Chapter 10

Chapter 10: “Awakenings”

After news of Jessie’s treachery and of Giovanni’s death spread across the island, the Rockets were unsure of what to do next. The ships arrived the next morning, and Esteban wasn’t too peachy about having been cracked in the skull with a wrench. Giovanni’s last orders still stood, though: I was not to be harmed. And even if he wanted to touch me, he couldn’t, because the other trainers remained by my side up until we were loaded onto the ships, and they would’ve fought anyone who tried to hurt me. As trainers, we were each of us bound by our shared experience of the tournament, and even though we’d all lost, we all respected each other for the common blood we’d all shed.

During the voyage back to Kanto, Lorelei found me standing on the deck, looking out over the turgid black waters. Misty’s Poké ball was in my pocket, and her state of being was the only thing on my mind. Lorelei stood beside me and bummed a nail off me. She told me that, in her mind, I’d won the tournament. She’d previously learned why I’d thrown our match and now she shook my hand.

“But,” she said, “even though I know you would’ve beaten me, I’m keeping the million credits. I’ll put it all toward my political campaign, and after I get elected, I’ll focus on nothing but overturning the Spassek Act. When you and I have our rematch, it’ll be legal.”

“No,” I said, nodding as I turned Misty’s Poké ball over and over, hoping she could feel me somehow. “I’m done fighting.”

“The sport will miss you.”

“And I’ll miss the sport,” I said, “but I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted in my pocket.”

Three days later, Misty opened her eyes. We were on the top floor of the Saffron Medical Center in a room of our own. The sun shined through the venetian blinds and cast a yellowish glow over everything, including Misty’s beautiful face. I’d never left her side ever since I let her out of the Poké ball and the surgeons stitched her up. I never even let go of her hand.

“Good morning, sunshine,” I said.

She said, “I really need a shower.”

“We’ll take one together as soon as you can stand.”

Gary and Chief Jenny came by to visit later in the afternoon, after they’d received word that Misty had emerged from her coma. Gary stood by the door as Jenny, who wore her a plain blue pinstripe business suit rather than her official digs, sat across from me with her legs crossed and filled me in on everything that’d happened since the end of the tournament.

After Giovanni’s death, Esteban became the leader of the Rocket Gang, but he couldn’t rein in the various factions that had splintered away as a result of Jessie’s betrayal. After a Jessie loyalist attempted to assassinate him in his own house, Esteban turned state’s evidence against the entire organization in exchange for police protection. Since then, Saffron P.D. has been dismantling Rocket operations all over the city, and departments in Cerulean, Lavender, and Viridian were doing the same, with those in other cities expected to fall in line before the weekend.

Team Rocket was finished and the war for Kanto’s soul was finally won, Jenny told me, but it would only be a matter of time before the next Giovanni found a way to bring a violent end to the temporary peace. When you smash one bad egg, she said, another falls out of the chicken shortly after. The smashing never really ends.

“I just hope you’ll still be on my side when the next bad egg rolls down the chute,” she said. “I’m putting together a task force dedicated to pokémon-related crimes. Why don’t you join the department, Ketchum? Become a detective with a regular paycheck for once?”

“I’m sorry, Chief,” I said, turning back to my girl. “Misty and I are retired from the crime fighting industry.”

“Shame,” she said, rising. As she moved past Gary and out into the hall she said, “Go on and tell him,
Oak,” and then she was gone.

“Tell me what?” I said, looking up.

Gary sat in the chair that Jenny had vacated and rubbed the stubble on his face. The dark bags under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept in a week.

“There’s something you should know about Giovanni,” he said. Misty and I both looked at him expectantly.

“What is it?”

“After Esteban came in, we found Giovanni’s body buried on the island, as well as what looked to be a shrine devoted to you, hidden away in one of the back rooms of his mansion. There were hundreds of photographs of you, from every age, and there were newspaper clippings, too, and videos, and letters. It was as if Giovanni was building his own ashédex.”

My stomach sank.

“So was he a pervert or a queer?” I asked.

“Well,” Gary said, “we ran a blood test and…”

“Spit it out, Oak.”

“Giovanni was your father.”

“Oh, no,” Misty said. “You’re sure? Couldn’t there have been a mistake?”

Gary shook his head. “You okay, Ash?”

“I guess I always sort of knew,” I admitted. “I just didn’t want it to be true. I think I might be sick.”

“Well,” he said, “before you throw up all over the floor and ruin the moment, there’s one more thing I gotta tell you.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “In the past few days I’ve been wore out, shot up, cut up, hopped up, and now I’m informed that my father was an international crime boss. For Arceus’ sake, the next thing you’ll tell me is that Mewtwo is my mother.”

“Not quite,” he said. “Not quite.”

Then She appeared in the doorway.

My mother, Delia Ketchum, missing five years. She looked the same as she did the day pikachu and I left Pallet Town so many years ago. I didn’t know what to say so I could only stare at her as though she were a ghost, but she wasn’t a ghost. She was alive, just like I was.

“It was Jenny who opened the Poké ball that was on Giovanni’s necklace,” Gary said. “When your mother emerged from inside, still alive, we could barely believe it. My guess is that Giovanni wanted to keep her close.”

“Mom?”

“I guess we have a lot to talk about, honey,” she said.

I didn’t want anyone to see me.

I closed my eyes.