The Mutsu Clan and the Doksu Clan had quarrelled with one another for a very long time… so long, in fact, that their conflict stretched back to an age before the Indigo Region had borne any name at all. In those far-off, barely-recalled years before the Champion, or the Viridian Shogun, or the Celadon Shogun, or even the first of the Saffron Emperors, the world had been a smaller place – and within the village that would eventually become Fuchsia City, the entire world was nothing more than a forest surrounded by brackish wetland, all of it gradually bleeding into ocean on three sides while a mighty river of brine barred them from the mainland.

  It was into that tiny setting that the two clans had been born. Tsuyu Mutsu did not know the exact details of their early interactions, but stories and old wisdom – the book currently in her hand, for instance – painted it as immediately bloody. Like two carvanha confined to a too-small tank, Mutsu and Doksu had torn into each other, wielding the crude precursors to proper ninjutsu and blades made from pig iron.

  As for how they managed to avoid crowning a winner in that conflict despite the miniature war stretching from generation to generation, Tsuyu was equally ignorant. But what she did know was that Fuchsia’s two ninja clans had eventually settled into détente. By the time the original Saffron Emperor built the first of what would be many bridges where Route 12 crossed today, the compact of the cherry tree had been set into stone.

  But of course, increasing the size of the tank was pointless if you kept adding more carvanha.

  As dusk began its slow transition into night, Tsuyu Mutsu, head of the Mutsu Clan, found herself in a tree.

  Not in a bad way; she wasn't being hounded by wild dogs or anything like that – though the number of growlithe did seem somewhat high. No, scent blocker and a touch of dark chakra were enough to hide her from most eyes and noses, and so her stay among the frost-touched leaves was much more leisurely than any normal traveller would have assumed. Enough that she could focus most of her attention on the old shinobi manual, even.

  It was a gruesome thing, not only in terms of content but also readability – go far enough back, and the spelling of most words became… fluid. For instance:

  ‘plase in to the wessl a kwantiti of weedl, so that it is fild to rufli haf. each insekt must be larj and go in with a ful beli, and be sure to note the numbr of worms.

  seal the wessl with wax, and each day crak this seal to alow breath. this shud be dun for onli twenti heartbeats, befor resealing. on the third day count the numbr of weedl, and if it is les than haf the starting numbr, that generaton of worms is to weak. you must return them to natur and atempt the consentration again next season, preferbly with their children.

  if it is mor than haf, continyu as directed.

  on the sixth day, place one (1) vial of the insect consentrating poison within the wessl befor resealing. when only one worm remains inside, extract it. it shud be larjer and mor fyrsome. with this weedl you might bryd enhansd insects without the nyd for further consentration.’

  Her head shook softly as she read the passage for what must have been the sixth time that day; for whatever reason the aging shinobi seemed incapable of escaping it. The intricate, thin-lined illustration of a primitive Jincan – more typically called a golden caterpillar jar in the modern day – drawn below the crude text was as impressive as it was disgusting, the details of the weedle devouring each other made by an incredibly skilled hand – and one that had obviously possessed both an eye for detail, and the good judgment to know where stylization would serve better.

  Perhaps she continued to return to the page because it was such an apt metaphor for the present situation. The Doksu, the Mutsu, the League, even the Champion… all bugs in a jar, vainly waiting for food to come. Or perhaps I’m overthinking all this, and just in a morbid state of mind… Forcing her hand to turn the page, Tsuyu read on.

  The book – which had originally been a scroll, as evidenced by the uneven cut of the pages – was truly a masterwork, detailing not only how to care for many of the island's native Pokémon but also the basics of steel-smithing, chemistry, martial arts, ninjutsu…

  Everything one would need to become a competent shinobi. In its day, it would have been a priceless treasure.

  But now, of course, it was only a dusty relic – one she could take from the archives without even invoking her rank. The endless turning of the seasons had seen each technique detailed within refined until, looking back from an entirely different millennium, they appeared hopelessly crude; why use a caterpillar jar, when you could magnify any average beedrill’s power with over-the-counter supplements and reach the same end? Why painstakingly invest iron with powdered bone, when a modern steel mill produced thousands of times the metal, and with a higher quality?

  Even the shadow arts, taught through a mix of almost modern-seeming scientific diagrams and elaborate metaphor, had been surpassed by the following generations; Tsuyu had been taught more effective tricks as a five-year-old than what Poisons and Othr Nite Wisdom contained.

  And while there was undoubtedly something triumphant in that, the muscular woman could not help but feel it was also… melancholic.

  The simple, comprehensible world Tsuyu’s ancestors had lived in had been replaced by a grand and ever-changing tapestry. While any woman with a basic understanding of pottery and poison-craft could utilize a Jincan, no single person could ever craft the complicated chemical miracles Pokémarts the world over labeled simply and deceptively as mere ‘Protein’ or ‘Calcium’ – not from scratch.

  The steel mills of the world were the work of generations, the works of nations, and that was…

  Tsuyu sighed, turning back to the beautiful, cruel illustration of cannibalism.

  …That was unfair to the people who had made things like this. How could their memory ever hope to compete with the present? How could any modern person not look back and think ‘How barbaric we were,’ despite the makers of this tome being the geniuses of their day, those whose efforts were the very ground the human species stood on?

  What would the people a thousand years from now say about her? Her father, her adopted children? She sighed again, and snapped the book closed. As a pair of shadows dipped across the rising nearly-full moon, Tsuyu Mutsu’s melancholy thoughts turned to something a little more practical.

  Shenja, your son's going to blow this whole country to bloody pieces.

  I hope you – and the history books – can make peace with me stopping him.

  Once again, Hoshi Mutsu dreamed.

  It was familiar, maybe even a dream he had dreamt before: a three-coloured ring enclosing the horizon, pink and blue and red dripping life down onto the land below. No, it’s two rings; one pink, one red and blue… The feeling of familiarity didn’t cease even as he began rising into the air – and that subconscious knowledge meant he did so with something that was kin to nostalgia stirring in his chest, rather than any trepidation or panic.

  I feel… awake. Am I even really dreaming..?

  But as he continued, the ground receding to become a distant increasingly-green dot, the nostalgic deja vu receded. Something changed – or rather, Hoshi noticed a change that had been there from the start. I'm… bleeding? He was. From across the outside of his upper arms, his shoulders, the nape of his neck and the expanse of his upper back, minute rivulets of blood were flowing. They were small wounds, no more than pinpricks, and yet the streams of blood that issued from each pore were constant and unbroken – it was like hair, almost, growing continually to spool behind him in the weightless depths of space, an umbilical cord connecting him to mother Earth.

  I've had this dream before, Hoshi thought as golden rings whizzed past, faster and faster as he accelerated and subconscious knowledge became overt. Maybe… more than once?

  Yes; as the golden halos gave way to utter blackness, he remembered what would happen next – and despite knowing he would feel nothing, Hoshi couldn't help but wince in trepidation as he struck down like a falling-

  A falling Arcus damned star. If this nightmare is a fucking pun, I'm gonna hurt somebody.

  He struck the void, and at that moment something else changed. The ground buckled, the crater he'd deepened with each recurrence finally hitting bottom. Hoshi looked down as he fell, no longer weightless, as below him three eyes opened.

  But Hoshi had no opportunity to properly understand what he was seeing; the line of blood-red tendrils stretching across space became taut, and as the eyes reached out pleadingly he was suddenly yanked out of the crater.

  It hurts…

  said the thing waiting in the void, its voice following him for the briefest moment into the real world.

  My body… It hurts…

  One lightless void turned into another as Hoshi snapped awake, the darkness of his eyelids marred by a triangular imprint of three dots. The prospect of opening them felt painful, in a way that didn't entirely make sense – but he did it anyway.

  Because someone was screaming.

  “Aurora Veil!” came a cry that Hoshi eventually identified as Junior Executive Tanya, and a moment later his groggy brain was jumpstarted by the icy touch of snow against his face. The sudden burst of adrenaline finally made him register the fact that – holy fuck, our tent is gone. “Casca!” he yelled, shaking the still-sleeping woman beside him. “We're-” actually I have no fucking idea, “-Under attack! Crow, recon!”

  Luckily – or smartly, or maybe tiredly – Hoshi had gone to sleep in his clothes, which included his belt and Pokéballs. Crow burst forth, awoken from her own slumber by his voice, and took to the air as Hoshi tried to see what the fuck was happening while their shelter had turned into a snowstorm. Is there fighting? Damnit, it would already be impossible to see anything even if it wasn't fucking midnight..!

  But where his normal eyes failed, his newly-upgraded empathy came through; Tanya was at the crack connecting the tree's innards with the rest of the world, surrounded by six dimmer auras that were probably her Pokémon. Wendy, who'd been on watch with Kenny when Hoshi’d fallen asleep, was behind her while the be-wigged man was in front. I can recognise..? Yeah, I guess I can.

  They, too, had their Pokémon out – both for the bodyguard, three for the steroid junkie – and Hoshi followed their example by releasing Guts and Venus. “Girls, stay close. We're-”

  “Hoshi..?” Casca interrupted. “Why are – oh fuck, we're being ambushed in the woods again aren't we?”

  His third eye and actual eyes worked together to reveal a darting clump of duty taking fiery potshots at the gathered Rockets, the blasts impacting a shimmering curtain that undulated like the northern lights – and hidden behind the light show, another bundle of emotion winding its way towards the rest of them below the earth.

  Hoshi nodded. “Looks that way.”

  Dig was a much more complicated move than most people realised. Not necessarily tactically – most Ace trainers had played around enough to start squeezing blood from the metaphorical stone of their team’s movelist by the time they made their first National – but rather mechanically.

  When a diglett or dugtrio ‘swam’ through the earth, they were using a form of Dig – one that turned the surrounding ground so soft it was effectively liquid. Doing it that way left very few traces after the Pokémon passed, as the liquid dirt or clay or concrete or whatever filled in behind them. But most Pokémon weren't so skilled with the move, and so they had to, you know, actually dig when using Dig. That form of the move only softened the earth enough to move and compact easily, and it very nearly always left a tunnel – for instance, the tunnel Rolando Asao was crawling through just behind his raticate.

  Warmer down here, his hindbrain commented as the rest of him focused on slithering. The frost hasn't gotten too far down… That's good, that means the plants will be mostly fine. That wasn't something you could always say when the Articuno was involved – or any legendary Pokémon, for that matter. “How you doing, boy?”

  The chittering reply sounded positive enough, and so Ron nodded and refocused on-

  A soft rumbling through the earth heralded Janine making good on her part of the distraction, and the ranger’s brow furrowed in concentration. Eighteen body lengths since we started hitting taproots. That broad-shouldered ninja woman said twenty-five, but do I really need to come out at the very back..? The level of obfuscation they wanted chafed against his instincts… but after a moment Ron decided to grit his teeth and bear it. Feels shitty hearing a fight and needing to stay out of it, even for just a minute.

  But he trusted Janine to know what she was doing, so he'd trust that this Tsuyu was the same. “Little bit farther,” he whispered to Raticate – or maybe it would be more accurate to say Haunter? No, probably not; the normal type probably didn’t even know he had a passenger. “Then we-”

  A different sort of rumble, strong and close, and the ranger’s expression turned to dismay. “Shit.” Earthquake. Well, we knew the stakes coming in, so can't complain now! “Up! Disable trainers, stay mobile!”

  Champion’s Bulldoze reverberated through the soft soil, and despite his position – directly behind the gible, where the move was weakest – Hoshi felt himself rock up and down like he was standing on a tiny raft.

  Immediately the swirl of underground emotion gained a blaring note of sickly yellow panic – but only a note; whoever was down there, they were a professional. Wonder why I’m only seeing one though. Is there no Pokémon down there..?

  Maybe that damn Route Ranger has some kind of digging machine. Or the trainer and their ‘mon were too close for his senses to separate – whatever the case, that was definitely a human down there. And Hoshi would bet money on it being the ranger.

  But if he was here, then the one attacking Tanya was..?

  As if in answer to his question, the snow suddenly cleared – or rather, it was momentarily forced away. A cold wind blasted Hoshi’s exposed face and caused Champion to squeal, but the Rocket kept his eyes stubbornly open. “Damnit..!” It’s too cold to have a dragon out for long. “Guts, Venus, you two are on Ranger duty! Distract him when he comes up! Casca, you too!” Better you fight him than who I’m suspecting. It wouldn’t be a long wait; the tunneling infiltrator wasn’t deep at all…

  But even so, Hoshi couldn’t stay; he’d recognised the two Pokémon who’d teamed up to cause that wind. Casca voiced her agreement in a call that struggled against the wind, and so with his teeth grit and his golbat’s wings sounding out a comforting beat above his head, he stepped forward. “Tsuyu! I know you’re here, so get the fuck out!”

  The gap that the moves – Tailwind and Whirlwind, his brain filled in from somewhere else, from a crobat and shiftry respectively – had made ended, returning the tree’s innards to nearly pure blackness as the campfire was once again obscured by the miniature snowstorm. But his empathy didn’t care about that, and although Hoshi could feel his ephemeral gas tank draining he kept it wide open and sharp.

  Because his challenge was answered by a burst of muddled emotion appearing in the murk, apprehension and steadfast confidence swirling into a grey mess as it sidled, smooth and unhurried, through the crowd of battling Pokémon.

  Fucking knew it.

  “Hoshi,” his aunt said in a growling voice touched by poison. Her silhouette followed, the dark fabric only barely visible because he knew where to look. “Do you think I follow orders from you, brat?”

  Despite everything, Hoshi felt a thin smile – thin like a blade, thin like the oxygen in one’s lungs as they sank down and down and down – touch his numb lips. “You came. So I guess you do.”

  That single exchange ended their banter; red flashed as an umbreon and vileplume appeared, Hoshi releasing Rivet and Moony at the same time. For a fraction of a second Tsuyu was actually properly visible, purple-pink irises peeking out from a midnight headwrap-

  And then the first knife came, together with a cloud of stunning spores and a ray of rainbow light. Hoshi caught his returning Pokéballs and blocked the knife with one, producing a shower of sparks – the motion was automatic, almost accidental. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, some distant part of him panicked. An inch higher and I’d be down a finger..!

  But the panic, too, was distant; as he belted out orders and stepped behind his magneton’s bulk to protect himself from the inevitable second knife, his heartbeat was strong but even. “Thunder Wave, then Thunder Shock! Moony, give me some Fake Tears.”

  The battle unfolded with a certain agonizing slowness – only Hoshi, and probably Tsuyu, could actually see each other properly. Moves missed, the lines got tangled, and within a minute every single Pokémon between the two Mutsu were paralysed save for Rivet. In response Tsuyu whistled, and some sort of bird – probably the murkrow Hoshi had seen in their earlier encounter – flew by to aid her other two Pokémon with another Tailwind before winging its way back to the big brawl that was keeping Janine from entering. Actually, she’s probably just the distraction. Though now that I think about… Damnit! Tsuyu’s a distraction too, isn’t she?

  That – both the Tailwind and the realisation that his aunt had only brought half her team to their showdown – put him on the back foot, and so Hoshi decided to gamble. Will she see? This snow is like being in a fucking cloud – is that enough?

  Again, he’d have to gamble on it. The senior grunt drew his dive ball and pointed it behind himself, then with a flurry of quick presses bid his electabuzz to join the field as stealthily as possible. Then, before Jackson Jr. could complain about the cold or the dark or some other thing, Hoshi shushed him. “Shh. Don’t make a sound, just listen.” He couldn’t turn to see the diminutive Pokémon lest he give the game away, and could only hope that it listened – that Surge’s training had given the electabuzz a good enough sense of Kantonese that it would understand. And that my body is blocking Tsuyu’s vision well enough to not make this completely pointless. “Charge up. When I give the order, Shock Wave as wide an area as possible.” Feeling the protest coming, he continued. “Yes, me too. That’s an order, soldier.”

  Another minute of slow manoeuvring in the dark, of thick, sharp petals cutting at his face as the vileplume added Petal Blizzard to the actual blizzard, of crashing thunder and great hulking shapes being illuminated for just a moment. It was an entirely different slice of hell than the one Hoshi had seen the night his girls had evolved, and it made the wound just below his armpit ache even as the rest of him slid into absolute numbness. Somewhere behind him he could feel Guts and Venus fighting the Ranger, the details beyond even his new psychic bullshit. Come on. Come on! Your Pokémon aren’t built for this weather, take it into your own hands!

  But despite his urging, Tsuyu had yet to draw her sword. She still sent knives out whenever his attention started wavering, but the woman seemed adamant in letting the fight draw on.

  Of course she is, her murkrow and whatever other Pokémon that'd managed to sneak past are probably about finished wrecking our supplies by now. They can just leave and let the forest take care of us. Or they were taking out Casca and the other grunts, a more urgent part of him suggested, and Hoshi felt the far-away panic take a long step closer.

  “RAH!” he roared in frustration. “Fine! Play that fucking game, but don’t expect me to play along!”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Things were going mostly according to plan, at least as far as Tsuyu’s eyes could see.

  Which was admittedly a lot less than usual; while her sense-sharpening technique could pierce darkness just fine, there wasn’t much she could do about the fat snowflakes blanketing everything. Damn foreign dog, at this rate Vileplume is going to freeze-

  “RAH!” her nephew suddenly yelled, and Tsuyu’s eyes sharpened further. “Fine! Play that fucking game, but don’t expect me to play along!”

  A game, is it? she thought as the man-shape darted forward past the shield of his stolen magneton. No, not at all. I’m afraid this is real life, Hoshi. Though as he approached, she was forced to admit the word wasn’t entirely inapt; her nephew was definitely playing at being an idiot. There was some kind of scheme behind his sudden rush, and she had to figure out how to disarm it.

  Of course, as with most things, the most straightforward defense against someone getting clever was a good offense. “Haunter, time to move.”

  Hoshi’s silhouette froze for a moment as supernatural cold joined the mundane kind. Her designated tracker was even harder to see than anything else, just a thin gaseous shadow slinking over the ground as it left the ranger’s rat behind – and yet the man’s head locked onto him. “Haunter?” Hoshi said, his voice suddenly a lot smaller. “Oh fuck.”

  “Take care of the rabble. Hex.” Even as she said it, even as her nephew snapped back to motion and she finally saw the need to draw her sword, Tsuyu felt the reluctance in her chest writhe. Like weedle eating each other, strengthening their poison as the days go on… Though any familial affection she felt didn’t stop her from moving as Hoshi’s hands went into his pockets. With a flick the blade deflected-

  A Pokéball? And still in stasis? What kind of stupid mistake was-

  “Now! Shock Wave!”

  From seemingly nowhere – no, from behind Hoshi – there came a clap of thunder, the sound of it hitting at the same time as the accompanying lightning. Tsuyu’s teeth pressed against each other as one hand reached for a throwing weapon of her own – only to be stopped as a second wave of lightning, this one more debilitating than painful, froze her muscles in their tracks.

  Hoshi lowered the taser, its coiling wire ceasing to connect his hand to her chest, and with strange, jerky motions stepped towards her even as the Shock Wave kept coming. He slapped, her sword went flying, and-

  And Tsuyu headbutted her brother’s little boy hard enough to break both their noses, the double flows of electricity inhibiting her motions too much for any kind of precision. Then the lightning petered out, and the clan head stood above her criminal of a relative with a knife drawn in her off-hand.

  “This is the last chance, Hoshi,” she said with finality as her Pokémon blocked his own from interfering. “You have no idea what you’re playing with, little boy.” He gestured – but the darkness flowing through her veins caused the psychic energy to pass right through, unable to find its target. “Did you really think that would work twice?” I didn’t realise what was happening that night, but figuring it out afterwards wasn’t hard.

  “Honestly,” Hoshi replied, “I kind of did? Or the taser. Or you’d break the Pokéball and get a face full of angry police dog. Kind of out of options, here.”

  An electabuzz stepped in, and the knife found its chest. She drew another. Oh, so that’s where that came from. “You really are, nephew. Like I said, last chance.” Anyone else – anyone else, anyone who wasn’t her own flesh and blood – she’d have killed by now. He’s already taken out a League man. Even we won’t be able to keep him out of prison. But her stubborn, stupid heart still balked at cutting Shenja’s son, even if he’d betrayed everything the clan stood for. “When we joined Kanto, Fuchsia’s leaders swore an oath to always serve the Saffron Emperor – and that oath sits with the Champion now. I can’t let you go, Hoshi.” The knife was heavy, in a way that she hadn’t felt since she was a small, small girl. “You need to give up.”

  Another psychic blast passed through her body, and Tsuyu’s heart sank along with the amount of dark energy she’d built up through meditation and the most secret of secret medicines. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else. My damn stupid brother gave up everything for his dream, why wouldn’t his damn stupid son be the same?

  Her muscles tensed – and she whirled, stabbing for the golbat that had been circling above her head for the past minute as it dived.

  “Crow! Damnit-!”

  Vileplume grounded a bolt from the magneton, and Haunter blew past the now-unconscious ursaring that had blocked his progress. The bat retreated, missing a short length of tongue. The ghost cackled – and Hoshi drew the final ball on his belt, his eyes wild. Sorry, kid. That gible won’t be enough.

  And then, one final time, Tsuyu Mutsu hesitated. Her hand slowed, her thoughts filled with the idea that she’d just let Haunter possess the man and disable him that way – and that proved to be a fatal error.

  Because a slithering arbok with a pikachu clinging to its head suddenly appeared from the swirling snow, its patterned hood illuminated by the sparks issuing from the rodent’s cheeks. She juked the snake’s fangs, took a Thunder Shock that was honestly unimpressive when held up against the combo she’d endured seconds earlier, and then Tsuyu drove the point of her knife towards the still-reclining Hoshi’s throat – but apparently the pause had been enough for a bright idea, because the boy thought to push himself instead of her.

  She felt each of his knuckles shatter as several of her teeth did the same. And then…

  Only the darkness of the empty jar - or, perhaps, a stomach. As it swallowed her, the head of the Mutsu Clan had only one thought: Damn good-for-nothing Doksu. Can’t even beat a few Rockets in a reasonable timeframe…

  Ron’s I’m in a bad situation radar had started going off when they’d surfaced to find a blinding snowstorm rather than the simpler winds he’d been told to expect, and it’d gotten louder right around the time the haunter stopped possessing Raticate – meaning that the previously-immune Pokémon would be visible to the psychic grunt’s strange powers.

  And then it practically blared as the snow cleared to reveal the Mutsu Clan Head unconscious.

  Welp, he thought to himself as the inside of the tree was suddenly populated by coordinated gangsters rather than isolated thugs. That’s a wrap. Time to go – at least I did my job.

  The good news: Janine was still up, and although Venusaur had been taken out by a gang of water types – embarrassing but not unexpected, given the difficult terrain and sheer difference in numbers – Charizard was still good to go. “Char, Blast Burn! Let’s get outta here!”

  Blastoise came back as his fire lizard puffed his chest – and the attack he exhaled all but disintegrated the wall of wood; every time Rolando saw it he had the same thought, and this time was no different. What a ridiculous attack. Blast is the exact right word.

  Of course it came with an equally ridiculous drain on his Pokémon’s stamina, but a quick return would give Charizard enough of a breather to fly away in a second. As the fire type disappeared into light and all the Rockets recoiled from the sudden spectacle of the sun reappearing for a lingering moment, Ron leapt. Strength returned to his limbs as hot ash chased away the cold – and then the flushed feeling was chased out in turn by pain as he began to burn. Luckily he was fast on his feet, and three steps was enough to go from arctic to furnace and then back again; not nearly enough for permanent damage. Some lotion and a good night’s rest will get me right back.

  …Assuming he wasn’t caught. Not out of the woods yet – literally, in this case. Raticate, at least, would be able to find his own escape route; if there was anything his starter Pokémon was good at, it was running away. All that was left was to blend into the forest for a split second, release Charizard again, then-

  A moment before he would have slipped behind a tree, Ron’s legs suddenly fell out from under him. Something pressed down on his back, an ephemeral weight that echoed the cold night air that was just beginning to reclaim the lost territory of his bones. “Nngh-!” Night Shade! “N-ah-! Charizard!”

  His ace heard his choked-back call, and erupted in a burst of light. Without pausing his jaw grabbed the ranger roughly but not violently by the shoulder, and-

  And again the Rockets attempted to stop them, the blue-green radiance of a Dragon Breath arcing out. Not yet fully recovered, Charizard took the hit full-on – his teeth broke Ron’s skin as the false dragon’s muscles clenched in pain.

  But he was a false dragon, and so the strange fire failed to put him down. Determination shone in his eyes as Charizard extended his wings-

  Rocks grew up from the ground to encase his legs-

  Flying type energy built, lightening his body-

  And then a venomoth came out of nowhere, blasted the Rock Tomb with corrosive sludge, and Charizard broke free. He roared, and Rolando roared with him as Fly took them off into the night.

  “Damnit,” Kenny groused. “Totally had th’ bastard at the end there. Fuckin’ cheatin’ ninja shit…”

  Yeah, Hoshi agreed internally. Fucking cheating ninja shit. Can’t believe Janine got away again. Of course externally all he did was wheeze in pain; breaking every single bone in one’s hand – and possibly the wrist too – fucking hurt.

  Forget Dabi’s machamp, this is worse than that time I punched a brick wall like a dozen times… Or maybe it just felt like it was because he wasn’t ten minutes away from as many painkillers as a medical professional was willing to stuff into a teenager’s body. Fuck! Fucking- why do I do things? The fact that psychokinetically propelling himself like a squishy cannonball had actually worked was a cold comfort – and he didn’t just say that because it was still fucking freezing even with Tanya’s ninetails no longer turning their shelter into a midnight snowstorm – but it was a comfort. It’s over. It’s fucking over, it’s done, it’s-

  It’s over.

  “Don’t worry, man,” one of Black’s hangers-on said. “We’re more than halfway there, and I’m pretty sure his venusaur actually got knocked out. No way he makes it to a Pokécentre and back before we get close to the city.”

  Kenny nodded, allowing himself to be placated – so of course Tanya Remond had to ruin the silver lining by walking up and being a massive ice-cold bitch. “I’m afraid we won’t be making it to Saffron tomorrow,” she said, not sounding afraid in the least. “We’re going to need to ration out the remaining medicine; I just checked our supplies, and it seems you all were too occupied to protect them from that overgrown salamander.”

  Oh yeah, definitely our fault, it’s not like you’re the strongest person here or anything, or that your stupid weather move made everything ten times fucking harder…

  Hoshi grit his teeth, resolutely denying the part of him that tried to point out that he’d only worn Tsuyu down because nobody could see shit, and instead focused on forming coherent words. “How screwed are we?”

  “We still have some Potions,” the executive answered. “And whatever we were carrying on our persons – but we also just had somewhere between a third and fully half our Pokémon knocked unconscious, so it’s likely most of it will be spent before morning. We’ll have to slow down to rest and scavenge herbs and such, so…” Her perfectly white teeth and hair shone in the flickering firelight. “At least three days. Four if that incessant, idiotic Pokémon Ranger manages to find us again after we cover our tracks. And if Janine decides to try taking us a second time…” Her grimace stretched so far downward, it threatened to deform the shape of her chin. She’ll regret it and we’ll probably lose were painted vividly in the deep lines ringing her cheeks.

  Collective groans from the grunts – save Hoshi, whose jaw was too tense to allow an exhale at that moment.

  “Well,” Casca broke in, “At least we took care of one of them…”

  Again, collective action; everyone, Hoshi included, looked towards the unconscious Tsuyu. They’d tied her up, but even the dense trio of Ryu, Ken, and Harry must have known that would be next to useless when she actually woke up. “So,” his girlfriend continued, voicing their thoughts. “What do we do with her?”

  The question broke them apart; Tanya’s bodyguards looked to her, the three grunts Hoshi was still having trouble telling apart to Black, and Casca and Kenny to him.

  Tanya opened her mouth – but Black was already releasing his arbok. “We kill her, obviously,” he said, voice cold and even as polished ice. Even knowing it was coming – it was the obvious answer, after all – Hoshi’s entire body flinched. The taste of blood filled his mouth as his teeth caught slivers of cheek on each side… yet he couldn’t force himself to speak up. It was the obvious solution, and for good reason.

  It’s… it’s like the inspector. She’ll come after us again if we let her go.

  But she was family.

  She knows our teams – if she links up with the bulk of Mutsu and Doksu, our chances of making this work go straight in the gutter.

  But Janine had escaped, and she’d undoubtedly been keeping track of everything… As much as Tsuyu had, at least.

  Shut the fuck up! Are you trying to sabotage us? We- we can’t be selfish. Not now. Not after all this..!

  Hoshi’s muscles tensed even further, his entire body beginning to cramp as he stared at the unconscious shinobi. His hand throbbed, and his head too, and – and Kenny broke into the circling whirlpool of his thoughts with a grunt. “Uh… That’s like, the Mutsu clan head, right?”

  “Yeah,” Casca answered. “Hoshi’s auntie Tsuyu. So, I think-”

  She was interrupted by a squawk. “Oi, huh, wha?” The ex-wrestler’s face had scrunched up. “Wait wait – like, I knew you were Mutsu, Boss, but you’re that close to the top?”

  “What does it matter to you?” Hoshi choked out, and somehow Kenny’s face scrunched even further. It looked like his wig and fake beard were attempting to swallow his head, and the injection of the silly image into deciding his aunt’s fucking life made the senior grunt’s blood boil. His old familiar companion returned once again, red beginning to sidle into the edges of his vision-

  Only to be blown away by Kenny’s next words. “It’s jus’, like, she’s my aunt too? Assumin’ this’s who I think it is, it isn’t like I met ‘r before. I didn’t know we were related!” He pointed Hoshi’s way, and the man’s brain ground to a halt. …Huh? “Oh man, wait – you must have an aunt named Denju, right?”

  “…Yes?”

  “Right! She married my uncle Huck back in ninety-three! We’re cousins-in-law!”

  Reluctantly, gears started to turn. What. Fuck off, that’s not- that Uncle Huck..? I heard him say the name before, but like…

  “Cousin-in-laws aren’t a thing,” Hoshi’s mouth said on autopilot. “We aren’t anything. My aunt being married to your uncle doesn’t make us anything.” Stupid fucking coincidence though… Have I not mentioned that Tsuyu was my aunt to him? I’m completely sure I have – but I guess he’s been in a spiralling funk thinking about his grandma ever since we learned we’re outlaws…

  Wait, did the instructors put him under me so that all the ninja-related people were together? Is Puce gonna drop some secret backstory about her great-grandpappy fleeing Fuchsia with a sack of stolen gold..?

  Kenny made a face, obviously disagreeing, and Hoshi pulled himself out of his head to argue further – but let the unspoken protest die with a head-shake. This doesn’t fucking matter. None of this fucking matters – we need to be deciding what to do. “Let’s table this for now,” he said instead, and looked back to Tsuyu’s restrained form.

  Laying in the snow with her headwear removed, his aunt looked… shockingly normal. She was muscled, but no more than the average female dockworker; put her in a construction hat and overalls, and she would’ve blended in perfectly with Hoshi’s coworkers. Former coworkers. Her hair was a soft pink, even lighter than her eyes, cut short and with that familiar Mutsu frizz that punched him right in the chest. Stop. Stop feeling it.

  She’s the enemy. She threw fucking knives at you. Maimed your Pokémon. Junior’s probably gonna cry at the sight of a butter knife for the rest of his life…

  The protests did nothing to the warm, unwelcome sympathy pooling in his guts like bubblegum – sticky and unpleasantly sweet. Everyone was silent as the seconds ticked over, until…

  “I still vote we kill her,” Black said, and although his voice had gained a note of awkwardness it was still steady and cold – crushed ice, but still ice. “I’d be willing to bet a lot more’n I’ve got that even if we truss her up in the middle of these fucking hell-woods, she’ll still somehow show up nice and clean at the Nationals. I don’t wanna fight that shiftry again.”

  “We could just kill the Pokémon?” Casca suggested, and her words caused another long silence. Can you even kill a ghost? Hoshi asked inside his head. Tanya knocked it out before it could do anythingto me, but I don’t want to release that thing again…

  “We should probably do that anyway,” he choked out, hating the way his broken nose made his voice sound hesitant. “Regardless of what we do to her.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” Tanya was still frowning – and specifically, she was frowning Hoshi’s way. “Are you going to speak up in her defense? Because if not, I think it would be best if you…” Her next words came out slowly, each one isolated; an implicit order… or perhaps it was simply as close as the executive could get to actual sympathy. “Check the perimeter.”

  The senior grunt couldn’t stop looking at his aunt, couldn’t stop picking out tiny familiar details in the squared curve of her chin, the way her eyebrows were a touch too big to be attractive, the way her eyes narrowed as she slept. Most of all he couldn’t stop thinking, disparate thoughts swirling down an infinite drain that didn’t fucking go anywhere – and again, Kenny broke his internal deadlock.

  “I don’t wanna kill her,” the grunt said. “I’ve never met her in person, but that’s my uncle’s wife’s sister. I ain’t got enough family left ta be prunin’ the tree back. I think-”

  “Tanya-sama, perhaps you should simply decide,” Mondo interrupted, drawing an annoyed bark from Kenny. “You are our commanding officer. It is…” He swallowed, and Hoshi took note of the apprehension swirling about the weirdly old-fashioned man’s head. “Your responsibility to do such things.” Actually, everybody seems pretty freaked out. I guess… I guess Casca’s probably the only person here who’s killed somebody before.

  And… And me. I didn’t pull the trigger, but Mondo’s right; the commanding officer takes all the flak. That thought, that memory, of seeing Owen Haw’s unmoving body slumped against his shattered television, finally unclogged his brain. As an argument broke out the whirling thoughts sloshed down, and though his head was still filled with gunk and pain and emotion a tiny glint of silver-bright epiphany presented itself.

  “Her fingers,” Hoshi said, his raised voice cutting through Kenny’s attempt to shout everyone else down. “We- we remove the pointer finger from each hand. Maybe the middle too.” Saying it should’ve made him feel sick, but he was beyond that now. “She won’t be able to hold a sword or knife properly, or throw a Pokéball accurately. We take out her team for good, we cripple her, we leave her tied up.”

  Silence. In the illusory world of his third eye Hoshi saw the other Rockets building whirlpools of their own, emotions swirling in their heads – but nobody spoke.

  Until eventually, Kenny’s grimacing lips parted. “That’s fucked up… But I guess it fuckin’ solves it, huh?”

  As one day passed into the next, Tsuyu Mutsu’s visions turned from the inside of a Jincan to something less comprehensible: a blur of blacks and dark browns, seemingly without pattern, the edges of one colour bleeding into the next before being replaced in turn.

  “Uh,” she grunted, and the petite woman carrying her stopped – stopped abruptly, the soles of her feet seeming to adhere to the tree’s branch like glue.

  “Tsuyu,” Janine quietly hissed. “Are you functional?”

  Tsuyu… honestly had no idea. “Hy fash…” she mumbled, and was momentarily startled by the strange mushy quality of her own voice.

  “Your jaw is broken – nose too. I gave you the good painkillers.” Ah, that explained the fact that the forest was still blurrily dancing along like the trees had learned to… dance. And the sluggishness too. As Tsuyu blinked Janine resumed both moving and speaking, her voice more clipped than usual. “I apologise for the abruptness of what I’m about to say, but we’re in a bad situation. I found the remains of your shiftry, umbreon, and vileplume near where they had you tied up; they are dead. Your murkrow is missing, and…” She hesitated, and the larger woman winced in dreadful anticipation. “Your index fingers have been removed. I couldn’t locate them; it’s likely they were destroyed. I’m sorry.”

  As the Gym Leader announced the end of her career as a shinobi, Tsuyu Mutsu experienced… nothing. The trees Janine was leaping across had infinitely more opinions on the loss of her fingers and Pokémon than the clan head did – she was numb. I…

  I assumed I would die. The mercy, too, sparked nothing. The jar was empty, the golden caterpillar removed and its desolate home left to air out before the next batch went in.

  “…I’m sorry,” Janine said again, and finally a pinprick of emotion bled through: annoyance.

  “Ou- vif-ffit.” I dislike pity, girl. Even… even now.

  “…Right. I’m sorry, but I’m going to need to ask you a difficult question.”

  The forest once again slowed, and then Janine went a step further and descended to the forest floor. The trees continued to gyrate, distressingly mobile, but Tsuyu was able to dredge up bits of actual reality; the plant life was smaller than it was in the deep forest. They’d retreated. The Gym Leader set her against the rough bark of… something, and looked down at her with an expression that Tsuyu didn’t like at all. “Did you deliberately allow Hoshi Mutsu to defeat you?” Janine asked without further preamble, and Tsuyu-

  Tsuyu’s belly lurched as her legs decided she needed to be standing – and after a moment to think about it, her head agreed. “Hay ‘at amam.” Say that again. Say that again, you greenhouse flower. You showpiece. You fucking whore.

  If Janine heard the cursing in her thoughts, she didn’t react. “You’re certain? One’s emotions can become… difficult to discern, where family is involved.”

  “‘K oo.” Fuck you. Do you think I’d choose a nephew I barely know over my sister? My father’s memory? My clan? Fuck you.

  “I see I’ve offended you. I apologise again – but you know I had to ask.”

  “Fa k-stion fa oo,” Tsuyu slurred in reply, unable to feel her tongue or even tell whether her teeth were touching each other – or if she had any teeth at all. “Di oo hoolf fack?” Here’s a question for you: did you hold back?

  That Rocket with the tyranitar was stronger than any of the ones we fought tonight. And you weren’t splitting your team up to capture fucking babies – so why the fuck did you softball them so fucking hard?

  Janine regarded her coolly as Tsuyu loomed over her. “I was as surprised as you were by their growth. Or did you just happen to get your face smashed apart by a lucky hit?”

  The Gym Leader didn’t move as the fist came around, missing by an amount that wasn’t quite discernible with everything jiggling like jelly. Tsuyu blinked, startled again by her own movement. “H’ ot a k-son.”

  “Yes, you probably have a concussion. I’m going to take you back to Fuchsia now, and then-” With a savage diagonal chop she cut off the clan head’s preemptive argument. “-And then I need to speak to my father.”

  Tsuyu could only grunt wordlessly, rage taking even rudimentary speech from her. You’re giving up? After what I fucking sacrificed? They’ll be sitting Generals-damn-them-all psyduck with their food burnt up, the Ranger at least did his fucking job, unlike..!

  Recognising the futility of her state, the woman slumped. The moment she stopped tensing her bones turned to rubber, and Tsuyu Mutsu hit the ground while Janine looked down, for once inscrutable. “Your life isn’t over,” she said. “You have two children to raise. You are still the head of the Mutsu Clan.”

  Fuck you, said the concussion, while the rest of Tsuyu simply returned to numbness.