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28.
Special Episode II
Falling Through Time
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Morgue
~Sparkleglimmer~
The humming never left.
Sparkleglimmer sat in the room that was as cold and hard as the slab of rock the body in front of her sat on. She stared at it, like she had been doing for nearly an hour. There were flickers in her brain of horror and fear and shock, and she still felt the flames of the fire and heard them crackle. But all she could do was stare. Stare, and try to process that this was happening and it wasn't a bad dream she was about to wake up from.
Once she started getting sleepy again, she finally registered that she was awake. And Father was never coming back. Her house was gone, her family was gone, everything was gone. Her breathing began to quicken, her eyes burnt, and all of the sudden the ashes that had been the source of her fascination for hours were unbearable to look at.
At some point, she slept. Her mind took her to the burning house again, where she replayed the same horrifying scenario over and over. She didn't know how many times she woke up in between nightmares, only that her sleep was fitful. A pokemon that worked at the morgue woke her up and tried to get her to eat. She refused the food.
Eat.
"I'm not hungry," she mumbled.
You must eat.
"I'm not hungry," she mumbled a little more forcefully.
You must eat.
The Voice in her head was like a broken record. Sparkleglimmer finally snapped.
"Get out of my head," she growled. "Go away."
The Voice went silent, but she could still feel its by-now familiar presence lurking in the back of her head. It had a cold, emotionless edge to it. Everything about it suddenly rubbed Sparkleglimmer the wrong way.
The door to the morgue opened up, letting a flood of light pour into the dark room. A lilligant stepped in, looking at the sylveon on the floor.
"I'm sorry," they said, looking hesitant to disturb her, "but visiting hours are over. I have to ask you to leave now."
Still too shell-shocked to do much, Sparkleglimmer stood up
And viewed the wreckage of the manor she had once called home.
Father's once-beautiful house was a shell of itself against a dull and cloudy backdrop. Walls scorched black as soot had splintered away or burnt to ashes halfway up from the ground. Wreckage and burnt pages of books lay strewn everywhere, and the grand staircase that had once led to the second floor of the house now led to thin air. The place reeked of smoke.
There was nothing left for Sparkleglimmer here. Nothing but smoldering planks of wood, the chill of the cold Mist air, and memories that were now ashes. So she didn't know why she returned. But she did. It was late into the afternoon now, and she had to start thinking about where she was going to go for the night. But instead, she was here.
"I don't know why I listened to you," she found herself mumbling to the only thing that could hear her. "You promised—" her throat caught on the sentence "—you promised I could save my father."
I promised you could save your father's organization.
"But that's not the same as saving him!" she screamed to the void. Her voice echoed through the burnt house and was lost to the breeze.
"You think I can run this?" she asked, barely keeping it together. "You think I can do everything on my own? I can't. I can't!"
You have to.
"Why?" she snarled.
Turn around.
For the first time that day, Sparkleglimmer heeded the advice of the voice in her head, and turned around.
A large galleon sailed towards the harbor, attracting a crowd at the port and immediately catching Eevee's eye. Even from a distance, she recognized the flag that flew from the ship's masts: the badge of the Rescue Federation.
The Rescue Federation? Here? She hadn't seen those ships in nearly a year. Why was one here now?
Then it lined up. They were here, they could only have been here, for one reason.
With only that one thought hanging in her head, Sparkleglimmer took off for the harbor of Noe Town. But she hadn't taken even a few steps before she was already there.
She pushed through pokemon at the harbor, steadily making her way to the docks where the large galleon was docking.
"What are they doing here?" she asked to the pokemon around her. There was too much chaos and noise for anymon to hear here. Pokemon were worried about the ship, not her desperate cries. "What are they doing?"
"Help has arrived!"
A cry sounded from the galleon, followed by a wooden bridge that slammed from the ship's side onto the dock. A tiny ledian made itself visible from the bow of the ship, pulling out an equally tiny scroll and reading off of it.
"In light of the death of the leader of HAPPI, with no apparent living heir to the organization—as stated in clause 19 of our agreement—the Rescue Team Federation will claim rights to the rebuilding and sustaining of this continent and its guilds! We thank you for your co-operation. And remember: Smiles go for miles!"
Gaze upon those responsible for your father's death. They have taken your safety. Your home. Your family. Your town. And soon, they will take your life.
Teams began to march down onto the dock, throwing down supplies and beginning to unload the ship. As they slowly advanced, the crowd drew back to make space.
All Sparkleglimmer wanted to do was make them leave. She wanted to cry out that she was the heir, that they didn't have a right to set a single foot on this town again. It didn't matter how; she'd force them to leave with their own bare paws. They didn't have a right to this continent, they couldn't just barge in here and take over!
But they were. And two more galleons were sailing in on the horizon.
It wasn't a battle she could win; even through the anger and the hurt she was smart enough to see that. As much as she didn't want to, as much as she loathed the idea, she stopped pushing against the crowd, and gradually let them push her back.
She needed to go in the opposite direction.
Father was dead, but the keys to rebuilding HAPPI lay in Pokemon Paradise. And that town lay on the other side of Mist, but the continent could be crossed in three days on foot. Luckily, Sparkleglimmer had some pocket change for quick use. Before the Rescue Federation made it past the docks, she had used her meager savings to buy rations of food for three days and a raggedy cloak for the roads.
There was a twisting pathway that the signs said not to wander off, and the locals to the east said the forest to the west was a giant mystery dungeon. Sparkleglimmer could feel it hum in the air around her, threatening to suck her in if she walked even an inch off the beaten path. But soon she arrived at the gates of Pokemon Paradise, mostly unharmed except for a few rips in the cloak she had made from a potato sack.
The place was sunnier than the grey skies of Noe Town were known for, and the houses looked cleaner too. It was surrounded on all sides by flat, grassy fields that stretched on for at least an hours' travel, and the crowds weren't hardened townsmon but instead sunny tourists looking to sightsee. In the middle of the town square, the statue of a dewott and a pikachu posing heroically had been half-constructed.
Sparkleglimmer stood at the gates, taking the scenery she had never laid eyes upon before in.
She blinked her eyes, and then she was walking through lush hedge gardens.
"I heard about what happened to your father," Alexis, walking beside her, said. He was the picture-perfect personification of the dewott from the statue, though they hadn't captured the air of smugness that hung around him. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"It's hard, Sparkleglimmer said. "But I'm managing. I'm here to follow up on that proposal you sent him. The one about the partnership."
Alexis seemed to brighten up considerably once she said that. "That's to say, you're considering it?"
"I've already considered it. I'm here for fine print."
"Fine print…" Alexis pondered in thought for a minute. "If you'll give us your presence for the night, I can get a contract paper drafted up by the morning."
"Not papers." Sparkleglimmer met his eyes with her own. "I want to know what you want out of this. Tell me why we should partner up."
"I thought I made the terms of the partnership clear when I proposed it, but…" they took a turn at a corner, approaching a two-story house that looked like it had jumped right out of a fairy tale. Alexis stopped to ponder for a moment. "Well, maybe he didn't tell you. Let me show you some designs I have in my office."
Alexis' office was as large as a library. It wasn't as fancy as Father's study had been, but it was nearly twice the size. There were tables everywhere, piled with junk and papers and dust. Alexis led Sparkleglimmer around the maze of junk, to a desk that had something Sparkleglimmer had never seen before: a light that shone completely on its own.
"Interested?" Alexis asked, when he caught Sparkleglimmer looking at it. He walked over, uncovering it so she could see the machinery underneath. "It's something I put together in my spare time. It runs off the power of those crystals you've been digging up. See?"
Wires and metal tubes snaked through the machine, all converging upon a yellow stone that glowed with the same energy of the ones that had come from the island.
"Stuff like this…."Alexis slapped the lamp, making it flicker. "It's cute, but it's child's play. I think we can go bigger. Much bigger."
He shuffled through papers on his desk, pulling out papers and settling them on top of everything else. They were blueprints, detailing immense contraptions Sparkleglimmer had never even seen before.
"I have a vision for the future of the world," Alexis said. "Where with the touch of a button, you can be connected to pokemon on another continent. A future where when the sun goes down, a million lights shining just as bright take their place. Where buildings scrape the skies, and wagons drive themselves. Those were the luxuries that the Humans had. I didn't think it was possible to replicate it here, all their technology's gone. But now, with the power of these stones… The world can truly become a better place."
Sparkleglimmer looked over the papers, trying to make sense of the indecipherable drawings and scrawls all over them. "That's what you believe?"
"Of course. And with your help, we can make the lives of pokemon all over the world better."
An idea struck her.
"Could you make… ships?"
"Ships are possible," Alexis said. He jabbed his paw into one of the blueprints on the table. "I've even got a blueprint for one. It'll just take a while to build."
"How long?"
Alexis leaned back in the chair next to the desk. "Maybe one, two years. After that, they'll come faster."
He jumped up from his chair, suddenly filled with a lot more energy than usual. "Actually, if you come this way, I'll show you some of the other stuff I've been working on…"
Alexis loved to talk, especially about his inventions. He'd built a host of small trinkets already, from the magic light to a small metal fletching that skittered across the room when a switch was flicked, and a strange contraption made for sucking the dust out of hard-to-read places. He had plans for much larger things too, like self-driving carriages and the ships Sparkleglimmer was interested in. His current project was something he was building out of a hollowed-out crystal.
"Frisms are primitive—they can one-time record a message, or a song, or whatever you put in there and play it back," Alexis had explained. "It's like a record back in the Human world. But if I can get it to co-operate with these stones, I might be able to create a small computer."
He was gracious enough to offer her a room for the night, which was just as well, seeing as she didn't have the pocket change to pay for one herself. It was the first time she'd slept on a bed in four days.
Now that it was quiet, she couldn't sleep. She found herself lying awake in the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Everything that had happened was finally settling down in her head. The memories still stung a little, but for now they felt numb.
The voice in her head was quiet, but an ever-present humming took its place.
If she listened hard enough, it almost sounded like thousands and thousands of voices.
In the end, Sparkleglimmer accepted the partnership. Who knew, maybe some of his weirder inventions would become useful in the future. But more than anything, she needed the ships. HAPPI had never had to deal with travel off the Mist Continent, so its fleet was laughably small. If she wanted to stand at the level of the Rescue Federation, she needed ships. Bigger and better ships.
But first, she needed to get rid of some completely different ships. The Voice, always willing to be helpful when it wanted to be, gave her a set of instructions. And that was why, after gaining access to Father's funds from Quagsire's storage in Paradise, she'd contracted a good amount of the more famous rescue teams gathered at Pokemon Paradise to march with her back to Noe Town. Being more famous teams, their rates were high. But HAPPI had enough funds, and she was willing to pay them. She just had to hope the Voice knew what it was doing.
And that was the way she marched back into Noe Town, accompanied by twenty-one pokemon of various shape, size, and species. All the pedestrians on the streets made a wide berth as she led her makeshift army through town. Sparkleglimmer could tell on their faces that none of them knew or recognized her. That would change.
They stopped at the tents. The entire harbor had been occupied by the Rescue Federation at this point, filled with encampments, supplies, and two or three large ships that stood proudly at the docks, with a few more floating in the distance. The fanciest tent was located close to where the harbor met the town, and had a pair of guards standing outside it. They looked bewildered, but stepped forward to greet the twenty-two pokemon anyway.
"State your business," one of them said, trying not to sound like they were still trying to get a grip on the situation.
"I wish to speak to the pokemon in charge," Sparkleglimmer addressed them loudly.
"What for?"
That voice had come from neither of the guards, but rather a rimbombee that buzzed out of the tent. He looked the entourage of rescue teams in front of him up and down.
"Are you the one in charge?" Sparkleglimmer asked.
"I might be. Now state your business here."
"Very well. On my authority as the sole heir of the Helping Adventurous Pokemon Prosper Institute, I hereby banish all pokemon affiliated with the Rescue Team Federation from these docks. I expect you all out of here by tomorrow."
"What?" asked the rimbombee, suffering what looked like a rare moment of utter bafflement.
"You heard me," said Sparkleglimmer. "Pack up and leave." She produced a few ledgers from her bag. "The necessary papers, if you need proof."
The rimbombee calmly buzzed forward. He snatched the papers out of Suylveon's ribbons, and looked them over. After a second of looking at them, he thrust them rudely back at Sparkleglimmer.
"You'll leave, then?" she said. It wasn't a question so much as a command.
"We could," he said. "Or, consider this scenario. You never showed up here. You never revealed your identity, or demanded we leave. And if you insist that you did, we remove you from the equation."
"You're going to kill me and my bodyguards in front of the entire town?" Sparkleglimmer asked.
They had drawn a crowd by now, a good portion of the pokemon who had been out and about in the first place. That was exactly what she had been counting on. "The townspeople here wouldn't let you set foot on the continent again. And that would permanently scar the Federation's reputation in these parts, wouldn't it?"
Now it was time to see if he called her bluff or not. She didn't mention the many ways that were running through her head of how they could kill her and get away with it, or that she was currently the most scared she had ever been in her life.
He will not. Do as I have instructed.
"Or should I mention that I've already chosen somemon to succeed me, in case I do die?"
That was also a lie.
After a while, it became clear that the rimbombee wasn't going to order her killed, or anything of the sort. By now, there was enough of a crowd that he would have had to slaughter the entire town to cover it up anyway. So he zipped back into his tent with a growl, leaving Sparkleglimmer and all twenty-one of her escorts standing at the beginning of the harbor.
At some point during the day, the Rescue Federation began the process of packing up.
And so, the plan to topple the Rescue Federation began.
The first thing Sparkleglimmer did was cut ties with the Federation completely. They weren't doing anything on the Mist Continent as it was, but there were still some paperwork trails that had to be severed for the Rescue Federation's aid campaign to officially be over.
The second thing Sparkleglimmer did was to get the press running the right stories. For years, Father had practically ignored the news outlets. The Rescue Federation's cronies had dug their claws in deep, so the papers had been running cover-ups for any crimes their teams committed for years. It took some deliberate spending here and there, but soon investigations where being conducted on what had happened in those fifteen years, and stories were surfacing about the atrocities that had been committed in that time. Sparkleglimmer testified about watching pokemon get dragged into the alleyways, and about the murderer who had burnt her house down. Papers about the Rescue Federation's abuse flew from Noe Town to Pokemon Paradise and every settlement in between. As for off-continent? She couldn't say.
The third thing she did was the buying over of the Waterport.
The Waterport had been built out at sea by the Rescuer's Guild on the Air Continent, to handle trade between continents better. Because the Rescuer's Guild was overseen by the Rescue Federation, Sparkleglimmer couldn't buy it up-front. So instead, she went backdoors.
"I do business with about all the large cargo ships and merchants coming in and out of the port," a Primarina said. "What do you need?"
"Do you do… blacklists?" Sparkleglimmer asked.
"Blacklists?" Primarina asked. "What kind of blacklists?"
"Blacklists on a single product," Sparkleglimmer said. She pulled one of the stones out of her cloak's pocket, showing it to Primarina. "I'm sure you're familiar with these stones by now."
"That's a pretty big product," Primarina said. "Who are you blacklisting?"
"A continent," Sparkleglimmer said nonchalantly. "The Grass Continent, to be specific."
"An entire continent?" Primarina asked, baffled. "That's ridiculous." He shook his head in incredulity. "I can't. That's not feasible. Sorry."
Now what? Sparkleglimmer addressed the Voice silently. You said this would work.
It shall. Say as I instruct you.
"Let me put it this way," Sparkleglimmer said after a bit of a pause. "You're more like an enforcer. Let HAPPI handle the legal papers. All you have to do is make sure things are working down here. You'll have the help of my entire organization, plus legal protection if you ever do get into a scrape. And I pay well. All you have to do is sign right here…"
The piece of paper Primarina signed gave Sparkleglimmer such a level of control over trade in the Waterport that she may as well have owned it.
A week after that, the Mist Continent shut off all trade with Grass. With his knowledge of where all the underground operations were, Primarina cracked down on any transactions that took place in secret. There were gaps, but the gaps were small. The number of z-crystals that made their way into Grass were a negligible amount.
It was soon after that that the first fruits of Alexis' inventions began to show themselves.
"This," he said, delicately holding a sky-blue orb that captured the sunlight, "is what I call a connection orb. Using the combined power of the frism and your wonderful crystals, it can record, connect, and transmit information to any other orb it's been authorized to interface with. What you used to need a psychic to do, you can now do right out of your own bag."
The dirt streets of Noe Town were paved over with rocks, and magic lights lit the fog at night. Where Father's manor had used to stand, a headquarters for HAPPI was built. Ships were coming soon, Alexis promised. One way or another.
Sparkleglimmer wasn't sure when the skies had disappeared. One moment she was staring at the ever-present gloomy clouds of Noe Town, and the next she was in a well-lit study with a large observational window in place of a wall. Outside, the many turrets and spires of Pokemon Plaza were visible.
"So," Wartortle said, slurping a cup of green tea. He had always had a taste for tea. "Tell me: why do you want to do business with us?"
The office around them was spartan and cluttered at the same time. Stacks of books and paperwork almost as tall as Wartortle was littered the room, but the only pieces of furniture were the shelves against the wall and a couple of bean bags they were currently sitting on.
"I'm sure you know your contract with the Rescue Federation expires within the next two years," Sparkleglimmer said.
"And you want the Rescuer's Guild to move under your management instead." Another slurp of tea. Wartortle's eyes were piercing.
"Exactly."
A third, obnoxiously long and slurpy sip of tea. Wartortle put the empty cup down, dangerously close to a stack of paperwork next to him. "You're right: our contract with the Rescue Federation expires soon. But why do you want to buy us. This is about your feud with the Federation, yes?
"Don't fret," he added after noticing the brief crack in Sparkleglimmer's poker face. "It's basically public information by now." He picked up the cup and tossed it back for a final sip, but it was empty. Wartortle inspected it with a melancholy specific to tea drinkers, then put it back.
"Do you trust the Rescue Federation, then?" Sparkleglimmer asked. "After everything you've heard in the papers?"
"Wartortle got up from his bean bag, picking up the empty cup with him. He stretched, then began to walk for the door. "By moral standards? I can't say that I do. But I can trust that the Rescue Federation will keep our guild afloat where it counts: our funds."
"You can trust us, too."
Wartortle stopped, halfway out the door. He looked back. "So tell me why we should move over. What does the Guild get from joining HAPPI that the Rescue Federation can't provide us with?"
"Z-crystals," Sparkleglimmer answered promptly. "We manufacture them. We control where they go. We can bring them here. And…"
"And if Z-crystals aren't a deciding factor?" Wartortle clasped his cup between his stubby hands, staring at Sparkleglimmer promptingly.
"Trust," Sparkleglimmer finished. She got up from the bean bag she was sitting on, walking over to Wartortle. "You'll get an organizer you can trust, and not just financially."
"But how do I know I'll be able to continue trusting you?" Wartortle said.
"I'm not sure what you mean," Sparkleglimmer replied.
"Which once again prompts the question," Wartortle continued. "Why do you want to buy us."
"Because the Air Continent is a significant resource, and it would be beneficial for HAPPI to control," Sparkleglimmer said in a perfectly rehearsed voice.
"And that's all it is?"
"That's the leading factor."
"But surely if you're an employer we can trust, you can trust us to reveal your full reasoning for wanting to buy us."
"I've given you the reasoning that's relevant."
"You indeed have," Wartortle agreed.
He let out a cough, looking down at the cup in his hands for good measure. "Heavens, I think I need some more tea… You'll have to humor me while I step out for a cup. This dry winter air…"
Sparkleglimmer watched him as he went, nonplussed.
In the end, the Rescuer's Guild declined to comment on her offer.
She blinked, and suddenly she was in a different office, seeing and feeling through the eyes of somemon else. Her thoughts slurred together with the consciousness of another, and for a moment she ceased to be herself.
"Ridiculous!"
Empoleon of the Rescue Federation seethed in his office. On his desk was a bright yellow scarf, the kind that would make a tight bandanna but would go nicely around a limb or ear.
"They're making you wear these any time you enter the Waterport?" he half asked, half shouted. The uneasy raichu before him nodded but couldn't bring himself to be completely calm.
"On whose authority?" he asked. "We own the port!"
"It's the merchants, sir," Raichu explained. They won't do business at the Waterport if they don't get their way on this."
"Then cut them off!" Empoleon roared. "We need to make an example that this kind of thing isn't tolerated.
"B-but sir—" the raichu began.
"NOW!"
"It's all the large sellers!"
That made Empoleon stop for a moment.
"Repeat that for me, please?" he asked, his tone finally settling into something that wasn't a yell.
"If we cut off every buyer that's making Grass Continent pokemon wear these, we'll lose every big merchant we've got."
"How is that possible?"
"Terms of their supplier, sir."
"What supplier?!"
"That rescue organization on the Mist Continent. 'Happy' or something, I don't… remember the name…"
Empoleon growled. He marched back to his desk, brashly waving the raichu out with a flipper.
He cursed the day he'd signed the papers to help bring that wretched organization back to its feet. Not only had his plan to subsume it failed, it had backfired straight in his face. To think that this was going on right now, in the trading port he owned…
There were papers on his desk, newspapers from the Mist Continent. One of them told a story about the sylveon running HAPPI.
She is the head of the snake.
She was the head of the snake.
She'll stop at nothing to pry everything you have from your flippers.
She'd stop at nothing to pry everything he had from his flippers.
If he wanted the Federation to stay afloat, it was looking more and more like the only option was to cut the head clean off the shoulders.
Back to the fields of Mist, and Sparkleglimmer was herself again.
It was summer now, just three months later. And though the breeze was still frigid and the sky was grey, plains of grass grew outside the cluster of slowly rising buildings that was Pokemon Paradise. Sparkleglimmer walked down the dirt path, following Alexis.
"I've set up a crew to march down to Noe Town and begin construction on those ships you were asking for," Alexis said. "They have to be built on the water, so there isn't another way to do it."
"How long do you expect until they'll be finished?" Sparkleglimmer asked.
"Now that the blueprints and testing are out of the way, maybe three or four months?" Alexis replied. "You'll have them before winter."
"Good to hear," Sparkleglimmer said.
"But wait, there's more!" Alexis exclaimed with glee. "You haven't seen what I've really been building. This is the thing that'll make ships an afterthought." He quickened his pace, gesturing Sparkleglimmer along as he walked. She went as fast as she cared to.
Out on the plains, a scaffolding structure almost as large as Pokemon Paradise stood. Inside, Sparkleglimmer could see the beginnings of something large being constructed within its confines. Magic lights shone on it from all sides, allowing the ant-like dots that were pokemon to work at it from various angles. Even from a mile off, it dwarfed the both of them.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Tell me," Alexis said. "Have you ever wanted to fly?"
"Fly?" Sparkleglimmer asked. "Not really."
Her aspirations were firmly on the ground.
Alexis was quiet for a moment. Probably recalibrating where he wanted to go with his speech, Sparkleglimmer noted.
"Back before I came… 'here'," Alexis began, "I was an engineer in the Human world. I created blueprints for things, solved problems with existing things, and put together new things entirely. My dream was to create something new, something their world had never seen before. But before I could finish, I ended up here.
"I've created a lot of things here," he continued. "As self-absorbed as it sounds, I consider myself the bastion of advancement in this world. And my biggest achievement is going to be making pokemon fly without wings. I'm thinking of calling it 'Cloud Nine'. It means euphoria, the pinnacle of happiness. That's how I'll feel when it takes off towards the skies for the first time. It'll fly and fly forever, and it won't come down. Not until the end of the world."
Alexis looked at Sparkleglimmer. "Your organization can be the first in the world to ever own an airship."
An airship… Even if she didn't care for flight, the idea of owning something no other organization would ever have sounded appealing.
"I'll think on it," Sparkleglimmer said. "If the ships go well, expect our full support going forward."
The fields slurred together, everything around her becoming abstract colors. When they reformed, she didn't seem to have a body. Her essence was in the air, watching everything below.
Or reliving the account of somemon who had watched everything below. As she sunk more and more into it, she became less of herself again.
"Ship approaching!"
These were dangerous waters. The mist was thick here, and jagged rocks lay just out of sight, waiting to punch dangerous holes in the Copperjah's hull if they veered too close to any of the small islands sitting in the fog. The deck of the ship bustled with 'mon who had abandoned many of their tasks and were currently trying to see what was approaching them through the mist.
As vast a ship as the Copperjah was, the cries could still be heard in Empoleon's office. This was a dangerous route as is, but they had chosen it because traffic through the area was nonexistent. The best case scenario said it was just another one of their supply vessels taking a shortcut, but if it were pirates, or something worse?
"I've got a read on the ship!"
The cries echoed through the deck and into his cabin once more.
"It's a HAPPI vessel!"
"Give her a wide berth!"
The creaking of floorboards, and all of Empoleon's office tilted just the slightest bit as the ship began to veer left. The inkwell he'd been writing with slid to the other side of the desk with a clatter. It was a messy turn, but Empoleon wasn't concerned with that right now. He walked to the right-hand window, looking at the blankets of fog that sat in the distance. It was time to see for himself just what these futuristic HAPPI vessels looked like in the flesh.
Sure enough, the stern, black hull of the passing vessel appeared through the mist. And just like he'd suspected, images couldn't compare. The ship looked nothing like a proper ship did. The narrow, stern hull glistened black like it was made of iron, and it lacked sails. Instead, the water churned hectically under it, as if something underneath the ship was propelling it forward. A white icebreaker in the shape of an aggron's skull pushed away and broke rocks as the ship went. It made a slow bank away from the Copperjah, heading straight into the mist where the jagged rocks and the uncharted islands were.
Empoleon had no knowledge of any HAPPI dealings that involved going to strange islands, nor had he ever seen a ship that dared to venture into a death trap like the thick mist. But just now, all that had changed. And then, watching the stern of the pitch-black, alien vessel slowly fade away into the mist, he finally realized just how much the world was changing underneath his very feet.
When Sparkleglimmer finally regained herself again, she found herself propelled into another memory, one with a single leading and overpowering thought.
It had to be said: Sparkleglimmer enjoyed Pokemon Paradise.
The many artificial lights of the city burned bright against the beauty of the setting arctic sun. There were buildings now that stretched above three stories, four, even five. For all of his hubris, Alexis proved himself a brilliant architect.
Her being as powerful a pokemon as she was meant there wasn't time for fooling around like the average 'mon would have had. She always arrived a day early when she came to this city, though. It had become a bustling epicenter of every technological advancement, rare merchant wares, and hopeful inventers who came to try out their new innovations and gadgets for public use. On the south side of town, they were even building a HAPPI center to help facilitate the advancement of rescue teams for the city.
A pair of escorts followed her around town. It wasn't subtle, but they stayed in the background for the most part. Sparkleglimmer took a tour of all the shops, sampling rare delicacies and browsing expensive fabrics.
"How do you like it?" The owner of Torracat's Tailory, an incineroar, asked as she browsed a selection of fancy cloaks. She had picked out a teal-colored one, fitted with rims of solid gold and encrusted with red rubies. "It's a rare fabric from the Air Continent. They make it with spinerak silk, then dye it with the pigments of flowers. Would you care to try it on?"
The cloak was pricey, but Sparkleglimmer bought it all the same. The Rescuer's Guild had finally outlived their contract, and she was to attend a final meeting to see if they'd reconsider her offer to sell out to HAPPI. Perhaps if she showed up in something made on the continent she planned to purchase, it would buy her points with the locals.
Alexis had asked her to Paradise to attend the ceremony of Cloud Nine's first launch. As the main benefactor of his advancements, he thought that she should be present at the launch. There were still a few more days before she met with the Rescuer's Guild, so there wasn't much of a schedule conflict.
She dined at Swanna Inn, which had grown much larger than it had been the last time she had been here. The prices were high, too – she had often heard about Swanna Inn's outrageous rates, but it didn't really set in until she viewed the price tag herself. Not that it was anything more than a drop in the bucket for her, of course.
The bed was worth the price. The food, made by chefs who didn't look like they were being paid enough, debatably wasn't.
It was only in beds at night now that her thoughts ate her. During the day, she could distract herself with the mundane affairs of running HAPPI and the shallow delights of the city, but the nights were quiet. She was left alone to reminisce with herself. Sometimes she almost wished there were loud noises happening outside for her to focus on, like there had been back when Father's manor still stood. Noe Town was too fancy for that now, though, and this many floors up Swanna Inn was silent.
When her thoughts left her and her head went quiet, the voices came. She heard them in her dreams, and she sometimes caught them when everything was quiet and she was lost deep in thought. She never understood what they were saying; it was all spoken in a language ancient and lost on her ears. But she knew what they sounded like. Grating, harsh whispers that overlapped and hissed and snarled.
And she could hear them now.
The clapping of fins roused Sparkleglimmer from her thoughts.
She was standing backstage now, in broad daylight. The teal cloak she'd purchased yesterday and wore now went all the way down to the ground, but stopped just high enough that it wouldn't get dragged in the mud. She'd gotten some boots to go along with them, since they matched the color and paved roads had made her averse to dirt. She remembered where she was: In the distant fields behind her stood the massive supports that carried Alexis' Cloud Nine. It was a mile away, and yet it still looked incredibly sizeable.
"Are you with us?" A dewgong asked, looking up at Sparkleglimmer. "The launch is beginning soon. Alexis sent for you onstage."
With only one last glance at the massive airship in the fields, Sparkleglimmer nodded. The buzzing in her head had grown stronger, and she'd been zoning out most of the day. "Tell him I'll be there promptly."
Promptly was only a minute—things moved fast backstage, and it was only five minutes to noon. Sparkleglimmer could hear lively music playing as she walked towards the curtain of the main deck, the final remnants of a celebration that was now ending. She walked through the curtain and out onto a stage surveying a grand number of pokemon from Paradise. The crowd ended in a far-off place that wasn't at the city gates, but still hard for her to see anyway. There were never this many pokemon in Noe Town.
The music died down once she took her place next to Alexis on the stage. Alexis' partner was here too—a bouncy-looking Pikachu who was waving boldly to the crowd. Even so, somehow Sparkleglimmer could tell he wasn't very comfortable with stages.
As silence overtook the crowd, Alexis stepped forward. The dewott cleared his throat, and then began to speak.
"Over the years, Pokemon Paradise has been lots of things. It was once a dream between two pokemon to make what used to be a barren wasteland a better place. Then it became a haven for lost pokemon, who went on to make their lives a better place. And now it is a mighty city, whose wealth and technological advancements make the entire world a better place!"
Cheers rang out across the crowd, and Alexis basked in the applause.
"And now, we will make the skies a better place. We in Pokemon Paradise are about to accomplish something never seen before. The machine you see in the distance there—" he gestured to Cloud Nine behind him "—Is about to become the first mon-made vehicle to fly. Imagine! A ground beneath your feet, hundreds of meters in the air! To fly like a bird, without even setting foot off the ground! That is what three hundred lucky pokemon aboard Cloud Nine are about to experience."
A large, mechanical timer above the stage activated. It began to count down from a minute.
60. 59. 58.
"In exactly one minute, you will watch our marvel of creation defy gravity!"
Sparkleglimmer would have listened to the rest of the speech, but suddenly the buzzing in her head became too much for her to cope with. She flinched, then tried to stop herself from falling over in pain from the sudden headache. Not on the stage. Not where she'd show the public weakness.
45. 44. 43.
All of a sudden, the voices were back. They were louder than ever, and the experience was disorienting. She could barely keep her balance over it. Then one voice overpowered the others, and it spoke directly to her.
Someone is here to kill you.
Sparkleglimmer stumbled and had to grab onto something for support. She knew she had attracted the concern of Alexis' partner, but she didn't bother with that right now. Instead, she worked herself back up to the point where she was standing again. She surveyed the crowd, looking for anything that could be off. She saw nothing, but the Voice had never been wrong.
33. 32. 31.
"Who?" she managed to snarl under her breath.
Look to the near left corner.
Sparkleglimmer followed the voice's instructions. It couldn't be caught if you weren't looking for it, but a patch of thin air in the southwest side of the crowd was shimmering in a strange way. It was making its way towards the stage with a speed that was alarming. Sparkleglimmer realized what it was immediately: the illusion of a zoroark. An expertly crafted one, but the chaos of the crowd was too much for even the best trickster to imitate.
15. 14. 13. Sparkleglimmer followed it from the corner of her eye, but she pretended not to see it.
Claws suddenly lunged for her throat, only becoming visible seconds from the strike, but seconds were enough. Sparkleglimmer managed to step out of the way in time, pulling the assassin down to the ground. The zoroark hit the ground of the stage hard, the momentary shock jarring him out of his illusion for just a second. Screams and cries came from the crowd, who had just witnessed a pokemon appear out of thin air and crash down on the stage. In the distance, Cloud Nine rocketed up into the skies with a boom, but no-mon was paying attention.
Sparkleglimmer's escorts, standing just off the stage, ran over and began to restrain the zoroark—
A completely different pair of guards sat the zoroark down in a chair, his claws caged behind his back. They were in the drab walls of what Sparkleglimmer assumed to be an interrogation room now, and she was sitting on the other side of the table. She remembered what she had been told before she went in there against everymon's wishes – 'He's dangerous, don't trust your eyes or ears.' She knew full well the dangers of a zoroark, and had insisted she be able to view him anyway. She would be able to pry away the answers she needed, the ones that normal pokemon couldn't.
"You've got nerve, coming all the way here," the zoroark grinned, as the doors closed behind the guards. "Didn't I just try to kill you?"
"I need answers," said Sparkleglimmer, sitting on the other side of the table. "Who were your targets at the festival?"
"Shouldn't that be obvious?"
"Who sent you?" Sparkleglimmer pressed on.
"I keep my clients confidential. Otherwise no-mon would hire me."
"I have ways of extracting that information," Sparkleglimmer said. "I'm just asking you nicely first."
"And how are you going to do that?" The zoroark asked, mirthful. He flicked his head in the direction of the pokemon observing them outside the room. "They couldn't, and they were trained for this. You're just a priss who's never dealt with anymon like me."
Sparkleglimmer ignored his words. She leaned forward, and placed a ribbon on his head. A few black sparks flickered out of her ribbon, and the air around the zoroark's head began to hum. It was only seconds before he was in a relaxed, only half-conscious state. Perfect.
"Let's try again," she breathed in his ear. "Who were your targets?"
The zoroark answered like he was asleep.
"You. The dewott and the pikachu. Anymon who interfered."
"Why at the festival?"
"Client wanted to make a public outburst. It was the easiest way."
"And who was your client?"
The zoroark didn't answer that one. Even in the state she had him in, he was still tight-lipped. Even through the fog of anger in her head, she had to admit that amount of devotion was admirable. But it wouldn't be enough.
"Who was your client?" she pressed on. The power in her ribbons intensified, sending him as deep as it was safe to go.
The zoroark grit his teeth, letting out a sudden snarl that startled everymon outside the room. Sparkleglimmer's first instinct was to jump back, but she kept the ribbons on his head. She was so close. She wasn't going to let a few scary noises stop her now.
Finally, he broke.
"Empoleon," he said, in a voice so strained and determined not to speak that only Sparkleglimmer could hear. "Of the Rescue Federation."
Sparkleglimmer's ribbons left the zoroark's head and went to her cloak.
She stood outside the interrogation room now, and the zoroark was being wheeled away back to his cell. But she couldn't care less about him right now. What she cared about was that she finally had proof. She had always known deep down that the Rescue Federation had been behind everything that had happened up to this point, but she didn't have anything to prove it. Now she did, and all the hate that been building up in the back of her head for years finally had a proper target. And she didn't know what she was going to do with that power.
For the first time in a long, long while, she was realizing she need somemon to lean on, somemon to consult, and she didn't have one. She didn't have anymon like that, and she hadn't for a long time. Except one.
"What should I do?" she found herself asking the one entity she had always been able to confide in all these years: The voice in her head.
What do you think you should do?
Of course, it was kicked right back into her ballpark. Because the Voice had never been one for confiding in, only solving problems.
But maybe solving a problem was what she needed right now.
And for what felt like the first time in a long, long while, the humming in her head stilled. Enough for her to think and hyperfocus.
You need a solution to your dilemma. Do you think the Rescue Federation will permit you to continue living, when you pose such a threat to their very existence?
No. By now it seemed clear: There was no option for peace. The Rescue Federation had fired its shots, and now it wanted to seal the death warrant.
One of you will kill the other. It is only a matter of time. You should strike first, while you still can.
And as always, the Voice was right. Now that she had the assassin's testimony, now that she knew who had just tried to kill her, was the proper retribution not in order? For everything she knew they had done? Her blood was boiling; she knew she should not make decisions without a level head, but this one… this one seemed so easy. So right. How could any other conclusion, one with even a single shred of mercy, fill the hole they had left the same way?
Or, the oft ignored part of her brain argued, she could let the story go public. It would make the papers, and HAPPI would make sure it stayed in the papers. The Rescue Federation would be ruined.
But will they stay ruined? Or will they bounce back in four years, three, two? When will the next assassin arrive?
She could hire more guards. Only stay in secure facilities. Each new assassin was another chance to shine the Federation in a bad light.
Foolish. The Rescue Federation has nothing to lose. They will stop at nothing until you are dead, and your organization exists only in the history books. Smears will fade with time. The only option for survival is to cut off the head of the snake.
But she outgunned them in every department. She had no reason to take such drastic action. Not when she could play defense and instead let them rot.
It will mean nothing when you are DEAD. I have not guided you all these years to witness your fall at the fins of a WEAKER power. Kill him, before he has the chance to end you forever.
She was standing at the bow of a ship in the dead of night now. One of the mighty metal vessels Alexis had built for her, the one he named the Demetrius. It was accompanied on either side by another vessel just like it – on one side, the Aggron. On the other, the Gardevoir. In the distance stood a more traditional ship. It was massive, multi-floored, and its sails were orange and green. There was only one ship it could have been: The Copperjah.
She knew why she was here, why she was seeing this memory. This was where she killed him.
Sparkleglimmer calmly walked onto the deck, after her crew had successfully dispatched any pokemon unlucky enough to be on-deck at the time. They left one alive, to point them to the office of the Federation leader.
Empoleon had been collapsed over his maps, fast asleep, when the door banged open. Before he knew what was happening, two of Sparkleglimmer's crew had him pinned against the wall. A sharp claw pressed itself against his throat, threatening to cut it open if he moved or tried anything.
"Help," Empoleon hoarsely squawked, trying to make sense of the situation. "Guards! Help!"
"They won't help you," said the shadow in the doorframe. Sparkleglimmer walked in, flicking the door shut behind her. "We've taken care of them already."
"W-w-what is this?" Empoleon asked, his face now having contorted into an expression of straight fear.
Good.
"I-if it's—If it's m-money, then I have a lot. Just tell me what you want me to pay and I'll pay it! I will! Just please don't kill me."
"Unfortunately, I'm not your run of the mill turncoat," said Sparkleglimmer, careful to stay in the shadows where Empoleon couldn't see her just yet. "And you've taken something from me that no amount of money can replace."
"Who are you?" Empoleon asked. "I-if this is about that ship my merchants shot down, then I'm sorry! It was just collateral damage. We were shooting pirates—"
"Save it," Sparkleglimmer said, walking forward. She walked until she was right in front of Empoleon. She took his head in all four of her ribbons, and forced him to look directly at her, and only her. "I want you to look me in the eye and realize exactly who I am before you die."
It was a moment before it came to Empoleon, but when it did Sparkleglimmer could see it in his own eyes. The look of realization, then a redoubling of terror that she had been looking for.
"You're… you're the…" he broke off, stuttering inanely.
"The new and current director of HAPPI," Sparkleglimmer finished for him. "The company that's going to take over for yours."
"You… can't," Empoleon said as she walked away. "You can't. You can't do this. It's not, it's not ethical, it's not legal, it's not righ—"
"I can't?" Sparkleglimmer looked at him. "Just like you couldn't burn down my father's house and then spit on his death? Just like you couldn't send the same assassin after me when you felt threatened? I think you'll find I can."
The Empoleon couldn't answer her. It wasn't like he didn't have the words, he had many to spare, but in that moment he seemed really and truly caught.
"Everything you're about to get right now, you deserve," Sparkleglimmer said. "It's of your own design, after all. Murdered by a turncoat in your own home, which will have mysteriously burned down the next day. Don't you think it's poetic?"
"I think you're a monster," Empoleon spat.
"It takes one to know one," was all Sparkleglimmer told him in return. "Do it."
Empoleon was swiftly disposed of. The lantern that lay amongst the maps on his desk was knocked to the floor, where the flame caught on the boards and began to swiftly spread.
The Gardevoir and the Aggron slowly surrounded the Copperjah on either side. Sparkleglimmer watched from the Demetrius as they floated into position. Then, a barrage of cannon cannon-fire tore a thousand holes in the Copperjah's hull. The now half-burning ship began to slowly sink, an eerily still display of fire and destruction.
But slowly, the scene dissolved around her. The sea rippled away into dust, and the ships crumbled until they were gone. The fires snuffed themselves out, plunging the Copperjah into darkness. And then, just like that, it was gone. And all that was left was the blackness. Sparkleglimmer's paws were submerged in a water that didn't feel wet.
And then, only then, did she truly realize what was happening.
"I'm dreaming, aren't I."
Indeed.
The Voice only took form in these dreams, and yet she had never seen it. Sometimes she caught a hint of its shape here and there, but it only looked like a corner or a glimpse of something much larger.
"Why are you showing me all this again?" Sparkleglimmer asked. "I've lived it once already."
To remind you of everything you went through. And to prepareyou for the ordeals that are to come.
The chorus of voices swirled around her, yet it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
The Plan is reaching its apex. Should you continue to aid me, you will find yourself in a favorable position when all is said and done. Yet, there are still pieces that must slot in place first. I require your assistance to finish setting the board.
"You keep going on about this plan of yours," Sparkleglimmer addressed the void. "But I haven't caught what you're building up to yet. Don't you ever plan to clue me in?"
All you need to know right now is what I require of you in the moment. I have never acted without your best interests in mind, yes?
"I don't believe you have. What do you require from me?"
Head to Paradise. The final piece of the end's beginning is waiting for you there.
~~~~\({O})/~~~~
The end of Part II.
~~~~\({O})/~~~~
~Some Ramblings From the Author~
There were two major changes I made this arc that ultimately ended up being beneficial for the story. The first was scrapping the original trajectory I had for Primarina and Braixen, and making Braixen a Zoroark. (Originally they would have attempted to frame Nickit, and Braixen actually would have been a braixen.) The second was keeping Riolu alive. Both were characters I didn't really see a need for outside of these arcs and planned to sideline or do away with. Glad I didn't do that.
For this arc, I decided to take on a more freeform writing style and structure the arc around character beats rather than plot-by-chapter. I knew that Tricky/Deerling was going to make up the first third or half of the arc, and then I wanted to segue out into the broader conflict with the Ancient Barrow and the Expedition Society's troubles. I think on the whole, this made things a bit easier to put together! But it also meant that I had more trouble keeping track of the logistics (what happened on what day, HAPPI's movements in the background, what was going on in the Voidlands, etc).
One of my major initiatives with this arc was bridging a gap between the canon material and the more original direction I'd like to take this fic going forward. While the first arc was able to strike a healthy balance of using the canon events as framework and supplementing with original content, essentially 90% of this arc was original material – and the only events I had cemented in my head when I began was the Deerling Day festival and that I'd be using the school ghosthunting/Ancient Barrow trip at the end. Stephen King's IT is a book/movie that left a big impact on me, and I tried to transpose a lot of its elements and structure to this arc – especially when writing the finale.
I also wanted to use the background to board set the larger world while I still could without it being cumbersome and putting a stopper on the actual story. To that end, I worry that I may have fallen into the pitfall trap that most large fantasy stories fall into when board setting – by doing the board setting, but not providing much to latch onto among all the one-off content. (though it's all due to become directly relevant next arc, so even if it is an issue, it's one that I feel I could live with.)
From a meta standpoint, wow this arc was hard to put together. I published weekly with a backlog of only five chapters, and the first COVID-19 lockdown (and the ensuing chaos that followed) threw a huge wrench in my buffer. It got down to the point where I was crunching hard to publish a chapter the week after I wrote it, and when the scope eventually got too big for me to keep it all going, I lapsed and burnt out. Chapters 21 – 26 were all published hideously late, and still require a lot of touchups as of this writing. It 100% did not go smoothly all the way through! And for future arcs I'll definitely want to be going at a more manageable pace/have a monster backlog so I don't end up in a situation like that again.
But now for some commentary on the latter half of the arc!
By now, it should be clear that the "Traitor" character is in fact not Nuzleaf, but rather Principal Simipour. (And indeed, if you've been paying super extra attention, those random numbers at the top of my chapters might spell a message...)This is one I knew I was doing from the very start, especially since Nuzleaf's lessened significance upon the story meant making him the Traitor would be a harder and less powerful twist. I looked at how Simipour always seemed like he was about to nod off whenever he appeared in the canon game, and considering the significance of the In Between here and the fact that I wasn't doing the Nuzleaf Twist, it just lined up wonderfully.
I also had a lot of fun writing the Ancient Barrow portion of the arc, as well as fleshing out the idea of the Void Shadows and what happens if you get petrified in the real world. And honestly, I just had fun doing more in the Voidlands. I've read a total of one (1) other fic that actually employs or has reached the Voidlands/Shadows, so it was cool to basically be broaching (to my knowledge) new territory for fanfiction. I had particular fun with the void shadows, especially writing their chieftain Nyarlathotep. Nyarlathotep is a name that I chose both for the creepy Lovecraft effect, but also because Lovecraftian Nyarlathotep is a chaos loving demon with a thousand faces who serves a greater evil. Which I feel pretty much sums my Nyarlathotep up. I'll admit that the whole thing was a spur of the moment decision + scope creep + things (mostly) falling into place, though. I was basically tearing my hair out with what I wanted to do for the Barrow portion (since having it be the vanilla Litwick encounter seemed like a bit of a letdown) + how I was going to explain where the Shadow that attacked Pokemon Plaza came from, and it absolutely would not have worked if I had done Chapter 20 even a little bit differently.
Some readers have asked me if Serenity Village is going to get the spotlight again later, along with some of the more minor characters. And the answer is, yes! It would be remiss not to (and I just love the setting). But... not next arc. As this special episode hopefully accomplished, I'm hoping to use this opportunity to "pan out" towards the broader world and give the Expedition Society and a few other places the spotlight for a bit. Hopefully you've enjoyed what's been written thus far, and didn't think things were too unresolved! I respond actively to all questions, thoughts, and criticisms, so if you have something to ask or say, don't hesitate to reach out. Until next time!
Music of the Week!
You Will Rule This Land Someday – Sonya Belousova, Giona Ostinalli