Operation GEAR: The Angel of Reckoning

by The Great Butler

A girl and her friends set out on a search for truth in a land torn apart by political and religious strife. However, they are unaware of what they are stepping into: the grasp of a terrifying, inescapable enemy that aims to bring down mankind's greatest achievement, the Pokemon League. Soon, the truth becomes clouded, and a desperate struggle for survival begins.

28. Emotions Come, I Don't Know Why

This one's not going to be as intense action-wise as the last few chapters have been, but I think it's going to counterbalance that with the emotional fallout from everything that's taken place.

It is worth warning that there will be suggestive material in this chapter. Nothing explicit.

-:-

CHAPTER 27: Emotions Come, I Don't Know Why

-:-

That evening in Olivine City was, on the surface, just like any other. As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, the seaside metropolis's nightlife hummed to life like it always did. The streets filled with people heading to and fro between Olivine's many shops, restaurants and clubs, and like always, a certain sense of festivity rolled in with the tide of the crowds.

And yet, in spite of all the lighthearted buzz in the streets, there was one person lost in the mix, proverbially swimming upstream against the hubbub and merriment around them. Nobody took any notice of Nekou as she staggered aimlessly through the city, but she noticed them. Every single one. Every resident, every tourist who paid her no mind. No, worse than that.

"It's like I'm not even fucking here to these people!" she growled in her mind, bitterly glaring at the masses around her from under the brim of her hat. "Can't they see what I'm dealing with?! Am I invisible?"

Driven by equal parts boiling fury and all-consuming despair, Nekou darted her sunken eyes from one part of the crowd to the next. Every sight only drove her further into her madness and grief.

She caught notice of a young woman in business attire, who was walking with two others of similar age and dress. They appeared as if they had just left their workplace and were heading out to have some fun. "Hey, look at this," she said to her coworkers, showing them her phone. "Victory Station's showing today's Battle Submarine match. They say the Submarine Captain actually lost!"

"Eh?! Ethan lost?!" one of the others exclaimed in dismay. "You're kidding!"

"I know, right?" the first of the three said. "I wish we could have seen it live!"

Nekou missed the meaning of what the women were discussing, not connecting their chat to Matt's challenge earlier in the day. All she took away was how the workers seemingly didn't have a care in the world. "Do you fucking pencil pushers not see what's going on around y-"

A sudden collision with another pedestrian tore Nekou's anger away from the lighthearted businesswomen. The person that she ran into superficially resembled her in more than one way, she noticed; both shared long black hair, dark coats and glasses, but the other woman had a much slimmer build and darker skin. Even so, there was enough of a resemblance that Nekou was unnerved by it, and that feeling only made her even more upset when the other woman kept walking without a word of apology.

"What's your fucking problem?!" Nekou's eye twitched when, while glaring back at the pedestrian, she noticed her twin take a bite out of a Rage Candy Bar. Her favorite candy. The one she'd dutifully saved up stamps from, all just to win a plush of their Red Gyarados mascot. "You're me, and yet you don't see me…?" she muttered, her distress lost in the crowd.

That was when her eyes settled on a different pair, an older woman accompanied by a bespectacled boy in a sweater. They were standing outside of a nearby restaurant, side-by-side so the woman could snap a picture of them both together.

"You ready for your birthday dinner, Alvin?"

"You bet, Mom!" the boy, Alvin, cheerfully replied. "I'm gonna get-"

"Now, now, Alv," his mother gently scolded him with a playful wag of her finger, "that's for when we go inside."

Nekou froze in the street, watching the mother and son enter the restaurant. Her rage melted away, leaving her with only her soul-crushing grief for companionship.

"How… why…" She shambled in the direction of the grill, weakly reaching out toward it. All she could think about was all the times Ariana had done for her just what the mother did for her son. All the times she still deserved that had been stolen away from her. "Why can't I still have that…"

Her heart only sank further when she reached the restaurant's front window. There, laid out plainly before her, was everything at once she wanted and at the same time could never have. The mother and son she'd halfheartedly followed weren't the only ones. Groups of people packed the dining room from end to end. They weren't all families, she surmised; while there were plenty who plainly appeared to be parents and children, other tables were occupied by young couples and even a few older ones as well. No matter their age and status, they were all united in enjoying the fish, meat, vegetables and rice the menu offered, alongside those they held dear.

Nekou put her hand on the window, her breaths growing shallow. The glass separated her from a world she was denied access to. A world she could never be a part of.

"It's because… it's because I'm not like them…" The words of her other self rang like a bell in her head, but this time, they were in her own voice. "I'm not human, I'm just some monster. I'm not like them at all…"

While she panned over all the oblivious people in the grill, Nekou happened to catch sight of the restaurant's bar. Some part of her warmed to seeing the one place she felt like she might have had a right to be in, but she soon noticed that something on the bar's television had all of its patrons enraptured. She could only see a news anchor speaking to a reporter in a split-screen shot, which made her tilt her head.

"What's got them so fascinated?" she wondered aloud.

That curiosity was something she soon came to regret, as once the split-screen ended, it was replaced by an image of the one thing she didn't want to think about - the burning Altru Northstar. She couldn't hear what the anchor was saying about it, nor did she want to. Everything she needed to know was right there for her to see.

"How could you…" Nekou felt her anger spiking again, and if she hadn't kept those thoughts to herself, she would have screamed them in such a way that nobody would have been able to ignore her any longer. "How can you take what happened to me and use it for entertainment? For profit? How could you do it and not fucking notice what it did to me?!"

Nekou suddenly found herself seized by an urge to run, to get away from where she was. Where would she go? She didn't have a clear plan in mind at first, but she knew she had to escape her surroundings. It wasn't until after she had already started fleeing through the crowds that an idea jumped into her head.

The abandoned hotel serving as Team Rocket's hideout. It was the only place in all of Olivine she knew for sure she'd be safe.

"Get there… I have to get there, then I can make it all go away…"

-:-

The mood back at the hotel wasn't much brighter. Matt, Amanda, Olivia and Anabel arrived from the Battle Submarine after Team Rocket had already returned, only to discover the ragtag band in complete disarray. Even though he was largely listless after Ethan's revelations, Matt deduced immediately that not all of Team Rocket's remaining members made it back from their mission, and the news that Ariana sacrificed herself to protect Nekou led him to surmise a connection to the Altru Northstar explosion. Yet, even though he'd built those bridges mentally, he lacked the energy and drive to pursue them further. Why they would attack what he understood to be an Angel Corporation energy facility did intrigue him, but with everything else on his mind, he just couldn't chase the lead.

He ended up sitting at a table in the abandoned hotel's bar, nursing a drink garnished with slices of Pinap Berry that Trevor mixed for him. Amanda sat across from him, sipping from a tall glass of champagne. Anabel and Olivia, choosing to give them space, were playing video games supplied by Trevor on the bar's television.

There was an uneasy silence between the siblings, only broken when Amanda resolved to venture onto the thin ice first. "So… what are you planning to do next?"

"Does it even matter?" Matt couldn't even muster the strength to look at Amanda, and somehow, she knew it. "I was battling the Frontier Brains because I wanted to find out about Reshiram. Now I know the answer." He chuckled to himself, a bitter, hollow sound that failed to mask his distress. The drink was clouding his mind ever so slightly, but all it did was loosen him up and get him talking. "I was a fool to think I could find Reshiram… I mean, it appeared to someone called the Hero of Truth. Of course a washed-up nobody like me wouldn't have a chance."

"Please don't say such things." Amanda was gentle but firm in her urging. "Remember what you did to follow in Grandpa's footsteps. You accomplished the same as he did, if nothing else."

"But how does that help?" he snapped, catching himself too late. "I'm sorry, Amanda, I didn't mean to talk to you like that. I couldn't… I couldn't ever do that to you. I'm sorry…"

"I forgive you."

"I really never deserved someone like you," Matt thought. Unable to bear looking at his beloved sister any longer, he instead gazed over at Anabel and Olivia, who were playing a game involving cube-shaped Pokémon. "I did all of this to myself," he said, gesturing at his face and body, "and for what? It was to help me find the truth behind everything that happened, and all I've got to show for it is that Mom was probably a member of Polaris from the start. It was all for nothing."

"No, it wasn't. You're helping me, remember?" Amanda tapped her finger on one of her prosthetic legs. "You got me out of that wheelchair, and you're going to help me see again. Let's go back to the way things used to be, but we'll make them even better than they were."

With a sad shake of his head, Matt replied, "I doubt we can ever go back. Not after everything that's happened…"

Amanda raised her glass to her lips, but held it there without actually taking a sip. As much as it hurt to think about, she had to admit Matt had a point. "Sure, we could move back to Rustboro and live quietly… but is that even a choice now?"

The unexpected ding of the elevator adjacent to the bar interrupted both Amanda's pondering and the game Anabel and Olivia were sharing. Nekou stormed out of the lift and straight past them, not acknowledging their presence even when Olivia called out her name.

"What happened?" Amanda asked her brother, taking note of the sudden silence in the room.

"Nekou just came back," Matt answered, "but she isn't looking so good…"

"Oh dear… sadly, it's understandable after what happened…"

-:-

Meanwhile, the remaining members of Team Rocket had crowded into a lounge for their collective debriefing. Some stood while others sat on the lounge's leather couches, but no matter where they were, they faced the wide screen opposite them. Much of the display was taken up by Stacia's feed, while a smaller second window allowed Zager access to the discussion.

"I thought this was all of you," Stacia coldly said. "Where are Pierce and Nekou?"

"Pierce is heading to meet up with Dr. Zager as we speak," Rosalie answered. She took a puff of her pipe, then turned to to the mustachioed scientist and said, "He is bringing you the thumb drive we stole. We hope you might be able to use it to decrypt the data Ada downloaded from the Adenosine Base."

"I'll get on that as soon as I have the drive." Behind Zager, the others could see his Galvantula skittering around and playing with a rubber ball bearing a Tympole's face. "Getting into that data should prove once and for all what it is that Polaris is planning."

Just then, Nekou tore past the lounge, paying her teammates as little mind as she'd given to Matt's group. Trevor slouched in his place on one of the couches and said to Stacia, "And about Nekou… she's not taking Ariana's demise too well. Not that any of us are… but she's, understandably, the worst by far."

"I see…" Although she tried to mask her own emotions, Stacia still lowered her head. Doing so allowed the light of her camera to reflect in her glasses, making her resemble the artificial intelligence based on her even more than she already did. It took every ounce of her strength to get her next words out. "At least… at least she is with Giovanni again."

At least she was with Giovanni again. That was the thought in the mind of every agent in the lounge, the one none of them could imagine being the one to broach. Stacia, on the other hand, went right for it and crossed that line. Even if none of her associates said so, they appreciated her saying it so they didn't have to.

"I can't believe I actually agree with bob-cut glasses girl on something…" Jessie bitterly said, flopping down next to James and Meowth on the couch opposite Trevor's.

"With the Boss gone, and now the Boss's dame too, what's gonna become of us?"

While the others looked nervously to each other for an answer to Meowth's cutting question, James shut his eyes and crossed his arms. "That is the question of the hour, old chum. No doubt about it."

"Clearly, we only have one choice," Proton finally spoke up, crossing his arms as well. "We have to keep taking the fight to Polaris. Somehow."

"But what's the point of trying?!" Ada lamented, clutching her laptop against her chest. "Every time we go against them, something horrible happens! Ghetsis got Giovanni, now Colress and Yung took Ariana… listen, you guys technically pay me to be an analyst, I just can do a lot more than that. My analysis says we need to cut our losses."

"You're thinking with your brain, Ada, that's good." Petrel ran his fingers over his goatee and sighed. "There ain't an easy answer for this one, no matter where you look. Going into hiding certainly would help us stay safe… but if Polaris is left to run rampant, that's only buying us a little time before the inevitable happens. If we don't stop them, who or what will?"

Ada frowned and turned away from the others. "Y-You have a point…" she stammered. "But where would we even get started?"

"I'll tell you where," Proton decisively said, stepping forward with his hands on his belt. "Polaris has now lost both the Purine Base and the Adenosine Base, so the question is where they'll act next. Ada, you said you're paid to be an analyst, so now is the time for you to put those skills to use. Help out with gathering intelligence so we can figure out where our next mission needs to be."

"I must agree with Proton's request," Stacia added. "We cannot stop now, we can't surrender. Either Team Rocket survives in a world where we all can be free, or Polaris survives in their new order where all bow to them. There are no other choices."

Tightening her hold on her laptop, Ada commented, "Fine, but this is crazy. I don't see what we can do against them."

"We'll figure something out," Rosalie assured her, riding up to her side. "We always find a way… that's how we do things."

-:-

Clouds gathered over Olivine as the hours passed, and by midnight, a steady rainfall blanketed the city. Matt heard the downpour hitting the window of his room in the hotel, but all it was to him was background noise. He was too detached to even register what the source of the sound was.

All he felt like he had the energy to do was lie on his bed and stare at the ceiling. How long had he been doing it? He had no idea. It wasn't that he was particularly fascinated by the tiles above him. Sure, they had survived in a surprisingly intact state for a building that had been abandoned until Team Rocket took it over, and some part of him was enjoying tracing the intricate patterns drawn on them with his eyes. Yet, those didn't account for the time that had gone by. He'd simply lost track.

"Let's go back to the way things used to be, but we'll make them even better than they were…" As he reflected upon Amanda's words, he extended his hand toward the ceiling. Really, he would give just about anything to go back to their time in Rustboro. Even though he hadn't gotten along with many people at the school, his small group of friends was enough. And of course, everything he and Amanda got to do together with their newfound freedom, even things like the karaoke trip, made it one of the few times in his life he was truly happy. But he was a realist more than anything. If you didn't have a Pokémon like Celebi capable of it, time travel was impossible. Going back to the past wouldn't happen. "I'm glad you can still take everything this world throws at you in stride, but sometimes, just believing something can happen doesn't mean it actually can. Still… if one of us can actually live something resembling a life, everything I did was worth it. Running out into the blizzard that day… falling under Cyrus's influence and then breaking free… everything to this day was worth it. I don't have any regrets… you can stand on your own now. Without me."

Eventually, his monotony was broken by a knock at the door. It took him a minute to rouse from his stupor, but when he did, he shouted, "Hold on, I'll be right there!"

He sat up, adjusted the eyepatch he usually donned to make sleeping comfortable, and put on a set of glasses that lacked his mask. Strangely, whoever had knocked didn't say anything, but as he made his way across the room he thought he heard something scratching the door, puzzling him.

"Come on, what is i-" He only grew more confused upon opening the door, for nobody was there. It wasn't until he'd already looked both ways through the hall that he looked down and finally discovered the source of the noise - Nekou's Sneasel, Marie. "You're-"

"Snea," Marie said, cutting him off. Before he could ask her why she was there, she held out a piece of paper in her right-hand claw. "Sneasel."

"Hm?" Matt took the paper and unfolded it, finding a brief message scrawled on it in handwriting he recognized as Nekou's. "Yo," he read aloud, "I'm bored. Come over and entertain me a bit."

It only took him seconds to read the note, but in that time, Marie was at least a dozen feet away, beckoning him after her by waving her paw.

"No wonder you two get along so well," Matt sighed. Instead of immediately following her, he dipped back into his room first. His action provoked a flurry of frustrated vocalizations from Marie, and he called out to her, "Calm down, I'm just getting something!"

That 'something' turned out to be the bag from the Thrifty Megamart. It felt like a lifetime ago that he'd been there, but he hadn't forgotten it. Collecting it from a table in his room, he left, shut the door and followed after the Sneasel.

-:-

As Marie led him up to Nekou's door, Matt felt his nerves on edge. Things would have been bad enough if all he knew was what happened to Ariana, but that brief glimpse he'd caught of Nekou storming out of the elevator had him worried.

"It's not like her to be the one reaching out like this…" he thought, recalling all the times she'd slid in next to him in the middle of the night. That was what she'd done when she was in distress before, so something had to be different, but what?

He didn't have much of an opportunity to think about it. Marie stopped and knocked on another door sooner than he had anticipated she would, leaving him with nothing ready to say.

"That you, Marie?" Nekou could be heard calling from within, although her voice sounded somewhat muffled. "It's open!"

"Snea!"

Matt had no idea what he expected to see when Marie pushed the door open, only that he had a feeling it would be bad. He certainly didn't want it to be, but too much lurked in the realm of the unknown for his comfort. Regardless of what he felt, though, there was no stopping Marie from opening the door, and it felt to him like forever before he could finally see inside.

When he saw that Nekou was just sitting there, staring at the window with a bottle in her hand, he breathed a sigh of relief. His worst fears weren't validated, and that was a blessing, however small. Nekou only had two small lamps on, so as Matt followed Marie into the room, his eyesight had to adjust to the room's dimness. Once it did, he paused at what he found.

It wasn't the fact that Nekou had a white tank top and black shorts on instead of her coat, which had been carelessly pitched into a corner with her hat on top of it. No, what caught him was the fact that what he could see of her back was completely scarred, all the way up to the base of her neck. Without thinking, he reached for the scarred side of his torso with his free hand.

"That's just like my…"

"The fuck you starin' at?" He'd become so caught up in his surprise at Nekou's scars that he didn't realize she had turned toward him.

"I, uh…" Though he wanted to ask about what he'd seen, Matt stopped himself long enough to consider his next move. "There can't be a good reason for why her back looks like that…" he reasoned. "Now's not the time. Not with everything that's happened lately…" Realizing he was still staring, he rushed to find an excuse. Noticing how flushed Nekou's face was, he glanced down at the bottle in her hand and took note of its label. "Pewter 151, huh…? That's pretty strong, even for you."

"Because I can handle it, not like a lightweight like you," she teased. "Relax, I'm sorry, I'm just joking with you… what's in the bag?"

The bag from the Thrifty Megamart. In his uncertainty, he'd practically forgotten that he'd brought it from his room. As he felt himself unable to ask about how she was, the bag proved to be a convenient excuse for prolonging the conversation. "Oh, I picked up a couple things there," Matt said, reaching in to retrieve its contents. "You wanted some Sonata Coffee, I got that… and I got you this." Holding up the Mimikyu doll, he added, "I thought it looked like something you'd like."

He waited for her reaction, but it soon became apparent one wasn't coming. The sole sound in the room was that of the driving rain against the glass.

"Nekou?" Matt finally asked, his nerves fraying again. "I'm sorry, I must have guessed wrong…"

"Stop talking like that!" Somehow, she was standing right in front of him, having moved so fast that her actions didn't register in his mind. "I don't want to hear you beating yourself up for doing something nice ever again," she said, taking the plush and regarding it with warm yet weary eyes and a matching smile. "This is one of my precious things. Because you gave it to me."

"I-" Matt was genuinely taken aback by her reaction. She was always so intense in her emotions, be they positive or negative, that he was used to her wearing her heart on her sleeve. Yet, in that moment, he couldn't help but feel like he was seeing the 'real' Nekou. Who she really was.

While he pondered her reaction, Nekou put the Mimikyu doll on top of a nearby dresser and then grabbed his hand.

"C'mere, this is what I want."

With that, she dragged him to the table where she was sitting when he arrived and pushed him down into one of the chairs. She then returned to her own seat and took a long swig of her drink.

"I don't understand," he said, "what is it you want, exactly?"

He certainly had ideas for what her note had meant, but none of the things he thought about turned out to be correct. In response to his question, she held up a deck of cards.

"Let's play a game." When Matt nodded in agreement to the proposal, Nekou turned her attention to her Sneasel. "Marie, go hang with the others in the playroom."

"Sneasel!"

Matt and Nekou watched Marie open the door and leave. When the Pokémon even took the care to close it, Matt couldn't stop from chuckling to himself.

"She's really a character, isn't she?" he asked.

"She's been like that since the day I rescued her," Nekou replied, looking down at the table with half-open eyes. Her voice had flattened out, falling barely above a monotone. "Some guys in the science division experimented on her. They called her a 'data Sneasel,' or some shit like that. Wanted to make her smarter, but she got too smart and took off on them. That's when I found her." She turned her gaze upward to meet Matt's, and to her surprise, he was listening. That frustrated her, and she tried not to show it, but her eyebrow twitched as she continued rambling. "We aren't all like that, getting off on experimenting on Pokémon. Ada, Trevor, Rosalie, there are so many who joined Team Rocket because there was nowhere else to go. That's what I did… I made the compromises I had to make to survive."

Matt's reply was the last thing Nekou expected to hear. "I understand. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here right now. I know you must be in so much pain, with Ariana…"

"Les Trois Jeux, you know it?" The dizzying speed with which Nekou changed the subject left Matt feeling as if he'd taken a punch from a Hitmonchan, to say nothing of the words she'd used. "I didn't think so…" she hesitatingly conceded after seeing the way he blankly glared at the deck in her hand. "It's an old Kalosian game. I know you've never been there… and yeah, neither have I, but I know it. I know it… let's play something simpler instead. Five card draw."

Nekou set her liquor bottle on the table and distributed five cards to herself and to Matt. Her deft, well-practiced dealing left him impressed.

"You're good at that," he quietly praised her.

"I guess when you hustle suckers for cash, you get muscle memory." It took a moment for Nekou to realize what she had said, but Matt's dumbfounded stare helped hammer it in. "I'm not doing that to you here, I promise! There aren't any stakes, I don't want… I just… I just wanted someone to keep me company…"

"So that's it," Matt realized, though he kept his conclusions unspoken. "I knew she wasn't okay… Ariana was always the one she'd go to for comfort, but without her…" Noticing Nekou's borderline tearful frown, he smiled at her and said, "It's alright, I know you're not trying to mess with me right now. I'll keep you company for as long as you want, alright? It's helping me too, you know."

At first, Nekou was silent, but she eventually turned to him with what he supposed was the most genuine smile he'd ever seen from her. "Thank you," she expressed. "You don't know how much it means to me."

"I think I have an idea, but let's not dwell on that." Matt went to look at the cards Nekou dealt him, but before he could, she opened a cooler she'd been keeping next to the table and took out a beer can that she then tossed to him. "What?"

"If you're gonna play a game, you might as well get a little smashed. It's not fun otherwise." Nekou winked at him and added, "Besides, like I said, what I'm drinking would fuck someone like you up. You can have that instead."

Again, Matt couldn't help but chuckle softly to himself. What else did he expect? "That's so like you. Why not enjoy yourself if you're going to play a game?"

Something about the situation pushed the two into sharing a laugh, but their amusement only served to mask the grave issues neither was able to bring up. Still, even though those subjects remained unspoken, a sense of sadness permeated the room to the point where they both could sense it.

"Anyway…" Matt said, trying to push past his emotions, "it's about time we actually started playing."

"Yeah…" Nekou adjusted her glasses, but the way she leaned forward caused her bangs to obscure her eyes.

After opening the beer can and taking a sip, Matt finally took a first look at his cards. He held a nine of Porygon and a nine of Poliwag, rounded out by a two and a four of Oddish, along with a one of Pikachu.

"A high pair…" he thought. In an attempt to get a read on Nekou's hand, he peered up at her, only to find that her bangs still hid her eyes. Something about it struck him as profound, as if his difficulty reading her in the game was a metaphor. He'd known her for quite some time by then, but it was only sitting at the table that night that he felt like he was really beginning to know her. Yet, he'd only seen the surface, and finding what lay below vexed him just as much as determining her cards. "Is she just really going hard into her poker face? Is that really it?"

Little did he suspect that, behind her bangs, she was trying to figure him out in much the same way. She already knew he had something fairly decent in his hand, likely better than the five of Oddish and five of Jigglypuff she held. Years of shaking people down in such games had polished those skills to their finest point. But there was something else, something deeper than any frivolous game, that she could sense.

She threw her three unwanted cards down on the table and said, "Come on, make your choices."

"Fine, fine…" At her prompting, he discarded three as well.

"Hmph, I thought so." Nekou dealt three more cards to each side, and after a cursory glance to confirm her position hadn't changed at all, tossed her whole hand down. "Show 'em."

"Here," he said, showing his cards and revealing that he had picked up a nine of Oddish to add to his existing pair.

Nekou shrugged and said, "Yeah, that's exactly the sort of thing I figured you had."

"You read me that well, huh…" Matt trailed off, and instead of saying anything more, sipped from the beer again.

"Like I said, I made plenty of cash hustling people. I'm good at reading them." As she collected the cards, Nekou took a deep breath and steeled her resolve to pursue her suspicions. "So... I heard you beat Ethan at the Battle Submarine."

"Deal the next round." The abrupt, serious tone of Matt's reply caught Nekou by surprise, thanks to his earlier listlessness. Unsure of what to do next, she did what he requested and continued the game.

From there, they settled into what could be called a routine, but it was far from comfortable. They barely spoke as one hand bled into the next, instead using the cards as distractions and replacing their drinks as needed while the rain provided background noise and their mutual reticence communicated more than their quiet let on.

For Nekou her skills made it easy. She surreptitiously observed his behavior using the game as a pretense, and before long became convinced that he was hiding something. It couldn't be just that he had beaten Ethan. She knew him well enough to know that his victory becoming public would have made him uneasy, but it couldn't be the thing he was hiding. Besides, she reasoned, Matt had to have known his victory was already public. So why try to hide it? No, her read of him revealed a melancholy, an aura of mourning even, that felt so similar to her own that she felt compelled to unearth it. Anything, just to feel like she wasn't as alone as the rest of the city told her she was.

Matt, on the other hand, came to the table armed with some knowledge of Nekou's situation. What he'd learned from her teammates about the events aboard the Altru Northstar gave him the pieces, and seeing her storm out of the elevator helped him start putting them together. By the time Marie brought them together he was convinced he had a pretty clear idea of what was happening, and seeing Nekou drinking stronger liquor than normal confirmed it. That, and he remembered what she'd said earlier. She just wanted someone to keep her company. He wanted to help her with her loneliness, but how could he while he was so entangled with his own problems?

Eventually, whether it was from the continued awkwardness of the card game, the sound of the rain on the windows or his own drinking, Matt decided he had to do something. As hard as it was, he had to be the one to take the first step.

Surrendering his cards after a hand Nekou thoroughly defeated him in, he downed the rest of his current can of beer in one big gulp and sighed. "You thought something happened at the Battle Submarine, didn't you?" he ventured, averting his eyes from her. "You're right. Something did."

"I could tell…" Nekou quietly replied. Any other time, she might have been cocky about how easily she'd read him, but such behavior was far from her mind. "You wanna tell me wh-"

"To put it bluntly, I ain't finding Reshiram." Matt's confession was so sudden Nekou couldn't help but gasp in shock. She'd only considered the possibility that whatever information Ethan gave would lead down a more difficult path, not that it would foreclose upon all of Matt's potential roads to Reshiram's truth. Hearing her reaction made Matt bitterly scoff and shake his head. "Go figure, right? Ethan told me that I already have to know a truth I'm willing to give up everything for. What nonsense, for me to think I could just find Reshiram and make it tell me things. I'm no hero, especially not one of truth. What a joke…"

"It might not mean much from someone like me, but I'm sorry." Nekou reached across the table and squeezed Matt's hand in her own. He looked back up at her, only to see her now turned away from him. Somehow, her already flushed face had grown redder. "I listened to everything you've told me, so I know what that meant to you. If it means anything…" She squeezed his hand a bit tighter. "...you told me I didn't need to be alone. You listened to me. I want… to do that."

"I appreciate that, don't get me wrong, but I'll be okay right now." he insisted. Matt's reply was such a blatant lie that he knew beyond any doubt she'd catch it, but the words had already slipped out before he could stop them. "I'm more worried about you. It's pretty clear you're trying to numb yourself to what happened to Ariana, and…"

"I'm sorry but why do you always have to fucking do this?" Her grip on his hand tightened even further, but instead of being angry, she was plainly growing frustrated. "You're always putting other people first to the point where it hurts you. Why can't you ever take care of yourself? I just can't fucking understand how someone could ever live like that!"

"It isn't fun, that's for sure…" he admitted, "but I get why it's so hard for you to understand. Aside from Amanda, I haven't really had many people I can lean on, and usually I'm okay with that. But you… maybe I'm crossing a line here, and if I am I apologize, but being alone scares you, doesn't it?"

"How can you act like you know me?!" Nekou snapped, yanking her hand away from him.

"Because I do."

For the second time in mere minutes, Nekou gasped. As much as she wanted to deny it, to fight back and keep her shields up, he'd broken through and figured her out. He'd figured her out and she didn't know how to handle it.

"Fuck!" she screamed, her frustration boiling over. She picked up the entire deck and threw it, scattering playing cards across the floor, then stood up and knocked her chair over before flopping down to sit on her bed nearby. She then removed her glasses, and for the first time, Matt could see Nekou crying. Not fighting the tears back, but letting them run unchecked down her face. "Why do people like you have to exist… it's easy to understand when someone acts like they should, but then there are the ones like you, the ones who give monsters like me second chances after everything I've done to you!"

"The one thing I wish you would stop is calling yourself a monster," Matt gently told her, sitting down next to her and intertwining his fingers with hers. "You aren't one, and even if you were, I already told you I'm one too. You're not alone."

"Stop! Just… just stop… I don't deserve it…" Nekou covered her eyes with her free hand, in a fruitless attempt to hide her tears. "I am a monster, both from what I am and how I treated you… all for my own satisfaction."

"If you want to make up for that, just listen to me now. You said you wanted to do that."

"O-okay…" she whimpered, peeking out from between her fingers.

"I guess I wanted to find Reshiram because… I wanted to understand things, just like you." Matt contemplated, their hands still joined between them. The downpour outside provided a strangely peaceful background to their talk. "I guess I'm pretty similar to you, when I think about it… I wanted to understand what my place in the world is."

"Similar to me…?" Nekou couldn't help but lower her hand to look clearly at Matt. "What do you mean by that?"

"There's always been this… I don't know what I'd call it, but I've never felt… right, if that makes any sense." Matt stifled a tired, weak laugh. "Who knows what I'm even talking about at this point… I never could really put my finger on what it is, but there's always been something I felt like I needed the answer to. It's been driving me crazy my whole life. Maybe I felt like I didn't have any control over what happens to me? That would make sense, considering Polaris had its hands in there all along… I don't know. I'm rambling. I just…" Turning back to Nekou, he finally caught her facing him. "...thought you might feel the same way."

"I-I…" Matt was right, and there was no way for Nekou to deny it. "Yeah, you're right, I do," she confessed, hanging her head. "Why are you coming to me with this, though? You've got Amanda. You said it yourself."

"That's true, but at the same time… you've seen the two of us together. You've got to admit Amanda has her life together way more than I do. Look at me, I'm a wreck." Matt's self-deprecating comment brought a genuine laugh out of Nekou, and her joviality led him to share in it. "Aha, that felt good… seriously, though, even though we spent so long living together, Amanda's built her own life. I don't want to burden her with all my problems… besides, I feel like I can tell you these things. I feel like… I know you'll get them."

Even though Nekou appreciated the trust Matt was placing in her, that same trust caused her anguish to swell anew. With tears welling back up in her eyes, she said, "Even if I do, you shouldn't bother looking to someone like me for any kind of help. You don't know how much of a monster I really am… you don't know!"

"I put my faith in you, so you put yours in me." Much to Matt's surprise, it was Nekou who pushed her fingers deeper into where they were joined. Encouraged by this gesture, he softened his voice a little further and asked her, "Nekou… what really happened at the Altru Northstar?"

"The Altru Northstar was really one of Polaris's main labs," Nekou explained in a hushed tone, in the process unknowingly volunteering a confirmation of what Matt had already deduced. "Colress was running it, but that… that…" Her grip on her language started to slip when she had to recall Yung and what he had done. "...that enfoiré Yung, he was there too. Remember when you ran into him on the Magnet Train and Ada had to help you destroy that fucking holographic Mewtwo of his?"

"Mm…" While it had faded to the back of his mind thanks to his encounters with Ghetsis, Colress and others, he hadn't forgotten that day on the Magnet Train line. When Nekou brought it up, the sensation of the wind whipping around him as he and Bunny desperately tried to defeat the Mirage Mewtwo atop Polaris's train came rushing back to him. "Yes, I do."

"Well, he was there and he had another of those monsters…" Saying the word 'monster' caused something in Nekou's head to snap, and she suddenly grew hysterical. "That's right, that Mewtwo is a monster, just like me!" she yelled, her thoughts growing incoherent. "It's a monster and I became a monster to stop it and we both did the same thing and-"

"Nekou!" Releasing her hand, Matt seized her by the shoulders instead, making it hard for her to avoid looking at him. "Please, calm down! You're safe here!"

"That's-" Nekou wanted to protest, to insist that she couldn't be safe anywhere with herself, but what Matt said centered her. Indeed, she felt safe, even if she didn't expect to. Between that feeling of security and the alcohol, she felt ready to tackle the memory she hated the most, the one that she'd even hidden from Olivia and Anabel. "I guess… do you remember when I told you about that voice I hear in my head?" Matt nodded, prompting her to continue, "The f-first time I ever heard that voice… when Team Rocket first found me and took me in, I wasn't like I am now. I was totally, completely different in every way you can possibly imagine… just picture the exact opposite of everything you know about me. I wanted to keep to myself and just not exist… but there was this one guy who wouldn't let me."

The closer she came to owning up to her secret, the more Nekou could feel herself disconnecting from reality. She almost thought she was having an out-of-body experience, watching herself from afar as if she wasn't even really there.

"No, this is what I deserve. This is my punishment," she thought when she saw Matt listening intently to her. Her breaths grew short and shallow, only contributing to her uneasy mental state. "He was a nobody, a grunt… just another loser who joined for a paycheck. He thought he could make his lot in life better if he found someone to pick on, and that ended up being me. I endured it for as long as I could… until I snapped."

"What did you do?"

"I… don't know exactly." Nekou hung her head in shame. "Or at least, I didn't know right away. I thought I blacked out before anything happened, and when I woke up…" What little energy there was in Nekou's voice evaporated, leaving her barely able to confess her secret. "When I woke up I'd torn his throat apart. I killed him. I sent him to that place where there's nothing and you're all alone, with my own hands. I did that. There's no more monstrous act… after I did that, they locked me up in a laboratory tank for a long time, and I was completely alone except for that voice in my head… I deserved it! I deserved all of it, because if that doesn't prove I'm a monster, then-"

"I'm sorry, but… I just don't think it does." Nekou inhaled sharply at Matt's unexpected reply, but before she could do or say anything else, he leaned forward and touched his forehead against hers. The feeling of his cool skin against her perpetual warmth sent a shock through her, but she gave no outward reaction to it. "You told me that you felt like a parasite in your own body when that happens… whoever did those things, it wasn't you. I promise. It wasn't you."

"But it was me," she quietly strained to say. "Just like today, when Yung had that thing try to stab me… Maman took it in my place. She did it so I wouldn't suffer like I did fighting those damn ninjas… but if she hadn't pushed me out of the way, I would have survived! My regeneration would have made sure of it! If being able to survive what took Maman from me doesn't make me a monster, what does? If this body isn't even mine, what else isn't mine?! Are my thoughts, my emotions even mine?"

"But listen to what you just said," Matt offered in response. "Your feelings about Ariana show you're you. A monster wouldn't have attachments like that…"

Nekou froze as the meaning of Matt's logic sank in. He was right, she had to concede. So right, in fact, that even the claims made by her other self helped her see reason. That entity had so often urged her to possess who and what she wanted by force, yet she resisted its influence and formed some genuine attachments with others. Ariana. Ada and the others in her team. Olivia. Matt. If she'd managed to make that many connections, why not try to make more?

And yet, as comforting as that logic was, it forced her to confront head-on the one matter she wanted to run away from, Ariana's fate. She wished she could run, use all her strength to sprint away and keep running until she reached somewhere reality couldn't find her, but in her heart she knew it was a hopeless cause. The truth would find her no matter where she went, so why go anywhere?

"She should still be here with me…" Nekou finally said, speaking barely above a whisper. "I've never known a life without her. As far back as I can remember, Maman was there… she got me out of that tank and taught me how to live. I can't… I wouldn't be myself without her…"

Little did Nekou realize that she'd led Matt into a realization of his own. "It's probably hypocritical coming from me, but… but…" As what he was about to say dawned on him, his speech grew shaky. In hindsight it seemed so obvious. Had he really been so blind as to miss it for himself? "As long as you… as long as you keep her with you in your mind, she's still with you."

"How do I know that, though?"

"You will. Trust me, you will…" he promised her, though he knew he was talking to himself just as much. "Just try it now. She wouldn't want you to feel bad right now. What would she tell you to do?"

There was a pause, and for several long moments, the only sound in the room was the rain outside. Matt suspected Nekou was pondering his question, although with her bangs hanging over her eyes, he couldn't tell for sure.

"Maman would say to live without regrets," she finally said, "and maybe I'm just really fucking wasted right now but I don't think I'm going to regret this."

Nekou suddenly turned her head upward, catching Matt by surprise, and pressed her lips against his. The kiss wasn't anything like the one she'd given him at the end of their effort to stop the runaway Magnet Train, either. Unlike the exaggerated, joking one from then, this one was soft and tentative, lasting only a fleeting second before Nekou pulled back.

"I've been waiting so long for this…" she mumbled, her face flushing even further.

Yet, nothing - absolutely nothing could have prepared her for Matt's reply. "If you felt that way, I wish you would have said something sooner."

"What are you-" Nekou knew exactly what he was saying and what he was implying. She just had to catch up to it, and when she did, her face turned redder than ever. "I… if you…" she sputtered, "Well if you felt that way, why did you wait so long, huh?"

"I guess that's another question only Reshiram would have been able to answer," he said with a weary shrug, a motion that Nekou recognized as one she'd made plenty of times before. "But if you wanted me to take a guess, I'm having a hard time imaging what life is like after Polaris is gone if we all go our separate ways. I'm starting to realize I like the people I'm around right now, and you're one of them."

Acting on her instincts, Nekou draped her arms over his shoulders and grinned at him. "You're really gonna stick to your guns on this whole thing, aren't you? At least you're wanting to live again."

"And at least you're sounding like yourself again," he replied, playfully mimicking her expression.

"Not one hundred percent yet," she said, slowly but steadily moving her face toward his, "but… maybe I'll get there."

"Well, you don't have to do it alone. I'll help."

"Same here," Nekou replied, "if I can bring you out of the dumps, I will."

With nothing more to be said between them, Nekou kissed him again, but it wasn't curious or exploratory like before. Having finally obtained the answer to her question, she saw no need to retreat from something that was giving her some relief. Neither did Matt, for that matter. He was more than happy to return her affection, running his hand down and through her voluminous hair. One kiss became two, two became four, and before long neither cared to remember.

When she broke away to take a breath, Nekou muttered to herself, "Laissez sela nous aider, s'il vous plaît…" She then moved her hands to Matt's chest and tried to push him onto his back, only for his grip to take her down with him. The clumsy absurdity of the situation made her laugh out loud, even in the depths of her mood. "Well, color me surprised," she said, gently stroking his face. "Sure didn't expect that from you."

"Something tells me you just want to forget everything right now," he answered. "So do I."

-:-

A bead of sweat rolled down Sheena's cheek as she held firm in her prayer atop Ecruteak's Bell Tower. She was engulfed by the harsh, biting winds of early winter, but her mission was of such urgency that she single-mindedly pushed through them. She had to. Ever since Ghetsis opened the rainbow rings over the city and beckoned Ho-oh to appear, he'd become a threat only she was able to stop.

Suddenly, a flash of light from above caught her eye, snapping her out of her attempt to link with Ho-oh in the astral plane. It was the great phoenix's mightiest move, Sacred Fire, and Ho-oh had turned its full power squarely upon her. The immense blue ball of flame descended toward the tower like a meteor, its color vividly standing out against the rainbow rings overhead.

And Sheena was entirely alone in the face of that overwhelming power. None of her allies were at her side. Hoopa and Mewtwo were nowhere to be seen. It was just her, a single person, against the fury Ho-oh - no, Ghetsis - brought down upon her.

All she could do was stare helplessly into the blue void that would soon bring about her demise. Suddenly, as it drew nearer to her position, Ghetsis's face appeared to her inside the fiery vortex.

"Now, you will lose all hope… and then, you will perish!"

"...ah!"

Sheena gasped awake, and she wasn't in Ecruteak City anymore. She was in her bed within the Sinjoh Ruins, far from both the time and place in her dreams, yet reliving her past encounters with Ghetsis felt real. Far too real. She reached up to her face and touched it, feeling the cold sweat she'd broken out in.

Stumbling to her feet, Sheena reached for a cup of water she'd left on a table next to her bed, but in her daze only managed to knock it over. The porcelain shattered on the stone floor, and Sheena blankly stared at the shards, too rattled to do anything about cleaning them.

A minute or so later, Alesia came bursting into the room, carrying a lamp to light her way. "Lady Sheena, I heard a crash and I came as fast as I could! Are you okay?"

"I… I am…" Sheena stuttered, blinking her way out of her nightmare's grip. "I'm fine, Alesia, don't worry."

"I'll go get you some more water," Alesia offered, eyeing the broken cup on the floor. "How does that sound?"

"Yeah, that's good. That's good." While her disciple left to retrieve the refreshment in question, Sheena still couldn't pull her view from the broken ceramic pieces at her feet. "We don't know if Ghetsis is really gone…" she pondered, a chill running down her spine. "What if he comes back… what if Polaris somehow manages to find this place… we must do something to ensure the safety of our land. No... I'm the one who must do it… but what?"

-:-

The clouds of the previous night had largely faded, allowing the morning sun to peek through the windows of the bar in Team Rocket's hideout. Trevor walked in to find Proton and Ada already there ahead of him, sitting side by side at the bar and working on their tablet and laptop, respectively.

"Hey, good morning," the former actor greeted his colleagues. "Y'all are up bright and early, huh?"

"Did you want to be the first one here?" Ada fretted with a pout. "Well, if us being here bothers you, there's nothing to be done about it now…"

Dismissing Ada's question with a wave of his hand, Trevor made his way behind the bar as he said, "Oh, no, nothing of the sort! It's good to see you up and at it already. Giovanni and Ariana would be proud, I know it. Either of you want something to drink?"

"Give me some juice," Proton replied, turning the palm of his left hand up. "It's too early for anything else."

"Same here," Ada added.

"That's two mixed Berry Juices, coming up." Pivoting away from his comrades, Trevor fetched a Shuckle-shaped mixer from a cabinet and started placing berries into it. He hadn't been at it for long, however, before he could hear Ada scrutinizing something on her computer.

"Hmmm…" she said aloud, leaning in close and squinting at the screen. "This sounds like something… unusual, to say the least."

"What is it?" Trevor asked over his shoulder as he prepared the drinks.

"Listen to this thing I just found on RChannel… 'Stay away from Route 43 and the Lake of Rage! You aren't gonna believe me, but there's this weird robot there and it attacked me with a Pokémon I've never seen before! My Breloom didn't stand a chance!' Tell me this doesn't smell like a rotten Magikarp."

Leaning over to see her discovery for himself, Proton agreed, "You might be onto something. It smells like Polaris to me." Ada kept scrolling, and Proton continued talking through what he saw. "'You aren't the only one! That thing got my Zangoose too!' 'So you also encountered it? I battled it, but my Eiscue couldn't do anything to that Pokémon.'"

"It sounds like sightings of this so-called robot aren't isolated." Having finished filling the mixer with berries, Trevor brought it to the bar, put it down and pressed a button on the Shuckle's shell to activate it. Once it was on, he continued, "Are there any photos of it?"

"Better," Ada replied, "someone posted video of it."

Before playing the clip, Ada turned her laptop around to an angle where both Trevor and Proton could see it. Once that was done, she hit the enter key, and the full-screen video started to play.

"What kind of Pokémon is that?!" the person recording the video could be heard shouting. She'd evidently filmed the encounter using a phone or a similar handheld device, so the footage was unstable. The three Rockets viewing it couldn't clearly make out much at first, aside from the Skuntank standing a few feet in front of the trainer. "Skuntank, use Burning Jeal-"

Before the trainer could get her command out, a blue blur shot upward from a position past Skuntank. She followed it with her camera, and the footage suddenly grew stable enough for her attacker to be clearly seen. It was an insectoid creature with glowing red eyes and a rigid, toothy grin between them, along with a cannon it sported somewhat awkwardly on its back.

"Genesect?!" Ada exclaimed, its appearance catching her so by surprise that she reflexively paused the video. "There's no doubt about it from the shape, that's the Pokémon considered a myth for its skills as a hunter three hundred million years ago! Why is it here?!"

"Colress and Team Plasma were the ones who brought the five Genesect spotted in Unova back to life," Trevor recalled, reasoning, "It's hardly surprising that he'd make another one for Polaris."

"I hope Zager can get into that drive right away. It feels like we're getting left in Polaris's dust." Proton shifted on his barstool. He had nothing more to say at first, but when he glanced at Ada's laptop again, he realized something. "There's still more of that video, right? The reports said there were both a robot and a strange Pokémon. Maybe that robot is in the rest of it."

"O-oh, you're p-probably right," Ada stammered, still dazed by what she'd seen. She shook her head to try and ground herself, then hit the key to resume the playback.

"Skuntank, watch out!"

That warning fell on deaf ears, as Skuntank was too stunned by his opponent's agility to move. From its vantage point in the air, Genesect trained its cannon upon its target and fired a white beam of icy energy at the Poison-and-Dark-type Pokémon. The ray exploded into a cloud of fine snow when it hit its mark, easily casting Skuntank aside as if it were nothing.

"Skuntank…" The trainer ran to her partner's side, and for a time, the video again grew too shaky to parse. Brief glimpses of her white kneesocks and Skuntank's still form could be made out against the grass, but little else was discernible. "How could you do that to my dear, cute Skuntank? What even is that Pokémon? What are you, for that matter?!"

The camera angle changed again, and for the first time, Ada, Trevor and Proton got a clear look at what the posts had described. There, standing behind Genesect as the ancient Pokémon landed, was a humanoid figure encased from head to toe in black, mechanical armor. Even a mere glimpse could make clear why those who encountered it thought it was a robot. Biological or synthetic, if it had a face, there was no way to see it. Its head was also completely covered, protected by a helmet with a glowing digital display where a face should have been.

"Well, there's our robot," Trevor noted. "Whoever made that must have been a fan of my movies…"

Ada shivered when she saw the figure. "Well, whatever it is, I sure don't like it."

What the 'robot' did next, however, caught all three of them by complete surprise. It ignored the trainer's demands to identify itself, instead choosing to display its dominance by shoving its left hand into a pocket on its black leather coat while reaching up and touching its head with its right.

"It's like that thing thinks it's wearing… a…" Proton's eyes widened and his face turned white. There wasn't much that could frighten the self-labeled 'scariest and cruelest guy in Team Rocket,' but the possibility that was worming its way into his mind did it and then some. "Ada, Trevor, you don't think there's any chance we were wrong about…"

When Proton trailed off, Ada started to demand, "Wrong about wh-" She cut herself off, however, when what he was implying dawned on her, too. "Oh. Oh… I… if there's even a chance that's true, then… then we have to tell the others, and someone has to get in touch with Stacia, ASAP."

-:-

"...emotions come I don't know why, cover up love's alibi…"

The sound of Nekou's ringtone slowly roused her from her state of blacked-out sleep. "Ugh…" she sighed as she felt around for where it was on the table next to her bed, too out of it to bother getting up. "Fucking.. Just wait already…"

Once she managed to find the device, Nekou brought it to her ear and tried to ask what the caller wanted, only for it to come out as an incoherent groan. Luckily for her it was Ada on the other end, someone who was more than used to her quirks.

"Nekou, I apologize for bothering you this early," Ada said from the other end of the call, "but something urgent has come up. You need to join the rest of us as soon as possible."

"Yeah, I'll… be there in a bit. Just wait for me…" Nekou hung up, then just tossed the phone on the floor instead of putting it back on the table. She had such a headache that she nearly felt the world spinning around her. "I must have gotten so fucking wasted…" she mumbled as she brought her hand to her face. Besides how hard her head was pounding, the events of the previous night were a blur. Her hangover was about the only clue she had to go on.

Or at least it was the only clue until she turned over and noticed Matt still asleep next to her.

In an instant, everything that happened came flooding back. Nekou turned bright red and flipped to face away from him, their backs turned to each other.

"That really happened, didn't it?" Nekou bit her fingernail as she tried to make sense of what she was remembering. "I must have… I must have been really upset and things got out of control, but… did they really get out of control, or did I just get up the nerve to be more open about how I feel?"

Unable to decide what to do, Nekou pulled the blankets more tightly around herself, forming what she saw as a sort of protective cocoon.

"That must be it. I know how I feel. I need…" Her sense of loneliness rose above her other emotions, making her pause. Coming to terms with what she knew to be true wasn't easy, but she decided she had to force herself to accept it. "I need help holding myself up, especially with… with Maman gone… maybe he won't abandon me now, if-"

"How precious, you think he's not disgusted with you." The sudden presence of her other self in her mind made her heart sink. "Because that's what you are. Disgusting."

"Will you just fuck off already?!" Nekou tried to project some sort of anger in her thoughts, but in reality, she was so disturbed that it made her shudder. "Leave me alone for once!"

"Oh, no, you know you don't really want me to do that." The voice's honey-tongued threats sounded more devilish than they ever had been before. It was as if that entity, too, felt emboldened in what it believed. "If I leave you alone, you really will be alone. We both know you don't want that. And before you say you're not, before you offer Matt as if he proves some sort of point, I'll repeat myself. He knows you're disgusting, even more than anyone else."

Nekou subconsciously pulled the sheets over her face to hide it. "Why would you even say something like that?"

"Do you really need me to tell you?" The entity's disappointment and irritation was palpable. "You even just said it yourself. 'Maybe he won't abandon now, if…' You numbed yourself until you didn't care anymore, and then threw yourself at him hoping that it would make you feel better. He saw all those scars you've got, too. And on top of all of that, be honest with yourself. You hate yourself, yet you expect him to see something different? Add it all up and that's exactly what you are, a disgusting monster who just needs to embrace what she is! I keep telling you, stop trying to please these people, to fit in with them as if you're one of them. You're not. You are something else, something more. You need to accept that."

"No, you're wrong… you have to be. I'm me. Nothing more… nothing less. I just want to-"

"What you want doesn't matter," the voice interrupted her, turning angry. "The day will come when you finally understand that, and that will be the day when you see that I'm right and you accept what you are."

Unable to summon the strength to stand up, Nekou rolled out of the bed and fell to the floor, taking a loose cover with her. When she managed to force herself to her feet, she held the sheet against herself and dragged herself toward the adjoining bathroom, half intending to clean herself up and half hoping a hot shower could scorch her continued misery out of her.

-:-

Matt woke up a short while later, only to discover that Nekou was already long gone. He returned to his room and freshened himself up, too, then collected his supplies and set off to find answers.

As he made his way down the halls leading to the hotel bar, his mind was elsewhere. Nekou's absence after she emotionally broke down and allowed him to see her vulnerability had left him deeply troubled. If there was one thing he'd come to truly understand about her, it was how she needed someone she could count on to accept her for who she was. Accordingly, her absence in the wake of opening up about that was the source of his worry.

"Maybe I don't know exactly what the right thing to do is yet…" he deliberated as he walked, "but I have to do something. She needs it… I know she definitely wouldn't want me trying to protect her the way I've done for others, besides, she's the last person who would need that. If I could find her, I'd just ask what she wants me to do…"

"Oh, Matt, good morning."

Matt had been so lost in thought that he didn't realize he'd arrived at the bar until Anabel greeted him. Olivia and Amanda were sitting at a table with her, but as he moved to join them, he noticed Proton, Petrel and Trevor busily coming and going from the room.

"What's with them?" he asked his sister and their friends as he sat down. "What are they up to?"

"I don't really know," Anabel whispered, leaning in over the table so the others could hear her. "They're up to something, though. I think they're getting ready to go somewhere."

"I agree," Amanda said. "If I'm not mistaken, I believe I overheard mention of Mahogany Town."

Mahogany Town, the small community in Johto's northern regions. It was well known for three reasons: first, its close proximity to the famous Lake of Rage even further north. Second, its history as a hideout for ninjas in bygone eras. Third and foremost, how well it had held up against the march of time, remaining the same rustic outpost it always was even in the face of the rapid modernization much of the rest of Johto experienced. But as he thought back, Matt remembered there was a fourth thing he knew about it. Not long after he first met Nekou, she'd claimed that her parents moved around a lot but 'eventually settled in Mahogany Town.' He now realized that story was most likely a lie, but at the same time, he inferred that its prominence in her false background was indicative of a real attachment she had to the town.

"If Team Rocket is going to Mahogany Town, maybe that's why she's out of sorts…" he thought to himself. Addressing his sister, he asked, "Amanda, are you sure that's what you heard?"

"No doubt about it," Amanda replied. "That name came up too many times for it to just be a coincidence. Now, what they're doing there, that I'm not sure of. I did hear something about a strange Pokémon, or something."

"A strange Pokémon in Mahogany Town?" Olivia piped up, having been playing with her Pokégear until that point in the conversation. "Maybe it's got something to do with this, then. People are talking online about some sort of weird trainer attacking travelers with a mystery Pokémon on Route 43."

"It would make a certain amount of sense if Team Rocket were heading there to pursue those reports," Matt reasoned, working through his thoughts out loud. "I wonder what kind of Pokémon it is, though. I doubt it's one we really know."

Rosalie approached the table before they could speculate any further, guiding her wheelchair with her right hand while holding her pipe with her left. "Morning. Good to see you're all here."

"Same to you," Anabel returned the greeting with a slight smile. "It would appear that there's quite a lot going on today."

"Oh, you saw them, I guess." Rosalie took a puff from her pipe. "The others are getting ready to head for Mahogany Town. There's something going on in the area that they want to check out. I'm staying here, so I suppose you're welcome to stay as well."

"Mahogany Town, no wonder," Matt thought. "Do you know where Nekou is? I haven't seen her at all today."

Rosalie hesitated and closed her eyes before answering his question. "Nekou… wasn't herself earlier. After we briefed her on the Mahogany operation, she said she was going to go out on her own until we needed to leave."

"Oh." That explanation disheartened Matt into silence. "I should go find her and… actually, wait." He covered his mouth with his hand. "On second thought, maybe that's not such a good idea. Maybe I should give her space for now…"

"I'm sure we'll meet up with her later," Olivia said. "Anyway, I want to go back to Olivine Gym today. I have to beat Helena fair and square this time."

Anabel's heart swelled with pride for her daughter. "That's what I want to hear. Let's head over."

"Actually, wait," Rosalie interrupted, raising her hand in a gesture to make Anabel and the others stop and listen. "There's one more thing before you leave. Anabel, Matt, Amanda, would you three come with me for a minute? There's something I want to talk with you about."

"I… guess?" The sudden request left Amanda somewhat confused. "Matt, what do you think?"

"There can't be any harm in it," he figured, shrugging. "It's not like talking can change our situation that much right now."

"Can I come too?"

Olivia's question, though innocent and well-meaning, left Rosalie to conspicuously pause again. While Olivia didn't notice it, Matt and Anabel both did, and nervously glanced at each other.

"Olivia, this is something that's best left to us right now." Hoping to downplay the urgency of her implication, Rosalie smiled at Olivia and said, "Tell you what. While we take care of this, head down to Olivine Café and bring me back something. Mixed vegetables and Slowpoke Tail sounds good. Can you do that for me?"

Olivia hesitated as well, but soon flashed a smile of her own back at Rosalie before pushing her chair away from the table and standing up. "Yeah, sure! Mixed vegetables and Slowpoke Tail… I can do that."

"Very good, thank you. Now, Anabel, Matt, Amanda, please come with me."

Matt got up and helped Amanda get to her feet, then followed Rosalie as the scientist led them and Anabel across the bar and back to the connecting hallways. Olivia, meanwhile, headed for the elevator, only to stop in her tracks before she got there.

She lowered her head, causing a shadow to be cast over her eyes, and listened to the others walk away.

-:-

"What is this all about?" Anabel demanded as soon as Rosalie led the group into a room. Having understood Rosalie's implication that Olivia wouldn't be able to handle their discussion, she was no longer able to hide how on edge she was. "What's really going on?"

"Anabel's right," Matt agreed, placing his hand against his hip after helping Amanda to sit down. "You have to be honest with us right now."

"I wouldn't have approached you about this just to lie to you, so here." Rosalie ran her fingers across her wheelchair's keyboard, and several holographic screens popped into being in front of her. One especially prominent projection showed an image of a human brain alongside several graphs charting its electrical activity. "I studied the data I gathered from examining Olivia's brain activity during the time she was out, and I've come to a conclusion or two."

"What are they?" Amanda asked.

"If you don't mind, please simplify it for me," her brother sheepishly requested. Matt poked his finger against his head and added, "Dr. Graceland was the one who did all the work up here."

"I don't expect any of you to understand all the particulars. You don't have the same training I do, so it's only natural. But don't worry, I'll sum it up for you." After pausing momentarily for a puff at her pipe, Rosalie explained, "The gist of it is this. Olivia's seizures are occurring because there are parts of her brain turning active at times they shouldn't be. The best way I can explain it is to say she's dreaming while she's awake. Effectively, her mind's overtaxing itself, causing her functions to shut down. Hence, the seizures and blackouts."

"And those so-called 'dreams' might actually be the visions she said she saw…" Anabel realized.

Amanda crossed her legs and agreed, "That would make a lot of sense… but just because it makes sense doesn't make it good."

"Yeah, you can say that again…" Matt concurred, making the sentiment unanimous. "It's comforting to have an explanation, but besides knowing, what can we do about it?"

"That's right, what can we do about it?" Anabel's speech had become strained. The knowledge of what she had to do seemed almost within her reach, but still frustratingly beyond her, and she hated it.

-:-

What none of the people in the room realized was that they had been followed.

Instead of boarding the elevator and heading out to Olivine Café as Rosalie requested, Olivia waited until she could trail them at a safe distance. She concealed herself right at the edge of the entrance to the room, pressing her back against the wall and listening intently as they talked.

"What can we do about it?" she heard Rosalie ponder, repeating Anabel and Matt's words back to them. "Well, I can give you a few options, but I don't know how much you're going to like them."

"Anything, tell me," Anabel answered without hesitation.

"Well, one option…" Olivia noticed Rosalie's pause and figured the scientist was stopping to puff from her pipe first. What she heard Rosalie say next, however, sent a tremendous shock through her system and kicked her fight-or-flight instinct into gear. "One option would be to have Olivia stop traveling. Based on what I've been told and what I've observed, stress appears to be a major contributing factor to the seizures. If you remove those factors, it should help."

At first, there was no reply. From Olivia's point of view it felt like an eternity before her mother spoke up. But when Anabel finally did say something, it was far from what Olivia wanted to hear.

"It's terrible, and I don't know how she'd take it… but if that's how she can be helped…"

That was it. Olivia couldn't stomach any more, not after hearing Anabel even appear to be willing to tear away what she wanted. No more traveling meant no more Gyms. No more Gyms meant no more reaching the Pokémon League. And no more reaching the Pokémon League meant the vision she'd seen, the one of her coming face-to-face with her father at the Indigo Plateau, would never happen.

Olivia pushed off the wall and stormed away down the corridor. "How can you not understand, Mom?! I have to find him! I have to! If there's no hope for that, then what I've gone through meant nothing!"

-:-

"At least that might be a temporary solution, anyway," Rosalie elaborated further, completely and utterly unaware of Olivia's earlier eavesdropping. "Option two is probably better for the long term. I don't know if Nekou has made you aware, but one of my areas of expertise is creating medicines. With a little work, I could make something that would help by relaxing the overactive parts of her brain, which should reduce if not eliminate the seizures."

"You say that, and I do appreciate the gesture…" Anabel tugged anxiously at her scarf. "...but if medicine is the best solution, why can't I go through Cianwood Pharmacy?"

"Olivia's condition is quite unique," the scientist clarified. "There are plenty of conditions with similar traits, but what she has is, as I said, unique. For that reason I don't think any existing pharmacy would have the kind of medicine we need."

Anabel held her chin as she thought over Rosalie's proposal, and Matt couldn't get a read on how she felt. Since he was quite a bit taller than her, from his point of view her hair partially obstructed her face. He could still see her mouth, but the way it rested perfectly between smiling and frowning gave him no insight into what she was thinking.

Amanda, on the other hand, couldn't see any of Anabel's motions, so she simply asked, "Anabel, what are you thinking?"

That innocent question was all the prompting Anabel needed to make her decision. Her lips gave way to a slight frown as her expression hardened and she went right up to Rosalie, putting her hands down on Rosalie's wheelchair's armrests.

"Listen to me," Anabel hissed, their faces mere inches apart. "I truly appreciate that you're willing to do this, don't get me wrong. But mark my words, if you or anyone else from Team Rocket betrays me, Olivia, or anyone else I care about… I'll make you regret it."

Although Rosalie remained outwardly unfazed, she'd have been lying to herself if she denied the chill Anabel's threat sent through her. She brought her pipe to her mouth, but instead of using it, said, "I'll prove you can trust me, then, because I know you don't make idle threats and that you're more than capable of backing it up. I wouldn't want to cross you alone, but with Amanda and Matt on your side… that would be the last mistake I'd ever make. I promise, you can put your faith in me. I'll help Olivia."

-:-

As much as all four of them wanted to help Olivia, none of them had any idea just what sort of help she needed immediately.

With little conscious idea of where she was going, Olivia angrily sulked as she stalked the hotel's hallways. Her mind was racing unchecked, filling in gaps in her knowledge with poorly plotted assumptions. "I don't understand, Mom," she fumed to herself. "You know what this means to me! You know I have to finish this and find Dad again… and then you have to say that you'd stop me from doing that? Have you given up on putting everything back the way it was? Have you?!" True to Rosalie's words, Olivia could feel a headache starting to develop thanks to her stress, but she clenched her teeth and forced it back with sheer will. "Well, I'll never give up! Even if it's me against the whole entire world, even if you won't let me do it, I'm putting things back the way they should be! I'm bringing him back because he should still be here with me!"

It was at that point that she found herself at the door to Nekou's room. She hadn't really been thinking about where she was heading, so it wasn't until she arrived that she realized what she was doing. Regardless, she knew then that she was where she wanted to be.

"Nekou, open u-" Olivia caught herself mid-sentence, remembering what she'd heard from Matt and Rosalie only a short time earlier. "Oh, right, she's not here…"

However, Olivia had already lifted her arm up in preparation to bang on the door with her fist. She restrained herself from doing so once she remembered it would be pointless, but when she placed her hand on the door instead, it creaked open.

"Huh?" she uttered in surprise.

Again not thinking before she acted, Olivia pushed the door further and wandered into Nekou's room. As she looked around its dark, otherwise uninhabited confines, the feeling of hopelessness and despair she'd barely managed to keep at bay to that point crept up and fully took hold.

Only one thing had really kept her going in the face of Polaris's conspiring, Ghetsis's campaign, her illness, and everything else. Sure, she had plenty of friends - Nekou, Monroe, Helena, even Avril more recently - but there was only so much they could do alone. It was the hope that at the end of it all, after she'd survived everything, her father would be waiting for her. She had been close to accepting that he was gone on the day he re-emerged during Polaris's hijacking of FlareNet's broadcast, and her vision of him in Polaris's temple only cemented her impressions from that speech. No matter what anyone thought, he was alive. He had to be. That was the only way anything made sense.

And yet, Anabel was willing to take it all away, and for what? Her health? "What does it even matter if I'm okay, if I have to live without him…" Olivia thought, her anguish forcing tears out of her eyes and down her face.

As she tearfully pivoted from side to side, a vanity to her left came into view. Its mirror had long been smashed, but one of the few remaining glass shards reflected a glint of light off an object sitting in front of it, drawing Olivia in closer.

It was one of Nekou's knives, thrown onto the vanity in a careless fashion and seemingly, at least for the time being, forgotten. Olivia snatched it and tucked it away in her jacket, but it wasn't until she stepped back out into the hallway that she had an idea for why.

A sign on the wall directly across from where she stood pointed the way to a fire exit just a short distance further down the corridor. Olivia followed its guidance directly to the marked door and slipped past it, hesitating only briefly to make sure nobody else was around to see her. Her boots clanged against the metal steps as she descended the outside of the building, ultimately ending up in an adjacent alley. She jumped from the last step, her feet sinking slightly into the dirt thanks to the lingering effects of the previous night's rain.

Once Olivia was back on firm ground, she fetched the knife from her pocket and stared contemplatively at it. Her tears ceased, and her face soon turned from one of sadness to one of sheer, unbridled anger.

"Even if you won't let me do it," she repeated despite nobody being around to hear, "I'm putting things back the way they should be."

Reaching to the back of her head with her free hand, she bunched her hair up where her neck and shoulders joined, then pushed into it with the knife. It took her a few minutes of work to cut all the way through her thick mane, but she eventually managed, feeling the vast volume of much of her hair simply fall away all at once.

With the deed done, and feeling newly unburdened with the weight taken off of her, Olivia turned around to what she'd left behind on the ground. She considered throwing the knife atop the pile of hair, but thought better of it and returned the item to her pocket instead.

"Might still need it for something, just in case. Anyway, first, the Gym… then to get some new clothes."

-:-

Bunny rode into Ecruteak City on her Gogoat that morning, and the sight that greeted her made her feel an unexpected sense of hope. Plenty of destruction from Ghetsis's campaign and the titanic clash between Ho-oh and Mewtwo still remained, but the fires were long since extinguished, and the city had moved on to the early stages of the rebuilding phase. As she rode through Ecruteak's urban half, she passed by numerous scenes of people helping each other clear away wreckage, with countless Pokémon giving the humans their aid.

"Maybe this world's still got a chance after all," she mused as Gogoat carried her over the border into Ecruteak's old town. "Wait, what am I saying? Of course this world's got a chance, the alternative is Polaris and Ghetsis being right…"

Just saying those words brought back vivid images of Ecruteak City burning, and of Ho-oh unwillingly fighting to the death against Mewtwo, Sky, Xatu and the other Pokémon. Bunny shivered not only at those memories but at the mere suggestion the causes championed by those she fought against might have been correct after all.

Still, for all the positive developments in Ecruteak since the incident, there were some things that didn't survive. The city's Pokémon Center was one of those casualties. There hadn't yet been an opportunity for the Pokémon League to assess the costs of clearing away the ruins of the facility, let alone cut through all the red tape to actually get it taken away. So far, all that they'd managed was bringing in a prefabricated building bearing the Poké Ball insignia all Pokémon Centers displayed to stand as a temporary replacement.

A long line of trainers waiting to enter the provisional facility greeted Bunny as she rode up to it, yet the sight didn't disappoint her. Far from it, in fact. For the purposes that led her back to Ecruteak City, such a situation would do perfectly. She jumped off her Gogoat's back and moved to approach the queue, only for a familiar voice to stop her before she could do anything.

"Ah, Miss Bunny…" She pivoted to see Nando approaching her. "It is good to see you again."

"Same here," Bunny replied, greeting him with a smile and a wave. "Have you not left Ecruteak all this time?"

Nando's usual pleasant expression gave way to a more reflective one, and he turned around to look back at Ecruteak's metropolitan side. "This city is trying to rise from the ashes of Ghetsis's actions, to restore some sense of normalcy… it is much like the tale of the Brass Tower, and the three Pokémon said to have perished in the flames before being given new life by Ho-oh."

"How ironic that it was Ho-oh that caused a lot of this damage, then…" Bunny bitterly noted.

"I feel it was humanity that received this punishment for one of our kind using Ho-oh's power as a weapon. Perhaps this was Ho-oh passing down the judgment we deserved for allowing it to happen."

"I don't know how much I agree with that, to be honest." Realizing how vague her comment sounded, she rushed to add, "I mean, I agree that this might be a punishment. I just don't know if I agree with calling Ghetsis one of us, as in, human."

"Aha," Nando chuckled, turning back to Bunny. "I did miss the rather humorous nature of your group. Now that I am thinking of them, however… are you here in Ecruteak by yourself?"

Now it was Bunny's mood that dimmed, her recollection of everything that had happened in Olivine putting a weight on her shoulders. "Yeah, the others… they're off in Olivine City. I came back here to look for Bill."

"Oh?" questioned the bard. "Why would that be?"

"I want to understand the truth behind the Coronet Rosary, whatever it is," Bunny explained while stroking Gogoat's grassy pelt. "Bill's mother was a Kimono Girl, so he is of Tenganist heritage. I thought he might be able to help my investigation."

"I see… you will need to continue your travels, Miss Bunny. Bill departed for his family's home in Goldenrod City a few days ago."

"Then we'll stop down here for a few hours before setting out for Goldenrod." After recalling Gogoat to his Poké Ball, Bunny turned it over in her hand and stared at it. "Sherb and I have been riding out here from Olivine pretty much non-stop the last few days… we both need a rest before taking the last run to Goldenrod."

"Might you enjoy some company on your travels?" Nando asked, earning an inquisitive head tilt from Bunny. "As it stands, I have already acquired the eight Badges I need to enter the Pokémon League, and the Ribbons necessary for Saffron City's Grand Festival. Until those events, I would be happy to accompany you, if you'd have me. The subject of the Coronet Rosary has piqued my interest, as well."

"Sure, having some company sounds like it might be just the thing I need." Truth be told, Bunny had felt somewhat lonely during her solo trip. She still felt conflicted when it came to what she'd learned about her traveling companions, and the idea of having a neutral party to act as a listener appealed to her. "I'll heal up my Pokémon and we'll take it from there."

"Much obliged."

-:-

A tornado of sand churned around Olivine Gym's battlefield as Olivia's Samurott and Helena's Mega Mawile faced off for the second time. Olivia had barged into the gym that day demanding to pick up her challenge where it had gone off the rails before, so when Helena agreed, their rematch took the form of a one-on-one battle. It wasn't a perfect replication of their previous encounter, since Samurott wasn't tired from fighting as a Dewott first, but both trainers agreed the circumstances were close enough that it didn't matter. Monroe and Avril were there, too, the latter sitting alone in the stands while the former helped Helena by interpreting Olivia's words once again. The three siblings' father, however, was absent, having been summoned back to the Angel Corporation headquarters by Gabriella.

"Samurott, use Revenge!" Olivia shouted out. The battle had gone on for a relatively lengthy amount of time by that point, and both Pokémon were bearing the wounds of their struggle. Samurott drew upon those injuries, using every scratch and bruise across his body to fuel his power until an orange aura erupted around him.

Helena, however, was having none of it. "Quickly, Mawile! Iron Head!"

The Steel-and-Fairy-type Pokémon lunged out of the gritty tempest he'd created and smashed the twin jaws on his head into Samurott. Not only was Samurott forced back by the blow, but he also flinched, the orange aura from Revenge dissipating into thin air.

As Mawile's sandstorm abated, Olivia felt her emotions were on the cusp of running wild again. Knowing that letting them run wild would only lead to her falling ill again, she willed them under control as best as she could. Still, she found herself subconsciously clenching her fists as her breathing grew ragged.

"I can't lose… I can't. I won't!" she exclaimed, glaring across the field at Helena, Monroe and Mawile. Samurott's mind was as one with her own, desperate for their victory. "Samurott, hit that thing with your Razor Shell!"

"Mawile, counter with Crunch!"

Samurott shook himself out of his daze and rushed Mawile anew, drawing the seamitar from his left leg as the distance between the two closed. Mawile remained composed, however, and merely waited in place for his foe's arrival. Once Samurott was within striking distance and brandished his shell sword, Mawile lashed around to direct his left-hand set of jaws into Razor Shell's path. By then it was too late for Samurott to pull out of the attempted strike, and his seamitar got caught in Mawile's mandibles when the Mega Evolved Pokémon bit down on it.

The resulting stalemate only made Olivia's anger spike even further. She couldn't help it. Her next step was so tantalizingly close and yet Helena was denying it, holding her at bay through Mawile pinning Samurott's sword in his jaws. As she watched Samurott try to pull the blade loose, she could feel herself hit a mental wall and come up dry on ideas. All she could do was clench her fists even more tightly, and her rage finally boiled over, manifesting in a furious, near-bestial scream that erupted from deep within her.

On her side of the field, Helena didn't need any help understanding Olivia's breakdown. Even though she couldn't hear the scream, she could see the look of frenzied anguish on her opponent's face. Her siblings both visibly flinching from it only undermined to the Gym Leader how loud it was.

"For Olivia's sake, I have to bring this to an end…" she realized. Pushing her right arm forward, Helena ordered, "Mawile, Iron Head!"

The sight of Mawile's free set of jaws taking on the distinctive metallic sheen of Iron Head brought Olivia a sudden moment of clarity. Suddenly, she knew what she had to do. "Samurott, just forget Razor Shell! Give it a point-blank Liquidation!"

It went against Samurott's nature to simply surrender his beloved seamitar, but in the heat of the moment, he was willing to make a sacrifice. Like his trainer, he wanted more than nothing else to simply, finally defeat Mawile in a fair fight. Mawile struck him in the side with Iron Head, but this time, he refused to capitulate. Resisting the urge to flinch again, Samurott pulled Mawile close and drew moisture from the air, soon gathering enough water energy for a fluid cocoon to form around them both. Because Mawile was already trapped within the water, Samurott didn't have to tackle him the way Ethan's Dhelmise used the move. Upon reaching full strength, it simply exploded in a cloud of droplets that showered over the arena.

"Mawile!" Helena shouted into the mist, unable to see either Pokémon.

Olivia, meanwhile, said nothing as all present in the Gym waited for the results to be revealed. All that could be heard was her strained breathing.

Finally, as the clouds of vapor lifted, Samurott and Mawile came back into view. Though he was bruised across his entire body and panting from exhaustion, Samurott still stood above Mawile, who had collapsed to the floor. Mawile's Mega Evolution soon reverted in a flash of golden light, providing a final, decisive period to the end of Olivia's story at Olivine Gym.

"That's it… it's… finally over…" Olivia panted, stumbling over to Samurott's side. For his part, Samurott wasn't in sync with his trainer anymore. He was too caught up in pride over his victory, picking up his seamitar from where Mawile dropped it and lifting it high into the air, all in a show of dominance for everyone nearby to witness. The only thing he wished for was Flaaffy to be present, so he could rub his victory in the electric sheep's face. "Thanks, Samurott…" Olivia said to him as she raised his Poké Ball, recalling him to its interior.

Helena and Monroe approached Olivia from the other side of the battlefield, while Avril jumped from the stands to join them. Once they all came together in the center of the field, it was Helena who spoke first.

"I'm glad we were able to resolve that battle properly… but are you alright, Olivia? I'm quite concerned by what I sa-"

"I'm fine," Olivia interrupted, sharply twisting her head away from the Gym Leader and her siblings. "I'm fine," she repeated, "just fine… just let me have my Mineral Badge, please."

Helena complied with the request, retrieving the silvery hexagon from her uniform's pocket and placing it in Olivia's hand, but she still harbored significant doubts about her friend and challenger's condition. Their first battle had derailed terribly right at the end, after all, but the angry, defiant state Olivia showed up in for her rematch only deepened Helena's worry. She had refused to talk about her newly cut hair when Monroe and Avril asked about it, for one, and when Helena had tried to make some small talk before the battle, Olivia refused that too. Everything about what Helena was seeing just felt wrong, and her siblings shared the same concern.

"Olivia…" Monroe said, deciding to gamble in hopes of bringing her mood up, "would it help at all if we went to see a movie? We've got plenty of time to catch the next showing of Ultra Maximum 3 at the Olivine Multiplex…"

"Oh, why would that be a good idea?" Avril interjected in her usual haughty manner. Beneath her typical attitude, however, she had just as little of an idea of what to do as the others. It was more or less a mask of her true feelings, in fact. She wanted to help Olivia in her own way. "Olivia, obviously we should battle again. Now that you beat Helena for good, you should be able to prove how much stronger you are than me. Easily."

"No!" Olivia snapped, not specifying which of them she was refusing or if it was aimed at both. She lashed back around to face them, and much to the three siblings' horrified surprise, there were tears of anger and sadness welling up in her eyes. "Just get away from me! You're just wasting your time with someone as worthless as me!"

Her challenge at an end, Olivia fled the Gym, leaving Monroe, Avril and Helena behind and completely lost. Not one of them could even begin to guess what was going through her head, only that they didn't like it.

-:-

From its location near the harbor, Olivine Café was a place frequented by both tourists and sailors alike. That day was no different, and a long line of patrons was queued up for their selection of the café's famous dishes.

That long line was why Nekou was glad she'd gotten there as early as she did. She had no trouble getting her table, even if it was one near the front that kept her within view of the line. The noise didn't bother her, though. In fact, she welcomed it. It helped her blend in with the crowd so nobody would bother her. As ironic as it was, the café being busy afforded her the opportunity to indulge herself in peace. Several empty beer bottles were strewn across the table while she worked on another. A gigantic bowl of noodles with a pair of chopsticks resting inside sat in front of her, one large enough to feed at least two people with the broth, eggs, fish cakes and nori packed into it. Another of her hustles had been beating people at the café's eating contests, so it was a familiar meal, even if the comfort it afforded was minimal at the time.

"What am I even supposed to do with myself now?" she wondered, sullenly staring into the bowl with a ceramic spoon in her hand. "I really am a monster, after all… and what I am will push them all away. I know it."

"Is that what you really believe?"

Nekou looked up with a start. She was used to hearing voices in her head, so when she heard Ariana's it didn't surprise her much. No, what surprised her was the way she saw Ariana sitting opposite from her. Was it just her imagination? Even if it was, was she not welcoming it?

"Why shouldn't I…?" Nekou answered, too out of sorts to really think that much about why she was seeing Ariana in the first place. "Maman, you know better than most what I am…"

"But I also know what you can be." Was that something Ariana would really have said, or was Nekou trying to convince herself it was? "I always told you, just live. You've shown you don't want to be a monster, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You are what you want to be."

"Stop letting her lie to you."

Just as Nekou was beginning to feel like she might be able to right herself, another voice intruded on the conversation. And, of course, it was that of her other self.

"The truth is, you know what you are. Your hesitation to embrace it… to embrace me... is your mistake."

"Will you just fuck off already?" Nekou growled, barely managing to keep the volume of her voice in check.

"No…" Much to her horror, Nekou no longer heard the voice of her other self inside her mind. Instead, the wicked hissing was now coming from her vision of Ariana, whose face was twisting to match the shift. Her - no, its - mouth contorted into an inhumanly wide grin, lips failing to cover sharp, vicious teeth. As it spoke, an almost serpentine tongue flicked out. "...I won't, because I am you. And you are me."

Nekou was so frightened by the sight that she recoiled in her side of the booth, dropping her spoon into the noodles in the process. Yet, as quickly as the apparition appeared, it was gone, driven away by the sudden interruption of Nekou's phone ringing as it sat face-down on the table next to her food.

"...emotions come, I don't know why, cover up love's alibi…"

Her heart racing at what she figured had to be a literal mile a minute, Nekou blinked and gasped for breath. The demonic-looking figure was gone, but the experience of seeing it still lingered in her mind. She was so rattled, in fact, that when she fumbled for her phone she nearly dropped it into the bowl.

"What?!" she unconsciously snapped, unaware of who was on the other end.

Luckily for her, it was Rosalie, someone who understood her unstable moods. "Nekou, where are you?" the scientist asked, looking past the way Nekou greeted her.

"Oh, uh… sorry about yelling at you, Rosalie…"

"It's okay." Nekou imagined Rosalie was probably stopping to smoke her pipe right about then, and if they were face to face, she would have seen she was right. "Just tell me where you are."

"Olivine Café," Nekou answered. "Why? What's going on?"

"Olivine Café…?" Rosalie repeating her words struck Nekou as strange. Why would her being there be such a surprise? It wasn't exactly a secret that she frequented the place, and her exploits in their contests were well known in their shared circle. So what was it that Rosalie was questioning? Unfortunately, before Nekou could push the subject, her colleague and friend spoke again. "Nothing's really going on, I just want you to come back here as soon as you can. The preparations for moving out are nearly done."

"Yeah, fine. I'll be there." Ending the call, Nekou put her phone back down on the table and stared into her bowl of noodles.

She had no intention of losing her winning streak at the café any time soon. Rosalie didn't want her back right then and there, so there was plenty of time to finish.

-:-

On the other end, Rosalie had barely shut off the transmission from her wheelchair when she was interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Rosalie, who were you talking to just now?" Anabel asked her, walking up with Matt at her side.

"Nekou." Anticipating the question Matt was about to ask, she added, "She's at Olivine Café. The thing is…"

"You're thinking it too, aren't you?" Anabel guessed. Crossing her arms and frowning, she elaborated, "Olivia hasn't come back after you sent her there. I'm getting worried."

"If Nekou saw her there, she would have said something," Rosalie realized. "Either she never went there at all, or she went there and just never came back. Either way, she's not here…"

"That's right. She's not here." Anabel glared at Rosalie, and the scientist could see the cold fury shimmering in her lilac eyes.

Before a potential confrontation could escalate, however, Matt intervened. "Olivia said that she wanted to go to the Gym, right? I bet she's there."

Anabel took a step back. "Oh… oh yeah, you're right. Let's go check there."

"I'll grab Amanda and then we'll head out," Matt agreed. Just as he turned to leave, he remembered something and said to Rosalie, "Make sure Nekou's alright, will you?"

"I will, don't worry."

-:-

A small group of cabins stood amidst the windswept snowbanks blanketing the Sinjoh Ruins, not far from the main entrance to the temple. While most of the Tenganist Liberation Front's members lived in the network of caves like Sheena did, some made their homes in the above-ground dwellings instead.

One of those cabins was where Jacob ultimately ended up being placed, and it was his that Sheena decided to reveal her new plans to Sylpha and Alesia in. After her nightmare she'd never gone back to sleep, kept awake by her drive to solve the puzzle of how to best protect and serve her people, and she'd finally come to a conclusion.

"I'm going to leave on a journey of my own," she informed the elderly archeologist and her two subordinates, the wooden floor of the cabin creaking under her feet as she paced. "You will all be safe here without me. I believe this is the only way we can protect ourselves if…" Remembering her nightmare and the real memories behind it gave her pause. "...if Ghetsis ever returns, and if we are ever to restore this land and turn it into the sanctuary our people deserve."

"We might be safe here," Sylpha spoke up, "but what about you? Will you be alright on your own?"

"Are you sure you don't at least need me to help tend to your health?" Alesia added.

"I will be fine, of that I am confident, Alesia. Those living here will need your abilities more than I do. Sylpha, as for you, I need you to care for my son while I'm away. It pains me to leave him, but this quest is something I can't bring him along for." Sheena stopped pacing, but did not face her audience. "I plan to try and meet Ho-oh again, on my own terms. If I can obtain its aid, between it, Hoopa and Mewtwo we should have enough power on our side to defend this place even from Ghetsis and the rest of Polaris."

Before continuing, Sheena drifted over to the small cabin's sole window. Staring out at the snowy abyss beyond it, she elaborated, "Somewhere out there is a place called Navel Rock. It is said in legend to be a nexus between the depths of the sea and the heights of the sky, and the inspiration our ancestors took for the construction of the Brass Tower and Tin Tower in Ecruteak City. Like those towers, it is said that if one proves themselves worthy of a Silver Wing or Rainbow Wing and brings it there, they will meet Lugia or Ho-oh. Since I have already met Ho-oh once, it is the one I'll pursue."

"The path to finding a Rainbow Wing isn't one that's well documented," Jacob observed, leaning back in his chair. "There are a lot of myths about it, but the only consistent element is the term 'Rainbow Hero,' which rarely even gets defined. Is it someone destined for a heroic purpose, or just someone whose moral constitution makes them worthy of meeting Ho-oh? And that's doesn't even address the matter of locating Navel Rock itself."

"I know how vague the legends are, but no matter what it means, I will become the Rainbow Hero." Sheena reached up and gripped the neck of her cloak, then narrowed her eyes as she glared out the window. "For you and for all of my people, I will find Navel Rock and meet Ho-oh again. I'll take Hoopa with me so I can travel safely and conveniently, and the first place I plan to go is to visit an old friend of mine. She should be able to give me the support and information I need to accomplish my goal. I believe she's someone you might have some awareness of, Jacob."

"What do you mean?" the old man asked. "Who is it?"

"Rosalita, the queen of La Ciudad Dorada in the region of Lapidaria. I traveled with her several years ago when she was carrying out her Pilgrimage of the Pillars to take the throne."

"Ah!" Jacob exclaimed. "You're right. I haven't been to La Ciudad Dorada in so long, but I'm well aware that she's their first queen by birthright. Hearing that name brings back memories…"

"Make sure you tell these two all about your search for the Golden City with Sutter Chiaki while I'm away," Sheena said with a smile, gesturing at Sylpha and Alesia. "I'm sure it'll be quite the yarn with you telling it."

-:-

Matt, Anabel and Amanda wasted no time in heading north to Olivine Gym, hoping that if their luck held out, they'd get there before Olivia disappeared again. As they discovered when they met Helena, Monroe and Avril there, that wasn't to be the case.

"You didn't know she was here?" Monroe questioned when asked of Olivia's whereabouts. He shared a nervous glance with his sisters, an action that didn't escape Anabel's notice.

"What happened while she was here?" Olivia's mother pressed them. "Look, we need to know where she might have gone. Anything you can tell us is helpful."

"I'll tell you," Avril declared. "It was messed up, I'll tell you that much. She showed up here with pretty much all her hair gone, that's one thing. It was cut to like," she traced a line across the back of her neck with her hand, "this short. When we asked her about it, she didn't want to say anything."

"How could she have gotten a haircut that fast?" Matt held his chin and looked down at the pavement beneath his feet as he pondered the question. "If she went to a salon before she came here, we should have caught up with her. I can't imagine she finished her business here that fast."

Having followed along with the conversation with Monroe's aid, Helena piped up, "To be fair, we did not have a full rematch. We simply continued from where our last match went awry, so Samurott and Mawile fought each other again. And Olivia did win, but…"

Sensing Helena's hesitation, Amanda said, "That she won is one thing, but what else happened? There's clearly more to this story."

"Well… it's like my sister said," the Gym Leader elaborated. "Olivia didn't seem well. She was very, very upset and on edge the entire time she was here. After I gave her the Mineral Badge, Avril and Monroe asked her to spend some more time with us and she just… snapped." Helena then asked her siblings, "What was it she said, again?"

"Let me think," answered Monroe. "It was something like… 'You're wasting your time with someone as worthless as me.'"

"Yeah, that was it," Avril agreed.

"'You're wasting your time with someone as worthless as me…'" Anabel breathlessly repeated. Her hand found its way over her mouth as her eyes went wide behind her sunglasses. "You don't think she overheard our talk with Rosalie, do you?"

"But Rosalie told her to leave and go to Olivine Café instead. She couldn't have known unless…" Matt froze as what Anabel was suggesting caught up with him. Of course Olivia hadn't gone to the café, Rosalie and Nekou's conversation proved that. But if she ignored the request to go to the café, where had she gone instead? Olivine Gym? That certainly seemed possible, but the last time they saw her, she hadn't yet cut her hair, and there wasn't enough time for her to go to a salon before the Gym if she disappeared from the latter so quickly. The puzzle pieces were beginning to assemble in his mind - Olivia, having ignored Rosalie's suggestion to visit the café, surreptitiously listened in on their talk, heard something that upset her and prompted her to cut her own hair, before going straight to the Gym and then vanishing. And what would it have been that distressed her so deeply? "She thinks we consider her worthless because we discussed stopping her quest to collect the Badges," he realized, his face turning even more pale. "She's been defining herself entirely by her search for her father, and the only way she thinks that's going to happen is…"

"...if she proves herself by qualifying for the Pokémon League," Amanda finished. "Then wouldn't the next place she goes be somewhere that helps her keep progressing?"

"The harbor," Anabel surmised. "She might have boarded a ferry to go to Cianwood City in search of another Badge."

"Then we'd best be getting there, now," Matt said.

Anabel nodded in agreement. "Yeah." She then thanked the three siblings, saying, "We appreciate the help. Contact us if you find out anything more… please."

-:-

A plan took shape among Matt's group as they made their way to the harbor.

First, they would split up to cover more ground. Matt and Amanda would cover one end of the docks, while Anabel took the other. They'd both ask around, showing pictures of Olivia to anyone they could find that might have seen her. If things went as they hoped, they would be able to confirm that Olivia boarded a ferry for Cianwood City. From there, what would happen next would be simple. With a single phone call, Anabel could have a car take the three of them to the airport, where they'd board her helicopter and take it to Cianwood themselves. If everything turned out well, they'd be there before Olivia's ferry arrived.

As the two groups reunited in the harbor after about an hour of searching, both could tell from the others' body language that things had not gone according to plan at all.

"Let me guess," Matt said as he and Amanda joined up with Anabel. "Nothing?"

"Nothing," Anabel answered with a sigh. "I got plenty of people who recognized her as my daughter, but nobody who's seen her today."

"That's about the same as what we got," replied Amanda. "A lot of 'that's the Battle Frontier commissioner's daughter!' but no 'she was here today.'"

"So we're back to square one. What do we do now?"

Neither Matt nor his companions had any immediate answer to his question. Their thoughts, their concerns, all filtered into the crowds around them and dissipated. All the people coming and going around the harbor and its markets, and yet none of them could help. The vast majority of them wouldn't even be able to tell anything was wrong. As they went about their ordinary, day-to-day lives, the most they would have noticed was a pair of public figures and the trainer who appeared on Victory Station having some sort of serious conversation.

"We should go back to the Pokémon Center," Amanda finally suggested. "If she didn't leave for Cianwood, she might be heading toward Mahogany Town instead."

"If she is, then she must never have heard that Mahogany's Gym Leader recently passed away," Anabel observed. Thinking back to the news of the mysterious trainer and Pokémon near the Lake of Rage, she could feel a sense of dread growing in her heart. "But something tells me that even if she knew, she'd go anyway… after what we heard is going on there, Olivia might want to prove herself."

"Then the Pokémon Center it is," Matt said, adjusting the red scarf around his neck. "There might be a lead there."

The trio started to depart the harbor, but before they could get far, a familiar voice called out to them, stopping them in their tracks. "Anabel! Amanda! Matt!"

It was Ethan, navigating through the crowds from the Battle Submarine's pier. Another young man, dressed handsomely in a tuxedo with blue lapels that matched the color of his slacks, followed closely behind him.

"Ethan?" Anabel exclaimed in surprise. "I didn't expect to see either you or Darach today… the Battle Submarine wasn't around just a little while ago."

"We just arrived back at port," Ethan explained. "We were off having a friendly match, just the two of us Frontier Brains. Were you looking for me?" His expression, which had been cheerful until that point, started to cloud. "Is something going on?"

"Olivia ran away…" Amanda revealed. "We thought she might have taken a ferry to Cianwood City but nobody here saw her today, so we were just about to head back up to the Pokémon Center to search for leads there."

"Good luck with your search," Ethan's fellow Frontier Brain, Darach, said to them. "Commissioner, if there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to call upon me."

"I appreciate that, Darach," Anabel said to him, showing the slightest of smiles. "I won't hesitate to ask for your help if I need it."

"And I will not hesitate to provide it." Shifting his attention to Matt, Darach asked, "You are Matt Chiaki, Amanda's brother and the challenger who recently defeated Ethan, are you not?"

"Yeah, that's me," Matt listlessly replied. Just thinking of the Battle Frontier again forced him to remember the news Ethan delivered about Reshiram, and it made him miserable. "I'm not doing the Battle Frontier anymore, at least not right now."

Ethan and Darach shared a glance at each other. Unbeknownst to Matt, while they were out on the Battle Submarine just earlier that day, they'd talked about him as they caught up with each other. Darach knew about Matt's quest for Reshiram and how it ended, leaving him to find a tactful way to bring the subject up.

Ultimately, however, he decided avoiding the topic was the best course of action. After adjusting his rectangular glasses, he bowed, the sunlight glistening in his slicked-back hair. "Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Darach, the Castle Valet of the Battle Castle in Roséridge City." Straightening up, he continued, "I had intended to give you my apologies, Matt. My employer, Lady Caitlin, is currently away from the Battle Castle on a journey of her own, and as a result I am unable to accept official challenges. I hope one day we will meet in battle, after what I observed of your match with Ethan."

"Maybe it'll happen one day, and I'll be looking forward to it, but there's just a lot of other things on my plate right now. I hope your Lady Caitlin is doing well, though."

"She is. She is currently in Kanto challenging the Gyms there, in the hopes of qualifying for the Pokémon League so she can prove her own strength with Psychic-type Pokémon even further." A buzzing sound interrupted the conversation, prompting Darach to retrieve his golden pocket watch and open it up. "Ah, we must depart. Ethan and I have a reservation for lunch at Sushi High Roller and we must not be late."

As the two Frontier Brains said their goodbyes and departed, Matt thought to himself, "Challenging the Gyms in Kanto? I wonder if we'll run into her. A Psychic-type specialist..."

-:-

If someone had kept a record for the average person's fastest crossing of Olivine City on foot, Matt, Anabel and Amanda might have been in contention for it. They didn't run, but their march back to the Pokémon Center in the northern district was relentless. The number of potential leads to Olivia's location was running rather low, and they didn't know where they'd look next if the Pokémon Center didn't pan out.

The high-tech glass cube of a building was packed with patrons, as always. A long line at the reception desk greeted Matt, Anabel and Amanda as they entered, and the rest of the concourse was accordingly full of people crowded around the various informational holograms.

"Where do we even get started here?" Matt lamented at the size of the crowd.

Little did he suspect that a lucky break was about to finally find them, for the first time that day. Just like at the harbor, someone they knew called out to them.

"Anabel?" It was Morgan, the Mawile trainer who the group met before Olivia and Helena's first battle, seemingly so long ago. He had been lingering near the automatic doors and browsing the web on his phone while Mawlly, his Mawile, sat at his feet and ate a Casteliacone. When he spotted the group entering the Pokémon Center, his surprise was such that he stumbled away from the wall and nearly tripped. "Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Commissioner…"

"Just Anabel is fine," she said to him. "I hope you're well."

"I'm doing pretty good. Mawlly and the rest of my Pokémon, too. But…" Morgan took a step back, staring not only at Anabel but Matt and Amanda behind her. "Why are you three here? Aren't you with Olivia?"

"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Anabel removed her sunglasses and hooked them into her jacket. "Where is Olivia?"

"You mean you don't know? Here, look at this." Morgan thumbed through a number of pages on his phone until he reached the one he was looking for, then held it out so Anabel and Matt could see.

It was a photograph of a grassy plain with forests beyond the clearing, and rolling hills in the distance. Some writing was typed out beneath it, the message reading "The training begins. Pokémon League, here I come! You'll know the name Olivia Mistbloom!"

"I found it while I was going through RChannel a little while ago," Morgan clarified, "and there are more where that came from."

To prove his point, Morgan swiped further through the gallery of images. The scenery in each one changed slightly from the last, until it became plain to see that Olivia was in the forests from the first photo. Her Pokémon popped up in several of the pictures, too; Krabby, Cinccino and Herdier all were seen fighting various wild Pokémon.

"Anabel," Matt quietly said as he leaned over her shoulder, "you recognize it too, right?"

"I do. Route 39."

"I was right, then," Amanda replied. "If Olivia is on Route 39, there's only one place she's going. Mahogany Town."

"We should leave now and try to catch up with her, then."

Matt turned to depart the Pokémon Center, but Anabel stopped him by grabbing his arm. "Wait. Maybe we shouldn't just rush to catch her…"

"What?" Matt croaked, her sudden change of mind and surprisingly strong grip catching him off guard. "Why would you say that now?"

"I'm thinking…" Anabel released his arm and shrank her hand back away from it. "Olivia's only like this because she misunderstood my intentions. If we rush out there now and try to correct her, she might just see it as insincere and only be more upset by it. And if she gets upset and stressed more than she already is…"

"...she'll just have another seizure," Amanda concluded. "What are you suggesting we do instead, then?"

"Matt, you can follow her at a distance with HR-E, right?" When he nodded, Anabel continued, "She's posting photos of her activity online, which is what we can use to keep an eye on both her whereabouts and her condition. If things take a turn for the worse, we'll be in a position to help her immediately. Otherwise, we can give her some space until reaching Mahogany. She might feel better then."

"I can't say I really know what's going on…" Morgan said, his voice relatively muted, "but I hope I was able to help in some way."

"You were," Anabel told him, placing her right hand on his shoulder, "more than you realize. Thank you."

-:-

Meanwhile, back at Team Rocket's hideout in the abandoned hotel, the members still in the city had reassembled in the conference room. That included Nekou, who stood at the back of the room, biting her fingernail while her teammates consulted remotely with Stacia.

"Start the reconnaissance immediately," Stacia commanded. The teleconference screen filled her glasses with a shine that masked just how hard she was working to hold her emotions together. "You must prepare to make a move the instant an opportunity presents itself. You have to save him… you have to."

END of CHAPTER 27