Anabel and Looker sat with Trip, Amber and Bianka at Lyndon's kitchen table. Commentary on the launch buzzed on the TV. Looker took out his notepad and recorder.
'Bear with me,' Trip said, 'I'm still unravelling what was true and what wasn't. And processing being lied to my entire life. Even my last name wasn't real.'
'Oh, yes.'
Anabel opened her briefcase. She passed Trip an Orrean passport. A folded piece of paper jutted out.
'We finalised your change of name.'
'Great. Thanks!'
The briefcase was still open. Smiling, she pulled out two pieces of red fabric, one paler than the other.
'We interviewed Lon and Cail on our way here. They know you won't need these when you go to college... but they want you to have them anyway.'
He shared her smile as she shook them out. The new jerseys, a little smaller given the weight he'd lost during his time with Cipher, no longer belonged to #11, Raco but #11, Joyner-Massey.
'How are they?'
'They do still feel guilty, unfortunately... though it's positive they're already taking steps to arrange proper training for mandated reporters.'
Looker switched on the recorder. Anabel nodded.
'If you'd like to begin with your earliest memory, Trip...'
'I have vague memories of sitting on the couch with my mom. And her smile. That she loved me. But I guess my earliest clear memory is... what happened. I really don't remember my dad at all. Or his mom. But coming to The Under brought this back to me. I remember being on the doorstep and my grandma shouting. Saying my mom was a "terrible mother" and she was looking for drugs. I sort of remember pain. So I guess she'd hit me.'
'Your dad said she was throwing plates.'
'Nice. Well, mom ran. Grandma followed us on her scooter. We hid behind some crates. We were both crying. Mom had no cell phone service. Grandma had cut it off.'
'The provider, Virizion, has verified that, if that's of any comfort to you.'
'Yeah... so my mom made a phone call from the Poké Mart. Grandma always told me she was calling her dealer, but I think now it was my dad.'
'We can't recover the call itself, unfortunately, but Karsyn kept that month's bill... so we can still confirm without a doubt that it was their landline she called.'
'OK. That's good. Then we walked. Her Kirlia carried me for a little while. We were in the desert for what felt like forever. She took the steps – the steps where Lumir fought Ardos. We got to the upper level and hid in the bar that became the Bronze Bouffalant, right where the stage is now. It was full of boxes then. She promised I'd be safe. That my dad was coming. She said he'd look after me while she made sure these "horrible people" could never bother us again. Then we saw a grey uniform. I didn't know then, obviously, but the yellow scarves are Commanders. My mom tried to hide us both in a box, but it was too late, so she just hid me and three of her Poké Balls. Grandma said...'
He wasn't emotional, but unsettled, as if a ghost hung over him. He repeated their words.
'"You can't beat me, Laila. And you can't run or hide."'
'"But Don can. When he gets here..."'
'"He'll find your corpse. Unless you..." and I guess that "unless" was "join Cipher." Then mom told her Kirlia to use Confusion. I managed to tip my box over. Grandma's Mightyena flung Kirlia across the room. She said "I knew you were a despicable mother, Laila, but bringing your son to see you die? You get worse." I didn't really know what any of that meant. But I could see my mom was in danger. She sent out her Chansey. She didn't stand a chance. Grandma told Mightyena to kill Kirlia. He didn't want to. But she just whipped him until he was in so much pain, he obeyed just so it'd end. He literally tore Kirlia limb from limb in front of us both. It was horrible. And my mom was crying, screaming "Don! She's gonna kill me! Lyndon!" Then grandma threw me in another box and sealed it up. I... I could only see a little through a tiny hole, but... my mom was just screaming. I'd never heard her, or anyone, sound so scared. She wasn't even yelling dad's name anymore. She was just screaming. There were cracking sounds... and I heard those again when she broke my legs. So I guess that was... her breaking all my mom's bones. She was obviously beating the shit out of her. The screams kind of faded. They were just, like... resigned whimpers. One of grandma's Pokémon, I think it was Medicham, picked up my box. We were moving. I heard scraping. I think Mightyena was dragging mom along behind us. We stopped suddenly. Back then, I guess I thought my mom was gone already... but there was a thud and one last scream, that sounded way louder than it was because it echoed, like, endlessly. Then that faded, too. Like she was falling. And she was.'
'I'm so sorry, Trip. I've said this to your dad... to your grandpa... but I promise she will get justice.'
'Yeah... anyway... I guess we just went home. The next thing I knew, I was back on the couch. Grandma was crying. She called the police, saying her daughter had gone looking for drugs and hadn't come back. She said she'd seen someone in a suspicious uniform. She kept apologising to me for raising such a bad mother. She promised she'd be there for me, no matter what. She sure could be so nice that it was impossible to imagine that wasn't her.'
'Most abusers are capable of that.'
'I started asking about my dad soon after. She claimed he was a "good-for-nothing" she'd never met. She said she'd never even known his name and that my mom didn't, either. She even implied he took advantage of mom. I never saw any other relatives. I didn't even know I had family. I thought we were totally alone. And she played on that – acted like we were this team, us against the world, after drugs stole our loved one away and I was "abandoned" by my dad. I obviously had met him – even spent a lot of time with him – because there are photos, but her gaslighting literally erased my memories. I still don't remember. She kept me close because she "didn't trust" anyone. But that was what she did with my mom, right?'
'Yes... Laila did know her mom's parents, but only ever saw them with her close by. She justified her controlling behaviour by claiming Laila was "accident-prone" and "oversensitive." Her first friend was her Ralts.'
'Oh, yeah. Dad told me about that. How she rescued her from a chef's Crawdaunt.'
'That's right... and then she befriended Lyndon at kindergarten.'
'That was me, too. I made a whole bunch of friends on my first day, including Bianka. But she was the only one my grandma "allowed" me to be friends with. She had problems with all the others – that their parents were rich, or "bootlickers," or "Mareeple," or bullied her or mom or whatever else. And I had no reason to question her. I thought Bianka was really cool because she actually had her own Pokémon, a Psyduck, anyway. We were friends... right?'
Bianka nodded. 'Of course we were. Neither of us really had our parents. I mean, I did, but they didn't care about me or my sister, who ran away. Rosen... Gretchen... saw that. She invited me for a sleepover right away. And I literally didn't think anything of Trip sleeping in a corner with a sleeping bag and suitcase, or the cheap shit he ate, because that was how I lived. My parents never showed up to collect me from school. So Gretchen kinda took me in. It wasn't hard to be nicer than my parents. So I genuinely believed she was nice. She let me call her "grandma" and Trip my "brother." It felt like I actually had family. Even when I saw her hitting Trip... I thought that was just how it was. I remember him crying because he thought she preferred me to him. It wasn't that. She couldn't risk hitting me, just in case a miracle happened and my parents noticed.'
'We did have a few other friends over the years. Other unloved kids like us who didn't think twice about the way we lived. Bianka was already a pretty strong Trainer. She won a Hoothoot and Aipom in local tournaments. Grandma always praised her and pushed her to get better.'
'But her Pokémon scared me a little. They weren't Shadow Pokémon, apparently, but they were so cruel. Battling wasn't about battling or even winning for her or them... it was about inflicting as much pain on their opponents as possible. Not their fault, obviously. They were scared shitless of her.'
'I always loved Pokémon – and Bianka's Pokémon were basically family to me – but I didn't want to be a Trainer. Grandma gave me shit for that. She knew I was scared she loved Bianka more than me and she used that, trying to push me to become a Trainer so I'd be "worthy" of her love. But I really wasn't interested. I wanted to play football.'
'Yeah. Just like I was a strong Trainer already, Trip was a great football player. He was always the quarterback. Even as a kid. He was good with Pokémon, though. And Gretchen saw that as wasted potential. She constantly made up excuses for why he was too sick to play football, or why he didn't "deserve" to.'
'I actually believed I was really sick. She convinced me I'd inherited her osteoarthritis and I thought I had terrible asthma and heart problems, even though I never took any medication or saw any doctors. But all that just made me more determined to succeed. My coach – that was another dude, Hader, at that level – was kinda confused, but no disrespect, he wasn't the smartest guy out there. He believed her. And he believed me. So he shared my determination to see me do well. My team made it to the Mini League finals and then suddenly, a few days before the big game, grandma announced we were moving to Kanto.'
'And I wasn't coming.'
'I had questions. Lots of questions. It was the first time since my mom died and I asked about my dad that I really questioned her. Like, how could we leave Bianka? Where would she go? How would we afford moving to Kanto when we could barely afford to eat? But she just told me it was all booked already, we'd be staying at a "friend's place" and I had to pack my bags, right away. I didn't have anything to pack. Well, I had my football kit and like, three shirts and two pairs of pants, but I hardly needed time for that. I was kinda incredulous when she told me to roll up my sleeping bag. I would've preferred a bed to moving to Kanto. I have to be honest – you know how little we're taught about the world outside Orre in school. I didn't even know where Kanto was. As soon as Bianka was out of earshot, she beat the shit out of me for daring to question her. I remember arriving at the airport in Saffron City, how the officer's eyes widened when he saw me with two black eyes and purple arms. Grandma shook her head. "He's a football player," she said, "You know how brutal it is over in Orre. So we're starting a new life here." I don't think he believed her, but nothing happened. And Bianka...'
'My parents barely even blinked when I moved back in. I just had to fend for myself and avoid the shit they threw when I had to pass through the living room. I sent Trip postcards with photos of Orre because he missed it so much.'
'Yeah. I'd barely ever left Pyrite. I'd been to Gateon Port, once, but only for a football game, so I didn't see much. The apartment was what I was used to – one bedroom, so the living room floor for me – but Saffron City was fucking massive. There were people and Pokémon everywhere. Wild Pokémon! Like, don't get me wrong, Professor Mesquite's done an amazing job in Orre, but we didn't actually have Rattata or Grimer or Venonat. We sure did there. The Rattata kept me awake gnawing. And the Grimer stank. But even without them, the traffic did the job just fine. It was honestly terrifying. Then she sent me to school and I was the only kid who didn't speak the local language. Hardly anyone spoke Galarian. Obviously, they shouldn't have to in their home region, but I wasn't prepared for not understanding a word anyone was saying. Everyone had Pokémon. They all wanted to be Trainers – I gathered that – and I was a weirdo because I didn't. Grandma had a job as a security guard. When she wasn't working, she was training. So I was often alone. I started skipping school and hiding out in the Fighting Dojo, where the guys took pity on me. I guess it's irrelevant, but honestly, they were the best. They didn't really get football, but they made sure I stayed in shape and at least tried to understand. They never judged me for not wanting to be a Trainer. And they taught me Kantonian. I owe any strength I do have as a Trainer to them.'
'Nothing you want to share is irrelevant, Trip... and I'm glad to hear someone was looking out for you.'
'Yeah... and one day they were really excited, waiting at the door to meet me, because they had this "awesome surprise." Viridian City's Gym Leader, Blue, showed up with a bunch of international students he was training. Most of them were Galarian. I was pretty fluent in Kantonian by then, but it sure was reassuring, knowing I couldn't get lost mid-speech. Blue will never admit to your face that he cares, but it wasn't hard to see he was really unsettled by this lost Orrean kid skipping school to hang out with old martial artists.'
Anabel smiled. 'Blue's a sweet guy, underneath it all... and now I know how he knows you.'
'Oh? Oh, of course. You worked with him at the Battle Tree.'
'He also came to help fight Cipher... perhaps that's partially why. He's still here, if you'd like to see him, Trip.'
'Oh, yeah, I'd love to. I owe a lot to him, too. He'd met grandma. He figured she was my guardian and invited me to hang out with his students instead of going to that school I hated. She saw a Gym Leader and thought she was finally getting somewhere in making me a Trainer. She never questioned him. When she found out someone had reported her, she assumed it was one of my teachers, not Blue.'
'I must apologise, Trip, that we only discovered this recently... but she actually spent six months in Saffron Jail. With Kanto being so far away and her using her real name, it escaped our notice... but I believe it must have been that same immigration officer you've mentioned who testified alongside Blue.'
'No way?! She was actually in jail? I guess I wouldn't have known. I was at Viridian Gym or "assisting" at the lab in Pallet Town. And the Oaks, Blue's family, were so kind to me. Grandma approached it all the wrong way... I actually wanted to be a Trainer after a while with them. I still didn't want to be the best or anything, but for the first time ever, I really wanted my own Pokémon. So Professor Oak gave me some Poké Balls. And I took them with me on a camping trip to the Sevault Canyon. That's where I met my Cubone. But... I couldn't really tell the difference between thinking I hated Saffron City and hating grandma. So I sorta missed her. I felt bad that I was away. I still believed that "us against the world" shit back then. The Oaks didn't really want to let me go, but they didn't want to control me, either. Blue took me home. I wondered why the place was so dusty and grandma seemed so glad to be there... I guess she'd just got out of jail. She was thrilled I'd caught a Pokémon. But that soon turned to getting pissed when Cubone cried. She said she was taking her back to Sevault Canyon to find her mom's remains, so she could get over her death... but even then, I figured when Cubone came back with injuries that she'd just beaten her into submission. I'd seen her doing it to her own Pokémon. And she wasn't gone long enough to get to Seven Island, let alone to find specific remains.'
'Is Marowak well now?'
'Yeah. She's one hell of a mentally strong Pokémon. Much stronger than I am.'
'No... she's grown that strong because your strength has inspired her, Trip.'
'Well, maybe. We've grown together. But anyway. Grandma thought I'd be running off to challenge Brock for my first Badge as soon as I got the chance. She'd already tried and failed. But I really wasn't that serious about it. I just wanted to have fun with my Pokémon. She kicked me so hard she broke my ankle. The Dojo Master took me back to Pallet Town. But Blue had gone back to the Battle Tree. I felt lost and ended up wandering on a sort-of-adventure with Cubone, a Tentacool I caught and an Eevee from Professor Oak, just to pass the time. We were in Kanto for six years. I'm gonna take a guess now that she didn't just take us back to Orre because she'd "finished" her training... I think people saw her for what she was. I know she lost her job.'
'Most likely... there were several complaints about her. Though we don't believe she killed anyone in Kanto.'
'I was so, so, so fucking happy to be back in my shithole hometown, I can't even tell you. Grandma convinced me no-one would remember me, so I really should've questioned what I was being told when everyone was glad to see me, but I didn't.'
'I shouldn't have moved back in,' Bianka said, 'But I did, right away. I was desperate to get away from my parents. And I'd missed my best friend.'
'Grandma started dropping disguised hints about Cipher then. Saying her Orrean job was the best thing that'd ever happened to her and they valued her too, unlike those "Kantonian Mareeple." She was already pushing me to do the Gym Challenge. But she gave up for a while when I got my place on the high school football team and Lon basically told her to back the fuck off. I think she was still scared after people figured her out in Kanto. Lon did his best to give me the tools I needed to figure out whether or not I was being manipulated... but I wasn't smart enough to use them. His advice went over my head. Especially with her being nicer than usual.'
'It's not a lack of intelligence, Trip... it's how skilled a manipulator she was.'
'I didn't know why Bianka suddenly cut us off – which grandma blamed on me, obviously – but I do now. You can tell them, Bianka.'
'Yeah... it started when... I was always at Trip's football games, so I got friendly with one of the cheerleaders, Raylene... and, I mean, we weren't really friends, because we were more than friends, but I hadn't accepted I wasn't straight then. Her house was normal. Her family were normal. It was such a shock I freaked out and left, at the worst time possible, when she was trying to tell me she was in love with me. She thought I was homophobic. She never spoke to me again. So I blamed that on my parents and Gretchen. I tried to tell Trip, but he'd never seen a normal place except in the movies or with the Oaks who were rich, so he just didn't get it and he was preoccupied with football anyway. And I didn't want to go to the games anymore because of Raylene. We were already growing apart. Then one day, there was a shiny Sandile on the news and I really wanted to check it out, but the only person who'd take me was Gretchen.'
'I never imagined they weren't actually looking for the Sandile. But that must've come across as not caring to Bianka.'
'I mean, I didn't question it either. Not until we were way out in the desert, where the tourists were going missing and I saw a new lab. Gretchen was like, "I have to talk to you, Bianka. You've been had, like everyone has, by Snattle and Mareeple. Cipher is the only way forward." And she told me she was a Cipher Commander and that was their state-of-the-art new lab with amazing living quarters I could stay in for free, if only I became a member. There was free healthcare and she promised to get me a place on the Gym Challenge, too, if I joined. I freaked the fuck out. It suddenly made sense to me she'd been in with Cipher all that time. I told her there was no way I'd ever, ever, ever join an evil organisation like Cipher. She said I'd end up dead but I didn't care. My life had no value to me. Especially then, after what happened with Raylene and thinking I was gross, or a freak, for not being straight in general. I battled her and won. Then I hitchhiked to Gateon Port, where I basically lived at the Pokémon Center. And I battled and battled until I could afford a means of transport, a motorbike.'
She sighed. 'I wanted to go back to the lab to take Cipher down. I guess I thought that'd make me bigger than a homeless orphan or whatever. But that was stupidity. This wasn't the same Cipher Wes or Michael fought. They were way bigger. I signed up for the Gym Challenge, thinking it'd help, but I couldn't stop thinking about those missing tourists. So I drove out there. I broke in and defeated every Peon who came at me. But I lost to Verzant. I was pretty strong, physically, so I managed to get away long enough to revive my Pokémon. They were weak, though. And Znider was way too strong. I didn't stand a chance. He threw me in a cell opposite the tourists I was so worried about. And you know how it went from there. That's all I have to tell you.'
'Thank you, Bianka.'
'I'm rewinding a little,' Trip continued, 'Back to the summer before the Gym Challenge. Pyrite Pangoro won the big trophy. It was a kinda crazy time. Girls were throwing themselves at me and I was on an ONBS show. Lon hammered on my door one day, driving off with me before grandma could stop him. A talent scout, Frankie, came all the way to Pyrite from Eclo Town to ask about me. He wanted to offer me a scholarship. I'd be going to college in Phenac and playing for Phenac Falinks. It was a dream come true, obviously, but I knew grandma would lose her shit. And after my life got uprooted for the move to Kanto, I was a little scared myself. So it wasn't hard for her to convince me to decline it. And then I'd lost all direction and interest in life, because I didn't want to show my face at school again... so I agreed to do the Gym Challenge. As soon as I met Amber and her friends, I had the same feelings Bianka did with Raylene. It was wild, like, loving parents existed? Kids slept in beds? It really hit me when we stayed with Lumir – who grandma had me convinced was responsible for the revival of Cipher and missing tourists – and yeah, his place was a shithole, but it was a home. His mom cared. She made sure he had everything he needed. And Amber could see what I couldn't, that I'd rather have been playing football. She convinced me to ask Frankie for a second chance.'
Amber smiled sadly. 'Not that it was easy. Trip was full of excuses for why it was a bad idea, even though it was obvious that was what he really wanted. As soon as I saw him actually playing, I knew I'd done the right thing, convincing him to write back. But...'
'I ended up having to tell grandma I was dropping out of the Gym Challenge. Our friends were there, so she tried to get rid of them by offering them money – enough to buy me a bed – to stay in a nice hotel.'
'We moved our van, so she thought we'd gone and hid outside, to check Trip was safe. She was insulting him and his mum already and asking what gave him the "right" to question her. Then we heard her hitting him. She sent out her Mightyena, asking it to restrain him, but it didn't want to. I was about to go running in when the door flew open and Trip was running out with all his stuff, which was literally just a sleeping bag, the same shitty suitcase Laila left behind and a Cubone doll. We got him into the van and drove. Gretchen followed us, but Cassia managed to lose her with a sandstorm. So Trip stayed with us for a while. And Frankie did give him a second chance. He was so excited. He wasn't scared anymore. But...'
'You can start explaining that day at Pyrite Colosseum, Amber.'
'OK. This "journalist," which was actually April Schultz, had kept showing up at Trip's football games and all kinds. I guess she was stalking him because he was my boyfriend. I just wanted her to go away when she showed up at the colosseum. So I agreed to let her interview me. Trip decided to come to make sure I was safe. But he got a bit behind when a football fan approached him. We got to April's car and she pulled a bag over my head.'
'I was about to throw a rock, just to distract her, when some huge dude grabbed me. There were three of them. But one was a woman. I recognised her right away. It was my grandma. One of the guys passed her a baseball bat. She offered me the chance to keep my legs by joining Cipher and completing the Gym Challenge, so a Cipher member would be the strongest Trainer in Orre. In hindsight, I should've pretended to accept, but she said all this stuff about my mom and dad and how she had always known who he was. And I was so enraged I told her I'd never join Cipher. So much for her arthritis – she beat me with the baseball bat until both of my legs were broken and then she knocked me unconscious.'
'I heard Trip screaming and I had no idea what was going on. April had been chucked in the boot after me. I heard Gretchen's voice once we got to the lab. She showed no remorse whatsoever.'
'The next time I saw her was at The Under Colosseum. I won... and my dad kicked her in the face. And then he left her for the police.'