Chương 87: Chapter 70

The silence was as awkward as it was deafening. Standing just behind me were Gretchen and Bert, the two of them shuffling nervously, just barely in sight of the door. Their mother stood just outside said door, clearly restraining herself from pushing right up against the small gap secured by the door chain. Barely. I looked back and forth between the various Crall's for a few moments, before turning to the elder.

"Um, can we have just a moment, Mrs. Crall? We were just discussing something important." I started to shut the door, only for the woman to wedge a foot inside, keeping me from closing it completely.

"Hold on," she said, her eyes wide and her breath short.

"I heard there was a terrorist attack! On the stadium you kids were at today. Are you two okay?" That last question was directed at Gretchen and Bert, who looked at one another awkwardly, clearly unsure how to answer the question. I almost ordered my knights to force the security officer back, the command was on the tip of my tongue, but as I turned around to face them, I couldn't help but register Lenora's expression out of the corner of my eye.

She was pale as a sheet, and sweat was running from her brow, down her cheeks. The woman's eyes were like saucers, and her mouth was half-open in something between a gasp and a snarl. I felt something cold and hard settle in my stomach at the naked display of motherly concern, but I slid the chain free and pulled open the door.

"You should talk to Bert and Gretchen," I acknowledged, fighting to keep my voice even.

"Please, come in." To her credit, Lenora Crall didn't enter the apartment like an invader or an occupier. Of the security sub-contractor, there was no sign, other than a green armored vest. No, the person coming inside was all fearful mother, sweeping past my knights and I to inspect her children.

"Oh my Golems, is this blood?" Lenora asked as Gretchen tried to fend her off.

"It's fine mom, I didn't get cut or anything."

"That doesn't answer my question young lady!"

"How did you even know we were here?" Bert interjected, as I walked past the trio back to the living room and my knights returned to their vigil.

"Oh, um–" the woman hesitated, clearly unsure of what to say.

"Wait, are you the cop staking out Fe's apartment? Is that why you were able to drive us to the bus stop this morning?" I could hear the woman wince behind me.

"It's— how do you even know Ms. Alvida, anyway?"

"Ms. Alvida?" Grethen asked, as the trio joined Alyssa and I in the living room.

"You mean Fe? We were classmates, mom. For like, six years." Lenora winced again.

"Oh, um— I'm sorry Gee, I guess I didn't know any of your or Bert's friends other than Will." That statement prompted another exchange of awkward glances between the teenagers in the room. We all knew that the two hadn't had any other friends.

"We weren't all that close," I piped up, "Until, um, this summer– I guess," I finished awkwardly. Bert looked like he wanted to dig a hole in the ground to hide in, and Gretchen was absolutely mangling the hem of her shirt. They were both giving me imploring looks from behind their mother's back, but I couldn't really tell what they wanted.

"Well, thank you for taking care of them. I know they can be a handful, but they're good kids," Lenora said with a faltering smile. I had to bite my tongue, and next to me, Alyssa looked momentarily like she'd bitten into a Belue Berry. Neither Bert nor Gretchen would meet our eyes, and for a full five seconds, an uncertain silence hung in the air like a shroud.

"Actually— we didn't always get along the best," I admitted, eliciting an uncertain frown from Lenora. Bert and Gretchen both wilted before my eyes, and the latter reached out to the former, quietly clasping his hand in a gesture of reassurance. For a moment, I could see the two of them, sneering and cruel, jeering at me with the phantom of Will by their side. Six months younger and six centimeters shorter each, vitriol and hate on their tongues and in their eyes.

But the glimpse of the past faded, and another pair of threads played different memories, of Gretchen burning a brand into her palm to give me a chance to help my partners, of Bert, bent at the waist in a Pokémon Center lobby, stumbling through an apology clearly rehearsed, and no less genuine for the practice. I took a deep breath, and let it flow out of me, the air causing my irritated throat to burn, just a little.

"But even though we weren't all that close in school, they really came through for Alyssa and I today." The two younger Crall's looked up at me, their eyes wide and unbelieving, just in time for their mother to wheel on them.

"And speaking of today," she started again, descending to inspect the pair, "are you two alright? The news said everyone in the stadium experienced some sort of malaise."

"Yeah– it was– it was sucky," Bert failed to explain.

"Really awful," Gretchen spoke swiftly to back him up.

"But we got to see Suicune! It leapt into the stadium and healed everyone!" The deflection seemed clumsy to me, and it must have been the same for Lenora, because she leapt on the opening like an experienced battler exploiting a missed step.

"Healed everyone? So you were injured?" Gretchen visibly winced, and stretched the hem of her shirt even further.

"Not– exactly. I mean, sort of?"

"We all were." Alyssa piped up, her sallow cheeks doing more to sell what she was saying than her words.

"Whatever happened in the stadium, it felt like someone was trying to split our skulls open from the inside out. Almost everyone was either knocked unconscious or unable to move from the migraine we were experiencing." Lenora turned back to her children, who were both nodding in support of Alyssa's retelling.

"It really really was," Bert reiterated, "sucky, that is. But like Gretchen said, Suicune fixed all of us, so everything's okay!" Lenora did not look like she thought everything was okay.

"I can't believe something like this happened in Ferrum of all places. It's a good thing the administration called us in to help manage the situation, with attacks like this happening."

"Except neither city-security nor one of the security companies did anything to prevent or mitigate the attack on the stadium." My statement turned everyone's eyes to me, and I flushed as the various threads of my mind caught up with the one controlling my mouth. It was off to the races though, and showing no signs of slowing down.

"In fact, all I've seen security companies do so far is stand around looking scary and step on other organizations' jurisdictions." Lenora's eyes narrowed, and she put her hands on her hips. She was still wearing the facade of the concerned mother, but that green flak vest sat heavily on her shoulders all the same.

"I know the region is going through a stressful time right now, but that's why we need more hands on deck, not fewer. Keeping order in the streets is taking everything the city has right now."

"I passed by three battles going on in as many blocks on my way to the bus stop. That doesn't seem very in control to me," I retorted, as my fists clenched and unclenched.

"It's challenging with BattleFieldGo's and their derivatives out there," the older woman refuted.

"And what would you kno–""BattleFieldGo's made by your company," I cut her off.

"Or your parent company, or whatever."

"BattleFieldGo's invented by your father!" Lenora retorted, her voice just shy of a shout.

"Hey, I think maybe we should take a step back here," Gretchen spoke up, but her words did little to defuse the tension suffusing the room.

"He was part of a team!" I shouted, "Why is RealTech after him in particular!?"

"Because he's the one that gave the general public the codes necessary to jailbreak the BFGs." Lenora yelled back, her eyes wild. I reeled as if struck.

"That's, he wouldn't– my dad wouldn't do that." Lenora winced as her face went from confrontational to chagrined.

"I–, I probably wasn't supposed to tell you that." She took a deep breath, and the flush visibly drained from her face.

"But– that's why we're trying to find him, Fe. We need to find out what he actually did and didn't do, and why." I took a couple of deep breaths of my own, forcefully partitioning off the part of me freaking out about that accusation.

"I think it's time for you to go," I told the security officer.

"That's probably a good idea," the older woman acknowledged.

"Bert, Gee, come on, let's go home." The two younger Crall's looked at me in a way that I couldn't interpret, before turning, and following their mother out the door. I walked them out, and just before Gretchen left, she put a finger over her lips, and then made the genie's sign, crossing her arms in a silent promise to keep our secrets. I reciprocated, putting my hands on my hips, before closing the door behind them.

"Well that was a shitshow." The only reason I didn't jump was because I was too exhausted to do so.

"You can say that again," I replied to Mr. Gima as I turned back to find him and Ink frowning just a few steps behind me.

"What a fucking day."

"Language," the Unovan man chided absently as he set about releasing his partners again.

"And it's been a doozy, but it's not over yet. And now that the distractions are out of the way, we can talk about our next move." Mr. Gima sat down at the kitchen table along with his Zoroark, before beckoning Alyssa and I to come over.

"Now that we know what we're up against, and how far they're willing to go, we can't sit on our hands." We joined him, Alyssa and I each claiming a chair while Pikachu perched on my best friend's lap.

"I knew I was in danger, but I never thought it would spill over to anyone else," the brunette shook her head, her face forlorn.

"And it'll keep happening," Mr. Gima growled, "until someone stops it."

"So let's nail this bastard," I resisted the urge to punctuate my statement by slamming my fist on the table.

"How are we going to find him?"

"He definitely had Mayal with him. That complicates things," Mr. Gima mused. At our confused expressions, he clarified, "that's the name of the Zoroark I've been looking for. She was working with that monster. I don't know why, but she was covering for him, even if she didn't help him fight my team and I."

"Maybe she was under duress?" I suggested.

"This Scythe character seems like the type who'd be willing to make threats to get what he wants." Mr. Gima shook his head.

"There's nothing left in this region that she'd care enough about for him to threaten."

"There was something– off about her," Alyssa spoke up.

"Maybe you didn't see it from your angle, but one of her eyes was orange, instead of blue. Can Zoroark normally have different-colored eyes?" If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. The Unovan man and Ink both shook their heads.

"I can't say it's impossible, but I've never heard of any Zoroark's with heterochromia, and Mayal definitely had baby blue eyes, almost the exact same shade as Ink here," Mr. Gima gestured towards his partner, who projected a close-up illusion of his own oculus for reference.

"Orange," I muttered. Everyone turned to look at me, so I continued.

"It's just– all of the shadow synergy stones I've seen have glowed a similar shade of orange. Maybe that has something to do with it?" My hypothesis was met with several seconds of grim silence.

"It's possible," Mr. Gima eventually acknowledged.

"Another reason we need to take this bastard out, preferably as soon as possible."

"And I think I know how we can go about it," Alyssa said. We both turned towards my best friend as she elaborated.

"Just waiting and trying to bait him in obviously isn't working. He'll just come at us from an angle we're not expecting, or go after someone we can't protect, which means we need to be the ones to go after them."

"Okay, but we don't know where he is," I pointed out.

"That's sort of the whole problem."

"No, but we know who he works for, and where he lives," Alyssa pointed out, her face and jaw hardening.

"And if I know my cousin, he won't have been particularly careful about managing the evidence of his collaboration with a now-known terrorist."

"Even after the news was blowing up with it today?" I asked, scepticism coloring my tone.

"Not until someone else points it out to him," Alyssa replied, seeming assured.

"Probably my father. And if they haven't spoken yet today, we may have a window to get what we need before Mueller realizes he needs to deal with it."

"And we're absolutely sure this guy is working for your cousin?" Mr. Gima asked.

"There's no chance he's coming after you for unrelated reasons?"

"Nothing else that would explain why he went after Fe's mom," my best friend replied coldly.

"Or why they've been targeting Pikachu instead of me." As she said that, Alyssa ran a trembling hand over her partner's head, scratching the Electric-type's ears as the little rodent let out a threatening growl.

"I suppose it's as close to certainty as we're going to get," Mr. Gima acknowledged as he stood up.

"Where's this cousin of yours live? If you're right about this, then we're on a clock until he gets around to dealing with the evidence of his collaboration with Scythe."

"We're going after him now?" I protested, my mind going to my exhausted partners.

"We're not exactly in-shape for a fight."

"We don't have to fight," Alyssa shook her head as she stood as well.

"With any luck, the only Pokémon we'll need is Ink." The Dark-type preened, running his claws through his long mane, clearly excited to be the lynchpin of this plan in spite of his own exhaustion.

"Alright, fine. I guess we're doing this," I grunted as I stood to join them.

"Actually, Fe, I think it'd be better if you focus on finding your dad," Alyssa said, her face aggressively neutral.

"What?" I blinked a few times, unsure if the thought-thread that'd been listening to her had misheard somehow.

"I mean, he could be in danger, or need your help," she continued.

"I can't think of any other reason why you wouldn't be able to reach him like this."

"He might be, " I acknowledged.

"And of course I want to find him, but you're definitely in danger and need help. One problem at a time, right?"

"But I have Mr. Gima helping me, your dad doesn't have anyone. And it's like you said, your dad wouldn't have given out information about the BattleFieldGo to the public. What if he's being framed?" A terrible suspicion crept up on me.

"Are you trying to sideline me Alyssa?" My best friend winced. It was minute, so controlled I almost missed it, except I was utterly familiar with my best friend's face. There was no way that I wouldn't catch even the briefest microexpression. I felt something hot rising in my chest.

"You are. How could you ask me not to help when you're clearly in danger?"

"Maybe because I don't want you to be in danger too," Alyssa replied, her voice completely level.

"Mrs. Joy– your mom is already in the hospital. You could have been too, if Suicune hadn't intervened today. Or worse!"

"The same for you! What if Gretchen and I had been a little late in getting that Klang off the gaia spot? No one else knew what was going on," I reasoned"And I'm thankful for that Fe, really, but the results don't justify the means."

"Where is this even coming from?" I fought to keep my voice under control.

"You didn't have any issues with me playing bodyguard yesterday."

"That was before we knew an international terrorist was gunning for us," Alyssa hissed.

"You saw what sort of shape Mr. Gima's partners are in, this guy's dangerous Fe."

"All the more reason to have as much help as possible," I fired back.

"I can help protect you and Pikachu."

"And what if you get hurt while doing that? Or worse!" my best friend finally lost her battle to control her tone, and her hair had started sparking slightly, strands standing up and on end.

"What if you die while trying to keep me safe? How am I supposed to live with that?"

"I'm not the one he's after!" I shouted.

"If you or Pikachu got hurt while I could have done something about it–""And it's not just about you, Fe. What about your partners? What if one of your Pokémon got hurt or killed defending us. Did you consider that Fe? Or what happens to them if you die? What about that Klang you just caught? They're waiting for you in the Pokémon Center." I rocked back. The argument felt familiar. Eerily so. But this time, instead of simply conjuring anger, Alyssa's words evoked memories of Mana, being struck by the Butterfree.

Of one of my mauses lying prone on the ground, with flecks of orange crystal buried in their chest. Of a puncture wound below Lance's eye, only-just scarred over. Of two gears, cracked and scarred and aching and alone. All of them played through my mind unbidden, tying up my tongue and giving Alyssa a window to continue, uninterrupted.

"This isn't just a bit of danger anymore, Fe. Someone is out to hurt my partner, or worse, and he's clearly willing to do the same to anyone that gets between him and I. How am I supposed to ask you to put yourself and your partners in that sort of risk?" I swallowed thickly.

"Because you don't have to ask. We'll do it willingly. That's what friendship is, right? If you'd do the same for me, how am I supposed to offer any less?" I had her there. I knew it because she wouldn't meet my eyes, let me see the hypocrisy in them. Before she had to come up with an answer, however, Mr. Gima intervened.

"This is all well-and-good, but at the end of the day, it's my partner who'll be getting us into this Mueller creature's abode, and our decision on who stays and who goes." We both turned to the Unovan man, whose face was set in a hard scowl.

"Frankly, I think both of you are right. The monster we're after isn't someone I'd ask anyone who wasn't law enforcement to pursue, had I any other choice. The only reason Alyssa is an exception is because she's the principal in danger, and because her knowledge about her family's dealings will be necessary for catching them in the act." It felt like the floor had fallen out from under me, and I sank heavily into the kitchen chair I'd just risen from.

"So just like that, I'm useless now?"

"You're looking at this the wrong way," the Dark-specialist's voice grew soft.

"The next step will be an infiltration mission anyway. The more people we bring along, the harder we make it on ourselves. And besides, Alyssa is right, you should focus on your parents. I get being worried about your best friend, but your actual family is either hospitalized, or getting chased by one of these sketchy companies that seem to be runining your region. Shouldn't you be focusing on that?"

"But I can't do anything about that!" The admission burst out of my chest, along with a fit of hiccups.

"Mom hic, is in the hospital, hic, getting helped by her– her real family. I can't do anything for her. And I've got no leads about where dad went! He just– he just abandoned us." To my horror, some distant part of myself noticed hot tears threatening the corners of my eyes. I swiped angrily at them, but that didn't stop more from gathering.

"Fe." This time, it was Alyssa's turn to embrace me, the taller girl pulling me up out of my chair and dragging my face into her chest.

"You can't use my problems as a way to ignore yours."

"Your problems, hic, are my problems," I protested, my voice muffled by my best friend's shirt.

"Then your problems are mine too. But I can't focus on finding your dad or helping your mom until the maniac after me is dealt with. I'd just be putting them in danger. You can."

"I don't– I don't even have any leads about where he would have gone. We haven't, hic, haven't really spoken in weeks. Not since just after I got out of the hospital."

"Nothing? He didn't leave a note? A message? Anything?" Alyssa probed.

"Just a hic, stupid piece of paper with a bunch of nonsense scribbled on it," I told her, as I wiped at my traitorous eyes and fought to get the hiccups under control..

"Hold on, that's not nothing," Mr. Gima interjected.

"Where exactly did you find this piece of paper?"

"It's taped under the fridge," I explained, which prompted Pikachu to scurry over to the towering appliance and reach one yellow paw down underneath it. A bit of groping around, and she came back up clasping the note we'd repasted there this morning, returning to the table and scampering up it to show all of us. We gathered around to stare at the piece of paper, and its sixteen-character long string of unbroken nonsense.

"See, it's just a bunch of hic, gibberish."

"If it was, your dad wouldn't have gone to the effort of hiding it down there," the Unovan man refuted, studying the page.

"Something about this–" He fell into thought for five seconds, then ten, and just when I was finally about to point out that this was a waste of our limited time, the Dark-specialist snapped his fingers.

"That's it, I bet this is the back-half of some sort of link."

"Link?" Alyssa asked, just a second before I said the same.

"Jynx!" we chorused, more out of reflex than anything else. The shared moment of nonsense elicited a gentle smile from Alyssa, and managed to shock me out of my hiccups.

"Like a hyperlink," Mr. Gima continued, fastidiously ignoring the byplay.

"You know, to a website?"

"Aren't those usually just blue words?" Alyssa asked, glancing back at the string of characters.

"Sure, but those blue words are actually covering a longer string of characters denoting the exact domain in question. Fe, did your dad use some sort of website or database for taking notes?" I shrugged.

"No idea, sorry." The man grimaced, and then glanced over to the desktop powered down in the corner of the room.

"How about that PC, did he ever use it?"

"He used to," I thought back, "but ever since he got a work laptop, he barely touches it."

"Sure, but if he were trying to avoid arousing suspicion from his workplace, he probably wouldn't use that laptop for hiding something, right?" That brought me up short.

"Maybe–" I hedged, "but I already went through the PC this morning, and there weren't any weird files or anything on it."

"Maybe not on the PC itself, but there could be something on a website it accessed," Mr. Gima explained as he went over and turned the device on.

"Did you check the browser history?"

"Browser history?" I asked, unfamiliar with the term.

"When you visit webpages on the net, the browser you're using records where you've been," as the Unovan man explained, the device spun to life, gradually booting up with a whirring hum.

"So, if your dad was using this thing to keep notes on a website, we can look to see which one it was." Alyssa, Pikachu and I gathered around the sputtering PC, waiting for it to spin up fully. After a minute or so, the familiar desktop showing the Techne skyline appeared.

"Which icon is the browser," Mr. Gima gestured at the screen.

"Here," I pointed, "Periodicals."

"Weird name," the Unovan man muttered as he double-clicked the icon, causing the browser to open up.

"Weird-looking browser to," he continued as he struggled to navigate the page, eventually finding a menu that showed a 'history' button. He clicked on it, opening a new window that listed a string of websites and dates, going back months and even years.

"You weren't kidding, no one's used this thing in months," Mr. Gima muttered as he scrolled up and down the page.

"Just this one listing an error." The line he was referring to was the highest on the list, which meant it was the most recently-accessed page. Or attempted access, anyway. It was from just over two weeks ago. Mr. Gima navigated over to the line and clicked it, causing yet another window to emerge, this one showing an error.

'Page not found!' a sad-looking image of a Porygon informed us, hovering above a low-detail map of the Ferrum region.

"Well that's not useful," I muttered as the little Porygon did a low-poly dance back and forth.

"Hold on," Mr. Gima replied, as he messed with the mouse somewhere near the top of the page. I didn't see what he was doing, but the end result was a pop-up displaying a bunch of letters and numbers in sequences that I couldn't read.

"Look, I can extract the link he was trying to access from here," the foreign man leaned in closer, squinting at the CRT monitor.

"I think I recognize that domain. This website is based in Hoenn."

"Hoenn?" Alyssa asked.

"Why would Mr. Alvida be trying to view a Hoennese website on the FerreNet? It doesn't ever get anything from outside of Ferrum." Neither of them had noticed the way I'd stiffened when Mr. Gima said that. They did pick up on me running off, sprinting to my room, and then returning with a barely-used Devon PokéNav.

"Can we try to look at the website using this?"

"Is that a PokéNav? Mr. Gima asked instead of answering.

"I've never seen a model like that. I didn't think you could use them to access the net."

"Um, I thought it could. There was an app for it," I opened the device and navigated through the seemingly endless list of pre-installed programs.

"Here it is, NetNav." I held the device out in front of me so Alyssa and Mr. Gima could peer at its tiny, but surprisingly bright screen from over my shoulders. Sure enough, a browser came up, still on the last page I'd visited a few months ago, a BattleNet forum page discussing Steven Stone's elite four.

"Truth's tits, I guess it does," Mr. Gima muttered.

"Here, let me read you the domain. Alyssa, grab the note." One-by-one, I pecked at the device's keys, using the oddly-laid out mini-keyboard to enter the letters, numbers, and symbols as they were called out. Eventually, after the sequence was fully complete, and we'd checked it over to be sure, I clicked the enter key. The little device chugged for one second, then two, and a third.

"It can take a bit," I admitted to them as the PokéNav fought valiantly to load the page.

"We're pretty far from Hoenn, after all." Five more seconds passed. And then ten.

"Maybe we put in a letter wro– oh," Alyssa cut herself off in surprise as the screen changed, now showing a white page with three lines. The first said, 'It's all for her,' the second was, 'Enter Pin,' and the third was four asterisks in a line.

"There's your clue," Mr. Gima breathed, staring down at the page.

"Figure out what your dad would use as a pin, and you'll have your first real hint to finding out what happened to him. And there it was. Simple enough. All I had to do was prove that I knew the man who I called 'dad.' I forced myself to swallow past the lump that'd formed in my throat.

"Yeah. Easy."