Interlude: The Puppetmaster
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Gonna be some time until Part Two, but for now, here is the Interlude!
Archer is worried.
How do you know? He’s certainly not clearing his throat or shuffling his weight from foot to foot. If he were doing either of those things you’d send your persian straight for his throat, convinced it was a ditto imposter here with you in the room.
It’s not any particular sound or a movement that clues you in, just a sense you honed back in that interminable crossing, when your life hung on a sugar-sheet peg. And you know Archer. You know Archer better than he knows himself.
“How’s the boy doing?” you ask, just to push him further off-balance. Archer hates discussing this: he’s paranoid you mean to promote Athena up over him, just because she happened to have a womb and be convenient. A ridiculous fear. If he’d had a womb you’d have been just as happy to use him. Best not to say that, though. You prefer Archer a little stained by self-doubt.
“Silver?”
Of course Silver. Irritated, you finally spin your chair to get a good look at him. Did he suffer some horrible injury and not bother to tell you? Is that why he’s so slow this morning?
No, his uniform is pressed and spotless. Not a hair out of place on his glossy head. And if anything’s paining him, he’s hiding it well with his posture.
Well—not the guilty conscience. He’s not hiding that well. But you’ll let him get to it in his own time. Archer’s earned that much from you, and he’s never tried keeping secrets yet.
You don’t end up having to clarify. He’s already speaking when your eyes meet.
“Silver is doing well. Yesterday he pushed his playmate off the top of the playground tower and lied about it when asked.”
That’s your boy all right. Loosened up by fatherly pride, you drape one well-heeled leg over the other.
“And how is your boy doing?” you say, deciding to throw Archer a bone. It’s endearing how he’s found his own little prodigy to bring up, as if he thinks you’ll forget about your son if he can present a superior child in his place. Even got the hair color right. The whole thing amuses you, so you’ve let it take its course. And it could come in handy, if your flesh offspring grows into any concerning quirks.
Archer’s straightened, though. Amazing he could get much straighter.
“Sir, I’ve made a mistake.”
You lean back in your chair, eyes narrowing. Archer doesn’t make mistakes, so that’s a little distressing. On the other hand, it’s nice to have things to hold over him, provided the mistake isn’t disastrous. You wait for him to continue.
“The boy I’ve been training. He ended up on a mission he shouldn’t have been on. A code red. You know Proton isn't always the most . . . efficient with these things.”
“He’s effective,” you say mildly.
“Yes. But the boy saw and took off. It was too early.”
Not disastrous. To you, at least. Archer’s looking crushed, though.
“Your dragon-wielding prodigy,” you muse, just to twist the knife in further. “I assume you’ve already pulled back operations in the relevant areas.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then that’s all there is to be done. You win some, you lose some, Archer.”
It was a foolish idea in the first place. You don’t think you actually would have given up on your flesh and blood. That’s not the Fiorelli way.
Though you find yourself liking the unnamed boy a lot more now that he’s run away. Running away shows character and leadership. It made you everything you are.
There’s nothing you could do that would send Archer running away. This is why he will never be a leader.
“Keep an eye out, though,” you continue, “in case he pops up again and does anything interesting. He has a dragon, you’ve said?”
“Two of them, actually.”
Two dragons! Certainly worth some oversight. And since Archer’s bound to do it anyway, better that you’ve made it an order.
Actually. That was a little cheeky, wasn’t it? And Archer still sounds too proud.
“Any other failures to report?” you ask.
“No, sir.”
His left eye twitches slightly. Good. Got to keep the troops in line.
“Then get on with things.”
As Archer closes the door, you look out the window, where the sun glares at you with a furious orange eye. It looks to be a beautiful day, maybe even warm enough to make you think you’re home if you close your eyes.
Things are going well, really. You can’t complain. And you’ve decided Archer’s mistake is more amusing than annoying.
Your dear persian stirs in the corner and you coo to her. Time to get back to work.
Gym leaders meetings are certainly the highlight of your month. There are other pleasures, certainly, such as crushing the dreams of single-badge trainers and marking off politicians as fatly and thoroughly bribed, but gym leader meetings hold a special charm for you.
The gym-leaders fall into two groups: those who have power and influence, and those who do not. And you, of course.
Natsume’s early, though her eyes are shut and her legs crossed like she’s meditating. Natsume’s an ally. You try not to dwell on her much, in case she decides to drop in on your thoughts.
Erika nods to you when she walks through the door. A smart woman, with an ambition within her capacity. You appreciate her tasteful kimono, exquisite manners, and complete lack of sentimentality in business matters. She also thinks the apex of success is a multi-million dollar perfume company, so you don’t spend much time worrying about her.
Then there’s the ruffage. Muno from Pewter, his face permanently fixed into a scowl. Hamako of Cerulean, who is courting irrelevance with her staunch and wholly futile opposition to her city’s shipping industry. The Unovan, who preserves a mullish silence every month. Sometimes you doubt he even has the language ability to follow along. Vermillion’s leaders thought it was good imaging for trade relations, and you don’t really mind. He’s a non-factor, like the other two.
Koga ought to be a non-factor, but he nags at you. Fuschia’s a nowhere town with its own code law and a half-hearted economy in silk and tourist chachkas. But the ninjas have respect. In time immemorial, they swooped in to save Kanto from invaders and for that they have the nation’s enduring gratitude. When the nation remembers they exist, that is. You’ve been careful to keep your people out of Fuschia. If you’ve read Koga right, he won’t bother anyone who doesn’t bother him first. Some kind of ninja principle. Some motto of caution or restraint. You wouldn’t know.
Katsura skips these meetings. Nobody misses him.
The meeting begins when Erika clears her throat gently. You lean back in your seat, aquiver with quiet pleasure. Everyone gives badge reports. Muno complains again about faulty mine equipment. Erika reminds him again that it's not gym business. Natsume smiles, but doesn’t say anything, even though everyone knows the problems come from Saffron. Hamako complains about ships clogging her port. Honestly, does this woman understand the first thing about economic power?
Koga watches everybody. The Unovan watches the clock.
It’s a quiet crowd, so it falls to you to maintain a pleasant back and forth with Erika. You can tell she appreciates it; in her opinion, the others are complete bores.
Kanto has a problem. They’ve lost track of where power lies. Between the gyms, the assembly, the league, and the emergent industry sector, it’s a muddle. The game will go to the first person to consolidate. That’s you.
The gyms are nearly neutralized now. Natsume’s appointment was a coup, of course. Killed several pidgey with one stone. Silph’s president stayed late at Friday’s gala just to give you a handshake for it.
You’ll be replacing Hamako soon; after the gyarados fiasco, it’s all but inevitable. Maybe with one of those bright young things from that delightful watershow you watched—what was it now, the Sensational Sisters they’d called themselves? Vendors outside the performance hall had sold conch-shells and garish starmie-patterned shirts. You occupy yourself with picturing Hamako’s expression, should she have happened to have wandered inside. Oh, that settles it. The Sensational Sisters it is.
Muno’s a defeatist, so you don’t worry about him. Maybe you’ll stop by Pewter and tour one of his horrible, dusty camps. Remind him that Viridian is also suffering beneath the cruel yoke of the city industries. That will make him feel very cared for. It's attention Pewter craves, not solutions.
You’d feel better if Koga were gone as well—but no. You’ll let the ninja issue lie. They can’t fight a whole country. If worst comes to worst, they’ll secede and you won’t miss them.
You feel a headache coming on. That’s Natsume. She does it because petty displays of power amuse her, and you take it because you understand how power actually works. It’s not the way she thinks it does—for a psychic trainer, she’s fairly obtuse.
When the meeting ends, you give her a short nod, ignoring the small smirk that crosses her lips. Soon construction will begin in Cinnabar—
Ah, but that’s a thought for another time and place.
When you return home, you shrug off your double-breasted blazer and unknot your tie. Your vest hanging loose and your shirt half unbuttoned, you pause to examine your reflection in the broad mirror that overhangs your rose-veined marble sink.
You’re 36. That’s the age your grandmother always answered, if anyone was uncouth enough to ask. “I’m thirty-six,” she said, white hair severely bunned and ribboned, diamond choker clasped tightly around her sagging neck.
Everyone would let out a gentle titter at this charming response, but you were the only one who knew Grandmother believed those words with all her heart. She believed she could make the world anything she wanted it to be by the strength of her belief.
You pull the purple velveteen ribbon from your pocket. Her diamond choker you sold long ago, back in that desperate crossing, but the ribbon you kept. It was of no value to anyone, and perhaps not even to you. Still. Your jaw is square, your eyebrows sharp, your hair silky, and your gaze keen. She would have been proud of this face, had she lived to see it. Though it’s not exactly your face you’re counting on to make your ancestors proud.
Political power’s not enough. You need real power. You need an empire.
And when you’ve got that—
Well.
You study your face again. Do you have your father’s jaw? You think not. Yours is sterner. Your eyes are harder and more relentless.
Once you’ve got that, maybe then it will come time to pay your homeland a little return visit. Remind them that the Fiorelli name is not one to be thrown lightly aside.
Your hand clenches around the worn ribbon. No, not lightly.
Your gym, newly built, is the tallest building in Viridian. Of course, taller buildings stand upon every single street in Saffron, but they’re far enough away that the comparison isn’t worth making. Distance alters things. The name you are making here, the name you left behind in Etalia—one day they will be measured against each other. But not yet.
For now, you are circulating, the gracious host at a rather fabulous gala. The attendance is excellent. More than half of the assembly have clocked in, and not just the ones you’ve bribed either. All the major corporations are represented. You catch the rosy pink of Erika’s kimono, hear Jiro’s bright laugh, find Muno off in the corner nursing a glass of sake and his own resentments, and—
Oh my.
“The champion, at my humble gathering?” you call out. “You do me too great an honor, Lady Kikuko.”
She turns to face you slowly, in her own time. She’s wearing purple tonight and a shrewd expression on her haggard face. You think of your grandmother for an instant, then banish the thought before it shows in your eyes.
“Modesty doesn’t suit you, Giovanni Fiorelli.”
The knowing way she pronounces your full name makes you twitch. Witch, they call her in Viridian—in polite company, at least. And you know witches, the shadow-benders back home who plied their trade in forgotten alleyways. Once, when you were plagued with sleepless nights and haunting dreams, your mother brought you to one of their shadow dens. She did so at night, woke you from your bed and bundled you into a dark jacket. Father never heard about it. He would have castigated you both, locked you away for nights and days with only bread to eat.
You never saw the face of the woman who treated you, only her gnarled hands in the flickering candlelight. Something seemed to move in the corner of your vision as you lay there, stiff with fright and dizzy from the sweet incense. A shadow of a shadow, darker than the night.
Had she cured you? Or had the terror of the experience taught you to clear your own mind?
Kikuko stares at you knowingly, and you bow your head to hide your sudden loss of words.
“I hope you have found everything here to your satisfaction,” you say. A plain, fumbling phrase, but you were not expecting her here tonight.
“You’ve built yourself a magnificent gym.”
The words are delivered tonelessly. You can’t tell if the compliment is perfunctory, bitter, or sincere. The Lavender Town gym was a humble building, a single floor, low-roofed and dark. The air tingled with sickly-sweet incense and rattata skittered behind the walls. Perhaps the Lady Kikuko thinks you are too big for your boots.
“Why, thank you. Perhaps you’ll honor me with your presence some other time, when I can attend to you with the attention you deserve? I am sure you have much to teach me.”
Kikuko studies you from beneath thinly drawn brows. “Perhaps so, Mr. Fiorelli. Perhaps so.”
Battle hall matches are an exercise in tedium. The infantile groaning of the crowd, the trainers parading in their ostentatious kit, the terrible refreshments—you would have left already, if it weren’t for the dragonite. It’s massive, meter upon meter of bulging gold muscle. Behind the dragonite stands a trainer with blazing red hair, a garish red cape, and a cheap festival mask. You could safely write off the whole ensemble as ridiculous if the dragonite weren’t currently tearing its way through the best the Kanto battle hall scene seems able to offer.
Idly, you wonder how the armor of your rhyperior would stand up against that assault.
That evening, you cut off Archer mid-sentence as he makes the evening report. “Has your young protege been—busy?”
“Three battle hall tournaments this month,” Archer answers promptly, as if he’d been anticipating the question. Then he hesitates. “Also, potentially, the sabotage at the Power Station project.”
Your eyes narrow into slits. The rogue generator your people had assembled was found ruptured in half one cold morning. The last you’d heard, they suspected a rogue wild onyx.
“There were claw marks,” Archer adds.
You lean back in your chair, digesting this. So he’s on a mission now, is he, this little red-head and his dragons? What does he want? What’s he trying to achieve?
It’s all small potatoes so far. Annoying, but nothing that could alter the inextricable trajectory of Team Rocket. If he were standing here, you might pat him on the back and tell him with a fatherly air, “True power doesn’t come from your dragonite’s claws, my boy. And until you understand that, you’ll never meet me eye to eye.”
“Should I—”
But you cut Archer off with a wave of your hand.
Luckily, Katsura doesn’t suffer from an excess of morals. You clink mimosas as you wait on the last of the permitting, the product of several handsome bribes, a few hideously expensive bottles of champagne, and the agony of enduring the rare prolonged conversation with the man.
You sip your mimosa, and wince. Oversweet. Of course. Why had you expected any different?
“What sun rises from blue to orange, and never sinks?” Katsura asks suddenly, with an airy wave of his hand.
The inane riddles are yet another one of Katsura’s less-than-charming tendencies. Most of them are homebrewn, and impossible to answer sensibly, even if you’d been inclined to that sort of childish wordplay to begin with. Although—
“A sun that’s a dragonite,” you answer.
Katsura’s bushy eyebrows lift in surprise.
“You’re a learned man, Mr Fiorelli,” he exclaims as if that’s some sort of revelation. You had the best tutors Etalia had to offer for the first twelve years of your life, and your learning never stopped afterwards, either.
“Why a dragonite riddle?” you ask, setting down your drink.
It’s just the mildest of suspicions, but Katsura chuckles and says, “Fought one of the damned things just last week, if you can believe it. My magmar’s fire-blast couldn’t even touch that thick hide.”
Your face must stay just a little too still, because Katsura chuckles again, wagging his eyebrows knowingly.
“Has he hit your gym yet? No? Ah, but you’re waiting for it.”
The words don’t leave your mind as you lay kiku flowers down on Isami’s gravestone and take the helicopter back to Viridian. Perhaps you are waiting. Enough of rumor, hear-say and ridiculous festival masks. Meet your enemies in the light of day, even if you stab them in the shadows, they said back home. At least, your grandmother did.
“Arrange a meeting,” you tell Archer. You’re a little disconcerted when he doesn’t even ask who with, just nods, worry flattening his lips. But he doesn’t leave. You watch him for a while, the way your darling watches the rattata when she is fed and lazy.
“Do you think that’s wise, sir?” he says at last.
Questioning you? Rare enough that you actually take a moment to consider. With one hand you pat your darling, with the other you finger the ribbon curled in your pocket. The silence stretches. You are sifting through conversations, fitting problems against each other like puzzle pieces, seeing where the edges fit.
And then you have it.
“We wait,” you tell Archer, who nods his head and removes himself with poorly-veiled relief.
Because you have a plan now. It’s a darling, this plan. It’s not just going to kill two pidgeys—it will kill a dragonite, metaphorically at least, and more besides.
If the boy comes, you’ll give him a gym battle and every courtesy he’s owed. But he’s on your board now and, though he doesn’t know it, soon he’ll be playing for you.
Interlude
The Puppetmaster
The Puppetmaster
Archer is worried.
How do you know? He’s certainly not clearing his throat or shuffling his weight from foot to foot. If he were doing either of those things you’d send your persian straight for his throat, convinced it was a ditto imposter here with you in the room.
It’s not any particular sound or a movement that clues you in, just a sense you honed back in that interminable crossing, when your life hung on a sugar-sheet peg. And you know Archer. You know Archer better than he knows himself.
“How’s the boy doing?” you ask, just to push him further off-balance. Archer hates discussing this: he’s paranoid you mean to promote Athena up over him, just because she happened to have a womb and be convenient. A ridiculous fear. If he’d had a womb you’d have been just as happy to use him. Best not to say that, though. You prefer Archer a little stained by self-doubt.
“Silver?”
Of course Silver. Irritated, you finally spin your chair to get a good look at him. Did he suffer some horrible injury and not bother to tell you? Is that why he’s so slow this morning?
No, his uniform is pressed and spotless. Not a hair out of place on his glossy head. And if anything’s paining him, he’s hiding it well with his posture.
Well—not the guilty conscience. He’s not hiding that well. But you’ll let him get to it in his own time. Archer’s earned that much from you, and he’s never tried keeping secrets yet.
You don’t end up having to clarify. He’s already speaking when your eyes meet.
“Silver is doing well. Yesterday he pushed his playmate off the top of the playground tower and lied about it when asked.”
That’s your boy all right. Loosened up by fatherly pride, you drape one well-heeled leg over the other.
“And how is your boy doing?” you say, deciding to throw Archer a bone. It’s endearing how he’s found his own little prodigy to bring up, as if he thinks you’ll forget about your son if he can present a superior child in his place. Even got the hair color right. The whole thing amuses you, so you’ve let it take its course. And it could come in handy, if your flesh offspring grows into any concerning quirks.
Archer’s straightened, though. Amazing he could get much straighter.
“Sir, I’ve made a mistake.”
You lean back in your chair, eyes narrowing. Archer doesn’t make mistakes, so that’s a little distressing. On the other hand, it’s nice to have things to hold over him, provided the mistake isn’t disastrous. You wait for him to continue.
“The boy I’ve been training. He ended up on a mission he shouldn’t have been on. A code red. You know Proton isn't always the most . . . efficient with these things.”
“He’s effective,” you say mildly.
“Yes. But the boy saw and took off. It was too early.”
Not disastrous. To you, at least. Archer’s looking crushed, though.
“Your dragon-wielding prodigy,” you muse, just to twist the knife in further. “I assume you’ve already pulled back operations in the relevant areas.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then that’s all there is to be done. You win some, you lose some, Archer.”
It was a foolish idea in the first place. You don’t think you actually would have given up on your flesh and blood. That’s not the Fiorelli way.
Though you find yourself liking the unnamed boy a lot more now that he’s run away. Running away shows character and leadership. It made you everything you are.
There’s nothing you could do that would send Archer running away. This is why he will never be a leader.
“Keep an eye out, though,” you continue, “in case he pops up again and does anything interesting. He has a dragon, you’ve said?”
“Two of them, actually.”
Two dragons! Certainly worth some oversight. And since Archer’s bound to do it anyway, better that you’ve made it an order.
Actually. That was a little cheeky, wasn’t it? And Archer still sounds too proud.
“Any other failures to report?” you ask.
“No, sir.”
His left eye twitches slightly. Good. Got to keep the troops in line.
“Then get on with things.”
As Archer closes the door, you look out the window, where the sun glares at you with a furious orange eye. It looks to be a beautiful day, maybe even warm enough to make you think you’re home if you close your eyes.
Things are going well, really. You can’t complain. And you’ve decided Archer’s mistake is more amusing than annoying.
Your dear persian stirs in the corner and you coo to her. Time to get back to work.
~*~
Gym leaders meetings are certainly the highlight of your month. There are other pleasures, certainly, such as crushing the dreams of single-badge trainers and marking off politicians as fatly and thoroughly bribed, but gym leader meetings hold a special charm for you.
The gym-leaders fall into two groups: those who have power and influence, and those who do not. And you, of course.
Natsume’s early, though her eyes are shut and her legs crossed like she’s meditating. Natsume’s an ally. You try not to dwell on her much, in case she decides to drop in on your thoughts.
Erika nods to you when she walks through the door. A smart woman, with an ambition within her capacity. You appreciate her tasteful kimono, exquisite manners, and complete lack of sentimentality in business matters. She also thinks the apex of success is a multi-million dollar perfume company, so you don’t spend much time worrying about her.
Then there’s the ruffage. Muno from Pewter, his face permanently fixed into a scowl. Hamako of Cerulean, who is courting irrelevance with her staunch and wholly futile opposition to her city’s shipping industry. The Unovan, who preserves a mullish silence every month. Sometimes you doubt he even has the language ability to follow along. Vermillion’s leaders thought it was good imaging for trade relations, and you don’t really mind. He’s a non-factor, like the other two.
Koga ought to be a non-factor, but he nags at you. Fuschia’s a nowhere town with its own code law and a half-hearted economy in silk and tourist chachkas. But the ninjas have respect. In time immemorial, they swooped in to save Kanto from invaders and for that they have the nation’s enduring gratitude. When the nation remembers they exist, that is. You’ve been careful to keep your people out of Fuschia. If you’ve read Koga right, he won’t bother anyone who doesn’t bother him first. Some kind of ninja principle. Some motto of caution or restraint. You wouldn’t know.
Katsura skips these meetings. Nobody misses him.
The meeting begins when Erika clears her throat gently. You lean back in your seat, aquiver with quiet pleasure. Everyone gives badge reports. Muno complains again about faulty mine equipment. Erika reminds him again that it's not gym business. Natsume smiles, but doesn’t say anything, even though everyone knows the problems come from Saffron. Hamako complains about ships clogging her port. Honestly, does this woman understand the first thing about economic power?
Koga watches everybody. The Unovan watches the clock.
It’s a quiet crowd, so it falls to you to maintain a pleasant back and forth with Erika. You can tell she appreciates it; in her opinion, the others are complete bores.
Kanto has a problem. They’ve lost track of where power lies. Between the gyms, the assembly, the league, and the emergent industry sector, it’s a muddle. The game will go to the first person to consolidate. That’s you.
The gyms are nearly neutralized now. Natsume’s appointment was a coup, of course. Killed several pidgey with one stone. Silph’s president stayed late at Friday’s gala just to give you a handshake for it.
You’ll be replacing Hamako soon; after the gyarados fiasco, it’s all but inevitable. Maybe with one of those bright young things from that delightful watershow you watched—what was it now, the Sensational Sisters they’d called themselves? Vendors outside the performance hall had sold conch-shells and garish starmie-patterned shirts. You occupy yourself with picturing Hamako’s expression, should she have happened to have wandered inside. Oh, that settles it. The Sensational Sisters it is.
Muno’s a defeatist, so you don’t worry about him. Maybe you’ll stop by Pewter and tour one of his horrible, dusty camps. Remind him that Viridian is also suffering beneath the cruel yoke of the city industries. That will make him feel very cared for. It's attention Pewter craves, not solutions.
You’d feel better if Koga were gone as well—but no. You’ll let the ninja issue lie. They can’t fight a whole country. If worst comes to worst, they’ll secede and you won’t miss them.
You feel a headache coming on. That’s Natsume. She does it because petty displays of power amuse her, and you take it because you understand how power actually works. It’s not the way she thinks it does—for a psychic trainer, she’s fairly obtuse.
When the meeting ends, you give her a short nod, ignoring the small smirk that crosses her lips. Soon construction will begin in Cinnabar—
Ah, but that’s a thought for another time and place.
~*~
When you return home, you shrug off your double-breasted blazer and unknot your tie. Your vest hanging loose and your shirt half unbuttoned, you pause to examine your reflection in the broad mirror that overhangs your rose-veined marble sink.
You’re 36. That’s the age your grandmother always answered, if anyone was uncouth enough to ask. “I’m thirty-six,” she said, white hair severely bunned and ribboned, diamond choker clasped tightly around her sagging neck.
Everyone would let out a gentle titter at this charming response, but you were the only one who knew Grandmother believed those words with all her heart. She believed she could make the world anything she wanted it to be by the strength of her belief.
You pull the purple velveteen ribbon from your pocket. Her diamond choker you sold long ago, back in that desperate crossing, but the ribbon you kept. It was of no value to anyone, and perhaps not even to you. Still. Your jaw is square, your eyebrows sharp, your hair silky, and your gaze keen. She would have been proud of this face, had she lived to see it. Though it’s not exactly your face you’re counting on to make your ancestors proud.
Political power’s not enough. You need real power. You need an empire.
And when you’ve got that—
Well.
You study your face again. Do you have your father’s jaw? You think not. Yours is sterner. Your eyes are harder and more relentless.
Once you’ve got that, maybe then it will come time to pay your homeland a little return visit. Remind them that the Fiorelli name is not one to be thrown lightly aside.
Your hand clenches around the worn ribbon. No, not lightly.
~*~
Your gym, newly built, is the tallest building in Viridian. Of course, taller buildings stand upon every single street in Saffron, but they’re far enough away that the comparison isn’t worth making. Distance alters things. The name you are making here, the name you left behind in Etalia—one day they will be measured against each other. But not yet.
For now, you are circulating, the gracious host at a rather fabulous gala. The attendance is excellent. More than half of the assembly have clocked in, and not just the ones you’ve bribed either. All the major corporations are represented. You catch the rosy pink of Erika’s kimono, hear Jiro’s bright laugh, find Muno off in the corner nursing a glass of sake and his own resentments, and—
Oh my.
“The champion, at my humble gathering?” you call out. “You do me too great an honor, Lady Kikuko.”
She turns to face you slowly, in her own time. She’s wearing purple tonight and a shrewd expression on her haggard face. You think of your grandmother for an instant, then banish the thought before it shows in your eyes.
“Modesty doesn’t suit you, Giovanni Fiorelli.”
The knowing way she pronounces your full name makes you twitch. Witch, they call her in Viridian—in polite company, at least. And you know witches, the shadow-benders back home who plied their trade in forgotten alleyways. Once, when you were plagued with sleepless nights and haunting dreams, your mother brought you to one of their shadow dens. She did so at night, woke you from your bed and bundled you into a dark jacket. Father never heard about it. He would have castigated you both, locked you away for nights and days with only bread to eat.
You never saw the face of the woman who treated you, only her gnarled hands in the flickering candlelight. Something seemed to move in the corner of your vision as you lay there, stiff with fright and dizzy from the sweet incense. A shadow of a shadow, darker than the night.
Had she cured you? Or had the terror of the experience taught you to clear your own mind?
Kikuko stares at you knowingly, and you bow your head to hide your sudden loss of words.
“I hope you have found everything here to your satisfaction,” you say. A plain, fumbling phrase, but you were not expecting her here tonight.
“You’ve built yourself a magnificent gym.”
The words are delivered tonelessly. You can’t tell if the compliment is perfunctory, bitter, or sincere. The Lavender Town gym was a humble building, a single floor, low-roofed and dark. The air tingled with sickly-sweet incense and rattata skittered behind the walls. Perhaps the Lady Kikuko thinks you are too big for your boots.
“Why, thank you. Perhaps you’ll honor me with your presence some other time, when I can attend to you with the attention you deserve? I am sure you have much to teach me.”
Kikuko studies you from beneath thinly drawn brows. “Perhaps so, Mr. Fiorelli. Perhaps so.”
~*~
Battle hall matches are an exercise in tedium. The infantile groaning of the crowd, the trainers parading in their ostentatious kit, the terrible refreshments—you would have left already, if it weren’t for the dragonite. It’s massive, meter upon meter of bulging gold muscle. Behind the dragonite stands a trainer with blazing red hair, a garish red cape, and a cheap festival mask. You could safely write off the whole ensemble as ridiculous if the dragonite weren’t currently tearing its way through the best the Kanto battle hall scene seems able to offer.
Idly, you wonder how the armor of your rhyperior would stand up against that assault.
That evening, you cut off Archer mid-sentence as he makes the evening report. “Has your young protege been—busy?”
“Three battle hall tournaments this month,” Archer answers promptly, as if he’d been anticipating the question. Then he hesitates. “Also, potentially, the sabotage at the Power Station project.”
Your eyes narrow into slits. The rogue generator your people had assembled was found ruptured in half one cold morning. The last you’d heard, they suspected a rogue wild onyx.
“There were claw marks,” Archer adds.
You lean back in your chair, digesting this. So he’s on a mission now, is he, this little red-head and his dragons? What does he want? What’s he trying to achieve?
It’s all small potatoes so far. Annoying, but nothing that could alter the inextricable trajectory of Team Rocket. If he were standing here, you might pat him on the back and tell him with a fatherly air, “True power doesn’t come from your dragonite’s claws, my boy. And until you understand that, you’ll never meet me eye to eye.”
“Should I—”
But you cut Archer off with a wave of your hand.
~*~
Katsura, it is universally agreed, makes for unpleasant company. Since he is arguably one of the brightest minds of his generation and a ferocious battler to boot, the league’s stuck him in Cinnabar, where he doesn’t bother anyone, except you on the days you’re forced to visit.
Luckily, Katsura doesn’t suffer from an excess of morals. You clink mimosas as you wait on the last of the permitting, the product of several handsome bribes, a few hideously expensive bottles of champagne, and the agony of enduring the rare prolonged conversation with the man.
You sip your mimosa, and wince. Oversweet. Of course. Why had you expected any different?
“What sun rises from blue to orange, and never sinks?” Katsura asks suddenly, with an airy wave of his hand.
The inane riddles are yet another one of Katsura’s less-than-charming tendencies. Most of them are homebrewn, and impossible to answer sensibly, even if you’d been inclined to that sort of childish wordplay to begin with. Although—
“A sun that’s a dragonite,” you answer.
Katsura’s bushy eyebrows lift in surprise.
“You’re a learned man, Mr Fiorelli,” he exclaims as if that’s some sort of revelation. You had the best tutors Etalia had to offer for the first twelve years of your life, and your learning never stopped afterwards, either.
“Why a dragonite riddle?” you ask, setting down your drink.
It’s just the mildest of suspicions, but Katsura chuckles and says, “Fought one of the damned things just last week, if you can believe it. My magmar’s fire-blast couldn’t even touch that thick hide.”
Your face must stay just a little too still, because Katsura chuckles again, wagging his eyebrows knowingly.
“Has he hit your gym yet? No? Ah, but you’re waiting for it.”
The words don’t leave your mind as you lay kiku flowers down on Isami’s gravestone and take the helicopter back to Viridian. Perhaps you are waiting. Enough of rumor, hear-say and ridiculous festival masks. Meet your enemies in the light of day, even if you stab them in the shadows, they said back home. At least, your grandmother did.
“Arrange a meeting,” you tell Archer. You’re a little disconcerted when he doesn’t even ask who with, just nods, worry flattening his lips. But he doesn’t leave. You watch him for a while, the way your darling watches the rattata when she is fed and lazy.
“Do you think that’s wise, sir?” he says at last.
Questioning you? Rare enough that you actually take a moment to consider. With one hand you pat your darling, with the other you finger the ribbon curled in your pocket. The silence stretches. You are sifting through conversations, fitting problems against each other like puzzle pieces, seeing where the edges fit.
And then you have it.
“We wait,” you tell Archer, who nods his head and removes himself with poorly-veiled relief.
Because you have a plan now. It’s a darling, this plan. It’s not just going to kill two pidgeys—it will kill a dragonite, metaphorically at least, and more besides.
If the boy comes, you’ll give him a gym battle and every courtesy he’s owed. But he’s on your board now and, though he doesn’t know it, soon he’ll be playing for you.
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