Chapter 50
Pyrite Colosseum’s dingy lobby is nothing more than a small room, gated off from the dome itself by exposed beams and chain-linked fencing. There isn’t even a proper door to the colosseum, just a ragged hole in the dome itself, like some huge pokémon charged through and wrecked the entrance and nobody ever bothered to fix it.
It’s couldn’t possibly be more cool.
“Impressive, huh?” someone says from near your waist, and you start, looking down. Heracross stands there, smirking up at you, with Hypno and Noctowl at her back.
It’s disgusting, Mewtwo mutters in your head.
“It looks just like in the movies.”
“Yes, I guess they do film around here pretty often,” Hypno says. “Here, we should move. We’re blocking traffic.”
You let her lead you aside, to an out-of-the-way corner stocked with deeply obsolete computer stations. They’re dark and dusty, nobody stepping up to use them despite how the number of people milling around the lobby who have pokéballs. Even those people in Orre who do have pokémon rarely have more than two or three, so they don’t need the PC system the way Kanto does.
Do these three have information for us or not? Mewtwo demands.
“Mewtwo wants to know if you found anything out,” you say, raising your voice to be heard over the din of boots on metal, voices rebounding from the dome’s scuffed shell.
“No,” Hypno says, rubbing at the side of her neck. “Nothing yet. Nothing since… three days ago.”
“We’ll know more soon,” Noctowl says, so softly that you lean forward, straining to hear. “I know who we need to talk to. It’s a matter of finding him, that’s all.”
What a surprise, Mewtwo says darkly. He has to have expected that, though. Is that all? It can’t be. There must be some other reason he agreed to let you come here. You’re sure it’s horrible, but you still wish he’d tell you what it is.
“Don’t you worry,” Heracross says, reading anxiety into your silence. “We’re on it. Relax and enjoy yourself a bit, huh? This is what it’s all about!”
You had better not, Mewtwo says, like there’s any chance you might have had a good time with him lurking in your head. We have work to do.
Nebulous, mysterious work. You do your best to muster up a smile for Heracross. “I will! It is exciting.”
“Sure is. Here, let’s head inside. Bit more breathing room down by the arena.”
Yes, there’s a lot of space down by the arena. The stadium is huge but somehow without Indigo’s grandeur, the air fogged with smoke from people dragging on cigarettes–here! Indoors! They’d never get away with that in Kanto. The people hanging around the sidelines look somehow sun-bleached, Orre’s perpetual dust ground into their skin, clothes faded from once-garish colors. The great Nathaniel Morgan would feel right at home here, you think.
You feel everyone’s attention swing towards you when you take advantage of the extra room to release your pokémon. You resist hunching your shoulders, suppress a snarl that would have shown canines just a shade too long for a human, remind yourself that you don’t have anything to worry about. The humans would have to go through you to get at any of your friends. Hypno’s looking around, too, frowning meaningfully at a trainer here or there who’s let their gaze rest on Titan a bit too long.
Heracross chatters away, gesturing with her can of soda. “You all fighting with us today, then? How about you, charizard? Don’t tell me you’re sitting out.”
“Of course not!” Titan rears up, stretching his wings out far, and Togetic zooms in circles around him, cheering. You cringe. He isn’t exactly keeping a low profile.
“Who’s that, huh?” Heracross asks, tipping her horn in Togetic’s direction. Togetic giggles and hides behind one of Titan’s wings.
“That is Togetic. She does not battle, but she wanted to come and watch.”
“Another one for the spectator’s box, huh? Well, at least Noctowl will have some company.”
He isn’t going to battle? You give Noctowl a curious look. He’s standing quietly next to Hypno, head ticking faintly back and forth. You’d assumed the three of them would battle together. Unova’s musketeers always do.
“I have one more pokémon,” you say, hand closed around War’s pokéball. “He doesn’t like to fight out of the water, though. Is there a pool or anything for him?”
“No, unfortunately. You don’t usually find water accommodations around here,” Hypno says. “There aren’t a lot of water-types in general.”
You can believe that. War certainly complains enough about how dry everything is whenever you let him out. You feel guilty, keeping him in his ball so much, but he seems to like that better than dragging his tentacles over Orre’s hot, dusty ground. You roll the tentacruel’s pokéball between your fingers, thinking how different he is from Rats, who wants to be out to see everything, all of the time.
Except now she says, “I’m gonna sit this one out, too, I think we’re definitely gonna need more adult supervision in the stands.”
“I don’t need–!”
“Joke, Boss,” Rats says. “Not really feeling it today, that’s all. You lot are fine without me, aren’t you?”
Titan’s wings droop, and Hypno frowns in obvious disappointment, but Heracross waves a claw airily. “Suit yourself. We’ve got plenty of firepower over here. Why don’t you grab some seats, then? Give us some space to talk strategy and all.”
Leaving Titan behind feels even worse than you expected. If anything happened you could teleport down to the arena in a second, secrecy be damned. You know that. Still you linger even after Noctowl’s taken flight, sweeping just over the heads of the crowd. “You need something else, Boss?” Rats asks, and you have to shake your head. Maybe if you’d thought of it, you could have asked to stay on the sidelines to watch the battles, but now everyone’s expecting you to go sit with Noctowl.
He’s circling now, waiting and expecting, so you follow him over to the stands, Rats ahead of you squeezing between people’s legs. You expect Noctowl to swoop down to something in the front row, which is crowded but has seats even now, but he keeps going up, and up, and up, to perch on a bleacher practically tucked into the curve of the dome. There aren’t exactly a lot of people clamoring to get up into the very farthest spots, so at least you don’t have much competition as you labor up endless stairs to join him. If only you could fly right now.
You scoot onto the bench next to Noctowl, Rats hopping up on the far side and Togetic fluttering down to rest, quite precisely, on Rats’ head. You laugh along with her, and Rats flashes you a quick, amused look. You think you catch Noctowl looking, too, but if so he’s staring down at the arena a second later, inscrutable.
How are we supposed to tell the humans apart from up here? Mewtwo grumbles. It’s hard enough when you can get a good look at them.
You are really far away. There’s a lot of space, and maybe being far away will give you the best view of super big attacks. You hope there are big attacks! For now you make your eyes as good as you can, and thankfully Mewtwo mutters, I suppose this is adequate.
If he won’t even tell you what he’s looking for, he’ll just have to hope your eyes land on it by chance. You lean back and stretch out your legs, trying to shake the feeling of dread Mewtwo’s voice always casts over you. Togetic’s babbling away at Rats, and you smile and look down over the empty expanse of bleachers below. This place can’t hold nearly as many people as Indigo Stadium, despite how big it is, but it’s definitely made for more than the couple hundred people, maybe, down below. Burning sun streams through great open patches in the dome where panels have cracked or fallen out, and nobody sits in the sunny patches, even when they’d give a good view. The banners high above hang limp and frayed, some scorched and tattered as if struck by stray attacks. The crisp white lines that mark out the battlefield’s perimeter are the only things that look new or well-cared-for around here.
“Why are we so far away?” you ask Noctowl. “Do you like being up here because you’re a bird?”
Rats gives you an exasperated look. What? Noctowl is a bird.
Noctowl fluffs himself and blinks sagely. “It’s quieter up here,” he says. “And safer, too. You should be careful in places like this, especially carrying something so valuable as you are.”
It’s only quiet until the announcer starts up, the audio quality muddy but plenty loud, and you peer down into the arena, where there’s all kinds of hurrying and shuffling around the sidelines. Yes, there’s Titan, and the rest of them, too, keeping a little apart from all the excitement. A couple trainers step up to the arena, pokéballs at the ready, and they send out…
“What?” you say in exasperation. “But this is a baby fight!”
Roselia and cacnea on one side, pikipek and zigzagoon on the other. Young pokémon, absolutely tiny under the vastness of the dome. The cacnea lets out a raspy yell, raising needle-tipped arms, and that gets some scattered cheering from the stands. It must be insincere.
“They are inexperienced,” Noctowl says, and he almost sounds embarrassed. “Not many people around here can be trainers full-time. It’s not like Kanto or Johto where you can visit a local gym to get as many matches as you want. It takes a lot of time to raise a pokémon in Orre.”
You suppose it would, if the only opponents you had to work with were like these. You expect the pikipek to carry the entire fight by himself, but he’s so skittish he flinches when the cacnea even brandishes his spines, and it’s the zigzagoon’s sincere, enthusiastically clumsy tackles that eventually decide the match. You guess it would be cute, for someone who just wanted to see some excited “future champions” scuffling it out, but you were hoping for more from a real Orre match. There isn’t even any blood.
“Guess you and your friends must win a lot, then,” Rats says. “Unless that heracross is way less punchy than she looks.”
“They don’t win nearly enough for Heracross’ taste,” Noctowl says, and he straightens up a little as he says it, looking down at the arena with more interest than you’ve seen from him this entire time. He must be searching for his friends. “It’s hard with a team of only two. And not all the pokémon in these tournaments are young.”
You certainly hope not. The next match showcases grimer and numel, trubbish and abra. You sigh when the trainer after that sends out a skwovet. The crowd sounds roughly as enthusiastic as you feel, loud and chatty and more interested in their beer and snacks than the fighting. There’s anemic applause and usually a whistle or hoot or two for each trainer–friends or family, you have to assume, plus Togetic, who’ll cheer for anyone. That’s about it. This is going to be boring, you realize with growing alarm.
Now and again a more experienced battler does show up. One linoone in particular draws a warmer-than-usual round of applause, and a few appreciative laughs and catcalls when he simply knocks his opponents, a chattering pansear and a spoink who freezes up the instant she sees her opponent, out of bounds. He’s fast and efficient and almost mesmerizing to watch on the field, a flowing ribbon of white and brown stripes, but he’s still a linoone, and the pokémon he’s fighting are babies.
Heracross and Hypno’s battle is hardly more impressive. Hypno takes a few light shocks from an electrike who’s tenacious but easily swatted around by psychic bursts, and Heracross is probably working hard not to shatter the rolycoly she’s faced with, easily knocking aside the rocks it hurls her way. Why did they want you to come out and watch this? Did they really think you’d be impressed? Titan and Thunder wait on the sidelines. Even from here you can see Titan’s dismay. All he wanted was some good fights.
“Are you sure the battles later are going to be more–hey, wake up!”
Noctowl opens one big eye halfway. “Yes? Is something the matter?”
You’re scandalized. “Why are you sleeping? Do you not want to watch your friends?”
Noctowl shifts from foot to foot, his whole body swaying. “I don’t like fighting,” he says at last.
“What do you mean? You are a pokémon. How can you not like fighting?”
Noctowl retracts his head down into the fluffed-up feathers of his chest. “I used to. Not anymore.” He stays perfectly still aside from the subtle ticking motion of his head, as though hoping you’ll forget about him if he doesn’t move.
This is way more interesting than the actual tournament. How could Noctowl possibly not like fighting? It’s what pokémon do! You try to think back to what it was like being human. Even humans that like to fight don’t like it that much, not the same way pokémon do. “What made you change your mind?” you ask finally.
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
And Rats is giving you a look, so you can’t ask more than that. You frown so deeply at Noctowl that it makes your forehead go wrinkly. He can’t be serious. Maybe he doesn’t like fighting, but he still needs to, like every other pokémon. Surely.
The first round’s over? Mewtwo asks sharply, and it takes you a second to realize what he’s talking about. The announcer’s saying that, yes.
That means all the trainers have fought once already, doesn’t it? You nod faintly, hoping he’ll pick up on what it means. But that’s not right! the clone snarls. Divel hasn’t battled yet! Where is that worthless human?
You shift in your seat, glancing at Rats and Noctowl. “I don’t know,” you murmur as softly as you can. “Who?”
There has to be some kind of mistake, Mewtwo fumes. Divel ought to be here! If this tedious excursion is for nothing…
You go from floaty, almost dizzying relief at the thought that you won’t have to find out what Mewtwo wants with Divel, whoever that even is, to tingling apprehension over what he’ll do if he doesn’t get his way. You want to ask Mewtwo what made him so sure the human would be here in the first place, but not enough to actually try it. Even if you were quiet, you know Rats would hear, and the less she thinks about Mewtwo, the better.
A surge in crowd noise draws your attention back to the arena. A mightyena snarls at his opponent, bleeding from a long cut across his shoulder. The grovyle responsible circles slowly, her leaf drifting behind, its specialized hairs ready to sense the faintest change in air pressure and warn her of her opponent’s attack.
The mightyena lunges, and the grovyle dodges easily, lashing out with a green-glowing leaf that puts another long cut down the dark-type’s side. It’s not much of a fight; the mightyena’s much too slow to catch the grovyle, who hops in and out, making lazy strikes with leaves that glow ever brighter. Fury cutter.
It’s not illegal–it’s not against the rules or anything, and the mightyena will be fine. But it is a little bit cruel how the grovyle draws the fight out, making a show of each blinding slash, waiting for the mightyena to attempt some desperate attack simply so she can show off her dodges. Perhaps the mightyena’s trainer doesn’t recognize the hopelessness of the situation, and that’s why she leaves her pokémon in to get eviscerated. But the grovyle’s trainer, egging her on from the sidelines, surely knows he could end this anytime. The crowd’s eating it up; you suppose this is the most blood they’ve seen all day.
That’s how it manifests at first. Little cruelties, what could easily be accidents, nothing blatantly out of bounds. A primeape crushes his opponent’s paw, a pikachu holds her lightning on a pancham even after they’re clearly unconscious, an arbok aims for the eyes with his poison. There’s no referee to call anyone out, and it’s rare for a trainer to recall a pokémon before they’re completely unconscious. Togetic hums uncertainly, wings fluttering with excitement when the crowd cheers but not sure, it seems, whether this is such a happy thing.
Maybe Noctowl doesn’t like battling because he thinks all battling is like this. All those earlier trainers with the weak pokémon–they’re trying to get to this level. This is what they think fighting’s about. It kind of makes sense, then. You don’t know if you’d like fighting very much, if this is what it was about.
Maybe you should battle Noctowl. You could show him what a proper match is like. Also, you’d definitely win.
Heracross and Hypno take to the arena again, this time facing a murkrow and a croagunk. Hypno’s psychic attacks would make short work of the frog, but the murkrow flaps around her head, pecking and clawing at her face, and she can’t keep up her concentration. Something a trainer could help her with, if she had one. Heracross buzzes in to defend her, clumsy in the air. She grabs the murkrow and drags them with her to the ground as they collapse into a flurry of flailing beak and wings and glinting blue carapace.
Mewtwo keeps up a furious running commentary in your head. We’re wasting time, he snarls. If Divel isn’t here, we’ll turn this worthless town upside-down until we find him. Who cares about these pointless battles? None of the pokémon here could fight their way out of a paper bag.
He sounds almost offended. You’re half expecting him to demand you send him out so he can show everyone here how a real pokémon battles. Meanwhile Noctowl appears to have gone back to sleep, but Rats is watching the match, either engrossed or doing a good job at pretending.
The croagunk smacks Hypno with a sucker punch, but she at last manages a confusion attack, hurling her opponent back across the arena. Glistening clear liquid wells up from the cracks in Heracoss’ armor, but she’s jabbing busily at the murkrow, her horn describing great arcs and circles in the air. Another psychic attack from Hypno blasts the croagunk out of the arena completely, and then Hypno wades in to help Heracross, attacking the murkrow with her bare hands.
With the bird out of her face, Heracross finally clubs the murkrow to the floor, eliciting a squawk and a burst of feathers. Your attention’s on the pokémon the opposing trainer just sent out, though–the linoone from earlier. Togetic’s humming goes up a pitch; she’s practically vibrating with anticipation. You both know the linoone’s fast–and yes, he’s across the arena in the blink of an eye, not even stumbling when Hypno aims a burst of psychic energy his way. The barest twitch takes him out from under Heracross’ reaching claws, and then he headbutts Hypno in the chest, knocking her sprawled on her rear.
A druddigon appears in the murkrow’s place. His cobalt scales are scuffed and torn, but his eyes, deep within the craggy ridges of his face, are alert and burning with malice as he takes in the scene. Heracross gets the odd punch in on the linoone despite her opponent’s constant, flowing motion, but she’s so preoccupied that she doesn’t notice the druddigon gathering flames until it’s too late. She yells as the fire engulfs her, and you wince in sympathy. There’s a long, nerve-wracking pause where it looks like Heracross is going to lunge back at the druddigon, but finally she turns and limps out of the arena.
She and Hypno must have potions back there, but they don’t have pokéballs, so they can’t use a healing machine. There’s no team of healers like the ones that helped with the League finals. What would happen if one of them got seriously injured? If the murkrow’s beak had gone through an eye or happened to tear open an artery?
A proper League probably wouldn’t let Heracross and Hypno fight like this at all. Not safe. Orre’s lawlessness means more danger, but maybe more freedom, too. If Hypno and Heracross never want to have a trainer again, well, you can kind of understand it. Maybe it’s good that they can still battle the way they want.
A ripple of murmurs runs through the onlookers as Titan and Thunderstorm take to the arena, and Rats’ whiskers perk up. “Bet people didn’t expect those two to have real muscle backing them up,” she says with a sidelong smile at you. “What do you think, Boss? Titan and Thunder are going to give them a real show, aren’t they?”
“They are!” You grin. A lot of people here might not have ever seen a real charizard in their entire lives.
“Go, go, go!” Togetic yells, then dissolves in a fit of giggles. Noctowl fluffs himself imperiously and fails to open his eyes.
The druddigon roars a challenge, and Titan roars back, tail-flame blazing high. The dragons rush each other, spewing fire, and Thunderstorm swoops in behind, gleaming too bright to look at while it powers up a flash cannon. You lean forward, at the edge of your seat without even realizing it, and it feels like everybody in the building does likewise. Your heart hammers with excitement as Titan and the druddigon exchange blows, but your eyes keep going back to the crowd. They’re all watching, avidly, some people even pressed right up against the energy barrier, their covetous stares on your friend–
There! Mewtwo’s interjection sounds loud and clear even over the cheering. You lurch in shock, and the clone snarls, No, stop! Stop moving your eyes! Idiot. Look left. More left. No, left, and up–there! Right there!
You think you get a glimpse of someone–maybe–down in the crowd. A second later they’ve turned away again, and you’ve lost them in the press of people at the edge of the arena.
What are you waiting for? Mewtwo snarls. Get down there! Find the human! Don’t let it get away!
“Mewtwo, I can’t–” you mutter desperately, and then Togetic lets out a delighted trill.
“Oh, nice work, Titan!” Rats says, slapping her tail against the bench beneath her. Titan’s thrown the druddigon down, and while Thunderstorm keeps the linoone at bay, shooting bursts of sparks whenever he tries to dart in and help his partner, engulfs the druddigon in such a torrent of blue-green flames that there’s no way he’ll get back up. Your heart lifts, just for a second. It feels like your pokémon are in a completely different world than you, one where people are actually having fun.
The linoone dodges and dodges; there’s no way he’ll be able to keep that up. One good strike and he’s down. Titan turns towards him now, the fallen druddigon vanishing from the battlefield to a wash of cheering. The charizard snaps his head forward and releases a flamethrower; the linoone skips left, and Titan has to jerk his head back lest Thunder’s bolt of electricity clip his snout. Thunder weaves back and forth, all three eyes narrowed, and hurls electricity in all directions while the linoone tries to lurk beneath it, darting back into Thunder’s shadow whenever Titan breathes fire.
Finally Titan grows frustrated and rears back, clapping his wings together to blow out a wave of superheated air that the linoone can’t simply dart around. Thunderstorm lets out a loud, rude buzz and recoils, metal skin glowing with heat. Even from here you can tell Titan’s trying to apologize, but Thunderstorm ignores him, descending on the linoone in a sparking fury. Scorched and staggered though he is, the linoone jumps straight at the magneton. You’re expecting one last, desperate attack, but instead the normal-type backflips and slaps Thunder away with his tail. Straight into Titan.
The charizard roars as lightning meant for the linoone discharges into him instead, flailing wings and lashing tail and striking out blindly at his own partner. “Come on,” you mutter in dismay, fists clenched desperately. “You can do it! The linoone’s right–”
Right there, tangling himself in Titan’s legs so he crashes down on top of Thunderstorm. The two of them thrash in a mess of confused fire and lightning while the linoone slinks away unscathed.
Go! Now! It’s over! Mewtwo snaps. Don’t make me ask again.
“Okay!” You stand straight up, pricked by the vicious tone in Mewtwo’s voice. “We should go down there and, um.”
“We should tell them good job,” Rats supplies, like she somehow knows how desperate you are to find an excuse. “Good job most of them, anyway. Titan won’t be able to live that friendly fire down.”
“Yes,” Noctowl says. “I take it they didn’t win, then?”
He couldn’t even pay enough attention to see who won? Whatever small part of you isn’t terrified of finding out what Mewtwo has in store for Divel is scandalized on the Musketeers’ behalfs. No wonder Noctowl’s friends were so excited to have someone new come and cheer them on. He’s terrible at it.
The next match is kicking into gear as you make your way down to the sidelines. The press of the crowd confused by the strobing lights of energy attacks makes you despair of finding anybody. But you shouldn’t have worried–Titan is Titan, and he towers over everyone else, unmistakable even splashed by strange colors and lights.
“Are all of you okay?” You have to yell over an explosion that buzzes in the soles of your feet, even with the energy barrier there to protect you.
“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Heracross insists.
It’s here, it’s here, it’s here. Mewtwo’s words pulse over and over, an awful chant that feels like it beats to the same rhythm as your heart.
You give your head a hard shake and try to keep half your attention on Heracross while you scan the nearby onlookers, searching for Divel. You barely caught a glimpse of him earlier, and now Mewtwo’s expecting you to find him again amidst the noise and the dust and with Heracross asking you for your opinions on the tournament.
“Good. It was pretty good,” you say vaguely.
Then your head fills up with blaring, There. There! You idiot, look back that way. That’s the human.
You see him now and are even more annoyed that Mewtwo expected you to somehow realize he was important. He’s completely ordinary–normal human size, the usual number of limbs, wearing a long, dusty blue coat. You squint and try to concentrate through Mewtwo’s unhelpful babbling, then flinch when a sharp crack of lightning from the arena catches you unawares. Divel cheers for something, raising a fist in the air.
“Hello?” Heracross says. “You, uh, see somebody you know over there?”
“What? No!” You jerk your gaze back to Heracross. “I do not know anybody here in Orre. Besides you and your friends.” The bug’s giving the group of humans a considering look nonetheless. “Anyway, I–I have to go. I have to go!”
Now all the pokémon look your way, their cheerful conversations dying. “Boss?” Rats asks.
You can’t explain. “Sorry,” you say, the lump in your throat making the word more of a croak than anything. Togetic’s off-tune, unhappy whistle doesn’t help. “I need to go. You can… you four can stay, if you want, just come back to the factory after. Titan can bring you.”
“Are you sure?” Hypno asks. “We thought it might be fun to go out and get some food. Have a little party, maybe. The beach is actually really nice, if you wanted to see that.”
“Yeah, come on!” Heracross says. “Have some fun. Who wants to go to the beach, huh?” Titan raises a hand, but after looking down at Rats, who is fixated on you, sheepishly lowers it again.
“You should go, Titan,” you say. “You can all go and have fun. I would like to see the beach some other”–Divel’s moving, heading for the exit. Mewtwo’s screaming at you in his tiny voice. “I–I need to go!”
“Boss!” Rats runs to catch up with you while the rest of the pokémon look on, confused. “What’s happening? Mewtwo’s up to something, isn’t he?”
“I am sorry, Rats, I really cannot…” Divel disappears through the doors of the colosseum, and you find yourself speeding up. He isn’t moving especially fast, but you can’t lose him, you can’t, or Mewtwo will–
“Hey!” Rats barks, and you nearly trip over her as she plants herself directly in your path. “Slow down for a second! Just tell me what’s going on.”
We don’t have time for this, Mewtwo snaps. Leave her or put her back into the pokéball. Keep moving!
“Someone Mewtwo wants was watching the tournament,” you say desperately. “I have to follow him. Please move, Rats. He is getting away.”
“Oh, so it is some Mewtwo thing,” Rats says, but at least she lets you skirt around her. She keeps up with you at a steady lope while you blast through the colosseum’s outer doors, only to pull up short, overwhelmed by light and heat. “So what’s the plan, here? You’re going to follow this guy home, and then what?”
If only someone would tell you that. You shake your head. “I don’t–”
What do you think? Mewtwo snaps. It’s a Cipher trainer. Idiot. We’re going to find out what it knows.
That, at least, is good. It’s good to have some kind of lead. But how did Mewtwo even learn about this person? “Mewtwo is going to talk to him,” you amend. “We have to find out if he knows anything about Mew.” There, up ahead. Your sun-dazzled eyes spot Divel sauntering away down Pyrite’s main street.
Move, move, move, Mewtwo whispers to you. You move.
“Friendly chat, huh?” Rats makes an exasperated noise. “Well, I’m coming with you. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”
No harm will come to the human, Mewtwo says, bored-sounding. I will modify its memory. It won’t have any recollection of our meeting. And I will not tolerate some uppity pokémon getting underfoot.
“Mewtwo does not want you to come, Rats. He will not hurt the human, but this will be easier with fewer people. It would be better if you went with Titan and everybody else.” You hope they all have fun with Hypno and her friends. Most of all you hope they don’t decide to come looking for you. Dealing with Rats alone is going to be hard enough.
“Sure, I’ll bet. Just him and somebody he can bully into letting him do whatever he wants. Much easier. I’m coming with you, Boss. You don’t gotta do this alone.”
She is not coming with us, Mewtwo says flatly, and you want to clutch your head, block out his voice and Rats’ both and let yourself lose sight of the stupid human. You don’t even know what’s going on, and no one will tell you. You want to scream, but that’s only going to make people notice you and then Mewtwo will get mad and–
“Rats, please,” you say. “Please. I know you want to help. I know you do not trust Mewtwo. But it will be better for everyone if you stay out of this.”
“You have really got to stop letting that asshole get inside your head, Boss,” is all Rats says before bounding on ahead, not sparing even a glance back at you. Utterly confident that you’re going to let her go and do whatever she wants.
You grit your teeth. You don’t have any choice about whether Mewtwo gets into your head! He’s psychic! It’s what he does!
Recall her, Mewtwo snarls, and you reach for Rats’ pokéball, haltingly, hating every centimeter of it. But no. No. You can do this yourself. Your way. Mewtwo would only screw things up anyway.
You snatch your hand back and set off again, walking quickly. Too quickly. It’s too easy to overtake Rats, and you force yourself to slow down before you actually catch up with the human, make yourself linger along the side of the street. You pretend to be looking through barred shop windows, glass so marred by dust and sand-scratches that there could be anything inside. Pretend you aren’t watching Divel at all. If he realize he’s being followed, everything’s going to get worse.
All the while the irate mosquito whine of Mewtwo’s voice buzzes in your head, demanding you get moving again, demanding that you recall Rats, promising terrible punishments for this disobedience. You shake your head, trying in vain to shut him up. “I am going to handle this!” you hiss. “I will let you out if I need you. Let me deal with this. I am good at this!”
But are you? Can you say that after what happened with Team Rocket? With Officer Feldhorn? What are you going to do with Divel? Drag him into an alleyway and make him answer questions about Cipher? Be him and go find Cipher yourself, look for Mew in disguise? Only one thing’s certain: nobody can see Jade Winstead with him. Especially now that you’ve screwed things up for Melanie Roth. So who are you going to be, then? Who?
Your heart thuds in your chest; surely Mewtwo can hear it. You’re standing stock-still on the sidewalk, watching Divel amble away. Where’s he going?
“You all right, Boss?” Rats asks. She’s at your side, whiskers forward, nose quivering like she’s trying to sense something. “Maybe we oughta talk this one out a bit. Figure out a plan. I don’t think this guy’s going to up and disappear if we don’t move now.”
A plan. Yes, a plan would be nice. And it would be easier to make one if Mewtwo would give you even one second of peace. You resist the urge to rub your forehead. “I am fine,” you say. “I am trying to think, that is all.”
“Sure,” Rats says, and from the way she says it you know she thinks you’re lying. “But let me take this one, Boss. Least I can do, you sticking your neck out for me and all.” She turns a considering look up the street, where Divel is, Mewtwo’s loudly informing you, about to vanish forever. “Besides, I think I’ve got an idea. Stick with me, Boss. Maybe we can even have a little fun.”
Divel makes a beeline for The Two Ursaring. It’s like Heracross said–that’s where the bad people hang out. You can’t let him get there, someplace comforting and familiar and above all crammed with witnesses. And he never does. Well before he can reach the door a raticate runs across his path, practically between his legs. “Hey, what–?” he starts to say, only to stagger as the infernape chasing the rat brushes past him at top speed.
“Hey!” Divel chases you, and you chase Rats, and Rats makes for the far side of the street. Everything feels like it’s in slow motion, you and Rats both having to make allowances for the human’s pathetic speed. It all feels like a play to you, and you can only hope Divel doesn’t notice, doesn’t feel how staged everything is the same way that you do.
Rats charges around the side of a boarded-up building made to look like an old-timey saloon. The wooden facade seems deeply out of place amidst Pyrite’s metal, cracked and peeling in the sun. Divel hesitates–you doubt anyone survives long in Orre by following strange pokémon into dark alleys–but you saw the way he looked at Titan. Covetous. Considering. An infernape without an obvious owner has to be enticing. And when that infernape waves around the wallet she snagged when she bumped into you, well, even a cautious man might slip. Divel curses and plunges in after you.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demands, face dark with anger. A golduck appears beside him in a flash of light, but she isn’t fast enough to intercept you. A moment to check that you’re out of sight of the street, and then you pounce, grabbing the human by his collar and reaching back to take Rats’ paw in the instant before you teleport.
It’s a good thing the Musketeers introduced you to the abandoned house on Pyrite’s edge. It’s the perfect place to go when you don’t want to be noticed. You let Divel wrench himself free of your grip; all he finds is a solid wall at his back and a cramped, dingy room that leaves him no room to skirt around you. Rats stands behind you, watching, and your tail flicks nervously.
“Wha–what in the–? What the fuck is going on?” Divel says.
I suppose your idiot idea worked well enough, Mewtwo says grudgingly. Now let me out so I can get started.
Your gut clenches with nerves, and Rats doesn’t help by saying, “Well, Boss, we bagged him. What now?” Her gaze feels too much like a judgement.
You take hold of the master ball under your fur. Let Mewtwo out and he’ll take everything from here. Guaranteed. It doesn’t matter what happens to Divel–he’s a bad guy, after all. Mewtwo said he wouldn’t do anything that bad anyway.
“Hey! I’m talking to you, asshole!” Divel says. He’s reaching for his belt–does he even care what happened to his golduck? You scowl and blast his remaining pokéball away with a wave of fighting-type energy. Divel yanks his hand back with a yelp, trailing a thin line of blood.
He doesn’t deserve your sympathy. But maybe he doesn’t deserve Mewtwo, either. And Rats will be proud of you if you solve this on your own. You slowly move your hand away from the master ball again. Idiot! What are you doing? Mewtwo demands.
“Shut up!” you bark at Divel, saying to him what you wish you could say to the clone. “I ask the questions here. You were in Cipher, were you not?”
“What the hell,” Divel says. “You talk?” Then he ducks aside from the flamethrower aimed at his face.
“Whoah, Boss, cool it,” Rats mutters from behind you. Whatever. Mewtwo would do much worse, and you don’t have time for Divel’s disbelief.
“Answer the question,” you bark. “Were you in Cipher or not?”
“I wasn’t!” Divel says. “You got the wrong guy!”
“Then you know something about them. You must,” you say. “What do you know?”
“I don’t know shit! Let me go!” His gaze drifts to where his pokéball came to rest, over by the boarded-up front door. Another flamethrower brings his attention back to you.
“Stop lying,” you say. “I know you know about Cipher. You had better tell me, or you are going to regret it.”
Unless Mewtwo just has the wrong person entirely. That would be like him, wouldn’t it?
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Divel says. “You can’t keep me here. I got rights!”
This is ridiculous, Mewtwo says. What’s taking you so long?
This stupid human. He doesn’t even understand. If this doesn’t work, if he doesn’t talk, he has no idea what he’s in for. You light one fist aflame and take a slow, deliberate step forward. “I am not going to keep asking nicely.”
“I ain’t got nothing to talk about,” Divel says, gaze straying treacherously towards his fallen pokéball. “You can threaten me all you want, it won’t do you no good.”
Threaten? The flames around your fingers leap and dance as anger boils in your chest. This disgusting, this evil human thinks you’re going to stop at threatening? “This is your last chance!”
“Yeah, sure,” Divel says, and you see him looking, you see his muscles tense and know he’s going to do it before he even moves.
Divel lunges for his pokéball, and you leap to intercept him, and Rats leaps at you, knocking you to the ground before you can bowl into the human. You manage to grab one of Divel’s legs and drag him to the floor, and another clumsy vacuum wave sends his pokéball skittering and bouncing even farther away. Then it’s still inside the abandoned house, and quiet aside from Divel’s groans and the faint crackle of flames. The rank smell of burning hair hangs heavy in the air, forcing a cough out of you despite how your chest aches from hitting the floor.
Pathetic. This is disgraceful. Let me out!
And what’s pathetic is you blink away tears as you drag yourself to your feet. You’re trying to help Divel. You’re trying really hard! But he’s mean and stupid and he’s going to make you send out Mewtwo, and even though you did your best not to hurt him Rats still thinks you’ve been bad. You don’t even want to be here in the first place, and now everybody’s mad at you like this is all your fault.
You wish you could just go, just teleport away and leave Mewtwo behind with Rats and let them sort everything out if they’re so convinced they could do things better. But you can’t even do that, because now Divel’s seen too much, and you need Mewtwo to make him forget. Did Rats ever think of that? That you don’t have any way to cover your tracks without Mewtwo? Of course not. She’d rather tell you you’re doing everything wrong than come up with solutions herself.
Rats is already back on her feet, blackened around the edges but unapologetic. “Sorry, Boss, but I didn’t want anybody getting burned up around here.”
“I was not going to burn anybody up!” you say, and it comes out too close to a sob.
Divel nurses a shiny, puckered burn down one arm; he must have gotten too close to your fire despite Rats’ efforts. “Sure, I believe that,” he grumbles, and you can tell he’s already thinking of escape again. You’re sick of this. You almost want to let him go.
“Tell me what you know about Cipher!” you demand, not even caring if you sound desperate. “I am trying to help you! You have to tell me now!”
“I ain’t got time for this,” Divel says, like this is some kind of minor inconvenience. Like you’re some annoying child. “I already told you I don’t know nothing. Now, if you don’t mind, I got places to be.” He takes a bold step towards his pokéball, gaze shifting between you and Rats, daring you to do something, watching to see if Rats will intervene again.
It’s too much. It’s too familiar. This evil human sneering at you, daring you to hurt him. When you’re helping, you’re trying to help, why is he being like this?
“Boss, wait!” Rats says. But the master ball is already in the air, and it splits open with a crack, spilling light into the abandoned building’s dim interior.
Divel’s smug expression dissolves into goggle-eyed shock as Mewtwo takes shape, psychic field unfurling around him. The human takes a big gulp of the suddenly-thicker air, maybe feeling like he’s suffocating, the same way you always do around Mewtwo. There’s a slight tug on your belt, and then Rats’ pokéball floats in midair beside you. A red beam shoots out and draws her away even as she begins to protest.
“What the hell?” Divel demands. “You’re real? I thought all that cloning shit was some sort of weird propaganda! What the fuck are you doing in Orre?”
Oh, I assure you I’m quite real, Mewtwo says. He looms tall over Divel, who takes an uneasy step back, face gone pale and stricken. As for what I’m doing here, I’m looking for people like you. People who know about Cipher.
“I-I don’t know nothing,” Divel says, turning his face away from Mewtwo’s burning purple gaze. “Like I said. I don’t know nothing!”
Mewtwo leans closer, eyes taking on a psychic glow. Really? Do you honestly think you can lie to me?
“I ain’t lying,” Divel insists. His hands tremble, and he takes a stumbling sideways step, clutching at the wall. The air grows warm as Mewtwo’s psychic pressure increases, or maybe that’s just your fear, nerves turning you hot and cold by turns. Mewtwo doesn’t need you here, does he?
Don’t even think about leaving, Mewtwo says. Rats’ pokéball darts away from you when you turn your eyes toward it, too. Your stomach churns acidly. You don’t want to be here. There’s no reason for you to be here.
“If you’re looking for Cipher, you oughta ask someone else,” Divel announces, perhaps emboldened by what to him is just a long pause. “Like I said, I don’t know nothing, but some people–”
Which people? Mewtwo demands, with a surge of psychic pressure so intense that it flattens the human against the wall.
Divel twists and struggles against an invisible force. “I don’t know! I don’t know who! But I know there’s people out there that–”
Too late, Mewtwo says, with an almost giddy surge of amusement. You’ve already thought of them. It’s ever so difficult to lie without thinking about what you actually know, isn’t it? Now, why don’t we begin with Dagur?
You expect Mewtwo to wrack the human with pain, to induce all sorts of torments until he gives up his information. But it’s like Mewtwo said–the harder he tries not to think about something, the more readily it springs to mind, and Mewtwo can see it there even if no word leaves his lips. Every idle thought, every involuntary start of recognition: the clone catches them immediately, demands to know more, chases down leads Divel didn’t even realize he was giving away.
Not that Mewtwo doesn’t hurt him, of course. With how strong his psychic field is, there’s already a pulsing stab going behind one of your temples, and you aren’t even his target. Mewtwo lashes out with cruel little bursts of agony, whether to prompt the human’s stumbling words or merely, you think, for his amusement. You’d been expecting a lot more screaming, though, and at least a little blood. Mewtwo’s being positively restrained.
Divel’s story comes out in stuttered confessions and truths plucked straight from his thoughts. He got shadow pokémon from Cipher and casually knew a couple of people in the gang, but his dealings with them were limited to selling on shadow pokémon to trainers looking for something powerful and without much care where it came from. He never met Cipher’s agents any place more exotic than The Under, which doesn’t even exist anymore. He doesn’t know where any of their actual bases might be.
Pathetic, Mewtwo says after what can’t have been more than a few minutes. Divel sags against the wall, sweating and gasping and flinching every time Mewtwo moves. I suppose you really might as well know nothing. You were happy enough not to ask questions.
“N-not my business,” the human rasps, shivering. “Didn’t want to get mixed up in all that… shit.”
Indeed not. You’d rather profit off Cipher’s creations without thinking about what they were or what went into making them. Mewtwo’s tail swishes once, a gesture of immense contempt. Trafficking pokémon that were made to be weapons. I was made to be a weapon, did you know that? I was taught many ways to kill. But why stop with those? I’m sure I can invent at least one more for you. Divel makes a squeaky kind of noise as Mewtwo’s psychic pressure rises, but he’s paralyzed, held wide-eyed but fast as Mewtwo raises one three-fingered hand.
“Wait, Mewtwo!” Cold panic sends you struggling forward from the place you’ve taken up at the room’s far edge, as far as Mewtwo permitted you to retreat. “Stop! You can’t–”
And why not? the clone says, keeping his power at the ready, simmering in the air and just waiting to be unleashed. Reasons flood your brain, a swirl of emotion and fact alike that you hope Mewtwo can sort through while your babbling tongue struggles to keep up.
Above all, one thing: “People will know! They’ll figure it out! What do you think is going to happen when a bunch of Cipher people start dying?”
I don’t know. What will happen? What do you think anyone is going to do about it?
“Mewtwo! Stop!” You throw yourself at him, in panic forgetting that this is Mewtwo, that you can’t possibly fight him, that you don’t want to fight him more than anything in the world.
It’s like the air around the clone’s gone solid, his psychic power so intense it’s become an invisible wall. Or maybe he’s holding you in place; you can’t think straight, you don’t know how you’d tell. Divel looks to be strangling, turning grayish, eyes bulging. You shut your own eyes and try not to pay attention. He was a bad person anyway, you remind yourself. He was, is, he still is a bad person and it doesn’t matter what happens to him. But that doesn’t mean you like to hear him pleading, when Mewtwo gives him the room to speak; you don’t want to hear everything the clone is doing, either.
You don’t have to, really, don’t need to hear or see at all; there are plenty of blind pokémon, plenty of deaf ones, and all of them there for you to draw on. But not knowing feels even worse somehow, and you can’t stop thinking about what must be happening, can’t block the horrible satisfaction that rolls in with every breath you take of Mewtwo’s mind-tainted air. So in the end it’s you who has to change, to make yourself no longer care, to make Mewtwo’s fun merely irritating and unnecessary–if not actively unhelpful. Mewtwo wants to know what will happen if people hear about Cipher associates disappearing? They’ll make your life more difficult, of course.
Mewtwo’s fun can’t last forever, but even when there’s nothing left of Divel to torment, he remains standing where he is. Admiring his handiwork, as best you can tell. He doesn’t seem inclined to move. Finally you say, “It’s over, Mewtwo. Let’s go. It’s going to get dark soon.”
Over? Mewtwo asks, but at least he does turn away from Divel’s slumped corpse. The cheer radiating from him makes one corner of your mouth pull up in a smirk. Oh, no, not at all. It’s not even close to being over. We’ve barely gotten started.