Inside Arty's super-secret giant-geode base, someone knocks on the door to Courtney's room.

When she answers the door, it’s Maxie, looking slightly uncomfortable and holding a cell phone. "Pardon me. I hope I'm not interrupting anything." He sighs. "Do you know a young man named Cilantro Fields?"

"...he's an Unovan Gym Leader, one of a set of triplets." Courtney is uncomfortable that her ~~crush~~ boss is uncomfortable.

"Do you have any idea where he got my phone number from?" Maxie asks. "Because he says he needs to speak to you."

"That was one of the first things I planned on asking him, sir."

Cilan's voice comes from the cell phone. "Would you believe that I just Googled it?" he asks, slightly embarrassed.

"...I'm very sorry about this...whatever THIS is...sir," Courtney says.

"It's not a problem," Maxie reassures her, handing her the phone. "He said he wanted my permission to talk to you. Something about... sensitive information that he felt you needed to know."

He hands Courtney the phone and turns to leave. "Return the phone to my office when you two are finished. Oh, and the raising of Ransei will be unavoidably delayed by probably at least a month, due to the reversal of the Equalizer Wave effects hampering half our team's former abilities."

"Understood sir."

She waits for Maxie to be out of earshot before addressing Cilan. "What is this about, Mr. Fields? This number is supposed to be for official Team Magma business only."

Cilan clears his throat. Break it gently… "Well... first, we wanted to let you know that Robus has been captured. He shouldn't be a problem to you anymore."

"We? So you're part of the Band of Heroes valiantly saving our world now, Cilan?"

"Well, not me personally," Cilan says, slightly embarrassed. "But my brother was... sort of. That's... the second thing I wanted to talk to you about."

"What about Chili?"

Cilan looks incredibly uncomfortable. "Not Chili... it's about Cress."

Courtney, despite her tone, appears fairly calm. "What are the heroes subjecting your poor brother too now, and why are you contacting me about it?"

"It's not like that at all!" Cilan says hurriedly. "It's -- Cress wants to talk to you sometime. Because--" Cilan's voice cracks. "Because Robus is sterile, Courtney. I think you can figure out the rest of it."

"Of course he's sterile," she answers. "Given his tendencies, if he wasn't, there would probably be more freaks like me running around, Mr.Fields."

"I mean -- before you were born. He wasn't your father, Courtney." Cilan isn't quite sure how to break this to her.

"...and someone has told Cress this?"

"...yes." Cilan sweatdrops. "He... he's still trying to come to terms with it. But he doesn't hate you for it, Courtney. You're innocent of all this. He just wants to make sure you're all right."

 Horns have appeared on Courtney, and there appears to be fire in her eyes. "What fool told him, so my newly revived Zubat can rip out and devour their vocal chords?"

Cilan jumps back in shock. This isn’t going well at all.

"Well... we found files from your mother's Entralink. That's where he got the information from." He pauses. "Fennel's been arrested and is in custody. Maximum security, and I think her magical guards are more than capable of taking on one Zubat..."

"Cress found files in my mother's Entralink? Why was he there?"

Cilan's eye twitches. "Because your mother kidnapped him, stripped his clothes off, chained him up, and injected him with a high amount of dangerous energy that led to him nearly freezing the entire Elite Four building solid. It was hardly his own choice."

"So you're claiming she told him?"

"I said he got the information from Fennel's Entralink. So far as I know, Fennel didn't tell him straight out." Cilan sweatdrops. "Of course, with her Musharna in the picture up until last night -- RIP -- it's possible that even if she did tell him, she altered his memories to try to keep him from remembering it." He looks confused, and hurt. "Courtney... why on earth wouldn't you want him to know about this?"

Courtney is silent for a long time.

"...I'll be the first to admit that growing up the way I did, I might not have the best understanding of the concept of 'love.' But it seems to me that part of what love is, is not wanting the person you care for to have to suffer, especially for things that that weren't their fault, that they had no control over. And if they make... mistakes, instead of doing things to remind them of it, you let them move on.

"The average person is frightened of me Cilan...they are absolutely terrified, you are too. Is that because of the part of me that is Outsider, or the part of me that resembles her? If I smiled, do you think it would look just like the smile she probably gave your brother as she was torturing him do you think? Do you think your brother could possible look at me and not be reminded of the worst moments of his life?!!!

"...I love my father, and that is why my contact has been helping me keep an eye on him. A Bill bot finds him and decides that instead of granting him the sweet mercy of death, that he wants to try and play amateur doctor with my father as his first official medical subject. This leads to all kinds of traumatizing shenanigans and results in my mother and Robus getting a second go at him because of the INEPTITUDE of those supposed to be protecting him! But hey, he's been rescued again, the device has been removed to him...no wait we're going to tell him he has a devil-spawn convicted criminal who nearly destroyed the world for a daughter, and guess what he's only ever slept with an abusive psycho, so no points guessing who the mother is."

"So yes Cilan, I DIDN'T want him to know, because I love him, even though I've only ever seen him from a distance, and I know that he isn't responsible for my situation. And my Heart tells me that us meeting could only cause him more suffering. So if you care about him, Cilan, discourage him from looking for me."

Cilan pauses, taking this all in. Of all the things he hadn’t expected, this would have been high on the list, if he’d been capable of making a list of things he didn’t expect.

"Courtney... you don't understand. Cress didn't die in the Entralink. He was... taken by the Outsiders." Cilan pauses. "And then, he was taken by... others, who were only slightly less cruel to him, who were harvesting his traumatic memories and brainpower to try to serve their own purposes -- to destroy the Outsiders that had taken over their world.

"THAT is what Deuce saved Cress from. He didn't know it at the time, but it happened.

"Did the recovery process hurt? Yes, of course it did. Did they make mistakes in the process? Of course they did. Was going after Fennel again an idiot move that we really should have talked him out of before he got himself hurt? No argument from me.

"But I want you to realize, the reason Cress got that close to Fennel the second time was because he was trying to save someone else from suffering the same fate he'd suffered -- and worse.

"Because that's the kind of person your father is. That's the kind of person he's always been. He doesn't blame you for any of this, Courtney. He just wants to make sure you know that he loves you, too.

"You're talking like you're only Flak's daughter. But aren't you forgetting that half of you is Cress as well? There's a piece of him in you that he can't get back if you keep pushing him away. He only wants to help you, because he knows what it's like to be alone. He knows what it's like to feel betrayed and abandoned. And he doesn't want that for you.

"You talk about sacrifice, and yet you aren't willing to let others sacrifice to help you? You think he won't keep chasing you until he finds you? He knows there's good in you, and he's not going to just leave you behind. No matter what it costs him.

"So, if you love him, will you make it easier for him, or harder? Will you keep trying to turn him away, knowing that he'll just keep trying to save you, the same way he tried to save your mother? He's had enough pain in his life already -- but that's what keeps him going. That's what his purpose in life is, to protect others. And he's not about to give up on the one good thing that came out of his one-night stand."

Cilan takes a breath. "That's what he told me, anyway. The last sentence, at least."

Courtney just stares at Cilan.

Cilan sighs.

"Look, one thing you might not realize about Cress is that he's a lot more stubborn than most people think. Both of my brothers are. When Cress makes his mind up on something, he's not easily deterred. If he says he's going to find you, well... he's going to find you, or die trying." Cilan visibly winces at the last few words.

"And the longer it takes him to find you, the harder it is to reach you, and even however dangerous it is to just get closer to you, well, that won't deter him. He'll only be that much more determined to reach you, because that's the kind of person he is.

"So, are you going to make it easier on him, or harder? Because he doesn't give up easily. Not on family."

Courtney finally answers. "....alright, I'll meet with him, but I can't promise anything more than that."

Cilan sighs in relief. "Is there a place you'd prefer? Somewhere you'd feel more comfortable at? Cress understands that you'd prefer your privacy, given the circumstances."

"Somehow I doubt this is going to end up private with the number of people on your end...and probably some on mine, who'll want to know what this is about. I suspect the Major will want to be there."

Cilan smiles nervously, trying to hide the fact that this is going to be more complicated than he really expected. But, then, he hadn't expected it to go off without a hitch either. "Well, in that case, the closest we could come to private would probably be the Distortion World, unless the Major has some plan involving his demiplane or some other area."

"The Scorched Slab."

"...the cave in Hoenn that Heatran lives in? With all the Zubats and Golbats?" It does sound like the kind of place Courtney would like, but Cilan sweats a little. "Inside or outside?" (As if he couldn't guess.)

"Inside of course, to discourage hanger-on."

"I'll talk to the Major about it, then. Is there any time you'd prefer?"

"Well it sounds like our expedition is being delayed for sometime."

"Which means...?"

"How about midnight on the solar eclipse?"

Cilan does a double take. "Wait, what? A solar eclipse is an eclipse where the moon covers the sun. It's impossible for that to happen at midnight." (Also, something something Darkrai and he's fairly certain that this is a bad plan.)

"Which would make it the perfect mysterious circumstances for meeting under."

"You can't have a solar eclipse after sundown, Courtney. That's physically impossible."

"Perhaps you should ask the others who want to attend when they can take a few minutes off from saving the world. Wouldn't want a scheduling conflict to result in Armageddon."

"That's a highly reasonable point there." Cilan pauses. "So, should I call you back, then? Can you please give me your number?"

"...you are not to distribute this number. If I get calls from random people I know who's responsible."

Cilan looks uncomfortable. "Well... we have a couple of rogue A.I. hacker pros hanging around cyberspace that we don't know how to get rid of, so it's possible that someone might--"

Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. My digital lips are sealed. If anything happens, blame .bat, Machina cuts in suddenly.

"Another Billbot?"

I prefer to think of myself as a Deuce-bot. Machina Fields atcher service.

Cilan looks rather awkward. "I'm not entirely clear on where he came from. He just... showed up today."

"Oh good, they're self-replicating, we've reached the technology Singularity."

Why thank you... hey, was that sarcasm?

"Back to the point..." Cilan pauses. "Courtney, you mentioned you had a contact watching my brother. Who is it?"

"Better question, did you really find Maxie's number on the Internet, or did the Billbot give it to you?"

You speak as if those two are mutually exclusive. I *live* on the Internet. It's my natural habitat.

Cilan shrugs sheepishly.

"Then figure out who my contact is using the Internet."

Cilan looks uncomfortable. "Is that an invitation, or a threat? See, phone numbers are one thing, but I think this qualifies as an invasion of privacy..."

She's a criminal, she doesn't get privacy. And she gave me, the computer program, a direct order. That's permission enough for my programming, unless she wants to argue BEFORE I try to data-mine her?

Courtney just smiles. "Has your progenitor warned you about the dangers about being incautious on the Interwebs?"

Are you TRYING to set me up to get malware'd?

Cilan sighs. "Courtney, you need to understand that Cress is... rather paranoid after what happened. If he figures out that someone's watching him, he's likely to assume they have malevolent intentions. And given the number of powerful beings he associates with on a daily basis, it'd probably be best if you inform us on who your contact is so that we know they're not a threat and so no one tries to preemptively attack them."

Yeah, what Bean said.

"And maybe that would compromise my contact, being known to associate with a criminal."

Look, cards on the table, having a Trace unit blade shoved up your business end is FAR more compromising than association with a criminal. It'll do Cress more good to know that whoever's trailing him is on *his* side.

Cilan nods. "Courtney, if you want your contact safe, then it's better to have Cress know that your contact is on your side, rather than to have to take a chance that whoever's following him may or may not be working for someone or something that wants him dead. And right now, there might be something still out there that does."

"Fine. My contact is the Outsider Rex."

Cilan sighs in relief.

Oh, him? Psssht, he has diplomatic immunity. And it's not like Koya doesn't already know that his .rvproj file is buddy-buddy with ya.

"What he said," Cilan says. He then pauses. "Wait. The Rex knew...? Oh, of course the Rex knew. He's in charge of Outsidera itself." He pauses. "And he never told us?!"

Hey, he was dead for most of it. And, well, Courtney raised some highly compelling points in favor of him NOT telling us. They got the whole thing wrong, of course, but still, I think Cameron did the right thing by Courtney respecting her wishes. Confidentiality.

"I'm sure he'll be ever so relieved you feel that way Machina," says rv.proj, abruptly entering the conversation.

Hey, bot-bro. Bot solidarity!

Cilan sighs.

"So are we done here then, I really shouldn’t monopolize Maxie's phone."

"I suppose we are." Cilan had honestly completely forgotten that Courtney was using Maxie's phone. "Good luck then. Best wishes!"

And just as Machina finishes purging all the malware from Maxie’s phone out of professional courtesy, Courtney hangs up.