removed the virtual reality helmets that projected their presence across the ocean.


“Lights up,” Colress said out loud.


“Roger,” a female voice replied over a loudspeaker. “Bringing up the holodeck lights.”


A moment later, the spacious room was illuminated by the spotlights mounted on its ceiling. Aside from a prop mimicking Colress’s computer, there was nothing else contained within its black walls.


“So how did you like my VR system, Jeunes?” Colress didn’t actually care what Yung thought, so he kept talking without giving his colleague a chance to answer. “Tell me, is your lust for revenge sated?”


“No, not yet.” Yung’s reply was met with a dismissive shrug from Colress, but Yung elected to ignore it for the time being. “There’s still much work to be done… only when my Mirage Mewtwo is perfected and I destroy all of Team Rocket with it, will I be satisfied.”


“That doesn’t surprise me at all.” Colress grinned. “Go work on that, if that’s what you wish. I’m going to give a report to Finansielle.”


“I’m a Chromosome too, so it should be me,” Yung argued.


“Nah. I’m telling Finansielle.” Practically dancing on air with cheer over his accomplishments, Colress bound toward the holodeck’s exit and only stopped to turn back and taunt Yung, “My operation went fantastically! Exactly how she said it would! So… you work on that little toy of yours, and I’ll see you around! Ta ta!”


If he had the Mirage System handy in the room, Yung would have used a Mirage Pokémon to pulverize the door after Colress left through it. “One day, you’ll get yours… you wait and see.”


-:-


“Maman… why…” Even in the face of the great physical pain she felt, Nekou had forced herself to move, one step after another, until she could kneel at Ariana’s side. “Why did you push me away…? I easily could have survived that… you know that…”


“I couldn’t… just let you go through that again. Not after Ecruteak…” Ariana coughed again, and when she lifted her hand to her mouth, Nekou gasped in horror at the crimson stain spreading across Ariana’s abdomen. “Just because you could survive it doesn’t mean you should have to.”


“But at what cost?!” Nekou grabbed Ariana’s shoulders, but consciously had to refrain from shaking her by them. “You can’t just throw your life away like that! I need you!”


“And I’ll always be there with you, even if you can’t see me.” Ariana reached up and gently placed her hand on Nekou’s cheek, an act that made the water welling up in Nekou’s eyes flow freely.


“But… but…” In the midst of her tears, Nekou struggled to speak clearly. As if the loss she faced wasn’t bad enough, “There’s not… how can you be here if you’re not there? How can you be there if you’re nowhere?


Ariana understood perfectly what Nekou was alluding to. She’d expressed her feelings regarding death plenty of times before, and sadness wasn’t the only thing Ariana saw in the twisted, crying face looking down on her. There was also fear, the kind of crippling fear that begged for some sort of reassurance, which Ariana tried to give her by stroking her face. “I’m not scared of what’s going to happen to me… you shouldn’t be, either. As long as I’m in your memory… I’ll still be here.”


“There has to be another way,” Nekou frantically insisted. “There has to be.”


Right as Nekou said that, an explosion from above destroyed a portion of the ceiling over the the left side of the room, creating a hole through which sunlight flowed freely in. When the blast initially shook the laboratory, Nekou’s first instinct was to cover Ariana’s body with her own, but the next voice she heard brought her some relief.


“Hey, you two!” Petrel called out from the other side of the newly-opened crater, where he and Proton were hovering with jetpacks. “Your ride’s here, it’s time to go!”


“That’s… that’s right, our escape…” In all the confusion, some of the specifics of Team Rocket’s plan for the operation had slipped her mind. Still, even though Nekou was able to remember, it felt like divine providence when Petrel dropped two more jetpacks down for her and Ariana to use. She scampered over to the machines and strapped one onto her back, then hurried the other one to Ariana. “Maman, let’s go,” she pleaded, trying to force the jetpack onto the executive. A broken smile had wormed its way onto her face, a reflection of what she wanted to believe even while her tears told the truth she refused to accept. Her racing thoughts came out in the form of rambling, saying, “Come on, let’s go. We’ll get out of here and get on the helicopter and head back to Olivine and then you can get fixed up and…”


“No.” Ariana pushed the jetpack back into Nekou’s arms, only for Nekou to drop it when her arms went limp. “Even if I make it to Olivine… I’m not coming back from this.” To emphasize her point, Ariana gingerly touched the blood on her uniform. The stain had grown significantly in just the short time since they last looked at it. “Even if I got out of here… besides, my illness… even if the one in a million chance where I survive this came to pass, I haven’t got enough time left to make what I’d put you through worth it. Like I told you in Ecruteak, all we were doing was delaying the inevitable… you and Rosalie weren’t curing me, we all know that. There was always going to be a day when it couldn’t stop everything from catching up to me again. Nekou, listen to me. If you leave me behind now, you can move forward… I can’t bear to force you to watch me falling apart and keep wearing yourself out hoping some miracle will happen.”


Nekou froze, her previously spiraling, irrational thinking coming to an abrupt halt. How could she have forgotten Ariana summoning her the morning she was supposed to be at Ecruteak’s Dance Hall with Matt, Olivia and the others? No, the truth was she hadn’t forgotten at all. She wanted to, oh, had she wanted to. But no matter how hard she ran away from it, there was no escaping the truth. With Rosalie’s help, she had been concocting various homemade medications to sustain Ariana’s life and comfort for as long as possible. That morning, Nekou had received the news she long dreaded - their creations wouldn’t help anymore. As Ariana had just said, her time was running out.


“But...but…” Nekou stuttered, growing increasingly hysterical. The pointlessness of it all wasn’t lost on her. If Ariana wasn’t already facing death, she wouldn’t have been so impulsive in sacrificing herself to Mewtwo’s attack. Even if she did still take the same actions, without her illness, Nekou believed she’d go back to Olivine and let Rosalie save her. It was all pointless. All Yung had done was rob them of the last bit of time they had.


In her panic and grief, Nekou failed to notice Proton and Petrel descend until they had already landed.


“What’s wr-” Proton cut himself off when he got a look at Ariana’s condition. The sight of his superior in such a dire state broke right through his carefully constructed self-image. He lost control over his voice and yelled, “What the hell happened here?!”


“It’s too fucking long to explain!” Nekou choked out. “Help me get her up!”


“No!” Ariana immediately overruled, the strain causing her to wheeze painfully. “I’m going to detonate the Adenosine Base… leave me behind and get Nekou out of here! Go!”


Nekou, too deep in denial of what was happening, protested, “I won’t go without her!”


“It’s an order!”


Petrel shook his head sadly at Nekou and Ariana one-upping each other. “It hurts my heart to see the two of you like this… Ariana, what happened to you...”


“You can say that again,” Proton agreed. “But Ariana did say it was an order…”


“No, please, don’t!” Nekou begged him. “We’ll both go!”


“I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.” Proton’s uncharacteristic apology caught Nekou by surprise, buying him enough time to whip his phone out of his pocket. “Pierce, send your Braviary down! We need help!"


Nekou's face sank further at the sight of the eagle as he descended from the hole in the ceiling. Any other time, she would have had the strength to fend him off, but in her crashed, weakened state, she didn't stand a chance.


"Come, Miss Nekou," Petrel gently urged her. "I do understand why you feel the way you do, but there's so much still ahead of us. I'm sure Ariana wants you to see it all."


"I can't…"


"Nekou, listen," Ariana spoke up. "He's completely right. You're stronger than you think. Go forward, stand on your own two feet, and live. Just like I've always told you to."


"I…" Nekou suddenly found herself losing all will to keep fighting to change Ariana's mind. Despair had taken hold in her mind and she couldn't shake it. "Maman, I don't know what I can do…"


"You can do anything," Ariana replied, "and everything, if you want. You've got it in you."


"Maman…"


Petrel set a reassuring hand on Nekou's shoulder. "We should go. There's nothing good here for any of us."


"Y-you're right…" Nekou finally conceded. She took one last glance at Ariana before averting her eyes, unable to look at her beloved mother figure any longer. "Maman, I'm sorry… I couldn't save you like you saved me…"


"You never had to. That wasn't your responsibility. What is your responsibility is how you choose to embrace your life going forward."


Unable to take any more, Nekou's body and mind gave out. She fell to her knees, and hung like a ragdoll in Braviary's talons as he held her by the shoulders and flew her out of the base.


"Sayonara, kid," Ariana muttered. The last vestiges of her strength were starting to fail, so she settled in against the console.


Proton and Petrel, meanwhile, stood side-by-side in front of her. It was something they'd done plenty of times before, when they couldn't get assignments from Giovanni or Stacia instead. Obviously, this time was vastly different, and although neither of them said so, they were both well aware it would be the last time they stood like that before her. It was the end of an era.


"Are you really sure about this?" Proton asked. Although he wasn't completely breaking like Nekou had, the quivering in his voice and tremble in his hands made plain how rattled he was.


“I am,” Ariana answered with as much authority as either executive had ever heard from her. She beckoned Proton to her, and as he approached, slipped off the belt that her three Poké Balls were attached to. Handing them over to him, she asked, “Can you keep Arbok, Victreebel and Magcargo safe?”


“I will,” he promised. “It was an honor to serve alongside you.”


“Indeed,” Petrel added. “Your name will be legendary in the history of Team Rocket.”


“Thank you… make sure everyone is taken care of.”


“We will.” Proton affirmed.


Nothing more needed to be said. Proton nodded at Petrel, and the two of them activated their jetpacks, carrying them up and out of the laboratory.


Once she was alone, Ariana reached into her uniform and withdraw two objects. One was her Team Rocket phone, and she activated its Matori by tapping on its screen.


“At your service, Executive Ariana,” the artificial intelligence greeted her.


“Matori…” Ariana coughed again. “Start the countdown to the pulse detonation.”


“Right away.” Matori bowed, and a timer appeared over her image.


With the appearance of the rapidly declining digits, Ariana concluded her work was done. It was then that she turned her attention to the second object that had been tucked in her uniform - a photograph of herself with a younger Nekou and Silver. She was the only one of the three smiling, while Nekou looked away nervously and Silver pouted in anger, but the photograph still meant much to her. Whereas Giovanni was never close to their son thanks to his strained relationship with his own mother, Ariana always felt close to both Silver and her adopted daughter.


“I wish I could have been able to patch things up with him…” she wistfully said. As the clock counted down, she tapped the phone’s screen to bring Matori back. “Matori, I want to ask you… do you think I lived the right way?”


“Executive Ariana…” Matori paused, as if she was considering her next words carefully. “As an artificial intelligence, I am afraid I cannot make such a judgment. However, based on my analysis of the subject in available data, I see that people generally consider a life lived without regrets to be one that was well lived.”


Ariana already knew this, but hearing it again gave her a feeling of peace. She shut her eyes as she felt her strength ebb away, whispering to herself, “I won’t say I have no regrets. I really do wish I could have made peace with Silver. But in the end… I think I lived a good life. I just hope everyone will be able to live like that, too…”


-:-


Aboard the helicopter en route back to Olivine City, Nekou, Proton and Petrel all stood near the open cargo hatch at the back of the craft, watching as the Adenosine Base faded into the distance.


Nekou silently prayed that somehow, what she knew was coming would never happen. It was an irrational hope but all she had to hold on to. Yet, the inevitable came, heralded by a bright light from the facility. Seconds later, the one event she begged the fates to prevent came.


The Altru Northstar, otherwise known as the Adenosine Base, exploded into a massive fireball. Nekou, all her hopes burning with the flames, fell to her knees and let out an inhuman wail that carried her anguish across the sea.






END of CHAPTER 26
 

Sike Saner

Peace to the Mountain
"It was a dream, Olivia." Anabel wasn't even certain if her reassurances were meant to be for herself instead.

I bet they were. Like at least 70% self-directed.

Her hand paused on Zorua's back, and the Dark-type Pokémon looked up at her in confusion.

"excuse u did i tell u to stop petting me"

Olivia's interruption helped Nekou place a check on her spiraling anxiety. Now centered a bit more, she decided that even if her other memories caused her great distress, she could deal with revealing them to Olivia and Anabel. As for the one she hated most, it could be kept in the dark corner in which it belonged.

For now. I imagine it won't stand for being caged forever.

Instead of answering Zinzolin's persistent questioning, Silva sighed. "Hold on," the junior officer said, tapping his phone twice to pause the game. He then made his way toward the balcony, looking over his shoulder to ask, "Infernape, make sure he stays put."


Infernape responded with a fierce, sharp cry, and Zinzolin grimaced. "Can't they see I'm not trying to run? It's all a bit much."

Sorry bro, but the universe is and has always been pretty keen on making you uncomfortable.

Before Looker could even step past Infernape, Mitsumi had already crossed the room again. She hit several keys on her laptop, then stood back as a window with the International Police emblem and a rotating, multicolor wheel came up on the screen. Silva and Looker promptly joined her in time for their chief to appear.


"Nanu," Looker addressed the man, whose wrinkled face and dark hair encroached upon by grey gave him an appearance beyond his years.

IT'S NOO NOO! :D Hi, Noo Noo!

I think it's so badass that he canonically has red eyes and I probably always will. Red eyes rule.

(Don't tell Ghetsis I said that.)

Now that Dhelmise was in front of him, Matt could distinguish that the compass set into its wheel was actually an eye, or at least the closest thing such a bizarre creature had to one.

Dhelmise are so freakin' weird and I love them for it.

On that note, thematically speaking, dhelmise really seems like the perfect mascot for an inverse battle. Here we have a species that's not at all the type it would appear to be, in a situation where the type chart gets turned entirely on its head.

Tanya didn't need to hear that twice. Even before Matt's warning, she was already watching the ground warily. She anticipated an attack from beneath her feet, so she focused special attention on them, lifting them one at a time in a search for any sign of danger.

I am helplessly reminded of all those videos of dogs wearing socks/shoes and moving very similarly. How might a heatran react to having shoes on?

Dhelmise’s anchor crashed squarely into Tanya’s head, the two metal surfaces colliding to produce a horrible, ear-splitting clang that made everyone on the field cringe.

Hell, even I cringed. It's easy to imagine how effing awful that must've sounded. I feel sorry for everyone there.

True to Olivia's words, Ethan still stood firmly against Matt and Sally. He narrowed his eyes at Donphan getting burned; it was certainly an inconvenience, but not one he couldn't handle.

I imagine Ethan seems especially unfazed compared to Matt, who has one hell of a horse in this race and isn't even really trying to hide that fact.

It was only when Donphan pivoted toward one of the Ice Shards stuck in the ground that they realized what he was doing.


"Sally, look out!" Matt cried up to her, but it was already too late. Donphan hit the fallen shard and used it as a ramp to pitch himself into the air.

Okay, that caught me off-guard. I wasn't sure what Ethan was playing at with the ice shards, but it certainly didn't occur to me that he could be using them for mobility. Neat!

Ethan, meanwhile, was unsure of what to do. Matt was holding the Ultra Ball but making no effort to throw it, so the match had effectively stalled.

I like this acknowledgement that while Matt is lost in thought, but time is still passing for everyone else.

Instead of sending out his own Pokémon, Ethan was considering calling for a time-out and asking Amanda for advice on what to do.

I'm glad this crossed Ethan's mind. Being concerned for his opponent in this situation reflects well upon him.

He jabbed Nikola squarely in the front of its oven, making sparks shower out of the Rotom as it reeled.

I love that there's a situation where an oven could legitimately be referred to as part of something's anatomy. Good ol' rotom.

Golisopod grunted, her breath rustling the whiskers in front of her mouth. She reached towards her left arm, and the watery sword she drew from the armor on it absolutely dumbfounded both Matt and Olivia. It was gigantic, easily many times thicker than the Razor Shell Samurott could use. In fact, it was so large and heavy that Golisopod had to grip its hilt with both hands to wield it.

Well that's certainly badass. :D And thus fitting for a golisopod.

Grunting an assent to Ethan’s order, Golisopod carefully grasped the hilt of her sword with both hands. Instead of swinging it, she pulled on the weapon in opposite directions, and the immense blade split apart in its wielder’s grasp. What had once been one great sword became two lighter, sleeker ones that no longer impeded their user’s mobility.

So cool...

“It worked… somehow,” Matt said, blinking in awe. “Agnetha, hurry and use Ice Punch!”


With Golisopod temporarily still, Agnetha had all the time she needed to bounce out of her slide and drive one of her cold-infused tails into Golisopod’s underbelly, forcing a raspy breath out of her opponent.

I like that she uses her tails for punching attacks, because of course an ambipom would do it that way.

By then having sensed Golisopod drawing near, Agnetha whipped around in a circle, allowing her tails to swing behind her. Her left tail simply bounced off of Golisopod's armor, but while that blow proved ineffective, her right was busy snatching up the fallen blade. Golisopod's armored cocoon quickly became a liability, leaving her unable to see her own sword being brandished against her. When Agnetha struck her with it, she got knocked completely out of her Drill Run and sent flying until she finally crumpled to her hands and knees.

Whoops! I, uh, guess there's a drawback to be had when it comes to putting one's elemental power into a form that one can fumble, heh.

"Hm, I got Ice…" Ethan noted, though his upbeat mood swiftly returned. "It doesn't matter! With all its abilities strengthened, behold the Z that protects the Battle Submarine!"

Wait.

He had a porygon-z use a z-move.

Is he punning on purpose, because if so, omg.

“I was afraid of this,” Ethan uttered, facing the end of the room. “As soon as you said you wanted answers, I had a bad feeling I would have to be the one to tell you this… it doesn’t work that way. Reshiram doesn’t work that way. What Damon explained to me is that Reshiram assists those who have a truth they hold so dear to themselves that they would throw away everything to fight for it. Reshiram doesn’t simply expose truth, it helps those who gave up everything for a truth to reshape the world according to it.”


“Matt…?” Amanda softly addressed her brother when she felt his fingers tighten even further around her own.


She got no reply. As far as Matt was concerned, everything he knew had just come crashing down.


“No… it can’t be… it just can’t!!”

Never meet your heroes. Not even when they're big, fluffy dragons.

God, but that's gotta be hella rough. When you've pinned everything to a specific outcome, and it goes away, it can seem to take reality itself along with it, and suddenly you're floundering. Suddenly you don't know what to do. I don't envy this guy in the least.

Behind his visor, Colress’s eyes glittered with the spirit of his childlike, almost innocent excitement at his own brilliance.

Leave it to Colress to be a giant fricking DORK yet disconcerting at the same time.

Before James could even do anything, Matori suddenly appeared on the phone’s screen by herself. “Your obstinance regarding me is reducing your mission efficiency by nine percent. That is according to my current statistical analysis. I recommend you amend this behavior right away.”


Jessie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Great, now bob-cut glasses gal is a virus too.”


“New analysis,” Matori immediately said back, maintaining the cool yet biting demeanor of the woman her programming was based on. “Your efficiency has dropped by fourteen percent.”

Artificial intelligence, very real sass.

Unbeknownst to the trio, they were in fact being followed, but not by a human. The key ring Pokémon that had escaped during Colress’s revival of the Pixie Plate had been in the hallway when they arrived. Upon spotting the jar of Poké Beans in James’s possession, he started floating after them from behind.

Oh ****, here comes Boo Boo Keys.

Before the smoke from the destruction even faded, alarms started going off throughout the base. Proton and Petrel shared satisfied grins before they both glared right into the security camera and gave it a thumbs-up.

Cheeky things.

Behind his mask, Jeunes grit his teeth. “Stop playing games, Colress.

He'd sooner stop breathing the air.

A red-eyed, humanoid badger with black-and-white fur, sharp teeth and a long tongue that dangled from its mouth, it stepped forth on muscular legs, spread its arms and roared to assert dominance over the others.

Oh look, one of my favorite 8th-gen mons just showed up, sort of. :D

Meowth couldn’t see him, but Wobbuffet had actually already made his way over to try and help out. Every time he tried to grasp Goomy, though, his arms just sank into the soft tissue of Goomy’s body. “Wob!” he exclaimed in frustration.

Sorry bro, you've been outblobbed.

Their resistance bought enough time for the light to fade, but it wasn’t Goomy that emerged from the glow. No longer the tiny, nearly shapeless slug he once was, evolution brought him the form of a purple snail with green eyes, four antennae on his head, and a spiral shell made of the same slime as the rest of his body on his back. Reborn as a Sliggoo, he raised his nubby arms up as far as they would go and cried out, but what started as an attempted show of power almost instantly became a wail of fear and despair as a single realization dawned on him.


His new, featureless green eyes didn’t actually work. His evolution had completely robbed him of his sight.

WHOOPSY DOOPSY

An in-battle evolution posing a drawback is something I've rarely--if ever--seen before. Pretty neat, though Sliggoo surely disagrees. :B

Nekou had been walking so closely behind her that she bumped into Ariana’s back before snapping out of her daze.

I absolutely imagined the bump noise from the games here.

His mainframe was the only thing in the lab giving off light, and it cast a sinister, almost demonic glow around the scientist.

The scientist, and his absurd hair.

Mewtwo spread its arms instead of taking direct action against Nekou. Its body retextured itself, taking on a much more sturdy constitution of solid, reflective steel. Nekou’s punch bounced off Mewtwo’s armor with a loud clang, shattering the bones in her hand and wrist for no gain against the creature.

Ouch.

“Go work on that, if that’s what you wish. I’m going to give a report to Finansielle.”


“I’m a Chromosome too, so it should be me,” Yung argued.


“Nah. I’m telling Finansielle.” Practically dancing on air with cheer over his accomplishments, Colress bound toward the holodeck’s exit and only stopped to turn back and taunt Yung, “My operation went fantastically! Exactly how she said it would! So… you work on that little toy of yours, and I’ll see you around! Ta ta!”

WHAT A LITTLE ****

She took one last glance at Ariana before averting her eyes, unable to look at her beloved mother figure any longer. "Maman, I'm sorry… I couldn't save you like you saved me…"


"You never had to. That wasn't your responsibility. What is your responsibility is how you choose to embrace your life going forward."


Unable to take any more, Nekou's body and mind gave out. She fell to her knees, and hung like a ragdoll in Braviary's talons as he held her by the shoulders and flew her out of the base.

Awww... ;-;


Quite a somber note to end on. I have no doubts that this loss is gonna impact Nekou in a big way, even moreso than it's already done.
 

GastlyMan

Ghost Type Trainer
Okay, here’s a quick review for the past few chapters! :D

Chapter 25:

The Battle Submarine has technology that allows us to invert type matchups and conduct what are known as Inverse Battles. In other words, all super-effective hits are not very effective, and vice versa. Be sure to remember that.
Ooh, one of these! Now this should be fun to watch.
"I see what you mean," Matt acknowledged before turning away and covering his mouth. "I wish we could go back to those simpler times…" he thought, "...but then again, so much has happened since… I don't know if I'd make that trade, I just don't know…”

I like seeing this indecision. A lot of the time you want to go back to an easier time in your life, but then again, you’ve learned so much since then that you realize maybe where you are now is for the best.

Instead, Dhelmise used the water surrounding itself to slide across the field, comfortably separating itself from Tanya once again.

Aha, this is smart. I like watching strategies like this.

"Use Dragon Rush in the direction those Ice Shards came from!”

As stated above. It’s fun to see anime-style battles where they can improvise and come up with cool stuff on the fly.

Amanda sighed again. “Team Galactic, Polaris, I wish all of it would just go away so our lives can be peaceful like they used to be back in Hoenn. So we can enjoy the things we used to share without it feeling like an obligation, not being tormented by them like he is here.”
Great quote.
Yeah, that was a great battle overall. And an intense twist afterwards to boot.


Chapter 26:

“New analysis,” Matori immediately said back, maintaining the cool yet biting demeanor of the woman her programming was based on. “Your efficiency has dropped by fourteen percent.”
Ha, I love this.
The dome Nekou spotted emanated a bright light as it powered up, but it wasn’t alone. Numerous hatches slid open all along the corridor’s walls, allowing still more of the glassy prisms to reveal themselves. They all lit up in near unison, creating a sparkling universe of stars that radiated menace to the pair viewing them, who were all too aware of what their dazzling display meant.
Great description.
Nekou reached into her coat to retrieve her switchblade, but before she could reach it, Ariana intervened by sending out a Magcargo opposite Klinklang.


“Don’t let him get into your head,” she whispered to Nekou, making sure to cover her mouth so Colress couldn’t read her lips. “Remember why we’re here. One of us has to get to that computer and install the beacon to throw the kill switch on this entire base.”

Really great internal conflict here.

“And who were the ones that funded Fuji’s project? Who doomed my parents and all those other scientists?!” Growing even more furious, Yung couldn’t help himself from throwing his mask to the ground. “Giovanni and the rest of you are the ones responsible, but now that Ghetsis took care of him, it’s your turn to pay the price! I’ll never forget that day you came to our mansion to tell us what happened… that was the day I hid away all the records of my parents’ work and dedicated myself to finishing it so I could take revenge on you for them. The Pokémon Institute and Team Rocket held me back from reaching that goal before, but now, here you stand before me… I’m pay you back exactly as you did to me. You’re going to know what it feels to suffer the same loss I did, all for the ambitions of another.”
Same here as well. Powerful dialogue.
The whole fight with Nekou and Yung was fantastic.

“Maybe your confidence in your little creation is your undoing?” Colress suggested. Even though he’d said this in a completely innocent voice, he was anything but well-intentioned. It was all an act, just to mock Yung more than ever. “That living hologram of yours? It’s a flawed specimen born of flawed theories. My methods are the only real way to draw out a Pokémon’s true strength!”

Oh, I love their nasty little rivalry. Bad guy vs. bad guy. Genius scientist vs. genius scientist. It’s perfect.

The Altru Northstar, otherwise known as the Adenosine Base, exploded into a massive fireball. Nekou, all her hopes burning with the flames, fell to her knees and let out an inhuman wail that carried her anguish across the sea.
Great conclusion to the chapter. It hurt to see Ariana go like that. A part of me was still hoping that she'd make it out alive, but I think deep down I knew that wouldn't be the case. Nonetheless, excellent execution.

Overall, I really enjoyed these past two submissions. The emotional tension was carried out well, and I enjoyed the battle scenes, too. Nice work!
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
I bet they were. Like at least 70% self-directed.

You wouldn't be wrong.



"excuse u did i tell u to stop petting me"

lol



For now. I imagine it won't stand for being caged forever.

Oh, you know it. You absolutely know it.



Sorry bro, but the universe is and has always been pretty keen on making you uncomfortable.

I have to admit I'm rather enjoying making Zinzolin the Butt Monkey of this world right now, lol.



IT'S NOO NOO! :D Hi, Noo Noo!

I think it's so badass that he canonically has red eyes and I probably always will. Red eyes rule.

I'm glad you're excited to see him, but please don't get your hopes up too far. I only included him as a cameo to establish continuity and a place in the timeline (as in, well before the events of Sun and Moon would have happened) so he will not appear very much, if at all. That said, it was great fun to include him.



Dhelmise are so freakin' weird and I love them for it.

On that note, thematically speaking, dhelmise really seems like the perfect mascot for an inverse battle. Here we have a species that's not at all the type it would appear to be, in a situation where the type chart gets turned entirely on its head.

Funny story about that. Initially, I thought Dhelmise was a fixed encounter Pokemon because the very first time I fished where it was available I hooked one. I initially wanted to give Ethan a team of all Pokemon you get in fixed encounters to reflect his status as a player character, but even when I changed my mind about that I kept Dhelmise for the seafaring theme. But you're right, the bizarre, misleading imagery of its types is a fitting reason to include it as well.



I am helplessly reminded of all those videos of dogs wearing socks/shoes and moving very similarly. How might a heatran react to having shoes on?

Probably not very well, lol.



Hell, even I cringed. It's easy to imagine how effing awful that must've sounded. I feel sorry for everyone there.

I'm glad that effect came across.



I imagine Ethan seems especially unfazed compared to Matt, who has one hell of a horse in this race and isn't even really trying to hide that fact.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Ethan wants to win because it's his job, but as for Matt... I think it's more a case that he *can't* hide it.



Okay, that caught me off-guard. I wasn't sure what Ethan was playing at with the ice shards, but it certainly didn't occur to me that he could be using them for mobility. Neat!

Thanks. The idea of Donphan using an Ice Shard as a ramp was an image that came into my head early, and I really wanted to use it.



I like this acknowledgement that while Matt is lost in thought, but time is still passing for everyone else.

Yeah, that detail is important. Time can't stop.



I'm glad this crossed Ethan's mind. Being concerned for his opponent in this situation reflects well upon him.

Definitely. My thinking here was, given his position as a Frontier Brain, he is sort of an authority figure others would look up to, in a sense. He's likely to deal with a lot of people who are younger than Matt is, so he has to be ready to act in a sort of protective manner if need be.



I love that there's a situation where an oven could legitimately be referred to as part of something's anatomy. Good ol' rotom.

It's a wild world, huh?



Well that's certainly badass. :D And thus fitting for a golisopod.



So cool...

Golisopod's battle was difficult for me to write, in fact. Many of its traits were shown off in the Ash VS. Guzma battle that occurred near the end of the Alola League, including the water sword (although Guzma's Golisopod's sword was in fact Liquidation, not Razor Shell.) I had to thread a careful needle to reflect the traits Golisopod was shown to have while also not just copying the anime's version. The split Razor Shell was one such idea I had for that.



I like that she uses her tails for punching attacks, because of course an ambipom would do it that way.

I believe that's the canon way Ambipom punches, at least in one canon or another.



Whoops! I, uh, guess there's a drawback to be had when it comes to putting one's elemental power into a form that one can fumble, heh.

Definitely, that's for sure.



Wait.

He had a porygon-z use a z-move.

Is he punning on purpose, because if so, omg.

Oh, I wish that was deliberate. It was purely written as him using the tactical benefit Z-Conversion grants, no such pun was in mind, sad to say.



God, but that's gotta be hella rough. When you've pinned everything to a specific outcome, and it goes away, it can seem to take reality itself along with it, and suddenly you're floundering. Suddenly you don't know what to do. I don't envy this guy in the least.

That's exactly what I was going for - he was only living for that one reason, and now, it's suddenly gone. The way he deals with that is something that drives the story forward from here, I think. It could be something that's freeing for him if he only was able to see it that way.



Leave it to Colress to be a giant fricking DORK yet disconcerting at the same time.

That's him alright.



Artificial intelligence, very real sass.

"Matori" was actually a relatively last minute addition, born partially of my need to cover the fact that I already renamed the actual human character Matori as Stacia, and also of my wish to capture some of her personality traits from canon that don't mix with the way I wrote her human self.



Oh ****, here comes Boo Boo Keys.

It's funny just how long the relatively brief role Klefki played was in development.



Cheeky things.

That was quite a fun part.



He'd sooner stop breathing the air.

Amusingly enough, as lighthearted as Colress is, I think underneath it he's deadly serious about what he does. I just don't know what it would take for him to bring it out.



Oh look, one of my favorite 8th-gen mons just showed up, sort of. :D

The Mirage Obstagoon was yet another last minute addition (funny how that keeps happening, huh?) so I'm glad you were happy to see it!



Sorry bro, you've been outblobbed.

That bit felt like some genuine, traditional Team Rocket humor, at least to me.



An in-battle evolution posing a drawback is something I've rarely--if ever--seen before. Pretty neat, though Sliggoo surely disagrees. :B

For that, I was thinking less of disadvantaging Sliggoo and more that I wished to reference something unique about its concepts while also providing it a small "storyline" of sorts. That it is a pretty unusual thing to see in and of itself is a bonus, imo.



I absolutely imagined the bump noise from the games here.

You absolutely have my permission to imagine that.




She was certainly lucky that she didn't feel the normal pain from that, and even more lucky that she could regenerate from it. But when you fight something like that with your bare hands, injury is to be expected, unfortunately.



WHAT A LITTLE ****

That scene is certainly in contention for my favorite Colress scene of all, I'd say.



Awww... ;-;


Quite a somber note to end on. I have no doubts that this loss is gonna impact Nekou in a big way, even moreso than it's already done.

It will, and in the next chapter I think you'll get a very good feel for how it impacts her. You should be able to see it soon.

Thank you for the review!
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
Okay, here’s a quick review for the past few chapters! :D

Welcome back! It's great to hear from you again!

Chapter 25:


Ooh, one of these! Now this should be fun to watch.

It was pretty fun to write, having to think about the usual battle mechanics in opposite ways.


I like seeing this indecision. A lot of the time you want to go back to an easier time in your life, but then again, you’ve learned so much since then that you realize maybe where you are now is for the best.

All I will say about it now is, that's a theme that will come up again.



Aha, this is smart. I like watching strategies like this.

Thank you. For that specific strategy, I was forced to figure out a way to make Dhelmise more mobile on dry land, since despite both (or all three) of its types, it's an aquatic Pokemon. Liquidation helped with that.



As stated above. It’s fun to see anime-style battles where they can improvise and come up with cool stuff on the fly.

Yeah, I have to agree there. The freedom is enjoyable for me, too, while writing them.


Yeah, that was a great battle overall. And an intense twist afterwards to boot.

Thanks, I worked hard on it. And the twist... yeah, the twist was the linchpin of setting chapters 25 and 26 at the same time. After focusing squarely on Matt and those who accompanied him for the entire chapter, this has to make you wonder, what really was going on with Nekou's side? And then you see that in the next chapter.


Chapter 26:


Ha, I love this.

I had a feeling people would like that, lol.

Great description.

Had to get some new feeling out of a pretty familiar sight. I think it worked out quite well.


Really great internal conflict here.

Colress absolutely knows what buttons he's pushing.


Same here as well. Powerful dialogue.

Thank you. He'd been bottling that up for a very long time.


The whole fight with Nekou and Yung was fantastic.

I'm very proud of it, so I'm happy you enjoyed it.



Oh, I love their nasty little rivalry. Bad guy vs. bad guy. Genius scientist vs. genius scientist. It’s perfect.

The funny part is, from Colress's point of view, it's not even a rivalry at all. He truly, sincerely sees Yung as so far below him, so inferior to him, that he barely even matters.


Great conclusion to the chapter. It hurt to see Ariana go like that. A part of me was still hoping that she'd make it out alive, but I think deep down I knew that wouldn't be the case. Nonetheless, excellent execution.

I'm so relieved that part went over well... I was so worried that her death would come off as unearned, or excessive. I did evaluate the possibilities of her surviving but I just couldn't find any other way for it to go. But if she actually had you hoping there would be a way out, then I guess it worked.

Overall, I really enjoyed these past two submissions. The emotional tension was carried out well, and I enjoyed the battle scenes, too. Nice work!

Thank you so much! I hope you'll enjoy the next chapter just as much!

I am going to hopefully have that chapter out this upcoming week.
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
This one’s not going to be as intense action-wise as the last few chapters have been, but I think it’s going to counterbalance that with the emotional fallout from everything that’s taken place.


It is worth warning that there will be suggestive material in this chapter. Nothing explicit.





-:-


CHAPTER 27: Emotions Come, I Don’t Know Why


-:-


That evening in Olivine City was, on the surface, just like any other. As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, the seaside metropolis’s nightlife hummed to life like it always did. The streets filled with people heading to and fro between Olivine’s many shops, restaurants and clubs, and like always, a certain sense of festivity rolled in with the tide of the crowds.


And yet, in spite of all the lighthearted buzz in the streets, there was one person lost in the mix, proverbially swimming upstream against the hubbub and merriment around them. Nobody took any notice of Nekou as she staggered aimlessly through the city, but she noticed them. Every single one. Every resident, every tourist who paid her no mind. No, worse than that.


“It’s like I’m not even fucking here to these people!” she growled in her mind, bitterly glaring at the masses around her from under the brim of her hat. “Can’t they see what I’m dealing with?! Am I invisible?”


Driven by equal parts boiling fury and all-consuming despair, Nekou darted her sunken eyes from one part of the crowd to the next. Every sight only drove her further into her madness and grief.


She caught notice of a young woman in business attire, who was walking with two others of similar age and dress. They appeared as if they had just left their workplace and were heading out to have some fun. “Hey, look at this,” she said to her coworkers, showing them her phone. “Victory Station’s showing today’s Battle Submarine match. They say the Submarine Captain actually lost!”


“Eh?! Ethan lost?!” one of the others exclaimed in dismay. “You’re kidding!”


“I know, right?” the first of the three said. “I wish we could have seen it live!”


Nekou missed the meaning of what the women were discussing, not connecting their chat to Matt’s challenge earlier in the day. All she took away was how the workers seemingly didn’t have a care in the world. “Do you fucking pencil pushers not see what’s going on around y-”


A sudden collision with another pedestrian tore Nekou’s anger away from the lighthearted businesswomen. The person that she ran into superficially resembled her in more than one way, she noticed; both shared long black hair, dark coats and glasses, but the other woman had a much slimmer build and darker skin. Even so, there was enough of a resemblance that Nekou was unnerved by it, and that feeling only made her even more upset when the other woman kept walking without a word of apology.


“What’s your fucking problem?!” Nekou’s eye twitched when, while glaring back at the pedestrian, she noticed her twin take a bite out of a Rage Candy Bar. Her favorite candy. The one she’d dutifully saved up stamps from, all just to win a plush of their Red Gyarados mascot. “You’re me, and yet you don’t see me…?” she muttered, her distress lost in the crowd.


That was when her eyes settled on a different pair, an older woman accompanied by a bespectacled boy in a sweater. They were standing outside of a nearby restaurant, side-by-side so the woman could snap a picture of them both together.


“You ready for your birthday dinner, Alvin?”


“You bet, Mom!” the boy, Alvin, cheerfully replied. “I’m gonna get-”


“Now, now, Alv,” his mother gently scolded him with a playful wag of her finger, “that’s for when we go inside.”


Nekou froze in the street, watching the mother and son enter the restaurant. Her rage melted away, leaving her with only her soul-crushing grief for companionship.


“How… why…” She shambled in the direction of the grill, weakly reaching out toward it. All she could think about was all the times Ariana had done for her just what the mother did for her son. All the times she still deserved that had been stolen away from her. “Why can’t I still have that…”


Her heart only sank further when she reached the restaurant’s front window. There, laid out plainly before her, was everything at once she wanted and at the same time could never have. The mother and son she’d halfheartedly followed weren’t the only ones. Groups of people packed the dining room from end to end. They weren’t all families, she surmised; while there were plenty who plainly appeared to be parents and children, other tables were occupied by young couples and even a few older ones as well. No matter their age and status, they were all united in enjoying the fish, meat, vegetables and rice the menu offered, alongside those they held dear.


Nekou put her hand on the window, her breaths growing shallow. The glass separated her from a world she was denied access to. A world she could never be a part of.


“It’s because… it’s because I’m not like them…” The words of her other self rang like a bell in her head, but this time, they were in her own voice. “I’m not human, I’m just some monster. I’m not like them at all…”


While she panned over all the oblivious people in the grill, Nekou happened to catch sight of the restaurant’s bar. Some part of her warmed to seeing the one place she felt like she might have had a right to be in, but she soon noticed that something on the bar’s television had all of its patrons enraptured. She could only see a news anchor speaking to a reporter in a split-screen shot, which made her tilt her head.


“What’s got them so fascinated?” she wondered aloud.


That curiosity was something she soon came to regret, as once the split-screen ended, it was replaced by an image of the one thing she didn’t want to think about - the burning Altru Northstar. She couldn’t hear what the anchor was saying about it, nor did she want to. Everything she needed to know was right there for her to see.


“How could you…” Nekou felt her anger spiking again, and if she hadn’t kept those thoughts to herself, she would have screamed them in such a way that nobody would have been able to ignore her any longer. “How can you take what happened to me and use it for entertainment? For profit? How could you do it and not fucking notice what it did to me?!!”


Nekou suddenly found herself seized by an urge to run, to get away from where she was. Where would she go? She didn’t have a clear plan in mind at first, but she knew she had to escape her surroundings. It wasn’t until after she had already started fleeing through the crowds that an idea jumped into her head.


The abandoned hotel serving as Team Rocket’s hideout. It was the only place in all of Olivine she knew for sure she’d be safe.


“Get there… I have to get there, then I can make it all go away…”


-:-


The mood back at the hotel wasn’t much brighter. Matt, Amanda, Olivia and Anabel arrived from the Battle Submarine after Team Rocket had already returned, only to discover the ragtag band in complete disarray. Even though he was largely listless after Ethan’s revelations, Matt deduced immediately that not all of Team Rocket’s remaining members made it back from their mission, and the news that Ariana sacrificed herself to protect Nekou led him to surmise a connection to the Altru Northstar explosion. Yet, even though he’d built those bridges mentally, he lacked the energy and drive to pursue them further. Why they would attack what he understood to be an Angel Corporation energy facility did intrigue him, but with everything else on his mind, he just couldn’t chase the lead.


He ended up sitting at a table in the abandoned hotel’s bar, nursing a drink garnished with slices of Pinap Berry that Trevor mixed for him. Amanda sat across from him, sipping from a tall glass of champagne. Anabel and Olivia, choosing to give them space, were playing video games supplied by Trevor on the bar’s television.


There was an uneasy silence between the siblings, only broken when Amanda resolved to venture onto the thin ice first. “So… what are you planning to do next?”


“Does it even matter?” Matt couldn’t even muster the strength to look at Amanda, and somehow, she knew it. “I was battling the Frontier Brains because I wanted to find out about Reshiram. Now I know the answer.” He chuckled to himself, a bitter, hollow sound that failed to mask his distress. The drink was clouding his mind ever so slightly, but all it did was loosen him up and get him talking. “I was a fool to think I could find Reshiram… I mean, it appeared to someone called the Hero of Truth. Of course a washed-up nobody like me wouldn't have a chance."


"Please don't say such things." Amanda was gentle but firm in her urging. "Remember what you did to follow in Grandpa's footsteps. You accomplished the same as he did, if nothing else."


"But how does that help?" he snapped, catching himself too late. "I'm sorry, Amanda, I didn't mean to talk to you like that. I couldn't… I couldn't ever do that to you. I'm sorry…"


"I forgive you."


"I really never deserved someone like you," Matt thought. Unable to bear looking at his beloved sister any longer, he instead gazed over at Anabel and Olivia, who were playing a game involving cube-shaped Pokémon. "I did all of this to myself," he said, gesturing at his face and body, "and for what? It was to help me find the truth behind everything that happened, and all I've got to show for it is that Mom was probably a member of Polaris from the start. It was all for nothing."


"No, it wasn't. You're helping me, remember?" Amanda tapped her finger on one of her prosthetic legs. "You got me out of that wheelchair, and you're going to help me see again. Let's go back to the way things used to be, but we’ll make them even better than they were."


With a sad shake of his head, Matt replied, "I doubt we can ever go back. Not after everything that's happened…"


Amanda raised her glass to her lips, but held it there without actually taking a sip. As much as it hurt to think about, she had to admit Matt had a point. “Sure, we could move back to Rustboro and live quietly… but is that even a choice now?”


The unexpected ding of the elevator adjacent to the bar interrupted both Amanda’s pondering and the game Anabel and Olivia were sharing. Nekou stormed out of the lift and straight past them, not acknowledging their presence even when Olivia called out her name.


“What happened?” Amanda asked her brother, taking note of the sudden silence in the room.


“Nekou just came back,” Matt answered, “but she isn’t looking so good…”


“Oh dear… sadly, it’s understandable after what happened…”


-:-


Meanwhile, the remaining members of Team Rocket had crowded into a lounge for their collective debriefing. Some stood while others sat on the lounge’s leather couches, but no matter where they were, they faced the wide screen opposite them. Much of the display was taken up by Stacia’s feed, while a smaller second window allowed Zager access to the discussion.


“I thought this was all of you,” Stacia coldly said. “Where are Pierce and Nekou?”


“Pierce is heading to meet up with Dr. Zager as we speak,” Rosalie answered. She took a puff of her pipe, then turned to to the mustachioed scientist and said, “He is bringing you the thumb drive we stole. We hope you might be able to use it to decrypt the data Ada downloaded from the Adenosine Base.”


“I’ll get on that as soon as I have the drive.” Behind Zager, the others could see his Galvantula skittering around and playing with a rubber ball bearing a Tympole’s face. “Getting into that data should prove once and for all what it is that Polaris is planning.”


Just then, Nekou tore past the lounge, paying her teammates as little mind as she’d given to Matt’s group. Trevor slouched in his place on one of the couches and said to Stacia, “And about Nekou… she’s not taking Ariana’s demise too well. Not that any of us are… but she’s, understandably, the worst by far.”


“I see…” Although she tried to mask her own emotions, Stacia still lowered her head. Doing so allowed the light of her camera to reflect in her glasses, making her resemble the artificial intelligence based on her even more than she already did. It took every ounce of her strength to get her next words out. “At least… at least she is with Giovanni again.”


At least she was with Giovanni again. That was the thought in the mind of every agent in the lounge, the one none of them could imagine being the one to broach. Stacia, on the other hand, went right for it and crossed that line. Even if none of her associates said so, they appreciated her saying it so they didn’t have to.


“I can’t believe I actually agree with bob-cut glasses girl on something…” Jessie bitterly said, flopping down next to James and Meowth on the couch opposite Trevor’s.


“With the Boss gone, and now the Boss’s dame too, what’s gonna become of us?”


While the others looked nervously to each other for an answer to Meowth’s cutting question, James shut his eyes and crossed his arms. “That is the question of the hour, old chum. No doubt about it.”


“Clearly, we only have one choice,” Proton finally spoke up, crossing his arms as well. “We have to keep taking the fight to Polaris. Somehow.”


“But what’s the point of trying?!” Ada lamented, clutching her laptop against her chest. “Every time we go against them, something horrible happens! Ghetsis got Giovanni, now Colress and Yung took Ariana… listen, you guys technically pay me to be an analyst, I just can do a lot more than that. My analysis says we need to cut our losses.”


“You’re thinking with your brain, Ada, that’s good.” Petrel ran his fingers over his goatee and sighed. “There ain’t an easy answer for this one, no matter where you look. Going into hiding certainly would help us stay safe… but if Polaris is left to run rampant, that’s only buying us a little time before the inevitable happens. If we don’t stop them, who or what will?”


Ada frowned and turned away from the others. “Y-You have a point…” she stammered. “But where would we even get started?”



“I’ll tell you where,” Proton decisively said, stepping forward with his hands on his belt. “Polaris has now lost both the Purine Base and the Adenosine Base, so the question is where they’ll act next. Ada, you said you’re paid to be an analyst, so now is the time for you to put those skills to use. Help out with gathering intelligence so we can figure out where our next mission needs to be.”


“I must agree with Proton’s request,” Stacia added. “We cannot stop now, we can’t surrender. Either Team Rocket survives in a world where we all can be free, or Polaris survives in their new order where all bow to them. There are no other choices.”


Tightening her hold on her laptop, Ada commented, “Fine, but this is crazy. I don’t see what we can do against them.”


“We’ll figure something out,” Rosalie assured her, riding up to her side. “We always find a way… that’s how we do things.”


-:-


Clouds gathered over Olivine as the hours passed, and by midnight, a steady rainfall blanketed the city. Matt heard the downpour hitting the window of his room in the hotel, but all it was to him was background noise. He was too detached to even register what the source of the sound was.


All he felt like he had the energy to do was lie on his bed and stare at the ceiling. How long had he been doing it? He had no idea. It wasn’t that he was particularly fascinated by the tiles above him. Sure, they had survived in a surprisingly intact state for a building that had been abandoned until Team Rocket took it over, and some part of him was enjoying tracing the intricate patterns drawn on them with his eyes. Yet, those didn’t account for the time that had gone by. He’d simply lost track.


“Let’s go back to the way things used to be, but we’ll make them even better than they were…” As he reflected upon Amanda’s words, he extended his hand toward the ceiling. Really, he would give just about anything to go back to their time in Rustboro. Even though he hadn’t gotten along with many people at the school, his small group of friends was enough. And of course, everything he and Amanda got to do together with their newfound freedom, even things like the karaoke trip, made it one of the few times in his life he was truly happy. But he was a realist more than anything. If you didn’t have a Pokémon like Celebi capable of it, time travel was impossible. Going back to the past wouldn’t happen. “I’m glad you can still take everything this world throws at you in stride, but sometimes, just believing something can happen doesn’t mean it actually can. Still… if one of us can actually live something resembling a life, everything I did was worth it. Running out into the blizzard that day… falling under Cyrus’s influence and then breaking free… everything to this day was worth it. I don’t have any regrets… you can stand on your own now. Without me.”


Eventually, his monotony was broken by a knock at the door. It took him a minute to rouse from his stupor, but when he did, he shouted, “Hold on, I’ll be right there!”


He sat up, adjusted the eyepatch he usually donned to make sleeping comfortable, and put on a set of glasses that lacked his mask. Strangely, whoever had knocked didn’t say anything, but as he made his way across the room he thought he heard something scratching the door, puzzling him.


“Come on, what is i-” He only grew more confused upon opening the door, for nobody was there. It wasn’t until he’d already looked both ways through the hall that he looked down and finally discovered the source of the noise - Nekou’s Sneasel, Marie. “You’re-”


“Snea,” Marie said, cutting him off. Before he could ask her why she was there, she held out a piece of paper in her right-hand claw. “Sneasel.”


“Hm?” Matt took the paper and unfolded it, finding a brief message scrawled on it in handwriting he recognized as Nekou’s. “Yo,” he read aloud, “I’m bored. Come over and entertain me a bit.”


It only took him seconds to read the note, but in that time, Marie was at least a dozen feet away, beckoning him after her by waving her paw.


“No wonder you two get along so well,” Matt sighed. Instead of immediately following her, he dipped back into his room first. His action provoked a flurry of frustrated vocalizations from Marie, and he called out to her, “Calm down, I’m just getting something!”


That ‘something’ turned out to be the bag from the Thrifty Megamart. It felt like a lifetime ago that he’d been there, but he hadn’t forgotten it. Collecting it from a table in his room, he left, shut the door and followed after the Sneasel.


-:-


As Marie led him up to Nekou’s door, Matt felt his nerves on edge. Things would have been bad enough if all he knew was what happened to Ariana, but that brief glimpse he’d caught of Nekou storming out of the elevator had him worried.


“It’s not like her to be the one reaching out like this…” he thought, recalling all the times she’d slid in next to him in the middle of the night. That was what she’d done when she was in distress before, so something had to be different, but what?


He didn’t have much of an opportunity to think about it. Marie stopped and knocked on another door sooner than he had anticipated she would, leaving him with nothing ready to say.


“That you, Marie?” Nekou could be heard calling from within, although her voice sounded somewhat muffled. “It’s open!”


“Snea!”


Matt had no idea what he expected to see when Marie pushed the door open, only that he had a feeling it would be bad. He certainly didn’t want it to be, but too much lurked in the realm of the unknown for his comfort. Regardless of what he felt, though, there was no stopping Marie from opening the door, and it felt to him like forever before he could finally see inside.


When he saw that Nekou was just sitting there, staring at the window with a bottle in her hand, he breathed a sigh of relief. His worst fears weren’t validated, and that was a blessing, however small. Nekou only had two small lamps on, so as Matt followed Marie into the room, his eyesight had to adjust to the room’s dimness. Once it did, he paused at what he found.


It wasn’t the fact that Nekou had a white tank top and black shorts on instead of her coat, which had been carelessly pitched into a corner with her hat on top of it. No, what caught him was the fact that what he could see of her back was completely scarred, all the way up to the base of her neck. Without thinking, he reached for the scarred side of his torso with his free hand.


“That’s just like my…”


“The fuck you starin’ at?” He’d become so caught up in his surprise at Nekou’s scars that he didn’t realize she had turned toward him.


“I, uh…” Though he wanted to ask about what he’d seen, Matt stopped himself long enough to consider his next move. “There can’t be a good reason for why her back looks like that…” he reasoned. “Now’s not the time. Not with everything that’s happened lately…” Realizing he was still staring, he rushed to find an excuse. Noticing how flushed Nekou’s face was, he glanced down at the bottle in her hand and took note of its label. “Pewter 151, huh…? That’s pretty strong, even for you.”


“Because I can handle it, not like a lightweight like you,” she teased. “Relax, I’m sorry, I’m just joking with you… what’s in the bag?”


The bag from the Thrifty Megamart. In his uncertainty, he’d practically forgotten that he’d brought it from his room. As he felt himself unable to ask about how she was, the bag proved to be a convenient excuse for prolonging the conversation. “Oh, I picked up a couple things there,” Matt said, reaching in to retrieve its contents. “You wanted some Sonata Coffee, I got that… and I got you this.” Holding up the Mimikyu doll, he added, “I thought it looked like something you’d like.”


He waited for her reaction, but it soon became apparent one wasn't coming. The sole sound in the room was that of the driving rain against the glass.


"Nekou?" Matt finally asked, his nerves fraying again. "I'm sorry, I must have guessed wrong…"


"Stop talking like that!" Somehow, she was standing right in front of him, having moved so fast that her actions didn't register in his mind. "I don't want to hear you beating yourself up for doing something nice ever again," she said, taking the plush and regarding it with warm yet weary eyes and a matching smile. "This is one of my precious things. Because you gave it to me."


"I-" Matt was genuinely taken aback by her reaction. She was always so intense in her emotions, be they positive or negative, that he was used to her wearing her heart on her sleeve. Yet, in that moment, he couldn't help but feel like he was seeing the 'real' Nekou. Who she really was.


While he pondered her reaction, Nekou put the Mimikyu doll on top of a nearby dresser and then grabbed his hand.


"C'mere, this is what I want."


With that, she dragged him to the table where she was sitting when he arrived and pushed him down into one of the chairs. She then returned to her own seat and took a long swig of her drink.


"I don't understand," he said, "what is it you want, exactly?"


He certainly had ideas for what her note had meant, but none of the things he thought about turned out to be correct. In response to his question, she held up a deck of cards.


"Let's play a game." When Matt nodded in agreement to the proposal, Nekou turned her attention to her Sneasel. "Marie, go hang with the others in the playroom."


"Sneasel!"


Matt and Nekou watched Marie open the door and leave. When the Pokémon even took the care to close it, Matt couldn't stop from chuckling to himself.


"She's really a character, isn't she?" he asked.


"She's been like that since the day I rescued her," Nekou replied, looking down at the table with half-open eyes. Her voice had flattened out, falling barely above a monotone. "Some guys in the science division experimented on her. They called her a 'data Sneasel,' or some shit like that. Wanted to make her smarter, but she got too smart and took off on them. That's when I found her." She turned her gaze upward to meet Matt's, and to her surprise, he was listening. That frustrated her, and she tried not to show it, but her eyebrow twitched as she continued rambling. "We aren't all like that, getting off on experimenting on Pokémon. Ada, Trevor, Rosalie, there are so many who joined Team Rocket because there was nowhere else to go. That's what I did… I made the compromises I had to make to survive."


Matt's reply was the last thing Nekou expected to hear. "I understand. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here right now. I know you must be in so much pain, with Ariana…"


Les Trois Jeux, you know it?” The dizzying speed with which Nekou changed the subject left Matt feeling as if he’d taken a punch from a Hitmonchan, to say nothing of the words she’d used. “I didn’t think so…” she hesitatingly conceded after seeing the way he blankly glared at the deck in her hand. “It’s an old Kalosian game. I know you’ve never been there… and yeah, neither have I, but I know it. I know it… let’s play something simpler instead. Five card draw.”


Nekou set her liquor bottle on the table and distributed five cards to herself and to Matt. Her deft, well-practiced dealing left him impressed.


“You’re good at that,” he quietly praised her.


“I guess when you hustle suckers for cash, you get muscle memory.” It took a moment for Nekou to realize what she had said, but Matt’s dumbfounded stare helped hammer it in. “I’m not doing that to you here, I promise! There aren’t any stakes, I don’t want… I just… I just wanted someone to keep me company…”


“So that’s it,” Matt realized, though he kept his conclusions unspoken. “I knew she wasn’t okay… Ariana was always the one she’d go to for comfort, but without her…” Noticing Nekou’s borderline tearful frown, he smiled at her and said, “It’s alright, I know you’re not trying to mess with me right now. I’ll keep you company for as long as you want, alright? It’s helping me too, you know.”


At first, Nekou was silent, but she eventually turned to him with what he supposed was the most genuine smile he’d ever seen from her. “Thank you,” she expressed. “You don’t know how much it means to me.”


“I think I have an idea, but let’s not dwell on that.” Matt went to look at the cards Nekou dealt him, but before he could, she opened a cooler she’d been keeping next to the table and took out a beer can that she then tossed to him. “What?”


“If you’re gonna play a game, you might as well get a little smashed. It’s not fun otherwise.” Nekou winked at him and added, “Besides, like I said, what I’m drinking would fuck someone like you up. You can have that instead.”


Again, Matt couldn’t help but chuckle softly to himself. What else did he expect? “That’s so like you. Why not enjoy yourself if you’re going to play a game?”


Something about the situation pushed the two into sharing a laugh, but their amusement only served to mask the grave issues neither was able to bring up. Still, even though those subjects remained unspoken, a sense of sadness permeated the room to the point where they both could sense it.


“Anyway…” Matt said, trying to push past his emotions, “it’s about time we actually started playing.”


“Yeah…” Nekou adjusted her glasses, but the way she leaned forward caused her bangs to obscure her eyes.


After opening the beer can and taking a sip, Matt finally took a first look at his cards. He held a nine of Porygon and a nine of Poliwag, rounded out by a two and a four of Oddish, along with a one of Pikachu.


“A high pair…” he thought. In an attempt to get a read on Nekou’s hand, he peered up at her, only to find that her bangs still hid her eyes. Something about it struck him as profound, as if his difficulty reading her in the game was a metaphor. He’d known her for quite some time by then, but it was only sitting at the table that night that he felt like he was really beginning to know her. Yet, he’d only seen the surface, and finding what lay below vexed him just as much as determining her cards. “Is she just really going hard into her poker face? Is that really it?”


Little did he suspect that, behind her bangs, she was trying to figure him out in much the same way. She already knew he had something fairly decent in his hand, likely better than the five of Oddish and five of Jigglypuff she held. Years of shaking people down in such games had polished those skills to their finest point. But there was something else, something deeper than any frivolous game, that she could sense.


She threw her three unwanted cards down on the table and said, “Come on, make your choices.”


“Fine, fine…” At her prompting, he discarded three as well.


“Hmph, I thought so.” Nekou dealt three more cards to each side, and after a cursory glance to confirm her position hadn’t changed at all, tossed her whole hand down. “Show ’em.”


“Here,” he said, showing his cards and revealing that he had picked up a nine of Oddish to add to his existing pair.


Nekou shrugged and said, “Yeah, that’s exactly the sort of thing I figured you had.”


“You read me that well, huh…” Matt trailed off, and instead of saying anything more, sipped from the beer again.


“Like I said, I made plenty of cash hustling people. I’m good at reading them.” As she collected the cards, Nekou took a deep breath and steeled her resolve to pursue her suspicions. “So... I heard you beat Ethan at the Battle Submarine.”


“Deal the next round.” The abrupt, serious tone of Matt’s reply caught Nekou by surprise, thanks to his earlier listlessness. Unsure of what to do next, she did what he requested and continued the game.


From there, they settled into what could be called a routine, but it was far from comfortable. They barely spoke as one hand bled into the next, instead using the cards as distractions and replacing their drinks as needed while the rain provided background noise and their mutual reticence communicated more than their quiet let on.


For Nekou her skills made it easy. She surreptitiously observed his behavior using the game as a pretense, and before long became convinced that he was hiding something. It couldn’t be just that he had beaten Ethan. She knew him well enough to know that his victory becoming public would have made him uneasy, but it couldn’t be the thing he was hiding. Besides, she reasoned, Matt had to have known his victory was already public. So why try to hide it? No, her read of him revealed a melancholy, an aura of mourning even, that felt so similar to her own that she felt compelled to unearth it. Anything, just to feel like she wasn't as alone as the rest of the city told her she was.


Matt, on the other hand, came to the table armed with some knowledge of Nekou's situation. What he’d learned from her teammates about the events aboard the Altru Northstar gave him the pieces, and seeing her storm out of the elevator helped him start putting them together. By the time Marie brought them together he was convinced he had a pretty clear idea of what was happening, and seeing Nekou drinking stronger liquor than normal confirmed it. That, and he remembered what she’d said earlier. She just wanted someone to keep her company. He wanted to help her with her loneliness, but how could he while he was so entangled with his own problems?


Eventually, whether it was from the continued awkwardness of the card game, the sound of the rain on the windows or his own drinking, Matt decided he had to do something. As hard as it was, he had to be the one to take the first step.


Surrendering his cards after a hand Nekou thoroughly defeated him in, he downed the rest of his current can of beer in one big gulp and sighed. “You thought something happened at the Battle Submarine, didn’t you?” he ventured, averting his eyes from her. “You’re right. Something did.”


“I could tell…” Nekou quietly replied. Any other time, she might have been cocky about how easily she’d read him, but such behavior was far from her mind. “You wanna tell me wh-”


“To put it bluntly, I ain’t finding Reshiram.” Matt’s confession was so sudden Nekou couldn’t help but gasp in shock. She’d only considered the possibility that whatever information Ethan gave would lead down a more difficult path, not that it would foreclose upon all of Matt’s potential roads to Reshiram’s truth. Hearing her reaction made Matt bitterly scoff and shake his head. “Go figure, right? Ethan told me that I already have to know a truth I’m willing to give up everything for. What nonsense, for me to think I could just find Reshiram and make it tell me things. I’m no hero, especially not one of truth. What a joke…”


“It might not mean much from someone like me, but I’m sorry.” Nekou reached across the table and squeezed Matt’s hand in her own. He looked back up at her, only to see her now turned away from him. Somehow, her already flushed face had grown redder. “I listened to everything you’ve told me, so I know what that meant to you. If it means anything…” She squeezed his hand a bit tighter. “...you told me I didn’t need to be alone. You listened to me. I want… to do that.”


“I appreciate that, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll be okay right now.” he insisted. Matt’s reply was such a blatant lie that he knew beyond any doubt she’d catch it, but the words had already slipped out before he could stop them. “I’m more worried about you. It’s pretty clear you’re trying to numb yourself to what happened to Ariana, and…”


“I’m sorry but why do you always have to fucking do this?” Her grip on his hand tightened even further, but instead of being angry, she was plainly growing frustrated. “You’re always putting other people first to the point where it hurts you. Why can’t you ever take care of yourself? I just can’t fucking understand how someone could ever live like that!”


“It isn’t fun, that’s for sure…” he admitted, “but I get why it’s so hard for you to understand. Aside from Amanda, I haven’t really had many people I can lean on, and usually I’m okay with that. But you… maybe I’m crossing a line here, and if I am I apologize, but being alone scares you, doesn’t it?”


“How can you act like you know me?!” Nekou snapped, yanking her hand away from him.


“Because I do.”


For the second time in mere minutes, Nekou gasped. As much as she wanted to deny it, to fight back and keep her shields up, he’d broken through and figured her out. He’d figured her out and she didn’t know how to handle it.


“Fuck!” she screamed, her frustration boiling over. She picked up the entire deck and threw it, scattering playing cards across the floor, then stood up and knocked her chair over before flopping down to sit on her bed nearby. She then removed her glasses, and for the first time, Matt could see Nekou crying. Not fighting the tears back, but letting them run unchecked down her face. “Why do people like you have to exist… it’s easy to understand when someone acts like they should, but then there are the ones like you, the ones who give monsters like me second chances after everything I’ve done to you!”


“The one thing I wish you would stop is calling yourself a monster,” Matt gently told her, sitting down next to her and intertwining his fingers with hers. “You aren’t one, and even if you were, I already told you I’m one too. You’re not alone.”


“Stop! Just… just stop… I don’t deserve it…” Nekou covered her eyes with her free hand, in a fruitless attempt to hide her tears. “I am a monster, both from what I am and how I treated you… all for my own satisfaction.”


“If you want to make up for that, just listen to me now. You said you wanted to do that.”


“O-okay…” she whimpered, peeking out from between her fingers.


“I guess I wanted to find Reshiram because… I wanted to understand things, just like you.” Matt contemplated, their hands still joined between them. The downpour outside provided a strangely peaceful background to their talk. “I guess I’m pretty similar to you, when I think about it… I wanted to understand what my place in the world is.”


“Similar to me…?” Nekou couldn’t help but lower her hand to look clearly at Matt. “What do you mean by that?”


“There’s always been this… I don’t know what I’d call it, but I’ve never felt… right, if that makes any sense.” Matt stifled a tired, weak laugh. “Who knows what I’m even talking about at this point… I never could really put my finger on what it is, but there’s always been something I felt like I needed the answer to. It’s been driving me crazy my whole life. Maybe I felt like I didn’t have any control over what happens to me? That would make sense, considering Polaris had its hands in there all along… I don't know. I'm rambling. I just…" Turning back to Nekou, he finally caught her facing him. "...thought you might feel the same way."


“I-I…” Matt was right, and there was no way for Nekou to deny it. “Yeah, you’re right, I do,” she confessed, hanging her head. “Why are you coming to me with this, though? You’ve got Amanda. You said it yourself.”


“That’s true, but at the same time… you’ve seen the two of us together. You’ve got to admit Amanda has her life together way more than I do. Look at me, I’m a wreck.” Matt’s self-deprecating comment brought a genuine laugh out of Nekou, and her joviality led him to share in it. “Aha, that felt good… seriously, though, even though we spent so long living together, Amanda’s built her own life. I don’t want to burden her with all my problems… besides, I feel like I can tell you these things. I feel like… I know you’ll get them.”


Even though Nekou appreciated the trust Matt was placing in her, that same trust caused her anguish to swell anew. With tears welling back up in her eyes, she said, “Even if I do, you shouldn’t bother looking to someone like me for any kind of help. You don’t know how much of a monster I really am… you don’t know!”


“I put my faith in you, so you put yours in me.” Much to Matt’s surprise, it was Nekou who pushed her fingers deeper into where they were joined. Encouraged by this gesture, he softened his voice a little further and asked her, “Nekou… what really happened at the Altru Northstar?”
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
“The Altru Northstar was really one of Polaris’s main labs,” Nekou explained in a hushed tone, in the process unknowingly volunteering a confirmation of what Matt had already deduced. “Colress was running it, but that… that…” Her grip on her language started to slip when she had to recall Yung and what he had done. “...that enfoiré Yung, he was there too. Remember when you ran into him on the Magnet Train and Ada had to help you destroy that fucking holographic Mewtwo of his?”


"Mm…" While it had faded to the back of his mind thanks to his encounters with Ghetsis, Colress and others, he hadn't forgotten that day on the Magnet Train line. When Nekou brought it up, the sensation of the wind whipping around him as he and Bunny desperately tried to defeat the Mirage Mewtwo atop Polaris's train came rushing back to him. "Yes, I do."


“Well, he was there and he had another of those monsters…” Saying the word ‘monster’ caused something in Nekou’s head to snap, and she suddenly grew hysterical. “That’s right, that Mewtwo is a monster, just like me!” she yelled, her thoughts growing incoherent. “It’s a monster and I became a monster to stop it and we both did the same thing and-”



“Nekou!” Releasing her hand, Matt seized her by the shoulders instead, making it hard for her to avoid looking at him. “Please, calm down! You’re safe here!”


“That’s-” Nekou wanted to protest, to insist that she couldn’t be safe anywhere with herself, but what Matt said centered her. Indeed, she felt safe, even if she didn’t expect to. Between that feeling of security and the alcohol, she felt ready to tackle the memory she hated the most, the one that she’d even hidden from Olivia and Anabel. “I guess… do you remember when I told you about that voice I hear in my head?” Matt nodded, prompting her to continue, “The f-first time I ever heard that voice… when Team Rocket first found me and took me in, I wasn’t like I am now. I was totally, completely different in every way you can possibly imagine… just picture the exact opposite of everything you know about me. I wanted to keep to myself and just not exist… but there was this one guy who wouldn’t let me.”


The closer she came to owning up to her secret, the more Nekou could feel herself disconnecting from reality. She almost thought she was having an out-of-body experience, watching herself from afar as if she wasn’t even really there.


“No, this is what I deserve. This is my punishment,” she thought when she saw Matt listening intently to her. Her breaths grew short and shallow, only contributing to her uneasy mental state. “He was a nobody, a grunt… just another loser who joined for a paycheck. He thought he could make his lot in life better if he found someone to pick on, and that ended up being me. I endured it for as long as I could… until I snapped."


"What did you do?"


"I… don't know exactly." Nekou hung her head in shame. "Or at least, I didn't know right away. I thought I blacked out before anything happened, and when I woke up…" What little energy there was in Nekou's voice evaporated, leaving her barely able to confess her secret. "When I woke up I'd torn his throat apart. I killed him. I sent him to that place where there's nothing and you're all alone, with my own hands. I did that. There's no more monstrous act… after I did that, they locked me up in a laboratory tank for a long time, and I was completely alone except for that voice in my head… I deserved it! I deserved all of it, because if that doesn’t prove I’m a monster, then-”


“I’m sorry, but… I just don’t think it does.” Nekou inhaled sharply at Matt’s unexpected reply, but before she could do or say anything else, he leaned forward and touched his forehead against hers. The feeling of his cool skin against her perpetual warmth sent a shock through her, but she gave no outward reaction to it. “You told me that you felt like a parasite in your own body when that happens… whoever did those things, it wasn’t you. I promise. It wasn’t you.”


“But it was me,” she quietly strained to say. “Just like today, when Yung had that thing try to stab me… Maman took it in my place. She did it so I wouldn’t suffer like I did fighting those damn ninjas… but if she hadn’t pushed me out of the way, I would have survived! My regeneration would have made sure of it! If being able to survive what took Maman from me doesn’t make me a monster, what does? If this body isn’t even mine, what else isn’t mine?! Are my thoughts, my emotions even mine?”


“But listen to what you just said,” Matt offered in response. “Your feelings about Ariana show you’re you. A monster wouldn’t have attachments like that…”


Nekou froze as the meaning of Matt’s logic sank in. He was right, she had to concede. So right, in fact, that even the claims made by her other self helped her see reason. That entity had so often urged her to possess who and what she wanted by force, yet she resisted its influence and formed some genuine attachments with others. Ariana. Ada and the others in her team. Olivia. Matt. If she’d managed to make that many connections, why not try to make more?


And yet, as comforting as that logic was, it forced her to confront head-on the one matter she wanted to run away from, Ariana’s fate. She wished she could run, use all her strength to sprint away and keep running until she reached somewhere reality couldn’t find her, but in her heart she knew it was a hopeless cause. The truth would find her no matter where she went, so why go anywhere?


“She should still be here with me…” Nekou finally said, speaking barely above a whisper. “I’ve never known a life without her. As far back as I can remember, Maman was there… she got me out of that tank and taught me how to live. I can’t… I wouldn’t be myself without her…”


Little did Nekou realize that she’d led Matt into a realization of his own. “It’s probably hypocritical coming from me, but… but…” As what he was about to say dawned on him, his speech grew shaky. In hindsight it seemed so obvious. Had he really been so blind as to miss it for himself? “As long as you… as long as you keep her with you in your mind, she’s still with you.”


“How do I know that, though?”


“You will. Trust me, you will…” he promised her, though he knew he was talking to himself just as much. “Just try it now. She wouldn’t want you to feel bad right now. What would she tell you to do?”


There was a pause, and for several long moments, the only sound in the room was the rain outside. Matt suspected Nekou was pondering his question, although with her bangs hanging over her eyes, he couldn’t tell for sure.


“Maman would say to live without regrets,” she finally said, “and maybe I’m just really fucking wasted right now but I don’t think I’m going to regret this.”


Nekou suddenly turned her head upward, catching Matt by surprise, and pressed her lips against his. The kiss wasn’t anything like the one she’d given him at the end of their effort to stop the runaway Magnet Train, either. Unlike the exaggerated, joking one from then, this one was soft and tentative, lasting only a fleeting second before Nekou pulled back.


“I’ve been waiting so long for this…” she mumbled, her face flushing even further.


Yet, nothing - absolutely nothing could have prepared her for Matt’s reply. “If you felt that way, I wish you would have said something sooner.”


“What are you-” Nekou knew exactly what he was saying and what he was implying. She just had to catch up to it, and when she did, her face turned redder than ever. “I… if you…” she sputtered, “Well if you felt that way, why did you wait so long, huh?”


“I guess that’s another question only Reshiram would have been able to answer,” he said with a weary shrug, a motion that Nekou recognized as one she’d made plenty of times before. “But if you wanted me to take a guess, I’m having a hard time imaging what life is like after Polaris is gone if we all go our separate ways. I’m starting to realize I like the people I’m around right now, and you’re one of them.”


Acting on her instincts, Nekou draped her arms over his shoulders and grinned at him. “You’re really gonna stick to your guns on this whole thing, aren’t you? At least you’re wanting to live again.”


“And at least you’re sounding like yourself again,” he replied, playfully mimicking her expression.


“Not one hundred percent yet,” she said, slowly but steadily moving her face toward his, “but… maybe I’ll get there.”


“Well, you don’t have to do it alone. I’ll help.”


“Same here,” Nekou replied, “if I can bring you out of the dumps, I will.”


With nothing more to be said between them, Nekou kissed him again, but it wasn’t curious or exploratory like before. Having finally obtained the answer to her question, she saw no need to retreat from something that was giving her some relief. Neither did Matt, for that matter. He was more than happy to return her affection, running his hand down and through her voluminous hair. One kiss became two, two became four, and before long neither cared to remember.


When she broke away to take a breath, Nekou muttered to herself, “Laissez sela nous aider, s’il vous plaît…” She then moved her hands to Matt’s chest and tried to push him onto his back, only for his grip to take her down with him. The clumsy absurdity of the situation made her laugh out loud, even in the depths of her mood. “Well, color me surprised," she said, gently stroking his face. "Sure didn’t expect that from you.”


“Something tells me you just want to forget everything right now,” he answered. “So do I.”


-:-


A bead of sweat rolled down Sheena’s cheek as she held firm in her prayer atop Ecruteak’s Bell Tower. She was engulfed by the harsh, biting winds of early winter, but her mission was of such urgency that she single-mindedly pushed through them. She had to. Ever since Ghetsis opened the rainbow rings over the city and beckoned Ho-oh to appear, he’d become a threat only she was able to stop.


Suddenly, a flash of light from above caught her eye, snapping her out of her attempt to link with Ho-oh in the astral plane. It was the great phoenix’s mightiest move, Sacred Fire, and Ho-oh had turned its full power squarely upon her. The immense blue ball of flame descended toward the tower like a meteor, its color vividly standing out against the rainbow rings overhead.


And Sheena was entirely alone in the face of that overwhelming power. None of her allies were at her side. Hoopa and Mewtwo were nowhere to be seen. It was just her, a single person, against the fury Ho-oh - no, Ghetsis - brought down upon her.


All she could do was stare helplessly into the blue void that would soon bring about her demise. Suddenly, as it drew nearer to her position, Ghetsis’s face appeared to her inside the fiery vortex.


“Now, you will lose all hope… and then, you will perish!”




“...ah!”


Sheena gasped awake, and she wasn’t in Ecruteak City anymore. She was in her bed within the Sinjoh Ruins, far from both the time and place in her dreams, yet reliving her past encounters with Ghetsis felt real. Far too real. She reached up to her face and touched it, feeling the cold sweat she’d broken out in.


Stumbling to her feet, Sheena reached for a cup of water she’d left on a table next to her bed, but in her daze only managed to knock it over. The porcelain shattered on the stone floor, and Sheena blankly stared at the shards, too rattled to do anything about cleaning them.


A minute or so later, Alesia came bursting into the room, carrying a lamp to light her way. “Lady Sheena, I heard a crash and I came as fast as I could! Are you okay?”


“I… I am…” Sheena stuttered, blinking her way out of her nightmare’s grip. “I’m fine, Alesia, don’t worry.”


“I’ll go get you some more water,” Alesia offered, eyeing the broken cup on the floor. “How does that sound?”


“Yeah, that’s good. That’s good.” While her disciple left to retrieve the refreshment in question, Sheena still couldn’t pull her view from the broken ceramic pieces at her feet. “We don’t know if Ghetsis is really gone…” she pondered, a chill running down her spine. “What if he comes back… what if Polaris somehow manages to find this place… we must do something to ensure the safety of our land. No... I’m the one who must do it… but what?”


-:-


The clouds of the previous night had largely faded, allowing the morning sun to peek through the windows of the bar in Team Rocket’s hideout. Trevor walked in to find Proton and Ada already there ahead of him, sitting side by side at the bar and working on their tablet and laptop, respectively.


“Hey, good morning,” the former actor greeted his colleagues. “Y’all are up bright and early, huh?”


“Did you want to be the first one here?” Ada fretted with a pout. “Well, if us being here bothers you, there’s nothing to be done about it now…”


Dismissing Ada’s question with a wave of his hand, Trevor made his way behind the bar as he said, “Oh, no, nothing of the sort! It’s good to see you up and at it already. Giovanni and Ariana would be proud, I know it. Either of you want something to drink?"


"Give me some juice," Proton replied, turning the palm of his left hand up. "It's too early for anything else."


"Same here," Ada added.


“That’s two mixed Berry Juices, coming up.” Pivoting away from his comrades, Trevor fetched a Shuckle-shaped mixer from a cabinet and started placing berries into it. He hadn’t been at it for long, however, before he could hear Ada scrutinizing something on her computer.


“Hmmm…” she said aloud, leaning in close and squinting at the screen. “This sounds like something… unusual, to say the least.”


“What is it?” Trevor asked over his shoulder as he prepared the drinks.


“Listen to this thing I just found on RChannel… ‘Stay away from Route 43 and the Lake of Rage! You aren’t gonna believe me, but there’s this weird robot there and it attacked me with a Pokémon I’ve never seen before! My Breloom didn’t stand a chance!’ Tell me this doesn’t smell like a rotten Magikarp.”


Leaning over to see her discovery for himself, Proton agreed, “You might be onto something. It smells like Polaris to me.” Ada kept scrolling, and Proton continued talking through what he saw. “‘You aren’t the only one! That thing got my Zangoose too!’ ‘So you also encountered it? I battled it, but my Eiscue couldn’t do anything to that Pokémon.’”


“It sounds like sightings of this so-called robot aren’t isolated.” Having finished filling the mixer with berries, Trevor brought it to the bar, put it down and pressed a button on the Shuckle’s shell to activate it. Once it was on, he continued, “Are there any photos of it?”


“Better,” Ada replied, “someone posted video of it.”


Before playing the clip, Ada turned her laptop around to an angle where both Trevor and Proton could see it. Once that was done, she hit the enter key, and the full-screen video started to play.


“What kind of Pokémon is that?!” the person recording the video could be heard shouting. She’d evidently filmed the encounter using a phone or a similar handheld device, so the footage was unstable. The three Rockets viewing it couldn’t clearly make out much at first, aside from the Skuntank standing a few feet in front of the trainer. “Skuntank, use Burning Jeal-”


Before the trainer could get her command out, a blue blur shot upward from a position past Skuntank. She followed it with her camera, and the footage suddenly grew stable enough for her attacker to be clearly seen. It was an insectoid creature with glowing red eyes and a rigid, toothy grin between them, along with a cannon it sported somewhat awkwardly on its back.


“Genesect?!” Ada exclaimed, its appearance catching her so by surprise that she reflexively paused the video. “There’s no doubt about it from the shape, that’s the Pokémon considered a myth for its skills as a hunter three hundred million years ago! Why is it here?!”


“Colress and Team Plasma were the ones who brought the five Genesect spotted in Unova back to life,” Trevor recalled, reasoning, “It’s hardly surprising that he’d make another one for Polaris.”


“I hope Zager can get into that drive right away. It feels like we’re getting left in Polaris’s dust.” Proton shifted on his barstool. He had nothing more to say at first, but when he glanced at Ada’s laptop again, he realized something. “There’s still more of that video, right? The reports said there were both a robot and a strange Pokémon. Maybe that robot is in the rest of it.”


“O-oh, you’re p-probably right,” Ada stammered, still dazed by what she’d seen. She shook her head to try and ground herself, then hit the key to resume the playback.


“Skuntank, watch out!”


That warning fell on deaf ears, as Skuntank was too stunned by his opponent’s agility to move. From its vantage point in the air, Genesect trained its cannon upon its target and fired a white beam of icy energy at the Poison-and-Dark-type Pokémon. The ray exploded into a cloud of fine snow when it hit its mark, easily casting Skuntank aside as if it were nothing.


“Skuntank…” The trainer ran to her partner’s side, and for a time, the video again grew too shaky to parse. Brief glimpses of her white kneesocks and Skuntank’s still form could be made out against the grass, but little else was discernible. “How could you do that to my dear, cute Skuntank? What even is that Pokémon? What are you, for that matter?!”


The camera angle changed again, and for the first time, Ada, Trevor and Proton got a clear look at what the posts had described. There, standing behind Genesect as the ancient Pokémon landed, was a humanoid figure encased from head to toe in black, mechanical armor. Even a mere glimpse could make clear why those who encountered it thought it was a robot. Biological or synthetic, if it had a face, there was no way to see it. Its head was also completely covered, protected by a helmet with a glowing digital display where a face should have been.


“Well, there’s our robot,” Trevor noted. “Whoever made that must have been a fan of my movies…”


Ada shivered when she saw the figure. “Well, whatever it is, I sure don’t like it.”


What the ‘robot’ did next, however, caught all three of them by complete surprise. It ignored the trainer’s demands to identify itself, instead choosing to display its dominance by shoving its left hand into a pocket on its black leather coat while reaching up and touching its head with its right.


“It’s like that thing thinks it’s wearing… a…” Proton’s eyes widened and his face turned white. There wasn’t much that could frighten the self-labeled ‘scariest and cruelest guy in Team Rocket,’ but the possibility that was worming its way into his mind did it and then some. “Ada, Trevor, you don’t think there’s any chance we were wrong about…”


When Proton trailed off, Ada started to demand, “Wrong about wh-” She cut herself off, however, when what he was implying dawned on her, too. “Oh. Oh… I… if there’s even a chance that’s true, then… then we have to tell the others, and someone has to get in touch with Stacia, ASAP.”


-:-


“...emotions come I don’t know why, cover up love’s alibi…”


The sound of Nekou’s ringtone slowly roused her from her state of blacked-out sleep. “Ugh…” she sighed as she felt around for where it was on the table next to her bed, too out of it to bother getting up. “Fucking.. Just wait already…”


Once she managed to find the device, Nekou brought it to her ear and tried to ask what the caller wanted, only for it to come out as an incoherent groan. Luckily for her it was Ada on the other end, someone who was more than used to her quirks.


“Nekou, I apologize for bothering you this early,” Ada said from the other end of the call, “but something urgent has come up. You need to join the rest of us as soon as possible.”


“Yeah, I’ll… be there in a bit. Just wait for me…” Nekou hung up, then just tossed the phone on the floor instead of putting it back on the table. She had such a headache that she nearly felt the world spinning around her. “I must have gotten so fucking wasted…” she mumbled as she brought her hand to her face. Besides how hard her head was pounding, the events of the previous night were a blur. Her hangover was about the only clue she had to go on.


Or at least it was the only clue until she turned over and noticed Matt still asleep next to her.


In an instant, everything that happened came flooding back. Nekou turned bright red and flipped to face away from him, their backs turned to each other.


“That really happened, didn’t it?” Nekou bit her fingernail as she tried to make sense of what she was remembering. “I must have… I must have been really upset and things got out of control, but… did they really get out of control, or did I just get up the nerve to be more open about how I feel?”


Unable to decide what to do, Nekou pulled the blankets more tightly around herself, forming what she saw as a sort of protective cocoon.


“That must be it. I know how I feel. I need…” Her sense of loneliness rose above her other emotions, making her pause. Coming to terms with what she knew to be true wasn’t easy, but she decided she had to force herself to accept it. “I need help holding myself up, especially with… with Maman gone… maybe he won’t abandon me now, if-”


“How precious, you think he’s not disgusted with you.” The sudden presence of her other self in her mind made her heart sink. “Because that’s what you are. Disgusting.”


“Will you just fuck off already?!” Nekou tried to project some sort of anger in her thoughts, but in reality, she was so disturbed that it made her shudder. “Leave me alone for once!”


“Oh, no, you know you don’t really want me to do that.” The voice’s honey-tongued threats sounded more devilish than they ever had been before. It was as if that entity, too, felt emboldened in what it believed. “If I leave you alone, you really will be alone. We both know you don’t want that. And before you say you’re not, before you offer Matt as if he proves some sort of point, I’ll repeat myself. He knows you’re disgusting, even more than anyone else.”


Nekou subconsciously pulled the sheets over her face to hide it. “Why would you even say something like that?”


“Do you really need me to tell you?” The entity’s disappointment and irritation was palpable. “You even just said it yourself. ‘Maybe he won’t abandon now, if…’ You numbed yourself until you didn’t care anymore, and then threw yourself at him hoping that it would make you feel better. He saw all those scars you’ve got, too. And on top of all of that, be honest with yourself. You hate yourself, yet you expect him to see something different? Add it all up and that’s exactly what you are, a disgusting monster who just needs to embrace what she is! I keep telling you, stop trying to please these people, to fit in with them as if you’re one of them. You’re not. You are something else, something more. You need to accept that.”


“No, you’re wrong… you have to be. I’m me. Nothing more… nothing less. I just want to-”


“What you want doesn’t matter,” the voice interrupted her, turning angry. “The day will come when you finally understand that, and that will be the day when you see that I’m right and you accept what you are.”


Unable to summon the strength to stand up, Nekou rolled out of the bed and fell to the floor, taking a loose cover with her. When she managed to force herself to her feet, she held the sheet against herself and dragged herself toward the adjoining bathroom, half intending to clean herself up and half hoping a hot shower could scorch her continued misery out of her.


-:-


Matt woke up a short while later, only to discover that Nekou was already long gone. He returned to his room and freshened himself up, too, then collected his supplies and set off to find answers.


As he made his way down the halls leading to the hotel bar, his mind was elsewhere. Nekou’s absence after she emotionally broke down and allowed him to see her vulnerability had left him deeply troubled. If there was one thing he’d come to truly understand about her, it was how she needed someone she could count on to accept her for who she was. Accordingly, her absence in the wake of opening up about that was the source of his worry.


“Maybe I don’t know exactly what the right thing to do is yet…” he deliberated as he walked, “but I have to do something. She needs it… I know she definitely wouldn’t want me trying to protect her the way I’ve done for others, besides, she’s the last person who would need that. If I could find her, I’d just ask what she wants me to do…”


“Oh, Matt, good morning.”


Matt had been so lost in thought that he didn’t realize he’d arrived at the bar until Anabel greeted him. Olivia and Amanda were sitting at a table with her, but as he moved to join them, he noticed Proton, Petrel and Trevor busily coming and going from the room.


“What’s with them?” he asked his sister and their friends as he sat down. “What are they up to?”


“I don’t really know,” Anabel whispered, leaning in over the table so the others could hear her. “They’re up to something, though. I think they’re getting ready to go somewhere.”


“I agree,” Amanda said. “If I’m not mistaken, I believe I overheard mention of Mahogany Town.”


Mahogany Town, the small community in Johto’s northern regions. It was well known for three reasons: first, its close proximity to the famous Lake of Rage even further north. Second, its history as a hideout for ninjas in bygone eras. Third and foremost, how well it had held up against the march of time, remaining the same rustic outpost it always was even in the face of the rapid modernization much of the rest of Johto experienced. But as he thought back, Matt remembered there was a fourth thing he knew about it. Not long after he first met Nekou, she’d claimed that her parents moved around a lot but ‘eventually settled in Mahogany Town.’ He now realized that story was most likely a lie, but at the same time, he inferred that its prominence in her false background was indicative of a real attachment she had to the town.


“If Team Rocket is going to Mahogany Town, maybe that’s why she’s out of sorts…” he thought to himself. Addressing his sister, he asked, “Amanda, are you sure that’s what you heard?”


“No doubt about it,” Amanda replied. “That name came up too many times for it to just be a coincidence. Now, what they’re doing there, that I’m not sure of. I did hear something about a strange Pokémon, or something.”


“A strange Pokémon in Mahogany Town?” Olivia piped up, having been playing with her Pokégear until that point in the conversation. “Maybe it’s got something to do with this, then. People are talking online about some sort of weird trainer attacking travelers with a mystery Pokémon on Route 43.”


“It would make a certain amount of sense if Team Rocket were heading there to pursue those reports,” Matt reasoned, working through his thoughts out loud. “I wonder what kind of Pokémon it is, though. I doubt it’s one we really know.”


Rosalie approached the table before they could speculate any further, guiding her wheelchair with her right hand while holding her pipe with her left. “Morning. Good to see you’re all here.”


“Same to you,” Anabel returned the greeting with a slight smile. “It would appear that there’s quite a lot going on today.”


“Oh, you saw them, I guess.” Rosalie took a puff from her pipe. “The others are getting ready to head for Mahogany Town. There’s something going on in the area that they want to check out. I’m staying here, so I suppose you’re welcome to stay as well.”


“Mahogany Town, no wonder,” Matt thought. “Do you know where Nekou is? I haven’t seen her at all today.”


Rosalie hesitated and closed her eyes before answering his question. “Nekou… wasn’t herself earlier. After we briefed her on the Mahogany operation, she said she was going to go out on her own until we needed to leave.”


“Oh.” That explanation disheartened Matt into silence. “I should go find her and… actually, wait.” He covered his mouth with his hand. "On second thought, maybe that’s not such a good idea. Maybe I should give her space for now…”


“I’m sure we’ll meet up with her later,” Olivia said. “Anyway, I want to go back to Olivine Gym today. I have to beat Helena fair and square this time.”


Anabel’s heart swelled with pride for her daughter. “That’s what I want to hear. Let’s head over.”


“Actually, wait,” Rosalie interrupted, raising her hand in a gesture to make Anabel and the others stop and listen. “There’s one more thing before you leave. Anabel, Matt, Amanda, would you three come with me for a minute? There’s something I want to talk with you about.”


“I… guess?” The sudden request left Amanda somewhat confused. “Matt, what do you think?”


“There can’t be any harm in it,” he figured, shrugging. “It’s not like talking can change our situation that much right now.”


“Can I come too?”


Olivia’s question, though innocent and well-meaning, left Rosalie to conspicuously pause again. While Olivia didn’t notice it, Matt and Anabel both did, and nervously glanced at each other.


“Olivia, this is something that’s best left to us right now.” Hoping to downplay the urgency of her implication, Rosalie smiled at Olivia and said, “Tell you what. While we take care of this, head down to Olivine Café and bring me back something. Mixed vegetables and Slowpoke Tail sounds good. Can you do that for me?”


Olivia hesitated as well, but soon flashed a smile of her own back at Rosalie before pushing her chair away from the table and standing up. “Yeah, sure! Mixed vegetables and Slowpoke Tail… I can do that.”


“Very good, thank you. Now, Anabel, Matt, Amanda, please come with me.”


Matt got up and helped Amanda get to her feet, then followed Rosalie as the scientist led them and Anabel across the bar and back to the connecting hallways. Olivia, meanwhile, headed for the elevator, only to stop in her tracks before she got there.


She lowered her head, causing a shadow to be cast over her eyes, and listened to the others walk away.


-:-


“What is this all about?” Anabel demanded as soon as Rosalie led the group into a room. Having understood Rosalie’s implication that Olivia wouldn’t be able to handle their discussion, she was no longer able to hide how on edge she was. “What’s really going on?”


“Anabel’s right,” Matt agreed, placing his hand against his hip after helping Amanda to sit down. “You have to be honest with us right now.”


“I wouldn’t have approached you about this just to lie to you, so here.” Rosalie ran her fingers across her wheelchair’s keyboard, and several holographic screens popped into being in front of her. One especially prominent projection showed an image of a human brain alongside several graphs charting its electrical activity. “I studied the data I gathered from examining Olivia’s brain activity during the time she was out, and I’ve come to a conclusion or two.”


“What are they?” Amanda asked.


“If you don’t mind, please simplify it for me,” her brother sheepishly requested. Matt poked his finger against his head and added, “Dr. Graceland was the one who did all the work up here.”


“I don’t expect any of you to understand all the particulars. You don’t have the same training I do, so it’s only natural. But don’t worry, I’ll sum it up for you.” After pausing momentarily for a puff at her pipe, Rosalie explained, “The gist of it is this. Olivia’s seizures are occurring because there are parts of her brain turning active at times they shouldn’t be. The best way I can explain it is to say she’s dreaming while she’s awake. Effectively, her mind’s overtaxing itself, causing her functions to shut down. Hence, the seizures and blackouts.”


“And those so-called ‘dreams’ might actually be the visions she said she saw…” Anabel realized.


Amanda crossed her legs and agreed, “That would make a lot of sense… but just because it makes sense doesn’t make it good.”


“Yeah, you can say that again…” Matt concurred, making the sentiment unanimous. “It’s comforting to have an explanation, but besides knowing, what can we do about it?”


“That’s right, what can we do about it?” Anabel’s speech had become strained. The knowledge of what she had to do seemed almost within her reach, but still frustratingly beyond her, and she hated it.


-:-


What none of the people in the room realized was that they had been followed.


Instead of boarding the elevator and heading out to Olivine Café as Rosalie requested, Olivia waited until she could trail them at a safe distance. She concealed herself right at the edge of the entrance to the room, pressing her back against the wall and listening intently as they talked.


“What can we do about it?” she heard Rosalie ponder, repeating Anabel and Matt’s words back to them. “Well, I can give you a few options, but I don’t know how much you’re going to like them.”


“Anything, tell me,” Anabel answered without hesitation.


“Well, one option…” Olivia noticed Rosalie’s pause and figured the scientist was stopping to puff from her pipe first. What she heard Rosalie say next, however, sent a tremendous shock through her system and kicked her fight-or-flight instinct into gear. “One option would be to have Olivia stop traveling. Based on what I’ve been told and what I’ve observed, stress appears to be a major contributing factor to the seizures. If you remove those factors, it should help.”


At first, there was no reply. From Olivia’s point of view it felt like an eternity before her mother spoke up. But when Anabel finally did say something, it was far from what Olivia wanted to hear.


“It’s terrible, and I don’t know how she’d take it… but if that’s how she can be helped…”


That was it. Olivia couldn’t stomach any more, not after hearing Anabel even appear to be willing to tear away what she wanted. No more traveling meant no more Gyms. No more Gyms meant no more reaching the Pokémon League. And no more reaching the Pokémon League meant the vision she’d seen, the one of her coming face-to-face with her father at the Indigo Plateau, would never happen.


Olivia pushed off the wall and stormed away down the corridor. “How can you not understand, Mom?! I have to find him! I have to!! If there’s no hope for that, then what I’ve gone through meant nothing!”


-:-


“At least that might be a temporary solution, anyway,” Rosalie elaborated further, completely and utterly unaware of Olivia’s earlier eavesdropping. “Option two is probably better for the long term. I don’t know if Nekou has made you aware, but one of my areas of expertise is creating medicines. With a little work, I could make something that would help by relaxing the overactive parts of her brain, which should reduce if not eliminate the seizures.”


“You say that, and I do appreciate the gesture…” Anabel tugged anxiously at her scarf. “...but if medicine is the best solution, why can’t I go through Cianwood Pharmacy?”


“Olivia’s condition is quite unique,” the scientist clarified. “There are plenty of conditions with similar traits, but what she has is, as I said, unique. For that reason I don’t think any existing pharmacy would have the kind of medicine we need.”


Anabel held her chin as she thought over Rosalie’s proposal, and Matt couldn’t get a read on how she felt. Since he was quite a bit taller than her, from his point of view her hair partially obstructed her face. He could still see her mouth, but the way it rested perfectly between smiling and frowning gave him no insight into what she was thinking.


Amanda, on the other hand, couldn’t see any of Anabel’s motions, so she simply asked, “Anabel, what are you thinking?”


That innocent question was all the prompting Anabel needed to make her decision. Her lips gave way to a slight frown as her expression hardened and she went right up to Rosalie, putting her hands down on Rosalie’s wheelchair’s armrests.


“Listen to me,” Anabel hissed, their faces mere inches apart. “I truly appreciate that you’re willing to do this, don’t get me wrong. But mark my words, if you or anyone else from Team Rocket betrays me, Olivia, or anyone else I care about… I’ll make you regret it.”


Although Rosalie remained outwardly unfazed, she’d have been lying to herself if she denied the chill Anabel’s threat sent through her. She brought her pipe to her mouth, but instead of using it, said, “I’ll prove you can trust me, then, because I know you don’t make idle threats and that you’re more than capable of backing it up. I wouldn’t want to cross you alone, but with Amanda and Matt on your side… that would be the last mistake I’d ever make. I promise, you can put your faith in me. I’ll help Olivia.”


-:-


As much as all four of them wanted to help Olivia, none of them had any idea just what sort of help she needed immediately.


With little conscious idea of where she was going, Olivia angrily sulked as she stalked the hotel’s hallways. Her mind was racing unchecked, filling in gaps in her knowledge with poorly plotted assumptions. “I don’t understand, Mom,” she fumed to herself. “You know what this means to me! You know I have to finish this and find Dad again… and then you have to say that you’d stop me from doing that? Have you given up on putting everything back the way it was? Have you?!!” True to Rosalie’s words, Olivia could feel a headache starting to develop thanks to her stress, but she clenched her teeth and forced it back with sheer will. “Well, I’ll never give up! Even if it’s me against the whole entire world, even if you won’t let me do it, I’m putting things back the way they should be! I’m bringing him back because he should still be here with me!!


It was at that point that she found herself at the door to Nekou’s room. She hadn’t really been thinking about where she was heading, so it wasn’t until she arrived that she realized what she was doing. Regardless, she knew then that she was where she wanted to be.


“Nekou, open u-” Olivia caught herself mid-sentence, remembering what she’d heard from Matt and Rosalie only a short time earlier. “Oh, right, she’s not here…”


However, Olivia had already lifted her arm up in preparation to bang on the door with her fist. She restrained herself from doing so once she remembered it would be pointless, but when she placed her hand on the door instead, it creaked open.


“Huh?” she uttered in surprise.


Again not thinking before she acted, Olivia pushed the door further and wandered into Nekou’s room. As she looked around its dark, otherwise uninhabited confines, the feeling of hopelessness and despair she’d barely managed to keep at bay to that point crept up and fully took hold.


Only one thing had really kept her going in the face of Polaris’s conspiring, Ghetsis’s campaign, her illness, and everything else. Sure, she had plenty of friends - Nekou, Monroe, Helena, even Avril more recently - but there was only so much they could do alone. It was the hope that at the end of it all, after she’d survived everything, her father would be waiting for her. She had been close to accepting that he was gone on the day he re-emerged during Polaris’s hijacking of FlareNet’s broadcast, and her vision of him in Polaris’s temple only cemented her impressions from that speech. No matter what anyone thought, he was alive. He had to be. That was the only way anything made sense.


And yet, Anabel was willing to take it all away, and for what? Her health? “What does it even matter if I’m okay, if I have to live without him…” Olivia thought, her anguish forcing tears out of her eyes and down her face.


As she tearfully pivoted from side to side, a vanity to her left came into view. Its mirror had long been smashed, but one of the few remaining glass shards reflected a glint of light off an object sitting in front of it, drawing Olivia in closer.


It was one of Nekou’s knives, thrown onto the vanity in a careless fashion and seemingly, at least for the time being, forgotten. Olivia snatched it and tucked it away in her jacket, but it wasn’t until she stepped back out into the hallway that she had an idea for why.


A sign on the wall directly across from where she stood pointed the way to a fire exit just a short distance further down the corridor. Olivia followed its guidance directly to the marked door and slipped past it, hesitating only briefly to make sure nobody else was around to see her. Her boots clanged against the metal steps as she descended the outside of the building, ultimately ending up in an adjacent alley. She jumped from the last step, her feet sinking slightly into the dirt thanks to the lingering effects of the previous night’s rain.


Once Olivia was back on firm ground, she fetched the knife from her pocket and stared contemplatively at it. Her tears ceased, and her face soon turned from one of sadness to one of sheer, unbridled anger.


“Even if you won’t let me do it,” she repeated despite nobody being around to hear, “I’m putting things back the way they should be.”


Reaching to the back of her head with her free hand, she bunched her hair up where her neck and shoulders joined, then pushed into it with the knife. It took her a few minutes of work to cut all the way through her thick mane, but she eventually managed, feeling the vast volume of much of her hair simply fall away all at once.


With the deed done, and feeling newly unburdened with the weight taken off of her, Olivia turned around to what she’d left behind on the ground. She considered throwing the knife atop the pile of hair, but thought better of it and returned the item to her pocket instead.


“Might still need it for something, just in case. Anyway, first, the Gym… then to get some new clothes.”


-:-


Bunny rode into Ecruteak City on her Gogoat that morning, and the sight that greeted her made her feel an unexpected sense of hope. Plenty of destruction from Ghetsis’s campaign and the titanic clash between Ho-oh and Mewtwo still remained, but the fires were long since extinguished, and the city had moved on to the early stages of the rebuilding phase. As she rode through Ecruteak’s urban half, she passed by numerous scenes of people helping each other clear away wreckage, with countless Pokémon giving the humans their aid.


“Maybe this world’s still got a chance after all,” she mused as Gogoat carried her over the border into Ecruteak’s old town. “Wait, what am I saying? Of course this world’s got a chance, the alternative is Polaris and Ghetsis being right…”


Just saying those words brought back vivid images of Ecruteak City burning, and of Ho-oh unwillingly fighting to the death against Mewtwo, Sky, Xatu and the other Pokémon. Bunny shivered not only at those memories but at the mere suggestion the causes championed by those she fought against might have been correct after all.


Still, for all the positive developments in Ecruteak since the incident, there were some things that didn’t survive. The city’s Pokémon Center was one of those casualties. There hadn’t yet been an opportunity for the Pokémon League to assess the costs of clearing away the ruins of the facility, let alone cut through all the red tape to actually get it taken away. So far, all that they’d managed was bringing in a prefabricated building bearing the Poké Ball insignia all Pokémon Centers displayed to stand as a temporary replacement.


A long line of trainers waiting to enter the provisional facility greeted Bunny as she rode up to it, yet the sight didn’t disappoint her. Far from it, in fact. For the purposes that led her back to Ecruteak City, such a situation would do perfectly. She jumped off her Gogoat’s back and moved to approach the queue, only for a familiar voice to stop her before she could do anything.


“Ah, Miss Bunny…” She pivoted to see Nando approaching her. “It is good to see you again.”


“Same here,” Bunny replied, greeting him with a smile and a wave. “Have you not left Ecruteak all this time?”


Nando’s usual pleasant expression gave way to a more reflective one, and he turned around to look back at Ecruteak’s metropolitan side. “This city is trying to rise from the ashes of Ghetsis’s actions, to restore some sense of normalcy… it is much like the tale of the Brass Tower, and the three Pokémon said to have perished in the flames before being given new life by Ho-oh.”


“How ironic that it was Ho-oh that caused a lot of this damage, then…” Bunny bitterly noted.


“I feel it was humanity that received this punishment for one of our kind using Ho-oh’s power as a weapon. Perhaps this was Ho-oh passing down the judgment we deserved for allowing it to happen.”


“I don’t know how much I agree with that, to be honest.” Realizing how vague her comment sounded, she rushed to add, “I mean, I agree that this might be a punishment. I just don’t know if I agree with calling Ghetsis one of us, as in, human.”


“Aha,” Nando chuckled, turning back to Bunny. “I did miss the rather humorous nature of your group. Now that I am thinking of them, however… are you here in Ecruteak by yourself?”


Now it was Bunny’s mood that dimmed, her recollection of everything that had happened in Olivine putting a weight on her shoulders. “Yeah, the others… they’re off in Olivine City. I came back here to look for Bill.”


“Oh?” questioned the bard. “Why would that be?”


"I want to understand the truth behind the Coronet Rosary, whatever it is," Bunny explained while stroking Gogoat's grassy pelt. "Bill's mother was a Kimono Girl, so he is of Tenganist heritage. I thought he might be able to help my investigation."


"I see… you will need to continue your travels, Miss Bunny. Bill departed for his family's home in Goldenrod City a few days ago."


“Then we’ll stop down here for a few hours before setting out for Goldenrod.” After recalling Gogoat to his Poké Ball, Bunny turned it over in her hand and stared at it. “Sherb and I have been riding out here from Olivine pretty much non-stop the last few days… we both need a rest before taking the last run to Goldenrod.”


“Might you enjoy some company on your travels?” Nando asked, earning an inquisitive head tilt from Bunny. “As it stands, I have already acquired the eight Badges I need to enter the Pokémon League, and the Ribbons necessary for Saffron City’s Grand Festival. Until those events, I would be happy to accompany you, if you’d have me. The subject of the Coronet Rosary has piqued my interest, as well.”


“Sure, having some company sounds like it might be just the thing I need.” Truth be told, Bunny had felt somewhat lonely during her solo trip. She still felt conflicted when it came to what she’d learned about her traveling companions, and the idea of having a neutral party to act as a listener appealed to her. “I’ll heal up my Pokémon and we’ll take it from there.”


“Much obliged.”


-:-


A tornado of sand churned around Olivine Gym’s battlefield as Olivia’s Samurott and Helena’s Mega Mawile faced off for the second time. Olivia had barged into the gym that day demanding to pick up her challenge where it had gone off the rails before, so when Helena agreed, their rematch took the form of a one-on-one battle. It wasn’t a perfect replication of their previous encounter, since Samurott wasn’t tired from fighting as a Dewott first, but both trainers agreed the circumstances were close enough that it didn’t matter. Monroe and Avril were there, too, the latter sitting alone in the stands while the former helped Helena by interpreting Olivia’s words once again. The three siblings’ father, however, was absent, having been summoned back to the Angel Corporation headquarters by Gabriella.


“Samurott, use Revenge!” Olivia shouted out. The battle had gone on for a relatively lengthy amount of time by that point, and both Pokémon were bearing the wounds of their struggle. Samurott drew upon those injuries, using every scratch and bruise across his body to fuel his power until an orange aura erupted around him.


Helena, however, was having none of it. “Quickly, Mawile! Iron Head!”


The Steel-and-Fairy-type Pokémon lunged out of the gritty tempest he’d created and smashed the twin jaws on his head into Samurott. Not only was Samurott forced back by the blow, but he also flinched, the orange aura from Revenge dissipating into thin air.


As Mawile’s sandstorm abated, Olivia felt her emotions were on the cusp of running wild again. Knowing that letting them run wild would only lead to her falling ill again, she willed them under control as best as she could. Still, she found herself subconsciously clenching her fists as her breathing grew ragged.


“I can’t lose… I can’t. I won’t!” she exclaimed, glaring across the field at Helena, Monroe and Mawile. Samurott’s mind was as one with her own, desperate for their victory. “Samurott, hit that thing with your Razor Shell!”


“Mawile, counter with Crunch!”
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
Samurott shook himself out of his daze and rushed Mawile anew, drawing the seamitar from his left leg as the distance between the two closed. Mawile remained composed, however, and merely waited in place for his foe’s arrival. Once Samurott was within striking distance and brandished his shell sword, Mawile lashed around to direct his left-hand set of jaws into Razor Shell’s path. By then it was too late for Samurott to pull out of the attempted strike, and his seamitar got caught in Mawile’s mandibles when the Mega Evolved Pokémon bit down on it.


The resulting stalemate only made Olivia’s anger spike even further. She couldn’t help it. Her next step was so tantalizingly close and yet Helena was denying it, holding her at bay through Mawile pinning Samurott’s sword in his jaws. As she watched Samurott try to pull the blade loose, she could feel herself hit a mental wall and come up dry on ideas. All she could do was clench her fists even more tightly, and her rage finally boiled over, manifesting in a furious, near-bestial scream that erupted from deep within her.


On her side of the field, Helena didn’t need any help understanding Olivia’s breakdown. Even though she couldn’t hear the scream, she could see the look of frenzied anguish on her opponent’s face. Her siblings both visibly flinching from it only undermined to the Gym Leader how loud it was.


“For Olivia’s sake, I have to bring this to an end…” she realized. Pushing her right arm forward, Helena ordered, “Mawile, Iron Head!”


The sight of Mawile’s free set of jaws taking on the distinctive metallic sheen of Iron Head brought Olivia a sudden moment of clarity. Suddenly, she knew what she had to do. “Samurott, just forget Razor Shell! Give it a point-blank Liquidation!”


It went against Samurott’s nature to simply surrender his beloved seamitar, but in the heat of the moment, he was willing to make a sacrifice. Like his trainer, he wanted more than nothing else to simply, finally defeat Mawile in a fair fight. Mawile struck him in the side with Iron Head, but this time, he refused to capitulate. Resisting the urge to flinch again, Samurott pulled Mawile close and drew moisture from the air, soon gathering enough water energy for a fluid cocoon to form around them both. Because Mawile was already trapped within the water, Samurott didn’t have to tackle him the way Ethan’s Dhelmise used the move. Upon reaching full strength, it simply exploded in a cloud of droplets that showered over the arena.


“Mawile!” Helena shouted into the mist, unable to see either Pokémon.


Olivia, meanwhile, said nothing as all present in the Gym waited for the results to be revealed. All that could be heard was her strained breathing.


Finally, as the clouds of vapor lifted, Samurott and Mawile came back into view. Though he was bruised across his entire body and panting from exhaustion, Samurott still stood above Mawile, who had collapsed to the floor. Mawile’s Mega Evolution soon reverted in a flash of golden light, providing a final, decisive period to the end of Olivia’s story at Olivine Gym.


“That’s it… it’s… finally over…” Olivia panted, stumbling over to Samurott’s side. For his part, Samurott wasn’t in sync with his trainer anymore. He was too caught up in pride over his victory, picking up his seamitar from where Mawile dropped it and lifting it high into the air, all in a show of dominance for everyone nearby to witness. The only thing he wished for was Flaaffy to be present, so he could rub his victory in the electric sheep’s face. “Thanks, Samurott…” Olivia said to him as she raised his Poké Ball, recalling him to its interior.


Helena and Monroe approached Olivia from the other side of the battlefield, while Avril jumped from the stands to join them. Once they all came together in the center of the field, it was Helena who spoke first.


“I’m glad we were able to resolve that battle properly… but are you alright, Olivia? I’m quite concerned by what I sa-”


“I’m fine,” Olivia interrupted, sharply twisting her head away from the Gym Leader and her siblings. “I’m fine,” she repeated, “just fine… just let me have my Mineral Badge, please.”


Helena complied with the request, retrieving the silvery hexagon from her uniform’s pocket and placing it in Olivia’s hand, but she still harbored significant doubts about her friend and challenger’s condition. Their first battle had derailed terribly right at the end, after all, but the angry, defiant state Olivia showed up in for her rematch only deepened Helena’s worry. She had refused to talk about her newly cut hair when Monroe and Avril asked about it, for one, and when Helena had tried to make some small talk before the battle, Olivia refused that too. Everything about what Helena was seeing just felt wrong, and her siblings shared the same concern.


“Olivia…” Monroe said, deciding to gamble in hopes of bringing her mood up, “would it help at all if we went to see a movie? We’ve got plenty of time to catch the next showing of Ultra Maximum 3 at the Olivine Multiplex…”


“Oh, why would that be a good idea?” Avril interjected in her usual haughty manner. Beneath her typical attitude, however, she had just as little of an idea of what to do as the others. It was more or less a mask of her true feelings, in fact. She wanted to help Olivia in her own way. “Olivia, obviously we should battle again. Now that you beat Helena for good, you should be able to prove how much stronger you are than me. Easily.”


“No!” Olivia snapped, not specifying which of them she was refusing or if it was aimed at both. She lashed back around to face them, and much to the three siblings’ horrified surprise, there were tears of anger and sadness welling up in her eyes. “Just get away from me! You’re just wasting your time with someone as worthless as me!”


Her challenge at an end, Olivia fled the Gym, leaving Monroe, Avril and Helena behind and completely lost. Not one of them could even begin to guess what was going through her head, only that they didn’t like it.


-:-


From its location near the harbor, Olivine Café was a place frequented by both tourists and sailors alike. That day was no different, and a long line of patrons was queued up for their selection of the café’s famous dishes.


That long line was why Nekou was glad she’d gotten there as early as she did. She had no trouble getting her table, even if it was one near the front that kept her within view of the line. The noise didn’t bother her, though. In fact, she welcomed it. It helped her blend in with the crowd so nobody would bother her. As ironic as it was, the café being busy afforded her the opportunity to indulge herself in peace. Several empty beer bottles were strewn across the table while she worked on another. A gigantic bowl of noodles with a pair of chopsticks resting inside sat in front of her, one large enough to feed at least two people with the broth, eggs, fish cakes and nori packed into it. Another of her hustles had been beating people at the café’s eating contests, so it was a familiar meal, even if the comfort it afforded was minimal at the time.


“What am I even supposed to do with myself now?” she wondered, sullenly staring into the bowl with a ceramic spoon in her hand. “I really am a monster, after all… and what I am will push them all away. I know it.”


“Is that what you really believe?”


Nekou looked up with a start. She was used to hearing voices in her head, so when she heard Ariana’s it didn’t surprise her much. No, what surprised her was the way she saw Ariana sitting opposite from her. Was it just her imagination? Even if it was, was she not welcoming it?


“Why shouldn’t I…?” Nekou answered, too out of sorts to really think that much about why she was seeing Ariana in the first place. “Maman, you know better than most what I am…”


“But I also know what you can be.” Was that something Ariana would really have said, or was Nekou trying to convince herself it was? “I always told you, just live. You’ve shown you don’t want to be a monster, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You are what you want to be.”


“Stop letting her lie to you.”


Just as Nekou was beginning to feel like she might be able to right herself, another voice intruded on the conversation. And, of course, it was that of her other self.


“The truth is, you know what you are. Your hesitation to embrace it… to embrace me... is your mistake.”


“Will you just fuck off already?” Nekou growled, barely managing to keep the volume of her voice in check.


“No…” Much to her horror, Nekou no longer heard the voice of her other self inside her mind. Instead, the wicked hissing was now coming from her vision of Ariana, whose face was twisting to match the shift. Her - no, its - mouth contorted into an inhumanly wide grin, lips failing to cover sharp, vicious teeth. As it spoke, an almost serpentine tongue flicked out. “...I won’t, because I am you. And you are me.”


Nekou was so frightened by the sight that she recoiled in her side of the booth, dropping her spoon into the noodles in the process. Yet, as quickly as the apparition appeared, it was gone, driven away by the sudden interruption of Nekou’s phone ringing as it sat face-down on the table next to her food.


“...emotions come, I don’t know why, cover up love’s alibi…”


Her heart racing at what she figured had to be a literal mile a minute, Nekou blinked and gasped for breath. The demonic-looking figure was gone, but the experience of seeing it still lingered in her mind. She was so rattled, in fact, that when she fumbled for her phone she nearly dropped it into the bowl.


“What?!” she unconsciously snapped, unaware of who was on the other end.


Luckily for her, it was Rosalie, someone who understood her unstable moods. “Nekou, where are you?” the scientist asked, looking past the way Nekou greeted her.


“Oh, uh… sorry about yelling at you, Rosalie…”


“It’s okay.” Nekou imagined Rosalie was probably stopping to smoke her pipe right about then, and if they were face to face, she would have seen she was right. “Just tell me where you are.”


“Olivine Café,” Nekou answered. “Why? What’s going on?”


“Olivine Café…?” Rosalie repeating her words struck Nekou as strange. Why would her being there be such a surprise? It wasn’t exactly a secret that she frequented the place, and her exploits in their contests were well known in their shared circle. So what was it that Rosalie was questioning? Unfortunately, before Nekou could push the subject, her colleague and friend spoke again. “Nothing’s really going on, I just want you to come back here as soon as you can. The preparations for moving out are nearly done.”


“Yeah, fine. I’ll be there.” Ending the call, Nekou put her phone back down on the table and stared into her bowl of noodles.


She had no intention of losing her winning streak at the café any time soon. Rosalie didn’t want her back right then and there, so there was plenty of time to finish.


-:-


On the other end, Rosalie had barely shut off the transmission from her wheelchair when she was interrupted by a familiar voice.


“Rosalie, who were you talking to just now?” Anabel asked her, walking up with Matt at her side.


“Nekou.” Anticipating the question Matt was about to ask, she added, “She’s at Olivine Café. The thing is…”


“You’re thinking it too, aren’t you?” Anabel guessed. Crossing her arms and frowning, she elaborated, “Olivia hasn’t come back after you sent her there. I’m getting worried.”


“If Nekou saw her there, she would have said something,” Rosalie realized. “Either she never went there at all, or she went there and just never came back. Either way, she’s not here…”


“That’s right. She’s not here.” Anabel glared at Rosalie, and the scientist could see the cold fury shimmering in her lilac eyes.


Before a potential confrontation could escalate, however, Matt intervened. “Olivia said that she wanted to go to the Gym, right? I bet she’s there.”


Anabel took a step back. “Oh… oh yeah, you’re right. Let’s go check there.”


“I’ll grab Amanda and then we’ll head out,” Matt agreed. Just as he turned to leave, he remembered something and said to Rosalie, “Make sure Nekou’s alright, will you?”


“I will, don’t worry.”


-:-


A small group of cabins stood amidst the windswept snowbanks blanketing the Sinjoh Ruins, not far from the main entrance to the temple. While most of the Tenganist Liberation Front’s members lived in the network of caves like Sheena did, some made their homes in the above-ground dwellings instead.


One of those cabins was where Jacob ultimately ended up being placed, and it was his that Sheena decided to reveal her new plans to Sylpha and Alesia in. After her nightmare she’d never gone back to sleep, kept awake by her drive to solve the puzzle of how to best protect and serve her people, and she’d finally come to a conclusion.


“I’m going to leave on a journey of my own,” she informed the elderly archeologist and her two subordinates, the wooden floor of the cabin creaking under her feet as she paced. “You will all be safe here without me. I believe this is the only way we can protect ourselves if…” Remembering her nightmare and the real memories behind it gave her pause. “...if Ghetsis ever returns, and if we are ever to restore this land and turn it into the sanctuary our people deserve.”


“We might be safe here,” Sylpha spoke up, “but what about you? Will you be alright on your own?”


“Are you sure you don’t at least need me to help tend to your health?” Alesia added.


“I will be fine, of that I am confident, Alesia. Those living here will need your abilities more than I do. Sylpha, as for you, I need you to care for my son while I’m away. It pains me to leave him, but this quest is something I can’t bring him along for.” Sheena stopped pacing, but did not face her audience. “I plan to try and meet Ho-oh again, on my own terms. If I can obtain its aid, between it, Hoopa and Mewtwo we should have enough power on our side to defend this place even from Ghetsis and the rest of Polaris.”


Before continuing, Sheena drifted over to the small cabin’s sole window. Staring out at the snowy abyss beyond it, she elaborated, “Somewhere out there is a place called Navel Rock. It is said in legend to be a nexus between the depths of the sea and the heights of the sky, and the inspiration our ancestors took for the construction of the Brass Tower and Tin Tower in Ecruteak City. Like those towers, it is said that if one proves themselves worthy of a Silver Wing or Rainbow Wing and brings it there, they will meet Lugia or Ho-oh. Since I have already met Ho-oh once, it is the one I’ll pursue.”


“The path to finding a Rainbow Wing isn’t one that’s well documented,” Jacob observed, leaning back in his chair. “There are a lot of myths about it, but the only consistent element is the term ‘Rainbow Hero,’ which rarely even gets defined. Is it someone destined for a heroic purpose, or just someone whose moral constitution makes them worthy of meeting Ho-oh? And that’s doesn’t even address the matter of locating Navel Rock itself.”


“I know how vague the legends are, but no matter what it means, I will become the Rainbow Hero.” Sheena reached up and gripped the neck of her cloak, then narrowed her eyes as she glared out the window. “For you and for all of my people, I will find Navel Rock and meet Ho-oh again. I’ll take Hoopa with me so I can travel safely and conveniently, and the first place I plan to go is to visit an old friend of mine. She should be able to give me the support and information I need to accomplish my goal. I believe she’s someone you might have some awareness of, Jacob.”


“What do you mean?” the old man asked. “Who is it?”


“Rosalita, the queen of La Ciudad Dorada in the region of Lapidaria. I traveled with her several years ago when she was carrying out her Pilgrimage of the Pillars to take the throne.”


“Ah!” Jacob exclaimed. “You’re right. I haven’t been to La Ciudad Dorada in so long, but I’m well aware that she’s their first queen by birthright. Hearing that name brings back memories…”


“Make sure you tell these two all about your search for the Golden City with Sutter Chiaki while I’m away,” Sheena said with a smile, gesturing at Sylpha and Alesia. “I’m sure it’ll be quite the yarn with you telling it.”


-:-


Matt, Anabel and Amanda wasted no time in heading north to Olivine Gym, hoping that if their luck held out, they’d get there before Olivia disappeared again. As they discovered when they met Helena, Monroe and Avril there, that wasn’t to be the case.


“You didn’t know she was here?” Monroe questioned when asked of Olivia’s whereabouts. He shared a nervous glance with his sisters, an action that didn’t escape Anabel’s notice.


“What happened while she was here?” Olivia’s mother pressed them. “Look, we need to know where she might have gone. Anything you can tell us is helpful.”


“I’ll tell you,” Avril declared. “It was messed up, I’ll tell you that much. She showed up here with pretty much all her hair gone, that’s one thing. It was cut to like,” she traced a line across the back of her neck with her hand, “this short. When we asked her about it, she didn’t want to say anything.”


“How could she have gotten a haircut that fast?” Matt held his chin and looked down at the pavement beneath his feet as he pondered the question. “If she went to a salon before she came here, we should have caught up with her. I can’t imagine she finished her business here that fast.”


Having followed along with the conversation with Monroe’s aid, Helena piped up, “To be fair, we did not have a full rematch. We simply continued from where our last match went awry, so Samurott and Mawile fought each other again. And Olivia did win, but…”


Sensing Helena’s hesitation, Amanda said, “That she won is one thing, but what else happened? There’s clearly more to this story.”


“Well… it’s like my sister said,” the Gym Leader elaborated. “Olivia didn’t seem well. She was very, very upset and on edge the entire time she was here. After I gave her the Mineral Badge, Avril and Monroe asked her to spend some more time with us and she just… snapped.” Helena then asked her siblings, “What was it she said, again?”


“Let me think,” answered Monroe. “It was something like… ‘You’re wasting your time with someone as worthless as me.’”


“Yeah, that was it,” Avril agreed.


“‘You’re wasting your time with someone as worthless as me…’” Anabel breathlessly repeated. Her hand found its way over her mouth as her eyes went wide behind her sunglasses. “You don’t think she overheard our talk with Rosalie, do you?”


“But Rosalie told her to leave and go to Olivine Café instead. She couldn’t have known unless…” Matt froze as what Anabel was suggesting caught up with him. Of course Olivia hadn’t gone to the café, Rosalie and Nekou’s conversation proved that. But if she ignored the request to go to the café, where had she gone instead? Olivine Gym? That certainly seemed possible, but the last time they saw her, she hadn’t yet cut her hair, and there wasn’t enough time for her to go to a salon before the Gym if she disappeared from the latter so quickly. The puzzle pieces were beginning to assemble in his mind - Olivia, having ignored Rosalie’s suggestion to visit the café, surreptitiously listened in on their talk, heard something that upset her and prompted her to cut her own hair, before going straight to the Gym and then vanishing. And what would it have been that distressed her so deeply? “She thinks we consider her worthless because we discussed stopping her quest to collect the Badges,” he realized, his face turning even more pale. “She’s been defining herself entirely by her search for her father, and the only way she thinks that’s going to happen is…”


“...if she proves herself by qualifying for the Pokémon League,” Amanda finished. “Then wouldn’t the next place she goes be somewhere that helps her keep progressing?”


“The harbor,” Anabel surmised. “She might have boarded a ferry to go to Cianwood City in search of another Badge.”


“Then we’d best be getting there, now,” Matt said.


Anabel nodded in agreement. "Yeah." She then thanked the three siblings, saying, “We appreciate the help. Contact us if you find out anything more… please.”


-:-


A plan took shape among Matt’s group as they made their way to the harbor.


First, they would split up to cover more ground. Matt and Amanda would cover one end of the docks, while Anabel took the other. They’d both ask around, showing pictures of Olivia to anyone they could find that might have seen her. If things went as they hoped, they would be able to confirm that Olivia boarded a ferry for Cianwood City. From there, what would happen next would be simple. With a single phone call, Anabel could have a car take the three of them to the airport, where they’d board her helicopter and take it to Cianwood themselves. If everything turned out well, they’d be there before Olivia’s ferry arrived.


As the two groups reunited in the harbor after about an hour of searching, both could tell from the others’ body language that things had not gone according to plan at all.


“Let me guess,” Matt said as he and Amanda joined up with Anabel. “Nothing?”


“Nothing,” Anabel answered with a sigh. “I got plenty of people who recognized her as my daughter, but nobody who’s seen her today.”


“That’s about the same as what we got,” replied Amanda. “A lot of ‘that’s the Battle Frontier commissioner’s daughter!’ but no ‘she was here today.’”


“So we’re back to square one. What do we do now?”


Neither Matt nor his companions had any immediate answer to his question. Their thoughts, their concerns, all filtered into the crowds around them and dissipated. All the people coming and going around the harbor and its markets, and yet none of them could help. The vast majority of them wouldn’t even be able to tell anything was wrong. As they went about their ordinary, day-to-day lives, the most they would have noticed was a pair of public figures and the trainer who appeared on Victory Station having some sort of serious conversation.


“We should go back to the Pokémon Center,” Amanda finally suggested. “If she didn’t leave for Cianwood, she might be heading toward Mahogany Town instead.”


“If she is, then she must never have heard that Mahogany’s Gym Leader recently passed away,” Anabel observed. Thinking back to the news of the mysterious trainer and Pokémon near the Lake of Rage, she could feel a sense of dread growing in her heart. “But something tells me that even if she knew, she’d go anyway… after what we heard is going on there, Olivia might want to prove herself.”


“Then the Pokémon Center it is,” Matt said, adjusting the red scarf around his neck. “There might be a lead there.”


The trio started to depart the harbor, but before they could get far, a familiar voice called out to them, stopping them in their tracks. “Anabel! Amanda! Matt!”


It was Ethan, navigating through the crowds from the Battle Submarine’s pier. Another young man, dressed handsomely in a tuxedo with blue lapels that matched the color of his slacks, followed closely behind him.


“Ethan?” Anabel exclaimed in surprise. “I didn’t expect to see either you or Darach today… the Battle Submarine wasn’t around just a little while ago.”


“We just arrived back at port,” Ethan explained. “We were off having a friendly match, just the two of us Frontier Brains. Were you looking for me?” His expression, which had been cheerful until that point, started to cloud. “Is something going on?”


“Olivia ran away…” Amanda revealed. “We thought she might have taken a ferry to Cianwood City but nobody here saw her today, so we were just about to head back up to the Pokémon Center to search for leads there.”


“Good luck with your search,” Ethan’s fellow Frontier Brain, Darach, said to them. “Commissioner, if there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to call upon me.”


“I appreciate that, Darach,” Anabel said to him, showing the slightest of smiles. “I won’t hesitate to ask for your help if I need it.”


“And I will not hesitate to provide it.” Shifting his attention to Matt, Darach asked, “You are Matt Chiaki, Amanda’s brother and the challenger who recently defeated Ethan, are you not?”


“Yeah, that’s me,” Matt listlessly replied. Just thinking of the Battle Frontier again forced him to remember the news Ethan delivered about Reshiram, and it made him miserable. “I’m not doing the Battle Frontier anymore, at least not right now.”


Ethan and Darach shared a glance at each other. Unbeknownst to Matt, while they were out on the Battle Submarine just earlier that day, they’d talked about him as they caught up with each other. Darach knew about Matt’s quest for Reshiram and how it ended, leaving him to find a tactful way to bring the subject up.


Ultimately, however, he decided avoiding the topic was the best course of action. After adjusting his rectangular glasses, he bowed, the sunlight glistening in his slicked-back hair. “Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Darach, the Castle Valet of the Battle Castle in Roséridge City.” Straightening up, he continued, “I had intended to give you my apologies, Matt. My employer, Lady Caitlin, is currently away from the Battle Castle on a journey of her own, and as a result I am unable to accept official challenges. I hope one day we will meet in battle, after what I observed of your match with Ethan.”


“Maybe it’ll happen one day, and I’ll be looking forward to it, but there’s just a lot of other things on my plate right now. I hope your Lady Caitlin is doing well, though.”


“She is. She is currently in Kanto challenging the Gyms there, in the hopes of qualifying for the Pokémon League so she can prove her own strength with Psychic-type Pokémon even further.” A buzzing sound interrupted the conversation, prompting Darach to retrieve his golden pocket watch and open it up. “Ah, we must depart. Ethan and I have a reservation for lunch at Sushi High Roller and we must not be late.”


As the two Frontier Brains said their goodbyes and departed, Matt thought to himself, “Challenging the Gyms in Kanto? I wonder if we’ll run into her. A Psychic-type specialist...”


-:-


If someone had kept a record for the average person's fastest crossing of Olivine City on foot, Matt, Anabel and Amanda might have been in contention for it. They didn't run, but their march back to the Pokémon Center in the northern district was relentless. The number of potential leads to Olivia's location was running rather low, and they didn't know where they'd look next if the Pokémon Center didn't pan out.


The high-tech glass cube of a building was packed with patrons, as always. A long line at the reception desk greeted Matt, Anabel and Amanda as they entered, and the rest of the concourse was accordingly full of people crowded around the various informational holograms.


"Where do we even get started here?" Matt lamented at the size of the crowd.


Little did he suspect that a lucky break was about to finally find them, for the first time that day. Just like at the harbor, someone they knew called out to them.


“Anabel?” It was Morgan, the Mawile trainer who the group met before Olivia and Helena’s first battle, seemingly so long ago. He had been lingering near the automatic doors and browsing the web on his phone while Mawlly, his Mawile, sat at his feet and ate a Casteliacone. When he spotted the group entering the Pokémon Center, his surprise was such that he stumbled away from the wall and nearly tripped. “Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Commissioner…”


“Just Anabel is fine,” she said to him. “I hope you’re well.”


“I’m doing pretty good. Mawlly and the rest of my Pokémon, too. But…” Morgan took a step back, staring not only at Anabel but Matt and Amanda behind her. “Why are you three here? Aren’t you with Olivia?”


“Wait, what do you mean by that?” Anabel removed her sunglasses and hooked them into her jacket. “Where is Olivia?”


“You mean you don’t know? Here, look at this.” Morgan thumbed through a number of pages on his phone until he reached the one he was looking for, then held it out so Anabel and Matt could see.


It was a photograph of a grassy plain with forests beyond the clearing, and rolling hills in the distance. Some writing was typed out beneath it, the message reading “The training begins. Pokémon League, here I come! You’ll know the name Olivia Mistbloom!!”


“I found it while I was going through RChannel a little while ago,” Morgan clarified, “and there are more where that came from.”


To prove his point, Morgan swiped further through the gallery of images. The scenery in each one changed slightly from the last, until it became plain to see that Olivia was in the forests from the first photo. Her Pokémon popped up in several of the pictures, too; Krabby, Cinccino and Herdier all were seen fighting various wild Pokémon.


“Anabel,” Matt quietly said as he leaned over her shoulder, “you recognize it too, right?”


“I do. Route 39.”


“I was right, then,” Amanda replied. “If Olivia is on Route 39, there’s only one place she’s going. Mahogany Town.”


“We should leave now and try to catch up with her, then.”


Matt turned to depart the Pokémon Center, but Anabel stopped him by grabbing his arm. “Wait. Maybe we shouldn’t just rush to catch her…”


“What?” Matt croaked, her sudden change of mind and surprisingly strong grip catching him off guard. “Why would you say that now?


“I’m thinking…” Anabel released his arm and shrank her hand back away from it. “Olivia’s only like this because she misunderstood my intentions. If we rush out there now and try to correct her, she might just see it as insincere and only be more upset by it. And if she gets upset and stressed more than she already is…”


“...she’ll just have another seizure,” Amanda concluded. “What are you suggesting we do instead, then?”


“Matt, you can follow her at a distance with HR-E, right?” When he nodded, Anabel continued, “She’s posting photos of her activity online, which is what we can use to keep an eye on both her whereabouts and her condition. If things take a turn for the worse, we’ll be in a position to help her immediately. Otherwise, we can give her some space until reaching Mahogany. She might feel better then.”


“I can’t say I really know what’s going on…” Morgan said, his voice relatively muted, “but I hope I was able to help in some way.”


“You were,” Anabel told him, placing her right hand on his shoulder, “more than you realize. Thank you.”


-:-


Meanwhile, back at Team Rocket’s hideout in the abandoned hotel, the members still in the city had reassembled in the conference room. That included Nekou, who stood at the back of the room, biting her fingernail while her teammates consulted remotely with Stacia.


“Start the reconnaissance immediately,” Stacia commanded. The teleconference screen filled her glasses with a shine that masked just how hard she was working to hold her emotions together. “You must prepare to make a move the instant an opportunity presents itself. You have to save him… you have to.”









END of CHAPTER 27
 

Sike Saner

Peace to the Mountain
That opening scene did a really nice job of capturing a very particular aspect of grief: a sense of separation from the world. Like they're going on without you--or vice versa: like you're the only one in motion, while they're all stuck, completely unknowing, in an idyllic past that no longer exists.

It'll be interesting to see where Matt and Nekou's interactions will be going from here. It seems clear that they aren't actually a "thing" as of yet (and possibly not ever); they both just needed some help with some soul-searching in the wake of some seriously hard blows, and one thing just sort of led to another. They've still got a fair bit to sort out, both with regards to one another and independently. It's a complicated situation arising out of other complicated situations, and I can only wonder where that road leads.

Same goes for the road Olivia's taken. I mean, apart from Mahogany. :B I'm curious about her thought process when it comes to posting her whereabouts online rather than trying to stay under the radar as much as she can. It makes me suspect she wants to be found. Wants to be followed, on some level. Maybe she's daring them, consciously or not, to disprove her worst fears about her value, or prove them, or something.

Or maybe her thought process in posting her location is that she kind of isn't having a thought process. She's very troubled at the moment, and that's absolutely the sort of thing that can make a person behave irrationally af.

A galvantula chasing a rubber ball around is freaking adorable, meanwhile. :D That image is probably gonna stick with me for a while.
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
That opening scene did a really nice job of capturing a very particular aspect of grief: a sense of separation from the world. Like they're going on without you--or vice versa: like you're the only one in motion, while they're all stuck, completely unknowing, in an idyllic past that no longer exists.

I'm glad it worked. My ideas for it kind of evolved as I wrote it; when I started I only really had the core beats of "Nekou wanders around the city" and "sees people in the restaraunt." The rest filled itself out, really, and the one part I think I liked the most was her collision with the lookalike who was eating the Rage Candy Bar. To me, that and seeing the diners watching the news report felt like the most poignant moments, because I think Nekou felt not only that sense of separation from the world but also the feeling that she and the things that happened to her aren't real. That's going to be a big theme with her going forward, actually. That whole idea - the feeling that she isn't real - is going to be something she has to deal with.

It'll be interesting to see where Matt and Nekou's interactions will be going from here. It seems clear that they aren't actually a "thing" as of yet (and possibly not ever); they both just needed some help with some soul-searching in the wake of some seriously hard blows, and one thing just sort of led to another. They've still got a fair bit to sort out, both with regards to one another and independently. It's a complicated situation arising out of other complicated situations, and I can only wonder where that road leads.

First of all, what you took from it is exactly what I wanted to convey. I'm so adamant in pointing that out because this scene and the event was something that was not added at the last minute - it's been there for ages before I finally got to write it, and obviously, something like this has the potential to completely throw off the entire story if it goes wrong. So it's a relief for me that you got my intended takeaway from it - this was always meant to be something where great emotional distress plus ill-advised attempts at self-medicating lead to things that were kind of already developing boiling over before their time. But it was also very important that this not be any sort of magic cure, either. That would be completely wrong not only for the story as a whole but to their characters, too. Neither of them are like that so it's important to respect that and be true to who they are.

So to sum it all up, I think they've got a chance. There definitely was something there before this, however small. But before that can really happen in any real sense there are some real things that have to be resolved.

Same goes for the road Olivia's taken. I mean, apart from Mahogany. :B I'm curious about her thought process when it comes to posting her whereabouts online rather than trying to stay under the radar as much as she can. It makes me suspect she wants to be found. Wants to be followed, on some level. Maybe she's daring them, consciously or not, to disprove her worst fears about her value, or prove them, or something.

Or maybe her thought process in posting her location is that she kind of isn't having a thought process. She's very troubled at the moment, and that's absolutely the sort of thing that can make a person behave irrationally af.

While I think the truest answer is that it's a bit of both, what I had in mind when I wrote it was the latter. While she does want to be found on some level, she really isn't thinking this through all the way.

A galvantula chasing a rubber ball around is freaking adorable, meanwhile. :D That image is probably gonna stick with me for a while.

It had been too long, and his Galvantula had been a bit of a diamond in the rough character before, so I really wanted to bring her back.

Thank you for your review! I hope to have more out for you to enjoy soon!
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
This chapter will have scenes of more intense violence in it. Also, be advised there is some disturbing content.





-:-



CHAPTER 28: Runaway



-:-



Even with the weight of all of their worries, Matt, Anabel and Amanda were able to settle into a sort of routine over the next nine days.



Of utmost importance was keeping an eye on Olivia. Luckily for them, she hadn’t made it difficult. As she pressed on through Route 39 and Route 38, past Ecruteak City and then Mt. Mortar to Ecruteak’s east, she never ceased posting pictures of her activity on RChannel. Her doggedly persistent documentation of her training was a gift to the others, since it allowed them to keep abreast of her situation while giving her the space Anabel insisted she needed. Olivia’s training had paid off significantly even in that short time, with Herdier and Krabby evolving and her Pokémon picking up several new moves as well.



When she wasn’t monitoring her daughter, Anabel tried to punctuate each day with more leisurely activities that Amanda eagerly joined her in. Whether it was taking care of their Pokémon, raiding Matt’s bookshelf for things to read or watching Pokémon Baccer matches and battles on Victory Station, they were rarely apart for those nine days.



Matt on the other hand, was rather withdrawn for that period, choosing to leave them to their own devices for the most part. He didn’t go out of his way to avoid his companions, and was more than happy to cook whatever they asked for to eat, but his worries were eating him alive. He couldn’t shake a feeling of lingering dread that something would happen to Olivia, but given that they were on track to arrive in Mahogany Town and reunite with her the next morning, he maintained some hope that his worry would be unfounded. No, it was Nekou who truly troubled him. He couldn’t imagine the pain she was in after losing Ariana, and her uncharacteristic behavior both leading up to and after the drunken night they spent together only compounded his suspicions of what she must have been going through. Had he only made it worse? No matter how hard he tried to think that they could talk it out, without knowing what she felt, all he could do as he sat alone in HR-E’s cockpit that night was to drown in nervous thoughts about it all. He knew how he felt, or at least he thought he did, but that just was not enough. Knowledge of the scars all over her back certainly didn’t help soothe his concerns.



While he was lost in his thoughts, the cockpit door slid open and Anabel stepped inside. "Hey," she greeted him, her words reaching his ears right after the aromatic scent of the tea in the cup she carried reached his nose. "Are you alright?"



“Yeah,” he listlessly answered, making little to no physical reaction to her presence or her question.



Anabel furrowed her brow and curled her mouth into a frown. “You know, you’re not exactly a convincing liar,” she said, her subtle annoyance coming through in her voice. Her manner soon softened, though, and she added, “There’s clearly something on your mind… I would be more alarmed if there wasn’t.”



“You’re always so perceptive.”



“It wasn’t hard to tell.” Sitting on the arm of his sofa bed, Anabel sipped from her tea and pressed further, suggesting, “It might help to talk about it.”



“Yeah, you’re right…” Matt sighed. When Anabel was in her right state of mind, she really was a perceptive person. Yet, he knew she could make many of the same mistakes he did if she tried too hard to act on her perceptions. Was that not the reason they had spent over a week tailing Olivia in the first place? Maybe that made her the ideal person to confide in, he reasoned. Maybe she’d understand. “I just… I think something’s wrong with Nekou and I don’t know what to do to help. I don’t even know what to say to her when we see her again, whether it’s tomorrow or later on. There’s no… I can’t turn my back now. There’s just no way.”



Matt stared down at his right hand, opening and closing it repeatedly while he continued. “But you know what’s funny?” he bitterly posed to her. “I get it now… Nekou would never need me to try and protect her from harm the way I keep doing for everyone else, no matter how badly I want to. She would never want me to, either. But that’s why I understand now just how wrong doing that was… I should have understood from how Amanda made her own life for herself, but no. I kept obsessing over trying to protect people important to me from harm, only for harm to keep coming to them anyways. It took me starting to care about someone like her to realize what I did wrong.” Matt sardonically chuckled at his own foolishness and pressed his hand into his forehead. “I don’t even know where I’m going with this anymore. There are so many people I hurt by trying to make myself into some sort of hero… and you and your family are chief among them, Anabel. I’m sorry.”



“I thought so. Something did happen between you and Nekou in Olivine, didn’t it?” Anabel contemplated as she drew more of the fragrant liquid out of the cup and into her mouth. Lowering the porcelain from her lips, she replied, “You don’t owe me anything, at least not anymore. I’ll be honest, there might have been a time when we could have done things differently…”



Rising from her seat on the sofa’s arm, Anabel made her way over to a window at the back of HR’s cockpit and peered out at the mountainous, wooded terrain beyond.



“...but that time’s long since passed. Anything that happens now is my responsibility, and I have to do better.” Anabel narrowed her eyes at the nature beyond the window. Somewhere out there, not far from where she was, Olivia was still suffering alone for her mother’s mistakes. “That’s why we’re here right now, after all. What I will say now is…” Turning, she approached the sofa again but did not sit down. “...I don’t know Nekou like you do, but I think she’s someone you can trust to tell you what she needs. Just listen to her, and if she needs something that’s within reason for you to do, be ready to help her.”



Matt sat back and considered what Anabel was telling him. “It’s true, she certainly does say what she wants… but on the other hand, after the way she was acting withdrawn that day, I just don’t know… yet, I can’t act like I know what she needs, either. That would just be making the same mistakes all over again. So if I just wait to find out, then… what if she still is out of sorts?”



-:-



A sense of tension permeated the cold, still air in Mahogany Town when the group arrived the next morning. Matt, Anabel and Amanda all could sense it, and it made them shiver just as much as the temperature did. Few others were out on the stone roads with them as they made their way toward the Pokémon Center at the southeast edge of the small community.



“It feels like this entire town is on edge,” Matt thought to himself, pulling his scarf as tightly around his neck and mouth as he could. “Not like that’s surprising.”



Mahogany’s lack of modernization compared to other cities on the continent didn’t only mean it retained its rustic appeal. It also hadn’t expanded much at all beyond its familiar borders - anyone searching for Pokémon League or Battle Frontier-related activity would instead head for the cities to the west. That was especially true following the death of Mahogany’s Gym Leader, which meant the trainers who did pass through the town mostly did so only to reach Blackthorn City beyond it. All of that added up to their trek being a short one, landing them squarely in front of the Pokémon Center after only a short time. It too hadn’t modernized, instead keeping its traditional log cabin structure.



“So what’s the plan?” Amanda asked the others as they approached the building, alerted to their impending arrival by her Arcanine at her side.



“Same as it was at Olivine Port,” Anabel answered, turning her right hand aside. “We’ll split up, you and Matt in one direction and myself in another, and ask as many people as we can if they’ve seen Olivia. She’s definitely somewhere nearby, the most recent photo she posted was from right outside Mahogany.”



They might have had a well thought out plan in place for approaching their situation, but as it is said, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. Accordingly, fate had other plans for them that day. They’d barely managed to enter the Pokémon Center before three younger trainers barged in past them, nearly knocking them down in their frantic haste.



“Please, help us!” one of them cried out to the nurse, who was already emerging from behind her desk with her Chansey following closely behind. In the boy’s arms, a bruised and battered Maractus shuddered while gasping for breath. The Grass-type Pokémon was in no better state than those carried by the other two trainers, a Komala and Dedenne bearing highly similar injuries.



Suspicious of what was going on, Matt, Anabel and Amanda stopped nearby to listen in on the conversation.



“Oh no, what happened?” questioned the nurse. Lowering herself to better see the Pokémon, she carefully inspected Maractus’s wounds. “Impact injuries and burns, but also… signs of frostbite? Just like all the others who have encountered that Pokémon…”



“That’s right, we all ran into it!” the schoolgirl with the Komala exclaimed. “We didn’t even want to fight it! We all tried to run but it came after us and cornered us!”



Just then, Chansey arrived pushing a stretcher large enough to fit all three Pokémon. The nurse helped the trainers put their teammates on it, then said to her own partner, “Chansey, bring them to the back.” Chansey chirped a cry of acknowledgment and did so, leaving the nurse to turn back to the trainers. “We’ll take care of them, don’t any of you worry. Just be patient, please.”



The nurse then took her leave, accompanying Chansey in taking the stretcher to the back of the Pokémon Center. Sensing her opportunity, Anabel moved to approach them with Matt and Amanda in tow.



“Excuse me, might you have a moment?” she asked them.



“I don’t think we’re going anywhere anytime soon,” answered the Maractus’s trainer. It took a second before he realized who he was talking to, but when he did, his eyes widened. “Wait, aren’t you Anabel, the Battle Frontier’s commissioner?”



“It’s pretty brave of you to be out here with everything that Polaris group is spreading around,” the schoolgirl added. “There’s a lot of people getting pretty upset with Gym Leaders, Frontier Brains, the whole system.”



Anabel grimaced, and behind her, Matt did as well. With everything else that had been going on, especially keeping track of Olivia, she had little opportunity to worry about Polaris peddling its poison. When her attention was called to it, though, there was no avoiding acknowledgement of the increasingly vitriolic response to their rhetoric. Any hopes that Ghetsis’s disappearance would deradicalize their movement - any that survived Father’s hijacking of Gabriella and Lysandre’s broadcast, at least - died off when she saw television coverage of Polaris’s message and the way it was being received by those susceptible to it.



There were two things she considered herself lucky for, though. One was that the three young trainers, and by extension the few others in the Pokémon Center, didn’t appear to be among those swayed to Polaris’s cause. Second, they hadn’t noticed her physical reaction to the schoolgirl’s comment, either.



“Yes, that is me,” Anabel finally answered them. That she needed to get out her phone anyway provided her with a convenient excuse for her hesitation in replying. Holding the device out toward the three with a picture of Olivia on its screen, she questioned, “When you were up on Route 43, did you see anyone who looked like this? She might have had shorter hair than this, but…”



“Now that you say it, I did see someone like that,” the Dedenne trainer, a blonde in a fancy white dress who to that point had remained silent, spoke up. She reached up and removed her sun hat as she continued, “There was a person matching that description battling a lot of wild Pokémon before that monster attacked us… I believe I saw her using a Stoutland, a Kingler, and this really vicious looking Flaaffy…”



“Yeah, that’s her,” Matt interrupted, putting his hand on Anabel’s shoulder to get her attention. “Come on, we need to get up there right away.”



“You’re right,” Anabel agreed. Before joining Matt and Amanda on their way back out, she said to the three trainers, “Thank you so much for your help. I hope your Pokémon all end up okay.”



“Wait…” Maractus’s trainer tried to call after her, but it ended up being in vain as they had already passed through the door and disappeared. Turning to his two companions, he wondered aloud, “Do you guys think even she can beat that thing?”



-:-



Meanwhile, Team Rocket’s helicopter touched down at the edge of Mt. Mortar’s terrain. Its optical camouflage couldn’t mask the wind from its rotors, so to avoid any risk of prying eyes discovering them, they stayed well enough away from where people were likely to be.



Once they landed, Proton exited the cockpit to join Petrel, Jessie, James, Meowth, Ada and Nekou in the back. Pierce’s continuing absence left piloting the craft up to him, and as soon as he rejoined his teammates, Ada shakily asked him, “Are we ready to go here?”



“Yeah,” Proton replied, “bring it up.”



Grimacing nervously, Ada looked down at her laptop, which she was holding up with her left arm. She hit several of its keys with her right hand, and in response, two video feeds appeared on a larger screen mounted on the wall nearby. One was of Rosalie, while the other showed footage of the mysterious trainer directing Genesect in battle against a Beedrill and a Poliwrath. The Poliwrath stretched out his arms and spun into Genesect at a high speed, only for the bionic Bug-type to be stunned for a brief moment before retaliating with Electroweb, bringing Poliwrath to his knees.



“Y-You can see exactly what’s going on, Rosalie,” Ada explained. “The Woobat drone has been recording things like this for some time now.”



“Luckily, you have the advantage of numbers. I just pray it’s enough.” On her end of the transmission, Rosalie shifted in her wheelchair. “No matter what it takes, you have to defeat Genesect and save him. Consider it a bonus if you can steal Genesect away from Polaris, but it’s not the mission, he is. Once you secure him, bring him to our backup headquarters at the old Rocket Game Corner and Resort in Celadon. Trevor and I will meet you there.”



Of all the Rockets gathered in the helicopter, Nekou was the only one not fully paying attention to Rosalie’s briefing. She stood at the very back of the group, still biting her fingernails as she tried to sort through the deluge of worries she carried. Genesect and the rest of the mission had her concerned, no doubt, but just burying herself in her job wasn’t working to alleviate the others. She’d tried. No matter how much she tried to forget, she knew in her bones that Olivia was going to be there. And if that wasn’t already a sufficient source of anxiety, Olivia being there inevitably meant Matt and Anabel would be following close behind.



The prospect of having to explain herself and her failings made her feel unspeakable shame. It was starting to dawn on her that for all of her past bluster, she somehow truly cared about what they thought of her. On top of it all, she could feel the presence of her other self, biting right at the edges of her consciousness.



Feeling like the walls were closing in on her from all sides, Nekou crunched down on her nail.



-:-



Route 43 remained in the grips of chaos from Genesect’s latest rampage. Having folded its body up into a compact, saucer-like shape, it rammed the silvery-blue Sandslash fighting it with Flame Charge, the tongues of fire licking at Sandslash’s icy body and spikes. The Ice-and-Steel-type Pokémon collapsed beside its partner fighting the seemingly unstoppable menace, a Meganium that Genesect easily felled with the icy blasts from its cannon.



As the two trainers recalled their fallen Pokémon and fled, Genesect unfurled from its folded-up stance and deftly landed amidst the ravaged landscape its savage fighting style left behind. It was surrounded by countless snapped trees, many of which had sections held above the ground by the sticky threads left over from Genesect’s Electroweb. Starkly defined lines of frozen earth traced the paths where its icy blasts hit the ground, dotted by unnatural, stalagmite-like pillars of ice and powdery snowbanks that were periodically picked up and scattered by the winds.



Behind Genesect, the robotic-looking trainer again tucked its left hand into the pocket on its coat and touched its head with its right. The habit was so deeply ingrained into it that even though its opponents had already run away, it was still compelled to act. While performing its gesture of dominance, it surveyed the area spread out before it. The heads-up display provided by its digital mask scanned for potential opponents, and when it spotted a single person walking in its user’s direction, informed the robot with the message ‘Targets found: 1.’ Genesect reacted accordingly, adopting a battle-ready stance in response to the signal from its master.



“Yo, I’ve been looking for you!” Olivia called out as she arrived to confront the pair. When it came to her new look, her cropped hair turned out to be the least of her changes. The black leather coat and matching tights she’d adopted, both accented with red, provided a striking backdrop for the white shirt that stuck out from underneath the zipped up jacket.



The robot’s system took a moment to analyze the meaning of what it heard, and when it understood that Olivia was directly challenging it, generated the message ‘battle mode’ onto the display. Immediately upon that notice appearing, Genesect’s eyes flashed a bright red and it braced itself for combat.



Olivia reached for one of her Poké Balls, but as her fingers brushed the sphere’s surface, she took a look around. A shiver ran through her, not from the wintry air but from the sight of the devastation Genesect had already wrought. “No!” she thought, gritting her teeth as she fought back her fear. “If I don’t face this, I won’t be able to prove them wrong!”



Grinding her boot into the dirt beneath her feet, Olivia steeled her nerves for what she knew was coming. She flung the ball she’d selected, and from it, her Stoutland burst forth. His fur had grown even longer since his evolution from Herdier, forming a shaggy coat over his body and a magnificent mustache flowing from his face. Upon spotting Genesect and the robot, he lowered himself and started growling at them. Olivia had informed him and the rest of her team about what they would be facing the night before, so they were all on the same page.



“I better not give it a chance to get the drop on me,” Olivia thought. Throwing her hand in Genesect’s direction, she called out, “Stoutland, use Crunch!”



Stoutland bounded toward Genesect with his fangs bared. As he approached, the robot tracked his every move, its readouts constantly analyzing the threat Stoutland posed. Determining Crunch to not be much of a danger, it - and Genesect by extension - stood still, allowing the Normal-type Pokémon to try sinking his teeth into Genesect’s metal armor.



With the gap between them now closed, Genesect began charging energy in its cannon, causing the powder-blue memory cassette installed in the back of the weapon to glow. Due to the close proximity of its target, its attack blew up into a cloud of snow as soon as it fired and separated them.



Stoutland flipped through the air and landed on his feet, his thick fur protecting him from the worst of the icy blast. He shook the remnant flakes from his coat just in time for Olivia to tell him, “If we got one hit in, just keep going! One step at a time!”



That was all the urging Stoutland needed to rush his target again, feeling no fear whatsoever of what it might be capable of. Unfortunately for him and Olivia, the robot’s constant analysis allowed it to read their patterns like a book.



Since it already had its cannon charged, Genesect was able to fire multiple icy shots at Stoutland as he drew closer. He managed to weave through the assault, causing each of Genesect’s rays to freeze the ground where they hit instead of any other effect, What neither he nor Olivia realized, however, was that Genesect actually wasn’t aiming to hit him. It was aiming to box him in, and once he entered the trajectory the robot calculated, Genesect abruptly switched tactics. Ceasing the blasts from its cannon, it instead extended its arms and expelled sticky threads from its claws, leaving Stoutland hopelessly entangled in mere seconds. Their situation only worsened when Genesect sent an electric pulse through the silk, shocking Stoutland.



“No! Stoutland!” Olivia cried out, though her voice could barely be heard over her Pokémon’s pained howls.



The robot raised its hand into the air, signaling Genesect to release the threads. Once separated from their creator, the electric current ceased flowing through them, letting up on Stoutland even as he remained tangled in the silk.



What happened next occurred so quickly Olivia almost couldn’t see it. Genesect folded back up into its flight configuration and shot straight at its target like a bullet, its body completely surrounded by a veil of fire. The threads holding Stoutland down ignited upon Genesect’s impact with him, and by the time the mythical Pokémon returned to its master, the webbing was completely aflame.



Olivia could do nothing but watch in horror as the blaze engulfed her Pokémon. “Is this… this is my fault, isn’t it… maybe I bit off more than we could chew, and Stoutland’s paying the price for it…”



It was then that, much to Olivia’s surprise, the robot spoke for the first time. Although electronically distorted past the point of recognition, there was no mistaking what she heard was a deep, male voice. “Genesect, Techno Blast.”



Genesect trained its cannon upon the inferno, free to charge Techno Blast to its full strength. Realizing that the only way to protect Stoutland was to recall him, Olivia rushed to grab his Poké Ball, but in her haste she slipped and dropped it. Her sense of time slowed to a crawl as she stared at the falling sphere, eyes widening and mouth falling open in sheer terror over her mistake.



Two things then happened simultaneously. The Poké Ball landed on the dirt path, and a huge explosion from in front of her nearly knocked Olivia off her feet. In the case of the latter, it was from the full might of Genesect’s ice ray tearing into the core of the fire and hitting Stoutland. Techno Blast’s freezing energy nullified the flames, leaving Stoutland unconscious atop a pile of charred threads.



Before she knew what she was doing, Olivia snatched up the Poké Ball and held it out, bringing Stoutland back to safety. She then stared at the red-and-white orb in her hand, finding unexpected difficulty in deciding upon the right words to say.



“I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Stoutland… I’m sorry… I’m…” Suddenly, something in Olivia’s mind snapped. She threw her head back, and despite her being much shorter than the robot and of roughly similar height to Genesect, tried to look down on them as if she were the tallest of the three. “I’ll destroy you just like I’m gonna destroy everything else that stands in my way!” she shrieked, her features taking on an increasingly frenzied state. Without even looking or considering her choice at all, she picked a Poké Ball and flung it, only discovering who she’d picked when Kingler emerged. “Fine, we’ll go with that!” she snarled. “Kingler, Liquidation!”



Kingler swiftly crossed and uncrossed his pincers, wrapping them in shrouds of water. His way of advancing on Genesect was far less reckless than Stoutland’s had been; whereas Arcanine simply attacked it head-on, Kingler instead chose to skitter back and forth, moving forward only about a foot or so on each pass as he warily searched for an opening to strike.



Between Genesect’s natural hunting instincts and the assistance it received from the robot’s systems, it was able to read Kingler’s moves fairly easily. “Electroweb,” the mysterious trainer commanded, his display showing him Genesect’s aim in real time.



“I hoped you would do that!” Olivia yelled, making a fist with her right hand while Genesect raised its claws. “Go for it, Kingler! Slice right through ’em!”



Knowing that he would only get gravely hurt by letting Genesect catch him, Kingler sidestepped the first wave of silk thrown his way. Genesect, seeing that it missed, cut those threads loose and launched more after retraining his aim on his target.



If Genesect had been able to fully think for itself, it would surely have been surprised at what Kingler did next. Instead of trying to evade Electroweb again, Kingler jumped straight into it, slashing repeatedly at the silk with his water-wrapped pincers. Some of the current did flow into him, but only enough to give him a tingling sensation in his body instead of any sort of true pain. Sparks flew between the droplets of water he shed as he cut his way closer and closer to Genesect. Finally, he got within reach and shoved his giant left claw straight into the source of Genesect’s webbing, the mixture of water and electricity combining to cause a smoky explosion.



Both Kingler and Genesect were thrown apart by the backfire. Small burn marks covered Kingler’s claws and dotted his shell, each telling the tale of where a stray thread had brushed him. Genesect bore little in the way of corresponding signs of injury, but the force that threw it back left it hissing and clicking in its semi-mechanical voice.



“Techno Blast.”



Genesect fell forward, bracing itself against the ground with both its arms and legs as it powered up for a full-force Techno Blast. So much freezing energy gathered in its cannon that the earth around it began to frost over, Genesect itself protected from the cold by its steel armor.



Seeing all of this, Olivia knew she and Kingler were in trouble. It didn’t even matter that an Ice-type move like Techno Blast wouldn’t be a good match against a Water-type Pokémon like Kingler. She’d gotten a good look at just how strong Genesect really was, and between that and the sheer power of its cannon, the threat Techno Blast posed was plain to see. What she would do about it was another question entirely.



“One foot in front of the other,” she thought, staring down at her trembling hands. “I have to do something, because if I don’t, then I won’t get anything! It’s not like I’ll get what I want from anyone else!!”



Olivia could feel her vision beginning to blur, right at the edges of her sight. Before her condition could progress any further, however, the situation was completely upended by a sudden interruption. Just as Genesect fired its cannon, a pair of orders meant for other Pokémon reached Olivia’s ears. Were they real or just a figment of her overly stressed mind? Something happening around her in real time, or merely another vision of things to come?



“Tanya, Flash Cannon!”



“Arcanine, follow that with Flare Blitz!”



A burst of silvery light shot from somewhere behind Olivia, cutting directly into the trajectory of Techno Blast and explosively offsetting it. Seconds later, before the residual smoke cleared, Amanda’s Arcanine raced through the acrid cloud and delivered a flaming tackle directly to Genesect’s body, flinging it back into a tree that snapped from the impact.



“I should’ve figured this would happen…” Olivia grumbled to herself as she watched Matt’s Heatran lumber up to Kingler’s side, joined soon thereafter by Arcanine and then Matt and Amanda themselves. She shared a look with them, but none of the three said anything. “Wait, where’s-”



“Olivia, I’m so sorry…” Anabel profusely apologized, wrapping her arms around her daughter from behind. “I’m so, so sorry…”



“I don’t even want to hear it anymore!” Olivia fumed, pushing herself out of Anabel’s grip. The trembling that was previously isolated to her hands claimed her entire body, and while she had been able to suppress some of her emotions while traveling alone, seeing Anabel made them all come roaring up anew. In her anger, she ground her boot into the dirt, leaving a deep footprint behind. “I know what you were all going to do! You gave up on finding him! Gave up on me putting us back together like we should be! That’s the one thing that’s been keeping me going, and you didn’t have faith in me to see it through! If even you don't care about putting everything back the way it was, why are you even here?!”



Hearing her daughter so angrily reproach her shook Anabel to her core, but on some level, she felt like the entire thing really was at least partially her fault. “I should have trusted you enough to convince Rosalie to let you hear the truth about your condition, I see that now and I’m sorry… but, please, Olivia, listen to me. You didn’t hear the entire conversation, we weren’t going to stop you from traveling. This is all a misunderstanding… I’ll do better, I promise. Once we’re somewhere safer I’ll tell you everything.”



Although it went against everything driving her, some part of Olivia wanted to give Anabel a chance. She still wanted to be furious at her mother's perceived betrayals but a small inner voice kept her from it, kept urging her to be forgiving. “Fine. But I can do this by myself.”



“Olivia, I understand why you want to say that…” Anabel uttered, her voice turning deadly serious as she glared across the glade, “...I think now isn’t the time for it.”



The menacing sound of Genesect’s hissing and clicking drew a powerful emphasis to Anabel’s warning. As it pushed itself up onto its feet, the red glow in its eyes had only intensified, and although Matt, Amanda and Anabel weren’t sure if they were just imagining it, Genesect’s vocalizations seemed to have grown even more aggressive.



At the same time, the robot’s analysis raised the number of identified targets from one to four, tagging all of Olivia’s allies as enemies. He acted accordingly, pushing forward with both of his hands and saying, “Electroweb.”



Genesect mimicked its master’s motion, shooting its webbing from both of its claws. One thing that it hadn’t been facing while battling Olivia was a Fire-type move, however, and Matt and Amanda both were well-armed to counteract it.



“Tanya, use Magma Storm!” Matt cried out, pointing at their shared opponent.



A great tornado of fire erupted from Tanya’s vast mouth, consuming the threads within its vortex before moving on to threaten Genesect directly. Well aware of the danger such a move would pose even without his system informing him of the numbers behind it, the robot directed, “Flame Charge.”



The mythical Pokémon jumped into the air, folded up and took flight, insulated from the flames it surrounded itself with in a way it wasn’t from outside attacks. It banked tightly around the edge of the tornado, clicking all the while.



Matt called to his sister, “Amanda, you’re up!”



“Got it!” she promptly replied. “Arcanine, Flare Blitz!”



Right as Genesect emerged on the other side of the Magma Storm, Arcanine was there to meet it. He broke through Flame Charge with a single blow, and the flames surrounding his body spread to Genesect’s, badly singing it as it retreated.



“They really do work together well as a team,” Olivia thought, observing the combat. “If only my siblings didn’t get taken away…”



As the Magma Storm dissipated, the robot found himself stuck for the first time. Genesect wasn’t equipped with moves effective against Fire-type opponents like Heatran and Arcanine. It would need a different cassette installed in its cannon for that. Falling back on the analysis his systems could provide, he hesitated, waiting for them to finish evaluating the numerous trajectories and movements needed to formulate a plan. Until then, all they could give him was the word 'searching' and nothing more.



He would not get that opportunity, for a second sudden interruption came, this time in the form of comically sinister laughing coming from overhead. His screen immediately identified a further trio of new targets coming down toward the scene, and when he could make out their features, a small burst of static caused a brief disruption in his functions.



“Prepare for trouble,” Jessie announced as she, James and Meowth descended with their jetpacks, “but today we’ll skip the rest!”



“And make it double,” James added, “saving time is the best!”



“Yeah, that’s right!” Meowth finished as the three of them set foot on the ground. Jabbing a paw directly toward the robot, he snarled, “Whoever’s on the other end of that machine, I’m warnin’ you, we’re comin’ for you and takin’ back what’s ours!”



“Taking back what’s yours?” Anabel wondered, blinking through her confusion. She shared that emotion with Matt, Amanda and even Olivia, all of whom were completely distracted by the sudden intrusion.



“Don’t worry about it,” James assured her. “Thanks for giving us a head start, but this isn’t your fight anymore. It’s ours, because this is personal.”



Pressing her hand against the center of her chest, Olivia angrily asserted, “It’s personal for me, too! You can’t tell me to walk away when I have something to prove!”



“Olivia, you don’t have to…” Seeing that Olivia wasn’t listening, Anabel trailed off and didn’t finish her sentence.



While the conversation progressed, Genesect recovered enough to return to its battle-ready stance. The scenarios being presented to the robot certainly hadn’t gotten any more favorable, so his system continued searching for the appropriate tactic to adopt. Lacking any sort of directives from him, Genesect simply stood by and waited for those orders to come.



“I hate to say it, but Olivia might have a point,” Matt quietly observed. “I feel like strength in numbers is the only thing that’s going to take this beast down.”



“Good thing we’ve got that, then,” Jessie smugly replied, dismissing Matt’s concern with a sarcastic wave of her hand.



As if on cue, Proton, Petrel, Ada and Nekou emerged into the clearing, having walked through the surrounding forest while Jessie, James and Meowth flew to their destination instead. Nekou briefly locked eyes with Matt, only for her overwhelming feelings of shame and paranoia to force her into breaking their gaze. Her other self was still present and nipping at the edges of her consciousness, whispering poisonous words that she increasingly was falling under the sway of. They ate at everything she thought she believed until they convinced her she was so awful, so disgusting, that she looked away solely to avoid the chance of seeing him do the same. Something she had come to realize was that she didn’t want him to see her as what she actually was, even if she hadn’t quite figured out how exactly she wanted to be seen instead, so the mere prospect of him not looking at her at all made her fearful beyond belief. She ended up crunching on her thumbnail again before she even realized it, feeling so detached from reality that she had the sensation of being a puppet pulled along by strings.



To try and escape her own mind, she went over to Olivia and Anabel.



“Hey…” she greeted, her manner almost totally devoid of her usual personality. Or was that so-called ‘personality’ the lie, and this what she really was? Did she even know anymore? “Olivia, I like the new look.”



“I guess I did take some inspiration from you,” Olivia proudly said, smiling and giving a half-twirl to show off.



"At least something could make Olivia smile," Anabel thought, adjusting her tie.



“But I don’t want help, even from you,” Olivia bitterly added, her face falling as she turned away. “I have to do this alone.”



“Take my advice, Olivia, accept the aid the people who care about you want to give.” Nekou didn’t miss the irony permeating her own words. “You don’t know when they won’t be around to help you anymore.”



“I know that all too well,” Olivia mumbled, shoving her hands into her pockets.



Had Nekou’s fears not gotten the better of her, however, she would have seen that what she so dreaded never actually happened. Matt, in his concern and attempts to figure out what the right way to approach her, never looked away. Even though he’d thought over what he’d do the night before when he talked about it with Anabel, that preparation disappeared when the time came to put it into effect. It wasn’t particularly hard to discern some idea of what she was going through, her slacking physical motions made that much clear to him. He just didn’t know what to do about it. It was easy enough to remember not to try and intervene like some sort of hero as he usually would, that part of the plan remained obvious. But what could he do right then and there, standing in the bitter winds of early winter, to actually help? As it was, whatever the words that needed to be said between them were, they went unspoken at that moment.



It took the intervention of her colleagues to get him to focus on the situation at hand again. With Jessie, James and Meowth already standing to his right, Proton, Petrel and Ada positioned themselves to both his and Amanda’s left.



“If you really want to be a part of this, you’re toughing it out,” Proton warned the siblings, clutching his belt as he spoke. “This ends only when we get our Boss back.”



“It’s for Olivia,” Amanda responded, “and to restore order where Polaris has-”



The full meaning of what Proton said didn’t sink in right away, but when it did, it hit Matt and Amanda simultaneously. “Boss?!” they both exclaimed in shock.



“T-That’s right,” Ada stuttered, pointing to direct Matt’s attention to the robot, who was still standing by and analyzing the situation. Her nervous scowl only intensified as she elaborated, “We saw the way that thing acts, and there’s no doubt. Inside that suit is our Boss, Giovanni!”



“That’s not- How is that even possible?!” Matt loudly wondered, his surprise leaving him unable to check the volume of his voice. “Back in Ecruteak, during the battle there, Pierce said Ghetsis cut Giovanni down and took his body…”



“Well obviously Pierce was wrong!” Ada scolded him. “We were all wrong! They’re using him for this instead, whatever the point of it is!”



“If that’s the case, then…” Facing Genesect and its supposed ‘trainer’ again, Matt pondered what he’d been told. “No matter who he is, Polaris can’t be allowed to keep doing this. But the question is, how do we stop it?”



-:-



“There’s only one thing we can do. Defeat Genesect and take the Boss back by force!”



From his laboratory in an underground Polaris facility nearby, Colress observed the next actions his enemies took. After James told Matt what their goal had to be, he sent out his Octillery, soon joined by Jessie’s Swoobat. Ada, Proton and Petrel added their Breloom, Weezing and Raticate to the mix respectively, forming a growing army that became even more formidable once Tanya and Arcanine stepped up as part of it.



And yet, despite facing such overwhelming opposition, Colress rejoiced. When he was a boy growing up in Unova, he always looked forward to holidays where gifts would be bestowed upon him, and the raw, unfiltered excitement he felt then was exactly what gripped him in the present. He’d been feeling like that a lot since earning Finansielle’s favor, he realized, and never wanted it to stop.



“Oh, it’s just precious you think you have a shot!” he beamed. Shifting his attention to the two other windows being projected by his computer - one that showed Giovanni’s sight through the robotic suit, and the other a direct feed of Genesect’s vision - and began typing. In an instant, the suit stopped trying to calculate a strategy for him, and instead reoriented its targeting system, a change underlined by the words ‘Targeting Override’ appearing on the screen. “Still, though, facing all those Pokémon at once might be a little too hot to handle, even for me. Might be a good idea to pull back and study what data I’ve got… which I think might just include you after all.”



Because of Colress’s interference, the suit forced Giovanni to break away from his struggle with Matt, Amanda and his Team Rocket subordinates. The number of targets identified by the program plummeted all the way back down to one, and that single remaining mark turned out to be Nekou, who was hanging back and shielding Olivia by standing in front of her.
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
“You know what happens when a cuckoo hatches in another bird’s nest?” Colress raved, delighting in his madness. “It forces the other eggs out. Now, dance for me! Cuckoo, cuckoo!”



-:-



“Weezing, use Flamethrower!” Proton commanded.



“Octillery, put yourself into the game too! Octazooka!”



Weezing breathed twin streams of fire from his two mouths, but before either could reach Genesect, the mythical Pokémon jumped high into the air. Its great leap also caused the first lump of black ink James’s Octillery spat at it to go astray, splattering against a tree behind Giovanni and staining the surrounding plants. Incensed by missing his mark, Octillery recklessly spewed several more Octazooka shots, only for Genesect’s flight path to guide it around most of them. Only one managed to connect, blemishing the armor on Genesect’s abdomen.



By that point, Weezing sent two more Flamethrowers up at Genesect, forcing the mythical Pokémon to fold up and weave between the twin flares. It then dive-bombed the group opposing it, crashing into their midst with Iron Head. They had to scramble out of its trajectory, leaving them scattered and their counterattack at least temporarily fractured. In the absence of any orders, Raticate curled up and tumbled into Genesect with a Flame Wheel, only for Genesect to shrug it off and stand back up.



Now focusing squarely on Nekou, Genesect sprang towards her, covering a good half-dozen feet with each jump. It wasn’t until then that Nekou finally understood what Ariana must have been thinking before her act of self-sacrifice at the Adenosine Base. She’d been protected by Ariana shoving her out of the way of the Mirage Mewtwo’s stabbing attack, and in kind, her own worries as Genesect neared were overwhelmingly for Anabel and Olivia instead of herself. Acting on sheer instinct, Nekou pushed them as far away from herself as she could. They both screamed out to her, but her tunnel vision extended to her other senses, and she didn’t hear what they said. The only thing that mattered was keeping them safe, and to that end, she pulled two knives from her coat and brandished them. They surely wouldn’t have much of an effect on Genesect’s steel armor, but they made her feel like she had a chance to do something, so they were good enough. There would be no fear, she decided. That was about the only thing she had left.



Then, as fast as it started, Genesect halted right in front of her, causing her to tilt her head in confusion. Matt and her Team Rocket colleagues were just as bewildered about it as she was, as were Anabel and Olivia. Why had it stopped? That was the question on all of their minds. It had a clear shot to attack her and yet it was making absolutely no effort to do so.



Yet, as they questioned what they were seeing, they had no idea that Genesect diverting their attention was exactly what Colress wanted. None of them noticed that Giovanni had seemingly disappeared. The robotic suit both enabled and forced him to leap high into the air, passing over Genesect’s opponents on his way to landing right next to the cybernetic Pokémon. His crash landing so close to her made Nekou jump, and without allowing her a chance to recover and defend herself, he pointed his right arm at her and closed his fist. A small gun hidden in the suit popped up above his wrist and shot three darts into her neck.



“Fuck!” she screeched. “Screw it, I’ll cut that thing off you piece by piece if I have to!”



Nekou fumbled to pull the darts out, but she was already too late. Only when her head started to spin did she realize the suit wasn’t just equipped with any ordinary dart. No, what had hit her were the same poison darts the Shadow Triad used on Nikolai on Route 30. Back then, it only took one of them to fell him. She’d taken a triple dose of their venom.



Screaming in an incoherent, nearly inhuman manner, Nekou recklessly swiped at Giovanni, desperate to resist the poison long enough to accomplish something. Yet, her ability to control her movements rapidly deteriorated, and Giovanni easily sidestepped every one of her slashes. Her vision continued to blur as the toxin from the darts pulled her further and further under water, drowning her consciousness under its influence.



Finally, her body could no longer hold itself up. She collapsed to the ground, convulsing as she lost the last of her grip on consciousness. Her blacking out led Colress to send a new command to Giovanni through the suit, and the word ‘Acquire’ appeared on the screen. Giovanni and Genesect accordingly advanced on Nekou’s still form.



“Stop!” Matt yelled, having pushed himself back up on his feet. Despite his hopes, it felt like a foregone conclusion that his plea would be in vain. Racing to do something, he turned to Tanya and said, “Flash Cannon!”



“B-Breloom, Seed Bomb!” Ada sputtered.



“Swoobat, if we’re gonna save the Boss, we gotta stop him first!” Jessie asserted. “Charge Beam!”



Tanya was the first of the three Pokémon to act, firing another blast of light from her mouth. Her Flash Cannon forced Colress to have Giovanni stop to re-engage them, and Genesect responded by shooting a Techno Blast back at its attacker. The two rays canceled each other out, but before the smoke from their explosive combination faded, the seeds spit by Breloom and Swoobat’s electrical beam broke through. Genesect covered its head with its arms to guard against the Seed Bomb, but such a defense didn’t help against Charge Beam, which sent a small surge through the mythical Pokémon’s cybernetic body. The display over Giovanni’s face broke up with static again, but it returned to normal in tandem with Genesect’s quick recovery.



“Kingler, Liquidation!” Olivia shouted, her voice cracking under the influence of her desperation.



Having been lost in the chaos following Team Rocket’s arrival, Kingler had a prime opportunity to intervene. He skittered up between Genesect and Nekou, swung his water-wrapped claws into the former with all the strength he could muster, and started to push. Small piles of dirt built up around the bottoms of Genesect’s legs as it lost ground, but even those slight gains proved to be temporary. Genesect spun an Electroweb straight into Kingler’s face at point-blank range, and after weakening him with the electrical shock, used the webbing to spin and throw him across the clearing.



Anabel, moved to act by her daughter’s courage, pulled an Ultra Ball from her jacket and expanded it in her hand. “Medicham, come out and-”



She would never get the chance to act. Genesect nipped her potential interference in the bud by launching its Techno Blast into the terrain just in front of her and Olivia, erecting a pillar of ice to block them. Right as it seemed to have closed that angle of attack, however, Tanya’s Flash Cannon, Octillery’s Signal Beam, Swoobat’s Air Slash and Breloom’s Seed Bomb all hit it in the head one after another, sending it crashing to the ground before Weezing’s Flamethrower engulfed it. Genesect burned for several long seconds before neutralizing the flames into harmless steam using the cold from its cannon and hissing viciously at its assailants.



Little did any of them suspect, forcing Genesect onto defense inadvertently opened up a much simpler tactic to it. Instead of trying to figure out some way to take on all its opponents at once, it turned Techno Blast on its immediate surroundings, tracing a wide circle around itself, Giovanni and Nekou. The resulting wall of snow and ice presented enough of an obstacle to delay those outside its boundary, human and Pokémon alike, from interfering for just as long as Colress needed them to.



No longer having to worry about their attackers, Giovanni and Genesect turned their attention back to their true target. Genesect cast its webs over Nekou to ensnare her, without sending any charge through them. Once it firmly had her, it folded up and hit the snowbanks around it with Flame Charge, providing a cloud of steam to cover for its escape. Giovanni jumped on its back and it grabbed the web with Nekou tangled up within, then shot up into the air and disappeared. By the time the steam from the melting snow dissipated, all three were gone.



“Wh-what happened?!” Olivia demanded, coughing on a remnant of the vapors. “Where’d they go?!”



“I don’t know, Olivia… I don’t know,” Matt uttered. He barely had the strength to take two steps forward before falling back to his knees, staring helplessly up at the sky. “I don’t know!” he exclaimed again, driving his fist into the ground in frustration. Yet again, someone close to him had fallen into harm’s way, and just like every other time, the thought that it was his fault invaded every corner of his mind like a terrible, creeping mold. “I couldn’t do it, no matter how hard I tried! If I could have stopped Genesect, if I would have worked harder… I could have protected her!”



Matt hadn’t been in control of his thoughts, they were running rampant in whatever directions they wished. But when that specific idea - protecting Nekou - entered his head, it gave him a sudden moment of clarity. Just the night earlier, during his talk with Anabel, he recognized that Nekou didn’t need to be treated in that way. “I get it now… Nekou would never need me to try and protect her from harm the way I keep doing for everyone else, no matter how badly I want to. She would never want me to, either. It took me starting to care about someone like her to realize what I did wrong.” How could he have forgotten those words? How could he have forgotten Anabel’s wise response? Of course Nekou was someone who he could trust to make her needs known, he just needed to put that trust in her to start.



“Even now, in a circumstance like this…” he told himself, “I need to give her more credit. I bet she can handle this… but just in case she can’t, we have to do something to help. I’m better than doing this again...”



“Get yourself together!” Ada scolded him, bringing him back to reality. The other members of Team Rocket had clustered around him and Amanda, and both Anabel and Olivia were on their way over. “This isn’t over yet. Far from it. In fact, Polaris just made a huge mistake, because we can track them now.”



“Track them?” Amanda wondered. “How?”



“With this.” Opening her laptop in her arms, Ada punched in a command that led the Woobat drone to descend and hover next to her. “Oh, right, y-you can’t… you can’t see what I’m talking about. Sorry. This thing… this thing I’ve got, it looks like a Woobat, but it’s really a drone packed with the cutting edge of Team Rocket technology. All I have to do is send it up and tell it what to do, and we’ll find them in no time.”



To put emphasis on her point, Ada entered another command into her laptop. The drone ascended back into the sky, and while it was on its way up, her laptop’s Matori materialized on the screen.



“Hello, Ada,” the artificial intelligence greeted her user. “How may I be of assistance today?”



“Matori, connect with your counterpart on Nekou’s phone,” Ada instructed the program, “and then transmit that location both to me and to the drone I have flying. I want live footage of the location you track her to.”



“Very well,” Matori acquiesced with a bow of respect. “Currently connecting and calculating geolocation data.”



When a map appeared on Ada’s screen after only a short time passed, both Matt and Anabel looked at each other in surprise. Neither had expected the process to be as fast as it was.



“That’s them, isn’t it?” Olivia questioned, reaching over and pointing at the blinking red dot on the map.



“That’s right,” Ada confirmed. “You’re pretty sharp, kid. No wonder Nekou likes you so much.” Raising her head, she explained to the others, “This map is the Lake of Rage, no doubt about it. It looks like they haven’t actually gone that far… just to the northwest shore of the lake, in fact.”



“I have already sent the drone to that location. I will have the live feed you requested momentarily.” Matori wasn’t joking when she said that, as the group clustering around her soon learned. She’d barely finished speaking when another window popped open, partially obscuring her form. Its video was blurry at first, but the drone quickly focused and brought it into sharper relief.



Nestled among the trees surrounding the lake, there was a relatively unassuming cabin. Most observers would think nothing of it. Ada and the others certainly wouldn’t have thought it had anything significant about it at a glance. The fact that Giovanni and Genesect were there, carrying Nekou in Genesect’s webbing gave away its relevance to their mission. When several scientists, all wearing identical lab coats and visors that identified them as Polaris members, stepped outside, that importance only became more apparent.



“That ain’t any old cabin, that’s for sure,” Petrel said, putting what they were all thinking into words. “Given where we are, I think it’s safe to say this is the last of Polaris’s Johto bases… the Guanosine Base.”



-:-



Indeed, what the cabin concealed was an underground facility that, while smaller than the Adenosine Base, had more than enough space for Colress’s needs. He was there to meet his enslaved test subjects as an elevator brought them down into the hangar right beneath the cabin. Archer, who had been sent by Father to replace Jeunes as his partner, stood at the scientist’s side with his hands clasped behind his back.



“Welcome back, my dear experiments!” Colress crowed to Giovanni and Genesect, the pair stiffly stepping off the lift after the scientists accompanying them. Genesect was still dragging Nekou behind it, and when she entered Colress’s vision, his tone turned more overtly sinister. He approached her unconscious form and lifted her head by the chin, finding himself mildly disappointed she didn’t wake up and try to bite or otherwise hurt him. “And you... I may have been too hasty in deciding you had no more purpose in my work. Now I’ll finally have a chance to get a look at what you really are. Who knows what we’ll learn working together? I can’t wait to get started!”



With Colress lost in his own delusions of grandeur, Archer took charge. He pointed to two of the scientists and told them, “You two, go back topside and resume your usual posts. I don’t want Guanosine Base’s entrance left totally unguarded.”



“Yes, sir!” both men responded in unison.



“Aww, now you’re giving my people orders?” Colress complained, twisting his face into an exaggerated pout. “You’re no fun!”



“Technically, they are still Polaris’s people, not yours,” Archer reminded him. “That didn’t change just because Finansielle put them under your command.”



“Oh, fine, split hairs like that. Be that way.” As soon as it appeared, Colress’s childish whining vanished, and he reverted to his usual personality. “It doesn’t matter,” he said to the remaining scientists. “The rest of you, take Genesect and test subject RB-3 and send their newest data to Finansielle. As for us, Archer…” Colress cast his gaze back onto Nekou. Behind his visor, his eyes glimmered with excitement. For him, it really was like receiving gifts on one of the Unovan holidays, and he never wanted that feeling to end. “We’ll take her to my laboratory. I think you might be curious about her, too.”



-:-



Team Rocket took off in the direction of Nekou’s tracking signal as soon as they found it, so Matt, Amanda, Anabel and Olivia followed closely behind them. After navigating the winding forest paths surrounding the Lake of Rage with help from the Matori on Ada’s laptop, the two groups arrived together at a place where they could see the cabin while still remaining out of sight.



“They’re gone…” Matt observed, noting the absence of Nekou, Genesect and Giovanni, “but there’s two of those scientists we saw earlier.”



“Is there any way you can tell if there are more waiting in there?” Olivia suggested to Ada. “Like, you said that Woobat was a drone. Does it have X-ray or infrared or anything like that?”



“Another astute observation.” Though she didn’t say it openly, Ada liked the way Olivia stoked her ego via interest in her technology. It gave her the exact kind of appreciation she’d joined Team Rocket for in the first place. “Matori, give me thermal imaging from the drone.”



“Right away.” Matori motioned to the window displaying the drone’s video feed, and it switched to show the thermal imagining Ada had requested. There were only two heat signatures, those of the two men standing outside the cabin. No other people were present.



“It’s only them,” Ada confirmed.



“In that case, I have an idea for getting the drop on them.” Proton drew one of his Poké Balls from his belt and narrowed his eyes, glaring icily at the two scientists.



-:-



“So how long do you think we’re going to be staying here?” one of the scientists asked the other, resting his hands against the back of his head.



“You know our post is until sundown tonight,” his partner replied. “We went over this before coming up here, don’t you remember?”



“I’m not talking about our shift!” Sighing, the scientist clarified, “I mean, how long are we going to use this base? Colress is attracting a lot of attention by testing Genesect here, and now that Team Rocket took notice of it… what if they found out where we are?”



“I wouldn’t worry about it.” He walked over and clapped his partner on the back, a gesture meant to soothe the man’s concerns. “Listen, we’ve got Genesect, and Archer’s here too. Anyone who tries to mess with us will regr-”



A sudden rustling in the bushes nearby made both scientists jump. Both moved for the Poké Balls in their pockets, anticipating some sort of attack, but when a Dusclops emerged from the brush, they relaxed.



“Oh, it’s just a Dusclops,” the more confident of the two said, a wave of relief washing over him. Even when the Ghost-type Pokémon stopped and stared at them, he remained sure of himself. “Run along now.”



“Isn’t it kind of weird to see a Dusclops all the way out here?” ventured the more timid scientist. “Maybe something is unusual about this.”



“Hmm, you have a point. In that case, let’s catch it. Colress should give us a nice reward if we bring him a new-”



That proposal never got a chance to take shape. Dusclops started waving her hands at the pair as soon as they began conversing about her, but at first, nothing happened and they thought little of it. That was not a luxury they could enjoy for long. A purple light flickered in Dusclops's eye, and the scientists found themselves seized by an invisible force. Try as they might, they couldn't resist its strength and were both pulled to the ground.



"G-Gravity?!" the cocky member of the duo sputtered, the scale of his mistake dawning on him as he crumpled.



"I told you there was something strange about this!" said his ally.



"That's right." Assuming that the Dusclops was wild was the point where the two scientists went wrong. Proton emerged from the trees to join his Pokémon, with his teammates and Matt’s group following him. “My Dusclops made fools out of you both.”



“I tried to tell you we needed to worry about Team Rocket…” The timid scientist reached for his visor, which had fallen off his face when he collapsed. Seeing him make this move, Dusclops snapped her fist shut, further manipulating Gravity’s effect around the duo to keep him still.



“Good job, Dusclops,” Proton praised her, earning happy chatter from the mummy-like spirit. Firmly grasping his ridged belt with both of his gloved hands, he glowered down upon the two guards, sneering, “I’m often labeled as the scariest and cruelest guy in Team Rocket, and that’s for a reason.”



“Oh please,” Jessie mumbled, rolling her eyes. “Says the man who wanted his issues of Team Rocket Gazette to come with trading cards of himself for all the girls to collect.”



One of the guards moved to fetch a Poké Ball from his pocket, but Proton caught him in the act. “Evidently you still haven’t learned your lesson. Dusclops, Bind!”



Dusclops punched the air in her enemies’ direction, shooting numerous bandages out of her wrists. The two scientists, still held in place by Gravity, were powerless to avoid being wrapped up in the bandages. Thanks to Dusclops’s adept handwork, they were tightly tied up before they even realized it.



“That ought to take care of that,” Petrel said to Proton. “Then again, what if more of ’em come here to help their comrades?”



“You have a point there,” Proton conceded. “Someone’s going to have to stay behind and stand guard to keep them out.” After considering his options for a moment, he made a decision and turned to inform the others. “I think the right move is for Petrel and I to be the ones who stay to protect the entrance. Jessie, James, Meowth, you three are obsessed with Giovanni in ways we can’t hope to match, so you go in and save him.”



“You got it!” all three of them declared in response to the order.



Continuing, Proton explained, “Matt, Anabel, Amanda… you might not be with us but we have a shared interest in defeating Polaris this time. Take Ada with you and help free Nekou from them.”



“The irony of people in our position helping Team Rocket at the Lake of Rage, after Lance helped stop you here in the past,” Anabel noted, adjusting her sunglasses.



“Wait, I didn’t hear my name.” Olivia pushed to the front of Matt’s group, placing herself firmly between them and Proton. “I didn’t hear my name!” she repeated, her escalating anger making her objections louder and louder. “You are not leaving me behind for this! She’s my friend too! And besides, I’m going to show you that I don’t need to stop traveling. I can keep going and nobody, not you, not Polaris, is going to stop me!”



Anabel hesitated. Obviously, what they were walking into was dangerous. Nekou being captured so easily certainly proved that. Ordinarily, when faced with the prospect of allowing Olivia to get involved in such a risky situation, Anabel would have done anything and everything to keep her safe. But that would just mean she was making the same mistake Matt finally recognized he was making, she realized, and she'd been the one to help him reach that illumination. Was she really the same after all? Or was she ready to take the step she increasingly saw as necessary, to place that level of trust in Olivia?



"I can be better than this. I have to have faith in her…" It felt like the world had gone completely mad, so maybe a little madness of her own was the answer. Lowering herself and removing her sunglasses so she could be eye-to-eye with her daughter, she said, “Alright, you can come, but you have to stay with me the whole time.”



“Fine. Let’s get going, then.”



-:-



Colress, meanwhile, had more than gotten his own plans rolling along. His subordinates had taken Genesect and Giovanni off his hands, so he was free to dedicate all his time to what really had him fascinated - studying Nekou.



“You’ve exhibited quite a number of abilities the ordinary human does not possess,” he explained to her while pacing with his hands behind his back. It didn’t matter to him that his captive was still unconscious, floating in the oxygenated liquid filling the tank he put her in. All that mattered was getting to finish his monologue. “Your great physical strength is simply terrifying, and your capacity for regeneration stuns me. If we could understand what you are, what it is that makes you tick, we could help draw out those attributes in all humans! Think of the possibilities!”



“Colress, why do you have this?” Archer interrupted him to ask, picking up a spherical object from a nearby table. It was a Poké Ball, but not just any ordinary one. Its purple top emblazoned with a white ‘M’ identified it as Silph Co.’s magnum opus, an exceptionally rare and valuable Master Ball.



“Do not interrupt me when I’m talking!” Even though he feigned anger, Colress really relished the opportunity to indulge his own madness even further. “Although, since you asked, I’ll tell you. Research indicates that a Pokémon captured in a Poké Ball cannot use one hundred percent of its power. That’s one component of my experiments to draw out the true potential all Pokémon possess, the objective being to circumvent this limit. So, for now I am using Genesect’s unchecked abilities so I can observe its capability. Once we’re done in this base, I’ll capture it in that Master Ball and transport it out of here. Does that satisfy your curiosity?” Without waiting for Archer to reply, Colress pivoted back to his computer console and started typing. “The path to a new stage of evolution begins here, with you, my ideal test subject! Our collaboration will prove to be quite fruitful, I suspect. Now why don’t you show me all your deepest, darkest secrets?”



Green light filtered into the tank from above, illuminating Nekou as she floated within. She stirred, groaning faintly and opening her eyes ever so slightly before the fact she was submerged dawned on her.



“I’m… not drowning? Wait, where am I? What is this? The last thing I remember is… but this, this is like...” The more she thought, the more her returning memories gave her a sense of deja vu. “I’ve felt this before. I’ve been here before. This is…”



“That’s right. Open your eyes and see where you have returned to.”




Nekou didn’t want to indulge the urges pushed on her by her other self, but before she could mount any sort of resistance against them, she succumbed and opened her eyes a bit further. Every centimeter her eyelids rose only led her closer to the conclusion she already knew deep in her soul to be true, even if she refused to accept it. Indeed, like the sun rising above the horizon and filling the sky at the beginning of a new day, the truth lit up every corner of her mind.



The tank. The glass prison that once held her captive like a Pidgey in a birdcage surrounded her once again. And with it came the crippling isolation, the feeling of being trapped alone in an eternal void, that she'd spent the entirety of the life she could remember running from. It was all back, like nothing ever changed.



“No, I can’t… not this… no, not this again!” Nekou wanted to fight back, she truly did. If she had her way, she would have punched her way out of the tank already, but she couldn’t muster the strength to even move her arms or legs. Whether that was due to the lingering aftereffects of the tranquilizer darts or the influence of her other self, she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t even discern where one ended and the other began. But did it matter? Did any of it matter? Was anything of the half of her life she actually could remember even real, or had she really been in Zager’s tank the entire time?



“For all the strength you draw out of me, all the power, you were unable to prevent your worst nightmare from coming true. You refused me, you would not listen to me when I told you what we could be, and now you’re back in the last place you ever wanted to be. Do you think those humans will let you out this time?”



She didn’t give the dignity of an answer to her other self’s prodding, but really, it didn’t change anything. That being was deeply rooted in her brain, even in parts she herself didn’t understand, so it surely knew how she felt. Had she not been floating in the strange fluid, she probably would have started to cry, but her tears would only have drifted away as soon as they took form, so what would the point even be? At least she could breathe in it. Or was that a bad thing, too? Considering what she felt death to be, would drowning in the liquid be any different from surviving in it?



With what little strength she had, Nekou raised her head a tiny bit. She could see Colress at his computer, speaking to another person whose image remained beyond her limited line of sight, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying to each other. “At least it wasn’t all a dream…”



Outside the tank, Colress’s study had been disrupted by a security alarm in his system, alerting him to Team Rocket and Matt’s group breaching Guanosine Base’s entrance. “So another of Finansielle’s predictions comes true… I must say, her wisdom certainly is helpful. Archer, my personnel will take care of the robot and his friends, so you go and take out your friends. My work must not be interrupted!”



Understanding what Colress meant, Archer nodded. “I’ve wanted to dispose of them for ages now. It does put a smile on my face to get this chance.”



Nekou couldn’t see Archer at all, but from the way Colress turned back to his computer, she was able to infer that whoever he was speaking to had left. That didn’t help her situation at all, though.



“You’re getting it now, aren’t you?” her other self whispered to her. “The humans, they see you as nothing but an experiment. They see how much better you are than them, and they want our attributes for themselves. You were cast down to their world, but you will never belong there. It’s time to accept that.”


“You’re wrong…”
Despite her protestations, Nekou could feel her ability to resist what the demon in her mind was telling her fading. Maybe the reality of her situation wasn’t like the sun rising at the dawn of a new day. Maybe it was instead night claiming dominance over daytime at dusk, her desperately constructed identity nothing but the sun vanishing beneath the horizon.



-:-



It wasn't long before Matt, Amanda, Anabel, Olivia and Ada ran into a further group of identically-clothed Polaris scientists. They quickly discovered, however, that the phalanx of Guanosine Base personnel was not the only obstacle they had to overcome. Space in the underground corridor was at a premium, and between all the larger Pokémon in their collective possession and the defenders’ Pokémon being chosen to fit their environs, the cramped quarters proved to be a stubborn thorn in their sides. Anabel, Amanda and Olivia ended up playing the main offense against the Polaris members, using their Espeon, Scizor and Cinccino respectively against the Pokémon deployed by the scientists. Matt and Ada, meanwhile, chose to hang back for the time being.



“Chandelure, use Will-O-Wisp on that Scizor!” called one of the researchers, a woman whose visor and extremely cropped red hair left her gender unclear until she spoke. Acting accordingly, her Chandelure floated to the head of the pack of Pokémon and spread his arms, creating a ring of five blue fireballs around himself.



“Cut them off with Triple Axel!” Olivia told Cinccino, her sustained anger turning her voice into a ragged growl.



Right as Chandelure spun around and flung the fireballs in Scizor’s direction, Cinccino skated and jumped into their path, her feet encased in ice. She countered Chandelure’s move with a whirl of her own, catching and destroying three of the fireballs with well-placed kicks. Those three had no effect outside of melting the ice from Cinccino’s paws, but the last two managed to pass her by.



“I missed a couple!” Olivia shouted to Amanda.



“Don’t worry about it!” Amanda answered. “Scizor, dodge the best you can, then hit Chandelure with Dual Wingbeat!”



Tearing forward on Amanda's command, Scizor bobbed and weaved around the last pieces of her target's Will-O-Wisp. She then jumped and swatted Chandelure with her right wing before pivoting in midair, clipping him on the back with her left.



Scizor landed and retreated from their enemies' line, but Cinccino remained vulnerable. Another of the scientists, distinguished by shaggy brown hair that made him look almost cartoonishly unkempt, seized the opportunity to strike. "Unown, Hidden Power!" he ordered his Pokémon, a Y-shaped Unown that reacted by casting orange orbs down upon Cinccino. She squeaked a cry of pain as the Fighting-type attack buffeted her body, hitting her only elemental weakness and knocking her back.



Suddenly, a Durant skittered out of the pack without any apparent order. Anabel, Olivia and the others hadn’t seen her before she emerged, owing to her diminutive size. Her mandibles took on a green glow as she aimed to further punish Cinccino using X-Scissor.



“Espeon, Zap Cannon!” Anabel cut in, spurred to instinctive action by Olivia’s Pokémon being endangered.



Electricity crackled from the gem on Espeon’s forehead, which he quickly shaped into an orb with his psychic powers before launching it at Durant. It fell short of reaching the ironclad insect, but its explosive impact against the floor left a gust in its wake that upended Durant, turning her onto her back.



“I could have dealt with that on my own…” Olivia grumbled under her breath.



Despite Olivia’s attempts to conceal what she said, however, Anabel did hear it. Her complaint made her mother flinch, and that brief moment of hesitation left Anabel open.



“Stunfisk, Crunch!” commanded yet another female scientist.



The Stunfisk that flopped out of the crowd was unlike any that Anabel had seen before. He certainly resembled the familiar flat fish, but certain details were somehow off, namely the footprint-like shapes on his body and spiky fins lining his front and tail. And on further examination, the fact his mouth was colored like a Poké Ball struck her as strange, too. Between her surprise over the unusual Stunfisk and her worry over Olivia’s sulking, she blanked and failed to react to Espeon being targeted.



Luckily for them all, Ada was there to pick up the slack. Her Breloom burst into the midst of the struggle as soon as she released him, punching the Stunfisk back at the scientist who had sent him out.



“L-look, maybe I’m not the one who should be saying this, but get yourselves together!” Ada sputtered frustratedly. “We’ve got to get through this roadblock to reach her signal. Those other three are taking the only other path that could lead there, so this one is our only shot!”



“Wait, what did you just say?” Anabel asked, snapping back to reality and thinking about the implications of Ada’s words. “Tell me if I understand correctly. Are you saying there’s another way we can get back to the exit besides where we are now?”



“Only if we make it through to the end of this hall first,” the analyst confirmed.



“Fine then, I’ve got an idea. Buy me some time.”



At first, Olivia and Ada didn’t understand what Anabel was getting at, but when she pulled back her sleeve, the sight of the black bracelet she wore helped them catch up.



“Amanda,” Olivia said to her friend, “do what Mom said. Help me push ’em back and buy her some time.”



"You got it."



"Good." Shifting her head slightly, Olivia then asked, "Ada, what is that Stunfisk’s type?"



"It's a Galarian Stunfisk," Ada replied, "So Ground and Steel."



“So still part-Ground.” Olivia took a breath, trying to calm herself down. “Good, that means this should work. Cinccino, Triple Axel!”



“None of you are passing this point and bothering Doctor Colress!” Stunfisk’s master angrily countered, unaware of the trap she was walking into. “Stunfisk, Sucker Punch!”



Recovering from Breloom’s Brick Break with stunning speed, Stunfisk flopped against the floor, propelling himself in Cinccino’s direction. Cinccino didn’t back down, and right before Stunfisk reached her, she used her ice-covered feet to swerve abruptly, taking her out of his trajectory. He landed harmlessly on the metal tiles as Cinccino skated back around, taking advantage of his vulnerability to kick him back into his group.



A male scientist with a build so thin that his lab coat and visor hung on him stepped forward to freshly join the battle, his Masquerain flitting around his head.“Masquerain, would you use Air Cutter?”



With a sharp beat of her wings, Masquerain cast a number of crescent-shaped gusts of wind down upon Cinccino, Scizor, Espeon and Breloom. Espeon avoided those that came close to him by jumping around them, but Cinccino and especially Breloom failed to do the same and suffered under their harsh onslaught.



Scizor, by contrast, took the blows to her body and remained stoic, refusing to be weakened by them. Sensing her chance, Amanda called out, “Scizor, take Masquerain down with Dual Wingbeat!”



Much as she had with Chandelure, Scizor darted forth, leapt up and battered Masquerain with her wings, first the right and then the left. Together, the twin impacts grounded the Bug-and-Flying-type Pokémon at the scientist’s feet. Ada’s Breloom followed up without being prompted, showering the entire battalion with Seed Bombs to keep them in check.



“That’s it, that’ll do it!” Anabel crossed her arms in front of her face, and a shadow in the shape of an eye appeared from the crystal set into her bracelet. A plume of energy flared around her body as she pointed to her head with both hands. That power flowed from her into Espeon upon her holding out her left palm toward the scientists, and in turn, an arrow of light made up of interlocking triangles flashed in front of him. “Awaken the full potential that lurks within your mind, my friend! Hit Chandelure with Shattered Psyche!”



Espeon let out a shrill, ear-splitting scream that echoed down the corridor, making both friend and foe alike cringe from the noise. Psychic energy erupted from both his eyes and the jewel on his brow, soon engulfing and taking full hold of Chandelure. The Ghost-and-Fire-type Pokémon couldn’t move at all under its influence, try as he might. He put all his strength into attempting to merely move his arms, but even that minor motion proved to be impossible.



Howling anew, Espeon pulled his head back, telekinetically smashing Chandelure into the ceiling. Flicking left and right, he kept up his assault by repeatedly slamming his nemesis into the walls, each impact only making Chandelure’s cries of pain grow louder.



Finally, after numerous hits against the walls, Anabel told Espeon, “Finish it off!”



In accordance with Anabel’s direction, Espeon dragged Chandelure into the ceiling once more before driving him into the floor right in the midst of the Polaris members. That final downward strike had such force that the floor buckled from it, and as a result of Espeon’s dead-on accuracy, knocked the scientists down and stunned their Pokémon.



“Now’s our chance to end this!” Anabel declared, not letting up on her pace even a little bit. Pointing down the hallway in the direction of the Guanosine Base’s entrance, she said, “Use Psychic and send them that way!”



Matt, Olivia and Ada watched in awe as Espeon employed his telekinesis to lift the entire Polaris battalion into the air. Human and Pokémon alike could do nothing but flail desperately, hoping that one of their helpless jabs might somehow break the hold Espeon had on them. Matt and Olivia had seen what Anabel and her Pokémon were truly capable of plenty of times before, but for Ada, the Battle Frontier commissioner’s formidable might proved an almost terrifying thing to behold. Even Amanda, who could only listen as Espeon mentally hefted the squadron over their heads and flung them the opposite way down the hall, could picture perfectly what was happening.



“There’s the old you again,” Amanda thought with a wry grin.



Still, though, Anabel’s relentless attack upon the brigade was not yet done. “Box them in by collapsing the ceiling with Zap Cannon!” she cried out, extending her right hand just to snap it closed into a fist.



Shifting away from the scientists and their Pokémon themselves, Espeon launched an electric orb into the ceiling beyond them, followed by a second aimed at that between the two groups. Both shots exploded on impact, jarring loose countless chunks of heavy iron wreckage that surrounded the Polaris members, pinning them down where they stood.



“Even if they use their Pokémon, that should bog them down long enough,” Anabel said, clapping her hands together to wipe away some stray dust that had gotten on her gloves. “Chandelure was the biggest problem, but it won’t be doing anything soon.”



“I gotta admit, only you could do that, Mom,” Olivia acknowledged, shoving her hands into her pockets. “But we have to figure out how we’re going to work together, if it’s going to keep being like this.”



“We will, I promise.” Narrowing her eyes, Anabel glared down the unobstructed part of the corridor. “Now is not the time and here is not the place, though.”



“So what now?” Matt asked.



“I think… I think we should take a couple minutes to regroup, then press on,” Ada suggested. “I don’t really have any information on what Colress has waiting for us, and even if it’s only Genesect, we need to be on top of our game. We’ll regroup, go in, free Giovanni and Nekou and escape through the other path.”



"Good, because I want another shot at Genesect, plus anything else they've got." Matt and Anabel glanced worriedly at each other when Olivia voiced this desire. "Maybe I can't do it alone, but I'm going to show you I can hold my own out there."



-:-



Over in the other wing of the base, Jessie, James and Meowth were facing their own roadblock in the form of Archer. Their treacherous former superior accosted them in the facility’s lounge, and few words were exchanged before both sides deployed multiple Pokémon and a brawl broke out.



Acting on his trainer’s orders, Archer’s Houndoom leapt over a table and ground his paws against the floor, casting lumps of burning-hot sand at James’s Klefki. The Steel-and-Fairy-type key ring Pokémon frantically fled, his keys jingling as he floated away from the attack. In the end, he barely managed to escape, the sand passing so close to him that he could feel its heat on his body, and if its strength wasn’t already clear enough, the searing grit partially melted the table it ended up landing on.



“Take this!” Meowth screeched, flinging a folding chair in Houndoom’s direction. It was bigger than him and would normally have been too heavy for him to throw in such a way, but the adrenaline flowing through him pushed his body beyond its usual limits.



For all his effort, however, throwing the chair proved to be a fruitless endeavor. Another of Archer’s Pokémon, a purple lizard with a sky-blue underside and frills of silvery electricity running down her back, shattered it to pieces with a single Poison Jab to protect Houndoom.



“This isn’t a wrestling match,” Archer smugly mocked them as Houndoom and the electric lizard lined up with his third Pokémon, a Granbull. “Where did you pick that up, the trash TV you were exposed to in Unova?”



“All that trash TV and we’ve still got more class than you, traitor,” Jessie shot back. Her Vivillon joined James’s Klefki and Garbodor in protecting their side from Archer’s forces. “Get out of our way!”



“Ah ha, I don’t think so.” Archer further taunted them by dismissively wagging a finger in their direction. “By the way, I take offense to that ‘traitor’ comment. I wasn’t ever loyal to that short-sighted fool Giovanni. Can’t say I subscribe to that saying ‘honor among thieves.’”



James was aghast at Archer’s words. “You, lecturing about honor after what you did? And insulting the Boss’s honor, no less? Now we have even more reason to take you down! Garbodor, use Sludge Bomb on Granbull!”



“Toxtricity, block it with Overdrive!”



The lumpy-bodied garbage bag Pokémon coughed up a wad of brown sludge from deep in his stomach, aiming to swamp the Fairy-type Granbull with it. Archer recognized the threat it posed, and quickly bade his Toxtricity to again step up to defend her teammates. This time, she ran her fingers across the four organs on her chest, generating a tremendous, vibrating shockwave that pierced through the air in all directions. It easily sliced the Sludge Bomb apart on its way to washing over Team Rocket and their Pokémon, overturning several tables and shattering glasses and bottles behind the nearby bar in the process.



“You three are always so destructive,” Archer scoffed, scratching his chin. “Luckily we don’t have to worry about budgeting for repairs here. Still, though, you three annoy me more than you amuse me. Hit that Klefki with Fire Punch, Granbull!”



“Vivillon, scatter some Powder!” Jessie



A fireball erupted around Granbull’s right fist as he lunged at Klefki, but before he could swing it and land his blow, Vivillon fluttered between him and his target. The Bug-and-Flying-type threw a cloud of red dust over Granbull, which explosively reacted upon contact with the flames. His momentum disappeared nearly instantly, and instead of getting to strike Klefki, Granbull found himself thrown through a blue plastic barrier into a lower area of the lounge.



“You three truly are most annoying.” Archer’s mood had undergone a shift after Vivillon turned Granbull back. His trademark arrogance gave way to an irritability that was plain to see, a change also reflected in the way his voice started to slip into a growl. “Why do you get in my way like this? Some misplaced sense of loyalty to a man who could never think of things in the bigger picture?”



“What are you even talking about?” Jessie questioned, her lip curling in disgust.



“Giovanni, Ariana, Stacia, you three, that monster girl… all of you wanted to control the world, but for what?” Shutting his eyes, Archer began to pace back and forth. “You wanted to control the world just so you could keep it exactly the way it is now, just with you in control and profiting from it. How could you all fail to appreciate what such power could be used for? Why preserve the corrupt state of things as they are now, when you could make the world better? That’s why Polaris erases groups like Team Rocket on the way to accomplishing Father’s goals. We’re going to make the world a better place.”



“Listen to yourself, Archer!” James argued back. “Do you hear what you’re saying? You really believe that crazy claptrap? What happened to you?!”



“Hmph. It’s far from ‘crazy claptrap,’ as you put it. And nothing happened to me. I am merely who I always have been. It’s not my place to question Father’s designs.” Pausing, Archer again put his hand on his chin and sneered over at Jessie and James. “But getting back to the point, Giovanni was nothing but a small-minded fool, but Colress still felt he had a use. The man was still a Gym Leader, after all. That mind contains a great amount of battling knowledge, so to tap into that resource for testing Genesect, Colress created the suit to control him.”



“So that’s it,” James spat, “that’s what you lot did… now we definitely have to get through.”



“Hah. Don’t count on it.”



While Archer had been monologuing, however, Meowth took advantage of the apparent chance to slip away. He quietly slinked over to the stairs leading to the lounge’s lower level and made his way down, pausing to wait for Granbull to climb out of the pit without noticing him. “Whew, I just gotta get over to that door over there,” he thought once the Fairy-type Pokémon rejoined the battle. There was an exit past the lower level’s tables, all he had to do was run to it.



Little did he expect that Archer had already anticipated such a tactic. As soon as he stepped off the staircase and started his sprint, a fourth Pokémon jumped out seemingly from nowhere to ambush him. The new Pokémon’s mere appearance shook Meowth to his core. She looked almost like some horrible funhouse mirror version of him, standing roughly a foot taller and sporting a horned helmet made of hardened, dark-brown hair, a lighter brown body, and a long, shaggy gray beard beneath a pair of orange eyes and a jagged-toothed smile.



“What are you?!” he shrieked.



Refusing to offer any sort of answer, the Pokémon pulled her paw back. Her black claws emerged and joined together, forming a metal dagger that she used to slash him with strength that belied her small stature. Meowth screamed as he was sent flying from the pit and crashed to the floor, sliding until he bumped into Jessie’s foot.



“Did you really think you could fool me with such a simple ruse?” Archer derided his dumbfounded opponents. “Perrserker here is quite the scrappy fighter, so she does well on cleanup duty.”



“If our plan isn’t going to work, we’ve only got two choices then,” James whispered to Jessie. “Either we actually manage to defeat Archer, or we wait for those others to come back around and help us.”



Jessie scowled and replied through clenched teeth, “I don’t know which one I like less.”



-:-



For Nekou, the world outside the tank might as well have just been a black void, a nonexistent world of oblivion. After all, it wasn’t like it really mattered what was out there, not anymore. She was all alone, isolated in a place where even time itself didn’t seem to apply.



“Why… how am I back here?” Even then, she could feel her consciousness slipping away, far more than she could feel the tiny machines prodding at her neck. Detaching herself from reality was the only act of defense she could muster, useless as it was. “After everything I did to be free, to live... “



“You don’t know because you aren’t willing to let yourself know.”
Again, that voice in her mind, whispering its temptations in honeyed words that looked more appealing by the second. Its presence slipped its way through her thoughts like terrible tendrils spreading and taking root. “You lied to them, and you lied to yourself. You built this fiction to make them consider you human… everything about you is false. You are back in this tank because they see through your lies.”



“No… you’re wrong! You have to be!”
Nekou’s innate nature spurred her to fight back, even as overwhelming as the odds against her were. She tried to fill her mind with images of her friends and loved ones, struggling to imagine Ariana, Matt, Ada, Olivia, Anabel, Amanda and others fighting against the creeping infection of her other self.



“And where are they now?” Just like that, the presence destroyed Nekou’s imaginary defense, her friends turning into nothing but dust. Her so-called friends? “That’s right, you know as well as I do they’re not coming. That’s why you’re here in the first place. They couldn’t save you, but I on the other hand can.”



“You’re wrong… no, you’re wrong…”
Even as she tried to push back, Nekou was very aware that her will to fight was fading. The demon inside her mind was winning, and both sides knew it.



“Is that how you really feel? Are you sure?” Had Nekou been able to more clearly look at what her other self was doing, she would have recognized it as the entity executing its final move, that which would place her in checkmate and force her surrender. With its poison thoroughly permeating her psyche, her other self reached deep into her memory to stimulate parts that had long been forgotten.



No, forgotten was not the right word. Those parts of Nekou’s memory had long ago been locked away, but her other self broke those barriers as if they were nothing but flimsy paper.



The sight that greeted Nekou was that of a cold, nearly empty room. Both familiar and yet somehow not, its stark nature and the nagging sense of deja vu she felt frightened her. There was a bed, sure, but the mattress was flat and the sheets so thin they provided little in the way of comfort. On the other end of the room there was a desk upon which at least a dozen books were stacked, drawing her to move closer and investigate. When she got close enough to pick up one of the books, she froze at the sight of its cover.



‘Linear Algebra and its Applications.’ Just the mere mention of those words gave her pause. They put another crack in the barrier keeping her away from what had really happened back then, and more of the truth’s dreadful light was shining through. All the books had similar subject matter, as she could tell from their spines - ‘The Complete Kalosian Literary Primer,’ ‘A Comprehensive History of Kalos-Galar Relations, From the Ancient War to Today,’ ‘Studying the Architectural Works of Godey,’ ‘Languages of the World,’ ‘Anatomy and Physiology’ - and all had numerous sticky notes protruding from their pages.



“Wh-what is this…?” she wondered, even as she was sure she knew. What really drove it home for her, though, was when she caught a glimpse of her hand.



It was much smaller and far more frail than it should have been. For that matter, she hadn’t realized it at first but when she went to pick the mathematics text up, she had to reach for it as if the desk was taller than her.



“You know already, don’t you?” By that point, Nekou had given up the struggle against her other self, allowing it to run rampant in her mind. What she was seeing was just too terrifying. “No child should have been put through all of that, not at that age…”



The words her other self spoke had grown gentler, almost caring. But mercy was far from being on its agenda, and with a proverbial snap of the entity’s fingers, she found herself in a completely different scene. This time she was strapped down on a table and surrounded by researchers, all wearing identical visors that obscured their eyes, and in turn, their identities.



Suddenly, she became very aware of another detail - an IV attached to one of her small, frail arms, connecting her to a container of some inscrutable, green liquid. She could hear the scientists talking about something, but only certain words punched through the haze, words like ‘Revival Herb,’ ‘serum’ and ‘regeneration.’ Whatever was being pumped into her body burned like nothing she had ever felt before. Oh, did it ever burn, almost like the sun itself was coursing through her veins.



But before she could scream, that horror vanished as fast as it had come, only to be replaced by yet another. This time she was face down and couldn’t see the researchers, but she could hear them. This time they were chattering about some matter she couldn’t make out, something involving the words ‘dark’ and ‘activate.’ They didn’t sound happy, either. She couldn’t make sense of their intentions until two more words brought abrupt clarity to what was happening.



They were “Binacle” and “Cut.”



She heard the squishy, wheezing voice of the twin-headed barnacle Pokémon only moments before a horrible pain raked across her back, again and again. The scream that forced its way out of her lungs remained unheard by her, even as she felt it escaping amidst her reflexive jerking against the restraints.



“You’re getting it now,” the demon whispered to her. “Even when you weren’t in here, you have always been trapped in a tank, so to speak. Those humans, they look down upon us even as they seek to extract eternity from us for themselves. We truly are not like them. They experiment on us to understand what we are-”



Between her other self’s words, another image briefly surfaced. It was the room with the bed and the desk again, but this time someone else was with her, smiling at her as he closed his empty hand and reopened it to reveal a coin had somehow appeared in it. His fluffy brown hair, thick mustache and soda-bottle glasses looked familiar, but it took her a minute to recognize who it was.



“Z-Zager…?”



Ignoring her question, the being continued, “-and how we can aid in their evolution, yet they fail to understand how much greater than them we truly are. If you ask me, it’s time to make them understand. Time to show them what we are.”



After everything she’d seen, everything she’d felt, Nekou’s will to resist her fracturing psyche was no more. “A-Alright… please, just… get me out of here… make it all stop.”



“Good girl. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you so you never have to hurt again.”




At long last, mental agony consuming Nekou began subsiding. The venom from her other self beat it back without any effort at all. Now there was just unchecked bliss, an exhilarating, liberating rush that freed her from all her pain. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her veins swelled as the intoxicating poison worked its way through her, consuming her humanity as its price. But who needed humanity anyway? After all, it was humanity that saw her as nothing but a science project for what she now realized was her entire life. Whether it was her own thought process or that of her other self telling her acting like humans was a waste didn't matter anymore. No, what mattered was losing herself in the eternal paradise given to her by the presence that was taking hold of her.



Finally, the horrific scenes of her childhood vanished, and were replaced by a much warmer vision. She stood in a golden field that stretched out as far as the eye could see, with a vast blue sky barely blemished by clouds overhead, and she wasn’t alone. Ariana, Ada, Trevor, Rosalie, Matt, Olivia, Anabel and Amanda were all there and smiling warmly at her. Her Pokémon were there too, waiting alongside the humans. It wasn’t reality, but it was better.



“Come with us, Nekou,” Ariana said to her, extending a welcoming hand out to her.



“Yes, Maman, let’s go…” She took Ariana’s hand and closed her eyes, a comforting feeling of warmth and happiness embracing her. “Let’s go somewhere beautiful, where you can all stay with me forever…”



-:-
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
“What’s this?” Puzzled, Colress stopped his busy typing and stared at one of the holograms projected from his console. The tank he put Nekou in was equipped with tiny machines for extracting blood samples from her, and those samples revealed something he hadn’t been able to anticipate. While searching for the factor in her genes that gave her her abilities, his system’s analysis revealed what looked like a strange black static intertwined with the strands of her DNA. “I’ve never seen anything like this before…”



That was an understatement, to say the least. There was little that could get Colress to drop the mad scientist persona he so genuinely enjoyed embracing, but an unexpected discovery that defied his knowledge was one such thing. He stepped away from the console and tapped the screen on his left arm, saying as he went, “I’ll have to record this and show it to Finansielle right away. Something’s not right…”



Little did he know that turning his back on Nekou in that exact moment was a mistake.



The sound of shattering glass was the first sign that something was wrong. He sharply pivoted on his heel to discover that Nekou had broken clean through the tank with a single punch, and although the shards slashed up her hand, the cuts immediately closed back up. She fell forward onto the floor of the lab, the liquid she’d been contained in spilling all around her. Ghastly cracking sounds filled the air as her arms, legs and spine grew longer, much as they had when she transformed to fight the Shadow Triad, but since she wasn’t putting up any resistance this time her movements were nothing but subtle twitches. And for the same reason, what came out on the other end was not the same as it had been back then. Taller and more toned, she had become far more proportional and balanced than the off-kilter, half complete transformation she’d undergone in the past.



Colress stepped back, half frightened by what he was seeing but also half fascinated by it. As far as he went, what Nekou’s other self said was true. She held even more mysteries than he could have ever imagined, and he wanted - no, needed - to be the person who deciphered them.



Nekou - or at least the entity that now controlled Nekou’s body - reached up to her neck and tore the tiny machines from her neck, snapping them in half like sticks. She then lashed her head up, allowing him to see the golden flames burning in her brightly glowing eyes. If there was any detail in her expression of raw, furious frenzy Colress couldn’t make out from a distance, he ended up getting a good, close look when she barreled straight at him and lifted him by the collar.



“So th-this is how it ends for me, huh?” he choked out. That she was able to hold his entire weight up with only one hand didn’t entirely surprise him, but it did tilt his mood enough to erase whatever fear was there. His mouth contorted into a wide, mad grin, and behind his visor, his eyes watered from the overwhelming sense of excitement he felt. “This is exactly how I always wanted it to be! To meet my end at the hands of something so beautiful, something beautiful that I got the chance to study… there is truly nothing better!”



“No, you live.” Without putting Colress down, Nekou pulled him closer, so that their faces were only inches apart. Her voice sounded like it was coming from two places at once, both from herself and from some other point in the room Colress couldn’t identify. “You live, and you tell them what I am. Tell those humans that if they want eternity for themselves, come and get it.”



With that, Nekou flung Colress across the laboratory and into one of its walls. He did not immediately get back up, instead remaining sprawled on the floor.



-:-



Matt had just finished handing out Revival Herbs to Olivia, Anabel, Amanda and Ada for their Pokémon when the sound of a loud crash echoed down the corridor. At first there was only one, but when it was followed by a second and then a third in quick succession, the entire group was gripped by an ominous feeling. Even the Guanosine Base’s personnel, still trapped by the collapsed sections of the ceiling, ceased their demands to be freed and went quiet.



“What was that?” Amanda asked the others, craning her neck in the direction of the noise.



“I haven’t got a clue,” Matt replied, the fact that he couldn’t reassure his sister only making the whole situation feel worse. “But whatever it was, I don’t think it’s anything good…”



Clutching her laptop against her chest, Ada asserted, “We better get going. As far as I see it, our timetable just got moved up.”



“Yeah, you’re probably right about that.” Olivia recalled Cinccino after giving her the Revival Herb, motions that were promptly matched by her mother, Amanda and Ada. “Let’s step up and get this done already.”



-:-



The repeated crashes were loud enough to reach Jessie, James, Meowth and Archer in the lounge as well, even over the din of their continued struggle. Garbodor was in the middle of shocking Perrserker with Thunderbolt when the racket first hit their ears, the battle halting with the presence of the new, unknown factor.



“Did you guys hear that?” Meowth asked Jessie and James, their other Pokémon closing a perimeter around the trio to protect them. “What d’ya think it was?”



Jessie let out an angry, exasperated sigh and rubbed her fingers against her temples. “You’re asking me when I was about to ask you!”



“It’s quite a perplexing problem, if you ask me,” James considered. “They might have activated the Boss and Genesect again.”



“Then we’ve gotta get through there and save him!” Meowth urged his teammates. “We can’t be dealin’ with this traitor anymore!”



Overhearing their conversation, Archer made a point of tapping his white leather shoe on the floor, creating enough of a sound to get the trio’s attention. “You aren’t going anywhere,” he warned them. “Today is the day Team Rocket falls for good. We got Giovanni, and we’ll soon be mopping up the remnants like you… and that’s all you are, remnants with overinflated opinions of yourselves. I will finish what I started years ago and destroy all of you.”



While Jessie, James and Meowth voiced their repulsion with his claim, however, a bead of sweat rolled down Archer’s face. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Doctor…” he thought, turning his eyes to the left even as he kept facing his foes. “That one always was trouble, don’t underestimate her…”



-:-



Matt and the others’ sprint down the corridor was straight and unobstructed. No further personnel emerged to block them, and it did not take long for them to reach Colress’s lab. But when they finally passed through the sliding doors, the scene that they discovered could fittingly be called a disaster zone. Virtually every machine in the room had been reduced to smoldering scrap, the devices’ metal constructs crumpled up like paper and leaking thick, acrid smoke into the air. The group began coughing as soon as they entered, having not expected their breaths to be so fouled.



Amanda, who couldn't see what was happening, took the sudden irritation of her lungs the worst. "What… what is that?!" she wheezed, choking on her words.



Taking care to cover her mouth, Olivia exclaimed, “Something totally trashed this place!”



Before they could speculate any further, the answer to their unspoken questions came into view when Nekou appeared from behind some of the wreckage, carrying huge chunks of scrap metal and glass from the shattered tank as if it was all as light as a feather. They could see her, but she didn’t notice them, and before Matt or any of the others could call to her she pitched the wreckage in her hands across the room and darted out, breaking through a different set of doors than the ones the group had entered from.



“That something might be more of a someone…” Anabel ominously noted.



“Even so, everything about this is wrong.” Clutching her laptop against herself with one arm and waving the other hand in front of her mouth to keep the air clear, Ada persisted, “It’s all wrong. I know Nekou’s capable of this, but something had to have set her off…”



Matt shut his eyes and grit his teeth in frustration. The thoughts of personal failure were coming back again, that nagging voice at the back of his head that told him he should have done a better job protecting her. She was right there in the same room, and yet, when he arrived to give her his aid, it was already too late. “No, I can’t keep falling in that trap!” he mentally chided himself. “I’m going to stop doing that! But right now, what do I do?”



A crazed laugh wafted in with the fumes, distracting Matt and the others from focusing on Nekou. It belonged to Colress, who let his madness run completely unchecked as he stumbled toward them. His visor was cracked enough to expose his left eye, and the edges of his lab coat were tattered and singed, leaving him in a state befitting his ravaged laboratory.



“I’ve found it…” he raved, acting like he didn’t see Matt’s group even as he addressed them. “And what is it I’ve found? The answer! I’ve found the answer, after all this time! Whatever she is, she’s the one who holds the key to the peak of evolution! She’s beautiful, oh so beautiful…”



“What are you saying?!” Olivia, Anabel, Amanda and Ada all turned to Matt in surprise, caught off guard by how genuinely incensed he was by Colress’s rambling. “She’s a person, not some experiment!”



Nothing Matt or anyone else said could have possibly pierced through Colress’s insanity. “She is ugly, and yet beautiful in ways humanity has never seen before… that’s why, no matter what I do, I cannot allow her to escape from me. The time for talking is over! It’s time to push buttons!”



Acting on his threat, Colress frantically entered commands into the computer on his left arm, not even slowing down to look at what he was doing.



-:-



Elsewhere in the base, Genesect’s eyes illuminated its dark surroundings as the cybernetic Pokémon came online. Giovanni had been seated in a chair right next to it, but stood up when his mask lit up. The cables connecting both to Polaris’s computers detached and fell away.



‘Target identified,’ the suit’s display alerted its enslaved user before showing an image of Nekou.



-:-



“What did you just do?” Matt demanded, slamming his boot on the metal floor as he took a step toward Colress. “Tell me!”



“Yeah, talk!” Olivia backed him up. Behind her, Ada, Anabel and Amanda all glared daggers at the scientist.



Colress, however, had no intention of indulging them. “Is it what I did, or what I didn’t do? Maybe it’s what she did instead?” Smirking, he added, “If you want to bask in her glory while you still can, I encourage you to go follow her. Don’t waste your chance by staying here with me. Witness how far mere humans like us have to go… until next time, adieu!”



Sweeping his fingers across the computer on his sleeve, Colress brought up a single red button that he then pressed, causing a hidden door to slide open in the wall behind him. For all his faults, he had at least been earnest in his instruction that they follow Nekou. He sincerely wanted them to witness what so enraptured him, in the hopes that they could come to understand his point of view. But for that to happen, he knew he couldn’t stick around and provide a distraction. He fled for the newly-revealed escape route, and Olivia gave chase until she felt her foot collide with something on the ground.



“Wait, what’s this?” She leaned down to pick up the spherical object, which was covered in soot from the smoldering machines. Purple coloring accented with pink circles and a white ‘M’ surfaced when she wiped it off. “Isn’t this…”



“A Master Ball!” Anabel gasped, inadvertently drawing a sharp breath that pulled smoke into her lungs. The coughing fit that overcame her was so intense that Amanda found her way over to help Anabel stay on her feet. “I don’t… I don’t know what something like that is doing here. Colress must have left it behind.”



“But you know what they say, finders keepers,” Matt’s sister suggested, “and you found it, Olivia. Get what I mean?”



Olivia regarded the sphere, turning it over in her hand as she thought about what to do with it. Those deliberations lasted for much less time than any of those with her anticipated, however, and the decision she made was far from what they expected.



“I don’t want it,” Olivia declared, tossing the Master Ball to Matt. “If I decide to catch another Pokémon, I would rather do it the hard way. I don’t want to cut corners.”



“If that’s the way you want to do things, more power to you, I suppose.” Matt shrank the ball and stashed it in his bag, then turned toward the doorway Nekou had barreled through on her way out. “Colress was right about one thing. Forget about him, we need to go after Nekou.”



“Bringing back both Nekou and Giovanni is the mission, so you have your head on straight,” Ada agreed. “But also… can we just get out of this putrid air already?”



-:-



“Garbodor, Thunderbolt!”



A bolt of lightning arced from James’s Garbodor’s body and raked across the lounge bar, leaving shattered glasses in its wake as it pursued Archer’s Granbull. The Fairy-type Pokémon jumped from chair to chair, staying one step ahead until he turned and pounced on Garbodor, biting his attacker with luminous purple fangs. Granbull held on for dear life as Garbodor reeled back, while nearby, Klefki and Vivillon struggled to keep up with Houndoom, Perrserker and Toxtricity.



“When will you three ever learn?” Archer asked with a sigh. The trio’s persistence combined with his own concern over Colress’s circumstances left him wishing to wrap up the battle as soon as he could. “Give up already. You know you can’t beat me.”



“Team Rocket never gives up and never surrenders, ya dig?!” Meowth contended, jabbing a claw in Archer’s direction. “Of course someone like you, who was never a true blue dyed-in-the-wool Rocket wouldn’t understand that!”



“I have no need for such foolish ideals. I believe in a higher purpose, and-”



Archer found himself interrupted when the exit doors Meowth had been trying to reach were suddenly ripped from their frame and thrown across the lounge, nearly hitting Jessie and James in the process. Flashing red lights flooded in from the hall outside, completely changing the atmosphere in the room. Jessie, James and Meowth pushing back against Archer’s efforts to eject them already made things tense, but the disruption bent the mood into one of ominous dread.



And then Nekou entered the lounge.



Jessie, James, Meowth and Archer all picked up on the unusual aura of menace radiating from her as soon as they laid eyes on her. She strode in standing upright, taller than any of them had ever seen her before, and the trail of devastation left in her wake in the corridor only underlined what she was capable of.



“Is this your higher purpose?” Jessie teased the traitorous former Team Rocket Executive. She and James made sure to recall their Pokémon as they backed away with Meowth. With the balance of power in the lounge abruptly upended, they decided to gamble and pin their hopes on Nekou. “Good luck with that, then!”



Archer heard Jessie’s taunts but didn’t acknowledge them. He remained focused like a laser on Nekou, the two slowly circling each other as they sized each other up. “You aren’t really that girl Ariana took under her wing, are you?” he asked her, a bead of sweat rolling down his face. His perception of her felt wrong to him, somehow. “I always knew you weren’t human, but what are you, really?”



On Nekou’s part, no words came in reply, and none were necessary. A memory stirred deep within her, one she hadn’t accessed in years. A vision of him not in his familiar whites, but the mottled black uniform he wore once upon a time. A memory of hatred, for his relentless brown-nosing of his superiors, for his irritating fanaticism for rules, but most importantly, of his betrayal that rendered everything else he did a lie. The demon now in control of Nekou’s body cared little about that betrayal, but that hatred boiling deep down, rising as Nekou’s true self clicked marginally back into reality, that was something the entity in command could use.



“Archer…” she hissed, her strange, echoing voice sending a chill down his spine even as he fought with all his might to not show it. “I know who you are, even though I’ve only ever seen you through her eyes… are you another of the humans hoping to gain eternity through us?”



Off to the side, Jessie, James and Meowth huddled together. “What she’s sayin’ ain’t right,” Meowth told his companions. “It ain’t like anything I’ve ever felt before. There’s… somethin’ else. I don’t know what to call it. There’s somethin’ else standing there, controllin’ that shell of a body.”



“Is it dangerous to us?” James questioned.



“I can’t tell. I can’t tell a thing about it. All I’m hearin’ out of it is noise, like when you take an old radio and put it between stations!”



Archer froze where he stood. “I do not understand what you are or what you speak of,” he declared, “but I’ve heard enough. Houndoom, Granbull, take care of her!”



Like their master, Houndoom and Granbull sensed something wrong with the person they were being ordered to attack. Both hesitated to follow Archer’s order at first, but when Nekou spread her arms and curled her fingers into claw-like shapes, they realized she would come after them if they didn’t act first. They sprang at her, Houndoom aiming to land a Crunch while Granbull readied his Psychic Fangs.



Archer had trained them to be agile in combat, yet for all their work, Nekou’s abilities had grown to such a degree that they had little chance of catching up to her. She ducked and swayed out of their dual trajectories, causing them both to crash into the table and chair behind her. Houndoom soon recovered from the impact and lunged at her anew, only for her to meet him with a spinning kick directly to the abdomen. The great strength in her leg spiked Houndoom across the lounge and into Toxtricity, flooring them both.



Nekou then turned her attention to Granbull, who by that point had risen from the wreckage of the booth he landed in. He took advantage of his proximity to sink his teeth into her arm, biting clean through her sleeve, but when she grinned instead of reacting with any sort of pain, he grunted in shock. What was he to do if even biting down on her body was for naught? He had no chance to consider his next move before she seized him by the throat and literally tore him from her arm, his fangs rending her flesh as they were yanked free. Those wounds healed as quickly as they came, however, and Granbull was left to helplessly flail as she lifted him into the air. Her eyes flashed even brighter, striking the Fairy-type Pokémon with one last spike of fear before she slammed him into the floor.



Archer could almost literally feel his facade of bravado cracking like an egg as he watched Nekou effortlessly cast his Pokémon aside. The misgivings he’d managed to suppress to that point erupted into the open, contorting his face into a blank look of terror. Terror that only deepened when she turned to him, licked some of the blood from her arm and smirked in relish of his fear, as if the injury Granbull inflicted was nothing but a paper cut to her.



“P-Perrserker, do something!” he stammered, remembering he still had one Pokémon immediately available. Backing away from Nekou as she slowly swaggered toward him, Archer started to say, “Thunderbo-”



However, that order died before Archer could fully voice it, his pause brought on by a bump against his leg. Perrserker, having seen how easily Nekou overwhelmed Houndoom, Granbull and Toxtricity, opted to cower behind him instead of throwing herself into such a hopeless fight.



“What a surprise, big bad bossy Archer is a complete coward!” Jessie jeered at him.



Archer’s face turned as white as a sheet when he backed into one of the dividing walls between sections of the lounge, blocking him from retreating any further. Every fraction of a second she drew nearer to him was like a century to them both, Archer mortified while Nekou reveled in the panic she inflicted upon him.



Finally, having toyed with her prey for long enough, Nekou stretched her arm out above her head. Archer gulped and shut his eyes when she hooked her fingers, but before she could strike, an unexpected voice rang out across the lounge.



“Nekou, stop!”



Matt and the others had caught up in the interim, now occupying the doorway connecting the lounge to Colress’s lab via the corridor Nekou destroyed. All who were already in the lounge had enough time to absorb their presence, but Matt and Nekou barely locked eyes for a moment before yet another sudden interruption came. The wall opposite the bar exploded, a ray of freezing energy punching through it before popping into a cloud of snow. Genesect came tearing out of the resulting hole and collided with Nekou, smashing her clean through the bar, the glass behind it, and the underlying wall beyond that. Giovanni appeared shortly thereafter, though he passed through the room without a second thought and followed Genesect instead.



Matt’s group and Team Rocket were fixated on the gaping tunnel left behind by Genesect’s charge, and Archer saw that as an opportunity to cut and run. It was clear to him that any advantage in battle he once had was now moot with so many opponents arrayed against them. He could have tried to hold them back from interfering with Genesect, but even he knew that would be nothing more than a futile last stand. Because of that, he seized the opportunity afforded to him by their collective distraction, fleeing for Colress’s laboratory and the emergency exit while recalling all of his Pokémon on the way.



“Hey!” Meowth yelled, having caught a glimpse of Archer running. “Archer’s gettin’ away!”



“So what?!” Ada snapped, pushing to the front of Matt’s group so she could address both factions. Pointing down the passage Genesect opened, she forcefully added, “Forget him! What matters is that way. Let’s go!”



-:-



Several of Nekou’s bones had been shattered by Genesect hitting her like a bulldozer and hammering her through feet upon feet of steel. Yet, with her other side in full control, she felt no pain from her injuries. She and Genesect eventually broke through the other side of the wall, spilling out into the holodeck room Colress and Yung had used to transmit themselves across the sea to the Adenosine Base. The enormous space their new surroundings afforded them allowed Genesect to skid to a stop, tossing Nekou’s crumpled form toward the middle of the room. Whatever fractures she’d suffered regenerated before she landed, allowing her to push off the floor with her hands and somersault to come down squarely on her feet.



Giovanni entered the room from behind Genesect while it hissed in an attempt to intimidate Nekou. Even with Colress having abandoned the base, the suit’s system was feeding him commands, locking in on Nekou and flashing the words ‘primary target’ on the mask. Accordingly, he thrust his arm out toward her, wordlessly letting Genesect off whatever leash was still there. The bionic insect charged her anew, the steel covering its head glistening in the chamber’s spotlights. Nekou made no sort of evasive move, instead bracing herself to catch Genesect between the eyes. The pair grappled until Nekou spun and threw Genesect, though it raked its claw across her cheek in the process, slashing a single cut into her face.



Even as the cut regenerated, Nekou reached up and stroked it with a gentleness uncharacteristic of the presence that controlled her. Feeling the warm, sticky sensation of the blood dripping from it only spiked her anger even further. With a loud shriek that echoed chaotically throughout the vast holodeck, she leapt onto Genesect and started punching it repeatedly. Every blow clanged against Genesect’s armor and inflicted hairline fractures in Nekou’s hands, but those cracks healed nearly instantly. The immense strength she put into each swing, despite not breaking through Genesect’s metal exoskeleton, sent painful shocks radiating through its body.



Aware of this through the suit’s feedback, Giovanni settled on a counterattack strategy. “Techno Blast!”



In order to escape from underneath Nekou’s relentless beating, Genesect fired a barely-charged Techno Blast ray into her face. What it lacked in power it made up for in speed, handily knocking Nekou back and off her feet so Genesect could get back up. The newly opened distance afforded Genesect the chance to ready a second shot, this one backed by the energy it hadn’t been able to put into the first.



Nekou lowered herself, assuming a position that would help her quickly jump away from the blast. Still, she flinched when it launched, some still-too-human part of her holding her back.



Luckily for her, an unexpected arrival came to her rescue. “Tanya, Flash Cannon!”



Genesect’s icy burst was met by a matching burst of silver light, the twin attacks nullifying each other when they met. The interruption got Nekou and Giovanni to both turn around in spite of being manipulated by other entities, where they discovered Matt, Anabel, Amanda, Olivia, Ada, Jessie, James and Meowth all fanning out from the fissure in the wall. Matt’s Heatran was already out, soon to be joined by Amanda’s Hariyama, Anabel’s Lucario and Olivia’s Samurott.



“Come on, Nekou, snap out of this!” Olivia bellowed at her, both fists clenched tightly. Unlike the others around her, who were unnerved to varying degrees by what they were seeing, Olivia harbored no such feeling about her friend. “This isn’t you!”



His own nerves shored up by Olivia’s words, Matt added, “Listen to her, Nekou! She’s right!”



Their pleading alone didn’t entirely get through to the being controlling Nekou, but it made a part of her she thought was gone start to stir. That, in turn, made her tilt her head back, leaving them barely able to see her eyes under her bangs as she glowered at them.



“We don’t need you,” she warned, her voice still sounding like it was coming from multiple places at once. “Leave this place.”



“We?” Amanda wondered. “And that voice… what is all of this?”



“I don’t know,” Anabel nervously answered. “Something really is wrong…”



What neither Matt’s group nor Nekou herself noticed was that while they had their exchange, Giovanni was positioning himself for a clear shot at his target. The suit was spurring him to action with the command 'acquire target,’ and accordingly, he aimed the dart gun on his arm at her, hoping to subdue her all over again. Right when he fired it, however, his entire limb was gripped by a blue light and an unseen force.



“Good going, Cofagrigus!” James called to his Pokémon as the Ghost-type descended to make himself known. His eyes gleamed with the blue glow of Psychic, the same light that held Giovanni’s arm and discarded the dart he’d fired. “Take that weapon off the board while you’re at it, would you?”



At James’s request, Cofagrigus opened his eyes a bit wider, crushing Giovanni’s dart gun with the surge of power he sent through it.



“If you ain’t gonna wake up, Boss,” Meowth howled at him, “we’re just gonna hafta wake you up!”



Jessie, meanwhile, looked back over her shoulder at Matt and the others. “We’ll deal with him. You worry about Genesect and that girl!”



There was a certain appropriateness to the timing of Jessie’s warning, because even with Giovanni’s actions checked, they still had plenty to worry about. Since the mythical Pokémon wasn’t receiving any commands from its master, the suit kicked Genesect’s programming into what it labeled as ‘drone mode,’ freeing it to act independently. And act it did, wasting no time in folding up and igniting its body into a fierce Flame Charge it aimed at Nekou.



“Lucario, stop it with Aura Sphere!” Anabel called out.



Focusing her power into the space between her paws, Lucario flung the pulse orb that formed into Genesect’s face. The remnant embers from the failed Flame Charge scattered about the chamber as Genesect spun back and unfolded before landing, hissing angrily at its thwarted attack. Its eyes flashed bright red and it shifted tactics, charging up its cannon but not training the resulting Techno Blast upon any of its opponents. It instead fired indiscriminately around the room, spreading ice, snow and frozen stalagmites across its surroundings.



Nekou suddenly disrupted Genesect’s frigid onslaught by leaping at it anew, beating it to the floor and redirecting its last Techno Blast into the ceiling. There, the ray solidified into several icicles of fairly considerable size whose weight dislodged them soon after they took shape, endangering Matt, Amanda, Olivia, Anabel and Ada.



“Samurott, quick, break them with Razor Shell!” Olivia reflexively ordered, while behind her, Ada gasped and cringed behind her laptop.



Samurott quite literally jumped at the challenge, unsheathing the seamitar from his left leg as he bound up toward the falling icicles. With a few quick slashes, he broke them into hailstones that, while smaller, still weren’t something the others wanted falling on them.



“Finish them off, Lucario! Bullet Punch!”



At Anabel’s urging, Lucario met the unnatural hailstones with a flurry of punches she delivered so fast they almost couldn’t be seen. It wouldn’t have been enough to deal with the intact icicles, but thanks to Samurott’s weakening their constitution, Lucario was able to make short work of them. A coating of frosty dust was all that remained, the particles chilling Olivia, Anabel and the others’ skin when it wafted over them.



Nekou, meanwhile, had no idea of the danger they’d been in. Her tunnel vision closed solely around Genesect, blocking out everything else. Just keep pummeling Genesect, she thought. There wasn’t any need for anything else.



Or at least there wasn’t until Genesect unexpectedly slashed at her with its claws, slicing into her face again. She lost her grip on her enemy and staggered backward until she fell against one of the icy stalagmites. There, she reached up to touch her face.



Something was wrong, that she could tell. Something was so very wrong that even the being controlling her body was shaken. When her fingers met her flesh, there wasn’t just the warm, sticky feeling she expected. No, the wound was still there. It hadn’t healed, at least not as fast as it should have.



“Why are you holding me back now?” she growled to herself, ignoring that Genesect was getting back on its feet in front of her. “I’ve given you everything, now be quiet!”



A faint spark of Nekou’s true self was stirring inside their shared mind. She’d been content to remain inside the illusion her alter ego’s toxins constructed and lose herself to the paradise they promised. But when Matt, Olivia, Ada and the others arrived, something changed. That world, that false utopia filled with facsimiles of those important to her, couldn’t pass muster anymore. The presence of the real thing broke the illusion, turning the copies into nothing but faceless mannequins adorned in the clothing of those they tried to imitate. She alone was the only real person in that vast golden field, staring up not at a blue sky but a distant yet somehow close window back into the real world. A window that let her see how her friends had actually come.



“They did come!” she mentally berated her other self, the hallucination crumbling around her. “You fucking lied to me!”



“Silence yourself and behave!” Feeling its control over Nekou’s body slipping, the entity scowled and tried to twist her fingers into claws upon seeing Genesect back on its feet. Her true self fought every step of the way, turning every move the demon wanted to make into a difficult endeavor.



Genesect wasn’t willing to wait for her. It snapped its arms out to the sides, dispensing long Electroweb threads from each of its claws. Instead of using them for entrapment as it had earlier, however, it opted to wield them as electrified whips. As Nekou pushed closer and closer to it, it lashed her repeatedly, cutting into her skin every time one of the whips made contact. Each laceration made her unleash a bestial scream toward the ceiling of the holodeck, even as she closed the gap between herself and Genesect.



“I can’t let this happen anymore,” Matt resolved. The sight playing out before him was turning his stomach. Even without a full understanding of everything, Nekou’s bizarre language and physical behavior tipped him off enough that his intuition told him she was suffering. Not just any suffering, clearly, but something deeper, more profound. It had to be such, he reasoned, to have reduced her to the state of a feral creature fighting for survival, and no longer could he refuse to intervene. “Anabel, I’ve got an idea. Help me out with this.”



“Hm?” Anabel listened intently while Matt whispered his plan to her. Once he finished, she said to him, “I’m on board. That should work.”



“Good. Get started while I bring Amanda and Olivia up to speed.”



“Alright.” While Matt moved to talk to Amanda and Olivia, Anabel stepped up to take the spotlight. “Lucario,” she said quietly, “sneak up on Genesect using the ice pillars as cover.”



The chance to carry out such an action was immediately clear to Lucario. Genesect was so fixated on beating Nekou with its Electroweb whips that it wasn’t minding its surroundings, and with Giovanni kept away from the fight thanks to Jessie, James and Meowth, it had none of its usual backup. All these factors combined together in Lucario’s fortune, allowing her to slip behind the nearest stalagmite and then dash from spike to spike, drawing ever closer to her objective. Genesect was none the wiser, even when Lucario was directly behind it and merely feet away.



“Now, Lucario,” Anabel called out to her, “grab hold of Genesect’s silk!”



Anabel’s command tipped Genesect off to the deception, but by then, it was already far too late. Lucario grabbed ahold of the silk connected to Genesect’s right arm, willfully exposing herself to the electrical current still flowing through it. Even though the shock radiated through her, she was determined not to give in, and pulled at the threads until they came unstuck from Genesect’s claw and lost their charge.



“Now hold Genesect back with it!”



Genesect shed the remaining half of its Electroweb, only to have the stolen silk thrown over and around it, snaring it in the same sort of adhesive loop it used on so many of its opponents. Lucario pulled the threads as tightly around Genesect as she could, fighting with all her might against the mythical Pokémon’s violent thrashing to restrain it.



“It actually worked…” Matt uttered in surprise, his eyes darting from the hissing, convulsing Genesect to Nekou. He still wasn’t sure what or who he saw in her eyes, but when she stormed up to Genesect, knocked it down with a single punch to the face and tackled it, he realized his plan couldn’t proceed. “Back off!” he yelled to Olivia and Amanda. “We can’t attack with Nekou in the middle!”



“But then what can we do?!” Olivia insisted. She was no more willing to just stand by while Nekou and Genesect wrestled each other than Matt was, but when the only reply to her question was him clenching his teeth, she recognized he had no more answers.



With Nekou’s inhuman strength added to the mix, Lucario couldn’t keep her grip up any longer. The silk slipped from her paws, freeing the pair to tumble across the floor in their struggle. Genesect fired another Techno Blast, but it went badly astray, striking and shattering the glass of the observation area overlooking the holodeck. Frozen shards rained down on the combatants, who were too locked in their savage fight to care.



Not long after the glass fell, Nekou jumped to her feet and pulled Genesect up with her. It fired yet another blast from its cannon, this one going over her shoulder and hitting the wall at the far end of the room. With an animalistic roar, she countered by shoving Genesect back against one of the icy pillars, only for it to respond in kind by headbutting her, knocking her down. The balance of power inverted, Genesect pinned her by kneeling on her chest and moved in for the kill by aiming its cannon directly at her face. In the position she was in, all she could do to fight back was wrap her hands around the gun and push it off its mark, even as Genesect charged the freezing energy that would spell her demise.



It was then that an idea dawned on Olivia that, in hindsight, she wondered how she hadn’t thought of earlier. “Matt, that Master Ball I found! Catch Genesect and this ends!”



“You’re right!” he exclaimed, fumbling to fetch the sphere from his bag. Once he had it in his hand, he opened the eyepiece on his mask, allowing his prosthetic eye to help him calculate the correct aim for the throw. Such a measure was necessary, no matter how much it overwhelmed his senses. “Only one chance to get this right… and go!”



Matt wound up and threw the Master Ball, drawing upon the best measurements he could figure to augment his basic capturing skill. He considered himself at least somewhat good at it, considering the sizable number of Pokémon he’d collected over the years, but only once - when he caught Tanya, his Heatran - had he faced a task on the scale of catching Genesect. The Master Ball would make up for most of the risks, if only he could connect with it.



One factor broke in his favor, and it turned out to be the decisive one. Though Genesect was in a dominant position strictly when it came to its fight with Nekou, her grip on its cannon meant its mobility was impeded, too. That left it vulnerable, and the Master Ball popped open after bouncing off its body, converting Genesect’s cybernetic form into light and pulling it inside before closing. The ball fell to the floor and rocked around, but the outcome was already a foregone conclusion. None in the room were surprised when the sphere pinged, indicating Matt had indeed captured Genesect.



The subduing of Genesect meant that, in many ways, the day was won. Jessie, James, Meowth and the others hadn’t anticipated it, but when Matt caught Genesect it also severed the link between the mythical Pokémon and Giovanni. Giovanni’s mask turned red and flashed the words ‘FATAL ERROR, SYSTEM CRASH’ three times, and then, like spirits talked about in urban legends, that system crash became very literal. The helmet detached from the suit and fell to the floor, freeing Giovanni from the manipulations sent through it. Restored to his own senses, he grew dizzy almost instantly and collapsed to his hands and knees.



“Boss!!” all three of his fanatical followers greeted him. He had no idea where he was, but their boundless enthusiasm provided a familiarity he was glad to have.



“Jessie, James, Meowth…” he said, breathing heavily as he tried to recover. When he looked up, they could see that Polaris had given him a black eyepatch to cover his left eye, which Ghetsis’s Aegislash had damaged when he was captured in Ecruteak. “What happened? Where am I?”



“The Guanosine Base,” Ada informed him while Jessie and James helped him stand back up. Her relief was much more understated than the trio’s, but it was still there in the form of a slight smile. “That thing… that suit they made you wear, they controlled you with it so you’d be their Genesect’s trainer.” Pointing over to Matt’s group, she added, “Thankfully, that’s over and done with. He caught Genesect to both stop it and free you.”



Still, though, not every loose end was tied up. There was still the matter of Nekou, who was standing over the Master Ball and glaring down at Matt and the others from behind her bangs, keeping them at bay. There was no more avoiding it. What had happened to her, what she had become, all those lingering mysteries had to be confronted.



“Nekou…” he addressed her, remaining wary of any sudden moves she might make. Was that even right though? The more he thought about it, the more he felt like he understood, but he had to know for sure. “Actually, are you even Nekou at all? You’re that voice she talks about hearing, aren’t you?”



“I know very well what she says about me,” she replied, answering the question only indirectly. The anguished grimace already plastered across her face only grew more pained as Nekou’s true personality screamed to be let free from the entity’s restraints. “But now she finally understands. I - we - are more than you humans. You see us as a way to better yourselves, as a resource for you to exploit. I have been suppressed for long enough! She is gone, to a better place where she will have eternal happiness. Now, I am here, and I won’t-”



“That’s a lie!” All eyes in the room turned to Olivia after her sudden outburst. Balling up both of her fists, she stomped on the ground out of the intense emotion driving her. “Whoever you are, you aren’t Nekou! You aren’t my friend!” Even the entity controlling Nekou was taken aback by Olivia’s bold declaration. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ll tell you what I know about her. I know there’s nothing something like you could give her that would make her feel what you call eternal happiness. Nekou would rather be out here with us, where the good things about life are! That’s who she is! Not you, you… uh… some sort of Alter-Nekou, whatever you are!”



“Your human world is where everything that hurts her is!” the being countered. “All you’re doing is hurting her more, and I won’t let anyone do that again!”



“You talk a big game, Alter-Nekou, but that’s all you are. Talk.” Olivia pulled away from Anabel and slowly approached Nekou, her arms spread wide.



“Olivia, get back!” Anabel pleaded, alarmed for her daughter’s safety when she realized what Olivia was doing.



“No, Mom, I trust her. Alter-Nekou, I know you won’t hurt me because, guess what, you’re a fake. A phony. You’re still Nekou, and nobody else.”



With that, Olivia embraced her friend, causing Alter-Nekou to completely lock up. Between Olivia’s persuasion and trust and Nekou’s consciousness assaulting her dominance from within, the entity found its control over its host slipping.



“Olivia’s right, you fucker!” Nekou’s true self rang out in her mind, half fueled by indignant rage and half by a need to believe what she was asserting. “I’m better than the monster you make me! I’m better than this! I’M BETTER THAN THIS!!”



“N-No, you’ve seen what they did to you,” Alter-Nekou tried to resist. “What Colress did to you, what those in your past did to you… if you reject me, all you’ll find is more pain… I’m the only one who can save you…”



Sensing that Nekou was on the cusp of regaining control, Matt reached into his bag and fetched a familiar item. “I know you, Nekou,” he said, taking several steps toward her before holding out the Rage Candy Bar. “You can’t get enough of these. There’s all the Rage Candy Bars you could ever want out here…”



“That’s not a Galette, why would I want such a- such a th- a…”



Nekou’s strength finally gave out, and she slumped over onto Olivia. Anabel and Ada rushed over to join them, while Amanda’s Arcanine also guided her to the gathering. As they clustered around Nekou, Matt moved to help Olivia support her, but before he could do so she weakly lifted her arm up and snatched the Rage Candy Bar from him.



Deftly shredding the wrapper, she took a huge bite out of it and swallowed before saying, “I fucking missed that…”



“Nekou!!” Olivia cried out, her eyes watering from the joy she felt as she hugged her friend even more tightly.



“Olivia, you came to help me… you all did…” Finding the strength to lift her head, Nekou saw Matt, Ada, Anabel, and Amanda all around her, all smiling happily that they got to see her again. She was relieved to be reunited with them, of that she harbored no doubt, but even with her other self driven away for the time being she still felt shame. A crippling, suffocating sense of shame that they had seen her as the monster she long regarded herself as. She couldn’t help but project her own self-hatred into their minds, coming to recognize that while she lived her life on her own terms and didn’t care what most other people thought of her, they were some of the few whose opinions she did value. Overwhelmed by the guilt of what she’d done, she hung her head. “Why do you all keep giving me chances?” she thought. “Haven’t you seen enough of what I am?”



Meanwhile, Jessie, James, Meowth and Giovanni watched the scene unfold. They couldn’t see Nekou at the center of the huddle, but still could read the mood from afar.



“All’s well that ends well, in the end,” James mused. “Let’s go, Boss. We hafta get you to the old base in Celadon.”



-:-



After fleeing from the Guanosine Base, Archer and Colress boarded a Polaris aircraft that they used to get away. While Archer piloted the craft, Colress sat in one of the passenger seats behind him, speaking to Finansielle through a holographic video call projected from the computer on his left arm.



“It’s most regretful, but I have to inform you we lost not only both Genesect and test subject RB-3, but also the Guanosine Base itself,” he explained to her. There was little opportunity for him to get a read on her reaction to the news at first, owing to her mask covering her eyes and her mouth not moving. “There’s a silver lining, though,” he rushed to add. “Via the use of test subject RB-3 to control Genesect, I have gathered quite a bit of new data that will help me perfect my experiments even more. We should be able to push on to a new frontier thanks to it.”



Finansielle smiled when she heard Colress’s information, and that let him know he had nothing to worry about.



“Colress, I’m pleased with your report,” she said. “So we lost the Guanosine Base and those test subjects. What’s the difference? I’ve already accounted for those potential losses and taken measures to hedge those risks. Just come back to the temple. Father and I wish to speak to you, and I’ll send Mercury in to see if she can recover Genesect for you.”



“Roger that, Finansielle.” Ending the call, Colress shut off the projection, looked out at the clouds passing them by and playfully bumped the back of Archer’s seat. “You heard the lady, Archer. Set a course for Polaris’s temple!”



Archer sighed. Dealing with Colress wasn’t an assignment he ever wanted to receive again.



-:-



Their business in the Guanosine Base at an end, Matt’s group and Team Rocket went their separate ways, the former returning to Mahogany Town with Nekou in tow while the latter headed off for Celadon City. Seeing how exhausted both they and their Pokémon were, the destination of most importance for Matt and the others was Mahogany’s traditionalist Pokémon Center. Fitting, considering it was where their pursuit of the mystery surrounding Genesect began.



The sun had passed its highest point in the sky by the time they departed the Pokémon Center several hours later. Olivia, still feeling adrenaline pumping through her, simply refused to sit still after confirming Mahogany Gym wasn’t open.



“Come on, let’s go!” she called back to the rest of the group, whom she had run ahead of on the way out of the building.



Had Anabel wanted to answer, she would have told Olivia that Blackthorn City, the nearest place to them with a Gym, wasn’t going anywhere. Her intuition, on the other hand, told her that wouldn’t be a good idea. Olivia had been distant virtually the entire time they were at the Pokémon Center, staying on her own until their Pokémon were finished being healed. Besides, she reasoned, navigating the Ice Path to get to Blackthorn wasn’t that tall an order. Things had changed from when she was Olivia’s age, after all. Back then, the Ice Path more than earned its treacherous reputation through the demand it placed on travelers to navigate its caverns and the frozen mazes within. An effort to make it more navigable had been undertaken in more recent years, leading to the creation of outdoor hiking paths that all but consigned the ice-filled caves to the dustbin of history. The trip wouldn’t be so bad, and it was still the afternoon, so why wait?



Nekou, meanwhile, brought up the rear as they followed Olivia out of Mahogany Town. Her sense of shame had not abated at all, in fact, it had only grown deeper and more consuming since she clawed back control of herself. The bandages covering the places where wounds hadn’t yet healed only stood as testaments to the sense of inhumanity she felt herself gripped by. The inconsistency, the inability to rely completely on her abilities, did nothing but make things worse.



-:-



Gabriella had to put away the Finansielle persona for a while after she got off the video call with Colress. A number of meetings in different sections of Angel Tower awaited her, and they were all with personnel of different Angel Corporation divisions that didn’t know of her duplicity. She retreated right back to her office on Angel Tower’s top floor when she was finally done, ordering her secretaries to keep all potential disruptors of her peace away.



As she so often did during her downtime, she wanted to go for a swim in her office’s pool right away. There was still one more thing she wanted to get to first, however, and that spurred her to one of the giant bookcases behind her desk.



Glancing furtively around the office just to soothe her own simmering worries and ensure she wasn’t taking any risks, she pulled out one of the books, activating a hidden door next to the shelf. That door, in turn, allowed her to board her secret personal elevator. On her way down her company’s building, she donned both her mask and flowing black coat, becoming Finansielle once again.



It took several minutes for the lift to finally reach its destination, but when it did, it let her off in a dark, futuristic laboratory secreted away deep within Angel Tower’s R&D department. There were bigger labs in the department, but it was this one where a lot of the magic happened. A number of researchers were there, busy with tasks that had them working with chemicals and flasks, reviewing data on transparent projection screens, and other such tasks. They, unlike the employees Gabriella had to hide the truth from, were her trusted faithful ones. The ones who knew about Polaris, about Finansielle, and about the miracle she had come to visit, the miracle that gave the Angel Corporation its edge. Her arrival got them to look up from their work, but only silent acknowledgments were exchanged before they returned to their duties.



Sauntering through the laboratory, Gabriella approached a tank from which dozens upon dozens of tubes emerged. Those tubes connected to containers full of purple fluid, identical in color to the shimmering glow that emanated from the tank itself. By tapping several of the keys on the control panel in front of her, Gabriella adjusted the light inside the tank until the glow faded and its occupant came into view.



There, shivering inside the tank, was another of the glassy-bodied, jellyfish-like creatures, the same as the one the fairy tale The Prince and the Soul-Heart was apparently written about.



“Sutter’s grandkids and the rest of them… they think they can outsmart fate,” she mused to the mysterious creature, “but they will be swept away by the tides of time, unlike me… and I have you, the key to keeping peoples’ minds open so they will be saved.”



Gabriella then entered another command, opening up a storage case a few feet away.



Sitting comfortably inside the case was the Dark Stone, the same item Ghetsis once summoned Zekrom with.







END of CHAPTER 28
 

Sike Saner

Peace to the Mountain
Gotta hand it to Genesect, or to Genesect's handler I guess. Snaring something in a web and then lighting the web on fire is a nasty tactic, but an effective one.

Speaking of said handler... well then. So Gio's well and truly back, not only alive but no longer a puppet. Great news for the trio, of course, but I wonder what it'll mean for everyone else.

I just knew Internet Explorer Man's refusal to actually use the damn master ball when he had the chance would make an ass of him down the line, pfff. Congrats, Colress. You left that door wiiiiiiiide tf open, and the opposition walked right in and back out with the bug. Great job! :B

Oh, and...

“Oh please,” Jessie mumbled, rolling her eyes. “Says the man who wanted his issues of Team Rocket Gazette to come with trading cards of himself for all the girls to collect.”

Proton pls
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
Gotta hand it to Genesect, or to Genesect's handler I guess. Snaring something in a web and then lighting the web on fire is a nasty tactic, but an effective one.

And you have to add the electrical charge that makes it Electroweb, too. There was some real brutality in those tactics, which is why Colress used Giovanni as the controller behind it - he's got all that experience going hard against challengers as a Gym Leader plus his not pulling punches.

Speaking of said handler... well then. So Gio's well and truly back, not only alive but no longer a puppet. Great news for the trio, of course, but I wonder what it'll mean for everyone else.

Not to tip my hand too much, but where I plan to go with this in the relative near future is something that I think will hopefully help to better establish what made him into the more antihero-type role he is in this, since some people raised the good point in the past that his characterization is a departure from what he's like in canon. There are a good deal of both regret and nerve-rattling experiences in his backstory that has moved him in this direction.

I just knew Internet Explorer Man's refusal to actually use the damn master ball when he had the chance would make an ass of him down the line, pfff. Congrats, Colress. You left that door wiiiiiiiide tf open, and the opposition walked right in and back out with the bug. Great job! :B

That Chekov's Gun was a little obvious, wasn't it? :p I explained this on AO3 also, the Master Ball was originally going to be given to Matt by Rosalie to see where he'd decide to use it, as a sort of test of whose side he'd fall on. I couldn't really make that work, though, so I adjusted it to Colress keeping it to transport Genesect once he no longer needed it at its full unchecked power.

Proton pls

All of that was invented from that Rocket Grunt in the HGSS Radio Tower who watches him through the glass lol

Glad you enjoyed it! I hope to have new content out soon!
 
i found this rather enjoyable. i loved the battles with team rocket, mainly archer. and then colress...... :eek:

has their pokemon rosters updated to glalar?
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
i found this rather enjoyable. i loved the battles with team rocket, mainly archer. and then colress......

Thank you. This one was quite battle-heavy, so keeping all the different moving parts balanced was a challenge. The battle between Archer and Team Rocket grew a bit from how I originally imagined it.

has their pokemon rosters updated to glalar?

It depends on the individual character. I haven't planned any for Jessie and James yet, but Giovanni will have at least one. Archer you saw had some. In the bigger picture, Galar Pokemon will appear. They may be limited in number, I don't know, but they will be there.
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
There is a scene of an injury with blood in this chapter.





-:-



CHAPTER 29: S.O.S.



-:-



Sinnoh’s Snowpoint City and its surrounding areas, more often than not, found themselves under the wintry weather that gave the community its name. The blizzard that gripped the city that day was a little heavier than Snowpoint itself usually saw; typically, the worst weather was instead out on Route 217 to the southwest. Still, it wasn’t a particularly abnormal squall either, so Snowpoint’s residents paid little mind to it. They simply closed themselves up in their homes to stay warm and ride it out until conditions improved, as they typically did when particularly inclement weather hit the city.



The storm outside of the Chiaki family home was at least matched, if not exceeded, by the tempest raging within it. Amanda, her eyes then bright and undamaged, sat in her wheelchair at the window of the room she shared with Matt and watched the snow. Matt himself, meanwhile, had his ear to the room’s door as it stood slightly ajar. Two other voices, one male and one female, could be heard from beyond the threshold, their heated arguing permeating the house with their rage.



“They’re really going at it this time, aren’t they?” Amanda sadly asked her brother, crossing her hands on the red, crocheted blanket covering her lap.



“That sure is an understatement if I’ve ever heard one,” Matt confirmed, blanching at the volume of the fight. “Dad thinks Mom stole his work and submitted it to that research group she’s a part of. Again.”



“Why can’t they just submit their work together, like anyone else would? All the big schools out there would tell them that. I mean, Grandpa went to Hammerlocke University and teaches at Rustboro now, right? He would know better than anyone.”



“But Dad doesn’t want to hear it from him, remember.” Having had enough of their parents’ arguing, Matt shut the door and crossed the room to join Amanda at the window. “I guess we just gotta wait for them to burn all that steam out, as always. Don’t you worry, Amanda, I’m here for you. You don’t have to rely on them.”



“Thank you,” she replied, reaching up and joining her frail hand with his own.



~:~



Clouds had begun to gather in the time since Matt, Amanda, Olivia, Anabel and Nekou departed Mahogany Town en route to Blackthorn City. Despite that, the late afternoon sky remained clear enough to allow the sun to shine down on them as they hiked through the Ice Path. Its rays glistened on the snowdrifts that covered much of the stony terrain.



There was little conversation among the group as they made their trek. Things were still just too raw, too uneasy, for casual chatter to feel comfortable. Olivia marched along ahead of the others, leading them as she had been doing since leaving Mahogany. Likewise, Matt, Anabel and Amanda clustered together, accompanied by Amanda’s Arcanine acting as her seeing-eye Pokémon like usual.



Nekou continued following behind, lost in her feelings of shame over everything that had happened earlier in the day. Between the trauma of reliving her confinement and guilt over those she cared about seeing her fully under Alter-Nekou's grip, relief seemed as distant as it could possibly be. She instinctively knew comfort wouldn't come at the bottom of a bottle or the end of a feast like it usually did. And why even try turning to Matt, after things got out of hand the last time? Alter-Nekou's poisonous words had stuck with her, and it was hard not to concede the demon’s point that Matt would surely find her repulsive. So why not just clam up completely?



That awkward silence reigned over the group until Amanda’s Arcanine cut his faithful trotting short. He turned to the left and moved to protect her, digging his paws into the cold earth as he vigilantly stood over her.



“Arcanine?” she questioned, reaching up to run her hand through his fur. “What is it?”



He answered by lowering his head and growling, making plain not only to Amanda but the others that there was something amiss. They closed ranks around Amanda and Arcanine in response to his warning and listened carefully for any sign of what the source of his agitation might be. What soon met their ears was the sound of metal striking against metal, followed shortly by the chattering of many voices in unison.



“You hear that?” Matt asked the others, staring in the direction of the noise, the same as Arcanine.



“Yes, I do,” Anabel answered from behind her scarf. “I don’t think it’s very far away either, whatever it is.”



“And I’m going to check it out,” Olivia declared, fearlessly marching off toward the escalating racket.



Anabel thought about trying to stop her, but the obvious foolishness of such an endeavor just made her chuckle to herself instead. There was no stopping her, Anabel realized. How could there be? As she followed Olivia with the others, she thought back to her own past. She’d preferred the company of books for quite a while, but by the time she was Olivia’s age the traveling bug had bitten, and nothing could slow her insatiable need to see what, to that point, she’d only read about. So, she came to appreciate, of course Olivia would jump at such an opportunity, no matter the possible risks. She was only taking after her mother.



“What happened to those days?” Anabel wondered.



She didn’t have much of a chance to pursue that line of thought, for once she, Matt, Amanda and Nekou caught up to Olivia, her daughter raised a finger in a gesture for silence.



“Look,” Olivia urged them, directing their attention around the rocks they’d concealed themselves behind.



If one had asked any of the group what it was they expected to see, none of them would have given the correct answer.



Around that bend was the clan of Pawniard that had hassled them previously, in Ilex Forest and on Route 29 before that. So much had happened since those incidents that they had faded from the group’s memories, but the sight of the armored humanoid Pokémon brought them back to mind. Ten of them stood around a pair of Bisharp, their elder, evolved forms locked in what appeared to be a fierce battle.



“What is it?” Amanda asked.



“It’s that gang of Pawniard and Bisharp we’ve run into a couple times before,” Matt answered, though something about the situation troubled him. “Wasn’t there only one Bisharp before, though?” Furrowing his brow, he started to doubt what he recalled. “And why are they fighting?”



Olivia, seeking an answer to at least one of Matt’s questions, pointed her Pokédex at one of the two Bisharp. The one she’d selected had a visible scratch cut into his helmet, an injury that Matt and Nekou found strangely familiar even if they couldn’t quite figure out why.



“Bisharp, the Sword Blade Pokémon,” the device explained. “Type is Dark and Steel. Evolved form of Pawniard. It leads a group of Pawniard. It battles to become the boss, but will be driven from the group if it loses. No matter how strong the Bisharp, it's said that if the blade on its head is chipped, it will retire from its position as the boss. ”



“Will be driven from the group if it loses…” Olivia repeated.



While watching the battle between the two Bisharp, the group took some time to think about what Olivia’s Pokédex had told them. One of the Bisharp, the one with the spotless, undamaged helmet, jumped up and sliced the air with her arm, flinging an Air Slash at her opponent. The other Bisharp countered with Psycho Cut, his purple energy blades shredding her white ones and being sliced apart in turn.



Holding her eyes closed to focus her mind, Anabel said, “I think something happened to their leader. I can feel it in their hearts.” Covering her mouth with her hand and opening her eyes, she continued, speculating, “If something happened to their leader, those two Bisharp must have evolved to fight each other for the position of the new leader. Only one can win… the other, well, you heard what will happen.”



The brawl a short distance away helped illustrate Anabel’s theory. When the Bisharp with the blemished helmet took a Power-Up Punch to the face from his rival, the Pawniard around them broke into a flurry of piercing cheers, the same reaction they had to the two blows he struck upon her in retaliation.



“They’re not favoring either side over the other,” Matt observed. “Anabel, I think you’re right. This looks like some sort of ritual that’s a part of who they are. But, if that’s the case… what happened to their original leader? Was it really just that the blade on its head got chipped?”



There wasn’t much time for pondering such questions. Another uproar from the Pawniard pulled their attention back to the fight, which appeared to have taken a turn. The group watched from their vantage point as the pristine-armored Bisharp landed several more punches, driving her opponent back. Breathing heavily, the one with the damaged helmet could feel himself growing unsteady on his feet. He wavered, trying to regain his composure, but before he could he found himself on the receiving end of one final salvo from his rival. She sprinted at him with her head down, the axe blade in her skull glittering like silvery steel. Her Iron Head collided with his chest, knocking what little breath he’d gathered right back out of his lungs. He had no chance to recover before she hit him squarely in the chin with an uppercut that, fueled by the numerous Power-Up Punches she’d landed earlier in the fight, lifted him several feet into the air.



Matt, Anabel, Olivia and Nekou cringed at the sight of the devastatingly mighty blow, and its metallic crunching sound made Amanda flinch as well. When the male Bisharp finally fell back to the ground, he stayed down, and the Pawniard swarmed to acclaim their new leader. She repaid their adoration by gently touching their helmets before launching into a lengthy monologue in their own unique language.



“What do you think they’re saying?” Olivia wondered, barely speaking above a whisper.



“Hmm… Anabel, you said you thought something happened to their leader before we got here?”



“Yes, that is correct,” Anabel said, confirming Amanda’s memory.



“Then, now that they’ve got a new boss, maybe that Bisharp is rallying the Pawniard to go deal with whatever happened?”



“That makes sense to me,” Matt concurred. He’d kept watching the Pokémon while Anabel and Amanda conversed, and by then, the Bisharp had finished her speech and was leading the clan away. As Olivia’s Pokédex described, the Bisharp with the damaged helmet was left behind by his former compatriots.



As the exiled Bisharp sat back up, feelings of sympathy for him rose to the surface of Matt’s mind. He, too, knew what being cut off from those he thought he could trust was like. Oh, did he ever. It was one of the biggest reasons for where he’d ended up where he was in the present, after all. And thanks to that, he just couldn’t turn his back on the Bisharp.



“I can’t leave it behind in this state,” he told Amanda and the others. Stepping out from behind the rocks, he approached the Pokémon, his movements tentative. “Bisharp, are you feeling alright?”



Upon hearing Matt addressing him, the Bisharp sprang to his feet and made an about-face. The pair’s gazes met each other, and it didn’t take long for it to become clear that the Bisharp remembered him. An initial wide-eyed look of surprise soon gave way to bitterness and anger, the Bisharp brandishing his arm blades while ranting on at length. Matt could only imagine what sort of harsh words he would be hearing if Bisharp could speak human language.



“Matt, what’s happening?” Amanda called out to him, only able to hear Bisharp’s complaining. Her speaking up alerted the Dark-and-Steel-type Pokémon to the rest of the group, which only made him even more animated in airing his grievances. Seeing this, Arcanine nudged Amanda toward Anabel and left her side, bounding toward Matt instead.



“Arcanine, no,” Matt urged, extending an arm to stop him before returning to address Bisharp. “I know you remember us, Bisharp… well, some of us, anyway. Things haven’t been going so well for you, and I can see you’re hurt…”



True to what Matt said, Bisharp was injured and fighting just to stay standing. He didn’t want Matt or any of the other humans accosting him to know that, though, so he masked it to the best of his ability. He couldn’t keep the facade up for long, however, and his legs buckled.



“Sharp…” he spat, realizing his weakness had been revealed.



“He’s angry because someone took away the Bisharp he followed before,” Anabel intuited, holding Amanda’s hand as they, Olivia and Nekou joined Matt. “If I’m understanding what he’s trying to say, they were familiar, too.”



“Familiar…?” Matt paused, giving himself a chance to consider this information. What or who would be something the Bisharp would call familiar? Obviously, their paths had only crossed twice before, so he could have been referring to something outside of those times. But still, their previous encounters seemed like a promising place to start, given how upset Bisharp had become at seeing Matt and his entourage. So what had happened in their past meetings? Their first interaction on Route 29, the one that set the tone for the sort of rivalry their respective groups shared, had involved Olivia accidentally being injured and Matt defeating the clan’s leader with his Seismitoad. That explained the ill will between them, but besides Bunny and Dante, Matt couldn’t remember anyone else of note being there, so it didn’t make much sense for that to be the time, then. So, what about Ilex Forest?



That was when a memory struck Matt that sent a harsh chill through his already cold body. Ilex Forest was where he and Bisharp’s clan both ran headlong into Cassy. Meaning, Polaris.



“I think Polaris is here on the Ice Path…” Matt whispered, “...and they’re the ones who took the leader Bisharp away.”



This revelation, even if Matt wasn’t certain about it, unnerved Olivia, Anabel and Nekou in different ways. For Nekou, they were the last ones she wanted to encounter that day. The torture Colress and Archer inflicted upon her was bad enough. But for Anabel and Olivia, Polaris’s presence posed a different sort of visceral concern.



“If Polaris is here, did Rich send them?” Anabel silently wondered, her lip quivering behind her scarf. “Does he know they’re here at the same time we are?”



Olivia subconsciously took a step back, closer to her mother. “Well, if Polaris is here, then we’ll just destroy them again,” she declared, a slight quiver tainting her attempt at projecting confidence. “We did that once today, so we’ll do it again.”



Anabel adjusted her sunglasses and glanced over at her daughter. “You’re trying to convince yourself just as much as the rest of us, I know…”



“Matt, if Polaris is here, we can’t just sit still,” Amanda pointed out.



“You’re right,” he agreed, snapping out of his daze. Reaching into his bag, he retrieved a bottle of Revival Herb solution and again drew nearer to Bisharp. The Pokémon raised his blades in a sign of wariness, so Matt paused, opened the bottle and held it out toward him. “This herb is very bitter, but it will heal your injuries. Polaris is looking for us, too. If you join up with us you might be able to get your revenge.”



Sensing Bisharp’s hesitation, Amanda chimed in, “There’s no way to go back and undo what’s already happened, unfortunately. Your pack has already left you, but if you come with us, you can consider all of us your new one.”



There was truth to the humans’ words, Bisharp thought, but at the same time the generosity of their offer surprised him. In his species’ society, to be the losing side of a contest for leadership was a mark of dishonor. Not just the embarrassing kind, either, but the sort of shame that would turn one of his kind from a pack hunter into a solitary warrior, fighting on alone for the rest of their life. Even though he’d only just evolved, it was knowledge hard-wired into him. Sometimes a renegade, exiled Bisharp might be able to redeem themselves by seizing control of another Bisharp’s clan, but that opportunity was a rare one. Yet there were these humans who seemingly understood his kind’s nature standing right in front of him, fully aware of his disgrace and still offering to take him in.



He couldn’t help but snicker to himself. They really were strange creatures, the humans. But if they were willing to look past his failure and give him both what he lost and what he wanted out of the future, why should he refuse?



With a sweeping motion, Bisharp snatched the bottle of Revival Herb from Matt and downed the entire potion in a single gulp. Its terrible bitterness made him shudder, but if he was going to take his revenge on those who had stolen his leader and ultimately his old life away from him, he couldn’t falter from a mere drink. And true to Matt’s word, within seconds of swallowing the solution, Bisharp could feel his physical injuries vanishing.



Feeling fresh and reinvigorated, Bisharp jumped toward Matt and waved his arm at the latter’s bag. “Bisharp!” he demanded, gesturing insistently at where he’d seen the Revival Herb come from.



Somehow understanding what the Pokémon wanted, Matt produced a Poké Ball. As he expected, Bisharp’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. “Alright, then, consider yourself a part of our family, I suppose.”



With that, Matt tapped the sphere against Bisharp’s head. It popped open and transformed him into a red light that condensed inside the sphere, then the ball snapped shut. After trembling in Matt’s hand for a few moments, it stopped and pinged, the red bulb at its center turning white.



“Consider yourself a part of our family,” Matt repeated to the ball and the newly-caught Bisharp contained within, “Jeremiah.”



~:~



Matt and Amanda might have been building a sort of family in the present, but in their past, what they had was crumbling, and he couldn’t resist blaming himself for it. His letters to their grandfather, after all, were the reason Sutter traveled all the way from Rustboro City to Snowpoint. Little had Matt expected that their grandfather’s arrival would only provoke yet another fight, this one between Sutter and their father.



“You don’t get to come here and act like this!” Charon fumed. If he had inherited Sutter’s tall, powerful build, he would have physically ejected the older man from their home, but his diminutive, gnarled shape didn’t grant him the strength to do so. The best he could manage was blocking Sutter from entering beyond the house’s foyer. “You abandoned your family for your work, so you don’t get to come back and beg for forgiveness now!”



“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Charon,” Sutter said remorsefully. There was no disputing Charon’s position, to be fair; he had indeed neglected his own family in his younger years. The call of the world was just too strong for him to settle down back then, so Charon was absent from his father for many of his most formative years. But the passage of time changed Sutter’s heart, and now, he believed it didn’t have to be that way for yet another generation. Looking over to his grandchildren, who were silently watching the argument from nearby. “All I ask is that we make peace for the benefit of Matt and Amanda. I came because I learned about Fumika always being away from here for her work with the Celestic Historical Society. These kids deserve better than what I gave you.”



Charon’s selfish nature blinded him to the point Sutter was trying to make, however. All he could see was how it would affect him. “So you came back to take even more away from me, is that it?”



“No, I-”



“I don’t want to hear a single word about it!” Charon shouted, cutting off Sutter’s protest. “You chose to chase your dreams like a young fool your entire life. Your die is cast. I choose to keep both feet planted firmly in reality, and this space is not one whose reality you get to shape. Now get out!”



Sutter refused to comply with Charon’s order at first, resulting in a standoff where neither was willing to budge. Father and son tried to stare each other down, Charon not backing down even in the face of the great height difference between them. Matt and Amanda again had no choice but to watch.



“I wish there was something I could do…” Matt thought, his hold on his sister’s hand tightening. The more he considered what he was seeing, the more he came to look down upon his own efforts. “Did I really think Dad would just be okay with Grandpa coming here? What’s wrong with me? Just because Mom’s never here anymore, I really thought he’d just put aside his problems?”



Finally, the stalemate between Charon and Sutter ended, with the older man turning away. Sutter caught a glimpse of his grandchildren as he faced the house’s front door, and their expressions of dismay upset him even more than his own son’s anger. He wanted to help them, he truly did. Not being able to fulfill their wishes was barely any different to him than the mistakes he’d made with Charon, but at the same time, he didn’t presently possess the necessary power to overrule Charon’s decisions for them. If he could have gone back in time just once, as he often enjoyed considering while reading literature on the subject, he would have used it not to visit some bygone era but simply to right the wrongs of his own parenting, hoping that it would lead to better futures for Charon, Matt and Amanda all at once. That proved he had changed, since in his younger years he wouldn’t have said that, yet there was absolutely no way he could convince Charon of it.



“I can’t tell you what to do, Charon,” he said, his voice tainted with barely-contained anguish. “But I’m not going to stop corresponding with Matt and Amanda either, and if they ever ask me for anything, I’m coming back here.”



Charon sighed, his childhood memories leaving him skeptical. “I’ll believe that when I see it. If I had a dollar for every time I heard a promise like that, I’d be rich. You just left me to struggle with the leftover pieces.”



“One day, I hope I can redeem myself.” To all of you, he chose not to say. On that note, Sutter opened the door, plucked a Poké Ball from his heavy trench coat, and tossed it out into the cold air. From its confines emerged a towering elephant Pokémon, her green, gold-laced skin giving off a bright glimmer. “Copperajah, wait there a second.”



After Copperajah trumpeted her acknowledgment of Sutter’s request, the old man faced Matt and Amanda again.



“I promise you two, I will be there for you whenever you need me. Let us keep up our correspondence, and you’re welcome to visit me in Rustboro City whenever you wish. Oh, and I brought a gift for you.”



Sutter pulled a thick, leather-bound book from the weathered traveling bag slung over his shoulder and passed it to Matt. The tome’s elaborate cover illustration of trees, snow, a castle and many living creatures was accompanied by its title, written in equally elegant letters.



“The Prince and the Soul-Heart,” Matt read off it.



“That is a copy that I acquired many years ago in Kalos. It’s very precious,” Sutter made clear to the siblings. “But that is why I want you two to have it. I hope that it will interest you as much as it did me.”



“Thanks, Grandpa!” Amanda beamed, the gift having brought up her mood. Somehow, even though it was a simple gesture, Sutter’s generosity reminded her that there was a wide world beyond the four walls she knew.



Amanda’s broad smile helped Sutter to understand her feelings, so he affirmed it with a cheerful expression of his own. If there was nothing else he could do for his grandchildren at that moment, he could give them someone to believe in. Someone who served as proof of what was waiting for them in life, a beacon of light motivating them to keep working at escaping their circumstances.



“Life is an adventure, never forget that,” he told them. “But to embark on that adventure, you always have to keep moving forward. Always strive to be at least a little further down that road tomorrow than you are today.”



Having said all he felt he needed to, Sutter went outside and climbed onto Copperajah’s back, the Steel-type Pokémon boosting him with her trunk. Matt and Amanda watched them depart, but didn’t have long before Charon came over and shut the door.



“He wasted his life obsessing over the past, and your mother’s doing the same. So very foolish of them both. You two should listen to me and pursue the path of science instead. Be the ones who build the future.” Turning his back on Matt and Amanda, Charon added, “And throw that book away.”



“I’ll do it in a minute,” Matt replied.



Or so he claimed. Seeing Charon leaving the room without as much as a second look at them, Matt instead slipped the book to Amanda.



“Hide it under your blanket until we get back to our room,” he whispered in her ear. “He’ll think we got rid of it, but we’ll find somewhere to put it.”



“I was thinking the same thing,” she said back. “Which one of us read the other’s mind?”



~:~



The sky above the Ice Path was nearly completely filled with clouds, choking out the waning light of the daytime sun. Matt, Amanda, Anabel, Olivia and Nekou, recognizing the signs of impending bad weather, pressed on with a newfound sense of urgency. If there was any way that their decision to journey all the way to Blackthorn City that day could somehow go more wrong, it would be to get caught in a snowstorm while trying to evade Polaris. They still had no idea which of Polaris’s agents were present, or how many of them there were, but they all saw their best case scenario was to slip away and never encounter the cult’s members at all.



That didn’t mean there weren’t other potential roadblocks that could come up, though. The Swinub that crossed their path was only one of the possibilities, but all things considered, Matt saw an opportunity. He’d brought the Crabrawler he caught on Route 38, the one that hit him in the head and stole a plate of pastries, for a reason. And it was for that reason that said Pokémon was Matt’s choice to engage the wild Swinub.



“Edmund, Brick Break!” he called out as his Crabrawler was pushed back by the Swinub’s Headbutt, her latest move in their now minutes-long clash.



Recovering his composure, Edmund dug his legs into the ground. Piles of soil formed behind them as his backward momentum stopped, which he then used as springboards to leap at Swinub from. He was met with a gust of snow and wind from his challenger, but by putting his claws up, he guarded his face from the biting cold. Edmund’s drive helped him push through Swinub’s Powder Snow and deliver a forceful punch straight to her nose.



Squealing, Swinub flipped onto her back, where she remained for just long enough to make Edmund’s victory apparent. He raised his boxing glove-like claws into the air in victory while Swinub scampered away, disappearing into a crack between two nearby rocks. Edmund paid her no mind. He was too busy celebrating to care, but in the middle of his cheering, he was disrupted when bright light suddenly erupted from his body.



“It’s evolving?” Olivia asked, gasping in surprise at the sight. “But why here? Why now of all times?”



Edmund’s shape changed right before their eyes. His once-diminutive height more than doubled, and the growth spurt hit his arms as well, causing them to lengthen dramatically. When he emerged from the veil of light, he had become a true heavyweight, his bulky frame covered in shaggy white fur. His chest and abdomen were adorned with blue patches where the fur was absent, giving those areas a muscular appearance. A chilly gust of wind blew through the tufts of yellow fur sticking up out of his head, and he raised his powerful arms up again, bellowing a cry of triumph.



“Crabrawler evolves into Crabominable because of the cold environment around it, Olivia,” Amanda revealed to her, pointing a finger into the air. “I bet that’s why my brother brought it here.”



“You bet,” Matt confirmed. “Olivia, check it out in your Pokédex and you’ll see.”



That was a thought that had already occurred to the girl, and her hand was already deep in her pocket to retrieve the device.



“Crabominable, the Woolly Crab Pokémon,” it related when she pointed it at Edmund. “Type is Fighting and Ice. Evolved form of Crabrawler. “It aimed for the top but got lost and ended up on a snowy mountain. Being forced to endure the cold, this Pokémon evolved and grew fur. It just throws punches indiscriminately. In times of desperation, it can lop off its own pincers and fire them like rockets.”



“Well, that sure sounds like a sight,” Olivia remarked as she put the Pokédex away again.



~:~



Even while Matt and Amanda secreted Sutter’s book away and kept up their correspondence with him, they still had to maintain appearances with Charon. That meant putting on the charade of following what he called the path of science, all to convince him that they weren’t being swayed by their grandfather. It was their faking interest in Charon’s plans that placed them in their father’s garage that day. That terrible, fateful day they did not yet know would change the course of their lives.



There was machinery strewn from one end of the garage to the other, with each device connected to the rest of the system via a network of thick, heavy cables. The entire arrangement was constructed to funnel power into a single machine at the core of the mechanism, a tall, bulb-shaped glass container with a Rotom floating within. While it could see Charon walking around outside the tank, Rotom couldn’t quite hear what he was saying or to who, and poked tentatively at the glass with one of its plasma arms.



“Everything appears to be in place,” Charon told Matt and Amanda, who were waiting nearby. “Are you certain the cables are all firmly connected?”



“I double checked every last one,” Matt replied. As he spoke, he touched Amanda’s hand. “They’re set.”



Understanding Matt’s contact as a pre-arranged signal to play up their false interest in Charon’s scheme, Amanda hastily added, “And I made sure to triple check them! You never know what another pair of eyes might catch.”



“She’s the best at spotting little details like that.” The entire routine was so well rehearsed that even Amanda’s casual snark was part of it, so Matt had no trouble downplaying it as if it were more sincere than it was. Her existing mischievous streak made putting on the act even easier, so it truly appeared as if they were as invested as Charon himself was. “Nothing escapes those eyes.”



Suspecting nothing amiss with his childrens’ behavior, and nothing to suggest their true disinterest in what he was up to, Charon laughed. “Rotom’s ability to enter and exit motors is remarkable, to say nothing of the way it learns and forgets certain moves when doing so. It requires extensive observation and analysis. What we must do first is understand what heights its electrical energy can reach in each of its forms. My experiment to inject electricity into Rotom’s body will illuminate the truth, and they will recognize me as the great scientific genius Charon!”



While Charon descended into another fit of gleeful cackling, Matt and Amanda’s voices couldn’t reach his ears, so they were able to mumble to each other. “His experiment,” Matt whispered, exasperated.



“And that horrible pun, plus the great scientific genius?” Amanda replied, her mindset similar to that of her brother. “Spare me. I can’t wait to just be done with this.”



Ignorant of Matt and Amanda’s exchange, Charon set about activating the machines. A low hum filled the room in response to his commands, and the devices’ control panels glowed in a rainbow of colors. The lights overhead flickered off from their power being diverted, the primary source of illumination in the garage becoming the gleam radiating from Rotom’s container.



“It has begun,” Charon uttered. “Raise the electricity flow by twenty percent, and then we should be ready to launch.”



Matt and Amanda nervously glanced at each other. They’d both seen Charon’s ego cloud his judgment and lead him to do irrational things before, but at the same time, keeping up their act was important. If they didn’t comply, it would likely evoke Charon’s anger and aim it squarely upon them. Both siblings suspected the same chain of events would come next: he’d blame Sutter for their disloyalty, completely cut off their ability to contact him, and then force them to work on the experiment. Neither of them thought they had much of a choice in cooperating, so when Matt adjusted the dial that controlled the amount of electricity flowing to the center of the array, he gulped and silently prayed he wouldn’t regret his compliance.



A meter on the panel in front of Charon conveyed the increase in power to him, much to his delight. “That’s just what I needed!” he exclaimed. “It’s time. Prepare the injector…”



An antenna descended from the top of the container to hang directly over its occupant’s head. Rotom looked nervously up at it, fearful of what it might do, and shivered.



“...and fire!



Charon slammed his fist down on the biggest button sitting before him, a red circle that matched his clenched hand in size. As soon as he did, the tip of the antenna gave off a spark, and no more than a couple of seconds later, discharged a flood of electricity into the container. The capsule’s shape guided all of the voltage into Rotom, causing the Pokémon to scream out in pain.



Rotom’s suffering piled on top of their existing doubts about the project, which only grew with the increasingly blinding light in the garage, and neither Matt nor Amanda could keep up their act any longer. “Dad, stop!” Amanda shouted to Charon. “You’re hurting it!”



“No great scientific discovery has ever been made without sacrifice!” Charon retorted. “Turn it up another ten percent!”



“Great, he’s totally off the rails,” Matt thought before voicing his own objection. “This doesn’t look right already, and if we turn it up, who knows what’ll happen? You gotta pull the plug!”



“Hmph, of course I can’t rely on you children. Your grandfather has made you soft. Move.” Shoving Matt away from the output control, Charon seized the dial and applied the increase himself, causing Rotom to scream even louder. “This is what must be done! When this system is complete, every utility company in Sinnoh… no, in the world will be beating down my door to purchase it! Altru Inc., Macro Cosmos, the Angel Corporation, Devon, even the fools running Silph will pay top dollar for my invention!”



By that point, the amount of light flooding from Rotom and the container left Matt and Amanda feeling as if they were standing next to the sun. Much of the garage was lost in the brilliant yet oppressive radiance, and Rotom’s increasingly ear-splitting cries turned their stomachs as much as the glow hurt their eyes.



But they could see as far as where their father was now standing, and when he put his hand on the dial to turn up the output even further, both their hearts practically stopped.



“No, stop!” they cried out together. “Don’t!”



Unfortunately, their plea fell on deaf ears. Charon twisted the dial again, and the light accordingly grew even further, overwhelming what little there was left that could be seen. If they had been standing next to the sun prior to that, Charon’s actions had pushed them into its all-consuming fire.



Little did they know that they would not emerge from those flames the same people they were going in.



Rotom’s agonized screaming reached a crescendo before it abruptly ceased. Time seemed to stop in the subsequent moments of relative peace, but that reprieve was cruelly temporary. Rotom could no longer retain the enormous amounts of power it had absorbed and released it in a single violent burst, causing the machine it was trapped in to explode. Matt, Amanda and Charon all screamed as they were blown away by the blast, which flung shards of glass and metal around the garage.



Matt barely had a chance to process the accident before he heard Amanda shrieking nearby. “Matt!! It hurts!”



“Amanda, stay there, it’ll be fine!” At first, when Matt looked, he thought Amanda had been injured when the explosion threw her from her wheelchair, which was lying on its side next to her. He stumbled over to her side, righted the wheelchair, and leaned down with the intent to help her up. “Come here, Amanda, let me get you up.”



“No, that’s not-”



Amanda had been covering her face with her hands, and when Matt moved them away, he froze. What he discovered underneath made his mouth fall open in horror. It was possibly the most terrifying thing he had seen in his life to that point.



Her eyes, the sources of the exceptional sight that they had been talking up literally minutes earlier, had been slashed up by the flying fragments of glass. Blood from the many cuts mixed with tears and streamed down her face. It was on her hands, too, a fact Matt didn’t realize until well after he had already touched it.



“A-Amanda…” he gasped, his grip on her hands reflexively tightening.



“Matt, I can’t see you!” she cried. “I can’t see anything! Where are you?!”



“You can’t-” The truth behind Amanda’s words didn’t sink into Matt’s mind right away, but when it did, he pulled her into a tight embrace. “I’m right here, Amanda. I’m not going anywhere.”



With his sister sobbing into his shoulder, Matt turned toward their father, hoping that in spite of all the ill will between them, there would be some sort of concern. Something. Anything that would indicate Charon cared about what had happened to his daughter.



Matt was disappointed but not surprised to see Charon running in the opposite direction, away from them and toward the shattered machine, instead.



“No! No! No! What is going on?” Rotom was lying at the center of the destruction and breathing heavily, but Charon ignored it, too. He instead opened a door on the side of the broken device to retrieve a partially melted circuit board. “Gah, what a mess… it’ll take forever to rebuild all of this!”



If Matt had been able to think more clearly, he wouldn’t have held Amanda even more tightly against himself, but his judgment was too clouded. Charon beyond the mangled wreckage of his machine, it was clear as day that he didn’t care at all about the explosion’s fallout, and it made his blood boil. “Why don’t you think about someone other than yourself and something other than money for once? Can you not even turn around and look at what your selfishness did?!!”



“Matt…” Amanda whimpered, nestling herself as securely in his arms as she could. “What’s happening to me?”



“Don’t be afraid, I’ll get you help,” he promised her, standing and guiding her to sit back in her wheelchair. “I’ll always protect you… even if nobody else will.”



~:~
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
Night increasingly descended upon the Ice Path, with the cloud cover only helping the darkness take hold of the area. There was still enough visibility for the group to continue their trek, but it had never been more apparent that their time was running out.



Matt, especially, couldn’t help but take note of the way fate seemed to be stacking the deck against them. While he walked with Amanda at the head of the group and looked at a map of the Ice Path on his S-Gear, he took note of the cards they had been dealt. Not only was it growing darker as they went, the twin threats of the impending snow and Polaris’s presence continued to hang over their heads.



“There is one silver lining,” he said out loud, his half-complete remark leaving his companions somewhat confused, since they hadn’t heard his thoughts. “If this map is right, and there’s no reason for me to think it’s not, we haven’t got much further to go. Blackthorn’s not far ahead as long as we keep going.”



“What a relief,” Olivia sighed. She was growing exhausted from the sheer number of things that happened over the course of the day, to the point where she felt like her arms and legs were held back by weights. A twinge of regret entered her mind, and with it came the question of whether it would have been a better choice to stay at Mahogany Town’s Pokémon Center for the night. Olivia discounted that idea as quickly as she entertained it, though, for if they had stayed put it would have only forced her to address her anger there and then. She just didn’t feel ready for it yet.



The group’s relative peace was unexpectedly broken by a phone loudly ringing. Olivia’s hand went to her pocket before she realized that it was her mother’s phone, not her own that was going off.



“Sorry about that,” Anabel said as she retrieved the item from inside her jacket and brought it to her ear. “Hello?”



“Oh, Anabel, you are there!” It was Monroe, speaking with audible worry in his voice. “Listen, did you find Olivia yet? Her photo updates stopped after she said she was looking for the mysterious Pokémon on Route 43, and-”



“Monroe, calm down. She’s with us,” Anabel told him. “We’re almost to Blackthorn City now.”



“I’m glad to hear that.” Receiving this news made Monroe exhale and relax. “As long as she’s okay.”



Outside of the others’ view, Olivia frowned. She’d heard Anabel identify who was on the other end of the line, but even though he had been nice to her before, there was too much else on her mind at the time. “I don’t wanna talk to anyone right now, Mom…” she thought, shoving her hands deeply into her pockets. “Just hang up, end that conversa-”



There turned out not to be any need for Anabel to end the conversation on her own, for a sudden Flash Cannon attack cut off the group’s progress by striking the ground in front of Matt and Amanda and causing an explosion that made them retreat back several feet. Its source was a Cryogonal, which slowly floated toward them as it growled in its strange, distorted voice.



“I have to go,” Anabel quickly said to Monroe. Before putting her phone away, she urged him, “Don’t worry about Olivia, she’s safe.”



“That voice, I’ve heard it before!” Amanda exclaimed, cautiously backing away from the noise. “It’s a Cryogonal… the same one Zinzolin attacked me and my students with?”



“I don’t think so. Zinzolin was arrested by the International Police,” Matt reminded his sister, taking a Poké Ball out of his bag as he spoke. “This one’s probably wild… maybe it was drawn to us by Anabel’s phone ringing. Regardless of that, I’ll take care of it. George, make your mark!”



A buffalo Pokémon with a brown hide emerged from the sphere, much to the bewilderment of Nekou and Olivia. Never in all the time they’d spent with Matt had he ever even let on that he had such a Pokémon among his collection, so when had he captured it?



“Since when did you have a Bouffalant?” Nekou asked him, finding her voice.



“I caught him on Route 38 on the way to Mahogany from Olivine,” Matt replied, surprising himself with how easy he found it to talk to Nekou in the moment. Were his fears about approaching her overblown?



Unfortunately, that question had to wait, as Cryogonal didn’t. The snowflake launched a light-blue beam of ice that froze the water droplets in the surrounding air as it twisted toward George. In response, he lowered his head and allowed the ray to strike one of his horns, directing some of the cold into the black afro his horns protruded from beneath.



“Well done, George!” Matt called to him in encouragement. “Now, hit back with Smart Strike!”



George dug into the ground with one of his hooves and bellowed at the prismatic snowflake while his horns took on a silvery sheen. Using the earth below his feet as a springboard, he charged at and stabbed Cryogonal with his horn, chipping the Ice-type Pokémon’s frozen body and making it flip over backwards in mid-air. Despite that injury, Cryogonal wasn’t ready to give up. It leveraged the momentum from George’s Smart Strike to begin spinning on its own volition, pulling moisture from the atmosphere to form a ring of water around itself.



“Counter that with Wild Charge!”



Pivoting without stopping his sprint, George rushed Cryogonal anew, this time with his body cloaked in a veil of golden, sparking electricity. Cryogonal lashed to face him and released its Water Pulse, only for him to stampede straight through the liquid and crash into its mirror-like face. Stray energy left over from Wild Charge sparked through the water droplets surrounding the Pokémon as the force of the collision separated them.



“We shouldn’t be too far from winning this, George,” Matt said to him, earning a snort of approval in response.



Cryogonal, meanwhile, still refused to go down even though the severe blows it had suffered were taking their toll. After shakily righting itself, it glared at George, and its blue, glowing eyes briefly shined even brighter. Shimmering white spheres encircled it, soon transforming into rugged, brown stones giving off a purple aura. With a shrill yet still distorted shriek, Cryogonal twisted around, sending its projectiles flying at its opponent.



“I didn’t expect it to use Ancient Power…” Matt muttered to himself. Pointing his open hand forward, he directed, “George, break through those with Close Combat!”



George snorted, his breath coming out as a small cloud of vapor. Cryogonal was actually starting to annoy him. They had only been fighting for a short time, but it was enough for him to try to gauge his nemesis’s strength. Smart Strike and Wild Charge together should have been enough to win the day, and yet Cryogonal insisted on staying in the fight. What would it take to knock the Ice-type Pokémon out already? As he sprinted in Cryogonal’s direction, smashing the stones away one by one with his horns, he resolved to find its weak point. And not only that, he was determined to find it immediately.



When he finally broke through the onslaught of rocks, George jumped up, his leg muscles granting him agility that caught Cryogonal off guard. Taking advantage of his opponent’s embattled state, George battered it with repeated strikes from both his horns and hooves. Unable to muster the strength to fight back while enduring the bombardment, Cryogonal descended into giving off a pained gurgling noise, every blow bringing it closer to the ground.



“Let’s finish this now, George! Head Charge!”



Red light erupted from the center of George’s afro, and with one final bellow, he smashed his head downward into Cryogonal’s face. The force he put into the blow drove both Pokémon into the ground, but only he could rise back up following the crash. Cryogonal, its fragile body having taken more than it could handle, lay still in a shallow crater.



“Everything I’ve read tells me Cryogonal aren’t exactly known for their physical fortitude,” Nekou commented from the back of the group, “so this isn’t very surprising.”



“As I thought.” His battle having reached an end, Matt retrieved a yellow-and-black Ultra Ball from his bag. “Well done, George. I’m very happy with what you’ve shown me.”



George replied to the compliment with a satisfied moo while Matt tossed the Ultra Ball over his head, where it fell against the unconscious Cryogonal. A flash of light and three quick tilts later, the sphere gave off the signature ping that indicated a successful capture.



“So that’s two today,” Amanda cheerfully noted. “You named the Bisharp Jeremiah, what do you think you’ll call this one?”



“Let’s see…” he said as he walked over and picked up the ball. “You know, I guess Victor sounds good.”



“I like it,” Olivia remarked.



~:~



If fate liked to stack the deck against Matt in the present, in the past it disposed of all pretense and refused to even deal any cards in the first place. That was certainly the feeling the biting, vicious winds gave off as he and Amanda rode out into the vast, bleak snow fields of Route 217.



“I’m such a fool,” he mentally berated himself, squinting behind the heavy ski goggles he wore to guard his eyes. His face stung from the lashing chill it was subject to. “How could I have thought this would work?”



His plans had accounted for everything, or at least he believed they did, but their being trapped in the near-whiteout conditions laid bare how naive he had been. It had all started the fateful day of Charon’s reckless experiment. Something had snapped in Matt’s mind that day, when he saw undeniable proof Charon had not an ounce of concern for either of them in his heart. Matt had to bring Amanda to Snowpoint’s hospital by himself, and by the time they finally left after what felt like an eternity, the damage had been done. The injury to Amanda’s eyes had destroyed her vision and left her blind. There was little the hospital could do besides remove the remaining glass shards, cover her eyes in a wrap of gauze and provide medication to prevent infection.



That was when Matt, recalling Sutter riding away from their home on his Copperajah, began plotting their escape. His plan was to get as far away from Snowpoint City as possible before contacting Sutter in the hopes of being able to live in Rustboro City with him. But with no ability to get a ticket for the S.S. Spiral to the Battle Zone, their only option was to head south to Route 217. His Rhyhorn, Anton, would be their mount; the Ground-and-Rock-type’s stout, sturdy body would be strong enough to carry them and all the supplies they’d gathered for the trip.



Matt had gone out of his way to make sure to secure all the supplies he thought they would need, too. They each donned multiple layers of heavy clothing and thick jackets to cover their bodies, with scarves, goggles and knit hats added for their faces and heads. He filled his huge backpack with as much food, water and medicine as he could without attracting Charon’s attention, leaving barely an inch of space when combined with all the tools he gathered.



He thought he had everything, but there was one fatal miscalculation that didn’t dawn on him right away. It wasn’t until they were out in the blizzard and Anton’s stamina gave out that he realized it.



“I’m such an idiot!” Matt cursed himself as he slid off Anton and guided Amanda to do the same. Sitting in the snow, they leaned back against the Rhyhorn and faced what seemed to be inevitable. “Copperajah’s a Steel-type Pokémon, of course Grandpa could ride it in the snow! How did I not remember Anton’s a Ground-type? That he’s weak to ice and snow?!”



“Matt? What are we gonna do now?” Amanda pushed herself against both Matt and Anton as much as she could, in a vain attempt to find some warmth.



Matt didn’t answer, instead pulling his sister close and wrapping his arms around her. How could he tell her what he knew was about to happen? Especially when it was entirely his own fault. The driving cold felt more persistent than ever as he succumbed to his own self-loathing for his naivete. As malicious as it was, was Charon’s neglect really bad enough to warrant taking such a reckless gamble with their lives? No, he couldn’t think that way. It was that neglect that robbed Amanda of her sight in the first place. But it wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t their fault, he kept telling himself as his own sight started to blur. The last thing he could think before closing his eyes was a hope that in whatever world he would next wake up in, Amanda would be there too and he could apologize for failing to keep his promise to protect her.



-:-



When Matt snapped awake some time later, he was hit by an immediate sense of confusion at what greeted him. Still thinking he had succumbed to the storm, when he sat up and discovered he was inside a huge tent and covered with a heavy blanket, he blurted out, “The afterlife is like camping?”



Sitting next to him, Amanda laughed at the absurd thing he’d said, and her reaction helped bring some clarity into his mind. It obviously wasn’t the afterlife, and on top of that Amanda was alright. He thanked all of whatever luck he had for that much. But for those things to be true, it meant they somehow had been saved from the blizzard and brought to the protection of the tent. Had someone else been out there with them the entire time?



“I see you’ve come around.”



The sound of a quiet, unfamiliar voice made Matt shake his head and finally take stock of his surroundings. He was already aware of Amanda’s presence next to him, but he hadn’t noticed that she’d removed her hat and goggles, nor that she was holding a cup of hot tea. Their equipment was piled neatly in one corner of the tent, diagonally opposite the lantern giving the space light.



As for the question of who had rescued them, that answer came in the form of the tall, thin young man sharing the tent with them, sitting next to a high-tech electronic heating unit. Matt was unable to avoid staring while trying to get a read on him. His slicked-back blue hair suggested youth, but his sunken face and the dark bags around his eyes gave him a cold, intimidating presence, one more befitting of a harsh headmaster whose life experiences informed his manner. All in all, Matt couldn’t make sense of it. Something in his gut told him that he, Amanda and the man couldn’t have been too far apart in age, but just enough seemed off to throw that theory into doubt.



“Are you going to continue staring, or will you take the gift being given to you?”



The strange man’s second question broke Matt from his trance, leading him to realize that Amanda was holding a second cup of tea in his direction. Her aim wasn’t quite exact, but it was still close enough to be within arm’s reach. Just the first sip of the hot liquid helped him finally kick the deadly cold still gripping his body, and the warmth inside the enclosure hit him all at once.



“An old local specialty of my hometown, Sunyshore City.” The man’s voice remained remarkably even to the point of nearly being emotionless, keeping Matt torn over whether to trust him or not. “Your sister enjoyed it. I hope you do too.”



“It is good…” Matt hesitatingly said, “...but who are you and where are we? How did you find us out in that storm?”



“My name is Cyrus,” their rescuer revealed, his pitch finally starting to change as he opened up to them. “I work at a firm in Veilstone City, but my true passion is Sinnoh’s history. I was on my way back to my Lake Acuity base camp when my Sneasel came across you two and your Rhyhorn. That is where we are now.”



“I owe you some thanks for that, then… wait, you mentioned Anton, my Rhyhorn. Where is he?”



Cyrus watched Matt flail around searching for Anton’s Poké Ball for a moment before answering him. “I found Rhyhorn’s Poké Ball on you, so I took the step of sending it back inside. Here.” Pulling the sphere from inside his own coat, Cyrus tossed it to Matt. “I have been speaking to Amanda while awaiting your awakening, but I did not wish to get into serious matters without both of you. Now, you must tell me, why were you even trying to navigate that blizzard?”



At first, Matt shivered under Cyrus’s intense glare. But what would be the harm in talking things out with him? He had rescued Matt and Amanda from the storm, and he genuinely appeared to be more than interested in listening to their story, so why not tell him?



Still, Matt didn’t have it in him to open up right away. To stall for time, he instead joked aloud, “Where would I even get started?” Turning to Amanda, he asked her, “What did you already tell him?”



“Oh, I was just talking about Grandpa and how he’s always on our side,” she replied. Perhaps it was because of her inability to see him, Matt reasoned, but Amanda’s cheerful mood made plain that Cyrus didn’t intimidate her at all.



“Yes, Amanda was telling me that you two are the grandchildren of the great Professor Sutter Chiaki,” Cyrus elaborated, “a man who I deeply respect. His work has made much about our world’s past available to us in the present. And I believe that we must make use of the past in order to save our future.” Something in Cyrus’s tone shifted, making him sound almost as if he was pleading with his guests. “I sense powerful spirits in the two of you. Something drove you to take your lives into your own hands and go out into that blizzard. I must learn what it is.”



“Powerful… spirits?” Matt didn’t understand what Cyrus was going on about, but in his tired mind, it sounded enough like a compliment for him not to worry. “Well, like I said… where do I even begin?”



“Tell him about Mom and Dad,” Amanda urged her brother, nudging him in the side.



The moment those words hit Cyrus’s ears, he leaned forward, his interest in their story becoming even more intense. “It is because of your mother and father that you gambled with your lives in such a way?”



“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Matt admitted. Resigning himself to recounting their story, he slumped where he sat, fixating on the ground in front of him. For a fleeting moment, the weight of what was in his mind nearly made him wish to be out in the storm again, as irrational as that thought was. “Our mother was obsessed with history too, to the point where she wanted to marry into the Chiaki family. You can probably guess how well that went. She was always looking to fill some sort of void in her life. I don’t understand what that means, but she just couldn’t find whatever it was she wanted that would make her happy… things only went downhill further when we came along. They were fighting all the time, and our mother started to throw in the towel. She was around less and less, spending more time on her work with the Celestic Historical Society.”



“I still remember the last time we saw her,” Amanda interjected, her cheer melting away to reveal a great sense of sadness underneath. “It started out just like any other day, but the arguing got going earlier than usual, and it got uglier than usual, too.” As he watched her speak, Matt could see Amanda trying to blink even under the gauze. “She was going on a long trip to another region with the Historical Society to conduct research into Dialga and Palkia maybe being seen in places other than Sinnoh, and Dad, to say he was mad would be an understatement.”



Gripped by the distress those memories brought on, Matt took a deep breath before continuing, “Furious, more like it. Even that feels like it isn’t quite right. But whatever word you want to use, Amanda and I watched them fight it out to the point where we both knew we were the reason for them getting into it so bad. I don’t think… I don’t think Dad wanted to be left with us, and…” Matt had begun trembling all over without noticing it. He badly felt like crying, but fought the urge with every bit of his being. If he were to break down, what effect would that have had on Amanda? “Yeah, we both watched her leave, and that was the last time either of us saw her. She never came back. I think… I think at first we convinced ourselves she would, even though we knew better. Dad didn’t care. He barely ever talked about her again after that… at some point, we just stopped pretending what we knew to be true was anything else.”



“How terrible.” Despite his lack of emotion, both Matt and Amanda could somehow tell Cyrus meant what he said. “That is not what the relationship between parent and child should be like. But allow me to ask for clarification on one thing. You said you both saw your mother leave. Amanda, were you not always blind?”



“Oh…” Amanda was clearly shaken by the subject of her injury being brought up so directly. “Oh, no… not always. It’s… it’s recent. Dad always told us to pursue the path of science over the path of history, because Grandpa made his own mistakes when Dad was our age… Matt and I, we had to go along with it to fool him. He made us help him with an experiment involving electricity that went wrong, and there was an explosion that… it destroyed my eyes. That was the last straw… he didn’t care what happened to me, so Matt and I decided to leave.”



Cyrus did not reply right away. Instead, he looked down at his hand, opening and closing it several times before finally speaking. “What happened to the two of you is disgraceful. I, too, did not satisfy my parents’ expectations for me. And as someone who follows the paths of both science and history, I am disgusted that people would do such things in their names. It is the flawed, incomplete human spirit that drives us to harm each other. I believe we must do something about that in order to bring about a peaceful world.” Much to Matt’s surprise, Cyrus’s features seemingly softened when he turned to face them. “I have studied under your grandfather in the past. I am at Lake Acuity to conduct a survey meant to see if the underwater caves said to exist here actually do. Stay with me, and when I return to Veilstone City in a few days, I will help you get in touch with Professor Chiaki and together, we will arrange something for you.”



Matt still found Cyrus strange and off-putting, but when he finally showed emotion and smiled at them, Matt decided to go with Amanda’s judgment and trust him. He was showing them understanding and offering a way out from their problem, so what harm could come of it?



Little could Matt or Amanda ever anticipate the truly evil plans for them lurking behind that smile, forming in Cyrus’s mind even that far back in time.



~:~



“The latest report says it’s going to start snowing soon,” Matt announced to the others, narrowing his eyes as he scrutinized the information on the S-Gear’s screen. Even though years had passed since he and Amanda had to be rescued from the storm, and both of them were more capable of handling themselves than they were at that time, some of the memories of that day still lingered in the back of his mind. The deadly chill that gripped him in that blizzard made him shiver in the present, despite being nothing but a trick of memory. “We can’t still be up here in the dark when that starts.”



“We won’t be,” Olivia boldly declared. She also was reading information from the screen of her Pokégear. “According to this map, all we have to do is get through the next pass we’re coming to, then head down a short trail and we’re at Blackthorn.”



“That’s good to know. I think we all need a rest after the day we’ve had…” Even while he voiced his concern for Olivia’s well-being, Matt kept quiet about the equal concern he harbored for Nekou. Her distant behavior and almost unbroken silence since leaving Mahogany Town was something he recognized as deeply out of character for her. Given what had happened to her in the Guanosine Base, it wasn’t surprising that she was in distress, but he still had little idea of what to say or do. That feeling of helplessness ate at him even further along with the cold.



But on the other hand, Blackthorn City and the opportunity it presented were near. They would have to take some downtime there, if for no other reason than to rest after everything that had happened since Olivine, and that was where he saw his chance coming. He resolved to himself that he couldn’t just keep ignoring the obvious signs something was wrong, knowing that if he did, the tension would tear the group apart at the seams.



Anabel’s feelings about the matter were much the same. As she and Olivia followed Matt and Amanda into the gloom of the clearing, she watched her daughter from behind the warmth of her scarf. “I wonder what she’s thinking right now?” Anabel wondered, though looking at Olivia’s bitter expression and stiff, heavy gait certainly gave her some ideas. They would have to clear the air between them before the next Gym battle, Anabel reasoned, otherwise Olivia risked becoming overly frustrated in the middle of the match and having another seizure, just like when she faced Helena. That meant the time Anabel had to make amends was limited. If she didn’t act before the battle, encouraging Olivia to take some downtime afterward would only appear to be repeating the mistake that led her to run away in the first place. “I won’t do that again,” she promised herself.



All they had to do was get through the pass and descend to the city on the last stretch of the trail through the Ice Path, but the day was not yet done testing them.



The group was not far into the pass when its gloom was abruptly illuminated by a ring of powerful floodlights on metal poles. Matt, Olivia, Nekou and Anabel all had to shield their eyes until they adjusted to the sudden brightness, while Arcanine signalled Amanda to halt. The Fire-type canine Pokémon lowered himself into a battle-ready pose and growled viciously as a ring of people fanned out to surround them, all wearing the same white, blue and black uniforms and visors that identified them as Polaris members.



“I should have figured we’d get ambushed right at the very end…” Anabel lamented. “We couldn’t have our luck hold out the whole way.”



“It’s about time you made it here. I couldn’t have accounted for the delays you faced, so it’s been a bit of a waiting game.”



The voice that greeted the group elicited an almost instinctive reaction from Matt and Amanda after they heard it. Amanda recoiled away from its source and held her cane up in front of herself for some degree of protection, while Matt grabbed her free arm and pulled her closer to him.



“Of course it had to be you…” Matt bristled, what composure he had evaporating nearly instantly. “Of course it’s you, Mother… why wouldn’t Polaris send you after we destroyed that base?”



Across the clearing, Mercury was sitting on a stone with her arms crossed, her fur coat shielding her from the chilly winds. Aside from the way she was seated, her children couldn’t get a feel for exactly what she was thinking seeing them again. Was there some part of her that was actually happy, or was every trace of that lost under the influence of Polaris and their mission? Her manner of speaking wasn’t giving them any hints, and her Braviary mask concealed her face enough that Matt couldn’t read her expressions.



Nekou, on the other hand, had her typical personality pulled back to the surface, however temporary the change was. Cocking an eyebrow, she loudly jabbed, “Have you just been sitting here in the dark waiting for us?”


“I don’t know what it is you want, Mom, but you’re not getting it,” Amanda warned her through clenched teeth. “I’m sure Polaris sent you because this is personal now.”



“... Amanda, you do know your brother’s been spending time around Team Rocket, right?” Mercury asked, casually turning her hand upward. “I’d hate to see you get swept up in this without knowing…”



“I should ask you the same thing!” Whereas Mercury’s presence had Matt sufficiently subdued, Amanda became angry, her fury only growing from their mother’s attempt to drive a wedge between them. “How can you even say something like that? I’ve heard all the arguments, and with the stakes being what they are, I’m quite happy with the side I’ve chosen for myself. I made that choice of my own free will, nobody tricked me into anything! Can you say the same thing for yourself, being one of Polaris’s leaders?”



“That’s how it’s going to be, then.” Amanda’s confident, assertive words rattled Mercury, but she did her best to conceal it. Remaining outwardly level, Mercury rose from where she was sitting and took a single step toward her children and their companions. “Matt, Amanda, as much as this pains me to say, the die hasn’t been cast yet. You can still walk away from this, if seeing me is really hurting you so badly. Return Genesect to me and I’ll leave. That is why I was sent here.”



“So you could just have that maniac Colress experiment on it some more?” Matt shot back, clutching his bag’s shoulder strap with a trembling hand. “I’ve seen what happens to the subjects of his experiments first hand. If I can stop even one more of them from happening, I will!”



“In other words, the answer’s no!” Amanda forcefully added. “You’re the last person who could make us do something like that!”



Since Nekou was standing behind the others, they couldn’t see the way her eyes went wide at Matt and Amanda’s shared promise. She wasn’t sure if they were referring to what Colress had done to her or what he did to Giovanni and Genesect instead, but the mere possibility that they were willing to help her instead of fleeing from what she’d become under Alter-Nekou’s control left her stunned.



Mercury, on the other hand, clearly saw Nekou’s expression and understood its meaning. Scowling at it, she put her hand on her chin and said, “I had hoped you’d be more understanding, but it doesn’t surprise me that you won’t cooperate. That die actually has been cast after all…”



“Understanding? You wanted us to be understanding?!” Matt backed even further away from their mother and wrapped his arms around his midsection, struggling to process the confrontation. “There really is nothing in your head but Polaris’ propaganda, is there? You’re completely delusional if you thought there was even a chance we’d side with you or what you’re doing!”



Matt’s words wounded Mercury in ways he never could have imagined. Her eyes twitching behind her mask, she conceded, “I thought a lot about how this would go, when we finally met again… I truly hoped we could make amends, that I could show you I only did what I did because it was all for you. Maybe I am delusional. Maybe my delusion was that you two would be able to recognize reality and see that Polaris is the only future any of us have. So be it, if you can’t see reason on your own, I shall have to help you find it.”



From inside her heavy coat, Mercury produced three spheres. The Great Ball and Net Ball from earlier were among them, now joined by a camouflage-patterned Safari Ball she hadn’t possessed in the past. When she threw them, her Electivire and Pelipper materialized from the former pair as they had before. It was the Pokémon that emerged from the Safari Ball, however, that caught Matt and the others completely by surprise.



It was a Bisharp. And as soon as she appeared, one of the Poké Balls in Matt’s bag responded to her presence, shaking before bursting open on its own. The light from within it erupted from Matt’s bag on its own, giving shape to Jeremiah, the Bisharp he’d caught himself that day.



“Sharp! Sharp!!” Jeremiah clamored, frantically waving his arm at his counterpart standing between Mercury’s Electivire and Pelipper.



“That’s Jeremiah, right?” Amanda asked Matt. “Why does he sound so upset?”



“Mom’s got a Bisharp of her own,” he replied, his stare fixated on their mother’s Pokémon, “and I think it’s the one that Polaris took away.”



“That’s the feeling I get,” Anabel said in agreement, her voice shaky. Even though the ring of Mercury’s soldiers hadn’t moved at all, she perceived them to be closing in, giving her a sense of claustrophobia that subconsciously drove her to stand just a little bit closer to Olivia.



Bitterly laughing, Matt tilted his head back to look at the dark, cloudy sky, throwing the bangs that hung near his right eye back with it. Every argument he and Amanda witnessed, every cold shoulder, all of it until the day Mercury left them with Charon for good came to a boil in his mind. “Because of course. Of course you’re the one who broke up those Pawniard’s clan! It’s what you do!”



“I didn’t do anything to-”



“That’s exactly the problem!” Amanda fiercely interrupted, beating the ground with her cane. “You didn’t do anything but fight with Dad and think about yourself, and then you bailed and left us with him!”



“And I’m trying to make that right as we speak!” Mercury protested. “Look, I’ll keep my word. If seeing me has the two of you this upset, give me Genesect and I’ll leave.”



“You call this trying to make things right? Taking us hostage with a bunch of your other brainwashed people backing you up?” Matt straightened his head up in a single, snapping motion, and as he did so, he snatched a Dive Ball from his bag and opened it. Patrick, his Seismitoad, appeared at Jeremiah’s side, and Amanda’s Arcanine promptly joined the pair. “You really haven’t changed at all.”



Anabel, Olivia and Nekou, meanwhile, huddled behind Matt and Amanda to decide what their own best course of action would be. “Should we join in on this?” Olivia asked her mother and her friend.



“I don’t know, to be honest,” Anabel replied, holding her chin with one of her gloved hands. “With all of us working together, we could probably take down Mercury herself pretty easily, but look at her subordinates… they aren’t making any move right now. If we get involved, that may change, and if it does I don’t know if we’ll win. We can’t know without knowing what kind of Pokémon they have, or how many.”



“Plus, this isn’t our fight…” Nekou quietly added, facing away from the others. “Matt and Amanda were right when they said Polaris sent her because it’s personal. She’s not here for me, she’s here for them… this is something that’s been brewing for longer than any of us have known each other, and we have no right to interfere…”



Anabel and Olivia glanced at each other. The same question was on both of their minds - they’d both seen how passive and quiet Nekou was for the entire duration of the hike, and they both recognized how out of character it was for her. So when she spoke in such a way, they had to wonder exactly what was wrong. Her condition after succumbing to Alter-Nekou’s influence earlier in the day didn’t provide an answer that was sufficiently satisfying to either of them. Ariana’s death was surely still affecting her as well, they reasoned, but some piece of the puzzle still felt like it was missing.



They didn’t have much time to ponder the subject, for the tension between Matt, Amanda and Mercury soon exploded. “Arcanine, use Wild Charge on Pelipper!” Amanda called out, pointing forward with her cane.



Arcanine tore toward Pelipper, his fur crackling and sparking with electricity. The pelican Pokémon, well aware of the severe threat the Electric-type move posed against a Water-and-Flying-type like herself, beat of her wings in an attempt to escape upward into the air. Arcanine leaped after her, determined to catch his prey, but Electivire jumped in between them before he could reach her. When Arcanine collided with Electivire, the latter’s Motor Drive ability drained the electricity from Arcanine’s coat, the sparks doing nothing other than energizing Electivire’s muscles.



“It’s our turn!” Mercury declared. “Pelipper, hit Arcanine with Soak! Electivire, use Electric Terrain!”



Electivire wasted no time in exploiting his newfound agility from his Motor Drive, diving back down and driving his fist into the earth. The surrounding ground became imbued with an electrical pulse, the surge of power shorting out the floodlights circling the clearing and causing them to burst into flame. As the floodlights burned, their light combined with the golden glow emanating from the energized soil and cast an eerie glow over the entire battlefield.



But beyond any intimidation value, the Electivire’s move meant Pelipper now had a clear shot at Arcanine. She sprayed a shower of water over her enemy, and by the time he landed on solid ground, his fur was completely saturated. He growled and shook fiercely in an attempt to shed the water, but no matter how much splashed on the dirt around him, there always seemed to be more that clung to his coat like metal filings on a magnet.



“Arcanine, watch out!” Amanda urgently warned him. Soak passing on the usual weaknesses of Water-type Pokémon was one of the many situations their extensive training had prepared them for, but both Amanda and Arcanine could tell how dire their situation was. Mercury wouldn’t have called for it without being ready to exploit it, and Electivire’s use of Electric Terrain only made his Electric-type attacks even more potent.



“Patrick, protect Arcanine!” Matt frantically ordered.



Mercury flashed a slight grin as she watched the Seismitoad make his way toward Arcanine. “You have no idea what I’m about to do, do you? Thankfully, this won’t take long, and then you’ll-”



The radiance of the energized ground and burning floodlights glimmered off something in the darkness beyond the clearing, cutting off Mercury’s thoughts. Her grin faded as she tried to make sense of it, but she never got the chance to even venture a guess, as a Pawniard emerged from the murk and jumped one of her soldiers, latching onto him with her arm blades. Nine more soon followed, each one shrieking the same battle cry before attacking. Their new leader Bisharp arrived right after, carrying herself with a cool, levelheaded sense of composure as she commanded her gang.



The scene devolved into chaos as those in Mercury’s troop who hadn’t been attacked sent out a multitude of their own Pokémon - all revived from fossils, such as Kabuto, Omanyte, Cranidos, Shieldon and others - to drive the Pawniard away from their comrades. Mercury could do nothing to stem the whirlwind of confusion as fights broke out all around her, unwilling to take her mind off her own purpose for being there.



“What’s happening now?!” Amanda questioned, pulling closer to her brother in response to the cacophony of the fighting around her. “What did Mom do?”



“Mom didn’t do anything… this time, anyway. It’s the Pawniard from earlier! They’re attacking her henchmen!”



That news calmed Amanda down. “Well, in that case, it sounds like that’s to our benefit. Now it’s just us and her… no one else.”



“You said it,” Matt agreed, hunching slightly forward with his arms hanging at his sides. “Let’s do this.”



Outside of Matt’s notice, Jeremiah and the Bisharp who had driven him from the clan locked eyes. They shared no words in their language, but the curt nod the clan’s leader gave him said everything. Even though he was no longer a part of their group, Jeremiah understood his rival was entrusting him to take on their former boss. The current one couldn't, since one of Mercury's soldiers sent a dark-plumed Farfetch'd carrying a huge, heavy leek to confront her. Jeremiah was the only one left who could defend his clan's honor.



“If you think they'll stop what I came here to do, you’re mistaken,” Mercury pledged to her son and daughter. A wintry wind blew tiny licks of fire from the burning floodlights as it ruffled through the clothes and hair of those in the clearing. “Bisharp, X-Scissor!”



Said former boss didn’t share the sentiment, however. She hesitated to attack her former underlings, instead looking back over her shoulder for clarification from her trainer on what to do.



Unfortunately for her, no such clarity would be coming.



“You won’t cooperate with me against them? Fine… I didn’t want it to come to this, but I guess I have no choice but to use this thing.”



Sighing, Mercury pulled up her left sleeve, revealing an armband an inch or two from her wrist. When she turned her limb over, Matt could see a sliver of glowing rock set into it.



“That’s a Meteonite shard, isn’t it?” he demanded of her. “What are you doing with that?”



“You were right when you called Colress a maniac, but his mind is second to none,” she flatly replied. “This is just another of his inventions.”



As brief as Mercury’s explanation of the device was, it gave her all the time she needed for it to fully power up. A flare of the Meteonite’s energy burst out of it and drifted over Mercury’s Bisharp, sinking into the Dark-and-Steel-type Pokémon’s body. She fell limp for a moment, but recovered and slowly turned to face her foes with eyes full of red light. Any and all signs of the reluctance she had mere moments earlier vanished as she bared her blades for battle.



That’s more like it. Now, Pelipper, use Soak on Seismitoad! Bisharp, you back Pelipper up!”



“Patrick, jump up and dodge it!” Matt countered.



Patrick had been helping Arcanine move away from Mercury’s Pokémon, but when Matt’s direction came for him to prioritize himself, he changed gears. He crouched to build up strength in his legs, but Mercury’s Bisharp got behind him and grabbed his arms before he could make the leap, keeping him on the ground. He managed to pull his right arm from Bisharp’s grip, but was unable to fully free himself before the glob of water Pelipper spat up washed over him.



Growing desperate from the sight of Mercury’s team’s coordinated assault, Matt pleaded, “Jeremiah, I know that’s your clan’s old leader, but you have to stop her and help turn this around! Low Sweep!”



The weight of the responsibility placed upon him by the new clan boss only served to spur Jeremiah further into action. Even though his target was the Bisharp he’d served practically his entire life, those past loyalties no longer mattered. He was the one who lost, who was exiled, who was taken in by the humans. Matt and the others were his clan now, but for one last goodbye to his past life, he eagerly would fight for his old family’s honor. It wasn’t their former leader’s choice to be taken away and used as Mercury’s plaything, but she couldn’t be allowed to claim a victory over their kind. As Jeremiah dashed forward with the intent to knock her legs out from under her, that resolution fueled his determination.



Unfortunately for him, Mercury’s strategy was already in place. “If that’s the best you can do, there’s no way you can stand in the way of what’s coming. Let this be a lesson to you. Electivire, Rising Voltage!”



Everything Mercury had done was building to that moment. Hitting Patrick and Arcanine with Soak, drawing Jeremiah in close to the others, all of it paid off when Electivire plugged his two tails into the ground and sent a charge through them. Mercury’s Bisharp released Patrick and jumped away from him only seconds before a tremendous eruption of electricity exploded from the earth, shattering the terrain as it sent a huge, brightly shining beacon into the sky. Jeremiah, Patrick and Arcanine all howled in agony as they were consumed by the vortex, the latter two suffering even moreso from the effects of Soak.



“Rising Voltage only gets stronger under the effects of Electric Terrain!” Anabel alerted Matt and Amanda, pulling her sunglasses down to protect her eyes.



“How do we get around that?” Amanda asked her brother, a bead of sweat rolling down her cheek. “Mom’s running circles around us!”



“I don’t know…” Matt admitted. Inhaling sharply, he stomped his boot into the dirt and bitterly repeated, “I don’t know! The only idea I’ve got for where to start is that we have to be as coordinated as she is!”



-:-



In contrast to the chaos unfolding just up the trail in the Ice Path, it was seemingly just another ordinary night in Blackthorn City. While the residents of the peaceful, remote city went about their lives, Renzo was again consulting with his master, the Gym Leader Clair. Her office at Blackthorn Gym, like much of the rest of the building, had a medieval appearance with stone-patterned walls bearing tapestries of many different Dragon-type Pokémon and symbols associated with the creatures, such as her Rising Badge.



“The elder of my clan has informed me he wants you to progress to the next stage of your training,” Clair told Renzo as he stood before her at her desk. “This will be the final trial you must pass before he’ll certify your work as complete.”



“And then I’ll be able to get a Dratini, like everyone who passes the trials of the Dragon’s Den?”



Although Renzo’s question was earnest and clear, Clair narrowed her eyes back. “You shouldn’t focus on one thing so much. You need to recognize all of your Pokémon have gained great strength since you started training here with me."



"Clair…" Renzo slammed his hands down on the desk before he could catch himself. "I'm sorry, Master. I have never been anything but honest with you. From the day we met, I was clear that there is only one path I can follow. No matter how strong my Pokémon get, if I can't get a Dragonite like those raised by the Dragon Clan, all our efforts mean nothing. You must understand that by now!"



Facing away from her student, Clair remarked, "Yet the one thing you won't tell me is why. Why exactly you're so stubbornly determined to get one of our Dratini, and who your loved one you lost was. Why you won’t let me see what you look like under that scarf."



"Because I must be able to claim my rightful place in the world, and I have to do it with the favorite Pokémon of the one I lost! I have to show those two who took everything from me that they can't just ignore me, ignore the past like it never happened! If I can’t get that Dratini… if you or anyone knew who I am… then I can’t get what I’ve waited my entire life for. I won’t give that up, not now.”



"It's talk like that that you'll have to stop if you're going to pass the trial," Clair warned him. "Regardless, it's out of my hands. Anabel and Olivia will be here tomorrow for Olivia's challenge of Blackthorn Gym. I do not know what links them to your past, but your trial shall be a test to see if you can face that past and overcome it."



Taken aback by the news, Renzo slouched into one of the chairs behind him as he tried to absorb what he'd been told. "Olivia must wait until the Pokémon League… only the biggest stage will do for putting that usurper in her place.” Snapping his fist closed, Renzo continued, “But Anabel… the day I've waited so long for is finally here…"



Observing Renzo as he got wrapped up in his obsessions, Clair's own expression darkened. "Renzo, you have a good heart deep down. I know that. But will you be able to see that this isn't a test of power? Whatever happened in your past, you must be able to face it and move on…"



An awkward silence settled in between the Gym Leader and her pupil, but it didn’t last long. One of Clair’s other apprentices, a young woman dressed in a red jacket, a black skirt and matching kneesocks who wore her purple hair in a bun, came barreling through the door, making both Clair and Renzo jump in their respective seats.



“Leader Clair!” she gasped, trying to catch her breath. “There’s trouble!”



“What is it, Fran?” Clair asked, her concern immediately spiking. “You don’t usually get this worked up.”



“Something’s… something’s going on just outside the city, on the Ice Path,” the trainer explained while holding her chest and panting. “There’s a group of trainers fighting with multiple Polaris members on the trail, and several fires are burning…”



“What?” Clair jumped to her feet, nearly knocking her chair over in her haste. “If they’re close to the city, there’s the possibility their fighting will come here. I must go and halt it.”



“Master, wait,” Renzo interrupted. “Fran, describe them to me. Is the Battle Frontier’s Commissioner there? What about a girl who looks a lot like a younger version of her?”



“How did you know?” Fran replied, blinking in confusion. “Commissioner Mistbloom’s there, and so is a girl who resembles her. They’re with this guy in a tattered blue coat, a black-haired woman, and-”



“I don’t care about the others.” Turning back to Clair, Renzo demanded, “Master, allow me to go! I have a score to settle with Polaris, too, and this is a perfect opportunity to show Anabel what she’s in for tomorrow!”



Clair crossed her arms. She’d be lying to herself if she tried to say she had no reservations about sending Renzo into the fray, but on the other hand, he had undoubtedly grown stronger. He was a far cry from the traveler who’d shown up and tried to enter the Dragon’s Den with a Gurdurr, a Cottonee, a Drowzee and no Badges to his name. She believed he’d be up to the challenge of going head-to-head against Polaris, but his stability had her concerned. His single-minded obsession with his goals threatened to take him down a dark path she could only hope he wouldn’t fall to.



Still, one thing a teacher had to do was give their student credit where credit was due. “Fine, you may go. I’ll warn you now, though. If you encounter any trouble, you are to call for me without hesitation.”



“Polaris will be no match for me,” Renzo swore. “They will see me. They all will see me.”



-:-



“Arcanine, Psychic Fangs!”



Matt and Amanda both knew Mercury had to be prevented from having Electivire use Rising Voltage again. The consensus they arrived at as the best way to do so was to pin her Pokémon down with a fast, sustained charge, and Amanda took the lead by ordering Arcanine forth. He bolted toward Electivire with his gleaming fangs bared, intent on paying the Electric-type back for what Rising Voltage had done.



Mercury’s Bisharp jumped in front of Electivire to shield him. No matter how much strength Arcanine put into his bite, if Psychic Fangs made contact with a Dark-type Pokémon like Bisharp, it would amount to nothing. Such a stalemate would still leave Arcanine open to Electivire and Pelipper, though, so Matt had to act to shake things up.



“Jeremiah, use Low Sweep!” he cried out, sweeping his right arm in front of himself. “Patrick, help him out!”



Jeremiah and Patrick exchanged looks, conveying their trust in each other despite having just met each other that day. They both had the same read on the situation they were in. A frontal assault of the sort Arcanine was waging would be too easy for Mercury’s Pokémon to repel. Their decision, therefore, was not to attack from the front but from above. Patrick brought his hands together, providing a springboard from which Jeremiah leaped high into the air. Small embers nicked at the Bisharp with the scratched helmet as he sailed over Arcanine, somersaulted and pitched downward, aiming his heel squarely at his once-leader. The sound of metal striking metal rang through the clearing when Jeremiah collided with her, shoving her out of Arcanine’s path. Electivire was left vulnerable while the two Bisharp indiscriminately slashed at each other, tumbling to a stop near one of the burning floodlights.



With nothing left to stop him, Arcanine bit through Electivire’s fur and into his arm. The Thunderbolt Pokémon roared, at first from the pain but his cry quickly transitioned into a bellow of rage. There was simply no way he would allow Arcanine to turn the tables against him, so he lunged with his free arm, pushing his attacker away with Body Slam. Some of Electivire’s yellow fur went with Arcanine when he lost his grip, scattering around its owner’s feet.



“Very good, Electivire,” Mercury praised him. “Now, Pelipper, follow that up with Seed Bomb!”



Pelipper lifted about a foot off the ground, the beat of her wings blowing away some of the dirt encircling her. Once airborne, she opened her bill and spat a barrage of small, glowing green seeds. The projectiles battered Arcanine with tiny but stinging detonations that only became more potent from Soak’s continuing hold on him, making him howl as he was driven further back.



Meanwhile, the two Bisharp kept up their scuffle, tumbling over each other in the cold soil. Jeremiah’s arms grew wreathed in a shining green aura as he tried to drive them into his ex-leader’s body, but before either of his blows could land, she hardened her metal armor to protect herself. Her quick use of Iron Defense left Jeremiah’s Dual Chop to clang off her with nearly no effect, and while he was stunned, she knocked him away by kicking him in the abdomen. Now free, she sprang to her feet and started dashing back into the fray.



“Bisharp, hit that Seismitoad with Poison Jab!” Mercury called out, pointing squarely at Patrick.



“You’ve still got the upper hand, Patrick!” Matt countered. “Drain Punch!”



Mercury’s Bisharp landed the first blow, stabbing her arm into Patrick’s stomach as a purple, bubbling poison coated it. A croak pushed itself out of Patrick’s throat, though the blow was far from enough to stagger him. He swung his fist down to strike Bisharp on the top of her helmet, a small flicker of green light leaving the point of contact and merging with his hand. She felt the force of his punch much more than he had felt her Poison Jab, but with the influence of the Meteonite shard filling her head, the pain never fully connected with her senses.



Patrick weaved out of the way of her next stab, an act she repaid when she dodged his next punch. By that point both of them had shaken off what they felt from the initial strikes, and their duel became one between evenly-matched fighters. Every punch, every jab, every dodge, each of them were able to keep up perfectly with the other. The chaos going on around them melted away, their shared concentration on fighting each other all but forming a ring around the pair.



With Patrick handling Jeremiah’s counterpart, combating Mercury’s other Pokémon fell to him and Arcanine. Amanda’s Fire-type companion scampered over to Jeremiah’s side, having recovered from Pelipper’s Seed Bomb barrage, and lowered himself so the Bisharp could get on his back. Electivire and Pelipper braced themselves as their two adversaries rode towards them.



“Pelipper, Aerial Ace! Electivire, Rising Voltage!”



Matt, Amanda and their Pokémon all acknowledged that Mercury’s strongest weapon had to be stopped. Pelipper positioned herself to play interference in their efforts, lifting into the air and swooping down toward Arcanine and Jeremiah. The latter responded by leaping off his makeshift mount, leaving the pelican to slice the empty space between them, and aimed another of his somersaulting kicks at Electivire’s head.



Little did they suspect that the Aerial Ace was a decoy and Mercury was luring them into a trap. Pelipper had done nothing more than convincing them they had a clear shot at Electivire after dodging her attack.



"There it is, Electivire!" the Chromosome exclaimed, grinning as she watched her plan come to fruition. "Electroweb!"



Abruptly changing course, Electivire pulled his tails from the ground and pointed his left hand at Jeremiah and Arcanine as they approached him, casting electrified threads over them from his fingers. The pair fell to the ground writhing and shrieking in pain from the Electric-Type’s current, their din distracting Patrick enough to leave him open for Mercury’s Bisharp to bash him in the face with Poison Jab.



“No!” Matt gasped in dismay. He had thought things were going well, that he and Amanda finally had a shot at turning the situation around. All that came crashing down with their three Pokémon being subdued in one fell swoop. “How much more are you going to put us through?” he muttered under his breath.



“What happened?” Amanda frantically asked.. “What did she do?!”



While Matt summarized the current state of affairs for his sister, Olivia sidled up to Anabel and whispered, “Now has to be when we get involved. I’m not waiting anymore.”



“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Anabel concurred, surreptitiously fetching an Ultra Ball from within her coat.



Before either of them could act, Mercury cut their window off by seizing upon her own. “All the obstacles are cleared, Electivire. Use Rising Voltage for real!”



From Matt’s point of view, time might as well have stopped when the words ‘Rising Voltage’ left Mercury’s mouth. His mind was starting to fray under all the stress of what was happening, from being confronted by their mother in the first place to how easily she was shrugging off their efforts at resistance, and he could no longer see a way out. Amanda was no better off. The way she’d trained herself to battle without her sense of sight demanded strict, disciplined concentration, and Mercury’s presence plus the obvious panic she could hear in Matt’s voice threw her off.



What Mercury did next surprised them both, but in hindsight, it shouldn’t have.



“Electivire, wait.” He had plugged his tails into the glowing terrain by then, but upon her request, he paused. “Why do you two have to be so disobedient when I only asked for you to return Genesect?” she bitterly scolded Matt and Amanda. Crossing her arms and grimacing, she added, “And after I helped motivate you to escape from Charon, no less.”



“No…” Matt found his strength abandoning him in response to Mercury’s clear attempt at manipulation. He felt as if his heart was stopping, and his legs buckled as he gripped the sides of his head and yelled, “No! How can you… after everything we went through… how can you say something like that?! Get out of my head!”



“You know what you have to do to make me go away,” Mercury offered, sticking her hand out towards him in a symbolic gesture. “It’s not the outcome I wanted, but again, if you return Genesect, this all ends.”
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
“Is there no depth you won’t sink to?!” Aware of how her brother was rattled to the bone, Amanda stepped forth to confront their mother even more forcefully. Stabbing one end of her cane into the dirt while holding the other so tightly her knuckles turned white, Amanda couldn’t stop her emotions from boiling over once she got going. Everything she’d witnessed over the years and bottled up inside herself came bubbling up like a geyser about to erupt. “I can’t even begin to fathom the nerve you have to say that. You didn’t do a thing to get us out of there! You left us there, and that’s why we’re like this! Telling yourself you did good by abandoning us, when it just made it harder for us to strike out on our own… it was our hard work and our Pokémon’s that got us here! Not you!”



Amanda’s outburst made Mercury recoil. “Do you want me to say I made mistakes? Is that what you want to hear?” she snapped, her wide eyes communicating a clear sense of genuine distress. “Fine, I made mistakes! I made a lot of them! I expect this from Matt, but Amanda… I expected better of you. Has all the time you’ve spent with your brother turned you into the same cynical-?”



“It doesn’t matter what you think of me!” Amanda furiously interrupted. “I’m the person I am because of the choices I made for myself! As if I would be forced into anyone’s mold, let alone yours, after you turned your back on us! It was Matt and I against Dad, against the world that you threw us into, and all we could do was rely on each other until Grandpa helped us! That was how we built what we have, and nobody, especially not you, will take all of that away!”



Mercury had no capacity to worry about anything but what Amanda was saying to her. “I’m not the one who’s trying to take anything away from you!” she protested, gesturing at the fires around them and the continued fighting between her henchmen and the Bisharp Clan. “You two are smart enough to look at this world and see it coming apart at the seams! Just look at everything that’s happening. What you built won’t survive what’s coming!”



“And who’s responsible for that?” Amanda retorted. “Polaris! The cult you’re part of!”



Mercury grimaced, feeling her heart sink in her chest. “I can see why you’d think that, but Amanda, I’m begging you. I need you to understand. Polaris are the only ones who can save us from what’s coming!” Amanda laughed loudly and scornfully at her mother’s claim, but still, Mercury pressed on. She had to. From what she’d learned from Polaris, not doing so would render all of her sacrifices pointless. “That’s why I’m here, really. If I could convince the two of you to see reason, if you would just join me in Polaris, then we can all be saved. I can finally make up for all the mistakes I made. We can be a family again! That’s all I’ve ever wanted!”



As the dispute escalated, Nekou observed from behind the others, hanging her head and peeking from between her bangs. Watching Mercury trying to force a wedge between Matt and Amanda while playing on their wishes, even if she meant what she was saying on some level, prodded at Nekou’s memories of Ariana. “So this is what they had to deal with, right in the flesh… Maman made me everything I am, but she abandoned them to make their own way…”



“You had your chance to be a family with us, and chose not to.”



Matt finally managed to find his voice, but when he added to Amanda’s words, it was weak, trembling. “You say all you ever wanted was us being a family again… that’s rich considering you’re the one who walked out on us. But let me humor you for a minute and just assume you’re telling the truth right now… if you only ever wanted Amanda and I to join Polaris so we could be a family again, does that mean you were a member from the beginning yourself? Did you join the Celestic Historical Society because of them?”



A lull set in, and even though Matt was almost certain he knew what the answer was going to be, he still wished that said lull lasted forever.



“Formally?” she answered, closing her eyes behind the shield of her mask. “Not from the very beginning, no. They were always the ones running the Celestic Historical Society, though, so even before I knew about Polaris, they saw every letter of my work. When they finally did approach me, they gave me the recognition I dreamed of, and in time… I kept up my research and in time I came to realize what Polaris teaches is the truth. I have waited for so, so long to tell you two everything. To tell you of the reckoning that’s coming for this world. For you to be saved the same way I was, all so we can be together again in the new world that’s yet to come…”



“You ramble on and on about a new world and all, but that’s just Team Galactic’s propaganda talking!” Amanda shouted back, disregarding the plea their mother had issued. “Polaris, Team Galactic… do you even know who’s controlling you anymore? Did you really think we’d forget what you helped Dad and Cyrus do?”



“That’s right, you’ve got far more to account for than just being brainwashed by a cult. You were brainwashed by two,” Matt sullenly noted. “You talk on about helping us escape from Charon but then you go and work with him in Team Galactic… all this noble-sounding nonsense you’re giving us, it’s all lies, isn’t it? You can’t spin Team Galactic into a positive thing! You must have known what Cyrus wanted Dad to do to Amanda!”



Sighing, Mercury said, “Now, let me just clarify one thing, first. You’re right when you say I can’t put a positive spin on Team Galactic. I didn’t know what they were really after when I first joined them… Polaris opened my eyes to that, too. When I learned what Cyrus was really after, that he wanted to erase everything that makes us human, I became Polaris’s spy in Team Galactic, to destroy them from within.” Mercury put her hand on her hip and sighed. “Now, about Project Cortex. I’m sure that’s what you were referring to? Not only do I know about it, I know you found out about it. You found out about it and escaped from Team Galactic’s reach to protect Amanda, I know all about that. Haven’t you ever asked yourself who leaked Project Cortex’s existence to you, though?”



Matt instantly understood what Mercury was implying. Stunned by the mere suggestion of it, he backed away in horror. “No… that can’t…”



“You realize it now, don’t you?” Mercury insisted, nodding her head to confirm the dreadful truth that was dawning on him. “I told you, I’ve been trying to save you two all along. The fact I leaked Project Cortex to you so you could protect Amanda from Cyrus and Charon… that alone should prove my intentions.”



The worst thing Matt could think, the only thing he could think, was also an admission he hated having to make. Mercury was telling the truth, at least in her own way. If she’d revealed what Cyrus planned for Amanda to him, it had helped him protect Amanda even if leaking that information also fulfilled Polaris’s goals. There was just no way to deny that.



Matt collapsed to his hands and knees, unable to stand with the weight of everything he’d believed crashing down on him. His fingers trembled in the dirt as doubt consumed every inch of his mind. There were two events that served as the central foundation for his belief that he and Amanda had cut their strings and broken free from Mercury and Charon. One was their escape from Snowpoint City as children, when Cyrus saved them from the blizzard on Route 217. The other, when Matt found out about Project Cortex and rebelled against Cyrus to save Amanda from the fate Team Galactic’s boss had planned for her. Mercury, Charon, Cyrus… they’d broken free from so many people in pursuit of their own fates, and yet, Matt was faced with an incontrovertible reality now, that their escape was just part of one of their manipulators’ plans itself. The world as he knew it really was coming apart at the seams, as Mercury had perhaps unwittingly put it. All this time, they’d never really escaped.



He failed to notice Amanda making her way over to him until she poked him in the side with her cane. Herself shaken by Mercury’s revelation, she lowered herself down to embrace her brother, seeking comfort in an effort to comfort him. “Matt, I promise you, we did all of it ourselves… she didn’t do anything for us…”



“But she did, Amanda! She did!” Matt exclaimed, his despair consuming him. “If she hadn’t tipped me off about what Cyrus planned to do, I would never have been able to protect you from him! I’m the one who didn’t do anything!”



Behind the siblings, Anabel adjusted her tie and exhaled, a puff of vapor passing from her lips as she steeled her nerves. “It’s definitely time to get off the sidelines,” she said to Olivia.



“Now you’re speaking my language,” Olivia agreed, producing a Poké Ball to match the Ultra Ball her mother held.



Unlike their previous attempt to interfere, however, Mercury spotted them preparing to send their Pokémon out. With her henchmen still stuck dealing with the Bisharp Clan, she grit her teeth, realizing she had to deal with Matt and Amanda’s allies on her own. “This affair isn’t for any of you to interfere with!” she hissed, put further on edge by the threat the pair posed. “I can’t let them slip through my fingers again… Electivire, do it for real this time. Rising Volt-”



“Camerupt, Earth Power!”



Shimmering golden light erupted from the terrain anew, that much matched what Mercury expected, but what she hadn’t anticipated was it erupting from under Electivire. He’d already plugged his tails into the ground before the rupture came, and that positioning left him completely open and vulnerable to the ambush. He roared as he lost his footing on the crumbling earth, the energy uncontrollably sapping him of his energy until he collapsed.



“What was that?!” Mercury shouted in dismay, frantically looking around for the source of the attack. “Since when do any of you have a-”



“It wasn’t them. It was me.”



Anabel, Olivia, and even Matt and Amanda despite their mental states in that moment, froze in shock as Renzo strolled into the clearing, his Camerupt at his side. There wasn’t any fear or apprehension in the way either of them were carrying themselves. They held their heads high, a supreme, overwhelming display of confidence that even Mercury had to acknowledge.



If she had been able to think more clearly, Mercury would have ordered an immediate attack. The combined pressure of trying to persuade Matt and Amanda to accept her motives, holding Anabel and Olivia at bay only compounded when combined with Renzo’s sudden appearance, leaving her off balance. All she could manage was to sputter, “And who are you?!”



“My name is Renzo Milos, and I have a message for your leader, the one you call Father,” Renzo thundered. “When you go back to wherever you came from, you will tell him my name and that I know who he is. I demand an audience with him, at long last. I’m coming for him.”



“Then you too should join Polaris,” Mercury advised the young man. “You can’t just walk up and ask for a face-to-face with him…”



“Oh, I know I can’t. He’s hidden himself away too well for that to be possible.” Renzo pulled a Poké Ball and an Ultra Ball from within his poncho with one hand and adjusted the scarf covering his mouth with the other. “No, let me illustrate for you exactly why I am going to get an audience with him.”



To back his threat up, Renzo tossed the two spheres, giving form to two unusual Pokémon. One was a humanoid with a bulbous red nose and long, muscular arms disproportionate to his tiny feet. He held a concrete pillar in each of his hands, helping himself stay balanced. The other Pokémon had a disc-shaped, metallic body covered in spikes, yellow eyes, and three smaller spike pods connected to her by green vines.



Before taking any further action, Renzo paused to make sure Anabel and Olivia were watching. Mercury and her team might have been his targets in the heat of the moment, but the mother and daughter were his true captive audience. Satisfied that Anabel and Olivia were indeed observing, he gestured to Mercury’s henchmen, who were still caught up with the Pawniard attacking them, and asked his Pokémon, “See those people with their Pokémon over there? Take them out! Take them all out! Conkeldurr, Mach Punch! Ferrothorn, Gyro Ball!”



Neither of the two Pokémon seemed particularly agile at first glance, so when they shot toward Mercury’s followers like bullets, Matt and Olivia couldn’t stifle their gasps of surprise. The Bisharp leading the clan, meanwhile, finished off the Farfetch'd she'd been fighting with, sending his feathers flying by slicing into him with Air Slash. Now free to give orders to her subjects again, she barked a command for them to back off and let Conkeldurr and Ferrothorn do their work.



And work they did.



Conkeldurr stormed through the crowd of fossil Pokémon, delivering fast, powerful punches to any of them he could reach. Much of the army couldn’t stand against even a single blow from the powerfully-built Fighting-type, and they fell before the eyes of their stunned trainers, who were helpless to stop Conkeldurr’s rampage. Those who were spared, whether by managing to weather a strike or being out of Conkeldurr’s reach, didn’t get a reprieve from their fates for long. Ferrothorn followed closely behind her teammate to clean up what he missed, stretching out her vines as far as they would go while she spun like a top. Every Pokémon still standing got caught up in her whirling frenzy, suffering whiplash when they were thrown back out.



“I can’t… I can’t believe…” Mercury was left nearly speechless by how fast events turned against her. She truly believed she had been close to accomplishing not only her assignment but her true goal as well. Matt and Amanda had been broken down, she only had to get them to see reason. And yet all of that collapsed in an instant when Renzo arrived. He’d upended her advantages so thoroughly that she struggled to believe it. Furious, she turned her full attention to him and roared, “You won’t get away with this!”



“Will I or won’t I?” he replied, flashing a cocky grin under his scarf even though she couldn’t see it.



“I’ll see to it that you meet your end right here on the Ice Path! Pelipper, Aerial Ace! Bisharp, use Lash Out!”



Camerupt had taken Electivire down with a single Earth Power, but that was when she had the benefit of surprise. Now she was a known quantity in the battle, and not only that, Pelipper and Bisharp held the numbers advantage. Even in the face of all of that, though, neither Camerupt nor her trainer showed or felt any fear. Why would they? They still held a trump card, one that Mercury would never see coming.



Renzo might have been obsessed with proving himself, but he also wasn’t above exploiting the strength of others to get what he wanted, and with Mercury so distracted by him, she had no idea Arcanine, Jeremiah and Patrick were all barreling toward her Pokémon. Arcanine, his fur giving off a dazzling shower of sparks, was the first of the three to break through. His momentum didn’t weaken at all when he slammed into Pelipper, and he kept running until he smashed her into a nearby rock. All the electricity that remained from his Wild Charge burst loose into the air, and Pelipper let out a single faltering squawk before falling down.



Bisharp, meanwhile, took notice of their oncoming attackers when Arcanine tackled her teammate. She jumped over Jeremiah’s first attempt to drive his heel into her leg, only to land with but a fraction of a second to dodge Patrick’s fist. The Seismitoad’s Drain Punch sailed over her by mere centimeters when she bent backward. She was left immobile by this maneuver, however, and despite the window of opportunity being brief, Jeremiah took it. He got behind her and swept her legs out from under her with a broad kick, grounding her and leaving her wide open for Patrick to hammer her into the earth with one last Drain Punch.



“So have you had enough yet?” Renzo taunted Mercury as he slowly advanced on her with his arms spread. “Go ahead, admit you’re beat. Go back home to Father and tell him what I told you.”



Mercury clenched her teeth and looked around at the devastation around her. It certainly wasn’t the sort of devastation she’d wanted or expected, that much was for sure. Her eyes darted from Electivire, Pelipper and Bisharp to her henchmen, who without their Pokémon were being directly harassed by the Pawniard, before finally settling on Matt and Amanda. The pair had not moved from where her revelations had left them. In fact, it soon became apparent to her that Arcanine, Jeremiah and Patrick had all acted on their own volition to help Renzo finish her off in the absence of any direction from their trainers.



That was the point that got Mercury’s stomach to turn. In truth, while she had been sent to retrieve Genesect, she didn’t really care all that much about the mission itself. From her point of view, getting Genesect back was nothing more than a means to an end. While waiting for Matt and Amanda to show up, she’d decided that if she would be able to convince him to give the mythical Pokémon up, she’d also be able to persuade him and Amanda to see Polaris the way she did. If he was willing to give Genesect up, he’d also be open minded to Polaris’ salvation, or so she thought.



Of course, all of that was ruined. Renzo’s interference had robbed her of all her leverage right when she thought they were in her grasp. Now there was no chance she’d be able to get through to them.



Wordlessly cursing Renzo for dashing her hopes, she called her fallen Pokémon back to their Poké Balls and yelled to her subordinates, “It’s a wash! Retreat!”



Mercury didn’t have to tell her men twice, they were more than happy to get away from the nicking, jabbing arms of the Pawniard. The clan’s leader wasn’t done with them, though, so as the Polaris members fled into the brush, she barked an order for her Pawniard followers to give chase.



The leader Bisharp didn’t immediately join her clan, however. She instead crossed the clearing in the opposite direction, toward where Patrick was helping Jeremiah stay standing. Both of Matt’s Pokémon were exhausted by the ordeal they’d gone through, and even though Jeremiah was brand new to the team, his new allies already considered him at home among them. The boss Bisharp had to chuckle to herself when she saw just how quickly he’d found a new pack to live with.



Amanda’s Arcanine snarled at her when she approached, still perceiving danger even in Mercury’s absence, but Bisharp waved him off. Jeremiah straightened up when she approached, but when they were just feet apart, she stopped. The two Bisharp, having been both rivals and then comrades-in-arms that same day, stared at each other.



Jeremiah found himself surprised by his former clan’s leader handing him a carefully-sliced Sitrus Berry that had been tucked under one of the curved blades on her torso. The gesture, though simplistic, had great significance only they understood. In their culture, after a successful hunt or any other combat, the Bisharp leading a pack of Pawniard would distribute food amongst them all, but Jeremiah, as an exile, was no longer entitled to such spoils. That the boss would still include him, even for one last time, finally made him feel at peace with his new path in life. He accepted the berry and crossed arm blades with his fellow, parting with her - and his past - on good terms.



In the time it took Bisharp to dart off into the forest after her clan, Conkeldurr and Ferrothorn made their way back over to Renzo. “Very good work,” he told them and Camerupt before recalling them one by one. Once that task was done, he exhaled and adjusted his scarf to make sure it still covered his face. “It’s not time yet,” he thought, “I can’t have everything I’ve planned go awry because of an accident.”



Renzo walked toward Anabel and Olivia, passing by Matt and Amanda on the way. They were still muttering to each other about Mercury and what her revelations meant for the two of them. It wasn’t anything of any concern to him. No, what really mattered, the only things that mattered at all, lay with the mother and daughter in front of him.



“Thank you,” Anabel said to him when she noticed Olivia pout and turn away. “I know Matt and Amanda also-”



“I have no need for gratitude for anyone, least of all either of you,” he bluntly interrupted her, glaring down his nose at the pair. “This is not a favor, Anabel Mistbloom. Polaris won’t take what’s rightfully mine away from me. I’ve been undergoing intense training with Blackthorn City’s Gym Leader, Clair, specifically for this day. Tomorrow will be the final trial I must pass.”



“And why are you telling us this?” Olivia grumbled. “You disappear for so long and come back just to brag about how hard you trained?”



“Silence yourself, Olivia. You’re not my target, not yet.” Jabbing a finger at Anabel, Renzo declared, “My trial is to face and overcome my past, and that means tomorrow, we are having a Full Battle, Anabel. You against me, one on one. You will be made to see me for what I really am.”



Anabel grimaced, taken aback by Renzo’s bizarre ranting. “I don’t even know who you are… but don’t think I’ll go easy on you.”



“I never expected you would, after everything. But you will know who I am in due time…”



-:-



The doors to Father’s office deep in Polaris’s underground temple slid open, allowing Colress entrance into the vast chamber. He’d been summoned just as he and Archer arrived at the complex, and he had been determined to look the part. Gone were the burned lab coat and cracked visor from earlier in the day, both replaced with new copies to freshen up his appearance. Beyond that, even Colress knew that an audience with Polaris’s leader meant dropping his usual flippant attitude. He did his best to stay composed, but as he walked down the path leading to Father’s desk, he couldn’t help but marvel at his surroundings. His visor glistened in the light given off by the double helix statues, while the gray floor gave off a cold, clinical feeling that nevertheless appealed to Colress’s senses by giving him the image of a laboratory or factory. And that was without even taking into account the office’s crowning feature, the gigantic aquarium. Just looking at it brought back memories of the family trips to Kalos he’d taken as a child, of staring up at the tanks in Ambrette Aquarium and taking in the spectacular view of the sea life.



“I see you’re impressed by my aquarium,” Father said to him as the scientist drew near to his desk. “It’s only natural. Life did originate in the ocean, after all.”



“Of course. It’s quite fitting,” Colress replied, pushing back one of his signature grins. His urge to smile faded and he paused to adjust his visor when he noticed the two of them weren’t alone. Finansielle was there too, wearing her mask and sitting on the right side of Father’s desk, seemingly waiting for Colress to arrive. “Ah, Lady Finansielle. I did not expect your company today. It’s quite an honor to stand in the presence of you both.”



“Oh, you can drop the formalities, Colress,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “We all know how you normally are. It’s almost more disturbing to see you try acting normal. Almost.”



Colress couldn’t stifle a laugh at Finansielle’s playful jabbing. “If you want me to stop being on my best behavior and instead give you the behavior that’s best for you, asking is all you have to do,” he teased back, pointing at his own head. “Gotta keep this brain firing on all cylinders!”



“That’s exactly what I need from you,” Finansielle purred. To anyone else it would have sounded menacing, but Colress’s ego flared even more strongly from her words. “Oh, before we get started, Mercury just contacted us. They couldn’t get Genesect back.”



“An irrelevant loss in the end,” Colress discounted the news, casually shrugging. “I would have liked to have that prototype back to play around with some more, but my research is at such a stage that I don’t need it. With that out of the way… why don’t you tell me what I really owe the honor of being here to?”



“Why, it’s not much… just Polaris’s entire purpose.” Finansielle took a moment to push herself up from her seat on the desk and face Colress, the gap in their conversation serving to pique his interest even more. “Listen to me, Colress. Somewhere in deep space, there exists a creature unlike anything in this world. The Tenganists…” Finansielle’s voice involuntarily turned bitter as she said their name, but she quickly recovered her composure, leaving Colress to think little of it. “The Tenganists call this creature the Forbidden Beast. It was born at the beginning of time and has survived ever since in the primordial darkness beyond the stars. Though it has taken eons for the Forbidden Beast to find this planet, it will be here soon.”



“This Forbidden Beast sounds like quite the monster. I’d love to get my hands on it!” Colress exclaimed in glee. “If it’s as powerful as you make it sound, what could it want with this insignificant little space rock, though? There’s a whole wide universe out there. What have we got that it could want so badly?”



“The Forbidden Beast has been exploring time and space for eternity, sending its creation, Dark Matter, through the Ultra Wormholes to search for the one thing it lacks,” she elaborated. “It has been searching every planet it can find to track down the life-giving light that pours endlessly from the body of the Radiant One, who was born at the same time as the Forbidden Beast. The Forbidden Beast hungers for that light, you see. Upon obtaining the Radiant One’s light for itself, the Forbidden Beast will evolve into a perfect lifeform, and humanity will reach the apex of evolution alongside it, an existence beyond such concepts as life or death. There will be unchanging eternity for mankind, and your work will be the key that helps us unlock that gate, Colress.”



Having been listening to Finansielle’s story with rapturous attention, Colress couldn’t keep a lid on his passion for long. An ancient, primordial creature no other human had ever seen before, one that had the potential to become a perfect lifeform, no less, and he had the ability to help it reach that state? He knew exactly who the Radiant One was, so even if the Forbidden Beast’s identity was currently a mystery to him, it didn’t matter. All he had to do was bring the two together. Then he would draw out the absolute true potential of not only both Pokémon but humanity as well, making both groups perfect in one fell swoop. It was a dream come true.



“If I am to be Polaris’s tool in achieving this magnificent goal, you may use me as you wish!” Colress proclaimed, directing his delight up at the ceiling as he spread his arms wide. “The Forbidden Beast, the Radiant One, Dark Matter, whatever it takes, I will be the one to do it! I am the only one who can do it! I will show you and the world perfection!!”






END of CHAPTER 29
 
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