“Ooh! And the challenger’s blastoise takes a brutal knockdown from our host’s arcanine! That looks like it hurts!”

Blaine watched placidly as the bulky turtle attempted to stand, his arms crossed and his jaw set. Meanwhile, on the other side of the arena, his opponent was in the exact opposite state of mind – she was all but pulling her hair out.

“Tuddle! You need to get up!” the young woman cried. “Think of how far we’ve come! It’s just here and Fuchsia to go – we can do this! You have the advantage, you just need to stand up!”

“You know what that means folks!” the announcer continued, his excitement contrasting with the challenger’s lament. “Time to spin the Penalty Wheel! And since it’s a seventh badge challenge, we’ll be using the hard mode selection!” The giant screen encompassing the entire wall opposite the stands let out a cheery tone, and the live audience roared. “Let’s see what’s in store!”

Five columns of differently coloured boxes appeared on the screen, each bearing a stylised symbol, and with a cavalcade of beeps and boops the roulette started. The woman finally seemed to realise what was happening, her eyes widening as she turned from her still-downed Pokémon to the screen. “Wait! Please, not another one! T-Tuddle’s belly never hit the floor, he caught himself with his arms!”

The roulette went on, each box lighting up in sequence. The volume of the beeps increased as the speed slowed, until… “Ohh! Bad luck!” Her fate was sealed with a happy trumpet as the box bearing a lightning bolt blinked. “Electrified terrain! Oh well, it could be worse – this one effects both sides, after all!”

“Arcanine,” Blaine quickly ordered as the ceiling opened, a deliberately-cartoonish lightning rod descending together with a puff of confetti. “Stay off the floor.”

“Woof!” his Pokémon replied, moving before Blaine had even finished speaking. Extreme Speed took him directly up the textured surface of the safety glass enclosing the battlefield – meanwhile his opponent could only struggle, its trainer sending panicked shouts down as the blastoise managed to just get up on its knees.

“Tuddle! Hydro Pump before it hits! You have one more, I know it!”

The turtle’s cannons swivelled upwards as it raised its head in defiant determination – but then the last razor-thin chance of an upset victory died as it hesitated, eyes unable to focus on the orange blur Blaine’s arcanine had become. Arcs of electricity came down, blanketing the arena and shocking the vulnerable water type… and then, as if to add insult to injury, the giant dog ceased jumping from wall to wall to land directly on Tuddle’s back.

The blastoise reflexively let loose its attack, water spraying from its twin cannons with incredible pressure, and the glass in front of Blaine’s face cracked.

Hmm, not the worst attack. Arcanine might have been in trouble… Too bad the trainer couldn’t handle the heat. The dancing tines of electricity ended a second later, and the announcer cheered as the blastoise stayed down. “Oh no, it looks like that’s a knockout! With all six of her Pokémon unable to battle, I’m afraid that means Challenger Joyce is out of the game!”

A sad trumpet accompanied the words ‘Game Over!’ flashing on-screen, and as the safety panels retracted to let the distraught young woman return her Pokémon – which Arcanine was triumphantly using as a seat, to the audience’s amusement – Blaine huffed in annoyance. Pah, the quality of my challengers has gone down since the Pokémon Professor passed. Can the youngsters really not stand to open a textbook anymore, unless it has the name Oak written on the front? Affecting a more vicious demeanour than he felt for the cameras, he returned his own Pokémon and gestured to the five unused balls embedded in the left arm of his chair. We didn’t even make it to the mid-battle quiz… Then he flicked a toggle on the other arm, moved the joystick forward, and began making his way to the centre of the field.

A moment of sulking, and then the young woman pulled herself together to take the loss with grace. She joined him in the centre, and the crowd continued to cheer as she bent down to accept his offered handshake.

“I’ll get you next year, Gym Leader,” she promised, and he huffed out a laugh.

“Then you’d better burn the midnight oil and study hard! Really, getting four of the five quizzes wrong on the way up – I’m surprised you had three Pokémon left for the finale!”

She grimaced. “Yeah, well…” Unable to come up with a response, she simply ended the handshake and turned away. “Next year!”

After the brief, customary round of showboating, Blaine wheeled himself back into the innards of his Gym-slash-recording-studio. “So how’d it look, boys?”

Quinn, his top editor-slash-intelligence-agent, replied with an absent-minded thumbs-up as he reviewed the footage. “Looks pretty alright, Boss. Hmm, lot of challengers for a Monday… might have to cut this one to just the top highlights if it keeps up.”

“Pah! As if there were highlights to cut!”

The man shook his head. “Nah, she absolutely smashed Zac on the first floor. Like I always say: the audience loves a good reversal. Just gotta find an angle where the cannons don’t block the shot…”

The former burglar cycled through a number of shots, and Blaine left him to his work and continued deeper. As he went, the tunnels carved into Cinnabar’s volcanic stone ceased to be filled with the controlled mess of a TV studio, instead transitioning to the differently controlled mess of a government-funded science lab. “Doctor,” one of his underlings greeted as he entered.

“Zac. Poor showing today! Completely sputtered out!”

The black-haired man scratched the back of his head. “Come on, she landed on the double-battle space and sent out two water types… Besides, isn’t it better for ratings if more challengers make it through to you?”

Blaine hit a button on his chair’s armrest, and a loud, negative buzzer issued from the overhead speakers. “Eh! Wrong answer! Taking a dive is one thing, losing in the first ten seconds another! You need to get fired up – Junior!”

His successor sighed from the corner, where he was hunched over a desk. “Really, again? Can you not do it yourself?”

The buzzer sounded a second time. “After hours, I want you to take Zac up and go a few rounds in the test chamber!” Blainetwo sighed again, and the old Gym Leader responded by jamming the wrong answer button a half-dozen times. “No complaining! You still aren’t up to where I was at your age!” Kids these days… Pah, I’ve got no idea where he gets it from! “You should be taking every opportunity to train – I’m not going to be here forever, you know!”

“Arcus willing,” the twenty-year-old shot back, and a different, more positive tone played.

“There we are! Good comedic timing! We’ll make a Gym Leader out of you yet!”

His successor opened his mouth to retort – but before he could speak a third sound issued from the speakers, this one a more serious, down-to-earth klaxon. Then it was Blaine’s turn to sigh.

“Darn it.” There goes the Maniac Alarm. I was hoping we could go another month or two before hearing it again, but that’s just how the dice fall, I suppose…

“Do you want me to get that for you, sir?” another scientist asked, and Blaine waved him off.

“No, I’ll need something to occupy my time before the next challenge anyway. Everyone back to work – the future of scientific entertainment isn’t going to build itself, you know!”

As the assorted geneticists, robotics engineers, data analysts, and miscellaneous researchers went back to their tasks, Blaine wheeled himself even further into the facility. He thumbed a button to mute the alarm for the minute it took to reach one of his rest-stations-slash-sealable-bunkers, and pulled over next to a brightly-painted telephone.

A moment to grab a drink from the fridge, another to brace himself, and then he picked up the receiver. “Hello Bill,” he greeted enthusiastically. “What do you need?”

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When Tamara had gotten herself hired by Bill Sonezuki – three years ago now – she had braced herself for the unpleasant prospect of being the servant of a sexual deviant.

After all, who else would hire personal maids in this day and age?

But very soon, she realised her mistake; Bill did not give her a single care, sexual or otherwise. And so she revised her opinion; the man must, she decided, be an even more deranged flavour of pervert: a pokéfiliac. After all, he was obviously obsessed with them; nine-tenths of the mansion’s employees were mr. mime, the walls were festooned with framed paintings of his many prized eevee and clefairy – two Pokémon whose Johto population could be traced back entirely to him – and even the furniture was Pokémon-themed.

But, again, she was proven incorrect. Bill, it seemed, was truly pure. Over those three years she had gradually, haltingly uncovered the truth…

Bill Sonezaki, the greatest genius in Indigo, almost certainly the greatest genius on Earth, perhaps even the greatest genius in human history… was as naive and well-intentioned as a child.

That truth was more terrifying than any perversion she could imagine.

“Hello, Bill,” she was just able to make out, the voice of Cinnabar’s Gym Leader distorted and muffled by the long distance between their cities, then the thick walls of the Sonezaki manor, then the stretch of hallway between her and the door. “What do you need?” Tamara would have loved to have pressed her ear directly to the rich wood, but Mr. Bon and Ms. Chu were helping clean the section of hallway just a few metres away, and the two mimes were canny – they all were.

So she was forced to strain her ears to the breaking point, causing the soft sounds of shifting cloth squeaking against glass and stone to become near-deafening by their relative proximity. “Oh, it’s just terrible, Professor!” Bill replied, his voice youthful despite being nearly forty. “Mister Pink has passed away! Everyone is so distraught, I could barely get out of bed this morning…”

The Gym Leader, TV celebrity, scientist, and spymaster sighed. “That’s a shame,” he said, voice flat under the put-on sympathy. “Why don’t you tell me about it.”

Tamara listened, ears beginning to ring as she polished a life-sized bust of Bill’s grandfather’s ninetails. The long, long monologue her employer gave was nearly completely vapid, but there were a few small nuggets of gold among the pyrite – small details about what the man had been doing with ‘Mister Pink’ in the sealed vault of his home lab.

Blaine replied with the occasional hum or comforting remark. Anyone else would have been able to tell the octogenarian was going through the motions, but Bill’s emotional intelligence was directly inverse to his academic abilities. “…So you’ll be needing a new ditto, then,” he eventually said as the man who single-handedly catapulted technology forward a full century sniffled, genuinely distraught.

“Yes, I was about to get to that,” Bill replied. “But first, I was wondering if you’d be able to attend the funeral? I know you haven’t seen Mister Pink for years, but I’m sure his spirit would rest easier with his creator sending him off…”

“No, Bill. You know I see most of my challengers near the end of the season.”

“Ah, I see…” Her employer cleared his throat. “I suppose I’ll have to do the eulogy myself, then. Same price as last time?”

“Yes.”

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“Very good, I’ll have my accountant take care of things. When can I expect..?”

“Between one week and two, Bill. Anything else?”

“Well, since I have you on the line…”

Another monologue, equally long and even more vapid, this time about Blaine’s television show – or rather the Pokémon featured in Blaine’s show. Part of the painfully mundane stream of words was drowned out by Ms. Chu bonking into an invisible wall set up by the other mime, and Tamara was almost thankful for the interruption – this conversation contained not a single speck of gold. Blaine eventually hung up after excusing himself, and the next moment she heard Bill’s footsteps approaching. Her senses dulled just in time to avoid the screech of the study door against its frame.

Bill walked out into the hall – and bonked into a different wall. Oh- I didn’t even see them set that one up. The thought was filled with self-admonishment; with family business taking her away from the mansion more and more, she was becoming less able to predict its inhabitants’ movements.

He recoiled, held his nose for a moment… and then laughed.

“Oh, thank you for the effort, Sir and Miss. I’m in sore need of levity today…”

The mimes responded by passing an invisible ball back and forth – whether they were merely miming or actually juggling balls of psychically-stilled air, Tamara could not tell. “Ma?” one of them – Ms. Chu – croaked, and Bill waved his hand sadly.

“No, no. You get on with your work. I have to make… preparations.” Tears sparkled in the corners of his eyes, and once again Tamara’s gut twisted at the sight.

This is the most dangerous man in the entire world. The weapons Johto cajoled out of him kept us in the war, and I don't think he even remembers they exist – if he ever decided to do it on purpose, he could turn the continent into a smoking crater within an hour.

He passed, clasping the mimes on their shoulders as he went, doing the same for Tamara after a moment of hesitation – as if the human figure were corrosive. “Pardon, I didn’t think to ask; will you be joining us for the funeral?”

Tamara nodded. “Of course, sir. Mister Pink was a member of the household.”

Bill’s smile was guileless. “Thank you, I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” He continued down the hall, and Tamara rubbed down the marble as quickly as she could without risking damaging it under the watchful eyes of Mr. Bon and Ms. Chu.

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The Sonezaki manor was a strange place – not necessarily for any quality of the grounds themselves, but moreso the location. Bill’s mansion stood along Goldenrod’s coastline, its surrounding greenery a sharp contrast to the towering buildings that were visible in the distance. Once, the residence had been a single house among many; now it stood alone, apartments and strip malls replaced by rolling hills and forest, countryside so pristine it was difficult to believe any human had ever touched the land.

It was surreal; even after years worth of familiarity, she still sometimes looked at just the right angle to spot a piece of familiar city in the distance, causing her brain to go we should be seeing buildings here and short-circuit.

The amount of money Bill had poured into the reserve had been astronomical, almost ten times as much as he’d ever spent on his former lab north of Cerulean – and that was before counting the new lab itself, whose surface was only a tiny shed adjacent to the home, but which Tamara knew descended down into the earth for a startling distance.

She eyed said lab as she carried the ditto's casket together with another mime, Mr. Peggle. Most likely he’ll be going there after the ceremony – now, what are the odds that the password has changed since last time?

Her gait was slow, the pace of the short train being set by Bill. The man was dressed in his ceremonial robes – pure white with voluminous sleeves – and he brandished his wand with every step. The jangling of the attached chain accompanied a chant in the old tongue, giving the slow-moving group a solemn and, dare she say it, holy air.

Behind Bill walked a pair of jynx, dressed similarly to their master, who were whistling softly in time with the chain’s percussion. Then came a pair of umbreon, silent, their heads tilted up where the other mourners’ were lowered. Then a pair of misdreavus, then her and the mime with the casket, two more maids, a second pair of ghosts – and finally, taking up the rear, Bill’s wife. Lady Miu was garbed identically to her husband, though she waved her chain-bedecked wand in a mirrored pattern and her chant was modern Kantonian.

…I probably shouldn’t risk it. While he’s probably too distraught to think about security, probably is enough to get me killed. Better to wait until I can confirm things with my eyes. It was always frustrating that the most simplistic way of entering the sealed area – slipping in unseen the moment Bill himself opened the door – was impossible; two of her sisters had paid with their lives to discover the motion sensors covering the entrance.

The train continued to move, going from mansion to forest to clearing, and eventually they came to a small sign of humanity: a graveyard, large stones arranged in a pattern that was just artificial enough to draw the eye. A pit had already been dug, the gravestone and shovel made ready, and a crude wooden altar built nearby.

As Bill reached the altar he turned aside, the jynx and umbreon following while the ghosts, Tamara, and her fellow pallbearer continued straight ahead. This would usually be the part where the body was removed to be sanctified, but given the tight wax seal already applied to the casket – and the sloshing she could feel as they moved – the sequence had obviously been modified to account for the deceased’s… nature.

So she simply set the casket upon the altar, turning to join the other mourners to the side with Bill. Most would consider the Johtonian genius’s formal training as an Arcean priest to be an interesting factoid at best, but from the way he carried himself, the steadiness of his chanting and the precision he put into each movement, it was obvious the man considered this an important part of his life; equal if not superior to his greatest inventions.

The chant paused as Miu took up the other side of the altar, the priest and priestess bowing towards the deceased as the ghosts cavorted above.

“Mister Pink,” they each said, voices entwined. “Please rest easy, so that your body may return to the earth, and your spirit be born anew. So that the great creator might reach His many hands down and embrace you as His child. So that enmity and corruption do not follow you, and cause your spirit to linger.”

They each reached down, drawing earthen pots from under the altar. At this point they finally de-synced; Lady Miu moved to anoint the casket in seawater, then after she finished her husband did the same with pure springwater. The ghosts dancing above grimaced, their faces contorting into hideous expressions that made even Tamara’s pulse slacken.

The four misdreavus flew off, and their departure marked the ceremony’s success. Tamara and Mr. Peggle stepped forward to lift the casket together, depositing it into its grave with swift, clinical motions – the both of them had performed this ceremony many times, after all.

Despite his very genuine compassion, Bill’s laboratory discharged a steady stream of corpses; this was far from the only cemetery hidden among the trees.

She swiftly filled the grave in with the aid of the shovel, and then Mr. Peggle levitated the stone up, across, and down, sweat dripping from his jowls from the strain. It made only the softest sound of shifting earth as it settled in its place, and with that her part was complete.

Now… the eulogy. The thought was tired; while it was impressive that Bill was able to contort a life spent mainly in a tube into an hour-long account of the Pokémon’s quirks and virtues, it was not particularly interesting. She sighed internally as the man stood in front of the stone.

“I have known Mister Pink for two years, and though that is only a fraction of my life I cannot put to words the-”

Tamara was jolted back to awareness at the sudden pause, raising her eyes to see her employer frowning as his wife whispered in his ear.

Then her eyes flicked to the umbreon. Damn. She would greatly like to eavesdrop on the private conversation happening less than five metres away, but the cemetery’s guardian Pokémon would detect even the faintest hint of her ninjutsu should she use any in their proximity. Something that can make Bill pause his routine – it must be important.

After a minute of whispered discussion Bill huffed, stepping around his wife to address the mourners. “Apologies, but could you please return home for now? Something urgent has come up; I will of course inform you when the rest of the funeral is ready to take place."

The assorted employees looked at each other, and then as one turned to leave. The only figure not moving with the crowd was Makoto, the most recently hired maid.

“Do you require assistance, sir?” she asked, and Lady Miu shook her head.

“No, darling, please return to the house.”

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The young maid took a sip of her tea, nodding to the mime as it departed. “They are cute together, don’t you think?”

Shojiko, the third maid in the funeral trio, waved away her junior’s statement. “Not at all; I’ve never seen them so much as hold hands. It was obviously an arranged marriage.”

Makoto frowned. “I hope you’re wrong. Lady Miu is so beautiful, it would be such a waste if she were stuck in a loveless marriage…”

“They do love each other,” Tamara broke in, her mouth moving on autopilot as she debated the various actions open to her in her head. Do I try it? They sent the umbreon away, but I don’t know where they are – if they catch me, that’s a big mess I’ll have to clean up. “You can tell by the way they look at each other, it’s obvious.”

Makoto brightened, while Shojiko only rolled her eyes. “Sure, Tamara, sure. It’s definitely not just a cover while he canoodles his harem of jynx.”

The younger girl made a sound of disgust, scandalised. “Sho! You can’t say that!”

“Don’t be naive. Men only keep jynx around for one reason, and it isn’t the singing.”

But on the other hand, I’ve been out of the loop for a long time. Extenuating circumstances keep drawing me away; I haven’t seen the interior of the lab for almost a year now. Knowing what Bill’s up to is important, for me, the family, and Johto… Tamara shook her head lightly. “You know, those stories are really overblown. Jynx look like women, but they’re closer to clams in terms of anatomy; if he was screwing anything it’d be the clefairy.”

Makoto turned her scandalised look her way, putting her teacup down. “Tamara, not you too! Seriously, you both need to get your minds out of the gutter!” She crossed her arms. “I’m sure Bill and his wife are perfectly normal.”

As the two maids continued to argue, Tamara made up her mind. I’ll risk it; if I have to disappear a few umbreon afterwards, then that's a consequence I’m willing to shoulder. In the time it took to snap one’s finger’s – and with that sheer speed producing a similar sound – Tamara drew a Spore-coated needle, pierced each woman a single time in the thickest parts of their eyebrows, and caught their unconscious bodies before they could tumble from their chairs.

A few minutes at least before the butler comes back with further refreshments. A single half-second to make sure neither woman would topple over from a stiff breeze – and then she was off, wincing as her passage caused a soft rustling to follow in her wake, leaves and stems disturbed by the movement of the air her body displaced. Sloppy. I’ve grown too used to urban environments, my forestry has gone dull…

But despite the rustiness, she still made it back to the cemetery’s outskirts within twenty seconds. She crouched in the shadow of an oak as the forest’s low susurrus became a badly-played symphony, each musician substituting skill for volume.

And then, over the wind and buzz of insects, she heard it – three heartbeats, one slow and strong, one soft and quick, and the last both strong and quick. That third was Bill, the second his wife, the first…

Tamara had not the slightest idea. Bill wouldn’t pause the funeral for just anyone. So who?

She listened, bidding any of the three to speak and reveal something, but none of them did. Frustration caused her muscles to tense as one minute passed, then another – until finally Bill opened his mouth.

“I’m not sure you should trust him, Mister Tu.” Tu? Perhaps Two. Most likely a codename. Someone from a different family? “That man… I don’t like to think poorly of people, but he’s deceived you before, hasn’t he?”

Another silence, and Tamara’s internal clock told her it was time to go. She cursed internally as she flashed away; she’d learned basically nothing.

A half-minute later she was back at the dainty table, rubbing away the tiny dried scabs caught in her fellow maids’ hair. Next came the antidote – administered orally through the gums – and for a moment the two jerked, groggy and insensate, before the stimulant washed away all trace of sleep. Shojiko and Makoto blinked in-sync before their eyes focused, the moment of intense disorientation hiding the fact that they were suddenly in slightly different positions.

“Huh?” the younger grunted. “What was I..? Oh, that’s right!” She pointed a finger at Shojiko, frowning. “You shouldn’t say that about our master! It isn’t like you’ve seen him act untoward, right? You can’t just accuse someone of… that so easily!”

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Bill looked between his wife and his wife’s son, trying and failing to dredge up a series of words to dispel the tension. “Please,” he attempted, “Let’s not get into that old argument again. Honey, even if he changes his name he’s still-”

“I” Two interrupted, his voice deep and voluminous without being loud. “Am not her son. She is no more my parent than Fuji. It was a mistake to come here…”

He turned, beginning to stalk off, but the love of Bill’s life raised her hand and Two stopped. “You have not found the answer to your question, though.”

“And I doubt you have little to say to me. The human gave better advice than you, Mew.”

She smiled. “You did not come here for advice. Only a mirror, so that you might look upon your own thoughts. I will ask you a question: do you wish to forgive? Or to hold on to the past?”

Two was silent as he stood, back turned to the pair. Then, without another word, his figure blurred and disappeared.

“…Honey, I think that might not have been the best thing to say. You know calling him by his old name makes him cross…”

His wife’s smile lingered as she swept to the side, brushing her hand against the stone of Mister Pink’s grave. “Perhaps I’d like him to be cross. It makes him more honest with himself.” She shook her head, the soft pink of her hair dancing as one of the misdreavus came back to make a sharp loop around her neck, hiding in its crook.

“…Well, I suppose you would know him best.” Bill looked to the sky, and for the briefest moment something blue flashed in the distance. Then it was gone.

“Oh, not at all,” Mew conceded, stroking the ghost with slender fingers. “He is of your people as much as mine. But come, let us draw back the crowd for Mister Pink’s service; I wish to hear your thoughts on his life."

Bill smiled, allowing the heavy emotions Two had brought with him to leave. “Yes, you’re completely correct. Oh, I can’t wait to meet his brother – do you think Blaine would let me come to his island to pick him up? He said I was banned, but that was weeks ago, so surely he’s forgotten all about me lending a few Master Balls to those young ladies…”