The cell was cleaner than Alexis had imagined.
A swift, stealthy kidnapping had kept her in the dark as to her whereabouts, but once she was in her cell and her blindfold was removed, she was less disappointed than she'd expected to be. Perhaps her assumptions about Team Cosmic were a little too biased, what with most of their antics involving theft and violence. She had simply assumed they lived in a base that represented their brutality and disregard for others.
Instead, the cell was clean and had everything she needed to wait comfortably until whatever was meant to happen happened.
Her least favorite part of her cell experience was the fact that one wall was replaced with a large, thick glass so that her cell felt more open. This was a negative because her doppelganger was in the cell across from her in the corridor, so she could barely exist without feeling those ragefull eyes on her.
She felt just as much contempt for her doppelganger, but she knew she was in the right. She hadn't pretended to be good, only to turn around and steal from someone. The doppelganger deserved to be in jail. She didn't, however, but she had no clue how to get out. Even if she did manage to escape, she had none of her Pokémon with her, nor did she know where they were. She was on her own- as were they.
Alexis sat on the side of her bed and looked around her room for answers, or opportunities, or anything of the sort. She had a mirror in her room, above a sink. She had a toilet behind a small screen for privacy, and there was also a small shower. None of it looked useful enough for her to have any serious ideas on how to escape her cage. She just had to wait patiently and see who came along to torment her first.
...
...
...
What was it about this place that made Shane feel so drawn to it?
He felt spikes of nostalgia pricking at him, like heat against cold skin. It felt like returning to your childhood bedroom after years away from home.
That was it.
Home.
But why was it coming from some random cave? Was this a trap, set by Mew?
He would need to keep away, a little distance away, and keep watch. Perhaps Mew was waiting for him to return up in the North, or perhaps she was forcing this encounter. He didn't want to take the risk either way. He left the cave of meteorites- which, suspiciously, was bereft of meteorites- and went to go and find somewhere to hide and watch the people that would enter it after him. He couldn't risk being taken away, he couldn't. But this sense of home was undeniable. He needed to find out more.
Research and reconnaissance were in order.
He noticed that, even though this strange recess into the cliff was meant to have meteorites- and clearly didn't- it did have markings across the floor to imply that the meteorites were there.
"So, where did they go?" Shane wondered aloud. The mystery was liking another part of the bait, set by Mew. He shook his head in frustration at being so gullible and continued to run off to a safer spot, with an eyeline on the entrance.
He refused to be caught off guard by that little pink demon, even once. Now, he just had to wait.
...
...
...
"You know he's going to manipulate you."
Alexis refused to look over at her doppelganger. The doppelganger was being quite hypocritical by suggesting the grunt would be manipulative. Alexis wasn't an idiot. She knew she had been manipulated. She just, didn't have many other options. There was no chance she would allow herself to be manipulated by herself, again, however.
Nevertheless, Alexis was being eaten away from the inside out by her curiosity. He had called her 'sister'. Alexis didn't have a brother, nor did she have any memory of one. None of her family had mentioned the existence of a sibling. This must have been one of the differences between her world and this one, perhaps one of the points causing such a rift in morality between herself and her doppelganger.
"You don't have one, do you?" The doppelganger said, not entirely in a teasing tone, but still smug- as if she knew everything and Alexis knew nothing.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Alexis replied, before silently cursing herself for even bothering to respond at all.
"I saw your eyes, before the blindfolds were put on," the doppelganger said. "I heard him call you that. I know my own face, idiot. It's not difficult to put two and two together."
"What does it matter, anyway?" Alexis asked. "Once I'm back home, I won't need to think about any of the random, ridiculous rubbish that's gone on here."
"Random, ridiculous rubbish," the doppelganger repeated. "Why don't you just swear? It's more freeing than meshing together a whole poetry line of words to avoid saying shit."
"I don't swear," Alexis said, pausing before she muttered to herself, "… much."
"Sure you don't," the doppelganger grinned, "but you're also not getting home any time soon. Not on your own at least."
"I know that," Alexis snapped. "I'm not going to start looking to you for help, though. You already sunk that ship."
"I lost my Pokémon, too," the doppelganger noted.
"You deserve to. You stole mine, or did you forget?"
"It felt like an easy way to make some money," the doppelganger said, shrugging. "Unfortunately, you were slightly more competent than we were anticipating."
"We?"
"My Marshadow and I. Credit to him, he came up with that plan almost immediately. He was also saying some awfully strange things about your own Marshadow."
"What kinds of things?" Alexis asked.
"You know what you need to do if you want those kinds of details," the doppelganger teased. "Information like that costs extra. Free lips are never truly free."
Alexis rolled her eyes, still refusing to look over at the doppelganger. She tried to think of something, anything else to keep her mind occupied. Curiosity was a curse for her, always dragging her into stupid situations- like this one. It was almost a certainty that her doppelganger knew this as well and she was playing right into her hands.
Alexis sighed. If only the room were slightly warmer. It was as if it had been set to a single degree lower than she would have been comfortable with. She didn't want to show weakness by bundling herself up in the blanket, however. She just had to sit and wait out this torture, with her evil self nagging away at her ear the entire time.
She just wished her Marshadow was having better luck with the escape and would be in a pleasant enough mood to try and rescue her, too. That, or she would need to consider the unthinkable. What if Marshadow was in trouble and hoping she would be the one rescuing him and not the other way around? Alexis had to burn her pride and settle for solutions- no matter how horrid they were.
Alexis closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. She turned, agonizingly slowly, towards the glass- and the leering, teasing eyes beyond it.
"Perhaps, what if… we did work together, just this once?" Alexis said, feeling sick to her core. Her doppelganger's smile just grew into a grin.
"So glad you asked," she said, her grin opening into a laugh.
Guest: I'm very sorry, but I ended up forgetting to add a response to your comment on the last chapter. I just wanted to say though, it made me laugh out loud for a second.