4. Accumula Town
"The crowd was excellent," Ghetsis said. He chuckled and rubbed his hands together.
"I don't get it," Candice said. "I think they all just looked confused."
"They didn't get it at all," Helena agreed. She shook her head, "I don't think I get it, either."
"Don't you?" Ghetsis asked. "Do you really not understand?"
He sounded honestly curious, and I could not spot any of his telltale marks of irritation. His good mood must be genuine indeed. Usually, he was not so tolerant of ignorance.
"What I accomplished today may not be apparent, but if you understand people it is painfully obvious. Rex!" Ghetsis said. "Tell me why this crowd was better than our last one."
"I don't know, Lord Ghetsis," I said. "Maybe because..."
"I don't require an answer immediately," Ghetsis said, but there was a snideness in his tone that made me bristle. "You told me you watched the crowds like I do. If that's true, then you noticed what was missing here. Take a moment to think, and then phrase your answer as a statement."
Candace and Marcus laughed. I felt my ears go red and I adverted my face to hide my wrathful glare. Why was Ghetsis mocking me in front of the others? He was mocking me. I had heard him use this same tone with an opinionated trainer a few towns back. At the time, I had been proud as he sent her slinking to the back of the crowd to jeers and catcalls. Now I felt bad for her. His rhetoric hurt when he wanted it to.
I sighed, and forced my thoughts away from my smarting pride. What had I noticed about the crowd today? Well, the presence of my Lord N certainly ranked highest. Lord N. Just the thought made me shiver. Had anyone else noticed him? I did not think so. Surely someone would have said something, and Ghetsis had not brought it up. Maybe he did not want to panic anyone, because he had to have seen N. I was half tempted to run back to the plaza and see if N was still there. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him, and what better way to learn than ask the one who made the rules? How long had I yearned to sit at N's feet and look up at him, listening to his truth and steadied by the conviction in his eyes...
Remembered devastation rose up so fast that I felt my eyes water. My last encounter with Lord N had been, quite literally, a soul-shattering experience. He was nothing but a boy, but he strode fearlessly onto my job site. My pokémon had not stopped him. They just stopped working and watched him. That was what had alerted me to his presence. I rounded on him and blistered him with words. I had worked in construction for eighteen years and I had been my own boss for three of them. I knew my way around the language. When he did not leave, I challenged him to a battle. When he revealed that he had no pokémon, I laughed. He was young, but not that young. Instead, he challenged me to a different battle. He gave me a dare.
"Rex," Ghetsis prompted. "Sometime today, if you would."
I looked up as if I had been slapped. The question, what was the question?
"What was different about this crowd?" I said.
Ghetsis sighed.
"You don't know," he said. He looked disappointed. "Next time, say so. It will save us all time..."
"They weren't hostile!" I said abruptly. I was as surprised as everyone else at the statement, but it was true. No one had heckled us, or tried to challenge us to a battle, or even looked angry. Instead, they were just confused, floored by the foreign ideas that Ghetsis injected into their world.
"Very good, Rex," Ghetsis said. His good humor restored, he started his lecture, "It is apparent that none of you have ever been teachers. Instructing others is my calling, so I have taught quite a few. It is easier to teach a stupid student than a belligerent one.
Yes, it is true. A stupid child requires time and patience, but if the teacher has those, he can be made to learn. An angry child, though, refuses to hear you. A teacher can explain a concept over and over, but no matter what he says or how well he words it, the child will refuse to understand.
The stupid child is what we have here today. They do not understand, so they need to be told again. There are none among them with firm foundations. Not one of them could speak their point with any believable conviction. Now, all I have to do is tell them again, before they have time to start building that conviction, before they again rationalize the lies that have governed our interactions with pokémon for these countless ages."
Ghetsis was on a roll now. This had not happened before, but it was obvious to us that he would probably go on for a while. Justin and Candace looked glassy-eyed, Wilhelm was unperturbed, Marcus yawned, Zarah studied something in the distance, and Helena was doing an admirable job of pretending to listen or trying to understand.
I soaked up the instruction, but not with the fervor that had driven me yesterday and this morning. Seeing N had sparked my drive for knowledge, and also brought to surface the painful reminder of why I had joined Team Plasma in the first place. There were people in that crowd right now that were wheeling in shock, directionless, and with no one to answer their questions. Hearing Ghetsis speak about teaching made me angry. If he really believed that...
"Then why did we leave?" I asked. It came out sharper than I had intended and sounded unabashedly accusatory. Ghetsis faltered midword and six pairs of eyes turned to stare. They weren't so glassy anymore.
Ghetsis recovered first, and almost instantly. His eye narrowed and his lips compressed into a tight line.
"We left because I decreed it," he said. His voice was chill as Froslass breath. There was no mistaking the state of his good humor.
"At this moment, there are people back there. Admittedly, they may be few, but they are there. They're not 'stupid children,' but they don't understand. Right now, those people are feeling convicted right here," I slapped my fist over my heart for emphasis. "They're confused and they're frightened, but they can hear the truth and they recognize it. They have questions, they want to understand, but they can't!"
The other grunts' eyes were darkening now with confusion; however, there was understanding in them too. I could feel myself rallying. The crowd was on my side.
"As you said yourself, the pokémon and trainer relationship has been ingrained for years. To move that aside, and plant new ideas is a feat in and of itself, but we leave! It's like telling that child there's such a thing as numbers, and then expecting him to learn to add two and two by himself. If he can't that doesn't make him stupid, it just means he needs instruction. What's worse is that he craves it, but it's snatched from him before he can learn! That's not just wrong, it's stup...!"
Ghetsis slapped me.
"That's enough," he said, his voice only a shade away from a hiss.
I felt significantly less bold now. Earlier today I had offended Ghetsis, and he had been scary then. The cold remoteness of his displeasure was nothing compared to his anger. A lesser man would have been shaking, trembling with rage, but Ghetsis was still. Besides the slap, he could have been a statue. Only the blazing of his eye and the snarl on his lips betrayed his emotions.
"You have disappointed me," he said. Chills ran down my spine, and I felt as if I had been frozen and then paralyzed.
"Do you dare presume to understand my plans? Do you dare to raise your face to me? You insolent lillipup! You can open your mouth and string words together, as even a chatot can, and yet you really believe that you are in anyway my equal? Do you really think you have the right to challenge me on anything?"
Ghetsis spoke in a soft voice when he was angry. Usually, his voice was a carrying thing, even in normal tones. His speaker's voice was powerful, loud, and charismatic. I had never heard his voice soft before and, now, I hoped never to hear it again. The soft words slid out of his mouth and bored into my brain, where they hardened instantly and sliced white-hot numbness across my consciousness.
Suddenly Ghetsis smiled, but to me it looked more like he bared his fangs. He set a hand on my shoulder and I instinctively flinched. I tried to back away, but his hold was firm. I missed his rage. I trusted it more. Now that he was smiling I was even more afraid.
"It's true that your little words interested me. As is my nature, as is my calling, I indulged you. I gave to you my time, and I offered you my knowledge," Ghetsis said patronizingly. He gripped my shoulder harder. I could feel his neatly manicured nails biting into my flesh. "However, it was an indulgence, Rex. Because you interested me, and I chose to amuse myself with you. I am no longer amused. You would do well from here on out to remember your place and to recall mine. What are you, Rex?"
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Instead, I felt my stomach lurch unpleasantly and the ground swirled around my feet. Ghetsis smiled in a way that was both pitying and predatory. His hand remained clamped to my shoulder in a way that looked friendly enough, but was really bruisingly brutal. He turned to the other grunts and motioned to Candace.
"It seems Rex's vaunted oratory skills have deserted him, so perhaps you can remind us all what Rex's station really is, hmm Candace?"
"He... He's a grunt sir," Candace said uncomfortably.
"That is true, although I recall your earlier impression of him to be more amusing," Ghetsis said. Although he spoke humorously, everyone could hear the dangerous edge to his voice. Candace squirmed at the reminder of her earlier antics. She did not seem to find them so funny now.
"Wilhelm, you've been quiet through this. Rex would do well to learn from you, but enlighten us. Am I not a Sage of Team Plasma?"
"You are, Lord Ghetsis," Wilhelm replied, unperturbed.
"Are not Sages chosen for their wisdom and their knowledge?" Ghetsis asked. "Justin?"
"Uh, yes?" Justin hazarded.
"Have any of you reason to suspect that I am deficient in either of those areas?" Ghetsis looked around the circle, meeting everyone's eyes one by one instead of all at once. As his gaze turned on them, every one met it for only a few seconds before ducking their heads in embarrassment. Even Wilhelm looked uncomfortable.
"None of you? Are you certain? Now is the time to speak up," Ghetsis urged, and it sounded so sincere that I actually looked at him just to make sure. He looked sincere, but when he turned his gaze back to me, the illusion cracked and a cruel smile spread across his face.
"Well, Rex? Do you doubt my sagicy?" he asked.
"No, Lord Ghetsis," I replied in a hoarse whisper.
"Speak up. Have you already forgotten the importance of conviction in a speech?" Ghetsis chided.
I was already flushed, but now I wished a trapinch would open its gaping maw and swallow me. Ghetsis could strike wells of shame better than anyone I'd ever met.
"Now, let's try this again. Do you doubt me?" Ghetsis asked me.
"No," I said, careful to speak at a normal tone.
"Do you believe me worthy of the status conferred upon me?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. I was too afraid to say anything else.
"Do you accept that I know best?"
"Yes," I managed, swallowing around the snorlax sized lump in my throat.
"Good. I'm pleased that we understand each other. It will keep these unfortunate misunderstandings to a minimum," Ghetsis said. He released my shoulder and instead cupped the back of my head. I stiffened at the feel of his fingers twining through my hair, afraid of what he might do. Instead of a harsh tug, though, he merely leaned forward and planted a kiss on my brow.
"Now, be at peace," Ghetsis said. He removed his touch from me. That alone went a long way toward making me feel at peace.
Ghetsis motioned to the others,
"Shall we continue?"
Silently, and with uneasy hearts, we did. Ghetsis, however, wore a smug, self-satisfied smirk the whole way back to the hotel.