Epilogue

That's that. No dramatic ending or bullshit cliffhanger. Life for me had stabilized from there. From that point on, I was in control of my own destiny. It was time for me to stop chasing my tail, root myself and focus on rebuilding a family. I grew up in a world where I looked up to my elders for moral and emotional support, I never expected to be the elder myself. Especially at age one hundred and eight.

I honestly didn't remember much of our little party, I went to bed right after I got back to Mark's house. Crawled up into Emmett's King-sized bed and fell asleep. Everybody had their pizza and coke and all the junk food they could cram down their throats. The following morning I found Polly, Wheels, and Volta sleeping under the covers with me. Seeing all those chus made me wonder what I've missed during the changing times. Turns out I didn't missed much. They watched a couple of movies and a few dozen YouTube videos, then Mark shut everything down and called it a night. The boy himself was cooking breakfast for everyone downstairs. With the smell of food arousing everyone out of their sleep, I decided to get up and go downstairs for breakfast.

While we ate, we listened to the radio. The Faraday News Network on the TV had went down during the night, authorities suspected a cyberattack. We later found out that the Dixierats were attracted to the high-powered antennas of the main FNN news building and chewed out the wires. I vocally stated that I would not cover for them if they get caught, they'll learn what happens when they commit vandalism.

We soon heard back from Andy. He came back to Mark's house, rounded everybody up and explained that the elder Dixierat had died of renal failure. "He basically died from toxic shock," he said. "I couldn't find a single drop of urine in his bladder."

The body in question was already being processed, stripped of its hide and organs. I asked Andy if he could save the hide, I had plans on doing something with it.

Emmett soon came home, he looked tired and worn out. He didn't acknowledge us or the smell, he just slumped in the couch and sat back. We all sat there for a long time, staring at him, wondering if he had anything to say. After Mark finished washing the dishes, he came into the room and asked him how was work.

"I got promoted," he said. "The FIPD voted for a new Commissioner, I won the nomination and now people are at the polls for final approval."

"And?" Mark asked.

"And it is confirmed, now I'm responsible for the entire FIPD police, fire, and ambulance forces. I couldn't turn down the job, most of the qualified candidates were barred because of their association with Unova. Mostly for just being born in the mainland." Emmett chuckled. "I guess we won't be referring it as the mainland now."

Kissinger got up and stretched his legs. "I'm going to go upstairs, take a shower, and sleep off the rest of the day. I'm going to have to sell the house and move to Electron in the coming weeks. Mark, you're going to need to start finding a new place to live."

Mark said, "Tesla managed to get funding to rebuild the old Westinghouse Farm."

"That old place? Yeah, that place has a lot of history. Did it really fall apart?"

"It imploded," I said. "Electrical fire weakened the support beams, the fire was put out but the whole place just fell apart from age."

"That's what happens when you build out of wood."

Emmett reached out and rubbed my head. "Good to have you back, I suppose."

With that, he got up and walked upstairs and shut the bedroom door. I turned to Mark and said, "He'll warm up to me, eventually."

Mark said, "So what are we going to do now?"

"Rebuild."

. . .

So if you're still wondering how in the world all those nanobots managed to restore my whole system and made me youthful, truth is they couldn't fixed everything. I woke up the next day feeling sore all over. My back ached and my joint were on fire. I couldn't get up out of bed. Andy took a look at me, turning me over, pressing down on my muscles. It soothed the pain but it hurts for me to move. So much to my family's dismay he took me to the Faraday City Pokémon Hospital where my aging doctor Rosenberg did his own analysis. At first he was happy to see me again, especially since he was also watching the news. He had been stuck in his office since the Dixierat invasion and had to work overtime. He went on about the excitement for treating patients under limited resources and several power outages for long five minutes. When he saw me fuming, he went back to Doctor Mode and said he's going to send me through a CT scanner to see what is wrong.

He was surprised when he took a look at the scan. None of the titanium pins, clamps, and bolts were visible. At first Dr. Rosenberg wondered if the CT scanner was broken, then he remembered about the nanobots software update. He didn't expect the nanobots to work that well. "All those pins and braces were holding your joints and cartilages in place," he said, "when the nanobots removed them the joints were free to move again. Your osteoarthritis had gotten worse, exactly what happened to you in the past few days?"

I glanced at Andy, he just kept his mouth shut. I said, "I got roughed up a bit, it's a long story."

"I'll prescribe you aspirin, Tesla. There isn't much I can do for you now."

I nodded, then I asked, "Say, you know of someone who can perform spinal surgery for paraplegics?"

"I do, Dr. Nashville is very excellent at his work. Why?"

"I have a son who's paralyzed by the waist down, he had an accident that ended his Pokémon Battling career. Is it possible for Nashville to help my boy get his legs back?"

"How old is he?"

"He's in his seventies, almost as old as his mother."

Rosenberg thought for a moment. "I'll see what I can do, bring him in when you have the chance."

We set up an appointment for the evening. Andy brought Wheels in, I was with him the entire way. He was very friendly for Dr. Rosenberg and cooperated with him. After his CT scan, we discovered his spine was bolted back into place. Dr. Rosenberg checked Wheel's leg muscles and tendons with a simple exercise test. "How often do you flex your knees?"

"Rarely since the accident."

Rosenberg said, "Your muscles are severely atrophied. Nashville can implant the wireless transmitters into your spine and reconnect your legs to your central nervous system, but therapy would take years for a pokémon your age. Besides you and your father, I never had a single pokémon your size live beyond their fifties."

"Will there be complications?" I asked.

"He might be in pain when we reconnect the nerves. Not at first, no. It will be when he starts using them again. The muscles in his lower back had atrophied as well, he won't have the strength to stand on his two feet. Let alone on all four."

I nodded. "Could you do a full physical examination, just to see what else is wrong? I would sleep better at night if he and his mother get a nanobot injection."

"You did well without it."

"Those chus not me, they need the boost."

. . .

All my main Dixierat relatives sent blood samples to the hospital to get their dosage of nanobots calibrated to their systems. Since Ray, Bruiser, and Polly were former lab mice, they were used to being pricked with needles. Wheels and Volta on the other hand were squeamish. Though Wheels had been under the knife before, it had been a long time since he seen blood. Volta never had given blood before, I had to hold her hand through the entire process so she wouldn't faint.

Hours later, the calibration was complete and they all received their nanobot fusions before sundown. The effects were immediate. All the Dixierat brethren felt livelier and more fluid, but the older chus still felt old. Nonetheless they were healthier, it would take a few months before the plaque buildup in the older chus' arteries would clear away and would prevent any further health problems. I felt a little more secure when I went to bed that night, I hope the nanobots would give me plenty of time to spend with Polly.

By the end of the month, Wheels was scheduled to have his surgery. He was starting to have doubts about it. The night before the scheduled day, he wanted to talk to me about his concerns. It was a cool night, we both sat out in the back patio of Mark's house. Then he said, "I'm not sure about getting the operation done."

"Why not?" I asked.

"I haven't used my legs in forty years, the muscles are weak and I bet the bones would break if I put stress on it. Had I got the surgery right after I broke my back I would be fine, but so much time had passed that I wondered if it's too late."

"Your brother had trouble walking, I used to carry him around on my back in I first met him in Dixie. And I had liver failure, I'm still here because I agreed to a transplant. I understand, if Volta wasn't with me I wouldn't have had a new liver grown and implanted in my body."

"Volta told me about that, said she couldn't even sleep at night. Did she really chew you out that night?"

"She did more than chew me out, she smashed the bottle I was about to drink."

"Damn."

I said, "Wheels, this is up to you. You don't have to get the operation, but your mother and I would sleep better at night knowing you can get back on your feet. We have to constantly attend you to make sure you don't get trapped or stuck in something because of your burden."

Wheels thought for a moment. "Even with the use of my legs, how can I ever have your level of stamina? I wasn't born with your power, I'm sorry. Polly needs help moving around because she has a similar problem. Both of us wouldn't even survive on our own."

My son stared up at the sky for a moment. "Fuck it, I'll get the surgery. I'll get it and go through the therapy to get my legs working again."

"I'll help you with the therapy, I only wish I was there to see you take your first few steps."

Wheels smiled, "My handler ran me through a wheel, never felt such adrenaline in my entire life."

. . .

The next day, Wheels went back to the pokémon hospital for the surgery. We all waited in the lobby, waiting for the outcome. For whatever reason Volta came out and announced that she was pregnant. Since I caught her red-handed over fucking Ash's pikachu, I wasn't surprised. "So you somehow got a hold of a pregnancy test without any of us known about it and tested yourself? And you figured out that a pregnancy testing kit exist before that span of time?"

Volta just stared at me, which I took as a no.

I was about to lecture her when Polly crawled up by her side, she rubbed her head against her side before hugging her. "Don't worry about it, Volta. When you lay the egg it is an amazing experience to feel."

I frowned, Polly was lying. She only felt the experience after laying her first egg, not during her first egg. The power of birth-inducing amnesia can never be underestimated.

I then got down from the couch, crawled up to Volta and asked, "So how did you find out?"

She took my hand and pressed it against her belly. It was starting to become hard, solid with the shell of an egg. "I found out just five days ago."

"Expect any complications?" I asked.

Volta shook her head. "No, I don't think so."

Hours passed and the surgeon Dr. Nashville came out to see us. He told us Wheels's surgery was a success, now we have to wait until he comes out of anesthesia. The process took two days, when we all went up to see Wheels he was still woozy but was conscious. "How you're feeling, son?" I asked.

Wheels blinked. "I feel like I'm about to become whole again."

He told us that the moment he started waking up from the anesthesia, he felt powerful tingling sensations in his legs for a few seconds. I reached down and tickled his foot, he tried to pull it away but the muscles and tendons failed to give. "Stop!"

I stopped, but Volta climbed up on the bed and kept on tickling. While she tickled one foot, Ray tickled the other. I just sat there, wondering if I should frown or not. Wheels just groaned, even tried to bend his knees. I pulled Volta's hands away and shooed at Ray. "Stop tormenting him, he can't move with those legs." I looked up at Dr. Nashville and asked, "Is there more to do for him, Doc?"

"We'll need to operate on his knees to extend the tendons, and months of therapy. It should get him walking again, but he wouldn't be able to run. The muscles in his legs are too weak for that at the moment."

"When will he be ready to discharge? I mean, when will he be ready to leave?"

"Like I said, it will be a while. With a pikachu this old, it's bound to take almost a year."

I nodded. "Take good care of him. In the meantime we'll get my late trainer's home rebuilt, so he has a place to come back to."

. . .

While this was happening, delegates from the many cities of Faraday Island were meeting in Electron to form a new government. Since Mark was a citizen of Faraday City, and due to his close association with me, he participated in drafting the new constitution. I remembered him buying binders and multiple packs of line paper before he left for Electron. He then took these notes and compiled a report on each meeting, ranging from pages five to ten. Sometimes he would write fifty pages in one sitting. He was so dedicated to his work that he stayed at a hotel not too far from the Capitol Building, sitting at a hotel desk, typing away on his laptop.

Since he was going away from home for most of the time, he had to leave his emolga, pikachu, and plusle and minun behind. It was upsetting at first, but my immediate Dixierat family helped her get by. Emolga was very thankful, especially when Smugleaf stepped in to help her. I spent time with Mark's pikachu and tried to reduce her level of anxiety, I even got the rest of my Dixierat family to pitch in. With Wheels in the hospital for therapy, I needed something to keep him off my mind.

To help pass the time, I got the entire Dixierat family together and took them to several of my old safehouses around the island. Polly didn't wanna come due to her fear of the outdoors. I don't blame her, I had to reassure her seven times that we would be back. She had gotten used to the habit that we might not come back. To be sure she would be alright, I asked Andy to keep an eye on her while we were gone. He agreed, naturally.

The safehouses weren't anything special, just a little hideaway for me to stay out of view of the public eye for a while. I first took them to the one not too far from Mark's house. I warned them that the place had traps covering the whole place and I had trouble remembering where most of them are. The crudely painted pikachu warning sign was still there, still screwed into the oak tree as always. They liked the sign, I told them my situation was anything but fun.

Bruiser asked, "If you want to live like a hermit away from Faraday City, why do you stay so close to it?"

I said, "I didn't have many options. Faraday City has a bountiful food supply and several places to stay for the winter. The Dixierats will soon learn that the whole island does not have the biology to provide an ample food source, they'll be getting most of their meals from the cities. Faraday City will be one of them. And since I knew my way around Faraday City quite well, I had the advantage when it comes to chases."

"Were they common?"

"Not always."

When we reached my old campground, we saw that it had been burned up. I recall setting a bomb in the middle of the camp after my second encounter with Mark and Ash months ago. The police came in, poked around and blew it up. They haven't touched this place since.

I could still see the old electric fences that hanged over the place. Sections of it were cut down, the generators that used to power them were long gone. Perhaps the scavengers had come by to loot what was left. I went up to one of my secret caches and used a stick to dig it up. It was an old ammunition box sealed with duct tape. I dug up the box and Ray pulled it out of the hole. When it was time to leave, I asked him to carry it back to Mark's house. There were things inside the box I would like Mark to have.

We took the ammunition box back to his house and sat it on the coffee table. Andy took a look at it. I had the box sealed up with specialized duct tape, which costs double the regular price of a standard roll of duct tape. The seal didn't appeared to be broken, in fact when Andy started cutting into it he found it ridiculously difficult to slice. I had everybody stood back as we watch him pry open the box. He was at it for almost an hour before the tape started to give.

In no time he managed to slip the tip of the knife inside the lid and begin sawing away at the tape. He cut around the corners until finally he muscled open the lid. Andy put the knife down and we all gathered around to see what was inside.

"Oh," I said. "It's a literacy cache."

Books, multiple small pocket books sealed in heavy-duty plastic bags. Andy reached in and sat each book on the coffee table. The books were older editions to survival guides and apocalyptic genre novels. Some of the books were exaggerated, others were realistic enough to stomach. The books were yellowing due to age but were remarkably still preserved after all these years in the ground. The date of when it was buried was written on the bottom of the lid, it was buried around sixteen years ago.

"Are all of your caches books?" Bruiser asked.

"Not all of them, some of them are filled with tools, filled with medical supplies, and filled with MREs. I had been making them since I first moved into Irvin's farm, he even provided the ammunition boxes and tape for me."

Andy leaned back on the couch. "How come he never told me about these?"

"Because the stuff were meant for me, I was planning my end game."

Smugleaf picked up one of the books and looked at the back cover. "Had you read these books?"

"Yeah, twice. Got bored of them, buried them because I thought somebody else might need them some day."

Polly crawled up to one of the books and smelled one of them, showing almost no interest. She crawled away, climbed up on one of the couch and laid down for a nap. I stared at her for a moment, then thought back to Wheels. "Next time we visit Wheels, I'm going to stay with him a little longer."

"What are you going to do?" Andy asked.

"I'm going to teach him how to read."

. . .

Three weeks after Wheels surgery, we paid him another visit. My elderly son wasn't doing so well. Just as the doctor had said, his legs were hurting him. His muscles were constantly being pulled and his tendons felt like were being torn apart. Dr. Nashville explained he had already undergone two operations to extend his tendons and numerous therapy sessions to get his legs working. "He has no strength in his legs and lower back to stand."

"Is he taking his aspirin?" I asked.

"No, we've put him on a narcotic. The aspirin will affect it."

"Standard procedure?"

"Yes."

I crawled into Wheels's hospital room and crawled up on his bed. He was happy to see me, so happy that he almost tried to stand. I manage to stop him to avoid straining himself. "You seemed to be making improvement."

"I can bend my knees now," he said. "But not without agonizing pain."

"You'll get better, I'll be here to give you a boost."

The family and I talked to him for an hour, when visiting time was over everyone but me got down from the bed and left. I stayed on the bed and waited for everyone to clear the room, then I asked Andy to bring in a stack of easy-read books. "What's going on?" Wheels asked.

"You know how to talk the human language right?"

"Yes."

"Here, I'm going to teach you a thing or two about reading the human language. You gotta have both if you're going to communicate with other people." I sat down beside Wheels and picked up a book. In the back of my mind, I wondered if this was still worth it for a pikachu his age. But hey, I wanted to give him hope. He wanted to come to this Island and I have to guide him through it. "I talked to Nurse Joy about it, she's going to let me stay for a few hours. It will be a long and grueling process, but it will be a lot bearable than therapy."

Wheels smiled, "Thanks for coming by, Dad."

I said, "I hope I will be with you for a long time. But in case I pass away, I'm not going to leave you unprepared. Here in Faraday Island, you are going to get a lot of unwanted attention because of me. The Dixierats will also look up to you once word about you spreads. If push comes to shove, your long lost brothers and sisters might start showing up."

"What will they look like?" he asked.

I said, "I'm not going to lie to you, I expect them to be old, partially hairless, but still hanging on to hope. I will also be teaching them literacy when they come around, but for now I'm going to teach you. I'm going to be giving you lessons and opportunities that are long overdue for you to receive, so let's get started."

I opened up the book and began his personal tutoring.

. . .

Of all the situations that happened to me right after the abolition of Faraday's provincial constitution and the recognition of independence, the most important one of all is to figure out how to house all the pokémon and people. As much as I hated the farm, its historical and symbolic value is too great to sell off. When spring rolled in, I watched along with Andy, Mark, and Matt as a bulldozer tore down what was left of the farm. A part of me felt liberated from that place. For most of my life it had controlled me, now I control it. The plan was to make it bigger, wider, and roomier. Mark had gotten together with an architect and sketched the first draft of the new home. It had a basement, two stories, and an attic. I frowned when I realized that the first floor was going to be two meters off the ground, I asked Mark about it.

"I did research and found that this place used to flood occasionally two hundred years ago, destroyed Irvin's great-grandfather's house. Just to be sure the lessons were learned, I made sure we have the foundation raised higher than normal."

"And we're going to have a basement?" I asked.

"Don't worry, that basement is going to be sealed up real good. The whole house is going to have a steel skeleton anyway so it's not going to be a major problem."

A bulldozer took out a chunk of the garage and half the house caved into it. We had the whole place cleaned out from useful material, including the garage and attic. I frowned when Mark had somehow salvaged the car and took it back to his workplace so his buddies could fix it. I don't know why he hadn't sold the car for scrap, that car served as Irvin's coffin for five seconds after he died. Oh well, the car was never my problem anyway. As long as Mark doesn't bring it around, then that would be fine. The destruction of the old house is satisfying enough.

"It sounds real expensive," said Matt. "I know Irvin would be crazy enough to renovate his house like that but he couldn't afford such a price tag, even if he had the money."

Mark said, "That's why the state is going to pay for it. Well, most of it. Tesla's also paying for everything we're putting inside it."

"We didn't negotiate about that, Mark. I'm just paying for the essentials, you put in everything else with your own money."

"Actually my money is your money, since you were the one who is generous enough to give it to me."

I remembered that back in Unova, I raided several stores and ATMs for cash with Nobark and the PRA while Mark was sitting in his solitary cell. He was right, I was really funding his personal projects. The money merely exchanged hands, but the money came directly from me personally.

"I hate it when you're right, Mark," I retorted.

The bulldozer lifted its scorpion-like claw and struck the chimney, it came down in one swoop. A plume of dust shot out from where it once stood. The old house was now unrecognizable, now just a pile of rotted wood and drywall lying on the foundation. Somehow I began to feel sad, I think it was sympathy for my late friends whom the house used to shelter.

I said, "I wonder if things would work out. I still have some trouble with Unova and I have doubts the PRA would behave, I got a feeling this would all blow up in our faces if we're not careful."

Mark said, "I talked to a few people about that, we're getting fallback options set in place in case something unfortunate happens to you and the pokémon who serves you. I might as well start applying for a job at Nintendo and quit my two other jobs, probably work someplace where my talent and expertise is well suited for."

"I hope that works out for you, Mark."

I took one glance back at the house, the bulldozer was now clearing off the rubble from the foundation. Soon they will bring in the jackhammers and tear out the concrete, then the real work would begin.

. . .

I carved up some alone time, spent a good long hour at the Faraday City Cemetery to visit Irvin's grave. I brought a beer with me, and I was sitting in front of his tombstone drinking it. I sat there thinking back over the times we had together, the good and bad. Back then it felt like we had the whole world to ourselves. Now it was just me, and I have to step up my game. Irvin may be gone but I am still alive despite the odds. I do not want to waste any more time. I want to start living, I want to start working. I have a lot of work to do in the near future. First, putting a sort of pokémon government, then organizing the Dixierat and PRA factions. Leadership is the key, the PRA may be easy to deal with but the Dixierats need a larger leadership base. While the PRA acts like a single group and works for the group, the Dixierats is simply a mass group of individuals with no hierarchy. With all the pokémon – both mice and otherwise – occupying the Island, I'm going to need to split up the factions into smaller regiments that will be easier to govern.

I might as well start recruiting the most rational pokémon to help organize leaders and emergency responders. The local pokémon centers may be a place to start looking, I'm not sure if the nurse assistants will dedicate their time to the cause but I believe they will offer assistance to personal care for the aging pokémon. Among that, I will start putting together whatever WA friends I had left. They may be old, retired, but I hope they never forgotten their servitude for Irvin.

I took one final gulp of my beer and sat it by the base of Irvin's tombstone. "Goodbye, old friend," I said. "I'm off to finish your work."

As I left the cemetery I swore I could feel my dead friends' ghosts staring at me from the Aether. I sensed they were at peace. Being a dick as I always had, I shook the feeling off. I chuckled, then went on my way.

THE END, FOR NOW.