Alexa woke up at around six in the morning; she’d been out for around ten hours. She felt a little hung over, but better than she had. Viola was snoring in the other bed and Alexa couldn’t help but smile. The reality of what they had survived hit her, and she felt immense gratitude that her little sister was safe. Sure, she was nearly twenty years old but she’d always be her baby sister.
Gratitude. She had Mige to thank for that. He had shown such immense bravery in the face of everything and if it hadn’t been for him, they would have all likely died multiple times over. She thought about how she hadn’t even thanked him for it. That didn’t sit right with her.
She showered, stole some of Viola’s clothes (they were almost the same size, at least) and decided to head to the Pokemon Center. She got there about 8 am. The nurse hadn’t seen Mige yet, so Alexa sat down with Helioptile and waited. Viola actually showed up around 9 in the morning. She explained the situation with Budew and Alexa couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re saying you two ran an entire day’s walk to get that Budew to safety?” she asked, incredulous. Viola perked an eyebrow.
“How’s that funny?” she asked.
“No, no—that’s not funny. It’s just—I mean, it’s hardly surprising that Mige suggested that. He’s just can’t stop being a hero, huh?” Alexa said with a grin.
“He’s a little young for you, isn’t he?” Viola teased with a big, shit-eating grin. Alexa frowned disapprovingly.
“That’s not funny.” she said, “I just mean that he’s got some kind of hero complex. Not that I’m complaining; it means that we’re both alive, you know?”
“I guess so, yeah.” Viola shrugged.
“That’s why I’m here, actually. I wanted to thank him.” she said, and judging by the mischievous glint in her sister’s eye, Alexa quickly added, “I’m going to offer to buy him and his friends train fare back to the city. It’s the least I could do.”
Viola chuckled as the nurse handed her the Budew. Viola looked it over and picked it up. She wished Alexa luck on her date—Alexa shot her another extremely disapproving look—and trotted out into the morning air. Maker, Viola was such a child sometimes.
Mige came down about a half hour or so later; Alexa hadn’t noticed right away because she was watching the TV, but Heloptile did. They greeted one another and Mige asked Alexa what brought her around.
“I’m here to see you, actually. So, I was really out of it yesterday, with everything that happened, and it occurred to me this morning that I haven’t thanked you for…well, for everything you did in the forest.” she said.
“Aw, you don’t need to thank me.” Mige said, but Alexa was quick to disagree.
“Yes, I do. If you hadn’t have been there, then those Team Relic grunts would have killed us without a second thought. I’ve seen them do it. But you saved us, and because of you, my sister is alive and well. So please, let me thank you.”
While Mige still seemed a little reluctant at first, he did end up graciously accepting her offer to buy him and his friends train fare back to Lumuiose City, or wherever they were headed next. Mige thanked her with a small bow—but then stopped, and quickly pulled out a small travel guide on Kalos.
He flipped to a page and began reading—aloud—ways to greet people, and it occurred to her that he was trying to figure out the best way to be polite in this circumstance. Alexa couldn’t help but giggle a little to herself.
“The bow was fine. Thank you, though.” she said with a smile.
The two talked for a few minutes; it came up that Mige had made a moped entirely on his own over the two months between the end of the Indigo Conference and his coming to Kalos. The idea made Alexa smile, and she told him about her own, broken moped.
Mige seemed to think that he could fix it; he spouted off technical stuff about what he figured it probably was, and while she didn’t really understand any of what he said, she could tell that he did. She accepted his offer, and added that she’d cook him dinner in return. Or maybe she’d just order something because of how bad her cooking was, she added as a joke.
“I could cook,” Mige offered with a straight face, totally genuine, “I’m pretty good at—”
“No, Mige. You’re not going to cook the dinner meant to thank you for helping me.” Alexa said with a huge grin, struggling not to laugh. Mige chuckled sheepishly.
“Oh. Right. That makes sense…” he said.
After another couple minutes of pleasant conversation, Alexa mentioned that she needed to get back to the motel so she could start writing the article about what happened in the forest. She wasn’t sure if the paper would accept it, but she figured people needed to know what Team Relic was up to. She promised she’d keep in touch; if he heard anything, he could text her. She also told him to call when he knew what day they were planning to leave. When she left, she was halfway out the door before she remembered she’d left Helioptile curled up, sleeping on the table.
Back at the motel, Alexa proceeded to hole up for the rest of the day. She jotted down as many notes as she could, sketeched out a vague path that she and the others had taken. She made a note to ask Viola, or to have her, ask Nash about the coordinates for the Team Relic base.
She started to write; completely engrossed and lost in it. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, lost to the need to eat or rest. Her entire focus was on this story. A montage began.
The people needed to know about this. Team Relic was dangerous—truly and shockingly dangerous. People had died—including three people that she had brought out there with her. They tried to kill her. They tried to kill her sister. They would have, if it hand’t been for Mige.
On that note, she didn’t mention anybody who was there by name. Not just for privacy reasons, but because she figured that would only put a target on them. So it was all aliases—except for herself. She didn’t mind a target on her back if it meant exposing the truth.
Eventually, she stepped outside to smoke. It was late. The air was warm, a dampness hanging there. Her phone rang; it was Mige. He needed to talk to her as soon as possible. It was important. Alex was already putting on her shoes and getting ready to sprint downtown as she told him where to meet her.
Alexa met Mige at a fairly popular bar downtown. It was open extremely late; until dawn most nights. It was cheap, it was dark, and it was loud, so they could talk freely without anybody noticing. Mige was already there when she arrived. She bought two beers and sat at the table with him.
She got his permission to record their conversation, and asked him to tell her everything. He did, too: about the abandoned church, about the bunker underneath it, and about everything that they found there. Alexa could hardly believe what she was hearing. A bunker used for experimenting on kids, right here in Santalune City?
Mige had pictures and even video—taken by Kai from his phone—and he gave her the papers he’d recovered. She looked through them, noting the various details and terminology used to indicate that these were genuine. This bunker was, in all likiehood, used by the Kalosian government to experiment and conduct research on young, psychic kids.
She looked back to Mige after a time.
“This is big.” she said, “This is…it’s almost unbelievable. People need to know about this. What these people did to those poor kids…”
Alexa felt so angry. She wiped a tear from her eyes and took a breath.
“I promise you Mige, for the sake of these children, I’m going to expose this to the world. One way or another, this story’s going to be printed.”
Mige thanked her, and had one more question. He explained about Eliza, the spirit of the girl who had helped Mige and his friends in the bunker. He asked if Alexa could help him find Astrid; Eliza’s friend who she had asked Mige to pass a message on to. Alexa said she’d do her best. She also suggested that, if this Astrid was a Warper like Eliza had suggested, then Olympia—the gym leader in Annistar City—might have a way to find her.
Given the sheer amount of information she had to sift through, Alexa figured it’d be best to leave and offered to drive Mige back to the Pokemon Center—and yes, she said “drive”. After the forest, she’d grown sick of walking, so she rented a car for a couple days before she visited Mige that morning.
As they got in the car, during conversation it had come up that Mige had also been injured by the Rhyhorn and just hadn’t gotten himself checked out. Exasperated, Alexa told him that she was taking him to the hospital. Mige tried to protest that he was fine, but Alexa just gave him ‘the look’ and he relented.
She took him to the doctor, waited with him until everything was taken care of, and then drove him back to the Pokemon Center. She told him to get some sleep—she made him promise—and then drove off back to the motel.
Once there, she plopped down on the bed and started going through everything Mige had given her. Viola wasn’t there—no doubt she’d be going to the club and probably waking up with a stranger tomorrow morning—which meant that Alexa had the place to herself.
One by one, she began to read through the Bunker Papers, taking notes as she went. This was messy and complicated, and there were a lot of pieces there. But she was determined to put them together, no matter how long it took.
Alexa would end up forgetting to sleep.
