Whew. Sorry about the long delay between the first and second chapters, folks. Who's ready for chapter two?
Giallo watched as King N paced around an otherwise empty hallway of the Plasma Castle, muttering so quickly to himself that Giallo couldn't quite make out the king's individual words. The sage stroked his beard and stepped forward from the doorway to join the king in the hall. He cleared his throat.
"Is something troubling you, my Lord N?" asked Giallo.
N stopped walking at the sudden awareness of the sage's presence. He turned to look at Giallo.
"I had hoped New Unova would be united by now," said N.
Giallo took a deep breath and nodded his agreement. "Some people are resistant to the will of fate," he said somberly. "In time, we will reunite and free them from their old-fashioned ways."
"I am going to visit Virbank and Nacrene personally to convince the resistance to cease their fighting. I don't care if the sages are against it. Pokémon are being hurt and I know I can convince them to change." Giallo's encouraging smile dropped as he wondered whether the king had heard him.
"I understand your desire, Lord N. Zinzolin and Ghetsis agreed with me that you should go during the meeting, but the other four sages either felt it would endanger your safety or that you are more needed in central Unova at the moment."
N blinked.
"Ghetsis voted for me going in person? He told me he was against the idea when he relayed the sages' decision. He said he was worried for my well-being. When I told him I cared more about the pokémon being forced to fight than myself he told me that if I was hurt by the resistance it could risk the stability of New Unova."
"He probably thought it more prudent to merely provide the consensus we reached than trouble you with the details," Giallo reasoned aloud. He stepped closer to the king and allowed the reassuring smile to return to his lips. "Please be patient for now, my lord. The knights are doing everything they can to bring the resistance in without pokémon casualties."
N frowned.
"Knights... I need to find the formula to make the day the knights aren't needed happen sooner."
...
Lacunosa Town had always moved like clockwork. The citizens of the walled town easily adjusted to events that would otherwise interrupt daily routine. When the Pokémon Center lost its League funding and closed its doors, the people of Lacunosa adjusted. When Team Plasma's rule of the League expanded to rule of Unova's entire government, people adjusted. Those who kept their pokémon despite the dirty looks eventually found stored ones had simply vanished from the PC. When they objected to this, they were in turn met with questions about how long they had ignored the stored pokémon and how long it took to even notice their absence. Soon access to the storage system was removed entirely, followed swiftly by the revocation of trainer's licenses and laws that made keeping pokémon illegal.
Still, life went on as life does in times of change. The children of Lacunosa Town still attended school and their parents still went to their jobs, provided their jobs had nothing to do with the manufacturing of poké balls or similar businesses. The new curfew meant nothing to people who had already spent their lives making sure they were home before dark so the fabled monster of the Giant Chasm would not spirit them away for a snack. Tucked behind its walls in the northeast corner of Unova, Lacunosa Town remained free of the strife that bubbled up elsewhere in the region. The more things changed, the more Lacunosa showed how it earned its motto: Methodical and Orderly.
Doris was most struck with how quickly things settled into their new ways. It felt as though one night she was dreaming about her upcoming pokémon journey only for the morning light to bring about a total rejection of such foolhardy fantasy. Her tenth birthday came and went with no more fanfare than any other anniversary of her birth, and she did not expect anything more. She wished she could have... but no, that was wrong of her to think. Traveling around imprisoning wild animals when she had no proper knowledge or training to handle the creatures would be cruel. Besides, it would interfere with her schooling. How else would she have encountered such thrilling works as Collector Neglector: Why Ordinary People Shouldn't Raise Pokémon?
Her parents often advised that she keep her head down and avoid voicing any opinions that could be disagreeable, such as missing the liepard that once lived in their home and wondering about how she was doing now. She should pretend not to notice the occasional braviary or unfezent flying in the distance because watching it for too long could lead to trouble. When it was possible to avoid members of Team Plasma, she should do so, and she should answer their questions as concisely and honestly as possible if she had to encounter them.
They were scared of Team Plasma.
At school Team Plasma and the king were praised at the start of every day for their actions in bringing about a better world for people across Unova. The teachers smiled, some even with enthusiasm, and told their students that the best thing for every New Unovan child to do was work hard to restore and maintain New Unova's greatness as the center for human innovation and culture. It was even possible, though unlikely, that particularly impressive students may be chosen for training as knights for Team Plasma. Knights were chosen for being uniquely skilled and thus allowed the rare privilege of using pokémon to defend New Unova from threats, both external and internal. Knights. The word itself sounded so heroic and romantic. They were the ones to truly bring peace and prosperity to the region. Of course, you weren't supposed to want to be a knight. You were selected by your virtues for the status.
They taught her to love Team Plasma.
Doris felt her stomach tighten whenever she tried to compare how her parents and the school encouraged her to feel.
She felt the same uncomfortable sensation now as she stood on a bridge overlooking a street where three knights, identifiable by their uniforms which resembled medieval armor emblazoned with the Plasma Shield on the chest, were gathered around the door to old man Wilson's house. Doris stared, transfixed. The uniforms were what the whole team had worn back when Team Plasma first started out but she'd never seen anyone dressed in the knight attire so close before. It felt somehow fake, like she'd accidentally walked into a fantasy story where knights and maidens and adventures were the norm, only warped and twisted with the sensation of having done something to be in deep trouble because you weren't supposed to see knights around these parts unless you had done something to earn their presence. She brushed the feeling aside as best she could. They weren't at her door, after all.
"Wha'daya think he did?" whispered a tall boy with glasses who was also observing the scene from the bridge. Doris knew his name was Alan or Alex or something like that but she had rarely spoken with him because he was a grade ahead of her.
"Dunno yet," said a girl with pigtails from Doris's right side. Jess shared her classes with Doris. She rocked forward onto her tiptoes as though hoping the slight height increase it afforded would grant her answers.
"Come on," whined a smaller boy a year or two younger than Doris. "If we're late to school we'll get in trouble. Especially hanging out here." It was clear to everyone listening that the emphasis was less about the specific location than the events the school-age group was observing from there.
"Oh don't be a baby, Nick," said the boy with glasses. "I wanna see how this plays out."
Doris felt inclined to agree with Nick. This didn't strike her as an appropriate spectator sport. But she couldn't seem to make her mouth move or look away from the knights. It was just so odd. Knights. Here. In peaceful, boring Lacunosa Town, so far from the disorder of the southern portion of New Unova. She noticed her mouth feeling dry and licked her lips.
On the street below the bridge two of the knights vanished beyond Mr. Wilson's front door. Minutes ticked by without the pair emerging. Doris shifted her weight as she tried to convince herself to just move on from the scene. As she began to suggest this to the other students the remaining visible knight leaned against the large car in which the trio had arrived and glanced upward. He waved a hand toward the bridge and made eye contact with the group of kids, his face unreadable.
At once the gathered group of onlookers stiffened. None of them were quite sure what they were supposed to do. Nick was about to bolt but the boy with glasses grabbed his hand, more aware than his younger brother that running would likely lead to more trouble. He waved back shakily with his free hand and shrugged apologetically.
"Get to school," shouted the knight. He laughed to himself when the kids jumped in surprise.
Doris and the other kids breathed a collective sigh of relief and began turning toward the west side of the bridge. As they began walking, Doris glanced back to see one of the other knights emerging from the house. This knight was carrying a transparent tank with a plastic lid in her hands. Doris paused, causing Jess to bump into her from behind and look as well. Something small, yellow, and fuzzy was moving about inside the container.
"A joltik," Doris whispered. Jess gasped audibly and the two boys paused and looked back as well.
The knight placed the container holding the bright yellow bug into the back of the car and strapped it into place as two other figures walked out from Mr. Wilson's house. Old man Wilson, hands cuffed behind his back, was being roughly prodded forward by the other knight.
The knight who had been outside the whole time rolled his eyes and shouted up to the bridge again. "I thought I told you to get to where you're supposed to be! Do you need an escort?"
"We're going, we're going!" Doris called out, quickly redirecting her eyes to the bridge in front of her.
"No, help!" old man Wilson shouted up at the children, eyes wide. "I didn't know a joltik had gotten in! I'm innocent!"
"Move along, kids." The knight crossed his arms and took a single warning step toward the stairs leading up to the bridge.
"R-right away, sir!" said the boy with glasses. He gripped Nick's hand harder and tugged the younger boy along. Doris and Jess followed suit, glancing back only once each.
Doris felt her stomach knot. She reminded herself that she didn't know what had actually happened. A pokémon was in Mr. Wilson's house. She was just a passerby with no knowledge of whether it had been there on its own, somehow ignoring the repel spray or if Mr. Wilson was indeed guilty of keeping the joltik there.
Let the knights sort that out. That's their job, she thought, trying to ignore the old man's pleas of innocence behind her as they were cut off by a car door slamming shut. She tried to shake off the look she'd seen in his eyes. Someone who looked that frightened... Doris felt a twinge of guilt and suppressed her desire to help the distressed man.
If he's innocent they'll find evidence for it and let him go. Otherwise, he wasn't innocent. It's nothing I can be expected to deal with. I don't know what happened.
The four kids crossed the end of the bridge and Alan or Alex or whatever his name was let out a whoop.
"What was that? Did you see that?" he asked. The other three huffed and puffed to catch their breaths instead of answering the rhetorical question.
"Is old man Wilson gonna go to jail?" Nick asked his brother.
"He had a pokémon! Can you believe it?" The older boy continued seemingly without hearing Nick. "What was he gonna do with it, d'ya think?"
"He said he didn't know it was there, though," Jess pointed out. She bit her lip.
"Oh come on. Of course he said that, stupid. Do you really think three knights just go knocking on random doors without a reason? He must have known it was there or the knights wouldn't have had enough to go on to even check!"
"They can, though," said Doris. "Check on anywhere they want without having to say a reason, I mean."
"Without having to say a reason, dummy. Of course they have an actual reason or they'd be wasting their time going everywhere!" What's-his-Al's face lit up with excitement. "It's not like a pokémon would want to go past all the spray to get to the middle of town. What do you think he wanted with it?"
"Maybe it was his. From before," Jess reasoned aloud.
"Oh, sure, go for the boring option," said Al. "Use some imagination." Doris and Jess exchanged confused glances and the older boy rolled his eyes sardonically.
"An old geezer wanting to spend time with his old pet is just too dull and heartwarming. Sure, it's what probably happened. But just imagine!" Al's smile widened on the last word. "Like, he could have been hoping to use it to eat a bunch of electricity to cause blackouts or something cool like that."
It was Doris's turn to roll her eyes. "One joltik wouldn't be enough to cause a blackout even if it had the biggest appetite a joltik ever had."
"How would you know?" asked Al. Doris knew he didn't mean any more by the comment than annoyance at her shutting down his fantasy but she felt her heart skip a beat. She really shouldn't know something along those lines, should she?
"Think of the size of it, Alex," said Jess. "Something that tiny couldn't eat the electricity of a house." Doris let go of her held breath and Alex pouted. Doris mentally thanked Jess for both the explanation and the clarification of Al's name.
"Are you sure? Well, maybe he was gonna train it to attack people."
"Why are you so excited about this?" asked Jess.
"Because everything is booooooring and some unassuming old dude turning out to be some sort of rebel would be awesome," said Alex. "And, hey, knights were involved. Maybe I'm right."
"Maybe," Doris conceded, "but, I don't know, I just really don't think we should be talking about this." She nodded toward her watch to indicate that they'd be late soon.
Alex's bravado faltered for a moment. "Goody-two-shoes," he murmured. He started walking toward the school building again, however. Quickly. "Come on, bro! Hurry it up!"
The quartet of children continued to the school in silence, save for the occasional half-laugh-half-pant from Alex. Although they arrived before the bell the security guard gave them a disdainful glare as they passed through the door into the entrance hall and muttered something about carelessness and cutting it close under his breath just loud enough for all four students to hear.
...
Class began as usual with the Pledge of Loyalty to King N and New Unova. Doris mumbled the words along with her classmates, but her mind was elsewhere. Her heart was still beating with excitement over the memory of the small, yellow bug as it crawled around its tank. It was the closest she'd been to a pokémon in three-and-a-half years, give or take a few months. Something inside her rumbled and shook with the urge to be near it, to pet it, to let it crawl up her arm. People used to do things like that. That sort of behavior would probably only lead to her receiving an electric shock, of course. The joltik probably wasn't too happy to be cooped up in a human's home.
Why did Mr. Wilson have it in his house?
The older man's face flashed across Doris's memory as she mouthed the last words of the pledge and sank into her seat.
He'd looked terrified.
Doris shook her head and took out her pen to take notes on Mr. Reed's lecture. The teacher began to drone about the Icirrus Release, a mass liberation of pokémon by the residents of Icirrus City that happened a month after King N defeated the old league. The way he told it seemed different somehow from what Doris vaguely remembered seeing on television at the time but it was possible that she just remembered it wrong. She'd been a little kid after all.
If he knew it was there, then that's on him. If he was innocent, they'll figure that out.
Doris realized she'd not heard part of what Mr. Reed said and quickly picked up copying his words where she'd tuned back into class.
It has nothing to do with me, she told herself firmly.
The beep of the intercom being turned on caused Mr. Reed to slow his lecture to a brief halt.
"Francine Wilson to the front office now please. Francine Wilson to the front office. Thank you," said the slightly distorted voice of one of the school's office staff.
Doris's stomach felt as though a large rock had settled in it. Francine Wilson. Lacunosa was certainly small enough that it was very likely to not be a coincidental sharing of a last name. It could, however, easily be a coincidental circumstance that made the front office call on someone related to the old man who'd had a pokémon in his house.
Right?
Mr. Reed resumed his lesson as though there had been no interruption. Doris fidgeted in her seat and turned her pen in her hand, no longer taking notes. The lump in her stomach churned uncomfortably and she knew she would be distracted for the long haul at this point.
Is this even related to that? Did whatever Wilson did involve his family too? Or is Francine being called as a witness or something? Is she in trouble? I kinda know her now that I think about it. I've seen her at lunch. I think she's in the same class as Alex.
Doris twirled the pen between her fingers. She noticed herself breathing faster.
I mean, this could be completely unrelated to what her... grandfather? uncle? did with that joltik. And either way, it's not about me.
Still...
Curiosity inched its way in where her discomfort had been. She knew she was only a hallway or two away from the front office. Just a glimpse might be able to tell her whether this was related to the morning's incident.
Or it might not tell me anything. What am I supposed to see? A girl walking into a school office? Knights lined up at the door like there's some sort of inquisition going on? A closed door because all I'd see anyway is just that?
Mr. Reed continued talking.
Well, if I don't see anything, I probably won't see anything. And it's not like I'm paying attention anyway... Doris let her hand drop into her bag to remove a tissue. She pressed it to her nose and raised her hand.
"Miss Jaboca?" said Mr. Reed.
"Uh... I have a nosebleed. May I be excused to the bathroom?" asked Doris. She hoped her voice sounded more natural to her class and teacher than it did to herself.
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Reed. "Just hurry back as soon as it lightens up enough to deal with in class."
Doris was glad her hand was positioned over her face to hide her brief smile as Mr. Reed scribbled out a hall pass. Doris took it with her free hand and jogged out the door, turning down the hall toward the bathrooms.
Which happened to also be the corner toward the front office.
Doris felt her shoulders loosen as soon as she was in the hallway. It was empty even of the occasional teachers who would check hall passes, who must have been making their rounds elsewhere in the building. Her quickened heart rate now was not from anticipation but from triumph.
She walked past the bathrooms and pressed herself against the wall to peak around the corner before turning. The coast was clear. So was the next hallway. Doris eyed the security camera mounted near the ceiling warily. Was anyone actually watching that? It was too late to back out, she told herself. She only needed to be at the corner at the end of this hall to be able to get the office in view. If she didn't see anything unusual then she'd go back and assume the mystery wasn't anything important after all.
The door was in sight and it was closed. Doris's body sank and she let out a sigh. There was nothing to see. Even if there had been, she'd probably missed it sitting in the classroom. Even stretching her neck didn't allow her to see any more of what was in the office than a small portion of a bookshelf against a tan wall through the tiny vertical window on the door.
How long could she wait before she was gone too long or spotted by a teacher? Doris turned her head back to the hallway she was in to make sure no one had appeared behind her. She straightened her back and pouted.
I'll give it to the count of ten. One, two, three... four... five... She glanced behind her again, then looked back. Six... sev-
Something moved into the view through the small window. It was someone's arm covered in a thick, light blue sleeve that ended above the elbow to reveal a black sleeve beneath it like a knight's uniform. Doris gasped and pressed herself into the wall.
There really is a knight here. In the office old man Wilson's relative was called to. This can't be coincidence. And they're a knight, not just some low level Plasma enforcer. Doris looked around the corner again. Maybe she was mistaken and just saw what she wanted to see.
The sleeve was still visible in the small window and still unmistakably that of a knight of Team Plasma.
What do I do now? This still isn't any of my business and I didn't really have a plan for if I saw anything. Doris berated herself for following curiosity's siren call. Calm down. Just go back to class... Everything will be sorted out and I'll know for sure whether anything happens because I see Francine Wilson at lunch all the time.
What do I do if something does happen?
No. Just worry about myself and go back to class.
Doris looked down at the crumpled hall pass in her hand. Would it matter that she'd squeezed it into a ball in her palm? She backed down the hallway, away from the front office and jogged back through the hallways.
She ducked into the bathroom instead of returning to class. As soon as she closed the door behind her she collapsed into a squat on the floor and hugged herself. She focused on shutting down her racing thoughts and slowing her breathing.
Why was she so scared?
When Doris felt she was calm enough to stand she slowly rose to her feet and leaned over the sink. Something was happening. But it wasn't anything she could do anything about. She just had to go about her life and keep her head down. She'd learn more in time or she wouldn't. She just had to go back to class.
Doris realized she was still clutching the tissue in her other hand and discarded it in the waste basket by the sink. She took a few more deep breaths and gave herself one last look in the mirror. She looked pale, but otherwise normal.
Doris opened the door and walked into the hall.
And nearly bumped into a man in a knight uniform.