Chương 59: 59-Kintsugi

The rest of the day Tanya only had to do two more house calls and, to Chansey's credit, it was not nearly as extreme as Ursaring. Merely an anxious Absol with possible minor kidney damage and a Vaporeon who'd forgotten his age and hurt himself trying to jump on top of a couch too quickly.

The next day was more of the same, of Tanya handling the front while Amelia flits between the front and back, organizing, stocking, cleaning, and all the other small things that need doing in a pokecenter, especially with one or both of the certified nurses being forced to leave on house calls multiple times. However, as neither Tanya or Amelia are registered nurses, they'd never been assigned to the same house call.

In fact, while Tanya has accompanied Chansey to almost every house call, Amelia has only attended one. So it's a novel experience when Nurse Ambrette steps out of the back room half an hour before their lunch break and asks them to deliver some kind of medicated salve to a house before taking their break. Walking down the street next to Amelia, Chansey looks down at the bag in her partner's hand and quietly marvels at her eye's ability to see such small writing at such distance.

'Salentactenopacilic Acid.' The number of warning labels on the usage instructions make her feel that carrying it in a brown paper bag is… a substantial vote of confidence in their ability to not break the container inside. She adjusts her downward gaze slightly to look at her partner.

"Have you ever heard of Salentactenopacilic acid?" She asks, running through her own index of medications and coming up blank.

"I thought we had gone through most common medications." Amelia shakes her head, lifting the bag to her face and reading the same text.

"Never, and whatever this is, the instructions look more like SDS than a dosage. I mean come on, 'Apply in a well ventilated area?'

'Do not allow contact with skin?'" She sighs, flipping it over to read more.

"I hope whoever is using this stuff knows what they're doing." Speaking of, as they turn a corner the tourist trappings fade further to quiet residential areas and halfway down the street is the house they're looking for. Or rather, it's supposed to look residential, because as Tanya's eyes flit down the houses she sees a little sign posted on almost every single one of these houses advertising them as long term vacation rentals. Whoever this is, they're not a local, it almost means they're probably quite old.

Walking up the front steps to the door, Tanya places an arm on her partner's head to request that they pause before closing her eyes. She breathes in, feeling herself swell just a touch larger with the intake of air… Then exhales, concentrating completely on the sensation of –not attempting to negotiate with reality to allow herself to exist in a smaller space– but demanding that she will be whatever size she pleases and battering down any objection with the sheer force of her conviction.

There's a slightly uncomfortable sensation of tensing, like she's making a barely used muscle hold a monumentally large weight, then her skin feels like it's too small for her body as her bulk ripples and writhes. But when she opens her eyes, she's pleased to see they're at the same level as her partner.

"You're getting a lot better at that." Amelia notes.

"Thank you." Tanya says with a small wince as even that creates a lapse in her concentration large enough the ground falls a few centimetres away with a ripple." Ng. Still unstable." Her partner just shrugs in response before reaching out and pressing the buzzer to a wall mounted house intercom system. A sight that has Tanya almost completely lose her concentration when she realizes what she's looking at. She's not seen one of these things in decades.

A few seconds later, a surprisingly young male voice crackles through the wall mounted speaker.

"What is it?" Amelia leans in to the speaker and speaks at a volume halfway between a raised voice and a shout.

"Delivery! You have an order of medicated sal–""Oh. Already?" The voice interrupts.

"I'll be right down." There's a pause, before the door opens to reveal a fit and surprisingly young middle aged man with blonde hair, someone who clearly exercised regularly in their youth and the results linger. He smiles as he reaches out a hand to take the bag.

"Thank you Nurse Joy. I'd meant to pick it up yesterday but something came up."

"It's no trouble sir." Amelia answers promptly, dipping her head, but before she can say anything else the man continues.

"Actually, would you mind taking a look at Scizor again? I can tell that joint near his left wing is still bothering him and I'd really hate it if there were any complications so close to his molt." There's a pause, and Tanya knows Amelia is struggling to rapidly put together a response as she buys time by slowly clasping her hands at her waist.

"... I would be happy to help sir. But I am not a full registered nurse." She starts.

"I am Trainee Nurse Amelia Joy, so I am unable to prescribe or diagnose, but I will help how I can." There's another pause as the man's eyes widen, scanning Amelia's face before landing on her head as if noting the lack of hat for the first time.

"Oh… uh. Sure, I'd still like to have it looked at. Come on in." He says, stepping aside. Amelia nods and falls in behind the man into the house, Tanya following after lingering at the doorway with a small sense of triumph. Only for her concentration to slip again and suddenly she's pressing against the walls on the other side of the door, forced to do the breathing exercise again to shrink back down to a still large but more stable size and catch up.

She follows their voices through the sterile looking house to the back door and out into the yard that opens into the forest.

"Scizor!" The man shouts through cupped hands.

"Get your lazy self up and over here! I got someone to take a look at your back!" There's silence, followed by what sounds like a massive cicada sending out a call.

"Dont give me that!" He shouts back.

"You're due to molt any day now! Now get over here!" A moment later there's the sound of crunching leaves, but as the 'mon comes into view Tanya realizes only half the sound was of crunching leaves. The 'mon that's walking out of the forest looks ancient, exoskeleton pitted, scarred, and cracked with strange streaks of off color that seem to be weak points the rest of the 'mon's natural armor is falling apart around.

But it seems that just as quickly as the tall insectoid is falling apart he's been pulled back together through a mess of procedures and treatments. His shell is covered in medical exoskeleton sealant and small plastic brackets, the pale blue color of the sealant in multiple shades of faded make it clear there have been several rounds of treatment. His wings are ragged and torn, of the four one missing entirely while large sections of the other three appear to be held together more by tape than structure.

His exoskeleton rattles as he crosses the final steps to his partner and lowers himself to rest in a kneel.

"I have come." He buzzes after a few heavy breaths.

"You called. And I awoke to come to your side." The human grimaces.

"I wish you would sleep inside." He sighs.

"Now look. I've got someone to look at your back again, could you–" He's cut off as Scizor rattles into motion without a word, turning his back on them and falling still. The implied invitation has both Tanya and her partner walking up to the exposed back and taking a closer look.

It doesn't look good, any of it, but there's no injury that hasn't received professional attention, even some rather extreme interventions, considering the edges of metal brackets where they're mounted on the underside of exoskeleton plates analogous to a human's spine. Dexterous human fingers trace around the plates near Scizor's wings, then retreat.

"... I don't see anything. Aside from…" Amelia whispers, gesturing at the jigsaw of biology and medicine.

"General heal?" Tanya squints for a moment longer, then nods, reaching out to press an arm on the back and pressing healing energy into– It doesn't work. The 'mon blinks in confusion, then calls more power on the problem and tries to overcome whatever obstacle is stopping her from fixing all the damage she can sense all the more clearly now that her healing energy is pressing into the body.

Because she is getting the energy in there, ready to get to work on the thousands of problems plaguing every part of the 'mon's body, but only now that the other half of the equation is absent does Tanya realize it was there in the first place. For the same reason her healing energy cannot heal an inanimate object, even if she knew how it should look 'healed' down to the atom, her energy cannot work on its own. It needs something within the target to work with.

And, no matter how much energy she tries to shove into the patient, whenever needs to be within for her healing to work just isn't.

"Feeling better?" Scizor's partner asks.

"Better." The 'mon responds, rising to his feet again with a new vigor despite nothing having changed even with the amount of energy spent to that end.

"I am tired."

"Alright. Also, I got good news." He says, holding up the bag of medication.

"I got the chitin softener for your molt. We'll do the first application tonight after di–""I wish you would let me sleep." The 'mon interrupts, with a tinge of anger entering his voice.

"I am tired." The human looks at his partner and gives a slightly forced laugh. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Alright you grump. Go take your nap." He says waving the 'mon away before turning back to Amelia.

"Sorry about him, he always gets grumpy around molting season. Thank you for the help Nurse Joy." Amelia stands up straight and dips her head in acknowledgement.

"It's no trouble sir." She says, offering a handshake.

"But if it's a recurring issue I would recommend scheduling an appointment for a full checkup." The man accepts the handshake and transitions the contact to gently guide her to the door before releasing his grip.

"Of course Nurse Joy. We're already scheduled to have a molt specialist come down the day after tomorrow." He says with a smile.

"Only the best for a champion! He's a seven badge ringer from my trainer days you know. Fought the league right up to the big four back in seventy two." Amelia responds but Tanya tunes out the pleasantries as they're led out the front door again and sent on their way, releasing her hold on minimize as they do. Walking down the sidewalk as her partner waves goodbye to the man, the 'mon considers her inability to heal the insectoid, and isn't enjoying the answers she's coming to for why.

She's noticed from personal experience that the older a 'mon gets the harder it is to heal them of even the most minor of injuries, and one of the first thing she'd made note of was the fact healing was almost incapable of repairing things like wrinkles. To take the trend to its logical conclusion… She sighs. It's not a hard conclusion to reach, and that 'mon looked like he was more medicine than biology in some places.

But in the end that's the job, and it's clear with the amount of effort sunk into the 'mon that every measure has been taken to stave off the inevitable. Then she looks down at Amelia as the part of her brain listening to her partner alerts that she asked a question. Their eyes meet. Her partner's are still light and easy, unburdened. … …..

"Right. Like we discussed. To the gym. With any luck they'll have power this time." Tanya says with a small smirk, which only widens as her partner laughs at the dry humor. —-- Thankfully, the gym does have power this time. Unfortunately the return of the lights allow all the other problems in this place to appear. Tanya feels an eye twitch as she stands in the lobby of the main room, slowly swiveling her head to take in the… mess everything is.

The light allows her to see the streak of dirt stretching from the entrance to the front desk, there's trash on the floors around overstuffed bins and in corners, a clock on the wall is showing the wrong time while another has stopped entirely, and that's just the start of it. They're understaffed, that much is obvious from the start, but it's equally obvious that the labor they do have isn't being used to its best utility.

There's a line of trainers stretching almost to the door, waiting to be served by the singular receptionist, but she's unable to even start with the person at the front of the line as the phone is ringing off the hook. The desk is covered in paper and letters, stacking so high that the receptionist has to rise from her chair slightly to mouth 'one second' at the person at the front of the line before switching calls.

However, Tanya has been standing in this line for around ten minutes, so she's been able to see several people walking in and out of employee zones as if in some rush to do something, but it's become increasingly obvious they've accomplished nothing. This is an unmitigated managerial disaster. But… Tanya takes a deep breath. It's not her disaster. Even if she wanted to help, it's almost certain that they wouldn't accept it. Because from their perspective what does she know?

It would just sound like complaints and would only end up an insult no matter the inte–"Hey, the Transfer Machine still isn't working. It's still on that power fault error thing." Someone says almost quietly enough to be inaudible to the overworked receptionist.

"Did you get the repair guy yet?" Tanya feels her eye twitch again. The 'power fault error' happens when power is interrupted, like what would happen if the gym leader somehow forgot to pay the electric bill. Literally all they need to do is press enter and the system will automatically sync with the network.

"... Oh uh… yea… I think so." The receptionist mutters.

"Hold please. I think I had them on line… Wait! The repair guy hung up on me!" … He hung up? Tanya feels her eye start to twitch again, but this time it doesn't stop. So he can't come down here and press enter? Hung up!? That's it. The entire room falls silent as a deep rumbling noise like a distant helicopter fills the room. It takes a few seconds before Tanya realizes it's coming from her. That is it!

"Um. Chansey?" Amelia asks, placing a hand on her partner's side.

"Are you alr– Woah!" The trainer flails in Tanya's arms as she picks the human up by the armpits and walks through the line to the front desk, only managing to mostly quiet the rumbling noise after she plants the human on the ground.

"... Amelia." She starts, voice still echoed by that rumble.

"Could you, please, ask if they would like our assistance?" She doesn't wait for an answer, eyes flaring purple ten pens and fifteen blank sheets of paper float into the air as the mess of documents and letters begin flitting by her face as she starts sorting junk from important correspondence.

Meanwhile she's writing a list of questions about staffing and duty of work while also drafting the most basic of an organizational flowchart so the people here can actually divide their tasks and create metrics to find when someone is failing to meet the goals set for them. In that time she finishes her list of questions she writes at the top 'ANSWER THESE' in big bold characters so these idiots know what to do with what she's giving them–"H–Hey!" One of the trainers in the line calls out indignantly.

"You cut in li–" Tanya looks at him. Calmly." One. Moment. Please." She says calmly. She is not interrupted again. —-- –_– —--"... No. I don't get it, help me through this." Ellie Joy admits, lifting her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose as she sits crosslegged on the floor of her room.

"Are you trying to link the estimated value of Team Magma's illegal earnings to the expenditure of a series of completely private businesses through the statistically abnormal rate they're being robbed by Team Magma for things of roughly equivalent value?" Her partner shakes her head as she sets her most recent mug of coffee down behind the board, pointing at a line of red string, pointing at the landing page of one of the companies in question.

"No! And they're not real companies! That's the genius of it! They're shell companies that pretend to be legitimate business by buying from wholesalers and selling at either just enough to break even or at a loss. But every time one of their shipments get 'stolen' they're actually empty! So they don't have to pay the wholesalers and they get the insurance money!"

"Ok… I get that– wait. No! How does that let them launder enough money?" Ellie interjects.

"The previous theory of grey market sales works. Just because we can't find it on public record doesn't mean it's not there." Boss doesn't blame her partner for not understanding, she struggles to understand the entire web herself at times and she made the thing! With a lot of help too!

"Nono! Grey market resale could never be enough to get the components for the machine Big Sis saw them steal the plans for!" She clarifies.

"They could have sold it."

"They could have!" Boss agrees, fighting back a yawn.

"But we looked into that, and look at this!" She says, tracing her arm up a red thread to another place dense with pictures and writing.

"Because these shell companies have to have an owner at least on paper and that means publicly available documents! Which means these people!" She waves at a nexus of names and faces where most of the threads come from.

"At first we thought it was a few hundred people but I've paired it down to just over twenty. And you'll never guess what they all have in common."

"... Very successful new businesses and a sudden desire to donate and invest in other companies?" Ellie guesses, to which Boss can only cheer.

"Yes! Got it in one! So then all we needed to do was figure out what they're investing in and we're in business!" A slowly growing smile on her partner's face lights up to a full grin, as Boss sees the light of realization flaring in her eyes.

"And would there happen to be newly founded companies getting the permits to buy precision machinery all of a sudden?" She grins, eyes picking apart the web with greater and greater efficiency. The 'mon squeals in joy at how quickly her partner is picking everything up. As much as she loves her family and everyone she works and lives with, they can be so slow at times, even when her sisters use their skills to break through a part of the board they almost always need help in seeing the whole thing.

After the information Big Sis gave on what Team Magma stole caused her to lock herself away to rearrange her board over 48 sleepless hours, making it incomprehensible to almost anyone else. But she can always trust her partner to understand, even at its most complicated. The only person in the world who actually gets it.

But as her partner kneels down and returns the hug, wrapping her long arms around the 'mon's body and squeezing tight, the energetic high of sharing her discovery almost seems to be sucked away with the contact as her mouth opens into a massive yawn.

"Y…Y…Yea you got it." She says, shaking her head to dispel the cotton balls of tiredness from her mind. It's this movement that has Ellie pulling back and looking at her partner's face more carefully.

"... Chansey. When was the last time you slept?" The 'mon looks away, at first to avoid the look she knows her partner is giving, then to find out where she left her cup of coffee to stave off sleep for a few more hours.

"Dont worry about that!" She says, vaguely trying to wiggle out of the hug but giving up after Ellie only tightens her grip.

"Look! The board! I figured out how to get the police to listen to us!" She's tried, several times, to tell the police what she's learned, but even the one time she found someone that would listen to her constant emails and letters, he just gave a bunch of nonsense words that translated to him choosing not to listen to her. Things like 'circumstantial evidence' 'flagrant violation of due process' 'what does this even mean' and 'how did you get these documents?'

"Oh?" Ellie asks, pulling her partner towards her.

"You know what they're going to do next?" Her partner nods, suppressing another yawn.

"Yea… It's uh… It's the catalyst. Big Sis said something around a hundred mits per gram, I had Psychic run the numbers and she agrees too." She says, half muttering as she leans further into her partner's side.

"There's like… three? No, forgot Slateport. Four labs that can make something at that level, and they're not selling them. So all we need to do is warn them…" She stops as she realizes she'd closed her eyes and opens them again.

"... tell them the robbery is coming, so when it does happen they'll realize we were right."

"Then they'll have to listen when we give them all the rest of the evidence." Her friend says, finishing the thought.

"Mhmm." The 'mon hums, nodding into her partner's side, hearing her partner's heartbeat thud in her chest and feeling her own heart stutter into sync. There's a silence that could either be a few seconds or a few hours, but at the end of it, Boss realizes that she's being lazy, and starts moving to get herself up, find her coffee, and finish the last parts of her board that need–"Hey.

Do you mind if I talk my way though how you linked the owner of the bulk rail transport company to the joint founders of one that has the precision electronics permit? I want to make sure I understand." Ellie asks softly, continuing as her friend stops trying to get up and gives a shallow nod.

"Thank you. So I can see how you separated the bulk rail goods from the other transport companies with statistical analysis, which leads to…"