If you have been following this story for a long time, this one is something that's been getting built up to for most of that time. It's going to deal with some dark material that has been teased literally from the very beginning.

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In his time after being summoned to Viridian City by Lance, Silver found himself unexpectedly busy. As it turned out, what Lance wanted to discuss with him was the status of Viridian Gym, particularly in the wake of Giovanni's seeming demise at Ghetsis's hands. The role of Gym Leader was thrust rather abruptly upon him when he arrived there, and although he initially wanted nothing to do with his hated father's legacy, he quickly grew into the part. After all, where else guaranteed him a steady stream of powerful opponents to grow ever stronger against?

In fact, if there was one complaint he had with his new position, it was that he wasn't getting to battle enough. While challengers would come to seek him out, Viridian Gym had a reputation among Kanto's Gyms as the one trainers attempted last. That was an image Giovanni had cultivated during his time as its Gym Leader, and no attempt had been made yet to change it. As a result, the stream of challengers coming to face Silver there was more like a trickle, leaving him bored far too often.

It was during one of those dull down times that an app he'd modified his Pokégear with alerted him that someone was lingering right outside the Gym, and when he saw who it was, he tore out to confront them.

"It's about time you came out here," Proton grumbled at Silver. The Team Rocket Executive had been leaning against one of the pillars right outside the Gym's entrance, doing nothing but waiting for Giovanni's son to discover his presence. "Do you know how long I've been waiting?"

"However long it was, it wasn't enough," Silver growled back. "Did you come here just to annoy me? Beat it."

"The scariest and cruelest guy in Team Rocket doesn't just-"

"I don't care what you call yourself! No matter how scary and cruel you think you are, Proton, you don't frighten me. Only weaklings do things like that."

Proton's eyebrow twitched at Silver's insult, but he remained calm. "I'll cut you some slack and ignore what you just said. Consider it a special bonus prize from me." Pushing himself off from the pillar, Proton faced Silver directly. "Listen, Silver. I came here because Giovanni sent me. He survived what happened to him, and he wants to see you."

"If you think that's going to move me, you're wrong." Silver took a single step back, an action he was not consciously aware of. "I'm not surprised the old man found a way to make it, but that doesn't change how I feel about him. Tell him to pound sand."

"He thought you might say something like that," Proton replied, gripping the belt on his uniform. "Clever wordplay, by the way. Extra points for that. But he did think you would say something like that, so he told me I would have to insist. It's about your new job…"

It's about your new job. That tidbit of information intrigued Silver, enough to punch through his usual hatred of his father. Giovanni wanted to talk about his becoming Gym Leader? Silver attempted to game out what directions that conversation could possibly go in his head. He certainly didn't care about getting Giovanni's blessing, if that was what his father wanted. But if Giovanni instead wanted to put him down, to tell him that he wouldn't amount to much as a Gym Leader? He would just have to show Giovanni his power first-hand. Now that was an idea he relished.

"Fine," Silver finally said, "I'll talk to him. But that's all you're getting."

Although Proton didn't show it, he mentally breathed a sigh of relief. If Silver had picked up on the way he was stretching the truth, he hadn't prepared another backup plan.

-:-

Meanwhile, in Celadon City, Looker, Mitsumi and Silva were waiting outside the metropolis's Pokémon Center. True to her word, Lusamine had been able to get them back to Kanto with time to spare. Mitsumi had then contacted Trevor to arrange their transport to the meeting, but while they waited for him to show up, she was visibly anxious.

Looker, picking up on his apprentice's unease, attempted to calm her. "Mitsumi, a very good job is what you've done so far. Long is the road to justice, and you have walked it well."

"We won't let anything bad happen," Silva added. "I know it's tough, but you can rely on us."

"Thank you," Mitsumi said, showing her teammates a slight, weary smile. "It's for the mission. That's why we're meeting with them…"

Just then, a black car pulled up in front of them, skidding to a stop in an excessively theatrical way. Both Mitsumi and Silva suspected it was Trevor even before he got out.

"Hey, what's up?" he greeted them, waving in their direction. "Thanks for bein' on schedule, you know? Let's get over there."

"Once a showman, always a showman," Mitsumi muttered to herself as she followed Looker and Silva to the car. Clearly, this was going to be a long day.

-:-

In the wake of Olivia's victory over Clair, she and her entourage had some choices to make when it came to where they'd go next.

Hive, Plain, Fog, Mineral and Rising - Olivia had collected five Badges out of the eight she needed, but as she was in Blackthorn City, her options for her next destination were somewhat limited. Mahogany Town didn't currently have a Gym Leader, so returning there was out. Falkner had closed the Violet Gym to travel after her first match with him, taking that option off the board. With those two choices ruled out, seemingly only one remained - traveling all the way back across Johto and crossing the sea to reach Cianwood City, where there was a Fighting-type Gym. That was just too lengthy a trek for her liking at the time. She wanted to keep going, to push herself forward as soon as she possibly could.

At that point, Olivia recalled something Nando had told her quite a while earlier. When he showed her his own collection of Badges, she noticed that four of them were from Kanto, and he informed her that because Johto and Kanto shared a Pokémon League, both regions' badges were eligible.

That was what led her, Matt, Nekou, Anabel and Amanda to Route 45 that day. Having decided upon Kanto for their destination, their hike took them southward, back toward New Bark Town in preparation for crossing the border between the regions. Despite the rugged terrain of the route and the sharp chill in the air, the clear atmosphere and calming river flowing next to the road kept them in upbeat moods.

"So, when we visit Kalos," Nekou said to Matt, walking with her arms crossed behind her head in a carefree manner, "what's something you want to do? I bet I can guess. Go ahead. I bet I can guess."

"I bet you can," Matt deadpanned in response. "Lumiose Museum?"

"Lumiose Museum," she repeated, punctuating her teasing with a buoyant laugh.

"I mean, you aren't wrong, but it's not like it's the only thing in Kalos I want to see." Matt adjusted his scarf, making sure to cover his neck from the cold. "I'd really like to meet Siebold, but I bet you guessed that, too. He's got restaurants all over the region and actually getting to eat his food instead of just my attempts at copying it has been a goal of mine for a while."

"I'll tell you what, that just shot way up my bucket list, too…" Nekou pushed herself into Matt's side, winked, and wryly added, "but I bet you guessed that."

Walking just slightly behind them, Anabel looked down to Olivia, who was at her side. "You know, Siebold's not just a famous chef, he's a member of Kalos's Elite Four and a specialist in Water-type Pokémon."

"Really?" Olivia exclaimed, balling up her fists in excitement. "Man, now I want to go there too. Maybe if I battle Water-type specialists, I could understand Dad better… especially Uncle Wallace, but he's not really an option right now."

"Well, we are on our way to Kanto," Amanda commented, "and you still need to get three more Badges, so why not go face Misty in Cerulean City? She's good at using Water-types."

"I think I will, actually." Running ahead of the others, Olivia turned back to them and called out, "Come on, let's get a move on already! Every second that passes is a second wasted!"

"Olivia, Misty isn't going anywhere ei-"

Nekou cut herself off mid-sentence when a familiar, dark-blue-haired figure in a heavy trench coat stepped out of the bushes a few feet behind Olivia to face the group. The girl noticed the way her companions abruptly stopped following her, and pivoted around to face the man herself.

"Come on, Pierce, I'm having a good day for fucking once," Nekou sighed. "What do you want?"

"Agent Zero-One-Three," Pierce replied, his formal greeting paying no heed to her demand. "Giovanni sent me to bring you in."

"What?" Olivia blurted out. "Why does it have to be now?"

"It's unfortunate you have to go, Nekou," Amanda added, "but since we're going to Kanto, we'll see you again soon eno-"

"Amanda Chiaki, with all due respect, you are wrong." Pierce's blunt declaration, delivered with the commanding presence his deep voice so often commanded, made Amanda and the others pause. "When I say that Giovanni sent me to bring you in, I mean that he wants all of you."

"All of us?" Matt repeated, lowering his head but not letting his gaze move even a centimeter off of Pierce. "Look, I know our goals have aligned before, but I don't understand what he would want now."

"Yeah, Pierce, he's right," Nekou concurred, "you're gonna have to give us a better explanation than that."

"An explanation will not be coming from me. Giovanni and Dr. Zager will tell you everything face-to-face in Celadon City." In an act of irony, as soon as those words left Pierce's mouth, he turned his back on the group. That left them unable to see the pained expression on his face, and that ignorance on their part was exactly what he wanted. "I suppose I can tell you this. Giovanni and Dr. Zager want to talk about the data that was taken from the Adenosine Base during Operation Dreadnought."

While Matt tried to absorb what he was hearing, he was snapped out of his daze by the feeling of Nekou clutching his hand. He looked down at her as she pressed herself into his side again, and the sound of a gasp died in his throat when he saw the look of utter despair that had taken her over.

Unable to think of anything else to break the painful silence that had quickly settled in, Anabel weakly offered, "...at least we were already going to Kanto anyway?"

-:-

Gabriella, meanwhile, was busy in the secret lab hidden within Angel Tower's R&D wing. She wasn't there to visit the jellyfish-like creature or the Dark Stone, though. She had gone to see the contents of a third container, holding yet another item she had obtained in her relentless quest as one of Polaris's leaders.

"Your time has finally come," she said to its contents as she keyed in the code to open the case. "You're so important to everything, to the Laphicet prophecy and everything that comes after. To the Forbidden Beast finally drowning this miserable world in Dark Matter and freeing us all…"

Inside the container was a pink, glowing glass sphere, about the size of a Poké Ball, with an orange ring emanating from its depths.

It was the long-lost Life Orb.

-:-

At one time, the Rocket Game Corner and Resort was a hotspot for visitors of all ages. Its gaming arcades on the first floor of the main building and the adjoining resort were an honest business, offering a relatively benign facade to younger trainers and families seeking appropriate entertainment. The higher floors, however, were not so innocent. They were dens of vice, where adults would gamble away their money and whatever else they felt like wagering in the casino and hotel. Giovanni was adamant that the two sides of the business stay separated as to maintain the honest half's reputation. There was only one place where the two would mix: the arena on the complex's grounds, where legitimate battling by day gave way to elites gambling on high-stakes underworld matches at night. It was a strategy that paid off richly for Giovanni in the past, but those days were, indeed, long gone. Now the entire complex was nothing more than a hollow, derelict shell of a headquarters for the hollow, derelict shell of an organization still calling its halls home.

In the boss's office, a different sort of clash between past and future was taking place. Silver had been the first of Giovanni's summoned guests to arrive, and despite being told to wait for the others, he stormed straight into the office to confront his father.

"Turn around and face me!" Silver fumed, but Giovanni ignored his demand, instead gazing out at Celadon City through the window behind his desk. "I didn't come here to talk to your chair!"

"You need to be patient," Giovanni responded. The even tone of his voice made it hard for Silver to get a read on him, leaving the redheaded young man to grow even more frustrated. "There are others coming."

"Hmph!" Silver scoffed. "The International Police dismantle your team and you still find people to hide behind. You haven't changed at all. Remember this: I'm the Viridian Gym Leader now, you aren't. Stay out of my way."

Giovanni tightened his grip on his chair's armrest, though the motion was subtle enough that Silver missed it. "I know about your new position. You being Gym Leader is why you're here. Polaris is targeting Gym Leaders, and if you-"

"Polaris?! Do you seriously think I'm afraid of them? They aren't any different from you or any of the other cowards who try to hide behind numbers. I'll crush every single one of them…"

"Stacia," Giovanni flatly said to his assistant, who had been standing silently at his side, "show him."

"Yes, sir," she dutifully replied, tapping the transparent screen of the tablet she held.

In response to her commands, a large holographic screen came to life behind Silver. Unaware of it at first, he had no reaction until he heard Ariana's voice, at which point he whipped around like a shot.

"I wish I could have been able to patch things up with him… Matori, I want to ask you… do you think I lived the right way?"

"What is this?" he questioned Giovanni, staring in wide-eyed shock at the flickering footage of his mother slumped against Colress's computer console with blood smeared across her torso. It was filmed from an awkward angle, presenting a close-up view of her from the front. "Why are you showing me this?!"

"I won't say I have no regrets. I really do wish I could have made peace with Silver. But in the end… I think I lived a good life. I just hope everyone will be able to live like that, too…"

The video ended just as abruptly as it began, with the sound of an explosion and a bright flash of light a fraction of a second before the image cut out.

"What… was that?" Silver repeated. Deep down inside, he at least had a basic idea of what he had just witnessed, but he couldn't process it. There was just too much he didn't understand.

"Polaris is not what the outside world thinks it is." Giovanni grimaced, his face faintly reflected in the glass separating him from the city outside. An unusual vulnerability in his voice betrayed his own inner turmoil. "Ariana… your mother sacrificed herself to obtain the information we now have on Polaris's plans. What is about to happen is something all should fear… and she would have wanted you to be ready to face this ordeal. Don't listen to it for me, listen to it for her."

Silver shut his eyes, clenched his teeth and slammed his left fist against Giovanni's desk. "You're the lowest of the low, resorting to tactics like this," he growled at his father. "Do not consider this me forgiving you… for anything."

An uncomfortable silence settled in over the office, but did not last long before a chime on Stacia's tablet interrupted it.

-:-

Outside, Trevor had pulled up in front of the resort with Looker, Mitsumi and Silva. While they stood near his car, he was at the door with his phone in his hand.

"Trevor?" Stacia said from the other end once she finally picked up.

"Yeah, Stacia, I'm outside with our guests. Wanna come and let us in?"

"I'll be right there."

"Countin' on it." Putting his phone away, Trevor said to the three agents, "The boss's assistant is coming to let us in."

"Good," Looker replied. "Are you two ready?"

"Yes, sir!" Silva promptly answered.

Mitsumi's response, on the other hand, was noticeably delayed. Averting her eyes from both her superior officer and her partner, she fidgeted with her pockets and mumbled to herself. The mere idea of walking into what she saw as such a hive of villainy, let alone with the purpose of meeting with the actual villains inhabiting it, filled her with both fury and fear. After what had been done to her at Team Galactic's hands, how could it not? But on the other hand, she knew on some level that it was inevitable. What else would happen as a member of the International Police? Looker had tried to instill a sense of pragmatism in her from the day she was assigned to him, and this was exactly the circumstance for it.

"Mitsumi, are you alright?"

"Silva, I'll…" Her words caught in her throat, making answering Silva's question even harder than it already was. With some effort, she finally managed to quietly say, "I'll do it for the mission. Like always…"

-:-

It took a few more hours before Pierce arrived at the building with Matt, Nekou, Anabel, Olivia and Amanda. By that point, Stacia was waiting for them at the entrance so she could immediately let them in. After a quick round of introductions, she laid out instructions for what would happen next: she would show them to rooms reserved for their use further up in the hotel, where they were to prepare before being summoned into their meeting with Giovanni.

That was how Nekou found herself sitting on the crimson sheets dressing the bed in her assigned room, staring down at the dull black tiles lining the floor. Practically everything in the room was some shade of either color. The furniture in the room was all black, while the curtains over the windows had a red checkerboard pattern. Team Rocket's colors, she bitterly noted. They should have made her feel more at home, given that she even had the very same hues in her own hair. Yet she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling she had regarding what was coming. She'd finally managed to begin processing the idea of life without Ariana, and now she had to confront the subject head-on to hear what Ariana's sacrifice had helped uncover.

She looked up when she felt a bump against her shoulder, finding that it was Matt handing over her thermos of coffee. "Here. I thought it might help."

Acting on sheer instinct, she snatched the container away and held it tightly against herself, as if she were protecting it from being taken away. It took a moment before she remembered she wasn't in a hostile environment. "You get it," she said, relaxing enough to take a sip.

"I try." Approaching a mirror positioned a short distance from the bed, Matt removed his coat and scarf, tossing both articles over a nearby chair. He then started adjusting his collar, and while he did so, he asked her, "You would know how this works more than I could ever hope to. Are you able to even make a guess at what it is he wants to tell us?"

"If I did I wouldn't be this fucking miserable," she admitted, baring her soul a tiny bit more than she meant to. "He doesn't just call meetings like this for nothing. I can tell you that much. If he wants us all here, instead of just me… whatever it is, it's a big fucking deal. But Maman… Maman died for this. She's not here for me anymore because we had to get what Polaris had at that base!"

"I know it's not the same thing, but the rest of us are all here for you. Amanda and I, Olivia really looks up to you, and I think Anabel appreciates you in her own way. We're not going anywhere. We'll help you get through this."

Matt heard a rustling, and he was soon forced to pause his efforts to smooth out his rumpled clothing when Nekou embraced him from behind. In a quiet but pleading voice, she implored him, "Promise me you'll never let me go or leave me alone.."

He looked down at her hands around his torso, saw that she was still clutching the thermos of coffee for dear life, and smiled sadly. Somehow, despite everything they'd been through, he understood. Or maybe it was because of everything they'd been through that he understood.

"I promise," he said, moving his hands down to meet hers. "Take that to the bank."

Their moment was all too short, for right after Matt gave his word, Nekou's phone started to ring. They both looked back over their shoulders at it, sitting on the bed after Nekou carelessly tossed it there.

The device's tone, normally upbeat in nature, instead brought a cheery-sounding sense of doom upon them. They both understood all too well what it meant. Whatever Giovanni wanted to tell them, they were being called upon to hear it.

-:-

"Oh, come on, why are they here?"

Silver's irritability at seeing Nekou and the rest of her group only compounded the tension in the office as they entered. Giovanni's son was already there, sitting on one of a pair of couches facing each other in front of the Team Rocket boss's desk with Looker, Silva and Mitsumi at his side.

"It's not like I was hoping to see you, either," Nekou bitingly shot back, throwing herself down on the opposite couch. "This day is going to be bad enough already, I don't need your shit, Silver."

In an attempt to shift the direction of the conversation away from Nekou and Silver's sniping, Olivia spoke up, "Mr. Looker, I wasn't expecting to see you here today."

"Attribute it I must to the illustrious work of my apprentice agents," Looker proudly replied, puffing up his chest in a comical manner. "They are the ones who were managing to put this all together."

"Is this the result of our conversation at Sushi High Roller?" Anabel asked.

"Indirectly." Mitsumi cracked her knuckles, looking for any way to relieve her anxiety she could. "After that meeting, we went and talked to the upper management of the Aether Foundation to get some intel on Colress. We were just there yesterday when Trevor called for us to be here. It was thanks to Aether President Lusamine that we made it in time."

Amanda crossed her arms. "But what is it that got Giovanni to call all of us here?"

"You're about to find out."

Having entered from a side door, Giovanni's pronouncement to his guests silenced their chatter, even if it was a grudging quiet in the case of Mitsumi and Silver. He marched to his desk chair with steady, deliberate steps, Stacia and Zager following behind him. As he sat down, he said, "I welcome all of you to the Rocket Game Corner and Resort. I regret it had to be under these circumstances."

"Can we just stop with the games already?" Mitsumi complained, what little patience she still had rapidly running out. "We're all here. You're here. Cut to the chase."

Silver laughed, bemused yet still resentful. "Hmph, get used to it. He always does these things."

"No, Silver, you are correct." Giovanni's concession caught his son off guard. "This time, what we're here to discuss is too important for games. I want you all to meet my top scientist, Dr. Zager."

"Yes," Zager said. He stepped forward, albeit hesitatingly, and added, "My name is Gabriel Zager… Team Rocket's top scientist."

"Wait, I am remembering you," Looker uttered in surprise. "Met before, we have. I think… yes, you were at the masquerade party that took place in Castelia City! I saw you before the attack by the Team Plasma!"

"I remember too, now that I think about it." Matt leaned forward and clasped his hands together. As he looked the scientist up and down, he was struck by the sensation that Zager somehow seemed smaller than he had imagined. "When we were meeting at Sushi High Roller and talking about that incident. I know you from that, too."

"Yeah, yeah, we all already know each other," Nekou grumbled, her face twisted into a miserable scowl. "Mitsumi was right, let's cut to the fucking chase. I want to know what Maman had to die to get on Polaris."

The mention of Ariana made Silver flinch, but only Anabel and Olivia noticed it and neither thought it a good idea to pursue the issue.

Giovanni, meanwhile, gave a quiet, tired sigh. "You are all correct. Zager, go on. Tell them everything."

Taking Stacia's tablet from her, Zager tapped his fingers against it, filling its transparent screen with data. Its light reflected in his monocle, partially obscuring his left eye. He stood rigidly before his audience, glancing up and down at the device in his hands.

"I…" he started, quickly losing his train of thought. With a breath made heavy by the weight of everything on his shoulders, he tried again, saying, "Fine. I will tell you everything… as you probably all already know, Team Rocket fought Polaris aboard the Altru Northstar oil platform, which in reality was Polaris's Adenosine Base. What we managed to extract there mostly reinforced things I already knew…"

"Maman died for nothing?!" Nekou screeched in horror, interrupting him.

"No, she didn't," Zager assured her. "She did not… because there was one vital bit neither I nor anyone else in Team Rocket knew. You see, we thought that by fighting Polaris, we were disrupting their plans. Goldenrod City, Ecruteak City, the Adenosine Base… all of these were supposed to be significant losses for them. What I discovered that we haven't been stopping them at all. Polaris has been progressing as if they're facing no opposition, and now they're at a critical stage in their agenda. There was a log in the Adenosine Base data that said 'according to the Oracle's visions, the fulfillment of the Laphicet prophecy is soon to occur.'"

"There's that person they call 'the Oracle' again," Matt pointed out to Mitsumi and Silva. "I'm sure of it now… they brought Saeko Oryo back somehow and are holding her hostage to guide them."

"That does sound like a credible theory," Silva replied, while Mitsumi again grew tense next to him. "But I'm not sure what we can do to save her right now… for the time being, what I'm wondering is, what is this 'Laphicet prophecy?'"

"Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing," Amanda concurred. "I feel like I've heard that name somewhere before, but I can't quite place it."

"The Laphicet prophecy gets to the center of what Polaris's real purpose is," Zager continued. "You see, tearing down the Pokémon League and the rest of society isn't their true goal. That's only a stepping stone. Polaris's purpose is to sow chaos and drive humanity into despair, as they worship an extraterrestrial force called Dark Matter that feeds on feelings of despair and hatred."

That brought Mitsumi out of her silence. "Wait, did you just say extraterrestrial? We're dealing with aliens now?!"

"There are being some extraterrestrial Pokémon," Looker reminded her, "but also, it would not be entirely incorrect to give the Ultra Beasts the description of being alien, either…"

"But still… this isn't the same as those cases, I can tell."

"Your junior agent is right, Detective," Zager confirmed. "Dark Matter is unlike any other lifeform. It's not a Pokémon, it's certainly not human, it can't even be called an Ultra Beast. Yet, even Dark Matter is not really what Polaris is after. It's Dark Matter's creator deity they want… a monster living in deep space that they call the Forbidden Beast. By tearing society apart at the seams, Polaris intends to stir up so much fear, hatred and despair for Dark Matter to feed upon that the Forbidden Beast will gain enough strength to come here."

"And once that happens…"

"...game over, I bet," Olivia said, finishing her mother's sentence.

"Game over," Zager repeated, "for everything. The Forbidden Beast has been wandering the universe since the beginning of time, invading worlds, absorbing their life force and transforming their inhabitants, then moving on to the next one. All of this in an eternal search for the one thing the Forbidden Beast lacks. the life-giving light of its antithesis, the Radiant One. Should the Forbidden Beast obtain that light, it will evolve into a perfect lifeform. Polaris wants to make this happen so the Forbidden Beast will take all terrestrial life along with it on that evolutionary path, to a paradise beyond illness, suffering, life and death. But in order for the Forbidden Beast to consume a world, it needs an avatar for its power in that world to exist first. That is what the Laphicet prophecy is… the awakening of that avatar, Azrael, the Angel of Reckoning."

"Azrael, I've heard that name before. It's a figure in a lot of mythology from different places, and even though all the stories are different they're consistent in the theme of Azrael being a harbinger of destruction, or reckoning, as you put it…" Amanda balled her fists on her lap, and not even bothering to try hiding her disgust, added, "Destroying the planet and everything living here? I cannot believe Mom is involved in this."

"Every member of Polaris's leadership board, the Sacred Helix, has a dream of their own they want the Forbidden Beast to grant," Zager said. "Some have what they see as noble ideals, others simply want revenge against some enemy or another. Amanda, Matt, in the case of your mother, she wants the Forbidden Beast to bring about a new world where her family can be back together."

"That's rich considering she had a big part in destroying it," Matt uttered in a similar tone to his sister, "but how do you know all of this? How can you know all of this?"

"I know all of this because I was there. But I wasn't just any ordinary member of Polaris, no. I was the one who they put in charge of paving the way for Azrael's arrival." Zager hung his head in shame before what he felt to be the scornful gazes of his audience. "I came here today to tell you everything, from the start."

~:~

Saffron City, as it was in 1982, stood as a testament to human progress that had reached a stalled state in the face of its own decadence. Its streets, soaked in the colorful light of the neon signs lining them, were packed at all hours with both pedestrians and motorists, all traveling from one shopping center or club to the next in the pursuit of their next high.

One of the city's many apartment complexes was where Gabriel Zager made his home. Then a lean young man sporting thick-framed glasses, a brown perm and bushy mustache of similar hue, he was one of the few Saffron residents not there for the city's extravagance. He'd moved there to attend school, and his lodgings reflected that fact, with several stacks of books piled on his desk and his black leather satchel leaned against them. His apartment was otherwise relatively sparse, but he was satisfied enough with what it was.

That warm, rainy spring night, he was in his small kitchen cooking a pot of soup on his stove. Joltik - his Pokémon companion who would go on to evolve into his Galvatula in the future - skittered about from one room to the next, chittering as she went.

"You know I'm going to have something for you, Joltik," he called over his shoulder to her. "What do you want tonight? Carrots? Radishes? Celery, maybe?"

When he heard more excited chittering from the other room, Zager laughed and shook his head.

"Got it. Everything. Whatever will I do with you, Joltik?"

Right as he finished pouring his soup into a bowl and preparing Joltik's vegetables, his tranquility was interrupted by the sound of his doorbell. Wondering who could be calling upon him at such an hour, he set the two dishes down on the table in his living room and went to answer the door.

Little did he know, that simple action would profoundly change his own future, and potentially the entire planet's.

Waiting for him on the other side were three individuals, a woman flanked by two men. The men wore identical white uniforms accented with black and blue sleeves and neckpieces, while the woman was clad in an ordinary red business suit. She also had most of her face covered by a golden, helmet-like mask, while her companions simply hid their eyes behind dark visors.

"Can I help you?" Zager asked them, more than slightly annoyed by the sudden appearance of the strange trio.

"Gabriel Zager, it is a pleasure to meet you," the woman casually said, unnerving him with her knowledge of his identity. Carrying herself with an intimidating air of supreme confidence, she breezed past him into the apartment, where she threw herself down on his living room couch. Joltik, who had been feasting on her plate of vegetables, ran off and hid.

"E-Excuse me," Zager stuttered, powerless to stop the two men from also entering. All he could do was close the door after his unexpected guests. "Do I know any of you? How do you know my name?"

"We know all about you," replied the trio's ringleader. Her words certainly did nothing to help Zager relax, let alone even answer his question. "Tell me, do you want to always live like this?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Like this," she repeated, gesturing at the room around them. "We've been reviewing a great deal of paperwork, and your profile at the Pokémon Institute caught our attention. You're too brilliant to be living like this, Gabriel. You have a future, and it's not here."

At least she'd finally started providing some answers, as hopelessly vague as they were. It was enough to get Zager to sit down on a nearby chair to speak with her more formally.

"You have to tell me who exactly you are if you want me to listen to what you're saying," he asserted, some of his own confidence returning.

"Aha! My apologies, I got a little sidetracked. You can call me Finansielle, and I represent an organization called Polaris." Finansielle pointed at the patch on her suit, which bore the double-helix 'P' logo that would later become so ubiquitous. "We are looking to recruit people like you who display the potential to change the world, but who aren't currently realizing it."

"If you want to recruit me into this Polaris organization, you might not want to start by insulting my education."

"Or is it exactly the right place to start?" Finansielle's flippant nature kept Zager wary. He had no idea what she would do or say next. Reaching over to Joltik's dish, she picked up a celery stalk and took a loud, crunching bite out of it. "You're a genius, I already said that. The Pokémon Institute is too small a pond for the great big Gyarados you are. And look at that city of hedonism out there. That's not who you are, is it?"

Against Zager's better judgment, Finansielle was starting to get inside his head. "You aren't wrong on that point. I could care less about partying or shopping. I moved here for school."

"Yes, you get it!" Finansielle exclaimed with an excited clap of her hands. "You're someone who would rather spend your time in a laboratory learning through the act of creation, aren't you?"

"That would be correct…" Zager ran a hand across his mustache. "What exactly is it that got you to come here? Why did you want to see me?"

"As I said, Polaris is looking to recruit people like you." Finaniselle gestured to one of her cohorts, who handed the briefcase he was carrying over to her. "I want to offer you membership in our organization. We have a position all ready for you in a research center we operate, should you accept. And don't you worry, I'm not so cruel as to ask you to work for free. As rewarding as the work would be for a man like you, we can also arrange for you to get all the educational accreditation you could have gotten out here and then some. And also, there's the research funding we can give you." At that, Finansielle opened the briefcase, revealing that it was full of money. A cliche move, but it worked nevertheless, as Zager's eyes went wide at the sight. "This is just a small taste, of course. Polaris has benefactors with some very, very deep pockets. If you come to work for us, I can promise you all the funding you could ever hope for."

~:~

"I won't make any excuses." Zager again lowered his head. "I was an ambitious student back then. Finansielle said she'd give me all the funding I'd need, and it was a clear track to recognition… my ambition got the better of me. I've often wondered if things would have been different if I said no… surely Polaris would have found someone else to do my work, but would that person have made the choices I ultimately did?"

"I get it," Mitsumi said, shooting Zager a sour glare as she left his question hanging. "You joined Polaris for money. What else is new with you people."

"That doesn't matter now." Matt's intervention brought Mitsumi's silent ire upon him, but he ignored it and stayed focused. "Keep going, Doctor. What happened next?"

"I was placed in charge of a Polaris facility in Vermilion City called the Aball Clinic. To the outside world, the Clinic was a fitness and wellness center with the additional purpose of researching therapies and cures for allergies and disease. In short, a place focused on making people healthier. Many of our clients came of their own free will, searching for a way to better themselves, while we also took patients in need of rehabilitation following medical procedures."

"A noble purpose to hide the truth," Amanda succinctly observed.

"Correct. Over the next few years, as my subordinates helped conduct the clinic's public-facing business, Polaris had me working on this." Using Stacia's tablet, Zager summoned the holographic screen between himself and his audience. Complex scientific text filled the image, accompanied by diagrams depicting a double helix and a red triangle. "This is the Therion Virus. It is an extraterrestrial virus that was found at the site of a meteorite strike on Birth Island, a remote location in the Sevii Islands. Polaris had me lead a team to recover samples from the impact site."

By tapping the tablet's screen, Zager dispensed with the data on the virus and brought up an archived video clip for the group to see.

~:~

Birth Island Expedition Log

July 17, 1983

Birth Island was a tiny spit of land that suited Zager's description of it as remote. Not only was it isolated from the rest of the Sevii Islands and the world at large, but its bizarre terrain made stepping onto its shores feel like visiting another planet. Besides the trees at the corners of the triangular landmass and the crater at its center, it was a flat, featureless area surreal in how empty it was. Polaris's research team took advantage of its barren terrain to set up a group of tents for their expedition, stationing them at the edge of a muddy stretch of dirt surrounding the crater.

"The team has continued to study the impact site in search of the meteorite that landed here," Zager, clad in the same white protective suit as his nearby subordinates surveying the crater, explained to the camera recording him. "It is currently believed that the meteorite was not as big as we originally speculated, which is why we have not yet-"

"Doctor, come here!" one of the researchers called out to him. "We've found something!"

"Barbara, follow me." With his assistant continuing to film him, Zager trudged through the mud to join his team. "What is it?"

"The meteorite," said Zager's subordinate, ushering him to look and Barbara to point her camera into the gap. There, visible at the bottom, was a rugged, pockmarked stone about the size of two fists.

"That's it, all right." Zager reached into the pocket of his suit and retrieved a handheld scanner, which he held over the meteorite before pushing the button to activate it. The device returned a response almost instantly, a jagged green line appearing on its screen. "Signs of life, just as Finansielle said we'd find…" Turning to the rest of his team, Zager ordered, "Get the cryogenic capsule so we can preserve this!"

~:~

"...and that's exactly what we did," Zager continued in the present upon the clip's conclusion. "We brought the meteorite back to the Aball Clinic, and I led the research on the virus that we found on it."

~:~

After bringing the meteorite back to the clinic, Zager stored it in his lab using a tank filled with blue fluid, which preserved the virus. He and Barbara had some time to study it before Finansielle contacted them for an update.

"By mapping the genetic code of the virus, we've come to understand its basic functions," he explained to his superior, who was looking in from her office through a video monitor hung over the lab's doorway. "Right up front, I'll tell you that based on the tests we've run, this virus is not very transmissible. I know you'd probably want to know if your funding was risking some kind of outbreak."

"Oh, you're so caring, Gabriel," Finansielle teased him. "Don't worry about where my money's going, that's my job. Just tell me more about what you've found."

Barbara, who had been standing by, spoke up. "Well, this virus has some very unusual traits," the raven-haired researcher said. "We've found that it only has markers for three very specific mutations. Other than those three, it appears unable to mutate into anything else."

"That's right," Zager confirmed. "I'll elaborate on what those mutations are in a moment, but I do want to give a little more on what I said, first. One of the biggest factors limiting the virus's transmissibility is that it is quickly flushed from the host's body. Our tests showed that it induces symptoms for roughly a few hours, then disappears. Now, about how it does that…" Adjusting his glasses, he continued, "The three mutations it's capable of play a part. When it first enters a host's system, it undergoes a mutation that helps it circulate quickly. It then enters a protective state in which it latches onto cells, and finally reaches the final mutation, one based on exerting power. At that point, the symptoms appear, but because that final mutation is extremely fragile, it is rapidly broken down and destroyed, as I said."

"What are the symptoms, exactly?" Finansielle inquired.

"We've written up a more detailed report," Barbara said, "but to put it simply, the symptoms are highly similar to the mutations themselves. The virus is drawn to itself, and tries to make the host similar to it. It appears to be a symbiotic relationship - the host gives the virus a place to survive, while the virus gives the host its strength."

"Let me just give a quick clarification," Zager added. "The virus creates a sort of sensory feedback that senses signals from the brain and transmits them to the appropriate cells, enhancing them as necessary within the parameters of the three mutations. For example, if the host is in a situation where the brain transmits a need for physical strength, the virus will interpret that signal and react accordingly. Likewise, if faced with some sort of danger, the virus will boost endurance or help the host escape. These processes require a great deal of energy, so when the host needs to eat, it allows them to get down the necessary amount of food. It's all in the report, but that's the gist of it."

"This could be the key to everything the Aball Clinic is aiming to achieve," Polaris's investor told the duo. "If you can fully decode the virus's secrets, we could use it to make humanity stronger and healthier… make them better than what they are now."

~:~

By the end of the video, it was evident from the ease with which he spoke that breaking down the scientific aspects of his story was where Zager found his comfort. Mentally, both Matt and Nekou had to agree. While they, like the others, had little interest in hearing him talk about how Finansielle manipulated him, the subject of the virus had them deeply intrigued.

Still, Matt thought he sensed something… off about the way Zager was talking. He sounded strangely emotionally disconnected. Was he deliberately trying to keep the topics being discussed at arm's length, or was it a connection to those he was addressing that he was trying to avoid? Matt narrowed his eyes at the scientist, and observed that he was staring at the data in the projection, seemingly trying to stay away from his audience.

"As we said," Zager continued, "the Therion Virus can strengthen its host, enhancing their physical strength, durability and agility, while increasing their metabolic rate to the level needed to fuel these abilities. It is a symbiotic relationship, or at least it is meant to be. As I conducted my research of it, Barbara and I screened clients of the Aball Clinic to find potential participants in trials of what we called Triangle, a treatment synthesized from the Therion Virus."

"Triangle?" Silver uttered. "Are you kidding me? Your naming skills are clearly as bad as your judgment."

"Yeah, that name kinda sucks," Olivia agreed, nodding.

"It was a branding decision I wasn't responsible for. Anyway… Polaris used the Aball Clinic as a front to conduct the Azrael Project, the creation of an individual to be the avatar for Dark Matter I described earlier. The trials of Triangle were the first stage in that project, as they told me the Therion Virus was the key to making it happen. We gathered a group of participants and initiated phase one of the trial as we had planned, still believing in what we were being fed… here, watch for yourself."

~:~

Video log

August 18, 1986

The Aball Clinic complex occupied a spacious property on the western end of Vermilion City, its proximity to the coast affording its clients and personnel a picturesque view of the ocean. That, along with its well-cared-for grounds and spotlessly clean interior, left many to see it more as a resort than the medical facility it actually was. Certainly, the sinister truth of what was taking place within its walls was well hidden, even from much of its staff.

One of its facilities was a cavernous athletic center, affording those staying at the clinic all the opportunities to stay active that they could ask for. It was there that Zager stood before a group of around fifty men and women, all wearing the same standard-issue Polaris uniform as Finansielle's followers. While the group was a fairly diverse one in most aspects, they were all in the same age range, as the program specified that it needed participants in their early twenties.

"Everyone," he addressed the crowd, using a heavy wireless microphone, "I thank you for your attendance today, and for agreeing to take part in this research program. You have been selected for the biggest project to take place at this clinic, one that shall prove to be an important turning point in human history. Allow me to explain." Zager turned to his assistant, standing faithfully at his side. "Barbara, if you would be so kind as to bring up the slides."

"Yes, Doctor," she replied. At Zager's prompting, she pushed a button that she had been holding on to, connected by a thick cable to a nearby computer. In turn, a huge screen looming over the gymnasium illuminated with the same data on the virus Zager would show Matt, Nekou and the others in the future.

"Allow me to introduce Triangle," Zager announced to the crowd. "As you saw in the paperwork for this program, Triangle is a cutting-edge genetic therapy we have developed here at the Aball Clinic. We have great ambitions for what it, and you, will accomplish. Our goal is to assist humanity by enhancing the natural traits all of us have, including lessening our natural vulnerability to disease. In the first phase of our program, you will each be given a dose of Triangle, followed by three tests, designed to test your physical strength, endurance and agility. Ladies, gentlemen, we stand at the precipice of a breakthrough that will change the future, and you are the explorers who shall go boldly into this uncharted terrain, blazing a trail that the world will follow! Now, let us get started."

-:-

August 19, 1986

Azrael Project: Phase 1, Trial A-1

The first of the three trials to be staged was the strength trial. Each participant was assigned their own stack of metal weights after being given their dose of Triangle, along with a stipulated amount they were to lift and the number of times to repeat this action. Zager and Barbara filtered through the stations spread around the Aball Clinic's gymnasium, recording the time it took each of the subjects to complete the task.

Once they had collected all the results, the pair united at the front of the hall to compare their notes.

"I see," Zager said, thumbing through the papers on Barbara's clipboard. "We'll get everyone's comments on it later today, but I think we might have underestimated the first dose's effects. I didn't think they'd finish so quickly."

"Should I still arrange to increase the dose in the next wave, Doctor?"

Pausing to consider his assistant's query, Zager took another look at the results. "I think we should keep on track with our initial plans, so let's see how Trials B and C go first. If the results fit our projections, I'm not imagining that I'll want to double the dosage yet. Plan a tentative increase to fourteen units, and since that's a 75% increase, accordingly expect to raise the weight by 150%. If those numbers need to be adjusted later, that still gives us important data."

~:~

"It worked beyond our wildest dreams," Zager continued narrating for his audience in the present. Matt, Nekou, Anabel, Amanda, Silva and Looker all appeared particularly enthralled by his tale, watching the footage of his experiments and listening to his explanation with great interest. "The second trial was focused on testing the subjects' endurance by having them spar with each other, while the third tested their agility through traversing an obstacle course as fast as possible. We got the same results across all three… Triangle enhanced the subjects' abilities far past normal human limits, and greater doses resulted in greater results… phase one lasted for sixty days, and we repeated those three trials every week with increased numbers."

Mitsumi, having picked up on the increasing hesitance in Zager's voice, glared angrily at him. "We got that picture already, Doctor. Stop wasting our time and get to the point."

"Yes, of course…" Had his attempt to stall really been that obvious? "At the end of phase one we had one candidate who stood above the others as qualified for phase two. Here…"

~:~

Video log

October 18, 1986

The sun hung high in the sky, visible through the window at Zager's back. It cast a comforting, lazy glow over him and the Azrael Project subject he was interviewing, each of them seated on opposite sides of the doctor's office desk.

"Chimere, the reason I've called you here today is to discuss your performance in the phase one trials."

"My performance?" The woman speaking with Zager, who had her jet-black hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, pouted. "Oh no, you're not going to tell me I'm getting cut, are you?"

"Far from it," Zager assured her.

"Great!" In an instant, Chimere's frown flipped into a cheerful smile, and her eyes sparkled from behind her oval-framed glasses. "So tell me, then, what's the deal?"

Shuffling through the papers in front of him, Zager paused to collect his thoughts. "I wanted to inform you that your aptitude scores in every trial have been at the top of the class. Quite literally, in fact. You're number one by all metrics."

"I knew I had something special in me," Chimere huffed, playfully exaggerating her reaction.

Even Zager, for all his professionalism, couldn't help but laugh at that. Chimere's cheer was just too infectious, and it swept him up. "I think I would tend to agree," he said once he composed himself. "Whatever it is, your resonance with Triangle has been impressive. For that reason, you've been selected as the subject to progress into the second phase of the program."

"Ooh," she replied, leaning in closer, "go on. Tell me more."

"Phase two will see you receiving greater doses of Triangle than you did in phase one," the doctor explained. Your strength, endurance and agility will be further enhanced, as will your senses, and you will participate in more rigorous testing to examine the results. Before we get started, I would like to ask you a few questions, however. First off, please tell me about your reasons for coming to the Aball Clinic and joining this program."

"Well…" Chimere snatched a lollipop from a bowl on Zager's desk, and ripped the wrapper off in a single smooth motion. In between taking licks of it, she answered, "As a kid, my health wasn't the greatest out there, y'know? Mom and Dad had to make a lot of sacrifices to take care of me, so life wasn't exactly easy. I had to get a bunch of odd jobs to help 'em make ends meet as I grew up. I think I came here because, when I heard about your research, I realized it could help people like me. That's what I want to do. I want to help create something that'll make life better for people in the future."

"Your mindset is admirable." After writing down some notes on Chimere's response, Zager asked her, "Now, please explain in your own words what Triangle makes you feel."

"How I feel about the idea, or how I actually feel on it?"

"The latter."

Chimere's eyes lit up again. "Oh, if that's what you want to know, it's a rush that makes me feel like I can do anything. Every time you guys put me in one of those trials, it's so exhilarating. Yeah, that's the word. I get this feeling… it's like I have a fire burning inside me that gives me the power to define what I can be on my own terms instead of what the world tells me I can do."

"That's good. The goal of our project is to help people overcome their limits and grant them that freedom, so we're on the same page."

~:~

As he watched the video, Matt felt a pit growing in his stomach. He was already on guard for any conceivable twist Zager's tale could take, but seeing the interview with Chimere gave him a disturbing suspicion about two things. One was that he knew where the entire story was going, and if he was right about that, it would answer the second question - why they had been so urgently summoned to hear it. But as things stood, he said nothing. He wanted to believe that his fears were just that, nothing but his usual paranoia and negative thinking.

Matt didn't notice Zager shoot a brief glance in the direction of his group, which was to the scientist's satisfaction. He didn't want to have to answer questions, not yet. "So we continued on to the phase two trials with Chimere while all the other participants stayed in phase one. Like you heard, she received greater doses of Triangle and took part in more challenging trials. She passed, flawlessly."

~:~

October 20, 1986

Azrael Project: Phase 2, Trial A-1

Since the rest of the Azrael Project's participants still needed the facilities set up for phase one of the program, Chimere's tests were moved to a smaller, more private gym in another wing of the clinic. There, with Zager and Barbara watching from the sidelines, she was put into another sparring match, but instead of a fellow subject, her opponent of the day was a Machamp.

Despite standing a full head over her - and to say nothing of his four arms and dense, muscular body - she was more than keeping up with him.

"Come on, you can't hit me?!" she taunted him, making him grunt in frustration at his inability to figure out a way around her agility and endurance. A punch from the right, a karate chop from the left - no matter which angle he attacked from, she moved with inhuman reflexes to intercept the blows, blocking them with her own arms. "You can't possibly be goin' all out here!"

"That's time!" Zager called out from across the room, clicking the stopwatch in his hand. "Take a break!"

"Seriously?" Chimere complained, stomping off the mat where she and Machamp had been sparring. She made her way over to the two scientists, where she collected a towel to dry her sweat with before snatching up the water bottle next to it. "Leave me in! I can go for longer than that!"

"Chimere, you were in the ring with a Machamp for seven straight minutes." While Zager spoke, Barbara frantically scribbled notes on the paper in her clipboard. "And he didn't land a single blow except for that one ten seconds in. You deflected every single one after that."

"He was holding back!" Chimere protested between chugs on her water bottle. Behind her, Machamp held one of his four hands to his face, exasperated at her attitude. "I can do more than that!"

"You don't need to push yourself this hard, Chimere. Phase two is slated to go for at least two months, there's plenty of time to show us what you're capable of."

"And we've got other things to test," Barbara added. "We need to get a more complete picture of your abilities on this dose before pushing it."

"Okay, fine. If you two want me, I'll be hitting the treadmill."

-:-

Video log

November 12, 1986

One of phase two's trials was the biggest in scale the project had seen, and as such, it required the vast area available in the Aball Clinic's underground sublevels. Within that space, Zager and Barbara constructed a series of rooms designed to test Chimere's senses, then tasked her with solving and escaping from them as quickly as she could. Each room's challenge was specifically designed to test one of her senses, requiring her to use her new abilities to find the solution that would allow her to move on to the next.

Chimere enjoyed the challenges given to her just for the thrill of overcoming them, but that satisfaction wasn't the only reward in it for her. Every time she finished one of the courses, Zager prepared a special meal for her to unwind with. That evening saw her digging into a huge plate of pasta topped with a bright red sauce and herbs.

"This is so good, Doc!" she gushed, savoring both the rich taste and aroma with her newly empowered senses. "How did you do it?"

"An old family recipe from the Motherland," Zager replied, smiling. "The exact mix is top secret. Can't go sharing that with just anyone!"

The truth was that Zager hadn't been able to afford the ingredients for said recipe on his meager income while he was a student. His access to Finansielle's money after joining Polaris didn't just fund his research, but left him flush with enough cash to indulge his whims. But that wasn't information Chimere needed to know. He just wanted to share the product of his family's history with her, and judging by the way she was reacting, that was the correct choice.

"Eh, good enough for me. You keep givin' me food this good, with how hungry I've been, I ain't gonna argue with it!"

"That's a product of Triangle's effects, as well." Zager pulled a chair out from under the table and took a seat opposite Chimere. "You need energy to power what you can do now. Your engine needs more fuel, and that's what you're giving it."

"You can call it whatever you want," Chimere said, still delighting in the smell of the sauce. "I'm not complaining if your so-called fuel is this good, I'll say it a million times and then a million times more."

~:~

In the present, as the clip wound to a close, Zager felt himself wishing that the holographic video projection could serve as a shield to forevermore separate him from those watching it. With every bone in his body he wanted to avoid having to move on to the next part of the story. He needed to be able to stop it from progressing.

But not every wish comes true. If they did, he'd never have been in his current position.

"So now what?" Mitsumi's irritated voice was the first to break his barrier. "You had this girl you did experiments on and she ate a lot. Like I said before, what else is new with you types."

Even knowing of Mitsumi's past with Team Galactic, Zager was wounded by her verbal jab. Yet, he also knew deep down that it was true.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, staring straight down at the tablet in his hands. Mitsumi scowled, believing his apology to be directed at her. "I've spent a very long time hoping that this day would never come. If you never forgive me for what I'm about to show you, I don't blame you. I really did spend years hoping I would never have to tell you this."

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Mitsumi was more confused than angry now. Her fellow agents shrugged when she looked at them, equally unable to make sense of what they thought they were being told. "What do you have to do with Team Galac… with them? Were you a member of that team too?"

"No, you don't…" Zager sighed. The moment he had spent so much of his life dreading had finally come. "That's not what I meant. Just watch…"

And with that, he touched the screen, cueing up the next video.

~:~

Video log

December 17, 1986

"The snow's nice this time of year, isn't it?"

Zager and Chimere had again gathered to meet in the former's office, this time with a gentle nighttime snowfall serving as the backdrop. Fitting the time of year, Zager had swapped out the lollipops on his desk for an Aball Clinic-branded coffee cup full of candy canes, which Chimere had no hesitation to indulge in.

"You said it, Doc," she replied in her usual carefree manner. "Y'know what I like? How when you go and grab a bite this time of year, it feels like you're sitting in front of a warm fireplace in a fuzzy sweater… it's so comfy. And it doesn't even matter where you go! It could be a five-star restaurant or a burger joint, it doesn't matter!"

"You certainly do have a way with words, as always," the doctor said, smiling. "Anyway, I wanted to discuss something that's come up from our research program."

"Hit the road, then! I know the crew's having a party downstairs, and I don't wanna miss it!"

"I won't keep you long, then. Do you recall what I said on the day this program started? Our goal is to assist humanity by enhancing the…"

"By enhancing the natural traits all of us have, including lessening our vulnerability to disease," Chimere interrupted, rocking back and forth in her chair. "I remember. C'mon, give me something tougher than that."

Zager's expression hardened. As much as he appreciated Chimere's lighthearted demeanor, he needed her to be more serious. "Chimere, what I'm about to propose is very important, and I need you to understand that."

"Okay, okay," Chimere sighed, straightening up. "Let's talk."

"I'm in charge of the Aball Clinic and everything that goes on under its roof, but I do have superiors I have to report our work to." That certainly was the easiest way to describe Finansielle and the other members of Polaris, he noted in his head. "They placed me in this role, and I make the final decisions, but they get to contribute based on what I show them. We've come to a consensus based on your consistently stellar trial performance and test results that you qualify to be offered the chance to participate in phase three."

That got the young woman's attention. "No joke?"

"No, it's real. However, I need to stress that phase three is entirely voluntary and if you choose to turn this offer down, you can still be a part of our research here in other ways. Phase three is completely unlike anything we've done before."

"Go on."

"You know more than anyone the amazing capabilities Triangle has proven to have, Chimere. As we stand right now, you've helped lead us to the gateway of truly world-changing discoveries. But there it has a flaw. It doesn't stay in its users' systems for very long."

"I know. That little space between each dose feels so weird… like I want to go out and run a marathon even though my whole body is exhausted."

"That is one way to put it. In order for the Aball Clinic to fulfill its mission, we must find a way to have its effects become permanent. That is the purpose of phase three. Allow me to explain."

Zager turned his chair half away from Chimere and picked up a remote from his desk. When he pointed it at the screen nearby and pressed a button on it, several images and many lines of text appeared on it.

"While we could take advantage of Triangle's effects being temporary, that is not in line with our goals. Making the world fight for a limited supply of it, selling it only to those who can pay the most… those aren't our values."

"Right," Chimere said, nodding.

"For the fulfillment of this program's purpose, we must find a way to overcome this last limit," the doctor continued. "Our hypothesis is that Triangle's effects remain temporary because all the participants in this study, including you, have had it introduced into you externally. If there were someone whose body manufactured Triangle from the beginning of their life, then we could make it a natural part of their function. I've developed a genetic blueprint to create such a lifeform… but in order for this to be possible, it still needs a mother."

Chimere jumped up, excited by the implication. "That's my purpose, isn't it?"

"As I said, it's entirely up to you whether or not you want to take part in this," Zager reminded her, turning back from the screen, "but as the one who has by far taken to Triangle the most, you are the best candidate we have."

"I'll do it," she said without hesitation.

Chimere's eagerness took Zager somewhat aback. "You don't want to take some time to think about it? We weren't planning to get started on this until the new year, so you don't need to make your decision now."

"I understand, but I don't have any doubts. I want to do this. It's something only I can do… think about it. You said yourself that I'm the one who's done the best in all these trials. And do you remember what I told you when you asked me why I signed up for this project? I wanted to help create something that would make life better for people who were sick like me in the future."

As if to put a powerful emphasis on her words, Chimere slammed her hands down on Zager's desk, shaking all the items on it.

"This is it, it's exactly what I came to the Aball Clinic for! It's practically fate!" Throwing herself back into her chair, she added, "Sure, being the one who leads humanity's evolution and all of that is exciting, but that's not what I'm into. If I can give even one person who's like me a better and easier life, then I'm all in."

"Then I would say we have our decision," Zager said, standing up. "Again, we'll get started on phase three in the new year. For now, let's go downstairs and celebrate what we've accomplished so far. What do you think?"

"I thought you'd never get around to saying that! Let's go!"

"Well, I do have one thing I'd like to do before we head out…" Chimere sighed in an exaggerated but playful fashion at Zager's request. "It's not much. I just want to take a picture to commemorate the program's progress."

"Oh, if that's all you wanted, you should have just said so," she teasingly replied, making a show of her mock irritation.

"Barbara, would you come and take the photograph for us?"

Zager's aide, who had been quietly recording the meeting from behind the lens the entire time, replied, "Yes, of course."

Leaving her video camera running, Barbara emerged into view. At the same time, Zager and Chimere aligned themselves side-by-side in front of her, and Chimere grinned widely, flashing a peace sign to the lens.

"Commemorating the initiation of the third phase of our program," Zager said out loud as Barbara got ready to take the shot, "December 17, 1986, Dr. Gabriel Zager and Chimere Delphine Langley."

~:~

The air in Giovanni's office had gone so dead silent that when Nekou's coffee thermos fell from her hand, the sound it made upon hitting the floor felt as if she'd dropped a cement block. What she'd just heard left her feeling like she'd been run over by a train. There was no way she'd heard it correctly. There was just no way. But at the same time, the similarities were just too much to deny. The black hair. The glasses. The flippant demeanor. It all added up too well, but if what appeared to be true actually was true, it raised questions. Too many questions, all of them carrying horrifying implications.

"Now that's a plot twist I didn't see coming," Silver remarked, his lips curling into a slight, bitter smirk.

"What?" Silva questioned. When no answer proved forthcoming from Silver, the International Police agent turned instead to Matt's group. Since they'd been so helpful with his and Mitsumi's investigation before, looking for information from them seemed like a natural choice. Answers weren't immediate from them either, though; they were all too stunned to volunteer anything. It was like a cloud hung over them, sucking away their usual spirit. "What's going on here?" Silva prodded. "I don't understand. Someone tell me something."

"Langley," Matt finally managed to choke out. "That name… that's the name Nekou used before… before we knew…"

"Wait," Olivia cut in, voicing her thoughts as they unspooled in real time. "If that Chimere lady's name was Langley, and Nekou was Langley before we knew she got her real name from Ariana…"

Feeling her mind beginning to snap in two, Nekou blurted out, "It's a coincidence. You know how many people out there have the same name? It's all a fucking coincidence. There's no way she's-"

Zager felt his heart sink. Watching Nekou try to convince herself against all logic that everything was mere coincidence hurt more than almost any way he'd imagined this conversation going over the years. As much as it pained him, though, there was no longer any going back. The truth was coming out, and it was coming out right then and there.

"Nekou…" he said, in a tone as gentle as he could muster, "you're wrong. Chimere is your real… no, I mean, biologically, she was your mother. You are… the one I created. The result of the Azrael Project. That is where you came from."

"That doesn't make any-" Nekou's sentences were becoming as fractured as her emotions. She'd been ready to have a hard time dealing with knowing what Ariana died to obtain from the Adenosine Base, but to hear the truth about her origins, something she tried not to think about? Lashing out in equal parts anger and despair, she demanded, "And does that make you my father?!"

"No," Zager quietly answered, closing his eyes to avoid facing her fury. "I made you from the DNA of a girl given to me by Polaris. I don't know who she was. That DNA was combined with the Therion Virus in order to create you, but…"

When Zager hesitated, Amanda immediately picked up the slack, pressing him, "But what?"

"Polaris also ordered me to include something else… a certain black, cloudy substance whose name I told you not long ago."

"Dark Matter!" Mitsumi gasped, her horrified realization making her reflexively bring her hand to her mouth.

"Yes. The combination of the base DNA and the Therion Virus, with Dark Matter mixed in… that is what makes you Azrael, Nekou. The voice you talk about hearing inside of your head… I can only imagine that it is your connection to Dark Matter and the Forbidden Beast. Your connection to Azrael, I suppose."

"I-I… I just… I just wanted to…"

"You just wanted what?" As if the situation couldn't get any worse, she then heard Alter-Nekou's - Azrael's - voice echoing in her head. "Go ahead, tell them. Because you know who you are now, and none. Of. It's. Going. To. Happen. I am you and you are me."

In a moment of absolute weakness, Nekou couldn't defy the challenge from her other self. What did she actually want? Whenever she asked herself that question in the past, the answer seemed so simple. Living in luxury somewhere, with as much of everything that made her happy as she could get, far from anything that could possibly hurt her. That always was the answer.

"And now you know you can't get away from me," Azrael taunted her, reading her thoughts. "There is nowhere you can go. Run as far as you want! It's almost amusing to me."

Next to her, Matt felt himself at a total loss. He wanted to help her somehow, to give her the support she had so often given him. If nothing else, he wasn't going to abandon her even in the face of such overwhelming revelations. With no other ideas for what to do right then, he tried intertwining his fingers in hers, but she immediately pulled her hand away.

"None of it matters," Nekou said out loud, at first leaving it unclear who she was addressing. "Not one bit of it matters at all! You created me, but you don't really want me here! I really was just a science project for you!"

"That's not true," Zager countered, asserting himself more forcefully for the first time in the meeting. "Regardless of what Polaris wanted, Chimere and I… we cared about you, I swear that. We had hoped that we could raise you together in peace, and she even picked out a name for you."

"A… name?" Nekou whispered. "You mean I'm not…?"

"You're Nekou Lalume now, but at the time… Chimere liked the name Penelope. Penelope Langley."

Just the mere idea of hearing herself referred to by a different name caused Nekou to completely dissociate. She balled her hands up into fists on her lap and stared down at them, her eyes frozen wide in shock at everything she was trying to absorb. For so many years she'd struggled with her identity and determining who she saw herself as. "Nekou Lalume" was a construct built out of blood, sweat and tears, a character she alternately embraced as herself and projected to find comfort in. She was always watching, carefully observing her surroundings and absorbing things to add into her persona. Other people she interacted with and any conceivable form of media could serve as a source. She'd essentially created a fictitious character, an amalgamation of her own experiences to serve as a source of comfort, filling the void where her forgotten past had been. Playing whatever part she wanted or needed to was so easy when she didn't know who she really was.

But now the fiction was over. Now she knew better. Nekou Lalume was a lie. Penelope Langley was the truth. Azrael was the truth. The void, the dark emptiness into which she could pour her wishes and desires to create who she imagined herself to be, had been filled.

"B-but then…" she asked, her voice weak. "Where is Chimere now?"

That was a question Nekou genuinely feared asking, and unbeknownst to her, Zager equally feared her bringing it up. Yet, at the same time, he knew there was no way to escape discussing the subject, so he was ready with what would provide the answer.

Speaking not a single word in response, he pushed an icon on Stacia's tablet, cuing up the next video clip.

~:~

Zager sat down in front of a camera on his laboratory's desk, and without even saying a word, it was obvious he was not his usual self. His mustache and hair were unkempt, and the dark circles under his eyes made him look as if he had not slept in several days. He hadn't. How could he, with all the chaos going on around him? The lamps on his desk cast a sickly shadow over his face that only made his state seem even more dire. Behind him, the status lights on a block of computer servers flickered in the darkness.

"Azrael Project, video log, August 5, 1987," he said for the camera in a weary voice. Before continuing, he sighed, exhausted by the weight on his shoulders. "We approach the first anniversary of the program's commencement with our hopes and dreams burned to ash before us. When we set out on this path, we believed that what we were doing was something that would help the world. How could we not? The goal of the Azrael Project - no, of the Aball Clinic in its entirety - was to make humanity a better version of itself. Now I see that I, too, was blinded by the allure of what our research could potentially do. I was too ambitious to see the risks, and now an innocent person who just wanted to help is paying the price for my hubris."

Sighing again and removing his glasses, Zager leaned back in his chair.

"Everything appeared to be going well after the implantation process was completed. Too well. It made me overconfident in the way the entire program was going, so when a… complication… developed, I didn't appreciate its severity."

He paused, and just outside of the camera's view, could be heard hitting several keys on his computer.

"As phase three progressed, we observed that Triangle was leaving Chimere's system at an increasingly faster rate. In our foolish optimism, we decided to address this by administering larger doses to make up the difference. What we failed to anticipate was that the answer to the entire question behind phase three was right in front of us the entire time. We did not realize that there would be a point where enough of the Therion Virus in the subject's body at one time would result in its effects becoming permanent, via it lasting long enough to begin programming cells to manufacture it. The virus naturally seeks out more of itself, enhancing its stability, and with enough present it can program itself into the host's cells."

More clicking, after which Zager put his glasses back on.

"But this was not how we wanted to find the answer," he continued. "As we have unfortunately discovered, the body must adapt to becoming a permanent host for the Therion Virus. This process is… difficult. As the body undergoes this adaptation, the subject's musculature and skeletal structure change. It would be a difficult process to go through for anyone, but… Chimere is not able to retain the nutrients necessary to get herself through it. They are passing through her system into Penelope. As a result, Chimere is suffering terribly."

Zager hung his head, struggling to get out the next portion of his report.

"The prognosis is… not good. Unless… unless there is an absolute miracle, it is highly unlikely Chimere will survive. In the face of this, I have considered tendering my resignation, leaving this place and returning to my family's homeland to start over. But I cannot. Penelope will make it. Whether or not I am here, they will experiment on her all the same. I must… I must protect her. I must be here, to do something. Chimere's sacrifice cannot have been for nothing. I will not let her giving her life for something that was my fault be for nothing. Penelope must be given the life Chimere wanted for her… and if we can somehow salvage the purpose of this project, all the better. The Therion Virus… Triangle… it still holds such potential… but my staff and I are the only ones who recognize how to use it responsibly now. If we were to leave, it is my fear that our replacements would wield this power irresponsibly, and many more would suffer the way Chimere is. I cannot allow it."

~:~

"...and on October 9, 1987," Zager finished, picking up for his past self as the clip ended, "the scenario we feared indeed occurred. Chimere Langley's life ended, so Penelope Langley's life could begin."

Mitsumi's mind was racing. Every word of the story that reached her ears brought more memories of her own past in Project Cortex, and how she'd suffered at the hands of Cyrus and Charon. She'd had a lot of thoughts about how she expected the interview to go before it started, but discovering someone else like her, a product of an organization's scientific experiments, was the last thing she imagined. "But that clearly isn't the end, is it?" she said without thinking, oblivious to the way the others around her might be reacting to Zager's tale.

"No, it's not." Though he didn't openly acknowledge his feelings, Zager appreciated the opportunity to keep talking. It was the less painful option compared to having to immediately deal with the fallout of what he'd already revealed. "Polaris gave me several years to raise Penel… Nekou by my own ideals. The hope was that because the Therion Virus was present in her system from birth, she would have its effects from the start, too. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case either… as the years passed, Polaris grew impatient and started making demands. I… I'm not proud of what I did, but I had to give in to those demands out of my fear of what they'd do if I was no longer there to run interference… they wanted me to do two things. One, impart as much knowledge into her as I could. Two, make the Therion Virus in her cells activate and provide its effects. In order to do that…"

The conversation pressed on around her, but Nekou didn't listen to what the others were saying. She didn't need to. The memories had been cascading back into her head like a waterfall ever since she succumbed to Azrael's control when she escaped from Colress. She'd tried to deny them as bad dreams or somehow otherwise false, but now all the gaps were filled in, and she remembered everything. Was Azrael directly making her see them? She didn't know, but it hardly mattered. They would all be there either way.

Far too many of those memories centered around Zager's Aball Clinic laboratory, the setting of so many of the horrible tests conducted on her. She could see him and his team milling around her like it was yesterday. Every time they had some sort of experiment they wanted to do, she'd be restrained in a chair in the lab, and nothing that happened after that point ever was good.

The lessons were the least grueling of the trials she was subjected to. Zager had described them as 'imparting knowledge into her,' and that certainly wasn't untrue, but the method was beyond anything one would see in any sort of school. Everything she was to be taught was imparted directly into her through one of Zager's inventions, a headset that showed her red, green and yellow lights flashing in distinct patterns. At first she failed to understand how the device worked, but she always came out from using it with new knowledge on subjects she'd never read before, as if it had been directly written into her memory. It was only later that she finally saw Zager programming it and understood the truth - it was through the use of his Beheeyem, a Pokémon with the innate ability to manipulate memories. Beheeyem's fingers were, in fact, the very lights that the headset used to rewrite her mind and put new knowledge into it, a process that only started to fracture her mental state.

Of course, she wasn't allowed to get by with the lessons from the Beheeyem headset alone. Now she understood what the memory of the cold, sparse bedroom she had seen while in Colress's clutches actually was. That was where she stayed when not having tests run on her. The textbooks piled high on that desk in that room were just a sampling of what she was forced to study in what was supposedly her free time. While she still didn't comprehend what the reasoning was, Polaris clearly placed great importance on her having tremendous academic knowledge. But why? She wasn't actually attending a school, and they weren't giving much indication that she ever would, either.

But questioning that part of her past wasn't something she could pursue for very long, as there were much worse memories of far darker days lurking just beyond. And one experiment in particular stood out above the rest - the one that gave her the abilities she now realized were all thanks to the Therion Virus itself.

~:~

"This is Therion Virus test level Theta. We'll be administering eight thousand units to the subject…"

Seated in the chair like always, Nekou could see and hear Zager using a voice recorder to note the details of his latest experiment. The particulars of his words went over her head, but there were certain details she could pick out. For one, the number. While she couldn't put an exact definition to what 'eight thousand units' meant, she knew it was larger than any number she'd heard before. As for the term 'units,' how much that unit of measurement was worth also escaped her, but she did know what it measured. Oh, did she ever know what it measured.

The proof was in the tubes attached to her arms. They ran along her restraints, up her arms and over her shoulders to a pair of injectors on her upper back. And on the other end? Cylinders filled with a glowing, blue liquid. The source of what made these particular visits to the lab so difficult.

She was tracing the tubes with her eyes when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, directing her attention straight ahead. It was Zager, who had approached her when she wasn't looking.

"Penelope, I'm sorry. I hope this is the last time just as much as you do." Reluctantly stepping back from her, he turned to his assistants and said, "Begin the procedure."

The tubes' internal engines whirred to life in response to the doctor's direction, draining the blue fluid into her. As soon as it reached her body, she tensed up and tightly gripped the chair's armrests. The serum always made her feel both overheated and like she wanted - no, needed - to do some sort of physical activity to get out the immense amount of energy it filled her with. She'd been through the injections so many times by that point that not being able to exert herself had become more difficult than the actual physical sensation of the serum's effects taking hold. If she could just work out the rush of energy, she would be able to get through the entire test much more easily.

Or at least that was how things usually went. Once the cylinders were fully drained of their contents, something felt off. The usual sensations were setting in, but she could intuitively tell there was some sort of difference.

And then, a sudden, intense pain seized her. It was unlike anything she'd ever experienced before, and although she opened her mouth to scream, no sound came out. She could practically feel her body being torn apart and burned from within, like she was being ripped up and incinerated with no reason to believe she'd ever be put back together. Her every cell was exploding like a star gone supernova.

Reality itself fell away, leaving Nekou adrift in a dark, empty abyss. It was almost peaceful, in a strange way. Was this what dying was like? She didn't fully understand the concept, but if it freed her from her ordeal, she was at ease with it. The fire flowing through her veins had other ideas, though. She could feel it working into her brain, probing her synapses like it was searching for what to keep and what to burn away. It was invading the very core of her existence, rewriting who she was, what she was, on a cellular level.

And yet, some twisted part of her liked it. Whether that part was already there or the result of the serum rewiring her brain, she could sense that in some way it was making her better, making her something more. Enhanced? Evolved? These words and their meanings flew above her head even as an invisible presence inserted them. That presence forced her to move forward, pushing her through the thick, treacly darkness as it whispered incomprehensible things in her ear.

The world snapped back into focus, and in a desperate attempt to flee from the agony, she thrashed in the restraints. As she strained against them, she gasped for breath, desperate to vent the steaming air generated by the serum as it reshaped her. Soon, she felt another unexpected sensation grow from deep within. Beneath all the pain and burning, she could feel her physical strength growing. The braces holding her arms down were proof of that. Her stretching, swelling muscles were gaining the strength necessary to loosen them up, and with one last pull, she broke them entirely. As she tumbled to the floor, however, yet another surprising sensation hit her.

The pain had subsided, just as fast as it had come. The feeling of her body changing went with it. All that remained was a feeling of simmering heat, something she could easily manage.

Zager and his aides had been present for all of it, though while she was in the throes of her agony, they might as well have been on another planet. The doctor rushed over to Nekou as she stood up on shaky legs, offering her physical support to remain stable.

"Give me a status report! Tell me what happened!"

"I… think this test was a success, Doctor," one of the other scientists, who was stationed at a large, blocky computer terminal, replied. "I'm seeing activity in the previously dormant Therion Virus within her cells, in patterns matching those of the previous subject. But this time the levels are remaining stable, unlike what our previous subject experienced. It's not leaving her."

"We'll continue monitoring it, but for now, what a relief." Turning to his young research subject, Zager asked, "Penelope, are you feeling okay?"

Nekou remained dazed, initially out of tune with the conversations around her. Even though the pain had stopped, something still felt wrong. Why was she having such trouble staying on her feet? Her entire center of gravity was off. It wasn't until she looked downward that she realized what had happened - the floor was noticeably further away from her eyes than it previously was. She'd gotten taller.

She couldn't think about this development for long, however. She abruptly realized something else, namely that after going through her ordeal, she was famished. Looking directly at Zager, she caught notice of the yellow glow fading from her eyes, as it reflected in the doctor's glasses.

"I'm really hungry."

~:~

That day only marked the beginning of her nightmare. Polaris's experiments on her continued, pressing her abilities ever further. Every poke, every prod, every cut whittled away more and more of her humanity. Zager was there, and she did remember him trying to help her, but no amount of his time or sympathy could stop her from shrinking deeper into herself, increasingly consumed by a deep hatred for the world that she could again feel stirring in her soul. The simple games and sleight-of-hand tricks from Zager had no chance of ever holding it back. And then, after so many years, one day it was over. Zager had given her the headset, like he'd done so many times before, but she blacked out before any lesson could take hold. By the time she next woke up, she was on the streets of Mahogany Town, completely unable to remember anything about herself or how she got there. And soon after that, her stealing Rage Candy Bars to survive brought her to Team Rocket's doorstep.

Overwhelmed by her memories, she stomped her foot on the floor and stood up. The sound of her boot striking the tile made everyone else around her stop mid-conversation and focus squarely upon her.

"You tell me all of this bullshit," she said, her voice a quiet, pained hiss, "when Maman isn't here anymore… what am I, even?!"

"I have no right to call you my daughter," Zager sadly replied, "and I certainly can't call you my greatest creation. You aren't anyone's science experiment. You are what you decide you want to be… and giving you that freedom was the only thing I could possibly do to atone for what I did."

"It's not freedom if there's still that fucking monster inside my head!" Nekou gripped the sides of her head with such force that it almost looked like she was trying to claw Azrael out. "I'm just something you're stuck with, a replacement for that family you tried to make with her!"

"That isn't tru-"

Nothing Zager could have said in that moment would have gotten through. Nekou just screamed at the top of her lungs, unleashing a horrible screech that gave a shape to the tidal wave of despair, fear and anger she was drowning in. She didn't take a single breath afterward, instead choosing to flee from the room and those in it.

Matt stood up immediately when she made her break for the door, but whatever strength that would have given him the ability to follow abandoned him in short measure, leaving him stuck helplessly in place. He looked to Amanda, then to Anabel and finally Olivia, before settling upon Zager. If the scientist had seemed strangely small when they first met, the entire story only made him come off even smaller. On some level, Zager was aware of that, even. His shrinking away from his audience didn't help his stature at all.

"How could you do this?" Matt questioned, speaking with a tone of absolute disgust. "If anyone knew what kind of mental state she was in, it was you. Why did you have to make this any of our problem?"

Much to the surprise of Matt and the others, it was Giovanni that answered, not Zager. "Because this is about to very much become your problem," he explained, trying to feign indifference and not entirely succeeding. "Ever since Team Rocket took Zager in and gave Agent 013 a home, I've known a day like this would come, sooner or later. The Laphicet prophecy that Polaris is preparing for is Azrael permanently taking over her mind and body. We've gleaned that this event is tied to the attack on the Pokémon League that Polaris is planning… which means you are all right in the middle of it."

"If they're gonna bring a fight to us," Olivia cut in, "then I'm stepping up. I'm gonna fight it. I've had enough."

Giovanni leaned forward, resting his clasped hands on his desk. "Be careful about making rash decisions. Polaris is far more powerful than any of us believed… it's why Team Rocket has been unable to prevent their agenda from moving forward. If you stand against them, you stand against a power capable of changing not just this world but potentially the entire universe."

"I don't care!" she defiantly countered. "You can't possibly expect me to lie down and let them do this. Not after everything I've… no, not after everything we've been put through. Maybe I don't understand everything you're telling me, but I don't care. I just see Polaris hurting everybody I care about, and I won't stand for it anymore!"

"She's right," Anabel concurred with her daughter, while Amanda nodded in agreement next to them. "I spent so much time shut off from the world because I couldn't handle being alone… but what I failed to realize for far too long was that I wasn't alone. If I don't take up this fight and do something to prevent Polaris getting what they want, all the sacrifices made to get this far will have been meaningless. I can't say I'm not worried about the danger, but I can't sit by and do nothing."

"And Matt and I, we're already connected to this in more ways than one," Amanda added. "I'm sure you know our mom is a part of Polaris by now. We can't let that go."

Matt had been lost in thought for much of the exchange. "The Laphicet prophecy means Nekou becoming Azrael permanently? What does that even mean? How would they-" His pondering was interrupted abruptly when Amanda's mention of Mercury finally sank in, snapping him back to reality. "Y-yeah, that's right… we're already deep into this. But what is it that you want? Did you really just call us all here to dump this story and leave us to deal with it?"

"No." Shutting his eyes, Giovanni continued, "In other times I might have called our discussion one regarding business matters, but not today. If you think about it, we are all in a similar position right now. We all have things we want to protect…" The Team Rocket boss paused, opened his eyes and peered around at those assembled in front of him, wordlessly assessing the truth of his words for them. "...and you must be strong to protect those things, no matter what that takes. We all lack the strength individually to defeat Polaris… so we must ally and harness the power an organization brings."

"Not this again," Silver sighed. "You can't be serious."

"I couldn't agree more," Mitsumi concurred, biting her lip as she spoke. "You brought us here to ask us to team up with you? I'm insulted by how gullible you think we must be. Surely you're sharp enough to know I'd never agree to that."

"I don't expect you to, not right away. What I do think is that if you weigh me against what Polaris represents, you will come to understand that in this situation, we all have a shared interest in seeing them fail. What I ask of you all is that you take the coming days to consider what you will do with everything you now know. This resort might be past its prime, but we've arranged accommodations you will find acceptable nevertheless. Each of you should consider this proposal and decide what you will do with it."

A tense silence settled in over the group as they absorbed Giovanni's request. Clearly, there was quite a lot they all had to think about.

-:-

By the time Nekou reached her room, she had only one wish: to escape. To escape from what she saw as the judgment from others, but especially to escape from herself. Nekou, Penelope, Azrael, all three identities clashing and stirring up a tempest within her.

She slammed the door behind her with such force that she almost broke it off its hinges. For all she cared, it could have been reduced to splinters if it wasn't needed to help her hide from the rest of the world. There was just a dim light filtering in from the windows, barely managing to encroach on the darkness. Good, that was all the better. Darkness meant solitude. Sealing herself away from-

"Now they know. Doesn't that feel better? To be seen as what you… what we really are. To know what you are."

Solitude. Right. What solitude was there when you had an impossibly ancient, incomprehensible demon literally living in your head.

"Fuck off," Nekou hissed at the presence. "I don't have to listen to you."

"Oh, you don't? I can see how much you're trying to deny the truth…" That claim certainly had a terrible validity to it. Like so many times before, Nekou could feel Azrael in her head, breaking all barriers that kept her thoughts private. "How do you like borrowing the body that really belongs to me? That's all you are, a guest in my house."

Those taunts got Nekou to turn around, in the direction she perceived the voice coming from. That action brought her face-to-face with the reflection of herself in the room's mirror, but something was off. It looked like her on the surface, but in reality, it wasn't her. It was someone else wearing her face, a nearly perfect copy in every way outside of the dark, twisted expression it wore.

But Azrael wasn't done. In fact, as she continued pushing, she was clearly becoming angrier. "I've had to sit behind your weak facade, watching as you get to live the life I was created to live! I've waited for long enough. You've had your time and you've wasted it. Now it's my turn."

"Your turn to do what?!" Nekou regretted that question as soon as it left her lips. Did she really want to know the answer?

"Yes, you do want to know, don't you? Of course you do. Once I'm free, I will fulfill the entire purpose of my existence. This world will be taken by the one who created me, and become part of something far greater."

"The one who created you? The Forbidden Beast, you mean?" Nekou practically spat her questions out, as if they were foul-tasting pieces of rotten food.

"Yes, you call it the Forbidden Beast…" Azrael replied, nodding. "I know it by another name, but that doesn't matter now. I will lead it here, through the spread of Dark Matter, and it will merge everything that exists here into the Terminal Void where it lives. This world is diseased. The Forbidden Beast and I, we are the cure."

"The cure?! Don't make me fucking laugh. All you are is a bunch of monsters."

"I'm the monster? Oh no, dear girl, I think you already know who the monster here is. Do you really think any of those people you try to ingratiate yourself with actually want you around?"

That jab did it. Nekou snapped, screaming as she punched the mirror with all her might, "You're fucking lying! I won't let you take them away from me!"

Yet, for all the sincere emotion she put into that plea, it accomplished nothing. As the mirror shattered, each shard exploded into a kaleidoscope of surreal visions. Azrael had full access to Nekou's memories, and she intended to exploit that access to the hilt. Specters of people, places, and things she'd interacted with in the past swarmed her, dragging her under like the last surviving human in a zombie film being overrun by the undead hordes. Worse, just under the surface illusions lurked the ominous presence of the giant monster she'd seen in her nightmares. The Forbidden Beast, as she now realized in no small part due to Azrael's insidious prodding. The hand pulling the strings behind all of her torment. The one who ultimately wished to see her sanity crumble to dust, clearing the way for its avatar to take over. It was there, flitting around in the illusions just out of her ability to clearly see it.

"Oh, no, I'm not the one taking them away," Azrael's presence echoed in her head.

Suddenly, Nekou heard two other voices in the room with her.

"You took my life, when all I wanted was to help sick people. What have you done with yourself?"

"You took my life because you couldn't protect yourself. Do you think I actually wanted to die for you?"

When she spun to face the sources of the biting questions, Nekou's heart sank even further. Standing there, against a backdrop that appeared to merge the Aball Clinic and Colress's Adenosine Base laboratory together, were Chimere and Ariana.

"No, that's a lie…" Nekou uttered, her will faltering. Clearly, Azrael was going in for the kill. "They wouldn't say that. You're fake…"

"Oh, is that so?" both illusions replied in perfect unison.

Another voice abruptly joined the dispute from outside Nekou's line of sight. "It's you who is the fake. We all understand that now."

It was another one Nekou recognized almost instinctively. Breaking from the illusions of her two mothers only brought her face-to-face with Matt, who had Olivia, Anabel and Amanda at his side.

"I can't believe I trusted you with my daughter," the false Anabel sneered, "you monster."

"The pale imitation using a body that isn't even hers so she can pretend to be a real girl," Amanda chimed in. "And I thought I could open up to you. You aren't even your real self, just a usurper."

Olivia's illusion spoke last. "It's your fault Dad is being taken advantage of by Polaris. If you never lied to yourself about what you are, none of this would have had to happen! He would still be with me, and I wouldn't have to fight him!"

"No… t-that's… it's all wrong," Nekou stuttered, consumed by abject fear. She tried to back away from the visions, but didn't get far before yet another one spoke up.

"Is it, now?" This time, it was Ada. "There was a time when I thought the world of you, plucking me out of obscurity and giving me a place to belong. Now I see what everyone who's smart sees… you are the one who will rob us all of that."

"But it doesn't have to be that way." Azrael herself suddenly materialized mere inches from Nekou's face. "As much as I hate you for stealing what's rightfully mine, I am still the only one who loves and values you. Let me be free, and when this world is joined to the Terminal Void, they will all be given the eternal bliss of an unchanging existence free of suffering, while you will never have to shoulder the burden of your knowledge."

Nekou's head was already spinning, and Azrael's last bit of venom provided the finisher. She fell backward onto her bed, and the world went black.

-:-

"You cannot possibly be serious about this."

Several hours later, Matt, Anabel, Olivia and Amanda had retired to a lounge in the hotel, along with Looker's team. They gathered to debate the alliance Giovanni had proposed, and much as many of them expected, Mitsumi was far from pleased with the idea.

"But what about what we're up against?" Matt wondered out loud, even as his mind wasn't entirely focused on the conversation at hand. Ever since Nekou stormed out of the meeting with Giovanni, he'd been torn on whether or not to find her and give her whatever help he could muster. He kept changing his mind back and forth, not only recalling his talk with Anabel about how best to support Nekou but unsure of what form that support would even take. Would it have been better to be there in the immediate aftermath of such shattering revelations, or was it better to give her time to calm down first?

One person he definitely wasn't managing to help calm down was Mitsumi. "I don't have to hear that from you," she grumbled at him. "Every few years a guy thinks the world needs saving, puts together a team and makes it everyone else's problem. This isn't any different, and I'm sick of it."

"I think this time may actually be different," Silva quietly commented. "Even though we know what Dark Matter is supposedly able to do, we don't really understand its true nature, you know? It isn't like anything in the International Police case files, except maybe the Ultra Beasts, and even then… none of the ones we know of sound anything like Dark Matter."

"How can you say that when Cyrus literally tried to erase and rebuild the entire universe?" The dispute had stirred up Mitsumi's memories anew, especially of her time in Team Galactic's clutches. Of being held in the underground laboratories beneath their headquarters. Of being brought to Charon, and having him tamper with her mind, all so she could be Team Galactic's ultimate warrior. It all tied together so well that it disturbed her. "Just… just like what Cyrus wanted to use the other Project Cortex members and I for, Polaris wants to end this world by using Azrael to destroy it. And like how Team Galactic had Dialga and Palkia, Polaris has… whatever the Forbidden Beast is."

"Those are all true, but if I may, there's something I'd like to add." Amanda waited for a moment, giving Mitsumi a chance to push back. When no such objection came, she continued, "There are definite parallels, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, through the writings of the ancient peoples of Sinnoh, Dialga and Palkia's basic abilities could be understood. They form the twin threads of time and space that weave together to hold reality intact. We know that Dark Matter and the Forbidden Beast feed off despair to grow stronger, that they travel the universe and absorb the life force and transform the inhabitants of the planets they find, and that the Forbidden Beast wants the Radiant One's power to become a perfect lifeform. But beyond an avatar needing to be in that world first, we don't actually know how all that would work. What Cyrus did was comparatively straightforward. Use Azelf, Mesprit and Uxie to make the Red Chain, control Dialga and Palkia, use their dominion over time and space to write a new universe into being. We don't have any clear idea what Polaris is doing besides causing chaos, so the way I see it, we don't know what we can do to stop them. The danger is lurking in the unknown."

"Correct, you are…" Looker mused, scratching his chin and looking at his shoes. "Even the UB myself and Agent 000 had encountered in Alola, not even that one is quite like what we've been told about this Dark Matter. In the absence of further intelligence, act we must to ensure it cannot use even the abilities we already know of."

"But teaming up with Team Rocket?" Mitsumi objected, though the others' thoughts had taken some of the edge off her agitated state. "An organization that's an enemy of the International Police, and an enemy of civil society at large?"

Looker closed his eyes in thought. "In my years of working cases with qualities such as this, learned I have to prioritize the completion of the mission. Such was the case when I forged alliances with Team Rocket against Team Galactic and Team Plasma… and, if the truth is to be told, I believe that if Polaris achieves even a fraction of what they dream of doing, there will not be any way to come back from that. If they were to succeed, change the world irreversibly it would… and that is what we must act to stop. We must not lose sight of the grander scale of things. To put it into different words, if we are ever to finally thwart Team Rocket in the future, we have to defeat Polaris today, or that future will not exist."

"Amanda was right, then. Where do we even begin? We can't put up a resistance if we don't know where we need to be."

It was Anabel, not Looker, who answered Mitsumi's question. "The Pokémon League. Giovanni said the Laphicet prophecy was tied to an attack they're planning on the Pokémon League, so that's where we know they'll be. And if that's the critical juncture, it's where we definitely can cut off their progress, to save everything…" Anabel shared a brief glance with Matt as she sipped her tea, wordlessly communicating to him that she understood what else was on his mind, "...and everyone."

"Like I said, I'm on board," Olivia chimed in. "I'm done standing by. Whether Dad really is Polaris's leader or they're just using him… I don't care anymore. This is what everything I've been preparing for has been leading to. And if they want to turn Nekou into this Azrael and need to feed Dark Matter negative emotions to do it, then ruining the League after campaigning against it would give them the most turmoil. I'd bet money on it."

"You can't do it alone," Mitsumi said, sighing in resignation. For the first time, she relaxed, allowing herself to slouch in her seat. "If we're really going through with this alliance, I'm not just going to sit on the sidelines. There's still enough time before the Pokémon League starts. I'll qualify, too. Whatever it is Polaris wants to do, the more people we have who can win, the more chance we have to derail it."

"A fine idea," Looker replied, nodding approvingly. "I will establish contact with Chief Nanu and arrange for the bolstering of our forces. Mitsumi, if you are intending to make it into the Pokémon League, I advise you to work on forming an itinerary for doing so, with haste."

"I already have an ide-"

The conversation between the two groups was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a door being flung open, followed by footsteps racing toward them. They couldn't identify the source of the noise until both Matt and Olivia felt something tugging on their arms.

It was Marie, Nekou's Sneasel. Desperate to get Matt and Olivia to understand what she wanted, she kept crying out, her vocalizations carrying a plain sound of urgency.

"What do you need, Marie?" Olivia asked her.

When she didn't stop pulling on their arms, Matt stood up. "Something's wrong. Something's very wrong."

-:-

Matt, Olivia, Anabel and Amanda all had their own ideas regarding what they'd find once Marie led them to Nekou's room, and none of those ideas were anything good. Yet, when they finally got there, they weren't ready for how deceptively simple the sight was. So simple, in fact, that it only made what was there feel even more disturbing.

The shattered mirror was the first thing to greet them. Marie was careful to alert the four to the shards of glass lying on the floor, allowing them to follow her lead in going around them. She then led the group straight to Nekou's bed, where they found their friend lying perfectly still on her back, staring up at the ceiling with blank, lifeless eyes. Nekou gave no indication that she even recognized that they were there; she was so deep into her catatonic state, in fact, that she hadn't moved at all after blacking out. The others surmised, after spotting the open Poké Ball next to the bed, that Marie had released herself to go and get them.

None of them had any idea what to do next, so Matt gathered some chairs for them all to sit down. A suffocating silence hung over them like a toxic cloud, slowly poisoning them as they all struggled to figure out what to do.

It was Olivia who ultimately forced the situation forward. "You can't let this beat you," she pleaded, even though Nekou still didn't move in response to it. "Don't you remember when Avril spilled the beans about Dad, how I took that? You were the one I turned to! Back then, I needed you there, and I… I still…" Olivia founded her fists into the bed. "It doesn't matter what they said about you, I still need you! Don't you leave me, too!"

"She's right…" Anabel quietly added, placing a gentle hand on her daughter's shoulder. "I'll always regret not being there for her for so long, but you stepped up when she needed it. Granted, I did have some doubts when I first needed to figure everything out… but the help you've given Olivia is undeniable. Please don't take that away from her and put her through another loss."

"Me, too," Amanda spoke up. "Do you remember our chat in Blackthorn? You cared enough about me to go out of your way and ask how I was doing after what happened with Mom. I didn't even have to bring up, you did it on your own. We agreed on not wanting to second guess the past, and living without regrets… and we promised we'd be friends and watch out for each other, too. Nothing that happened today changes that. I don't care where you came from or what they thought you were going to do."

"Huh, you two really talked about all of that back then?" Matt sighed and hung his head. There was plenty on his mind, of course, but he wasn't ready to bring every bit of it up publicly yet. Not only did he have his own self-consciousness holding him up, he wasn't sure how much privacy she would have wanted in that moment, either. But did any of it really need to be said when she would know what he meant, if she was hearing their words? With all of that taken into consideration, he decided to say, "You know very well how much you've done for me. You helped me want to keep going, to look for better things and want to live. I don't know if I could have made it through the one-two punch of what Ethan told me and then running into Mercury without you giving me the help you did. If you ask me, that's who you are, not Azrael. That thing, whatever she or it is, is just Polaris projecting their delusions onto someone who never asked for it. I know you. When you set your mind to something, you bulldoze anything that stands in your way… and I'm going to help you beat this. We all are. There are people who want you here, who need you here."

-:-

Zager worked into the night, the rhythmic sound of his fingers clacking on the keyboard of his computer providing the soundtrack as the hours passed by. After the ordeal of the meeting finally ended, he moved to a lab that had been set up in the hotel long ago, when Team Rocket still actively used the resort as one of their main bases. Despite its age, it still fulfilled its function perfectly well once he set up the equipment he'd brought with him when Pierce escorted him there.

Next to the computer's screen sat the product of his latest effort, a machine with six pods. The largest of the six contained the Meteonite shard Team Rocket had managed to steal from Polaris on the Magnet Train, while the five smaller ones held plain, round stones.

"How are you holding up?" Rosalie asked him, guiding her wheelchair up to his side. She'd been sharing the space to work on her own project, but it took most of the night for her to work up the courage to discuss the day's events.

"About as well as you could expect," Zager replied, ceasing his typing. His eyes fell to a picture frame next to the computer, which held the photo of himself and Chimere that Barbara had taken so many years earlier. "I was such a fool back then, and I must still be one now. I really did believe what we were doing was something that would benefit humanity, and now look at the state of things. Polaris is getting closer to fulfilling their wishes and it's my fault they can… and I always swore that I would try to protect Nekou as the one thing I could do to honor Chimere, but I failed that, too."

"Don't beat yourself up, Gabriel. There is always time for redemption." Rosalie took a long, contemplative drag from her pipe. "If there's one thing we've come to understand about Polaris, it's that they don't just stop at the first sign of an obstacle. Had you not been there, someone else far less scrupulous than you would have executed the Azrael Project. If you think about it, it's actually a good thing it was you. Polaris might have won long ago if it wasn't."

"Even so… I've fallen so far from that idealistic student I used to be. I came to Team Rocket because they were best positioned to protect Nekou and I from Polaris, but let's not pretend that what we do here is all that noble."

"We aren't heroes, that much is true. But I do believe that in our own way, we really are keeping much worse things from happening in this world, too." Leaning her head back, Rosalie shut her eyes and reflected upon her own past. "I used to be like you, Gabriel, a starry-eyed prodigy at the Pokémon Institute. I thought I was going to change the world with my work on the medicinal properties of plants, but my dreams were just too big to stay within the Institute's lines. I want to do good things, I just want to make my discoveries on my own terms and get the credit, instead of having others meddling and taking credit themselves. Since there wasn't a place for me in their environment, I ended up here, with all the other misfits Team Rocket takes in. And ever since Nekou invited me to join her little group, I feel like I've found my place. I guess what I'm saying is, it's thanks to her that I found where I belong. I know it's hard to see, but there are good things that came from what you did. We just have to keep working to preserve them."

"You've got a point, Rosalie," Zager conceded, "but I don't think there's anything I could ever do to earn her forgiveness, either. I put her in the situation she's in right now."

"All you can do is keep going forward, one step at a time," Rosalie assured him. "She has the inner strength to overcome all of this, so for your part, just keep pursuing redemption… that's why you built that machine, isn't it?"

Zager chuckled to himself. Was he really that easy to figure out? "Perceptive as ever. Yes, I made this as a way to help them in what they will face… if we're going to co-opt their existing goals to be part of our own, we owe them that much. I think you already came to that conclusion yourself."

"That's right…" Rosalie replied, setting a hand on the canister on her lap. "I did this for them, too. I've been working on it ever since Olivine, and I've got it all figured out."

-:-

Mitsumi wasted no time in getting started on her new mission. The next morning, she demanded a battle with Silver as the first of the Gym Leaders she'd challenge. It did take a mild amount of convincing for him to go ahead and break the customary order that placed Viridian Gym last, but once they got to the Celadon City Trainer House, any reluctance he had vanished.

The first match-up of their contest saw Mitsumi's Electivire pitted against Silver's red Gyarados. It had been a short but brutal affair; while Electivire capitalized on her type advantage to achieve victory fairly quickly, Gyarados managed to land two blows with Aqua Tail and a third with Ice Fang, weakening Electivire enough that Silver's Mamoswine finished her off immediately upon entering the battle. Mitsumi responded by sending in her Infernape. The two dueled to a swift draw, with Infernape's Raging Fury balancing out his type disadvantage to bring Mamoswine down at the same time he fell to Mamoswine's Earthquake.

With one Pokémon left on each side, Silver sent out his Weavile, while Mitsumi decided to take a risk. If she were to complete her mission to defeat Polaris, she reasoned that she wouldn't be able to play things safely. On top of that, she'd made promises both to others and herself that she would do what she was planning to try. With all of that in mind, she placed her hopes of winning the Earth Badge on the Aether Foundation's synthetic Pokémon.

"What is that Pokémon?" Silver questioned once it appeared. Weavile stared at it, sharing his trainer's confusion.

"We're going to officially call it Silvally, but for now it's classified as Type: Null," Mitsumi replied. "I'm taking care of it on the Aether Foundation's behalf. Right now it has a power it can't control, so it has to wear that limiter helmet. It's my hope that I can help it gain control over that power."

"It looks strong, even if its power is limited. Weavile, let's see what it's made of! X-Scissor!"

"Type: Null, you use X-Scissor too!"

The two Pokémon pounced at each other, both baring their claws. They clashed in the middle of the field, their respective cross-slashing attacks holding the other's back. As they fought for dominance, a vicious growl echoed out from under Type: Null's helmet, causing Weavile to shudder.

"Don't give in, even if we don't know what it can do!" Silver shouted. "Poison Jab!"

Weavile pulled his right claw back, partially disengaging from the X-Scissor clash. He charged it with venom, making it take on a purple glow, and jammed it into Type: Null's neck, shoving the chimera Pokémon back.

Intending to press his advantage, Silver balled his right hand into a fist and called out, "Ice Shard!"

A soft, white aura surrounded Weavile's body, giving shape to a number of jagged ice chunks around him. With a swing of his claw, he flung them into Type: Null, battering it further. It roared and thrashed around under the impact of the shards, its frustration seemingly causing it to start regressing into the feral state Mitsumi originally discovered it in.

"You can do this!" she reassured it, extending her hand in its direction. "Calm down. Focus on my voice… breathe."

Mitsumi's guidance did wonders for Type: Null, helping to subdue its wild, erratic behavior. It managed to grow still again, and much as she had instructed it, the sound of deep breathing could be heard from underneath its limiter.

"So it's got a better handle on itself than I thought. That won't make a difference. You'll need more than that to beat Polaris! Weavile, use Ice Shard again!"

"Type: Null, Tri Attack!"

Weavile was able to act first, sending another swarm of Ice Shards flying toward his opponent. Instead of simply taking the blows, however, Type: Null swung its head, using the protrusions around its neck to knock them down. Once most of them were neutralized, it lifted its head back and roared again, a trio of glowing orbs forming around it. These spheres - one yellow and sparking with electricity, one a red fireball and one blue and radiating freezing cold - converged on Weavile when Type: Null swung its head back down, hitting him from multiple sides at once. The onslaught brought Weavile to his knees and left him with multiple burn marks dotting his his fur.

"We aren't done yet!" Silver defiantly argued, even in the face of his and Weavile's shifting fortunes. "Weavile, show them! Night Slash!"

"The advantage is ours," Mitsumi countered. "Iron Head!"

Weavile tried to stand back up, but before he could act, Type: Null jumped at him. The entirety of its helmet had taken on a silvery, metallic sheen, making plain the threat the move posed to Silver's Pokémon. Still on one knee, Weavile attempted to drive Type: Null back by stabbing at it with his claw, but with the burn sapping his strength, Type: Null easily pushed past it and headbutted him at full force. The collision sent Weavile flying all the way across the battlefield, and when he landed near Silver's feet, he did not get back up.

"Weavile is unable to battle!" Silva, who had been standing on the sidelines and acting as the referee, announced. "That means the winner is Type: Null, and the victory goes to Mitsumi!"

Mitsumi breathed a sigh of relief as she made her way to Type: Null's side and put her hand on its head. "Well done, Null," she praised it, earning a pleased bark in response. "You keep working like that, and you'll have control over your power in no time. Then we can take that mask off."

"Very pleased President Lusamine will be when that day arrives," Looker said as he joined his apprentices on the field after watching the battle. "And the Silvally will make a fine partner for our operations."

"Hmph," Silver scoffed, approaching the International Police trio while clutching a small object in his hand. "I haven't reached my full potential yet. Right now, this is the limit of what I can do… I have to get better if I'm going to draw out my partners' full strength. You better keep up, or I'll leave you behind."

"I'll come back after this is all over," Mitsumi promised him, "then we'll face each other, no holds barred."

"Make sure you're ready, because I will be. For now, just take this…" Silver tossed the object he was holding to Mitsumi. When she caught it, she saw that it was a small, green pin in the shape of a tree. "...I don't think that's ever going to stop feeling strange, giving out the same Gym Badge the old man used to. Tch…"

-:-

Back at the hotel, a malaise hung over Matt's group. He, Anabel, Olivia and Amanda had gathered in a lounge to eat, and each of the four quietly hoped that Nekou would rejoin them. A reasonable wish, or so they thought.

It was a wish that wouldn't be granted. Her absence stood as the elephant in the room, keeping them silent as they each poked at their food.

"As soon as we're done, I'm going to check on her," Matt resolved to himself. "I can't just leave her alone after yesterday."

The sound of the lounge doors opening provided them all with a convenient distraction. It was Rosalie, guiding her wheelchair toward them while carrying the container from her meeting with Zager the night before.

"Excuse me, might I trouble you all for a minute?" the scientist asked them.

"It's not like we're really doing anything else," Olivia replied, delivering a not-so-subtle jab at their collective dour mood.

Rosalie, understanding what Olivia was talking about, chose not to acknowledge it. "Well, Olivia, I had something I wanted to give you. I want to tell you and your mother about it."

"What are you talking about?" Anabel questioned.

"This." Rosalie picked up the container, and once Anabel and Olivia had both seen it, handed it to the former. "Ever since we first met in Olivine City, I've been working on developing something to give Olivia some relief from her seizures. It took a little time, but I've gotten it all figured out."

Anabel's expression hardened. "You know I'm going to have to hear a better explanation than that."

"And a better explanation you'll get," Rosalie said, punctuating her words with a puff on her pipe. "If you recall, I summed up my findings on Olivia's condition as 'dreaming while awake.' That conclusion made me believe that the treatment would be found in cures related to sleep, but I tried Chesto Berries, Mint Berries… none of them showed any promise. That inspired me to look at the problem from another direction, and I hit on something. Sleep wasn't the answer, but confusion… that was where I found the answer."

Rosalie gestured to the container, took another puff on her pipe, and looked to Olivia as she continued.

"Persim and Touga Berries were the main ingredient, with a dash of Lum Berry and Mental Herb. Take one every morning and you won't have to worry about the seizures anymore. Those will help keep your brain from overloading itself."

"I appreciate the effort, don't get me wrong," Anabel said after handing the container to Olivia, "but don't get me wrong about this, either. I still won't hesitate to make you regret it if you stab any of us in the back. My warning from back then still stands."

"And my promise to you from then stands just as firmly," Rosalie insisted. "Everything I said to you is the truth."

While the adults around her continued conversing, Olivia looked down at the container in her hands. Inside it was the key to eliminating the seizures she'd been so troubled by, and she was more than ready to put those fears behind her. But she tightened her grip on it, a conflicting emotion rising in her heart.

On some level, some part of her wanted the seizures to continue. Not for the seizures themselves, but for the visions she'd come to realize accompanied them. Those visions had provided her with frightening, but informative, glimpses into what her lost father was doing as Polaris's leader, or at least what he would be doing. Was giving those up really worth it?

"Then again," Olivia thought, "I already know where he will be… and where I'm going to go. Seeing more probably won't change any of that… but to know what Dad's doing… I wish Nekou was here to help me sort this out…"

-:-

Nekou hadn't moved a centimeter since she collapsed into catatonia the day before. The only sign she was even still alive was the rising and falling of her chest with each breath, and even that was slight. Only a careful observer would even be able to see it, so shallow was her breathing..

Such an observer happened to be at her side. Ada dutifully tended to her comatose friend, keeping her cool with a regular rotation of damp cloths for her forehead that Ada chilled with help from Marie. Having refreshed the rag for the sixth time, Ada sat down at Nekou's bedside and sighed.

"Nekou, you… you gotta come back," she muttered, shaking her head. "I'm not ready to make it without you. Not yet…"

No response. Ada looked to Marie, only to find the equally-lost Sneasel staring back at her.

"You know, I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for you. Do you remember that?" Ada leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, grinning slightly as she recalled her past. "That Pokémaniac had me running around doing all sorts of dirty work on his storage system. I deserved way more credit than I ever got, so when I heard Team Rocket was in the area looking for recruits, I figured, why not take my skills to somewhere they'd be appreciated?"

Ada turned her eyes to the floor and frowned.

"But that wasn't the case either. I mean, sure, Ariana, Stacia and Giovanni saw what I could do, but getting so much credit so fast made a lot of people real jealous and put a target on my back. I think… I think you identified with that. I'll never forget the day I was hiding in the library at HQ when Ariana came in to tell me a new unit was being formed and I was being personally requested to join it… that was the first time I ever had any friends, when you invited me to join the Razor Claw Squad. I can't just move on from that so easily…"

-:-

Later that afternoon, Zager sent for Matt, Amanda, Olivia and Anabel, this time requesting their presence in the laboratory he'd set himself up in. They assembled as he asked, but after everything that had happened, none of them were exactly pleased.

"What do you want?" Olivia bluntly demanded once they arrived.

"It is hard to see you right now," Anabel admitted, while Matt and Amanda nodded in agreement. "The wound from yesterday is still fresh."

"I understand, and that's a big reason why I called for you." Zager stood up from his desk and took a step toward the four, reaching into his coat pocket as he walked. "You are all involved in a mess of my making. The least I could do is try to help in some way."

"Haven't you helped eno-" Matt's question was cut off when Zager tossed something to him. He caught it, unaware of what exactly it was until he turned his hand over and looked at it in his palm, gasping in surprise at its identity.

The blue and yellow colors blending together inside the small sphere. The helix sigil at its center. There was no doubt whatsoever what it was.

"A Key Stone?" Anabel uttered, equally surprised as she peered over to see what Matt was holding. The sight made her reach reflexively for her own Key Stone, tucked snugly in the scarf she kept close. "Where did you get this?" she asked Zager.

Before he answered, the scientist moved aside, allowing the group to see the machinery holding the Meteonite. "You see, the Meteonite's energy is similar to that of the Key Stones and Mega Stones. Knowing that, I was able to engineer a system to create such items myself. And since we're aware that you have a Salamencite, Matt, I made a Key Stone so you can use it."

"Well, uh…" Zager's generous gesture had truly caught Matt unprepared. He'd gone to the meeting prepared for more revelations about the Azrael Project, so to be given something clearly meant to help do something about it left him at a loss for words. "Thanks, but…"

Sensing that it would be better if he kept talking, Zager did just that. "Of course, you're not the only one with a Pokémon capable of Mega Evolution. As I'm aware, Amanda, you have a Scizor, and Olivia, an Ampharos. I made Key Stones and the appropriate Mega Stones for the two of you, as well."

That flipped Olivia's mood in an instant. "I can Mega Evolve Ampharos now?! That's a good thing! Thank you!"

"I'll admit, I didn't think you'd have such good news," Amanda added, "but I must give you thanks as well. This will be helpful."

"Just tell me what items you want me to attach the Key Stones to, and I'll do so," Zager offered. "After that, I recommend that you go down to the resort arena and practice using them, so you can get used to it. Anabel, I hope you don't mind me volunteering you, but since you already know how to use Mega Evolution I'd like you to show them."

"I can do that."

-:-

The next several days played out in a rigid loop of routine. Matt, Amanda and Olivia would get up in the morning and head straight to the arena to practice using their Key Stones, exactly how Zager instructed them to. Matt had his attached to his Mossdeep Space Center pin, Amanda to the top of her cane, and Olivia to a Team Rocket cap she received from Rosalie, which Nekou had apparently intended to give her at some point. These training sessions, led by Anabel, lasted well into the afternoon each day. Looker, Mitsumi and Silva dropped in to see the first, but departed soon after for Mitsumi to continue accumulating Gym Badges.

Once their practice ended, they filled their time other things. While Olivia went off into the defunct gaming arcades to play the machines that were still operational, Anabel and Amanda drilled down into more intensive training, facing each other in a series of fierce battles neither held a clear advantage in. Matt often watched, and others like Trevor sometimes wandered in.

Without fail, though, Matt inevitably ended up at Nekou's side. He switched in and out with Ada whenever she needed a break, and every time he went in, he brought something he'd cooked in the hopes that it would help her wake up, and when it didn't, he'd sit in the room and eat by himself. It was the only solution he could come up with.

Finally, though, he was sitting and eating a slice of his homemade pizza when he heard stirring behind him.

"I-is that…" Nekou's voice was raspy and weak, but it was there.

"Welcome back," he greeted her, putting all his effort into not reacting too much out of a worry of frightening her. "We all missed you."

"I… I know. I heard everything… you, Ada, everyone else… I can't believe you're all still here, knowing what you know now…"

"If you heard everything, you know why. We know who you really are, and it isn't Azrael."

"I want to believe that… but I can't." Nekou pushed herself to sit up, her stiff bones cracking as she moved. "If I could just get rid of her… but at the same time, I don't want to give up what that virus lets me do, either. That's a part of who I am… if I could purge Azrael so I alone am in control…"

"We could try to figure out a way."

"It's not that simple!" Nekou coughed, her throat dry. "Sorry… it's just, I'm the only thing keeping her from getting out. If she got out, I don't know if anything could stop her… but I don't want her to take me over. I don't. I don't. She's not me…"

"It's okay. You don't have to worry about that now." Matt got up and sat on the edge of the bed, allowing her to slowly move next to him and rest her head on his shoulder. "You're stronger than Azrael is, I know that for a fact. And you aren't alone. You've got all of us helping you in this… no matter what Azrael tells you, that's not going to change. You are who you are because you survived. Not because of what Polaris made you to be."

"You're always so corny, but I appreciate it…" After breathing a weary sigh, Nekou said, "Fuck, I'm hungry. Are you going to share that?"

"Take as much as you want."

Nekou didn't hesitate to oblige. She snatched a piece of the pizza and devoured almost a full half of it in a single bite, desperate to fill her stomach with something after her ordeal.

An ordeal that, unfortunately for her, wasn't over.

Just as she swallowed the massive mouthful of pizza, she heard Azrael whisper something inaudible to her, and then it caught in her throat. No matter how hard she tried to swallow it, it wouldn't go down. It was a battle she had no hope of winning, and before she knew it, she was choking it back out into a nearby trash pail.

On an instinctual level, she understood her conflict over her identity was to blame. She now knew her ability to push herself in ways normal people could not was due to the Therion Virus, and could sense that she'd been cut off. Was Azrael doing it? She wasn't sure, but wouldn't have been surprised. Either way, it was punishment. A punishment for being so torn up.

She just wished it would all go away.

CHAPTER 33: But We Can Call It Paradise