“What!? That’s not true!” The man with the cross burst forward with anger, shock and hurt still clear on his face. “Sabrina, he’s lying!”

“Am I?” Azure whispered, smiling serenely.

Between the two, Sabrina stood languidly in place, the gears in her brain turning so fast they were giving out smoke.

Wasn’t it strange? A malicious voice whispered inside her head. How he never told you where he came from, or what he was doing here? He didn’t even tell you his name. Isn’t it suspicious how he always talked so much without saying anything about himself?

“...Of course,” she said, barely audible. A small, bitter smile dragged at the corners of her lips. “Why else… would he be interested in someone like me?”

“S-Sabrina?” The man’s voice was pleading. “You don’t… believe him, do you?”

Azure slapped his hands together so loudly and giddily that Sabrina was brought back to reality. “Well then!” he exclaimed jovially. “Now that the Meowth is out of the bag, I imagine you won’t have a problem cleaning the filth that’s infiltrated your Gym, right?”

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But she didn’t move, couldn’t. She felt the man with the cross’ eyes on her, wide, begging.

“It’ll be a nice entree for tonight’s main dish~” Azure hummed, placing a hand atop Sabrina’s head like one would do with an attack dog.

She still had Mr. Mime’s Pokeball in hand, but she couldn’t will her limbs to move. The rawest, most harrowing doubt was reflected in her eyes.

“What’s wrong? Go on, kill him,” Azure urged her. “Why the hesitation? This is the trash that toyed with your emotions for so long, remember?”

“Shut up! That’s not true!” The man with the cross bellowed. “I followed you around because… I had to make sure…!”

Sabrina’s hand was trembling. Azure stole one last glance at her, and sighed.

“Hah. Looks like I’ll have to dirty my own hands after all.”

“N-!”

Heart leaping to her throat, Sabrina turned around to protest, but it was-

“Too late~”

The man’s bicolored eyes fell closed, lips still quirked up into a smile. Then, in a flash too fast for even the eye to follow, a Pokeball was opened and the creature within materialized before the man with the cross.

The monstrous Nidoqueen, as wide as five men, fell upon the man with a swipe too fast to dodge, tearing into his side with her knife-sharp claws.