Chapter Thirty-Two: You Were A Mistake

"Quinn?" The silver-haired boy tried to call for the small girl yet another time, his initial disappointment fading to a look of numb acknowledgement as there was no reaction. "It's no use," he sighed. "It's not going to work."

Next to him, Celeana cast her gaze downwards, worried for their friend—it had been hours since she'd gone missing, and she was just nine. At least, she looked that age—Quinn had always been the quietest out of the three of them, and she'd never told her much about herself.

"It's late," she muttered. As much as she wanted to continue looking, she had to admit that it wasn't the best option right now—they were tired and getting nowhere, and the police were a better option. "I hate to say this, but looking for an Officer Jenny would be wiser."

Her friend lowered his head in defeat, raking a hand through his tresses in an unconscious act of stress. "You're right," he mumbled. "I was just panicking—sorry about that. I think I'm getting dumb or something."

"You were chosen by that company for a reason," she deadpanned in reply, unamused at his forced attempt at a joke. "Wasn't it because of your intelligence?"

She slapped her hand over her mouth as she realised the sensitivity of the topic—she'd j sort of fixed that problem a few days ago, and even then she knew that he needed more time to get over it—but she was relieved when the younger boy recovered from his earlier flinch, shooting a small smile at her to try and assure the girl that he was fine.

"You press him too much," the Meowstic sneered, any trace of earlier warmth or false pity—had there been any in the first place?—now dissipated. "See? He still has to put on an act around you—he's still wary. This is what happens when you screw up at the worst times."

The blue-tressed female scowled, trying her best to lower her voice so that she didn't sound like an insane person who talked to herself. "I know that was a mistake," she whispered, "and I regret it. But we all make mistakes sometimes, and it leads to u—unfavourable outcomes."

A sigh reverberated in the hollow cavity of her mind, the figure signalling that she was done with the topic and wanted to move on. "Whatever," the Pokemon hissed back. "I am not speaking to you over such a trivial matter."

"I really am sorry for this; don't get me wrong." Her voice held a surprising amount of sincerity as she spoke, but that wasn't what Celeana was paying attention to—she was fixated on the suffocating feeling crawling over her thoughts, stifling them and muting them to a blurred numbness where all her notions had been merged together into one big, blank space.

"Lording over you like this while preaching about sameness..." At this, the coordinator could almost feel a harried sigh escaping the voice's mouth—"I know it goes against the very principal of what I'm trying to say. Still, I can justify my actions—and I'm not sorry for what I'm going to do next."

Before she could even ask what the creature was talking about, Meowstic had fallen silent, and it was like a cage-like structure of murkiness had trapped her brain—she couldn't think; she couldn't sense anything around her.

Her vision dimmed, but the fog in her mind was too dense and too dark for her to even notice that fact—her world had launched itself on a slow but sure path to a pitch-black zero.

"If a few must be hurt for the sake of Master's wish, then so be it," the Pokemon hissed in a fit of anger, watching as she saw the girl's spirit dimming to an acceptable brightness as she fell into the familiar state of sleep—the Meowstic, after all, was used to this sin.

She could now sense Ryou standing somewhere in front of her—of course, she didn't even know what a human even looked like because of her handicap, but from the scattered remainder of her memories and detailed studying, she could form a picture in her mind. A picture of words, but an image nonetheless.

"Did you h—hear that?" Mimicking the stutter of her host's voice—she knew she tended to do that when flustered or panicked—she performed a twenty-degree turn so that she was facing the boy's general direction. "I think it was someone's voice—could it be Quinn?"

The trainer lifted his head, about to respond with a no, he hadn't heard anything—but she could feel the uncertainty and hope buzzing within the confines of his mind, and that made it all the more easy to trick his senses—his hearing, especially—she tailored a faraway cry for help just for his ears.

He straightened up, straining to make out the distorted voice—and his amethyst optics lit up in an immature, rash conviction overloading his senses for a brief moment. "I hear it," he confirmed. "It does sound like a clue. Let's just take one look—it was coming from that direction."

One chance. She had one chance to lead him into her Master's trap. That was fine—one chance was all she needed to accomplish her mission.

She nodded, forcing Celeana's facial features into the most natural smile she could. "That sounds about right," she replied back, keeping her voice light and encouraging. "If we go back now and look like Officer Jenny, we might lose track of where she went."

"It's not a very good idea if we split up," he muttered. "We don't know what's out there, and we might not be able to face whatever it is alone. It might be unwise, but let's stick together for now—at least until we have a clearer idea of what's happening."

With that, he raised his head, his brain running through a split-second analysis of the maze that he had crafted. The boy was intelligent; however, they had already prepared for that.

Even a genius could fall for traps, after all, and they just had to keep that fact in mind.

• • •

He was starting to get suspicious.

Maybe it was the fact that it had seemed like an eternity that they had been walking, but that could have been tied to the numerous hours that had let to eventual exhaustion—however, finding Quinn was the top priority right now, and he had the feeling she was close.

He'd been so caught up in his own thoughts—his sharp mind had missed a fatal step. There was no doubt that, if this had been a regular labyrinth, he'd have easily figured the way out. He was always twelve—if not more—steps ahead. The practice had been drilled into him for years.

Throwing a silent curse at his brain for not having noticed—the changes had been so subtle and gradual, he tried to reassure himself, he stopped—and held out a hand to signal the coordinator behind him to halt.

"It's changing," he whispered to himself—according to his calculations, the structure of the network was too different from what he'd planned for—it was as if the concepts of logic, mathematics and physics had all been mocked and sent plunging to their graves, twisting the maze in such a way that it was now unrecognisable from his earlier predictions.

As if that hadn't been hard enough to handle, another obstacle had been flung into his path—the stone slabs that had made up this puzzle of sorts had been dissolved—he was sure they were changing into something much more sinister.

What he hadn't expected for the labyrinth to dissipate for a moment, the monochromatic hues of the maze having lightened to an eggshell white that stretched above him in the form of regular walls, taking the shape of what one would call a room.

"Wait a minute," he mouthed to the girl behind him, his senses rocketing to high alert as he realised that he recognised where he was standing. "I recognise this place."

There was no doubt the professional-like area that the mesh of corridors had transformed into was one of Devon Corporation's many offices. He did hate his home, but he'd lived in the massive company for so long that every detail of the building had been imprinted onto his soul.

It made no sense at all. This was Mossdeep. Devon Corporation's base was all the way back in Rustboro—there was no way, by any forms of reality, that they could have ended up here. This had to be fake. An illusion.

Yet, some tiny part of his brain—the one that was overrun by pure emotion—whispered in his mind; whispered that this was true and yes it was possible for this place to exist. Whispered that he was falling back into the prison of his past.

He took a few cautious steps forward, only for his progress to be halted once again—the once empty floors were filled at a rapid pace, grunts swathed in gaudy crimson uniforms blocking his path as Pokeballs rested between the crooks of their fingers.

"Team Magma...haven't they disbanded years ago?" He tilted his head in confusion, but dragged both him and Celeana back as he realised that they meant business—several flashes of light revealed an array of Numel and Zubat that leapt at them, eager to launch an attack.

Three spheres rolled off his fingertips, his Flygon, Milotic and Swellow leaping into an immediate battle stance as soon as they were released from their confines. He grimaced—he couldn't go all out here. This was an office—it was already cramped enough. He had to be careful not to destroy the entire area.

Behind him, the blue-haired girl had sent out her Greninja—since when had it evolved?—to assist. The frog-like beast padded to his Pokemon's side, ready to help out any way he could.

The battle wasn't hard at all—it was just tedious. The Pokemon seemed never-ending, but he was thankful that they weren't as powerful as theirs—the creatures that these grunts owned didn't quite have enough power to make it past two gyms.

He winced as Flygon was a little too careless with the direction of a Dragon Claw, destroying a few tables by accident—but he had no time to think about that now. Monetary damage can be fixed sometime, he assured himself, shouting out yet another string of commands in the noisy battlefield.

As Milotic helped with the defences, Light Screens and Reflects coming more often with the occasional sweeping Scald—eliminating not just Pokemon but taking part of the office with it.. Swellow and Greninja lacked the power that Flygon wielded, but they made up in speed—and they made a good enough team to take down foe after foe.

"Milotic, Scald," he muttered, a jet of water skidding halfway across the room and knocking out the last few stragglers. As he inspected the field of fallen Pokemon—most of which were being returned to their Pokeballs—he gave a curt nod to the creatures on their side, the two of them holding out their own spheres to recall their comrades.

Letting out yelps—it had been an utter defeat—who seemed to be the leader turned back to his pack, shouting a harried cry of "It's fine" and leading them back in the opposite direction, shouting something incoherent to the boy along the way.

He spun on his heel, gesturing at his partner to follow him. "I know this place," he acknowledged. "My father's office is that way—I think they might have infiltrated the entire place. I'm going to check to see if he's OK."

"Are..are you sure?" The coordinator's voice was soft in concern as she gazed in him, confused. "I mean...after everything he did to you?"

"He provided me with food and a roof," he shrugged in return, "and he was acting in interest for the company. I don't view him as a father, but he did his job keeping me alive. I should at least do something in return."

With that, he turned back, looking ahead as the lift in front of him opened—and he entered, hearing the quiet footsteps of his friend as she followed after him.

• • •

"This door is hard to break down." Ryou's voice was thoughtful. "I did have that badge, however—it acts as a pass to this room. I passed it to you, right? Do you have it?"

The Pokemon tried hard not to laugh at his words, thinking back to the time when her host had lost the item to the bunch of robbers. She pulled a few strings, quite enjoying the feeling of speaking through a human mouth—"Right."

She pretended to rummage through her back, as if looking for his key—even though she knew it wasn't there. A practiced, shuddering breath ran through her frame as she looked at him with wide eyes. "I—I might have lost it."

At his expectant expression, she sighed. "A bunch of robbers," she explained, trying to mimic what the girl would say. "They took it and ran off."

"What the—" His expression had morphed into one of panic. 

At this, she shared an inward smirk with herself—not outwards, of course, that face was showing one of anger. "Well, maybe you should reflect that it's your fault for trusting me with this—you should take care of things important to you. It's your fault—I try to care for you and you just push me away."

She gave a silent curse.—shit, she thought, I went way too far. A silent blessing went to her gift of psychic powers as she glanced at him—not through those regular human eyes, but with the feline amber gaze of a Meowstic—she had to fix it with hypnotism.

The shocked—maybe that word was too extreme—look on her face was then patched up, his expression hardening as he mumbled a reply that she was trying her best to control—controlling two humans at once was hard, and she didn't have the room to make any mistakes.

"Maybe you shouldn't have cared," he uttered. "After all, no one asked you to give a shit about me."

"I wanted to help," she argued back, veering on the defensive.

"It wasn't anything you needed to get involved with in the first place," he laughed. "Maybe all this wouldn't have happened if we hadn't met."

She glanced downwards. "So all this time meant nothing to you?"

Their surroundings faded back to the maze that they'd been standing in hours ago—and now, a new wall had begun to erect, rising up and sealing off the silver-haired boy's face from her. She was completely alone—and she threw a final sentence over the barrier.

He coughed at the darkness clouding his mind, struggling to keep his calm and the little control he had over his speech, but she was far too strong for someone so fragile. "And it—" the boy paused for a harrowed grunt, "—it meant something to you?"

He'll never be able to tell it isn't her, the Meowstic sneered. That hypnotism should be pretty effective. One cannot make correct decisions when a dark fog hangs over their mind.

"All this was a mistake, Ryou." Her voice was sharp. "Meeting you may have been one too."

• • •

You were a mistake.

It had hurt more than he had expected it to. It was what his mother used to say, every day of his life, right until she died.

The words echoed in his head, louder and louder until Celeana's voice had morphed into his mother's—his life would always be this painful reality.

You were a mistake. You are a mistake. There really was no point in ever trying to be happy. He should have known this was all a big mistake.

He did want her to care—and he didn't know what he had just done. He'd even picked the precise words that could hurt her, and he hated himself for that. It was like he was on the brink of sinking too fast —it was all he could to to keep his composure and not cry.

At heart, he supposed he was just like his adopted father. He could do nothing but hurt people. It was best to do things alone. Even when he didn't want to say any of these words, they had just came out—he didn't know how they'd slipped out of his mouth, but it didn't matter now. The damage had been done, and he was alone.

With that, no longer caring whether the girl was still with him, he continued.

• • •

aHAHAHAHA I JUST SAVAGELY

tore this ship

to fricking pieces

I feel so satisfied I can't even

this is your present for helping me reach 1K on this HAHA

(wow I went from ship tease to tearing ships apart all in the span of 2 chapters how nice of me amirite)

Besides that, thank you SO MUCH for 8.3K reads and 1054 votes! That's about a 400+ increase in reads :o My next goal is 1069!

Critiques are most certainly welcome, and don't forget to read, vote and give your thoughts in the comments! Please be 100% honest!

~ nyxia ☆