Pokémon Homecoming | A Galar Fanfiction

Chapter 29: An Infestation

Jovi carefully stacked bubble-wrapped external hard drives on the desk. The Aura Detector itself was a petite silver cube with a plug to slot into a scanning device, but Jovi appeared to be unloading the contents of her suitcase as Hop prepared the Power Spot Detector. Sonia paused to whisper to Abbey before delivering Jovi's Berry tea.

'She's unpacking! But I've not prepared her bed yet...'

'Shall I do it? I don't really know how your thing works, anyway. It's not a rock.'

'Hop seems to be doing just fine, so let's do it together. I don't want Yamper chewing on her stuff...'

Jovi gratefully accepted her tea. Sonia explained they were going to 'finish' preparing her bed. Glancing back from the landing, she panicked, because now Jovi was fiddling with the Power Spot Detector.

'Oh, bloody hell. Do I trust Hop to stop her breaking it?'

Sighing, she suddenly looked older. 'I'm scared, Abbey. So many people are counting on us and Anabel... I'm kind of worried about her.'

'Oh, I wouldn't worry about her. I used to. Even cranky old Nanu did, but she does take breaks between cases. There's no point in trying to help her, anyway. She will do a Leon then. She'll just avoid you.'

Abbey pulled down the ladder to the loft. She took the last bedroom. Only the poky box room remained. The door handle was stiff. Sonia rammed the door with her shoulder. Light leaked around a blind over a small, square window. Boxes and books were piled on and against the squat cabinet, converted to a makeshift bedframe, filling half of the narrow space. The light flickered laboriously on. Sonia shrieked when a Joltik leapt from the bulb.

'We've got Joltik now?!'

'Oi! Cinderace!' Abbey yelled to her room, 'Get me some Quick Balls!'

'D'you think there are more? Oh, forget that. There's never just one Joltik. How are we going to get rid of them before tonight? We can't catch all of them...'

Their voices disturbed two more scuttling Joltik. Plastic clattered outside. Abbey knew Cinderace had already dropped the Quick Balls.

'Maybe Leon can get rid of them. He's like the Murkrow Piper. They'll all obediently march out after him.'

Sonia snorted. 'Leon? Leon My-Phone-Was-On-Silent Fayed? He's more like a princess locked in a tower with an army of evil Pokémon guarding it. Good luck rescuing him.'

Plastic rattled along the floorboards. Abbey hurried out. If Cinderace was kicking them, they would melt.

'That's enough!'

They were indeed burning hot to the touch. Her hands were hardened to it. Little feet scampered. Abbey spun to hurl one of the Balls at the escaping Joltik. The door rocked as Sonia stepped clumsily back.

'Eeeek! There's a Galvantula! Oh, this is embarrassing!'

She took an armful of Quick Balls from Abbey. 'This is such a waste of balls. Should I just give her my bed? I can stay with Gran...'

The Galvantula was sealed in a Ball. Abbey called Meowstic. She gestured for Sonia to step back.

'Let's try putting them to sleep.'

Meowstic rarely needed instructions. It used Yawn. The room's atmosphere was suddenly heavy. Abbey slammed the door. Slumping against the wall, they waited for Meowstic to let them know the invading bugs were asleep. Sonia rubbed her eyes.

'Maybe we should just pretend we don't know about them? Or... they live here? Oh, I don't know! I'm so tired and I haven't even been hit with Yawn.'

Meowstic, sitting beside them, purred. Abbey stood.

'Well, let's get rid of some of these boxes before they wake up. Then maybe we can find out where they're hiding.'

Abbey began to pass the boxes to Sonia. Meowstic levitated them from her arms, meticulously stacking them in the narrow hallway. Garchomp brought its favourite sweeping brush, from the market in Konikoni City, to brush out the sleeping Joltik. Sonia whistled for Yamper. It dragged a plastic storage box from her room. They sealed the Joltik inside. Garchomp cheerfully took a cloth to begin dusting down the room, although Abbey had to take it back when its scythes accidentally scratched the cabinet. Sonia pulled bedding from the airing cupboard to arrange on the 'bed.' The wardrobe, scraped by the door every time it opened, was full of broken scientific equipment. Meowstic brought another box. Abbey tossed the broken equipment in and shoved it out. They could barely move in the hallway. The Joltik in the box were waking up.

'If there are any left they're probably waking up, too...'

'Well, I can't see any. The bedding's on. I'm shutting the door!'

'Sonia!'

She put a finger to her lips. 'Shhh! Professor Sonia has no idea there were ever Pokémon in there.'

Downstairs, Jovi configured her Aura Detector to work with the foreign machine. Hop sat at the desk with his laptop, scrolling through the Shadow Pokémon data on one of her hard drives. Abbey hid the Joltik box behind a plant. She intended to empty it outside, but when Hop called her over, she forgot it was there. He showed her readings on energy emitted by wild Dynamax Pokémon compared to Shadow Pokémon in Reverse Mode, a state of rage so pent-up it was damaging.

'The Dynamax readings spike when the wild Pokémon panics, but these readings are all over the place. I can't make head nor tail of them!'

She sat beside him while Sonia helped Jovi. The Reverse Mode readings were indeed hard on the eyes.

'I can't see any Evolution stone holding energy that fluctuates like that. It'd have to be stabilised.'

They pored over readings from regular Shadow Pokémon and those in Hyper Mode, a similar state seen in the earliest Shadow Pokémon. The raw data was difficult to understand. Hop loaded videos from ONBS, Orre's trusted news station, of Shadow Pokémon battling. They were full of ruthless rage. Pleasure only seemed to come from inflicting harm, whether that was on people or Pokémon. Jovi passed them another hard drive, packed with data directly copied from Data ROMs retrieved from Cipher. To give strangers data that led to her father's death, she obviously trusted them. Abbey felt guilty. She had to shake off the shadow of Alfie and trust Jovi in return.

Rosy twilight fell over Wedgehurst outside. There were videos on this hard drive, too. After watching a Cipher scientist torment a Ralts in Reverse Mode until it lashed out, Hop shut the laptop. Jovi gently laid a hand on his shoulder.

'It's horrible, isn't it?'

The Aura Detector beeped. It was ready. Sonia took a deep breath.

'Well – ready to find out if this is going on in little old Galar?'

'I'm not sure I am. But we'd better have a look anyway.'