Author's Note: Hello, loyal readers! FFN has been unstable recently, and I continue to worry about the future of this site. I've been here for a very long time, so it pains me to see the site degrade as it has. I would like to remind y'all that you can find this fic on AO3. However, I know there are a plethora of reasons why people may not want to or have the ability to access AO3. As such, I have also decided to start posting this fic on Tumblr. I have created a blog for it: /shadowoverkanto. You should be able to view and read the fic even if you don't have a tumblr account, and there is a master post pinned with each chapter. I'll be gradually uploading the chapters there until it's caught up. Hopefully FFN survives, but if it does go down at some point, there is a backup. Now, onto the fic!

XXV

Black Hole Eclipse

Verity sat at his old desk, phone in hand, mindlessly scrolling through social media. His extremely short-lived career as a catcher was at an end. He could hardly do anything now that he didn't even have a pokémon. He felt a modicum of relief. He'd never wanted the pokémon, never wanted to work for Pokémon Labs in any capacity. His job as his father's secretary was a condition he had to fulfill to live in his father's condo.

He knew he frustrated his father. Verity moved within the rigidity of his father's life with a fluidity that Vance Kaliber was not capable of understanding. Verity had had the audacity to be born male, and that meant a certain prescription of habits, proclivities, and activities that he should have interest in. And in some of them, he did. But he also liked clothes and make-up and fancy chocolates and sleeping past noon. He enjoyed playing with the spectrum of gender he felt within through his fashion choices and, occasionally, his pronouns.

Verity often wondered if his father blamed his mother for how he turned out. Verity was a lot like his mother in temperament. The idea that Verity had been the thing which had destroyed their marriage, because he wasn't boyish enough as a child, because he wasn't what his father considered manly now, was…well, those were feelings Verity simply did not wish to acknowledge. So he didn't.

Verity glanced up at the news broadcast that played silently on the flatscreen television in the reception lobby. All green numbers and upward arrows. The economy was doing well, money was ready to be made.

And he was stuck behind that desk, waiting for people he didn't care about to appear and do business with his father, the profits of which he would never see.

It was enough to drive a guy crazy.

The elevator's ding sounded, alerting Verity that someone had arrived. He knew about this appointment, as his father had told him about it. He pulled himself up out of the deep slouch he'd slid into over the last hour, stretching out his back that protested being folded in such an insulting way.

The woman walked in, looking as pristine as a new suit. Long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, tall and fat–she looked just like him.

"Good afternoon," she greeted Verity with careful professionalism. "I'm Marlena Harron. I have an appointment with Mr. Kaliber."

"You're early," Verity said flatly, resting his chin in his hand. She was only early by ten minutes, which was actually quite courteous, but Verity enjoyed being difficult when he was in a bad mood.

"Yes, and I know Mr. Kaliber is quite busy. I can wait." Accommodating, but not chatty. Her disposition was a lot like Simon's as well. She was about to take a seat when her eyes fell on Verity's nameplate on his desk. "Ah, Verity," she said, meeting his gaze. "Allow me to extend an apology to you."

"Did you steal my pokémon?" he asked, unable to resist being petty.

"No, but my brother did."

"Then shouldn't it be him apologizing?"

Marlena smiled then, a cold one. "As soon as he is apprehended, I will personally make sure he does."

Verity scoffed. "You're more upset about this than I am," he said as he picked up the desk phone. He hit the speed dial for his father's desk phone, which picked up. "She's here," he said before his father could say anything. Vance Kaliber graciously thanked his son in a tone which only further irritated Verity and hung up.

Marlena sat down, her back straight, her legs folded at the ankle. A perfect Galarian princess. Verity bet manners and etiquette had been drilled into her until it became part of her DNA. Now that was very unlike Simon. Men were treated much differently than women everywhere, even in such a great and noble region as Galar.

Eventually Vance Kaliber invited Marlena into his office, and she disappeared behind the frosted glass door. Alone again, Verity regressed into a slouch and picked up his cellphone again.

He was still technically on his "social media break" but what that actually entailed was him not posting while he still scrolled most hours of the day. It's not like he had anything better to do during the hours he was stuck at that reception desk. A few accounts he followed had started sharing the one particular article, so he paused to open it and see what news was taking the timeline by storm.

Verity realized immediately that this wasn't a major news site but an independant blog. The headline read, Hearts Are Closed: The Shocking Truth Behind the Pewter Gym Giveaway Scandal.

An exciting title. Somewhere in his mind, Verity recalled news about Pewter Gym's latest giveaway, but he hadn't paid attention. That had been the day his father had informed Verity that he would be "promoted" to a pokémon catcher, so Verity had been in a funk and certainly didn't care about the movements of the world.

But now he had time, so he read the post. His interest was piqued, but he fully bought in when Simon Harron was named in the article, accompanied by a photograph of the man battling against a magmar in the Pewter City Gym.

Verity devoured the remainder of the article. The author, someone named Ashton Kayano, had been an eyewitness at the gym when the magmar given away to a winning trainer had turned on him, with a raichu attack following directly after. From there, Kayano had followed (stalked?) Simon to Celadon City, encountering in that time a persian and boltund which were implied to be just as unstable and dangerous as that magmar, although Verity noted how carefully Kayano worded his sentences to avoid outright saying they had also attacked anyone.

I have good reason to believe this goes deep, Kayano wrote. I'll be posting more about this as I gather more information. Our society is always pushing for stronger pokémon, but at what cost? Pokémon Labs must be held accountable. If any of y'all have ever received a pokémon in some kind of giveaway within the last few years that turned on you or behaved weirdly, please reach out to me. I will amplify your story here.

Verity snorted. This guy was absolutely full of himself. He sounded like he could bring down a corporate empire with a few blog posts. It was almost cute.

But as Verity scrolled to the end of the post, he discovered two shocking additions. One was a long list of pokémon with ID numbers attached, although no names were included, presumably for privacy. The other was a video of the battle between Verity's sylveon and that big pokémon he'd forgotten the name of, when Simon had violently seized control of Verity's pokémon. Verity had found it a little sexy at the time. He still did, he thought as he watched the video.

The next hour whittled away as Verity read comments: hundreds of people were discussing the post. Some were calling it all bullshit, but those comments were quickly buried by trainers sharing their own experiences with "weird" pokémon. They didn't always end in violence, but apparently many of them didn't act like normal pokémon. Very little affection, low response to praise, higher aggression, faster growth. While Verity may not have understood the minutiae of these comments, he did grasp the big picture: Kayano had hit on a growing phenomenon and his blog post was resonating with a lot of trainers.

The frosted glass door opened. Marlena and Vance Kaliber walked out, exchanging a polite goodbye as he walked her to the elevators. Verity glanced up from his phone screen to watch them. Marlena was charming, warm, and Vance matched her energy, creating a pleasant facade. As soon as Marlena disappeared into the elevator, the facade vanished like morning mist.

As Vance returned to his office, he paused at the reception desk and glanced down at Verity's phone. "Is that all you've been doing?" he asked with a sneer.

"What else am I going to do?" Verity shot back.

"For all your insistence that you want to enter the business sector, you have absolutely no worth ethic," Vance said and disappeared into his office, the door closing with a deadening thud.

Within moments, Verity was trembling with overwhelming anger. Of course Verity had no work ethic when he had been given nothing to do. Of course Verity lived what looked like an idle life when all he could hope for was the turn of his father's whims. His eyes and nose stung with the desire to cry, but he fought against the urge. He didn't want his father to hear what he would consider another example of effeminate weakness in his despised son.

Instead, he leaned back against the leather of his office chair and breathed slowly through his nose until his hands stopped shaking. Then he picked up his phone, entered Ashton Kayano's email address into a new message, and began typing furiously.

When Ashton finally awoke, it was late in the afternoon. He found himself sprawled out on Shiri's bed. He recalled that she had clocked his sleep deprivation and forced him into her soft, comfortable bed, where he had drifted off to sleep almost immediately. Now he stretched out his stiff limbs and looked around the room, bathed in the yellow light of the late day.

He found his phone was on the end table beside him, dutifully plugged in to the charger and fully juiced up. He opened it to find an absolute wall of notifications: text messages, blog comments, emails, even a few voicemails.

The post was a verified hit.

Ashton jumped to his feet, the rush of all this attention causing a cascade of adrenaline through his veins. He paced Shiri's bedroom as he sorted through all the messages. Trainers whose IDs were on the lists Ashton had added to the post. People who'd witnessed weird behavior from pokémon. Pokémon Gym and Poké Mart employees who had worked giveaways. Some messages were quite nasty, accusing Ashton of making everything up, even somehow doctoring the sylveon video. He laughed at those messages.

There were so many emails that he nearly scrolled past the most important one, but the name stuck out like a beacon in fog: Verity Kaliber.

"No fucking way," Ashton breathed as he opened the email. His heart was racing so fast he thought it might punch out of his ribcage.

The email was short, consisting of staccato sentences. Interesting story. I can get you information. I know you need it. There will be a price. I'm sure you can afford it. Let's meet. Just you and me.

Ashton read the message over several times, hardly believing what he was seeing. It couldn't be that easy, could it? There was certainly a catch here. The price Verity would put on this information would surely be steep, and not necessarily monetary. For all his excitement and fluttery feelings, Ashton had to walk this edge with extreme care.

Walking into Shiri's small bathroom, Ashton washed his face and ran his hands through his hair, untangling what he could with his fingers. Then he walked out through the short hall and found his two companions at the dining table, talking in low voices. Patches sat on the table between them, eating pellets out of her little plastic bowl. She jumped up and chirped happily when she saw Ashton.

Shiri's back was to Ashton, so it was Simon who saw him first, and he leveled Ashton with a glower. Shiri turned to Ashton, then stood up, her mouth a hard, straight line. Ashton grinned, knowing he was in trouble, and said, "Y'all good?"

"Are you actually mad?" Simon snapped.

"I guess you saw the post," Ashton ventured. "Now, before you get upset–"

"Too late," Simon interrupted.

Ashton held up his hands. "Look, this is gonna help us get the information we–"

"It's exposing us all!"

"Will you let me fucking talk?"

"Please, stop," Shiri said, approaching Ashton. He met her gaze, her eyes hard. "Simon trusted you with those lists."

Ashton fought the urge to be defensive. He needed to stay calm, needed Shiri and Simon–especially Simon–to see his reasoning. "Yeah, I used my best judgment here. It seemed like a good idea to get those lists out to the public."

"Do you not see this paints a huge target on all of us?" Simon said, his large hands balled into fists on the table. "You're not posting in a vacuum here. To the people in Pokémon Labs, it's clear where that information came from, which now undeniably connects you to me. And that will affect Shiri too. She's in all the videos of the Pewter City attack."

Shiri winced, and at first Ashton thought it was from the fear of exposure, but she turned to Simon. "Please don't speak for me," she said to him, and Simon's expression turned to surprise. "I actually don't mind if the Pokémon Labs people have their eyes on me. They should know who we all are." She turned back to Ashton and grabbed his hand, squeezing it. "But please, next time, let us know when you're gonna drop a bomb like that. We all need to be on the same page."

Ashton grinned. "You got it." he said, and he and Shiri joined Simon at the table, where Patches scrambled to climb onto Ashton's shoulder. Ashton noticed Shiri moved with a new confidence. The last few days had been a blow to her, but she seemed to finally be adjusting to their new reality.

If Simon was bothered by Shiri telling him off, he didn't show it. He was still evidently rather miffed about the post, though. "So has your little stunt resulted in anything?" he asked, his words clipped.

"I'm glad you asked," Ashton said. He spotted his messenger bag laid carefully on the table, so he grabbed it and pulled out his computer. As it booted up, he talked on. "I've gotten a ton of messages from trainers. People who were on the lists, and also other trainers who had weird experiences with their pokémon. It's overwhelming how many messages there are, and there's even more stuff to look through in the comments."

Shiri scooted her chair close to Ashton so she could look at his screen, but Simon seemed reluctant to join in. "I don't see how a bunch of anecdotes helps us."

"It shows how widespread this problem is," Shiri said as if she could read Ashton's thoughts. "And if we have support from others, that can only help. We're looking at a huge company, after all. We can't just take them on by ourselves."

"That's right," Ashton said. "Plus we're getting people buzzing. It'll catch the attention of people with real power. People in authority. People who can maybe do something."

"What, we're supposed to hope shadow pokémon get legislated away?" Simon spat. He wasn't looking at them anymore, electing to glare out the window.

"No, of course not," Shiri said gently. "But look, there's so many people–"

Simon stood, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. He grumbled something about needing the toilet and made a beeline for the bathroom, leaving Shiri and Ashton in silence.

"It's guilt, huh?" Ashton said after a moment.

Shiri bit her lip. "Yeah, I think so." She glanced at Ashton's screen, filled with comments from trainers. "I don't think he's ever been confronted with the consequences of his work like this before."

Ashton sighed, slouching back in his chair. "Well, he should feel bad. But it is kinda unproductive."

Shiri pinched his arm lightly. "This is why change is hard. But he's strong. I know he'll get through it. We'll be ready to support him, if he lets us." Ashton nodded, although he felt unsatisfied with this. It felt like Simon was getting off the hook too easily. He'd been complicit in this shadow pokémon situation for years, after all.

When Simon returned, he seemed much calmer. "Sorry about that," he said, taking the other seat beside Ashton. "Lost my head a bit there." Shiri smiled at him, but before either or Ashton could say anything, Simon cleared his throat and said to Ashton, "Right, so, what have you got?"

Over the next few hours, the three of them sorted through many of the comments and messages Ashton had received from trainers, sorting them in a spreadsheet by how useful the information was, much of it Ashton intended to forward to Secc at ONBS Global. Ashton collected screen names and email addresses to follow up with. As they were finishing with this work, Ashton at last told Shiri and Simon that Verity had contacted him.

To Ashton's surprise, Simon looked irritated. "I'd suggest you stay away from him," he said.

"Why?" Ashton asked, which was really more of a challenge.

"Because I don't think you can be objective about him," Simon responded, which threw Ashton off guard. "It's clear you have a thing for him," Simon added.

"No I don't," Ashton defended, but even he could hear the high note in his voice that gave him away. "Look, this is a golden opportunity for me to interview someone on the inside."

"He's not really on the inside," Simon said. "He's Vance Kaliber's assistant. You're not going to get anything worthwhile out of him, and he'll probably waste hours of your time just talking."

"Are you kidding? The assistant to one of the top guys in the company is extremely valuable," Ashton countered. "He's gotta have access to some juicy information."

"Kaliber's day planner, probably," Simon responded.

Shiri sighed. "Well, I agree with Ashton that we should at least hear him out. I can go with you," she said to Ashton.

"He said just me and him," Ashton responded. "What, you don't think I can keep a cool head?"

"I believe in you," Shiri assured him. "Where will you meet?"

"Not sure yet," Ashton said. "I haven't responded to his message."

"It'll probably be back in Saffron," Simon said, his tone subdued. "From the things Verity said, I don't think he's able to leave the city easily."

"What do you mean?" Shiri asked. "Like, he's trapped there?"

"If not literally, then functionally," Simon said. "If you're going to do this, you need to be careful." Simon leveled his gaze at Ashton. "Verity cannot be trusted. I don't know what he's planning, but I highly doubt anything we've done has inspired a desire to help in his heart, if he has one. He's a selfish, spoiled manchild, and whatever reason he has for meeting with you, it cannot be a good one."

Ashton nodded, this information tempering, even refining, his excitement. He knew he was dealing with an enemy here, even if he was a very beautiful enemy. But Ashton could be careful. He would have to be.

"Okay, so you're going to Saffron," Shiri said. "What should Simon and I do while you're gone?"

"I have a proposal," Simon said, looking at Shiri now. "Although I'm not sure you'll agree to it."

"Well, that's ominous," Ashton commented.

Shiri's brows furrowed. "What is it?"

Simon took a deep breath. "I want to expose you to Sylveon."

Shiri tensed up immediately. "Why?"

"Because I've noticed that many of these dev–shadow pokémon, they behave relatively normally until they're around you. Each time I've seen these pokémon go berzerk, you've been present. I want to see if I can figure out what's going on."

Shiri looked at Ashton, fear in her eyes. Ashton had the urge to tell Simon not to do it, but he remembered what Shiri had said earlier–she can speak for herself–and he saw Shiri fighting her own trepidation. She swallowed, looked back to Simon and nodded. "Yeah, you're right," she said.

"I promise you won't be hurt," Simon added. "Houndoom and I will keep you safe."

"I'm not afraid of that," Shiri said. "I can handle some scratches. It's just so hard to look at shadow pokémon. I don't think I can describe how profoundly disturbing it is." She took a deep breath, raising her chin. "But I can handle it. I have to, to help them, right?"

Ashton grabbed her hand and squeezed it, giving her a smile. She was his best friend for this very reason.

"One word from you, and we'll stop," Simon said. "I do think this will shed some light on at least a few of our questions."

"Yes, it will," Shiri said, smiling now, as if she had never been afraid. "Let's do it. I'm ready."