K_S
Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
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Fandom: Pokemon
Ranking: Teen
Scene from an AU where Giovanni dies, gets reincarnated, and Ash starts his journey as an assistant to Oak with a rather... unique Nidoran and a Persian that won't go away. He's not going through Kanto as a gym challenger and that adds poverty to his burdens. While I've some of the intro posted in the fanfic section this is a stand alone scene that I want to toss up to test for readability and to get out of my head.
The voice was sit and, raised enough to be heard but stretched to a near yell was required.
There’d been a second door in the office. A moving book shelf sort, where when you pushed on a Persian shaped nick knack the lot slid aside on near invisible racks. Ash felt more than heard the motion in his bones as a near library of books slid to the side on it’s well-oiled track. The voice, one realizing his hales for him were being heard, had quickly assured him he was fine to stem a compassion born panic. And told him about the Persian’s gem. That’d devolved into a curious game of hot and cold because whoever set that button was stupid tall and he’d had to (after asking ,mind) take a rolling chair from a room over to get enough height to get to the button.
Stepping though one room to the other, well things changed. Floors and their plush carpets were thing of the past; a dipping half step was the marker between previous fluff and current steel plate. His first few steps were so loud it was disturbing, and as if seeing his skittishness, the voice called assurances. It was fine, the lot meant to echo, and if he followed the shelf that was now serving as a back wall (it hissed closed soundlessly at his back) and reached up and a little left he’d find a switch.
And he did, and there was light, and that made the silence more tolerable, though the walls and ceiling were stupid far away mere steps away as the room unfolded from its hall like opening to become… Well the light wasn’t strong, just enough to spotily illuminate the floors and part of the walls, the ceiling was more of a greyish line sketching up into dark, and there were no paintings, no fixtures, or anything to break the monotony as far as he could see.
More to get away from the sameness, Ash took a few steps deeper in, the clanging of his foot falls was mirrored by the click of the Nidoran, Leo’s claws. The rodent keeping easy pace besides him, nudging him when his confidence seemed to flag, ever mindful of his poisoned horn. Darting ahead with a “merp” Persian showed how it was done, soundlessly padding ahead, tail up, in anticipation.
“Guessing that’s Leo.” The boy grinned at the rodent. “Your namesake.”
Clearly the voice was familiar to one of the lot present, and Ash tried to take heart from that, even if his heart was doing something like hurting with the revelation that… well if it was Leo he’d have to give Persian up… Because Persian was Leo’s starter, per Oak, and keeping a starter from their person was morally wrong and… And he wouldn’t do that, even if he would miss the sassy feline.
A few yards in and there came a change, a slow ascent as the floor tipped up subtly, and at ascents end, pulled back to shoe the lot plateaued, was a platform, and atop that was a desk and tall backed chair. The massive desk was stained near black. It was set so that whoever approached was loomed over, and in it’s broad side facing the ascended was a bold, wide, capital, “R”, the char of the letter was only a hair darker than the wood about it and gleamed in the light set about the desk. There were foot lights set just behind, and a light atop, both were on, and thus it was able to see the pile of appear atop the desk, the white of those pages looked near snowy considering the contract of what they lay upon.
It was an interesting trick, the vastness married to the dark, with the light working just so. Making the whole feel like a statement, an ugly one, a “I’m the only thing in here and am important and you’re lesser than me because you’re literally lower than me”. That revelation made his stomach clench. Still there was that voice, coaxing him forward, and for now Ash pushed the thought down and followed the voice. It wasn’t yelling now and seemed much closer. A glance confirmed there wasn’t anyone sitting in the chair, the back was red a break from the black about it, and a richer hue than the paler reds and oranges of the carpet at his feet. Because this close to the desk there was a carpet, and a chair set before it, as if the person who normally sat in this giant desk had been expecting company perhaps. The carpet was red and black in zig zag pattern, and curiously warmed the feet that went over it, never mind his hiking boots and socks and the like. Daring he scraped a toe and a spatter of yellow sparks kicked up from the fur beneath his feet as it was forced against it’s grain, the sparks before winking out in descent and he goggled despite himself.
“Whoa.”
Soft laughter, near, made Ash look up from his sport and try to smooth the fur the right way without causing more sparks, which he didn’t, but he tried, and the laughter got a bit louder, as if the person attached was watching his every move and gotten closer besides. “So… um.. sorry about… I wasn’t breaking anything I swear!”
“I’m aware of your… conscientiousness towards other’s property,” The voice, human/Leo?, was near perhaps had drawn closer. Their… his? The voice was deep enough so “his” seemed a good guess. Regardless, the man’s voice hummed amusement, there was a breathe of other in how he spoke, a inflection in places where there wasn’t meant to be one. “If you’re done? There’s a button under the desk, left hand side.” The man continued, ordering without giving more than a suggestion.
It was a step up, and that rise was enough to see all the day down from the door, the slant worked for it like that. Ash took a moment to admire the view, then reached a bit under, when his fingers brushed against the slick circle of metal he pressed down, and above, impressively tall now that it was lit rather than intimidatingly so, the ceiling shed light. A pale light that brightened into sun kin illumination in stages so that the viewer wasn’t blinded by the process. The room was much the same as before, blank and bare, at least until he turned around to look behind the desk.
He’d thought it a sheet of glass, the carpet from under the desk was rolled so that it stopped a foot or so away, so the base of the reflection was blank steel, and it ran from ceiling to floor utterly empty. It’s sides bracketed by curtains of pulled back fabric, darker than blood, near touching black yet still red despite efforts to the contrary. The binding ropes were black, to offer contrast, and one swayed where Persian had moseyed up to it, tail up and wiggling. It reflected nothing at first, Ash glanced at it and seeing nothing, hopped down from the pompous perch and looked about to see nothing and nothing. A glance down from the base of the curtains didn’t reveal feet, of a person, or of a chair a person might be sitting on.
And it wasn’t that stupid show about flying mankeys, so the idea had been stupid but…
But where did the voice came from?
“It was said to be a wonder of the world. Part of an archaic ritual. Found after a trial in a certain mountain range, crafted by Arceus Itself, the plane showed the very soul of those who step before it. Over the years I’ve found it’s vistas enlightening.”
Familiar, that voice, it’d coaxed and guided him since that abandoned office. Persian was bouncing before the glass, a sort of rear in place hop of utter joy, and right before the felines dance was a form. Like a swirl of self-contained mist, the color, black, made the lot murky, but a blink fixed the flaw in his eye and the lot had solidified into the form of a man. Black suited, grey undershirt, a red “R” sewn over his breast pocket, some small handkerchief poking out of that pocket for some reason or other. Slung over his shoulders to scroll down his arms, the man bore the burden of a scarf, near silvery white with off white tassels. The lot hung near level with his elbows at its lowest point and bracketed his neck in snowy folds.
Even to someone as uneducated as Ash, the man looked very formal.
But it was in a different sense than Ash was used to thinking of formal and even authority. Since this journey had started the idea of authority had shifted. From cops being protectors and helpers, to them changing to distant peoples in blue who didn’t see that much. White had taken old authorities hue, it’s focus shifting from shiny badges (trainer police it hardly mattered) to reasonable voices. Seniority braced by effort and acclaim taking the place of reckless action without reason, battles won. It’d been a subtle shift, and this sign, that there might be more types of authority, just by how this man stood and looked, shook something in Ash and made him go quiet.
As if familiar with him, and his babbling tendencies, and seeing that they weren’t being followed up on, the man raised an eyes brow. A mute inquiry that seemed familiar. Even as he slid his hands into his pockets and set his legs just so, as if bracing for the earth to buck him. And in that motion Ash recognized him. A television show talking about trainer history, that charity battle for Viridian’s cancer hospital, even a few of Professor Oaks’ tutorial videos on ground type rearing and training.
“Mr. Giovanni?”
Persian was rumbling at the man’s legs, back and forth, never touching despite the cats frantic efforts. There was a misty edge to the man still, flaring and fading with each head butt that failed. The glassiness wasn’t… The man was in the glass.
And Ash’s eyes widened for realizing what he was seeing, what Persian refused to see.
“Leo, please, I’ve grown… familiar with your familiarity and revering to anything else at this late date seems… so crass.”
Ignoring his half words and snippets of babbling Ash was half spitting up, his jaw would not click closed and nonsense was just roiling out, the gym leader, Giovanni walked. His foot steps tracing a path on glasses edge, neither falling into the background of gloss or pressing beyond the barrier between reflection and real. Each step clicked, with the sounds of claws and quills instead of the expected motions of fabric and boot falls.
A glance down, now that the man’s reflection was beyond Persian and his frantic rubbings, showed why.
Ash stared, letting his gaze roam from violet, violent, rodent, to man whose reflection seemed to rise out of the quadpad. Both had the same black pit, mildly sunk in, eyes. Both stared at him expectantly, of the two the Nidoran, with his slightly spread ears and tipped head, was the more emotive.
Realization sunk in, in stages, his mind cycling though interactions where the ‘Ran had seemed too smart, he’d pushed the feeling off as luck. He’d gotten lucky to get a special ‘mon. One who’d lied to Rocket’s 'mon to keep him safe, who’d thought up strategies while Ash had spit out… out suggestions in fights until he’d learned better. Who’d willingly fought and bled to get them meals when the “preowned” Persian had stopped being allowed to fight for them. Who’d gently guided his training of sandshrew until it evolved into a sandslash, and even after it’d chimed in suggestions with tone and posture, and eventually stealing a phone and tapping ideas via text messages. He’d been lucky, near Mew level blessed, to have a Nidoran that was so smart.
The emails, so cold and formal, forum even, to his account from another untraceable one. The ones first filled with orders, that gentled to suggestions, that’d ended having attachments that when clicked put so much money in his bank account, into his mother’s bank account even, that his brain shut down in shock. Of Oak’s joy in reading those emails, in being able to crack the email address to a physical Viridian address. And damning or not, Rocket location or not, it was remote proof that Leonardo, the real human Leonardo, was alive.
Professor Oak had cried, in joy, and wonder, and worry, all at once.
And oh how right the Professor was, and how horridly, horribly wrong.
The names of legends slid past his mouth, a sacrilege of names, scaling higher in pitch as they scrolled out, and his breathing and chest got tighter and tighter.
“Mother of Mew and Arceus how… what…”
Dark brows sinking low, (the ‘Ran’s ears slid back fractionally, an old tell of exasperation) the man gestured, behind Ash and all that was there was the chair and the desk and…
“I think… you need to sit for a bit, before you pass out.”
“Right… sitting…good idea…” Ash wheezed, sinking into the guest chair because.. Well that big backed monster wasn’t his and he wasn’t even touching it, or the desk, for anything. So he took the smaller, dragged it ignoring sparks that rose, and plopped into it. Staring at Arceus born wonder, a plane of glass from who knew where that was showing him… A dead man, who wasn’t dead? Ash wasn’t sure what he was looking at really, and closed his eyes. Not looking seemed saner, it made breathing, slowing his breathing, easier.
The tink of gem taping glass made Ash crack open an eye. Then the other. Because Giovanni wasn’t looking at him. The Nidoran-Leo was squirming away from the cat, while the man bound to the ‘mon was taking a few steps to the side, to get clear of the tapping upon his plane that showed his existence.
“Persian, down!”
A mewl and more rubbing ensued.
“It’s not like we’ve been separated…”
Another mew, mixed with a yowl for ultimate pathos. And despite himself, and everything, Ash laughed. “I know that tone, he wants his head scratched and you’re not doing it, so he’s whining.”
“Trust me, it gets more pathetic when you can actually understand what he’s saying.” Tiping a glare to his cat, the man snarled. “The back of your head has not been itching for three years running, it’s been less than six months you manipulating, self-serving, little bastard. Furthermore you have claws, you can scratch yourself!”
“So…” choking back a giggle, Ash managed something like straight and attentive, and pointedly not looking at Persian who was snuggling glass plane like it would become a person if he tried hard enough. “It.. what… shows people who aren’t normal people then, Arceus’ mirror?”
“No,” a head shake to reinforce the obvious, a minimal gesture made once then done. “it shows souls.”
And curious, now that he wasn’t freaking out, when Ash looked beyond the man in the mirror, it wasn’t so blank as it’d been before. A swirl of speckles going up, a tinge of azure, it was a melding of sky and water in hue, with the rise of specks seeming like bubbles and making a confusion of the two ideas.
“It looks like… well kinda like an aquarium if an aquarium had sky”
A sky without mountains, without any kind of terrain to run below it and make an earthen underscore, the sky without contrast, the ocean without depths, islands, it made him dizzy to look at so he looked away. Staring at the floor made the dizziness die down, and a look up just looking at the gym leader… There was a comfort to it, seeing something mundane, something that made sense and didn’t swirl even if the gym leader as a rat pokemon was making no sense the more he thought about it.
“Nothing else?” The man in the mirror prodded, tone curiously gentle. And Ash stood, a few steps to make sure his legs were working, and since they were he took a few steps, sparks kicking up about him like dust but not seen, that wonder tamed by the one before him.
“It’s a... a water sky.. and there’s… A whalelord, and it’s swimming, at the tip top,” the boy’d craned his neck, aching to see. “He’s shifting clouds, they’re wild colors, like sunrise wild, all frothy and kicked up by his tail and him swimming and stuff and… And can you hear that?”
“Humming.” The man noted, head tipped, claws clicking as the Nidoran he was and wasn’t mimed the gesture and scratched steel for it with his horn. “Pieces of a song…”
“That I don’t remember, but do…” Ash finished in near sync to the gym leader. “It’s pretty.” Ash added, face warming, skittering his gaze away from potential judgment. Motion beyond the man reflected made him look up. Panic took him, one moment, until the thing stepped, white and snow and glistening about its shoulders, the literally snowy Persian strolled across azure void as if it were a field shedding flakes with each step. It had that particular language stride of a feline seeking something, then it’s ears quivered and it bound off to the side beyond Ash’s view, making the tasseled string holding the fabric that’d blot the mirror from seeing rustle at it’d going.
“Prosaic.” The gym leader noted, bemused, shaking off snow off of a boot. “Still nothing.. ah solid that I could perhaps step on?”
Guilt bubbled in the boy, he could try to imagine a grassy field maybe, but a squint and thinking really hard got him nothing. Save some bubbles swirling. “Nah.. just…” Just creatures fanciful melding with familiar, a mob of Spearow with thunder under their wings. They swept over the man’s head, from background to fore, dissipating before they could breech the mirror to pester Ash, and their passing was more a spot of noisy passing shade to the man trapped with them than a threat. What was it like inside, like walking a tight rope, a thin bridge, whatever it was Giovanni’s balance didn’t waver, but he was weary pf the void at his back, fanciful as it was he did not clearly want to fall. “Just things that don’t make a lot of sense that aren’t tied to anything making the whole make even less sense.”
“The first few viewing usually don’t.” Was the offering, the consolation. Besides him, both ‘mon him and mirrored him, trading paws for gem, Persian was tap-taping the glass. Ash was close enough to gently collar the feline, the boy set a hand over back of the cat’s neck and instinct stilled the flailing. For birds long gone. For old master, tauntingly dangled before him, Ash wasn’t sure but he set the flat of his hand against the feline’s neck and a nudge on the cat’s shoulder got him to step back, with a hiss, but he was out of claw reach, which is all Ash wanted.
“Enough Persian,” and of course the cat stilled under the grouchy barked words when pleas and tugs had done nothing before, so many times before throughout this journey. It figured.
Still, this was good. The boy didn’t want to think about what would happen if the mirror cracked while the gym leader was still trapped in it, even if he wasn’t. Even if he was trapped as a Nidoran, and that existential headache was coming back, so Ash watched bubbles that weren’t for a while.
“Can I… get you out, somehow?”
That stilled the scolding towards the cat, the man froze, startled neck scarf swaying on non-existent winds as he stared in surprise at the boy.
“I.. .was punished. This.” Man gestured down even as ‘mon tipped his head up to indicate himself. “Was my punishment, for crimes of being a mortal who reached beyond moral ken. If old legends are to believed it would be an exchange. You’d take the pain of my crimes if I was to accept, and I won’t.”
Standing before the glass, near touch close, Ash considered nothing at all. Then daring hands at the very least he ran one finger over the plane, it was cool, and felt like ordinary glass, even if the man in it and the view beyond him were anything but mundane.
The gym leader flinched at the non-touch then when the boy did not part glass or reach through somehow, stilled.
“I need no fools to rescue me from this,” a huffed laugh (a near whispered “‘ran” from the violet rodent at the reflection’s feet). “It’s a living.”
A miserable bloody living. He’d bled for them both to eat, near starved when Ash’d been stupid and got them lost, or just lost… like say a fight and he’d had to pick, between ‘Ran eating, and Persian eating, and Ash eating. Ash’d picked the ‘mon, always. He’d gotten sick for it once, hospital sick, and had eaten bad food even because it’s all they’d had and… And that’s when the money started coming in. The first amounts, small with stipulations. It no longer was luck then, he no longer was super lucky, rather partnered with someone who’d said enough was enough and took obstacles that shouldn’t have been there out of the way.
“It’s not right.”
A raised eyebrow, a lip quirked in amusement. “Arceus judged me, judged this.”
“Then,” Ash breathed. “He judged wrong.”
“You’ve no idea…”
“You’re with team Rocket. The desk, the R on your vest, the ring on your finger, heck, Oak’s research. I’m not stupid and I get that it’s bad, that Rockets bad. But making someone suffer to make them be right isn’t right. It just leads to another person getting hurt and nothing being made right in the long run.”
Dark eyes considered those their kin in hue. In inverse to their norm Giovanni had to tip his head down to better met the boy’s gaze as they were… barring supernatural slant of location… touching close.
“I would advise… most strongly... against stating anything concrete. Plans, opinions, and the like, while in this room… This is Arceus’ mirror after all.”
At his ankle the Nidoran chattered a longer rebuke, that carried on past the man’s spoken warning. Ash let it, said nothing, and then slumped, forehead against glass, and sighed. Suddenly unspeakably tired. Painfully aware that the most powerful trainer in Kanto had braced to brace him… and hadn’t needed too. Because glass and real world and all that.
“Why are we really here?”
“For you, two reasons… One, to enjoy the view a bit, and perhaps tell me what you see. The second, in the desk there’s a laptop, if you could pull it out, turn it on, and leave it on the floor, I’ll do the rest.”
“That’s like… nine things.” The boy groused, pushing back and up, trying to think it was real, that this strangeness wasn’t that strange and he’d pushed off the guy and not a wall of glass.
“Two objectives, many steps.” Came the wry amendment. “If you’re up to it.”
“Oh, I am.” Ash countered his lips quirking, stepping back, crossing his arms and glaring at the Rocket. “Once you tell me what we’re really doing.”
“So much like Sam, Arceus’ damned me in more than one sense boy…” Near reminiscence done the man looked aside, considering a world of… endless sky and fanciful things that came of nothing and returned to it. Only color and illumination kept the place from being the stuff of nightmares. “What I will be doing is maintaining order in Kanto, via remote communications, via the illegal power base that isn’t wholly illegal when you really look closely at the governing body of Kanto.”
“You’re telling me, that Team Rockets not illegal.” The boy barked, disbelieving.
“No,” Giovanni corrected him, near smiling at the repartee. “I’m telling you to get my laptop, and that’s it.” To the boy’s huff, Giovanni smirked. “This is grown up affairs boy; leave it as such, for now.”
”I’m holding you to that, the “for now” bit.” The boy warned, turning, Ash looked from impossibilities the world. All the better to stagger to the desk, his leg’s suddenly numb, his body unreasonably weary.
“Of course.” The Gym leader drawled. “But consider this, temptation and a contract, both dovetail quite nicely, and I’m a master of both.”
Recalling reading inflicted on him by exams the boy snorted. "Mephistopheles you aren't."
"No, I'm not so easily fooled, and a higher power does not dissolve what I bond you to. Also, no God can stop me or dissolve my plans and vendettas once they've been amde, and this," Man gestured towards the unread while the 'mon quivered at reflections feet. "-proves it. I've too many things in motion to lay in this grave they dug for me and demand I play dead in. For now though... I need my laptop and you are going to get it for me. No questions asked."
"For now." Ash conceded. "But first you have to tell me where it's at."
Ranking: Teen
Scene from an AU where Giovanni dies, gets reincarnated, and Ash starts his journey as an assistant to Oak with a rather... unique Nidoran and a Persian that won't go away. He's not going through Kanto as a gym challenger and that adds poverty to his burdens. While I've some of the intro posted in the fanfic section this is a stand alone scene that I want to toss up to test for readability and to get out of my head.
The voice was sit and, raised enough to be heard but stretched to a near yell was required.
There’d been a second door in the office. A moving book shelf sort, where when you pushed on a Persian shaped nick knack the lot slid aside on near invisible racks. Ash felt more than heard the motion in his bones as a near library of books slid to the side on it’s well-oiled track. The voice, one realizing his hales for him were being heard, had quickly assured him he was fine to stem a compassion born panic. And told him about the Persian’s gem. That’d devolved into a curious game of hot and cold because whoever set that button was stupid tall and he’d had to (after asking ,mind) take a rolling chair from a room over to get enough height to get to the button.
Stepping though one room to the other, well things changed. Floors and their plush carpets were thing of the past; a dipping half step was the marker between previous fluff and current steel plate. His first few steps were so loud it was disturbing, and as if seeing his skittishness, the voice called assurances. It was fine, the lot meant to echo, and if he followed the shelf that was now serving as a back wall (it hissed closed soundlessly at his back) and reached up and a little left he’d find a switch.
And he did, and there was light, and that made the silence more tolerable, though the walls and ceiling were stupid far away mere steps away as the room unfolded from its hall like opening to become… Well the light wasn’t strong, just enough to spotily illuminate the floors and part of the walls, the ceiling was more of a greyish line sketching up into dark, and there were no paintings, no fixtures, or anything to break the monotony as far as he could see.
More to get away from the sameness, Ash took a few steps deeper in, the clanging of his foot falls was mirrored by the click of the Nidoran, Leo’s claws. The rodent keeping easy pace besides him, nudging him when his confidence seemed to flag, ever mindful of his poisoned horn. Darting ahead with a “merp” Persian showed how it was done, soundlessly padding ahead, tail up, in anticipation.
“Guessing that’s Leo.” The boy grinned at the rodent. “Your namesake.”
Clearly the voice was familiar to one of the lot present, and Ash tried to take heart from that, even if his heart was doing something like hurting with the revelation that… well if it was Leo he’d have to give Persian up… Because Persian was Leo’s starter, per Oak, and keeping a starter from their person was morally wrong and… And he wouldn’t do that, even if he would miss the sassy feline.
A few yards in and there came a change, a slow ascent as the floor tipped up subtly, and at ascents end, pulled back to shoe the lot plateaued, was a platform, and atop that was a desk and tall backed chair. The massive desk was stained near black. It was set so that whoever approached was loomed over, and in it’s broad side facing the ascended was a bold, wide, capital, “R”, the char of the letter was only a hair darker than the wood about it and gleamed in the light set about the desk. There were foot lights set just behind, and a light atop, both were on, and thus it was able to see the pile of appear atop the desk, the white of those pages looked near snowy considering the contract of what they lay upon.
It was an interesting trick, the vastness married to the dark, with the light working just so. Making the whole feel like a statement, an ugly one, a “I’m the only thing in here and am important and you’re lesser than me because you’re literally lower than me”. That revelation made his stomach clench. Still there was that voice, coaxing him forward, and for now Ash pushed the thought down and followed the voice. It wasn’t yelling now and seemed much closer. A glance confirmed there wasn’t anyone sitting in the chair, the back was red a break from the black about it, and a richer hue than the paler reds and oranges of the carpet at his feet. Because this close to the desk there was a carpet, and a chair set before it, as if the person who normally sat in this giant desk had been expecting company perhaps. The carpet was red and black in zig zag pattern, and curiously warmed the feet that went over it, never mind his hiking boots and socks and the like. Daring he scraped a toe and a spatter of yellow sparks kicked up from the fur beneath his feet as it was forced against it’s grain, the sparks before winking out in descent and he goggled despite himself.
“Whoa.”
Soft laughter, near, made Ash look up from his sport and try to smooth the fur the right way without causing more sparks, which he didn’t, but he tried, and the laughter got a bit louder, as if the person attached was watching his every move and gotten closer besides. “So… um.. sorry about… I wasn’t breaking anything I swear!”
“I’m aware of your… conscientiousness towards other’s property,” The voice, human/Leo?, was near perhaps had drawn closer. Their… his? The voice was deep enough so “his” seemed a good guess. Regardless, the man’s voice hummed amusement, there was a breathe of other in how he spoke, a inflection in places where there wasn’t meant to be one. “If you’re done? There’s a button under the desk, left hand side.” The man continued, ordering without giving more than a suggestion.
It was a step up, and that rise was enough to see all the day down from the door, the slant worked for it like that. Ash took a moment to admire the view, then reached a bit under, when his fingers brushed against the slick circle of metal he pressed down, and above, impressively tall now that it was lit rather than intimidatingly so, the ceiling shed light. A pale light that brightened into sun kin illumination in stages so that the viewer wasn’t blinded by the process. The room was much the same as before, blank and bare, at least until he turned around to look behind the desk.
He’d thought it a sheet of glass, the carpet from under the desk was rolled so that it stopped a foot or so away, so the base of the reflection was blank steel, and it ran from ceiling to floor utterly empty. It’s sides bracketed by curtains of pulled back fabric, darker than blood, near touching black yet still red despite efforts to the contrary. The binding ropes were black, to offer contrast, and one swayed where Persian had moseyed up to it, tail up and wiggling. It reflected nothing at first, Ash glanced at it and seeing nothing, hopped down from the pompous perch and looked about to see nothing and nothing. A glance down from the base of the curtains didn’t reveal feet, of a person, or of a chair a person might be sitting on.
And it wasn’t that stupid show about flying mankeys, so the idea had been stupid but…
But where did the voice came from?
“It was said to be a wonder of the world. Part of an archaic ritual. Found after a trial in a certain mountain range, crafted by Arceus Itself, the plane showed the very soul of those who step before it. Over the years I’ve found it’s vistas enlightening.”
Familiar, that voice, it’d coaxed and guided him since that abandoned office. Persian was bouncing before the glass, a sort of rear in place hop of utter joy, and right before the felines dance was a form. Like a swirl of self-contained mist, the color, black, made the lot murky, but a blink fixed the flaw in his eye and the lot had solidified into the form of a man. Black suited, grey undershirt, a red “R” sewn over his breast pocket, some small handkerchief poking out of that pocket for some reason or other. Slung over his shoulders to scroll down his arms, the man bore the burden of a scarf, near silvery white with off white tassels. The lot hung near level with his elbows at its lowest point and bracketed his neck in snowy folds.
Even to someone as uneducated as Ash, the man looked very formal.
But it was in a different sense than Ash was used to thinking of formal and even authority. Since this journey had started the idea of authority had shifted. From cops being protectors and helpers, to them changing to distant peoples in blue who didn’t see that much. White had taken old authorities hue, it’s focus shifting from shiny badges (trainer police it hardly mattered) to reasonable voices. Seniority braced by effort and acclaim taking the place of reckless action without reason, battles won. It’d been a subtle shift, and this sign, that there might be more types of authority, just by how this man stood and looked, shook something in Ash and made him go quiet.
As if familiar with him, and his babbling tendencies, and seeing that they weren’t being followed up on, the man raised an eyes brow. A mute inquiry that seemed familiar. Even as he slid his hands into his pockets and set his legs just so, as if bracing for the earth to buck him. And in that motion Ash recognized him. A television show talking about trainer history, that charity battle for Viridian’s cancer hospital, even a few of Professor Oaks’ tutorial videos on ground type rearing and training.
“Mr. Giovanni?”
Persian was rumbling at the man’s legs, back and forth, never touching despite the cats frantic efforts. There was a misty edge to the man still, flaring and fading with each head butt that failed. The glassiness wasn’t… The man was in the glass.
And Ash’s eyes widened for realizing what he was seeing, what Persian refused to see.
“Leo, please, I’ve grown… familiar with your familiarity and revering to anything else at this late date seems… so crass.”
Ignoring his half words and snippets of babbling Ash was half spitting up, his jaw would not click closed and nonsense was just roiling out, the gym leader, Giovanni walked. His foot steps tracing a path on glasses edge, neither falling into the background of gloss or pressing beyond the barrier between reflection and real. Each step clicked, with the sounds of claws and quills instead of the expected motions of fabric and boot falls.
A glance down, now that the man’s reflection was beyond Persian and his frantic rubbings, showed why.
Ash stared, letting his gaze roam from violet, violent, rodent, to man whose reflection seemed to rise out of the quadpad. Both had the same black pit, mildly sunk in, eyes. Both stared at him expectantly, of the two the Nidoran, with his slightly spread ears and tipped head, was the more emotive.
Realization sunk in, in stages, his mind cycling though interactions where the ‘Ran had seemed too smart, he’d pushed the feeling off as luck. He’d gotten lucky to get a special ‘mon. One who’d lied to Rocket’s 'mon to keep him safe, who’d thought up strategies while Ash had spit out… out suggestions in fights until he’d learned better. Who’d willingly fought and bled to get them meals when the “preowned” Persian had stopped being allowed to fight for them. Who’d gently guided his training of sandshrew until it evolved into a sandslash, and even after it’d chimed in suggestions with tone and posture, and eventually stealing a phone and tapping ideas via text messages. He’d been lucky, near Mew level blessed, to have a Nidoran that was so smart.
The emails, so cold and formal, forum even, to his account from another untraceable one. The ones first filled with orders, that gentled to suggestions, that’d ended having attachments that when clicked put so much money in his bank account, into his mother’s bank account even, that his brain shut down in shock. Of Oak’s joy in reading those emails, in being able to crack the email address to a physical Viridian address. And damning or not, Rocket location or not, it was remote proof that Leonardo, the real human Leonardo, was alive.
Professor Oak had cried, in joy, and wonder, and worry, all at once.
And oh how right the Professor was, and how horridly, horribly wrong.
The names of legends slid past his mouth, a sacrilege of names, scaling higher in pitch as they scrolled out, and his breathing and chest got tighter and tighter.
“Mother of Mew and Arceus how… what…”
Dark brows sinking low, (the ‘Ran’s ears slid back fractionally, an old tell of exasperation) the man gestured, behind Ash and all that was there was the chair and the desk and…
“I think… you need to sit for a bit, before you pass out.”
“Right… sitting…good idea…” Ash wheezed, sinking into the guest chair because.. Well that big backed monster wasn’t his and he wasn’t even touching it, or the desk, for anything. So he took the smaller, dragged it ignoring sparks that rose, and plopped into it. Staring at Arceus born wonder, a plane of glass from who knew where that was showing him… A dead man, who wasn’t dead? Ash wasn’t sure what he was looking at really, and closed his eyes. Not looking seemed saner, it made breathing, slowing his breathing, easier.
The tink of gem taping glass made Ash crack open an eye. Then the other. Because Giovanni wasn’t looking at him. The Nidoran-Leo was squirming away from the cat, while the man bound to the ‘mon was taking a few steps to the side, to get clear of the tapping upon his plane that showed his existence.
“Persian, down!”
A mewl and more rubbing ensued.
“It’s not like we’ve been separated…”
Another mew, mixed with a yowl for ultimate pathos. And despite himself, and everything, Ash laughed. “I know that tone, he wants his head scratched and you’re not doing it, so he’s whining.”
“Trust me, it gets more pathetic when you can actually understand what he’s saying.” Tiping a glare to his cat, the man snarled. “The back of your head has not been itching for three years running, it’s been less than six months you manipulating, self-serving, little bastard. Furthermore you have claws, you can scratch yourself!”
“So…” choking back a giggle, Ash managed something like straight and attentive, and pointedly not looking at Persian who was snuggling glass plane like it would become a person if he tried hard enough. “It.. what… shows people who aren’t normal people then, Arceus’ mirror?”
“No,” a head shake to reinforce the obvious, a minimal gesture made once then done. “it shows souls.”
And curious, now that he wasn’t freaking out, when Ash looked beyond the man in the mirror, it wasn’t so blank as it’d been before. A swirl of speckles going up, a tinge of azure, it was a melding of sky and water in hue, with the rise of specks seeming like bubbles and making a confusion of the two ideas.
“It looks like… well kinda like an aquarium if an aquarium had sky”
A sky without mountains, without any kind of terrain to run below it and make an earthen underscore, the sky without contrast, the ocean without depths, islands, it made him dizzy to look at so he looked away. Staring at the floor made the dizziness die down, and a look up just looking at the gym leader… There was a comfort to it, seeing something mundane, something that made sense and didn’t swirl even if the gym leader as a rat pokemon was making no sense the more he thought about it.
“Nothing else?” The man in the mirror prodded, tone curiously gentle. And Ash stood, a few steps to make sure his legs were working, and since they were he took a few steps, sparks kicking up about him like dust but not seen, that wonder tamed by the one before him.
“It’s a... a water sky.. and there’s… A whalelord, and it’s swimming, at the tip top,” the boy’d craned his neck, aching to see. “He’s shifting clouds, they’re wild colors, like sunrise wild, all frothy and kicked up by his tail and him swimming and stuff and… And can you hear that?”
“Humming.” The man noted, head tipped, claws clicking as the Nidoran he was and wasn’t mimed the gesture and scratched steel for it with his horn. “Pieces of a song…”
“That I don’t remember, but do…” Ash finished in near sync to the gym leader. “It’s pretty.” Ash added, face warming, skittering his gaze away from potential judgment. Motion beyond the man reflected made him look up. Panic took him, one moment, until the thing stepped, white and snow and glistening about its shoulders, the literally snowy Persian strolled across azure void as if it were a field shedding flakes with each step. It had that particular language stride of a feline seeking something, then it’s ears quivered and it bound off to the side beyond Ash’s view, making the tasseled string holding the fabric that’d blot the mirror from seeing rustle at it’d going.
“Prosaic.” The gym leader noted, bemused, shaking off snow off of a boot. “Still nothing.. ah solid that I could perhaps step on?”
Guilt bubbled in the boy, he could try to imagine a grassy field maybe, but a squint and thinking really hard got him nothing. Save some bubbles swirling. “Nah.. just…” Just creatures fanciful melding with familiar, a mob of Spearow with thunder under their wings. They swept over the man’s head, from background to fore, dissipating before they could breech the mirror to pester Ash, and their passing was more a spot of noisy passing shade to the man trapped with them than a threat. What was it like inside, like walking a tight rope, a thin bridge, whatever it was Giovanni’s balance didn’t waver, but he was weary pf the void at his back, fanciful as it was he did not clearly want to fall. “Just things that don’t make a lot of sense that aren’t tied to anything making the whole make even less sense.”
“The first few viewing usually don’t.” Was the offering, the consolation. Besides him, both ‘mon him and mirrored him, trading paws for gem, Persian was tap-taping the glass. Ash was close enough to gently collar the feline, the boy set a hand over back of the cat’s neck and instinct stilled the flailing. For birds long gone. For old master, tauntingly dangled before him, Ash wasn’t sure but he set the flat of his hand against the feline’s neck and a nudge on the cat’s shoulder got him to step back, with a hiss, but he was out of claw reach, which is all Ash wanted.
“Enough Persian,” and of course the cat stilled under the grouchy barked words when pleas and tugs had done nothing before, so many times before throughout this journey. It figured.
Still, this was good. The boy didn’t want to think about what would happen if the mirror cracked while the gym leader was still trapped in it, even if he wasn’t. Even if he was trapped as a Nidoran, and that existential headache was coming back, so Ash watched bubbles that weren’t for a while.
“Can I… get you out, somehow?”
That stilled the scolding towards the cat, the man froze, startled neck scarf swaying on non-existent winds as he stared in surprise at the boy.
“I.. .was punished. This.” Man gestured down even as ‘mon tipped his head up to indicate himself. “Was my punishment, for crimes of being a mortal who reached beyond moral ken. If old legends are to believed it would be an exchange. You’d take the pain of my crimes if I was to accept, and I won’t.”
Standing before the glass, near touch close, Ash considered nothing at all. Then daring hands at the very least he ran one finger over the plane, it was cool, and felt like ordinary glass, even if the man in it and the view beyond him were anything but mundane.
The gym leader flinched at the non-touch then when the boy did not part glass or reach through somehow, stilled.
“I need no fools to rescue me from this,” a huffed laugh (a near whispered “‘ran” from the violet rodent at the reflection’s feet). “It’s a living.”
A miserable bloody living. He’d bled for them both to eat, near starved when Ash’d been stupid and got them lost, or just lost… like say a fight and he’d had to pick, between ‘Ran eating, and Persian eating, and Ash eating. Ash’d picked the ‘mon, always. He’d gotten sick for it once, hospital sick, and had eaten bad food even because it’s all they’d had and… And that’s when the money started coming in. The first amounts, small with stipulations. It no longer was luck then, he no longer was super lucky, rather partnered with someone who’d said enough was enough and took obstacles that shouldn’t have been there out of the way.
“It’s not right.”
A raised eyebrow, a lip quirked in amusement. “Arceus judged me, judged this.”
“Then,” Ash breathed. “He judged wrong.”
“You’ve no idea…”
“You’re with team Rocket. The desk, the R on your vest, the ring on your finger, heck, Oak’s research. I’m not stupid and I get that it’s bad, that Rockets bad. But making someone suffer to make them be right isn’t right. It just leads to another person getting hurt and nothing being made right in the long run.”
Dark eyes considered those their kin in hue. In inverse to their norm Giovanni had to tip his head down to better met the boy’s gaze as they were… barring supernatural slant of location… touching close.
“I would advise… most strongly... against stating anything concrete. Plans, opinions, and the like, while in this room… This is Arceus’ mirror after all.”
At his ankle the Nidoran chattered a longer rebuke, that carried on past the man’s spoken warning. Ash let it, said nothing, and then slumped, forehead against glass, and sighed. Suddenly unspeakably tired. Painfully aware that the most powerful trainer in Kanto had braced to brace him… and hadn’t needed too. Because glass and real world and all that.
“Why are we really here?”
“For you, two reasons… One, to enjoy the view a bit, and perhaps tell me what you see. The second, in the desk there’s a laptop, if you could pull it out, turn it on, and leave it on the floor, I’ll do the rest.”
“That’s like… nine things.” The boy groused, pushing back and up, trying to think it was real, that this strangeness wasn’t that strange and he’d pushed off the guy and not a wall of glass.
“Two objectives, many steps.” Came the wry amendment. “If you’re up to it.”
“Oh, I am.” Ash countered his lips quirking, stepping back, crossing his arms and glaring at the Rocket. “Once you tell me what we’re really doing.”
“So much like Sam, Arceus’ damned me in more than one sense boy…” Near reminiscence done the man looked aside, considering a world of… endless sky and fanciful things that came of nothing and returned to it. Only color and illumination kept the place from being the stuff of nightmares. “What I will be doing is maintaining order in Kanto, via remote communications, via the illegal power base that isn’t wholly illegal when you really look closely at the governing body of Kanto.”
“You’re telling me, that Team Rockets not illegal.” The boy barked, disbelieving.
“No,” Giovanni corrected him, near smiling at the repartee. “I’m telling you to get my laptop, and that’s it.” To the boy’s huff, Giovanni smirked. “This is grown up affairs boy; leave it as such, for now.”
”I’m holding you to that, the “for now” bit.” The boy warned, turning, Ash looked from impossibilities the world. All the better to stagger to the desk, his leg’s suddenly numb, his body unreasonably weary.
“Of course.” The Gym leader drawled. “But consider this, temptation and a contract, both dovetail quite nicely, and I’m a master of both.”
Recalling reading inflicted on him by exams the boy snorted. "Mephistopheles you aren't."
"No, I'm not so easily fooled, and a higher power does not dissolve what I bond you to. Also, no God can stop me or dissolve my plans and vendettas once they've been amde, and this," Man gestured towards the unread while the 'mon quivered at reflections feet. "-proves it. I've too many things in motion to lay in this grave they dug for me and demand I play dead in. For now though... I need my laptop and you are going to get it for me. No questions asked."
"For now." Ash conceded. "But first you have to tell me where it's at."
