[Part 1]
About half a day to the north-east from the last place they stayed, in the deep of the woods, was a lone human building. A small cabin made out of wooden logs, it looked completely abandoned. Its roof caved in, broken windows peering out like empty eye sockets, and the walls covered in ivy, moss and mushrooms. The walls themselves looked like they could fall apart at any moment. Staying in this place was possibly worse, than staying outside.
Not that they planned to.
Leaving the job of checking for any signs of unneeded company to her girlfriend, Hiei extended her tactile gravitational field to look for uncalled for surveillance. Nothing so far.
Good.
They entered the building.
Inside, the place looked just as badly as outside. Broken furniture strewn around, wood rotting under the elements. Pieces of unrecognisable things left by humans, torn apart and scattered by wildlife. A horrible rag of revolting scent and indistinguishable color covering the deeply damaged floor.
Not wanting to touch the horrible cloth, Hiei altered its gravity to force it to roll into a wall. Below it, just as they were told, was a steel trapdoor. An unlocked steel trapdoor.
After descending down for a few minutes, they found themselves in a much less damp, but still abandoned-looking human building of grey concrete with active, if faulty, artificial lighting substituting for the lack of windows.
"Think they've got any hidden cameras here?" Inabayama looked around. At this, Hiei closed her eyes, extending her tactile field to a rather unreasonable distance of a hundred meters, before shaking her head.
"Nothing. Just as Tiger promised," the Gardevoir noted, then floating down the corridor, towards another steel door.
"I still don't get why we trust him"
"We don't. Either he's trying to show his trustworthiness, or he's trying to lead us into a trap. If it turns out to be the latter, we just have to kill Tiger and everything that gets in-between us and him. If it's the former, there might be some merit in keeping him alive, depending on what he wants from us. Especially if our suspicions are true"
Inabayama nodded. The dragon could probably tear her way out of this facility with hurt bare hands, but it really did not mean that Hiei expected her to like walking into a possible trap. Which, hopefully, this won't turn out to be.
It took them just a few minutes of walking through corridors and rooms to reach their next milestone - which might have had taken much less than that, if Hiei wasn't too busy analysing the security measures of this place. Just like Tiger claimed, the security had been nonexistent, cameras taken down, and complex circuitry dismantled. The only three systems that were left alone through the entire complex were lighting, ventilation, and comms. Judging by thick layer of dust on practically every surface, and just a few trails of human prints leading towards and away from their destination, everything else was dismantled months if not years ago.
Finally reaching large, heavy, steel doors with a small table to the side, Gardevoir silently nodded towards the latter. After checking said table, Inabayama returned with a small device with a single button - their substitute for that two-way radio, as it would've been completely useless in this, basically, underground bunker.
Gently putting her hand on top of her girlfriend's, and giving hers an affirming squeeze, Hiei proceeded to press out a message in Morse code through it.
"We are here."
After about twenty to thirty seconds, the bunker comms finally crackled in response.
"AH, RED EYES, GREEN EYES, YOU'VE MADE IT!" the Tiger's slightly distorted voice came through the system. And good, he remembered that Hiei was not the only one here, "JUST AS PROMISED, MY PEOPLE LEFT THE TWO POKEMON IN THE ROOM BEHIND THESE DOORS. THEY WERE GIVEN AN EXPLICIT COMMAND NOT TO DO ANYTHING, THOUGH I SHOULD BE ABLE TO ISSUE NEW ONES THROUGH THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, IF NECESSARY."
"We are entering."
"JUST REMEMBER, REGARDLESS OF YOUR FINDINGS, I WOULD APPRECIATE IF YOU DID NOT KILL OR HARM THEM. THESE TWO ARE SOME OF OUR STRONGEST BATTLERS, AFTER ALL"
"Understood."
Hiei's hand lingered on dragon's for just a few more moments, before she turned her gaze towards the steel doors, and flung them open with a wave of a hand.
At last, they found themselves in a large, brightly lit room of that same grey concrete. On one side of the room was a large window of opaque glass - though after extending her field to peer behind it, Gardevoir found nothing but dust, empty chairs, and dismantled machinery.
And on the opposite side of the room, stood two Pokemon. A white-and-purple bipedal weasel, and a grey lion with a mane of red and orange. Neither of the two had acknowledged their arrival with any kind of reaction, just standing there.
Staring into nothing.
"Okay, this is creepy," Inabayama grimaced, as they slowly made their way to the two, "Hey, you okay? Mind having a chat?"
Nothing.
Naturally, Goodra's next course of action was to wave her hand in front of the lion's face, though once again, that accomplished nothing.
"Hold on," Hiei closed her eyes, concentrating on her tactile gravitational field.
In the widest sense possible, said field allowed her to detect and measure gravitational forces within its radius. With a bit of concentration, and by peering within the inner gravity of an object, she could discern its shape. And by concentrating on specific areas, she could check the inner structure of an object, finding abnormalities, damage and even composition. That latter part was how she managed to quickly learn so much about the transmitter on the lake - though now, it was used to basically perform a baseline medical scan of the two Pokemon in front of them.
It did not take long to see what was the issue.
And the 'issue' was downright ghoulish. As in, ghoulish enough for a change in their plans. Sure, once she achieves godhood, she will be able to deal with the ones responsible for THIS - but on the off chance something goes wrong, she wanted to ensure that nothing like this could happen in foreseeable future.
"Uh, Hiei?.. Did you find anything?"
"Do you know what function is performed by the brain?" she turned her attention to the dragon. As horrible as the facts were, she did not plan to hide them from her girlfriend.
"Uh… Heavy blows to the head make it harder to think, and tearing it off usually kinda stops the rest of the body from doing anything meaningful, and is also usually enough to kill someone, so… It's sorta like used to command the rest of the body?"
Dragon's musings clearly came from her experience, rather than any taught knowledge. Seeing her put all of it together in a coherent and correct, if simplified answer, did bring a pang of admiration to Hiei - however, now was not really the time.
"Correct. It's used to control and regulate the rest of the body, from conscious movements to hormonal levels, to even heartbeat. The brain and its condition also determines one's behaviour and cognitive ability. In human medical history, there are records of humans surviving significant brain injuries, that drastically alternated their behaviour. And then, there was also the practice of intrusive surgical operations on the brain to alternate its functions."
At this, the dragon visibly shuddered, seemingly putting two and two together.
"Wait, you want to say that these two-"
"They are missing parts of their brains," Hiei replied, noting how Goodra's eyes slowly began to glaze over. Still, she felt like it was only proper to finish the explanation of the situation, "This is why they are so compliant. They were rendered physically incapable of resisting human orders. Parts of the brain are missing rather than being simply severed, to ensure they can't be restored by any means barring a literal miracle. And this is not even the worst part. Given how different the bodies of various Pokemon species can be, so are their brains. Since the humans treat level 101s as valuable weapons and the mortality rates in these operations are too high if performed without sufficient prior knowledge, they likely had to perfect the process through similar operations on their kinsmen, until they got it righ-"
"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" with a loud roar, Inabayama struck the floor with her fist, causing the concrete to practically explode in shrapnel of stone, steel and dust, flinging the two unresponsive Pokemon stumbling into the crackling walls. The entire room visibly shook at the impact, seemingly not collapsing unto itself only be sheer luck.
"Inabayama?.." she called to her girlfriend, who was breathing heavily, with murder raging in her eyes.
"THAT'S what they wanted to do to ME?!" the dragon seethed, hitting the broken ground again. Seemingly not as hard this time, though the room still quaked at the strike, dust and debris harshly showering the ever growing wall cracks, "Just cut my head open, and remove any shreds of ME from MY OWN HEAD?!"
Goodra raised her fist again, though before it could land, Hiei was already next to her, embracing the dragon from behind.
This made Inabayama stop, though did not ease the tension in her entire body.
"Don't… Don't you get it?.. As long as humans do- do THIS," she pointed at the two Pokemon lying motionless by the wall, despite still being alive and conscious, "…just removing limiters won't help! What stops them from-"
"What stops them from using this as their main method of control after I disable limiters? Me. I plan to judge humanity, and kill everyone involved in these kinds of things, their blood raining from the skies, remember?" Hiei explained, looking at her girlfriend calmly, "However, now that we know the truth, I think a contingency plan is needed."
"A… Contingency plan?.."
"We can't allow this to continue regardless of how our hunt for Arceus goes, can we?" Gardevoir leaned slightly into her embrace, "I'm pretty sure Tiger will know where to find the ones responsible. And once we do, we'll make sure they are dead"
"Sounds… Sounds good…" Inabayama nodded. Finally, Hiei felt some of that tension leaving the dragon.
[Part 2]
Roughly twenty minutes ago, Harunobu felt two consecutive earthquakes. And his gut told him those had something to do with the 101s he's been in contact with for the past few days.
This entire situation was a gambit on his part, and now he was waiting to see if said gambit paid off.
You see, he already knew the reason 101s sent to him by his League contact were so compliant. It was not that hard to deduce after Team's veterinarian looked them over, and sent the entire batch for a check up on their admittedly outdated medical equipment. However, just telling Red Eyes everything he knew was different from allowing this 101 to discover the truth naturally. That would leave a far more visceral impression.
The two Pokemon sent to that abandoned facility were the weakest of 101's at Team Brute's disposal. They were still 101s, far more powerful than any level 100 Pokemon, but a chance to trade them for cooperation from Red Eyes and Green Eyes was even more valuable.
In a team of six level 100 Pokemon, the weakest link was always the trainer. The team could only be as effective as its commander. With said commander taken out of the picture, said team usually crumbled apart. Same could also be said about a team including, or even fully consisting of 101s. However, a 101 with a human-like intelligence, while less obedient, was essentially an equivalent to a super-powered human, that could follow a complex plan, or adapt to unforeseen circumstances while lacking the usual weakness of human flesh.
Even if these two were weaker than the two 101s they could possibly kill in that facility, their intelligence made them far more valuable as potential allies.
Which is why Harunobu went to such lengths to ensure that they trusted him as fully as possible. Sure, choosing a place with still functioning cameras, and sending some Pokemon their way to make an estimation of their abilities might've been tempting, but since these 101s were intelligent, that could easily backfire. And he did not want to risk antagonising the two.
Finally, he heard the telltale beeping of a morse code from facility's transmitter.
"THEY WERE LOBOTOMISED"
"Oh…" he responded shortly, not to sound like he knew the answer all along. Also, Red Eyes' vocabulary was surprisingly advanced.
"WHERE WAS THIS DONE?"