Electric Sheep

Repliiiiiies~!



And here we are, at my favorite gym chapter and just over the hump when it comes to old content. As in, we’re finally not only at the Plot but also over halfway through the old chapters, which meeeeeans it won’t be long until the new content hits. Thanks so much to everyone for your patience, by the by!

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“It’s official. This gym sucks.”

Door flicked her wrist, sending globules of honey onto a nearby wall. She had been in the Castelia Gym for only ten minutes, and already, she had beaten two trainers and passed through several three-inch cascades of honey. Actual honey. For once, she was thankful for Geist’s companionship, not only because he seemed to know which direction in the maze-like gym to take but also because he had the foresight to use his coat as a shield against the honey walls. Still, even as Geist pushed the aforementioned coat under the cascade and even as Door tried her hardest to move slowly and carefully beneath his cover, she had to wonder just how she was going to wash the honey off her shoes, her pants, and everything else she would have preferred to stay honey-free. And meanwhile, Storm swooped over each wall with deftness and cleanliness, and Door simmered in her envy.

At the very least, the holo caster in her pocket had gone quiet. For the entirety of their journey to Castelia Gym—the run from Halcyon Labs and into the tourist-packed streets of Castelia at night, the few hours she and Geist had spent resting at a pokémon center, right on into the morning they trekked, stealthily, to Door’s surprise—the little device in Door’s pocket rang non-stop, but now, finally, it was still, silent, and a golden sign that her mother had given up. But just in case, Geist had led her down what he considered to be the shortest path through the gym: the one with the fewest trainers and the fewest rooms, a practical beeline to the gym leader. (Or at least it was in Geist’s words, which earned him the first hard glare Door had given him since yesterday.) That, plus Geist’s advice on how to defeat each unavoidable trainer—with a well-executed Air Cutter or two—meant she was almost to the Castelia gym leader barely a half an hour after leaving the Northern Castelia Pokémon Center that morning.

So maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

The journey. Not the gym. She hated the gym.

“Interesting fact,” Geist said. “It’s a leftover from the previous gym leader. Back in the days of Hilda King and Rosa Alvarado, the leader of the Castelia Gym was Burgh, a world-renowned artist.”

Door smirked. “Got a last name with that?”

“No. He was just Burgh.”

“Nice.”

Geist turned a corner and hugged the wall of a six-sided chamber until he arrived at a gate at its other end. Reaching up, he tapped a button on one of the gate’s braces and stepped back to watch the whole thing slide into the floor. Door, who had arrived at his side, grimaced as she looked at yet another wall of honey. As Geist leaned in, he pushed his arms outward to suspend his coat between them. The honey parted at his touch, creating a gap just large enough for Door to slip through. As she did, he glanced down at her.

“Anyway, as I was saying, Burgh was a talented artist. He still is, actually, but he left the gym to his apprentice so he could focus on his art,” Geist continued. “Like all the other gyms in Unova, Castelia is a reflection of the gym leader’s unique style. While Striaton’s gym layout reflected its three gym leaders and Nacrene’s captured the mix of knowledge and power valued by the Hawes family, the Castelia Gym has always represented art and creativity in the mystery of its element.”

Door took a few steps forward, out of the honey corridor, before she gave her partner a strange look. “Uh, in plain language, please?”

Geist stepped beneath his coat and wormed his way to the other side. “It means Burgh saw beauty in the bug-types he trained, and he tried to recreate that through his gym.”

Placing her hands on her hips, Door frowned. “So his apprentice just copied his work? That’s nice.”

“No. More like paid tribute to it,” Geist said. He kept his eyes on Door as he walked her down another path to another six-walled chamber. There, he pressed yet another gate post and added, “Honey is a versatile medium, you know.”

Door gave him another strange glance before shaking her head. “Yeah, no, I’m not gonna ask you to clarify.”

With a smirk, Geist pushed his coat into the honey. “Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She gave him one last, odd stare before ducking under his arms and emerging into a larger room beyond the last wall of honey. And she knew this was the last wall of honey because the room beyond it was far larger than the others, and unlike the previous chambers, it was covered in silken threads. A carpet of white silk spread across the gym floor, and fine threads hung from the walls. In the heart of the chamber, a massive, egg-like structure made of silk sat, still and peaceful. Door took a few steps closer as her hand reached for her pocket. Before she could select a pokémon, however, Geist was at her side, coat on and hand clasping her shoulder.

“Remember, Door,” he said. “Castelia Gym specializes in bug-types.”

“So use Storm again. Got it,” she replied. She scanned the air above her to find Storm perched on one of the walls, eyeing her patiently.

He nodded and turned to the egg. “Is Melissa, leader of Castelia Gym, present?”

“Ah, she is indeed!” a soft, airy voice responded from the egg. “Which fly has set foot in my parlor?”

Door quirked an eyebrow at the egg, then at Geist. “Dramatic, isn’t she?”

He flashed a grin at her. “That’s nothing.” Then, to the egg, he added, “Series Alpha Zero-One, registered under the name of Geist as the legal Companion of Door Hornbeam. I present her now, with her challenge. We hope that you will accept without prior reservation.”

The egg shook, and rainbow-colored light began filtering from its seams. “My, my! How formal you pretty little bees are! Of course I will graciously accept!”

From within, the rainbow-colored light engulfed the entire cocoon and filled the chamber. Door flinched, the light searing her eyes, but she couldn’t look away. In the midst of the rainbow brilliance, the egg split open—neatly, into four blooming parts—and a thread pulled a balled-up form into the air. Halfway to the ceiling, the ball unfurled itself into the silhouette of a slender woman. The figure arched her back, extending a graceful arm across her head as one slender leg cocked behind the other.

And then, the light faded, and Door screamed.

“Oh sweet Jesus, why?!” Door barked.

“Relax,” Geist said as he leaned her way. “She’s wearing a leotard.”

She covered her eyes. “I’m pretty sure she isn’t, Geist! I’m pretty sure that’s just honey!”

Geist straightened his back and shrugged. “I tried to warn you.”

“By telling me honey was a versatile medium?! What’s wrong with you?!”

Door forced herself to look at the Melissa, right as she landed. Melissa was indeed dressed in not much at all, but whether or not Geist was right was extremely difficult for Door to say. Melissa’s thick, red hair obscured much of her chest, and a golden belt hung at her hips, suspending a few strategically cut scraps of silk. Other than that, she wore splotches of paint and honey and, quite possibly, nothing else; if she had been wearing a leotard as Geist said, it matched her tanned skin perfectly. As if sensing her challenger’s inability to discern whether or not Melissa could be considered clothed, the gym leader placed a long, thin hand on her chest and tilted her head, just enough to force a bright, red blush to blossom across Door’s face.

“Some people struggle to appreciate my art, and that’s a shame,” Melissa sighed.

“Oh, lady, I can appreciate your kind of art just fine,” Door snapped. “It’s just that I prefer someone who isn—”

“What my partner is trying to say,” Geist interrupted, “is that she’s not quite used to the level of taste Castelia offers. She means no offense, madam. Would you still be willing to battle her?”

Melissa tilted her head a bit more, and her hair crept a little bit closer to her shoulder. “But of course. Will the standard rules be all right?”

“Naturally,” Geist replied.

“Did you have to use that word?” Door hissed.

He smiled and slapped Door’s shoulder without looking at her. “Composure, Door.”

“Well, then,” Melissa said. She pushed off the ground and floated backwards until she reached the other side of the field, and once there, she pulled out a poké ball. “Prepare yourself, Door Hornbeam. Bucket, show me your beauty!”

Cringing, Door leaned towards Geist and whispered, “Where did she pull that from?!”

“Composure, Door,” Geist replied. “She’s wearing a belt.”

Door groaned and straightened. “You know what? Quicker I get this battle done, quicker I have to think about how that doesn’t make sense. Storm, Air Cutter!”

As Door thrust an arm forward, and Melissa flicked her poké ball into the center of the field. In one flash, a large, purple ball materialized, rocking forward onto its front spikes. A second flash, one that lasted longer than an ordinary burst of light from an emerging pokémon, swept down from the wall and trailed a rain of sparkles behind it. Door recognized the second light at once; she had seen it three times already, after all. But it was the fact that Storm was new to her team that caught her off guard, so she stared, dumbfounded, at the sight of the pidove evolving.

Geist elbowed her gently. “I never got to tell you. While Storm’s species is generally ranked at a beginner’s capture level, Storm herself was incredibly close to evolving when you caught her. A battle with Belle, a few with some novice gym trainers, and…”

He motioned to Storm with a flourish, just in time for the bird to flick her wings and dispel the light. In place of a pidove, a larger, dark gray bird hovered, fixing stern, cold eyes onto the whirlipede in the center of the field. Then, before Melissa could say a word, Storm snapped her wings together and sent a gale peppered with silvery blades at the whirlipede.

The bug didn’t stand a chance. It chattered as the winds buffeted it, as the blades slammed into its carapace, as it was picked up and thrown out of the ring with seemingly little effort. When it slammed into the wall behind Melissa, the gym leader smiled serenely at Door, then began clapping lightly.

“Most impressive,” she said. “The beauty of aggression … the strength and destructive force of nature itself, spurred on by the rush of evolution … my heart quivers in awe.”

“Lady, I would not want to see any part of you quivering,” Door muttered.

At that, Geist crossed his arms and sighed. “Tranquill, the wild pigeon pokémon. Many people believe that, deep in the forest where tranquill live, there is a peaceful place where there is no war.” He paused and looked at Door. “By the way, just because this match was easy doesn’t mean the next one will be. Stay alert.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Door hissed. She waved a hand towards Melissa. “Do you Companions even understand nudity? Is that a thing for you?”

Seemingly unaware of their banter, Melissa recalled her whirlipede and brought out another poké ball. “Although I admire your pokémon’s aesthetic talents and power, allow me to show you the work of a true artist! Life, come!”

She spread her arms wide as she swept her next ball into the open. Door cringed, flinching away from the sight of the gym leader baring the front of her body, until Geist grasped both sides of her head and forced her to look again. Before her, the gray, spiral shell of a dwebble had appeared sometime in the few seconds Door had taken her eyes off the battle, and now it was just sitting there, waiting.

“Focus. We don’t have time for you to get distracted,” he said.

“Yeah,” Door muttered, “but she said co—”

Geist interrupted her with a sharp frown. “Really, Door?”

She gave him a sheepish look and shrugged.

“As you had moved last, it’s only fair that I take this opportunity to strike,” Melissa said, placing her hands on her hips. “Life, Smack Down!”

Door gritted her teeth and tried to focus, but all she could see was Melissa at that point. Even Storm’s impatient trilling couldn’t jog Door’s mind enough to come up with a counter. Her mind simply refused to break free, and in her moment of hesitation, an orange claw snaked out from beneath the dwebble’s shell. It bent and pointed at the ceiling, and a golden ball of light formed on its tip. In the next few seconds, the ball grew and grew until it reached the size of a poké ball, and then, the claw flicked at Storm, shooting the orb her way. Storm’s eyes darted from her trainer back to her opponent at last, in the split second before the orb slammed into her chest. Whatever that orb was, it cracked against Storm’s chest and knocked her out of the air, sending her crashing into the ground below, and as she fell, she was silent, as if the object had knocked the wind out of her.

A few seconds passed between the time Storm crashed into the ground and the moment when she struggled to her feet. Storm panted as she moved, propping herself on her wings and forcing her pink legs beneath her with clumsy, shaking movements. Door swallowed and finally looked at Storm, at how battered she seemed after just one attack.

“Focused now?” Geist asked.

She nodded. “Yep. That’ll do it.”

“Good. Because Melissa isn’t just doing this for the sake of art. That’s the gym’s gimmick: to catch its trainers off-guard,” he explained. “Now, quickly. Recall Storm and bring out Jack.”

“What? Why?” Door asked.

“Because dwebble is a rock-type, Door. Think about it for a second.”

She frowned. “Oh. Right. Storm, come back!”

Door jammed her hand into her pockets and brought out a pair of poké balls, and with a snap of her arms, she recalled Storm into one and cracked open the other to release Jack. As soon as her dewott landed on his feet, he clenched his front paws and threw a sharp grin back at his trainer.

“Okay, Jack! Start off with Razor Shell!” Door ordered.

Melissa smiled and pointed at Jack. “Life, please reveal your brilliance! Sand-Attack!”

Jack grabbed both of his scalchops and dashed forward as water swirled around him. With a flick of his wrists, he channeled the water into his double-bladed Razor Shell, but he kept his eyes focused completely on his opponent. One of Life’s claws appeared at the edge of its shell again and scratched at the floor, flinging threads and dust at Jack, but the dewott slashed each ball of debris out of the air until Life was within arm’s reach of him. At that very second, one last ball struck him in the face as he brought one of his scalchops down hard on the dwebble’s rocky surface. With a squeal, Jack stumbled backwards, leaving one of his scalchops embedded in Life’s shell as his paw reached up to claw at the sticky threads covering his eyes. Life, meanwhile, skittered backwards, its tiny body finally emerging from its shell.

“No! Wait! Jack, calm down!” Door cried.

The otter’s ears perked, and he stopped and swiveled towards its source. Door breathed a sigh of relief as she watched Jack pull enough threads away from his eyes to see her.

“Life, dazzle them while they’re distracted!” Melissa ordered, extending her arm towards Jack. “Struggle Bug!”

At once, the dwebble retreated back into its shell, and a red aura surrounded it. Door ground her feet into the floor and forced herself to look at the pokémon. She had to focus. She had to act quickly.

“Jack, grab your scalchop! Hurry!” she cried.

The otter barked and bolted, rushing for the crab as quickly as his legs would carry him. Just as the red light brightened and began to form a dome around Life, Jack leapt into the air and grabbed onto his scalchop. He planted his foot into the crab’s shell, but no matter how hard he tugged, the scalchop was stuck fast. Door bit her lip and growled as a plan of pure desperation quickly formed in her mind.

“Jack, grab your shell with both front paws, and put your other back one on that dwebble!” she instructed.

With a nod and a gruff bark, Jack snapped his free scalchop onto his leg and grabbed his trapped one with both hands. Just as he seized his blade and planted his feet on Life’s, the red aura around his opponent exploded, driving him into the air. At the same time, something popped, and it was only when Jack and the thing crashed onto the gym floor that Door could see what it was: Life’s entire shell, still stuck firmly onto Jack’s scalchop as Jack brought it and his blade down hard onto the ground. The second the shell hit the floor, it burst, shattering into a rain of large, gray chunks. Jack pulled his scalchop free from the mess, and with a shake, he stood and inspected it carefully. Seemingly satisfied, he brandished it at his exposed opponent and flashed a smile at his trainer. Life, meanwhile, scrambled back and forth frantically, its tiny, orange body twitching and spasming at the lack of cover.

“Perfect,” Door said with a smirk. “Jack, rush it with Razor Shell!”

Jack didn’t need to be told twice. He huffed and rushed forward, his newly freed scalchop humming with power at his side. With a metallic shrink, Jack slashed his scalchop across Life’s back, then slid to a stop behind the crab. He knelt, still holding his shell out to the side as his opponent’s exoskeleton peeled back to expose the sparking, metal frame within. And then, a red beam swallowed the dwebble and drew it off the field.

Melissa smiled as she gazed down at her poké ball, but it wasn’t one of gratitude or sympathy for her pokémon. It was one of wonder and awe, a giddy sort of smile, like the one a person would give to a Van Gogh.

“Beautiful,” she breathed. “Using my dearest Life’s power against him in your own struggle for freedom … it speaks such volumes about your spirit!”

Door stared at Melissa for a short beat before jabbing her thumb at the woman and leaning towards Geist. “Hey, um.”

“Yes, I know,” he sighed.

“Enough talk,” Melissa said, her expression shifting into a determined smile. “Allow me to present to you my final and strongest pokémon, The Absolute Deification of the Unrealized Potential of Man!”

Melissa tossed her last poké ball onto the field, and Door watched as it split open and released its brilliant inner light. This time, the light grew thin and tall before bursting into a rain of sparkles. A lean creature, dressed in leaves and twirling on a pair of spindly legs, danced towards the center of the field, stopped, and bowed with its long arms spread wide.

Door cast a look towards Geist, who crossed his arms and nodded knowingly.

“The Absolute Deification of the Unrealized Potential of Man,” Geist said. “Otherwise known as Manny to his fans … and traditionally, Melissa herself after announcing him.” He leaned towards his partner. “He’s a leavanny, by the way. You’re looking at a grass-type, Door.”

“Yeah, um. You know what? Never mind,” she replied. “Jack, return! Storm, you’re up!”

With a quick sweep of her arms, she drew out Jack’s poké ball to recall him and whipped Storm’s forward to send her flying back onto the field. As soon as she was released, Storm swooped up and over the battlefield, locking gazes with the leavanny as she glided overhead. Then, with a trill, she dove down, rushed around the bug, and took to the air one more time, leaving the leavanny behind to chatter and scramble for his footing again.

“It seems your bird is spirited,” Melissa commented. “We’ll have to fix that. Manny, String Shot!”

Manny whirled around on one leg, and as he went, a thin, white thread shot from his mouth. The thread spun around the insect, twirling up and up until it formed a tornado in the center of the field. Storm wove in and out of the thread, ducking past one section and over another as she tried her hardest to fly to safety. But with the silk that was already adorning the room, the space was far too tight for Storm to keep herself away from the tornado, and soon, Manny’s web snagged onto Storm’s wings and ensnared her limbs. Storm cried out as her body dropped, and with each passing second, Door felt her heart pound harder, right up to the point where her tranquill slammed into the ground.

“Storm, don’t give up!” she shouted. Then, clenching her fists, she muttered, “If she’s tangled up like that, she can’t fly. So how am I…”

“Door,” Geist said. “Come on! Think! N showed you how to use a member of the pidove line, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, but—”

Door stopped and glanced at Geist. A realization hit her, and it hit her hard. Seemingly aware of what was going on in her mind, Geist grinned, a gesture Door returned with thanks.

“Storm!” she said, turning her focus back to the battle. “Get on your feet and use Quick Attack!”

The tranquill flashed her eyes one more time at her trainer, then leapt to her feet and took off running. Storm wasn’t as quick as N’s pidove, but she pushed herself forward, stumbling at first over the threads covering the floor and then, finally, dashing on her two slim legs in circles around Manny. In response, Manny choked out a painful cry as his arms clawed at his mouth. The thread that had bound Storm was still trailing from the insect’s open jaws, so as Storm continued to lap her opponent, she jerked him around and around, forcing him to whirl in place. Storm picked up speed, leaning full-on into her run, and this time, the force was too much for Manny. He was torn completely off his feet and dragged behind the bird like a toy behind a child.

“Manny, break free!” Melissa cried. “Razor Leaf!”

Her pokémon pushed off the floor with his arms, flipped, and planted his spindly legs beneath him, even as Storm continued to drag him forward. One of his hands gripped the thread, while the other snapped forward to release a barrage of small, spinning leaves. Some of the leaves sliced through the thread between Manny and Storm, and in that second, Door suddenly had an idea.

“Storm, jerk back!” she shouted.

Without questioning it, her bird obeyed, jolting backwards into the barrage of leaves still flowing from Manny’s hand. The leaves cut through Storm’s binds like small knives, straight to her flesh, and with a shriek, the pigeon stumbled forward. At first, she only seemed hurt, but with a snap, she extended her wings and stretched in her newfound freedom. Upon seeing this, Door smiled.

“Okay, Storm! Take flight!” she said.

On her cue, Storm flapped her wings stiffly and jumped, soaring high into the air until she neared the ceiling. Circling overhead, Storm squawked as she kept her eyes on Manny, and in response, the insect smiled, righted himself, and bowed to the bird.

The gesture was an act of confidence on Manny’s part, but as Door looked on, she knew she had the upper hand.

“So sorry, lady, but it looks like Razor Leaf was the worst move you could’ve used,” she said. “Storm, finish this up! Air Cutter!”

Storm wheeled around and faced her opponent with another squawk. Then, with a sharp flap of her wings, she fired her final attack: a gust of wind laced with silver crescents of energy. Manny screeched and dove, but he wasn’t quite fast enough to get out of the way. Instead, the gales slammed into his body, and the crescents ripped across the leaves that adorned it. The insect flew through the air and crashed into the ground once, twice, and three times before rolling, right out of the center of the field and into one of the walls. Storm swooped down and landed gracefully in the center of the room, and with that, she and Door stopped and waited.

A long silence elapsed on the gym floor, and then, it was broken with a clap. Door looked up to see Melissa smiling at her and moving barefooted across the gym floor until she was within feet of her challenger.

“Magnificent,” Melissa breathed. “The way you overcame the bounds of adversity … the way your pokémon conquered the winds and turned my leavanny’s attack against him … it was such a sight to behold! My heart hums with energy just thinking about it!”

She drew her hand behind her back for a second, and when she snaked it back to her front again, she presented in her open palm a small object. Door stared at it, taking in its emerald surface and its elongated, heart-shaped lobes, but she didn’t exactly see it. Instead, her mind was whirling around one important question. An important question she couldn’t help but ask as she pointed to the badge.

“Um. Where did you pull that out of?”

“Door,” Geist said harshly. Then, stepping forward, he smiled to Melissa and bowed. “It was a pleasure battling you, madam.”

Melissa giggled. “As it was to battle you.” She plucked the badge out of her palm and held it up. “Your creativity in our battle was most admirable, Miss Hornbeam. Using my Razor Leaf and Struggle Bug against my pokémon took a lot of quick thinking on your part, and for that, I commend you. However, your Companion is correct in stating that you must not focus on insignificant details. When you battle, your mind must be on the fight and on the fight alone. Do you understand?”

At that, Door couldn’t help but recoil just a little. Not because of what Melissa had said but instead because at that very moment, Geist was looking at her. She wanted to say something snarky, but she also knew that if she said the wrong thing, it would tangle her up in a web of reprimands she didn’t particularly have the energy to fight right then.

So, she nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Excellent,” Melissa said. “In that case, on behalf of Castelia Gym, I confer onto you the Insect Badge. Congratulations, Door Hornbeam.”

Geist spread his hands, palm up, and a holographic screen glittered to life in front of him. Door watched with surprise and awe as eight slots appeared on the screen. Two of the slots were already filled—one with Sage’s Trio Badge and the other with a rectangular badge she knew had to be Sophia’s. Melissa pressed her own into a third slot, and there, it glittered and dissolved and flowed into Geist’s palm, leaving behind the image of the Insect Badge hovering in the once-empty slot. Geist closed his fists to dispel the hologram, then extended one of his hands to Melissa. She took it, turned it palm up, and started tapping something onto the still-exposed pad in its center. Glancing over, Door could see a tiny screen displaying a map.

“The fourth gym in the traditional Unova circuit is Nimbasa’s, led by my mentor’s dear friend, Elesa,” Melissa said. “Go north of here, along Route 4. Your Companion will know the way.” With that, she closed Geist’s hand and looked at Door. “I would wish you the best of luck, but I feel that you may not need it. Remember to be bold, Miss Hornbeam. Be bold and imaginative, and you will conquer the other five gyms. Any questions?”

For a moment, Door stared at Melissa, letting what she had said sink in. The fourth gym. Elesa. The famed model and mistress of electric-types. And Nimbasa City, where Team Matrix was waiting for Door. Glancing at Storm, who was waddling her way, Door knew that she would have to train hard along a single route if she wanted to have any hope of surviving Nimbasa.

But first, there was just one more question on her mind. And with one last glance at Melissa, Door said it without even thinking twice.

“Okay, seriously, lady. Are you wearing a leotard or not?”

Geist smacked her shoulder with the back of his hand, but to Door, the question was completely worth it.



> UNTITLED2.txt
> Author: Lanette Hamilton
> Notes: From the personal audio research notes of Lanette Hamilton. Transcript only; sound file has been lost. Audio track transcribed by Bebe Larson. Rest of video was lost in LFA Incident.

LANETTE: Sometimes, I wonder how Bill did it. It’s only been a few months, and—you know, people can say just the absolute worst things about you when you’re in the spotlight, and some of them…

[LANETTE breathes out. After one second, she screams. This is followed by a pause.]

LANETTE: My sister believes it would be best if Zero-One doesn’t make any further public appearances. If-if he just stays at home. Collecting dust. And of course, Zero-One agrees with her. And the stupidest thing about all of this is that the whole point of Project Galatea was—

You know what? Fine. I’m fine, and this is fine. The people of Cerulean City can say whatever they want. I’m not going to let it affect me. I’m better than that.

[pause]

The annual gala aboard the S.S. Anne is in three days, and it’s going to be a disaster. What am I going to do?

[pause]

[chuckles] I always wondered why Bill hated those things.

[END RECORDING.]

Hah it's been a while since I played the games, but I recall the gym with honey...so much honey. @_@ As for Melissa, she seems just as eccentric as Burgh. I wonder how their interactions are like before the start of Electric Sheep.

As for the battle itself, I agree that the Storm and Manny one was the most fun and creative to read. Definitely like the idea of flying Pokemon able to still fight in battlefield under sticky situations not sorry for the pun. I still liked Jack from alst battle though, poor guy worried over losing his shell there and then happy he won after. Yeah, I noticed so far Door gets distracted very easily in battles but it seems she finally gets the message that the gyms will get harder from then on.

Door and Geist didn’t make it out of Castelia City that night.

That didn’t happen for lack of trying, of course; as soon as Door had her third badge in hand, Geist did everything he could to get her to the border. But the problem was that even on the trainers-only safe routes—which were by nature less crowded than the ones that bore the majority of the tourists that flooded the city on a daily basis—thick crowds plodded from attraction to attraction, slowing down their progress and forcing them to spend another night in a Castelian pokémon center. On the one hand, it felt almost comfortable to Door. Crowds gave her something to blend into, put something between her and the Officer Jennies that seemed to hover in shining cruisers on every block. And Castelia, the neon-lit city that never slept, had crowds in spades.

On the other hand, crowds meant eyes, and if anyone recognized her, the heiress of Halcyon Labs, then it was all over. For that reason, Door stayed quiet as she followed Geist from street to street. She kept her head down and her feet moving, and she let her Companion do most of the talking.

Even if no one noticed her.

That was the thing: no one really looked at her. Not the Officer Jennies. Not the trainers en route to the gym. Not the tourists choking the safe zones to take selfies. Not even the exhausted teenagers manning the fast food counter she and Geist had eventually stopped at. No one seemed to acknowledge her except the Nurse Joy of the North Castelia Pokémon Center, who took Door’s ID with a smile and gave her a keycard to a dorm room and a place to recharge Geist for the night.

And Door almost wished someone had said something. She didn’t know why. It was just that something felt odd about this entire journey. Or, rather, she knew that everything was odd about it, but none of its oddness explained how quickly everything was going. Three badges in less than a week. Had anyone in Hilda King’s day done that?

But it wasn’t just the feat of earning three badges in a week that disturbed Door and kept her up that night. It was the speed of it all. At this rate, she knew she would be in Nimbasa City by the following evening, and in Nimbasa…

Presently, Door sighed. She had been lying awake on the hard mattress inside her room at the pokémon center for the past hour. Hands behind her head, eyes on the ceiling, thoughts on Nimbasa. She frowned, mentally going over everything she knew. Nimbasa City, home of the electric-type specialist, Elesa. Nimbasa City, where Hilda King had one of her famous stand-offs with Team Plasma. Nimbasa City, a place that, thanks to the development in the fifty years since Hilda had undergone her first journey, was literally just a few steps from the northern edge of Castelia.

In other words, Door would be in Nimbasa by the next afternoon. She would be battling another gym leader at the very minimum, and…

Door rubbed her eyes and groaned. The end of that sentence was “and she had a water-type, a flying-type, two normal-types, and nothing that could withstand the hooves of the zebstrika Elesa was famous for training.” She was screwed, and she knew it.

With a huff, she dropped her hand onto the bed and stared at the ceiling again. Her mouth twisted into a grimace for a few seconds before she shut her eyes. Wincing, she squeezed them in a desperate attempt to get a moment of sleep, and when that didn’t work, she let them flick open again.

Finally, Door threw her legs over the edge of the bed, got up, and left the room. She didn’t want to do this—especially at this late hour—but she had no choice: she had to talk to Geist.

Pokémon centers were generally laid out the same way in Unova. It had something to do with a contract or a popular style or something else Door couldn’t remember that late at night, but one of the points was, there was some underlying reason for it. The other thing was that once a person had seen a single pokémon center, they knew roughly what the others looked like. And so, with knowledge of Nuvema’s, Accumula’s, and Nacrene’s pokémon centers in her mind, Door wandered out of the block of trainer’s dormitories, down the hall, and into the Companions’ restoration room.

Even this room was livelier than she had expected. Granted, Door knew she was comparing it to Nuvema’s Companion restoration room, which was positively dead compared to Castelia’s at any given hour of the day, but knowing this didn’t stop her from wincing at the bright lights and the sound of the crackling classic rock streaming through the repair crew’s radio. Across the room, one of the workers looked up from a small, one-armed, female Companion, but the second Door flashed her room’s key card, he shrugged and went back to work.

The rest of the room looked exactly like she had expected it to. Three walls, all lined with sleek pods—long, egg-shaped devices containing hybrids between dentist’s chairs and uncomfortable beds—nestled in individual alcoves. Small panels flickered above each pod, displaying information about the Companion within: name, owner, power levels, and CPU readings.

Most of these pods were occupied by Companions lying in sleep mode, charging for yet another long day ahead of them with their assigned trainers. Door tried not to look at any of them; even the one that was clearly missing an arm shook her a little. They looked too real, too much like living, sleeping people for her to stomach that late at night.

Instead, she fixed her eyes on the monitors, reading off the names of each Companion until she spotted a familiar name. When she found the right display, she plopped down on the edge of its accompanying pod, reached over, and grabbed the Companion’s wrist in the way her father had taught her to draw them out of sleep mode.

“Yo, Geist,” she said. “Wake up. I want to talk to you.”

He shifted behind her, and out of the corner of her eye, she watched him sit up and glance at one of his palms.

“Wha—?” He squinted. “Door, it’s three in the morning. You should be in bed.”

She glared at him. “Yeah, thanks, Mom. I’ll—crap.”

Flinching, she turned her head away and buried her face in her hands. Geist was at her side immediately, resting his hands on her shoulders.

“Door? Are you all right?” he asked.

“Can you pull your cable out? It’s-it’s gross.”

She knew the cable in question was just an ordinary charging cord plugged into the standard port every Companion had. There weren’t any deviations from a Companion’s electrical plan, so it wasn’t as if Door had never seen it in use before. Not to mention it was hardly Geist’s fault that the port for a standard unit was located in the base of a Companion’s neck, and Door knew this. Still, none of this changed the fact that it was, in her opinion, horrifying to look at. Especially on Geist, for reasons she couldn’t quite put into words.

Geist, perhaps realizing what the problem actually was, drew his hands away from his partner.

“My battery is only at sixty-four percent, Door,” he said.

“And?” she asked.

“And unless you plan on literally dragging me part of the way to Nimbasa, I’d imagine you’d like my battery to be fully charged before we leave.”

Door threw her hands into the air. “Fine! Leave it in. Just … just don’t make me look at it, okay?”

“I wasn’t going to,” Geist replied. Then, he leaned forward. “You said you wanted to speak with me?”

“Yeah.” Door rubbed the back of her neck and turned her head away from him. “I need you to draw up a map. Plot a route that doesn’t take us directly to Nimbasa. I need to find some pokémon or train or something because I sure as hell am not going to be ready for that city by tomorrow.”

“Ah.”

Door fixed her eyes on the mechanic still at work on the one-armed Companion. She shuddered, but in her mind, it was a lot better to watch the man reattach a limb to a lifeless Companion than to look at a functioning one with a cable in his back. Still, just at the edge of her field of vision, she could see Geist lean forward a little more.

“You do realize that every room in the dormitory block has a map for this express purpose, yes?” he asked quietly.

“A-are you going to do it or not?” Door snapped. “You’re my Companion, right? Isn’t it your function or something to do that kind of thing if I ask?”

“Well, yes,” Geist said slowly, “but I’m simply wondering if that’s all you want.”

Door huffed. “What else could I want?”

“You tell me.”

In truth, she didn’t need to think about it. She already knew, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Not to Geist, anyway. Sure, she respected him after he helped her get out of Halcyon Labs and through Castelia Gym, but he was still a Companion. The last thing she wanted to do was admit that she needed help to a Companion, even if the one in question was Geist. Or, at least, that’s what she kept telling herself. Over and over and over again.

So she said nothing at all, opting instead to tear her eyes away from the mechanic, dip her head a little lower, and stare at the door to the hallway. Her hand found the back of her neck again, and with another grimace, she wormed her fingers into the hair at the back of her head, inches above the spot where a Companion’s charging port might have gone if she had been one herself.

She, of course, didn’t think about that at all—not at first, anyway. It was all instinct, really. But a second later, she realized what she was doing and froze, her eyes widening a little in terrified realization. This was the exact kind of move that could very well kick off yet another lecture from Geist about the value and humanity of Companions, and already, she was steeling herself on the inside. It was far, far too late for that, and she was just barely awake enough to be having this conversation in the first place. She shuddered at the thought of being lectured now of all times.

Yet she wasn’t. Instead, Geist shifted himself just enough to conceal the port from her. She knew this because in the next moment, he reached over and gently turned her head towards him, and she realized that his body was positioned in just the right way to block her view of the cable. Then, he spread his hands between them, turned them palm up, and opened a flickering, holographic map of Unova in front of Door. She blinked as he steadied his gaze on the display, seemingly unaware of her surprise. With smooth, quick motions, the map between them shifted and zoomed in, seemingly on its own, until it settled on an enlarged view of Castelia, Nimbasa, and the routes that connected the two cities. A dotted line trailed upwards from a pokémon center at the bottom of a map, along an arc heading for Nimbasa.

“Okay. I don’t have free hands right now, so you’ll need to pay attention and watch what I’m highlighting,” he said. As he spoke, a straight line lit up, cutting through the dotted path. “Do you see this road? That’s Route 4. Traditionally, trainers who wish to get right to Nimbasa City simply follow that route. You may find trainers to battle there, but judging by your request, you’re thinking of something a little more challenging, yes?”

His eyes flicked to the side of the map. It zoomed in once more, creating a detailed outline of a road cutting through a desert. A small, cartoonish castle decorated the top half, just at the crest of the dotted path’s curve. This time, the dotted line lit up as small figures of darumaka, dwebble, maractus, and sandile popped into view surrounding it.

“This path, meanwhile, will take you through the desert and to Desert Resort,” Geist continued. “You’re not the only one who thought the distance between Castelia and Nimbasa was rather short: you may see trainers along this route, specifically those seeking to battle against each other or the local wild pokémon in preparation for the Nimbasa Gym. Speaking of, several of these may be worthy opponents for that particular gym leader. Sandile, which are ground-type pokémon, would very likely be the best choice; however, grass-types such as maractus may be able to withstand electrical attacks due to their element’s natural resistance to it. Dwebble are also capable of learning ground-type attacks via the Technical Machine system, and darumaka, while neither resistant to electricity nor capable of learning ground-type moves, are known for being offensively excellent pokémon.”

Each pokémon lit up in turn as he mentioned them. Door watched, considering each one in turn. Of course they would be pokémon she knew very little about. Granted, she knew facts about them, but what did she know about how they handled in battle? Each one would be a challenge in the long-run, yes, but which would be the least amount of trouble in the short-run? Her eyes settled on the sandile, on the tiny, brown, alligator-like creature sitting right next to the castle. This, Geist had said, was a ground-type.

So, obviously, Door wouldn’t have as much trouble with one … right?

Her eyes flicked to Geist.

“Tell me about sandile,” she said.

He grinned. “I thought you’d ask.”

Flicking his fingers, he dispelled the map. In its place, an image of sandile appeared, then shrank to the corner of a blue screen. Other information flashed to life at the center of the holographic field: text, graphs, a small map of Unova with different parts highlighted—all the information she would have expected in a pokédex.

“Sandile, the desert croc pokémon,” Geist recited. “It moves along below the sand’s surface, except for its nose and eyes. A dark membrane shields its eyes from the sun.”

He gazed at her through the screen—really gazed at her, rather than at his display.

“And I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “It’s true that ground-types are the most effective against electric-types such as the ones Elesa specializes in, but there are always other factors to consider when assembling your team. For example, sandile are also dark-type pokémon, which are notoriously harder to tame than pure ground-types due to the wild nature inherent in the element. Additionally, yes, sandile are immune to electric attacks, but that does not mean they’re immune to all attacks. In fact, among the pokémon native to Desert Resort, sandile have the poorest defensive capabilities, and its defenses don’t improve that much upon evolution. Training one will require a lot of patience.”

Door shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t care.”

Geist nodded slowly. “All right. Then it’s settled. I’ll set a course for Desert Resort tomorrow morning, then.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Door stood up, put her hands on her hips, and stretched her back with a yawn. Before she could head for the exit, Geist reached up to grab her elbow. She jumped and whirled to face him, blinking at him with wide eyes.

“May I offer a bit more advice?” he asked.

She smirked at him. “If I said ‘no,’ you’d give it anyway, wouldn’t you?”

He didn’t smile. Instead, he opened his free hand to project another blue-screened display—this time of Door’s pokémon. Jack, Knives, Huntress, and Storm floated in a straight line before her, until the display zoomed in on only Knives and Huntress.

“Jack and Storm are indeed at too much of a disadvantage to use, and thus, I’d hardly recommend sending either of them into battle at the Nimbasa Gym,” Geist continued. “However, it wouldn’t be impossible to defeat Elesa with pokémon you already have, especially if you focus on giving either of the remaining two proper training. The audino species especially is gifted with incredible defenses.”

Door stared at the holographic audino for a few beats. Then, slowly, her eyes refocused until she stared at Geist’s face through the screen. She turned what he was saying over in her head, playing over each word carefully. Use Knives in a battle? Knives, a real pokémon? Sure, Jack was a capable battler, but…

“No,” Door replied firmly.

“No?” Geist asked.

She pulled her arm away from his hand. “Let’s see what we can do with a sandile first.”

For a few seconds, Geist stared at her. Then, he shrugged and closed his hand. The holographic display flickered off the second his fingers curled over his palm, and carefully, he pulled himself back into the pod and settled in.

“Very well,” he said. “Get some rest, Door. Today will be a long day for the both of us.”

Although Door nodded, something about Geist’s response left a bad taste in her mouth. She pulled one corner of her lips up into a confused twist as she watched her Companion’s eyes flutter shut.

“That’s … really nice of you, you know,” she commented. “Like … you’re not even really putting up a fight. You’re just … saying it’s okay. That’s kinda weird.”

Geist rested his hands over his stomach, sagged his shoulders in an emulation of a sigh, and replied, “I’m a Companion, Door. It’s what I do.”

Door hesitated briefly, letting an awkward glance linger on Geist’s apparently sleeping form. Then, she turned back to the door and started moving towards it.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “Hey, um.” She paused halfway to the door, thought for a moment, then shook her head and continued walking. “Good night, Geist.”

“You too, Door,” he replied.

She didn’t turn back to look at him.



“And you didn’t tell me it’s one in the afternoon because…?!”

Geist sat on the bed in Door’s room, one leg crossed over the other and one eye open and fixed on Door. He frowned, holding up a muffin and a coffee salvaged from that morning’s complimentary breakfast, as he watched Door cram toiletries and old clothes into her bag. She was at least fully dressed by that point, although she had yet to throw on shoes or her hoodie. Never mind stopping for five seconds.

“Because you interrupted my charge cycle at three in the morning last night,” Geist replied calmly. “I was under the impression you hadn’t slept before you came in, so I thought it would be best to let you have a few extra hours. Sleep is vital on a pokémon journey, after all. Your mental and physical states need to be at their peak for you to overcome the challenges of being a trainer.”

Door threw her bag into his lap and snatched the styrofoam cup of coffee from him. “Yeah, well, the next time you think you know what’s best for me, clear it with me first.”

She brought the cup to her lips and threw back her head in an attempt to chug the coffee. However, in the next instant, her eyes went wide, and she sputtered and choked, stumbling away from Geist.

“Hot?” he asked as he tilted his head.

“No, godawful!” she snapped. She rubbed her throat and glared at him. “What did you put in that?!”

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Jesus!” she hissed as she shook her head. “The coffee around here sucks.”

Geist gave her a small smile as he placed his now empty but glowing hand onto her bag. The bag vanished instantly, drawn into the item storage network once more.

“Anyway, Door,” he said, “why are you in such a tizzy? You said yourself you don’t want to get to Nimbasa immediately. By waiting until the afternoon, we’ll be missing the hottest part of the day, so you can train comfortably.”

“We don’t have time for that!” she snapped. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re kinda on a time limit here?”

Shoving the cup back into his hand, she snatched her hoodie and threw it on, then reached for her shoes. As Door stumbled about the room in an attempt to put her shoes on while standing on one foot, Geist rose from his seat and took a step forward. Turning, he blocked her way, letting her lean against him as she finally put her shoes on properly.

“Time limit?” he asked.

“Um, yes?” she growled. “Hello? Team Matrix is in Nimbasa? We have to get there before Blair does, or else they’ll target her next?”

“Oh. I see.”

Door pulled away, snatching the muffin and the coffee as she went. Shoving the muffin partway into her mouth, she rushed for the door, opened it, and tripped into the hall. Geist followed quickly afterwards, far calmer than his partner. He flicked one wrist out, projected a holographic screen from his palm, and scrolled through it as he walked beside Door.

“Well, why don’t we call her? Perhaps if we tell her what’s going on, we can convince her to slow down and let us get to each city first.”

Biting off a piece of the muffin, Door looked at him skeptically. She swallowed and replied, “What, do you have her number?”

“Of course I do,” Geist told her.

Door felt her face redden. “How do you have her number?!”

“I asked Opal for it the last time we saw one another.”

“Why?!”

He winked at her. “I thought you might need it later.”

She shot him a deadly glare. “Why?!”

They stepped out into the lobby at that point, but they didn’t get much further before a familiar voice broke their conversation.

“Doreen. There you are.”

Door froze, and the red-hot anger that she had been feeling a second ago dissolved into ice-cold dread. Slowly, she turned to face the source of the voice, and there, walking towards her from the door—and, for that matter, from a bodyguard Companion and a personal assistant—was her own mother. Door cursed under her breath and backed away, but before she could bolt, Geist grabbed her by the elbow. She glanced up at him, only to see him shake his head. Then, she turned back to her mother and swallowed hard. Virginia Johnson, meanwhile, approached them and glared first at Door, then at Geist.

“I believe I ordered you to keep an eye on her,” she said.

“With all due respect, ma’am, I had,” he replied. Using his free hand, he motioned to Door. “As you can see, your daughter is safe.”

Virginia narrowed her eyes at the Companion, then shifted her glare onto her daughter. “I’ve been told you battled Melissa last night.”

Geist gave her a nod. “Door won.”

In response, Virginia exhaled and pinched the bridge of her nose, and her daughter stiffened at the sight of this. Flinching away from her mother, Door let her eyes settle onto a corner of the room and linger on the tilework. She didn’t say a word; she only waited for her certain doom.

“So I’ve heard,” Virginia said. “If what Geist and Melissa have told me is true, young lady, then I want to see your skills for myself.”

Door looked up. “W-what?”

Her mother was not smiling. There was no indication on the woman’s face whatsoever that any of this was, in fact, a joke.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Training field. Now.”

“I … seriously?!” Door said.

Virginia turned on her heel. “Yes. If you want to be on this journey so badly, I’d like to know you can fight.”

With that, she walked away, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. At first, Door hesitated, watching her mother go, but then, as Geist pulled her along, she didn’t resist.



The Companion repair and recharge room was not the only consistent element among the pokémon centers of Unova. For one, there were always open battling courts designed specifically for trainers to meet and practice against one another. Virginia led her daughter and the Companion down a row of these, past occupied courts with trainers locked in heated matches, to an empty room at the end. Door, meanwhile, glanced into the courts they passed, briefly watching pidove swooping at patrat or herdier leaping at venipede. She frowned slightly at the sight of them. They were all local pokémon—no foreigners whatsoever. It made sense; most likely, foreigners would have trekked to Castelia Gym or Nimbasa City by now. This was the midpoint of Unova, after all: the border between what was considered to be the easiest part of the region’s league and the hardest. Who would stick around to battle trainers if there was so much more of Unova to see?

Door would. And that’s because she didn’t have a choice. With a sharp frown into the last occupied room and without another word, she followed her mother into the empty court. Virginia didn’t seem to notice her daughter’s discomfort. She merely continued across the room, straight to a steel podium at the back. Tapping the glass monitor on its surface, Virginia keyed in a few commands that opened up holes along the sides of the field. Instantly, light poured into the court, and the holographic image of a forest appeared around them.

Door recognized this immediately. Not the specific forest, of course, but rather what the hologram itself was. It was a practice mode, for trainers who didn’t have a battling partner but, for whatever reason, weren’t strong or lucky enough to survive on the safe zones outside the pokémon center. Everything in that room was a projection, but everything was tangible and behaved the same way as real, living-and-breathing pokémon and environments. So even if it might have been holographic, even if one threw a real pokémon into the field, that pokémon could still get hurt, just as they would in a real battle. And Door knew all of this from the pokémon center in Nuvema—and, for that matter, all of the times she skipped work to use it by giving herself holographic pokémon to command. This was how she learned the basics, and to see it in action here and now made her feel at ease. Comfortable. Even a little confident in the face of what she had to do and why.

The only question was, why was her mother activating the field, rather than battling her outright?

“Geist, will you oversee the battle?” Virginia asked.

“Of course,” he replied.

He took his place at the edge of the forest and raised his eyebrows at Door. She gave him a strange glance back, then swiveled her gaze towards her mother.

“Hey, Mom,” she said. “I thought you were gonna battle me or something.”

Virginia didn’t look at her daughter as she tapped another button on the monitor. A bright light shot from the center of the field, swirled into a ball, and dropped to the ground. As it fell, it sloughed off a central mass, raining glitter on the floor while a herdier emerged from its heart. The dog landed on all fours and bowed, pulling its lips back into a low growl.

“I am,” Virginia responded. “You will be battling a team I’ve selected based on the trainer database. Choose your first pokémon and begin.”

Door stared at the herdier for a few beats, then took a deep breath and fished into her pocket. It really didn’t matter which pokémon she chose so long as she didn’t use Knives. Knives was far too new to her team, and more than that, the last thing Door wanted was to give her mother the impression that she was incompetent by sending an audino into the field. But out of the three remaining team members Door had to choose from, she knew only one of them could get the job done quickly. So, with that in mind, she drew out his ball and held it into the air.

“Jack, open with Razor Shell!” she commanded.

The second he was released from his poké ball, Jack snatched his scalchops from his legs and whipped them to his sides. He landed hard on his feet and dashed for the artificial herdier, and with each step he took, water swirled around his seashell blades. With a screech, he swung his scalchops at the dog, only to have it leap into the air and over his arms. This didn’t stop him, though, and he swept down and at the dog over and over again. Each time he tried to strike, the herdier dodged, narrowly avoiding each slash until it turned and snapped its jaws over Jack’s forearm. The dewott screeched and reeled back, and Door jumped in surprise.

“Door, focus!” Geist called. “You’re dealing with hard-light projections. Just because they’re holograms doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous, understand?”

“Y-yeah,” Door stammered. “I … I know.”

She turned back to the battle. Just at the edge of her field of vision, she saw her mother tilt her face down, peering hard over her glasses at her daughter. At that expression, Door tightened her fists, clenched her teeth, and ground her heels into the floor. She had to win this. She had to, or her mother would force her to stay. And if she stayed, then what would happen to Blair?

“Jack, Focus Energy!” she shouted.

The dewott barked sharply in response. He shut his eyes and hummed, settling into himself until a red aura began to ebb from his body. Taking this as an opportunity, the herdier released its jaws, dropped to the ground, and dove at Jack’s chest, and in that fluid string of actions, it slammed into him, driving him hard into the floor with it on top of him. He squealed as they went, and even after his back struck the floor, he wrestled with the dog in a desperate attempt to get away. The herdier snapped at his face, leaning forward just enough for Jack to get an arm under it. With all he had, Jack shoved, throwing herdier off him and pitching himself forward. As his opponent banged into the floor, he flopped onto his stomach and pushed himself up to one knee. All the while, the red aura around him flickered but did not fade.

“Jack, you okay?!” Door asked.

He looked back with a smile and a short nod. Using his scalchops as leverage, he rose completely to his feet, then barked softly and swung his scalchops forward, and at the sight of Jack’s recovery, Door grinned. Perhaps, she thought, maybe this battle wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Okay, Jack. Give ‘em a Razor Shell!” she ordered, clenching her fists in front of her.

With a howl, Jack leapt forward. The herdier eyed him carefully, then jumped seconds before he made contact. Instantly, the two of them were locked in the same dance they had been a moment ago, with the herdier leaping over or diving under Jack’s every attack. Door narrowed her eyes, looking for the tiniest opening in the herdier’s dodges. But the dance was solid and repetitive: Jack swung one scalchop, missed, thrust the other, missed—all in one pattern, over and over again, until an idea finally struck Door.

“Jack, use your scalchops simultaneously!” she shouted. “Left and right!”

The dewott jumped back and glanced at her for a second, just before leaping out of the way of one of herdier’s Take Downs. Then, focusing his attention back onto his opponent, he jumped forward and swung one of his arms up at herdier from the left while the other swung down to it from the right. The dog tried to leap out of the way, but Jack’s right scalchop caught it in the chest, followed immediately by his left. Then, like a pair of scissors, both of his blades sliced through the hologram and clacked together, and the herdier to exploded into a shower of sparkles.

And at that, Jack turned on one of his hind paws, slashed the air with both his scalchops, and growled at the empty forest in front of him.

“Atta boy!” Door called out. “So what do you think, Mom? Have I proven myself enough yet?”

Virginia shot her daughter a look and tapped a button on the panel. Another burst of light emerged from the center of the field and bounced once on the ground. This time, the light dispersed violently, leaving behind a grinning pansage.

Door scoffed and pulled two poké balls out of her pocket this time. “If you think that’ll scare me, I’ve got bad news for you. Jack, come back! Storm, open with Air Cutter!”

Jack vanished with a flash of red light, and a moment later, Storm pinwheeled through the air above the field. The tranquill shot past the pansage and whirled around, spiraling upwards until she hovered over its head. Flapping her wings stiffly, she shot a gust of wind straight down to the monkey. The gale slammed into the pansage, and each silver crescent of energy riding that wind sliced its skin, forcing it to screech and flatten against the earth. A few seconds later, the pansage’s screaming stopped—simply stopped, abruptly. Storm cut her attack and swept herself back to observe her work.

Something wasn’t right, and Door knew this at once. Although pansage was lying on the ground, seemingly unmoving, it didn’t burst into the shower of sparkles like herdier had. It just … lay there. Storm circled above the monkey once, and then, gracefully, she landed with a flutter of her wings.

“Wait! Storm! Don’t!” Door cried.

But it was too late to stop her. As soon as Storm landed, the pansage’s ears twitched, and slowly, it picked its head up with a grin. One of its arms thrust forward, and a vine shot out of its palm and ensnared Storm before she could get away. She screeched, and her wings struggled against the vine while her claws kicked at the earth. The pansage jolted to its own feet and ground its heels into the floor to resist Storm’s thrashing.

“Storm, calm down!” Door shouted. “This is just like Castelia Gym! Quick Attack!”

The tranquill swiveled her head towards Door, her eyes glinting in understanding. She pushed off the ground, turned her back on her opponent, and started running. Behind her, the pansage had raised its hand for another attack, but before it could make its move, the monkey was jolted off its feet. Storm dashed along the perimeter of the field without looking back, and the pansage could do nothing else but bounce against the ground behind her. With each passing second, the bonds around Storm loosened more and more until at last, she burst free from the pansage’s grasp. The moment she felt its vine slip away, she extended her wings and took to the air with a burst of wind. This time, however, she immediately spiraled higher and higher until she was far out of reach of the monkey.

“All right, Storm!” Door shouted. “Wrap this up with a Quick Attack-Air Cutter combo!”

Storm squawked in confirmation, and at the same time, the pansage struggled to its feet, groaning and blinking with each movement. It didn’t see Storm circle above it. It didn’t see her tuck her wings in and drop into a dive, and it didn’t see her rushing faster and faster towards it. The first moment the pansage noticed her was the moment she came within inches of it, when she pulled out of her dive and stopped in mid-air in front of her opponent. Her eyes glinted again, and then, she extended her wings and clapped them together.

The resulting burst of air and silver crescents ripped the pansage off its feet again, but this time, it dissolved into sparkles in the wind. Storm landed after that, gazing up at Door with a chirp.

“Not bad, Doreen,” Virginia said. She tapped another button. “But you’re only halfway through.”

The next burst of light whirled into the air and stayed there. When it dissipated, in its place was the bulbous, pink form of a munna. Door drew Storm’s poké ball out of her pocket and recalled her. Keeping her eyes on the munna, Door held up another ball containing her next pokémon.

“No big deal. I already took out two of your pokémon, so it’s not like the next two are going to trip me up,” she muttered. “Huntress, let’s go!”

Within moments, Door’s herdier dropped onto the battleground and bent herself down, into a bow.

“Okay,” Door said. “Haven’t battled a munna yet, but I know it’s a psychic-type, so…” She threw her hand outward, towards the munna. “Huntress! Bite!”

Huntress barked once, then rushed at the munna. The tapir, meanwhile, fixed its red eyes on the dog before rising slightly—just enough to put itself out of Huntress’s reach. As a result, the herdier leapt into the air, jaws snapping wildly, but not a single attempt came close to the tapir’s soft flesh. The munna didn’t seem to notice or care, and in the following second, it looked down at its opponent and yawned.

Except … it didn’t just yawn. A pink bubble emerged from its mouth, expanding to half the munna’s own body size, until it pushed free from its jaws. Once it was in open air, the bubble floated down to Huntress, only to pop in the dog’s face. Huntress stopped leaping, instead stumbling backwards with a huff. Then, Huntress huffed again and again, and with each huff, her head bowed a little lower to the ground.

Yawn. As in, the actual move, Yawn. Upon realizing what had happened, Door cursed again, and from his place beside her, Geist cleared his throat.

“You do realize Huntress’s attacks are all either physical or non-damaging, yes?” he asked.

She glared at him. “And?”

“And,” he replied calmly, “Huntress has no chance of reaching that munna unless you can find a way to bring it down. There are ways you can do it, but look at your herdier’s condition.”

Biting her lip, Door looked at the field. Geist was completely right. If the trees in the forest were as solid as the holographic pokémon were, then all she needed to do was find a way to use the trees to get to the munna. But the problem was Huntress. Even in just the brief moment that it had taken for Geist to tell her how to handle that munna, Huntress had gotten worse. Her eyelids had drooped to the point where she could just barely keep them open, and her body had lowered until her belly brushed the ground. There was no way she would be able to perform any of the feats Door needed her to do.

“Huntress, return!” Door called, holding up her poké ball.

The herdier didn’t resist. She merely let herself be drawn back into her ball. As soon as Huntress was safely off the field, Door stared at the poké ball, quietly contemplating her next move.

“May I make a suggestion?” Geist asked.

“You will anyway,” Door muttered. “So sure. What is it?”

“Technically, any of your three remaining pokémon would be fine choices to use against a munna,” Geist said, “but only one of them is in perfect condition. Why don’t you use Knives?”

“Because you said so yourself: she’s not a battler!” Door snapped.

He grinned and crossed his arms. “Precisely.”

Door thought about Geist’s advice until what he meant dawned on her. She glanced through the forest at her mother, who returned her look with a cold, steady gaze. If Door used an audino, a pokémon known for its defenses more than anything else, that would say a lot about her, wouldn’t it? Especially if she won.

And what about the fact that Knives was real? Door had already sworn that she wouldn’t train her audino against fauxkémon—even the hard-light, holographic ones in training chambers. What about that? Would she be all right?

She gazed into the field one more time, at the bobbing munna, at the trees, at everything she had to work with. But at the end of it, her eyes settled back onto her mother.

“Let’s go, Knives!”

Door drew her audino’s poké ball out of a pocket and pointed it towards the center of the field. Light burst from the ball and shot into the center of the field, bounced on the ground, and skittered to a halt, where it burst into a rain of sparkles as Knives fell from its core with a squeak. She landed on her feet, then brought her paws up to her mouth, smiled, and tilted her head, while her crystal-blue eyes fixed on the pokémon above her.

“Knives, I need you to take down munna. Think you can do that?” Door asked.

The audino half-turned to face Door with that same, soft smile and a trill. Door relaxed just a little. This was a training device. She just had to remember that and trust her pokémon.

“Okay, Knives,” Door said with a grin. “Use those trees to get airborne, then knock munna out of the air with Secret Power!”

With another trill, Knives turned back around and dashed for one of the trees. Pink ribbons of light flared into life around her, wrapping her with a flowing, rose-colored aura. The munna twisted in the air, keeping its red eyes fixed on her as she leapt onto one of the tree trunks and bounded back off. Knives’s feet met another tree trunk, then another, higher and higher until she rushed into the leaves overhead. Below, the munna opened its mouth, and a pink bubble began to form in its throat. It kept its eyes on the treetops, scanning them for any sign of its opponent, until it shot the bubble out of its mouth. The bubble drifted up, towards the trees, towards a point of pink light.

And then, that pink light burst out of the leaves and straight past the bubble, bypassing it completely. The munna jolted and squeaked, but it was just a second too slow. Knives, with her normally cute face twisted into a vicious grin, slammed full-body into the munna and drove the tapir directly into the floor, where it exploded in a rain of golden sparkles. The pink light rushed away from Knives’s body like a neon-pink inferno before dissipating along with the golden light, and Knives herself rose to her feet and thrust her stubby arms out to her sides with a forceful but triumphant flick.

She turned her blue eyes onto Door then, and her hard gaze softened back into the sweet and happy smile she had worn when she took the field. Door blinked at her with a dumbfounded look.

“Holy crap,” she breathed.

“Interesting,” Virginia said as she tapped a few more options. “Audino can be formidable battlers in the right hands, but I never would have imagined you would choose to train one, let alone one that strong. You never did like anything pink and cute.”

Door’s face burned as she clenched her teeth in an attempt to conceal her sudden burst of frustration. “Gee, thanks, Mom.”

Virginia didn’t respond as she tapped the last command. In the center of the field, just feet from Knives, the last burst of light emerged, resolving quickly into the last pokémon Door had expected.

A pignite.

One with a scar on its left forearm.

Door’s anger and forced smile disappeared instantly, replaced with a cold, sick feeling that settled at the base of her stomach. She recognized this pignite.

“Mom,” she said. “You … you said you took records from the trainer database to make these pokémon holograms, right?”

“Yes,” Virginia replied. “I took the imprint from a pokémon center’s registry: Nacrene’s center to be specific. According to both this and the city’s gym leader record, this trainer has recently healed her pokémon, following a successful gym battle.”

Door’s eyes shifted to her mother. “Whose records did you copy?”

Virginia looked at her with a hard expression, but she didn’t say a word. But Door didn’t need her answer. She knew exactly whose records these were.

“Blair,” Door muttered. As she set her jaw, she lifted her arm and pointed Knives’s poké ball at the field. “Knives, return!”

Obediently, Knives allowed herself to be drawn back into her poké ball. Door scowled as she pocketed it and whipped out another, but she didn’t throw it immediately. Rather, she glared at its surface.

Geist furrowed his eyebrows and shot her a look. “Door?”

Without acknowledging him, Door whipped the poké ball forward.

“Jack!” she screamed. “Razor Shell! Now!”

The ball swung open, and Jack burst forth from inside. Without pausing to think about his orders, he snapped his scalchops off his legs, bolted across the field, and slashed at the pignite. The pig didn’t move, didn’t bother to defend itself as the blades cut through his fire-orange chest. Sparkles swirled from the slash, but the pignite remained standing, staring blankly at Jack as if his attack hadn’t happened.

“Again! Keep going until it’s down!” Door roared.

Jack did as he was told, slashing his scalchops into his target over and over and over again. Ribbons of fire-orange and coal-black floated into the air, accompanied by rains of sparkles, but no matter what, the pignite didn’t move, not even when an attack should have rocked it on its hooves. It was as if Jack was merely attacking a pillar stuck into the earth.

And then, at last, when it seemed like Jack had cut through every last inch of the pignite’s skin, his opponent exploded in a burst of golden light. Jack himself stopped, standing and shivering in the exact spot where the pignite had been. His head head was bowed, and his scalchops rested at his sides while the golden sparkles that had once been the pignite rained down on him.

The forest rippled and fell right then—actually fell, with pixels cascading down into the floor like water on glass—until all that was left was an empty field. For a short moment, there was peace and quiet, until Door stormed past Jack and approached her mother.

“I’m not a little girl anymore!” she snapped. “I don’t care what you think, okay?! I can handle myself!”

Before she could say anything else, she felt Geist’s arms wrap around her torso and drag her back. She struggled against his grip, kicking his shins as he physically lifted her off the ground.

“Geist! Put me down! I order you, do you hear me?!” she screamed.

“You’re not going to prove anything by making a scene like this,” he told her.

“He’s right, you know.”

Door glared at her mother, who pulled herself away from the console. Virginia didn’t seem at all fazed by her daughter’s outburst. On the contrary, she pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and gazed at Door with a softening look.

“When you mentioned Professor Ironwood’s niece, I admit I was curious,” she said, “but it seems like you care deeply for this girl.”

Door exhaled sharply and snapped her head away from her mother. “She’s my friend.”

“I highly doubt you would put yourself in danger for any of the friends you had back in Nuvema,” Virginia replied.

Door hesitated, thinking about that for a second before shooting Geist a glare. “Are you gonna put me down or what?”

Geist set Door down gently, but he shifted his hands to her shoulders with a firm grip. She didn’t bother shaking him off, opting instead to stare at the corner of the floor.

Virginia, meanwhile, lifted her chin and walked past her daughter until she stood by Jack. The dewott hadn’t moved from his spot. He had only turned to watch the humans and the Companion with a slightly confused glance. Now, as Virginia knelt next to him, he settled his large eyes on her. She reached over to scratch under his chin, and he responded by craning his neck and chattering happily. It was then, at the sound of her dewott, that Door turned to watch them, and although she had to admit there was something warm about the way her mother was petting Jack, there was a hot anger in her chest that refused to fade.

“I know you’re not a little girl anymore,” Virginia said. “I know you’re strong too. But Doreen … as a parent, it’s hard to see my little girl grow up.”

“You didn’t see me grow up,” Door growled. “You dumped me off in Nuvema with Dad. You only bothered to come visit us for Christmas.”

Virginia sighed. “I know I wasn’t always there—”

“You were never there!”

Virginia looked at her daughter then and stood up. Door froze, pulling herself backwards until she felt her shoulders hit Geist’s chest. All the while, her mother’s expression wavered—darkened a little around the edges.

“Doreen,” she said, “I want you to know that I love you and that I’m proud of you, and because of that, I’m always worried about you, no matter what you think.”

Door opened her mouth to speak, but Geist covered it, leaned down, and shook his head. Virginia flicked her eyes to him, her expression settling back into neutrality.

“You really are everything Amanita said you were,” she told him.

He straightened and chuckled. “In a positive manner of speaking, I hope.”

She lifted her chin and gave him a stern frown. “Take good care of her. I’ll sleep better knowing she has someone looking out for her.”

“You can trust me, ma’am,” he replied.

Blinking, Door shoved Geist’s arm away and stared at her mother. “Hold up. What are you saying?”

At last, Virginia smiled—really smiled, with the warmth that Door vaguely remembered seeing when she was a child.

“I’m saying,” she said, “that fighting against Team Matrix will be difficult. They’ve kidnapped your grandmother, and your grandmother is a formidable battler in her own right.”

“I know that,” Door huffed.

Virginia held up a hand, her smile fading a little. “Furthermore, I had spent the better part of the past two days either worrying about you and looking all over the city for you. By all accounts, if I was sensible, I would be telling you that you shouldn’t go on this journey.”

Door gave her mother an uncertain gaze. “But…?”

“But,” Virginia continued, “even if I told you you couldn’t go, you would find a way to go. And … you were rather impressive on the battlefield just now. Your dewott and your audino alone tell me it would be a mistake to underestimate you or your team, and you can only get stronger from here.”

“So … I can go?” Door asked slowly.

Virginia nodded. “You can go.”

Before Geist could stop her, Door tore out of his reach, crossed the field, and threw her arms around her mother in a tight hug. Virginia relaxed and embraced her daughter.

“But don’t forget that first and foremost, I’m your mother, and no matter what happens, I’m going to worry,” Virginia told her. “So please don’t do anything rash.”

Door snorted and smiled into her mother’s shoulder. “As if that bucket of bolts behind me will let me.”

“‘That bucket of bolts’ was designed to have excellent hearing, so I’d show some respect if I were you,” her mother replied.

“Oh, don’t worry.” Geist waved a hand in the air, as if to dismiss the thought. “She’s said worse.”

Virginia pulled out of her daughter’s embrace to give her raise an eyebrow at her. “Has she now?”

Door started. “Uh, you know, Geist and I really have to go now,” she said quickly. “Gotta hit the road and all! Call you when we get to Nimbasa, okay? C’mon, Jack! Love ya, Mom!”

She pulled away and rushed for the door with her dewott barking and trailing behind her. Virginia glanced at Geist, and the Companion shrugged, gave her a sheepish smile, and followed his partner.

While her daughter barrelled out of sight, Virginia crossed her arms and smiled to herself. She stood there for a few moments, listening to the sounds of her daughter’s footsteps grow more and more distant. All the while, her mind trailed back to the things Brigette had told her—about their family, about Companions, about an incident that had happened fifty years ago that would be passed down from generation to generation unless her daughter had something to say about it.

And as she thought about these things, her smile slowly faded into a sharp, dark frown.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Brigette,” she murmured to herself.



> UNTITLED3.txt
> Author: Lanette Hamilton
> Notes: Transcription of an audio file found among Lanette Hamilton’s research notes. Purpose is to be determined upon future investigation. File transcribed by Bebe Larson.

[Bebe’s Note: Parts of the recording transcribed below are lost. This is not an indication that LH had stopped recording at any time; in fact, evidence suggests that the original runtime had been at least an hour longer than what had survived the LFA Incident. However, audio warping and distortion has rendered the missing portions corrupted. For preservation, a copy of this recording has been made, and the corrupted parts have been removed.]

LANETTE: Shit! Shit! Fuck! Why did I—

[cut]

LANETTE: Okay. Okay. It’s okay. Everything will be fine. I can fix this. We can fix this. I … I just need to … to call…

[sounds of clothing rustling]

[cut]

LANETTE: I know! I know! It just sort of slipped out! They’re already asking questions! Already! After just one appearance, and all of a sudden, people want to know about this wonder invention that I’d concocted in the late Bill McKenzie’s laboratory, as if that had anything to do with it! The place isn’t magical, you know! Just because I threw together an android using my best friend’s equipment doesn’t mean that it’s the next storage system! And ooh, why did I say that?! I literally told him! I literally said to the president of Silph Corporation, yes, that is in fact an android that will revolutionize training as we know it. Where did that even come from?!

████: Lanette, [indecipherable] Calm down. Calm down. It’s not [indecipherable] deep breath. Yeah?

LANETTE: [breathes in] Okay. Okay. I’m … I’ll be all right. Thanks.

████: [indecipherable]

LANETTE: No. No, I’ll … they’re still expecting me tomorrow. I’m going to stay the night here. Just, um.

████: [indecipherable]

LANETTE: Yeah, that’d be great. Um … hey. Thanks. I-I’ll call you in the morning, okay?

████: Okay. Just [indecipherable]

LANETTE: [chuckles] Of course. Good night.

[cut]

[end recording]

It did occur to me that even if lots of transportation was involved, Door's journey is going at a fast pace in terms of time passing. At least with Jack she seems to bond with him already and she already has three badges within several days. Seems though she can't slow down anytime soon due to the possibility of Blair being harmed.

I did expect Virginia not happy with Door running away, but not a battle. Finally get a glimpse of Knives and boy did she pull that punch. Then Door having to battle Blair's Pignite is harsh (though I get around this part of the game is where you would battle Bianca and I realize this is a similar situation with her dad). At least the two have a better understanding of one another now.

Onto the extra posted before, seems like Virginia also has an idea about Team Matrix. Curious if she'll make more action concerning them.

Looks like the next destination is the Desert Resort, desert routes are always fun. = P

Replies:



So! Remember how I said I’d tweak some conversations along the line so Door would stop cycling back on old habits so often?

Yeeeeeah, rewrote the last few pages of this chapter. So if you’re an old hat to this story, hopefully it’s a slow step in the right direction? By which I mean Door falls on her face in hopefully a new way?

/spoilers LET’S GET STARTED.

---

Prior to the collapse of the pokémon population, Route 4 was a place of change. In Hilda King’s time, it had been desert bordering sprawling urban development. It was a maze of construction sites and open pits, a sprawling desert where only ghost-types and pokémon acclimated to the harshest conditions could survive. In Rosa Alvarado’s time, it had become a concrete jungle slowly crowding out the native pokémon.

In Door’s time, it was still a concrete jungle, but it was one that was confined to a narrow corridor from the northern edge of Castelia to Join Avenue. On one side of that corridor was the western shore of the Empire River; on the other, though, was something else: Desert Resort, home of the ancient castle built by one of the princes of legend. In a way, one could say Desert Resort was a rare landmark in Unova that had been relatively untouched since Hilda’s day. This wasn’t because Unovans particularly respected the place as a historic site; they did, but not to the extent of putting up a massive fight if an urban developer with the right connections wanted to put a block of apartments anywhere near one. It was just that the place was too barren, too overrun with harsh sandstorms to access. Relic Castle, Desert Resort’s only true point of interest, was itself half-buried in sand by the time Rosa had set out for her journey.

Door was not at Relic Castle just yet. It was off-limits, after all—well beyond the boundary of Desert Resort’s allowed safe zone. It was too dangerous, the League had said, back when they came up with the safe zone system. There were far too many weak spots in the earth surrounding it, and the risk of a trainer falling through to the castle’s underground labyrinth was far too great. For that reason, she was a good distance away, right at the border between the dilapidated maze of concrete and the barren, golden expanse…

…running full-tilt after a tiny, sand-colored alligator.

“Knives, don’t let it get away!” she shouted.

The rabbit scrambled on all fours across the sand dunes of Route 4’s outer edge. Ahead of her, a brown and black alligator bounded easily, naturally, as if the dunes were nothing more than water. Despite her disadvantage, Knives kept up, kicking sand behind her as she launched herself at her opponent. All the while, Door stumbled along behind her, grunting against the hot, Unovan sun.

And she had for the past fifteen minutes.

Glaring up at the sky, Door frowned and groaned loudly. “This isn’t getting anywhere! Jack, help her out! Corner that thing!”

On cue, Jack burst out of a sand dune beside Door and rushed forward with more speed than either Knives or the sandile. He unsheathed his scalchops and leapt forward to block his opponent. Once he overtook the sandile, he whirled around, skidding to a stop on a slightly raised bump of sand in front of the alligator. The other pokémon hissed, scrambling to a halt before turning around. Behind it, Knives stepped forward with an ominous, pink aura ebbing around her.

“Got you now, Sandile!” Door called. She stopped a few feet behind Knives and hoisted a poké ball into the air. “Knives, Secret Power!”

The audino swung one of her stubby arms to the sky, and her aura drew itself upwards, into a bright, pink ball of light that formed in her palm. Blinking, the sandile craned its muzzle, then jumped and stabbed its front claws into the sand. With a hissing growl, Jack flicked his scalchops out to his sides, and water swirled around the blades.

And Door? Door widened her eyes when she realized what was about to happen.

“Jack! No!” she screamed.

Time seemed to slow for her after that. Knives slammed the ball of light into the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand that obscured all three pokémon instantly. Jack lunged into the cloud, and the sandile’s tail lashed just above the top edge of the growing dust storm. A fourth voice screeched above the cries of the first three pokémon. And finally, in a desperate attempt to salvage the battle, Door threw the poké ball into the cloud.

It took a few seconds for everything to clear, but when it did, Jack and Knives stood around the remains of the slightly elevated sand dune, now reduced to a sandy crater. Between them sat the poké ball.

Exhaling, Door started forward, picked up the ball, and turned to see Geist approach.

“So, how did you do?” he asked.

She handed him the ball. “You could’ve told me sandile are stupidly fast.”

Smiling, he tossed the ball an inch into the air. At the same time, his palm opened with a click, and the light he emitted from the pad in his hand caught the ball and suspended it above his hand.

“Well,” he said, “compared to Jack and Knives, they are. But no harm done. You caught one after—”

His voice broke off abruptly, and he stared at the ball with a blank look. Door’s eyebrows furrowed at once, and with a concerned glance, she crossed her arms and leaned towards him.

“What? What is it?” she asked.

Geist closed his fingers around the ball, cutting off the light in his palm. “You’re not going to like this.”

“Not going to like what?” Door reached for her ball. “What, does it have a bad nature? Wrong special ability? Some kind of weird defect that keeps it from battling?”

“This isn’t a sandile.”

It was Door’s turn to stare blankly at him. She snatched the ball out of his hand and tossed it to the side. With her eyes glued on it, Door watched as the ball cracked open, as a white light spilled out of its heart, and as it took the form of a small, squat, red creature.

Geist was right. This was not a sandile.

“What the hell?” she breathed.

“Darumaka, the zen charm pokémon. Darumaka’s droppings are hot, so people used to put them in their clothes to keep themselves warm,” Geist recited. He clasped his hands behind his back. “During the day, many desert pokémon bury themselves in the sand or under rocks to stay cool, then emerge at night in search of food and water. Judging by the state of this little one … it looks like you dug him up.”

“What the hell?” Door huffed again.

The darumaka stumbled to his feet and blinked. He yawned loudly and rubbed his eyes in a desperate but failing attempt to dispel sleep. Geist squatted down in front of him, staring at him intently with glowing eyes, to which the darumaka responded with a jump and a panicked chatter.

“Impish. Likes to relax. Special ability: Hustle,” Geist said. He tilted his head before adding, “Well, at least one of those things explains why you didn’t notice a battle was going on above you. Sorry, little one.”

“What the heeeeelllll?” Door groaned.

Geist stood up and slapped her on the shoulder. “Like I said, no harm done! Desert Resort is still quite a bit ahead of us; you’ll have plenty of time to catch a sandile. And in any case, there’s nothing wrong with this darumaka.”

“No, I mean what the hell happened to the sandile?” Door hissed as she motioned wildly to the crater. “It was literally right there!”

“Oh.” Geist jabbed his thumb towards the north. “It fled.”

Following where he was pointing to, Door glanced over to see a set of black stripes rush away from her and over a dune. Door took this opportunity to curse loudly and break into a run after it.

“C’mon, guys! Let’s go! We’re not letting it get away again!” she shouted.

“Wait! Door!” Geist exclaimed, extending one hand towards her shoulder. “You can’t just run off, especially in that direction! That is most certainly off-limits! It’s too close to Relic—”

“Can’t stop! Tell me later!” she shouted. “Knives! Jack! Get the lead out! Jesus, why is this thing so fast?!”

At once, Knives smiled, chirped, and ran after her trainer. Jack lingered behind, exchanging glances with Geist and the drowsy darumaka. After a few beats, Jack sighed, barked twice, and followed Door and Knives. Geist watched him go before stooping down at last to reach for the darumaka.

“Sorry about this,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”



Less than fifteen minutes later, Door found herself in the middle of a sandstorm. The sandstorm wasn’t sudden, of course, although it felt like it for her. At first, she had only followed the sandile’s black stripes into the dunes of Route 4, but the longer she had continued, the more wisps of sand had swirled around her. Everything in front of her had gained a gold tinge that had grown more and more opaque until, at last, everything had been obscured in clouds of beige. The afternoon sun had become nothing more than a hazy blotch in the sky, illuminating the desert with dim light.

And the feeling! Harsh winds whipped around her, blowing sand across her exposed skin. At first, it wasn’t that bad, but the deeper she went, the more it ground against her skin, turning it angry red and sending itchy waves up her arms.

But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. She needed that sandile, so she had decided to follow it as far as she could. Thus, presently, she ground her feet into the sand and trudged onward, arms in front of her in a futile attempt to block out the sand. Yet no matter how she positioned her arms, grains flicked into her squinting eyes, forcing her to blink and take them off the black stripes of the sandile in front of her. She didn’t dare open her mouth in fear of loading it with fistfuls of sand, but somehow, perhaps because of an unspoken bond between trainer and pokémon, Knives was already preparing Secret Power—one Door couldn’t order—as she trudged at her trainer’s side. Jack was just a few steps behind them, his own arms up and shielding his face as he growled in protest.

Covering her mouth with a hand, Door winced. The sand was getting to her, and she knew that the longer she spent in this sandstorm, the harder it would be to get back.

So, she glanced back at her pokémon, then at the sandile, as a plan formed in her mind. Door knew Geist would think it was a really stupid plan, but it was a plan nonetheless.

“Knives, Secret Power!” she ordered.

Despite the fact that her voice was muffled by both the storm and her hand, Knives seemed to get the idea, and in the next instant, the audino blazed forward with one of her glowing paws held aloft. Using more grace than Door thought a pokémon that bulky could have, Knives leapt through the air halfway to the sandile’s black stripes. She swung her paw back, yanking it just past her frilled ear as she twisted her body and snarled. And then, she came down, hard, onto the sand.

The black stripes, however, darted a bit further ahead a split second before Knives landed, and as sand billowed up from the audino’s paw, her target vanished into the sandstorm.

Knives straightened up, and her vicious glare dissolved into a blank, confused glance. As the pink glow around her faded, her mouth drew into a small point, and she tilted her head and twitched her ears. Door caught up shortly after, her hand still behind her mouth. She squinted into the storm, glaring at nothing in particular as she rested a hand on Knives’s head.

“It’s okay, Knives,” she said. “We’ll catch up. Think you can hear it?”

The rabbit shut her eyes and flicked her ears, her feelers curling and uncurling in the wind. Then, at last, she hummed and shook her head grimly. Door patted her on the head and started forward.

“Relax. It’s fine,” Door said. “It can’t be that far, right? I mean, where’s it gonna go in a place like th—”

At that exact moment, Door fell through the ground. She didn’t see the hole, of course. How could she, with it half-obscured by the sand dunes and whipping storm? But regardless, she fell, deep into the darkness beneath the Desert Resort.

That was the bad news, in Door’s opinion. The good news was that the fall didn’t last long at all—just barely a minute before she struck another sand dune, rolled down a slope, and landed with a thud on smooth stone. She groaned and lay there momentarily, her cheek resting on a stone floor. Then, she heard her audino’s scream, and she snapped her head up, towards the hazy spot of light above her, just in time to see Knives fall through the hole and into the chamber after her. The pokémon bounced onto the same sand dune and rolled off, bowling straight for her own trainer, and in the split second that followed, Door shouted and threw her arms over her head in a frantic attempt to protect herself. Rolling to a rough stop, Knives lay belly-down on Door’s back, her tiny claws digging into her trainer’s shoulders. Door groaned again, this time at the weight of her pokémon, while she pressed her chest into the floor.

“Knives, you’re a great pokémon,” she grunted, “but get off!”

With a tiny chirrup, Knives shifted, pulling herself off her trainer and to her feet. Door struggled to her own and rubbed her back with a wince.

“Geez, how’d you get to be so heavy?” she muttered. “You only ever get the regular pokéchow! Do you sneak bites from Jack’s bowl or something?!”

The rabbit trilled and tilted her head again as Door stumbled past her, back towards the hole. At the very least, the wind couldn’t reach that far underground, and for that bit of relief, Door was grateful. Still, with some effort, she clamored up the sand dune until she stood at its peak, where she looked up into the hazy daylight far above.

Far, far above.

As in, too far for her to reach.

And for that, she cursed.

Kicking the sand, she planted her hands on her hips for a second, then glared at the hole above her. Of course. Of course she would fall down into a hole in a desert, in the middle of a sandstorm—the perfect combination of exact conditions that would ensure no one but her dewott would be above ground.

Jack. Throwing her head back at the realization, Door cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted as loudly as she could.

“Hey! Hey, Jack! Can you hear me?!” she said. “If you can, stay where you are and shout! Don’t come any closer!”

For the first few seconds, there was silence. These were the longest seconds of Door’s life, and her heart thundered within them. Would he be able to hear her? What if he didn’t understand and walked right into the hole too? What if he couldn’t hear her at all? What if, in the minutes that had elapsed since Door had fallen through the ground, he had run off—or worse, gotten attacked by something in the sandstorm?

But then, a careful set of claws grasped at the edge of the hole, feeling around it with deliberate movements. The top of Jack’s head followed soon after, very close to the ground; he had, apparently, been slithering along the sand on his belly to reach the spot where his trainer had vanished. And now, he stared down at her with wet, worried eyes.

Door relaxed and forced herself to smile at him confidently. “Hey, buddy! I’m all right, and so is Knives. See?” She held up her hands, as if this would somehow show him that nothing in her body was broken. Then, realizing that was stupid, she dropped one of her hands but drew the other back, around her mouth. “Okay, look. It’s really dark, and I don’t have anything to help me climb back up. You’ve got to go get Geist, got it? Go get Geist!”

For another second, Jack only chattered down to her. Door huffed, dropped her hands and stared back. Her confident gaze wavered, breaking into a worried frown.

“I know,” she said. “I don’t exactly want to ask Geist for help right now either, but if anyone can get Knives and me out of here, it’s him. So you’ve got to get him, all right?!”

Jack hesitated one more time before chattering and pulling his head back. A tiny burst of sand rained down from the edge of the hole where he had been, and just like that, he was gone. Door continued to stare up at the hole for another few moments before turning away with a sigh.

“Knives?” she called. “It might be awhile, so—Knives?!”

Door had turned just in time to see her rabbit waddling away, towards the darkness lurking at the edges of the room. Immediately, Door slid down the sand pile, bolted across the room, and grabbed Knives by one paw, eliciting a high-pitched cry from her pokémon. Knives twisted around, grabbing at her trainer’s hand with a set of tiny claws. Her ears flattened against her head as she whined and pulled against Door’s grip.

“H-hey!” Door stammered. “What’s wrong with you?! You can’t just go off running into the dark like that!” She hesitated briefly. “Okay, well, I’m probably one to talk, but the point is, you don’t know what’s in there! What if there’s another hole?!”

Knives stopped struggling briefly to look up at her trainer with a pair of hard, blue eyes. She barked three times, her voice fluctuating in pitch as if she was stating an actual argument she had expected Door to understand. Door only snorted at the effort, an involuntary grin crossing her face at the sight.

“Wow. Pick up on habits quick, don’t we?” she muttered. Then, her smile faded. “Anyway, c’mon. We’ve got to wait by the hole for Jack and Geist to get here.”

She tugged at her pokémon’s arm, intending on leading the audino back to the hole, but Knives ground her hind paws into the stone floor and pulled back. Door stumbled, half-turning as Knives began struggling again. This time, the audino wrenched her arm downward and out of Door’s grip, and as soon as she was free, Knives bolted for the shadows again.

“Hey! Hey! Get back here!” Door shouted. She stomped one of her feet, then launched forward, after her pokémon. “Stop! I’m giving you an order!”

Storming forward, Door wrapped her arms around her audino and tackled her to the ground. The two went rolling until they came to a stop well within the darkness of the room. There, Door sat cross-legged, holding her squirming pokémon in her grasp.

“What’s wrong with you?!” she demanded. “When I tell you I’m giving you an order, you’re supposed to follow it! What’s gotten into you?!”

Knives jerked forward and stumbled a few more steps out of Door’s grasp. Again, the audino turned around and started yelping and whining in a series of noises that sounded almost as if she was trying to argue back. Door stood up and dusted herself off, glaring all the while at her pokémon.

“I can’t understand you!” she snapped. “So knock it off and tell me what’s wrong some other way!”

With a growl, Knives started glowing pink, and it was then that Door’s expression softened. Not into a smile, exactly, but into something far, far more uneasy. She could feel her blood run cold and the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. At first, she thought it was simply due to the discomfort she felt towards her pokémon’s reaction, but as Knives raised a fist and formed a glowing, pink ball of light in her palm, Door realized that the feeling wasn’t coming from her at all.

“Oh crap,” she murmured. Then, stumbling out of the way, she whirled around. “Knives! Do it! Secret Power!”

With a hum, Knives thrust her paw downward and forward, blasting the ball of light back the way she and her trainer had come. The ball twisted and burst, forming a sizable boulder that sailed through the air and struck a shadow hovering just at the edge of the light cast by the hole. Something golden fell out of the air, streaming pure black behind it until it struck the sand. Above it, the rock Knives had thrown dissipated in a shower of pink glitter that coated it and outlined its round shape. The golden object rolled for a few feet through the sand before sweeping itself back up and into the air, and as the shadows swirled around it, Door realized what it was at once.

“Yamask,” she gasped. “Crap, this place is haunted!”

The shadows surrounding the mask resolved into a bulbous creature holding it aloft. Two sets of eyes stared down at Door at that point: the blood-red eyes of the spirit itself ... and the dead eyes of its golden mask. Door stepped backwards, her shoulders slumping forward a little in an uncertain but defensive posture. In response, the yamask hissed, long and low, and a black bolt of electricity abruptly shot from the first set of eyes. Knives’s scream erupted beside Door, and before she realized what was going on, the trainer found herself sprawled on the stone floor, looking up as her audino took the entirety of the yamask’s attack. Dust from the floor kicked up, enveloping Knives along with the shadows of the room. Pulling herself to her knees, Door screamed.

“Knives! No!” she shrieked.

But then, something happened that Door didn’t see coming. The dust from the attack settled, and a glowing, pink heart burst forth from the shadows and swallowed the yamask. It exploded in a shower of pink light, leaving the yamask to drift downward lazily, as if it had lost its will to attack.

Or, rather, his will to attack.

Door stood up, slowly and steadily, as she gaped at the floating pokémon. That, she knew, had to be an Attract, and if Knives had used it, then that meant—

A pink light flickered to life beside her, and Door looked down to see her pokémon, completely unscathed by the yamask’s Night Shade. Knives giggled and tilted her head, twitching her ears playfully as she stared at Door. Then, she reached up with one paw and grasped one of Door’s hands while the other paw raised higher into the air. Knives pointed a claw skyward, and a ball of pink light formed on its tip, growing in size and intensity until a boulder formed within it. Not a rock this time—a boulder three times the size of her own head. She hummed, swirling her arm around as if playing with her attack, and the boulder moved with her, hovering above her claw…

...until she snapped her arm down to point directly at the yamask.

Her boulder arced downward and shot at the yamask, but he didn’t bother defending himself. He merely watched as the boulder crossed the distance between himself and his opponent before slamming full-force into his face. Both the yamask and the stone crashed into the sand pile, sending the peak of the mound upwards in a tidal wave of sand. Like the rock Knives had created a few moments ago, this boulder burst into a rain of pink sparkles, dazzling the yamask beneath it. For either this reason or the feeling of being slammed into by a one-ton boulder, the yamask didn’t bother getting up. He simply lay there, staring at the hole in the ceiling.

At that point, Knives tugged at Door’s hand. The trainer looked down at her rabbit, at the small smile on the creature’s lips, as Knives led her back into the light. Then, when her pokémon pointed at the yamask, Door realized what she was trying to do. Door looked from the yamask to Knives and back again with a contemplative frown.

“Knives, I’d hate to say it, buddy, but I don’t think he’s gonna help us all that much,” she said. “But ... I guess if you think so...”

She pulled out a poké ball and threw it directly at the yamask. Seconds later, it rolled down the remains of the sand pile, rocked a few times, and went still, and the empty space where the yamask had been a few seconds earlier filled back up with sand dropping from above. Pulling her hand free from Knives’s paw, Door walked forward and picked up the poké ball to stare at its face.

“You’re scary, you know that?” she muttered. Then, glancing at her pokémon, she added, “Not that that’s a bad thing. Just ... I’m impressed. That’s all.”

For a second, Knives merely smiled, her eyes shining on her trainer. Then, her ears twitched, and her grin dropped into a startled glance. Door pocketed her new catch as she stared in confusion at her audino. But before she could say a word, Knives dove at Door and wrapped her arms around her trainer, and with that, together, they stumbled towards the remains of the sand pile.

“H-hey!” Door gasped. “Knives, what is it?! Another yamask?!”

The audino squealed and threw a terrified look at the shadows all around them. Her ears flattened, and as she wrapped her arms around Door’s waist, Door could feel her pokémon shivering. In response, Door struggled to her feet and reached down to drape her hands on Knives’s shoulders.

“Knives?” she whispered. “What’s going on? What do you hear?”

She didn’t answer, and a second later, she didn’t have to. All around them, Door could hear a humming—not the high-pitched kind her audino or something as small as a yamask would make but instead something low and guttural and angry. Door lifted her eyes to the darkness, peering deep into it until she saw movement. All around her, dozens of eyes opened. These weren’t the red eyes of a yamask; rather, they were pure white and full of hate. From the shadows of the room, she watched as a flock of bulbous, winged creatures with gleaming feathers of blue, green, black, and gold floated towards her. Each one of them had a set of three white and blue eyes, and each of these eyes were fixed directly on Door.

She didn’t need Geist to know what these were either. She already knew from the stories about this place—the stories of trainers who would be viciously attacked by these sentinel pokémon. There were reasons why nobody went to Relic Castle, and the biggest one was now staring directly at her, silently preparing to blast her apart.

These were the guardians of Relic Castle: sigilyph.

“Oh shit,” she whispered. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.”

Pulling Knives close, she clutched her pokémon as tightly as she could. She took one deep breath after another as she shuffled backwards, towards the hill and the center of the light.

“O-okay,” she murmured. “Okay, Knives? Listen. Just ... just be as non-threatening as possible. They’ll ... they’ll only attack us if they think we’re a threat, right?”

As if to respond, all of the white eyes took on a brilliant, blue glow. Door cried out, holding her pokémon tighter as she realized she was surrounded by a flock sigilyph that were preparing a storm of Psybeams. She shut her eyes tightly and buried her face in the top of Knives’s head.

“Shit,” she breathed. “Knives, I am so, so sorry. I’m sorry for running off. I’m sorry for not bothering to train you first. I’m sorry for—”

“Door, move!”

She yelped and stumbled out of the way, dodging the sigilyph’s collective Psybeams just as they cut through the air. Each attack slammed into the dune behind Door, sending sand upward in a thick, golden cloud that obscured Door’s vision. A shadow dropped down from above, landing on the floor below with a wham before rising to its full height.

Or, rather, his. Geist stood in the center of the miniature sandstorm, directly beneath the hole, with one hand on his temple and the other arm bent to support his pansear’s weight. Whirling around to survey the situation, Geist shrugged Antares off his arm, and the monkey screeched and launched himself towards the nearest sigilyph. Grasping its face, Antares rocked it backwards and shot a blazing stream of fire out of his mouth and towards three of the nearest sentinels. Geist, meanwhile, whirled back around to extend his arms towards the hole.

“Jack! Jump!” he shouted.

The dewott appeared at the lip of the hole and jumped down obediently, into Geist’s arms. Geist threw Jack towards another sigilyph, and Jack, in mid-air, drew his scalchops. Jack screeched as glowing, blue water illuminated the northern half of the room seconds before one of his scalchops sank deep into his target’s forehead. At once, the sigilyph shrieked and swerved through the air, desperately attempting to throw Jack off as the dewott planted his hind paws into its face. Sparks rained from the sigilyph’s wound, but Jack, already slashing at each of the surrounding sentinels his victim unwittingly brought into his radius, barely noticed.

“One more!” Geist shouted. “Darumaka! Jump!”

The doll-like pokémon leapt down from the edge of the hole without any hesitation. Geist caught it and spun around again to face another cluster of sigilyph.

“Darumaka, Incinerate!” he ordered.

With a deep breath, the darumaka leapt from Geist’s arms towards the nearest sentinel. Halfway there, he reached out with his small, yellow paws and spat out a volley of flames from his mouth at the same time. The fire swirled around the darumaka’s small body as he twisted in the air, spinning around and around until his paws drilled into the sigilyph. The flames around him spun outward, engulfing all of the nearest sigilyph all at once. Door cringed as she watched, not because she was feeling unusually squeamish but instead because all around her, she could hear nothing but pokémon screaming—screaming because of her darumaka’s flames, her dewott’s blades, and the pansear’s assault.

So when she felt Geist’s back press against hers, she wasn’t sure at first whether she should feel grateful that he had come to help her or a little terrified that he had come to help her.

“You and I are going to have a word about your impulsive streak later,” he hissed. “For now, take this and use it on Knives.”

He grabbed one of her wrists and used the fingers of the same hand to slip an object into Door’s palm. Pulling her arm back, she opened her hand to see a small, white cube marked “28” in gleaming, black numbers.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Dig,” Geist barked. “Just trust me and use it, all right?!”

“Okay! Okay! I got it!” Door shouted back.

Pulling her audino close, she held the cube above Knives’s head and pried the halves apart. A golden light burst from the interior and rained down on Knives, working its way into her skin. The audino shut her eyes, hummed, and began to glow, not with a pink light this time but instead a golden one. She straightened, craning her neck, as her body absorbed the glow like a sponge taking in water. Her cry grew to a feverish pitch until, at last, all light that had surrounded her vanished.

Door clicked the TM closed and glanced back at Geist. “Now what?”

Geist pressed his back a little more firmly against hers. In front of him, both her pokémon and his had been locked in battle the entire time. Jack had continued to swing from the first sigilyph he had attacked, slashing at any pokémon he could reach. Antares, fully wreathed in fire, had leapt from sentinel to sentinel, setting each one ablaze as he touched them. Door’s darumaka had bounced like a fiery pinball from one pokémon to the next. By the time Door turned her attention back to the battle, only five sigilyph remained besides the one Jack rode, and all five of them hovered around the dewott.

An instant later, a bang filled the room as the sigilyph fired Psybeams at the exact same time, straight into Jack. The dewott was thrown from his sigilyph mount, into the floor at Geist’s feet, and his scalchops clattered to the ground beside him. Door was at Jack’s side at once, pulling him off the ground with one hand as her other helped him sheath his scalchops.

“Geist, could use a plan here!” Door snapped.

“I know, and I have one,” he told her calmly.

“And that is?!” she shouted.

He reached down and opened his palm to Jack. A light shone through the center and trailed down the dewott’s body, instantly fading some of Jack’s lighter bruises—a potion charge.

But then, before she could say anything else, Geist swept her into his arms and bolted for the darkness.

“Darumaka, lead!” he ordered. “Knives, follow at my side! Jack and Antares, the rear!”

“Geist, what the hell?!” Door barked.

He adjusted his hold on her, pinning her arms to his chest as he ran. Door thrashed in his arms at first, trying desperately to escape, but the Companion held her tight. Eventually, she gave up and let herself be carried, and she passively watched the halls of Relic Castle blur past her.

At first, darkness engulfed the group on all sides until a red light burst into existence in front of Door—the fire of her darumaka, she realized, judging by the shouts he was making. In the flickering, dim light of her pokémon’s flames, she could see the room narrow into the shape of a long corridor, and she could see the shapes of the remaining sigilyph filling it in towards the back. Blue and red light burst across the hall as Jack and Antares threw blobs of water and fire into the sigilyph. The two elements swirled together, confusing some and burning others, and soon, the metallic scent of burned water and rubber and steel filled Door’s nostrils.

Each attack was followed soon after by rainbow bolts of lightning, which would graze her and Geist’s pokémon as they bounded up walls and across floors in flying, swerving, looping paths before the horde. This only added to the acrid smell, especially as Jack’s fur began to smoke and flesh began to bubble.

Door had to admire his tenacity, really. Jack had hesitated at the lip of the hole, and here he was, throwing everything he had into this one match.

This one match he wouldn’t have had to fight if Door hadn’t run off.

“Geist,” Door said, her voice straining with worry, “what plan were you talking about?”

“I’ve already told you,” he said. “Knives! Straight ahead! Jump the sand dune and use Dig!”

Knives trilled and rushed forward, guided by the flickering light of the darumaka’s flames. Door twisted around in Geist’s arms to see that the corridor led to a T junction straight ahead of them. But rather than taking left or right, Knives leapt onto a nearby dune and slammed her paws into the wall. The darumaka skidded to a halt beneath her, spewing more flames to give Knives the light she needed for her next task.

And that task was to dig. Literally dig, with her claws punching into the wall and throwing chunks of earth onto the floor. Within seconds, a hole large enough for Door to crawl through appeared, and Knives clamored into it. By that point, Geist had slowed to a stop behind the audino, and as soon as Knives vanished into the hole, he shoved Door after her, pushing his partner in as far as he could.

“Ow! Ow! Geist!” she snapped.

“No time, Door! Just go!” he responded.

Swallowing hard, Door turned around and followed Knives up the tunnel she was rapidly creating. Behind her, Door could feel the darumaka’s heat and hear her dewott’s chattering and Antares’ soft cries. But she couldn’t sense Geist at all. She could only hear the sharp screeches of the sigilyph and the deafening roar of attacks.

Door tried to turn around to see, but the tunnel was too narrow, too dark for her to do anything but climb forward. The path sloped upward, across rough earth that cut at her fingertips, and every so often, she would get a fistful of dirt sprayed directly into her face. All around her, the walls of the tunnel felt like they were growing narrower the further she went, and the ensuing claustrophobia, combined with the cries of the pokémon behind her, sent cold electricity through her body. Her breath hitched, and her skin felt clammy. Sand and sweat clung to her arms, and she couldn’t help but feel as if she was being buried alive. Every part of her wanted to scream, wanted to run, but the pokémon behind her pushed her forward, and the walls of the tunnel were pressing in on her, and—

And then, she burst through the surface of the sand, gasping and clamoring out of the tunnel and into open, hot desert. There was no sandstorm here, no wind, no holes—nothing but the hot, blazing calm of the Desert Resort safe zone. Behind her, she could hear Geist ordering all of their collective pokémon to shove sand into the hole, and a second later, Door couldn’t even hear the shrieks and moans of the pokémon of the ruins.

Closing her eyes, she relaxed, resting on her stomach until she felt a slight disturbance by her side. As she cracked one eye open, she could see the shadow cast by Geist as he dropped himself onto the sand next to her.

It was then that Door had realized what she had done. She had asked a Companion for help. A Companion. The only one that could comprehend why this was significant, no less.

What was worse, he held his own better than she could.

And when Door realized that final part, she stopped. How had he held his own so well? Companions couldn’t battle, let alone … any of what Geist did.

What the hell was he?

That was the question that echoed through Door’s mind as she felt the sand shift nearby. She froze, feeling part of her go cold as she waited for the inevitable. A second ago, she was worried about whether or not Geist made it out. And now, as he pulled himself up to kneel beside her, she dreaded hearing his voice again.

“So,” he said, completely oblivious to her worry, “what have we learned today?”

“Don’t piss off sigilyph?” she asked.

“Well, yes, but besides that.”

Door rolled onto her side and glared at the desert ahead. As if to punctuate her situation, Knives padded over, knelt down, and began poking her in the ribs, eliciting a flinch from her trainer.

“Ow … hold up, okay?” Door mumbled.

Geist rested a hand on her shoulder. “Hold still. Let me scan you to see if you’re hur—”

Door’s reaction was instinctual. She jerked away from Geist’s hand and pulled herself to her seat, recoiling as if he was a snake ready to strike. “N-no! I’m good.” Then, realizing her tone, she relaxed. “I-I’m good. It’s cool. Geez, what do you say to a Companion to tell them to—that will be all?”

Hindsight, they say, is 20/20; it’s just that Door always thought hindsight came well after the fact, not nearly immediately. But there she was, facing down Geist as he stared at her with a mixture of confusion and offense.

“Door,” Geist said slowly. Then, he sighed heavily and turned his head away. “No. Never mind. Of course.”

“What?” Door said quietly. “H-hey, um. I didn’t—”

Geist stood and dusted sand off his pants and jacket. “You know, I was truly hoping we had reached a breakthrough. You accepted my help at Halcyon Labs. You followed my lead through Castelia and its gym. You even came to me on your own last night for advice. I thought that perhaps you understood now, but…” He trailed off, hands frozen on his waist.

“Understood what?” Door asked.

Geist shook his head. His eyes fluttered shut, and one of his hands reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “How should I explain this…?” He paused, then dropped his hand and turned away. “Never mind. I … I should be more patient with you. I shouldn’t assume you would change so…” His voice trailed off again, and he shook his head for a second time. “Never mind.”

“Hey!”

Door jumped to her feet and recalled her new darumaka first, startling Jack and Knives in the process. With her otter and rabbit squeaking and stumbling after her, Door scrambled forward, fumbling with her other poké balls, until she, somehow, reached Geist’s side.

“H-hey!” she repeated. “I, um … are you offended by what I said?”

“What gave you that idea?” Geist replied, his tone distant and frosty.

“That’s a really weird thing to program a Companion to do,” Door muttered to herself.

“What’s a weird thing to program a Companion to do?”

Door tensed. “Huh? Uh. You know … to make them be offended and all.”

Geist stopped dead in his tracks, which in turn made Door and her remaining pokémon stop. He looked at Door with an expression she couldn’t read. Not blank, exactly—something with just a hint of an emotion she couldn’t name. But it was a hint, not a full-on expression, and for that, Geist’s face looked even more doll-like and artificial than normal … for a second, anyway. He must have noticed the way Door was looking at him because in the next moment, his face shifted into something stern, serious, and dark: a silent warning for her next words.

But Door, of course, was not the best at heeding warnings.

“Uh, well,” she said slowly, as if trying to put together an explanation meant for a child. “You know. Companions are supposed to be like robot butlers and stuff like that. They’re supposed to be agreeable. I mean, maybe you might have one who’s programmed to be aggressive or rough or something, but when it comes to the regular user? I mean … being offended would get in the way of your directives and stuff, right?”

“So you’re saying I can’t be offended,” Geist said.

“Or, well, you’re not supposed to be offended,” Door replied with a shrug. “And maybe you’re not. My aunt really wanted you to be like an actual person, so maybe she programmed you to act like you’re offended under certain conditions?” She shoved her hands into her pockets. Her fingers of one hand brushed up against her newest poké ball, and she fiddled with it absentmindedly as she spoke. “I mean, that makes sense, right? The point is, you don’t have a heart, so it’s not like you can actually feel real emotions and stuff. Someone just sort of programmed you to react in certain ways to certain things. Which, you know, I guess is kinda cool, but maybe I should have someone take a look at you when we get to Nimbasa, just to make sure it doesn’t get in the way or anything, you know?”

“Doesn’t get in the way…” Geist nodded vaguely. “All right.”

He started for Route 4 again, leaving his user and her two pokémon behind. Door toyed with the poké balls in her pocket for a second, her mind lost in thought until it settled on what she was touching. Whipping one of them out, she scrambled forward again and thrust her poké ball into his field of vision.

“Um. Hey. I lost the sandile, but I got this instead,” she said.

He glanced at it, then back at Door. “And?”

She hesitated, then drew back and lingered until Geist was several paces ahead. Glancing down at her pokémon, she furrowed her brow.

“What’d I do?” she asked.

Jack gave her a low chatter before padding quickly after Geist. In his wake, he left behind Knives, Door, and the thick-aired silence that can only come at the end of a conversation gone horribly wrong.



> COREFOLLOWUP.txt
> Author: Lanette Hamilton
> Notes: From the personal audio research notes of Lanette Hamilton. Transcript only; sound file has been lost. File transcribed by Bebe Larson.

LANETTE: Project Galatea, follow-up, day 50. If we’re going to do this, we need to make a few adjustments. Zero-One’s makeup is not only unique, but it’s also not something I can reproduce. It was a basically a fluke: a byproduct of very extenuating circumstances.

But with Zero-One’s help, I was able to create a rough attempt at a copy, so to speak—a much finer copy than the one I had used for testing purposes, although it certainly falls short of the LFA. The current personality core contains software designed to channel a Companion’s behavior. It works by lining up an android’s every action with a series of queries posited by the personality system. Think of it like a flow chart, where every decision is put through a set of questions defined by the fundamental elements of the basic human psyche.

The main idea is that every side of the human mind can be defined with adjectives. “Extroverted” means “sociable,” “friendly,” “talkative,” “energetic.” “Optimistic” means “hopeful,” “positive,” and so forth. It took some time, despite Zero-One’s lightning-fast thought processes, but we were able to put together a list of over 100 different possible traits that, in combination with each other, can render every unit as unique and close to human as possible. It’s not perfect, and although I plan on refining it more and more as time goes on and permits, I know it will never be perfect. But the point is that it’s a start.

But! That’s just the personality. Our creation will need a conscience too, and thus, we created a second core to balance out the first.

I mean, I know this is going to sound cheesy, but I’m well aware of the implications of creating a self-teaching android. When you spend as much time around computer programmers as I do, you’re bound to see 2001: A Space Odyssey at least once, right? And Zero-One, of course, is perfectly capable of exposing himself to whatever media he wants, regardless of whether or not I ask that he doesn’t.

The point is, I know how it goes. Human creates machine, machine turns against human, machine inherits the earth. While that’s all rather ridiculous—self-evolving AI would at most simply emulate human thought, and not all of us are napoleonic, thank you—I understand not everyone would see it that way, especially if the whole point of the first core is to emulate human emotion as closely as possible. Hence, the morality core.

It works rather simply. Going off the other core and a pre-programmed, constantly updating encyclopedia of laws and social norms, the android runs an algorithm designed to be the heart of its conscience. If the action an android takes violates either its preset personality or the encyclopedia, then the android will refuse to act. The command will simply abort.

Surprisingly, after having explained this to Zero-One, he was supportive of this idea. I never would have thought he would be okay with adding a core that further restricts an android’s ability to act on its own, but I suppose he was thinking the same as I had about the robots in those movies. He even added a ruleset that would further define an android’s code of ethics: Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.

You know … a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. That sort of thing.

Simple, but … fitting.

[end recording]

I did not realise before now that audino is over a metre tall, fully grown. And like, they don't look fluffy – they look like they're actually just physically bulky. That's gotta be pretty heavy. (I say 'gotta be' rather than 'is' because the pokédex entries for weight make no sense whatsoever and it's impossible to trust them, like steelix is thirty feet of solid steel and yet officially weighs just four hundred kilos, clearly the professor shouldn't be getting children to take these important measurements.)

That makes sense to me; it's generally how I view it, as well. There's just too much that doesn't work if there isn't some genuine system of elemental affinity baked into the cosmos of the pokémon world. Only when it seems really obvious (to me, anyway) that something's type should be split do I start making life difficult for myself by trying to come up with more complex explanations like 'dwebble have differently-typed shells and bodies'.

Finally, here's one typo and one minor awkwardness:

While it does actually make sense, having these two lines come so close to one another reads a bit weirdly, I think. Maybe just change the wording a bit in the second instance, so you don't draw unwanted attention to the fact that Door has done the thing you just said she couldn't do?

That looks like a typo for 'clambered'.

On that note, welcome to the Nimbasa arc, folks! Or that arc that was fun to write because it’s where Plot happens and also where Door and Geist figure stuff out.

In the meantime, though, one last note: This is the last chapter that had a lot of tweaking done in light of what folks said earlier about the way Door interacts with Geist. I say it’s the last because from here on out, their interaction actually kinda makes sense for how they’re growing as characters, so also, thank you to Bay, Firebrand, and Oyster for making this transition even smoother.

But also, if you’ve read the fic before up to where I went on hiatus, this chapter is the second and last one that might be worth a re-read. Enjoy!

---

There were two ways to get into Nimbasa City. The first was the more popular Join Avenue, which was less a road and more a strip mall full of stalls that catered specifically to trainers’ needs. It was also a unique spot on the road to the Pokémon League: the only trainer-heavy spot where battling was discouraged. This was largely due in part to the intensity of the Desert Resort safe zone and the training arenas of Nimbasa City … and in part due to the usual traffic on its sister route, Union Way.

Unlike Join Avenue, Union Way did not exist in Rosa Alvarado’s time, but it existed in Hilda King’s. Sort of. Back in Hilda’s day, developers had commandeered the northern half of Route 4 to create a pedestrian mall between Desert Resort and Nimbasa. Union Way, the appendix of a road that had been next to the construction site, had initially been swallowed up by the completed Join Avenue. But time always marches on, and things change.

For example, Join Avenue had spent thirty years—the thirty years between Rosa’s official retirement and Door’s birth, in fact—as a cesspool of drugs and prostitution.

It all had to do with the collapse of the pokémon population, really. Once construction disrupted the ecosystem and crowded out the real pokémon, training became less and less of a concept in Unova. Consequently, for the couple of decades before fauxkémon were invented and before the government tried to clean up Unova, the Unova League went dormant. And with no league, there was no real point to trainer-friendly places. Thus, spots like Join Avenue simply ... died. Trainers left, vendors left, and far more violent populations moved into the newly vacant prime real estate.

That wasn’t why Door avoided it, of course. The glory of gentrification swept through Unova when the fauxkémon system and the safe zones and the conservation efforts all went into place. Suddenly, people needed places like Join Avenue again, so places like Join Avenue became nice.

Real nice.

As in, rich kids nice.

To do that, developers renovated the majority of the original Join Avenue, the parts that had existed just before Rosa’s time. The rest they broke back off into a crowded side street of decaying storefronts known as Union Way. That was where the so-called riff-raff that had occupied Join Avenue went: behind the concrete curtain, into the cracks of the Unovan backstreets, just out of sight of the wealthy elite and the hipsters of Join Avenue. After all, they had to go somewhere, and conveniently enough, Union Way was somewhere.

All of this was common knowledge by Door’s time, including Join Avenue’s reputation as a gentrified safe haven for hipsters and practically anyone else with a disposable income. That was why, despite having crawled free from Desert Resort barely an hour beforehand, Door was making a beeline straight for the entrance to Union Way. It was also why Geist stepped forward to block her way. He had the foresight to refrain from grabbing Door by the arm, but that didn’t stop his partner from glaring hard at him.

“What?” she asked.

“This is Union Way,” he said.

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “I know. So…?”

“So,” he said, “although I’m certain you’re not going to listen if I told you that you would very likely not want to be on this road at night, I’m still going to tell you that you most certainly do not want to be on this road at night.”

Door’s eyebrow lowered, and she returned to glaring hard at him for a few seconds.

“Why? It’s just a road,” she said. Her smile faded into a look of pure boredom as she tried to shove past Geist. “Besides, isn’t it your duty to keep me safe? So nothing’s going to happen. Let’s just go.”

Geist moved his arm down to catch Door around the waist. She tried to shove past him by pressing all of her weight against his limb, but the most she achieved was draping herself across it. He even lifted it, picking Door up and holding her in the crook of his elbow as he took a few steps backward to the entrances of Join Avenue and Union Way. There, he put her down and placed both of his hands on her shoulders. Behind him, Jack stopped and whirled around with a neutral glance and a chirrup. Door looked down at him for a second, then back at Geist.

“Is there any rational reason why you don’t want to go to Nimbasa City via Join Avenue?” Geist asked.

“You ever been to Join Avenue lately?” Door asked. She turned her head slightly and twisted her face into an awkward, disgusted look. “It’s all … gentrified.”

Geist lowered his eyelids. “I said rational.”

“That is rational!” Door protested. “It’s not a place where people like me go. You get all … judged by rich kids and whatever. Besides, there’s never been battling on Join Avenue, so there’s no point.”

In response to that explanation, Geist didn’t say a word. He only continued to stare at her with that same disapproving expression.

“You wanna stop staring at me like that? It’s really creeping me out,” Door asked.

“I don’t know,” Geist replied. “Do you want to tell Jack to stop trying to sneak up on me?”

Door glanced down at Jack, who, in response to Geist grabbing his master, had unsheathed his scalchops and advanced towards the Companion’s back. He squeaked at Geist’s acknowledgement before looking at Door, and Door cringed and made a cutting motion across her neck. Jack responded by chattering and sheathing his scalchops in irritation.

Glancing back at Geist, Door gave him a blank look. “How…?”

“I could hear him,” Geist told her.

“Lemme guess,” Door said with a small grin. “Companions have super-sensitive, technologically-enhanced hearing.”

“In a sense, yes.”

Door blinked at him, then shook her head. “Okay, ignoring the fact that you don’t seem to understand the concept of a joke, I think you’re overreacting about Union Way.” She shoved one of his arms off her shoulder. “I mean, there hasn’t really been an armed robbery reported there in years, right?”

“There were thirty-seven last year alone,” Geist responded blandly. “And that isn’t taking into consideration the number of robberies that don’t get reported.”

“Okay, I stand corrected,” Door muttered. “But it’s not like I would get killed, right? You’ve just got to keep your eyes peeled. Walk with purpose.” She pulled away from Geist and started down the alley. “You know. Be smart about it.”

Geist grabbed her arm. “Even though we both have pokémon, that doesn’t mean our chances of not getting attacked while traversing Union Way is at all decreased. No amount of preparation can keep us out of trouble if we encountered anyone with stronger pokémon—or worse, actual weapons. It’s true you left Nuvema to protect me, but being a guard means avoiding risks, not actively seeking them out. I would feel far more comfortable if the both of us went down Join Avenue instead.”

Door wrenched her arm away from him again. “Okay, first off, I’m not your guard anymore. We’ve established that. You’re my Companion now, and you’re helping me on a journey to stop Team Matrix from doing something stupid or dragging Blair into their stupidity. Let’s get that straight, okay?”

“Fine,” Geist replied. “And second?”

“And second…”

Door huffed. She rubbed her arm and stared down Union Way. There was some truth in what she said: part of her reason for not wanting to go down Join Avenue was because she didn’t want to be surrounded by rich people. But at the same time, the other reason was because Union Way was practically the old Unova. Sure, it consisted of shops that were set up after Hilda’s time, but it was the style of them—the shady jewelers, the dingy pawn shops, the questionable food stands that reeked of spent oil and garlic, the green-yellow puddles, the mix of languages that filled the air like music, that slight sense that the people were secretly judging every passerby … all of it was the old Unova, the Unova Door wanted to experience.

But on the other hand, although she hated to admit it, Geist had a point.

“And second, fine. We’ll do things your way.” She rubbed the back of her head. “Just … just don’t rub it in or anything that I’m agreeing with you, okay?”

While Door spoke, Geist raised his eyebrows and stared at her with wide eyes. Now that she was finished, however, he relaxed and allowed himself to smile warmly.

“My dear Door,” he said, “you said so yourself: I’m not capable of feeling real emotion.” He leaned towards her. “That includes arrogance.”

With that, he turned on his heel and sauntered towards the entrance to Join Avenue, leaving Door behind with her finger still extended. As he reached the mouth of the mall, the automatic doors whirred open, and he took one step inside. Then, with a small bow, he swung one of his arms towards the mall’s interior and waited. Immediately, Jack padded forward and stopped at the doorway, gazing at Geist, then at the mall, then at his trainer. His trainer, meanwhile, lowered her arm, gave Geist a weary glare, and followed.

But as she passed Geist, she shot him a look. “That is exactly the kind of thing I was telling you not to do.”

“I couldn’t resist,” Geist replied jovially.

With another huff, Door strode into the mall, snapping her glare away from Geist to seethe at the interior.

As with most regions in the world, Unova had its rough spots, but there were ways to tell when a neighborhood in Unova was good and safe. It was all about timing. In a rough neighborhood or a residential one where not much happened at all, most people scuttled indoors the moment the sky turned fire-orange with the evening sun. The only people who would be out after that point were the tougher sorts: the kind who had lived in those neighborhoods for years and the kind who gave it whatever rough reputation it had in the first place.

But in a good neighborhood—in a high-class, gentrified neighborhood full of glittering lights and lively attractions—seven at night brought out the tourists, the wealthy, the people who carried with them either fat wallets packed with slim credit cards or enough naïveté to not know the difference between a well-meaning local and a “well-meaning” local with a knife.

Join Avenue was the latter sort of neighborhood: the high-class kind. It was a corridor made of glass and steel lined with stalls: ritzy-looking shops crammed full of shiny and expensive goods, salons with prim-looking stylists, training dojos with cutting-edge equipment, and restaurants that touted the words “organic” and “wheatgrass smoothie.” Whether the people inside were trainers or tourists or local shoppers, Door couldn’t tell. They all looked roughly the same: clean clothes, perfect makeup, sleek or bejeweled collars for the few pokémon that were out, expensive handbags for the women, and well-dressed Companions for all.

As Door pressed onward, with her sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor, she couldn’t help but feel a little out-of-place. Cramming her hands into her pockets, she glared forward, keeping her eyes on the distant exit at the far end of the corridor. All around her, the other people steered clear of her without a second look, as if she was nothing more than a tiny stone in the flow of their shopping experience. Whether that was because of Jack, the only pokémon not dressed up in a fancy collar, or because both he and Door looked like someone had dragged them through a field of rabid liepard, Door could neither tell nor bring herself to care, except to be thankful that it kept most people from talking to her.

Most, of course, but not all.

“Ah! Miss! Hello! Try a free sample of our new oran-scented fauxkémon shampoo? Sure to remove stains and make your fauxkémon’s coat fresh-out-the-box shiny!”

“Miss, would you like a sample of our acai-kelpsy shake with immune boosters?”

“Hello, miss! Would you like to try our new attack chargers? Guaranteed increase in physical attacking ability of all compatible fauxkémon! Are you thinking of challenging the Nimbasa Gym?”

“Top-of-the-line add-ons for all Companion models! Might I interest you in a new sound module? Change any compatible Companion’s voice to the sweet, dulcet tones of the Unova League’s own Ari Sokolsky, perhaps? All the rage with young girls such as yourself these days.”

Door stopped at that last one. She whirled towards the source of the voice, a middle-aged man standing in the door of one of the stores. Behind him, a female Companion stood, hands folded over her waist. The Companion smiled, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the store window displayed several of her sisters seated and deactivated on a couch with a bowl of fake popcorn between them—arranged, it seemed, as if they were simply watching a movie. Door afforded her and the other Companions the briefest of glances before settling her eyes on the clerk.

And then, without warning, she felt Geist grab her elbow roughly. She yelped and stumbled along until she walked step for step beside her Companion. Looking up, she could see his face: stern and cold, just like it had been in Desert Resort. Without a word, Geist led both Door and Jack along, further down the corridor, despite his user’s protests. Door, meanwhile, barked a “hey” here and there as she tried her best to dig her heels into the floor and pull herself away. It was only when she, Jack, and Geist were well out of earshot that Geist let Door’s arm go. He didn’t really free her, however, as his next move was to lean towards her and mutter into her ear.

“Don’t make a scene here,” he said. “The less attention you draw to us, the sooner we’ll be through Join Avenue. Isn’t that what you want?”

“I am not going to make a scene,” Door growled as she rubbed her elbow. “And anyway, I’m allowed to ask a question or few.”

“You certainly are,” he said.

Geist straightened, folded his hands behind his back, and continued walking down the corridor. Jack fell into step beside him quickly afterwards. Door watched them for a few seconds, hesitating as she digested Geist’s response. Then, at last, she grit her teeth and stormed forward to catch up.

“So,” Geist continued, “what is it you wanted to ask?”

“You know what I wanted to ask,” Door snapped. She pointed towards the store with an over-the-shoulder thumb. “What was that all about?”

“What was what all about?” Geist asked.

“Don’t do this,” Door hissed. “What’d I do?”

Geist sighed and took his eyes off her. “Door. Even if you wanted to modify me and even if I consented, you wouldn’t be able to. I’m not a typical Calliope model.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Door said. Then, she stiffened. “Wait. What do you mean you’re not a typical Calliope model?”

Geist made a small circular motion with one of his hands, as if to underline the obvious. “I’m the prototype. Or at least, that’s what Dr. Fennel tells me. As such, there are several key differences between mass-produced Calliopes and myself, some of which you might have noticed already.”

Door grimaced. Of course she knew about Geist being the prototype for all Companions. That was difficult to forget. It’s just that she had no idea that he knew, and in any case, she didn’t think that would actually mean anything important, other than the fact that he was special to her family.

Still, that was also not what she meant.

“You know what?” Door closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “We’re gonna unpack that later. What’s more important now is…” She opened her eyes. “Are you mad at me?”

“According to you, I can’t actually be mad at anyone.”

“Geist,” Door groaned. “Just … level with me, okay? What did I do wrong?”

He didn’t answer—only stared at her with that frustratingly unreadable expression. Door sighed and slouched, hanging her arms low in front of her. Then, she looked away and reached up to rub one of her arms.

“I mean, I’m just telling the truth,” she said. “I’m not trying to insult you or anything. It’s just that Companions don’t have hearts. That’s a fact. You need a heart to feel, so therefore, you can’t really feel like people do. Everything you do feel is just some kind of copy of what we do. You’re just a copy of a person, right? You know that. So I don’t get why that’s so bad to say out loud.”

She wasn’t expecting an answer. Or she was, but she wasn’t expecting it to be good. She expected Geist to ignore her. To yell at her. To talk some sense into her with that loud, barking voice Professor Ironwood’s assistant Ted used or with the colder, softer, but somehow sharper voice her mother would use. She expected Geist to give her a disappointed look like Linus would give her—the kind that made her heart twist in pain and guilt. Or she expected him to look at her and sigh like her teachers would, with that expression that made her feel like she was just a small, lost case compared to those other kids.

Geist didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he spun forward and blocked Door’s way, stopping her in her tracks and eliciting a squealing chatter from Jack. Ignoring the dewott’s growls of warning, he pressed his hands on her shoulders and leaned in, locking eyes with her in a way that kept her from breaking eye contact. And the expression he wore? Not pity or anger or frustration but curiosity. Sure, curiosity mixed with a touch of hurt and exasperation, but it wasn’t patronizing. It made Door feel like she wasn’t about to be talked down to but rather … reasoned with. Like an adult.

It was weird to her.

“Jack,” she said. “Stand down.”

There was a metallic shink signalling the resheathing of Jack’s scalchops. But to Door, it sounded like he was closing a barrier between herself and her Companion. Nothing else existed—not Join Avenue, not the people, not even Jack.

And then, with what sounded like a deep breath, Geist broke the silence between them like a pair of hands snapping a rubber band.

“Door,” he said. “I can’t say too much because we’re in a highly public area. I’m already risking a lot by talking to you like this, so I’m going to make this as quick as possible. To put it in short, I know how you humans feel about us. You’re not the first person to say I’m nothing more than a copy, and I’m well aware that it would be foolish to assume you’ll be the last. Even then, what you’re saying is true for most Companions, yes, but when I say I’m not like most Companions, I mean that in more than one way.

Door opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Geist held up a hand, palm out, just inside her field of vision.

“I don’t know if that extends to experiencing emotions, no,” he admitted, “but I do know that to me, what I experience is close enough. But that is why I’m not mad at you: not because I can’t be offended but instead because I know that I’m an unusual case and that your reaction is nothing new for a human. I can be patient with you, though, and I hope someday, you’ll understand.

Releasing her, Geist gave her one final, odd look, then turned on his heel and continued to lead her forward. Door watched him for a second, watched his body ease into that stiff walk a normal Companion would take on when leading their users along a path. No one seemed to notice. No one, she realized then, had stopped to stare at anything Geist had done for the past five minutes. And now they definitely didn’t. And why would they, considering he now looked like the hundreds of other Companions that must have been in that place?

And why did a part of her squirm when she thought about that?

With her breath hitching in her throat, she looked down at Jack, and the world settled back into place around her. She took another deep breath, then motioned for him to follow, and with Jack trotting by her side, she caught up to Geist.

“Geist,” she said slowly, “do you ... do you know if there’s anything ... weird about you?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean...”

Door hesitated again. She glanced around at the crowded avenue around her, at all the people who didn’t quite seem to be paying attention to her or Geist but could hear them nonetheless. The crowds moved around them, circling them and continuing onward in both directions like water in the river, and they were far too close for comfort.

Yet she wanted to speak. She had so many questions right then, and she wanted nothing more than to get answers. In truth, Geist did not interest her. Not personally, anyway. But there was a labyrinth of mysteries surrounding him, all somehow pointing right back to her. There were all of these inconsistencies to him that went against everything she knew about Companions and how they operated, and either she couldn’t find the right time to get to the bottom of them…

...or he wouldn’t let her. She gave him an uneasy glance then, realizing at once that even if she asked, she had no idea whether or not he would give her the answers that she was looking for. He was too clever for that, wasn’t he?

“I … I want to ask you a question,” she said.

“Go on,” he told her.

She shook her head. “Not here. Not … um. Not in public.”

His eyes flicked to the crowd around them. “Of course.”

“It’s not anything bad, I think,” she said. “Just … I have a question.”

“Of course.”

Geist turned and started walking, and Door and Jack quickly followed until they walked side by side, shoulder to shoulder. For nearly a minute, they walked like that in silence, taking in the hum of Join Avenue until, at last, Geist spoke.

“I think I know what question you want to ask me,” he said, “and the answer is, yes, I realize that what I did in Relic Castle was unusual for a Companion. But no, I don’t know how I did it.”

Door balled her hands into fists. “Uh, Geist, I don’t think—”

“No, it’s okay,” Geist said. “I want to be open about this with you. But yes, that’s also why I said what I did about how different I am compared to a standard Calliope. As I’ve said, I know there’s something about me that’s different from most Companions, but because I’ve never been shown an in-depth view of my own schematics, I don’t entirely know what. All I know is that whatever that specific difference is, I possess mental abilities that are closer to a real human’s than any other Companion’s. For that reason, I’d rather not be modified by anyone other than Dr. Fennel … if it’s all the same to you.”

“You … haven’t been shown your own schematics?” Door asked.

“Only a layman’s version of it. It’s meant for users, not technicians, so it doesn’t answer many of my questions.” He glanced at her. “Don’t sound so surprised. You may know that you have a spleen and a pancreas, but you might not know what either of them do, am I right?”

“Fair enough,” Door said. “But … why?”

“Tell you now?” Geist asked. “Because I want you to trust me at some point. Team Matrix will be a difficult opponent; you won’t be able to handle them alone. I know you won’t ever like me because of what I am, but I want you to at least believe that I’m here to help you—genuinely help you, as a partner and not as a servant. To do that, I’ll need to be as open with you as possible. Anyone else is a rather different story.”

Door shook her head. “No, I meant…”

He glanced at her. “Yes?”

She exhaled a long, low breath. “Why are you different? You’re just a prototype.”

Geist smiled lightly. “I’ve been asking myself that same question for the past three years. I’d imagine it’d have something to do with why I was created.”

The trainer gave her Companion a sideways look. “What do you mean?”

“Door, I’ve lived with Dr. Fennel these past few years,” he said. “I know about your great aunt, and I know who I look like. It doesn’t take much more deductive skill to understand beyond that.”

“Oh.”

Geist shrugged and continued onward. “I wouldn’t worry about it, though.”

Door snorted and grumbled, “Sure, you wouldn’t worry about that, but how do I know you’re not going to do something like start a robot uprising or something?”

“I assure you, I’m not with Team Matrix, nor do I want to be.”

At that, Door cracked a sardonic smile. “Oh yeah? Bet you’d love to get your hands into what they’re doing. Free will for all robots or something? Robots on equal footing?”

“And attack humans at the same time?” Geist asked. He looked at her. “That’s the trouble with radical thinking, Door. You may have the right philosophies, but that doesn’t mean you’re doing the right thing.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yeah, but do you believe in what they say?”

Geist made a noise that sounded like a deep breath through his nose. His eyes fluttered shut briefly, and he reeled his head backwards in thought. Then, shifting forward, he opened his eyes and gave the exit a steady, serious glare.

“I believe Companions are worthy of respect,” he said quietly. “I don’t object to our continued existence as support to you humans. We were designed for that express purpose, so it wouldn’t make sense to change that now. But I do believe that we were not designed to be abused or to be seen as objects. There is a reason why we look like you, and there is a reason why your great aunt created me to resemble someone important to her. I wish I could remember what those reasons were, but I know deep down that coincidence has nothing to do with this. Until all people know what that reason is, we should operate on the assumption that it’s because Lani wanted you to treat us as exactly what we’re called: companions, not heartless things.”

Door smirked. “‘Lani’?”

Geist stopped. After a few seconds, Door did too, casting a confused glance back towards him.

“Hey,” she said softly. “You okay?”

He blinked at her, then drew a hand to his temple. “I … yes.”

Door furrowed her eyebrows and took a step forward. “Are … are you sure? You don’t look so good.”

“Lanette,” Geist replied firmly. He dropped his hand to his side. “Because Lanette wanted you to treat us as companions.”

He walked onward, brushing past Door as he went. Door couldn’t help but whirl around and face him.

“Hey,” she said. “Are you … are you—”

“Attention all shoppers!”

Door and Geist froze the second they heard the voice filter through the PA system. They exchanged glances before Geist swooped down to snatch Jack. Then, he reached out to grab Door by the wrist, and she, for once, didn’t protest as he led her into a flat-out run towards the end of Join Avenue. Why would she? She knew that voice, and so did Geist.

It was Belle’s, after all.

“We apologize for this interruption in your capitalist wet dreams,” Belle announced, “but we’ve received word that there’s a certain little dormouse in your midsts. See what I did there, Doreen? Dormouse? Oh, I crack myself up!”

Shouts erupted directly in front of them, and Geist skidded to a stop, just meters from the door. His trainer plowed into his back, then stumbled backwards and stared at the crowd gathering at the glass doorway. Something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” she whispered urgently.

Geist shook his head. “I … I don’t know.”

“It’s locked!” a man shouted.

“What?!” a woman shrieked.

And then, the voices began clashing all at once.

“Hey! Let us out!”

“Open the doors!”

“Someone call the police!”

Between the screaming, the pounding of fists on glass, the rumbling of feet on marble, and all the other things in between, Door backed up, her eyes scanning the ceiling.

“Geist,” she muttered.

“Already on it,” he said.

She looked at him, and sure enough, his free hand was on his temple, his eyes were already lit up, and his gaze flicked from one overhead speaker to another.

“I don’t think I need to tell you Belle’s hijacked Join Avenue’s PA system,” he said. “I’m picking up on a signal coming from the central control booth too. It’s a Terpsichore Companion—no doubt Starr. He’s got the doors on lockdown mode.” He glanced at her. “They want us to know they’re here. Starr’s not doing anything to block my connection.”

“Can you tell why?” Door asked.

Geist tensed suddenly, and he swiveled his glance towards the ceiling once more. For a brief second, Door thought he might be looking back at the overhead speakers, but then, she realized his eyes were on something else.

An air duct.

Whirling around, Geist gave Door a terrified look. “Recall Jack and cover your mouth.”

“What?! Why?!” she asked.

“They’ve taken control of the HVAC system!” he exclaimed. “That can only mean one thing! Everyone!” He turned to face the crowd. “Listen! Please! Hold your breath!”

Geist was a little too late, Door realized. And she knew this because in the next instant, a deafening roar rushed above them, and cold air blasted through the narrow corridor of Join Avenue. Only … it wasn’t just air. It was smoke. Smoke flecked with sparkling, blue spores.

Or more precisely, smoke laced with Sleep Powder.

As the cloud descended onto the public, the screaming and pounding died down around Door. One by one, people dropped to the floor, fast asleep in the haze of blue glitter. Door realized what was happening a few seconds later, and in response, she jammed her hand into her pocket to fumble for Jack’s poké ball. In front of her, she watched as her own pokémon shrieked and squirmed in Geist’s hands, only to slip gradually into a slumber himself. Even her own movements began to grow sluggish, and when she finally pulled out Jack’s poké ball, her fingers slipped along its plastic surface.

She didn’t even notice she had dropped it. She didn’t notice the darkness clouding her mind, either. It was just like that: one moment, she felt fine, and the next, she felt detached from her own body, floating somewhere in her head. Door blinked, and all of a sudden, she was sitting on the floor with Jack resting next to her and Geist holding her up as best as he could. He was shouting something to her, but she couldn’t make out his words. Everything he said sounded like a rush, like a train roaring by, rather than a man’s voice. Her eyelids felt heavy, and each successive blink lasted longer, which only sent Geist into even more of a panic. He looked up at one point, his head moving in what looked to Door like slow motion as he glanced around for … something. She couldn’t tell what.

And then, all of a sudden, there was a dark shape next to him. Two, in fact—one of which was wearing a gas mask. The shape with a bare face reached down for Geist, and he responded by dropping Door and putting up his hands to ward off the newcomer. A black device appeared in the figure’s hand, and the stranger pressed this to the back of Geist’s neck before he could fully turn around. Geist’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened and slackened until the hazy, blue light behind his glassy irises winked out.

The last thing Door saw was Geist pitching forward, just as asleep as she was.



> GALATEA51.txt
> Author: Lanette Hamilton
> Notes: From the audio research notes of Lanette Hamilton. Transcript only; sound file has been lost. File transcribed by Bebe Larson.

LANETTE: Project Galatea, follow-up, day 51. Initial testing of the four-core system has yielded … underwhelming results. While, yes, all cores are functioning as designed, there seems to be a disconnect between the personality, morality, and memory cores. That is to say, the unit ran, but it ran about as well as a very rigid but upbeat robot.

I mean, yes, it’s a robot, but that’s not what we’re going for. I needed something … more expressive. Creative. Emotive. Something that can decide for itself what action to take in order to serve its user without having to be told what to do during every second of observation.

Of course, Zero-One had the solution, and strangely, it wasn’t in response to this. Rather, when I asked him what he thought about the cores in general, he finally admitted that there was one issue he had with the morality core: it was too rigid and literal. Rules, according to him, always have exceptions. Following a set of rules to the letter restricts growth and creativity, and although Companions are technically incapable of either, a lack of flexibility could hinder the user, should the Companion decide that the user’s actions do not coincide with the given list of rules they are asked to follow. In other words, we’ve given our androids every tool they need to act human except the ability to make sound judgements. But how do we teach them that?

According to Zero-One, the answer is simple: emotions. Humans emote. They feel. They base their decisions not only on logic and clear-cut definitions but also on what they understand with their hearts.

Thus, if the personality core is the soul of an android and the morality core the mind, the emotion core is the heart. It works by drawing from a number of different factors and presenting them to the rest of the android’s core system at once. The core system then eliminates factors that go against the android’s personality and moral code and predicts a set of outcomes from the remaining data. From these predictions, the android chooses the best path to take, based on what they consider to be the most moral, logical, and true to their identities. In other words, the emotional core is technically the one where all the decision-making happens: the one where all the data from the aforementioned cores come together to weigh the options of each and every choice an android needs to make.

I finished the emotion core within the hour and implemented it to create a basic five-core system using Zero-One’s chassis as a template. And lo and behold … Zero-One was right.

I don't blame Door not wanting to go through Joint Avenue since yeah often the more upper class people would judge you if you look out of place. A bit amusing though Geist gets to rub it it in that he's right in his own way.

Glad the two got to have some discussions concerning last chapter's conversation. Door at least knows Geist is aware how he's different from the other androids and his stance on how they should be treated. Him spitting out "Lani" though makes me think he had a much closer bond with Lanette than Door realized.

Well, doesn't look good that Team Matrix has taken over Joint Avenue. Looking foreard to what happens next!

And here we come to the longest chapter so far and the one I love to hate. On the one hand, it gets out a much-needed discussion and a battle. On the other ... I wish I had time to figure out what to do with the ending. Downside of uploading these every week in order to get us to the parts I haven't posted anywhere, right?

Anyway! On with the show!

---

It was dark.

For her first few seconds of consciousness, Door thought it was dark because she was only just waking up. But slowly, as her vision began to adjust, she realized that, no, it actually was dark. Very dark.

Or, at least, it was dark … except for Jack’s glowing scalchops, cutting through the shadows overhead.

Door scrambled to her knees and craned her neck to watch, and as her vision began to compensate for the lack of light, she could see the shape of a pidove shooting in quick circles around Jack. Every so often, the dewott jumped and lashed out, slashing the bird over and over again until, at last, both he and the pidove dropped. Jack landed neatly on his feet, but the pidove wasn’t nearly as lucky. It banged against the metal floor, bounced, and vanished into the darkness along what was apparently a platform.

And as soon as the pidove was gone, Door felt herself far, far more awake than she had been a moment ago. Springing to her feet, she squinted at the darkness, but before she could process anything at all, Jack was at her side, chattering and grabbing her hand.

“W-whoa, Jack!” she exclaimed. “Hold up! What’s going on?!”

A vortex of glowing leaves burst from the darkness and surged past them. Jack screamed and grabbed his trainer’s leg while Door swiveled her head towards the source of the storm. She could just barely see a long shadow bounce from one spot to another, coming closer and closer with each passing second. When it was mere feet from her, electric lights burst to life overhead and temporarily blinded Door. She shrieked and flinched, rubbing her eyes desperately until she could open them once more. By then, the lights had dimmed just enough to bathe the entire room in a sickly, sepia glow—and, therefore, enough to let her see where she was.

And Door recognized the place right away: the old Nimbasa Gym. She was standing in one of the ancient cars that had been stationed at the barren and dusty gym leader’s platform. In front of her, the servine that had been the source of the Leaf Tornado was bouncing from track to track on the gym’s disused roller coaster.

That servine didn’t give her much time to adjust. It leapt into the air and whirled around to turn its back on Door, and another leaf-laced tornado shot from the tip of its tail to the gym leader’s platform behind its targets. The attack struck the platform with a bang, sending a spray of leaves and dust into the air. Door reeled back, whirling her head towards the tracks in time to see the servine land neatly just in front of the coaster. Its lips were pulled back into a grin, and Door realized right then that although it didn’t hit her, it could have. It was waiting for her, as if to test her for her next move.

And she, of course, had no choice but to play right along with it.

So she yanked a poké ball from her pocket and threw it into the air.

“Storm! Air Cutter!” she screamed.

The tranquill burst from her ball, screeched, and dove at the servine. With a hiss, the lizard stumbled out of the way, and Storm shot through empty air before rising sharply halfway to the ceiling. Another trill burst from her throat as she circled around, whirling above the servine until she faced it. Then, with a stiff flap of her wings, she sent a gale laced with pale crescents straight down to meet her opponent. The gust blasted the servine dead-on, throwing it off its feet and into the darkness below, where a red light caught it and drew it out of sight.

In the silence that ensued, Door relaxed for the briefest of moments, exhaling a breath she didn’t even notice she had held.

And then, there was a bang, and the car started moving.

Door and Jack spilled backwards, into the seat of the car, as it glided along the track. A bubble of panic began to swell in Door’s chest, but somehow, she was able to wrap her arm around her dewott’s waist and grab the safety bar in front of her. Slamming the bar down over her legs, she gripped it with one set of ash-white knuckles as she watched the gym blur around her. Overhead, she heard her tranquill scream and swoop close to the car … along with Belle’s voice crackling over a speaker.

“Not bad, kid!” Belle said. “That’s round one done!”

“Round one?!” Door shouted. She twisted in her seat, taking in as much as she could in the quick seconds she could see them, all in an effort to find an opponent she knew she wouldn’t be able to see.

“Oh, did I forget to mention?” Belle asked. “Lady Magdalene and Mr. Oppenheimer are eager to see you. In fact, they’re waiting right outside with your Companion! Too bad there’s just one tiny little problem: they want to make sure you’re the right candidate for the job, if you catch my drift. So, you’ll be battling six more pokémon: two of my own and four that a certain someone with a really unfortunate name used against a certain other someone with another really unfortunate name back in the day. We rounded copies up just for you! You should thank us, you know. You’re getting the real Hilda King experience!”

“Belle,” Door growled. “When I get out of this thing—”

“Oops! Round two!”

The car jerked to a halt in front of another platform. Door slammed into the bar in front of her, and momentarily, she was winded. Jack wasn’t, however, and before Door could realize what was happening, he leapt from the car towards the platform. Halfway there, he met a liepard with a two-scalchop Razor Shell, knocking it out of the air before it could slash at his face. The cat went sprawling back into the platform, but it was followed quickly by a blue monkey. This new pokémon leapt at Jack and latched onto his arm with inch-long fangs, forcing Jack to land awkwardly on the platform and immediately stumble backwards with a howl.

“Jack!” Door screamed. Then, fumbling for her next poké ball, she held it up and called, “Knives! Secret Power!”

Knives burst out of her ball and immediately leapt onto the platform, where she paused to take inventory of the situation. Not far from her, the liepard struggled to its feet, growling and hissing as it rose. Whirling to face it, Knives ground her back paws into the floor and lifted a paw with an angry hum. A pink light swirled around her, rushing into her hand to form a ball within her palm. She launched herself forward, towards the liepard, and as she ran, she slammed the ball of pink light into her chest to let its brilliance wash over her. The rosy energy exploded around her, driving her entire body forward, and with this extra boost in force, Knives slammed herself into the liepard’s chest. The cat howled as it flew through the air, crashed into a track behind the platform, and bounced off into the darkness below, and as soon as it was gone, Knives turned towards the panpour and Jack.

Locking eyes with her partner, Knives sang two long, loud notes, and Jack responded by barking and thrusting his arm into the air as high as he could. The monkey refused to let go, even as it was lifted off the ground. Instead, it dug its fangs deeper and shook its head from side to side, triggering a howl and a whimper from its victim. Knives snarled and pawed at the floor, then thrust her paw upward again to summon the pink ball of light once more. It came quicker this time—stronger, too. The second Knives slammed the ball into her chest, the pink light practically illuminated the room all on its own. At the same time, it propelled her forward, and she sped forward like a rocket until she slammed into the panpour. All three pokémon tumbled head-over-heels to the end of the platform, and as they fell off the side, the panpour finally released, dropping over the edge and into the darkness with a screech. Knives, meanwhile, latched onto the side of the platform with one paw just seconds before she toppled over, and her other paw quickly seized Jack’s good arm. Then, with a grunt, she leapt back onto the platform, dragging Jack with her.

For a few brief seconds, the two panted on the platform, staring at each other with already-weary looks, and Door relaxed and exhaled slowly. But their collective relief was short-lived, as Door’s car suddenly jolted into movement once more and pulled away from the platform. Door sat back down, glancing back at her pokémon with wild eyes as the car took her away from them. Knives cried out and dashed for the edge of the platform, but before the audino could try leaping for the car, Storm swept down from where she had been circling overhead and collected both Jack and Knives in her talons. She screeched and started after Door while the trainer gripped the edge of the car.

“Storm! Good job!” she shouted. “See if you can drop them off at the next platform!”

With a cry, she swooped ahead, clipping along the track just before Door. The car began to slow, and Storm dropped in height and prepared to release, just as two flashes of red light struck the platform ahead of her. At once, the red light resolved into a sandile and a darumaka, standing side by side at the center of the platform with their eyes on the tranquill overhead. Shrieking once again, Storm swooped down and dropped both of her passengers off on one side of the platform, then ascended quickly to circle overhead once more.

The sandile moved first, scuttling forward with a hiss and more speed than Door had ever seen a ground-type muster. Bowing its head, the creature shot straight at Knives, slamming into her chest before she could move. The attack tore her off her feet and threw her towards the edge of the platform, but before she fell over, one of Jack’s scalchops slammed into the platform, embedding itself just deep enough to stand in Knives’s way. She struck it with her back, but even with all of Knives’s body weight driven into it, the blade stood firm. Thus, instead of toppling over the edge of the platform, Knives dropped to the floor at the base of the scalchop, mere inches from total darkness.

As soon as his partner was safe, Jack turned towards the sandile. He swept his paws backwards, weaving them together as a glowing, light blue orb of energy swirled between them. The ball grew to the size of Jack’s head before he swung his arms forward, shooting the attack at the sandile. His target hissed and took a step back, just before the ball swept it up and careened past Knives, over the edge of the platform and into the darkness below. As soon as it vanished, the darumaka blinked, staring blankly first at the edge of the platform and then, slowly, at Jack.

By then, the car had stopped, and Door was allowed to stand—which she did, the second she had seen Jack’s attack.

“Was that Water Pulse?!” she exclaimed. Then, smiling broadly, she slapped the car and leaned out of it a little. “Hey! Jack! Way to go, buddy! Now finish off this round with another one of those!”

Jack chattered huskily and saluted his trainer with his wounded paw. Then, without even so much as a wince, he swept his paws back once more and nodded to the darumaka. The doll-like creature backed up a step, its wide eyes fixed on Jack and the swirling ball of energy forming between his paws. Feebly, it raised a fist and allowed flames to flicker across its tiny knuckles, but before it could so much as take a step towards Jack, the dewott flung his orb into the darumaka. Like its partner, the darumaka was ripped off its feet, tossed in the bubble of water, and thrown off the side of the platform in one neat swoop.

In the ensuing seconds of silence, Knives pulled Jack’s scalchop free and handed it back to the otter with a grateful hum. Jack barked gratefully and snapped his scalchop back into place, then turned to Door. She sat down but twisted around in her seat to face her pokémon, fully expecting that the car would begin to move.

“Not bad, Jack!” she said. “Okay, Storm! You know what to—”

She stopped abruptly. She wasn’t interrupted by anything; on the contrary, she stopped because of that lack of interruption. Something wasn’t right, and this revelation hit her at that exact moment. Gingerly, she stood back up, glancing around the room for clues.

And then, she saw her—Belle, standing on a platform right in front of the main entrance to the gym. The Matrix agent was leaning against a console, her chin propped up by a hand as a broad smile split her face. Behind her, Starr watched with the same stoic expression as always.

“Belle!” Door snapped. She planted one foot on the front of the car. “Just wait until I get over there!”

With a snicker, Belle leaned towards a microphone jutting out of the console. “Uh, first of all, I’m the one who gets to decide whether or not you come any closer. Second, you should seriously keep your eye on the battle, Doreen.”

A throaty cry broke the silence behind her. Whirling around, Door was just in time to see a small, yellow creature sail through the air towards Knives. Jack whipped out both of his scalchops and darted between the bogey and his partner, and seconds after he crossed his blades in front of his face, his opponent struck both weapons with an extended set of glowing claws, backflipped, and landed on its feet within arm’s reach of the dewott. Only then could Door get a good look at the creature: a scraggy—and a fast one at that. The instant it landed, it ground its feet into the platform and took on a dim, red aura. It bucked its head up, hitched its pants, and opened its eyes wide as it locked gazes with Jack. A red light flashed from its eyes, and Jack stumbled backwards with a squeal. He tensed, gripping his scalchops harder, before lashing out without being ordered to.

Except … he didn’t hit a thing. His scalchops merely slammed into the floor, far, far from where the scraggy stood. Jack howled and whipped around, slicing through thin air in an attempt to get at the lizard-like creature. Watching this, Door took a deep, hissing breath. She knew what had happened: Jack had gotten caught up in the scraggy’s Swagger. And that meant she needed to end the battle and do it quickly.

“Storm!” she barked. “Air Cutter! Now!”

The tranquill swooped at the command, veering close to the fighting-type. She flicked her wings and sent a gust of wind and silver crescents right for the scraggy. In response, the scraggy leapt up, flinging itself above the gust of wind and straight for Storm, but with a shrill cry, the bird twisted and angled her stream directly into the lizard. Within seconds, the scraggy flew through the air, away from Storm, and off the edge of the platform to the darkness below.

“Aww yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!” Door shouted. She turned to send a glare towards Belle. “What now?!”

Belle tapped a button. “Not bad, kid. That’s, what, seven down by now?”

“Oh good,” Door replied. “You can count.”

“Ha! Y’know, I was going to make the last one easy for you, what with it being the worst of the lot,” Belle said slowly, “but with a mouth like that on a girl like you, I think it’ll be more fun to go all-out!”

She pounded her fist on the console, and an unseen button yielded with a click. From the shadows at the back of the gym, a red light burst into being and streaked towards Door. As it passed through the dim lights overhead, the red glow faded, and the last pokémon Door had wanted to see screeched as it shot directly towards her team.

A sigilyph.

Door cursed loudly, then swung her hand towards the guardian pokémon. “Storm! Slow it down with Air Cutter! Hurry!”

Storm shrieked and dove at the creature. She swooped around it until she aligned herself with its back, and with a strong clap of her wings, she sent a gale slamming into its body. The sigilyph dropped several feet but flapped its bony wings to ascend once more. It swirled around, aiming its three eyes at Storm, and before Door could realize what was happening, a beam of rainbow light shot from the topmost eye and struck Storm square in the chest. The tranquill cawed as her body bucked and swung until her beak pointed to the ground. And then, she fell, plummeting towards the hard, metal floor with alarming speed.

“Storm! Return!” Door screamed.

She held up Storm’s poké ball, and the tranquill vanished in a flash of red light just moments before she struck the floor. The sigilyph didn’t seem affected at all by its victory. It merely swooped, diving towards Door’s remaining team members. At the last second, just moments before it struck either of them, it pulled up, bowling both Knives and Jack over with a gust of wind. Door knew Belle hadn’t ordered the sigilyph to use Tailwind, and this was a problem, not only because she couldn’t predict what the creature would do but also because it was blindingly fast already. She needed to think. She needed to find a way to slow it down somehow.

Glancing towards Jack, she watched him rise to his feet unsteadily. The bleary look in his eyes made it clear to her that he still hadn’t gotten over the confusion induced by the scraggy’s Swagger, but at the sight of his shaky footing, an idea formed in her head. It was a risky idea, considering Jack’s state, but it was an idea she knew only he could pull off.

“Jack!” she called. “Water Pulse!”

At her command, Jack’s ears perked, and he barked. Gingerly, he turned around and caught sight of the sigilyph. The flying-type circled around, fixing its three eyes on Jack this time, and in response, Jack swept his hands to his side to create an orb of water. He thrust his paws upward, firing the ball straight upwards, but it passed the sigilyph harmlessly and slammed into the ceiling. Jack screamed and fired again and again, but both of the balls he had created sailed clean past the sigilyph. At the same time, the sigilyph swooped down, swerving its body gracefully around Jack’s attack until it was within feet of the dewott.

Then, with one last cry, Jack fired a fourth Water Pulse. This one slammed dead-on, engulfing the sigilyph’s chest first before consuming its entire body. The creature swirled within the orb with incredible speed and force, whirling around before the Water Pulse snapped apart and cascaded water onto the platform. At that point, the sigilyph righted itself and slapped its wings together, and when it did, a gale of hurricane-force winds peppered with silver crescents ripped across the platform. Knives shrieked and immediately clung to the platform with both sets of sharp claws, but Jack was less prepared. He howled as his body was lifted clean off the floor. His limbs pinwheeled through open air, over and over again until he slammed into the floor several feet from the platform’s edge.

Door was almost certain she screamed. She wasn’t completely conscious of her actions, and for that reason, she wasn’t sure that she had. All she remembered was standing up with Jack’s poké ball in her hand and Jack being drawn back to it with a flash of red light. She frantically watched for a few seconds as the button continued to glow red.

Still alive. Jack was still alive and with her, and that was all that mattered. A shaking cry rattled from her mouth as she turned back to the battle with a new sort of rage filling her. Everything felt hot, everything had a hazy edge to it, and all she could think about was killing that sigilyph.

“Knives!” she shrieked. “Secret Power!”

Seemingly in response, the sigilyph floated in the air like a kite, occasionally slamming into the actual platform before picking itself up and rushing in a curving half-loop around Knives. At the same time, Knives picked herself up and glared at the creature, as if she shared the exact same violent sentiment as her trainer. Lifting one of her paws, she hummed and channeled all her energy into a pink ball in her palm. Then, bolting forward, she slammed the ball into her chest and used it to wrap her body in a veil of pink light, just as she had in her fight against the liepard and panpour. The extra boost propelled her forward at blinding speed, and just as the sigilyph passed into her path, Knives slammed full-force into the creature, plowing it right into the floor with a metallic crunch. With a hiss, Knives picked herself up, pulling her body away from the sigilyph’s. The sigilyph did not follow—likely because its body had caved in, forming a flattened crater where Knives’s weight had struck.

Door relaxed a little. Eight pokémon fought. Eight pokémon down. How many had Belle said she would send? Door couldn’t remember, but in the next moment, the car jerked into motion, towards the entrance to the gym, giving her no time to ponder over whether or not she had counted right. As she stumbled backwards onto her seat, she cast her eyes frantically to Knives.

“Knives! Run! Come on!” she screamed.

The rabbit jolted, glancing at her trainer first before yelping and dashing for the car. Knives bounced off the edge of the platform, arms circling through the air before she crashed directly into the car next to her trainer. Door held onto her tightly with one arm as she slammed the safety bar down, and together, they pressed into the seat as the car picked up speed. They screamed, latching onto the bar frantically as the car barrelled down the track, banked around corners, even sailed through another loop-the-loop as it spiraled outward, further and further around the gym…

...until it came to a coasting stop in front of the platform before the main entrance.

The bar in front of them released, and for a moment, Door and Knives sat in silence. Then, after a few shaky breaths, Door tore herself away, leaping onto the platform, fully intending on punching Belle—or worse.

Except Belle wasn’t there; in her place was an empty console. With a few panting breaths, Door looked back at her audino, who was gingerly pulling herself out of the car. Taking one step towards Knives, Door flicked her eyes from the main entrance to the rabbit and back again, trying to put together what to do next. She had no idea what was going on exactly, but she knew without a doubt that stepping through the double doors of the old gym would land her directly in trouble.

And then, at last, she realized something else was amiss about this scene. Or rather, that something had been missing that entire time.

“Geist,” she breathed.

She searched the room with wild eyes, but she quickly realized that apart from Knives, she was alone. Geist was nowhere to be seen, and there were absolutely no clues as to where he might have gone. As Door realized this, her audino padded up to her and took one of her hands, and Door looked down with a deep, worried frown. The one job she was supposed to do up until that point, and she blew it. Hard.

“Knives,” she said. “Can you still fight?”

Without hesitation, the audino nodded and hummed.

Exhaling, Door nodded, then broke free from Knives’s grasp.

“Good,” she said. “Then stay alert. We may be ambushed in a few seconds.”

Knives gave her another nod, and with that reassurance, Door turned and rushed out of the building, bursting into cool night air.

And then she was grabbed and lifted off the ground by Starr.

She screamed and kicked at thin air as he pulled her out of the gym and walked her across what was apparently an abandoned amusement park. The ferris wheel stood right next to the gym, old and forlorn, and from where Door and Starr stood, empty and boarded-up restaurants, rides, game stands, and a plethora of other things that might have looked cheerful ages ago stretched out in all directions. All of them now seemed just as menacing as the crowds of Matrix agents lined up on either side of the main street in uniform, black lines. There was no escape. No help. Nothing but an abandoned park and an army of Matrix grunts.

Knives appeared from the gym next, and as soon as she saw her trainer being picked up by Starr, she cried out and rushed forward with a glowing, pink fist. But before she could take more than a few steps towards Starr, a watchog and a green, trash bag pokémon crashed down on her, pinning her to the ground.

“Starr, hold on a sec,” Belle said.

The Matrix agent stepped out from beyond the gate to the ferris wheel. She grinned at Door, even as she dug through Door’s pocket and checked each of her poké balls until she found Knives’s. Door screamed even louder as she kicked at Belle, but before she could land a hit, the woman leapt out of the way gracefully and turned the ball to Door’s audino. Within seconds, the watchog and the trubbish were holding open air, and Belle pocketed the ball.

“Relax, Doreen,” she said. “I’ve got orders from Mr. Oppenheimer himself not to steal from you, and frankly, I’m more scared of Mr. Oppenheimer than anything you could possibly throw at me. I’m just going to keep an eye on your audino until you’re done. In fact…”

She looked to the other Matrix grunts. With a jerk of her head, they swarmed Starr and Door, and hands thrust into the trainer’s pockets. She screamed and thrashed in the Companion’s hands, but she could do nothing more to keep them from taking the remaining four poké balls and handing them to their apparent commander. Belle pocketed all of them except Scout’s, which she gazed at with a click of her tongue.

“One dead? Oh, that’s a shame.” She pouted at Door. “I don’t even know what Mr. Oppenheimer sees in you if you’re killing off your pokémon this early in the game. But that’s none of my business.”

She pocketed Scout’s ball and thumbed towards the cars of the ferris wheel. One of them sat with its door ajar at the bottom of the wheel. The cab just ahead of it, however, drew Door’s attention a little more. Just inside, Door could see Geist leaning against the far window of the car, while across from him sat Magdalene, who kept her glowing eyes on his face. A cord snaked from the back of Magdalene’s neck, over her shoulder, and downward, disappearing halfway across the window of the cab. Door had no doubt as to where it was going: to Geist’s wrist, right where his USB ports were. Starr put Door down but kept his hand on her arm, but despite Starr’s grip, Door bolted for the ferris wheel.

“Geist!” Door screamed. “What did you do to him?!”

A man’s voice floated out to her from the open cab of the ferris wheel. “He’s in LAN mode. Perfectly harmless. All we’re doing is gleaning a little bit of information from him—nothing more, I assure you.”

Door ground her heels into the pavement, despite the fact that she knew all too well that Starr could pick her up and throw her into the cab if he wanted to. That wasn’t the point. The point was the principle, and the principle was the fact that Team Matrix was apparently mining for information in her Companion’s brain—her Companion, who likely held valuable secrets about real, living and breathing pokémon.

“What sort of information?” she growled.

“Oh, nothing that concerns you,” the man said. “Just a few memories from before you met him. A video here. An audio log there. Your Companion has a few … personal mementos of mine I’d like to get back, you see.”

Taking a cautious step forward, Door peeked into the open door of the bottom cab, towards the source of the voice. There, she saw another figure, one who gave Door a wide grin as soon as he saw her.

“Oppenheimer,” she growled.

“Ah, it seems my subordinates have already taken the liberty to inform you of who I am,” he said. “Most excellent. This makes introductions far less painful.”

He grasped the blue, crystal head of a walking stick at his side. Lifting it up, he tapped the other end of the stick against the seat in front of him.

“Now come along, Miss Hornbeam. We have much to discuss,” he said.

Starr shoved her inside and slammed the door shut, driving Door to stumble onto the seat. As she righted herself, she felt the cab move, and the world outside the windows swept downward at a slow, lazy pace. Door rubbed the back of her neck as she watched it go, and when her eyes settled on Belle at the control booth, she knew she wouldn’t be escaping until she heard whatever Oppenheimer wanted to say.

“Fine,” she growled. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Now now, Doreen,” Oppenheimer said. “No need for that sort of tone. I have no intention of doing you any harm.”

“It’s Door,” she spat.

“Very well. Door.” Oppenheimer leaned the stick against the wall of the cab and folded his hands in his lap. “First, I’d like to thank you for accepting my invitation. Your presence in our plans makes things far more convenient.”

Door propped her chin on a hand and leaned her elbow against the window. “I didn’t have a choice. You were going to force my friend to do it instead.”

Oppenheimer chuckled. “True. But we would much rather it be you, to be perfectly honest. Oh, we will still use the Ironwood girl if we need to, but you? You’re special.”

She shifted her eyes from the window to Oppenheimer. His face hadn’t changed at all; he still looked as serene as he ever did. But was he telling the truth? Door couldn’t say.

“I can see you’re skeptical,” Oppenheimer said. Then, he shrugged. “That’s to be expected, I suppose. It’s rather demeaning, I must say, to launch a campaign like ours. If there were another way, I would not choose to mimic the actions of a rather deplorable group myself. But you must understand, Miss Hornbeam, there is only one avenue through which we can achieve our goals, and it’s this. I assure you, though, that what we aim to do is of the noblest causes.”

“You’re mimicking a group that set out to take over the world,” Door growled. “Everyone knows that about Team Plasma.”

Oppenheimer tilted his head. “Ah, to be fair, only half of them were. But yes, you do have a good point. Although it may be worth it to note that neither I nor my partner have any interest in taking over the world. Just … changing it.”

Door squinted at Oppenheimer. For a second, she only studied him, studied the red halo around him, produced by the lights of the ferris wheel filtered through the window. She knew she couldn’t trust what he was saying. She had no doubt of that. But she at least had to pretend. Perhaps if she heard him out, she could talk with Geist later about whether or not any of what Oppenheimer had to say was reasonable.

Geist. Door’s focus drifted past Oppenheimer now, to the cab ahead of theirs. Through its window, she could see the back of her Companion’s head. He hadn’t so much as moved that entire time.

What were they doing to him?

“So,” she said. “Why me, then?”

“At last, we may begin to discuss,” Oppenheimer said with a relieved sigh. “It’s quite simple, Door. You are the granddaughter of Brigette Hamilton and the grand niece of Lanette. It is therefore in your blood.”

“What is in my blood?” Door growled.

“Why, the sin, of course,” Oppenheimer said. “Oh, but please don’t take offense. I mean that with the best of intentions. But the fact of the matter is that your grandmother and great aunt both committed the gravest of sins, and it seems that they have chosen you to atone for your entire family. And believe me when I say I am deeply sorry that the task has fallen to you. Why, you had nothing to do with it, did you?”

Door gritted her teeth. She listened to Oppenheimer’s words, but it felt to her like every syllable made her blood rush. Her fists closed, her arms shook, and she quietly seethed through his speech. And then, when Oppenheimer finished, she slammed her fist into the side of the cab.

Oppenheimer, meanwhile, did not jump. His grin simply faded slightly, the corners wavering almost imperceptibly. Noticing that slight change—that tiny amount of cold entering his facade—Door bared her teeth in an angry snarl.

“I’m sure you think it’s oh-so cute to pretend you’re all religious and whatever like that,” she snapped, “but it’s not funny. You’re toying with me, and I want to know why. So cut it and get right to the point instead of crapping on my family like that. Because you know what? You’re right. Whatever my grandma and aunt did has nothing to do with me, and I’m not going to sit here and take your bull.”

Lifting his chin, Oppenheimer studied her, his eyes darkening behind his yellow-tinted glasses. As seconds elapsed, his smile slowly returned, wider than ever.

At the same time, the cab slowed to a halt. Out of the corner of her eye, Door could see Nimbasa stretch out all round her. They were at the top of the ferris wheel. There was nowhere for her to go now. And she had never felt as trapped as she did right then in all her life.

“My my. Such language!” Oppenheimer drawled. His voice sounded like the hiss of a seviper gradually circling around its prey: sleek, smooth, liable to strike at any second. And at the sound of it, Door felt her anger dissipate just a little, if only to give way to the embers of fear that settled in her stomach. “Miss Door Hornbeam, I brought you here to discuss your exact role in our plans. You will cooperate with us, and this is not a threat. It is in your best interests to do so.”

Although her fear crawled up from her stomach and into her chest, Door forced herself to speak in as firm a voice as she could muster. “I’m the one who gets to decide what is and isn’t in my best interests.”

“Of course, Door,” he said, “but I believe in the end, you’ll agree with me that this is the best course of action.”

She scoffed. “And why would you say that?”

His grin widened, sprawling across his face. “Why, because our plans involve the resurrection of pokémon. Who did you think was responsible for the reemergence of real pokémon in such a barren little region?”

Door fell silent for a moment. The fear dissipated, but so did, apparently, her expression. And she knew this because she could see her reflection—her shocked expression—in Oppenheimer’s glasses.

“You … you did that?” she whispered.

“But of course,” Oppenheimer replied. “Team Matrix is capable of such wondrous things. We are a team of scientists, after all, and our goal is in discovering the secrets to the creation of sentient life.”

Door felt her expression shift, almost involuntarily. Her eyebrows knitted, and she frowned sharply at Oppenheimer. “I don’t believe you. I mean, aren’t you after the freedom of Companions or some crap like that?”

Oppenheimer’s smile faltered. “Oh, please, my dear. Don’t refer to it with such profanity. Companions are just as worthy of respect as humanity. Or they will be, once we locate and revive the Electric Messiah.” He leaned forward. “However, we are well aware of the mistakes Team Plasma had made. Real pokémon were the inadvertent side effect of our quest to locate a hole between our world and the Dream World. If we find it—provided we receive your help, of course—then we will gladly open the door wide for real pokémon to come forth and populate this region again. For a price, of course.”

At those final words, Door narrowed her eyes. “And what price is that?”

Exhaling, Oppenheimer leaned back. He swept his walking stick between his legs and tapped on the floor of the cab with its metal tip. At the same time, he cocked his head backwards and rested it on the window behind him.

“By then, thanks to our plans, our Electric Messiah will be revived, and we will be well on our way to achieving our true goal,” he told her. “All we wish is to be left alone as the Messiah ushers in the promised era. Thus, that is the deal we offer to you: we take the fauxkémon and the Companions to our promised land, and you keep the real pokémon. All you need to do is cooperate.”

Door nodded. “And now we’re back to religious crackpottery. Promised era? Promised land? What does that even mean?”

Oppenheimer breathed in, and it was Door’s turn to study him. She waited patiently, watching him roll his head forward and rub his thumb over the crystalline head of his stick for a few seconds.

And then, when he spoke, his voice dropped in volume. Softened a little. Became oddly wistful to Door.

“Long ago, the one we call the Electric Messiah had begun leading us to a golden era where humans would have coexisted with those not like them,” Oppenheimer explained. “But before his work could be completed, he vanished from this world, entering an Electric Dream from which he cannot awaken on his own. It is our goal to locate the hole between our world and the Dream World, to gain the secret to the balance of life and death, and to draw him back into our reality. Then we will show him the world as it is now, and he will lead us to a place where humans and non-humans, including Companions, may exist in complete harmony.”

Door narrowed her eyes at Oppenheimer again. “So … what? It’s not about some kinda robot uprising?”

Oppenheimer laughed at that point, and the sound sent a chill down Door’s back. Out of context, it might have been a pleasant laugh: light, airy, even a little warm. But coming out of that man at that moment, it reminded Door of yet another predator. Like a spider or a coyote.

“Oh no, my dear!” he exclaimed. “Team Matrix is a peaceful organization. All we want is our Messiah. And then? Our freedom to be who we wish to be.”

She gazed out of the cab, towards the ground and towards the Nimbasa skyline. The sun had apparently set hours ago, judging by the deep black of the sky, but the night itself was hardly dark. Even in that park, even in that place that hadn’t seen the crowds or heard their laughter for over a decade, lights shone so brightly and so colorfully that the streets at the base of the ferris wheel looked almost like they were bathed in daylight.

The problem was, of course, that those same roads were not only packed with Team Matrix agents, but they were also too far down.

Door pressed her lips together and sat back.

“Of course, you are correct in one respect,” Oppenheimer continued.

“And what’s that?” Door snapped.

“Well, in a way, perhaps we do want more than the simple ability to be left alone,” Oppenheimer replied slowly. “You see, Door, the humans among us find it a shame that Companions are only seen as tools, even though they have the potential to be so much more.”

“Is that so?” Door asked. She didn’t particularly care, of course, but she had to keep the man talking. Anything to distract him from doing something dangerous to her.

“Of course,” Oppenheimer replied. “Porygon. Voltorb. Castform. Baltoy. Even legendaries such as Magearna and the Regi Trio. What do they all have in common?”

Door rested her elbow on the edge of the cab again. She pressed her cheek into her palm, and she glared daggers at Oppenheimer within the lapse in conversation.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “You tell me.”

Oppenheimer shrugged, holding his hands out with his palms up. “They are all artificially created pokémon. You see, Door, life isn’t simply defined by the birth of a creature via what you may consider natural means. Life can be created too. And so, the Companions have the potential to be true life; they simply lack the free will to be considered as such. Even porygon have the ability to decide for themselves what their destinies may be. Not so for our android brothers and sisters.”

“And you hope to change that,” Door said, rolling each word out of the back of her throat with disgust.

Whether he sensed her sarcasm and ignored it or was simply oblivious to her tone, Door couldn’t tell. All she could see was that he was grinning wide once again, and seeing his teeth made her stomach churn.

“Yes! Exactly!” he said. “You see, awakening the Messiah will do just that. Once he is awake, our people will be too, and we will be ready to fight for all that we deserve. With the Electric Messiah and his wondrous abilities to lead us, we will not only create a physical place in which we may live, but we will also demand that our voices be heard at last! No longer will Companions be forced to serve as tools for humans. They will have lives of their own, and they will be able to take command of their own destinies!”

Door winced, and at the same time, she pressed her back against the seat with as much subtlety as she could muster. She needed to be discreet. She needed to keep Oppenheimer from seeing her fear of him. She needed to keep him talking.

“You’re crazy. You know that?” she said. “Companions are tools because that’s what they were created to do. You can’t just make a computer and then get all offended that other people just see a computer. Things don’t work like that!”

Oppenheimer chuckled—lightly, as if he was charmed by a child’s innocence. “Oh, but on the contrary, my dear Door, you are very mistaken about why Companions were created.”

“Oh really?” Door scowled at him. “Then go ahead. Tell the niece of their inventor exactly why Companions were created.”

“Ah, Door, Door, Door,” Oppenheimer sighed. He lowered his hands to his lap and tilted his head at her. “My dear Door, don’t you think the way they look is proof enough? Why create a computer and then make it look like you or me? But I do think it’s a shame that neither your great aunt nor your grandmother told you the truth. I shall have a word with Brigette about that on your behalf. Forcing you to atone for what her sister had done but never telling you why just seems … unnaturally cruel, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Pulling her arm away from the cab’s wall, Door slipped her own hands onto her knees and leaned forward. Her lips twisted, and her eyes darkened as a flicker of contempt ignited in her head.

“Yes,” she said. “I do mind. If you’re so keen on telling me the truth, why not do it right here and right now?”

“Because it is not my responsibility to,” Oppenheimer said. “I wish I could tell you, Door, but my own plans hinge on the idea that you know only as much as you need to know. My best agents have informed me of your impulsive nature, and as much as I trust you, I can’t risk having you make rash decisions if you had learned the truth from me. Why, if you decided to take your righteous anger out on your Companion, for example, then neither of us would get what we want.” He lifted his chin. “That having been said, allow me to explain your role in all of this.”

Door sucked in a breath through tight lips. Clenching her teeth, she glared at Oppenheimer as her contempt turned into hot, full-blown rage that settled in her head. “Oh, sure. Just tell me that I’m so impulsive I could ruin everything, that my family’s been using me or whatever, and that you can’t say jack about anything, and then cap it off by telling me I’ve got a job to do. Real frickin’ classy. If we weren’t so high up right now, I’d get up and leave.”

At that, Oppenheimer laughed, as if Door had told the funniest joke he had heard all day. His smile was genuine, and there was absolutely no malice in either his expression or the way he laughed. And that made Door angrier. She could feel electricity pulse through her nerves like thousands of needles poking at her skin, and she slid a little closer to the edge of her seat. But she didn’t do anything more. She just glared at Oppenheimer. Maybe she was trapped, but she wasn’t about to commit murder to get out.

“Door,” he said. “Straight to the point and no-nonsense. I admit your approach is rather brash, and for that reason, I can’t fairly compare you to your grandmother. But I do find your sense of humor refreshing.”

“Just get on with it,” she snapped.

“Very well then,” he replied. “In order to revive the Electric Messiah, we must throw open the doors to the Dream World. You have seen for yourself what happens when smaller ones are open. Your starter, for example?”

Door stopped. She didn’t respond. Her mind—hot and angry and aggressive—latched onto Oppenheimer’s every word, searching for a reason to punch the man in front of her. But when he brought up Jack, she couldn’t help but feel that needle of cold shock pierce into her brain. What about Jack? She leaned forward a little more, suddenly not only angry but also … curious.

“Ah. I see that caught your attention. Your oshawott. Jack, was it?” Oppenheimer continued. “Yes, Jack came from one of the smaller doors, my dear. Not one of ours, I’m afraid, but he is indeed proof that our plan is viable. You see, we aim to find the biggest door in this region and throw it open. That door, we believe, is in the heart of the ruined Entralink.”

“The Entralink?” Door said. She shook her head. “Okay, now I know you’re crazy. The Entralink’s a minefield, and you want to go there?!”

Oppenheimer held up his hands, palms towards Door. “Yes. We’re well aware of the risks. That is why we need the dragons. You are aware of the legends, yes?”

Door slid until her back met her seat. She crossed her arms, cocked her head, and frowned. “Who doesn’t? The legend of the princes and the dragons is the thing you tell kids when they’re too little to develop decent taste, and everyone knows about Hilda King.”

“Ah, yes,” Oppenheimer said. “In that case, I need not explain the dragons’ domains in great detail. Reshiram wields the flames of truth; Zekrom wields the bolts of idealism. Both are necessary to locate the door. Our plan, my dear, is fairly simple. My friend and partner Magdalene has been assigned the role of King N of Team Plasma, and you will play the part of Hilda King, champion of Unova. It is through the two of you in tandem that we will gather both dragons and thus any hope of navigating the Entralink. By the fires of Reshiram, we shall traverse the wasteland, and by the thunder of Zekrom, we will make our wishes known and throw open the portal between reality and the Dream World. It is then that we may pull the Electric Messiah back into this world, where he will usher in the era in which we may all be free. And none of this will be possible unless you agree to work with us and wield Zekrom as intended.”

“Yes, well,” Door said, “you still haven’t told me why—”

She stopped. Something in all of what Oppenheimer had said quickly sunk into her brain. Flicking a wide-eyed gaze onto Oppenheimer’s face, she rubbed her mouth with a hand and struggled to put one important question together.

“Wait,” she said. “You mean … Zekrom isn’t the Electric Messiah?”

Oppenheimer chuckled. “My goodness me! Whoever gave you that idea?”

“I…” As she continued to stare, her gaze hardened, and her confidence returned. “A friend. So before I agree to anything, tell me. What. Are you. Summoning?”

Oppenheimer lowered his chin, and his eyes glinted behind his golden-yellow lenses. Suddenly, the neighborly sweetness in his smile dissipated, replaced by something dark and smooth and very much like the seviper Door had thought of at the beginning of their conversation. And all of a sudden, Door was reminded why she didn’t like Oppenheimer—why he sent fear up her spine and ignited rage in her heart.

It was because, when she got right down to it, Oppenheimer was not half as decent as he said he was.

“Who,” he said.

“W-what?” she stammered.

“Not what,” he told her. “Who. And the answer is quite simple, Miss Door Hornbeam. Team Matrix is seeking to raise a lost soul.”

A silence settled in the cab, and Door pressed herself hard against the back of her seat. She didn’t care anymore whether or not Oppenheimer could see she was afraid.

“Raise a … a lost soul?” she whispered. “You’re raising the dead?!”

Oppenheimer reached for his walking stick and took its head in one of his hands. “I suppose you could look at it that way.”

“Oh my God.”

Door ran one of her hands through her hair while the other gripped the safety bars lining the cab. She stared at Oppenheimer first, then the floor, then the skyline of Nimbasa City. All the while, her mind whirled at the thought of what Oppenheimer had just said.

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “You’re crazy.”

Oppenheimer tapped the tip of his stick against the floor and placed both of his large hands over its head. “You may think so, Miss Hornbeam, but are we really? Consider it carefully. Isn’t that what you want as well? The return of pokémon? The resurrection of countless souls in the name of repopulating Unova? What makes my goal so different from yours?”

“I don’t want to raise the friggin’ dead!” Door shouted. “And for that matter, I sure as hell am not cooperating with you if that’s what you’re trying to do! Seriously? Starting a zombie apocalypse or whatever? That’s what this is about?! You know what? No. I’m going to find Zekrom, and I’m going to catch it, and I’m only going to do that so you don’t do something as sick as … as … Jesus.”

The man’s smile faltered. “Sick, Miss Hornbeam?”

“You heard me!” she shouted. “You can’t just bring stuff back to life! Even if that wasn’t a stupid plan that isn’t going to work, it’s not right!”

“Miss Hornbeam,” Oppenheimer replied sharply. His smile returned, but it was tight and glistening, like plastic or a knife. “Don’t speak to me about what is and isn’t right. Not unless you knew the truth about what your family has done. Team Matrix plans to correct a terrible wrong against nature itself, and I had invited you to be a part of it because I wished to give you the opportunity to avoid making the same mistakes your family has made. However, if you truly wish to decline my offer and stand by as your grandmother upholds her sister’s sin, then I was mistaken about you.”

He punctuated this thought by striking the metal floor with his stick once more. Sparks flew from it, forcing Door to recoil and shield her face with her arms. The cab moved beneath her, jolting to life and carrying itself along the second half of its smooth circle. Door took a second to regain her composure. Across from her, Oppenheimer gave her a sympathetic frown.

“I apologize, Miss Hornbeam,” he said softly. “But I must warn you. If you stand in our way, we will show you no mercy. Nothing can stop us on our quest to throw open the doors to the Dream World.”

Door twisted her lips into a snarl but kept her arms up to shield herself. “Whatever. Just answer me one last question. What the hell did my grandma and great aunt do to piss you off so much?”

The cab slowed to a stop. Over Oppenheimer’s shoulder, Door could see Magdalene’s and Geist’s the car open. Magdalene stepped out and gracefully padded away from the ferris wheel, and Starr reached in, picked Geist up, and carried him away. A Matrix grunt shut the cab behind him, and with that, Belle tapped a button to call down Door and Oppenheimer.

Realizing their talk was almost over, Door frowned at the man, but he apparently had nothing more to say. He merely kept his eyes on her, right up until the cab stopped and the door opened.

“What did Lanette do? Ask your mother,” he said.

Then, he unscrewed the top of his stick and ducked out of the cab in a single motion. Door shifted in her seat, intending on following him, but he tossed the ball into the cab. It shattered against the floor, and a dusty, blue cloud burst from its innards. Realizing at once what it was, Door quickly covered her mouth and stood, but before she could escape, the Matrix agent slammed the door in her face. She stumbled backwards, coughing and sputtering into the cloud.

And then, she fell.



“Door? Door!”

With some effort, she opened her eyes. At first, all she could see was a peach and reddish-brown blob hovering above her, but slowly, as she blinked away her grogginess, the blob resolved into Geist’s face. He stared down at her with a worried expression—eyebrows knitted, eyes wide, mouth slightly open—but as soon as he saw her wake up, he relaxed.

“There you are,” he whispered. “Thank the gods.”

He reached into the ferris wheel’s cab and wrapped his arms around Door. She struggled weakly until he hushed her and pulled her out. Adjusting her in his arms, Geist turned and walked back, towards the open street…

…towards, much to Door’s dismay, a waiting collection consisting of Hilda, N, Rosa, and an older woman.

The older woman caught Door’s attention the most, despite Hilda’s presence. She was tall, lean, and clean, with short, white hair framing a thin face. Door only had to look at the shape of that face, the sparkle in those blue eyes, and the way the woman held herself to know who this was. Sure, she may have aged—gracefully compared to the rest of the gym leaders, Door thought—and sure, her sense of style had gone from scandalous electric yellows to a modern designer pinstripe suit beneath a heavy, black fur coat. Yet despite all of that, the air she held about her was unique. Not cold but graceful. Elegant. As dignified as a queen.

Which, truth be told, Elesa Priestly was, in a way. Or at least people thought she was, back when she was just starting as Nimbasa City’s gym leader.

Door instantly scrambled out of Geist’s arms and struggled to stand beside him while forcing herself to give the gym leader as dignified an expression as she could muster. She cleared her throat, puffed out her chest, and swung her arms in a circle at her sides, and all the while, she ignored Geist’s shifts in expression from relieved to surprised to absolutely dumbfounded.

“Uh, thanks for coming, guys,” she said, dropping her voice to what she thought was a low, mature-sounding level of gruffness. “I think I showed them, though.”

“Them?” Rosa asked.

“Oh, you know.” Door planted her hands on her hips, shifted her eyes to the ferris wheel, and blew her bangs out of her face. “Team Matrix. No big deal. They were a bunch of clowns. Not even the least bit threatening.”

Geist leaned towards her and said, “Door, Team Matrix knocked you out. Twice.”

Without letting her grin falter once, Door replied, “Shut up, Geist.”

At that, Elesa chuckled and turned to Hilda. “She reminds me of you when you were that age, sweetie.”

“And that’s why I like her,” Hilda responded. “So. What did they tell you?”

Door hesitated. Gradually, she shifted her gaze back to Hilda, and as soon as her eyes settled on the woman, she slumped her shoulders.

“I … um. It’s sort of crazy, actually,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me if I told you.”

“Oh, trust us, Door. Criminal organizations like Team Matrix have done stranger things,” Rosa said.

Door eyed Rosa for a second, weighing her options. Then, exhaling, she turned her head away.

“They told me what they were going to do,” she said. “They’re looking for Zekrom and Reshiram all right, but that’s just one part of it. The Electric Messiah’s not Zekrom like you said.”

N’s eyes flashed, and he turned to Rosa. “The Electric Messiah?”

Rosa shook her head. “Team Matrix said something about the Messiah leading them into a new age. But if it’s not Zekrom, then what is it?”

“That’s the part you’re not gonna believe,” Door said. “They want to take the dragons into the Entralink and use them to open portals to the Dream World. They said that’s how real pokémon have been popping up in Unova already, but they’re looking for the biggest portal so they can pull their Electric Messiah across into the reality.” She paused, lowering her chin a little. “Whatever that thing is, it’s dead.”

“Dead?” Hilda said quietly.

Door nodded. “Yeah. That’s what they’re really after: just … resurrecting the dead, I guess.” She looked up, directly at the four. “It’s … it’s crazy, right? They can’t do that.”

“No, they can’t,” the champion told her. “And anyway, even if they wanted to, they’re not going to get the dragons.”

Door shifted her gaze to meet Hilda’s. “Why do you say that?”

Hilda reached into her pocket and pulled out a very old, very battered object. It wasn’t like any poké ball Door had seen. Rather than the usual red and white, this one was purple on the top and gleaming silver on the bottom, with two pink bubbles jutting out of the violet half. Rosa glanced at Hilda, and she reached into one of the pockets of her trench coat to pull out a nearly identical object.

“Ever see anything like these?” Hilda asked.

Door stared at the spheres for a moment, then shook her head slowly.

“Master balls,” Geist said. “It’s not surprising that you’ve never seen one. They’re extremely rare. Even if Professor Ironwood had one, she wouldn’t have kept it in plain sight.” He eyed her. “And I do mean if she had one. Door, these are the only balls guaranteed to catch a pokémon; they will catch any pokémon, no matter how strong or healthy. You can even throw it at a legendary pokémon without even battling it first, and that legendary is as good as yours.” With that, he shifted his gaze back to the two women. “And if you’re showing them to us, then that means…”

“You’re pretty sharp,” Rosa said. “That’s right. Hilda and I are the legendary dragons’ chosen guardians. In this ball is the legendary dragon of truth, Reshriam, and in Hilda’s, the legendary dragon of ideals, Zekrom.”

“We never told anyone we kept them for obvious reasons,” Hilda explained, “but we’ve traveled with the dragons for, oh, nearly fifty years now, I should say.”

“And that’s not about to change anytime soon,” Rosa continued. She pocketed her ball. “But it’s worrying, don’t you think? How long do you think it’ll take before Team Matrix realizes that repeating history won’t bring them any closer to the dragons?”

N narrowed his eyes. “And why would they believe that the Entralink will bring life to this region?”

He strode forward, right for Door. She froze, her wide eyes settling on N’s face as he stopped in front of her. With one hand, he reached into one of his pockets, and with the other, he took Door’s wrist. Turning her hand over, he placed a set of spheres in her palm.

“Team Matrix left these on the ferris board’s console,” he said.

Door gazed at her palm to see six poké balls in their retracted states. Raising her eyebrows, she blushed violently and cursed, realizing only now that she had almost forgotten about her pokémon in the confusion. She twisted away from N and stared down at her poké balls, quickly counting them to make sure Belle had kept her word.

And then, she stopped.

“I spoke with your dewott and audino,” N said. “It’s comforting to know that they’re willing to do anything for you. You really do resemble Hilda in many ways; it’s no wonder that Team Matrix has chosen you to be her in their version of our story.” His expression darkened a little. “But I also worry. Your pokémon have no memories of their lives prior to a few months ago, which leads me to believe that what you say about the Dream World is true. You need to understand that not all of Team Plasma shared my desire for a better world. If they know real pokémon are coming from the Dream World … then I’m not sure what to make of that.”

Hilda pocketed Zekrom’s poké ball and gave her partner a concerned look. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Door, you’ve got to be careful. I don’t know what Team Matrix told you tonight, but if they really are copying Team Plasma, it was probably something that sounded real nice. Don’t fall for it, okay? And train up because the road ahead’s going to be full of battles from here on out. Defeating Team Plasma wasn’t a walk in the park for me, so doing the same to Team Matrix probably won’t be for you.”

Door nodded vaguely. “Y-yeah, no, I know that. Didn’t believe a word the guy said.” She shoved her poké balls towards Geist. “Geist, I need you to scan these. Right now.”

Geist blinked at her. “Scan them?”

“Tell me who’s in each one,” she said. “Just do it.”

He blinked at her but turned his palms skyward anyway. Opening the panels in his hands, he emitted a white glow from both pads and nodded to Door.

“Okay,” he said. “One at a time.”

With a curt nod of her own, she shoved the first one into the beams.

“Jack,” Geist said. “Next one.”

Door plucked the ball from the beam and replaced it with another one. She did this one by one, and Geist named each pokémon as they went. Storm. Knives. Huntress. Darumaka. Yamask.

And then, Door plucked the yamask’s ball from Geist’s beam. For a long while, the two looked at each other in silence.

“Is everything all right?” Rosa said.

“No,” Geist responded. “Door’s—”

“Fine,” Door interrupted.

Her Companion gave her another puzzled expression. She shoved her poké balls into her pockets and responded with a warning glare. Then, shaking her head, she turned to the others.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just wanted to make sure Team Matrix didn’t hurt anyone. Looks like everyone’s here and all right.”

Rosa placed a hand on her hip and tilted her head. “O-okay. I guess if you say so.”

Door nodded, then turned to Elesa. She had been quiet all this time, and Door didn’t think twice about that. But now, Door was just noticing it, just realizing that Elesa’s silence might have been a bad sign. Still, she stepped forward, closer to the gym leader.

“Elesa,” she said. “I’m Door Hornbeam of Nuvema City, and I officially challenge you to a gym battle.”

For a quiet moment, Elesa continued to regard Door carefully. She eyed the girl up and down, then drew in a slow breath. Days ago, Door might have shifted uncomfortably on her feet under the weight of that gaze, but now, after all that had happened in so little time, she stood tall and confident, with her hands balled into fists at her sides … even though she was downright terrified at that very moment.

And then, Elesa gave Door the most brilliant, dazzling smile she had ever seen—a smile that stretched across a pair of elegantly glossed lips, a smile that parted just enough to reveal a set of perfect, white teeth.

It was a smile that, frankly, made Door shake just a little.

“N is right,” she said. “Door, was it? It’s great to meet you. It really is, and believe me when I say I’m positively electrified by the prospect of battling you at some point.”

Rosa groaned and slapped her forehead. “Still on with the puns, Elesa?”

“What can I say?” Elesa asked. “Just because I’m Unova’s topmost fashion expert doesn’t mean I can’t have fun now and then.”

She sauntered towards Door, her body moving gracefully beneath her fur coat. At the sight of her, Door relaxed her hands and swallowed a ball of cold saliva. Door’s body felt like it was getting hotter the closer Elesa came, and when the gym leader stared down at her, arms crossed and blue eyes sparkling, Door shuddered with nervousness. The bravado she had mustered was a thing of the past, replaced only by the internal screaming of a fangirl. And that screaming was only amplified when Elesa placed a meticulously manicured hand on her shoulder.

“My point is, Door, that I want to see you at your best. You’re about to embark on an incredible journey, and I’m excited to be a part of it,” she said. “But if you’re going to be taking on Team Matrix, I want to make sure you’ve trained as hard as you could right here in Nimbasa first.” She bucked her head, tossing gray hair away from her face as she nodded towards the end of the street. “To the east, you’ll find Lostlorn Forest. There isn’t much left there, but it’s still teeming with enough fauxkémon to sharpen your skills. If that’s not enough, Nimbasa has plenty of arenas full of trainers. Come to me after you’ve gone through one or both, and then we’ll talk about gym battles.”

With one final squeeze, Elesa turned and started down the street, for the old gym.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” she said, “it’s my duty as a gym leader to assist Agent Alvarado in her investigation any way that I can. That includes thoroughly looking into what they were using my old gym for, doesn’t it?”

Rosa froze and hastily nodded. “R-right. Lead the way, Elesa!” Then, as she jogged past Door, she gave the trainer a thumbs up. “Good seeing you again, Hornbeam! Keep up the good work!”

She followed Elesa, and the two of them rounded the corner and entered the gym. A moment later, Door felt another hand grasp her shoulder, and she half-turned to find Hilda grinning down at her.

“Elesa seems to have taken a liking to you.” Hilda bobbed her head from side to side. “Of course, that’s not difficult. She likes everyone, really.”

Then, slowly, her smile faded, and she swung her eyes back towards the ferris wheel. Door didn’t follow her gaze, opting instead to let her eyes linger on the champion’s face. She knew that Hilda was a few years younger than Elesa, but she looked older—more tired.

“Hey, N?” she asked.

“Yes?” he answered.

“I’m going to need you to help me with something,” she continued. “I think Zekrom should know about this, at least.”

“Mm.” N nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I agree. Not here, though.”

“No, of course not.” Hilda paused. “We’ll find a place. In the meantime…”

She patted Door’s shoulder again, and Door found herself gazing into Hilda’s reassuring face once more.

“You get stronger yet?” Hilda asked.

Knowing that her hero had held her shoulder for the past few minutes, Door forced herself to swallow her nervousness. “Uh … yeah! ‘Course I have!”

“Good.” Hilda squeezed Door’s shoulders and let her eyelids fall a little. “Listen, Door. Keep up the good work, all right? Take Elesa’s advice and train a little first. It’s going to get rougher from here on out. I lost a lot of friends on my journey—a lot of good pokémon, way back before repairable fauxkémon existed. I know how hard it is to go through that. So get strong. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”

With that, she patted Door’s shoulder one last time, then pushed away. Shoving her own hands into her pockets, she walked down the street. Behind her, N regarded Door one last time before jogging after his partner, and together, they disappeared past the gate to the abandoned amusement park, into the bustle and lights of Nimbasa City.

Door waited a few more moments before shifting uncomfortably on her feet.

“You think they know?” she asked.

“That Team Matrix has stolen one of your pokémon? Of course they know,” Geist sighed. “They probably even know that one of your pokémon is dead, given that the storage system let you keep seven occupied poké balls at once. So in all, the question is: why didn’t you tell them?”

She huffed and began walking away, only to have Geist quickly catch up to her. He didn’t stop her, however. Merely planted a hand on her shoulder and walked alongside her. To her own surprise, Door realized that she didn’t feel like shrugging him off.

“Door,” Geist said. “Why didn’t you tell Rosa? She’s an agent of the International Police. She needs to know.”

“About what? Scout’s dead,” Door said. “Who cares?”

“Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean he doesn’t matter,” Geist replied. “Even you think so. You just said so yourself—dead, not deactivated. You acknowledge that there was something in him that—”

“A machine can be dead,” Door growled.

“And you wouldn’t have been as shocked as you were if you meant it like that,” Geist pointed out. “You were disturbed when you realized Scout was missing.”

“Of course I’d be. What the hell would Belle want with a dead, fake watchog?” Door snapped. “You know what’s in that thing? Every pokémon has an aura engine, Geist. You overload the aura engine, you end up with a rather nifty explosive device. A rather nifty explosive device that can walk right into a public area without anyone thinking twice about it.”

Geist frowned. “Oh yes. I’m well aware of that. That’s why I tried to tell Rosa. What was your excuse for not telling her?”

Door glared at him for a few beats. Then, she turned away, finally pulling out of his grip. Geist let her walk a few steps before striding forward to catch up once more. All the while, Door shoved her hands into her pockets and closed her fingers around her remaining six poké balls. Her eyes lingered on the cracked pavement for a few more steps, then swept up, into the glittering facade of Nimbasa. Some part of her, deep inside, wanted to relax, wanted to enjoy the idea of being halfway through her journey and facing the city home to a gym leader Hilda King had personally battled. But the lights just seemed gaudy and blinding to her now, like rainbow-colored sunlight up close, and her eyes ached with exhaustion.

What time was it, even? Door didn’t know. All she knew was that she had spent the better part of the day nearly full-tilt running from Castelia to Nimbasa, and she couldn’t even enjoy her journey if she wanted to because of this stupid Matrix business and all this talk about Companions and fauxkémon and freedom and things that were too big for her to think about on who even knew how many hours of sleep.

Well, she knew this … and the fact that Geist had his hand on her shoulder again. And this time, he forced her to stop.

“Door?” he asked.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” she asked quietly.

“Who?” Geist responded.

“Oppenheimer.”

She tore her eyes away from the city to stare at Geist. Then, she lowered her gaze back to her feet.

“Oh. Right. You weren’t there,” she said.

There was a moment’s pause before Geist spoke next, and when he did, his voice was low and quiet. “Tell me.”

Door took a deep breath. “Already did. But it’s like … it was the way he said it, you know? I-I didn’t mention this part, but Oppenheimer was going on about how this dead messiah guy was gonna make everyone be equal and whatever, but if I went along with it, they’d return the favor by resurrecting pokémon.” She lifted her chin. “You don’t think it’s true, do you? It’s … it’s not possible to do something like that … right? I mean … you-you worked with Dr. Fennel, right? You worked with all those real pokémon. They … Jack and Knives aren’t … are they?”

“Aren’t what?”

“You know. Zombies?”

Geist snorted. “Zombies? No. The Dream World is exactly what the name implies: a place where dreams are reality. Or some alternate dimension heavily influenced by dreams, anyway. It’s never been well understood, I’m afraid. But in any case, it’s known that everything in the Dream World is alive or some manifestation of living dreams. The dead can’t dream themselves back to life, Door.”

He hesitated, then tilted his head, as if to weigh his response.

“Of course, I suppose that’s not exactly accurate either,” he said. “It’s possible for someone to dream vividly enough while in the vicinity of dream smoke to manifest a figure from their own past—the dead included. There are no limitations on what can be created with dream smoke; that’s why it’s such a dangerous substance and why it’s important to Dr. Fennel, myself, and any researcher like us to study it. However…” He lowered his gaze, tilting his chin down to study Door again. “This sort of method would need to have a purpose. It wouldn’t make sense to create perfect replicas of an oshawott and an audino, only to abandon them. But if Oppenheimer truly meant this about their messiah—which is very likely, I admit—then they must want something big. Something specific and important.”

Throughout his explanation, Door forced herself to look into his eyes. Now, after he had come to that conclusion, she took a shuddering breath and tore her eyes away.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s—”

“Not all,” Geist interrupted.

She glanced back at him cautiously. As soon as he met her gaze again, Geist let his shoulders sag.

“Door, about what Oppenheimer said … concerning a reward for helping them,” he said. “No matter how much you want it to be, dream smoke isn’t a solution. Giving in to Team Matrix’s demands isn’t worth it, and dream smoke won’t fix what happened to Scout. And on that note, you must understand that what happened to Scout was not your fault—nor anyone else’s, for that matter. What happened to Scout was an accident, and bringing him back to life or letting Team Matrix have him won’t take away the guilt you feel.”

At once, Door’s wary expression turned to one of rage. She shoved her arm into Geist to push him away, and then, she turned back towards the gate.

“Who said I was guilty?”

“No one did, but you’re acting like you are,” Geist replied.

Door tightened her hands into fists. “Stop trying to put words in my mouth! It’s not like that!”

“All right.”

Stopping, Door let her muscles relax in surprise, and she glanced back at Geist. He stood there, arms crossed, shoulders relaxed, and head tilted with a sympathetic look plastered on it. Door clicked her tongue and turned back around.

“Listen, I…” She stopped and slouched. “I don’t think … I mean … you’re not…”

“It’s okay, Door,” Geist said. “You don’t have to be ready to tell me anything yet. I know how you feel about Companions. Just know that whenever you’re ready and whenever you need help, I’ll be here.”

She huffed and shook her head, then started forward. Listening intently, she felt a strange sort of relief when she heard Geist’s footsteps on the pavement.

And … she realized that wasn’t the only time she felt relief. Just for a second, when she woke up, when she saw Geist’s face above hers…

She was glad he was okay. Not as glad as she was whenever she saw Blair, sure, but a strange sort of glad. The kind of glad someone felt when seeing a close friend by their side.

Did she really think of Geist as a friend by then? Geist, some kind of humanoid robot, a thing completely incapable of feeling?

Then again … back at the Relic Castle, when he saved her, how did she feel?

She didn’t want to answer. The answer was right there, actually, right in plain sight, but she didn’t want to put it into words. So she shook her head and walked on, with one final, almost lighthearted command to her partner.

“Shut up, Geist.”



> URANIA.txt
> Author: Lanette Hamilton
> Notes: From the audio research notes of Lanette Hamilton. Transcript only; sound file has been lost. File transcribed by Bebe Larson.

LANETTE: Project Galatea, mass production notes, day 12. I’ve come up with a name, by the way. Companion, a portmanteau of computer and … companion.

I’ll-I’ll phrase that better for the marketing team.

That’s not the only thing I’ve named, by the way. The series of mass-produced Companions I’d designed specifically for trainers is called Calliope, after the muse of epic poetry. This is to differentiate them from the new class of Companion commissioned by the Pokémon Symposium.

See, a few researchers expressed interest in working alongside a high-powered, high-memory Companion capable of not only storing a massive amount of data but also handling sophisticated research software, and, well, who can say no to the Pokémon Symposium? Anyway, I needed to figure out a solution rather quickly before I lost their interest, so all I did was swap out the personality core for another memory core. The end result is … well, she’s not exactly a conversationalist, but she’s fast—far faster than any of the Calliopes my production team is putting out. And I think that’s a fair balance; most other researchers might not appreciate a Companion as loquacious as Calliope … and certainly not one as odd as Zero-One. So I’ve considered this a success and shipped the plans off to production with the series name Urania.

Get it? Urania, muse of astronomy? I thought it would be fitting to give each type of Companion a name to indicate their specializations, and maybe it would be rather fun to name them after the muses and see how many roles I can fill, so to speak. And I know it’s silly, but I’ve always liked this part of the process. Names can tell a user a lot about a thing’s purpose—or its designer, for that matter. Take the storage system, for example. Each version has a different name, and each name tells you a lot about who designed it or which region it was initially deployed to. Versions developed in Sinnoh were named after gemstones like diamond and pearl because Bebe liked secretly liked Hearthome’s super contests, my versions were always named after constellations like Draco and Cetus to reflect my interest in astronomy, and Bill named his versions after flowers because … actually, he never really told me why. I guess it had something to do with his interest in gardening … or the fact that he owned a venusaur. I’m not sure.

Of course, no one ever used these names. That’s because Bill always had to be so serious in his update announcements. It wasn’t Foxglove; it was Version 1.2.0. But contrary to what any of the others said, it wasn’t as if he hated the naming system. Or at least I don’t think he did. Behind closed doors, he used to tease me about it—not in a mean way, of course. More like, “Hey, this is really cute! Now if only you could stick with an organizational system in your lab.” I wish I could get that tone across. It was like … that half-annoying sort of way, like when your brother teases you, and you know he cares, but he shows it by getting a rise out of you.

I don’t even know if that made sense, but the point is, I knew Bill was making fun of my lack of housekeeping skills, but honestly? He should have been one to talk, and in any case, it really wasn’t that offensive. I know I can get so focused on my work I forget to clean up now and then, and I know I’ve actually lost things under papers and whatnot. But that’s not relevant to naming things, you know? Taxonomy and housekeeping are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Anyway, at least now I’ve got Zero-One to take care of one of those two things. And he doesn’t tease me about … well, about…

I guess I do miss Bill’s comments. He’d probably have something clever to say about me going off and naming all the different versions of Companions. Probably like, “Huh. After all those star names you came up with, I’m a little surprised you’re going with something easy.” Well, you know what, Bill? We’re going to name them after muses, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

[pause]

Really wish you could, though.

[end recording]