A/N So, ey, did the world suddenly go to shit all over again? Sorry for not being very active but I find it very hard to bring up any energy to do any sort of writing. Still, I made this 2k chapter to hopefully satisfy all your needs.

Everyone stay safe, wether you are reading fanfics, buying gas or being bombed by Russia.

Thanks for reading this and apologies for the lack of updates.

Chapter 105:

A Tough PIll To Swallow

Pokémon List:

Luna (Kirlia)

Fay (Riolu)

Midna (Zorua)

The door of the Pokémon Center silently slid open. Revealing a clean and peaceful lobby. The red and white color theme was present in almost everything, from the couch to the counter. It was a fairly standard Pokémon Center. A bit on the small side I guess.

There was one other trainer with a Zubat on her shoulder talking to the guy behind the counter. From the polite smile on his face I could tell he wanted to be anywhere but here.

I decided to wait patiently in the lobby and sat down on the couch.
Some magazines were laid out on the table. I picked one of them up and began to flip through them.

It was a fashion magazine for Pokémon. Something about contest battles and other boring stuff. Even Luna wasn't entertained by it.

There was some gossip about some possible romance between two Gym leaders which took up a whole page and was solely based on how their Pokémon interacted with each other.

Considering there was nothing else to do but to wait I started reading through it, explaining it to Luna as I went.

After learning way too much about gossip in Sinnoh the girl with the Zubat left.

I got up and went to the desk. Luna followed behind.

"Ah, your name is Dust right?" Counter guy asked.

He didn't wait for an answer. "We prepared room 3C for you." He gave me a room key. "Your stuff has been delivered and left there as well."

He smiled politely.

"My Pokémon?"

His smile slightly faltered. Man, he really wanted me to leave.

"Your Riolu's has been fully recovered and should be waiting for you at your room."

Silence.

"And my Zorua?"

"Ah well, she's in quite a rough shape." Luna attempted to whistle. "She should be returned to you tomorrow morning."

"Please call me as soon as she is better." I said.

From his expression I could see this guy wanted me dead.

Not willing to push my luck Luna and I left for the stairs.

I opened the door that read 3C and shut it behind me.

In front of me was a small sized bedroom. There wasn't much to write home about.

More importantly, I found my backpack safely returned to me, lying on the bed, along with my knives and my other weapons. The gun had been dismantled but they hadn't taken apart the rifle.

A shiny red and white Pokéball was patiently waiting for me on the desk. I reached for it and pushed the button.

The flash that shot out of it materialized into a blue Riolu named Fay.

Fay jawned and blinked. She studied the room, and Luna, with confusion.

"What happened?" She asked.

"You got knocked out." I replied, allowing myself onto the bed.

"Where did you come from?" Fay asked Luna.

{I came to the rescue, last minute!} Luna explained camly.

"...Okay, what did I miss?" Fay slowly started.

{A whole lot.} Luna smirked.

"Not much." I sighed. Staring up at the ceiling. "The Lustrous Orb dropped. You got knocked out. I didn't. Luna showed up at the last minute."

"Really?" Fay narrowed her eyes.

"Let's say she had a change of heart." I said, not really feeling like explaining it. "Anyway, shit happened after it and here we are now."
Fay nodded. As if that was a good explanation. It seemed to satisfy her curiosity enough.

I plumbed down on the bed. My body felt sore and I felt mentally exhausted.

"Okay, so what now?" Fay asked. "Are we going after the baddies? Infiltrate their ranks? Fight Gods?"

{You sound way too excited.} Luna tilted her head. {But I am curious as well, what is the next step in your 'great' masterplan?}

I stared at the ceiling.

"For now, we wait."

"Anyone near us?" I asked.

{We are clear} Luna confirmed.

"Double check." Fay nodded.

"Not even wild Pokémon?" I wondered. There were a lot of flowers here, and metal as well. Normally such a place would be a hotspot for wild Pokémon.

{I told them to stay away.} Luna shared after sensing my curiosity.

Huh, well that's something new.

Wonder what method she actually used.

Floaroma Town had a railroad that was left abandoned. From what I heard they planned to build a big train station here to better connect the East side and West side of Mount Coronet. The project was shut down when flowers suddenly started sprouting all over the railway.

Must have sucked for everyone involved with the project but at least I got a nice secluded spot from it.

High brickstone warehouses surrounded the courtyard, blocking any possible intruders from eavesdropping.

I looked up at the stark blue sky. Maybe a satellite or drone could be spying on us but I doubt people in this world would rely on technology like that.

The Pokéball in my hand shook impatiently.

I couldn't blame her.

I threw up the Pokéball and watched it open up.

A bright flash erupted and struck the grass below it like a thunder strike. The flash took shape and the Pokéball fell back into my palm.

Midna had decided to take the form of a Sneasel. She stretched her paws and yawned, the same way a human would.

{We're alone.} Luna clarified.

"Good," The Sneasel's form began to shift, morphing into the one of a Zorua. "Nothing's better than one's own skin." Midna sighed with relief.

"Can relate," I joked.

I knelt down to study the Zorua up close. "So, how are you feeling? Any dizziness or sickness?"

"Your Aura looks very stable." Fay concluded after taking a look. "Good to see you are still kicking."

"I'm fine," Midna scoffed. "I mean, I only swallowed one of God's balls." She grinned.

Fay looked perplexed. "You did what?"

I rolled my eyes. "Good to know you are still yourself."

"So, did I miss anything important?" Midna asked.

"No, things went roughly like we planned." I got up. "Cyrus showed up, he wasn't too happy about the situation."

Midna narrowed her eyes. "Really? How curious. Is he still around?" Her voice gained a sweet edge.

"No, and even if he was, you can't kill him right now."

"Why not!" Midna spat.

Well, good thing I had the foresight to not have Midna interact with Cyrus.

{He's creepy.} Luna added, {But I bet I could've taken him.}

"Am I missing something?" Fay's eyes drifted between us. "What's a Cyrus?"

{Cyrus is a genocidal maniac human who aims to kill all Legendary Pokémon and is responsible for Midna's home lab. Right, Dust?} Luna beamed.

"The guy responsible for the underground hellhole?" Fay shuddered.

"That's what I thought as well, but it is much worse than I thought." I replied grimly.

"What can be worse than a genocidal maniac?" Midna asked.

"He's a businessman," I sighed. I got several confused gazes directed my way.

"Okay, so I did a quick search and that guy is drowning money."

Fay and Luna still gave me weird looks. Probably because the concept of money was fucking weird to Pokémon.

But Cyrus had a lot of it and that was some bad news.

This guy was not yet a Jeffrey Bezos, but more a diet version of him. At least, counting all his visible assets. Who knows what kind of wealth and power he amassed as the leader of Galactic?

Midna considered my words.

"So what? We got evidence against him, we know he is the leader of Galactic!" Her expression darkened. "And even if he has all the money in the world. 'Accidents' do happen."

"It's complicated. The evidence we have so far is Lynn's diary and your own claims. That's barely enough to cast suspicion. And even if we tried it would put a huge target onto our backs." I argued.

{So we kill him. Easy.} Luna said dismissively.

"We can't just kill a person," Fay softly spoke.

"Morality aside, killing Cyrus without getting caught won't be 'easy'." I looked at Luna. "Cyrus basically has a private army in the form of Galactic. Our best guess would be to assassinate him with either poison or with a sniper."

Fortunately, or unfortunatly, I didn't have either of those. Nor was I even remotely capable of pulling off such a trick.

"So what? We'll just let him play God?" Midna bared her fangs.

"Of Course not, I'm saying we'll have to be careful with how we do this. We can't just unmask or murder him without careful planning." I looked Midna straight into the eyes. "For now, the best we can do is gathering evidence. See if anything Galactic does can be linked to him."

Maybe someone with actual accounting knowledge might be able to trace back the money? I just didn't know anyone with such skills.

"But besides straight up killing him, we did foil whatever plans he might have had with the Orb."

Midna started to chuckle. "How angry was he?"

{He was fuming with rage,} Luna smirked.

"Small victories, I guess that will do," Midna murmured to herself. She gave me a nod, before taking a step back.

Her shape began to change and morph into a brilliant shining pool of light.

The pool of light began to extend upwards and outward, splitting into a bigger being. When the light faded away I was not greeted with one unfamiliar face, but two.

I was slowly getting used to Pokémon and their surreal biology, but the current form Midna had taken still puzzled me.

She was still on four legs, but had sprouted 2 small wings on her back and grown out her tail. She was arguably more scaly than before but still retained some of her scruffy fur.

A tint of blue was added to her overall form. But so far, the transformation was pretty tame.

The weird part was that she now possessed two dinosaur heads.

Yup, a Zweilous. Darwin's fucking nightmare stood in front of me.

The left head opened its mouth. A cough followed and a small glitchy orb rolled off her tongue.

I caught it with both my hands, preventing it from hitting the ground.

The Lustrous Orb was covered with saliva but despite this the Orb shone valiantly. Reality quietly glitched around the edges of the object, folding around it but never touching it. Just looking at it made me feel uncomfortable.

The two zweilous heads grinned triumphantly.

I held up the Orb, allowing the sunrays to wash over it.

I grinned back. "Well, ladies and gentlemen. We got him."

First few seconds everyone was just looking in awe at the marvelous shiny artifact.

"It looks amazing," Fay broke the silence, "but...uh, what can we do with it?"

"We can shoot it!" Midna spoke, her voice trembled. Only one of her heads physically moved, the other remained dormant. "If that Love girl could knock out everyone with just dropping it to the ground, imagine what would happen if we dropped it from an even higher distance?"

Fay gasped.

Now, that was a very interesting use of the Orb. Though I wondered if it would become lethal once dropped from a high enough distance, or if the range would increase.

The guide at the museum said it was supposedly used as a cannonball long ago.

That story started making a whole lot more sense. I took a new look at the Orb.

So, this is basically a diet nuke, with no clear defined range. And as long as it's retrieved it could be used over and over.

And who knows what other properties it hides?

No wonder both Galactic and Team Rocket want it.

{It shouldn't be used as a weapon,} Luna carefully studied my expression. {It's a bargaining tool, right?}

"Correct, as it is, this Orb is pretty useless to us." I lightly dropped it into my palm. An invisible shockwave followed.

I contemplated my options. I was so sure we had to get this Orb. But now I finally got it, I was starting to question my own reasoning.

"Maybe it can help us in the future with Palkia or Galactic. Right now Team Rocket and Galactic will think the other side has it. Hopefully this will keep them at each other's throat for a little longer while we gather evidence against Cyrus."

Midna let out a sigh. "Damn, I really thought you would do something cool with it after we stole it."

"Borrowed." Fay coughed.

"Nobody having it is our best option," I patted the left head on her big nose. The head responded with a pur. "Cheer up! in a worst case scenario we can have you fly up and drop it."

"Fine," Midna childishly whined.

"Where will we leave the Orb?" Fay asked. "Because if you keep it out in the open, anyone with either psychic or aura abilities will know you have an important artifact with you."

"I'll keep it," Midna's second head opened her mouth. "This way no one will be able to find it, and if the need ever arises, I can deploy it."

"Are you sure about this?" I asked, "We don't know what the effects of prolonged exposure are."

Midna's uncanny ability to shift form also allowed her to lock away items to some degree. For whatever reason any item held by her ceases to exist if her new form can not feasible hold it in the same way.

After experimenting with this and exploring multiple forms it became clear that if Midna for example swallowed something that was too big for her own body after changing, it would simply disappear. Once she assumed the form that ate the big thingy, she would be able to spit it out just fine but any other form would come out empty handed, or stomach. The Orb was not that big and although Midna's baseline form couldn't hold it, most bigger forms would.

But we found an awkward solution in the form of Zweilous, who had two heads that could store items. And since most Pokémon don't have two heads, whatever was stored in her second mouth/belly just completely disappears

There were a lot of hooks and eyes to this entire thing and Midna herself doesn't understand it either. But a lot of weird results came out.

For example, when Midna swallowed a watch and spat it out later the watch was running behind in date.

The evidence points towards Midna basically deleting items and calling upon them, instead of storing them in some unseen place. However it worked, it was weird to say the least, but definitely useful since only the Zorua herself could call upon them.

"No, I'll keep the Orb." Midna closed her mouth. A giant grin began to glow, before shrinking down in size. The grin was replaced by a smirking Zorua.

"So, now we got the treasure Captain, what's next?"