Tanya is very familiar with formal inquiries, both in military and civilian life she’s had to deal with what feels like every variant of questionnaire to assess every topic there can be.
But as she remains behind, watching Alia walk into the back rooms at the request of the two representatives, she’s slightly anxious that the governing body they belong to might be… unsympathetic to what she suspects they’re here to ask about.
As much as it goes against her values, the ‘mon is suddenly struck with a sharp regret that they never ford any kind of cohesive narrative for what happened.
Thankfully Alia would struggle to incriminate herself for Tanya's actions, the only people who actually know what happened up on that mountain as far as she’s aware are the Magma mbers.
The ‘mon squints into the middle distance, rembering that in the chaos imdiately after being taken down the mountain by people in military garb, she’d fallen back to military protocol and began writing up a detailed after action report.
But now that the dust has settled sowhat, a few of the things she wrote in there… could have been rephrased.
Hopefully they didn't get their hands on that unfinished report, for however much that will help her considering the more physical evidence left behind.
She’s drawn from her thoughts by the sound of a pen clicking several tis, looking over the sound coming from the Head Nurse, holding a pen and pad with a serious expression on her face.
“Again, what did you two do?” She asks, appearing montarily confused as Tanya steps forward and grabs the writing implents manually. “I assu you were involved with the clutchel of chansey ending up on Chimney, but how involved? The only way I’ll be able to convincingly claim that I ordered it to happen is if I know what you did–”
She’s cut off by the pad of paper being handed back, and as she picks it up Tanya repeats what she’d written to add tone as context.
“Yes, I was involved. But I’m not comfortable discussing any more details until the inquiry is done.” She says in a slightly exasperated voice.
As much as she disagrees with the potential consequences of her choices, she does not regret those choices, and trying to hide by sharing bla with soone unaffiliated is a bridge too far, particularly if it runs the risk of confusing the facts.
Softening language is one thing, outright lying on a formal inquiry, especially for sothing this important, is just unacceptable.
The ssage has the Head Nurse double take, open her mouth, then close it again with a grimace.
A few seconds later she rips the page off the pad and drops it into the paper shredder, she then looks to the front as if Tanya’s not there.
She does an admirable job at ignoring the only other living thing in the room, minutes ticking by and not so much as a twitch or glance indicating she’s anything other than a statue.
For her part, Tanya finds herself struggling to find sothing to occupy herself. Without the efficiency of telekinesis she’s reduced to things she can do with her stubby little limbs.
Limbs that cannot even touch the top of her head, insofar as she has one.
The ‘mon looks down at those limbs, moving them around as she struggles to imagine how other mbers of her line get anything done without telekinesis.
Thankfully she’s not forced to be idle long, perhaps ten minutes after being taken to the back, the door opens again and out steps Alia with an expression on her face suggesting she’d also thought the questioning would take longer.
Stepping shortly behind is one of the representatives, who looks to Tanya and gestures for her to follow.
“You next please.” She instructs, stepping back through the door but leaving it open as Tanya approaches, a frown appearing on her lips as she looks from the top of the doorfra to the ‘mon. “...Hm. Perhaps we should– Oh.”
The Joy takes an abrupt step back as Tanya bodily shoves herself into the narrow gap, using carefully asured fractions of power to compress her bulk, adjusting her size and shape such that the transition is as smooth as possible.
Popping through the other side, Tanya takes a deep breath and feels her head brush against the ceiling before leaning down a bit on the exhale in preparation to follow the representative to wherever they’re going.
The Joy hesitates, glances at where Tanya’s bulk is lightly pressing against both walls, then gives a professional nod and continues down the hall.
She leads them to what Tanya knows to be an unused room, as every pokecenter follows a near identical construction template, several rooms are built with the intention of being able to be configured to whatever the specific location needs.
She doesn't rember precisely who told her about this, but whoever it was said that it was intended for things like hostel housing, or dium term dical observation rooms, even sothing as advanced as a small field research lab was planned for.
From her experience, it seems they’re mostly used either for storage or hiding a ss and pretending it’s storage, but the idea is sound.
However, as this particular door opens and Tanya slowly wedges her way through behind the Joy, it’s clear that this room is actually fulfilling its function. Where there was once a room full of dust and age stained garbage, there are four clean walls with near empty mounting hooks aside from a cara hanging on the left of the far wall, and a folding tal table in the center.
Already seated on the opposite side of the table is the other Joy, an espeon sitting beside her.
She’s shortly joined by the first interrogator as she walks around the table and sits down. Sitting side by side, their eerily identical features stand out once again. Every other Joy Tanya has t there are small irregularities, differences that once attuned to she can detect and identify, but for these two there’s nothing.
As if by so invisible cue, both Joys place their forearms on the table and slowly steeple their fingers, the one on the left indicating a chair sat vacant opposite them.
“If you wouldn't mind coming a bit closer? And could you please close the door behind you?” She asks with a soft brightness to her tone.
Tanya complies, stepping up to the chair, folding it, then placing it against the wall before standing in its place as the Joy on the left continues.
“To the right of is Espeon, he has been trained in passive psychic reading such that he can detect lies without invading the privacy of the conscious or subconscious mind. It is my right as a representative of my clan for him to be here. You are not obligated to answer any question asked, Espeon will only report clear and unambiguous lies told, and you cannot request that Espeon be removed at any point during this process. Do you understand the situation as I have described it?”
Tanya hesitates, glancing at the ‘mon then back to her interrogators.
She’s not pleased with the idea of soone reading her mind, even if she believes the restrictions the ‘mon claims to be operating under.
…But making a fuss about it would only serve to incriminate her, and from the mont she’d learned psychic mind reading is technically possible she’d looked into counterasures. From everything she’d read it seems attempts at psychic mind reading aren't subtle, and can be combatted by soone even without psychic potential.
Which of course is exactly what soone wanting to keep subtle mind reading abilities hidden from the general public would say, but in this specific circumstance she’ll have to work under the assumption that it’s true.
Because if it’s false she’d already lost the mont she entered the sa building as that ‘mon.
“Yes.” Tanya says with a deliberate nod, and as soon as she says it a pad of paper and pen is slid across the table.
The mont she responds in the affirmative she can also feel… sothing. Sothing resembling a feeling of pressure on her head. The first two tis she feels it the ‘mon reflexively shoves it away, but realizing the source to most likely be Espeon, she allows it to remain at the edges with a careful eye.
“I will ask you a series of questions, you will answer them both verbally and in writing, your spoken and written responses must match each other. Do you understand?”
Tanya clicks the pen with so difficulty, lacking a thumb.
“Yes.” She says with an exaggerated nod for the humans, writing out the sa in a slightly sloppy scrawl.
“Do you intend to comply with these instructions?”
“Yes.”
The Joy on the right nods and, a mont later, the one on the left continues.
“Please state your pokeball ID number.”
“JCAP-65013-01”
“Please state the na of your partner.”
“Alia Roice Joy.”
“What is the current date?”
“11-7-96.”
“And when did you hatch?”
“10-4-95.”
At that statent Espeon’s face twists into a perplexed grimace, and Tanya feels the gentle pressure build as if preparing to poke deeper, but in less than an instant the ‘mon forces his expression back to placidity and the pressure remains constant.
“Please slide the paper over.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Tanya complies, and her writing is spun around, scrutinized by both Joys, then shoved back in under five seconds.
“Good. Now do you rember creating any kind of partial written report about the incident yesterday?”
Ah. They have that.
“Yes.”
The Joy on the right reaches down with the sound of a briefcase opening, then places Tanya’s report on the table.
“Please look at this docunt and confirm it to be the one you wrote.” She asks, but as she speaks that sense of wrongness is magnified tenfold.
Sothing about howthe Joy said those words was wrong, sohow too smooth yet dissonant.
Tanya hesitates, glancing first at the anomalous Joy, then to the other for any other evidence. But at this stage she has no reason to do anything other than comply, sliding the report over and flipping through the papers.
It takes less than ten seconds to confirm it’s her unaltered report, she’d gotten up to about halfway between her insertion and the destruction of the machine before she’d been stopped.
“...Yes. I wrote this.”
“Would you say that it’s accurate to the best of your ability?”
“Yes.” She agrees with another exaggerated nod.
The Joy on the left hesitates, turns a page in her own notepad, then looks up at her and speaks deliberately.
“...Was this report requested of you?”
“Yes. I was interviewed after the incident.”
“Did you supply the information here without prompting from anyone else in the room at the ti?”
Tanya narrows her eyes at the deliberately confused phrasing.
“...It was requested that I inform the officers of what I did and saw during the incident.”
There’s a pause, then the Joy on the right speaks up in her smooth yet wrong speech.
“Yes or no only for this portion please.”
The ‘mon squints, eyes darting back and forth as now she’s sure they’re trying to get her to say sothing specific.
“...No. I was prompted.”
The Joy on the right jots sothing down and shows it to the one on the left, who then nods and looks back to the large ‘mon.
“Would you say you were instructed at any point before or during the creation of this report?” She asks, a question that brings Tanya up short.
Hold on…
Are they trying to shield her?
Tanya blinks as she processes the idea, finally realizing at least part of the purpose for this eting.
This is much too important for any obscuring of the actual facts… but softening the things pertaining to her seems acceptable.
After all, she’s not the threat here.
“...Yes.” She says eventually, the two words definitionally identical, and the confirmation has both interrogators seem slightly pleased, the one on the right clicking her pen and jotting sothing down.
“Please continue where this previous docunt left off and, to the best of your ability, attempt to accurately describe the events that followed.”
Tanya acknowledges the instruction with a nod and, after taking a mont to organize her thoughts, launches into a coldly factual oratory of her actions atop the volcano.
She’s not interrupted often, only infrequent requests to see what she’s written, followed by the occasional clarifying question or to confirm whether sothing is fact or supposition. In her slightly modified report she even manages to skirt around her uses of lethal force, a behavior she could see being received… poorly by an organization devoted purely to healing.
Even better for her case, aside from a few disturbed looks from Espeon when she described her attempts to ‘disable’ and ‘neutralize’ her enemies, he does not interrupt her explanation or seem to find anything she said outright false all the way through. Though his disturbed expression gets especially intense when she describes her hunt for the highest ranking mber she’d chased into the bunker, a person she’d been asked innurable probing questions on his appearance.
In the end, as she winds down her spoken report with the sa thodical rigor she always tries to give them, Tanya concludes with the quiet satisfaction that she’s still not lost her touch in the careful balance of objectivity and readability needed in a good AAR.
In the process of her report both Joys have let their posture slump sowhat, and now that it’s concluded they each have a slightly perturbed expression. They each hesitate for a mont, seemingly confirming that Tanya is actually done, then the interrogator on the left glances at her notepad then hesitantly tilts her head.
“...Who taught you to– Nevermind.” She interrupts herself as the slightly wrong Joy aggressively clicks her pen twice. “Please slide your papers over.”
Tanya complies, taking the ti to study the Joy on the right to figure out why sothing’s off with her.
It’s not how she moves, or reacts, or the colors, it’s not any single detail, or even that the two seem to be mirrored. It’s…
Tanya feels her eyes widen.
It’s the eyes. She can't figure out what exactly it is about them, but there’s sothing wrong. They react to light correctly, the colors match, they look where her attention seems directed, but it’s like they lack depth, like they’re sohow painted on.
That’s not a human, and as the pretender slides the papers back over and what is likely a true Joy opens her mouth Tanya cuts her off, forcing her strained body to be ready for a fight.
“Ma’am. Are you aware that the individual next to you is not a–”
“Aw… beans.” The pretender curses, lightly slapping the table and, as if calling attention to the disguise broke so kind of spell, the impact ripples up her ‘clothes’ like gelatin with a wave of purple before returning to a human shape. “It was the eyes again wasn't it? Pokemon never notice that I’m talking properly, but I just cant get the eyes ri–”
“Ahem. Ditto, not the ti.” The Joy interrupts, glaring at Ditto out the corner of her eye before looking back at Tanya with a professional bow of the head. “Yes Chansey, Ditto here is my partner, acting as translator in this eting. But that is beyond the scope of this inquiry, I have a few more questions. Ready?”
Tanya nods as she picks up the pen, feeling sowhat pleased with herself that she figured it out.
She’d not been aware that ditto can disguise themselves that thoroughly, but now that she knows what she’s looking for, such a disguise wouldn't fool her again. So the potential of a threat hasn't increased all that much.
“Ready.”
“Good. Would you describe the report you gave accurate to the best of your ability?”
“Yes.”
“Lie.”
Tanya twitches, glancing down at Espeon, who she’s quite frankly forgotten was there, then back up to the interrogators who’re watching her with none of the gentle comradery that was there an instant before.
“...Did you intentionally obscure sothing from this report with the intent to deceive?”
With the question hanging in the air, Tanya turns it over in her mind, trying to figure out how she can salvage this. She did not consider that softening her motivations for what she did might trigger as a lie.
She glances down at Espeon again and grits her teeth.
“Yes.”
“State everything you intentionally obscured from the report.”
She could just not answer… but that would just cast doubt onto the rest of her accurate reporting.
“...I attempted to… soften the intent of my use of force when I attacked the Magma mbers.”
The Ditto squints at the answer, followed by their partner performing the exact sa action as she reads whatever the ‘mon scribbles onto their pad and shows to her.
“Define ‘intent’ in the context of how you just used it.”
“My intended objective, I attempted to obscure the intended objective of my attacks in this report.”
“...Oh.” Both interrogators say one after the other, the Joy’s eyes widening a small amount after she reads the offered paper.
From there they sit silently for a mont before as one they turn to look towards each other, seemingly communicating in a series of minute facial expressions and eye movents that from an outside perspective are completely inscrutable.
Ditto jots sothing down and holds it out, followed by the Joy taking the pad, writing sothing else, then handing it back. A few more facial expressions follow, and eventually they both turn to face the front as if nothing happened, the Joy picking up her legal pad and pen again.
“Have you intentionally obscured anything else from this report?”
Tanya thinks for a mont to ensure she’s not going to embarrass herself again.
She’s not going to complain if they don't ask what specifically she ant when she said ‘intended objective’ and she’s reasonably sure they don't want her to offer it.
“...No.”
The two nod.
“At the ti, would you say you were afraid for your life?”
Tanya opens her mouth to confirm that softball of a question, but as she thinks about it, she realizes she cannot, and grimaces.
“No.”
She wasn't afraid, there was so fear before, but in the mont…
The answer catches her interrogators off guard. Ditto glancing at Espeon who looks just as surprised as them.
“...Alright then. In your first report you said you ordered your sibling to… ‘transfer back to school then organize an evacuation of the rest of your sisters off of Hoenn.’ This was to keep them safe, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Would you say that the primary reason you attacked the mbers of Team Magma was because they still posed a threat to your siblings? And potentially others who could not evacuate in ti?”
Tanya grimaces once again at another softball question she’s going to have to knock down.
As much as she… as much as she… loves her siblings, she wasn't really thinking about them either. With the benefit of hindsight and a cool head she can recognise her reasoning to be the sa as it always is. Detonating a volcano on her, even if she chose to evacuate, would have dealt a catastrophic and disruptive blow to her life.
And while the loss of Alia would–
Tired energy is ripped from its low ebb to combat readiness as her mind is reflexively thrown to be ready to fight. She’s half standing before she manages to catch herself, eyes darting around the room in search of… sothing as her strained core yells in protest.
Tanya blinks in confusion, ignoring the alard looks from everyone else in the room as she releases hold of her aura and lowers herself back to a sitting position with a heavy sigh.
…Odd.
She does another scan for whatever threat had her react, but she can't find it.
The ‘mon glances down at the mind reading ‘mon who’s looking very frazzled all of a sudden and holding his probing touch to her mind so lightly she can barely feel it.
She fractionally narrows her eyes, keeping almost singular attention on that tendril of intruding psychic energy as she looks back up at the interrogators.
But unfortunately it’s probably not odd enough for them to forget their question.
Reluctantly, she shakes her head.
“No. I wasn't thinking about–”
“Lie.”
What?
Espeon flinches and pulls his psychic probe even further away, but he doesn't change his answer despite being wrong.
“Hm.” Ditto says, seeming to relax into their seat, fake hair uncoiling from where Tanya now sees many strands had been lded together at the ends to form sharp points. “I think we’ve almost gotten everything we need. Just a few more questions please.”
Tanya hesitates, glancing once again at the increasingly nervous Espeon before looking back to the pair.
“Of course.”
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