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Chapter 93
Part 3
Tallie didn't want to admit it in public, but she was already starting to miss Char.
While she loved her job, she couldn't see herself being a true team leader. Team leaders can't just get the job done. They can't just yell and squawk and complain to a higher authority whenever they weren't seeing eye-to-eye with something. True team leaders have to worry about being charismatic and persuasive on top of being competent. They have to be a figurehead, both to their team and to anyone outside looking in. They have to worry about being liked.
She didn't like being a team's figurehead. She liked being authoritative, yes, but only because she knew what she was talking about… sometimes. She liked making decisions and getting results. But the whole business with other Pokémon looking up to you, the whole business about representing the team in public and everything it stood for… that's what Char was always good at. That was his role. He was the ember of Team Ember. Especially now that he'd evolved and acted more… adult than Tallie had ever expected from the somewhat-insecure little lizard he once was.
Without Char there, things were beginning to feel lonely.
Of course, she'd never, ever admit that to anyone in public. (And it didn't help that Otto was now gone too. He was always pretty good at making her feel she was right where she belonged on the team.)
"Hey, uh… they're here," said a meek voice from outside Tallie's door.
Tallie stood in Char's room for once. Eva had gone off somewhere, doing her own "personal investigation" as she claimed. So in order to put herself into the mindset of a team leader, she tried locking herself in there, trying to imagine herself in Char's position – trying to imagine herself with his sense of heart and will.
And… it just wasn't working.
"What… already…?" Tallie choked out. "Didn't we just send for them… what… ten minutes ago?"
"Well, they're here already," said the voice. "Should I let them in?"
Tallie shook herself and quickly straightened her feathers out. She wasn't used to standing in Char's room, pretending like it was hers. She was hoping it would help her figure out what she wanted to say to the visitors.
But at the moment, she had a strange whim. A certain flicker of her fire inside suggested she try something more leader-like – maybe it would help her get in the right mindset for all this nonsense.
"Before you do," Tallie replied, lowering her voice, "Could you come in for a minute? Just for a minute."
"Am I in trouble or something?" said the voice.
"No, it's just… I need to ask you something," Tallie said, trying to sound amiable.
The door opened and on the other side there stood a rather destressed, depressed Vaporeon. Of course, it would be rude to point it out, but it was getting difficult to ignore just how pathetic this water-type fox looked, moping around all the time with his face hung low and his fins shriveling.
Part of her wanted to call it well-deserved karma for the absolute indignity he once caused her back when they were dealing with a certain thief they now knew as Arcia. He walked around all smug for weeks after the hydro-blast incident, and now she got to sneer back at him just as well as he slowly grew starved of water, forced to suppress his fish instincts in the absence of any nearby opportunities to swim. She knew full well he'd completely done it to himself, too… he knew several Pokémon had tried to change his mind about his evolution choice, talk with him about other possibilities… but he'd stuffed feathers into his ears and refused to listen. And now he was miserable and had nobody else to blame.
But… another part of her, the part of her that was a stand-in leader of Team Ember, wanted to try something different.
Tallie tried to soften her glare. "Hey… um… since you're here, Adamant, I just figured I'd ask you: are you going to be alright?"
The look he gave her was very strange: surprised, frightened, and disgusted. Tallie never thought she'd feel offended at a fish scowling at her. Why are you pretending to care? said the glare. And what gives you the idea that I'm going to open up about it?
"Look… As the job coordinator, I've done my best to give you, uh, water jobs," Tallie tried, swallowing her awkwardness. "But since we're putting our job board on hold for now… I know we might not have a lot of control over our missions here in the near future. So if… if you're not happy, we could discuss some other accommodations… assuming the Gold Division doesn't blow up after all of this, of course."
The Vaporeon only responded with a look of anger and confusion – anger at himself, it seemed. He looked completely at a loss for how to reply. Tallie tapped her talon against the ground and tried harder.
"You're obviously not happy, alright? I can see that. Everyone can see that," Tallie grumbled. "Do you need more water? More sun? More exercise? Maybe a change of diet we can order? See, I – I care because I need to keep this team in working order, and I can't imagine that you're working at the top of your form when you're in this sort of condition all the time. So if there's anything at all I can do to help you adjust… I mean we gave Brace and Otto all that time off when they messed up their evolution… not that I'm saying you messed up your evolution too, that's not what I'm trying to say… I'm just trying to figure out if there's any way I can help."
Adamant stared blankly at her. He obviously didn't want to be here, having this conversation.
"Okay, you know what? Talk to Scarlet, when you get the chance," Tallie sighed. "That's an order, alright? An order from your leader. Go to Scarlet and tell her how you feel and what you think you might need to uh, be happy on Team Ember. She's, uh, a lot better at empathy than I am. And then I'll have a discussion with her about what you said. Deal? I don't want to see you have to keep going like this, if we can help it."
For a moment, Adamant looked like he was about to spit a water gun in Tallie's face, before realizing that he didn't have enough water in reserve. "Fine, alright," the grumpy Vaporeon finally said. "I'll go let the visitors in."
"Yes, please do that," Tallie said with a sigh, straightening her feathers again.
The door closed, and she waited. Her first leader-to-leader meeting. This was another reason she never thought she could be a real team leader – diplomacy with other teams wasn't one of her strong points. Well, it was, but only when she was following orders from a superior! When it was someone else's orders, she could boss other Pokémon around all day long. She didn't like the thought of bossing other Pokémon around with her own orders that she came up with herself – how would she know her orders were right, if they weren't coming from anywhere? How could she feel so confident about them?
There was another knock at the door. This time, it was stronger, more forward. A kind of knock that Tallie wondered if she could ever make.
"Come in," she chirped. The visitors complied, opening the door and revealing themselves to her: an Infernape and a Bayleef. Tallie had told the others to try revisiting all the teams they came from, so she figured she would try doing the same. She didn't know why Prince had brought Lily along, though, but she felt that it was impertinent to ask. Maybe they were about to go on a mission together when Tallie's messenger interrupted them.
"Alright, so… we might have a problem," Tallie began telling them, once the door was closed. "The big bosses are saying the base might be compromised."
Tallie explained, in hissed whispers, everything she knew about the situation – what Xatu had said, what Alakazam had allegedly said, and her plan moving forward to have her team check up on other teams and scout for suspicious activity. She explained her reasoning – that an intruder must be hiding on a team somewhere. Someone must have taken them in. They must have gained someone's trust.
"Wait… are you sure you're comfortable talking about it in here? With… you know?" Lily hissed, her eyes scanning the walls around them.
Tallie gave the walls a knowing glare. This was actually part of her master plan, something she brilliantly concocted herself. All I have to do is say something incriminating during this conversation and see if they take the bait, she reminded herself silently. Then we'll know whether the intruders have compromised Team Cog. That should narrow things down beautifully.
She quickly dismissed the concern. "If Team Cog were compromised, I think we'd be dead already. Either that, or we'd have no chance in the first place," she said, quickly coming up with a lie to tell them. "Between you and me, though, I've got a plan to deal with that possibility. I've got my talons on some magical stone things that let Pokémon communicate telepathically. I'm having Gemstone and Zachel pick them up at the academy tonight. Once we have those, we don't have to worry about ghosts listening in on our conversations. But anyway, enough about Team Cog. Let's talk about you. Having served on your team… however briefly… you're the only other leader in this entire division base that I feel like I can trust at the moment. Have you seen anything? Or… noticed anything lately?"
Prince hummed and stared into the fires behind Tallie, touching his chin. "I'm sorry, but I'm trying to imagine, hypothetically, what an intruder of this nature would look like. This is… very vague and enigmatic. And your only clue, thus far, is that something has apparently drove a subtle wedge between Xatu and Alakazam?"
"Well, y-yeah," Tallie said, shivering her feathers. "That's what I've been told."
"And your best theory is that some Pokémon has flown under our radar, earned trust with some team, and uses their position to manipulate the Gold Division from the shadows, without any of us guessing their true intentions?" Prince continued.
Tallie wanted to reply again, but she kept her beak closed as she thought about Prince's implications.
"Sounds to me like a distraction tactic, if I'm being honest," Prince quietly said. "Sounds to me like High Intelligence is trying to pull some sort of operation of their own, and doesn't want you to be paying attention when that happens."
Lily spoke up. "But… they're High Intelligence," she whispered in suspicion. "They can do whatever they want. Why would they be worried about getting caught? Why would they come up with a complicated plan to distract Team Ember? And Team Ember specifically, and not any of the other, more dangerous teams? Why not us, Prince?"
"That… I couldn't tell you," Prince hummed, turning back to Tallie. "I'm just going with my instincts. And my instincts tell me you're being fed a ghost story. For what reason? I couldn't say. I will say I couldn't imagine High Intelligence ever having to resort to this kind of performance. It seems too… one-dimensional."
Tallie scowled at her former boss. "Alright, I'll be sure to keep that in mind," she said, sounding offended. "Now, how about we momentarily assume that this isn't some sort of weird conspiracy of High Intelligence oddly directed just at us. Is there anything, anything you've noticed about the base… or about the other teams… that might seem off to you?"
"Well… I'll admit, there has been a recurring thought in my mind, as I've been processing everything you've just told me," Prince uttered, his fire blazing bright. "There is… one Pokémon that comes to mind, who fits the description you've given me. And his name is Char."
Tallie stepped back, and looked at Prince as if he were crazy. "Char…? What are you talking about?"
"Char, the mysterious outsider who entered the base by gaining Scythe's trust," Prince explained with a low voice, his eyes sparkling in the fire. "Char, the one Pokémon who has thrown the resistance into the most disarray in decades, just by being here. The one who's caused divisions and disagreements between the resistance leaders. The one who has been secretly growing stronger, plotting his own moves apart from ours. The one who stood up to Cepheus when nobody else could, forcing the Master to give up their plans of occupying Basin Canyon. The one who… has lived with us, gained our trust, before using the resistance for his own mysterious purposes." He grinned warmly and added, "Not that I think Char is our enemy, but I can certainly see why he would raise suspicions, if one would step back and see the bigger picture of what he's done."
Tallie shifted in surprise. "But… Char isn't even here anymore…" she choked out. "Why… why would you say something like that? He's already left the base. This whole nonsense with Xatu only started after he left…"
"Only started after he left…?" Prince echoed with significance. "That seems awfully strange to be just a coincidence, don't you think?"
"Prince, you're uh… not making any sense to me, either," Lily said with concern. "Yeah, Char has triggered a lot of changes to the resistance, I get your point there. But how can Char be the one that Xatu and Alakazam were talking about, when he's not even here? He can't be in two places at once, can he?"
"Of course not. That's why I suspected it was High Intelligence who waited for Char to leave before they put their plan into motion," he said quietly. "I know there's no overt evidence at this point, and there's no way of telling what their intentions are, but I'm calling it the way I see it. I think Char has something to do with this…"
There was the sound of a rapping on the door. Tallie couldn't tell if it was the rapping of a claw or a beak.
"Um… excuse me," said a new voice from outside the door, "I uh… need to talk to Tallie right now. I know you're having… an important meeting, but it's an emergency. I'm sorry. This will only take a minute."
Tallie hung her head. "Another emergency," she sighed. " ANOTHER emergency. How many emergencies are going to happen to me all in a row…? How am I expected to run the team when the whole world seems content to fall on – "
Tallie then realized just who the voice was coming from. It took a moment to click, because the Pokémon speaking through the door tended to sound like several other team members. But once it clicked, Tallie straightened herself and stepped over to the door quickly.
"Okay, I bet this really is an emergency," she told her two visitors. "Excuse me for one moment, if you would. I must speak with my teammate in private."
"Of course," Prince said with a polite little bow. "Take all the time you need. My mission for the day can wait for later if necessary."
Tallie opened the door, revealing the patient Noctowl standing on the other side. She gestured a wing to see out her guests from Team Flamewheel, then quickly shepherded her fellow bird in behind closed doors. Once the door was clear, the owl dropped her disguise and became a Zorua, looking nervous and worried and wide-eyed.
This wasn't the first such meeting that Tallie had with the little illusionist. Despite being a Zoroark now, Arcana seemed to prefer her childhood form. Maybe she liked being small? Maybe it meant something to her? Maybe it was a humility thing? She never felt the need to question it.
"Arcana, please make this quick," Tallie sighed quietly. "I've got a lot on my plate at the moment."
"Of course," replied the Zorua sadly. "Uh… truth is, Tallie, I've got to go now. I just received a signal I was waiting for and… I've got to leave."
"Got to… what? What do you mean?" Tallie sputtered. "Time-sensitive mission?"
"Well… yes, maybe, you could say that if you wanted," Arcana said awkwardly. "But truth is, um… I'm kind of working with… actually, I really shouldn't say anything. I'm supposed to keep this a secret as best as possible. But it's important. It's really important, probably the most important mission I've ever done. But I just wanted to let you know so you wouldn't… um… go looking for me. And I guess I also just wanted to thank you for all you've done for me, helping me keep disguised and everything. You are… a good boss, I think. Not that I've had a lot of bosses before, but I think you're a good one. So thank you, Tallie. For everything."
Tallie stared at her wide-eyed. She wasn't prepared for this. It seemed like her entire team was simply leaving her. Abandoning her in her time of biggest need, going their own separate ways.
"Will you be coming back?" Tallie asked, trying to remain calm and collected.
"Yeah… I uh… I only have to do one thing, and if it turns out well, I'll be coming back when it's over," Arcana replied.
Tallie wasn't going to ask what she asked next. It just slipped out.
"Are you… are you going to be okay?" she said warmly, more warmly than she'd ever heard herself speak before.
The Zorua gave her a subtle little grin with her fangs, then to her surprise, dropped her illusion entirely, revealing her true form for what she really was: a strong, confident Zoroark with sharp claws and a peaceful, determined look in her eyes. The two stared nearly eye-to-eye with one another for a moment.
"I think everything is going to be alright," she whispered in return. "…I hope."
