Chương 92: Act 3: Chapter 9

By the time they come in to land on the outskirts of the town of Rubello, the sunset is obscured by the dark, rolling clouds of a coming storm, sending the town into an early night as people and pokemon alike scramble inside, not wanting to be caught in the rain.

With how diminutive the town is, the sight of a giant Corviknight, a Noivern, and a Latias coming in for a landing on the street outside their hotel for the night prompts a round of wide eyes from the people still out and about, but the onlookers are ignored as the trio of pokemon are recalled.

"Just in time." Lee smiles as they step into the hotel, the gradual plit-plat of fat raindrops marking their entrance. Inside, the lobby is sparse. There's little more than the front desk and a breakfast nook that is currently empty. At said front desk, the woman behind it perks up and puts away the phone she was scrolling on when they approach.

"Hello. Lee Henson and party checking in," Lee greets.

"Of course! One moment!" She smiles back and types away at the computer behind her desk. Her smile falls as she reads something on the screen.

"Oh, that was two double bed rooms you were renting for the night, correct?"

"Uh-huh." Lee nods, sharing a quick look with Zinnia and Brendan. Behind them, Lokoko just watches the proceedings patiently.

"Ummm…" The front desk attendant looks up at him sheepishly.

"I'm sorry, sir. It looks like we overbooked our double-bed rooms. We do have a four-bed trainer suite available. We can give it to you with no upcharge as an apology."

'Huh. That's a bit of a bummer…' Lee looks once more at Zinnia and Brendan, then over his shoulder at Lokoko. Honestly, sharing a room with Zinnia doesn't bother him. She's by far the (human) woman he's felt most comfortable around, and it's not like she'd hold a grudge if there were any slips caused by close quarters. If anything, she'd have a blast with the resulting red faces and jokes. Lokoko, on the other hand… Lee clears his throat.

"Opinions, everyone?"

"I don't really care," Zinnia chimes with a shrug.

"Shit, I don't know why we still do separate rooms when a group suite is cheaper on average." Brendan wrinkles his nose.

"I don't mind doing it once. No offence, Zinnia, but you're like a sister. Yeah, you're pretty… I guess, but I don't want to see all tha-ACK! Lemme go!" The boy is cut off by a tanned arm taking him in a headlock.

"What do you mean'pretty, I guess'!?" Zinnia demands, violently rubbing her knuckles across his hat-covered head.

"You need to work on your manners, shrimp! That's not how you talk to a lady! You should be like'Oh yeah that sounds awesome! I want to be around Big Sissy Zinnia all the time'!" Brendan, flailing, seizes her wrist to stop the painful noogie.

"Getoff! If I wanted to see a naked ape, I'd get a shaved Rillaboom!"

"You snotty little-!"

"Children, please, not right now," Lee sighs, reaching in and pulling both apart by their shoulders.

"Sorry about them." He gives Lokoko a sheepish smile.

"Uh, this is a bit awkward. If you're not comfortable with the arrangement, Miss Lokoko, we can call around and see if there is another hotel with a room open, then either my Ninetales or Octillery can escort you there with a telekinetic umbrella to keep you dry," he finishes, glancing outside at the deluge. As if to punctuate his statement, lightning flashes, and the low rumble of thunder rolls across the town. Lokoko follows his eyes, taking in the downpour herself.

"I believe that you and young Mister Birch will be proper gentlemen, Mister Henson. If you will have me, I will lodge with you for tonight. Besides," she returns her attention to him, a glint he can't place in her eye, "it will give us ample time to talk, you, your Ninetales, and I." In her ball, Lee knows Nine is frowning. Smiling back unsurely, Lee then turns back to the front desk attendant.

"The trainer suite will work fine, thanks." Once Lee's credit card is swiped and keys are handed out, the four of them make their way down the hall behind the front desk, where the hotel's trainer suites are located, to Room T4-1. Swiping his keycard and hearing the lock click, Lee pushes the door open and leads everyone inside. Compared to their upscale accommodations in Petalburg, the room tonight is rather plain.

Directly to the right of the front door is another door for the bathroom, and diagonal to that in an alcove on the other wall is a small kitchenette. Further in, the room opens up into a decent whack of floor space for larger pokemon and two sets of bunkbeds in the corners. On the wall is the expected cheap TV with a laminated channel list taped to it.

"Home sweet home," Zinnia jokes, pushing past.

"Calling top bunk!" she says, scrambling up and tossing her bag on the flat pillow. Lee and Brendan gravitate to the right bunk, while Lokoko and Zinnia take the left. Once settled in, then comes the spectacle of the night: Dinner. With his jacket shrugged off, Lee drops his backpack at his feet at the kitchenette with Brendan at his right. Eyeballing the stove space, Lee frowns lightly.

"Four burners, but electric coil ones… Euh…" He grumbles a bit more, then unzips his backpack.

"Brendan?" Like he's done a hundred times before, the boy takes the lips of Lee's bag and opens them wide, letting Lee dip his arms in and pull out a full-sized stockpot without catching on anything. Lokoko, who had been carefully laying out a lighter kimono for the morning, looks over when Lee sets the heavy pot down with a clang.

"What is Mister Henson preparing that requires such a large cooking vessel?" Lokoko asks, her eyes on the stockpot as Lee fills it with water and sets it on the largest burner.

"It seems excessive for four people." Lee laughs, reaching back into his bag.

"Four?" He pulls out a wrapped bundle of red meat, then another, then a carton of eggs.

"I'm cooking for everyone, Miss Lokoko. Pokemon included." The pile of ingredients grows steadily on the limited counter space. Rice, beans, mushrooms, fresh vegetables, a whole raw chicken, a container of shellfish on ice, and more besides. Lokoko's eyebrow climbs higher with each addition, her composed mask slipping just a fraction as the modest kitchenette begins to resemble a restaurant prep station. Lee clicks his tongue as he runs out of room, a packet of seasonings in hand with nowhere to put it.

Before he can voice his frustration, Ninetales' ball pops open of its own accord, and the golden fox pads up to his side, her tails swaying behind her.

'Allow me, Beloved.' A soft purple glow envelops the overflow of ingredients, lifting them into a neat hovering arrangement just above the counter. Ninetales settles on her haunches nearby, keeping one eye on her telekinetic juggling act and the other on Lee as he works.

"Thanks, love." Lee gives her a smile that she returns. Then he gets to work. The next twenty minutes blur into a rhythm of sizzling pans, bubbling pots, and the steady thunk-thunk-thunk of a knife on a cutting board. Lee moves through the cramped kitchen easily, barely needing to give it any mind at this point, preheating the burners, adjusting temps, tasting and adjusting seasoning with quick, economical movements. His focus narrows to the task at hand, the rest of the world fading to background noise.

'Never thought I'd learn to like cooking,' he muses with just Ninetales to hear.

'I wasn't any good at it before.'

'Bachelor life is hardly conducive to developing culinary skills,' Ninetales says back, gently lifting the cleaver from his hand and replacing it with a spatula.

'I'm still a bachelor, Nine.'

'A technicality if there ever was one.' At his right, Brendan works as his sous chef, having fallen into the role so many times that he no longer needs direction. The boy dices vegetables with great technique, slices a Sitrus berry paper-thin for each dish and answers Lee's occasional questions without breaking stride.

"How's Swampert feeling after yesterday? He push himself too hard in that fight with that Mightyena?"

"Nah, he's good," Brendan replies, scraping his diced onions into a waiting bowl.

"Ate like a Snorlax this morning, so I figure he's recovering fine. Maybe up his protein a bit?"

"Got it. Latias?"

"Umm…" Brendan pauses and thinks.

"She's grown a little, so maybe more of that fish sauce for extra omega-3s?" Lee nods, then looks over his shoulder.

"Miss Lokoko, Zinnia, what were you two thinking for dinner?"

"Anything you make is good, Dolittle," Zinnia says, kicking her feet from the top bunk as she watches the barely-controlled chaos. Lokoko, however, seems surprised by the question.

"Well…" Her eyes fall to the pan where the meat portion of Ninetales' meal is being seared, and she licks her lips.

"Perhaps… Perhaps I could have a meal matching your Ninetales'?" She holds for a beat.

"J-Just to investigate the quality of the food you feed her, as you understand."

"Sure thing." Lee nods back, then returns his attention to the stove.

"I understand where you're coming from. I don't feed my pokemon anything I wouldn't eat, so I think you'll enjoy it." The room grows more cramped as the minutes tick by. One by one, pokeballs pop open of their own accord as dinner approaches, the pokemon within roused by the smells wafting through the air. Swampert has to duck to avoid scraping his head on the ceiling, and he crowds the kitchenette alongside Breloom and Tyrunt, all three craning their necks to watch the proceedings with undisguised anticipation.

Lee has to push away Swampert's blue bulk to check on the meat sizzling in the largest pan, but he doesn't complain. Pokemon gathering for dinner is just part of the routine at this point. Finally, with the cooking winding down, Lee begins plating, his eyes running over each dish with a critical eye. Ninetales' bowl is largely unchanged from its earliest form, just scaled up with a few variations to keep things interesting.

Tonight, it's fatty cuts of red meat, seared rare, mixed with boiled eggs, wild rice for carbs, and freshly diced vegetables for balance. A proper omnivore's spread fit for a queen, if Lee does say so himself.

'Queen?' Nine catches his thought with a small smirk.

'Well, you said it, not me.'

'Hush, you,' he sends back, moving on. Sceptile used to be tricky to cook for, his palate finicky in ways Lee struggled to pin down. Not anymore. The gecko gets a hearty portion of mushrooms and protein-rich beans over rice, topped with a colorful vegetable medley and drizzled with a sticky, aromatic spiced sauce for flavor. Corviknight is easy. His menu mirrors Ninetales', just with a portion size that would make a sumo wrestler balk and a heavy dose of iron supplements mixed into the meat.

The king-sized raven needs the extra fuel to keep his armored body in peak condition. Shinx's bowl gives Lee pause, and he has to push down the pang of melancholy that rises in his chest. She's been eating more lately, her appetite steadily climbing in a way he recognizes all too well. Evolution is cresting the horizon for his baby girl, whether he's ready for her to grow up or not.

Shaking off the thought, he inspects her plate: a pair of juicy chicken breasts, rubbed down with savory seasonings and glazed with honey to mask the Sitrus flavor she's never liked. Octillery's meal is the simplest of the lot. Fresh shellfish, served raw and glistening, with a small dish of cocktail sauce on the side. The octopus has developed a taste for the acidic tang, apparently, which Lee supposes makes a certain amount of sense for a sea creature.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Finally, Sylveon's plate. Lee winces just looking at it. A double-fried country steak, slathered in thick, fatty gravy, with a little frosted cupcake perched beside it for dessert. The whole thing looks like a heart attack waiting to happen, the sort of carnival fare that would make a cardiologist weep.

Yet no matter what gut-busting, artery-clogging meal Lee serves her, Sylveon practically glows afterward, her vitals showing no sign of elevated cholesterol or any other ill effect. Fairy-types and their eating habits still make absolutely no sense to him, even after seeing the phenomenon in action dozens of times.

"Okay, back up!" Lee shoos away the pokemon hovering nearby, making Swampert and Breloom give him room, but Tyrunt just bares his teeth with a growl. Lee stares down, meeting the dino right in the eye.

"Don't play that game with me-" Beside him, Ninetales feigns a yawn, showing off white fangs with little flames licking the corners of her mouth.

"-because mine's bigger." Tyrunt snarls, but takes a few steps back. Smiling, Lee looks to his fox.

"Love?" The first wave of plates go out, hovering in outlines of psychic purple, then a second wave, and finally a third. Before long, every bit of noise in the room is eschewed for the sound of eager mouths munching on dinner. Sitting with his legs crossed against the bed he's claimed for the night, Lee watches his pokemon dig into their meals with a smile, slowly lifting a fork of his own food. Popping the morsel into his mouth, he chews at a slow pace, letting his tongue get acquainted with all the flavors.

'Hmm… Maybe a little less salt next time. How is yours, Nine?' Beside him, Nine raises her head from her bowl, licking up a stray rice grain on her lips.

'Fantastic. The cuts of beef have just the right amount of char. Did you do something to the rice? It soaked up the excess juices.'

'Just let it stand for a few minutes before serving is all,' he sends back, looking up to Lokoko. The woman stares at the bowl in her hands, filled with the same food served to Ninetales minus any sitrus, with what looks like trepidation. She doesn't seem to notice them watching her sidelong, or if she does, she says nothing. Finally, the dark-haired woman lifts her fork, inspects the rice, peas, and carrots atop some beef, then takes a bite.

Lokoko's eyes shoot open wide in the most bold-faced expression yet seen on her as she works her jaw. Swallowing, she gives her food a look of distaste, and Lee wonders what he did wrong. Then she takes another bite, and another, moving a little too eagerly to be proper despite what her face says.

"Is your food alright, Miss Lokoko?" Lee finally asks, breaking the silence. More than a few heads lift from their meals, eyes looking towards the woman. Lokoko freezes in place, then sniffs and continues slower.

"You feed your Ninetales such every day?"

"Every day," Lee confirms.

"I don't trust premade, mass-produced pokemon food." She considers his words, then turns her gaze to the window, where the streaming rain has turned the outside world into a wobbly smear.

"This is… Good. I can find no fault." Sitting cross-legged over her own plate just a few feet away, Zinnia lets out an unladylike snort. The clatter of utensils fades as bowls are scraped clean and plates are licked spotless. A comfortable lethargy settles over the room, the kind that only comes from a warm meal on a stormy night. Outside, rain continues to drum against the windows, punctuated by the occasional rumble of distant thunder. One by one, the pokemon begin to drowse.

Sceptile is first to go, giving Lee a thankful nod before vanishing into his ball with a flash of red. Corviknight follows, then Octillery, then Sylveon, each succumbing to the pull of a full stomach and a warm, dry place to sleep. Brendan hasn't moved from his spot on the floor, his back against the lower bunk. Latias is curled against his side, her eyes half-lidded and content, while Electrike has claimed Brendan's lap with his large head, the canine's nose twitching as he dreams.

Against Electrike, both Shinx and Sliggoo lie, using the largest of their trio as a pillow. Brendan strokes Electrike's fur absently, then looks up at Lokoko, who sits primly on the edge of the bottom bunk across from him.

"Hey, Miss Lokoko?" Brendan asks, breaking the comfortable quiet.

"What made you want to become a Ninetales expert? Like, was there a specific moment, or...?" Lee's attention sharpens, and he feels Nine do the same from where she's sprawled beside him, her head resting on his thigh. The question has been lurking in the back of his mind since Petalburg, and he's grateful Brendan asked it so he didn't have to. Lokoko doesn't answer right away. Her hands, folded in her lap, tighten almost imperceptibly, and her gaze drifts to the rain-streaked window.

"I knew a Ninetales once," she says finally, her voice softer than Lee has heard it.

"A long time ago. She bonded deeply to her master, so deeply that their souls became intertwined in a way few could comprehend." Lee's heart gives a strange lurch. Beside him, Ninetales has gone very still.

"And when he vanished one day..." Lokoko trails off, her composure cracking for just a moment. A shudder runs through her, too deep and too raw to be anything but genuine.

"She... I..." She catches herself, smoothing her expression back into something more controlled, but the damage is done. Lee can see the old wound beneath the mask, still bleeding after all this time.

"I understand what it is like," Lokoko continues, her voice steadier now, "to have the foundation of one's life ripped up by the roots. And I know it is worse for creatures of such profound emotion. Pokemon like Ninetales feel more deeply than most humans can fathom. When that bond is severed..." She shakes her head slowly.

"I have made it my mission to ensure no one else must experience such a thing." Her eyes find Lee and Ninetales, and the implication hangs in the air like smoke.

"If you're implying what I think you are," Zinnia cuts in, her voice sharp enough to draw blood, "then you're wasting your worry." Lokoko's jaw tightens, a flash of something hard passing through her eyes, but she doesn't look away from Lee and Nine. The stare lingers for a long, uncomfortable moment.

'Beloved...' Ninetales' mental voice is cautious, her hackles not quite raised but close.

'I know,' Lee sends back, his own discomfort a mirror of hers.

'Just... let it be for now.' The silence stretches, thick and heavy. Even the rain outside seems muted. Finally, Lokoko pulls her gaze away. She lets out a small breath and when she speaks again, her tone is lighter.

"Forgive me. I did not mean to make things so somber." She smooths an invisible wrinkle from her kimono.

"Perhaps you would care to hear of a lighter subject? In my travels, I met a curious theatre actor, from whom I've learned methods of infusing perfumes into fur. It works quite well for other pokemon as well."

"Oh? That might be up Lee's alley." Brendan throws a grin over his shoulder.

"Didn't you want to enter a pokemon contest with Ninetales?"

"I did," Lee admits.

"Her kimono is just collecting dust, so I want to enter one eventually." Lokoko visibly perks up and Lee swears he sees her dark eyes twinkle red.

"Finery, for your pokemon? Mister Henson, I must see!" The tension in the room eases as the subject shifts to safer ground. Lokoko's enthusiasm for pokemon finery proves genuine, and before long she's produced several folded garments from her Silph purse, each one in traditional Kanto style with flowing fabric and delicate embroidery.

"This pattern dates back to the Tokugawa period," Lokoko explains, holding up a deep blue haori jacket sized for a quadruped. Silver thread traces the shapes of cresting waves along the hem.

"It does not complement, but rather contrasts a natural Ninetales coat, a tradition that started in what would eventually become Goldenrod City. You see, the lords of the Golden Coast…" Ninetales, for her part, tolerates the impromptu fashion show with the patience of a saint, likely aided by all the interesting history Lokoko is too happy to share.

She steps into the middle of the room and allows Lokoko to drape fabric over her back, to fuss with the fit around her shoulders, and to make thoughtful noises about color theory and seasonal appropriateness. Lee watches from his spot on the bed, quietly amused by the sight of his proud fox being treated like a life-sized dress-up doll. After the fourth outfit, however, Nine's patience reaches its limit, and she slips away before more silken robes can be pulled from Lokoko's space-bending purse.

"Enough! I tire of being a mannequin," she grumbles out loud, padding back to Lee's side and nosing into his backpack.

'You lasted longer than I expected,' Lee sends back, hiding his smile behind his hand. Ninetales withdraws her calligraphy set with a pointed huff, the wooden box and rolled paper floating in a gentle telekinetic grip. She settles on the floor beside the bed, arranging her materials with practiced ease. Once her inkwell is carefully uncorked, she dips her brush and begins her nightly practice. Lokoko's eyes light up anew.

"Oh, how wonderful! She practices the old arts as well?" The woman rises from her seat, moving closer to watch the careful strokes taking shape on the paper.

"Tell me, has she begun to properly learn the language yet? The classical forms, I mean. So few take an interest these days."

"I am learning," Ninetales answers aloud, not looking up from her work.

"Lee has been helping me study." Helping. Ha! Nine's grasp of her ancestral tongue is all her own, and yet another curious example of a pokemon's ancestral memory. Giratina claims to have formed her from mere data out of a video game, but her steel-trap mind and her heart of gold, true as any other Ninetales, couldn't be more real. Ninetales catches his thoughts, and Lee notices the tips of her ears going pink.

"Marvelous." Lokoko smiles as she watches.

"Your brushwork shows real promise, if I may say." Lee blinks, a thread of surprise worming through him. Lokoko responded to Nine's vocalization without hesitation, without even a flicker of confusion at the vulpine speech patterns that most humans find impenetrable.

'She understood you,' he sends to Nine.

'Perfectly. Without any context clues.'

'I noticed.' Nine's mental voice carries a note of wariness.

'Most humans require months of exposure before they can parse our speech with any reliability. Even a quick study such as Brendan still struggles with most of my words. Prior experience speaking to one of my kind, perhaps?'

'I would have to assume so,' Lee replies, scratching his chin in thought. Lee studies Lokoko's profile as she watches Ninetales work, that nagging sense of familiarity scratching at the back of his mind again. The way she carries herself, the depth of her knowledge, the almost instinctive understanding of vulpine behavior and speech...

'I feel like I should know her from somewhere,' he muses.

'Was she in the anime? The games? Some side character I'm forgetting?' The thought slips away before he can chase it down, lost in the flow of conversation as the evening wears on. True to her title, Lokoko proves to be a font of knowledge. The subjects flit from grooming techniques to regional mythology to the finer points of fire-type metabolism, and on each topic, she speaks with the assured authority of someone who has spent decades in study.

Lee finds himself taking mental notes more than once, filing away tidbits about fur maintenance and dietary supplements that he'd never encountered in his own research. Outside, the storm has grown teeth. What started as a steady rain has become a howling gale, wind shrieking around the corners of the hotel and driving sheets of water against the windows hard enough to rattle the frames. Lightning strobes across the sky in rapid succession, close enough that the thunder follows almost instantly, shaking the walls.

The lights flicker once, twice, then hold steady, though the TV cuts to static for a brief moment before Zinnia smacks the side of it. Lokoko turns toward the window, watching the tempest rage beyond the glass.

"Are storms of this magnitude common in Hoenn?" she asks, a note of genuine curiosity in her voice.

"This seems rather... intense." Zinnia, who migrated to the small couch an hour ago to watch some reality show about pokemon breeders, glances up from the screen.

"Eh, Hoenn usually gets some nasty ones come autumn. Cool air from the north mixing with the warm ocean currents and all that." She frowns, tilting her head as another gust makes the building groan.

"It is kinda weird that it's this bad this far inland, though. We're not exactly on the coast." With a discontented hum, Lee pulls out his phone, thumbing to the weather app. Without wifi, Rubella's cell signal is sluggish and the loading icon spins for what feels like an eternity. He watches the little circle turn, a frown slowly creeping onto his face. The forecast had called for rain over Rubello before they left Petalburg, though nothing severe.

And unlike the Earth where he was born, where meteorology was as much guesswork as science, this Earth has pokemon-assisted weather tracking down to a fine art. Wildly advanced sensory tech combined with good old reliable ad-hoc methods, like watching pressure-sensitive Psyduck or flying-type migrations, means institutes staffed by experts can put out forecasts with actual ninety-nine percent accuracy. The forecast had called for showers with scattered lightning, not a storm.

The page finally loads and an ice-cold lump forms in Lee's stomach. The weather map shows a massive, swirling supercell dominating the northeastern quadrant of the region, its spiral arms reaching out like grasping fingers. The coloration is an angry red at the center, fading to orange and yellow at the edges and even as he watches, the system pulses, growing more intense.

Sidebar headlines scroll past in rapid succession: RESIDENTS ADVISED TO SHELTER IN PLACE UNPRECEDENTED STORM SYSTEM BAFFLES EXPERTS HOENN WEATHER INSTITUTE UNRESPONSIVE TO INQUIRIES Lee stares at that last one, then looks back at the map. His eyes trace the spiral inward, toward the center, toward the eye of the storm where the rotation is tightest. The eye sits directly over the Hoenn Weather Institute. His stomach drops.

Unexplained storm appearing out of nowhere, the Weather Institute going silent, and the eye of the monster storm parked right on top of the region's foremost meteorological facility like a bullseye… If this is anything like the games... He looks up, and Ninetales is already watching him, her ruby eyes sharp.

'Aqua.' The thought comes from both at the same time. Lee stands.

"Zinnia, shut the TV off." Something in his voice makes her hand move to the remote without argument.

"Everyone, quiet. Now." Brendan's mouth, half-open to ask a question, snaps shut. Even Lokoko, who has been watching Lee with renewed interest since his expression changed, says nothing. The sharp words wake Shinx, Electrike, and Sliggoo, but the trio of babies don't let out a peep and merely watch pensively. The only sound is the howling wind outside and the rain hammering the glass. Lee scrolls through his contacts, finds the one he's looking for and taps it. He raises the phone to his ear. One ring. Two.

'C'mon, please pick up…' Lee prays.

'If the storm killed cell service here, I think I might scream.' Click.

'Thank Arceus… Or Giratina.'

"Hello, Lee." Steven's voice is calm but alert, the tone of a man who wasn't sleeping despite the late hour.

"I take it this isn't a social call?" Lee's jaw tightens.

"Champion Stone, we need to get boots on the ground at the Weather Institute." He glances at the window, where lightning splits the sky in a blinding fork.

"Team Aqua is making a move." The line is silent, then Steven sighs.

"I was afraid you were going to say that."