Chapter Text
Maybe Satoshi should have sat down and thought it through properly.
But when Professor Sycamore had forwarded him a news article whose headline declared Lysandre was alive again, all logical reasoning went out the window.
Not only was that man alive once more but Lysandre Labs was up and running too.
It had been nearly three years since Satoshi had watched Lysandre get crushed by the crumbling remains of his laboratory. Nearly three years since clean-up crews had found his body. Nearly three years since he had to convince himself every day that there was no way that man could possibly be still alive, that He could come after him ever again.
It seemed that past Satoshi had been wrong. So very wrong.
As soon as he heard the news, he left Cerise Labs, took the train to Kanto airport and bought a one-way express plane ticket to Kalos.
It’s only when Satoshi pulls his phone out of his pocket to check his incoming notifications and reads Gou’s message that he realises he hadn’t really planned this out nor thought it through.
Gou: Where are you?
Satoshi: On a plane to Kalos. Gotta sort out some unfinished business.
He knew how cryptic that message sounded but there was neither the time nor the energy to explain it all to Gou now.
Gou: Ok. Why didn’t you tell me before you left?
That was a very good question, one that Satoshi hadn’t quite considered yet.
Why didn’t he tell them before he got up and left for Kalos? Gou deserved to know, especially about something as important as this.
Despite that, he left their message on ‘read’ as the plane took off.
Barely four hours after Satoshi had learnt that Lysandre was some-Mew-forsaken-how still alive; he stood opposite the man, barely-contained rage simmered under his skin while Greninja waited just outside the room waiting for the signal.
Just like he had tried to do to Mewtwo seven years ago, Satoshi crossed the room and promptly socked Lysandre across the face. His fist connected with the red-haired man’s face.
“I don’t know how you’re alive again but you should have stayed dead ,”
The should-be seventeen-year-old was filling his aura with all the anger, rage and fury that he was feeling at that moment (which was a lot).
The emotion signalled for Greninja to join him and hopefully warned Lysandre.
To an outsider, the pair looked rather terror-inducing, Greninja encased in a column of water with a glowing red shuriken on his back, Pikachu sparking with more electricity than his small body should be abke to hold, and Satoshi looking downright murderous , with all the power of Arceus’ Chosen One behind him.
It doesn’t quite do what it was intended to. Nevertheless, in this case, killing someone doesn’t require scaring nor threatening them.
The next morning when one of the cleaning crew stepped into the room, she found the laboratory's namesake dead on the floor. His face was all bloody and smashed in.
Meanwhile, back in Kanto. Satoshi was just being woken up by a much more awake Gou.
At breakfast sometime later, Gou passed their Rotom-phone across the table to him.
On it was a screenshot from a news article; a blurry CCTV image. In it, a small yellow Pokemon that was unmistakably Pikachu had sparks arcing off of his cheeks and a blue bipedal Pokemon stood beside a trainer…who, despite the poor quality, could be seen to be wearing the exact same clothing that Satoshi was wearing yesterday.
The headline read ‘Owner of Lysandre Labs Found Dead By Cleaning Staff.
“This was your ‘unfinished business’, wasn’t it?” Gou asked, concern written all over their face.
The should-be seventeen-year-old had two choices: agree and effectively admit to murder or lie and make things awkward between them for at least the next two weeks.
He chose option number one. “Yeah, it was,”
“Next time, let me know when you have to go finish some ‘unfinished business’,” they told him so seriously that the pair can’t do anything more than laugh.
“Why haven’t you tried to tell me that murder is wrong and that I shouldn’t have done it?” Satoshi asked while the pair were on their way to Professor Oak’s to deliver a package.
“Because I’m not. Murder is wrong but I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t have done it,” Gou told him.
They had sat up with him on those nights that blood red sunsets, those demon-vines-from-hell, and that man haunted his dreams. Gou had listened when Satoshi had ranted about Lusamine, Lysandre, Hunter J, and every other megalomaniac that had ever come after him in all his years of being alive. Really, this was just the last piece of a very messed up puzzle.
“Just, let me know next time, I could’ve helped,” they said.
Of all things that the Pokemon Master had thought that his datefriend would be down to help with, murder wasn’t even on the list.
Interestingly, he is…alright with that proposal.