Chapter 24: Tsunami

Chapter 24: Tsunami

“Eighty-nine bottles of milk on the wall… Eighty-nine bottles of miiiiillk.” As if Mathew’s normal singing was shaky enough, even he could tell that his own hoarse voice was in no condition to be doing this. And yet, the age-old tune must go on. “Take one down…pass it ‘round…ba-da-ba-ba bottles of milk on the wall.”

Then, a groggy Joey sang eighty-eight. After that, a surprisingly awake Jermy would sing eighty-seven. ORB would provide the closest approximation he had to song for eighty-six. Minichino, already looking like she was desperately trying not to pass out, would sing eighty-five with gusto. Chip would try way too hard on eighty-four. And finally, it would come back to Mathew for the magic number eighty-three.

This is what over six hours of non-stop walking through the night had done to them.

Of course, not everybody agreed in perpetuating this cycle. “Will you lot cut that stupid song out?!” Poliwrath exclaimed.

“I dunno…are we there yet?” Mathew grumbled. “This song keeps going…until we get there…or we die.”

“That’s kind of morbid.” Meowth had both of his paws firmly in his ears. Mathew was beginning to get the impression that he wasn’t a music fan in general.

“What did you do to a poor miltank to get that many milk bottles?” Mr. Persian asked.

The tired cubone groaned. “Damnit, Mr. Persian, you didn’t have to put that in my head…”

“Okay, seriously,” Breloom cut in, “What does that mean? I get that it’s a word from Earth, but context clues aren’t helping.”

ORB was quick to reply, rolling along with the rest of them. “Profanity. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Profanity is a socially offensive use of language, which may also be called cursing, cussing, swearing, or expletives—“

“The abridged version, please,” Chip said.

“Fine, be like that, then,” ORB retorted.

As ORB explained to the Solceans the intricacies of swearing, Mathew tuned it out, only giving attention to the others to perpetuate the extraction of milk bottles. The good news was that they were pretty close to their destination — thanks to ORB’s front glass acting as a decent flashlight, Mathew could make out the tall, pointed trees that the others had told him were the signature of Bylaide Forest. The bad news was that booming sounds kept echoing behind them. Storm clouds were rolling through the clear night sky, encroaching upon them all. Flashes of lightning and bangs of thunder sometimes interrupted their music.

“…that’s it, huh?” Breloom said. Mathew tuned into the conversation just as ORB finished explaining. “Well, I guess that makes sense. It sounds kind of like filter vocals in a song — it doesn’t mean anything, but if you don’t sing, it sounds weird, you know?”

Politoed seemed disinterested in all of their nonsense. “If you’re done with that… Everyone!” With his call and a wave of his hand, Politoed got everyone to stop moving and chatting. They never made it past seventy-six. “Midnight dungeon shift is in a little under ten minutes. Before that happens, we should settle in the dungeon itself. Hopefully the shift will get us further along, so we can meet the Swords towards the north edge of the dungeon.”

“Ain’t the dungeon shift gonna split us all up?” Joey asked. “That seems like a real bad idea…”

Politoed looked to him with an amused curiosity. “Don’t know about the rope trick?” he remarked. “Thought OCEAN would’ve taught you.”

Jermy rubbed the back of his head. “That was in the third week of lessons. We, uh, obviously didn’t get that far.”

The frog didn’t seem to judge them any further. “When a dungeon shift happens, every living thing — the trees, the flora, and any kind of pokémon like you or me — gets scrambled around to some part of the area. Not convenient for groups going through a dungeon together. Happens to be a trick for emergency situations like this, though: living things that are touching each other get moved together. All dungeoneers have to do to keep from getting split up is to tie a rope around everyone in the group.”

“A rope we brought, by the way.” Chip reached into the Dwelling Bag and revealed a comically long rope. “You’re very welcome.”

“See, this is why having that Dwelling Bag would have been freaking awesome while we were in the Club,” Minichino said. “We could have taken a super-sized rope and stayed in the dungeon all day!”

“If only…” Mr. Persian said wistfully.

“On top of the midnight shift, we also got a Thundurus-shaped motivator to deal with!” Jermy pointed a hand to the storm in the sky. In the minute they’d been strategizing, it had already gotten much closer.

“Yeah, been keeping an eye on that,” Politoed remarked. “Weather report said tonight should be nice and clear…”

“I don’t see what’s so strange about it,” Joey said. “Don’t tropical places get stormy all the time?”

“They do, but…” Mathew stared upward. This thunderstorm was rolling in at breakneck pace. Rain drops were already hitting his mask. “Do Solcean storms normally move this fast?”

“I don’t think so,” Minichino said. “Unless the Ghosts of the Legendary Birds are hanging around or something, this—”

It came too suddenly to stop. There was a hiss in the air — and then, an arrow coated in violet energy stuck to the grass right next to Chip.

“What the…!” The chatot struggled in place, looking like he wanted to lurch away, but he didn’t actually move from where he stood. It was as if the arrow had pinned him to the ground without actually driving into him at all. “Spirit Shackle?!”

“What the hell is a Spirit Sh—“

Mathew couldn’t even get the words out before a green blur sped through the group. When it passed, Jermy was plucked from the ground where he stood. “Aaaagh! Dayyyyviiiiid!” The pikachu’s angered scream drew Mathew’s eyes to the sky, where the decidueye was holding him in the air with his talons.

With Chip pinned, none of them could quickly intervene, so the cubone had to act fast. He reared back and chucked his club. It whipped through air and struck David dead-on. Both of them came down to the ground — Jermy splatted on the dirt, then scampered away, while David planted himself. In one motion, he rose his wing in the air, forming the shape of a bow with a faux-hoodie string, and nocked a quill-like arrow through it. “Stay still, and I won’t shoot!” The decidueye’s aim shifted from Mathew, to Chip, to Joey, to Minichino, to Jermy, all with pinpoint speed. Even in the fierce rain, Mathew was convinced that, if he released that arrow, David would not miss. “I just wanna talk.”

“Just wanna talk?” Poliwrath called out. “Ya nailed Chip to the ground and just about kidnapped that pikachu!”

“To be fair, that second part’s kind of normal for us…” Jermy muttered.

“I was trying to keep you from jumping me so I could explain that I come in peace to Jermy, so he could calmly explain it to you and…” David’s firm face faltered. He used the side of his wing-bow to wipe it — water kept dripping down from his faux-hood. Mathew noticed then that something was strapped around the top of his head. A mask? “You know, now that I say that aloud, that was a stupid plan. My bad.”

Minichino slouched over. “Now I get why you’re the science guy and Dit’s the war tactics guy…”

“Anyway!” David refocused. “I heard about what happened in Misery Cave. I know it got ugly, and…bloody. And I want to say that I’m sorry for that. It wasn’t at all supposed to be this way, and it doesn’t have to get any worse.”

“Yeah.” Meowth wasted no time in drawing out his claws. “Half of us could be dead.”

“And the other half would be forced to mourn their innocent friends!” Mathew brandished his club, enraged. How dare he act like the good guy after what he signed them up for?

“That’s not—!” David bit his tongue, “the point. What I’m offering all of you is a way out. We can put the Club back together.” His gaze landed on Mr. Persian. “We can make the workplace better.” Then on Mathew and Joey. “We can give you those jobs you want.” Then on Jermy. “And we…can work something out. We’re fighting for the same thing here, right?! Peace and safety on Solceus!”

“David Emmons, head of the science division, telling us all about peace and safety?” Breloom remarked, fearlessly marching up to him. “Apparently, you’re pretty good in the ‘volcanic explosion’ field of science.” Her gaze was cutting. “I dunno about you, but that sounds pretty far from the ‘peace and safety’ field.”

Mathew watched as both Jermy and David winced at the same time. “How do you…?” David looked to his former assistant. “Did you tell them?”

“Why should I tell you?” Jermy spat. “I quit. You and me are done-zo.”

The decidueye sighed. “I don’t think you all really get what’s happening.” He raised his aim upwards, using the arrow’s tip as a pointer. “Over there on the hills to your right is a whole unit of our best fighters. They’re sitting up there waiting for me to signal them to move in. And if you don’t turn yourselves in now…I will.”

“What?!” Mathew brandished his bone club and whirled around, as if they were right behind them. Their escape had been going too well up to this point…he should’ve known. “How the hell did you get an army here so fast?! We left in secret!” Looking for somebody to blame, he turned to ORB.

“Don’t look at me,” ORB said. “Jermy never had the brains to put me in the OCEAN system.”

“Definitely not ORB,” Politoed muttered. “Think you can put the pieces together based on yesterday, Mathew.”

Mr. Persian looked mortified at even the implication. “No…”

“I want to do this as little as you do!” David cried. “Do you think it’s fun to condemn people I like to death?! The world would be losing some hard workers…and a talented engineer…and a dedicated owner…” David lowered his wing-bow. “And a friend. So please—”

“Don’t let that arrow fly!!”

Everyone was silenced by the rallying cry of Poliwrath, putting in the full force of his throwing arm to get another in the air. David was a second away from being smacked by twenty pounds of angry blue crocodile — flying straight for his wings.

But the arrow wasn’t what they had to stop. David dropped the arrow, pointed his wing to the sky, and—

Krrrrak!

Joey was blasted back by a forceful electric shock that surged into the sky like a reversed lightning bolt. He crashed to the ground, singed.

Mathew couldn’t believe what he just saw. Since when could a decidueye use lightning attacks?!

But it didn’t matter now. The signal had been given.

“Alright then. Whatever happens now, there’s no way for me to save you from it.” David pulled the blue mask down over his head. The mask concealed everything but his eyes, which were devoid of color thanks to the shaded eyeholes. He turned his back to them. “I’m sorry, Jermy.”

Dammit! Mathew charged David with his club, striking at his back. In response, he turned, wing coming down—

The next thing he knew, rain was getting into the eyeholes of his vibrating mask, as he laid with the top of his head up against a tree. A distant yell from Jermy told him that David had gotten away.

He and Joey hardly had the time to down Oran Berries from the Dwelling Bag before Minichino got their attentions. “Uh, guys?!” She pointed towards the nearby hills, almost towering over the trees. ORB shined his light towards them.

Atop the highest hill, Emily stood tall, looking down on them with firm, studious eyes. The digits on her right flipper clutched the lengthy pole of a flag, flying gracefully in the wind. The flag was a brilliant blue, and in the center of it was a round, jagged, silver-colored circle.

Mathew squinted at the flag, trying to examine it. “What does that sawblade thing mean…?”

“Remember something about OCEAN having a flag,” Politoed said. “Don’t know what it’s for, though…”

“That’s not a sawblade.”

When Mathew turned to Jermy, the pikachu’s focus was entirely on Emily and the flag, gritting his teeth as if the gravity of the situation had struck him all at once. “It’s supposed to be a storm — a hurricane,” he explained. “It’s OCEAN’s battle flag. Planting it down is supposed to be…a formal declaration of war.”

Before they could say anything else, Breloom was already charging ahead. “We’ve got to get to the dungeon and shift out of this. We have maybe seven minutes. Let’s go — now.”

Mathew regretted not forcing them all to take a break before now. Every pounding step he took felt like hell on his heels. He panted hard, trying his best to keep up with the rest of the group. It was hard enough to keep his heart from beating out of his chest before one of these scumbags did it themselves. The voices of charging pokémon that seemed to come from every direction did not make it any easier.

“How do we know if we make it or not?!” A panicked Mr. Persian cried.

“Keep an eye out for yellow marks on the trees! They outline the dungeon—” Before Chip could finish, a large boulder nearly struck him.

“Chip!” Poliwrath jumped into the air, grabbed the chatot, and wrapped him in his arm, keeping him out of the air.

More attacks followed. A silver beam shot over their heads, narrowly missing Politoed’s King’s Rock. Familiar fins slashed through the trees, dropping branches from above. A psychic blast hit Meowth in the back point-blank, only rendered useless by his dark type. Mathew looked left and right, looking for their attackers, but it was so dark and so rainy, he could only see shadows—

KRRRAK.

Except when lightning struck, giving him snapshots of the world around him. A blade-shaped pokémon cutting their way through the shrubs in order to keep up. A tiny, green bug nipping at Minichino. High in the sky, an ancient-looking yellow bird, flocking overhead as if the storm was nothing to them. A red monkey leaping from tree to tree, looking down on him with a mischievous sneer. All of them wore blue masks that concealed their eyes.

He wasn’t sure if he preferred the extra light from the bolts or not.

Next to him, Meowth’s claws whipped out. “Mathew, on your left—!”

The cubone turned, club in hand, just in time to block the blow. One of the shadows leapt in straight for him and clash with it using a sword whose blade was nothing but ice. Although the mask hid his face and the darkness hid his body, the orange weasel’s floaty wrapped around the neck made his species a giveaway. Had he seen this buizel somewhere before?

There wasn’t enough time to think about it. Once Meowth lobbed an energy coin in their face, Mathew picked up the pace as much as his little cubone body could muster. A buizel could easily catch up with him — he needed to get distance.

But that’s not what the buizel went for. Mathew watched as his shadow zipped ahead in a Quick Attack. At the same time, a pokémon coated in shadowy energy from leapt over the group. The pair landed in front of the group side-by-side. Maybe they could have just barreled over them, but somehow, Mr. Persian had gotten to the front of the pack. In a panic, he skidded to a stop, forcing everybody else to do the same.

“Okay!” the buizel called out. “We can do this the easy way…or the hard way!”

“Fucking hell, dude…” The coating of energy dissolved, revealing a white mountain lion-like pokémon with a curved dark blue horn. “Could you have picked something less cliché to lead with?”

“Well, it’s true! What was I supposed to say?” he snapped at the other.

The absol, Mathew presumed, just sighed. “Forget it. Keep going.”

Just then, the cubone noticed the shuffling of the shadows around them had begun to quiet down. When it stilled, it was just their group and this pair. Everyone else—

KRRRAK.

—was surrounding them in every direction, waiting, watching.

“Anyway! We’ve been told that we can take you dead or alive. We can just put you guys in a cell, but if you want this to be how you go out, we’d be happy to make that happen!”

Surprisingly, the first one of them to snap back was ORB. “Dying to a bunch of wannabe warriors would be too pitiful, even for Jermy.”

With a wing, Chip rubbed his head. “Well, I can think of worse ways to go down…”

“Why the heck are you entertainin’ them?!” Poliwrath snapped.

“Sorry, Sire! I didn’t mean it that way!” he exclaimed. “I meant as in…at least I’d be spending my last moments fighting with you.”

Poliwrath put his hands over where Mathew imagined his heart might be. “Aw, Chip…”

“Will you punks stop and take this seriously?!” the absol learned her head down, pointing her horn at them. “This is a threat. We’re threatening you.”

“I dunno, I wouldn’t call it a threat…” The buizel turned to his allies in the shadows. “Just telling them that most of us have a preference here.”

“Hard way! Hard way! Hard way!” The chant of the soldiers, prompted by the buizel, was powerful enough to drown out the rain.

Mathew knew that the chant was supposed to intimidate them — and it did — but there was something about this crowd that seemed off. This was the first chance for him to gleam at exactly who they were up against here, and his first reaction was that they seemed…awfully juvenile. ORB calling them ‘wannabe warriors’ was shockingly accurate.

Then, something else struck Mathew. The rest of the attackers had slinked away to watch…this? This buizel and absol could probably put up a fight, but the fear he had felt while getting chased by them was wearing off with each word they said, dripping with a lack of practice. Not to mention, they already look pretty tired out. It was like they’d led with their Jack instead of their Ralph. If this was their unit’s leaders, then there probably weren’t too many people in this group older than them. They were probably around Meowth, Politoed, and Breloom’s age. Some of them were maybe even Joey’s…

Mathew was not the only one who noticed this. “Huh, Besides Emily and David, where is the rest of OCEAN?” Jermy asked them. “I thought they’d bring out more of the senior members.”

“Of course they’re here, dumbass!” the absol said. “Not that we need them.”

Meowth got his own choice words in next. “I see what’s going on here. The adults of OCEAN have sent you all on the most depressing field trip in Solcean history. Did they remember to pack you your midnight snacks for after you’re done?”

An annoyed grunt from both the buizel and the absol was accompanied by several groans and boos at Meowth from the bystanders. The cat hardly even reacted.

“Honestly, you’re giving them too much credit.” Breloom marched up to them, looking confident. “A better squad would’ve taken us all out already.”

“Hey, don’t act like you know how to run an army!” the buizel exclaimed.

“That’s funny.” She crossed her arms. “I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Ugh.” The buizel shook his head, then studied Breloom for a moment. “Nice cape, by the way. I bet with some scissors, it’d make for a nice arts-and-crafts project.”

“Nice sword. How long did you have to leave it in the freezer to keep it from melting?” The wind was already rushing due to the storm, but as Breloom gave her retort, Mathew could feel it shift just a little. “Because however much time it took…it was a waste.”

Breloom blasted through the group, jumping towards the buizel at incredible speeds. Before he could pull it out of the way, she brought her arm down on his blade, smashing it into pieces.

The absol flinched in panic. “Oh, shit!” She leapt away.

It took Mathew one second too long to realize she wasn’t reacting to Breloom.

A massive fireball was surging through the group, right down the middle. Everyone in its path hurried out of the way. Compared to the cold rain, the sheer heat it gave off as it passed by Mathew was overwhelming. Nothing could stop its advance — not Joey, not Politoed, not Poliwrath, and not the storm. It was heading straight for the buizel.

The buizel had no need to get out of the way. Breloom, who he clutched tightly, would be her shield.

Mathew heard several of them scream at once. Himself… Meowth… Mr. Persian… Minichino…loudest of all Politoed. None of them were given a chance to react as the fireball landed on Breloom. It exploded on her point-blank, torching everything it touched as it burst into flickers that extinguished fast.

Then the buizel slashed her chest as a parting blow. She crumpled over in the blackened grass. Red spots dotted the tips of the blade, reformed by unknown means.

Instantly, Politoed and the others rushed in to give her aid. Mathew probably should have, too. But he was too preoccupied looking to the source of the fire.

“Get them!” somebody in the trees cried, and all at once, the rest of the soldiers started moving. But for Mathew, the chaos of the moment gave way to disbelief. From elsewhere, he heard Jermy gasp. Joey was by his side, looking on in mortified confusion.

In one hand was a lingering flame — in the other, a double-sided spear. His eyes were concealed by goggles not unlike Mathew’s own. His head, adorned with a black mark between the eyes, resembled Mathew’s skull mask.

And on its right side, sealed like a scarring wound, was a long crack.

The marowak turned to face him. “Hi, Dad.”

---

This fight was a nightmare.

No amount of darkness vision could help Meowth get a sense of everything going on around him. Higher Education had trained him to fight small groups of Dungeon pokémon, not small armies equipped with extravagant weapons. A thorn-covered boxing glove scratched and pricked his arm. A flaming stick nearly singed off his whiskers. If this went on too long, he wouldn’t be able to survive.

His only lifeline was the Dwelling Bag. Chip had been holding it before, but Meowth had found it on the ground when he dove under a staticy hammer. When Silvalla had shown it to them, he quickly realized how much of an incredible upgrade this was from his tiny medical kit. He was so glad he had bought healing items to stuff it with prior to leaving Kalmwa’er — the moment he felt his knees wobble after a hard-hitting attack, he downed an Oran Berry and kept moving.

Meowth had no idea where the others were. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of somebody in the flash of the lightning, or thanks to ORB running around and shining light while dodging his own attackers, but otherwise, it was lights out. The only person he could keep track of was Mr. Persian, who clung to his back like an eelektrik.

“Meowth! You’re doing great!” Mr. Persian called out. Meowth knew that his father was not practiced like he was. He could claw back at an oncoming granbull, but if a drilbur came up to his other side at the same time, Meowth was forced to cover him.

He was fighting faster than he could think. Slash at the nearby vibrava. Toss a coin at the simisear in the trees. Leap towards the minccino—

“Hey! Watch the friendly fire, dude!” Minichino was lucky that Meowth could retract his claws in time.

“Sorry.” As an apology, he tore an Oran Berry in half and offered it to both Mr. Persian and Minichino.

Only a moment later, the group stumbled into a miracle. As they fought off a pair of OCEAN soldiers, Meowth peered behind them to see…nothing but the shape of trees. Had they made it out of the fight? “We need to make a break for it!” he told the other two before breaking off into a run. The seconds felt like they had run so long…was it really not midnight yet? Were they too late? Regardless, they had to get to the dungeon fast before—

“Stay where you are!”

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. Descending from the sky was a tall, imposing penguin pokémon. They landed right in front of the trio, blocking their way forward. They wore no mask, leaving only the trident-like guard her beak provided to conceal her face.

“E-Emily…” Mr. Persian muttered.

So this was Emily Prest… The woman who had signed him into his life of isolation. Even now, she was the only thing standing between him, his father, and their freedom.

Meowth was prepared for the battle of his life, but she wasn’t in a combative stance at all. She looked down at his father calmly. “Is there really nothing I can do for you now, Mr. Persian?” Emily asked him.

Mr. Persian’s claws dug into the dirt. “You promised me that Meowth wouldn’t get hurt if I started the Club. Then you turned around and made one half of the Club try to kill the other!” Mr. Persian exclaimed. “I was willing to do anything you asked. But I draw the line at harming my son.”

How dare you defy me?! Your attachment to Meowth has ruined you. For this, I will destroy you!

That is what Meowth expected her to say. The actual Emily, however, seemed…solemn? “I suppose that’s fair. And, considering the warzone surrounding us now, I don’t know if I can blame you for it.” She gestured to the fight behind them.

Meowth was not having this. “Are you just going to stand here and pretend like this isn’t your own army?”

“None of this would’ve happened if you guys hadn’t forced Mr. Persian and me to make the Club your personal playground!” Minichino added. “You guys are just the worst!”

“Yes, we are ‘the worst.’ This entire situation was built on cruelty.” Emily raised her massive flippers. “Leading them along…using their visions for our own purposes…duping your home with the idea of a noble goal to hide our intentions…forcing them to face the pressure of our recruitment…all of it. But what other path is there for us to take? How could we hide the building of an army in plain sight? Forge bases of operations, training grounds, and storage for us all without coming at a ruinous price?”

Minichino boldly pushed herself to the front of the group. “You could, like, not do any of that, maybe?”

Emily squatted down a little to better meet Minichino. “I understand that my pursuit is taboo to a world like yours, that doesn’t know of anything better. In circumstances like these, sacrifices have to be made to move forward. And unfortunately, one of the first things to be sacrificed is the ability to fight ‘purely’ and with dignity.”

“This sounds like an elaborate way to say you have no morals,” Meowth said. “No wonder you sent a bunch of—”

Plink.

An energy coin had been tossed right in the middle of his sentence, aiming straight for Emily’s eyes. But it wasn’t Meowth’s — the one who had struck first was Mr. Persian. Unfortunately for them, a glowing barrier of light formed around Emily, leaving the coin to bounce off and dissolve in the rain.

“I’m so sorry, all of you. But if I let you go, the future of our mission will be put into jeopardy — and so too will the future of your world.” The empoleon’s booming voice accompanied her somehow rising into the air, pink energy flowing around her head. “For the sake of everyone, and for the power of life I’ve been given, I will not let our hope die! Please…forgive me for this!”

All at once, a psychic wave burst from the empoleon, and Minichino and Mr. Persian were launched away. Meowth barely had enough time to catch her giant flipper swinging for him with both his claws…then he couldn’t stop the other flipper from making him double over. Before he knew it, he was on the ground with three stinging cuts.

Minichino was stubborn — even after seeing Meowth go down, she charged in, tail dripping with water, and immediately was given a reason to regret it. As if swimming through the air, she dove forward, spinning like a drill with her beak as its tip. Minichino was mowed down at high speed, sending her tumbling through the damp grass.

Meowth slowly climbed to his feet just in time to watch Emily land. “Now that I’ve shown you how the power I possess, do you wish to continue this fight?” she squinted down at the cat. “I wouldn’t blame you if you had a change of heart.”

Meowth held a paw over one of the gashes. Only a couple blows and already two of them were struggling to stay standing. It would’ve been hard enough to fight back on a bright sunny day… He still had a few healing berries left, but Emily was too fast for him to sneak one. If they stood any chance of escape at all, it was extremely—

KRRRAK. KRRRAK.

The first flash of lightning revealed a cream-colored cat clinging from a tree behind Emily. By the time of the second, he was on her back, his head peeking over her shoulder.

“Goooo!!” Mr. Persian’s yell was punctuated by him sinking his teeth into her blubber. It didn’t seem to hurt much, but Emily still looked panicked, reaching for her back to pry Mr. Persian off of her.

For a moment, Meowth stood there, stunned. Was he…sacrificing himself? For them? For him?

Of course he was. He’d been sacrificing himself from day one. Until now, Meowth had simply never seen it with his own eyes.

“Meowth! Come on!” He felt Minichino tug at his arm, and the storm once more raged in his ears. Gritting his teeth, Meowth turned for the forest. They could only hope that the dungeon was close.

Weeks ago, Meowth had chosen to ‘play Mr. Persian’s game’. To find out why he had abandoned him. To learn what he was using him for.

“Mr. Persian, get out of the way!” Emily’s voice pierced through the rain.

“I won’t…!” Mr. Persian cried. “Anything you do to them, you can do to me instead!”

There was his answer. His father had never hated him. He wasn’t the one who made Politoed and Breloom give a disappointed sigh whenever he entered their dorm. He wasn’t the one who made Minichino grumble at how bored he was in the Club. He wasn’t the one who made Poliwrath and Chip arrest him. He wasn’t the one who made Mathew poison him.

KRRRAK.

Meowth passed by a pair of trees with a strip of yellow painted around its bark. He couldn’t see Minichino anymore.

It was just himself and the storm.

There was no one left to blame.

---

Mathew didn’t want to get up. If standing up meant having to face Mark jabbing him in the face, he’d rather plant his snout into the dirt forever.

Anything but this.

“Come on, get up already!” Mark’s black and blue scales blended in with the rain and the night as he prepared to follow up. “I didn’t tell them to leave you to me so you could bury your head!”

Mathew could only manage to take two prods from the sharp spear before he was forced to struggle to his feet and back away. There was a distance between the two of them and the other shadows dancing around the trees — Mark wasn’t bluffing. Weakly, he held up his club in a defensive pose. “Why… Why are you doing this…?”

“Because, Dad!” He spat a small flame at the tip of his spear, but the rain doused it. “You had one job. All you had to do was get yourself hired, and we could’ve went and saved the world together. But now look! Do you even know what you’re doing right now?”

“Of course I do!” Mathew eagerly reached into the binder, turning the blueprints for Mark to see. “These blueprints I got are extremely detailed. And we can definitely buy all of these parts online!”

Mark just shook his head, turning himself around and pulling the covers over him. “And I thought you’d already gone crazy before.”

“Hey, that’s what I’m saying!” He joked. “Until that light literally threw this in my face, I really thought this was it for—”

Mathew’s skull mask pulsed from the force Mark put into smacking him with the spear. “Say something!”

He brought the spear down from above, but Mathew raised to block. “Mark, after what they put me through, I…” he knocked away the attack, but couldn’t motivate himself to retaliate. The moment he even so much as laid a finger on him, Mathew would be beyond saving. He knew that.

“Hey, don’t act like you’re the only one who’s got it tough!” Mark exclaimed. He took a moment to do a strange twirling motion with his staff. For some reason, this seemed to agitate him even more. “How do you think it felt to wait two months for you to finally make it here, then you go off and kill one of our buddies?! This is hard for me!”

“‘Hard’ is right. Honestly, naming the thing you made is half the battle.” Mathew sheepishly scratched at his shoulder. “Give something a stupid name, and even if the actual project is amazing, people will still laugh at it…”

Mark peered away from the detailed sketch of the device. “Like Cat-Tongue?”

He grinned. “Like Cat-Tongue, yeah.”

Mark turned back to the page, tapping the eraser of his pencil against the tip of his mouth. “Well, if this thing is supposed to go on your wrist like a watch, I guess you could call it, like, a wristlet or something—”

Mathew was brought back to reality by a fireball launching him onto his back. A searing pain coated his chest. By the time he raised his head, Mark was already preparing another. He hardly had the will to dodge.

He didn’t need to. A blue blur leapt over him, shielding Mathew’s body with his own. Joey winced as the flames bounded off of his back. “Mark…” Joey helped Mathew up, then looked to the marowak. He clung on to the rim of his hat with one hand. “So this is what you moseyed off to?”

Mark gasped, lowering his spear and his hand. “Who the heck? You stay out of this!”

“…Hah?” Surprised, his hand came off of his hat. “You don’t recognize me eith—?” Joey was cut-off by an axe coated in static slashing at him.

“Joey!” Before Mathew could act, a yellow lynx-like pokémon leapt through the shadows, tackling the totodile.

“I got this one!” she called out to Mark in a squeaky voice. She dragged him away, axe floating right by her side.

Mathew looked on in helpless disbelief. How had this happened? Putting his relationship with Joey aside, working under high stakes again and again, fighting Meowth…and this was what OCEAN had intended to repay him with?

All he’d wanted was to find some peace in this world…and look what happened.

Mark was moving in for another strike, but all Mathew could do was collapse and cry. Everything he worked himself up for was a waste — a lie. He’d lost any reason to fight.

Mathew waited for a finishing blow.

And waited.

It never came.

When Mathew looked up, Mark had his spear poised to stab, but he hesitated to bring it down. In his wavy vision, he could see a stunned expression on his son’s face. “Dad—”

Just then, a jet of water blasted Mark away, giving Mathew room to rise.

The time, the save wasn’t from Joey.

A figure leapt over Mathew’s head, coming down on Mark with a glowing yellow blade of a horn. Its glow exposed the colt’s bright red mane, matted down by the downpour. The horn clashed with Mark’s spear, leaving the marowak stunned. “Oh, crap. You’re…!”

“Go get to the dungeon!” Keldeo called out to Mathew. “We’ll come find you after the dungeon shifts. You gotta lay low until then!”

Mathew stood and watched as Keldeo smacked and slashed at Mark. Even as a quadruped, he was outmatching his son as if he were a master sword-fighter. Whenever he landed a hit, Mathew would look away into the forest. He could see similar glowing blades between the trees — blue, green, and red — cutting through the night.

“Mathew!”

The cubone flinched at a hand touching his shoulder. Somehow, Jermy had found him in the chaos, holding ORB in one arm as if he were a massive flashlight.

“We gotta get going!” he told him. “We’re running out of time!”

“No…!” But before Mathew could think, ORB’s claw lurched forward and gripped his arm, Both the robot and the pikachu worked to drag him along. “Wait, Jermy, stop!”

“Sorry, buddy! But I can’t just leave you behind!” Jermy exclaimed. His grip on his sides shifted as the rain forced him to re-tighten.

Mathew tried to pull away, but he couldn’t find the strength. All he could do was watch as Mark got farther…and farther…and farther away.

None of this had to happen.

None of this should have happened.

None of this would have happened, if he wasn’t so fucked up.

Desperation boiled inside of Mathew, and with newfound force, he lurched out of Jermy and ORB’s hands, running back for his son. The pikachu stumbled, dropping the robot.

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark!!”

He couldn’t escape the dungeon in time.

A flash of light filled his vision.

And then, darkness.