N breathed a sigh of relief when Mimikyu woke up with a groan. Nurse Joy may have assured him that his friend would be fine, but that didn’t stop him from worrying.

  The King-in-training had brought the adorable little fae into their room, rather than leaving him to sit in the sterile back rooms of the medical ward of the Pokemon Center. She’d given Mimikyu all the healing they could, and had given N a small supply of Sitrus berries, so there wasn’t much point in hanging around back there anyways.

  “Why do I feel like I got hit by a bus or sumthin’...?” His cute little friend questioned with a groggy tone.

  N frowned. “That’s what I’d like to ask you.” It’s not like he understood what Mimikyu had actually done to break the brainwashing effect. “What do you remember?”

  Mimikyu didn’t bother sitting his deflated disguise up, the Mime Jr. doll lying limp on the bed. He hummed for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. “There was… ah, shit, we fought Team Galactic with the Rockets, didn’t we? Crazy bastards…”

  That was definitely another topic they’d need to discuss, as N still had no information on this Galactic group beyond the fact that they were apparently in cahoots with Elite Four Lucian. But Mimikyu’s health took priority over that, so he stayed silent for now.

  “Then…” Mimikyu seemed to struggle for a moment. “...did Lucian seriously try ‘n’ mess with our heads?” He continued with a tone of disbelief. “I mean I knew the League wasn’ quite what I expected, but that’s… ‘n’ he was working with Galactic!” Mimikyu suddenly shot up… but his deflated form meant that it was really just the head of the disguise rotating into an upright position.

  N grimaced. “That’s certainly how it seems. I was not fully… aware for all of it, but from what I could gather he was using his Psychic types to alter our memories and erase the incident with Team Galactic from our minds. Ash seemed to have a strong reaction to whatever they were doing, but once Lucian was done nobody seemed able to recall what had happened. He planted the idea in their heads that Team Rocket was responsible for their disoriented state before running off.”

  “He just straight up tries to brainwash us ‘n’ then runs away?” Mimikyu inquired, doubt in his tone. “Why wouldn’ he stick aroun’ ‘n’ ensure that he got us? Is he really jus’ a cocky bastard who didn’ think there was any way ta keep our memories?”

  “I can’t be certain, but my current theory is that he was tying up loose ends,” N explained. “Team Rocket….” There was no way he was going to repeat their wording of blasting off. It felt like an insult to his own intelligence. “...escaped, which means that their memories are fully intact. He knows that they interact with Ash’s group on a regular basis, and he wouldn’t want to risk them letting something slip, especially since Ash seemed to have some level of resistance.”

  Mimikyu laughed. “So now he’s chasin’ ‘em down? They’ve avoided capture since Ash started his journey, I doubt he’ll ‘ave much luck.”

  “...perhaps.” N wasn’t sure how to feel about that. No group who stole Pokemon for their own gain could be up to any good, even if he had been surprised by some of James’ remarks during that last battle. Yet at the same time, if this Galactic group was working with an Elite Four member who was going around erasing memories, he might not be able to afford turning away any assistance he could get. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as they say.

  “Still, though…” Mimikyu sounded worried. “Lucian really… I dunno how else I’m s’posed ta interpret this other than ‘im bein’ a criminal of some sort. An’ if the top Elite Four member of Sinnoh is out there doin’ stuff like this, ya ‘ave ta wonder if it’s the whole League. Is it the sorta thing where the League is jus’ the biggest gang? They have the most power so they’re in charge instead of Rocket or Magma or whoever? Or is the League good in an overall sense, with a few bad eggs mixed in? I s’pose it wouldn’ be the first time, given Giovanni was the top Gym Leader in Kanto while runnin’ Team Rocket.”

  “...the leader of Team Rocket was a Gym Leader?” N repeated. He knew that they were a big deal in their home regions, but that was a bit unbelievable.

  “Yep. Strongest Gym Leader, right at the base of Mount Silver, too…” Mimikyu explained half-heartedly, as if the leader of a massive criminal organization running the Gym closest to the Indigo headquarters wasn’t a big deal in the slightest, clearly putting more thought into the more recent and important reveal.

  Speaking of which, as much as he hated the League, he could at least ensure that things were set straight. Understanding your enemy properly was important, rather than simply demonizing them at every turn. “As for your worry about how deeply this problem infects the League, I highly doubt that it’s all or even most of them. Lucian put Maylene, Brock, and Officer Jenny under his spell as well, and while I can perhaps see the Jenny family standing against such a thing, there’s no good reason to do that to your Gym Leaders unless they would also be at odds with you.”

  Mimikyu breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Dealin’ with some chumps from Galactic was hard enough, I don’ wanna imagine what it’d be like going up against the whole League.”

  N kept silent. Certainly it wasn’t possible now, but once he used the stone…

  No. Now wasn’t the time for that sort of thinking. “Truthfully, I’m more concerned about you, Mimikyu. What did you do? What happened?”

  “Ya mean gettin’ knocked out?” Mimikyu asked.

  “What do you– no! Or… did you get knocked out?”

  “Well one minute Lucian’s tryna wipe our memories ‘n’ the next I’m wakin’ up ‘ere, so I sorta assumed…”

  “...you truly don’t remember what you did?”

  Mimikyu let out an adorable little frustrated scoff, his false head tilting back. “Why are ya actin’ like I–”

  His friend stopped moving.

  “...Mimikyu?”

  “N.” There was a strange softness to his voice. “What happened to me?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to ask you! You let out some sort of Ghost type energy when Lucian was messing with my head, and then you suddenly collapsed! When Nurse Joy looked at you, she said that you must have used it all up or something like that, but she seemed only slightly less confused about it than I am to be honest. She mentioned something about visiting–”

  “N,” Mimikyu interrupted him.

  “...I can’t move.”

  Lucas hoped N wouldn’t be too annoyed with him.

  After the lackluster battle against Maylene, he’d gone out to treasure hunt some more, and it seemed that he had lost track of time. It was like one second he’d been walking out of the Gym, and then he’d blinked and hours had passed! The sun was close to setting, and he could have sworn it he should have plenty of daylight left.

  Sure he’d gotten lots of good loot out of it, like the HM for Fly he’d found… where had he found that one…

  Well, regardless of his failing memory, he’d really gotten lucky with his finds today, but he had a sinking feeling that N wouldn’t feel the same way. The poor guy didn’t even have a Gym battle to keep him entertained, so he was probably bored out of his mind if Lucas had managed to spend so much time treasure hunting. Shopping could only keep him and Mimikyu occupied for so long, after all.

  As he approached the Pokemon Center, he spotted a familiar floating phone waving back and forth in front of the sensor for the automatic doors.

  “Ah! Lucas!” The phone crackled. “This stupid door won’t open for Rotom! Rotom would just phase through it, but Rotom doesn’t think N would appreciate Rotom abandoning his phone…”

  Lucas gave him an understanding nod, knowing that neither wanted to be on the receiving end of N’s anger, and walked up to the door, watching them slide open on their own.

  “Rotom will need to complain to Nurse Joy. Their sensors not picking up on Rotom in this form is unacceptable!”

  Lucas, knowing absolutely nothing about how such doors worked, simply nodded along as they made their way back to the room.

  They paused outside the door, however, as the sounds on the other side weren’t promising. N was speaking in Unovan again, so Lucas couldn’t understand the words themselves, but he sounded a bit… frantic?

  Whatever he was saying was apparently enough to have Rotom jolting in surprise, so Lucas very strongly considered just walking away so as to keep it from becoming his problem…

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “What are you waiting for? Open the door for Rotom!”

  …but it seemed his luck for the day had run out.

  With a sigh, Lucas opened the door, stepping inside as Rotom floated up over his head. N was pacing back and forth in front of his bed, worry etched into his face. Mimikyu…

  Lucas blinked at the bundle of pink fabric. That was certainly new. Was this what had N so up in arms?

  N finally stopped his pacing and took notice of their arrival, looking towards Rotom with a pleading face, rapidly spouting out his weird language.

  “What? Rotom has never heard of such a thing.” The phone flitted over to the deflated doll. “Nurse Joy really said that there was nothing she could do?”

  “Mimi–”

  N cut the Pokemon off and switched back to Sinnohian at Rotom’s prompting. “I”ve had her look over him twice, both before and after he woke up, but… you’re a Ghost type, right? There has to be something you can do!” Every word sounded more panicked than the last. Was Mimikyu really in such a bad situation?

  Rotom shook back and forth, mimicking a head shake. “Rotom is mostly electricity, Rotom wouldn’t even know where to start…”

  N bit his lip. “We need to leave then. Nurse Joy said we could get help in Sendoff Spring, and I’m not about to wait around hoping something happens.”

  “Sendoff–” The word was cut off in a crackle of electricity. “You want to go all the way to Sendoff Spring immediately? It’s almost dusk! Why not just wait for your Shadow people to come back? Rotom knows they have a Banette with them!”

  N scowled at the mention of the ninjas. “They said they’d arrive quickly if I needed them, but I haven’t seen them since they left. I have no clue when they might come back, and for all we know Mimikyu’s condition could be getting worse by the second.”

  “Kyu! Mimikyu!”

  “I don’t care! I know better than to trust other people to treat Pokemon well!” The green haired man suddenly looked up at Lucas with an intensity the boy wasn’t prepared for. “Are you coming with us?”

  Lucas nodded dumbly, despite having no clue what he had just walked into. It wasn’t like there was anything left to do in Veilstone, and he wasn’t opposed to travelling at night…

  “Good. We’re leaving now.” N gently scooped Mimikyu’s new disguise up into his arms before brushing past Lucas and going out the door.

  Lucas shared a look with Rotom, hoping for some sort of actual explanation for what was going on.

  “That fool,” Rotom crackled. “Rotom does not trust him to make good judgements as he is. Be ready to step in if it’s needed.” That was all the Electric type said before following out the door.

  Lucas sighed. Railroaded again.

  The songs of Kricketune filled the cool night air, spoiled only by the occasional flap of a Zubat’s wings, and of course, the footsteps of Lucas and N. The route was dark, but the moon’s light reflected off of the water’s surface as they walked along the shore of a small lake, and the glow of Rotom’s electricity lit up the path directly around them.

  “Explain to Rotom in more detail what is wrong. What caused this?” The flip phone demanded, hovering just within reach of N and the cute little fae in his arms that needed protection, bouncing up and down with each of N’s steps despite the fact that Rotom could stay perfectly level as it floated along.

  N was content to ignore the little distraction, but Mimikyu answered regardless. “After I got my new disguise we were gonna check out the meteors. When we got there, Team Rocket was fightin’ Team Galactic.”

  If it were possible for a phone to tense, N was sure that Rotom would have done it. Its bouncy levitation stopped for a moment, and its eyes went wide, but Rotom quickly recovered, acting as if nothing had happened.

  Mimikyu didn’t seem to notice, however. “We… intervened, long ‘nough for the authorities to arrive and handle things, but… it turns out Elite Four Lucian is workin’ with Galactic. Bastard tried to brainwash ev’ryone there, forget about what happened, but…”

  “Elite Four Lucian…?” The phone’s speaker crackled.

  “Yes,” N confirmed. He didn’t want Mimikyu pushing himself, even if just to tell the story. “Everyone else that was present fell victim, but Mimikyu expelled some Ghost type energy and shocked me out of the trance. He doesn’t seem to remember doing so, however, and promptly collapsed afterwards.”

  “Part of me wonders if it was some sorta subconscious reaction,” Mimikyu suggested.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if it’s as ya say, an’ I let out all that Ghost energy… sounds pretty similar ta what happened with that Gallade, ain’ it? Some damn Psychic goes diggin’ inta my mind and then I… well, do somethin’ I ain’ aware of.”

  N slowly nodded. “I had similar thoughts, but you didn’t knock yourself out that time, Gallade did.”

  “Bzzrt. You can’t be certain that that is the case this time either. The Psychics could have done something when the Ghost type energy surged. But Rotom thinks Rotom has a clear enough picture of what led to this. Explain to Rotom what you mean about not being able to move.”

  Mimikyu took a moment to gather his thoughts. “...I can’t feel my limbs at all. Can’t feel much of anythin’, really. I can still see jus’ fine, can still look aroun’, but as far as locomotion goes… it’s like ev’rythin’ is jus’... gone. I ain’ lettin’ anyone check under the disguise for obvious reasons, but it’s like I’m… jus’ a torso or somethin’ right now.”

  “You can’t check yourself?” Rotom asked.

  “I… well, ya see…” Mimikyu stumbled over his words in an endearing way. “I don’t really… know what my body looks like.”

  N frowned, keeping one eye on a sleeping Psyduck as they passed it on the shore of the lake. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like… stuff outside of my disguise, like when I use Shadow Claw or reach for stuff or whatever, I can see that jus’ fine through the slits in my disguise. But stuff on the inside…”

  “Have you never looked in a mirror?” Rotom asked. “Rotom can understand the struggles of not having a neck to look down at yourself with, like humans can, but Rotom has at least looked into reflective surfaces. Did you not think to check the one at the Pokemon Center?”

  “No, no, yer not understanding, I ‘ave a neck…. I think…”

  N was only growing more confused. “How can you think you have a neck? How is it even possible to not be sure? You know that you have hands, and you must have a mouth since you eat, and eyes because you see, and ears of some sort because you can hear. You can either move a neck you have, or you don’t have one.”

  “...I don’t always have arms.”

  That was enough to make N stumble, but he quickly recovered. Lucas gave him an odd look, but didn’t question it.

  Rotom looked intrigued. “Do you have different forms? Like Rotom? Rotom does not always have doors, so opening them after possessing a refrigerator can be odd.”

  “No, not different forms, I don’t think… it’s more like… like I will them into existence? I want to speak, and then I ‘ave a mouth. I want to reach for something, ‘n’ then I ‘ave arms. Like… like I’m some sorta… amorphous blob that only has all that stuff when I actively use it.”

  What Mimikyu was describing was so far out of N’s comprehension that he struggled to imagine it at all. Was Mimikyu just a precious little soup of body parts or something?

  “Rotom is only more confused.”

  “I dunno how else ta explain it!” He let out a captivating sigh. “But as offputtin’ an’ annoyin’ as this all is, I still think it woulda been easier if you had actually listened ta Nurse Joy, N.”

  N scowled. “I wasn’t about to let her stuff you in a pokeball and ship you off to who knows where for some Ghost type contact. I may have some trust for the Joy family specifically, but their contacts? No way.”

  “So damn stubborn…”

  One day, N was sure that Mimikyu would understand. He couldn’t trust his adorable friend’s safety to some awful trainer.

  A howl in the distance cut the conversation to a pause.

  “Call me stubborn all you want, Mimikyu. I’ll be as stubborn as I have to be to keep Pokemon safe.”

  What Mimikyu called stubbornness, N considered determination. And if he planned to save all the Pokemon of Unova, he had to ensure that he could save a single friend, first.

  A shadow dispersed, leaving Shadows behind.

  “I wish those old fools wouldn’t waste so much time with their silly meetings.” The first remarked.

  “Hearing varying opinions is important when you’re making big decisions.” The second responded.

  “They could make their input heard without droning on forever.” The third compromised. “What’s done is done, however. We can do nothing about the delay, but we should return to N quickly. Who knows what sort of nonsense he’s gotten himself into now.”

  The first nodded. “Banette, can you tell us where they are?”

  Banette nodded with his cheshire grin, closing his eyes and expanding his focus over the city of Veilstone. Being able to track their lord was certainly a boon, and almost a necessity with the updates that Lord Ghetsis expected.

  Which meant that when Banette gave them a worried look instead of taking them to N, there was a problem.

  “Can you not find them, Banette?”

  The spirit shook his head in the negative.

  The trio shared a look.

  “When I expressed my worry about the lord getting involved in trouble, I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”

  “We’ll need to split up and try to hunt him down.”

  “Do we even know where to start? What reason would there be for him to not be within the city? Could he have been taken away by the League, Plasma’s plans exposed?”

  “Or perhaps Galactic, having caught on to his connection to us after our intrusion…”

  “I will change into civilian clothing and ask the Nurse Joy. One of you start looking around the city with Banette, and the other… perhaps ask at the gates out of the city? We can only hope they were not teleported away…”

  Serving their lords was turning out to be much more troublesome than they had expected.