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Younger. Of course they fucking were. Kids, just brimming with drive to go fight a bunch of armed lunatics. "Christ." He clenched his jaw. Fuck it. He heaved himself off the couch to get a bottle out of the fridge. And what, you can't stop your actual child friends getting themselves killed...

Mia tilted her head. "We don't know anything about what we'll look like after hatching. There hasn't been anyone like us. But I want to be more solid."

"Dave is just a normal human. He will probably be dead in thirty or forty years. Maybe less. He drinks a lot and that lowers life expectancy." Would she live for centuries? That was interesting. The other her aged faster than a normal human, so she would probably have died early too, even if...

Mia frowned. What was he talking about? "Why would we see each other centuries from now and be different people?"

Dave raised an eyebrow at the seventeen. No reason to think a country in a different fucking universe couldn't have a different legal age of majority, but still, a fucking seventeen-year-old was a goddamn kid. She couldn't be older than what, eighteen or nineteen now. And she'd strongly implied...

Mia nodded slowly. "Dave wants to go back. He wouldn't like being here forever. But I like Cibus. This body is better and everyone here likes fighting."

Was that it? Mia cocked her head. Maybe. Maybe if he went back he'd be normal. But then he'd also be gone. "I don't want him to leave," she said, frowning. "I didn't like it when he was in the Voidlands."

Not like they'd assign a kid to carry out a hit or anything like that. She'd said five years. Five years from the age of twelve. His chest burned, but the fire was dampened by cold darkness, couldn't quite grow into the pure righteous rage he really could've used right now. He was so fucking...

Owen was saying again that he kept being made to want things he didn't want. He could just go on wanting the new thing, but he also wanted to not want things he didn't originally want. Maybe that did make some sense. "I like fighting and meat because I think like a Scyther. Pokémon in my...

"I like fighting, and meat, and hotdogs, and talking with Dave, and math, and learning how things work," Mia said. "I like it when things make sense. But there doesn't need to be a reason for liking something. If I want something I want it. It doesn't matter why."

"Jesus." Some of Jean's dumb books had twelve-year-olds fighting criminals, but usually the criminals weren't also fucking twelve. The Pokémorphs had gone off to that church in their naïve heroism; what if there'd been twelve-year-olds on the other side, handed guns and told God wants you to...

Mia nodded slowly. That made some sense. There was a name for Mega Charizard X because it wasn't just one Charizard who was different from others. People knew things that applied to all Mega Charizard X. That could be helpful. Like if you were sick, then if there were other other Mega Charizard...

Mia frowned. Did they just mean the name? Was there something special about the name Mega Charizard X? Why were they both being weird about it? "Why are you not as much of a freak?"

What the fuck. That was even worse than he thought. "Jesus fucking Christ. Was it just you, or what, does he make a habit of enlisting fucking twelve-year-olds?" Did the one they were keeping at the holding cells have a history of recruiting child soldiers too? "...Was Silver enlisted as a...

Mia squinted at him. "There's a type of rock that reacts with some Pokémon and makes them stronger. Why is it a mistake?"

Five years, huh. And clearly she wasn't still on it; she radiated hatred for the guy. Dave exhaled through his nose. "So what you're saying is your father recruited you into his fucking criminal gang at the age of what?"

Dave nodded, thinking. It had been a while since that time they'd interrogated "Giovanni", but she'd said some jarring stuff during and after that, hadn't she, and he'd never actually managed to probe her about any of it. "So, uh. You're Giovanni's daughter. Were you on his gang? Like, the...

"No," she said. "But you look mostly like a Mega Charizard X."

Mia tilted her head the other way. "I thought you were from one of the universes without humans."

"You can be careful without being afraid," Mia said, cocking her head. "You just need to know when to be."