Chapter 17: Finals |

They airlifted Dad to Viridian, which had a better equipped (human) hospital. For Aracely, who didn't own a flying Pokémon, this was a problem. Actually, it was a problem before that; she couldn't even escape the stadium. Universal laws funneled her behind a press release podium.

"Bill Masaki attributes your success in this tournament to luck. What do you say to that?"

"I'd say Bill's mad he gets more predictions wrong than Iono."

Laughter.

"Photographs showed you with Toril Lund several times prior to this match. What's your relationship with her?"

"We're friends. I love Tors." She intercepted the follow-up. "The victory's bittersweet, of course. But I know we both gave it our all out there."

"The Battler's Union president called for a vote earlier today on whether to pressure the IPL to formally ban coaches. Do you believe this is a response to your coach, Domino Sosa?"

For a moment inconsequential to everyone else but fatal to Aracely, she hesitated. "Uh. Sorry. I blanked the moment you said union. Whoops!"

Laughter. Nobody pressed for more. Aracely realized she'd accidentally given the response they expected.

"Last question, Cely. Can you tell us what Shedinja's ability Wonder Guard does?"

More laughter.

She convinced three random guys milling outside to drive her down Victory Road and endured their awkward fangasms/flirtations en route. Leaving the Plateau at all was a risk, but she'd seen no trace of Nilufer since last time and hoped MOTHER gave up. Maybe that was optimistic.

Viridian Community Hospital snaked like something bioluminescent at the bottom of the sea. From the outside it never seemed to end and the three guys (all, including the driver, drunk) argued how to interpret the signs pointing toward the entrance. They wound up revolving through an empty overflow parking lot for fifteen minutes until Aracely opened the door and jumped out. As she ran toward light she got the feeling they were running after her and even heard their footsteps but when she looked back the car was gone completely.

The ER lobby had seven hundred seats but only five occupied, which seemed strange. There should be more emergencies in the world, more people dying. Or was this the calm, the peace of a top standing still at the end of its spin the moment before it dropped to the side.

In one of the seats, or two actually, on his side with his knees tucked up, was Jinjiao Zhang, asleep. His Lopunny was under the chairs, not asleep, rolling back and forth and knocking the legs as if trying to see how hard it could knock without waking Jinjiao up.

Aracely spent maybe an hour arguing in muted tones with the nurse or receptionist or whoever she was, who recognized Aracely and kept saying how if she didn't recognize Aracely she'd be willing to bend the rules and let Aracely through, but since she did recognize Aracely it made the concept feel corrupt, as though she was only letting Aracely through because she recognized her, and then the receptionist—who, by the way, wore mismatched socks—kept asking the same questions about the match that the press people and drunk brothers three asked, pointing constantly to a mounted TV broadcasting a replay. Aracely watched, hypnotized, as she told Scizor to use Knock Off on Mawile before Toril swapped Mawile with Shedinja. Aracely didn't remember this happening at all.

Finally some doctor in a labcoat with coffee and a clipboard blundered by. She also recognized Aracely and called her over so loudly Aracely thought it would wake up Jinjiao but didn't.

"That Lopunny saved your dad's life." The doctor sipped, then pointed, her mug. Jinjiao's Lopunny cartwheeled between seats and landed in a flop of furred ears. "Administered CPR right away. Saved his life." Then, incomprehensibly: "It wasn't that bad of a heart attack though."

Aracely asked if she could see him.

"He's resting. What I plan to do is, on account of his weight, recommend gastric bypass. Then I'll put him on a cardiac rehabilitation program. That'll be thirty-six supervised sessions over twelve weeks... Great match by the way. Could I get an autograph?"

"Where's Brittany?"

"Who?"

Aracely rubbed the bridge of her nose. "The Gardevoir."

"Oh, in his room."

"Why can she be in his room and I can't?"

"Well, uh, she's officially registered as a service Pokémon."

Then, the doors to the lobby slid open and the three drunks came in, two supporting the third, whose leg was bleeding. "Accident. We had an accident!"

The commotion caused Jinjiao to lurch upright, blinking. Aracely really didn't want to bother with him, so she yanked the sleeve of the doctor and hissed: "Okay. Autograph. On one condition."

Finally she made it to Dad's room. Pleasantly arranged, but inundated with the stench of hospital and the persistent beep of a heart monitor. A painting of a strangely abstracted Magikarp hung over Dad's head.

Because Brittany was asleep in the only chair, Aracely stood in the corner. The room was dark except for what moonlight made it through a window fenced by a closed courtyard. Dad's body seemed shriveled on the bed. He wore a hospital gown. She wondered what happened to his suit and fedora.

She thought he was asleep too, and maybe he was at first, but after a few minutes his voice rasped: "Didja win?"

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"Yeah."

"Really?"

"I won Dad. I'm in finals. Red Akahata."

"The doctors wouldn't tell me. Ha. You're a good girl, Cely."

"Sleep, Dad. I'll be here tomorrow."

"Nah. You gotta prep. Red Akahata. He's tough."

"I'll prep. Don't worry."

"Don't know if I'll be able to help. You should... ask that Toril."

Cely wondered if Toril would ever speak to her again. Her face at the end of the battle, exultant in all the wrong ways, felt deeply, deeply wrong. On the ride down, while the drunks swerved like lunatics, the thought crossed Cely's mind that Toril might kill herself. Then Cely wondered if she was only imagining what she would do if she were Toril. Toril might be stronger than her.

"I will, Dad. Get some sleep."

Brittany gave a loud, quack-like snore. The moon neared full and Aracely wondered what it looked like in Pewter, whether it intersected the mountain, whether it summoned the lunatics to pray to it, a body coloring itself yellow to seem the much more popular sun.

"Cely," Dad said.

"Yeah?"

"I haven't been a good dad."

"It's fine. Later."

"All this time I told myself. If I was better than my dad, I was okay. But you needed—you needed—"

"Dad."

"Did you really try to kill yourself?"

Cely stared at the Magikarp over his head. Her immediate thought was that MOTHER told him, either personally or via Nilufer, as part of an elaborate plot to draw Aracely back to her. But no matter how she pieced it together she couldn't see any underlying logic, and only after a long time did she realize Mom must have told him.

She didn't say anything.

"Why?" he said, pained.

She wondered how she could possibly explain. "The world seemed to tell a story and I wasn't in it."

It was clear Dad didn't understand. She wasn't sure if what she said reflected reality at all or was simply words that sprouted in her brain. It felt so long ago that it was like stepping outside herself to remember.

"I should have been better," he said finally.

"Dad."

"My only thought was. I only thought."

"Dad, it's okay."

"I felt like I failed life when I lost that match. I thought I'd... redeem myself... if you... if I helped..."

"Rest, Dad."

"I wanted you to win so I could win."

The more Aracely stared at the Magikarp, the more it broke apart, until she started to doubt if it had ever been a Magikarp at all.

"I'll win, Dad."

He said nothing.

"I'll win," she said. "I'll beat Red." Then MOTHER will end the world, and we'll all die happy.

Dad said nothing. Only when she figured he'd fallen asleep did he speak.

"I love you, Cely. Whether you win or lose."

The word she wanted to say, why, did not form. The Magikarp meant absolutely nothing now and it was because her eyes bleared. Watery, the world broke apart.

"I love you too, Dad."

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In the morning a different doctor but basically the same doctor entered the room, glanced disapprovingly at Cely, and handed his clipboard to a Chansey nurse before recommending Dad get gastric bypass surgery, a suggestion Dad responded to with way more vigor than Cely expected.

"Nope! None of this nonsense. I won't stay in this hospital an extra minute."

"Mr. Sosa. You're at risk for several obesity-related diseases—"

"I'll walk more. I'll eat more salads. I'll do it myself!"

In the sun his color returned, he shook his fist, he brushed off the protestations of Brittany and Chansey. He looked, essentially, same as ever. Cely wondered how much of the previous night she dreamed as she waved him goodbye, promised she'd check back soon (he assured her she needed to start researching Red), and slinked out behind the doctor during a jargon-filled rebuttal.

Toril worried her now. She somehow didn't own a phone; only her Porygon-Z used her laptop. If she checked out of the hotel already, Cely might never see her again, and this fact filled her with the same urgency as Dad's heart attack. It was like everything all at once started to unravel. A response to the world's final days? Finality as a concept struck her far more strongly than it had before Nilufer's kidnapping attempt.

Every corner concealed a Nilufer as she waded through endless empty hospital sectors, but rounding them exposed white space only. It was the perfect time to nab her, since she forgot to reclaim her Pokémon after the battle (Dad always did that), but nothing happened.

Jinjiao met her in the lobby. "They said you were here," he muttered, "but I must've been asleep."

The twerp sufficed as a bodyguard. She clasped her hands and gave him and his Lopunny a big sincere thank you for saving Dad, assured him Dad was fine, relayed with a casual, exasperated-but-only-mildly-and-in-a-relieved-way eyeroll how he was arguing with the doctor already, how that was just like him, and wow you really were such a hero, weren't you Jinjiao? She nodded attentively as he fumbled through a retelling he thought made him sound cool but boiled down to "I called the ambulance," and because he was thirteen he mistook basic attentiveness for potential romantic interest. Snared.

When she mentioned needing a ride back to the Plateau, he offered to fly her on his Skarmory. Being carried through the air on a sharp metal bird sounded super awful so she steered him toward hitchhiking.

The first motorist they accosted shockingly hadn't heard of either of them. He looked maybe eighty, jowls and warts, and sucked air through his teeth when Jinjiao said they were from the IPL.

"I remember," he said, "before all that. We had more important things to worry about."

"Sure old man. Wars and stuff, big deal."

Ultimately, the man said he was headed to Pallet, the opposite direction.

The second motorist, who looked like anyone's mom except Cely's (plump, pleasant), knew all about them, was so delighted, would have to tell her son, oh he would be so jealous, and of course she'd drive them to the Plateau. The entire drive, besides the obvious questions and calls for autographs, she kept insinuating she would really, really appreciate if they got her two tickets for the grand championship. Jinjiao ruined Cely's vapidly optimistic "I'll see what I can do" with a breakdown of how impossible such a request was. At this point, tickets had been sold out for months. You'd be lucky to find a scalper selling one, cost obscene. The woman frowned. Cely got the impression she didn't actually know who Jinjiao was.

Cely tried to shake Jinjiao when they returned to the hotel but he refused to go. "You know, sure he's the GOAT and all, but I haven't actually been impressed by Red this year. Really showing his age. Dropped a game to Lachlan Nguyen in groups. Not to mention he dropped a game to me, of course. You'll beat him."

"Oh yeah? Won't I destroy the sanctity of battling or somesuch?"

"Heh. Whatever. Guess we all need to evolve."

She looked at him, for a split second convinced he was working for MOTHER the entire time. At the end of an awkward pause she gave him a hug that left him so flustered it was trivial to finally escape.

When she knocked, the door to Toril's room stood silent. Aracely expected this, but behind the door she didn't feel Toril's presence, or any presence at all, which was ominous. Week by week, this hotel, run by the stadium and cordoned for competitors (how Dad got a room, no idea), emptied and emptied until now it was like a horror movie.

A cleaning lady passed.

"Yes, hi," Cely said. "Did the girl in this room check out already?"

"Nope. I'm supposed to clean the room once she does, but I haven't heard a word from the front."

At first, this answer thrilled Cely. She thanked the cleaning lady exuberantly, went to a gift shop in the stadium, picked out some excellent stationery and a cute pink envelope and already paid before she realized she pulled this trick last time. Well, it worked last time. But when she slipped the envelope (Tors! I still want to be friends. Don't you?) under the door, the complete lack of aura remained and Aracely arose with a chill.

She looked around. Hallway to the end one way. Hallway to the end the other. Not even Nilufer was there. Nobody was there. Aracely was completely alone.