When Hoshi had been young – he couldn’t remember the exact year, just ‘young’ – he’d broken one of his mother’s old bone-china plates. The context was long gone; whether he’d been playing or helping her clean or actually eating off the thing was lost to the river of time.

  What he did remember was the feeling of waiting to be scolded… and as he walked a step behind the talking Pokémon, the woman he’d fallen in love with at his side, he felt the exact same way.

  It would’ve been funny, if he didn’t feel so fucking sick.

  “It’s okay,” came a whisper to his ear. “If they were go- if it were a punishment, they’d do it in front of everyone.” The stutter betrayed how nervous Casca was, the same as him, and its mere existence washed away any comfort the words might have had.

  “Yeah,” he replied anyway, because there was no reason to make her worried. Amazing how emotions can turn on a dime. I woke up feeling pretty good, fell into despair, got buoyed back up, and now I’m drowning again. I have to ask it one more time: is this fucking shellshock?

  Meowth the persian – the TALKING persian, he had to emphasise – went up on his hind legs to open a sliding door. He entered without turning back, and not for the first time Hoshi considered just attacking with all his Pokémon and letting the dice fall where they would. It’s a bad gamble, but at least I’d have some kind of control.

  He ignored the suicidal impulse, pushing forward instead to enter a slightly cramped office in the same timeless style as the rest of the Gym. Casca closed the door as she came in behind him, and the two stood silently as they were regarded by Senior Rocket Executives Jessie Oakley and James Kidd. For once, there was no artistry to their posing, no theatre, no performance; James sat behind the office’s desk, his fingers steepled in front of his nose, while Jessie leaned against its side in a startlingly delinquent slouch.

  The former was cold, the latter smouldering, both tense and angry. Have I seen them angry before? I’ve been taking lessons from them since August, surely they’ve frowned once..?

  If they had, the memory was playing hard to get. “Please,” James said, the blandness of the word not fitting the green flames in his eyes. “Sit, both of you.”

  “We’ve heard you have some concerns.” Jessie enunciated the word like the final sentence of a judge – guilty.

  Or maybe I’m just freaking out. Casca said they’d just stick us somewhere if I came clean, right? I have to trust her – I’ve got nothing else. Fighting them would be no different from fighting the League; if he had to choose one, at least let it be the one he wanted to fight. Hoshi took one step, one more, his motions mechanical for how tightly he was controlling his body, and then he sat in one of the two chairs as the reflective black slits of Meowth’s eyes tracked him. At least they’re not making us stand – that’s good, right?

  As Casca took her own seat, he opened his mouth to explain. “Yeah, I do. Just me, really. I-”

  “Mu,” came the first syllable of his name from something that should have been only slightly smarter than a housecat. “Tsu. No. L-l-lies.”

  He swallowed. “Okay.” Fuck.

  A lingering second of tension passed as James took a breath. “Let’s start with all our cards on the table. You are considering – only considering – fleeing our organisation due to a belief that our ultimate goal is… untenable. And we are considering – again, only considering – giving you the appropriate punishment for such an act. Is this accurate?”

  Hoshi didn’t have enough saliva to swallow again, though he dearly wished to. “Not… completely untenable. Sir.” Don’t falter. It’s… like you and Dabi. If they think you’re a worm, it doesn’t matter if you are – they’ll treat you like one. “Just… within the bounds of the tournament season. And… my feelings have cooled off a little bit, from where I was at my most panicky.”

  “Have they?” Jessie asked, looking in his direction without turning her head.

  “Yes. I spoke with Ryan, and he reminded me that there are likely many more Rockets, more skilled than me and my team, that you can call on. You aren’t going to be asking me to fight the Champion…” The sick urge to laugh, smothered in its cradle. “…Right?”

  An entirely-too-long silence, and then he saw James relax. “No, Mister Mutsu, we wouldn’t consider that unless things were truly dire.”

  Jessie, too, seemed to become less angry – though hers was a lesser change. “We have the Professors, and a core of Executives. You will be asked to do your part, in repayment for the many benefits you have been given, but the risk will be…” She fished for a word. “Commiserate.”

  “Commensurate,” James corrected, and the woman shot him a dirty look. It was enough of a return to familiarity for Hoshi’s chest to melt slightly, the feeling of a blade over his head retreating just enough it might be possible to dodge if he saw it move.

  “That’s good to hear,” he said, his own muscles starting to untense. “I hope that… a little crisis of faith is forgivable, given the circumstances.”

  “And the fact that we haven’t actually done anything,” Casca followed up. Casca! This isn’t the time to talk casually!

  James continued to look at them behind his steepled fingers, the icy emerald flame burning in his eyes holding steady – before disappearing all at once. The executive let out a breath, and when he spoke there was relief in his voice. “Yes, you haven’t, have you?”

  “Beyond a few words to your fellow grunts, of course,” Jessie slid in. “Easily dismissable as the aftermath of a bad day. And there won’t be anything more than that, will there?”

  His girlfriend’s soft touch on his leg kept Hoshi’s reply steady. The irreverence seemed to do wonders. Maybe..? “If I can repeat something you said… we wouldn’t consider that, unless things were dire.” Too much? How hard can I push – fuck, this is a thousand times worse than getting the Ditto to give me overtime.

  Luckily, it seemed he’d gauged it right; Jessie huffed out a single laugh, and James’s eyes sparkled. “Touché,” the latter said. “You know, the two of us see a lot of ourselves in you.”

  “Oh?” Casca asked.

  “Yes,” Jessie picked up. “Like Mister Mutsu, my parents died when I was young.”

  “And like you, Miss Kichi, I fled my home to escape a… burdensome situation.”

  Silence. “Oh,” Casca said again. “I didn’t… know that.”

  James nodded. “Yes. Though the contents of our lives are of course very different, I hope you can empathise with us seeing… something of a mirror in the two of you.” His smile edged towards the expression he normally wore, the cold tensity retreating and ebbing away second by second. “So I suppose we can mark this as water under the bridge.”

  “Meow.”

  Hah. Back to the meows. Hoshi’s body relaxed further. “I suppose I’m flattered.” How do they even get information out of that? Even accounting for him being smart, Meowth is still just saying ‘meow’… Actually, can I ask about that whole thing?”

  “About our past? I suppose we could talk a little, though time is-”

  “Uh, sorry,” he interrupted. Blah. They can’t hear your thoughts, dummy – don’t relax too much now, we aren’t out of the woods. “I meant about Meowth. How he can talk?”

  “We know about Professor Mokusen’s intelligent machoke,” Casca followed. “Is he the- sorry, are you the same thing, sir?”

  A moment where the three senior Rockets, human and persian alike, looked at each other. Then Meowth stood from where he’d been sitting, and padded forwards. “Nno,” he said, the sound not quite human. “They. Ex. Pl-lain.”

  “Meowth has trouble speaking Kantonese,” James said. “So I hope you’re not too disappointed to get it from us, rather than… straight from the horse’s mouth.”

  An offended glance. “Meow.”

  “But no, he is not the product of the Professor’s efforts,” Jessie said, ignoring the byplay as Meowth and James argued about idioms. She reached up to tuck a strand of flawless hair – did they shower since last night? – behind her ear, the motion causing each of her pearl earrings to catch the light like twinkling white stars. Yet still, she continued to keep her gaze from crossing lines with either Hoshi’s or his girlfriend’s own; the redhead was still smoldering with anger, much more than her partner was. Or something else? “It is… something of a story in and of itself. As James said, we are strapped for time; we’re indulging this because of the necessity of its existence, not because we have a few minutes to kill.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Meow.”

  That one was insistent, and whatever the persian had said caused the executives to tense, some of the previous atmosphere returning. James nodded, his mouth a flat line. “We’re building up to it! Just doing it raw would be… But yes, there are only so many hours in the day; I’m afraid you’ll have to choose: our story, or Meowth’s.”

  Hoshi blinked. I wasn’t expecting either when I walked in. But we’re firmly off the topic of any punishment for my speech or theoretical desertion, so that’s good. He turned to his girlfriend. “Casca?”

  “Uh…” Her eyes went to him, then James, then Meowth, then back to him, where they stayed. She leaned in, voice dropping. “This is super selfish and dumb but… I’d rather you not know James’s backstory? If it’s as similar to mine as he’s implying, anyway…”

  A firm nod. “Alright.”

  “I know it’s dumb, we’ve been dating for months now…”

  “No, it’s fine. I want to hear it from you, when you’re ready – or not at all.” He turned back to the executives, a spot of blush heating his cheeks when he saw the amusement on their faces. Meowth, meanwhile, only rolled his eyes. “Uh, we’d like to hear Meowth’s story, if that’s fine.” I am actually pretty curious – a real talking Pokémon!

  Twin nods, and Jessie began narrating. “Listen closely, you’re only getting this once. We first met Meowth in nineteen-ninety-five, though the actual start to his story began six years earlier, with a military project by the name of Project Two…”

  The story that unfolded was… strange, was the only label Hoshi could apply. Shocking wasn’t quite right, because of course Kanto had any number of secret projects going on during the war years. Cloning a legendary Pokémon? Sure, that sounded like something people would at least try – it was arguably more practical than getting one in a ball, even. Imbuing it with human genes? Hypno had already implied as much during his rant near the month’s start. That it had blown up the lab and escaped? A lifetime of movies had primed him to accept that outcome before Jessie and James had said a single word.

  That the Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres had attacked it during an attempt to wipe out humanity with a giant storm? Okay, that was shocking, but it was almost too fantastical to hit his brain full-on. And so the emotion that Hoshi felt as the executives wound down was mostly a sort of off-kilter confusion; not at what he’d heard – or the possibility that Jessie and James might be lying, which was real but not really important right that moment – but rather that he was hearing it at all.

  “…And so we rode back to Pallet Town, stashing the canoe in a little nook prepared beforehand,” James continued the denouement, handing it off to his partner as they’d been doing for… however long the story’d been going.

  “It was a little mini-adventure all its own – those small-town housewives can be nosy – but eventually we were back in Viridian.”

  “Meowth walking with us, we sat down with the Chief Executive, then the Boss, telling them mostly the same thing you just heard… And that was that.”

  “Team Rocket soldiered on, with a few additional members. I like to think it an apt lesson.” Jessie examined her fingernails as she went on. “You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.”

  “…”

  Hoshi’s breath almost hitched as something incongruous happened: the two Rocket Executives fell out-of-sync. Jessie looked up sharply.

  “James! That was your cue!”

  The blue-haired man shifted uncomfortably. Actually, they both look uncomfortable. It was Casca who asked, sending out a hesitant “Sirs? Are you… alright?”

  Jessie stared at her partner, who cringed. “Maybe we just skip it?” James asked. “I know I was the one who suggested it, but now that it’s happening-”

  “James!” “Meow!”

  “Alright, alright..!” He turned forward, looking Hoshi in the eye – Hoshi specifically, ignoring Casca completely, which painted a line of cold down the senior grunt’s back. Ah, there’s the blade – coming from a completely unexpected direction. The change in atmosphere was putting him off his game, and Hoshi couldn’t even begin to imagine what was causing it.

  “Hoshi Mutsu,” James said, pronouncing his name with a tone even more graven than Jessie had said the word concerns earlier. Not just a judgment – it was the sound of the rope pulling taught. “Putting sentimentality aside, the primary reason we recruited you was your connection to Bob Surge. Not only to improve the chances of placing the Super Re-router successfully, but also for the slim chance we might be able to secure a Gym Leader on our side of the field.”

  It was Hoshi’s turn to wince. Stay cool. Spine straight. “I don’t think that’s possible, sir. Even without the… swift timetable we’re on, Surge just isn’t the right kind of patriot to see what we’re doing as correct.” Dad would probably be able to convince him, if he were here, but despite his reputation Uncle Bob is a by-the-books kind of hardass. He’d want everything to go through the official channels, and that’s… not possible anymore.

  Somehow, his words caused James to look even more distraught – and in a moment of epiphany, Hoshi realised that it was fear he was seeing, as much as anger. “About that…”

  Jessie took things up as her partner trailed off. She exhaled, squared her jaw, and to Hoshi’s continually rising trepidation sent him a conciliatory look. “Just as the Indigo War caused mass casualties among your father’s generation, I’m afraid our current conflict has failed to start cleanly.”

  What are they..? Beside him Casca stiffened, and her realisation sparked his own. No. You said it blew up, but- no.

  “I am afraid,” James said, blue obscuring green as the ephemeral colour spilled from his eyes in great waterfalls. “That Bob Surge was killed during an attempt by the League to secure the Electric Academy. A voltorb trap rigged up by Special Executive Petrel Lamb, who also died in the ensuing explosion, triggered to unfortunate consequences.”

  “No,” Hoshi said, refuting the torrent of words trying to force their way into his head.

  “He would have died instantly – painlessly.”

  The chair hit the floor at the same time his fist hit the desk, the two dull thuds overlapping. “No!” he cried, resolute. “That’s- that’s not possible. Surge can’t be dead.” I- I just lost the Mutsu side of my family. I have nothing- I-

  Red and blue swirled under his eyelids, tinting the world into a kaleidoscope as James put his hands up in a gesture of placation. “We understand this is hard to hear, but-”

  Another slam, running up arms that were buried under layers of growing emotion. “Bullshit! He- you- you weren’t there! You couldn’t have been there!” Or were they? said the red. Maybe that’s why they took so long to show up last night – they were busy snipping the only connection to my old life I had left.

  It doesn’t matter, said the blue. It doesn’t matter, they don’t matter – it was me. If Bob was in that building, it was because he was looking for me. He died because I left without telling him I’d be out of town, because I joined Rocket, because I’ve lived my entire life without even considering him at all, because I’m a shitty person.

  “He might be alive!” Hoshi lied. The desk cracked under his fists as he beat them against the solid wood, as if he could smash through reality and turn the past day into a dream. “He…”

  But no. The world was tragic and stupid, and he’d gotten his uncle killed by joining a fucking gang. The red and blue combined into a black abyss as his anger and sadness drained away, and Hoshi looked down at his lightly bleeding fists feeling a plastic numbness ten times stronger than realising an aunt he’d met twice in his life had written him off.

  The arm Casca snaked around his shoulder provided little comfort, and the Rocket Executives’ continuing stream of words none at all. Neither could penetrate the coffin around his body, only smash into it like the bay smashing against concrete docks. I can’t. I can’t handle this.

  Without further speech Hoshi stood and left the room, leaving a bloodstain on the door as he went. Again Casca closed it behind him – and she, too, had no words as she followed him, his footsteps becoming less steady as he went.

  “Hey Boss,” Kenny called. “You-”

  “I’m taking a nap.”

  The infirmary was in the same style as the rest of the building, paper and reed hand-inked with images of cherry trees, their double-flowering branches laden with purple. The dark-skinned enforcer said something as he entered, but Hoshi couldn’t dredge up the effort to hear it; he tumbled into a bed, and all but ceased to exist.

  Casca looked down at her man, at the curve of his spine and the strain of his shoulders. The way his bushy eyebrows seemed to cover his eyes from view like a forest canopy, and the bleak dryness of said eyes where they peeked through, open and yet unseeing.

  “Is Hoshi..?” Puce half-asked from the neighbouring bed, and the ex-aspiring Rocket Agent distantly noted that she, at least, seemed a bit better. I guess you traded places.

  “He’s just had a shock… I don’t feel like talking about it right now, okay? Let’s just all rest for a bit.”

  Puce mumbled something under her breath, which Casca ignored as she slid in beside her boyfriend’s rigid frame. The silk around his body was cold under her fingers, and she wished that there was some magic combination of words that would make them warm again.

  Her hand slid to her stomach. There isn’t. Grief doesn’t work that way.

  A familiar dream unfolded; rings or red and blue and pink, losing bits of themselves, melting and dripping down to plant life on a barren land. It was probably beautiful, but Hoshi wasn’t in the right mood to enjoy it.

  “Go away,” he spoke into the verdantly growing surroundings as his feet left the surface. “I don’t care about whatever bullshit thing these dreams mean. I want to sleep.” His voice was monotone, a match for the inside of his head. “Go away.”

  The dream failed to obey, and he rose up into the air, into the great blackness with its rings of gold. “Fuck off.” They passed over him, shining, brilliant. “Fuck off!”

  For Hoshi’s entire adult life, he’d lived in mingled annoyance and anticipation of that familiar red film filling his vision. It was like a drug; stealing away his ability to make decisions, but also shielding him from pain. A great stormcloud with the faintest of silver linings, his rage had taken him through as many drunken brawls as it had gotten him into.

  But the silver had tarnished – there was no shield protecting him now. Hoshi raged in the lightless void, crashing down as a red-and-blue meteor onto the deeper blackness at the end of the dreamscape. The rage and sadness twined against each other, feeding despair, and he collapsed into the gritty nothing.

  “I don’t want this!” he cried, tears of colour spilling from his eyes. “The psychic vision shit – go away! Leave me alone!”

  The darkness cradled him like the arms of a father as Hoshi’s cry dwindled to quiet sobs, and an equally quiet heartbeat lightly thumped out from somewhere underneath.

  Eventually, he woke up.