Cliff’s speech didn’t actually start right away; a pang of responsibility bid Hoshi to actually make sure everyone was fed and had a tent first, and after that he noticed that Ryan, the ass, hadn’t seen to the rookies’ various injuries properly.

He’d been expecting the enforcer to be put-out, but he seemed entirely approving. And so, as the dregs of sunlight began to vanish from the horizon, they finally sat down for what would be – if Casca was to be believed – an extremely long speech.

Despite his twisted ankle Cliff walked without aid, standing on the edge of the pit near the fire. His shadow danced, long and distinct against the rolling hills like a ten-metre-long cape. “I was born in a town called Pastel,” he narrated in his large, powerful, and disarmingly soft voice. “A mining town, dug into the slopes of Mount Moon. It was a small place, insular. I’d never seen a television before I moved away – hah, but that’s skipping too far ahead.”

A pause as he drank from his canteen. “Like I said, it was insular. I was born in the fall of 1969, just over a year before the Pallet League took charge of Kanto – but if you’d asked me who ran the country when I was eight years old, I’d have shrugged and said ‘samurai, I guess?’”

I can imagine it – a lot of those old mountain settlements don’t even consider themselves part of Indigo today.

“But that changed.” Hoshi prepared himself to hear ‘when the war started,’ or something similar, but Cliff surprised him. “I started my Pokémon journey pretty young by today’s standards. My father had an accident in the mines, broke both his legs, and… suddenly, Pastel just seemed so small. So I hiked down to the tiny League office at the base of the mountain – it was just two rooms, and one was a Pokécentre – showed them the clefairy I’d caught a few years back, and told them I wanted to become a Pokémon Master.”

His smile was wide, thick, and full of nostalgia. “I didn’t get far. Hiked west through the pass, got my Boulder Badge from Flint – that’s the granddad of Pewter’s current Gym Leader, for you kids – and then I got homesick.” The smile twisted, a hint of tooth coming out. “And so I just went back. Backtracked up Mount Moon with my one badge, showed it off to my friends, and was the coolest boy in town for a few weeks. And that was that; I went back to mining, only training here and there when the urge took me. Caught a geodude in a cave and a magikarp from the stream.”

And then the war happened. “And then the war happened.” Hoshi nodded; the Indigo War was impossible to escape from, even in the most remote village.

“They weren’t drafting everyone who walked into a ‘centre then, not in the beginning,” Cliff continued, “But I signed up anyway. I didn’t really feel connected to Kanto, and Pastel wasn’t in danger no matter how much ore we shipped out – at least, that’s what we all thought. In hindsight it was dumb… even if it ended up being true anyway.” He took another swig of water. “But I did care about impressing the local girls, and I had a badge. I was tough, my Pokémon were tough, I was a real man.” The smile twisted further, until it was more honest to label it a grimace. “So for the second time in my life I went down the mountain, and walked into that little office. It hadn’t changed even a bit, except there was a Joy there manning the healing machine and a Jenny at the desk, instead of one guy doing both jobs.”

His voice had taken on a strange cadence – like his memories were dredging up some old hyper-specific accent, but he couldn’t quite remember how it went.

“I was made a part of the Pewter Militia, and for a while not much happened. I got trained up with the other guys by old Flint and his wife – I hated it at first, I was a mean little shit back then. Every other week we’d catch a few scouts on birds trying to sneak over the Silver Range, but it wasn’t until about a year in that things really started.”

Hoshi swallowed, trying to dispel the growing lump in his throat. He’d heard this story before – not this specific one, no, but dozens like it. From his father, his uncle, the veterans in the Gym and the museum… He felt like each word was coming from a mile away, visible on the horizon for hours before it actually arrived.

“People like to talk all the time about the dragons. And they were bad, don’t get me wrong. It’s a good story, and a true one.” But there were never a lot of them. “But there were never a lot of them. It’s the birds I remember most, the pidgeot, the noctowl, and later the xatu and skarmory. Them and the donphan. Any of you ever seen a full-grown donphan?”

The circle was silent for a beat before Ryan answered. “Not in person, sir.”

Cliff nodded his way. “Well, it’s something. They don’t look that big, not when they’re just standing there… But then they charge, and suddenly you realise that this half-naked knock-off rhyhorn is coming your way, getting faster as it goes, churned earth being thrown up behind it…”

He paused, digging in his pocket for a moment before coming up with a pack of smokes. “They don’t stop, you can’t stop an evolved Pokémon when it’s got a Rollout going. I could smash one aside with Coffer – that’s my old graveler – but then it just hits the guy next to me. Or a house or something.” He stepped forward to light a cigarette on the naked flames, took a drag, held it for a moment… and then exhaled. “Damn, don’t know why I even brought these. Haven’t smoked in years.” Despite his words, he took another hit. “Things got messy. I never got sent out to the front lines, but every other day it seemed like a new army was smashing into us. Pewter was where the steel got made, the aluminum, all that, and they knew it. It was desperate – for both sides, I guess.”

With one long inhale he burned through the second half of the smoke, and cast the butt into the roaring campfire.

“But we were holding. We lost people, and Pokémon, but it looked like we’d see it through to the end, whatever that was. Then, there was this battle, a big push…” 1990. The thing that got Dad to go from architect to pilot. “And we… lost. Pretty damn hard.” Cliff reached for another cigarette, but then reconsidered and shoved the pack back into his pocket. “I can’t describe it. The streets weren’t distinguishable from the buildings anymore, there were Pokémon all over the place. I could barely tell if I was fighting Johto or my own squad from how heavy the smoke was…” He began gesturing. “I watched people I’d known for years, men who were as close to me as my parents and neighbours, just… disappear. Just a movement in the smoke, and they were gone.” Slow movements somehow conveyed the frenetic energy of the scene his words were painting, a lazy swipe left, a traced parabola, a softly clenched fist.

Steel type evolutions. We caught on, eventually, but it… took time.

“I tried to get out, and after I gave that up I tried to take down at least one more with me. It was…” He swallowed. “I knew I was going to die. Knew it like I knew the sun would rise, that the clefairy would dance when the moon turned pink. I was already dead, inside my head, it just hadn’t happened yet.”

Despite the common nature of the story, the fact that he’d only known the man for a few days, the resolve to keep a steady face as the group’s leader – despite all that, a rogue tear needed to be wiped away before it fell. Always been hard, listening to stuff like this, Hoshi excused. Even if I know the ending. It’s… romantic.

Cliff took a third drink from his canteen; he, too, seemed to be caught in the emotions of it, his eyes red and his expression contorting his face like a funhouse mirror. “But then he showed up.” Giovanni. “Giovanni. He wasn’t the Gym Leader then – that wasn’t until after the war ended – but he was known. It was like… If Johto had the Blackthorns, then we had Oak. If they had Bill, and Pryce, then we had Fuji and Blaine. They had the Ankoku, we had the Doksu – and the Mutsu,” he added, looking Hoshi’s way. Don’t. Don’t do that – I wasn’t there. I can carry my father on my back, but not the whole name… “But they didn’t have a Giovanni Capo. He was a solid wall, even more than Flint was.

“I remember it like it was today – the way the smoke cleared. The way the steelix – I didn’t know what it was yet, but I could tell it was some kind of evolved onix – just looked at me. Its eyes were half-closed, confused, and then it just… laid down, dead. And I saw the nidoqueen behind it, and then the man behind her.” His hands moved, tracing out the emotions that overflowed from his face and throat. Swirls of rainbow oil in the air, catching the firelight, almost burning in it like they were real, like they were more than a stray neural connection or psychic hallucination.

“I don’t know if any of you have ever met an Elite – Mutsu has his uncle, and he’s probably got it too – but there’s an aura. You can just tell; the air around them feels heavy, like gravity, like they’re too big on the inside. It wasn’t the nidoqueen – that was an entirely different feeling, being next to an Elite Pokémon – it was Giovanni. A skarmory flanked by two scizor came out of the sky, and he didn’t flinch at all, didn’t move anything except his eyes.

“There was a blur, and then the invaders were down – they were in pieces, and then the air moved and a golem was standing over them. I didn’t even see it do anything – I’ve never seen a Rollout that fast, that precise. Its body was like…” He struggled.

“…Like polished gemstones,” Ryan finished, and the enforcer’s eyes snapped to him.

“You’ve seen it?”

“In pictures. You must have gone through Viridian at some point – in Mister Archer’s office.”

Cliff nodded. “Polished gems. That’s close, but… Every time I tell this story I think I’ve got the perfect words, but they always fall short. Giovanni saved my life, my squad’s lives, half of Pewter City.” He was a hero. “He was a hero.”

A minute passed as the mountain man restrained himself, the swirling clouds that both did and didn’t obscure his features being pulled back in by the pores of his face. Hoshi’s eyes drifted, scanning the crowd and taking in the mood.

Ryan was nodding along, prideful and solemn in equal measure. Kenny was pumped up. Puce was intense, her eyes drilling through the smoke like flashlights. Nerine-

The strange half-fugue broke as Hoshi almost reeled. He looked again – but Nerine’s face showed only a stern attention, not the… What was it? Green and purple, sharp, acidic – disgust? Longing?

He didn’t know; the vision was gone, and whether it had been real or not Hoshi had no idea.

His attention went back to Cliff as the enforcer started speaking again. “The rest of the war… It’s a story worth telling, but tonight isn’t about that. Suffice to say, I paid close attention to Giovanni after that day. No matter where I looked, there was something he had a hand in – the factories had his name carved into their foundations, the supplies we got sometimes had a bright red R painted inside the casings. When saboteurs came back, they wore black felt the same texture as his suit. I heard the name Team Rocket on the wind, saw it written in the stars, in my dreams… I’d already decided it. When the war was over, I knew where I wanted to be.”

Hoshi swallowed again. And then the war actually ended. “And then the war actually ended. Nobody won – it was like everything we’d fought for, everything we’d died for, was suddenly turned to sand. I was… sad.” The kind of sad people sometimes don’t come back from. “The kind of sad people sometimes don’t come back from. I went back to Pastel, and it was… the same town. My parents were there, and most of my neighbours too. They called me a veteran, a war hero.” He smiled again, this time almost mockingly, and his voice lowered for a moment. “Like I’d actually done something. I loitered around until… 1997, I wanna say, when Giovanni was…”

Exposed. Driven out. Betrayed. “When he stopped being Viridian’s Gym Leader,” Cliff eventually said after a long pause. “I’m sure everyone here knows the story, even the younger members, so I’ll skip over that. But I got mad, when I heard. Giovanni saved my life – Team Rocket saved my life, over and over, with their sabotage and supplies and just… Getting it done, those dirty jobs that you need to get done when you’re fighting a war. So I left again.”

Another long pause as he drank from his canteen. Hoshi wiped the unshed tears from his eyes, attempting to harden himself and failing. I’ve heard this before. Bob told me some, and Casca, and the instructors, and… Dad. There isn’t any part of this I didn’t already know. But still. But still.

“…And,” he continued, wiping drops of water from his jaw, “For a third Arcus damned time, I had to go home empty-handed.” The shine of his teeth was like shattered glass. “Giovanni was a ground man, same as me. So I asked myself, ‘where would I go?’ And the answer came easy: I’d go north, try and cross the South Coronet Range into Sinnoh. It just made sense. So I went. And I looked, I asked around – there are always people up in the hills, no matter how barren it seems – and a year later, I gave up.”

The short sentences had been filled with an ocean of missing context; it was obvious that that year had been long for the man.

“So I went home again. Except… it didn’t really feel like home, anymore. My parents were passed by then, all the girls I was sweet on had found other men, it was just… Too small. There was no room for me.” He rallied. “But I didn’t have anywhere else to be, so I stayed there for two more years.”

“Ah, the broadcast,” Ryan interjected, and Cliff nodded to him again.

“Exactly. If you don’t know the story… At the turn of the century, Team Rocket – or former members of Rocket, I guess – hijacked the Goldenrod radio tower.”

Ryan nodded back. “Mister Archer, Miss Ariana, Mister Proton, and Mister Petrel. With the aid of a few others whose names are unknown to me.”

There was a sharp crack as Cliff snapped his meaty fingers. “Exactly! Yet again, Team Rocket saved my life – I had nothing. My town wasn’t my town, my country wasn’t my country. But that shitty, static-filled broadcast put a soul back in my body. And…” He smiled again. Back to the genuine expression. “I said I had nothing, but that wasn’t really true – I had my Pokémon, and after a year roughing it we were stronger than ever. I scraped together enough money to catch the ferry around to Goldenrod, and… Well, that’s its own long story worth telling.

“I’ll skip ahead just a bit, since I want other people to have their own time, and just say that I joined Rocket. That was ten years ago.” Another crack, even louder, as he clapped his hands. “And that’s what Team Rocket means to me. It’s the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning – because one day, Giovanni’s going to come back, and I’ll be here when he does. Even if it takes my whole life – that’s something I’m willing to give. I owe it to him.”

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Cliff sat down, the circle of Rockets contemplating his words for long moments. The campsite was silent but for the crackle of the fire, and the distant sounds of wild monsters – even the collected trainers’ Pokémon seemed to take the long speech to heart.

Damn. Casca got bored of that?

Hoshi didn’t believe it – and not just because she’d been as spellbound as the rest of them. “So,” Cliff said, his voice jolting the Senior Grunt back into reality. “Anybody else want to give it a go? Doesn’t have to be long, or even agree with me – people have lots of reasons for joining. Just say what’s in here.” He thumped his chest.

The silence kept going. Hoshi leaned forward – but as he did, he noticed Tor tentatively standing and sat back down. Ah, I’ll let him go first. It’s good the rookies are getting involved; this whole thing is for them.

The athletic man cleared his throat. “Hello,” he projected without hesitation, obviously used to speaking in front of a crowd. “I am Tor Yuriyama. I just wanted to say… I didn’t come into this looking to join Team Rocket. But I do think our goals are aligned. While I’ve always considered myself a law-abiding citizen, sometimes the only avenue for change is violent resistance. I came here through the Free the League movement, and if you’re familiar with that, you already know what I – and my friends – want.”

“Um,” Puce interjected, “I’m not familiar?”

Lilian spoke up. “Free the League is a social movement, primarily based in economic warfare.” Her words were clinical, but there was a hint of bloodlust in her expression that Tor lacked. “We don’t buy from League-affiliated businesses, we don’t pay our taxes, and…” A smile. “Every now and then maybe a politician has a tragic accident with an ekans hiding in their toilet.”

Nerine perked up. “You know they go on crusades against the things whenever something like that happens, right? Sloppy assassinations kill Pokémon.”

“And bad policy kills people.”

Tor cleared his throat again. “That aside… Thank you for the opportunity. This training is…” His expression twisted. “…Difficult, but I’m sure it will be useful.”

He sat, and the group collectively blinked. Well, that was different, at least. Mulling things over, nobody moved – until abruptly, Kenny stood. Oh? Hoshi thought as his subordinate stepped closer to the fire. I wasn’t expecting him. As far as he’s said, Team Rocket is just a job. He’s in it for the money.

The grunt’s jaw worked as he paced around the pit, but eventually he nodded to himself. Kenny opened his mouth – but what he said seemed to be a complete non-sequitur. “If you wanna wrestle, you’ve gotta take steroids.”

Hoshi frowned. The fuck? “It’s not optional,” Kenny continued. “You need to. Wrestling is grappling, and grappling is muscle injuries, and steroids are a fuckin’ miracle for muscle injuries. They’re like Potions for Pokémon, you take ‘em and the next day you’re fine.”

“Isn’t wrestling fake?” a sardonic voice interrupted, and Kenny growled Mojo’s way.

“It’s scripted. The stunts are real. The pain is real. Uh, and sometimes it actually isn’t scripted, but that shit’s like, off the book matches and those are fucked up.” The man shook his head, visibly trying to recapture his rhythm. “Anyway, I was saying… You’ve gotta juice. Everybody juices, from the rookies to the top dogs, the lowest heel and the cleanest babyface. The fucking managers juice!” He passed a hand over his bald crown, the other holding his hat up before bringing it down to gesture. “So why the fuck ‘s it illegal?!”

Puce raised a hand. “Because it’s… unhealthy?”

“Literally everybody!” Kenny continued, ignoring the answer. “So why’d I get kicked out, huh? Just me, even though the whole locker room was maxed to the gills! How the fuck is that fair?!”

Hoshi continued to frown. Not that I don’t sympathise – at least in theory – but you’re kind of failing to tug on the heartstrings, here.

Kenny tossed his hiking hat down, narrowly avoiding the fire. “It’s shit! It’s a fuckin’ shit system! It’s fuckin’ rigged, and I’m not going back! I’m a trainer now – you see this?” He basically ripped his wallet out, opening it to show off what Hoshi knew was his counterfeit trainer license, moving it too fast to actually make his point. “Rocket gave me this. You three,” he gestured to the rookies, who were loosely grouped together. “I don’t know you, I don’t know your shit, but listen to me: whatever shit job you had, it’s a fuckin’ scam. I thought Rocket might be a scam too, but it actually pulled through – I’ve got money. I’ve got fuckin’ respect, too; people get out of my goddamn way when they see a man with balls on his belt.

“I don’t give a shit about that political crap, Kanto and Johto and whatever the fuck economic warfare is – that’s a damn line on a map, it ain’t real.” Hoshi nearly stood up as the sentence sparked the bone-deep rage that always seemed a single step away, but he pushed it down with a long inhale. Let him talk. It’s his shit – you’ll get yours after. “But this? This little piece a’ plastic? This might be fake, but it’s real. You don’t got one yet, I think, but it’s real. That ball on your hip, that’s real too. The uniform? Fuckin’ real as fuck. They wanna call me a criminal for doin’ the same thing as everybody else? Fine then, I’m…” There was a moment where, very briefly, Hoshi thought something in the skinhead’s body would just pop. His eyes bulged, veins standing out across every inch of his bared head, even his teeth seeming to rattle with internal pressure. Then it passed. He bent down, swiped his hat off the edge of the pit, and affixed it back in place.

“I’m a criminal. Might as well go all-in… Maybe someone’ll remember my name.”

He sat heavily, face too red to be called merely ruddy, and Hoshi made to stand-

But before he could, Puce beat him to the punch. “I’d like to go next!” she projected, and for two volunteers in a row Hoshi was surprised – even more, this time. Puce too? But she’s…

The thought petered out. Ever since the Gym job, she’d been… well, not outgoing, but it no longer felt appropriate to say the word shy.

“I, uh,” she began, before the visible nervousness on her face blew away like thin dust. “I’ve never been good at anything. I – I honestly can’t think of a single thing, in my entire life. I never really had friends. I… I flunked out of so many schools. I’m not attractive, or anything, or…”

“Hey, girl,” Casca interjected. “You don’t need to put yourself down like that. I’d say we’re friends, right?”

“That’s what I mean!” Puce exclaimed, the force of her shout eliciting flinches from around the fire. “It was- all that stuff was before. When I went to the Electric Academy, it was to learn Pokémon stuff; I wanted to be a trainer. I’ve wanted to be a trainer my whole life. And this was… this was my last shot, I think. My parents paid a whole lot to get me in, and… I was so afraid. I knew, deep down, that I couldn’t really do it.”

She circled the pit, animated – and silhouetted against the flames and smoke, Hoshi once again noticed how large she was. It was startlingly easy to get used to, with her little-girl voice and habit of fading into the background, exactly how fucking huge Puce Gracile really was. The sheer amount of muscle clinging to her frame. The power behind every motion, a fact that only amplified her clumsiness.

“But now… I have Pokémon. A koffing and a slowpoke. And… I win battles. I- I’d given up. In my heart, I’d given up.” Her eyes flashed, half a reflection of real fire, half synesthesia. “But it wasn’t the end. I…” She swallowed, a touch of the energy receding. “I’m not going to say that it’s… good work. Or that I really understand the high-level stuff, what they’re actually trying to do beyond making money and gaining influence…”

For a moment, Puce looked exactly like her mother. A social force, her grip on whoever she was talking to like titanium cuffs. “But Kenny was right. Team Rocket is real. My friends are real; they aren’t going to disappear on me the moment I say the wrong thing or my parents buy the wrong stock. That’s what it means to me.”

She took a deep breath, pink tension and yellow-white anxiety pushed out with the exhale. “So, uh. Thanks for listening.”

She moved back to her seat with a bit less confidence than she’d stood, and Hoshi preemptively rose up – together with Nerine.

Arcus damn it, is everyone gonna go before me? But his annoyance disappeared as the teen stepped away from the fire, rather than closer. “Hey,” he called. “Where you going?”

“Gotta piss,” she sent back, very nearly choking on the words. Hoshi looked at Casca, and as one they came to a conclusion: yeah, no. That was a lie.

“Nerine,” Hoshi called out. “Don’t go alone- damn it. I should follow her.” He pushed himself all the way up, striding away from the circle of light.

“Hey man, don’t follow a girl to the bathroom,” Kenny said behind his back. “That’s weird.”

“No, it’s a good idea,” Puce countered, standing as well. “I’ll come too. Nerine has been off for weeks now, she’s probably sick.”

Cliff attempted to stand as Hoshi passed, but with a grunt he failed. Leg not handling that long, pacing speech, huh? “Cliff, you stay here. Three people following her is enough.”

The enforcer lifted a hand, beckoning them to stop. “Wait. Take Pinch, he’ll be able to find his way back to me even in the dark.” The sound of a Pokéball opening was accompanied by a red flash, and then a strong-looking pinsir was standing between them.”

Hoshi nodded in thanks, though an increasingly panicked part of him was urging him to just sprint after the girl. “Thanks. Be right back, hopefully.”

----------------------------------------

Hoshi was becoming increasingly irate the further in they went. “You’re sure she’s ahead?” he asked, and received an affirmative chirp in return. “Well, alright. Lead the way.” Another chirp, and Crow flew off.

To Hoshi’s right Casca was walking with her dugtrio at her heel, while to his left Puce was carrying both her Pokémon, one under each arm. Guts, Venus, and Pinch were slightly ahead of him, the pinsir following orders well enough that he wasn’t worried – at least, not about that.

Theoretically speaking, there were very few Pokémon that would want to deal with them. Emotionally, Hoshi could feel the tension growing with every second. We’re only a hundred metres in, but it feels like ten times that. The fire isn’t even slightly visible.

Puce voiced what they were all thinking. “She shouldn’t be this far in. Do you think something..?”

“Guts and Crow would speak up if there were blood. I’m thinking this might be our climactic showdown with whoever’s guarding this place.” For the past day and night, Hoshi had been feeling eyes on his back. “Though it might not be a battle. I imagine they’re bored out of their skulls out here – could be a very hardcore prank.”

He could hear the woman’s teeth pressing against each other. “Mister Cliff said the trap he fell into might have killed someone else.”

“And yet he tripped into it – the one guy with armoured ankles.”

They lapsed into silence for a minute, following the zubat as she flew. Always in sight, always obediently staying in the beam of his flashlight. I’ll have to give her something special tonight.

And soon enough, the silence was broken by a familiar sound: liquid splashing against a tree. Oh, shit. Were we wrong? Is she actually just taking a leak? But then the smell hit him – not piss, but fresh vomit.

“Nerine,” he called out, not quite sure if he should be attempting stealth – he didn’t want to sneak up on her, but pinsir or not there were aggressive Pokémon that would attack them if disturbed.

This time, he heard the retching before the actual vomit started to splash. Crow squeaked, and he beckoned her back. “Good work, girl.”

“Nerine?” Puce sent out into the darkness, picking up her pace. “Are you okay? You shouldn’t be this far in!”

They found her in the exact pose Hoshi had expected; both hands bracing against a tree, her knees just slightly bent, head down as she puked her guts out. “Nerine,” Puce repeated. “Thank goodness you’re alright.”

“Hey girl,” Casca continued. “Not feeling the public speaking, huh? Don’t worry, you don’t need to stick around; we’ll get some water in you, then get you into a tent to sleep this off.”

Hoshi remained silent. Something about the situation was tickling at his hindbrain. This is off. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something weird. His eyes played over the trees surrounding them, the urge to swing his flashlight around fighting the knowledge that if there was something out there, he didn’t want it to know he was suspicious.

Nerine mumbled something, then spat as Puce stepped closer. “What was that?” the older woman asked.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Nerine said – if she was repeating herself, Hoshi couldn’t say.

“Nerine?”

“Are you high, girl? You’ve gotta know you’ll have a bad trip in these surroundings. Come on – you can puke more if you need to, but let’s not do it in the magical ninja forest of death.”

His girlfriend made to grab for her arm, but Nerine sidestepped away. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she said again. “I thought it would be…”

Puce’s face was increasingly concerned. “Are you..? What’s wrong? Nerine, talk to us.” Silence. Crow alighted on his shoulder, and suddenly Hoshi realised – where are her Pokémon? She’s alone, why is she alone? All the hairs on his body tried to poof out as a shiver went down his spine. “Please, Nerine, keep talking.”

Then Puce’s eyes went wide. “Wait. Are you- did something happen today? While you were with… those three guys?”

Nerine turned, and Hoshi saw the tear tracks going down her face, makeup smeared all the way to her chin. Her expression was blank – up until she expelled a laugh. “Ha!” she exclaimed, the sound hysterical. “Oh gods – no. That would be…”

She wiped her mouth with a sleeve. “That would have made it so much easier. Gods above, it would put everything back in its place.”

Hoshi was properly freaked out. “Nerine. What are you talking about?” Her hair is dyed, said his brain. She's from Fuchsia. She has a family connection to the Gym.

Something slid into place, childhood memories of his father spinning a knife like it was magnetised to his hand, his funeral, a dozen indistinct, hazy pieces congealing into certainty. Jesse, James… Did you know about this? Does Cliff? Am I – am I imagining it? The pieces fit, but he didn’t want to believe it. She talks with a rasp like my aunties. Takes drugs like they’re candy. Always seemed to keep one foot away from the group.

I thought she was just an aloof teen, but…

“Your last name isn’t Rose, is it?” he asked, already feeling the answer in his gut. “It’s Doksu. Am I wrong?”

Nerine laughed again, while Casca stepped to the side – keeping them from being bunched up – and Puce turned his way. “Hoshi? What do you mean?”

“Fire, Storm, and Ice,” the teenager said. She was still hunched over, sickly-looking as her skin went beyond pale. “Gods above, I was bad at this, wasn’t I?”

“Nerine,” Puce pleaded, “Why did you come so far out? This is – a joke, right? Or, you just got confused?” Her expression was breaking, her shoulders moving in like the girl was a monster to cower in fear from.

“It was supposed to be easy,” Nerine repeated a third time. “Go in, take care of the leaders, get out.”

Something moved, Hoshi’s razor-thin nerves bidding him to move before his conscious mind even registered it – but his reflexes couldn’t beat a real ninja’s. There was a sharp stabbing pain in his shoulder, and suddenly his arms and legs were somewhere far away. The flashlight dropped from his hand, Crow and Guts squeaking in unison as he dropped.

The pinsir moved, too, taking a step – only to plop down beside him, equally paralysed, a bundle of needles covering its back like the bug type was a giant pincushion.

Casca dropped as well, the ground shook, and Hoshi – Hoshi was going somewhere else. A sound reached his ears, bereft of context, just meaningless sound to all but a small sliver of his brain.

“You were supposed to be evil,” Nerine said, her voice carrying sadness and futility and self-hatred and pride as two dark shapes emerged from the trees.