CHAPTER 54 — Where The Moon Rises

  5 MINUTES BEFORE SHIT HIT THE FAN / Cherrygrove, Johto — Will Itsuki

  It was a beautiful summer day.

  The sun was out and shining in full force. Beams of light, bright and golden, cast down their warmth without end. Pleasant June winds carrying the scent of a hundred different flowers Will couldn’t name beyond lavender or honeysuckle tickled his nose and cheeks. Today, Will had the pleasure of making his morning rounds through the Cherrygrove Gym’s expansive gardens. It was a fun, relaxing job that most of the Cherrygrove Gym Fam vied for. If given the chance, they probably would have drawn lots every week for it, too.

  This wasn’t his first time walking through the floral landscape, but the gardens were always a sight for sore eyes—swaths of colors as far as the eye could see. Early sunflowers with thin, fuzzy petals stretched golden faces yearnfully in the direction of the sun, poppies so crimson they looked like they were burning swayed in the wind, and stalks of lavender bunched together in clusters of vibrant hues. This was only a tiny section of the gym’s so-called front yard, too. People online were already heralding it as Johto’s Second National Park.

  All Will had to do was make a slow, leisurely sweep through the winding labyrinth of flora and help assist visitors along the way.

  Between Xatu flying overhead and Will spreading his own psychic senses wide like a large net, that was fairly easy.

  Little presences floated in his mind like blinking dots on a radar. There were two in the vicinity that hadn’t moved in about ten minutes, so he Teleported himself over there first.

  “Good morning!” Will chirped. He threw his arms out with a flourish as he approached an elderly couple. Sure enough, they appeared to be lost judging from how they peered at a brochure clutched in their weathered hands. “I’m a gym trainer with the Cherrygrove Gym. May I offer any assistance?”

  To hammer home the point that he wasn’t a suspicious individual, he proudly tapped the lanyard looped around his neck. Inside was his staff ID on full display.

  An old woman with silvery-brown hair tucked into a loose bun smiled at him. “Oh, thank you, dearie. My husband and I were wondering how to get to the Goldeen ponds area?”

  “Ah, a popular destination,” Will mused out loud with a sage nod of his head. “If you so desire, I’d be happy to Teleport you there.”

  The Goldeen ponds also happened to be one of their attractions that had problems with people—mostly little kids—trying to feed the Pokemon in spite of glaring signs that said not to, but there was always a guard stationed nearby to deal with that.

  With consent from the elderly couple, Will skillfully Teleported them to the ponds in the blink of an eye. The woman’s husband insistently pressed a small, round piece of candy into his hands before they parted ways.

  “For a nice young man,” or so he said. “You remind me of my grandchild.”

  “Why, thank you!”

  Exuberant as his reply was, Will found his throat constricting with emotion as he walked away. He carefully slipped the piece of candy inside his pocket, fingers brushing against the crinkled wrapping for a moment before they finally withdrew. A gesture like the old man’s might have been small and trivial to anyone else, but to Will Itsuki, it meant the world.

  There was a warm feeling in his chest. He felt it more and more often these days.

  It wasn’t an eloquent way of putting it, but Cherrygrove was nice.

  Tranquil. Relaxing. It was a far bigger city than people initially assumed, but it was astonishing how tightly-knit the community here was. Cherrygrove wasn’t exactly at the top of the list for places people thought about moving to—not when there was a sprawling metropolis like Goldenrod or nostalgic, charming places to live out days of retirement in like the shores of Cianwood—so there usually weren’t a lot of new faces coming in aside from an uptick in tourists. Cherrygrove was perhaps less of a city than one gigantic neighborhood from its cozy atmosphere alone. Most people knew each other. Even if they didn’t, they treated each other kindly.

  Will had lost track of the number of times he’d been showered with shoulder pats, hugs, and a random assortment of free foods and snacks while on patrols. Most of them came from shopkeepers or elderly citizens.

  He hadn’t even been around for that long, but people appreciated him anyway. They didn’t shy away from his particular mannerisms, appearance, or way of speaking. They didn’t treat him like he was a waste of space. He wasn’t reviled.

  It was a different kind of support than what his followers on social media bestowed upon him. The people of Cherrygrove treated him with genuine warmth like he was one of their own, and it was touching.

  The Cherrygrove Gym Fam was the same. Perhaps they had been a bit taken aback at first, but now they treated him as if they’d been friends forever. Will hung out with them. They’d invite Arin, and they’d play card or board games in the staff apartments together. Sometimes they’d all go out for dinner. Sometimes they chilled at the gym doing nothing during breaks.

  Every single time he stepped into the Cherrygrove Gym, it felt like… coming home.

  “Home. Family,” Will murmured out loud, testing how they sounded when they rolled off his tongue.

  They were strange words he had never thought he would understand in his life, but here in Cherrygrove, he felt like he could actually grasp their meanings.

  The process had already begun.

  For now, he had work to do. Over half of their gym trainers including Arin and his father were gone at the moment after all. Will wasn’t the type of person to shirk any responsibilities placed upon his shoulders.

  He continued Teleporting around the gardens with ease all while humming a famous musical song about a haunted opera house. Maybe he’d bring it up with the others as an option for their next movie night.

  One full sweep of the surrounding gardens later, Will had helped a total of three other lost guests as well as a troublesome teenager scaring some Finneon with his loud voice. All in a morning’s work.

  Impeccable job, he praised himself.

  It was about time to head back inside the gym and fill out a mandatory report about his patrol. He pulled out his phone to check the time and—

  “Hmm?”

  Eyes hidden by his half-mask blinked once, twice, three times in rapid succession.

  Rather than the time, what Will stared at was the lack of bars in the top corner of the device’s screen. Why in Ho-oh’s name did he have no signal? It wasn’t like he was in the deep, isolated wilds for goodness’ sake. He was also quite clearly still within range of the Cherrygrove Gym.

  He got his answer when explosions went off.

  Lots of closely-timed explosions, and they were concentrated in two different places as far as Will knew. Smoke billowed high in the sky. They rose far and fast enough that Will could see the telltale locations from here.

  They came from the sea south of Cherrygrove and an area further back in the forest that the Watanuki family owned.

  Will’s mind processed the situation at record speed only an adept human psychic and Psychic Specialist could boast—calmly at that.

  It had to be an attack from Team Rocket.

  Arin had warned them so many times, and the possibility of it being a criminal organization rather than wild Pokemon on the loose was far more likely given current conditions in Indigo. No one else was insane enough to launch an attack on a city guarded by a formidable trainer on par with any country’s Champion.

  But that was the point, wasn’t it?

  Arin wasn’t here right now. He wasn’t due to come back for another twenty or so minutes.

  Will was willing to bet his entire life savings that the explosions in the forest were somewhere near the Watanuki household. He had no idea why, of course, but there was nothing else in the forest that was of value besides the gym Pokemon, most of which were exotic species found outside the Kinjoh Area.

  Why wasn’t important right now. He had to act first.

  No signal meant jammed communications in all likelihood. A premeditated attack. No calling for help.

  Half their staff was out of Cherrygrove. The others were scattered nearby.

  Neil, Haru, and Souta were out patrolling Routes 29 and 30. They wouldn’t be back until later.

  Murata was in town with his wife watching their daughters perform a play at school. Hazel was presumably at his sister’s house right about now. Both were too far away to notice anything from here.

  Their PR team—Kari, Yulian, and Luca—were inside the gym watching over all the newly hatched baby Pokemon. They’d probably realized by now that lines were down, but they needed to stay inside for their own protection. They were civilians.

  The only ones actually available right this instant were him, Felix, and Hana.

  Hana was at the beach on a patrol, so she’d probably already come into contact with the enemy already.

  Felix was at the Watanuki household to feed the Pokemon in the backyard.

  Will made his decision.

  Hana could handle herself. Felix could not.

  The teenager was in the most danger right now.

  In quick, fluid movements, Will sent out every single Pokemon of his team and relayed mental orders in silence. Exeggutor, Slowking, and Wobbuffet split up to alert the League, the local Defense Force branch office, and the other gym trainers scattered across the city. Will wasn’t sure which clinic Arin was visiting, so it was a better use of time to go notify HQ first.

  Brows scrunched together as Will focused his mind. There were very stringent laws in place for psychics—both human and Pokemon alike—in order to protect the freedoms and privacy of citizens. This was an emergency. Given his status as a gym trainer in service of the Cherrygrove Gym and by natural extension the Indigo League, he had the authority to unilaterally invade personal space right now.

  Will was no Sabrina Natsume much to his own chagrin, but Arin had believed in him that he could surpass her one day.

  He gritted his teeth and strained himself, reaching out with his mind to all presences in the Cherrygrove Gym’s immediate vicinity. It took him only a moment to parse through them and forcefully connect to the minds of all hired guards, groundskeepers, and other staff.

  Gym Trainer Will Itsuki here, he spoke cheerfully into his mind. Probably not the best tone to use in this situation, but Will’s personality had long been deeply ingrained. Evacuate all visitors from the grounds back to the safety of the city under the guise of routine groundskeeping. We have a Team Rocket invasion on our hands. Leave this area to us gym trainers and guard the city instead.

  He tried not to wince after disconnecting his mind from dozens of others. Well, that had hurt a lot more than he thought it would.

  Now then…

  With a determined smile on his face, Will and his Pokemon Teleported to the Watanuki household’s backyard fully prepared to shed blood.

  There was nothing of the sort.

  Thankfully, the Rockets hadn’t breached through all their forest security details yet.

  He came face-to-face with a surprised Felix Leicester instead. The boy was surrounded by his own team and frightened Fairies like Fidough and Marill. There were angry ones in the bunch, too, like the Jigglypuff Arin was so fond of. Mr. Puff seemed like he was ready to go marching off to war with some of the more courageous gym Pokemon, but there would be none of that on Will’s watch.

  He knew how much these Pokemon meant to Arin. They had to stay here. If they really wanted to fight, then they could do so as a last line of defense. That was assuming they were Team Rocket’s objective to begin with.

  Words immediately flew from Felix’s mouth after his initial shock faded. “Will! There were explo—”

  “Don’t fret! You just take care of the gym Pokemon,” Will interrupted, and he flashed pearly whites in the most reassuring smile he could offer. “I shall handle the problem.”

  He left no room for arguments and Teleported off again, this time to scour through the forest.

  It didn’t take him long to make contact with the problem—literally.

  Will and his Pokemon Teleported face-first into tree bark, and it wasn’t because they were having a bad day. It was because they’d Teleported into an area with Dark type energy saturating the air. There was so much of it that it was hard to breathe properly, and it screwed over their intended coordinates.

  Their Teleport mishap also landed them in the middle of chaotic fighting.

  Colors blurred as bodies flew across an unnatural clearing, one made from explosions judging by cratered earth and blown up tree stumps. There were Team Rocket grunts on one side and security guards with their Pokemon on the other. Branches from Trevenant choked Raticate. Packs of Luxray and Mightyena slammed into groups of Arbok and Victreebel, but the hostile Pokemon didn’t look right. Bloodshot eyes, foaming at the mouths, discolored skin—all clear signs of drugged Pokemon Arin had mentioned watching out for weeks ago.

  That wasn’t even the cherry on top.

  As Will quickly discovered by way of multiple Dark Pulses slamming into premade shields erected around him and his Pokemon, it didn’t take him long to connect the dots.

  There were two conspicuously dressed Rockets on the other side of the clearing with different uniforms. One was a woman with eyes so light Will almost believed her to be blind and the other a much taller woman. Around them were non-drugged Pokemon that consisted mostly of Psychic and Dark types. To say the least, they looked well-trained.

  Will almost scoffed out loud. One of them had to be a Psychic Specialist which was an affront to him and all others in the same field.

  The other was obviously a Dark Specialist.

  Will eyed the multi-layered barriers cracking into pieces around him and amended his previous thought.

  A powerful Dark Specialist, it seemed. These were definitely not average Rocket grunts but people higher up on the ladder.

  “Oh dear,” Will muttered.

  This wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought after all. He was the only one who could buy time until Arin or other backup forces came, so he steeled himself.

  He was not going to let anyone threaten the place where he felt included.

  All hell quickly broke loose.

  It was difficult to make out anything through all the attacks flying around. Thin but concentrated rays of darkness flew their way like miniature lasers followed by a wave of weaker multi-colored beams. All the Dark type energy polluting the air was not only affecting Will and his own Pokemon but the opposing Psychic Specialist as well—not that it mattered. Specialists had to devise ways to get around annoying counters.

  The immediate air around Will’s team sparkled before exploding. Gardevoir sucked dark particles inside dozens of transparent cubes made of mixed Psychic and Fairy energy. In the sudden vacuum of free space, more powerful shields could be erected this time without anything to interfere. Barriers went up left and right to protect Will and the security guards. Beams peppered them one after another, but for as many shields as they pierced through, Will’s Pokemon simply threw up more in endless layers. The whole time, Will relayed detailed, constant orders to his team through thoughts as he kept track of the shifting field.

  Will was on the backfoot here.

  As strong as those mysterious officers were, he gauged he could comfortably take them in a fight or at least stall for time even when double teamed. The main problem was that he was outnumbered. His Pokemon were stretched a little too thin for his liking. Will’s priority was to protect all the security guards because those Rocket officers were definitely above their pay grade.

  And because there were two of them, they had the luxury of splitting their attention.

  The Psychic Specialist went after the guards while the Dark Specialist focused on Will.

  Will and not his Pokemon.

  Alakazam and Espeon did not have to be told anything. They shifted seamlessly from attacking to focusing on Will’s safety. Shields covered Will from all angles as what seemed like every Dark type move under the sun came blasting his way. His other members like Xatu and Mr. Mime focused on bouncing attacks around through reflective barriers or portaling them back into enemies.

  But again, they were stretched thin. There weren't enough of them to keep everyone protected.

  As good as Will and his Pokemon were at multitasking, they were far outnumbered. Drugged Pokemon had to be dealt with on top of two powerful trainers. A Grumpig Teleported to a different shooting angle while Will’s Gallade sliced a frenzied Raticate apart. From its finger, a blindingly fast ray of purple light zipped through a small crack in a shield and tore through a security guard’s leg. One more punctured another person’s shoulder.

  Will clenched his jaw. He was most definitely not going to sleep well at night if someone died because of him.

  Forget about attacking, focus on shielding—

  He paused in the middle of issuing his mental order, and it was because he froze up.

  That Dark Specialist’s Houndoom had lit the whole damn forest ablaze.

  Flames flickering with black and crimson specks licked hungrily at trees. They spread faster than one would have ever believed was possible. An acrid scent quickly filled the air from all the burning wood and vegetation, and it was accompanied by wretched, prolonged wails that echoed through the whole forest. Their resident Trevenant were furious. A few in the clearing even tore the ground apart with massive roots and vines in their blinded rage, but they only succeeded in burying worthless grunts and their Pokemon. Their real target, Houndoom, darted away to safety.

  Will was too busy staring at the roaring flames and trying not to feel sick. Images flashed behind his eyelids. A small, resounding pain lanced through his head. His face itched. He sucked in a deep breath, mind already working through and processing the unexpected development.

  Calming thoughts flowed like water in his head, but that single moment where he froze up… that single moment where he didn’t keep his eyes on the state of the battle… it cost him.

  The same Houndoom who torched the forest had sneaked through their formation with Pursuit. Wreathed in hissing, erratic shadows, the canine’s lithe figure seemingly emerged from nowhere. The darkness swirling around its body solidified into armor that it used to slam Will’s barriers with.

  Layers crumpled and shattered under the weight of so much darkness pressing down on them. They broke in one go.

  One moment, Will was standing with his Pokemon, and the next, he’d been slammed back into a tree. Jaws lunged for his neck—

  They never sank into skin. Houndoom was blasted away by a wave of intense, scorching light before that could happen.

  Espeon snarled and dashed to Will’s side, her gem and beautiful fur smoking with the aftereffects of the most powerful Dazzling Gleam she had to offer. The rest of Will’s Pokemon surrounded him with renewed shields.

  Gratitude would have to come later. The initial impact of hitting the tree had knocked all the wind out of him. Pain prickled in spots along his back to the point that Will was certain he had splinters in his skin, a fact he verified after running a trembling hand over his backside and feeling wet blood. He was pretty sure he was going to have a very nasty bruise tomorrow, too.

  Great. This was his favorite shirt.

  Will coughed and gasped repeatedly for breath as he got up. The one good thing about his throbbing back was that it got his mind off of the flames still growing around them. He felt calm again.

  There was a thought nagging at the back of his head. Will was mildly surprised none of these grunts or their apparent superiors had tried to skirt around him yet. They had not tried to continue on their way to the Watanuki family’s house.

  How much longer did he have to hold these scoundrels off for—

  And for the second time in the span of a single minute, Will found his thoughts interrupted.

  Something caught his attention high above.

  In the midst of an ongoing battle, Will suddenly recalled a quote he’d read recently in a book at the Cherrygrove Public Library on his day off.

  There were three things all wise men feared: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

  Right now, as Will watched light more brilliant than any star ascend, he let the ghost of a smile flit across his facial features.

  He knew then and there everything was going to be alright.

  WHEN SHIT HIT THE FAN / Cherrygrove, Johto — Arin Watanuki

  I didn’t get angry very often.

  When I did, it was usually a mild case rectified within the day. Easy come, easy go. The number of times I’d truly been furious in my short lifetime could be counted on a single hand.

  Today soared to the top of the list.

  Rather than blinding, primitive, white-hot rage, what filled my veins now was something completely different.

  It was a cold, quiet fury—the kind that seeped into my bones and stole all the air from my lungs.

  Something heavy built inside my chest instead, a certain weight, and it grew rapidly without pause. Ringing intensified in my ears. Silent screams echoed from a quickening heartbeat. Each thump was more like a thunderous bang. Any faster, and my heart threatened to burst once and for all.

  In spite of everything, I had perfect clarity. My thoughts and senses sharpened into terrifying focus. Aside from a clenched jaw, the rest of my posture was eerily still. Relaxed.

  Mine was a wrath that vastly heightened my state of awareness rather than clouding it.

  Oaths sworn long ago and engraved upon my heart flashed through my mind. So did words recently imparted on me from the Witch of Lavender Town.

  When a fool harms what is yours, naturally they must pay the price.

  Cherrygrove was mine.

  My territory. My domain. My people.

  This was where I had been born and raised.

  This was where everyone and everything I loved was—my friends, family, gym, and kind, warmhearted locals who could have been my own flesh and blood.

  To invade this place and bring harm to it, to try and disrupt the peaceful lives of innocent people by turning them into collateral damage—

  That awakened a rage in me unlike any other I’d felt before. Every single part of me whispered for violence.

  Fairies did not take kindly to those who intruded on their domains without invitation.

  They retaliated.

  What was it that Mountain Weaver had told me before?

  To craft a story of my own, one so compelling that it would be remembered forevermore by the world and those who inhabited it?

  Well, our Story had already long begun. It had started here in Cherrygrove many years ago, and it would similarly end here someday in the distant future. We who had returned here, who had decided to make this place our stronghold and buried our roots here—

  We were a part of this city as much as it was a part of us.

  This place full of memories was part of our story.

  Above all else, Fairies thrived off belief. Tales gave rise to meaning and power.

  Today, a new page would be written.

  My lips barely moved.

  “Specialty.”

  The single word was so curt, so soft that it was almost lost in the wind, but its intended recipient still heard me.

  My oldest companion—a Sylveon who had been there since the start of our long, tiresome journey—snapped his head up in silence. Reflected in Vel’s eyes was the same cold, hardened emotion that every other Fairy of mine shared. Anger.

  A starter was not simply one’s first Pokemon or always the most powerful.

  They were the one who had shared all the best and worst times, the one who had forged the most enduring level of trust, and the one whose belief in you and themselves would never die even after their last breath.

  They, out of everyone else, possessed the most powerful Belief that intertwined with your own.

  Little tendrils of light gathered near Vel’s mouth. In the blink of an eye, they had wrapped themselves together into the beginnings of a familiar shape. Two blinks, and the light swelled into an unbelievable size.

  It kept growing even after Vel sent it hurtling into the air above his head. A trail of shimmering dust was left in its wake.

  Sometimes, it was possible to see the moon during the day.

  Even if you couldn’t, the moon was always there in the sky—a silent but ever-present guardian.

  There were a lot of reasons why people were so drawn to the cosmic entity. It was beautiful for one. Looking at it evoked a sense of wonder or peace. At night, it was a guiding beacon of light that staved off encroaching shadows.

  For Fairies and those who walked among them, the moon was a reflection of who they were.

  It was a symbol of their inner selves.

  The real moon wasn’t visible right now, but it didn’t need to be.

  A second rose in its place and eclipsed the mighty sun.

  The sky above the City of Fragrant Flowers and Fairies dimmed. A colossal orb had flown so high that thin, wispy clouds desperately cradled it in their embrace to keep it from ascending to the heavens. From that moon, radiant light poured out in endless waves. They bathed the whole city in their glow.

  Let today be a page in our Story that people will talk about for years to come, and let it be a warning to foes.

  Run from the light if you can.

  For where the moon rises, that is the domain of the Fae.

  They were beings who carved places for themselves in this world through the strength of their beliefs. Stories, words, hearsay—all of that nourished and gave them power.

  Here in this city where Fairies dwelled, where their stories and fame had already taken root and rapidly spread, they were the strongest.

  Their Beliefs were amplified.

  [June 10th, 20XX. 10:49 AM.

  This date and time were later marked down in Indigo history as the moment that the moon replaced the sun for exactly three minutes—no more and no less.]

  More than anyone else, Vel and I had always believed in defying the world and the supposed fates imposed on us.

  We played by our own rules.

  The moon in the sky glowed brighter and then—

  —day turned into night.

  From the Cherrygrove Gym to the forest and beach in the distance, the atmosphere changed without warning. The sun still hung far above the moon, but its brilliant visage paled in comparison to that of its heavenly counterpart. At the moon’s command, the azure sky became a blue so dark it almost seemed black. Stars appeared to wink in and out of existence. Any outsiders looking from a bird’s eye view would have seen the strangest sight: night descending on a portion of the city in what was supposed to be the late morning.

  This entire section of the city became part of Vel’s domain, one made by and for Fairies. He had defied the world by creating an isolated space of his own influence.

  Here, moonlight reigned and empowered allies.

  And here, leaving or entering were both forbidden until the moon went to sleep or you got permission.

  It would not last long, but it was enough time for us to clean house.

  The hunt started now, and the southern shore came first.

  One moment, we stood outside the gym, and the next, our feet sank into soft sand. What was normally a quiet, relaxing beach where one could sit and listen to splashing waves had become a sea of green and ugly red.

  Plants. So many plants. From lily pads to duckweed to interlocking vines, a huge portion of the sea was covered with a lattice of compacted greenery that floated atop the waves like makeshift platforms. Blood splattered their leaves and the water below with ominous hues. Pokemon fought on top and ripped floating rafts apart, but they were regrown as quickly as they were destroyed. Hana was here with her team. Her Grass types were busy blocking frenzied Water Pokemon from leaving the beach while her fliers whipped up tornadoes from the skies.

  My gym trainer wasn’t alone. A few League Trainers I recognized from our LDF branch office fought alongside her. On the shore itself, I saw a number of local Rangers herding what appeared to be native Water type Pokemon away from the beach to safety. They had probably gone into the sea to get innocent wildlife out before the fighting worsened.

  One look at the bloodshot eyes of some Seaking and Kingler, and I knew we were dealing with drugged Pokemon here. My eye twitched. If there had been any room for doubt before, there wasn’t now. Team Rocket’s hand in this was all but confirmed.

  Our side was fine. The drugged Pokemon currently infesting Cherrygrove’s waters were not.

  They all burned alive from moonlight on high.

  The Moon manifested from Vel’s Belief was sentient and a mirror of his emotions. It picked out all the hostile entities inside its sphere of influence. Anything under its illumination found their skins start to sizzle and burn as if they were boiling to death under the sun instead.

  I was suddenly reminded of my ancestor, the same one who had earned the Cherrygrove Gym by fighting off invaders from the sea in a small-scale war.

  Who would have guessed I’d be following in his footsteps today?

  “Wrap it up.”

  The directive was heard loud and clear by my Pokemon.

  Hana had long noticed me already, and she quickly recalled any Pokemon fighting on the seas with her. Her Togekiss blurred past and carried her up with Psychic while other Flying types followed suit for their League Trainers.

  They got out of the blast zone just in time.

  In an open space where powerful Pokemon didn’t have to hold back, they went to town.

  The sea erupted.

  Dozens of hazy, miniature moons and Hyper Beams bombarded open waters. The first few cleaved the sea in two where it stayed split as if it couldn’t come to terms with gravity yet. The other Moonblasts fell more swiftly than the others, and they converged on the drugged Pokemon tossed through empty air.

  Pale sands shook violently from the ensuing explosions.

  There were so many of them that the deafening booms seemed almost cascading in nature, each more violent than the last, and each blowing columns of boiling water sky high. Air warped from the intense heat. Between clouds of smoke, falling bodies, and halos of blinding lights, it was hard to see anything. The sickening, rotten scent of burning flesh would have entered my nostrils if Hatterene didn’t put up a barrier.

  The sea never stayed constant. It shifted into different hellscapes on a seesaw between two extremes.

  First it was fluid water, steaming and hissing from geysers. Then powerful, chilled winds swept through the air and morphed the shifting water into a land of ice and frozen statues instead.

  Even that only lasted a moment.

  When another Moonblast came falling from the skies, everything shattered into thousands of shards. The part of the sea closest to the shore transformed into a raging inferno. Flames climbed high, but they froze over and were shattered anew as my Pokemon fired another volley of shining orbs.

  It was like watching the end of the world take place in the span of less than a minute.

  I raised a hand about thirty seconds in, and that was the cue for my Pokemon to hold fire.

  The sea was a complete and utter mess.

  Nothing had survived the onslaught. Over a hundred bodies floated on the surface of the water in between broken ice and lingering flames, but it was more accurate to say that bits and pieces of them bobbed up and down instead. Riddled with holes, ripped apart by explosions, scorched into charred husks—the method varied greatly depending on whose specialty Moonblast they had fallen prey to, but these drugged Pokemon had well and truly been put out of their misery. They were beyond any point of forcible recovery that R2 could torture them with.

  I didn’t feel anything in particular when I looked at them. Part of it was because such violence was par for the course where Fairies were concerned, but the other part was because my fury hadn’t been quenched yet.

  Hana caught my eye from where she flew on her Togekiss above. We shared a brief nod, and the unspoken meaning was clear. She’d take care of the aftermath.

  I had somewhere else to be.

  We Teleported to the second location with smoke: the one inside the forest. Contrary to what I thought, it wasn’t my house’s backyard. It wasn’t too far off, though.

  The air here smoldered. Loud hisses petered out as the final traces of small, shadowy particles in the air evaporated from moonlight streaming through the canopy of trees. Evidently, some sort of Dark type energy used to fill this cratered clearing before the moon rose. Someone had also started a massive fire. Flames mixed with black sparks swallowed trees whole. Many had burned until they were nothing more than ashen stumps.

  I took in the situation quickly. Wounded guards and resident security Pokemon, drugged Pokemon lying around in heaps, Will fighting off some lady with white hair and extraordinarily light eyes with his team of Psychic types…

  The moment my eyes actually caught sight of people in black uniforms running amok with their Pokemon, the rage bubbling underneath my calm exterior intensified.

  My temper flared.

  Any grunts who didn’t have Pokemon to shield them screamed as their skin burned under constant, watchful moonlight. Flesh bubbled and blistered until it glistened red, but it was the agony behind their hoarse yells that I focused on.

  Their pained screams were music to my ears.

  It still wasn’t enough.

  You didn’t waltz into someone else’s city and expect to come out of it unscathed. A clear warning and example needed to be set to dissuade any future attempts.

  No manner of order was necessary. My team was already moving.

  Cutiefly split up from us. While she went to assess the situation at our house, water surged forward out of nowhere on all sides of the clearing. The incoming flood split with purpose. Milotic swept massive streams across the burning forest. Two figures—Azumarill and Lapras—rode the waves all the way to the opposite side of the clearing to catch fleeing grunts. Water was supposed to be smooth and gentle, but Azumarill gave it crushing weight with her beliefs. Pink-hued liquid wrapped around the buoyant Pokemon as she backflipped through the air.

  Her landing fractured the earth and made everything nearby sink dozens of feet under. Raging water expelled from Azumarill’s body dragged figures into a hole screaming and kicking, and it squeezed their bodies like it had a mind of its own. Bones cracked. Veins popped. Above ground, Lapras sucked in all the surrounding air. The skin of her opponents became sunken as moisture was forcibly removed from their bodies. People and Pokemon alike shriveled up.

  In the sky, two Dragons caught the fliers flitting about annoyingly through the air. More and more moonlight filtered down from above as the canopy was destroyed. Trees were cleared by Hyper Beams that went wide. Twitching Pidgeot and Fearow fell with audible snaps as Dragonite and Altaria sniped them down by the dozen.

  Everyone else focused on who was clearly the superior officer among the horde of Rockets: the woman Will was still fighting. A Psychic Specialist, apparently, and maybe even one of those Vice Leaders we knew of judging by her unique uniform. Light glowed around her Pokemon before sputtering out. I could only guess they tried to Teleport everyone out, but that wasn’t happening in this twilight zone.

  Realizing she was trapped, the woman wisely switched her focus from Will to my Pokemon when they entered the fray. It wasn’t enough to delay the inevitable.

  Shields stacked so thick that they appeared opaque went up, but Mawile spun around in the air. Thick jaws with rows of shining teeth opened wide. There was nothing they couldn’t pierce, and the psychic barriers were no exception. Teeth tore into the outermost layer with a vicious crunch. Cracks instantly spidered forth from the point of impact.

  One single bite, and the whole sea of shields surrounding the mystery woman and her Pokemon broke apart.

  She was clever enough to use the broken shards and send them back as speeding projectiles, but someone had other plans.

  Pink blocked my entire vision as Wigglytuff inflated himself to a massive size. His rubbery body glowed as it mimicked the properties of a balloon.

  In what was one of our favorite combos, he let the storm of shards cut into his skin with a loud pop.

  Half the nearby forest was instantly felled.

  Fierce winds howled. Heavy pressure from shock waves blew outwards with a tremendous bang. It was so strong that it ripped out entire trees, roots and all, and sent Rockets sailing through the air. When at last the bodies met ground, they tumbled across the earth with nasty cracks.

  The woman’s Alakazam managed to save her with a weakened, last-minute trampoline made from psychic energy, but three of their teammates—a Hypno, Slowbro, and Wobbuffet—were taken out in one go.

  They didn’t have much time to recover, either.

  A screech tore through all the chaos. Large, glossy wings flared wide as Fizz blurred past their heads. Droplets poured down from feathers like glistening rain, but these were far from harmless. Deceptively tiny beads of acid fell with the impact of bombs. Hasty shields thrown up by the woman’s remaining Pokemon disintegrated from corrosive poison.

  Whatever the acid rain touched then exploded.

  Screams, raw and hoarse, bounced around as poison splattered everywhere. Fur, skin, shields, plants—everything melted without fail, and it wasn’t even the end of it. Every exploding droplet expelled sparkling, noxious fumes mixed with pheromones. I saw the moment when Rocket grunts breathed them in against their will.

  They spasmed.

  The toxins were so compelling that heads snapped with jarring, unhinged movements in Fizz’s direction. They made people focus all their attention on him. Gibberish left their frothing mouths as they raked nails against their own skin and clawed at their faces. Some even turned on each other. The whole time, their heads were bent unnaturally in Fizz’s direction. They couldn’t look away. The equivalent of psychedelic drugs had taken over their minds and made them fight to get the bird’s attention.

  Our main target, the woman with all the Psychic types, knelt on the ground panting for breath. Most of her team had sacrificed themselves for her as living meat shields when their psychic barriers failed. She only had one Pokemon left, a half-injured Alakazam, and it fired multicolored lasers from its spoons in all directions. Will’s Pokemon quickly covered themselves with shields.

  On my side, Scream Tail opened his mouth wide and ate the beams.

  Lasers fizzled out as he swallowed one after another. The whole time, he chewed with a look of disgust as if they tasted bad. When he finally opened his mouth, he screamed out a misshapen, unstable orb of fluctuating energy. Alakazam shoved its trainer out of range right before it detonated.

  Reality flickered in place. Colors swam. Smoke obscured the clearing.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  When it cleared, what remained of Alakazam had been thrown so far away that it could barely be seen.

  A silent witch now glided forward. Hatterene’s eyes glowed. Will’s Pokemon coordinated with her. Together, the Psychic types trapped the rest of the conscious Rockets and their Pokemon inside glowing boxes without oxygen. They only stopped when the last person fell.

  There was only one left now.

  The woman with light hair and eyes was snatched up like a ragdoll by Grimmsnarl, tossed in front of me, and held in place with Psychic from Hatterene. This close up, I realized how cloudy her eyes were. The craziest thing was that she didn’t appear to be much older than me, and yet she was willing to go to such lengths for Team Rocket.

  Just looking at her made my rage threaten to bubble over completely.

  The bloodlust emanating from the rest of my Pokemon indicated they felt much the same, but we couldn’t do anything about it. We needed this woman alive for the League to deal with.

  “Who are you? What does Team Rocket want? Talk,” I snarled.

  She got one and only one chance to talk in accordance with international laws that espoused showing some degree of humanity for criminals.

  Only one.

  Then the Indigo way of doing things was in order.

  Even though blood dribbled down her mouth from internal wounds, the woman smiled at me.

  “Someday, we’re going to do what you did to us,” she hissed proudly. Her voice quivered, but her eyes were bright with defiance.

  No idea what that meant, but I wasn’t here to play games.

  I had the authorization now. It seemed it was time for the Indigo way of how to treat the worst criminals.

  My eyes flicked over to Hatterene. “Silque, extract her memories—”

  It happened faster than anyone could react.

  At the expense of her arm, the woman forced herself against her psychic restraints enough that one arm was able to move. Veins all over her arm burst and bled profusely as she speared her hand into the shield around me.

  She couldn’t pierce it completely, but she made the tiniest crack that the tip of her finger could go through. She aimed her pointer finger at my head. I felt a presence trying to get inside my mind and—

  She had to kill him. If she could just somehow kill Arin Watanuki here, the others would have a much easier time in the future.

  She was going to rip his mind into pieces. She was going to make him suffer the most horrible death like every damned person in Kanto-Johto deserved, but there was—

  So.

  Much.

  Silence.

  It was—It was suffocating inside his head.

  Trying to get any further was impossible. It was like a colorful, winding labyrinth she couldn’t make heads or tails of. Visually, she might have compared it to a maze of stairs and doors that went up, down, sideways, and all over again. Everything defied gravity and logic. Even colors were wrong here. Everything spun.

  What terrified her most of all was the overwhelming silence—the kind where you couldn’t hear your own heartbeat or blood roaring in your ears or your own thoughts. The kind that gradually stripped you of your ego and—

  And… And…

  What was she doing here again?

  Who…

  Who was she?

  —getting expelled with a scream full of excruciating pain.

  I blinked calmly as I stared down at the woman writhing on the floor. Her eyeballs twitched erratically.

  Huh, so she was a decent human psychic. I had no idea how she stacked against the likes of Will and Sabrina, but it was impressive enough that she managed to even make a crack in Hatterene’s barrier. Straining herself came with costs, though. First, her arm was definitely fucked now. The whole thing looked like mush put through a grinder.

  Second, trying her luck against my brain had not been a good idea. Most people high up in their regional Leagues or governments had Pokemon protect their minds with shields and the like. It came with the territory when you were privy to confidential information. I was no different.

  According to what Hatterene had told me long ago, mine was structured the way she personally preferred it: a slow, long-winded trap that the invader walked into with their own two feet and where the pervasive silence drove themselves to utter madness and insanity.

  Cruel, but that described Fairies for you. They were the type to torture their enemies and revel in it.

  Right now, Hatterene looked like she wanted to absolutely murder this woman for trying to kill me. Rows of pointy teeth glinted in the moonlight as she snarled at the criminal. Vel’s sharpened ribbon was even one step away from the woman’s neck.

  “Don’t kill. Extract everything we need from her mind,” I ordered firmly.

  With great reluctance, they stood down. I ignored how Hatterene was probably tearing through the woman’s mind with unnecessary violence—more than usual—and turned away. My rage had not faded. It simmered instead, but the enemies had been dealt with. I could actually assess the situation more now.

  The first thing I did was call out to my Pokemon.

  “Audi, we’re going to need you here.”

  Light bloomed in the clearing from two different sources: the Key Stone bracelet on my wrist and the brilliant stone Audino wore around her neck like jewelry.

  Pink fur turned a sparkling white. Already fluffy, tufted ears perked upwards with feelers that grew in size, and more grew from the puff that sprouted on her neck. Before the light even faded, Audino stamped a foot against the ground. Soothing mist spread outwards in the clearing and brushed up against legs. It helped calm the injured while she clasped her hands together. From her prayers, little stars flew up and landed softly in the bodies of injured Pokemon. She then hurried around to give more specific treatments.

  We had about ten different injured guards, one with missing limbs, and a lot of wounded Pokemon. Two Mightyena and a Ninjask weren’t moving… probably dead. It was sad, but altogether, the casualties had been kept lower than I’d initially feared. I would have to get Hana’s report later to compare with any casualties on the beach.

  When I turned to Will, I was glad to see that he and his Pokemon seemed relatively fine. That was until I craned my neck to the side. From this angle, I could see red spots blooming across his back. Cuts in his shirt revealed the beginnings of swollen, bruised flesh underneath and some splinters lodged in his skin.

  I frowned. “Are you alright?”

  “‘Tis but a flesh wound! It doesn’t hurt at all,” Will reassured me. He even adjusted his cravat with a smile, but I didn’t miss the way his fingers trembled. Heavy perspiration had gathered on his forehead. Whether it was from the stress of fighting or pain from his injury, I had no way of knowing.

  Still, I cracked a small smile of my own. “Thank you, Will. You protected everyone,” I praised. I even used a hand to pat his shoulder for emphasis.

  I had to thank Hana later, too. I didn’t want to think about how things would have turned out if neither of my gym trainers had been around.

  Will returned my smile, but it quickly fell from his face in favor of waving his hands around.

  “Arin, you must know something!” he spoke fast. The urgency in his tone was not something I usually associated with Will Itsuki, so I felt tension return to my shoulders. “Before that moon rose and night fell—which I’m assuming was you—there was another Rocket member I fought here. A Dark Specialist. She disappeared right after she saw that moon come up. She probably fled—”

  “Or she might still be in the city somewhere,” I interrupted with a cold smile. “I don’t think she’d leave her allies here to fend for themselves.”

  The new intel from Will had the effect of making my rage swell again. There was potentially one more rat we had to deal with.

  I shouted to the rest of my Pokemon.

  “There might be another Rocket hiding somewhere. Find her!”

  All but a select number dispersed, and most of Will’s Pokemon went with them to speed up the hunt. Hatterene and Ninetales watched over the fallen Rockets while Flutter Mane and Mimikyu went back into my shadow. Audino was still looking over injured Pokemon. Vel, of course, stayed glued to my side with twitching ears. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere even if I asked him to. He was intent on making sure my safety was assured.

  “There’s one other thing, Arin,” Will continued. He tapped his chin with a finger in a nervous tick. “I don’t believe they were after the gym Pokemon. When I engaged them in fighting, they never made an attempt to get past me. It felt more like they were stalling for time.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What—”

  I broke off mid-sentence to stare at the sky. So did Will.

  The moon high above the city had chosen this moment to finally fade out of existence. With its disappearance, night and day reversed once more to take their proper places in reality. Bright sunlight warmed my skin again.

  That wasn’t what Will and I focused on.

  We stared at the pillar of light suddenly beaming upwards from the distant roof of a certain building.

  The Cherrygrove Gym.

  No time for questions. Our reactions were instantaneous. I had to cut Audino’s Mega Evolution short given the situation. Hatterene couldn’t move away from the Rockets, so Will Teleported us straight into the gym without a word.

  He took us to the lobby first, but nothing was wrong. Our PR team members were there, though, huddled in a group. They stared at us with obvious surprise, but Will instantly Teleported again before their lips could move.

  He moved us into the middle of the second floor, and this time he was correct.

  The light came from this level. In fact, it came from my personal office. We could see as much from bright, intense light spilling out from a crack in the door down the hall. Despite no security alarms going off, I had a bad feeling.

  For the third and final time, Will warped us—this time up and personal with a table inside of my office because of Dark type energy in the air. Our legs smashed into the wood from the Teleport mishap.

  I didn’t care about the sudden throbbing pain in my leg or the bruise I’d get. Vel and I spun around to see what the hell was going on. Light shot upwards from my desk and passed through the ceiling above.

  My rage had been quietly simmering this whole time, but the moment I saw a man and woman standing behind my desk, the moment I saw familiar black eyes stare back at me—

  “When I said see you around, I didn’t mean THIS soon— ah!” Petrel yelped, and a Kecleon shielded him from hardened ribbons that sliced at his face.

  I felt angry all over again.

  I’d seen him barely five minutes ago, but it was Rocket Executive Petrel in the flesh again. The woman with him was presumably the Dark Specialist Will had engaged. Petrel hadn’t replaced his broken silicone mask, so his irritating, cheerful, real eyes twinkled at us as he waved.

  “Seeyasorrybye!” he said all in one rushed breath.

  “PETREL!” I roared.

  Ribbons infused with concentrated type energy went flying again, and so did the Ghosts in my shadow—

  I barely heard a pained scream—a female voice—before Petrel pulled his previous getaway trick.

  He still succeeded, but the only difference was that this time, I actually saw how the hell he did it. Vel wrapped our group inside a bubble of his own influence that was separated from the reality around us.

  Colors didn’t splash my vision this time but the rest of the room. A Smeargle had been hiding under the desk, and with movements quicker than the eye could see, it swung its bright-tipped tail around. Colors from the walls, floors, and every object in the room seemed to pop out and bleed together.

  What I saw was the Smeargle seemingly painting its party out of the room by removing their colors and thus themselves from the background.

  They disappeared. All we had to show for our efforts was blood spilled onto my beloved carpet. One of Vel’s ribbons had gouged a deep slash in the woman’s arm before they vanished.

  I knew immediately they were gone, but rather than swearing, I marched to my desk and started inspecting every inch of it with my hands and eyes. The light coming from my office was from my desk but where exactly—

  Found it.

  I’d knelt to inspect the underside of the furniture, and the light was coming from the talismans I’d placed under my desk last month. They were the same good fortune charms I’d gotten from Sabrina all those weeks ago as gifts. The moment I ran my hand over the glowing papers, they disintegrated into ashes as if they’d served their purpose. The light in the room faded. I remembered placing others behind bookshelves before. Those hadn’t activated for whatever reason.

  I’d always wondered what these strange charms did exactly. No matter how I spun it, the talismans seemed more like signal flares or warnings for when someone with malevolent intentions snooped around.

  My eyes narrowed. That was the only thing that made sense.

  There was no other reason why a Team Rocket Executive would be here in my fucking office unless there was something he wanted.

  I shot to my feet and started pulling drawers in and out like mad, hands pawing through papers and miscellaneous objects at record speed.

  “Will, check the room and see if anything noticeable is gone! Or strange!” I quickly tacked on that last bit as an afterthought. None of my gym trainers knew my office as well as I did, so they wouldn’t be able to tell if anything was amiss.

  That was up to me, but Will helped anyway.

  Together, we searched my office. Vel and my Ghosts went ahead and dispelled the unpleasant Dark type energy lingering in the air. They lent their assistance in our search efforts as well, but again, they didn’t know my office as well as I did even though they spent so much time here with me. Hatterene probably would have known best given her impeccable memory, but she wasn’t available right now.

  I marched up and down my office, eyes scouring every nook and cranny for some sort of clue.

  My desk was fine. There were obvious signs of stuff having been moved around in haste, but nothing was actually taken. The cabinets weren’t missing any files, there weren’t any traps laid in the room as far as I could tell, and nothing was taken from side tables. My computer hadn’t been touched oddly enough. The Porygon family inside it let me know that via digital text. I couldn’t find anything else with traces of having been looked through—

  I lurched to a halt, eyes trained on a wall shelf. There were rows of evolution stones displayed there.

  I had to pick at my memory a bit, but I was pretty sure some of those weren’t in their original positions. Mostly, the row filled with Fire Stones had been swapped around.

  In two large strides, I instantly crossed the length of the room and peered at the evolutionary stones I was suspicious of.

  “Is something wrong, Arin?” Will inquired hesitantly. He drifted over to my side, but I didn’t reply right away.

  I was too busy inspecting these Fire Stones. They looked fine—

  Nope. On second thought, they weren’t. My hand shot out to grab two, one in each hand, and I lifted them up to my eyes.

  “I was right,” I muttered, but it was loud enough for Will to hear. “There are tiny holes in them.”

  Will squinted and leaned in closer for a look, but I spared him the trouble by passing the stones over.

  “Oh my.” His brows furrowed. “I do believe you’re right. These don’t look natural, I’m afraid.”

  Each stone had a miniscule, barely noticeable dot in them the size of a needle. It was like someone had poked them to see if they’d dent or not. The other three Fire Stones on the shelf were the same.

  Evolutionary stones were pretty durable, but that was beside the point.

  “Why would they vandalize my Fire Stone collection?” I wondered out loud.

  I was so very confused.

  Could this have been what Petrel was looking for? These were high-quality Fire Stones, sure, but you could buy similar ones without much issue off the market. Plus, if he’d wanted them, why make the oddest little dots in their surfaces? Hell, why not steal them or even the rest of my evolutionary stone collection and rob me blind? It was as if they’d been checking or comparing something—

  My train of thoughts was derailed when someone tugged on my pants leg. I looked down, and it was Mimikyu. A series of staticky noises left his mouth as he brought up a very interesting suggestion—that perhaps they’d been looking for this.

  And by this, he meant the small, jagged stone I’d let him have a while ago, the same one he’d been keeping inside the void under his cloth.

  He pulled it out with a shadowy tendril and brought it all the way up to my face. The faux Fire Stone appeared as sad as ever with a single tiny ember trapped inside, one no larger than a grain of rice.

  I’d honestly forgotten about it after giving it away to my Pokemon. After all, it wasn’t actually a real evolutionary stone but some ornamental look-alike gifted from Blaine to me—

  Wait.

  Blaine.

  A random gift. The attack on the Cinnabar Gym.

  Something Blaine wanted to keep safe. Something the Rockets were looking for.

  And now an attack on Cherrygrove.

  Was it a stretch? No, it couldn’t be.

  It was as if someone had splashed cold water on my face. Realizations came one after another, and they struck down like bolts from the blue as thoughts stitched themselves together in my head.

  What if… this stone wasn’t a random gift after all?

  What if the most paranoid man in Indigo had given it away because he thought someone would come for it in the future? I wouldn’t be able to confirm why he chose me to keep it safe until Blaine woke up and told me the answer himself, but that wasn’t important right now.

  The more I thought about it, the more I pieced together a plausible explanation and turn of events.

  Blaine had said so before passing out: the Rockets were there for a reason, and there was something he wanted to keep safe. The Rockets were aware of that valuable ‘something’ in his possession and launched a surprise attack on the gym to take it, but they couldn’t.

  Why?

  Because he didn’t have it anymore. Blaine had discreetly given it to someone else—me—a month back disguised as an ordinary gift for my gym’s grand opening. Team Rocket’s attack was made half worthless once they realized Blaine no longer had the stone.

  They still wanted it, though, and somehow they found out I had it.

  That would explain Petrel being here in my office with that other woman and the weird indents made in the real Fire Stones. They were snooping around to find that specific stone that Blaine had given me. If I hadn’t given it to Mimikyu before, they would have triumphantly found it sitting on my desk as a mere paperweight.

  Everything begged a certain question: what the fuck had Blaine given me? What was this stone, and what was so valuable about it that the Rockets came knocking on our front doors?

  If it was so important, why didn’t he tell me anything about it when handing it over? Was he so paranoid that he couldn’t trust anyone? Was it too terrible a secret to divulge? A heads up would have been nice! There was a part of me that was furious at Blaine for indirectly causing this whole mess and bringing Team Rocket to my doorstep, but at the same time, I quelled any rising anger by rationalizing that it was better I had the stone than anyone else. Considering the threats that came in the form of my Pokemon, this thing that Team Rocket wanted was safest here with me.

  Assuming my thoughts so far were mostly right, however, that brought up a whole other host of problems and complications… and a second rabbit hole to go through.

  How did Team Rocket know the stone was now in my possession?

  I’d never shown it in public before. From the moment Blaine dropped it off with me inside a small wooden box, the stone had stayed in my office for the longest time. I’d eventually taken it out at some point to display on my desk. It wasn’t really something that came up in conversation with other people, either.

  The only people who could have known about the stone were those who’d personally seen it—individuals who’d been in and out of my office.

  That included both a large list of visitors and gym staff, but I had a way to narrow it down immensely based on sinking suspicions.

  The events of today.

  A timeline slowly weaved itself in my head.

  If I was right about the Rockets looking for the stone, then the attacks by my house and beach had been diversions. They drew my trainers and guards away from the gym and kept them busy so someone else could sneak past all the security in the building to search my office. Meanwhile, Petrel had followed me to Route 35 to keep an eye on my movements and disguised himself as dad. In case I finished errands ahead of time (and I did), he was there to pretend to be dad and keep me outside a little longer. Engaging me in a fight Petrel couldn’t win had been to stall and give his allies time to carry out their plan.

  What Team Rocket probably didn’t expect was for me to overwhelm Petrel so quickly that he had to flee sooner than intended, thus allowing me to get back to Cherrygrove faster. That screwed up the rest of their plan because they hadn’t gotten inside the gym yet. They had to slam the pedal to the metal. Petrel hastily went to Cherrygrove ahead of me to lend a hand.

  Then Vel’s domain went up, all Rocket members were stuck here until it dissipated, and the rest of the events flowed pretty much as I knew them from memory.

  What I focused on was the convenience of it all.

  They chose a time to invade when most of the Cherrygrove Gym staff was away. Conveniently, that was when our strongest trainers like me and dad were gone. It was a very specific time frame, too, given that I was slated to be out for a mere half hour.

  Somehow, Petrel had known where I would be and even information like how dad was meeting up with friends at National Park.

  Somehow, Team Rocket knew that day’s schedule for me and my gym trainers.

  Somehow, Team Rocket had infiltrated the forest around my house with roaming security guards and Pokemon none the wiser. They’d made it as far as they wanted without getting noticed before they started their diversionary attack.

  And somehow, Team Rocket had managed to sneak into the gym past our state-of-the-art security measures. I didn’t care how good at infiltration Petrel was, that was a tough ask. He and that Dark Specialist lady would have only had a precious few minutes to break in and investigate before I arrived. It was reasonable to think they’d known the layout of the gym ahead of time as well as intel on our security shifts and systems. It would explain how they could have moved so fast without getting caught.

  My mind whirled with thoughts.

  There was no other explanation.

  Someone had leaked intel to Team Rocket, and that someone was probably one of my gym trainers.

  They were the only ones with access to that kind of information—the specific security details around Cherrygrove and the shift schedules shared only between gym trainers—and they would have been in and out of my office numerous times to speak to or hand reports to me. They would have noticed Blaine’s stone sitting on my desk at some point.

  And no matter how much I thought about it, the prime suspect was one person.

  Based on past memories, events, and conversations that suddenly dawned on me with different context, everything pointed to it being them over anyone else.

  Any rage or grief could commence after I confronted the suspect. I ran back over to my desk and started clacking away at my computer’s keyboard. Time was of the essence. I had no idea if they would run.

  My concentration briefly broke only when footsteps echoed on the second floor and a familiar figure burst into the room.

  Dad. It was actually him this time, and I could tell because my innate ability to sense shifts in reality didn’t go off.

  “A-Arin,” he stammered out, staggering toward me. He was panting heavily for breath after running. “Champion Lance contacted me because he couldn’t get through to you. I Teleported back right away— Lines are down and people downstairs were coming in with injuries and—”

  Relief flooded me over seeing him safe and sound, but I had duties to get through first. I’d already found the employee file I needed off my computer, so I closed the tab and ran over to give dad a one-armed hug.

  “Ask Hana for details if you see her!” I hurriedly told him. “I need to go!”

  With a grimace, I whirled around to face the lone human psychic in the room.

  “Will, I need you to take me to this address right now!”

  The urgency of the situation spurred Will to action so much that I felt like his Teleportation speed increased.

  Having never been there before, he took us as close to the address as he could get. He then Teleported the rest of the way based on visual sight. Lots of pit stops later, we found ourselves in front of a warm, unsuspecting yellow house in Cherrygrove City. The whole trip barely took ten seconds.

  I’d never visited this place myself, but I regretted that my first time had to be under these circumstances.

  Breaking and entering was an offense that didn’t apply when national security was threatened. Will helpfully unlocked and slammed the front door open for us. Together, we stormed the place with our starters.

  A faint, electrifying feeling zapped through the air as a psychic barrier big enough to enclose the whole house went up outside. No one was leaving courtesy of Will and his Xatu. Our party ran into the dining room first because that was where I suspected them to be.

  I was right. They were still in the middle of an early lunch.

  Silverware clattered violently as utensils were dropped onto half-eaten plates of food. Ugly, harsh sounds grated in my ears when chairs scraped against the wooden floor. They were pushed back as two different people jumped out of their seats. A young man and older woman stared at the intruders in their house with wide-eyed expressions.

  “What’s going on—” Beryl tried asking in a shaky, high-pitched voice, but I cut her off.

  My eyes were locked on the person standing opposite from her at the table.

  “No matter how I thought about it, it had to be you,” I began. I had to fight to keep my controlled expression from twisting itself into a grimace. “You gave Team Rocket information on the Cherrygrove Gym, Haze.”

  Hazel McMillon’s mouth dropped open in utter bewilderment.

  “What?! Arin, that’s not funny. I’d never do something like that!” he choked out, voice thick with emotion.

  I stared at him.

  “I know you wouldn’t, Haze,” I said slowly, taking a step forward. “Not willingly at least.”

  Memories flashed through my head one after another, and they were full of countless things that now paved the way for my suspicions.

  That time I found Hazel asleep on the gym’s second floor by the ticking grandfather clock.

  How unusually fast Hazel fell asleep to a Jigglypuff’s Sing.

  Hazel’s general on and off tiredness over the last month.

  All the times he complained about being exhausted even though he claimed he got enough sleep, all the yawning, all the dozing off on the job—

  It piled up to the point where everything no longer seemed quite so innocent.

  Funnily enough, Hazel exhibited tired symptoms without fail after specific events.

  As I’d come to realize, it was always after he visited his sister in the city and crashed at her place for the night.

  Hazel was correct. He would never do something like feed Team Rocket information. I’d come to know him, and he wasn’t that type of person or a good actor.

  But someone could still take advantage of him.

  Someone had used him as a mole and slowly, carefully extracted inside information over a long period of time.

  Someone who had recommended the Cherrygrove Gym’s job openings to Hazel in the first place and encouraged him to apply…

  Someone he never had his guard up with…

  And someone with a very skilled Psychic type, one who knew the human psyche well. We were talking about a Pokemon with decades of experience helping hospital patients sleep at night and the same Pokemon who had abstained from contact with Vel’s ribbons… almost like they were afraid of their emotions being found out and revealing their true selves. Like they had something to hide.

  That person’s Pokemon would have been able to get information from Hazel without him remembering. They probably waited until he slept at night to probe his mind and hypnotize him. Unless you specialized in Hypnosis, the move usually left noticeable traces in the mind for other psychics to find. The target would remember being under the influence, too.

  This person’s Pokemon had so much experience and subtlety with the move that they could pull it off, but as skilled as they were, they still couldn’t avoid one side effect: the tiredness that came with multiple hypnosis sessions.

  My gaze hardened as I turned my eyes to someone else in the room.

  Hazel’s sister, Beryl.

  “Beryl McMillon, I have reason to suspect that you’ve been hypnotizing my gym trainer, taking information from him without his consent, and colluding with Team Rocket. Confess. If you don’t, the Indigo League will pass down a harsher judgment on you later,” I stated in a voice devoid of all warmth.

  Right now, she was a potential criminal and not the blood relative of one of my staff members.

  Both siblings blanched at my words, but none more so than Hazel.

  Slowly, laboriously, and much like a wooden doll creaking as it moved its joints, Hazel rigidly turned in place to face his sister with wide eyes.

  “Sis, you… is that true?” he asked in a trembling voice. “Are you actually working with Team Rocket…? Is that why I’ve been feeling so tired lately? Because you’ve been putting me under hypnosis?!”

  “No!” Beryl immediately cried out. She shook her head frantically, hands flying up to clutch the front of her shirt like a lifeline. “I swear I don’t know what’s going on! I—I don’t have anything to do with Team Rocket! Please believe me, Arin, Haze—”

  I took a step forward. “Then if you’ll allow us to check—”

  IT WAS ME.

  The telepathic declaration had everyone pausing in place. All heads turned to the being whose mental voice had roared in our minds.

  A tall, yellow Pokemon stood in the doorway connecting the dining and living rooms, and she stared back at me with an unflinching gaze. She carried a broom in one of her hands as if she’d been in the middle of cleaning.

  Beryl’s Hypno.

  It is as Beryl says, Hypno told us in a quieter voice. It was steady. She has not colluded with Team Rocket. She did not give me any orders. I acted on my own without her knowing anything. Everything you accused Beryl of should all be blamed on me.

  I hadn’t fully believed Beryl was behind everything, but I’d still accused her first.

  The result included smoking out the real culprit. Hypno apparently cared enough about her longtime trainer that she didn’t want Beryl to take the fall for her actions. Since I’d already entertained this scenario as a possibility, I took the twist in stride.

  Beryl and Hazel on the other hand…

  “Oh Arceus.”

  Hazel covered his mouth with a hand. Beryl was so shocked that she lost strength in her legs for a moment. Swaying unsteadily, the woman staggered and bumped her back against the kitchen counter. One of her hands shot out to brace herself before she could fall again.

  “What are you saying?” she whispered, eyes trained on her Pokemon. Hypno refused to meet her gaze. “Tell me it’s not true, Hypno. You’ve never lied to me before.”

  I have not, Hypno agreed softly. ‘There are many things you would be angry with me about, but this is not one of them.’

  Beryl and I both started in place. We’d heard those exact words before. I remembered Hypno saying that to Beryl in her office the day I dropped by for a visit.

  This, I am afraid, is one of those things you would be angry with me about. I am sorry, Beryl, but what Leader Arin has said is true. I hypnotized your brother many times, and I took information from his mind to give to Team Rocket. Do not ever forgive me.

  Hypno went on to confirm my suspicions in a calm, almost detached voice.

  Every time that Hazel swung by for a visit and slept over for the night, Hypno had waited until he was fast asleep to hypnotize him for information. She would ask him about confidential things like patrol schedules, contents of staff meetings, what I’d been up to in my spare time, potential weaknesses of mine—anything useful or strange.

  Every word she spoke was another nail in the coffin. Beryl’s face grew paler and paler yet.

  “Who were you in contact with?” I asked.

  A Team Rocket Executive known as Ariana. She would send an Alakazam as her proxy.

  “For how long?”

  Not very long. When you first opened applications for gym trainers, that is when their organization approached me.

  “Did you tell Team Rocket about the stone? Did they ask you specifically to look into that?” I interrogated.

  Oh, she definitely knew what I was talking about. Hypno did not shy away from my cold expression or frigid voice.

  They never asked about it. When I informed them about an interesting stone Hazel had recently noted on your desk, however, that was when they grew excited and ordered me to find out your upcoming schedule.

  …I’d been right after all. Team Rocket would never have learned I had the stone if Hypno hadn’t fed them information through Hazel.

  “Were you aware there’d be an attack today?”

  Hazel’s eyes widened. This was his first time hearing of such a thing because of the downed communication lines.

  I was. I know what I have done to Hazel is terrible, but I still care for Beryl’s own flesh and blood. I would never want him to be in actual harm’s way. That is why I made the excuse of calling Hazel back home today so that he would not be caught in the fighting between your forces and Team Rocket, Hypno replied.

  A deep, shaky breath could be heard in the vastness of the room.

  “That’s hypocritical,” Hazel rasped out. “I should have been there to help everyone. I should have…”

  He trailed off and bit his lip so hard that he drew blood. I felt sorry for him, but I forged ahead.

  “Did you have anything to do with Haze joining the Cherrygrove Gym? Or was his application purely coincidental?”

  I did, she confessed. Hazel looked sick to his stomach. It was not coincidental at all. I brought the job openings up in passing conversation with Beryl and strongly hinted that it might be something worth pursuing for Hazel. She trusted me and encouraged Hazel in turn.

  “Because Team Rocket wanted that?”

  Because they wanted that, Hypno echoed. She laid the broom she held against the wall. They saw you as a threat. They wanted someone to spy on you and your gym, but they feared being caught. So, they looked for an indirect and unknowing mole. A more natural connection. They wanted Beryl to take that role at first, but I convinced them to use her brother instead. He was looking for a job and highly likely to pass the interview with his qualifications, so they agreed.

  Tears welled up in Beryl’s eyes. “So… You thought it was better to use my own family instead? How could you? Hypno, doctors save people! Our parents died helping heal others in the Rocket War. You know that! Why would you help them?”

  …

  Hypno did not respond.

  I’d long known Hazel and Beryl’s parents had passed, but I hadn’t known it was because they’d been casualties of the Rocket War. Rage swirled turbulently in my chest.

  “She has a point.” My eyes flashed with anger. “Why did you do all of this? Why help Team Rocket?”

  I did not want to. They threatened Beryl, she replied.

  Of course they had. Rotten bastards.

  “You could have gone to the League for protection—”

  They were going to kill her in her sleep! Hypno snapped, and it was the first hint of emotion I’d seen throughout our conversation. That woman, she came here in the middle of the night and was going to burn everything down. All I could do was swear an oath to help them.

  “And—”

  Hypno did not let me go on. She continued speaking at a more hurried pace. It was to the point the Pokemon almost stumbled over her words in her haste to get them out.

  It is a sin I cannot take back, and I am sorry. I did not want to lose the kindest person I know in this world, Hypno apologized. I do not have much time. Listen to me! They approached us of all people because they remembered Beryl. They wanted to give her a chance to join them and live. I was not sure at first, but now I am. She is older now, but that woman named Ariana is from the orphanage—

  She did not get to finish.

  The Hypno broke off suddenly in violent convulsions. Blood leaked from her eyes, and the sight elicited startled screams from her trainer. Hazel hurriedly grabbed his sister and turned her away so Beryl wouldn’t have to see.

  The whole thing reminded me of a familiar sight I’d seen in the lowest levels of Mount Moon—the one where the Team Rocket grunt we captured died after triggering key words implanted from a psychic oath.

  Fuck.

  “Will! Her mind! Get her memories!” I yelled.

  I didn’t have Hatterene with me, so Will and his Pokemon were the only ones who could do this right now. The Psychic Specialist reacted almost before I finished speaking. He and his Pokemon stood unnaturally still as they focused their attention on the Hypno that had collapsed to the floor. Her arm reached out in the direction of her trainer as shaking eyes did their best to catch one last glimpse, but they could not focus between all the pain.

  One, two, three seconds later… the convulsions shuddered to a halt. Hypno’s body went still.

  She was gone.

  I spun around to face Will with a questioning expression. He nodded slowly as his eyes darted between me and the late Hypno.

  “I believe I got most of it,” Will began with a troubled expression, and then his next words made me hiss through my teeth. “Although… the memories are very fragmented from the mental trauma. There is a lot of it to parse through because Hypno’s whole life flashed before her. It will take me some time to find what is relevant to Team Rocket and this Ariana person.”

  My shoulders slumped. “That’s fine,” I reassured him, but I wasn’t sure if that was meant more for him or me. “You did the best you could, Will. Thank you. Can you share them with Silque later?”

  Will dipped his head with a gracious nod. “Of course. You need but ask.”

  My mind was still half-reeling from the shock of everything as I turned now to Hazel and Beryl. Hazel stood staring at Hypno’s body in a dazed manner, but he had enough sense in him to not let his sister go.

  Beryl already knew without looking, though. She sobbed into her brother’s shirt, and in between all the anger I felt, sadness filled me.

  Hypno had done something terrible, but she had still meant the world to Beryl. The sorrow of losing the Pokemon was not going to fade anytime soon.

  I walked up to them with a tight, uncomfortable feeling in my chest.

  “I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say. I couldn’t begin to imagine how the two siblings felt right now. A family Pokemon they’d known their whole lives had betrayed them and then died in front of their eyes.

  With great difficulty, Hazel tore his gaze away from Hypno and met my eyes. He looked so… lost.

  “Why would you apologize, Arin?” he asked bitterly. His lip was still wet with blood from where he bit it. Hazel hung his head low. “I’m—I’m the one who should be apologizing. Because of me, there was some attack on the gym and—and… Arceus. How am I supposed to look you in the eye anymore? I don’t think I should work at the gym. I don’t deserve it—”

  “Stop,” I denied sharply. That was absolutely ridiculous, and I made sure he knew it from the firmness of my tone. “This wasn’t your fault, Haze. It was Team Rocket’s. The Cherrygrove Gym still needs you.”

  He was not allowed to beat himself up especially when he was the victim here.

  Hazel nodded glumly but didn’t say anything. Both our eyes darted to the still crying Beryl.

  “I think it’s better if your sister goes to League HQ for now,” I suggested in a gentle voice. “I don’t think Team Rocket has anything over her anymore, but we can assign her guards in the future to ensure her safety. The League will also want to hear her statement and yours regarding all of… this.”

  Hazel only answered after swallowing the lump in his throat. “Okay… Okay. League HQ. That sounds good.”

  From their house at least, we had a signal. The communications jammer Will told me about seemed to be limited to the area around the gym and my house. I could finally call League HQ to give them a status update. There were lines ringing off the hook in the background the whole time I spoke, but I didn’t get to talk to my operator for very long.

  Someone swiped the phone halfway through.

  “Arin, I’ve been trying to get through to you for the last ten or so blasted minutes! We thought something happened to you!” Lance’s familiar and relieved voice flooded the line. “Your gym trainer Will’s Pokemon alerted us about an attack on Cherrygrove earlier! We sent forces immediately, but they got delayed by drugged pokemon on Routes 29 and 30—”

  “The situation’s resolved! I’m fine. Cherrygrove is fine,” I said hurriedly, and I had to repeat it two more times before Lance settled down. He was quite clearly agitated by all the chaos in Indigo right now. “Get the details from the operator I just spoke to, but we’re fine. There’s a shit ton of other things I need to tell you, though—”

  “It’ll have to be saved for a meeting!” Lance interrupted, and instead of sounding frantic, he sounded straight up furious now. “I just got a new alert from Blackthorn City. Team Rocket infiltrated the city by mixing into a crowd of actual protestors.”

  I would have shot to my feet if I wasn’t already standing.

  “What?!”

  Cherrygrove was one thing given the stone they apparently wanted was here, but why would they touch the City of Dragons and the reigning Champion’s fucking hometown? That was asking for total annihilation. Unless…

  “Bruno and Agatha are watching over Blaine in case this is a ploy by Team Rocket to distract us so they can go for the kill. I’m heading over to Blackthorn. You should stay and watch over—”

  “No.”

  I instantly shot that idea down, eyes narrowing. I was still pretty damn furious myself, and one of my gym trainers was visiting that city right now.

  Those two reasons were all I needed.

  “I’m coming with you. We’re giving them hell.”

  Blackthorn City, Johto — Yurie Irazuki

  It was supposed to be a simple get in, get out kind of thing. A quick hangout.

  And it was for the most part. Yurie managed to sneak into Blackthorn City—for whatever reason, their security seemed laxer today—and successfully met up with her sniffling friend in an isolated alley. Yurie’s old belongings were packed neatly into a small box that she carried in her arms.

  Calming the distraught girl down had been a whole other issue. Yurie’s friend, Nayu, was sick and tired of the Blackthorn Clan. What was more, she had made up her mind to quit and go back home to Cianwood. Of course Yurie wasn’t going to leave her here. She resolved to help her friend sneak out.

  The problem started after she decided that.

  They got swept up by the crowds. The streets were packed for some reason. Yurie almost thought there was some sort of local festival or event going on, but a quick Zoogle search on her phone revealed nothing of the sort.

  Instead, what it turned out to be was a crap ton of protestors straight from Mulberry City and the other cities with minor gyms in Kanto. Their townspeoples had traveled hundreds of miles simply so they could protest the Blackthorn Gym at their front gates. Part of the crowd even split off to make their voices heard at the Blackthorn Clan’s estate.

  Boy, was it a sight to see.

  They carried signs with vulgar messages, lobbed eggs and rotten fruits at the gym, and shouted at the top of their lungs. Something about unfair gym promotion exams, an equally unfair proctor who went unnecessarily hard on their poor gym leaders, not giving people the chance to shine, yada yada.

  Yurie sort of forgot everything they said because everything went to shit minutes into the protest.

  Confused murmurs went around when some people in the crowd released Pokemon from their Pokeballs.

  They quickly turned into screams when those Pokemon started rampaging in the middle of the city.

  People fled in all directions as Hyper Beams were fired at the Blackthorn Gym. Trainers and clan trainees on guard duty deflected the incoming beams with Protects, but they kept coming. More ‘protestors’ sent out Pokemon to join the madness. There was everything from Nidoking to Nidoqueen to Delcatty and Wigglytuff. That last one made her blood boil. She had grown to appreciate Fairies because of Arin and her new job. Seeing one used like this was a low blow.

  Yurie was no genius, but even she could tell these were no ordinary protestors. Pokemon with bloodshot eyes? Sickly appearances?

  Drugged Pokemon. Probably Team Rocket.

  “Stay close to me!” she screamed to her friend above all the din. Yurie grabbed Nayu’s hand and pulled her along as she ran out of the surging crowd. They took cover in the alley between two buildings, but she strained her eyes. The back of it appeared to be a dead end filled with dumpster bins and trash cans.

  It was probably best if they left. No one would care right now if they exited the city in the middle of all this chaos. Looking for a runaway trainee and a traitor would be the least of the Blackthorn Clan’s worries. But…

  Yurie already knew what her answer was when she looked at the people fighting in the distance. She recognized some of them from her ex-trainee days. She’d talked to those people before. They weren’t exactly very close, but they’d goofed around in their trainee days and complained or eaten meals together. It didn’t feel right to leave when they were battling Indigo’s sworn enemy.

  She bit her lip.

  Fuck it.

  “Y-Yurie, what are you doing?” Nayu’s trembling voice asked.

  Fingers pressed the Pokeballs along Yurie’s belt as she released every member of her team. She flashed what she hoped was a confident smile at Nayu and patted Tropius’s back.

  “Nayu, you leave the city first. Tropius will take you home,” Yurie answered brightly. The giant spread his wings in preparation.

  Her friend’s eyes widened. “But what about you? You’re not staying here, are you?!”

  “Don’t worry about me!” Yurie urged. She grabbed the other girl’s hand again and pushed her gently towards Tropius. “Go! I can take care of myself! I’m going to stay and help.”

  Nayu stopped arguing when a Solar Beam ripped through the air. She quickly mounted Yurie’s Pokemon, but she gave one last fearful look before they went.

  “Stay safe!”

  Tropius took off with one mighty beat of his wings, but Yurie didn’t watch them go. She blew stray bangs of hair out of her eyes and cracked her knuckles, ignoring how fast her heart pounded.

  “That’s what you should be saying to these assholes, Nayu,” Yurie muttered to herself. She gave a lopsided grin. “Hmph, I should get my old coworkers to treat me to a meal after this.”

  In a louder voice, she roared to her team.

  “LET’S GO!”

  The journey to simply join the Blackthorn Gym defender side was not exactly a walk in the park.

  Poison spores, laser beams, and columns of water so dense they dented metal lamp posts went flying in all directions. Dusclops went on guard duty to shield their group while Nimbus covered them from the skies. Mawile watched their backs, and Walrein, Magcargo, and Mightyena deflected attacks with their own.

  Yurie could not have been more glad that she’d left her baby Pokemon at the Cherrygrove Gym today for Luca and the others to watch over.

  “Yurie?! What the hell are you doing here?” a lanky boy screamed at her once she and her Pokemon safely joined their ranks. They quickly linked up with and slotted themselves into the defensive formation the Blackthorn people had going in front of their gym.

  “Good to see you too, Naete! I see you haven’t quit yet!” Yurie yelled back as her Altaria sniped a Venomoth down from the sky.

  He stared at her like she was crazy (which she probably was, and she was not ashamed to admit that).

  “Get out of here! We’ll take care of things! It’s dangerous. This isn’t your problem!”

  Yurie shouted back harder. “‘Not my problem?’ Dude, this is Indigo’s fucking problem! Get your head on straight! I don’t exactly want to read the news tomorrow about you or Yoshi or anyone else dying, either!”

  Yoshi chose that moment to scream from somewhere down her left. Apparently, he was still doing well and fine for himself in the Blackthorn Clan, too. “Is that Yurie Irazuki I hear?! What are you doing—”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, FOCUS!”

  And by Arceus, did they really have to focus. There were so many more Rockets disguised as protestors spilling out from alleys and seemingly nowhere. Some trainee down the line yelled something about how the Blackthorn Clan’s estate was being attacked, too, and Yurie’s head spun.

  That was insanity because—

  BOOM. BOOM.

  Powerful explosions went off in the distance, and Yurie even caught sight of Dragons soaring around.

  Yep, because Blackthorn Gym Leader Clair Ibuki was probably not going to be happy about that.

  When people around her suddenly gasped and tilted their heads back, Yurie added two more reasons to the ways Team Rocket was going to perish today.

  She grinned when she saw the region’s strongest Dragons and Fairies flying together through the skies.

  Blackthorn City, Johto — Arin Watanuki

  “That’s a lot of Rockets! More than the alerts said!” Lance yelled, fighting to be fought over the rushing winds.

  “No shit!” I shouted back in deadpan agreement.

  Lance and I flew on our Dragonites with the rest of our teams spread out in formation around us. A few of my Pokemon had to sit out for this one, but the smaller Fairies who couldn’t fly were hitching rides on my Pokemon who could. Some were even carried by Lance’s Dragons.

  The Blackthorn Gym was coming up fast, and the street around it was absolutely crawling with hordes of disguised Rocket operatives and their Pokemon. So were the skies. They’d brought a lot of fliers with them.

  It was on a larger scale than what they tackled Cherrygrove with, and I wasn’t sure if I should feel pissed off or not about that. Probably?

  I didn’t envy Blackthorn City for how much more chaotic their situation was, though. At least with my city, the attacks were in relatively empty areas. Here, they happened in broad daylight in the streets during ongoing civilian protests. This was going to stick in the news for a while.

  The veins in Lance’s neck bulged with anger at seeing his hometown attacked. I understood completely. I’d been on the receiving end of it earlier, and now I was here to help him dish out twice as much as Blackthorn got. Conflicts in the other locations across Indigo were already wrapping up, so pretty soon other Indigo elites were going to be here to help if needed.

  Lance and I planned on finishing things before then.

  It said something about me as a person when I looked at those Rockets down below and felt nothing but vindictive pleasure about the hell we were going to show them. All they’d done today was piss me off and make sure I had very, very strong emotions about their organization going forward.

  “I’m going to gather them!” I shouted to Lance.

  He looked at me with scrunched brows. “What?!”

  “I’ll group them up for us to take out in one go!” I repeated. “We can’t go all out unless we want to destroy the city! You DO want to go all out, right?! We have to send both Indigo and Team Rocket a message!”

  “Of course!” Lance bellowed back, snarling.

  “Then let’s give them a show!”

  My companion’s smile was ferocious, but mine was far more vicious.

  As people were going to learn today, there was nowhere the moon could not rise.

  “Moons! Gravity!” I roared above the wind. “Merge!”

  Lights instantly flared to life as they were summoned. Shimmering particles in the air gradually entwined themselves into spinning orbs. The moment we zipped past the Blackthorn Gym, my Fairies dropped them and started making more.

  One by one, each moon born from their Beliefs spun violently through the air and were pulled toward each other as if they could not bear to be apart.

  They merged together.

  Light intensified as the orbs were swallowed up into a central core. It was so blinding that I couldn’t look directly at it without having to chase away dark spots. More moons fell gracefully one after another. The whole thing grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger until…

  It grew big enough.

  Larger than any building and brighter than any star, the massive Moonblast descended until it hovered inches above the Blackthorn Gym. From small blemishes to larger, cracked craters swirling with dust and pink haze, it looked indistinguishable from the real moon. It was like we’d plucked the cosmic entity itself from the heavens for a day. The air around it vibrated intensely. It thrummed with a forgotten song, one so loud that I thought I could hear faint humming and whispers in my ears. The howling, screaming winds that spun around the moon were so loud in comparison, but somehow the singing air won out above all the noise.

  Our Moonblast did not simply hover idly. It had a gravitational pull of its own, and it desired offerings to slake its bloodthirst. It had been made by the Beliefs of all my Fairies, they who were united in a single goal: to destroy every last enemy.

  Like a tornado, it picked up everything around it that it deemed hostile.

  Even from this high up as Lance and I flew loops around the gym, the screaming never seemed to end. Rocket grunts and their Pokemon were tugged violently into the moon’s orbit where they were flung round and round as if they were in a mixer. It didn’t matter if they tried to grab onto the ground or a fire hydrant or any other surface—the moon forcibly pulled everything into its embrace. Before long, the streets were cleaned out. Countless bodies swirled around the exterior of the moon at dizzying speeds, but they were like mere specks against such a large entity. The moon’s radiance was still on full display.

  I gave my next order.

  “Ascend! To the mountains!”

  My Pokemon concentrated and pulled the moon.

  The air sang louder as the moon rose up, up, and higher yet. Slowly at first, but then it propelled upwards to take its rightful place in the skies. On cue, our fliers shot towards the city’s northern boundary to the mountain range. The moon gave chase after us, but it didn’t need to hurry. We stopped at some point to let it sail high above our heads, and my Pokemon made it stop above the mountain peaks. We were way out of city limits now. That meant—

  “Lance!” I yelled, voice nearly lost in all the vibrating air and winds. “Go!”

  “With pleasure!”

  Tendrils of light rapidly weaved themselves in the air. My Pokemon prepared their most powerful Moonblasts and Hyper Beams. Lance?

  This was my first time seeing Lance’s team display their full strength, and he proved exactly how he had earned his title as Indigo’s Champion.

  The air itself became a sea of fire.

  Beautiful, mesmerizing, overwhelming flames stuck between turquoise and royal blue charged up in the mouths of his Dragons. They burned so hot that the air warped to the point I couldn’t make out their figures properly. I was sweating buckets until Togekiss added a second Protect onto the one currently around me. The distance between our teams was sizable but not enough apparently.

  We didn’t exactly aim for it, but we both somehow timed our attacks to each other.

  Beams of light and furious flames ripped through the air in a combined wave so large it blocked everything else out.

  The moment they made contact with the moon, it erupted.

  It screamed—

  It wailed—

  And it blew up.

  Blinding. So blinding. Stars exploded across my vision from the light show. Between all the intense ringing in my ears and winds whipping my hair every which way, I was dimly aware of the sky itself being ripped apart piece by piece. It flickered from intense pressure and billowing smoke. Pressurized gales and superheated air tore through any silence and made it hard to think above all their screaming. And still, the only thing I saw was white. Pure, radiant white. Probably for miles around, what people saw when they looked to the skies was the beginning of the end: a heavenly sea of light born from the rage of two of Indigo’s guardians.

  When I could finally see right again, the early blues of the morning sky had not yet returned. They were clouded by shimmering waves of pink dust that fluttered down to earth, and little blue embers flew among them.

  Nothing remained of the invaders.

  Neither of us listened to the report crackling in from Lance’s walkie talkie. Neither of us heard an operator say the last invaders in the city had been removed by the Blackthorn Gym Leader. The words were lost in the triumphant roars of our Dragons and Fairies as we flew back to the city.

  Now and forever, the moon would always rise.

  Yep. LOTS of stuff happened in this chapter and came to light, whew. Previously mentioned plot points finally came together for a very big explosion. The continuation and aftermath of this chapter will be seen in the next one. This chapter also serves as an important turning point for Arin.

  Arin putting the fear of Arceus and Fairies in people, the uptick in visitor count in Blackthorn City mentioned from Clair’s Interlude, the talismans Arin got from Sabrina finally saw the light—pun maybe or maybe not intended, and the stone from Blaine rears its head again…

  The whole Hazel, Beryl, and Hypno situation was a long time coming with hints I sprinkled throughout different chapters. Kudos to anyone who predicted something was off about them!

  For anyone curious about the future: the summer arc will be winding down shortly. A few more chapters, and then it’s autumn.

  This fic has a server if anyone is interested. You can get pinged for updates or lurk and chill.

  Arin's Pokemon for reference purposes:

  

  
1. Vel / Sylveon / M


  
2. Yuno / Milotic / M


  
3. Zuri / Dragonite / F


  
4. Arya / Altaria / F


  
5. Willow / Mawile / M


  
6. Taffy / Wigglytuff / M


  
7. Peri / Togekiss / M


  
8. Brie / Lapras / F


  
9. Zuzu / Azumarill / F


  
10. Audi / Audino / F


  
11. Freya / Alolan Ninetales / F


  
12. Cally / Cutiefly (Shiny) / F


  
13. Mem / Mimikyu / M


  
14. Choux / Dachsbun / M


  
15. Silque / Hatterene / F


  
16. Grima / Grimmsnarl / M


  
17. Fia / Flutter Mane / F


  
18. Lico / Scream Tail / M


  
19. Fizz / Fezandipiti / M