A huge shadow manifests out of the wall. The Drowzee has no time to react before a shadowy ball slams into it. The attack is super effective and it falls to the floor in a daze. With a curse, my Team Rocket Grunt foe recalls the psychic Pokemon and takes off in a run for the stairs.

I glance over to where the other Team Rocket member, Kenji, was and see that he too has bolted. It wouldn't be my style to pursue but the thought of Ellie being squeezed by that Arbok has me considering it until I hear a loud snoring.

I turn my attention to Looker who is curled up in a slumbering ball on the floor. Lying on his side in a wrinkled coat, I imagine he'll awaken with a few aches but his face suggests serenity.

"Oh dear," Morty's amused voice calls as he enters through the stairwell door. He holds it open for Ellie and Steven as they carry through the Girafig plush.

Steven's mouth is set in a line that bends at the corners when the Girafig's head knocks off the ceiling and he has to angle it to fit it through.

"Oh no, what happened to him?" Ellie quips with worry as she spots Looker.

Ellie. I still can't get used to the name or her appearance. I've never considered how Mia would look at this age. She was an eternal child to me and had I given it any thought at all maybe I would've imagined her mother in her youth and that is an image I refuse to conjure. It's too painful, that's why I don't have any photos of them on me, I don't want to keep seeing what I lost.

"A Drowzee hypnotised him," I explain in an attempt to reassure her, "he's asleep, that's all."

The sound of glass shattering has me turning in surprise. I am expecting another attack but all I can see are the glass covers of paintings on the walls breaking of their own accord. The sound of pottery cracking follows and I look back to see soil spilling out onto the floor as the plant pots by the lifts shatter.

Ellie gives a deafening scream and my head begins to pang along with it almost instantly.

I see Morty's mouth moving but I cannot hear what he is saying. My ears are deafened with the screaming and a hot, damp sensation of fresh blood seeping out of my nostrils distracts me.

Steven drops the Girafig and grabs Ellie tightly, pulling her into him and holding her close. Morty grasps her shoulder and presses his other hand up to his brow.

My eyes are watering and my vision of Ellie blurs. I stumble forward and feel my briefcase slip out of my grasp. It hits the floor and bursts open along with both lift doors.

I fall to my knees beside Looker and grab my skull with both hands as if it might ease the pain.

"Mia, stop," I say the words so quietly I don't even hear myself say them and yet somehow it works.

The screaming stops, the furniture ceases its shaking and the horrid pain in my head begins to recede.

"Ellie you are only going to attract attention with these outbursts," I hear Steven scolding. He makes it sound like she can help it but I don't think she can. Is this how Team Rocket found her in Hoenn and here in Johto? Does she keep having these surges of psychic outbursts, which inevitably must lead to gossip that reaches their ears?

I rub away the water from my eyes and try to sniff back some of the blood as I look up to her. Her expression is blank and it terrifies me, her eyes have glazed over like there's no one behind them.

"Ellie," Morty murmurs gently, "come on now, come back. It's okay, that blackness was from your past, just leave it there."

The Farfetch'd gives a low, worried squawk and I realise it is standing by Ellie's feet.

"Quackles," Ellie's voice comes out frightened.

Steven releases her and bends down to pick up the feathered Pokemon. "He's here," he reassures as he presses the unimpressed looking Farfetch'd into Ellie.

Ellie takes hold of the Pokemon and gives him a hug. She closes her eyes and when they open again I see they are full of emotion. Wherever she went, she's back now.

"I'm sorry," she says apologetically as she looks from Steven to Morty, "I didn't mean to...there was just..." She shakes her head until her gaze comes to me. Now she looks full of guilt and I can relate as I wonder if I caused all this by mentioning the Drowzee.

"Not again." She bends down and releases her Fartfetch'd to the floor.

Shock fills me as she runs up to me. "I am so sorry Mr Larry!" She drops to her knees and lifts the end of her crimson scarf to dab it against my bloodied nostrils. "I really didn't mean it."

Up close I can tell the scarf is old, there is a mustiness to it and I can see it is thinning in places where threads have strayed. I cannot imagine why she hasn't replaced it or even why she wears it when it isn't cold.

She shakes her head sorrowfully. "Lance said Morty might be able to help, that's why we picked Johto to come to but all I've done is bring Morty and now you into my mess!"

I reach out my hand to grasp her wrist gently and cease her attempts to clean my blood. I take her in grey eyes and the faint freckles about her nose, searching for signs of Mia's mother there. I can see hints of myself- the doubt, the eternal unease, and the lack of confidence- I have given her all of my worst traits.

"It's okay," I try to reassure her. "I said something to trigger it, didn't I? I'm sorry."
She shakes her head again. "But how could you have known?" She turns away from me, looking over her shoulder to nothing. "It was the Drowzee..." Her gaze fixes fast upon me again, serious as she holds mine. I realise she is trying to seek something out in my stare but I'm not sure what. "Team Rocket had me captive when I was young, they wanted to use my psychic powers for their own. They...there were Psychic Pokemon, they had them do things...hypnotise me and eat my dreams. They were trying to learn things about me, he said it would be how they could control me."

I am angry until Ellie shudders, with that gesture of fear my anger dissipates for sympathy. I want to hug her and beg her forgiveness for letting her go to suffer such horrible things. If only I had come home from work sooner that day. Yet the words won't come, I'm too cowardly for a confession and far too scared of what will happen should I mention Mia.

"That probably explains a bit about why you have all these voids," Morty interjects. He stand behind Mia, hands on his hips as he surveys the both of us. "The psychic abuse would have left mental scarring on you."

"How did you get away from Team Rocket?" I blurt out the question that has been niggling at me for a while.

Ellie glances down to the bloodstained end of the scarf and then looks back up to me again with confusion. "It's a bit of a void too, there was a boy and a man, they both had the red R but they helped me. The boy got me out, he helped me, he was nervous but he made me smile. I think he got the man to help, the man made me disappear in the woods. He gave me this scarf because it was cold and said someone would find me soon. I remember hearing wild Pokemon and I got scared so I wrapped it around my face, I was afraid to see what was out there."

Ellie turns her attention to Steven. I follow her stare and see that Steven still appears worried. "Steven and Lance found me."

Steven raises his silvered eyebrows and nods. "That was in Kanto. I was visiting Lance in Viridian City, we found you in the Forest when some man came running out saying he'd heard a girl crying in there and was looking help to find her. Never saw him again, couldn't say much about what he looked like either since he'd part of his face covered up. Lance and I headed into the forest and I had my Beldum use its magnetism to send out pulses to try and locate you."

I see Ellie's shoulders tense slightly but she offers no comment. The thought of her alone in the middle of the woods fills me with a guilty grief. Sure she has survived it but it should have never happened.

"I remember finding you bundled up in that scarf," Steven comments with fondness. It is the first hint of a positive emotion I have heard from him. "You were quite a sight, Lance and I had idea what to make of you, I mean we were only teenagers."

Ellie turns round to look back down at the sorry looking scarf. "You said we matched, my scarf and your ascot."

I look questioningly to Steven's ascot, it is a vivid crimson silk and better kept than the scarf. I suppose it could be a replacement. I don't really care, part of me hates how he and Ellie share something like that. I have some vague recollection of her playing dress up with her mother's hats and her mother's Espeon. Her mother had a wonderful collection of hats.

"We still match," Steven's words bring me back to the present.

"And you took her in without looking for her real family?" My words come out accusatory and seeing Steven's frown makes me realise how odd my tone must seem.

Steven folds his arms as annoyance darkens his face. "She didn't remember anything so we had nothing to go with. We asked about the Kanto Region, Lance had people searching for information but it was difficult to do that without giving her away to Team Rocket."

I nod along, knowing that I should seize my chance to confess that I am Ellie's father but I can't because I'm not. I'm Mia's father and it feels like something different.

"Huh. I thought you'd have notes in there."

Morty's words draw attention to the contents of my briefcase lying exposed on the floor. He has his hands on his knees as he leans over to scrutinise my private possessions. I scramble to gather them up, grasping at uneven sheets of paper and simultaneously clasping them to me while reaching out for others. This is the meagre contents of my life on display, things I must always carry with me because I can't lose this burden. Newspaper cuttings, police reports and funeral notices are crumpled up and shoved back into my briefcase hastily. I keep the horror with me because I deserve to be punished with it. I failed them. If I have to live without them then I need to suffer because I should have been there.

Seeing Ellie holding a sheet of paper I tense up.

"What a cute puppy Pokemon," she says softly. She raises her head up and I make out blobs of black, red, orange and yellow on the paper. "A fire Pokemon isn't it? I always like to see them but I couldn't have one, fire is so dangerous." She frowns. "It scares people." She clenches her right hand and turns her head down it. I look down too and see the faint pink scarring there before she pulls the hand away. I can remember smacking her hands when she conjured up flames and started to set fire to her curtains. Does she remember that pain? Has my reaction back then caused her to fear fire or is this the work of Team Rocket?

She holds the drawing out to me and I take it tentatively. I think of the doomed Houndour who modelled for it and feel the Dusk Ball that holds the Greavard pressing against my ribcage from my inner jacket pocket. What would happen if I brought it out? Would either it or Ellie have any kind of recognition for the other? I don't want them to because she hasn't recognised me.

I push the drawing into the briefcase and close it up.

Looker gives a low groan as he starts to return to consciousness. In all the commotion of Ellie's psychic outburst I forgot all about him. He sits up with a yawn and stretches out his arms. He looks well-rested and I feel a prickle of envy for him. I always wonder what a good sleep must feel like.

"Larry," he greets me with a tired smile, "did we get those two Rocket ruffians?"

"Two of them?" Ellie queries worriedly. "Were they looking for me then?"

I consider a lie but the comfort of one might only risk danger and Morty can probably sense the truth anyway so I nod sombrely.

"Well one said he was here for a Water Stone and acted like he didn't know the other," I admit. Should I tell them it was Kenji? I consider that Ellie, Morty and Steven probably wouldn't even know the name, they just met him at the park didn't they? "The other one admitted he was looking for you."

Morty tilts his head slightly before looking over his shoulder as his Gengar floats up out of the floor in a disturbing fashion. "Huh. Gengar says one laughed like was sick, what does that mean?"

"I'm not sure," I answer. I imagine it is a mean reference to Kenji's odd laugh.

"We must make haste!" Looker announces as he points upwards with one finger dramatically.

"Yes, we must," Steven says, taking care to emphasise the we. He folds his arms and frowns at the detective. "What's your deal again? You're in the police but you don't even have a Pokemon, why would you go run after trouble without one?"

I see sorrow cross Looker's face, it's ill-suited to his eccentric oriented pluckiness. It is a blink and miss it moment as his dark stare wavers with grief before he masks it with his usual excitable enthusiasm. I recall Ellie saying Looker has a void associated with death but I suppose in his line of work that is the risk.

"The International Police," he corrects, "and I have been pursuing Team Rocket Executive Troy for a long time now. In part to stop him but also to stop their leader and end their organisation."

"Organisations have many members," Steven grumbles, "and factions and cells, it's not that simple. Not that easy to find them or defeat them, you take out one and maybe they're just a decoy, the fall guy or they're replaceable."

It sounds like Steven is rambling. Out of the corner of my eye I see Morty with his hands at his hips as he regards Steven with concern and it makes me realise I'm not the only one to think the man is rambling.

Ellie turns to Steven briefly before facing me with concern. She is still kneeled before me, evidently unsure if I still need help or not.

"Running from them is only a delay," Looker says, "I want to help you consider tactics and a way to end this."

"I'm a former Champion!" Steven snaps. "Are you saying you can defeat them when I can't? What do you think, I'm running out of fear?"

"Steven-" Ellie is on her feet and reaching out to grab the hands he has curled into fists. "It's okay, he doesn't mean it like that. He wants to help."

"I meant no insult," Looker says sincerely, "I am a great admirer of your skills Mr Stone. I wish to end Team Rocket's terror and these disasters you suffer with them."
Steven casts an ugly look upon me. I suppose it was inevitable and he has a right to wonder about my presence but I feel a hint of annoyance for his persistent annoyance anyway. He found Mia and he kept her. I am grateful that he was there to save her in the forest but furious that I was not.

"Why are you here then? All the way from Paldea, a member of the Elite Four and a Gym Leader, what's your story?"

"He said he wanted to warn Ellie and that he knew what Team Rocket could do to psychics because they were in Paldea once," Morty remarks calmly. I feel his probing violet stare upon me and I know he suspects there is more to what I have told him. "I thought he was a psychic at first but he he's totally normal, not even a whiff of ability."

Normal. Yep that's me, the normal man who is exactly as he seems on the surface- dull and totally unremarkable but somehow I got an incredible, far from normal wife and child and then I lost them. Maybe I was too normal to deserve them, too entirely unremarkable to be worthy of keeping them.

"Why were Team Rocket in Paldea?" Steven demands.

"The same reason they went to Hoenn," I admit calmly.

Steven's grey stare darts down to Ellie and back up to me. He glances Looker's way as well. "You two said you were here to warn us that they were after Ellie, they came to Hoenn and almost killed my mother, then we came here and so did they. How did you ever get wind of them?" He points to Looker. "He says he's been tracking Troy, stands to reason he followed him from Hoenn to here, where does Paldea fit into it? Where do you fit into this Mr Larry?"

I stare up to Ellie's curious, grey stare. What will her reaction be? Doesn't she feel any connection me? After all this time I never considered that she might have found another family. She has a brother now, a Champion to protect her, what am I to that?

"They murdered my wife." My words come out in a detached manner as if I am speaking of someone else's horror. "I want an end to them before they cause others that pain."

I feel Looker's brown stare upon me, questioning and buzzing with energy, no doubt wondering why I won't say anything to Ellie. Ellie. Yes, she is Ellie now isn't she- Ellie Stone. Mia seems to be dead after all because Ellie has no recollection of her, that's become a void.