None of this matters.

Fortree City. She sat in a room with four other witnesses. Two of them had seen her answer the call to arms on Charizard with the other Rangers. Two of them had seen her walk away, wandering through the upper terraces of Fortree City seemingly without a care in the world.

"I didn't want to do a mission," Chryssa said indifferently, crossing her legs. "I just wanted to go to Fortree City. I haven't been since the festival last winter, and I didn't even get to explore properly."

She'd already admitted to have sent a Zorua in her stead on the mission. She'd been accused of negligence on the job, which she'd already confirmed. She'd been told her remiss conduct could have jeopardized the entire city, and it was a Ranger's duty to answer the call when needed. No matter how much they didn't feel like it.

Maybe this job was too much to expect from a sixteen-year-old girl.

Her suitability for the position was being questioned. Her age was being taken into account. Her walking disability, while not brought up out loud, was clearly a factor as well. They were talking about a possible demotion, pending approval from the League Head Rangers.

But nobody had even considered that Chryssa, irresponsible and careless as she clearly was, had been working with Rocket all along.

Misdirection. As a performer, it was Chryssa's greatest strength.

There were footsteps in the hallway. A familiar voice caught Chryssa's ears, and her eyes widened imperceptibly. 

"--I didn't even start that fire. I don't have a fire type strong enough to do it."

She recognized that voice.

It seemed the offer to regroup in Mauville hadn't gone as planned.

"I need to use the bathroom," she said casually, standing up. She was putting up a tough front, pretending to fight for a position she'd only ever taken for the convenience and publicity. "You can call Mr. Anderson, but he'll be on my side. You'll see."

"We will see, Miss Glasgow," the Ranger in charge said grimly as the door closed behind her. 

She made her way down the hallway, leaning on her cane. She'd stayed in the Ranger's bunks the night before, but her legs still felt stiff and swollen. She had not been spared from the fiery assault on the city. Escaping the flames had pushed her to her limits-- and once it had all ended, Arceus had pushed her that much farther.

There was nothing the Rangers could do to her now. 

Instead of heading towards the restrooms, she stopped near the set of rooms local officers kept for interrogations. This must be where they're keeping him, she thought, stopping by the door to listen in. He might not know her name or face, but if the Rocket agent decided to spill what little he knew, Chryssa's involvement might be exposed.

Then again, nothing mattered anyway.

Fortree City. A quiet town to the northeast. While Chryssa had her feet held to the fire for the second time that month, the sound of the ongoing discussion in the front didn't even reach his side of the police station. His well-insulated interrogation room, with bare walls. It was a short distance to the warden's booth, which held both a keyring and a pallet full of pokeballs, and a short distance from that to his holding cell, one of about twenty-five.

While her credibility was checked, while it was questioned if a sixteen year old could hold down a job like this... His credibility was buffed. The officer in there with him seemed nice at first, but he was eager to inflate his importance in the, yes, admittedly bad looking poaching and forest fire.

The officer's offered cigarette was snatched up. A Camerupt Crush, from a pack of 18 or so. It was a little thicker than Giona was used to, and he reached to the lighter in the middle of the table. This was the kind of cigarette befitting a frazzled college student, in the hands of a man who was thirty, at best. At any time, you could pinch it to add a burst of menthol as well as menthol flavor.  "Feel free to chime in, but from what I can tell, there was a pack of Zarude nearby. Not close enough to threaten the town, but if they were, we could've gotten them. You moved in and separated one from the pack. In the ensuing chaos, a forest fire began. You badly mangled one of them, and fanned the flames to make your escape. You didn't even catch it." He said, standing from the table and starting to act it out. He really hammed it up, and bellowed out his lines, like Willem Dafoe in Boondock Saints.

"What am I supposed to believe. That you either had your Torchic use Flame Burst, knowing fully well the consequences?! Or that you could NEVER do this by yourself. Not in a million years. Either way, you were involved. Why?" He said, building up to a crescendo. Accusing the man, and yet... putting a fork in the road. Does he own up to all of it, or rat people out. Admit that he's a widdle wurmple who needs to be stepped on, or that he single-handedly nearly burned Fortree down? The choice was obvious.

Giona took a drag, letting an adidas-lace sized line of ash slough off onto the dark, hardwood table. He pinched the sides of the Camerupt Crush before speaking up. "I'm not sure what happened either. There were six people there, as I recall. Nobody else wore my uniform, so it's safe to say I was alone out there. As for the Zarude... Aren't we supposed to seek out opportunities like this? Nobody would get mad at me for going to Mount Pyre to catch a Duskull. I couldn't catch Zarude because five people cornered me."

That subtle insinuation seemed to be the last straw. The man who stood from the table and had a sudden change of heart raised a leg and shoved the table into his ribs with a kick. In fairness to him, Giona did technically do attempted arson, as well as poaching. He raised a hand, stopping the cigarette from either burning the table, or going all the way in his mouth. Ribbons of smoke filled the room, the officer sat back down and lit a cigarette off of his.

TL;DR: It's the Prison Break Mission. We're doing Prison Break. The mission where someone breaks out of prison.

The interrogation was rough. Unfair. Cruelty conducted as casually as a business deal--by men whose jobs it was to lay judgment and use brutality. They had already decided his guilt from the R on his uniform. No more evidence was needed-- only a confession. 

The smell of cigarette smoke seeped from the closed door, leaving an acrid taste in Chryssa's mouth. Something was rising within her the longer she listened. Something wild. Something self-destructive.

Everything is fixed.

She could still make a difference.

I can't change anything.

But she chose her own path.

Nothing I do matters.

Those were the words of someone who had already given up.

What would I do if that was me in there?

...She would pray for a miracle.

But there were few miracles in this world-- and even those were selective. Predetermined. Rationed by a God who relished in their individual suffering. Chryssa herself was proof of that--a one-in-a-million success story in every way but the one that really mattered. 

She was a walking miracle.

But even miracles only went so far without action.

With one hand wrapped around the tasseled handle of her cane, Chryssa pulled, revealing an inch of bright steel. She unsheathed the thin blade, sliding the tip like a credit card down the locked and barred doorframe. The ghost blade barely whispered as it eased through mundane metal like butter. 

She would have to be fast, and quiet, if she wanted this to work.

That meant making sacrifices. That meant betting her future. 

I don't care.

Muir's tassel stirred to life, slithering around her wrist. Its single eye opened, blue and baleful. It seemed to say, What do you really believe? What do you want?

"Nothing at all," Chryssa said, taking a deep breath, and drove Muir through the door and into the officer on the other side.

The man who'd been interrogating Jonah looked down at the blade protruding from his chest. Cracks of light spiderwebbed out from the impact, distorting space as if the plane of his torso was just a broken TV monitor. His mouth opened, cigarette tumbling to the ground.

No words came out. The room was silenced. There was only the faint, fragile sound of an eggshell cracking, as if accidentally stepped on.

The Honedge wiggled, then withdrew from his chest, leaving no sign of blood or injury. He slumped over the table in silence, still trembling with shock. The door swung open behind him, revealing a thin, willowy girl with ghost-gray eyes.

"Hello, Mr. Rocket," she said. "It's good to meet you in person."

Fortree City. A quiet town to the northeast. People are more physically fit here on average than they are in any other town, owing to constant ladder and rope-bridge climbing. The building they were in lied to the east, adjacent to a Pokemon Center.

The door was cracked open, thankfully letting a little clean air into the room, whose thick ribbons of grey smoke smelled like every type of firestarter and household cleaner put in a furnace. Crushing the side of the Camerupt Crush added flavor, giving Giona something to fixate on as the chemicals stopped him from having a panic attack or causing an incident.

Chryssa slid the door open with a creak and incapacitated the officer in question. Giona pocketed the lighter and remaining pack of Crushes, then stood and turned to face her. Even if he weren't smoking, he'd have sharp breaths on account of having a hardwood table kicked into his ribs.

Giona took a drag, letting an adidas-lace sized line of ash slough off onto the white tiled floor. He pinched the sides of the Camerupt Crush again before swinging the door open all the way and running past her. He made it down the short hallway to the Warden's booth, home to a keyring as well as a shipping pallet of pokeballs. He kicked the door in and drove the attendant's head into the handle with both hands over the back of his head.

He then snatched the keyring and opened a pokeball, drawing out a tall hound. He told it to use Discharge to short-circuit the lights and cameras connected to the half of the building they were in, and ducked out of the door to avoid the blast. He then pocketed the rest of his pokeballs, and tossed his beanie to Chryssa. "Pull this over your eyebrows, so it's slightly harder for them to recognize your face."

TL;DR: It's the Prison Break Mission. We're doing Prison Break. The mission where someone breaks out of prison.

What are you doing?!

She blinked, as if waking up from a dream. Her brows raised as she looked at the officer stumped over the table, then up at the man they’d been interrogating. He looked different than she’d expected. Less ordinary, if that made any sense. She’d thought Team Rocket would look just like everyone else— giona ferrara looked the part of a low-level troublemaker; punk-hair, yellow jumpsuit and all. 

And he was right.

She was in over her head. 

Something in the back of her mind cried that it wasn’t supposed to go like this. That she hadn’t acted impulsively. In fact, this was all according to plan— like the final step of a grand movie heist where everything seemed to be going wrong, she’d already sent a Zorua back to the interrogation room in her place, taken a voice recording of the Warden with her Chatot, and prepared a secret escape route. 

But she hadn’t. Chryssa was every bit as underprepared and vulnerable as she appeared, and like it or not, the events she’d set off were now in motion. Consequences. Reality. Miracles only went so far.

She was testing Arceus.

The thought gave her wild satisfaction as she sheathed Muir and followed clumsily after the Rocket grunt, barely reaching up to him before the lights and cameras above them exploded. Glass and sparks rained down from above, plunging the hall into washed-out darkness.

In the dark, she felt him hand her his beanie. She pulled it over her head without thinking. It felt warm and snug around her ears, and smelled of smoke and sweat.

It felt wrong. Like she was in someone else’s place. Like she wasn’t ever meant to be here in this hat, in this role, in this situation.

But she’d chosen it. Thoughtlessly, nobly, perhaps spitefully. 

“Thank you,” she spoke brightly, a little out of breath. “You got your Pokemon back then, I take it? Let me handle the subterfuge.” 

Chy-T the Zorua appeared in a bright flash, letting out a yip of recognition at the sight of Jonah. “Oh, you’re acquainted? Good. I need an illusion of him escaping out the other side of the building. Draw them off our tail, if you can.”

The Zorua whined, ears flicking. “Don’t get caught— disappear if you have to, but stick to the city limits.” Fortree was not an easy city to navigate— with Jonah’s image appearing all across its many levels and terraces, it would keep the League busy for some time.

With Ryssa C, her second Zorua, out of commission, Chryssa had no alibi for her own disappearance— but that was the way things were.

A second Jonah, this one still wearing his beanie, formed in a blur of bending light and stood before the first. It whined again, faintly, eyes flickering. The illusion wasn’t convincing as Chy-T’s well-practiced Chryssa impression, but enough to fool people in low light or from afar. 

“We’re counting on you.” 

Chy-T took off running.

Chryssa turned back to Jonah. “I have a contact in Lilycove—I can teleport us there, but I can only take one at a time. You’d have to call your Manectric back.” She hesitated. “We could both travel by Phantom Force, but it leaves a trail. It can be traced, technically.”

She’d never had a partner-in-crime before. It was causing... problems.

Maybe it was better to break out the old-fashioned way.

But, if Jonah chose either option, he would find himself transported (either alone or alongside Chryssa) to the back yard of a suburban jungle, standing at the edge of a swimming pool with two startled homeowners reclining in pool chairs nearby. 

Fortree City. A quiet town to the northeast. People are more physically fit here on average than they are in any other town, owing to constant ladder and rope-bridge climbing. The building they were in lied to the east, adjacent to a Pokemon Center.

Time felt like it moved slower than ever before, thanks to Manectric causing a blackout. Thanks to what could only be scores of people inconvenienced by the lights and cameras short-circuiting. By a burst of power hitting every conceivable circuit. Giona withdrew the large hound. His face was only illuminated by the orange dot mere inches from his face.

Giona felt his way around to the row of holding cells. He fed the keyring in between two bars, dropping it at the feet of someone else scheduled for questioning.

Giona took a drag, letting an adidas-lace sized line of ash slough off onto the white tiled floor. The camerupt crush had just another few minutes before it'd need to be discarded. Her offer was fascinating. He dug the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it down the hall, adding a dim light so they'd see the keyring.

He made his way back to Chryssa, and took a second to pull in a full breath. Leave together, or risk getting pulled apart again. He felt conflicted, guilty even. A chill ran down his spine, thinking about the possibility of this child being left alone, having done something they can't take back. "Seems like there's only one option on the table. We're leaving together, it's up to you if it's with Phantom Force. Let's not even think about them tracing us until it happens. And even then... I'll be there to fight them."

TL;DR: It's the Prison Break Mission. We're doing Prison Break. The mission where someone breaks out of prison.

We're leaving together.

Chryssa's eyes turned up at the corners, but she didn't smile.

The Shedinja she'd prepared drifted forward, its body rotating slowly on its axis to reveal the dark, gaping void in the center of its back. 

"To Lilycove, Gawen. Outside, preferably."

The creature's tattered wings did not stir, but a soft cicada buzz filled the blackened room, increasing to become a roar in Chryssa's head. She wondered if only she and Jonah could hear it-- it was so loud she couldn't even think, couldn't reason, couldn't breathe--

The room changed.

A strange, wavering passage unfolded before them, wispy as smoke and shadow. The temperature was cold, but the air-- if there was air, here-- barely registered against her skin. The real cold came from inside, a hard knot like a fist clenched beneath her breastbone.

Here, the spirit had more substance than the flesh.

"We're here."

Her voice echoed down the strange hallway. It was the only thing that remained clear in the blurry passage, which skewed and bent vision like shade in water. 

"Just kidding. I only said that to be dramatic. We're actually not anywhere, yet." Chryssa's eyes narrowed as she looked down the passage. Even Jonah's bright jumpsuit was dulled to a neutral gray here, swimming before her eyes as if they were filled with tears.

She tightened her grip on her cane. "We have to cross to the other side. Think of it like a moving train, but the exit door's in the first car." Phantom Force bent space, but some travel was still required.

Like Dig, Fly, and Dive, Phantom Force was a move which allowed its user to travel from Point A to Point B via a different, specialized medium. That didn't mean that travel was instantaneous. Not bound by the gravity or physics of the waking world, Phantom Force was more convenient than most-- but unlike Teleport, it wasn't unique. Any ghost-type could access this place and give chase, just like any water-type could dive down and spot a couple of swimming fugitives. 

In her hand, Muir shuddered.

The faint cracking sound, like breaking eggshell, came two times. Chryssa's heart sank.

We don't have long. 

They would leave together. Her eyes narrowed, and he mirrored her with a toothy grin. A grin of the sort that pulled the skin near his eyes.

The tunnel opened. The cicada's chirping didn't seem 'audible'. It was more of a felt sensation between his ears, like a splitting headache.

The tunnel was cold. Not cold in a wintery way that bit at his skin, but more... cold in a cool way that he could feel in his teeth. Like he was submerged in a pool of menthol. Then came the feeling like a fist pushing the sternum out of his chest.

Giona marveled at the impressionist beauty of the grey world, but he snapped awake when she said they had to cross over to the other side. He could run, easily. He'd done so much running already.

Giona stepped forward and kneeled, trying to fit his head under Chryssa's shoulder. He then stood up, trying to take the weight and pressure off of her injured leg. He wouldn't be able to run like this, but speedwalking together would be fine.

He'd if nothing else be able to make good on his promise of fighting them all. Giona clenched his teeth with discomfort when the eggshell cracking sound came. The world contorted, and color bled from things. The fabric pattern on his jumpsuit and the enamel pins seemed to look more like teardrops made of felt and iron. "--Not now. We're almost there."

TL;DR: It's the Prison Break Mission. We're doing Prison Break. The mission where someone breaks out of prison.

The flight down the graylit rift echoed with each step, Chryssa and Giona's footfalls leaving sound-trails like distant bullets.  His beanie on her head, her arm braced across his shoulders, they charged like graceful drunks through a world composed of ash and whispers.

Something warped before them. Tattered wings shimmered into view as Gawen passed into the Phantom Force, the Shedinja's spectral halo shedding eerie white light.

"Are they coming after us?" Chryssa asked. The halo dimmed, and the girl's eyes seemed to grow brighter. "Oh, my! Isn't that exciting." 

It was unclear whether she was being sarcastic or not as something breached from a portal behind them, swimming through the sea of the passageway like a shark's fin through deep waters. Trailing mist, it rose up to form a Decidueye, grayed and hooded, fitting an arrowlike pinion into a notch of its wing.

Chryssa flinched as the bolt was fired, but her hand moved of its own accord, blade bleeding shadow as Muir seized control and countered with Night Slash. The arrow was knocked aside, disappearing in a puff of ash. She continued to stumble on with Giona's support, following the angelic beacon of Shedinja towards the light.

"The exit's just ahead," she said, breathless and urgent as the ghostly archer readied a Spirit Shackle attack behind them. No sign of its trainer--he must still be under Muir's influence. She could feel it draining her, the connection dreamless, deadened, but not dead. The Honedge's yearning tassel snaked higher up her arm, winding like a cast past her elbow. "I'd prefer if Decidueye didn't come with us, though--" 

The cracking noise came again, striking three times. Giona would find Chryssa suddenly slumping, becoming dead weight on his shoulder as consciousness ebbed from her body. Her knees buckled, head lolling. In her hand, the Honedge's blue eye closed.

Seeing its target slow, the distant archer took the shot. Gray-edged and cold as steel, manacles coiled and struck like serpent fangs, seeking to chain the pair who sought to escape their fate. 

They would leave together. Something warped behind them, as they trudged forward together. Something caused ripples, like an oil painting smudged before it had a chance to dry.

There was an uninvited guest. An owl that walked like a man, drawing a bead on them. It’s first attack is harmlessly batted away by the sword that clung to Chryssa.

She seemed flippant about it. There was a very real risk that they both end up in jail, and he had to commend her for having nerves of steel. Later, when it’d matter less. When she wasn’t slumped over on him.

Giona stopped to lower her. In the corner of his eye, he could see the owl nock another arrow. Drawing a bead on... both of them. Honedge still stood, but even that was a temporary reprieve. He drew a kohl-black pokeball, withdrawing a crested bird.

Giona stepped forward and kneeled, trying to fit his head under Chryssa's shoulder. He then stood up, trying to scoop her up in his arms altogether. That Unfezant he met under the overpass looked utterly terrified, but a cornered prey had no choice but to lash out. The arrow bounced harmlessly off of it.

The crested bird beat its wings, sculpting a shape out of the thin, cool, damp air. The air straight out of the Ancient Greek depiction of hell. The shape drifted through the air, trying to hurt Decidueye, or at the very least draw its fire. Giona curled Honedge’s tassel around his arm so nobody got left behind, and tried to run for the exit made by Shedinja. "--Not now. We're almost there."

TL;DR: Spirit Shackle failed to damage the Unfezant. Unfezant retaliated with Air Cutter.

Manacles coiled and struck like vipers, but failed to make contact with the frightened fowl who burst up to meet them. Decidueye lowered its makeshift bow, then jerked it up again as the air itself warped, forming a sharp-edged shape.

Alarm collected like rainwater in the owl’s eyes and it pulled its hood tight around its facial disk, marshaling its defenses. Quill after quill fired at the drifting slab of impossible atmosphere as the half-grass type fought to keep the attack at arm’s reach. It continued to retreat, tearing at the blade of air with ghostly pinions as the unnatural winds buffeted its leafy cloak and tore the creature’s hood back from its head.

The Air Cutter finally diffused, disappearing with a sigh back into their surroundings—but when the battered owl looked up, its targets were gone. The far end of the Phantom Force passage was already disintegrating, streaming towards the sky like flecks of ash.

Decidueye was still. Then it turned, sinking back through the floor of the hall as silently as it had come.


Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly sat up in their pool chairs, gasping incredulously as a Phantom Force portal opened up in their back yard.

A Shedinja, its halo pulsing with spectral light, came through first. Next was a rattled-looking pheasant, who beat its owner by split seconds as one pink-haired Giona, carrying both an unconscious Chryssa and one very floppy Honedge, came charging through the opening as well.

It closed behind them, sealing the colorless world on the other side with hardly a whisper.

To Giona’s credit, the beanie pulled over the fainted Chryssa’s head was the only thing that kept Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly from recognizing their least-favorite housesitter on sight. Alarmed as they were by the sudden trespassers in their back yard, they were more inclined to call an ambulance than to call the Lilycove Police Department. A young girl was unconscious, after all. 

Of course, by the time the ambulance arrived, sirens blaring, they were already gone. 


Muir woke first, stirring sluggishly. The blade’s tassel moved as it regained consciousness, testing the arm it had been wound around. 

A suitable vessel? Perhaps... 

But this sword-cane was already bound to another. Someone else who had proclaimed that people and Pokemon must fight for one another, not alone. Someone who did not shy from death, or from injustice.

Still... this giona ferrara ...

A single, silken thread worked itself from Muir’s tassel, encircling the man’s wrist with a butterfly’s touch. The ends met and the circlet glowed for a moment before fading again to the color of sky.

Where some bonds are broken, others are forged.

The blade’s stellar blue eye watched him for a moment, then closed, becoming dormant. Chryssa needed more time to recover her strength. Their connection was not an easy one— and it came at a cost. What she had done today would incontrovertibly cost her as well.

But for now, they had escaped. They had succeeded. And the world kept turning, spinning closer towards the end.