The Mask Maker

Revenge

Morai managed to make it to Lusamine's mansion without detection. She had made Lillie walk the entire way over there as she watched from the shadows. There was a close call when an Aether Foundation employee tried to strike up a conversation, but Lillie simply asked to be excused so she could go sleep. 

This place is huge, Morai thought. She managed to make her way up to what she hoped was Lillie's bedroom from the outside and climbed in through the window. Lillie simply got into bed, skipping any sort of routine she may have had. Morai let go of control, and she seemed to be too drowsy to get up. The Mask Maker turned to leave, but Lillie grabbed her wrist with a sense of urgency and hesitant gentleness at the same time. 

"Where...where is she?" Lillie asked. Her voice was soft, shaky, and barely audible. Morai stood there in silence as the gentle Alolan breeze swept into the room through the window, and she felt Lillie's fear. She figured it must be frightening to be so drained you can barely move, with a red-eyed silhouette looming over you. Even still, Lillie had reached out to try and grab a final answer before it was too late. 

"She's gone, Lillie," Morai whispered. 

Lillie's tired face contorted into disbelief and sadness at the same time. 

"What happened?" she tearfully asked. "What did you do?"

"You'll forget this conversation soon enough. Don't torture yourself while you still remember."

"What did you do?" she asked again with an even greater sense of urgency that was tinted with anger. She was still holding onto Morai's wrist. "I have to know...so that I can honor her properly. I can't live with her story unfinished in my memories." 

"This is a memory better left in the fog," Morai said, removing her hand from Lillie's grasp and taking control of her again. She rifled through the picture album that she had moved to her pocket, and found a picture of her old self and Lillie at the Battle Tree. They both had an arm around each other and were winking for the camera. She left it on the trainer's bedside. 

Why? Her inner voice seemed to ask. Just to break her heart again? 

When Morai returned to the lab, she found Colress sitting calmly in a chair and writing. He looked up to see her and a male Aether Foundation employee that was standing in an eerie stupor, his eyes staring blankly ahead. His neck was dripping with blood, and Morai lifted her mask to reveal a face that confirmed his suspicion.

 "Don't get it on the lab contents, Morai," Colress pleaded. 

"You didn't start on the serum?" Morai asked, ignoring his request. 

"No. Like I said, that wasn't our deal."

"You're not even a medical doctor," Morai argued. 

"No, but I've worked with countless Pokémon, pushing them to their limits and trying to draw out their greatest power," Colress said. "I had to make sure they remained in stable condition, and to do that I had to have some medical knowledge. I at least know the markers of a human in decent health, and I can tell you're missing quite a few of them just from looking at you."

Morai shook her head, her eyes glowing red behind her mask. "You've left me with one option, Colress," she said. 

"Yes, and that is to sit down and cooperate," Colress said with an air of self-satisfaction. "I haven't looked at you in the eyes at all since you've returned."

Time is beginning to run out again. I guess I've got no choice.

The Mask Maker once again sat on the table and let Colress check her vitals and perform some tests.