For what felt like the first time in a long time, Hoshi Mutsu woke up without some sort of immediate problem to solve. There weren't wild Pokémon attacking the camp, he didn't need to wrangle a volatile group of conflicting personalities into something resembling teamwork, and there wasn't a mission or task or looming threat hanging over his head promising painful consequences if he moved too slowly.

  For the first time in he didn't even know how long, Hoshi Mutsu woke up and didn't see catastrophe approaching on the horizon. He was no longer in charge, it was no longer his responsibility, and as he groggily sat up, blinking in the ‘daylight’ being projected from the dozen or so standing lamps, he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He was just one man among many, waiting for something to happen. The previous night's encounters rolled around completely unmoored from the deck of his mind, crashing around the emptiness where the knowledge of what his day was going to be should have been – and Hoshi had nothing to tie them down with.

  The only thing that seemed real was a lingering impression of three eyes staring out from the darkness under his eyelids. Great, nightmares again. At least I had one hell of a scare I can blame it on. A gengar… He shivered as he sat in bed, Casca breathing softly at his side.

  It was only when some fellow early-risers began microwaving their breakfasts and the scent reached his nose that Hoshi got out of bed. Food, he settled on. Food first, then thinking about shit.

  Despite beginning early, the morning plodded along at the speed of a paralysed slug – half because there was genuinely little to do, and half because Hoshi's brain and body both felt like they'd been dipped in tar and left to harden into a sticky mass. His hand itched inside its cast, and his thoughts did much the same where they rubbed up against the inside of his skull.

  “What's up stud? Casca broke into the nothing. “You're completely zonked out.”

  “Yeah Boss,” Kenny picked up. “You ain't even watchin’ the battles – you feelin’ alright?”

  Hoshi languidly turned away from where a few scientists were going at it with a magnemite and gloom, and fixed his subordinate with a look. “I'm watching. The battle's just shit.”

  Kenny grunted, his mouth full of… well, something. “Okay, then what moves ’s the magnemite know?”

  …Well, it's obviously not evolved yet, so it probably has… Huh. The thought was halted by the realisation that he had, in fact, not really been watching. “I guess I was zonked out. I woke up last night after everybody was asleep and… some stuff happened. Didn't sleep super great.” Understatement of the year.

  Ryan leaned in, pushing his breakfast aside. “Don't tell me you were snooping around?” he said, tone worried. “We've been warned against doing that – and a few of the other grunts have disappeared, so it's a warning I take seriously. Apparently there's a ghost prowling around some parts of the-”

  “It's Sabrina,” Hoshi interrupted, bringing Ryan up short. “She's possessed – by Hypno's gengar, I'm assuming. Ran into her while trying to figure out how dangerous these experimental weapons we're being given actually are.”

  The three Rockets sharing a table with him each spoke simultaneously, Ryan's “Experimental-? Where did you get that information from?” and Casca’s “You went out alone? Hoshi! I wanted to do that together!” drowned out by Kenny's louder “A gengar? Man, everybody gets cool Pokémon but us!”

  Okay, should probably not mention the weird urge to down a bottle of raw stardust or the fact that something that might be the fucking Dexus is talking to me in my sleep… at least not right now. Actually, thinking about it…

  Are those two things related?

  Hoshi put the question aside as he put his hands up, attempting to calm things down. “Look, I was loopy from the painkillers and made a bad decision. The important part is that I got a good look at Dabi – Professor Mokusen, I mean. The man was wrecked, looked like his own grandpa after a night of binge drinking.” I was too shaken at the time to question it, but his machamp was a touch weird too; I'm guessing that whatever happened wasn't strictly one-way. “So I think that if this Arlo guy I keep hearing about tries to offer us a Mega Stone or whatever it is they're calling this artificial thing, what we'll do is nod and act grateful and then never use it. Sound good?”

  Various shades of skepticism met his gaze, and Hoshi sighed in his head. “Mega Stone?” Kenny asked. “What?”

  After numerous explanations and a solemn promise to his girlfriend that he would never go off exploring secret-hideout-mad-science-gangster-facilities on his own ever again, Hoshi was finally able to get back around to the root of things – though even when he did, he found the reactions of his audience mixed.

  “Okay but,” Kenny argued, “Better to have it ‘n not need it, right? We're gonna be fightin’ the League, so I'd feel good if I had somethin’ in my back pocket to… ya know, do somethin’ if I end up face-to-face with the Karate Master.” He fiddled for a moment in his pockets, and then drew out a prop: the police baton they'd lifted from the Jenny in front of his house. It was slightly crooked from an encounter with an out-of-place geodude, but still opened and closed smoothly enough. “Somehow, I don't think this thing’ll quite cut it.”

  “I'm not saying don't take the thing, just…” Hoshi shook his head. “Be careful. We don't know anything about this, except that one use made Dabi’s hair turn grey. Doesn't seem like a good trade, winning one battle in exchange for… whatever that is.”

  “I fail to see any proof that we’ll even be laying hands on these supposed Mega Stones,” Ryan broke in. “For all we know there's only the two, and the Senior Executives sent us here for something entirely different. I think it would be a better use of our time to speculate after getting orders – for now, we should focus on refining our abilities as trainers.’

  Hoshi let out a sound of frustration. “Sampo, I've been on the edge of fucking death for nearly a week straight. I can't train more at this point, I'll-”

  “But you can go around running into ghosts in the dead of night? If you don't want to train that's perfectly all right, but perhaps you should choose whether you want to rest or not and stick to such; at the moment you're acting rather erratic.”

  Are you serious right now? I'm trying to keep us all a-fucking-live. You just flew into town on a fucking bird, easy as pie, while the rest of us-! With a deep breath he attempted to drive the red haze from the very corners of his vision, and after a moment of resistance it went. It hurt to admit, but the jackass wasn't completely wrong; Hoshi was the unfortunate combination of worn-down and restless. Even putting aside all the magical bullshit, he was currently down an arm and had made some stunningly poor decisions the previous night.

  I need to… reset.

  The thought sparked something, and an idea began building like flickering flames. “Fine, okay, I'll drop the science thing for now – but if you want me to train so bad, you're gonna have to put your money where your mouth is: full team-on-team, one at a time, to knockout.”

  The blond smiled. “Hah, that's the spirit! I shall meet you on the field-”

  “After breakfast,” Casca interjected, and Ryan's expression twisted.

  “…Fine, after breakfast.”

  They ate, they made a bit more smalltalk, and then Hoshi and Ryan sauntered over to a cleared spot against a wall. As they went, they drew something of a crowd; Black and company's retelling of the trip had made their group something of a spectacle, and Hoshi’d been feeling eyes on his back since waking up. Feels weird. Different from the Little Cup – back then, the pressure felt like a hazing thing. Now they're watching me for me, and that's…

  Gratifying? Uncomfortable? Again, it felt weird. But as his off-hand drifted awkwardly across his belt to feel the seven balls that had very firmly settled into extensions of his body, Hoshi put that feeling aside. Time to battle. Not a fight to the death or an all-or-nothing brawl – just a no-stakes Pokémon battle between two trainers.

  The anxiety in his chest fled, expelled with a forceful breath. The field wasn't big, but it was big enough; whatever this basement had been built for originally, it made a pretty good underground base. “You ready?

  Ryan shot him a thin-lipped smile. “Of course. Shall we call a referee? I see several rubberneckers who I'm sure would be eager to participate.”

  “No – just count it down, Sampo. One ‘mon at a time, no gratuitous switches.”

  “As you wish. Three… two… one…”

  As his subordinate shouted “Begin!” Hoshi drew and tossed, Guts’s ball going wide but not so far it forced him to change the strategy he’d had in mind – that being a frontal charge. “Go in! Teeth!”

  He intended to show Ryan just how far he and his team had advanced.

  “Jormungandr!” his opponent yelled as his dragon hit the field. “It looks like we're in for a classic melee – close in and match that rat with Fire Fang!”

  The two Pokémon darted towards each other, and for the barest fraction of a second Hoshi's faith wavered; Guts was not, in fact, completely healed. No healing machine… I thought the doctor would be able to get my team back to 100%, but it looks like they'll need time to recover too. Potions can only go so far. But before the doubt had even fully set in, it was wiped away. “You've got this!” I believe in her – in what we've been through over the past half a month – no, over the past three months.

  Guts and Jorm met with their mouths open wide, and in a display that drew noise from the crowd they clashed. The bagon’s attack flared bright as any fire Hoshi had ever seen and no doubt just as hot, while the long incisors of his raticate gave off a pulse of darkness like black lightning – and, to Ryan's visible astonishment, Guts overpowered her opponent.

  The Crunch – no simple Bite, which was what Ryan must have assumed it was – landed, and Jormungandr cried out in pain as finger-long teeth pierced his cheek and the underside of his jaw, tearing through hard scales and the flesh they were protecting. He retreated, almost as gobsmacked as his trainer was, and for a moment Hoshi basked in the feeling of absolute gratification that seeing his progress so explicitly demonstrated brought.

  But of course, it isn't over yet. Disparity of experience or not, Jorm wasn't weak and Ryan was far from a poor trainer; the surprise lasted less than a second, and then the pair rallied. “Leer! Defend with Headbutt; your durability should still exceed theirs!”

  Oh man, this is gettin’ intense! There was an actual audience forming around him as Kenny watched the Boss and Suit go at it, weedy nerd-types and what few other grunts were around gradually getting drawn in by the spectacle of a raticate overpowering a dragon.

  The energy was almost like he was back in The Passage, a couple of dudes going at each other while people cheered and/or jeered. Guts took the Headbutt on her chin and was pushed back, but what looked like a flinch of pain was revealed to be the wind-up to a Tail Whip that had Jorm wincing with a stung snout. Another exchange, brutally straightforward, and Kenny's eyes went ‘round to the trainers. Looks like Ryan ain't likin’ what he's seein’. He gonna get tricky, or is he gonna show off somethin’-

  “Jormungandr, it's time! Fire Breath!”

  Showin’ somethin’ new it is, heh. As much as the blondie was pretty okay on the field, months spent training in close proximity had shown Kenny that where he really shone was in the lab – uh, metaphorically speaking. It wasn't surprising that Ryan was the first one to make a proper combined move.

  And it was a proper one; the little dragon’s pupils narrowed to slits as his mouth burned hot – with both red and blue flames, the colours gradually mixing into an evil-looking purple. The Boss recognised the danger right away ‘a course, and tried to stop it.

  “Swift into Sucker Punch! Don't let that move hit!”

  With the two still half-disguised, it was easy for Kenny to pull himself out of it – to look and just see two men battling, rather than Hoshi and Ryan. He leaned on that feeling, letting his heart beat wildly. “Yeah!” Kenny yelled, “Showdown! Knock ‘im out!” He didn't even know who he was rooting for – just that the fight was cool, and it made him wanna yell. So he did, bellowing and whooping as shooting stars erupted from Guts’s mouth, the attack peppering Jorm’s upper body.

  The dragon growled, the sound somehow still audible under the cheering – no jeers now, hah – of the crowd, and lowered his head. It was that thick bony plate that took the Sucker Punch, the raticate seeming to turn almost liquid with the speed of it as she darted in and hit.

  Jormungandr wobbled, his reptilian eyes losing focus – but the combo attack didn't fizzle. “End it!” Ryan screamed, and the bagon exhaled as he bit.

  Fuckin’ hardcore. The attack was exactly like what you'd expect from Fire Fang and Dragon Breath mixed together; a stream of fire that engulfed the raticate from crown to tail. Guts opened her jaws wide in an expression of pain – and then lunged, right through the stream, and chomped those jaws right down on the bagon's own. The Fire Breath was cut off, and that last counter marked the end of it; Jorm was lifted up by the snout, slammed down with the entire weight of both his and his opponent's bodies, and didn't get up.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Three counts, that's the match.

  For a lingering second, Ryan was almost expressionless. In the ephemeral world of Hoshi's third eye, he may as well not have existed; all that marked the space he occupied was a fading smudge of red-yellow-gold ringed by light purple like an abstract rendition of a sunset – the building triumph of seeing his special move go through, its light burning away anxious worry.

  That emotion was now cut off and rootless, and as the roar of their audience sustained itself into a second second, nothing replaced it. It seemed that Ryan couldn't even conceive of losing after that, and so his brain had unplugged its phone line and gone out for an early brunch. Hoshi breathed in the smell of it, the smell of vindication – which at the moment was mostly burnt hair.

  But there was a sweetness underneath that was more addicting than anything. Not the first time I've beaten him, but this sure was fucking satisfying. “Grade-A Hyper Fang, girl. Come on back.”

  The flash of the return laser finally jolted Ryan from his fugue, and the blond’s jaw worked without sound as his fingers spasmed around handfuls of air. “But- but it worked. We'd only ever gotten it to work in training – a raticate shouldn't…”

  “She did. You've heard what we went through, Sampo, but you don't know what it was like – you weren't there. We bled for that durability.”

  Ryan was silent as the crowd's noise began to run thin, and Hoshi was worried he might just explode… but then the man only laughed.

  “Ha!” The sound was bright, only weighed down by the thinnest dregs of incredulous anger, and when it had ended the man's psychic presence had normalised – and much like his laughter Ryan's emotions held only small specks of negativity, like grains of sand in seafoam. “What a ridiculous outcome! I know that Jormungandr is still waiting for his first evolution, but… hah! You've completely outdone me, Mutsu! That's one to my zero.” His hand went up to return his dragon, then down to select a second ball. “I really did underestimate you… but let's see if you can keep it up! Quetzalcoatl, it's your turn to fly!”

  Casca Kichi had the heebie jeebies. Hah, not exactly a scientific description, but…

  But it was the truth; something in the air had her breaking out in goosebumps all across her arms and the back of her neck. She wouldn't use the word fear to describe it, more like… A big bowl of unease, with a side of wariness. Something's going on here, and I don't know what it is.

  And it wasn't just the fact that there was apparently a possessed psychic Gym Leader – someone with the power to throw people through walls and all the caprice and malice of an evil spirit – walking around somewhere close, either. That's part of it, obviously, but the whole vibe… She'd spoken to some of the Rocket Scientists sharing their space while Hoshi had been napping off his operation, and a few bats of her eyelashes had won her a prize: the knowledge that nobody actually knew what was going on down here.

  Oh, they know enough to satisfy; that it's a safehouse, that it's a lab where we're making weapons, that we're going to be assaulting the League very, very soon… But no details. And it's making me wanna put my back to a wall. Not even watching my man trounce Ryan is helping-

  The thought stalled as Hoshi finished deliberating on his second Pokémon; he threw, and before it had even coalesced an ungodly shriek filled the air. Crow? I'd have gone with the magneton myself – but I guess he wants to flex his starters first.

  The childishness of it brought a smile up out of the mire of doubts, and she cheered along with Kenny. “Kick his ass, stud!”

  I shouldn't worry about it right now – after, sure. But not right now.

  Crow swept up, Screeching her lungs out, and met the farfetch’d’s ascending slash with a Poison Fang.

  It wasn't a proper combined move like what Jormungandr had done, but being able to hold the Screech and attack at the same time was still impressive – at least in Hoshi's opinion. Bad terrain for her, though, he admitted as the Pokémon spun away from each other. Low roof, that'll be a problem.

  Farfetch’d wasn't a bird known for its flight, but it could fly – and the small arena made the disparity in manoeuvrability a lot less impactful. That was evidenced by Ryan's Pokémon as it touched the ground, sprang off, and went right back up like a ping-pong ball to try for another hit.

  Hoshi drew breath, but he didn't need to order his second starter; Crow blocked the hit with Poison Fang again, then followed the impossible-to-pronounce-ly named duck as it used the momentum to speed its descent. Her own Wing Attack was blocked in turn, which turned into a miniature, mid-air duel as the two flying types parried each other in an unintentional dance of wings, sword, and fangs.

  Fuck, he thought, grateful that Crow’s intelligence allowed him more time to think instead of micromanaging, that's fast – probably Fury Cutter. A psychic impression tried to form, but Hoshi stopped it; he needed to conserve his tank for when they got to the actual surprises, not any of the moves he knew. It's building up power. The move might be double-resisted by Crow’s type, but that'll only help so much if we let this go on. His golbat was far and away more fragile than Guts; a slugging match would only favour their opponent. And equally frustrating was the fact that their Screeches would only start mattering if they could actually fucking hit something Arc damn it!

  The Pokémon broke apart as they hit the ground, and Ryan cried out “Again!”

  Okay, so he agrees with me – keeping this up isn't gonna end well for my side. “Break it up!” Hoshi countered. “Confuse Ray!”

  Unlike her more practiced moves, this wasn't one the golbat could do while Screeching; the sound faded, letting the susurrus of the surrounding Rockets return to prominence as Quetsal- as Ketzalcoo- as the fucking duck dashed across the stained concrete with its leek held low. Crow rose, quickly ran out of room, and aileron-rolled to keep the darting brown shape in her sights – then, from between her gaping jaws, came the rainbow beam.

  Her newest attack wasn't the flashiest upgrade, but it did take effect much quicker than Supersonic; the beam hit, the duck immediately tripped as its proprioception was turned against it, and Hoshi's heart beat against his ribs like it was a prisoner rattling loosened bars.

  But then the stupid thing flapped its wings, performed a frontflip, and kept dashing like nothing had happened. Damnit! “Alternate with Screech! Stay mobile!”

  “A debuffing strategy?” Ryan asked from somewhere far away, outside the narrow slice of reality that Hoshi's attention had become. “You really weren't educated on special abilities, were you?”

  Shut up don't rub it in my face you fucking-!

  Another headache-inducing keen sounded out, and as it did Hoshi saw that the confusion was having more of an effect than that first second had led him to assume; the bird’s smooth dash had turned into a tipsy zig-zag. Okay, okay, we've still got this. Don't freak out just ‘cause the line to winning is less obvious – we've still got this. Screech was hitting; whatever special ability the opponent apparently had, it wasn't a straight counter. Soon the farfetch’d would be too weakened to parry, and then one Poison Fang would put it down. Yeah – stay away, don't let the Fury Cutter build up steam. “It's gonna trip again at some point! Be ready!”

  Crow squeaked in understanding, and the frantic pace of the battle slowed. Unwilling to give them an opening Ryan pulled his ‘mon back, and for maybe thirty seconds the swordsduck focused on making tight, small movements to dodge the Rays as they came – and then, Hoshi felt another of those sick mental lurches building. This one he let through, feeling the airy power contained in what he'd taken to calling his fuel tank drop away.

  Ever since sleeping off his episode in Tanya's bathroom, the premonitions had become… dirty, somehow. Sometimes almost painful, though he hadn't had any more nosebleeds or weird joy-fugues – and this one was no different; a sensation like a great muk surfacing to sweep the edges of the sewer that was his brain, and Hoshi suddenly knew what his opponent was planning. “Really?” he cried across the field. “Staying put? How would that even-”

  The half-asked question answered itself with another expenditure of psychic power, and Hoshi winced – both at the sensation of the fuel burning away, and at what it told him. Damn it, didn't mean to do that… need to get a better handle on it. Yet another reason it was really inconvenient for the Doc to be holed up somewhere. But I can think on that later – right now, I have a battle to win.

  Though he wasn't exactly sure how he'd pull it off. His mind-reading or clairvoyance or whatever had revealed the nature of the farfetch'd’s special ability; it gained a boost in strength every time it was hit with a debuff – meaning the Screeches had been effectively lowering both their defenses. No maybe here; one hit will end this. Hoshi just had to make sure it was Crow that won that coin-flip… somehow. For what must be easily the hundredth time, he wished he'd splurged and gotten TMs for his team. But no, I decided to be financially responsible, and now the money I ‘saved’ is gone anyway. No ranged attacks – not any that do damage, anyway…

  Ryan was going to wait for Crow to come to them, and while he could be rash Hoshi didn't think the grunt would be easily goaded. Not after his dragon’s loss to Guts.

  The responsible thing would be to pull out and switch, but… But the whole point of this was to prove to himself how far he'd come, to put some reassurance into his spine and counter the listlessness he'd felt as he’d eaten breakfast. Pulling out the minute the matchup got chancy would defeat the purpose. I started this thing trusting Guts to handle Jormungandr… I'll accept this gamble too! “Crow, get in there! Poison Fang!”

  Ryan Sampo’s morning had been, and was continuing to be, something of a rollercoaster. Mixed together in his chest were feelings of shock, of zeal and jealousy, of determination and rage and admiration – for himself, for Mutsu, and for their Pokémon as well, the tangled threads going every which way. I hate you, Hoshi Mutsu, he thought fondly as the golbat pulled into a descending roll. Still, after everything, you conspire to be a loud-mouthed brute without a hint of subtlety or grace in your soul… And yet here we stand, on the edge between greatness and despair.

  Yes, there they stood. “Quetzalcoatl, hold position and hit first! Your reach is superior!”

  Mutsu on one side of the field, and him the other. The two of them preparing to write their names into history; a nudge to one side of the blade, and they were heroes; the other, and they were black-hearted villains.

  Crow’s twirl ended at the last possible instant, the golbat’s wings and leglike feelers brushing against the artificial stone as she pulled up only to meet Quetzalcoatl’s leek-sword. Ryan had spoken the truth; his farfetch’d really did have an advantage in reach. The vegetable cut a white arc through the air as it swung, the tip-

  The tip wandered. Anticipation turned to ash a second time as the Confuse Ray decided things, the attack which should have knocked their opponent out and evened the score instead merely cutting past Crow’s cheek into her wing.

  A crippling blow; if it had happened at the start of the battle, he'd have been elated… but at the end, it was too little. She doesn't need to fly, not when-

  Faster than his thought, the Poison Fang landed – quite literally. Crow bowled into Quetzalcoatl and wrapped around the smaller Pokémon like a cloak, and it was over.

  For a second time, one of Hoshi’s starters landed a felling blow by the skin of their teeth – and for the second time, he returned his Pokémon following that victory. “That's two for me, still zero for you,” came a taunt from his lips, but it wasn't nearly as sweet as that first duel had been. Blah… neither Guts or Crow can take another hit, and Crow won't even be able to attack properly with an injured wing. I won both, yeah, but this is a lot closer than I'd been expecting…

  It wasn't like he wanted to steamroll the other man completely flat or anything, just… A little less climactic, please. I wanted this to be fun, but it's turning into kind of a thing. But even as he thought it the roar of the crowd washed over his ears, familiar voices blended into the living expression of emotion, and Hoshi's smile lost some of its conflicted aura. Hah. Well, they're having fun at least.

  Ryan, too, was bearing his own mixed emotions; now he was sand with flecks of bright spray rather than the reverse. His topaz eyes scanned the arena searchingly, no doubt seeing the past minute more clearly than the present. He’s wondering how to fix what went wrong. Admirable, since Hoshi himself was coming up short.

  Not sure I could've won that any cleaner… Knowing the ability from the start would've been nice, yeah, but that farfetch'd was just plain good. It'd been slower than Crow, and yet still able to parry her – that spoke to a pure difference in skill. We’re stronger, but the middle of the woods wasn’t a place to practise finesse. Always more kinks to iron out, huh…

  Fifteen seconds passed before the trainers finished digesting the outcome, both of them moving their hands down in-sync. “I'm surprised,” Ryan said. “I hope you don't sweep me – that would be a little too much for my ego to take.”

  He yanked a ball, and Hoshi did the same. “We'll see,” came the reply. No way it happens; he's down to the ones he pulled from the storage system now, and those are a lot tougher. Who's he picked? Charizard? Kadabra? One of those, definitely; Ryan was smart enough to have seen the pattern, seen his desire to use Venus next; even with the disconcerting losses hitting him in the metaphorical balls, he was still that sharp. “Count it down, Sampo.”

  With a dagger-like smile Ryan pulled back. “With pleasure; prepare for a reversal of fortune, Mutsu. One-”

  “Sorry ‘bout this,” came an interrupting voice from Hoshi's left, and the building tension was dashed. Black and his trio of minions – and Kazubara too? Huh? – stepped onto the field amid a rush of boos and more explicit expressions of disappointment, and as his vision widened Hoshi realised the five men were now in uniform. “Oh, come off it,” Black sent out to the crowd, “We're at work, you jackasses. Mutsu! Executive Arlo wants to talk to you.”

  There's that name again. The adrenaline rush tried to pull him in and add him to the cussing mass of Rockets, but Hoshi pushed himself down to Earth. “That's the guy in charge here?” Damnit, only a third of the way through. I'm getting blue-balled.

  Well, that was life.

  “Yeah,” Black responded with a curt nod, his thumb coming up to point behind him. “Let's get outta here before these schmucks start rioting,” he continued in a half-whisper – and Hoshi could only nod in agreement. Welp, I guess I'm about to get what I wanted; some actual answers. Can't complain about that, interrupted battle or not.

  “Is Kenny coming?”

  Casca shook her head absently, her eyes slightly dull as they looked at something other than the harsh, binary light of the room with the mystery machine. “Naw, he decided to get in there and have a battle of his own. He was jazzed up; we don't want him there for a serious meeting anyway.”

  “Typical,” Ryan commented, and Black added his own opinion with a grunt.

  “You know, it was really supposed to be just Mutsu. Arlo’s a touchy one; bringing a crowd might get you slapped somewhere a little more tender than the wrist.”

  “You've got your guys,” Hoshi sent back.

  “I'm not going back in- bah. Forget it.” The other senior grunt shook the argument off and quickened his steps. “On your head be it.”

  Hoshi felt the urge to pry, but again he restrained himself. Heh, I'm jazzed up myself. Yet another executive… I guess it was only us grunts who got the short end of the stick. And the big boss in Viridian, he supposed. But he’s gone. Never even met the guy… I guess that's not unusual. Dad never met with Oak…

  Hoshi managed to keep his curiosity to himself all the way through a series of snaking, decayed hallways to what was very obviously the executive's door – it was identifiable by the blocky Galarian characters marking its surface, the plaque pristine in contrast to its surroundings. I'm guessing that says ‘Arlo,’ or something. Should probably bone up on my foreign languages, I might be fleeing the country pretty soon… “He Unovan?”

  Black nodded. “Yeah. Fatass has an accent and a half – and look, lemme give you one pointer before you go in.” He huffed, and Hoshi listened intently. “It's just ‘Executive Aiki’ or ‘sir,’ not junior executive, got it? Man makes his fragile ego everyone else's problem…”

  They came up on the door, as dirty and neglected as everything else save for the shining, golden square bearing his name. Yeah, it's definitely that – ‘Arlo Aiki.’ Sounds like a Kantonian name at least…

  At a gesture from his peers Hoshi went forward. The door opened easily, and he went through with Casca and Ryan on his heels.