“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?”

  The attention of the crowd was almost a physical thing, weighing on his skin like the noonday sun. But Hoshi couldn’t back down – didn’t want to back down, which was the cause of what seemed like almost all his life’s problems – and so he only ghosted his fingers along Champion’s Indigo Ball, cleared his throat, and continued. “Am I wrong? This seems like the place to discuss it, if we’re ever going to.”

  “And who’s this?” came a voice from the crowd, its malicious doubt interrupting the phantom memory of pure crystalline sound. “A civilian? Are we letting people in off the street now?” Hoshi focused, but couldn’t pick out whoever had spoken – not until Jessie and James answered the challenge for him.

  “Why, this is Hoshi Mutsu!” James started.

  “Godson of Viridian City’s Lightning Lieutenant and brand-new Rocket Enforcer!”

  “Yes, I believe Tanya mentioned him once or twice when giving her report…”

  “You were listening to her report, weren’t you Executive Carr?”

  As the crossed paths of their eyes allowed Hoshi to triangulate the position of his heckler, the reason he’d been unable to find them became obvious: this Executive Carr was positively Dabi-sized. Wow. Are they related..? No, no, they don’t look anything alike aside from the height. His face was sharp, impish even, and his hair was a wispy blond – though the aura of dissatisfaction wafting from the tiny man’s pores was definitely of a similar kind to the blue-haired scientist’s unrelenting assholery.

  Case in point: Carr sneered and raised a hand to scratch his cheek, somehow managing to make the simple gesture feel insulting with the shape of his eyes alone. “Obviously. So this is the psychic kid? Is he..?” A subtle head movement pointed towards the side-room where James had stashed Hypno, and the implication – the comparison – was clear. Oh, go fuck yourself. Do I look like-

  “Indeed!” Kiribo’s unmistakable voice sounded out from within the crowd. People parted, their own looks of distaste forming or disappearing with little in the way of any pattern Hoshi could discern, to reveal the Psychic Hunter as he trundled forward. “My good friend has finally attained a rank of equal stature to my own – while increasing his powerful esoteric abilities in the process, if our snowy-haired maiden is to be believed! And thus, like the humble monk as he gazed upon the Rainbow Phoenix, the scales shall be lifted from his eyes – is that not so, Senior Executives?”

  “Never call me that again,” Tanya muttered as Hoshi looked back towards the instructors – to find that they were actually a touch nervous. Are they..? Do they not want to talk about the Inner Ministry? If so, he was doubly glad he’d asked; it was time to get some Arc-damned answers to all this mystic psychic crap, and their reaction meant it was important.

  “Of course, we’re more than aware that those dastardly Dexists are planning their own coup…” James began.

  “And we’ve prepared the grandest of countermeasures! But I’m afraid that now isn’t the time to reveal that.”

  “Yes, especially since a certain someone failed in their assassination mission…”

  A pair of pointed looks were turned Kiribo’s way, and it was his turn to look nervous. “I have no desire to pass the blame to anyone but myself, Seniors, but let us be reasonable. We couldn’t have predicted he would have the Articuno in his pocket; while my partner and I relish a challenge, we are not so powerful that we might defeat a god… Not without preparation, at least!”

  Wait, what? The- Kiribo’s special mission was to kill somebody, somebody in the Inner Ministry, and they had the fucking Articuno? Was that what had made the weather-? Obviously. Obviously it was – fuck, the implications of this are too much to think about right now. Into a mental shelf it goes; let’s unpack that later.

  Jessie opened her mouth – but it was Meowth that answered. “Maybe,” he said, the word understandable but not quite human. “Still failed. Abra is always ‘power, more power, revenge.’ Tell him to do it, or stop talking.”

  The enforcer frowned as the cat’s shorthand – shorttongue? – made Kiribo grimace. And now I feel like a bunch of shit just flew over my head. “I… Will relay your words, Mister Meowth, unkind though they are. But-”

  “Is this because we have spies in the room?” Hoshi interrupted, drawing attention back to himself. “We have Sabrina, don’t we? That shouldn’t be an issue now.”

  Again, Jessie and James became strangely nervous at what, to him, was a fairly reasonable statement – and some of the other Rockets followed suit. Oh, come the fuck on. I mean I don’t want my mind read, who would, but I’ll do it if it means we can detect any plants. This shit isn’t something you keep in your back pocket; you abuse it for all it’s worth. ‘Cause the enemy will do the same. And Hoshi would eat the puffy black newsboy cap he wished he was wearing if the secret society of psychics didn’t have one mind-reader among their ranks; it was rare enough to be almost mythical – might be literally mythical if not for the woman steadily sliding along the wall of the room, her eyes distressingly locked on Hoshi’s own – but these were people who apparently controlled a good chunk of the government.

  “Well…”

  “You see…”

  “Mutsu,” Meowth barked, “Not now. Talk after, prr-rivate.”

  No, no I’m not letting this go. Casca told me to ask about the Ministry, and you’re being fucking weird about it, so I’ll keep asking ‘till I get a fucking answer. “Sir, respectfully… no. If our parade is going to get snowed on, that’s something to talk about here and now. The Inner Ministry has control over the Articuno? How are we countering that? Are we just going to lean on Mega Evolution?” The room was looking at him and Hoshi saw more than a few snarls, but he also saw some faces with considering expressions. It’s not just me that’s in the dark; some of these gangsters know what’s being kept mum, but most of them don’t. And maybe keeping them in the dark was the smart thing, Hoshi couldn’t know for certain while he was in the dark himself… but he was damn sure he’d rather risk doing something dumb than keep fumbling around, wondering what the fuck was going on.

  I’ve managed to claw my way into the back room where all the decisions are made – I’m not going to just sit back and take orders. Not with Bob dead, not with what I’ve had to fucking do to get here. In a moment of self-epiphany all the suspicions and doubts he’d had about Team Rocket came rushing up to a head. I never got an answer to that either, not a satisfying one – did you kill my uncle? Did you fucking do it? I have mind-reading of my own now, you cagey cocksuckers, I’ll do it myself if Sabrina won’t.

  And his seething anger was matched as Jessie stepped forward. “Enforcer,” she admonished, genuinely angry to a level he’d not seen even when James had gotten shot or they’d confronted him and Casca about their talk of desertion. “Leave the room. You will not talk to us as though you know better.”

  “Yes, let’s all take a moment to cool off,” James followed. “I promise, we do have secret measures in place to deal with everything that’s coming. But if we say it out loud, well.”

  “You weren’t wrong to be worried about spies,” Jessie said, still angry, still in Hoshi’s face. “But there’s no need to go looking for them – unlike the Doksu plant, we’ve had these little traitors pegged from the beginning. So don’t. Rock. The boat. Do you understand, Enforcer Mutsu?”

  He did. In his heart, Hoshi really did understand – if he’d been standing where Jessie was, he’d probably be saying the same thing. He was a soldier, in spirit if not name, and a soldier followed their orders. They had to, or things fell apart. If Bob had known ahead of time which of his bombing runs were factories and which were soft targets… But this involves me. This involves me, and Bob is dead, and I don’t trust you to know what you’re doing. Maybe I never did.

  So he turned away from the redheaded woman and addressed the crowd. “Are you all fine with this?” Hoshi sent out into the growing susurrus. “We came here to talk about taking over the government, so let’s talk. I don’t know if Tanya laid all this out before I got here, but just so we’re all on the same page-”

  “Mutsu,” James attempted to interrupt, “This is a mistake. You’ll only make the situation worse.”

  But Hoshi didn’t stop. “The Inner Ministry is a group allegedly descended from a secret society of psychics formed during the reign of the Saffron Imperial Dynasty. They also allege that they’ve found the literal Dexus – or rather Deoxys – and I for one believe them, ‘cause…” Here we go. No going back, no unseeing the room once the light is on. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been talking to the thing in my dreams. Which is probably why the Inner Ministry made a fair go at recruiting me back in Vermilion, and why they’ve been keeping tabs on me since I was a teenager.”

  The gathering was loud now, but he pushed on.

  “During said recruitment attempt – which I ended with violence, by the way – the Ministry agents let slip some info that led to the obvious conclusion that they’re going to try and counter-coup us – swoop in and take out the remnants after our fight with Clair shakes out. And if they’ve got one of the Generals in a ball, I think their chances might be better than ours. Which is why we need to know what Jessie and James apparently know. Am I wrong?”

  Shouts erupted, both for and against, and then suddenly a red flash silenced the room. Jessie stood with the large shape of her jellicent floating ominously above and behind her head. “This is classified information. And for good reason. Any attempt to coerce said information from James or myself will be considered a hostile action towards Team Rocket itself. Do I make myself clear?” Each clipped sentence came with a spike of tightly-controlled anger, its colour bright and clear even in the smoke-filled murk the office had become.

  A pause – and then several other flashes answered her in the least ambiguous manner possible. More Pokémon were released as the Rockets chose sides, and a tiny ripple of regret disturbed the determined surface of Hoshi’s mind. Okay, okay, this is escalating. I didn’t expect them to release their mons’, but whatever, that’s- that’s fine. I didn’t fuck everything up. Dabi’s machamp came out along with a kadabra, graveler, and exeggutor, somebody’s weezing was releasing actual smoke to go along with the psychic shit obscuring his third eye, James was reluctantly drawing a Rocket Ball from his belt. If it falls apart here and now before we even get there, then- then it was doomed, right? Heat and cold were fighting for territory as Tanya’s ninetails eyed a distant native relative, that Carr guy had two forretress that looked primed to explode, and the tension came closer and closer to eruption-

  And then a childish giggle cut through everything, the quiet sound overpowering shouts dozens of times as loud by way of its mysterious, otherworldly tone. Hoshi’s heart tried to drop into his bowels and collided with his stomach as the latter was attempting to climb for the freedom of his throat – and everyone else must’ve been having a similar reaction given the way the room went utterly silent.

  “Hee hee hee… Hee hee…

  “Little brother…” Sabrina said, beaming like a schoolgirl asking for icecream. How- how did she get so close? She was on the other side of the room, I never stopped tracking her- “You’re so warm… You’ll play with us, won’t you?”

  The room was suddenly darker, dark in a way that neither the dimmed lights nor the weezing’s Smokescreen could explain. And Hoshi…

  Hoshi was terrified, but everything else was simply bigger. Guts came from her ball in a flash that wiped away the ghostly gloom, and both she and he smiled – though her grin was admittedly more intimidating with the black aura of Crunch coating each of the raticate’s incisors. “N… no thank you. We’re having a bit of a conversation here; why don’t you go talk to your master, ghost?”

  The giggle came again, no doubt responding to the shake in his voice, and against his will the fear gripping Hoshi’s spine curled tighter. Don’t show it. You’re fine, there’s like ten Pokémon already out – and Guts is here. Normal with a dark move? That’s a straight counter, no ghost is getting to me. The rationalisations went on the offensive, the quietly gibbering fear retaliated, and the two phased through one another without touching. Sabrina’s horrible, unnatural eyes filled his vision like apocalyptic moons, and he could swear he could see the gengar cackling inside.

  “Daddy knows you… Mommy doesn’t, yet, but she will…” Her smile was warm, like spring, like rotting meat. “You’re going to make us a family again. You will, I see it, it’s so clear…”

  She reached up, motions gentle as slender fingers went for his neck, and Hoshi was a half-second away from becoming a clawing, biting animal when Jessie’s own ghost floated serenely into his field of view. The seven-foot blob of jellyfish was terrifying in its own way, its vacant, vacuous expression communicating absolutely nothing – and Sabrina turned with a hiss. “No! Mine! He’s mine, he’s-mine-mine-mine-!”

  “Okay!” James exclaimed with a clap, and the sound banished the lingering dregs of ghost… stuff that had been clogging up Hoshi’s brain. He stepped back, bile on his tongue, and Sabrina hissed like a cat – then simply disappeared into thin air not unlike a popped soapbubble.

  “We had a tense moment there,” the executive continued, seemingly content to not comment on the paranormal happenings, “But let’s bring it down, for real this time! Jessie, I think we can all put our Pokémon away… right?”

  The redhead was, in contrast to her partner, still seething – but with a flick the giant pink jelly-ghost disappeared. Wait, did she save me on purpose? “Fine!” Jessie cried, her voice petulant. “Fine, you want to know so very badly, then fine! It’s Hypno, alright?”

  The reveal shocked Hoshi away from the hazy question, and he couldn’t stop himself from voicing his incredulity. “Hypno?”

  “That’s balderdash!” Kiribo cried, much more affronted. “My uncle would never betray his confidences! He is a man of integrity!” Other voices rang out, and for a moment it looked like things would devolve right back to violence – but rather than the room or the many personalities butting up against each other inside it, Hoshi focused for a moment on himself.

  …Is he though? A man of integrity? The moment of shock was past, and as he looked at things with fresh eyes the doctor’s personal test subject found… a lot of evidence, if only the circumstantial kind. He’s psychic himself, Hoshi thought, and he was a government scientist at one point – important enough to work on top-secret war projects like the clone thing that made Meowth. They would definitely both know about and want him. And if I’m remembering, didn’t he say..?

  ‘I’m quite dull, where psychic abilities are concerned. Had to make a few deals with the Dexus to even begin.’ Something like that.

  The longer he dwelled on it, the more sense it made. That stone. Three eyes… But… “Do you have any proof of that, sirs?”

  “Oh, now you’re skeptical? You’ve been promoted for less than half a day, you-”

  “Jessie, Jessie, I said let’s calm it down!” James drew a hand through his perfect popstar hair, which was somehow keeping its shape despite being completely soaked in sweat. “We don’t have any proof on hand, but believe us when we say Kim Kimigawa has been a member of the Esoteric Brotherhood of the Inner Ministry since the early nineties – since before he was a Rocket.”

  “But Uncle Kim recruited me!” Kiribo objected, his voice, which was already loud at base, easily raising above the clamour of roaring Rockets. “It does not- it makes no sense..!” Oh wow, he’s genuinely distressed. I didn’t think Kiribo took his ties to Team Rocket this seriously – he doesn’t even wear the proper uniform. “If he was a double-agent, then… But the Rocket Balls! The Rocket-Dex! My uncle has been instrumental to this organisation’s success! If he were a member of the Inner Ministry all this time…”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  An enforcer Hoshi didn’t know chimed in with “Wasn’t he the only reason those crazy fucks could pull off the Radio Tower deal at all? That whole thing with the gyarados..?”

  “I can’t help but agree,” Tanya said, her expression a different flavour of sour than the usual. “I dislike the man, but he stayed on even after Giovanni left. Even I didn't do that.”

  James nodded gravely. “Yes, thus our reluctance to reveal this. Doctor Hypno has been feeding information to the Ministry, but as far as we can tell that is all he’s been doing.”

  “He hasn’t built backdoor contingencies into our equipment,” Jessie followed up. “Hasn’t sabotaged anything, hasn’t so much as mis-filed his paperwork. Aside from the one issue, he’s been a model employee for fourteen years. So if anyone breathes a damn word about this, there will be consequences.”

  “Yes, we need him to keep making Sync Stones – and training people in their use. As far as we’re aware, we’re the only people who have them outside of the tiny, isolated kingdom of Pasio Island. The League may or may not have contingencies for Mega Evolution left over from their last spat with our tropical southwestern neighbours, but they won’t have ever seen the more niche abilities Sync Stones are capable of expressing.”

  James drew his eyes over the crowd, which was beginning to quiet down as his words took hold. Jessie’s own stare was harder, while Meowth-

  Wait, where’s Meowth? Damnit, there’s too many people in this room, I keep losing track of shit-

  “Meow. Mutsu.”

  Oh sweet fucking-! “Sir!” Hoshi gasped, a tiny part of him wondering how many more times the persian could possibly ambush him while the rest chewed through the continuing implications of the Hypno-Ministry situation. The instructors are right; we can’t boot him out or string him up – and fuck, the Sabrina thing is a lot more volatile now too. We can’t have her scan for other plants because she’s taking orders from Hypno, and while they say he hasn’t done anything but leak info, I don’t think anybody’s going to be eager to test that out with their brain on the line.

  Meowth said something, but the enforcer was actually too far into his own head to make it out. Wait, she won’t just read some random person’s mind and uncover everything, right? No, some people already knew, that must be accounted for…

  Was I- was I wrong to push? He couldn’t say; if one of the Rockets who’d just learned about it spilled and Hypno disappeared, then Hoshi would definitely regret speaking up… But if that didn’t happen, or Arcus forbid the weirdo scientist try to turn his coat when things came to a head and the foreknowledge came in handy, then it would’ve been the right call. And… and now we know. It’s better to know, isn’t it? It’s not like we’re the rank-and-file, we’re officers; we’re the people making decisions. We-

  “Mutsu. Listen.”

  The self-assuring thoughts died as Hoshi returned to reality – the painfully loud reality of the half-playpen office, full of voices and searing emotions. A few people still had their Pokémon out, the dolls still seemed to be watching him, and Hoshi was suddenly extremely homesick for his nice, simple construction job. “Sorry sir, working through the Hypno thing. That’s… just, wow, you know?”

  “Sure. Work fast; you will talk with Doc after.”

  Oh come on. “…About..?”

  “Deeho- Diyoci-” A huff, almost amusing in its consternation. “The Dexus. Doc is half-asleep, plii-able. Good time to talk.” The persian turned and padded back to the instructors, who met Hoshi’s eyes with hard looks.

  Yeah, yeah. I’m not exactly happy with myself either, okay?

  Gonna be honest with myself, I’m kind of surprised I’m doing this.

  The thought came and went in the background as Casca carefully pulled herself through the hallway’s ancient wooden ventilation duct and up into a mushroom-encrusted tunnel – which was, for the record, only barely lit enough from the downwards-pointing vents for her to see her arms in front of her face. It smelled bad, felt bad too, and as she started crawling forwards there was the constant worry that the moist, spongey wood would fail to hold her weight even with the bracing of the ceiling underneath. Mew preserve me, this is probably actually the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

  But she was done with sitting around, done with her man having to bull his way into trouble without her. She’d been on the dead-weighty-er side of things as they’d gone through the forest, but now they were back in her territory. So it was time to put her super-spy skills to use and do a little espionage.

  And when she finally passed the audible threshold and went from above the hallway outside to above the actual meeting room, Casca was glad she’d pulled this stupid, disgusting manoeuvre – because they were dropping some truth. Bombs. Doc Hypno, a part of the Dexist cult? And they had the Articuno? Suddenly the pulped fungus all down the front of her body was worth it, and Casca clung to every muffled word.

  “Now that we can safely put that very sensitive business behind us,” came James’s showman’s voice, easily passing through the layers of wood and soil. “Let’s get back to the assault on the Nationals.”

  “Yes – nothing about the good Doctor, nothing about the Dexus, let’s hear practical issues, people!”

  Jessie was followed by a quieter voice, one Casca couldn’t quite place to a face or name, and she struggled to make it out. “Wait, back up – I’d like to hear more about what that enforcer said. Did you say you talk to the devil? Are you implying it’s… real?”

  Hoshi, too, was harder to make out, and for a moment she considered dragging herself over to a vent so as to get a better signal for this little radio drama… but no, someone might hear her. Or I’d hit a too-soft patch and fall through the ceiling. No talking my way out of that, hah. “I don’t exactly know what’s going on myself,” he answered. “I can say that there’s a psychic thing that calls itself Deoxys, and it wants me to do some nebulous crap with… Mew? So I guess she’s real too, on some level. Whether that makes Arceanism true I have no idea, I’ve decided to not think about it.”

  “That’s… no, that can’t possibly be true, you’re making that up.”

  The conversation turned to her man’s credibility, and as the voices below argued back and forth Casca had her own round of conceptual tug-of-war. The Dexus? Lady Mew? Boom, truth bomb. Or speculation bomb, at least. He’s mentioned weird dreams, but not… not that. It seemed like Hoshi was in the centre of something a little more… esoteric than just a battle over who got to sit in the big chair when things shook out. Or no, no. That’s not… this whole thing is just a bad dream. That shit isn’t actually real, right?

  A thread of amusement tugged at her as she realised her thoughts were basically a mirror for what was happening down below, and for a moment Casca just breathed the musty, mushroom-y air without making an effort to strain her ears or keep track of anything.

  Then the crowd of mixed executives and enforcers got back onto something resembling a track, and soon things had concluded with the promise of another meeting tomorrow. She breathed a silent sigh of relief and very carefully started to backtrack. I’ll hang a left and come out in a different tunnel – no idea what I’ll say to explain how absolutely fucked my clothes are, but I’m sure I’ll think of something. But then Jessie’s voice sounded out once again, and Casca paused.

  “Alright, Enforcer Mutsu, it’s time we had a private chat.”

  “I… I apologize for my tone, sir, but I think my objections were justified.”

  “Oh, we are rather nettled about that, Enforcer,” James took over. “But we’ll find some punishment for you later, when we aren’t a hundred feet up on the trapeze wire. No, this is about your psychic abilities.”

  “You wanted answers, Mister Mutsu? You’re about to get them. Kimmy!”

  The shout was loud, even in the duct, but what followed was basically a whisper. Casca strained, but all she could make out were snatches of movement and the instructors’ side of things.

  James said “Yes, that’s right,” and then seconds later Jessie followed with a petulant “Meowth will be right there, don’t be a baby.”

  And that was all. The Cerulean girl felt two impulses tugging at her, one that wanted her to move forward and discover more, and the other that wanted to retreat before something inevitably went tits-up.

  The curiosity won; Casca Kichi had never been a very fearful person, after all. She waited another handful of seconds to verify that Jessie and James had left – or that they were silently listening so she was fucked if she did anything anyway – and then began crawling further forwards.

  I really don’t want to do this, Hoshi thought as the hypno led him and Meowth towards her master – and the possessed Gym Leader too, whom he seemed to only nominally be in control of. I fantasized a hundred times out in the woods, about strapping the Doc into one of his stupid useless machines and making him tell me what the fuck’s been going on… But now that it’s here – and with the revelation that Hypno was an Inner Minister, of course – I think maybe I’d rather deal with my own personal business in private.

  But regardless of his comfort or lack thereof, he liked to think he wasn’t a hypocrite; Hoshi had chosen knowledge over security only a half-hour earlier, and pissed off his direct superiors while doing so. Turning tail now would be backtracking on himself in a very overt, very obvious manner, and if he did that some of his self-respect would drop off like over-ripe fruit. So he grit his teeth and went forward, forcing Kimmy to walk faster to keep up. The hallway between Hypno’s office and his bedroom was different from the rest of the compound, full metal sheeting replacing the old wood that had become familiar over the past day, but it wasn’t very long. The door – also solid metal – approached, and soon Hoshi had his hand around the handle.

  He turned his wrist- and found it locked. What..?

  With an aggrieved toot of her massive nose, the psychic Pokémon rummaged in her beard and brought out a tiny old-fashioned key. Oh. Alright then – got a bit ahead of myself. Let’s slow it down, not do anything stupid…

  Kimmy unlocked the door, and opened it herself before beckoning the enforcer through. The homesickness flashed again, the phantom longing for an apartment that had been destroyed, for a job he hated but knew how to do, for that normal life he’d discarded without understanding its value – and then Hoshi Mutsu followed after the hypno’s back, yellow fur like a warning sign he was preparing to barrel right on through. He looked back at Meowth, who nodded as he sat at the door like a guardian arcanine, then turned forward to see the room beyond the threshold. And found it to be…

  Startlingly normal. Two pairs of bunk beds dominated one wall, and that was where Kimmy went – and where Hypno was. He was sitting on one of the bottom bunks, nursing what looked and smelled like a bowl of tomato soup, and as his Pokémon got close the double-crossing doctor jerked up as though waking from a nightmare. Actually no, how about we don’t think about that sort of thing while there’s a potential mind-reader in some shadow?

  Speaking of Sabrina, she wasn’t present – though there was a sort of pall over the room that Hoshi associated with the woman- or no, with the ghost inside her. Kimmy held her arm out and received a lukewarm fist-pump, and then like a monkey she pulled herself up the bed’s ladder four rungs at a time. In moments she’d disappeared, replaced by a soft fluting snore – and it was just the two Rockets.

  “Grunt Mutsu,” Hypno greeted, his voice less… enthusiastic than it had been in the meeting. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  He’s acting like he has a cold, but he doesn’t look sick. No, Doctor Hypno looked positively radiant, bursting with life in a direct contrast to his nephew’s sallow appearance or Dabi’s cancer-patient-esque transformation. But at the same time, the man was shivering; his breath itself seemed cold, and the colours of his eyes were muted – brown with grey flecks, similar but distinct from Kiribo’s orange.

  “It’s actually Enforcer Mutsu now, sir. Are you… doing alright?”

  Hypno let out a chuckle, the familiar hoo hoo hoo also expressing a phantom chill. “Oh, never better, never better. Congratulations on the promotion, then… though you didn’t answer my question. Is the presentation still going on? Should I go out and..?”

  “No, it’s done. This is personal.” Deep breath – don’t think about any of the ways this could go wrong. Hoshi turned and made for a tiny desk set opposite the bunks, and as Hypno watched, vacant confusion warring with a sort of sick mirth that cloaked his head in a grinning shadow, the taller man dragged the desk’s office chair over so he could sit opposite the scientist. “A few days ago, I had something of an episode. I got a terrible nosebleed, and then there was a sort of a… fugue state, where my emotions were intense and strange. And after it was over my psychic powers were a lot stronger.”

  “A breakthrough?!” Hypno shouted, suddenly throwing off his sickly air. It was interesting to watch, actually; there was a sort of a faint, transparent tube coming off him, and some of his emotions were disappearing down that tube as it arced off toward where Hoshi was guessing his gengar was. At the same time something else, not identifiable as any emotion but definitely present, was coming back and entering Hypno’s aura. “I didn’t think it would happen so soon! Young man, this is wonderful news! I need- I need to assemble my staff for some tests, I can’t wait to find out-”

  “So you knew this would happen,” Hoshi interrupted.

  “Of course! What did you think I was measuring with all those weeks of observation? I wasn’t pissing into the wind, young man! Hoo hoo hoo!”

  He felt his lips curling into a snarl. “Oh, perfect.” So you knew and didn’t say anything. You can be a real fucking jackass, you know that? “I guess that means you know exactly what’s changed? ‘Cause I don’t, and it would be real convenient to get a nice simple list.”

  Hypno waved, some of the drunken motion from earlier returning as he took in his ghost’s… Energy? Spirit? Whatever it was, it chased away the shivers but induced some kind of mania that the enforcer would really have preferred to not see again. “Not at all, not at all dear boy! Your condition is fairly unique, I don’t know what the end result of you will be – why, you might eclipse Sabrina in some areas! Hold on, I need- I need to fetch-”

  The scientist attempted to rise, his soup forgotten on the edge of the bed, and Hoshi leaned forward to push him back down. “Nope, sorry, we’re still having a conversation. You’re going to sit there, and you’re going to answer me, you get it?”

  If he noticed the edge in the younger man’s voice, Hypno didn’t show it. He only blinked, confused for a moment before refocusing. “Mutsu! What’s gotten into you?”

  “A lot of things. For one, the fucking devil. How’s that for psychics not being the Dexus’s playthings, huh? Got any explanation for that?”

  Hypno blinked again, the grey flecks in each iris dancing like tiny stars. “The..?” Then he stilled, and those flecks lifted off and away. Using your own empathy, huh? I wonder what I look like from the outside… probably isn’t pretty, huh. No, it probably wasn’t – because the doctor performed a full-body backwards flinch, spilling his soup all over the bed and nearly braining himself against the back wall. “Lady Mew! You – you were already impressive, but-! What can you do now? Can you teleport, divine the future, see-”

  “I think I can read minds,” Hoshi once again interrupted. “Or something like that. There’s a lurch, and then suddenly I just know something, something somebody around me would know. Something they’d logically be thinking at that moment.”

  The bedroom was near-silent for a long second, only the hypno’s snores breaking the ambiance – and then the Doc let loose a wild, shuddering laugh.

  “Hoo hoo, ooh hoo, hoo-!”

  It went on for a startlingly long time, seeming to expel multiple times more air than Hypno could’ve possibly held in his lungs… and when it ended, the hideous little scientist had a different glint in his eye. “Mind-reading? True mind-reading is… well, it is rare, young man, very rare. Very useful. I can honestly say I never expected this – your readings showed a talent for more physical manipulations, so I assumed you’d be a telekinetic powerhouse, not…” Another laugh, more restrained, and then he attempted to stand again. Hoshi allowed it, sensing that the man wasn't going to go trotting off, and stood himself.

  “What am I, Doc? That’s what I’m trying to get at – I’m not just a normal psychic. This is something else.”

  “It is. It is! You say you’ve seen the entity? Or did I imagine that?”

  “No, I’ve seen it – a big triangular pyramid, three eyes. It’s started talking to me too, but I can’t say I understand what it wants.” And I wouldn’t say if I did.

  Hypno was puffing now, his mania larger and more natural – not a ghost-induced sickness, but the perfectly ordinary workings of the human mind. “Spoken? You’ve spoken-! Magnificent, Mutsu! The entity is the heart of human psychic ability – to reach it and see it for what it is, that’s something people like myself spend lifetimes attempting. I had suspicions, but you’ve blown them out of the water!”

  Again, Hoshi reached for the scientist. His hand curled around Hypno’s collar, and he had to resist the urge to shake. “Don’t dance around it – you know, I can tell by the way you’re talking. You know why I’m like this, so spit it out!”

  “It’s nothing special, not in essence!” Hypno replied, shaking himself in excitement. “All humans share the potential – you merely have more. A fortuitous confluence, genetics and environment, causality mixing with destiny-!”

  “No fucking riddles! Spit it out!” Calm it down. Calm it down, man, you’re freaking out.

  But he couldn’t calm down, not with answers right in front of him dangling like a worm on a hook. The ugly little goblin fuck’s cheeks were red as ripe apples, full of vitality – he looked ten years younger, but there was something hollow in his eyes. The grey flecks were born, lifted off, and fizzled to nothing against the ceiling in a display of mental fireworks – and Hoshi knew, in a mental connection that didn’t burn a single drop of fuel, that Hypno was using something that couldn’t be trivially regained. “It’s- it is the essence, Mutsu, the stardust! His body, the essence of all life that originated from that mysterious other – staryu and clefairy, and yes, Deoxys and mankind. I cannot say if He is the true origin, but humanity’s father lies, at the very least, much closer than any of His descendants. But you, Hoshi Mutsu, lie closer to Him than the rest of us. Stardust was in your veins long before you met me – before you were born, I wager. That is what separates you from the common man, and what will continue to elevate you as you practise your abilities, as you imbibe more of Deoxys’s fossilised body.

  “You are going to take us to the stars, Hoshi Mutsu. Our very own rocket ship, ready to blast off at the speed of light.”