Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 19 - Synthetic

"You will not say such things," Rhys said venomously.

The Garchomp twitched slightly and opened her mouth, about to fire a plume of blue fire, but Manny saw it coming. He leisurely pointed his paw her way and shot one final Aura Sphere at it, but this one enveloped her body. She screeched and struggled against the strange field, flailing her arms and legs, thrashing against the air. But then her movements slowed down like the very life was being drained from her. And then, out of her mouth, came a little, golden light, surrounded by a blue ember—and the Garchomp was dead. The ember moved to Manny's paw and vanished inside. The Garchomp collapsed to the ground, blending in with the rest of the corpses that lacked fatal wounds.

Amia nearly fainted, but she was held up by Anam. The shock of seeing Manny extract the mutant's very essence stunned Anam into silence.

"Manny..." Rhys said lowly, his own aura flaring at his paws.

"What?" Manny said. "I'm doin'um a favor." He fired from his paw an aura; it splashed on the ground and condensed into a solid form again. A Garchomp—the very same one, with the very same mutations. She roared; the whole cave shook, and then she ran at him again, claws kicking up rocks. Manny clenched his paw, and she disintegrated into an ember, returning to her host once more. "See?" he said. "Alive 'n' well."

"Th-that's hardly...!" Amia said.

"They live on in th' Orb. They can fight fer as long as they want. Th' old timers from th' last attack a couple decades ago? Found a way ter calm 'em down, so now they fight fer me. Yeh met 'em, didn't yeh?" he said. "Azu, Verd, Roh... yeah. Those three're my best from back then. Trained by an old friend that's too strong fer me ter summon. I gave 'em new bodies, helped repair their heads." He tapped a claw against his skull. "Fixed th' instincts that their master gave 'em. I figured out how ter give 'em a proper free will. Too bad they forgot where they came from. Was curious, but I guess that's a side-effect."

"I... I see," Rhys said. He looked down. "...Are they... sapient? Can they speak? Beyond Azu and your best..."

"Eh. They're gettin' there," Manny said. "But hey, way better'n I first met'm." The Lucario paused for quite some time as if thinking about something. Meanwhile, in the silence, Amia tried to regain her composure; James was inspecting some of the fallen bodies, noticing that most of them didn't have any severe wounds on them. Anam made sure Amia didn't collapse again. Rhys was deep in some other part of his mind.

"So," Manny said. "Yer takin' care o' Gahi an' the other ones? How're they still alive? Figure Mods also age. What's keepin' 'em from passin' through the aura sea, eh?"

"They... have been reverted to past selves, so to speak," Rhys said. "And... Mod Pokémon, as you call them, do not age. They were not built to age and degrade."

"An' jus' who built these guys? Must've been some real genius ter come up with that. They're givin' me some theories, but their past memories're real blurry. Somethin' about bein' in that battle mode fuzzes it up."

"Genius, huh?" Amia said. "Well, it was a Hunter, right, Rhys? It... i-it couldn't have been N-Nevren, right...?"

Rhys sighed. "I thought that without Nevren, the other Hunters wouldn't have been able to continue the project," he said. "Clearly, I was wrong. Nevren is going to be very upset about this."

"I've never seen Nevren be upset," Anam mumbled quietly.

"I have," Rhys mumbled. "This is precisely the thing that will put him in a mood. He assured himself that the stray mutants we've been finding are all there are. Clearly, that is not the case." Rhys scanned the spire's chamber. "Eon is making an entire army."