[Part 1]
Naturally, whatever had happened back in the facility had its consequences. Hiei understood that. And she had to accept them, regardless of her thoughts on the matter.
Inabayama's injury was the greatest consequence. It was the one that hurt Hiei the most, and if she could replay that day to fix it, she would. She made so many mistakes during that attack, leading to this. Rushing in as quickly as possible instead of taking her time was the first one. Prioritising killing that other human over escaping was the second one. Overestimating her own energy reserves was the third one. Back in the dark recesses of her mind, Gardevoir understood that if she had a choice between harming Inabayama like this, or getting captured, she would've chosen the latter.
Not that she had a choice in the matter anymore.
Her kin was capable of warping space-time continuum, but despite the outright paradoxical manner of her powers, she did not know the exact mechanism of reverting time, even to an unknown point, let alone an exact time. Nor did she know what were the rules of interacting with a different timeline. There were theories on both matters, true, but testing them through gravitational manipulation would've put the entire world at risk. And Inabayama was still part of the world, so for the fear of losing her entirely, these theories had to remain such.
Either way, her taking Goodra's eye in a bout of mindless frenzy was not the only consequence of that day.
First of all, Tiger went completely silent. They have tried to contact him a few times via morse code, and during their last try, the response came from an unfamiliar human voice, who seemed to not even understand the signals, and thought it was some other human storing a turned on radio in their backpack. Either the frequency was hijacked, or something happened to their human contact.
Second of all…
Hiei was not able to travel at the moment.
During her frenzy, not only she depleted nearly half of her body's reserves, which she now needed several days if not weeks to replenish, but she had also managed to pull every single muscle in her body, crack several bones, tear five ligaments and fracture one of her legs. All evidently self-inflicted, under the sheer immeasurable strain she had managed to put herself under.
Which meant Inabayama was now busy nursing her back to health, and the dragon took this responsibility very seriously, foraging for berries and herbs, and hunting for meat, fish and poultry. With Hiei awoken from that week-long slumber, she could go further away from the cave than before, in search of better food and medicines. Gardevoir could not move much - but she was far from helpless in case anyone or anything approached her. She did not need to move to erase someone's existence, it just felt more natural that way.
Either way, since Hiei was not about to move out of this cave for quite some time, she had plenty of time on her hands.
And she knew at least one way to use it wisely.
[Part 2]
Staying in Team Brute was a mistake. Now, when that was a fact rather than a stray thought, it was already too late to act upon it. Joben should've ran after delivering that report about Red Eyes and Green Eyes. Hell, he should've ran WITHOUT delivering said report. He'd be marked as MIA, and probably filed under dozens if not hundreds of missing team member cases. But no, he just HAD to run to a team base, rather than to Nagoya. Idiot.
He looked across the tiny room, towards his cellmate. The guy was beaten black and blue, and had both arms broken, which really made it difficult for the poor sod to sleep. None of the damage happened here, he was already brought in like this, just like a dozen other people in the other cells. Some of those also had broken arms.
He was not sure what their deal was, and the guards were quick to cut down any attempt to chat, or even make a noise. Pricks.
A bit over a week ago, Harunobu was found dead in his office. Heart attack. In that age, not really surprising, though Joben could've sworn that the guy was practically an embodiment of elderly health with maybe a decade or two left in him. A shame.
A small, quiet ceremony was held a few days later, most of Team Brute members were there.
After that, Harunobu's son, Suwa Shiro, became the new leader of the group, and the difference in their intelligence and maturity was evident like night and day. Like, the first thing he had done was gather everyone back, and give a speech about how he's gonna bring in the change, crush the weak beneath Team Brute's heels, and take over the world in his father's honour. Like, almost cult leader speech.
Then, the purge began.
Suwa Shiro's inner circle began investigating and interrogating every single Team member to 'weed out the weak and the treacherous'. Whatever the hell that meant, that quickly provided Joben with a nice opportunity to spend several freezing days in this holding cell, with a daily bowl of watery gruel for food, and a cellmate he could not even approach without the guards getting pissy.
Something told him that things could still go downhill from this, rather low point.
"We need to talk to the prisoner named Joben," a familiar voice faintly sounded somewhere a few corridors away.
Aaaand there it was. Suwa Shiro, the bloody bastard.
There were two- no, three sets of steps. One was clearly from the heavy boots of Team's uniform, that was clearly a guard. Second was from lighter, probably dress shoes, reminding Joben of how the new prick-in-charge started to dress like a yakuza boss after stepping into position. The third though did not sound like boots at all. Light tapping of flesh against floor, like someone going barefoot. Considering the weather outside, that was highly unlikely. So probably a biped Pokemon.
This deduction proved to be rather correct - a minute later, in strolled Suwa Shiro, accompanied by a guard, and-
Holy shit, was that Red Eyes?!
Wait, no. Red Eyes looked spindly, almost skeletal, and was floating. Also, the red parts were RED. This one looked close, but it walked, looked more healthy, and those parts were more reddish pink than anything. Also, fleshy pants instead of a fleshy skirt. Something related. Was it carrying a tablet in its hands? Huh.
At the boss' command, the guard entered the cell, and practically dragged Joben out. Aaaand yeah, he knew better than to resist. He was never that much of a fighter, and in terms of physicality, could not hold a candle to Team's, you know, brutes. His Pokemon were long since confiscated, and even if he had them - they were less powerful than most Pokemon around here.
They've arrived to an interrogation room, and the guards left at the behest of Suwa Shiro, leaving only three of them here - Joben, the prick-in-charge and the weird distant relative of Red Eyes.
Eyeing the weird creature warily, he sat down into the chair.
"So, what can I do for you?"
"Answer his questions," Suwa Shiro scoffed.
At this, he looked at the creature. The creature smiled brightly, and then tapped a few times at the tablet, before showing him the screen with a few emojis. Mouth. Red circle. A pair of eyes.
"Uh… 'Tell you about Red Eyes'?" he hazarded a guess. At this, the creature nodded happily a few times, "Well, it-"
SLAP
Suddenly, Joben found himself on the floor, with a splitting headache, burning cheek and a shoulder twisted from the fall. The creature was standing above him with a cold look for a few seconds, before he felt his body being painfully pulled back by an invisible force. Pushing him upright, then back into the chair. Then, suddenly, the pain was gone. Even in his shoulder. He moved it a bit, just out of surprise, expecting the pain to flare up again. It did not.
What the…
The creature tapped something else into the tablet, and showed him the screen. An emoji of a woman. Wait…
"You mean, 'she'?"
At this, the creature smiled happily, as if absolutely nothing violent happened just now.
"Okay, got it. She and her Goodra buddy caught me in Nagahama, when a group I was in was acquiring funds for the Team. I think they wiped out the rest of my squad, though I've got no way to confirm that. She wanted my help to find power banks"
Another couple of emojis. Brain, mouth and a question mark.
"Telepathy?.." the creature nodded, that same fake sweet smile on its lips, "No, she didn't use that. She used flying letter magnets to spell out words"
At that, the eyes of the creature seemed to glitter in amazement. In a few seconds, it tapped a new set of emojis into the tablet. Muscly arm and a question mark. This one was more difficult.
"What are power banks?.." he hazarded a guess. Another nod from the creature, "Well, it's a portable source of electricity for electronic devices. She wanted to get enough to power an electric blanket for a week"
A bolt of lightning and question mark.
"Electric blanket is a piece of warm cloth with heating units inside. If it has enough electricity, and is turned on, it produces a high amount of constant heat. Like, up to a weak sauna. If I were to guess, she wanted to use it to cross the mountain…"
At this, the creature once again nodded a few times, that creepy saccharine smile turning into happy amazement for a few seconds. Looking at such reaction, Joben could not help but wonder.
"You really like her, huh? Is she your mate?"
At this, the creature smiled happily, then looking wistfully into the distance for some moments, before tapping a new set of emojis - this time though, it was shown not to him, but to Suwa Shiro.
"You… Want this coward? Why? You can just extract any information you need from him through telepathy, he is already due for an execu-"
Suddenly, the prick fell on his knees, clutching his head, groaning, and bleeding out of his face holes, in a telltale sign of telepathy pureeing his noggin. Joben almost felt bad for him.
Almost.
In a few seconds it stopped. After ten more seconds of heavily panting, Suwa Shiro shakily stood up, wiping the blood off his face.
"Okay, you win," he nodded to the creature, that was still smiling sweetly, before turning his eyes to Joben, "Consider yourself lucky. Your life is spared in service of the greatest weapon of Team Brute: the Knight of Tedorigawa. Serve him well."
At this, Suwa Shiro left the room, presumably to tell the guards about this unexpected release.
Somehow, Joben did not feel relieved at this turn of events.
The Knight smiled sweetly.