Chapter 28
The first attack knocks you face-first in the dirt, and then there’s something on your back, holding you down. Then many somethings, what feels like the entire medical staff pinning you with their weight.
“Calm down!” says the chansey who floored you. “Everybody loses sometimes. That’s no excuse to go on a rampage.”
You screech and dig your fingers into the dirt, forcing yourself up as far as you can. The pokémon let out a chorus of yelps and growls as your flames blaze higher, searing the earth beneath you and your captors above.
“Watch out!”
“She got Ariel, somebody help me with this arm!”
You nearly manage to get your hand up, to let loose with a flamethrower or a focus blast, but as you turn your head to sight a target the chansey on your back leans forward and deals you a hearty slap across the face.
“Stop this,” she says while you’re blinking away stars. “Are you going to be reasonable, or do I need to put you to sleep?”
You subside, panting smoky breaths and glaring up at her from the ground. If she puts you under, the great Nathaniel Morgan might have time to get away.
“Good,” the chansey says. She steps aside, and the other medical staff do the same, one at a time. You pull yourself to a sitting position, teeth bared and one hand massaging your aching cheek.
The nurses stand around muttering, exchanging brief pulses of healing energy to erase the burns and scuffs they acquired in restraining you. “Keeping a battlehead like that around without a pokéball,” a wigglytuff says to an audino in a low tone. “Irresponsible. Someone’s going to get hurt.”
The audino tuts and reaches over to straighten the chansey’s cross-stamped hat, since your tormentor’s arms are too short for her to tend to it herself. Currently they’re crossed just above her egg while she glares at you. You glare right back.
“Now, perhaps your trainer hasn’t explained this to you, but you can’t go attacking people just because you’re angry your team lost,” she says.
“You attacked me,” you spit.
“You were about two seconds away from setting your trainer on fire,” the chansey says, deadpan. “Don’t play dumb with me. I know what it looks like to prepare an attack. What I want you to understand is that it’s unacceptable. Not to mention illegal, but that’s beside the point. You need to control your temper.”
A quick glance around the gaggle of stony-faced nurses reveals no obvious line of escape. You grit your teeth, fire warming the back of your throat, but you aren’t going to tell the chansey what you think of her advice. No, you’re going to let her say whatever stupid thing she’s going to say so she’ll let you go.
“Now, I want to hear it from you,” the chansey says. “You won’t go attacking anyone over one silly little battle, will you?”
“I won’t.”
“Say it all.”
“I won’t attack anybody. Now can I go?”
The chansey gives you a long, calculating look, and you hold your breath to stop it coming out smoky, do your best to look relaxed. “My trainer is going to miss me,” you say as seconds start to stretch into minutes.
“I dare say he didn’t seem too ripped up about leaving you behind,” the chansey says. “I’m not the only one who can see a flamethrower coming. Perhaps I’d better go with you, just to make sure you’re on your best behavior.”
“No. I don’t need a babysitter.” You get to your feet, standing at least a foot taller than the chansey and flaming bright, but she doesn’t back down.
You’re contemplating giving her your best mega kick, really enjoying the mental image of her beach-ball body bouncing away into the distance, when she says, ” I don’t know if it’s your trainer who’s been feeding you nonsense about how important winning is, but it’s really not. It isn’t healthy to get so worked up over a loss.”
Easy for her to say. Her mother’s life doesn’t depend on the outcome of these battles. Getting to see your pokémon friends again might depend on it, too. But the fact that they do is the very reason you can’t afford to hang around and have it out with some dumb nurse, so you hold your tongue and push past her instead, looking around for the great Nathaniel Morgan.
He’s long gone, his trainer platform recessed back to the ground, but he hasn’t made it off the field yet. In fact, he’s just standing around for some reason, his back to you. You take off at a gallop, running on all fours, and leap out in front of him, crouched low with teeth bared and ready to let him have it.
Before you can, though, he reaches out and grabs you by the shoulders, hauls you in close so his face is right up in yours. “Get us out of here!”
You’re too stunned to respond, staring blankly into his bloodshot eyes. His fingers dig painfully into your fur, and he reeks of alcohol and sweat. “Get us out of here!” he barks again, giving you a shake that blacks your vision for a second. “Now! Take us now, take–”
He’s overcome by a hacking coughing fit, and you twist out of his grasp while he’s wheezing. Why’s he freaking out? You cast a quick look over the field. Maybe he’s worried because the way out is blocked? There’s a crowd of people jammed into the corridor you came out of earlier, microphones and cameras bristling among them. It takes you a couple of seconds to work out what’s going on.
You’re going to be on TV! Of course, they broadcast all the stadium matches, that’s not a surprise. But you’re a star now. People want to interview you, they want to know what you thought about the battle, how you expect the rest of the tournament to go. Or, well, they’re not really interested in you. They don’t even think they can talk to you besides charades and basic yes-no answers. The person they want to get at is the one behind you, still coughing and shaking, who definitely doesn’t deserve the spotlight.
He’s recovered enough to make another grab at you, and you sidestep contemptuously. “Get over here,” the great Nathaniel Morgan snarls. “Come on, you–”
He breaks off when you seize his arm, making no effort to be gentle, and raise your other hand in front of your face. You can’t exactly teleport with so many people watching. Not if you don’t want all kinds of inconvenient questions. But you can leave them with something to wonder about.
You breathe out a dense stream of smoke, so thick it feels like you’re molding it, swirling it into a dark orb in your palm. You raise the ball of smoke high above your head, imagining the cameras on you, then bring it down hard, so it explodes into a dense, obscuring cloud. By the time it clears, you and the great Nathaniel Morgan are long gone.
When you reappear in the apartment, the great Nathaniel Morgan staggers and grabs the wall for support, then leans against it with his eyes closed, racked by intermittent coughing spasms. “What was that all about?” you say.
The great Nathaniel Morgan opens his eyes, but his gaze slides across you blankly, roams the apartment like he doesn’t recognize it. A huge intake of breath, another choked cough, and he stumbles off towards the bedroom, feet moving like he’s trying to climb stairs that don’t exist.
“Well?” you call after him, and follow when he continues to ignore you. The great Nathaniel Morgan collapses on the bed and drags a pillow over his face.
“If you wanted to sleep, you should have done it last night,” you say. “Did you think I would just let it go after you did everything you could to try and lose that battle? I do not know what you think you were doing, but it will not happen again.”
You jump up on the bed next to him, landing with deliberate force to bounce him roughly into the air. He rolls over so he’s facing away from you, keeping the pillow firmly clamped over his face. “You know, I was actually surprised you tried to sabotage that fight. I was almost starting to believe you cared about seeing your steelix again. Or at least you did not want your other pokémon to get hurt. If you had been prepared, you would have known Jason Muskowitz had an avalugg, and you would not have let her beat Mightyena up.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan still has no comment. “Why did you do it?” you ask. “Answer me.”
He doesn’t. You kick him in the kidneys. While he’s curled up, swearing and clutching his side, you say, “Answer me.”
You actually have to wind up to kick him again before he swallows and says, hoarsely, “I dunno, maybe I was kinda distracted by the fact that the guy calling the shots around here is a fucking murderer.”
“Are you still going on about that? I told you, I never killed anyone.”
“Oh yeah? Then what the fuck happened to that one guy’s kid, huh?”
“You should not listen to Leonard Kerrigan. He is crazy.”
“Oh, sure, fucking sure, he ain’t got a clue what’s up with you, that’s why you had to go and bump him off. Bullshit!”
“I did not ‘bump him off.’ He is perfectly fine.” You haven’t fed or watered him yet today, though. Hmmm.
“Yeah, I believe the hell out of that one!”
“Why do you think Leonard Kerrigan is telling the truth, anyway? You do not even know him.”
“I dunno, maybe because I know you’re a cold bastard who would totally strangle a bitch if you thought it would help with you with your fucking ‘mission.’ Maybe because all that Cinnabar Island shit just happens to fit with all the junk you said about Mewtwo. And, fuck, after all the crazy shit I seen go down with you, the more fucked up it is the more likely it is to be true!”
“Well, he is wrong. Everybody who died was going to die anyway. I just made sure I was there so I could get my pokémon back.”
“Oh, sure, everybody’s gonna die someday, why not make sure it’s when it’s fucking convenient for you?”
“That is not what I meant. They were all going to die then anyway. I mean, Leonard Kerrigan’s son, he killed himself. I did not have anything to do with it.”
“Nothing to do with it, huh? Then why the fuck is daddy abducting people to get back at you for it?”
Of course he’d rather believe some random stranger over you. “Because he is stupid and crazy.” The great Nathaniel Morgan’s expression suggests you try again. “He is!”
The great Nathaniel Morgan snorts and turns away from you. Well, let him think what he wants. You don’t care. If he won’t listen to you, he can just go on believing lies.
Except, of course, that that might make him lose his next battle, too. You stand over the great Nathaniel Morgan for a moment, jaws clamped down tight over a scream of frustration and fingers twitching with the desire to seize the human’s throat. You grab his arm instead, ignoring his yelp of pain as you haul him off the bed, and then the two of you are gone.
Leonard Kerrigan jumps when you appear, jerking backwards in his bonds and bumping softly against the wall. The great Nathaniel Morgan doesn’t notice, somehow, gazing up at the ceiling instead, at the furniture and walls, eyes wide in the darkness. “Where the fuck are we?”
“Here. Now look.” You shove him so he’s facing Leonard Kerrigan. The humans stare at each other, Leonard Kerrigan frozen wide-eyed with nerves. “See? I told you he was fine. Now stop bothering me about it.”
“Fuck ‘fine,’ what the fuck is all that shit?” the great Nathaniel Morgan asks, because he has to complain about everything.
“String shot, mostly. He kept trying to run away. I know I was supposed to tie him to a chair, but all my chairs have stuff on them, and I do not even know if I have any rope. I was not expecting to have to kidnap anyone.” You shoot Leonard Kerrigan an accusatory look and see to your irritation that he’s gotten one arm free and peeled back a broad chunk of the webbing across his chest. Given a couple hours he’ll probably manage to unstick himself completely.
The great Nathaniel Morgan is still staring. “And is he, uh, not wearing any clothes under all that?”
“I took his clothes, stupid. How else did you think I dressed up like him yesterday?”
“You been keeping naked dudes tied up in your creepy basement place?” The great Nathaniel Morgan bites his knuckles, but his shoulders tremble and a mad giggle escapes him nonetheless. “Oh my God, K–k–this is how rumors get started!” And he dissolves into a fit of laughter for some reason, holding his sides with tears rolling down his face.
“Oh, yes, it’s dreadfully amusing,” Leonard Kerrigan says acidly. He goes back to digging at his restraints with his fingernails.
The great Nathaniel Morgan stops laughing so fast it’s like he’s been slapped. “Okay, seriously, though, Freak, give him his fucking clothes back.”
“Why? I do not care if he is naked. And that is not the point,” you say over the great Nathaniel Morgan’s protest. “The point is he is alive, just like I said. We are leaving now.” You grab the great Nathaniel Morgan’s arm and haul him back to the Plateau with you. He sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, looking dazed.
“There. Now you know he is fine. And I will even give his clothes back if it will make you shut up about it,” you add, because of course the great Nathaniel Morgan’s mouth is already open to object to something. “Now stop worrying. We have gone way off topic. The problem is your battle performance.”
That snaps him back to reality, bringing out a familiar scowl. “Oh, fuck you. I told you, I ain’t no champion battler. This is what you fucking get, you understand me?”
“You at least have to try. I do not know if you really did want to lose the last battle for some stupid reason, and I do not care. You will not go out and get drunk again. You will take your battles seriously and prepare for them accordingly. You saw what happened to Leonard Kerrigan. I will do the same to you if you refuse to cooperate.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s face twitches, a smile barely contained. “Oh, Jesus Christ, I do not want to be part of whatever kinky shit you’re into, that’s for damn sure.”
“Exactly. So if you value your freedom, you will not use it to do anything stupid. Is that clear?”
The great Nathaniel Morgan gives you a level look, not even frowning anymore, really. He looks more tired than anything. Finally he says, “I swear to God you are the weirdest son of a bitch I ever met.” Then he flops back on the bed and crams the pillow over his face again, and all your attempts to get a straight answer from him receive no more than a muffled, “Fuck off.”
“Oh, fine.” you snap. “Go to sleep, then, and I hope when you wake up you will be reasonable for once. I will get food, and you will eat, and then we will start getting ready for the next battle. Do you understand?” The great Nathaniel Morgan grumbles something, probably something rude, but you decide it’s good enough for now.
Outside in the living room you flop on the couch and let out a heavy sigh. Why can’t anything ever be easy? You rub your face with your hands, scratching the warm patch on your scalp where the flames come out, fingers tingling from the licking fire. Mewtwo had better be grateful after everything you’ve done to rescue him.
One more battle before the championship. Just one more win. If nothing goes wrong, if the great Nathaniel Morgan doesn’t turn into a complete mess again… You let out a tired, smoky huff of air, chin propped on the arm of the couch and eyes half-closed. Why would he try to lose, anyway? Some nonsense about you killing people, and he was acting scared of something. Of what? You don’t know. You don’t understand.
Now you have to find food, too, because apparently everyone would just go to pieces without you. You groan and bury your face in the fabric of the couch. Food later. If the great Nathaniel Morgan gets to take a nap, then you deserve one, too.
And of course he’s gone when you get back with dinner. You deposit the greasy take-out bag on the table and stand in the middle of the quiet, empty apartment, thinking.
You’re not even angry. You were expecting this. The great Nathaniel Morgan’s an imbecile, and it’s no wonder he couldn’t even hold it together for a few hours while you did all the actual work. Your thoughts are cold and simple now, not at all edged with heat, but you feel your temper gathering like a thunderstorm in the distance.
You don’t want to go after him now, not when you’ve just gotten back and are hungry on top of angry. Whatever mess the great Nathaniel Morgan’s getting himself into, he can enjoy it for another half hour or so; you’re not going to let him spoil your dinner.
For all your conviction you barely taste the food, staring hard at the wall across from you while you chew. Forget what you’ll do when you find the great Nathaniel Morgan–you’re sure you’ll be able to think of something–what are you going to do if you lose this tournament? What if Absol can’t figure out some other way to get Mewtwo back? You’ll be worse off than you were years ago, with all your friends lost and Mewtwo under higher security than ever.
You’re crunching through fries like they’re the ones you’re angry with, immersed in sullen thoughts, when the door bursts open and Raticate and Mightyena race in, wrapped up in the tail end of an argument. Mightyena breaks away when she sees you and dashes over, tail wagging like mad. She bounces around you in a circle, tossing her head to show off something bright green between her teeth.
“Look what I have!” she demands, nearly bowling you over, and you barely register it as a tennis ball before she bounds away again. She hovers by the door, dancing up on her hind legs when Graveler stomps through, carrying her trainer perched on top of a tall stack of newspapers.
“Move it, asshole,” the great Nathaniel Morgan growls down at Mightyena, “or I’m going to fucking land on you.”
Mightyena backs off slightly, maybe, and the great Nathaniel Morgan slides to the floor, landing heavily next to Graveler. He only has a second to wince, bracing himself against the newspaper stack, and then Mightyena’s all over him, demanding that he throw her ball and posing a danger to everyone with her tail.
“Get out of here, you menace,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, taking a swipe at her that doesn’t even come close to landing. Mightyena dashes away and bounds in circles around the room. Raticate flattens himself under the couch, muttering about where she can put her new tennis ball. The great Nathaniel Morgan watches Mightyena for a few seconds, smiling, while Graveler unloads the newspapers. And then, at last, he notices you.
“The fuck is with you?” he asks, and you realize your surprise must be written all over your face.
“I went to get food,” you snap. “Like I said I would. What have you been doing?”
“Well, I was fucking hungry when I woke up. No way in hell I was waiting on your furry ass to show. We got our own grub. I got a thing for you, too. Here.” He pulls something embedded in plastic from under his jacket and tosses it to you.
You catch it by reflex and stare down at it, perplexed. It’s a Transformozords action figure, Captain Carnelia Roth with laser gun and electro-sword made of translucent red plastic that glows when held up to light. “I already have one of these,” you blurt out.
The great Nathaniel Morgan shrugs. “Whatever. You got your thing, so I don’t want to hear no bullshit about how you was all left out or nothing, got it?” He reaches into his jacket again. “Now, that absol of yours around? Or the sablholyshit!”
“Hello, Lazurite-eyes,” Eskar says, with the cheerful air of someone who thinks jumping on people from the shadows is just how you say hello. She scurries back and forth across the great Nathaniel Morgan’s shoulders, peering down at his hand. “Hello, hello. What have you got, hmm? Have you got something for Eskar?”
“Here, uh,” the great Nathaniel Morgan starts, but Eskar snatches the little bag from between his fingers before he can say anything more. She’s across the room in the blink of an eye, clambering up to sit atop Graveler.
“What’s this?” the sableye chirrs, holding the bag up over her head. She examines it with jerky, birdlike tilts of her head. “What’s this what’s this what’s this?” She gives the bag a shake, and it clinks faintly. Eskar’s pointy-toothed grin widens, and avarice sparkles in her gemstone eyes.
“Yeah, uh, that’s for you, Sableye,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Good job in that battle and all.”
“Very strange, your trainer, isn’t he?” Eskar asks Graveler conversationally. The rock-type has a bag of her own and is transferring what look like white hunks of stone to her mouth one at a time, chewing noisily. “Imagine, a present for a silly little fight like that. Hmm, a present, a present.” She upends the bag, spilling a brightly-colored cluster of gems into her palm.
Eskar’s greedy smile vanishes. “What’s this?” she demands, and this time she sounds angry. “What is this? Look at these!” She holds up what looks like a chunk of gold, glittering and angular. “Trash! Worthless!” She tosses it aside, and Graveler catches it and pops it into her mouth without missing a beat. Eskar picks up another rock, rust-colored and swirled with gray. “Look at this! Look at these inclusions! Who would even pay money for this?”
“What, don’t you like rocks?” The great Nathaniel Morgan looks baffled. “I thought sableye fucking loved rocks.”
“They’re minerals! Imbecile human! Minerals!”
“Jesus Christ, okay, I get it. No more rocks for you. Sorry.” He jumps when Eskar lets out a nails-on-chalkboard screech, ranting about eyes and idiots and rocks.
Graveler reaches up to pluck the gemstone out of her hand. “I’ll eat them if you don’t want them.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan gives Eskar a wide berth as he makes his way to the couch. Mightyena jumps up next to him and drops the tennis ball in his lap, tongue lolling and tail going double time. The great Nathaniel Morgan picks the slimy ball up between two fingers and sets it aside, only for Mightyena to lunge and grab it and drop it in his lap again.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m beat, Pooch. We can play more tomorrow, okay? Promise.”
Mightyena groans and stretches out to her fullest extent, sprawling the great Nathaniel Morgan’s lap. He grins and scratches in the fur on her chest while she reproachfully paws at his other arm, which is removing the tennis ball again. “You’re fucking spoiled, you know that?”
Raticate attacks the stack of newspapers, tearing off long strips and bustling over to stuff them in a corner, wedged between the wall and the stem of a lamp. You watch him put together the beginnings of a nest while the great Nathaniel Morgan channel-surfs, apparently content to sit and watch TV with Mightyena lying on top of him. You snag a newspaper off the top of the stack and perch in the empty chair, scanning the headlines.
“Hey. The fuck are you doing? That’s Raticate’s,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says.
“I will put it back when I am done. I just want to look at it.”
“What, you want to look at the fucking pictures?”
“No, read it, stupid.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Pokémon can’t read. Some kinda brain thing.”
“I am not a pokémon.” And it’s been a while since you’ve done Absol’s newspaper ritual. You outright skip the main body of the news, going straight to the tournament coverage in hopes of seeing someone writing about you.
“Well? What’s it say? Anything interesting in there?” the great Nathaniel Morgan asks after a few minutes.
“I do not know. I am trying to find out, but someone keeps interrupting me,” you say. In truth, all the tournament section has about your match is speculation–they won’t be able to publish the results until tomorrow’s edition, you suppose. Reading about why Jason Muskowitz was favored to win isn’t improving your mood, and you flip onwards, looking for the comics.
“Whatever, asshole,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. He falls into an argument with Mightyena about what to watch and ultimately loses when she she steals the remote right out of his hands and changes to a reality show about humans trying to live in a mankey troupe. “Oh, come on, what even is this shit? We got like the best battle coverage all year going on now, and this is what you’re gonna go with?”
“Nate, battle TV’s all you ever want to watch,” Mightyena says, and since she’s now lying on top of the remote, her decision reigns.
Raticate explodes another newspaper into drifting shreds and rolls around in them for a bit before picking the choicest pieces and stuffing them into the growing pile behind the lamp. You give up on finding anything interesting in the paper and toss your copy back on top of the pile for him. Instead you pick up the action figure the great Nathaniel Morgan got for you and wrestle with the plastic. In the end you have to morph your fingers into claws so you can tear it open, spilling the toy into your lap. You might already have an action figure like this, but it isn’t here, and anyway, this one was free.
For a while you amuse yourself walking Captain Rubina Roth back and forth on the arm of the chair, firing on imaginary enemies, then fly her around in the air to engage in a space battle. Mightyena’s soon asleep, the great Nathaniel Morgan absently stroking the fur on her shoulder while he watches a monster movie about something three hundred feet tall and poorly animated attacking Vermilion City. It’s quiet save for the sound of Raticate brutalizing newspapers and tinny screams from the television.
You must doze, too, because the next thing you realize the TV’s dark and the great Nathaniel Morgan’s creeping off to the bedroom, leaving you alone save for the faint crackle of paper emanating from Raticate’s new nest. The human really can be quiet when he wants to, you think blearily. If the TV going off hadn’t roused you, you probably wouldn’t have noticed him leaving.
You lie with your eyes half-open, aware of Captain Rubina Roth’s tiny plastic sword jabbing you in the side but not feeling motivated to do anything about it. You’re warm and very comfortably squished into your chair, and there doesn’t seem to be any urgency about the matter, even if it is a little irritating.
It takes a few seconds for you to even realize what you’re hearing. A voice, faint–the great Nathaniel Morgan’s voice, coming from the bedroom. He’s talking to himself?
You stretch and then flop back into a loose curl, merely annoyed until another possibility occurs to you. You raise your head and listen more closely. Or the great Nathaniel Morgan’s talking to somebody far away with his pokédex–one of his Rocket friends, perhaps. Suddenly the chair doesn’t seem so comfortable anymore.
You leave Captain Rubina Roth to save your seat and tiptoe over to the bedroom, stopping shy of the doorway and leaning out from the wall just far enough to see inside.
Mightyena sits next to the great Nathaniel Morgan on the bed, the tennis ball lying on the sheets between them. The great Nathaniel Morgan’s still talking. “…fucked that one up real good for you. You shouldn’t have had to handle everything by yourself. I mean, fat fucking lot of good I was up there. You know, all I could think about was that time, you know, and I couldn’t let that happen to you again, and that… that only made it worse.” The great Nathaniel Morgan strokes the fur at the base of Mightyena’s neck for a few seconds before saying, “You’re okay, right? I mean, you’re obviously healed and all, but, like. It must’ve been scary, getting stuck under that ice.”
“Of course I’m all right, silly,” Mightyena murmurs as she leans into his hand. “But we’ve really got to do something about that stage fright and… everything else.”
“Yeah. Been here before, ain’t we?” The great Nathaniel Morgan lets his hand fall back into his lap. “You deserve better than this. You all do. But you know, it’s just me.” He clenches one hand into a fist, staring at the floor. “I ain’t cut out for this shit, you know? I mean, I gotta try, I gotta do it for Steelix and all, but I’m gonna fuck it up. That’s the word with me, right? I’m always just gonna fuck it up.”
“Oh, Nate. What am I going to do with you?” Mightyena sighs.
“And then what are we supposed to do?” the great Nathaniel Morgan mutters to himself. “Like what the fuck are we all supposed to do?”
Mightyena watches him for a few seconds, silent, then turns to look straight at you. “You know, Nate, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about,” she says. The great Nathaniel Morgan follows her gaze and springs to his feet the instant he lays eyes on you.
“What the fuck’re you doing here? How long you been watching?” he snarls.
You shrug. “I heard you talking and wanted to make sure you were not up to something, that is all. Why?”
“Nate–” Mightyena starts.
“Up to something? Oh, fuck you. If I were fucking up to something I wouldn’t be goddamned stupid enough to do it where your fucking super-hearing or whatever the shit could pick it up. How about you mind your own fucking business for once in your goddamned life? Get the fuck out!”
“What are you so mad about? It is not like you were saying anything important.”
“Oh my God, I cannot fucking believe you. You already got me by the short hairs playing your fucking tournament, you want to reorganize my fucking life because I ain’t fucking responsible enough or whatever the shit, and now you can’t even give me three seconds of fucking privacy? Get the fuck out of here,” the great Nathaniel Morgan snarls. Mightyena puts her head on her paws, ears pinned back against her skull. “Fuck off. Now! Go!”
“Whassup?” Raticate says from behind you, his voice blurry with sleep. “’S real loud.” He yawns hugely and gives you a blinking, expectant look, and when you don’t say anything he trundles around you and into the bedroom.
The great Nathaniel Morgan bends down and picks Raticate up, then stands there with the rat bundled in his arms. “Get out,” he hisses. Raticate seems sleepily curious about what’s going on, eyes barely open as he leans his head against his trainer’s chest.
You could point out that you’re not even in the room, there’s no way you can get out, but it’s not like he’d listen anyway. You leave him to his stupid conversation and curl up in your chair again, but of course now you’re all angry and there’s no way you’ll be able to sleep.
You grab Captain Rubina Roth and hold her up in the air, her sword glowing red as light filters through it. You make her arm chop up and down, cutting invisible bad guys in half. It would be so much easier if you could do that to the great Nathaniel Morgan, just get rid of him already. That’s the problem. Captain Rubina Roth never has to work with Space Pirates, she can just zap them and get on with her life. That’s how it ought to be.
“Eskar? Eskar, are you there?” you whisper. No point venting to Absol, even if she is around. She’d probably tell you she doesn’t want to hear about it, that it’s your fault you have to deal with the great Nathaniel Morgan. Maybe she’d even take his side. But Eskar understands.
All of a sudden your vision’s full of the diamond gleam of teeth, and your your heart lurches in your chest, even though you were expecting Eskar to pop up out of nowhere. “Of course, Cordierite-eyes, of course,” Eskar purrs. “Eskar’s here. You are angry with the shouty human, yes? Backstabby? Did you perhaps want… help with him?”
You’re about to say yes, he’s terrible, he’s losing, you have to do something about him, but the words that come out of your mouth are, “What’s going to happen to her?”
There’s a long moment of silence, and Eskar’s grin bows down into a frown. “Her? You mean Orpiment-eyes? The, the dark-dog?” she says, drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair.
“Yes. If her trainer goes back to Team Rocket, then she does, too. I was thinking… What’s going to happen to her? I know what Team Rocket does to pokémon.”
“Oh, no! Cordierite-eyes, no!” Eskar’s frown turns to utter slack-jawed dismay. “Orpiment-eyes is a strong pokémon! So strong! Such a waste to throw that away. No, Team Rocket will take good care of her, Cordierite-eyes. Of course. Of course! Such good care indeed.”
“But she won’t help you if you hurt her trainer,” you say. “And you are–you are…?”
“Ah, yes. It’s sad, isn’t it, such a fine pokémon paired with such a useless human?” Eskar shakes her head, shoulders rising and falling in an exaggerated sigh. “But this is the way of pokémon, yes? So loyal, even to those who do not deserve it. This is how it is. But Orpiment-eyes is smart, yes? So smart. She will learn. Team Rocket can give her a real trainer. She will understand then. I think it will take some time, but she will understand.”
You think of Mightyena at the hospital, nosing the great Nathaniel Morgan’s unresponsive hand, and your grip on Captain Rubina Roth tightens, jagged plastic edges digging into your palm. She’ll understand. Sure. Eskar would know, and Team Rocket–Team Rocket has its ways.
Eskar makes a clucking noise, and when you shift your attention back to her you see yourself reflected over and over in the facets of her gemstones. “So little trust, Cordierite-eyes! Team Rocket is not unreasonable. We will not blame Orpiment-eyes for having the trainer she did, of course not! We punish the ones who deserve it, yes, only them. This is good business, you see?”
You suppose it is. At length Eskar asks, “Is that all, Cordierite-eyes? Does that put your mind at ease?”
“Yes,” you say. It should. It does. Because why did you even ask in the first place? Who cares what happens to Mightyena? Or the great Nathaniel Morgan? They both deserve what’s coming to them. “Thank you, Eskar.”
“Of course, Cordierite-eyes, of course. Anytime. Anything for a friend. We are friends, are we not?” You nod, not looking at her. “Good, good,” Eskar purrs. “I’m here for you, Cordierite-eyes. Whenever you need me. I’ll always be watching.”
By the time you get up the nerve to look, she’s gone. You hug Captain Rubina Roth to your chest and stare at the ceiling. Space pirates. You wish you could fight those instead. Everything would be so much simpler.