Owen Haw had always considered himself to be a boring, normal sort of person. He came from a boring, normal family in boring, normal Pewter; his facial features weren’t particularly interesting; and his personality could be charitable described as ‘bookish.’

  Even when he’d been drafted, he’d been a normal, boring soldier – it was the situation around him that was terrifying, rather than any feature of himself. And after the war’s end, he’d settled into a suitably normal, boring job: working as the mayor’s secretary.

  And his life had continued in that fashion. A few years later he left his position to pursue a higher-paying one in the League, doing essentially the same thing, and then a few years after that he took advantage of a few training courses to become junior assistant to the Vermilion Police Chief, for much the same reason.

  He earned a Pokémon Trainer’s License more by rote memorisation of information than any particular skill as a tactician, caught the first thing he saw on the city’s outskirts – an oddish – and was soon back with the League, this time as an inspector. He could admit he was a hard worker, but that was nothing exceptional… and yet, despite considering himself to be a rather tepid battler, his rank continued to rise.

  And with it, there came something he’d never quite managed to grasp before: a feeling of pride in his accomplishments. By the time he was in his late thirties – very soon, in the grand scheme of things – he was Chief Municipal Business Inspector for the entire Vermilion area.

  It was a position with more responsibilities than the name alone brought to mind; not only was it his job to ensure that no business in the city misused or mistreated their Pokémon, employees, or finances, but it was also his job to coordinate with the police and Gym Leader to bring those who failed to uphold those ideals to justice. And while he continued to not consider himself much of a trainer, experience was experience; his skills developed, and the pride he felt increased along with it.

  And then the recent disaster had occurred, and…

  I’ve become complacent, was the conclusion he’d reached, standing in front of the mostly-intact Electric Academy. Too arrogant. I assumed I understood what was going on, the enemy we were dealing with, and it cost Lieutenant Surge his life. The thought was sardonic; it didn’t escape him that placing the Gym Leader’s death on his own shoulders was, itself, a form of arrogance.

  And yet, he could not eliminate the flaw; it had built up over decades, and now sat at the core of his personality. It could not be removed, any more than a building could lose its foundation and expect to remain standing. And so here he was.

  Confronting another culprit of Surge’s death – one that, like him, had escaped justice. It hadn’t been difficult to convince the chief to move her officers to other areas, nor had it been difficult to spot Hoshi Mutsu as he entered the building – he’d appeared more brazenly than Owen could have ever expected, all but announcing his presence to the entire world. A banner bearing his name would have been less overt than arriving via Orrean hoverbike.

  Nor had it been difficult to subdue his criminal partners one by one; a single Sleep Powder each had done the trick. It was almost anticlimactic.

  And so, the present moment: Owen Haw stood in the hallway of Apartment Block W-12, across from a young man. Hoshi Mutsu looked much like the photographs Owen had dug up; his hair was a darker shade of the stereotypical Fuchsia purple, frizzy and cut close to his scalp. His eyes were the same colour, small and with a beady quality that made his already-prominent cheekbones seem to jut out, mis-matching his wide mouth in a way that cast his face as more bottom-heavy than it was.

  He wasn’t necessarily ugly, but there was a certain quality that made him hard to look at – it was like Owen could sense the violence in his heart, projected through each dark iris like they were literal windows to the soul. It was almost certainly just bias on his part; the man’s police file was long, filled with assaults and a few thefts, some of which were also assaults. No one incident had been particularly serious, but all together it painted a vivid picture of the man’s personality; you didn’t get in that many fights by happenstance.

  No, it was written on his face, tattooed by scar tissue across the back of his hands: this was a person easily moved to violence. I wonder, where did that come from. Was it Surge? Was it your parents? Or is it only you, and you alone, who bears responsibility for your nature..?

  “Hoshi Mutsu,” Owen said as the two eyed each other, the inspector’s tongue heavy with shame as the named party’s eyes flickered quickly around the scene. “You’ve caused us a lot of trouble.” An understatement. Why you, of all people? You had someone who obviously loved you, and was willing to care for you – why join Rocket? Why join the most heinous group of lowlifes on the continent? “But I’m afraid-”

  The criminal’s eyes narrowed as he sneered, his nostrils flaring and the muscles of his forehead clenching to draw each fluffy eyebrow into a near-spherical mass. “Candy,” he said calmly, and Owen was briefly surprised by the deepness of his voice. “Rapid Spin.”

  “Sleep-!” came the instinctive order, but there was no target; the man hadn’t released a Pokémon, and it would only take a tiny motion to slam the door shut between him and Vileplume. Poor spacing; yet another tactical error on my part. Owen bit his tongue, choosing to hedge his bets by leaving the grass type in place and simply releasing another Pokémon. Need to be fast, intimidating. Beedrill’s Poké Ball found his palm – but as he threw, straight and low to hopefully go through his opponent’s splayed legs, a cry from the side demanded his attention.

  “Vileplume!” he exclaimed as the flower monster rocked forward, the staryu they’d thought subdued cutting into her soft-skinned body with whirling, rigid limbs. “Playing dead?!” No matter – don’t panic, the situation is under control. “Stun Spore! Beedrill, Sunny Day!”

  His third and final Pokémon joined the fray a moment later, the rabbit-like wigglytuff plopping down as Hoshi dived to the side to avoid Beedrill’s questing stingers, the building’s air becoming uncomfortably warm as an unnatural light overpowered the fluorescent bulbs illuminating the hallway.

  “Moonlight!”

  “Champion, Sandstorm! Everyone else, get in there!”

  There were really two ways to look at the situation. From one angle, it made perfect sense that Hoshi had left his three newer Pokémon in stasis; they were untested, unreliable, and as likely to release themselves at the exact wrong moment as when he actually needed them – or fail to release themselves at all. Even hindsight had proven it to be a smart decision, since he could easily imagine Champion having sensed the three sodden cultists through however-it-was a captured ‘mon saw the world, and popping out to take a bite.

  From the other, though, he was an Arc-damned idiot, one who’d walked into a suspected ambush with half his weapons fucking unloaded.

  Both sides made a compelling argument, but as a giant murderous hornet congealed from red light horrifyingly close to his open back, it was a lot more urgent that only three of his six Pokémon immediately appeared to defend him.

  “Champion!” Hoshi cried, his panicked fingers finding the ball miraculously on the very first try. If he ordered Sunny Day that means he's aiming for Solar Beam, so- “Sandstorm! Everyone else, get in there!”

  His apartment being the stage for a ‘social club’s’ recruitment attempt via Dirk of all people had been damn surreal, but the familiar space being turned into a battlefield was instantly worse, something out of a nightmare. Guts ran forward as Venus strafed, Crow taking to the air, and the beat of the latter’s wings obscuring the one ceiling light turned everything ominous – and the fucking heat. It was heavy, visceral, coming down only barely gentle enough to not burn, and Hoshi’s eyes were already watering less than a second in.

  Come on come on come on appear come on-!

  The beedrill punched rapid-fire with its stinger-drill hands, tiny javelins shooting out to spear into his girls. Venus rolled, dodging, while Guts attempted to leap clear over the attack – and she was successful, for a moment, right up until the opponent adjusted its aim.

  Then Guts took the Pin Missiles right in the belly, Supersonic began, and Champion the gible finally, fucking finally, why does releasing take so fucking long, appeared in a burst of red.

  He roared, arms spread, and sand erupted from nowhere as the artificial sunlight was countered.

  And then the League employee – Inspector, probably, since he’s a real-ass trainer – burst in through the door with a giant pink blob of fur, and Hoshi’s teeth ground against each other as he snarled. “Forget the bee! The trainer, attack the trainer!” Champion’s returning Pokéball smashed into his chest, but he was too busy grabbing the last two off his belt to pay attention. “Rivet, Thunder! Moony, Slash!” No vileplume – that’s good, it must still be fighting Candy. Which was a bad matchup type-wise, but the starfish’s special ability would at least let her counter the various status moves her opponent’s line were known for. After a while, at least – fuck, I lucked out super hard that she was actually smart enough to play dead.

  Dramatic fucker must’ve been waiting for me to come out on my own, so he could do a fucking speech like an idiot- fuck!

  Distracted by the strobing lights and chaotic melee and the fact that he definitely would never be coming back to this apartment, it was getting thrashed, and oh yeah he was still concussed, that’s a fucking thing, and Casca could be getting hit by a stray Toxic right now-

  Distracted by all of that, Hoshi had missed the beedrill ascending to the roof, and as Guts sent out a Swift that was bodily blocked by the wigglytuff Crow crashed down, a giant hole punched through her throat. Fuck fuck fuck – it’s not lethal, it can’t be lethal, her throat’s 90% of her body it can’t be as vital an area as it would be on anything else-!

  He grabbed a potion, dodged the descending beedrill’s swipe by diving, sprayed – and Crow got back up before the concentrated mist even reached her. Relief flooded Hoshi’s veins, followed by a return to panic as Venus and the giant Arc-damned bug started exchanging blows while the former was basically standing on top of him. Where the fuck are-?

  On cue, the space became even more crowded as Rivet and Moony appeared. The apartment was big for its rent, but that wasn’t objectively big, and as the wigglytuff screamed and Supersonic started up again and sand whipped past in an abrasive churn, Hoshi felt like he knew what it was like being inside a microwave at the moment you pressed start. The League fuck was barking orders but he couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t even really move lest he trip the primeape standing between him and a trio of poisonous stingers.

  I don’t want to be here, one part of him said while another screamed out bloody murder. I can’t do this. Fighting the actual League is going to be this but bigger – I can’t do this.

  But then Venus fell, her weight settling on his back, and the bloodlust overpowered cowardice. Hoshi added his own scream to the mix, uncaring for the sand stuffing itself down his throat, and heaved himself up. His backpack, laden with supplies, came around, and the beedrill dodged back. “Fuck you! Fucking bug type – kids catch you! Fuck you!”

  Another swing – and another miss. This wasn’t some wild bee, near-suicidally driven to protect its hive; this was a fully-trained, battle-hardened Pokémon. It retreated, then dove in, and actually fucking juked Hoshi’s next swing.

  It slid through the hit with liquid grace, somehow steady despite the whirling Sandstorm, and drew the tip of an arm-stinger across the back of his hand.

  Hoshi liked to think he had a high tolerance for pain – no, scratch that; he’d demonstrated, on numerous occasions, that he had an uncommonly high tolerance for pain. He was tough, he was mean, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t damn proud of being able to take the hits and win anyway.

  When the beedrill scratched him – didn’t even stab, didn’t cut, just scratched like a one-clawed cat – he immediately dropped his backpack. Hoshi had never been stung by a bee before, nor a hornet, wasp, or any Pokémon, but he couldn’t imagine it was anything even close to what the beedrill’s venom felt like – because it was agonising.

  He continued to scream, this time in pure pain, as the hot, acidic sensation travelled up his arm like fire. No, even that comparison was bad; Hoshi was sure that if he dipped his limb in gasoline and held it in a real fucking fire, the level of pain would go down. Any thought of continuing to fight back fled as his body did the same, stumbling away from the bee, tripping over Venus’s unconscious, sting-ridden body to land heavily on its ass.

  The movement wasn’t conscious; Hoshi no longer had any attention to pay to anything other than his arm. It felt massive, eclipsing the rest of his body a dozen times over, pulsing with agony. Only the tiniest, most distant star of his mind observed a human silhouette appearing from the flying grit, its arm held tightly over its face, to stand next to the beedrill.

  The horrible red wave filled his entire head, leaving only the blindest, stupidest animal instinct in control. It flailed wildly, kicking out at the man’s shin, but he took the hit without apparent pain. The League inspector simply stepped to the side and knelt, pulling a pair of cuffs from his heavy brown jacket. A wigglytuff, the distant star noted. A damn wigglytuff is holding back my whole team. Only for a handful of seconds, yes, but still.

  One cuff went around Hoshi’s injured arm and he howled, scratching bloody trenches across the man’s arm – which were also ignored. His face, what little of it could be seen, was a solid mass of determination. Our Pokémon. They haven’t noticed us being taken down yet. It’s the Sandstorm.

  The rest of him screamed and clawed, a ravenous injured beast.

  Order them. Say something coherent. They’ll listen. Use your psychic powers.

  But the star was too far away; its message couldn’t overpower the burning sun of pain pressed directly against his surface, and though Hoshi fought with all his strength, the inspector was gradually winning. His hands came closer together, the other cuff mere inches from snapping down and putting an end to his ability to resist.

  “I’m sorry,” his enemy said, steady despite the sand starting to draw blood from the more tender bits of his face. “We should have done it better. If I’d listened to Surge back when the Gym suffered its sabotage-”

  “You keep my uncle’s name out of your FUCKING mouth!”

  “-Then it might have been different. We might have caught you before all this happened.” His face dripped with real regret, slimy and putrid, and the sheer rage it drew forth actually cut into the pain. “I’m sorry. That’s why I had to do it alone – the Jennys would have shot you by now.”

  BANG.

  The first thing Casca became aware of was a wrinkly face, bald and lightly tanned, hovering over her.

  “Wha..?”

  “Ssh..!” the face shushed, and she belatedly recognised it as one of the three Inner Ministry guys – the one Hoshi had called Dirk. “Your Pokémon,” he mouthed near-silently. “Release them. While he’s distracted!”

  She blinked, half-asleep, the acrid smell of the Awakening still singeing her nose-hairs- wait. Awakening – I got drugged!

  The swiftness with which she sat up nearly smashed her head into Dirk’s, the old raggedy man’s finger pressing itself to his lips in an attempt to shush her again. “Don’t-!”

  I don’t have my Pokéballs, she frantically assessed. Where..? They were still in the hallway, and the last thing she remembered was…

  Was nothing. Just standing awkwardly, wondering if she had time to smoke while the three Dexists made passing attempts to convince her to let them back inside. What actually happened? Fuck, was there actually an ambush? Her head moved rapidly, taking in the scene, but her brain couldn’t quite follow fast enough to keep up with her eyes – a vileplume! It’s fighting Candy! That was a terrible matchup, she needed to-

  Pokéballs, right. Less shakily than she would have assumed possible, Casca stood up. The fight between Candy and their assailant was furious, but also kind of silly; the starfish was plastered to the ambulatory flower’s face, and it was desperately trying to dislodge her while neither of them had any real attacking power to leverage; Candy’s limbs were all occupied with holding on, and the vileplume’s attacks almost exclusively came from its giant, fleshy petals or the orifice at their centre. The smaller, squishier main body was terribly defenceless in comparison, something she’d learned to take advantage of while fighting the Night Folk.

  Lots of powders in that direction, so I can’t get close. Other way is.. More old people. More than she remembered, even; it looked like whoever had ambushed them had gotten Hoshi's friend Danny too. Ooh! Jackpot!

  But fortunately for them, it must’ve happened right before the fight broke out. She could hear more of it unfolding in the apartment as she crept towards the scruffy poacher’s splayed-out form – and more importantly, the Pokéballs she could see attached to his belt. Crashes, roars, thunder – Hoshi was really going at it.

  She reached her destination and paused, taking a single second to examine what she was about to do. Unless I manage to pick that old liepard on my first try, chances are they won’t know me. Might even attack. But Casca didn’t exactly have an embarrassment of options, so she pulled the ball that would be most natural for its owner to grab free, activated it, and let it drop.

  A soft hollow plink, and then a giant wad of gross purple muck – or rather muk – appeared. Oh for fuck’s sake – whatever, I’ll deal with it.

  It burbled curiously, and before the living slime could notice its unconscious owner and get the wrong idea, Casca hissed towards it. “Hey. Hey there, big guy – us and your master are in a bad spot. We all got ambushed. By that plant over there, see?”

  Another, even curiouser burble. Muk wasn’t a Pokémon Casca had any sort of fondness for; despite being a classical bad-guy ‘mon, it wasn’t super popular these days, even with Team Rocket – probably because of the smell. But she knew it was poison type, pretty durable, and a lot smarter than it looked. So good enough. “Yeah, that thing with the big red flower. You should go attack it while I wake up your guy here, okay?”

  A pause – then a gloppy salute.

  Less than half a minute passed before she was awake enough to remember she had emergency drugs in her pockets, and with the help of another Awakening it was a lot easier to get her boyfriend’s best friend up on his feet.

  It didn’t take too long to apprise Danny of the situation, and pretty soon the vileplume was dogpiled by not only the muk, but also a weezing, magnemite, gloom, and actual dog in the form of a frankly adorable little houndour. The fight itself, unfortunately, did take a lot longer than she’d have liked; the enemy could heal itself, and kept putting their Pokémon to sleep.

  But although Casca felt the urge to step away and rescue Hoshi grow with every passing second, the more rational part of her kept chiming in to say that would be a great way to get picked off again – so she just pressed her lips together and played nurse as the vileplume gradually depleted its stock of various powders. And she didn’t find any of her Pokéballs when she took a moment to look, or anyone else’s for that matter; either the cultists weren’t trainers, or whoever’d relieved her of her Pokémon had done the same to them. So it was just Danny and his junkyard team, fighting it out with a Pokémon who resisted nine-tenths of their attacks.

  “How did you wake up anyway?” she half-whispered to Dirk as the two watched the plodding battle grind on, Danny shouting animated insults at the stubborn flower from a few steps away.

  “Trade secret,” he replied. “Though I’d be willing to spill it for a couple more Awakens. I only keep one for emergencies.”

  Yeah, no. Your buddies can sleep it off; the situation is already complicated enough without giving you any extra leverage in numbers. “Pass.”

  Slow or not, it got done, and then there was nothing to stop her from dragging Danny to the busted apartment door, his team following like a giant blob of stink made flesh. “Okay, Arc that took a long time.” Only a minute or two in reality, but that was forever while she had to listen to her man having a much louder battle one room over. “You ready to go?”

  The old man’s face had been sour since he’d woken up, and it didn’t change much as the sounds of thunder and various cries reached through the cracked wood. “Yanouw, ma team ay’ntexac-tly batt’ttell’larz,” he said in something too strong to be called a mere accent; Casca could barely understand him, only the greater eloquence of his lips’ motions letting her keep her head above water.

  That’s rough. Her fingers muscle-memoried their way across the looted pistol, checking the safety, the chamber, the clip hidden inside the handle. Grip. On a gun it’s always called a grip. “Danny, you’re going in there. You can do it with your Pokémon, or without. Get.”

  A grumble, a slam, and then-

  When she saw the man, she almost mistook him for Hoshi; he was on the tall side, same as him, and the damn sand flying everywhere was worse than the heaviest fog she’d ever been in. But it wasn’t Hoshi – no, when she heard his voice and followed it down she saw that Hoshi was on the ground, half-cuffed, bloodied and snarling. That’s the enemy, then.

  She didn’t hesitate. The pistol came up, and like she was shooting at a target back at the academy’s range she pulled the trigger three times in quick, easy succession.

  Only one hit, she was pretty sure, a little pop of blood spraying out from the enemy’s back to join the sand. “HOLY FUCK!” Danny screamed beside her, but she wasn’t done.

  “Candy, help the others.”

  Another shape came from the swirling indoor Sandstorm – a bug, a beedrill, menacing with three stingers. She calm adjusted her aim and fired another three-round burst-

  But to her subdued horror, none of her shots landed. The beedrill was fast, its silhouette was deceptively full of empty space, and the conditions weren’t exactly ideal. All those excuses and more poured down the back of her head in a waterfall as she desperately aimed again – but it was too close, and another bullet went wide-

  And a fraction of a second before the giant bug could sink its long, thin main stinger into her chest, Guts tackled it out of the air. The two rolled, biting and stinging – and Hoshi’s gible launched itself out of the maelstrom as well, sinking its teeth into the staggering enemy trainer.

  He screamed, the beedrill detached itself from the fight, Casca tried to line up one of her last two shots-

  And then a bear came out, smashed the man hard enough to send him flying, and then sat heavily. The man, gible still attached, sailed out of her distressingly small field of view and crashed against what was probably the television.

  For a moment Casca was frozen, unable to decide between pursuing the enemy, helping Hoshi stand, and grabbing for the two Pokéballs that had dropped from the former’s pockets as the stupidly-named ursaring’s attack had landed.

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  A beat, and the beedrill went berserk. She dived for the balls, pulled off the leather straps keeping them closed, and then her still-un-nicknamed cloyster and a mysterious drowzee appeared. “The beedrill!” she yelled, crawling towards her man.

  The pain was… well, it wasn’t getting worse. And his brain was putting itself back together little by little, which meant it was losing ground in a zero-sum-game sort of way. You know, it’s funny. Pain usually makes me want to move, not freeze up. I guess it’s because it’s venom?

  That made sense; the beedrill’s poison was for hunting as much as it was a tool of self-defence – it was like the cannons lining the harbour, not the sea-mines they still sometimes discovered floating in the depths of the bay. The beedrill wanted to kill the thing it stung, not just make it go away, and the crippling pain that felt like it was chewing on his nerve endings was good for both those things.

  Enough to drive off larger or resistant predators, and kill anything else – like, say, humans.

  Don’t go detached, warned a slightly more coherent part of himself. Don’t break up. It’s just pain; you can handle it. Cut the arm off if you need to.

  A strangled tenth-laugh made it into the continuing moans of pain. Okay, Maybe coherent wasn’t the word. But he was right about the first part, as long as he-

  “Hoshi,” Casca breathed into his face, and he blinked. Huh? When did you..? “How bad is it? Fuck, I only have Potions, not bandages, I-”

  “Poison,” he got out. “Antidote.”

  “Oh, thank Arcus…”

  It was hard to keep track of what was happening, and not just because of the beedrill-sting shooting thought-destroying waves of pain directly into his naked soul; the Sandstorm, the noise, everything was chaotic and confusing. At least the strobing is gone – wait, no, that’s bad, that means Crow isn’t flying.

  “My Pokémon…”

  “They’re fine, they’re fine- well, Guts is probably poisoned to shit, but we have so much medicine. Here, let me…”

  Relief, like air after drowning. The Antidote did nothing for the damage, the actually acidic components of the venom doing their best to turn the skin and muscles adjacent to the little scratch into soup, but they were basically meaningless – the important part was the horrible red thing that had turned his arm into a giant inflated tumour in his proprioception, and that, that was instantly deflated.

  He could breathe again. “Casca- hack-!” Or not, came a thought as he coughed, sand lining the inside of his throat. “Where’s Champion?” The Sandstorm was a mistake…

  No, no it wasn’t. It was the only thing keeping him from noticing Casca waking up.

  “Somewhere over there, chewing on the guy. Speaking of, was it just the one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Stupid, then. Even the weirdos came with numbers. Let’s get you up.”

  It wasn’t hard to stand; with the Antidote working its magic, Hoshi found that he wasn’t actually really injured at all. The continuing sandstorm had done more damage than-

  As if it had heard him, the swirling, biting sands subsided, disappearing into nowhere to reveal his trashed apartment. Suddenly back to full visibility, Hoshi blinked and took in the scene; Venus was still down, Crow was down again, Rivet was in pieces – not dead, magneton just lost coherence when they were knocked out – and Guts was wrestling with that damn beedrill while a cloyster hovered overhead.

  Further away – so like, two metres – an array of mostly poison types were backing the wigglytuff into a corner. Oh, there’s Danny. And further still…

  Splayed against their smashed television, the man whose nametag read Owen Haw breathed heavily. Champion was on the ground face-down, breathing slowly through a smashed nose – but the little dragon had gotten his pound of flesh, quite literally; a near-circular section of the man’s side was ripped bloodily away.

  The League agent’s eyes sharpened, his hand reaching for something in his jacket – and with a too-loud BANG, Casca brought the Jenny’s gun up and shot him.

  It looks fake, Hoshi thought in the timeless moment between the feel of the gunshot washing over him and when the man actually reacted. Like… in a movie, you see someone get shot and you know it’s fake. Little blood spurt, bad special effects – it’s fake.

  But to his admittedly sand-ravaged eyesight, the real bullet wound wasn’t much better; just a spurt of blood, same as a squib, nothing… nothing that made it look real.

  But still the man dropped with a choked-back scream, clutching the part of his torso where chest turned into belly as a trickle of blood stained his plain, button-up office shirt.

  There’s so little of it. Less than a split lip… Is that really enough to kill someone? Are people that fragile?

  “One sec,” Casca said, leaving Hoshi’s side to step forward and turn her raised voice on the man. “Who the fuck even are you?!”

  He blew out a breath, and despite being mere metres away, the scene seemed… farther. Untouchable. Like Hoshi was seeing it through a screen. “Owen Haw,” the League inspector replied. The blood on his lips… it looks fake too. Everything looks fake. “Chief Municipal Business Inspector for Vermilion City. You… you’re under arrest.”

  The empty bravado did nothing except make Casca shove the pistol up under his chin. “You’re reaching for your Pokégear, aren’t you? Here’s what’s gonna happen: you call in, you say everything’s all clear, you get to live. Savvy?”

  Inspector Owen Haw, whose face would’ve been plain and unmemorable without the grimace of pain, reached into his jacket without words – and then there was another of those too-long moments, where Hoshi just knew what was about to happen.

  He turned away.

  If he’d had time to think about it, maybe he would have chosen to keep looking, to look the man in the eyes. But he didn’t; the urge was automatic, just a motion of pure instinct as he saw the spark of defiance reveal itself – and so when the final BANG sounded out, its results happened off-screen.

  Off-stage. Merely implied. The villain falling to an unknown but certain death. Roll credits. Cut. Turn the TV off, leave the theatre, open your eyes because your alarm is going off.

  His heart started again, and Hoshi looked back. This time, it didn’t look fake. The actual wound wasn’t even visible, hidden under the man’s chin as his head rolled forward – but this time, he somehow just knew that he was looking at a very real, very dead inspector.

  “Oh,” he breathed. “Oh fuck, that’s probably gonna come back on us.”

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” Casca agreed, dropping the pistol. “I should not have done that. Fuck.”

  Danny Houndoom didn’t really think of himself as a good person. He didn’t think he’d ever thought of himself as good, even as a little kid.

  He’d fucked over a lot of people across the years. People he’d stolen from, betrayed, scammed, and of course there were the who even knew how many dead guys who were waiting for him on the other side, blown up by a big stupid metal bug he’d turned into mobile artillery because he was dumb, and greedy, and needed to prove he could fucking do it.

  He tried not to blame himself too much for that last one – Plasma could foot that bill – but the other stuff… that was all him.

  And he could live with it. Maybe that made it worse, or maybe it didn’t, but it was true: he could live with it. He was a scummy old man, clinging to life by hook and crook. And he knew a kindred spirit when he saw it.

  When Hoshi Mutsu had walked into his junkyard looking to offload a stolen phone, the first thought Danny’d had was who the fuck’s this kid? Who told him I buy that shit?

  But the second one had been recognition; the kid was full of vinegar, same as him, and that… Made it even easier.

  To take his stuff. To send him out for more. To fix his shit on the cheap, and then to talk for hours about politics, and then even later to eat the food he brought. As months passed Danny had found he was showering more often, just ‘cause the kid was alwaying harping about the smell. Eating more real food. Doing… better.

  They’d turned into friends, somewhere along the way, and Danny… he had a bad track record with friends. People tied you down, you had to leave something to get out and that…

  It hurt. It hurt real bad, and just ‘cause you could live with something didn’t mean it didn’t suck balls.

  He was feeling that hurt right now, had been feeling it for a couple days in fact.

  Because…

  It was time to go. Danny’s life wasn’t something made for settling down, it was meant to get pulled up, pulled over, and set down somewhere else every once in a while. ‘Cause if you stayed still, stopped looking in dark corners and feeling the eyes on your back?

  That’s how they got you. He wasn’t the only ex-Plasma scientist that’d made it out, but he might just be the last one living clear and free. Whether it was the feds or the fuckin’ military-cosplayer psychos that were the only people left after the purge, if they caught you you were done. Black-box prison, shallow grave, either way you were done.

  So… it was time to go.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” the girl said in a distant, detached sort of voice. “I should not have done that. Fuck.”

  Eh, Danny commented inside his head, don’t think the ninth gunshot’ll attract much more attention than one through eight. Body’s inconvenient, that’s evidence if we leave it – which we’ll have to, not enough time to feed it to Pudding – but we’re all already fucked if we stay.

  But the kids, they wouldn’t get that – it probably hadn’t hit yet, that it was done, that Hoshi Mutsu and Casca Whatever would need to disappear and be replaced by someone else. So aloud he only let out a groan, flicking his hands out as a signal to his Pokémon. “Guys, can you wrap this up? It’s a damn puffball.”

  If it’d been a proper wigglytuff, the fight would’ve been over instantly – but this was the Kantonian form, so it was straight normal type and stupidly hard to put down. Case in point: Pudding’s Sludge attack didn’t do much more’n singe the thing’s fur, letting it puff up and retaliate. For a brief flash its balloon-like body was perfectly spherical, shining like the full moon, and then the attack blasted out.

  Of course it didn’t do much back, but the Moonblast still made room as his muk’s liquid body sloshed with the impact, Piezo flinching back and Bloo drooling off to the side like the Arceus-damned idiot she was. An impressive leap, and Danny cursed as the rabbit-thing bounded for its master’s murderer.

  “Damnit-!”

  The cloyster intervened – but it became pretty obvious pretty quick that the wigglytuff wasn’t thinking of revenge. It slumped in the sluggishly growing blood puddle as the lady scrambled away, and let out a loud, sad cry.

  Well… that’s that. Just the bug now.

  No, Danny wasn’t a good person. Insofar as the real world had good guys and bad guys, he was definitely the latter.

  Numb. That was the primary feeling filling up Hoshi’s body as he watched, unmoving, as the big pink bunny monster cried over its master’s body.

  It was a novel kind of numb, at least, different from the feeling of losing someone he loved. No, that’s what it’s feeling. I’m feeling like I just killed someone.

  He should probably be doing something. Getting his downed team members back up. Helping Danny with the last, stubborn enemy on the field. Something.

  But he just stood, watching the wigglytuff cry, feeling a vaguely bad kind of numb. Evidently Casca was sharing the emotion with him, because she was doing the same thing. Come on, Hoshi thought to himself as the small bits of pain from the Sandstorm and beedrill-scratch asserted themselves. Move. Get going. We need to get out of here, we just fired off like ten gunshots where like two- or three-hundred people could hear. Fucking move, dumbass.

  Despite his own urging, Hoshi only snapped out of it when a thin, bony hand smacked down on his shoulder. “Kid, I get it, but we’ve gotta fuck off. Cops’ll be here any second, n’ we don’t wanna be around when they find the body.”

  “The- the beedrill-”

  “Your rat and the clam finished it off. C’mon Hoshi, get it together – you always talk about the war like you were fuckin’ there, so just think of ‘im like an enemy soldier. Arc.”

  He wet his lips. “Yeah. Okay. I just- I dropped my Pokeballs…”

  Danny’s grip tightened as the reassuring pat turned into a shake. “Then pick ‘em up, man. Arceus, and the woman’s doing it too… Pudding, Fishface, douse everything! I ain’t going away ‘cause they smelled a stray hair!”

  The muk and weezing immediately followed their trainer’s order, and the sight of his ruined apartment getting systematically sprayed with acid finally shocked Hoshi back to reality. Unfortunately, it turned out that the numbness had been a defence mechanism…

  Because the first thing he did with his lucidity was vomit all over his boots.

  He coughed, spewed out another mouthful of chunky bile, and coughed again as the acid irritated his raw throat. Then pragmatism – and a bit of cussing from Danny – bid him to pull himself together, and he started picking Pokéballs up off the floor before the poison types could get to them.

  Casca looted the body while he did his best not to get distracted, administering Antidotes and Potions before returning everyone to his belt – this time, in active mode. Dirk was somewhere in the background, not speaking, either respecting the mood or shellshocked himself. The only thing he really did was drag his two companions into the room where an increasingly-aggrieved Danny slapped them awake.

  And then… they left. The trip down to the ground floor was almost diametrically opposed to how they’d ascended; it seemed that every few steps someone was pulling back from their doorway, very obviously fearful, very obviously aware it was them who’d caused the commotion. Hoshi wasn’t social enough to really know his neighbours’ names, but they were familiar – and he was sure that went both ways. They’d know who he was, in a vague sort of way, enough to tell the police.

  Not that it matters. They’re already looking for me, so this hasn’t changed- it hasn’t-

  The lie refused to complete itself, even in his head. This did change things, not least of all his perception of himself. No, came a justifying thought. No, I did the right thing. He attacked me, attacked my girlfriend, came to my house – we had to put him down. He obviously had some kind of vendetta. But the voice was tiny, meeker than it should’ve been, unconvincing.

  You knew this would happen. Danny had it right: this is the war. This is what it takes to win. You think Dad didn’t kill? You think Bob didn’t kill? Grow the fuck up.

  That one was stronger, and if he was in a normal frame of mind… it might’ve been enough. But walking through the apartment’s halls, feeling the malaise of accusation from every slammed doorway, every click of a lock at his approach, Hoshi was not in a normal state of mind. But… But I have to at least act like it. For Casca. For the mission. Or it all falls apart.

  He looked to the woman as his side. Her face had the same absent quality he could feel on his own. That’s right. I’m… I’m the boss. The leader. I have to look the part, even if I don’t feel it. Was this what Meowth had been feeling, as he’d looked out at the still sea? Maybe. It doesn’t matter.

  Life… Life goes on. For some people, at least.

  As they passed through the doors and into open coastal air, Hoshi forced his spine to straighten, his feet to stop dragging, his lungs to draw air properly. Each tiny action took a fraction less effort than the one before, and by the time his eyebrows were set into a proper expression of determination, he felt… something like normal.

  “Danny,” he said with all the authority he could muster, finding it to be an adequate amount. “Junkyard. I’ll be there before morning, promise on my family name.”

  The man eyed Hoshi from behind his dark glasses. “Gimme a ride a few blocks, and I’ll wait as long as I can. No promises though.”

  “Fine. Dirk.”

  Dirk startled at the sound of his name. “Huh? Oh, right… Look, we can protect you, like I said. Even from this, though you’ll obviously have to lie low for a while.”

  Bullshit. I’m nobody, they aren’t gonna bend over so far just to protect me – you’re probably only approaching me now because I’m desperate. “I haven’t the vaguest fucking idea what this Inner Ministry is or why the fuck you want me to join. If you can explain in twenty seconds, do it – if not, fuck off.” Where the fuck is Kenny? Fuck, that inspector probably got him first – is he nearby? Obviously we can’t leave him behind, but we can’t stay and look…

  Wait, no, I’m freaking out for nothing; the guy didn’t have his balls like he did Casca and the gamblers’. He’s probably just around the corner somewhere, lying low.

  “…Right,” Dirk only started after wasting a quarter of his time limit. “Succinctly, then: we’re Kantonian nationals who wish to reassert the country's previous borders, and also happen to have the backing of a powerful group of politicians. Who are also psychic, mostly.”

  Hoshi grunted. Wordier than I remember – I guess they’re back on the ‘song and dance.’ Wait, is that the bike in the alley? No. Kenny, where the fuck are you? “And why’d you go after me now?”

  “Because Team Rocket’s functionally done. The leader’s in prison, their hideouts have been smoked out – you’re a free agent again, basically.”

  He opened his mouth for another question – but was preempted by Casca. “You implied you’ve been looking at Hoshi for a long time. Why? What makes him valuable to you?”

  At that, Dirk’s expression turned guarded. It actually looked real to Hoshi’s other sense too. I guess getting knocked out by the League out of nowhere shook them up pretty bad. “That’s… Honestly-”

  “Dirk,” said one of the nameless side-gamblers, and their apparent leader stilled.

  “It’s fine, we need to disappear anyway. To answer your question to the best of my ability: I have no idea. We look at plenty of people, and I don’t make a habit of questioning my superiors – you’ll just have to ask them, if you decide to take the next step. Have I convinced you to at least consider it?”

  Fuck. They were two streets away, and still attracting attention. Probably all the blood. Yeah, the sand was definitely a mistake; walking around in cuffs would be less suspicious. “Last two questions. One: can you help me find Kenny?”

  Gambler-with-the-earings chimed in. “We don’t know who that-”

  “Big muscley guy with acne scars. Drove me here.”

  “Oh, was that what that sound was? Look over by the bay.”

  By the..? How the fuck would you know that? Is this psychic shit? “How the fuck?” Danny agreed aloud, and Earrings sent out a smug look in answer.

  “Are you deaf? You can hear the engine from here.”

  The engine..? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Hoshi paused, instantly hearing the distant rumble now that it’d been pointed out, and reversed course towards the bay. “Great, thank you.” Fucking smug son of a fucking- “Last question: you three are psychic?”

  Two nods, and a shake from Gambler-without-earrings. “Me and Dirk are,” Earrings replied, continuing to take the lead. “Much of the brotherhood is.” And then his voice took on the pompous tone it’d held while they were doing their creepy chant. “The Holy Father’s blessings may not be extended to all, but the seed of-”

  A half-second before Hoshi would have cut him off, Dirk did it for him. “Darry, put the voice away for now. This is serious.”

  “But the voice is the fun part…”

  Hoshi grit his teeth, feeling the urge to punch someone rise up – and then crest and break, receding. Don’t freak out. We have everything I wanted to grab, Kenny didn’t get caught, nobody on our side died… Things aren’t as bad as they feel. Jessie’s distraction will hopefully go on long enough for us to hook up with these other Rockets, and then…

  And then, if a few of them had some cash on hand, he’d be able to pay Danny to void the registration on their Pokéballs. His friend would get the money he needed, and the rest of them would be able to catch six new Pokémon each, or get them from the storage if that was still on the table, doubling their numbers. Everybody wins. See? Not bad. We can do this.

  The beach approached, and Hoshi felt a pang of relief that the thoughts hadn’t quite provided; Kenny was indeed idling the bike on the transitory line where sand and water fought. Thank Arcus and Lady Mew, that was almost a disaster…

  But as they approached further, Hoshi blinked in surprise. “Kenny?” he asked, and after a second there was no answer. “Kenny! Are you- are you asleep?”

  Danny stayed in the background as the kid woke up his gang buddy, partly because he didn’t want those weirdo Dexists to remember he existed – and partly because he, too, was kind of freaking out a little bit.

  He wasn’t used to battling, and all the eyes on them in the street… We’re fucked, we’re all fucking fucked. He tried to push the rising panic down, but it was like trying to work with a hangover; a completely pointless waste of time.

  “Okay, but how did you get all the way over here?” Hoshi asked, either not realising or not caring that he was repeating himself, and he grew even more agitated as the obviously juiced-to-fuck biker answered.

  “Boss, I got no idea – I swear I was in the alley keepin’ my head down. Who’re these guys? Are they in, or..?”

  “They aren’t, so keep your mouth shut about it.”

  “We already know-”

  “Dirk, I guess I owe you a fair shake for helping, so don’t make me regret it. Go to Second and Sea Park, zero-eight-nine-nine sometime tomorrow, preferably in the morning, and I might be there. If I’m not, then… tough luck, I guess.”

  The rest of the conversation was short and uninteresting, and Danny spent most of it feeling at the balls on his belt. The subtle little scratches on the newer ones, and the rougher abraded spots on the homes of his retired monsters… It was nostalgic. Painful, but not the same kind as ripping away his set-down roots.

  I’m old. Usually the thought was self-deprecating, but at the moment it was just sad, introspective, and a little bit regretful. How many years do I have left? How many times can I run? I’ve gone all across the world at this point… Maybe I gamble just one last time, try and fight it off..?

  No, the more rational part of him answered. That’s your death drive talking. Don’t gamble, not with your life.

  The fear is good. The fear is how you know you’re not safe. And you wanna be safe, right?

  …Yeah.

  Eventually everything was sorted, and the biker Kenny-guy, Hoshi, Casca, and finally his own wrinkled ass piled onto the hoverbike. It was a tight fit, but the machine was good; it didn’t wobble much, and the engine was quieter than it could’ve been. Despite looking like a wannabe pro-wrestler, the guy must’ve actually known what he was doing where it came to engines.

  And usually Kenny would be all about flying across the sand, but he was still stubbornly stuck all the way up inside his own head – so the ride didn’t do a whole lot for him, despite clinging to a sexy lady the whole way.

  They set him off on another stretch of beach, west of the address Hoshi’d given that Dirk guy. “You sure you can walk from here?” the kid asked as Danny slipped off.

  Hah. When he’d asked to be driven Hoshi had sent a sour eye his way, but now he was offering even more. That soft heart’ll get you in trouble, kid – or maybe not, you’re in about enough already. “Naw, I’m good. You go do your dumbass patriotic gang shit – but fair warnin’, if I see a hint of blue hair, I’m gone. So do it quick!”

  The trudge home was easy, both on his feet and on his head; nobody was staring at him too much now that he’d disconnected himself from the scene of the crime, and the previous battle’s adrenaline was still lightening his muscles.

  Yet still he couldn’t shake it, the feeling of eyes on his back. It dogged him all the way back to Route 6, even when he went over a hill and stopped to hide in some bushes for a solid minute, staring back the way he’d come with a suspicious eye.

  It was worrying; he could admit he was maybe a little over-paranoid sometimes, but it’d never been quite this bad. So there were two options: either he’d finally started to go off the deep end, or somebody was actually following him.

  And in the absence of evidence against it, he decided to go with his gut. Sorry kid, don’t mean to disappoint, but… Gotta look out for number one, you know? He would. Hoshi would understand.

  And so with new conviction lightening his feet even further, Danny broke into a sprint. He vaulted over puddles, cut through a shallow-enough creek, and as his breath started to properly run out he finally made it back to the yard. No time to pack; I’ll just grab a pair of underwear and set my merchandise loose with my scent all over ‘em to foul up any trackers, and then-

  The thought died as he opened his shack’s front door and saw the intruder within, sitting casually in a chair, flicking almonds at Grimy. It was followed almost instantly by the panic; there was no reason to fear a trap when it’d already caught you by the balls.

  Danny locked eyes with Ghetsis, leader of Team Plasma’s Seven Sages, and found only a single thing he could possibly say. After five years of Kantonese, his mouth finally unburdened itself and returned to his mother tongue.

  “Arc, twenty-five years and you’re still wearing those damn robes. News flash, old man, the sixties were half a century ago!”

  Ghetsis just smiled, as though he’d anticipated the dig, and somehow managed to make tossing almonds one-handed seem graceful. Then he stood, and Danny was forced to admit that despite being the older of the two aging trainers, Ghetsis had taken time’s beating a lot more gracefully. I should cut back on the drugs… is what I’d say if I wasn’t about to die. He was still tall as fuck, but more than that there was an… ephemeral strength that hadn’t changed from the last time they’d met, there on that little island off the coast of New Tork City. More grey in his hair, but not that much. A few extra wrinkles. Jowls are bigger.

  But fuck, he’s actually come outta it a fuckin’ GILF. Insufferable bastard’s even managed to find an even cooler eyepatch. Gods and demons, just drop dead already.

  “Mister Sambus, it has indeed been some time,” the sage replied in Unovan. His voice, at least, had changed; it was weaker than Danny remembered, whispery-er, old man-y-er. “But I didn’t come to reminisce…” The expression curving his lips was nakedly cruel, but the state of absolute don’t-give-a-fuck Danny was experiencing kept him calm. “You’ve been building a machine for me. For your sake, I hope it is complete.”

  And then somehow, those words made Danny’s mood drop even further, from resigned peace to… actually, he didn’t have a name for it. Something beyond peace, where you didn’t even have to give a shit about if the world blew up or anything. So they caught me that far back, huh? Guess I was never gonna run…

  And so, unburdened by a survival instinct, Danny laughed in the genocide-hippy-fuck’s face. “Ha! That was you? Fuck, I’ve been slaving away on that shit since June. You know what? Naw, fuck you, you can dig through the whole yard if you wanna find it.” Was never even gonna get paid. Life’s funny. His arms spread, lighter than he’d ever felt, like he could flap them and fly right through the roof of his shitty home and up into the sky. “So fuckin’ get it over with! I’ve been waiting damn near three decades for this, you think I didn’t make my peace?! C’mon, old man!”

  A beat of silence, and Ghetsis’s smile inverted. “You expect me to kill you.”

  “Sure do! Or what, did you follow me across four continents just to say hi? ‘Cause if you did…” Another laugh. “Hi there, you fuckin’ psycho! Get outta my house!”

  He continued to laugh, maybe for a bit too long, but as each passing second ticked by and death continually refused to take him, Danny began to inch closer to the panic he’d discarded – until eventually his amusement petered out, taking the suicidal bravado with it, and all that was left were the dregs of survival instinct at the bottom.

  “Ha… you… you’re actually serious? You ain’t gonna kill me?”

  “No,” Ghetsis stated simply. “Not unless you refuse my generous offer.”

  And then, finally, dread. Now that there was a glimmer of hope, no matter how small it was, Danny realised he wouldn’t be able to stop himself for reaching – and so, at that moment, Ghetsis owned his soul. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. “…Okay. I’m listenin’.” Fuck. Arceus smite me now, I’m gonna regret this, I can fuckin’ feel it.

  The smile came back, and Danny had a premonition about what was about to happen. He’s gonna put me back in Plasma, makin’ another giant bug or some shit. Fuck, maybe I can actually muster up the courage to off myself if I really try, get Fishface to explode… It was a futile thought; he already knew he wouldn’t do it.

  But the sage surprised him. “Tell me, Mister Sambus, how familiar are you with a man named Giovanni Capo?”