Chapter TwentyOne: Pikachu

He knew where he was, he did not need to open his eyes. For though the smell confirmed it, as well as the taste and the feel of the ground, it was a sense few creatures have which had told him where he was. Before an ad man, before a government employee, before a citizen, before anything else, Taylor Tales was a Pikachu, and Pikachu are connected to the quantum flow of energy by nerves made from private lightning - flesh and force made one. It was this sense, this element of his nature which gave him cause to decide, without opening his eyes, that he was in Johto Province, most likely in the ruin of Goldenrod City.

There is a certain afterglow, a kind of energy ghost, an undead echo made by molecular memory which only haunts a place after a very particular kind of catastrophe. For Taylor it felt akin to standing in a room so silent you can hear the blood rushing through your ears. He knew there was only one place so populated by these quantum phantasms, and he had been here before. In fact, Taylor Tales had been born here.

He had memories so old and so full of his mothers voice he could not be sure they were real, and yet he remembered them all the same. He remembered a city of cobblestone streets, pastel coloured buildings, columns and arches, winding roads and grand statues - a city full of townhouses and bistros, saturated with the smell of coffee and cigarettes, bread and pastries and garlic fried in butter, where fountains and parks sat by shopping arcades and radio towers, where playing children, bickering lovers and braggadocious artists voiced with their hearts and their hands a symphony of hungry, self confident life.

But he had been only five years old when his mother smuggled them out of the Province, and had stopped calling him 'mon petit souris eclair.' It had been his home, but only in memories, and those memories might not have even been real. The United Provinces, Kanto, Fuschia City, those were his real home. But now he found himself far away from reality, trapped in a memory, a memory that had become a nightmare.

Pulling himself up and opening his eyes, Taylor Tales took in the grim devastation of his forsaken surroundings. His electrical nerves flared as he recovered his faculties, the memory of the power that had caused this destruction omnipresent and uncomfortable - it made him itch, like the air was filled with lamenting poison ivy.

Taking a deep breath and offering up a heavy sigh, Taylor Tales, hands on hips, looked down one side of the road and then the other, considering what might have happened. He was pretty sure he had heard the chanting previously confined to legends, war stories and unrefined gags. And they had been close to Mt Moon. And Taylor had always been suspicious of how strict the FAC policy on the Clefairy narrative was - it was in every employee contract; claiming the Clefairy were anything but extinct wouldn't only cost you your job, but would also most likely put you in jail. Taylor was savvy enough to know that when the government comes down that hard on a conspiracy theory, it's usually because the theory is true.

When Taylor was a teenager and considered himself a bit of a rebel, he was an avid follower of the work of renegade journalist Drex Dreagle, who more than once alluded to the 'sleeping giant' beneath Mt Moon. Then again, he had heard that these days Drex Dreagle was a burnt out, unhinged hobo. So maybe the giant was actually in a coma, or just dead. But then what had happened?

What had happened?

He seemed to vaguely recall being beaten up by a waifish young man with psychic powers. Then he definitely vaguely recalled it. Then he just definitely recalled it. Taylor cringed, his embarrassment rippling silently out into the ruin, claimed by a peal of distant thunder. After the psychic boy had handed him his ass, things got blurry, less vague and more incomprehensible. Then he remembered the sound of the chanting: Cle'fa'ery Cle'fa'ery Cle'fa'ery. Maybe it had been some kind of psychic illusion. But it hadn't felt psychic. It hadn't felt like any kind of energy Taylor had experienced before… except for maybe that time a Jigglypuff named Erica had slapped him in the face at a press conference so hard it broke his jaw and gave him a concussion.

That memory was the first since he had woken up to not only bring a smile to his face but actually make him laugh. Just as his embarrassment had, his laughter rippled out into the the ruin, this time his sound being claimed by the ruin's silence. Giving out a small, satisfied sigh, Taylor shook his head in the wake of his laughter and looked down at the ash covered ground. This was going to totally ruin his shoes.

Something crashed out of sight, its echo obfuscating its location.

Snapping back into the dire and deadly circumstances of his reality, Taylor Tales span, looking all around him for a sign of where the sound had come from. It was all as destroyed and stained and dead as the rest. Part of him wanted to call out and ask, but he stopped himself. He knew better than that. Anyone still alive out here was either deranged or desperate, and probably both.

So he started walking, as quickly as he could, towards and then down an alleyway. Really, he wanted to run, but he really didn't want to get his hands any dirtier than they were. And so Taylor Tales, awkwardly power walked, trying his best to simultaneously channel his survival instinct and powers of dissociation, through the charred labyrinth of Goldenrod City, hands in the pockets of his once very flattering and incredibly expensive suit jacket.

Taylor struggled to keep his eyes on any one thing. He looked from side to side, he looked behind him, he stared ahead until he couldn't help but drift his gaze towards the ground, and marched for a while watching only the active ruination of his shoes. These were his favourite shoes. Why had he chosen to wear his favourite shoes? He had wanted to impress Cecile and the others with his wardrobe. He had been more excited about that than the idea of taking part in Cecile's scheme.

Taylor stopped, letting out a mucus cluttered sigh that led to a cough. The ash was getting to him. "God damn it, Freys."

That was when his ear twitched and his tail went stiff. The thermal energy and mental sparks of life… human life… were panicking… just… over there. Taylor looked to his right. Across the street, stood between two crumbling, skeletal apartment buildings, framed by the alley's shadow and the architecture's symmetry like a well designed poster, was a figure in a red cap.

A human.

A young man.

They watched each other for a while. One stood exposed in the ashfall, a yellow mouse in a ruined suit, alone in the middle of a ruined street, tiny webs of lightning fidgeting beneath his fur. The other stood enveloped by darkness, his gaunt and injured face, with sunken, exhausted eyes, seeming almost spectral in the shade, a young man who was an old boy wearing a red cap from another life.

Taylor tensed his muscles. It would have been so easy to electrocute the boy, so long as this one wasn't also psychic. He almost tried. Static and sparks skittered across his body. But he didn't. He felt like he should have, like he had missed some destined or crucial moment, made some deadly decision and made it wrong. But the moment had passed, and Taylor Tales walked towards the boy, waving instead.

"I bet you're thinking the same thing as me," began Taylor, stopping only a few metres away from the frozen human. "It looked way better in the brochure."

The young man cracked a desperate smile, his body still almost entirely rigid with fear.

"I'm not going to hurt you," said Taylor. "I mean you look pretty fucked up already."

The boy took a short breath, his expression growing less terrified and more cynical. "Are you Federal Police?"

Taylor was taken aback. "What?"

"You have that vibe about you, the 'I work for the government' vibe."

"I do work for the government."

"So you are Federal Police."

Taylor chuckled. "No."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"What?"

"If you're not police, what are you doing here?"

Taylor straightened his back. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm lost." The young man took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair, obviously on the brink of something. "Can I touch you?"

Taylor stepped back, "What?"

"I thought you were an illusion. I saw you coming, in your suit, and I thought he was either trying to give me hope that I was being rescued or like make me scared I was about to be killed." He put his cap back on and took a deep breath. "You're not an illusion are you?"

"No… Whose illusion did you think I was?"

The young man looked behind him quickly, seemingly having heard something. "Opal, Opal Yule, the Mr Mime. He… You haven't seen him, have you? You're definitely not an illusion? Can I touch you?"

Taylor cocked his head to the side and then smiled softly. He stepped forward and reached his hand up. "You know psychic illusions can trick all the senses, not just sight. So touching me wouldn't actually be proof I'm real. But I am real."

The young man took Taylor's small hand between thumb and two fingers, holding it with tender uncertainty.

Taylor could feel the boy's heartbeat beneath his skin, and the fractured, vibrant soul beneath even that.

"My name is Taylor Tales." The Pikachu gave the human's hand the gentlest of shakes.

"I'm Crimson."

"I like your hat."

"It's from work."

The realisation came crashing into Taylor's consciousness like a condescending hammer. Of course… he had seen hats like this before. "You're from The Gnarl Estate." Taylor stepped closer. "You're the kid who ran away with Oak."

Crimson shuffled backwards. "How do you…"

"I guessed," said Taylor with a smirk. "When I got there, 'cus I knew Professor Oak lived there, I asked Freys if I could meet the infamous maniac, and he told me he had disappeared, and that he took some young man with him. You and him weren't… I mean he wasn't…"

"Wasn't what?"

"Nevermind."

The young man's brow furrowed. "Wait, Freys, Cecile Freys, that Meowth, you work with him?"

Taylor found himself smiling harder than he'd like at the thought of Cecile Freys. "We're peers, friends, colleagues in the broad sense, but I'm with the FAD; I would rather give myself a second asshole with a spoon than be an accountant."

"The FAD?"

"The Federal Advertising Commission."

Crimson's body moved inward a little. "I didn't know that was even a thing."

Taylor swayed his head from side to side ever so slightly in reactionary condescension. "Well… you lived on The Gnarl Estate."

"What's that supposed to mean."

The pikachu waved his hand, dismissing the tension. "Doesn't matter." Walking into the alley, Taylor flattened a patch of ash with his foot and sat down, heaving a sigh of relief. "So, there's a Mr Mime? Opal Yoon?"

"Yule." Crimson drew his arms around himself, crossing them over his chest and letting out a momentary fit of shivering. Rubbing his arms he joined Taylor in sitting down. "He kidnapped me, I guess, and imprisoned me, sort of, then he read my mind, I think, and left me in his bunker. He's living out here. He seemed to know Captain Yaga, and some of his clothes looked military. I don't know what his story is, but he's crazy."

Taylor wanted to say something comforting but he didn't know how. "If he's living out here he's definitely crazy. But if you got away he can't be a very good imprisoner."

Crimson looked away, his expression wrinkling into a discomfort that wreaked of guilt. "I found the spare key."

Taylor was intrigued by the response, but found his mind winding back. "Did you say he knew Captain Yaga?"

Crimson continued to stare off into the distance, eyes locked on the road. "Yeah."

"Captain Puck Yaga, famous war hero and enemy of the state?"

"Yeah."

Taylor shuffled across the alley without getting up, moving closer to Crimson.

"The Clefairy, that's how you're here."

He still wouldn't look at the Pikachu. "Yeah."

"That's how I'm here."

"Maybe."

Taylor stood, his height only a little taller than Crimson sat crossed legged on the floor. He reached out with two small, furry yellow hands and placed them on the boy's cheeks. Taylor turned Crimson's face to look at him. "You were with them weren't you?"

"With the Clefairy?"

"With Alakazam."

Crimson swallowed. "Yeah."

Taylor nodded and stepped away. "And with that kid who sucker punched me with his mind."

Crimson cocked an eyebrow. "What, Sage? Sage beat you up?"

"And then pretended to be a member of The Secret Service."

"There's a secret service?"

"Juries still out."

Crimson readjusted his position. "Is Sage okay?"

"Probably. Looks like that kid can take care of himself."

"He pretended to be from The Secret Service?"

Taylor dismissed the subject with his hand. "Yeah, but that's less interesting than you being with what is probably the last Alakazam." Taylor shook his head in disbelief and scratched his ear. "And he got the Clefairy to cast the Metronome?"

"No, Drex did."

Taylor felt his heart skip a beat. He felt cliche ambush his spirit. He felt… for a moment, like none of this horror had ever happened to the world - no the world was for joy. "Drex Dreagle?"

"Yeah."

"You know Drex Dreagle?"

"Briefly. He saved my life. He took us to Yaga."

Taylor couldn't help himself. "What's he like?"

Crimson chuckled at Taylor's unabashed admiration. "Intense.I thought he was kind of a dick, but when The Ghosts showed up… like I said, he saved my life."

"He fought off The Ghosts, got the Clefairy to cast the Metronome, he's working with the last Alakazam, and Professor Oak? And also what must be the most powerful human psychic not in prison, and you… whatever your deal is… what's your deal? You gotta have a deal. What is this, some last act teamup of the legendary persona non grata?"

Crimson retreated inward again. It had become clear, without warning, that for all Taylor's irreverence, he was still an agent of the government. And Crimson, was something else.

"What do you mean?" asked the young man, quietly.

Taylor sighed and composed himself. "What were you doing?"

It seemed Crimson was a little embarrassed to say it. "I think the idea was to bring down the government. Like find the resistance if they're still alive. We thought… Alakazam thought, or Brelia did, that the leaders were here somewhere, in Johto. I don't know. I was just happy to be off the estate and not working in the fields or the factory." Crimson took a painful breath. "What were you doing?"

For what were likely very different reasons, Taylor now also felt embarrassed. "We were gonna capture or kill Alakazam so we could retire and live off the reward money."

Crimson looked deep into the Pikachu's eyes, an understated rage formed from judgement painting lines on the young man's expression. "That's gross."

Taylor hesitated. "Don't judge me, kid. I'm just trying to make a living."

Crimson scoffed. "By killing people."

"By killing one person."

The young man looked away, staring once more at the road, the ruin, and the ash. "One person…" he muttered.

Taylor winced as a jumble of half baked and irrational excuses cascaded through his head. He nearly walked away and left the boy in the alley. But before he took a step he said "I'm stuck here just as much as you."

Crimson didn't respond immediately, and he didn't take his eyes off the road. Silence penetrated their bones, eventually wrenched out by the roll of distant thunder. "Have you ever met someone who wears the spoons, from the war, to show their kills?"

"A couple."

"Have you ever met an Alakazam?"

"No." Taylor sighed and stepped forward with anger in his gait. "What's your point?"

The young man grasped the bill of his cap and pulled it round so that he was wearing it backwards. He looked up, his view of the sky now unobscured, ash falling onto his face, into his eyes; he did not blink. "I used to think the world was just fucked up, like when it was made, it was just made bad. But I'm starting to realise that every day we decide to let it be bad, to make it bad." Crimson turned his gaze to Taylor, he wiped his eyes and pulled his cap back around. "Especially you. Especially Pokemon. I don't understand why you let this happen. I don't understand what you're scared of."

Taylor held eye contact, feeling tears well up at the edge of his gaze. Who was this human to make him feel like this, to question him like this, to assume so much? "We're scared of the same thing you are - we're scared of us." He stepped closer, a tear falling down his cheek. "My family fled this city, and we weren't fleeing from humans."

Their gazes locked, a small but profound understanding planted something in both their souls, and these things, vulnerable and fierce and strange, took root, reached out, and entangled themselves.

"Opal has a toxic trapped in his bunker. A floating rock with a face that breathes out poison gas. It told me where the spare key was. It asked me to help it."

"Help it how? Why didn't it come with you?"

"It said it couldn't leave unless Opal let it leave, or Opal died. He has some kind of psychic leash around it."

Taylor smirked, "So you were going to go kill a Mr Mime?"

Crimson rubbed his brow, waves of exhaustion crashing over his body. "Opal said The Metronome is magic, that it has a kind of personality, like a will. Maybe it brought us here for a reason."

"To kill us."

"Maybe. Or maybe because you were born here and I was thinking about what Oak had told me about Johto and that we were planning to go there- here. Or maybe it was to bring us together."

Taylor felt cynicism and sentimentality draw their swords within his heart. "Why?"

Crimson fumbled over his words before starting again. "Maybe to save this toxic"

Taylor wanted to laugh, but what use would it be in this place that had killed any reason to laugh long ago. "I… My mother used to tell me stories about how there was magic. How the heart of the world's magic was in Johto. How people used to travel to the temple of The Unknown to seek their wisdom and foresight, and all that mythological nonsense."

"Is it nonsense?"

"Even if it's not, the temple of The Unknown will be buried under a mountain of rubble and ash and wiped from any existing map. It would be impossible to find."

"And all the Alakazam are dead."

Taylor let out a heavy breath, stood with the stillness of his apathy and hopelessness for a moment, and then mustered up some mania. He took off his suit jacket and threw it down the alley. "So what, you want to go in search of The Unknown? What happened to finding the resistance?"

"I guess any goal is better than sitting in an alley waiting to die. But first, we have to save Sepsis."

"Sepsis?"

"The toxic."

Taylor wished he hadn't thrown away his jacket. "Why?"

"Because of what you said. You're scared of the same thing humans are: Pokemon. Pokemon hurt Pokemon to convince them to hurt humans. What Opal Yule has done to Sepsis is… its evil."

"It's literally made of poison."

"We can't help what we're made of."

Taylor put his head in his hands. "Sure, but that doesn't make us equal."

Crimson stood up slowly. "We're not equal. I can't convince Opal Yule. And I can't fight him. But you can."

"It isn't my business."

Crimson approached him, squatting so that their eye lines were level. "But it's mine. He helped me get free. And the Metronome brought both of us here. All I can do is ask you, Taylor Tales, will you help me, even though it isn't your business, and fight a battle I can't fight myself, to free someone who took pity on me and probably has never known pity themselves?"

Taylor rolled his eyes. "It only helped you because it hoped you'd help it in return."

"And you can only help me in hope I'll help you in return."

Taylor felt his muscles tense up, static ran through his fur and small bursts of electricity erupted from him. Crimson covered his eyes with his arm and fell backwards. "Why do you want to do this so badly?"

Crimson did not get up, stretching out on the ground, he held one of his elbows and winced. "Because I knew a toxic I was scared of my entire life and killed people I cared about, a real monster, but… it was probably a prisoner too and… if we can free Sepsis, and see it isn't a monster, then… then…"

"Then what? You're talking about that Muk, Noxus; so what, you think freeing this Koffing and seeing it isn't an unhinged murderer will somehow make sense of all the horror you saw Noxus commit?"

Crimson pulled himself inward, huddling up against the walls and putting his head between his knees. "I… I just can't leave them in that wall."

"Why?"

"Because no one deserves that."

"We don't get what we deserve, kid. The world isn't fair."

"And who decided that?"

Taylor walked over, put a hand on the young man's knee and gently placed his forehead against Crimson's. "If you hadn't bumped into me you would have had to leave them in that wall. Do you really want to risk our lives, and kill this Opal Yule, on the chance this toxic turns out to be a good person who deserves to be free?" Taylor felt Crimson place a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. "We have no food, we have no water, who knows what other maniacs are waiting to ambush from the ruins of the city, we barely have a plan and no allies. Is this really what you want to do?"

"It's what Drex Dreagle would do."

Taylor stepped away, sighed and then smiled. "No. Drex Dreagle would find out what's going on. And then he would free Sepsis."

Crimson looked up, "So maybe we should find out what's going on?"

"You said he has a bunker?"

"Yeah."

"With supplies?"

"And whiskey."

Taylor cocked an eyebrow. "Well at least if he turns out to be completely unreasonable we can take his stuff."

"He read my mind and trapped me in a box."

"Your friend lifted me fifteen feet in the air and slammed me against the ground multiple times. Psychics are assholes."

"And Sepsis?"

Taylor walked down the alley to retrieve his jacket. Picking it up he did his best to dust it off. "Why would a Mr Mime be keeping a Koffing anyway?"

"Apparently Sepsis can tell if you're lying by consuming your breath or blowing gas on you or… I'm not sure exactly what it did except that it hurt and I almost passed out. But Opal was convinced it was a better lie detector than telepathy."

Taylor pushed his ears down, running his hands along them and the back of his neck. As they sprang back up he began to pace. "And you said he was wearing military gear?"

"Old and busted, but yeah, I think so."

"And he called it Sepsis?"

"Yeah. Wait, actually, once he called them Koffing one five… two? One five something."

Taylor stopped and turned to face Crimson. "He knew their operative number?"

"What?"

"You were supposed to come here looking for the resistance, but I think you might have found the opposite."

Crimson pulled himself together and stood. "You think Opal works for the government?"

"Maybe once."

"So you've changed your mind?"

"I've-" Taylors ear twitched. "Get down. NOW!"

The agitating chill only caused by the presence of telekinesis swarmed around Taylor's spine. Dropping to the ground to meet a face full of ash, Crimson crashing next to him, it was less than a second before a crumbling slab of road came careening down the alley and smashed into the ground mere feet from their faces.

A second, deeper chill reinforced the first along his spine, and the sound of earth being ripped from the ground and lifted into the air filled his ears. He knew he could still just run. He was already on all fours and his hands couldn't get any filthier… it would be so easy to just run. The alleyway stretched on before him, inviting him to leave… and Crimson's heartbeat played softly in his head, asking him to stay.

With an agility given by nature, a spark forged with conviction and a tail whip made from pure charisma, Taylor Tales spun around. Stopping in statue perfect battle stance, and cheeks ablaze with electricity, shattered the incoming boulder with a bolt of lightning.

He would stay. He chose to stay. On instinct, or destiny, or some other wordless thing, Taylor Tales chose Crimson. Even if it meant death.