I can’t believe that fat, overly dramatic ass was right. ‘On the field of battle.’ What am I, the protagonist of some kid’s cartoon? Unlocking my secret transformation the moment I need it… Ha.
And it did feel like a transformation, moving himself with telekinesis as much as muscle power. Despite the numbness in his limbs, the nausea and fatigue, there was an electric power dancing under his skin. It had been larger before he’d started to burn it, but hopefully there was enough in his ephemeral tank to see this through.
There’s so much I don’t know – how long can I do this? Does it work on things that aren’t me? Will it even stick around when I’m not pumped full of ninja drugs?
The questions were discarded as he bent down; this wasn’t the time for speculation. Quake’s mouths were subtle enough that Hoshi had to dig for one of them beneath a bulbous nose, but he eventually found the opening after a handful of too-tense seconds. The medicine inhaler sprayed out the last of its contents directly into the unconscious dugtrio’s lungs, and another stray thought briefly wondered whether the Pokémon had two, six, or some other number of the organ. Focus, Hoshi. Stay present. Casca’s fingers were dug into his shoulder in an effort to steady her anxiety – and her body as well, since her muscles weren’t working any better than his were.
She didn’t have any magical cheat.
“Quake?” she attempted, the word only discernible from context. “Time to wake up, girl.”
“Huh-HUH!” Candy added, pumping her arms.
As her trainer and fellow Pokémon both called out, Quake’s three pairs of eyes began to open. Hoshi wasn’t entirely sure why they had paralysed some but put others to sleep – his best guess was to prevent a single can of spray-on medicine from curing the lot of them – but he was grateful. If it had been fully one or the other, he would have had to deplete both his and Casca’s stocks.
And they would probably need that medicine in a minute.
The dugtrio blinked out-of-sync with herself, raising her heads up off the ground and stretching nearly a full metre out of the earth before settling back to a more natural position. Another blink, this time with all three heads at once, and Casca smiled. “There you go, girl. Ready to fight?”
Hoshi felt a small tremor run up his legs, the Pokémon’s answer clear as day. “Amazing,” he slurred, his words only slightly more comprehensible to himself as he rose. “That’s everyone up, so…”
He turned, and looked at the battlefield – or at least, he attempted to. What was once a dark forest had transformed into a disaster zone, courtesy of a crobat – a five foot tall crobat with easily twice that number in wingspan, he was forced to note – emitting an aura of fire as Kenny, his sandshrew, and Mimi the aspiring Rocket Agent took cover behind Savage the lickitung’s semi-conscious bulk. And the vulpix isn’t exactly helping with its Flamethrower, even if it is an impressive move for an unevolved Pokémon. And then there was the tyranitar whipping up a Sandstorm, the flying grit mixing with smoke and embers to form choking clouds.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the other thing obscuring his senses; the blooms of colour, radiant and glowing around each participant’s head. You’d think it would actually help me tell where people are, but no, it’s just really fucking distracting.
If someone were to paint a picture of the scene and title it The Underworld, Hoshi certainly wouldn’t be able to object. The only bright spot was that the Earthquakes had toppled two-thirds of the trees away from the ongoing battles, so they weren’t in immediate danger of burning to death.
“First thing’s first…” he said, face twisting. “Crow, find Nerine.”
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Casca Kichi was not having a very good day. It wasn’t the worst she’d ever had, but it probably broke into the top three. Definitely knocks trashcan seafood out of the running. Ha!
The half-hysterical thought brought out half of a laugh, the sound smothered beneath a choking inhale as smoke wafted thick and gritty down her throat.
“You okay?” Hoshi asked, his intensely enraged expression breaking just slightly as he looked her way.
It’s happening. I never thought it would actually happen, not if I was smart, but it’s happening. “We should run.” I’m finished. They got me – got us. I’ll need to change my name, move to Hoenn or the islands or…
He blinked at her, confused for a moment. It was almost a relief, to see that he was nearly as out of it as she was – her head hurt, as much from the harsh and only semi-effective cure as the smoke inhalation. But eventually Hoshi worked out her meaning, doubling down on his rancour. “You’re saying we just split. Leave the others.” Leave the traitor unpunished, his face spoke for him.
“Cliff and-” she started, but then a coughing fit interrupted. “…And Bart and Mimi are strong. They’ll win. We need to think about ourselves.”
Veins stood out on her boyfriend’s forehead – and not all of it was emotion; he was wiped out, barely able to drag himself forward without assistance. She couldn’t even manage that; the bulk of Casca’s weight was being held up by Pinch the pinsir. “Casca, that’s a Gym Leader they’re fighting. We need to…” He spat. “Do what we can.”
We won’t be able to do anything if we get hit again. I doubt they’ll bother taking prisoners a second time. She didn’t voice the thought; Hoshi had very different priorities right now, and he needed an argument that was in line with his thoughts, not hers. Words came to her tongue, provided more by instinct than any conscious thought, and–
And before she could speak, a high-pitched chirp drew Hoshi’s attention out into the soup. “Good girl,” he slurred, and started forward with an odd, floaty gait. His two grounded Pokémon followed, far less groggy than their master was despite the long day of pushing through the forest.
She clung to the giant bug’s exoskeleton, and exhaled. The words went out with the air – and a second after they had formed, she had no idea what she would have said. Probably something profound and compelling. Yeah, I bet it was, that sounds like me. The internal joke steadied her, just a little bit, and she rapped on Pinch’s back like a screen door so he knew to drag her forward. “Wait up, stud,” she croaked. “Haven’t quite found my legs yet.”
We need to get out of here, all her instincts screamed, but she moved towards the danger nonetheless. Two Pokémon, the more sentimental part of her countered. We have Pinch and all the rest. We can probably take out an ekans and venonat, even as whipped as we are. “Candy, get a Water Gun ready. Quake, start charging up for Tri-Attack.”
It took ten seconds, maybe not even that, before all her steadily-building convictions turned to ash. Hoshi suddenly grunted, stretching out his arm into the haze, and then a knife appeared in his chest.
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Being stabbed hurt.
It felt stupid to even think. Of course it hurt, it was being stabbed. But as Hoshi stared at his aunt, it was the only thing he could think. “Ow.”
The woman blinked, a hint of surprised grey coiling in her irises before they returned to their natural light purple. “I probably can’t talk you out of this, can I?” she asked, breaking him from the looping cycle of it hurts, of course it does, it hurts, you have a sharp piece of metal in you, it hurts, do literally anything other than stand there, idiot. “Fine, how about this? I’ll spare-”
That was when Crow let out a surprise Supersonic, and Hoshi abruptly realised that Tsuyu Mutsu had her sword at his subordinate’s throat again. Stupid stupid- get your head in the game! “Attack! Quick Attack and Pursuit!” Stopping her the first time took it out of me – can I even do it again? The psychic power was dulled under his skin; no, he didn’t think he would be able to make her drop her sword a second time.
His aunt was wearing a mask, everything from the bottom of her eyelids down concealed, yet he could still tell her jaw was clenched. Her eyes were steady in a way Hoshi was familiar with, from Bob and his Gym Trainers and the gilded memories of his father’s face when he told war stories – men and women who had killed.
The sword moved, fast as lightning, and-
And Nerine bucked with all her might, rolling herself a few centimetres to the side and taking Puce’s bulk with her. The blade cut into the massive woman’s ear and the scalp behind it, drawing a crescent of red that matched the towering pillar of emotion coming off her like a signal flare.
Puce roared, though if it was pain or just emotion being blasted out into the world, Hoshi couldn’t say. Tsuyu turned her arm and blocked the leaping rattata’s teeth, her knee coming up to do the same with Venus’s equally quick strike.
Crow let loose another Supersonic, and Hoshi drew his own blade. The camp knife wasn’t made for fighting… but it would do. “Auntie,” he spat, lips and tongue still numb from what she and Janine had stuck him with. “I don’t wanna kill you. Fuck off.” Even if I don’t know you, not for real. Two funerals aren’t exactly much to build an emotional connection on…
But you’re still family, and that’s sacred.
It was a shame that punishing traitors was also sacred.
Her eyes narrowed as she was forced away from the grunt and Nerine by Hoshi’s three Pokémon. “Kill me?” Tsuyu asked back, another throwing knife appearing in her hand as if it had congealed from the smoke itself. The air was even thicker with it here, black mixing and being overpowered by the wafting red clouds that tasted of blood when they touched his skin – those were definitely not real, but they took effort to see through all the same.
Another exchange; Venus tore away some fabric – and the armour underneath, leaving Tsuyu’s right knee bare – while Guts took a shallow wound. The rattata hissed, the sound cutting through the murk as she dodged a follow-up swipe.
Hoshi bared his teeth as he felt at the knife between his ribs and armpit. Didn’t hit anything important, but fuck. “Crow, keep it up.” The Supersonic was probably – hopefully – doing something, even if she was too disciplined to let it show.
But despite fighting three Pokémon, Tsuyu Muysu didn’t seem at all flustered. As she continued to dodge, parry, and otherwise show off four decades of training with a blade, Hoshi’s heart began to sink. Then she sliced deep enough to make one of Venus’s paws unusable, and the feeling solidified. Fuck. She’s just a normal human, how is she keeping up with my team?
“Kill me?” the woman asked again, sounding more amused. “You’re a decade too early for that, little boy. You’ve fallen in with a bad crowd, Hoshi – I’ll need to correct you.”
----------------------------------------
“Headbutt!”
Jormungandr followed the order splendidly; he lowered his head, gauged the enemy’s movements, and charged, presenting the thickest part of his skull as the only possible target for the crobat’s Heat Wave to strike. The giant bat was forced to flee upwards as its attack failed to deter the charging dragon, where Velvet the vulpix was waiting for it with Confuse Ray and Flamethrower.
Ryan would have liked to say that it was his Pokémon that was the most effective out of the three-point-five on their side, but the six-tailed fox had his dragon outmatched; the delicate-looking thing was completely immune to their opponent’s first ranged attack, while its Safeguard was a direct counter to the second, more worrisome move it had opened the battle with: Toxic.
“Again! Flamethrower!” the fox’s owner, Mimi, cried with a howling laugh, and it too obeyed splendidly.
“Don’t be outdone! Dragon Breath!”
Blue mixed with red, and while the fully-evolved bat monster dodged the direct streams it was caught in the aftermath as their collision caused an explosion of multicoloured fire. Mimi howled again, and Menard outright cheered as the crobat was forced to the ground. The numerous burns had done their job; its four wings were no longer enough to keep it airborne.
“Yeah! Bubbles, Sand Attack!”
Ryan, too, was elated. His heart hammered in his chest, adrenaline at fighting a Gym Leader’s ace Pokémon just enough to drown out the sick feeling that the night’s revelations had caused.
They’d had a traitor in their midst, and he hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t even thought to suspect. If I’d stayed in town instead of only going for the lessons…
The thought was shoved down as the crobat regained its bearings, blasting across the field as its wings propelled it nearly as fast through the chewed-up underbrush as when it had flown. It ignored the round of tepid ranged attacks from the sandshrew, juking up and down despite its burned wings as it headed for the vulpix hiding in the treetops.
A single Cross Poison, and the fox toppled down.
Worrying. But still, there was the elation. This was a true battle, exactly what he had wanted when he’d entreated his father to allow him to join Rocket. It’s happening earlier than I’d expected, but still. I’m fighting a near-Elite Pokémon, and I might just win! “Again! Draw it off!”
Blue flame flashed, the crobat became a near-invisible blur, and out of the corner of his eye Ryan saw Mimi feeding her injured Pokémon a Revive in tablet form. His smile was savage, desperate, and sincere as he watched his bagon go down to a Super Fang combo, his own revive – the more expensive multi-use canister type – clutched in his hand.
He withdrew Jormungandr, and looked the bat in the eye as it flapped towards him, only to veer off-course as Confuse Ray showed its value.
The nozzle of the canister went into his Rocket Ball, the plastic shell already broken from an earlier use of the medicine. He had perhaps three uses left, and then he’d be down to Potions.
No, don’t think of it. The battle! Only the battle!
Every attack from the crobat drew lifeblood, but they were wearing it down. With the sandstorm active Bubbles was too evasive to take out smoothly, his moves just annoying enough to disrupt it while Jormungandr hit it hard and Velvet turned its attempts to control the battlefield against it. And without its trainer the powerful Pokémon was sloppy, acting on instinct – it kept going for Toxic, not realising that they were all Safeguarded.
Mostly Safeguarded, he corrected, eyes passing over the bright pink mound of lickitung. Hopefully the Antidote can keep the Toxic at bay; Savage may be incapable of attacking such a fast opponent, but just having another body on the field is making all the difference.
A panicked smile curved his lips. Fight! We just might win this! he repeated to himself as the smoke clogged the air, the tremors of the earlier Earthquake still vibrating between his ribs. We have the supplies, and the numbers! Jormungandr went back on his belt to rest, and he sent out the as-yet-unnamed farfetch’d closer to Menard and his Pokémon than himself. The swordsduck appeared with a squawk. Not the most convenient of situations for testing a newly-caught Pokémon, but… “Close in and use Aerial Ace!”
Velvet went down again, and this time the crobat failed to be distracted; it took out Mimi as well, cutting both her ankles before smoothly circling around Savage’s flytrap of a tongue. Farfetch’d squawked, confused at its own sudden appearance, but then instinct kicked in; it blocked the enemy admirably before it could strike Menard, its leek meeting and enduring multiple swings of its opponent’s razor-sharp wings… but it too fell in short order.
Ryan swapped his Pokémon again, his shoulders tense as – What?
As a heavy rock struck the crobat in an improbable feat of either skillful aim or blind luck. Mojo cried out in triumph from across the forest, before the sound was cut off abruptly.
Well. I suppose it’s good they’re still fighting too. Ryan rattled his Max Revive, receiving a worryingly empty sound.
Two uses if I’m lucky, one if I’m not.
The fight went on, and all the while, as both sides desperately battled against their flagging stamina, Ryan held onto hope. We can beat it. Or Cliff will win his battle and come to our aid. Or Mutsu. His breath was heavy, his vision wavering as heavy smoke stole precious air from his lungs. Or Kazubara and the fresh grunts, even. This is winnable, so long as-
And then a murkrow descended from nowhere, tripping Jormungandr before his Fire Fang could hit as it sent multiple Gusts of wind at everything else.
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Guts whipped her tail into the ninja’s wrist, and so the dancing knife missed Crow’s body by a hair. She didn’t make it through unscathed – an abdominal feeler drifted to the ground, the incongruously floaty motion delicately accompanied by a single drop of blood – but Hoshi felt the trade was more than worth it when the zubat’s Leech Life dug into his aunt’s scalp.
She grunted, and Venus’s seventh or eighth Pursuit turned her dodge into a hasty block. Some more armour was shorn away as Crow took flight to avoid being grappled, and Hoshi sprayed potion wildly across the area.
The smoke took some, the sand some more, but a portion of the healing mist caught in his Pokémon’s wounds and refreshed them all the same. No point in being stingy. If we lose… Well, we’d better not lose.
His other hand still held the camp knife, but some of his earlier bravado had slipped away as reality set in; there was no way he could fight someone like Tsuyu Mutsu, even if he hadn’t had a four-inch-long knife burrowed into a nebulous area of his chest he didn’t actually have a name for. “Casca!” he called backwards, careful not to actually take his eyes off their opponent. “Could really use a hand here!”
“Twenty seconds!” she replied, and his teeth ground against each other. How long does it take to knock out a fucking venonat?!
An ominous whistle caught his attention, and he snapped out a hand as Tsuyu’s blade came down. Blood splashing warm and metallic against his tongue, Hoshi attempted to nudge the blade aside – but in a split-second decision he determined that using any amount of restraint wasn’t enough, and so he poured that electric energy keeping his limbs moving down, down, into the tip of his finger as it stabbed forwards.
Something connected, a line of ephemeral spiderweb, and he pulled the sword as far away from his mankey’s vitals as it would go before the power ran dry.
It was enough to save her life, but only just; the altered slash still carved her face open as she stepped back, missing her eyes but separating her nose into two pieces. Venus howled, the sound burbling with the blood running into her mouth, and Hoshi-
Hoshi attempted to take a step forward, red burning in his eyes, but it didn’t happen. The strings giving his puppet body a semblance of life snapped, and suddenly he was ten times heavier. All he could manage was a half-staggering descent, his vision fuzzing into a long, meaningless smear as his knees and hands met the ground. “Keep attacking,” he choked out. “Can’t surrender. Never surrender.”
“Hoshi,” his aunt’s icy voice admonished from somewhere outside the tight cone of his vision. “I’m trying to save you, boy. You’re committing treason.” His ears strained as sounds, violent ones – almost more violent than actually seeing it, his imagination conjuring flying limbs and smashed guts – entered them. Then, a moment of silence.
“Guts? Crow?”
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“They’re done. I’ll give you credit, nephew…” A breath, collected but heavy with exertion. “You and your little terrorist friends here made me work harder than any criminals I’ve ever fought. But you’ve lost; return your Pokémon. And put away that damn kitchen knife, before you make me-”
An impact, and Hoshi blinked. He could feel it, the pieces of his body trying to fly apart, the constellation calling from the depths of space now that the power anchoring his mind and body together had disappeared. No. Just no, I’m not going to let it happen.
“Fucking- You should’ve stayed down, bug.”
In his head, there was an image; that stupid, impossible dream, a house and a field and tauros and kids and-
And for that to happen, I can’t give up here. Johto has to go, or else it all might just be flattened again in ten years. Step one is cleaning out the League, taking back control of ourselves; I’m not even a hundredth of the way there yet.
As so he pushed with all his might, forcing his neck to lift his heavy head. What he saw was much less visceral than his mind’s eye had painted; his girls were alive, though that might change if he didn’t get them in their balls. Somewhere far, far away to his untrustworthy senses a dark shape fought two brown ones, streams of blue arcing through the air from a different flavour of far away.
“Thank’s, Casca…” And Cliff. Pinsir would probably have been real useful against her dark types, but I’m glad we had him instead.
Hoshi pulled himself across the ground like a caterpillar, shrugging off his backpack as he approached. Potion. Where is it? I should have one left, at least… He dug for a long moment before remembering; he’d moved the medicines to his belt, just in case he’d been hit by another barrage of poisoned needles. So they'd be right there. Right. Don’t pass out… Your girls need you.
A sick chuckle limped out of his throat as his fat, stupid fingers took too many seconds to pluck the right tube off his waist – but eventually it happened. He raised the Potion, aimed it point-blank at his bleeding Pokémon, and-
A knife came out of the darkness, tempered black steel snatching the medicine from his hand like Arcus himself had reached down and said no, Hoshi Mutsu doesn’t get to ever win. He will fail over and over, forever, until he dies alone and unmourned. This is the universal law, and it cannot be overturned.
Slowly, incredulously, his head went left to see the wrecked canister spewing its contents uselessly into the air. Metres away – impossible to save.
Then he turned back to his Pokémon. “I… I think this might be it, girls.” A tremor rocked him; Quake’s Bulldoze. “I don’t know what to do. This was meant to be a fucking training trip. Get out. Be a Pokémon Trainer for a bit. You know? Maybe take the first step to another promotion.”
Stop freaking out and get them in storage, you useless weak little bitch. They’re dying, you stupid fuck. His hands moved, palming a ball. “Re-” he choked out, greasy smoke and sand and the extent of his failures working together to clog the back of his throat. “Re- re-”
“Hoshi!” a girlish voice interrupted. “Oh no, oh no, your Pokémon!” He looked up again, and saw Puce.
She looked almost as bad as his team. Her face was lumpy, one eye completely consumed by swollen flesh and her lips more like sausages sticking half-out of her jaw than anything. But despite that, the ekans wounds and the needles still peppered across her upper half, she stood – something Hoshi could no longer do, despite the Paralyse Heal circulating in his system.
“Puce,” he said dumbly. “Potion.”
“Oh – yes, I have one more! Here, let me-!”
He continued to stare at her as she saved the lives of his Pokémon, spraying down their wounded forms until the medicine ran dry. His vision blurred further as Guts stood, shook herself – and then turned to the battle.
She squeaked, bloodthirsty, and his heavy tongue sprinted to stop her before she bounded off. “No,” he ordered. “Stay back. Let Casca-” He coughed. “Let Casca do it. She has Pinch, and Quake.” And we’re out of Potion. “We’re…” he trailed off. “Wait. Puce, where are your Pokémon? Where’s Nerine?”
The giant woman’s head disappeared in a cloud of greens and reds and blacks – colours he was too tired to interpret, if there was even any meaning to be found. “Nerine. She’s… either dead or unconscious. I don’t- I didn’t check.”
“Uh.”
“And Potato and Bear are here,” she continued, gesturing down – probably to her belt. Hoshi was, once again, too tired to move his head.
“Okay. Help me up.”
Slowly, laboriously, Hoshi was dragged back to his feet. His girls crowded around him, keyed-up by the fires, or the battles, or the fact that they’d been on death’s door… Probably all of those. Okay. Okay. We’re not dead. Is anyone else dead?
Casca wasn’t. She was hiding behind a tree as her and Cliff’s Pokémon fought his aunt. Speaking of Cliff – he was fighting some sort of green and white blur, three Pokémon against one. Oh, that’s an onix. Bigger than they look from above, in the Gym’s good seats. The others…
The others were somewhere on the edges of the chaotic melee, obscured by smoke and dust and his smeared vision.
He leaned into Puce’s side. “I don’t know if we can win this, Puce.” Casca said we should leave, and I’m starting to think she was right. Yet again, all the bravado had been drained out of him, this time by the image of Venus, Crow, and Guts bleeding out into the soil. They still bore the marks of those wounds, despite the Potion; split into three, the medicine had failed to get them back to fighting shape. “Is your team healed?”
“Mostly,” she replied. Though her throat was as swollen as the rest of her head, she somehow still retained that too-young tone behind the wheeze. “I think we can. Uh, win this, that is.”
I can barely keep my eyes open, Puce. How the fuck are you standing? “Uh,” he grunted again. “Well, I appreciate the confidence. We should…” Do fucking what? Tsuyu will kill my Pokémon if I go at her again. Cliff's battle is above my pay grade, I don’t even know where Janine is…
“…You should help Casca,” he eventually said. “From long range. Bear’s Confusion is coming along, right?”
She nodded. “Okay. I think… Maybe you should stay here. With your Pokémon.”
“Yeah.”
She nodded again, and made to set him carefully down – but as his ass hit the ground, he noticed something strange. Huh? Is it… brighter..? And there was a sound, too. Familiar, almost like a Pokémon being released, but… not that. Less artificial.
“Oh,” Puce breathed, and then she repeated herself. “Oh, Hoshi! Your Pokémon!”
He frantically turned his head, the poorly-painted watercolour that was his field of view shifting wildly. What? What?! What’s happening? I can’t see, this fucking stupid psychic shit-
But abruptly, Hoshi realised: the pulsing white light was not, in fact, a hallucination. “Oh gods above,” he whispered. “All three?” All at once?
It was the pressure that convinced him, a heavy quality filling the air that seemed to chase away the smoke. For a moment his eyes went up, and he marvelled at the tiny eye that had formed in the sandstorm. The stars twinkled high above, as though giving their blessing to the trio of evolutions.
“Hoshi,” Puce whispered with him. “Hoshi. Hoshi, they’re-!”
“Yeah.”
The light pulsed faster, harder, the forms of his girls seeming to melt together as they crowded around him. It was warm, in a way entirely different from the far-off flames casting hot ash across his face. The sound, indescribable except as crystalline, continuing to build, and build, and-
Guts was the first to come out of it; her body had expanded, the light turning solid as her lithe body filled out. Where before the rattata was maybe eleven inches tall when standing on her hind legs, as a raticate Guts towered a full two feet, a semi-articulate tail of the same length extending, naked, behind her. As the light dimmed Hoshi saw that her lavender fur had turned brown, the exact shade lost to the environment – but he’d seen other raticate often enough to already picture the vibrant, animalistic brown in his head.
“Good girl,” he said, nearly inaudible.
Then, a much more drastic transformation: Crow ballooned, her body, which had been small enough to comfortably ride on Hoshi’s shoulder, growing in fits and starts as though reluctant. Where Guts towered only in comparison to her prior self, Crow the golbat was close to human-sized. Four feet tall, with a wingspan that would probably match – her limbs were tightly held to her body, obscuring most of it behind thick, leathery folds.
Probably… probably getting used to having eyes…
Nothing changed about her colouration, but her dextrous feelers had transformed into grasping foot-like appendages.
And, finally, the third Pokémon completed her evolution. Venus shuttered as it happened, and Hoshi could see the long rend in her face closing, new flesh bubbling out from the wound in a manner startlingly less clean than the artificial healing he was used to seeing. The transition from mankey to primeape was less pronounced than the other two had been; Venus’s body did not radically alter its shape, doing little more than doubling in height – most of which was in her limbs. Her paws thickened. Fur receded from her wrists and ankles as muscles bulged in its wake, bulk travelling up her arms and legs as her body expanded just slightly. The effect brought Hoshi’s mind to rolling up his sleeves in preparation for a fight.
And it seemed that Venus was having a similar thought. She let loose a wild hoot, her meatier, mitt-like fists coming together above her head.
He blinked at her, then moved his eyes back over Crow and Guts. For a moment, it seemed unreal – a minute ago he’d all but given up, but now…
Hoshi smiled, the expression sharp in more ways than the usual; the numbness of his extremities had caused him to bite his lips, cheeks, and tongue a worrying number of times since he’d pulled himself out of the tree’s crook. “Girls,” he said, slurring the words slightly less as hope ignited a hidden well of adrenaline. “Who’s ready to-”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” came his aunt’s voice over the din of battle. Hoshi flinched, turning more by Puce’s effort than his own to follow the sound to its source. “No, I’m done. I’ve been going soft because you’re my brother’s son, but now I remember why we don’t do that – it encourages people to get back up.”
Tsuyu walked out of a dense smoke cloud – too dense. Damn it. More poison. Fuck, is Casca..? He braced himself as she raised her sword. “Puce, I don’t know how much you caught; she throws knives. Try to dodge.” The knife. Can I..?
He could. The camp knife sailed, miraculously spot-on despite his gelatine muscles, drawing a screech from the chipped edge of her sword as they met.
She deflected the attack away, like Hoshi had expected, but it gave his team enough time to arrange themselves between her and him. She’s hurt. Not a lot of blood, but I’ll eat my uniform if she isn’t one giant bruise from her legs to her stomach. Quake knew Sucker Punch, and she didn’t hold back.
But rather than leap forward, the Fuchsia woman put two fingers to her mask and whistled. The sound was startlingly loud, carrying through the murk like… Well, like a whistle. “Janine!” she called out. “Your kid’s gonna die if you don’t get over here! We were expecting grunts, not a tyranitar!” The slightest of pauses, enough for Hoshi to open his mouth but not order an attack, retreat, or whatever else his overworked brain would have spewed out. “Plan E! Either you get us out of here, or I will!”
Another half-beat. “Guts, Swift-”
“Fine,” came another feminine voice – from directly behind him. Hoshi whirled, the simple motion pushing him to the limit, and saw Janine Doksu, the Fuchsia City Gym Leader, tapping a ball against her thigh. She was injured – actually injured, unlike Tsuyu. Gashes and electrical burns went through her uniform and the skin underneath, and her wiry hair was streaked with mud.
The ball fell from her hand. Stars erupted from Guts’s mouth – easily twice as large as her previous Swift, Hoshi noted, eyes widening as the chemicals in his blood were flooded out by every drop of adrenaline his body had found. The attack went forward in slow-motion-
Only to be blocked by a weezing. “Plan E,” Janine said, cradling one arm with the other. “I truly hope none of you die. I’d been trying to avoid that – but Miss Tsuyu isn’t wrong, either.” A puff of smoke, pitch black and completely opaque as it reached its tendrils around the weezing, and then her voice echoed out from the trees. “If you do make it? Stay down.”
And then Hoshi was flying. He tumbled across the ground, getting a mouthful of leaves and dirt, and there was a moment of disorientation before he put together what happened. Puce threw me- Puce!
Standing was impossible, but he could at least turn himself in the proper direction. Puce was folded over, wrestling the metre-wide gasbag to the ground as light shone from its numerous craters.
He tried to reach for his power – one last-ditch attempt, a psychic barrier or teleport or something, but he was empty. Hoshi was once more a normal man, half-paralysed and dripping blood from the hole where a knife had been before he’d been smashed against the ground. He let go of the hope in his chest as he fumbled for his Pokéballs. Not the transforming cartoon hero after all. “Return,” he cried, rescuing Guts from the imminent Explosion. “Return,” he called again, and Crow’s keening Supersonic faded to echoes. “Return!”
With one last holler, Venus disappeared from where she’d been furiously chopping at the weezing. For a moment his vision miraculously cleared, and he saw the last moment of the battle in its entirety.
On the furthest edge Ryan, Kenny, and Mimi were cuffed to a tree. They’ll probably survive. The rookies were looking around, confused about their opponent’s sudden retreat, and Bart – Bart’s expression was widening panic and grim realisation fighting for space as he caught the lightshow and faint organic rumbling. He raised his arm, the kabuto clinging to it acting as a shield. Might live, might die. An okay chance. Then there was Cliff. The Rocket Enforcer was bounding towards Puce and the Gym Leader’s Pokémon, his hand outstretched, his mouth very slowly forming an order to the near-legendary Pokémon at his side. His team will protect him. He lives.
Puce would absolutely die. Hoshi put his own chances at very bad. Casca…
He looked back, but no shock of orange hair peeked out from behind a tree. Please live. Please…
There was a terrible tremor, worse than the Earthquake that had created the battlefield – not stronger, but ominous in its sickening certainty. Hoshi’s eyes watered at the intensity of the weezing’s building attack, harsh light spilling from every pore, and in the most final of final moments he found one last emotion in his heart: resentment. It won’t even die from it. No, just us.
Time resumed-
And a massive amount of pink jelly came spilling up from the ground, encasing the weezing.
“To protect the world from devastation!”
“To unite all peoples within our nation!”
Hoshi blinked. Again. His mouth gaped – and then he began to laugh as the jellicent spat Puce out.
“To denounce the evils of truth and love!”
“To extend our reach to the stars above!”
The sound was ragged, stained with blood and a faint edge of bile, but he couldn’t stop. Hoshi continued to laugh as the ghost type Pokémon bloated grotesquely for a moment, then returned to its proper jellyfish shape. Smoke poured from its eyes and mouth as it spat the deflated weezing out like a sad balloon.
He continued to laugh as the balls around his prone body wiggled. He continued to laugh as they discharged his Pokémon. He continued to laugh as a red-haired woman and blue-haired man revealed themselves, stepping out of the trees.
“This was an endurance fight,” he choked out as Jesse and James continued their chant. Guts nuzzled his face as Crow very slowly peeled her wings away from her face, revealing a gaping may that took up her entire torso and two slit-pupiled eyes. “And you lost, auntie.” Venus hooted and jumped up into the threetops, then down again, her evolution having done nothing to curb her boundless energy. “We held on. Good work, girls – it was you three that made them flinch.”
And then Hoshi Mutsu let himself lose consciousness, exhaustion taking him away before his head hit the ground.
----------------------------------------
There were no dreams to mark the passage of time; one moment Hoshi was closing his eyes in a dark forest, the next he was opening them in a well-lit room. The suddenness of it caused him to gasp, which drew the attention of the person above him.
“Babe?” the angel whose face filled his vision said, and for a moment Hoshi couldn't decide if he was awake, or if it was only a dream finally starting.
Then the pain in his side flared, and he let loose a tepid chuckle. “Ah… ha. Hey Casca.”
Her face descended and they kissed. It wasn’t a particularly romantic kiss; it didn’t linger, there was little movement, and his lover’s lips tasted of ash and bitter medicine. But still he savoured it, for the second it lasted, only becoming aware of his surroundings as Casca pulled away.
He was lying with his head on her lap, but they weren’t alone; all the other Rockets were there, spread across a large room that was… old-fashioned. Well, all the real Rockets, anyway.
The reminder of Nerine’s betrayal made his heart beat faster, and he attempted to rise – and succeeded, to his mild surprise. Feel pretty okay, actually. How long did I sleep? No, before that… “Where are we?” he asked, taking in more details of the room as he moved to a sitting position. Tatami floors. Mulberry-paper walls. Actually, I can guess. “Fuchsia City?”
Casca smiled. “Got it in one. We’re inside the Gym.” At his incredulous look she continued. “Yup! Turns out they only had like, another two people guarding the place. The rest are all up in Viridian handling the tournaments – and the crisis with the Pokémon Transfer System.”
Hoshi continued to look at her incredulously. Crisis? What the heck are – you’re doing this on purpose! His hand reached out to flick her on the forehead, and as her exaggerated reaction played out he noticed his hands were clean. That prompted him to look down. “Did you bandage me up?”
“No, that was Cliff.”
He grunted, examining his clothes. Ninja stuff. The Gym uniform? His hand brushed the tree balls on his belt, the only thing that was consistent from before he’d passed out. “Okay, let’s stop playing around. What happened?”
With a sigh, Casca let the moment of levity pass. “What happened… Well…”
“Actually!” exclaimed a voice from over his shoulder, and Hoshi jumped.
“Son of a-!” Well, I’m recharged on fucking adrenaline, at least. “Can you not do that? I just fought ninjas, uh,” I don’t think I’d have slept more than eight hours, so, “Last night.”
James pouted as he met Hoshi’s eyes. “Fine. Just this once.”
Then Jessie spoke, from over Casca’s shoulder. “We only have a day anyway. Best get down to business.”
Hoshi restrained the urge to ask what was going on again – or any of his other questions, for that matter. Did you know Nerine was a spy? Was that what this was for? Are we taking over the fucking city? He’d heard that Rocket had briefly taken control of Saffron over a decade ago, but that was basically an entirely different organisation. Am I a known criminal now? Is my life just… over?
James cleared his throat. “The others have gotten the full appraisal, but we felt it best to let you sleep it off. To put it succinctly…”
“Due to our amazing Rocket Professors – and a little help from you, Mister Mutsu – Team Rocket has taken control of the Pokémon Transfer System.” Jessie flicked her hair, pleased.
Me? But – oh. The bug we put on the League database. A moment passed as he worked through the implications. “So… We have all the Pokémon in storage?” That’s… I can’t even guess how big that actually is. Most trainers might only have three or four, but professional Pokémon Trainers, Rangers and Gym Trainers and people who really make a go at the Gym Challenge… They’ll have extra members in the system. A dozen or more, at the highest level. And those would be the strongest ones, the most trained.
James shook his head, expression conciliatory. “Unfortunately, no. We don’t have the identification credentials to withdraw owned Pokémon.” Then his mood flipped. “What we do have are the League’s Pokémon – the ones held in common, from dead or missing trainers.”
Hoshi swallowed. “And that’s..?”
“We haven’t exactly counted,” Jessie took up, “But suffice to say it’s enough for a big play. You’ll be getting some new team members soon! But also…”
“Team Rocket had to sacrifice some things to get this far.”
The two walked around the sitting pair, and Hoshi saw that they, like the rest of them, must have seen a serious battle recently. Jessie’s exposed midriff was bandaged, and James’s sleeves bulged in a way that suggested he’d taken serious injuries up and down both arms. The way they walked also gave it away; the fatigue, the effort needed to simply move.
They turned back, and despite the bags under their eyes they spoke with the same amount of charisma Hoshi was accustomed to. “As of yesterday, the Electric Academy is no more,” James began.
“Our members have been exposed,” Jesse continued.
“And the interim Boss over in Viridian was exposed as well, so we’ll have no backing on that front.”
Hoshi’s teeth clenched. Well. That’s not fucking good.
“But don’t worry!” the two chanted together, smiling.
Jessie pumped her left fist. “It isn’t all bad news. Even putting the bounty of Pokémon we’ve acquired aside, we’ve had victories!”
James pumped his right. “That’s right! Our operations in Saffron and Mahogany are coming along swimmingly!”
“We’ve defeated several members of the Elite Four!”
“And, at long last, the scientific endeavours that we’ve poured so much capital into are finally bearing fruit!”
Hoshi was silent for a moment as their back-and-forth ended, the Rocket Executives obviously waiting for his response. “…The Elite Four?” he finally asked, after a poke in the side from Casca.
“Indubitably!”
Jessie let loose a noblewoman’s laugh – which was startlingly similar to Kiribo’s, actually. “I wish we’d been there! Seeing Will and Sabrina get trounced-”
“And that young upstart from Ecruteak, too!”
“-Must have been a terrible shock for their egos!”
Hoshi blinked. Sabrina? What? Are you – are you fucking with me too? “Could you… start from the top?”
The Rocket duo smiled even wider. Wait, where’s Meowth? He’s usually made an appearance by now. “Sorry Senior Grunt, but there’s no time!”
They posed, inviting his eyes to look in the space between – and Hoshi saw that they'd been standing in front of a whiteboard that he hadn’t paid any attention to. ‘TEAM ROCKET STRIKES BACK!’ was printed across the board in multicoloured marker, a bulletpoint list in more sane black written below.
Jessie began. “We have somewhere between a few hours and a day before the League has enough wiggle room to send anyone all the way here.”
“So the first order of operations is: reconnecting with our remaining forces in Vermillion!”
“Then, we’ll head over to Saffron where we’ve had a secret base set up…”
“Get outfitted by the Professors…”
“And then the grand finale: crashing the Indigo Nationals on live television! Everyone will know-”
“From the teeniest tot to the grouchiest granny!”
“-That Team Rocket is shooting for the moon!”