Chapter 14 – Closet

As it turned out, having a massive hangover on a Saturday morning wasn't too bad, since Saturday was a half-day for us at port control, anyways. I had gotten accustomed to the relative peace and quiet on Saturdays, which was very obviously a blessing on that particular morning. Nonetheless, General Harding and I wound up eating scrambled eggs in the cafeteria until close to eight in the morning as we tried to weather the consequences of getting wasted the night before.

Both of us probably looked like a pair of drug addicts suffering from withdrawal symptoms, if the red eyes and lethargy were any indication.

"The lesson that you ought to learn," he said, shovelling some eggs into his mouth, "is that when the television above the bar starts showing a double image, maybe it's time to stop drinking."

"Says you," I snorted, as I moodily sipped from my glass of water. "As I recall, you were the one who insisted that I keep drinking, sir."

His eyes glazed over. "This is all so unfair – how come that bastard Fen can never get hung-over even if he tried? And here we are, bah!"

"... just where is he, sir?"

"Probably having his breakfast in his office," General Harding grunted, as he finished the last of his eggs. "I'll be going over to his office for a bit, so you're free to enjoy your headache alone."

"If you say so, sir," I grimaced at his retreating back as I stirred my eggs about, mixing them in with the ketchup on my plate. Oh, well – at least it seemed that I'd be able to make a trip down to the vaults for Silas to go on with his usual snooping.

Just how I was supposed to understand any information he might have gathered was still up for grabs, though – I really hoped that there would be someone that we could trust and who had a psychic I could borrow when the time came to use the collected proof.

xxx

After dropping Silas off at the vaults – where Babamon greeted him enthusiastically with a pokemon treat – I headed back upstairs to General Harding's office. While we technically weren't supposed to be sleeping on the job, it was a bloody Saturday, and my head felt like a gang of whismur were having a jolly good party in it. So I tried to make it back there without running into anyone who might stop me from getting a quick nap.

Alas, it was not meant to be.

"Good morning, sweetheart!" chirped an annoyingly perky voice from behind the reception desk as I passed it. "The workers down at the docks just called up and told me that they've got a consignment of goods that needs Zachary's signature. Could you please pass him that message?"

"Ugh?" I groaned, turning to look at Mary with my bloodshot eyes. "Got it... will tell him when I see him next..."

She frowned. "Oh, gods – he took you boozing last night?"

"It's that obvious, eh?" I slumped against the wall next to her desk. "Goodness, the headache sucks balls."

"Language, young man!" she trilled, wagging a finger at me. "Now off you go, and make sure he gets down to the docks to deal with the goods before he clocks out for today."

"Yes, ma'am."

xxx

Annoyingly enough, General Harding turned out to be missing. He and General Fen weren't in the latter's office when I knocked and went in, and so I found myself trying to guess their probable location. After a few minutes of fruitless mind wandering, I decided to collect Silas from the vault, and ask Babamon if she had a psychic lying around that could help me locate my boss.

"Oh, he's gone missing again?" Babamon asked with some surprise. "Well, I think we had an exeggcute in the grass vault... let me check."

"Where'd you think he might have gone?" I asked as I walked behind her towards the grass vault, with Silas cradled in my arms. "He's still on the clock, right?"

"Son, if there's one thing that all former trainers have in common, it's the disregard for the clock," she replied as she opened the vault's blast door, "especially when those three ruffians are concerned."

The grass vault was really quite simple – it had a large patch of synthetic grass growing in the middle of it, and the whole room reeked of freshly-turned earth. Babamon headed over to the shelves of pokeballs that lined one of the vault's walls, and began scrutinizing them.

"Now, son, I'll tell you this beforehand – don't say anything to the exeggcute. Their powers are developed enough to locate another living being, but their attention spans are absolutely atrocious. So just let me talk to them, alright?"

"Can't they communicate directly with me?" I asked, as Silas flipped himself out of my grasp and onto the artificial turf, which he gave a few cautious licks. "I mean, they are psychics, right?"

"True, but their powers aren't refined enough for telepathy," she shrugged. "And trying to listen to all six of the seeds speaking in your head, all at once? Would make your present headache seem tame in comparison."

Within a couple of minutes, she had found the exeggcute she was looking for, and released it.

"Exeggcute!" she addressed the hyperactive, egg-like pokemon with a stern voice. "Could you kindly help us locate General Zachary Harding?"

The pokemon's ovoid body parts bounced about and spun rapidly as it considered her request, and one of the 'eggs' finally shot up into the air with a high-pitched squeal. Babamon's eyebrows shot up like birds getting into a fight, and she let out a resigned sigh.

"They say he has actually gone home," she said, as she returned the pokemon. "Whatever the reason you wanted to look for him, son, it'll have to wait."

"But there's a load of goods for him to sign on," I protested, as I returned Silas. "Why can't I just go and get him, anyway?"

She grimaced. "You could, but..."

"I'll take my chances," I muttered, raising an eyebrow as I stared down at her – quite literally, given that I was over two feet taller than her. "Somehow, I doubt he's doing anything that urgent – it's a Saturday morning!"

"It's your funeral, kiddo."

"Whatever that's supposed to mean... thanks, Babamon," I waved at her as I left the vault.

xxx

Once again, the door to General Harding's apartment was unlocked.

Once again, I ended up going into his apartment.

What I saw inside, though, was definitely not something I had ever seen before.

"Oh, my- Holy- What the fuck?"

General Harding was pinned against the wall of his kitchen by none other than General Fen, and the two of them had apparently been enjoying a round of tonsil hockey when I entered the apartment. It seemed like they had been getting quite into the game, too – their clothing formed a trail that lead from the apartment's door to the kitchen.

Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on how you viewed such situations – they hadn't gotten round to shucking their underwear, yet. Those little articles of clothing didn't stop them from grinding their bodies against each other like a pair of ekans preparing to mate, though.

Once again, my mind was screaming bloody murder over the fact that part of me found the scene to be nothing less than sizzling hot. General Fen, while shorter and of a smaller build than his... partner, had a wiry, muscled physique that was quite nice on the eyes.

The two of them, startled by my sudden appearance, broke the kiss and whipped about in alarm to face me. General Harding ended up banging the back of his head against the wall, but General Fen merely raised an eyebrow upon seeing me standing gob-smacked not ten feet from them.

"God damn it, Zachary – I thought you said no one would notice us missing!" he snapped, letting go of my boss. "And we were just getting started, too!"

"Not my fault the kid's a tenacious bastard," groaned General Harding, rubbing the back of his head. "How'd you find us, kid?"

"Babamon had an exeggcute-"

"Those bastard eggs? Hmph," General Fen muttered, as he stepped away from the kitchen and grabbed his uniform off the floor. "You totally ruined the mood here, kid."

"But- But, you two were-"

"Fucking?" he snorted. "Nah, we didn't make it that far today. Maybe some other time, when no one walks in on us getting things started."

I could only stare at him, wide-eyed, as he stepped forward with his clothes in his hands. He gestured for me to step aside. With a flick of his wrist, he let out a metagross that hovered in mid-air and nearly tipped the television set over. There was a flash of light, and the two of them vanished once the massive psychic-type had taken in the situation around it.

For a while after that, there was silence in General Harding's apartment. The two of us stared at each other, not knowing what to say or do next.

He was the one to break the silence, though, when he let out a sigh and began picking up his uniform. "Really, kid – did you have to remove my headache cure like that? It would've been quite funny if I wasn't involved in it, but still..."

"Sir, I didn't- I was- I wasn't planning to walk in on you!" I squeaked, burying my face in my hands and trying to come up with a coherent response to his statement. "I didn't mean to do that!"

"Well, what's done is done," he ran a hand through his hair. "Did you at least manage to enjoy the show while it lasted?"

I think my jaw left cracks on his floor when it dropped right then.

He smirked at me. "What, you think I didn't read your file? You're about as straight as an glameow's tail, kid. Unless the file is wrong – something highly unlikely, given how those bastards at Coronet do things."

I began breathing faster, feeling faint. "Sir, I might be... like that, but-"

"That?" he scoffed. "Please, kid, do me a favour and don't insult the two of us – just say that you're gay, could you?"

I couldn't be sure of the exact moment when it happened, but I do believe that I fell into a dead faint right about then.

xxx

When I came back to consciousness, I was back in General Harding's office at port control. He and Adrienne were standing over me as I lay in his deckchair – Linda, if I recalled its name right – and he was holding a bottle of what looked like smelling salts.

"Kid, are you alright?" he asked, snapping the bottle shut. "Gave me quite a scare, you did."

"Umm..." I decided to check if I had been having a nightmare, after all. "I had this dream-"

"If that 'dream' had my trainer nearly getting boned by Fen Siow Loong in it, then it wasn't a dream, dear," Adrienne said, as she turned around to face her trainer. "You really should be more discreet, Zachary – first the janitor's closet, then the training area, and now this?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and groaned, "So it was real. Oh, my goodness..."

"Relax, kid," General Harding said, as he stepped behind his desk and threw the bottle of smelling salts into a drawer. "Your orientation's pretty much an open secret among the department heads, anyway."

"What."

"Well, we all noticed you tend to stare at us guys a bit," he said, with a smirk on his face. "And there was that incident with Don in the training area..."

I rolled my eyes. "Great, so everyone here knows that I'm a homo."

Surprisingly, Adrienne was the one to speak up next, "And just what is wrong with being a homosexual, pray tell?"

"Well, it's not normal-"

"Normalcy is overrated," she sniffed, as the shellder on her tail glared at me. "And I'm surprised that you still think of yourself that way."

Before I could say anything more, General Harding spoke up in what was probably the softest, most serious tone I had ever heard coming from him. It seemed to bear more weight than the way he had spoken after Slenderman had announced the broadcasting of that illegal pokemon battle, and that was saying something.

"Kid, I'll spare you the lecture, so I'm just going to pass you a bit of advice; sometimes, being honest with yourself is difficult, but worth it."

With that, he returned Adrienne and turned to leave his office. However, he stopped in the doorway, and did an about-face.

"Trust me on that – it's a lesson that I'm still learning for myself."

He closed the door, leaving me with no company save for my thoughts.

xxx

Eventually, I did manage to track General Harding down and tell him that the dock workers needed him to sign-off on a shipment of goods. We headed down to the docks, and he was uncharacteristically quiet for once.

"Sir, are you alright?" I asked anxiously, as we stepped into the cargo elevator. "Is it because of what I said earlier?"

"Eh?" he looked a tad startled as he considered my questions. "Oh, it's nothing, kid. I can't blame you for thinking like that."

"So just what is wrong, sir? You seem worried about something."

He shook his head. "It's nothing."

"You know what they say, sir – behind every 'nothing' there's always a 'something'," I deadpanned. "And if you don't want to discuss something, you can just say so – weren't you just telling me earlier that we need to be honest?"

"Whoa!" he whirled about and pinned me to the elevator's wall. "You seem to have grown some balls since we last talked, eh kid?"

I flinched and swallowed hard, as he fixated his icy blue eyes on mine – I swear, for a moment I thought I could see me own reflection in his pale irises. "If you say so, sir."

With a chuckle, he let go of me, and shook his head. "Ah, you're just a walking set of contradictions, kid. But I do like how you're beginning to talk back at me – keep it up."

"In that case, sir, what differentiates the army from a mob?"

"You mean to say that there are actual differences? I'll be damned!" he said with mock surprise, as the elevator's doors slid open to reveal several dock workers waiting expectantly next to a pile of crates.

Timothy Kirrin the chief mechanic stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. "About damn time you got here, Zachary! I need those parts, and they can't let me have them without you signing on this lot!"

"Alright, alright," General Harding offered him an innocuous smile, holding his hands up. "I'll sign on the goods, just you wait..."

Something didn't seem right with him as he signed the forms necessary to get the crates opened, and my suspicions were confirmed when he and Kirrin whipped out a pokeball each almost as soon as he was done. The dock workers fled, leaving me standing not two feet away from two arguably insane men holding a pokeball apiece.

"Go, Rodrigo!"

"Mac, it's up to you!"

Light erupted out of the two pokeballs as both trainers let their pokemon out for the match. General Harding's ludicolo had barely managed to get its bearings before Kirrin's mightyena jumped on it and bit down on its sombero-like leaf. The large, frog-like pokemon squawked in pain and let loose with a veritable explosion of Leech Seeds in the dark canine's face, causing it to flinch.

"Mac, Howl!" Kirrin snarled, pumping his fist in the air.

"Drain Punch!"

"Fuck!" shouted Kirrin, even as General Harding's ludicolo sent his mightyena flying with two well-aimed punches. Mac let out a pained yelp and glared at the water-type, limping a little after the two-piece assault.

Without further prompting from his trainer, he threw his head back and howled, causing Rodrigo to stumble backwards. Mac then leapt at his opponent again, just as the disoriented ludicolo stepped forward and socked him across the muzzle with a fist that bristled with ice crystals.

"Drain Punch again!" commanded General Harding, as Mac jumped on Rodrigo's back and proceeded to claw at his head. "Oh, fuck it – take a dive!"

"Get off him, Mac!" Kirrin bellowed, but it was too late – the ludicolo had taken off and taken a leap over the dock's edge. A frantic yelp was all we heard before the two pokemon hit the water with a loud splash, causing him to shake his head. "Looks like you win this round, Zachary, heh!"

"Ah, it's no problem, Kirrin," General Harding grinned, as he let out a swampert. "Moivre old boy, could you retrieve Mac and Rodrigo for us?"

The towering mud-fish pokemon snapped his jaws in reply, and lumbered to the water's edge. He jumped into the sea, and seconds later, a ludicolo and mightyena flew back onto the dock, hitting the ground with an indignant squeak and whine, respectively. They didn't seem happy about being thrown back onto the dock like that, but when Moivre clambered back, they seemed to have changed their minds.

"I must say, there's nothing quite like a good pokemon battle to end a half-day's work, eh?" Kirrin gave us a wide grin before reaching out and pumping General Harding's hand in a terrific handshake. "Good show, man! Beer tonight?"

"Thanks, but no thanks," General Harding said sheepishly. "Just recovered from a hangover this morning, so I guess I'll avoid the liquor till next week at least."

"Ah, well," chuckled the huge mechanic, even as he returned his soaking wet mightyena. "Anytime you want a drink, give me a buzz, you hear? Always nice to have good company to go with the drinks!"

"I'll drink to that," General Harding smirked. "Tara!"

Only when he turned around and bumped into me did I get startled out of my reverie. All the while, I had been silently watching the pokemon battle with nothing short of amazement. It was mainly because well, it was a pokemon battle, but also because the pokemon had actually acted on their own without instructions.

"Meowth got your tongue, kid?" my commanding officer waved his hand in front of my face. "Hello, anyone home?"

"You didn't have to give instructions to your ludicolo," I pointed out, still somewhat awed. "I've never seen something like that, even when training wasn't banned."

He shrugged. "It happens, I guess. Most trained pokemon will learn to use whatever moves they've been taught in self-defence, so it's quite normal."

"Then why didn't it happen last time, during the league matches?" I asked, as we walked back to the cargo elevator.

"Well, let's just say that they tend to be just as excited as we were back then," General Harding said with a trace of wistful nostalgia in his voice. "Pokemon tend to behave like their trainers, you know. Given enough time, I'm sure the same would happen to you and Silas."

"Somehow, I doubt the possibility of that," I said flatly. "He hates me."

"And yet you two have a strong bond. Trust me, it'll work out," he said dismissively. "And now, since we'll be clocking out soon... want to see some old league videos?"

My eyes must have grown as wide as saucers. "League videos? Where?"

"Back at my place – I've got a couple of them stashed away for old times' sake," he smirked. "Well, they were the matches where Fen, Gary, and I were taking on the league, but I also had some other matches recorded."

"Once we clock out, sir?"

"Done."

xxx

As it turned out, the other room in General Harding's apartment was filled with all sorts of junk that he had picked up during his training days. Much like the bookshelves in his office, though, everything was neatly organized – something I suspect General Fen may have had a hand in. True to his word, there was a stack of compact discs labelled as 'League Videos' on one of the shelves.

They weren't quite as dusty as some of the other stuff in the room, which gave me the impression that he watched them more frequently than he might have cared to admit.

"Alright, so let's see," he picked up the discs and gave them a cursory glance. "You want to see the match Fen had against Drake? Class act, that one was."

"Why?" I asked curiously. "Wasn't Drake the dragon specialist?"

"Fen actually swept three of his five dragons with ONE pokemon," General Harding laughed. "But then, Drake's salamence stopped him cold."

"Let's do it, then," I grinned, imagining three dragon-types being knocked out by a single pokemon.

We popped the disc into his DVD player, and within minutes, the video had started. The two of us had to squeeze on his couch to watch it, but then again, you probably couldn't expect that much from a bachelor living alone with his team. General Harding let out Gary the gastrodon, Adrienne, and Ursula, who all appeared excited at the thought of watching one of the old videos.

When the video started, it was like the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

A visibly shorter Fen Siow Loong stood on a battle platform opposite an elderly man in a long coat and a hat not unlike that of a ship's captain. Between them lay the battling arena, where a shelgon was already pacing slowly, flicking its yellow-eyed gaze in Fen's direction.

With a flash of light, a metang materialized on Fen's side of the arena. With a terrific bellow, the shelgon rushed forward, blue flames boiling out of the openings in its armour, even as the referee started the match. Fen's metang merely teleported behind it, and proceeded to clobber it in the back with what looked like several Ice Punches.

The shell-dragon let out a distressed screech, and kicked at the metang with its stubby legs, tail thrashing about like a bullwhip. Its retaliatory strikes were futile, though, as the metang's eyes glowed and the arena itself began shaking, knocking it out.

"Is that his metagross?" I asked General Harding, awed.

"Yup – before it evolved."

Drake seemed to consider the situation for a moment before releasing a flygon. The flying dragon glared at Fen's metang with its red-lidded eyes, before exhaling a massive stream of flames in the psychic's direction. Too slow to evade the attack, the metang took it head-on before teleporting out of the fire, and literally reappearing on the flygon's back. Before the desert dragon could buck it off, the metang dished out another Ice Punch, sending the two of them crashing to the ground.

By the time the dust had settled, Drake had already recalled his flygon, and Fen's metang was still hovering in front of its trainer. Three seconds was all it took for Hoenn's top Elite Four member to let out a kingdra, though. I leaned forward, eager to see how the metang handled this opponent. While kingdra was at a disadvantage due to the arena being devoid of water, it also wasn't weak against metang's Ice Punch.

Even as it began firing jets of steaming water at the metang, though, the arena began shaking once again, completely wrecking its aim. The continuous tremors seemed to resonate through the kingdra's very body, eventually causing it to collapse in a graceless heap.

Drake wasted no time at all – I almost jumped out of my seat when his salamence materialized and roared so loudly that the television set seemed to vibrate. Fen's metang was slammed into the ground brutally fast, the massive dragon biting down on its steely body even as flames leaked out of its fang-lined maw. The salamence shook its prey like a mightyena biting down on a bone, and threw the psychic through the air like a rag doll. It landed in a heap and didn't get back up, red eyes having dimmed upon impact.

The salamence let loose with a triumphant bellow that seemed to shake my very bones, and took to the air when Fen let out a mawile. His mawile lasted for all of ten seconds against the dragon, and the skarmory he sent out next didn't last for more than a minute, despite its impressive aerial manoeuvres. Salamence then proceeded to demolish the other half of his team with ease – a lucario, a magneton, and a forretress.

Even as Drake was declared the winner, General Harding nudged me in the ribs. "Realize something about the match?"

I thought about it for a moment, before finally catching on to what he was hinting at. "Both of them didn't say a word to their pokemon!"

"Exactly," he grinned, matching my facial expression. "Told you it's possible, didn't I?"

We went on and watched all of the other videos, including the ones where he got beaten by Steven Stone. Each match seemed even more intense than the last, and it was with a heavy heart that I watched the last of the match videos ending.

When General Harding ejected the last disc and the television reverted to its normal broadcast program, though, I felt my blood run cold. From the look on his face, he seemed to be having similar thoughts, too. None other than Slenderman was speaking to us from the screen, and it appeared that we had caught him halfway through a speech.

"- attempt on our agents' lives," the faceless being stated, shaking its head. "As such, we have decided to bring forward our one year plan to show the government that we do in fact mean business.

"Seeing as nothing has been done to rectify the situation with regards to the freedom of people to train pokemon, we shall be carrying out a demonstration at midnight, Kanto standard time. There will be... a regrettable loss of lives, but then again," Slenderman paused, "this is for the greater good."

With that, the screen went black, leaving us in shocked silence.