When Hoshi Mutsu woke from his short – hopefully short – bout of unconsciousness, he did so to an empty room.

  He also woke up feeling… fine. Not good, not even close, but he was functional. Limbs are heavy. Head full of sopping wet cotton. Veins feel like they’ve got hot tar where blood used to be… But I’m alive. I’ve lived through this before. I’ve… A moment where the pressure behind his eyes threatened to spill forth into wracking sobs, but he mastered it.

  I’ve got work to do.

  “No way, you fought Bruno?!”

  The big guy’s eyes went up in something that wasn’t quite an eye-roll. “Like I said, I sparred with Bruno. Once.”

  Still, Kenny thought, that’s fuckin’ hardcore. “So you know what Legs here can do, yeah?” He gestured to the hitmonlee he’d pulled out of the machine, who responded to the attention by tilting his body a little bit. It was a weird looking monster; if he’d had a head, Legs would be taller than most of the people in the room – but he didn’t, just a light brown body that ended smoothly where a neck would've been on most things. He didn’t have much in the way of shoulders or hips either. Like if Arcus took a dude and cut off all the bits that weren’t useful for kickin’.

  “A bit – not that that’s got anything to do with Bruno, but I do.” Cliff gestured to the fighting type’s legs, which bulged in and out in a way that reminded Kenny of an earthworm – or one of those noisemaker toys for kids, those hollow plastic things that sang when you spun them. Do those even have a name? Haven’t seen one since- fuck, stay in the moment. “Those things can stretch pretty far. Don’t think they’ve got bones or anything, it’s just pure muscle. The arms’re the same – and they can punch too.”

  “This one can’t,” Kenny replied with a shake of his head, more to centre himself than to say anything. “Dude’s got Focus Energy, Mind Reader, ‘n a couple kicking moves. Plus Rock Tomb, but I think that’s a disk move.”

  Cliff nodded. “Probably. You need discipline help with any’a them?” The enforcer gestured with his chin to where the rest of the new – or old, Kenny guessed – captures were loitering. “See you’ve got a dragon there. They can be ornery.”

  “Naw.” Seadra’s actually pretty damn chill. Actually, I’m hopin’ he gets less chill when it’s time to fight, otherwise we might have a problem. “Thanks though. The team looks pretty good.”

  Cliff nodded again, stiffly, and went off to lend his help to whoever caught his eye next – but not before looking back. “And… What about you, grunt? Bad day yesterday – can help to say stuff out loud.”

  For a moment, the enforcer’s silhouette changed in Kenny’s eye. He was replaced by someone shorter, fatter, just starting to bald – and then the imaginary flash of the sole remaining Kaneth from his parent’s generation disappeared, the imaginary sound of a motorbike going with it. “Nah,” he grunted, drawing a breath to continue before realising he didn’t want to.

  Cliff’s narrow eyes squinted further, almost disappearing completely, but then he simply nodded a third time, quick and simple, and turned away. Kenny watched him go, feeling his nostrils flare as they clogged up a bit with unshed tears – but then he smiled. Don’t think about it.

  Just… Don’t think about it. Either it’ll work out or it won’t; show’s gotta go on.

  He turned as well, stepping back to his team. “Up and at ‘em, guys. We’re movin’ out soon.” But to his dismay, though the collected Pokémon moved they did it worryingly out-of-sync; Bubbles perked up immediately, as did Legs, but his new machoke was too busy giving Savage a noogie to listen. The nidoking watched, letting out a groaning chuckle, and the seadra didn’t really do much more than flop in the human’s direction with an inquisitive sound.

  Kenny’s smile threatened to curdle, but he shook it off. “Gonna be a lotta growin’ pains, huh? Fair ‘nuff.” These four’re strong, but they ain’t never worked together before. There’d better be time for a couple’a nice, intense sparrin’ sessions before we hit the field, or that’ll be trouble. He wasn’t too worried; the instructors weren’t dumb, and pure power would smooth over the cracks. Stable’s lookin’ good. I’m actually more worried about what to call all of ‘em. Legs was easy, but I’m not sure I’ve got three more non-dumb names in me right now.

  “Machoke!” he cried, putting the issue of nicknames off to the side. “Get off’a Savage, dummy. That’s yer teammate there. Nidoking, you too! Everybody get in line!”

  The two troublemakers sent him angry looks, but fell in. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Cliff they were fine; these weren’t spring chickens or ornery toughs, but real-life trained battlers. There’ll be friction, but they do what I say well enough. Probably worked with more’n one person, if I had to guess; they’re too obedient to have been an ace trainer’s, but not enough for League-raised. Ranger filler, maybe. As for the seadra…

  “Uh,” he hesitated, watching the seahorse flop. “Probably shoulda put you in yer ball.” An inquisitive honk. “Yeah, my bad.” The water type’s Pokéball – a Pearl Ball, creamy and slightly matte like actual mother of pearl, though he was pretty sure it wasn’t – came off his belt with only a second of hesitation to make sure it was the right one.

  He’d have to work on that. Six balls ’re a lot harder to manage than two. Don’t wanna pick the wrong one in a fight. “Return.”

  Seadra disappeared, and Kenny turned towards the front of the room – more specifically, to the big double-door.

  Where he could just about make out the instructors driving a truly gigantic truck up onto the curb.

  Casca couldn’t quite stop her eyes from wandering as she guided Puce through the computer’s menu, a fact that, surprisingly, made her feel just the slightest bit guilty. Huh. Didn’t think I cared so much about the rest of them. Should be just me and my man, but… “And then this one makes it go down – no, girl, ease up. We don’t wanna break the thing.”

  The bandaged woman’s massive finger let up on the pressure, and the plastic button stopped creaking. “Sorry,” Puce said without inflection, and Casca suppressed a wince.

  “No harm no foul. Now me and Hoshi took a good look, and I think we’ve found a few you’d like. How do you feel about umbreon?”

  “Okay.”

  “Munchlax?”

  “Okay.”

  The wince broke through her admittedly flimsy attempts to restrain it. “Hey, girl. Look at me for a sec?” She turned, and what Casca saw was… not the worst possible expression, Puce was slightly more alive than she’d been sitting silently in the infirmary, but it seemed that true liveliness would be the work of more than one day. Do I have another pep talk in me? Ugh, I should’ve taken the opportunity to catch a nap with Hoshi… But tired or not, worn-out or not, Casca Kichi was good at her job – she had to be. “I know it seems- no, it is really bad now. You lost someone you trusted, and it feels like the whole world is… pointless.”

  Fuck, too close. Reel it back. The instinct to make an off-colour joke or disarming comment bubbled up – and with a firm hand, she shoved it back down. Naw. I might not have a smoke on me, but I think this a serious conversation.

  “And in the grand scheme of things, I guess it kind of is?” she continued, voice shaky. “But that doesn’t mean you should just stop, right? Things get better. You’ve still got all the rest of us, right?”

  Puce’s eyelids slowly lowered, moisture building and then disappearing from the corners over the course of a long second. “I don’t want to think about it right now. Can we just… do this?” Her voice, too, was shaky. “Umbreon and that other one sounds fine.”

  Casca opened her mouth – but hesitated. Baby steps. “Yeah, sure.”

  And so she guided her fellow grunt through the painstaking process, the latter woman still mostly catatonic – though Puce did at least perk up when they hit the bottom of the list and she saw her second new team member. “Huh,” she said. “That’s cute. It looks like a baby, though?”

  “Hoshi said it evolves into snorlax. That’s like, the best defensive Pokémon there is, right?”

  A moment of contemplation, and then Puce slowly, inexorably pressed the button that meant yes. Then again, and the machine began to hum. “Yeah, I guess. I’m not… I don’t know what to do. None of us can ever go back to how it was, can we?”

  Casca chewed on her answer, but as always it was the truth that was least dangerous. “No.” Unlike me, your family is actually good to you… Sorry. “Though maybe one day we could, if we win as big as the instructors seem to think we will.” Or maybe they don’t care about after at all. Nothing to do but hold on and keep bailing out the water.

  Silence – and then the baby Pokémon’s ball appeared suddenly, interrupting the glacial conversation. It hit the soft padded floor, failed to catch much air despite being designed to bounce off basically anything, and rolled to a stop. Puce reached over and gingerly picked it up, the walnut-sized tool looking like it should have shattered at the barest touch – but of course it didn’t.

  Puce slowly placed the Poké Ball on her belt, then went back to staring at the screen. “Okay,” she said, the word ever-so-slightly less dead than her previous attempts. “What else?”

  “Now,” Casca grunted as she stood. “We get you over there with the rest. Those two might need, uh, orientation, and Nerine’s definitely will, so-”

  “Wait,” Puce interrupted, pointing at the screen. “I have two more. Right?”

  Casca blinked, then looked to a feature she’d been ignoring in favour of the massive woman’s mood: the indicator for the number of withdrawn Pokémon. Which read 4/6. “Huh.” I guess it really does work off our licenses instead of proximity or whatever. Nerine’s team still counts as hers. “I guess that’s two more slots to fill. Uh…” She hadn’t planned for this. “Okay, let’s go back up to the top; I don’t know any of these foreign Pokémon.”

  The fearow screeched, its wings spread wide in an obvious threat display, and Cliff felt his headache grow just slightly less tolerable.

  Not from the sound, of course – spearow may be evolved, but its vocal abilities topped out at Growl – but because of the way the three grunts behind him cringed. “Don’t show fear,” he said, standing straight and looking the four-foot-tall bird in the eye. “Crumb’s here, you aren’t in any danger.”

  Tor, Mojo, and Lilian shouldn’t even have been behind him; they’d started at his side, lined up behind their Pokémon, but had gradually edged further away as time dragged on. In fact, the young woman should probably be in front; this was her Pokémon they were pacifying. “Okay,” the scruffy-looking one – Mojo Concolor – said with an aggravatingly sarcastic tone. “I guess I’ll just flick the switch in my brain that turns the monkey bits off. Boom, fear gone, easy.”

  The spearow shifted, its bright orange plumage puffing out further as the human voices inspired it to cry again. Cliff choked back a sigh. At least their Pokémon are taking it seriously.

  The spearow, meowth, and mankey were doing their jobs properly, making up a part of the circle separating the spearow from the humans. They showed no fear – though they were admittedly in a better position, standing with a tyranitar, venusaur, pinsir, and a few other Pokémon rather than the barely-able-to-walk enforcer their trainers were stuck with.

  Come on now, he admonished himself. None of that. The comment was directed in multiple directions – not only at his self-pity, but also at the annoyance Cliff had for the rookies. They’ve been more competent than we should expect, if anything… And I’m doing as good as can be expected after fighting a pair of Clan Heads.

  “Hah,” he chuckled, again to himself. Can’t believe that after last night my worst injury is still this damn leg. Even with all the painkillers it throbbed, the torn muscles telling him to sit down – but he couldn’t do that.

  There was still work to do.

  “Sukashi,” he ordered, bidding the woman forward. “Get in there.” And with only a moment’s hesitation, she obeyed; Lilian stepped forward, drawing close to Cliff’s side and then away again as she walked right up to the line of Pokémon.

  The granbull that had been the previous occupant of the circle growled softly – at the fearow, not its new trainer. It was amazing how quickly a monster’s loyalty could be secured; a few minutes ago it had looked ready to rip their collective faces off, but now it was stalwartly defending them.

  Hopefully the rest of the pilfered Pokémon would be the same.

  “Hello,” Lilian greeted, receiving a piercing squawk in return. The fearow flapped its wings, showing off a wingspan much more impressive than its stump-legged height. “I’m Lilian. I’m your trainer.” Her voice was a little wooden, but even so Cliff felt some of the tension in his temples melt away; there it was. He didn’t always agree with Oakley and Kidd, but they were mostly reliable.

  This time was no different; the last three Rockets they’d recruited had some steel in their spines.

  The bird’s head bobbed, its razor-sharp, forearm-long beak making menacing jabs. “Did you hear me?” the grunt continued. “I said I’m your trainer. You’ve been caught for a long time, you know what that means.” Another squawk, a nearly-human thread of affront buried inside. “So I know this is just a tantrum. I’m going to give you an ultimatum…”

  She leaned forward, close enough that the granbull could have headbutted her chest with little effort. “Shape up, or ship off. I can put you back in your ball, put the ball back in the machine, and get something else. Or I can keep you out, and you’ll get to fly and fight for me.” The bird’s fierce eyes narrowed, and Cliff felt that if it had the proper anatomy, it would be gritting its teeth in a grimace. “I don’t need you, there are plenty of other Pokémon I could choose. But I did choose you, because you look strong. So… what’s your answer? Are you the battler you look like?”

  Sometimes, Pokémon could act startlingly human – and at other times, they were impossible to distinguish from wild beasts. These were facts that Cliff had known intimately for very nearly his entire life, and yet every now and then the abrupt transition still startled him; the fearow went from threatened to calm in an instant, the dangerous, animalistic panic in its eyes turning to intelligent, arguably wise regard as it folded its wings.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The evolved bird squawked once more then fell silent, a previously invisible tension in the surrounding monsters dissolving as well.

  Lilian nodded once, then snapped out a Pokéball with a quickly-barked “Return.” Her two companions let out relieved noises as the fearow transformed into light, Tor Yuriyama – the fitter, more handsome, and less stable of the pair – visibly straightening.

  Kid’s going to have to work on that, Cliff thought as Lilian released her next Pokémon, a stout purple nidorino. A little fear isn’t always a bad thing, but when it turns irrational you’ve got to put a leash on it.

  The nidorino went smoothly, not even attempting to disobey, as did the mime Lilian had chosen as her final team member. After the shaggy-haired redhead retreated with a satisfied smile, Mojo stepped forward to deal with his own problem – a tentacruel that just plain ignored his orders.

  That was also solved relatively quickly, though also a lot less definitively than Lilian’s team; the threat of Scarlet’s Vine Whip got the oversized jellyfish to acknowledge its trainer, but Cliff was pretty sure it would continue to be a problem.

  Then came Tor’s turn. Like Mojo, he’d already vetted most of his team by simply releasing them – a strategy that was a lot more dangerous than forming a posse, though admittedly more convenient for their current situation. They only had until-

  As if responding to his thoughts, the Gym’s doors opened. Jessie, James, and their persian burst into the building wearing uniforms quite different from their usual; they were dressed up as delivery men.

  Jessie clapped her hands. “Alright, people! We’ve procured some transportation!”

  “So everybody line up to get on the bus,” James continued. “Just like elementary school; it’s like we never left the academy!”

  “Meow.”

  Cliff blinked, belatedly realising that Meowth was, for the first time he’d ever seen, naked. It was surprisingly strange; the enforcer had, at some point, stopped seeing the persian as a Pokémon.

  But he shook off his unease as the executives approached, his eyes playing over the room. “Might take a minute, sirs,” he called. Gracile and Kichi are still using the transfer machine, and Mutsu’s asleep. Usually that latter fact would’ve prompted him to give the grunt an earful, but not today – they were all at the end of their ropes, and that man was closer to the edge than ever the massive Puce, and she’d been pumped full of more poison than the rest of them combined.

  “That’s convenient,” Jessie said, “Since we’ve got about a minute to spare!”

  “Indeed, we’re woefully behind schedule! Any longer and I’ll start getting grey hairs!”

  The two swept past, beginning to berate the rest of the grunts, and Cliff… paused to think. Do I push back? The soldier in him said to respect the chain of command, that his superiors knew what they were doing a lot better than an oversized grunt like him – but he was, Arcus help them all, also the second highest-ranking officer present.

  And he was pretty sure if the executives didn’t slow down, they would start to make… poor decisions.

  They’d gotten the least sleep out of all of them, and were also walking wounded at least as bad as he was.

  After turning the problem over in his head, Cliff came to a decision. “You three get your teams in order,” he said to the rookies, then turned to his father’s poliwrath. “Ravioli, you stay here a minute. Crumb, Scarlet, Pinch, return.”

  As half his team returned to their balls, Mojo once again sent out a sarcastic remark. “‘Get your teams in order,’ he says…” The man’s beard – somehow nearly full-length despite being clean-shaven a mere two days prior – swayed beneath thin, chewed-raw lips. “Like we know how to do that. That jelly could’ve picked us all up and juggled us, how’re we supposed to-”

  He cut himself off as his friend put a hand on Mojo’s shoulder, and Cliff heard the dregs of their muttered conversation as he made for the infirmary. “Don’t rock the boat, man. It’s just my machoke left; I’m sure a fully-evolved fighting type will be enough.”

  “Tor, buddy, you nearly shit yourself when Lil sent out a big pidgeon. We are…”

  The rest of it was lost as he passed through a threshold, sliding the door closed behind him. Cliff saw the room was empty, Hoshi’s bed vacant – and finally let the stress, both physical and mental, slip off his shoulders. He sagged, feeling every miniscule cut that foreign grass type had opened across his body as his injured leg pulsed like a feverish heart, and breathed heavily. Damn long day – and it isn’t even noon yet.

  Then he straightened up, and made for the one place the missing senior grunt could be: the attached bathroom.

  “Shaving?”

  Hoshi didn’t cut himself as the sudden voice bid his hand to jump, but it was a close thing – if his arms had been slightly less heavy, he probably would’ve.

  But he didn’t, so that, at least, was one upside to feeling like a possessed corpse. He turned just enough to see Clifford Moon’s reflection, and looked it in the vague outline of a face. “Yeah. There’re more razors in that drawer there. I figure if we’re helping ourselves to their clothes…”

  The enforcer huffed out a half-laugh as Hoshi continued shaving, removing the small amount of stubble that had built up over their short-lived camping trip. Cliff walked over and opened the drawer, but shook his head with another sound of amusement. “Straight razors. Who even makes these anymore?”

  “Fuchsia,” Hoshi’s reflection answered easily as he stared at it, watching the oh-so-sharp steel drag across his wet skin like silk. “They’re also popular in Pallet Town, but they get them shipped in instead of making them themselves – same as farming equipment and building supplies.”

  Cliff’s image gave him a strange look, but then shrugged it off and exchanged the expression for a sour one as he looked at his fleshy self. “Could use a trim, but I prefer scissors.” He closed the drawer, and instead turned the nearest tap to begin washing his face.

  “You feeling better, then?” the figure obscured of lights and dancing colours asked between splashes.

  Hoshi continued to lock eyes with himself. Am I? “I’ll live.” That seemed to be enough for the muscular Rocket; the two men finished cleaning themselves in silence, finishing up at the same time. Uncle Bob… “Actually, I’ve got a question for you,” he continued as he wiped the last errant bit of severed hair away.

  “Shoot,” Cliff said, and Hoshi prepared himself for something difficult.

  “You were a military man. Same as my dad. My uncle.”

  “Yeah.” If he was annoyed by Hoshi building up to it, Cliff’s reflection didn’t show it, only frowning at himself again. “Best years of my life. And the worst, too.”

  Hoshi surprised himself by laughing, a tiny spurt of amusement making it through the lake of crude oil sitting in his chest. “Hah. I’ve heard that before. You ever been to the Vermilion Military Museum?”

  Cliff’s reflection turned from him to Hoshi. “Course I have.” His sour expression went right back to strange. “But… just once. I don’t need any props to remember those years.”

  “I can respect that. But there are some veterans who go all the time, and I've been listening to them since I was a little kid. I think I’ve heard every opinion on the war’s end there is.”

  Cliff turned away from the mirror, looking at the real Hoshi as he leaned against the sink. “I’d believe that. I’m guessing your actual question wasn’t about the museum?”

  Cold water enveloped Hoshi’s face as he splashed himself down – and in his imagination, it tasted of brine. He braced himself again, dripping, the black lurking inside the purple of his eyes twisting like tentacool in the depths of Vermilion Bay. “Are we fighting Kanto?” he asked, and then waited for the answer. The black tentacles danced, ephemeral and yet so, so real within the mirror’s reversed reality.

  The Rocket Enforcer took his time answering, but eventually he’d chewed his thoughts enough to spit them out. “No,” he concluded. “And not just because we’d lose. The military isn’t our target, or the population, or manufacturing power – Rocket isn’t a military, we aren’t trying to conquer the country.” He rubbed his face with a towel – pointlessly, since he’d drip-dried over the minute of silence. “We’re attacking a specific, small group of people: the League higher-ups. The people who collaborated with Johto, who sold Rocket and Giovanni down the river because they were too tired to keep fighting.”

  He glanced at the senior grunt’s reflection again, voice lowering. “You too tired to keep fighting, soldier?”

  Hoshi’s teeth clenched. “Cliff, I wanna fucking kill someone.” His reflection glowed black and red and blue, tendrils like grasping hands of smoke rising off the illusory Hoshi Mutsu’s shoulders. “I can’t even look you in the eyes, because I’m afraid I’ll go off the deep end and your tyranitar will squish me flat after I try and cut your throat out. I’m so fucking ready to fight.” The edges of his hands bled pitch where he’d smashed them on the Gym Leader’s desk, the scabbed-over wounds twisting and gaping like the mouths of a half-dozen malevolent ghosts as he clenched them around the razor in one hand, and nothing in the other. “But I can’t. I can’t let loose – not until I know whose fault this is.”

  Cliff opened his mouth, but Hoshi rode over him. “My dad got paranoid, near the end. I remember one time, he took the walls apart looking for hidden microphones – he was lucid when he did it, his hands were steady as he took the screws out, as he carefully checked the insulation and then put everything back together. He didn’t seem crazy, not unless you were looking at it with context.” In the corner of his eyes Cliff’s reflection stared, uneasy greens and a few black tendrils of his own obscuring its expression. “So I need to know. I’m asking you, as a soldier’s son to a soldier…”

  He finally asked his real question. “Did Jesse and James kill my uncle?” The on purpose wasn’t necessary to say aloud; Hoshi could see that Cliff knew exactly what he was asking as another silence stretched on.

  The ex-military man’s eyes closed as he took a long, deep breath, and eventually answered. “I’m going to be candid with you, Mutsu. I don’t know.”

  Hoshi’s reflection was completely, utterly still as Cliff continued, not even the hallucinatory colours daring to move. “Do I think they could’ve killed a Gym Leader, that they would if one got in their way? Sure. Do I think they care about the country the way you and I do, that they respect the office or the people who hold it? No, they’re career criminals down to the bone.” Another drawn-out breath, the man’s uniform – Hoshi wasn’t sure if it was real or a projection, but his reflection had been clad in the black and white of the Rocket Enforcer since he’d walked in – flexing around his chest. “But they also don’t think about killing people. They weren’t trained for it, the way men like me and Surge were – or your family, for that matter. The Dexus take me if I lie, I don’t think they thought for a second about how many corpses rigging the academy to blow would make – whether you want to take that as murder, that’s your prerogative, but you’ll have to make that decision on your own. That’s the only answer I’ve got.”

  Another long moment of silence – and then, with a savage motion, Hoshi hurled the straight razor away, feeling more than seeing it embed itself in the wall. “I’m so fucking angry, Cliff. There’s nowhere for it to go. Was this my fault? The instructors’? Any-fucking-body’s? I wanna blame Johto, but that’s stupid, that’s chasing ghosts, that’s thinking there’s people listening to me through the walls of my apartment. Right? There’s nothing, nowhere for it to go.” Despite the violent motion his voice had remained steady, but as he continued it started to break. “Everyone’s dead, Cliff. I’ve got- I’ve got nothing that isn’t tied to Rocket. Is that on purpose? Or am I just seeing things?”

  Silence, yet again, a stretch of nothing at all as Hoshi failed to wrestle himself into submission. This was dumb, he knew it was dumb, because why the fuck would Clifford Moon, a man he’d known for a couple days and who worshipped Rocket like a golden idol tell him a single fucking thing? He wanted to hit something, he didn’t care how hard it would hit back, but a mocking string of sentences circled the whirlpool in his head.

  There’s nothing, no target, nothing to do. You’re a bitter pill, and the world’s spat you out – even if you win, there won’t be anything left.

  A large hand fell on his shoulder, and he very nearly bit on pure instinct. Cliff squeezed, but once again he was trapped under a film, icy black between his drowning spasms and the open air.

  “Mutsu,” Cliff said, his deep but soft voice cutting the way the razor might’ve if Hoshi had slipped just slightly. “Like I said, I don’t have an answer for you. We aren’t soldiers, not really, and I’m not going to tell you to tough it out.” He didn’t turn to look at the man, or his reflection; Hoshi only looked down, and let the words rend him to pieces. “But if I can give you some advice?” The hand squeezed, far-away and warm. “You won’t make anything worse by putting a decision off. Come with us back to Vermilion, get some food in you, some proper rest, and…”

  The hand retreated as Cliff walked past. He turned, and Hoshi saw his face unobscured by glassy irreality. “And if you decide to leave then, I’ll support you. A soldier doesn’t get to decide where he’s deployed… but Rocket isn’t a military, as much as I’d like us to be one once the Boss comes back. You’ve sacrificed a lot for the black and red; as far as I’m concerned, any debt for the balls on your belt has been paid with interest.”

  He left, and Hoshi felt the pointless, directionless anger go back to sleep – not go away, but only curl up to hide inside the liquid black despair once again. Paid with interest..? Hah.

  His hand drifted down to the six Pokéballs, to the belt, and considered the urge to tear them away, to discard the off-white leather that clashed so heavily with the Gym kimono and just… stop. Just stop, and let the darkness cover him the way it wanted to, a horrible shield to numb the pain until it killed him.

  Then he discarded the urge, because that, too, was chasing a ghost. The pain won’t actually go away. I’m not actually numb, no matter what my stupid emotions try to say. His hand stung, despite the scentless black smoke drifting up to the ceiling to disappear into nowhere.

  Instead of tearing off the belt Hoshi tightened it, adjusted his stolen clothes, and followed the enforcer out of the bathroom – then out of the medical area entirely, back out to a room with too many people making too much noise.

  “Finally!” Jessie snapped as she noticed his return. “Grunt, we understand, we really do…”

  “…But we’re on a – hnn! – timetable here!” James called from the other side of the room, straining as he tightened a length of rope around a giant pallet of… something that was covered in plastic wrap. “You can sleep in the truck!”

  The truck? Hoshi blinked, and noticed that the large main room was actually looking a lot less crowded than he’d been expecting. “Where is everyone?”

  “In the truck!” James answered as if it were obvious – and turning his head, Hoshi supposed that the giant freight hauler parked on the Gym’s previously-immaculate garden of a lawn was, indeed, very obvious.

  “Oh. We’re leaving already?”

  “We should’ve been out of town an hour ago,” Jessie took over as she tied up a large black sack – a different one from what Meowth had dragged in; there weren’t any bloodstains. “And yes, that’s our fault as much as anyone’s, but we still need to double-time it.”

  “A few errands, then we'll be off to Route 18,” James concluded.

  With effort, Hoshi shook off the underwater slowness of his thoughts. “Okay, I’m ready to go.” He walked towards the struggling redhead, and to her surprise hefted the heavy sack up. “In the back of that giant trailer parked in front?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She wiped her forehead, the moment of surprise transforming into relief. “Just stay in the back; we’ll handle the last bit before leaving the city.”

  He grunted in assent and made for the door, the executive following after – only for a chill to run down his spine. Hoshi nearly dropped the sack as he whirled, to see fading red light coming off a Pokémon he was unfamiliar with.

  But despite not knowing the name, he could tell the floating four-armed sarcophagus was a ghost type. “Grunt?” Jessie said from far away. “Mister Mutsu?”

  His shoes stuffed with twice the amount of lead as they’d had a second ago, Hoshi turned away from James as the man directed the ghost to pick up the pallet. “Sorry,” he said, his own voice also distant. It’s trained. It won’t possess you. Fucking move. “What were those errands you need to do, if you don’t mind me asking?” The question was entirely a distraction, but when he heard the answer Hoshi was glad he’d asked.

  “Oh, nothing major,” Jessie dismissed. “Just have to grab some clothes – you grunts can’t be walking around Vermillion like that, you’d draw attention.” Her voice lowered as she went. “And some extra food, to go with the trail rations that were salvageable. And maybe some toiletries if we have time; the Gym didn’t have a shower and things are getting a touch ripe…”

  Hoshi blinked as they exited the building, natural light hitting his sore eyes for the first time in what felt like days. “The church,” he blurted, and Jessie turned with an inquisitive eyebrow.

  “Pardon?”

  “The church,” he repeated as the seaside autumn bit at his exposed skin. “Two blocks south, four east. I looked up landmarks after you ordered us out here – since we’d be near the city anyway.” My dad’s hometown. A place I was looking forward to visiting. His stomach would’ve curdled at the thought, if there were anything inside but dark brine.

  The executive’s confusion deepened. “What about this church?”

  “Clothes. Food.” More than one word. “Donations.” For fuck’s sake. As they rounded the bulk of the vehicle his tongue untied. “It’s a traditional Three Heavenly Generals place. It would be feeding supplies to the city’s military. It’s ninja.”

  Understanding bloomed. “Oh, that’s devious. Go in dressed as Gym trainers – and we even have a genuine Mutsu! That’s much less of a hassle than dodging the Jennys on the way out; keep up ideas like that, and you might make Executive yet, Senior Grunt!”

  Hoshi watched the woman overtake him to hop up into the raised box-trailer of the truck. Did you murder my uncle? he silently asked. Did you kill the man I spent years needing to strain against turning into a second father? Or should I blame myself? Or Nerine, for ratting us out? Another incongruous spark of amusement drifted up, lights coming from the depths of the ocean, and he chuckled.

  “Hah. Yeah, we’ll all be on top of the fucking world, won’t we?”