Pokémon: Out of the Woods | A Galar, Unova & Sinnoh Fanfiction

Chapter 83: The Fortune Teller

In her simple room at the Pokémon HQ Lab, Raidne looked at the same photo. Jamie hadn't told her everything yet, but if someone in Galar asked him for that photo, she knew it had to be Caroline. She wondered what ever became of her friend. Caroline was often blunt, even mean, but so was Jamie. Raidne was the only child of Cipher who rarely succumbed to snapping at her friends.

Really, she knew the answer to her question. Caroline joined Team Plasma. Everyone called her father Colin and then Tybalt, but Jamie thought he looked like Ghetsis. He forgot. Even Raidne forgot. If Team Plasma were active in Galar, it was far away. It didn't affect them. Caroline hated herself so much that she couldn't imagine Raidne even considering whether she wasn't entirely to blame, but she did. She wondered if she and Jamie could have helped her if they hadn't become so consumed by Cipher when he became the Grand Master. As it was, they frankly forgot she existed. Raidne did blame herself. In her eyes, forgetting her friend existed was unforgivable, especially when that friend saved her child.

She didn't, of course, forget she had a child. She did all she could to forget, but it was a hazy shadow that always lurked in the back of her mind. She didn't want to remember. She could never see them again, or could she? Jamie probably would, because whether she wanted to believe it or not, she now knew exactly who that woman sent by Caroline really was. She was a Team Plasma Grunt. Her child escaped one criminal syndicate to grow up in another. It was pathetic that Raidne hoped that child somehow found their uncle, Raidne's younger brother, who fled and reappeared as a successful lawyer two years ago.

The photo Caroline asked for was in the album that Raidne took to the lab. The photo Raidne wanted to see wasn't. It was in a small album, disguised as a packet of sanitary towels, under the floorboards of the family home in Quartz Town. She stood. The room's sliding doors rattled open when she pressed an old button that looked like it was about to fall off. Her ears were bombarded by cheerful music. Since Nick went to the lab, it was difficult to get rid of Citrine and their Team Magma friends. Ross was always there, since he lived with Lumir. They squealed at the tops of their lungs as they danced around the lounge area.

'Raidneeeeeeeee!'

Nick and Togepi launched at her. She couldn't bring herself to tell them that her mind was elsewhere, so she danced with them for another song, but they noticed she wasn't herself. They let her go. The engineer watching them seemed quite capable of keeping them under control.

Raidne knocked on Horace's doors. They opened automatically when she touched them. He paced up and down. Raidne got the impression he had been doing so since the Team Magma bus arrived – and its passengers woke everyone – at 5:30 AM. His backpack was zipped up on the table. He must have packed it to go out at some point.

'Will you be OK if I nip back to the house...?'

'Huh?'

Horace, who was usually so observant, didn't even notice that she was there until she spoke. The doors opened and closed automatically. Raidne stepped in just to stop them.

'The usual, or...?'

'I... I dunno, man.'

He stopped walking, tapped his foot and started again.

'There's something... something... I can't put my finger on it... and that is really annoying for the best bounty hunter in Orre, y'know. Arrrrrgh! I can't even work out what's going on in my own head! How am I gonna work out anything else?!'

'I mean... what is there to work out? That's up to our people in Galar...'

Horace's Espeon looked like it was trying to tell him something, but of course, he couldn't hear it. The doors opened again. Nick peered in.