Infernape stared up at the hospital ceiling that night. The doctors had recommended he stay the night to see if any infections would pop-up. All he could see was darkness. Only the plush softness of the mattress and the blanket wrapped around him reminded him of where he was. Reminded him that his friends were only a phone call away. They were staying in a hotel that was about a minute's walk from the hospital. If they ran, they'd be here in no time. However, he couldn't rest tonight, not with his sins running down his back.

Donquixote had reminded him of his greatest crime. His greatest mistake. An act made out of suicidal desperation for freedom, only for fate to decide it wasn't his time. Not yet anyway. Pangoro. He…He was dead. Because of him. Someone was dead because he had decided to claim someone's life. Yes, it was to protect his friends and save the village, but there was still blood on his hands. His heroism was only a napkin to wipe it off.

Infernape tried to distract himself. He reminded himself of what Gengar said back when Dragalge had been killed. The trolly problem. It was either Pangoro or the entire town. It was the best possible outcome. Alas, that only added a new sadness to his thoughts. Gengar. Why had he left? Infernape could understand grief, but why then? Besides, he called all of them co-workers, he shouldn't have been that attached. Unless.

Sitting up in his hospital bed, he looked out the window, half expecting Gengar to be there at the window. Of course, there was no one there. Why would there be? Regardless, Infernape began to ponder. What if Gengar didn't want to show his attachment? That would explain why he called them nothing more than work partners, but that begs the question as to why? Why didn't he want to show it? Was there something wrong? Was...wait a minute! He had lied about killing Dragalge. Insisted that the dragon type had kicked his ass. Not to mention, he was hired by Dusknoir to kidnap Cubone. Arceus, how hadn't he even thought of that before? Gengar was a criminal for hire, but that led to even more questions. Why was he with the Senshi? Why didn't Sceptile recognize him? Why was Gengar helping them at all? Another memory popped into his head.

When Sceptile asked everyone to become deputized Senshi, Gengar refused quite adamantly. In fact, if he remembered correctly, there was an ounce of venom that came out when he mentioned the Senshi. What if…something happened to him? Something that made him lose faith in the Senshi. Was that why he didn't want to get that attachment? When they agreed to become deputized, did…

His heart froze. It all clicked for him. Infernape's mouth hung wide open in horror. The darkness around him allowed him to visualize everything like it was a dream. He wasn't mad at Aggron for getting hurt. He was terrified that he would lose someone close to him. Gengar had lost someone either because of the Senshi or because of that someone being in the Senshi. Due to this, he lost faith in the entire system, refusing to join. When Aggron was in critical condition, Gengar, terrified of reliving that horrible memory all over again, left in a panic back to somewhere safe. It all made sense. All except for one thing. Where did he go?

Gengar was shuffling Poken notes through a machine. It quickly sifted through the money before he went and repeated the cycle. Sifting through bills like it was nobody's business. He was in a very dark room. There were no windows, and only a small fluorescent light to allow him to see. The faint musk of mildew filled the air. Only the sounds of that machine flicking through the money were enough to distract him from the overwhelming, oppressive silence.

His vacation was over. He was back to his job. Right now, he was processing bills for Vida. It was part of her laundering scheme. Admittedly, it was quite genius, even for her. Essentially, they would take the illegal money and give it to Phantom Corp members to spend it in her restaurants and the Casino. They would spend ridiculous amounts of money on food and on gambling so that they would take the money in cash and hide the costs under various payments. Supplies, management, administrative costs, that stuff. Whenever the NRS started asking questions, they could just show them a normal day's operation with no Phantom Corp agents in the building aside from Vida herself. But they still had to clean the money as a failsafe. That was why he was here. Vida was anything if not careful.

Gengar finally finished up the dull work and stood up. He had processed, what, 750,000 United Region Bills worth of notes in one day, That was enough. But Gengar suddenly had a thought pop into his head. Whatever did happen to-

He shut down those thoughts immediately. His home was here. They…They were just co-workers. Nothing more. Gengar took a breath before opening the door behind him. He emerged into a long hallway with various rooms all dedicated to money laundering. Walking through it, he eventually came across Vida herself. She asked him,

"If you are finished, I need you to help Blackout."
"Ah, whatever happened to good old Zappy?" Gengar remarked casually. Vida looked confused at the ghost type, who was surprised to see such a strange reaction from Vida. She simply told him,

"Blackout and Blackbeard failed in their task. As punishment for their ineptitude, they're currently handling shipments of weapons. You are to help them. I'd do it myself but Master, Dreadnaught, and I have a meeting." Gengar just nodded and walked towards the southern end of the building all by himself. Before he turned the corner, he remarked,

"Heh, right. It'll be boring there. Don't worry, I'll call and say that the schools are on fire."

"NOW," demanded Vida. Gengar visibly frowned before turning back around and walking towards the southern end of the building.

His co-workers would've enjoyed that remark.

Gengar simply walked through the halls of the mansion. He felt like shit. He hadn't been this unhappy before the vacation. What happened? Sighing, he eventually passed by Armoury. A Magmortar, who smirked at the ghost type,

"Well, well, well, if it ain't my favorite bastard back from his vacation," said Armoury. Gengar grinned. Magmortar then wrapped his arm around Gengar's neck, or where it would be if Gengar had one. Gengar laughed,

"Yup, I'm back! How are you, you big ol' tub of chaos?"

"The Don wants me to start making moves in Sadower. So I get to destroy century-old architecture. And then the kingdom's mostly women, but who cares about that?" he asked. Smirking at his friend, Gengar then freed himself and began to walk away when Magmortar waved him farewell and remarked,

"Catch you later, nobody!"

Gengar's grin became forced as he quietly waved back. He turned back towards the path and tried to take his mind off of that. Magmortar had called him far worse than that. Why did it hurt this time? Was…Was he getting soft? No, no, no, he was the same Gengar he always was. He could kill a man without a moment's notice. All he had done was go on vacation. That was it. A vacation where he met a few co-workers along the way, but a vacation nonetheless. He didn't care about them, no, his care was all dedicated to the Phantom Corp.

Finally, he arrived to see Electivire and Trevenant packing away boxes of various weapons all by themselves. They both glared at Gengar but didn't say anything. Smirking at the two and wanting to engage in a little schadenfreude, Gengar made fun of the two,

"Oh, look at you two. Engaging in peasant work. I thought you two were above that sort of bullshit?" Trevenant was having none of it,

"Hey, you, shut up! Help me out with this shit okay," he snapped. Gengar rolled his eyes,

"Okay, but I'm only here because Vida asked me to. Apparently, you two dumbfucks can't kill someone stuck in a fucking hospital." Electivrie went on the defense,

"The Senshi were all over the place, we couldn't make a move if we tried. Besides, she was moved somewhere and we can't figure out where."
"It's fucking Dariquin!" yelled Gengar, "The only place they could've taken her is Swampert's house! Just break in, doesn't fucking matter if you get their attention, kill the guy, and-"

"Hold on, hold on, Guy? Jester,"

"Gengar,"

"Mother…Jester, we were going after that Roserade bitch you were hanging out with."

Gengar's heart froze. Roserade? They were hunting her down? Quickly, Gengar asked,

"Wait, what?"

"She found out about Mawile's deal with us. If I had known it was there, I would've found it." Hearing those made Gengar feel something he had never felt before. It was hard to describe. A slight uneasiness made itself apparent in his stomach. He became acutely aware of every action he had made, and every single one of them made him upset at himself. She knew him, and he knew her, and although they weren't particularly close, they knew each other. To hear that someone he knew…why does he care? He was getting tired of this stupid question. How many times does he have to tell himself,

"I don't…"

Gengar was unable to finish that thought but he didn't understand why. His home was here in this mansion. His family was within this mansion. Not with them. They were merely partners for that little sidequest of his. It was all to make sure that cult didn't fuck everything up.

Electivire then slapped Gengar across the face. The ghost-type covered his face and yelled,

"What the hell?!"

"Can you get out of your little daydream and help?" asked Electivire sarcastically as he lifted a crate of explosives overhead. Gengar rolled his eyes and joined the two in picking up these boxes. All the while he was telling himself,

"I don't care."

Lopunny was typing away on a laptop that she had bought with Blastoise's money. She had forgotten hers as home and Blastoise was generous enough to get her another one. It was for rather important work. Her face illuminated by the screen and the yellow glow of a nearby lamp. Immediately, she clicked on a genetic testing website and looked through the results. For years, she had waited to be old enough to be able to take this test in the first place. Now, after five and a half years of being stuck on the backlog, she was finally getting a clue as to who her parents were.

As she waited for the website to load, she began to think about Infernape. To say he had a hefty amount of baggage would be an understatement. He had suffered for so much for so long. Still, he had approached her and wanted to date her. In this regard, she respected him. However, Infernape had already thrown out that L word to her. She wasn't as willing to just use it. She liked him. She liked him a lot. But…'that' was far too strong a word to use this early. Then again, she had already kissed the man. At the very least, she was playing into his hand. Not that he was manipulating her, just that she had played her hand far too soon, and now he was thinking he could win big. Perhaps her heart had opened up to her.

The results were in. She clicked on the results and silently prayed. Alas, her prayers were for nothing. The results only showed her family up to around 1950. Privacy laws prohibited showing certain people, even long after their death. Three centuries ago. Even if the last names stayed the same over all of those years, which it most likely didn't, there is no telling how many branches of the family exist. However, this was still a lead. She knew that she could search from this. It would just be a ton of tedious bullshit. But that could wait. Now was the time for sleep.

Lopunny shut the computer off and stretched her arms. Shutting down the lamp, she wrapped herself up in the blanket and snuggled into the bed. She smiled to herself as she stared at the window. Hopefully, Infernape would recover soon and they could get on with their lives. She popped out of bed,

"Almost forgot my headphones." After all, she was a rabbit pokemon. Her ears were more sensitive. Noise-cancelling headphones were needed to keep the noises quiet, even a rainstorm could keep her up all night, assaulting her ears. She was just about to those headphones.

Very faintly, a noise echoed through the night. It was unnoticeable to anyone except for Lopunny. She heard was sounded like a pop gun went off, followed by little pieces of something clattering off of the floor. Curious, she placed her headphones onto the bed and stood up, revealing teal pajamas with snowflakes on them. She looked out her window and peered into the darkness of the night. The lights of the hospital were the only thing she could see. Perhaps she was just being paranoid, but she suspected that something was wrong. Squinting her eyes, she looked over the entire hospital looking for some sort of sign.

Her eyes then gravitated to where Infernape's room was. The light was off, as expected for this hour. He was probably already asleep. At that moment, she looked towards the moon. It was completely full. She grinned slightly because it was a nice sight. The clouds had covered it up for the most part but now it was fully visible. Shining down onto the hospital, the moon's light began to glow onto the hospital and reflected off of Infernape's window. She could almost see the glow of his flame crown from here. Sighing, she returned to her bed.

Infernape was a nice man. Flawed, sure, but nice. Obviously, there was some baggage to sift through. Lopunny knew that. But she wanted to help him through it. Alas, now a month has passed since they met and she still wasn't willing to fully commit to that L word. It's a bit scary to commit to something you aren't sure will work. The last thing she wanted was to date him out of pity, he deserves better, and she shouldn't have to give her heart to someone just because of their problems.