With the number of times that he had been subjected to either the exact phenomena or something similar at this point, N hardly reacted when Banette pulled him and the others into the shadows, all light vanishing as they were transported to a new location.

  Popping out on the other side was still disorientating, however.

  No longer in the Great Marsh, they appeared to be… just outside of Pastoria? Out in the fall leaves, most of them still up in the trees with just a small smattering scattered around the forest floor. Somewhere private, and away from the prying eyes of Cynthia and “Looker”.

  Mawile opened her mouth.

  “No,” Mimikyu instantly rejected.

  Mawile closed her mouth and Marowak patted her on the shoulder consolingly when she pouted.

  Banette gave the two an odd look before shrugging and deciding he’d be better off back in the Shadow’s shadows once more.

  N gave the trio an expectant look, having been moved outside the city without any real warning. The three of them shared a look.

  “When he said that we ‘are not professionals’, what exactly did he say? Was there anything more to it?” one of them asked of the Looker’s parting words.

  “He said that-” Rotom started, before remembering that the Triad would not be able to understand the words without an electronic housing. Rotom faltered, sagging a bit.

  N took over. “I’m not sure I can recall the exact wording, but it was something to the effect of you being good but not at a professional level. That people with more experience wouldn’t fall for it.”

  One of them, not the one who had asked, sighed, scratching the side of his head. “Well, that’s not ominous at all…”

  Mimikyu hummed on his shoulder. “I dunno ‘ow he would’ve noticed anythin’ though. We only saw ‘is Croagunk, righ’? Even if it ‘as Anticipation for an ability, I don’ think he’d ‘ave any way ta detect the Shadows after they left us. Unless he ‘as a secret Ghost type that was spyin’ on ‘em or somethin’?”

  Rotom shook back and forth, the closest to a negative head shake possible with a body type like that. “Rotom didn’t notice anyone keeping watch.”

  “So, what, he’s jus’ some sorta master detective or somethin’ and sleuthed ‘em out?” He paused. “That’s kinda cool actually…”

  “Maybe he’s familiar with someone who uses similar methods? Though, I guess I don’t know exactly what he supposedly noticed since he was so vague about it. Did you three do anything particularly noteworthy?”

  They shrugged. N wasn’t sure if that was them genuinely not knowing or them not wanting him to know. He liked to think it was the former, but the bomb threat had him a bit on edge…

  Plus, well, there was the other stuff Looker had said.

  “He never came out and said anything directly, but… Did anyone else get the sense that he was trying to ask about something else without actually asking?”

  The Shadows stood alert when he mentioned that. They understood what he meant. If it were just them and Mimikyu, it’d be one thing, but he didn’t want to be too explicit about Plasma given Rotom’s involvement in Galactic.

  “Wasn’t he just asking about Galactic?” Mawile asked.

  “I couldn’t hear him from the water,” Marowak shook his head.

  “Ehhh,” Mimikyu hesitated, “I mean, I can sorta see where yer comin’ from with that one, but I think it was more ‘im tryin’ ta get a better sense of you. If ya haven’t noticed, yer sortova strange character. These bozos callin’ themselves RGB probably didn’ ‘elp since ya go by N.”

  Rotom, on the other hand, nodded. “Rotom wasn’t sure if Rotom was just imagining it, but if you noticed it as well then Rotom is certain there was some deeper meaning behind his questions. Some other group Interpol is investigating, perhaps? He was awfully vague, though…”

  N sighed. “A mixed response like this doesn’t really help me tell if I’m imagining it.”

  “Something to take note of all the same,” A Shadow responded. “I was planning a trip to Unova regardless to arrange for some things, perhaps I could look into rumors at the same time.”

  N raised a brow. “Just you?”

  Another frowned, or at least gave the impression of one under his mask, his eyes narrowing. “After today? Yes, just him. We would prefer to keep you where we can see you, explosion free.”

  “I shouldn’t be long, a few days at most.”

  “Makes me wonder how fast they can actually get ta Unova with that little technique of theirs,” Mimikyu idly wondered.

  “You’ll find out once you can do it yourself,” Banette taunted from the shadows.

  Then, without any further warning, Banette and a Shadow vanished from in front of them.

  One of the remaining two sighed. “Keeping watch without Banette is going to royally suck. Let’s go, I guess, better make sure the room is secure…”

  “Rotom thinks Rotom is going to investigate Looker some more…”

  “Please don’t cause any incidents,” N pleaded.

  “No promises!”

  The three of them left, headed back towards Pastoria proper, leaving just a man and his Pokemon.

  Or, well, not his Pokemon, but his companions really, or… well.

  N wasn’t sure why he was trying to clarify that within his own mind.

  N sighed.

  “Ya know,” Mimikyu suggested from his shoulder. “Now that there’s a small break from the constant nonsense, ‘n’ we’re waitin’ on other people ta get stuff done… we still ‘aven’t looked at those papers Olivia gave us.”

  “The Alolan lady?” Marowak asked. “She was nice!”

  Mawile harumphed. “She didn’t have a cool type I could become though.”

  Mimikyu raised a shadowy hand.

  Mimikyu clearly considered reminding her yet again that gaining types randomly wasn’t a usual occurrence.

  Mimikyu brought the limb back under his disguise, sagging.

  N wasn’t very focused on that, though. Olivia’s papers…

  Supposedly, they were the unredacted version of the Mimikyu information they’d tried to get before. The stuff that Alola had censored.

  They could potentially be enlightening…

  He just hoped it wouldn’t be yet another dead end. They’d run into enough of those already, and frankly he was getting sick of it.

  Cynthia turned out to be a surprisingly chatty woman.

  Which was odd, given that conversations with Lucas were extremely one sided.

  “I had been a bit worried, you know.”

  He gave her an inquiring look.

  “Well, given who I was dealing with before running into you, I get the feeling that you’re still travelling with N against my advice. Is that correct?”

  Lucas sheepishly rubbed the back of his head at the not so subtle verbal jab, trying to ignore the… Well, not exactly disappointed, but moreso… exasperated look? He remembered her saying something along those lines back when the Spiritomb thing happened.

  Not that he was particularly inclined to listen to authority figures. N hadn’t managed to keep him from treasure hunting yet, and Cynthia wasn’t going to tell him who to travel with.

  He had to at least act like he felt bad about it, though. While he wasn’t sure of who Cynthia really was, he knew that she was important. She got called in to deal with Spiritomb, Crasher Wake had mentioned her in their battle, she seemed to teleport everywhere she went... Maybe she worked for the League or something? Like the local Sinnoh equivalent of that Looker guy.

  If it was important, he figured she’d bring it up eventually. Best to play it safe since he wasn’t certain, though.

  Cynthia sighed. “At least you seem to be keeping some distance. Your Eevee evolving into an Espeon must mean it never spent much time around that Mimikyu. And Togepi…”

  “Prii!” His youngest teammate chirped as the blonde looked down at him, waving his little arms.

  She smiled at his excitement, reaching down to grab his–

  She jerked her hand back suddenly, frowning at both him and Togepi.

  She groaned, burying her face in her hands. “Ugh. I don’t know if it’s been infected or if I just genuinely think Togepi is that cute! Mine was so adorable at this age, but I just…”

  Togepi teared up, upset by her sudden change in attitude towards him.

  “Don’t cry on me!” Cynthia whined, hesitating for just a moment before picking Togepi up out of Lucas’ arms, swaying him back and forth until the tears went away.

  She leveled a steely gaze at Lucas. “Nobody hears about this. Do you understand me?”

  Hm. She really must be important if she’s worried about him spreading rumors.

  Not like he was inclined to talk to anyone about anything, though. He nodded his understanding.

  Before she could say anything more, her phone rang.

  Lucas quirked an eyebrow. What sort of person set their ringtone to something with piano?

  She quickly handed Togepi back to him, pulling the device out and answering with an apologetic expression. “Yes?” She glanced over at his Pokemon and the Alakazam. “Well, yes, I– wait, he did what?”

  Lucas was glad that he wasn’t the person being talked about, because Cynthia suddenly did not look happy.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  She clenched her jaw. “I will take care of it.” And with that, she hung up.

  With a forced smile, she turned back to him. “It seems I’m needed elsewhere. It was nice to see you again, though! Hopefully it won’t be quite so long until our next meeting, I’m hoping to see your Togetic in action soon! They would probably appreciate a visit anyway…”

  He wasn’t sure what she meant by that last part, but her firm belief that Togepi would evolve soon was promising.

  “Ah, just one last thing. Be gentle with Espeon, will you? I don’t have any Psychic types of my own, but I have it on good authority that the adjustment period can be a bit overwhelming, even with training from an expert like Alakazam.”

  Wait. What? Training? He looked over at the Pokemon, watching as Espeon bowed his head to the Alakazam.

  But they hadn’t done anything! He’d been right next to them the entire time, there was no training!

  “See you soon!”

  With a flash of light, Cynthia and the Alakazam were gone.

  Lucas frowned, giving Espeon a probing look.

  Espeon probed back, staring into his eyes, the gem on his forehead glowing slightly.

  Hear?

  Lucas flinched back at the unexpected voice, far too loud but somehow not hurting his ears. It was more… how to describe it...

  “Terra,” His starter grunted, stomping once.

  “Esp!” His new Psychic shot back, looking over his shoulder towards the giant.

  Lucas could barely focus on them, distracted with how the word felt like it was reverberating within his head.

  …

  Within his head.

  His eyes widened and his face lit up, a gasp escaping his lips.

  Understand?

  He clutched his head with one hand, supporting Togepi with the other. Still too loud. It felt like his brain was being rattled around in his skull.

  Still, though, he gave Espeon a thumbs up, smiling down at him.

  “It looks like it will need some fine tuning,” Porygon2 commented. “I’m rather impressed that you managed to pick it up so quickly, though! Or perhaps my praise should be towards Alakazam for being a splendid instructor?”

  Skill.

  Lucas held a hand, gesturing for Espeon to stop. This was great, fantastic even, but right now it was just… a lot.

  “Tor!” His Grass type grunted, glaring at Espeon.

  “Espeon!” The eeveelution growled back.

  “Hey now, there’s no need for all that!” Porygon2 intervened. “We’ll get it figured out quickly enough, I’m sure! Now, what seems to be the problem, Lucas? Is it a physical pain?”

  Lucas shook his head, but rather than turn this into a game of charades, he set Togepi down, the Pokemon whining at that, and grabbed the occupied Pokedex. Adjusting the volume so that it was lower should be clear enough, right?

  “Ah. Is it too loud?”

  Lucas nodded.

  “That should be a simple enough fix! Here, you can practice on me for a moment, Espeon, I don’t mind.”

  “Esp…”

  “Oh. Well that’s unfortunate…”

  “Terra.”

  “There we go! Problem solved. A shame I couldn’t be of more use, but what can you do?”

  Lucas tuned out the rest of their conversation as his mind raced.

  He had understood Espeon. Was it ready for complex use in battle? Absolutely not. But if they could just get the basics down, then the possibilities were huge! If they could just communicate with telepathy, then Espeon wouldn’t need the command system anymore! It was complex enough that he didn’t think anyone had figured it out, but keeping his commands secret from their opponents had been both a blessing and curse so far. It left some trainers guessing, yes, and that was nice since it made it harder for them to counter his attacks, but the command system did have issues. It requires his team to keep an eye on him, first of all. They couldn’t see the gestures he made without angling their bodies towards him, and that meant they couldn’t keep their full focus on their opponent. Then there was the fact that they needed to be able to hear what he was doing. It hadn’t been an issue so far, but he knew that sooner or later someone would come up with a way to interfere with that.

  Telepathy would be a game changer. If Espeon was just sitting out of his ball at Lucas’ side, they could potentially use it for his other Pokemon too!

  Lucas grinned.

  Crasher Wake was going to have to wait a bit longer.

  They hadn’t seen the Shadows when they got back to the room. N didn’t know if they’d already gone on to investigate something else, if they were keeping watch outside the Pokemon Center since they were down two members, or if they were gone for another reason entirely. Couldn’t exactly ask them at the moment.

  Not that it particularly mattered. He sat on the edge of the bed, quickly skimming through the documents. Marowak and Mawile were quietly chatting off to the side of the room, trying and failing to hide the fact that they were listening. He didn’t actually care if they heard any of this, and he didn’t think Mimikyu did either, but he let them think they were being sneaky.

  Mimikyu sat on his shoulder, reading over the pages with him. It seemed to be identical to what the Nurse Joy from Valley Windworks had managed to get to them, but he supposed that was to be expected. He just needed to get to–

  “A note?”

  Stuck right onto the page he’d been looking for was a sticky note with… somewhat legible handwriting on it.

  ‘Alola!’

  “Why is the name of their region being used as an exclamation?” N muttered.

  “It also means hello ‘n’ goodbye,” Mimikyu answered.

  N frowned. “Wouldn’t that get confusing?”

  “I don’ make the rules, I’m jus’ tellin’ ya.”

  N shook his head. Whatever. Not like he was planning to visit the place. He continued reading.

  ‘If you’re reading this, I’m assuming that Oliva got it to the right people! If not… please burn this document and forget you saw it! The ones it’s intended for should also burn it after reading! I really don’t need the League mad at me!’

  Kukui was clearly a… unique individual if this is how he went about things…

  ‘Getting to the point, I apologize for the censorship on your previous attempt to get this information. SOME people are very against people learning about Fairy types, though hopefully that will change soon, especially since you agreed to my request! You did agree, right? I’ll be mad if you don’t!’

  “How much of it do ya think we could actually get away with?” Mimikyu asked.

  N turned his head towards the fae. “You’re not seriously considering it, are you? I only said yes so that Olivia would give us these papers.”

  The request had been, frankly speaking, insane.

  According to Oliva, the price for this information was lying about where it came from if questioned, and also intentionally spreading the Fairy type.

  “I mean, we already did Mawile? Not that it was intentional, but we could take credit for it if Kukui asks.”

  Scoffing, N replied with “Yes, perhaps we can get away with that, but we only just got on Cynthia’s good side, and I’m not even sure if that’s an accurate description to be honest with you.”

  “I mean, she thanked us, didn’ she?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Yeah…”

  N didn’t particularly care if Kukui was happy with them. He wasn’t going to piss off Cynthia again by intentionally spreading something she shut down an entire city for upon their first meeting. Besides, N didn’t think the Fairy type was harmful like the League claimed, but he also wasn’t sure if Kukui’s idea of ‘infecting’ every Pokemon they could was wise when they didn’t know all the details.

  ‘I’ve given you the unredacted version of the documents you wanted, but keep in mind that this is just the official documentation. If you really want to learn about Fairy types, you should come visit! I know someone who’s an expert in Mimikyu if you’re interested!’

  N found himself grinding his teeth. “I swear, if we have to go all the way to Alola just to get the information we’re after, I’m going to lose it.

  Mimikyu gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “Let’s jus’ read through this first, ya can lose it after.”

  Taking a breath, N tore off the note, sticking it to the previous page. He skipped to the part where the censorship had begun in their last reading.

  “Yada yada yada, Mimikyu are interesting Pokemon…”

  ‘As far as we are aware, they are the only Pokemon who have no solid physical form and are composed entirely of energy. Ghost type energy around a fairy type core, to be precise.’

  N blinked. “What does that even mean?”

  Mimikyu’s reaction was more subdued. “...so it’s true, then.”

  N’s eyes narrowed. “You knew what they censored? Not that I really understand what’s being said…”

  A shadowy claw made a so-so gesture. “I… suspected after what Lucario asked me on Iron Island. All that weirdness with my aura, not havin’ an outline or whatever, the pink an’ the shadow… Course, I never knew for sure, ‘n’ I don’ really know ‘ow to test that sorta thing, but if this is in the official paperwork it’s as good as confirmed. I’ve ‘ad all these problems with moves ‘n’ stuff because I am my Source, ‘n’ nothin’ but. Physically speakin’, anyway. That nonsense with my messed up Shadow Sneak? The fake one? If I’m jus’ Ghost type energy around a Fairy core, then usin’ too much of the Ghost ta travel through shadows was literally wearin’ away at my physical form ‘n’ exposin’ my Fairy core more, which is why the enchantment or whatever was so strong after I used it too much.”

  N struggled a bit to keep up with that explanation, but laid out that way, he could see the sense in it. Kind of.

  “I don’t understand how you can just not have a physical form, though. I mean, I can feel you on my shoulder right now.”

  Mimikyu gave a half-hearted shrugging motion. “That part I ain’ sure of. Not completely anyway. But I mean… well, when other Pokemon use moves, ya get that glow of them usin’ their Source, right? An’ when they fight with ‘em, other Pokemon feel those attacks. Maybe it’s like uh… sort of physical? Like um… what do they call that stuff, Oobleck? It’s like a liquid an’ flows ‘n’ stuff, but under pressure it becomes solid. Ya feel me cuz I’m weighin’ down on yer shoulder, but I’m still… liquidy enough for my form ta flow ‘n’ make this hand.”

  He demonstrated by having a second shadowy claw creep out from beneath his disguise, waving it around.

  …N felt like he needed to become a specialized researcher to properly understand what was being said.

  Mimikyu sighed. “Let’s jus’ move onto the next part ‘ere.”

  ‘Of course, there is a theory that they share this in common with some legendary Pokemon, but these claims are wild speculation.’

  Well. It just got stranger and stranger, didn’t it?

  “In common with… wait, is that why Giratina was callin’ me ‘is spawn ‘n’ stuff?”

  “Woaaaahhhh, you’re Giratina’s spawn?!” Mawile shouted from off to the side, startling Marowak. “That’s so cool! …what’s a spawn?”

  “It’s a way of saying that Mimikyu is Giratina’s child, but I’m not sure it was meant literally…” N explained.

  “...your dad is a Legend?” Marowak muttered, and N picked up a bit of jealousy from him.

  He supposed when put like that, it would be cool to some, but why…?

  N blinked.

  Ah.

  He seemed to recall the first words he heard from the Cubone evolution gathering he’d stumbled upon mentioning something about dead families…

  Maybe he should change the subject.

  Mimikyu did it for him, though. “Nah, Giratina isn’ my dad, you know that.”

  Marowak paused before brightening a bit.

  N, on the other hand, frowned. They didn’t know anything about Mimikyu’s family. Was that a reference to his nonsense about being human? Some sort of ‘you know I used to be human, so clearly my father was as well’?

  Mimikyu continued before he could dwell on it. “Maybe it’s more like… well, Fantina ‘n’ her Pokemon were sayin’ that when Ghost types wanna use a move like Shadow Ball, they use a connection ta Distortion itself, wasn’ she? So if a Ghost type Source is a connection ta Distortion, ‘n’ Giratina is the King of Distortion, the only Pokemon that lives full time in the Distortion world, then maybe he’s like… claimin’ some sort of ownership over Distortion, ‘n’ since I’m nothin’ but Distortion, he’s claimin’ ownership over me as well. Not really a parent ‘n’ child thing, but more of me spawnin’ out of his… essence? This is strange ta think about…”

  Marowak looked down at his hands in awe. “So if I learn to use Ghost type moves, I’ll be using the power of a Legend…?”

  “When are we going to the Distortion world?! You guys already know how to get there, right?!” Mawile shouted.

  “He’s not gonna make you a Ghost type!” Mimikyu shouted right back at her.

  “But he could! I’ll just make him my dad too!”

  “I told ya, he’s not my dad!”

  N sighed.

  At least these documents were proving to be fruitful. All these searching for answers and they were finally getting something concrete.

  Nobody tell Mawile that Wake’s Gastrodon beat her to gaining Ghost as a third type, if only temporarily.

  If you have any questions about Mimikyu and their oddities in this AU, post them in the comments! Now seems like the time to answer stuff like that, so I’ll try to ensure the documents respond to everything relevant! Also, reminder that next week is the break week for UD as Garden of Yesteryore gets a chapter!

  As always, feedback is appreciated.