Part 7: The Grove

Chapter 54: Intermission (3)

Moving on to the former murder-house.

I don't own Pokémon.


Shaymin

The Quiet Room

Dark as always, I thought, the haunting humming of electronics droning away endlessly. The air in this room became colder each time I reentered it, but it stood to reason that I hated the cold more with each change in my appearance. The greatest source of light was from a wall-mounted monitor so large that it made the many others surrounding it appear obsolete, and yet even this behemoth of a screen only displayed organized documentation of the controversial Symbis. The file was left on no specific tab. Many documentations in full existed of Symbis with names, personalities, and forms, but for the time being, a list of such known names was being displayed, occupying a third of the screen, resolution tight enough for it to be barely legible at the distance from myself.

Right now, I didn't care to fly. I sat on a cleanly dusted ledge where I was out of reach of all the other members of our distastefully secret society. I was nearest to the door, but even then, be granted the clearance to access the mainframe of this door took time, so if I wanted to leave, I needed to do it quietly. Not an option when the door put on a show for everyone to know about. I look at it, red dots on the security console mocking me, locking me in with these outcast researchers.

Despite ventilation, the room was musty with the scent of ashen Blue and oily Black. I could only be grateful for the lack of metallic Red or nauseating White. The latter-most scent was a rarity around these parts, even if I had remembered it from a human detective in the Down. Only ever when he had wielded it did it offend my nose, unlike the Flux, which was always a complication to compete with. In spite of all my dislike toward this place, its head and I agreed on at least one thing: Flux was a blight.

And then came a scent of Gamma unlike all others. The head of Delta Meadow.

"Hmmm, no Death Knell?" asked the albino mew, lain so daringly over the beefy computer's main console, one of his feet kicked back with his tail high and his front paws cradling his cheeks. "Would anybody know where he is? Not like him to miss a meeting...~"

That melodious voice again...

"Didn't you order him to bring in our insiders? Am I mistaken, Mister Kaiser?" asked the only human left in the room, hiding what humanity there was left of him behind bandages strapped around his face. Always stood with his arms crossed oddly high behind his back.

"Now, Gauze," hummed the mew. "Firstly, just call me Mew, won't you? Yes? Good! Secondly, I gave that task to Winston. Explains why the Quiet Room's living up to its name."

"Well then." Gauze acknowledged.

Mew's tail flicked. He smiled at the wrapped human.

"You know," he started, mischief sprinkled all over his tongue. "You're our last human in here. I DOUBT there's much left of Knell, and I think we have some Agent Eagle left if you're feeling lucky!"

"I'm afraid I will pass, Mister Mew." Gauze lamented.

"Ahem..." I clamored clumsily.

"Mm? Chevron? What an odd time to cough." Mew noticed. Nothing got by him, which was why I wondered if it held much worth hiding my name anymore.

"You got me, big boss," I played it off. "Yeah, hey, Agent Eagle's value is really going down the crap-chute when we got all these Champions running around. You know how they are."

"Ahaha~..." he giggled, like he was playing with me. I wasn't aware that there was a game. "Funny you say that. So funny."

"Is it." I told him.

He had nothing for me in that regard. The nearby door had a few things to say in his place. It went up beeping, giving the whole room a warning that things were about to become, well, less 'quiet' anyway, and that was fine. It gave me some respite from a pair of familiar strangers who messed with my head like it was a toy.

A swish. The door shot into its ceiling-bound slot and clanked loudly, fitting into place. Instantly, the intensity of Black and Blue grew to outrageous levels. My nose was accustomed to the sudden increase or decrease in the jarring yank from one Gamma stink to the other, but the energy poured in like a flash flood, a mixed perfume entering the room, fogging it with a light that somehow kept this cold place as dark as always.

"Right this way, please! Follow the tracks!" a familiar voice rang loud enough, eccentricity pounding my head to the rhythm of his wet footsteps against the tile.

"Yes yes, as we have done." came an irritable woman's voice.

Not a few seconds after Winston entered the room, as if cued by Gauze's own curiosity, two other figures came in – one flew in, and the other walked in on two legs, and yet, the latter was the brighter, bigger sight to behold.

"Welcome to the Quiet Room," Mew greeted them as condescendingly as ever, flicking his tail and shooting forward, entering flight with his arms wide open toward the guests. "Or should I say, 'welcome back to the Quiet Room', Sam."

"Oh, no, you shouldn't say that," the dark purple skywisp contested. "Just like how Winston shouldn't keep calling me Obby. Yet he does. Fancy that."

"I liked it better when you weren't a Symbi." Winston grumbled, all the hysterical cheer he brought into the room running dry as soon as the door closed behind the third figure to enter the room, who trapped my attention with his lustrous white fur, fiery blue tail and mane around his neck.

"Weeeell, you had 'better' get used to people like me," said the former doctor, coy as a temptress, hovering over Winston and patting him between his antennae. I'd never seen a goodra with a more offended puffiness to his cheeks than today. I would've laughed at him for all the grief he gave me before were it not out of place. Maybe Chevron would've done it. "Anyway, everybody here? I don't want to repeat myself, 'cause I'm not in the best mood, you see."

"Let's not be hasty! Come on, why don't you introduce yourselves? Some of us are dying to find out about you." Mew suggested, his voice aimed at me. It guided all eyes to my lonesome self, uncomfortable waiting out the meeting in my corner.

"Hm." I heard from somebody, a puff of air laughing its way out of his nose. Must've been that flareon holding up the back, as distant from everybody else as I was, even though he stood out as much as he was standing 'up', front paws hanging limp over the inferno of blue fluff around his neck. I caught his scent in a net and kept it there, and it reeked of fruity, flowery ash.

"What, Chevron?" asked the skywisp – asking me. She flicked her snaky tongue out. "Did you get cuter? What happened to you?"

"I..." I mumbled. I left my jaw hanging. My ears drooped around me. I felt heavy.

"Chevron," Mew began. "Made a comment concerning the Champions just a moment ago. It's a fitting thing for him."

"Riiiight. I see," the skywisp joined. "Tempyae, right?"

The former doctor turned her head, but not her body.

"Yes? Hello?" the white-furred flareon replied, his cockney dialect a sharp contrast to everyone else's here.

"Don't you identify with the Champions?" she asked him.

"Mm! Yes, that question – oh, what a question, yes, uhm, well, yes I do," Tempyae spoke up, and he did it quickly. The memories were trickling back. From how he spoke to how he acted, to the things he said to others and did to others. Where did you come from, I wanted to ask him. Where have you been? "And I think this little bloak should fess up to that. Oi, where's the fun in keeping so quiet, Shaymin? What're you getting at, love?"

I was silent. I shut my mouth and prayed that somebody else had some words to put in my place. My legs stiffened up. I wanted to fly, but the rock-dense weight in my chest was keeping me stuck to this cold counter top.

"Ah, do you really think you've been hiding ANYTHING from me, Shaymin?" Mew asked, slogging through his own consonants and vowels just to make himself sound so much more threatening. I felt my spine seize up. I avoided eye contact, but this myth of superiority treated him so well that it embraced me as well as this whole facility was full of sleepless darkness. "You're one of us. You're a part of this place, and this place is mine. There's no hiding from me, and if you ARE hiding, then Gamma will change your mind about that. I'll see to it. Oh, but you – don't worry, Shaymin, it looks like Gamma's already done that for me.

You're a Champion. You're so much more useful to Delta Meadow now than you ever were as Chevron."

I heard that over and over. I couldn't believe what I heard. How was I, in any way, useful to this place? How was I more useful than somebody like Chevron, who let nothing get in his way? If something was problematic, HE had no problem with fixing it himself by any means necessary. He was untouchable, even though he had perverse morals. He was nothing like me.

I would've rather not taken that spot.

"That's all very impressionable, Mew," Tempyae said. He approached me, walking around Winston and the skywisp's backside. The weight in my chest fizzled away the closer he came, with his reassuring smile, his soft navy blue eyes, and the hypnotic sway he swung his hips with, somehow so proficient and pleasing to the eye for something so unnatural. "But what about you? I don't recall Brother ever saying anything about the mythical Mew joining in his endeavors. What's this all about?"

Mew had no answer, but he did watch Tempyae and I so carefully that I could see the precision twitching in his eyes. He wasn't smiling anymore, nor was he swinging his tail like always. He just floated there, tested by us and testing us.

"Honestly," Mew finally spoke. "The more we do his work, the more you'll find out. Isn't that incentive enough?"

"But by then, the Flux will have spread too much for me to care whether or not you call yourself a Champion." Tempyae retaliated.

"Boys, spare me," the skywisp sighed. "I hate hanging around underground. I've seen the reports on what happens to wisps down here."

"Oh fine. That's fair," Mew peeled his attention from his. "Gauze, go ahead and prepare a recording. Death Knell will need to listen to this on his own time."

"Understood, Mister Mew." said the bandaged man, approaching the terminal and doing whatever it was he needed to do with whatever software that needed to be used. He didn't have a recorder on him, huh? Well, that was for the best. This was Quiet Room intel, and you probably didn't want to run around holding that on your person. I awaited the news, patiently listening to the keystrokes, sniffling to the perfumey smell of the flamboyant flareon next to me, his ears just poking over the counter.

I thought it rude of me to stay out of his reach. I trusted him. Of course I did. He was like a brother to me. I flew to his level, hovering near his mane of blue fur. I felt so much warmer doing so.

"Ohhh," Mew cooed, laying once again on his chest over the terminal. Icons and numbers littered the window onscreen. "Edge, huh? Gamma's put me in a tricky spot."

You're one to talk.

"That's right – Edge. The bell that Cruce has belonged to him, and nobody knows his whereabouts anymore. Rather vexing. It's as if he just disappeared one day, perhaps before today, the day that never ends." Fausti explained, the purple wisp floating, yet also laying in midair in the same position as Mew, her reddish hands folded under her chin. She seemed more lax than before.

"I know that Edge's bell is important to Fluxes, and if we've got any chance of fully understanding them, we're going to need it." Mew suggested.

"Well, I'd rather not pluck it from Cruce now. He's surrounded by savages..." said Fausti.

"What of them? Tell us more." Gauze requested.

"Hmph, well..." the skywisp lifted herself, appearing to sit in mid-flight. She flicked her tongue again. "Cruce is with a Champion called Rinavay. They're both Fluxed."

"Urgh-..." Tempyae grunted. It was such an ugly noise for him. When I looked over to the flareon, he was bearing his fangs.

"Is something wrong, Tempyae?" Mew asked, but the flareon only turned the other cheek and left his question unanswered.

"Cruce is Fluxed?" I inquired. "I had Jirachi administer the Agent Eagle shot, but I wasn't expecting Flux to come out of it."

"Did ya miss a calculation? Maybe ya made somebody all feisty before you melted them, then Flux slipped in!" Winston exclaimed, just like it was something to be proud of, throw a party for, toast on.

"Don't remind me..." I sighed. "It's because of that experiment and others like it that we've lost Jirachi and Willow. They hated this place. All that hate can turn into Flux so easily. I'm surprised it hasn't taken hold of you, Winston."

"Nehhhh, I look better in purple." the gooey dragon mused.

"Oh! We CAN agree on something~!" Fausti giggled.

"Focus, people," Mew commanded, a swish of his tail high above his head. "Edge. The bell. Cruce. I want details."

"Right, then. The Grove is where they'd all be. I don't think that I need to warn you about how dangerous those animals are." said the skywisp.

"Though we can infer that they are capable, based on the loss of contact with Silver Lotos, we need to know everything. Redundancy is crucial." Gauze stated, muffled and monotone.

Tempyae sighed quietly. He was holding back. I could see it in his snarl. Seeing him here to begin with was as surreal as a dream within a dream. He was walking proof of a dead world. I was the same kind of proof, but where I was me, I was also bound by the conscience of a murderer – I WAS the conscience of a murderer. Tempyae was a Pokémon, tried and true, marked and touched by the memory of his home, that blue heart logo on his flank telling me more loudly than a voice that he was the one in control, and as far as that went for Gamma, it did little for his restraint right now.

"Fine," Fausti relented. "Rinavay has more cognitive clarity than wild Fluxes."

"They're all the same." Tempyae whispered through a toothy growl. Nobody heard him but me.

"This also goes for Cruce, but I can't see it lasting too long if he fawns over that brute for long," the skywisp continued. "You have my – Sam's – research notes on what he did with the Flux. Look at that for reference if you want."

"Cryhex, huh?" Mew asked.

"I dabbled. He, rather – he dabbled," the skywisp reflected, letting her tail drop. She didn't appear as seated in midair any longer. "They're not all mindless. Some of them can fight it."

"They're not fighting anything," Tempyae spoke up. "Once they go Red, they don't come back. They're just carriers for a disease that'll make the worst on this planet look like the common cold, if not just a sneeze!"

"Such feeling~," Mew teased, like he knew all about the kinds of laments Tempyae had. I didn't have the luxury of remembering what he could read through a skull. "Isn't it feeling like that which breeds Flux?"

"I'll have you know I'm in my right mind," Tempyae argued. "And if you plan to try and understand the Fluxes, you'd be better off destroying every last one of them, lest you trade the research off to us Champions. Real Champions, Mew."

"You're not here to negotiate. You're here to give me information. Behave yourself." Mew commanded, his voice sticky and harsh.

Ugh, Tempyae. If you only knew the kind of... garbage I was.

What I did to Laura. What she thinks of me...

You wouldn't be standing so close to me.

I'm no better than a Flux.

"Well, if Rinavay is any kind of Champion, he fiercely protected Cruce and the bell. Wouldn't this mean that both of them have some level of significance? Would they be better in our captivity?" Fausti asked.

"You just want your grandson back." Winston said.

"Ye-... Yes. That would be nice. On the topic of family, I have to ask, where are my daughter and son-in-law?" the skywisp queried.

She was still concerned with the family that Sam called his own.

My heart sank. My spine seized up again. My throat became sore and my eyes became dry. I felt so sick to my stomach that I wanted to dry-heave.

"Chevvy did a little-" Winston started.

"Winston, she's not authorized to know about this." Mew interrupted.

A break of silence.

"What. Did. You. Do...?" she tensed up, little hands balling into fists.

"None of us are responsible for what happened to the Maximilius family. Isn't that right, Shaymin?" Mew asked me. He was playing with me. I was his toy.

I said nothing. I wanted to throw myself into a fire right about now, but Tempyae was the next best thing I had, so I threw myself into him. He caught me, at first defensively, then protectively. My vision was obscured by blue and white fur, but I felt his paws secure me, claws go even further as to hold me more tightly. Was he angry for me? He wasn't the kind of Pokémon to forgive someone like me, but then he didn't know what I'd done. I pretended like I deserved the comfort he was giving me.

"Oi there! What's'a matter, love?" he mewled to me. I bit both rows of teeth down.

The way their faces mixed.

The way they splashed.

The way they obediently fit into that syringe...

I tensed up further, and I could feel it bleed into Tempyae's paws.

The way she was held by her brother...

...while they bled out together.

And further.

The way she looked at me with her last breaths.

That hairless head.

"I'd never intended to forgive Delta Meadow, and now I've been given a reason to give it no pleasure of consideration," Fausti explained. "What's worse, I can't even blame you. I only pity you. You still feel that guilt, don't you? Whatever happened, it's going to suck your soul dry, and you don't even deserve that. I bet you'll become a Flux because of it."

And then I can be with Laura, and we can be sad together. Sure...

I'll take Mariposa with me.

"Stop it," Tempyae barked over me, shuffling. I lifted my nose into his devilishly soft blue fluff. "This helps nothing. It's atrocious, yes. So let's move forward."

"I refuse to work with any of you. Where's Death Knell? Orochi deserves a better instructor than Delta Meadow." Fausti declared.

"W-wait, Fausti," I leaned back from Tempyae. I didn't know where she was anymore.

"What?"

"Cruce is..." I sniffed, then sighed into the flareon's fur. "There's a chance that Cruce's cognition, well... contains your family. It's all hypothesis, but Agent Eagle's liquid Gamma, and Gamma works on the principle of perception. You already know that. Cryhex, remember? Cryhex thought... it was Patricia Vienna – that girl..."

Fausti made a peep, but didn't carry through with it. She knew I was right, and that factor alone kept me from seizing up again. That, and the impossibly comfortable flareon brother keeping me close. That was a well-received bonus.

"Y'know, he's got a punto," Winston chirped. "I observed a boy turn into guts, then into a pretty parasite thingy, and he had all his cognition in place. S'pose it wasn't the same for Nikki, but..."

"What about Symbi Amaterasu?" Gauze raised his hand. I gasped. "I've been looking into it, but all of the information stops at that six-tailed Pokémon we obtained months back."

"Emelina Greene," I said. "Her case got snuffed by the Cryhex project after it, and that whole... 'thing' with Travis."

'Thing', I described it. That was the best I had for a kid who'd haunted the murderer I overwrote for years. Chevron deserved Travis, and, from what feelings I remembered being stapled to my temples, Travis deserved Chevron for all that he did.

"Kieran, Emelina, Patricia, Nick, and... Travis," Fausti listed. "Delta Meadow violated those human kids, and, for the most part, Gamma tried to save them from us. Then, 'for the most part', Gamma saved us from ourselves.

Alright, look.

I want my grandson back. You want the bell. I'm sure Tempyae has his reasons, too. The only reason we haven't stormed out of this building is because Delta Meadow has the most influence. It'd be a waste not to use that in some way, regardless of whether or not it's run by some... wannabe Champion.

I don't care about that. I want to go to the Grove and take the last, dearest thing I have in this world as Sam. You'll get your bell, and you'll get your clues about Edge. How does that sound?" she concluded.

"There it is again; negotiation. Only," Mew paused, rubbing his cheeks, forcing a smile onto his lips. "I like what's coming out of your mouth this time."

"The Grove, then," Tempyae acknowledged. "If Rinavay's there and Fluxed, I'll handle him. I'll handle every Flux there is."

"If you or anybody leave a scar on Cruce, I'll make sure that heads roll, yes?" Fausti threatened. I felt Tempyae's hug tighten in that moment.

"Don't worry. Cruce's already got quite the scar." the flareon whispered.

"Should we make preparations, Mister Mew?" Gauze inquired.

"I think so, yes! We can't leave the Quiet Room unattended while we're away, so I'd like one of us to stay behind and do... oh, you know – keep things warm while we're away," Mew suggested. "Winston?"

"Buh?! Me?! With Death Knell running around uncalled for?" the goodra whined.

"You'll be just fine. Has he ever bothered you in the past?" Mew teased, much to Winston's dismay. The taunt was received with a tireless groan. "And, Shaymin..."

He peered through Tempyae in that silent space, eyes managing to reach me through all that fur.

"Yes...?" I ventured.

"You get to join us," he said. "Wouldn't want you setting anybody free while we're away."

Elsewhere in the labs

"You're..."

"Do you fear me?"

"Y-... You... killed me... before."

"So you recognize me? Even without my armor?"

"It's not you. It's your sickle."

"My... Orochi."

"P-please, I'm... not doing anything to you. D-don't..."

"Do you know Patricia?"

"Huh?"

"Orochi calls her Patricia. Do you know her?"

"I... She doesn't like me very much. Ar-are w-we talking, er, about the same-"

"She does not like you. Good enough."

"Um."

"You'll take me to her."

"What?!"

"You'll take me to her."

"N-no, I got that part! I mean, how do you expect me to escape?! Chevron said it's dangerous outside for someone like me, and-"

"No walls have ever confined the Death Knell."

"Oh... kay."

"Come. Flux will not harm you while I stand."

"Wait, but you're also...! W-whoa, wait up!

He's... serious about this.

This is my chance. It's one murdering psychopath or the other, and this one's... Ah, crap, I can't—I gotta hurry!"