Chapter 47: Chapter 47

Ellie Joy stretches her arms above her head as she exits the lecture hall and looks around at the sea of pink to find faces she recognizes, adjusting her glasses as they start to droop on her nose.

She doesn't actually need glasses, one of the strange benefits that comes with the pink hair, but when she was little she had a… minor identity crisis after realizing no one outside the family –not even her non-Joy uncle– could pick her out of a crowd of cousins and sisters.

That state of panicking wanting to be someone ended with her saving her allowance for two weeks and buying her first pair of glasses, complete with blank lenses, she’d worn them ever since.

Ellie had gotten over the identity crisis a long time ago, but it took long enough that it feels weird not wearing them.

Stepping out of the main lecture hall and into a beautiful cloudless sky, routine has her feet walking toward the meal hall, before her face breaks into a wide smile at the sight of her gossip group waving for her to approach.

“Heyy!” She calls once she gets into earshot. “What’s the news!”

“Alright! Let me start over.” Olivia says, gesticulating with her hands as the rest of the group watches on. “So you know how Autumn hooked up with that boy who works at the bowling alley?”

“Spare lane? In Roseville? Thirty minutes on the southbound train?” Ellie confirms, answered by a pointed finger and a nod.

“Right!” Olivia confirms. “Well, this morning, she called him for that sappy ‘good morning I love you’ thing she does, but when he picks up the phone he seems to think it’s some kind of joke! So she asks and he tells herthat she’d stayed the night, so it couldn't be her!

“No…” Ellie says with a laugh, grabbing a tray and moving down the line.

“Yes!” Olivia confirms. “So she hops on the next southbound train and it turns out that Kate has been playing ditto since like… day two.”

“It gets better!” Another member of her little gossip group chimes in, and Ellie follows the story with rapt attention as lunch continues.

But as she winds through the story, ending with the climatic reveal of no less than four Joys tepiggybacking off of Autumn’s relatoinship, they end up slowly drifting to new topics. Soon enough, the conversation inevitably ends up quietly talking about the firebombingin Mauville, talk that has only been amplified with rumors that one of her cousins was arrested.

It’s relatively old news by now, but it’s stuck around, and the thing that really made the topic stick was the fact that the gossip blew up, but then got quiet at a speed that only happens when the matriarchs put their hands on the scale to stopthe conversation. So there’s something actually happeningthere.

Not to mention how her partner has reacted to the news.

Ellie is pulled from the conversation at the thought of the ‘mon.

Chansey is… a lot like her, a people person, a planner who loves organizing events.

Ellie planned every birthday party she had since she could scribble pictures in crayon, instructing her parents of the itinerary with pictograms.

But Chansey? She’s running the show for her entire batch, and the events at Mauville galvanized them into action like nothing else.

Binders full of papers passing between hands and researching at all hours, a near permanent rotating watch on at least one of the library computers, and other Joys partnered with this batch revealing in conversations that their partners apparently needed to go to the library and look up stuff in the newspaper archive.

Ellie had gone to the store yesterday with her partner, and while Chansey bought a bunch of normal stuff, she also bought a large cork board, tacks, and red string.

She has no ideawhere that stuff went.

At the thought, the Joy realizes she’d tuned out the rest of the lunchtime conversation and everyone is rising from the table to go their separate ways. Doing the same and putting her empty tray in the proper place, she exits the meal hall before turning toward a nearby public park to meet her partner.

As she walks she passes the school fitness gym, and the sight brings up the thought of another change the ‘mon has caused in her life.

Chansey wants to join the disaster relief squads, something Ellie finds herself… neutral on, but the ‘mon has somehow gotten it into her head that they need to be physically fit to operate as command and control, which is what they’re planning on doing.

The upper years say the exercise gym is getting more use this year than they’ve ever seen and she’d believe it. Almost every single chansey from her partner's batch are also planning on joining disaster relief and either have a partner who wants to do that too or plan on doing the normal course and just exercise with them as a way of showing support.

Soon enough, the school buildings fall away and Ellie walks into the town that built itself her school, moving along the thoroughfares until she arrives at the park and waves to her partner across the green space.

Walking closer, she sees the ‘mon surrounded in papers and three ring binders full of charts, diagrams, and pictures of random people with descriptions that seem… detailed.

Chansey waves at and motions for her to sit down beside her.

“Chans. Chansey chan ch ans ansey an.” She says, and Ellie squints her eyes, trying to understand what was just said.

She’s gotten a lot better at piecing it together than when they first met, she still doesn't have that almost magical fluency her mom or other longtime pairs have.

As she breaks down the message, she pushes down the smallest feeling of envy that springs up looking at all this complicated stuff.

Chansey is smart. Intelligence that is backed up by hard work and directed in a way that’s hard to quantify in any other way than to point at the results.

The ‘mon is tutoring her so they’re on equal footing in academics, and while Ellie isalmost caught up, the fact that it happened at all has set the default state of their relationship.

It’s not a bad thing, in absolute terms it’s greatthat Chansey is qualified and competent. Ellie has spoken to other Joys with partners from this batch and most of them are happy to go along for the ride, following the wave of their partner’s energy as the ‘mon chases the life they want.

But Ellie doesn't want to be a passenger while her partner does something interesting. She wants to contribute, be a key part, make plans of her own, speak and be listened to by everyone in a room.

She wants to be somebody.

“Huh…” The nurse in training muses, picking up one of the papers, the only character profile that’s not of a human, instead a sternfaced chansey. “You’re sure your Bis Sis was involved in the Mauville thing?”

“Then could you walk me through it?” She asks, gesturing at the paper. “I know you’re having trouble getting information without having access to places in Mauville proper, but I went to this camp almost every summer until a few years back and kept up with a few non Joy friends who live in the city. So if we can figure out what you need…”

Chansey smiles, and wraps her partner in a hug.

“Chan! Chanan!” She cheers, grabbing a stack of papers and beginning to explain the web of information as it stands now.

…Fudge this is complex.

“Thank you, I’m very sorry for the misunderstanding sir. Goodbye.”

Mauville Head Nurse Alice Joy takes a deep breath and hangs up the telephone on her desk before picking up a pen, making a mark on her day planner, and moving on to the paperwork in front of her. Unfortunately the draining effect of the past few days has led to her staring blankly at the characters on the page for a few long seconds before snapping to focus and getting back to work.

She knows her heritage has gifted her with the ability to age with grace, but from her perspective even the most graceful of processes feels like she’s slowly sinking into a deep mud.

Mud that is filled with combee whose sole purpose in life is to attack her joints and lower back.

The nurse sighs, pressing her back more firmly against the lumbar pillow and not allowing her posture to slump even the smallest of degrees.

What she wouldn't give to turn back the clock, she’d take her sixties again.

Continuing her work in careful calligraphy –a dying art with the advent of new advancements– Alice is brought out of her focus by a harsh electronic chime from the device she’s allowed to take up a full eighth of her desk space.

Pausing in her work, she places her fountain pen back into the desk-mounted holder and slowly looks at the buzzing screen of the computer she’d been… encouraged to keep on her desk by earnest young people promising its ability to change the world. The most update n0vels are published on novel⟡fire.net

Though from her experience, the only part of the thing she’s found any use in are the fans, which work as an adequate white noise machine.

Awkwardly grabbing the mouse and wiggling it to turn on the screen, she scans the blinding box and sees a little animated red circle next to the picture of a letter which means…

Slowly dragging the mouse to the picture of the letter and clicking it, instead of the email page she sees a large white rectangle appear just to the left, a table with boxes containing seemingly random words.

The Head Nurse to a city of several million people furrows her brow at the screen.

This is notwhat she’d meant to do, and while she would very much like to blame the machine, one of the first things she’d learned with this thing is that it will do exactlywhat she tells it to do, nothing else.

Scanning the list of random words, she sees the bolded word ‘open’ near the top. Clicking on it, she’s rewarded with the email ‘page’ appearing on the screen, a single electronic letter titled ‘meeting reminder’ and the return address saying it’s coming from…

Alice levels a long look at the name on the return address, then slowly reaches over to the intercom system and buzzes for her assistant.

“Yes Head Nurse?” The girl responds promptly.

“Did you send me an email reminding me about my three o’clock meeting?”

There’s a short silence, then Alice realizes her assistant doesn't plan on elaborating.

“Why did you not use the intercom?”

“Oh, did you not get the memo?” She asks, followed by the clicking of a mouse. “No…you did, I sent you the email. Well anyway, the Ministry of Health and Services wants all official communications to be done through email now.”

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The nurse considers the dilemma for a moment, because while outright countermanding the MHS is something she can do, it can make things awkward at the annual budget meetings.

“Alright, thank you Sara.” She says, thinking quickly. “But, for anything you used to say over the intercom, could you do both?”

“Your three O’clock meeting with the city council is in fifteen minutes.” She interrupts. “A car is scheduled to pick you up at the front steps in ten.”

Alice rolls her eyes at her assistant’s… literal nature as she nods.

“Alright, thank you.” She says, removing her finger from the button before bracing herself against the desk and rising with a groan.

Scratch that, she’d take her seventies.

Stepping out of the government vehicle, she forces her body to straighten and to walk with her family’s expected grace as she begins walking up the stairs to the town hall. But her age makes its mark yet again and she’s feeling winded by the time she reaches the landing halfway up. It’s bad enough that the final stretch forces her to take them one at a time instead of her normal two.

As she comes to a stop at the top, breathing heavily, one of the two pokeballs on her hip shakes for a moment before popping open.

Then an old woman’s breathing eases as a very young chansey presses an arm against her thigh and the weight of age is pushed back for a few moments. An almost intangible presenceabsent from her hip with both balls empty.

Alice stares at the ‘mon unblinkingly as she works, and doesn't move until Chansey removes her arm, looking up at her with caring eyes.

But eyes that do not have the mirrored weight of a lifetime’sshared experiences. Respect, care, but not understandin–

“Anse.” The ‘mon chirps with a pat on the leg.

With that, she pulls her eyes away from the ‘mon as she pops back into the ball and steps into the building.

Winding through the halls, she steps into the meeting room a minute or two early and takes stock of the attendants who’re already here.

The stenographer is already sitting at his typewriter, Jace, the national government representative is sitting quietly next to the governor's empty seat, around the table she sees the bean counters, the head of the fire department, two of Mauville’s senators, and…

Alice doesn't stutter or slow as she eases herself into her chair, watching the head of the police force out the corner of her eye. One Grace ‘Jenny’ Protor, the silver haired woman staring down at a stack of papers and flanked by one of her nieces.

The nurse had always, in the back of her mind, thought the Jenny clan held a kind of jealousy for her family, and the past few days have only made those suspicions stronger.

In the days of legends, their ancestors marched in lock step. Protector and healer to all. But while the Joy’s transitioned out of the chaos and violence of the past and only grew stronger for it, the Jenny’s struggled to find their place in the new world. As such, they’ve been consistently shrinking since that turn in history.

Even in Mauville there’s normally only four or five of their clan at any moment.

Before there can be any further musing, the clock mounted above the door chimes the hour, and on the third toll the door opens to admit Governor Batton, followed by Wattson,

As he enters everyone but Alice and Grace rise to their feet and bow their heads, remaining standing until he waves for them to sit then lowers himself into his chair at the head of the table, Wattson taking the first seat to his left.

“Well.” The governor says with political cheer. “I can't tellyou how much I’ve been anticipating this meeting, the people are looking for action from their government to make this whole ‘Team Magma’ crisis go away, but they’ll settle for some good news, with that in mind I give the floor to Chief Jenny.”

The woman nods, putting on her glasses and opening the packet in front of all their seats, thumbing through the pages.

“As you all know, the attack was perpetrated by a team of five men, ages sixteen to an estimated late twenties, affiliated with the group known as Team Magma.” She says, stopping on a page. “Page thirty one in front of you. We’re unsure of what research was stolen, forensics is working on it and we’re working with the university staff to determine any potential leads. Of the five suspects, four were caught, the remaining male fled via air with the stolen material, dropping below the treeline shortly after leaving city limits and evading attempts to pursue. We’re working with the forestry service, but chances of catching the trail after so long has become incredibly slim”

At her words Wattson winces, but the governor doesn't look away, clasping his hands together and pointing at the officer with both fingers.

“This does not sound like good news.”

The Chief shakes her head.

“No sir, furthermore, of the four who were arrested, three appear to have been deliberately left in the dark on any important information. We suspect the remaining senior member knows more, but he did not respond to questioning. We’re moving to acquire warrant for the use of passive psychic reading in another interrogation, but the suspect’s public defender has already challenged the–”

She’s cut off as one of the senators hisses through his teeth.

“If you wouldn't mind, could you drop the warrant?” He hums, looking constipated as the governor nods from the head of the table. “Let's try looking for alternatives before we have to drag… that into the public conversation again.”

The Jenny nods and continues her report, but after the fifth minute of precise language saying nothing at all Alice tunes her out, instead watching the younger officer shift on her feet, trying to hide the movement with a straight posture and hands clasped behind her back.

Then their eyes meet, and the officer finches with her entire body, hastily looking away. At the sight, Alice’s eyes widen with recognition.

Ah, that’s why she recognizes the girl.

She’d been in the room when the Head Nurse had gone to the police headquarters to lodge a formal complaint with the force.

It’s good to see that her point was heard.

With that mystery solved, Alice tunes her ears back into the conversation as one of the bean counters chime in about expenses and raises a hand.

The leader of Team Magma, Maxie Hoss, stops at the door to the only meeting room in this hideout and flips the switch on his glasses, turning off the miniature projected screen broadcast onto his glasses after confirming the time.

With that, he straightens his jacket, fiddling with the cuffs until they’re perfectlyequal relative to the tubercle of his wrist, and opens the door to the room. He watches with some satisfaction as the head engineer and head scientist snap to attention and turn to face them in the middle of a conversation.

Their loyalty almost makes up for the fact they’re the best his organization can get, having been forced to hire people desperate enough to affiliate with a criminal organization despite supposedly having skills that would allow them to make easier money somewhere else.

In short they’re –quite frankly– terrible at their jobs, but they’re the best he could buy under the table.

He waves them to ease, coming to a stop at the table, where piles of stolen paper are interspersed with terrain maps and bare sketches of a machine.

“Well, you asked for time to understand the acquired research. I have given it. Now, tell me, do you understand it well enough to do what you need to do?” He asks, placing a hand on the papers he’d stolen.

Maxie shifts his shoulders so his cuffs are equal length again.

The three fodder grunts were of no consequence, and his administrator made it out by the skin of his teeth, but he’d lost one of his top enforcers and what he knows forced Maxie to burn the majority of his Mauville cells.

The scientist coughs into his fist, looking unsure.

Or it would be worth it. If thesedunces were even the slightest bit competent.

“Er… Yes?” The scientist hedges. “I mean, I understand the principals behind what these papers are describing well enough, but–

“Do you both understand it enough to build one?” Their leader interrupts.

There’s a pause, the two glancing at each other, then more hesitant nods before the scientist takes the lead again.

“I can get a list of materials and draw up some required specs for what you want, but if I do understand this research… your plan won't work, no matter how much power we shove into the laser arrays.” He says, tapping the sketch of the machine on the table. “Getting a beam down there is the easy part, after that we’ll need a catalyst, and it doesn't exist.” He moves his finger to a deep ground scan showing the volcano’s energy concentration and makes a circular motion. “To affect Mt. Chimney’s locus you’d need a three kilogram catalyst that –if we assume perfectaffinity match– has a TEV score of 950 mits per gram at least–”

“The issue of the catalyst will be handled, focus on your own work.” Maxie interrupts, adjusting his glasses as the engineer raises his own hand. “Yes, engineer?”

The man flinches his hand lower for a second before taking a deep breath and fidgeting with his shirt.

“Sir, if we’re doing this, I’m going to need more staff.” He mutters, briefly making eye contact then dropping his gaze immediately. “Not just engineers and machinists, you’re asking us to use an untested experimentaldevice to control a volcano. Even if it doeswork we have no idea what we’re doing without more information, we don't even have the most basic composition data on the surrounding rock or anything about the old volcano dyke that we’re supposed to be funneling this magma through.”

Maxie nods, careful control over his face and body preventing signs of irritation from leaking through.

“Yes, but that is not your job. Your task is to make it work.”

The engineer twitches, hesitates, then opens his mouth again.

“Sir, I’m not sure you understand the scale of what you’re asking here.” He says, pointing at a geographic map of Mt. Chimney, pins marking proposed work sites. “We fire this thing, no one knows what’s going to happen. We’re putting thousands of degrees and tons of pressure on a heterogeneous mixture of stressed volcanic rock, I don't know what the plan is to route all that pressure through inactivechannels, but if that doesn't go perfectly we’re not dumping lava into the ocean, it’s coming out the top, and we’re not creating land anywhere.”

Maxie opens his mouth, but his scientist interrupts, flipping through a clipboard before turning it around to reveal a page of math.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but whoever told you they could get a catalyst capable of this is lying. Look, commercial fire stones have a TEV of 3, and it’s logarithmic.”He points at a number he seems to think is important. “If you took the energy from every volcano on the planet and pumped it into a grain of sand, for ten years, with perfectefficiency, then you might get halfway to what you’re looking for.”

Their leader keeps his breathing steady and clenches a fist behind his back so they can't see it shaking.

“Your concerns are noted, but I am already well aware of everything you’re telling m–”

“Then I want to see it.” The engineer interrupts, voice the most solid it has ever been. “To do this with any degree of safety you need to have deep radar and sonar scans of the entire island and hundreds of core samples in the volcano alone. You need entire teams of geologists, volcanologists, geological engineers, and computer scientists to even begin working though all the ways this could go wrong. Because, if even a single part of this plan fails, it means an eruption that would kill–”

“Enough!” Maxie bellows, slamming his fist on the table of documents hard enough the wood jumps and a crack of sound echoes off the walls of the small room.

The engineer shuts up with a quiet yelp, both him and the scientist staring at him with wide eyes.

Their leader takes a few breaths, consciously pulling his rage back down until the trembling subsides.

“Enough.” He breathes at a more reasonable volume. “I am telling you it will work, and I am telling you every preparation has been made to ensure it’s safe. That’s it.” Maxie rises to his full height and adjusts his glasses again before turning and walking to the exit, giving his last order without turning his head. “Get the machine built and ready for transport three weeks from today. Get a parts list to my representative by the end of tomorrow.”

With that he closes the door and speeds up his walk so he’s around the corner before the two dunces have a chance to open the door and see him again.

Neither of them were wrong, though for different reasons, a lack of catalyst is a major issue, and his initial plan –chasing old legends of a ‘Crimson Orb’– has ground to a near halt. Thankfully, his luck continues to hold with the recent work of one Professor Cozmo. His luck only needs to hold a little longer and that meteorite will work as an acceptable substitute.

The fact that he’s forced to contract outside help for something so vital to his mission makes him writhe internally. Requiring the careful expenditure of resources to control the information entering the outsider’s world and quietly censoring everything they try to send out.

Only his inner circle knows the trueplan, and he’s made sure even they don't think too deeply about the parts they would find… objectionable.

Walking down the hall, he approaches his enforcers and notes as the man steps to the side, bowing his head as his leader passes by, who spares a lingering glance at the man without breaking stride.

There is no secondary lava channel, the volcano will erupt, and he’s not sure even the closest of his inner circle will understand the necessity of it. It’s why only he managed to build this organization, and why each of his administrators only understand aspectsof the plan in both method and effect.

The addition of new land, the destruction of old power structures, new resources, almost unrestricted opportunity, none of it can happen without a wider blank canvas.

Maxie sighs as he enters his office, eases into his chair, and looks at a map of Hoenn.

In order to finallytip the uneasy balance of compromises between human and Pokemon, allowing humanity to cast off endless binding traditions and rituals of the old world, there must be a single act which proves to every human watching that now they are the uncontested masters of all within it.

Then there must be a place to start, freshly cooled rock and fertile ash waiting to be settled, built under this new paradigm, made infinitely better without that choking compromise between man and ‘mon.

If there’s a warning, if there are evacuations, then there will be time for systems of power to survive the coming destruction, then the sacrifice of so many will be for nothing.

Maxie Hoss adjusts his glasses as he looks down at the papers on his desk and picks up a pen.

There is no other option.