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

Chapter 109: Karma

Mirabelle took a day off for an important occasion: her wedding in Postwick. Even Reira and Sam took the morning off to attend. Nathan almost said he was too busy with the Purify Chamber to make it, but he didn't. Enn might have got some kind of satisfaction out of that.

Most of Olive's fellow Gym Leaders attended. Fayiz went on Khalid and Tatsuko's behalf. Olive felt a little deflated when Ace showed up with Tahirah. She was convinced he was single. Still, she wasn't as crushed as Triton, who was the only International Police officer on duty when local police uncertainly alerted them to a man found unconscious and naked on a street in Hammerlocke.

For Mirabelle, the main attraction was finally marrying the man she truly loved, who finally met his son, with no-one to tell them what to do or how to feel; right there in Postwick where she was so often hidden in cupboards so her brothers and their father never found out she existed. She was still overjoyed that Hop, Zane, Amber, Tahirah and Heather showed up, let alone that Leon and Abbey endured 18 hours of Air Orre to get there. Hop was furious with Looker, but he didn't blame Mirabelle or even his mother at that point. Leon was too nice to blame anyone. Mirabelle was even touched, as Enn secretly was, that N attended.

Nathan thought Enn might still feel that he somehow one-upped him, like he did when he married Joshua's mother, who was also Nathan's ex. He didn't. He knew Nathan already married the woman of his dreams. He found plenty of satisfaction in simply sharing a smug grin with his wife. They were smug about everything from Félix to Enn being a hero to how much that wedding would have upset Looker regardless. No-one would ever tell Mirabelle or Sam how to live their lives again.

By the time Sam opened his laptop at the reception, Zane received a text from Wisteria. She took a photo of Félix sitting on his suitcase on the sidewalk. Verbena dumped him. A new boyfriend already took his place. Félix lost his appeal as soon as he was no longer someone else's husband. All six members of the new family – Mirabelle, Enn, Sam, Risa, Olive and Joshua – didn't care how petty it was. They cackled.

They cackled even more when Félix texted Olive to ask if he could stay with her. She ignored him. Even his mother did. He booked a flight to Motostoke regardless, but in true Air Orre fashion, it was overbooked. If Mirabelle ever believed in karma, it was then. The texts imploring Olive to help him kept coming. As the last passenger to book, he was removed from the flight and sent to an airport hotel with a voucher for a burger, which he found so disgusting that he couldn't eat it. When he returned to his room, he found a Rattata chewing its way in to his suitcase. Mirabelle and Enn cackled even more, especially when Hop, Zane and even Nathan found the saga as amusing as the newlyweds did. Everyone at the lab might as well have attended the wedding, because they put down their spanners and laptops to read Nathan's texts over Johona's shoulder.

Sam was distracted. Reira already left to speak to Triton about the incident he just added to the case file. They examined the man's bruise. It matched those inflicted by Jahzeel's cane, which wasn't recovered from the debris on the tower summit. The International Police assumed it fell from the tower, or even that Hera and her friends took it, but that suggested otherwise.

'But who'd want it?'

Triton grimaced. 'It's just a shitty old cane with a giant Team Plasma logo... it might as well flash and play a song, like, "cops, my dears, over here!"'

'Someone who'd want something with a giant Team Plasma logo on it... but who would that even be? Other than the people who believed the lies and feel conned now, did anyone actually want to work for Team Plasma? The scientists were essentially Cipher.'

'And someone who was still in their uniform, I guess. They must've attacked that dude for his clothes.'

'So that suggests there's still someone... or multiple people... hiding somewhere...'

Caroline led the local police, often accompanied by one of the International Police officers, to search every underground space ever occupied by Team Plasma or Cipher. Several were already filled in with the help of Galar Minerals and Ruslan's Gym Trainers. Triton and Reira searched the castle again. It was empty. The local officers who protected it never saw any trespassers.

It never occurred to Caroline, or even Jahzeel, that Gideon might approach his son's congregants. Emmanuel convinced all who attended the Church of the Split Hero that Team Plasma was a holy organisation. They believed him because Volo was a member and they firmly believed, as Emmanuel did, that Volo was the Split Hero. Some questioned that now, especially the Team Plasma part, but they were too afraid of being arrested to tell the International Police they ever believed it. Others still did. Two of the latter, a sympathetic but misguided old couple, hid Gideon in their attic... along with someone who followed him when the International Police entered the dormitory where they found themselves hiding together.

Gideon didn't want to help Ghetsis, let alone a Ghetsis from an alternate universe, but he had Jahzeel's cane and wasn't afraid to brandish it. His Hydreigon hated him so much that it was terrifying. As Gideon obeyed his father and Jahzeel, he obeyed Ghetsis.

The couple who took them in were equally hesitant. Ghetsis would instantly be recognised in the cloak that appeared in the Black & White movie, but upon arriving to collect them, the couple were glad to see that he was already wearing stolen clothes. That poor man had no idea who attacked him.

The N of the alternate universe asked a local police officer if it was really true that Ghetsis was dead. The officer laughed. Of course Ghetsis was dead. He laughed even more when Hilbert asked if he was sure. No-one else remembered that a man who should have been dead was ever there.