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The Dark Type	By : Manifest Destiny Category: Pokemon > General Views: 36315 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. Pokemon is copy write by GameFreak, INC. and Nintendo. I make no money from this story, nor do I seek any.

Chapter List
- 28
- 29
- 30
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Chapter 29: Damage Control
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I really had to applaud the actions of the newest addition to our group of Watchmakers. Their honesty may very well lead them to an unsavory end one day, but not without first bringing others down along with them. A silent electronic message sent to me by Alice Wingborne—that poor, scared girl—had told me exactly what I had needed to hear before I could begin resolving the latest hindrance to my plans: Dalton Drake had been located.
Before I continue, I feel I must make something perfectly clear: I bear no grudge against the people of this “world” that I’ve found myself trapped in these past five agonizing years. They, as a whole, have done nothing to earn my wrath. Much like I had been when I was being plagued with visions of the future, I often find myself in awe—and greatly appreciative—of the many advances and triumphs that humanity has accomplished in the centuries since my birth. Alice’s message was one such boon. This “time” that I now live in is innocent to my anger and my righteous crusade against the one who has stolen such irreplaceable things from me.
After the initial bitterness and fury that I experienced after being stranded here had subsided, I had vowed to follow a single, unwavering rule: Until a guarantee presents itself that proves beyond all doubt that I may finally leave this place and time for good, I must treat it as if it were my home. I must not let the world around me fall to ruin on my behalf, lest I end up being the sole reason I become permanently trapped in it.
This rule that I keep in my mind helps further my goal of one day returning home and seeing my family again. I cannot let anything persist that might one day cause me any misfortune or potentially extend my time here. That includes severing ties with people who may no longer be useful to me—doubly so if they prove to become an obstacle blocking me from reaching that goal.
Before the deplorable actions of my subordinate came to light, I had been on a short journey of my own to a city known as Ecruteak, a place steeped in old legends and lore. Such a place surely would surely hold some library or other store of knowledge about my enemy that I could make use of, I had thought. Instead, I was met with local residents who were less than willing to share their secrets with an outsider such as myself. I had chosen not to pry too much. Even without their knowledge it soon became clear that I had misunderstood the relationships of this region’s deities and mythical creatures.
Unlike the creatures in the stories of my homeland that all seemed to connect to one another, Celebi is singular and alone, just like I had found her on that day. No other myths of the Johto region seemed to intersect with hers in any meaningful way. Only one other legend—Sinnohan in origin—connected to hers, and she was merely a guest in their domain. I was certain of that.
While I had been spending time in the old town, I happened to see in the news: “Arson: Ex-Elite Four Member prime suspect in attempted murder of multiple Saffron City residents.”
Investigating further, I had learned the ugly truth of the incident and cursed the irony of the world.
Dalton had taken it upon himself to try and extract information from someone, and had sloppily tried to cover his tracks, clearly failing in every aspect of his mission. I had known beforehand about his journey east to the Kanto region, but I foolishly had not thought it important at the time to inquire as to who his intended target had been. I had cared only about the information that they potentially held. Thus, it pained me even more to see that Dalton’s failure and incompetence had brought harm to the family of someone that I knew. How in the world Dalton had targeted Iruni Thomas’ sister was beyond me, but I intended to find the answers.
Ever since learning of the incident, I had had the others in my group of collaborators trying to find out where the rogue Dalton had disappeared to.
The answer had been so painfully obvious I had thrown it out as an option. One must never overlook the obvious.
Alice had been staying in the house that we had designated as our base of operations to further recover from her traumatic ordeal in the Ilex Forest. The overly-ornate building was on a plot of land north-west of Ecruteak, accessible only by a single, winding road. Dalton had bought the property ahead of abdicating his position on the Unovan Elite Four and leaving the country, offering it as our safe-haven after joining Sebastian and I on our quest.
Alice seemed to have alerted me to his return no sooner than Dalton had “just walked in the door”, as she had put it. Very admirable, I thought. I asked her to keep me apprised and to message me again if he seemed to be leaving the house.
From Ecruteak City I walked on foot along the paved road toward the house. I knew that a vehicle would announce my arrival prematurely and I worried that Dalton might flee rather than face my wrath. I arrived just as the sun began to set, walking quickly up the main pathway to the front door. Before I could grasp the handle and enter the home, someone else opened the door in front of me.
Jacob.
“Cora, listen.” He tried to cool my anger, which I assumed was plain on my face. “I know this looks bad, but you don’t gotta do anything rash.”
“I will be the judge of that,” I said, pushing past him despite his extra height.
Behind him, standing mid-way up a flight of stairs, was the shaking form of Alice. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I told Jake you were coming.”
“Think nothing of it,” I told her. “You’ve already done your part. He is still here, yes?”
“L-Living room,” she pointed.
“I thank you, Alice.”
Stepping through the entryway and into the main household, I walked with purpose and ignored the continued pestering from Jacob Ostra behind me.
“Look, the guy messed up, there’s no reason to go ballistic on him,” he pleaded.
“I find it hard to believe that you could possibly be on his side,” I turned to him. “He caused harm to the family of a friend.”
“You don’t know the whole story yet,” offered Jacob. “Just let him explain.”
I found Dalton in the middle of watching something on a portable viewing screen—a “laptop” as I’ve heard them called—that sat on a low table in front of him. He was sitting in a chair, some kind of alcoholic drink in his hand, leaning forward and staring intently at shakily-captured footage, apparently from inside a sporting venue. The point-of-view looked to be that of one of the many thousands of spectators, rather than a professional’s. The screen was filled with chaos; people screaming, falling debris, and in the center of it all, a great flaming moth.
Annoyed further by his not noticing my arrival, I quietly made my way next to his chair and reached toward the laptop. Truth be told, I did not know much about the device as a whole, but one thing I had learned from observing their use was that the screen was on a hinge. A swift swipe of my hand slammed the laptop shut and silenced the video. I had now gained Dalton’s full and undivided attention.
“HEY!” He shot up from his chair, tossing his glass of whiskey onto to the floor. “I was watching that!”
“Surely, a great tragedy for the ages. Your poor drink has become an unwitting victim, as well.” I stared into his eyes and met his anger one for one.
“Oh, I get it.” He slowly walked toward me. “I follow one bad lead and now I’m put on the chopping block? Well, go ahead. Swing away,” he held his arms out to his sides. “Let’s get this over with.”
Dalton expected a physical correction of some kind. Something he could retaliate against.
“Apologize,” I said. That caught him off-balance.
“What?”
“Apologize, now. I am waiting.”
“Make me,” Dalton said, adding “… Grandpa.”
It must have been a very trying few days for me. I usually have much more composure and self-control. I really should not have hit him. It only made matters worse.
I will admit that in my time spent in this “world”, I had neglected my own physical wellbeing. My muscles had weakened from disuse, and thus my punch barely seemed to harm Dalton, who just stood in place, head slightly cocked to the side from the impact.
The moments that followed were filled with wild and frantic swings, punches, and kicks, that slowly lead outside though a back door. The first lull in the fighting came when I was thrown down to the grass, my back aching almost immediately from the impact.
I could only imagine how pathetic I must have looked, being beaten down to the ground by a man younger than myself.
When no more blows came to meet me, I tried to push myself up off of the ground. I saw that Jacob was now holding Dalton back—having a much easier time overpowering him than I did—and that Alice had come out into the yard to my aide.
“Are you okay?” she asked with more life in her voice than I had heard since her traumatic event. “Are you hurt anywhere?”
“My own pride, to be sure,” I said, only to her. Dalton’s punches and kicks had hurt, but the pain would eventually fade. I had damaged something more important than that by striking my subordinate and I needed to fix it. With the young girl’s help, I managed to get to my feet.
“Dalton!” I found it difficult to raise my voice after receiving so many punches to the stomach. “I… have acted foolishly, and was met with an appropriate response. I apologize.”
“Damn straight!” he barked, shaking off Jacob’s grasp, who recognized the situation would not escalate further. “I worked my ass off and it blew up in my face, okay? I get it. I fucked it all to hell. I’m sorry, okay? Damn.”
“As…” I groaned, clutching my gut. “As it is clear you recognize your error, I assure you so have I.”
“Yeah, I bet you do.”
“Hey!” Jacob smacked Dalton square in the chest with the palm of his hand, making him stagger backward. “We’re done! Got it?”
“Fine.”
“N-Now,” I spoke up. “Shall we go inside? There is business to discuss.”
“Joy,” Dalton rolled his eyes, being the last to come back inside the house.
Back inside the main sitting room, Alice helped me into an armchair and quickly went to get me some ice for worst of my quickly swelling injuries. She seemed to find drive in helping those in pain. Worthy of applause indeed, I thought.
“You know Galian,” Dalton said, picking up the spilled glass from earlier, “that was actually a bit of fun, to blow off some steam like that. Let’s do it again, sometime. How ‘bout you, big guy?” he asked Jacob. “Want to go a few rounds?”
“Let’s not,” I said.
“Here you go,” Alice returned with some ice cubes wrapped in a small towel. “It’s the best I could find right away. I don’t know where the first-aid kit is.”
“Thank you.”
“So, boss-man,” Dalton said, picking up his spilled glass. “What’s to discuss? You want the long, shit-filled version, or just the shitty highlights?”
“As colorful as your retelling might be,” I said, pressing the chilled rag to my cheek, “I just have some simple questions.”
“Shoot.” Dalton didn’t even look toward me.
“Did you succeed in your mission? As I recall, you were trying to track down an individual who may have come into contact with Giovanni earlier this year.”
“Nope, wrong person.” He had gone to pour himself another drink. “Sebastian’s info turned out to be no good and the girl clearly didn’t know anything.”
“Did you by any chance glean any useful information from who you interrogated?”
“No, but listen—”
“Why then,” I said, trying to hold back my temper, “did you employ such reckless force in trying to escape your failed mission?”
“Hey, hey, I get it; I know the main reason why you blew up at me was because I roughed up the sister of some guy you know or whatever, I get it. Shouldn’t have done that.” Dalton sat back down in the seat I had found him in when I had arrived, fresh glass of alcohol in hand. “I know it might not look like it, but I am a bit better at staying hidden than you guys think. I didn’t run away right after it happened; I stayed in Saffron for a few days, right? I was trying to feel out just how screwed I was—whether or not anyone knew it was me, if anyone died, the whole shebang. Anyway, it was obvious that someone leaked it was me, since it ended up all over the news, but I was sure the only one who recognized me was that Kate girl. I thought to myself ‘there’s no way on this green earth that she’d be in any shape to talk to the cops’, so I did some digging to figure out who really ratted me out.”
“And?” I asked, wondering where he was going with his rant.
“This was what I was talking about, Cora,” Jacob spoke up. “Listen to him.”
“Turns out, it was the girl I roughed up,” despite discussing likely the single worst action he had performed as a human being, Dalton had a smile on his face. “Look, I made sure she stayed down and lit her apartment on fire with Roku. The whole building went up. So how could she have gotten out of there and somehow talked to the cops?” He leaned forward toward us and took a drink from his glass, “That brother of hers you guys are pals with swooped in right in the nick of time and saved her.”
“Really?” I asked, unable to hide my shock. Such an event was an incredible coincidence on the surface. Perhaps too incredible.
“Look, I’ll show you.” Dalton lifted the screen on the laptop back up and turned the machine back on, beckoning us all to gather around him. “I watched through this a bit before you showed up. It’s crazy. This the guy you know?”
I watched as Dalton navigated a sub-screen that displayed short video clips, selecting a small segment of a local Kanto news station. The clip played and showed the face of the building Dalton had left ablaze, along with a reporter’s worried commentary on the situation, mentioning something about some brave citizen that had rushed into the building with their Pokémon. Suddenly a blast of yellow and blue flame burst from one the one of the windows, and soon after a blue serpent flew out of the burning building, landing safely upon the grass below. At the distance from which the film was recorded it was difficult to discern individual faces, however it was clear that the serpent had carried out two young people, as well as a blue-feathered Sneasel.
“We do know him,” I said, struck by the daring act of bravery I had just borne witness to. I sat back down in my chair, trying to piece together the unlikely chain of events that led to what had happened.
How could Iruni have been there at the exact time he needed to be, I wonder?
“Th-That’s Iruni?” asked Alice. “That was incredible.”
“So,” Dalton continued talking, pausing the news clip as it confirmed the names of the people involved, “the girl lives. Whatever. She’s beaten to a pulp and got burns all over. Sent straight to intensive care. Unconscious. But still I get ratted out? I had to figure that one out. And trust me, it’s a bit hard to believe.”
“Continue, please.” An idea, small and impossible had crept into my head. Surely, I thought, it couldn’t the truth. But, much like the obvious, one must never discount the impossible.
“I went around, trying to listen to any gossip and rumors that wouldn’t make the news. I manage to overhear some nurses waiting at a bus stop who just got off of their shift at the hospital the girl was sent to. They said that Kate Thomas, when no one was around or paying any attention, miraculously woke up from being in critical condition with not a single damn thing wrong with her. She fully recovered the second everyone turned their backs.”
“Elaborate!” I had stood up from my seat fairly quickly, earning a surprised look from everyone in the room. “Please,” I added. “There is a chance you have stumbled upon something very important and I need to hear as many details as you can give me no matter how small.”
“Well, she had a ton of injuries, and next thing the nurses know, she’s awake, not a scratch on her. She even had a full head of hair that had just been burnt off. Then the first thing she does is start asking to talk to the police.”
“Details. Anything. Literally anything else?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know man, what more do you want from me? The only other thing they said before they got on their bus was how ‘miraculous’ everything seemed and one of them said they thought they heard some gong or bell ringing right before her hero of a brother came running to tell her she was all better.”
Incredible. It seemed that he actually did listen when his life depended on it.
“A ‘bell’? You’re sure they described it as such?” I asked, holding my breath.
“Yeah?”
“It was her!” I yelled. “She was right there in that city and you missed her!”
“Whoa, easy now Cora,” Jacob leaned in and put a hand on my shoulder. “I thought you’d be glad Barty’s sister was alright. What do you mean ‘it was her’?”
“Celebi,” I said, hating the sound of the name. “The noise that confused the nurses is a telltale sign of an ability she possesses. It’s a means of healing incredible wounds, physical and mental, in a matter of seconds. It is the only means by which Kaitlyn Thomas could have recovered so quickly.”
“Shit… you sure?” Dalton asked, seemingly aware of the opportunity he had missed.
“She once used it on me during my— It doesn’t matter.” I cut the thought short, turning away from my comrades. Many thoughts were running through my head. I needed to get them in order.
“But why would Celebi just heal her like that?” Jacob asked, probably thinking out loud. “What’s Celebi even got to do with that family?”
“What if that kid’s got her?” Dalton joked, laughing bitterly. “We’ve been hunting the little imp for so long and someone we know just has her in his back pocket? Wouldn’t that be a kick in the nads?”
“He…” Alice spoke up. “He actually… might.”
I turned around and looked at her, “Why do you think that, Alice?”
“Uh, well.” It was clear that the poor girl was very unsure of her own words. “He should have still been in Goldenrod recovering from being lost down in the Ruins of Alph, but then he just suddenly leaves and goes to Saffron City and saves his sister? How would he know to do that unless he knew the future?”
“I can see the logic in your suggestion, but the dates don’t quite match up,” I said. “From what you told us, he left the hospital the day after he reappeared from the underground, a full day before Dalton’s involvement.”
“Yeah, but he still showed up right when he needed to to save her.” Alice suddenly seemed determined to defend her idea to the very end. “It was Iruni who told the nurses about her once she was healed too! Plus, he should’ve made it to Azalea Town a little after I did, but instead he got lost in the Ruins. He missed— everything. He missed that forest, he made it in time for the fire, and everything seems to be working out for him and—”
“Easy, Alice, take deep breaths.” Jacob comforted her, “That’s a big leap to make off just some coincidences, you know.”
“I agree. It wouldn’t make sense for Iruni Thomas to allow Celebi to put his own sister through such an ordeal if he were actively working with her in some way.” Not two breaths after the words had left my mouth, the solution seemed to piece itself together in my mind. “But, perhaps that is the point.”
“What is?” Jacob asked.
“With Celebi, you must never overlook coincidences. It could very well be nothing. Over-thinking, easily. But Alice does call attention to a good point. For him to avoid such a widely devastating event in Ilex Forest—her fabled home, I should remind you—and then flee across the region to another and be instrumental in averting a crisis that would surely have left him in despair, and ultimately have his own sister be so graciously given such care…”
“Cora?” Jacob asked. I had trailed off in thought for a moment, it seemed.
“As unlikely as it sounds, Celebi could very well be involving herself in Iruni Thomas’ life, for reasons I cannot comprehend. Whether or not he is aware of her actions isn’t clear.”
My three comrades sat in silence for a moment considering what I had proposed to them. The first to speak on the matter was Alice.
“It’s funny,” she said quietly. “I was… going to suggest we ask for Iruni’s help with your—I mean our plan, Coralis. I figured he’d want to erase being lost in those underground tunnels or stop his sister from being attacked just as much as I want to never have set foot in that forest. He has perfect reasons to join us.”
“All the more reason to be cautious,” I said. “If Mr. Thomas is aware of Celebi—if she is in fact meddling in his affairs—there also exists the chance that he has allied with her.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Jacob asked, defiantly. “Barty’s a good kid, you know. When you walked in the door you were fired up about anything happening to his sister, and now you’re talking about him like he’s your enemy all based on some crazy ‘What If?’ scenario.”
“I understand the full weight of my words, Jacob. I trust you remember, don’t you?” I looked him square in the face, “My best friend ruined my life in just the blink of an eye. I have seen evil appear in one so dear to me, so yes, I do believe he could be an enemy. I do not want to believe such things, but if Celebi twists events in her favor and wins over his heart with her fake tears, then he is an obstacle and nothing more.”
“But… Iruni wouldn’t do that. There’s no way he would work with Celebi if he knew what she did to you,” Alice pleaded.
“I wish that were the case,” I said. “I truly do. I don’t want to believe anyone would willingly align themselves with that traitorous sprite. However, the possibility remains until proven otherwise.”
“How would we prove that? How could we?”
“As much as I dislike the prospect, Sebastian’s current mission may uncover those answers in addition to his primary objective.”
“Wait, where’d brain-boy go this time?” asked Dalton.
“To clean up his mess,” I told him. “He is of the mind that a simple mistake may have led you to come up empty-handed, and is now following along a secondary lead in the matter.”
“Simple mistake?” Dalton repeated. “How simple?”
“You may have had the wrong sibling,” I said. “I’ll need to contact Sebastian and provide him with additional questions to ask.”
As Jacob and Alice expressed their opinions and doubts to me, I silently wondered just how many pure coincidences this world could produce on its own. At which point did it become certain that there was in fact somebody pulling the strings?
I would soon have my answer.
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To Be Continued…
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- 28
- 29
- 30
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The Dark Type