Chapter 12

Quinn stumbled out of his room, through a set of simple automatic doors that hissed and vibrated. He remained on his feet, though each step was slightly uncomfortable.

Not just because of the pressure; he felt in danger, as though any second something might strike him from the side and catch him before he could flee.

But staying on the ground meant Cedrin could keep pace, following along while clinging to his arm every step. "Why would you run away?" he thought, so subtle that Quinn almost missed them at first. Maybe that was his way of keeping others from overhearing. "They're trying to help us."

He couldn't go very far—only a few steps out his door, and the platform ended, without so much as a handrail to keep himself from falling. But what else should he expect from Mew housing?

He glanced to either side, and found similar platforms separated by about a meter (from his perspective) between each one. There were a dozen of them to the right, and far fewer to the left. Similar outcrops extended above and below him, though he couldn't tell how many without moving in that direction.

"Failing," he thought back, matching Cedrin's mental volume as best he could. He held his arm next to the smaller Celebi, comparing his vibrant green skin to the slightly brownish, wrinkled look of the child. "You shouldn't look like that. This is what a Celebi looks like. You look like you haven't seen the sun in months."

Cedrin tugged away from him, running his tiny hands along the sprout shape on his head. He didn't have to say anything to radiate his discomfort, embarrassment, and a little anger. "I wish it was months."

Past the balcony was a larger space, not that different from the Pokémon daycare he'd seen in photographs while booking cruise tickets. He had to make sure Sirius and Baast got to enjoy the trip too, after all. But where it had seemed like more than enough for back then, it now looked downright appalling.

Sunlamps ran along the ceiling, as unsatisfying out here as they were in his quarters. Technically sunlight, but only in the loosest possible definition. The floor was all grass and dirt, rolling in a few sculpted hills. There was a shallow pond on one side, with water that would probably give him Pokérus the second he touched it. The walls were screens, making it seem at a glance like the environment continued far further than it did. From his human size, he probably would've measured the space at ten meters across, with a ceiling slightly taller than he was.

Even his new smallness couldn't make up for how cramped it felt.

Aside from the little apartments, there was a break in the screens near the ceiling on the far side, where a heavy security door opened into a sitting room with plush floors and snacks. If he squinted, he could barely make out a little pink fur inside, and feel the suspicion of the Pokémon up there. Guard.

"Guess there was something to the Silurian hypothesis after all," he muttered, without realizing he was speaking out loud again.

"What in Arceus is that?" asked the other voice he had heard before—the feminine one, heavy with cynicism. Only this time, it came with the speaker: a rush of yellow-orange fur, and someone else landed on the far side of his balcony.

She radiated heat, warm enough that he moved sideways, placing himself between the stranger and Cedrin. But that only annoyed her more: her huge ears folded back, blue eyes narrowing. "Deep breath, new prisoner. None of us are monstrous wild Pokémon, despite what they told you. I'm far less dangerous than they are."

"This is Vitari!" Cedrin said. His wings buzzed, though not forcefully enough to lift him off the balcony. He bounced past Quinn to the edge, close enough to touch his head against the Victini. "She's way nicer than she looks!"

"Victini," Quinn finally managed to say, pointing. "You're a Victini. And you're a Celebi… How many of there are you?"

"That's the name of my mutation," Vitari said. "Took my old name when they gave me this one. I promise not to call you just Celebi if you use my name."

"He's Quinn!" Cedrin moved away from the radiant bunny, out of the heat. He wasn't immune to it either, even if he trusted the Pokémon. "And he's gonna get us out."

"Is that so?" Vitari surged closer to him, faster than Quinn could react. They pressed him up against the wall of his apartment, hard enough that he gasped for air. His wings twitched impotently, failing to get him free. But with that heat so close to him, he'd be hard-pressed to manifest much of anything.

"It's not fair to talk to him like that, making promises you can't keep. He's just a kitten, he shouldn't even be here."

Cedrin whined, stumbling closer to them both. "That's not very nice, Vitari. Let him go!"

Quinn struggled, little legs hanging slightly off the ground. Even when he was human, he'd never been physically imposing. But against a real Victini, a false Pokémon like himself stood no chance. If the stories were true, they couldn't lose. "It's not… false," he thought back, defiant. "I'm not letting them lock me up like this. When I break out, I'm gonna take him with me. And… anyone else who wants to go."

It got a little harder to think the longer he hung there, with those hot paws pressing into his neck.

Victini leaned in close, her breath up against his face. "You actually mean it? You don't know what you're up against. No one escapes the Admiralty."

"At least someone is bold enough to consider it." The thoughts came from nearby, deeper and far more masculine. They came with something else, a wrongness he couldn't quite place. But there was no time for subtle discomfort when someone had him dangling against the wall. "Release him, Vitari."

She did, shoving him forcefully back. "Whatever, Sable. You would side with anyone who agreed with you, no matter how stupid their plan."

A pair of orange eyes appeared on the wall beside him, then stepped out from within. The shape gained wispy form, about the same height as he was, though never fully solid. He could still see the walls behind him. "I feel no deception in his mind. He knows of rebels outside these walls. Ask him."

"What are rebels?" Cedrin asked, leaning in close to them both. "And do we have to keep whispering?"

Quinn relaxed, running his tiny hands over the sore piece of his throat. The skin there was dry and scratchy, as though the Victini had started burning him. Yet he wasn't watching her anymore. No matter how angry she seemed, his fear was now laser-focused on this newcomer. 

Marshadow are real too. But he caught himself before he could say so. Vitari said that was the name of their mutation, he probably won't like it if I call him that.

"I only met two, a Mew named Lane and Azelf… not sure what their name was. But they acted like there was more, that I could go find them. We could all go!"

"Could," Vitari said, pushing off the balcony. She didn't fall of course, but hung in the air just out of reach. "We could do a lot. That doesn't mean it makes any sense to try. They'll just do what they did to Geiss. You know they will."

She spun through the air, turning her back on them all. "No thanks. I'll wait for my one in a million miracle cure. At least a small chance is still a chance." She left, zipping off with her little tails flapping behind her.

"Even their own kind turns against them." Sable floated closer, his feet not so much touching the ground as stretching further and further along it, while his height somehow remained the same. "There is hope yet, cousin. The Admiralty can be defeated."

"When I come from, I've never heard of them," he said. "This city isn't here either. But I don't know exactly how long that is."

"When?" Cedrin repeated, bouncing up and down next to him. His wings buzzed again with sudden energy. "I get it! You said when! The Celebi mutation does work! I'm just… too small and dumb to make it work."

"I will consider this," the Marshadow said. His outline fuzzed and began to fade, flattening against the wall. "Get acquainted with our cousins, Quinn. If there is somewhere we can flee… then perhaps we can do more than wait to die."

He vanished completely, leaving him alone with the smaller Celebi on the balcony.

Cedrin moved closer to him, touching up against his side like any younger sibling might. "Sable is scary sometimes. But I've never seen him hurt anyone. Never saw Vitari hurt anyone either."

Quinn patted him gently, the way he imagined an older brother ought to do. "I'd like to see the Mew I came with. But if I can't do that yet, maybe I should do what he says and meet everyone else. Do you know anyone else around here?

The Pokémon beamed up at him, lowering his hands again. "I do! Of the patients left, there's… Aria, Aster, Manny, Stella… and now you've met the other two."

There are fifty rooms here. He only knows about seven patients? "Is that it?" he asked. Without realizing it, he levitated the kid up into the air, so they were at eye level. The Celebi didn't seem to mind, grinning as he moved. "Shouldn't there be more of you?" He floated them off the balcony, so they hung suspended in front of all the rooms. They could've fit everyone on just one floor. 

From this angle, he saw several modifications to their door. Paper decorations, paint, a few plastic flowers outside some. That seemed allowed, though the changes always stopped exactly at the balcony's edge. That made the empty ones so much more obvious, each room lightless and still. Few of these had minds inside. 

"There were more before," Cedrin said. "Lots of 'em got better, and got to go back to Starfall. Or they had trouble with their treatment and… didn't make it." He kicked both legs out in the empty air, staring down at the grass far below. Well it looked far, though it was clearly not more than two meters. Being small made everything seem out of scale.

"Oh." He patted his shoulder with one small hand. "Who's first?"

He relaxed instantly, beaming up at him. "Well, uh… Stella only wakes up at night, so not her. Manny? Never has much to say. And probably not good at… the thing we talked about. Aster? She's usually with Aria during the day. You can hear 'em if you listen!"

Quinn listened, and he did hear. A mournful song, quiet enough to miss under the steady blasting of air filters. Clear enough to identify even without seeing the speaker. Though he should have—there were only a few sparse trees in their enclosure, and the sound came from that side.

"Lemme guess. Meloetta?"

Cedrin winced. "Yeah! But it's not… We don't call each other after how sick we are. Her name's Aria, come on! She's really nice! I think you'll like Aster too. Just don't… remind her how wilted she is, okay? She looks worse than me."

The steady hum of his wings became an angry buzzing. "It's nothing for her to be embarrassed about. It's the ones keeping you who should be ashamed."

They didn't have very far to go, of course. Down to the ground, and they flew over the grass, just close enough for Quinn to touch it. He'd already feared what he would find, but that didn't make the touch any better. Artificial, of course it was. They couldn't have anything they needed to live correctly here.

They passed near the pond, which at least managed not to be completely polluted. Something moved under the surface, circling irregularly at a depth of a meter or so. "Manny?" he guessed. 

"Yeah! Manny's… nice." Cedrin moved closer to him, and his thoughts quieted again. "They tried a new treatment with him. Made him smaller, so there would be less… degeneration. But they made him so small he kinda forgot… everything?" He stopped over the water, trailing his hand into the surface.

The shape moved underneath, then zipped up to the water. Bright blue, with little yellow spots over his eyes, and long antennae trailing back into the water. "Cede!" he said, voice high and shrill. "Cede, Cede, Cede!"

"Hi Manny." Despite his weakness, Cedrin had the strength to float himself to the surface and touch one hand on the baby's face. "How is it down there today?"

"Same!" came the reply. "Boring, boring, boring!" He floated a little further, until he was under Quinn. "Who?"

"Quinn," Quinn said. He dropped down too, though slower. The baby retreated from him when he moved, obviously not comfortable with him yet. "Hi, Manny."

"Manny!" he repeated, leaping briefly out of the water and splashing back down again. "I'm Manny!"

He swam around them in widening circles, without breaking the surface again.

"Like I said. I don't think he'll be able to help very much. If you wanna… escape."

Quinn floated past the pond, carrying Cedrin with him. It wasn't that the other Celebi didn't know how to fly, he was far more coordinated in the air than Quinn. Yet every movement cost him so much. How long had they kept him trapped here?

"It doesn't matter if he can't help us," Quinn thought, growing more determined with every passing second. "We're bringing him. Keeping a baby alone in a hole, it's… evil. There's no other word for it."

Cedrin seemed to get stronger as they flew, not weaker. Or maybe it was the words he took courage from, more than the proximity to the trees.

Those were fake too, Quinn saw. They belonged to some evergreen variety he'd never seen, yet the needles were all cloth or wax. They looked convincing from afar, but felt so lifeless. This place looked like a verdant field, but there was very little left alive inside it. Even its “patients.”

They found the other two Pokémon where Cedrin said they would—more impossible legends that Quinn never imagined he would ever encounter in person. Maybe being an impossible myth himself made it easier to run into others.

Somehow he'd always imagined Meloetta would be taller, yet the graceful Pokémon couldn't be that much taller than he was. As they floated through the trees, her music became louder and clearer. It cut almost as deep as the Victini's heat did, without needing to touch him.

Before the fairy was another Pokémon, though he'd almost missed it in the grass. Cedrin was right to warn him not to say anything: she looked bad.

The Shaymin named Aster was a scrawny, shriveled thing, with patches of leaves missing from her back, and several petals absent from her flowers. Her eyes were glazed and distant, not watching their approach. Aria did, waving energetically at Cedrin and a little less so to Quinn. She kept singing, a song about watching the sunrise, a song about watching the sunrise from a mountain, a song about wind and flowers and everything they couldn't have down here in this prison.

Cedrin floated down next to the Shaymin to listen, settling down in the grass. Quinn remained behind him, listening in respectful silence.

Aria ended with a little pirouette, bowing to her audience. 

Cedrin clapped, for as underwhelming as it sounded. Quinn joined him. This Pokémon was far better at this than the anachronistic human he'd encountered the night before. Assuming it was the night before. How long did they knock me out?

"Another patient for the hospital," Aria said. Even when she was only talking, there was music in her voice. Gentle and melodic, though also mature in a way many of these others lacked. Her tiny feet never quite touched the ground, but carried her over the grass without crushing a single blade. "And Cedrin likes you. Perhaps unsurprising, yet meaningful endorsement nevertheless. I'm Aria. And my daughter is Aster."

"I'm Quinn," he replied. Compared to her, his words felt clumsy and awkward. No music at all. Quinn eyed her, then the Pokémon on the ground in front of her. 

Aria seemed to feel his thoughts, because she spoke before he could continue. "They're doing all they can for her. I don't know what else to do but make her comfortable."

Her telepathy hit Quinn as sharply as the words of her music. She didn't just send words, but every drop of parental agony she felt—overflowing love, desperate to provide relief that was nowhere to be found.

"I know. She needs to be out of this prison. Are there any flowers down here that aren't made of plastic?"

"You sound like my mate," she said, out loud. "It's not a prison. They're trying to help, and they usually succeed. They might still find a way to help her." The strangeness of telepathy came again, though in a different way this time. When she said “mate”, that word came with an impression of another mind, one Quinn had already heard. Sable the Marshadow. 

No wonder he's so eager to get out.

"I know how to help her. Shaymin are one of the most plentiful Mythical Pokémon where I come from. Everyone knows they need Gracidea flowers. But I don't see a single one down here."

The Meloetta stopped just beside him, one tiny hand on his shoulder. At least she didn't attack him like the Victini had. "Your words mean nothing, but I feel your confidence. What is Gracidea? Where can we find some?"

He looked up at the ceiling, with its false blue sky and bland white light in regular bars. "Not here, unless…"

Unless they could make some. Pokémon could do that, especially one that was supposed to be the Voice of the Forest.

He pulled away from Aria, floating down to the other Celebi's eye level. 

That meant he was next to the Shaymin too. Without the song to distract her, Aster now noticed him. She shifted and whined, tucking her head behind one pale foreleg. Even the white fur was patchy and uneven.

He pretended not to see her there. "Cedrin, have you ever grown flowers before? With your… powers? Moves? Not sure what you call them. Could you make plants grow?"

"M-me?" He looked to the side, wings briefly humming in nervous agitation. "I never learned any techniques. When I was in the cadet corp, it was mostly about…. math. Ship operations. Fabricator maintenance. Not… plants."

"You can." He leaned in closer, taking the Celebi's hand. "Where I come from, a Cel—Pokémon like you are called the Voice of the Forest. I've heard of them doing all kinds of incredible things. And believe me, I learned everything there was to know about them. Every legend, every myth and story and piece of local folklore from all over the planet. You can grow plants from nothing, restore health to a dying forest, rally all the local Pokémon to help you… and more. But it's the plant stuff that matters right now."

He floated to the side, close enough to gesture at the hiding Shaymin's withered pink flower. "This flower, it's called a Gracidea. They're usually bigger than that, about this wide. They can grow in really poor soils, wild temperature extremes, poor sunlight. But they're not that complicated. I've given bouquets to my… friend, before."

The Meloetta walked slowly around them, then lifted Aster protectively into her arms. She wasn't that much bigger, but large enough to hold her without much difficulty. The Shaymin hadn't been very large to start with, when she was healthy. "Be careful if you're going to use techniques down here. Aster doesn't need more stress."

"Show me!" Cedrin said. His excitement got even stronger this time—strong enough that he lifted up into the air on his own, feeble wings buzzing as he flew. "Show me how! I'm a good copy-er!"

I'm not a real Celebi! I can't do anything!

That thought didn't make it out of his head, because something interrupted him: a loud voice, loud enough to echo through the entire space. "Degenerate Bioform Patient: Quinn. You have a visitor. Your visiting duration begins: now."

Visitor? He didn't have to look up to know who it must be. There was no one in this strangely unfriendly wasteland that would want to talk to him… except one.

"Try it!" He sent to Cedrin, as quietly as he could. "Your friend needs that flower to live. If you can give her one, she'll feel much better."

Then he took off, soaring straight up through the trees. Avery was here, and he was going to see her! Maybe she could find a way to help them out of medical prison. If anyone could, it would be another Mew. Maybe they would listen to her!