Chapter 86
Part 1
Season of Autumn, Week 7, Day 8
Dear Journal,
Today I accompanied Tallie, Adamant, and Zachel on a mission to Crowsnest Cove.
As usual, I was assigned to keep watch over the dungeon entrance for ambush. As the temperature drops, flying becomes unpleasant. My instincts urge me to migrate somewhere warmer. But I am satisfied with my role and I will continue to serve Team Ember through the coming winter.
We collected forty amethyst shards as requested by our Krokorok client. She paid us well. She needed to pay us more than the value of the shards, otherwise we could have just taken them for ourselves. The mission was a success, and my rank as well as Team Ember's rank has increased.
There is nothing else of note to report for the day.
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Season of Autumn, Week 9, Day 8
Dear Secret Journal,
As I reach the end of these pages, I realize I will need to ask for a new journal soon. I'm not sure how to ask for one without raising suspicions. They just gave me one. They will wonder how I filled it up so fast with the short entries I write. Maybe I can pretend to lose it.
Pretending, pretending. My whole life is pretending. Pretending to be feral. Pretending to be a sentry. Pretending to be normal.
I suppose it's just my curse to bear. Sometimes I wonder if this is all really the right answer. Pretending so that I don't have to pretend. What kind of sense does that make? Maybe I shouldn't think about it too hard.
But I need to keep going. The longer I can keep Team Ember in the dark….
Then maybe I can finally begin to convince myself I'm good at this and that I can actually be good at my job.
Except that two teammates (or technically three) already know the truth. I've only been on this team for four weeks, so I'm off to a great start.
Could I have prevented this?
With Kerzek, probably not. I could never have escaped from the surveillance of Team Cog.
With Tallie… yes, that definitely didn't need to happen. She walked in on me at a bad time. Buuut I can always convince myself that it was probably a good thing Tallie found out. After all, that's why she keeps putting me on sentry duty instead of, y'know, real avian tasks.
But with… ugghhhhh… Hunter…
That…
I won't lie, that was soul-crushing, knowing someone found out not because they were eavesdropping on me, but because they were smart enough to figure it out. Because I left too many clues. Which is exactly what I'm not supposed to be doing. Yeah I know Hunter is good at his job, but that's no excuse. I'm supposed to be good at my job, too.
It happened just after I'd gotten home from the Golden Temple mission. Already one of the worst days of my life. Tallie put me on sentry duty where usually I don't have to do anything because nothing ever happens. But that day, fate was cruel and something decided to happen.
I saw intruders. I realized they were the Master's soldiers. I realized they were converging on the temple. Saura and Tallie and Scarlet were in there. I knew I had to do something. I had to get them out.
But I just froze up. If I tried to do anything I'd either get myself killed, or I'd reveal my secret to Saura and Scarlet and I'd eventually wind up getting someone else on Team Ember killed from my own incompetence. Even though I was about to get them killed anyway. I know that doesn't make much sense, but you don't operate on sense when you're scared.
I mean it's so easy to know what your principles are, you think you know what you'd do in a dangerous situation, know who you'd fight for and how hard you'd fight. We have our team motto for a reason: "until the last ember fades."
But when you're there in the moment and things are happening and you have to make a decision right now… it's different. It's so, so different. Sometimes it's like you're watching everything happen from outside your body.
I realize it now: that's what training is for. You can't just know what you'd do in a situation. That's not enough. It needs to be an unconscious, conditioned response. A habit. That's the only way you won't hesitate in the heat of the moment, but you also won't make dumb newbie mistakes like I've been making all over the place.
Which is why I'm still training. That's why I'm still heart-set on tricking Team Ember into thinking I'm normal. How else am I supposed to train? Nobody else in this base would train me. I'd have to go to the Black Division for proper training, and I really don't want to because I like this region too much and I'm too lucky to have made it onto Team Ember in the first place. I love most of my teammates and I wish I could open up to them.
But I know I can't trust them. Not even the Pokémon with the best intentions can be trusted. I know that no matter what I say, or no matter what promises they make, sooner or later someone's going to come up to me and say "Heyyyyyyy, Arcana. I know we promised we wouldn't assign you to these kinds of missions, buuuuut could you make an exception just this once, pleeease, it'd be the perfect solution to our problem!" I mean, that's just Pokémon nature. No matter how hard they try, nobody can resist the allure of a clever idea. And then I'd accept their request because their points would all make perfect sense, and they'll probably ask really nicely, and it'd make me look like a jerk and coward if I refused.
Then I'd mess up and get everyone killed.
That's what flashed before my eyes when I saw them, my own team, the Pokémon who I was supposed to be protecting, come face-to-face with a herd of Golem and Tyranitar dead-set on leveling the temple. I was terrified and I couldn't move.
They survived because of the frozen flame. Nobody suspected Tallie and Scarlet to be randomly immune to their strongest attacks, so they got away no thanks to me. I had to pretend I tried to come warn them but that I got knocked out unconscious at the foot of the steps. Tallie flew me home.
So after that delightful day, after I come home and I'm all exhausted and I just want to get some actual rest… I find that someone's waiting for me in my room.
Originally I roomed with Scarlet. Told myself if I had any competence at all, I could pull it off. Had her convinced I never needed to sleep and I just stayed awake and stared at the wall all night. Part of me is actually glad Kerzek knew the truth in the end and let me be her roommate instead.
So I came home and I expected Kerzek to be there before me. But it wasn't Kerzek… It was that stupid Flareon.
"Welcome home," he told me as soon as I realized he was there. "Has your mission gone well?"
"No," I said, maintaining my guise. "The mission ended very badly and I would appreciate some rest, if you don't mind."
"Oh, take all the rest you need," he sneered, walking around me as I flopped down onto the bed. "I just need to ask you a few questions. I trust you'll be awake enough to answer. After all, your self-proclaimed specialty is to stay awake for days, isn't that right? But don't worry, it will only take a minute, and I'll be out of your fur."
I didn't think anything of the 'fur' comment at the time, seeing that's just a common expression which all Pokémon use. I got a bit snippy and tried telling him, "I've already been awake for three days, and I would prefer to recharge."
"To begin with, I'm curious," he started to say as he paced around the room, "from which team did you transfer, before joining Team Ember?"
"Team Silverwing," I returned simply, elaborating no further.
"Hm? Team Silverwing?" said Hunter. "Who are they, if you don't mind me asking? Where is their headquarters located here?"
It would make sense that he's not found their headquarters, seeing that it's quite difficult for most Pokémon to visit them. You need to fly, or be carried by someone who can fly, or be a ghost, to make it up to their base.
"It is the Gold Division's best training ground for avian units," I recited. "Located at the topmost floor, which normally only birds can enter."
"Ah yes, yes! That team Silverwing! I'm well aware of them," he said, pretending to have an epiphany. "Already had several pleasant little chats with the top birds there. All of which, might I add, have never heard of you."
My heart thumped so hard he probably felt it. Oh no. But I knew I had to stay cool. I could do this. If I had even the slightest bit of competence, I could do this.
"Checked their records, even," Hunter continued. "No traces of you to be seen. What's going on, if I might ask?"
"I was there," I reassured him. "Trained with Silverwing for over two years. You must have misremembered my name."
"Glower, right?" he said oddly. "That's your name, isn't it? That's what it says on Char's team roster. Perhaps I pronounced it incorrectly? Wrong accent? Wrong inflection? Should I have asked about Glaw-er, perhaps? Or perhaps… you changed your name when you joined Team Ember?"
I just barely realized in time that this was a setup. He was giving me a false way out. False because he knew exactly how everyone on Char's team spoke my name, and also because whatever I told him, he could just go back and ask Syr about everything all over again and I'd have accomplished nothing except possibly for an opportunity to escape.
But there's no escaping from Hunter. I knew that. I knew he'd find me. I had to think of something else. I steeled my heart and tried to do my job.
"Fine. I lied," I told the snooping Flareon. "I am a civilized feral who followed a Silverwing bird home from a dungeon. I was not trained with Silverwing, but by the daycare. To Silverwing, I never had a name, and I was never officially on their team rosters. I lied about my training for a better chance of acceptance onto Char's team."
That was a harder story to debunk. I knew that Silverwing had, in fact, sent several Hoothoot to daycare over the years.
"Sounds like a particularly risky move to me," Hunter mused, looking away. "You must have been aware that Team Ember not only employed a Silverwing bird at the time of your admission, but now employs two of them, who stand to call out your lies?"
"Silverwing is divided into flocks," I explained. "Not every bird meets every other bird. They give me the benefit of the doubt." Then, showing him a ruffle of the wings, I decided to add on, "Why waste your time investigating me? Aren't you supposed to be searching for Scythe? That's some nice work decoding my gambit, but what does this have to do with your assignment? I have nothing to do with Scythe's disappearance, and I have no information that can help you."
"Yes, yes, you're right, of course," Hunter sighed. "This has nothing to do with my assignment to find Scythe." Then he turned to me and added, "But according to my current theory… That is something we could easily change."
"I don't have any idea what you're talking about, and to be honest I don't care," I told him, turning to stare at the far wall. "Any other questions?" I said in a very pushy way.
"Hmm. No, not at this time, I don't think," he said in a disappointed voice. "I'm sorry to have bothered you. I forget how much the cold saps the strength right out of you flying-types. And it's only going to get worse in the upcoming weeks. So please… rest well."
I was waiting for the door to shut. Waiting to release my held breath and finally relax and have some privacy. Waiting, waiting, waiting. But the door never shut.
"Actually… I'm curious about something," Hunter said so nonchalantly, like he just thought of it. "Do you mind if I read your journal? I'd like to take a little peek at your accomplishments, if that's alright with you."
Well, that came out of nowhere. But the whole point of the red journal was to be read by everyone else, so I didn't actually see a problem with it. "You won't find much of anything," I warned him. "And you especially won't find any information about Scythe. But you're welcome to look."
"Thank you; I think I will," Hunter said. "Is this your journal here, on the nightstand? The black book?"
I turned in surprise. He'd stepped right over the red journal and zeroed in on the secret one.
"You just stepped right over it," I informed him blankly.
"Wait…. This book?" Hunter said, sniffing at the book on the floor. "But that's not possible. It can't be yours."
"What makes you say that?" I asked, trying not to be flabbergasted.
"Well, you see, I already read that one, front to back," Hunter informed me. "And it's obviously about a different bird. Perhaps Brace or Otto, I figured. You likely stole their journal to read for yourself."
"No, it's mine, I promise," I said skittishly.
"Really, now," he said so dryly that it hurt. "You expect me to believe you wrote this."
"…Yes?" I said. I didn't know what he was getting at, but he was great at making me feel uncomfortable.
"Hmm… the cold really must be getting to you, in that case," Hunter said sourly, opening the red book and flipping through some of the entries, which spanned less than a fourth of the book. "See, it says here, on multiple of these daily entries, that whoever wrote this – which, you claim that you did – that they've been struggling with the instincts to fly south for the winter."
I blinked at him. "Yeah? What about it?" I asked.
"Tell me… if you really wrote this…" he said, slamming the journal shut, "how do you know so little about the Hoothoot species? They do not fly south for the winter. Pidgey, yes. But Hoothoot and Noctowl are quite defensive of their territory. They never migrate or abandon their nests, they stay all winter long and hunt even in the snow and ice. And this isn't even to mention that we live in a temperate region close enough to the equator that it rarely ever snows."
I told myself, stay calm. Stay rational. Don't panic. You can do this, Arcana. You can do this.
"Well… then… I must have mistaken my instincts for something else," I claimed. "Perhaps I am just cold and do not yet understand how to cope with it."
"But you just told me you were once a feral," Hunter said oddly, tilting his head. "If that were true, you would have known full well that you don't migrate for the season – because you never would have done such a thing before you became civilized."
We stared at one another for a long, long moment. It was happening again, for the second time that day. I was seizing up, body and mind. Unable to think or to do anything. Stunned. There just weren't any good answers.
Hunter gave me a sneery little grin as he turned tail and went for my secret journal again. "At any rate, I think I'll take this one instead," he announced. "Perhaps it will help explain things more clearly than the red one."
No, no, no, no, no!
I pushed myself. I overcame my shock and I made a last desperate pounce for the black journal, hoping to whatever gods were watching that I'd grab it before Hunter did. Hunter gave me a sudden, but gentle headbutt out of the way – it didn't hurt, but it was hard enough to thump me against the wall.
As I slumped there, he looked down at me with the most triumphant, evil glee. And that's when I knew I had failed. Truly and miserably failed. Those eyes, those evil, knowing eyes, they saw me. They saw me for who I really am.
That's really all it takes. Just one strike. One single strike.
Just one little mistake and it's all over.
"Just as I suspected, Zorua!" Hunter laughed over me. "Ahh, I must admit, it feels good to know that I've still got what it takes to spot you."
"Please… Please don't tell anyone…" I frantically begged and whispered, pressing myself against the wall and backing further into the corner. "Please please please please don't tell anyone… It… it has nothing to do with Scythe… Just please let me keep being a Hoothoot. There's really nothing in it for you to expose me, right?"
"Oh, nothing to do with Scythe, you say?" Hunter repeated. "Like I said, that can be easily fixed. Why do you think I took such an interest in you? Your… specialties… are exactly what I need to uncover some of the deeper classified secrets of the Gold Division."
I gasped, "What, uh, are you blackmailing me or something?" I gasped in horror. "Y-you're going to tell everybody about me if I don't agree to your demands, aren't you?"
Hunter shrugged at me. "No. I would not blackmail my own ally unless I suspect they are not my ally. And I know you're not a spy. Were you a spy, this is not the team you would have picked to infiltrate. No, Zorua, I am only… suggesting some sort of partnership between you and I. To say that I could use your talents in the hunt for Scythe would be… quite the understatement."
I shook my head violently. "No, no, no, no," I pleaded, feeling like I might start to cry. "No way. I'm not using my illusions for you. Or for anyone. Only myself. Just let me pretend to be a bird. I'm begging you, Hunter. Don't do this to me."
To somewhat my surprise, Hunter curled himself up comfortably next to my bed, as though waiting for me to get up and join him. He looked at me amiably. "Alright, Zorua. I'll leave you alone and let you keep up your ruse. But if you don't mind, there are still about three questions on my mind that I can't quite figure out based on what I know. If you could help me to understand them, it would be much appreciated."
I rolled my eyes and came over to rest on my bed. "Fine. What do you want to know," I said flatly, defeatedly.
"One: do you have a name? I'd hate to have to call you 'Zorua' and I can't imagine your real name is Glower."
"Eh. My name is Arcana," I told him, not seeing the harm in it. "You know, after Arcanine. Where I come from, Zorua get named after other Pokémon. You know… because our whole thing is pretending to be other Pokémon. We actually get named after the first Pokémon we pretend to be."
"Yes, I'm somewhat familiar with such names," Hunter said. "Well-met, then, Arcana, deceiver of the embers. Now, then. For my second question, please tell me: how have you kept yourself a secret from the Espeon? Surely she would have tried reading your mind by now and realized you are a dark-type?"
"Uh… telepathic illusions," I explained. "Sort of like how I can make illusions in real space, I can show fake thoughts to mind-readers, sort of, if they don't dig too deeply. It's hard to explain. It's a very important skill I'm supposed to know, although I was never really any good at it. That's why I made up all that nonsense about how I'm good at pretending to be feral and having blank thoughts. Blank thoughts are some of the only kinds of thoughts I know how to project, at least reliably."
Hunter looked very pleased with this explanation, and somehow made me feel a little more comfortable about having been found out. Again. I started to wonder if there was a pattern here. Every time someone found out about me, it actually caused good things to happen. Tallie gave me simple jobs to help me keep my ruse, Kerzek gave me the opportunity to drop the illusions and just be myself in the evenings (not to mention she also faked hitting me at our duel at the secret hideout so I could pretend to lose and be eliminated early.)
And now, talking to Hunter here, I started to feel relieved, sort of. Maybe this was a good thing. It felt so great to just be myself and stop pretending to be a boring bird for a few moments. Don't get me wrong, it's still awful that I failed to keep my own secret, and I hate it. Ideally I should be good at deciding who should learn my secret, and tell them myself. But I don't know if he was manipulating me or what, but he was making me feel comfortable in his company.
"I'll admit, even I never knew Zorua had such a power," he said. "But in hindsight, it makes sense. I can't imagine another way your kind can manage to keep themselves hidden so effectively for so long. Now, as for my third, and final, question…"
He flicked his tail and lowered his voice, probably to lull me into thinking he wanted this to be a personal moment. It worked. "Arcana… why?"
"Why what?" I said.
"Why put yourself through all of this?" he said sympathetically. "I've never met a Zorua or a Zoroark so intent on hiding from their very own team before. Usually you are quite fond and proud of your power, and flaunt it at every opportunity. Likewise, you are highly desirable not just as a teammate, but also as a personal friend and companion, for your natural abilities. So what I don't understand is: what would drive a poor little Zorua such as yourself, to keep it all covered up?"
I frowned and flicked my own tail thoughtfully. "If you want to know the answer to that, I'd probably have to tell you my life's story," I flatly said. "Is that really what you want?"
"Miss Arcana, I'd love nothing more than to hear your life's story," Hunter said with a warm smile. "It's a part of my job. Why else do you think I've made myself comfortable at the foot of your bed?"
And so that's exactly what I did.
I told him the story of how I'd spent my hatchling years near the Black Division. I told him about how my father's name was Grim, who was apparently an important figure. I told him that I don't know for sure because I never actually got into the Black Division, but that's what he always told us.
I told him about how I had two sisters, and about how my father had sky-high expectations for us. I told him about how my oldest sister, my father's favorite daughter, was named Vivia.
Father set very high standards upon us, but he was the harshest on Vivia. She made the most lucid illusions as though it were nothing, and she had the strongest darkfires we'd all ever seen in a hatchling. Father wanted her to be the next great hero of the family, and poured all of his love and his effort into perfecting her.
I told Hunter about how father made me learn to survive in the wild by kicking me out and forcing me to stay in the forest for days at a time until I learned to use my illusion powers to keep from getting eaten. Vivia, though, she got personal lessons from father every day. He taught her everything he knew, and left the rest of us to figure things out for ourselves. Many days father was too busy training Vivia to even hunt for food, so we ended up scavenging for carcasses and berries by the nearby fox dens.
By the time Vivia was ready to evolve, she knew a hundred transformation illusions, she knew how to channel ghost-type energy like the best of them, she knew how to terra-warp, whereas I was nowhere near ready to evolve and I barely knew how to pretend to be a few forest animals like Beedrill and Hoothoot. Weavra knew even less than I did and I always had to help her out.
Weavra and I learned very quickly in our childhoods that we just weren't good enough for father's favor. Somehow we were just supposed to magically become expert Zoroark without any training because he spent all his time on Vivia. I did the only thing I knew how to do, and I practiced being forest animals. Weavra lost her spirit and gave up altogether and sometimes she would cry all night and keep me awake.
I told Hunter about how Vivia started her missions for the Black Division. She bragged about how she skipped all the training missions and started doing one-star missions like Zoroark are apparently supposed to do. She bragged about her victories to us and father congratulated her and told us we needed to be more like her. I tried to tell him that we couldn't be like her because he never gave us any training like he gave her, and he just told us that was our own fault for not being trainable.
When Vivia moved out and started living in the Black Division with her own team, I wondered if maybe father would start teaching Weavra and me everything he taught Vivia. I begged him to teach us even just a little bit. Just something that would help to make us special and part of the legendary Zoroark family that we were. I begged him every day, over and over, until he gave in.
Looking back, I think father just wanted to send us off to die just to get rid of us. But that's not how I saw it. I saw it as an opportunity to maybe earn a little bit of his favor, just a little bit. Maybe that would get him to see some potential in me and help me become a good Zoroark too. And then I could teach Weavra everything I knew, and we would all carry on the family legacy together. That was my plan.
Father told us to go infiltrate a place called the Fort Glimmer where the Master kept several vaults of money and rare materials. It was very heavily guarded, even worse than the Gold Division. He said if we got in there and brought back some bars of gold, he would consider training us to use our illusion powers better. I didn't stop to ask him how we were supposed to use our illusion powers on a dangerous mission before we knew how to use them – I didn't care. All I saw was this golden opportunity, my only chance to become just as good as Vivia.
When Weavra and I set off for the mission, though, I knew we couldn't do it. We were just hatchlings. We weren't good enough. We had to figure something out fast if we wanted this opportunity, even if it meant cheating.
So that's what we did. We tried cheating.
We found Vivia and begged her to help us. We told her everything, about how father said he would train us if we did just this one little thing for him, but we knew we couldn't do it, and begged her to do it for us so we could start our training. Our father was a huge jerk, but Vivia was really nice to us. I think she was a good older sister, and she felt sorry that we got left behind in the family. So she went and infiltrated the base for us, and we pretended to be Rattata and stood around nearby to watch her get in.
Vivia made a tiny little mistake. Just the littlest possible mistake. See, the base was guarded by a bunch of Bisharp at the time, so she was pretending to be a Bisharp to get in. What she didn't see were the Corvisquire watching from the tops of the towers who noticed something suspicious about her. They kept their eyes on her, although she was doing a good job at acting as one of the other guards. But then she hid in a corner so she could try to change illusions. She had no idea the watchbirds had their eyes on her, and the watchbirds saw her transform. She was mobbed to death by at least twenty birds and not even five minutes later they were picking the meat off her bones.
Like I said. Just one little mistake and it's all over. That's all it ever takes.
That was the first time I felt it, that stunned feeling where you can't do anything because it feels like you're suddenly a stone statue and your spirit is watching your body from the outside. That moment imprinted itself on me. Whenever I imagine trying any espionage of my own, I remember that I'll only ever end up just like Vivia.
We retreated into the gorge and we cried together all night. Once we managed to stop crying, Weavra told me we could still try to get the gold bars for father. Father had no idea that Vivia was trying to help us, for all he knew she was running missions for the Black Division, and it was her own fault that she died. So maybe if we waited a few days and thought of a plan, we could get in ourselves and steal something. We took turns practicing our Bisharp and Corvisquire forms. We promised one another that we'd try again in three days. Even though I was only planning to tell Weavra that I was giving up anyway. There was no way I was good enough at my illusions to get in there. But I kept promising her that we'd do it. I tried promising her again and again until I could promise myself. It didn't work.
On the second night I admitted the truth to my sister. I told her that we should give up and go home. We can live the rest of our lives as normal citizens, that we don't need to be resistance leaders if we don't think we're up to it. Maybe that's what Dad wanted for us all along and there's nothing wrong with that. I knew Dad would eventually find out that his prized daughter was missing, but he would never have any reason to blame us for it. We would be sad for a while, but everything could end up okay. Eventually.
I woke up in the middle of the night because I subconsciously knew my sister wasn't there anymore. She had scratched a note for me in the dirt. It said: "If you wake up before I come back: I can't bear to see you so sad anymore, so I went to get a gold bar. When the sun rises tomorrow, I'll be back and it'll be over. We'll finally get to be happy. Love, your sister."
I just panicked. No, no, no, no, no, went my heart. I rushed after the trail she left. But of course I was too late. I got to the fort and she was nowhere to be found.
Against all my terror, I cast the illusion of a Bisharp, and I snuck in. When I got close enough to the guards, I asked them about the recent incident with the Zoroark. They confirmed there had been two break-ins. One Zoroark, one Zorua. Both were dead within moments of entry, so there was nothing of note to report to the commanders.
Both my sisters were dead. And I didn't want to go home because my dad hated me. So I wandered away into the wilderness, using the only skill I ever taught myself, the skill of being a convincing forest animal. I picked Hoothoot as my favorite because I realized I could cast an illusion up in the tree, and I would become invisible on the ground. So I used those powers to get through the wilderness, I dug myself holes to hide from Watchers at night, which I was also really good at. I found a road and I followed it north to a town. I followed the road from that town to another town. Then I made it to Iron Town, found the Gold Division, and convinced them to let me in because I was the daughter of the famous Grim the Zoroark and the Master had killed my sisters. They let me in.
Finally, I explained to Hunter how ever since, I've been hiding around the base, mostly in the daycare center, waiting for the courage to actually join a team, hone my skills, and make a difference. But every so often I'd hear the resistance teams say things like "Oh, if only we had a Zoroark, then we could get into the enemy base so easily." And not only that, but then I found out about Domo, and about how he was trapped in his role as Scythe that he really didn't want, all because he was following orders, and I was scared all over again. I knew that if I revealed my form, I would just be a disappointment to everyone.
Hunter practically interrupted the end of my story. "Your sister is alive," she said plainly. "Both of your sisters are alive."
"Huh…?" I said, blinking. "Why do you say that? I saw Vivia die. I saw them pulling the meat off her bones. I saw her ribcage poking out. I… Hunter, there's no way."
Hunter tilted his head and flicked his tail, looking quite amused. "You mentioned that your sister learned the art of, what did you call it? Terra-warping?"
I fought back the tears in my eyes. "Yeah. That's what we call it when you learn how to… to change the world around you. Normally you can use illusions to change how you look and make your real form invisible. But Zoroark can learn to cover their entire surroundings… with… illusions…"
I only understood my own words, and what Hunter was saying, as I spoke them. I tried to stand up but my legs were shaking too much and I just sat back down.
Hunter then said, "And not once, not once did you consider the possibility that maybe your sister was trained as an expert in her arts, and maybe she did notice those watchbirds, and maybe all the crows which mobbed her that day were false apparitions of her own creation, meant as a distraction? And that maybe when your younger sister so foolishly rushed in, she was saved by means of a similar false massacre?"
"That's… that's… no. No!" I stammered at the air. "There's… it can't be. I never even considered that. Did I… was I the one who abandoned them?"
"Yeah, got any evidence of that, flamey?" Kerzek said, who'd come home in the middle of my story and I'd hardly even noticed. "No way I'm going to let you get away with hitting her with false hope like that for no reason, bud. Do you know something?"
"I know… quite very many things," said Hunter, standing up straight and stretching. "Maybe I know something about your sister, and maybe I don't. But one thing I do know: a stunt like that is perfectly within the realm of possibility for a well-trained Zoroark. To twist the entire world around you, creating projections of Pokémon with their own convincing personalities, changing the rules of physics before our very eyes… the only limit is your imagination. That is what Zoroark are known for. And that, my dear miss Arcana, is the power you are neglecting, because apparently you'd rather be a meek, normal, inconspicuous, and dare I say boring bird out of an unfounded fear that your teammates are no better than your father and would not have your best interests in mind."
That was the first time it struck me how powerful Zoroark actually are. What they can really do with their illusions. It's not just about pretending to be different Pokémon, or pretending to be in places you want. If I wanted, I could rewrite the whole way that reality appears. I could make reality dance for me and do my bidding.
And for the first time, even I was spellbound by the possibilities of my own power.
"Now, Miss Arcana, I might not be a Zorua myself, but I know a thing or two about writing a Pokémon's narrative. So I'll try asking you this once more: would you be willing to help me with certain endeavors among the Gold Division? Or should I put it like this: would you be willing to let me train you in the arts of practical espionage? It seems that it's high time you started learning what you can really do."
"If I do… would you tell me what you know about my sisters?" I asked.
"Why, I thought that was implied!" Hunter said cheerfully.
And before I even knew it, I had straight-up agreed to face my one lifelong fear – the fear of using my powers for something substantial, for doing something that really mattered and risking real failure. The fear of being myself.
And I'd love to write all about how that happened, what Hunter had me do… which I will, soon as I get a new journal book. Because this is the end of the last page.