Septimus Reus, author of the eponymous collected journals, prided himself on his attention to detail; even minutiae like variances in pronunciation of the name Suicune around the world warranted ample documentation. In contrast, he only had one page devoted to the topic of jumping out of windows. It started with “No no no no no” and kept on in that vein for roughly three paragraphs, during which he experimented with different letter sizes, capitalization, and even what looked like a brief foray into writing with his non-dominant hand.
Once he got that out of his system, Reus went on to say, “If someone is reading my notes, undecided on whether or not to jump from a window, and has gotten this far, then that person clearly has already made up their mind one way or another. With that in mind, best of luck to you, hypothetical person. Tucking your head in and rolling gives you a slightly better chance at survival.”
Mel had a different strategy, and hers was squishy, pinkish-purple, and roughly the size of her head. The window was open, she was thankful for that much, and Repeat, almost as if reading her mind, caught on to her plan immediately. She’d heard bird Pokemon milling about the Silph Co. building, and after she hurled herself out into the open air, Repeat transformed into one such Pokemon – a Pidgeotto. As they drifted towards the outskirts of the city, Mel could see Degree’s rapidly-shrinking face in the window.
Degree was laughing.
The breeze blew Repeat and Mel out to the route between Saffron and Celadon. Mel could never remember the designations of each route, but she knew that the one they were landing on was one of the smallest in Kanto. A skulk of Vulpix scattered into the tall grass as they landed, Mel’s feet alighting on the ground first before Repeat transformed back to his usual form and dropped into her arms. Mel tried to will her heart to stop pounding, but her mind kept straying back to Degree’s face right up next to hers, to Degree’s voice in her ear, to Degree just… laughing at her.
“We will be watching you every step of the way...” Mel said quietly as she stared up at the silhouette of Silph Co. in the distance, Degree’s words echoing through her head.
“What was that, boss?” asked Repeat. He shook his head as if clearing his thoughts; Mel felt relief in his mind.
Mel slid her backpack off and sat against one of the broad trees that lined the path, the bark rough against her back even through her shirt. “Oh… nothing, Repeat. I just… I mean, I…” She swallowed. The words wouldn’t come. How could she express the dull horror that was running through her, settling in the pit of her stomach, that Genesis would be watching her? Following her? That anyone she met could be a devotee of Degree Absolute? That not only had Janine been taken by Neo Rocket and then refused to recognize her, but now Bill was gone too? She’d needed to protect him, protect them, that was what she was supposed to do, but when it came down to it, she fell, she ran away—
A semi-solid pseudopod gently clapped her cheek. “Boss,” Repeat said, in a quiet voice that nonetheless cut through the fog in Mel’s mind like a knife. “Come back to me.”
“I… sorry.” With her eyes closed, Mel inhaled slowly through her nose, then let it out through her mouth. “Right. I’m here. I’m okay.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that!” The voice wasn’t Repeat’s, and that, plus a noise like something dropping from the leaves of one of the nearby trees, made Mel’s eyes shoot open. A slight woman knelt before her, wearing ratty clothes that hadn’t been improved by her time in the branches of a tree. “If you weren’t here, I’d have to start wondering real hard about where you were, kid.”
“Hello, Nia.” Mel didn’t bother to hide the acid dripping from her words as she tried to slow her heartbeat once more. It worked about as well as it had a few minutes prior, which was to say ‘not very’. “Should I even ask how you keep finding me?”
“Hah! You’re out here making it sound like I’m following you around or something!” Nia said with a toothy grin.
Mel’s eyes narrowed.
“Fine, fine.” Nia waved a hand dismissively. “For real, though. I like climbing trees. Gets me closer to the sky, you get it? So I’m just taking a break, you know, from important business, and decided to see what I could see from the canopy around these parts, and hey presto, here you come crashing down outta the air. When I finally meet Fate face to face, I’m gonna have to shake her hand for putting us in each other’s way so much!”
“Important business?” Mel asked flatly. She had to admit, even as much as Nia could wear on her nerves, it handily beat dealing with Genesis. “What kinda ‘important business’ are you dealing with, anyway?”
“Oh, this and that, that and this. But enough about me!” Nia leaned forward on the balls of her feet, her smile growing slyer. “I gotta know. Why the aerial escape? No, no, wait, lemme guess. You jumped outta the Silph building or something, am I right?”
“In one.” Mel rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna say it was a lucky guess, I bet.”
Nia clapped her hands triumphantly and rocked back onto her heels. “You get me, kid! Honestly, there’s some bad vibes coming outta Silph right now, so I figured you might’a had something to do with it.”
‘Bad vibes’, huh? I wonder… Out loud, Mel said, “Yeah. It’s Genesis. And their boss, who just gets creepier every time I run into her.”
“Degree Absolute is no joke,” Nia agreed, her tone suddenly more somber than Mel had been expecting. “Never met someone so… unreadable before. I’ve had a few run-ins with her myself, you know.”
“I bet. Last time I saw you was right after you were in her hideout. And now you’re out here, real close to where she’s popped up again.”
“Why, whatever are you implying?” asked Nia, an innocent smile on her lips.
Mel rose to her feet, making sure Repeat was holding on tight. “I didn’t think I was implying anything. That would mean I was being subtle about it. But I’m sure you’d just deny it anyway.” She let out a breath. “Whatever. If you’re here to be vague and arcane at me, then just go ahead and get it over with so you can leave me alone. I got stuff to do.”
With an affected look of pain on her face, Nia held her hand to her chest. “You wound me! I’m starting to think you don’t like my company, kid.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“Look, all I’m gonna say is, be careful with Degree Absolute. She’s every bit as nasty as the one in charge of that other group giving you fits.”
Mel’s curiosity got the better of her. “You mean the Neo Rockets? All I’ve run into are grunts. Who’s running the show?”
“They say it’s some guy called No.1,” Nia whispered conspiratorially.
“Real creative naming scheme they got going there.”
Nia stifled a giggle and continued. “The guy never leaves his base, apparently. Issues all his commands remotely. The kinda guy who’s ten steps ahead of everyone else, and everything that happens is part of some master plan. That’s what I hear, anyway.”
“Hmph,” Mel grunted. “It’s hard to argue with that. They already captured Janine, and if they’re brainwashing a gym leader, they must be on top of their game.”
“Seems that way, huh.”
Mel’s face wrinkled into a scowl. “I know that tone of voice. What else aren’t you telling me about them, Nia?”
“Me? Nothing!” Nia put her hands up in front of her, radiating innocence. “That’s all the information I’ve got for you.”
“Uh-huh. Then why don’t you leave me alone? I gotta go find someone and deliver some stuff.”
Nia offered up a wide smile, one that glinted in the daylight. “Whatever you say, kid. Be seeing you!” She jumped into the boughs of a nearby tree and climbed off, with only the rapidly-dwindling sound of movement through leaves hinting to her location.
A long silence settled on the route before Mel pressed her fingers to her temples. “Ugh,” she muttered. “She always gives me a headache. Wonder if I’ve got any aspirin on me.”
“I got you, boss,” Repeat said, digging through Mel’s bag. He reemerged with a small pillbox; Mel took two of the capsules inside and swallowed them dry. “So we need to find Hyacinth next, right?”
“Right.” Mel nodded. “I’m hoping they got out of the building okay. They did say that they’d find us once we got out, so I wonder if that means we should stay where we are, or if we should try and put some more distance between us and Genesis—”
“That will not be necessary, Miss Rylan.” A figure in a trench coat stepped out of the gatehouse that straddled the border between the route and Saffron. They tugged the brim of their hat lower, partially obscuring their glasses. “I am pleased to see that you made it out of Silph Co. unscathed, though it is quite disappointing that we failed to keep Bill from harm.”
“You’re telling me, Hyacinth.” Mel exhaled slowly, trying to keep her thoughts from racing away once again. “They caught me by surprise. Cornered me.”
Hyacinth sidled up alongside Mel and reached up to hesitantly pat her on the shoulder. “I don’t believe it was your fault, Miss Rylan. There is only so much two people can do against so many. We shall simply have to overcome this situation from a different angle.”
“I guess so.” Mel looked up to the sky. It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was continuing its slow march towards the horizon. A breeze rolled through the canopy, sparking a cascade of rustling. “I’m glad you’re here, Hyacinth,” said Mel.
Hyacinth beamed.
***
“So you believe you’ve found the items indicated by the Unown?”
“Yep. Check it out.” Mel, Repeat, and Hyacinth sat around a table in the corner of the Celadon Pokemon Center, where they were pretty certain nobody would bother them. The sun was beginning to set, and the normal visitors to the Center were already gone; now, there were only traveling trainers looking for a quick heal or a room for the night. Mel opened one of her backpack’s many pockets and emptied it onto the tabletop; a single plastic bag containing a CD jewel case slid out first, followed by two stones that clacked together then rolled to a stop.
Hyacinth’s glasses glinted in the fluorescent light. “Ah, just as I suspected. This appears to be a piece of amber, perhaps with remnants of an ancient Pokemon inside… and here we have a Silph Co. product. An Upgrade for Porygon, if I’m not mistaken. I am pleased to see that my hunches were able to help you. But what is this third item? This… is this a Mega Stone?” When Mel didn’t respond, Hyacinth looked up from the tabletop. “Miss Rylan?”
Mel stared at the table, the items there all drawing her focus. Her backpack slipped from her hands, rolling off of the table and coming to a rest on the floor; she reached her hands out, one to the CD and one to the Mega Stone. Pale sparks jumped between them and her fingertips as the distance grew smaller, and Mel’s eyes widened, her pupils shrinking.
A slap across the face from Repeat was all it took to break Mel from her reverie, and he swiveled around to face Hyacinth, giving a shrug as if to say ‘this happens sometimes.’ Hyacinth didn’t seem to care; they had their notebook out, scratching out notes as fast as their hand would let them.
“Sorry, sorry,” Mel grumbled, shaking her head and trying to clear the last cobwebs from her mind. She shoved the rocks and the CD back into her bag before she could look at them any longer.
“Is that something about which I should be concerned?” asked Hyacinth as they returned their notebook to a pocket.
“No,” Mel said, ignoring Repeat’s vigorous nodding. “I’m pretty sure it’s okay.”
“‘Pretty sure’?”
Mel leaned forward, bracing her arms on the table. “Look, don’t you start with me too. I get enough from this one here,” she added, pointing with her thumb at Repeat. “The way I see it, if the Unown wanted these things brought out to wherever I’m supposed to bring ’em, and I’m the one who’s supposed to do it, then it makes sense that there’s some weird mystical stuff going on with ’em.”
“I suppose that makes a certain kind of sense,” Hyacinth mused, their hand at their chin, as Repeat slapped his forehead and made an assortment of grumbling Ditto noises. “It is not a phenomenon with which I am terribly familiar, though I hasten to add that preternatural artifacts on the whole are a topic that frequently confounds me. More to the point, though, let us discuss the location to which the items must be taken.”
Mel dug through her backpack and pulled free a crumpled scrap of paper – the one that Hyacinth had left her, bearing the transcription of the Unown’s message. “Sounds good to me. ‘The isle where life begins,’ that’s what the Unown said. The problem I got with that is, don’t most isles got life on them? And if there’s life, it’s gotta be born somewhere. So there’s a lotta isles that could be called a place where life begins, right?”
A loud thud echoed through the Center as Hyacinth let a doorstopper of a book drop onto the table, though Mel could only guess where they’d been hiding it. It was weathered and ragged, and it looked like in its long life it had been through more fires than it cared to count. The only words on its cover were ‘Atlas of the World’, and then, underneath that in smaller type, ‘In Excruciating Detail.’ “Ordinarily, Miss Rylan,” said Hyacinth as they opened the book about halfway and started flipping pages, “I would find myself in agreement with your conclusion. However, in the time after our encounter with the Unown, I conducted some independent research into their words. Strictly out of personal curiosity, you understand.”
“Oh, of course,” Mel said with no detectable hint of sarcasm.
Hyacinth stopped on a page displaying a single, triangle-shaped island and turned the book around to face Mel. The artist of the map had illustrated it as mostly being covered in low grass and barren soil, with only a few scrubby trees standing out. A monolithic boulder, also shaped like a triangle, rose from the center of the island; either it was enormous or the island was tiny, and Mel couldn’t tell which. “My investigation led me to this map. If you would be so kind, direct your attention to the name at the bottom of the page.”
The text was small enough that Mel had overlooked it at first, but it was there, written in a floral script. Mel read it out loud. “Birth Island…”
Hyacinth tapped the side of their head. “I see you understand the significance. From what I have found, Birth Island is part of the Sevii archipelago, though due to its small size and relatively infertile conditions, it remained uninhabited. Now, very few even know of its existence; its appeal is mostly to those in pursuit of rare Pokemon, since it was rumored that a Pokemon from space made landfall there some time ago.”
Mel pulled the book across the table towards her, squinting at the map. “Abandoned island out in the middle of nowhere, weird unexplained stone pillar, tied to legendary Pokemon. Honestly, even if the Unown hadn’t basically spelled out the name of the place for us, I’d put money down on this island anyway. Something’s going on there.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Hyacinth grinned. “As it happens, I was hoping you agreed with me, since I took the liberty of arranging another favor for you.”
“And all you’re asking is a favor in return somewhere down the line, right?” Mel rolled her eyes, but she smiled back. “Shoot. What’d you get set up?”
***
“See, when I asked you what you’d set up, I was sorta expecting a guide or something. Not a private ferry right to the island.”
“What can I say, Miss Rylan? The owner of Seagallop owed me a favor, one that he has now repaid with aplomb.”
The ride to the Sevii Islands was much faster than the ones Mel had had in the past; the ferry, likewise, was slicker and sleeker. “Must have been a doozy, whatever you did for him,” Mel said, leaning atop the deck’s railing and watching the ocean pass by. Repeat sat inside her backpack, looking up at the sky.
Hyacinth stood next to Mel, though their height meant that they couldn’t lean over the railing so much as against it. “Let’s just say that some people take it very seriously when you locate their lost Sentret for them.”
“Can’t say I don’t understand that.”
A blast from the ferry’s horn signaled their arrival as the shore drew in to meet them. Birth Island was, in fact, quite small, and Mel could see clear to the opposite shore from where she stood. The stone monolith was no longer a feature of the island, but otherwise the map of it had proven quite faithful. Except for…
Mel squinted, trying to see the far shoreline more clearly. “Hyacinth, are there other boats over there?”
“Hm.” Hyacinth adjusted their glasses. “Yes, now that you mention it, it seems we are not alone. How curious.”
One of the boats looked to be a simple motorboat, hardly big enough for more than a pair of people at most, but the other was slate gray and looked like it would have had no problems sinking beneath the waves and traveling that way. An entrance swung open on its side, and from it spilled a group of people, all wearing identical gray outfits.
Mel’s blood chilled to ice in her veins. Neo Rocket had beaten them there.
Once he got that out of his system, Reus went on to say, “If someone is reading my notes, undecided on whether or not to jump from a window, and has gotten this far, then that person clearly has already made up their mind one way or another. With that in mind, best of luck to you, hypothetical person. Tucking your head in and rolling gives you a slightly better chance at survival.”
Mel had a different strategy, and hers was squishy, pinkish-purple, and roughly the size of her head. The window was open, she was thankful for that much, and Repeat, almost as if reading her mind, caught on to her plan immediately. She’d heard bird Pokemon milling about the Silph Co. building, and after she hurled herself out into the open air, Repeat transformed into one such Pokemon – a Pidgeotto. As they drifted towards the outskirts of the city, Mel could see Degree’s rapidly-shrinking face in the window.
Degree was laughing.
The breeze blew Repeat and Mel out to the route between Saffron and Celadon. Mel could never remember the designations of each route, but she knew that the one they were landing on was one of the smallest in Kanto. A skulk of Vulpix scattered into the tall grass as they landed, Mel’s feet alighting on the ground first before Repeat transformed back to his usual form and dropped into her arms. Mel tried to will her heart to stop pounding, but her mind kept straying back to Degree’s face right up next to hers, to Degree’s voice in her ear, to Degree just… laughing at her.
“We will be watching you every step of the way...” Mel said quietly as she stared up at the silhouette of Silph Co. in the distance, Degree’s words echoing through her head.
“What was that, boss?” asked Repeat. He shook his head as if clearing his thoughts; Mel felt relief in his mind.
Mel slid her backpack off and sat against one of the broad trees that lined the path, the bark rough against her back even through her shirt. “Oh… nothing, Repeat. I just… I mean, I…” She swallowed. The words wouldn’t come. How could she express the dull horror that was running through her, settling in the pit of her stomach, that Genesis would be watching her? Following her? That anyone she met could be a devotee of Degree Absolute? That not only had Janine been taken by Neo Rocket and then refused to recognize her, but now Bill was gone too? She’d needed to protect him, protect them, that was what she was supposed to do, but when it came down to it, she fell, she ran away—
A semi-solid pseudopod gently clapped her cheek. “Boss,” Repeat said, in a quiet voice that nonetheless cut through the fog in Mel’s mind like a knife. “Come back to me.”
“I… sorry.” With her eyes closed, Mel inhaled slowly through her nose, then let it out through her mouth. “Right. I’m here. I’m okay.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that!” The voice wasn’t Repeat’s, and that, plus a noise like something dropping from the leaves of one of the nearby trees, made Mel’s eyes shoot open. A slight woman knelt before her, wearing ratty clothes that hadn’t been improved by her time in the branches of a tree. “If you weren’t here, I’d have to start wondering real hard about where you were, kid.”
“Hello, Nia.” Mel didn’t bother to hide the acid dripping from her words as she tried to slow her heartbeat once more. It worked about as well as it had a few minutes prior, which was to say ‘not very’. “Should I even ask how you keep finding me?”
“Hah! You’re out here making it sound like I’m following you around or something!” Nia said with a toothy grin.
Mel’s eyes narrowed.
“Fine, fine.” Nia waved a hand dismissively. “For real, though. I like climbing trees. Gets me closer to the sky, you get it? So I’m just taking a break, you know, from important business, and decided to see what I could see from the canopy around these parts, and hey presto, here you come crashing down outta the air. When I finally meet Fate face to face, I’m gonna have to shake her hand for putting us in each other’s way so much!”
“Important business?” Mel asked flatly. She had to admit, even as much as Nia could wear on her nerves, it handily beat dealing with Genesis. “What kinda ‘important business’ are you dealing with, anyway?”
“Oh, this and that, that and this. But enough about me!” Nia leaned forward on the balls of her feet, her smile growing slyer. “I gotta know. Why the aerial escape? No, no, wait, lemme guess. You jumped outta the Silph building or something, am I right?”
“In one.” Mel rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna say it was a lucky guess, I bet.”
Nia clapped her hands triumphantly and rocked back onto her heels. “You get me, kid! Honestly, there’s some bad vibes coming outta Silph right now, so I figured you might’a had something to do with it.”
‘Bad vibes’, huh? I wonder… Out loud, Mel said, “Yeah. It’s Genesis. And their boss, who just gets creepier every time I run into her.”
“Degree Absolute is no joke,” Nia agreed, her tone suddenly more somber than Mel had been expecting. “Never met someone so… unreadable before. I’ve had a few run-ins with her myself, you know.”
“I bet. Last time I saw you was right after you were in her hideout. And now you’re out here, real close to where she’s popped up again.”
“Why, whatever are you implying?” asked Nia, an innocent smile on her lips.
Mel rose to her feet, making sure Repeat was holding on tight. “I didn’t think I was implying anything. That would mean I was being subtle about it. But I’m sure you’d just deny it anyway.” She let out a breath. “Whatever. If you’re here to be vague and arcane at me, then just go ahead and get it over with so you can leave me alone. I got stuff to do.”
With an affected look of pain on her face, Nia held her hand to her chest. “You wound me! I’m starting to think you don’t like my company, kid.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“Look, all I’m gonna say is, be careful with Degree Absolute. She’s every bit as nasty as the one in charge of that other group giving you fits.”
Mel’s curiosity got the better of her. “You mean the Neo Rockets? All I’ve run into are grunts. Who’s running the show?”
“They say it’s some guy called No.1,” Nia whispered conspiratorially.
“Real creative naming scheme they got going there.”
Nia stifled a giggle and continued. “The guy never leaves his base, apparently. Issues all his commands remotely. The kinda guy who’s ten steps ahead of everyone else, and everything that happens is part of some master plan. That’s what I hear, anyway.”
“Hmph,” Mel grunted. “It’s hard to argue with that. They already captured Janine, and if they’re brainwashing a gym leader, they must be on top of their game.”
“Seems that way, huh.”
Mel’s face wrinkled into a scowl. “I know that tone of voice. What else aren’t you telling me about them, Nia?”
“Me? Nothing!” Nia put her hands up in front of her, radiating innocence. “That’s all the information I’ve got for you.”
“Uh-huh. Then why don’t you leave me alone? I gotta go find someone and deliver some stuff.”
Nia offered up a wide smile, one that glinted in the daylight. “Whatever you say, kid. Be seeing you!” She jumped into the boughs of a nearby tree and climbed off, with only the rapidly-dwindling sound of movement through leaves hinting to her location.
A long silence settled on the route before Mel pressed her fingers to her temples. “Ugh,” she muttered. “She always gives me a headache. Wonder if I’ve got any aspirin on me.”
“I got you, boss,” Repeat said, digging through Mel’s bag. He reemerged with a small pillbox; Mel took two of the capsules inside and swallowed them dry. “So we need to find Hyacinth next, right?”
“Right.” Mel nodded. “I’m hoping they got out of the building okay. They did say that they’d find us once we got out, so I wonder if that means we should stay where we are, or if we should try and put some more distance between us and Genesis—”
“That will not be necessary, Miss Rylan.” A figure in a trench coat stepped out of the gatehouse that straddled the border between the route and Saffron. They tugged the brim of their hat lower, partially obscuring their glasses. “I am pleased to see that you made it out of Silph Co. unscathed, though it is quite disappointing that we failed to keep Bill from harm.”
“You’re telling me, Hyacinth.” Mel exhaled slowly, trying to keep her thoughts from racing away once again. “They caught me by surprise. Cornered me.”
Hyacinth sidled up alongside Mel and reached up to hesitantly pat her on the shoulder. “I don’t believe it was your fault, Miss Rylan. There is only so much two people can do against so many. We shall simply have to overcome this situation from a different angle.”
“I guess so.” Mel looked up to the sky. It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was continuing its slow march towards the horizon. A breeze rolled through the canopy, sparking a cascade of rustling. “I’m glad you’re here, Hyacinth,” said Mel.
Hyacinth beamed.
***
“So you believe you’ve found the items indicated by the Unown?”
“Yep. Check it out.” Mel, Repeat, and Hyacinth sat around a table in the corner of the Celadon Pokemon Center, where they were pretty certain nobody would bother them. The sun was beginning to set, and the normal visitors to the Center were already gone; now, there were only traveling trainers looking for a quick heal or a room for the night. Mel opened one of her backpack’s many pockets and emptied it onto the tabletop; a single plastic bag containing a CD jewel case slid out first, followed by two stones that clacked together then rolled to a stop.
Hyacinth’s glasses glinted in the fluorescent light. “Ah, just as I suspected. This appears to be a piece of amber, perhaps with remnants of an ancient Pokemon inside… and here we have a Silph Co. product. An Upgrade for Porygon, if I’m not mistaken. I am pleased to see that my hunches were able to help you. But what is this third item? This… is this a Mega Stone?” When Mel didn’t respond, Hyacinth looked up from the tabletop. “Miss Rylan?”
Mel stared at the table, the items there all drawing her focus. Her backpack slipped from her hands, rolling off of the table and coming to a rest on the floor; she reached her hands out, one to the CD and one to the Mega Stone. Pale sparks jumped between them and her fingertips as the distance grew smaller, and Mel’s eyes widened, her pupils shrinking.
A slap across the face from Repeat was all it took to break Mel from her reverie, and he swiveled around to face Hyacinth, giving a shrug as if to say ‘this happens sometimes.’ Hyacinth didn’t seem to care; they had their notebook out, scratching out notes as fast as their hand would let them.
“Sorry, sorry,” Mel grumbled, shaking her head and trying to clear the last cobwebs from her mind. She shoved the rocks and the CD back into her bag before she could look at them any longer.
“Is that something about which I should be concerned?” asked Hyacinth as they returned their notebook to a pocket.
“No,” Mel said, ignoring Repeat’s vigorous nodding. “I’m pretty sure it’s okay.”
“‘Pretty sure’?”
Mel leaned forward, bracing her arms on the table. “Look, don’t you start with me too. I get enough from this one here,” she added, pointing with her thumb at Repeat. “The way I see it, if the Unown wanted these things brought out to wherever I’m supposed to bring ’em, and I’m the one who’s supposed to do it, then it makes sense that there’s some weird mystical stuff going on with ’em.”
“I suppose that makes a certain kind of sense,” Hyacinth mused, their hand at their chin, as Repeat slapped his forehead and made an assortment of grumbling Ditto noises. “It is not a phenomenon with which I am terribly familiar, though I hasten to add that preternatural artifacts on the whole are a topic that frequently confounds me. More to the point, though, let us discuss the location to which the items must be taken.”
Mel dug through her backpack and pulled free a crumpled scrap of paper – the one that Hyacinth had left her, bearing the transcription of the Unown’s message. “Sounds good to me. ‘The isle where life begins,’ that’s what the Unown said. The problem I got with that is, don’t most isles got life on them? And if there’s life, it’s gotta be born somewhere. So there’s a lotta isles that could be called a place where life begins, right?”
A loud thud echoed through the Center as Hyacinth let a doorstopper of a book drop onto the table, though Mel could only guess where they’d been hiding it. It was weathered and ragged, and it looked like in its long life it had been through more fires than it cared to count. The only words on its cover were ‘Atlas of the World’, and then, underneath that in smaller type, ‘In Excruciating Detail.’ “Ordinarily, Miss Rylan,” said Hyacinth as they opened the book about halfway and started flipping pages, “I would find myself in agreement with your conclusion. However, in the time after our encounter with the Unown, I conducted some independent research into their words. Strictly out of personal curiosity, you understand.”
“Oh, of course,” Mel said with no detectable hint of sarcasm.
Hyacinth stopped on a page displaying a single, triangle-shaped island and turned the book around to face Mel. The artist of the map had illustrated it as mostly being covered in low grass and barren soil, with only a few scrubby trees standing out. A monolithic boulder, also shaped like a triangle, rose from the center of the island; either it was enormous or the island was tiny, and Mel couldn’t tell which. “My investigation led me to this map. If you would be so kind, direct your attention to the name at the bottom of the page.”
The text was small enough that Mel had overlooked it at first, but it was there, written in a floral script. Mel read it out loud. “Birth Island…”
Hyacinth tapped the side of their head. “I see you understand the significance. From what I have found, Birth Island is part of the Sevii archipelago, though due to its small size and relatively infertile conditions, it remained uninhabited. Now, very few even know of its existence; its appeal is mostly to those in pursuit of rare Pokemon, since it was rumored that a Pokemon from space made landfall there some time ago.”
Mel pulled the book across the table towards her, squinting at the map. “Abandoned island out in the middle of nowhere, weird unexplained stone pillar, tied to legendary Pokemon. Honestly, even if the Unown hadn’t basically spelled out the name of the place for us, I’d put money down on this island anyway. Something’s going on there.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Hyacinth grinned. “As it happens, I was hoping you agreed with me, since I took the liberty of arranging another favor for you.”
“And all you’re asking is a favor in return somewhere down the line, right?” Mel rolled her eyes, but she smiled back. “Shoot. What’d you get set up?”
***
“See, when I asked you what you’d set up, I was sorta expecting a guide or something. Not a private ferry right to the island.”
“What can I say, Miss Rylan? The owner of Seagallop owed me a favor, one that he has now repaid with aplomb.”
The ride to the Sevii Islands was much faster than the ones Mel had had in the past; the ferry, likewise, was slicker and sleeker. “Must have been a doozy, whatever you did for him,” Mel said, leaning atop the deck’s railing and watching the ocean pass by. Repeat sat inside her backpack, looking up at the sky.
Hyacinth stood next to Mel, though their height meant that they couldn’t lean over the railing so much as against it. “Let’s just say that some people take it very seriously when you locate their lost Sentret for them.”
“Can’t say I don’t understand that.”
A blast from the ferry’s horn signaled their arrival as the shore drew in to meet them. Birth Island was, in fact, quite small, and Mel could see clear to the opposite shore from where she stood. The stone monolith was no longer a feature of the island, but otherwise the map of it had proven quite faithful. Except for…
Mel squinted, trying to see the far shoreline more clearly. “Hyacinth, are there other boats over there?”
“Hm.” Hyacinth adjusted their glasses. “Yes, now that you mention it, it seems we are not alone. How curious.”
One of the boats looked to be a simple motorboat, hardly big enough for more than a pair of people at most, but the other was slate gray and looked like it would have had no problems sinking beneath the waves and traveling that way. An entrance swung open on its side, and from it spilled a group of people, all wearing identical gray outfits.
Mel’s blood chilled to ice in her veins. Neo Rocket had beaten them there.