The warden didn't say anything, waiting instead for her prisoner to fall unconscious.
"If she finds out it's really there, I have no doubt she'll try and claw it out of her own neck," she finally sighed, both her and Pollie's phones beeping at their sides.
"Should we have it taken out?" the guard asked.
"It's obviously proven to be useful," Sheridan answered. The warden walked over to her daughter and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I don't want you anywhere near her, do you understand? Your father may have overreacted, but he has a point. There are better ways to achieve what you want that don't involve consorting with violent criminals."
Yvette was escorted out of the room by a pair of guards.
"She wasn't always a violent criminal!" she called out from the doorway. "What happened to saving the hero who once saved us, huh?"
Without answering her daughter, Sheridan continued the discussion.
"I think it bothers her so much because she's finally realizing what her purpose was. Team Rocket planned to use her from the start and they still do. Now that we have her in our custody, there are parallels between the supposed freedom she had then and the imprisonment she is facing now. If the whole of her—her personality, skills, and now almost-mutant body—was going to be weaponized, then who is she, really?"
"The fallen angel. Struck with sudden abilities she couldn't understand that somehow split her soul," Pollie replied, looking at the monstrous figure lying on the floor. "Her descent from heaven was a secret one, and no one knew that she had fallen until she hit the ground."
"That's why I struggle between treating her with empathy and kindness and treating her like a monstrous criminal," Sheridan sighed. "The actions of her former self probably saved our lives in some way, and she was the one who made the ultimate sacrifice to save the Battle Subway. This Morai is not the Champion...she's not even the Morai that existed before. She's an entirely new entity, with faint memories of her life but no connection to them. I don't think she can be entirely returned to the way she was, and I don't even think she wants to. What are we to do with her then?"
"You can't win all of them, my friend." The Morai that lived in the Nightmare side of the Outlands pressed Past Morai's own staff against her neck, pinning her to the ground.
"It's my job to try," Past Morai choked. Nightmare Morai was right, and with one final blow she sent her opponent spiraling into unconsciousness. While Morai slept, nightmares were now free to take hold of her mind. This time, Past Morai had failed in protecting her from them.
Morai found herself sitting in one of the cathedral rooms. A crowd of guards and Aether Employees had gathered around her. Gasps, whispers and yells spread through them like wildfire, and they seemed as tall as trees as they hovered over her. Confused, the prisoner finally looked down. Her hands were stained with red, and a taste she recognized filled her mouth. Her apparent victim was lying on the floor, and when she saw them Morai turned an even deathlier shade of pale than she already was.
The unmoving body of Yvette was lying on the ground, her face forever frozen into one of terror. The prisoner immediately jumped up.
"No...no, I didn't do that!" she pleaded, wiping the blood from her face with her sleeve. "We were all just there! Pollie can say so! Pollie?"
The guard Morai was referring to parted the crowd, Sheridan following behind her. When the warden saw her daughter lying on the ground, she made a face chilling enough to scar a mind for decades.
"Mrs. Sheridan," Morai said, her voice shaking, "I didn't—"
The warden pointed a gun at Morai, but the prisoner could tell that it held real bullets instead of darts. Without a word, she pulled the trigger, and everything faded into nothingness.
Again, Morai found herself at the feet of a crowd, a different body lying beside her each time. From Pollie to Arthur to even Giovanni, she always found herself at the end of someone else's barrel or blade before the nightmare was reset like a chess board being set up for a new game. It didn't matter if she tried to fight or not. It was the same ending every time.
Finally, a taste that she didn't recognize filled the prisoner's mouth. Morai didn't look down.
"Just do it," she whispered. "Whoever's going to do it, do it. Don't make me look. End it already."
"Oh, but you have to," a voice whispered back. "It's the only way to put an end to this madness."
Unwilling to accept that answer, Morai slapped herself in hopes of waking herself up, but no matter what she did it seemed there was no escape.
"Please," she finally whispered again, tears beginning to form in her eyes as she covered her face and unwittingly left red handprints on it. "Don't make me do it."
"But you must see what you've done. The horrendous atrocity you've committed, all because you can't control you urges. Go on. Look at what you've done and see who you really are no matter what kind of mask you wear. I'll let you go after that."
Trembling, the trainer lowered her hands to see exactly what she had been afraid of. Blonde hair stained with red, a body maimed by her own hands and teeth.
"No...no..."
"No!" Morai yelled, rising from her sweat-stained pillow to find Sheridan at her bedside. She scrambled out from under the bedsheets and jumped toward the warden, who reached for her gun. It sat in her hand, hanging from her side, however, as Morai held her face in her hands.
"You're...alive," she said with awe as she felt Sheridan's face, which was warm with life. Sheridan was visibly uncomfortable, but she figured that any non-violent human contact Morai could have was worth it.
"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, finally moving the prisoner's clammy hands away after a few more seconds than she could bear. Without answering her question, Morai dashed out the door to look for others she had supposedly killed. Pollie, Maria, and Yvette were all sitting outside in the garden she had reconstructed. She breathed a sigh of relief as she watched from inside, not wanting to disrupt them.
"I take it you had a nightmare." Sheridan caught up to Morai, coming to stand beside her as she watched the group outside. Pollie really did play the banjo, it seemed, as she had one in her arms while she sat on a chair that had been pulled up to a small fire pit.
"You were watching me," Morai observed.
"Someone usually does after you fall into unconsciousness. I thought it unnecessary to ship you off to the medical ward. I saw you writhing and crying in your sleep, but I couldn't wake you up."
Morai felt her cheeks flush as embarrassment spread across her face. The warden began to walk and nodded for her prisoner to follow.
"Do you feel like a mother to a prisoner today or a warden to a monster?" Morai asked.
"Simply a warden who happens to be a mother," Sheridan answered. "I'm quite impressed, you know. I was beginning to think we were housing a lost cause, but you've been finally proving me wrong." She noticed a frown creep across Morai's face. Kindness and docility had become foreign states of mind to her. "Listen..." she continued. "It's not my place to put words in my husband's mouth or apologize on his behalf, but I will apologize for the situation unfolding the way it did. You didn't deserve to suffer, especially in the middle of helping someone. I hope you can understand that...well, since the attack on our daughter, we've become even more concerned regarding her safety. We figured we could keep an eye on her here while Team Rocket looks for her, but at the end of the day she is an adult. Though, I still don't understand why she would seek you out..."
"I was surprised as well, but I rarely turn down the opportunity to fight, whether teaching it or executing it," Morai said. "I think your daughter wants to take the path she wasn't able to before. You're no longer an obstacle because it was you who prevented her from learning how to defend herself in the first place and thus resulted in her injuries...I say that with respect."
"Even trained guards have been marked by those claws of yours," Sheridan sighed. "But you have a point...how are you doing?" Morai was taken aback by the question, causing her to stop in her tracks.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Exactly what I asked. Incarceration can be stressful, especially when you're the sole prisoner. Your circumstances are different from most. You're still healing from surgeries and a recent fight with a Persian. You're also being treated as a bit of a lab Raticate. You arguably have more freedom than many prisoners yet are more confined in other ways at the same time. So, how are you doing?"
"I...don't know..." Morai answered. They had turned around and had begun walking the way they came, but Morai was noticeably slower as she pondered her answer. "I have little memory of the past and the future is a mystery. I live day by day, drifting along. These days I'm just begrudgingly trying not to hurt anyone so I don't get shot and thrown in a dungeon."
"...and because it's perhaps the right thing to do?"
"Right and wrong are so...subjective, aren't they? It's why the concept of an evenly divided soul is still strange to me. If I were hunting people down and painting the walls with their blood for your organization, I would still be a hero, no?"
The warden didn't answer. Despite her ever-apparent disregard for general morality, Morai seemed to be more polite, calm, and without violence for several days, which was enough progress to make Sheridan happy for the time being.
If I were to turn on her now, I think I'd win, Morai thought. I could finally get a taste of blood, but if she were incapacitated that would leave Arthur to take her place. I would have to fight him too, but he'd arrange for my death long before I got the chance. I'm so thirsty...but I can't act.
As they arrived back at the garden area, Morai looked outside again at Maria.
"You should join them," Sheridan said. "I'm afraid I've caused you to isolate yourself to avoid incidents, but I think you'll be alright."
"Yvette is there," Morai observed. She could sense the hesitation in the warden even without her psychic abilities.
"...It'll be alright."
Morai nodded, opening the door to the outside. She felt like a child being dropped off by her mother at camp.
"Care for one more?" she asked, not waiting for an answer. She took her place beside Maria on a bench across from Pollie, who sat alone on the other side of the fire. They had gotten the supplies for s'mores, though Morai had no idea where from. She assumed the kitchen just happened to have them, but that led to the question of how much food was being kept in its storerooms. Had they preemptively filled them with food to last for months or even years?
"See, this is where you wish you were a scientific anomaly, because then you'd get to do this," Morai joked, putting a marshmallow on her claws—minus the thumb—and holding them over the fire. It took significantly longer to toast hers seeing as how she held them far higher above the flame, but when she did she had four s'mores.
"Have fun cleaning all of that off of your claws," Pollie said with a smile.
"That sounds like something someone who has zero marshmallow holding capacity would say, whereas I can carry ten on the go."
Yvette is off-limits because of her parents. That leaves Pollie, but she's armed and fast. I'd have to be even faster. Even my standing up would put her on guard. I don't think I could make it to her fast enough without giving her enough time to draw her weapon. I was pushed past my limit long ago, but somehow I'm still sensible enough to know when the risk isn't worth it.
"Morai?" Pollie asked. She had noticed Morai looking around in quiet restlessness.
"I'd better get going," the prisoner sighed through a mouthful of marshmallow. Maria grabbed her sticky hand as she stood up, but Morai only gave her a nod. Everyone knew why she was leaving, but they had garnered enough respect to not say anything.
After getting cleaned up, Morai sat in her bed in the dark. With a sigh, she undid the black hand wraps that were recently given back to her after her stay in solitary confinement. Unwrapping each line of cloth from her forearm down to her knuckles revealed a sea of bite marks, fresh and healing. The prisoner added another, tasting the only blood she could get. It was almost like drinking a soda when dehydrated; it provided some small amount of relief, but it wasn't nearly as satisfying and only led to more thirst.
I'm going mad, she thought, falling back and pulling a pillow over her head. I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. And that tracking device...it's here somewhere, I swear it. She's using it to track my every movement. I've got to get out of here. I've got to escape. Surely I can. I'm The Mask Maker, for Arceus's sake!
After trying and failing to sleep, Morai decided to pay a visit to the doctor. She had been avoiding him as best she could, as he now seemingly had free reign to do whatever he wanted when it came to experimentation. He could've just had her sent to the lab whenever he wished, but for some reason he had left her alone.
"Ah, Morai!" he greeted when she arrived. "I didn't expect to see you. You've been avoiding me."
"You know you could just have me dragged down here whenever you pleased," she said with a snarl.
"I know, but the past few weeks have been difficult for you, and I made it worse. Scientific curiosity often clouds my judgement, I'm afraid."
There's no one else here. I could do it. It would certainly even our score.
Morai didn't think too much this time before she acted, but almost as quickly as she stood up, she found herself at the end of a long blade.
"Interesting," she said. "A sword inside of a cane."
It wasn't enough to deter her, however. She was already drooling at the prospect of fresh blood from someone other than herself.
"I'm sure the deprivation you've endured has been hard for you," the doctor said, following her with his cane sword as she circled him. "Mrs. Sheridan and her husband have made it clear that we won't be punished for killing you if we feared for our life."
"I can sense that fear," Morai said. "It tastes almost as good as what I'm after. Do you have the heart to kill me, good doctor? Your one and only subject with a mind and soul that you can try and piece back together? Your only chance at making a groundbreaking scientific discovery? All for what, a little blood? I wouldn't kill you. Like I always say, it's just not as fun."
"I can help you. At least let me fix whatever's going on with your forearms. They're bleeding."
"Those are nothing," Morai answered. "You know what I really need, but I'll start with something else. Did Sheridan have a tracker put into my neck when I arrived back from Alola?"
Sheridan had made it known to everyone that, if they were asked about the chip, to lie and pair it with a truth so that it wouldn't be so easily detected.
"Morai, I think you're becoming a bit paranoid. There would be no reason to—"
"Paranoid?" Morai growled. "This entire prison is trying to crush me under its foot."
Sheridan had arrived, but she stood outside the door and out of sight. Every time Morai's heart rate rose above a certain number of beats per minute, she and anyone else connected to the chip were notified—notifications for which have since been silenced. Her continued appearances were becoming suspicious, so she waited, hoping that the conflict would resolve itself.
"Just take a seat and we can work it out," the doctor calmly suggested. "I have a tea that I think you'd like. You're quite stressed, Morai, and it's getting to you."
To his surprise, Morai actually sat down at the small counter, albeit with a long sigh.
"This is going to kill me," she whispered, burying her face in her hands.
"No, your wounds will kill you if I don't treat them. I'll get that tea first."
A cup of hot tea was set before Morai on the table.
"Chamomile," the doctor said as the prisoner eyed the cup. "Now undo those wraps."
"Sheridan..." Morai said.
"Doesn't have to know at the moment," the doctor said, finishing her sentence for her. "I'm sure she'd rather you not die of sepsis."
Morai slowly unwrapped her forearms after taking a sip of the drink, revealing several day's worth of bites.
It's what I thought, the doctor silently confirmed.
"I'm sorry, Morai," he said softly.
"Don't you dare pity me," the prisoner snapped. "I'm getting along just fine."
"But you just said...ah, never mind."
"I'll kill Giovanni the next time I see him," Morai sighed, taking another drink. "Never free," she muttered under her breath as she shook her head. "One thing to the...next..."
The doctor caught Morai's cup as her head fell onto her arm that was stretched across the counter. Sheridan entered not long afterward, sitting next to the unconscious prisoner and resting her hand on Morai's shoulder.
"I thought it necessary," the doctor said, preparing the wraps for her arms. "She was far too stressed."
"So much suffering in one angry, violent, and cruel person who somehow manages to be randomly kind. Brutish yet...gentlemanly."
"I suppose that's what you get when you play with the soul so flippantly," the doctor replied. "I can't help but wonder what their ultimate plan is."
"Team Rocket let her get arrested intentionally," Sheridan said. "We never quite figured out why. Given our experiences thus far, I'm sure Giovanni was confident that we wouldn't be able to change her. Whatever he's planning, the International Police plays a part in it, I'm sure. That's why we have to be strict about trips to and from this place by anyone. They're trying and failing to find her."
The warden had been subconsciously rubbing Morai's arm. Like the prisoner's own soul, she seemed to flip between vehement anger towards how monstrous she was and care for how she had been manipulated and controlled to arrive at the literal and metaphorical prison she was in.
Meanwhile, Morai had found herself in another dream. The world was somehow quiet and still yet busy and overwhelming at the same time. She looked down with a frown to see herself barefoot after stepping in a rain puddle. Most of her body was bare, actually, save for the pair of suit pants she wore outside of the prison. It was a gloomy day on an unspecified downtown street in an unspecified region, and the world was saturated with hues of blue and gray. Office buildings traveled in unending journeys toward the dark sky.
Even with her now flat chest, Morai had never ventured outside with it bare. It always made her feel vulnerable, which is what she guessed this dream—or nightmare, she hadn't decided—was trying to accomplish. Everyone seemed to be looking at her while hastily moving toward some unknown destination at the same time. All eyes seemed to be on her, but no one was really looking. It felt unsafe. She realized her hands looked like normal hands for the first time in a while, with no claws on her fingers. As she moved her tongue over her teeth, her usually sharper and longer canine teeth were dull and short, and the rest of her teeth had lost the sharpness they had. As she caught her reflection in a window, she realized with a sharp intake of breath that she seemed...small.
Sheridan saw her moving in her sleep and watched curiously. Morai had been moved to the bed in her room, but the warden had decided to stay by her side once again, watching as she looked at her hands and licked her teeth.
As Morai felt her own body to confirm what she was seeing in the mirror, she pulled her hand away from her back to find it covered in red and white. She nearly licked it thinking it was blood, but it seemed instead to be paint of some kind. Curious, she awkwardly positioned herself to see her back in the reflection, finding a circle of alternating red and white that spanned the entire width of her back—which wasn't much in this dream.
She literally had a target on her back, the bright colors standing out amidst the nearly monochromatic atmosphere as the paint was beginning to drip because of the rain.
"Alright, alright," she finally said out loud, her heart beating a little faster. "I get it. I'm afraid of being weak and helpless. Shocking. I'm ready to wake up now."
It was then Morai thought of the possibility that the nightmare hadn't even begun. If her psyche wanted to really scare her, it would put her on the receiving end of an attack that she couldn't defend.
"Alright!" she yelled, her head on a swivel. "Come at me! I'm not afraid! You can't erase my fighting knowledge. I'll still rip you shreds...w-with spirit!"
Her heart began to beat faster, and her hands were trembling. "Come on!" she yelled, a crack in her voice. "I'm still me! I'm still..."
The weight of every eye on Morai felt like it would crush her, but the troubling thing was that no one really gave her a second glance.
"Any one of you," she whispered, soaked from the rain. It wasn't the cold making her shiver, however. "I don't care. I'll make death proud to take me. I won't die a victim. I'll take any one of you to hell with me, just get it over with already."
"You always walked around with a target on your back, it seems," the disembodied voice of herself said. "...But who put it there?"
Suddenly, someone lunged forward seemingly out of nowhere, and Morai shot awake before whoever it was touched her. With a gasp, she sat up, wrapping her bandaged arms around herself.
"Another nightmare?" Sheridan said, startling her.
"Why you?" she loudly groaned. "Why is it always you? What are you doing here?"
"I saw your arms," she said. "I understand why you're doing it and it can't continue. With those bandages it'll be apparent if it does. The goal is for no one to be hurt, and that includes you."
The prisoner jumped out of her bed, causing Sheridan to rise from her chair just in time to get shoved into the wall.
"You're driving me mad," Morai said through gritted teeth. To her surprise, the warden didn't resist. There was no gun in her hand.
"There are no cameras," Sheridan calmly observed. "You could. Then all of the suffering you've endured the past few weeks would be all for naught, and you'd have to do it all over again. If you give in, you will never break the chains that bind your heart and mind, and this will forever control you until you can't think for yourself anymore."
Morai lingered for a moment, matching her gaze with wild and angry eyes as her mouth watered. With a frustrated sigh, she let go of her, turning instead to claw the wall and claw it again. It became the subject of her abuse as she mercilessly punched and clawed at it all within a few seconds. Chest heaving from the effort and sheer weight of her emotions, Morai sat on her bed and buried her face in her hands.
"We tried to file those down when you first got here," Sheridan said, no hint of emotion in her voice as she sat beside her. "It was no use. I even tried having your teeth dulled down. No matter what we did, they always came back the next day."
"Good," Morai said, her voice muffled through her hands. "I like them."
"That's good...Listen, Morai," the warden softly said. She ventured to put a hand on her shoulder, but decided against it. Funnily enough, Morai only seemed okay with being touched if someone was trying to kill her and she was allowed to return the favor. Touch, either from her or someone else, was not allowed in her mind if it denoted vulnerability.
Sheridan changed her mind, hoping to break through that idea. "I understand that this is very hard for you and I'm very impressed with your willpower thus far. It's important to have support for these kinds of things, but it's hard when everyone is both seemingly your enemy and the source for what you're trying not to consume. Even still, locking you away alone forever is an option I'd rather not pursue. So, to start, would you like to play some chess?"
"...Please choose which person you're going to be," Morai sighed after sitting in silence for a moment, finally moving her hands away from her face.
"I'm sorry?" Sheridan said.
"I asked you earlier. All of this flip-flopping from the strict and heartless warden who thinks of me as a cruel monster and the mother who thinks of me as a lost child is enough to make anyone nauseous," Morai said. "Please choose one and stick with it. I don't care which."
Sheridan moved her hand away, smoothing the wrinkles in her navy suit pants as she thought about her answer.
"I think I can be both...and so can you," she finally said. "I'm both a warden and a mother, as I said earlier. There are times for both. The real challenge is recognizing those times, but one without the other simply won't suffice. If you're completely logical and cold all of the time, you will choose the incorrect action many times. The same goes for being strictly emotional. I act as both a warden and a mother because you're both a..."
"A child and a monster?" Morai answered for her. "I think my birthday passed me by without notice this year, but I suppose I still have to claim it. I'm no child. I certainly haven't committed childish crimes. I've committed the atrocities of a monster."
"You're still young," Sheridan replied. "You accomplished so much as an even younger trainer, but there's still a long path ahead that you won't see if you don't break free from your chains. You may have done monstrous things and you may even look a bit monstrous, but that doesn't make you one if you change your actions in the present. "
"I think I'll take you up on that game of chess now," Morai said, rising to her feet and walking out of the door.
