Erin Springville stood in front of Wildebush Central Hospital, donning the KN95 mask that she’d become so familiar with during the pandemic. Little had she expected to need it again so soon.

This isn’t a story I ever wanted to cover again, she thought grimly, suiting up in her PPE. Feels like deja vu.

Indeed, that’s exactly what it was. A story - or better said, an Earth-shattering event, that she’d never thought she would ever witness the first time; now it was happening again.

Erin cleared her throat as she glanced at the cameraman filming her. He was adorned in just as much protective equipment as she was. They were about to enter a warzone.

“Are we recording now?” she asked her cameraman, adjusting her glasses a bit so that they wouldn’t get fogged up. Of course, this was a losing battle, considering that she had to wear the mask no matter what.

The cameraman nodded. “Recording is in progress.”

“Okay,” Erin announced with a gulp. Turning to the camera, she gave a sigh and said the following: “To a nation still reeling from the aftereffects of the coronavirus pandemic, a country that desperately needs good news due to the numerous wars still taking place all over the world…I regret to inform you that I do not bear good news today.

“The hospital behind me is Wildebush Central Hospital. Normally, it’s rather orderly, treating patients who need to be treated. But I cannot - I cannot enter the hospital at this time, simply because journalists aren’t allowed to.”

Erin thought she heard something over her earpiece. (On the other end of the line was a news anchor who was feeding her what she needed to know to cover the story.) She adjusted her earpiece in the hopes that this would make the voice more clear.

“Tell them why the journalists aren’t allowed to, Mrs. Springfield” the anchor instructed her.

“Well, simply put, the hospital behind me is a warzone. It’s not a military conflict, though make no mistake: We need all the equipment we can get to battle this disease. In fact, right behind this hospital, they are setting up a field hospital to treat some less critical patients.”

“So you expect the caseload to rise, then?”

“Of course it’s going to rise,” Erin remarked sadly. “I wish this wasn’t the case. I wish that ivermectin worked to stop the virus, but it just won’t. And it might not even be a virus - we still know very little about this disease.”

The anchor on the other end cleared his throat. About a quarter of a mile away, Erin heard the sound of an ambulance’s siren, which could only mean one thing: Wildebush’s emergency services were hard at work.

“What should the American people know about this disease? It’s just a brain flu circulating in a small New England town - why should they be concerned about it?”

Erin cleared her throat, then glared at the camera. This annoyance wasn’t directed at the news anchor; rather, it was directed at anyone who would minimize the threat because it was “no more deadly than the flu.”

“Listen,” Erin told the camera. “Even if it were no deadlier than the flu, people are trivializing the flu here. We’ve had several people die already from this disease - we couldn’t rescue them from it. It appeared to cause some encephalitis that patients aren’t always able to recover from. This should be taken seriously.”

“And how contagious is this illness?” the anchor enquired.

Erin snorted. “Evidently contagious enough to warrant all this safety gear” she muttered. “If there was no threat of creating a far greater crisis, why would I be wearing all the PPE? It’s a hot day, do you think I want to be doing this?”

“Fair point,” the anchor replied. “What is your plea to the public to get them to take it more seriously?”

Erin didn’t even hesitate - she launched into a rant, which went as follows:

“The general public might think that this happens to other people, that it’s just a small town in New England. But we are all Wildebush today. Everybody who dies from this virus was somebody’s parent, somebody’s sibling, somebody’s child, and we must not dismiss the grief that their families face.

“Moreover, it has only been a few years since the coronavirus pandemic began. All of us remember the horrors of those days, and nothing in the world would induce us to want to relive them. So please, everyone - listen when we say that this is a threat.”

“And what is the risk to the public at this point?” the anchor asked Erin. (She barely heard this question due to another ambulance siren sounding right behind her. A patient was unloaded on a gurney, crying in pain, and carried into the emergency department.)

“The risk…” Erin began. “The risk in New England should be considered high. At this time, we have to assume that the disease is widespread. Staff at Boston Logan have been instructed to conduct temperature checks on all arrivals and departures to ensure the virus has not spread farther afield.”

“So what should the public do about this threat?” 

Erin put on a sad face for the camera. Honestly, given the tragedy that was unfolding in slow motion, like a giant train derailment, this wasn’t hard to do.

“I must plead with all of you to wear a mask in public. Even if the disease is not transmitted through casual contact, it is better to be safe than sorry, particularly when sorry could result in the deaths of millions and the suffering of tens of millions more. And honestly - stay home as much as you can. None of us want a repeat of 2020.”

“Right,” the anchor stated. “This has been Erin Springfield reporting from Wildebush - an emerging threat that could very well be the next pandemic. Stay tuned!”

Erin grimaced at the words stay tuned. Just like those U.S. Senators, the network she reported for was profiting off of a disease outbreak. Not through sneaky insider trading, but out in the open - they were flat-out asking for more clicks as the American public sat in front of their screens, waiting with bated breath for the next update on the threat. 

And there was nothing that could be done to break up this parasitic relationship. People had to stay informed about world events so that they knew how best to live their lives, and the networks took advantage of that need. What a disgrace.

By now the sound of ambulance sirens was becoming overwhelming, and Erin wanted nothing more than to drive home and take the longest shower of her life. Her husband would probably want to distance himself from her, too, now that she’d been so close to such a dangerous place and might still carry the danger with her. Even if that danger was invisible to the naked eye.

I just want to be a Pokémon, she thought bitterly. Lots of children wish the same, don’t they, so that they can escape the world as it is. And I don’t blame them - covering all these crises is getting very depressing. Just like that missing-person case with the two brothers…weren’t their names Owen and Matty?

But I have to do it. I have to go into the newsroom every morning at 7:00, and I have to put on a brave face and insist that everything is fine. Well, I’ve got news for the world - it’s not fine, and it never will be!

(Insert a horizontal line here)

 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Isabel Tendai was sitting in front of the television watching the news report about the overwhelmed Wildebush Central Hospital. In her left hand, she held the remote, ready to switch the channel at any moment. In the other, she held a glass of wine.

Isabel could only watch as Erin Springville, the reporter who’d interviewed her just last week, stood before that hospital in full PPE, delivering news that she’d never wanted to hear. Nor, she was sure, did Erin.

But we have to deal with things as they are, Isabel thought bitterly, not as we would like them to be. My boys are missing - that’s just a fact. And I’d give my life for them if I had to. But…

Mrs. Tendai sighed, taking another swig of wine. The glass had been filled to the brim when she’d first started drinking it, and she was prepared to pour another if the news became too much to bear. (Admittedly, it was near that line already.)

The moment Erin mentioned the potential for the situation to escalate into a pandemic, Isabel damn near dropped her drink.

Needless to say, as someone who’d lived through COVID, Isabel knew exactly what that word meant. It brought to mind images of overwhelmed hospitals with patients lined up in the emergency departments. It brought to mind the mask mandates that all those crazed Trump supporters refused to follow. And, of course, she associated it with needing to stay home and practice social distancing, that heartbreaking process that only increased the feeling of isolation.

Truth be told, it was bad enough that Owen and Matty weren’t with her - that already set her apart from all the neighbors. But to think that they’d all be prohibited from hanging out with one another - no more book groups except over Zoom, for instance - was just too much to bear. (Her book group had, in fact, been moved remotely for the foreseeable future. Mrs. Gorrister had stated that they just couldn’t risk infecting anyone with the virus.)

If Erin Springville was to be believed (and she was, having been consistently ranked among the top ten most trusted reporters in all of New England), then this disease was no joke either. The majority recovered without lasting complications, but some of them required hospital care, and a “few” died. Sound familiar?

If this disease spreads as widely as the last pandemic, then “a few” will turn into “a lot.” That’s just a fact.

“Kevin!” she wailed.

Her husband was summoned into the living room. For some reason, he’d been in the kitchen preparing a tray of cheese and crackers. Like he was planning to host a dinner party rather than a sob session.

Kevin set the tray on the coffee table and sat down next to his wife. “Honey, what’s wrong?” he asked, rubbing Isabel’s back.

“It’s just…” Isabel began. “I can’t believe we have to do this again.”

“Considering how poorly we responded to the last pandemic, it makes sense,” Kevin muttered. “We didn’t learn a damn thing.”

“You’re right,” Isabel admitted. “But, like that’s supposed to make me feel better.”

“True” Kevin sighed. “The point is…I know how you’re feeling. But at least we have each other.”

There was something else that went unsaid there, which was: Even if we don’t have the boys.

Isabel put down her wine glass. “I’m going upstairs.”

“Why?” Kevin enquired. “Don’t you want to spend some time with me?”

“Yes. I just need to do something.”

“If you say so,” her husband replied. “If you need space, I’ll give it to you.”

Isabel left the living room and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Considering that she’d just consumed a tall glass of wine (and had hardly eaten anything all day), she felt a bit unsteady as she made her way down the hall. But she was sober enough to look into the bedroom and sob.

It was Owen’s bedroom. The bed had still not been made, the Pokémon-themed sheets strewn all over the mattress as though the bed’s occupant hadn’t cared remotely about the room’s appearance. 

Or like they had to leave suddenly, Isabel thought bitterly, realizing that this may indeed have applied to Owen.

By this time it had been two and a half weeks since the brothers had vanished. The detectives always insisted that they were doing everything they could, but it didn’t seem like enough. Isabel felt in her gut that it would never be enough - when was the last time a missing-people case lasted this long, yet had a happy ending?

Isabel kept staring at the bed. It was as if she believed that at any moment, Owen would appear beneath the sheets, wake up, then sit up and smile at her. They’d embrace one another in a giant bear hug, then talk about how happy Isabel was to see him again.

She didn’t let the fantasy go beyond that. It was just that, after all: A fantasy. She didn’t need a genius to tell her that this wasn’t going to happen.

Then she went over to Matty’s room. Whereas Owen’s bedroom contained several Pokémon plushies, Matty’s was decorated with sports memorabilia. There were numerous Red Sox jerseys from the games he’d attended with his dad, trophies from the rowing team, and so on. Isabel allowed herself a tearful chuckle as she remembered that these days, they gave everyone a participation trophy no matter how badly they’d performed. At least they’d stepped up to the plate.

And she imagined the same thing happening in this room. Matty would wake up, having recovered from his summer cold, and he’d smile at her. And then…

Isabel burst into tears, overwhelmed by the knowledge that she was fantasizing about something that just wouldn’t occur. For all she knew, the boys didn’t exist anymore.

After a couple of minutes, she heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t turn around to see whom they belonged to - there was only one other person in the house, and that would remain the case for some time.

“Honey?” Kevin asked.

“Yes?” Isabel replied, not making eye contact with her husband.

“I think you need to stop doing this,” Kevin stated matter-of-factly.

“Why?” Isabel enquired. “What if I want to?”

“It’s going to destroy your mental health. If you just stand there in front of their bedrooms, you’re going to drive yourself crazy.”

“You might be right,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I have to stop doing it.”

“Well, of course not,” Kevin said. “We’re equal partners in this marriage - I’m not the boss of you, nor do I want to be.”

Isabel gave Kevin a sad smile. “Thanks for clarifying that.”

“No problem. Anyway, I brought up some cheese and crackers - maybe we can eat them in Owen’s bedroom.”

“But then we’d get crumbs in Owen’s bed!” Mrs. Tendai remarked jokingly. As if her son would care about such a breach of cleanliness.

“Hey, what Owen doesn’t know won’t hurt him” Kevin asserted. What he didn’t say there, but hung in the room like a noxious cloud created by one of those Poison-types on Owen’s blanket, was this: He might never know.

“Fair enough,” Isabel replied morosely.

So they sat down on the mattress with the tray between them, one of them occasionally cutting off a slice of cheese and putting it on a cracker. For a brief moment, she could almost pretend that they were in fact at a cocktail party having appetizers. 

Of course, the key word there is almost.

As the couple gradually yet steadily polished off the platter, Isabel couldn’t help but realize that the cheese tasted incredibly bitter. The crackers, too, were basically cardboard in her mouth.

“I know you’re upset, Isabel. And I am too” Kevin stated.

I didn’t need you to tell me that, Kevin. It’s not exactly a secret that we’re both distraught.

“But moping around all day won’t bring back our boys. It just won’t. So we have to both be strong at all times, no matter what happens.”

“But it’s hard” Isabel all but wailed, cutting another slice of gouda.

“I’m not going to deny that, honey. But we can do it together.”

Just then, the smartphone on the bedside table vibrated, indicating that a call had arrived for Isabel. “I’ll get it,” she said.

“Are you sure, honey?” Kevin enquired. “If it’s too hard for you - “.

“It isn't,” she insisted. “I have to live my life, you know.”

Isabel glanced at the caller ID displayed on the screen of her smartphone. She didn’t need to look at the phone book to know that the call was in fact from the local police department.

Her heart didn’t exactly leap, but it felt a little lighter as she swiped to answer the call. “Hello?”

They have an update. There’s a lead. That’s why they’re calling me.

“Is this Isabel Tendai?” the woman on the other end asked. It sounded like Officer Gloria, the woman whom Isabel had talked to at the parade.

“Yes,” Isabel replied weakly. Are they actually going to find our boys after all? How amazing that would be!

Still, she couldn’t let her hopes get too high. If, after all, this was not the reason for the call, her mood would sink like a stone statue.

“Are you busy right now?” Officer Gloria asked.

Isabel almost laughed. She would have laughed if not for the sheer gravity of the situation, but as it was, she could only manage a slight whimper. She wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself for allowing even a trace of levity.

Why does she think I’m busy? Aren’t we all stuck at home now?

“No,” Isabel answered. “I’m not.”

“Noted” Officer Gloria responded. “Well, in that case, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

Isabel’s breath caught in her throat. The hope she’d harbored for the last minute withered away like a flower wilting in the summer sun. She was also vaguely aware of Kevin glancing at her, scratching his beard in the process. But that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that bad news was about to arrive. And she didn’t know if she could handle it.

“What is the bad news?” Isabel asked frantically. “Whatever it is, just tell me, okay! I’m an adult - I can handle it!”

“You deserve to know the truth. If it isn’t realistic to expect a resolution in the near future, then it isn’t realistic, and I’m not going to keep you guessing when nothing is likely to fundamentally change.”

“Just get to the point!” Mrs. Tendai wailed. “Are they dead?”

“As far as we know, that is not the case” Officer Gloria responded curtly. “Indeed, that is all we are going to know for some time.”

“Are you closing the case? You can’t do that!” Isabel exclaimed. “Listen, I need my sons here with me, safe and sound! I don’t care if you’re burned out from doing your jobs, you still have to do your jobs!”

“I know it’s hard to accept,” Officer Gloria continued, “but due to the outbreak, we are going to have to suspend the search for now. We do not know when we’ll be able to resume, but it isn’t safe to be conducting these efforts in person.”

“Surely social distancing can be maintained while doing these searches, though?” Isabel enquired, not remembering exactly how such cases had worked during the last pandemic. 

“It would compromise our efforts,” Officer Gloria replied. “Mrs. Tendai, I know this is hard to hear. I know how difficult it is to accept - “.

“Who said I was accepting anything?” Isabel retorted. “Quite frankly, I don’t accept that! I think that the police department is shirking its responsibility to look for my sons. They’ve been gone for two and a half weeks - seventeen days if I can count - and…”.

“That only makes it a lower priority, I’m afraid” Officer Gloria said softly. “I’m telling it like it is, Isabel, but the police have to deal with cases that are given higher priority during a crisis like this. Right now, the missing family case is just that - a missing family case.”

“But you don’t understand,” Isabel replied. “If it were your family, wouldn’t you want something to be done?”

“Of course I would, Isabel. But that doesn’t change the way the world works. Again, I am terribly sorry for that, but…”.

Isabel felt white-hot rage filling her body. She was ready to fling the phone, that metaphorical representation of Officer Gloria, on the floor. She knew it wouldn’t actually harm the detective, but it would be viscerally satisfying for about five seconds before it left her emptier inside.

“You’re not sorry!” Mrs. Tendai shouted. “If you were, you’d do your jobs and locate Owen and Matty! They’ve been gone for seventeen days! They could be anywhere right now, being tortured and skinned alive, and you’re just doing nothing!”

“Well,” Officer Gloria replied, “you just proved your own point. It’s been seventeen days. Like it or not, Mrs. Tendai…”.

“You can’t give up! Owen and Matty can’t afford for you to give up!”

“We aren’t going to give up,” Officer Gloria insisted. “At the same time, however, we must be realistic about which cases we are likely to get leads on in the near future. For now, there’s no reason to think that this is one of them. Once again, I’m terribly sorry, but this is how it has to be.”

“No…” Isabel sobbed.

Officer Gloria hung up a few seconds later, leaving Isabel just standing there holding her lifeless phone. And it was about to become even more lifeless.

“I’m going to destroy this phone” Isabel mouthed.

“That’s a very bad idea, honey,” Kevin insisted. “If you do, the police won’t be able to contact you when they have another update - they’ll have to call me instead.”

“So what?” Isabel all but shrieked. “They are beyond useless! Every last one of them! If they’re not going to work during a little brain flu outbreak, what good are they?”

“To be fair, none of us can,” Kevin mumbled. “At least, not in person. Just the essential workers.”

Ah, yes. Essential workers. Only in America can you be essential enough to work in person during a plague, yet also expendable enough to be paid less than minimum wage for doing so. What a wonderful country we have!

But she didn’t let herself sink into a political rant. Instead, Isabel took a few deep breaths, following a routine many experts advised.

“I just don’t understand,” she sighed. “Whenever you hear about a horrific crime in the news, you always think that’s the type of thing that happens to someone else.”

“Well, it is,” Kevin remarked. “It’s just that we’re all someone else to someone else.”

“Ain’t that true?” Isabel muttered. Then: “I think I’m going to head back downstairs?”

“Why?” her husband asked. “Don’t you want to hang out with me?”

“I’d love to,” Isabel said. “But I think I’ll need some more wine first.”

(Insert a horizontal line here)

 

OWEN’S POV

 

I wasn’t sure exactly how much time passed. At a certain point, every day seemed identical to the last, so what was the point in even counting them?

Slowly but surely, the overarching facts of my situation - I’ve become a Shinx, I’m stuck in an underworld of Pokémon, and my brother’s locked up in a jail cell - went from shocking to normal. At least, I lived my life as though these events happened every day, simply because they had become everyday occurrences.

Each morning, I woke up next to Cassius. By now I’d managed to tamp down on my habit of sneezing my head off, so I didn’t get on his nerves nearly as much as I had in the early days. Still, there were a few times when I felt like he was losing his patience with me, and I wondered: Why?

I ate breakfast in the mess hall with the other residents, including Banditt, who always eyed me with what seemed like suspicion, and Theseus, with whom I had an unbreakable bond. At least, I liked to think it was unbreakable after I’d opened my heart to him. (We hadn’t spoken of it since that night.)

After a loud, sometimes awkward breakfast in the mess hall, it was time to go to work most days. Well, every day but Saturday. And that’s exactly what I’d do, following the path from the guild hall to the mines, which I’d come to know almost by heart at this point.

I’d work my tail off with Aikan Tepig, slowly but surely growing calluses on my paws. Before long, I’d be a digging expert, not that there was much expertise to be gained in that profession. As a task itself, digging was as simple as they came.

Saturday was, of course, an exception to that rule. That was the day of the week on which I attended church with those of us who were required to work on the other days.

Increasingly, I comforted myself by remembering that I only had to do this for a few more weeks. After a month of hard labor, I’d be free to do whatever I wanted during the day. Maybe I’d be able to continue my friendship with Aikan, maybe not, but either way, I would be free.

And yet, there was something about the job that I found rewarding. Not because I gained anything from scraping up dirt and searching for gemstones; on the contrary, it was hard to believe there was any reason for the work to exist. They said it was to power the light orbs, but I’d seen many of those, and they didn’t appear to have any spaces for batteries.

No, as far as I was concerned, this was strictly a punitive practice. They were determined to make me pay for my jaunt through the maze, even though I’d already (temporarily) paid for it with my health.

Even so, the more exhausted I was from the hard labor, the better I slept, and the fewer nightmares I had. No longer did I subconsciously scream my brother’s name, leading Cassius to wonder exactly what all the ruckus was about.

Had Theseus told Cassius about Matty? I somehow didn’t think so.

In any case, Saturday rolled around one week, and it found me sitting in a circle with some of the other workers analyzing a passage from the Book of Catastrophes. (Funnily enough, this excerpt extolled the virtues of a hard day’s work, which made me wonder if this was an intentional decision on the priest’s part. After all, most of today’s congregants worked in the mines.)

I couldn’t have told you the others’ names if my life depended on it. Quite frankly, the content of the sermon was also overshadowed by what happened afterward.

The police down here are planning something for the surface, I thought frantically. And my family is going to suffer if I let them go through with it. Therefore, that cannot be allowed to happen. And thus, I have to make sure Father Labrador knows about it.

But does he already know? Will I only make him suspicious of me? That’s not what I want! 

Moreover, what if he is aware of the effort and supports it? In that case, I might get Banished to the Second Level!

I only had a few seconds to weigh my options once the sermon was over. Eventually I made a decision that I hoped could be considered noble. In reality, it was at least partly selfish - if I didn’t even try to save the Earth, I would have a difficult time living with myself.

“Hey, Father Labrador?” I enquired, stepping up to the Pyroar’s side.

The priest glanced down at me. “Remind me your name, again?”

“Owen” I responded. “Owen Shinx.” Weird to use “Shinx” as my last name and not “Tendai.” I guess that’s just how it’s going to be from now on.

“Right, I remember you” the Pyroar replied. “What’s going on?”

How do I word this as delicately as possible? He’s not going to appreciate it if I jump right in, but I have to convey the gravity of the situation. We’re talking about my family here, as well as billions of other people.

“There’s no way around this - I have to tell you something” I said sheepishly.

Father Labrador grunted. “Well, say it.”

With a deep sigh, I went for it. “I need to get to the surface.”

The Pyroar snorted with laughter. “Good one, Owen. You need to get to the surface because…why?”

“You wouldn’t get it” I muttered, losing my nerve right then and there.

“On the contrary,” Father Labrador replied, “I understand. You’re very misguided, Owen - that’s what you are. You don’t seem to realize what the consequences will be of reaching the surface - the population up there is just plain evil.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Evil.”

“Their depravity knows no bounds, Owen. I can’t imagine why you’d want to visit the land of the humans, especially after everything I’ve tried to teach you at Saturday school.”

“Maybe I’m just curious,” I mumbled.

“Even so, Owen, that’s a want, not a need. Can’t you see the difference, or do I have to explain it to you like you’re five years old?”

I gritted my teeth. “It is a need, Father Labrador. Haven’t you heard what they’re planning to do to the humans? They want to decimate them with a lethal virus!”

Father Labrador grimaced. “That’s ludicrous, Owen. But even if it were true, so what? Humanity doesn’t deserve to live anymore!”

A chill ran down my spine as I heard those words from the priest. It wasn’t just that he dismissed the rights and lives of humanity, but that he did this so casually. 

And that’s when I knew: Father Labrador was not sympathetic to my cause. To him, the potential lost lives of those on the surface weren’t merely unfortunate collateral damage. Rather, he reveled in the thought of ending them and taking over all human nations, claiming Earth as their own.

I don’t even know why I’m continuing this conversation. He’s not going to help me. If anything, I’m only putting myself in more danger by talking to him.

Still, I figured that even if he didn’t want to help me, I might be able to trick him into doing so. Maybe I wasn’t the best manipulator, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t glean something of value from him.

“If someone were trying to reach the surface,” I enquired, “how hard would it be?”

Father Labrador grumbled. “As far as I’m concerned, Owen, that’s a meaningless question. It is impossible to reach the surface, so I guess it’s infinitely hard.”

“But then how would the virus reach the surface? There has to be some channel between here and the United States.”

The priest grimaced, then took a step back from me. For a moment, I wondered if I’d managed to scare him. (Should I have wanted to do this?)

Either way, when Father Labrador next spoke, it was in a booming tone that a zoo lion would use if it could speak English.

“I don’t know how you know that!” he yelled. “In fact, I’m not even sure you do know that!”

“Well, I do,” I said flatly. “I know what the police here are planning.”

“You shouldn’t!” Father Labrador bellowed. “You need to stop inserting your Shinx nose where it doesn’t belong! This conversation never, ever happened, and it won’t happen again! Now get out of my sight before I lose my temper even further!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. The preacher, who was normally fire-and-brimstone even at the best of times, clearly meant it when he expressed his fury with me.

So I made my way back to the guild hall, where Theseus was waiting. He was staring at a small field of pennybuns.

“Watching them grow, huh?” I enquired calmly. (It’s all relative, of course; as calmly as I could after my shouting match with the preacher.)

The Umbreon frowned at me. “Yes? I mean, it happens very slowly. You could almost convince yourself it’s not happening, because you never see it growing.”

“Right” I muttered, wondering what the point of this was.

“But you come back the next day and it’s a couple inches taller. And that makes me wonder: When does it grow?”

Quite frankly, I had little interest in such philosophical pleasantries. I had a job to do - namely, to inform Theseus about my fruitless talk with the priest.

“Hey, Theseus?” I asked.

The Umbreon’s ears perked up. “Yes?”

“I told Father Labrador about the plot” I mumbled.

Theseus gasped. “What plot?”

I briefly filled the Umbreon in, telling me what the Pyroar priest had said, yet downplaying precisely how he’d said it.

When I was finished, Theseus put a paw in front of his face, shaking his head.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” he remarked.

I grimaced. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem to realize, Owen,” he continued, “that some information is supposed to be confidential. There are things you shouldn’t tell others - nobody needs to know about them.”

My heart dropped. “But I think this is an exception, isn’t it?”

Theseus’ red eyes narrowed into slits, much like those of one of the hundreds of snakes in the Labyrinth. That was almost as horrifying as Father Labrador’s temper, because it was the Umbreon’s equivalent of the classic parental punishment line: I’m not mad, just disappointed.

“Maybe not,” I mumbled.

“It doesn’t matter how much you care about the people on the surface, Owen” Theseus chastised me. “You need to realize that most of the Pokémon down here don’t give a shit. They just don’t give a shit, and why should they?”

“Because they’re fellow living beings?” I enquired. “And they should share the Earth with one another?”

“That’s a nice sentiment,” Theseus muttered, “but it ignores everything that’s happened throughout the last few centuries of history. We didn’t turn against the humans for the sake of it - they turned against us, poisoning the planet just for the sake of a quick buck. We’re better than that.”

“How much better, if you’re going to commit genocide against the humans? Effectively that’s what it is, you know?”

“That word is thrown around so often that it’s lost much of its meaning” Theseus snapped. “This isn’t genocide. It’s reclaiming what we deserve to have, and what humans have waived their right to through their destruction of what they claim to care about.”

“But we’re doing things to save the environment,” I protested. “There’s the Green New Deal, even though it didn’t pass, but it still might - “.

“Nobody cares about that,” the Umbreon grumbled. “We’ve been taught about some of the things going on up there, Theseus. Anything you do to protect the environment…it’s a half-measure. It’s just lip service. It’ll never be enough!”

“Maybe it’s not enough,” I admitted, “but isn’t the effort what counts? Theseus, my parents are up there, and I can’t let them die!”

Theseus laughed humorlessly. “Everybody’s going to die someday, Owen. Nobody lives forever, but if the humans have their way, they won’t live much longer at all.”

Theseus doesn’t support the humans either. I mean, why should he? He isn’t one of them and never has been. But doesn’t he at least care about my family?

When I didn’t say anything for a while, Theseus sighed. “Look, Owen - you’re playing with fire down here, you know that?”

“How so?”

“Because you’re telling people who’ve got no reason to agree with you about one of your pet issues. There’s a reason they always say you shouldn’t talk politics at the dinner table - it only leads to fights.”

I narrowed my eyes. “We weren’t at the dinner table, Owen. It was the only time I could talk to Father Labrador.”

“That doesn’t even matter, and I think you know that. What matters, Owen, is that you’re putting yourself in grave danger. And if you care about your brother at all - “.

“Don’t even think about bringing Matty into this.”

“I’m not threatening your brother,” Theseus insisted. “I’m merely stating a fact, which is that the authorities down here tend to shoot first and ask questions later. And they also believe in guilt by association. Matty’s innocence wouldn’t save him.”

“Whatever” I muttered. “One way or another, I want him to be free.”

“Unless you want to end up in jail with him, Owen, I wouldn’t recommend trying to bust him out of there” Theseus asserted. 

“What if I succeed?” I enquired, not caring how much risk this question carried for me.

“You just don’t understand, do you? The two scenarios aren’t success and failure.”

“Then what are they?” I bellowed breathlessly.

“You can either sacrifice your freedom in a vain effort to save your brother, which would end up with you in a cell with him. Or you can give up this dream of yours and choose to live in reality.”

“And the second option involves abandoning any effort to rescue Matty” I said.

“Yes. To be fair, you’ll only add yourself to the rescue if you go with the other option” Theseus stated. “Not that there would be a rescue - the rest of us know better.”

“I don’t accept that.”

“It doesn’t matter if you accept or reject that notion, Owen - it’s true. You cannot free your brother, so you might as well not try. Just live your life” Theseus stated earnestly.

I swiveled away from Theseus, looking down at the bustling city of Ketchum below us. It was full of Pokémon who’d never heard of myself or Matty, who might not even be aware of the genocidal plot being considered in their name. 

“No,” I replied tearfully. “I can’t.”

Theseus sighed. He took a few steps until he stood next to me, and this is what he said:

“You’d be surprised at what you can do, Owen, when you put your mind to it.”

“But you think I can just give up my plan to rescue Matty? Brotherhood doesn’t work that way, Theseus.”

The Umbreon sighed yet again, then glared at me: “You don’t get it, do you? Anyone who aids and abets your plan will be in danger too if you’re caught. And you will be caught, because the hills have eyes here.”

I grimaced. “Are there cameras here?”

“I’m not sure, but don’t give them any ideas” Theseus snapped. “Please, Owen…just deal with it.”

Choking back a sob, I turned away from the Umbreon once more.

“If I were in Matty’s position, I would not want my brother to lose hope of rescuing me from that plight. I can’t leave him hanging, Theseus. I just can’t.”