Satori in Kalos

Chapter 12
Voltage 4

Satori slowly opened her eyes, her vision blurry at first. Her last memory was being pinned down by Yveltal, and the fact that she was seeing something else boded well. Unless it was heaven, in which case it did not bode well at all. Her surroundings were certainly white enough.

Her vision slowly came to though, and it became clear she was just in a hospital room. The walls were some off-white color, the floor a dark blue. She looked around and the first thing she noticed was Delphox and Pikachu in the corner of the room. Pikachu looked fast asleep, but Delphox was on alert.

It noticed Satori stirring, and shook the Pikachu to wake him up. Master, you're awake, Delphox said. Thank heavens.

Satori looked around and tried to speak. It hurt, and she resorted to just communicating with her thoughts. Where are the others?

Absol is being taken care of. She'll live. Wobbufet is there too since they just took the roster, but he's fine I imagine.

Satori relaxed a bit with the knowledge her Pokemon were safe. As she relaxed, she realized she was holding something with a very tight grip. Her palms were almost white with the strength she held it. It was a black-and-yellow pokeball. That ultra ball Sycamore had given her way back when.

Before Satori could ask what had happened, a nurse noticed she was awake and hurried into the room. She had long, flowing purple hair and wore simple nurse scrubs. Satori noticed there were some officers standing outside her room as well, glancing in.

"What..." Satori coughed as she tried to speak. "What, uh, is..."

"You're severely injured, Miss Satori." The nurse said as she started examining Satori. "You're going to be all right, but it will take time to recover. The doctor will be here soon, I've already paged her. She'll explain everything."

Satori nodded as the nurse ran a few simple tests on her. Flashing light in her eyes, poking her body and asking if she could feel it, stuff like that. The nurse seemed pleased with the results, which gave Satori some confidence. Reading her thoughts gave her more confidence.

After no more than a minute, one familiar face and another, unfamiliar face walked through the door. In the lead was Doctor Eirin, who Satori had met back at the power plant. Behind her was someone dressed in a police uniform. She had long, brown hair.

"Nice to finally meet you in person," the brown-haired person said. Satori turned her head questioningly. "I'm Hakurei Reimu," she clarified.

Satori nodded. Speaking hurt her throat, so she decided to do as little of it as possible. The doctor spoke next.

"I'll say this now, for both of you." Eirin glanced at Satori and back towards Reimu. "Satori is currently my patient and just went through a major ordeal. You will not pester her with questions until I say you can, and you will respect that."

Reimu gave a sort of disgruntled nod.

Eirin seemed satisfied with that, and turned to her nurse to ask how Satori was doing. From their thoughts Satori picked up that her name was Reisen, but not much else of use.

Satori coughed to try to get someone's attention. It apparently worked because every eye in the room turned on her. "..ahh...can someone please...tell me what's going on," she said between coughs.

Reimu's eyes widened. "Holy hell you have no idea what you did, do you?"

"What...?"

Reimu gestured towards the ultra ball Satori held in her hands. "It's Yveltal. You captured fucking Yveltal."

"That's enough, Reimu." Eirin's voice was sharp, and Reimu immediately ceased speaking. "I said no questions, Satori needs to focus on getting well. There will be plenty of time for questions later."

Reimu shuffled out of the room with a frown, but Satori's attention was focused on what she held in her hands. She didn't really believe it, but there was a definite power inside. Or maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. In any case, she really didn't want to test out Reimu's claim.

She wasn't lying, at least. Satori could tell at least that much. But as Reimu left Satori caught a much more worrying thought, and knew that Eirin planned on bringing it up. At least she had the presence of mind to shut the door first after telling Reisen to get out.

Eirin walked over to Satori and sat by her bed. "Satori, you're not human, are you?"

Satori saw it coming, but still wasn't really prepared. She shook her head.

"Can I ask? If only to keep you well."

"...satori..." She said.

"Your name?"

Satori shook her head again. "Also what I am. It means mind-reader, sort of. I'm human-like but really just..." Satori rubbed her Third Eye. "...really just a youkai."

Eirin nodded. "Don't worry, as interested as I am I won't speak of this."

After that exchange, Eirin began to treat Satori and informed her of the exact nature of all the injuries she sustained. The outlook was good, and Eirin said she was going to use the best medicine available to help cure her.

That being said, the injuries Satori had sustained were worrisome, even if they were fixable. Eirin had listed them off, but Satori was unable to keep track of such a large number. Several bones had been fractured or outright broken, and apparently she had an infection. Plus ill effects from the smoke and ash...

Eirin had ordered her to stay in bed for at least two weeks, and that was if the recovery process went well. Satori decided not to go against the doctor's orders, but she did find herself getting bored by the third day of this confinement. For some reason or other, she was not allowed visitors.

Satori managed to pick up a few tidbits of information here and there from the landscape of thoughts, but it wasn't enough to draw a solid conclusion. Most of the people were either patients who knew nothing, or doctors who were focused on curing patients. It was very busy, and although Satori had a private room it was still loud.

Delphox and Pikachu kept her company, although there wasn't much to say there. Satori never let the ball containing Yveltal out of her sight, and when she slept her Pokemon guarded it. She wasn't foolish enough to let it out here or let someone steal it.

As for why she had it in the first place though, she couldn't even fathom. She asked her two pokemon but they only described the scene: Yveltal stared down at her for a moment, and right before the police arrived it activated the ultra ball and got itself caught.

There was no reason for it to do that.

"So," Eirin said as she used some sort of medical device pressed against Satori's ear. "When I said to be really careful about your dislocated arm..."

"Things happened."

Eirin laughed. She was putting on a somewhat lighthearted mask, but Satori could tell she was weary. Satori was unable to see the aftermath of what was happening from her hospital room. The hospital seemed to have power, but the television in Satori's room displayed nothing but static.

"Can I have some books, or something?" Satori asked.

"If you're bored that's good," Eirin said. "You're pretty doped up on medicine though, keeping your concen—"

"Is there anything I can do?" Eirin thought for a moment, but Satori spoke before she could even open her mouth. "Those people who want to talk to me that you're keeping out, I think I can handle a conversation or two."

Eirin looked down. "If you insist, but if you find them stressing you out, tell me. Do not get emotional, just take it easy. Your body and mind need rest."

Satori nodded, and Eirin left to go fetch one of the many people who apparently wanted to have a conversation with her. The room seemed quiet, and the only sound was Delphox pacing around the room. Satori could tell they were getting a bit anxious after spending three days in this room with her. She would have to relieve them of that, at some point.

Two people walked into the room. The girl in front was short, even shorter than Satori. She had lime green hair and walked with great authority. The woman following behind her was much taller with a more mature body, but her attitude was subservient to the shorty in front of her. Curious.

"Ahem," the green haired cleared her throat. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Satori. I am KPD Director Shikieiki Yamaxanadu. This is my subordinate, Komachi." Komachi waved at the mention of her name, and both of them dragged a chair over towards Satori's bed to take a seat. "Your name has come up quite a bit, and—"

"You want to know my story," Satori finished. Shikieiki seemed a bit put off at being interrupted, but nodded. Satori wasn't sure exactly what to say and what not to say, but the fact that Yveltal had targeted her specifically would definitely come into question. Better to rip the bandage off now.

"I can read minds."

Satori could hear their incredulity, as expected. But after a quick demonstration of predicting some highly unlikely surface thoughts and a certain dig into something more personal between them, they seemed to concede the fact Satori wasn't lying.

From there, Satori described exactly what she had experienced during Yveltal's attack. The back and fourth between thoughts. She stopped right before disclosing Yveltal's true nature though, that secret felt like something that wasn't hers to give out so readily.

"Miss Satori," Shikieiki said. "We believe—"

"Yveltal was released because of the events at the power plant." Satori said. "Some scheme by Team Flare?"

Shikieiki looked over to her subordinate, Komachi. She had been paying attention to the story, but didn't register her boss was looking at her for a few seconds. "Oh, er," she started once she noticed. "Yeah. We're assuming they were trying to revive Yveltal, although that's up in flames now. We can't find wherever they were hiding him, it's probably destroyed."

"You think I'm in danger."

They both nodded. "The team is still at large, for the most part. We don't know their exact number but we didn't by any means capture them all."

"Tenshi," Satori noted. Shikieiki just frowned.

"You are entirely too knowledgeable for your own good."

Satori smiled at that but kept quiet.

"In any case, Miss Satori, you now have to make a choice." Shikieiki straightened in her chair. "Option one is to lock that pokeball away forever, let us obscure your role in these events and move on with your life. No one will ever know and a menace will be gone from the world. Option two is to hold onto it and use it, joining the ranks of the world's legendary trainers."

"The latter." Satori said immediately. Her visitors were caught off guard by her quick response.

"Are you sure? You may not—"

"I'm sure. There is no question."

Satori had no idea what happened when she was unconscious. But she remembered what she had said, and if it was in any way connected to the reason Yveltal surrendered then there was no way she could lock it away. Ignore it.

Not again.

"It is your choice. You're going to be famous, for better or for worse, Miss Satori. The department is going to want to take a formal report from you at some point in the future, once this whole mess is cleaned up. You'll also need to stand as a witness when we put the Team Flare members on trial. Is this acceptable?"

Satori nodded. "Are you really just going to let me keep Yveltal? I expected more resistance."

"Someone has to take responsibility, and you have decided to let it be yourself. Don't misunderstand, we will intervene if you fail to hold that responsibility. But there's precedent for this, Yveltal is not the first legendary pokemon and it won't be the last." Shikieiki crossed her arms. "Well, we won't be totally hands off. But it's been shown that treating legendaries like actual pokemon is more effective than trying to lock them away."

With that, her two visitors stood up and left. Eirin came back in a little while later, and Satori asked her if there was anyone else. Eirin said there was no one of any real importance as far as she could tell. A number of people who had witnessed the event wanted to personally thank her.

Eirin didn't let those people in, but Satori wasn't too interested in seeing them anyways. Instead Satori gave her a list of people who, if they happened to show up, she would like to talk to. The list was longer than Satori realized. She wrote down her traveling companions first, and of course Utusho and Rin after that. She would have written down her sister Koishi's name too, but it made no difference. Then for good measure she wrote down the names of the youkai she took shelter with. She had only known them for a few days, but she had liked them to a degree. Lastly she jotted down Sycamore's name, and realized she had twelvenames.

That was ten more than she really expected to ever have.

The next day some of those names showed up. It was actually the last two Satori honestly expected to see, but she couldn't deny they were the ones who she wanted to see most.

"Satori~!" Screamed Rin as she jumped into the hospital bed. Nurse Reisen looked absolutely mortified, especially as Satori winced in pain from the impact. She just kept her smile though and hugged Rin close to her chest.

Following behind Rin was Utsuho, who was about to do the same. Reisen was ready for it this time though and intercepted her. Both of them fell to the ground as Rin and Satori laughed. Utsuho recovered first and hopped over to Satori to hug her on the other side. Satori wanted to return it, but only had one good arm and Rin was currently taking it.

"How are things, you two?" Satori asked.

"Don't worry about us, worry about you." Utsuho complained. "There was all this—bam! And wow—and like, you're all hurt, and we were super super worried."

Reisen got to her feet and looked like she had some choice words to say. Satori cut her off before she could speak.

"Let them stay." It wasn't a suggestion, and Reisen backed off to go get Eirin. Satori watched her go, and then turned back to her old roommates.

"Satori, you gotta tell us the story." Rin said. "Come on, we've been good."

"Yeah, yeah, come on."

Satori scratched Rin's head and sighed. "Alright, alright."

And over the next half hour, Satori described the entirety of her experience to her visitors. They sat and listened intently, and unlike before Satori didn't leave anything out. These two deserved to hear everything in full, even the parts Satori didn't want to say herself. They were family.

Eirin had gotten near, Satori could tell from her thoughts, but had decided not to intrude. Reisen seemed upset about it but wasn't about to go against her boss's orders.

Satori asked how Rin and Utsuho managed to find her, and she said they were looking for her ever since Yveltal broke out. After it was all over, apparently the name 'Satori' became some sort of relevant keyword and they were brought back to Lumiose. Satori wasn't sure how to feel about that.

But Shikieiki had said it, she was going to be famous now. Legendary trainers were few and far between. Satori certainly didn't feel like she had mastered the art of Pokemon battles to any degree, she had just...convinced Yveltal to join her. Somehow. Maybe. She wasn't really conscious at the time.

Definitely didn't best it in battle though.

After a longer amount of time than Eirin wanted to wait, she came back into the room. Satori gestured to have Rin and Utsuho go sit on the chairs, and they did so obediently.

"Thank you." Satori said quietly. Eirin just nodded.

"Lysandre Corp has set up a rudimentary holo-network while we wait for the power plant to come back online," Eirin said. "It's for emergency services only, but if you want we could get a message out for you. Is there anyone you want to contact?"

Satori raised an eyebrow. "Bending over backwards for me?"

"Yes." Eirin didn't even try to deny it.

"Three of my friends, Trevor, Shauna and Calem, were in Coumarine when Yveltal attacked it. If you could verify they're alive, that would be good."

"I can do that. Anything else?"

"Is there a place for these two to stay?"

Eirin looked confused at the question, and turned back to Rin and Utsuho. The former was sitting patiently in her chair while the latter was swinging her legs back and fourth, bored. "You mean those two?"

Satori nodded.

"I'm sure we can set them up somewhere." Eirin finished running a few tests, and left Satori alone again. Her days were mostly boring, although now with Rin and Utsuho to keep her company they would be better. She felt more comfortable with them here.

The power returned on the one-week anniversary of Satori's stay in the hospital. At least in some limited form. Half the city was brought back online, although other towns were still without power. Still, it was enough to get the television going.

Eirin had had Satori get up and walk around some to keep her muscles somewhat active. Recovery was going well, but Satori had a feeling if she wasn't on such strong painkillers she would be still writhing in agony.

Also on that day, Satori got quite a large group of visitors. Enough that Eirin straight up demanded that Satori not entertain the notion of letting them all into her room at the same time. Satori agreed, and Eirin split them up into two groups.

The first was Cirno and her gang. They all looked healthy and in good spirits.

"Hey, boss." Satori said. Cirno smiled at her greeting.

"Damn Satori! You kicked ass."

"Yeah. You're totally a part of our gang now, no donation required." Rumia gave a thumbs-up.

Satori played along, but there really wasn't much to say. They hadn't known each other very long, and although it was easy to get caught up with Cirno and her craziness, Satori wasn't in much of a position of doing so at the moment.

Still, they had known each other at one of the most stressful times in all of their lives. They were likely closer than most, just from that alone. Even though Satori had in a way abandoned them at the last, critical moment. They seemed to forgive her for that transgression.

After only a few minutes, Reisen shooed away Satori's guests and brought in the next. Satori knew these ones far more intimately. Calem, Shauna, Tierno and...

...oh no.

Satori couldn't meet their eyes. "What happened?" She hadn't needed to ask, but they needed the opportunity to say it.

It took awhile for someone to speak. It was Calem who finally said it.

"Trev...he didn't make it."

"We want to do something for him. A...what is it? A wake, I think..." Shauna said. Satori saw she was wearing a medical eye patch and had numerous cuts and bruises. The others had varying degrees of injuries, although nothing compared to what Satori sustained.

Satori hesitated. "I can't leave the hospital..."

"We'll do it when you can," Calem said. Satori nodded.

The conversation was far from comfortable, but Satori gave them a rough description of what happened. She had told the story quite a number of times already, but each group she told it to had different details omitted. Mainly, this time Satori did not divulge her abilities.

She had a feeling she was going to need to come up with a standard story to tell people. But she hated herself a bit for having such a petty thought.

Satori got a few useful things out of them about the world outside her hospital bed. Yveltal left quite a trail of death and destruction in its wake, and everyone was doing their best to pitch in and get people medical attention. Others were helping to rebuild and fix the most important things.

Geosenge had been completely obliterated. It's where Yveltal had appeared and was most angry, and it went on a total rampage. There was nothing left and the number of survivors was down to the double-digits. Shalour was a likewise small town and was hit hard, but not to a crippling degree. The Tower of Mastery, however, had not endured. It toppled into the ocean.

Coumarine was hit brutally hard, the first major population center in Yveltal's path. The mountain caverns had acted as pretty effective bunkers, but it wasn't enough to hold the entire city. And Lumiose had likewise been hit hard, but Satori ended the assault before it became too devastating. The loss of the Prism Tower would be a hit to overall morale, but it wasn't actually that bad. The Prism Tower did not have a lot of actual utility.

After all of this, Satori only had one question. "What now?"

The others gave sidelong glances. Tierno shifted uncomfortably. "S-Sorry guys, but I'm going home..." The others looked at him. "Just, with the power plant thing, and then this? I'm done."

"Me too," said Shauna. "Maybe I'll start my journey back up again some day, but not now. I need a break."

Calem scratched the back of his neck. "I'm...I'm not trying to sound like the big tough guy here, but I'm going to keep going. The Lumiose gym was trashed, but when it's back up I want to challenge the leader."

Shauna and Tierno nodded in understanding and all three of them looked to Satori. She reached over with her right arm to grab the ultra ball on the side table. She winced from the pain of using her bad arm, but Eirin said the sling was no longer necessary.

Satori brought the ultra ball to rest in her lap. "I have a responsibility, now." Satori said. "I didn't really have any reason for being a trainer before other than liking Pokemon. But now...now I have a goal. And I think being a trainer is a big part of that."

"I guess it'll be just us then," Calem said. Satori grunted in response.

"Well, Holo Casters are back online with the power so be sure to stay in touch" Tierno said.

"Mine got the crap smashed out of it," Satori said. When Yveltal had attacked her, her Holo Caster had been an unfortunate casualty.

"Ah, Miss Satori," Reisen said. She had been standing quietly at the side of the room, apparently wary for anyone trying to tackle her patient again. "We can provide you with another one, if you want."

Satori should have been grateful, but what she actually felt was suspicion. "Why are you guys being so nice?"

"We were told to comply with any reasonable requests you made by the KPD, and they would fund it."

"Why?"

Reisen looked uncomfortable at the question. "Miss Satori, if you haven't noticed, you're sort of a hero."

Satori didn't have a response to that, and Reisen left to go get her a Holo Caster before she could say anything. Her friends weren't in such a rush to leave, but after a few more minutes of idle conversation Eirin seemed to want them gone. Satori was quickly learning not to piss the good doctor off too much, and bid her friends goodbye.

At least Rin and Utsuho were allowed to stay as long as they pleased, although that was through Satori's insistence more than any inherent niceness on the doctor's part. I guess that fell into the "reasonable request" category.

Reisen returned about an hour later holding a medium-sized Holo Caster box. Satori thanked her and went to work opening it up. She was eager for something to do, and setting up a new Holo Caster was fun even. Customizing the screens and tints and menus, loading desirable apps, and a hell of a lot of other things. Great way to spend time, and Satori had quite a lot of it at the moment.

The first thing she did was register it in her name and set up basic messaging. Holo Casters worked off a "cloud-based" system, so none of Satori's data was really lost when her old device was smashed. It was all stored on Lysandre Corporation servers. So all she had to do was register it under her account and it was just like before.

Satori got a surprise once it all synched properly though.

Welcome Komeiji Satori. You have 304 new holo messages.

Inbox (4513)

Saved Messages (7)

Spam (12)

Trash (0)

Satori hesitated before clicking on the inbox icon. That number was far higher than she had ever seen it. In fact, she had more new messages now than she had total messages last time she used this thing.

D. Poole – Thank you

C. Waters - Thanks

K. Markov – We owe you our lives

T. Underwood - thanks

F. Chavez – I'll never forget

A. Acrom – How did you do it?

…

The messages went on and on, over four thousand of them. Satori couldn't believe it. She was almost in a daze as she opened up a few. Some of them were short, others of them were long. Some just said "thanks" and others told her their entire life story. It was a surreal experience.

Satori only read ten or so before turning her attention to the holo messages. She wasn't sure what to expect, but opened the first one. The figure of a young woman appeared and started talking. She seemed very nervous.

"I, uh...the radio said that you're the one who stopped Yveltal. I looked up your number...sorry...but I just wanted to express my thanks. My family lives in Lumiose and if you hadn't...they might..."

The woman seemed about to burst into tears before the message cut out. Satori wasn't sure she wanted to see any more. All of these people thanking her for saving their lives...she honestly didn't feel she deserved it.

She hadn't saved Trevor.

She hadn't saved Viola.

Half her friends were so demoralized they were throwing in the towel.

Satori didn't feel she did anything noble or worthy of recognition. All she did was break down at the moment of her imminent death, confess her sins and fall unconscious. That Yveltal was somehow convinced to get itself captured because of it was meaningless. Satori wasn't even trying to manipulate it.

She was just saying her piece.

Reisen walked in again as Satori opened up another message. She was polite enough to stand by the door until it finished before walking closer to give Satori another quick check-up. Satori set the Holo Caster down and let Reisen do her job.

While she was being looked over, another nurse came into the room. Behind her walked Absol, who looked about as beat up as Satori was. She had bandages wrapped around her midsection and there was a crutch affixed to one of her back legs.

"Absol," Satori said warmly. Delphox and Pikachu also hopped over to greet their companion. Absol walked over rather ungracefully towards Satori, and climbed its way onto her bed. Reisen protested at first, but gave in when Satori begged. She finished her exam quickly and left the room.

Absol snuggled up next to Satori as she scratched its head. "How are you feeling, Absol?"

Acceptable. I greatly enjoy these 'painkillers,' as the vets call them.

"You and me both."

Absol nudged its nose towards the ultra ball that was still lying on Satori's lap. Is that...

"Yeah. It's Yveltal."

You truly are astounding, mistress. I know I followed you because I saw great things in you, but to see it firsthand is something else entirely. Absol shifted. Well, even if it wasn't exactly firsthand...

"Sorry about that..." Satori glanced aside. "I really should have paid attention to you guys more, but I was so focused on saving my own skin..."

Don't think of it like that, boss, Pikachu said. We took care of the little stuff like dodging and keeping Yveltal off its game while you prepared for the finishing blow!

Delphox rolled its eyes. Crudeness aside master, we do what we're good at and you do what you're good at. Both our roles are vital.

"Well said." Satori went silent for a moment, and then turned towards Absol. "On the subject, you did only join me to...how did you put it? Defeat the cataclysmic being of pure destruction? Now that I've succeeded, do you still want to stay with me?"

Absol suddenly looked really guilty. Mistress, I...first off, I will never leave your side, regardless of what we accomplish. I didn't join you just because of the prophecy...I joined you for life. If you'll have me...

"Of course, I just—" Satori cut herself off, trying to think of the words. "I'm sorry, you mean a lot to me Absol. I never want you to leave."

I feel the same, mistress. Absol still looked very guilty though, and Satori struggled to figure out why. It was notoriously good at controlling its thoughts.

"Absol, what is it?"

Mistress, I don't know how to say this but...the calamity I spoke of when we first met? The being of pure destruction? That...that wasn't Yveltal.