Chapter 36: Chapter 33: I Am Machine

        Back into the Pokémon Center Arven and his friends went. They walked with caution in the direction of the hallway Joy lured Arven to and kept an eye out for her. It was strange. The Pokémon Center was almost too quiet. Not to mention how empty it was.

        Arven, who walked next to Miraidon, patted his neck and said, “Hey, Miraidon, I never said this before, but thank you. Thank you for saving me when AI Sada tried to kill me.”

        “Agia,” Miraidon said with a quick blush.

        Penny overheard Arven’s words and asked herself, “AI Sada?” Calling her by that name was a good sign. It meant that Arven was finally starting to accept his mother’s death.

        While he and Miraidon bonded, Penny pulled up the last screenshot she got of Sada when she collapsed on Levincia’s street. What was so interesting about it that she didn’t get to say out loud? Well, the answer Penny needed for Infrared was right there, but she wanted Arven to figure it out himself.

        Kenji escorted the party to the familiar, white hallway, which now haunted Arven’s dreams. He pointed at the door at the end of it and explained, “The lab is right through there. Are you sure you guys are ready for this?”

        “We are,” Arven said. He brushed his palm across Miraidon’s brow. “As you said, Kenji, with all of us working together, we will be able to stop my dad.”

        To show they agreed with him, Penny, Scarlet, and Nemona nodded at the same time. All three of them smiled, and that was enough for Kenji.

        “Very well,” he said, placing his palm on the pad next to the hallway’s back door. “Let’s do this thing.”

***

        With the Violet book open in his hands, Professor Turo cut across his army base and went to Sada’s cell. His AIs slept soundly behind him, and Nemona’s holographic Meowscarada was outside its pokéball, following Turo like a lost puppy.

        He shut the book and dropped it into his coat pocket. He peered through Sada’s see-through gate at her and snickered.

        Her eyes closed, Sada lay on her side in it. She twitched and tried to lift her head, but she instantly put it on the ground again.

        “Oh, look at you,” Turo sarcastically said. Deactivating the gate, he and Meowscarada stepped into the cell. “On your last leg, aren’t you? This is just what I wanted. This means you’re ready for the final showdown—yay! Oh, how I’ve been anticipating this day.” Turo reached for Sada and clutched her arms. He lugged her to her knees.

        “No!” Sada shouted. Her eyes fluttered open, and she tried to push Turo away from her. “Don’t touch me!”

        Turo merely tightened his grip on her. Steam puffed out of his nostrils. “All right, little lady, you have caused me enough trouble already. So why don’t we just get along and get this over with?” He shook Sada’s arms. “I gave you what you wanted, so a ‘thank you’ would be nice.”

        “This isn’t what I want,” Sada explained in a choked voice. “No matter what you do, Turo, I will continue to protect Arven.”

        “Oh, so you’ve learned to be brave now, too?” Turo inquired, disgusted. “Too bad that’s not going to help you at this point.” He examined Sada’s infrared body. “You brought this upon yourself, Sada—by acting against your code. I’m merely refurbishing you.”

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        Sada raised her voice. “I don’t want to be a robot. I’ll fight for my humanity. Now let me go!” She lifted her right, Terastallized fist and punched Turo across his left cheek.

        Stumbling, he instantly freed her and tumbled onto his backside. He rested his hand over his bruised cheek and glared at Sada. “Oh, you should have not done that, little lady.” His entire face burned like Sada’s crystals. Turo rose to his feet and snatched her neck again. He lifted her off the ground. “I’ve tried being nice to you, and this is how you repay me?”

        Turo threw Sada out of the cell into the army base. On his way to her, he knocked down tables and chairs and kicked a few stands over. “When the original professor died,” he explained, “I swore to myself that I would shatter any evidence of her. I will not hesitate to kill you and Arven if it means never having to think about her again!”

        “You’ve taken your grief to an unhealthy level,” Sada told him. “I thought I could help you through it, by bringing the family back together, but I was wrong.”

        “You Sam heck were!” Turo boomed. He snapped his fingers. “Meowscarada, I don’t care what you do, but you will bring that AI to me! She’s no human but a science experiment!”

        The words hit hard. Sada’s body sparked while the tears ran down her cheeks, filling her mouth with their salty taste. “I’m not a science experiment,” she fought back. Her voice started to falter. “Don’t you understand? I just want to be the mom Arven never had. Is that really too much to ask? You were never there for him, Turo, and while the original professor wasn’t a great mom, at least Arven had one.”

        “I’ve had enough!” Turo snapped. “Meowscarada, we will convert her into a robot right now.” His heart ached in his chest, but he still held his hand out to Meowscarada.

        “Stop!” a voice yelled from off to the side. Arven.

        He and the others rushed through the base to the confrontation.

        Miraidon quickly changed his form and hopped in front of Sada. He rotated his V-shaped arms and now held them in front of him. He stopped Meowscarada before it could attack Sada.

        She fell back onto the floor.

        At the same time, Nemona hid behind her hands when she saw her Pokémon.

        Turo rubbed the sides of his eyes and removed his walkie-talkie-like device from his pocket. “All right, I didn’t want to have to do this until later, but it looks like I have no choice.” He glanced at Arven, his friends, and then Miraidon.

        The Pokémon chucked Meowscarada off to the side and returned his arms to normal. He scooped up Sada in them and hugged her to the spinning tire in his chest.

        “Welcome, Arven,” Turo greeted, “and the—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—Seven Musketeers. You’re right in time for the party.”

        “Dad!” Arven said. His own face reddened. “How could you do this?”

        “Oh, so I’m not going to get a ‘hello’ from my long-lost son either?” Turo questioned. “How rude, and I don’t take rudeness kindly. It looks like you musketeers are going to face my army of Future Hologram Pokémon a little early. So I guess this is where I say, ‘toodelo’.” Turo lifted his thumb and crashed it into one of the buttons on his device.

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