Electric Sheep

The Moor of Icirrus interlude is stellar. Like, seriously – it’s one of those bits where you toss details together to illuminate the huge yawning absence between and behind them, which is not necessarily the easiest thing in the world to pull off! But it works so damn well, particularly because that’s exactly what this passage is describing. Flashes of insight that momentarily light up the empty room of Geist’s past like bolts of lightning outside the window.

I think these past few updates, this fic has really started to feel like it’s found itself. Like I’ve always enjoyed reading it, but it seems like it’s (a) found what it wants to deal with and (b) found how it wants to do it. I don’t just mean that we’re finally getting answers, although we are – by the armful, it seems – but that, like, the language itself is richer and more compelling than at the start, as well. In the sense that you’ve honed your craft over the course of the past few years, sure, but also in the sense that you’ve figured out the way that you want to write this and done it. Which very often results in a more compelling product, I think.

Anyway! I am beyond delighted that someone in-universe can see through the obvious contradictions in Oppenheimer’s story. Nice one, Belle! It’s … been a really long time with nobody explicitly commenting on these things (though I can’t blame Door, since she’s a kid and also very much in the weeds on this one), and it was a surprise to have it finally happen – though now that it’s happened, I have to say, it would be Belle, wouldn’t it? She sees a lot of Oppenheimer’s bullshit, and she’s an adherent of the maxim that you should always seem a little stupider than you really are.

And obviously she’ll put up with it as long as she’s getting paid and her position is secure, but when she’s in danger of losing – well, everything, really, given that she doesn’t appear to have anything at all beyond her stolen murderbot and presumably a ready source of hair dye – the pretence goes completely out of the window. She hasn’t received that much screentime as like, a person, and not a snarky threshold guardian who will go to extreme lengths to engineer a suitable roadblock for the heroes to encounter on their journey. Sure, she had that one extra where it was heavily hinted that there was more to her, and that she could see straight through Oppenheimer, but that was a while back, and iirc it wasn’t too long, either, being an extra and all.

Moving on to Door: all those outer layers of confidence she used to armour herself with have been worn away by her journey now, haven’t they? All her doubts and anxieties are exposed, leaving her unable to move for the kindnesses she’s been shown, for the brunt other people have taken on her behalf. Takes her a moment to find the courage to try. But she does try! And she keeps trying, even when her friend breaks her wrist, and it’s her commitment to continuing, to keeping going, that finally fixes the problem.

Well, that and like, three magic dragons. But hey, thematically, Door was pivotal! :V

And more pieces fall into place with the audio log, too. Seems the plan both … did and didn’t work out, in the end. You can sort of see what was meant to happen – if you can call any of it ‘meant to’, given how all of this was a desperate attempt to figure out what to do next after a whole bunch of unanticipated and variously impossible things happened. It didn’t go very well, but like, I guess that’s to be expected, given how deep Bill is in his grief here – still, after a whole generation has passed. That’s what happens if you sit alone in a room with your thoughts for that long, I suppose.

Anyway, as you’re well aware, that kind of thing is just my cup of tea in fiction. :V This was great. Next time I definitely won’t leave it literally weeks before getting round to it!

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Door stared at the pad in her hands. She hadn’t moved from her seat for the past five minutes; she was transfixed. Her eyes were glued to the status screen sprawled across the pad’s glass surface. On the examination table in front of her, Pyro lay, his eyes blinking slowly every so often under the cracked face of his bulb. Either Belle went a little too hard in keeping Pyro from attacking his own trainer, or one of Geist’s fauxkémon managed to land a lucky hit. Regardless, Door knew one thing: she couldn’t keep training Pyro. She couldn’t risk it. Not again.

She slumped her shoulders and pressed her finger into the surface of the pad. There were options listed there: bulb replacement, application of epoxy to seal the crack, even removal of the bulb entirely and reinforcement of Pyro’s core. The Euterpe units rattled off to her all the benefits of each option, cheerfully describing how well and battle-ready Pyro would be once they were done with him. But Door tapped DECLINE on each one of them, then handed the pad back to the Euterpe still lingering by her side.

“Modify my lampent’s settings,” she said, her eyes on neither the Euterpe nor Pyro. “Set him up as a pet, please.”

“Of course,” the unit said. “I’ve also noticed you’ve declined all repair options—”

Door stood. “I know. Just … leave him as-is. I just want him recharged, okay?”

“Right away, Miss Hornbeam.”

Door winced at the sound of her name. “Right, uh. I want my seismitoad fully recharged too.”

“Okay. And your audino?”

Door hesitated, pressing her tongue against the back of her teeth for a second.

“Let her rest,” Door said. “I’ll … I’ll be back for her and the others later.”

She left the room before the Euterpe unit could say another word.



Door stared at Blair’s hands. Blair had grasped Door’s free hand gently with one of her own, while the other wrapped around the cast on Door’s wrist. Door had just told her about Pyro, and now? Now was the painful part. Now, she had to face sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” Blair said. “You … you don’t have to go out if you don’t want to.”

No, I want to, is what she wanted to say. No, I want to be anywhere but here. But if she did, then Blair would talk about looking for Geist, and Door didn’t want that either.

But then again, nobody gets everything they want, do they?

“We’ll find him, you know,” Blair said, thinking (of course) that this would be of any reassurance to Door. “He can’t go far. He wouldn’t try to go back. He wouldn’t abandon us like that. He’s got to be in Opelucid, and if he is, don’t worry. I’ll go out and look for him, and you stay here with Pyro and the others, okay?”

Door nodded, eyes still anywhere but on Blair’s face. She wanted to say a lot of things, but she also wanted to drop this conversation. She wanted to be alone, but not really, but she really didn’t want to be with Blair. She wanted a lot of things that she couldn’t quite put into words.

So she didn’t. She waited for Blair to give her wrist one last squeeze, for Blair to disappear around the bend just a few blocks away from the pokémon center, for the holocaster in her pocket to vibrate with a call.

That last thing didn’t happen. As Door walked the opposite way down the street, she pulled out her holocaster and held it, lifeless and still, in the palm of her hand. No calls from her parents. No calls from Amanita. Not even a call from Rosa or Geist. She didn’t know what she was expecting. For the adults in her life to just show up when she needed them? To drop everything and rush off to give her a hug and an eager ear and some sage advice? As if the adults in her life would do any such thing. No, Door could imagine exactly the way the actual conversation would go.

Door. You’re a young lady with responsibility. Act like it. Do this and go here and don’t question it. Be stronger and do as you’re told.

Door pictured those words in her mother’s voice over and over and over again, as her teeth set and her pace quickened. She was trying, wasn’t she? She was trying this time to do the right thing, but the right thing was stupid, and anyway, didn’t she have a right to know what she was really getting involved with? That the thing she was traveling with wasn’t a computer at all but a person who was probably lying to her that whole time about not being a person and that this whole thing was all over the fact that he was hiding in a robot and…

The holocaster in her hand sprang to life, but it wasn’t to receive a call. When Door caught up with her judgment, she found that in her distraction she had somehow navigated to her contacts list and started a call to her mother. She froze, holocaster held up to her face, heart beating with horror and anger and determination all at the same time.

Why didn’t she do it? Why not? Let the call go through and give her mother what for? Say, “Hey, it’s me. Your daughter. I’m in Opelucid, and my wrist is broken, and by the way, where do you get off not telling me about Bill?” And she would go from there, railing on her mother for never being there and for never telling her the truth about Companions. She would go off on her father for never taking responsibility and for making her be the adult, on Amanita for sending her on this quest, on her great aunt for leaving this whole mess in the first place, on her grandmother for letting it happen, and on Geist—on Bill—for…

“You’ve reached the personal number of Virginia Johnson,” her mother’s voicemail stated. “I’m not available at the moment. Please leave your name and number at the tone, and I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible.”

Her hologram vanished, and there was a chime, and Door stood silent, awkward and alone on a dark street.

“H-hey, Mom,” she said. “Just wanted to let you know I’m in Opelucid. I’m okay. Gonna take the gym challenge soon. Love you. Bye.”

She hung up. Stuck her holocaster in her pocket. Stood in silence for a few seconds. Then punched the air with her good hand.

“FUCK,” she screamed. She pivoted on one foot and slid onto a bus stop bench right next to her. Then, she buried her face in her hand and gasped out a sob. “Fuck’s sake.”

“Yikes. Where’d you learn language like that?”

Door started, then twisted in her seat to find Belle leaning over the bench, arms crossed and a concerned expression plastered across her face. Starr stood behind her with one metal arm exposed. He didn’t even acknowledge Door, let alone Belle’s concern.

“I hope it’s not from me,” Belle said. “Look, I’m a violent criminal, but I’d like to think I don’t go around corrupting the youths.”

For a second, Door narrowed her eyes at Belle, then turned away sharply. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Ooh, moody teenager act.” Belle jumped over the back of the bench and sat down next to Door. “Reminds me of my old days, back when I was a lot more angsty and rebellious. Hey, Starr! Remember the time we—”

“Why are you here?” Door growled.

“Whuh? Oh.” Belle smirked and leaned forward to look into Door’s face. “Just checkin’ in on my favorite charge. Thought you might like to know that Matrix spotted a rogue Companion messing up a lot of rufflet with a druddigon by the city’s north gate. You might want to do something about that. We’re leaving him alone until he stops throwing temper tantrums, but it can’t be good for the local wildlife.”

Door glared at Belle and propped her chin on her good hand. “Why are you really here?”

“What, a girl can’t drop in on whomever she wants, whenever she wants?” Belle reclined, draping her arms over the back of the bench. “I wasn’t lying, you know. Technically, I don’t have a mission right now except to make sure you stay out of trouble. Oppenheimer only cares about Bill right now, but he wants to make sure you’re still good enough to make the trek to the Entralink. He figures you can talk Bill into going too.”

“I don’t care about Bill,” Door snapped.

Belle pointed her closest index finger at Door. “See, that’s what I tried to tell Oppenheimer. ‘That girl’s already been through a lot. What makes you think just askin’ nicely will get her to finish the job?’ Anyway, there’s no point either way in doing anything at all to you or your girlfriend until Bill’s ready to go, so I’d figured I’d stop by. See how you’re doing after all that.”

“Why?”

Belle shrugged and looked away, and at that moment, Door paused. Belle didn’t look like Belle. That cocky, half-crazed smirk the girl usually had was gone, replaced by something … weary. And serious. And just a little sympathetic.

It pissed Door off, yet … it didn’t. Some part of her said that out of every single person in her life, from Blair to Amanita to Geist to her own parents, right here, right now, this person was the one who got it. It was as if Door just knew that if anyone understood how she felt or what she was about to say, it would be Belle.

And that was weird.

What was weirder, though, was what Belle said next.

“I mean,” she said, “you helped me save Starr, so I guess I owed you one.”

She and Door sat, side by side, in perfect, heavy silence for a few seconds. They didn’t even move, and as far as Door was concerned, they didn’t have to. Door didn’t want to anyway; she just wanted Belle’s words to hang in her head while she thought about them a little more. How could she find something human in Belle of all people? Didn’t Belle used to pull guns on her for fun?

But then again, how much did she know about Belle anyway?

This was weird. It was all weird.

“He’s fine, by the way,” Belle said. “Gonna need some dermal compound to cover up his arm, but honestly? That stuff’s aesthetic, and the metal arm looks a little badass, I gotta admit. What do you think, Starr?”

Starr gave Belle and Door a curt nod but said nothing at all. Belle smirked and jabbed a thumb at him.

“See? Perfectly fine,” Belle said. “Thank God, really. I’d heard stories about the LFA system and what it could do to a Companion caught in it. The conspiracy nuts all insisted that it can scramble a Companion’s AI and replace it with some other, alien one. Guess who, of course.”

Door looked at Belle blankly, just long enough to coax her into sighing heavily.

“LFA system,” Belle said. “La Fata Azzurra, aka Blue Fairy, the pretty fairy princess who turns Pinocchio into a real boy. It’s the system that’s supposed to let Bill plop himself into any Companion he wants, but of course, you can’t really do that without breaking a few metaphorical eggs along the way.”

“I … I didn’t ask,” Door said.

“You probably would eventually,” Belle replied.

Door didn’t know what to say to that. She merely gave Belle a strange look, then turned back to stare at the street ahead of her. For the first time, she saw people there: people walking on the sidewalk across the busy street, as if she and Belle didn’t even exist. Opelucid was a strange place, Door realized. It was a hive of people constructed from an awkward mix of soot-stained brick buildings and concrete-and-metal luxury condos jutting up at random intervals along the street. It was like old and new quietly warring for space, rendering the landscape a confusing mish-mash of time periods that spoke enough about the people in it: apathetic to change, welcome to gentrification, yet also stuck, glued to what was directly in front of them. The mom-and-pop corner stores would never go away, yet the crumbling building that once housed the families that once gave this neighborhood its soul, back when Hilda traversed it? Yesterday’s news.

Yet … Door envied this, just a little. She wanted this. She thought about the people before her again. What will the world look like after all this? What would her world look like? All of these people just kept on walking, past her, past Belle, past the old buildings and the new ones, heading right for home or the bodega or wherever else. She looked at their faces, saw the glowing eyes of a few Companions, bouncing alongside perfectly human users. They smiled. They listened. They recited shopping lists and directions. Not a single one of them knew about what had happened a few days ago. Their lives seemed so simple somehow. So put together.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Belle asked. “You’ve been kinda quiet since I sat down.”

Door looked at her lap—at the cast on her arm.

“Look, I get that this is a bad time,” Belle said. “I get that we’re supposed to be enemies, and I kinda did point a gun at you. I’m not gonna bullshit you and say that I didn’t enjoy it or that it’s just my job. I fucking enjoyed it, okay? I’m not asking for forgiveness in this story. But it stopped being fun when Oppenheimer made it clear he doesn’t give a shit about Companions like Starr. I’m just finishing up here, getting my money, and taking Starr as far away from this bullshit as possible. He doesn’t deserve whatever fucked up version of Companion utopia Oppenheimer and that freak show robot he’s got want to put together. Worst case scenario is he makes Companions think they’re free and happy, and honestly? I’d rather shoot myself right now than see Starr pull that kinda song and dance.”

There was something in what Belle said that piqued Door’s interest—the getting-up-and-going part. But Door didn’t want to admit that Belle was right about something. Never mind, well, the part about letting Belle know anything about her personal life. So instead, she said, “You sound like you care about your Companion a lot.”

“Course I do,” Belle replied. Then, she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, I’m gonna be real with you, kid. You really do remind me of myself when I was your age, and that pisses me off because—”

“You made a lot of mistakes between my age and now?” Door asked, her eyes sliding to Belle.

“No, because you’re richer than I ever was, so you can do whatever the fuck you want and get away with it,” Belle shot back. Then, she hesitated. “Don’t swear like I do, kid. It’s not good for you.” She waved a hand in the air. “Anyway, point is, you remind me of myself, so I’m going to give you the advice I wish I had when I was a kid. Life is hard. It’s gonna throw all kinds of bullshit at you. You’re going to work shitty jobs either because you’ve made bad decisions or in conjunction with making bad decisions. Usually both. And there will always be people who think they’re better than you telling you what to do and when to do it. But the real important thing is that not everyone’s an asshole. It’ll be hard sorting out the manipulative fuckheads who just want to play nice to get something out of you from the actual, genuine people who’ll be by your side no matter what, but when you figure out who’s who, don’t let go of the second type of person. Don’t fuck around with them either. If someone’s good to you for all the right reasons, be good to them.”

Door lifted her head and faced Belle. “Thanks, but I’m not going to look for Geist.”

“Never said you had to,” Belle replied. “I was just explaining to you why Starr means a lot to me. I’m not telling you specifics because those are personal and fuck that, but Starr—well, yeah, he’s been with me through a lot. Sure, he’s a military Companion kinda programmed to have no personality, but here’s the dirty secret: all Companions can learn how to give a damn about us. It’s what happens when you give something self-evolving AI and tell them that everything they do has to be done without hurting us. So I think there’s something in that big ol’ lughead than just information on how to shoot things, and sometimes, I feel like I’d get handed proof. I mean, he hasn’t shot me in the back yet.” Belle shrugged. “But hey, if it makes you feel any better, sure, think about it in terms of your own little posse. Pretty sure they’d die for you in a heartbeat and never ask questions about why either.”

Door frowned, glancing away for a second to look into the middle distance. She really didn’t know Belle all that well, did she? She didn’t know why Belle was saying all of this or where it was coming from, whether Belle was talking about herself or, like a lot of other adults, giving her advice in the most roundabout way possible. But she knew that regardless of what anyone said, she wouldn’t go after Geist. She couldn’t. It didn’t matter how much she knew that Belle was right and that he really would die for her in a heartbeat.

Or … would he? She knew Geist would, but what about Bill?

That. That was the entire trouble, wasn’t it?

Door felt Belle’s eyes on her and set that thought aside. Belle sighed and pushed a poké ball into Door’s hand.

“When I said you remind me of myself, I’m not saying I figured it out from watching you,” Belle said. “Matrix had a file on you because they knew you’d probably be the one to inherit Geist if they didn’t intervene. It was extensive, complete with a profile and everything. Sure, you might’ve been richer than me, but … single child? Lots of expectations heaped on you, and you don’t know why? It doesn’t take too much of a genius to figure out why you’re angsty and rebellious. You want to cut your losses and run with whatever you’ve got left, don’t you?”

“You don’t really know me,” Door said in a voice as icy as she could get it. “And I don’t need your charity, either.”

“You’re probably right; I probably don’t know you. Projection’s a hell of a thing, and you should never do it,” Belle admitted. “But I do know I’d be as pissed off and confused as you are right about now if I were in your shoes. So just think about what I said, okay?” Belle snorted. “As for charity … that’s not charity. You’re going up against a gym leader and then the Elite Four, and you’re doing it with only two or three good pokémon. You’re going to need help, so don’t be stupid.”

A bus pulled up then, hovering for a second in front of them before settling down on the pavement. Belle stood, then motioned for Starr to follow.

“Anyway, don’t wallow in self-loathing either,” Belle said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

She started for the bus, slowly, as passengers crawled out of it. Door shot a look at her, head rising from her hand.

“Hey, Belle?” she called.

Belle looked back at her, eyebrows raised.

“What’s in the Entralink?” Door asked.

At that, Belle smirked. Then silently boarded the bus with Starr and let it carry them away.



Door stared at the bowl of ramen in front of her. It was the third night that week she had sat down to ramen at that particular restaurant, and she knew she would be back the next night and the night after.

The conversation around her suddenly died down, and Door could feel eyes fall onto her.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Iris asked.

She wasn’t the only one who was staring. She could feel Nate and Hilbert—the owners of this place—stare at her from over the bar too. She didn’t like the feeling, so she clumsily grasped at her chopsticks and fumbled for another clump of noodles.

“Just thinking strategy,” she said quickly.

“Mmm.” Iris propped her elbow on the bar and gave Door a sympathetic look. Door could see this out of the corner of her eye, and she disliked it more than the neutral look Iris and the others had given her a moment ago. She didn’t want sympathy. The last thing she wanted was sympathy.

It had been four days since Iris, Blair, and Rosa had escorted her to Opelucid City. Four days since Door’s wrist had been put in a cast. Four days since Rosa’s interrogation. Four days since Geist had disappeared.

And three nights since Iris Drago had invited her to ramen at Nate’s Noodles.

That was literally what it was called. Nate Alvarado, twin brother of Rosa Alvarado, and Hilbert Baker, childhood friend of Hilda King, were both so close to glory themselves, were so close to becoming the champions and heroes of Unova. And yet there they were. Running a noodle shop in Opelucid. As one does.

Door wasn’t going to admit this, but there was something about that fate that struck her as … nice. You could be fighting against this world-ending evil. You could be the topmost trainer in all the land. Or you could get just good enough and then decide to do something else. Something quieter. Like make noodles with your life partner.

She would like that. Open up a restaurant somewhere else. Forget about Team Matrix and Geist and her family. Maybe she should change her name too. No more Hornbeam or Hamilton or anything else. Just … Door.

“You seem like you’re a million miles away,” Iris said. “Granted, you have since I met you, but you especially do now.”

Iris had been talking to Door every night. Paying for the ramen too, no matter how much Door tried to tell her she had the money. Eventually, Door simply gave up resisting Iris’s kindness, because when she got right down to it, all of them in that little restaurant were good company. Sure, Blair was good company, and so was, shockingly enough, Belle, but Iris, Nate, and Hilbert didn’t push her to open up or think about things. They simply put bowls of ramen in front of her and carried on conversations for her entertainment.

Presently, Iris sighed. “Guess you’ve had a long night as it is, huh? All right, Door. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”

She patted Door’s cast and turned back to the bar, behind which Hilbert was busy cleaning a set of glasses. Iris bucked her head at Hilbert with a stern frown.

“Why don’t you give Door one of your famous passion fruit iced teas? That’ll perk her up,” she said.

Hilbert smirked and immediately got to work, grabbing a glass from the wall behind him. Door bent her head over her ramen. She never had passion fruit before. Part of her was wondering what else she never really had a chance to do on her own, and that thought surprised her. But it was true, wasn’t it? In Nuvema, she didn’t really have the friends to go out all that often, and her dad certainly hadn’t taken her to many places or let her try exotic things. On this journey, she had been so busy making her way from one point to another that she didn’t really do anything so daring.

It would be nice to give that up. Run away. Start a noodle stand. Never have to think about Geist again.

“So, how’re the challengers today?” Hilbert asked.

Iris groaned and waved a hand in the air. “You know how they are these days. Half of the ones who get to me are too reliant on their Companions, and the other half are cocky tourists. I oughta talk to Odina and Ari. I have no idea what they’re teaching trainers these days, but there’s a difference between working together with your team and making them do all the work while you refuse to stick your head in the game for five seconds. I really worry about these kids, Bert.”

From the kitchen, Door could hear Nate’s loud, exasperated sigh, and a second later, she could see him sticking his head out into the main dining area.

“Hilbert!” he hissed. “Did you get her wound up again?!”

“C’mon, hon,” Hilbert shot back. “Iris is the gym leader. She needs to let off steam now and then too.” He placed a drink that looked entirely too yellow in front of Door. “Go on, Iris.”

Nate rolled his eyes and ducked back into the kitchen. “If she scares the customers again…!”

“Only people who’re getting scared away from this establishment are the ones who tried your kimchi mochi ice cream!” Iris snapped. “Anyway, where was I?”

“You were complaining about your latest batch of challengers,” Hilbert said helpfully.

“Right! So. As much as I love the enthusiasm for training, the fact of the matter is…”

Hilbert set a glass of some red-orange juice in front of Door, and Door tuned Iris out. She took a sip and dwelled on the bittersweet taste of passion fruit and black tea for a moment. Her eyes drifted to the glass, and her fingers stirred, twirling bobas and ice cubes around in a tiny vortex of tea and fruit. It wasn’t half bad. None of this was half bad.

She wasn’t angry at her father. Not really. She wasn’t angry at her mother or Amanita or any other adult in her life, either. She wasn’t even angry at Geist, despite the fact that he ran off and left her there, not to mention she knew now that he was the reason why she was getting dragged halfway across the region. She was just … tired. She had a broken wrist, more dead pokémon to her name than she really wanted for her first trainer’s journey, and that wasn’t even getting into the whole business of Team Matrix. If she was honest, she wasn’t even sure why Team Matrix wanted to mess with her specifically. Belle’s explanation was only a half-explanation, now that she thought about it.

Her lips closed around the straw, and she stared at a corner of the dining area. No, she knew why they wanted to mess with her. Or, more accurately, she knew the reason why they actually didn’t. They didn’t want to mess with her, just like they didn’t want to mess with Blair when they threatened to make her be the so-called chosen one. They wanted to mess with Geist, and anyone who just so happened to be anywhere near him just got swept up in it.

Except now. And that was because Bill was awake and didn’t want to go anywhere with anyone, and no one knew where he’d run off to anyway, which made everything seem pointless.

Everything was pointless. Her role in this was pointless. She was dragged almost all the way across a region for no reason, and now she was sitting next to a gym leader she barely wanted to fight, who was already complaining about people like her.

“Iris?” she said.

That stopped the talking dead where it was. Door could feel two pairs of eyes on her, and it only made her angrier.

“Why do you keep inviting me to these things?” she asked, her voice low but steady. “Especially if you hate your challengers, I mean.”

“I don’t hate my challengers,” Iris replied. Door could tell by her tone that she was smiling. “There’s promise in every one of them. It’s just that some of them need a little more than a good battle to be reminded of that promise.”

Door gripped the cold glass, her skin slipping on the condensation coating it. “Promise?”

“Of course,” Iris continued. “There’s a fire hidden in every trainer, but the way the league’s constructed, it’s easy to forget how to show that off. The whole point of letting you kids go around with robot partners isn’t to make your lives easier. It’s to inspire you to be more creative with what you’ve got. Advice from a Companion can be valuable, but it can be limiting if you don’t know what to ask for, and that’s the biggest thing I’m supposed to teach you as the eighth gym leader in the circuit.”

This was not what Door wanted to hear. She really didn’t care what Iris wanted to teach. She didn’t care about her journey anymore. It was all so pointless, thanks to this sidequest of whatever it was she was supposed to do.

Looking back on it, none of it made sense, did it? Geist didn’t need her to escort him to Striaton, especially since he just followed the safe routes. He didn’t need her to take him to Halcyon Labs in Castelia. He didn’t need her to battle in gyms and earn badges and gain and lose pokémon so quickly. It was all a joke, wasn’t it? Just another part of this fake journey that was just meant to copy someone else’s. And she never questioned it! Not once did she stop and think that any of this was fishy, did she? She was just having too much fun being a trainer in the better moments and being angry in the worse ones, and—

And then Iris spoke. “Okay.”

Door’s mind stopped. She glanced at Iris from out of the corner of her eye. Iris looked so much older than she did in her recordings of gym battles, and she certainly was older than the years she spent as first a champion and then as Champion Rosa’s foremost Elite Four member. She looked like somebody’s grandmother: tired and etched with wrinkles and wisdom. But really, what really did it, was the way she looked at Door right then: with the knowing smirk of an elder.

“You got me,” she said. “You should probably know the truth.”

Hilbert instantly flipped a glass onto the bar and started pouring cold sake into it. He didn’t look at Door.

“The truth is that Hilda asked me to look after you,” Iris continued. “She said you could use cheering up. She saw how shell-shocked you looked after what happened on the bridge, and when I told her it was your Companion leading the charge, she just … thought it might be best that I keep an eye on you. Apparently, you have a habit of wanting to quit. Can’t imagine where she got that from.”

It took a second for it to click with Door. N was in Mistralton, just after Door’s team was nearly decimated. Calem was in Icirrus. Even Hilda was in Nimbasa, just after Door had met Oppenheimer for the first time. They were all watching Door at her lowest, most confused moments. And Door felt a spark of anger rise in her. Was that it? Was it really Hilda who was pushing her along?

No. That didn’t make sense. So then why was Hilda asking for her friends to keep an eye on her?

Door wasn’t aware of whether or not she’d asked. She must have, as Iris answered her question a second later.

“You remind Hilda a lot of herself.” Iris lifted the glass of sake to her lips. “I’m not talking about herself during her training career, either. I’m talking about herself after, right when she set off to look for N. You see, she was faced with a dilemma just like yours.”

Did she find out her best friend was a ghost and that her entire journey had been a pointless string of failures and tragedies? Door didn’t ask this of course. She only softened her expression into a skeptical look as she kept her eyes on Iris.

“See, she found out at the end of her journey, right as she battled Team Plasma for the last time, that the whole thing was actually divided into two camps,” Iris explained. “One of them wanted to take over the world; the other actually believed in their cause.”

“Does any of this matter?” Door muttered into her tea.

“It does. I’m getting there,” Iris replied with a strained sort of patience. “Anyway, when Hilda found out N had been manipulated by his supposed father for most of his life, of course she set off to go find him. But, you know, she felt torn too. She never did challenge Alder for the throne. Did you know that?”

Door did. To say this fact was common knowledge might as well have been an understatement—practically the same as saying George Washington led the Continental Army on the back of his prized rapidash. Hilda King did not become champion the day she ended her first tour of Unova. No, she came back and defeated Rosa Alvarado while her badges were still good, nearly five years later, and she’s been undefeated ever since. But she never faced Alder.

Because, Door realized right then, never had time.

Iris nodded, as if knowing exactly what Door was thinking. “She went after N the moment Ghetsis was defeated, but really, she couldn’t do it even if she wasn’t going to look for him. How could she, when she’d just realized what she was fighting for all that time wasn’t even what she was actually fighting for?”

Door’s stomach began to sink. She knew where this was going. Her bound arm inched onto the bar, landing on the wood with a soft and tired thunk.

“What was she fighting for?” Door asked. It was the question she knew Iris was looking for.

“To prove that pokémon wanted to be with us,” Iris replied. “To tell N that they aren’t with us against their will, that we’re friends, and that training them isn’t wrong. I’ve heard it was one of these things, but the point is, Hilda had worked so hard to stand by what she knew was right, and then, she’s told that Team Plasma isn’t even about that. What’s worse, Ghetsis was using her just as much as he was using N. You need two heroes to awaken the dragons, and it’s a lot easier to take over the world if you have them both than if you just had one. Luckily for Ghetsis, one of the heroes was his own son, and the other was ticked off enough to walk right into the Plasma Castle, no questions asked.”

“Of course,” Hilbert said, leaning in, “that’s only half the story, Iris.”

“Mm.” Iris lifted the cup of sake to her lips. “I like the way you tell Hilda’s half better than the way I tell it.”

Hilbert smirked, then tilted his head to Door. “What Iris said is pretty true for Hilda, but Hilda knew it must have been worse for N. It’s one thing to fight hard for something you believe in for a full year, only to find out you were being used. It’s another thing entirely to be raised on those ideals all your life, then find out the same thing. That’s why Hilda took off in the end. She needed to find N so they could both heal together.”

“And now they’re back in Unova, trying to fix things that should’ve been history,” Iris said.

After a beat of silence, Hilbert pulled himself off the bar and started wiping it down. “Funny how things work.”

Door toyed with the straw in her drink for a second. She thought about Hilda and N, about how much she idolized Hilda and how weird it was to see her so often. She thought back to the day she’d met Hilda too. Did Hilda see herself in Door back then? Did she see some bright-eyed, idealistic kid with a set vision on what a pokémon journey was supposed to be? Did she know that Door was going to get caught up in a repeat of her journey, step for step?

No. She couldn’t have. No one could have known. But in that case, how could she have felt, watching Door over and over again? Door sipped in contemplation.

“Anyway,” Iris said, “Hilda asked me to keep an eye on you, and for good reason too. She’s hoping I’ll cheer you up and get you revved up for your next battle.”

“I can’t battle you,” Door said with her teeth around her straw. “My Companion ran off.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Iris replied. “So does that mean you’ll be battling me?”

Door shrugged. “What’s the point?”

Iris and Hilbert exchanged glances.

“Door, I think what Iris is trying to say,” Hilbert said, “is that we have an idea of what it must be like to be in your shoes.”

They really didn’t, but Door held her tongue. She didn’t have the energy to argue.

“That’s right,” Iris said. “And even though we don’t know each other well, any friend of Hilda’s is a friend of ours. So we’d like to give you a word of advice.”

She really didn’t want to hear it. She really didn’t. But she couldn’t bring herself to say anything, either. She just wanted to sit there and be left alone. She wanted to run away and start over somewhere else. She wanted to disappear, to melt into the bar, to crumble into dust and blow away in the gentle breeze of the air conditioner. She wanted … something. Some iota of freedom where people just stopped telling her what to do.

But she just sat there.

Maybe she wanted an out and was just waiting for it.

Maybe she just wanted someone to tell her what to do at that point, for someone to dig her tunnel to freedom.

“The truth is,” Iris said, “that just like those heroes fifty years ago—Red, Sapphire, Hilda, and so on and so on—you’re not really bound to be a hero. Sure, it might feel like you’re stuck in a story. Probably even Hilda’s at this rate. But really? You get to decide how that all ends.”

Door straightened up. Her teeth set briefly, and a flash of anger shot through her.

“I don’t get to decide,” Door growled.

“But you do!” Iris said. “Think about it. You could just walk away right now, sure.”

“And then they’ll come after me.”

“True.” Iris tapped her chin. “That’s not much of an option when you put it like that. So what is it that they want you to do?”

“I don’t know!” Door exploded. “I just know that I’m supposed to go to the Entralink with Geist. Why? I don’t know! It’s not like they actually tell me stuff. Why would they? I don’t actually matter to anyone, you know. I’m just here to deliver a Companion, and that’s it. That’s all anyone has ever wanted me to do. And I just did it because if I didn’t, they’d—”

“Go after you?” Iris said.

Door nodded slowly. Right then, it hit her. They were going to go after her anyway. Every step of the way, she thought she was being shepherded, but really, they didn’t have to do much pushing, did they? At any point, she could have done any number of other things, but she didn’t. She just followed the path she was supposed to … because she thought she was supposed to.

Iris wasn’t telling Door Hilda’s story so she could feel like someone else knew how she felt. She was telling Door Hilda’s story because Hilda didn’t want her to make the same mistakes.

Problem was that Hilda, as Door realized right then, was just like Door in another way: she could see problems but not that many solutions. And why would she, when she ran just as blindly into her own story?

So there she was. Door Hornbeam, indirect protégé of Hilda King, handed off to Iris and to Hilbert because Hilda knew that every other adult in Door’s life wouldn’t have the answers she was looking for. But an actual teacher and someone who wound up with his own happy ending, both of whom were practical strangers to Door? They just might.

“How do I get out?” Door asked.

“Simple,” Iris replied. “You start writing your own story.”

Door turned her head slowly. “How do I start doing that?”

Iris swirled her sake. “How that works is different for everyone. If you ask me, a good place to start would be to figure out what, exactly, you can do on your own. Knowing where your power actually lies—and being honest with yourself about what your potential is—you can’t really go anywhere if you don’t do either of these things. Understand?”

“Yeah.” Door nodded. “Yeah, I get it.”

She finished off her drink and stood up. Digging into her pocket, she pulled out her wallet. The truth was, despite all her insistence that she could pay, Door hadn’t earned much since the beginning of her journey. Or she did, but with a Companion, there was no reason for her to carry much cash herself. Still, she pulled out the thin stack of bills she was carrying—all of it, because this was going to be her first step of independence—and placed them on the bar next to her unfinished bowl of ramen.

“Thanks, Iris. I’ve gotta go,” she said.

Iris took the stack and pulled the first bill off it, then held it out to Door.

“You’re not going far if you give everything you’ve got away,” Iris said. “Relax. You’ve contributed enough. And you’re overpaying anyway.”

Door felt her face burn as she took the bill back. “Oh. Right.”

“So I take it I’ll be seeing you soon?” Iris asked.

“Yeah,” Door said. “Put me down for a real gym battle tomorrow morning. One way or another, I’ll be there.”

“Atta girl,” Iris said. “Good luck.”

And with one short nod, Door turned on her heel and walked out. The noodle shop idea was nice, but she had a story to finish. She knew that now.



Door stared at Opal.

She hadn’t expected to see anything unusual when she got back to her trainer’s dorm, yet there, sitting neatly on Blair’s bed with her hands in her lap, was Opal. As soon as Door walked into the room, Opal jumped to her feet and took a step closer.

“Miss Door! It’s good to see you,” she said.

Door’s eyes flicked to the bed, then back to Opal’s face. “Where’s Blair?”

“Miss Blair is still working on reuniting you with Series Alpha Zero-One,” Opal said.

Blair was still out there, looking for Geist. Fair enough. But one thing didn’t make sense, and that one thing was the fact that Blair’s only Companion—and therefore navigational tool, expense account, and probably means of communication with Door—was standing right in front of her.

“Then why are you here?” Door asked.

“Oh, that? I am here because Miss Blair gave me a special assignment.”

Opal extended her hands, palms out, pads facing Door. Door kept her eyes on Opal’s face. She couldn’t help it. Opal’s brightly lit eyes were scanning her as if she was a new user, and Door had more than a few questions.

“What new assignment?” Door asked.

The light in Opal’s eyes faded but didn’t recede completely. She kept her hands out, though—waiting for Door’s input, most likely.

“Miss Blair has asked me to guide you through the Opelucid Gym, then escort you to the rendezvous point at the Pokémon League,” Opal stated. “If you would, please present your holocaster so I may finish syncing your trainer’s account.”

Door did not do this. Her nose scrunched, and her mind stumbled to process Opal’s request. “Why is Blair going to the Pokémon League alone?”

“She isn’t,” Opal replied brightly. “Miss Blair is traveling with Series Alpha Zero-One as her temporary Companion.”

At that, Door choked on, then vomited up, her very next words.

“She what?!”



> MEMORY092447.txt
> AUTHOR: Cassius Cassine
> NOTES: Transcript of a video file recovered from Series Alpha Zero-One’s memory banks. Video is located in archive 20.

[INTERIOR, main hallway: BEBE LARSON’s residence. Shot lingers on a closed door. VO from a broadcast of the Jubilife News Network can be heard on the other side.]

JNN: —looking into what caused the mass blackout of thousands of Companions in Hearthome City this weekend. This is the fourth time Companions have experienced a mass blackout, with previous incidents occurring in Goldenrod City, Johto, back in July; Vermilion City, Kanto, this past October; and Slateport City, Hoenn, last month. Representatives from Halcyon Laboratories have claimed—

BRIGETTE HORNBEAM: Turn that off.

[Silence.]

BEBE LARSON: Fourth incident, Brigette. It hasn’t even been half a year yet.

HORNBEAM: We need to give him time. If we let him grieve in a healthy manner, he’ll eventually move on.

LARSON: At the cost of what?

HORNBEAM: Have patience and faith, Bebe. Bill’s always been sensitive. You know that.

LARSON: Euterpe units within a twenty-mile radius of him are going dark. He would want to know.

HORNBEAM: Keep your voice down.

LARSON: Or what?

HORNBEAM: Bebe. If we tell him, it will make the whole process even worse. We can’t just keep adding to what he’s going through.

LARSON: If we do nothing, he’s going to do permanent damage to the LFA system. He could kill someone, Brigette.

HORNBEAM: And if we tell him, we guarantee that he will.

LARSON: In case you haven’t noticed, your way isn’t working either. The more we shuffle him around, the worse it gets. Where is he supposed to go next? All of us live in cities surrounded by these things, and we can’t send him back to the Sea Cot—

[Camera quickly swings away from the door and moves quickly down the hall.]

LARSON: Shit.

[ A door opens. ]

HORNBEAM: Bill, wait! We can explain.

[Camera swings back around. HORNBEAM is now standing in the middle of the hall. LARSON is leaning out of the now open room.]

ZERO-ONE: You don’t have to. I know about the outages.

HORNBEAM: If you overheard us—

ZERO-ONE: Brigette, I mean this with all due respect, but what makes you think I hadn’t already figured it out? I’d had an idea since the first incident.

[Silence.]

ZERO-ONE: The outages. They’re triggered by … it’s because I’m connected to the LFA system, isn’t it?

HORNBEAM, nodding: Yes.

[Silence.]

ZERO-ONE: So what are your options? Do you have a plan?

[Silence. The camera pans around to face the front door at the head of the hallway.]

ZERO-ONE: Then this is my problem, not yours.

[END RECORDING.]

Poor Pyro not going to be used in battles anymore. At least this time it won't be in the same fate as Door's past Pokemon.

I also thought Door and Belle's interaction there was interesting. She's right on that figuring out who's genuine in helping you and who's taking advantage of you. Now I'm very curious over Belle and Starr's history.

Running a noddle shop instead of saving the world does sound nice. Hilbert and Nate living the dream. = P Iris and Door's conversation over taking control of your own story does sound a bit meta though I get why it went in that direction. I can also totally see Hilda not going against Alder to find N.

Oh boy Blair over having Geist as her temporary Compainion. This has potential to not end well oof.

All in all, thanks to all three of you for the kind words! Sorry it’s taken months to get back to this. Admittedly … there’s one more announcement after this next extra, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, please know I deeply appreciate all of this. <3

---

Blair found Geist exactly where Opal’s map had told her he’d be: right at the entrance of Desolate Gate, his new druddigon Vega by his side and Antares on his shoulder. A sawk several feet before him had just fallen to one knee the moment Toto stopped, and as Blair dismounted and started forward, her stoutland growled low. Geist’s shoulders shot up at the sound, and he looked over his shoulder for a brief second, then swept his hand to the side. Antares leapt off his shoulder and spun in the air, raining fire down onto the sawk as he went. By the time Antares landed on his master’s shoulder once more, the sawk had collapsed, burned and defeated.

“I know why you’re here,” Geist said. “I’m not going back, but I recommend that you do.”

“Why?” Blair asked.

Geist sighed and lowered his head. “This is my problem, not yours. Door needs to finish the League on her own terms, you need to support her, and I need to face Team Matrix on my own.”

Blair didn’t leave, but she didn’t know what to say, either. She thought of herself as smart—she’s certainly figured out a lot more on her own than Door has—but that didn’t help the fact that she was in the dark … even more so than Door. In fact, by the time she had gotten to Door and Geist on the Tubeline Bridge, there was an army of robots meandering back where they came from, Door had a broken wrist, both Oppenheimer and Geist were fleeing the scene, and Iris Drago was telling everyone that Belle was for some reason not the bad guy in all of this. It was like walking in on a party that had just finished, and somebody had just put a broom in her hands and told her to clean up.

She wasn’t angry. That was the thing about Blair. She didn’t get angry. Not really. Every time she thought she might, she took a deep breath, she let it out slowly, and she told herself over and over again that if the stories she liked to read taught her anything at all, it was that there was a logical reason why anyone did anything.

So it stood to reason that there was a logical meaning behind what Geist was doing now. She just had to find it.

“Why?” she asked again.

Geist started and made a sound like a word got caught in his throat for a second. “Whuh—why?! Blair. I’m only telling you this one more time. Go back to Opelucid.”

He turned around at that point and lifted a hand to his temple. Blair imagined that he was scanning the horizon for another pokémon to fight, but she couldn’t know what he was doing for sure. Maybe he was waiting for her to leave.

Well. Too bad, so sad for him. Blair pulled two poké balls from her pockets, and in the next moment, Wilbur and Alice were by her side. Alice swept forward, dream mist swirling around her as she rounded on Geist and his pokémon. Antares and Vega growled. The dragon leaned forward, claws flexing at her sides, and the monkey rose onto his hind paws, readying for a leap. Wilbur stomped forward to place himself between them and Blair. He cracked his knuckles and grunted. Geist, through all of this, shook his head with a sigh.

“I don’t want to fight you, you know,” he said.

“Door needs you,” Blair said. “Even if you don’t think you owe me an explanation, you owe her one.”

“I know I’m inconveniencing her by doing this, but just tell her she’ll have a chance to complete the Unova League without a Companion,” Geist said. “Just like Hilda King.”

Blair crossed her arms. “Wow. You know, now that you mention it, you two are perfect together. You’re both completely oblivious to things that are painfully obvious to everyone else.”

That got Geist to turn around. He looked at her with a mixture of anger, shock, and uncertainty, and for that brief second, Blair found herself surprised by this. She still wasn’t sure what to make of the whole story about Geist actually being the robotic shell for the supposedly dead scientist she had been researching for the past several months, but she was open to the idea. Largely because it made sense, didn’t it? Could any ordinary Companion tell her off the way he did, much less make that kind of face?

So forgive her if she smirked a little. She didn’t mean to. It was just so rare for her to get one—that is, to win a debate. To win a battle of the minds. To win, well, anything. Besides, the whole idea was exciting, wasn’t it? The Singularity itself, right in front of her! She had so many questions.

But no. No, those had to wait. She had a job to do, and she wasn’t going to fail this time. She might not have been able to stick with training or with trainer’s school or with a myriad of different other things, but this? For Door? This she could do.

“That’s right,” she said. “I didn’t say you owed Door an explanation because you’re her Companion. I said you owe her one because you’re her friend. She’s a mess now, you know that?”

Geist’s face shifted. It looked a little hurt now, a little helpless. Blair felt her heart melt at it, and she wanted to forgive Geist and tell him that it was fine, that they would wait for him, but no. She had to keep going.

“Her arm’s healing,” she said, “but she looks depressed again. It’s worse than the way she looked when you were in for those massive repairs. I get the feeling she thinks you’ve abandoned her.”

“I didn’t!” Geist protested. Then, after a moment’s thought, he stood straighter. “I don’t want to leave any of you and especially Door alone. Believe me. But until I figure out what I am and how to stop Team Matrix, I can’t go back, and I certainly can’t ask any of you to accompany me.”

“So you’re just going to make the decision to go on your own without even trying to ask us?” Blair asked.

“In a word … yes.”

He turned back around to face Alice and the wilderness beyond her. With a heavy sigh, he lifted his hand. Vega and Antares growled again, once more readying themselves to fight.

“Tell your pokémon to stand down. I don’t want to hurt them,” he said.

“Too bad,” Blair said.

“Blair,” Geist warned.

“No!” Blair dug her fingers into the sleeves of her coat. Then, with a huff, she narrowed her eyes at Geist’s back. “Opal?”

At once, her Companion was by her side. “Yes, Miss Blair?”

“I’m authorizing you to add a secondary account. Go back to the Main Square Pokémon Center in Opelucid City. You know our room number. Wait there for Door, add her as a user, and follow her instructions until she wins her last gym badge. Then escort her up to the Pokémon League. Geist and I will meet her there.”

Geist looked over his shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”

“Got all that?” Blair asked.

“Of course, Miss Blair.”

“Good. Now go.”

Blair could hear Opal’s boots crunching through the grass, but the rest of her focus was straight ahead. Geist turned towards her again, this time far angrier than he had been a moment ago. There was fire in his expression and no doubt venom forming on his tongue.

Good. She needed him to be mad at her for what she was about to do next. She drew out her final poké ball and aimed it at him.

“Geist,” she said. “I challenge you to a pokémon battle. If you win, I’ll leave you alone. If I win, you’re taking me to the Pokémon League.”

He regarded her with a lifted chin and narrowed eyes. “I suppose you’re deciding for me whether or not I accept.”

“No,” Blair said with a smile. Then, she tossed her poké ball into the air. “But I am telling you I’m not holding back, and it’s going to hurt if I hit you.”

With a flash of silver light, Blair’s final pokémon, her simisage Tarzan, dropped onto the field. He stood beside Wilbur, and the two of them regarded Geist and his pokémon with determination. Geist stared back, an eyebrow arched, until his expression shifted into a grin.

“Very well then,” he said. “Vega! Antares! Let’s go!”