Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Infrared

Chapter 33 (Old): I Am Machine

Back into the Pokémon Center Arven and his friends went. They walked with caution in the direction of the hallway AI Joy lured Arven to and kept an eye out for her. The last thing they wanted was to lose another valued member of their team when they needed everybody.

It was strange. The Pokémon Center was almost too quiet. It was like it became a different place at night. Arven asked himself if it was even one.

The thought left his head, and he walked next to Miraidon. Arven patted his neck. "Hey, Miraidon," he said, "I never said this before but thank you. Thank you for saving me when AI Sada tried to kill me." He found that it was getting easier to say that.

Penny overheard Arven's words and asked herself, "AI Sada?" Calling her by that name was a good sign. It meant that Arven was finally starting to accept his mother's death.

While he and Miraidon bonded, Penny pulled up the last screenshot she got of Sada when she collapsed on Levincia's street. What was so interesting about it that she didn't get to say out loud? Well, the answer Penny needed for Infrared was right there in her phone, but she wanted Arven to figure it out himself. After all, this was his journey to acceptance.

Kenji escorted the party down the familiar, white hallway, which now haunted Arven's dreams. He pointed at the door at the end of it and explained, "The lab is right through there. Are you sure you guys are ready for this?"

"We are," Arven said. He brushed his palm across Miraidon's brow. "As you said, Kenji, with all of us working together, we will be able to stop my dad."

To show they agreed with him, Penny, Scarlet, and Nemona nodded at the same time. All three of them smiled, and that was enough for Kenji.

"Very well," he said, placing his palm on the pad next to the hallway's back door. "Let's do this thing."

***

With the Violet book open in his hands, Professor Turo cut across his army base and went to Sada's cell. His AIs slept soundly behind him, and Nemona's holographic Meowscarada was outside her pokéball, following Turo like a lost puppy.

He shut the book and dropped it into his coat pocket, mimicking where he found it in the first place—in Sada's coat. There was also an empty pokéball in the pocket he dragged the book out of. Turo assumed it was Koraidon's.

He peered through the see-through gate at Sada.

She lay on her side in it with her eyes closed. She twitched and tried to lift her head, but she instantly put it on the ground again.

"Look at you," Turo sarcastically said. Deactivating the gate, he and Meowscarada stepped into the cell. "On your last leg, aren't you? This is just what I want. This means you're ready for the final showdown—yay! Oh, how I've been anticipating this day." Turo reached for Sada and clutched her arms. He lugged her to her knees.

"No!" Sada shouted. Her eyes fluttered open, and she tried to push Turo away from her. "Don't touch me!"

Turo merely tightened his grip on her. Steam puffed out of his nostrils. "All right, little lady, you have caused me enough trouble already. So why don't we just get along and get this over with?" He shook Sada's arms. "I gave you what you wanted, so a 'thank you' would be nice."

"This isn't what I want," Sada explained in a choked voice. "No matter what you do, Turo, I will continue to protect Arven." That was her job as his mother.

"Oh, so you've learned to be brave now, too?" Turo inquired, disgusted. "Too bad that's not going to help you at this point." He examined Sada's infrared body. "You brought this upon yourself, Sada—by acting against your code. I'm merely refurbishing you."

Sada raised her voice. "I don't want to be a robot. I'll fight for my humanity. Now let me go!" She lifted her right, Terastallized fist and punched Turo across his left cheek.

Stumbling, he instantly freed her and tumbled onto his backside. He rested his hand over his throbbing cheek and glared at Sada. "Oh, you should have not done that, little lady." His entire face burned like Sada's crystals. Turo rose to his feet and snatched her neck again. He squeezed it to the point that he almost broke it. "I've tried being nice to you, and this is how you repay me?"

Turo threw Sada out of the cell into the army base.

She crawled away from him, using only her right hand, and ducked under a holographic table. Sada clutched one of its legs.

On his way to her, Turo knocked down tables and chairs and kicked a few stands over. "When the original professor died," he explained, pulling Sada out from under the table, "I swore to myself that I would destroy any evidence of her. I will not hesitate to kill you and Arven if it means never having to think about her again!"

"You've taken your grief to an unhealthy level," Sada told him. "I thought I could help you through it, by bringing the family back together, but it looks like I was wrong."

"You Sam heck were!" Turo boomed, dropping her. "You're no human but an AI and a science experiment!"

The words stabbed Sada's heart. Her body sparked while the tears ran down her cheeks, filling her mouth with their salty taste. Her voice started to falter. "I'm not a science experiment. I'm a human being, and all I want is to be the mom Arven never had. Is that really too much to ask? You were never there for him, Turo, and while the original professor wasn't a great mom, at least Arven had one."

"I've had enough of you!" Turo held his hand up to Sada's cheek. However, he stopped himself from slapping it. "Meowscarada, we will convert her into a robot right now!" His heart ached in his chest, but he still gestured at Meowscarada.

"Stop!" a voice yelled from off to the side. Arven.

He and the others rushed through the base over to the confrontation.

Miraidon quickly changed his form and hopped in front of Sada. He rotated his V-shaped arms and now held them in front of him. He stopped Meowscarada before she could attack Sada.

Sada fell onto the floor on her back. She tilted her head to the right, stretched her right arm out, and bent her knees to the left.

Nemona hid behind her hands when she saw Meowscarada. What had Turo done to her greatest treasure?

He rubbed the sides of his eyes and removed his walkie-talkie-like device from his pocket. "All right, I didn't want to have to do this until later, but it looks like I have no choice." He glanced at Arven, his friends, and then Miraidon.

The Pokémon chucked Meowscarada off to the side and returned his arms to normal. He scooped up Sada and hugged her to the slightly spinning tire in his chest. Her right arm dangled like a balloon string, and she rested her left hand on her belly button.

"Welcome, Arven," Turo greeted, "and the—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—Seven Musketeers. You're right in time for the party."

"Dad!" Arven said, narrowing his brows. "How could you do this? You're killing her!"

"Oh, so I'm not going to get a 'hello' from my long-lost son either?" Turo questioned. "How rude, and I don't take rudeness kindly. It looks like you musketeers are going to face my army of Future AI and Hologram Pokémon a little early. So I guess this is where I say, 'toodelo'." With that, Turo lifted his thumb and crashed it into one of the buttons on his device.