Hard Enough - Chapter 342 - Silph Co's shame

Maren’s list of potential sites that might have something going on hadn’t resulted in us finding something straight away but it did give us new targets to investigate. 

Some of them were simple corporations running shady tests that they didn’t want Indigo oversight on. I passed messages along to various authorities regarding those. 

In the past we might have leapt into action as Heros Black, Yellow and Green but right now we were on something of a time crunch. 

We only had a few days before the looming festival which felt like a slowly creeping deadline for a serious event judging by how Sabrina’s nights were going.

Each night I’d awake to find her twitching only to shift into slow tears that left her feeling mopey. 

One morning she gave me an absolute heart attack when she walked out and displayed a pregnancy stick.

“It wasn’t that,” she muttered as my mind, body and soul lurched. 

“Huh?” I glanced up. “It wasn’t… no wait go back. You thought you might be pregnant?” I asked.

Sabrina nodded. “I thought it might be something I was literally overlooking. Yes we take measures, but there is still a thousandth of a percent chance something might happen.

I nodded, making reassuring gestures. “Yes, that’s true,” I murmured. 

Sabrina gestured at the stick. “So I thought I might investigate it. My mother has written records that when she bore me she had lots of visions. I was wondering if perhaps there might be another reason for why I was feeling the way I did.” 

“Oh,” I stated. That actually made a lot of sense.

Sabrina nodded before shrugging. “Well, it hasn’t happened yet but I have no doubt it will in the future so nothing to worry about there.”

I blinked, still caught thoroughly wrong-footed at how this morning had begun. 

Hmmm it had started normal enough as things went.  

I glanced to the side and found Kirlia watching us both from over the top of her cereal bowl while various forks and knives were being juggled telekinetically behind her.

I rubbed my head. “I’m going to need a moment to mentally recalibrate,” I said as I double checked the pregnancy stick, just in case it had changed in the few seconds I’d had my eyes away from it. 

Nope, still negative. 

I nodded. Right, cool cool, cool.

I fidgeted, unsure how I should feel. Should I be disappointed? Relieved? I weighed each feeling for a moment before pushing it to the side. It hadn’t happened. Fact. 

It would happen. 

I glanced at Sabrina and held back a chuckle.

Pretty much fact. Especially with a psychic as strong as Sabrina saying it.

Which made me feel like I should be having certain emotions but…

No, stop that.

Right now it didn’t have to mean anything.

Actually, let’s just take it as a good thing. I’d be a mess if we had to go into a potential big fight while knowing Sabrina was pregnant.

Sabrina continued to drift back and forth, a thoughtful frown in place showing her mind was elsewhere and probably entirely unaware of the shock she’d just dropped in my lap.

Somehow that just felt wrong. I toyed with the idea of suggesting that I’d like twins first, just to take a shot that might rattle her thoughts like she’d rattled mine.

Buuuut that didn’t sound like such a good idea on second thought. Honestly it was the sort of thing Sabrina would consider for a moment, blink languidly and then nod before moving along with what she was doing while making a mental note of it.

Then she’d do it and remind me of the fact later on.

“What sort of dark type legendary pokemon are there?” Sabrina asked suddenly. 

“Oh? Uhm Darkrai is the most prominent, but then there is also Yveltal, “ replied as I tossed around other Legendary pokemon. There weren’t any others to my knowledge but again, Glimmet demonstrated that my pokedex knowledge was far from complete.

“If dark types are the first thought you have regarding potential blocking,” I mused aloud. “Perhaps we should sleep in different beds for a night or two?” I suggested. 

Sabrina shook her head. “There’s no leak of your dark energies here and it hasn’t been an issue in the past. Remember I had no issues with Scrying the Mt Silver incident. As much as you can be a blind spot for me, you’re not actively or passively blocking my efforts.” Sabrina waved her hand at my body. “Also you’re actually leaking less Dark type energy than you would at home. Did something happen to help elevate your mood?” she asked.

That got another slow blink from me. “I mean, I guess I had a long overdue chat with Lola.”

“One of many, I’m sure,” Sabrina added and I nodded in agreement. 

“Yeah, but regardless of that… it felt good to push her a bit. It seems like she hasn’t cracked from the pressure either from what Yolanda is telling me.”

“That’s good,” Sabrina offered with the tone of one that truly didn’t mind either way. Which for Sabrina was probably the right assumption. She wouldn’t care if Lola ‘vanished’ one day. She’d just help me pick up the pieces and get on with our lives.

What she would care about was how it would affect everyone else.

I shifted back in my seat and drummed the table with my fingers. “So I don’t think a Dark Legendary pokemon is involved… nor are you being locally impacted. So…” I tilted my head.
“Can you scry Lugia currently?” I asked. “Or Mewtwo for that matter?”

“Mewtwo yes,” Sabrina said. “But he would be aware of my doing so, and the distances involved would make it significantly weaker than if I were in Kanto or in Rota.”

“Huh, okay, good to know.” I made a circling gesture. “Is Lugia perhaps the issue?” I suggested.

That made Sabrina pause and consider the issue. Another Psychic, especially one as powerful as Lugia would have impacts on scrying the future so it stood therefore to reason that Lugia might be impacting it.

Sabrina groaned. “I hate when I get an abstract premonition.”

I moved to wrap her in a hug. “Hey, let’s keep looking into the bases that Maren provided for us alright? We still have five or six more sites to hit up.”

Sabrina sighed. “At the very least if the current trends continue, we’ll be shutting down some illegal pokemon testing facilities,” she muttered. 

“That’s the spirit. It’s not a big win but small wins can still make the world a better place as well!” I announced with as much forced pep as I could.

Sabrina gave me a highly unimpressed look and I just grinned harder at her. Sabrina eventually relented with a snort.

The first base of the day ended up being nothing more than a distant weather monitoring outpost on what amounted to an outcropping of rock. 

How they gathered anything worth recording was beyond me as the facility was lashed with wind and surf, but the scientists inside seemed happy enough pouring over the information they had according to Sabrina.

The second site ended up being much more interesting. 

It was a small island that was so far away that just reaching it had taken Sabrina three Teleports. 

It wasn’t in range of being under the Orange Archipelago jurisdiction by any metric and it had been a site we’d been interested in for a while, but we’d decided to knock off the low hanging fruit first as this, and any other sites we visited were going to take a few jaunts and therefore more of Sabrina’s energy to reach.

We landed on the beach with Sabrina leaning heavily on me. “I don’t have any issues detecting various parts of the island,” she commented.

“Always a good start,” I replied as I kept my head on a swivel for any traps or lurking pokemon looking to make a meal out of us.

Selene came out along with Alakazam as we made our way up what had to be an extremely worn down trail leaving into the heart of the island. 

I knelt when we’d gotten a few hundred metres in to judge the wear and tear. “There’s obvious tire tracks and what feels like old concrete here,” I offered as I dug my fingers into the soil. “But nothing has been over this for months if not more,” I muttered. 

Sabrina nodded slowly while panning her head around. 

“There aren’t any pokemon here,” she announced which caused me to frown. 

“None? Not even a Wingull or a Ratata?” I suggested. 

“None,” Sabrina said slowly. She turned to Alakazam. “Alakazam feels fine but there is a lingering feeling like he doesn’t want to be here… Like the land is wrong,” she muttered.

I frowned. An island without any pokemon and that actively seemed to repulse them, even if gradually, that was still a red flag location. I released Titan and fed him my impressions of what was going on while slipping through the bond to experience the sensation for myself.

“....it’s rather faint?” I suggested after a minute of just lingering in the bond. I then shifted to Selene only to find that it was slightly more present to her. “Hmmm.” I drew out Hypnotoad’s pokeball. 

The feeling she got was similar to that of Selene. “I think Dark type pokemon are more resistant to whatever is causing the effect.”

Sabrina eyed me pointedly and I shook my head. “I have no recollection of anything that I’ve ever encountered that would make pokemon not want to settle in an area.”

“Hmmm,” Sabrina stated. “Uncharted territory, except that a corporation paid Maren to transport supplies here for a time.”

I gestured in further and Sabrina and I continued to walk. I had to admit that without pokemon around causing ambient noise the forested path we were walking through just sounded… wrong.

It was like when a large predator had emerged and caused everything else to fall silent. 

Which did nothing good for my nerves but again it wasn’t the case as this was just an absence of pokemon.

I flicked a look towards Titan and he nodded, also aware of the oddity before tapping his chest and smirking. “Taaaar,” he rumbled.

I huffed a laugh. “Yeah, you’re right buddy. You are the biggest and baddest predator around,” I remarked.

That had Sabrina and I relaxing. Yes the situation was off-putting, but we’d been in other situations like this… sort of, before. 

The forest path led us right up to a set of ruins that we had to be practically on top of to notice. The forest itself had started to close in but there was still a notable demarcation around the building where walking paths might have been.

The grass was what truly obstructed the building with weeds growing rampantly all over the place. 

If there weren’t any grass type pokemon around, then this regrowth meant it had been at least a few months no?

I noted that almost all of the tree trunks around the building had still visible burn marks on them. I began snapping pictures for later review. 

I might not know plants but I knew that the marks still being present indicated two things, a potential timeline for when the fire had taken place, along with the intensity of the fire.

A slow pan around the surroundings made me suspect that it had been intense.

The canopy itself was still turned away from obscuring the ruin, which would usually have meant that flying types or other pokemon would have made the ruins their home, but again the repulsing effect was in play. 

I checked with Titan and Selene to see if the feeling of repulsion was coming from the ruins only for them to both deny it. They instead indicated the island around us which drew another slow ‘huh’ from me.

Curiouser and curiouser. 

I indicated the ruins and Sabrina nodded. We made our way carefully into the building, floating off the ground to avoid any nasty pitfalls or traps that might be lingering. 

We moved through the building with only Selene and Alakazam following us. Titan stalked around the perimeter, sniffing the air and checking things out there. 

“It’s rather large isn’t it?” I asked as we floated through yet another room only to come upon a huge machinery workshop. 

Around the room various slagged metal piles sat while nuts and bolts were strewn across the floor.

 Sabrina rotated us so we could take it all in. 

“It’s some sort of mechanists workshop?” I suggested.

Sabrina hummed and approached the destroyed machinery. There were multiple robotic arms that could be pulled down to either hold, weld, or press things into shape from what I could see. It sort of reminded me of a hundred armed being, with how the arms could come from multiple different angles.

“What would you need a machine like this for?” I voiced.

“Pokeballs,” Sabinra said as she shifted a pile of debris and a manual was revealed, damaged, burnt at the edges but just barely legible. The manual floated up and she extracted page after page of technical information.

I gave the room another slow look over, checking for anything I’d missed in my initial sweep. 

There was a symbol… no there were actually two symbols. One was that of a circle with a silver and black chevron cutting through it. I’d never seen that symbol before.

Beneath it was another much more recognisable symbol. 

I glanced down at my Xtransciver and spotted the matching symbol.

“Silph Co, this is an old Silph Co base for creating pokeballs?” I suggested. 

Sabrina nodded. “We’ll check the area for stability and then I will attempt psychometry on the ruins.” 

I grunted my acceptance and as I was put down on the ground I began marching around the area carefully, checking the floors and walls while also having Selene follow me, just in case.

A few more things stood out to me in my closer inspection. 

There had been numerous cameras around this room which meant everything occurring in here was highly monitored. I opened another door and found a collapsed room that led outside where I spotted Titan sniffing at the remnants of what appeared to be a communications tower.

Marching back through the other rooms revealed more destroyed cameras. 

“I think Silph might still have some recordings of this site,” I called. “They had a communications tower so they might have… no if this was to be a secure site they would transmit video of what they were doing here.” I muttered as I shifted my way of thinking to be more ‘security focussed’, 

I began pushing some of the piles of debris to see if there was a server hub or something that might work, but sadly there was nothing interesting beyond what looked like metallic ores. One was golden in hue but seemed remarkably brittle when I put pressure on it. 

Another was white and tough like iron in my hands. 

The next ore sample I could draw out was silvery and malleable. 

Surprisingly all of the areas seemed to drink in my aura greedily, but there wasn’t a resonance to them that spoke of aiding the user. It felt more… suppressive. 

Mentally I began to combine the ores imagining what a pokeball would look like that was made of them.

A memory of something said when I’d been touring the Silph tower rose. Hadn’t they been thinking of marketing the Masterball as the Gold/Silverball? Or was that merely an external plating they’d toyed with?

Sabrina put her hands to the ground and her eyes began to glow only for her to shake her head and move on. She swept the room touching various items only to sigh.

“The imprints aren’t very strong,” she lamented. 

“Too long has passed?” I suggested.

Sabrina nodded. “Also, the impression I have of this facility is heavily suppressed. That might be the local island’s effect, while also being partially the facility’s security measures.”

“I suspect this was where the Masterball was built,” I said, offering up the ore samples along with what I recalled. 

Sabrina hummed and glanced towards the Silph Co symbol. “That would match.” 

She frowned at the other symbol on display. “I’ve never seen that before,” she stated, moving towards it with a raised hand. 

Her eyes glowed, and she stiffened. 

I didn’t have to ask to know she’d seen something, judging by that reaction. I stepped up quietly and placed my hand on her back to support her.

“This symbol belongs to a group known as Cipher,” she announced. “They were extremely passionate when they left it here which caused the impression to be stronger.”

“Cypher? Like my Porygon?” I suggested, thinking such a group proclaiming they’d been here might explain the lack of computer servers I’d found.

“No, they specifically use an i instead of a y with the spelling.”  

“Huh,” I replied. “Are they… well established? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a group by that name,” I stated. 

“No, from what I gathered from touching the symbol the person who painted this on the wall was looking down on the people here. He saw them as weak for some reason.”

“Right,” I said with a nod. “We have a destroyed Silph Co pokemon base in the middle of the ocean that may or may not have been researching Masterball creation, with a group of people that use a kind of edgy name to describe themselves.” I held up a finger to forestall any interjection as I took a quick breath, “Who also left a calling card much like a gang would at a…” I searched around. “Hit site?” I suggested. 

Sabrina nodded slowly. “I did sense satisfaction at the violence being unleashed around the facility with the man,” she said. 

“Huh, right… so we might have a group of people that no one’s ever heard of before with… dare I say it, partial blueprints on how to create a Masterball?”

Sabrina shrugged. “It’s possible? It depends on Silph Co’s security measures.”

Sabrina and I shared a dubious look. Considering that I’d broken through the upper part of their tower due to the CEO at the time finding cheap workarounds I wasn’t expecting anything impressive regarding information security.

“We’re going to need to talk to someone at Silph Co about this incident, aren’t we?” I asked. 

Sabrina nodded but a smirk had formed on her face “Thankfully we have an in.”

I got a smirk of my own, “I also think they owe us a thing or two seeing as how we saved their bacon,” I announced. 

It was a strange situation but finding a hidden island in the middle of the ocean had somehow led us back to Kanto. 

Weird how things work like that.

__________________

Erika happily rolled Voltorb back and forth between her hands lightly. The happy little ball buzzed merrily at the action and Erika felt the hair on her arms and neck stand on end as Voltorb released small static shocks with each touch. 

Visquez leaned against a nearby tree munching on an apple. “I think you’re being a bit too gentle with it,” she said. 

Erika just continued to hum. “No, she likes it.”

Visquez rolled her eyes. “Voltorb, even these variant types are still part of the mineral egg group. So giving them genders doesn’t really mean anything.”

“It matters to them,” Erika replied and Visquez got a thoughtful look at that comment.

Sabrina and Brock then appeared causing both girls to wave blandly. 

Brock glanced at Sabrina, “Huh they’ve gotten used to you that much?” he asked. 

Sabrina nodded. “Erika no longer reacts like she used to.

Erika coughed, her mind recalling the many incidents where she’d tripped, fell into the small river running through her garden, shrieked, or flailed wildly when Sabrina decided to ‘pop in’ unannounced.  

“Awww, it sounds like I missed out on some good times!” Visquez hooted. 

Erika ignored her, instead continuing to bat Voltorb around to keep it happy. “What brings you here today? I thought both of you were having a break from the winter.” She flicked her eyes up and down, noting Brock and Sabrina’s much lighter clothing choices.

Brock glanced outside and grimaced at the sight of the snowbanks building up on the greenhouse. “Oh wow. I suddenly feel very underdressed.”

“Yeah! Put those chicken legs away!” Visquez teased only to flush as Brock ripped his boardshorts off. 

Erika stiffened only to relax when it was revealed he had swim trunks underneath his boardshorts.

Very tight swimming trunks that— Erika cut that line of thought off, ignoring the smug look Sabrina was directing her way. 

Brock donned a pair of longer pants along with a tasteful jacket that just so happened to complement the yellow that Sabrina was wearing. 

Hmmm, Erika rather liked seeing her suggestions in action. This time it was her turn to shoot Sabrina a smug look only for Sabrina to lean her head on Brock’s shoulder and Erika to slump in defeat. 

Yeah, she probably should have expected to lose in a game of one up against Sabrina. 

“So, you talking wedding stuff?” Visquez prompted and Erika perked back up only for Sabrina to shake her head.

“No, we’ve been investigating some things around the Orange islands and we encountered… well a Silph Co Ruin. We think it has something to do with a wider threat in the Orange Archipelago.” 

“Oh, that’s—”

“You guys’s holidays are wild if that’s what you get up to in your down time!” Visquez crowed. “Damn! Think I can come for the next trip you go on?”

“Perhaps next time,” Sabrina demurred while Brock coughed like he’d heard something that pained him. 

“Aight! But I’m holding it to you! You two, Me, and shortstuff! Wild adventure!” Visquez announced.

Erika sighed. “I didn’t agree to that,” she muttered. 

Visquez just winked. “Oh come on! Live a little, you don’t always want to sit around right? Don’t you want to be like Tropius and fly free every now and then?” 

Erika huffed, not willing to give this conversation any more effort as she knew Visquez well enough that the larger girl would merely dig her heels in for the sake of it.

“My uncle would perhaps be the best contact, I will ask him to assist you on this matter,” she said, and then because she did have a small spark of life in her, she asked, “What about these ruins is so important?” 

Brock sighed. “We think it might have been the site where the Masterball was being made, it looks like it got raided.”

Sabrina shot him a look that Erika knew to mean she hadn’t been going to tell them that. 

Erika perked up. It was always better to have Brock around! Sabrina was so secretive! Brock on the other hand couldn’t keep a secret to save himself!

“Oh, that would be an issue,” she replied, her mind thinking about the upcoming delegation from Fiore that were touring various Kanto cities. 

If there was a disgruntled group out there that had access to the Masterball schematics, or worse, working Masterballs, then Fiore would flip its lid as that had been one of the largest political concerns Fiore had raised. 

Demonstrating something like that… Erika decided she’d be extra vigilant. 

“Good to know ahead of time that there might be issues with the Fiore visitors,” Erika replied.

Brock blinked. “Huh? Oh sure, them,” he replied disinterestedly. 

Erika shook her head. Oh Brock, he wielded so much influence and it was times like this that reminded her that he really had no idea about it, nor did he seem inclined to use it.

Erika sent off a quick message to her uncle that was promptly responded to. “He’s free to see us,” Erika announced. 

Brock blinked. “Us? I thought… hmmm alright then,” he muttered. 

Visquez pumped her fist. “Alright! Adventure time!” she declared.

Erika shared a look with Sabrina only to find her smirking. 

It was tough being the adult in their group of friends sometimes. 

__________________

We hadn’t even needed to ‘pressure’ anyone with the favours that we were owed or perform any blackmail.

A quick word to Erika had us sharing tea and voicing our discovery to her uncle, Arashi, the new CEO of Silph Co.. A man who’s worth had to be measured with at least nine zeros behind it with how far-reaching the company was.

One bit of digging I’d done had also stated that Arashi and his family, Erika included once bore the family name of Honda.

Interestingly, the name Honda sparked memories for me. Hadn’t I read something about the Honda being high-ranking nobles in Kanto before the war? The same was true in my past life of the Honda Clan, I believed.

Not that it mattered, Erika’s family, like my own had dropped the family name in a show of unity to ‘start afresh’ for Indigo.

We listed out our concerns, once again the excuse/reason of investigating Sabrina’s nightmares served as a wonderful motive for us to be investigating the local area so extensively. 

“Hmmmm,” Arashi said. “I wasn’t part of the company then and there have been several projects that I’ve been working to discover more on. The Masterball being one, albeit a touchy subject for our company. The League has also sent numerous investigators but so far nothing has turned up,” he said with a small bow of his head.

“Hmmm, anyone that we could talk to about the project?” I asked, feeling in my gut that this had to be the major issue that was causing Sabrina’s premonitions. 

Arashi pursed his lips and turned his head. A servant who had been lingering behind Arashi stepped forward and bowed down so Arashi didn’t even have to raise his voice. 

“Bring up the records for the Masterball project and anyone that we have that was associated with the island partition.”

“My apologies sir, as while we can bring the reports and documents, there was no one working on the island that returned,” murmured the servant.

Sabrina blinked. “You’re lying,” she announced.

It was as if someone had poured cold water over everyone in the room, causing them to stiffen. 

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Sabrina or I that moved first, but rather Erika. 

She was up and out of her seat with a pokeball raised threateningly towards the servant. 

“Step away from my uncle now!” she snapped with a fire in her eyes that was at odds with her usually placid mien.

The servant backed up. “They were no one of importance! Just- just an intern that was there for a few hours before being dismissed I assure you!”

“They were your cousin’s nephew and revealing them would implicate yourself,” Sabrina stated as her gaze bore into the servant. “And they weren’t just there for a few days were they?”

Arashi turned and gave the servant a long look. “Hmmm it would seem we’re going to need to do a deeper review of our staff than before. Remand yourself to the HR department. We will be having words.”

Then he turned like that was all he had to say. I raised a brow only to blink as the servant bowed from the waist and backed away hurriedly.

Huh, that was neat. “Surprisingly that worked,” I muttered aloud.

Arashi smiled. “There are more ways to express power than merely through pokemon battles Gym Leader Brock,” he said with a wry smile. He offered Erika a soft nod of acknowledgement. “Thank you niece for leaping to my defence.”

Erika sat down and shifted in a flustered manner, muttering that it was no issue.

Visquez sighed. “Aw man, that was all build-up and no payoff! I was thinking we were about to see Corpo ninja or something leap out of the woodwork!” 

Arashi shot her an amused look. “You have a most wonderful imagination, Gym Leader Visquez.” 

Arashi raised a hand and clicked his fingers and a new servant shuffled in, bowed, and departed without him saying a word. 

Huh, that was pretty suave.

Within moments, a bespectacled young man was brought before us. 

He knelt and bowed his head to the ground. Arashi sighed. “When the call was put out that any person with knowledge of the Masterball project was to step forward, why did you not Howard?”

“Fear, and loyalty to my family. I was told not to,” he murmured as the thick-framed glasses on his face began to slip forward. 

He adjusted them only to freeze like a Rattata recalling that it was beneath the gaze of a Pidgeot. 

Arashi sighed. “You will provide names of all of these people that—” he pushed as he rolled a word around in his mouth, “—advised you.”

Arashi gestured towards us. “You spent some time at the island base for the Masterball project, no?”

Howard wet his lips nervously. “I did, and then I was dismissed by the lead scientist… but I did not depart. The Lead Scientist… I realised that he wasn’t bothering to remember any of our faces. To him, we were just peons, gnats, or servants… So I pushed my luck, realising no one else had been there to witness my dismissal. ”

That got everyone to sit up.

“You were there when the lab was raided?” I asked.

Howard nodded.

Arashi however had a different question. “What pokemon was captured with the initial test to verify the capacity of the Masterball?”

That made me stop. They’d captured something with it? I hadn’t known about that!

Howard shook like he was about to cry and he bowed his head once more. “We captured a pokemon that we detected circling the island’s currents. At first, we had no clue of what it was, but then it was beset by a pack of Sharpedo. Rather than flee, it destroyed them with ease and continued on its way. When we detected it again we sent out a team, lured it close with puffins and used the ball.”

He licked his lips. 

“It worked,” he announced. He stared down at the ground. “None of us recognised the pokemon, but we knew it was stronger than anything we’d ever witnessed!”

I stared at him as a flicker of worry began to form in my mind. 

A pokemon strong enough to battle a pack of Sharpedo that they couldn’t recognise?

I swallowed and raised my Xtransciever as I cycled through old images that I’d taken when I was much younger.

“Did it look like this?” I asked, raising an image of a Lugia.

He stilled only for a manic gleam to enter his eyes as he looked up at me. “Yes! Yes, that’s it!” His glasses flashed with light as his mouth stretched into a wide smile.

His fervour only made my stomach drop.

They’d captured a Lugia.  

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A.N. Thanks got to my patreons for your continued support!

It also goes to Twmmy for proofreading this chapter!