//------------------------------// // Interrogation // Story: Celestia's Rocket Adventures // by Snake Staff //------------------------------// “I’m telling you nothing!” a slightly-charred, visor-less Mable half screamed. Bereft of her Pokémon and visor, hair wild, clothing torn, skin visibly burnt, and tied very thoroughly to a tree, Team Flare’s Scientist looked far more pitiable than intimidating. Still, the snarl on her face and unwavering gleam in her eyes said that while she might be beaten, she certainly wasn’t broken. She stared up at her captors and the children alike with naked hate in her eyes. “Do your worst!” she went on. “Bash me, roast me, drown me, it doesn’t matter one bit! I won’t betray Team Flare to the enemy!” “Oh yeah?” Jessie crossed her arms. “And why not?” “Scum like you don’t deserve any answers, and you won’t get any here!” Mable declared. “You may as well just kill us all right now, you’re wasting your time.” A visibly paler grunt spoke up. “Now let’s not be-” “If any one of you so much breathes a word of actionable intelligence to them,” Mable cut him off. “I swear I’ll strangle the snitch with my bare hands if I have to! Team Flare’s mission is vastly more important than any of our lives! If we have to leave this world so the boss can succeed, I’ll walk into the hereafter with my head held high.” The other men and women tied next to Mable looked visibly unnerved by her tirade, seeming to shrink back as they fell into silence. Even bound and helpless, the blue-haired woman seemed to effortlessly dominate them. “What’s da matta with you?” Meowth looked at them. “What kinda crooks are tellin’ people ta bump ‘em off?” “Crooks?” Mable sneered at him. “You think we’re bottom-feeding scum like you?” “No!” Serena cut in. “I think you’re worse! Even Team Rocket’s never done something so horrible to Pokémon! You took away their minds and made them try to kill people! Even after so many hours they still haven’t woken up, who knows how much damage you might have done to them?” “I wouldn’t expect a child to understand the concept of a necessary sacrifice,” she retorted. “Team Flare acts for the ultimate good of people and the planet. We alone hold the key to this world’s future, there is no one else with the vision required. Without us, this world and everything and everyone in it are utterly, finally, irreversibly doomed to a long, slow spiral into oblivion. There is no higher calling, no higher morality. By any just definition of the word, everything we must do along the way to utopia is righteous.” “What a load of bunk!” James glared down at her. “How can you possibly look at what you’re doing and tell yourself you’re the good guys?” “You can’t seriously be crazy enough to believe enslaving Pokémon to kill children is the right thing to do,” Ash added. “I believe it with every fiber of my being,” Mable declared. “Your deaths were an inconvenient but ultimately meaningless necessity. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but your ultimate fate didn’t change one iota.” “The fact that humans are mortal doesn’t give you the right to kill whoever you please!” Clemont shouted down at her. “You told your Pokémon to attack my little sister before she’s even turned seven years old! How can you possibly justify that?!” “Team Flare is the only force standing up for the planet’s future,” she replied. “And the only organization capable of halting the inevitable and ushering in a permanent golden age for humanity. That gives us the right to do as we please in our pursuit of it. Team Rocket has proven a consistent thorn in our sides, an evil that has to be expunged before it risks the world’s future to satisfy its own petty greed. And you children were simply in the way. After all,” Mable gave a slight smirk, “why should we care about saving people who aren’t on our side?” “Are you even listening to yourself?!” Jessie was shouting herself. “You sound more like some insane apocalypse cult when you’re just a petty pack of criminals dressed up in ridiculous clothing!” She glared at all five bound members, all but one shrinking from her gaze. “Are all of you so out of it you’re going to give us babble when you’re totally at our mercy and we’ve got every reason to hate you?” “You don’t get it at all,” Mable said in a surprisingly low tone. “Heh heh heh… ha ha ha…” She threw back her head. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” “And just what is it you find so hilarious?!” James demanded, hand curled into a fist. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha! You’re just so oblivious!” she cackled, blinking a tear out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t you idiots get it?” “Get what?” Ash shot back. “Ha, this is too rich!” Mable chuckled again. “We aren’t some garden variety thugs, petty criminals, or disgusting lowlife parasites like Team Rocket! Team Flare is going to remake this world in our image very soon, and there’s nothing you can do about it. My personal fate and those of these fools with me changes nothing.” “And just what da ya think is gonna happen dat’ll make everything all hunky-dory for you guys?” Meowth showed his claws. “We got all your super-secret stuff back ta base, and soon Team Rocket is gonna come down on ya like a Golem avalanche! Your days are already numbered!” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! You really believe that?!” Mable grinned up at him. “Then allow me to spell it out for you! In the coming days Team Flare – and only Team Flare – will survive! That’s right, your victory over me here was completely meaningless!” She gazed up at all of them with the unflinching confidence of a true believer and smiled. “You’re all going to die!” Another round of hysterical laughter erupted from the Flare Scientist, who threw back her head to the tree and gave voice to a wild, seemingly-unhinged sense of irrational triumph. Even her own grunts seemed to shrink away from her as best they could, to say nothing of the visibly-disturbed twerps and Team Rocket. No one had expected anything like this, and from the uneasy looks on everyone’s faces it was clear no one had any real idea of how to respond. Save one. Pikachu, thus far quiet, hopped down from where he had sat on Ash’s shoulder onto the forest floor. A determined glare in his little black eyes, he marched right up to the still-giggling scientist until he was just outside the kicking range of her foot. The look that he gave her looked like little less than utter hatred. “Pffft… ha ha ha ha…” Mable giggled when she saw him. “What’s the matter? Baby’s first Pokémon can’t handle the-” Her remarkably unwise taunt was cut short by the sound of her own screaming. Without warning, Pikachu’s body almost exploded into electricity. Point-blank, bound and helpless, there was nothing Mable could do but cry out as the little yellow Pokémon gave her a Thunderbolt worthy of ten Pikachu. Electricity surged through her as she writhed and screamed, all nearby who could taking several steps back when her skeleton flashed in and out of visibility. The only mercy was that it was short-lived – her body could take no more after only a few seconds. The blue-haired woman slumped forward against the rope when it finally ceased, eyes closed and breathing shallow and erratic. Lingering yellow bolts danced across her limp form. There was silence in the forest for just a moment. Just as no one had known quite how to deal with the Flare Scientist, no one was entirely sure how to respond to this. “Pikachu…” Ash stepped forwards first, concern writ large across his face. “Are you okay, buddy?” “Chu…” Pikachu growled in an uncharacteristically low tone. “Pika pika chu…” Meowth couldn’t help but flinch. “How are they doing?” Celestia peered up from where she lay wearily. “Are they alright?” “Team Rocket’s Pokémon seem to be well within the expected parameters of such beings in the aftermath of a particularly intense engagement,” Twilight replied, as she slowly walked back to her own space. Of the two, she was by far the least injured, so it only made sense that she should be the one taking a look. “That is to say, they’ll need rest and medicine, but I see no clear reason that they shouldn’t make a full recovery in due course.” “That’s good,” the white alicorn nodded slowly. “What about the others?” “The Pokémon that came from the Dark Balls…” Twilight hesitated a moment as she sat back down, “they’re not looking so good. I saw no particularly serious-looking injuries, but none of them have roused. It could be a result of excessive strain caused by the Dark Balls and the sudden termination of their connection or… possibly some form of internal damage. I don’t have the tools or spells to do a proper diagnosis.” “A recovery is possible,” Celestia said, “Team Rocket has dealt with these before, the Pokémon in question did ultimately survive… but I admit that is no guarantee.” “There’s too much we don’t know,” Twilight said sadly. “What are the effects of a Dark Ball on a Pokémon’s body, and how does it differ by species, age, and evolutionary level? What kind of physiological changes does a sudden severing of the machine’s power actually trigger inside of them? How long were they trapped, and what damage did they take over the course of that? Without more information, it’s impossible to tell what kind of recovery time we’re looking at… if any.” The white alicorn was, for the moment, silent. “Oh yeah,” the purple princess continued. “There’s something else you should know. Some of them are murmuring in their sleep.” “Hmmm?” “Most of it is gibberish, but a few recognizable words come out here and there. I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence, but…” “What did they say?” “Fearow,” Twilight filled her in. “It said ‘Luna’.”