Red watches the numbers in his bank account tick up every few refreshes and tries to really internalize what it means to have over six million dollars of personal wealth.

At first pass, it simply feels… impossible. When he tries focusing, the felt-senses that come up are a lightness in his chest and a numbness around his head that, when prodded, come up with phrases like “unreal” and “undeserved.” He wonders how much of it is due to the speed and the method of his riches, and how much is just a carryover from spending so much time worrying about money.

Red’s research managed to earn him almost as much as he spent after his abra sales, which meant he had roughly $150,000 to buy up pokemon that could learn Miracle Eye… of his own money, that is. It wasn’t hard, with his name recognition, to get some sizeable loans; in fact, when one of the bankers remembered why Red first got famous, he offered to double the amount Red asked for.

“So which pokemon is it this time?” the man asked as he filled out the paperwork, clearly joking but also clearly eager for some hint.

“What makes you think it’s a pokemon?” Red responded with a smile, and made sure to highlight that part of his request in his future applications.

By the end of it all he had nearly a million dollars in loans, which felt surreal on its own, and somewhat panic inducing. He had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t a scheme that might or might not work; the price of abra and natu and male meowstic would go up, the only question would be how much. Even if he could only resell them at double the price he got them, even if he could only sell one per month, that would more than cover the interest, and those were some pessimistic estimates indeed.

So he borrowed more money, from Bill and Professor Oak and Dr. Madi and his mom and Leaf (whom he offered much higher returns to, as apology for not being able to let her in on the secret), and then asked Leaf if she’d agree to take out loans that he’d cover, which she did.

By the end of that round of funding he managed to have nearly three million dollars, and the issue he faced was one of supply. Buying up the entire market would have been hard even if he wasn’t competing with Blue and Satori, but they made a game of it to keep things from getting too cutthroat.

Timing things so that others wouldn’t notice what was happening was also important, and they first reached out to the breeding farms to secure as many backorders as they could, which got expensive quickly. There was some debate about buying up other psychic types too, as the discovery would doubtless encourage a ton of research into finding others who could learn it, but they recognized this as more speculative, even if all psychic pokemon rise in price a little. Blue decided to dabble in some of that, which left more of the sure bet for Red and Satori to buy up.

Occasionally Red felt guilty about what they were doing. He spoke with his mother about it first this time, and she agreed that as it was their direct discovery, it was a different situation than the one with the clefairy. But he could also sense that she still found it… distasteful, maybe? Just a year ago he was struggling to decide what to spend his limited funds on, and once he imagined some new trainer eagerly saving up their money for one of the pokemon that are about to skyrocket in price, it was hard not to keep thinking about how many people just wouldn’t be able to afford these pokemon after their announcement.

They ended up doing a similar deal for Rangers and Gyms, which soothed the guilt somewhat, particularly since the decision was reached before they devised their selling strategy, which began with some talks with a couple experts that were well worth their consulting fees. As he looks over the amount of money he still ended up with, the guilt starts to creep back in… along with the fear that he’s wasting it by not spending enough of it for good purpose.

It might not make sense to increase his spending proportionally, he’s not sure he can actually get good value out of ten times the spending he was doing before, let alone thirty times. But he should at least be spending twice as much as he was before he got it, realistically closer to five times as much. At the very least he could be funding more research by others.

He could also buy a female dratini under the same reasoning he used with his ivysaur and wartortle; getting a pokemon with high potential power that could also be rented out to recoup its cost in the future. Or he could just invest it directly into the stock market. He doesn’t plan to save for retirement, but if he’s not going to be spending it anyway…

And yet instead he just keeps staring at the numbers, on some level worried they’ll disappear, on another worried about wasting them.

He thinks over the mental tools at his disposal, including some of the more recent ones he practiced with Dr. Seward, and decides to try holding both emotions at once.

First he summons the memory of what it felt like to be limited by money; the worry about not having enough to buy what he needs, the longing of wanting something that was out of financial reach… then he summons the feelings of abundance he gets while looking at the numbers on the screen. More than that, he summons the feelings of… triumph, and confidence, that came from watching each step work out, one after the other, from his ideas, of watching the numbers go up over time.

Then he switches back to the worry he felt, the sense of scarcity and limitation… and now the sense of overflowing possibility. He lets himself sit with each feeling for a handful of slow breaths, sinking deep into each set of memories and emotions until he can start swapping between them more easily.

Then he holds both feelings together, side by side, as best he can, and when he finally starts to feel like the edge has been taken off of the financial worries, he takes one last deep breath and slowly lets it out.

When he opens his eyes and looks at the numbers on the screen again, the worry about spending it is still there, but not nearly as strong. He looks up the cost of a female dratini, winces, then decides to start with something smaller, but still a larger purchase than he’s made before. A few minutes later he finishes signing up for and prepurchasing one of Game Freak’s headset prototypes. The one on the site looks more advanced than the one showcased on the cruise, and he wonders how closely the final product will match it.

He feels a small stab of pain and regret upon clicking the Complete Payment button, but also some relief and excitement. He expects that it’ll get easier, and takes another breath before closing his computer and getting dressed.

Blue’s return to Saffron is by the traditional methods, which for him means riding in on Soul. Red has to admit that the scarred arcanine continues to make his friend look impressive, but if Blue had a teleport point set to the city he likely would have saved himself the time; he did, of course, fly most of the way before riding the last bit so that word of his arrival would spread by observation.

The reality of dark teleportation is that it still requires a dark trainer to create enough of a bond with their pokemon that it will understand who they are, and Blue is still working on creating one with his second abra so that it will be able to teleport with him. Meanwhile he said he plans to keep Tops’s teleport point in Fuchsia.

Blue swings down off his saddle, and Red steps up beside him to help unstrap Soul. Sunlight makes the arcanine’s fur glow in ripples along its side as it breathes in and out, and Red enjoys the warmth radiating off the large dog while Blue feeds and waters it. “None of the others came with you?”

“Some are staying for the long haul, the others are waiting behind until they get their badges. It would have been nice to get them in clusters again, but unless I can convince Blaine or Giovanni to do scenarios too, that might just stay a Vermilion-only thing.”

“No chance Janine changes her mind?”

“They’re okay with them continuing, so maybe. But she still seemed pretty against it becoming a way to do challenges when I left.” Blue returns Soul to his ball, then sighs as he takes his helmet off and runs a hand through sweaty hair, then waves at a couple onlookers across the street. “I need a wash. Mind if I use your shower before I head to the TH?”

“Sure.” They head inside and up the stairs. “So what’s the plan for Sabrina?”

Red thought his voice was casual, but Blue grins. “Itching to get back to the drawing board, huh?”

“Maybe, yeah.” Red smiles. “Planning battles out is almost as fun as doing them myself now.”

Blue laughs as their steps echo through the stairwell. “You know, on the list of things I never thought I’d hear you say, that’s pretty high up.”

“I wouldn’t have predicted it either.” He wouldn’t have predicted a lot of the ways he’s changed since leaving Pallet Town, but the way he enjoys battling is particularly surprising to him given how he’s been surrounded by it his whole life. “It’s also surprising to me how battling wild pokemon isn’t nearly the same.”

“Huh, really? It’s pretty similar for me, even more intense in some ways.”

“In… good ways?”

“Sure. It’s less predictable.”

Red wonders if they’re just misunderstanding each other. “What about the danger?”

“Oh, well that’s different. Normally I feel totally in control in battles, up until something really dangerous happens.”

“Wait, the ‘Battle Calm’ from Elaine’s game? That’s real?”

Blue turns to him with a frown as they step onto Red’s floor and head down the hall. “When did you—”

“She’s been sending us all drafts to get feedback. Each is a different copy so we can’t see each others’.” Red pats Blue’s shoulder, enjoying his friend’s rare bit of self-consciousness. “I particularly liked your Dueler’s Attitude.”

Blue tries to flick Red’s ear, but he dodges. “I asked her to tone that down, but she disagreed. ‘Artistic license,’ she said.”

They enter Red’s room, and Blue summons his eevee, then does a double take when Red does the same. “When did you buy—”

“Oh, I didn’t. Remember that work I did for the Celadon police? While we were going through buildings, we found an eevee in a ball just sitting in a room that’s been empty for years.” Red shrugs, a little self-conscious himself now. “It was really random. Thankfully it was in a plugged in charger, but there was a huge layer of dust over everything. They’ve been trying to track down its owner for the past few months, but none of the contact info reached anyone. Apparently they finally got hold of a family friend who said they passed away and had no benefactors, so the CPD decided to give it to me.”

“That’s… bizarre. Lucky for you, though.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s a little funny, because I could actually afford an eevee pretty comfortably now.”

“Okay, so it’s not too lucky. I’m so sorry for your gain.” Now it’s Blue’s turn to dodge Red’s flick. “Been going on a lot of daylight walks?”

“Yep, and made a nest of sunstones, which to be fair I would have hesitated to buy before.” They’re still not sure what exactly causes each eevee evolution, but there are some patterns that are less noisy than others. Red examines Blue’s while the two fluffy pokemon sniff at each other. “She’s gotten big.”

“Yeah, reckon she’ll be ready before I face Sabrina.”

Red’s thoughts go back to the pre-Challenge planning they did for Koga, and what that might look like for Sabrina… “So is the ‘Battle Calm’ based on something you really feel?”

“That one’s… more or less right, yeah.”

Red tries imagining what battling is like for him. The best he can come up with is his own many-mirrors-and-a-dim-room, which feels like it would be too detached to have the proper motivation or carefulness for a battle. “How do you stay motivated while not feeling things?” The two eevee’s minds feel less curiosity toward each other now, and are searching for stimulation, so Red takes out a pair of stringed wands with bright charms on the end and hands one to Blue.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure, actually.” Red considers his own surprise, following the confusion it leads him to. “I think I had a subconscious model that, without emotion, we’d just be following some logical process to decide what to do moment to moment. And maybe emotions are, like, a shortcut for that? We don’t need to reason out why we should eat if we just feel hungry.”

“That’s an instinct, not an emotion. Or… a sensation, I guess?”

“I don’t know how distinct those things are.” He bounces the charm up and down for his eevee, who just sits and watches for a pattern rather than pouncing right away. He’s not as cuddly as Red expected, and Red sometimes wonders if that’s part of why the original owner left him behind, assuming it was intentional. “We don’t need to spend time and energy reasoning out why something is bad for us if we just get scared or angry and run away or hit it, and that saved time is probably really valuable.”

“Sure, I get that. But you’re saying now that emotions are more than a shortcut, right?”

“Maybe? The more I remember what it was like to block out most of my feelings in the abra field, the more I remember how hard it was to decide to do anything. I was able to reason things out, but it was hard to care about the conclusions. I almost just… stood there and didn’t do anything.” Red sits silently with that for a moment. “What if ‘feelings’ are just another word for ‘motivation?’ What if they’re how we decide everything we do?”

“Huh. Wouldn’t have expected you to say that.”

Red knows Blue’s teasing him, but he nods. “I know, it doesn’t seem right.”

“Doesn’t seem right up here?” Blue points to his head with his free hand, then his stomach. “Or down here?”

Well, now that he pointed that out… “I mean… logically, it seems wrong. People go against their emotions all the time.”

“Nah, they just go with a different emotion.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not like we feel just one thing. You can care about someone and be angry at them at the same time, and sometimes one wins out and sometimes the other does.” Blue shrugs. “Same with things like fear and courage.”

A familiar pit forms in his stomach, mixing anger and sadness and despair, and Red almost argues that it’s not that simple… but after a moment he closes his mouth, realizing that his friend might not even be thinking of that night.

Huh. Was that a counter example right then? “Just now I was about to say something, because of a strong feeling I had. And then I stopped myself, and I don’t think I had a feeling associated with that.” Though maybe he did… caution? But it “felt” like the thought came first…

Blue gives him a look, but stays silent for a moment before saying, “I just did it too. Was going to say something, then another emotion got bigger and stopped me.”

“Got bigger?”

“Yeah, like it… rose up? Took up more space or something.”

Red also chooses not to dig into what that emotion was. Instead he reflects again on what he felt, and what stopped him. Red’s eevee finally pounces, but Red felt the intention rising a moment beforehand and bounced the charm up just before it could be grabbed. “I guess… there was an emotion there, but… if so it was really subtle?”

“Worry?”

“No. Caution, maybe. But it felt like it came from the… the top down, rather than the bottom up.”

“Huh.” They’re both silent for a moment as Blue’s Eevee continues to leap around while Red’s sits and stares again, gaze flicking around to track the movements of the colorful feathers. “So maybe thoughts can stop you from doing things, but not get you to do them. Which means you’ve wasted how much time on all that rational stuff, exactly?”

Red rolls his eyes. “I’m not saying we don’t use reason to make decisions.” He thinks back to the decision he made on the cruise, when he was shifting back and forth between becoming Sabrina’s student or staying with Leaf and Blue. “But maybe reason only works because it changes how we feel? And how we feel is… well, it’s not always explicitly rational. People have biases and bad epistemics and blindspots. But we do update, eventually, if we’re given the right data or arguments or explanations…” He trails off, less sure as he realizes he doesn’t know how that works, exactly.

“Seems like you’re trying to have it both ways. What comes first, the pidgey or the egg?”

“Well we developed emotions first, obviously. And that analogy is terrible by the way, it’s just about how you label things, eggs definitely existed for longer than—”

“So what you’re saying is there’s an obvious answer to both, which means it’s a great analogy.”

Red opens his mouth, then closes it and rubs his eyes. “My point is, if reason developed after emotion, which is a pretty safe bet… then what caused it to stick around and grow as an adaptive strategy is probably the way it allowed humans to decide things other than just following emotion? Maybe? Or like, a way to explicitly alter emotions… so how much reason influences what decisions we make could just depend on how strong the emotions involved are?”

“Hang on, I’m pulling in Leaf.” Blue takes out his phone and starts tapping. “She’s spent more time trying to convince people of things than either of us, at this point.”

Red smiles as a light fluttering enters his stomach. “Right, good idea.” He’d been wondering what she would say about all this, but didn’t want to be the first person to suggest it.

“Meanwhile, I’m going to get cleaned up.” Blue hands Red the toy wand and opens a container ball to take out some extra clothes and a towel. Red plays with both eevee while Blue closes the washroom door behind him, and there’s silence for a moment before his muffled voice comes through the door. “Hey, what’s the latest research on trading pokemon to evolve them?”

Red raises a brow. “You’re thinking of trading Tops?”

“Of course not! Just wondering if I can game it somehow.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that ever since we proved Koichi’s methods work. I still think the trading thing is mostly a superstition, there’s even more noise in the data there than with eevee evolutions. But Professor Rowan’s got some interesting papers on pokemon like kadabra and machoke, so it might have a stronger effect in different species? Still, if the mechanism is that some trauma involved in losing a trainer and getting a new one causes pokemon to grow faster, it’s not obvious what actually triggers it.” Red senses his eevee about to pounce again, but it’s quicker than he is this time, and manages to snatch one of the feathers in its teeth. He lets it gnaw for a bit while he plays with Blue’s. “People have tried to exploit it a dozen different ways. Trading back and forth, trading to people in different regions, faking their own death while the pokemon watches… nothing reliably leads to measurable changes in growth.”

“But it does work sometimes?” The shower starts running, and Blue raises his voice. “No one’s figured out why?”

“Not that I’ve seen! The data is inconsistent, and no one has a good enough explanation to try something new!”

“You should work on that next, then! It would be huge!”

Red doesn’t respond, partially because he doesn’t want to keep yelling over the water, partially because he’s not sure how he feels about it. The truth is, as fascinating as Koichi’s training method and the Miracle Eye were, they’re not the main thing he wants to be studying.

He still hasn’t had the unown dream, and he’s increasingly becoming the only psychic on the islands who hasn’t, along with everyone else in the city. The omission is becoming large enough that people are starting to notice and wonder why, and Red has to keep his partition up more and more often to not leak that Sabrina’s ex-student or friend or whatever is actually the one going around warning people about the end of the world.

And he hasn’t fully grappled with that whole thing either, of course, because it’s scary and also because he has no idea what he could do about it. And also maybe because if he takes it seriously he’ll have to stop working on figuring out where pokemon come from.

But since both might be related to unown in some way, he could feasibly still end up working on both, if he can just find an inroad. Lulie’s idea of tracking unown flight paths caught on, and the What Comes Next forums have a whole section now to show pidove tracking charts, but there hasn’t been much time to set up a formal investigation team, and the regions are still bickering over what does and doesn’t count as pokemon creation research and how illegal it should be.

So maybe figuring out how trades might cause pokemon to grow faster would be a good thing to do, but it would also just be another side project that has more to do with battling than anything. And as much as he’s been enjoying trainer battles lately, and as useful as it might be for people to be able to grow their pokemon faster, he’s still not intrinsically as excited to do that sort of research. Maybe whatever he learns will have applications and insights that go beyond it, but…

His phone chimes with his personal assistant’s tone, and he puts both toys in one hand to check the message:

Call from President Silph, as in, the President himself(!) not a sec. Says you’ve met before? and he’d “like to speak with you.” Asked what it was concerning, he just said it wasn’t what you might think(?) and that it’s “somewhat urgent”(!?) so gonna call in a minute if you don’t respond. Gave his direct number…

“Red?”

“Yeah?!” His heart is pounding in his chest, thumb poised to start calling, then realizes he doesn’t know who he’s calling. The president, or his mom first, or maybe Leaf…? “Sorry, I got a message!”

“Alright!”

Silph said it wouldn’t be about what he’s thinking of, which means it’s probably not related to his mom’s investigations, assuming Silph would assume she’d tell him about that. Which he must have, if he said it’s not what he’d think… or maybe that meant…

Leaf first, definitely. She’d know if something happened with the informant, though if the President knows anything about their collaboration…

Red buys himself more time by typing a message to his assistant to thank him, and confirm for future reference that he did speak with the President in the past. It’s common practice, apparently, for people to report a connection to get through screened calls where there is none, but Red’s a little flattered by the idea that his assistant thinks President Silph might pull that sort of trick. He leaves the rest of the question marks unanswered, then calls Leaf.

“Hey Red, I was just messaging Blue to say I won’t be free until—”

“President Silph wants to talk and says it’s about something I can’t predict and he’s right.”

“What.” Leaf is silent for a moment. “Meta-honestly, I’m not hiding anything, I actually have no idea what he wants. Call your mom?”

“Yep, gonna do that now.” He still hesitates, enjoying the excuse to talk to her, however briefly. They’ve both been busier than usual lately, and he hasn’t even had time to come by the ranch to help out. It’s not as much of a problem now that more exposure therapy groups and friends of Blue are coming by to help more regularly, but… he misses her.

He almost says that, but instead just goes with, “How are you?”

“Good!” There’s a pause. “I’m good. Busy, you know.”

“Sorry, I can go—”

“No, that’s okay! How are you?”

“Yeah, good! Busy too. Got another few offers.”

“Anywhere tempting?”

“Kalos, actually, but only because of the things I’ve been hearing about the weird ways pokemon are acting there.”

“Oh yeah, there was something about a clefairy doing something odd, right? But they do unpredictable things more often than most pokemon.”

“A jigglypuff too, and there are reports of a granbull single-handedly taking down a wild machamp.”

“Huh.” He can practically see her brow creasing as she looks up and to the side… “That seems really unlikely, unless it was a really strong granbull.”

“Right? So that was tempting, but free-T makes a lot of things tempting.”

“I’ll bet. Still haven’t gotten around to visiting home, but I’ve been thinking about it more since I’ll have one fewer teleport spot soon.”

“The Safari?”

“Yep, it’s moved pretty far beyond me now, and I can conference call in. If it wasn’t for my new friend I’d hardly travel to Fuchsia at all.”

“Right.” There’s a moment of silence, and he tries to think of something else to say to continue the conversation…

“Should you be—”

“Yeah, gotta go, later!” He hangs up, then winces at how abrupt he was. His thumb hovers over redial for a moment before he closes his eyes and bonks his head against the top of the phone and calls his mom instead.

“President Silph wants to talk and says it’s about something I can’t predict,” he repeats. “Help?”

“That fucking—sorry, Hon, one second.” The background noise disappears, and he shifts his weight as he waits for his mother to finish cursing, or going somewhere private. Maybe he should have messaged her first.

She still sounds angry when she unmutes and says, “Did he reach out to you directly?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s something he doesn’t want others to know about. Record the conversation, don’t sign anything, make sure you choose the place you’re meeting, and bring someone else with you. Not me, obviously, but maybe Blue or Leaf… no, she’s not dark or psychic…”

Red hesitates. “Some of that makes sense, but… I don’t know, it seems a little antagonistic?”

“Antagon—Red, he sicced the police on me!”

“Right, yeah, I know that, sorry, I’m not… I get that he has a lot of power, and he might be involved in some shady things, but… what if this invitation is on the level? I don’t want to set things off on a combative foot. ” He was nice to me. It’s a naive thing to say, especially given that he had plenty of reason to have ulterior motives, but on the whole Red didn’t feel like Silph did anything bad to him.

He was angry on his mom’s behalf when he heard what happened, of course, furious even. But over time it became more clear that, from President Silph’s perspective, knowing that there was in fact someone stealing information from his company and (allegedly?) attacking his employees… well, even if he wasn’t doing anything illegal himself, alerting the police that someone may be working with them just seemed like the reasonable thing to do? Losing the Silph Scope technology didn’t just affect their ability to sell as many, their stock took a dive as confidence in the company went down. Red would expect a different CEO who was totally clean to also take the same actions.

“That’s not the point, Red.” He hears her audibly take and release a deep breath. “Even if it is, you have to protect yourself.”

“But if protecting myself signals that I don’t trust him, he might not trust me either! I don’t want to defect first when all he’s done is cooperate.”

“Defect on what?” She sounds alarmed. “Did you make any agreements with him?”

“No no, sorry, it’s a game theory term.” He realizes the eevee have been gnawing on the toys for a few minutes now, and tugs up to start waving them around again. “There isn’t a specific thing that I’d be defecting on, but… let’s say he has a value of treating people neutrally until they’ve done something that hurts his company first. That might not transfer between you and me, so I might still be off-limits to any unfriendly actions.”

“Those are far too many assumptions for dealing with someone as powerful as him, particularly since they all rely on Silph sharing your values at all! I know you’ve spent a lot of time around famous people, but he’s not a Professor, or a Gym Leader. He’s a businessman, and you’re playing with fire by assuming he has the same goals you do, or will draw the same lines.”

Red bites his lower lip, thinking of a blog post he read at one point that compared two opposing theories for social conflict that people tend to ascribe to. Mistake Theory said that people who are fighting for different goals than you just have different facts or the wrong reasoning, and if you talk things out, you might educate each other and reach some consensus. Conflict Theory, on the other hand, said that people in conflict largely just have different values or are too focused on competing for resources, and no amount of rational exchange of ideas would change that.

The article talked about this in a way that made it clear that the majority of people acted as though Conflict Theory was true by default, which often led to painting their political enemies as not just stupid, but malicious. He doesn’t think his mother views everyone that way, but because of her career she’s had a lot of exposure to bad people, and it makes sense to him that she’d be predisposed to think of anyone with different goals from her that way.

He’s not so naive to think he could convince Mr. Silph to drastically change his actions, particularly if he’s actually doing things like coercing researchers into working on secret projects, or hiring renegades to steal fossils. But there are already people working to stop him adversarially… it feels like Red has a better chance of changing things by pulling the rope sideways than joining one side in a tug-of-war, especially since he doesn’t have a lot to offer in direct confrontation or espionage.

Red winces as he realizes that’s not strictly true. He could become one of the best spies in history, if he decided to use his powers that way. But he doesn’t want to, and it would require revealing the secret to others, not to mention give perfect cause for people to distrust psychics all the more.

“I get that I need to be careful,” he finally says. “But I still want to keep my options open, and some of those things feel like they close things, or limit me, or something.”

His mom sighs. “Alright, Red. Let me think for a moment.”

“Sure. And thanks.” Red is worried about too much time passing before he calls the President… the message did say “urgent,” after all.

Not so urgent that I didn’t take an extra minute to chat with Leaf, of course…

He tries to focus on playing with the eevee again, and as his pokemon pounces for the third time, the sound of the shower cuts off. Red tosses the eevee some treats and steps outside so he can take the call in the hallway.

After a couple minutes, his mom sighs again. “Okay, so the things I said before about recording and not signing anything still apply. You don’t have to choose the meeting place, and you don’t have to bring anyone. I know he’s not going to do anything to you, and if you bring someone for moral support or to be a witness… that would change the dynamic, yeah. Still, don’t let him control the pace or feel of the conversation. If you’re in his office, then he might do little things to make you feel rushed, or like he’s busy and you’re bothering him with questions, even though he’s the one that reached out to you.”

Red almost asks why she’s assuming he’ll want to meet in person, then remembers her point about it likely being a private conversation. “Right.” He remembers what Leaf said about how talking to Giovanni while he was on his phone made her feel less confident in herself, and harder to push back on things or speak what came to mind.

“Also, don’t forget how subtle status effects can be. You’ll be in his place of power, and that’s going to manifest in a hundred minor ways. Be deliberate with every question you answer and any information you give. Even the smallest feeling of ‘well, I’m not sure if I should…’ is a sign that you shouldn’t, at least not without careful consideration for whether you’re seeking his approval or trying to avoid his disapproval.”

“Okay.” He thinks he can do that, particularly since he’ll be able to look out for his partitioned self… “Is that it?”

“All the other things I was going to say would set the tone ‘antagonistically,’ as you said. You can shield from psychics, so that’s not a worry, and you’ve already told relevant people… did you talk to Leaf?”

“Yeah, she has no idea what this could be about.”

“Honestly I’d suggest you not talk to him today. Something might have happened, there could be some information he has that it would be good to know going in. But the same is true in reverse… not that he’d tell you anything he’d be worried about me hearing… Red, I have to say I just don’t think you should talk to him at all, even later.”

Red hesitates, trying to take this idea as seriously as it deserves given that it’s his mom saying it. “But if I don’t…”

“I know. Can you blame me for caring more about your wellbeing than… all this?”

“No. I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, Hon. Call me right after.”

“I will.”

Red hangs up, then downloads a call recording app, takes a breath, then another, and calls the number President Silph left for him. He doesn’t even get through the second ring.

“Hello, Mr. Verres.” The old man’s voice is as he remembers it, papery in some hard to define way, but also strong and sure. “Thank you for returning my call so promptly.”

Right. It felt like forever, but actually barely ten minutes have passed since he got the message. “Of course. I never got the chance to thank you for your advice on the cruise. It’s been very helpful to me.”

“I can tell by your accomplishments. All things considered, it was a very productive lunch. I was hoping we could have another.”

“I’d be happy to.” Independent of all the stuff that may or may not be going on, he actually would. Unless their conversation goes worse than he expects, lunching with the president was surprisingly impactful for him despite how short it was, and he’s interested in hearing more about the man’s beliefs and ideas to see if they’re as useful. “So what was the urgent matter I could help you with?”

“That’s what I was hoping to discuss over lunch, if you’re free.”

“Ah.” He assumes he’s not about to be asked to taste-test things, but this does seem to confirm that he wants the conversation to be private. “I am.”

“I’m glad. I can have a car waiting at your teleport point in Saffron, which I presume is Sabrina’s school?”

Red wonders if he should be more worried or less that Silph is taking for granted that he’d be okay with meeting at his office, and tries to think of where he can suggest that’s more neutral. The school itself is a building full of psychics…

But no, even saying he doesn’t want to meet at Silph HQ would be acknowledging things that Red thinks would set a certain tone that he doesn’t want to set. In fact, going could actually be a useful show of good faith.

“I think I can make that work… give me twenty minutes?”

“Of course. I’ll see you soon.”

“See you.” Red hangs up, then taps his phone against his leg for a moment before stepping back into his room.

Blue is dressed in fresh clothing and playing with the eevees, his silver one bouncing around in an energetic blur. “Important call?”

“Yeah. Sorry, but I have to hold off on our plans, unless you want to come with me to Silph HQ?”

Blue raises a brow. “Woah. Why?”

“Dunno, but the President said it’s ‘urgent.’ Figure he’ll want to talk privately, but if you don’t want to wait in the lobby I can always meet you after.”

“Nah, I want to know what’s going on as soon as possible.” Blue smirks. “Unless you’re going to lecture him about meta-honesty and miss out on whatever juicy gossip he wants to share?”

Red grimaces. “Yeah, I’ll probably have to. Might be a short meeting.”

“Well, all the more reason to come along then.” Blue looks him up and down. “You should change your clothes.”

“Really? It’s just lunch…”

“With one of the most powerful men in Indigo. You want to impress him, and you also don’t want to feel too inferior. Trust me, it matters.”

This is similar enough to what his mom said that Red decides not to argue further. He changes into a black button-up and takes off his hat, then combs his hair and puts on the dress shoes he bought for the press conference. After that they spend a few more minutes playing with their eevee, then go downstairs to wait for the ride.

“I’m nervous,” Red admits as they stand on the curb. “I’ve never talked to someone who might actually want to hurt people before. Maybe even my mom.” The thought of something happening to her makes a surge of blackness pour through his mind, a heavy ekans curling in his stomach, but he takes a deep breath and lets the anxiety and fear out as best he can. “What if I fuck it up?”

“Just treat it like a pokemon battle,” Blue says, hands in his pockets as he scans the road. “It’s no more life threatening than those.”

“But I know the rules in those.” Red wipes his palms on his pants, wondering if it’ll be easier with his partition up… or maybe if he tries to dim just the negative emotions… No, now’s not the time to experiment with that. The thought reminds him of his earlier question, however, which suddenly seems more relevant. “How does it work, the battle calm? I mean, if you don’t feel anything, how do you still decide things?”

Blue shrugs. “Didn’t say I don’t feel anything. I still care about winning. That’s basically all I care about, in those moments. And that guides everything I do.”

“Huh.” A truly uncomplicated, singular purpose… That would be incredible to experience in chaotic or dangerous situations. He wonders how similar it is to the “flow state” he sometimes enters while researching or exercising…

And then he realizes there’s actually a way for him to find out.

Red spends a couple minutes thinking about whether it’s a good idea to bring up, then another couple minutes deciding how. Eventually a Silph car arrives, and they get in the back seat. Red scans his ID, confirms the destination, and they’re off.

“Look,” he says as the car turns toward the highway. “This is… I know this is a big ask, alright? And I know I messed up the last time I asked something like this. But I hope I’ve grown since then, and our friendship has, and… I hope that I can ask this, now, and you’d trust that you can say no without me getting upset. But also, I know it might upset you if I ask at all, so… it feels a little risky for me to ask in the first place, so I want to know if it’s okay to?”

Blue is giving him a wary look. “You know this is that thing again, where I can’t promise not to react a certain way, right?”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“Okay. And I get that you know you’re about to say something that might be fucked up.”

“That’s… not a bad takeaway, really.” Red runs a hand through his hair, then stops himself and tries to pat it back into place. “Okay, so the thing that came to mind is… I might be able to actually copy your battle calm, if I use Miracle Eye on you and merge while you’re doing it. Like, permanently, I can save the mental state then use it in battle.”

Blue is silent for a long time, staring out the window. Red’s nervousness grows, and he almost apologizes and says to forget the whole thing, but Blue doesn’t look angry, from what Red can tell. Just distantly thoughtful.

“You know, if another battle trainer asked, it would be really hard to say yes,” his friend says at last. “Bad enough to let someone else in my head, but to copy one of my greatest strengths… it feels unfair, that someone else would get to do that.” Blue shakes his head. “But it might save their life, too. That’s what matters, right? That’s why we’re all doing this. And if I say no, if I don’t let you in my head and let you copy what’s in there… if you ever die in a wild battle I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

“Blue, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Shut up, I’m still talking.”

Red swallows and does so. Blue still doesn’t seem mad, however, and he actually smiles at Red.

“I’m not complaining. Not really. You helped give me something I never thought I’d have. That no dark person in history has had. And I meant what I said, before. I trust you. But it’s still hard to say yes. So what does that say about me?”

Red doesn’t answer, just meets his friend’s gaze until Blue looks away.

“I’ll think about it. And I’ll probably say yes. But either way, I’m not mad at you for asking. Well, part of me is, but I’ll get over it.”

Red swallows, and whispers, “Thanks.”

They ride the rest of the way in silence, until the car reaches the Silph office park. They drive through an automatic gate, then toward the main building… then past the front doors, and around the side between it and the walls surrounding the campus.

“Huh.” Blue sits up. “Ominous.”

Red feels his nervousness growing again, and one hand drops to Kadabra’s ball in case he has to get out of the car and teleport… but no, that would be leaving Blue behind.

The car finally stops once they reach a back door, where someone is waiting outside. Red takes a breath and brings his partition up…

…and steps out of the car on the same side as Blue, who’s also got a hand on his belt.

“Mr. Verres,” the man says, and frowns at Blue. “Mr. Oak. I wasn’t informed that you would be coming too.”

“I was planning to stay in the lobby.” Blue says before Red can speak up. His friend casts a disdainful looks around at the dumpsters and company car lot around them. “I guess I can hang out here instead, if this is what passes for hospitality at Silph.”

The man is frowning harder now, but says, “I’ll find somewhere suitable once I’ve led Mr. Verres to his destination.”

“Appreciated.”

The man opens the door, then leads the two inside and through some of the most opulent corridors Red has ever walked through. There are security cameras at every corner, and they pass through a scanner before reaching what looks like an exclusive elevator. It’s a short walk, but even still, Red notices that they don’t see anyone else the whole time.

“This will take you to the President’s Office,” the man says to Red, then turns deliberately to Blue. “I can lead you to a nearby break room, Mr. Oak.”

Blue gives the man an exasperated look, then turns to Red. “Call if you need me.”

“I will.” Red bumps fists with him, then watches them walk away before he takes a moment to calm himself and enters the elevator.

The penthouse is twelve stories up, but the elevator is quick, and Red barely has time to go over how he’s going to greet Mr. Silph before he finds the doors opening to let him out into a reception area with carved milotic fountains along the walls and live plant pokemon resting in pots around the couches. The receptionist is watching him, and Red approaches her quickly, shoes squeaking on the marble floor,

“He’ll be ready for you in a minute, Mr. Verres.”

“Alright.” There’s no nametag on her desk, and he realizes he never learned the name of whoever was waiting for them. Is that normal for corporate cultures like this? He realizes he has no idea, and wishes suddenly that he had a frame of reference.

Rather than sit on one of the incredibly comfortable and expensive looking couches (though part of Red realizes, with a start, that he can probably afford to have an office like this himself, now), Red wanders around the lobby examining the pokemon and registers with only mild shock that the tangela, ivysaur, cherrim, and sunflora are all shinies.

Okay, so maybe he can’t afford an office exactly like this. Not without losing a good chunk of his wealth, at least.

“You can enter, Mr. Verres.”

“Thanks.” Red goes for the door, making sure his shoulders are straight and his strides are confident, and then he’s inside the President’s office.

It’s nice.

Not as lavish as Red was expecting, but clearly expensive while still being muted about it. Thick, complex rugs, heavy, richly colored drapes, a large and solid looking dark wooden desk. There are paintings on the walls, along with a large monitor, while one of them is all glass. Without that part it would have reminded him of someone else’s office, but he can’t think of whose at the moment.

His attention is taken not by the man behind the desk, but the one standing beside him wearing a police uniform. A commissioner’s uniform, if it’s at all similar to Celadon’s.

“Thank you again for coming on such short notice, Mr. Verres.”

Red turns to President Silph, who has a pair of bamboo bento boxes in front of him, then slowly approaches, heart pounding so hard he’s sure it must be audible. Is he about to get arrested? He can’t imagine what the charge would be… so why is he so nervous? “I figured it must be important.”

“Very much so.” The President’s voice is casual, but his face is serious. “As promised, I have had lunch prepared for us. And then I and Commissioner Burrell are going to humbly ask for your help in finding a renegade, possibly more than one, that I believe is hiding in this building, under my very nose.”