ACL: 21. I am the night! (Patreon)

Chapter 21: I am the night!

Brockton Bay, NH, USA
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Type: Dark

The clock struck midnight and my power shifted. I was half expecting another dud, or perhaps an earthly type like ground, rock, or ice. Those seemed inordinately common though perhaps that was just the luck of the draw. I didn’t know; I got into Arcadia on a writing scholarship, not a math one.

Instead, as if to confirm the necessity of my nighttime endeavor, my power settled on the dark type. Umbral power filled me as I laid in bed. It whispered of unknown mysteries, of fear and grandeur in the same breath.

The dark type was easily the most misunderstood of all types, so much so that ancient Kantoans did not have a word for them besides “evil.” It was scientists and espers in Hoenn who studied the mechanics of precognition who broke the stigma around the “evil” type.

They found that Future Sight was not unique to psychics. Then, an intern began to wonder about the myths surrounding absol and their shared title as the “harbingers of disaster.” After some work, they managed to confirm that absol did not in fact cause disasters but actively worked to mitigate loss of life.

Last time I was in Hoenn, there had been legislation being pushed through Ever Grande attempting to establish a reserve for the misunderstood creatures. It hadn’t gained much traction; the deeply traditional roots of the region meant the people were slow to change even if the scientific community said otherwise.

That was besides the point however. For me, the dark type was one filled with many possibilities, albeit mostly centered around the physical rather than the spiritual. From the brutish hydreigon to the stealthy weavile, I wouldn’t lack for options today.

Which meant it was time to move. I waited for Mark to go to bed before shifting into lampent so I could sneak out of the orphanage.

X

The Forsberg Gallery was one of the most recognizable buildings in town. It stood several stories tall, short for something in the business district. Despite that, it stood out thanks to a large land area and curved architecture. It boasted several galleries inside dedicated to painting, pottery, sculpture, and whatever those weird kinetic art installations made of colored glass were supposed to be.

Out front, there was a metal statue of a nude woman lying on her hip with her hand outstretched.

More than one of my school field trips were hosted here. Hell, it was basically tradition at this point for eighth grade boys to take pictures of themselves with their crotches against her hand, threats of detentions be damned.

But I wasn’t interested in the gallery itself. Tonight, I was here for Coil. I ignored the various sculptures and instead made for the parking lot before ducking into a maintenance room to hide. There, I shifted briefly into kirlia so I could scout out the base beneath. II could sense dozens of mercenaries, roughly half of them in one location. Judging by the time, that was probably the barracks. The rest were hard at work patrolling the base or maintaining equipment, ready to mobilize at Coil’s order.

“Well, that’s the base confirmed. What do I need to find here… I need to mark Coil’s office, any other exits, and…”

I took a few moments to consider my options. Way back when I raided a Galactic base, I had Cynthia and the Elite Four at my back. With the number of teleporters around, securing anyone who ran was comparatively easy. Even if a few got away, they weren’t my problem since I had reliable rangers to tie up loose ends.

I didn’t have a relationship with this world’s heroes like I did with Cynthia and her team. Hell, I planned to leave the Protectorate in the dark completely because I couldn’t trust them with basic information security. Which meant I needed to catch Coil in one stroke.

I’d make a point to discover every exit he had into this base.

Then there was his failsafe. Lady Photon mentioned a bomb, one that could level a city block. That was… honestly not that bad… Compared to Cyrus’ lunacy, the stakes were admittedly rather small here. Still, I had no intention of letting myself get caught off guard. Depending on the form, I could easily eat the blast but that couldn’t be said for my teammates.

“Guess I’m looking for the bomb,” I muttered. I trusted Dragon, for the most part, but if push came to shove, I wanted to know where the failsafe was so I could act on it, whether that was by eating my own teammates as steelix to keep them safe or teleporting myself and the bomb into the ocean.

After that, my priorities more or less arranged themselves: I needed to know where his office was so I could decapitate his organization. Then I’d see about their communications room or armory but I didn’t think I’d need those to win decisively.

X

The entrance to the base was at the lowest floor of the gallery parking lot. There was an eight-wheeler truck in the furthest corner of the lot, providing plenty of shade. A set of doors sat just behind it, obscured by one of the concrete columns holding up the structure. At first glance, the doors looked rusted and brown, with a thick chain linking the handles together and a sign that said, “Elevator Out of Service.”

I turned into lampent and headed directly through one wall. It was remarkable how dilapidated the exterior looked. In reality, just past the paint, the doors were made of solid steel with a gun nest pointed straight towards them. A bored guard sat in his booth, playing some offline game on his phone.

‘Heh, guess gate guards are the same everywhere,’ I snorted with amusement.

I slunk through the shadows and took a quick look around what passed for the lobby. It was unexpectedly clean, with sharp, angular lines and tidy floors. I’d heard that this used to be an abandoned endbringer shelter but Coil had clearly had a lot of work done on it to make it more presentable.

That was… annoying.

Lady Photon said that in her timeline, the bomb did indeed go off, destroying the gallery and much of the block. That meant the bomb was strong enough to completely collapse this base and then some. Unless the bomb was tinkertech, or a nuke, I didn’t see how that was possible. Endbringer shelters were built for structural integrity after all. All emergency shelters were, but these especially.

These shelters were made to be overwhelmingly durable, enough to give even an endbringer some trouble. The only way I could see him successfully collapsing the entire base was…

‘He has multiple bombs,’ I realized. ‘He has to. Probably a big central one and smaller ones to blow every load-bearing point simultaneously, something he could do with a signal from his computer.’

It wasn’t lost on me that such a thing would be near impossible to disarm manually. Find one and Coil would have plenty of time to blow everything up Arceus’ asscrack. With my hypothesis in mind, I decided that the easiest way to find the bombs would be to locate different lode-bearing pillars. I wasn’t an architect or engineer but some common sense wasn’t out of the question surely.

X

It took me several tries but I found one such cache. It looked for all the world like bars of Play-Doh, which probably meant they were some kind of plastic explosives. I ducked into a bathroom stall and switched back, waiting out the minute before switching back into my favorite ghost type to continue the hunt.

Now that I knew what to look for, the rest of the search went somewhat smoothly. I learned that Coil’s base was divided into six sectors, each with their own bomb cache. They made a neat hexagon, perhaps Coil’s had OCD, which made finding the seventh bomb at the very center of the base simple.

Seeing so much ordinance made me a little nervous though. If Dragon failed for any reason…

I shook my head. I had to trust that Lady Photon and Dragon knew what they were doing.

I was broken from my musings by the sound of voices around the corner. I had several minutes left so I sank into the shadows and waited for them to pass me by.

“-get your fucking gear cleaned before I have you outside mopping rain, Kevin,” one of the mercenaries barked at another. He was a gruff sort of man with broad shoulders and a square jaw.

“Yes, sir,” the one called Kevin replied, more out of habit than anything.

“I don’t give a damn that this ain’t the marines anymore. You got a fucking job to do and I’ve got a rep to keep, got it?”

“Sir, yes, sir…”

I decided to tail them for a bit and allowed myself to sink into the elder mercenary’s shadow. He continued to lambast his man for something or other. I couldn’t help but compare him to Lt. Surge, the “lightning lieutenant” who insisted on running his gym like a military base.

As it turned out, the elder mercenary was one Captain Sherridan, Coil’s operations and logistics chief of staff. That at least explained his focus on this Kevin fellow’s equipment.

Captain Sherridan eventually split off from his subordinate to make a tour of his armory, not even once suspecting that he was giving me a free guided tour. The armory was well-stocked, with laser rifles and conventional arms mounted on the walls. Below those were crates of ammunition as well as shelves filled with body armor and helmets.

As impressive as the arsenal was to look at, the real treasure however was the map located in the good captain’s office right next door. It was mounted on one wall and detailed deployment and patrol schedules with all the military precision of a veteran soldier.

The base had four exits according to the map, one on each floor. Captain Sherridan kept meticulous notes, presumably so he could reliably deploy his men through different bases.

The first was of course the one I’d entered through beneath Forsberg. It was the largest exit and so the one by which they could deploy their vehicles most easily.

The second was roughly a mile north in an abandoned warehouse near ABB territory. I recognized it as a building that recently became more valuable thanks to me moving the tanker. There were notes that moving supplies through that warehouse might draw attention thanks to my actions.

The third was actually inside an operational office building less than a mile east. The space belonged to one of those consulting firms that no one knew the purpose of, the kind that seemingly used less than half its office space at any given time but always somehow seemed to find the money to keep the lights on. So long as his men moved quietly, it was a good way to cover ground.

Finally, the fourth led out to the maintenance room of a luxury apartment building. The Towers, it was called. The building was apparently a viable sniper’s nest as well as a place to watch according to Coil. I wondered briefly who or what was there that made an exit there worth having.

I stuck around long enough to wear out my timer twice over. I wanted to snap a picture but didn’t trust Coil not to have cameras in his own mens’ offices. That meant I shifted beneath the captain’s desk while the man was out.

In the end, I managed to commit everything to memory piecemeal over the course of half an hour, including the location of the communications room.

Unfortunately, that was the extent of my good fortune. Coil’s office was not listed at all. Nor, for that matter, were the offices of other captains. I didn’t doubt that Sherridan knew, but the captain seemed to be of the opinion that grunts didn’t need the info.

I spent the rest of the night searching the base. Piece by piece, the picture came together. I was forced to conclude that Coil did not have an office. He had six.

The paranoid fuck had three separate offices, all identically furnished. Each was made of reinforced concrete, with filters in the ventilators to stop any gaseous attacks cold. The offices had a computer, a whiteboard, and little else. Their reinforced doors and sparsity of decor was how I connected the dots. Every other office I’d seen, whether they belonged to mercenary captains or whoever Mr. Pitter was, contained some decorations, at least some basic sign of habitation.

I supposed Coil could have a few spare offices lying around but I doubted he’d spend so much money reinforcing them all to such a degree. Which meant he likely switched offices as necessary, or perhaps even whenever he felt like it to fuck with his men. Or maybe he occupied two offices simultaneously while he worked in his base for extra security? I was led to believe he kept a timeline outside but it wasn’t as though anyone really knew Coil’s habits.

I shifted back one last time and checked the clock. I was out of time. I reminded myself that tonight was productive, even if I hadn’t found everything I wanted.

X

I slept like the dead. Or, I tried.

“Blake!” Shane, one of the little ones at the orphanage, shouted as he slammed into my room and belly flopped onto my bed. The kids had been on a Wrestlemania kick lately, to my extreme irritation. “Mrs. Wells says you gotta be ready for church!”

I grabbed his head like a football and shoved him off my bed. “No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Shane, shut up before I throw you out the window.”

“Mrs. Wells said so.”

I opened my eyes and glared. “Out.”

“I’m telling,” he declared before stomping downstairs. “MRS. WELLS!!!!”

I rolled my eyes. It was 10:30, half an hour before church service. I grumbled as I rose. Mrs. Wells and us older kids had a deal: We didn’t get into any trouble and she wouldn’t nag us about church. That didn’t keep the other kids from seeing it as totally unfair and making a stink of it anyway.

I grabbed a quick shower before grabbing a premade sandwich from the fridge and a handful of berries from the yard. Now that I was looking at them, I remembered the different recipes I’d managed to acquire as a porygon. Potions recipes. Recipes that could make mine and Amy’s lives much easier while saving lives.

I rolled a blueberry between my fingers. Were there any grass types that could create seeds? Well, plenty, but… any I had access to now… Dark types weren’t exactly known for being productive…

Then again, that was more prejudice than anything else.

Yes, there was one: The starter of Paldea, Meowscarada, the magician pokemon. It was both a grass and dark type and could learn a mix of both Seed Bomb and Grassy Terrain.

Perfect.

I picked up my jacket and made for the door. I had some experiments to run. After spending all night sneaking around Coil’s base, I wanted to go make something with my own hands.

X

First things first, I decided to go pay Amy a visit. She was my “girlfriend.” More importantly, she was an immensely powerful biokinetic and I did (sorta) promise to be responsible with my powers. Who else but Panacea was equipped to oversee my madness?

I visited the south ferry station so I could switch out into my armor. Emily wasn’t there unfortunately; I would have liked to see how she did at the market yesterday, but I figured I’d catch up with her soon enough.

Then, I switched to lampent so I could sneak into the bathroom stall of a restaurant on the Boardwalk. I chuckled to myself as I walked out of the bathroom. Watching people rubberneck as I showed up from random places was never going to get old.

I of course considered how I’d go pick up my girlfriend. After all, who was Menagerie if not the hero of impeccable style?

I stood outside the restaurant and raised my fist into the air. “Shift, absol!”

I fell on all fours as my body was filled with the powerful aura of a pokemon. Black clouds that seemed to drink in all light covered me, empowering me in the essence of the night. Then, with a deafening roar, I dispersed the clouds to reveal a snow-white, feline creature as large as a lion.

With a confident grin, I tossed my bangs to the side. I was the darkness, the very embodiment of the blackest night. I was the omen of disaster, he who weighed the lives of millions between my claws. To know the secrets of oblivion, to hear the whispers of the encroaching dark, such was my curse, the burden of the shadows placed upon the mightiest of-

“Fuck,” I swore, the absol’s influence clearing from my mind. “Of course the absol’s a goddamn edgelord.”

“Umm… Menagerie?” came a voice behind me. I turned to find the hostess, a slightly chubby college girl.

“Yes, helpless mortal?”

“P-Please stop blocking the entrance.”

I stared at her awkwardly. By her shuffling, she’d definitely heard everything I said. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Umm… no judgment?”

I shrank in on myself. Absol may have been as large as a lion, but I sure as hell felt like a drowned kitten right now. “... I’ll just… go…”

X

I ran through the streets as absol, the harbinger of disaster. My fur caught the harsh sunlight like brilliant snow and my horn and tail-blade shone like obsidian with the power of the menacing darkness. The air parted in delightful little hisses and the pavement was scored by my claws that could tear apart nightmares.

The raw malice of the city tingled like electricity. I could feel it pressing down on me, rustling through my fur like the west wind. This place was always one step from disaster, one step from falling over the precipice into oblivion. By Distortion, it was a wonder how it had survived without a harbinger for so long.

It mattered not, for I was here now. As the guardian of humanity and the grand omen of all the world’s ills, it was my duty to slash apart the encroaching nightmares and weave a new fate for this city, even as I heralded their arrival. By the Alpha’s will, I would stand as the sole protector who stood upon the boundary between light and darkness, order and chao-

“We’re here, you Arceus-damned edgelord,” I grumbled under my breath, yanking hard on the tether of aura that represented my pokemons’ personalities.

Amy’s house was picture perfect, the ideal white picket fence every child drew in elementary school. It had manicured lawns and carefully groomed flower beds with a skinny little tree out in the front yard that was more for decoration than any real purpose. It was so perfect, so clean, that I didn’t think even a bellossom could do better.

Save for the tree, something so anemic probably would drive a grass type spare.

I took a moment to collect myself and walked up the steps to nudge the doorbell with my snout.

*ding dong*

Silence. Then, “I’m coming!”

The door opened and I was greeted with the hyper-serious face of Carol Dallon, Brandish, paladin of law and weapons mistress of ord-

I smacked my head against the doorframe. “Fuck. Stop doing that,” I chided myself.

“Menagerie?” she asked cautiously, her eyes narrowed in disapproval. There was a gleaming dagger in the hand that wasn’t holding the door. “Can I help you?”

I looked up at her with pleading eyes. “Not unless you can slap the chuuni out of an entire species.”

“Chuuni?”

“My friend says it’s ‘middle school second year syndrome.’ That thing when kids talk like self-important edgelords. Like so:” I cleared my throat and stood at full height. The shadows around me seemed to lengthen despite being midday as I pinned the woman with glowing crimson eyes. “I, the prince of darkness, have come for my girlfriend! Behold the encroaching twilight! Sheathe the blade of brilliant day for it cuts friend and foe alike. Like the Light that Burns the Sky, the blade of daybreak may shatter the throne of the queen sho-”

Carol tapped the doorframe with irritation. “I get it. You know what? I’ll go get Amy. You two have fun.”

I frowned. I hadn’t actually mexant to say all that. Omen or harbinger or whatever, it seemed absol had a real compulsion to share their premonitions with others, particularly in the most aggravatingly roundabout way possible. As for what that could mean… I eyed the hand that held her blade moments earlier warily. Any comparison to the Light that Burns the Sky was worrying but who was the queen?

“Yeah… Thanks…”

She turned around and called, “Amy! Your boyfriend is here!”

I heard a muffled “Coming!” before hurried steps echoed from the stairs. Eyes rolling, her mother headed back into her home office.

“Yo, what’s up?” she asked. She wore a white hoodie with red crosses over her breasts reminiscent of her cape costume.

“You! Rejoice, queen of crimson! Great mother of children who shape a new world order! I see the darkness in your heart!”

“... What the fuck are you talking about?”

I coughed awkwardly. “Ahem… I… Umm… What’s with the hoodie? I thought you hated your merch.”

“Shut up, it’s comfy, alright?” she scowled. “Whatever, what the hell are you up to?”

“Come! We shall go forth to produce plants that shall heal the dark agony of this earth and bring forth salvation to those who have lost all hope! Rejoice, for you shall aid me in this noblest endeavor!”

“Menagerie, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you talking like that?”

I slammed my head into the doorframe again. “Sorry, this form needs a brain reset sometimes… Let’s try this again.”

“Alright…”

I spun around and wiggled my butt-blade at her. “We’re making magic weed! Hop on!”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it. I promise we’re doing this for a good cause.”

Amy let out a defeated sigh. “You know what? My options are hanging out at home with mom, dealing with nutjobs at the hospital, or dealing with this nutjob I have to call my boyfriend. Fuck it, sure.”

I felt her try to straddle my back and sank a little so she could hop on. I then kicked up with my haunches so she’d slide up a little closer to my shoulders. “Speaking of nuts…”

“What?”

“The peach, envious of the nut tree's bounty,
Loaded herself with her own, a hefty quantity,
But the weight of the fruit proved too much to bear,
Pulled up by the roots, and crashed to the ground bare."

I felt her bunch her hands into my fur painfully. “Are you calling me fat?”

“This form is prophetic so… maybe…? Maybe you develop a nut allergy from eating too much?”

“That’s not how allergies work, asshole! I mean… mostly…”

I hopped down the stairs and sauntered out onto the street. “Yeah, but you neve know with absol. Premonitions are a thing, kind of like how dogs can predict earthquakes but taken to extremes.”

“And you talk like a goddamn two-bit fortune teller because…”

“I don’t know. Absol are absol-lutely ridiculous, alright?”

“Puns too? God, why did I agree to this?”

“Look on the bright side.”

“What bright side?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m telling you to think of one.”

“Just… Let’s just go…”

X

To Amy’s surprise, I headed west, not east. East was the coast, which also meant the Boardwalk, business district, Arcadia, and all the other important buildings. It also meant the PRT and I was serious about the magic weed.

I could feel her thighs lose tension as I trotted in long, loping strides that ate up ground like only a big cat could. As she relaxed, her fingers ran through my fur and she began to study an absol’s biology.

“Huh… You’re supposed to have only one lopsided horn?”

“Yup. Neat, huh?”

“I mean… It’s super inconvenient. You can’t even gore anyone properly because your neck is unbalanced. Like, did you know you have thicker neck muscles on one side?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You do. Can’t tell because of all the fluff, but it’s there. And weirdly good for swinging… Wait, is this form a swordsman?”

“Basically, yeah. Slash. Night Slash. Psycho Cut. Razor Wind. Swords Dance. Absol knows lots of slashing moves.”

“Huh. Yeah, now that I’m looking, it’s like your horn and tail are always sharp. I’m not sure how that works but I don’t think it’s possible to dull it? Or it can be sharpened easily? It’s this weird organic material that wants to be sharp.”

“I am the embodiment of the edge of night.”

“Right… Seriously, where are we going?”

“I told you, to make magic weed.”

“Wait, what?”

“Oh, hey, we’re here!” I chirped cheerily. “Off the absol-express, please!”

“Menagerie, why are we in some random lot?”

Sure enough, we’d stopped at the first undeveloped lot I could find. West of the city, headed inland, had some of these dotted around, abandoned or forestalled construction projects that went downhill when the economy collapsed. So long as you avoided the highway to Boston and New York, you could have a bit of free space to play with before it all got devoured by New Hampshire’s forests. It wasn’t uncommon to see kids use the land for biking, soccer, or frisbee.

“You know how I made a bunch of berry trees for homeless people as meganium?”

“Umm… flower-dino?”

“Yeah, that one. Well, I’m going to make some fruit so I want you to examine them. That way, I can preempt the PRT’s bitching since they’ll be Panpan approved.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “Ah, that’s why you didn’t tell me before I came.”

“Yup,” I said with a cheery grin. I switched back so I could shift to meowscarada in a minute. “You’ve been kidnapped for the greater good.”

“Asshole. I would’ve come anyway, you know. I don’t have a hospital tour today.”

“True, but this was more fun.”

“Why do you need me though? You know the PRT probably won’t raise a fuss if you grow a few fruit trees or something, right? The city might because this is their lot, but better a park or something than a dustbowl.”

“Ah… The fruits aren’t… normal?”

Amy went from joking to serious so fast I almost thought she became a different person altogether.

“Explain,” she hissed.

I held out a hand to try to calm her. “Chill, Ames. You know how some pokemon can heal? Others can make healing berries. Those berries can do things like heal burns, act as general antidotes, or supercharge the body’s natural healing process and grant minor regeneration. They can be eaten normally or made into potions using recipes. I want to make a few and play around with them. You know, safely. Hence you.”

“Hence me… Are there side effects to taking too much? Any long term effects? What about the way they breed? If they spread too much, it can cause a big problem in the local ecosystem. Why haven’t you gone to the PRT about this?”

“In order: No, no, they breed like any other berry tree or bush, and I haven’t gone to the PRT because they leak information like a sieve and the director doesn’t seem very friendly towards stuff like this. I don’t want the gangs to smuggle berries out so they can raise their own trees or for the director to just shut me down without even thinking about it.”

“And you think I can help,” she said flatly. “If you haven’t noticed, I can’t pull an orchard out of my ass or keep it safe.”

“No, but your word will keep Piggot from shutting me down.”

“And if she does anyway?”

I shrugged. “I make spores anyway. I figure I’ll hide a few bushes and use them to make potions for people. Or maybe I’ll go national and ask Legend for help industrializing? Or, I could finally claim territory and recruit minions to look after an orchard!”

She slapped my arm in annoyance. “You’re not starting a gang!”

“But, but, think of all the drug money!” I whined.

“Menagerie! God, I hate you sometimes.”

“You’d be bored to tears without me. So…”

“No. No, you may not make magic drugs.”

“Ames, think about the people I can help.”

“Think about all the ways this could go wrong!”

“Like what?”

“I-I don’t know! That’s the whole point! We can’t know everything!” She was shouting now. “What part of ‘Don’t fuck with life,’ is hard to understand?”

“The part where that was a rule,” I urged her gently. “Ames, practically everything we eat is modified.”

“Yeah, by experts!”

“You are the expert.”

“I’m not going to make super-plants, Menagerie.”

I nodded. I should have expected this. She didn’t know the berries like I did. She saw something exotic and foreign. I saw medicines I’d relied on for decades, with damn near miraculous powers that made the medical science of this world look primitive.

She looked thoroughly unimpressed with me. No, for once, she looked genuinely angry that I’d suggest something like this. She thought it was dangerous, that it could cause untold damage. She thought this went against everything she stood for as a healer despite my good intentions.

I… I had to get her to trust me. If not the berries, then at least trust that I would never let things get that far. I had to show her the potential these berries could hold. But how did I do that?

I took a deep breath and dove into the minefield that was Amy Dallon. “Ames, I’m not asking you to make super-plants. I’m asking you to oversee me making super-plants.”

“And that makes this better how?” she scoffed.

“It makes us partners. I’m accountable to you and you’re accountable to me. You examine every single berry I make for diseases or any gene sequence you think will cause problems. I tell you everything that these berries can do and how potions are made. If you say we don’t grow a specific berry, fine-”

“We don’t grow anything.”

“-as long as you say that in good faith,” I said, ignoring her interruption. “See what they are, then tell me they’re dangerous.”

“I don’t know, Menagerie…”

“You say we don’t work from a lot like this? Fine. We’ll get little flowerpots or whatever else makes you comfortable. I have my own base but if you want them in your house so they’re directly under your oversight, that works too.”

“You really think mom’s going to let you do that?”

“Probably not, but what about one bush? Oran berries. They’re little blue berries that impart mild regenerative factors and are best used for scrapes, bruises, and other wounds like that. One bush, one berry that you can keep in a little flowerpot on your desk. Hell, take the berry and burn the bush if you want. I just want you to see the berries and give them a fair shake.”

“One berry?” She arched a brow skeptically. “Somehow, I seriously doubt you’ll be satisfied with giving me one berry.”

“Ames, it’s food, not meth,” I said tiredly. “Super nutritious, with incredible medicinal properties. You can take it and tell me there is nothing wrong. Because yes, I’m that confident. Even if you spend a week sequencing every last strand of DNA in it, I’m confident you’ll give me the green light in the end.”

“Then what, Menagerie? You want to start an orchard of magic healing berries?”

“Ideally, yes, but I know that it’s not going to go that way. There’s no way the PRT isn’t going to stick its nose in things and I’m willing to work with them, just so long as you and I can prove the berries work. Then they can provide secure facilities and handle distribution. Or maybe the Guild.” I tried to run my fingers through my hair but clicked against my helmet. I growled in frustration. “Look, I’m not trying to start a drug cartel or be the next Nilbog, jokes aside. I’m trying to make and distribute super-fruits that can change the world.”

She looked at me with questioning eyes. Emotions warred across her face faster than I could identify them. Then she let out a deep sigh. “This is such a bad idea.”

“Yes!”

“I didn’t agree to anything!”

“Amy!” I whined.

“One. Berry.”

“Fine, fine, I know.” I skipped back and tossed one hand into the air. I felt like I could hold up the sky on that palm; I convinced Amy to biotinker! I brought the other hand before my face like I was holding a mask. “Shift, meowscarada!”

I shrank until I was just shy of five feet, which put Amy only two inches taller than me. A coat of mint-green fur covered me as my features became distinctly feline. A domino mask made of leaves covered my eyes and I peeled them up so I could give Amy a saucy wink. In my hand was a pink flower whose stem I made vanish using my reflective cape.

“Thank you for trusting meow,” I said, a distinct purr in my voice.

“Did… Did you just say ‘meow?’ Like, not even actually meow, but the word ‘meow.’”

“Yup. Paw-sitive.”

“Ugh, I regret this so much,” she moaned, cradling her head in her hands.

“Regret what? I’m purr-fect.”

“Everything. You know what? Whatever. Just make your stupid berry and let’s get out of here.”

“Oh, very well.”

I skipped back and turned it into a backflip. Then another. And another. Until, with grace that put Olympic gymnasts to shame, I flipped into the air higher than most houses. The flower in my hand danced in and out of the visible spectrum as my cape caught the light at unorthodox angles. Then, with only the bulb visible, I focused grass type energy into the blossom.

Then, as the petals began to fall on the ground, I chanted, “Ladies and gentlemen! Cats and dogs! Paw-don the show but a magician must have a little flair!”

“Just get on with it!”

“No one likes so much cat-itude, nya!” Then as I landed, I called, “Grassy Terrain!”

Whatever retort Amy wanted to say died on her lips as the world bloomed. Ridiculous or not, flamboyant personality or not, meowscarada were starters, pokemon entrusted to the best and brightest of a region. They were powerful in their own right, with a unique connection to both grass and dark type energy.

From where the petals landed and from my paws, grass bloomed like ripples across a pond. The terrain would greatly enhance the recovery of all in the area by filling the lot with pure life energy for a time. It would fade eventually, but I wanted it around so the next step would be easier.

Truth was, I was no geneticist. Nor a botanist. Nor a doctor. Or anything that might be useful for the creation of a new berry. And yet, I was attempting it anyway. If there was something meowscarada could do, it was infuse seeds with grass aura. I just had to let my own aura guide me, let instincts that existed long before their partnership with humans take hold. Grass types were guardians of forests, protectors and nourishers. Amy looked for science but I knew better. Aura was an art form, a philosophy, a worldview.

I blew gently into my paws. “Seed Bomb.”

A single seed came to life in my hand, glowing with the immense power I’d fed it.

‘I want an oran berry,’ I thought. ‘I want something so harmless, so unambiguously good, that Amy can’t question it.’

Oran berries were the foundation of many forms of pokemon medicine. They were staple food items for billions of people and pokemon worldwide. I thought about their taste, their scent, the shape of their leaves and the delicate steps that drooped heavy with their bounty. I thought about the way they gently shook in the breeze, the way their flowers gave way to their berries and lured all nearby to partake.

When I could clearly picture the seed in my mind, I let it go.

It sank into the ground and for a moment, all was still.

Then, in defiance of all logic, a single sprout reached for the sun. Its three leaves shed little flecks of grass energy as it began to take in sunlight. Until now, it was just an image, a hope in my mind. Yet here it was, as real as any other plant native to this world. My feline mouth spread into a cheshire grin.

I did this. I created new life.

Amy looked on, fascinated despite herself. She stared, flabbergasted as the plant took in all the power nearby from the Grassy Terrain and grew far faster than logic dictated. She gingerly stretched out a hand and, just before touching it, looked to me in askance.

I nodded gently, urging her forward. Her fingers grazed the stem and a look of pure wonder crossed her face. I didn’t know what her power was telling her, but I knew by that look that I’d won. She was hooked.

Bit by bit, the sprout turned into a young sapling as tall as we were. Then we saw blue flowers form and wilt, only to be replaced by the most iconic berries in my old world.

She stared transfixed at the marvel of botany in hands. She was muttering things to herself too low for me to hear.

I leaned back and let her have her moment. She was more or less dead to the world anyway. The grass was comfy and soft and would last long enough for a small catnap. I settled into the grass and stared up at the sky to wait. Really, that girl was far too stubborn for her own good…