Northern Star

Anon: What did I do? I don't see it.
Raine: The truth about the Emperor will blow your shit off. He's nothing like the one you're used to. Neither are my spess mehrens.

I'd like you all to know that the pun at the end of the first part of the chapter here was entirely off-the-cuff. I didn't land Ranek in Sinnoh just so I could do that.

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Marcus stared at the sky. Was it possible that the sun was actually coming up? Of course. They only had a twenty-two hour day, and he had landed north of his drop zone. Was it summer here? Did they even have seasons? How long had he been walking? His map was working but wouldn't tell him where he was, and his compass was still spinning wildly.

The kid was over one of his shoulders, and his other hand clutched a bicycle he had found on the road through the woods. He walked in what he thought was an easterly direction, and saw the sun peek over the horizon and blind him. It took him a moment to adjust, and he almost walked right into the town. He halted to inspect a wooden sign with some of the native runic alphabet on it.

"Sand...gem? The town of sand? That's not possible. I can't read this shit." He decided that this was as good a place as any to drop her off, and did so without ceremony, leaving the kid and her bicycle by the sign. The tallest building in the town was a relatively tall two-story, and Ranek carefully jetted up to its ceiling, setting himself down as gently as he could.

"RANEK!"

The voice in his head was so loud and surprising that he lost his balance and fell off the building. After jumping back up, he held onto a weather vane and tried again.

If anyone can hear me, please don't yell so loud, he thought.

"No need," came the dry, aged voice of the psychic Sestus into his headset. "Your radio's back up."

"What happened? Oh, Star Four, ready op."

"Yes, yes, you're 'ready op.' Some sort of magnetic anomaly around that lake you drained was interfering with your navigation systems. A particularly powerful Pokemon lives there and-"

"A what?"

"Never mind. At any rate, you're a good distance north of where you should be. Head south immediately. Keep your eyes peeled."

"What am I looking for here?"

"Just anything unusual."

"I'm on an alien planet! Everything's unusual!"

"Er, right. The readings will become clearer the closer we get to the event."

"And what do you mean, where I should be? I thought you didn't know-"

Sestus became impatient. "You are north. You should be less north. Understand?"

"Right."

"So your suit is working? Everything went all right?"

"Uh...yeah."

"You were seen, weren't you?"

"Er, no."

"Don't lie to a psychic, you imbecile! Is it taken care of?"

"Yes. She won't remember a thing. I hit her with the EMD, and then, I, uh, left her there."

"You should have. But that's not what you did."

Marcus felt the darkness wash over his mind, cleansing it. He had not realized Sestus' presence there until it was gone.

"That's a hell of a range you have, Sestus. What are you, twenty, thirty miles up?"

"You'd know it was eighteen if you had paid attention to Eversor. So the little kid is safe. That's fine. There's a road heading south out of the town. Follow it until you hit a beach. There will be a fishing boat there. Steal it and head south until you hit land again."

"Steal it?" Ranek said. "That's...stealing."

"Just do it!"

Ranek dropped off of the rooftop and activated his suit's camouflage just as a tall, attractive, blue-haired woman stepped out of her house and spotted the child laying across the street. She dashed across the street and picked her up, bringing her back inside the house. That was that.

"Hey, Sestus."

"Hey, what?"

"Why'd the sun come up so fast? It was evening just a short while ago."

"Are you retarded? Eversor told you that you would be landing at dawn."


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Cypress had not slept so comfortably in a long time. He leaned his head forward and brushed his nose into soft hair.

"Ahem."

He opened his eyes slightly. The sun had come up, and he had a close-up view of Minerva's hair. In the bright light he was surprised to see that some of her hair seemed to be changing to blue-green.

"Ahem."

He thought back to his research on shiny Pokemon, as the phenomenon was known to the masses, and genetic xenochromia, as it was known to him. The incidence of shinyness in Gardevoir was estimated at something like one in ten thousand, but since there were fewer than ten thousand Gardevoir in the world, this was untestable.

"Ahem."

Could she be developing alternate coloration? It would be an interesting opportunity for experimentation, if Minerva would allow him to draw some blood for a DNA analysis.

"Boy, you betta git'cho ass up!"

Cypress leapt up in surprise to see a large Seviian female nurse giving him a look stern enough to stop a train, with a similarly shaped Chansey next to her giving him the Pokemon equivalent of the same look.

"No spoonin' in my Center, honey!" she barked, and Cypress leapt out of the bed. Minerva snored slightly and shifted onto her stomach.

"Sorry, ma'am, I-"

"It's alright, honey, you was worried about her." The nurse immediately became motherly as she checked Minerva's vital signs without waking her. The Chansey adopted the same attitude, fussily arranging a breakfast tray.

"Honey, yo' eyes is redder than Deoxys' ass. Go getcha some coffee and breakfast, you don't want none of this Center food."

"Well... I'd rather she didn't wake up alone."

"Go on, honey, she'll be fine. She knows you was here, she'll know you comin' back," the nurse said with a smile.

Coffee was a good idea. So was breakfast. Cypress bade the nurse and Chansey a good morning, and left.


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The trip had been quiet. Ranek had seen a pair of weirdos walking along the road in the opposite direction wearing matching uniforms with large red symbols printed on the fronts, with a bipedal cat thing accompanying them. Performing artists, or something. Apart from them, the road had been deserted.

His local chronometer informed him it was only 5:30 in the morning, yet the sun was well into the sky. He marched briskly along, awake and alert, taking in his surroundings. The trees along the road were forty to fifty feet high, and the dirt beneath his feet was light brown. There were bird calls in the air and the buzzing of bugs from the grass, and on the whole, it was a very peaceful walk in the woods.

Marcus finally located the terminus of the road at a white-sanded beach, the border of a body of water of indeterminate size. As Sestus had promised, there was a small dock with an even smaller fishing boat moored there. Marcus hesistantly stepped aboard, nervously watching over his shoulder. He turned and addressed the boat's controls.

It was an interesting time to realize that he had never ridden a boat before, much less driven one. He fumbled with a series of buttons, jumping wildly when one of them triggered the foghorn. He slammed his armored fists into the boat's control mast in frustration, which was yet another mistake. The wooden console splintered to pieces under his hands and collapsed. He sat down on the boat and pulled a cigarette from his utility belt. He disengaged his visor and respirator and lit it.

"I didn't realize there was enough of a barrel of you people for there to be a bottom."

Marcus leapt to his feet, grasping wildly for his coilgun but unable to wrest it from its mount. He gave up, drew his sword, and whirled around to face the voice.

The thing that had spoken was already in the boat with him, and it defied most description. It was colored whitish-purple, with a purple belly, and it appeared to be as tall as he was. It had a very long tail which it held up behind its head, and long, bony arms terminating in human-like hands. Combined with catlike legs and a similarly catlike face, as well as a cloak made of heavy brown cloth, the creature was the strangest thing he had seen yet.

With a casual flick of its wrist, Ranek's sword leapt out of his hand and fell to the boat's deck. Ranek charged forward to punch it, but it simply disappeared in a flash of light.

"Really, now. If I wanted to hurt you I could have done it by now."

Ranek turned, and it was behind him now. "Who are you? State your intentions!" he barked.

"Well, I'm a friend of a friend, and I was told you were headed south," it continued in a deep male voice. It sounded haughty and a little bored. "I saw you trying to steal someone's boat, and thought I'd offer you a better way."

"But Sestus told me to- wait. Friend of a friend? Who?"

"I've been acquainted with Sampson Eversor for a few years now. He's a bit of a local personality."

"Why didn't Eversor tell me, then?"

"He had obviously hoped you wouldn't need help so soon." The creature extended one of its hands. "They call me Mewtwo, and if you're Northern Star, then you're my ally."


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The check for the breakfast plate and coffee landed on Cypress' table, the waitress barely stopping to make eye contact. Restaurants like these always got frantically busy at this time of day, with all the nine-to-five shifts getting an early meal in before a long day. Cypress reached into his pocket for his wallet and his hand brushed against something surprisingly cold. He had forgotten.

He returned to the Pokemon Center to leave Minerva a kiss and a note for when she woke, and went to his apartment. It seemed someone had filed a police report for him, as the broken door was crossed over with yellow tape. They had broken everything they could find, but it was all insured, and his valuables were either at the bank or very well-hidden. His stereo was fastened to a special retracting section of wall, and he tapped it with his knuckles to deploy it. Pulling some hidden clothes from his ceiling, he turned on some music and went about his cleaning routine. As professional and conservative as he tried to be, he couldn't resist Seviian music, even though it was associated with urban youth and moral decay and all the other things that self-righteous politicos liked to concern themselves with while they were avoiding real problems. The voice coming through the speakers was dulcet and smooth, though the words were largely unintelligible. Every now and then the refrain "Say reggae music run de world, me respect dat, cause every time we touch de mic, dem screamin' boom shak-a-tak" would repeat, and Cypress would sing along.

As he was redressing his unhealed injuries, the phone rang.

Click. "Cypress."

"Gardevoir!" came a high, excited voice from the speaker.

"Hey! Feeling any better?"

There was a single tap on the mouthpiece at the other end.

"So what's the word? Are they going to let you go soon?"

Tap. "Gardevoir!"

"Today?"

Tap.

"Did you call Dana yet?"

Tap. Tap.

"Give her a call. I'll come get you, I just got done changing and cleaning up. Be there in a few."

"Gardevoir!"


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A "few" was of course a few buses, and he did not arrive until almost an hour after the call. On the way he called Dana ("Meet me at my place tonight, you're not staying at your apartment with the door off its hinges") and his graduate students ("It's okay, Professor, take a few days off").

He had no intention of taking any time off, though. After completing Minerva's discharge forms and paying from his own credit for her procedures - over two thousand dollars' worth - he walked her back to his own laboratory at UK Saffron. At this point the afternoon was peaking and his students were getting restless. He endured their wave of comments about his injuries and his new companion, and shooed them out of his lab, with the exception of Aaron, who alone knew his way around the EM.

"I need some electron microscopy," Cypress said after the last of Aaron's peers had left.

"Yeah, I figured. Er, sir."

"Never mind. I need surface and vertex images of this thing," he said, pulling the circlet from his pocket. Aaron reached out to take it, but Cypress stopped him.

"Glove up. Who knows what this thing has already done to me?"

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The device was unnerving and not a little terrifying. X-rays did not penetrate it, and the electron microscope had revealed that its surface was perfectly uniformly smooth. Not uniform to the atomic level - it was truly, immaculately, perfectly smooth, as though it was made of particles too small for the microscope to detect. Possibly its most disturbing quality was that every attempt to measure its mass came back with the same result.

It had no mass.

Cypress sighed in frustration. He had given up on measurements and attempted to saw off a piece of the object with a fluoride laser. The laser had shot right through the object, in one side and out the other, and had left no effect on it whatsoever. It was still cool to the touch and had not been damaged in any detectable way.

It was as if the fucking thing didn't exist, like darkness given form, he thought. It was so perfectly black that when Cypress held it up to light it was simply a silhouette. The only was he could be sure of its shape was to feel it. Taking a chance, he removed one of his examination gloves and ran his finger along its surface, feeling a shock when he realized it bore an engraving. Of course - the laser topography scan would have missed it.

Thinking quickly, he grabbed a piece of paper and a dull pencil, and putting the paper to the surface of the engraving he scratched the pencil across its surface until a tiny, many-branched tree began to take form. He set the object down and examined his work.

A tree. Why? Perhaps it wasn't a tree at all, but some unrelated symbol. His stomach churned slightly.

This would have to be reported to the Solon, and he hated talking to them.


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"There's an organization here called the Solon. It's sort of a secret society. Their original mission wouldn't make much sense to you, but day-to-day they work a lot like Northern Star does. They watch for disasters and act when nobody else can or will."

Ranek lit another cigarette and sat down on the boat across from Mewtwo. After noticing Mewtwo's meaningful stare at his belt, he passed one to him and offered him a light.

"So you're one of these Solon?"

"Who isn't?" Mewtwo shrugged, dragging on the smoke.

"I thought you were a secret society."

"We are," he said, "I guess it's just that everyone I have regular contact with is a member. It goes quite high, includes a lot of researchers, regional authority figures, Gym leaders, and the like. Most anyone who's dedicated their lives to Pokemon. And the Solon have been friends of Northern Star since... well, since Eversor first landed here over three hundred years ago. Fairly certain he's in one of the tapestries. Of course, your armor is a hotel suite compared to the suit he first landed in."

"These Gym leaders force Pokemon to fight. What's the deal with that, anyway?"

"I'll explain on the way." Mewtwo stood up and walked over to the ruined control column, puffing smoke as he went. He fired a bright arc of electricity from his hands and the engine chugged to life.

"I thought you had a better way to get across this water than stealing a boat."

"I do. But I can't go teleporting your bulk all over the world. It's a factor of weight, you know."

"You can teleport? Cool!"

Mewtwo shook his head as he reconnected the boat's wheel, welding it with his power. "You're clueless."


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"See, it's like it has no mass. I tried the laser topographer on it, that's where I point lasers at it to get a digital picture of what-"

"I have a Ph.D, Dom, and I can even read and write when I have to," Dana replied a little crossly.

"Er, right."

Night had fallen, and Cypress' exhaustive testing on the circlet had still revealed nothing beyond its strange little engraving. Minerva was sitting on a bench in the measurement lab, swinging her legs idly; Grog was out of his ball and digging in the yard around the geology wing, which Cypress had expressly forbade him to enter for fear that he would lose himself and eat all the gems.

"So you haven't made any progress at all?"

"Not a damn thing."

"Guess you'll have to make contact."

"Not over the phone. And yeah, that's what it boils down to."

"So are you headed back?"

"In a while. Minerva looks tired, though. Think I'll send her back to your place with Grog."

"I'd rather you all came back together."

"The tests aren't done, but I'm pretty sure being near this thing is making her sick. I need to make contact right away, and it's easiest when the building's deserted. I'm not risking removing the data from this building."

A pause. "Please be careful, Dom."

"Always."

"I love you." Click.

It was not the first time he had heard her say it, but it always came as a bit of a surprise. He was just glad she had hung up before he could respond. He loved her, but saying it out loud made him feel a guilty twinge he couldn't quite explain.

He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, and Grog popped up immediately. Cypress knelt down to him and pulled a bit of copper wire from between his teeth.

"The geology building had better have power tomorrow, Grog, or you're in deep trouble," he said sternly. Grog just stared.

"You and Minerva are headed to Dana's place now. You remember where it is?" Grog nodded eagerly. He looked up to find Minerva scowling above him. "You're going to be good, got it? No hiding in trash cans and jumping out at her, like you do to me. And no hugging!" Grog spun around and sat down at Minerva's feet. He then reached up and showed her his empty palms. Then, crouching into a little ball, he rolled over and reached up toward her again, presenting her with a small blue jewel.

"Take it," Cypress whispered.

Minerva reached down nervously and plucked the jewel from his hand. Grog then curled up into a ball and somersaulted to the lab's door. There he stood still, patiently staring at Minerva.

"He wants you to trust him," Cypress muttered. "Will you be okay?"

"I'll be fine," she said with a small smile. She leaned forward and delicately licked the tip of his nose, then turned and followed Grog out without another word.

Cypress sighed, then turned and sat down at his computer.


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"As you see, it demonstrates physical properties that...well, shouldn't be possible. I've compressed all the computer measurements into a single file, and I'm sending them along now." Cypress wished he had worn a tie, but the fellow on the other end of the webcam didn't seem to mind. Cypress couldn't remember his name, but he was one of those gung-ho trainer/warrior types. One of the ones who had gone on a Training journey, made a name for himself in the League, and then been picked up by the Solon. The society had several of them, the kind who had experienced a life of simple effort and success, who held scientists in disdain, who walked with a swagger and an easy smile. They made him sick.

In fact, he looked down upon the Solon in general. They believed that Arceus was a genuine god, though quite a son of a bitch, and the Rift some kind of supernatural domain; Cypress viewed them as scientific curiosities, nothing more, and wholly irrelevant to the scheme of things. Arceus had to stay in the Hall of Origin, of course, but it wasn't like he could influence the outside world while he was sealed. Cypress had long been fascinated by Giratina and longed to meet him, but only for the sake of talking to something so old and invariably wise.

"Does that conclude the upload?" the associate said, apparently too bored to look at the webcam while he talked.

"That's it. I'm putting it in the safe."

"Bravo Zulu. An associate will be by to pick it up some time during the night. Take it easy," he said, and the screen went blank.

"Asshole," Cypress muttered. Cypress stood, but something was off. As he climbed to his feet, his muscles became terrifically weak. He struggled and collapsed to the floor, where he found that the simplest movements - including breathing - were far too difficult. He began to panic. A dark shape appeared over him, and he was rolled over onto his back. Above him leered a Seviian man, tall and skinny, with a hard face, crooked teeth, and a vicious, humorless grin. He held a small plastic bag in front of Cypress' face, containing a bit of water and a tiny Pokemon.

"South seas dwarf Cloyster," he growled softly. "Very poisonous. De spine is so small, you never feel de injection. And of course... it cause total paralysis. First your skeletal muscles go. Den your gut muscles. Den your diaphragm. Den your heart." He picked Cypress up under the arms and dragged him through the lab doors, down the hall, and out into the moonlight. Cypress was unable to scream or cry out, but he could still see everything happening around him. He had lost all sensation from his body, so it came as a shock that he was suddenly dropped into a large hole in the campus' lawn.

"You so hopeful, boy," the man remarked casually, picking up a shovel from the ground above him. "You would have been good Claw. So sad you have to die."

Cypress' eyes were still wide with shock as the first clumps of dirt began hitting his body, but after a few seconds it was as though he was viewing the world through a pair of binoculars turned the wrong way, and it felt like he was breathing through a very small straw. He saw grey, and lost consciousness.


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Minerva awoke the next morning to a glint of sunbeam in her eye. She thought she was facing away from the window. The glint shifted slightly, and her eyes snapped open.

Grog's shining eye was half an inch from her own.

"Jirachi!" she shrieked - she was too startled to notice that the scream had come from her real voice and not her psychic one. She had just spoken her first real word, besides her own name.

"Don't - DO - THAT!" she shouted in her psychic voice, clutching the blanket around her. "Why were you watching me sleep?"

The rasping, disjointed thoughts surprised her so much that at first she didn't realize it was Grog speaking to her.

"Boss say watch you. Grog watch you," he croaked in his strange little voice, his blank face unmoving. Then his face erupted into a huge smile.

"Minerva yells good. Vibrates crystals. Shakes nest. Speaks good human talk."

"Whatever," she scowled, not realizing the implications of his words. She looked around, and realized that the embrace she had expected to awaken in was absent.

"Grog, where's Dominic?"

"Boss no come home. Grog go look for Boss, but Boss say watch Minerva."

"Maybe he went to Dana's lab?"

Grog shrugged, and began running in circles.

"Hey, Grog? How come you never talked to me before now?"

Grog stared at her again. "Psychics deaf. Grog yell loud for Minerva to hear. Grog yell real loud, red woman no hear. Grog talk soft, Boss still hears. Boss not white like you. Boss black like Grog."

"You mean, he has dark skin like you?"

"No. Boss has black heart."

She paused, unsure what to make of that. "Come on, let's go to Dana's."


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Rainbow smiled at Cypress' unconcious form. For several hours, a magic potion of acetylcholine inhibitors and plant-derived deliriants had been flowing into Cypress' veins, and he was almost ready to be awoken. Rainbow had just finished the body paint and removed the IV and bandaged the site, and checking Cypress' pupil response (there was none), he determined that Cypress was ready to serve his new purpose. Burying spools of copper wire in the lawn worked just as he had planned - the Sableye had dug the hole so Rainbow didn't have to. He had not expected Cypress to be back at work so soon, but such was the value of preparation.

Checking his vital signs, Rainbow determined that Cypress was no longer unconcious - he was merely stuporous. Rainbow put on a heavy wooden Darkrai mask, which complimented his tattered black robes, and pressed on the nerve notches above Cypress' eyes. Cypress groaned in pain, and opened his eyes. Seeing Mr. Rainbow's hideous mask, he cried out in terror.

"Be not afraid, child," Rainbow said. "It is over now."

Cypress trembled. "Over?"

"Jah, child," Rainbow said, "you have been murdered, my son, and now your soul awaits its absolution."

"No..." Cypress said, shaking. "No, this can't be the end. I have to tell Dana..."

"Yes, young one, you shall see your Dana again. But first, you must absolve yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"You have committed a grave sin, child, and its weight holds you back from your afterlife."

"Sin?"

"You have lain with a Pokemon!" Rainbow barked, some of his rage slipping through the effected persona. He regained control, and was pleased to see Cypress trembling and buying it. The drugs had weakened his normal mental defenses, and the completeness of Rainbow's theatrics had fully convinced Cypress he was dead. "You must make penance."

"Dead? Will I see my parents again?" Cypress asked, almost in tears.

"Not until you complete a task for the loa," Rainbow said. "I am the loa Jirumbi, and you will send the soul of the Pokemon who rendered you unwhole to me." Jirumbi was the Seviian word for Darkrai, and Cypress clearly remembered. He also seemed to remember that to send one to Jirumbi was to effect their death.

"To you?"

"I must have the creature's soul. Go forth, back into the mortal world. I have given you my blessing. It will protect you from her patron's power. Go now. Slay her, or bring her directly to me."

"I... I can't hurt her." Cypress was beginning to slur his speech. Rainbow needed to get him up and around, or he risked Cypress becoming catatonic. He stood Cypress up off the table, and began shouting at him.

"Go NOW! Go to the Gardevoir! If you cannot kill her, bring her to me! Hurry now, reality will become more and more damaged the longer I try to keep you mortal!" With that, he pulled a black bag over Cypress' head and carried him up the stairs.

From the shadows of the room, Brother Pele and Father Chawel emerged, smirking.

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Cypress' vision returned, and he assumed Darkrai had sent him back to the world. He stood outside a derelict gas station he had never seen before. The sun was up and burning more brightly than he had ever seen it burn before, and the morning was loud. Small Pokemon made noise scrabbling in the tall grass around the ruined building, and Cypress felt as though there was a stong, loud wind rushing over him. A block over, he could hear the roaring noise of a small car. He stumbled onto a sidewalk and started toward nowhere in particular. The sunlight broke into fractal patterns and a rainbow of colors in the cold morning air, and the shadows shifted as he walked To the south, Darkrai, his form gigantic and terrible, crept across the sky reaching out for the sun. For a moment, he dropped to his knees and held onto the curb as it shifted and warped violently beneath him. Some indeterminate amount of time later, it had stopped, and Cypress continued on.

He was in a poor, residential area of Saffron, a few blocks over from where Dana worked. He wanted to see Dana, to explain what had happened, but something told him it would only mean disaster. He had to find Minerva. As he neared another gas station, he remembered that he was terribly thirsty, and walked inside.

Immediately upon entering, he threw his hands in front of his face to shield himself from a shelf of crackers that had rushed up to attack him. The shelf ran into him as the floor buckled, and the counter the attendant stood behind ran into him, knocking him to his hands and knees.

"YOU OKAY, MAN?" the attendant boomed.

"Easy, easy," Cypress said, possibly only to himself. He gathered himself up and got to his feet. "You got any water?"

"YOU OKAY?" The attendant smiled, and cocked his head to the side. "YOU LOOK FUCKED UP, BRO!"

"Enough screaming, and I need some water!" Cypress said, becoming irritated. The young man suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"LOOK, I DON'T DEAL WITH BAD TRIPS, I'LL CALL YOU AN AMBULANCE!"

Did the boy not understand that it was too late for an ambulance? "I'm already dead, son. I just need to do something for Jirumbi."

"HUH? I DON'T SPEAK THE ISLAND LANGUAGES, BRO!"

He had slipped into Seviian. He gave up with the kid and walked back outside, shedding his coat and shirt as he went. He discovered to his immense pleasure that his chest had been painted with Seviian death-symbols. A white skull was painted on his chest, and various ghosts and patron spirits and their symbology covered his entire upper body. Lightning flashed above him and he looked up, gasping in wonder. Darkrai was in the sky, his tattered robes flowing out to cover the blue sky. His dark hand reached out and covered the sun, and for a moment all things were crystallized in ice.

Cypress drank in the air, but his name was not Dominic Cypress, it was Domingo, son of Zyprizi, and he was one with the souls of his people's mightiest warriors. The rain began to fall, and it washed away everything except his spirit, the animal that was the most basic, the most pure essence of him.

He was running faster than he ever had in life, barely touching the ground as he leapt over obstacles, never slowing, never looking back. He used his hands to fling himself over mailboxes and benches, racing across the ground, his feet pounding the ground in time with his pounding heartbeat. The wind sang songs of the dead in his ears, and he let their tune carry him forth. He never would have imagined that being dead made you feel so alive. He threw his head back and howled his praise to the gods.

"JIRUMBI NOLOKO ITAK HOW CHATEE!" he bellowed from deep within his soul, and the lightning flashed again, cracking Darkrai's face in half. It filled him with fury, a tiny shred of the magnificent rage that the great Groudon and Kyogre had felt during their battle. The cold was as the exquisite pain that Rayquaza had endured to put them both away. Cypress whooped loudly and kept running.


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Minerva was starting to become fed up.

"We have no way to prove your identity, girl. Pokemon can't carry I.D. You see?" The police officer unclipped his badge and waved it in her face. "This shows who I am. You see? You don't have one."

She rolled her eyes and put a hand on her hip. "Yes, sir, I know what an I.D. is. I'm telling you that if you just bring Dr. Redwood down here she can vouch for my identity."

"No, I can't do that."

"And why not?"

"See, sometimes Pokemon become confused and follow the wrong person..."

How she hated being patronized! "Ugh! Would you just call for her-"

"Calm down, girl," the officer snapped, and his Growlithe jumped to attention at his side. Minerva had no intention of getting in trouble. This prick would probably shoot her without a second thought.

"Fine. I suppose I'll wait."

"Too right you will."

She gritted her teeth and walked away from the door, taking a moment to extend her middle talon at the cop when he looked the other way. She walked a short distance down the street, and then turned immediately around.

"They've got a teleport block on the building. One of their Pokemon is doing it. If I can find whoever's putting the shield up, I might be able to connect with their mind and convince 'em to let me in. Stay here, 'kay?"

Grog looked up at her, and after a moment's ponderance, sat on his behind right on the sidewalk. There was a bright flash of lightning, causing Grog's eyes to sparkle.

"See you in a bit," Minerva said, and went back to the lab, pulling Cypress' lab coat a bit tighter around her as the wind picked up. A drop of rain plinked her on the face.

The cop was still in front of the door, and Minerva ducked into a side alley to avoid him. She levitated herself a few feet up to peek into the third floor windows, but she wasn't quite capable of going the full twenty-five feet needed to get a good look. She climbed on top of a Dumpster and levitated from there. She caught a glimpse of another policeman through the window before sinking again. The rain began to pick up, and the sky was becoming extremely dark. She looked down the alleyway trying to find another object to jump off of. It was now so dark that she couldn't see the end of the alley.

She tried lighting the alleyway with some electricity, but she couldn't maintain an arc for long enough to act as a torch. She would have to ask for a Fire-type TM. She wasn't afraid of the dark, she just liked to be able to see.

Of course, she thought, it's natural to be afraid of the dark.

She proceeded slowly into the alley, now feeling her way around with psychic power. A memory came unbidden from the depths of her mind, the voice of her father.

"Don't trust the dark," he had told her on his knee. "It plays tricks on you. Messes up your power. The Great Enemy can hide in the dark, can use it against you. You'll be feeling your way around, but they won't show up in your mind. The only warning you'll get is the cold. When you're out on your own, the only one you can trust is you. And you can't trust yourself in the dark."

It was very dark, and very cold.

It wasn't worth it. She would see Dana when she saw her. They didn't have to know about this. Nothing wrong with being afraid of the dark. She wheeled around and began to run for the street, not caring if the cop saw her or not.

The lightning flashed, and her heart stopped for a moment. At the end of the alley stood a dark shape, ghastly white with no face, heaving as it breathed. She didn't understand what it was, but she knew for sure that it was there for her. She turned and ran for the end of the alley, leaping atop a Dumpster and throwing herself into the air. Arceus willing, she could grab a ledge out of its reach.

She tried, she really did, but it just wasn't enough. She grapsed wildly for the sill but it was too wet. She lost her grip and hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of herself. She gasped for breath and made to climb to her feet, but a fist came out of the darkness from above her and struck her hard on the base of the spine, casting her back down and sending dark waves of pain through her entire body. Stars swam before her eyes. She lashed out with a burst of power, trying to break her attacker's back. For some reason, the very act of summoning her power was exhausting, far too much so. She drew a deep breath, and collapsed in a puddle of rainwater. The dark figure picked her up bridal-style and carried her back to the street. He head hung limply over her attacker's forearm, and she faintly called out for the policeman before seeing that both he and his Pokemon were laying in a pool of blood by the door. As her kidnapper ran in the direction opposite the one Grog was waiting, Minerva began to lose hope.


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Cypress arrived at the gas station with Minerva in his arms. He saw Darkrai standing beside the door with one of his Shades, a hooded, stooped figure wearing long, black robes. Minerva, still clinging to consciousness, perceived a man with a slightly silly mask and another one wearing a masquerade costume.

"Well done, child. Come with me back to my realm," Mr. Rainbow said, and pulled a black bag over her attacker's head. He then looked at Minerva, through the mask's single eyehole she saw an eye filled with contempt. He slapped her roughly across the face and put a bag over her head, and his robed assistant dragged her down a flight of stairs. She was dragged into a dark, pungent room with candles and incense all around, as well as various little straw dolls along the walls. The bag was yanked off her head, and she saw that in the middle of the room sat a long white table with leather restraints built in, with the room's single artificial light shining down on it. The table bore a large, dark red stain in the middle. She broke out in a cold sweat.

They threw her roughly on the table and bound her tightly with the restraints, made of brown leather and stained red. She noticed that the table had a hole through which her dorsal fin could extend, and she wondered if she was the first of her kind to lay here. A tall, fat Seviian man with a painted-white face and green-yellow teeth appeared over her, leering widely.

"Taste good," he growled, and she screamed out loud.

"Chawel! Umak chete bi walo kana!" Darkrai snarled.

The large man, Chawel, ripped the bag off of her attacker's head, and she froze when she saw it was Cypress. He was bare-chested and covered in paint, and though he looked awake, there was something eerily lifeless about his eyes. He stood stock still with his head slightly bowed, and when Chawel pushed him away from the table he did not fall over, but he did not resist, either. He didn't even seem to notice.

She tried to connect with him, but there was an ironclad block that she realized with horror that she had felt before. He was wearing the black crown. His eyes remained glassed over, and Minerva fought nausea as she considered the possibility that they had lobotomized him.

The fat one stepped close to her and drew a large santoku knife, holding it to the tip of Minerva's ventral fin. Slowly, obscenely, he sawed the top quarter-inch of it off with the knife. Minerva screamed from more fear than pain, as the fin had relatively few nerve endings in the tip. It bled freely, though, and the man with the painted face leaned forward and lapped up some of the blood.

"Taste so good!" he cried. Minerva writhed against her restraints, gnashing her teeth and bucking wildly, trying her best to crush the bones of these freaks with her power, but she saw they were wearing more of those damnable black crowns, and she began to panic.

The Darkrai impersonator and his assistant removed their costumes and began to run their tongues along Minerva's fin, partaking of her blood. The sides of the fin were exquisitely sensitive, made of a tissue analogue of human nipples, and she shed tears of rage when she noticed the slickness between her thighs. The bastard's tongues were making her wet. Each drag of a tongue-tip sent shivers through her spine that weren't entirely caused by fear.

How dare they touch her that way without her permission! She screamed again, then bore her fangs and hissed her fury. "I'll kill you!" she shrieked in her psychic voice. "I'll snap your fucking necks!" A shockwave of her furious energy was funneled by the men's crowns and up into the fluroescent light fixture, exploding the light tubes and covering them all in glass. The room was now lit only by a bank of candles. Minerva was washed in darkness, and her power began to wane.

She turned her head and saw Cypress standing ramrod straight, eyes unfocused, staring at nothing, obviously not seeing what was happening to her. Her vision clouded with tears. She was going to die here.

One of the men brought his head too close to Minerva's, and she snapped forward and bit him hard on the back of the neck. Rainbow gasped and withdrew, staring angrily at Minerva while holding a hand to his bleeding nape. He glared at her, and she hissed at him again, her head cocked forward and her sensory radials pressed tightly to the sides of her head - a pose that sent a very clear message. I will kill you!

"You bite me?" Rainbow said quietly. He reached up and roughly forced her chin up, exposing her throat. "Now, I bite you."

"Enough," the painted man said, and Rainbow and Pele drew back. Minerva fell still, and the room was suddenly very quiet.

"The time is upon us. We will send this offering to Him. Arceus will take this offering and he will smile upon us." The man had swapped his santoku for a pointed knife, and he gently laid the tip between Minerva's fourth and fifth ribs.

"You won't even feel it," he whispered.

"D... Dom...DOMINIC!" Minerva screamed in her real voice.

Chawel looked like he had been slapped. His expression was blank and his eyes were wide, and the blankness was very slowly being filled with anger.

"Dominic! P...please! I lo-lo-love y-you! You love m-me! Help!"

Cypress' eyes focused, and he looked at Minerva. He reached out as though to touch her, but stopped and let his arm fall limply to the side.

"He is ours now," Chawel said quietly. "And you are damned. How dare you speak the language of men, sully human voice with your filthy tongue? Your tongue will be the first part I eat."

"F-fuck you," she snarled, and spit in his face.

"For that, heathen," Chawel said, wiping his face and regaining his calm, "I will not pierce your heart. This way you may watch me dine on your flesh."

He drew back as he heard a soft snuffling from the corner of the room. Both Chawel and Minerva looked up, and Cypress, Rainbow and Pele turned around.

It was Grog.

He cradled a small object in his hands. He looked up from the object and stared blankly around the room with his tongue hanging slightly out. Then, calmly, casually, he returned his attention to the object he was holding, as though he didn't understand what was happening in the room. He held the object up to his face ever so slightly to make sure everyone in the room could see it.

It was a hand grenade, and Grog was innocently chewing on the pin.

Chawel looked down at Minerva and licked his lips. "A shame there will not be enough of you left to eat," he said, before giving some sort of hand signal. Rainbow and Pele nodded, and Rainbow kicked Cypress hard in the side, dropping him to his knees. The three then each pocketed stacks of papers from different parts of the room, and barely three seconds later they were all out of the room and on their way up the stairs.

Grog waited a moment, then ran up to Minerva's table and turned it on its side facing away from the door. He dragged Cypress behind it, then ran to the door, activated the grenade, and threw it into the stairwell, slamming the door behind it. He then leapt over the table and stuffed his fingers into Cypress' ears before a jarring explosion blew the door off of its hinges and across the room. Before the smoke had even cleared, Grog had chewed through Minerva's bindings and started dragging Cypress toward the stairway. Minerva helped levitate him to the top, where they emerged from the gas station's back door.

Minerva whirled to her left as a Dumpster beside her popped open, but lowered her fists when she saw who it was.

"Loki?"

"Grog brought me," the Kadabra said, pulling a folded newspaper off of his head. "Sorry I couldn't stop those guys, they were all wearing those black head appliances-"

"It's okay. Were you able to tag them?"

"No, the bands stopped it."

"Fuck!" she shrieked in her real voice.

"Calm down, you're hurt," Loki said. "We need to get you and Dr. Cypress to safety."

"You know where Redwood's apartment is?"

"Yes. Let's go. Grog, can you find your own way?" Grog nodded vigorously and tore off down the street. Loki and Minerva both drew themselves close to Cypress, and focusing their energies, disappeared in a flash of light.





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