Chapter 9: The Truth Comes Out

Asula dragged us through a big iron door to a row of prison cells and opened the first door on the left. She uncoiled herself, shoving me and my clone onto the only bed in the empty room before slithering out and slamming the door shut.

Darren peered through the small window in the door. "Amy! I'll figure this out soon, I swear—!"

"Darren!" shouted Asula. "I need you right away. Come!"

He sighed. "Yes…ma'am…" Then turned to us, whispered a quick, "Sorry!" and left.

My clone curled up into a ball on the bed and started to cry. "Why…? I'm not…a spy…"

"Look, I don't know what's going on any more than you do, but what I do know is that our mom and dad were working for Pokéxtinction all along. Maybe they had something to do with this!"

"It's not fair…" she sobbed. "If only I…never went with you guys…"

As I tried to comfort her, I thought hard. "I don't know…maybe they would have erased your memory…"

"That would be a lot better then, wouldn't it?"

To my horror, I realized I wasn't making things any better. I had to come up with an excuse. "No it wouldn't! What if they erased ALL your memories of me? That wouldn't be right, now, would it?"

Her eyes opened in shock. "No…it wouldn't."

Right then, I heard an all-too familiar set of voices from another cell, which were slightly muffled. "Oh, great. Now there's TWO fuzzbutts?"

"Either that or she's talking to herself like some kind of psycho."

I clenched my teeth (or whatever it was that acted as teeth). "Patch and Connie…" I explained to my clone.

"Those bullies who beat you up twice?" she gasped. "What are THEY doing here?"

"You idiots," said another voice from farther away. "This is detention. Patch and Connie managed to land themselves in here AGAIN."

"And I've heard. You brought your clone with you here, too?"

"I always knew you were a scumbag."

My clone grew even more worried. "Who are they?"

"Steve, Spike and Sam. Those PRT guys who also attacked me." I couldn't stand it. Why was everyone who hated me in here, too?

"Everyone SHUT UP!" shouted a Walrein from outside the door in the hall, or at least what we could see of him.

They stopped talking, but they muttered something too low for me to hear.

"It's not fair, Jigglypuff…" she mumbled. "I just…I just wanted to be together…"

"It's okay, Amy. I'm sure I'll figure a way out of this…somehow…"

I let her use me as a pillow, as the one on this bed was nasty and horrible, but it still took a while for me to fall asleep. Like she said, it just wasn't fair. All I wanted was to get out of here and live with her, too. I even had everything planned out. But no, the one day that Darren wanted to make sure it was safe, my mom and dad had to come out and ruin everything. Why in the world would they be working for Pokéxtinction, anyway? I never remembered that being their job at all. They were supposed to be scientists working for the government, a really respectable job. Was that just a cover story?

I hoped that the day would soon come when I got to ask them those questions, but I knew that would never happen. All I could do was stay here in this dungeon and wait it out until they decided to release us.

The only comforting thought was that at least I was with her the whole time.


"Amy! Both of you. Wake up."

We woke up to the door of our cell being opened…by Asula herself?

I rubbed my eyes. "Nngh…Miss Asula? What…?"

"This way."

Completely confused, we followed her out of the dungeon and through the halls down more hallways I'd never been down before. I noticed that she wasn't trying to strangle my clone and instead let her walk. But I still clung to my clones' head, just in case.

I asked, "Miss Asula…where are we—?"

"I'll explain when we get there," she replied.

Soon enough, we arrived in front of a door to a room with a set of shiny glass walls. I looked inside, and to my surprise, my mom and dad were in there! They looked like they were strapped to a table very similar to the kind I was strapped to when I was captured, except there was no pointy laser thing aiming at their heads, and the bright fluorescent lights didn't feel as weird.

"I'll explain," Asula cleared her throat. She then turned to me and my clone. "Shortly after I locked you two up, I sent Darren to deal with that small wave of Pokéxtinctionists that was coming our way. He took care of them swiftly and secretly, just as I ordered. However…two of them possessed this strange device that seemed to react in his presence. He spared them not only because he wanted answers about it, but that he identified them as your parents. He thinks that you two would be the most likely candidates to get them to reveal the information for us. In addition, I'm sure you two have many, many personal questions you want to ask them yourself. Hopefully, we'll be able to find out why there was that tracking device behind YOUR neck…" She glared at my clone severely. "And learn whether you really are a spy or not."

She opened the door. "What do you say?"

I was speechless. Here she was giving me the opportunity I thought I would never have in a million years. It was a no-brainer, of course. My clone said, "Thanks, Miss Asula…" before rushing in, and I held onto her head.

The door shut behind us, and I realized that the walls weren't made of shiny glass from the inside. In fact, they were completely opaque. Was this a special kind of room where you could see in, but couldn't see out? It was weird, but I guess if I was strapped to a table, I probably wouldn't want to know if people were looking in…

"Mom! Dad!" my clone shouted.

They looked up at her. "Amy?" Then at me.

I glared at them, feeling betrayed. I remembered them being the nicest parents I could ask for. The first time in almost a year since I've been able to see them, and it turns out they were part of Pokéxtinction all along. "You know who I am, don't you?"

My clone asked, "Is it true? Am I really her clone that was made to replace her when she turned into a Jigglypuff?"

My mom nodded weakly. Apparently, their encounter with Darren must have taken a lot out of them. "Yeah…sorry…"

My clone looked down, crushed. I'm sure she felt betrayed, too. My fists clenched, and for a second, I wanted to make them pay for making her feel this way. But I had a lot more questions to ask. "Even if you were working for Pokéxtinction all this time…you didn't have to—!"

"Amy, it wasn't our choice!" shouted my dad.

I was stunned. "Wha…? Dad, what do you mean?"

"It happened on the morning of your 10th birthday…" he explained. "Some guys in black and white armor came into our house and held us hostage. They said that they would kill all of us if we didn't join them…"

"And not only that…" my mom added. "They showed us all these weird devices. These computers with Windows 7, these so-called Blu-Ray players, these Ipads…we thought they were spy gadgets, but they said that normal people use those things nowadays, including our co-workers, and that they would teach us how to use it if we joined them. But namely, we didn't want you to die, so we agreed."

My dad had a dark look in his eye. "They must have known. If only we knew that you would turn into a Jigglypuff that same day…" He paused. "Well, they made us use those spray cans on you, and they loaded you into the van and drove off, but not before replacing you with your clone."

My mom then turned to my clone. "When you woke up the next morning, you acted like nothing had happened. We all thought it was a bad dream, and none of the Pokéxtinction stuff ever happened…" She sighed. "Until the day they developed this machine that would extract the internal energy of a Pokémon called Golurk."

I was stunned. "Wait…you mean Darren? They made something that would kill him?"

"Yes," said Dad. "They came to us and said that you escaped alive, and were working for this organization called Pokéumans, where there were others like you. They said you and this Golurk often worked together to disrupt many of their operations. In fact, this Darren had been disrupting them for years, but with you, his success rate became unacceptably high. So they'd been working on a technology that would put an end to him once and for all."

Mom said, "Darling, they said they would kill us if we told them everything about—"

"It's okay!" I shouted. Now I understood what was going on. "We'll make sure they never find you here."

"That's the problem…" said Mom. "They're going to use Darren's energy to power their new energy cannon, which uses special crystals to turn everyone here back into humans for about a month. When their army comes, they'll be able to capture everyone without having to fight against your Pokémon powers. And they'll find us here and kill us for sure."

This was huge. "So you placed that thing on my clone's neck because you knew Darren and I were coming?" I asked.

"When did this happen?" shouted my clone.

"Right before bedtime," said Mom. "This thing started beeping—"

As if on cue, the device started beeping. A few seconds later, Darren blasted through the door. "Mr. and Mrs. Amy's mom and dad, with all due respect…where are they keeping the files of you guys?"

Dad replied, "Same place. It's the one near West Virginia. The same place where Amy was taken. Why?"

"'Cause if I take out that base, you guys wouldn't ever have to work for Pokéxtinction again, right?"

"Yes, but it won't be easy for yo—"

"I'll do it! I'll ask the commander and be back in a flash! Hang on for me, Amy!" And with that, he flew out of the room.

"Wait…Darren…!"

My mom and dad looked down, ashamed. "No…"

"What's wrong?" I asked, though I was worried about the answer.

"The device to sap Darren's life force out and doom us all is also in that building. This is what Pokéxtinction wanted us to do all along," explained Dad.

"NO…!" I shouted before bouncing off of my clone's head. "DARREN!" I didn't understand it. How could Darren not hear the bit about how there's a death trap out there for him? Was he not here for that bit? Did Asula forget to tell him?

"Well, we've never actually been there before, so if the files and the weapon are far away, he should be fine. But he might need some help, just in case," said Mom.

I ran out the door in front of Asula. "Amy…? I'm sorry, I forgot to tell him..."

So she did. But now was not the time for me to be mad at her. "Miss Asula…what's going to happen to my mom, dad, and clone?"

"I'll keep them in a safe room until this mess is all over with. I won't tell anyone about their existence here. Everyone's too worried about the coming army for me to tell them about your family, too. They'll be in good hands."

"Okay…I hope you're right." I curled into a Rollout and sped off to the commander's office, hoping to catch Darren in time.

I sped down the hallways past many other Pokéumans I knew. Many of them were confused and wanted to ask me things, but I was too fast for them to say anything. I didn't have time, anyway. I had to warn Commander Cuczcoff.

I arrived at his office and shouted, "Reporting for duty, sir!" and saluted.

The Escavalier looked up from his paperwork. "Huh? Amy? I didn't call you here for a mission…"

"Did Darren come here yet, sir?" I demanded.

"Whoa, whoa, hold your horses. He just came here and said that he'd go blow up the Pokéxtinction base where you were held so that your parents wouldn't have to worry about revealing our secrets to them. The records of their employees are localized, so if he blows it up, they won't have any records to track your parents down anymore."

My face blanched. "But sir, there's a really bad weapon over there—!"

"I'm sure he will be able to handle this mission himself. It's not the first time he's blown up a base, after all. Smashing is his specialty," he said.

"But let someone help him as backup, anyone! Like me—!"

"You? Definitely not you. You've got a debut musical performance coming in about one hour. Did you forget?"

Apparently, with all the insanity that was going on, I did. "They didn't cancel it? But I thought…"

"They said that a musical would help make everyone less tense from all that training they're doing. Helps boost morale, too, you know. So in fact, the timing couldn't be better!"

No. The timing was the absolute worst of all. "But, can you send anyone, like Reggie—?"

"I'll think about it. Anyway, get moving! We're all counting on you to make this performance a success!" With that, he floated over the desk and tried to push me along, but with his lances as hands, all he succeeded in doing was poking me out the door.

"AAAAAAAAH!" I freaked out and curled into a Rollout, speeding down the hallways to the official theatre practice rooms to meet all my friends. Jane, Sammy, Chase, Kayla, Lily, and everyone else would surely be waiting for me, sick with worry, wondering why I didn't come back last night. I couldn't bail out on them now. Besides, I had worked hard at memorizing all my lines and dance moves these past several months. I couldn't let all my hard work come to nothing. And I planned to do it before running away to live with my clone. At least, that was the plan, until all this happened.

But still…why did it have to be now, when Darren's life was in danger? Why, why, why, why, WHY?

To be continued…