Chapter 5

Only one light burns in the Kerrigan household tonight, up in the study at the rear of the second floor. You can't see into the room from here, but you can picture the scene well enough: Leonard hunched at a keyboard in the semidark, fingers flying, casting his incantations over the computer.

What you can see from here is your old room. The child sat in this very spot almost two years ago now, on the neighbors' roof with legs dangling over the edge and eyes trained on the bedroom window. That time you were the one in the room dying while another waited outside with Absol, nervous and fidgety and unsure what to do. The child had waited because Absol told it to wait and not interfere. There wasn't much to see, but somehow she knew when you stopped breathing and prodded that other one forward.

She won't be prodding you tonight. She watched while you prepared, staring into the mirror trying to get the color of your eyes just right, testing your voice, fussing with your hair. She didn't say anything, and she didn't follow you when you left. Now it's her turn to wait and practice the art of noninterference.

But you haven't acted yet, and why? Your old room is dark and cold and empty. You sharpened eyesight works even through the shadows, and you can see that everything's still exactly as it was that day, not even a bit dusty. You can't see it from this angle, but you wonder--is the empty bottle of pills still sitting on the nightstand?

Leonard isn't the only one in the house. Gruff, the family's aged growlithe, is sleeping somewhere on the first floor; if you concentrate, you can just taste the edges of his dreams as they run in confused little circles. He's no threat--you'll be surprised if he even wakes up to greet you. You run your fingers through your hair, on edge and not wanting to think about why, then grimace and tease it back into place. Honestly--after all the time you took getting it right.

This is stupid. You've established everything you need to: Leonard is home. He's defenseless. It's not like you're going to get a better opportunity. You draw your legs up onto the roof and push yourself to your feet, then forcefully think your way to the stoop.

You reach out and ring the doorbell before you can hesitate, before you can talk yourself out of it. Then there's nothing you can do but stand and wait, not fidgeting, definitely not fidgeting, as the seconds drag past. If only you didn't have to do this as a human. It would be easy to still the racing of your heart, to banish anxiety and anticipation alike, but changing enough to do that would make it very hard for you to act like Matt Kerrigan.

Finally, you hear movement inside the house. A light comes on in the foyer. The bolt turns, and the door opens a fraction. You find yourself looking into the face of Leonard Kerrigan, more haggard than usual, more disheveled. If he was planning to open the door further, he's forgotten. Instead, he's frozen staring out at you, the whites of his eyes huge and round.

You were afraid you'd forget all your preparations in the heat of the moment. The lines you rehearsed would fly out of your head, and you'd be left stammering. But you channel all your nervous energy into a kind of poised focus and are able to summon up the casual smile you practiced in the mirror, nail the voice as you begin, "Dad..."

The door is open in an instant. Leonard Kerrigan throws himself at you, and then it all goes to hell.

You barely resist the instinct to swat the man aside, the way you would any other creature that jumped at you, and that moment of hesitation leaves you no time to get out of his way. Leonard Kerrigan catches hold of you, wrapping his arms tight around your torso. You manage to get your own arms up and out of the way so they aren't pinned to your sides, but you're stuck there nonetheless, leaning away from the human and trying to make the minimum amount of contact while he clings to you like he thinks you'll evaporate if he doesn't.

Ah, wait. This is a hug, isn't it? You know how this works. Yes, definitely you do. You lean forward a bit and drape your arms over Leonard Kerrigan's shoulders and wait, hopefully, for further indication of what you should do.

Unfortunately, the human isn't giving you any cues. He's got his face buried in your chest while making the most horrific wailing noises. The longer you wait there, the more nervous you get--he's making a scene. Leonard Kerrigan's making a scene! What if someone comes to investigate the noise? What if someone sees you?

"Dad," you say. "We should go inside."

He keeps sobbing. You squirm around, starting to panic and not really caring if you're being rude. But Leonard Kerrigan won't let you go, and if you push him away too hard, you might hurt him. You wouldn't mind that, but it might be bad for your cover.

"Dad," you say again. "Inside. We should go inside. Listen."

You try walking forward, pushing him ahead of you, but that only threatens to get you even more tangled up. For a moment, exasperation replaces panic. You could pick the human up and carry him into the house if you needed to. He's lighter than you expected, actually, thinner than he looks under his sweater. But your head is going round and round with confusion, and you can't remember if you ought to be that strong or not.

You're standing there wrestling with the crying human and for one instant you feel the insane urge to burst out laughing. You look down at the back of Leonard's head, draggled and unwashed and graying, and make out words in his pathetic whimpering. "I always knew you weren't dead... Nobody believed me that I saw you, but I knew it, I knew what I saw, I knew you would never k-ki..." Then he descends into incoherence again, sobbing and coughing on his own tears, and you are almost--honestly. Why does being human have to be so confusing?

You take a quick glance around to make sure no one's watching--not that you could really do anything if they were--then half shove, half carry the man back into the house in what you hope would be called a firm, not rough, manner, and shut the door behind you. You set Leonard firmly aside, taking a moment to be sure he's not just going to jump at you again the moment you let go. His babbling's done and he's wiping tears from his eyes, which is good enough, you suppose. You take the moment of peace to have a look around.

It's dim in the foyer, only one light working in the chandelier. There's only one of everything here: one coat hanging on the hooks by the door, one umbrella in the holder. The smells of unwashed human and dishware overwhelm your sensitive nose; you can see the kitchen down the hall, stacks of plates piled in the sink and garbage overflowing from the can.

You surprise yourself in having to take a deep breath before you say the line, but say it you do. There's no going back now. "Dad. I am sorry, but I do not have much time. I am taking a great risk to be here in the first place. I need your help, Dad."

"Help? You need my help?" His voice is shaking, his hands are shaking as he cleans his tear-soaked glasses on the front of his sweater. He almost laughs, makes a horrible noise of inhaling mucus. "Of course, Matt. Anything. Anything you need. What do you want?"

"I need you to get my pokémon back for me."

"Your pokémon?" The glasses are back on his face and he squints through them. "But why..."

"They are in League holding. I cannot access them. But I need them back, and I know that you can get them released."

"Yes, yes, of course," he says, brushing aside what you've been agonizing over for years. He reaches out and puts a hand on your arm, and you fight down the urge to flinch away. "That's not what I meant. What is this all about, Matt? Where have you been?"

"I cannot tell you. The work I am doing is very dangerous, and if I told you, you would become a target." You find yourself warming to your story now that you've gotten going. Secret agents are cool, after all.

"Come on, Matt!" Leonard Kerrigan says, and you stare at him, confused by the heat in his words. "A target of what? What's going on? You can tell me! Why are you only coming back now? After all this time the least you could have done would have been to let us know somehow--I mean, everyone thought you were dead, and I--" He slides a hand under his glasses so he can rub at his eyes and the bridge of his nose. "At the very least, your mother..."

He isn't taking this as well as you'd hoped. Why can't he just be glad you're alive? You cut him off before he can work himself up even further. "I am sorry, Dad. No one was supposed to know I was alive. It was safer that way. I cannot tell you what I am doing, or where I have been. And no one else can know about it either. I did not want to involve you, but you locked me out of my account. I need my pokémon back, Dad."

He pauses with his hand still over one eye and laughs. "What, getting mad at me for doing my job? If you didn't fake your own death, you wouldn't have to worry about your storage account."

You honestly don't know how to deal with this. A glance around the miserable little room doesn't lend you any ideas. You decide to be direct. "I am sorry, Dad, but I cannot stay long. If you want to talk, we can do it while you get my pokémon out of storage."

He looks at you with an unreadable expression on his face, then sighs and removes his hand from your arm. "Up you go, then," he says, pointing towards the stairs. You remember the way to his study from the last time you were here and are only too happy to lead. You're less happy with what you find inside.

The area around the computer is cleaner than the rest of the house, but only barely. The machine itself is slick and new, of course, Leonard Kerrigan's Porygon-Z bobbing around as its screen saver. But the rest of the room is crammed with old newspapers, from respectable publications to the kind that announce Pikablu sightings and report on people who've seen the face of Arceus in their breakfast cereal. Those in particular have been going wild with the stories of Nicholas Garret's posthumous adventures, but even the Saffron Times was only marginally more restrained in its reporting.

Leonard Kerrigan found those stories, every one of them, and cut them out. There are others, too, reports of curious disappearances, unexplained thefts, that sort of thing. Some actually relate to you, most not. They're stacked in haphazard piles, tacked to the walls alongside computer printouts, and overflow onto the floor in a slurry of words.

The sight is like a hot knife twisting in your gut. Ah, of course. For a few minutes you actually forgot who you were dealing with. You do your best to keep the tightness out of your voice as you ask, "Dad. What is all this?"

"This?" he asks, stepping into the room behind you and gesturing languidly at all his incriminating papers. "I don't know, Matt. I was hoping you might be able to tell me."

"What? Why?"

"Well, Matt, you aren't the only trainer out there to fake their death recently." He sits down at the computer but stays turned towards you. "I was just wondering if whatever this thing is you've gotten involved with has something to do with them, too."

"I do not know anything about it," you say immediately, then curse yourself for panicking. "I mean, I do not think so. I have not been keeping up with the news. What is it about?" Leonard isn't typing anything, just sitting at the computer and watching you. You remind yourself to stay cool and alert and that after all you won't solve anything by killing the human right here and now, however easy it would be.

"Just what I said, Matt. Trainers who are supposed to be dead not staying dead. Showing up on the network when they're supposed to be in the ground." He's looking at you very closely, and you force yourself to focus on his face and not on the computer screen behind him, where War lies close, so close.

This isn't working. You take a deep breath and prepare to go off the rails. "I am sorry, Dad. You are right. I am not the only one involved in this. I cannot say more than that, but I promise you that if you help me get my pokémon back, I will return soon. I am almost done, and then I can be with you and Mom again. I did not want to leave. I did not want to be a part of this. But now I am. I need your help, Dad. That is all I am asking for."

Leonard Kerrigan sighs and rubs at his face again. "Of course, Matt. I don't understand, and I wish things could be different, but I'm glad you're alive. If you need your pokémon back, then I'll get them back for you. I just wish, though"--he stops rubbing and looks square at you--"there's really no way you can let anyone else know that you're alive? Not even your mother? If you came to see me--"

"Not even you should know," you say curtly. And how awfully true that is. If you hadn't been so careless back then, if he hadn't seen you, then you never would have had to do this.

He's still staring at you, and for a moment you're terribly close to doing something rash out of fear that he sees something wrong in your expression. Standing there surrounded by evidence of his scheming is fraying at the edges of your temper. But the human only shakes his head and says, "I see."

And then, mercifully, he turns to the computer and nudges the mouse, dismissing the bouncing Porygon. You watch hungrily as he starts typing, torn between wanting to edge closer and afraid that if you move you might somehow shatter this fragile, perfect moment when everything is going right.

A transporter on the desk spits a crackle of white light, then in one concentrated burst zaps a cluster of pokéballs into existence on the receiving platform. Leonard Kerrigan scoops them up and holds them in front of his face. He picks out one you don't recognize, old and scuffed with a blue top on it. "You remember your first pokémon, don't you, Matt?" he asks, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

You tense. He wants to play this game, then, does he? You've made a careful study of Matt Kerrigan and remember him as well as you think you can without ever having met him, but if Leonard Kerrigan begins to ask you serious questions about your past, you're going to be in trouble. This one is no problem, though. You nod and say, "Duke." Duke the persian, family pet for several years before joining Matt Kerrigan on his brief and ill-fated journey.

"That's right," Leonard says with a wan smile. "It's been a long time, hasn't it? Why don't we see if he still remembers you?"

Before you can protest, he tosses the pokéball to the carpet, and Duke takes shape in a flash of light. You have to step back, bumping into a leaning stack of magazines, as the appearance of a four-foot persian abruptly makes the small study even more cramped.

Duke blinks and snuffs at the air, his movements jerky and uncertain. He's been in storage for a long time, and you wonder whether anyone even bothered to explain to him what happened before putting him away. Your heart is hammering even though it's clear Duke isn't ready to fight. You weren't expecting this, not at all. You were prepared to deal with Leonard Kerrigan, but you've never met any of Matt's pokémon aside from War. If they realize what's going on, you don't know if you can fight them all.

You take a deep breath and kneel down in front of Duke. "Hello, Duke," you start. The persian turns deep brown eyes on you. "Remember me? It is good to see you again."

"What? Matt?" Duke rumbles. His gaze roves the cluttered study, passing across Leonard Kerrigan sitting by the computer without pause. You reach out your hand to pet him, but he shrinks away from your fingers, bumping clumsily against the desk. "What's going on here?" he asks, baring his teeth.

You hurriedly draw your hand back, make placating gestures, but it's too late. "I knew it," Leonard says, wearing a sickly smile. "You're not my son. But you are connected with the other dead trainers, aren't you? Who are you? And what"--the smile is gone, replaced by a grim expression that draws the skin tight over his cheekbones--"have you done with my son?"

"No, Dad--Duke--you don't understand. It really is me. I know I seem different. Some things... Some things have happened. I did not mean for it to be like this. Please, you have to believe me." Duke keeps looking back and forth between you and Leonard, fur starting to bristle.

"Is that so? Then just what is it that I should believe? Or is that something else you 'can't tell me?'"

"I cannot! I am not lying. It really is dangerous! Come on, Dad, what is it that you want me to say?"

Leonard Kerrigan shakes his head, and you know his mind is already made up. "No. Just listen to yourself. You sound nothing like him--you sound like some kind of fucking robot. Who are you?"

You take a breath to clear your head. You're about to make one more stab at diplomacy, but paper crinkles under your foot as you shift your weight; you glance around at the clippings plastering the walls. Leonard Kerrigan is your enemy. He trapped War in the computer; he forced you into skulking furtiveness for fear he might discover you; he stole--you almost choke on bile at the thought. What's the point of discretion? You didn't come here to make friends. You step back, skirting a stack of papers.

All you're trying to do is maneuver for extra space, but Leonard must think you mean to leave. "Duke, stop him!"

That's all the excuse you need. There is a ferocious crack as Duke leaps headlong into an invisible barrier, a protect shield thrown up in a heartbeat. The persian falls to the floor in a daze, and you leap over him in one impossibly fast motion, the room blurring for a second before slamming into focus again as you land directly in front of Leonard Kerrigan.

He jerks backward, and you grab his arm and wrestle the pokéballs out of his grasp. There's movement behind you as Duke leaps onto the desk, knocking a cascade of papers and old, coffee-crusted mugs to the floor. You brace yourself as he jumps for you again, then catch him in the chest with your elbow and slam him into the side of the desk.

You deliver a smashing brick break with your left hand to keep the struggling persian down, and with the other you try to juggle the pokéballs without dropping any, rolling them around until your fingers can find the blue-topped one.

Duke gets his legs back under him, badly bruised but now, at last, starting to realize that he really has to fight. You thumb the button on the front of the ball and call him back to captivity.

There's a moment of relative peace as a last couple paper shreds drift to the floor in front of the now-crooked desk. You stuff the pokéballs into your pocket and make for the door in earnest, then are jerked to a halt as Leonard Kerrigan grabs your arm from behind.

You turn to look back at him, surprised but not at all disappointed, because now the fool really is going to put himself in your way. If he's going to push you--well, who's to blame you if you push back? You look down into his desperate face, his teeth clenched, eyes tearing at the corners, as he tries to--what? Drag you back? Pull you down? What can he expect to do, after he saw you take care of the persian so easily? "Stop!" he yells. "Who are you? What have you done with my son?"

You smile, easily resisting his attempts to wrestle you down. You could kill him now, if you wanted. You have what you came for, and he's certainly provoking you. But it might not be wise. His death would bring an investigation, and for lack of any other motive, someone might begin to suspect that there was more to his rants about dead trainers than previously suspected. As it is, they think he's crazy, and if he tries to discuss your visit with anyone, they'll only grow more sure. Best just to leave him something to remember you by.

Your grin stretches wider and wider, splitting Matt Kerrigan's face ear to ear as jaws reconfigure to accommodate the new rows of teeth forcing their way out of your gums, gleaming sharp in the dim light. Fingers grow claws and irises bleed to red as you stare into Leonard Kerrigan's eyes.

Those eyes are widening, and the grip on your arm slackens as his anger gives way to horror. "What--just what the hell--" he starts.

"Your son is dead, you stupid old fool," you say in a voice that comes out mushy from a mouth no longer meant for human speech. Leonard Kerrigan is still trying to say something, or at least he's moving his mouth, but there's nothing there for you to hear. You lean in closer and add, "And if you continue to get in my way, you will be next."

The hopeless look on Leonard Kerrigan's face is exquisite, and you laugh as you press your free hand into his chest and shove him away, easily breaking his slack grip. You half hope he'll come at you, make some desperate final effort. But he just lies where he's fallen, cowering. You laugh again at his pathetic expression, flush with your victory, and leave. Out in the hall, well out of sight, you pause for a moment and clamp down on your elation just long enough to concentrate. With another thought, you're gone.

---

Back at the house, the child spends a long time simply holding War's pokéball, bubbling with excitement but too exhausted to face the pokémon inside. The thrill of victory won't let it rest, and it lies awake on its bed until long after morning comes, thinking, exulting, remembering. Remembering Cinnabar.

It watched footage of the eruption on television, marveling at the disaster it had so narrowly avoided. At the time it didn't think of anything but how lucky it was to survive, to have Absol. But then, two days later, she came for the child. "Come. There is something you must see." And the place she took it was like the ruins of hell.

Cinnabar Island was wiped out, nothing left standing. Some buildings had been engulfed by lava flows, others flattened by the force of the blast itself or crushed beneath the boulders it had hurled. Choking ash buried everything meters-deep. Absol practically swam through it, and the child struggled to follow, floundering along with its shirt pulled over its face in a vain effort to block out the smoke and gritty dust, coughing miserably all the while. But it knew better than to complain. Absol, her usually immaculate coat soiled and dark, would not have brought it here for no reason.

She climbed a splintered beam jutting from the ash slurry, claws digging deep into the crumbling wood to hold herself steady. The child stopped below and waited, looking for some indication of why Absol had brought it there. But the slumping gray humps of ash obscured everything, and even if they'd been standing at the center of the town hall, the child would never have been able to tell.

"Listen," Absol said. "Look around you. This is Fate."

"Fate" isn't right. When Absol speaks of it, the child gets the impression that she means was something far larger and more complicated than such a simple human word, but "Fate" is the best translation it can make. It's grilled Absol about it more times than it can count, but they've only ever managed to frustrate each other. Absol gets annoyed by the child's stupidity--how can it fail to understand something so natural and obvious? And the child can never understand Absol's analogies--what was it supposed to do with explanations like "It is like the way shadows bend when they flow over blood?" So, Fate it is.

Absol continued. "Two years ago, a terrible crime happened here. It was a crime against both Mew and nature itself. It must not be allowed to happen again. Look around you. Those who were responsible have been punished." She tipped her head to the side, ever so slightly. "And those who were not responsible have also been punished. Such is the way of Fate."

The child looked again at the shattered remains of Cinnabar Island, then to the still-smoking volcano rising overhead, one side of its cone disintegrated by the explosion. Visions of white-furred shadows padding quietly through history teased at its brain. Sometimes it wasn't sure whether Absol thought Fate was something that was or something you did.

"There are many who abetted the creation of Mewtwo, and every last one of them will be punished. They will die. They will die unnaturally. They will die before the time set down for them."

Ah. A question. The child, most certainly, had so abetted. And it had to ask--did that mean that it, too...?

Absol gave it a long, steady look, and after a moment the child subsided, sheepish. Oh. Of course. It had already died.

Absol continued. "You recall that I have a mission."

It did. Defend the child.

"You recall that you have a mission as well. One that you did not undertake alone."

It did. Its heartbeat quickened as it began to suspect.

"After you died, humans took your pokémon and divided them. They have come to rest in the hands of others who were here on Cinnabar, others who have been marked by Fate. Each of these will perish, and when they do, I will know. When they do, you will be reunited with your friends. You will take what the humans had and use it to carry out your mission, so that in their death they may help rectify the wrongs they brought about in life. Such is the will of Fate." She fixed the child with a hard stare. "You have grown into your strength. You are ready to begin your mission in earnest. Are you prepared?"

Yes, of course. It said as much, wheezed it, gagging on the suffocating mouthful of ash-filled air it sucked down in its excitement. Absol was solemn in the face of its hacking affirmation. She nodded. "Then come." She leaped from the beam and dropped into the wreckage, the remains of some anonymous building blasted from its foundation. She dug industriously, hollowing out a crevice in the shifting ash and batting free a grime-covered pokéball, sending it rolling towards the child's feet. As it bent down to pick it up, she said, "This is the first. See to it that you do not forget its purpose, or your own."

Only later would the child wonder how Absol managed to find the pokéball buried in a pile of soot in some no-account corner of Cinnabar Island. At the time it was too overwhelmed by the reunion with its friend, with the treasure salvaged from the wreckage, with the fact that it suddenly had a real home, once the vacation house of some wealthy Cinnabar resident, now left empty and forgotten on a little island to the south.

When the child held that first pokéball--Rats' pokéball--it didn't understand what it meant, what it was embarking on. Now it holds this last pokéball, and the circle is complete. It has planned and waited and grown impatient and waited still more, and finally it is ready to set out on its journey. It's a journey long-deferred, dreamt of by a dead human child but never taken. It's a journey dreamt of once again by the person it's become, and today it will begin.

There are eight badges. There is a grand tournament held only once per year. It's only a little over a month away.

The child will win those badges. It will enter the tournament. And it will meet the trainer who holds the key to its future--its future, and that of its mother.

But first, someone else will have to die.