by K J Harlow
“If he’s been chasing anything, it’d be a motherfucking sandwich.”
“Soph!”
“Look, he came back into town, looking like he’d just run from the rod hire shack to the lake. He was stroking a ring all like ‘my precious, my precious’. Then he sees me.”
“Did you see what girlfriend was in the ring?”
“No? What are you talking about?
“So why did you beat him up?”
“Because he’s a flaming cuntlord.”
“That’s it?”
“No, he also called me a bitch that didn’t know her place. What’s the big deal?”
“Alright, time’s up.” A Labby with a ponytail strode over, grabbing Yoshi by the handcuff links.
“Don’t cause any more trouble. I’ll bail you out somehow.”
“Don’t worry,” Soph snorted. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“What else do you want me to say? I’ve told you everything that I know.”
This Labby had the most badges on her jacket of the ones Yoshi had seen so far. She had a bolt of white fur down the right side of her long, wavy, black hair. She swiveled on her chair and leaned on the desk. “If you can’t tell us anything else, we can’t help you. He could be halfway across Ohno for all we know.”
Yoshi gritted his teeth. “Can you at least let my Sophie go? I don’t have her bail.”
“She’ll serve time like all the other offenders. 30 days for public assault and battery. That’s already generous, since she’s a first-time offender.”
Don’t think it’ll be her last, though.
“And what about me? Do I have to do the time with her?”
Labby shook her head. “You have been co-operative so you will be released without charges. Having an unruly girlfriend is not a crime, though you are responsible for her.” She reached over and pressed a finger into a square scanner on the handcuffs. Green gridlines swept over the fingerprint and after a loud click, Yoshi was free.
“Wouldn’t have been so much trouble if she wasn’t a Shiny.” Yoshi grumbled.
Labby’s triangular ears perked up. “What did you say?”
“The Felicity. She was a Shiny.”
The dark wolf-type stared at him incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“Didn’t I?”
“You just said that he kidnapped a Felicity. Not that she was a Shiny.”
“Well she was – is.”
Labby stared at him, expression unreadable. “I’ll be back.” She picked up her files, arranged them neatly then left the room.
Yoshi leaned back on his chair. He threaded a finger into ring number one, disengaged it and held it close to his lips.
“Hey Starry.” No response. “I don’t know if you can hear me but anyway… sorry for everything’s that happened. It’s not fun being paralyzed, I’m sure. I’ll take you to a Mr. Pampers after I get out of here.” He hesitated, then gave the crystal on the ring a quick kiss.
Putting the ring back in its socket, he stood up and stretched. He walked towards the two-way mirror and stopped a few feet away. Mom would have vomited blood if she saw him like this: mud was still caked on his clothes, sticking to his hair as well. He rubbed the 5 o’clock shadow, then tried to straighten out his jacket without leaving too much dried-out mud on the floor.
The door swung open. “Sit down, Yoshi.” Yoshi looked at Labby’s reflection in the mirror.
He turned on his heel and walked back to his chair. Labby crossed her dark, furred arms. Yoshi sat and stared at her, heart thumping in his chest. She slowly reached over and pressed a button on the recorder. The red light started flashing.
“Let me ask you again: was the girlfriend you had kidnapped from you a Shiny?”
Yoshi nodded. “Yes.”
Labby looked across at the two-way mirror and nodded. For several moments, the only movement in the room was the flashing light on the recorder.
The door opened inwards again and a man strode in. Labby stood up, bowed deeply, then retreated to the door. The man took her seat and grunted, shifting closer to Yoshi. His black suit was crisp and immaculate. His shaved head was offset by a shrewd face that looked like he was waiting for someone to understand something cryptic he had just said.
“Hello.” His voice was deep and assured.
Yoshi swallowed. “Hi.”
“Labby over there tells me that you lost a Shiny tonight,” he continued in his smooth baritone.
“I did – well I didn’t lose her, she was kidnapped.”
“Really?” He sat up in the chair. “Could you tell me what happened?”
Yoshi recounted the events of the evening from the moment he and Starry went out to Onyx Lake to the moment he passed out. This time, he didn’t omit the fact that she was a Shiny.
“I see.” He weaved his fingers together. A girlfriend ring glinted on his left hand. “Yoshi, we may know where Carl might have gone with your Felicity.”
“What?” Yoshi leaned in to the man. “Do you have footage of him?”
He looked back at Labby, who nodded from the shadows. “We do. We know exactly where he went.” Yoshi clenched his fist beneath the table, flicking a suspicious glance at Labby. “There’s a good reason we didn’t tell you. Before I reveal it to you, I need to ask you something.” He paused. “If you decide to pursue her, there is no going back to a normal life. Are you determined to get her back?”
Yoshi was about to tell this mysterious man about his plans to be a renowned Girlfriend Master and how he needed a water-type to beat the Onyx Gym. Carl’s fat face then decided it was a good time to float like a sweaty, bulging-eyed blimp into his mind. If I abandon her now, I’m no better than that scumbag.
“Yeah,” Yoshi said, clenching his jaw. “No one steals my girlfriend and gets away with it.”
11
The Briefing
GARY NEWMAN
Director
Shinytarian Preservation and Rescue Taskforce Alliance (Ohno)
Yoshi looked up from the glossy card the man had handed him. “‘Shinytarian’?”
He nodded. “Like humanitarianism, but for Shinies. SPARTA for short. Labby?”
Gary kept his eyes on Yoshi while Labby slipped out of the room.
“For every 8,192 girlfriends of any given breed, there is one naturally occurring Shiny. There are only a handful born every year. Our records show that there are between 400 and 500 currently in existence in Ohno. The United Nations established SPARTA to protect Shinies from organizations which may seek to exploit them.”
Labby came back into the room, wheeling a projector in. She came over and handed a little rectangular device to the suited man. “Thank you.” He stood up, faced the wall to Yoshi’s left and crossed his arms while Labby busied herself setting up the projector.
Gary pressed the clicker. A slide appeared showing a variety of girlfriends, all displaying the same bioluminescent qualities of Yoshi’s kidnapped Felicity.
“There was a paper published a few years ago breaking down the unique anatomy of Shinies.” He clicked again. A slide showing the cross-section of a girlfriend came up. “Shinies have a unique enzyme that converts energy from food into light. Furthermore, it has been found that this conversion occurs at a roughly 1 to 100 ratio.”
“What does that mean?” Yoshi asked.
“It means,” Labby said, leaning on the table, “that you could feed a Shiny girlfriend a cupcake and she could use the calories in it to produce enough energy to light up a stadium for three hours.”
“Any trainer who has a Shiny essentially has access to unlimited power,” Gary said gravely.
“OK fine, whatever. Point is Carl’s got my Felicity. You told me that you know where he is. So? Where is he?”
Gary and Labby exchanged looks. “There is an… organization that not only SPARTA but every law enforcement body in Ohno has been keeping tabs on for several years now. They run several illegal or borderline illegal operations,
one of which is acquiring Shinies.” Labby hesitated. “We shouldn’t show him this.” Yoshi almost couldn’t hear her trepidation above her growl.
Shadows engulfed Gary’s face. “He needs to see it.”
Yoshi looked back and forth between the two. “See what?”
Labby bared her canine teeth. “What this organization has been doing to Shinies.”
Yoshi became still. “Hit me.”
Gary clicked; Yoshi’s eyes widened. “Their influence runs far and deep. At the drop of a hat, they can reach out to scientists who err on the side of the immoral. Scientists who have no qualms about skinning…” click, “cutting…” click, “or dismembering live Shinies in order to better understand the how their Bioiridescence works.”
“Urgh…”
“You can use the waste bucket over there,” Labby said casually.
Gary clicked again and the gruesome pictures disappeared. “SPARTA took those pictures nine months ago. The organization had completely cleared out of the facility, but had left this hacked-to-pieces girlfriend plus another behind.”
The presentation ended and was promptly replaced with a loading modal. A video started playing.
“Noooo, stop, please!” A Shiny, completely nude with arms and legs tied to a chair, was screaming and sobbing. A shadow appeared from behind the camera and she thrashed even harder.
“We edited the video to leave out the unnecessary detail,” Gary said tersely. The video skipped to the end. The Shiny’s body was limp but intact. After several seconds, shadows moved behind the camera, picking it up and bringing it up close to the Shiny’s torso. A message was scratched into her skin:
Catch us if you can ;)
The message was enclosed in a spiky, closed shape that looked like a cartoony blast symbol. On further inspection, this had been branded into the girlfriend’s skin.
“Team Boom.” Gary hissed. “I’m going to shut down their operation if it kills me.”
“So you think that Carl’s taken Felicity to them?”
“We don’t think, we know.” Gary nodded to Labby. She typed away at a keyboard. Moments later the screen changed again, dividing up into four quadrants.
“That’s her!” Yoshi exclaimed, pointed at the top-left corner. It showed a glow approaching the camera before abruptly disappearing. Moments later, Carl’s wide load appeared.
“That’s footage from this evening, outside the gate to Onyx Lake.” The next quadrant along started playing. Carl appeared in town, looking flustered. A few people walked by before Soph appeared at the bottom of the screen. They came together and moments later, Sophie started striking him with his wings and pecking at his face. Trainers sent their girlfriends out to restrain her before the police intervened.
“Oh Soph…” Yoshi shook his head.
Quadrant three started playing. Carl looked distressed. He refused treatment and wobbled away back towards the busy part of town. Quadrant four started playing. People were milling about a brightly lit venue. Carl appeared from the bottom right of the screen. He looked around furtively before disappearing into it, automatic doors sliding shut behind him.
“Where is this place?” Yoshi asked.
“Winza Six,” Labby responded.
“Why is he going in there?”
“Whatever he’s trying to do, it seems like time is of the essence,” Labby mused. “He hasn’t come back out yet either. This footage is a couple hours old.”
“Why they hell haven’t you guys done anything?” Yoshi slammed his hands on the table. “They could be cutting her up right now for all we know!” Yoshi caught the guilty look that Labby cast across at Gary. “You’re using her as bait… you want Felicity to get chopped up?”
“Of course we don’t,” Gary said tersely. “We want to avoid that at all costs.”
“So what are you waiting for then?”
“We can’t just storm the building,” Labby growled. “There are trainers and girlfriends everywhere. It would cause complete and utter chaos.”
“So you’re just going to take Carl in when he comes out of the building?”
“Ideally we’d like to do that and also arrest the leader of the operation while we’re at it.” Gary put his hands on Yoshi’s shoulders. “Believe me, son. We’re doing everything we can to rescue your girlfriend.”
Yoshi frowned and looked back at the video. The gruesome message flickered and taunted him. “I’ll go. They want us to catch them? Let me do it.”
Gary chuckled. “Guess I owe you.” He fished around in his pockets and handed 10 shiny Coins to Labby. She pocketed them with a look of triumphant satisfaction. “My deputy here said that you would volunteer to go in yourself to rescue the Felicity. I told her that you would chicken out.”
He cradled his hands behind his back and leaned toward Yoshi. “We know you have a Sophie and a Felicity. You told us about your Starlotte.” He eyed his ring belt. “You must have started your journey from Topaz.” Seeing Yoshi widen his eyes, he chuckled. “I was an interrogator in a past life.” He looked around the room fondly. “I see things others cannot.”
“So you think that just because I’m a noob, I don’t care about my girlfriends?”
Gary shook his head slowly. “It’s clear to me that the wellbeing of your girlfriends is paramount to you. I just didn’t know if it comes second place when your own safety was on the line.”
“If you were to walk in to Winza Six now, you would be slaughtered,” Labby said flatly. “We’re dealing with scum who don’t uphold our laws. They won’t stop once their foe has fainted. They will order their girlfriends to go for the kill. Once they’ve done that, they will order them to attack you.”
Yoshi became still and swallowed. “I know I’m way out of my league, but I’m not going to wait for them to make the first move.”
“That’s why we’re going to help you,” Gary said. He nodded at Labby and she promptly slipped out of the room again. “If one of us went in to try and recover Felicity, that would attract too much attention. A regular trainer would have a much better chance of slipping under the radar. If they catch you, you can just say that you got lost.”
“Get your furry hands off me, dog!”
Yoshi spun around. That voice could only belong to one girlfriend. Labby shoved her into the room and she squawked, her wings exploding outwards.
“Soph! No!”
“She touched me first,” she hissed.
“She wouldn’t comply,” Labby fired back calmly.
“Your girlfriend will be released without charge on the condition that you accept this mission.”
“What mission?” Soph demanded, “Yoshi, what mission?”
“So I just go in, look around for Felicity and recover her right under their noses?”
“There are several elements to this mission. Rescuing Felicity is one of them. The other two are to apprehend Carl and best-case scenario, also apprehend the ringleader of his operation if he’s at the premises.”
“I’m going to need a hand with that.”
Gary laughed. “Yes, that’s why Labby here is going to go with you.”
“I am?”
“She is?”
“Go where?”
Labby, Yoshi and Soph stared at Gary.
“Eheh, yes Labby, perhaps I should have consulted with you first, but I’ve decided that you’re the best candidate for the job,” Gary said sheepishly. “You are the most familiar with this operation and besides,” he lowered his voice. “I know you’ve been looking to get a promotion.”
“Sir!” She saluted.
“Excellent.” Gary turned to Yoshi. “Labby will accompany you on this mission. You will find her training to be of the highest caliber. In the event that you do face Carl or the leader of the organization, she will know what to do.”
“When did you catch a Felicity? Where are we going?” Sophie demanded.
Yoshi picked up the feather that had wafted to the ground. “I’ll explain everything in a
moment.”
Starlotte was leaning into Yoshi, her head on his shoulder. He pulled the blanket tighter over her.
“That fucking fat bastard. I’m glad I beat him up when I had the chance. You should have seen him, he was all like ‘no, don’t hurt me, please…’” Soph looked at Starry and her eyes softened. “Don’t worry, she’ll be OK.”
“She tries so hard.” Yoshi murmured. Yoshi laced hair that had fallen over Starry’s face back behind her ear and she stirred. “I should just leave her here.”
Soph shook her head vigorously. “Don’t. She’ll resent you for it. I would, anyway.”
“She was just meant to tag along so that I could run an errand for Professor Poke. Now I’m infiltrating an international terrorist organization.” Yoshi shook his head.
“Are you kidding me? That’s damn cool,” Sophie scoffed. “We’ll be strong enough to take on Onyx Gym in no time.”
That was the furthest thing from Yoshi’s mind right now. How many days had it been since he left home? Four? Five? It felt more like months. A part of him did feel like throwing papers in the air and saying ‘fuck this shit’, but every time he felt that, he’d picture Felicity cut up into pieces.
Starry sighed deeply. She woke up, shimmied to the side and yawned sumptuously. “Good morning,” she said with a tired smile.
Yoshi wrapped her up in Mr. Pampers’ borrowed blanket and stood up. “Feeling better?”
“Yes…” Her smile faded when she saw the somber look on his face. “What’s happened? Where’s Felicity?”
“Ah, you’re awake.” Labby had changed into more casual gear: chinos and a black tank top. The lining of a vest pressed her generous breasts down. She caught Yoshi staring at them.
“Nice vest,” he said quickly.
“Thanks.” Her dark, wet nose twitched and hint of a smile playing across her mouth. “SPARTA has given us extra supplies. HP Potions, PP Potions, Poison Heals, Paralyze Heals…” She flipped open different compartments of her vest, pulling out each restorative item. She handed one HP Potion to a confused Starry.