Chapter 17: An End to Evercrest

"Nobody has called me that in years. I'm Mister Feyera," said the young man in a mixture of suspicious inquiry and shaky hesitation. Unbeknownst to him, his emerald eyes flickered with a reddish glow emanating from the cast-iron veins of frenzied orange embedded so intimately in his irises. Fleeting psyonic impulses twitched his every nerve. "Fredrick…how can you be here?" he wondered.

"You don't seem too sure!" fired back the other man from the edge of the dock. "*Ahem* Then again, you've always projected an 'air' of confusion. Especially in regards to your past, 'Edge'."

"…!" His eyes violently tingled, shaking with treacherous aspiration; a desperate yearning for truth – conflicted with an equal craving for closure of some sort. Something. Anything. Raising his pale forearm to rub against his low nose bridge, Feyera hollowly asked, "The past…? What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Tell me something. Are you going to deny your past?" asked the towering man. He whimsically stroked a few of his short dark brown hairs into place beneath a wide-brimmed hat; its suede rim concealed most of his face. "Or are you already too far beyond answering that inquiry? "

"M–my past…?" Straining to see facial details, Feyera squinted. Nevertheless, the light from behind the man's broad shoulders was much too harsh, cloaking him in a frozen eclipse of shadow.

"Too invested in pleasures gained from your powers?" prodded the cloaked agent.

Feeling dizzy and lost, Feyera's boyish voice cracked. "N–no. I can't remember the past. Fredrick, I have amnesia, remember?"

But the shunting trainer was cut off by a blunt response from the solemn police agent. "Your past–" Fredrick pointed an accusing finger at him "–is it still a dream to you?"

"A dream…? What?"

"…Is it all a wicked dream you can't seem to wake up from…?"

"What do you mean by that?" he asked anxiously.

"Dreams take subconscious will to experience. Experience takes conscious will to master. Is it not true that we are dead and only seem to live, fallen deeply into misfortune, fancying that a dream is life? …Or are we alive and is life dead?" Had his imposing, militaristic posture not been enough of a cue to Feyera, the analogies to dreams were certainly distinctive to the International Police Officer's prior conversations with him. And yet it made no difference, for far too much had taken place in too short a span of time.

"Fredrick, cut the nonsense! Is that you?!" he asked in earnest; stepping lightly forward.

"Ah–ah!" Fredrick raised a stern hand, and Feyera's advance paused without a second of hesitation. "Relax," he ordered.

"…!" It was as if a nerve had been pricked, something invisible seemed to hold Feyera back. "Humph."

Almost nonchalantly, Fredrick shook his head in a quick, "No. I'm afraid I'm not who you think I am, Mister Feyera."

"What? What are you saying?" Feyera shouted in disbelief. "Wait! But you're him! You're Fredrick! You have to be!"

"Oh?" shot the agent scornfully. "What makes you so sure?"

"Erm! I– err… Your badge! Your voice! Even your posture, Fredrick!"

"Says the man with amnesia. Tell me: does that constitute anything more than vaguely-linked conjectures, doctor?"

"*Gasp!*" The trainer peered at the ground, however the brightly illuminated weapon on Fredrick's back beckoned frantically at his attention; spurting Feyera into a state of involuntary shock. He held his head as psyonic aches overtook him. "*GAAH!*" he wallowed in inexplicable agony.

"Hmm. Curious. Seems as though the positive reinforcement worked," said the police agent peering at Feyera's arm. "What are you sensing?" Fredrick asked coldly. "TELL ME!"

"The RAIL gun!" Feyera answered in a hurry. Though the device was eclipsed by Fredrick's expansive shoulder frame, there was no denying the dreadful warmth of the weapon. "I… I… can feel its power radiating…!" he answered in heaves. "It's everywhere… I… I…"

"Hmm? A RAIL gun, huh?" A faint grimace crossed the agent's face. "Like the one I have here?" he asked while tauntingly tapping the ammunition carton resting above his waist with a gloved hand. "Is that what you sense with your psyonics?"

"…Yes!" exclaimed Feyera as the searing pain began to dissipate as suddenly as it had arrived.

Fredrick hid a smile. "The very rifle the two of us retrieved from the Rocket Headquarters!"

Feyera's heart seared with warmth. He clutched the metal shard as delicately as he could before the heated sensation came forth. "*Gasp!* Fredrick…there's something wrong with that weapon…! I thought you said it was evidence… Why do you still have it?"

"Hmm…" He raised his broad shoulders in a labored exhale; the ion rifle rattling, its composite cylindrically arranged steel vents clipping noisily against the back of a solid brass wreath adorning the agent's tall, military collar. "…Must've slipped my mind. You of all people should be able to understand the massive draw of power."

"…! Fredrick… don't you remember?" said Feyera fighting a debilitating chill running up his already stiffened spine. His pale eyes darted to Fredrick's concealed hands. "Did you forget our mission?"

"No, Mister Feyera. The assumptions you've made since we first met are bordering on dangerous naivety. 'Fredrick Irving' is the name of a man who has passed on," he spoke while raising an accusing finger, "not unlike yourself, Christian. *Sigh* Fredrick's… a dead man."

"DEAD?" shouted Feyera. "NO!"

"Afraid so." Fredrick shook his head haphazardly. "Like your friend Fredrick, you propagated your death. Mister Feyera…I don't know why I held on for so long. Deep down, I hoped for a different outcome."

"–Stop! That isn't possible!" Feyera said with a start. "Dead? Me? Fredrick, how on earth can I be dead?! Did you really believe the bogus reports of what took place in Pewter City? I promise, that was only to keep the League away from my psyonics!"

"Who do you think bought Brock off?!" snarled Fredrick. "Think about it. Brock's low man on the Pokemon League's totem pole; light years away from recognition by the Pokemon League."

"No!"

"You see, Mister Feyera, I helped to fabricate a lie. I gave your fugitive powers the structure they so desperately needed. But, in the end, I went too far… and I'm afraid it will cost me my life… as well as yours."

"–What are you saying? Fredrick! You're alive! You're not dead! You can't really be –" "–dead…?! Is that even possible? AHH! What are you saying?!"

"–Your alarm… The telepathically projected uncertainty. Is it cognitive dissonance? Frantic disbelief? …Or, maybe, has that scar burrowed that intimately into your mind? Can you no longer display your signature cynicism?"

"Yeah–no!" yelled a confused Feyera. "My alarm is–" "–warranted… *cough cough!* all things considered!" The world around him grew redder as his heart pounded.

"Oh?" pressured Fredrick. "Is it now?"

"YES!" shouted Feyera, breaking out of the telepathic trance he had been sent into. "Who the hell says stuff like that to another person?!"

"Another… person…?" repeated Fredrick hollowly. "Are you even a person anymore?"

Anxiously, Feyera folded his arms across his chest. "I… I thought we were friends."

"Then your definition of friendship requires an adjustment. You take my orders!"

Feyera gasped, paralyzed in alarm, not without an inexplicable ache of irony in the recognition that he had been duped. He'd been fed a lie. However, what remained much worse than the spuriousness itself was the fact that he was blissfully unaware of it this entire time! Thrusting his hands in Fredrick's direction, he screamed manically, "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?!"

"Ah… ha. Come now, Mister Feyera, there's hardly been any harm done. What's good for the Zangoose is good for the gander, right?"

"You tricked me…!" he whispered; blood broiling from within his core. "Why?!"

"What I did was not unlike what a certain scientist I had the pleasure of meeting in Celadon did," added the agent for good measure. "You're nothing but a Pokemon tricked into believing that you're human."

"Oh yeah? And who the hell does that make you?"

"*Ahem* Heavens, Mister Feyera! There is a strict set of confidential codes I adhere to. I could tell you who I am, but that might only make our situation worse. I know about your psyonics. I know the inherent flaws of them being tied to emotion. You could say that, in a way, I'm your trainer."

"No… no…!" he whispered emptily. A dull rattle in the background made both men quickly survey the seemingly abandoned harbor. Seeing nothing obviously capable of causing the noise, Feyera quickly asked, "How do you know anything more than what I told you about myself?"

"You seem to have forgotten that I'm highly trained in gathering all sorts of information."

"—And DECEPTION as well…?!" Feyera retorted. His thoughts raced to the mysterious Reilken Mercurius. "Are you highly trained in that as well…?! Huh?! Tell me!"

"I do my research," replied the stoic agent. "You're – you used to be a prodigy at one point?"

"What's it to you?" Feyera venomously spat. "You're a manipulative heap of Tauros shit!"

"Don't jump so hastily to passion-filled conclusions. Doing so only discredits a prestigious researcher," countered Fredrick. "Your good name is all that's left of the animal within."

"I'm not looking for credit, you hoax!" shouted Feyera. "I'm looking for someone to trust!"

"Hmm…" In response to Feyera's sharpened anger, the uniformed agent wore a grim expression. "My word… You've become quite needy without my guiding arm, haven't you?"

"–I'm not needy!" denied Feyera.

Fredrick shook his head in a toying manner. "I thought I'd never see the day. Maybe there's hope for you yet."

"I only want to understand! What's happening…? Why is it this way…?"

"Didn't you once say something along the lines of: 'if you don't understand something, take the first step towards knowledge and–'"

"NO!" belted the young Pokemon trainer. "No more games!" "I want answers, Fredrick!"

"Answers huh? You sure you're up for that?"

"Yes," he said quietly at first. "AND I WANT THEM NOW!"

"Fine. I owe it to you. Did you think I took your word for it when I found you, half-dead, in Celadon's underground? Did you believe I wrote you off as a simple trainer by the name of 'Feyera'? What a happy coincidence that would be. Yes… that would certainly be in line with your – parasitic – heart's objective, wouldn't it?"

"OBJECTIVE?!" "You promised to help me! I gave you my trust!" Feyera said stomping. "I told you my story back in Celadon! I trusted you! I thought you knew… *gasp* I thought you didn't care about who I was, I thought you only wanted to help me! And then that device…'The Reilken Mercurius'…the deceit … the filthy lies you fed me…! Why did I trust you?!"

"Did you hope that I too would acknowledge your feeble lies, crafted to cover up the truth behind your psyonics?" asked Fredrick glaring derisively at Feyera's chest. "Hrmph! As if you could run away into a delusion-filled dream of your own lies."

"Lies?" Feyera felt put on the defensive. "The psyonics —" he looked down at his heart "— my psyonics came from out of nowhere! That's all I knew. This shard… it's…"

"–No." interrupted Fredrick, seemingly reading the young man's frantic mind. "You know that isn't true, Mister Feyera. Deep down… inside yourself… you know that isn't the truth. And so do I. …Celesta taught me everything I needed to know about you."

"Celesta…?" Feyera asked emptily. "I don't know any Celesta."

A rare leak of emotion became apparent as Fredrick frowned. "Maybe you'd remember her when she was still Deirdre. Does that name ring any bells to you?"

For some reason hearing her name made him feel inexplicitly tense. Nervous even. "N–no," he shuddered. "I only have my Pokemon. Quickly, Feyera turned to look at his Pokemon. "Brucie…? Des…?" he called out telepathically to the Pokemon.

Nevertheless, before his Gardevoirian transmission received any type of telepathic response, Fredrick began to walk cautiously forward. "I have to applaud your efforts to suppress the truth from your host body," said the towering police agent. "It was quite an ingenious defense mechanism. You fabricated a wonderful world for yourself to live in; one in which you were the victim. One in which you did no wrong. As luck would have it, one in which you could do no more harm to yourself!"

"Then that means… Of course… You knew about Evercrest all along?" he said coldly.

"Knew about it?! Ha! We're here right now, aren't we?" replied the enigmatic agent with a scoff. "And both of us are an integral part of it." Memories of a faded past seemed to flash before Fredrick's walnut brown eyes. Shrugging, he went on to say, "–You were once a researcher here. A bit of prodigy – like I said before. Born a West; you became a prestigious academic doctor of science. Published too… always had an interest in Psychic Type Pokemon. And an unhealthy obsession with the science behind telepathy."

"I–" Feyera felt inexplicably warm inside. Heart aglow in bright crimson, he tried to maintain eye-contact with Fredrick in spite of the growing uncomfortableness of his situation. Guarding his chest he quipped, "It's nothing!"

"Humph. I honestly wouldn't expect anything less from you." Fredrick looked away, staring high up into the harbor's rafters. "Happiness is something we all strive for. You had a noble endeavor: to link minds to generate reoccurring euphoric conditions triggered by psyonics…" This simple act alone seemed to lift an immense weight off Feyera's shoulders. "…However, there was a dark side to the young doctorate's academic illumination, wasn't there?"

He gasped. "…!" As soon as the invisible burden had seemingly disappeared, it returned with teeth.

"…I know far more than I wish I knew. Evercrest…this place… was your home. …Twice."

"Huff!" Feyera answered airily. "Twice, huh?"

"Yes," Fredrick replied, the austerely in his voice growing with each passing moment. "And, unfortunately, it was Deirdre's once as well…"

"Humph!" Feyera nervously asked, "Where'd you get an idea like that?"

"The question of 'Where?' doesn't have the same gravity as the question of 'Who?'. And now, it's the latter which matters to a man in my position. Hmm. You, Mister Feyera – endowed with the psyonics from an unwilling experiment – you go by the arrogant title of 'Edge'. But what's the truth, 'Doctor Feyera'? …Who are you? Who have you become? Do you know who 'Edge' really is?"

"I have an idea," replied Feyera with a slight frown. "I've embraced it as my identity; I don't have my memories to fall back on." However, his brief reminiscing of the Semblance mission left him rather perturbed. More than usual too. "Fredrick?"

"Hmm?" Fredrick turned his head to the side. "What's that…?"

"Fredrick, how did you find out my psyonics weren't natural and why did you go along with it? You could have told me. All this time – …What was the purpose of not telling me?"

"—Hah!" Fredrick raised both his gloved hands high up into the air, displaying his impressive arm span. "Some things are better left unspoken amongst children."

"I'm not a child! Answer the question!" barked Feyera. "I want to know how! I want to know why! What does this all mean?"

"I suppose I owe it to whatever is left of you – before you disappear." The police agent nodded, whilst briefly pawing the golden wreath adorning his officer collar. Loosening a silver neck chain from below his collar, the sharp–nosed agent exposed two army plated identification tags; though Feyera was not close enough to read their stamped print. " – As you've already so expressively urged – the only question that's left is: why. Why Mister Feyera? Why did you do it? What was your intent?"

"Uhhgh?!" Feyera grunted. "That's a silly question."

"Yes. Troublesome, isn't it? 'Why?' That's what I need to know," Fredrick said with familiar trance-like resolve. "That's the last piece of the puzzle. That's the most important piece. It's all I have left. If there is any way to tell me before it's too late … it would finally put this old man's heart at peace."

"Why…?" Feyera asked hoarsely. "I don't know! Amnesia and all that! Pah!"

"—Mister Feyera, do you know why you are who you are right now? Has your curious wonder brought you to contemplate the reason behind why things are this way for you? …Or has an unanticipated variable come between you and your work somewhere along the way?"

Immediately Feyera thought about Sanaria. Her eyes, her heart, the brief ecstasy the two of them shared over and over. Despite the undeniable warmth filling his chest, Feyera roguishly answered, "Uh… I'm not sure what you mean by that, Fredrick. I'm doing my part for Pokemon."

"Interesting," said the scrutinizing officer, "and how does that feel? To be 'doing your part'?"

"It feels… like it's something I need to do," Feyera alleged. Yet the sarcasm he expressed was not without subtle sincerity. "I want to be able to communicate with my Pokemon. …I want to do what I can with this psyonic gift while I have it."

"Hmm. Not sure if you're going to return the psyonics to their rightful owner?"

"Of course!" Feyera scoffed. However, a nagging thought pestered his mind, echoing in haunting vibrations "I am their rightful owner."

"Really?" pressured Fredrick. "Then it is only a matter of time before they completely take over."

Shrugging nonchalantly, Feyera bluffed, "I've just gotten more used to life with psyonics, that's all."

"Have you?"

"Correct." Feyera anxiously stroked his drying auburn hair back and out of his eyes. "She's made it easier for me…somehow," Edge thought.

"Does that rationale justify what you've done?"

"Humph. I don't see the big deal. It's no skin of your hide to let me live!" Feyera was surprised to see Fredrick wince his right eye, almost as if he had been struck. "My involvement with Evercrest is in the past. You and I – we have bigger fish to fry for Kanto's sake."

"Perhaps," said Fredrick as he pressed upon his crooked nose bridge. "But there soon may no longer be a 'you' left."

Feyera quickly looked down at his Gardevoir crystal. Indeed it was swollen with blinding light, its edges heated enough for him to feel! The black shirt he wore had begun to cinder upon contact with the mysterious red crystal. "…!" he gasped, but dared not touch the mysterious crescent.

"You told me back in Celadon that your mind could not contain the influx of rouge emotion. And now, I can see it billowing out from your bonded heart in radiant waves of passion. Hah, call me a poet!"

"*Nehh! Urgh!*" The strain to suppress the psyonic rage welling from within was becoming more difficult to contain with each passing insult.

"—I also told you it was likely to be significantly more permanent if you ran out of time. Has the weight of that changed your perspective? Or are you merely here out of coincidence so that you might be cured of your crimes…?"

Feyera insisted, "My objective is the same. I need to fix this! I'm going to fix what happened two years ago! You duped me with the fake Reilken Mercurius, but believe me; I will find the real relic! And when I do…things will go back to normal!"

"*Sigh* You sure are just as motivated as I remember," Fredrick whispered "…It hurts to see that … you've taken that from him too…"

"Mmhm. I–I have to be." Feyera made a tight fist. Pounding into the air he exclaimed, "One way or another, I'm going to make amends, and I'll be damned if you try to stop me!"

"Amends? How can you say something like that?" Disapprovingly, Fredrick waved both his hand and his head back and forth. "You don't even have a grasp on your own identity! You don't even understand the weight of the psychological mess you've gotten yourself into! You're dragging innocents into the whirlwind of consciousness! That's why it has to stop. That's why I'm here."

"—LISTEN! You have a point: I'm in a labyrinth. That's right. I don't know how to correct my former decisions, or how to truly render them at peace with my present actions! I've never known. I've never learned. But I can try, Fredrick! *Huff…* A man can try!"

"How so?" asked a clearly intrigued Fredrick.

"Don't you see? I'm a nobody! I have nothing left! My father, *sigh* gone along with any ties I held to the West estate! …I was broke by the age of eighteen! Had it not been for scholarships, I may well never have made it to my graduation, let alone get involved in doctorate work!"

"But you didn't–" Fredrick was going to say "have to" however, Feyera cut him off midsentence with an irate shout.

"–ARGH! You know what?! You're right! I didn't remain an academic doctor at all! I lost it! I lost it, Fredrick! You hear me?! *gasp* –My doctorate, my dissertation, my entire research on Psychic Pokemon, all of my recent memories … stolen… taken… two years ago." Nevertheless, Feyera couldn't bring himself to confess to Fredrick that the acclaimed 'Doctor Feyera' himself had been the one at fault for losing his identity. "*It– it's all gone… *sigh* I'm not anybody. Not anymore. …Don't you get it? Everything I've worked for is gone! All that's left is me, Mister Feyera." He looked down at his chest. "Edge…is the psyonic scars cast upon me through unconstrained research during my academic years. That's all you need to know."

Fredrick bowed his head. "I'm sure that's the case…" Feyera couldn't tell whether or not Fredrick was being sarcastic. Amid all the raw sensation caving in on young Feyera like a torrent of flooding water, it became nearly impossible to tell. But then the agent offered a comforting "You know something? You've grown up a lot."

"Bah! Now it's your turn," Feyera threatened.

"Hurrm? My turn? I told you already…I'm not alive. Not anymore."

"Fredrick," pausing for but a moment, the young trainer asked warily, "do you know something I don't about psyonics overtaking people?"

"Ahh… Despite all your cynicism, Mister Feyera, you still have a sincere heart, don't you?" Fredrick smiled at Feyera's predictable pout. "You know… sometimes I wonder if that's always been the case. Sometimes I wonder if you got that from your–"

"–Fredrick, cut the damn chitchat already!" Feyera insisted. "Tell me what I want to know!"

"What would be the point of that?" groaned the agent. "It's no good telling you that your inconsistent opinions are all true. The best I can do say is that at least some of your opinions are correct. Forgive me for saying this but: I don't think you've been paying very much attention to all of the details."

"Gah!" In angered disbelief, Feyera asked, "So… you're saying that I'm wrong…!?" "Never mind the 'not-paying-attention' part!" "About how much?!"

"Oh please–" Fredrick pressed against his forehead's temple "–don't act all surprised."

"I'm not acting! Fredrick, this is how I feel! The Reilken Mercurius…the relic that did this to me…was a lie? Dammit!" Feyera swore loudly with a stomp of his high boot. "I don't even know what's real anymore!"

"This shouldn't be news to you: the anguish you feel is more real than anything else, isn't it?"

"I–it is?" Feyera felt alarmingly confused. "Can he be right?"

"Yes, as real as any moment of pleasure, is every moment of pain. The trick is to balance the two. Too much pleasure dilutes the pain allowing you to feel true delight. And too much pain will lead you to despair."

Almost as if he had just snapped out of a sweet dream. It was incredible how crisp and clear the dark harbor had become. Mouth slightly ajar in steeple-like wonder Feyera could barely keep himself standing upright as his vision seemed to overtake him with one bright pulse after another.

To reply to his stupefied silence, the officer twisted his unshaven neck in a stretch. "You haven't lost your mind, have you?" he asked. "…Not yet…? Is it possible…?"

"No! I'm serious; Fredrick, what's your side? Fess up!" Feyera ordered. "Start with the fake artifact you hooked on my wrist! The so-called 'Reilken Mercurius'!"

Fredrick grumbled whilst looking quizzically at Feyera's exposed left arm, where the 'Reilken Mercurius' had been securely stationed until not too long ago. "…You really haven't lost your mind in its absence from your body?"

"No! Of course not! I'm still trying to get back my memories! Fredrick, I trusted you! I trusted your Hypnosis procedure! I trusted that the artifact attached to my wrist was the Reilken Mercurius stolen from the Pokemon Sanctum! And most importantly, I trusted that you believed me when I told you that I could save myself from being overrun by psyonics!"

However instead of lecturing to Feyera with something along the lines of: "Perhaps you shouldn't have been so trusting!" Fredrick replied with a bizarrely straight "I'm sorry."

"…!" Feyera could barely process the agent's out-of-place apology. A warm, cushiony sensation nearly forced him to tone down his anger. Gasping from the strange loss of control, he managed to say surprisingly calmly, "…I know it wasn't real. I'll accept that. But I need to know: what did you do to me? Why the armlet? Why the lies…? Why…?" Feyera's waning voice seemed to wispily fill the larges masts of pre-industrial ships as they passed over the distant horizon; the scientist sharing the very same fear of the sailing ship's crew: the fear of being unable to return.

"'Why?' indeed," Fredrick said concealing a pout. "Now you're beginning to see the importance of that…primordial question. 'Why?' is synonymous with purpose, and purpose is synonymous with life itself. Which is why–"

"–Purpose?" Feyera hastily shook his head. "No, this deception of yours goes well beyond any purpose I've been made aware of!"

At this, the police agent smiled. "Your conclusion that I'm the one pulling the strings is a natural response I presume. Considering the circumstances, I can hardly blame you. I suppose if you can't understand something, then it's best to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid!" shouted Feyera. "You just manipulated me like some kind of beast!"

"And what do beasts run off of? …Fear–" Fredrick held his breath, a tired smile warming his face "–That's really embedded in your nature now for good, isn't it? All you know how to do is attempt to cope with it. Running away isn't coping. The sooner you learn that for yourself the better off you'll be –"

"Wrong! You cured me of senseless fear! You taught me I didn't have to be afraid! That psyonics could be used to help others!"

Fredrick replied rather hollowly, "Did I really…?"

"Yes," insisted Feyera. "You may have not been the trustworthy police agent I've ever met, but you taught me one thing: that I couldn't allow fear to diminish my strength! 'Psyonics are all in the state of one's mind' you said. 'The only hurdle of the mind is fear.'"

Fredrick shook his head. "That emotion is quite hard to shake though isn't it…? Especially when someone else is involved. That's when fear becomes reality. The fear of losing someone special to you…that's true fear. Everything else is …nothing more than a phantom of the mind…a resurrected ghost of the past ushered into the present…"

"–Whoa, hey now, save the philosophical mumbo-jumbo for your damnable sunlit office!" said Feyera anxiously raising his hands in disapproval.

"Hm hm," laughed Fredrick lightheartedly. "You're right, Mister Feyera. You know, for a prodigy, you've got a pretty good sense of humor. I thought you scholarly types were all dorky recluses."

"WHAT? …Dorky recluses?!" Trying to make up for the cluelessness concerning why Fredrick would make a sweeping, over-generalized claim like that, Feyera rebuked by saying, "Listen, I don't have time for your petty stereotyping while the entire world's on the brink!" Feyera pointed at Cipher's enormous warship. "NO ONE DOES!"

"On the brink…?" Fredrick tilted his head to look in the direction of the massive war cruiser. However, he hardly seemed to express any derivative of surprise or anxiety. "On the brink of what exactly, Master West?"

"I…" However, Feyera become so accustomed to Fredrick calling him 'Mister Feyera' that he had to pause for a second to say, "um – please don't call me that." Worse still, Feyera didn't have the slightest idea why Cipher had a vessel outfitted for Armageddon.

"Heh," Fredrick nodded warily. "If you insist. But that was who you were."

"I don't completely remember my past life as a scholar!" Frustrated by Fredrick's twisting of his words, Feyera shot back, "Look, you don't need a PhD to know that whatever Cipher's got planned can't be good! Don't you see the size of that battleship? Look at that RAIL cannon! Pokemon can't defend a shore city from that! Kanto will fall if they're caught off guard!"

With profound indifference, he raised his head to stare at the monstrosity – its massive steam turbines aglow from the faintly reflective harbor water. "Personally, I believe in the combined strength of humans and Pokemon can overcome anything," Fredrick said darkly. "Don't you feel the same way in your heart?"

Feyera couldn't tell if Fredrick was being sarcastic; scrambling for the truth, nothing made sense! "…Fredrick, please, no more games. I'm not your enemy here! You have to inform the KNRA! Kanto's in deep shit if that Great War cruiser makes it out of this island's bay!"

"The army?" Fredrick smirked. "Hah! I don't believe that's necessary, young man."

"What?!" Feyera began to advance with a scowl. "What exactly are you suggesting!? We'd need an entire team to overtake a warship that size!"

"Interestingly enough, Pokemon are exactly the answer to our current dilemma. In particular, your Pokemon, Mister Feyera. The one you're always with. The one you depend on to use your psyonics!"

"Pah! Pokemon? Let me be clear: there is no Pokemon left. I may have stolen from a Pokemon, but it is a separate entity entirely within my control," Feyera said with as much confidence as the young man could muster.

"Sure…" Fredrick replied with a role of his eyes.

"Fredrick, I don't know what big-game-hunting tactics you're playing at. But I'm going to stick with my original plan since it actually makes some degree of sense! If you want to get out of here alive, I suggest you start appeasing my rationality."

"Ah–ah." An outstretched hand slowed Feyera's progress. Beneath the sleeves of Fredrick's overcoat Feyera could see serrated jet-black markings running up his arms. "Now, now; just because I said you were funny in times of pressure doesn't mean that your humor will get us anywhere fast."

"ARGH! I'm not joking around!" Feyera yelled fretfully, whilst pointing his nose arrogantly up into the air. "Stop acting like a know-it-all!"

"Says the haughty honors student who's lost his memory," sneered the tall agent in a half laugh.

"Humph! You don't know anything!" Feyera replied, his brows tingling.

"No need to mislay your emotional stability either. You don't want to do harm to your particular brew of psyonics before you even tap into them."

Indeed, Feyera had been caught in a frenzy of confusion, anger, and distraught. Worst of all, he could not help but allow it to overtake him. "Emotional stability!?" repeated the overwhelmed young man. "What are you talking about?! This isn't about me! This isn't about psyonics! This isn't about feelings! This is about saving Kanto from Cipher! How can you be so calm?!"

"And to that, I'd answer: how can you be so disarranged, so radically – emotional – in a time that requires utmost levelheadedness?"

"I… I can't remain levelheaded when I can't even trust the man next to me will do what's right. I can't trust you! The…emotions… *cough* *urhack!** what I'm feeling… it isn't allowing me to!" He thrust his arms out aggressively in Fredrick's direction, feeling marvelously competent in his trigger-happy resort to psyonics. "ARGH! I can't! I won't!"

"Take hold of your temper!" Fredrick's stern voice captured Feyera's attention before it was too late. "Don't you remember from last time?"

"Remember what?" he wondered.

"Remember… All it took was a single police agent to take down the entirety of Team Rocket's Kanto Headquarters." The agent tilted his hand as he spoke, reveling the shining RAIL barrel strapped horizontally across his back. "Though, to be fair, I had a little help from a brave psyonic back then as well." Fredrick opened his hand in a seemingly benign gesture. "…Mister Feyera, I–I" Fredrick seemed to be getting a little choked up "I hope we can still work together. …As a team without shackles."

"…!" Biting his lip, using the sharp pain to help ignore the overwhelming, driving urge to help protect Fredrick, Feyera replied, "Fredrick… I don't know what the hell's gotten into you. But I'm not about to go along with your plan until I get my answers from you! That's priority if you want my trust on this undertaking!"

"Answers?" sighed Fredrick, "Pray tell: what do you really want to know from me?" Before Feyera could say anything, Fredrick added, "But first ask yourself if you feel the answer will be comfortable. Acceptable even. Mister Feyera, first ask yourself if your capricious heart can endure the potential emotional strain."

"I know what it is I want to know!" "Fredrick," Feyera raised his left arm, pointing at the mark left behind by the armlet; the area of skin had all but lost its color, numbed from either the grip of the device or something much more sinister. "Tell me about the Reilken Mercurius!" ordered Feyera. "Tell me what you injected into me! Why did you tell me it was an ancient device! Why did you lie!?"

"Hmm…" Fredrick's quiet gaze traveled to Feyera's arm. His brow furrowed at the sight. "Was it completely destroyed?" he asked with an air of suppressed concern.

"Destroyed?!" Feyera manically repeated, showing Fredrick the damaged piece of machinery. "What about the fact that you were sticking me with something?! A serum! A drug! A virus for all I know…! Eh! What was it?!"

"I–I had no choice," Fredrick stumbled over his words. "I'm…sorry."

"You're sorry?! SORRY?! Sorry doesn't cut it, jerk! What was it? What did it do? Where is the real Reilken Mercurius!? *Gasp!*" A bitter shiver ran up Feyera's spine. "Where is the real relic responsible for what took place two years ago?! Tell me! Tell me right NOW!"

"Mister Feyera, calm down!" ordered Fredrick. "This isn't the time for antics!"

"NO! You have no goddamn right to demean me!" Feyera hollered. "I can't trust you! You betrayed me! You betrayed my trust! Tell me right now, you fucking piece of shit: What's stopping me from killing you where you stand!?"

Instead of reaching for his ion rifle in response to Feyera's mounting angst, the illusive agent smoothly replied, "Okay, maybe I have betrayed what your heart calls 'trust'. But, I promise, I only wanted to protect you from yourself."

"By sticking me? Yeah, that sure makes a lot of sense…!" Feyera said crossing his frail arms.

"Let me ask you something: are you able to feel faith? Faith in me?"

"Faith…?" a puzzled Feyera asked. His palms tingled with warmth. Doused in sweat, his arms shivered violently, all his energy holding the beaconing psyonic urges to retreat back into deeper within his mind. Behind a foggy aura of feverish red, the hot-iron doused irises honed in on Fredrick's expression, his face, his muscles, everything about the annunciation as it took place in highly discernible, orchestrated precision right in front of Feyera's enraptured eyes!

"Do you have faith in your heart?" Fredrick lowered his gaze. He peered past the orb of light in Feyera's hands, past that glowing illusion made by the mind and directly into the young man's emerald eyes. "Faith is a sense of trust – transcending the rational, seeing the invisible, believing in the unbelievable, all the while receiving the impossible—"

"—I don't need your silly faith. How could you ask me to take all this on faith? That's nonsense!" Feyera yelled back in dismay. "Quit insulting me!"

"It's one simple request: take a leap of faith," urged the officer, "if anything, then do it in light of the present circumstances. Do it for Deirdre… Please…"

"Faith…?" The word only held a fraction of a meaning to Feyera. "NO!" "I can't… Not after what you've done. Not after all the deceit. Not after you betrayed me…!"

"You know what? Fine. *Ahem!* Do a quick cost-benefit analysis if mere 'faith' doesn't suffice for you." Fredrick lazily rolled his left arm in a wide arch. "Be a good scientist, why don't you?"

"A good scientist…? Is that what I'm supposed to be? …Is that who I'm supposed to be now?"

"Heh. Just look around at where we are, doc! Then why not tell me that us fighting each other is the rational decision to make!"

"He's right…!" thought the young man. "Gah! Dammit!" Feyera shouted whilst dropping his defensive arms. "Damn your sensible logic…!" he grumbled under his breath.

"Hah! All right! Haha!" Fredrick let out a hearty laugh and rubbed his gruff shadow of stubble. "Glad to see the young researcher hasn't changed too much on his journeys! Were you always a sap for some probability one–oh–one?"

"Bah! You're not off the hook yet!" In his mind, Feyera knew Fredrick was right; the thorough explanation he wanted wouldn't be feasible right now. "I'll have my answers from you!"

"Hey, relax sonny; I don't exactly have anywhere to run away to." But Edge could tell Fredrick was struggling with something inside as he said, "And believe me: I want to leave almost as much as you do. …This place gives me the creeps."

"All right then." Feyera tried to encourage the glowering agent by saying, "Say, you know what?"

"Hmm?" Fredrick raised a curious brow. "What?"

"You might be worth keeping around after all." "…At least for my sake…"

"Hah!" Fredrick gave a carefree shrug. "Ohh, now I see how it is. What percent do you reckon keeping me alive contributes to your likelihood of getting outta here in one piece?"

"Mm. That depends." Feyera gave the officer a friendly nod. "Fredrick, we need to work together. I care too much to fight you. I care too much about –" "Sanaria…" " – I'm going to need your help to escape. This whole place is crawling with Cipher's agents!"

"Undeniably. You do care; I can sense that more than ever before," Fredrick nodded in agreement, emphasizing, "but from where you stand now, Cipher's all around you."

"Hmm. Then we need a plan to reduce their numbers so we can make a clear break for it!" No longer feeling as defensive, Feyera jumped straight into strategizing, quickly surveyed the quiet shipyard asking, "Did you clear this harbor of troops?"

"Of course. Hah! It didn't take too much effort, considering Cipher's off-shore facilities employ mostly mercenary grunts from the Rockets. *Sigh…* Tsk tsk… the poor, hopeless amateurs," he said half-jokingly.

"Wait a sec, how'd you know–"

However before Feyera could finish his thought, Fredrick quickly asked, "–Tell me: do you have Pokemon on you, or are you going to try and use your little mind tricks in the event of conflict?"

"I…uh…I have half my team," Feyera answered truthfully, "I spent all my psyonic energy just to break into this harbor!"

Fredrick smiled. "…Did you now? Heh. So you were only threatening me before when you said you'd kill me? How conniving!"

"I barely managed to squeeze through thanks to Des—my Gyarados," he said "and my trusty Charmeleon as well!" but Sana, the Gardevoir who seemed to grant him strength to defy all odds was not. "I can't let Fredrick think I'm completely defenseless…even without my psyonics. They're not gone or anything, I'm just afraid if I fall into them again something terrible will happen! Last time, I barely came out of the trance…"

"Impressive, so that racket coming from the main bulkhead was you…" Then the officer looked skywards at the lofty steel-plated ceiling and asked, "Cipher's admin…does he know you're here, Mister Feyera?"

"Yes. He does–" though how Fredrick knew Ein was a 'he' went unquestioned by Feyera, who spoke somewhat frantically, "– listen to me very carefully: the admin here – Ein – he's a bloody murderer! Ein killed Lorelei outright with his Pokemon! And he's coming for me next. I don't know what he wants but it has to do with my psyonics. He was talking about a project called 'Angelus'…" Fredrick remained quiet, seemingly locked into a fixated contemplation; Feyera remembered that the officer was prone to retreating into steady rumination. Feyera took this as a queue to continue talking, "We don't have much time! Cipher's conscripted Team Rocket mercenaries are outside in the bay as we speak."

Alarmingly, that got Fredrick's attention almost immediately. "You said the Rockets are in the bay right now?" he asked curiously.

"Yes," Feyera verified, "They're coming from the interior harbor we escaped from." "Sana…" he thought with an unprecedented wanderlust. "I need to get back to her before it's too late…!" "Fredrick, I have to go protect my Pokemon! I can't let anything bad happen!"

"Hmm. Curious… there's a lot of love you have for your Pokemon, isn't there?" The agent smiled, giving Feyera a sharp sneer. "Love… Quite a delicate specimen, isn't she?"

"Huh?!" replied a surprised Feyera. "W–what do you mean by that?"

"Your Pokemon," Fredrick clarified, allowing his leering smile to loosen.

"Right, my Pokemon…I can love them, can't I? I'm a licensed Pokemon trainer!"

"Sure you can." Anticipating Feyera to retort in predictable denial, Fredrick pointed to the sea creature coiled around the bow of the nearby yacht. "For instance that Gyarados there. She's rather small for her species, wouldn't you say?"

"Size doesn't matter," Feyera dismissed the condescending remark. "Does he know about siphoning…? Does he know about Sana…?" The young man couldn't help but feel as though there was more to what Fredrick had said to him. Quickly he concluded, "– But time does matter!"

"Never mind then." Fredrick turned away from Feyera to face Cipher's warship. Then he chastised Feyera saying, "I simply thought you'd account for such risky fragility in your plan, that's all."

"I didn't exactly have time to draft it out," said Feyera. "It was a last minute decision to split up and barge in here. I didn't think we'd find a freaking war cruiser docked in Evercrest's main harbor!"

"And yet here it is before us…" muttered Fredrick. "Terrifying, wouldn't you say? Say, do you think anyone would even believe us if we told them about this?"

"They'd believe you," grunted Feyera. He was beginning to get annoyed by Fredrick's time-wasting comments. "Either way, my Gyarados will get cooked by Ein's Electric Pokemon. He's got a defensive array run by a Magneton and a Porygon. Calls it S–N–Tri. It's security on steroids!"

"…And you were able to get past it…?" Fredrick whispered in concealed wonder. "…How…?"

"Well, I wouldn't do it again I that's what you're asking me!" Feyera answered Fredrick's perplexed expression with a gesticulation of arrogance. "Anyway, Sana – I mean… my Pokemon and I were able to briefly disable it. Together, we managed to escape with a mutual Teleport."

"I see," simpered Fredrick. "A mutual Teleport, huh?"

Feyera realized how nonsensical he had sounded and wilted his head saying, "Err…yeah. Something like that …I think… Ya'know, I bumped my head. I guess so I don't remember what really happened. Somehow, we got away." He quickly caught his breath thinking, "Ah…but it felt so real. Was it real…?"

"Sigh… okay, okay." Fredrick rolled his eyes at Feyera's apparent internal distress. "I'd hate to put a Pokemon in danger; especially one you've grown somewhat fond of."

"Fond of…?" That seemed to be more than a queue that Fredrick knew more than he pretended to. "What are you trying to imply?"

"Oh," shrugged Fredrick, "I only tend to imply very little in my words." Answering Feyera's ensuing grumble Fredrick cheerfully jabbed, "Saves a great deal of time, doesn't it?"

"Right…" Feyera said hoarsely. "Time's of the essence!" Once more, the Pokemon trainer went to contemplating a course of action. "We'll need to act fast! It won't be long though before Ein and his Cipher cronies show up here! I don't even know the base's layout!"

"Well, you did haphazardly barge into their fortress," rebuked the agent. "You sure you don't remember anything about getting out of here? Would've pegged you as an expert by now."

"Will you cut it out? I'm trying to think us out of this mess!" snapped Feyera.

"Humph…" Fredrick walked towards one of the control booths along the dock. "Not the shrewdest decision, but nonetheless an impressively passion-filled one. How unlike you, doc."

"Will you please quit badgering me like a goddam parent!?" yelled a defensive Feyera. "I had no other choice; the PWC's motor crapped out on me!" Feyera took a step towards Fredrick, albeit with hesitant caution. "C'mon, we gotta move. We don't have time to fight, only time for flight. Team Rocket is going to overrun my Pokemon waiting for me outside if I don't hurry back!"

"And there it is. Just as I thought." The police agent closed his eyes, placing his hand on one of the dials. "There's something you want to get back to, isn't there? …Someone special."

"What?" Feyera flushed whilst saying, "I want to save my Pokemon, Fredrick! Who knows what they'll do! You know as well as I that Team Rocket is nothing but a gang of heartless bastards!"

"Heartless bastards? Interesting choice of descriptive vocabulary, Mister Feyera." Apathetically, Fredrick turned, exiting the open-windowed control booth seemingly to rhetorically ask the war cruiser, "Those eloquent words make one wonder: will those heartless bastards ever learn?"

"Fredrick's contemplating. Thinking. What about?" Feyera wanted to know; however, concerning his mental curiosity, the psyonic had learned his lesson when the last time he had attempted to read Fredrick's mind ended in disaster. "Who are you talking about? Ein? Cipher? Or Team Rocket?"

"The Rockets," Fredrick replied slowly. "The men and women supposedly 'excavating rare fossils' beneath Mount Moon."

Feyera wondered, "Why doesn't Fredrick address them as 'Team Rocket' but always as 'The Rockets'? …Must be from the old school, I guess. On dated Kanto Police television shows, the cops always referred to the syndicate as 'The Rockets'. Frederick was supposedly an operative in the police force before the development of the IPF. So that makes some sense…But Fredrick wasn't at Mount Moon was he…? He must have sapped that info from Archer's computer." "*Cough*" Fredrick's continued silence prompted Feyera to say, "You want an answer? They don't learn, Fredrick, they're crooks. *Sigh* Crooks don't learn."

"They don't?" replied the troubled agent. "Are you sure? Do you really mean that?"

"Of course I do–…!" Feyera felt guilty, but the lies were necessary for his protection. "I mean…whatever! It shouldn't matter! Now that I've found you, we can get off this godforsaken island together and get help!" Feyera worriedly looked over at the nearby ships lapping gently with the dark harbor water.

"Godforsaken, huh?" Fredrick couldn't help but raise a brow at Feyera's description of Chrono Island. "That's what this place's become to you, hasn't it?"

"Yes." Feyera agreed surprisingly. Despite his atheistic tendencies, Feyera could think of no other descriptive adjective to describe what the island that birthed Progenitor felt like. Clearly upset, he crossed his arms. "Mark my words; you'll explain everything to me once we're safe. And I'm not letting you out of my sight until you do!"

"Oh–ho." Lazily, Fredrick stroked his partially concealed jawline. It was defined, carved into a broad base. With a carefree tilt of his chin he asked, "How do you propose that, Mister Feyera?"

"Well…" Feyera clenched a fist anxiously. "Didn't you arrive here on helicopter?"

Fredrick took a step back. "N–no!" His surprise seemed more than evident to Edge. "Are you telling me there's a copter here?" he asked worriedly.

"Huh?" the researcher scratched his head in confusion "I thought I saw…"

"–Are you seeing things?" Fredrick asked. "Do you have a fever?"

Instinctually, Feyera felt his forehead. It was warm, but not overly so. In fact, most of the discomforting heat presided in his chest. "Never mind. I jumped to a conclusion." Every sentence was becoming an elegant dance. "I may have seen a black helicopter, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was Fredrick's copter." However, all the evidence truly brought him to that conclusion. "…Was that irrational?" he asked himself, questioning what he had seen before. "…Was that coincidence?"

"So, you're positive that you saw a helicopter? Where?"

"Yeah, I saw a helicopter." "…and it looked a lot like yours." "It was about an hour's walk from this base!"

Somewhat reassuringly, Fredrick answered Feyera's thoughts with a quick, "My copter is several leagues away, Mister Feyera. I landed back in the jungle, before infiltrating this base from the southern gate. I'll be honest, I had no idea this facility expanded around the entire bay. Seems like a lot of it was added on recently…"

"Probably because of that." Feyera pointed to the warship.

"Hmm… that's odd." Fredrick tapped on the nearby computer terminal, which had recently restarted from hibernation and displayed an intricate map of the base.

"What is?" Feyera asked curiously.

Fredrick pointed to the large glowing section of the base representing the harbor they were in. "Everything is quiet but it looks like an elevator is coming our way." Feyera looked at the screen to see a flashing yellow light traveling along a long tunnel comprising Evercrest's chained together facilities shown in a digital module.

"Shit! That's Ein! Fredrick, we need to override the power core while it's in transit! That should buy us some time!"

"Let's see then." Fredrick eagerly typed on the terminal's metal keyboard. "Oh, it appears I cannot disable the power supply!"

"Gah! Why not?!"

"Because it's using power separate from the base's back-up core. Look at these power levels, the entire grid is hibernating or something." Fredrick pointed to a series of narrow cobalt bars representing the electricity. "But… it appears the elevator's electrical generator has somehow gone mobile."

"Ein's Magneton…" thought Feyera. "That's bad news for us. That Pokemon killed Lorelei."

"Hmm… I can't hack it," Fredrick said worriedly. "Unless you can come up with a better idea, I think we're both going to be facing strong opposition very soon."

"Dammit! I can't fight Ein without Sana by my side!" "Fredrick, we need to bail!" said Feyera.

"Bail?" queried Fredrick. "Come again?"

"Hmhm." Quickly, Feyera resorted back to his original plan. "Yes, it's a longshot: we'll hijack Lorelei's yacht –" he pointed to the Prima "– then ram our way out of the harbor and out into the open bay. We'll pick up my Pokemon before Team Rocket troopers overrun them, then head into the Southern Sea and radio in an airstrike!"

"Sounds simple enough," Fredrick concluded, though Edge could tell he was trying hard not to smile at the researcher's abstract proposal. "We'll simply 'call in an airstrike' on the premise of zero evidence of Cipher's criminal activity here. *Sigh* …It's a novel idea Mister Feyera, but don't you want the glory of taking down this massive hunk of war?" Fredrick pointed to the quiet behemoth lapping gently in the dark water. "I'm sure the two of us could sink it in no time if we work together."

"Uhh." Feyera felt torn. The ship silently spanned the entire length of the main steel dock, completely inert and defenseless. "I need to get back to Sana; I promised her I'd rescue her and July…"

Fredrick pointed at the jagged bow of the ship. "Your psyonics and my RAIL gun should prove more than a match for that ship's hull. We can sink it together. I have two ion rounds that can be augmented by your psyonic whirlpool."

Feyera frowned at this suggestion. "I already told you, I can't use my psyonics on a whim! There aren't any 'rounds' just utter chaos!"

"What are you saying?" asked Fredrick in alarm. "Are you afraid?" he pressured.

"N–no. It…just feels too risky." Secretly, Feyera worried that his psyonics would overtake him for good. Permanently. "The psyonic sensation – before at the harbor's gate – it was almost completely beyond my control. I don't want to become a tool to anybody. I can't even properly use my psyonics as my own tool!" "*Sigh…*"

"Now's the time to act, Mister Feyera!" Fredrick said forcefully. "Cipher's already expended the brunt of their forces. If we can just take the Tauros by the horns, and sink their dreadnaught here and now…!"

"I– …" Feyera fought the temptation to employ his psyonics by resorting to doubt. "How do you know for sure? There's no telling what Cipher might do next! It's too dangerous to stay and fight, we need backup." However, for Feyera 'backup' implied a fair deal of miscellany: from rescuing Sanaria to informing the army about Cipher's warship.

"BACKUP?!" Fredrick scoffed. "The two of us don't need backup. This ship's defenseless! A sitting Ducklett!"

"And so is Sana…!" Feyera said in a blend of telepathy and speech.

"Just who is Sana?" Fredrick asked in subdued curiously.

"Err… Sana… She's someone who protected me, and who I owe protection." Feyera answered somewhat awkwardly.

"Sounds sweet, kid; you two engaged yet?"

"Gah! She's not like a girlfriend!" Feyera scoffed, raising his nose high into the air. "Don't worry about it; it's definitely not something a charlatan like you would ever understand!"

"Mmm. I don't intend to pry… She's in your heart, isn't she?" Fredrick's playful grimace transformed into a more serious expression. "Heartstrings aside, Mister Feyera, now's the time to act!"

The thought of seeing Sanaria surrounded by forces her and July could not be saved from made Feyera worry. It made him worry a lot. "Can you be sure, Fredrick?" he asked. "Do we really need to do this?" "What if Team Rocket–!?"

"–What's gotten into you?" interrupted the agent. "You're wasting time by worrying! You can still get back in time to save the Pokemon! You can do both with your power."

"I–I can…?" asked a disbelieving, and ready to collapse Feyera. "I can't believe that…I feel as though I'm at my end… why am I so tired?"

"That's the point! Psyonics are a power that comes forth from your heart, from your desire to do what must be done, even when the desire drives you to fearful ecstasy."

"The ecstasy is real. …But what of my fear of losing it…?"

"Losing it? You mean: losing you fear of losing control? …I thought you wanted to be rid of it! Haunter's no more right? I thought you were freed of your fears, the lack of control — your limitations."

"Maybe you're right…" "Maybe psyonic power is that way…" "but I cannot allow desire to take me to the point of stupidity!" Try as he might to rationalize a solution, Feyera's insistent thoughts continuously wandered back to the Gardevoir he had left behind. "Sana…she needs me to get back to her…" "I can't stay here Fredrick." "I need to go back before anything bad happens to her." "It's too risky."

"I thought you said the world was 'on the brink'," Fredrick said cunningly, "you'd choose to take flight back to your Pokemon rather than stay and fight to save the world from destruction? What's come over you? A Pokemon is replaceable, the world is not."

"It's not what you think," said an unexpectedly vulnerable Feyera . "I … need her… she can't be replaceable. That feeling when our hearts touched… can't be replaceable."

"Mister Feyera…" pressured the officer with an intimidating stance "you're becoming delusional."

"Enough! I've made my choice!" Feyera said firmly. "There's only enough time to make an escape. Besides, we need more firepower to sink a battleship! We need the KNRA! Cipher has operational missiles. Hell, Evercrest is practically an undercover military base of its own!"

"I'm aware." Fredrick nodded because the two men were in the shadow of a warship after all. "I'm very aware of the danger this place poses to you. In fact, that's exactly why I came here."

"Huh?" "…So you're the one who stopped it?" Feyera asked sharply as he walked closer to the police agent, running his fingertips along the ship's gently bobbing hull.

"Huh?" Fredrick appeared to be definitely caught off-guard. "Stopped what?" he asked.

"You're the one who saved us?" Feyera said so quickly, it felt practically automatic. He couldn't even think fast enough to catch his thoughts as they echoed, "You saved…us?" With a frightening involuntarily tilt of his head, Feyera felt control over his body slipping further and further away, down a waterfall of perceptible sensation. The ship, the harbor, the man in front of him, they were all so vivid. So clearly defined. So saturated in an inky river of color from the afternoon sunlight penetrating overhead.

"Us? Who's 'us'?"

"Me," clarified the researcher, unsure of whether his initial choice of pronoun reflected a torn sense of self, or himself and Sanaria. "And my Pokemon." Feyera held his head in distraught. "Your interference with Cipher's ballistic was what saved us."

"I saved you?" Fredrick replied in a mildly confused tone. "How?"

"Yeah…" But then he thought, "Wait…something isn't right."

"Mister Feyera, we don't have time; take me through what happened," commanded Fredrick. "Step by step."

Carefully, Feyera recalled the events, at first inadvertently reciting Sana's perspective. "There was a firework… ahem… a missile of some sort that Ein fired during the escape from the other harbor. I don't know how, but I was able to see it chasing behind me. But it went off course, high up into the air–" he pointed up towards the lofty steel ceiling "–then there was a huge explosion above the two of us; I'm sure it would've incinerated us if it wasn't set off its trajectory! You sent it off course, right?"

Fredrick paused; silently he squeezed on his nose-bridge, closing his eyes in deep thought. "You know, I appreciate your heartfelt gratitude. I really do. However, I can't stand to see you living in this ignorance any longer –" and, to Feyera's great surprise, Fredrick asked an overwhelmingly mind-boggling question "–, take a second to think: why would Gideon ever want to destroy you?"

"What?! I don't know why—" Feyera paused. His blood suddenly ran cold. Soft needles began to prick and tingle all over his body. Air became sparse and wintery. His hands began to shake. "G–Gideon?" Feyera repeated, unsure if he had heard Fredrick properly the first time. "Gideon…? Forgive me, but you just called Ein 'Gideon'. Fredrick, h–how do you know his real name?"

"Heh." There was a faint nod and a certain sense of satisfaction discernible from the Fredrick's expression. For a brief moment, the azure glow of Fredrick's pride drew alarmingly parallel to the aura perceived by Feyera's eyes. "Don't worry about that part of it. Remember, your little Gardevoir heart isn't able to endure profuse emotional shock."

"…!" Feyera snapped; he could no longer play this game with the so-called police agent. "Fredrick! …Who the fuck are you?!"

"Creak! Hiss!" A loud mechanical groan came from afar, and the whole harbor shook. The gate had begun to open, the thin line of sunlight piercing through the slender gap widened, illuminating the harbor in bright light. The rays of sunshine glistened like tiny stars in a sea of yellow haze, suspended dazzling prisms revealing the darkened face of the police agent. "Sss…" white fog from the eves of the vaulted arch glowed with the bay's light.

"You knew!" Edge blurted. "You knew all this time!"

"Of course I knew," Fredrick muttered, acknowledging the young man's telepathic outcry with a serious expression. "Fate, it would seem, has kept you alive. Against all odds too, based on your peculiar allergy to Serenithium."

"What is Serenithium?" Feyera asked, quickly pawing the patch of mint green skin near his left wrist. "What was in that vial?! You need to tell me!"

"Serenithium was a dream. A compound used to reduce the power of psyonic powers before they overtook their hosts. But now, I'm afraid that the dreamer has woken."

"A dream…?" Feyera repeated, calling to mind the various dreams he experienced in the past. "What do you mean by a dream? Am I…?"

Almost mutely, Fredrick concluded, "Like Deirdre, you are a dream with consequences. The only difference is you may not become a nightmare like she did…" his voice echoed hollowly. Suddenly, there was a loud crash of metal overhead as a piston set off a disruptive clatter of noise, followed by a slow, ominous rasping of machinery. Hissing and steaming, the facility's gears began to groan, coming to life. Small vent-like doors close to the floor opened around the main dock with fiery hisses. "Go! Get out of here!" urged the officer. "You need to get back to her before it's too late! Before the heart's wicked desires overrun you entirely! Before you lose your mind to the Pokemon's will like MY Deirdre!"

"…!" Feyera could feel his pulse rising, the shimmering crystal of Gardevoir anatomy warmed his chest with a reticent energy. "What?!" He felt the warmth of other bodies radiating dull vibrations of heart upon his chest. "Wait…I'm not using psyonics, what's happening to me!?" However, Fredrick did not elaborate, instead turning to face at where a pale beam of reddish light from Feyera's chest pointed. Near one of the steaming vents the pale light reflected on a rising cloud of smoke. Feyera quickly put both his hands in front of his chest, momentarily covering the light the crystal emitted. "FREDRICK?!" Feyera shouted, wrestling with his ambition to maintain a hold on the radiating crystal. "What's going on?! Who's Deirdre!?"

But Fredrick's gaze had honed in upon where the radiant aura had pointed. From the steaming vent came a harsh "hiss!" and a groan as two ebony clad Pokemon, each on their hind legs as if trying to stand, fell to the earth on all fours. Their each of their pairs of eyes were blotches of melted blood upon cold orbs. Simmering and reflecting in the dazzling colorful sunlight from overhead, their shadows resembled mink downs, jet black in color as the field of energy suddenly became disoriented.

"Shadow aura!" yelled Fredrick. Defensively, he reached for his RAIL gun and initiated the charging switch, sweeping low to the ground to steady his police magnum on a wooden crate. "Click! Bang! …Tick! Click! Bang!" went the sound of a deafening magnum, firing two relatively swift rounds. Feyera only had time to see the gushing of fluids spraying out from the direction of the smoking vent. The noise of the feral Pokemon had ceased, but more echoes and howls resounded from deeper within the base. "We don't have time…I can't confront all the Shadow Pokemon on my own! Looks like it's your plan after all, sonny; here, take the keys to Lorelei's yacht. It's time for you to leave this place behind for good!"

"How the hell do you have the keys to Lorelei's yacht?!" "You can't be serious!" protested the young man.

"– Mister Feyera, you still have a lot to learn, and even more to remember," the man said as he drew forth the massive RAIL rifle from his back. It was as shiny and silvery as Feyera had remembered it. "Thanks for being honest with me. I'll give you a clear escape if you follow my instructions to the T —"With a sharp smile he said, "You know, after all this, I'd hate for Cipher to have to put you down or something." Fredrick reached into his overcoat's pocket and tossed a boney set of keys to Feyera.

"Put me down?!" Feyera asked, catching the flung keys in a fluid motion. Even the hard notches of the keys felt incredibly discernible in his palm. "Ah–haa! There's so much to sense!" he thought manically. Everything around him felt heightened. He wasn't even outdoors and the whole harbor was filled with dynamic texture and speckled light, rivaling the brightest of days. "Urgh…! Why…?"

"Mister Feyera, believe me when I tell you that you can't trust anyone!" said a stern Fredrick.

"Apparently!" said the researcher with an angry sneer. "Starting with you!"

"Don't even trust yourself," ordered Fredrick, seemly unperturbed by Feyera's admonishment. "Feelings won't always lead you to do what's right. Only trust in the things with true staying power!"

"Then–" Feyera looked down at the searing heart embedded in his chest "staying power?"

Fredrick nodded. "You'll be able to figure those things out in time. That I have faith in."

"What do I do?" he asked rather helplessly.

"I can't believe I'm saying this but: you'll need to save the Mercurium from decaying. …There's only one other man I know who has researched Mercurium's enough to do so… If there's still an ounce of trouble in this world –" Fredrick said concealing an angry scowl "– then he'll be in Union Cave, at the largest known source of Mercurium! Set course to Azalea Town, on the southern tip of the Johto Peninsula. Look for a man, my age, by the name of Kurt Gabriel! You may have a chance to catch him if he's not hiding."

"Whoa, wait, Kurt?" Memories that he had been unable to recollect seemed able to kick in "Kurt! Professor Oak had mentioned his name in one of his articles!"

"You know him?" Fredrick said rather unpleasantly.

"Uh… yeah." "Whoa!" "He's a rustic Pokéball craftsman." "How did I just remember that!" he wondered. "I haven't read an article by Professor Oak since my research days…!"

"Doesn't matter what he goes by. Find him!"

"Err…in Azalea Town? All the way out there in the boonies? Humph! I may be a traveling Pokemon trainer, but I'm not some boondocks ambassador!" Immodestly, Feyera looked up snobbishly crossing his arms; however, the crystal on his chest seared his forearms with harsh ferocity. "Ouch!"

"Mister Feyera, this is very important: you need to tell Kurt if he wants to make amends – like you have – then he needs to help you."

"What?"

"Tell Kurt that he must continue his research; he must be able to find a way to repair your damaged Pokéballs! If there's a way to do that, then maybe the Mercurium's effect can be reversed engineered–"

"–What?! Hold up a sec, Fredrick! I can just buy a new pack of the gizmos, it's no big deal." Sure, Pokéballs were convenient contraptions. Most laypeople didn't even understand how they worked (and why would they? Pokéball technology was leagues ahead of that processed by Silph), but they were easily replaceable, especially since they would degrade over time and needed to be replaced semi-annually. This profitable marketing ploy also pleased many conservationists since the degrading mechanism conveniently released the Pokemon from permanent confinement should the Pokéball become lost or abandoned. Still, the relationship between the Pokéballs, Kurt, Mercurium, and the Reilken Mercurius itself remained a mystery to Feyera.

"Yes. It's a very big deal. Keep your wits about you, head down low, and above all else, find a way to do what you need to do without 'Edge' overtaking who you really are."

"Who I really am?" A chill ran up Feyera's spine. The young man wanted this to all be a bad dream. "Do what I need to do'…?"

Silently, Fredrick readied his side holster, facing the direction of the growing noise.

"Fredrick…!" "Fredrick…!" Feyera said trying to get his attention. "–Edge doesn't have power over me! I am Edge!"

"Humph… That's what I mean. And I'm afraid it isn't your choice anymore." Fredrick hoisted the large RAIL rifle over his right shoulder. It was as imposing in the light as Feyera had remembered that day in Celadon; streamlined silver splitting menacing into two fanged teeth and an extended barrel plated with several venting pieces of metal fanning out. "I need you to trust me, no matter what happens next."

"YOU'RE WRONG!" Feyera shook his head. "I can't do that."

"If you won't…" frowning, Fredrick didn't push anymore, "then, at least, can you make a promise to do something I wasn't strong enough to do?"

Feyera scratched his head. "What?"

"Promise me you won't forget those closest to you. Please, no matter what, promise not to make a lifelong mistake; you have a responsibility now that your hearts are tied –"

"Ding!" went the elevator gate behind them.

"– together." Fredrick had barely uttered that last word before he and Feyera swiftly turned around to face the resounding noise.

Meanwhile, outside the Evercrest base…

"July, I'm worried."

[What is it, Miss Sanaria?]

"I need to follow your trainer." She looked toward the harbor. "He's not safe."

The Gloom looked around quizzically. They were still trapped in the middle of the bay on open waters surrounded by the inlet's massive cliffs! She asked the Gardevoir seated atop a water-riding Cipher escape vehicle which had frozen, [How exactly can we do that? It's not like we have any way of getting to them.]

Sanaria looked over at the distant harbor where Edge had gone to along with his Charmeleon and Gyarados. She and July were marooned on a defunct PWC until they were rescued…or worse. The Gardevoir spotted a cluster of other watercrafts rushing in their direction from the other harbor. "July…" she said softly "Let's not yet count out all our options."

[You wanna fight those guys!? You're not a Pokemon trainer!]

"Hmm…Maybe you're right. I'm not the same as veh Feyera. I don't know how to commission orders in the same way he does." She gave the other Pokemon a whimsical smile. "But we have enough in common. He's taught me enough to manage."

[Oh yeah riiiight, like your commitment to doing downright stupid things!]

"July!" Sanaria exclaimed at the Gloom's uncharacteristic rudeness, but Sana held off upon seeing a faint grin from under Gloom's curled leaves; indicating that she was joking.

[Kidding. I was just trying to see what it was like not to be so nice. Opposite of what Des says, I think it's super underrated!] the Gloom crossed her stubby arms. [Let's figure out a way to help, I'll do everything I can!]

"Mmm!" Sana smiled. "That's just like you, July. Hah! You're always so nice. You always put others first. …I like that. I hope I can teach veh Feyera to be like that."

[Aw, don't worry! Yeah the doc's a little screwed up in the head sometimes, but I'm sure you and him will make great friends!]

"Um…really…?" she flushed a rosy pink on both her snow-powdered cheeks. "F–friends? Me and veh Feyera?"

[Yeah! Why not?]

Sanaria shook her head and looked hopefully in the direction the trainer headed off in. Seemingly straight into the face of the mammoth cliffs bordering the bay. "July, I need to tell you something: I think that ship's already sailed…" she said softly clutching her shimmering crimson heart.

[Why are you sayin' that with a smile on your face?! Why wouldn't you want to be friends?]

"Don't worry about it," Sana said. She partially closed her large eyes in contemplation. "We're close in a different way."

[I don't get it! Oh, and speaking of ships sailing, what are those…?] July pointed at the watercrafts approaching.

Sanaria looked in the direction of the encroaching speed crafts. "Those…aren't friends either," she said rather artfully.

"Hiss…" A glass door reinforced with metal mesh opened revealing a platform. Standing there was a battered Ein, garbed in angelic white and a short plump man in a snug fitting suit of earthy colors. "HA! Looks like your flight's been delayed, Doctor Feyera!" Ein shouted. "And permanently too! Surround him!"

"Shit!" gasped Feyera as Fredrick whirled around, billowing the length of his suede military garment as he did so. Despite the buttoned uniform's rigidity, its cloak-like posterior swung like a cape, splitting in two straight down the middle.

"FREEZE RIGHT THERE, FEYERA!" shouted the police agent in an unprecedented sternness.

"Fredrick?!" Feyera looked over to see the unfriendly sight of Fredrick's RAIL rifle aiming at him. Ein, emerging swiftly from the elevator, aimed a similar RAIL weapon at Feyera. "What's going on?" he wondered, now being the target of both a rifle and a pistol; Fredrick's ion weapon hissed louder, but then again the rifle had begun charging sooner. "Is Fredrick playing the same game as Lorelei by trying to feign my arrest? Ein isn't gonna fall for that ruse a second time!"

"Arms in the air!" ordered Fredrick. "Call off your Pokemon!" Stupefied, Feyera looked for a trace of a queue in the agent's words. Devoid of any hints, Fredrick demanded, "RIGHT NOW!" and, somewhat reluctantly, Feyera complied.

"Brucie, Des, stand down!" Unbeknownst to Feyera, his Pokemon had both grown alarmingly silent over the telepathic bond once shared. He dismissed this telepathical quietness as a consequence of the ineffable range of feelings brought on by confronting the man called Fredrick. That very same officer was now aiming an ion class weapon at him.

"Reunions like these bring out the best in us all, don't they? Reminds me of back underneath Celadon's Rocket base! Hah!" The frail scientist exited the elevator gracefully and his comrade followed suit clumsily. With poise contradicting his assistant, Ein flicked the single strand of black hair out of his eyes and exclaimed, "Quite the surprise, eh doc? First dear Timothy Rallsen, and now your most recently embraced father figure. Where will the little bastard's search end?"

That stung. A lot. Feyera reacted with a threatening stance. "Who are you calling a bastard?! You're nothing but a motherfucking prick!"

"Pah!" Ein twitched, but remained otherwise composed. It seemed as though he had numbers on his side to counter anything Feyera would throw at him.

"—Gideon," interjected Fredrick, "you haven't changed one bit." He had breezily moved all the way over to the edge of the dock next to the starboard deck, giving him a clearer line of sight towards the elevator gate.

Coolly Ein said, "You're one to talk. …He's as much yours as he is mine. Tell him to step down."

"He's not yours, Gideon. Not anymore."

"You can't…" whispered a distrustful Feyera. "Fredrick, you know him? How…?"

"If he's not mine, then is he yours?" Ein asked Fredrick with a sneer. Fredrick remained quiet, barely able to keep his shaky focus on the elevator doors. "—Incidentally, that would actually make good Doctor Feyera a bastard with two fathers, wouldn't it?"

"…!" Save for a faint growl, Fredrick remained mute.

"What is he talking about?" asked Feyera.

"Ah, yes; you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Ein smirked, glancing quickly over at Feyera and then back to Fredrick. "I'd wager you won over this one's heart in no time. Correct?"

"…It wasn't hard," replied Fredrick with a firm glower. Then his stern glare faded, exposing a whimsical grin. "Humph." Lightheartedly, he concluded, "In fact, I couldn't believe how easy it was. …How natural it felt. It was almost as easy as getting a Gardevoir to trust its trainer."

"…!" Feyera helplessly looked over at Fredrick, feeling every bit of the police agent's venomous words. "No…!"

"Ha!" Ein laughed. "You must be well-versed in your technique then, old friend."

"OLD FRIEND!?" exclaimed Feyera. "Fredrick! What's he talking about!?"

However, Fredrick refused to answer Feyera, and instead pointed his RAIL's barrel at Ein. "Don't you dare call me that! I'm nothing to you!"

The admin didn't even break a sweat at Fredrick's quick change in temperament. Nor did he flinch now that Fredrick's charging weapon was focused on him. "Oh…? Did that strike a nerve?" pressured Ein, who kept his RAIL's focus on Feyera. "You're just chock full of those nowadays, aren't you?"

Jaeger butted in from behind Ein saying, "You won't be playing daddy any longer." Jaeger aimed his wide-mouthed weapon at Fredrick. The chubby man's weapon, a scattershot of some type, almost laughably matched its owner's physique. And so this triage of standing off left Feyera as the only man without a defense, save the ever-precarious psyonics.

"What'll it be then?!" asked Ein, squaring off from opposite ends of the harbor's wide platform. "If you make one move for your Pokemon, it'll all be over; fire that rifle of yours, and I'll neutralize it with my own RAIL gun."

"And then there's me," Jaeger said with a click of his gun. The pudgy scientist also unfastened a nylon rope of strung-together Pokéballs wrapped loosely around his vest. He pulled the silver whip behind his back, where it lay dangling, ready to release all of them at once with a single snap. "I assure you, zee odds are in Cipher's favor!"

"So–" Ein adjusted his sharpened spectacles "–what'll it be, old friend? You, or your second failure of a child?!"

Awestruck by the comment, Feyera's blank expression stared at the growing mystery. "…Gideon," Fredrick muttered as the ominous humming noise from the RAIL rifle continued to rise in pitch. "I told you already where my loyalties rest. …Not with the likes of you, nor with him."

Jaeger twitched, but Ein raised a palm to stop his assistant from casting down the whip of Pokéballs. Instead, almost casually, Ein released his Magneton from stasis. "Now, now. I should've figured as much… This was to be expected, but not from the likes of you. I thought our arrangement would have pleased your deeply troubled heart, Aldaine."

"I knew you couldn't save her…" spoke Fredrick solemnly. "After everything you promised, you couldn't save my daughter…and yet…I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe that you could reverse it."

"What the hell?!" Feyera couldn't help but exclaim in awestruck astonishment. "Fredrick, what's Ein talking about?!" Nevertheless, both the men ignored him.

Ein's assistant bumbled with his wrist-mounted digital assistant, muttering, "Feyera's Mercurium levels have stabilized, Gideon." From across the room he pointed the device's sensor in Feyera's direction then reading the screen said, "Variance level is at thirty percent and falling logarithmically."

"Excellent," replied Cipher's chief research admin. "Just a little more time before the crystal's nature possesses his mind entirely."

"…! SAY WHAT?!" shouted Feyera as worry clouded his consciousness.

"Oh, you didn't tell him?" Ein said with a shrug towards Fredrick.

"Gideon!" Fredrick addressed Ein with an angst-driven tone, "tell me: how did you do it? How did you manage to disable the Serenithium I.V. on Feyera's wrist from a distance?"

"Peh, you're as inquisitive as ever. I suppose – considering you're still alive – I'll reward you with an explanation." Ein glared at the Magneton whirling alongside him.

"Now hold on one minute….!" Feyera blurted, frantically trying to trace what was unfolding before him.

"Magneton, display module Solaris, build three-nine," Ein ordered. "Quickly!" Immediately, the three Magnemite split apart with one of the artificial Pokemon rising above the other two in a wide arc. "Doctor Feyera, I know you're not exactly the type who remembers things, but in Orre's High Desert there were these disastrous ion storms," Ein said as wicked light from his Magneton menacingly reflected off his eyeglasses.

Feyera did his best not to flinch or show apprehension. Too bad it was written all over his face. "What?" Feyera asked raising a brow. "Orre?" "I haven't been there since I visited my aunt years before the accident." "I don't even remember what it was like…"

Fredrick chimed in, "Natural disasters in Orre? Hmm… Is that why the Pokemon ecosystem was damaged beyond repair?"

"Correct. Frequent, uncontrollable ion storms that seemingly came out of nowhere destroyed any chance of Orre housing an ecosystem favorable to Pokemon like the rest of the world," said a remarkably composed Ein, "Humph… Only the most tenacious could survive in the inhospitable desert for a variety of reasons—" Meanwhile, two Magnemite spun chasing each other in an elliptical orbit underneath the one that had risen above them. "—That was all well before we lived in a modern, globalized world however. Although… it's not like a vanguard from Kanto would care."

"And…? What? You had to move out west to Kanto? Is that what you're trying to tell us?" Feyera asked, recalling when Rallsen mentioned that Cipher was originally based in the Orre region. "Orre wasn't enough of a shithole, so you had to expand your horizons and create problems here in Kanto?!"

"Stow it, Feyera," ordered Fredrick. "Gideon, continue."

"Looks like your little pet needs a little more of zee discipline," Jaeger said tauntingly to Fredrick.

Feyera shuddered violently as heard that. "Pet?!" "I'm not his pet!"

"Oh–oh–ha! Right; not anymore, your collar is missing!" chuckled Jaeger. "Looks like you've lost your Pokemon's leash after all those promises not to, Aldaine!"

"…! The Reilken Mercurius…a collar?" Feyera shot an angry glare at Fredrick. "No…! How could you…?"

"Oh? Oh my! You didn't ever tell him?" Ein quickly asked Fredrick, who shook his head to say "no". "Hah. How incredibly… polite of you. Then again, masters don't owe their Pokemon any explanation. Why waste your breath on a creature unable to comprehend the weight of his power?"

Fredrick winced. Feyera screamed out, "WHAT IS GOING ON?!"

"…Or perhaps there's something – personal – behind the lack of transparency towards your pet?" Ein taunted. "…At the very least, you could have given him a sense of his intended purpose. You could have made him feel ready for this proud moment…"

"That's not going to happen!" Fredrick said with an alarming volume of conviction. "I will not allow it."

"Don't you see?! It already has!" piped Jaeger. "No thanks to Phaeton! …Aldaine, your time with Cipher's property is up! Like your daughter, soon he will belong to our collective."

"WHAT!?" exclaimed Feyera.

Fredrick seemed to be fazed, his eyes darting at Ein, and then at the spire of metal atop the dreadnaught. Collecting his thoughts, the agent answered a roughish grimace, "You know, you probably created a lot more trouble than I could have prevented, Evice. This is no longer your collective."

Jaeger appeared to be taken aback by the name, a long lost alias of Cipher's master impersonator. "Bastard…!" Jaeger exclaimed in perfect, unaccented English. "Such terrible disrespect! How dare you spoil my ruse!"

"Heh. You can drop the act, Evice." said a composed Ein to his partner, "Neither of them will live to tell a soul about who you really are."

"Humph!" The short Cipher agent crossed his arms. "…And here I was getting so good at playing that character!"

"Looks like it's time to find a new alias then," Fredrick said to Evice doggedly, "maybe you should run for mayor or something, I'm sure a small town could use another 'Es Cade'."

"–WHAT?!" Amid all these revelations "Uh– Fredrick?!" exclaimed Feyera, his heart pounding frantically out of control. "Ahhh!" Sensation in his nerves volleyed in resonating waves of increasing frequency! Thoughts scrambled, head trembled. "EIN…!" he hollered in dismay. "What's happening…?! What did you do?" "What's happening to me?!" Fredrick nodded in Feyera's direction. Like a glimmering light at the end of a tunnel, Fredrick's signals seemed to become ever more distant. "ARGGGHHHHH!" cried Feyera. Strangely however, the group seemed to be ignoring him despite the racket. "Haaahh! Haaaaaah!" he gasped for air, it seemed only sweet oxygen could possibly calm his rollercoaster-like pulse.

"Evice – make no mistake – if you fail to play you cards right –" Fredrick said with a twisted expression "–much more than Feyera will be lost."

"Pah! Your well-kept psyonic going to lose it," insisted Evice. "It doesn't matter anymore what you say! Without Serenithium, the Mercurium in his body is moments away from breaking down. The resulting chain reaction will leave nothing behind but the shell of a human guided by the spirit of vengeance itself! HAH! I can't wait to see the look on your face when his eyes become as soulless as your sweet baby Aldaine's!"

"You'll regret those words, worm," Fredrick said, striking daggers in his tone.

"Quiet! All of you!" ordered Ein. "I have something to show you."

Evice turned to face the lean admin. "Ein? …Do you have something to say?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. People are able to engineer almost anything given time and money. But the most important resource is motivation," Ein said with a snap of his finger. One of the two Magnemite closed its round eye, and paused its cycling. Feyera held his breath in anticipation, the palms of his hands grew cold and wet. "That's our power. Humans are strategizers. Producers. People see a problem and use our heads to repair it. Not unlike Feyera's treasured Gardevoir species."

"*Cough! Ack! Hack!* …Try another time to agitate me, Ein! *wheeze* I'm all fed up for the day!" growled Feyera. "Your taunts mean nothing! I've mastered Edge!"

"Pitiful denial. I know how much you adore them; and now you can spend the rest of your days with one," Ein said with icy laughter, looking menacingly at Feyera's shivering arms. "You won't soon forget to avoid crossing me. Soon, you will only take orders from Cipher, just as your predecessor has. Soon, you will be sealing the hearts of Pokemon and creating an army of Shadow Pokemon!"

"You're wrong." Scowling, Feyera stubbornly replied to his opponent, "I'm not a part of your plan anymore!"

"IDIOT! Don't you get it? Hmhmhm!" Evice chuckled. "All thanks to you, little bookworm, it's already happened! And it'll happen again right before our eyes!"

"Gideon," said a glowering Fredrick. "Continue with the explanation. Now."

"Hmm… feeling rather impatient are we? Don't worry, you'll see your little girl soon enough." Ein said with a devilish smirk. "In any regard, following the rediscovery of archaic industry, something strange became apparent to people living in Orre. Occasionally regions of Orre lost power, seemingly without reason. Lights would go out, circuits would overheat, computers would lose data, machinery would grind to a halt. Of course, this was only recognized by the Pokemon before the integrated circuit was unearthed by humanity. In fact, this invisible phenomenon was what caused many of them to migrate since Pokemon using electrical signals to function would briefly cease functioning. Think about it: to be without electricity would be debilitating to us, but deadly to them. Especially since electricity is life energy itself. This upset the balance of Orre's ecosystem, and slowly wild Pokemon left the region, never to return–" Feyera continued to watch the ominously floating group of Magnemite. "–Tragic that creatures so powerful could be so delicate, no? But look who it is I'm talking to."

"Get on with it!" Feyera demanded.

"Funny, you only used to get this hotheaded when it came to meeting your deadlines. Now I can't steal a glimpse of you without being stunned by your frivolous emotions. I hate seeing how fieldwork has gone so terribly awry."

"The science project is over, Ein! I'm done with you and your distorted ambitions! What you did was wrong…! Project Progenitor…" Haunting memories of blood-crusted needles above his eyes sent shivers down his spine "should not have happened…! You never deserved my research, this….!" He touched the Gardevoir crystal, shouting out in ecstasy, "THIS…!" "HAAH! AH! Argh…! This….! *Gasp*! …Isn't what was planned…! It has to stop! I can't live like this…!"

"It's only just begun." Ein pawed his chin with an index finger. "Let me ask you something, Feyera: where's your sense of adventure? Where's that ever-important, oh-so-irresistible spark of curiosity when it comes to learning something about this strange world?"

Fredrick spoke up before Feyera could retort by saying, "Gideon, continue with the explanation. How does this all tie into Orre?"

"Ah yes… By the time people began using integrated circuitry, Orre's wild Pokemon were all but gone. Worse still, Silph's global monopoly had cut the desert region off from the Pokemon-free technology. Then the Great War happened; Orre revolted against Kanto. In the war's wake, technology had spread rapidly into Orre as an unprecedented consequence. Kanto's special ops and insurgents alike had brought enough of the new Pokéball technology and brought into the very region they were seeking to quash; effectively they accomplished exactly what they were trying to avoid."

Feyera scratched his head. "So this all goes back to the Great War?" asked the trainer.

"Doesn't everything?" said Evice. "We're nothing but the byproducts of cataclysm."

"My associate is correct," said Ein. "After the Great War, rather than forming an embargo over Orre, Kanto sought to regulate the nation's economy by making it a part of Silph's worldwide enterprise. However, there was a problem. Actually, more of an intentional blight cast upon Orre. The imported Pokéball technology was designed to be faulty. After a few weeks of functioning, it would fail; Serenithium would leak out. And with valuable residue, went control through use of Pokéballs. Tension between Kanto and Orre grew all over again. People in Orre believed that Silph had sabotaged the exported technology as a means to retaliate after the war. Rebels found it an easy enough cause to fight for. Many people feared another Great War."

"But, that never happened… why?" asked Feyera, with enough curiosity to irrigate out the rivers of perpetually ecstatic sensation.

"Because of science. The abrupt, widespread failure of Kanto's 'Pokemon Independent Tech' became more predictable. How, you ask? Simple. I studied the phenomena. Rather than standing by idly in shelters, I investigated; rather than turning to the hills to retreat, I calculated. I took each occurrence and dissected its every attribute. Then I researched. Tirelessly. Ceaselessly. I looked into the past…unearthed it. And what did I find? Orre's upper atmosphere had been ravished thousands of centuries ago. The desert storms occasionally disabling the new technology from Kanto were nothing more than the sun's solar wind penetrating through our sky's canopy, causing impulsive, yet curable destruction."

"You did all that?" asked a nearly speechless Feyera. "Why?"

"To better our understanding of the world, Feyera. A noble cause, just like Progenitor. Producing improvements to Pokemon and people alike is…"

"–Lies!" Feyera spat at the mention of Progenitor. "Admit it, you didn't want to correct anything, you only wanted to control it!"

"Humph. So what if I did?" Ein's gaze darkened. "…You tell that to the people of Orre who were left without Pokemon or power after the Great War! …You tell that to the Orre rebels on the verge a second world war because they believed Kanto was retaliating in a time of presumed peace!"

Feyera clenched his jaw shut. Orre was practically another world to him. A very foreign one. A world tainted by the past. Adulterated by international politics, bureaucracy, and war. Stranger still, Ein had for once shown a hint of emotion when it came to Orre's history.

"…I fixed the problem, Doctor Feyera," Ein gave an exaggerated slash of his arm "–My research stopped the second Great War from happening."

"I don't believe you! Fredrick –" Feyera pointed towards the police agent opposite him "– he doesn't believe you either! EIN! You're nothing but a liar!"

Evice shook his head. "Ignorance won't save you from the truth. You simply don't remember how pragmatic empiricism gets results."

"Correct. You've lost that, Feyera. Now, you're too empty to appreciate the scale of my brilliance. Yes, and this is the fruit of my labor," Ein pointed at his split up Magneton. The Magnemite on top whirled its twin magnets aside, generating pulses of yellow sparks. They jumped and sprung around the small synthetic Pokemon. With an unprecedented zap, the lead Magnemite electrocuted both of the other Magnemite below it. Feyera put his hands up defensively. "Hah!" Ein sniggered from behind his charcoal tinted glasses as electrical light bounced off their reflection. "Watch the show!"

Upon impact, the Magnemite with an eye open suddenly sealed closed like a camera shutter. In doing so, one of its magnet arms shot off and collided with the other Magnemite with a loud "cling!" The dormant Magnemite opened its eye immediately as the electrical onslaught dissipated. It had resisted the shock completely and was notified by the other one when to reanimate itself!

"And there you have it. Foolproof. A system that completely bypasses electrical interference caused by solar radiation or other so-called 'ion exciters'—" Ein's eyes glistened "—by integrating two separate platform generators that alternate whenever a current overloads the primary system. Should one be overloaded, the other is automatically triggered via 'REFLUX Programing' or Reinitiated Electrical Flux—the digital concept of a biological kneejerk. And as you can see… No temporary loss of power while the generator shifts. No breaks in the circuit. A perfect defense to any natural electrical interference."

"Wait…that really happens in nature?" Feyera was finding it all difficult to believe. He knew Ein was brilliant. But Ein's brilliance was masked by rancor. Still, a part of Feyera could not help but be subtly charmed by the delightful prospect of science engineering nature. Correcting it. Refining it. Swooping in whenever nature went wrong. Fixing whatever nature did wrong. "And you can fix it…? With science…?"

"Correct. Amplify the magnetic field given off by Magneton, and 'Sun Shielding' does the rest! Though I have to admit, the SS tech's implications go far beyond deterring things merely natural."

Fredrick spoke up, "Okay, then what are you saying?"

"Yeah… What does this mean?" Feyera asked, unable to see the connection.

"Fools. It means that the power of the sun is once again in the hands of mankind. As you've undoubtedly witnessed first-hand, Doctor Feyera."

"Wait…" Edge's thoughts stirred. "The firework! The one that exploded into stars of light and color." "That was made out of the sun?"

"No! Not the sun. The sun's projected particles. Charged particles called ions. What you saw was light energy from space passing through the planet's magnetic cover. An artificial aurora. A localized ion storm triggered by a burst of radioactive Mercurium!" Ein explained. "…we've opened a new gateway to evolution!" he whispered excitedly.

"I…" He didn't know what to say, much less produce vocal intonations corresponding with what he felt. Language had begun to fail him. Yet not even this could be fully explored, as Feyera was bathed in a comforting sea of neurological bliss, the feelingly stunting his curiosity, slowing his breathing, and causing the young trainer to lose sight of his concerns amid the sea of newly-awoken fields of perception.

"You're familiar with it, yes?" Evice asked with a stern grin. "With the Mercurium?"

"Undoubtedly," Fredrick answered bluntly as if for Feyera. "It was the first pre-Terminal War technology able to control Pokemon. Subsequently, the material was used in the construction of Pokéballs by refining it into Serenithium. My only question is: where did you get such an abundance of the liquid metal in order to create a warhead made of it?"

"Oh, where else? Underground. In Kanto's long-forgotten mines," Ein said proudly. "Team Rocket makes for great ore excavators. …If half of them go mad, nothing is missed!"

Evice bobbed his head up and down in agreement. "Radioactive materials are rather volatile if they are not properly purified. Amorphous technology like Mercurium is doubly hazardous since you have ancient technology coupled with trace nuclear radiation from the Terminal War."

"So, the Rockets don't know that the unearthed Mercurium is radioactive?" asked Fredrick.

"Does it matter?" Evice asked cheekily. "They're expendable."

"I'm sure some of them figure it out," supposed Ein, "but I'm also sure it's far too late by then."

"You son of a bitch! You've been poisoning people this whole time!" Feyera wanted to say, but strangely enough, he could not bring himself to say it aloud. Something invisible had gripped around his neck in a tight vice. "I guess…if those people were working for Team Rocket, then it was their fault in the first place!" Still, this rationale seemed to be littered with holes; perhaps the most obvious being a red crystal jutting out from the Team Rocket uniform Feyera wore.

"Who's going to miss a few criminals anyway?" taunted Ein. He pointed his RAIL weapon at Fredrick. "Not you or me; that's for sure."

"You are a criminal!" Feyera desperately tried to bellow. Unfortunately, his projected telepathic thoughts were only able to capture a brief glance from Evice.

"And you're not?" pressured Evice in reply.

Ein answered Fredrick's absent expression, "Now, I bet you're wondering: 'why waste a perfectly good Mercurium-filled missile?' Not to mention a 'Phaeton Missile' packed tight with radioactive Mercurium could send the entire KNRA back to the Stone Age! After all, Union Cave is all dried up!"

"It–it is…?" said Fredrick "Then that means…Kurt…!"

"Kurt? No, after he returned to holistic Pokéball creation, there wasn't much use left for the old man…" Ein raised two illuminated prisms closer to his menacing eyes with a stroke along his tall nose. "Let's face it, your real question is: why would I test-fire it on this pipsqueak of a man first?"

"Ein must have lost it. For him to resort to such measures…he must be insane!" Loudly, Feyera began coughing; forcefully, he cleared his throat feeling able to raspy speak. "Well, looks like you wasted it, Ein! *Hack!* I'm still here! Your missile's a failure! You couldn't even kill me with all the power of the sun at your disposal!"

"Variance level at five percent," said Evice to Ein. "Kinetics are stable enough for brief organic exposure."

"Precisely, doctor," said Ein darkly from behind two sharply-edged, mirrored lenses "but who said I was trying to kill you? What if I was only trying to make you stronger?"

"Gasp…!" "Fredrick said that too! How–" Feyera looked over at Fredrick, who had lowered his RAIL weapon to the ground. "No! Fredrick, what are you doing?!"

Ein smiled at Fredrick, who had crossed his arms disapprovingly. "Thank you for biding the necessary time for Mister Feyera's variance levels to lower to an acceptable range. Ha! Your filibustering techniques are second to none as always. Excellent work, Aldaine."

"Oh no!" shouted Feyera, suddenly realizing what double treachery had taken place. "Fredrick and Ein weren't only old associates, they're working together! Fredrick had been stalling…! He tricked me again…!" "NO! You double-crossing traitor! What are you doing?" he hollered, choking helplessly on annunciation as his neck burned with fire. "ARGH!" gagging incomprehensibly, Feyera fell to his knees. The perceived impact rocketed throughout his body; every fiber reverberated within him to the point of nausea. "Ugh…" Swelling clouds of a misty morning were beginning to congregate over his eyes. Sight became dimmer and more saturated in the most intense colors imaginable.

"–It's going to take some adjusting to all the new things in store for you," Ein said lightheartedly. "But it'll all be worth it in the end."

"What'll be worth it…? I–I'll die…! I'll lose…*GASP!* I'll lose everything! You can't let this crystal overtake me!"

"No. You won't lose a thing. You'll have your wish, Doctor Feyera. You – your work – won't be forgotten. Don't you see? Your fantasy has become your reality. All the fear of your father forgetting about you, all the hope that you had to become important enough to win your father's recognition back was for naught. You are important. You are recognized. Why, I'm sure your catalytic role be well documented in every affordable textbook of the new golden age of humanity!"

"No…" Feyera looked away from the Cipher Admin, down at his heart borne with light between his shaking hands. "Fredrick…how could you…?"

"…But here's the real irony of your work: any father – *humph!* indeed, any semblance of a man to portray your lost father – would deny you, and deny who you've become!"

"NO!" Feyera stared blankly at Fredrick; he was the closest thing to a father he had met on his journey, and although not a very good one, at least there was always hope. Hope for acceptance, hope for adoptive fatherhood. However, the soft beige color had drained from his face. "FREDRICK!?"

"I had too, Mister Feyera," said the supposed police agent. Pausing, he bowed his head. "…Cipher… is an organization entrusted with providing protective light to our fragile world."

"No! NO! I won't believe it! It isn't true!" howled Feyera.

Fredrick looked Feyera dead in the eyes with piercing cold bronze. "This is the way it has to be," he said.

"NOOOOOOOO! Dammit!" Tears from his glowering eyes etched against Feyera's cheeks. The riveting sensation of tears molded his trapped face into a sorrowful expression. "Fredrick, *sniff* how could you double-cross me?! How could you possibly be working for Cipher?!"

"He's not," Ein said crookedly. "Don't give him your ignorant praise, Feyera!"

"It doesn't add up!" No longer did Feyera feel as though Fredrick was employing subterfuge. His cheeks were on fire! The creeping doubt that Fredrick was more than who he claimed to be shook Feyera's core. "Fredrick!" He pointed at the police agent. "How can you be allowing this to happen?! You've betrayed me!" The young man's torn expression said everything he was feeling; the agony gradually captivating Feyera's fractured consciousness.

"…Please understand," Fredrick said quietly. "Don't forget what I said: it needs to be this way. This is my wish. I–I… don't want to hurt you, Christian."

"HURT ME?!" Fighting back the tears, Feyera hollered, "Don't you dare call me that! Who the fuck are you to call me that?!"

"…!" Fredrick stepped back.

"Fuck you!" Feyera shouted. "You have no place in my life…! You've killed me, you fucking traitor!"

"Oh don't look so upset," Ein said almost jokingly. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life!"

Feyera grasped at his chest, feeling lost and empty as frozen inhalations, mixed with a myriad of inexplicable sensations stung his lungs like cadenced artic waves, their chill growing with each heartbeat. "…!"

"–But before you completely fade away, I want to see you methodically put the pieces together. I wonder: will you even be able to figure it out in time? I'll be here all day," said Ein, "but unfortunately I can't say the same for you."

"It can't be…you planned all of this?" Feyera said hoarsely. "N–n–no…not with the Mercurium…! And the Serenithium I.V.?!"

"You never were one to give credit where credit was due. You were otherwise brilliant. Hmm… too brilliant… Incidentally, there was no other way to get rid of you. I had to do this to you –" Ein pointed at Fredrick "– the man you foolishly accepted into your life was nothing more than a means to control you. And control you he did, for a while. I can see why letting you go is so difficult for him, you're very special after all. Not only to Kanto's white knight, but to the rest of the world. You're the first psyonic actually able to control other Pokemon."

"…!" Dumbfounded, the surprise rocked Feyera's world. "That's impossible! You're saying Fredrick's not…" "…a traitor?

"This isn't about him," Ein said. "This is about you, Doctor Feyera. This is about what you ultimately wanted Angelus to provide for humanity: control."

"No," he murmured, "this was never what I wanted."

"Too bad! You've added a new dimension to humanity's dominance; forging a new chain in the hierarchy. Halflings like yourself are able to follow issue orders better than any Pokemon Trainer could dream of! Pokemon will do almost anything for one of their own; and armed with psyonics, you don't need to seal their hearts to command their actions!" Evice grinned. "As for Shadow Pokemon themselves: the artificial sealing of their hearts has never been more practical with a Gardevoir we have complete dominion over!"

"No! I'm not your tool! I won't listen to you…!" Yet the young man's frail voice had lost any depth it once held.

"Don't play coy." Ein kept going, "You did everything I asked you to. You made sure to listen to your heart, not your head. You did everything you felt was right, like a good Gardevoir I might add."

"NO!" Edge wheezed. But even his weak breaths felt immaculate as the cool humid air stroked his chest from within. "Every lovely gasp of air means another heartbeat. I want to feel that rhythmic pulse again. I want to feel it spread throughout my body!" "Ahh…! Ah–ack!" screamed Feyera in groans of mixed sensation escalating ever higher. "E–Ein…!"

"You came back to me – your master – didn't you?" Ein continued to lay into Feyera's profound panic—which, judging by the distorted puffs of hazy twilight colors surrounding the young man—had already grown into something distinctively tangible. "Just look at you. You're falling apart without someone to guide your feral tendencies. But it's okay. They'll be no more angst, no more deciding. Now you'll only listen to me."

"Gasp! Gasp!" "I–I can't breathe!" The shock and all it invited was too much for Edge to take. Fantastic colors of sandstone bleached by time splashed all around him. With each stroke of sound from Feyera's exhales came a surging sense of limitless flight, pumping his spirit ever higher. Into lofty clouds not yet experienced. "Stop it…! Stop it now…!" he thought, but his body begged for more of the dazzling color from above. Trapped in a surprisingly heartening purgatory of sensation and warmth, Feyera laid his trembling hand against the silky mist of a nearby cloud of sparkling garnet, their warm particles of light danced around his fingertips, trickling every sensation imaginable along his neurons, running all along his back in diametric pulses entrapping his whole body. The ecstasy, laying deeper into his mind, made him lose sight of the colorful spectacle in front of him. All but lost in this terrifyingly blissful experience. Feyera felt as though he could never leave. Felt as if he could never want to leave! Content to be trapped in this hellish pyre of flooding sensation, embraced by the warm arms of trance-inducing delights. "…Ahh…!"

"Gideon, don't do this to him!" said a distorted voice. Distressingly, the sound of the voice was coming from all directions.

All the more disturbing, Feyera could not even budge a muscle to peer around this strange dream sequence. Involuntarily, Feyera lowered his arms, to unveil his sight. "Huh?" There wasn't anything to see however. Feyera didn't know if he had gone blind or if this was death.

The mysterious voice continued to dissuade Ein, "You can't do this! You won't! I won't allow it! This has to end! …And I'll be the one to end it!"

"That…that…voice…" Feyera wondered. It sounded like someone he knew from long ago. "Is that…?" Gradually, the world's colors began to reemerge, albeit in hues of radically new shades. Feyera saw the hazy outline of two men advancing slowly towards one another. A sunset of orange light separated the two figures. However from within the tapestry of beauty's center came two crimson eyes. Their strange light glowed in distinct patterns Feyera recognized from when he resorted to using psyonics. These two eyes, simmering with the iron scars of the Progenitor virus seemed to rush at him; shrouding his vision in a thin mist of their turbulent waterfalls. At first he was scared. But then he became terrified. The influx of dreamlike saturation spreading throughout the room in lucid waves blurred everything together.

"He'll forget all over again," went Ein, "and not even you had the heart to protect your son from his fate. …How awfully tragic."

"…!" Out from the abysmal founts of rushing colored rapids came a shout of intolerant fury "Noooo!"

"July, we only have one chance!" shouted Sana as the swarm of Team Rocket grunts surrounded the idle PWC with a Gardevoir holding on to a Gloom in her hands. "I can only Trace my enemy's power once; we have to make it count!"

[Okie dokie,] July said shaking her leaves, ready to follow Sanaria's instructions in the same way that she would follow her trainer's. [We'll give these knuckleheads a good whooping!]

"Mmm!" Sana's nose itched and she felt like she was going to sneeze from the Gloom's shaking leaves tickling her neckline. "Not yet…"

"Go Venomoth!" yelled one of the nearest mercenaries as he flung a Pokéball in their direction. "Psybeam!"

Sana raised her slender arm high into the air to deflect the moth's kinetic wave before it could strike July. With a timely Lightscreen of crystal lattice, the azure beam of energy bent and split apart, splashing outwards in all other directions like a stream of water striking a stubborn dam.

"Go Wheezing!" called out one of the Team Rocket mercenaries. "Use Sludge Bomb!"

"NOW!" exclaimed Sana, as power began to surge along her lanky arms and into her shining heart. The culminating energy expelled out from the rear of her heart crystal, separating into two distinct beams of diamond-like purity. The beams expanded, quickly crystalizing to form a set of otherworldly wings of translucent quartz. Effortlessly lifted into the air July, lurched in Sana's trembling arms as the psychic energy continued to surge out from her heart and manifest in the material world in a bizarre scene of beauty. [Okay!] July said, spewing a cloud of deep purple Poison powder into the air from her floral bud. [Hi-yah!]

"Sss!" The cloud billowed and swirled around the two defenseless Pokemon, cloaking them both in a dark shadow. Weezing's exhaled Sludge Bomb flew through the air, exploding with a loud "Ka–Bang!" in the dusty cloud. "Pshhhh!"

"Where'd they go?" wondered one of the grunts as the makeshift smokescreen from the poisonous mixture began to dissipate.

"Up there!" shouted another grunt. He eagerly aimed his Nihil repeater skyward.

"T–that's impossible…!" exclaimed another one of the mercenaries. "It can't be flying!"

"FIRE!" called out the other grunt. "Shoot the creature down!"

"Thwip!" "Zzzzzrrr! Crackle!"

A fury of bolts and beams alike were launched all at once at the unbelievable spectacle levitating above the cloud of poisonous dust.

"Stand down!" ordered a mysterious voice in Feyera's head. It was masculine, but other than the gender, she could tell little about it through the fog of triggered ecstatic surges engulfing him with every heartbeat.

"It's too late! Don't you see?! I planned this all along! I knew the exertion of Feyera's psyonics at a critical density of Mercurium would cause a chain reaction. The atmosphere was full of it when he barged into the base. But what does it mean?"

"WARNING…WARNING…" echoed a computer's effeminate voice in the background. "Power surge imminent."

The pudgy man next to Ein quickly snapped open his PDA and said with a start, "Looks like Phaeton triggered Ion Storm is going to disburse a relapse at any moment!"

"It's too soon, Evice!" Ein barked. "The skies should be clear. We're not obsoleting on a risky trajectory in the solar wind! Something's wrong!"

"Dammit! The external sensors are telling me otherwise! Variant Atmospheric Magnetism is rising exponentially, and the weather vane has gone offline," Evice said looking down at his handheld computer, "the base's shields aren't going to hold up if we don't shift the generators once again to compensate for the Phaeton's repercussion."

"Get to it!" ordered Ein. "We don't have time for a second blackout!"

"I'll have to do it remotely from the terminal on the platform generator—"

Those words sparked a familiar memory. "Gideon," said the voice. Suddenly, Feyera was able to see. That protective voice came from a tall man, dressed in suede military attire. Gruffly, the police agent drew his secondary firearm, a sleek steel magnum, pointing both weapons at Evice saying quietly, "seems like your plan has too many loose ends."

"CLICK! BANG!" An earsplitting sequence of howling gunfire resonated throughout the harbor. The echoes did not shake Feyera, who had been only capable of observing in the most passive of ways; trapped behind an ever-growing wall of colorful sensation, pouring in from all directions around him in such massive waves of increasing intensity, it caused him to loose contact with his limbs.

"ARGH!" Evice's scattershot fell to the ground, the magnum's bullet had gone straight through his arm. With a gutless whimper, he collapsed to the ground with a heavy "thump!" holding the open wound with his other hand by dropping the Pokéball sash; the whip-mounted Pokemon tumbled away from Evice's possession, rolling on the cold steel tiles. "Urck! No!"

"What the hell are you doing?!" shouted Ein. But the Cipher scientist grew as silent as Evice at the sight of Fredrick's RAIL gun bearing down on him with Braviary eyes.

"I'm doing what I need to do," he said, aiming his weapons at both of the Evercrest scientists. "It's… nothing personal." While Ein's Magneton floated defensively in front of Cipher's lean admin, the Pokemon would be made short work of by the ion rifle.

"You can't!" Ein insisted through gritting teeth. "Another Full Stop will short-circuit everything in a mile radius with an integrated circuit board! …You know what that means!"

"I know," answered the determined man.

"You're not able to do it without severe consequences!" Ein said sternly. "You know that you won't be able to survive the fallout! I might, Evice might, and Feyera will! The same cannot be said for you! You won't last for an instant in that solar radiation!"

"Oh? I'll endure, Gideon. I'll endure at your expense. I'll end your plans here once and for all. I'll make sure the base's shields stay down. You'll lose everything. From Feyera's Angelus work to Evice himself!"

Ein, trying desperately to make up for lost ground, spoke quickly "If you kill Evice, we're going to lose everything. And if you prevent him from reactivating the Solaris Shields, you're going to lose everything too!"

"D—Don't let him kill me!" pleaded Evice, "GIDEON! Don't let the madman kill me! Gideon!" Evice howled out in pain. "Stop him!" Evice stumbled, blood pouring out from the gun-wound. However, the truculent "click, click!" sound of the magnum's reloading mechanism halted Evice's struggle to get back on his feet.

"He knows better than to do that. He's bluffing; playing a game…" Ein said jadedly "…and I know why." Ein's creeping distraught was all too obvious to the young man who had become rather perceptive to discerning emotion. It was the slight smile fading off Ein's face. The tiny twitch in the admin's right eye. The way he played with his RAIL gun to account for the sweat on his palms. Feyera felt like he was being sucked into what Ein was feeling. It was a bizarre sensation to say the least. "You love him like a son, don't you? You want to protect him, don't you?" Ein pointed his ion gun at Feyera. "How lucky do you feel? He's nothing," Ein said with a shrug, "but the research we have on Gardevoir is essential for the next phase of Cipher's objectives. And those …unique… objectives may have a way of complementing your own."

"Hmm." Fredrick grinned. "About time you considered others, Gideon. How thoughtful of you to do so in your final hour."

"Don't be a fool. Only a fool would do what you're trying to do!" huffed Ein. "You'll perish! And so will all of your hope to save her!"

"I don't matter any longer. And I won't let you control me through my daughter's ailment any longer!" Fredrick said with sharp conviction "Don't you see? Feyera's different! Feyera has a reason to fight. And that reason goes beyond what you're capable of understanding!"

"How dare you! You ruined him with your guiding armlet. Phaeton was my answer to your possessive grip!"

"Ad quod damnum," Fredrick spoke in ancient tongue, "…protection is responsibility more than accountability."

"Don't lecture me about 'accounting for damages'," Ein quickly translated, "Feyera's damaged goods to begin with, no thanks to you!"

"I'm still here you know!" Feyera wanted to shout. "What are you talking about?! What did you do to me?" However he could not utter a word, for he was trapped in a sphere of heavy, asphyxiating air. The miasma even had a distinct taste – it reminded Feyera of the petals imported from Petalburg. Their spicy, glowing warmth dazzled his mind with vivid, lucid memories that felt so real, he was inclined to try and wake himself from this hibernating slumber of paralysis. Attempting to shake his arms, he became afraid that he could not, and consequently fell to the ground.

"Mister Feyera isn't your test subject any longer, Gideon. If you don't yield, I'll kill Evice."

"Pah! I knew I couldn't rely on you. You have a filthy, bleeding heart after all! Compassion will get you nowhere though!"

"I will not compromise in what I must do. Whether my objective coincides with what you call 'compassion' is nothing more than a coincidence."

"Denying the inherent weakness of kindheartedness is the first step to embracing such an exogenous fallacy. You're delusional as Feyera himself. Buried in ideas rather than truth. Some things never change!" Ein spat, "which is why, if anything, your true use was to stall Feyera long enough for the Mercurium to disburse throughout his system. You've accomplished that! Hah! Know that even in your most strident efforts to defy me; you'll always work to further my objectives!"

"Point taken. He's here in front of you," Fredrick nodded with a tip of his brimmed hat, "but are you going to be able to claim him as your own? You've already shown enough incompetence to warrant sanctioning. Why, when the KNRA gets wind of the ion storm from your Phaeton, not to mention the murder of Justice Carese's daughter here on Penta, things are going to become very difficult for you to cover up. In times like these, a janitor needs to play his part by cleaning up your mess. And be warned, it will become known that you're the one responsible for this mess!"

"–You don't know anything, you ancient relic! You're outdated! Replaced! Policy has changed," Angrily, Ein threw a hand straight up into the air. "It's money! All that matters is that the government maintains their invisible monopoly through Silph. Don't you see? It's a superficial power! And – like the Rocket Organization – there's a lesson to be learned from their mistakes!"

"Hmm…"

"Only a greedy fool would join the ranks of Team Rocket! You know this better than most!" shouted Ein, "Don't you?!"

Feyera, still trapped in the trance peered up to hear Fredrick say, "You're words ring truth, but they do not encapsulate the gravity of the situation at hand. If you want to continue to conduct business as you have been, by willfully disregarding the lives of your test subjects, then by all means continue, but know this: Cipher will be withholding support. I'll be sure of that. Face it, Gideon: without the Obsidian, there's nothing left to protect your science fair from just retribution."

"You're wrong! Cipher needs me! The Angelus project will be completed, right before your eye."

Closing his right eye in a blend of furious disgust, Fredrick replied, "You're still harping on about Angelus? Pitiful. And you call me a relic."

"Archaic, but essential to produce Shadow Pokemon en masse I'll have you know. There was proof in Progenitor, proof in the Progenitor–Angelus hybrid project! Mercurium is the key!"

"No! Mercurium has brought humanity failure in more ways than you can ever imagine!" shouted the opposition. "WHY DO YOU THINK THE TERMINAL WAR TOOK PLACE?!"

"I've got news for you: the Terminal War was a resource war, just like any other; a wrestle for control over the most powerful types of technology imaginable. Mercurium is proof that the men fighting during the End War were gods –" Ein sneered sarcastically. "– and what is it that gods fight over? Mercurium can conquer death. You know this well, Aldaine. Tell me something: is it typical for a man to come to know the fear of death twice?"

"No!" Fredrick's pitch had changed slightly, as if a sensitive nerve had been pricked. "Mercurium has brought humanity nothing but failure, Gideon! The abuse has gone on long enough! I'm ending the cycle before it's too late!"

"Humph… My, a display of emotion, and oddly enough from you. I'd wager you've been spending too much time with that one." Ein raised a stiff finger and pointed at Feyera.

"Me? Did I instance or something?" thought the young man. But in this embryotic like trance, he couldn't even raise a hand, much less a telepathic thought.

"– Can you really be supportive of something so terribly lost? Look at the poor atrocity! Look at how he's changed! He's nothing but an empty shell awaiting the end! —Mercurium has broken who he is no thanks to you!"

"No! Feyera's not as empty as he may seem," Fredrick said. "His memory loss was not due to Progenitor. It was psychically imposed by merging his heart with a Gardevoir's. His memories are still there. That means he's able to recover from it. My Pokemon proved that."

"Regardless, Feyera's a prototype!" Ein exclaimed. "CIPHER'S PROTOTYPE!"

"I'm no one's prototype, you bastard!" growled the man in a muted scream. However the dense fabric of air seemed to capture his voice, spreading it all around him in vibrations. "…!" He felt a stinging sensation in the back of his neck tracing down his spine in feverish waves.

"Why should he be your prototype when he selflessly helped you on a project that inadvertently took his life — or at least part of it? You do realize Angelus is more complete than it ever was before no thanks to its instigator. Feyera's sacrificed more than you have, Gideon; and he's sacrificed with results," Fredrick said.

"Corrupting his body with rapacious Mercurium does not warrant proper scientific procedure! It was all an elaborate accident!"

"You're right. But I cannot allow you to take advantage of a cruel accident." Fredrick stiffened his posture. "Not again."

"Pah, still bitter, aren't you? It's all incidental; Feyera was first and foremost hell-bent on stealing the Reilken Mercurius! Don't you dare forget that!" Ein venomously shouted. "This never would have happened had he not been a crook! And, as the thief, he was ironically the one who stole the only thing you had left to live for!"

"Ugh…" Fredrick groaned. "No…he hasn't left…not yet…! Gideon, I heard him… you're wrong!"

"…Need I remind you about Celesta?" snarled Ein. "Take a look in to his eyes. Tell me that you do not recognize the very same toxicosis symptoms that overtook her."

"…!" Fredrick reached for his chest-holstered Pokéball. "–I can't… no, not after…what happened to her…"

Hearing this, Ein smiled, knowing his verbal knife could be further twisted. "That's right, Aldaine. And he's exactly like the rest of the coldblooded criminals, deserving of his fate," emphasized the Cipher scientist. "You'd do well to not soon forget that! Now stand down before I put you down!"

"No." Fredrick stood silently before slowly addressing Ein, "Feyera's different. …He went along with your Progenitor project for too long here on Evercrest. He's seen both sides of it, and now has to live with the scars of that. But you… You were supposed to cancel Progenitor the moment Mercurium became more than a myth to Cipher. Yet you persisted with the gristly research far beyond the project's expiration date!"

Ein realigned his RAIL gun to point at the center of Fredrick's chest, "Science has no expiration date!"

"Perhaps." Fredrick didn't try hard to conceal a mischievous smile. "But your funding sure as hell does!"

"WHAT?!"

"You heard me! I'll make sure the solar radiation cooks this entire facility to a crisp!"

"–What gives you the right?!" belted Ein. "This isn't your fight!"

"Feyera has the same rights that you have, Gideon. You only lack the skills to employ them properly. And that will be your undoing."

Ein shouted, "You'll lose everything!"

"No." Fredrick looked over at Feyera. "Not everything."

"Why defy Cipher with so much on the line?" Ein pointed at Feyera. "Is this Gardevoir weapon worth your life?"

"Gideon, if we don't end this war, it will have to end us."

"Damn you," Ein growled, charging up his RAIL. The bright light steam began to trace the streamlined contour of the cool silver metal. It glowed with wicked internal heat. "YOU'RE WRONG! DAMN YOU!"

"Peh…damn me?" Fredrick asked rhetorically. From afar, Feyera saw Fredrick look in his direction. A tight smile crossed his lips. "It's no use." Fredrick shook his head. "The things I've done… The things I haven't done…" "The promise to her I could only keep half of…" "Gideon! I'm already damned."

"Click!" went Ein's RAIL as it signaled a full charge. "Couldn't say it better myself. This new world has no place for the likes of you!" "*Zzzrrrrrr! FAAAWHHHOOOOOOMMM!*" A blinding burst of energy split out of Ein's RAIL, the searing heat blinding Feyera with its laser-like fineness.

"FREDRICK!" Feyera tried to yell. The dust cloud dissipated, and to Feyera's surprise, Fredrick had leapt out of the ray's destructive path. It didn't seem possible. "How could he have dodged that?!"

"BLAST!" Ein exclaimed, seeing the police agent still standing on his feet. With a flash of light, Ein called out, "GO, RHYDON!"

The luminous arch of Pokéball release flooded the room. Before them stood a monstrous creature, completely encased in rock-hewn flesh. "*RHY–DON!*" hollered the beast, its cry shaking the entire harbor.

"ARGH…!" shouted Fredrick as light once more filled the harbor, knocking him to his knees.

"Rhydon, use Earthquake!" ordered Ein.

"Fredrick!" thought Feyera, through his entombed prison in the center of his body. A terrible sensation of water pouring down from the back of his neck, and along his frozen spine made him want to scream in surprised torment. From where he was, he could only see, all of his other senses sent him into a frenzy of sensation.

Miraculously, Fredrick evaded Rhydon's shockwave with a deft leap into the air. Landing gracefully, he pointed in Feyera's direction. "Gideon, the Mercurium in Feyera's body is going to try to preserve itself!"

"Well, you should have thought about that before defying my will!" shouted the enraged admin. "Rhydon, Earthquake!"

Again, the beast rocked the harbor with a stomp of its rocky hooves. "DOOOOOONN!" it cried, triggering another tremor causing pieces of the walls and ceiling to fall.

Fredrick lost his balance amid the shaking floor. As water splashed up from the harbor, he tumbled to the earth, dropping his rifle. "Guragh!" He stumbled to the ground, grasping the rifle just before it fell into the water. However, Ein's Magneton quickly darted towards the police agent issuing a volley of Thunderwave!

"FREDRICK!" exclaimed Feyera. "Look out!"

As if hearing a voice, Fredrick peered up in the nick of time to dodge an onslaught of electrical pulses from Magneton. "Gawah!" exclaimed the officer as he bounded out of the way, nearly falling off the dock.

"Feyera, is that you?" he asked between shaken breaths. "Get out of here; NOW!" exclaimed the police agent through swift breaths. "There isn't enough time!" He darted out of Magneton's range as the Pokemon fired off another volley of electrical attacks.

"I won't leave you!" shouted the Pokemon researcher, the psyonic surge tingling his every fiber of existence. "I'll protect you! I promise!" He looked at his quiet Pokemon, and ordered, "Brucie, use Flamethrower!" Unfortunately, the summoned scarlet flames did not come forth. Instead, Feyera could only see a blank expression in his Charmeleon's sapphire eyes. "Brucie?! Can you hear me?!"

"I said GO!" ordered Fredrick. "You need to get out of here!" Repelling the electrical blasts with his cape he yelled out, "Metagross!" and flung a silver-coated Pokéball towards Ein's beast.

"Gross!" exclaimed the steel coated Pokemon. The massive creature's face was riddled with deep scars, undoubtedly from countless battles.

"I expected a challenge, but not from you." Ein smirked at the sight, "Magneton, use Hidden Power! Fear the power of the sun! SUNBURST STRIKE!"

The Pokemon quickly arranged its Magnemite parts to create a series of reflective lenses that had a telescopic effect. The central Magnemite rose high up into the air on electromagnetic levitation towards the bright ray of sunshine now illuminating the harbor's upper half. A burst of white energy shot out from the center Magnemite's glowing eye, searing with a tremendous temperature as the light bounced from one reflective surface back to another, and then back to the original reflector for good measure. "*SISH!*" As the heat wave pulse of infrared light smashed into Fredrick's Metagross, the police agent's Pokemon attempted to shield its hardened face by raising its heavy arm. However the maneuver was futile, as burning scarlet encapsulated the Pokemon, licking its steel coating with an intense firestorm! "*FAWHHHOOM!*"

"Metagross!" called out Fredrick. But the megaton Pokemon was seared in a coat of flaming beams of light, reflected and amplified from the sun itself. "NO!"

"It's only a taste of things to come!" Ein said.

"Ready for this!? Use Meteor Mash!" Metagross, seared blackened with burs, raised its claw high into the air. Levitating on magnetism it swung its huge body up into the air. With a loud "MEETA…!" it swung its diamond clawed fist into the earth below, rupturing a fissure in the cliff itself. Quickly, the displaced water rushed about in all directions to fill the gap. Metagross lifted itself high up into the harbor; to the point where the dazzlingly bright sun reflected off its prism-like body.

"Decisive Megahorn!" ordered Ein as Metagross's magnetism began to falter unexpectedly. With a loud crash, Fredrick's Pokemon came tumbling to the ground, completely stunned!

"Metagross?!" But it was too late, the landing Pokemon had been drilled straight up from underneath by Rhydon's rising Megahorn. The impact sent a paralyzed Metagross bouncing in the direction of Feyera's Gyarados. "Des! Get out of the way!"

The Metagross barely missed the bow of the yacht where Feyera's Gyarados was perched, coiled around like a bow ornament. From the looks of things, she couldn't hear Feyera, or even sense that he was trying to save her from his mental prison.

"And now Earthquake again!" ordered Ein.

"*GRRR…DOOOOON!*" echoed Rhydon, a heavily armored beast, smashing both its palms into the harbor's dock, triggering an immense shockwave knocking everyone to their knees. Metagross collapsed under the tremendous combination of Ein's attacks, from which there was no shelter. Magneton's searing heat, coupled with Rhydon's impressive Earthquake was more than a match for the veteran Pokemon.

"Christian, get out of here, NOW!" ordered Fredrick as he reached for his powered-up RAIL gun. "Zzzzrrrrrr….click…click…"

"NO!" Feyera said, his telepathic voice shaking, "I won't leave you! I–I promised! I'll protect you!"

Fredrick ran towards Feyera. He knelt next to the paralyzed man, lifting his limp body up onto a broad shoulder. "No… you have other things to protect now. I–I think I can finally understand that now."

"Fredrick!" he desperately wished he could talk. He wished he could reach out and hug him. "You…do care…"

"—You have to move!"

But he couldn't. "Fredrick…! Fredrick!" echoed the crystalline heart's telepathy. "I can't move!"

"WHAT?" exclaimed Fredrick in amazement. "I–impossible…!"

"That's right! You're trapped all right!" yelled Evice with a maniac's grin. "GO!" he said whipping a fine whip of strung together Pokéballs onto the dock-boards with a loud "Crackle!" Before the Cipher scientist appeared six more Pokemon, each as vicious as the next! Their howls resonated throughout the expansive harbor. Still holding onto his bleeding arm, Evice furiously shouted, "Kill them! Kill them all!"

"Scizor!" roared a massive Bug Pokemon. It raised its pincers high into the air making it appear as though it had three heads!

A huge ape charged onto the field as well, coated in a dark aura. "Sla–KING!" it howled, as it beat two enormous fists against its imposing torso. *THUMP! THUMP!*

"AGGRON!" rumbled another behemoth of a Pokemon, beside Slaking, completely encapsulated in metal plating. The Pokemon smashed its steel gauntlet hands into the floor, sending out a shockwave that ripped the dock in two.

"CHAMP– MAH–CHAMP!" A terrifying creature, comprised almost entirely of muscle, swung its massive four arms through the air. Each arm carried a weapon, save for one – which was clenched tightly into a permanently blackened fist. The other three arms held weapons of increasing ferocity; from an enlarged Lambda Xtella (which – thankfully – wasn't humming with electrical energy), to a massive, jagged two-handed cleaver supported on the Pokemon's broad shoulder, to a thin, metal-tipped wooden javelin decorated with fallen Ho–oh feathers. "CHAMP!" it roared swinging weapons around manically, the Pokemon howled louder and with increasing ferocity while Evice whipped the chain of six Pokéballs to command the various Pokemon.

"GAAAWWOOOHHHH! MENCE!" hissed a large dragon as it unfurled is coiled wings. Their sharp edges dripped with a mixture of black shadow aura and perspiration. The beast roared, spewing massive fireballs across the harbor in every direction. Stretching its wingspan, the Pokemon generated a huge wave with one flap of the imposing blade-edged wings.

*THUMP!* *THUMP!* *CRASH!* Evice's final Pokemon didn't even utter a battle cry as it viciously smashed its heavy rock tail into the hull of a boat opposite the war cruiser. The frightening beast's extension split the thirty-something–foot ship clear in two with a frightening *SNAP!* Shards and bits of the hull's solid sheet metal – broken like plywood – flew around the beast as a wicking maelstrom of dust surrounded its terrifying physique. *CRASH! Creeeeeek!* went the metal framework as they sunk into the increasingly turbulent harbor water.

"TYRANITAR!" boomed the beast as the ship it had cut in half sunk almost immediately. It raised its reptilian head high into the air, towering well over three stories high, and roaring with enough ferocity to bring Fredrick and his Metagross to their knees. Feyera tried to dash, to run, to do anything, but his feet held him firmly in place. Locked in fear, he could only helplessly watch as Fredrick was utterly outstripped and outmatched by Cipher's scientists. For once, Feyera saw the idolized father figure completely helpless.

"Steady!" ordered the police agent to his terribly outnumbered Pokemon. While Metagross was comprised of two Metang, and subsequently four Beldum, division would greatly reduce the Pokemon's strength and stopping-power in exchange for dexterity and numbers. "Hold it together now!" commanded Fredrick. "EARTHQUAKE!"

A pulse of molten energy spread like ripples in a shallow pool as Metagross slammed a massive Beldum arm into the iron dock boards. The ensuing wave caused enough force to stagger the various Pokemon, and managed to cause Scizor to lose its balance. But before Feyera could see whether the attack had significantly changed the odds for his escape, a cascade of translucent water distorted his sight entirely.

"Feyera…" he heard himself say. A terrible shiver ran up his spine. His voice seemed to echo and resound from within himself.

"Huh?" Trapped within an opaque prison of crimson glass, the young man wondered what had happened. He tried to look around, but found that he could not. He was paralyzed, imprisoned below red clouds and a ceiling of stained glass.

"Feyera!" Again his voice echoed. It was the same boyish tone he had always heard, albeit not from the third person. It sounded strange, different, and above all else it felt high above him; as if the voice had been traveling down a very deep well to reach his ears.

"Who's there!?" Feyera wondered, trying to cup his ears to hear the mysterious voice resembling his own. However, try as he might, the young man could not even feel his ears. Indeed, he had been completely bound in place. Stranded. Entombed in a prison of ever-changing miasma. "Sana?!"

"No. It's me," he answered himself.

"ME?" exclaimed the researcher. "Damn! I can't move!" Attempting to thrash about, Feyera found himself unable to budge a single muscle. "This is…impossible! Has someone taken my body over?!" His eyes no longer could blink, and the sight before him – radiant in kaleidoscopic colors – continued to shift and morph before him.

Then, almost as if to mock him, there was movement all around. He felt himself moving, but not on his own will! The volition itself had seemingly been bypassed; Feyera could only watch his legs extend to run from a bizarrely detached perspective. A surge of rouge energy from Evice's Pokemon arced through the air, zipping straight in front of his chosen path. Stumbling slightly, he fell to the ground, unable to do anything to break his own fall. "Oof!" exclaimed Feyera's voice.

"S–shit!" With the cold floor pressed against him, he bellowed mentally, "What's happening to me?!"

Panting from above seemed to answer his question in the most unusual of ways as he felt himself getting up on trembling legs. "*Pant… pant* Your body has such unwieldy legs…" said the voice, which now Feyera was positive was his own.

"M–my body?" "…!" "What are you talking about!?"

"Urgh!" Rising up, the young man found himself darting in the direction of Lorelei's white yacht. Everything had gone numb, he could only watch as his body undertook various feats that were not the product of his command. "For now…" huffed the young man as he ran clumsily along the dock and away from the battle.

Feyera's perspective had been shaken from the motion of running, and what the young researcher soon realized was that he had not been viewing the world from his eyes at all. Everything was too tall for that. Unless he had shrunk, it would be impossible! The glowing walls of red all around him that he could see the world through gave it away in an awful revelation. "I'm…not!" Trying to reach out to touch the world, he only could press his consciousness against the transparent crimson wall. It jolted his mind with stinging volleys of sensation; the very same terrifying sensation felt when he had touched the Gardevoir heart from the outside. "I can't be…!" he thought in frenzied worry. "NOOO!" However, that didn't stop his body from automatically running, dragging him along in this zombified state of sapped existence.

"*Huff* …If we can get out of this alive – I promise *gasp* I'll return it to you!"

"Ah! Watch out!"

"Fools! Unite and descent!" With a mighty crack of a silvery whip stitching his Pokéballs together into a long chain Evice ordered, "Slaking, Crush Claw! Scizor, use Metal Claw! Salamence, Aerial Ace! Fuse your attacks into one… *CRACK!* … BLADE GALE! Destroy everything in sight!" A volley of sinister energy spun out from the whip at his command. Slaking charged first, a surprise considering the monster's girth. With a merciless smash, it ripped the metal dock boards clear up into the air from their resting places; hurling the already bent metal from when Aggron had arrived on scene. Scizor, buzzing on its compact wings, flew up after the beams and – using a quick series of chomping motions from its claws – further split apart the boards of metal into jagged sword like projectiles. Salamence, which had risen high above Scizor, unleashed a gale-force wind with a mighty beat of the dragon's curved wings. Razor blade projectiles rained down from above. Feyera watched as Metagross dived in front of the hail of knives to protect Fredrick. The metal rattled off Metagross' thick hide. A few of the blades dug into the Pokemon's body with incredible piercing power.

"ARGH!"

"Fredrick! No!"

Springing to his feet "There's no time!" insisted the paranormal force controlling his body like a puppet. "You can't defy nature!"

"N–NO! Stop! –Didn't you hear what he said to me?!"

"–You mean us?" asked Feyera's voice hauntingly.

"Us…?" Hearing his familiar human voice from an external, detached perspective terrified the young researcher. It was as if his every unique annunciation had been robbed right out from under him! And he could hear it all as if he were a separate entity entirely! As if it had all been recorded! But something else burned at whatever consciousness he had left; tugging at what he had come to know as his heart. "Fredrick… He called me his son!"

"–Then you can't let his sacrifice be in vain!" said Feyera's familiar, boyish voice. "This is the moment to live! *Gah!* The moment to flee!"

"No! I…you need to help him! …Please, if you have any mercy left…! *gasp!* Urghh! Help – *GAH!* fight for him! Fight for Fredrick!"

"I can't do that!" The sternness of his separated voice shocked Feyera nearly as much as how perceptive he had become to every detail. Every pitch, every syllable had meaning. Felt meaning.

"Why not?"

"Because –" Feyera's possessed body tumbled to the side of the wide dock as another Earthquake rocked the entire base "– because, I'm using all of my Psychic power to keep your consciousness alive!"

"Ahhh!" Feyera tried to scream, yet his mental outcries could only reach the mind of the Pokemon that had overtaken his body. "What?! You can't be serious!"

"I am!" echoed the voice of his commandeered body. "Without Serethrium to confine the Mercurium to one part of your body, there's nothing preventing a merger of consciousness!"

"NO! That can't be…!" Feyera didn't want to believe it! He couldn't! Yet here he was trapped within the crystal that had been on his chest all this time! None of it made sense, but all of it felt sensible! Everything felt sensible! Choking on the perceivable ecstasy, he asked, "How can consciousness merge…?!"

"Mercurium – the silver nanotechnology of the ancients – will only allow for one consciousness to exist!"

"–NO! You ha– HA! AGH! – have to stop it!" begged Feyera.

"–I can't stop it. Nothing can. Mercurium… is meant to do exactly what is taking place."

"…!" No words or language could make sense of anything that was taking place! The sensitivity, the heavenly sensation, the prospect of completely letting go of the shackles binding Edge. Each word seduced his mind with a gradual encroachment of passionate excitement. Feyera tied to twist, to move, to budge. However, all of those familiar capacities vanished as soon as he had invoked them!

"Feyera, – merging and sharing a mind – what we're doing temporary – is a misnomer. This won't – can't – last. Mercurium is a toxin to the genetic code; it will not allow two organisms to exist indefinitely… there can only be one!"

"This doesn't make any – ah! *AHH!* – A–any–sense!" Asphyxiating in shallow gasps for air, Feyera madly tried to break free from the imprisonment – the crushing – of his existence. He was being forced out of his own body! But before all sensation was lost in the maddening spiral of distorted, colored perception, a sharp pain pelted from within his chest; dragging him back into his body with a kick. "*AH!*" He felt his skin brush against a low steel wall. "Urgh… huh?" The coldness against a warm object such as his arm never felt so good and full of significance before. Unfortunately, the familiar embodied sensation was short-lived. Like the a glint of light, control vanished as his body staggered back up from the brief stumble, taking with it any hope of repossessing what was righteously his body.

"*Huff* If your memories are any teacher, then this is exactly what happened to Celesta! I–I don't believe it, after all this time in dormancy, I'm alive again in your body!"

"ARGH! Celesta!? Who's that?!"

"Celesta was a matriarch. Her heart was pure, and her spiritual core sought to live on, even when it was imprisoned in Deirdre Aldaine… an associate of yours."

"WHAT?! Wait, so you're saying I'm going to end up like her? With you overtaking my body?! NO!"

"…Feyera, if there is a battle for dominion, my Psychic powers will overrun your human mind entirely. I can already sense the onset of it… I– I feel like I'm coming back to life; your breaths are becoming my own!"

"…!" Words, language, were all escaping, fleeing from him! All their origins came back in damaged poetry, inexplicable emotions he could hardly comprehend! If he only knew how to understand it! If he only knew how to transcribe what he was feeling! "NOOOOO!"

"I'm doing all I can to prolong it! I've buried your consciousness into the safest place, my – our – heart."

"Heart?!"

"That's why you haven't yet disappeared entirely."

"Wait… if I disappear then…does that mean–?" Lost for words, the feeling of utter helplessness splintered his mind with streams of emotion.

"It means – I'll completely overtake your body," answered the Gardevoir using Feyera's own lips. "You'll cease to exist. I'll be you in every regard. Your lost memories are already filling my consciousness. Your knowledge, your intellect, your feelings are rapidly becoming my own."

"….!" Terrified Feyera screamed out in a language he never knew existed before. "Noooo!" he howled beating against the foggy prison walls of the heart's exterior. Each desperate pounding of his fists against the crystal separating him from the outside world mimicked the steady beating of a heart. He could barely control himself. Had he not been completely trapped within the crystalline heart, he surely would have been thrashing to wrestle free.

"–Feyera… Doctor Feyera… with the power of Mercurium, there's only enough room for one of us to exist in this physical vessel."

"'This vessel' is MY GODAMN BODY!"

"– I know, it… belongs to you. But it doesn't change the fact that in order to live, one of us must die."

Feyera couldn't command the moment of panicked frenzy. "I…!" Even the familiar pounding of his Alterieno boots beneath him could not be felt. Everything had become so detached. So foreign. It was all there, right in front of him, but none of it could be felt. Locked within the metaphorical perch of his chest, Feyera could not help but wonder "Is this really the end for me? The end of my life!?"

"–I'm doing my best not to take life away from you, but the liquid Mercurium spreading throughout your body isn't making things any easier for me! There isn't enough time!"

"DON'T LET ME FADE AWAY!" bellowed the Pokemon researcher. "You can't! You won't!"

"Don't you see?! You're still not her! You're not like Celesta! …Not yet! —I'm fighting it… I'm fighting nature for you! If I had willed it, you'd be gone already!" chastised the Gardevoir through Feyera's voice.

"Celesta?"

"According to your research: human minds cannot resist the higher sentience level of a Gardevoir for very long. Mercurium favors neuron synapses that humans have yet to evolve! That's why this is so difficult to do…!"

"W–what? How do you know this? How am I still here? And… Why am I still here?"

"Because of our mutual destiny!"

"LOOK OUT!"

"HAHAAHA!" yelled Evice. "Face your demise! Salamence, Fireblast! Scizor, Bug Buzz! Tyranitar, Shadow Blitz! *KER-whip!* … Attack everything in sight! Leave nothing alive!"

"FAWWHOOOOM!" Salamence expelled a vicious five-pronged star of heat in Feyera's direction. Trying to duck for cover, an earsplitting disorienting sound knocked him in front of the dock's next bulkhead. He held his ears, rolling to the side in a desperate attempt to flee from the looming shadow approaching him.

"Metagross, Agility coverage!" hollered Fredrick. Hovering on magnetic power, the massive steel-encased Pokemon spun in front of the blast, taking the full brunt of the attack, its sleek metal hide slowly dripping away from hellishly intense flames. The searing heat against his face and neck forced him to his knees as the massive Pokemon barely guarded his frail physique from an inferno of shadowy clouds. However, the black aura accompanying Tyranitar quickly engulfed Metagross. "Now's your chance, aim for number five: ICE PUNCH!" Concealed in the swirling sand stream, Metagross gathered one of its steel claws together, forming a snowstorm of artic energy, and with a mighty thrust, launched a projectile Beldum. "Psshwep!" screeched the ice cold Pokemon as it flew through the air; soring with gale-like speed it managed to upper-cut Salamence's long neck with devastating impact. Both the makeshift elemental mortar and Evice's dragon Pokemon fell frozen to the ground; Salamence's gaping mouth still rearing in an attack position.

Crawling behind cover, Feyera glared anxiously at the distance he still had to traverse to reach the end of the dock. Figuring he could cover the distance in a ten-second sprint meant nothing with Evice and Ein's Pokemon destroying everything in their path.

"Destroy his escape route!" yelled Ein. "Don't let him escape! Magneton, Magnet Rise! Rhydon, use Earthquake!"

"Evade!" shouted Fredrick from afar.

"Follow it up! …Let nothing stand as you split the earth's mantle!" boomed Evice. "Aggron, Machamp, Slaking, Tyranitar: EARTHQUAKE! *Whip!* CONCENTRATED TREMOR!"

"Metagross! Rise above with Magnet Rise!"

*KWHHOOOOMMMM!* Gaping fissures, the size of houses, opened up bottomless rifts bellow the harbor, shaking everything above water violently and causing massive whirlpools to flood the cracks. *Creeeeeak!* The vaulted harbor ceiling began to buckle from the combined tremors. Paralyzed from the dock's traumatic vibrations, Feyera could only hold on to the bulkhead for dear life, and unable to see combat unfolding, he looked over in the direction he was heading to see Desperado uncoiling herself from the ship. The aftershock of the unison Earthquake splintered what was left of the dock, crippling Feyera's straight-path exit strategy.

"Reflect!" Fredrick ordered. Spheres of blue light surrounded Metagross, functioning as a force-field to delay Cipher's brutal eight Pokemon armada.

"Split through the center of their defenses; you can't miss! Magneton, Lock On! Rhydon, Stone Edge!" "Psshhew!" A haunting red laser beam shot out from each of Magneton's eyes; the beams converged on Metagross with peerless precision.

"Raargh! Scizor, Brick Break!" Evice shouted with a flick of his chained-together Pokéballs. "Aggron, Double Edge! Machamp, Close Combat! Synchronize your attacks into one! *CA–WHIP!* …CRUEL DEVASTATION!" Scizor's ironclad claws shattered the Reflect barrier with impunity, leaving Metagross and the rest of the dock completely exposed. With nowhere to flee too, Metagross took the full brunt of a charging Rhydon's stone-sheathed elbows, and Aggron's hulking physique easily toppled Metagross. With a wicked howl, Machamp slammed the massive Xtella club up into Metagross' venerable underbelly. Lobbing the embedded mace along with the Pokemon, Machamp hurled both with a powerful Fling, using its free arms to score additional punches. "*AWWOOOOH!*" bellowed a distant Tyranitar as Metagross was tossed high into the air, landing just shy of the dreadnaught's reinforced hull. All appeared to be lost; the mechanized beast had been demolished by a united front of Cipher's ruthless attacks.

"DES!" Feyera called out as she dove with her serpentine body into the water exposed beneath the fractured dock. "I'm coming Des!" But, unfortunately, his projected telepathy did not seem to reach her; locked in the crystalline prison, it felt as if nothing could come in or out.

"It's no use…! *Huff*" wheezed Feyera's voice. "She can't hear you!"

Surprisingly, the natural frustration-born anger did not reach the depths of where his consciousness was bound. "No!" he thought realizing how helpless he really was. With a wild look in her eyes, she charged at the scene of combat, order-less and unresponsive. "DES! Answer me! Please!"

"–We're running out of time!" insisted the ties upon his body. "It's now or never, Feyera!"

"Why! Why do you want to help me!?" he asked the controlling force. "What am I to you?!"

"I – *cough* – Christian, you weren't who I thought you were…" answered the sincere voice. "You…became more than that."

"What are you talking about? Relinquish my body at once!"

"Indeed… our time is brief. Des is giving us a clear break for the yacht. If you can order her with your mind, she may respond to your telepathic voice."

That was all Feyera needed to hear. "DES!" he bellowed from deep within the crystalline core.

[Hoss?! Is that you?!] Des silently spun around in a wide arc, spraying water to deflect some of the expelled dark energy.

"Des!" called Feyera from inside the tomb of sensation and distance alike. "Yes! I'm still alive! You need to fight for me! Fight for us all!" Waves of water and spirit clashed together producing frightful hymns of energy. "Use Dragon Dance!" Her fins glistened with draconic energy, shimmering like the surface of the water beneath her, and she let out a deafening roar of power. "GARRROH!"

"Rhydon, return!" snarled Ein from afar.

"Gideon's switching his Pokemon. He can't have both out on the field at the same time… We have to time this!" Feyera's body snarled, yelling to Fredrick, "Wait for Magneton's next move, then use Ice Punch as a projectile!"

"Use ZAP CANNON!" Ein said, quickly withdrawing his Rhydon. "Full power!" *CRACKLE! KA-WHOOM!* the bolt of lightning split down and throughout the harbor, drawing ionic energy from the sun's growing intensity. Everything became tangled up in a web of static and sparks. Massive arcs of raw electrical power coiled above on the massive harbor ceiling. But the inflicted electrical paralysis did not stop their adversaries, rather the bolts accelerated the resolve of Metagross. Fearing the stationary supercomputer had not been fully paralyzed by the last onslaught, Ein predictably realigned his Pokemon. "Rhydon, front and center! EARTHQUAKE! Magneton, follow with a Discharge attack!"

However Rhydon's vulnerable underbelly was met by Metagross' icy uppercut. "META!" it shouted, drilling the Rhydon with talons coated an electrical field which sapped enough heat from the local atmosphere to that of dry ice. The agent's supercomputer dug its strong metal fist right into Rhydon with a second Bullet Punch. With a tearing stroke – piercing hide and bone alike – Metagross dug right up and into Rhydon's chest. In an instant, the beast's crushed heart stopped beating.

Ein swore and released his Magneton again from stasis. "Go for the trainer, hit everything! Use Thunderbolt!"

The dock was set aglow with electrical light from Magneton's wicked thunderbolts. Fredrick was knocked over by the initial pulse, and Desperado lurched out in pain as the wide-spread shockwave slammed into her body, freezing her cold.

"DES!" Feyera yelled and screamed from inside whatever hell he had been trapped in, but the man's voice did not travel far before returning to him in waves of distant yet palpable radiance.

Feyera's Gyarados, though small, fell down alongside Fredrick's stunned Metagross. Her muscles had been snap–frozen by the creature's single greatest weakness: lightning. Des wobbled off the yacht's bow, in free–fall her muscles unable to respond to ease her harsh impact with the dock.

"Now!" A rush of adrenaline reduced his sight. "OUTRAGE!" The creatures beside him became pinpoints, pawns in a grand game of chess. Everything was focused on this last gambit. Though unable to command his body, allowing the instinct-like behavior to occur without resistance allowed him to dart straight out into the open. Jumping on floating fragments of the shattered docks, he deftly sprung out into the open. Beams of light and shadow drenched his peripherals, but his heart remained fixed. With a mighty leap, he managed to clutch the edge of the Prima's anchoring rope, right before the log below him sunk into the chaotic water. Gasping for air, the thick twine rubbed against his heart as he struggled to climb up the line. Though his clothes were saturated and heavy from falling into the harbor, he squirmed vigorously up the side of the shallow hull – desperate for a promised escape he had taken hold of.

"Out of my way…! …THUNDER!" yelled Ein. A huge crackling light shot down from the gaping hole in Evercrest's high metal ceiling, arching and twisting in glistening splendor.

"Tyranitar, Thunder!" Evice ordered with a flick of the chain "Combine your fierce attacks and bring the sea serpent down… CHAIN LIGHTNING!"

"Des, look out!" *CRACKLE! KA-FOOWM!* However, before the beam of surging energy could rain down upon Desperado, a single metal nail – raised high into the air like a lightning rod – drew in every last roguish volt, frying Fredrick's Pokemon into complete paralysis. The supercomputer Pokemon collapsed, completely short-circuited from the sheer voltage. "…bzz…."

"METAGROSS!" hollered Fredrick. "NOOOO!"

"Now you're finished! Machamp, use Close Combat! RIP THEM TO PIECES! LIMB FROM LIMB!"

"*Ugh!*" Fredrick fell to his knees. "*GAH!*" He reached for the RAIL rifle, but was cut off by a pulse of white light from Ein's pistol. The massive Machamp was nearly upon him, and the muscular Pokemon was primed to use herculean strength to tear his limbs clean off. "Oh no, you don't!" Fortunately, Fredrick's revolver was quick to deter the rushing Pokemon, giving the agent enough time to get back to his feet. "Catch me if you can!" cried out the agent, dodging a double grab by the four-armed creature.

"There's no escape! Use Dragon Tail!" Evice ordered with a flick of the whip. Salamence's twisting tail slammed into Fredrick, sending the agent sailing through the air and against the massive warship's hull.

"FREDRICK! NO!" exclaimed Feyera from his crystalline confinement. He reached out his hand as if to reach out to Fredrick. However, Feyera's wavering sight could only muster a spiritual outline of an outstretched arm. For his true arm remained numb and locked at his side. Helpless, Feyera watched Evice turned to face a pack of shadow Houndoom that had recently gnawed their way out from the air ducts.

"Get in there, and use FLAMETHROWER!" commanded Evice. "BURN THEM ALL!"

"*AWWWOOOOO!*" howled the Houndoom. Three of the beasts sprayed alarmingly hot napalm from its shadow–clouded snout. "*FA–WHOOM!*"

"NO!"

Before the dust even settled, Evice shouted "Salamence: Hyper Beam! Machamp…GIGA IMPACT!" with a swing of his whip, which was comprised of several Pokéballs. "Merge all attacks into one!" he ordered. "SINGULARITY STRIKE!" The chilling control of the whip caused the agonizing cries of Evice's Pokemon to be perfectly synchronized. And, if only for a brief moment, caused everything to pause. Indeed, time itself drew to a sluggish pace as a brilliant combination of radiant energy beams shook the very foundations of the air. Each individual beam of light from Evice's six shadow Pokemon shone in a different colored light – from the color of chocolate wine all the way around to the violet summer evening's sky. Merging into one, with searing temperatures the white light singed the warship's plated hull, melting the ebony paint clean off. The steel then drooped from the heat, surrounding the police agent under a waterfall of molten metal. The sound barrier was shattered apart by the sonic boom of the Pokemon's combined power, knocking him and the rest of his team back as the massive wake of energy toppled them all. Feyera could not hear the officer scream through the pulse of extraordinary combined power from Ein and Evice's Pokemon alike.

There was hardly a lull as Evice's Pokemon recovered from the tremendous unleashing of energy attacks. Ein quickly stepped in with commands to cripple Feyera now that Fredrick had been taken out. "Stop the runt from getting away with a Thunder Wave!"

Indeed, he could only do one thing at this point: "Run!" Surprisingly gaining a sudden sense of control over his legs, Feyera ran as fast as he could towards the dock, dodging the tumbling wooden planks and falling metal sheets from above. The trainer's dash was soon confronted by the cold front of Scizor's Bullet Punch. Out of thin air, Evice's Pokemon slugged the trainer directly in the heart, knocking him clear off the docks and in towards the molten black ship Fredrick had been seared underneath. Unable to scream and flying through the air, Feyera was surprised to feel a cushiony pad rather than the scorching temperatures of molten metal. Peering out of his panicked eyes, he saw his Gyarados glaring furiously in the direction of Ein and Evice.

"Des…" Feyera whispered mutely. "Thank you…!"

But she did not answer his telepathy. Instead, she swung her massive aquatic tail against the docks. The deafening roar followed by a high arch of water gave the Pokemon trainer enough time to grasp onto her hide.

"Fredrick!"

"You have to keep running!" said the Pokemon trainer hastily to his heart. "Fredrick gave you a clear escape path!"

"I–I… NO!"

"We – you have to!"

"You're not in charge of me!"

"I'm suppressing my Psychic powers so you can stay alive within MY heart!"

"Why?! Why would you – the Pokemon I murdered – ever do that?!"

"Don't you see? You took more away from me than my life."

He knew what the Gardevoir meant. "Sanaria," he whispered, as an image of her flashed before his eyes.

"Feyera, I only want to see her one last time before I –"

"Jump!" he hollered just in time, before his body tripped over ceiling debris. "Seph, I cannot live like this…"

"I know," replied the creature controlling his body's every movement. "I know all too well that it is no way to live."

"…! You've been living inside this heart the entire time?"

"It shouldn't surprise you; after all, it is my own."

"THUNDER!" Ein shouted. "Unite… and Descend!" The three Magnemite linked together forming a ray of pure plasma between their supercharged bodies. They spun in a spiral and released the crackling energy in a booming pulse.

"Order your Pokemon!" echoed Feyera's voice; however, so synchronized was the telepathic connection that hardly a delay followed. "Brucie, use Flamethrower to disorient Magneton's attack!"

"*CHAAARRR! FAWOOHOM!*" Brucie exhaled a brutal stream of blue flares at Magneton, causing the creature to separate and scatter mid-attack just in order to dodge the devastating Flamethrower.

"Crunch!" Evice ordered the hounds chasing after Feyera and his Pokemon. With glistening green fangs, the Houndoom recklessly charged at Brucie, missing with the main attack, but still managing to nail Feyera's Pokemon with a sharp jab from raising its armored knee straight into the Charmeleon's chest.

"Chaar!" howled Brucie as he went sailing helplessly through the air high over Des and Feyera and into the water. "PLUNK! Hiss…!"

"NOOOOOOOO!" screamed Feyera at the top of his lungs as a huge splash of harbor water signaled his very first Pokemon's demise. "BRUCIE! No… you can't be dead! NO! YOU CAN'T BE DEAD! NOOOO!" He could see violent splashing as the Pokemon struggled to remain afloat in a sea of certain death. "ARGHHHHH!"

"Heh." Ein turned to Evice and smiled. "Ready?"

"Hahaha! They're finished!"

"It's time! Magneton, use Wild Charge!"

"Houndoom, Fire Fang!" said Evice.

The obedient hound leapt high up into the air, further than any of the other Pokemon aiming right at Desperado's neck. Feyera found himself being flung off from Desperado's back. He fell on something hard. But he could not tell up of down, only watch as in a crackle of heavenly thunder, Houndoom's shadow-lined fur stood on end as it was electrocuted as a makeshift-electrical conductor for Magneton's attack. The fire hound had bit straight into Des. Magneton then set the Pokemon ablaze with enough volts to kill it outright. The body of the shadow Pokemon convulsed and turned to ash as its fangs evaporated while still imbedded in the Gyarados' neck.

"Des…! NO!" he shouted within the confinement originating in his chest. Lifting himself off the deck, he fought off the growing pressure pressing down on him. "No…They can't be dead…!" Feyera looked down. The boat's controls were right there, though they seemed oddly closer to him. "Now's my only chance!" Detached, he felt his fingers fumbling with ignition key given to him by Fredrick. Twisting the start-up switch, the yacht's motor purred eagerly to life. "*Fuummm! FUROOM!*" groused the mighty engine, spewing harbor water as it lurched forward just in time to evade an incoming attack from Aggron.

"NO! DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY!"

Time seemed to crawl to a slow march forward. There were mysterious lights, shimmering from beyond the bulkhead's metal veil. The harbor suddenly shook from a massive tremor. Feyera strained to see what had caused the ruckus, but his eyes seeing from within the Gardevoir crystal had grown dim. The world around him had transformed into a churning sea of red. Faint glimmers of light shattered the grim darkness, shining brightly from far beyond the gates.

"GAH! What in damnation?!" Ein exclaimed. "NO! …IT CANNOT BE!" A massive curved bolt of lightning arched directly in front of the Cipher scientist, blocking him and his Pokemon from boarding the Prima.

Feeling a warm touch against his palm, Feyera could only attempt to shout out from within his prison, "SANA!"

Rather than answer his claim, the graceful figure appeared to float above him. Like a ghost, she descended from a pillar of light and swirling emotional color. And yet, she did not look at him. Instead, she appeared transfixed upon his vacant eyes. "Seph…" she said silently.

"Sana…" Uncontrollable words flowed from Feyera's lips, "it really is you. You're so beautiful. Such radiant splendor…"

"SEPH! SEPH! Come back to me!" pleaded the Pokemon, shaking his body.

"I can't, Sanaria. My time… has come to an end, the Mercurium will soon assimilate the one who resists the least. My power, my ability, my capacity to protect you, now belongs to the man who stands before you. If I overtake his body, all of our memories will be wiped clean. I… I don't want to forget, Sana. I can't… I won't forget you."

"SEPH! No! Please! You cannot leave me."

"…Don't you see? I never left your side, Sanaria; I've been here all along."

"Oh, Seph!"

"Although far from perfect, Feyera has taught me a valuable lesson in acceptance. I now can move on to the afterworld, knowing that in the end, the capacity for love in spite of hatred is what inspires true feeling…"

"SEPH! NOOO! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE! NOT AFTER ALL OF THIS! Don't you see?! I love you!"

"*GARGH! UNGH!*" Something had kicked him violently in the chest! "OW! Damn!" Feyera clenched his teeth, and the riveting sensation of his body slammed into his consciousness. He was back in control. Looking down at his chest, he quickly realized that crystal on his chest no long symbolized imprisonment, though it radiated with a power filling his entire body with strength. "*Gasp, gasp!*"

"Thas Feyera… Aren't you forgetting something?" asked a sweet voice beside him.

"S–Sanaria!?" he jumped in awestruck disbelief. "What happened?!"

Sanaria batted her eyes friendlily. "I think you know." Clutching her hands behind his neck, she continued to hold him in a tight embrace; each of their radiant hearts warmly gracing against the other's. Before Feyera could say anything else (much less do anything), she tilted her head towards a rapidly unwinding coil of rope. "Hmm? Aren't going to give me some snide remark about how this was all part of your master plan?"

"I– uh!?"

"Hm? No snide comment?" Playfully she mimicked his voice, "'it's about time Sanaria saves the day'? Oh wait –" the Gardevoir looked around mockingly left to right "– Looks like there aren't any Bug Type Pokemon around here. Phew, I guess that means I don't get to embarrass you again! You must be relieved!"

"Sanaria…?" he asked. She appeared more vivid than he recalled. Not an ounce of color was lost. "Is it really you?"

"Huh?" she scoffed. "Of course it is!"

"Why did you come back?" he asked sincerely. "I was going to save you; even if it meant sacrificing myself."

She tried smiling lightheartedly. "To protect you." The wind blew her minty green hair as the yacht continued to accelerate right towards the broken gate aglow with fantastic sunlight. "Remember what I said before?"

"Yes! I–I can remember! How…? How is this possible…? How can I be…?"

Sana gave him a hesitant, perplexing look. "Veh Feyera?"

"Is 'Veh' my name?" he wondered. "I thought it was …uh…"

"No…" she smirked playfully, "but I like to call you that since it means – oh, never mind! Quit toying around with me! You didn't cut anchor!"

"Huh?" Feyera scratched his bushy hair, and the texture pleasantly surprised him. "Cut anchor…? What?"

"You're hopeless!" Sana exclaimed with a laugh. "I swear, if Seph and I hadn't been seafaring Gardevoir…" She knelt down, reached to her side and plucked a crystalline feather from a pair of transparent wings. Soon, with the approaching afternoon sun, Sanaria's illusion of light began to fade away. "Let's just say you're lucky to have me at your side." "SHING!" With a sharp slash, she used the edge of the psychic crystal to shred the anchor's rapidly uncoiling rope right before the diamond feather faded into material nothingness.

"…!"

"There! Now look out!"

"Where…?" he asked, peering off into the distance as the wind tunnel whipped air against him. "Where do you need me to look?"

"What are you doing, veh Feyera?! Get down!" she scolded as the yacht crashed through the harbor's gate at full power. Though exposed and without flat metal plating, the ship's skeleton burst through the damaged wall. From the mighty impact, Sanaria fell against Feyera, and the two fell onto the rocking deck now bathed in sunlight. "Ooof!" she exclaimed.

"Sanaria?" he asked in wonder. "Is it really you? …But who am I…?"

"Don't worry. We're on a journey to figure that all out. Right doc?"

"Uhh... 'doc'?" said Feyera. "You're confusing me!"

"I thought you got weirded out when I called you 'veh Feyera'. Make up your mind for goodness sake!"

"I…" However Feyera could not help but pause. Behind Sana, a beautiful tapestry of brightly colored light draped down from the low afternoon sun. Colors joined and merged in a seamless language that he never knew existed before.

*Click! Sisss! Hiss*

"You're …still alive? Even after all this?"

"Heh..." wheezed Fredrick. "It appears my cursed luck is just as strong as ever, Gideon! *Cough* Heaven still favors me alive…"

"Humph." Rolling his eyes in disgust, Ein approached, mounting his longboarded pistol over his narrow shoulder. "Aldaine, some say that failure in battle is a sign you'll live a shorter life."

"I haven't failed. …I've been deceived…by you! By your lies…! *Hack Cough!*…But not anymore!"

"Hmm. You've failed a lot, haven't you? …As a man. …As a father."

"…!"

"– I told you this last time: when you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." Ein brushed a vine-like black hair out of his vision. "The fight is done. The war is won. The damage is done."

"…You don't know that."

"Of course I do. You're good as no more. He'll come crawling back to me. Without you; he has to."

"This war can no longer continue. This destruction… These atrocities… Evil is all that's left in Cipher."

"The good and the evil always seem to account for what is necessary, Aldaine. Don't you see? There are no sides. There is no 'right'. Only a winner and a loser. …And you've chosen the wrong side."

"No…"

"Yes," growled Ein. "By teasing Feyera with a noose-wand of control amid the ravenous spreading of the toxicosis…he'll have no other choice but to join Cipher."

"I don't believe you…!"

"You might deny it. But… your doubt remains, doesn't it? Hmm. It's the darker side of you, isn't it? I know… I understand… Your dreams… they deceive all you've seen. All you've perceived. Rationality is the only answer! You're nothing more than a lost hope to a perishing child. How does that feel?"

"To speak the name of the dead is to make them live again. However briefly: they are remembered."

"Humph! Fredrick Aldaine, you know as well as I do: recited phrases of old carry very little weight in the modern world. Unquestioning wisdom is a fragile and delirious prophet!"

"Exactly, Gideon." Sight wavering beyond control, Fredrick tried to point at Ein. "Which is why … *cough!* ...in the end, Feyera won't need your help!"

"Wrong," Ein said with a dark smirk. "Your pet's too far gone. He couldn't forgive himself from the self-imposed guilt and you know exactly what follows from a conflicted consciousness!"

"–Consciousness isn't a tangible concept, and neither is forgiveness." Fredrick further lowered his head. The golden olive leaves adorning his high-strung military color had begun to drip. The golden rivers trickled freely down his pine-leaf colored suede vest. "Forgiveness doesn't come from within… it first comes from another…!"

"–Hmm... At least you tried," Ein said with a sneer. "I thought you lost the ability to care after what was done to your little girl!"

"–I…did. *Gasp!* …But *urk!* I was able to get it back–" Fredrick desperately gulped at vanishing air "– …! And…*wheeze*…if not fully, then at least for the brief timbre of a human heartbeat!"

"Oh really? Human, you say?" derided Ein, his thin lips feigning a non-existent sympathy. "How…touching. Pity." As Ein's lean shadow stretched far beyond the dock, the frail scientist gradually turned to face the rays of stellar light. Cipher's admin couldn't help but smile at the afternoon sun, which appeared brighter than ever before. The liquid gold sunlight pierced throughout the entire harbor. "– Aldaine, this is the end for you–" Ein said coldly "–and whatever you couldn't manage to stand for in your miserable life!" Beginning to step away, his shadow no longer concealed Fredrick's dark features.

"AARRRGHHHH!" screamed the police agent – his face heavily burnt from the liquid metal pouring down from Cipher's warship. "HAA! …AAARRRGGHHHHH!" Fredrick looked skyward, at the beautiful sunlight piercing through the widening gap above. The sunlight gleamed through the harbor's shattered gate brighter than ever before. "YOU'LL NEVER WIN!" he hollered, his tortured face gradually scalding from the warship's rivers of liquid flowing metal. Like awful, searing veins, they etched down his tormented expression, scalding his flesh into irreconcilable fragments. "AARGGGHHH!" he bellowed out in absolute agony. Bright sunlight seemed to melt his view from the inside out through countless, unbearably beautiful colors.

"–Hmm. How appropriate, Aldaine. Seems it's time to embrace the sunlight; the beauty you were ever-so-fond of!" Ein leered. "It must run in the family…Deirdre often complained that the sun wasn't present enough here in the laboratory. Of course, after I was through with her…she'd never see the sun the same way again. Ha–haha!"

"…!" As the first rays of the warm afternoon sun licked at his seared cheeks, he fought the temptation to hide his wounded face from the light. Instead, he stared resolutely in the direction Feyera had taken off in. The distant white yacht had just passed over the Southern Sea's golden horizon from beyond the bay. "No," he said, eyes transfixed upon the brightly illuminated metal panels beneath him. Softly he exhaled, "no…"

"Oh?" Ein paused, turning around to face the defiance. "'No', you say…? Not gone yet? Your little girl is dead. And her sweetheart Doctor Feyera will be next!"

"…H–he got away… *Wheeze* Feyera…my son-to-be…*cough* he found a way to escape from your madness." Before any shadow of doubt could be cast upon Ein, Fredrick's weary eyes grew glossy with a blank expression – steadily reflecting the luminous sunlight in countless shades of colors, like two glistening prisms, trapped within a worried man's expression. As the sunburst grew ever brighter, he closed one of shadowy bronze eyes, and his expression began to loosen. No longer was there any sense of fear, any danger of mortality; it was all here before him. Life, death, the cycle of creation and destruction glowed right before his charred eyelids. With a hushed wink, he lifelessly fell, tumbling face-first onto to the dock's metal floor. "Thump!" Strangely, the metal sheets no longer felt cold, even against his gruff, unshaven face. In fact, it felt warmer than anything he could possibly recall. Warmer than anything he'd ever felt in this entire existence. As warm as his daughter's embrace, an incredible feeling he thought he had long since lost. There was nothing left behind but utter silence. A lonely, thin patch of ribbon-bound sunlight was all that remained; flickering, as if somehow left behind; hovering ominously over his lifeless body; vanishing like a wisp of cold breath lost in a bleak winter's morning.

"Well now… – " Ein's victorious simper softly resounded throughout the otherwise silent harbor "– I beg to differ."

"Commander Celesta, sector five's gone completely offline!"

Her blood-colored eyes glared across the room. "What?" At first she felt a rush of shock, however her anger was soon quelled by a cooling light that illuminated the young woman's pointed chin. "Your stupid technology failed us? …Again?"

Over the computers mounted onto the central table and at the man next to the central terminal. "Penta base has been exposed to intense cosmic radiation. The base is completely dark."

"NO…!" she belted in sharp telepathic angst.

The force of her angered thoughts caused the men around her to flinch. As her menacing red eyes narrowed disapprovingly at the face of failure, another lieutenant quickly answered on his colleague's behalf. "Commander, the sensor's picking up intense magnetic interference. Chief Ein's Phaeton Prototype might have punctured the ionosphere longer than the shields could hold! The magnetic field above flickered out of existence long enough to allow the full radiation of the sun to destroy the safeguards. There also might have been a confrontation…"

"Might have?" she murmured softly to her rigid military collar. "Agent Black…" She quickly turned her head skyward. "Fredrick Aldaine…" she hummed in telepathic wonder. "Tell me, do we have a means of contacting the Evercrest base?"

"No ma'am. Any exposed circuitry would destroyed. Your Serenithium supply would also be destroyed."

"Destroyed?" she asked chillingly. "I thought I was reborn into this human body as an immortal."

"I–I don't know for sure. This is just me putting the pieces together. Our intel says the weapon stationed there wasn't ready for deployment. Evice made it perfectly clear in his last transmission that he wanted to see Phaeton's effect in person."

"Hmph. So much for Gideon's Solaris Shield…" hummed the lean military general. Like a Valkyrie, her elegant commanding nature dominated the soldiers in the room. "It appears warfare's advancement has once again surpassed the protective ramparts. Hm." She shifted her eyes, swaying her long green hair; streaks of shimmering silver running through its wavy volume. "How do you propose we deal with this new adversity? This…hmm…Feyera…"

"C–commander Celesta?" the man asked in a nervous salute. "Gideon had on good authority that both Feyera and the Kanto police agent would be kept in custody until you could convert them to our cause…!"

"Forget it," she said shaking her youthful face, "that's not happening."

"Commander?"

The general's disarming smile was followed by a swift "silly, stumbling phrases will never amount to anything of worth!" The fair–skinned commander looked down at her glowing chest. A bright medallion, engraved with a five-pronged cross, failed to match the brilliant luminosity emanating from the eerily organic metal dividing her breasts, jutting through her body-hugging uniform. "—We will make our next course of action based upon instinct rather than reason."

A bright aurora of spectacular lights draped down from high above. The flash of brilliant color was unlike anything he had ever seen. Even from a distance, the colored ribbons of kaleidoscopic light danced as if they were breathing along with his heavy breaths, beating with his swollen heart.

Nevertheless, Feyera's heart was not alone in this dark world.

At his side were Brucie, Des, and July. True they were injured, but their lives were not lost thanks to the Gardevoir locking arms with him. Sanaria's scarlet eyes, a nebula of pristine refinement, were at eyelevel with Feyera's emerald eyes. Golden rivers of cascading, molten iron no longer flowed freely through the researcher's eyes. Instead, all that remained was a warm cerise glow, barely reminiscent of past decisions and their heavy scars.

Neither of them could fathom the bottomless confusion as they drew closer together caressing what little air they shared in this preciously fortunate moment. With a soft murmur, Sanaria opened her mouth to say, "Fallen angel – here at my side – guide us out of this endless night."

Fin.