The Case Against Violet

by Anticipate

Looker wasn't above investigating petty theft crimes, but he felt like his time could be used more effectively. Larry wasn't above doing anything according to his boss, but assigning him to help a detective felt like it was stretching his job description. What neither realize is that the fate of Paldea hangs on their investigation into a runaway champion. (see profile for updates)

20. Chapter 20: Heart

A/N: After months of searching, I've finally found the add chapter button for this story! ... but seriously, apologies for the multiple delays. There's a couple of reasons not worth getting into, but the bottom line is that I'm still working on this. Chapter 21 is drafted and needs a few more weeks of refinement before I get it out to you all. Thanks again for your patience and I hope you enjoy the continuation of the final arc of the story!

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Komala had no reason to be able to learn trailblaze. It was by all accounts the laziest pokémon that Larry knew of. Only a snorlax could rival komala in its soporific nature, and that was only if the snorlax happened to be in a food coma. Similar thoughts were probably running through Giacomo's head as a glowing green komala bore down on him. The sight would have been amusing had Larry not been distracted fending off vines trying to choke him to death. His bird pokémon were useless underground; this was probably where Giacomo had made his first mistake. The trainer hadn't known that it would be Larry coming for him, but the admin had erroneously assumed that being underground would render him safe so long as he managed to evade detection until he could reach the tunnel system leading to the relay station. He hadn't accounted for being scouted and followed as soon as he unwittingly revealed where the tunnel entrance was located. "You insane old man! Dark pulse dark pulse dark pulseeeee!" Giacomo wailed as he sprinted through the downward sloping tunnel, every step giving him just a bit more airtime as he scrambled to evade his pursuer.

Overgrowth followed Giacomo's every step thanks to the treasure of ruin at his side. Twisting vines sprang to life from all angles of the tunnel large enough for a small crowd to pass through, withering and dying before they could reach maturity to form barricades as strong as steel. Only the teraite occupying several parts of the tunnel's wall structure reassured Larry that Giacomo wasn't going to bring the entire system down on them. Having wo-chien on your side was only as good as your ability to utilize it. If Geeta somehow had the foresight to understand Giacomo's incompetence when assigning the flying-type expert to the only underground relay station, then good for her. "Twenty-seven years and I'm still getting shot at. You owe me a long vacation for this job, La Primera." A pokéball was flung from Larry's palm, releasing his dudunsparce into the fray as several dark pulses rained down from impossible angles through the withered brambles.

To this point, Larry had resisted employing his other pokémon. If Giacomo got desperate, he might start using his head instead of his body to react to being assaulted. His tauros and komala had been taking turns using trailblaze to carve a path through the choking foliage and keep Giacomo in sight without actually reaching him. It wasn't doing their dimly lit tunnel path any favors, but it ensured that Giacomo was more likely to lead him right to their destination within the network of corridors to choose from. Unfortunately, he was as immune to taking dark pulses to the face as anyone else. When the strength of the incoming attack couldn't be gauged, the best course of action was to make it miss or block it with something other than your team. Dudunsparce employed the latter strategy without needing a command, carving through the ground that wasn't teraite to whip up panels of steel and stone to block the incoming attack. The glow around tauros stalled, the pokémon taking a rest while they waited for the assault to cease before proceeding. "Good. Just like that."

Larry wasn't sure if his pokémon could hear his whispered praise, but he could sense the same resolve that his avian coworkers had displayed back at the shrine. Every member of his team knew what they were working toward, yet they followed him anyways. It would have made someone like Juliana tear up, but Larry still had a task to accomplish. Each relay station could power the city hall independently if left alone; the underground station in particular controlled all the defunct railways and teraite vents that had turned Paldea into a living crystal for the last few months. It was therefore the most dangerous to leave in the hands of a child who couldn't tell a pokéball from a rice ball.

Wind whipped at Larry's face as the dark pulses collied with various debris, displacing everything but his vacant expression as the attacks ran out of steam. Giacomo should have been ordered to cause a distraction, not make it impossible to follow him if Geeta's guess was correct. As tauros prepared to swap with komala on trailblaze duty, Giacomo's expression in the distance twisted in unmistakable disbelief as the dead plants were trampled under hoof. "Just leave it, man! You aren't gonna get anything out of tailing me!" There was an inflection of fear that Larry presumed could be traced back to their previous encounter.

"You're gaining nothing by running. We could discuss this like adults." The offer was punctuated by tauros almost breaking through a wall of brambles entirely to reach Giacomo before a new wave of foliage took its place. Dark pulse attacks were slowing Giacomo more than his pursuer.

The quiet comeback was unwittingly answered by Giacomo with a new wave of dark pulses. Unlike his fellow former Team Star admin, Giacomo was doing a poor job taking advantage of his environment. Haste to reach his destination bolstered by fear of the pursuer behind him was more than enough to dull the DJ's thinking. Larry was having a harder time not catching Giacomo than he was keeping up, but slow progress over agonizing minutes eventually bore fruit. The writhing bramble ceiling began to rise, then sharply vanish as a larger control room that Larry presumed housed their goal appeared. Contrary to the tunnels, this room was well lit, rows of computers and empty chairs facing a wall of monitors like some kind of mission control. The far side from this wall broke off into multiple dark passages similar to the one Larry had emerged from. Had he the time, Larry would have been interested in studying how people came and went through the city's extensive transportation infrastructure.

Instead, what held Larry's attention was the network of wires running along the ceiling of each tunnel and coalescing on the monitor wall that the dead brambles were starting to encroach upon. Giacomo, realizing his mistake too late, had wheeled on his heel and was blocking Larry's access to the monitor wall with his body. The wall of blue screens provided a back lighting that Giacomo might have been familiar with had he been a real DJ. To Larry, it was akin to finding dead pixel on his work computer that needed maintenance.

The vines from wo-chien tried to converge and block off Larry's entrance, but komala wouldn't be denied. The little guy had been holding up trailblaze after trailblaze for some time now, a benefit to being comatose and knowing sleep talk that Larry wouldn't have thought to put into use in any other situation. Now was the time to make sure all that effort wouldn't go to waste. With a higher ceiling, Larry could afford to get some wind under his wings. "Put it out of commission, starraptor," Larry requested, releasing his ace.

Starraptor didn't hesitate, slamming into the wo-chien that had chosen to flee to the ceiling with a brave bird before the pokémon could even fully process that it was being attacked. A sickening crack was heard as the ceiling gave way to starraptor's fierce attack. Bits of metal and stone rained down along with the treasure of ruin as it fell to Giacomo's side, barely holding on to consciousness. Strength without speed was rarely effective in Larry's experience. Giacomo gritted his teeth as his strongest ally was downed in a single move. The brambles around the two began to lose their constitution and disappear as wo-chien attempted to heal itself. "You don't screw around, man. Looker was dead wrong about you. I thought you were crazy back on the elevator, but it looks like this is just the kind of bully you are, huh?"

"You have no method of resistance. Hand over the information I want peacefully and you'll be free to go," Larry requested, holding a gloved hand out in a show of amnesty. "It's not too late to treat this situation like an adult."

Giacomo scoffed, backing himself against the computer wall as Larry and his four released pokémon followed at a leisurely pace without impedance. Tauros and dudunsparce covered his flanks while komala attached itself to Larry's arm, worn out from all the trailblazes. "What, you think just because you changed the tune means you're in control of this song? Nah, man. I'm not giving a psychopath like you anything. Why'd you even follow me down here, huh? Shouldn't you be more worried about your boss?"

"Shouldn't you be more worried about yours?" Larry countered. "If you'd spent less time covering your tracks and more time running you could have done as Juliana asked by now."

"Like I need that from the guy who treated us like criminals from jump and attacked faster than he could talk. Where were you when our academy almost fell apart, huh? Where were you when Penny and Juliana lost everything they cared about? I'm not a mindless follower like you are. I got front row tickets to the shit you put our region through, and when we decided we'd had enough, you tried to maintain the same damn status quo that's going to get us all killed. I can't think of a more depressing track than listening to that woman for as long as you have."

"Don't shun a job you haven't even tried. The means are irrelevant compared to La Primera's ends. None of you understand what it actually means to stand against her. Just know I treat you the way your actions deserve to be treated, kid. Someone who claims to care about Juliana the way you do would have stayed behind to help their region."

Giacomo had been shaking his head in abject denial from Larry's first syllable, the DJ's hand finding a keyboard behind him. Larry didn't act, lest Giacomo do something dumb enough that Larry couldn't fix it. "Don't get it twisted. I'll play a song for Juliana any day, but I'm only here in service of our boss. And she's fighting for a region that isn't even hers. The how and why of it stopped mattering to me at that beat. Penny wanted an elite four member here, so she's got one. Don't care why, so long as the job gets done. Isn't that what you think being an adult is or something?"

The venom on Giacomo's tongue reeked of desperation to Larry. He was more interested in how Penny managed to contact Giacomo when his starraptor had been trailing the runaway all night. She should have been holed up in a building with Arven rather than contacting Juliana's group. Letting one of the few suspects behind Atticus' assassination attempt go still sat poorly with him in spite of Geeta's orders. Then again, he was standing in a room with tunnels connecting to who-knows-where. Even Geeta wasn't aware of every passage within her stomping grounds. It seemed there was something Giacomo could offer after all. "For all the good it could do, you have my apologies. I didn't enjoy having to push you all around. It's part of being an elite four member."

"Oh, sorry to harsh your vibe, middle-man." Giacomo mocked. "You might as well attack and get it over with. I'm not going down without a closing number though."

The DJ sounded resigned, as if he'd drawn the short straw when selecting sleeping arrangements and now had to crash on the floor for a night. The uncertainty Penny had introduced into this situation irked the elite four member. If anyone could turn deactivating the relay station that was limiting the power of the source into a bad thing, it was her. At the same time, he was standing in front of someone that he knew Penny would be unwilling to sacrifice at any cost, as if she knew that Larry would hesitate to the point of granting clemency. "Maybe I am getting too soft," he muttered under his breath before fixing Giacomo with a hard look. "Listen to me for once, kid. This region was hell for people long before the tera phenomenon got out of hand. Not everyone gets to be a stoic wandering trainer. Some of us have to do the jobs nobody else wants to do and get half the pay we should. Some of us died researching phenomena we couldn't possibly understand. I'm not saying things are all that better elsewhere, but the way this region works was fundamentally broken because of terastilization long before any of us were born. I don't want or deserve an easy life. What I want is the right to make that decision for myself." Larry's pokémon twitched in anticipation at his side, ready to leap at the obstacle in their path.

Giacomo's eyes widened in disbelief. "The hell? I'm just following orders, here, man, I'm not your therapist. Aren't you the sort of guy to like, just get that or something?"

"Don't comment on my image if you don't even 'get' it yourself," Larry chided, motioning to his starraptor. "I'll make this simple. The boss and I need each other. And when we're done, the region will be fine without us. Now tell me, why is Penny allowing you to disable the relay station?" Considering all the perspectives carefully was the right of people like Looker. For Larry, the answers could come in the wake of the results he produced. While it would have been preferrable for Giacomo to do it himself, Larry couldn't trust the boy's motivations anymore.

"As if I'd explain my whole evil plan to a maniac. Your boss might be in a looot of trouble without her right hand, ya know. NOW!"

A shadow ball came from somewhere in the darkness behind Larry. It was a well-thought-out strike on the trainer himself. None of his pokémon would be able to take the attack for him thanks to their typing and Larry wasn't agile enough to dodge in the milliseconds he had to react. He could make a sprint forward, but that was likely what Giacomo was counting on. Almost every part of Giacomo's plan would have been excellent had Larry not placed a contingency with his trusty komala. Sensing a threat to its perch, komala leapt into the air, taking the shadow ball attack for its master. Staraptor launched into a brave bird from the ceiling in the general direction of the attack. After a silent second, the offending mismagius was flung to the ground at Giacomo's feet from the strike. It cried weakly before fainting as starraptor cawed in triumph over the blue after-effects dancing around its body.

Giacomo grit his teeth as komala struggled to cope with the shadow ball's effects. "How the hell'd you know to put a ring target on that thing?"

"I was there when we caught that mismagius, if you recall," Larry reminded the trainer. "Also I have common sense. If you can't be aware of your surroundings, your team has to do it for you. This won't be a conversation much longer if you can't be reasonable, kid."

Giacoma spat on the ground. He'd been backed all the way up against the wall of monitors now. Nearly all the withered underbrush had vanished, with wo-chien slowly returning to its temporary master's side as it finished used the dying brambles to recover some energy. It was a cyclical solution that provided at best temporary relief, but it would allow the treasure to fight just a bit longer than was reasonable to ask of it. It also meant that the way they'd come was now likely undefended. "W-whatever. Talk big all you want, you're not getting a thing out of me. Ruination!"

A wave of dark-type energy surged in a semi-circle out of wo-chien, taking the form of glowing dark vines swarming within the black pool of malicious energy. Without Giacomo's own pokémon in the fight, there was no need to focus on a target for the treasure's destructive attack. This was the move that had brought the civilization succeeding Geeta's to ruin according to his research into the shrines that had housed the treasures. Like the men it had ruined, it was imperfect. Geeta had avoided the treasures for that specific reason over Larry's protests to ensure situations like this didn't happen. His extra research was going to pay off after all. Tsking, Larry rapidly returned every pokémon except his starraptor, which was out of range of the grasping vines. The ruination attack passed over him harmlessly, and when it subsided, his coworkers were back on the field. "What? Why didn't it hit you?" Giacomo asked incredulously.

"Ask yourself why it didn't hit you," Larry questioned back. "Ruination was a move created out of malice for the world man built, not man itself. It's meant to tear down their work and those around it alone, leave them suffering the consequences of absolute failure. If you'd studied the shrines you would know that. Did you use that move without understanding its properties?" Any steel or concrete that had been in the path of wo-chien's attack had indeed been eaten away, leaving the teraite base alone untouched. The rows of computers and desks nearest wo-chien had been reduced to scrap.

Giacomo scoffed, turning his nose up at the evidence in front of him. "Shut up, old man! Wo-chien, do it again, then take Larry out while his pokémon are gone using-" Giacomo didn't get to finish that sentence as another brave bird slammed into his treasure.

This time, wo-chien didn't get up when it was thrown into a new crater in the ground. Starraptor returned to Larry for a full restore while Giacomo looked on in disbelief. "You monster…" he spat, one hand groping behind him again for a keyboard connecting to the wall of monitors. "You're not going to stop her song. No matter what, I won't give up."

"You talk too much, yet you're not saying anything," Larry pointed out in annoyance, his body relaxing involuntarily as the largest threat in the room was removed. "Why did Looker send you here?"

"If you're curious, that means you know there's a tune that can cancel out the top champion," Giacomo intuited. "And you'll kill me before I give that up."

Larry wished he still had headache medication. Geeta hadn't let him keep a refill at the Academy because of the implications. Never mind that she was busy trying to erase the region as it was, the principles of the world should still be upheld for some reason. Such hypocrisy annoyed the elite four member to the point that he felt his hairs greying faster, all the more so because he was the one who helped ingrain that hypocrisy into her. This wasn't the same student that he'd battled a month ago, and he'd made a mistake in treating him that way. Interpersonal skills were never his strong suit. "Look, Giacomo, right? You've been down here for a while, so I'll be clearer. If you're not amenable to harnessing tera energy, it'll get to you eventually, corrupt you into wanting to keep the source safe at all costs. That burning passion you feel isn't coming from you. You-"

"CAN IT!" Giacomo roared, slamming a hand down on the innocent expensive-looking keyboard. "You don't get to tell me what is and isn't real! Nobody does! Nobody… nobody else could understand what we went through under your leader's stupid direction. We went through hell at that academy because all you guys could think about was how you could screw this region up for your own benefit. You guys didn't do anything when the bullying problem got out of hand. You didn't do anything when the tera phenomenon got worse and my friends were suffering. You pushed one of my friends all the way into this pit of hell and you're still making her sing. I'm here to say you're done. It's not going any farther than this while I'm standing. If you can't see how far you've pushed this region, then you're in for a damn rude awakening." The boy's free hand found his pocket, indicating a readiness to continue fighting despite the poor odds.

Larry took a step back, turning to the side to appear less confrontational. Privately he found himself wondering how Looker would have approached this problem. Giacomo held a single advantage in this engagement; he could probably smash the central computer before Larry got to it. Whether he'd realized that or not wasn't relevant so long as the possibility of an extended delay trying to establish communication with the relay station to shut it down existed. He'd pushed Giacomo this far, and now he needed to bring the boy back to rationality. Most of his points were childish, focused on deflecting blame rather than rationally establishing guilt. While Larry presumed there was still time to act, he wasn't about to start turning in late work now.

"You have my apologies, though I suspect they mean little to you," Larry conceded, drawing his pokémon back with a small hand motion. "You're right that my methods were harsh. I fight for La Primera, but I'm asking you questions for my own personal satisfaction. None of us in the elite four wanted things to escalate this far, but now that they have, La Primera's path is all the more right. The world she creates has the opportunity to be free of this pointless conflict. But that's not important right now. The crux of the matter is that this is a distraction and we're both aware of that. Whether Looker knows it or not, thanks to his actions, leaving the relay stations running at this point will result in the source destroying the entire region when it overflows the city with energy. Neither of us want that, so instead of continuing this pointless battle, I thought we could benefit from an exchange of information."

"Excuse you? You wanna be friends now, after chasing me to hell and back?" Giacomo's expression was incredulous, but his hand remained in his pocket.

"Looker and La Primera looked at the big picture. It's my job to observe the details and act," Larry elaborated. "People like us are responsible for ensuring things run smoothly at ground zero by keeping people that need to stay away away from it. I thought you might be one of those people, but that's not the case. If you won't talk about Penny, then tell me, when's the last time you spoke to Atticus?"

If Giacomo had been confused before, the new question threw him even further for a loop. His eyes flicked between the screen behind him and Larry as if the man would suddenly teleport if he wasn't careful. Larry only used the opportunity to straighten his tie. Whether it was the first or last day of work, looking presentable was important. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing but-"

"Children play games because they have the imagination to stomach them," Larry interrupted, his patience wearing thin. "I am not playing around, Giacomo."

Something about his tone must have been convincing to the Team Star Admin. Despite his rebellious nature, he was still an adolescent, as susceptible to being cowed by sufficient authority as anyone else his age. "Haven't heard from him in over a year. He didn't really keep in touch."

"Do you know if he's been in contact with anyone else recently?"

"How would I know that? I asked all my friends and teachers, but none of us could get a hold of him after a while. And why do you even care?"

Larry slowly rolled up his sleeve so as not to startle the boy into a regrettable mistake, revealing the scars still fading in the aftermath of Atticus' attack. "The boy tried to kill me unprovoked. Your group doesn't strike me as that ruthless, and he said he did it in the name of Team Star. If you don't know what that means, then there's someone else pulling strings that I have to keep as far away from the town hall as possible."

"He wouldn't do that. If he did, it's because you provoked him, same as me," Giacomo denied, shaking his head like a wet herdier.

"Is that right? A year is a long time to be out of contact with someone, Giacomo." He didn't add his suspicions about Penny's potential involvement in Atticus' actions lest the boy get overexcited again.

The trainer looked away for a moment before realizing he needed to focus and turning his attention back to the unmoving Larry. "You're not gonna distract me. I'm not like Mela and Eri. I don't need to ask questions or care about this region and everyone in Team Star. There's only five other people in my world I trust and care about. They're my treasure, and that's how it is. If three of us splitting from the pack was the safest thing, I was happy with it. But our dumb leader followed us down here, sent a message on the xtranscievers and everything about how she wants to make sure everyone is safe while we're tryna protect her. What happens to me after that doesn't matter so long as the rest of them stay out of your reach. So yeah, I have everything I want. You have nothing to say to me, man."

Larry took a moment to ponder this. Months ago he would have disregarded the sentiment. Years of knowing about the inevitable had conditioned him to stop looking for light that was going to fizzle out eventually in favor of the promise of something stronger. He tightened his grip on his briefcase. A second chance wasn't promised to him, even if he wanted it to be. People like Looker who clung desperately to the promise of second chances that weren't coming were exactly why he had put his faith in Geeta. These sentiments weren't supposed to bother Larry anymore, but analyzing the motivation and reasoning behind people's actions was part of his duties to Geeta as well. His own opinion on matters just happened to bubble up to the surface every now and then, a fact he couldn't ignore after what his pokémon did for him in the quarantine zone. "Maybe you do, kid. But we both still have jobs to do. Sorry to take your time, but I'm going to shut this station down now. Please stay out of the way."

Giacomo rolled his sholders, adjusting the strap on his dirty backpack as he got into a fighting stance. "I can't stop you. But I'm not going to let you listen for free. You gotta go through me, at least until we catch a few more people in this net of mine."

"It doesn't matter who you catch at this point."

"If it doesn't matter, why are you still hesitating, man? You're as soft as Looker says you are."

That irked Larry. Looker had no business understanding what Larry had gone through. His hand found his belt, withdrawing a pokémon that would be appropriate for this task. Before he could release it, however, a perfectly placed fireball ignited his hand.

Larry cursed and dropped his pokéball and briefcase, throwing his fireproof glove off to get the heat away. The brief moment where he struggled to remove the glove had left the compass pattern Geeta liked so much singed into his hand. More importantly, the locking mechanism on his coworker was probably busted. "Don't move!" The harsh order came from the tunnel that had been newly cleared of brambles.

Giacomo and Larry turned to meet a third of the police force plus a few Paldea League staff Larry recognized. They were out of breath, likely from fighting a far more difficult battle to get through the remaining brambles than Larry did. "This is special agent Faller! Larry, leave that boy alone and step away from the console!"

Faller spoke with whole-hearted conviction despite his clear signs of exhaustion. Several growlithe and arcanine flanked the police along with some of his former subordinate's pokémon. Larry considered his options in an instant. He had been planning to make his escape after doing his job, but if Faller was here, it might be more effective to stay put after all. Though they had numbers, Larry couldn't sense the same strength he knew he had trained into his subordinates behind their stubborn determination to complete their task. "Where's Jeremy?" Larry asked, sweeping his gaze around his former colleagues. "Shouldn't he be the head of your unit, Maryn?"

The only woman in the group of newcomers narrowed her eyes. "He died on the descent down here. He died chasing you, sir." A concise report, exactly as Larry had trained her.

The strongest among the Paldea League staff had been trained by the elite four personally. By what might as well have been tradition at this point, Larry bore the brunt of those training responsibilities. It was one of the few roles he didn't begrudge, as it allowed him to mold more efficient workers to lighten his own workload. That didn't mean they owed him anything for it. In fact, the bonds of kinship between coworkers had probably been severed long before Jeremy's death. "I'm sorry to hear that." His subordinates would have cornered him here regardless; Jeremy's death was only a catalyst. That was the logical conclusion.

Giacomo used the opportunity to finish backing all the way up to the corner of the wall of monitors, sensing that the police were more preoccupied with Larry than him and seeking protection. Dudunsparse, komala, starraptor, and tauros could probably handle this squad by themselves, but Larry's objective was different now. Containment of Looker's lieutenant and investigating Atticus' betrayal of his friends had to take priority after shutting the station down. The lack of further action was deafening. "That's it?" One of the other League members Larry didn't recognize spoke up. "You trained him yourself, didn't you?"

"I trained most of you," Larry corrected. "Personally. Over hours and hours that could have been better spent doing many other tasks. Clearly I didn't do a good enough job. For that, you have my condolences." The businessman bowed slightly, his eyes never breaking their lock on Faller.

The apathetic approach went over about as well with his team as Larry expected. Larry had found that people skills tended to be unnecessary so long as he did his job well and had Geeta to handle any diplomacy matters that arose. There was no contingency in that plan for going rouge from the Paldea League. "Leave it. The mission comes first," Maryn spoke up, two pokéballs drawn from her belt.

"I'm surprised this is the tactic you resorted to, Agent Faller," Larry admitted as he nursed his burned hand. Releasing new pokémon would be difficult, if not impossible with it. "Doesn't strike me as the optimal move given the information you had."

"Agent Looker entrusted us with this task, so we're completing it," Faller answered curtly. "Now step back. I won't ask again."

Something strange happened to Larry in that moment as he heard Faller's reasoning. Not a single person here was there of their own volition. They were all drones under the influence of someone else's game. Penny was controlling Giacomo, Faller was under Looker's influence, and Geeta had Larry. Any one of these loyal dogs could have been Larry had his leash been held by a different master. But that didn't mean he didn't have a choice. Penny and Looker were trying to drive him into a corner, keep him out of the way for refusing to play a game that was supposed to be over already. The only conclusion Larry could draw from that was that they had thought of some move he would never have imagined. The notion terrified and thrilled him at the same time. This life of his had enough meaning to warrant such careful planning. They'd thrown scraps into the cage the boss had thrown him in, expecting him to entertain himself while they did the important work. An illogical smirk found its way onto Larry's face, and he let out a small snort of laughter. His cheeks complained, unfamiliar with the effort it took to smile genuinely.

"You had the whole damn thing planned out, didn't you, Looker?" Larry asked nobody present. "Maybe this spot didn't have to be me, but you still think there's a game to be played here. Well, take your shot. I'll make sure to finish my role." Between Looker and his other target, there was only one thing to do. Geeta could handle anything an enemy she could see threw at her. He only had to be the eyes on her shadow.

"Larry, stand-"

"There's no need for that." Larry interrupted, breaking off in a cough as his raised voice echoed throughout the room. "Excuse me. I just couldn't help but find this whole scenario absurd. So many of you think that there's still some sort of game to be played here when Geeta has already finished. No matter what we do, it won't matter."

"Elaborate," Faller ordered, taking a step forward.

There wasn't any harm in elaborating. Larry was exactly where he needed to be, just as he wanted. "The professor isn't the first to mess around with tera energy or moving pokémon through time. The old kingdom our modern-day treasures come from, they're the first civilization to experiment with using tera energy to break the rules of time. They were a lot better at it, too. Advanced to the point where they were ready to start experimenting with moving people around before everything collapsed. This city was their utopia, and tera energy made it function. So when it became obvious that not everyone could harness it equally, humans did what humans do. Some people have a natural affinity for controlling tera energy, and those that didn't were cast out from the city. This strategy backfired on the Paldeans that could use tera energy, but I'll spare you the details. Regardless, Geeta needed to go back and fix the mess herself so the tera phenomenon couldn't be allowed to do what it did again."

Faller understood Larry's implications first. "Then Geeta is…"

"Old," Larry finished. "Older than most of us combined. Their experiment failed. The device didn't send her forward in time, it just pulled her out of time. There's a difference there in how much of the process you have to watch, and it's important. By the time she made it out of the ruined city, we were in modern times. That's when I found her."

"Wait. The first person Geeta ever met from our time was you?"

"Unfortunately for both of us, yes. The old Paldea League was running an expedition led by its most expendable workers and she was struggling to break out of the core of Area Zero to get some answers. Geeta couldn't harness tera energy well enough to break the barrier on the source and was ignorant of modern society. I showed her the ropes in exchange for her promise to fulfill her dream. She picked Paldean life up quickly, but our meeting time doesn't run long enough to review details. Basically, her only goal since I met her was to go home and set things right. Prevent the fall of this city. Teach people to be better, so there aren't as many people like me in the world. Overlooked, Underpaid. Forgotten. I couldn't say no when she talked about it with that look in her eyes."

"That… that's not even possible," Giacomo stuttered. "I mean, she's been La Primera for a while, but-"

"She hasn't aged, and she only lets a select few into Area Zero. Let's not forget our region's isolationist strategy until recent memory," Larry added. "If you think about it with this additional information, everything makes sense. But again, that hardly matters."

"On that, we agree," Faller concluded, sending a few hand signals Larry didn't understand to the rest of his team subtely. "You've only confirmed that we have every need to bring you down now before Geeta destroys this region."

"Fixes this region," Larry corrected. "This is already over, Faller. You know the center of this city, right? Is it called the town hall, or the capital building?"

There was a pause as everyone racked their brain to come up with an answer based on the maps they'd seen. Their responses were split almost down the middle. "Time is already altering based on Geeta's actions," Larry explained. "The world is in a state of flux. There's nothing we can do. All the hard work I've done is about to be erased. I know that's what I wanted, but it doesn't mean I'm not a little disappointed that this is all I amounted to, a trap for a couple of bug type pokémon. I'm hoping in the next world she makes things will be better. That's why I followed Geeta. So I laughed at you all, yes, but only because you're only talking about putting everything on the line when I already gave it up. Sorry if it came off as rude."

Faller pressed a button on his xtransceiver, searching for a signal. "That won't work while the relay station is up," Larry clarified. "I imagine you're here to support the boy? It would be in your best interest to shut the relay station down as well."

Three factions sent to accomplish the same task stared each other down like the opposite was true. Sensing that the attention of the room was falling on him, Giacomo whipped a USB out from the pocket he'd been hiding his hand in and jammed it into the nearest port before an officer could so much as raise his voice to stop him. "If it's getting played anyways, we're using my music player," Giacomo warned as screens started to shut down around him.

The DJ glared at everyone, but nobody made a move to stop him, unable to justify an action that would provoke the third party to attack. The quiet left Giacomo unnerved. "A-and if what you're saying is true, we have no reason to be twiddling our thumbs here. Screw distractions. I'm going to town hall. Penny could be there."

"Nobody is leaving," Faller announced as his xtransceiver sent the message he'd tried to send initially. "You and Larry need to-" A gust of wind blew everyone turning to leave back into the main room.

Larry's starraptor was kicking up a hurricane in the tunnels, preventing anything from proceeding back the way they'd come and creating a physical barrier between Lary and the others. "As I said, it's too late for that," Larry continued over the gale storm. "We've played our parts, and for all of us, they end here."

"You can't be okay with that!" Giacomo insisted. "What if Geeta loses?"

"It won't be because of me," Larry answered with conviction. "We all came here to keep the others who came from getting away. I'm sure Hassel and the others are doing the same. The only difference between us is the strength of our convictions in our masters. I know Geeta is stronger than your champions. You can't say the same, so you won't be the ones who walk out of here."

"Your organization has been antagonizing us from the beginning. If you want to be arrested so badly, I'll grant your wish. We have a region to save. Men! Focus on Larry first!" Faller's order was punctuated with the release of a half dozen new pokémon.

On the matter of conviction, none of the others present could argue against Larry. What they could do, however, was fight. Giacomo released several of his remaining squad members, with those in the league following suit. Three pokémon was manageable, but Larry couldn't win in a battle of over twenty versus six. That was no different than a brawl, but it didn't give Larry an excuse not to work. With a wave of his good hand, his flamigo and altaria completed his squad. "Exactly as you were trained," Larry requested as his komala crawled up to his shoulder.

The little pokémon waved its log, causing clouds to form inside. Larry's good hand gripped onto the pokémon firmly. It was the only thing that would keep his feet on the ground should things get desperate. Unlike Looker, he didn't favor engaging in combat physically with his pokémon when possible. His team was being thrown to the pyroars and they all knew it. "If this is the job I have to do, so be it," Larry announced, taking a step forward so that he stood in front of and under the gale his starraptor was blowing. "No more tricks. Come on."

The rain dance komala had started finished. Immediately, the indoor rain was caught by the gale Larry was kicking up, sending biting droplets in the direction of the enemy.

It wasn't a damaging attack, but Larry's foes took this as their cue to strike. The police split into three squads of two and charged with their fire-types, undeterred by the rain. Just as Larry had expected their interference, they had trained to work in adverse weather conditions. The League staff formed a fourth cell, charging forward with their various brutish pokémon. Giacomo wasn't charging, but Larry could tell he was waiting for an opportunity to take a potshot at his team, or perhaps try his luck attacking Larry directly again. Larry took a deep breath, focusing on what the most important items on his to-do list were. Geeta wasn't the only one who had been training for this moment. "Tailwind ten. Hyperdrill five. Raging bull five. Dragon dance one. Steel wing four. Liquidate two."

Larry's initial commands were quiet, no different from the already soft normal speaking voice he used. It was swallowed up in the rage of fire and pokémon screams to his foes, but his team understood every word and responded with moves accordingly, in part thanks to komala repeating them in its own language. Larry held his position as various moves clashed, each member of his team holding back three or four attacks with strikes of their own. Dodging wasn't an option while he was standing here. Every incoming threat had to be categorized and responded to appropriately. Every pokémon that knew the move he called out was expected to use it, with the following number being the expected number of commands before a command for that pokémon was delivered again. Larry spoke without pause, his komala the only pokémon not struggling to hold off the wave of incoming attacks. The reason for this became apparent when a growlithe managed to slip behind dudunsparce with quick attack to attempt to bring Larry down directly. Larry didn't react, allowing his komala to leap off his shoulder and turn a block with protect into sending the growlithe flying with trailblaze. The pokémon was back on his shoulder as Larry issued three more orders.

To his opponents, Larry probably didn't look like he was doing anything. He only visibly reacted to strays or Giacomo's pokémon attempting to sneak up behind them. While the man had a few full restores on his person, applying them when every one of his pokémon except komala was actively fighting was practically impossible. The second best thing he could do from afar was toss out berries for his team to grab in the milliseconds of freedom from moves they were granted. Some of the growlithes were called back or began to fall as his team launched brutal attacks without pause. His flamigo darted in and out of every fight, its unknotted neck allowing it to explode into any pokémon Larry's team had trouble with. Dudunsparce and tauros were raging demons, demanding attention lest the trainers of their opponents get run over themselves. Altaria and starraptor kept the gale up while dealing with the smaller threats and Giacomo's advances. It would have been a perfect plan had Larry and his team been machines.

Giacomo was blown away by Larry's stubbornness, to the point that he was forgetting to contribute in the crucial openings the man was leaving. He'd seen firsthand what the gym leader could do when he got serious, but to control his entire team at that level was superhuman. But that wasn't what was holding Giacomo's attention as he watched opening after opening slip away without input on his part. Larry was a burning star incinerating everything around him, but his star was dying. Whatever fuel he had keeping him going, Larry was using all of it right now. In that moment, Giacomo understood what it meant to give everything you had to someone else's cause, and the spectacle of the dying star shamed the admin into inaction beyond the occasional shadow ball. Penny had given him another order that hadn't made any sense and he'd been ignoring up to this point, an order that only really made sense now that he could see Penny's prediction coming true.

If you happen to wind up facing an elite four member, especially Larry, don't let them win or lose. We're all on the same side, they just don't realize it yet.

Every pokémon that fell on the enemy's side was replaced with two more. The semi-circle that each group had formed around Larry was being closed slowly. Tsking, Larry quietly ordered his circle to compress more and more until he could almost reach out and touch each individual fight with his hands. Fire grazed his suit as komala was stretched to its limit trying to block every attack. He was going to lose. Faller and Giacomo were going to get away. That was alright. What happened in the next few minutes was irrelevant so long as Geeta finished her job. Still, there was something Larry could do to help ensure that was the case. Between dudunsparce and tauros, most of the desks aside from the central computer had been obliterated, leaving parts all over the damp floor. The only thing this safety hazard in the making needed was a little encouragement. "Thunder two. Protect two. Repeat. Repeat."

Dudunsparce raised its tail to the sky as the rest of his team protected themselves. The pokémon took several flamethrower attacks for its trouble, but it responded with streaks of lightning that immediately blew out all the lighting in the room and shocked all the pokémon closest to Larry. Red lights followed the first silence in some minutes as the police confirmed which pokémon had been knocked out from the vicious assault. It was a nice trick, but dudunsparce wouldn't have the stamina to do it again, especially now that his foes were wary of it. The bright side was that he'd turned the floor in front of him into a bed of electricity. Neither side was willing to approach for a moment as they determined what the most effective response would be.

Giacomo broke the stalemate with a shadow ball directed at Larry. Altaria blocked it without a command, but the strike prompted the police to look at him for the first time in the fight, as if they just noticed his assistance. The admin wasn't sure himself what Penny really wanted, but he couldn't let the fight stall out so that one side found the answer before him. "Come on! Aren't the police supposed to be strong or something? We're losing!"

"We're detectives, not a military," Faller corrected as he withdrew another pokémon. "You'd be surprised how much of our job is paperwork."

Despite the wry attempt at humor, Faller maintained quiet confidence. All parties could tell that Larry was on his last legs. In the darkened tunnel, the impeccably straight posture of the businessman had disappeared, replaced with a hunch and several wounds that on their own would merit a week or two off of work. To Larry, that was acceptable. This was where his job was always supposed to end. "Everyone. Do what you need to do to stay standing. And thank you." As Faller's squads surged forward again, Larry released his pokémon to behave as they saw fit. There was little else he could do without the benefit of clear sight.

Larry maintained his position even as pokémon continued to pour through and attempt to bring him down. This was alright. He had done everything that he needed to do. He had finished his job. So why did the pit in his stomach remain? Larry wished it would go away already. The last thing he needed in the afterlife was regrets over his performance. Just as he was wondering how he could resolve this last issue on his calendar, some of the central computer screens flickered to life. "Hey! Anyone alive over there?! Giacomo! Anyone? Respond!"

Penny's face appeared to match the frantic questions she'd asked, alarm lights reflecting off of her dusty glasses. "I know there's signs of life in there! Answer me! You're all gonna die if you don't respond!"

Faller raised a hand at that threat, and the police backed off. Giacomo and the League Staff took a moment longer to respond, but they let up on their assault as well. Larry allowed himself to breathe as his pokémon panted heavily around him. His last nerve had been working overtime for that final stretch of the battle. His pokémon were equally winded, but they outdid themselves by standing proudly where he'd left them. They'd done their jobs to the letter, just as he trained them. The thought almost made him wish Penny hadn't interrupted the moment. "Explain yourself, Penny," Faller ordered, still ready to resume his assault.

"Nobody died? Thank Arceus, we got in in time. This is Penny from the radio tower relay station, talking to the underground tunnel relay station. I just got the signal that your station is shut down with my USB. Good work, Giacomo."

"I got you, chief!" Giacomo threw up a peace sign that was mostly ignored.

"In any case, listen very closely. I see police, League staff, and Larry. All of you need to evacuate right now. This whole city is about to implode. Take everyone with you who you can."

"Penny, I don't think you understand your situation. The top champion is about to trigger a world-ending level event, and you yourself may be her collaborator for all we know. Try to understand this from the perspective of those who watched you run away from us, whose friends you allowed to kick these events off in the first place." His tone was shockingly diplomatic given the situation, a trick Larry had never seen fit to learn for himself.

Penny's brow furrowed as she bit her lip in annoyance. "Look, you said yourself this isn't the time to argue about the law or whatever. I have a plan to stop La Primera and save the region, but it won't work if you all don't save-" The video feed suddenly blurred and cut out for a moment as the ground rumbled beneath everyone's feet.

Penny's staticky voice tried to say something, but everyone was more focused on keeping their balance in reality. Several officers fell over and Larry was forced to lean on his tauros to stay standing. Several other pokémon let out anxious wails, as if anticipating a loss that hadn't happened yet. "Holy shit…" Came a vaguely familiar voice from somewhere off camera as the image on screen gradually refocused itself.

When everyone could see each other again, Penny had panned out the camera to reveal that Eri, Ortega, and Hassel of all people were staring in disbelief at something Larry and the others couldn't see on camera. "Hey! What's going on?! Are you guys okay?" Giacomo was the first to break the silence between the two groups.

Penny turned the camera she was holding to face outward without saying a word. The sight they were all so focused on was a building engulfed entirely in magma and flames. Based on the rough position, Larry presumed that it was the final relay station that was currently crashing to the ground and sending a massive plume of tera crystals, lava, and smoke everywhere, prompting a fresh wave of tremors in the tunnels. Somewhere in the distance from the carnage, a building that could only be at the center of the city lit up with tera energy, indicating the final death of the barrier. "Damn it. We're too late… Mela…Damn it!" Penny's voice was choked for a moment before she turned the camera back to herself. "No, no no no. I'm not too late yet. You all! You saw that, right? Something terrible just happened at the third relay station. Put your damn differences aside and go help them! This is all pointless if we don't make it out alive!"

Faller was hesitating, unsure if this was some sort of ploy by the enemy. "And what do you intend to do?" Larry asked when nobody spoke up. "Why should you care about anyone else caught in that mess?" Flamboyant as it was, the relay building exploding was as good as shutting it down in Larry's book.

"I have to stop whoever did that before they get to the city hall. If you don't do the same, you'll be putting your boss' plan at risk. Whoever did that is trying to make sure nobody gets out of here alive. If I hadn't been cycling the power on my relay station, that could have taken out the whole city with the surge of tera energy routing back into the source. When the person who did that realizes what I did, they'll go straight for the town hall."

Larry didn't know if that was true, but the conviction in Penny's voice struck him as genuine. He hadn't told her or anyone else about Atticus, but she'd been in contact with Arven, who likely knew more about what happened to his former classmate than Larry did. As the true nature of what seeing Geeta's shadow revealed itself to him, Hassel suddenly moved in on the camera to back up the claim. "Larry, you seem to be hanging in there. I'd like to request a change in plans. I'll take these young'uns to the town hall myself. Don't worry, we're just going to stop anyone from interfering, right?" A begrudging nod from the other team star admins present. "See, nothing to worry about. Why don't you handle the grunt work one more time, alright?"

"Hold it. Larry isn't going anywhere, and my men should have-"

"The men who are still trying to climb to the top of this tower?" Ortega asked idly. "They've been encouraged to flee. Idiots. You should have raised a better team. I'll handle the police work here. That's the stupid scientist talking, by the way."

A representative from every faction was now telling them to put aside their own differences, though Ortega and Faller were hardly on good terms. Giacomo was all in, but Larry and Faller were still glaring at each other with no small amount of distrust. "By the time I found Geeta, I'd made too many condolences on my dream to ever achieve it in a meaningful way. That woman shines more brightly than any tera crystal. Whatever saboteur you're talking about couldn't possibly slow her down."

As he spoke, the twinge of doubt in Larry's stomach did a backflip. It was his job to handle the threats Geeta couldn't see. The actions of his enemies had in fact indicated that there was foul play afoot among them. Looker would probably be all over it if he was here. But he was fighting a different battle. If there was still a job that Larry had to do, this could be it. But that wasn't possible. Geeta would win. "If they aren't stopped, nobody will get what they want. Now that the other relay stations aren't an option, they'll go right for city hall. No, town hall? Damn it, it's not important. You don't have the means to get there first, but you can help everyone there evacuate. I wouldn't be asking you all if it wasn't to save lives."

That at least was probably true. Larry knew Penny bore no affection for him. The same might even be said for Hassel, the only man comparable to Larry in age on their team. "We went to this station to hamper each other and stay out of our boss' hair," Faller pointed out.

"And you've done a wonderful job playing in your sandbox while my friend went up in flames," Penny complimented sarcastically. "It doesn't matter whose side you're on right now. That source is going to blow if someone besides Geeta doesn't get to it before the traitor does."

Larry glanced at his starraptor. The pokémon was heavily damaged and in no shape to carry him. The rest of his team wasn't doing much better. He was for all intents and purposes out of this fight. But Giacomo and Faller were looking defiantly at the burning building Penny had turned the camera back to. They still had a spark in their eyes, and it wasn't a reflection from the building. They looked at this situation and felt that there was some hope that they could turn it around, some blind faith in their abilities that their leaders didn't even have. It made Larry want to laugh all over again, but he spoke instead. "Geeta will win," Larry announced. "I already threw my life away for her sake. I have nothing to gain by getting in her way now. She will win and remove all this suffering from ever existing in the first place."

"We won't let you stop us from trying to help, man," Giacomo warned, already fishing in his pocket for a fresh pokéball.

"Then go," Larry requested before another fight could break out. "I can't fight you any longer without risking losing my coworkers. I gave my life to her, not theirs. If that's what you want to see, then fine, but if you're really planning on listening to her, I'd get going." Larry stepped out of the way of the main entrance he came from, returning his stubborn pokémon before they could protest his decision. In the end, he would always have to stand alone.

Giacomo immediately took off, not waiting for anyone else's permission. Faller watched him go before marching up to Larry. "What do you expect me to do here?" he asked the elite four member. "Forgive your heinous actions and walk away because one brat said I should?"

"If you value your men, I'd say yes. If you don't, I'd say yes because you followed Looker's orders to come here without question," Larry responded indifferently, ignoring the pain signals ordering his body to collapse to the ground. "That's what it means to give your life up for something."

There was no expectation of remorse on Faller's part, but he still managed to affix Larry with a disappointed glare. "He can barely stand. We'd be wasting time coddling him," Maryn spoke up for the League Staff.

It was perhaps the nicest thing Larry had heard from one of his human subordinates in recent memory. Faller's steel gaze only flitted back to his team for an instant, assessing that their combat readiness wasn't too far removed from Larry's sorry condition. More importantly, Faller's xtransceiver chose that moment to ping a message. "We're being called to town hall," One of the officers filled in helpfully.

The only thing Faller could reply to that was a curt nod. His enemy might have been in front of him, but they stood on common ground when it came to their direct reports. "Come on, then. There's nothing worth fighting against down here anymore."

Larry didn't move until he was certain that he was alone again. Once this was confirmed, he slumped to the ground against a partially destroyed desk. The stress of the workday was assaulting him all at once. Even the Paldea League had mandatory break times implemented to keep morale up. "Is now the time to take a nap? There's a traitor out there who's threatening your boss, you know?"

"You know that traitor is your friend, right? Your grand plan is to sic a guy like me on him? Give it a rest, kid. My role is done. Well done convincing the others with your unverifiable information. Now that the barrier is down it's over."

"You and I both know it's verifiable," Hassel spoke up, hands on his hips like he was admonishing a student. "Up with you already. That detective only left you alone because he knew there was still fight in you, didn't he?"

Larry tsked. Penny might have been fooled, but Hassel knew the businessman too well. There was no point in quitting if there was any doubt that the job was actually done. "You already know where you have to go," Larry waved off. "You don't need me."

"You're the only one of us who actually fought with Atticus. Whoever is controlling my friend, you're the best shot at keeping him occupied until we can get to them."

So he was to be someone else's pawn right after declaring himself a free agent for however long the world had left. Larry had frequently been accused of having a terminal addiction to work, but even he didn't see the value in involving himself any further than he had. Faller and Giacomo wouldn't make it to the town hall in time, and neither could he. That was all he'd been assigned to do. "If you're wrong, Geeta and the others will kill each other. Nobody will win," Penny ominously predicted. "After pooling information, that's the only logical conclusion. If you want to prevent that, then get off your butt and help us!"

"Penny, we can't waste any more time here!" Someone Larry vaguely recognized as Eri spoke up from off camera.

The leader of Team Star fixed Larry with one more hard look that was mirrored by Hassel. "If you're the guy Geeta thinks you are, you won't wait to die down here." With that, she cut the video feed.

Larry was tempted to laugh aloud for the second time that hour. How could someone like Penny have any idea what a being like Geeta thought of him? She was as readable as a rock. Still, this was the job he'd accepted, and as he mulled over the facts in his head, it became clear that he hadn't upheld his end of the deal. Larry glanced at the pokéball in his singed hand. He didn't recall picking it up, but some part of him was obviously still intent on fighting for the symbol now burned into his hand. "I can't say I have much left to offer. It's probably a waste of time. But that never stopped me before, did it?" Larry couldn't see them, but he could sense the agreement of his team as he picked himself up off the ground. "Fina. I'll finish your job. But don't expect me to be happy about it."

---

15 Minutes Ago

A raucous drumbeat thumped in Looker's skull. Rather than the slight annoyance that was his previous experience with the tera phenomenon, this was pounding waves of pain that brought his hand involuntarily to his head every moment or two. He wasn't sure if this was because of prolonged exposure to the core of the tera phenomenon or because of the catalyst he'd added to the core or because the relay station diffusing the power of the source were failing, but all were narrowing his focus when he needed to lock in the most. The earthquake in his mind palace would have to wait until he could deal with his uninvited guests in the real world.

Nemona had been the second intruder on the premises, which by itself would have been an acceptable risk had her eyes not been so hollow. When Looker beat her in a mockery of a battle over a month ago, she had been frustrated, indignant at her treatment. When she was left behind by the day's following events, she had been focused, determined to make her worth known. The Nemona that had greeted Arven and Juliana with a pawmot's discharge was someone else. A blazing fire in her eyes was frozen in time, only the reflection of the tera floor coming back to Looker's vision when he looked into them. Something had taken the drive she'd kindled herself and hijacked it, rendering the bearer of the flame nothing more than car with a brick dropped on the gas pedal. She could cause plenty of problems, but there was no control or purpose behind its drive. The most likely conclusion was that she'd gone mad, but he had no time to communicate a new plan to Julian from his position.

The dueling miraidons continued to ignore their trainers as Nemona stalked forward menacingly. Looker had been spared by her greeting thanks to his retreat up the stairs leading to the town hall building, but his growlithe probably wouldn't be able to roar her away this time. Arven's team formed a semi-circle in front of him while Juliana consolidated zoroark's illusions into a single version of herself with the pokémon at her side. It was a subtle reminder to Nemona that Juliana had been fending off everything Arven could muster with a single member of her team that the rival ignored. "Get the hell out of here, Arven. She's mine," Nemona rasped, her body expressing the side effects of sprinting to the town hall that her mind was ignoring.

Arven shrugged, gripping his mostly terastilized arm in a subtle tell of the pain just that action caused him. "Don't have to tell me twice. Have fun you two."

Juliana shot Looker a glance. He was being asked to fend Arven off in spite of the clear difference in their current capabilities not even Juliana fully understood. That was still the best possible move given the circumstances, but it didn't give Looker a way to fight off five trained pokémon the way Juliana had with twenty percent of the fighting force. As Juliana and Nemona locked eyes, Looker refocused on his mission. They needed to buy a bit more time to draw out their real target without being overwhelmed. Just because nobody here was friendly to their main quarry didn't mean that they couldn't ruin the plan. "What is it you intend to do, Arven?" Looker hailed as he placed himself firmly between the capital building entrance and Arven.

"I lied to you on the day we met, sir," Arven answered as he stepped in front of his pokémon to take the first step of the stairs for himself. "I said that I wanted to stay out of Julie's way because I couldn't think of what I could do to help. That was never true. I just didn't want to have to commit to what it would take to become someone with the ability to help her. I knew where I came from, and I knew the tera phenomenon had a source here. It was all over dad's notes if you knew where to look. But I didn't want to accept that all I was to him was another way to bring his paradise into reality. Heh, guess that doesn't matter now. I have the power to make you step aside, and that's all that I ever needed from my old man." The terastilized hand was levelled at Looker's chest.

Looker was fast, but not fast enough to dodge a bullet at point-blank range. That sort of feat was better performed by someone who had a full team of monsters on his side like Larry. Letting his growlithe take the shot for him wouldn't be an option, not again. A hand found his earpiece, the subtle movement causing Arven's arm to twitch. "You've matured a lot this month, Arven. Faster than I would say you should have. The boy I met in that cave couldn't decide who he was. He was too worried about what others would think, what his friends would do. Do you think casting that aside makes you stronger than him?"

"It makes me strong enough to keep Julie alive," Arven responded emotionlessly. "Step aside. This story isn't about you."

"Then shoot," Looker ordered. "If you're going to take lives to solve this crisis, you might as well start with me, because-" Looker's sentence was cut off by Arven firing a beam through his chest.

Had Looker been standing there, he'd have been terastilized instantly. Instead, the beam collided harmlessly with the wall and dissipated, as if the building itself was absorbing the energy. "Coward," Arven spat, proceeding further up the steps with his pokémon on his heels. "Don't waste my time."

"It's hardly a waste," Looker countered, emerging from behind the nearest pillar to the front entrance. "I'm speaking with your best interests in my heart. Juliana will die if you enter this building." Looker would too, but that wasn't something the man figured Arven was particularly concerned about.

"Are you trying to say I can't control this power? After you've seen what I can do now?" Arven spat, eyes narrowing as he concentrated on building energy in his arm.

The boy snapped his fingers, and all five of his pokémon were instantly terastilized. Shards rained in all directions as the miraidons roared, their battle increasing in intensity as the very air around them was infused with more tera energy mixed with the stench of ozone. Five forms glimmered behind Arven, making it difficult to look at him directly. "My father wanted me to be a monster for his sick dream. I didn't want to believe that, but Geeta showed me the truth. I have more right to put down his work than anyone else here, most of all Julie."

"And I'm telling you that you won't be able to do it!" Looker argued as a third illusion was shot through. He was running out of pillars to emerge from and borrowing zoroark would only work so long as Arven was focused on Looker himself. If he didn't give Arven something to look at, the boy would be able to pinpoint where his voice was coming from. If he did that, Arven would realize that the game was already over for him and start causing further problems. "Not you, not Penny, and not Geeta! This is already OVER!" Arven paused when Penny's name was thrown out.

It was a hunch on Looker's part, but there was no way Arven would have approached directly if he didn't have someone doing something about the relay stations. Another property of the barrier that kept people without affinity for tera energy out was the way it shackled those who could use tera energy from interacting with the source, a double-edged sword that had likely allowed it to remain intact up until now. The city was smart enough to regulate the power drawn from the source should any tampering occur. Aside from the AI and him, Penny was the only viable third option Looker was aware of. "She's just a back-up. My objective is to destroy the tera phenomenon. That's the only way I can keep her safe."

Many of his fellow officers would have given up by this point, understandably so. Arven had fully committed himself to this fight whether he would live or die, meaning that no amount of wordplay would sway him from his mission. Detectives weren't supposed to purse justice if it meant putting additional lives at needles risk, but the stakes were too high this time. That left the only option remaining being reframing Arven's current actions to be in violation of his mission. "You think I bluff?" Looker accused, emerging from another pillar on the far side of the hall entrance. "I assure you, I am deathly serious. If successful, my plan will extricate the tera phenomenon from our world. You, in contrast, seek this city and your own destruction under Geeta's influence. Juliana will not live under your plan, as she won't leave this city while the source exists. You persist despite knowing this, meaning that your purpose is a lie." The earpiece in Looker's ear crackled. He was short on time and bandwidth.

"Don't try to trick me!" Arven demanded, though he hesitated for a moment before pulling the trigger again. "I know who I am now! This is who I'm supposed to be!"

"Be more!" Looker ordered, stepping out from the closest pillar to the door again. "You hear me?! Be more than that! What expectations others have are of no consequence when lives are on the line! In those moments, trainers like you are called on by no man. No man called me down here from the international police, but if I hadn't stepped outside my prescribed role, Juliana would be dead." At that claim, Arven fired again, missing for the first time into the nearby pillar.

"You're wrong. I would have saved her sooner had you not interfered." Arven's terastilization had reached his collarbone, veins of tera crystal creeping toward his neck and giving his voice a slight rasp.

"I'm telling you that this gift of yours has more value than what it was given as," Looker continued, taking a step down the stairs. "And the people who gave it to you are the ones who are most deserving of learning that fact. Allow Juliana to speak to you on this matter," He was pleading now, but Arven had already hesitated once. There wouldn't be a second chance if he committed to this course now.

"Let her show you why she chose not to bring you that day, and why miraidon brought her to you anyways. She knows you'll do anything for her, and in her eyes, you've already lived up to everything she could ever want you to be. Every step forward you take now will only prove her wrong. Let her show you why."

Arven hesitated as Looker approached. His team moved between him and Looker, but Arven called them off, dispelling their terastilizations in the process. It was a depressingly risky gambit, but Looker could only rely on words in situations like this. His opponent had to believe in his words even more than Looker did. "You'll show me what this plan of yours is when Juliana's done with that damn champion," Arven warned. "And if it's terrible, I'll make sure you're a statue before I die."

"I have no intention of keeping the truth from you," Looker pledged. "I only wanted to avoid you charging in recklessly." The only person Looker could allow to enter these doors hadn't arrived yet, after all.

The boy scoffed but made no move to pass Looker as he joined Arven's side to watch Juliana's battle. Had he made a move, Looker wouldn't have been able to react without seriously injuring Arven. He had no intention of taking a life, but the tera phenomenon had to be stopped by any means necessary. The parasite had been allowed to fester in this region for far too long, and the missing piece that thought it could remove it still hadn't appeared. Growlithe and Zoroark appeared at the door, still casually guarding it in case Arven changed his mind. The trainer paid them no heed, focusing instead on the women squaring off in the plaza.

When two trainers locked eyes, a battle was inevitable. It was an unspoken rule among serious pokémon trainers that was so deeply ingrained into the psyche of those who walked the trainer's path that it didn't need to be taught. Even here, at the bottom of the world, the rules were unchanged. Juliana met Nemona's challenge evenly. Her zoroark was distracted helping out Looker, meaning that she couldn't easily trick Nemona out of this fight. Not that she had any intention of doing so. "One on one. Keep it simple," Juliana requested, a pokéball expanding in her palm.

Nemona smirked. "One's all I need. Pawmot, no mercy."

In response, Juliana released her skeledirge. "Alright. You can do this, Coco. Do something cool."

Looker didn't have to know the history between these two trainers to know that they'd squared off many times before. The more often trainers fought, the longer it usually took for them to get started when things got serious. The database of previous battles between them was so large to draw on that it forced additional considerations of the situation that often ended up being unnecessary in Looker's experience. Nemona came to this conclusion first. "Dig," She ordered, her pokémon burrowing under the ground immediately.

"Find a safe spot," Juliana requested. "And use torch song on miraidon."

Coco moved to stand over a patch of terastilized earth, likely with some amount of teraite under it, before launching a torch song at the battling dragons. The damage was minimal by design. Juliana couldn't do enough damage to see Coco's song draw the ire of the legendary pokémon. All she really wanted was the benefits of torch song's use. Pawmot came up a small way away from Coco, ready to strike out at it. Because it couldn't come up directly under Coco, however, the pokémon had enough time to roll awkwardly out of the way. "Discharge!" Nemona ordered, sprinting around to get a better angle of the fight.

"Torch song," Juliana ordered, her expression of joy gone and her body unmoving.

Pokemon battles were meant to be enjoyed. Even the pokémon themselves seemed to gain excitement from giving their all to get a win under ideal circumstances. Juliana and Coco by comparison moved like machines. Coco took the attack directly and fired a boosted torch song back, which pawmot caught the edge of. The damage was low, but it was enough for another special attack boost. "One more," Juliana requested, not giving her foe time to rest."

Pawmot was still recovering from the previous dodge and didn't have time to get out of the way again. "Protect!" Nemona ordered, raising one arm like she was the one being attacked.

The torch song crashed harmlessly across pawmot's shield, but this was what Juliana wanted. The boost was a secondary objective at this point. "Encore."

Instantly, a spotlight fell on Pawmot. Some form of singing that could vaguely be described as cheering came from Coco's throat, and pawmot found itself locked into using protect. Nemona tsked. "You think that's enough to stop us? Pawmot, dodge out of the way until that wears off!"

"Attack miraidon with torch song," Juliana ordered, now ignoring Nemona.

"Come on! Fight fair, will you?"

"Are you saying I shouldn't have been prepared for this battle?" Juliana asked as torch song grazed the miraidons over and over, the ineffective typing of the move intentionally failing to do significant damage. "Are you saying that you don't want me to give it my all? I'm sorry to break it to you, Nemona, but you've never been able to make me give it my all. If I try hard enough, I can come up with a strategy that will break any simplistic thought that could run through your head. But you'll keep trying. No matter how many times I won, you never gave up. That's why I'm not happy to see you, Nemona. Not because I don't value you as a friend, but because you won't leave me alone until you get hurt."

"Screw that!" Nemona sneered, pulling out a pokéball.

"You're going to switch?" Juliana asked, raising an eyebrow. "Did you not learn anything from Looker?"

"This is no sanctioned battle," Nemona spat back. "I have to win no matter what my pride says. No, I have no choice but to win. If I don't win, then you'll-"

"You'll what? Do you even know why you came down here in the first place?" Juliana challenged, stepping in front of her own pokémon to glower at her foe. "Why did you follow me down here when I clearly told you not to, again and again and again? Do you not care about me the way that I care about you? That's sad. Even if it is the goal of rivals to get in each other's way, I thought you'd be better than that. My fault, I guess, for thinking you could decide something for yourself that didn't include battling."

"Don't mock me! I'll-"

"You'll what?!" Juliana interrupted again in a strained voice, Coco rearing its head to stare Nemona down. "Run away into another battle? When I needed you Nemona, you weren't there for me. You know why I seem bored? Because when I use an optimal strategy, no amount of fun you're having is going to change the outcome, Nemona. I don't have fun limiting myself by battling on your level, and I definitely won't do it when there's so much at stake. Hey, when the tera phenomenon got worse, who asked you to step up with me to make more expeditions to Area Zero? Who did you look in the eye and turn away because it would take time away from your battling time, from telling me to pretend to be on your level so you could feel good about yourself? You can't blame that person for not wanting to bring you along this time either, Nemona. This battle was over before it started."

Nemona's angry retort died in her throat, as if she wanted to argue the facts of Juliana's testimony but couldn't figure out how to spin the truth into a lie. "No," she decided, shaking her head. "It's not about wins and losses. You have to stop this right now before more people die."

"I couldn't agree more."

Looker's body went rigid in relief tainted by fear as the voice of his target crossed his ears. Geeta was posturing in the center of the courtyard, observing the destruction around her like it was a piece of abstract art. She could only have teleported there, abusing a massive amount of tera energy to counteract the interference caused by the city and destabilizing the atmosphere further. The earpiece crackled in exasperation. Two were down. Everyone was trying to start the final round too soon. As long as Mela's relay station stood, Looker couldn't win. "Damn it. What do you mean not yet? We can't- Fine, whatever, I'll try. Over and out." Disdain for their enemy came off of Arven in waves as Looker placed the earpiece in his pocket. What came next would be determined by his talents alone.

"La Primera," Juliana greeted formally with a small bow that ignored Nemona's frazzled state. "You're early."

"When I saw two of my brightest champions preparing to slug it out in an unsanctioned battle, I felt compelled to step in," Geeta admitted with a small apologetic smile like she was having technical difficulties during a large presentation. "You should know better than that, young lady. There's refusing to give up and then there's letting your pokémon get hurt for no reason."

Nemona was frozen in place, her mind scrambling to competency before her body could catch up. "B-but La Primera, she'll-"

"I know what she wants to do. You let me handle that." Geeta pressed a thumb to Nemona's forehead, causing a bright light to emit from where contact was made. The top champion sighed. "You've been exposed to too much tera energy. It conflicts with your DNA, you poor thing. Why waste what time you have left on such an undignified performance? That's no way for Paldea's future prospects to shine."

Nemona had no response, even as Geeta removed her thumb from the younger trainer. She sank to her knees, her mind somewhere far away from the underground city. "The hell did you do?!" Arven accused angrily. "You said-"

"Never use your power on another person, yes, I said that Arven. That applies to the breadth of what you're capable of given the short time I was able to elucidate on the nature of your existence. What I can do is another matter. This is therapy, of a sort. With any luck, she'll hang on long enough for the ambient tera energy to leave her system. If it doesn't work… well, that's not important either."

The three people she spoke to understood the stakes and what Geeta was trying to do. Looker had teased that information out of the AI after intense negotiations that made it clear that the AI's plan wasn't going to happen. It hadn't been happy about that, but the end of the world could loosen even metallic lips. Telling the admins would have only caused problems they didn't have time to resolve. Arven had found out over the course of Geeta teaching him to use his power. It had inadvertently shown him why he needed to keep his teacher's strength in check. "You're not getting in here," Juliana announced for all of them.

"You puzzle me, Juliana," Geeta admitted, taking Nemona's chin in her thumb and forefinger as she inspected her champion for signs of terastilization. "I put a great deal of faith in you in allowing you to help investigate Area Zero. I even let you abscond with the AI, foolish as that was. But to think that you'd disregard your plan simply because of the word of another adult over my advice is frankly a bit discouraging. You had so many playthings to entertain yourself with, and now you tell me that you're bored? What did you expect that to do to poor Nemona?"

"Detective Looker showed me an alternative I hadn't considered," Juliana admitted as she withdrew several pokéballs. "And I'm going to stake everything on it. Don't threaten my friend."

"So you still call someone you treat like less than dirt your friend, someone whose life could be ended in an instant by your enemy yet you remain steadfast. Fascinating, but that's all it is, Juliana Violet. I must confess that, fascinating as this detour has been, it's time for us to return to the main path. There will be no battle here today. Just as you do not wish to demean yourself with a battle against Nemona, I do not intend to wield this vast power for a blood sport." With a wave of Geeta's hand tera energy in the air coalesced around the pokéballs in Juliana's grasp, sealing the locking mechanism and sending the girl flying onto her back at Arven and Looker's feet.

"To me, this struggle of yours to save the region was nothing more than a pastime."

The top champion's entire body began to glow with tera energy. It started from her fingertips and streamed across her limbs, converting the woman into something like a living power grid. The elegance with which she controlled the flow of energy was in stark contrast to the crude veins of crystal running up Arven's arm. Looker figured out what was coming just fractions of a second after Arven did. The boy raised his terastilized arm and a shield of energy formed in front of him. Without thinking, Looker yanked Juliana back with one arm and dove behind the trainer, gripping Arven's other shoulder tightly to avoid being thrown off. Juliana, a fraction of a second too slow to sense the danger, was spared only by Looker's quick thinking and quicker reaction. Still, he wasn't perfect.

Juliana howled in pain as one of her legs was caught by the wave of tera energy exploding from where Geeta was standing. The energy passed harmlessly over Nemona's head before arcing outward, a controlled explosion that crashed into Arven's shield and Juliana before breaking against the steps to the city hall. Arven collapsed to his knees, panting as the sparkling white tera energy receded back into Geeta. A perfect tera statue had replaced Juliana's leg, her expression frozen in pain and confusion. "I can't seem to get rid of you, detective," Geeta admitted as the two fighting miraidons crashed into the ground as terastilized statues. "Your tenacity and willingness to fight knowing what comes for you vexes me."

"What… what did you do?!" Arven cried, trying and failing to rise to his feet. The effort of simply blocking Geeta's attack with tera energy had drained everything he had. The terastilization on his arm had lost its glow, looking more like black rocks dotting his arm rather than a brilliant energy source.

"Oh, let's not play this game. Juliana used her pokémon to create an illusion as soon as she detected me," Geeta waved off. "Though I admit Looker's reaction was well-executed, she's waiting to ambush me behind the nearest pillar. I thought I told you this game was over, Juliana."

Juliana didn't validate Geeta's accusation with a response, but the lack of change in the girl's facial expression told Geeta all she needed to know. Dropping his act, Looker fingered the earpiece in his pocket. Getting a chance to see what Geeta could do might count as information relevant enough for contact. But the relay station wasn't down yet. He needed to stall a bit longer.

"It doesn't matter because you intend to prevent these events from every happening, correct?" Looker presumed as he stepped away from Arven to get between Geeta and the door in Juliana's absence.

The eyes meeting Looker's question were filled with pity that would have enraged the detective under different circumstances. It was hard enough just to look at Geeta directly without raising an arm to block the light coming off of her. "I see you've consulted the AI's innermost thoughts, then. Well, you're right. I will use the source to go back to when this city was the center of the world. I will prevent the mistakes that led it to become the hellscape you see before you. What strife the world knows will not be bred from our avarice and desire for tera power. I'll tear the whole system down with my own two hands."

"Along with our right to make that choice for ourselves," Looker countered, his hand finding his side. "I doubt that things will work out that way, Geeta."

"No, probably not," Geeta admitted. "But I will try as many times as I have to. When I first came to this time, I was bitter. I was meant to be the first person in history to successfully harness the power of tera energy to manipulate time. But time travel isn't what the movies tell you. I lived through every agonizing second of those thousands of years they flung me into the future, unable to act or speak. When I emerged, I was all but insane. Had Larry not found me first, I would be dead now."

"So you bided your time, learned about the region, and now you've decided this society is unworthy to continue?"

"Of course!" Geeta scoffed. "Nothing has changed between then and now. People still separate each other based solely on their uncontrollable differences. In the past, it was control of tera energy. Now, it's battle prowess, or intelligence, or strength, or any number of factors one has no control over. Take poor Nemona here, or Larry for that matter. They've been forced to stake their existence entirely on the value of their abilities and contributions to others, rather than being allowed to live for themselves. If I can go back and fix that, then things will be better."

"Or you'll make them worse in another way," Arven argued, finally rising to his feet. "I can't let you do this, Geeta. I have the power to stop this. You're going to regret teaching me how to use this."

"You have the power to show me what effort is necessary when training another tera energy user," Geeta corrected. "I did not show you how to harness the core's energy. You aren't strong enough by design. But I appreciate your attempt."

"Then why let them live?" Looker asked, motioning to the statues Geeta had created of the miraidons. "What compels you to care for those you intend to erase?"

"You misunderstand me," Geeta brushed off. "I don't like killing. Even if the act itself would be removed from history, I wouldn't be able to forget it. So I choose to keep that off of my conscious. Don't conflate that with mercy, detective. I will reset everything, even if I have to wait through every second again to do it."

Looker did some quick math in his head. The time they were supposed to give the core was far longer than how much time it would take Geeta to reach the core. His countermeasure wouldn't hold out long enough. "And Larry and the elite four are all okay with this?" Looker questioned.

Geeta began to walk forward as she responded, perhaps sensing the effort Looker was mentally going through to will her to stay put. "Probably not, with the exception of Larry. But they know they could not stop me, and they understand the desire to create a better world. Rest assured, no action you've taken here will lead to misfortune for you in the new timeline. I'll make certain of it."

"Arceus forbid we be allowed to make choices for ourselves…" Arven muttered. "You got a plan, detective? Juliana?" The trainer remained silent from her hiding place.

"Can you cause a distraction?" Looker asked.

"Maybe, but she'd stop me," Arven admitted. "We need something else to-"

As he was speaking, a building somewhere in the distance exploded. All three trainers and the top champion turned their attention to what Looker identified as one of the relay towers going up in flames for a moment before collapsing into another nearby building. It was the structure that Mela should have reached some time ago. For a terrible second the town hall was silent, then a deafening crash reached them as the building's life was prematurely ended. Had Mela decided to destroy the building? That wasn't like her. Either way, it was the opportunity Arven and Juliana needed. Arven whipped out an xtransceiver as a torch song was flung in Geeta's direction.

Geeta had been distracted by the collapsing building, but not nearly enough to prevent noticing a torch song heading her way. As she formed a tera shield to block the attack, the ground beneath her feet began to split and a wave of dark energy hurtled at her from her other flank, a joint effort from Juliana's other pokémon to catch her off balance. Looker muttered into his earpiece impatiently, waiting for news that was hesitating too long. As Geeta easily deflected the attacks and began bearing down on Juliana as she revealed herself in front of the town hall entrance, Looker's earpiece crackled to life one last time.

We're ready to receive our guest.

"You fools! All of this will become permanent if you stay in my way!" Geeta cried, more emotion in her voice than before.

The town hall lit up as the final barrier preventing entry disappeared. With no more force at work regulating the output of tera energy, even the hardy construction of the white building quickly began to succumb to the overwhelming tera energy force within it. Sparkling patches or terastilization lit up the building like a Christmas tree as it slowly began to terastilize itself. "All the more reason for you to stay your hand, Geeta!" Looker argued, getting in between Juliana and Geeta. Trying to stop the woman now was out of the question. All they could do was ensure her suspicion wasn't aroused. "Your subordinates could be burning to a crisp right now, could they not? Are you trying to say that doesn't move your heart?"

Geeta did pause before answering, Looker could at least give her that. But she shook her head just the same. "Tragic as that would be, I have no intention of stopping here. To stop here would be far more of an insult to their memory."

"I was concerned you might say something like that," Looker admitted. "Well, far be it from me to stop you. Arven, is it done?"

"Yeah, but I don't know how much good it'll do us," Arven admitted, standing by Looker.

Geeta narrowed her eyes. She was still exuding confidence, but the idea of Arven having someone he wanted to call in the current moment confused her. As she thought, the town hall building suddenly began to glow brighter, a sure sign that the third relay station had fallen. "There's no going back from here for us too," Looker pointed out. "We have to play with the cards we're dealt. We can't stop you, Geeta, but there is someone here who can."

"What do you…" Geeta's mouth hung open as she took a closer look at Looker. "You… what have you done?"

"I am ensuring an amicable solution is reached for all parties. I-" Looker's explanation was cut off by a wave of tera energy crashing into him, sending him flying into the wall.

There was no warning or time to defend himself, and unconsciousness overcame him immediately. His earpiece crackled and fizzed as Juliana and Arven tried to leap to the town hall's defense, only for the miraidons to suddenly stand in their way. Both had been terastilized and were now fiercely turning on their former trainers, the same madness that had overtaken Nemona's goodra harnessed and turned on them with Geeta's rage alone. "Do you have any idea what that man is capable of?! You- you- I won't let you do this again!"

Though she only had a partial understanding of the uncanny rage Geeta was meeting them with, Juliana knew that this meant Looker's gambit was starting to pay off. "Guess we're about to find out if it's enough to settle our tab, huh detective?" Juliana muttered as she squared off with her former partner.

The detective in question wasn't anywhere to be found. The destruction Geeta had caused stemmed from something her heightened senses had picked up when Looker was fiddling with his earpiece, practically begging for her to listen in. Looker had been talking to himself. No, he hadn't been here the entire time. She'd been so focused on seeing through zoroark's illusions that the idea one of her opponents wouldn't have been there in the first place never occurred to here. A zorua appeared in the small crater that Looker had been sent flying into, the top champion ignoring the destruction she'd caused in favor of sprinting desperately for the town hall entrance. Looker couldn't have figured out how to harness the source, even with the AI's help. There had to be another reason for this deception. Arven and Juliana attempted to get in Geeta's way, but she released her chesnaught without hesitation to remove even the slightest doubt that her two terastilized paradox pokémon would be able to guarantee her passage. "Let no one else enter! I must secure the source!"

Having heard everything from the relative safety of the source's location, Looker allowed himself a nod. Zorua being smacked around aside, things were going as close to plan as he could reasonably expect, and his pokémon would live to tell the tale. That was all that mattered to him. "Well then, are you ready for your final move?" the detective asked, glancing at the single laptop at his side.

The laptop was closed by a hand Looker had shaken for the first time just minutes ago. "Of course, detective. I've been ready for the last twelve years."