Chapter 63: Like a Bat out of Hell

It is the ultimate blasphemy against the Benefactor to gaze upon the Matriarch’s face. Even the High Priestess, the Hierophant, and the Moon — those whose powers speak to the masses — may never look upon Her.

Her avatars are only meant to be viewed through the lenses of the Paradigm. For they are emblems of the foundations upon which the Matriarch led the Old World into the Great Harmony. Emblems that made the Matriarch the greatest Wielder in history.

~I Pilastri dell’Eternità

Awkward silence, save for the whistling of Shaftra Mesa’s winds. Yuna waited for someone to say something. Anything. But nope. Only stares, ranging from Seifer’s sheer confusion to Nikki’s total bewilderment.

The Soul Dew flickered and chibi Rayquaza and Reshiram popped out. “Chiron?” Reshiram tapped his claws together nervously. “Like… like Bahamut’s wife Chiron?”

Yuna nodded.

“Like the old archbishop?” Sigurd said.

The drakloak nodded again.

“So, that’s why Chernabog called you a traitor?” Gene muttered. He looked away from her, stroking his chin in thought.

“But Chiron was a lunala,” Jade said. “Right, Cece?”

Reshiram nodded. “Are you sure it’s not the Soul Dew messing with you?”

“I’m… sure.” Sighing, Yuna’s shoulders sagged. “I didn’t want to believe it at first. But I keep having these visions — or maybe memories? — from Chiron’s time with the Sages.”

“Art thou sure they’re real, though?” Rayquaza asked, coiling around some tiny weeds on the ground.

“They felt pretty real.” Yuna rubbed her right shoulder, then pointed at Reshiram. “You came to check on me when I crashed into the ground from outer space.” She pointed at Rayquaza. “And you came to my aid when I was fighting things that looked like the emperor up in the stratosphere.” Yuna turned to Jade last. “And I saw you moping in a mud puddle about how Bahamut treated you. Then later on you came to visit Leo who looked… very different than he does now.”

Rayquaza and Reshiram shared looks of disbelief. “That actually happened!” they said in unison. Each pointed at themselves. “Hey, I said it first!” A pause. “No, I did!”

Seifer rolled his eyes. “What about you?” he asked Jade.

“Uh, hello?” The salugia pressed a right wing digit to her head. “Forgot everything from my time as a Sage, remember?”

“Who can forget?” Gene snorted. “It all got replaced by the memory equivalent of one of those toy chimchar clapping cymbals together.”

“Hey!” Jade puffed her cheeks out. “I’m at least a togedemaru running on a wheel levels of brain!”

Gene laughed at that. “Whatever you say, Birdbrain.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“So, Princess is telling the truth, then?” Nikki had put some distance between herself and Yuna in the time since the drakloak had made her big reveal.

Yuna traced her hand around the Soul Dew. “I wanted to dismiss it as this thing’s fault. But then Leo hatched out of that egg and I started having visions about fighting daemons in the past.” Her gaze fell to the ground. “When Mom fessed up that she found me encased in a crystal, I just…”

She sighed and shook her head. “There isn’t any other explanation.”

Jade leaned into Yuna’s line of sight. “You sure about that? Because I can think of other explanations.”

“Are they reasonable explanations?” Seifer wondered, raising a brow.

“Define ‘reasonable.'”

Yuna facepalmed. “I’m… confident, yeah. The more stuff we do as a team, the more these weird powers of mine are growing. I can sorta control the shadows now.” The drakloak looked down at her hands. “And I’m the one who let Rayquaza mega evolve… right after I had a memory of Chiron conjuring a windstorm in a fight like Rayquaza can.”

More silence. It seemed that Yuna had snuffed out all the counterarguments.

“Okay then.” Nikki arched her back. Boredom replaced her earlier anger. “So what?”

Yuna stared blankly. “Huh?”

“So, you’re, like, Chiron’s reincarnation or some shit. Big deal.” The toxtricity shrugged. “Doesn’t really change anything, does it? We already knew you had whacky powers. Now you’ve got a reason.”

“But it does change things!” Yuna squeaked, then immediately scrambled to figure out what, exactly, it did change. The fact that she could tell the others about the visions she had? Sure, Yuna supposed that counted. It was hardly a significant change, though.

“I can think of something,” Gene said, lazily floating past Yuna.

The drakloak looked over her shoulder. “And you’re going to say it even if I tell you I’m not interested.”

Gene put a hand on his chest like Yuna’s words touched him. “Ah. You know me so well.” He gently landed on the dusty ground and spun around. “I bet you’re scared that the more your powers grow, the less you there’ll be.”

“What?” Nikki scratched her head. “For a psychic-type, that sure sounds like a stupid thing to say.”

“Seriously?” Gene pinched his brow. “I dumbed it down for you and everything.”

The toxtricity’s mohawk flared. “Up yours, you dumb hairless cat!”

“Sorry. Not my type.” Gene blew a kiss at Nikki and winked. “But if you’ve got any tox dudes back home who’re single, you know where to find me.”

He turned back to Yuna, expression sharpening on a dime. “Anyway, I think you’re worried that your powers increasing are a sign that Chiron is awakening. That she’s going to return to how you remember her in those visions.”

The mewtwo held his right hand up, conjuring tiny psychic silhouettes of Chiron and Yuna. The drakloak was much bigger than the lunala. “Right now, you’re in control.” The Chiron silhouette grew while Yuna’s shrank. “But if what we both assume is true, eventually there’ll come a point where her will overpowers yours. Chiron then reawakens.” Gene clenched his fist and both silhouettes disappeared. “And the Yuna we know disappears. Maybe embedded somewhere in Chiron’s memories or spirit. But that’s just different flavors of the same twisted sundae: you ‘dying’ so Chiron can come back to life.”

Everyone looked expectantly at Yuna. The drakloak’s torso shriveled up slightly. “Well, when you put it like that… yeah, it makes sense.”

It didn’t matter how she came to be reborn as a dreepy. She was Yuna. Adoptive parents or not, this was the life she knew. It was what felt right. All these weird visions of Chiron’s past— no, of her past were wrong. She didn’t want to go back. Maybe Yuna’s life in the present wasn’t perfect, but it was still hers.

“Princess?”

Rayquaza had slithered up to her right foot nub. “Tis always a chance tis not true. After all, you bonded with the Soul Dew. Chiron never did.”

Yuna frowned at him. She traced her hand around the Soul Dew again. “Did I really bond with it, though?” she wondered, glancing at both tiny Sages. “Could you summon your predecessors from your Soul Dews and give them tangible forms to fight with?”

Rayquaza tapped his tiny claws together. “Err… nay. The Soul Dews were more like… tiny fountains of knowledge and wisdom. I could consult with mine, but t’was not anything like this.”

The drakloak crossed her arms. “Think that tells you enough. Don’t you?”

Rayquaza coiled up tighter. “I imagine I look rather foolish.”

Reshiram remained silent, however. Yuna glanced at him to see if he had anything to add, but to her surprise he abruptly dissolved back into the Soul Dew. Uh, hello? She tapped the flickering gem. Something wrong?

“It’s nothing. I just… I need to step back from this conversation.” Reshiram sounded like he’d just flown halfway across the planet at top speed. “Too many hard truths getting dropped in succession. Messing with my head.”

Oh. I’m sorry. Yuna fought back the urge to snap at him and tell him to think about how she felt with all of this.

Gene loudly cleared his throat. “We all good?” He Phantom Warped into the middle of the group, breaking a dust cloud apart with a quick ESP pulse. “Everyone get everything off their chest?”

“I guess?” Fatigue started to hit Yuna. The tense conversation must have kept it at bay, but a dull throb turned to a heavy ache in her ectoplasm. She flopped onto the ground. “I just want a nap. I don’t suppose someone could find a monk to bring me a pillow?”

“Sorry. Too busy.” Gene dusted his hands off and stretched his neck until it popped multiple times.

“Busy with what?” Nikki said. “Making people think you want to snap your sp— hey! Lemme go!”

Yuna glanced up in time to see Gene emerging from a Phantom Warp, holding the toxtricity’s right arm. “Training you,” he said, smirking and flicking his right wrist. A blue rift opened behind him.

Nikki’s eyes widened. “The hell do you think you’re do— iiiiiiiiiing!“

The shadowy mewtwo tossed Nikki into the rift. Then he opened a second rift, stuck his left hand in, and pulled out Nikki’s leather jacket.

“I’ll leave you to get that rest.” He bowed to Yuna, then fell back into the rift while flashing a toothy grin. The drakloak was too tired for Gene’s shenanigans to get to her. She just sighed and… sank into the ground slightly, as if she were mimicking an Acid Armoring vaporeon.

“What an ass,” Seifer snorted, flicking dusty hair out of his eyes.

“Makes you wonder what the humans were thinking making mewtwo so pear-shaped,” Jade added, chuckling into her wing. A stink eye from the keldeo made her tail flaps curl. “Aww, lighten up. It was a joke.”

“Your taste in jokes needs work,” Seifer deadpanned. He turned to Lycanroc and the big muscle bug. The latter was still out cold and, at this point, Yuna wondered if they would even wake up. “So, Mr. Stone—”

“Ah, please call me Sigurd. ‘Mr. Stone’ makes me sound like an old man.”

“Are you not old?” Jade tilted her head. “For some reason I feel like your condition is supposed to be an old man thing.”

“Well, I’m no spring torchic, but I’m not covered in back hair,” Sigurd said, his machine emulating a chuckle. “Anyway, you were saying?”

“What’s with the patchwork rock mutt?” Seifer asked, pointing a forehoof at Lycanroc.

Yuna tensed. Hearing “patchwork” brought Xeromus to mind, along with a spark of panic that he was somehow responsible for Lycanroc’s appearance. Meaning she brought one of his minions right to her friends and family!

“I think that’s a bit off base,” Reshiram hastily interjected. “Possible? Maybe. But we already know that Malice and distortion can mutate people. Xeromus has nothing to do with it.”

I— right. The drakloak took a breath to steady herself, but remained on the ground. But why is he with Sigurd?

“My honest opinion? I’m just remembering what that Vince guy told us,” Reshiram said.

What Vince told them? Something about trying to build the Red Chain, and that doing so first involved finding Sigurd.

… And someone else!

Yuna almost sucked in a mouthful of dirt. She stuck her head up. “Are you the Overseer?” Yuna paused. “The one they said is trapped in our dimension?”

Jade and Seifer looked expectantly at Lycanroc, who folded his hands behind his rocky mane. “You’re full of surprises, ain’t ya, mate?”

What is that accent? Yuna wondered, only to quickly brush the thought aside. She had her answer, which gave her enough energy to push herself back into the air.

“Though I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint,” Lycanroc continued. “I was an Overseer intern. Only started learning the ropes when I got trapped here.” He paused to scoop up a pawful of dirt from the ground and ball it up. “Well, not specifically here. Certainly in this world, though.”

Seifer squinted. “But you did work for them.”

“Yeah. Briefly.” Lycanroc scratched the back of his head. “Imagine if you got fired during your on-the-job training. That’s the best analogy I’ve got.”

The keldeo’s expression soured considerably. Clearly he was still sour over losing his Radiant Guard job. He looked away from Lycanroc. “Fine. Can we get a name at least?”

“Jaeger.”

“Ooh, how mysterious,” Jade sang, her tail flaps fluttered like ribbons behind her.

“Yeah, that’s how most my first dates start.” A beat passed, then Jaeger shook his head. “Kidding, of course.”

“Of course.” Seifer rolled his eyes. “Let’s just cut to the chase, then. Do you know about the Red Chain or not?”

Jaeger nodded slowly.

“When I met this bloke he showed me this funny book that sounded ancient by Qliphoth standards,” the lycanroc explained. “Said stuff about taking hold of space and time. First thing that came to mind is the Red Chain.”

Yuna fidgeted. “And you knew that because…” Her voice trailed off, because she had a feeling what Jaeger’s response would be.

“Because the Red Chain exists in other worlds, too.”

Seifer sighed and shook his head. “Of course it does. So, can we get the short version explaining what it is? I presume it’s more than just a chain of red links.”

“Spot on again.” Jaeger chuckled. “Suppose I can indulge you.” He looked around. “Don’t suppose there are any sticks around here, are there?”

“You’re a dog.” Jade folded her wings at her sides. “Don’t you, like, have a sixth sense for sticks? A stickth sense, as it were.”

“Bit of a misconception, I’m afraid,” Jaeger said, walking around and scanning the dusty ground. He sounded like he was rolling with the jabs, at the very least. “C’mon. Surely there’s at least one twig in all this dust and grass.”

“Why do you even need a stick?” Yuna asked, rubbing the side of her head.

“What else am I going to draw on the ground with, chalk?”

Shrugging, Jaeger gave up and walked back toward them. “Guess it’s paws and claws, then.” The lycanroc sat down and began tracing in the dirt. Jade waddled over, tilting her head slightly.

Yuna felt Rayquaza’s sudden presence in her mind. “Did thou seest that?”

The drakloak squinted. He’s… drawing circles? Are you saying his artistry leaves something to be desired?

“Nay. T’was a brief emerald sheen in his fur,” Rayquaza explained. “Like a sheet of little hexagons.”

Reshiram gasped. “Like Ziggy?”

Ziggy?

“Sir Zygarde.”

Yuna frowned. Maybe the fatigue had gotten to Rayquaza, too? She didn’t see any sort of connection between Jaeger and Zygarde. And if those Chiron visions of hers were any indication, Zygarde’s needle had already gotten pulled by someone else. Someone who couldn’t possibly be Sigurd.

“All right.” Jaeger listed his hands and dusted them off. “It’s no Brassius or Mina, but it’ll do.”

Jade tapped her chin with a wing. “What are we looking at, exactly?”

“The Red Chain.” Jaeger pointed to a crude ring of tiny circles. “It’s an artifact that spans countless worlds. In many of them, crazed humans would attempt to create one in order to control pokémon that embodied space and time themselves.”

“I’m sorry… what?” Seifer stared blankly at the drawing. “You’re saying there are pokémon out there that just can just casually—”

The keldeo stopped himself, then glanced at Yuna. “Never mind. That makes perfect sense.” He hung his head and shook it. “Horrifying implications, sure, but perfect sense.”

“It’s not as if I want to be able to open rifts!” Yuna protested. Maybe Seifer didn’t mean it as an insult, but it was hard not to think of it that way.

“It’s certainly curious.” Jaeger rubbed his snout with his right paw, then rested it on the dirt by a crude drawing of Leo’s wheel with two circles on either side of it. “Because, as far as I can tell, Dialga and Palkia, the gods of time and space, do not exist in this universe. And I thought the same was true of Arceus, as well.”

Yuna thought back to what Alder and Kora had told her before. “Arceus is associated with creation or something, right?”

Jaeger nodded. “It holds many titles across many worlds. The Alpha. The Original One. The Creator.” The lycanroc lazily twirled his left paw around in a circle. “No matter the phrasing, it’s almost always the same. Arceus emerges from an egg into nothing and shapes the universe.” He tapped the drawing on the ground again. “That typically involves creating its ‘children,’ Dialga and Palkia.”

“But Leo didn’t hatch from an egg into nothing.” Jade’s tail lazily thumped against the dusty ground while she tapped her right foot. “He hatched from an egg trapped in a swamp.” She glanced at Yuna. “An egg I was holding, right?”

“Yeah.” It made Yuna wonder why Leo thought she was his mother and not Jade. Because her touch made the egg hatch? “And, well, Leo didn’t originally look like that. When Bahamut was alive, he was a tiny starcloud.”

“The color scheme’s a dead giveaway, mate.” Jaeger quickly scribbled a little cloud in the dirt and gave it a couple of pom-pom hands. “Cosmog. They’re born from solgaleo and lunala coupling.”

Seifer frowned. “I don’t know what any of those refer to. Are they pokémon, too?”

“Pokémon. Ultra Beasts.” Jaeger shrugged. “The line’s kind of fuzzy in most worlds.”

Jade’s right wing shot up. “Um, is this going to be on the test? Because I haven’t been taking notes.”

A smirk tugged at Jaeger’s lips. “Just because you asked, sure, sheila. Only for you.”

“Gah!” Jade pressed her wing to her chest like she’d been struck by an attack. “No! Not studying! That’s my weakness!” The salugia paused. “Y’know, aside from rocks. And lightning and ice and dark and ghost and—”

A glob of water splattered over Jade’s force, inadvertently catching Jager, too.

“Yes, we get it. Thank you,” Seifer huffed. “Moving on.”

(Art by https://twitter.com/fwicksart)

“He’s a charmer, eh?” Jaeger pivoted away from his drawings to shake out his mane. It didn’t help much.

“I’m just trying to keep us focused,” the keldeo countered. “This is a lot of information and we don’t need unnecessary quips.”

Jade let out a few sad chirps, sitting down while water kept dripping off her face. “I was only trying to lighten the mood a bit. It’s a lot to take in, y’know.”

“Cool it, you two,” Yuna said, rubbing her rectangular head. As far as she was concerned, the faster Jaeger told them what they needed to know, the better.

That said, his explanation until now didn’t sit right with her. “Let’s go back a minute.” The drakloak kept rubbing her head. “You said ‘crazed humans’ tried to assemble Red Chains in other worlds. That makes it sound like the Red Chain is a bad thing and we should absolutely not look to put it together.”

“In the wrong hands it can be quite dangerous,” Jaeger admitted. Then he pointed to his last drawing: jagged lines straightening out. “In the right hands, it can mend tears in space and time.” The lycanroc sat back, bracing his arms on either side of him. “And, well, sounds like we’ve got enough tears around here to open up a goth fashion boutique.”

Goth?

“I’m not touching that one,” Reshiram said.

“There’s also the fact that the Red Chain already exists,” Sigurd cut in, slowly moving his chair up to Jaeger’s side.

Seifer squinted. “What? Then we don’t need to assemble it.”

“It’s split into fragments,” Sigurd clarified.

“Which means ‘assembling’ translates to gathering fragments,” Yuna said, resuming rubbing her rectangular head. “On top of the ongoing Needle thing, the anomalies, and, oh yeah, now Leo apparently has these plates that may or may not be scattered around inside these anomalies.” The drakloak squeezed her own ectoplasm. “Starting to think I should hit up Mom and get the whole Aeon army on board with this. It’s way too much for a small team to handle on its own.”

Maybe she should’ve asked for more help far earlier, but there was no going back to fix it.

… Or maybe there was with a complete Red Chain and— okay, now her head hurt again.

“Plates?” Seifer raised a brow. “What do plates have to do with this?”

“Most arceus have plates that embody the elements. Translate into pokémon types,” Jaeger said. “Sounds to me like you found one.”

“Yeah. Chernabog had it.” Yuna pointed to her waist. “I think it was stuck in his belt as some sort of big, fist-shaped crystal.”

Jaeger frowned.

“Something the matter?” Jade asked. “You turned sourpuss quickly.”

“Nah, ‘m fine, mate.” The lycanroc waved her off.

“He’s lying,” Reshiram immediately said.

But Yuna didn’t think it worth him to press someone who was still a relative stranger on the subject. Instead, she opted to briefly explain what had happened to her and Leo inside the anomaly core.

“Yeah. That about lines up.” Jaeger bobbed his head, some of his earlier unease disappearing. “All those rings and shapes Leo rearranged? The pattern he made is one that’s often associated with arceus.”

“That… felt less like a pattern and more like the floor of an Aeon tavern when drunk dragons are playing ring toss,” Yuna said. “But, sure, whatever you say.”

Jade slowly raised her wing again. “Can I say something? I promise it’s not a bad joke this time.”

“Uh, sure?” Yuna said. “You really don’t need to keep asking for permission like that. We’re not in school.”

“Sorry.” Jade lowered her wing, shuffling back and forth. “I think Bahamut had a thing for raising hands when we were apprentices.” She paused. “Never mind the fact that I’m pretty sure most Sages don’t have hands. Just hand substitutes.”

Yuna waited for Rayquaza or Reshiram to say anything to the contrary. And when they didn’t, Yuna decided not to dwell on it. She was out of energy and patience to express her disbelief over the claim.

“Just say your piece already,” Seifer huffed.

“Right.” Jade balled her wings into fists and pumped them. “So, like, these plates are important for Leo, right? And the Red Chain is connected to a couple of pokémon who are also related to Leo.” She leaned forward circling her wing to gesture for someone else to jump in. But no one did. “You guys see where I’m going with this, don’t you?”

“Uhhh…” The drakloak batted the bottom of her rectangular head. “You want to try and use them like magnets? To attract each other?”

“Not the comparison I’d pick, but basically!” Jade chirped, tail wagging. “We have one plate already. Maybe it’ll point us toward another? And then the more we gather, the easier it’ll be to find Red Chain fragments.”

Silence as the group considered Jade’s idea. As it stood, they’d have to keep diving into anomalies to stop the dimensional cataclysm. And if there were more plates waiting for them, then—

“Or-r-r-r-r-r-r.” Sigurd’s machine tried to draw out the word, but its synthetic voice kept repeating the letter R instead. “We could use the fragment we already have to find the others.”

Jade stiffened. “We have a fragment?!” She blinked a few times, then squinted. “Waaaaaaaait a second. You have a fragment, don’t you?”

Sigurd turned his wheelchair around, revealing the various medical devices and their colorful blinking lights and bars. There was also a metal capsule strapped to one of the machines. Jaeger walked up to the capsule and pressed down on the top. It opened with a whoosh of compressed air, dropping a string of four red hexagons into Jaeger’s paw.

The moment Yuna glimpsed them, a horrible chill ran down to her tail. Her body tried to retreat into her head and it took every ounce of self-control to stop it from happening. She glanced at her torso. The shadows were there. Trying to push themselves out of her back. Just like with the plate. Perhaps they were related, like Jade thought.

“You know you could have led with that,” Seifer said, shaking his head.

“I could have. But this way was funnier,” Sigured responded. Fortunately, he didn’t try to simulate another laugh with his machine.

The keldo rolled his eyes. “Delightful.”

“Aww, c’mon. It’s at least a little funny.” Jade attempted to elbow Seifer, but he stepped out of the way.

Seifer’s eye twitched. Yuna figured he was trying not to say something that would insult a terminally ill human.

“At the very least, I don’t think it’s worth taking this conversation further,” the drakloak piped up, hoping to deescalate things. “We shouldn’t plan anything without the others.” And with Gene having gone Nikkinapping, coordinating things to bring Team Bureau up to speed would have to wait.

“Oh, God.” Yuna promptly buried her face in her hands.

“What?” Jade said.

Yuna dragged her hands down her face. “We’re going to have to explain all of this to the others! Going through it once was exhausting enough!”

“I think I can help you out there.”

Yuna’s tail shriveled. “Cid? You’ve been listening this whole time?”

At the sound of buzzing, Noctum picked his head off the cool metal table. He had hoped it was dinner, but it was just a familiar orbeetle hovering toward him.

“Not entirely,” Cid said. Noctum hadn’t addressed him. He was probably talking to his X-transceiver. The black charizard had turned his off after bringing Team Bureau to Cyril’s outpost. He needed some time without people’s voices shouting in his head.

Currently, however, that time off translated to sitting in awkward silence with Igneous, Valkyrie, Scarlett, and Kyoko — the salazzle showed up uninvited to the safe house and Noctum brought her to the outpost before realizing his mistake — at one of the restaurant tables. Well, awkward silence save for Valkyrie tapping her claw impatiently on the table. And Igneous idly sipping a cup of iced coffee. And the general background noise of space pirates, bounty hunters, and other lawless types who served as the restaurant’s patrons.

… Okay, so maybe it wasn’t exactly silent.

“I was able to get a text-to-speech dictation system working on Cyril’s computer,” Cid continued, his spots flickering with excitement. “It’s not perfect, but I think it transcribed a good deal of the newcomers’ explanation.”

Noctum almost wanted to ask what Cid was talking about, but held his tongue. This was break time. Burger time, to be precise. Just as soon as someone actually brought out their food.

“You’d think working with Cyril would get us special treatment or something,” Valkyrie grumbled. The garchomp lazily stared out the big glass window. Junior’s arena was farther away than usual, and given the bright sparks and pink explosions, the garchomp could understand why.

“Right. Well, we’re all at the outpost,” Cid said. “You can meet up whenever you’re ready.” He paused. “Gene? No, I don’t think he’s here? But I’ll keep an eye out for—”

“‘Sup, nerds?”

“Ahhh!”

A sudden blue rift made Noctum jump into the air, yelping. His tail flame brightened enough to cast a violet glow over his teammates. He hovered a meter above his seat, flame pulsating. Gene floated out of the rift with Nikki at his side. She held a squirming chatot by his tail feathers.

“Unhand me, you saucy wench!” He flailed his wings about. “Chatot Gilbert, first mate extraordinaire, shall not stand for such—”

His eyes fell on Valkyrie and he abruptly stiffened. “Ah ha.” The chatot ran his wings across his music note head like it was hair to smooth out. “Mademoiselle Chomp. Such a treat to gaze upon jour fierce eyes once again.”

Valkyrie ignored him. “And you’re dropping in unannounced because…”

“Rebel leader. I do what I want.” Gene winked at the garchomp, who scowled. “And also Sparkplug over here finished her training. Figured she could chill with the lot of you.” He nudged the toxtricity forward with his yellow-tipped tail, then yoinked a squawking Gilbert out of her hands with his telekinesis.

“You guys have fun catching up and stuff.” The shadowy mewtwo smiled at them. “As for you.” His expression promptly sharpened. “You really thought you and your stupid flunkies could waltz on down and try to ‘pillage’ my room?”

“Non! Ve simply got turn-ed around a wee bi— yowch!“

A tiny Psybeam zapped Gilbert. His feathers puffed out like static electricity had jolted him.

“Oh, ze horror! Look away, Mademoiselle Chomp!”

“I think we’re going to have us a nice chat in private.” Gene’s shoulder crystal crackled ominously, then he vanished into another blue rift with the chatot pirate in tow. Awkward silence descended upon the group once again.

“So, uh…” Nikki rubbed the back of her head. “How was Casaroja?”

“Lousy,” Igneous bluntly answered. “How was anomaly spelunking?”

“Lousy.” The toxtricity slide past Kyoko and into Noctum’s seat.

“Hey, I was sitting there!”

“And now you’re not, dweeb.” Nikki dismissed him with a wave of her hand. Kyoko raised a brow, then smirked at her. The black charizard eyed the only remaining empty seat, next to Valkyrie, and winced. Sighing, he dropped onto it and folded his wings.

“Well, we’re just waiting for food to come,” the salazzle said. “Maybe you can catch us up?”

“Catch you up? Sure.” Nikki reached for Igneous’ iced coffee, then slapped his hand away when he tried to stop her. “Where the hell to start…”