Chapter 16 – Known Secrets

"Looks like that's everyone," Star said, flicking her tail.

A few of Amia's spirits swept away little pebbles that littered the ground of Hot Spot—much to Valle's irritation—while Amia herself channeled extra Mystic energy into the mushrooms to brighten the brown rocks. The cyan glow they gave off a light that mixed with the jagged edges of the houses, casting shadows on the wall. Owen sighed at the sight; what nostalgia to have a get-together like this. It's too bad it had to be over such depressing talk.

"What's the damage?" Gahi asked, clicking his jaws uncertainly.

Star sighed, sitting down in mid-air. Her tail curled around her legs. "I want you guys to be very, very calm, okay?" she said. "No sudden movements. Be nice and delicate. Talk quietly. Got it?"

"Eh?" Gahi said.

"Just… just promise me, okay?"

Gahi hesitated, clicking his jaws. He glanced at a few of the others—Willow, in particular, who irritably crackled.

"Well, why should I be quiet?!" she said.

"Willow," Star said slowly. "Please."

"W-well, I… I'll…!" Willow looked at the others, and then at Star again. "Okay…" The crackling slowed down, and the Joltik stood still.

Star nodded. She closed her eyes. "Anam, if you can…?"

"Oh, right!" Anam held his arms forward and focused; a little aura flare formed between his hands, and he sent out another spirit. It formed into a winged Lopunny—a solid spirit. She wasn't very strong, unlike Star, who was still very much see-through. Much easier to summon. But James and the others in Anam's squad recognized her immediately.

"Cara?" Zena asked.

"Shh," Star said softly.

Zena flinched, but nodded. Cara was a trembling wreck—shaking, looking to her left and right, and all around her. "Wh-where am I? What is this?"

"Hey… Cara," Star said softly. The Mew floated closer, but she stopped when Cara shrank away. "Hey, it's okay, it's okay. It's just me. Star. You know me, right? When you were afraid and confused, I popped right in and brought you someplace safe. Remember that?"

"I was… I was floating. My body, I… I couldn't feel my body…"

"It's okay, it's okay."

"There were lights everywhere, like I was… I was flowing, I—I didn't know where to go, what to—"

"Shh, shh…" Star advanced, placing a paw in Cara's. "You're in a place called Hot Spot Cave. It's underground, and away from any dangerous Pokémon. You can let your guard down."

"I—I can? Truly?" Cara looked like she was ready to collapse in front of everyone.

"Look around," Star said, waving her arm to the small crowd. "Not a harmful soul here, don't you think?"

Cara scanned the cave square. The four unevolved Pokémon. The lovely Goodra that summoned her. Star, the constant presence that she could speak with, should she ever feel afraid. The others seemed fine, too. "Oh, what an adorable Joltik," Cara said quietly.

"Adorable?" Willow asked.

"Yes, you're quite lovely," Cara nodded.

Willow glowed. "W-well, I guess I might be a little cute…!"

Cara scanned again. "That one, the statue. Quite unnerving, that. Who is…?"

"I am Valle. I am one with the mountain."

"He's a little weird in the head, but he means well, I think," Star said. "Actually—hey, Valle, is there anything dangerous in the caves right now? Like, uh, Pokémon that would be trying to hunt us down?"

"No."

"There!" Star said. "See? Valle's our little security system. He's like an army of guards! That's pretty cool, right?"

"Yes. That is quite… cool, yes." She flapped her ear-wings a bit. "A tad warm here."

"Yeah, Fire Guardian's home, so, y'know." Star srugged. "But it's a bit cooler in some of the houses—anyway, Cara… you know you died, right?"

"Y-yes… I believe that is it. I was summoned. A spirit. Oh… A spirit…" she sighed, shaking and shivering. But she seemed calm. Perhaps she was in shock.

Owen watched sympathetically. "Hey, I'm sorry that happened. Um, so… that means Rim got to her before we could, huh? How come she still looks like she has the Orb?"

"It's the form she's most familiar with," Star explained. "Kinda like Valle, she prefers a body different from the one she was born with. And for what happened… that's what I wanted to outline to you guys. And I want Cara to tell me everything she remembers about this, first. Cara? What do you remember?"

Cara grabbed one of her ear-wings and preened the feathers with her paws. "I—I've always been a small bit jumpy. Perhaps it is in my nature. But I'm afraid I can't give much more information than what I've told Star, even now. I had been fleeing from strange, mutant Pokémon like them for quite some time. I think the brightness of my abode made it hard for them to strike me, but once I lowered my guard…"

Anam gasped. "Th-then… then when we made Cara feel safe, they just…!"

"How did we not sense them?" Zena asked. "We should have sensed their auras!"

"Rim may have been hiding from afar, waiting for the light to lower to find her," Rhys said.

Star nodded. "There wasn't much we could've done with what we knew. I'm sorry that it happened, Cara." She then addressed the others. "Right now, we've got seven Orbs on our side. You, your mom, Zena, Willow, Anam, Valle, and ADAM. And Rim stole the Psychic Orb a while ago. Well, she just got two more. Cara, the Flying Guardian, and Forrest, the Ground Guardian. I wanted Forrest to come along, too, but he said that he's fine. I think he was ready to give up anyway."

"Wait," Owen said. "So… not Manny? What happened to him?"

"Guess Rim wasn't strong enough to handle him yet," Star said. "Actually, Rim also attacked other areas today, too, but I dunno if Guardians are there or not. It might've been a guess, because I just don't know where all the Guardians are anymore. They either don't talk to me, or won't tell me where they are."

"Won't tell you?"

"They kinda… don't trust me," Star said, biting her lower lip. "Because, you know…"

"Because you recruited the Hunters," Zena said. She had cooled down from that revelation, but perhaps too much—the Milotic's voice was icy.

Owen looked uneasily at Zena. Everything felt hazy when he thought about her or any of the others. He must have been hurt pretty badly in that fight against Azu, because he could only vaguely remember details about all of them. They were in a strange state in his mind, both familiar and unfamiliar. He knew them, but for how long? Owen felt another crisis of panic wash over him. Not crazy. Not crazy. Not crazy. Just play along.

"Yeah… but, anyway," Star said, "Cara and Forrest were the last two weak Guardians, I think. At least, of the ones I know. From here on out, the Guardians are gonna be strong, and they might even be paranoid and hostile if we approach." Star sighed. "Some of them… don't trust my word anymore, like I said." She glanced at Zena. "So, I think… we might need to do this a little forcefully and try to calm them down, or convince them some other way. But either way—we'll have to… you know."

"Beat them up to befriend them?" Demitri asked.

"Now yer talking." Gahi clicked happily.

Cara stiffened with fright. This was enough to quiet Gahi down; he stepped away, mumbling to himself, and hid behind Zena to avoid frightening Cara.

"I would like to go, now," she said quietly to Star.

"Okay. Thanks anyway, Cara. Forget about all this and enjoy your afterlife."

Relief washed over Cara and the Lopunny vanished, and Demitri and Gahi both shrank guiltily.

"You don't have to fight them… not always," Star said to them. "But, hey, they might put up a fight. So just keep that sorta thing in mind, y'know?"

"Aw, heh, sounds fine to me." Demitri tittered.

Owen crossed his arms and spoke up. "So, wait, are we just going to send a single team, then?"

"A team of our absolute strongest, maybe," Star said. "But nothing more than that. If we had two squads head in, that might help us with extra power if we have some big problem… like a run-in with Rim, for example, or…"

"Or those weird Pokémon that follow her," Anam said.

"But having two teams will make it difficult to coordinate," Zena pointed out. "We aren't very good at using our communicators in the heat of battle. Nevren wanted them to be useful, I'm sure, but we found little use for it in our last battles."

"Wait, hold on," Owen said. "Weird Pokémon? You mean mutants, or something else? What'd you guys run into?" If they were more of those odd Pokémon, what did they have to do with the Guardians? And, more importantly, why did the others react strangely when he mentioned them?

The group shifted uncomfortably again. Owen sensed it. "Guys, what's all this about? And—and what happened when I passed out, anyway?! I know I lost, but…"

"We ran into some strange Pokémon while on this outing," Star said. "Basically, Rim was being followed by one or more… mutated Pokémon. Like, something was just different about them in some way—a Ninjask with Scyther arms, or a Luxray crazy bulked out, with a Raichu's tail. It was insane! And—they all had this different aura about them, too, is that right?"

"Much like the mutants we typically see around Kilo from time to time," Rhys said. "Only now they're fighting alongside the Hunters."

"The Luxray's aura felt weird," Anam nodded.

"Weird?" Mispy asked, wiggling the leaf on her head. "Our auras are weird."

"Well, yeah, but that's probably because we're late evolvers," Demitri said. "Right?"

"Yes, that's likely it," Rhys said.

"See? Even Rhys says so," Demitri said.

Owen spotted Willow nearby, shivering. "Hey, Willow, are you okay?" he asked the Joltik. "You're, uh, shaking."

"Huh?" Willow squeaked. "Yes! I'm fine. I'm just… cold in the mornings!"

"Oh," Owen said, stepping closer. "Well, I'm a Fire-Type. Want to rest on my head?" he asked, giggling. "I mean, you liked it bef—"

Willow skittered away, hiding behind Anam. Little particles of pink fairy dust scattered around her feet with every step, like she was ready to shrink him down if he got any closer.

Owen blinked. "Uh… okay." That was not the reaction he was expecting.

A memory flashed in Owen's eyes. He was rushing toward Azu, the Feraligatr from before. Willow was screaming, and Amia was calling Owen's name. Azu's eyes, for just a second, looked… afraid.

Owen held his breath.

James was murmuring to the Joltik, almost like a lecture. Whatever he was saying, Willow wasn't having any of it, and she hid right behind Anam's gooey ankles.

"Yeah, weird auras," Star said. "To be honest, we've seen that stuff before, and I've seen similar auras running through the aura sea before." She avoided looking at anybody else. "Basically, these Pokémon, the mutants… I've only seen them recently out and about like that, but the reason those auras look strange? Ugh, how do I explain this? Oh, okay. So… You know how, like, berries kinda look like each other if they come from the same plant, or something? Like, Oran berries come from Oran Berry plants… I mean, unless it's a huge berry tree, then it's all sorts, but… Ugh, that example sucks…"

"…Genetics, you mean?" Rhys asked. He quickly amended, "Nevren spoke of that before."

"Yeah! Nevren would know how to describe this, uh, but…" Star spun around. "Okay. Zena… you used to be mortal, right?"

"Yes," Zena said.

"So, you had parents."

Zena nodded. "Yes. Their spirits are often ferried to my realm from time to time, in fact. It's been so long since they've last visited, though…"

"Yeah. So, your aura, see, it kinda has traces of both their auras, since you came from them. That make sense?"

"Yes… ancestry, of a sort?"

"Yeah," Star said. "Really, really good aura readers can trace an ancestry back a few generations, kinda like matching and linking auras to where they came from, and where those auras came from, and so on, okay? Well… the Pokémon we encountered back there? That Luxray and that Ninjask? They… didn't have that."

"…They didn't have… auras?" Owen asked.

"No, no, they had auras," Star said. "They didn't have ancestry. No aura traces of parents, or grandparents, or any of that. No history."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Amia said.

"Rhys has a similar aura," Star said. "His aura is a little weird because he doesn't have grandparents—All he has is a single parent, me. Since I created their auras. Same for Nev, and all the Hunters. All that weirdness you sense from them? Sure, some of it is a bit of divine power, but it's also their weird aura trace."

"You… created their auras?" Owen said.

Rhys looked off.

"Yeah," Star said. "I mean, what, you think I'm just gonna pick random folks off the road to get involved in this Orb business?"

Owen rubbed his eyes irritably.

"In other words, since they came right from you," Amia said, "their auras go just to you, and not some family tree. I get that! But… then, those strange auras from Luxray and Ninjask?" Amia glanced at Owen and the other late-evolvers.

"They don't have an ancestry at all," Star said. "They were… created some other way. Without… parents. I at least gave Rhys and the others a little trace from me, just for, you know, symbolism and stuff."

"No… parents?" Owen asked. "They were created? But—you created Rhys, right? So, what's the difference?"

"They must've been created some other way," Star said. "Maybe… artificially."

A confused silence filled the air. Then, murmurs. Anam spoke up. "Artificial? …Like Adam? His aura's weird, too, now that I'm looking at it…"

"ADAM," the Porygon-Z specified.

"Uhh… maybe?" Star said evasively. "He's a weird case, but—Look, not important. But that's why their auras are strange. No ancestry. They were made some other way—and it seems like they were modified, too, from how their species should be. That's why they're called mutants in the first place, y'know? They had some weird abilities. Even other sightings are kinda like that."

"Pokémon with weird abilities?" Owen asked. He wondered. Should he say this? Yes. He should. Because he wasn't going to let this go when it already felt so close. It felt like someone tried to tie his memories up and seal them away. But now they were coming back. "You know, no matter how much I try to teach others, I don't think anybody knows how to do my Fire Trap, but… maybe that's just because I'm resourceful?"

This time, Owen watched for everyone's reactions closely. He wasn't speculating for no reason. The others knew something. And he saw just what he expected. Uncomfortable shuffling where they stood or sat. Some of them didn't make eye contact. Rhys, in particular, looked like he'd seen death in the face. He looked at Zena next, and the way her serpentine body reacted. He was starting to become more familiar with in terms of body language, if only slightly. He couldn't identify the emotion she was experiencing based on her muscle movements, but he did know one thing: she had trouble looking at him. For some reason, this one hurt the most.

"…Guys," Owen said, "what… aren't you telling me?" He turned his head, looking at them all. "What… am I?"

Owen wobbled where he stood. He felt faint. He saw Rhys' paw glowing with a strange light.

"Ugh, my back," Owen muttered, rolling over in bed. "Wh—huh?" he looked up, springing to his feet. "Wait—how long was I…?" He remembered he was planning things out with Star and the others. They were going to try to form a strong team of fighters. Would Owen—no… no, he wouldn't count. He's just a Charmander, after all. Just a Charmander…

"Ugh, stop dwelling," Owen muttered. "I should just ask them about it."

Owen, seeing the glow of the mushrooms in his room, determined that it was late in the afternoon. Ugh, my whole sleep schedule is done for. He looked outside and saw that everybody was still planning, far ahead in Hot Spot Square. "Oh—good! I didn't miss too much?" he called.

"Oh, hey, Owen! You kinda passed out while you were talking," Star said. "Feeling better? Listen, you shouldn't push yourself. If you're too tired, just sit back and rest."

"I must've been really tired from that fight." Owen laughed. "Okay! So, um, who's going to be going and stuff?"

"We ain't," Gahi muttered, looking down. "We passed out just like you."

"Yeah. We just aren't strong enough, I guess," Demitri said. "The stress of all that fighting with Rim really got to us. I feel like I was hit by a Golem's… everything."

Mispy sighed.

"But don't worry!" Star said, "You guys can meditate and spar with Rhys and stuff instead, okay? How's that sound?" The Mew waved her arms encouragingly. "Right now, those 'clean aura' Pokémon aren't doing anything—they must be regrouping, so we should take that time to do the same thing here, y'know? And to be honest, I think it'd be a good idea if we narrowed our numbers down to maybe… a single strong team to handle just one Guardian at a time. So, if you want my opinion on that… Then we should also go back to the Spire of Trials and try for Manny a second time—but with a stronger team. And we need some of us to also rally up some help in Kilo Village for scouting, since… uh… since I have no idea where the other Guardians could be."

"Hmm," Amia said. "Well, I wouldn't consider myself strong, so why don't I help with rallying?"

"Wait," Owen said. "Can we do the Trial place again?"

"Huh?"

"I lost against the Feraligatr the last time. Feraligatr Azu. And I want a rematch! I'll do better this time!"

"Owen," Amia said.

"Please?" Owen pleaded.

Star sighed. "No," she said. "You need to train, Owen. I'm sorry."

"B-but…"

"Um, should I stay back, too?" Anam said. The Goodra poked his fingers together; they fused, and then split apart each time. "I know I'm strong, but… you need me to rally up the Hearts, right?"

"I can do that in your place," James said.

"But what if I'm defeated? You'll fizzle up, and the whole town will see it!"

"Hrm…" James ruffled his feathers. "I'd rather not imagine a scenario where you die, Anam. Also, I imagine it would be difficult to maintain my form so far away, even for you."

"Anam, compared to Manny, I don't think you'll be defeated like that," Star said. "But it would be a tough win…"

"Would I be… strong enough?" Zena said.

"Perhaps not," James said, "but we work as a team together quite well."

"Yeah, Zena, you seem like you'd be an elegant fighter, if you ask me," Owen said. "It goes well with how James fights, and maybe it'll keep Anam calm? And Mom fights like that, too."

"Elegant?" Zena blushed.

Star giggled. "Okay, let's form up the team of elites. Rhys, you might not be the strongest Hunter, but you're the strongest we have. So, I want you to go and fight Manny himself, okay?"

"Rhys is stronger than me?" Anam said.

"Ehh, I dunno. You guys would have to spar it out," Star said, "but—trust me, Manny will want to fight Rhys. Now, for the other three fighters. Amia, don't be modest—you're pretty tough. So, you're going, too. Okay?"

"Oh, okay," Amia replied. "Am—am I, really?"

"Yes. You should be able to handle his second-in-command. So as for his third- and fourth-in-command…"

"So, I really can't go back and fight Azu?" Owen spoke up again.

"Owen, you—you can't," Star said. "Train here. Okay?"

Owen crossed his arms, rolling a ball of an ember in his mouth to silence himself. He didn't bring it up again.

"Next up, uh… Rhys, Amia…" Star mumbled under her breath. "…Anam, are you sure you can't substitute somebody else to rally the team, like James?"

"I guess I could…" Anam said. "Nevren might be able to help, right?" He nibbled on his slimy fingers, thinking. "I just hope we aren't bothering him."

"It's his duty," James said firmly. "He should be able to do it easily. We will simply speak with him before we go."

"Okay, and James, you're pretty tough all on your own, so you're member number four!" Star said. "Everyone else should focus on training. I'll have someone other than Anam summon me so I can probably do some coaching."

Owen listened, but then decided to concentrate on his memories again. He felt it. They were sealed away. It felt like a plug stuck right in his skull, like he couldn't breathe through his mental nose. What if he thought back harder? Owen earned a massive headache when he tried, but he pushed through anyway, just for something—anything—to satisfy his curiosity.

More memories. He saw Rhys approach him while at the meeting—right before he had passed out. He was telling him something—to go rest, that he was tired. And then, his paw had glowed… and Demitri, Mispy, and Gahi all passed out. And then Owen did right after. And… and that fight. Feraligatr Azu. He wasn't a Charmander, was he? No. He was too tall.

He wasn't at thigh-height. He was at belly-height.

I was a Charmeleon.

"Owen?" Rhys asked.

He'd do it again. Rhys would try to make him sleep and forget. "Huh?" Owen asked. "Oh, sorry. I was thinking about a new strategy for that Feraligatr. I think I know how to beat him!" Putting his knowledge of his own body language to use, he tensed his arms, as if readying a punch. His eyes glowed with a competitive fire. "Or, maybe I can beat him. Maybe. I need to think more. Maybe after I do some training, I can have a rematch when he comes here with Manny!"

Rhys sighed. "Of course."

As long as he played dumb, he could keep his memories. But why were they gone? What else did he forget? Think, Owen, think… What did they want to hide? And how is he back to being a Charmander?

Zena's reaction in particular bothered him. She was with Anam and the others for Cara's failed rescue. None of Team Alloy was with them, so they must have told her what happened. So, what did they tell her? What did he—and the rest of Team Alloy—do?

What did they become?