FSE

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"So," Rachel said over her glass, "there's something that's been bothering me about Allanon."

The two humans were sitting in a gaudy, though not ostentatious, sit-down restaurant in downtown Arget. They had dropped off their pokémon at the PokéSpa and Rachel had successfully dragged Glen out while he gawked at how much money she had just dropped for the available treatments. She clearly very much meant to make up for her betrayal, one way or another. Now, they were sitting across from one another at a small table, after they had both insisted upon sitting somewhere other than a booth, over steaming plates of the densest meat they could find on the menu. Neither had eaten well in quite some time.

Around them, the elegant classical music encouraged people to speak more quietly than they normally would and the muted colors prompted a similar response. Glen received more than one glare for his decor, but after the waiter saw the amount of cash in his wallet, it seemed as though the stares from the staff, at least, had simply been an illusion.

Glen wished he had not lost his fake ID. Then, he could have been poring over the wine choices for more than just curiosity's sake before the meal came. Unfortunately, he no longer had an ID at all. "There are lots of reasons to be bothered by Allanon," he smirked, contemplating a bite of steak. These people knew what medium-rare meant. "What's yours?" It was delectable.

"When the Rocketeers attacked you, he didn't use his abilities... efficiently." She gave him a look to try to communicate exactly what she meant. "He doesn't seem to have the temperament of something that would hold back for any reason. Why was that fight as much of a challenge for the four of you as it was?"

The boy finished chewing, fighting the urge to pick up the piece of meat with his hands and chow down. He was starving; at least she had had something to eat recently. "Are you asking me why those six people's hearts were still intact by the time we were done with them?" When she nodded, he nodded back in understanding. "There are a few reasons.

"The first one is scientific. While it's true that a pokémon can use its own ether within another creature's body, it's much harder than you might think. Every being, even mundane animals, has a small ether field surrounding it. An attacker would have to break through that, first, and the heart is not exactly an easy-access organ. More than that, there's a mental stigma against it. It's like... hm. For the same reason that I wouldn't, I don't know, stick my finger in your mouth." He said it with a smile and a congenial laugh, which she returned. "It's just a weird idea for the attacker, to do something so invasive. It's uncomfortable, even though that's not usually not a problem for Al.

"There's a more specific reason, though; one I'm not afraid to tell you. Al scares me, sometimes." The boy looked down at his plate, remembering the incident with the sneasel. Allanon had not hesitated longer than was necessary to berate Glen for his stubbornness, and the sneasel had died. He got quiet as he spoke. "I can ask him to do things I would never consider asking from Amber or Syn. I know it's silly, at this stage, to think of something like innocence, but he's lost all of his. The other two do things because of... loyalty, mostly, in addition to the fact that for different reasons, they don't dwell on it too much. Al..." He trailed off, not really certain how to continue.

"You're worried that he doesn't have morals?" She was still eating during the exchange; Glen wondered if it was an act to impress him, or if it really didn't bother her to talk about something this troublesome. Then again, it was far more dicomfitting to him than to her. "Or do you think he's insane?"

"I know he has morals. They're different from others', but they are morals."

"So why not put his willingness to do whatever's necessary to use?" She faltered on that question. She wanted to act as though she was perfectly content to manipulate her own pokémons' psyches, but she was not. That kind of thing was for people who had animals as pets. She had friends, and she knew it.

"I think he may have a sort of insanity dwelling in that inflated ego of his. That kind of killing is dishonorable, which I know sounds romantic, but... you lose something, when you assassinate someone. It's just... I don't know. I've killed a lot of people; don't get me wrong. But when I cut a throat from behind, I have to fortify my mind to do it. I can't just... kill. And I know that murder weighs heavy on Amber and Syn, so I know pokémon aren't exempt from the feeling. I want to minimize the mental stress Al feels, especially that variety of it." He had continued eating as he spoke, though his gaze had remained distant. "So I would never ask him to kill six people that way, that suddenly."

"Ah," Rachel acknowledged. "I suppose there's also the danger of alienating him from the other two?" He nodded, and conversation changed direction for a while. They were not aware that Al and Ceres were also getting to know one another. Perversely, the pokémons' chosen topic was perhaps more ponderous.

Is it impossible for us to respect one another? Ceres asked. Soft, steady, and open chime and organ music wafted around the two of them where they lay in the small room to which they had been led. Both were splayed out on massage tables while alternating series of shapes passed under the holes for their faces, if they chose to open their eyes. The sequences had been designed to give a psychic pokémon's mind something it could casually decipher; for them, it was soothing. The jinxes tending to them ignored them as they spoke and remained silent, just moving with their strange grace as they applied the art for which they had been trained perfectly.

Nothing is impossible, Al responded in dead tones.

I recognize that you have tremendous power. I speculate that were you to evolve, you may best me in a contest. Why have you resisted the urge? You must have felt it by now.

I have my reasons.

Do they include the aberration in your psychic field?

I'll let you know if I ever want to talk about that.

My apologies, Ceres rescinded. The shapes under her faded away and became a sudoku puzzle. She occupied herself for the next few seconds with solving it. Tiny, pyschic pulses she sent at it recorded the numbers, and it was finished in virtually no time.

The room around them had been designed for the sole purpose of calming the psychic mind. Deep, swirling purples dominated the walls, the high-energy wavelength giving off a pleasant appeal while the dark tone promoted meditation. The jinxes' fingers were expert, finding the rare physical stressors in their bodies, but more importantly constantly using ethereal means to relax their minds. Ceres lazily let her pendulum swing from her fingers. Rachel had given it to her after she evolved; it was crafted from a simple piece of twine and a large, tiger's eye brooch. Apparently, the girl had been saving it for just that reason.

I'll be honest, Ceres, Allanon said quietly, narrowing the channel so the jinxes couldn't hear him, and say that I thoroughly believe you and yours are still trying to kill us all. I appreciate the money Rachel has spent on this, but I can't relax and I can't trust you. I'm convinced that the instant I do, you'll knock me out and I'll never wake up. Don't think I don't respect that you're stronger than I am right now.

Ceres hummed understandingly. _Unless I thoroughly misread my mistress's intentions, you are in the wrong. But your fear is not without warrant.

Just because of my belief that we psychic types are, in fact, the best and never wrong,_

he smirked through the connection, I'm tempted to believe you when you say that. She laughed appreciatively. _But how can you know for certain? I tapped her brain, once, and there's a shield there. You taught her to protect herself, didn't you?

I did.

So it makes sense, then, that she would be most able to hide things from you. I know that Glen hides things from me. I don't know if he even does it consciously anymore, but I tapped into him one too many times, and something in him picked up on what I was doing and shut me out from certain parts of him.

Hm,_

the hypno mused. What would have caused him to do that? Are you certain it's not conscious?

The abra sent her a general negative feeling. No, I'm not. And that bothers me, not to know. I can understand if someone doesn't want me to know something about them; I imagine that someone like Glen thinks about things that he doesn't even want me to know about, and I knew about the Pokénomics incident before Syn knew, even though he had him before me. What concerns me is that I don't think he's aware that he doesn't want me to know about some things. Something about him of which even he is not cognizant.

Only the hum and tinkling of the bells answered him for a long moment. He could feel Ceres' indecision. There was something she was evaluating for its worth to her in comparison to its worth to him. As odd as this may sound, I believe I understand your sentiment. Before I happened upon Rachel, I encountered a rattata whom I will never forget. I would like to share that experience with you. Ceres hesitated for a moment, then brought the memory to the surface of her mind and presented it to Allanon in an encapsulated form, to let him know what it was. He tensed up at first, but the combined atmosphere, searching fingers that were moving to the back of his head and his sensitive ears, and desire to know what Ceres knew, eventually let him accept the gift.

~It is early in the morning, before the sun has fully struck the harsh and unforgiving landscape she has reached. As usual, Ceres is hungry, being out of her element here in the cliffs by the beaches, where she has chosen to make her home. She is sitting and watching the sunrise, trying to ignore the cold and the gnawing hunger when suddenly, a mental signature appears many yards behind her.

She turns and observes a particular rattata that has become emaciated to the point that she can see his ribs where his flesh has shrunk against it. He stumbles as he walks towards her position at the edge of the slate-gray rock. Something is wrong with him beyond his hunger, though. There is something in his eyes. The normal coloring is gone. It has been replaced by a black like polished jet. She does not know if he is blind or not, but if it is blindness, it is not merely blindness that afflicts him.

He recovers his balance, panting heavily, his dry tongue hanging pitifully out of his mouth. This creature is dying. She cannot save it at this stage. There is no food nearby that she knows of; he may perish before she could descend to the beaches and attempt to dig up crabs or collect clams for him. The saltwater will not quench his parched throat. There is no hope for him. So, in an attempt to understand what has brought him to this, she probes his mind.

Images flash chaotically before Allanon's closed eyes. Needles. Test tubes. White gloves. Other rattatas, many dead, all with the same eyes as this one. All as starved as this one. Not all, though, are as determined as this one. This one knows what it is to fight. This one lives despite death. While the other's whine and scrape at their cages, this one chews the bones of his brothers, strengthening his jaws for the day he will rip open the bars, and the locks, and then the throats of his captors. Even raticates, with strange colors decorating their hides and painful mutations twisting their skeletons, are crying, dying, or dead. The eyes of those who have expired are as bright as the ones of those who are alive, but it is not life in that light. It is a dead sheen; an unwillingness to live that thrusts the soul up and out of the body in a desperate, pewling, weeping attempt to cease to be. These creatures know that for whatever reasons, they are abominations.

There are animals screams in the memory, sounds that Allanon knows only from when he has tortured creatures when Glen wanted to make it clear to the Rocketeers that they should stop coming after him. It only happened once, but those sounds haunted even Allanon's dreams. A memory within Ceres' begins to play with some degree of cohesion, then. It is short. The rattata is strapped down, but fully awake, and watching. Sounds are scrambled due to the rattata's lack of knowledge of language, but Al can decode them, to an extent: "Of course they ... awake. What?" The voice is angry. Another one, totally indistinguishable, makes itself heard. "Yes, it has to be... idiot! Did you even read ... does he keep a dumb shit like you even on the staff?" And then, the speaker turned, face hidden by a surgical mask, and aimed the needle at the victim's eye.

The images stop. It is as though someone has bludgeoned Allanon, or Ceres in the dream, away from the rat. She can dig no further, and whenever she tries to, she is beaten away. The creature looks at her, fear and disgust and hatred all rolled into one in its tired expression. It hates itself. It hates her. It hates the single tear on its cheek and the way its body shakes when it tries to move. Without a sound, it braces itself against the smooth rock, and Ceres feels a tiny pulse of ether leave him. He rushes with a rattata's well-known speed at her and just as she prepares to repel it, it changes course, passes her, and launches itself into the open air. Allanon feels a pang of sympathy for the hypno. That image, of the thin and sickly creature stretched out agains the pale light of the setting sun, expression cold and hard against the incoming warmth as it seems to hang in the air, has replayed itself in her mind over and over and over again ever since she first saw it. It will not leave her. It will not let her be. It drives her in everything she does.

Then, the image breaks. The tiny body falls even while Ceres rushes to the edge to watch its descent. With a flood of sorrow, she puts the creature to sleep so it doesn't have to feel the pain of landing in the icy water below, and will already be numb as it drifts into nothingness.~

For a while, Allanon didn't breathe. Ceres' emotions during the memory had necessarily invaded his consciousness, and her tear from the memory, transferred from the rat's, found its way to his cheek. A gentle touch from her got his lungs to start working again, and he fought not to shudder with the feelings of loss and helplessness.

...thank you, he managed. His jinx wiped away the tear with a warm cloth. His voice nearly immediately regained its customary sibilance. _You were very willing to share that.

I want to know what happened to that rattata,_

she said icily. Al almost flinched. There was a hardness and bitterness to her voice that he had never expected. I will trust you with the following information: Rachel means nothing to me. The anger in that statement was what made Al believe it. He trusted her, now. Her kind was made of dream-weavers, he knew, but his kind was made of mind-readers; she was not lying to him.

The abra took the data and stored it away, locking it down so that he would never readily bring it to the surface. I understand. He registered a warm trickle of liquid on his neck, suddenly, and sniffed. Ceres, he asked calmly, when did our masseuses start bleeding?

"I'm amazed that you care as much about your pokémon as you do, Rachel. For... oh, must have been twelve years, now, I've believed that I was the only one who could ever raise pokémon like mine."

She smiled. They were having friendly conversation now, now the serious things were over and done with. "It all started with Ceres. I met her in... odd circumstances. She told me later that she had been hanging around our town for a while, scavenging."

"A drowzee? Scavenging? They eat tubers and bugs and dreams, don't they?" He snickered a little on the word 'dreams.'

"Yeah, but you know where we lived. Seaside place. Not too many bugs that you can eat, and you know as well as I do that the whole dream-eater thing doesn't contribute much to physical metabolism."

"Eh. I guess. Whatever. Go on." They had reached dessert, which was a bowl of ice cream, fudge, and brownie with cherries and whipped cream, the whole thing bigger than either of their heads.

"Ceres practically fainted against our doorway. I was at the age to get a pokémon, but Mom and Dad had been considering not getting me one. They thought I'd be a good human doctor, and didn't want to dissuade me at all, since Mom was sick. Thought they could get health benefits from it. When Ceres showed up, though, I didn't tell them at first. I fed her and gave her fresh water, and then after a long time, I suddenly ‘caught' her and brought her home. They couldn't argue with that."

"Heh, guess not."

While she spoke, Rachel's spoon was far less active than Glen. He took advantage of her lack of concentration on the dessert to take everything he could reach in the time he had. It was delicious. "Ceres needed me, and I guess she introduced me to the idea that pokémon could be more than just dumb animals. They way she talked and they way she followed me around... She also learned really fast. She used to sleep in bed with me, too; always needed someone by her." She thought about something for a moment, contemplating the recollection. "I guess she's also the reason I'm doing what I'm doing. She was willing to do anything to survive, even indebt herself to a human, and I know she has pride, now. And after I had saved one thing, I wanted to do it again, especially with how grateful she's always been to me. She wouldn't abandon me for the world, and she's said so, too." Rachel looked down for a moment with a small smile, lost in nostalgia. The simple silence hung between them for only a little while. "Sorry, I... well. You know the feeling."

Glen grinned. He felt the same about Ambrosia. "Yep."

"Anyway, I figured saving my mom was the right thing to do, after that, but her disease picked up too quickly. She needed more help than I could give her by going to medical school, so I started training for this. I was... twelve."

Glen widened his eyes, fully able to appreciate the psychological demands of what she had undertaken. "Nice. I didn't start this kind of life until a few years ago."

"How old are you, exactly? I was curious. Pokénomics wants you dead, but they won't tell me how old you are. Weird, huh?"

"Uh, yeah. Weird." The boy's cheeks reddened as she waited on an answer. "Um."

A laugh filled her incredulous eyes. "You don't know?"

He scratched his head, embarassed. "I don't really keep track of time that well. I guess I'm... twenty-four? Twenty-three? I haven't been home in a while, my ID is fake, and I don't operate according to any kind of schedule. I'll bet Al knows."

She laughed at him, but it was a real laugh. Even though both were still on guard each against the other, they knew how to be genuinely friendly and constantly suspicious at the same time. "You could be a creepy old man, for all we know, trying to attract sexy young things like me by walking around without your shirt."

He flushed deeper, but also laughed. "Yeah. I am all about having these kind of chiselled abs at sixty and going after barely-legal girls. And then getting them to pay for my senior citizen's meals."

"Chiselled abs my ass. You're flatter than I was when I was eight."

"Ha!" They shared a laugh. A real laugh. A few patrons looked at them. Both of them made the most subtle one-fingered salutes they could manage. Ah, comeraderie.

Syn, Demetre, Amber, and Heracles had all been taken to the same room. It was a tremendous, domed enclosure, landscaped specifically for grass-type pokémon, but perfectly suitable to other types, as well. It was maybe the size of a large dance hall, but much brighter. A tremendous thermal lamp simulated a sunlit field, and artificial breezes blew from fans hidden by vents in the walls. Amber was floating in a shallow pool while a human masseur sat in it with him and massaged his tired joints. The other three were not too far away, all receiving similar treatments. The saur let out soft sighs of happiness now and then, and Synapse churred as he was brushed over with silk, the static tingling through his body in a most wonderful way.

There was no conversation. None of the four were interested in getting to know one another, mostly because all of them were caught in states of total bliss, and communication would have required effort. It was warm; it was safe; it was happy. Unlike Ceres and Allanon, they had no suspicion of one another. Their respective masters had seen fit to leave them like this, and it was not up to them to decide when to initiate a battle.

"Rai..." "This is awesome."

"Ivy?" "More awesome than a hooker?"

"Chu..." "Maybe..."

"...saur?" "...more awesome than a little boy?"

"Rai." "You shut up." Surprisingly, Syn really hadn't simply let himself sink into mindless euphoria. He was quite ironically thinking of Zach.

Synapse was not sure exactly what had driven him to go after Zach in the first place. Sure, he knew enough to be aware of the imprinting effect Glen's semi-CPR had had on him those two years ago, but that simply was not enough. Glen liked to believe that that was the reason Syn kept going after him, but honestly that was all fun and games; he couldn't care less whether or not Glen responded to his mock-advances. But this feeling for Zach... it was like Glen's feeling for Enya. It seemed to have come out of nowhere.

A butterfree fluttered by his field of vision. It was a beautiful creature; a veritable conflaguration of colors on its translucent wings reflected and scattered the bright light from above, making pools of light like stained glass windows could. He kind of wanted to catch it...

Dangit, he had drifted away again. What had he been thinking about? Zach, that was it. It sucked so much to think this way. Every little distraction drew his attention and made him rewind. He wasn't sure what had driven him to go after Zach in the first place. Glen had imprinted on him a little, but...

No, wait. He had been there before. Damn it. What was next? Something about his feelings for Zach being like Enya. He liked Enya. She had been a gorgeous woman and probably still was. Not quite up to Glen's normal mental standards, but certainly far surpassing his physical ones. And she had giggled at his games. She had had a nice giggle.

Dangit, he had drifted away again. He had always kind of meant to ask Allanon to help him with his concentration. He had been thinking about... Zach. Zach and Enya. Zach and Enya. Zach and Enya. Zachenya. Weird name...

Damn it. He knew he was on the edge of something. Zach. Zach was turning into an eevee. They thought. An eevee. Zach was turning into an eevee. At least, Glen thought he was. Glen had imprinted Syn. And Syn was unnaturally attracted to Zach. He smelled nice. He smelled really nice. Zach was turning into an eevee (so they thought) and he smelled really nice. But he was male. He was male and he smelled nice and Syn was attracted to him and he was turning into an eevee. Glen was strangely attracted to Enya. Enya had smelled nice. It was mating season for chus. Part of Zach's smell could be from that. Zach smelled nice. Enya smelled nice. Glen had been uncharacteristically kind to Zach, mostly on a whim. He had guessed, from a glint in Zach's eye, he said. There had been no glint. There had been a gust of wind. Zach smelled nice. Glen liked Enya for no reason. Zach was turning into an eevee. Syn liked Zach and Enya.

There was something missing. A connection was missing. The fact that Enya shouldn't have survived? For a variety of reasons? No... they had explained that. This whole thing rested on something he couldn't think of. He had finally gotten it all thought of in one fell swoop. All of those facts, all in a soup of knowledge, but there was nothing connecting them. He couldn't seem to do it. Was it Rachel? He had never really had a chance to smell Rachel...

That was when Syn's ears perked. The entire train of thought not only derailed, but dissolved. "Rai?" "You smell oil?" He looked in the direction the smell had come from. The tentacool attending Demetre examined the gasoline that had just come up on its tentacles. It had come off the bellsprout.

Amber growled and spun himself towards the source. "No..." In a flash of heat, Demetre was screaming as the tentacool tried in vain to put out the flames that had enveloped her body. The employees started shouting and gathering buckets of water, but a grass type simply has no defense against mundane fire. The creature had collapsed within seconds, and the sprinklers didn't seem to be working. The fire began to spread.

The three pokémon remaining began looking for exits, but the doors had closed and appeared to be locked. "Rai..." Synapse growled dangerously. "Even here..."

Two floors above them, Allanon and Ceres had moved the bodies behind them and were staring at the one exit. _How were the jinxes struck?

Suicide patch,_

Al grumbled. Ceres gasped, so he explained. When Pokénomics was creating the psychic diffusers, they learned they could attune them to particular impulses.

You mean those two...

...cracked their own skulls. Yes. Luckily, we're strong enough to resist something like that; it's still a fairly weak suggestion. Diffusers are used in tandem with suppressors, though.

I know. They don't do anything otherwise.

Right. Forgot you had worked with these people. Oddly enough, even from Allanon, it was not an accusation.

We need to get to the others, now. Oh... oh, no... She shook her head, and Al could see from the jittering of the pendulum that she was shaking. _They killed Demetre...

These people don't know what we are, do they? It's time that you keep one of my secrets,_

Allanon intoned darkly. His eyes had opened. His eyes were never open, but now, there was a pitch in them that frightened the hypno. She thought she had seen some of it in Glen's features, once.

Allanon, neither one of us has the strength to overpower an industrial psychic suppressor, nor will our combined strength defeat it. What do you propose we do? They could feel the pressure like a physical presence, daring them to try anything. Footsteps approached the door.

The abra's small body began to pulse like a heartbeat. Ceres took a step back from him as his body started changing. The impossible.

Back in the restaurant, Glen and Rachel had finished their meal and were sipping coffee, still trying to be decent, friendly people. The world was moving slowly, to them. It was good to rest. Even though Glen had had his chance with Enya, all of that quietude had been stolen from him by her death. There were blessedly few distractions from the outside. A fire truck sounded somewhere in the distance, but people always burn toast in the city. It was almost a pleasant ambience. A reminder that things could be normal, every now and then.

"Scyther!" "You two follow me! I'll open one of the vents; we can get out that way." Heracles jumped in the air and caught himself on his wings, headed with his incredible speed to the slits in one of the walls. Glen's pokémon had been cautiously creeping back away from the flames, eyes always on the lookout for enemies. As the scyther reached a fan, it was blown out with a fiery explosion, sending the blades in twisted spirals at the unprotected bug. One clipped him and sent him hurtling backwards, his shoulder burning. This fire, though, he could quench. While the other two helped him to his feet and the flames roared higher behind them, the heat making them pant and sweat, a trio of magmars stepped slowly out of the hole in the metal wall. Behind them stood a man in a black body suit and matching helmet, holding an assault rifle.

"Chu. Rai." "If we run, we'll be cornered. No one behind us. This is my go." Synapse darted forward, drawing surprised fire from all four assailants. The scyther started spinning and growling in a strange war dance, getting visibly angrier and building up his ether reserves while the machine gun belted out a percussion solo in an effort to lead the rat. He had already shot the attendants, whether or intentionally or by accident, no one could tell. There was no catching Syn, though. He headbutted his opponent and lashed out at the magmars with just enough to stun them, knowing he needed to preserve his energy.

Two dropped in their tracks. The other lobbed a fireball at the distracted scyther, but Amber took a hit to whip it off course with his vines. "Saur." "We're outclassed, Syn. We need a way out." The stunned fire-types were already recovering, and Syn couldn't outrun the shooter forever. Besides, he was tiring of that game and seemed about to turn his weapon on the others. The scyther flickered and vanished, appearing in front of one magmar and chopping its head off with a blade. The creature initiated some kind of self-destruct, though, slamming Heracles away once more and into the pool of water Amber had been in. Part of the water was on fire from the still-spreading oil. Everything was going to burn.

Was this how it was going to end? An ambush, and not even on Glen himself? How cowardly could one organization get? Ambrosia watched the barrel of the weapon level on his head.

"Ivysaur," he said angrily. "I will not die away from Glen." He lowered his head and began aiming his seed cannon. There would be enough ether projecting these seeds to tear holes though that armor. "Saur!" "You want a firefight? I'll give you a fucking firefight!"

Neither shooter had a chance to open fire, though. A loud snap slit the air, blowing the rising flames back and making all of those present brace themselves against the earth. Ceres and another shape appeared in the center of the room, floating several feet off the ground.

No one moved as the sharp angles of the other pokémon descended slowly and touched down, Ceres next to it. Due to some trick of the light, it seemed to be entirely black, reflecting nothing. It was like a rift in the fabric of the universe. Even the fire seemed to respect its power and back off in reverence. This was very clearly a kadabra. To the four who knew it, it was very clearly Allanon. Despite the obvious effort to disguise his appearance, they knew it was him.

"Chu!" "Al!" They were saved! Allanon had evolved; he would be unstoppable, now. Amber and Syn had always known he was stronger than either one of them, from a distance; they protected him with their lives because of it. But now? They even started grinning. "Saur!" "You did it!"

And then, he crumpled to the ground, his color flickered, and he shrank back to his old self. A needle of devolution solution was stuck in the back of his neck. Everyone stared in disbelief, even Ceres.

Of all of those present who were expected to buck up and step up after that failure, Syn was possibly the lowest on the list. He glanced at the man in black armor, then behind him at the one who had just appeared at a vent in the top of the wall to their rear. "Rai. Raichu. Rai." "Al. How many pokémon and people are raiding this place right now? I need to know where they are.

Ceres heard him; Allanon was still groggy.I can feel sixteen, perhaps. There are seven in this room alone. Why do you need their locations?

"Chu." "I was not named Synapse on a whim.

"Ivy. Saur!" "Don't be an idiot, Syn! You can't kill all of them. You'll burn yourself out. There's a better way!"

"Raichu!" "Don't you tell me what to do! We're surrounded by a hell of a lot more firepower than we can take on as we are; this isn't a half-assed firing squad like before! Every one of them is dangerous, and we are trapped here with them." He grinned suddenly. "Appreciate the things I do for you now and then, would you?"

"So why'd you name him Syn?"

"Short for Synapse, actually. He's the only chu I know of who's ever been able to do what he can do."

"And that is?"

"Well, when Amber and I were stalking him, he ended up leading us into an abandoned rock quarry. I know, weird place for an electric type to go, right?"

"Um, yeah."

"Well, he ended up hiding in a bunch of rocks, totally out of sight. I mean, the little pecker really did not want to be found. I'm not sure why, even now. I think he was just playing games with us or something. Anyway, he sneezed from all the dust, and we realized he was behind this huge boulder that was just kind of lying there."

"Uh-huh."

"Such as boulders do."

"Uh-huh."

"So we hid behind it, and I figured we'd flank him. Sure, one of us would get shocked, but I had on rubber gloves, and of course I knew Amber'd be fine. And then, out of nowhere, Amber get blasted, like, fifteen feet away!"

"What? How?"

"Get this! You know how electric pokémon send electricity through the air?"

"An ether channel, just like psychic types."

"Right. But it can't go through solid objects, right?"

"Are you going to tell me...?"

"Yeah! That horny little ADD rat figured out how to sink ether through solid matter and light it up! He knocked himself out doing it to Amber, so that's how I caught him, but we called what he did 'closing the synapse,' and I decided just to go ahead and name him after it. You should have seen the look on his face when I finally let him out of his pokéball. Didn't even remember doing it."

"Chu." _"Mark them, Ceres. And the suppressor. We don't have time."

You're a fool, you stupid rat!_

Allanon grunted. Bullet stopped in front of him as the crackle of machine gun fire tried to outdo the inferno engulfing one side of the room. Don't throw your life away!

"Raichu!" "Mark those motherfuckers!"

Ceres only waited a moment longer. Maybe he would survive it. The gun was being steadied. Maybe he wouldn't. The magmars were conecntrating their efforts. He clearly knew what he was doing. Dark shapes were slipping through the grass towards their little group. He was ready for this, right? She touched his head.

In Syn's mind, points of light suddenly appeared at every location in the building there was an opponent. When Ceres touched him, an image of Enya doing the same flashed through his mind. She had been so kind to him. She had pet him. She had like him. He had liked her, and Zach. He thought of his time with Zach. It had been nice; a boon in stressful times. Just like Enya, at that river. Glen had loved her. These jackasses had murdered her. There was something there, but all that mattered at that moment were the last two lines.

Glen had loved her. These jackasses had murdered her.

"Time to close the fucking synapse."

He didn't hesitate.

Inside the restaurant, Glen and Rachel heard an explosion. "What the hell was that?"

Rachel blinked. "Did that come from the...?"

"Oh, damn it, no!" Glen bolted from the table and pushed past others to get outside. Rachel fumbled through her pocket and tossed a bill on the table before following his lead.

"Ivysaur!" _"Come on, Al! Get us the hell out of here! Ceres can't do it alone!"

I can save him!

"He's dead, fox-bait! We'll cry later; we can save ourselves, for now."_

The steaming corpse started to shake as Al stood over it, making it move by the force of his will alone. He managed to get it to sit up. Those watching cringed, horrified. "Ivysaur!" _"Allanon, that's disgusting! Teleport us all out of here!"

There is NOTHING I cannot do!_

the abra shouted. Breath exhaled demonically from the chu's lungs with a high-pitched wheeze. I will not sit here and let some ADD rat d-

-crack-

Allanon collapsed again, a trickle of blood down the side of his head. Ambrosia retracted the vine he had just used, wrapped it around Heracles' arm, and twined the other around Ceres'. He looked at the bug-type, who nodded, then began siphoning his and the bug's ether into Ceres. "Take as much as you need; get us out of here."

The hypno nodded sagely. There was a snap and a rush of flames to fill the vaccuum, and the burning building was left behind.

"Syn! Syn! Get up!" Glen knelt by the warm corpse, massaging the blackened cheeks. "Why the hell did you two let him do this?"

"Saur!" "We didn't have a choice! We needed to get out; he got us the hell out."

"Well what happened to Allanon?" he raged. Amber knew he wasn't angry at him. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

"Ivysaur." "Believe it or not, even your invincible abra can't keep a support beam from clipping him after overriding a psychic suppressor."

Rachel was weeping over the blackened, unrecognizable remains of her bellsprout while a crowd watched the others who had been staying at the spa get evacuated. Blastoises and starmies were working together with firemen to quench the blaze. Rumors were spreading that it had been a Rocketteer attack. There were a great deal of dead bodies inside; not all had been identified.

Fighting to speak through his burning tears, Glen asked, "How many? How many did he kill?"

Sixteen, Ceres answered. Through even the walls, she breathed in awe.

"Not enough!" he shouted. "He was worth so much more than that! He was worth more than sixteen God-damned dogs!" Glen gathered the small body in his lap, rocking back and forth as he cried. Loudly, bitterly, furiously, he cried.

"The fuck is this?"

"I... can't believe that just happened, sir."

"A fucking rat just murdered two of our top-paid agents and everyone else?! The fuck is this? What the fuck is this? The main targets are still alive! Not even scratched! We DON'T. HAVE. The resources to lose people at this rate! I need them dead, NOW! Send everything! Send everything right this minute you fucking-"

"Commander," demanded a calm voice. "Be quiet. Give the children time to grieve. We want him to grieve before he dies, commander. I gave you specific orders on how to hurt him. Do not let your anger sway you from the course."

There was a pause, and an arcanine's low, warning growl. "Yes, sir."