“Okay… walk me through your idea again?” a rather tired looking Farm Joy said, pinching the bridge of her nose. I had already explained my idea to her twice, but apparently it was so absurd that she was having trouble understanding it. Was it really such a foreign concept to people of this world? Or was there something else that made it absurd to them?

  So I tried to simplify it. “I want to create some sort of rehabilitation program for abandoned, confiscated, surrendered, and traumatized Pokemon. The goal being to eventually rehome them with suitable Trainers or release them depending on their wants and needs.”

  She closed her eyes, her brow scrunched. “And you want to use my land to do it.”

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “I said I wanted to know if you knew of something similar to your farm. Someplace that I could get the assistance from the Joy clan to help with.”

  “So my farm,” she said bluntly.

  “Something like your farm,” I replied.

  She sort of glared at me and didn’t answer. Honestly a fair response, considering the circumstances. I just turned my attention to the cart that currently had twenty five pokeballs on it. The one that was missing was in the room behind me, the Pokemon inside being treated and fed by Nurse Joy. We’d gone through almost half of them so far, Dee and a Wigglytuff assisting to make sure that the Pokemon didn’t hurt the Joy when they regained consciousness.

  So far they had all been anything but docile. A lot of threatening and posturing, but quick to back down without their Trainer nearby. And they seemed to have some respect for Nurse Joy, which was a good thing. Although that piqued my curiosity as to why.

  A heavy sigh brought my attention back to my phone. “Okay, but why?”

  “Because I currently have twenty six Pokemon that need rehabilitation, and plan to take more,” I explained, smiling a bit.

  “That’s not the answer and you know it,” she snapped.

  My smile turned a bit into a frown before I sighed a bit. “Alright, fine. You want the harsh, realistic, unfiltered answer.” She nodded and I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to see any amount of Pokemon put to slaughter because of some idiots who think the obliteration of all life that isn’t them is a good thing in the grand scheme of the universe.”

  There were several moments of silence as Farm Joy digested this information. While that was happening, Dee came out to swap Pokemon for one that had yet to be treated. She gave me a puzzled look, but I just smiled at her and pat her head. She flailed her arms at me in mock protest, but there was a smile on her face.

  “I understand what you want to do… You’re not the first… But the logistics alone…” Joy paused. “Is that really their goal?”

  I turned my attention back to the phone before nodding. “Yes. It is.” I still had no idea if this was a timeline with AZ and the Ultimate weapon, or if it was like the anime and they were attempting to use Zygarde. It might be both… I’d have to ask Sycamore. Something to do after this conversation.

  “Are they insane?” she spluttered.

  “Yes.”

  “They would have to be insane,” she continued. “Just the mere thought of that… What sort of psychotic…” she paused and then quickly moved over to a nearby terminal.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Blacklisting any and all Team Flare members from any Joy owned facility.”

  “You can do that?” I asked, and then frowned. “Would that even help?”

  “I don’t know…” she said with a sigh. “But it’s better than nothing… We… uh, well we tend to overlook if someone belongs to a criminal organization provided they don’t make it obvious. It helps keep things like the event from today happening…” She pounded her fist onto the table. “At least it’s supposed to!” she growled through gritted teeth.

  I didn’t say anything, giving her a moment to calm down as she huffed and puffed in anger. I could understand the frustration that she was going through, since it sounds like they had some sort of ceasefire agreement to keep Pokecenters from being attacked.

  She took several deep breaths. “This day could not get any worse…” she muttered.

  “Oh it most definitely can,” I said with a nod, which caused her gaze to snap towards me. “Especially if I told you who the leader of Team Flare was-” I paused, “Though you are unlikely to believe me.”

  “You…” her voice faltered for a moment. “You know who the leader is? Oh Arceus… you actually do, don’t you?” She turned away, covering her face for a moment. She was muttering something that I couldn’t hear over the phone, but it was clear she was upset.

  “Look.” I waited for her attention to be back on me. “I’m going to be talking with Sycamore and Officer Jenny later today. But right now I’m asking for your help with these Pokemon. I know that the Joy’s have a sort of program for this already, and so do the Jenny’s, but it’s clearly not enough.”

  She sighed, rubbing her face. “You’re not the first to try this, you know? It’s been tried and tried and tried again so many times, but it always fails. What we have now are the remnants of the most successful program.”

  “But I can do something that none of them could,” I argued. “I can actually talk to them, and understand them.”

  Her brow was furrowed, and there was a deep frown on her face. “Communication isn’t the problem. It’s funding. Something like that doesn’t generate money, so it can’t be sustained.”

  “I’m not asking for financial help. I can figure that part out. I just need… a place.” I took a deep breath, looking down at the cart again. “I’m in over my head, and I just need some help.”

  She looked over at me for a moment and then smiled a bit. “Wow, you seem to actually be at a loss. Didn’t think that was possible.”

  I frowned a bit. I opened my mouth to say something, but instead just sighed, sliding down the wall into a sitting position. “I am. I made a snap decision based on my emotions because I… I just…didn’t want to know that they died because I didn’t do anything. I just had to do something.”

  There was a moment of silence before she spoke, “I’m no psychologist, but it sounds like you might have a hero complex.” She let out a soft giggle.

  A bit of a smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. “Close. Savior complex. Someone with a hero complex does good things in order to seek recognition for their heroics and are usually narcissists. Someone with a savior complex has a driving need to help others, often to the detriment of themself.”

  She just stared at me, a confused expression on her face.

  “I have a minor in psychology,” I explained. “And was diagnosed when I was in college. I try to keep it reigned in and not let it dictate my life, but I… don’t really do anything for myself.”

  It was really obvious that she wanted to say more on that subject, but decided to drop it. “I’ll… Okay, I will see what I can do. But I make no promises, so try and find some other avenue for this.”

  “Alright,” I said with a nod, smiling a bit. “Thanks for trying.”

  She nodded and then hung up the call.

  I really wondered why I had just explained that to her. Maybe I just needed someone to talk to? I realized I was becoming increasingly disconnected from humans, and I felt like I kept getting rambly and personal whenever I had a long conversation. Maybe it was because I didn’t want her to actually talk to someone who knew about psychology and bring it up? That made me wonder if they had therapists here… Surely they did, since Joy mentioned psychologists. With the amount of trauma the average Trainer must get they had to. Although the lack of therapists could be why people were so messed up. Something to think on later. It’s been over a decade since I talked to a therapist.

  I took in a deep breath, closing my eyes before slowly letting it out. Now… How would I do this? I needed a place… The training field we used would do for something temporary. But I needed something permanent. How much did land cost? How expensive would the supplies be to make an island habitable? The island would need several different terrain types.

  This was frustrating.

  A sudden text brought me out of my thoughts and I looked at the message. It was from Sycamore, saying he just heard about what happened and was asking if I was alright. Well, I guess it was time for this conversation.

  I really did not want to have this conversation.

  But I had no excuses to not step in.

  The phone rang twice before it was picked up. “Jason? Are you alright?”

  “Hello, Professor. Yeah, I’m okay,” I said as I looked over at Dee coming out. She gave me a puzzled look, wondering why I was on the floor. “I’m okay,” I repeated, this time for her.

  She just nodded as she swapped pokeballs.

  “I heard what happened from Jenny,” he said, his words turning my attention back to the phone. “Where are you now?” he asked as he could only see the wall behind me.

  “Still at the Pokecenter,” I said.

  He sighed, shaking his head. “I can’t believe Team Flare would attack a Pokecenter… They must be crazy.”

  “You don’t know the half of it…” I said with a sigh. “Do you know what their goal is, Professor?”

  There was a moment of silence before he slowly shook his head. “No. I’ve never been told. If anyone has even figured it out I’ve-” he stopped, staring at me. “You know.”

  I nodded. “I wasn’t going to… interfere. I was just going to just let the sequence of events naturally occur and step in if necessary-” I stopped talking, my brow furrowing. “Okay, wow. That really sounds like I’m some sort of conceited know it all.” Sycamore immediately started nodding. “Don’t agree with me so quickly,” I said with a laugh.

  “Hey, you said it,” he replied with a bit of a smile.

  “I just…” I took a deep breath. “I struggle to get involved in things when it comes to people who hold serious power, but since they dragged me into this, I’m not going to hold back.” I paused, taking a deep breath as I tried to organize my thoughts. “Team Flare’s goal is the complete annihilation of all life that isn’t theirs, or approved by them.”

  There was almost a full minute of silence as he digested this information. “Okay, so they’re crazy.”

  “You believe me?” I asked, a bit bewildered that he didn’t even question me.

  “Not really, but I don’t really have a reason not to hear you out,” he said with a bit of a laugh. “I’m not like Professor Oak… I struggle to really believe your whole other world thing, but I am humoring you. How do they plan to do it?”

  “So you think I’m crazy,” I said, more of a statement than a question.

  “I don’t know what to think about you,” he admitted.

  I frowned, thinking back to the conversations that we’ve had. To think that this was how he thought. I was mentally kicking myself for trusting him and opening up to him the other day about my life. Again I had overshared because I was comfortable around him. “Have you ever heard of a man named AZ?” I asked after a moment. “Older man, long white hair, red beanie, green scarf, looks disheveled and homeless. Insanely tall, like nine feet. Wears a key around his neck.” I went over the details that I could remember of AZ.

  His brow furrowed and he slowly shook his head. “No… I can’t say that I have.”

  “Alright. There’s also Zygarde,” I said and noted the way that his eyes seemed to widen a bit.

  “How do you- no, it doesn’t matter how…” He rubbed his face.

  That caught my attention immediately. “So you have the Zygarde Cube?” I asked.

  He stared at me, his eyes narrowing a bit at me. Clearly this was not the sort of question that he thought he’d have to answer, or even consider.

  But before he had a chance to answer, I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. There are three routes they can go to achieve their goal, and I honestly think they might be doing two, if not all three. The first is something called the Ultimate Weapon. It’s hidden under Geosenge. And AZ has the key to activate it” I paused. “That is, if this is the timeline that it exists in which I think it does.”

  “Who is AZ?” the Professor asked, frowning.

  “Ancient immortal king of Kalos from three thousand years ago.” He just stared blankly at me as I spoke, a skeptical look on his face. “He built the Ultimate Weapon, although he originally built it to revive his dead Pokemon, but then succumbed to his grief and turned the machine into a weapon and obliterated the two armies that caused his Pokemon's death.”

  “And he… hid it?” he asked slowly, struggling to tell if I was telling the truth or not.

  “His brother buried it in hopes it would never be used again. This brother is also the one who started the conflict that got the Pokemon killed.” I felt like I was giving an odd sort of history lesson.

  “You…” he paused, his thoughts fighting his mouth for what could move faster. “Wait, you said they’re doing both, so you’ve seen the weapon?”

  I shook my head. “No.” He sagged a bit in relief. “But I have seen the entrance to the facility that contains it. I didn’t investigate further because I didn’t think I could defeat the leader of Team Flare, and I-” I coughed a bit. “I was trying to not get involved.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell anyone?” he asked with a sigh.

  “You literally just said you didn’t believe me,” I said, doing my best to keep my tone even and blunt. Which I was confident I succeeded at considering the way he flinched. “I have only my word, and I was maybe perhaps a bit too paranoid and untrusting. Although I feel a bit justified about that now considering the event with the Association.”

  There was a moment of silence before he just nodded and let out a very tired sounding sigh. “Right… Okay, I can kinda get that.” He leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You mentioned the leader of Team Flare… do you know who that is?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Lysandre.”

  His brow furrowed and he was glaring at me a bit. “Lysandre. You expect me to believe that Lysandre is the leader of Team Flare. Lysandre Labs is one of the leading technical companies in Kalos. Next you’re going to tell me Diantha is a Team Flare member,” he said as he rolled his eyes.

  “No, but Malva is.” He stiffened, freezing in place as his brain seemed to lock up trying to process what I just said. “Yes. The Elite Four member,” I added.

  “That… but…” He frowned. “That’s not possible. I happen to know Lysandre and Malva quite well. Lysandre just announced their new Holo Caster product… Why the hell would anyone believe he would do something like that?”

  I paused for a moment, looking at Sycamore, who wore a complicated expression, staring off at something that I couldn’t see. “My desire is for a more beautiful world.” Sycamore’s eyes snapped to me. “I can’t stand the thought of the world becoming uglier. Sound familiar?”

  His mouth opened and closed several times. “That’s… That’s just… That’s just hyperbole.” He hesitated. “I… I need to check something.”

  Suddenly the call disconnected and I frowned. I was going to tell him that I was calling Jenny next, but I guess that doesn’t matter.

  I took a deep breath, waiting a few minutes to calm my nerves when Dee came out once again to exchange for a new pokeball. “How’s it going?” I asked as I looked over at her.

  She frowned, holding up a finger towards the inside to let those inside know she was going to be a moment before she let the door close. “They are… scared. Confused. Unsure. Some of them have been-” she tensed, her face scrunching into something resembling frustration and sadness. “Relieved.”

  That caused me to wince a bit. I couldn’t imagine what sort of treatment they were getting if their first reaction to being taken from their trainer was relief. “Could you try and keep track of which is which?”

  “I already have been,” she said as she held up one of the pokeballs that still had a black band locking it closed and pointed out a colored dot on the bottom. “The Joy’s put together a colored sticker notation to make identification easier.”

  I smiled a bit. “Good. You can explain the colors to me later.”

  She nodded and turned to go back in with a new pokeball, but before she could I reached out and grasped her hand before it reached the door. She looked down at me, giving me a puzzled expression.

  “I’m not mad at you,” I said softly, which caused her puzzled expression to soften into one that was a bit sad. “But you need to tell me about things like that. I need to know when you’re hurt.”

  It looked like she wanted to say something, her mouth opening and closing several times. But just nodded instead.

  “You never have to be scared, or worried about telling me anything, okay?” I rubbed the back of her hand with my thumb. “None of you do. I’m here for all of you, okay?”

  Her eyes seemed to water a bit and she nodded. “Okay.”

  I smiled at her and squeezed her hand slightly. It took a moment before she returned the gesture and smiled a bit. “Okay. I’ve got one more phone call to make, and then should be done with that.”

  She nodded slightly. “Okay,” she said softly before letting go of my hand and reentering the medical room. It was honestly a bit funny to me that I wasn’t allowed in that room because it contained ‘Joy Clan Secrets’. The technology that they had to heal people and Pokemon was absurdly advanced. They had a monopoly on it, so kept it all well protected. I hadn’t really asked about it, but I wonder if they would tell me anything if I did?

  My attention turned back to my phone and stared at it for a moment. How was I going to explain this? I hadn’t thought it through before talking to Sycamore, but that was because he knew. Adria was different in that she didn’t. Did she still think I had amnesia? She hadn’t brought it up so maybe she was just trying to not touch on a sensitive topic.

  Should I tell her the truth?

  That was honestly not a bad option, but could raise a lot of potential problems. It also wasn’t something that I wanted to do over the phone if I could help it. No, unfortunately I would have to make up a lie. A convincing one that left little doubt.

  I spent so long thinking it over that Dee came out once again to trade out for a different pokeball. Ah, right, of course. That was dumb of me to not consider the obvious. She knew I could talk to Pokemon, and here I had a huge group of Team Flare Pokemon.

  The phone rang several times before being answered with a very tired, “Hello?” a voice croaked out. All that was displayed on the screen was the ceiling, and part of a lamp seen from below.

  “Sorry to wake you, Adria,” I said as I checked the time. It was eleven at night, and she had probably been up all day, unlike me who slept in. Honestly I was starting to feel tired.

  “Jason?” She tilted the phone in order to look at me. Her hair was a mess, and she had a bit of drool on the side of her mouth.

  I had to fight back a smile. “Yeah. Sorry, but I uh…” I hesitated, not liking that I had to continue to lie to her. “I just got some rather concerning information from the Pokemon.”

  She rubbed her face as she let out a yawn. “What is it?”

  “I know who the leader of Team Flare is and the location of one of their main bases,” I said slowly.

  She froze, her mouth still open mid yawn as registered what I just said, her brain screaming at her that what I just said was extremely important. “What?” was all she managed to say after a moment.

  “I got the Pokemon to tell me who the leader of Team Flare is, as well as a location of one of their main bases,” I repeated.

  There was nothing but a blur of movement from the camera as she shot up, her hair plastered to one side and sticking up something fierce. “What? Who? Where? Where is the base?” She was up out of bed and moving, though I couldn’t tell what she was doing or where she was going because she was flailing the phone around and the room was dark.

  “The base is in Geosenge. There’s a large boulder outside of town to the north west that contains an elevator,” I explained. I had no idea if it was their main headquarters like in the game, or just an important base, but I had confirmed that it was there thanks to Cara. So I at least knew where the Ultimate Weapon was.

  “I’ll call you back,” she said suddenly before hanging up.

  I blinked at the phone, my brow furrowing a bit. My eyes wandered over to the nearby cart that had all of the pokeballs on it, staring at it as I tried to think. I really couldn’t think of a solution. Farm Joy was right. Money was the problem.

  There was a tug on my coat that brought my attention to my other side to see Essy, standing there and staring at me with those big eyes. “Beans?” she questioned, tilting her head to the side.

  A smile crept onto my face as I nodded a bit. “Alright. You can have a bean.” I reached into my bag to get at the bean bag while she crawled up and sat in my lap. She took the bean as soon as it was within reach and began munching on it. If I let her she’d probably eat pokebeans till she exploded.

  Suddenly Cara came flying around the corner, skidding to a stop the moment she saw the two of us. Her shoulders sagged a bit and she let out a breath. She made her way over and sat down across from me, her back against the wall. “And I thought Rio was a difficult child to keep track of,” she muttered.

  I chuckled a bit and nodded, petting Essy. “She’s going to be a handful.” My phone suddenly started to ring.

  Answering it I was met with the sight of Jenny standing a bit away, the phone on some sort of stand while she was buttoning up her vest. “Okay, sorry. I had to get an emergency strike force organized.” Her hair was still a mess, but she didn’t seem to be concerned about it.

  “It’s fine,” I said, watching as Cara crawled across the floor to me, sitting against the wall beside me so that she could see the phone, too.

  “If your information is accurate this could be huge.” She had quite a worried expression on her face, though at the same time she looked excited. She was pulling on her belt and attaching pokeballs to it. “Are there any specifics about the boulder?”

  “It’s large, the size of a small building, and there’s apparently not anything around it,” I said as I tried to remember back to when I checked it a few months ago.

  “Boulder? The one with the room in it?” Cara asked, and for a moment I stiffened before remembering Adria couldn’t understand her.

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to do a sweep of the area.” She pulled on her hat, hiding the muss that was her hair, before picking up the phone. “Trakky, come,” she called out over her shoulder as she was making her way to the door. There was a shuffling and a bunch of thuds before I saw a Mantectric appear in the background and rush up to her.

  “Their name is Trakky?” I asked as I looked at the very serious looking electric dog.

  Adria’s face went a bit red. “Yes. He’s been with me my entire career so far, and one of my personal Pokemon.” She pulled a pokeball and returned Trakky before rushing down a set of stairs. It looked like she lived in an apartment building? “Got him as an Electrike when I was still in the academy,” she added.

  “It’s a good name,” I said with a nod.

  She cleared her throat. “Right. Well, I didn’t explain the situation to anyone, just threw out the alarm for a strike force. I’m hoping that by the time anyone on their payroll realizes what’s happening it’ll be too late to warn them.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Yeah that’s a good plan,” I said as I continued to pet Essy, the little cat was still munching on her bean and staring at the screen. I wondered if she recognized the Jenny or was just interested in the phone. “It’s really a shame that that’s required at this point.”

  “Yeah…” She let out a heavy sigh before getting into a car, putting the phone up into a holster on the dashboard. “You also mentioned you knew the leader?”

  I hesitated. “Don’t start driving yet.”

  She stopped, having turned around to look back before backing out. She glanced back at the phone before turning and fully facing it. “That bad?”

  Taking a deep breath I nodded. “Sycamore didn’t believe me. But after they described them, I knew exactly who it was.”

  There was a frown on her face. “Alright… Well, tell me and we can try and deal with it later.”

  “Lysandre.”

  Just saying the word made the air suddenly feel heavy. It was very different from when I told Sycamore, because I could immediately tell from Adria’s expression that she believed me. “Dammit…” she practically snarled, slamming the car into reverse and flying out of the space.

  “It gets worse,” I said, noting how she had her lights going but no siren.

  She took a deep breath and nodded, biting her lip.

  “From what they told me… Malva is a Team Flare member, or at least was,” I said, hoping that the revelation didn’t cause her to crash.

  From the way she jerked, I think it almost did. “What?!” she shouted.

  I nodded. “They knew who Malva was and had seen her in the base.”

  Her palm slammed in the steering wheel several times. “Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit! Lysandre is one thing!” She spun the wheel suddenly, clearly taking a turn far faster than she should. “We can’t touch Malva. The League has their own internal structure…” She started to take deep breaths, trying to calm herself down.

  “You can’t get her?” I asked, a bit surprised at that bit of news.

  She shook her head. “No. Unless she blatantly breaks the law and there’s substantial proof of it… We can’t even investigate her. We have to request the League do it.”

  “Well that’s dumb,” I said with a sigh, shaking my head. “What about Lysandre?”

  “There’s already an investigation ongoing on him,” she said, and then hesitated as she realized she probably shouldn’t have told me that. “It uh… There were some Trainers who had their Mega Stones stolen, and shortly after Lysandre Labs put out some reports on newly discovered research on Mega Stones. Someone brought it to our attention that all of the Mega Stones that were in the reports matched the list of the ones stolen.”

  “An interesting coincidence,” I said, glancing over at Cara as she gripped onto my coat. Just the talk of Mega Stones seemed to make her anxious.

  “Right. And then Lysandre Labs refused to tell us where they got the stones. They said it was confidential. But that’s just one incident, there are a few others that make the labs really shady. They’ve been running for so many years and hardly put out any findings, but always have money to burn. Just a few months ago they announced these Holo Caster things. If we raid this base and find anything that links him to it, he’s toast.”

  At least I seemed to be really early in the timeline. Even during the game the Holo Caster was a well established thing, and it was in the anime as well. That suddenly reminded me of something, and I made a mental note to ask Professor Sycamore about Alain. They might not have found the ancient Giant Rock. What a dumb name for something that has the capability of massive destruction.

  That also meant the Giant Rock was probably still in Hoenn?

  “You okay?” Adria suddenly asked, glancing at the phone.

  “Ah? Oh, yeah. Sorry, forgot we were still talking and got lost in thought… The Pokemon told me some… really concerning things,” I managed to say, trying to keep on topic.

  “Arceus, there’s more?” she said, exasperated.

  “Yeah, just two things…” I hesitated as I tried to think about how to word it. “They mentioned things that sounded concerning. Something about an Ancient Weapon capable of wiping out all life, except those that Lysandre deems worthy of being a part of the new world.”

  Her face skewed into one of disbelief. “Are they insane?” she spluttered.

  “Yes,” I said with a bit of a smile, trying not to laugh at the fact she had had the exact same reaction as Farm Joy.

  “Alright. I’m at the station,” she said as she suddenly parked. “I-” she stopped, and took a deep breath. “Look, I know you know a lot more about this than you’re telling me… but…” She looked at the phone, watching me for a moment. “Thank you for telling me.”

  I hesitated. “I’m sorry. I… can explain more later, if you want.”

  She sighed, leaning back in her seat for a moment. She pulled off her hat and spent a bit of time fixing her hair, before putting it back on. “I just don’t know why you’d lie.”

  “Because you wouldn’t believe me,” I responded with a bit more edge to my voice than I meant. “Sycamore doesn’t. He just thinks I’m crazy.”

  “But he’s trying to help. So am I,” she said, and the softness of her tone caught me off guard. “I can’t… I don’t know if I will believe you, either. But I can tell you’re a good man, and you’re trying to help in your own way.”

  I frowned a bit, looking at her. “Sycamore told you, didn’t he?”

  “He implied some things,” she admitted. “He didn’t go into much detail, just that you seem… confused. Lost.”

  That was frustrating. I didn’t really care at this point if Adria knew, and I was planning on telling her the truth, but to find out that she was informed second hand was… That was… That was an odd betrayal of trust.

  My attention was brought down to Essy in my lap as she grabbed my hand, her gaze having left the camera. I had stopped petting her, so she had taken it upon herself to grab my hand and rub her face against it. “Are you okay?” Cara said softly, nudging me a bit with her shoulder, concern on her face.

  “Yeah, just…” I frowned. “I’m starting to regret stopping you from decking Sycamore.”

  She let out a snort, and Adria gave me a perplexed look. “Decking Sycamore?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a bit of a laugh. “Cara doesn’t like him because he’s bad at doing his job.”

  Adria let out a soft scoff, that was clearly trying to hide a laugh. “He has priorities. But I get that. I’ve gotten quite a few reports about the man slacking in his duties, but I also get that he can only do so much in a day and a lot of these things were assigned to him because the Association is lazy and doesn’t want to do their own job.”

  I nodded a bit. “Right. I’m trying to not hold it too much against him, but it’s hard not to get pissed off at him since I’ve had to clean up some of his messes.”

  She nodded a bit. “Yeah, I heard-” There was a sudden knocking at her window that caused her to jump. “Ah, looks like I have to go. I’ll talk to you later, Jason.”

  “Alright. Thanks, Adria,” I said before she hung up.

  A sigh escaped me as I looked down at Essy, who was still rubbing her face against my hand. She was just an adorable little bean loving cat.

  Dee came out, startling a bit when she saw that there were a lot more people out here than before. “Everything alright?” she asked as she swapped pokeballs.

  “That one,” Cara pointed at Essy, “Disappeared to look for Jace without saying anything.” She huffed before standing up, Dee giggling a bit at her response as she went back into the medical room. “I should probably go tell everyone she’s alright…”

  I reached up to start rubbing her back. “Is the new room fine?” It was only a few doors down from the room we had been staying in, but seemed to have the same amenities as the other.

  Cara nodded. “Yeah. Most of them were asleep when I left, but Rio, Scoly, and Primarina were still watching Mystery Dungeon when I left.”

  “Team Speed Shell would be a great rescue team,” I said with a nod.

  “They actually said they wanted to be explorers,” she said before stretching. “Said that would be more fun.”

  I let out a soft laugh and nodded a bit. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

  She turned a bit and grasped my hand. My brow furrowed a bit, giving her a puzzled look as she stared at my hand, gently rubbing my fingers. It took a moment before she finally spoke. “Those bastards are going to pay,” she growled. “I want to make them pay…”

  A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. “They will.” It wasn’t really a surprise to me that Cara had quite a revenge driven mindset. She probably thought about revenge an unhealthy amount.

  “Will Officer Jenny be able to take them down?” she asked softly, still staring at my hand.

  “I think so. If not, it’s going to hurt them really bad.” I shifted my hand a bit in order to grasp hers. “If she can’t, then we will.”

  She nodded a bit, the serious expression on her face slowly relaxing to then be quickly replaced with an embarrassed one before she pulled her hands away. “Stop playing with my beans,” she whined, clearly trying to fight back a smile and her tail wagging slightly.

  “Beans?” Essy’s dull attention was now focused on Cara.

  I laughed, giving her a big smile. “I just can’t help myself,” I said, still laughing a bit as I got another bean for Essy. The little feline happily took it and began munching on it.

  Cara just glared at me, doing her best to hold a frown on her face as she rubbed her hands. “I still don’t understand the appeal.”

  I shrugged before lifting Essy up and holding her out to Cara. “Make sure she gets to sleep soon, alright? And that goes for the rest of them that are still up.”

  “Are you not coming?” Cara asked as she took Essy, cradling her as the cat happily snacked.

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’ll be staying up in case I’m needed.”

  It looked like she wanted to say something, but instead she just nodded. “Alright,” she said after a moment before turning and heading back down the hall.

  I watched as she left before taking in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I had really just kicked a hornets nest. Although… I wasn’t the one doing the kicking. This was going to be quite an eventful few hours for other people.

  I chuckled to myself as I thought about it. How would they react? Part of me was tempted to try and join, but at the same time I didn’t want more heat to be aimed at me. Hopefully Adria didn’t say where she got the information from… She wouldn’t do that, right? Damn I should have said something.

  Quickly I sent her a message asking her to not tell anyone where she got the information from if possible. In response I got a thumbs up emoji after a few seconds. Hopefully no one would find out, or it would at least take a long time before anyone did. If I was really lucky, Lysandre would be there. Or at least something linking him to Team Flare.

  But that was probably too much to ask for. Even if he was insane, he was smart. The Admins of Team Flare were fairly smart as well, and then there were the Scientists. Those five were going to be a problem. Aliana, Bryony, Celosia, Mable, and Xerosic. I don’t know much about the first four, but Xerosic is probably the most dangerous of the five.

  I wondered who was more of a threat: Lysandre, or Xerosic?

  Pushing all of that out of my mind, I went back to working on my phone. There was still so much that I needed to convert from pictures to searchable text…

  It was a few hours later before Dee, Nurse Joy, and Wigglytuff came out with the last pokeball. Nurse Joy gave me a puzzled look. “You didn’t have to wait,” she said as I got up, putting my phone away as I did.

  “I just wanted to make sure everything went alright,” I said as I looked down at the tray of pokeballs. They were all upside down, each one having a colored dot. “So, how are they?”

  Joy sighed, putting her hands on her hips as she looked at the cart. “Malnourished. Scarred. Scared. Several of them show signs of neglect and abuse. Some of it… really bad.”

  I hesitated to ask. “How bad?”

  She shook her head. “Very. A lot of them are going to be very… upset if touched. I’ve never had to use every color of sticker…” She gestured at the pokeballs. “These are our trauma stickers,” she says as she points to one ball with a green sticker. Most pokeballs had multiple stickers. “We use these to be able to tell how a Pokemon is going to react while in our care.”

  “Well it’s good to have a system,” I muttered as I nodded slightly.

  “Green means stable, no real concern and are fairly easy to work with.” There were two of these, but they also had yellow stickers and one had a purple one. “Yellow means that they are fearful, but aren’t necessarily aggressive.” I noted that almost every single ball had a yellow sticker. “Red means they’re aggressive.” Twenty pokeballs had this sticker. “Pink means they are extremely hostile.” There were four with pink stickers.

  “Which Pokemon are these?” I asked, gesturing at the pink stickers.

  “Two Houndoom, and two Mightyena,” she said after consulting a chart. As I took a better look, all of them also had a little number written on them. “I’ll give you the chart so you can go over it. Now, the last color is purple.” She pointed at one of the dark purple stickers. “This means the Pokemon is…” she hesitated. “These are the ones that have been badly abused and react negatively to being touched.”

  I grimaced slightly, seeing six of those. “Okay, I will keep that in mind.”

  She nodded a bit before pulling the stack of papers from her clipboard. “Each one is numbered, and noted.” She held out the papers to me and I took them.

  Just looking over the first page I could tell this was going to be even more difficult than I thought. “What would have been the…” I hesitated, unsure if I actually wanted to know the answer. “Standard protocol.”

  Her face twisted into a sour frown. It took her a moment to answer, “Anything marked with red or pink would be put down.”

  I gaped at her for a few seconds. “That’s… That’s practically all of them. That’s twenty Pokemon who wouldn’t even get a chance?”

  She was still frowning, and nodded. “We don’t have the time…or the resources…or the personnel… But that's why I am just… I am so glad that you’re taking them. I don’t-” she choked on her words and it took her a moment to get the rest out, “I don’t think I could keep going if I had to do that. Having to do it when there’s nothing I can do is one thing, but having to… For no reason…” Her eyes were watering a bit as she was staring at the cart.

  I reached out and gently placed a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. Although that seemed to be the trigger for the dam that she had been holding up. Tears started to stream down her face and she crashed into me, pressing her face into my chest as she sobbed. I put my arms around her, rubbing her back.

  Wigglytuff and Dee moved in to hug Joy as well, and it turned into a group hug. She had had a very long day and it had finally gotten to her. This was her home and they had attacked it. And it had not been subtle or gentle. They had sent a dozen people to steal a single Pokemon. I would say that it had been overkill, but the fact that it failed actually said that it wasn’t enough. That was a rather shocking realization. It had failed. Sure they were just grunts, but the fact that they failed was amazing.

  It took a few minutes before Joy managed to calm herself down enough and stepped away. “I… I apologize.”

  “It’s alright,” I said with a smile. “It’s been a long day.”

  She took in a deep, shaky breath as she smoothed down her dress. “Yes… It has.”

  “Are you going to be alright?” I asked, fiddling with my bag before pulling out a handkerchief and offering it to her.

  There was a bit of a smile on her face as she took it, dabbing at her face. “Yes. I’ll be fine… thank you.”

  I nodded, still giving her a smile. “You should go get some rest.”

  She sighed. “I still have paperwork…” she mumbled.

  I laughed softly as I moved to the cart, putting the stack of papers into my bag followed by slowly loading the pokeballs. “Paperwork will still be there in the morning. And you need the rest.”

  She didn’t say anything, but just watched me. “You need rest, too.”

  That caused me to sigh and nod. “Yeah. There are so many things to do, but they’re going to have to wait till I get up.”

  There were a few moments of silence before I put the last pokeball away and turned to her. She had a rather concerned expression on her face. “Go sleep.”

  I blinked at her. “I planned to?”

  “I mean now,” she said as she crossed her arms. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re saying what I want to hear, but you’ll do the bare minimum so that you’re technically not lying. My little sister did that all the time.”

  I blinked at her a few times before chuckling a bit sheepishly, rubbing the back of my neck. “That obvious?”

  “You need sleep, Jason,” she said firmly and looked at Dee. “Make sure he goes to sleep.”

  Dee gave a sort of salute, and turned to me. “You heard her.”

  I put a hand over my chest, as if I was hurt. “What betrayal,” I said with a laugh.

  She just huffed at me before grabbing my sleeve and began pulling. “Let’s go. I’m tired, too.”

  That caused me to laugh as I followed after her. “Goodnight, Joy,” I said with a bit of a wave.

  “Goodnight,” she replied with a slight bow, wigglytuff bowing slightly as well.

  Dee dragged me all the way back to the room, which was quiet when we entered. On the floor in front of the television was Rio, Scoly, Primarina, and Diancie. All of them laying against Scoly. Cara was on the bed, sitting against the wall with Essy asleep on her lap. Eevee, Goomy, Banette, and Keo were all piled up at the foot of the bed near the floor pile. Movement under the bed told me that that was where Mikyu was.

  Kneeling down beside the bed, I reached under and tried not to jump when my hand was suddenly grasped. “How are things going?” I asked softly.

  “Almost done,” came Mikyu’s soft voice from under the bed. “I might be done by the morning?”

  I smiled a bit. “Alright. I’m excited to see it.”

  Her grip tightened for a moment before she let go.

  I put down my bag, took off my coat, and then prepared for bed. Dee sat on the bed, waiting for me to be done. She was taking Nurse Joy’s words very seriously, which I found amusing. But, she had been right. I had planned to just rest for a bit before getting up.

  Dee was giving me a look that was quite pointedly telling me that she wasn’t going to let me get away.

  “Alright alright. I’m coming,” I said with a laugh. Sitting down on the bed, I took a moment to look at everyone and then at my bag, letting out a soft sigh. All I could really hope was that I could sleep.

  The ringing of my phone woke me up, and I reached over, grabbing it from my nearby bag. “Hello?” I asked after taking a moment to find the answer button.

  “Jason. What in Arceus am I looking at?” came a voice from the other side.

  It took me a moment to be able to focus on the Officer Jenny I could see, and another moment before I recognized Adria. “I don’t know?” I said as I looked in the background of where she was. It was somewhere dimly lit, with metal panels behind her.

  She frowned at me and it looked like she was about to say something before she realized all I could see was her. “Ah.” She hit a button that flipped the camera. When the screen focused on the thing it was pointed at I knew it immediately.

  On the screen was a massive flower made of a chrome colored crystalline metal, a massive blue orb in the center acting as its stamin. “Ah. Yeah, that’s the Ultimate Weapon,” I said with a yawn.

  There was a moment of silence. “You… You mean you weren’t kidding about that?” she asked, horrified.

  “I wasn’t,” I said as I sat up, checking the time; it was about seven in the morning. “Don’t worry, it can’t be activated without AZ.”

  “What is AZ?” she asked, a note of panic in her voice.

  My brow furrowed. “Ah, I knew I forgot to explain something to you… AZ is the one who made that about three thousand years ago.”

  She relaxed a bit. “Oh, so it can’t be activated.”

  I scratched a bit at my chin. “I didn’t say that. AZ is immortal. But he shouldn’t be hard to recognize. He’s got white hair, is about nine feet tall, and is dressed like he’s homeless.”

  When I focused back on the phone, it had flipped back to Adria and she had gone rather pale. “You’re telling the truth…”

  “I am,” I said with a nod. “The machine also doesn’t have enough power to actually be activated. Team Flare’s goal is to capture a legendary, have the absorber within the machine drain its life energy, and then use the fully charged machine to destroy most life on the planet.”

  She took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. “You sure know a lot… Did those Pokemon tell you all this?”

  I just shrugged. “I don’t have to use that excuse anymore, since you have a vague idea. I can explain more later, but all that’s something to do in person.”

  After a moment she nodded. “Right… We’re going to have quite a long conversation later.”

  “But, since you’re there, I take it the raid went well?” I asked.

  “The base was empty,” she said with a frown. “It looks like they don’t use it very often, if at all. There wasn’t even a single grunt… The Chief was pissed until they saw the weapon and the research on it.”

  I frowned as well. “I guess without AZ in their custody, and a Pokemon to power it, there wasn’t a need to prioritize the weapon… Still I’m surprised that there was no one there.”

  “There’s some evidence that there might have been, but they escaped the moment the raid started,” she practically growled as she spoke, kicking something that I couldn’t see. “But at least we now have possession of not only the weapon, but the base. It’s clearly Team Flare.”

  “One problem down,” I said with a slight nod.

  “One?” she immediately snapped, her focus on me.

  “There are uh… two other plans that they have. They’re a bit harder to explain, although I’m fairly certain they haven’t even started one of them.” I rubbed my chin, again thinking about Alain. I really needed to know where he was right now…

  “How do you- no that doesn’t matter right now…” She sighed softly. “I’m heading back to Anistar. And then we’re going to have a talk.”

  I nodded a bit. “Yeah, sure. We can talk.”

  She stared at me for a moment before nodding. “Right. I’ll see you soon,” she said before hanging up.

  I sighed as I laid back in the bed, resting against Dee who had slept through the entire conversation. So much for keeping an eye on me and making sure I slept. I chuckled at that thought.

  In fact everyone was still asleep, except for Cara who had apparently woken up from the phone ringing. I reached over and pat her hand slightly, just making a subtle gesture to tell her everything was alright.

  Before I even realized I was asleep again, I was woken up by a knocking at the door. Everyone was up now, and I saw how they all tensed and stared at the door. The only one who was unconcerned was Essy, who was sitting on my chest eating a bean. I wondered who gave her that?

  Cara opened the door to reveal Officer Jenny, and everyone relaxed, going back to watching television. They were all addicted. “Morning, Adria,” I said with a bit of a smile.

  “It’s past noon,” she said as she stepped in, closing the door behind her.

  “Ah, that’s two days in a row I’ve slept in,” I muttered as I picked up Essy and put her on my lap so that she didn’t go tumbling as I sat up, my neck feeling a bit stiff.

  “So.” She moved over and sat down in the chair beside the bed.

  “Straight to it, eh?” I asked as I rubbed my neck, trying to get rid of the knot. She just nodded. “Alright. Then I’m going to be blunt about it.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forming the sentences in my head before saying it outloud. “I’m from a different world.” The room fell into nearly complete silence, the only noise coming from the television.

  Everyone was just staring at me, and I realized that most of them didn’t know.

  I laughed a bit. “Pokemon in my world are fiction, like that,” I said as I gestured to the Mystery Dungeon show. “Shows, books, movies, games. They aren’t real things.”

  Adria’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t-” she stopped, her brow furrowing even more. “Wait, you know the future?”

  I was about to shake my head, or nod, but couldn’t figure out which to do. Instead I raised my hand, making a waffling gesture. “Yes and no? I’ve found that some of the things happen as I know them, but there’s a lot of differences. And there are things that exist that I have no knowledge of.” I paused for a moment, “Take this Team Flare stuff.” I shifted a bit. “The person who is supposed to deal with Team Flare isn’t even a Trainer yet. Or, they’re in a different region. Or they don’t exist.”

  Her brow was furrowing more and more as I talked, to the point her eyebrows were practically touching. “I… I don’t think I follow.”

  “It’s all timeline nonsense,” I said with a wave of my hand. “Technically everything happens, but we only see one result because that’s our timeline.”

  “So… You know things, but those things might be wrong,” she said slowly.

  I nodded. “Exactly. Which is why I’m reluctant to give information. If I say something, it will change the future to something that I don’t know about.”

  She nodded slowly. “Olympia always says the future is muddled by our actions.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then how did you know about the base?” she asked, her expression relaxing a bit, although she still looked confused.

  “Because I checked.” Her eyes went a bit wide. “I didn’t go in, but I confirmed that the entrance was there.”

  She leaned back in the chair a bit, folding her arms across her chest as she thought. “You mentioned things that exist you have no knowledge of? Like what?”

  “The Association for starters,” I said with a sigh.

  She blinked. “The Association doesn’t exist?”

  “No. It’s why they caught me off guard. I didn’t know what extent of trouble to expect,” I explained with another sigh. “Which is frustrating. But I was getting too full of myself.”

  “You are pretty full of yourself,” she said with a nod.

  “Hey,” I said with a bit of a smile. “Rude.”

  She giggled a bit, smiling back at me. “So, what else does Team Flare have planned?”

  “Zygarde,” I said with a bit of a huff. “You can ask Sycamore. He has a Zygarde Cube, which is something that Team Flare needs in order to make a Zygarde. Well, it’s one way anyways. I’m fairly certain he still has it considering his reaction when I mentioned it.”

  “Alright,” she said with a nod. “And what’s the other thing?”

  “A big giant magic rock,” I said with a laugh.

  She stared blankly at me, seemingly unable to form words.

  That just made me laugh harder. “I’m serious! It’s a big rock made of condensed Primal Energy, that they decided to call the Giant Rock.”

  “Giant…Rock…” she deadpanned, staring at me.

  “Yeah, stupid name, right?” She didn’t respond, but nodded. “Yeah, anyways. I don’t think they have that yet. It’s in Hoenn, and is eventually found by Alain.”

  Her brow furrowed again. “Sycamore’s assistant?”

  I snapped my fingers, pointing at her. “Yes, him. Lysandre tricks him into helping Team Flare. I was going to ask Sycamore about him, but if he’s still his assistant then that means they won’t find the Giant Rock for a long time.” Suddenly I had a thought. I could find the stone. I know roughly where it is and how to get at it. If I stop Alain and Lysandre from getting it, then I could. But… What the heck would I even do with it? Something to think about. Honestly part of me wanted to go and find it myself just so that I could give it a better name.

  Adria nodded. “Unfortunately we didn’t find anything linking Lysandre, or Lysandre Labs to Team Flare in the base.”

  I let out a slight scoff. “Doesn’t surprise me, he’s smart. Insane, but smart.”

  She nodded again, looking at me for a moment. “Thanks for telling me,” she said suddenly.

  “Huh?” I focused a bit on her. “I mean, of course. They attacked me. Of course I’d want to hurt them back.”

  This time she shook her head. “No, not about that. I mean about where you came from.”

  I hesitated. “You believe me?”

  Her face scrunched a bit. “I’m… Not sure. It sounds pretty far-fetched, but it explains so much about you and your actions.”

  Now it was my turn for my eyebrows to furrow. “It does?”

  “Yeah. You’re smart, well educated, and know an honestly ridiculous amount of stuff, but there’s so many basic things that you don’t know that imply you lack a basic understanding of… Not quite how the world works, but how this world works. Like, your morals and understanding of things is so different,” she explained, gesturing with her hands as she did.

  I nodded a bit. “Yeah, they are. My world is… So different,” I said with a sigh.

  She reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. “That’s why I’m saying thank you.” She leaned back again. “But now I have to ask… Are there any other big, world ending events that I need to watch out for?”

  I laughed softly. “You sure you want to know?”

  That question actually caused her to hesitate. She was clearly asking herself if she actually did want to know.

  “Team Flare isn’t the worst.” That statement caused her to flinch.

  “There’s someone worse?” she asked softly.

  “Team Galactic,” I said simply.

  “That… Team in Sinnoh?” she asked, clearly still unsure if she wanted the answer.

  I nodded. “Their goal is… similar to Team Flare, but worse. Cyrus is an absolute madman who wants to remake the entire galaxy in his image. He wants to erase everything and make it over himself.”

  Poor Adria was going to have so many new wrinkles from the amount of furrowing her brow was doing. Her eyes were becoming unfocused as she was trying to digest everything that I had said.

  “Many of his subordinates, even his co-leaders, don’t know his true goal. Some think they’re just capturing Pokemon. Others think they’re trying to make some sort of new energy…” I shook my head. “But… They should have been stopped already.”

  “What?” Her eyes snapped to me.

  “You should ask Cynthia for more information. She should have been there, if things went according to how I know.” I wasn’t going to mention Ash, as that felt like it would be weird to bring up some random Trainer.

  “The Sinnoh League Champion?!” she practically shouted, jumping to her feet.

  I jumped a bit at the outburst. “Yes?”

  “Oh Arceus please not her…” she muttered before slumping into her chair, a far off look in her eyes. “Anyone but her…”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, Cynthia is sure something. I honestly can’t wait to meet her.”

  “You’re going to regret thinking that,” she snapped. “People say she’s one of the strongest Trainers in the world,” her voice was suddenly soft, as if it were some sort of conspiracy.

  My eyebrow raised slightly. “Yeah, I can believe that. Her Garchomp is crazy strong.”

  Adria sighed. “Arceus I don’t want to talk with her…” She sighed again before suddenly slapping her cheeks. “Right. Okay. This is my job.” She stood back up. “Thanks for the talk. I have to-” she hesitated, taking a deep breath. “I have phone calls to make.”

  She suddenly left in a hurry, almost slamming the door as she left. There was again near silence in the room, the tv still the only source of noise. Then the door suddenly flew open. “I almost forgot.” She pulled something out of her pocket and threw it at me. I was so caught off guard that it struck me in the chest. “There’s your pay for helping, Pokemon Expert.” And then she slammed the door again. Looking down at what she had thrown, it was a heavy envelope. Peeking inside revealed it was full of money. I guess anonymous tips got paid in cash.

  The silence lasted for a few moments as I fiddled with the envelope before a voice said, “Strongest in the world, eh?” it was Rio, rubbing her chin in a motion that was clearly mimicking me. Not the worst habit to pick up from me, but a rather silly one.

  “Strongest Trainer,” I said with a nod. “I can believe that. Cynthia is-” I paused, thinking about the long haired blonde. “An interesting character…” I actually had to wonder if I would get along with her. As I was thinking, another strong, long haired blonde individual came to mind suddenly. Lusamine.

  I frowned a bit. The Aether Foundation, on the surface, was doing something similar to what I wanted to do. If I could… wait. If I could get to her before she became consumed by her obsession with Ultra Beasts, would I be able to work with her and her organization? That was something I was going to have to figure out when I went back to Alola.

  That was annoying. If I had thought about that while back in Alola, I could have checked. I could have figured out if that was going to be a problem. How annoying…

  But that was something for later. Which I felt like I was doing a lot. Things just kept having to be pushed back as more and more was added to my plate. I was going to need a much bigger plate.

  Lucario - Mother of Rio

  Lucario - Craves violence

  Scolipede - Pokemon transport unit

  Primarina - Doing big seal things

  Audino - Trained Nurse Pokemon

  Diancie - From Reflection Cave

  Eevee - Living that sleepy hood life

  Goomy - Full of dragon slug vibes

  Mimikyu - Collected from the Supermart

  Banette - Collected from the Supermart

  Vulpix (Alolan) - Bread and butter Ice Beams

  Espurr - Little cat that likes pokebeans.

  Houndour

  Houndoom

  Poochyena

  Mightyena

  Sneasel