Chapter 9 – Double

In the weeks that came after my little trip to the Underground with General Harding, I began to pick up more of the skills that were required for my survival at port control. I learned how to zip about the place as speedily as he did, and memorized the layouts of the maintenance corridors at port control – apparently, he was notorious for using them to bypass the crowds that tended to form during the lunch hour.

Paperwork was boring as hell, but I got better at it by discreetly skimming some of the easier bits that floated down to General Harding's office. Of course, given that I was the person who he entrusted with submitting his documents, he never noticed if there was a discrepancy between the amount of paperwork that he had completed and that which arrived at the fourth floor.

If you were wondering whether my sanity was gone after that brief discourse on paperwork, trust me when I say that there's no way to better know the ins and outs of an organization than by getting intimately familiar with paperwork.

So my plan for slowly improving myself was working out, it seemed. Or at least, the non-combative aspects of it were – my handling of firearms still left much to be desired, and Silas still resisted most of my attempts at training him properly.

While my commanding officer might have been nothing more than slightly amused by my apparent emulation of his speedy movements and increase in efficiency, it was Silas that seemed to realize something was amiss.

"Yes, Silas?" I asked the bivalve pokemon when it gave me a questioning look one day. "What's up?"

He flicked his tongue out and swatted the stack of forms that I was filling in and signing under General Harding's name (yes, his signature was considerably easy to forge), maintaining his curious expression all the while.

"It's paperwork, Silas. My job's to do it."

A sound that resembled a deflating balloon came from him as he withdrew his tongue and narrowed his eyes at me.

"Well, if he doesn't like to do it, I'll do it," I shook my head. "You do know I can't understand a word you're saying, right?"

Silas began issuing a series of whistles and squeaks that grew into what sounded like a mini-tirade of sorts. He was still going at it when I had finished my paperwork and hidden it in my backpack, and so I scooped him up in my arms and whisked him off to General Harding's office.

"General Harding, sir?" I knocked on the door – the week after our Underground jaunt had seen me accidentally getting flashed courtesy of him, General Fen, and General Maine having a round of strip poker during their lunch hour. "Are you there, sir?"

"Damn straight I am – where else would I be?" his voice said through the closed door. "Come on in, kid... Arceus knows why you're so afraid of just coming into my office, though."

"Alright, sir," I said as I opened the door and walked into his office, still holding the ranting shellder. "And for the record, being flashed isn't exactly my cup of tea."

"What about it?" he asked with a smirk. "What you have, I have – if you don't, then we might have some cause for panic."

I was once again caught off-guard by one of his whacky comments. "Sir!"

"I thought you would've become more accustomed to my... admittedly strange habits by now, but no matter," he shrugged. "So, what brings you here during lunch? You seem to vanish during lunch hour these days."

"Well, Silas is acting up today, and I don't know what he's saying," I replied, plopping the shellder onto his desk. "So I thought you could help me decipher his gibberish."

Upon hearing that, Silas shut up almost immediately. General Harding seemed to think about it for a moment – one thing we had both found out recently was that Silas seemed to actually hate him more than he hated me, which was saying something. "Well, he was muttering a lot, but I think it had something to do with you being a scheming bastard."

"Scheming bastard?" I blinked, as Silas clouted General Harding across the head with his tongue. "Silas!"

"Ah, it's cool," he laughed, reaching out and patting the shellder's back. "Thought I have to wonder... just what have you been up to of late? You're spending quite a lot of time on your own, I think."

"Ah, just exploring port control," I lied, casting a dirty look at Silas' back. "I let him out of his pokeball so that we could spend the time together."

I had to duck to avoid Silas' tongue as he whipped about and tried to get me with it. "And by the looks of it, the bonding process isn't working out that well."

"Now he's calling you a liar," remarked General Harding, once Silas had issued a sharp little retort. "He says you've been squirreling paperwork away, of all things... wait, what?"

"Just some paperwork that I had to settle," I hurriedly said, fumbling about for Silas' pokeball. "That stuff is evil – do you think I'd do extra amounts of it?"

"True that," he nodded, as Silas was recalled into his pokeball with an angry squeak. "But just why is he so unsettled about it?"

"No idea, sir. Maybe I just happen to have a conspiracy theorist as my starter," I deadpanned.

"Possible," he mused. "For a moment there, he had me worried, though."

"Sir?" I felt a mild tingle running through my spine at his words. Did he suspect something?

"Well, you're a – hopefully – normal guy who isn't even twenty yet, and you spend your lunch hours alone with your shellder. I was wondering if you were a chronic masturbator or something like that."

"Sir!" I exclaimed, aghast. "I don't- I mean, I'm not- I don't masturbate here!"

He smirked and leaned back in his seat, propping his legs up on his desk. "And of course, there's the fact that your starter pokemon is actually the living proof that the vagina's design is not a uniquely human feature."

"... I am not going to comment on that, sir."

"Ah, I was just fucking with you!" He cackled, as I felt my face flushing. "I'm sure that you restrict your... live-fire exercises to the hostel. Just make sure you don't end up repainting the place, yea?"

"Sir!" I all but shrieked, sending him into a fit of crazed laughter.

"Speaking of firing exercises, we still need to improve your marksmanship. You're improving, but it could still better," he noted, glancing at his calendar. "So it'll be every day next week, and then two days a week after that."

"As you say, sir," I said, almost feeling dizzy with relief. Thank the gods that that conversation was over.

xxx

"Good shot!" General Harding cheered as I fired at the target for the umpteenth time that morning. The shot had missed the centre, but I had managed to anticipate some of the pistol's recoil this time around, and it had hit the ring directly around the target.

Well, it was still an improvement considering that I had actually missed the entire target before, and very nearly killed someone by accident back at the Mount Coronet base.

"If you keep practicing and improving at this rate, you'll be a decent marksman in no time at all," he said, even as he fired at his own target. "But of course, you'd need to work on training Silas, too – no point being a great marksman if your pokemon is under-trained."

"We're working on it, sir," I said, after his shot found its mark at the centre of the target. "He just picked up another move last week."

"Ah, yes," he nodded with a smile. "What move was it again?"

"Icicle Spear, I think," I replied with a small frown. "But Babamon said that he would have learned it before Aurora Beam..."

"Those experience-move correlations are merely guidelines, kid," he said, as he reloaded his pistol. "They just suggest the moves which are easier for a pokemon to learn based on its experience. So maybe Silas just found it harder to learn Icicle Spear."

"If it's that move to begin with, sir. It could have been Ice Shard," I shrugged, as I took aim at my own target once again.

"Did he fire a single icicle really fast, or slower but with multiple pieces?" he asked. "Ice Shard usually only involves one icicle fired at extremely fast velocities."

I considered the question as I fired, nicking the centre of the target. "Damn, that was my last shot... Multiple icicles, sir – all very small and fast, though."

"Icicle Spear it is, then," he nodded. "Shellder produce smaller icicles than cloyster, so they move faster. So I guess only the number of icicles is the giveaway here."

"Ah, that makes sense... Thanks, sir."

"And we're done!" He declared, as he fired his last shot, obliterating the target's centre. "Come on, kid – time to clean up, and then we'll take a look at just what is this mysterious move that Silas has learned."

xxx

As it turned out, the move Silas had learned was Icicle Spear. It also turned out that he was only too happy to be asked to demonstrate it – on us.

"Roll, kid!"

"Sir, behind you!"

We ended up dodging razor-sharp icicles for a good fifteen minutes as my starter had a field day trying to skewer us with the projectiles, cackling happily all the while. Eventually, the training area turned into a veritable labyrinth of icicles that had lodged themselves in the ground, making it much harder for us to evade Silas' attacks.

If you were wondering just why I hadn't returned Silas yet, it was simply because he had knocked his pokeball out of my hand with a well-aimed shot. The pokeball was presently frozen to the floor in a block of ice, courtesy of one of his Aurora Beams.

"Sir, don't you have any pokemon that could... you know?" I asked through gritted teeth as I nearly got impaled on yet another icicle.

"Let me think!" He snapped in response, temporarily safe from my shellder's assault. "Ah, got it!"

A pokeball exploded open, releasing an empoleon. The metal-skinned penguin pokemon landed heavily on the icicles, shattering them under its weight. Issuing a throaty squawk, it swept out with its steely wings and hacked even more icicles into masses of crushed ice. This drew Silas' attention, and his eyes widened upon catching sight of the fully-evolved pokemon that was glowering at him from across the room.

"Alright, Darren – get the shellder's pokeball!" General Harding called out, even as Silas shut his shell with a frightened squeak.

The empoleon casually hacked his way through the icicles and retrieved the pokeball, shattering the ice that encased it with one clawed foot. On his way back to General Harding's side, he gave Silas a disdainful look and kicked him over onto his back.

"Good job, Darren," said General Harding, panting a little as he recalled the empoleon. "Now, how could I have forgotten that? Lala did the exact same thing to me when he learned Icicle Spear."

"What?" I stared at him out of disbelief. "How could you forget something like this?"

"Well, when you've done as much crazy shit as I have..." He murmured sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "And the training area's thrashed – again. Management's going to have my head for this, that's for sure."

I looked about the room, and saw that he was right. The training area was now half-soaked thanks to the melting icicles, and the training mat in the centre of the room was little more than a sodden, shredded mess thanks to Silas' enthusiasm. Over on our side of the room, the control panel for the force field that normally enclosed the training zone sparked and fizzled courtesy of Silas firing an icicle at it (and subsequently hitting his target.)

"We're screwed," noted General Harding, and all I could do was nod in agreement.

xxx

They say time flies when one is having fun. Personally, I found myself believing that time flew when I was busy scheming.

Or maybe it would have been more accurate to say that time went by in a flash when I was hard at work trying to make my grand little scheme become a reality.

Hours spent covertly practicing my marksmanship, doing paperwork, and trying to train Silas ('trying' being the operative word here) eventually blended into days, and those days into weeks. I gradually began losing track of time's progression as I fucked my body clock into oblivion, trying to do too many things during too few hours. Exhaustion bore down on me as I began sleeping less and exercising more, trying to whip myself into some semblance of a physically fit form.

I had always been a thin person. As in, five pounds underweight thin. However, I finally began seeing some changes in my body as I pushed myself close to my limits trying to get better at... well, I don't know just what I was supposed to be getting better at, frankly. All I know was that one day, I woke up and noticed that I had abs, along with some additional muscle tone that definitely hadn't been present when I registered myself at port control.

Hey, the military might have had basic physical fitness training, but it definitely wasn't intended to spit out a gang of bodybuilders, alright?

So everything was going alright, except for my relationship with Silas.

He suspected that I was up to something, and so resisted my attempts at bonding with him. Whenever I tried to talk to him, he would clam up and ignore me resolutely. It came to a point whereby General Harding got suspicious, which was not a good thing, as you could probably imagine.

"Just what did you do to him?" he asked me, shaking his head. "I've never seen shellder being so quiet over something."

"I have no idea, sir," I muttered, brushing my bangs out of my eyes – my hair had started to grow a little shaggy since I began neglecting its welfare.

A sound came from my shellder, and I knew from experience what it meant.

Liar.

xxx

Getting better at stuff wasn't the only thing that changed during those few weeks after I came up with my little plot of sorts. I began noticing more things about the people around me in port control, and soon enough, I was familiar with their little quirks and habits.

Mary the receptionist could not be separated from her coffee before the workday began, and attempting to do so was a crime that merited being kicked in the balls.

Babamon smoked Marlboros and Malboros only. To even suggest that she switch brands was nothing short of blasphemy of the highest order.

General Fen Siow Loong might require spectacles to see clearly, but he notices even if his desk isn't exactly the way he left it (I'm not kidding when I say that he notices the page numbers of books that he leaves open on his desk).

Claire Williams was male, and those who mistook him for a woman usually ended up being stomped into the ground by him or his team – the latter if he was in a good mood, though his whiscash was surprisingly hard-hitting for its size.

Kylie Reardon did not earn her general's rank by sleeping with General Claire Williams, and the last person to have suggested that was still recuperating in hospital after being Thunder Waved one time too many. However, the two of them did not deny that they were in a relationship at present.

The people working in the paperwork department up on the floor above us seemed to have an unnatural hatred for my boss.

Of the two generals that my boss tended to hang out with, Gary Maine was just a little touchier when it came to defending his high scores at video games compared to Fen Siow Loong (surprising, given the latter's obsession with neatness and order).

NEVER complain about bad food in the mess hall – the cooks have good memories and tend to harbour grudges.

Those with upset stomachs would be advised to use the third cubicle in the men's room if possible – it was the only one which consistently worked on the third floor.

You could actually bribe the people down at the supplies room into giving you extra stationery by giving them candy.

Adrienne the slowbro might have had a vacant stare, but she was actually a decent source of stimulating conversation for those who had the time to chat with her. She also acted as my boss' makeshift mother, and made sure that he got enough coffee in the mornings to stay awake.

And then of course there was my boss, General Zachary Harding – arguably the greatest puzzle of the lot.

He was always on time for work, but wound up sleeping a lot in his office. He was horrible with paperwork (come to think of it that was probably why the paperwork people loathed him so). He was not shy about going about in his underwear. He tended to burst into song at random moments.

Thank goodness the view when he went about in his underwear was much better than his singing. Then again, if his singing was as good as his physical shape, I figured that he'd have been a singer.

Wait, you can forget that I said that about my boss.

Despite his apparent lack of regard for his work, he did seem to derive a great deal of enjoyment from it (barring the paperwork, of course). His pokemon were all friendly ones, except for his tentacruel, which seemed to despise me. Whenever he went down to the docks or the Underground, everyone seemed to know him and appreciate his presence. From his interactions with the likes of Kirrin the mechanic and Dolph the mob boss, he appeared to be a decent guy all around.

As I lay on my bed with Silas snoozing on my chest, I almost felt some pity for him when I recalled him mentioning that he had family problems. Like he had said – I was someone who appreciated how difficult family issues could get.

However, I was silently waiting for the day when he would take his leave of Canalave, due to the fact that he was one of those in on the corruption that plagued the place. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but feel a little uneasy whenever I thought about him leaving. I had no idea why I felt that way, and part of me insisted that I didn't want to know.

Everything was getting so confusing – maybe I needed some sleep.

I closed my eyes, and slipped into a dreamscape filled with shadows and lingering uncertainty.

xxx

"Are you ready? Adrienne's going to get here any moment now," General Harding asked, as he picked up the little duffle bag he had packed for our trip to Snowpoint. "We won't have time to come back here for anything you might have forgotten."

I nodded as I zipped up my parka. "Got it, sir – everything's here."

Almost on cue, the office door swung open and Adrienne stepped into the room, shouldering a little backpack of her own. According to General Harding, it contained some stuff that he was worried about misplacing – apparently, he didn't trust his own memory.

"Are we ready, everyone?" Adrienne asked, with her usual blank expression. "Shall we get going?"

"Take us there, Adrienne."

"Hold my paws, please."

We each took one of her paws in our hands, and the world around us blurred into a dazzling mess of colours and sounds that constantly shifted. However, almost as soon it happened, it stopped, and we found ourselves standing in the midst of s snowstorm.

"Adrienne, you missed it!" General Harding had to shout to make his voice heard over the roar of the storm. "This isn't Snowpoint!"

"Since the digimon opened that portal at the Spear Pillar, Teleportation has always been screwed up!" She said calmly, flicking her gaze in random directions. "Don't worry, I've contacted the Snowpoint sentries – they're on their way to us now."

Thankfully, we had already been in our snow gear when we Teleported to Snowpoint – or rather, wherever we had ended up that was supposed to be Snowpoint. Even through the parka's insulating layers, I could feel the cold bite of the snowstorm as it raged around us. Left with nothing better to do but wait, I began rubbing my gloved hands together to keep them warm, marvelling at how my breath formed a mist as I exhaled. General Harding and Adrienne didn't seem to be bothered, though – he looked perfectly comfortable where he stood, and her thick skin probably kept her warm enough for the time being.

"Sorry about that, kid," my boss shook his head. "Adrienne's right, though – that portal's disrupting psychic moves all over Sinnoh. So I guess we'll have to wait for the sentries."

"How will they find us?" I shouted into his ear.

"Eh? I guess Lorelei will send a jynx out to track us or something. But they'll get here soon, have no fear."

"I see lights," Adrienne deadpanned, pointing over his shoulder with a stubby paw.

We turned as one to look in the direction she had indicated, and true enough, two faint pinpricks of light were just visible in the distance, and were growing clearer by the second. Once they came within fifty feet of us, I saw that they were none other than the headlamps of a snowmobile. The large vehicle gradually came to a stop twenty feet away from where we were standing and its door popped open like an overripe bean pod.

A short, blue-skinned creature – I think it was a digimon of some sort – in a fur-like outfit stepped out of the snowmobile, and waved at us with what resembled a club. A mass of bushy hair stuck itself out of the open door, and parted to reveal a jynx's purple face.

"General Harding? Do hop on," the ice-type spoke up telepathically. "The snowstorm's not getting any milder, and we're in abomasnow territory."

"Good to see you! Was wondering when you'd get here," he shouted back, as we plodded through the thick snow towards the vehicle. "Portal disrupted our Teleportation!"

The jynx merely shook its head, sending its long hair whipping about in all directions. "It can't be helped – with a psychic focus like that, such disruptions are expected. Come on, we haven't got all day!"

General Harding recalled Adrienne, as we made it to the snowmobile's side. We climbed into the snowmobile, and the blue-skinned digimon hopped in after us, shutting the door. It revved the vehicle's engine, and slowly brought us about to head back in the direction they had come from. With the doors closed, it was significantly quieter, though the snowstorm's sheer fury kept a minor racket going on as it buffeted the snowmobile. The vehicle's interior was only slightly warmed, giving me the impression that most Snowpoint personnel remained in their cold outfits most of the time.

General Harding spoke to the jynx, "You mentioned that we were in abomasnow territory? I thought they got driven away by the installation?"

"They've been coming closer with every season that passes," the jynx shrugged. "We aren't that worried about them, though – they'll serve as natural security for the installation, and we've got enough firepower to keep them away if need be."

"Ah, I see... How would you guys fend them off? Angry abomasnow aren't to be trifled with."

"Well, we've got the usual weaponry... Lorelei might have an affinity for ice, but she keeps several fire-types around. Some keep us warm if the power fails, and the others patrol the perimeter fences – we keep them on rotation so that all of them stay in the fighting prime," it squinted out through the windscreen, trying to see through the storm. "Ah, we're coming up to the installation."

I leaned forward and tried to see the place for myself, but couldn't see through the hail. It was only then that I remembered how certain pokemon could remain unaffected by environmental changes that suited their element. Nevertheless, I kept looking over the driver digimon's shoulder until it got fed-up and batted my head with its club, knocking me back into my seat.

I nudged General Harding. "Just what is that digimon, anyway? Never seen or heard of one like it before."

It was the jynx that answered, "He's a snowgoburimon. We employ them up here since they thrive in this climate, and because they've got opposable thumbs."

"What about... hyogamon, was it? They have opposable thumbs, too."

"We do have several here, but they're very foul-tempered."

With a hiss of static, the speakers mounted on the snowmobile's dashboard came to life, cutting-off any further discussion between us.

"Landkiller One," crackled a voice from the other end of the line, "is that you?"

Our snowgoburimon driver grunted a reply into a microphone mounted near his rear-view mirror.

"Affirmative – proceed to the east gate."

The jynx frowned. "Why are you directing us to the east gate?"

After a brief pause, we got a reply.

"Lorelei's orders – there was an attack on the main entrance."

"An attack?" General Harding asked sharply as he sat up straighter and his hand dropped to his pokeball belt. "What kind?"

"Ah, my bad," said the speaker. "I should have been more specific – we had several ursaring trying to force their way in. Took a while to take them out, and now we've got a little bit of cleaning up to do."

"Ah, you had me scared for a moment there," he sighed, leaning back and relaxing a little. "Oh, we're here!"

Abruptly, the snowstorm stopped raging around us. I looked out of the snowmobile, and saw that the storm apparently could not come within fifty feet of the installation's perimeter fence – whether it was a force field or team of pokemon that kept the snow out was anyone's guess. Even the ground was free of snow once we had crossed the invisible boundary, though the temperature remained low.

Our vehicle made its way towards a massive gate which several people, pokemon, and digimon were standing in front of, slowing down gradually. True to the jynx's word, the little group of pokemon included several fire-types such as ninetales and quilava. Eventually, we came to a stop not ten feet from them, and a tall man in a parka made his way towards us.

"General Harding and assistant?" he asked our driver, once the door was open. "Here for an affinity consultation?"

"That's us."

"ID's?" the man held out his hand, even as a piloswine shuffled over and began watching us, its breath forming little patches of ice on the ground. We handed over our identification cards, and he ran them through a small scanner that he fished out of his parka's pocket. After a few seconds, it beeped, and a green diode lit-up on its side.

He handed back our ID's with a small smile. "Welcome to Snowpoint! Just follow me, and I'll get you settled in."

As we disembarked, I turned to General Harding. "How long would be staying here, again?"

"About three days," he replied. "Since we've come all the way here, I'll be checking on the partial water-types Lorelei has here, so you'll have some time to explore the areas that aren't kept locked up."

We walked up to the gate, and a digimon resembling a bear made entirely out of snow cocked its head to one side. "Checked them?"

"Of course," nodded the man. "You can open it up, frigimon."

The frigimon turned around and trudged towards a control panel built into the gate. It pressed its cold hands against the panel, and the gate slowly slid open sideways. Through the opening, I could see the dense cluster of buildings that had once been Snowpoint City. At one side of the installation, the Snowpoint Temple was still visible, towering over the laboratory complex, whereas the other featured a spindly, delicate-looking satellite dish array that was probably the installation's means of communicating with the outside world.

When the gate finally opened all the way, the frigimon stepped aside, and we took our first steps into Snowpoint.