Pokémon Mars

Chapter 21: A High-Profile Incident

Azrael went out to check on the other Pokémon around Mt. Silver. Kazuki sent Grunts to check on the ones in the canyon. The friends of the Ferroseed were heartbroken. Azrael found Graveler and Boldore near Ironville, having walked all the way there to attempt to alert one of the Harmonias. He took them back to Delta Lab 1.

Although Julien already made himself comfortable in the cube containing four bunks, so an Admin would always be there, Thalassa and Callerya were still there that night. Thalassa's notebook, filled with equations and hypotheses about restarting the planet's core and eventually terraforming it, was open in front of her. Her pencil was in her hand. Azrael knew she didn't actually write a word that day and Julien's rambling – about mathematics and an upcoming drag show – wasn't even to blame. She couldn't focus.

Graveler rolled at her. She hastily placed her notebook and pencil on a table before bracing herself so she wasn't crushed by Graveler, who threw its arms around her. It felt guilty. It wanted to find one of them as soon as the first Ferroseed began to struggle, but the Ferroseed told it not to. They insisted someone would come. Team Magma were watching over them from Ironville. Even as the last ones died, they assured their friends that someone would come. What little colour was left in Azrael's face drained then.

He felt partly responsible for this. He knew Courtney was obsessed with Firmino. He even knew about the 'stalker suit' and 'stalker rover.' Since he rarely visited Ironville and Firmino never complained – and he hadn't seen the rover or suit for a while – he never guessed it was as bad as it was. He thought, to some extent, that it was a joke. If only he took it seriously, Courtney would have been returned to Earth years ago. Perhaps Damson would have been. There wouldn't have been rogue Team Magma members. The Pokémon certainly wouldn't have died.

'I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...'

Most of the deceased Ferroseed were raised by Thalassa. Only a few were raised by Nyx. They were the ones whose hearts ached the most. Those Pokémon were their friends. They knew more about Nyx, her hopes and fears than some of her colleagues did. Thalassa shook her head.

'Stop saying sorry... Courtney is to blame... and the Grunts, to some extent, for blindly obeying her...'

The Pokémon in the canyon were blissfully unaware that anything was wrong elsewhere. The Ferroseed there already managed to produce enough oxygen to survive. It was fortunate that a group of well-equipped Team Magma rescuers went to the canyon, though, because the Team Aqua hydrologists were trapped by a landslide and almost out of oxygen. They desperately tried to free themselves before sending out an emergency signal. They couldn't. The Geodude helped shift the boulders. The terrified scientists were freed.

'Why are they so short-staffed?' Callerya asked, 'It seems like there're millions of you and only a few of them... and Firmino's the bloody leader, but he's the one going in the sewer...'

Azrael opened his mouth to reply. Julien cut him off. For a man who hit Koray with his fan every time he was about to launch in to a speech, he loved the sound of his own voice.

'That's right. Team Magma's got 16,836 members – although we'll have to subtract the naughty ones in Ironville. That could be at least a hundred. But Team Aqua have only got about 500 in total.'

'Why?!'

'A very high-profile incident in which a very important and intelligent lady – Dr. Arabella Marchand – died. And her very important Kalosian family made a lot of noise.'

He lowered his voice. 'Or, to put it another way, an incident that simply couldn't be covered up. Nothing like it has ever happened in Team Magma because, well, I suppose we've always been better prepared, simply because we got here first and had more experience with space exploration, outside of the Ares program. Team Aqua fell for the program portraying Mars like a theme park. I'm not saying Arabella personally underestimated Mars. She knew exactly what she was getting in to. But she didn't have enough staff, even back then, because Trago – the big boss of Team Aqua back in Hoenn – is just like his grandpa Archie. Gets a bit tiddly, a bit too often. I'm being nice, by the way. What I really mean is "he's a raving drunk." He didn't know they needed more staff. And then Arabella – the Martian leader – and some others died and no-one wanted to work for them anymore.'