Chapter 9: The Commander

For the first time in his life, Shadow was early for a meeting.

He hated meetings. Had he known how much police work involved sitting in those stuffy rooms, having to listen to a grizzled, grey-furred chief mumble on about this law and that protocol, he might have thought twice about devoting himself to the profession.

Then again, he thought as he entered the foyer of the Government Head Offices, all jobs have their necessary evils. There are worse ways to spend an hour or two… probably.

It was his first time in the private building, and so far he wasn't too impressed. This entrance room was nothing but a reception desk and an elevator on one side. Easy to navigate, perhaps, but about as much flair as a prison cell.

He strolled inside the elevator and searched for the right floor. Then he frowned.

"I need to access the President's floor," he said, addressing the receptionist as he stepped out. "Why is it locked?"

"It's only for authorised personnel," the kirlia replied sternly.

Shadow raised an eyebrow. "I'm already in your private building. Can you let me in?"

"I'll need identification."

Shadow gestured to the scarf around his neck—white, studded with flecks of gold. "This not enough?"

"Afraid not," the kirlia replied. She didn't seem fazed by him, annoyingly. "I require your name and stated business."

Shadow sighed. "Shadow Zoroark. The President invited me to a meeting. No details were given."

The kirlia tapped away at her computer screen, and finally was satisfied.

A minute later, Shadow stepped out of the elevator. The first thing he noticed were the tall portraits hanging either side of him. Previous presidents. All thirty-two of them, he realised, as he searched the hallway for the door he needed—no one had actually told him where to go other than this floor. The grand double-doors straight ahead looked the only possibility.

The portraits seemed to be ordered chronologically, going back in time the further along he walked. Shadow frowned—surely there had been access to neither painting materials nor talented artists in the early days of Deepden. Especially not for Grovyle, the very first president, whose portrait showed the wily smile that had supposedly inspired a whole city to form. Some nostalgic president wanted them all done, Shadow supposed.

Along with the portraits, this hall was a little more what Shadow had expected, boasting plush carpeting and white marbled walls. Yet the air of conventionality remained, which disappointed him. He would have plenty of changes to make.

He stopped in front of the double-doors, distracted by a long window to the side of it. The Head Office was not the tallest building in Deepden, but it had been built atop a wide mound in the centre of the city. Past the small grounds that fronted the Office, he could see practically an entire half of Deepden. He looked down at the little figures of civilians scurrying around in streets among the high-rises, and a small smile escaped his mouth.

Now, he felt ready to push open the double-doors.

"The ministry of health reports a rather concerning trend…"

The voice stopped at once as he entered the room, and what seemed like a thousand eyes fixed upon him. President Flygon sat at the end of a long conference table—again, lamentably ordinary—with an assortment of political bigwigs either side of her. She glanced at Shadow, then jabbed one of her arms to the left. "Over there. You're late."

Shadow blinked. "I'm not—"

He saw the clock above Flygon's head, showing three minutes past the hour, and stopped. Oh. Fuck. That damned receptionist…

To the side of the room were a handful of people Shadow was more familiar with—fellow Police Commanders, wearing the same gold-studded scarves as him. Most of them failed to keep the contempt out of their gazes, which made him smirk. Let them be jealous. They were probably still making tea at my age.

"Go on," Flygon said to a fidgety teddiursa standing nearby. The teddiursa resumed speaking.

"The ministry of health, President. They report that admissions for psychological issues such as depression and anxiety have increased thirty percent over the past year, and facilities are already pushing capacity. They wonder if perhaps—"

"I don't think now is the time for this discussion," Flygon interrupted harshly. "Come back in an hour, Simon. And make sure that statistic isn't reported for now."

"Y-yes President," the teddiursa said. He skittered out of the room, only slowing to make sure the doors closed quietly.

Flygon cleared her throat, then turned to the gathered commanders. "I am pleased you could all attend today. I apologise for the lack of notice, but the information I am about to provide is strictly confidential. It should not even leave this room.

"I recently received two pieces of concerning police reports, both from around the Harmony district. Firstly, several Pokémon have been having… unusual accidents. A sudden burst of water from a psyduck causing a machinery breakdown. A minor fire in a warehouse with a single growlithe present. It would seem from these that some pokémon have greater access to their fighting abilities than they should—and as a result, they do not know how to control them. Secondly, two patrols in the district, on different days, noted a small group of pokémon breaking curfew, being out of breath, and carrying minor injuries. When questioned by officers, they shied away from giving details."

"Now, there are a myriad of theories for why these events happened; indeed, it could be a coincidence that both occurred in the same area. But I will be assuming the most likely and, unfortunately, the worst case scenario. That is: there is an underground organisation, hidden away somewhere in the city, where pokémon come to fight each other."

A few gasps rose from the politicians' table. Shadow raised his eyebrows. A hidden fighting arena for civilians? Something about the idea struck a chord in him, but he couldn't place what.

"It should be obvious why such an organisation could be so damaging," Flygon continued. "Reported cases of street fights have been falling for many years now, to the point of… what was it, Dalbert?"

"One-hundred-and-seven incidents last year," someone at the table replied.

"One-hundred-and-seven! This organisation could contribute to half that number in a single night. So, it is imperative we find the cause of these incidents—and if it is the work of an organisation, it is even more imperative that we stop it growing further. That is why I want you all to increase the volume of officers on your patrols. All of them. Tell them to be especially alert for—"

Shadow scoffed. A little too loudly, it transpired, when Flygon abruptly stopped. "Yes, Zoroark?" she said harshly.

"Well… surely that's not going to work," Shadow said, quickly regaining his composure. "Whoever's behind this group wouldn't have gotten this far without a plan to keep it secret."

"And what would you have your forces do instead?"

Shadow wasn't expecting such a direct question from the most powerful pokémon in the known world. Still, he wouldn't be shown up on his first meeting with her. "Far more severity," he said. "Like… I dunno, stationing officers on every street, all hours of the day. Inspecting public spaces that look at all suspicious. Sending out a message to those fools that they won't get away from us."

"I take your point," Flygon said, "but we must avoid our city becoming one that lives in fear. The less subtle we are with police measures, the more people are likely to ask questions. Questions like 'What has the police so worried?' or 'Is something big happening under our noses?' We do not—no, we cannot afford to let people seek these answers for themselves, else this group may quickly become too powerful to control. So for now, be cautious. You may investigate this matter amongst yourselves, but do not let word of it escape to anyone else, not even your subordinates. With all being well, the problem will be over soon enough."

As Flygon dismissed the group of them, the link Shadow had been grasping at suddenly came to him. "Wait!" he exclaimed, just as the commanders started moving out. Once again, he held the room's confused attention.

"I know who might be behind it," he said.

Flygon's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"Obviously I can't be sure," he said calmly, realising how absurd his sudden prediction sounded. "But there's only one pokémon I know who would dare try something like this."

Raskin sat upstairs in the White Entei, twiddling his paws nervously. Three weeks had passed since Lyco had carried him out of Fight Den mid-session, and since then he had trained with her almost every evening—the only exceptions being when Lyco had Fight Den to attend. After having what he felt like was a breakthrough in their first session, Raskin wanted to return with her immediately, but Lyco had refused.

"Yes, you might have improved," she said one night, tired of batting away the question without any discourse. "But you're still terrible."

Raskin's ears dropped. "Oh. Thanks."

"Not that it's your fault exactly," Lyco added. "But… put it this way. It's obvious that these are movements your body has never made before."

"Doesn't that apply to almost everyone fighting?"

Lyco frowned. "Not to the same extent."

"Great," Raskin muttered. "So I'm not just bad, I'm really bad."

"Well, you were very bad," Lyco said. "Now I'd say you're just 'bad'. That's progress."

Sid sat down opposite him, cradling a copper-coloured drink. Raskin eyed the glass suspiciously. "That doesn't look like beer."

"It's cinnamon whiskey," Sid said cheerfully. "You wanna try some?"

"Um… I'll pass," Raskin said. "Can I ask… why you're drinking it?"

"It helps warm up my fire-chords," Sid said, as if 'fire-chords' was a perfectly common word. "Marginal gains, y'know?"

Raskin nodded slowly. "I see."

"Anyway, Rasky," Sid continued. "I owe you an apology."

Raskin raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

"I never expected this partnership between you and Crazy-Fur to work out."

"Right." Raskin smiled. "I remember you telling me so."

"You did WHAT?" Sid had exclaimed, once he had let Raskin into their apartment. "You trained with Lyco? Then you slept in the same room as her?!"

"Sid, she's not a psychopath," Raskin said wearily. He had expected this reaction; he'd probably react the same way if they were on opposite sides.

"Maybe not, a psychopath, but…" Sid scratched his head. "A something… path. A dangerous path. Look, are you sure you're safe with her?"

"Yes," Raskin said. "I understand her more than I did before."

"Oh? How much?" Sid asked.

Raskin threw up his arms in bemusement. "Enough?"

Sid took a sip of whiskey, wincing slightly as he swallowed, then shook his head vigorously. "Ahhh. You think you're gonna carry on training with her?"

"She wants me to," Raskin said. "I don't see why not. Apparently I've still got a long way to go on the fighting front."

Sid smiled. "I look forward to judging it."

Raskin was pleased to see no flickers of doubt in the quilava's contented eyes. Sid had predictably asked if he could join in their training sessions—like Raskin, he had heaps of free time now, and Raskin had already seen the lengths he would go to be able to practice. But Lyco had been firm, and in fairness Raskin agreed with her. Sid was too strong for Raskin to be able to spar properly with, and the sessions were often slow and repetitive. Sid would grow impatient very quickly.

Fortunately, he had found an alternative solution. By paying Steela a little bit extra—though not much, because she found the whole arrangement baffling—Sid used her basement to train in at night. Without any customers upstairs, no one would hear him banging about. He had even managed to get hold of a body-sized rucksack and stuff it with dirt and compost and heavens-knew what else to make it an appropriate training dummy.

The downsides were that, because of the midnight curfew and Steela owning the only set of keys to the pub, he had to stay in the basement until morning. Naturally, Sid had managed this by changing his sleep schedule to become virtually nocturnal.

With Raskin being absent from the last three weeks' worth of Fight Den, his only updates had been from Sid and Lyco. Both had been positive in their different ways.

"It's amazing!" Sid had exclaimed upon arriving late back at the apartment. "Every session there's new 'mon fighting, new attacks I've never seen before… you never know what's gonna happen next."

"It's fine," went Lyco's default response, usually with a shrug. "Haven't been any serious injuries or big fall-outs between pokémon yet, so I guess that's good."

Raskin was relieved to finally be back and able to see the Den's development for himself, having had to trust the two pokémon's words entirely. Well, that wasn't entirely true—watching their earnings grow was another good indicator of how it was going.

Raskin had even kept quiet about his absence from their other friends like Luis, not wanting to spread any gossip or rumours before he returned. Though it wasn't as if he missed out on lots of gatherings as a result. The Den seemed to have already become the place to be.

To avoid fielding the inevitable questions about where he had been, Raskin headed downstairs as soon as pokémon began arriving at the Entei. In the basement's torchlight, he noticed that more graffiti had already been added to the walls, just like Sid had envisioned. The quality of work was variable: alongside a genuinely impressive image of a snivy whipping its vines out were some indecipherable symbols, and even just words and nicknames written with fancy letters. Yet together, it all made Raskin smile—a joint expression of the joy and freedom that Fight Den gave these pokémon.

Lyco joined him on the upturned crates at the back. At least those were still familiar.

"Remember your legwork," she said, as they watched the gradual stream of pokémon come down the stairs. "Saves you a lot of needless diving around."

"I know," Raskin said, a tad irritably. He couldn't ignore the curious looks being directed his way from arriving pokémon, though they shouldn't have surprised him.

By the time Sid came down, the room was bustling with pokémon once again. Raskin estimated more heads than the fifty he'd taken in three weeks ago.

"All locked up and ready," Sid said to them, grinning. "Do you wanna introduce yourself, Rasky?"

Raskin hesitated, then shook his head. "You should do it." From the way Sid and Lyco had spoken, the quilava's word was gospel to these pokémon.

Sid nodded. He picked up a long, hollow object, shaped like a horn with holes at both ends.

Raskin stared. "What is that?"

"Something I dug up at Poké Pares. Not bad for one-fifty, eh?"

"But… what does it do?"

"Oh, right." Sid grinned, standing up on the crate. He put his mouth to the small end of the horn, and a low, booming note sounded. It reminded Raskin of the kind of thing pokémon had supposedly used when they worked in 'packs'. Sid immediately had the room's attention.

"Welcome to Fight Den, everyone!" he called. "Before we get brawling, as usual, we must run over the basic rules."

Sid had clearly revised Raskin's notebook well, reciting the rules flawlessly and even throwing a couple of jokes in.

"Next, as you might have noticed, we have an old face back with us today!" Sid gestured for Raskin to stand, and when the nickit did so, Sid flung an arm around him. "I know some of you have been concerned about what happened a few weeks ago, but Rasky is back with us now, and he's here to stay!"

The crowd gave a respectable, if not ecstatic level of applause and whoops.

"And to prove it to any of you still in doubt, he's pledged to take part in the first fight of the night. So…" Sid raised an eyebrow dramatically to his friend. "Is there anyone you have in mind, Rasky?"

This was a fight Raskin had been prepared for. He had kept an eye out for Tyler in the crowd—that seemed the rightest way to return, finishing the fight he had left before—but caught no sight of a nidoran. He'd have to pick someone else. Someone he trusted not to go easy on him, but to fight in good spirit…

His gaze found an ivysaur, looking bright-eyed and affable. Perfect!

"Aster!" he said. "Are you up for it?"

Though clearly surprised, the ivysaur grinned back at him. "I'd be honoured."

"Excellent!" Sid said. "Now lastly, before we get started, does anyone have any questions or feedback for us?"

An espurr's paw shot up at once. Raskin recognised her from previous Dens. "Aeris?" Sid asked, with a slight weariness.

"There are more people here than ever," the small pokémon said. "But still only one arena, and one block of time for us. I'm worried that eventually it's going to be hard to even find one fight before the night is up. Do you agree this is a problem? Do you have any solutions?"

Sid paled at the challenging tone in her voice. "Well, um… I think…"

"Maybe," Lyco said, stepping forwards, "you should be grateful for what we do have rather than demanding more already?"

Alarm bells rang in Raskin's head. He stepped forward onto Sid's opposite flank. "What Lyco means to say is… the volume of interest we've had the first three weeks has surprised all of us," he said. "Unfortunately, the illegality of what we're doing is a big constraint. Every change we make has to be carefully considered to make sure it keeps the whole operation safe. We all want Fight Den to become a huge success, but it can't happen overnight. For now, just try and be patient with us."

Aeris looked a little disgruntled, but nodded and gave no further reply. Sid glanced at Raskin, beaming. Raskin just let out a silent sigh of relief.

"Anything else?" Sid asked. "Yes, Luis?"

The zangoose was a regular and reassuring presence at the Den. "I was just thinking, when you addressed us at the start," he said. "It would be cool if we could have a collective name. Rather than just, 'welcome Fight Den', or 'welcome everyone', y'know?"

Sid nodded. "Sounds like a great idea! Did you have any names in mind?"

Luis shrugged. "There's 'fighters', but it seemed a bit too on-the-nose…"

"Battlers!" someone shouted from the crowd. The response was indifferent. Then suddenly names came from every direction.

"Warriors!"

"Heroes!"

"Brawlers!"

"Elementals!"

Lyco, frowning at the cacophony, stepped forwards and raised a paw commandingly. The room quietened.

"How about 'Rebels'?" she said. "After all, that's what we are. The government don't want us to fight, but they don't know what's good for us. We're doing what's right, not what's in their rulebook."

Luis nodded approvingly. "Rebels… I like it."

"I do too!" Sid said.

A wave of agreement spread across the room. Yet Raskin found himself frowning. It felt unusual for Lyco to make a suggestion like this—she normally stuck to logistical matters. But then, when it went down well with everyone, why should he care?

"Any more questions? No? Alright!" Sid grabbed Raskin and unceremoniously thrust him forwards. "Raskin, Aster, you're up!"

Raskin navigated through the crowd until he reached one end of the arena. At the start of his training with Lyco, he had struggled to get into what she called the 'fighting mindset'—the place where his worries and anxieties were discarded, his adolescent memories wouldn't hurt him, and all that mattered was the fight. He had needed to think angry thoughts, usually about Lyco, or even have Lyco do that work for him, as she had so spectacularly the first time.

Fortunately, this state of mind was starting to become second nature to him. It was especially a relief because he struggled to think about Lyco in such negative terms anymore. She had already put in an enormous amount of time on his behalf—for that, he could only be grateful.

He snapped his mind back to reality. Aster. Raskin remembered the 'mon's long vines from his first fight with the raticate, Chaka. He'd need to stay alert at all times. Perhaps he could take advantage of speed; Aster's body didn't look set up for running.

"On your marks," Sid announced. The drum—was it still Bushu playing it?—began beating an uncertain rhythm.

"I won't go easy on you," Aster said, shifting his feet.

"I wouldn't want you to," Raskin replied.

"Get set… FIGHT!"

The moment the word left Sid's mouth, Raskin found a vine shooting towards him. It slapped him into the ground before he even had time to yelp.

A mantra from Lyco's training shouted at him. Never stay on the ground. If you're still, you're an easy target. Don't expect pokémon to show mercy.

He leapt back up and started circling the arena. Aster, one vine hovering menacingly in front of him, started to do the same. Raskin recalled that last time, Aster held two vines in front of him. Did just the one make him more agile?

I'll have to catch him by surprise, Raskin thought as they moved. Wait for a moment where the distance between us is just a little closer… now!

He took two quick steps then launched towards the ivysaur. Aster didn't dodge but did throw his body around, swatting Raskin away with his pink bulb. Raskin skidded backwards and, seeing the white edges of the arena behind him, dug his claws into the stone floor. The screech it created made him want to remove his paws and shove them in his ears. But they created just enough friction to keep him in-bounds.

Mew, Aster's seriously better than I remember. Need to figure out—

He was still on the ground. He'd forgotten Lyco's golden rule.

A barrage of thin, thorny things shot out towards him. Each one stung like a giant swarm of fleas was on him.

Wincing, he rolled away from the missiles. They were leaves, he realised. Surely leaves couldn't hurt that much, even razor-sharp ones!

He rose to his feet once again. His muscles were already protesting. Aster was far too good; he was going to lose with a whimper if he didn't come up with something.

The vine whipped at him again. Simply dodging didn't deter Aster; as long as the ivysaur kept attacking, Raskin could do nothing but duck between blow after blow. An over-step made him stumble, and one whip caught the top of his ear, almost tipping him over. Raskin growled with frustration, and rashly threw up a paw to try swatting the next vine away.

Something amazing happened.

His paw's black colour seemed to glow; the white claws gained a dark sheen. His paw not only batted away Aster's vine, but it cut clean through the tip. The end of the vine dropped to the floor with barely a sound. It didn't look so threatening without a body.

Aster yelped, drawing back the rest of the vine at once. The crowd gave cries of surprise and approval, but it felt distant to Raskin, like he was in a bubble. Something else was happening to him. His vision had changed; the room became brighter and sharper. Like he'd put on those eye-glasses the old humans once wore.

He focused back on Aster. His paw still glowed. If this could slash through his vine, think of what it might do to his scales!

A brief wave of nausea hit him at that thought, but he managed to shake it off. As Lyco reminded him, fighting was a good thing.

He hurtled towards Aster, but then the ivysaur raised his bulb and loosed another flurry of leaves. Raskin tried to run through them, but they were like an avalanche of thorns. He felt himself weaken rapidly. By the time Aster had finished, Raskin had dropped to the floor.

He heard the crowd counting to five and willed himself to fight on, but it was no use. Even the brief flash of light in his paws—and apparently his mind too—had vanished. Damn it! he thought, wanting to pound the floor in frustration.

"All right, Aster is the winner!" Sid cried.

Raskin was grateful to Sid for not bringing attention to his defeat. The applause of the crowd was probably all for Aster, but that was fine. He was simply back amongst the club, accepted by them.

Aster held out a teal-coloured paw to help him up, which Raskin was more grateful for than he wished to let on.

"Will your vine be alright?" he asked. "Sorry about that…"

Aster laughed, sounding surprised. "Of course it will! They grow back in no time. I'd be seriously worried if they were that fragile."

"Oh… I suppose," Raskin said, a little embarrassed. "But hey, when did you get so good at this? That was really impressive."

Aster smiled bashfully. "Just been practicing, I guess."

"Even so, we've only run, what, eight Fight Dens so far."

"Oh, well, it's not just that," Aster said, shifting paws. "There's quite a lot Seria and I can do at home. Obviously, it's not the same as here, but—"

"What?" Raskin said, alarmed. He had Aster and his partner down as the careful types who just happened to enjoy fighting. "Isn't that risking a hell of a lot if someone finds out?"

"We're very careful," Aster said easily. Their attention was diverted then by the deciding of Aster's next opponent, and Raskin had no choice but to move away.

He had made it clear to Sid that practicing moves in the apartment was ill-advised. He thought most 'mon would have the common sense to already know that. But what if everyone in this room was risking themselves, and even Fight Den as whole, just to improve their skills?

He got back to the crates, sitting beside Lyco. Sid had disappeared somewhere into the crowd.

"Do you still think you don't have a long way to go?" she said. The question was smug, as she often was, but Raskin detected a hint of encouragement there as well.

"I didn't realise the standard had gotten so high," he admitted. "But listen: something happened to me in there. When I managed to slash off part of Aster's vine, I—"

"Your claws turned dark," Lyco said. "I saw."

"R-right! I've never felt anything like that before. Uh, is it good?"

"Of course it's good!" Lyco snapped, cuffing him around the ear. "Why wouldn't it be? You used your Energy, if only unintentionally. That's how I move rocks, or Sid breathes fire."

"My Energy..." Raskin recalled Lyco mentioning the term once before. He was excited for a moment, then frowned. "What does that mean for me, though?"

"Well, you're a dark-type, aren't you?"

Raskin nodded tentatively.

"Then I suppose you'll learn…" Lyco's expression suddenly dimmed.

"Hm?" Raskin said. "What is it?"

Lyco shrugged. "I don't really know what you can do. It's not obvious like it is with some other types."

"...Oh."

"But maybe it's better if you find out yourself. Gives you plenty of incentive to keep learning."

Raskin nodded, a little deflated. "Don't you know anything about it?"

"No!"

Raskin's eyes were watering. His tendons felt on the verge of snapping. But he couldn't stop now. He was so close…

He gritted his teeth and made one final push. Halfway through he worried he might pass out, but finally he reached the top of the apartment steps, and put down his shopping bags with an exhausted sigh. He dropped to all-fours, then the ground.

I hate this. Why can't Sid just do the shopping every week? He's clearly better equipped than me…

As it turned out, Sid had a good excuse this time. The quilava who greeted Raskin at the door had whitening fur on her front where it was once cream, and walked with a hunch so pronounced that it was as if she had never quite moved up from all-fours.

"Magasi!" Raskin said, surprised. "I didn't know you were coming round."

The old quilava laughed. "You know what my son is like. When he came to see me this afternoon, I was just as surprised."

At hearing Raskin's voice, Sid quickly stopped the washing up he was doing and came over to help carry the shopping bags in. He was never this helpful when it was just the two of them.

"So, what was the reason for your visit?" Raskin asked him once they had finished.

"Well, I—oh right, the gift!" Sid said. He took out a small, black box and passed it to Magasi. "Here. An early birthday present."

As Magasi unclipped the buckle and looked inside, her eyes lit up. "Sid!" she exclaimed. "I… oh, wow…"

She held up the item. It was a necklace, studded with red gems that seemed to shine a different hue every time they moved. Raskin was no jewellery connoisseur, but even he could see it was beautiful.

"This is… wonderful," Magasi said, holding a paw to her mouth, almost speechless.

"I wanted to do something special for your twentieth," Sid said proudly. "Ain't a lot of 'mon that reach that number, after all."

Magasi embraced him tearfully. "How could you afford this?" she said quietly.

Sid smiled. "It's like I was telling you earlier. This promotion is paying a lot better. It only took a bit of saving up."

"Oh, wonderful. Wonderful." Magasi put the necklace on. The gems made her pale fur look as bright as if she had just Shifted.

They chatted a little more while Magasi drank the tea Sid had made. Sid's siblings were doing fine, she said; two of them still lived with her, while her eldest was working long hours at one of the city's electrical plants. Sid managed to steer clear of questions about his own work.

"Well, I'd best be getting out of your hair," Magasi said, getting up from the table. "I hope your work is going well too, Raskin. Sorry; I feel like I've just been talking about myself."

Raskin had just enough control in him to smile and nod. "It's good, thank you."

Sid helped his mother to the door and bid her farewell. The moment she was gone, he turned around to find Raskin looking sternly at him.

"What?" Sid said. "You didn't expect me to tell her we made all this money from an illegal fight club, did you?"

"Probably not," Raskin admitted. "But lying about a promotion?"

"My mum knows me well, dude. She wouldn't have been convinced if I told her I'd just saved up. She knows I'm not good at that."

Raskin sighed. "Alright." He didn't want to interfere with his friend's private business.

He reached for the newspaper. The word 'police' on the front page gave him a brief spark of panic. Once he read the report though, it was clearly nothing important; just a feel-good story about an officer who had become the youngest ever to achieve some high rank.

There was a knock at the door. Raskin frowned. "Who is that now?"

Sid opened it. A scruffy-looking combusken stood there, a sofa balanced awkwardly behind him on the steps to their apartment. "This for you, mate?" he said, gesturing behind him.

"Oh! Yeah, come in, come in," Sid said.

The sofa they bought a few days ago had completely escaped Raskin's mind. The combusken and another worker from the furniture store set it down opposite their current one—they hadn't figured out how to get rid of the sofa yet, and in any case didn't want to go even a day or two without it, given the severe lack of any other furniture in the house.

When the workers had left, Sid beamed at Raskin. "See the difference already?" he said. "This sofa actually has padding. And it's so shiny!"

Raskin shook his head, laughing. "It does look good. You know what the real test is, though?"

Sid's ears twitched. "Go on…"

Raskin stood up in front of the new sofa. Then, he let himself fall backwards. The soft fabric enveloped his head, like the feeling of a hot bath. He couldn't help uttering a slight moan of delight.

Sid burst out laughing. "I can barely see you anymore."

"I never thought," Raskin mumbled, "that falling onto anything could feel so… orgasmic…"

Sid's response was to belly-flop onto the sofa right next to him, which was not quite so comforting.

Raskin and Sid headed to the White Entei that evening for the next Fight Den. They arrived twenty minutes or so before their usual 'private party' was scheduled. This wasn't normally much of an issue, as most of Steela's customers now took part in Dens as well, though Raskin did notice a group of males he didn't recognise as they entered. Steela caught their eye from behind the bar, and they went over to her.

"A couple of 'mon came in a little while ago," the raboot said. "Said you gave them permission to use the basement before opening time?"

"They what?" Raskin said. "I didn't give anyone permission! Did you?"

Sid shook his head, shrugging.

"Why didn't you stop them, Steela?" Raskin demanded.

Steela barely twitched an ear at his outrage. "It's hardly a big deal. If they were banging around I wouldn't let them in, but they said they wouldn't make any noise, and they haven't. I thought you'd be happy at the extra interest."

"It's not about that," Raskin said, letting his anger simmer. "I'll go and speak to them. Sid?"

Sid shrugged again. "Alright."

Halfway down the basement stairs, Raskin realised he hadn't asked Steela who the pokémon were. He had sudden visions of towering machoke and gurdurr, ready to tear his limbs off.

The reality couldn't be more different.

It was Aeris the espurr, who barely reached Raskin's head height, and a ralts who was only slightly taller. As he got a better view of them, he found an even more surprising sight. Aeris had her arms held in front of her, and they conjured a translucent white… bubble, it looked like, floating in the air.

She snapped her head up at the sound of their footsteps, and the bubble vanished at once.

"Oh, hi," she said casually. "Was it okay for me to be here?"

No, it wasn't! Raskin wanted to say. But the first words that came out of his mouth were, "What was that… thing you made?"

"Just something I've been working on," Aeris said. She put her arms out again, screwed her face up in concentration, and the bubble reappeared in a sudden vibration of air. "Try attacking me from this direction," she said, her voice suddenly muffled and quiet.

Raskin and Sid exchanged looks. "Sure," the quilava said.

He ran at Aeris for a standard tackle. But upon hitting the barrier, Sid fell abruptly to the ground, and though the barrier had also vanished, Aeris stood smugly over him, unharmed.

"Whoa…" Sid muttered, getting to his feet. "Can you do that again? I wanna try something else."

Aeris shrugged and created another barrier. This time Sid blew embers into it. The flames seemed to be absorbed harmlessly into the barrier, though its colour gradually faded, disappearing just as Sid ran out of breath.

Sid whistled admiringly. "Jeez, dude. That's so cool."

"Maybe," Aeris said, frowning. "Not sure what I can actually do with this yet. I can't move or anything while I'm keeping it up."

Finally, Raskin remembered what he'd come here for. "Forget about that. Aeris, Ralts, you shouldn't be coming down here early. Especially not by lying to Steela! There are people upstairs who don't know anything about Fight Den. Don't you see how dangerous that is?"

"Well, Zena and I can't practice at home," Aeris replied with sudden venom in her voice. "And I'm trying to teach her. I can't exactly do that while Fight Den's happening, can I?"

Raskin took a step back. For such a diminutive 'mon, Aeris was surprisingly aggressive. He wasn't sure how to respond, either. Her frustration certainly seemed valid.

"Sid and I will discuss those points with Lyco," he said at last. "For now, since you're already down here, and you weren't making noise… you might as well stay. But do not sneak in without our authority again."

Aeris shrugged. "Okay." She beckoned the ralts, Zena, over to her, and they started talking and gesturing, as if Raskin and Sid were already gone. With a sigh, Raskin left them to it.

Lyco arrived just before Steela shut the pub down to normal customers. She still was covered in a slight grey dust from the mine, and from the look on her face, Steela had made her a double whiskey before she could even ask. She sat down opposite Raskin and Sid. The quilava had his muzzle in a newspaper that had been left on the table.

"You okay?" Raskin asked.

Lyco grunted. "I had to work overtime 'cause we were short on workers today. Load of bollocks."

"Why are you still there?" Raskin asked. "Wouldn't it be easier to just quit?"

Lyco shook her head at once. "Can't raise suspicion like that."

Before Raskin could follow up on this, the lycanroc's gaze was suddenly drawn to Sid's newspaper. She craned her neck over the table to get a better look. "Sid, what's that?" she asked.

"Hm?" Sid looked up. "Attack of the Buibots? It's about this group of cybernetic buizel that are trying to take over the world. Thing is, their fusion with technology has made them weak to water, their natural element—"

"Not the comic, you imbecile," Lyco snapped. "The front page. What I can actually see."

Sid looked a little put out by her dismissal, but passed over the paper anyway. "What's so interesting about it?"

Lyco didn't answer. She stared at the front page, wide-eyed. Her paws even shook slightly. "Gods," she muttered. "Gods, this is bad…"

"What?" Raskin said sharply. "Why?"

Lyco looked at them. Raskin had never seen her so distressed. "This guy in the article, Shadow," she said, "I know him. Or used to, at least."

"You do?" Sid said. "How? Surely not since he joined the police."

Lyco breathed deeply. "It's… complicated."

"Is this why you never talk about your past?" Raskin asked. "Is this Shadow someone important?"

"Did you have a fling with him?" Sid put in.

"No!" Lyco said. "We… we did meet in the police. Because... I was in training to be an officer, like him."

Raskin stared at her in disbelief. Lyco, a member of the police? It couldn't be. She was the most anti-police person he had ever known.

"But… you don't just leave the police," he said slowly. "You can't. That's part of the agreement you sign up to, isn't it?"

"None of this matters right now!" Lyco snapped, her voice breaking. She put her paws to her head. "Look. Shadow knows me. He knows how I feel about the laws on fighting. Which means that, if the police get any kind of whiff of Fight Den's existence, as a commander... he has all the power he needs to come after us."