Chapter 23

Morning light chases away straggling, nonsense dreams, leaving you with nothing but an uneasy feeling. At least they weren't bad enough to actually wake you up this time. It's been a while since you properly dreamed your mother's dreams. Maybe you have enough nightmares of your own now.

Doesn't matter. You have other ways of finding out where to go next.

You stare up at the ceiling, watching deep purple shadows retreat into corners as the world outside brightens, and think of nothing much at all until, abruptly, you remember it's Saturday. You topple off the sofa in an excited flail of limbs, but the clock on the microwave says it's not even six yet. That's two whole hours you've got to spend somehow, and of course the great Nathaniel Morgan and his pokémon are still asleep.

It only takes about a minute and a half to fix yourself some Sugar Loops and then you're settled in front of the television, staring fixedly at the screen while you crunch the whole bowl down. Turn on the TV on and stare at the blank bands of color for as long as you can stand, then go get another bowl of cereal. An hour and forty-five minutes to go. Why do grown-ups make everything start so late?

It'll all be reruns today, of course, but on Transformozords they've been showing the storyline with all the cool snake aliens, and Trainer Max should have a couple episodes from Hoenn. You lie back on the couch and pass the time playing some of your favorite scenes over in your head. An hour and twenty minutes to go.

If you were at home you could at least go out to the jungle and hunt for wingull eggs or chase a few night-owl oddish who hadn't planted themselves yet. You might go swimming and see how deep you could go, down and down to where everything turns shadowy blue and your head feels ready to burst from the pressure. At the very least you could count on Rats to entertain you, even if just by chasing you out of the house so she could have some peace.

You perch on the back of the couch and stare out the window. The street outside is quiet and empty, the sunlight bright in a chilly, fall-ish way. Nothing there to distract you.

You slide back down and try to find a comfortable position on the couch. You pull your feet up, then put them down again. You lie facedown with your head on your hands, but of course there's no going back to sleep now. You turn upside-down and stay that way until your head gets hot and your heart pounds in your ears, then slide to the floor and lie there for a second instead. Then you jump up, onto the arm of the couch, then the back, then over to the chair, the coffee table, the couch again--

"What the heck is going on out here?" Raticate asks from behind you. The great Nathaniel Morgan leans out from the bedroom, his pokémon poking their heads out around his legs.

"There you are!" you say, letting the chair you'd been righting fall back to the floor. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up. It has been light for hours! Are you finally ready to start training?"

The human squints at you, his eyes no more than glinting slits in puffy sockets. "'m goin' back t'bed," he slurs, then disappears from view.

"Oh no you are not!" You cross the room in two easy bounds, but Mightyena stands in the bedroom doorway, snarling.

"Oh God, Mightyena, don't start shit now," the great Nathaniel Morgan groans with his face pressed into the mattress.

"You have been asleep for at least ten hours," you say, ignoring Mightyena's hostile look. "That is more than enough time. We have a lot of work to do before the battle tomorrow."

"No shit. Maybe you shoulda thought of that before you mauled me half to fucking death. You better be ready for me to do a fuckton of sleeping."

"This is ridiculous! You cannot expect to get anything done if you spend half the day in bed."

"Look, you can go back to jumping around like a maniac or whatever, I don't give a fuck. Just do it outside, for God's sake. I'll get up at nine, okay? Any earlier than that is just... jus'... stupid." He yawns hugely, then rolls over so his back is to you.

"I will come get you at nine," you say. "You had better be ready." The human grunts something, which you suppose means he at least heard you, and his pokémon settle in around him and stare at you until you leave.

You still have half an hour before anything worthwhile comes on TV. At least now there are old re-runs on a couple channels, ancient, washed-out sitcoms. You doubt they were funny even when they first aired.

It gets better from there, though. You'd forgotten that Gligar-Man was on early today, and Trainer Max has a commercial you've never seen before for a giant charizard plush that growls, roars, and makes ten other charizard noises. You want one, even though you have the real thing. And in the end you never even have to haul the great Nathaniel Morgan out of bed. He makes his entrance about halfway through Transformozords, his pokémon tagging along behind. Raticate hops up on the table to investigate the Sugar Loops. "Those are mine," you say warningly as he sniffs the corner of the box.

"What the fuck are you watching?" The great Nathaniel Morgan grumbles. His eyes are most of the way open, but he looks even surlier than usual as he leans against the kitchen counter.

"It is Transformozords, obviously."

"Transfo-what?"

"Have you not heard of Transformozords? Really?"

"Freak, I don't pay attention to nothing where I can feel my IQ drop just hearing the fucking name."

"But it is the best show! It is about people who can transform into big monster beast robots, and also they are ninjas. They fight the evil Space Pirates and defend the galaxy from crime! Except Transformo-Gray, she turned out to be evil and joined the Space Pirates a while ago."

The great Nathaniel Morgan raises his eyebrows at you. "Wow. That sounds... really fucking stupid. Get your ass over here already. You wanted to leave, and we're leaving."

You roll your eyes. Transformozords is about ninjas, so if the great Nathaniel Morgan thinks it's stupid he's just objectively wrong. You hang around long enough to watch Transformo-Blue finish his morphing sequence, which is so cool, but you do have to admit that training is more important.

A few minutes later you're wishing you'd at least stuck around long enough to watch the commercials, since it doesn't look like you'll be getting to train for the next hundred years or so anyway.

"Why are you so slow?" you hiss at the great Nathaniel Morgan, voice pitched as low as possible so passersby won't realize his infernape's yelling at him. Quite possibly he doesn't realize, either, since all his attention appears to be on staying upright. It's Mightyena who growls, then snaps at you when you shove past and out to the front of the group. "Come on, come on!" you yell in Infernape, figuring the meaning's clear enough even if the great Nathaniel Morgan doesn't understand the words.

Instead of hurrying up he gets even slower. By the end of the street he's sweating and dragging his feet. He stops to lean against a wall, and when Mightyena races over he snaps, "I'm fine, Mightyena." She backs off but keeps staring up at him, pacing out a nervous arc a few feet away.

"This is stupid. We will never get anywhere at this rate. Why do you not just ride on Graveler?" you ask.

"I'm fucking fine! I don't need nobody to carry me around like a goddamned baby." He pushes off from the wall, only to stagger and grab for it again.

"I did not say 'carry.' I said 'ride.' Like you ride an arcanine or something. Graveler is big enough."

"Oh." The great Nathaniel Morgan studies the rock-type while he works to get his wind back. "Well, that's kind of weird, but we could try, I guess. I mean, if you're okay with--"

Graveler grunts and moves to stand next to him. The great Nathaniel Morgan hesitates a moment, looking down at her like he's afraid she's going to dump him off as soon as he sits down, then gingerly settles cross-legged on top of her. "Uh, I guess this works," he says. He leans forward and tries to look into Graveler's face upside-down. "You're okay with this? I'm not too heavy or nothing?"

The rock-type starts walking by way of reply, and the great Nathaniel Morgan grabs for a handhold, shifting around until he finds a steadier position. "Uh, sure. Okay. That way, I guess."

In the end Graveler isn't much faster than the great Nathaniel Morgan himself, but at least she keeps up a steady pace. A few people seem to find the great Nathaniel Morgan's mode of conveyance funny, but you're sure it wouldn't attract so much attention if he didn't snarl at anyone he caught looking. He's a human and should understand that sort of thing, but no, he insists on getting worked up over nothing.

Mightyena bounds on ahead, weaving in and out of the growing crowd but never going far, keeping a constant watch on her trainer. Then she pops up beside you, completely out of nowhere, and even after years of living with Absol it takes all your self-control not to jump.

The great Nathaniel Morgan doesn't even glance at her, reaching back to take something held gently between her jaws. You crane your neck, trying to get a good look at it, but the human hunches in over it, shielding it with his body. Mightyena paces alongside Graveler, ears and tail up, awaiting his verdict.

You start to grab for the item, but think better of it when you feel Raticate and Mightyena's eyes on you. A burst of speed gets you out in front of Graveler and gives you a moments' glimpse of what the great Nathaniel Morgan's holding before he conceals it again. It's a pokénav, a newer model, sleek metallic casing and big, glassy screen. "That is not yours!" you hiss at him. "She stole that, did she not?"

The human runs a finger over the model name etched on the back, checks the buttons along the sides. He tilts the screen carefully, peering at it from an angle, then swipes at it experimentally. After only a couple tries he has the nav unlocked and is browsing the installed programs as casually as though he's owned the thing for months.

"Stealing is wrong," you say, raising your voice enough that he can't pretend not to have heard you but mindful of the people passing by to either side.

"So some yuppie douchebag has to buy a new nav. Cry me a fucking river," the great Nathaniel Morgan says without looking up.

"You cannot go around stealing things while we are here! Or your pokémon! What if somebody saw them! What if they got caught? There is security everywhere! If we end up getting thrown out of the tournament because--"

The great Nathaniel Morgan shoots you a furious look and raises his hand in a swift negating gesture. His gaze flicks around the crowd for a second before he passes the pokénav back to Mightyena. "Nice find," he says, reaching around to pat the side of her neck. "But the freak's right. We ain't got time to fence nothing, and we'll make plenty off the tourney anyhow. Go put that back where you found it, okay?"

Mightyena wags once, then turns and is gone. The great Nathaniel Morgan stares right past you, managing not to notice you no matter how often you move to be in his line of sight. You start telling him what you'll do if you catch his pokémon stealing again, but Raticate decides to make a game of swiping your legs out from under you with his tail. You're so preoccupied with avoiding him that you don't even realize you've reached your destination until the great Nathaniel Morgan says, "All right, all right. This is good. Thanks, Graveler." He shifts from her back to a boulder on the edge of a flat, open space and gives his team a critical look. "You guys warm up, okay? Freak, you're with me."

The other pokémon move away, Mightyena bouncing and prancing and tossing her head as a brisk morning breeze ruffles her thick fur. Raticate looks markedly less enthusastic.

You look around at the rocky expanse of the plateau, the huddle of tents and campers in the distance, and sourly remember what happened the last time you had the great Nathaniel Morgan's pokémon out here. "Hey." The human snaps his fingers, and you grudgingly turn your attention back to him. "You and me gotta have a little talk. So you know, like, every fucking attack ever, am I right?"

"Basically."

"Great. Let's see it, then."

"What, every attack? You cannot honestly expect me to stand here and go through every--"

"No, no. Uh, ice beam. You can do an ice beam?"

You sweep your arm out in a contemptuous gesture, drawing a lacy line of ice across the rocks nearby. "Okay, great. What about a flying attack? Say, sky drop?"

You do that one, too, and fairy wind, and frenzy plant, with the great Nathaniel Morgan watching intently all the while. You execute every attack flawelessly even as your frustration grows, your flames roaring higher to meet it. Finally, the great Nathaniel Morgan starts, "Okay, now try a--"

"I said every attack," you snap. "I do not care what you pick, I can do it. Watch."

You put your palms on the ground, extending your awareness to the earth beneath you. Energy leaves you in a hot wave, reaching down through rock and out in all directions. Shadows bubble up from crevices and stretch from under scattered rocks until the whole area's drenched in undulating, sun-defying dark. You lean forward and send another shock of power racing outwards, and needle-thin spires of darkness spear up, piercing an invisible foe. You let out a sigh and sit back on your heels, drawing deep breaths as you survey your handiwork.

The plateau before you is a lake of black glass, warped and bent into uneasy frozen waves. At the center of it all a forest of blades glints darkly, horribly fragile but even more horribly sharp.

"Holy shit," the great Nathaniel Morgan breathes. His pokémon huddle nearby, staring, their exercises forgotten. "I ain't never seen an attack like that before. What the fuck was it?"

"I do not think it has a name." You can't contain your smugness as you say, "There are a lot of attacks humans do not know about. And I can do more than attacks, too. I know all the abilities, and I can be any type I want. I can change them any time. And I am much stronger than other pokémon."

"Yeah, I saw," the great Nathaniel Morgan says. You squint at him in confusion. "Back when you were fighting Team Rocket in the forest. Wonder guard's a bitch when you don't know what type the thing you're wailing on is."

"Ah," you say, pride warming your chest at the memory. "You know the kinds of things I can do, then."

"Yeah. But you ain't gonna do them in none of the tournament battles, you hear? Nothing you shouldn't be able to do. Infernape's pretty flexible, so we still got plenty to work with. But the point is no fucking cheating, you hear me? You're gonna be out there in front of the crowd, and the League'll have cameras so far up your ass they can see your tonsils. Instant replays, spectral analyzers, real-time whatever the fuck, all that shit. So don't you be thinking you can show off none of your fancy bullshit, okay?"

"Of course not. I am good at disguises."

"Like hell you are. Just don't even try nothing, got it? Not even like that bullshit you pulled on Blue, where you thought nobody'd be able to see. All it takes is for one weird thing to happen for us to end up balls-deep in League flunkies determined to find some dirt on us. And we got some serious fucking dirt to worry about, you know? Look," he lowers his voice to an urgent growl, "I know you don't give one single fuck what I say and you're going to do whatever the hell you want anyway. But I want you to remember that we only got one shot at this, and it's gonna be hard enough without risking getting kicked out for some bullshit reason like you thought it would be cute to wonder guard up against somebody tough. Don't fuck this one up for the both of us."

"You do not need to remind me of that. If there is anyone who is going to mess this up, it will be you."

"Well, good," he mutters. Then he raises his voice, turning towards his lurking pokémon. "All right, you slackers! Time to do some actual work!"

The great Nathaniel Morgan pairs you up with his pokémon one at a time, putting you through mock battles and specific drills. "Fire attacks only this time," he says when you and Mightyena break apart, eyeing each other with a dislike that says you'd rather be beating each other up for real. "You're kinda slow on the old flamethrower. Tighten it up, try for less power and better speed. Mightyena, dodge for now. You're doing fine." In the background, Raticate and Graveler are going through their own exercises, the normal-type keeping up a running commentary on how unfair it is to be asked to "literally bang my head against a rock all morning."

But in the midst of his ranting Raticate keeps throwing his trainer sidelong looks. Mightyena's doing it too, you realize when her distraction lets you graze her with your fire. Before you know it you're keeping an eye on the human as well, wondering what the others are expecting. He's a Rocket, after all, and they have something of a reputation for unethical training regimens. But all he does is watch.

At last the great Nathaniel Morgan human calls his pokémon over, pulling some bottles of water out of his backpack. You follow the others, breathing hard but flush with energy. Even mock battling like this calls up a shadow of the excitement of the real thing, and it feels good to exercise your power, to stretch to the edge of what you're capable of. You idle at the back of the group and draw random squiggles of flame with your finger, making coiling symbols that flare and die in tiny puffs of smoke.

The great Nathaniel Morgan hands water bottles to you and Raticate and pours half another into a bowl for Mightyena. He ducks a second later, hands raised to ward her off. "Every goddamn time!" he says as she tries to reach his face with her tongue, spraying water droplets in all directions. "You trying to make me take away your water breaks or what?" He grabs for her, but she jumps away, bouncing around him in a circle.

Raticate drops his empty bottle and nudges it a couple times with his nose, then shoots the great Nathaniel Morgan an expectant look. He hops towards his trainer, then whirls and runs a few paces before stopping and looking over his shoulder. "You're not really going to sit there and watch all day, are you, lazy-ass?" the normal-type asks. "Seriously. What about your training?"

The great Nathaniel Morgan takes long seconds to puzzle out the normal-type's meaning. At last a sad smile spreads across his face. "Sorry, buddy. I ain't really up to running around right now."

"Really?" Raticate demands. When the great Nathaniel Morgan shakes his head, he hunches over with ears drooping, combing a claw through his whiskers. "Man, you're totally boring when you're sick," he mutters.

"Raticate!" Mightyena snaps.

"Well, it's true," the normal-type grumbles. Mightyena looks like she wants to say something more, but stops herself short. Instead she leans up against her trainer's leg, and he reaches down to run his fingers through her mane. Raticate crawls into his trainer's lap, resting his head on his paws and barely reacting as the great Nathaniel Morgan scratches the fur on his rump. You hover nearby, itching to get back to work but somehow getting the sense that now might not be the best time to draw attention to yourself.

"How long are you going to sit there?" you ask after far too much time has passed. They all glare at you. "What?"

"Look, why don't we make this a lunch break, then?" The great Nathaniel Morgan says with a sigh. "Head back to the city and find some grub. We got plenty of time for more work in the afternoon. And I..." He takes a deep breath, and for a moment he looks like he's feeling every one of his injuries. "I need a fucking nap."

---

You can't even feel irritated that the great Nathaniel Morgan's wasting time sleeping while you lie stretched full-length on a bench, eating an ice cream cone. If nothing else, he appears to be taking the tournament seriously. From the way he conducted himself this morning you could almost imagine he was competent.

You watch people filter through the town square, sun-warmed and feeling pleasantly lethargic. You're considering going back for another cone when something catches on the edge of your awareness, sending cold prickles running straight down to the tip of your tail. Someone's watching.

You stay as still as you can, trying not to hurry as you crunch down the last of your snack. She's behind you, on the left. You're sure of it.

You stick the final piece of cone in your mouth, chewing slowly while you brace yourself to move, then spin around and jump up to the back of the bench, staring hard at where you know Eskar has to be.

The sableye ducks back into the shadows, but your eyes glow with foresight's light and pin her on the spot. You pounce while she hisses and swears over her sudden corporeality, grabbing her firmly around the middle. Three bounds take you over to a quaint little boutique, and another two, hand over hand, have you up its side and to the privacy of its roof.

Eskar squirms and gasps, "Wait! Wait, Cordierite-eyes, stop!"

You drop her and stomp down on her chest before she can scuttle away. It would be a bone-cracking blow, but Eskar's body compresses like a stress ball under your weight and your foot merely sinks a half inch into her body.

"What did I say would happen if you kept following me?" you ask. Your flames roar up blue-white, and a blast of heat scorches the concrete all around. Eskar's ectoplasm chars to black and flaking about the edges, releasing an acrid, chemical smell.

"No! Only talk, Cordierite-eyes, only talk! Please!"

"You want to talk?" You hit her with a brick break that leaves deep divots in her congealed ectoplasm. "You keep spying on me! I'm not going to talk with you!" You reach down and wrench one of the sableye's gemstone eyes out of its socket while she's still cringing from your attack.

She reaches after it, screeching, "No! Don't take! Don't take!"

You hold the stone up in a clenched fist. "I told you last time I would break this, didn't I?"

"No, Cordierite-eyes, no! Please! Please listen!" The sableye holds her hands up in front of her face as if to shield herself from the waves of heat rolling off your blazing crown.

"Why are you following me?" you demand.

Eskar turns her face away. "Illite-eyes says follow. Illite-eyes says watch."

"So you're supposed to see what I'm up to and then call Team Rocket in to get me when you see the chance, is that it?"

"Well..." Eskar starts, then throws her hands up again as your grip tightens on her eye. "Wait! Wait! Don't want to hurt you, Cordierite-eyes, no! Illite-eyes wants you, oh, yes, very badly indeed, but... Illite-eyes doesn't understsand. She can't take you, no, not someone like you. You see, Cordierite-eyes? You see?"

"What do you mean, someone like me?"

"Well, you, you can change, yes?" the sableye says. "Your eyes..." She taps her remaining one, as though trying to convey something she can't quite put into words.

"Yes, I can change my eyes," you say warily. "So?"

"So that's amazing, Cordierite-eyes! Amazing! Don't you see? Illite-eyes wants you, yes, she wants to know what you are. But she doesn't really understand, Cordierite-eyes! You see?" It comes out in a hasty jumble, Eskar's grin inviting you to share her excitement.

You don't see, though. "So Ill--I mean, the boss, she... doesn't understand?"

"No, no. She tries, yes, she tries. But she is only human, yes? She doesn't really understand about eyes." Eskar lets out a breathy, nervous chuckle. "Why, she even said I could have hers, after she died."

"Well, that's... nice," you hazard.

"No! Oh, no, Cordierite-eyes, no! She'll need them! She'll need her eyes! What good is a no-eye ghost? No, no, Illite-eyes must have her eyes to keep. It was kind of her to offer, so kind, but she doesn't understand. You see, you see? And now she wants you. But people Team Rocket takes, hmm, they sometimes, they sometimes get"--she taps her claws on the concrete beneath her, a fast, agitated rhythm--"damaged. And what a shame, Cordierite-eyes! For someone as amazing as yourself, to go to Team Rocket, well... no."

You lower your fist a bit, fingers relaxing around the gemstone. "So you're not going to call Team Rocket on me?"

Eskar nods, her triangular diamond teeth gleaming even brighter than usual against the blackness of her burned face. She's smiling, but then she's always smiling, and it usually means nothing good.

"Good. Then get out of here. Leave me alone."

"But Cordierite-eyes! Illite-eyes, she says--"

"I don't care. If you really don't want me to get hurt, you'll go away and not tell Illite-eyes anything about what you saw."

Eskar turns away from you and mutters to herself, too low for you to hear. She rakes her claws across the concrete, leaving shallow furrows behind. At last she turns back to you, one of those horrible wide smiles on her face. "But if I don't, Cordierite-eyes? Oh, if I don't..."

"Then I'll beat you up and knock you out and smash your eyes every time I see you. You won't get what the boss wants anyway."

Eskar lets out a mirthless bark of laughter. "Oh, you think so, you think so. I see, Cordierite-eyes. You and Illite-Eyes, I think you could be friends, yes?"

You frown, confused. "No. She's in Team Rocket. She's a real Rocket. How could I be friends with her?"

Eskar's smile is hard-edged and gleaming. "Oh? Not Rocket? Not you? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure!" Your flames flare up again and the hard edges of Eskar's eye cut into your palm.

"Hmmm." Eskar tilts her head to the side, and you're sure her smile's gone mocking. "As you say, Cordierite-eyes. But that human you hang around with was one of us, yes? Your friend?"

"He is not my friend," you say immediately. "I hate him."

"Backstabby!" Eskar spits the word like it's a curse. "Illite-eyes has plans for him, too, oh yes. Traitor!"

"Well, you can't go after him, either," you say. "I need him around until the end of the tournament."

"But why, Cordierite-eyes? Why? It's not safe! You can't trust him."

"I'm not worried about him. There's nothing he can do to me, especially now that he's not in Team Rocket anymore."

Eskar lets out a faint whine, air whistling between her teeth. "But Cordierite-eyes! Illite-eyes must have something! I can't keep her away from you both. Illite-eyes will accept it if you get away from us, so unfortunate, couldn't be helped, but I have to give her something."

"Too bad. I guess you'll have to come up with something else." It feels strange, defending the great Nathaniel Morgan. Eskar's right, after all. You've been hanging around with a Rocket grunt, and even now you're actually negotiating with one of the team's pokémon. Go much further and you will be working for them.

The great Nathaniel Morgan doesn't want to help, though. That's good. You'd be worried if he thought what you were doing was a good idea. And it's not for long. As soon as the tournament's done, you can take off and hope you never--hmm. "Actually, do you like to fight?"

"Fight?" Eskar scratches distractedly at the roof. "Yes, of course. Illite-eyes would hardly keep me around just to look pretty."

"Then fight for me. We need another pokémon for the tournament, and you're strong, aren't you? You can keep an eye on... on the Rocket guy, and then once the tournament's over you can do whatever you want with him, I don't care."

"Oh, so generous, Cordierite-eyes, so generous to offer what I was already doing anyway!"

"What I'm offering," you growl, "is to not attack you and to not attack any of your friends and to not get in your way. You don't want me getting in your way. You know that, don't you?"

"But Cordierite-eyes! But! Do you know what you ask?" Eskar makes a chirring noise deep in her throat. "Illite-eyes is so angry! She sees the backstabby human on television and says, 'Why do we not take him? Why?' So it falls to Eskar to come up with some excuse, yes? To throw everyone off the trail? Poor Eskar! No, Cordierite-eyes, that's not enough."

"Well, what do you want?" you ask. "I haven't got a ton of money right now, but I guess I'll make more when we win some matches."

"Ha. Money. No, Cordierite-eyes, no. What would I do with money? No, what I would like--oh, but even to ask! Cordierite-eyes, I can't! It's too much, too much!"

"Just ask already," you say. "Seriously.I'm not going to stand here and listen to you talk forever." Your foresight won't hold forever, either. Your foot is already more in Eskar's chest than out of it, wisps of ectoplasm drifting up around its edges. Not long now before the ghost's airy enough to slip away.

"Ah, yes, very direct, Cordierite-eyes. Yes. Admirable. You see, what I want is--what is, what... an eye."

"An eye?"

"Yes! Yes, Cordierite-eyes, just a look, just a little peek. I know. I know people, they can get rather... attached to their eyes, yes? But I won't take! You can have it back right away, oh yes! I just want the tiniest look. For eyes like yours, so rare, so precious... It would be an honor..."

You swallow, trying to drown the churn of your stomach. An eye. Right. Eskar's lone gemstone stares avidly into your face. You look away over the edge of the roof and try not to think too hard about the ice cream you just ate.

"So you see why I couldn't ask," Eskar says quietly. "No, Cordierite-eyes, I understand. Such precious eyes, it couldn't be done. You couldn't let just anyone take them, no, not even Eskar--"

"You can have one," you say, still staring into the distance. It's a perfect day, so piercing clear and bright that it hurts even to look full into the sky.

"What--but--really?" Eskar's mouth hangs half open, her overlarge smile gone slack. The ghost takes a hissing draw of air, and for once she's not smiling. "Only for a minute, Cordierite-eyes! Just a tiny peek! No more for Eskar!"

"You don't have to give it back. You can keep it." You won't have much use for an eyeball that's been outside your skull.

Eskar's actually quiet for a few moments. "But--but Cordierite-eyes..."

"Is that settled, then? You take an eye, and you can have the great Nathaniel Morgan once the championship's over. In exchange, you'll fight with us in the tournament and keep Team Rocket away from us until the end. Do we have a deal?"

"Yes! Oh, absolutely, Cordierite-eyes, yes!" You step back, and Eskar's on her feet in one unsettling boneless motion. She gives herself an all-over shake, motes of light dancing around her as she recovers off the damage from your flames. In seconds she's standing whole and healthy again.

She reaches out to you. "My eye, Cordierite-eyes. Give me my eye."

You do. The sableye purrs over it for a moment, cleaning it on her ectoplasm before popping it back into her face. The ghost turns her head side to side, muttering to herself, and reaches up to adjust the eye once or twice.

"Now what? We haven't got all day," you say. She's enjoying this, isn't she? Making you wait and worry while she fusses over nothing.

"Make them change!" Eskar blurts out, then puts her hands over her mouth like she's ashamed. "If you would, Cordierite-eyes," she says. "Just to see."

You can do that. Pigments build up and break down and tiny geometries remodel. The world shimmers as the light hitting your retinas shifts and shifts again.

Eskar lets out a tiny, delighted squeak, her hands still over her mouth. "Oh," she says. "Yes, I see. I... gold? You could do gold?" You do. "Or purple? Heliotrope?"

"I don't know what color that is. But I can do purple." Like Mewtwo's eyes. You can picture them very clearly.

"Yes, that's... You're incredible, Cordierite-eyes," the sableye murmurs, sounding distracted. She raises a hand and lets it hang loosely in the air. It takes you a while to realize what she wants and even longer to force yourself to lean forward so that the sableye can reach your eye. She's gentle, running her claws lightly over your cornea, but it's a struggle not to pull away again. Your eye waters like mad and the fur bristles all down your spine, and you can only go a couple seconds before before you have to blink.

Eskar pulls her hand away and cackles while you rub furiously at your eye with the heel of your palm, grinding it into the socket to get out the itch. "Oh, beautiful, Cordierite-eyes. Beautiful! Wherever did you come across eyes so fine?"

"Made them," you grunt. "Now do you want one or not?"

She does, and spends a tedious long time demanding various changes of shade and added effects. You can't see what she finally settles on, of course, but you imagine it to be a kind of gray-green, ringed with coppery bands of color. The sableye claps her hands and chews on her fingers in delight, then reaches out. "Hold still."

It's harder than you expected. You're used to battling, to steeling yourself for pain, but somehow watching the sableye's hand drawing closer and closer brings up bile and a crippling desire to run unlike any fight you've ever been in.

And you do have to watch, of course; you can't be closing your eyes, or not the one Eskar's reaching for, at least. You can see right up until the sableye's claws eclipse your vision, then dig in.

Worst is the sound, a sticky wet noise and the scrape of the sableye's claws against bone that echoes through your whole skull. It hurts a lot more than you were expecting, and you jerk backwards, retching. Eskar ignores you, jabbering in delight over her new treasure.

You press a hand against your face, which is hot and wet with running blood in place of tears, and hold it there while pain flares, then fades away, and a new eyeball grows in your empty socket. You open your eyes again and blink until the world comes into focus, and now there really are tears striving to wash away the bits and scraps of old tissue smeared on your face.

Eskar is staring avidly at--you don't look. You turn away and stare at a wall and think about your favorite television shows until your stomach settles a bit. Then you ask, "Are you ready to go now?"

"Tomorrow, Cordierite-eyes, tomorrow," Eskar says. "Right now I must make a few arrangements. Or perhaps cancel a few arrangements, yes?" She chuckles.

You want to protest, to say she needs to come now and meet the great Nathaniel Morgan so she can be in the next battle, but he probably wouldn't use her anyway, not with so little time to learn her capabilities. More than that, though, more than that, you just want her to leave. "Yes. Fine. Tomorrow. Come to the apartment. You know which one."

"Certainly, Cordierite-eyes." Eskar comes up beside you, putting a hand on your leg, and you force yourself to look down at her. One of her hands is stained dark, your blood starting to wick into her ectoplasm, but her claws are empty. You don't want to know. You don't want to think about what she might have done with--with your payment.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Cordierite-eyes," Eskar says. "I think we will be good friends, yes? Such good friends."

You nod, or at least you think you do. You're feeling lightheaded, not properly connected to your body at all.

Eskar grins. "Tomorrow, then, Cordierite-eyes."

She moves fast, considering her little legs. It only takes her a couple seconds to cross the roof and disappear into the shadow of its far edge.

You stay where you are and focus on breathing until you no longer feel like you might throw up. It's silly to get so worked up over one little eye. Losing it didn't hurt that much. Certainly not as much as a bad battle. And now you've taken care of Team Rocket and one of your missing pokémon--and the great Nathaniel Morgan besides, you suppose. After a few minutes, you're feeling practically cheerful--and why wouldn't you be?

You won't have time for that second ice cream, though. It was getting late even before Eskar showed up, and you don't want to leave the great Nathaniel Morgan unsupervised for long.

---

When you get back to the apartment the living room's dark and empty, but you can hear people talking in the bedroom. You're halfway to the couch, already considering the afternoon's TV offerings, when a thought gives you pause. The great Nathaniel Morgan's talking--with who, exactly? You creep over to the bedroom and peer in, halfway expecting to find a secret Rocket cabal.

The great Nathaniel Morgan sits at the desk with Mightyena lounging on the bed a couple feet away. The human has his pokédex and a pad of paper out in front of him, punctuating his sentences with breaks to chew on his pen.

"...has to be Raticate, though. He'd have to be a complete fucking moron not to lead Lucario, but if he didn't, and we sent Infernape, then all he'd have to do is hold it back until he could knock Infernape out, and we'd be totally fucked."

"I know, but putting Raticate against that guy is really dangerous. At least Graveler has super-effective attacks. And if Raticate gets taken out early, we'll have nobody left who can deal with the azumarill."

"No?" The great Nathaniel Morgan frowns at the paper in front of him. "What are you worried about, the pidgeot? I mean, yeah, if he sends that in on infernape it'll be pretty shitty, but you could handle it after that, couldn't you?"

"The azumarill, Nate. She could be even more of an issue than the lucario. I mean, I think Raticate can take her out, but if he runs into problems with the lucario he might not be in any shape to fight her."

"Oh, please. I could take a bubble bunny with my teeth broken and half my whiskers gone." Raticate's on the bed, too, rolled like a burrito in the sheets.

"What, so it ain't the pidgeot?"

"No."

"Then what? Extremespeed or something? I mean, if the Lucario has that, we can still--what? That's not it either?" The great Nathaniel Morgan scowls down at his notepad, running his hand back and forth over the dome of his skull. "I don't get it. Raticate ends up against Lucario, he U-turns to Infernape. Simple. What's the problem?"

"Azu. Marill." Mightyena articulates it like that could somehow help.

The human sighs. "Look, you sure about this? Like really fucking sure? Because I ain't seeing it here at all."

"Yes."

The great Nathaniel Morgan stares down at his paper for a long moment, and then his frown softens as he sighs and crosses something out. "Okay. So who's in, then? Cause we ain't got a lot of options against a fucking lucario, in case you ain't noticed."

"Do they do this kind of thing a lot?" you ask Raticate as you go past.

"You got no idea," he groans. He looks like he's trying to sleep. "This stuff can go on for hours."

The great Nathaniel Morgan glares at you as you clamber up the side of the desk, shrinking yourself down to fit better. You settle into a crouch and peer at the great Nathaniel Morgan's notepad, which is covered in scribbles and symbols you don't recognize.

"The fuck do you want?"

"Mightyena doesn't want you to send Raticate out against the lucario because if he takes too much damage he won't be able to beat the azumarill."

"What? Azumarill? Who the fuck even cares about--oh. Oh, hell. It's a fucking fairy, ain't it? Goddamnit." He covers his face with his hand a moment, then pulls it down so just his eyes show. "I can't fucking believe I forgot that. God, I'm an idiot today. Okay, so azumarill, it's good against Graveler, Infernape, Mightyena... Fuck, okay, no way he's not bringing it..."

"You can speak human." You look over at Mightyena while the great Nathaniel Morgan mutters away beside you, doodling on his notepad.

"Yes. You already knew that."

"Right, I mean, I heard you do it and everything, but I didn't realize--do you know what this means?" Mightyena's on her feet in two seconds flat, tail wagging like mad, and the great Nathaniel Morgan looks over at her in surprise.

"Mightyena? We're not done with this, you know."

"What does it mean?" You have no idea why she's so excited all of a sudden.

"It means you can translate pokémon speech for humans! You can tell them what we're really saying!"

"I know. I just did it."

"But that's amazing!" Mightyena bounces around in an excited circle while bedsprings creak and Raticate protests. "That's great! Don't you see how wonderful that is?"

"All I see is some idiot jumping around interrupting my nap," Raticate growls, disentangling himself from the sheets and jumping down in a huff. "You have fun, now. I'm going somewhere I can get a bit of peace."

"Oh, you are the most boring!" Mightyena calls after him, but it ends in a laugh, and and a second later she's back to prancing, stepping high and light in excitement. "Let's see, let's see. Uhh, tell him, tell him... tell him my favorite color is red. Oh, and ask him what exactly happened with the Viridian Base and Mewtwo, I still don't really get what went on there, oh, oh, tell him he's the best trainer ever and I love him!"

"What, really? Ewww."

"What really what?" Mightyena says with another laugh.

"What? What's going on? What are you two talking about?"

"Mightyena just figured out that I can talk to humans, so I can translate what she says. She is happy, that is all."

"What?" The great Nathaniel Morgan's brow furrows. "Oh, not that shit again. How many times have I got to tell you, Freak, you ain't the fucking pokémon whisperer."

"You believed me when I told you about the azumarill."

"Azumarill?" He stares blankly down at the page in front of him. "Wait. How did... No, hang on. Look, that doesn't mean..."

"Oh, you," Mightyena lunges forward, getting her front paws on the desk and licking madly at the great Nathaniel Morgan's face.

"Ugh, Mightyena! Stop!" He tries to push her away. "We need to finish this and--stop it!"

Mightyena turns to you, tongue lolling and eyes alight with mischief. "If you can't talk to pokémon, how do you know about that time he missed a squad meeting because he was crying like a cubone over the ending of Old Rusty? He got a month of janitorial duty because he told everybody he didn't go because he'd been totally high."

"You cried at the end of Old Rusty? That was such a stupid movie!"

"What? Fuck no! Are you kidding me? Who the fuck told you that?"

"Mightyena did. And you are lying, are you not? I cannot believe it. It was obvious the growlithe was going to die, that always happens in those kinds of movies."

The great Nathaniel Morgan stares at Mightyena, "Really? You did?"

"Really," Mightyena says, tail wagging like mad.

The great Nathaniel Morgan gives you a bewildered look. "But that's... that's not real. You can't..."

Mightyena goes for his face again, and this time the great Nathaniel Morgan's the one to laugh, burying his fingers in the fur around her neck. "What, you been telling all my darkest secrets? Asshole. You better watch it, Pooch, because when it comes to you, believe me, I got stories of my own."

Mightyena lets out a playful growl and headbutts him, hard enough to shift him in his seat, but recoils immediately when the great Nathaniel Morgan takes a sharp breath of air and puts a hand to his side. She stands watching anxiously, her tail drooping, until the great Nathaniel Morgan recovers enough to give her a tight smile. He reaches over to play with her ears as he says, "All right, all right, I'm happy, too. Let's just focus on the battle for now, okay?"

"Okay." She lies back down but keeps a close eye on him all the same.

"Right." The great Nathaniel Morgan stares down at his notes, tapping the mangled end of his pen against the table. "Right. Okay. So... azumarill. How are we gonna open this if we don't use Raticate? What if he leads with the damn fairy?"

"He won't. Lucario's way more flexible. And keeping Azumarill back means he'll have something to close the battle out if Raticate does get knocked out early."

You translate, and the great Nathaniel Morgan gives a slight nod. "Okay, sure. But don't you think--here, look, you don't have to hang off the edge of the table like that." He gathers in his things to make more room for you on the desk. "Do you really want to bank on that? It would be safer to use Raticate. At least he can get himself out of there if it ends up being Lucario, and he's fast..."

You settle in more comfortably, knees drawn up under your chin and tail curled around your ankles. It isn't long before the other two forget you're there completely, talking back and forth like they're the only ones in the room. And for a time, you don't mind blending into the background as the battle plan takes shape around you. The two of them together sound like they're coming up with something almost as good as you could.