Chapter 16

Visora and Elva, as different as they were, shared some measure of a sisterly bond, even if it was rather feeble at times. There were certain days that Elva instinctively gave her sister space—a foreign concept with the Mermaid-girl—and days where Visora actually went out of her way to talk to Elva, an equally rare commodity.

This time, they didn't even need words to reach a mutual conclusion: We're both damned tired, and we're going to sleep right this second. Whatever we have to do can wait until tomorrow.

They checked themselves in to an abysmally decaying Center located an equally abysmal distance from the entrance of the town, an illogical location that irritated Visora's already taut nervous system profoundly. By the time they got there she was snappy and behaved rather haughtily to the bleak-faced man behind the counter. Everything seemed to be on her nerves—even the morose expressions on the townspeople's faces was ticking her off.

Once they reached their rooms, Elva slipped out of her jeans and collapsed face-first into bed. She was asleep in what seemed like seconds, and dismally Visora wished that she herself could sleep so hastily. She felt as though she were caked in layers upon layers of dirt, however, and knew she wouldn't be able to sleep unless she scrubbed at least most of it off.

She unzipped her backpack and, leaving it open on the side counter, removed a few belongings and headed towards the bathroom. It was as equally run down as the rest of the place, lit by a bare bulb with a ball-chain attached and cracked porcelain facilities. The mirror was spotted and dingy, so cloudy that Visora could scarcely see the details in her reflection. She realized that it was covered in a thin sheet of plastic and peeled it back, smiling slightly to herself as the visage became clearer. Why they bothered keeping their mirrors safe and spotless, she had no idea.

She placed her green toothbrush, green comb, green shaving razor, and green bottle of hand soap/face wash on the right side of the sink, making sure not to intrude upon the left side where Elva's things would file in the next day. Since Visora was right handed and her sister was the opposite, this setup had never failed them and was respected by them mutually. The green and blue motif that they adopted a few years ago also worked well, as it lent the bathrooms an air of fresh wintery health. Visora supposed it was rather pathetic how girly they could be at times, but hey—they were girls. If they weren't entitled to indulge in the occasional bout of femininity, no one was.

Visora disrobed and stepped beneath the fray of sleeting cold water, a welcome relief to her burning muscles. She normally used her showers as reflecting time as much as hygiene time, and the topic of tonight's daily ponder was the two people she and Elva had encountered in the forest. The second set of siblings had indeed been intriguing—Visora just wasn't sure if she had liked them or not. On one hand, the boy was indeed, good conversation and pleasant to be around, and the girl was spunky and aggressive, traits that Visora admired in a person—and on the other hand they had been secretive and strange, setting traps and going against the law like the vigilante-wanna-be's that Visora hated so much.

Her father had been like that, a man with too many dreams and too little regard for the government, bent on achieving his ends through any means possible and giving no credit for the "law" and the conventional way things were meant to be run. He would steal gifts for their mother and them, bringing home too-expensive jewels and games and clothes. It wasn't until she was eight or so—and more savvy with the financial situation of their parents—that she began to understand how impossible it was for a man with an income of little over $25,000 a year to afford such things for his daughters and wife. It was impossible—except by illegal means.

Visora had never been a stickler for justice, but she'd never approved of lawbreaking, either. So, when her father had been thrown in the slammer for his outlandish lifestyle, she had been torn between sorrow and loyalty to her blood and a small, triumphant feeling akin to the saying "It serves you right." Feeling like a traitor, she'd not gone to visit him in almost a year, instead contenting herself with the occasional letter correspondence.

She didn't know even half of what Gaveriel and Ciara were mixing themselves up in with Team Rocket. She knew this, and she honestly didn't care to find out the extent of it. It would only serve as yet another thing that would grate on her nerves. Whatever it was that they were planning, she had a feeling that the consequences would be far worse than a few years in the slammer—and she didn't want any part of it. Much less did she want Elva, sweet, naïve Elva, to get tangled up in the complicated web of danger they were weaving.

Stepping out from under the spray of water and toweling her mid-back length red hair dry with a towel while turning the squeaky faucet off with the other, she firmly made up her mind. No, they never would see those two siblings again—and in spite of the friends they could have been, it was better that way.

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The next morning Visora was awoken by the sound of the unnecessarily-noisy shower head being turned off. She was normally not a morning person, but this time her eyes snapped open as if she'd been awake all night. She must have slept very lightly, she thought to herself as she got up and out of bed, because she didn't seem to have tossed or turned at all during the night.

Emerging from the bathroom in a haze of steam and water vapor, Elva's smiling face greeted her buoyantly. "Heya Visora!"

"Morning, Elva," Visora murmured under her breath, groping in her bag for a change of clothes. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well, some kind of rapping outside woke me up about halfway through the night, but I was too tired to care and fell back asleep," her sister responded, toweling her scraggly brown hair try and running her fingers through it in an attempt to comb it. "You seen my brush anywhere?"

"If it's not in your bag I'm not sure where it would be," Visora answered offhandedly, pulling out a lime green tank top with a pink heart in the center and a pair of white Capri's. "You can use mine."

"Thanks, sis."

After they had gotten changed, settled into their room, and rounded up their Pokemon, the sisters headed out into the dining area of the Pokemon Center and ordered some food from the take-out counter nearby, along with liberal amounts of Pokechow. They sat together at a corner table near a window, and Visora stared out it placidly while Elva fidgeted, waiting for their food. Visora was struck with sudden déjà vu, and realized that only yesterday morning they'd been doing the exact same thing in Saffron City. They really had made better time taking the damned side path through the mountains than they would have with the more conventional path. It they were following the dirt road off route , they would still be out there and probably wouldn't have reached Lavender until three o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

Gaveriel and Ciara had saved them about a day and a half of camping out in the open.

"You thinking about Gav?" Elva teased lightheartedly. Visora rolled her eyes and smacked her sister in her just-drying brown head.

"There are times I wonder if you're psychic, airhead," she said. "I was actually thinking about those two."

Elva's interest seemed to perk up. "Y'know," she said in a blatantly obvious way that Elva probably thought was subtle, "I wouldn't mind at all if we went back and took them up on that offer."

Visora snorted. Elva sure sounded like she was joking most of the time, but the fact remained that Visora could tell when she was serious. And now she knew that if she threw her hands up in the air and said, "Gosh gee golly, sis, why not?" Elva would most certainly not stop her and say "Oh, I was just kidding. I don't really want to go."

That meant that Elva needed to be put in her place—again. Visora sighed heavily, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and index finger. "Elva," she said despairingly, "You have got to be kidding me. You do not even understand the kind of trouble those two will get themselves into in the future. They're messing with the law—their messing with a huge organization of criminals. Right now, they have no allies. They're showing the police up as incompetent and pissing off the biggest gang of Pokemon thefts in the world. I don't want us to have anything to do with the likes of them."

Normally this was enough to dissuade Elva from continuing any argument she had against her sister. Elva normally didn't fight hard for things, since she was never really seized with the dire need for anything, but this time wasn't like the others.

The blue-eyed girl's face went melancholy, and with amazing perception, in barely more than a whisper, she murmured, "Not everyone ends up like Dad, you know."

Visora's mouth had dropped open, and she was about ready to argue vehemently or exclaim in shock when their food order was announced. Shooting Elva a salty glare, Visora strode off to pick it up, and by the time she got back Elva had let out all of her Pokemon to chow down, and the subject was dropped.

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That afternoon Elva and she headed out the backdoor of the Pokemon Center and up the daunting path to Lavender Town's haunted Pokemon tower. They passed by a number of stands selling superfluous Pokemon merchandise and paraphernalia, some of which Elva seemed actually interested in. Visora had to keep walking with her eyes set, undaunting, on their goal before them to stop Elva from loitering.

As they walked, a young boy, maybe ten by the looks of it, with odd silvery-grey and black hair shuffled by them, looking dazed and disturbed. From the looks of it, he had a busted lip. Odd, Visora thought. There didn't look like there was anyone to fight around here, unless he'd gotten the short end of the stick in a scuffle with a ghost. She shorted at the thought, and the boy looked up at them. He smiled wanly.

"Be careful about the psycho psychics," he said. "They're really bizarre."

"We will, thanks," Visora said, nodding in acknowledgment to him as they passed each other by. "Take care of that lip of yours."

"I will," was all he said as he continued on his way.

Visora held the door for Elva as the two of them entered the deserted lobby of the Pokemon Tower. The second she stepped into the threshold, the sparse hairs on the back of her neck shot up to stand on end. She didn't like the vibe she was getting from this place at all.

Elva seemed affected by it too, which was saying a lot, as the girl could barely sense hostility even when it was directed straight at her, even though that seldom happened. To see her sister with a case of the heebie-jeebies just as bad as her own bothered Visora profoundly.

"Vi, are you sure we're allowed to be in here?" Elva said, and Visora caught a distinct shudder roll off her sister's slim shoulders out of the corner of her eye. "It looks like there's no one here for a reason."

"Well, they didn't put a sign up in front saying "No Trespassing," now, did they? I think we'll be fine." She had added the last part in there as an undertone to say that they would be safe from physical harm rather than rule-breaking consequences, and she could tell that Elva caught it by the way her frame relaxed a hair's width. "Let's check out those stairs, then, shall we?"

The two girls made their way up the flight of cobweb-strewn stairs, and offhandedly Visora tried to remember the difference between cobwebs and spider webs to keep her mind off of the growing bubble of apprehension lodged firmly in her gut and growing every second. Her proclamation of confidence seemed to have done Elva some good—the blue-eyed girl was now glancing around the stairwell in keen interest at a series of deep fissures that branched off into smaller cracks, looking like the handiwork of some very, very large object striking the wall numerous times—but Visora couldn't muster up any of that sense of security for herself. Perhaps it was because she knew that if something bad was waiting up there for them, it would be all her fault for leading them headfirst into it.

Oh, come on, girl, Visora berated herself sharply, frowning in distaste at this sudden turn to paranoia she had made in the last few moments. Nothing is waiting up there for you but Pokemon to battle.

Prompted on by the thought of actual battle experience, Visora picked up her pace a notch and stepped delicately through the threshold to the next floor.

From somewhere behind her, Visora heard Elva clap a hand down over her mouth to stifle a gasp of shock and horror. She felt like she had to beat down her natural reaction to shock—which was aggravation—with a stick. Her initial reaction had been to wheel around and start snapping at her sister, "What did you expect? We're in a freaking' Cemetary!" but the truth was that Visora was stunned into silence as well.

Tombstones lined the floor from the very front to the very back, with the larger plots in the back and the smaller ones in the front. There had to be over 500 in this room alone.

And the sickening thing was that Visora could tell that many of these Pokemon had not died of old age.

She glanced down at the writing on the slab closest to her right foot and saw—with a jolt of disgust—that this victim had been a Clefairy less than a year old. Beneath the date of birth and death was inscribed, "Taken from us by Team Rocket. May Clefairy's soul rest in peace."

Visora looked at the one after it and felt herself sinking into a dream. "Taken from us by Team Rocket." The next one: "Taken from us…" and the next, and the next, and the next.

The entire room was dedicated to Pokemon that had been killed by the Rockets. There was no discrimination or mercy for the young or old—the Rockets appeared to kill anything that got in their way. Visora thought wildly that if she tried, she could find all 150 Pokemon listed here, their names engraved in stone.

Elva appeared to be crying beside her. Visora was too numb with shock to do so herself, but deep within her chest she felt a fluttering wing of sorrow beating to get out somehow. She had never been good with expressing her emotions, however, and the wing curled and withered and burst into a flame of burning hot anger.

"I can't believe this," she began, softly at first, and then louder, because she couldn't stand the silence that was only broken every so often by her sister's soft whimpers. "I don't believe this! All of these Pokemon were killed? All of them?"

"Vi, don't yell," Elva whispered beside her. "Respect them."

Visora, with effort, clamped down on her aggression. It went without saying that neither sister really felt like going on, but now Visora's morbid curiosity had taken hold, and she wanted to know exactly how extensive the damage was. Starting off across the floor, she thought at first when she didn't hear footsteps following her that Elva was going to turn around and leave—and then, right as rain, there they were, and Elva was at her side again, jogging slightly to keep up.

The girls went up seven flights of the tower in this manner, stopping to read the tombstones along the way. The first six floors were dedicated to the Pokemon that had been lost in Rocket raids. Over 3,000 Pokemon, and that was only the ones that they knew about, or the ones whose trainers had wanted them buried here. The number was actually doubled, Visora figured, or even tripled. She was certain that the Rockets had no qualms about massacring wild Pokemon, perhaps mothers protecting their young, or those that refused to leave their homes when the Rockets decided to move in. Those that couldn't be sold for cash had no use to them.

Visora had never noticed it before, but no one really spoke of Team Rocket anymore. She had been born about ten years after the criminal gang had been disbanded, and by that time no one was talking about it anymore. All she had been told was that they were Pokemon gangsters who sold rare creatures for money and made a habit of taking over buildings and running high-risk operations underground. She hadn't really cared to know more, but suddenly she was positively burning up with the might of the curiosity in her. She wanted to know everything about Team Rocket's inner workings, the things they had done in the past, the things they were doing even now—

And with a sinking sensation in her stomach, realized that Gaveriel and Ciara were probably the only ones who could tell her just that.

Visora wasn't sure why she couldn't bring herself to don her normal reaction to things like this: "Well, what's done is done; there's nothing I can do about it, so why worry?" She supposed it was the sheer magnitude of the crime that had stunned her into feeling a remorse so deep that it rattled her very marrow. She felt that she should have been able to do something… even though she knew, logically, that these events had been over long before she was even born. Still, it was distressing, to say the least.

All at once, Elva screamed behind her. Whirling around, Visora expected to see some kind of attacker—a man in a black mask, or something similar. The visage that met her eyes was little short of a nightmare, however. This was certainly no burglar, or even any mere mortal.

Closing in on her sister, floating down from above, from nowhere was a shady figure shrouded in the thickest mist Visora had ever seen. Cold filled her lungs as the mist curled around the side of her face, blocking her vision. Compulsively, she coughed, and when she found that she couldn't stop to take in more air, felt the knot of apprehension within her spring alive and untangle itself into thousands of writhing coils of panic. I'm going to pass out, Visora thought to herself in detached wonder, a second before a second piercing scream shook her back to reality. Her sister needed her.

"Bellsprout," Visora just managed to wheeze out. The sudden change in temperature was wreaking absolute havoc on her throat and diaphragm—she could scarcely to two seconds without another coughing fit.

The red light was a welcome comfort, almost as much as the shaky outline of her Pokemon forming before her. She was about to utter a command to the gold and green creature when footsteps up the stairs alerted her attention to the door. Elva appeared to have heard it too, for she stopped trying to back away and froze in place. Even the ghost appeared to be listening, for Visora had decided there was no way this creature could not be a ghost.

That was when something cold brushed up against the side of her face, and, almost involuntarily, she turned to look behind her. There were at least fifty other spirits swooping slowly in upon them.

Her last truly distinct thought before instinctual self-preservation took over her mind was, I really hope we survive this.