Interrogation

Kai put the vial of antidote on his lips and emptied it into his belly.

He had made the Hand drink one too. After making Jon Arryn put on Sai's mask, and lighting the torch again, Kai brought Grim to the sewers' entrance near the Tower of Hand.

'Fire Bending,' Kai recalled what Grim had told him about Sai. 'It was an Ability, not a Skill.' Kai didn't have any hope of gaining an Item from Sai, so he exchanged his treasure chest for remuneration of 120 Mission Credits.

"Where are you taking me?" Grim asked, walking meekly in front of Kai. "What are you going to do with me?"

Kai didn't reply. When he made sure he was in the right place, he made Grim kneel with a sharp kick at the back of his knee. Kai took out one of his sabers, which didn't have poison smeared over it, and pressed it against Grim's neck. The black cold steel made the man shiver with desperate fear.

"No, please!" Grim begged. "Please, don't kill me. I will do anything you want."

"Haha!" Kai chuckled. "That you will do, I know. But I want answers, and for every lie, I will cut out a piece of you." The calm in his voice was enough to make one believe he wasn't bluffing.

Grim gulped.

"How did you find out my location?" Kai asked.

"We… We…" Grim stammered. "We didn't know. I just wanted to let Koffing eat peacefully, and that's why we had come down to the sewers."

'Does he take me for a fool?' Kai's nostrils flared in anger. He lifted the saber, and with a clean slash, cut off Grim's right ear. Blood showered, and a scream followed it. Grim cursed, holding the right side of his face as his ear vanished under the filth beneath their feet.

"Don't lie to me again," Kai said coolly. "You only have one more ear."

"I DIDN'T LIE!" Grim bellowed, half in pain and half in anger. "Koffing eats garbage. Sewers are the only place where I could take the risk of taking him out. It was still day outside. I… ugh! I couldn't take the risk. My Abnormality Limiter would have instantly dropped to 0."

Grim's chest was heaving, seething with rage. 'He… He isn't lying,' Kai reflected, the reality striking hard across his face. 'This?! How can this be? So was it just a coincidence? But then…'

Then Kai recalled something he had forgotten about. 'Luck affects mission rewards, random encounters, and triggering of missions,' Arlen had told him. Kai's face became ugly as Arlen's voice repeated itself in his mind. He could imagine Arlen laughing at him from another world, mocking him with his catchy grin.

'Random Encounter!' Kai thought, his lips twisting with realization. 'It was my goddamn Luck!'

It took Kai some time to take control over his emotions. Kai had rarely been so angry with himself. Who else could he blame? No one. The answer bit him with sharp teeth. "Tell me everything about Pokemon World," Kai demanded. "All the details on Pokemon and how to get them."

"Huh?" Grim grimaced painfully. "Pokemon world? I have never been to Pokemon World."

"That's it, motherfucker!" Kai spat, lifting the saber.

"No!" Grim turned around, shouting, pleading with his hands. "I am not lying. Why don't you believe me?"

"You are not lying? Humph!" Kai snorted, narrowing his eyes. "Then how did you get the acknowledgment for Elementary Pokemon Trainer?" To use the Pokeball, one needed the Elementary Pokemon Trainer, Kai knew, and like other Abilities, one could get it through acknowledgment in its respective world.

'Is there another method?' Kai asked himself.

"You are right," Grim said, licking the blood reaching his mouth. "You need acknowledgment for that Ability. But not from the in-world Characters."

"Huh? Not from characters?" Kai confusingly repeated. It was making little sense to him.

Grim nodded. "It's the Pokemon who acknowledges you," he continued. "The Pokemon's acknowledgment is all you need to get the Ability."

'Wonderful!' Kai's eyes widened in excitement. 'If it is so… then why wait anymore?'

"Take it out," he ordered. "Take out your Pokemon and let it acknowledge me."

"It won't work," Grim replied, his knees slipping over the filth. "All pokemon can only acknowledge two masters. There are organizations in Order which give a pokemon to all Contestants upon joining. These Pokemon already have a master. So… you see. I am the second master of Koffing."

'Useless!' Kai shot daggers at the kneeled man. 'Completely useless! I should have killed him right there and then.'

But he didn't. Kai remembered what had happened last time when he had killed a Contestant with pokemon. The beast had vanished. And when he had taken out the Pokeball as a reward, there wasn't any pokemon within it. 'I can't make that mistake again,' Kai reminded himself. 'If I can't have the pokemon, then there is another way.'

The evil grin came suddenly but naturally on Kai's face. Grim shivered.

"It's OK," Kai hissed, tapping Grim's cheek with the saber. "Don't worry, I won't kill you. Take out your pokemon. Anything funny, and you will lose your ear, I promise."

Grim shook his head and then nodded. But then shook it again. Kai had shown Sai's mutilated corpse to Grim before coming. The image of that would linger in Grim's mind, Kai knew.

The man took out the red and white Pokeball and pressed the button. A blue ray escaped out of it, outlining a blurry shape. The beast materialized soon after that.

"Koffinggg!" it roared, sensing its master peril.

"No, Koffing," Grim cried, putting both his hands up. "Stay. I am alright."

"Koffinggg?"

Kai felt amused seeing the conversation. 'Futile attachments!' Kai rebuked. 'It's a beast, and nothing more than that.'

"Go on then," Kai calmly commanded. "Make it come to me slowly."

Kai was dying of poison during the fight. So he hadn't got the time to look at the notifications. But he still remembered seeing a glimpse.

The same notification returned.

Yes. It popped out just as the pokemon neared within 3 meters of Kai.

[

Beast Proximity: 3 meters

Glitch Condition matched

Contestant Kai Stormborn is qualified to awaken his Glitch

Do you want to awaken it now?

]

**************

Author's Note: Some of the readers must have noticed that the Stat - Luck is coming up more and more these days. If you are more curious (or irritated, depending on the type of readers), then you can read Chapter 108, 109, and 110 to know why it is so. Let me warn you, there will be major spoilers in those chapters. But they will tell you all you would like to know. Enjoy :)