Chapter Text
Waking up was a slight bother, but getting up was a pain in the ass.
Especially given the entirety of yesterday’s events.
Amethio groaned as he slowly slipped back into consciousness, bringing a hand back over his face as sunlight streamed in through a window. He groggily turned over in the bed, curling in on himself to try and ease the discomfort of the sunshine on his eyes.
What made it worse was that he was used to sleeping and waking up in the submarine, where sunlight never got in due to the lack of windows. He had alarms to wake him up, so he had never really needed to use the sun shining directly on his face in order to get up, nor had he ever wanted it to do such a thing. He found himself cursing this stupid room for being inconveniently placed in an area where it would get hit with direct sunlight straight through the window.
However, that quickly died down as an issue as he finally fully got a hold of reality again and felt his back ache as though he had been sleeping on several somewhat sharp stones instead of an actual mattress. He winced a little and sat up, shaking his head as he quickly gave himself a quick recap of everything that had happened the day before to give himself a refresher. He stretched a little and sighed, getting to his feet and moving towards the large circular window as he tried to discern some way to get out.
After all, he had until tonight to be back at headquarters.
That thought was not comforting in the slightest, and he drummed his fingers on the windowsill with a little anxiety. After a moment or two, he pulled out his phone and quickly dialed Onia then put the phone to his ear in a matter of a few seconds.
To his luck, the other was already awake and picked up by the third ring.
“Sir!” She sounded relieved, if not a tad exasperated. Truthfully, he could understand that, given that Gibeon likely told them that he was on his way back when he really was not. “Where are you?”
“Got caught up with the Rising Volt Tacklers.” He answered dryly, not feeling as much of a need to hide what was happening as he had done previously. After all, he was pretty sure both Onia and Zirc would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked them to. “We have to be back at the Headquarters by tonight.”
There was silence on the other line, before a very distinct “What.” came from the other end. He winced a little, frowning and shifting from foot to foot.
“I apologize for such short notice.” He muttered, beginning to pace around the perimeter of the room as he tried to internally decipher a way out. He could, theoretically, just leave and fly back to the submarine. However, the problem with that was that Mollie had mentioned that there would be someone keeping watch, and he figured that would still apply to this morning. “How quickly could you make it there?”
“Let me… check…” Onia trailed off as she supposedly checked on how fast they could go to get there. After a few quiet seconds, she spoke again. “… about 18 hours if we move nonstop and take the shortest route, I think. That’s counting the time it’ll take to replace the batteries that need replacing today.”
There was silence between them both for a while, before Amethio sighed in annoyance. “Go ahead and go, then. I can track the submarine and fly to it when I can, and then… I can get in, I suppose. Hopefully, it’ll be during battery replacement so it’ll be easy.”
“Will that work?” She sounded unsure, a sentiment that he truthfully shared.
“If it doesn’t, I’ll fly with Corviknight the rest of the way through.” He responded, absently taking out the things Pokéball as though he was about to let it out, even though he really wasn’t. “I’ll make stops on land when it’s needed.”
That, at the very least, seemed to ease Onia’s worries because she only gave a slight hum of acknowledgment and didn’t voice any other thoughts she could’ve been having.
“I’ll call you or Zirc later.” He said after the quiet lasted a couple of seconds longer. “Be safe.”
“You too, sir.”
The call-ending noise played in his ear and he put the phone back in his pocket. This was frustrating beyond belief, so much so that he found that he was actually considering opening up the door and just walking out that way despite how much of an inconvenience that could turn out to be if it really were being guarded at all times. Truthfully, the more he thought about it, the more enticing it was. However, he couldn’t get himself to do it, so he opted to lean against the windowsill and look outside while he got lost in his thoughts.
After an ambiguous amount of time that felt like it could’ve been a few minutes or a few hours, his thinking time was brought to an end as he heard a door opening behind him and he turned around to spot Friede coming into the room, the biggest roadblock he’d had thus far. His face split into a grin upon spotting him as though he were enjoying his suffering (truthfully, he probably was, he thought plainly). “Glad to see you didn’t run off in the dead of night!”
“I wasn’t able to.” He answered dryly, giving the other the most irritated look he could muster. “Mollie told me that this room would be guarded at all times.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s nice to know you didn’t try either.” He got a bit more relaxed as his grin lessened into more of just a smirk. “We were really convinced you were considering your whole situation with your boss.”
Of course. He thought to himself, using all of his willpower in order not to make any verbal comment right off the bat. He instead scowled and crossed his arms. “So she told you about the phone call.”
“Yep, everything about it.” He stated casually, as though that phone call hadn’t been a genuinely serious thing that was giving more problems than it was solutions. Granted, why would it give any solutions when it had been between him and Master Gibeon? He shook that thought out of his head as Friede continued speaking. “Including how you’re supposed to be back somewhere by tonight.”
“So you know about that. ” He raised an eyebrow, leaning back on his heels as he observed the other. “Surely that means you’ll let me leave if you know how important keeping a job is.”
“Not yet.” He said dismissively, waving a hand carelessly as he leaned against the door and tilted his head. “I actually wanted to talk to you about that phone call.”
“I don’t guess that pointing out that it has nothing to do with you will deter you from talking about it.”
“Nope.”
“Make it quick.”
Realistically, this wasn’t going to be a quick event. In fact, he realized that he actually probably just doubled the time it would take by saying to make it quick. He mentally cursed himself for doing such a heinous crime.
“So, what’s up with calling your boss ‘dad’?”
He scowled, taken aback at how blunt that was. He went right into it without even trying to hide what he was attempting to get at. It was, quite frankly, very rude in his opinion. “I don’t see how this affects you or will ever affect you.”
“It won’t. I’m just curious.” He said in a tone that suggested he couldn’t give less of a shit about what Amethio thought of him asking such an immediate personal question. “Besides, it’d explain why you’re there in the first place.”
“Are you always like this?”
“God forbid I ask questions, eh?” Despite the choice of words, Friede had an amused grin on his face rather than returning the others' annoyed expression. At this point, it was almost respectable how he almost always refused to get antsy in a non-violent situation.
Almost.
It was mostly annoying how he didn’t take any of this as seriously as would’ve been preferred.
“Let me leave.”
“Mollie still has to check on your Pokémon first.” The other looked smug, the grin from before shifting into a bit of a smirk as though he got some sort of entertainment from tormenting him.
I wonder if this could count as kidnapping. He thought as his eye twitched involuntarily with ever-increasing annoyance. It felt more like stalling at this point just to keep him running late so he could lose his job. That wasn’t out of the question— after all, the other had made a couple of jabs at him about it yesterday. “Is it an absolute must ?”
“You don’t want your Pokémon to be out for the count when—“
“That’s the best phrase you could come up with?”
“—you leave the ship, do you?”
He had to restrain himself from giving a verbal sign of irritation, instead limiting himself to an eye roll before he spoke again. “They’re fine. She healed them last night.”
“She isn’t a Pokémon center machine. Still would be a good idea to check on ‘em.” Friede shrugged, unbothered.
Amethio scowled. “Then I can leave after that.”
“We’ll see.”
“We’ll see? ”
“Who knows? Other complications might come up.” The other said in a strangely light and cheery tone despite the ominous implications that came with such words. “That shouldn’t be an issue for you, though, right?”
“Are you trying to get me fired?” He asked without being able to stop himself, though he probably wouldn’t want to stop himself anyway if he had the chance. “What’s stopping me from walking out right now?”
“Charizard is out there right now to stop you if you try.” The other glanced at the door almost thoughtfully, though he couldn’t be sure that he had many thoughts in the first place. “After all, you’re still considered a criminal, in a way.”
“Then… I could…” He glanced around the room before he looked directly at the window. He could leave through the window if he timed things right— and, if he was lucky, Friede nor anyone else on the ship hadn’t thought to guard it.
Liko had the right idea. He thought to himself as he reflected on the night a while ago that had gotten him into this stupid mess. The girl’s escape through the window, while a cheap move in his mind, wasn’t all that bad of an idea— or maybe that was because it was his only chance right now as it was hers on that night.
The difference between the two situations, besides how Amethio was now in the target's place, was that the threat was inside the room as opposed to just outside the door. That complicated things tenfold, with issues such as how fast a window can open and how easy it’d be to get out in a quick manner— as well as how much it would open. This was an airship that was in question.
He was brought away from his thoughts as Friede began speaking again. “Anyways, she’ll be here in a second.” He didn’t bother to wait for a response to that as he swapped subjects almost instantly. “Did you go to Indigo Academy?”
“What?” That was off-putting, if not a little weird to ask.
“You know. That school where this whole thing started.”
“I know what it is.” He responded, not putting as much snappiness into his tone as he would’ve liked. What’s with these weird questions? “Why are you asking me this?”
“I’m curious. I mean, you managed to get on the roof fairly easily, right?”
“I had Corviknight.” He pointed out, taking out its Pokéball and gesturing towards it for emphasis. “It wasn’t hard to get out of the building and onto the roof.”
“I forgot about that…” Friede muttered, seemingly more to himself than Amethio as he regarded him with a thoughtful frown. Then, he grinned again, not deterred. “Still, though. Knowing where to go and how to get in? It’s interesting.”
“I don’t believe you need to know any of that.” He said flatly, narrowing his eyes slightly at the other with rising suspicion (which was impressive, considering the suspicion had already peaked) . “That is a weird question.”
“I guess.” The other shrugged, before turning to the door as it opened and Mollie entered the room looking about as agitated as she did the previous night. “Mollie!”
She gave him a curt nod as she put her hands in her pockets and turned to Amethio. “Let’s see them.”
He appreciated how she skipped the formalities and got directly to the point with it, unlike the very person who he had to deal with the most often. He took out the Pokéballs and sent out Ceruledge and Corviknight, both of which were actually doing fine which further provided evidence that this was pointless.
Mollie looked over the two carefully, examining them with narrowed eyes. Finally, after a few dragged-out seconds of silence, she looked up at him and gave a nod. “They’ll be fine.” She crossed her arms. “Just don’t strain them for a while. Like, no battling too hard or flying too long.”
He narrowed his eyes, mimicking what she had been doing before as he felt distaste rise up inside of him. Not that he doubted her— it was just the prospect of being told what to do, especially considering this was the enemy.
This did mean, though, that flying Corviknight all the way out would probably be considered ‘straining’ especially if Zirc and Onia were already out and likely speeding back to headquarters (which also meant they couldn’t come and pick him up for a while) and he recognized that he’d rather die than get Corviknight harmed due to some bad planning. It felt like every odd was going against him at this very moment.
He heaved a deep sigh as he returned his two Pokémon to their Pokéballs. Hamber and Gibeon would be absolutely pissed at him if he dared to have his subordinates show up back at the headquarters without him, which meant he’d have to get them to stop. That in itself wasn’t an issue, and he could tell them what was going on without worry. What was an issue was that he’d have to find some excuse to give to the higher-ups that they’d actually believe.
The easy way out was saying that the submarine was broken or needed some maintenance, which realistically was probably what he’d go with. A quick and straightforward solution that was easily pulled off provided that no one had the logistics or something to figure out it was a blatant lie— Zirc and Onia just wouldn’t really be able to go back to land for a while.
That part, thankfully, was easy.
What wasn’t was that he had no clue where to stay.
He couldn’t legally get a hotel room, and while he could sleep in a cave system somewhere, all of them were occupied with railroads and someone would surely find him. There was also the possibility of just sleeping in a forest or literally anywhere outside, but that simply just wasn’t safe. Staying up for the time being wasn’t off the table, but he doubted the sleep he got last night would be sufficient enough to not let him pass out in a random spot. Sleeping in a public space wasn’t favorable either considering how being in public generally wasn’t the best thing in the world.
No matter what he came up with, he couldn’t truly rationalize it.
Well, except for one place.
Here.
The thought of it was agonizing. He wasn’t going to ask— he wanted to get out of here as soon as he possibly could, but…
“Well, guess that means you’re free.” Friede spoke again after a few more seconds of silence. “You got your subordinates able to pick you up?”
“They’re—” He hesitated for a second, frowning. “—yeah— yes. Yes, they’ll come get me.”
“You don’t sound too confident about that,” Mollie commented, raising an eyebrow just slightly. “You sure they can?”
“Yes.” He said, a little more firmly this time, with the underlying doubt being mostly disguised.
Mostly.
There was a moment of silence in which Mollie and Friede shared an unreadable look. Then, she looked back at him. “Why don’t you call them to come, then?” She suggested, looking more like she was expecting something than simply telling him to leave. “So you can… leave.”
He bit his tongue lightly, hesitantly taking out his phone and dialing Zirc. The phone rang in the awkward silence of the room for a moment, before the other picked up.
“Sir!”
“Zirc,” He greeted, gritting his teeth as he turned away from the others to try and at least somewhat avoid their prying looks. “the plan is off. You need to… well, stop moving for now.”
“What? Why?”
“I know it’s inconvenient and we’ll end up late,” He frowned as he crossed an arm over his chest. He hated how he had to disguise information like this. “but there’s not much of an option right now.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No. I just— what time can you get back if you were to turn around now?”
“Well, it’d be a few hours to make a trip straight back…” Zirc sounded unsure and a little hesitant. “… and we’ll need to replace batteries beforehand which will be even longer…”
Fuck, Amethio thought, biting his tongue to refrain from verbally expressing his frustrations. It felt pointless to bring his subordinates all the way back just for them to pretend the submarine needed some maintenance anyway. It’d be more believable to leave it out in the middle of the ocean as well, and he needed all the believability he could get. The only issue that arose was that he’d have to stay here or in some random inconvenient place.
He didn’t technically have to keep them there and he didn’t technically have to either be here or somewhere other than the submarine. However, the submarine’s location and route all was able to be tracked, and if he knew Hamber or Gibeon, they’d definitely be suspicious if they made a call about the submarine needing maintenance after turning back and heading back to land, especially given that it most likely wasn’t the land closest to it. They couldn’t make a call now either and then head back because that would just be contradictory.
“Just…” He let out a frustrated sigh. “… Don’t come back and stay where you are. Tell Hamber that the submarine needs maintenance. I’ll be there… eventually.”
“… Yes, sir.” He could hear the evident and building confusion in the other's voice, but no more questions were asked. “See you soon.”
The sound of the call ending played, and he sighed as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. Then, with amounting dread, he turned back to the two who were staring at him and cleared his throat. “… I’ll be off.”
“Woah, now, hold on,” Friede immediately jumped to speak, getting to his feet and tilting his head just slightly with a frown. “Are they not able to come get you? I mean, as Mollie said, you can’t fly on your Corvikight just yet, and from what it sounds like, they seem pretty far.”
He took a deep breath through gritted teeth, his chest shuddering with the effort to refrain from letting the anger shine past the just somewhat annoyed exterior that he had been managing to uphold and present this entire time. “It’ll be fine. ” His words came out more snappy than he intended, but it wasn’t really unwelcome. “Just… it isn’t any of your concern.”
“Well…” The two adults looked at eachother as Friede seemed to consider the options being presented to him. Then, he looked back at Amethio. “... Maybe you should stay here—”
“Absolutely not.”
“—while you wait for your Pokémon to feel better,” The other continued without any acknowledgment of his refusal of the proposal. “I’d have to check with everyone else on the airship, but it might be fine.”
“I’m starting to think you actually have some ulterior motive.” He said flatly, crossing his arms defiantly as he glared. “You’re not trying to get information out of me, are you? It won’t work.”
“Eh? Nah. If we wanted information, we would’ve gotten it by now.” He shrugged and pulled out his own phone, clicking around a few things before typing some words into what he presumed was a texting app of sorts judging by how Mollie’s phone buzzed after he sent that. He could then deduce that it was a group text, considering how both of their phones buzzed a few seconds later without either of them typing anything.
There were a few more moments of silence where messages that he couldn’t read were shared in the group chat which really made things feel quite awkward. He felt like he was at a party he wasn’t invited to or something along those lines.
However, now that he thought about it, that metaphor (simile?) didn’t make sense considering that he didn’t want to be here anyway. How would he even end up at a party that he didn’t want to be in and wasn’t invited to anyway? Not to mention that he was forced to be here which added a whole other layer on top of it. A party he hadn’t been invited to nor one he wanted to be at, but one that he had been forced to attend. Nothing of it made sense. The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt (and it had already hurt from dealing with these people) .
The sound of Friede clapping his hands together cut through his thoughts about strange and unreasonable metaphors and similes. “Well, we’ll have a more in-depth discussion, but you’re staying here for now.”
“You can’t make me stay here.”
“I have more authority than you. I also could get you arrested for attempted theft and stuff.”
“How do you have more authority if we’re part of none of the same organizations?” He said flatly, raising an unimpressed eyebrow as he pointedly ignored the comment about getting him arrested.
“… Well, still. It’d be risky to let you go free anyway considering we still have things to do here.” The other shrugged, not seeming to consider that it was arguably more risky to have him on the ship in the first place. “You know where we are. If we let you go
now
, then you could come back and attack us.”
“I could steal the pendant just as easily, if not
easier
if I’m
on
the ship.” He stated bluntly, vaguely gesturing at the surroundings. “I’m not disarmed just because my Pokémon aren’t able to work to their full potential.”
“You’ll be pretty outnumbered,” Mollie commented in a just as flat tone as he had. “and you don’t have your goons to help you. You also can’t really leave since we’ll have at least one person making sure you don’t up and go at random at all times.”
There were a few moments of silence as he tried to come up with an argument to that, glaring at the two angrily. When he couldn’t come up with anything, he let out an aggravated huff and raised a hand to his face to pinch his nosebridge. “Whatever.”
Satisfied with that, Friede grinned and put his hands on his hips. “Great. I’ll come get you when Murdock has breakfast finished up.” He nodded, then turned and made his way to the door with Mollie close behind. “Then we can figure out what to do from here. See you later.”
With that, the two of them left the room and the door closed. After maybe a few seconds, maybe a few minutes of standing in silence and staring after them, Amethio sighed and walked to the window to look outside at the sky.
He was stuck here,
in an airship,
with his enemies,
and his team had no clue where he was.
Outstanding.