Chapter 19 – Words

If there was one thing that you could say about Canalave, it would definitely be that Canalave became too damned hot and stuffy somewhere about March. Most of the water pokemon at the docks looked plain miserable during that time of the year, and even the digimon seemed to shy away from the heat – street patrols were apparently restricted to areas with lots of trees and shady sidewalks during that period.

And the temperature wasn't the only thing that was hot – tempers were also running at an all-time high, thanks to the compromise of sorts that existed between the humans, pokemon, and digimon. More and more pranks were being pulled on the hapless digimon, and even Mummymon had somehow been hit once on the back of his head with a soiled baby's diaper (no one knew who did it, and no one wanted to know).

Even some of the friendlier digimon were getting a tad antsy due to the weather. Mainly, this meant Babamon getting a lot more expressive using her walking stick, whereas some of the demidevimon we kept around to relay memos had taken to ganging up on and dive-bombing people who annoyed them. The worst incident involving digimon losing their tempers, though, probably was that of a tinmon nearly electrocuting a mechanic when he picked a fight with it – probably also one of the few incidents where the human was the first to start the fight.

As for Persiamon... the heat wave saw her becoming a little more withdrawn. Ford the ariados was still missing, and she seemed to be missing him terribly. Every notice board at port control had a small poster with his picture and name on it, with a plea for anyone who found him to contact her. Alas, he remained missing in action, and March marked the second month of his absence.

Even Castor the whimsicott seemed unusually down thanks to his friend's disappearance – he didn't even try to zap me with his trick ballpoint pen anymore whenever I happened to drop by the archives department.

And so, we all eventually settled down and tried to bear with the heat, at least until the hot spell ended.

xxx

I unlocked the door to my dorm room, and stepped in with a weary sigh. Even at night and without a shirt, it remained stifling – most of the military hostel's male population had opted to shuck their shirts once they were within the hostel compound, and no one was complaining. Well, some of us initially drew some stares from the female military personnel that lived there with us, but when some of them began answering their dorm room doors in bikinis, things more or less equalized.

Silas chirped a greeting at me as I stepped into the room, with a small tub in my arms. "Is that it, trainer?"

"Yes, Silas – I managed to get the last tub out of the grocery store," I offered him a small smirk. "So, remember the terms of our agreement?"

"No tongue."

"Damn straight. Now, let's get down to it, shall we?"

It didn't even take half a minute for the two of us to get the tub of cookies and cream ice cream open.

xxx

"That hits the spot," Silas sighed dreamily. "Although I still think you should have gotten chocolate."

"Nah," I shook my head, as I licked some of the ice cream off my spoon. "Chocolate's not good for pokemon, is it? They had that campaign some time back..."

"Fuck that," he whistled. "In small doses, it's fine with us. Only hyperactive bastards like whimsicott and sableye should avoid chocolate, really."

I grimaced at the thought of Castor the whimsicott on a sugar rush. "Point taken. Now- Oi!"

Silas had tried to sneak his tongue into the tub of ice cream, which of course meant that I had to take countermeasures to prevent him from hogging it. That simply involved me swatting his tongue with my spoon, though.

"Hey, anus - you didn't have to do that!"

"The agreement was no tongue, Silas!"

"Aww, come on – it's not like we haven't shared any meals before!" he huffed.

"... I would rather not think where your tongue has been, thank you very much," I retorted.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "As if your mouth is that clean – don't think I don't know what you did at Coronet. Or to be more specific, I know who you did at Coronet."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh?"

"General Harding's slowbro – Adrienne's such a sweetheart, really - told me that it's in your file; something involving a friend from your barracks and some clandestine activities in the showers?"

"You have got to be kidding me," I gaped at him. "You are fucking with me, aren't you?"

Silas had the gall to look smug as he replied to my question. "I am not fucking with you, and I don't have any desire to do so, my dear trainer. It sounded more like that friend of yours was, though."

Glaring daggers at him, I pointed my spoon at him like a pistol – quite a pathetic gesture, really, when you considered that he was sitting next to me on my bed, with a small plate of melting ice cream in front of him. "Why, you... You sneaky little bastard! It's none of your business who I decide to screw!"

"Excuse me, 'bastard'?"

"As revenge for that, I'm going to finish the last scoop of ice cream!" I declared, only to have him plunge his tongue into the tub like a hose. "Hey!"

He let out a squeak as I grabbed his tongue and yanked it out of the tub, and shot a small stream of cold water at my face. That caught me off-guard, and I reeled back, causing the ice cream tub to tip over on my lap, spilling whatever half-melted ice cream it still contained onto the front of my shorts.

"You motherfucker, that was the last of the ice cream!"

"Watch your mouth, you cock-sucking faggot! Use more of that kind of language and I'm going to punish you!"

I smacked him upside the shell, and bent down to grab my T-shirt off the floor, to try and mop up the spilled ice cream off my shorts. "Shut up, you vulgar little twat."

And that was when my room door was somehow unlocked from the outside, and General Harding walked in as if he owned the place. I froze and stared at him, as did Silas, and he likewise took in the sight of me sitting there, topless, with my shellder's tongue draped across my lap, while my shorts had a rather suspicious white stain on them.

"Okay," he said hesitantly, as he pocketed a rather large bunch of keys, "is there anything you want to tell me about what you've been doing with Silas during your spare time?"

It took almost all of my willpower to not throw Silas at him. "It's ice cream. That Silas spilled on me. And it was the last tub the store had."

General Harding at least had the decency to look sympathetic. "Vanilla?"

"Cookies and cream," I replied moodily, as I used my T-shirt to clean up my shorts as best I could – it looked like I'd be busy down at the laundry room, later.

"Pity about that - anyway!" he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Pack your things, kid. We've got a trip to make. You might also want to get into some proper clothes."

I stared at him. "Could you repeat that, please, sir?"

"What, the clothes bit? I've seen you naked in the locker room, kid," he rolled his eyes. "And if it makes you feel better, you definitely have flaunt-worthy material."

"Flaunt-worthy material, you say? I've seen better sausages at the grocery store."

"Not that – and shut up, Silas!" I threw my hands up in the air exasperatedly. "Something about a trip that we're going on?"

"Oh, that. We," he said, jabbing a finger in my direction, "are going on a little trip. And since Mummymon has actually gotten someone to jam all non-official teleportation pathways, we'll be making this one by chopper."

"But where could we possibly go at ten p.m.?" I asked him, as Silas stared at him as though he had grown a second head. "Tomorrow's Sunday, granted, but where is it you need to go that we can't walk to?"

He merely waved at me, and cocked his head to one side. It took me all of a second to recall the gesture's meaning, and so I promptly recalled Silas, before hopping off the bed and getting some clothes on (the shorts with the ice cream stain ended up being folded and placed on the chair in the corner of the room). Three minutes later saw us leaving the dorm room, and heading for the stairs leading back down to the hostel's compound.

Simply put, the gesture General Harding had used indicated that someone's ears had been listening in on our conversation. And to make things even more interesting, the ears were on someone who was tailing him.

xxx

The helicopter was waiting at the eerily deserted docks – apparently, Mummymon and Arukenimon, along with all their goons, were already at one of the specialized sleeping facilities that the digimon needed to survive on Earth. When I asked General Harding why the trip was being made by helicopter if the digimon were in charge, all he'd had to say was that the generals still had more pull at port control than those two 'incorrigibly pompous assholes'.

Generals Fen, Maine, Claire, and Reardon were all also there. Clearly, the dissatisfaction with the digimon's interference at port control was more prolific than I'd have thought.

Take-off was uneventful, and it wasn't long before Canalave was visible as little more than a cluster of lights shining in the distance behind us. Nothing seemed to be ahead of us save for an endless expanse of black water, along with several uninhabited rocky islands. For some reason, the pilot slowed the chopper down as we approached the airspace around the islands – it was almost as if he was afraid of flying over them, or something.

As we came even closer to the islands, though, the air seemed to shimmer around the chopper, and the empty airspace around us suddenly changed. Where seconds before there had been sheer emptiness, what appeared to be an oil rig now occupied the view through the helicopter's front after we had crossed the invisible boundary over the islands. When I looked down at the churning surface of the ocean, I saw that the islands themselves had vanished.

"Interesting trick, eh?" General Harding's voice crackled through my headphones. "Took us a while to figure it out, but we managed to hide this old rig in the end."

"Why hide it, though?" I asked him, hearing my own voice echoing through the headset. "Isn't it abandoned?"

"Hardly," was General Reardon's dry reply. "And we hid it because... well, let's just say that we weren't entirely trusting towards our digimon superiors, even at the beginning of the revolution."

The helicopter's pilot slowly manoeuvred it down onto the rig's helipad, where a deck officer and a luxray were already waiting for us. Bright floodlights illuminated the age-worn landing area, and the red 'H' that had been painted at its centre was barely visible. From what I could see, the rest of the oil rig seemed to be quite deserted – most of the machinery and buildings on it appeared to be dark, and there were so signs of movement.

With a slight shudder, the helicopter touched down on the helipad, and General Clair opened the side hatch. We quickly disembarked, and headed straight for the deck officer and his luxray. The floodlights' stark beams were reflected off his aviators, and on closer inspection, it was clear that the luxray was also wearing some dark goggles.

"Good evening, gentles," the officer said, saluting us. "Everything's already prepared below decks, so if you'll just head down you'd find that all's in order."

"Glad to hear it," General Fen responded politely. "Lax personnel make me crabby."

Even as we headed for a narrow set of stairs at the side of the helipad that led down to the rig's lower decks, the floodlights all went out. Several smaller lights came on near the stairs, leaving us with only a small trail of brightness to walk along. As we descended the stairs, I saw that it had been built almost direct over the edge of the platform – the ocean was practically underneath it, and several red dots could be seen glowing in the dark water.

I couldn't help but be fascinated by the luminescent red dots – there was something oddly compelling about them. It wasn't until General Harding clapped me on the shoulder – startling me half to death – that I realized that I had almost gone over the staircase's railing by leaning out to catch a glimpse of the lights.

"Careful, kiddo," he smirked. "Some of them may be mine, but jellicent remain ghosts at heart, you hear? Give them a chance, and they'd lure you to a watery grave."

"Understood, sir," I shuddered as I recalled the descriptions I'd been given of jellicent and their basic forms, frillish. Supposedly, they were the only water/ghost pokemon to have ever been discovered, and preferred to stay out on the open ocean, near deep underwater trenches. I had forgotten about their infamous ability to mesmerize potential prey with their glowing red eyes, though – jellicent were better at it than frillish, and were rumoured to drain their prey's life force out once said victim came close enough to them.

No one could ever verify the accuracy of that claim, though, since most jellicent victims were found brain dead. It was only the distinctive sucker marks along the sides of their heads that provided for any proof of said aquatic ghosts being involved.

And of course, that was only in the case of bodies that had been washed up on shore and examined in the presence of a trained psychic – most missing ships were presumed to have paid the price for trespassing within jellicent territory.

"Why'd you use jellicent to guard this place, though?" I asked General Harding as we finally stepped past a bulkhead and entered a dimly-lit corridor within the rig's bowels. "And how on earth do you keep them under control out there?"

He shrugged. "Well, they're the hardest to harm of all the water types, really – you could even fire a Thunder attack down on them, and do little more than aggravate them. Control's not an issue since they don't really mind being trained, anyway."

As we passed through an intersection of several corridors, I heard some strange noises coming from one of the darkened pathways perpendicular to the one that we were walking along. "Did you hear that, sir?"

"Probably one of the other pokemon we keep around her to patrol the corridors," he said dismissively. "Fen's got several magnemite lurking around, and Kylie has a swarm of rotom possessing almost all the machinery here – it's how all the stuff here is powered."

After what felt like an hour of walking through the shadowy corridors (with an increasing amount of strange sounds and noises in the background as we moved further along), we finally came to a corridor that ended at a formidable-looking metal door.

"All present and accounted for?" General Claire asked, before releasing a claydol. "Alright, then – open it up."

The psychic's eyes glowed briefly, and the massive door slid open of its own accord. What it revealed was nothing short of shocking – in fact, the very thought of it had crossed my mind before, but had been dismissed on the grounds of it being utterly ludicrous.

Just what thoughts were these, you might ask? Well, they involved a conspiracy theory, and one about all the military bigwigs being secretly against the digimon government.

We entered the rather large conference room, and I mentally matched faces to names as I followed General Harding to a seat near the far end of the long table which dominated the floor. From what I could tell, more than half of Sinnoh's military administration was present in that room, along with several assistants and pokemon.

I also saw some people that I had never heard of before, such as the woman dressed entirely in black, who had a mandibuzz perched on the back of her chair and a sableye drinking out of her mug. Then there was the woman who had a weavile by her side and a rather startling resemblance to the late Candice Shackleton, who had led Snowpoint's gym during the pre-revolution days – General Harding later told me that she was Candice's twin sister, and that her affinity was also for the ice type.

Only one thing seemed to connect them all – to the best of my knowledge, all of the gathered people were generals. None of them wore the grey uniforms that marked one as an admiral, nor the white of a grand admiral.

"The meeting will now come to order," declared a man whose hair had been dyed with streaks of purple, and who was standing at the head of the table. "Are there any objections to this?"

Silence was the only answer to his question, and the venomoth flitting about next to his head let out a shrill whistle as it settled down on the table's edge.

"Very well then, we shall begin. Commence with the reports."

One by one, the assembled generals began speaking. Hearing them speak was almost like a waking dream – or rather, a nightmare.

"So far, I've managed to control the dissent in the city... No idea how long more I can keep it up if things don't improve."

"The digimon don't know what they're doing! Most of the former trainers aren't happy with the tightened security – they say it's an attempt at subjugation."

The general with the purple-streaked hair took in all the reports with a straight face, and merely nodded occasionally to show that he was paying attention. After a while, he held up a hand, stopping a general with electric pink hair from finishing his report.

"As much as your reports are important, I think we all can agree that they are all quite similar, no?" there were several snorts and nods of assent at that. "But this news I have is... very interesting.

"The digimon are planning to reintroduce pokemon training for the masses."

There was a moment of tense silence as the meaning of his words sank in. Finally, an elderly general with bloodshot eyes and a froslass hovering behind him – I think he might have been a ghost specialist - spoke up.

"Are you very sure about this?" the old man asked slowly. "This is no trivial matter, as I'm sure you're aware."

"Datamon approached me the other day," replied the general with the venomoth, "and he was very interested in how we used to run the gym circuit back in the old days. When I asked him why, he said that the digimon were considering arming the population at large against the terrorist threat."

"And so you extrapolated based on the facts you were given," said a woman with salt-and-pepper hair. "Logically, but it remains extrapolation nonetheless."

"Datamon was asking some very detailed questions," he said, raising an eyebrow. "He even mentioned that Aaron and Shauntal would be working with him to hold a tournament of sorts for any generals or admirals that were interested in pokemon battling."

"Still, there remains a big difference between recreational battling and the reinstation of the Pokemon League," she said, not backing down. "Do you have any other proof of his intentions?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," he replied with a thin smile. "I went digging, and found this video."

His venomoth's eyes glowed, and a flat-screen television slid out of a gap between the ceiling and the wall behind him. He stepped aside, and the television came to life, showing a dark-haired woman with large-framed spectacles. Dressed in a black outfit and looking too pale to be considered as healthy, she spoke to the camera with a frail, quavering voice.

If you had been there, you probably would have heard the collective inhalations within the room as Shauntal, former member of the Unova Pokemon League, got her point across.

"... I see the validity of your argument, Datamon. But given the present... climate here... I do not think it is advisable to take this course of action. Pokemon training is not for the masses, as I'm sure you'd agree... All you need to do is take a look at how the revolution came to be..."

The video ended there, and the general with the venomoth stepped back to the head of the table.

"So... I am curious as to what you think of this recent development."

xxx

That night itself, the meeting ended. So we began heading back somewhere around three in the morning.

I couldn't really say much to General Harding, since he was quite busy exchanging information with some of his peers that weren't from Canalave. However, once some of them had left – goodness knows how they had managed to keep so many helicopters stashed away on various parts of the oil rig – I had my chance.

"General Harding, we need to talk," I said softly, approaching him from behind.

"My holy!" he cursed, whipping about and nearly decking me across the face. "Don't do that, kid! You nearly gave me a heart attack..."

I didn't back down. "We need to talk. Alone."

He raised an eyebrow. "Do we, now?"

"Yes," I said, perhaps a tad more forcefully than I'd have liked.

"Alright, then," he nodded, heading off towards the edge of the helipad. I could see the jellicents' eyes glowing in the depths below us, and barely managed to suppress the shiver that threatened to run along my spine. "So, what's up?"

"This is treason!" I hissed at him. "If the digimon found out-"

"We are trying to nip an evil in the bud, kid," he cut me off, looking weary. For the first time in a while, I realized how tired he looked. "Shauntal was right in saying that training isn't exactly cut out for the masses, you know? Just take a look at how Earth got here to begin with, and you'd understand why."

"But sir," I persisted, "tell me this; why the secrecy? I'm sure the digimon would share your concerns!"

"It's... They..." he shook his head. "Ever heard the saying, 'a man's got to do what a man's go to do'?"

"What does that have to do with this?" I asked him testily.

He looked me in the eye, and for those few seconds, I felt as if I was looking into two pieces of plastic. They might have been full of life on a daily basis, but during those few moments... they seemed to be devoid of emotion.

"Maybe someday you'll understand, kid," he finally said, his words slow and cautious. "Until then, it's best for everyone if you kept this whole affair quiet, understood?"

I looked at him, not really knowing what to make of the whole situation. When he saw that I didn't look quite sure enough of my ability to keep the whole deal under wraps, he sighed and pushed me back towards the centre of the helipad.

"You asked for it, kid."

Before I knew it, he had released Adrienne. She took a look at her surroundings and her trainer before letting her gaze settle on me.

"Are you sure, Zachary?" she asked, giving me the impression that she was somewhat upset – no mean feat, considering that she was a slowbro.

"Do it," General Harding said, his voice sounding a little... regretful? I couldn't tell.

"Sir?" I asked, even as I backed up nervously. Some of the other generals that were there spared me a glance, but didn't seem bothered by the scene they had just witnessed. "General Harding?"

Adrienne's eyes began to glow, and pain blossomed like an inferno in my head. Bits of memory flashed before my mind's eye, all of them to do with the night's secret mission. For a single, horrifyingly clear moment, the memory of the jellicents' glowing red eyes lingered in my head.

After that, everything abruptly slipped into darkness for me.

xxx

I woke up with a start, with a mouth that felt as dry as the proverbial toxicroak's ass. A quick glance down south revealed that I wasn't having another hangover, since I hadn't collapsed on the floor and slept in the nude, so I began to wonder just what I had been doing the night before. Silas was also sleeping on the bed, which further reinforced my belief that I wasn't hung over – I tended to leave him in his pokeball when I was drunk.

It was then that I realized the previous night was a blur to me.

With a frown, I got up, and checked my alarm clock – it was Sunday, and so at least I had managed to get the date right. The time was about eleven in the morning, though, and that was sufficient to send my mind into a suspicious, squinty-eyed state. I never slept past nine in the morning on Sundays, since the mess hall downstairs tended to have unusually good coffee during the weekends, so unless someone had tampered with my clock, something fishy was definitely going on.

If only I knew just what I had been up to last night.

"Well, this is a new one," I muttered to myself, reaching for Silas and tapping his shell. With a few murmured curses, he woke up and gave me a sleepy glare.

"What's going on, trainer?" he asked, sticking his tongue out. "Overslept?"

I frowned at him. "What was I doing last night, again?"

"Oh, joy," Silas grumbled. "Now he's an amnesiac."

"I seriously don't know even if I got drugged and date raped last night, so your cooperation would be appreciated," I deadpanned.

Silas tried to say something, but ended up letting out a little squeak instead. Looking unnerved, he said, "I can't remember, either!"

"What?" I asked him, hardly believing what I had just heard. "What do you mean you don't remember?"

"Something isn't right," he hissed, narrowing his eyes at me. "All I'm getting is a blur when I think of last night. Mighty suspicious, if you ask me..."

"What, the Darkrai came and stole our memories?" I asked him sarcastically. "Unlikely, much?"

"Or a psychic could've stolen them," he retorted. "Any number of pokemon could have done this, really. Maybe your boyfriend could help us out on this."

"Excuse me – my boyfriend?" I asked, having rough idea of who he was referring to.

"Tall, black hair? Has a sexy body, if your ramblings are anything to go by? Answers to Zachary Harding?"

"You're smart, Silas, but fuck no!"

"So are we going to him for help or not?" Silas asked, ignoring the glare I sent his way. "You might even get a chance at him if you went to him now, since only the gods know what he might've been up to last night."

"... shut up."