“So,” Hoshi said, languid after his win. His Pokémon were as healed as they were going to get with the medicine available; he’d received a likely-meaningless but still gratifying-ish promotion; and while he’d really have liked to know exactly what was going on, the antsy feeling he’d woken up with had mostly disappeared. “I’m curious. What was your executive like? You’ve barely mentioned him.”

  The mood of the table in general wasn’t that far off from the senior grunt- from the enforcer’s own. Mimi was still high off her tits on painkillers-plus, while Bart had a carefully-controlled smugness on his boyish face – the result of his recent win against Black, who’d taken himself elsewhere. The rookies had joined after witnessing the spectacular end to his and Ryan’s battle, and Kenny was also in high spirits; apparently he’d been off in a dark tunnel with a female grunt, having… well, exploring the dark tunnel, hah.

  Even Ryan had recovered his poise following the second – or perhaps it’d only been an extension of the first, though Hoshi for his part thought of them as two different battles – loss, helped along by the gushing of the three younger Rockets that’d very solidly become his lackeys over the past week. And the rest of the crowd, of course; his superior might’ve stolen the show with Champion’s evolution, but the younger man had still presented a bounty of strong, well-trained Pokémon. Honestly, in terms of technique and move training he’s pretty solidly above me – if I hadn’t had the edge in type and physicality things would’ve gone differently.

  And Ryan knew it too, which was probably putting its own dent in any bad feelings. No, the only person not going along with the mood was Casca.

  And it was actually her that spoke next. “Oh, old Mister Sambac?” she started before Ryan could do more than draw breath. Her tone was bright – but Hoshi was attuned to his girlfriend’s moods, and he could tell she was a bundle of nerves underneath. “I did some work under him back in Cerulean. He’s an ironmonger, right?”

  “I believe he prefers the term ‘steel magnate’ given how many times he’s used the phrase,” the blond answered, wry. “And he simply insists on being called ‘Lucas Cirsi’ while undercover, though I’ve no idea why he’d continue using it around his fellow Rockets.”

  “Is he here? I haven’t seen him.”

  Ryan shrugged. “I assume he’s off with Miss Remond and the other higher-ups; it mustn’t have escaped your notice that there are no executives present.”

  The other Rockets nodded with varying enthusiasm – save for Kenny, who only blinked. The large man had discarded his wig and false beard at some point, once again unleashing the full effect of his round, acne-scarred face. “Duh,” he commented. “They’re probably doin’ somethin’ with Jessie ‘n James. No need for the grunts now that there’s the heavy hitters around, yeah?” The words came with what might’ve been a raised brow, though Hoshi was far from certain; while his head bore an extremely short coating of hair, the grunt’s eyebrows remained contrastingly bare.

  “Perhaps,” Bart broke in. “Or perhaps they merely prefer their own company. I know that this collection of eggheads surrounding us are certainly putting a damper on my spirits; not a one of them has any pep in their soul.”

  The conversation meandered along like a winding river, curving through the rolling hills of their various relationships with their peers and speculation about Puce and Cliff, being dropped down into the more treacherous rapids of what was going on with the Rocket Professors, and then finally returning to the sea in a tributary centred around, again, the executives – and more specifically Jessie and James.

  “James gave quite the rousing speech when he arrived,” Ryan said, almost wistful despite the event having to have occurred mere days ago. “It was a bit strange to see him alone without Executive Oakley or Mister Meowth at his side, but he seemed recovered enough from his injury.”

  “You know it!” Mimi exclaimed, suddenly yelling. “No bullet can kill a Rocket! High five!” The bemused Viridian native shared a hearty double-slap with his fellow blonde, and everyone chuckled – save for Casca. After having worn a pleasant mask for nearly an hour – or maybe longer, Hoshi had been rather more distracted prior to the double battle – his girlfriend finally sobered and spoke seriously.

  “I know we talked it to death already, but can we back up a bit? I wanna go over the professors again.”

  Kenny groaned and Bart rolled his eyes, but Lillian, sharp-eyed in a way she hadn’t been all those eons and eons ago when they’d first left Vermilion City together, spoke with equal seriousness. “Is there anything more to talk about? Hoshi’s said that Mokusen seemed half-dead, and none of us have seen so much as a hair of Doc Hypno.”

  “It’s just- something about it is weirding me out. If they were actually kaput then our plans’d have to change in a big way, and I think that would trickle down. And I don’t see any trickling happening here.” She gestured to the surrounding room, and specifically the higher ranks – the agents, the senior grunts, the scientists whose uniforms bore custom bits. “People are tense, yeah, but not tense tense.”

  Her eyes found Hoshi’s and he took the offered reins with a grunt, thinking for a moment before continuing. “I get what you mean. Kiribo implied Hypno was still on his feet, but one out of two still feels like it’d be too much of a gamble for things to be this calm.” And Dabi definitely isn’t ready for a fight. There’s something they’re being very careful to keep under wraps… “And speaking of him, I haven’t seen Kiribo today either. Or any enforcers; Sierra and a few other Rocket Agents are around, but I don’t see a single person in armoured sneakers. Something’s going on.” Something that puts combat ability above pure rank; agents are technically above enforcers, but they aren’t pure battlers. Neither are senior grunts.

  Casca nodded, drawing breath – but before she could lay out the suspicions he could see being sorted into neat lines behind her pupils, there came a familiar interruption.

  “Something going on?” questioned a soft but masculine voice from behind Hoshi’s left ear.

  “And without us?” followed a huskier, feminine one from the opposite side. “I can’t believe it! What do you think, Meowth?”

  Hoshi turned as the persian let out a fake-sounding meow, his voice the bored drawl of a middle-aged man. “Sirs,” the enforcer greeted, the various other Rockets doing the same. “I’m glad to see you. Things seem to have gone a bit off the rails before we arrived.”

  “Yes,” Jessie started, “The good Professor Mokusen left a few details out of his report…”

  “Still,” James continued, “They got the job done. Things are progressing quite well.”

  “Meow.”

  “That’s right! We have you to thank for a large portion of that, Enforcer Mutsu.”

  “So true! In fact, we’d like you to join us for lunch.”

  The awkward aura Hoshi had noticed around Jessie when she’d been bereft of her partner was gone – or no, gone was too light a word. The weight on her shoulders had inverted, and each motion she – they – made as they did their call-and-response was a bounce, each word laden with a thick sauce of this is how it’s meant to be. It was, in fact, just a touch too much; the cheer was grating, if only a little. It’s finally happened, he thought as the two grabbed a shoulder each, the act’s worn thin, and it seems childish rather than charming.

  But as he was hauled to his feet, Hoshi reflected; it hadn’t quite worn thin, it was only his own hidden anxieties combining with the intensity of the instructors’ renewed presence. Also, they’re kind of manhandling me – cast or not, I can stand on my own. “Sirs?”

  “You’re a very observant man, Hoshi,” James said with a pleased nod. “We do indeed have a little pow-wow happening. Enforcers and above only I’m afraid, so the rest of you will have to stay put.”

  “Though on the note of rank…” Jessie drew her finger across the spread of the table, alighting first on Bart, then Ryan. “Grunts Kazubara and Sampo, congratulations!”

  “You are now Senior Grunts Kazubara and Sampo! Give them a hand, everyone!”

  Scattered, half-confused applause followed his back as Hoshi was forcibly dragged away, the rest of the room's Rockets realising only belatedly that the order they'd just heard had actually come from a superior. “Hey-! I can walk, sirs, thank you!” What is..? Is something happening? Like, a combat thing? Like right now?!

  “Sorry Mister Mutsu, but we are in fact very behind schedule!” Jessie explained.

  “And Dwayne isn’t even here yet – honestly, that might be a bigger setback than the Professors’ hijinks. We need a boat!”

  “Meow.”

  “No, the old balloon isn’t nearly big enough, we’ve discussed this!”

  As he continued to be dragged away, Hoshi managed a backwards look – and saw his girlfriend fixing him with an intense stare. She mouthed something, the exact sounds lost beneath the din of the room, and in desperation he burned the tiny trickle of psychic power that had managed to build back up over the past hour.

  The headache he’d been enduring redoubled as his eyes prickled with tears, but along with it came enough raw information to read Casca’s lips: ‘The Dexists,’ she said, ‘That’s the key. Ask the instructors about the Inner Ministry.’

  “So,” Hoshi choked out, anger building as he processed the fact that he’d been basically carried away like a toddler – and said anger wasn’t at all countered by the hot, blood-red pain behind his browline either. “Where are we going?”

  “Oh, not far,” James answered.

  “Just to Doctor Hypno’s office.”

  A beat of silence passed – during which he noticed absently that the exeggutor had disappeared from its miniature greenhouse – and then Hoshi’s addled brain processed Jessie’s words. Hypno’s..? Isn’t that where..? “Isn’t that where Sabrina is?”

  The executives blinked in-sync, and that synchronized quality continued as they both spoke. “You know about that?” they said, though James’s tone leaned closer to wonder and Jessie’s to annoyance. “Impossible to keep a secret these days, I swear…” she muttered.

  Hoshi’s shoulders were released, to his relief; they’d been about to go through the nondescript door that he’d taken the night before. “”Don’t worry, Enforcer Mutsu,” James said. “Hypno’s gengar is quite well-trained. You have nothing to fear.”

  Tell that to the underside of my jaw – I’m pretty sure it has bruises from that ‘well-trained’ monster. But expressing reluctance might see them manhandle him again, and the ever-annoying burden of his broken arm meant that he wasn’t in any state to fend them off. Don’t be a baby. This isn’t an abandoned hallway in the middle of the night; a bunch of other Rockets will be there. Including Kiribo and his unfairly powerful alakazam, which should be at least equal to a gengar. Though probably not one that’s wearing the strongest psychic on the planet as a suit- no, stop it, don’t psych yourself out.

  Against the urging of his fear Hoshi nodded, and started towards the door under his own power. “I’ll take your word for it, then. Let’s go.”

  A long, long time ago, so long that she didn’t really have any memory of it, Sabrina had lived in a house with her mother and father.

  Again, she did not quite remember it… but she remembered remembering remembering it, like trying to recall a painting and seeing a drawing of the hallway where said painting hung, indistinct layers of removal leaving something that was clear in itself, but probably not very similar to the actual article. She remembered… warmth. Softness. And, as her abilities had shown themselves and she’d begun responding to things her parents had only thought, fear.

  The warm sensation of love had never gone away – in fact, she couldn’t say it had diminished at all. But the fear grew bigger, and that had made her afraid, and things had become-

  A different kind of warmth came down, close and intimate but chilling, and washed away the bad feeling of recollection. Her inner eye was drawn from the sight of the negative spiral that had eventually driven away- killed-? Had she-? Had they tried to-?

  Whatever it was that had made her parents be non-present, it didn’t matter now. Hadn’t for very long at all after their disappearance, in fact – because soon after her house had gone empty, new friends had appeared.

  That’s right, the voice of her big sister Hiebelle spoke, whisper-quiet and darkly amused. It doesn’t matter. This past is only a ripple, imaginary. The future is a reflection, shapes in the clouds, not yet to be. The present is the-only-here/the-only-now/the-only-real.

  Tell me, little sister… who do you want to play with?

  Yes… yes, it was better to think of the present, rather than the dead, cold past. And as Sabrina paid more attention to her eyes she began to see the room, and the people in it – warm people, alive people, full of happiness and sadness and fears and doubts and love and hate and hope and- and thoughts, colouring the transparent fishbowls of their minds. She looked, and with her eyes saw things that were easier to describe using the language of sound; she saw raised voices chanting out surface thoughts, drumbeats of emotion, subtle strings of memory echoing backwards and brass expectations echoing forwards. The instrumentation, the subconscious, was quieter but clearer; there was nothing to obscure it, for those sounds existed separate from one another, machine-like, causal. The voices were different – they were touching each other, each person resonating off their neighbours to create a distinct harmony that both she and her big sister could see.

  Or perhaps taste was a better word, in Hiebelle’s case. Oh, it is, it is. They are delicious, little sister, sweet and pure.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Give them a scare. Won’t that be fun? Yes – yes, it would be fun.

  Fun like she’d had with her childhood friends. Fun like she’d had with those men and women in loose clothing, with their stances and rigid discipline and hard pride. Fun like when she’d been seven years old and first taken the title of Gym Leader from Koichi Tatsujin, and turned the former dojo into a place for her friends – her rapidly multiplying friends, more and more, more fun, more fear and hungering eyes, more-

  It was bad, came a discordant thought as Arlo Aiki pulled away, sneering with hate-masking-fear, from her giggling embrace. Hiebelle growled under her skin, unsettled by the scizor that drew up beside him, and for a moment disgust flashed in Sabrina’s veins. I was bad. I was better after, after Miss Agatha sent them away – they weren’t really my friends. They made me do so many bad things.

  You’re making me do bad things too, aren’t you?

  For a fraction a second power built, and Sabrina’s eyes went from red to pink – and then a hysterical laugh drew her attention. What was..? What was I..? She blinked, and saw her daddy tottering close. He had a cane, but it never touched the ground – instead it swung through the air like an acrobat’s long pole steadying their balance as they walked the tightrope.

  Not that Hypno would ever be able to walk a tightrope; he was too unsteady, his strides almost drunken as he all but rolled on his feet, black rubber squeaking softly against carpet. “Hiebelle? Are you quite alright my darling?”

  “I’m fine, papa,” Sabrina said along with her little sister, one voice answering for two without even thinking. “But I’m bored. Can you get someone to play with me?”

  Her daddy was a funny-looking man, short and bottom-heavy, and the face he made was even funnier; tongue out, like he was tasting the air (like Hiebelle tasting the surrounding people’s fear), his eyes bulging in their tiny sockets and his nose and cheeks rosy with blood. “Ooh hoo hoo, I’m afraid you’ll have to play with your sister for just a bit, little lady. We’re having a grown-up meeting!” He smiled, and Hiebelle smiled, and Sabrina smiled, and they smiled harder as the warm life around them shuddered in collective revulsion.

  And then the man from before came back, the man bursting with life, and she forgot mostly everything as the hungry amusement of her little sister filled up every cranny of the ghost house in her head.

  People said ghosts were cold – but they weren’t; they were warm. Happy. Curious. Fun. Loving.

  It was only everything around them that was cold, as they took the warmth for themselves.

  Hoshi entered the room a half-step ahead of his superiors, which was indecorous and probably made a poor impression on his new peers. But he simply couldn’t care about that; he was, despite every self-assurance he could muster, still afraid, and that fear filled his limbs with jittery energy. The headache pounded in his temples and crown, reaching fingers all the way to his jaw and neck as the dregs of anesthetic in his system were overwhelmed, and that chased further good sense away.

  But even in his anxiety-ridden state he was lucid enough to hold the door open for the instructors. They passed him with knowing looks, and Hoshi felt a blush touch the skin of his cheeks – but only for a second, because the contents of Doc Hypno’s office did little to calm his fear.

  The first thing that stood out was, of course, Sabrina Jujuba; she was still in that same sundress as the previous night, creamy yellow-orange with white lace that seemed too delicate to exist on a real garment. It was something that a porcelain doll would wear – and with her flawless pale skin and jet-black hair, Sabrina looked the part.

  Only her eyes broke the illusion; the sclera had gone black, and her pupils were like hot coals that burned in the psychic world of his third eye – all of her did, in fact, the entirety of the Gym Leader’s body solid and present in a way that made his skin break out in goosebumps. She’s – she’s just there. No clouds, no hazy aura, just her. She looks exactly the same except for the glowing eyes. It was spooky, for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate.

  And there was another kind of fear making its way through his mind as well, less visceral but just as real; the more cerebral fear of the staring Rockets.

  I’m out of uniform. I didn’t get the new one yet, and didn’t think to put the old one on either. It was the only thing he could think for a shaky half-breath – and then an even more inane thought topped it. I don’t know my lines. This rehearsal is gonna turn out pretty bad. Ha, ha.

  Then Hoshi rallied. He squared his shoulders, grit his teeth, and bent his face until it was reasonably straight, and then he turned away from the door and towards the gathering of his… peers, he supposed.

  Huh, they really are mostly peers. The room was heavy with Rocket Enforcers, their white-accented uniforms subtly armoured and their bodies a bit more muscular than the standard grunt. The executives were the opposite, thin or fat but never bulky – and yet they seemed more dangerous, in some potentially-imaginary way that only his hindbrain seemed to pick up on. Where Sabrina very nearly floated, airy and weightless in her corner, these men and women exuded the immovability of set bricks.

  “And that should be everyone!” James announced. “Sorry for the wait, but we simply couldn’t begin without Jessie and Meowth!”

  “Obviously not!” “Meow.”

  The blue-haired man nodded, and with a flourish produced a small remote. A second later the lights had dimmed, and a projector turned on to cast a square of white upon a sheet that’d been tacked up along one wall. Paradoxically the lack of light made Hoshi more aware of the room’s subtle details, the lack of emphasis letting his eyes wander from the people that had taken up his attention. It was…

  Well, it was an office, at least partially. Sheet-metal filing cabinets, a desk that looked like it had actually been part of the room originally, stacks of papers and some of the torture devices Hypno had used to test his psychic powers taking up floorspace… But the other end of it, where the sheet hung, was almost like a child’s room. Scattered toys, pillows and blankets gathered into a hill, and actual porcelain dolls like Hoshi had seen in Sabrina. He shuddered; those things were always a bit creepy, and in the muddled darkness their glass eyes seemed to stare with keen awareness.

  Don’t freak out. Focus on the job. With a fortifying swallow Hoshi rallied once again, and refocused on the instructors to see James fiddling with the remote. “I’m sure you’re all quite aware of the setbacks we’ve faced recently,” Jessie projected, and then in the pause between sentences an image appeared on the sheet. ‘THE PLAN’ was written out in bold typeface, sober and black but still somehow conveying a seed of the wackiness of that rainbow-coloured list the two had made back in Fuchsia. We’re at the ‘Science!’ step right now, just before ‘Strike back at the League!’… And that’s where it ended, wasn’t it? “But for the sake of clearing up any misinformation, James and I will lay out what’s happened.”

  The projector slid to the next frame, and James took over. “Starting on a high note, our forces over in Goldenrod City were able to remove an Elite from the field; Jiei Enoki has been relieved of his six strongest Pokémon and left with a grievous injury, though I expect the latter to have been mostly healed by the time we make it to the Indigo Plateau.” His right hand rose to play across the latex peeking out from his loose cape-shirt-thing, and his voice turned wry for a moment. “Modern medicine is wonderful, isn’t it? In any case, while the League’s terrifying toddler will remain quite dangerous with just the ghosts he carries in his… self, they won’t be the trained Pokémon of an Elite. And continuing on the thread of the Elite Four…”

  “Will managed to avoid having his team confiscated,” Jessie followed. “But he still suffered a defeat from our illustrious Rocket Professors – and Junior Executive Aiki, of course.” Illusory heat bloomed in his mind’s eye, but Hoshi didn’t turn to watch Arlo seethe at the junior set in front of his preferred title – no, he had more important things to look at, namely the projection.

  It showed a scan of a hand-written document, shaky letters spelling out the names of six Pokémon followed by lists of moves, the marginalia containing speculation and other side-notes. ‘Trick Room didn’t cover a continuous area,’ the enforcer read. ‘Shadow Ball was unusable; Imprison?’ ‘Look out for Stored Power; multiple buffing moves on the Gardevoir.’ ‘Slowking was more durable than expected – multiple abilities?’

  These are Will Zelcovia’s most cherished secrets. The only other people who know these things are his peers, and what few Champion Series challengers make it three fights deep. The badly-scanned note sent an entirely different flavour of tingle down Hoshi’s spine; it was unmistakable evidence that Dabi and Hypno – and, yes, Arlo – had indeed beaten an Arc-damned Elite.

  It’s surreal. I know they’re strong, Dabi especially, but… But the Elite Four were the Elite Four; they and the Champion were the pinnacle, Indigo’s strongest. The people you called when legends needed to be fought.

  It was elating and frightening in equal measure, and as Hoshi found Dabi sitting at the back of the crowd, the man’s decrepit state no longer felt like such a terrible price. I still plan on keeping the thing firmly in the ‘Plan Z’ slot, but fuck, man, that’s… fucking real, as Kenny would say. And the Rockets in Goldenrod had done the same thing? Without Mega Evolution? I underestimated us. I underestimated us hard – we might actually be able to fucking do this. As his still-injured team showed, even the more advanced Poké-side of medicine couldn’t fix everything – and as Pokémon got stronger, the amount of damage that even a real healing machine could wipe away in an instant dwindled. Will’s team would be mostly fine by now, but the mere prospect of something lingering set Hoshi’s mind aflame.

  “Yes,” Jessie continued. “An amazing showing all around – but I’m afraid it wasn’t an entirely clean win.”

  Dabi stood, and Hoshi continued to feel the giddy sparks of true belief arc down his body as the four-foot-nothing scientist stomped forward to take over the narration. “During the battle, I employed an experimental weapon which has been in development for…” Red steam erupted from his head, nearly black with the intensity of his resentment. “Many years. By combining specific frequencies of radio waves with an artificial recreation of Hoenn’s famous Mega Stones, I was able to trigger my machamp’s previously-theoretical Mega Evolution.” He smiled, the expression matching his psychic presence to the letter. “Unfortunately, flaws in the crystal’s structure meant that the energy exchange that facilitates the transformation was less than efficient; both I and my Pokémon lost strength at a prodigious rate, and the results were what you see now.

  “But despite the unforeseen flaws, my prototype was a success; the finished product will be,” he said, triumph and pride and I got mine in the end dancing on his tongue and in the air, “Perfect. Kimigawa, are you able to..?”

  “Hoo hoo hoo!” came a laugh from below, and Hoshi blinked as Hypno pulled himself up from… where he’d been lying on the floor? I didn’t even see him – is he..?

  He looked drunk, or maybe high on something, and as he wobbled through the gathering of Rockets that impression was only reinforced. Giggles issued from his wide-open, lolling-tongued mouth, expression sloppier than ever before, and when he reached the front his voice was languid and unfocused. “Of course, of course! I have to do my presentation now – don’t I, my little friend?”

  He reached down, and Hoshi witnessed the spectacle of Hypno tousling Dabi’s hair like the scientist really was a child. Hypno wasn’t tall by any means, but he was a giant next to his peer, and the shorter man could only attempt to fend him off with weak slaps. “Don’t-! You dolt, scrape yourself together!”

  Giggles, a drunken reel as Hypno took a step back and nearly fell over himself – and then the doctor’s too-wide eyes sharpened a touch. “What was I..? Oh yes, the speech. If you’ll go to the next slide please?”

  Continuing as though the previous exchange hadn’t happened, Hypno gestured to a map as it replaced the analysis. The projection of the Pasio Ocean was, like the note, not particularly competent in the way it’d been transferred to clear plastic, and Hoshi got the feeling it had been the Doc himself who’d put this thing together. A star in marker marked the very centre of the ocean’s depths, equidistant from the shores of Johto to the south, Sinnoh to the north-east, and Muskovo to the north-west.

  “As my esteemed and hoo hoo hoo adorable colleague has been plugging away at Mega Evolution via the traditional Mega Stone, I have been exploring a side-avenue; a remarkable substance found in the depths of the sea, with equally-remarkable properties! Deep Pasio reef substance, or the more colloquial Sync Stone as I will be referring to it as, appears to be the fossilised remains of some ancient, plant-like creature. It bears remarkable similarity to the psychic-resonant artefacts that are occasionally found here in Indigo, though I believe that to be a coincidence – or rather the product of similar processes applied to different substances producing similar end results.”

  The slide changed, now showing a black-and-white photograph of an array of stone laid out on a table. The Sync Stones – assuming that was what they were – had a layered, agate-like appearance applied with a less vivid palette. They look soft, like soapstone.

  “As I said, these stones can produce a startling number of effects, not the least of which is acting as a surrogate Mega Stone. My dear, dear daughter was also able to achieve a Mega form, and without the negative effects of Dabi’s little experiment. And while-”

  The Doc’s speech cut off as Dabi lightly pushed him, causing the addled scientist to slide chaotically and slowly across the room, going from unbalanced foot to unbalanced foot in a dance-like wobble. He hit the wall, and Hoshi's brain provided the cartoon splat as the instructors moved forward to help the man up.

  “Ah, well, the good Doctor felt his own side-effects from his misadventure, which he is still recovering from,” James said as he peeled the man off the yellowing wallpaper.

  “Giving you the cliff notes,” Jessie continued, “His gengar-”

  “Hiebelle–!” Hypno drew out, the beginning of the name drunkenly ecstatic and the end chillingly terrified. “Where-ere-ere did you go? My daughter, my little daughter…”

  Awkwardness covered the room as the man began to quietly sob, and the instructors shared a look and a nod before James passed his partner the remote, hoisted Hypno up in over his shoulder, and began carrying him away. “Now now,” he muttered, “None of that. Let’s get you a nice warm glass of milk and a session with Miss Kimmy, and you’ll be right as rain in no time…”

  Jessie cleared her throat, and clicked through several slides as she continued hurriedly. “His gengar ceased being a Mega, but it’s still empowered to a certain extent, as are the rest of Doctor Hypno’s Pokémon. With some hypnosis and a clear set of instructions he’ll be quite functional, so don’t worry about that.”

  “Meow.”

  “Right right – Sabrina is here too. She’s possessed, don’t worry about that either.” Slides of numbers, of photographs, of childish drawings – was that Professor Oak with stink lines coming off him? – passed, eventually settling on a labeled map of Kanto’s west.

  “Many of you know this, but again, just so we’re on the same page – Executive, if you would?”

  This time it was Tanya who took the centre stage, pointing to Viridian City and then drawing her finger north-west to the Indigo Plateau, its trapezoidal shape nestled between Pewter and the Silver Range. “Our assault will be broken into two groups; one will assail the Viridian City Pokémon Gym, where the lesser events are taking place. Their objective will be to take control of the stadium and announce our coup d’état, aided by certain elements embedded within the League.”

  We have spies in the League? Still? No, of course they would; Carl Apollo had been Gym Leader for four years and Jessie and James had run a high-class academy. Even with the purge, a few would have slipped through. Just like we apparently have people leaking information to the Ministry. Actually, that’s a good opening; I’ll start with that once everyone’s finished talking.

  “That first group will be the stronger one, as they will need to contend with the Champion and all the League’s gathered security, as well as the professional Pokémon Trainers taking part in the Nationals. Meanwhile, a second group will be travelling to the Indigo League Headquarters – the original plan was to take a proper sailing ship in through the north to get close, but an airship will have to suffice. Now, the exact makeup of Teams One and Two can account for some fluidity, so…”

  As the white-haired executive continued with the details Hoshi allowed himself to relax slightly, going into note-taking mode as a few threads of more casual thought wandered. We have an airship? Now that’s surprising. He didn’t envy whoever had to go in that; the Indigo Plateau was surrounded by wilderness, and the journey would be plagued by flying Pokémon. Maybe even a dragonite of two, once they get into the mountains. Boating upriver would definitely have been better, but…

  Puce and Cliff. Hope they’re alright. It’s probably just that spooky stillness of the sea – yeah, they got stranded and have to paddle, so that’s why they’re late. The coping nature of the thought was obvious, and he winced at his own naivete. Well, I hope they’re not dead at least. Tyranitar isn’t exactly a seafaring Pokémon, but it’s still strong enough I can believe they aren’t in a tentacruel’s belly.

  James returned to Jessie’s side as Tanya wound down, and soon the lights were back on. “Okay!” the redhead said with a clap. “I’m assuming you all have gotten the gist of things, so let’s open the floor. Concerns?”

  “Speculations?”

  “Admonishments?”

  “Meow.”

  “And soliloquies, of course! Let’s try to keep it short though, as we have goodies to hand out!”

  There was muttering, a few enforcers and executives moving to speak – and Hoshi swallowed his anxiety down to raise his voice.

  “Tanya, I notice you didn’t mention the Inner Ministry’s plan to attack at the same time. We concluded that was what they were going to do, didn’t we?”

  Hard eyes turned his way.