She spent the next several hours alone. Shiloh turned the screen on, and started cycling it through news channels. Most of them were talking about boring stuff like the evacuation, but a few had said more about him. They had actual special forces out there looking for him.
She cried some, but not as much as she expected. Mostly she surrounded herself with the stuffed toys, explaining her various plans of escape. They didn't reply, but she could imagine they did.
They spoke with the voices of professors she knew, rivals she had beaten, former champions. They egged her on, encouraging her to keep fighting. Then they laughed at all her ideas.
Then the little door opened, and someone appeared outside. A small, green figure, carrying something in her mouth. A little plastic tray, with washed and sliced berries resting atop it.
"I'm not hungry," Shiloh lied, sitting up. Her ears folded backward, and she hastily pushed over one of the dolls. The little mew. "You can go."
The Pokémon ignored her, and brought the tray into the center of the room. Then she looked up. "At our age, we usually eat several times a day. We have milk if you can't do solid foods, but that's mostly for the kittens. You look more like a bird."
Her tone was at once familiar and different. She'd heard that speech pattern before, and somehow recognized the mind behind it. But it sounded so much more feminine.
She sat back against the wall. "You're the Shaymin from outside. You're in land forme now."
She nodded. "Sharp. Not many humans know how we work. Maybe you really are a Pokémon master. What does that mean?"
She sniffed at the tray. These were enigma berries, some of the rarest on the planet. No wonder Pokémon liked them so much—that taste was so incredible she could barely comprehend it.
Then she realized the shaymin was staring, and she pulled back, blushing. "It means that I can train anything out there. It means that I've caught all the common varieties of Pokémon known to science, and many rare ones too. I hold badges from gyms in half a dozen regions."
Up close, the shaymin didn't seem half as intimidating. She was smaller than Shiloh, at least in this form. Without the teeth or claws of a fox, she didn't seem very threatening. Except that she still radiated the raw power of a dangerous legendary.
No anger or hostility, though. Shiloh could only sense her curiosity. "I think Lane must be impressed with you. Changing someone into a legendary is hard for her—and you're not even a kitten."
Shiloh grunted unhappily, then selected a single berry from the plate. It wasn't entirely unheard-of for humans to eat berries like this. She could lie all she wanted, but she hadn't eaten for what felt like days. Shiloh was starving.
She took her first bite, then couldn't stop herself from taking a second. Fresh, juicy, and impossibly rare. It was fitting cuisine for a legendary Pokémon, all things considered.
"If she was impressed with me, she shouldn't have captured me. I have a life outside—thousands of fans. The Kanto Defense Force is searching for me."
Aspen settled into a sitting position. At least she radiated comfort. The strange carpet was soft, finer than wurmple silk. "The way she sees it, and the kittens she gets to join us—they see it as an improvement. We live a lot longer than humans do, and we're a lot stronger. Miya and Goh would never understand why you would want to be human." She tilted her head to the side. "Don't you feel it?"
She shook her head once, but didn't look away from her food. Her attention was so focused on eating that she thought of little else. That alone restored some of her strength. "I feel tiny and useless. When I walked into a gym, I made women swoon continents away. I struck fear into my opponents. My Pokémon weren't just loyal, but powerful. I might not be as strong as any of you individually, but with my team, I would be a force that Lane couldn't stop."
"And you just fought for fun?" she asked, scooting a little closer. Strange that she seemed so feminine now, when Aspen had been so bold and masculine before. She couldn't get a good look under those leaves to know for sure, but the thought of doing that only made her blush all over again.
"Yes. I was a Pokémon master. I only trained Pokémon with the same spirit of victory that I had. We trained to win, and we did. I was almost undefeated."
As quickly as she started eating, Shiloh already felt full. She might be hungry, but there wasn't much room in that little stomach. No wonder the "kittens" had to eat so often.
She sat back against the wall in an almost human way, stretching. She felt a little bloated, but that would pass.
"I guess it makes sense she chose Victini. You were like... the best trainer ever. And now you're the strongest Pokémon ever. I don't know anyone who has ever met one of you, unless it's Mom playing pretend. But that doesn't count."
She shrugged. "I didn't think they were real. Not like you—everyone knows that shaymin exist. There are videos of the migrations, and a few trainers who had shaymin on their teams. I sometimes dressed like a victini because I was the spirit of victory that other trainers could only dream of."
"I'm sure they still will," Aspen said. "Some of them might dream of catching you. That's what... humans do, isn't it? Catch us, put us in those little balls..." She sighed. "I think it's wrong, what Lane did to you. The others all came here because they wanted to, but you didn't. It's not fair. If I could help you back, I would."
Shiloh saw the opportunity before her as clearly as a poké ball closing on something rare and valuable. She had spent months searching for an opportunity to capture Mew. Maybe she'd gone about it all wrong, but that didn't mean she was impatient. She could use this.
"What will she do with me?" Shiloh asked, keeping her tone as even as possible. With Mew, hiding how she felt would be a doomed endeavor, obviously impossible. But this was not a mew—Shaymin couldn't read her thoughts. "Just keep me here forever?"
"No," Aspen began. "Not like that. Lane doesn't keep prisoners—these Pokémon are here because they don't know how to fend for themselves. Once they grow up, they can leave. But that takes time. Some of the recruits really wanted to learn about their powers, and as soon as they knew they could set off into the world. Others just lost interest as soon as they joined, and now they float around doing nothing."
She muttered a name under her breath, but Shiloh didn't care enough to hear it. "Anyway, that's why you have to stay. Once you have your powers, you'll be able to go off anytime you want. Find your own territory, live your own life. I think victini usually live in Unova?"
I don't need to learn anything, she thought. There's at least one Pokémon professor who can change me back. I just need to get in touch with him.
Of course Shiloh didn't actually know any of those details. He'd just read something about a matter-energy conversion accident, several years back. Let other people worry about the specifics when the time came.
"Is there anything stopping me from leaving sooner?" she asked. She was pushing it with every word, and had to be careful here. If she misjudged the loyalty of this Pokémon, she'd be screwed. "I've been trapped here against my will, Aspen. I want to get away."
"I mean..." She gestured vaguely upward with a paw. "Fly? There's nothing stopping us, no nets or security. Other than Akiko. So long as she isn't watching, you could leave whenever."
She faced the shaymin directly, looking as pathetic as she could manage. Her ears folded back, her eyes as big as they could be. Maybe it wouldn't work on a Pokémon—it wasn't a strategy she had used while human in a long time.
She was desperate enough to try anything, if it would help her escape.
She wouldn't let that mew win, no matter what.
"And go where?" Aspen asked. Not angry, though—she could only hear curiosity there. The shaymin was interested. "If you're so weak that you can barely fly, you won't be able to take any territory. You don't want to be at the mercy of another legendary. Some of them are okay—but Lane is the only one who cares enough to teach. The rest would just want to control you."
Like Lane is any different. She didn't argue, no matter how loudly she thought it. "I don't care about territory," she said. "I have lots of friends in the human world, Aspen—friends who might be able to help me. Friends who are looking for me. It's like you said, I didn't choose this."
The shaymin shifted uncomfortably on her paws. Shiloh didn't need to read her mind to know how unhappy the question made her feel. She had spent many years training Pokémon, and knew how to read them. Legendaries weren't really that different.
"If you can fly out," she eventually said. "Not that I couldn't protect you. But if you can't even fly, you'd be too helpless out there. If you go—I'll go with you. Help you find your friends."
The Pokémon retreated again, back the way she'd come. Like she was afraid that if she stayed, she might change her mind. Shiloh watched her go without trying to stop her, feeling the thrill of victory growing. It was the same sense she had always had as a Pokémon trainer, the feeling that her odds of success were growing.
This would work, she was sure of it.
Lane the mew might have her captured at this moment. She might think she had Shiloh completely under her control.
She settled down to sleep again, curling her pathetic body for what she hoped would be one of her last nights as a Pokémon.
She expected to spend that night completely alone. She defied her instincts to try and force her to do anything else; let her mind scream out about how uncomfortable and lonely she was. Shiloh would not let her body control her; if she did, the mew won.
It felt like the Pokémon had decided to torment her through her dreams as well. Those images Lane had forced her to see, of Orre's people and Pokémon suffering, they haunted her even through her unconscious world.
This isn't my fault, she screamed into mind. I didn't hurt them. I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want to be Pokémon champion!
The world of dreams did not seem to care about her protests. She watched as her own team fell one by one to the strange mind-warping effects, becoming hostile, paranoid, and dangerously powerful. They would attack everything they came across, including humans.
Including legendary Pokémon, like a little white and red Pokémon that was also sometimes on fire. She would barely make a red smear on the carpet if Tyranitar decided to come for her. Worst of all, she would probably deserve it.
She wasn't sure how long she slept in that little box, tossing and turning with discomfort and fear. Long enough that her human self would've woken long ago. But Pokémon slept longer, particularly growing ones with powerful psychic abilities.
She was trapped in the endless nightmare, until someone arrived to wake her.
That someone wasn't Briar, or even Aspen. It came from the whirring plastic engines of quadcopter rotors, and a little camera-lens poking its way through the door. "I have been searching," it said, in English. "For Pokémon Champion Shiloh Lehman. Assignment: document capture of legendary Pokémon Mew. Task: incomplete."