Story Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable species, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Plot and original characterizations are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Part IX: Thoroughly Cunning
Can’t Escape, Chapter 9: Thoroughly Cunning.
Opening before Mortimer and Shade, the cabin’s front door groaned as if to announce their return. Zap did not need a warning. Having perfected his sense of timing, Zap ensured that he would place supper on the table in exactly twenty minutes, for any earlier and Mortimer would complain that he was not yet ready to eat and that it became cold when he was ready to eat; any later and Zap would be blamed for putting the entire evening behind schedule, as if sitting in a chair and listening to a radio was difficult to squeeze in. Mostly bluster, all that, however, as Zap knew no punishment for poorly-timed dining.
The hiker discarded his hat to a hook near the sports memorabilia case, which he tapped gently as he passed, and collapsed into his lazy-ass recliner holding a day-old newspaper in-hand. Confident that it would be waiting for him, he reached over the small table to a space near an old photograph frame and discovered a fresh cup of coffee that belonged there when he returned home. His newspaper offered no surprises until he reached page three, the League report, which resorted to atypically large and bold headline letters. Mortimer’s eyes widened and he called out to the two pokemon he let wander within his cabin’s walls. “Wow-whee, that doesn’t happen too often. Listen up, guys; I’ll read it to ya’.”
“For the first time in five years, a pokemon died in a gym arena during a League-sanctioned event last night. The pokemon, a vaporeon named ‘Phil’—”
Zap dropped the silverware that he was placing on the table.
“—died instantly when his neck was broken by his unidentified opponent. Last night’s contest was already controversial amongst gym leaders because it featured the scheduled debut of a new Devon Corporation technology. Promoted as a training tool, many gym leaders expressed concern that the technology, which prevents pokemon from being able to identify other pokemon connected to the device, could cause combat-related accidents. While complaints expressed publicly were vague and tactful, leaked correspondence from the League’s gym leader mailing list reveal that some master trainers were adamantly opposed to it being given a public field test involving unwitting trainers. One such mail, written by the most senior active leader in Pokemon League, Masato Iwamoto, specifically warned against using the device on Psychic-type pokemon. ‘Despite his reluctance,’ wrote Iwamoto, ‘I convinced one of my Psychic pokemon to trial this gimmick. It turned him into a frightened animal. He knew who I was but he was terrified of me and everyone else in the room. I was forced to have another pokemon faint him so I could remove the transponder. The high level of intellect we see in our Psychics is rooted in their powers. When we cripple their senses with this terrible thing, they cannot feel who is friend and foe and they become panicked and defensive, falling back onto primitive survival instincts. Do not use this machine publicly until it is proved safe.’ A spokesman for Devon stated only that the incident is under investigation and that the sensory-deprivation device involved will not be used again until thoroughly redesigned. All activities at Tartaroyal Gym were immediately suspended, but League events will continue, there and elsewhere, according to schedule.”
Soon enough, Mortimer cast the paper aside and moved to the table. Zap was now allowed to serve himself a proper portion, but he only picked at his plate. Mac flung a meatball at his ram. “Do you always lose your stomach when someone dies, or did you know this ‘Phil’?”
“He was a member of my, uh, Vincent’s team. Not my team, really. He replaced me as the electric guy because he is—was—more useful than me and his hidden power’s electrical.”
Mortimer swallowed. “It’s all that little shit’s fault, you know. Death follows her around. If she ain’t doing a killing, she’s getting folks killed one way or another. Well, that’s good news for us. One pokemon less to stand in our way. Shadey isn’t a big fan of vaporeon scum, is he?”
Shade yelped, licked his master’s face, and accepted his master’s affectionate embrace.
Zap nursed a second bite before bending down with a napkin to clean up the meatball and a trail of sauce that it left along the floor.
Mortimer leaned over the table’s edge to investigate. “Ah, don’t worry about that, Zap. Eat your dinner. We’ve got a big day ahead, and I don’t want you going in all malnourished.” The ram’s appetite remained absent, but he dared not disobey. “The way I figure it,” Mortimer shoved another wad of food in his mouth and downed it shortly, “Shadey’s got the little shit covered, so other than keeping your old teammates occupied, your job’s gonna be to bring me that xatu. I don’t care what you have to do to get her ball from the boy; just light her up, get her recalled, and get that ball out of his hands. I want her and the little shit in this cabin by nightfall when they come through.” Soon, he reacted to Zap’s shifting expression. “Hey, don’t look so glum, chum. If she’s wearing that chain, you won’t be. Plus, you’ll earn your guard duty stripes, just like Shade.”
Zap finished his meal. “I always liked Vera, even if she turned against me that night. We were sorta close. I don’t know how I’ll feel seeing her… kept.”
Mortimer plunked the last meatball off of Zap’s face. “Then, you better get used to how you feel wearing that chain, because it isn’t going to waste. Clean this shit up, and don’t forget the floor.”
Jean materialized standing in the corner of Room 8, physically blocked-in by a wall of orange and green. Peering between Hal and Vera, Theodore stood staring back at him, his shoulders burning with low teal flames, affirming a readiness that threatened the damage deposit. The gallade immediately understood that they saw him as a hostile, but he did not understand why. Things were a little fuzzy. He nervously and slowly leaned a bit to get a look around the room. He could not feel Carl or Jacqueline nearby and wondered why. He started speculating. Did Vincent steal his ball from Jacqueline, or did she discard him as easily as Carl did?
In the most soothing voice she could muster, more to keep Hal’s temperament even than to comfort the confused gallade, Vera began a debriefing. “Jean, do you remember what happened at the gym, after you were equipped with this,” she plucked a small transponder from his forehead, left attached by scientists unwilling to risk releasing a killer, “and sent into battle?”
Jean remained disoriented. “Battle? I had nightmare, after I was back ball, not fight, gym.”
Vera raised her left wing to his cheek. “Slow down, calm yourself, and surrender your mind to my care. I will show you what you did not see.”
Jean glanced briefly at the tense, furious dragon, and decided he would rather let Vera explain what happened. Her wings and his cheeks came together for twelve seconds before she released him. He collapsed into the corner, his left hand on his forehead and right arm resting on his knees in front of his face, leaving only his right eye visible. This pose was alien to Vincent and his team, but Jacqueline would recognize it as typical for when Jean became overwhelmed by Carl’s emotional swings.
Speaking through his arm in a slow, deliberate pace for the sake of comprehension, “I… I thought I was having a nightmare. It looked like what I see when Master is angry. It would make me do things, bad things, but this time it was attacking me.” Jean let his arm fall away and looked up and around, hoping eye contact with each member of his audience would convey his sincerity to the dragon, bird, badger, cat, and human. “I thought if I killed it, it could not control me again. I thought wrong. It already controlled me.”
Vincent looked down upon him with cold eyes. “It’s a long way home. You have plenty of time to think about how you will make up for what you did to our friend.”
They left Room 8 with their damage deposit thankfully returned, and began a trek into the heart of Allylidene Forest, following a familiar trail through Yureido Cove. Its numberless route felt deserted, as most trainers were now at home preparing for classes to resume or on their way to League headquarters to attend junior-flight championship matches. None of Vincent’s friends traveled in a ball this day. Hal and Theodore flanked their master. Technically, Jean led the way like a prisoner of war being marched by his captors, although Fiona ran ahead and fell behind in response to anything that caught her interest. Vera picked up the rear, puffing away at her pipe. This behavior concerned Vincent, as he could not discern if a correct adverb to describe her exact manner would be “diligently” or “nervously.”
As they passed a young girl playing with her butterfree, Vincent turned partially and asked Vera if his team should be recalled before entering the village, considering that a parade of trained pokemon might be taken as a deliberate offense by the locals.
His green bird hesitated before replying. “You should recall your team and, as my trainer and master, order me to fly you home, despite the awkwardness that would be entailed. But, I request that you do not. I have been walking this path since before you were born and it still extends somewhat before me.”
Vincent nodded, and continued onward.
Fiona overheard and fell behind again, drawing close to Vera and whispering to her, “hey, just how old are you?”
Vera chirped haughtily. “Quite, but that is no matter; I’m just getting started. I would appreciate your assistance, if you would do a favor for me, since your hands are more useful than what I have.” Vera slowed her pace and Fiona slowed likewise, until a broader gap existed between them and Vincent as had between her and Fiona a moment before. “Remember the tree I was standing beside the last time we came through this forest? I have hidden a nest ball there, just like my own. When we pass that tree, switch them, and do not draw any attention to yourself.”
Vincent’s team congregated on the village market’s porch while Vincent resupplied, spending the last of his credit and all but a few coins in his pocket. Those coins survived because the shopkeeper, who seemed almost happy to see Vincent, offered him a slight discount and rounded-down the total bill. Vincent thanked him graciously and departed with his pokemon behind him.
The shopkeeper watched them leave, then drew his phone and dialed an acquaintance. “Mort? Yeah, they just came through. No, he’s got five with him. The badger, dragon, and bird you mentioned are there, plus the feathered cat you want to get, but there’s something else too that I ain’t seen before. He was green and white like the bird, but he looks like a real slugger. Yeah, no problem, just don’t forget you owe me a case of ale when poker night comes around next Friday.”
With Yureido’s weathered and destroyed sign behind them, Vera aggravated Vincent’s concern by wrapping her wings around him and cooing gently; she never stayed so close to him when they traveled on foot. This fact distracted him, according to Vera’s expectation. With a slight expenditure of her power, she also planted suggestions into Hal and Theodore that they ought to move ahead and keep closer tabs on Jean, just in case. Fiona wandered up ahead, too, but with conscious purpose rather than subconscious urging. Her activities un-monitored, she located the tree, and the ball within, bespoke. Falling back again, she made the exchange and secreted away the xatu’s ball. Returning to the fold and tapping Vera’s side gently to signal her mission’s success, Fiona and soon the others came to a stop after hearing Vincent grunt; a consequence of Vera strengthening her grip on his body until he could no longer move.
All eyes upon her, she released her master. “I’m sorry to make this so abrupt, friends, but the time has come for me to leave you all.”
Vincent looked at her with hope in his eyes. “Will we meet again, some sunny day?”
“No,” Vera faked a downcast expression and waited for Vincent’s expression to follow before she brightened up. “It will be raining on the day of your graduation from college, despite the weather forecast. Theodore, you have three and a half years to buy a poncho.”
Vera’s friend offered her what he thought was her ball. She refused it, asserting that she would not be needing it where she was going, before ascending into the sky through a break in the canopy. What remained of Vincent’s team continued moving along their homeward-bound path. They heard him mutter something indistinct but did not pry for clarification.
Zap pushed a bush aside to get a look at his target. Hal had to be dealt with first because he knew how to use earthquake. “I hope you can forgive me,” he whispered while stepping into the trail behind his former team. With a deep breath he quickly built a powerful charge within his head and tail’s gems. Using his fore-hooves as a conduit, he reached behind himself, allowing his energy to arc wildly between points of contact, and swung his arms forward quickly, directing all his power forward with astounding precision.
Amongst Vincent and the pokemon nearby him, only Jean perceived Zap’s attack and only once it was too late to react. Because the group walked closely together, all five were stunned by the strongest bolt of lightning an ampharos wearing a magnetic necklace could summon. Vincent recovered enough to kneel at Hal’s side for a second. Theodore glanced back and saw Zap readying a second strike. He leapt in to carry Vincent away; unfortunately, abandoning Hal to be shocked into a paralyzed submission before he realized what was hitting him. Leaving The Boss behind, Theodore cast sunny-day and flared his vents while dropping to all-fours, charging Zap before he could charge a third strike.
The ram knew he was too slow to have any hope of outrunning his pursuer, but he could at least draw Theodore away from Vincent and give the rest of his new team a chance to complete their ambush. Thick foliage scratched against the wounds on Zap’s ankle caused by the chain, each stroke reminding him that he would likely be unable to get Vera’s ball and should expect to be punished. Glancing back, he saw that Tio was gaining ground quickly, burning to ash and charcoal every bush and sapling that moments before impeded his advance.
Vincent and Fiona gave futile efforts toward getting Hal back on his feet until the hiker emerged from the tree line.
“I told you before: you can’t escape, you little shit!”
Vincent gave up on Hal and recalled him before looking around to see what became of Jean. “Fucking deserter,” he spat, as the grass shark was nowhere to be seen.
Mortimer tauntingly displayed a travel mug to Fiona. “I brought your favorite brew; it’ll be just like old times. Shade, Malachite! Inflict some wounds.”
A tyranitar blocked the path ahead with her body and a localized sandstorm, while a ninetales burst from the bushes and charged towards Fiona, only to discover that since their last face-off, and a month of proper nourishment, she became the faster one. Mortimer looked in the direction that his quarry fled and shouted, “Zeke, cut her off!”
Fiona’s options became constrained when a nidoking stepped into the path’s other exit. She turned-heel with a flourish, splashing an unprepared ninetales with a small wave of water, allowing Fiona clear passage back toward her trainer, although there was little he could do to defend her. Shade shook the water from his coat and continued after Fiona in literally hot pursuit.
Vincent tried to get the hiker’s attention, demanding that he call off his pokemon, but Mortimer ignored his voice and watched the show.
Fiona cried as she ran past her master and clawed her way up the trunk of a large tree. “Vinny! What are we gonna do?”
The hiker winked toward apparently nothing, signaling his kecleon to do the other half of Zap’s job. Camo dropped his disguise and snapped his tongue at Vincent’s belt, snatching away Vera’s nest ball, catching it in his mouth, and bolting toward the bushes while mimicking their mottled appearance. As Vincent turned when he felt a tug from the lizard’s tongue lashing his belt, Shade altered course and pounced upon the trainer.
Theodore was not so much fighting against the ampharos anymore, whose weakened frame was now propped against a tree, as he was venting his anger with his fists. “I knew you were upset, but I can’t believe you turned on us!”
Zap, too exhausted and battered to fight back, let static discharge be his only defense, and it was not slowing down Theodore very much. If anything, it made him angrier. The typhlosion, becoming distraught, threw a punch at the end of each sentence he spoke, now mostly in his and his former comrade’s native tongue, exception given to concepts of purely human origin. “He’s been so good to us. Screw the League; he argued for you week after week to get you into those karaoke competitions just because he knew you’d enjoy them. He bought you every album you ever wanted, even tracking down some of that ancient, expensive vinyl stuff and the hardware to play it. You are disgusting!”
Theodore was ready to re-double his assault when he faintly heard his name being called in the struggling voice of his master. By the time Zap realized he was not being struck or yelled at anymore, his assailant was crashing through the scrub along the singed trail he previously left behind. Theodore’s mouth hung agape, and he felt the poison glands that developed years ago in the roof of his mouth bulge and pulse in-time with his elevated heart rate.
Fiona was a cat up a tree. Surf, the only technique she knew the ninetales would notice, was, according to her range and her ability, insufficient with which to defend Vincent, and she knew if she descended, she would be chased down, burned up, and taken prisoner, leaving Vincent to the hiker’s mercy, anyway.
Vincent struggled against the fox’s attacks as it attempted to subdue the trainer by entangling his limbs with its tails and using summoned flame to make the air suffocating. “You about got ’em,” spoke Shade’s master’s voice. Vincent managed to deliver a blow to Shade’s jaw, but the extension of his arm opened a gap into which Shade, quickly recovering, occupied with his muzzle and coughed up another burst of flame, singeing Vincent’s hair. The scent interested Shade; it was similar to, but different from, that of sneasel fur.
Hearing the typhlosion burst through the bushes, Mortimer stopped laughing and reached into his jacket, but hesitated. Shade’s flash-fire ability would harmlessly absorb Theodore’s most powerful attacks, after all. Except, he was not flaring up. His flames were low and shifting not toward yellow or even blue, but a murky green. “Shade! Get off of him before—”
Theodore grappled the ninetales and stripped him from Vincent. Both rolled along the path and on their second revolution, Tio savagely buried his fangs into Shade’s neck, injecting every drop of toxin he could muster directly into his blood stream.
The hiker ran after them both. “Kite! Get that fucker off of Shade!”
As Malachite advanced, Fiona looked up, hearing motion amongst branches higher than her own. Jean dropped from the canopy with his hands clenched together, bashing Malachite with all his might, sending the monster to the ground. Despite her efforts to regain footing, Jean continued his assault. Mortimer quickly estimated that the gallade would be victorious. The hiker continued on to help his precious vulpix while his nidoking approached from the other end of the path, expecting to join their melee.
Theodore yelled through his teeth, “g’no unn huurts g’hee g’oss unn g’livefs,” refusing to release his jaw’s grip on the ninetales until well after both Mortimer and Vincent’s combined strength pulled them up from the ground and eventually apart. Mortimer fell to his knees, drew up his vulpix, and cradled him in his arms. His fox’s eyes had grown dark and cloudy, and putrid foam bubbled up from his throat. As the hiker drew his life’s second best friend closer, Shade struggled to lick the man’s cheek before falling limp and exhaling one final, tiny wisp of flame.
Never before had the fox’s kiss burned cold and slick like alkaline.
The nidoking trod up to his trainer and, in his confusion regarding what was happening, poked at the limp animal that his master cradled.
“Fuck off, Zeke!” the hiker wailed as he gripped the slowly-cooling body more tightly.
Theodore stood and regained his senses. “Did I—I killed it, didn’t I?”
Vincent hummed in low affirmation.
“Are you alright, Boss?”
Vincent hummed in low contradiction.
“Then, I’m sorry. But, I will do anything to save you, like you—”
Vincent interrupted Theodore by recalling his starter to its pokeball.
Jean finally defeated the stone basilisk and looked to Vincent for a cue, not sure if the nidoking posed a threat. It seemed more confused than aggressive, and the opposing trainer was clearly indisposed, although Jean could easily sense that the man was on the brink of doing something violent. He could also sense that he was not the only Psychic-type nearby, monitoring their situation.
Mortimer recalled his ninetales, pulled a black marker from his pocket, popped off its cap to land in the dirt as the button on Shade’s ball ejected likewise, and painted a black ribbon around the now-sealed capsule. Despite his tears, his voice took on the characteristic of mad laughter. “That little shit, I swear. Everywhere she goes, she finds a way to kill my friends; in order.” He glanced up at the cat in her tree. “Well, so be it. Because everywhere I go, I can find a way to kill hers.” The hiker reached into his jacket to stuff the pen back into his pocket. “Every single one of ’em.” When his hand came out again, it held a rusty revolver.
Vincent lacked any reliable cover to protect himself. Fiona lacked any idea of what she was seeing. Jean felt a strange force somehow holding him back and preventing him from intervening.
As the hiker’s arm swung forward to extend and align his weapon, a green bird fell through a hole in the canopy, wrapped him within her wings with all of her might, and before the pistol could be accurately fired, both the xatu and the vengeance-seeker vanished in a glowing flash. Mortimer’s gun fell to the ground. Its smoking barrel became the center of attention for all members of a silenced audience.
Zap limped along Theodore’s ashen path, intending to stay hidden while surveying the scene. He saw Zeke trying to get Malachite standing, but she was too dazed to respond to his prodding and shaking. Jean stood directly beneath the low tree branch, beckoning Fiona to descend, and catching her when she dropped into his waiting arms. She giggled a couple times, as it was fun to be “up there” even if only for a couple seconds.
The ampharos was so unusually successful at being stealthy today that Camo did not hear Zap walking up from behind and became a stumbling block. Struck from behind, Vera’s bogus ball popped out of the lizard’s mouth and rolled near Vincent’s feet while both pokemon fell to the ground.
He looked it over, realized that it was a fraud, and glanced at Fiona with a smirk. “Do you know anything about this, little thief?”
Fiona smiled deviously. “Vera told me to not get caught, so, ‘no.’ ”
Vincent ruffled her crown, pitched Vera’s prop ball into the bushes, and approached his abused ram.
As Zap came upon his feet, he met three familiar faces. He swallowed hard, preparing to face the music. “I didn’t hurt Hal too badly, did I?”
Vincent delayed with a breath. “His body is tough stuff, but he’s probably going to be very sad when he finds out it was you who attacked him.”
Zap looked downward, stopping as his gaze passed a ball with a black ribbon attached to Vincent’s belt. “My new master read the article in the paper to me. It really was our Philly. I was still hoping it was a mistake.”
Jean took a half-step forward and confessed. “It was a mistake. If someone could offer, I would choose to die to give Phil—life back. Against Mast—Carl’s—feelings, and what he made me do, I have felt all, you as my friends.”
Vincent released the deactivated ball from his belt as Jean continued in almost a whisper, “he felt that I did. It made him unhappy, sometimes.” He held it out. “Say goodbye. I think it is time for all of us to choose our path home.” Zap raised his arms to borrow the ball from Vincent.
The ampharos held Phil’s ball against the gem in his forehead, gave it a tiny spark, and choked slightly. As he motioned to return it, he noticed and read its inscription. “I think that’s the right way to remember him.”
Malachite finally stood on her own two feet. And, also, on Zeke’s, as he was the only thing keeping her within forty-five degrees of vertical. They trudged slowly toward the group.
Zap almost broke a smile. “I am slow like you said, but it looks like I’ll be the one leading the way this time. Please do me one favor, Master: take my music player with everything on it to college with you. I would appreciate it if that’s the way you remember me.”
Pursuing a path leading to Mac’s cabin, Zap blinked twice, slowly and faintly, before disappearing behind foliage with his new team following loosely behind him. Camo left the scene last, after taking a moment to recover the ball that Vincent threw to the wayside.
Mortimer looked at eerily familiar surroundings. He stood near a wooden picnic table, upon which a green bird sat and smoked a pipe decorated with tiny natu feathers. The table, and a nearby stone hut, was from the Ruins of Alph’s visitor center, but how it came to be in the backyard of the house Mortimer grew up in perplexed him. “Where are we?”
Vera vented smoke. “We are at our homes. To be more exact, a hybridization of those places we imagine to be our homes.”
He sat near her at the bench. “This can’t be real, can it?”
Vera puffed a smoke ring. “It is as real as it needs to be, and for now, what you see is all you need to be concerned with. I brought you into this illusion to give you an opportunity to make peace with the past and to enter a future I wish to offer you. Mortie, I know that you’ve felt a strange familiarity when you’ve been near me and heard my voice. That is because we met about thirty years ago, when your parents took you on vacation and visited the Ruins of Alph, back when this table really was as freshly-painted as it looks now. After you left, I saw a vision, and laid plans to meet with you again, here and now. Finding this opportunity was difficult and this is the only chance. If you are willing, I shall counsel you for the next few years, to help you to grieve for your loss of Feathers and Shade, to forgive Fiona, to denounce the monster you became, and to start a new life unburdened with the hatred, regret, and pain that you have allowed to suffocate your soul.”
The hiker looked toward the house he grew up in. A young boy with a pidgey on his shoulder exited its back door to investigate a faint whimpering sound. Beneath three steps that led down from the back porch to the grass below, the boy found a small animal, burnt-sienna-colored, cowering with six tails wrapped tightly against its body. He did not turn back to face Vera. “You say this is the only chance. You think I’ll believe there was no way for you to bring me here to your little Psychic dream-world without letting Shade die?”
Vera wrapped her left wing around Mortimer’s left shoulder. “Shade would have anchored you to your history had I come to you before his death. I saw Shade’s fate when we met in Yureido Cove. He was going to die, today or another day, but if it were another day, it would have been at your own hand, and that would have destroyed you.”
Mortimer rose and shouted through the stream of smoke rising from Vera’s pipe. “Bullshit! Nothing could make me hurt Shade.”
Vera beckoned him to come close and shared with him a vision. “If you had drawn your weapon against Theodore, Jean would have intervened at that moment and given you his emotional pains to incapacitate you and to force your team to retreat. Coupled with your already-damaged psyche, it would have infected you. After failing to recapture Fiona, you would have ultimately lost control and you would not notice until it became too late.” The vision ended abruptly after Mortimer saw his own perspective, kneeling next to the gashed carcass of Shade. The murder weapon, a bloody spade, lay at his side. Realizing what he had done, he reached for his revolver and turned it upon himself.
The young boy finally succeeded in coaxing a vulpix from beneath the stairs after noticing its reaction to his shadow. The vulpix seemed afraid of standing in the sunlight, but emerged with mild trepidation to travel within the bounds of the boy’s cast shadow. Little Mortie moved slowly to guide the fox cub up the stairs and into his home, where shade reigned everywhere but near the windows.
“I don’t want to let them go, Madame Xatu. I never had any friends before I met them, or other than them, really. None that wouldn’t turn on me when I needed them. I don’t—I can’t be alone again.”
Tapping its seat with her left toes, Vera gestured an invitation to sit on the bench once again to Mac, who remained in the kneeling pose he took while experiencing an alternative future that almost came to pass.
“You will not be alone. You will have me, for a time. You will have Zap, who has burned all of his bridges to earn your approval. And, you have the remaining members of your team and all those pokemon you have trapped as trophies. Fiona’s claims indicate that you have quite a collection.”
“But, I don’t know them like I know Feathers.”
“Knew.”
“And, like I know Shade.”
“Knew.”
“Stop that!”
Vera drew heavily on her pipe, scowling at him through half-lidded eyes before slowly venting all the smoke through tiny nostrils at the base of her beak. “Listen, Trainer. Ultimately, this is all your fault. You never trained Feathers to defend herself; all the cuts and scrapes you wanted to protect her from caught up in one tragic instant. You set your team against an innocent trainer because you wanted to torture and murder a soul whose motivation was survival when she wronged you, and as a consequence, with his entire body boiling with poison, Shade died in your arms. I love all my boys despite their imperfections, but you are a terrible trainer, Mortimer, and I can only offer you this one chance to redeem yourself, so their deaths won’t be a complete loss.”
With a forceful flourish, the green bird extended her white wing toward the mirage of a faux Victorian-styled house, blocking Mortimer’s view of her face below her eyes. They stared into his with a cold, piercing gaze.
Mac turned away and listened to a faint, distant voice introducing a new puppy to the home’s many rooms. A small brown bird chirped as an addition to each of the boy’s statements, and occasionally a whimper or yelp could also be heard. He returned his attention to Vera. “I don’t want to live knowing I squandered all the friendship and loyalty Shade gave me for nothing. For his sake, please, help me, Madame Xatu.”
Vera blew hard through her pipe and flapped part of her right wing, sending a plume of smoke and ashes against Mortimer’s face and causing him to recoil. Her conjured plane faded and collapsed.
Mac cleared his vision and looked around to find himself seated on a tree stump in front of his cabin with Vera standing behind him. Night was falling, but a ghostly light shined from the narrow and obscured path that led to his home. An ampharos led the way for a limping tyranitar, a still-confused nidoking, and a kecleon that balanced an empty nest ball on the tip of his nose. As Mac’s team approached the cabin, Zap became concerned. Feeling Theodore’s reaction to his treachery in every aching inch of his body, Zap was deeply terrified by what Mac would do to him, since Vera was obviously not the one on the chain.
Vera walked slowly to Zap as he neared, and touched his cheek as though she were apologizing. “Unbelievable as it may seem, you made the least-bad decision.”
The ram continued inside to begin dinner while Camo dropped the ball at his master’s feet and climbed into his favorite sleeping tree. Malachite and Zeke paused when Vera beckoned them from the doorway as she followed Mac inside.
Zeke dug a toe into the soil. “He needs to use our balls. We’re not allowed in the house.”
Vera scoffed. “Don’t you want to be there for your master when he needs you?”
Malachite and Zeke nodded in affirmation.
“Then enter and keep him company like a good pokemon should. Old rules no longer apply here.”
Fiona panted heavily. With each stride, a laminated card with arcane symbols written upon it in what was most likely someone’s—or something’s—blood flopped back and forth as it dangled from a collar that she convinced herself was fashionable, although its color clashed somewhat with her natural frill. “This is exhausting, but kinda fun,” she admitted to her master.
Vincent awkwardly rode upon her shoulders and back, too terrified of throwing her off-balance to move a muscle as she raced like a speed skater across a river’s surface. The surf H.M. earned its keep. “I’m just glad you’re fast and intimidating enough to keep the jellyfish away. At this rate, we’ll be at my house before sunrise.”
His riverboat captain groaned and leaned as they took a turn. “Your bed had better be the most comfortable bed ever, because after a few more hours of this, I’m going to sleep for two days straight.”
Vincent chuckled, “you’ll get hungry and wake up. Besides, it’s time to give you a break. We can take the foot path after this next bend in the river.”
With proud determination and knowledge that her goal was almost within sight, Fiona redoubled her efforts at the cost of breathing too hard to be able to continue their conversation.
Transitioning from water to land traumatized them both as their forward momentum could carry them no longer. Fiona wanted to at least come to a stop and let Vincent down properly, but she started collapsing a few paces beyond the cat-tail border. Vincent put his feet down in time and let her smaller frame surpass. Despite his backpack altering his center of gravity, he stabilized himself. Fiona, however, stumbled and slid a short way across the grass.
He quickly approached and knelt to help her up, commenting, “that was amazing, girl. Maybe those vitamins do pay off,” but reconsidered as she had become delirious again and looked unfit to stand.
“I told you you’d be proud of me,” she slurred after spitting away a broken blade of grass. She tried to turn to face him, but managed only a half-roll. “Beat—assessss.”
Vincent recalled her as she passed out, remembering the orientation of her body and her ball so he could release her onto his bed without need to reposition her. Standing again, he looked around. He remembered the first time that he was allowed to venture this far from home by himself. Not by himself, technically; Theodore accompanied him, of course. Despite his parents’ reluctance to his keeping a pokemon at all—and especially one that could burn their house down—once they realized that the animal would keep their son safe, Vincent gained a freedom to travel that children without pokemon would wait a few more years to enjoy. On the other side of that coin, he was a graduated high-school senior before the first time in his life that he stood alone overlooking the river marking the outskirts of the town in which he grew up. That liberating sensation of standing alone, strong and independent, in the wilderness was tainted somewhat by a longing to have someone to share the feeling with. And, by soreness in his arms and shoulders resulting from being bitten, brazed, and clawed by a large, spiteful fox that he could not himself overpower.
He spoke to nobody. “Fiona, ball. Zap, walk. Vera’s Vera. Phil, dead. God damn it. Tio, ball, until I’m ready to walk and talk. That leaves Hal, and Jean.”
Vincent released Hal and offered him a few berries to help him recover, as he struggled to rise after reconstituting.
“What happened, Master? I just remember getting my ass fried off. Are we okay?” The two began down the path leading home.
“In short, we were ambushed by Mac. He wanted to get Fiona back, and Zap was helping him. Zap electrocuted you two or three times; I’m not sure, we all got hit by the first one. Tio went after Zap, that ninetales went after Fiona,” Vincent remembered Hal’s amicable attitude toward Shade, and recognized in his dragon’s face how he was already taking the news, and omitted the next bullet point. “It was a mess but in the end, Vera teleported Mac away just before he tried to shoot me.”
Hal, unaware of Mortimer’s connection to Fiona, having only known him as some guy that Vincent, Vera, Tio, and Fiona socialized with at a gym once, almost staggered as he realized that the timid fox, too scared to take a bite of hamburger from him, was also the savage enforcer that Fiona described.
“Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” Vincent stopped walking. “Hal, a dorm room is not a home. I don’t want you to come to college with me.”
Hal nodded gently.
Vincent reached to his belt and released Jean. “Do you have any unfinished business to take care of before we go home?”
Jean took a moment, first to consider the question, then to construct his answer. “Master, there are things I would like to do at my, his, room. And, I would like to goodbye, one, friend.”
“And, you know where I live?”
Jean nodded. “We live, if you keep me.”
“Alright, go take care of it. Be quick, we’ll be waiting up for you.”
Vincent took Hal’s right hand and said, “walk and talk,” as Jean sprinted away.
Initially upset to be roused at three-o’clock in the morning, Mr. Valley mellowed when he saw who pressed the remote call button at his petite mansion’s ornate front gate. He authorized entry and suppressed the security system. Jean strode up boldly to the front door where the master of the house waited.
Jean practiced his statement in his mind since Vincent released him. “I have come to gather my few belongings and to say goodbye to Lucas.”
Mr. Valley became unsteady. “My daughter said that you were now under the care of that boy she met when she was still in public school. I’ve been in the pokemon business for a long time and I’ve never heard of a member of the ralts family abandoning its trainer like this.”
The gallade reached out to Mr. Valley and showed him a censored version of what happened the night that Carl disposed of him.
Mr. Valley shook his head. “That boy. But, still, it’s your duty as his pokemon to—”
Jean had never interrupted Mr. Valley before, vocally or psychically, and never would again. “I am doing my duty; I am fulfilling my master’s wishes.” Pushing by Mr. Valley, Jean climbed the stairs and entered Carl’s old bedroom. It was mostly bare, seeing little use since Carl took up a life on the road pursuing pokemon excellence year-round, but his closet remained stuffed. Lucas slept on Carl’s bed, as he always did when the team was sent home, usually because Carl found himself in a hurry and did not want to be challenged to battles by route twerps. Jean placed his hand on the feraligatr’s brow and implanted a melange of sensations that accurately reflected Jean’s sadness for leaving his best friend and his hopefulness that he will one day form a true bond with the new trainer that had forgiven his trespass and allowed him an opportunity to prove himself trustworthy.
He then turned away, opened Carl’s closet, and rummaged through a number of old shoeboxes until he found one that contained two game-house pokeballs. He placed them into another shoebox that bore Jean’s name and contained four shiny leaves, a photograph of himself with Lucas and Carl taken on the day he evolved into a kirlia, a darkened and discharged dawn stone, the first spoon he ever bent, and a folded sheet of old paper. The page was lined with guides for elementary students’ benefit and bore the penmanship of a novice hand.
“My name is Carl and I am all most 7 years. I have 2 pokemon becus my dad works with pokemon and give me them. I give them names from favoret tv mans. One is totodal I call him Luke he is strong and some time mean but he get sory when he hurt me so its ok. Two is ralts I call him Zhan and he is smart and we can talk a little with no saying and trik my sister. Dad say when Zhan grow up he can be more smart or more strong and I can pick but I will give Zhan pick so he is happy. When we grow up we will win pokemon jims and get famus on tv!”
Jean folded the photograph into the page and placed it on Carl’s desk, using his exhausted dawn stone as a paperweight, before exiting Carl’s room with his shoebox and leaving his erstwhile home behind to begin a new journey.
Vincent peeled back the sheets of his childhood bed and placed Fiona’s pillow next to his own before aligning her luxury ball and triggering it, such that she re-materialized just above its surface and plopped down in a sleeping position. As incapacitated when released as she was when he recalled her at the river’s shoreline, Fiona seemed to already be dreaming as he drew his sheets over her. He smiled as she snuggled up to her pillow and faintly spoke with half-pronounced words, “they don’t know how good this feels.”
The retired trainer descended a flight of stairs and entered his living room, illuminated gently by a shoulder-mounted candelabra burning with colorfully-tinted flames. His typhlosion dutifully unfolded a sofa bed and prepared it for his master. His thoughts distracted him and he jumped with a start before snuffing his vents when he felt Vincent’s arm wrapping around his upper back.
Theodore looked into the young man’s eyes as he whispered, “like I would to save you.”
Tio nodded gently, stepped away from Vincent, and re-ignited his shoulders, illuminating the room once again. He bit the narrow edge of a spare pillow to hold it while he pulled a pillow case over it from below. When he opened his mouth, he noticed two tiny green stains where his fangs poked into the pillow’s fabric. “All this time, Boss, I was looking for excuses to see just how powerful this stuff was. Now that I know,” Theodore looked up from his pillow and into Vincent’s eyes, “it scares me.”
Vincent approached, took the pillow from him, and tossed it onto their make-shift bed. “It should scare you, but it doesn’t scare me.” He licked two fingers and ran them along Tio’s head against the lay of his fur, creating a subtle mohawk. “Because I know that, just like your fire, you’ve learned to be careful with it.”
With as little noise as possible, Jean entered the home holding a shoebox and asked where Hal was at.
Vincent addressed Jean’s question while Theodore climbed into bed and straightened out its covers. “He said he wanted to spend some time alone to think. He probably went across town to find a pond to sleep in. He’ll be back in the morning; we’ll hear his stomach rumbling just before he knocks on the door.”
Jean nodded to acknowledge, secured the home’s locks, and sat in a large chair with the shoebox securely held on his lap. Eyes closing, he joined his new family in calming rest.