Sheridan sighed as she arrived at her office, but a soft smile graced her face.
"I think things are finally looking—oh, Officer Nanu!" Sheridan stopped mid-sentence at the sight. "Oh my, what happened to you?"
The former International Police officer was sitting with Arthur. He looked like someone had beat him up.
"Tapu Bulu wasn't too happy to return to an island half-covered in snow and ice. Someone had to be a scapegoat in Morai's place. It probably would've killed her had she still been around."
"Oh, Nanu, I'm so sorry," Sheridan gasped.
"Don't worry about it," the man sighed, leaning back in his chair even further. "It's nothing I haven't endured before. Hell, it makes it look like I've worked harder than I have!"
"You were saying?" Arthur said, gesturing to his wife. He had a glass of whiskey in his hand, as did Nanu.
"Oh, right." Sheridan cleared her throat. "I think Morai may be on the up-and-up. Nothing too big, but she's not as...troublesome...as she was before."
"Oh, you finally broke her!" Arthur exclaimed, taking his feet off the table and clapping his hands together, the liquid in his glass threatening to escape from the impact.
"Well, I guess you could say that," Sheridan said, her mouth turning down in a frown. "That's a rather...intense way of saying it."
"The punishment should match the crime, eh Nanu? I should make her face match yours...maybe make her eye match mine while I'm at it." Arthur subconsciously traced his finger over the scar that went through his eyebrow and over his eye. It hadn't rendered him completely blind in that eye, but things were much less clear.
"Well, she is serving her time," Sheridan said. She went to sit behind her desk, quickly sorting a few things before resting her hands on it. "And this time around she's definitely not enjoying it."
"Will you tell me why I'm here?" Nanu finally said, stifling a yawn. "You've got a nice place and all, but I want to go home. I put Guzma in charge of my cats, but he's struggling to keep his own followers in line nowadays."
"Right, well, to cut to the chase, there's a—"
"There's a mole in our midst!" Arthur excitedly interjected, slamming his glass down onto the coffee table. This time his drink splashed onto the table. Sheridan shot him a look.
"You were in the area when Team Rocket attacked. Did you see anything we didn't?" the warden continued.
"They kept me busy at the side of the mountain base where I was stationed," Nanu said, setting his own glass down more gently. "I saw pieces of what was happening everywhere else, but they just wouldn't stop coming. Until the avalanche, that is. Once everyone was evacuated, I had to find cover. I hate to say it because I had a lot of respect for her, but that kid has lost her mind."
"I'll drink to that," Arthur laughed in his heavy Galarian accent, evidently having taken a few too many drinks already.
"I see," Sheridan sighed.
"You brought me all the way out here for that?" Nanu asked. "I thought you had a ban on anyone coming or going."
"Well, no," the warden replied. "The International Police wanted to extend a hand in getting everything back under control. We tried to reach out—"
"I don't need your help, but thanks," the man said, groaning as he rose from the couch.
"Nanu, you have a past with Interpol and a past with Morai," Sheridan said, getting up to follow him out the door. "I know you didn't leave on the best of terms with some of its members and such events precede my time here, but you did a lot for the organization and a lot for Morai, for that matter. It's her fault, but it's our fault for not keeping her in check. Interpol or not, I feel I owe it to you."
Nanu paused before going back to take one more drink.
"I'd rather not spend more time with the International Police than I have to. I'm not a vengeful man. I prefer to leave things in the past. The good thing about Alola is that its people take care of each other. There are other Kahuna and Island Captains that are happy to lend their aid. And Lusamine, with her undying sense of guilt over her own wrongdoings, will reach into her own deep pocket and throw some money at the problem. The only thing that can't be recovered is the Champion's—or former Chapion's—soul. It was buried away in the icy rubble and left behind."
"Morai...Morai?" Pollie knelt down, waving a hand in front of Morai's face. The prisoner snapped back to the present moment and even jumped a little, which frustrated her.
"What's wrong with me?" she finally groaned out loud.
"Where do I start?" Pollie joked, moving to unlock her handcuffs. Morai jerked away, uncrossing her ankles and jumping to her feet.
"Back off! I need a minute to think!" she snapped. Pollie instinctually reached for her gun before correcting herself.
"Alright, alright," she said. "Let's not do something we regret, eh?"
Morai paced around for a moment.
Have I been deluding myself this entire time? I mean, I've been in this prison before of course, but the first time wasn't really prison, it was like...a dream! A dream, that's it. Everything is like a dream that I imagine I'll wake up from...escape...at some point. But that point has moved farther and farther away, and the reality of, well, reality has set in. I really am a prisoner in a prison with no way out. I'm...trapped...completely at the mercy of other people armed with poison. Is it a betrayal of my own nature to comply solely for the sake of preservation?
"Morai!" Pollie finally yelled, once again causing her to snap back into reality. Something beeped at her side.
"What is that?" Morai asked, narrowing her eyes. She probably could've been quick enough to take it had she not been handcuffed.
"It's nothing," Pollie answered. She silenced it, but Morai stepped forward, leaning forward.
"You're lying," she said softly.
"You couldn't possibly know—"
"Test me," Morai interrupted. "Two truths and a lie."
"Alright," Pollie said. She thought for a moment, considering how she could trick a trickster who was showing great interest in what challenge she would provide. Finally, she took a deep inhale, stuck her chin up, and confidently gave her three answers.
"I grew up in Unova, I can play the banjo, and my favorite color is azure."
Morai lingered for a moment, inches away from Pollie. She concentrated deeply, waiting for one of those statements to cause a slight uptick of fear to reveal it as the lie. Pollie waited patiently, and Morai finally shook her head.
"That wasn't very smart of me, was it?" she sighed, walking towards the door. "All of those could've been true, but I've got no way of verifying it...which, if they are, I'd really like to hear more about your life. The banjo? Really?"
Pollie innocently shrugged as if she didn't know either before moving Morai's handcuffs from behind her back to her front. As they left the room and passed by the garden area, the prisoner stopped.
"I've missed out on my daily habit for a couple of weeks now," she said. She hated to ask permission to simply walk outside, but at the same time something kept her from just doing it anyway. It was...fear, perhaps, a fear she didn't want to recognize.
"Sure," Pollie said, opening the door for her. Morai thanked her with a nod, which surprised the guard. "I'll wait here...just don't try to run, of course."
"The weather's not right for it," Morai half-joked. The rain had made the reflective stone that made up the floor of the garden slick, raindrops warping Morai's reflection when she looked down. It didn't stop her from sitting down in front of the garden's center, however, where the statues sat in the Realm of Dreams. The prisoner sat quietly for a while, listening to the sounds of the rain and focusing on the individual sounds the raindrops made as they hit different surfaces.
"Why did you leave?" she finally asked. "You were supposed to guide my actions, give me some form of direction, but you had to leave me here alone...well, with the shell of my former self, at least. I suppose it's not entirely your fault. Every time I committed some so-called moral atrocity, it added weight to the scales and eventually they simply became too unbalanced. Is that how everyone's fate is decided? Scales they can't see, weighing out their every move?"
Morai thought about her question, but shook her head.
"But if that were true, every action could be divided neatly into black and white, the soul divided in two. If there's one thing I learned from my—her—escapades in Unova those years ago, it's that hardly anything is black and white at all...right? If I'm being pressured to walk from the darkness and into the light, isn't that just another extreme? Must we all tread the razor-thin line between good and evil lest we get treated as angels or demons? What would you think of me now, Shadow Morai? A weakling? Light Morai? If only I could speak to you again."
The prisoner laid back onto the ground, sighing deeply. It was nice to feel something other than a scorching thirst that lingered maliciously in her throat. She still felt it, but the feeling of the cold and wet stone beneath her and the rain falling gently on her skin seemed to distract from it just a little. Feeling somewhat secure for the first time in ages, Morai closed her eyes and began to hum the melody she had created for Maria.
"Aren't you cold?" someone asked. Morai's eyes shot open and she rose up to find Maria herself sitting beside her, as if summoned by the tune. Ribbon tied neatly around her neck as always, she held an umbrella out to shield her...whatever Morai was...from the rain. "We never got to talk about that day. I never got to thank you properly, so thank you, Morai. You saved my life."
"And you, in turn, saved mine," Morai said, moving the umbrella back over Maria's head. "I suppose that's all there is to talk about."
"Do you...want to dance, then?" Maria asked, setting her umbrella to the side and rising to her feet.
"I shouldn't," Morai tersely answered. She wanted to leave. Well, she didn't want to, but knowing herself, she knew she should. "I find myself constantly on the edge of violence these days. The last person I'd want to slip up with is—"
Maria took Morai's handcuffed arms and lifted them up so she could get closer.
"May I?" she asked. Morai nodded, looking off to the side. Affection had become foreign to her. It's not that she didn't want it, but it took vulnerability, which is something she scarcely showed. Maria stepped in and embraced her.
"I don't care what consequences being here with you brings," she whispered. "If it leads to death, then at least I'll have died...loving you."
There was no reply for a long time, but Maria felt Morai's heart begin to beat faster.
"Why do you...love...me?" the prisoner finally asked as she stared ahead, unable to return Maria's gesture because of her handcuffs. "How could you?"
"Ever since I first saw you arrive, I guessed that deep down, the heart of a hero was still there," Maria answered, poking Morai's chest. "And I was right. You still have a heart, Morai. I've said it before. And it's a good one."
Morai didn't know what to say. The pair stood there in the rain, one unable to reciprocate the other's actions.
"I...don't know how to love," the prisoner finally sighed. "I don't know if I should."
"That's alright," Maria said. "I can at least show you the benefits of kindness. What lies across the way from violence."
"Alright..."'
There was an awkward shuffling as Morai moved her arms to let Maria step away. Maria gave a goodbye and left with a smile on her face, while Morai seemed somewhat distraught.
"I shouldn't love...should I?" she asked alone, looking back to the blank spaces that held her counterparts' statues in the Dream Realm. "It's not what I'm made for. Sharp teeth and claws that spill the blood of hundreds, eyes that bend them to my will. Lust for the thing keeping them alive. Is my hand fit to hold another's if it's stained with red?"
Feeling no answer come to her mind, the prisoner walked back inside to find Pollie waiting by the door. Morai turned bright red, putting her hands to her face.
"You...I mean—"
"Don't worry about it," Pollie said with a slight chuckle. "I was turned around for most of it."
Morai sighed a sigh of relief and turned to walk before stopping in her tracks.
She lied.
"Hey, Morai!" Yvette had appeared around the corner, and Pollie was confused at her seemingly friendly greeting. Many people on the outside of prison—and even on the inside, too—hated Morai's guts and weren't afraid to show it, especially considering Yvette had been personally attacked. Even Morai was surprised.
"We made a deal, but then you got locked away somewhere else," Yvette said. "I'd still like it to happen."
"That was when I was locked up," Morai scoffed. "Well, locked up inside of a smaller area than I'm usually locked up in. I have witnesses now and there are cameras everywhere. You'd have to change your end of the deal to make it fair."
"Well, what do you want?" Yvette asked. Pollie, again, was confused. She had been a guard for almost as long as Yvette had been forced to stay in the cathedral prison, and as far as she knew the two trainers beside her hadn't interacted since Alola.
"Did I...miss something?" she asked, crossing her arms. "Is there something I should know?" Morai and Yvette eyed each other.
"She wants to learn how to fight," Morai simply answered, not caring to elaborate on anything else.
"Oh, like you wanted to learn how to shoot from me," Pollie concluded. "But going to...her of all people? I could teach you both things."
"Well," Morai chuckled, "maybe it's because one of us is a little better at it than the other, Pollie."
"Sure, and that 'little bit' you talk about is the ability to nearly chew someone's hand off!" Pollie argued, holding up her still bandaged hand. "And claws that slice through skin."
"I could beat you with neither one of those and a hand tied behind my back. To account for your injury, of course, " Morai retorted, a smile creeping across her face. "Want to test it?"
"Of course not," Pollie sighed. "I'm supposed to keep you away from violence."
"But this is just a friendly match between...an officer of the law and a violent criminal," Morai argued. "No animosity there, right? Of course, I could just force a—"
Pollie didn't wait to hear anything else before drawing her gun and pointing it, causing Morai to instantly stop talking and throw her handcuffed hands up.
"Hey, what gives?" the prisoner said with a frown.
"You act almost as quickly as you speak," Pollie answered. "If I had waited any longer, you would've done something."
"Fair enough," Morai shrugged. They're beginning to know too much about me, she thought.
"Alright, the very first thing you should commit to memory is the proper stance," Morai explained. Her and Yvette were standing in a pretty large room that had gone unused. The floors weren't ideal for learning martial arts and Morai was sure there was a training room for the police agents and guards somewhere, but her and Yvette had decided to keep their meetings under wraps. Both of Yvette's parents were in positions of power within the prison, and Morai knew that neither one of them wanted her around their daughter.
"If we were in a proper gym, we'd take our shoes off, but if you find yourself in a fight it probably won't be barefoot on a soft mat anyway. I'm not even sure if I'm legally allowed to remove mine," the prisoner joked. "Your stance will depend on what you intend to use. If you're strictly a boxer, you'll have a wider stance that allows for more stability. If you intend to kick and knee people until they can't move anymore like I do, you'll want to adopt a stance that's about shoulder-width, with your back foot raised onto its heel, like so."
"Like this?" Yvette asked, shuffling her feet after Morai had shown her how to assume the correct position.
"That'll do for now," Morai said. "Whichever leg you're kicking with is the heel that should be raised. This allows said leg to be light and ready to strike quickly. Moving onto the hands, they should be up with your elbows tucked in."
"Like...this?" Yvette asked. Morai moved to correct her positioning, but paused.
"May I?" she asked. It was a show of consideration rarely afforded to anyone, and Yvette knew it.
"Sure," the trainer replied. Morai could sense her tense up as she approached, but went to gently yet quickly move her hands anyway.
"Hey!" a voice commanded, startling the both of them. They looked to the door in the distance to see Arthur, knife in hand, angrily rushing toward them. "Back off of my daughter!"
Morai was fast, stepping away and assuming her own fighting stance, but Arthur was faster. He unholstered his gun and shot twice, one for the predicted dodge Morai would make because of her Foresight, and a second that the prisoner wouldn't be able to dodge in time. Morai was hit with a black dart, which kept her from defending herself as the furious police captain threw her to the ground and held his knife at her throat.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't gut you like a Magikarp," he growled.
"She was helping me!" Yvette pleaded, clinging to her father's arm as she tried to pull him away.
"Oh yeah? How do I know she's not makin' you say that?" the man said.
"I—I can't," Morai hoarsely groaned, trying not to scream in agony as the black poison made its way through her veins and cut off her psychic power. Pollie, who had been standing by the door, had run after Arthur, a device frantically beeping at her side.
"Sir, I don't think she was trying to hurt your daughter," she calmly yet quickly explained. "Yvette wanted to learn to fight. Morai can't use her hypnosis now, so she's telling the truth."
Arthur let up as he realized me might've misunderstood.
"That beast of all people?" he asked in disbelief. "Why didn't you come to me or your mother...or literally anyone else other than her, Yvie?"
"Don't call me that!" Yvette insisted.
"She attacked you!" Arthur yelled. "Why the hell would you seek her out?"
"Because you taught me not to run from what scares me!" Yvette answered, raising her tone to match her father's. "To face my fears head on and tell them to...you know. But mom told you to stop putting those ideas into my head. She didn't want me to have a dangerous job like yours or hers. She treated me like a delicate flower and it cost me my safety, so now I'm trying to fix it on my own."
Silence filled the room for several seconds as Yvette's words hung in the air. Morai tried not to make noise either, nearly biting her own hand before Pollie stopped her. Arthur and his daughter looked each other in the eye, neither of them backing down. Finally, the police captain sighed and shook his head. He sheathed his knife and knelt down by Morai, picking her head up by her black jumpsuit collar.
"If I see you anywhere near my daughter again, you'll be the one bleeding out on the floor. I'll keep your skull as a desk ornament," he said. He let go of her collar, causing her head to hit the ground with a thud.
After he left the room, Yvette joined Pollie by the prisoner's side. Morai was staring blankly up at the ceiling, gasping and digging her nails into the floor as horrible pain took hold of every cell in her body. She tried not to look too distraught, but it was another fight she was losing. She hated being cut down to the same level as everyone else. Her psychic abilities were a cushion that made her feel safe, and they had been ripped away. After her breathing slowed down and the pain mostly subsided, Morai stood back up.
"Alright," she sighed, shrugging her shoulders a few times and shaking herself off, "as I was saying, you want to—"
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Pollie asked.
"No one should be kept from learning how to fight and defend themselves against those that wish to harm them," Morai answered, her words slightly slurring. "The old man can come pick a fight with me again if he so chooses. I'll be ready this time."
Morai continued to teach Yvette the foundations needed for fighting, and Pollie took a seat to watch. As the prisoner and her former victim completed drills, Morai nonchalantly asked a question, not taking her eyes away from the task at hand.
"Pollie, is there a tracking device in my neck?"
"There would be no need to," Pollie answered. The question had come out of left field and it had obviously surprised her, especially since Morai couldn't use her psychic abilities as a lie detector. "You're here, you've been incapable of getting past the courtyard, and there are cameras and guards everywhere. We know where you are."
"You didn't answer my question," Morai answered calmly. "Anyhow, care to join us for a drill?"
Pollie stood up and joined them, eyeing Morai apprehensively the entire time.
"It's a simple four count," Morai said. "Rear-leg kick, left hook and—"
Morai went from slowly demonstrating the punch to hooking her arm around Pollie's neck and grabbing her gun from the holster at her other side.
"Morai, I swear to Arceus if you don't—"
To the guard's surprise, she checked to make sure the gun was loaded with a black dart before frowning at it and pointing it to her own neck.
"If I shoot myself again, will that go off?" she asked, nodding her head to what she assumed to be a phone in Pollie's pocket.
"No, you'll just cause yourself more unnecessary pain."
"I can deal with pain," Morai calmly replied, pointing to her scarred neck with her free hand. "It's being lied to that really gets me, especially if I'm the subject of that lie. But I can solve that problem right now."
"There would be an incision on your neck, or at least a wound of some kind," Pollie quickly said, trying to dissuade her from doing anything extreme. "It would be almost impossible to implant a chip into your neck without you noticing."
Morai laughed, a gesture that quickly turned into a frown as she pointed the gun at the guard, walking her down as Yvette helplessly watched.
"Team Rocket did it," she growled. "I had no idea until one of his rivals pointed it out. Months! It was there for months, going unnoticed before and after I took that serum. I was never truly alone. His people were always there, watching from the rooftops as I did what I did, only showing their faces if it was time for a new dose. I eventually had to show him that his reins on me weren't as tight as he thought. Yet look where I am now!"
"We can talk through this, Morai," Pollie said. "We can—"
"Tell me the truth!" Morai demanded, stopping as Pollie ran into the wall behind her. "Or we'll see what this poison does to y—"
Morai turned to see Sheridan holding the gun that shot her, and Pollie took the opportunity to take her own gun back. The prisoner gave it up without a fight, her focus now on the warden.
"You...you did it, didn't you?" She pointed a clawed finger at Sheridan, stumbling as the tranquilizer began to take affect. Morai felt her neck with her other hand, frustrated that there was no clear sign. "What's the point in lying? Just tell me the truth."
