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It was surprising what could become routine. Anthea had used to think that all she’d ever be able to know was the castle. The ebb and flow of people dressed in white, the stories the sages taught them to repeat, the floors that Ghetsis would tell her to clean. Yet somehow, it now felt natural to wake up every morning and make a new batch of pokemon food for the day, checking in on each of their charges. She knew who woke up the earliest, and who needed to be shaken awake.
She walked the path to the market, only a short ways from the manor they lived in, basket hanging over her arm, as Gothitelle walked beside her. The sellers greeted her as she arrived, passing over food they had placed aside for them. Gothitelle would help her carry the supplies back, a whole house load every day.
Pokemon would arrive from the forest at their doorstep, carrying along wounded friends they’d treat. Anthea and Concordia were the causes of that, having offered assistance to all those on the nearby routes. Yet no one complained as beds filled up and the Former Team Plasma were made to sleep on the ground.
Leader Clay would drop in some days, and Anthea would offer him a cup of coffee. When he’d first traipaised into the manor that wasn’t then home, she had flinched back from his intense gaze and crossed arms. He’d told them that he’d be keeping a close eye on them, and that if they stepped a toe outta line, he’d be the one to drag them off. Anthea had taken one look at his Excadrill and known that no matter how much she stalled, a fight against him wasn’t one she was likely to win.
Now, he easily chatted with her about the latest news, his gaze roaming across the pokemon that he, too, had sworn to protect.
Sometimes she wondered how he could be just as passionate about protecting nature as them without the guilt that drove them.
A few Team Plasma Grunts had rolled in a few months back, eyes narrowed and hackles bared as they did not come for reconciliation, but rather a fight. The pokemon they had were no longer ready for a fight, rather ones that it was their turn to take care of.
Anthea and Concordia had stepped out, their only partners by their side, and barely managed to hold them off. Anthea had rarely seen a proper fight before, much less been in one, and her inexperience shone through. Where she and Concordia would scramble through move after move, the momentum on the other side continued to build, a potential energy that once kinetic would overwhelm them.
But then Leader Clay had arrived and finished them off in short order, hauling them away.
It was the next day that Concordia went and asked him for lessons, and Anthea had learned to swallow the bile that had been taught to her. It wasn’t quite gone, not yet, but she was getting used to ignoring the venom.
On the rare days when no newcomers arrived, and the house was almost cloaked in silence, Anthea would set off and volunteer at the Pokemon Center. She’d be greeted with a cheerful smile that repeated for every trainer, then a relieved one as Nurse Joy directed her to her job.
It was a new routine that Anthea fell into, and she could almost convince herself that it felt natural, that it felt better, that she was no longer missing something.
Then, after two long years and a fight she had missed, N sat down at the counter and Anthea realized she did not know what to serve him. She had forgotten his favorite drink, if she had ever known it at all. There had only been two types of juice at the castle if she remembered correctly, but was that because they were their favorites, or did they become their favorites because of availability? And wouldn’t it have changed, like Anthea and Concordia had changed?
So she serves him nothing, and sits down at the empty table beside the sister that she thinks she knows but is now uncertain of.
“With Team Plasma finally gone, it’s likely that you won’t be getting as many stolen pokemon here to be rehomed,” N comments idly, looking around at all the beds.
“You know about our operations?” Concordia leans forward, raising an eyebrow. Anthea can’t refute her skepticism, it's not like the manor is well-known, and they hadn’t written to N. They wouldn’t have known where to send the letters.
“Mhm,” N hums. “I heard about it once or twice. I didn’t know you two were involved. I thought you had left to live away from the shadow of Team Plasma.”
That had been the plan, once, when they’d first stepped out of the castle. Until they realized they did not know what life entailed and could not separate the parts of themself that had lived in that castle from the parts that were now free.
“Well, we had to do something to make up for the hurt Team Plasma had caused,” Anthea answers diplomatically.
“Why?” N asks, and Anthea cannot help but stare.
“Why what?” Concordia demands, never one to beat around the bush. She has been sneaking glances at N since he has arrived, and Anthea can see her fists shaking under the table.
“Why would you help, you were never a part of Team Plasma,” N clarifies, twisting the necklace that Concordia got him for his thirteenth birthday.
The worst part is, he’s right. Even among the outcasts, the remnants, they do not fit. All they had done for years was sit around in the castle caring for the next King. They hadn’t been allowed to sit in on meetings, nor attend rallies, and when N had left on his journey, they were the pieces that remained.
But…
“Like hell we weren’t,” Concordia snaps. “Even if we didn’t go out and take pokemon, how can I not be a part of Team Plasma when I can still hear Father’s voice in my head whenever I see a pokeball, whenever I join a tournament for battle?”
Former Grunts tap Anthea’s shoulder when they don’t know what to do, telling her about the fever or scratch a pokemon has that they need help treating. She’ll walk them through the steps and they’ll nod, calling her “Ms. Anthea.” Their voices rise when the house meets, and they are listened to as everyone is. Their names are listed among everyone else in the duty roster.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of though,” N argues. “You were merely used by Ghetsis. You did not go out and enact his ideals.”
Anthea and a Grunt named Cherry once got into a large fight in the middle of the hall. It was the first time in years that Anthea had gone hoarse from screaming. Even Concordia had been too taken aback to stop her, standing off to the side with wide eyes and shaking.
Clay had taken her aside after and taught her how to dig a proper hole. She had spent all day sweating in that cave, words slipping out between gritted teeth.
“That’s the thing,” she had told Cherry that night. “Even if we didn’t go out, that doesn’t me we didn’t believe. That we don’t have trouble getting rid of his influence. That we don’t feel guilt for not stopping it sooner when we were right there in the heart of the beast.”
Cherry was now a good friend, having moved to Hoenn to help with the environmental projects, but still sending letters every month.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Clay had told her, in words so similar to N’s. “It’s easy to believe what we’re told. It’s harder to try to fix it. That’s what you are.”
“Just because we did not hurt others does not mean we helped them,” Anthea looks up into her brother’s eyes. “We wish to help them now.”
“And besides, where else would we go,” Concordia laughs, throwing her head back. “Here’s home now.”
Here is home.
N looks between them and says nothing. Anthea doubts he knows what words to tell them, they rarely do for each other. Does he dislike what he sees in them, the reflection of guilt Anthea has gotten used to in the eyes of all her housemates? Maybe N just hasn’t realized it yet.
“You don’t deserve to feel guilt,” N says, lowering his head. “You were the only truly good part I remember of Team Plasma.”
And Anthea feels her heart break. No, it was already broken, she only just now notices the shattering, notices that it was wrong as it knits itself back together.
“Oh N,” She breathes, because how could she have ever doubted her brother’s love? That everything her brother did was out of love. That had always been him, something Anthea admired and tried to imitate.
“Then you don’t deserve to be guilty either,” Concordia states, slamming her hands down onto the table. “Because you’re the best fucking part of Team Plasma, N, I guarantee you.”
And there is no belief in N’s eyes, but Anthea knows that someday there will be.
“What a sorry sight we make,” Anthea laughs, her two siblings turning towards her. “Three children that should not be sorry yet are. I suppose we belong.”
N stares at her as Concordia snorts. “It’s not just guilt keeping us here, you know,” she pokes N’s side. “It’s also love.”
“So then,” Anthea takes her brother’s hands. “Why don’t we show you around?”
Maybe together, the guilt can be fully forgotten, and the happiness Anthea already feels for this manor will be all that remains. She hopes for it, for there’s no place she’d rather be, now that her family is together.