Chapter 21 – Flavors

When I woke up to the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling, I somehow got a feeling that it wasn't the first time I'd done that. Well, the ceiling itself wasn't entirely unfamiliar – it was the same, bland plasterboard that all the ceilings at port control were made of. Only when I looked around at my surroundings did I realize that I was actually in the medical bay, for some reason I couldn't comprehend.

Fortunately, Silas was right there beside me, in a small aquarium with cheerful-looking cartoons of starfish and corals on its sides. The streams of tiny bubbles coming out from between the halves of his shell let me know that he was indeed alive and that he was probably still in dreamland.

The question was, how in the eighteen levels of Chinese hell had I ended up being held up in the sickbay?

"Ah, good – you're awake," there came a wheezing voice from behind me that could only have belonged to one Doctor Esther. "Your shellder is still out for the count, though."

"His name," I rasped through a throat as parched as sandpaper, "is Silas."

"Whatever floats your boat, kid," the good doctor shrugged, as she stepped into my field of view. "Now, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Five. Is there some reason why I'm here... again?" I asked, trying to get up and getting shoved back into the pillow by everyone's favourite medical officer. "My physical was due for next month, wasn't it?"

"Well, you apparently got involved in some prophetic nonsense with Zachary's slowbro," Doctor Esther said, scribbling away on her clipboard. "The psychic whiplash knocked you out for a whole day flat."

"And Silas?" I glanced at his tank out of the corner of my eye – he seemed to be quite contentedly snoozing.

"Ah, he seems to have suffered from the psychic whiplash as well. Probably involved in the prophecy, but it's anyone's guess, really."

For a while, there was silence in the room, as she continued making notes and I tried to recall the prophecy I'd supposedly been privy to. I didn't feel a headache of any sort, which was probably good – psychics were known to leave nasty brain tumours as souvenirs of mind linkage on the odd occasion. And of course, nasty headaches were the earliest sign of their little calling cards.

Doctor Esther broke the silence soon enough, though. "If you don't mind me asking... what do you recall of the prophecy?"

"As of now? Nothing," I shook my head. "Everything's a big blur."

She glanced around furtively, before stepping closer to me. "If you want, I could... do something to try and clear that up."

"Oh?" I narrowed my eyes at her suspiciously. Was she about to drug me? "Not anything illegal, is it?"

"Technically, yes. And if you thought about it even more technically, no."

"... how contradictory."

She slipped a gloved hand into the pocket of her lab coat, and pulled out a pokeball. "One of my pokemon is particularly good at clarifying memories. Well, his main task is memory extraction during criminal cases, but then again, sharpening mental focus isn't too far off from that."

I felt a cold trickle of fear running down my spine. "And just how much will he see?"

"Depends on the degrees of mental association," she shrugged. "If two thoughts are very strongly associated with each other, then he'll see the connection between them immediately. Let's say you had a pathological fear of insects and the dark, for instance; memories of darkness and bugs will appear practically alongside each other."

I shook my head. "I don't think I'd appreciate him rooting through my mind, thank you. Maybe I'll recall it on my own time."

Doctor Esther smirked at me through cracked lips, her yellow eyes watering slightly as she nodded. "It's a little late for that, sweetie."

With a flick of her wrist, the pokeball opened, and revealed... nothing. It was as empty as a dusclops' body, and no pokemon materialized.

However, a soft, shuffling noise from behind my bed gave the pokemon's location away. I twisted my head to one side to try and see what it was, only to get a glance of the medical bay's door locking itself from the inside. Almost immediately after that, a pair of invisible hands latched onto my head, and forced me to look straight up at the ceiling.

Within moments, the psychic moved closer and leaned over my face, swinging a silvery object slowly from its paw. Its eyes were ringed by dark circles and had large bags under them, and its skin looked waxy and thin, almost as if it had been forcibly stretched over its skull. The swinging pendulum glittered with a palpable aura of menace, as if it was somehow in possession of a life of its own.

"So this is the subject?" the hypno spoke up, looking to his mistress for instructions. "It will be a delicate procedure."

"Commence with caution," Doctor Esther's voice said disinterestedly. "I just need you to make him recite the prophecy."

The hypno's eyes glowed, and its charm began spinning in circles despite the fact that its paw was stationary. My vision began to blur, and for a few fleeting seconds, I felt a curious sense of detachment, as if my whole body had gone numb.

Random images began flashing through my mind, like a reel of film gone mad. Sometimes, the images were blurred or blackened, for some odd reason or another. Eventually, the hypno revealed an image of Adrienne standing in General Harding's office.

"Perfect. Now, speak."

When my lips began moving, the voice that passed through them sounded nothing like my own.

"There will come a time when souls will be among the currencies available for trade, child. You must then choose the price to be paid, and the means by which you shall pay for the chance to redeem more than you could comprehend beyond a lifetime. And ultimately, your lifetime shall never see any greater and fulfilling achievement than that which you shall devote your life to. It shall have purpose beyond comprehension, and impact beyond lifetimes."

With a hiss, the hypno pulled out of my mind, causing all the flashing images to suddenly vanish. It stepped back out of my field of view, and spoke to its trainer. "This is beyond the expectations – you didn't tell me he would be involved to this level."

"And what did you expect me to know, Armando?" Doctor Esther snapped. "You're the psychic, damn it!"

"He," the hypno said pointedly, "is in possession of memories linked to a possible future."

"That's to be expected, you..." her voice trailed off as she apparently caught the meaning of his words. "Wait a minute... did you say a possible future?"

"That is correct. A singular pathway, but one which I cannot see clearly – it's almost as if something is blocking me from probing deeper into his mind."

"Is it Adrienne's work?"

"This is beyond her ability," the hypno replied in an uncertain tone. "I think another psychic has been involved."

"What about Zachary's insane slowking?" asked Doctor Esther curiously, "The combined effort between those two might have been sufficient, no?"

"This is beyond the capability of any mere slowpoke evolution! I suspect that... they may be involved."

"They?" the hypno's trainer echoed, disbelief evident in her voice. "Are you sure you don't need some sleep or something?

"The efforts made to conceal the precise nature of the singular pathway... they were elegant in their simplicity. Never have I seen such secure mind-blocking before," said the hypno, sounding rather tired. "Oh, and before I forget – this one's commanding officer is approaching."

"Wipe this conversation from his memory, then."

"It is done."

Three sharp knocks came from the medical bay's door, even as I heard a soft pop indicating that a psychic had just teleported away from the room – could it have been Adrienne? The answer to that question, however, presented itself as Doctor Esther moved over and unlocked the door, letting General Harding and Adrienne into the room.

"Jeez, doc," General Harding laughed, as he stepped into the medical bay. "Were you about to take advantage of my dear subordinate? He may be packing some heat down under, but that's highly unprofessional, isn't it?"

Doctor Esther let out a disdainful snort. "As if I'm that terrible a medical officer... you'd be more likely to screw him over than I would, and you know that!"

"Guys, I'm right here!" I croaked, flushing a little after the brief exchange of accusations between the two of them. "And umm, could I go get myself some water?"

"Might want to get out of that hospital gown first, though," muttered our resident mad doctor. "Your mooning of the hospital's personnel is a sort of urban legend around these parts, already."

"... yes, ma'am."

xxx

After a long day of General Harding grilling me over the prophecy – to the point that I could easily recite the whole damn thing from memory - I finally crashed onto my bed, and Silas hauled himself up onto my stomach. With a sigh, I ran a hand through my hair, and closed my eyes.

"I'm hungry," Silas whistled. "And that's no thanks to you skipping dinner."

"Hey, I got you some food, didn't I?" I mumbled, feeling my stomach protest a little in agreement with him – that damned traitor of an organ.

"But you didn't eat, and I usually steal your food," he reminded me, slapping his tongue against my chest. "Besides, that supper joint nearby is good, isn't it?"

"... I am not falling for your tricks, Silas."

"Think of those juicy noodles! And that cute bartender with the green eyes and muscular arms!" he chirped happily. "Not to forget that waiter you made out in the stock room with, of course."

I glared at him. "And just how did you find out about the stock room incident?"

"Please,bitch – when your trainer is the biggest gossip item on this side of Canalave, you'd need to be well-informed!" he replied triumphantly. "So, shall we head to Diz's?"

"Wait, what?" I gaped at him, sitting up. "What gossip item?"

"I'll cut you a deal," Silas said smugly. "We go for supper, and you get the gossip."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I swear, if you try to back out of this one, I'm tying your tongue into a three-strand plait."

"Deal."

I got up and recalled him into his pokeball, and grabbed a T-shirt off my little writing desk. Pulling it over my head, I somehow managed to get myself into a pair of jeans, and made sure that my pistol was tucked securely in its usual spot near my back pocket. With a quick check for my room keys – in the left pocket as always – I completed my pre-outing routine, and left my dorm room.

xxx

As I walked the four blocks over to Diz's Coffee Shop, I kept a wary eye out for the night patrol pokemon groups. Once or twice, I had seen a few lampent hovering in dark corners with their flames dimmed, along with several swalot rummaging through a dumpster in a dark alley.

The lampent had been unsettling enough when they were first brought in, since they tended to congregate near windows to watch people as they slept. However, the swalot were another matter altogether due to their sheer venomous nature and huge appetites.

Briefly, I recalled General Harding mentioning that Canalave didn't have a resident poison specialist – and of course, that raised the question regarding the person who oversaw the swalots' activities. With that rather unsettling thought in mind, I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, and began walking at a slightly brisker pace.

"Hold it!" a sharp voice called out to me as I passed one of the last few alleys before reaching my destination. "State your name, rank, and purpose of excursion!"

I rattled off the relevant bits, and told the trooper that I was heading out for supper. In return, he demanded to see my identification.

"Say, you wouldn't happen to know who controls the swalot, would you?" I asked, as his houndoom scrutinized my ID and he drew a bead on me.

As his houndoom nodded, he shook his head, and finally holstered his firearm. "I don't, and that doesn't make this job any better. Now run along to your destination, and watch out for the lampent – they've already killed two people this week."

With a nod of thanks, I waved to him, and broke into a jog, the lampents' flames casting shadows on the streets, all the way to Diz's front door. It was with a sigh of relief that I pushed the door open, and stepped into the dimly-lit bar.

Diz's was an old establishment, it was. While it may have been a coffee shop as far as its sign was concerned, it was in actual fact, a bar. Hell, few even remembered the days when it was run by the old man named Diz – according to the locals, he'd died some thirty years ago, and it was only thanks to the efforts of a business tycoon of some sort that his former business remained operating.

Once I was in the bar and past the bouncer – who was playing cards with his machamp – I released Silas. "Alright, Silas – time for your end of the deal."

"Food first!" he insisted, wagging his tongue at me. "Then we can talk!"

"Remember our deal, right?" I reminded him, as I walked up to the bar, and hailed the bartender. "Oi, can I have two beers and a plate of fried noodles?"

"If I say no?" the bartender smirked. "What'll it be, then?"

I smiled right back at him. "A fistfight out back, that's what. And perhaps some fun in the stock room after that."

He laughed. "Fucking teasing fruit, you are – two beers, and I'll give you a shout when the noodles are ready."

As I picked up the beers together with a saucer and headed back to my table, I saw Silas giving the neighbouring table's occupant the evil eye. Depositing the beers on the table, I tapped him on the shell. "So, what's with the glaring?"

"That bugger gives me the creeps. Don't know why, but he does," Silas replied, blowing a raspberry at the cross-eyed drunk. "So, you got food!"

"The noodles are cooking, so spit it out, Silas," I nudged him as I poured some beer into a saucer for him. "What's all this bullshit about me being gossiped about?"

Silas had the audacity to look smug as he replied, the bastard. "Well, there's the fact that you have a huge crush on Zachary Harding, for one. There are fangirls at port control, you know? So there's plenty of speculation as to whether you two are getting it on."

I gaped at him. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Then there's the under-counter trade in locker room photographs and videos, which they get by bribing the custodians. Bet you didn't know that the janitors have a hidden camera in the locker rooms, now did you? All that black market military porn has to come from somewhere..."

"Oh, gods – I'm not in any of it, am I?" I was getting steadily more mortified as Silas revealed all the dirty little secrets surrounding my apparent sex life – nearly nonexistent thought it may have been.

"Well, it isn't anyone else's fault that you screwed that other dude in the lockers that day... Although I guess you could take consolation in the fact that the fangirls seem to enjoy those videos."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "And you know all this, how?"

"Please, bitch – I know everything," he retorted with a happy chirp. "Those spinarak they use to relay memos are horribly talkative, really. All you need to do is listen and you'd get lots of nonsense out of them. When you go to Adrienne and double check...well, who knew? My trainer is a porn star, apparently."

"Well, shit!" I cursed, as I took a swig of my beer. "I'm guessing this isn't the worst of it?"

"Surprisingly, it is," Silas answered, sounding a little put-off. "There's some stuff about how you mooned people in the hospital – so it seems you're also an exhibitionist – but other than that, the gossip mill seems pretty silent. It's only really active when the rumours about you and Zachary start up, alas."

"You seem pretty disappointed that I'm relatively scandal-free," I pointed out, as he slurped up some beer from the saucer.

"You're quite a vanilla person, eh," he replied dismissively. "Not too difficult to get along with, except for when you try to pull some weird crap on me like climbing drainpipes. So I try to amuse myself by joining in on the gossip!"

"You, you... bastard!" I muttered, swatting him on his shell and causing some beer to splash into his eyes. "It's not like I'm deliberately a sadist-"

"Only to me, right," he said waspishly. "And look who the meowth dragged in."

I cast a glance at the door, only to see none other than General Harding stepping into the bar. He was decked out in black, and seemed to have some heavy stuff on his mind, if his expression was anything to go by. Thanks to the bar's bad lighting, though, he didn't notice us, and immediately went over to a corner table, where he flagged down a waiter.

"He looks serious," I told Silas. "Wonder what's on his mind?"

"I have no idea, and I really don't care," my shellder replied flatly. "Where the hell are the noodles, anyway?"

A quick glance towards the kitchen revealed that the cook was busy chopping something up with a cleaver, so it probably wouldn't have been advisable for us to stir up a ruckus over some stalled noodles.

"Looks like the cook is... occupied," I informed Silas. "You can wait here if you want, but I'm going over to bug him a little."

"If there's anyone out there with a massive boner for him, it's you, sweetie."

"I'll keep that in mind," I tapped him on the shell as I grabbed my beer and headed towards General Harding's table. He only noticed me approaching when I was about five feet away, and the abrupt shift in his facial expression wasn't something that I missed.

"Evening, kid," he drawled, as he cracked a peanut's shell. "What brings you here?"

"It seemed like you had a lot on your mind," I shrugged, as I sat myself down opposite him. "So I decided to keep you company."

General Harding popped the peanut into his mouth, and raised an eyebrow at me. "Maybe I was just in the mood to eat on my own for once, eh? Can't be a social animal all the time, contrary to what Maurice would've thought."

Not really knowing what to say to that, I took one of his peanuts – well, he had a bag of them on the table – and cracked it open. "If you say so, sir."

"Not that I'm trying to be antisocial like Fen," he mumbled as he chewed on a nut. "But sometimes, it's... soothing to have some quiet time."

"But eating alone..." my words trailed off as I remembered something I had heard quite a long time ago. "It is a sad person that eats alone, sir."

"And where did that come from?" he asked, with a look of amused curiosity on his face.

"My... late grandfather," I replied, feeling a little hesitant. "He always tried to avoid eating alone, sine he said food is what unites humanity."

He seemed to think my words over for a moment, nibbling on a peanut while he pondered them. "Your grandfather was a wise man, kid. I'm not joking when I say that those words are... surprisingly true."

"I just used to think that he was getting senile in his old age," I said softly.

Right about then, a waiter came by with General Harding's drink – it looked like a type of soda, but somehow reeked of vodka. He took the glass with a nod of thanks, and went back to munching on his peanuts, as did I. For a while, there was silence at the table, as the two of us ate peanuts and sipped from our glasses.

It was him that broke the silence after that, though. "You never went on an actual training journey, kid, so take my word for it when I tell you that being alone during meals... is probably one of the sadder things in life. It's a small thing, yes, but then again, the little things are those that matter, more often than not."

"Don't you eat many meals alone while travelling, sir?" I asked, as I watched a waiter deliver my plate of fried noodles to the table where Silas was still contentedly lapping up beer from his saucer. "I mean, you're on the road most of the time, no?"

"I always ate with Fen and Gary," he said absently, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. "Or if they were elsewhere, I ate with my team.

"Those meals were the best meals I have ever had till this day, kid. It's a shame that you'll never get the chance to experience that; it truly was one of training's more memorable aspects."

I had no answer to that, and so silence settled down over the table once again. The peanut massacre continued, although it did come to an abrupt halt several times when the two of us encountered bad nuts that very nearly ended up being eaten, anyway. Eventually, a waiter came by with Silas, the saucer of beer, Silas' glass of beer, and the plate of noodles on a tray.

"The shellder asked to be brought over here, I think," he said gruffly. "Is that right?"

"Most probably," I nodded, unloading my food and pokemon from the tray. "Slow night tonight?"

He cast a look around the near-deserted bar, and nodded wearily. "Been this way since the night patrols came about. Hell, those lampent killing two civilians isn't helping matters any. But we'll survive – we always have."

Just then, the bartender rang the bell calling for him, and the waiter headed back to the bar. Silas slurped up some of the fried noodles, and I grabbed the fork to get some for myself before he ate the lot (for a bloody shellfish, he sure had a decent appetite).

"Fried noodles," mused General Harding, as he sipped from his Coke screwdriver – it was supposed to be a mixture of soda and vodka, I think. "Always a safe choice, they are."

"True enough," I nodded, as I swallowed the forkful of noodles.

General Harding gave me an odd look as I topped up Silas' saucer of beer. "Wait a minute... is that beer you're giving him?"

"Got a problem with that, Captain Queer?" Silas asked him flippantly.

"Silas!" I chided him, even as I sipped from my own glass of beer. "Well... it does help him sleep a little better at night. And it keeps him well-behaved sometimes."

He shook his head slowly, seemingly amused by my justification for giving my starter alcohol. "Cute, you two are."

We ended up lingering in the bar for a while, making small talk about current matters and work. Before we knew it, the electrical grandfather clock in the corner was striking one, and the lampent outside were hovering rather close to the glass windows in front of the bar, trying to see just who their potential victims were.

"Ah, it's late," General Harding said in an amused voice. "You guys got your own way out of here? The lampent are looking hungry."

"We have a duskull," nodded the bartender, even as said ghost floated out of the kitchen, wearing a chef's hat and cackling madly. "What about you guys?"

"Oh, we're walking with my swampert," he replied, letting Moivre out near the door. As soon as the muscle-bound pokemon saw the lampent, it threw the front door open and immediately began spewing streams of water at them, causing them to scatter in a panic. "Moivre just dislikes ghosts, heh."

"Goodnight to you gentlemen, then," said the bartender, as his duskull Shadow Sneaked the waiters out of the bar.

"Come on, kid. It's time to go."

"Got it, sir," I nodded.

Recalling Silas into his pokeball, I followed General Harding out into the darkened streets, where Moivre was already waiting for us. At the edge of my vision, I could see the lampent all lingering in the shadows, watching us through their glassy bodies. After about fifteen minutes of walking, we made it back to the hostel, where General Harding got the guards to open the gate for me – well, they were a little unhappy about me breaking curfew, but they opened it anyway.

Just as I was about to enter the compound, though, General Harding pulled me back. "One moment, kid."

"Sir? They want to close the gate, already," I replied, confused.

"Just wanted to tell you that, well..." he scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Always remember all those things you learned when growing up, yea? And don't ever change."

"Why... what do you mean by that, sir?" I asked, even more confused than I had been.

"Sleep on it, kid, and maybe you'll get it," he shrugged, spinning on his heel and stalking off into the shadows alongside Moivre. "Goodnight!"

I watched him vanish into the darkness that covered the streets, before stepping through the gate and into the hostel's compound.