Chapter 223 (Patreon)

The upstairs Pokémon Center bedroom was silent yet filled with tension. A pager sat on a table that had been dragged to the center of the room, now resting perfectly between where Lillie sat on the bed and I nervously paced.

No Pokémon were out, save for Nebby the Cosmoem, who Lillie clutched tightly in her hands. She kept him close to her chest, almost in a hug, pressing him against the white threads of the Aether Foundation uniform she and I both wore. As part of that disguise, we also had the perfect amount of minor prosthetics attached to our faces. They would throw off any form of facial recognition, and not only that, but platform shoes adjusted our height. Classic, Aether Foundation caps helped hide our hair, as well.

Lillie would still stand out given her relative lack of height, but she could now pass for a short woman rather than just a teen. She easily had the most extensive disguise out of all of us, necessitated by her family resemblance to Lusamine and that somewhat recognizable color of hair.

Right now, she looked more like a boy than anything else. The way that her blonde hair had been stuffed into her hat resembled a short haircut. A boy and two adults would raise slightly less suspicion than a girl and two adults, as Lusamine likely had just enough arrogance to think Lillie would never dress in such a way.

We were waiting for the pager to buzz, for us to receive the information Nebby needed to teleport us over. As a Legendary Pokémon so tightly connected to the concept of space, all he needed was the coordinates to choose the location, and Hope, Gardevoir, and Rapidash together could serve as a psychic “beacon” to help him stay on target. We didn’t know if this method would work for sure, as we lacked the needed long-distance practice of him actually bringing people that far away. Though, compared to how he would eventually be crossing dimensions with his future evolution, something like this would hopefully be child’s play.

I continued to pace. Lillie continued to stare in silence. Desperately, I wanted to say something, to either reassure her or tell her that she didn't need to go. But, I knew there was a level of bias in my thoughts, as my team had become powerful enough to blur together the lower tiers of strength. Lillie had grown impressively strong these past few months and sat firmly at a high seven stars, yet I still struggled coming to terms with her current tier of power when I compared it to how weak she had been not too long before.

She noticed that. I kept sending nervous glances her way. Still pacing, I watched her glance up, and she looked me in the eyes before beginning to speak, as if to reaffirm my nerves.

“I know what you want to say, Alex,” she said.

I stopped moving. I made sure to properly make eye contact back.

“I know you. You want to say something along the lines of, ‘You don’t have to do this, Lillie.’ Or maybe ‘You don’t have to go.’” She giggled at her own surprisingly accurate impression of me. “But I can. I can do this. My team can do this. We have the strength and ability to help, so we will.”

“Okay, okay. Okay,” I said, taking a breath. “But you have to recognize that it’s only Nebby who needs to bring us in. There’d be no issue at all if you left right after, and that way you wouldn’t have to stalk through the very place that wants to capture you during this dangerous mission.”

I wasn’t lying or twisting the truth. We didn’t need her to bring us out. Gardevoir—who was already with Hope—could teleport us out whenever he wanted, as even if alarms went off, it would only take an instant to Teleport us away.

“No. That’s not the issue. You still doubt me and my team. I want to prove to you that we can do this.”

“I don’t doubt you can handle this, I just don’t want to see you hurt,” I replied.

She stared at me for a few more seconds before turning away, sighing as her eyes faced the pager once more.

“Do you know why Lusamine handed over those papers like that?”

“The emancipation forms and the notice of theft?” I asked, causing a barely perceptible wince from Lillie.

“Yeah. Those. I talked to Gladion, and I think we reached a conclusion. Mo—Lusamine doesn’t actually think they’ll do anything. I think she just wanted to hurt me and make me feel that much more unsafe while I was away.”

I opened my mouth to try to reply, but Lillie kept going.

“I... I recognize that Lusamine just wants to be in control. She doesn’t care how, but she wants to be the one to move all the pieces around. Giving us those notices was a play to throw me off and make me backslide as a trainer. At least, Gladion thinks so. Alex, I want you to know that I refuse to let myself be affected by that. I want to show my mom that I can stand on my own—and the same goes for you. Heading in like this, no matter what we do, Lusamine will find out. And when she does, she’ll be more than just surprised when she sees I was involved.”

The girl who used to be so shy, so afraid of the world around her, stared up at me with just the biggest grin on her face. I couldn’t help but to let out a small chuckle, and Lillie giggled.

Her growth really has been amazing.

“Alright,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ll trust you for this.”

She nodded at me, her smile not wavering for even a second.

“We got this, Alex!” she said excitedly.

Not even a second later, the pager began to buzz. We glanced at the device, eyeing the set of displayed numbers, and then Lillie whispered a command to Nebby.

A second later, there was the twisting of space. With that, all of us vanished from the room.

______________________________________________________________________________

I expected to appear somewhere uninhabited, like a long-unused storage room or maybe a large broom closet. This was meant to be an in-and-out mission that didn't draw any attention. The Aether Foundation wasn’t meant to know we were here until it was too late.

But, when space finished drawing itself inwards—a far different feeling coming from Nebby's Teleport than from Gardevoir's use of the move—I blinked and found we weren’t in any location I expected. Rather than appearing somewhere unimportant, we were in an office, with a certain man snoring away on the ground.

Hope was here. Her Vileplume was out. Next to her, Rapidash, stood with his head bowed down so his horn wouldn't scratch the ceiling.

“Hope,” I said flatly. “What was the plan, again?”

“Find a safe space to serve as an entry point and pass along information so you can Teleport over,” she said, sheepishly scratching her cheek. “I wasn’t supposed to raise any alarms or alert people to my presence.”

“And what did you do here?”

“Knock out Faba,” she stated.

I stared at her blankly.

“Oops?” she said, turning away and refusing to meet my eyes.

All I could do was let out a sigh as Lillie covered her mouth to stop her own laughter from getting too loud. The girl stared at the unconscious man on the floor—whose face was as relaxed as if he had fallen asleep for a nap—while his Hypno remained knocked out right next to him.

“As much as I appreciate Faba being taken out like this—”

“You’re welcome,” Hope briefly interrupted.

“...we do have a mission to get to.”

“Of course!”

Hope rushed over and retrieved Faba’s Pokéball to return his fainted team member, sliding me back Gardevoir’s and Rapidash’s Pokéballs as she did. I felt a warm, faint pressure on my mind from both of them as they greeted me, and then Hope and I went on to heave Faba upwards to make it so he was slumped back in his office chair. A smear of Sleep Powder under his nose ensured he didn’t wake up, and Lillie automatically grabbed a marker from his desk to scribble on his face.

I approved.

“Now then,” I said, taking in a slight breath as I once again took in exactly where we were. “The whole purpose of this mission was to gather up information. When Faba eventually wakes up, it should take him a few moments to realize he hasn’t just fallen asleep at his desk.”

Hope nodded along.

“So,” I continued, “since we’re already in his office, we have... well, we have an interesting opportunity here. We can’t exactly steal any of his documents—as that’s literally stealing—but we can at least look through them and take pictures of the things that stand out.”

“Or we could take them,” Hope offered.

“Again, that’s stealing. I mean, it’s League-sanctioned stealing, but taking documents would make it too easy for Aether to figure out what we took. If we just take pictures, we’ll leave them guessing at what knowledge we now have. Besides...”

Some of the files here might be important to running the Aether Foundation. As corrupt as the upper echelons likely were, none of us wanted to interfere with the base level employees, as the vast majority had joined up to help Pokémon in need. As that was something useful the Aether Foundation actively did, it would probably be for the best if we didn’t interrupt that.

Lillie and Hope seemed to have similar thoughts, as they nodded to agree with what I left unsaid.

“Let’s get searching,” Hope said.

“Yeah. Let’s.”

Lillie looked through the books in Faba’s shelves, but most were almost entirely untouched and only placed for display. Hope flicked through the files in his desk’s drawers and pulled out a few documents. Meanwhile, I parsed through the boxes Hope had apparently brought into this room herself, and as Vileplume kept a close eye on Faba, we eventually found what we were looking for soon enough.

“Alex, you need to see this,” Hope blurted out..

I moved away from where I was searching to take a paper Hope handed over. Most of what we’d seen had all been jargon-filled notes, half-written speeches, and forms requesting more resources or funding, but this memo actually contained actionable information for once.

“...bonding experiments involving specimens 02-A to 02-F have proven inconclusive, and the subjects have been sent to Mass Storage. In light of the news, I have decided to withdraw specimens 04-A onwards to proceed with alternative avenues of dimensional research.”

I went silent, with a specific name drawing my eye.

“Mass Storage, huh?” I mumbled. “Sounds important. Let’s take pictures of all this and see if we can head there.”

“I found a map!” Lillie added.

We looked it over as she laid it out on top of Faba’s desk. It was a bit dusty and dated a few years back, but it had a clear label of “Mass Storage” over one of its side rooms.

Lillie grinned.

“Good job,” I said. “We’ll head over there and hopefully find out exactly what Faba meant when he wrote down those specimen names. Hope, when Faba wakes up, is there any chance he’d be able to recognize you?”

“Nope,” she said, waving a hand back and forth in a casual motion. “The man was so full of himself I doubt he’d be able to tell if I was even male or female—to him, I was just a grunt. His Hypno, however, was a lot more perceptive. Gardevoir and Rapidash should have warded off any attempts to pierce my mind, and if this makeup works as well as it is uncomfortable...”

“We should be fine to leave, then,” I said. “We just need to secure this evidence and head out of here.”

Lillie stood next to the door to keep an ear out  for any passersby as Hope and I used our respective devices to take pictures of files we laid out on the desk. We put back as much as we could (though, some of the pages ended up being crammed in), and then after an idea came to mind, I took the boxes I had been searching through and dumped them out on the floor in front of Faba’s desk.

Faba will have to deal with this minor inconvenience, now. A petty form of revenge, but more importantly—

“Everyone take a box. Without anything in it, it won’t count as stealing, but if it looks like we’re transporting goods, people will have less reason to stop us.”

“Smart,” Hope said.

A minute later, we slipped out of the room, each of us carrying an emptied box to use as a disguise. They weren’t big enough to hide our faces without awkwardly holding them too high, but staring directly ahead at least helped us maintain the appearance of having a purpose to be here. With the map Lillie found, we already knew which direction to go and were able to walk down the hallway unimpeded. Almost right away, we passed a masked researcher, but they didn’t spare us a single glance and almost seemed to ignore us, if anything.

Perfect. We look too unimportant for them to pay us any mind.

We continued to head down the hallway without anyone stopping us, and out of the corner of my eye, I paid close attention to the things the researchers carried with them. They pushed carts, carried clipboards, and occasionally, they held mugs of coffee despite having no way to drink them through their masks. This place was surprisingly busy, with an air of rushed competence to it. Honestly, with how much I saw, it bothered me how organized it all was.

Then, Hope bumped me on my back.

“Straight ahead,” she whispered.

My eyes had been lingering on a covered cart being pushed by us, but with her heads-up, I refocused straight ahead.

I caught a glimpse of a researcher turning a corner, leaving us alone in the hallway. However, while that researcher had the same outfit as everyone else, the item in their hand stood out:

A Beast Ball. Just one, but its presence confirmed enough.

“We'll keep going,” I whispered back.

I couldn't see her face, but undoubtedly, Hope looked grim.

A full minute later and several twists and turns through this rather large facility, we finally arrived at the exact room we wanted. A pair of double doors with dark glass windows blocked our entrance, and a plate on those doors themselves clearly stated what this room was.

“Mass Storage.”

“How do we get in?” I whispered.

The door was locked, but there was no keypad. Instead, there was a small device that would take a swipe of some kind of card, instead.

“I would send Dedenne out, but as much as he'd disrupt the system, that might raise an alarm.”

“I could break down the door?” Hope offered.

“What if Nebby teleports us in?” Lillie countered.

Teleportation was the most viable strategy we had, and while he couldn't see the other side, it would be safe enough if kept to a short distance. I was about to give Lillie the go-ahead when I heard footsteps behind us.

“Hey!” a voice shouted. “What are you three doing?”

It took all my effort to not immediately curse in reaction. We had been so close to our goal.

Turning around, I thankfully saw that the voice didn't belong to anyone who could have recognized us, but it still belonged to one of the researchers making her way towards us. Her mask obscured her expression, but I could hear her annoyance.

“Grunts like you shouldn't be down here. What are you doing, lingering outside of this door?”

“We need to get in!” Hope quickly lied. “But we all lost our keycards.”

I wanted to facepalm, but my hands were currently occupied by an empty box. I couldn’t see the researcher’s face to read it, but the way she put her hands on her hips was full of suspicion.

“You shouldn't have keycards to lose in the first place,” she said, almost accusingly.

I knew this wouldn't have a good outcome, so I did the next best thing before any alarms were raised.

“Ninetales! Confuse Ray!”

I immediately shoved my box into Hope’s arms, being met with an alarmed yelp as she suddenly had to deal with a second item. Ninetales released herself before I could even grab her ball, and a greyish-purple beam of light left her eyes to strike the researcher in her face.

The woman took a step back. She reflexively lifted up her arms to protect herself. The move should have sent her stumbling back even further and caused her to be consumed by illusions, but instead, she just froze and stared at us, still obscured and completely in control of her senses.

“The... the masks prevent moves like Confuse Ray, don't they?” I asked rather unhappily.

Tense silence continued. No one made any sudden movements. Slowly, the researcher tried to turn her head to where a button was covered by glass on the wall. We all stared at it for a long second before her hand twitched, and—

“Granbull!” Lillie shouted.

A flash of light marked the release of Lillie’s newest Pokémon right between the researcher and her target. The dog Pokémon proceeded to jump up and snatch the glass visor of the woman’s mask right in his mouth, latching onto her face in the process. She fell back out of pure fright, and the strong bite of the Fairy Type meant her visor was ripped free. We got a good look at the researcher's terrified expression before I jumped onto the opportunity.

“Again!” I ordered quickly.

The Confuse Ray struck, as there was now nothing to block it. The woman began to claw at the air in front of her face, panicking as if there was something wrapped around her mouth.

“Hope, can you—”

“Thanks for shoving a box into my arms, Alex,” she said sarcastically.

No longer sealed away, the woman had no protection from the Sleep Powder Vileplume released soon after. She collapsed to the floor, and Hope was quick to collect her card as I took the pair of boxes back. The card opened up the door to let us file in, dragging the unconscious researcher with us.

“Told you I could help,” Lillie whispered quietly as we hurried inside. She gave her Granbull a thankful pat before returning him to his ball.

(While I had to give her that, I purposefully didn't mention how we had just skirted past what was allowed by the law.)

Entering the room, I kept a close eye on the hallway behind us, making sure no one saw us go in. The entrance sat at the very end of a side path, which meant most people passed it by without bothering to look down its end. We managed to slip in without any further suspicions, placing down the three empty boxes next to both the entrance and the second person we had knocked out on this mission. Since the glass windows on the door were opaque, the most anyone would see of us was blurry silhouettes, but only if they squinted their eyes.

Closing the doors, I finally breathed out a satisfied sigh of relief. No one else was in this room with us, and we had safely divided ourselves off from the rest of the facility once more. I let my eyes close for just a moment to calm what nerves remained, but when I opened them back up, I froze. Both Hope and Lillie were completely still next to me.

“There's so many,” Lillie whispered.

Hope mumbled something unintelligible as well.

Lining the shelves on walls of the room were familiar blue Pokéballs with claw-like protrusions gripping their sides.

Beast Balls—at least three dozen. Each one likely contained an Ultra Beast.

Overall, there was less than I thought, but there were still plenty of slots to either fit in more or to support ones that had already been taken. The place reminded me of the Pokéball storage room of a Pokémon Center, easily having enough space to fulfill the “Mass” portion of “Mass Storage.” Walking deeper into it, I started to see it was divided up even further than just shelves. There were sections labeled with images rather than names, and passing by, I quickly identified several of them.

“Celesteela. Kartana. Stakataka. Blacephalon.”

A metal rocketship. An origami samurai. A pile of sentient bricks. A thin clown with a sphere-shaped head.

It seemed that the Aether Foundation had chosen to store captured Ultra Beasts via the innate stasis that came with all Pokéballs.

This room was only about ten feet long, about the same size of a closet I would have expected us to initially appear in. While the space itself was limited, the small size of the Beast Balls alongside the several rows of shelves meant there was enough room to store as many Ultra Beasts as the Aether Foundation needed. As I finished looking through, Hope had already finished taking pictures. After all, this was the epitome of evidence we needed.

“Alex,” Lillie said quietly. “Should we take them?”

Before I could respond, she had already picked up a ball and started to look it over her hands.

Honestly, I should have stopped her, but strangely, there was no alarm. Contrary to what I expected, there was a surprising lack of security features overall.

“We could, but we don't have the means of handling so many Ultra Beasts if any of them wake up and break out,” I said. “I hate to say it, but even though the Aether Foundation has plans for them, we don't have a way to properly bring them with us.”

Lillie's face twisted up out of annoyance.

“But we can’t just leave them behind! You know what the Aether Foundation is up to. Are we really going to abandon them here? We can stop everything, just like that. It doesn’t make sense to not take them with us!”

As much as I wanted to say no, Lillie was completely right.

Taking them doesn’t solve the problem of the Aether Foundation capturing Ultra Beasts, but it does prevent the Foundation from using what they already have. More importantly, even if this is theft, who cares about breaking the law? This is about helping Pokémon in need.

So, whatever! Screw the rules! The moral decision is to take them with us and keep them safe.

I never expected to agree to become a Pokémon thief, but I still nodded once to agree with Lillie before reaching out to grab them.

I yanked my hand back just in time. My brief moment of hesitation cost us.

From around the room, dozens of thumps rang out. Falling glass sealed the Beast Balls away, and each and every one of them began to glow and disappear in the classic method of Pokéball-transportation.

We were literal seconds away from being able to make a difference.

Then, as if to add insult to injury, a jingle went on above us. The sound of an intercom rang out.

“Attention all Aether Foundation employees,” a sleepy-yet-still-smarmy Faba announced. “We have intruders currently partaking in the act of theft in the Mass Storage on sub-level B.”

“Screw you Faba,” I mumbled under my breath.

Hope said the same thing but much less politely, and she went ahead and flipped off where the sound came out from the corner of the room.

“We've been made. Staying longer only means a fight we can’t win. Everyone get close,” I said.

As I returned Ninetales and sent out Gardevoir, Hope rushed over to pluck a folder out from an angled slot in the back wall. It was left behind as some sort of public notice, and when she picked it up, she looked me in the eyes as if to dare me to call out her theft.

I turned away. At this point, I no longer cared.

“We’re leaving,” I said. “Gardevoir, if you will.”

Heavy footfalls rapidly became louder and louder as Gardevoir closed his eyes and focused. He had to pierce through any defenses the Aether Foundation had set up to bring us to the location we had pre-planned. Seconds passed as shouts became louder, and then, a group of people threw open the doors.

Unfortunately for them, we were already gone. The very second they entered, our infiltrating group had already been thrust into the twisting feeling Teleport usually brought.

We collapsed onto a grassy field only a moment later.

“Urgh. That was worse than I expected,” Hope grumbled, clutching her stomach and barely managing to push to her feet.

Trees surrounded us and obscured us from view. We had reappeared within an open field not too far outside of Po Town. We were far enough away that no one would see us, but as it stood, someone was already waiting here.

“Come on, you big babies. It was just one Teleport. How bad could it have been?” Phoebe said. “Now, get changed. We can't let anyone see you in your disguises.”

I felt nauseous. It grated me just how amused she sounded.

“I think they were in the process of locking down the area,” I managed to mumble out. “Any longer, and Gardevoir might not have been able to use Teleport. At least, that’s probably why it felt so much worse than usual. I’ll stick with that theory.”

I only barely managed to push to my feet as Hope chose to fall back and lay down, staring at the clear skies. The grass was already rubbing green onto her perfectly white uniform, but there was relief clear on her disguised face.

“We did it. It's over,” she said, breathing out, completely and totally satisfied.

We didn’t get any more celebration than that, as Lillie yelped, and I remembered something I should have remembered earlier.

Lillie managed to grab one of those Beast Balls before the rest were sent away, didn't she?

Something shattered.

Light briefly illuminated the already bright field.

Phoebe was quick to ready herself for battle as Hope scrambled to get back to her feet. Having escaped from its Pokéball only a foot away from Lillie was a specific Ultra Beast that resembled a thin, clown-like creature with a head that was nothing more than a white ball.

“A Blacephalon,” I said quietly, identifying the creature.

The very circus-themed Ultra Beast made a show of stretching out its arms, bringing them out several feet to its sides. It bowed, but then its spherical head rolled out of place and down an arm. Headless, the Blacephalon balanced the sphere perfectly in one hand and held it high. The image called a certain memory to mind.

Mind Blown is Blacephalon’s signature move. That can explode, can’t it?

“Run!” I shouted.

Gardevoir was still out, and he just barely managed to get screens up in time.

Blacephalon’s spherical head exploded with the exact move I predicted. The power of the attack was contained, but Gardevoir slumped where he stood after pouring all of his remaining effort into sealing the strong attack away.

On top of the white frills that marked the Blacephelon’s neck, a brand new head popped right out of its body. The Pokémon lifted up a leg and twirled on one foot, then it clapped its hands as if to applaud itself for a job well done.

Then it stopped, froze, and tilted to the side to let its body curve over someone on the ground.

Lillie was right there. The Blacephalon loomed over her. Countless shadows spreading out from underneath Phoebe froze, as with it so close to Lillie, there was no way for them to approach without risking her getting into harm.

The Pokémon continued to stare at her as no one moved, then the slightest of shifts saw its head begin to roll down its arm once more.

“No!” I yelled.

It wasn’t Gardevoir, and it wasn’t Phoebe who ended up moving in time. Instead, the very last Pokémon I expected to ever attack was the one that knocked Blacephalon away.

In an instant, space curved in on itself and rang out with a near-deafening “pop!” Blacephalon very comically flailed its limbs as its body curved inwards from the impact. It sailed through the air, flying far away. A full three seconds later, it landed on the ground, spinning, dizzy, and rubbing its head.

Immediately, my eyes snapped to the Pokémon responsible for that act, and when I saw it, my breath caught in my throat.

“...Nebby?” Lillie said.

A Cosmoem floated in the air, as tiny and as cocooned as ever. From this distance, I could just barely make out one thing: his eyes were wide open, and he was no longer asleep like before.

Lillie looked like she was in shock. Nebby floated down and rubbed against her face, making happy, pleased noises as he did. She was visibly unable to react for several seconds before snatching him out of the air. He was drawn into a tight hug.

“I’m so...!” A hiccup. “I’m so happy you’re okay!”

Tears of relief poured down her face.

So Nebby is awake. And that Blacephalon—

With Lillie no longer so close to it, Phoebe’s entire team had free reign to cover the wild Ultra Beast in a storm of shadows. The mass obscured what moves were being used, but the Pokémon’s cries made it clear Phoebe was winning.

Soon, she said one word. “Catch.” There was a dark look in her eyes.

She didn't throw the blue Pokéball, but her entire team brought it over instead. I saw a shadow carry it across the ground and into the mass of darkness, where there was a flash, and the ghosts scattered in every direction. One of those unused Beast Balls I had retrieved from Professor Burnett sat on the ground, flashing red. It shook once, twice, then went still. Finally, it clicked.

Phoebe calmly walked over to pick up the filled Beast Ball as if what she just did wasn’t totally insane.

“So Nebby is awake, and Phoebe just caught a Blacephalon.” I rubbed my head. “Do we have any other surprise news?”

Hope looked like she was about to say no, then she paused and withdrew the folder she had taken at the last minute. It took only a second for her to read it over before silently passing it to me. I frowned as I read it as well, and then I frowned even harder when I processed what was on it.

The details were sparse, but the date listed was clear. The sole sheet of paper within was a notice of imminent transportation. While it didn’t detail any plans, it made one thing very clear:

Lusamine had plans for the Aether Foundation’s collection. Something would happen the same day Alola's Conference Tournament would start.

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Author Note:

Aether Foundation Employee
Aether Foundation Scientist

I absolutely love Blacephalon. I once spent hours soft resetting for a shiny one. The white of its body becomes this awful, mspaint-default blue. It’s the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen. I love it. Here’s a picture.

(Though, Stakataka will always have a place in my heart solely for its name. Try saying “Stakataka” ten times, fast!)

Pokémon (and people) mentioned in this chapter:
Blacephalon
Celesteela
Hypno
Kartana
Stakataka
Ultra Beasts

Faba
Phoebe

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