Jirachi's Twin

Memory Thirty-Five: Project: Open Dream

Bede was genuinely helpless to resist the members of Open Dream. After the unusual sky-shattering stunt Gloria'd somehow pulled, the remnants of Bede's strength had left him. It was only a matter of time before he and his Pokémon were captured once again.

Dragging him by the arms, the cloaked figures stuffed Bede into one of the glass containment cells he'd spotted on the way in. He struggled, trying desperately to free himself.

"Let me GO you bloody freaks!"

Flanders rolled his eyes at him.

"Be silent. As soon as we're done here, you won't even remember anything."

Gloria had managed to stand back up at this point, but her head was cast downward so he couldn't see her face.

"I refuse—" he grunted, pushing away another arm of an employee, "to comply with this madness!"

Flanders, tired of waiting, raised his pistol a second time.

"I case you've forgotten, I don't play by the rules. Now, if you continue to struggle," he gestured his gun towards the Open Dream member holding Bede's Poké Balls, "then I'll have to make some extra sacrifices."

Bede went limp instantly.

Flanders nodded, returning the weapon to his pocket.

"Ingenious how a single object is designed to silence any number of foolish rebels. I do say... it works more efficiently than any Pokémon I could obtain."

Then, without another word, he stepped away and observed the unconscious Hop on the ground. Though it was hard to tell from his lying-down position, Bede could tell this Hop was identical to the one he'd seen many times before. He reckoned if this one stood in the same room as the original, he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

Still hard to grasp how she pulled this guy out of another dimension... he wondered, How did Gloria do it?

"Gloria, are you recovered for phase two?"

She shook her head silently, her gaze still on the floor tiles.

"Then come with me. We will discuss it briefly, taking this moment to also let Jirachi recover as well."

As they left, Flanders lowered his voice so Bede couldn't hear him, and then then the room fell into silence. Bede was locked inside the strange, claustrophobic cell with his arms and legs strapped down, and the parallel version of Hop had been moved to the cell a meter away on his left.

Surely this day can't get any worse, he sighed.

Looking up through the glass, he saw maintenance workers repairing the shattered lightbulb that towered overhead. As they banged about with repair tools, Bede's headache started to return again. He groaned, unable to rub his temples because his hands were strapped down, and simply rested his eyes.

"Hey—are you asleep?"

As quickly as he had closed them, Bede reopened his eyes and turned his head slightly to the left.

"No..." he muttered, awkwardly.

"Then tell me—where in GALAR am I right now, and what is happening!?"

Bede blinked, not really sure of everything himself. He could only remember bits and pieces of Gloria's conversation with Flanders, and he couldn't even be sure how much of it he understood.

"Uh... it's a long story."

"Well I've obviously got time," he snapped, surprising Bede by his rude tone of voice.