"Ha! Morai is no Champion," Morai scoffed, sitting up and resting her handcuffed hands on her knees. "That's a title I lost when I injected myself with—"

"No, no, but you are still Champion of Alola, dear," Lusamine said. "No one took your place. You are still in the records as the first Champion of Alola who has yet to be defeated."

"I went missing for months and no plans were made for my replacement?" Morai asked in disbelief, finding her mask beside her on the ground and silently lamenting at its broken strap.

"You gave the title back to Iris in Unova, Diantha in Kalos, and Steven in Hoenn, but you left Alola out," Sheridan explained. "Seeing as how the Alolan Pokémon League is fairly new, no one there was quite sure how to proceed with replacing you. The Professor, Kukui, took your place, but he's only been an informal stand-in."

Morai perked up.

"So, that means..."

Sheridan sighed and nodded her head reluctantly.

"You, Morai, are still the Champion of Alola, and to defend your title against this young man..."

"I have to be at the Alolan Pokémon League!" she said, jumping to her feet, her eyes turning red with excitement. The guards straightened up in anticipation. "He has to battle the Elite Four before battling me in the Champion's chamber!"

"Of course, you could just...give him the title—or anyone else, for that matter. Arceus knows that they'd make a better Champion than y—."

Morai cut Arthur off.

"I made a pretty damn good Champion, thank you very much, evidenced by the fact that I had the title in four regions and went undefeated after earning each one," she said, again trying to cross her arms. "I'll successfully defend my title at the summit of Lanakila."

"Are you sure you're not just trying to get out of here?" Sheridan asked. "Like you said, you abandoned your Champion duties when you took that serum and continued to neglect them."

"Even if that is the case," Morai replied, a growing smile on her face, "I still have the right to defend my title and defend it in Alola...if we're not already there."

Morai eyed the head of staff, but she refused to confirm or deny her guess.

"You're the International Police and she's incarcerated and unable to fulfill her duties!" Pollie exclaimed. "Can't you just make her hand it over to someone else?"

"Why don't you come and take it, Pollie?" Morai taunted with a smile, taking comically exaggerated steps forward before being held back. Pollie held her gun up in the same threatening manner.

"If you win, you get my title. If I win, I get your bl—"

"Morai!" Sheridan warned. "This a matter that needs to be discussed and decided in private. We'll have a meeting and reach out to some of the authorities in Alola. Meanwhile, Morai...please keep yourself out of trouble."

"I can't make promises," Morai returned with a grin. Most of the group went inside, leaving Morai alone with Gladion, Lillie, Hau, Maria, and Pollie as well as a few guards.

"You should go," Morai said with a more serious tone, looking at Maria.

"You keep saying that, but—"

Morai walked over to her in one big stride, looming over her and baring her teeth. Pollie got there just as quickly, stepping between the two of them and pointing her weapon up at Morai.

"Back off," she warned.

"No, wait," Maria stammered. "She's only—"

Without another word, Maria began to walk inside. Pollie looked at her in confusion before turning back to see Morai's red eyes. She pointed her weapon back at her, stepping forward with the intention to shoot. Morai put her chained hands up.

"Whoa there," she said with a smile. "I was just saving trouble for everyone."

"That gives you no right to just take someone's free will away whenever you want," Pollie said, crossing her arms and holstering her gun.

Morai only laughed. She took control of the nurse-turned-guard and had her repeat the actions she had just taken.

"Whoa there," Morai said again with a bigger smile, putting her hands up like before. "I was just saving trouble for everyone."

Pollie looked befuddled for a moment before anger spread across her face.

"It's fun," Morai said, beginning to walk her down with red eyes. "I wish you could—"

Pollie finally took the shot, drawing out a collective gasp from her Alolan friends.

"Wow," Hau said. "She...really has changed, huh?"

Morai laughed. She took a knee and sat down, pulling the dart from her scarred neck and raising it up to Pollie as if it were a drink to toast with.

"Finally," she said with a smile. "Nice shot."

"Does this happen a lot?" Lillie asked with a sort of horrified look on her face as she watched unconsciousness grip the prisoner. A guard shrugged.

"Once a day isn't too far-fetched," he said. The group looked at Pollie, who seemed off-put by the situation. She was breathing heavily and her eyes were wide. Beads of sweat had formed on her face despite the cooler atmosphere created by the setting sun.

"I hope your revenge is better than this," one of the guards said. "This is nothing compared to what she did to you."

Pollie put her hand to her face and neck, feeling the still healing scars.

"Yeah..." she muttered.

She could sense my fear.

Morai suddenly laughed. Everyone jumped, and Pollie was perhaps the most startled. She quickly turned and pulled her weapon out before realizing that Morai was still asleep.

"Does she...do that a lot?" she asked.

"Yes," Maria said, coming back to join the group. "I think she dreams a lot."

"I'm going to Alola!" Morai proclaimed to Past Morai. "It's my chance to get out of here!"

"You still don't know that it's true," Past Morai responded. "You haven't given them much reason to let you go...or really reason at all. You tried to escape less than two hours ago."

Morai frowned. Past Morai had a point.

"So, you do want to leave," Past Morai said. "For a while you seemed perfectly content, but you ran the first chance you got. What is it that you want on the outside?"

"Freedom," Morai simply replied. "Freedom to do what I want without people shoving dart guns in my face."

"Even out there, would you truly be free?" Morai's counterpart asked. "You'd still be hunted down until the events of a couple of months ago replay themselves and you end up back here. Even if you're not caught again, your dependance on that drug would eventually kill you—if you could even obtain it, seeing as how you burned your bridge with Team Rocket. You'd just be roaming the streets, imposing your will on others, fighting, indulging in that serum until you eventually die alone, probably with a needle or flask in your hand. No hero's death. No true fighter's death, even. No honor or glory. Is that what you really want?"

Morai lied down on the cold stone of the garden's center, looking up at the watercolor sky. Past Morai sat beside her and gave her the time and space to speak, patiently waiting for her reply.

"I just want...I'd just like to...I don't know," she eventually said. "This prison is a bit fun, but I wouldn't want to stay trapped there forever."

"Could it be that you're afraid of changing again? You know that they're trying to change you back into the person you were. The person I was. But you don't want that, do you? You like staying perfectly the same, proving that you will forever be irredeemably evil. Yet...the tiniest of cracks has formed in that stone cold heart of yours, and it makes you uncomfortable...but if you let that small amount of light in—"

Morai posted up and put a clawed finger in her counterpart's face.

"Stop suggesting that I could ever be anything than what I am," she said with gritted teeth. "There is no love for me and I have no love to give. That is simply how it is and that's how it should remain."

"I love you," Past Morai said. Her counterpart burst out in laughter.

"No, it's true! I told you so in the letter I wrote. Light Morai and Shadow Morai said the same to both you and I. You love fighting and you show that love through endless hours of practice and application, shedding blood in its name. You love the masks that you and I have made. Love isn't confined to one strict definition, Morai. Love is necessary for life."

Morai stood up.

"When did we get sidetracked with all of this mushy nonsense?" she said, brushing herself off. She was always disappointed to find that she was still in her prison uniform, even in the Dream Realm, the "001" still embroidered on her chest.

"Well, I suppose this is your break from prison," Past Morai said with a bit of a chuckle. "What you do is up to you."

"Then I'm going back to the Dream Outlands," Morai replied. "Right after I get something else to wear."

"That's one thing I wouldn't recommend," her counterpart sighed. "I still have trouble navigating those worlds and there's still much I don't know. You have excellent fighting and psychic abilities, but the things in those lands require power that is more abstract."

"Like your memory and dream abilities," Morai said, turning back to her counterpart. "If you taught them to me—"

"No," Past Morai interjected. Morai stalked closer to her, her eyes beginning to glow red with anger.

"What are you trying to hide?" she asked.

"There is nothing to hide," her counterpart replied. "But I cannot in good conscious give you any sense of this power. If you were to learn it and carry it with you into the waking world...I can't even being to imagine the chaos and destruction you'd sow. The power to take others back into their own memories and make them relive the darkest and most terrifying moments of their lives...you already make the people around you bend to your will every chance you get. You already inhabit their nightmares. To give you even more power would curse you and everyone around you beyond reckoning."

"That sounds wonderful!" Morai exclaimed with a smile. "I'm sure I could take it from you, if I wanted. Since you don't have my power, you won't be able to fight back against my hypnotization."

The trainer lunged toward her dream counterpart, but found herself awake in the real world a moment later.

The power to manipulate dreams so easily...I have to obtain that power.

Morai wasn't where she expected to be. Instead, she woke up on a sofa in the doctor's study, the doctor himself curiously looking at her and down at his notepad again, quickly writing things down.

"Hey!" she growled, hypnotizing him and making him hand the notepad over to her.

"Aren't I entitled to at least a little privacy?" she asked, skimming through the notes that had been collected.

"Complete privacy isn't a luxury afforded to the incarcerated, I'm afraid," the doctor hazily replied, shaking the sudden dreariness from Morai's hypnosis off. "I'm sorry, Morai, but you're simply so fascinating to the scientific eye! Frankly put, that serum turned you into a scientific marvel. It shifted your entire personality and turned you into...well, you! That would mean that perhaps our sense of morality—of right and wrong, or good and evil—is something that can be given, taken away, or changed entirely through chemical means. Even our identity, how we view the world and the way we view ourselves, could be entirely rearranged!"

"Good and evil are man-made concepts that do not exist in the natural world," Morai replied. "How would a man-made serum change something that doesn't truly exist outside of our own minds?"

"That's the question!" the doctor excitedly replied, leaning forward and pointing the pen he was holding at her. Morai realized that she had probably just provoked a long tangent from the man.

"Certain parts of the brain are associated with certain emotions and realms of action, which can then be interpreted as generally good or bad. Psychopaths, for example, have been shown to posses slightly different brain structures than everyone else, leading to inhibited or nonexistent abilities to empathize and feel certain emotions such as guilt or fear. Those who sustain brain injuries sometimes undergo complete changes in personality and behavior. It's not too far of a stretch then, I presume, to theorize that chemically altering the way the brain communicates with certain parts of itself would create changes similar to yours."

"But even without the serum, I'm still who I—"

"And that's not even factoring in the psychic abilities you have and the way they are influencing your dreams! And the physical changes that have occurred!" the doctor continued, not seeming to notice his interruption.

"Well, I—"

"And we still have the whole matter of the soul to deal with! The soul is intangible, yet many Pokémon and aspects of our world are proof that it exists. How would a chemical formula be capable of altering the soul? You, Morai, are proof that it can be changed, yes? You've spoken before about how your soul was basically divided into different parts, which seems to contradict the idea of morality being an entirely abstract and man-made concept. There are so many questions to be answered and you, Morai, very likely hold the key!"

"I have a question," Morai said, causing the doctor to lean in further. "What is that?"

The prisoner had pointed to a light blue translucent liquid sitting in a small vial atop the counter before getting up to take a look at it. Given the different ingredients and materials strewn about the table, it seemed as if it had just recently been created.

"Wait!" the doctor called out, beating her to it and taking it into his own hand. Morai took control of him again and had him give it to her.

"Is this the supposed cure they've been badgering you to come up with?" Morai asked with a frown, holding it up to look at it.

"I wouldn't put it that way," the doctor answered, reaching a hand out as she swirled it around in its glass. "But if I've done my work well, it would help with some of your rather...troublesome...behavior."

"Mhmm," Morai muttered, shifting her glowing red eyes from him to it again. "And what if I quite like my troublesome tendencies?"

"It's simply an experiment" the doctor said, trying to persuade her enough to put the vial back down safely. "If the soul really can be altered through chemical means, perhaps the missing part of your soul lies within that vial. Wouldn't you be curious to know?"

Without a word, Morai threw it behind her as the doctor cried out. He ran forward and grabbed her wrist, but he was too late. The blue liquid formed a puddle among broken glass on the floor.

"Weeks of procuring incredibly rare ingredients, meticulously calculating the amount needed of each one," he quietly muttered, shock and anger showing in his eyes. "All lost!"

"I guess it's just that evil side of my soul," Morai cooly replied. "The side I'm perfectly content to keep."

"Do you intend to simply stay here forever?" the man snapped. "I'd be grateful that I was the scientist they chose and not someone who completely disregards ethics in the name of their scientific endeavors!"

Morai only looked at him, and he sighed. He let go of her wrist and sat down, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"The fact of the matter is, Morai, that you are in prison. You're a prisoner. You forfeited many luxuries when you chose to break the law. The only reason the rules were changed for you is that for one, your abilities make you too dangerous to be around in a normal prison. But most importantly, you were a hero—one who mysteriously changed under circumstances not entirely under your control. You were weaponized by Team Rocket. You saved countless lives and hardly anyone wanted to see you completely abandoned when the time to save you had come. You were dying."

He paused, thinking out his next words. Morai had sat down across from him.

"But you are making it very difficult," he eventually continued. "I'm simply a scientist, and perhaps it's true that my interest in you is purely scientific and cold and that I'm content to observe you as you meet whatever fate you choose. But even I would bow my head in sorrow if you were to die because you fell fatally from the heavens with wings that could've been repaired. Truthfully, I don't mind you too much as you are now, but the path you are taking is damning you to isolation and confinement for the rest of your life."

Morai didn't say anything for a while. She could hear the sound of distant thunder rumbling and fire crackling in the fireplace.

"Perhaps that's how it was destined to be," she finally said. A knock sounded at the door and a guard opened it and poked his head through.

"Mrs. Sheridan is ready for you now," he said. Morai stood up and nodded a goodbye to the man. As soon as she crossed the threshold she was stopped and handcuffed. She hadn't even stopped to consider that the doctor had likely argued for them to be kept off while she was unconscious and in his study.

When they reached Sheridan's office, Morai was ushered through the door to find her sitting at her desk, hands folded in front of her. Arthur, the subway twins, Lusamine, and a couple of the high-ranking members of the security team were standing around her. The two regular guards that had filed in after her had their guns ready. She looked around at everyone with an air of apprehension.

"Have a seat," Sheridan said.

"I'll stand," Morai tersely replied.

"That wasn't a request, kid," Arthur warned, twisting his blade in his hand. Morai shrugged and sat down in front of the chief of staff's desk, admittedly eager to hear the decision that had been made.

"As you've been made aware," she began, "you are still the Champion of Alola. This has, of course, presented a problem. You are unable to fulfill your duies and are frankly vastly unfit to be Champion, but no one is able to simply take your title away from you without a fight—an official match, that is. I can't say I'm too happy about these rules having an authority that rivals the International Police, but it is what it is. You reserve the right to defend your title...therefore, in one week, you will have the opportunity to do just that..."

Sheridan let out a small sigh before finishing her response.

"...at the Alolan Pokémon League, located at the summit of—"

"Of Mount Lanakila!" Morai exclaimed, shooting up from her seat and causing the guards to ready their weapons.

"Oh, come off it," she said, mocking the accent that many of them had and repeating the phrase that many of them had said to her on multiple occasions.

"But only if you take this," Sheridan said, holding up a finger with one hand and reaching her other hand into her blazer's breast pocket to retrieve a vial of shining black liquid.

That's...that's...

Sheridan held it out for Morai to see, and the prisoner's eyes went wide as she gasped and recoiled.

"Get that creation of the Distortion World away from me!" she snapped, her eyes flaring red. Arthur chuckled at her apparent fear.

"What's the matter?" he said, taking the vial from Sheridan and walking towards Morai with it. "Are you actually afraid of something?"

"It's not shocking that I'd have...distaste...for something that did what it did to me!" Morai asserted. "It's the reason I'm here! I can fight and do all kinds of tricks with my mind, but it's not like I can simply will poison out of my body!"

Arthur smiled, a knowing grin not dissimilar to Morai's.

"So that's it, then. This here and your past are all it takes to control you," he said. He grabbed a guards gun, exchanging the sedative in the dart casing for the deep black liquid. Sheridan stood up and Morai's face grew grim.

"Arthur, what are you—"

The man shoved the cold metal barrel of the gun into the side of Morai's neck, his finger resting on the trigger and ready to pull at any moment.

"Maybe it's time you truly pay for all you've done," he said in a low, guttural voice. Morai's eyes had been red the entire time, but she bared her teeth and braced herself knowing that any action would get her shot anyway.

That day...the pain was so unbearable that I passed out after losing my psychic power. It was unlike anything I had felt before.

"Go ahead," she said shakily through gritted teeth. "If you believe it will even the score. A few moments of pain for countless wounds and scars."

Sheridan stopped herself from yelling lest she cause her husband to pull the trigger.

"That would be quite a waste of rare and expensive materials," a voice said. Arthur held his finger over the trigger, looking at whoever was behind Morai then back to the prisoner. Finally, after a soft utterance from Sheridan, he cursed and lowered his weapon.

Morai recognized the voice. She could feel the urge to tear its owner to shreds rising throughout her body until it reached her head, snapping it toward him.

It was Colress.