When they first stepped through the portal back to Quill's world, it felt as if the ground were shifting beneath their feet. The sudden shift in the world's energy was so sudden, that it was enough to make them dizzy. After having spent weeks in Aamira's world, Quill, Lucario, and Daisy had grown accustomed to the dragon force. After having spent years in her own world, Aamira had forgotten what any other energy felt like. Maybe it was this sudden shift that made her headache suddenly worse.
"We're out of the dungeon now." Quill said. "Why is your head still hurting?"
"I'm sure it will pass." Aamira glanced over at Daisy, who wasn't curled up in fear as she was before, but still ignoring them to the best of her ability. "More importantly, what do we do from here?"
"Maybe I should just go into town and let people know what happened." Quill said. "You two can stay here with Daisy and keep an eye on her."
Lucario and Aamira nodded and Quill ran off into town. They could both tell that he would have preferred to stay with Daisy, but that wasn't really an option under the circumstances. Besides, Lucario didn't know the people in Vine City well enough yet and Aamira was a little worried about how she would be received now that she was a human again. It was better this way.
After a few minutes of waiting in silence, Quill came running back with Typhlosion, Espeon, Chansey, and Noctowl. Espeon was so happy when she first saw Daisy that she was just about to run over to her before Noctowl stopped her with an extended wing. It looked like Quill had been able to explain the danger of approaching Daisy in her condition. After this, they walked towards them more calmly than before.
"Daisy?" Espeon walked up to her daughter slowly. "Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"
Daisy turned to Espeon and started crying almost instantly. She ran over to her mother and hugged her. Espeon, who seemed surprised by this reaction, hesitated for a moment before returning her hug. At the very least, Daisy didn't seem to be terrified of the rest of the family, but this didn't seem to be the typical reaction that they would have expected.
"Well at least now that we know this, we can start trying some different forms of therapy without worrying about scaring her even more." Chansey said. "It doesn't look like she's been physically injured at all, which is good.
"Momma… Quill… Quill attacked…"
"What is it?" Espeon asked. "What did Quill do?"
Daisy whispered something into Espeon's ear so quietly that Quill seemed to be the only other person who heard it, due to his sensitive hearing. Quill's eyes widened and he took a step back from Daisy, which wasn't really necessary considering he was already a good distance away. Espeon hugged her daughter tighter and tried to talk to her in a soothing voice. Eventually Daisy did start to calm down and Chansey recommended taking her home and putting her to bed early.
"You three should come too." Typhlosion said to Aamira, Quill, and Lucario. "You can stay at our house tonight." Lucario and Quill started after Typhlosion, but Aamira stayed rooted to the spot.
"But I'm…" Aamira hesitated and stopped speaking mid sentence. It was amazing how difficult it suddenly was to talk to a pokemon, which was an ability that she had always had in her world, even though no other human did. She couldn't believe how easy it had become to talk to strangers and how difficult it had become to talk to former friends.
'No, they're still friends.' Aamira thought. 'Nothing's changed other than my appearance.'
"What's the matter?" Noctowl said. "For one who's usually so brave, you don't seem to have the same bravado that you usually do. Are you feeling okay?"
"Oh! Uh, yea of course…" Aamira said as she ran off after the others.
Aamira had never been inside Espeon's first house, or anyone's house aside from their base, town hall, and a couple of shops for that matter, but it did seem like a nice house. It was a lot like their first team base only a lot smaller. Most of the residential buildings were made into the hollows of the smaller trees. The ground floor was where the kitchen and dining room was. It was just big enough to fit in a table, a counter, and a wood burning oven. The next floor was something like a living room, where they would probably have to stay the night, which consisted of a few chairs and cushions, most likely made at Vileplume's shop. On the top floor were the bedrooms. There were only two of them; one that was shared by Espeon and Typhlosion whenever Typhlosion was in town, and one that belonged to Daisy, which she would sometimes share with Quill.
Espeon made a quick meal for Daisy and brought it up to her in her bedroom. After that, they all ate a hasty dinner before heading up to the second floor.
"So what exactly happened that day you and Daisy vanished?" Typhlosion asked Quill. Quill filled him in on everything that had happened then and up to this point. He started by telling them about his mission to fight the rogue Houndoom and ended by telling them about the phantom pokemon they fought in the dungeon just before returning to this world.
"So this Zoroark person is the one behind kidnapping poor Daisy." Espeon said. "Alright then. If the two of you are going back to that world, I'm coming with you."
"No way! It's too dangerous!" Aamira said. "You saw what he did to Daisy. You can't understand what Zoroark's like unless you actually meet him in person.
"Aamira can see through illusions." Lucario said. "It could be that she's the only one who can really fight against Zoroark. I've met him before myself. He's not an ordinary enemy."
"I appreciate your concern," Espeon said, "but I won't have someone like this Zoroark hurting my children!"
'This is all because of me.' Aamira thought. 'If I had never tried to run away years ago and if I hadn't ended up in Atra, maybe none of this would be happening now.' It took her a minute to realize that by "her children" Espeon was referring to Aamira too, which made her feel even worse.
"When was the last time you were in a real battle?" Typhlosion asked Espeon. "I know you're mad, but Daisy needs you here. I hate to admit it, but I've never been that good of a father."
"We'll stop Zoroark for sure!" Quill said. "I promise we will; you don't have to worry! Daisy's my little sister. I want to stop Zoroark as much as you do."
"I know, I know." Espeon said. "I can't help but worry though. At least stay here for a few days. Just to make sure Daisy's okay. You heard what she said before, but I'm sure that deep down she knows that what she saw was just an illusion."
"Yea, of course." Quill said.
That night was a restless one for all three of them. They laid on the floor huddled together away from the window. Zoroark would most likely be able to see them even in this world. Even though the moon was now just a sliver in the sky, they couldn't risk being seen.
The next morning, Quill went to run some errands and talk with other team members to let them know that they were okay. Lucario decided to head back to Atra to make sure everything was okay there. He had left without telling anyone where he was going, so it was understandable. Aamira, having nothing else to do, stayed with Espeon. There wasn't any school that day, so Espeon stayed home.
"I don't see why you don't want to go outside." Espeon said to Aamira. "It's a nice day out and I'm sure that everyone will be thrilled to see you. There are a lot of people in Vine City who knew about you being human."
"Yea but just knowing about it is a lot different than actually seeing it." Aamira said. "Maybe I'll go out later."
"Well for now, could you bring Daisy her breakfast? I have to finish grading these papers for tomorrow and I thought that with all of the recent excitement, I should get it done now rather than later when something important comes up."
"Sounds like a good idea." Aamira hadn't eaten yet either, so she grabbed a couple of extra apples thinking that she would just eat with Daisy.
Daisy was still in bed when Aamira went up to her room. She tried to pretend that she was still asleep, but realized that she wasn't fooling Aamira after Aamira refused to leave. She crawled out of bed and reluctantly sat by Aamira to eat breakfast.
"You seem to be doing a lot better now." Aamira said. "Are you glad to be home?"
Daisy nodded and bit into the apple that Aamira gave her. "Are you really a bandit?"
"A bandit?" Aamira asked. "Where did you get that idea?"
"That fox guy with the big claws said so. He said that you were a bandit that used to work with my big brother and that you made him do a bunch of bad things. All of the other kids said you were a bandit too. Miss Leavanny said that wasn't true though. But then she said not to tell anyone she said that, so I thought she was lying."
"If I was the one making your brother do a bunch of bad things, why do you talk to me and not to him?" Aamira asked.
"You don't seem like a bad person though." Daisy said. "The fox guy said that you lie a lot and that if I talked to you for a while that I would be able to tell. He said that you would give away a lot of secrets without realizing it."
Aamira tried to hide her surprise, but judging my Daisy's expression, she hadn't done a very good job of it. So that was what Zoroark was doing with Daisy. He wanted another spy. Or maybe a messenger? Just that one statement, that Aamira gave away a lot of secrets without realizing it, seemed to confirm Aamira's fears.
"The fox guy told me a lot about you." Daisy said. "But I don't know who you really are."
"How much do you know about Team Sleuth?" Aamira asked.
Daisy finished eating her breakfast before replying. It seemed to Aamira that she was trying to stall. "I know all of the members of Team Sleuth. Sometimes a few of them will come to play with me so I don't get lonely if Quill's ever away on a mission. I know that Team Sleuth got the Master Rank after Quill won the Investigator's Trilogy in Ignis. Quill's the leader of Team Sleuth and he was the best Investigator ever. Oh, but before that Houndoom showed up, he said something. He said that he used to have a partner."
"I was his partner." Aamira said.
Daisy stood up and started shouting. "No, you couldn't be! You're a human! How could you be an Investigation Team member!?"
"Not all humans are bad." Aamira said. "I was more than just one of the leaders of Team Sleuth. I was kind of like Quill's older sister. So I guess that would make me your big sister too."
"No you're not!" As she shouted, the flames on Daisy's back flared up. "That fox guy was telling the truth, wasn't he? He said you made up a bunch of stories to confuse Quill. He said that's why Quill acted so weird sometimes. Like when he just smiles and stares off into space. How am I supposed to know for sure that when he disappears for days on end that he's even really on a mission?"
"So you really do worry about him then? Daisy you have to listen to me. That fox makes illusions so realistic that you can't tell whether or not they're real. It's sort of like being in a really realistic dream. Whatever you saw Quill do didn't really happen."
"Then how do I know that any of what's happening now is real?" Daisy asked in a somewhat quieter voice.
"I guess there's no way for you to know that for sure." Aamira said. "Oh, but maybe there is. He's not a mind reader, so he doesn't know everything you do. If there was just one thing known only to you and Quill, you'd be able to tell for sure if you asked him about it, right?"
"Unless you really are a bandit and you made Quill tell you everything like that." Daisy pointed out.
"You're smart for being such a young kid." Aamira said. "You could make a good Investigator. You don't have to ask Quill though; you can ask a friend of yours. Maybe that Mudkip I've heard about."
"Oh, but… Snuffles is still with that fox, isn't he?"
"That was an illusion too. If you went and talked with him, he wouldn't remember anything that you do because he wasn't really there. That's how you can know for sure." Aamira stood up and walked towards the door. "I think I'm going to go for a walk around town. It's been a while since I've been here. You're not in a prison you know. You can come out of your room if you want."
Daisy nodded but didn't move. Even so, Aamira felt like she was at least able to get through to her. But then there was that other thing that Daisy mentioned. She said that Snuffles had been with Zoroark. Aamira knew for a fact that this wasn't true. So if that were the case, how did Zoroark know about that Mudkip? 'Because I told him.' Aamira thought. It was the only explanation. Aamira had seen Daisy and her friend in the Reflecting mirror many times. Her sense of time was often distorted. The apparent first time she spoke, she didn't remember all that well. She only knew it happened because Faris told her it did. How much information had Aamira given him on this world the whole time she thought she was resisting?
Aamira realized that questioning her actions was exactly what Zoroark wanted. Well, he won this battle. It was possible that Daisy might have been the initial target from the start. This would have to end soon before more people ended up getting hurt. The only way she could think of to end this was to finally turn in that mission.
When Aamira got to Lake Harmony, she was only somewhat surprised to find Quill standing there. It seemed like no matter what happened, they always ended up here in this spot.
"I talked to Daisy." Aamira said to Quill. "Not a one sided conversation either. It was like a full conversation."
"That's great!" Quill said. "Did… Did she tell you the illusion that Zoroark showed her?"
"No she didn't. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
Quill shook his head. "Apparently he made her think that there was a sort of school. I'm guessing—hoping really—that the other kids were all illusions. Yesterday she said told Espeon that I attacked the other kids in the school and left her there."
"Well I'm going to put a stop to it now." Aamira knelt at the water's edge and put her hands on the surface so that just her palms barely touched it. The water around the place where Aamira touched the water started to glow, but then turned back to the normal color. "Hey, I know you're there. Stop ignoring me, you stupid cat!"
"He's not here!" shouted an image of Hunter as he suddenly appeared into a small area of the water. "And stop screaming into my ear!"
"Oh… Sorry, Hunter. Well, where is he?"
"How should I know!?" Hunter shouted back at her.
"Well can you go find him? This is kind of important. And tell him to come directly here if you don't mind."
Hunter groaned and walked off. It was somehow refreshing for both of them to see that he hadn't changed at all since they had last seen him. The water turned back to normal and after a few minutes of waiting, a point in the air started glowing and a small pink cat-like pokemon appeared in front of them.
"Well first off, give me one reason not to hurt you." Aamira said. "I know you told me this could be dangerous, but I don't think you knew how much. If you did, you might not have sent me in the first place! You know he got rid of that seal you put on my memory right from the start? After I finally decided to escape, he ended up kidnapping Quill's sister. He's been using information that I was giving him without even realizing it to hurt her!"
'So that was your theory…' Quill thought.
"At the very least, you should have given me a better idea of what I was going to be up against!" Aamira continued. "We've fought lots of strong enemies before, sure, but Zoroark is different. He can attack people on a mental level the way other people can't. And did you know that he can manipulate a person's DNA? Now I wonder where he could have learned something like that. Which brings me to another point; why is it that as I was spying on him, I seemed to learn more about you than I did about him?"
Mew hadn't moved from the spot he first appeared in. His expression remained unreadable the entire time. Quill would have expected him to deny anything Aamira said, but judging my Mew's reaction, it seemed like he had been prepared for this from the start.
"Zoroark himself can't travel between worlds anymore. I've closed the portal to him. I'm guessing he sent one of his underlings here." Mew said.
"It was a Houndoom." Quill said.
"Ah, him." Mew floated to the center of the lake and hovered above it so that only the tip of his tail touched the water. "I didn't want to do this, but I'll close that portal up entirely so that no one from that world can travel to any others. It may take a while."
"I'm not done talking to you, you know!" Aamira shouted at him.
"I'll hear everything you have to say. I can speak while I do this."
"First off, why do I still look like a kid?" Aamira asked.
"What do you mean?" Mew asked. "I returned you to the way you were before turning into a Riolu."
"Exactly. And I've barely aged at all since. Ever hear of something called telomeres? It's pretty basic biology."
"Oh, I guess a human's shortens faster than a pokemon's. I've never spent much time among humans, so I wouldn't know."
Aamira sighed. "I really hate you, you know. You're not making this easy." She waited a second to see if mew would reply, but continued after deciding that he wasn't about to. "So which do you want to hear first; what I learned about him, or what I learned about you?"
The tip of mew's tail twitched, causing ripples to float across the surface of the lake. "What you learned about Zoroark, if you would be so kind."
Aamira started off by telling the story of how Zoroark had taken over her country, including the part where he killed Aamira's mother. Quill had thought she was exaggerating when she said that she memorized it from the number of times Zoroark had told it, but apparently it was true. She mentioned a few other things when Mew asked about things that had happened leading up to that event. Zoroark had apparently given her a few details of the time before then. How he had taken control of a band of Zoroark in the past after defeating their previous leader, several villages he attacked while leading his old band, and how he eventually had made himself the last Zoroark in that world by hunting down every other Zoroark and their pre-evolved form.
"He has some serious issues." Aamira said. "I know he was the one who told you about the Eye of the Moon originally and that he was mainly using you at the time in order to access it without causing the Ninetales to get suspicious. He was probably upset over how you sort of created the legendary pokemon and how he missed out on it. After all, he's not immortal like legendary pokemon. He still needs the water from that lake from before it was saturated with darkness. Either way he's trying to make himself as close to being a legendary pokemon as possible."
"So won't he run out eventually?" Quill asked.
"He hasn't yet." Aamira replied. "I have no idea how much he has left. Even if we were able to get rid of all of it, what then? Do we just wait for old age to finish him off? No, that's a little too much to hope for. I'm sure he probably has another plan for preserving his life anyway."
"Is that what he's trying to do now?" Mew asked.
"I'm not sure." Aamira said. "He needs a key to something and he wants me to find it for him. Other than that, it was sort of like how things were with Mismagius. She wanted me to find something, which ended up being the entrance to Desolo, but never told me exactly what it was. He's so vague about it I probably wouldn't have been able to find that key for him even if I had wanted to."
"How did he get so strong?" Mew asked. "Normally it would be impossible for someone who wasn't an Aura Reader or a skilled Aura Guardian to break a seal in any way. For him to be able to break a seal that I myself made is a little startling. I know it's been a long time since I've seen him, but I can't believe that he's gotten that strong on his own."
"The power of a soul is strong after all." Aamira said. "Well they are made of pure energy, so what would you expect?"
"He's got someone's soul!?" Mew asked.
"Well, let me just put it this way…" Aamira said. "You remember how strong you were able to get with the energy from mine. Imagine that strength, plus the strength of 99 others."
A shiver ran through Mew's body, causing the surface of the water to stir even more than it had before. "He's stolen a hundred of them!?"
"How do we fight someone with that kind of strength!?" Quill asked.
"I don't know…" Aamira admitted. "It our fault that he's getting more powerful too. Normally controlling that many at one time would be impossible. As it turns out, you were right in saying that I shouldn't take anything back to my world that didn't originally come from there. Unfortunately, there was one thing that we were so used to seeing that I guess none of us noticed I was still wearing it at the time."
'Her scarf?' Quill thought at first. But that wasn't right. He still had her bag back in his room at the Investigator's Brigade building. That scarf was definitely in there with the rest of her stuff. Then his eyes wandered down to her wrist and he realized that he had never even thought of it before. "You're Ravage Ring!"
Aamira nodded. "It's how he knew I came back from this world. It also happens to be good for directing and focusing energy. Something in the material I think. He's been using it to tie back his mane. It's a little weird, but I think he's hiding those souls in there."
"With that ring in place, trying to escape it would be like a normal human trying to nock down an iron door." Mew said. "This seems to be getting worse by the minute. Is there anything else I should know?"
"Not that I can think of. I could always just find a pond or something if I think of anything else though." After yet another moment of awkward silence between them, Aamira changed the subject. "I know why you impersonated Mismagius and tricked Ho-oh into sending the humans to another world. You just wanted to protect them from Zoroark. You couldn't have known he would find another world filled with humans."
"That might be. Not that it matters though." Mew said.
"I have one question though. Why don't you want anyone to know that you're a girl?"
"Wait, Mew's a girl!?" Quill asked.
Mew sighed. "I'm not trying to deceive anyone. You just assumed I was male on your own."
"Saying you weren't trying to deceive anyone, coming form you that doesn't sound so convincing. Even so, why didn't you correct anyone's assumptions? Even Lugia didn't know."
"Zoroark will never change, will he?" Mew said. "I accepted that a long time ago. Unlike other legendary pokemon, I was always the only one of my kind. It's like I was the first of the legendary pokemon. The ancestor of legendary pokemon, if you will. It was nice for a while, thinking I had a companion of sorts. He stole my knowledge of DNA, warped it into something monstrous, and when I wasn't needed, he tried to have me killed."
"In my world, the story wasn't that Mewtwo was cloned from you, it was that he was your son."
Mew nodded. "A little of both, I would say. An egg would only ever appear to two pokemon who were truly in love, even back then. So I thought… Well, that just shows what kind of person he is. To hear that he did nearly the same thing to Anima is hard to accept."
"Well it's not as if I'm her clone!" Aamira said.
"You might as well have been. A mix between Anima's DNA and an altered form of his. Of course more than anything, he wanted to find a way to control thought through genetics. It looks like he almost had it perfected with you. What he needed was a servant who would never question his motives, and yet for you to be an Aura Reader, which he also needed, you had to question things to seek out the truth. Funny, in a way. When it comes to you, he never had a chance at winning. You had him beat on that level before you were even born."
"So how long will it take you to seal that portal, or whatever you're doing?" Aamira asked a little irritably.
"It's almost finished." Mew said.
By now, it was starting to get dark. They had been talking for a few hours and Aamira hadn't really noticed how much time had passed. After a few minutes, the lake started to glow faintly before fading back to normal, and Mew turned back to face them.
"It's done." Mew said. "No one from your world can get to this one anymore. Just know that if you go back, it will be a one way trip until Zoroark is defeated. Of course, you don't have to go back if you don't want to. I only wanted you to go there to spy on him. Since that job is done, you don't have to go back."
"You're forcing me to make another choice like this…" Aamira said.
"Do whatever you want. I'm going back to work out a possible plan with Lugia and Hunter." Mew started to glow again and was gone a second later.
Dinner that night was spent in an awkward silence. They tried to get Daisy to eat with them this time, but she actually decided that she would prefer to eat in her room. Even though she had only been in Aamira's world for a short time, it seemed like she wasn't going to get over what had happened to her right away.
Aamira finished before anyone else and went outside. She climbed up into the tree and stared up at the sliver of the moon in the sky. She couldn't help smiling up at it, fully aware that Zoroark must be able to see her and yet was entirely incapable of doing anything about it.
"How do you like that, you stupid fox?" Aamira whispered under her breath to the moon.
"Talking to yourself now?"
Aamira jumped, suddenly tense and ready for a fight. She looked down and gave a sigh of relief when she saw Quill standing by the tree roots. Quill jumped up and climbed up the side of the trunk to join her sitting on the branch.
Aamira turned away from the moon. Zoroark couldn't hear them, but she was afraid that he might be able to read their lip movements. "I wonder what Faris is doing now. He probably freaked out when he noticed we were gone. Sent out a search party, probably. When we get back, he's going to go ballistic when he finds out I actually considered not coming back."
"That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about." Quill said nervously. "We don't really have to go back… I mean, Faris is strong, right? And then there's the rest of the rebels. And Mew will be getting help too. Do we really need to go back? Couldn't we just return to how we were? We're safe now, aren't we?"
Aamira sat up suddenly and seemed as if she was about to say something, but immediately calmed down again. "You're right. We don't have to, do we…? It doesn't matter really if I live in this world as a pokemon or a human either. I… both of us… we could be happy here again."
Quill nodded, but he seemed equally uncertain. "I don't know how this will alter your decision, but you really should know. I managed to talk with Daisy a few minutes ago. I got her to tell me what she told you about being in your world. I see why you thought that you must have been the one who caused Zoroark to make Daisy scared of me, since you must have seen Mudkip in the Reflecting Mirror. I talked with her some more though, and she told me that she had told Zoroark about both Mudkip and myself. I'm convinced you didn't have anything to do with it. I think Zoroark just wanted to scare you."
Would Zoroark do something like that? He was smart and knew exactly how to get into someone's head. Aamira's actions might have been easy to predict. He could have known that she would end up talking with Daisy the way she had. It could have been that Daisy was meant to be a messenger, but that the message was saturated with lied.
Quill sat up and stared directly at Aamira. "Actually, thinking back on it, Houndoom was after a Cyndaquil with a Joy Ribbon. I had only given Daisy my Joy Ribbon the day before she was kidnapped, and you had escaped six months before then. So when you think about it, there's no way Zoroark kidnapped her on purpose."
Aamira smiled and nodded. "Thanks. That's exactly what I needed to hear." Her smile faded. "But don't you still want to get revenge on Zoroark for what he did to daisy?"
Quill shook his head. "Daisy's been getting better. I know that with types of emotional trauma, old fears can come back suddenly at any time, so I know she'll never be exactly how she was before. Even so, when I think that something might happen to me if I go back, it scares me. Not because I'm scared for myself, but because her big brother will disappear. I don't know what that would do for her. I think the best revenge would just be to look up at the moon every night and give a big smile."
Aamira laughed. "You've never met Zoroark, but you have a pretty good idea of what he's like already. I don't know though. I still need some time to think about it."
"We don't always have to be the heroes, you know." Quill said in a much more serious tone than he had used before. "I know it doesn't seem right not to help, but just think about it."
Aamira sighed and jumped to the ground, causing her legs to sting terribly. She used to do this all the time as a Riolu and had done it entirely out of habit. Her weakness was really frustrating at times. She stood up painfully and turned back to Quill. "I'll think about it, I really will. For now, I think I'm going to get some rest."
Quill nodded and jumped down next to her. Whatever decision they made could wait until morning, or until the next day, or maybe even a week. Whatever Aamira chose to do, Quill decided that this time he would be right there with her.
