Pokemon Lapis

Chapter 14: The Man

(Gina Ikeda)

"Why is the thing on Oddish?"

It was funny to Gina-every single Pokemon seemed to ask that question first. Victoria's Oddish spoke in the third person, for some reason, and seemed a little bewildered and off-put by all the electrodes stuck to its small, spherical blue body. She couldn't blame it-she'd ask that too if someone stuck gooey things all over her head. Er… her body/head, as was the case for Oddish.

Victoria knelt down in front of her Pokemon and ran her hands along its leaves. "This is Alana," she said, gesturing to Alana, who was taking notes on a clipboard in her traditional white labcoat, her honey-brown hair tied back in a ponytail. "She's going to help me talk to you."

Oddish perked up at that, its small red eyes widening. "Victoria can talk-hear Oddish?"

"Yes," Victoria said, beaming at her Pokemon now. Gina would never, ever get sick of this. Victoria was possibly the most grown-up of them all, as far as mannerisms went, but here she looked like a kid on Christmas morning, being able to speak to her Pokemon for the first time.

The whole group was gathered in the GIZMO's storage room, which had been moved to a larger part of the facility. Still, it felt a little cramped with twelve people shoved in-the ten teens, Alana, and a backup researcher. They'd probably have to spill out into the hallways when it was time for the others to talk to their larger Pokemon. Oddish right now was sitting on a stool, perfectly filling the circular space.

"Oddish," Victoria said. "I wanted to talk to you about evolution."

If a plant could look sheepish, Oddish certainly looked so now. "Yes, Victoria? What about evolution?"

Gina was dumbstruck-the GIZMO had improved in leaps and bounds since Amaris and she had last been here. This was a far cry from "bungalow."

Victoria cleared her throat, sounding a little awkward. "Jason's Dex says you're beyond the point where you should be able to evolve… but you haven't. And I was just wondering why, if there's some reason… something holding you back?"

She had tried hard to be tactful, and when she wanted to be, Victoria could be very exact with her words and very careful indeed-but Oddish had known her longer than any of the humans in the room, and its leaves drooped a little. "Does Victoria want Oddish to evolve?"

Victoria opened her mouth to answer immediately, but paused. "No, I mean-if you don't want to, I don't want to force you to. It's not like that." Her first words had been logical and cool, but then she purposefully tried to be sweeter with her next. "I was just wondering if there was a reason you didn't want to."

Oddish shifted back and forth on the stool, looking around at everyone else. "Can all the friends talk-hear Oddish?"

"Yes," Victoria answered, sounding uncertain. Some members of the group moved closer to the door, but Oddish gave a little jump that almost uprooted one of the electrodes.

"No, friends no leave! Oddish is sorry. Friends stay."

Gina bit her lip. This Pokemon was adorable beyond words. She had no idea that the quiet little plant had such a sweet disposition-just that it was non-combative with other Pokemon, never picking fights or causing trouble. "Oddish is not shy, friends can stay."

The friends stayed, as it was put, and Oddish gave a little sigh that didn't translate. "Victoria always uses Bellsprout-Victreebel-" It corrected itself a little glumly. "... Oddish thought-thinked that Oddish was... backup? In the back? And it didn't matter if Oddish evolved."

Victoria let out a little "oh," of surprise, froze for a second-and then rushed to scoop her Pokemon up, electrodes popping off one side of its head. The GIZMO freaked out, gave a static shrill, then started blurting out "mitten switch, ACOUSTIC."

Victoria still hugged her Pokemon while Gina snorted at the string of nonsense, but knelt back down so it could be on the stool and the aide could re-attach the electrodes. He gave Victoria a bit of a scornful look and Victoria ignored him entirely.

"I am... so sorry you felt that way-that's my fault," she cupped her Pokemon's cheeks with her hands and gave him a kiss on the forehead, to the side of one of the newly-replaced electrodes. "I never wanted you to think that. Bellsprout was my first, but I love you just as much... and I rely on you more than you know. I never want you to think you're not important to me."

Gina, already famous amongst her friends for getting choked up at everything, felt her eyes burn and her throat tighten at the sweet side the normally cool redhead was now showing her insecure Pokemon. When Gav and Victoria have kids, she really is gonna be a great mom.

And then-unbidden-a dark thought cut through her mind: if they get to have kids.

Victoria rubbed Oddish's leaves while Oddish cooed, and she said, "Okay? So can we see your evolution soon, do you think you're ready?"

Oddish gave it some thought, then gave a little excited jump. "Yes. Oddish wants to fight Victreebel. Then Oddish will evolve." It gave a sagely nod, like it knew it could never win against its fully-evolved teammate-but it wanted to try. Gina had to admire its guts. How much more did she not know about her friends' Pokemon-about her own?

Oddish got unhooked, hopped up into Victoria's arms, and Alana asked the dreaded question: "Any others want to talk to their Pokemon?"

It was a madhouse of clamoring and volunteering, and Alana laughed, eying Gina and Amaris, who had just barely held themselves back from joining in the din. Gina glanced sideways at Edith, who was also not joining but was smiling softly for the first time in days. Alana saw her look that way, clapped eyes on Edith, and Gina could practically see the lightbulb go off over her head.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute! Wait wait-" she called over the people waving Pokeballs eagerly. "Why don't we talk to some of Edith's Pokemon? The emotionally damaged ones?" At first people looked at Alana like she was sort of crazy, but she elaborated. "We can figure out why they're like that, how they got that way… we could even offer counseling, therapy…"

The second researcher chimed in, his dark eyes bright behind his glasses. "You're-you're absolutely right, we could actually even start a rehabilitation program run out of the Center if this works. This is a use for the GIZMO we'd never even dreamt of!"

There was happy babble and excited talk, but Gina felt cold fingers close on her arm. Edith was pointing at the crowd and Gina knew what she wanted, instinctively.

"Hey yo!" she called to them. "Wait a tick, listen up!"

Edith cleared her throat, clearly nervous, and murmured, "They-they won't want to be down here, though. They'll feel cooped up and scared… and if you put things on them? Some can't even handle being touched…"

The researcher and Alana sagged, as did some of the others. "Oh… yeah, you know… you're right," Jason mumbled.

"Crap. What do we do now?" Kaylee puzzled.

Gina was now the one with the metaphorical lightbulb. "Wait a minute-we don't have to use one of the Pokemon who's actually been hurt or abused-we can use one of the breeding Pokemon." Some folks got it right away, brightening, but for the others who still looked confused Gina went on. "Like the Eevee-the one that's expecting? She's been around Edith's place for ages, she sees enough, overhears things… why don't we just have Eevee tell us what she knows about the other Pokemon?"

"Their triggers, their backstories-"

"Situations back home that would make them upset-"

"Perfect!"

The happy babble started up once more, but Edith tugged Gina's arm again. "I'm going to go keep the other Pokemon company then, after you get her-they don't like being without her. She's sort of the den mother. I don't want them to feel alone."

"Oh-oh, yeah, no, of course," Gina said, and Jason, who was just barely out of earshot, shouted, "what?" and got the attention of the others.

Edith flushed, so Gina repeated her request to the others. Already Alana's researcher was at the door with a Pokemon carrier, ready to go. "Okay," he said. "Come on up with me. I might even need your help getting her in this thing. It's totally okay for you to come and go to that room as you please."

"Thank you," Edith said, following the man up the stairs and out of sight, the swish of her green skirt the last thing they saw.

Gina felt a twist of guilt-her idea had now separated Eevee from the rest of the pack, but she knew it was for the best. So often the Pokemon at Edith's did things that couldn't be explained-sometimes they even hurt themselves. It would pay off, in the end, for them to know more about why these things were the case. Besides-this was precisely what Professor Drake had always wanted for his research, and Gina couldn't think of a single way to honor him better.

A few minutes later the researcher came back downstairs, arms clasped tightly around a bucking, barking, shaking cage that contained one mighty pissed off Eevee.

"Oh dear," Alana said, looking at the GIZMO nervously. "This is going to be tricky."

That turned out to be the understatement of the century. The Eevee nipped, tried to escape, backed up into the rear of the carrying cage, snapped at any and all hands and even managed to kick up a small Sand Attack at Jason somehow. Halfway through the horrible process someone suggested they go upstairs and grab Edith to come down to help, but Amaris gave a heavy sigh.

"No, we can do this. We just have to figure out a different angle of approach."

"Um… okay," Jason said, rubbing the residual sand from his eyes. "Okay, okay. I think I've got this. I spent a lot of time with the Eevees, so…" He knelt down a safe distance away from the closed cage entrance. "Hey? Hi. It's Jason, you know me, yeah? Could you just, come out and sit for us, on this stool?" He pivoted her cage so she could see it and she growled. "Please? We promise, no one is going to hurt you-no one will hurt your puppies. We know you're carrying eggs."

Almost the second he made that promise the low growling stopped. They still waited a good five minutes before opening the cage, but the Eevee hopped out, ears plastered back against her skull, still extremely distrusting. Jason pointed to the stool and Eevee gave him an imperious, judgmental look as if to say, I'm pregnant, moron, so he stooped and picked her up with such care she might as well have been spun from soap bubble-thin glass.

Once she was situated she sat in the pissiest way possible and waited, looking more and more agitated as the electrodes were applied to her head. Thank goodness these sort didn't require the shaving of fur-Gina was sure their tentative truce would erupt if that happened.

Once the electrodes were in place and the GIZMO properly calibrated, the robotic female voice spat out, "You had better keep your promise, boy-you better not hurt my puppies."

Everyone, it appeared, was beyond shocked at the Eevee's eloquence. The clear articulation, the way the GIZMO didn't have to guess her words-Gina wondered if it was age, or because a Pokemon like Oddish was essentially a sentient plant, and regular plants had no spoken language. It could be because mammals used such nuanced styles of communication, and a burst of excitement hit Gina right in the chest at the idea of talking to Charizard, or Sandslash, or Pidgeot or-god, any of her Pokemon! Charizard had seemed a little teasing at first-now he'd probably have a rapier-wit and deadly sarcasm to rival Amaris'. It was a horrible thing to picture, and Gina snorted.

The Eevee turned those accusing brown eyes on her next. How could a lovable, fluffy dog be so demeaning? Gina shrank back.

"So? Hurry up, Jason, what do you want?" Eevee demanded. "I need to get back to the others."

"The others-that's actually exactly what we wanted to know about," Jason said, now the designated Eevee liaison as an unspoken rule. "We want to help them, but, you know-we haven't been able to understand you until now."

"That's because humans are stupid and don't listen properly," Eevee said. "But, go on."

Jason explained what they wanted and Eevee let out a long-suffering sigh. Gina was surprised, once again, at how deceiving looks could be. Even as she judged the whole human race as fools, Eevee washed her face with her paw and all Gina could think was, "aww."

"I'm not sure what you want from me. The Spearows hate the device that plays music."

"What, a radio?" Jason asked.

"I don't know what it's called, otherwise I'd have called it that," the Eevee snapped back. "The one where humans sing and then some humans talk, and more humans sing and it's the same five songs over and over."

"Yeah, the radio," at least half of them said in unison.

"The radio, whatever," Eevee grumbled. "They don't like it. The person who used to hit them had the 'radio' blaring constantly. If you sing the song about Viridian City, or being a Pokemon Master… that is why they scream at you and peck you."

Alana was taking notes so fast Gina was amazed her hand didn't fly off. Gina was hanging on the edge of her nonexistent seat, too-this was turning out so much better than they ever could have thought.

"The Rattatas-they don't like stretching. They used to have things thrown at them," Eevee explained. "Stretching involves putting your arms above your head, so it reminds them of that. If you absolutely must stretch, do so around the corner of the house."

Then she paused, frowning. "When are we going home?"

There was uncomfortable, unhappy silence that lasted for at least half a minute. Jason no longer seemed keen on his job as spokesman and finally cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. We can't go home."

The Eevee narrowed her brown eyes, clearly disliking this response. "Is it because of the man?"

Jason sighed while some of the others fidgeted or even jumped slightly at the mention of their most dangerous foe. "Yeah, it's because of the man. The one who found us yesterday. I'm sorry but… we can't go back." He rubbed the back of his short blonde hair, ruffling it up. "Because he's bad."

The Eevee made an ugly sound that didn't translate-a scoff. "Don't lie to me. The man has been there many times before. Why should this time be any different?"

"Wait." Jason shook his head. "Uh. Eevee. Are we talking about the same man?"

Eevee shrugged her brown shoulders. "To be honest, you humans all sort of look the same to me, but I at least know who the ten of you are, so don't insult me. I know who the man is." She puffed up her chest and began to wash it. "The man is tall, pale. He has dark fur on his head and dark eyes. The man is frightening and is ill like some of my Pokemon friends are ill. But he has never hurt my mistress. He has yelled at her… but why should this visit be different? Is it because of the battle?"

"Wait-wait a minute," Kaylee blurted while Jason gaped. "What do you mean he's been there before!?"

The Eevee gave her a blank look. "Are you idiots? I just said the man has been there before. He comes by frequently whenever the rest of you are gone. We dislike him, but we cannot stop him."

Gina felt like all the air had been sucker-punched out of her lungs. She was trying to breathe, and while she was trying, the Eevee finished, archly, "The man and my mistress talk to one another all the time. So. When are we going home?"

"Okay, stop," Gav said, even as Jason ran for the door, Gina and Amaris hot on his heels. "We need to-" but the rest were already going, racing up to the place where the troubled Pokemon were kept.

But Edith wasn't there.

Jason deployed Alakazam with trembling hands and grabbed hold of his Psychic-type, hopping away as Gina shouted, "Wait, where are you-"

"Of course," Amaris snapped, releasing his own Alakazam. "Well, I'm going to check your house, Gina-and the outskirts of town. I'll likely run into Jason and I'll tell him to come back so we can plan!" With that, Amaris disappeared and the rest broke off to search the rest of the labs-but to no avail. Gina really hadn't thought she'd be in there, but they had to check.

Edith's phone was going straight to voicemail. Gina left a message, though she knew ten others were doing the same thing. "Edith? E? Please, please, please pick up. Er I mean, call me back. Please. We just want you back, we want to talk-we don't want you to get hurt! So please-please." She went to hit "end call" but quickly added, "It's Gina."

She hung up, shaking, and Beth came and put a hand on her shoulder. The two girls looked at each other in sheer disbelief.

"She was being blackmailed," Beth said, certainty in her tone.

"I-I know. That has to be it. Has to be. But then…"

The question hung heavy in the air between them. Why did she run now that we're safe?

"I know, wait-" Gina said, and Beth perked up. "I've got an idea. The Community Center."

"We saw an emergency taxi," Mrs. Blaney said, carefully enunciating each word and practically screaming them out as if Gina and Beth were as deaf as she was. "Do you think that's where she went? Your friend?"

What was even more intolerable was that if either girl interrupted Mrs. Blaney pretended to be even more hard of hearing as a form of passive-aggressive punishment, lengthening the process exponentially. Gina had been patient with these people most of her life, but even her plaintive plea that they were in a hurry fell on uncaring ears.

"Maybe," Gina said, in response to her last question. "We don't know. Did you see her?"

"Who?" Mrs. Blaney asked.

"Edith! Our friend Edith!"

"Oh-what does she look like, Gina dear? And no need to shout, I'm sure she's fine."

You know nothing, Gina snarled inwardly as she whipped out her Dex to pull up a photo of Edith and Jason.

"Oh, honey, I can't see all those little pictures on your little screen. Just describe-"

And Beth, normally so patient, cut in with a loud, "Dark skin, wavy black hair, wearing-"

"What?" Mrs. Blaney asked and Gina genuinely worried Beth would scream. Lord knew she wanted to.

Over the course of five agonizing minutes they determined the following-the cab had gone from Route 1 and headed Northeast. No one knew if Edith had been on it.

Northeast… Gina's heart sank. Northeast could mean anything. Northeast could mean anywhere. The only places it really excluded were Cinnabar and perhaps Fuschia, but it was possible Edith was headed to one of these places and wanted to throw them off the track.

She could be anywhere.

Jason and Amaris appeared about ten feet away and Mr. Blaney theatrically overreacted and scolded Amaris for teleporting dangerously. He took one for the team while Gina and Beth filled Jason in.

"Shit," Jason said. "So, like we thought, no help at all." He looked to the sky, agitated, and Amaris seemed to read his intentions perfectly.

"Oh, no—" Amaris said, just as Jason, still addressing the sky, said, "we go after her."

Both Initiates glanced at each other and Gina grit her teeth, ready to dive in while Beth grilled one meeker, quieter woman.

"We have to go after her," Jason said, for once the one who was deadly calm. Amaris, on the other hand, was the one letting his anger get the best of him.

"Don't be stupid! We have no idea where she went!"

"She went northeast. If we try Grumpy might be able to intercept that cab if we go right now."

"But Jason—" Gina cut in, surprised not to be bowled over by either boy, "She really could be anywhere. And it's clear she doesn't want to be found now—we need to—"

"Screw what she doesn't want. She's my fiancé and she's just put herself in danger. She wants alone time to think? Fine. But she has it where she's accountable for."

"As much as I agree with the sentiment," Amaris drawled unkindly, "Just think, for one second—"

And that was what made Jason finally snap.

"You think I never think. You think I'm that same irresponsible asshole, and I'm trying not to be, this is my fiancé—"

"Shut up shut the fuck up. No one is going anywhere until we report back to the others!" It took Gina a second to realize that scream had come from her.

It certainly cowed Jason and Amaris enough to get them to stop shouting, and the Community Center women gave Gina's crew the most scandalized, open-mouthed stares they could muster as the teens turned and headed back to the Research Center.

Wilbur's cane gave a small click-clack against the Research Center's slick floors as he leaned forward to get a better look at Jason's Dex. "Approximately five foot seven?" he asked.

"Yes," Jason replied, his voice hollow. An aide the police chief had brought with him jotted a note. "She was last seen wearing a green skirt and white shirt. She…" Jason paused. "She likes shawls. Might end up getting herself a new one to replace…"

But he trailed off again, frowning, and Gina felt a stab of worry for him. "Sorry," he muttered. "Off-topic. I just…"

"It's fine," Amaris said nearly in tandem with Wilbur saying, "It's alright, son." Seamlessly Wilbur and Amaris took to speaking with one another instead, and Gina moved closer to Jason to lay a hand on his back.

He flinched even as the word, "Sorry," seemed to be startled out of him from the contact. "I just… can't. Right now. Need to take a walk, be alone," he explained, not looking her way. She could see his jaw and throat working, his right fist clenching and unclenching.

"Okay," Gina murmured. "But come and get me as soon as you don't want to be alone anymore."

Jason hadn't looked at her once during their entire exchange, but now he did—just for a moment—to give her a tired, lost smile that didn't reach the blue in his eyes. "Thanks," he said, then turned to leave. Gina watched him until the hems of his long green cargoes vanished. They weren't mismatched lengths anymore.

Gina, distracted and distressed, moved away from where Amaris and Wilbur were talking near the doorway to Lab 4. Kaylee and the others were on the other side of the room, having already given their statements to Wilbur and his aide, and Gina caught what Kaylee was saying as she drew nearer.

"I just... can't believe she didn't say anything," Kaylee was expressing with a remarkably expressionless, flat tone for the spunky girl. "Anything at all. Why didn't she tell us? We could have helped her."

Victoria let out a soft sigh. "Really though. Could we have?" she reasoned. "No one here can pretend what happened at her cottage was anything less than a thrashing. We were beyond lucky… we could barely make it out." Victoria paused and averted her green eyes, hooding her lids and dropping her voice. "She probably knew we'd be overpowered again."

"I guess I'm just…" Beth began, averting her eyes and rubbing her face. "Really surprised she didn't text goodbye to anyone. Not even Jason?"

Gav was the one with the answer to this one. "She… was never really great with technology. She didn't understand it that well, beyond enough webwork to run her breeding site. She might have thought I could trace that text to her current location. Odds are she ditched her phone by now."

"Breeding site," Kaylee said, edging back into Gav's space. "Hey, is it still up and running?"

"Oh," Gav said, cottoning on, and he called up the site while Gina and the others drew nearer. "Yeah, it is-no surprise, shutting it down wouldn't have been priority one these past few days…" Gav trailed off and began typing a message that would forward to her business email account automatically, and Gina caught a line of it.

Edith, it's us-please come back. We know your hands were tied and you were forced…

"Should we all write her one, or just get it into one message?" Kaylee wondered aloud.

"It might be overwhelming for her to get nine separate messages," Beth pointed out. "But we should all add a message inside of this one to her. Something short… just so she knows we're all on her side."

"I'll go find Jason," Gina said, excusing herself while Gav finished typing and ceded the seat to Victoria.

Gina exited and wound her way through the hallways of the Research Center, feeling too hot one moment and too cold the next. She knew the odds of Edith reading that message were slim. She didn't understand much about it, but Gina did relate a little to that "I'm in such deep trouble," pit-of-the-stomach, avoidant fear. She'd felt it when they escaped from these same labs after the system had flagged their blue-stuff-slash-poison. She'd blocked her mom's number and felt a nauseous curl of dread at the thought of ever unblocking it-and that had been directed towards her own mother, the woman who'd raised her since virtually the day of her birth. What Edith must be feeling, towards nine of them, one of whom was her fiance and all of whom had just forgiven her for the files? It had to be about nine times as bad, then nine times worse than that on top of it.

Jason wasn't upstairs in the room he'd shared with Edith. He wasn't in the kitchens. Just when Gina was getting ready to freak out, she got a message on her phone.

don't worry. didn't run off. just walking around pallet, please don't follow. back soon. - J

Gina let out a rush of breath. At least he was learning to leave notes and communicate a little… this was a step in the right direction. No longer sure what to do with herself, Gina messaged back, ok, but we're sending emails to Edith so come back soon, to Jason and headed back through the Center the way she'd come.

Amaris and Wilbur, as she could soon overhear, had taken their wrapping-up conversation out into the corridor while the others composed their messages to Edith. She paused, not wanting to intrude-because the first thing she heard was the professor's name.

"Uncle Andrew died on June 4, 2045. That's what they estimate to the best of their abilities, anyway. And, I tried to figure out why. That's how I got wrapped up in all this."

Gina remained where she was around the corner, out of sight, debating backing off for another ten minutes and pretending she'd just arrived, making some loud noises or something to alert them when she did, but what Wilbur said next stopped her.

"I know. I followed that case, and I also didn't feel that it washed. He seemed great. Happy guy, doting uncle."

"He cared about me a great deal," Amaris added, his tones even, but not clipped. Matter-of-fact, but fond. "He would have never done that to himself, much less to me."

Wilbur gave voice to precisely the sentiment she'd had towards Amaris for years. "You deliver that news quite strangely, son. It's hard to tell when you're in pain."

It was a weird, blunt thing for a stranger to say, but Amaris was one to appreciate weird and blunt versus insincere and cliche. "Thanks, I think. Sometimes you just have to divorce yourself from your feelings and get a job done, though. That's really all it is."

Wilbur made a "huh," sound, and Gina could practically feel Amaris wanting to follow that up with questions. Huh? she could picture him prompting, if it were him and her having this talk.

Wilbur elaborated, though. "You know, you have the makings of a detective with an attitude like that."

Amaris gave a short laugh. "Funny."

"No, not funny. You really do. When you're all done with this vigilante justice stuff, look me up."

Gina felt a lump rise in her throat before she fully realized where the poignant feeling was coming from-Detective Drake, she thought, and then backed softly down the hallway before grumbling out a yawn, stretching, and rounding the corner like she'd only just got there.

Both "detectives" saw through her at once, which she could also spot at once. Gina's acting skills had never been fantastic. Feeling herself redden, Gina and Amaris wordlessly moved back inside Lab 4, Amaris asking her, "Jason run off?" Wilbur opted to stay outside with his notepad and cane.

"Well, he's on a walk. He actually told me where he was going and that he'd be back soon."

She could sense an amazed comment that wanted to escape from Amaris' throat, but he froze once they entered the labs proper.

Everyone was staring at the screen, dead silent, reading. Zahlia and Beth looked up at Gina and Amaris, and before Gina could ask, Gav spoke, though he didn't even cast them half a glance up.

"No. Edith didn't write back. But WTF did."

Gina scrambled to look at the screen, but once she did, she knew why the others had been so still.

I'm not interested. Don't write to me again.