Chapter 9: Impending Judgment

Chapter 9: Impending Judgment

You’re not getting mad at the right people.

Even after recollecting himself, Joey’s sentiment rung through Mathew’s head like a hammered bell. It was not the first time somebody told him that — God knows that one of those times was what shot through his mind at that moment. But even on Solceus, it wasn’t something he took well to unpacking.

Who the hell even is the ‘right person’ here? Like he said, he knows Meowth’s the exact kind of person to use Joey for his own gain, and yet even when pressured, Joey is insistent that the responsibility is his. He may have choice words for the both of them, but the last thing he wanted to do was pin the responsibility on Joey. He’s an amnesiac, after all; Mathew understood he had good reasons to act out.

Mathew had been dropped onto a forked road with paths that only led to dead-ends. Blame Joey or blame nobody. The unacceptable or the unthinkable. How was he supposed to choose? Straining himself to find a conclusion he couldn’t grasp had been enough to deflate him before he was forced along to start his workday with the others. Perhaps that was for the best.

The walk from the condo to the Resort was underlined by mixed feelings. Jermy’s smile had returned to him, spurred by a wisecrack or two from ORB, while the teasing Demurke seemed to have put it all behind her already. Mathew attributed their recovered mood to the second episode of Every Star a Catcher he could hear them watch downstairs. But Joey didn’t say a word, and neither did he.

In their defense, it wasn’t like there was much to talk about. This wasn’t their first walk, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about it…at least, until that rickety elevator dropped into the dirt.

It started with a distant rumble. Then it grew, and it grew, and then the doors opened to wholly different Waregle than the one they saw before. The entire area around the pool was crowded by pokémon of all kinds — young and old, big and small, clothed and unclothed. The roar of chatter was smothered by the echo of the complex as it filled their ears. Those piles of junk that lined the walls had been cleared away to make room for them all.

“Holy shit…!” Mathew exclaimed. He turned to his recruiters. “What’s going on?”

Demurke giggled. “W-we might’ve prepared a bit of a…a surprise for you!”

Jermy’s ears flicked. “I didn’t know me we were gonna have this many people here!”

“Neither did w-we!”

That was when Mathew noticed David. He was standing on one of the platforms over the pool, carrying an open cardboard box whose contents Mathew couldn’t make out. Once he saw them at the elevator, he put the box down, then promptly took flight. “Mathew! Joey! Just who I was waiting for!” he called as he landed in front of the two.

“Uh, hi,” Joey said. “What kind of rodeo’s going on in the Waregle?”

“Oh, them?” David gestured to the crowd. Some of the pokémon stepped towards them, while others kept their distance. “They’re actually here for you! And a few other recruits, but mostly you!”

Mathew peered into the crowd, trying to make out faces. A lot of them were pokémon he wasn’t familiar with — and the ones he might have recognized kept shifting around too much. How was he supposed to commit them to memory if they kept darting behind the corners? “Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah! A whole boat-load of people got invited for this!” Jermy said. “You see, we—”

“Actually, maybe you should hold on the explanation, Jermy.”

David’s assertion make the pikachu’s grin falter. “Well, if you want to explain it instead, then by golly, be my guest…”

“It’s not that.” David’s own jubilant demeanor faded as he addressed Mathew and Joey. “While Demurke was gone, somebody came over and delivered a message. The head of the army division wants a meeting with you.”

“In front of all these folks?” Joey asked.

David shook his head, then tilted it towards the portal room on their left. “In Fascamile Town Hall.”

Mathew looked towards the line of portals. He reread the message on one’s rim: ‘Fascamile Town Hall — NO ENTRY WITHOUT PERMISSION. ENDPOINT GUARDED 24/7.’ He’d noticed it before, when Demurke had been talking about her home. Was that where the leader of the army worked, too? No wonder it was protected.

“…Oh.” Demurke clicked her beak, looking towards the portal machine nervously.

Jermy just sighed. “Well, what’s another delay at this point?” Taking initiative, he leapt up and smacked the button on the side.

All this left a rough taste in Mathew’s mouth. First David delayed their arrival, and now he’s dragging them off to an unrelated meeting? This morning had already gotten bad enough. Still, there wasn’t much he could do about it now. He’d go to Fascamile, put on his best face and—

—nearly kissed the sharp end of a spear with his muzzle.

While Mathew was absentmindedly stepping through the opened portal, a yellow, cat with slitted eyes — an abra — had moved to point to the weapon at him, barring his entrance. Beside the abra was a goat with a green, leafy mane, poised to charge Mathew with his curved horns.

Mathew gasped and reflexively brandished his club. “Hey! Back off!”

“W-Waaaaait!” Demurke leapt in front of Mathew, lightly pushing him away from the abra. “He’s just…one of the recruits,” she told the guard. “They’re g-getting called in for a meeting.”

Both guards dropped their stances. Their aggressive expressions sunk into incredibly bored ones. They almost seemed upset that there was no threat. “He’s outside,” the abra told them before stepping aside.

Mathew heard several heaves of relief behind him. Even ORB supplied his own sigh — as in, he literally said “Sigh”. “Fascamile Town Hall is the second most-guarded facility the organization has,” he informed him. “I would recommend letting David lead. Even Jermy’s been smacked by the oblivious guard here and there.”

Fascamile Town Hall was a Ship of Theseus of a facility. As the group navigated the tight hallways, Mathew could pick out the difference between the historical wooden structures and the replacements made of drywall. What was strange was how haphazard the remodeling seemed — instead of completely renovating certain halls one at a time, most were a half-complete mix of both styles. It almost looked easier to guide people to specific halls over the dozens of lightly-labeled rooms they passed by.

The obtuseness of it all almost made the cubone shudder. If he didn’t keep track of the way he came, he could see himself losing track of it easily. Now he understood how Jermy could have convinced the workers here that he didn’t belong — the uncertainty would’ve given him away.

“How do y’all navigate this place…?” Joey asked the question on both of their behalfs.

“It g-gets easier with practice!” Demurke assured them. “Lose track of your room enough times, and, y’know—”

Mathew stopped in his tracks. “You live in here?”

Demurke flitted a wing. “Well, it is…a little weird, I know. B-but it’s nice! I have a r-really nice room, and so do…” She trailed off, so quiet Mathew couldn’t hear that last part.

Before Mathew could interject, David peered over his shoulder and gestured them forward. “You can talk about Demurke’s cool room later, you two. We have a crowd waiting for us!”

“Right…” Mathew wasn’t going to just write that off though. Who lives in a town hall?

As David led them towards an exit, Mathew noticed a familiar ambiance outside, only muffled by the half-finished walls. It was only when he walked through the wide open entryway that he realized this was the first time he’d seen a storm on Solceus.

The wind howled as the ceaseless shower was blown astray. Raindrops battered his skull mask, making plink after plink after plink. The thunder that crashed down far in the distance was nothing like the playful sparks of Jermy’s making — they rumbled lowly, and the flashes lit up the flat campus like stadium lights.

Wrapped in a chain link fence the height of two Davids, the yard of town hall had been battered from use. Tall grass, lines of bushes, and the occasional hackberry tree dotted the space, but so did dirt craters, felled trunks, and metal equipment left outside to rust. Mathew could guess the source of it all.

A squad of pokémon was doing laps around the premise with grit teeth and loud groans. Some were small, like the machop pumping his arms with all his might, but there were a few titans out there. A big-bladed kingambit, a gray dinosaur with a blue hard-head, and a snorlax clearly out of his element… There was even a poor Unovan bird in flight despite the weight of the downpour. He heard a voice yelling at them with the cadence of a drill sergeant, but it was hard to make any sense of what was said while the storm disoriented him.

Out of the edge of his vision, he saw David point a wing towards one of the toppled trees. That’s it! At least, that’s what Mathew thought he heard him say. It was even harder to make him out here than in the crowd at the Waregle.

“What’s it?”

“No!” David pointed harder, looking him in the eye as he yelled louder. “Dit!”

It was then that Mathew finally made him out. He was hard to notice at first glancee, as his unusual blue shade blended in with the hue of the rain, but the red feathers in his flowing crest gave him away. The blue pidgeot, Dit, stared down the runners with crimson eyes, one talon on the dirt and the other atop the fallen bark. He gave a nod of acknowledgement to the front of the pack as they passed. The others went past him wordlessly…at least, until the kingambit, far in the back, came up to him.

The titan keeled, hands on his knees, as he bickered and complained. Mathew couldn’t make it all out — something about tiredness. He leaned over Dit, almost shielding him from the rain. The bird pointed his beak straight up. Mathew could hear every word from him.

“Youse say you outta juice, huh? Can’t run anymore?”

It took a lot of energy not to scoff. This was the army division leader? A frail, thickly accented bird whose subordinates towered over him? He should’ve figured the army had less to offer, since that was where SEAS’ bottom of the barrel supposedly—

FWSSSHH.

The shockwave of the wind slash was louder than even the roar of lightning. Dit had leapt from the trunk and swung once with a wing behind the kingambit. The shockwave tore through the dirt like a knife carving a gash until it clashed with the fence, making it rattle in agony. The front-runner, who’d almost lapped the kingambit, had to leap away or else get caught in the blast. The complainer yelped and took off in a newfound rush, even faster than before he stopped.

“Dat is what theys gonna do if ya stop moving!” Dit yelled after him.

Mathew could hardly believe what he’d just seen. That pidgeot’s single swish of the wing made every avian he’d seen until now look like a joke. With the Club’s help, Mathew thought he was starting to catch up, but suddenly the gap between his fighting skill and the rest of the world’s never felt wider. Maybe he had it backwards — the army division was always hiring because they were strong enough to handle anybody.

He looked to the alarmed Joey, clutching the strap of his hat to keep it from flying off. If they failed, would it handle them?

It took a moment for the pidgeot to notice David waving him down, and a moment more for him to peel away from the runners. He glided over to them as easily as if the weather were clear. The fierceness in his tone loosened as his sweeping gaze settled on the murkrow behind them. “Demoike! You brought da new guys!”

Demurke pulled her wings in toward her chest. “W-Well, it was…more David than me, Dad.”

Mathew resisted the urge to open his mouth, drink in the rain, and then do a spit-take. Dad?!

Dit nodded, then turned his attention to him and Joey. “Sorry for getting you boys soaked! Hadta make sure dis lot was getting dere exercise in before I turned ‘em loose.”

“What are y’all even doing out here?” Joey exclaimed. “I reckon that run would be easier than beating a bug if you waited for the storm to clear.”

“Wait for da storm to clear?” Dit chuckled, dismissing the thought. “Da toughness is da point! What ya see out dere are our weak links — delinquents or slackers so bad, da squads don’t want ‘em anymore. It’s my job to get dose fellas back on the straight ‘n narrow, both in mind and body.”

“It’s very effective.” ORB’s voice blared through his speakers. Instead of weathering the rain, he remained in the entryway some yards away, shielded by the roof of the massive half-built complex. “About eighty percent of all members inducted into Dit’s remedial program return to daily life with no further incidents after six months.”

Mathew found it hard to believe that they really changed, but he wasn’t going to challenge ORB or Dit on it. “What kind of delinquency gets you in here?”

Joey gave him a baffled, “That’s what you’re thinking about?” look. He glared back. What? Was he wrong for wanting to figure out the stakes at play?

“It’s a couple ‘a things! Picking fights, hoarding food ya don’t own, ignoring training, and proving youse a liability by…well.” Suddenly, his gaze hardened again. He marched past David, lightly brushing his wing-arm as he spun them back towards the building. “Let’s get somewhere dry,” he said firmly. “Dis is important.”

The sudden distance came down as hard as the rain did. What was Dit trying to imply about him? Based on Jermy, Demurke, and Dit’s uneasy looks, it seemed like they already knew — and it wasn’t good.

“What do y’all mean, we’re in trouble?!”

In any other situation, Mathew would be questioning the structure of Dit’s office space. The front side of his desk was as one would expect, but behind it, the floor dropped off. While everyone else sunk into beanbag chairs, Dit stood perched atop a metal bar, suspending him over the drop. It was a strange setup — but he was too focused on the matter at hand to care.

Dit glared down at them with a firm eye. “See, here ins Fascamile, we dig ourselves into some…funny business. The sort where, if word spreads around, it’ll be real ugly for everyone involved.” He leaned in, his talons scratching against the bar. “We don’t take well to blabberers.”

This was ridiculous. Was he really just going to ignore the fact that he ‘blabbered’ entirely against his will? Mathew wanted to protest, but he wasn’t stupid — he knew that calling him out would only hurt his chances of securing this job. The key to dealing with shitty bosses, from his experience, was to avoid making them mad. “What did you hear?” he asked flatly. Maybe he just wasn’t aware of the full context?

“Let’s just say we know a thing or two about what goes on around dat girl’s place.” Suddenly, Dit leaned back and fell behind his desk — or, at least it looked like it. A panicked peer around the side of the desk revealed Dit’s talons were clinging on to the bar as he hung upside-down, reaching towards the lowered floor with his beak. When he flipped himself upright, he was biting down on a sheet of paper, offering it to them.

“What the heck…?” Joey plucked the paper, stunned. Mathew could make out some monochrome shapes — him, Joey, Minichino, Politoed, and Breloom, standing around in Minichino’s house. It was all from the perspective of her garden door. “How did you take this?”

“The same way we heard every word of youse bickering,” Dit answered simply. “Some rando’s been using youse as a pond to fish from. Youse gotten all worked up over it too. Not signs of a good helper, that’s for shoire.”

Mathew grimaced, shaking his head. The one time he thought he thought they were lacking in SEAS’ supervision… What had they paid Minichino to get her to hide security cameras? “You’re right, sorry. That was my mistake.” Mathew could feel his own voice wavering with frustration. He was lucky that his skull mask hid it. “This won’t be a problem, next time you check on our progress.”

“Funny you mention dat,” Dit said. “At dis rate, there won’t be a next time. We’re speeding up da recruitment — you got a week-ish tops.”

“What?!” Okay, screw that advice about not talking back. This was a blatant changing of the deal! His head snapped to David, Jermy, and Demurke as he leapt out of his chair. “Were you guys going to bother telling me, or was I just supposed to find out on my own?” he asked, annoyed.

The bashful Jermy gave him a hollow grin. “We were working on mapping out the new plan in the background…”

“As youse should!” Dit proclaimed. “I got some word on how it’s going over dere, and I’ll tell ya: I’ve seen better.”

“It’s been four days!” Mathew snapped back. “How the hell can you say that already?”

“Four days can say a whole lot more about how a ‘cruit will do than you think. The bois here are good at that kind of thing, thanks to da boss.”

“You’re telling me you aren’t the leader of this company either?! Am I ever going to meet the CEO of this goddamn organization?” Mathew’s tongue lashed out faster than he could think to stop it. “I am trying my best out here, but I can’t help that—”

“Mathews.” Dit lowered himself, craning his neck forward towards him. An image of his attack carving the dirt flashed in Mathew’s head and extinguished the fire in his eyes. “Da new plan’s got nothing against youse. If your recent history’s any proof, youse got what it takes in dis job. If ya wanna get mad, get mad at whoever’s meddling with your shot.”

Mathew stood under Dit’s gaze for only a few seconds before sinking back into the chair. Dit had stricken him where it hurt — he couldn’t refute that somebody had mettled with his pursuits.

The pidgeot’s beak contorted into a grin, seeming satisfied. He then asked the recruiters, “Youse got a plan to get these stragglers in ship-shape?”

The decidueye, looking jaded, nodded. “As Jermy said, we’re working on it.”

Dit plucked the photo from Joey’s hands and dropped it behind his head. “Then I believe we’s all done here. I’m expecting better things from youse.” Dit swept his wings, ushering them out of the room. As they did, he added, “Oh, and Demoike?”

“Y-yes…?” She came up to his desk, and he whispered to her something that Mathew couldn’t hear. “…Okay. I’ll…I’ll t-try.” When Demurke rejoined them, she kept brushing her wing across the rim of her hat, like if she didn’t check for it, it would fly off.

The moment the door shut, any remaining formality fell away, and a fog of despair clouded them all. Between its awkward interior and its raging exterior, Facsimile offered them no peace of mind.

“That went about as good as a gear in a gutter,” Joey muttered. Mathew mustered a nod in agreement.

“Well, there is a bright-side here.” David’s tone did not inspire confidence. “Now we know just how important this event we set up for you in the Waregle really is.”

Mathew tapped his bone club against the wall. Things had gone so smoothly before. Now he was being told there was a real chance he’d be on the front lines of a war he had no understanding of. All he wanted was a peaceful place to live and work — was that too much to ask?

Dit was right about one thing, though. This was all his fault. The moment he entangled himself in Mathew’s life, he’d been sent down a path towards the destruction of everything he’d come here for. Mathew refused to take that sitting down. He didn’t care what it took. He would get his job with Jermy and David, he would get his peace, and most importantly, he would make Meowth a non-issue.

He suddenly swung his weapon and stomped down the hallway, leading the group in the direction he thought the portal back to the Waregle was stored.

“Mathew…?” Joey lifted his arms, worry in his tone.

“We have a job to do, don’t we? Let’s go.”